15092	----	[Illustration: A VENETIAN FESTIVAL.--C. HULK.] THE ALDINE, A TYPOGRAPHIC ART JOURNAL [Illustration] "_Il ne faut pas tant regarder ce qu'on doit faire que ce qu'on peut faire_." VOLUME V. NEW YORK: JAMES SUTTON & COMPANY. 1873. [Illustration] "_THE ALDINE PRESS_."--JAMES SUTTON & Co., Printers, 58 Maiden Lane, New York. [Illustration] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by JAMES SUTTON, JR., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. CONTENTS Abyssinia, A Peep at _Editorial_ 186 Adirondacks, The Heart of the _Editorial_ 194 After the Comet _W.L. Alden_ 136 A Great Master and His Greatest Work _Editorial_ 83 Aldine Chromos for 1873 _Editorial_ 228 Alpine World, The _Editorial_ 134 America, Home Life in _Editorial_ 76 American Robin, The _Gilbert Darling_ 327 Angling, A Few Words on _Henry Richards_ 155 Architecture _W. Von Humboldt_ 43 Art 28 Artistic Evening, An _Editorial_ 248 Art-Musee in America, An _Erastus South_ 127 Art, Roman _Ottfreid Müller_ 32 At Rest. (Poem) _Julia C.R. Dorr_ 234 August in the Woods _W.W. Bailey_ 161 Ausable, Morning on the _Editorial_ 40 Authorship, Style in _Stewart_ 75 Autumn Rambles _W.W. Bailey_ 212 A Yarn _Uncle Bluejacket_ 216 Babes in the Wood, The _Editorial_ 223 Badger Hunting _Editorial_ 225 Barry Cornwall, To. (Poem) _A.C. Swinburne_ 50 Beauty, Of _Bacon_. 107 Beside the Sea. (Poem) _Mary E. Bradley_ 161 Biography _Henry Richards_ 65 Bishop's Oak _Caroline Cheesebro_' 172 Black Gnat, The _A.R.M._ 34 Blood Money _Editorial_ 207 Blue-Birds _Gilbert Burling_ 163 Books, Borrowing _Leigh Hunt_ 36 "Bridge of Sighs," Hood's _Editorial_ 50 Bronte's (Charlotte) Brother and Father _January Searle_ 111 Building of the Ship, The. (Poem) _Longfellow_ 89 Cedar Bird, The _Gilbert Burling_ 85 Celebration of the Passover, The _Editorial_ 64 Chase, After the _Editorial_ 227 Chet's, Miss, Club _Caroline Cheesbro'_ 59 Children, Loss of Little _Leigh Hunt_ 104 Chinese Stories _Henry Richards_ 215 Christmas Trees _W.W. Bailey_ 234 Coleridge as a Plagiarist 23 Coming Out of School _Editorial_ 12 Cosas de Espana _Editorial_ 86 Crown Diamonds and other Gems _S.F. Corkran_ 181 Daisies, Among The _A.S. Isaacs_ 23 December and May _Editorial_ 147 Death Chase, The _Editorial_ 236 Dogs, About _Henry Richards_ 175 Dogs, Education of _Henry Richards_ 234 Englishmen, Religion of _H. Taine_ 183 English Rhymes and Stories _Henry Richards_ 96 En Miniature. (From the German) _M.A.P. Humphreys_ 132 Exquisite Moment, An _Editorial_ 93 Fancie's Dream _Lolly Dinks's Mother_ 34 Fancie's Farewell _Lolly Dinks's Mother_ 114 Fawn Family, A Day with a _Editorial_ 107 Feast of the Tabernacles, The _Editorial_ 64 Fra Bartolomeo _Editorial_ 106 Forester's Happy Family, The _Editorial_ 167 Forester's Last Coming Home, The _Editorial_ 56 Fortune of The Hassans, The _C.F. Guernsey_ 123 Friendship of Poets, The _Editorial_ 50 Frosty Day, A. (Poem) _J.L. Warren_ 11 Garden, In the _Betsy Drew_ 138 Gems, Colored _W.S. Ward_ 39 Going to the Volcano _T.M. Coan_ 245 Green River. (Poem) _W.C. Bryant_ 72 Gypsies, The _Editorial_ 166 Heart of Kosciusko, The _Editorial_ 113 Heartsease. (Poem) _Mary E. Bradley_ 43 Hello! _Editorial_ 193 Home and Exile _Editorial_ 237 House with the Hollyhocks, The _A.L. Noble_ 177 House Wrens _Gilbert Burling_ 105 How to Tame Pet Birds _January Searle_ 146 Hunt (Leigh), A Last Visit to _January Searle_ 192 Hunting Snails _T.M. Coan_ 156 Ideal, The _Theodore Parker_ 133 Il Beato. (From the German) _M.A.P. Humphrey_ 183 Ill Wind, An _Leslie Malbone_ 112 Inside the Door _Caroline Cheesebro'_ 30 Ireland, A Glimpse at _T.M. Coan_ 119 Island, On an _Caroline Cheesebro'_ 114 Jack and Gill _Editorial_ 223 King Baby. (Poem) _George Cooper_ 224 Kingfisher, The _Editorial_ 125 King's Rosebud, The. (Poem) _Julia C.R. Porr_ 107 Knowledge _Ethics of the Fathers_ 135 "Lais Corinthaica," Holbein's _Editorial_ 182 Lalalo--A Legend of Galicia. (From the Spanish) _H.S. Conant_ 164 Lamp-Light _Julian Hawthorne_ 165 Lisbon, Loiterings around _Editorial_ 44 Literature 28, 47, 67, 88, 108, 128, 148, 168, 188, 208 Little Emily _Editorial_ 178 Liverworts. (Poem) _W.W. Bailey_ 70 Longfellow's House and Library _Geo. W. Greene_ 100 Love Aloft _Editorial_ 116 Love's Humility. (Poem) _B.G. Hosmer_ 141 Mandarin, A _From the French_ 19 Manifest Destiny. (Poem) _R.H. Stoddard_ 47 Man in Blue, The _R.B. Davey_ 50 Man in the Moon, The _Yule-tide Stories_ 120 Man's Unselfish Friend _Editorial_ 60 Married in a Snow-Storm. (From the Russian) _Wm. Percival_ 152 Marsh and Pond Flowers _W.W. Bailey_ 126 Martinmas Goose, The _Editorial_ 243 Maximilian Morningdew's Advice, Mr. _Julian Hawthorne_ 74 Millerism _Editorial_ 10 Minster at Ulm, The _Editorial_ 158 Misers, About _Betsy Drew_ 99 Mother is Here! 20 Morning Dew _Editorial_ 76 Morning and Evening _Editorial_ 242 Mountain Land of Western North Carolina _J.A. Oertel_ 52 Mountain Land of Western North Carolina _J.A. Oertel_ 214 Mountains, In the _Editorial_ 16 Mouse Shoes _Lolly Dinks's Mother_ 197 Music in the Alps _Editorial_ 33 Necessity of Believing Something _Jean Paul_ 31 Neighbor Over the Way, My. (Poem) _G.W. Scars_ 110 Newport, At. (Poem) _Geo. H. Boker_ 10 Niagara _Editorial_ 213 Noble Savage, The 110 Nooning, The 16 Oblivion _Browne_ 120 October _W.W. Bailey_ 192 Old Maid's Village, The _Kate F. Hill_ 26 Old Oaken Bucket, The _Editorial_ 152 Othello, How Rossini Wrote _L.C. Bullard_ 91 Out of the Deeps _Elizabeth Stoddard_ 94 Painted Boats on Painted Seas _Hiram Rich_ 201 Patriotism and Powder _Editorial_ 132 Pavilions on the Lake, The. (From the French) _H.S. Conant_ 14 Pepito _Lucy Ellen Guernsey_ 212 Perkins, Granville 48 Peruvians, Among the _Editorial_ 24 Play for a Heart, A. (From the German) _H.S. Conant_ 54 Pleasure-Seeking _Editorial_ 240 Poet's Rivers _Editorial_ 70 Portugal, Wanderings in _Editorial_ 224 Pottery, Ancient _S.F. Corkran_ 72 Prince and Peasant. (From the German,) _H.S. Conant_ 196 Puddle Party, The _Lolly Dinks's Mother_ 83 Punishment after Death. (From the Danish) _James Watkins_ 218 Puss Asleep _Henry Richards_ 143 Queen's Closet, The _Lolly Dinks's Mother_ 27 Rainy Day, The. (Poem) _H.W. Longfellow_ 120 Raymondskill, The _E.C. Stedman_ 154 Real Romance, The _Julian Hawthorne_ 10 Ruse de Guerre. (Poem) _H.B. Bostwick_ 63 School-Children _Editorial_ 198 Scissor Family, The _Lolly Dinks's Mother_ 144 Secret, A. (Poem) _Julia C.R. Dorr_ 212 September Reverie, A _Editorial_ 172 Serious Case, A _Editorial_ 203 Shadows _Julian Hawthorne_ 142 Shakspeare Celebrations _Editorial_ 90 Shakspeare Portraits _R.H. Stoddard_ 103 Shameful Death. (Poem) _Wm. Morris_ 83 Shrews _A.S. Isaacs_ 63 Simple Suggestion, A _Mary E. Bradley_ 216 Smallpox, Worse than _L.E. Guernsey_ 157 Snow-Bird, The _Gilbert Burling_ 207 Song Sparrow, The _Gilbert Burling_ 32 Song or Wood Thrush, The _Gilbert Burling_ 66 Sonnet _Alfred Tennyson_ 67 Sparrows' City, The. (Poem) _George Cooper_ 165 Stael, Baroness de, The Salon of. (From the French) 43 Story of Coeho, The _R.B. Davey_ 71 Street Scene in Cairo, A _Editorial_ 239 Stuffing Birds _January Searle_ 246 Summer Fallacies _C.D. Shanly_ 176 Sunshine _Julian Hawthorne_ 92 Superstition _Bacon_ 56 Swift, Dean _Lady Mary Wortley Montague_ 53 Temple of Canova, The _Editorial_ 203 Thievish Animals _Editorial_ 238 Thistle-Down. (Poem) _W.W. Bailey_ 145 Tired Mothers. (Poem) _Mrs. A. Smith_ 172 Tropic Forest, A. (Poem) _Montgomery_ 20 Trout Fishing _C.D. Shanly_ 141 Truants, The 40 Two _J.C.R. Dorr_ 152 Two Gazels of Hafiz _Henry Richards_ 145 Two Lives, The. (Poem) _S.W. Duffield_ 201 Two Queens in Westminster. (Poem) _H. Morford_ 132 Uncollected Poems 50 Uncollected Poems by Campbell. _Editorial_ 144 Uncollected Poems by "L.E.L." _Editorial_ 94 Uttmann, Barbara. (From the German) 66 Venice, A Glimpse of _Editorial_ 13 Violins, About _J.D. Elwell_ 36 Virginia, On the Eastern Shore of _Mary E. Bradley_ 79 Water Ballad _S.T. Coleridge_ 67 Weber (Von), Karl Maria _Editorial_ 206 Wine and Kisses. (Poem) From the Persian _Joel Benton_ 27 Winter-Green. (Poem) _Mary E. Bradley_ 90 Winter Pictures from the Poets _Editorial_ 14 Winter Scenes _Editorial_ 230 Wolf, Calf and Goat, The _Æsop, Junior_ 124 Woman in Art _E.B. Leonard_ 145 Woman's Eternity, A _E.B.L._ 204 Woman's Place _Editorial_ 162 Wood or Summer Ducks _Editorial_ 187 Woods, In the. (Poem) _G.W. Sears_ 192 Woods Out in the. (Poem) _Mary E. Bradley_ 126 Wordsworth _Taine_ 33 Wyoming Valley _Editorial_ 36 Young Robin Hunter, The _Editorial_ 60 Zekle's Courtin' _Editorial_ 30 ILLUSTRATIONS Adirondack Scenery _G.H. Smillie_ 97 Advance in Winter, The 236 After the Storm _Schenck_ 231 After the Storm a Calm. (I, II, III, IV,) 244 Agnes _R.E. Piguet_ 112 Albai, View on the River 183 American Robin, The _Gilbert Burling_ 227 Artistic Evening, An 248 At Home 239 Ausable, Morning on the _G.H. Smillie_ 41 Babes in the Wood, The _John S. Davis_ 222 Badger Hunting _L. Beckmann_ 226 Blood Money _Victor Nehlig_ 190 Blowing Hot and Cold _John S. Davis_ 142 Blowing Rock _R.E. Piguet_ 57 Blue-Birds _Gilbert Burling_ 163 Bonnie Brook, near Rahway _R.E. Piguet_ 112 Bridal Veil _Granville Perkins_ 154 Bridge of Sighs, The (View of) 13 Bridge of Sighs (Hood's) _Georgie A. Davis_ 49 Building of the Ship, The _T. Beech_ 89 Capella Imperfeita, Archway in the 44 Casa do Capitulo, The 224 Casa do Capitulo, Window in the 46 Castle of Meran, The. (Frontispiece) _C. Heyn_. Opp. 189 Caught At Last 238 Cedar Birds _Gilbert Burling_ 85 Chase, After the _David Neal_ 219 Christmas Visitors _Guido Hammer_ 231 Coming Out of School _Vautier_ 12 Crossing the Moor After _F.F. Hill_ 228 December and May _W.H. Davenport_ 146 Death Chase, The 236 Deer Family, The _Guido Hammer_ 106 Enjoyment 241 Evening _Paul Dixon_ 205 Evening 243 Evenings at Home _A.E. Emslie_ 77 Exquisite Moment, An _John S. Davis_ 93 Fashionable Loungers of Lima 24 Feast of the Passover, The _Oppenheim_ 64 Feast of the Tabernacles, The _Oppenheim_ 65 Fisherman's Family, The 239 Forester's Happy Family at Dinner, The _Guido Hammer_ 167 Forester's Last Coming Home, The 56 For the Master _Offterdinger_ (Opp.) 236 Garden, In the _Arthur Lumley_ 138 Gertrude of Wyoming _Victor Nehlig_ 117 Glen, The _F.T. Vance_ 194 God's Acre 232 Gondar, Emperor's Palace at 186 Good Bye, Sweetheart 233 Grandfather Mountain, N.C. _R.E. Piguet_ 215 Green River _August Will_ 69 Green River _R.E. Piguet_ 72 Green River _R.E. Piguet_ 73 Guide-Board, The _Knesing_ 230 Gypsy Girl at her Toilette _G. Dore_ 166 Happy Valley _R.E. Piguet_ 53 Heart of a Hero, The. (Kosciusko's Monument) 113 Here. Chick! Chick! 240 Hollo! _John S. Davis_ 191 House Wrens _Gilbert Burling_ 105 How a Spaniard Drinks _Dore_ 86 Hudson at Hyde Park, The _G.H. Smillie_ 81 In-Doors 243 Infant Jesus, The Copied by _J.S. Davis_ 229 "Is the solace of age." 247 "It ofttimes happens that a child" 245 Jack and Gill _John S. Davis_ 223 Kate _R.E. Piguet_ 112 Keeping House _John S. Davis_ (Opp.) 29 Kingfisher, The _L. Beckmann_ 125 King Witlaf's Drinking Horn _A. Kappes_ 131 Kwasind, the Strong Man _T. Moran_ 109 Lais Corinthaica _Holbein_ 182 Lake Henderson _F.T. Vance_ 195 Limena, Middle-Aged 25 Linville, On the _R.E. Piguet_ 52 Linville River, The _R.E. Piguet_ 53 Little Emily _John S. Davis_ 178 Little Mother, The _John S. Davis_ 80 Loffler Peak, Tyrol, The 135 Longfellow's House _A.C. Warren_ 100 Longfellow's Library _A.C. Warren_ 101 Longing Looks _J.W. Bolles_ 96 Love Aloft _Otto Gunther_ 116 Manifest Destiny _W.M. Cary_ 37 Man's Unselfish Friend _Chas. E. Townsend_ 61 Marston Moor, Before the Battle of 121 Mestizo Woman, Young 25 Mill, in Wyoming Valley, An Old _F.T. Vance_ 36 Minster at Ulm, The 158 Monastery de Leca do Balio, The 225 Monk's Oak, The (After _Constantine Schmidt_) 33 Moonlight on the Hudson _Paul Dixon_ 170 Moose Hunting 232 Morganton, View in _R.E. Piguet_ 53 Morganton, View near _R.E. Piguet_ 214 Morning 242 Morning Dew. (Frontispiece) _Victor Nehlig_. Opp. 69 Morning in the Meadow _R.E. Piguet_ 113 Mother is Here! _Deiker_ 20 Mountains, In the 16 Müller, Maud _Georgie A. Davis_ 9 Music in the Alps _Dore_ 33 Naughty Boy, The _John S. Davis_ (Opp.) 89 Navaja, Duel with the _Dore_ 86 New England, Hills of _Paul Dixon_ 204 Niagara _Jules Tavernier_ 211 Nooning, The (After _Darley_) 17 Old Oaken Bucket, The _John S. Davis_ 159 Ornamental, The _Deiker_ 234 Out of Doors 242 Patriotic Education _F. Beard_ 130 Penha Verde, Doorway and Oriel in the 45 Perkins, Granville 48 Peruvian Ladies, Costumes of 24 Peruvian Priests 25 Pets, The 241 Picking and Choosing _Beckmann_ 238 Pines of the Racquette, The _John A. Hows_ 121 Playing Sick _A.H. Thayer_ 174 Preston Ponds, From Bishop's Knoll _.F.T. Vance_ 199 Puss Asleep _C.E. Townsend_ 143 Rainy Day, The _John S. Davis_ 120 Raymondskill, Falls of The _Granville Perkins_ 150 Raymondskill, View on the _Granville Perkins_ 155 Raymondskill, The Main Fall _Granville Perkins_ 155 Scene on the Catawba River _R.E. Piguet_ 210 School Discipline _John S. Davis_ 198 Serious Case, A _Ernst Bosch_ 202 Shakspeare, Ward's _J.S. Davis_ 104 Shipwreck on the Coast of Dieppe, A _T. Weber_ 139 Singing the War Song 187 Snow-Birds _Gilbert Burling_ 207 Song Sparrow, The _Gilbert Burling_ 32 Song or Wood Thrush, The _Gilbert Burling_ 66 South Mountain _R.E. Piguet_ 53 Spanish Postilion _Dore_ 87 Spanish Ladies _Dore_ 87 Sport 240 Squaw Pounding Cherries, Old _W.M. Cary_ 162 Standish, Miles, Courtship of _J.W. Bolles_ 151 Street Scene in Cairo, A Opp. 229 Surenen Pass, Switzerland, View in the 134 Temple of Canova 203 Then fare thee well, my country, lov'd and lost! 237 "There's a Beautiful Spirit Breathing Now" 218 Tight Place, In a _W.M. Cary_ 76 Tropic Forest, A _Granville Perkins_ 21 Truants, The _M.L. Stone_ 40 Useful, The _Deiker_ 235 Uttmann, Barbara 68 Venetian Festival, A. (Frontispiece) _C. Hulk_ Vischer's, Peter, Studio 84 Visconti, Princess (After "_Fra Bartolomeo_") 108 Villa de Conde, Church at 215 Village Belle, The After _J.J. Hill_ 228 Waiting at the Stile 147 Watauga Falls _R.E. Piguet_ 53 Watering the Cattle _Peter Moran_ 171 Wayside Inn, The (After _Hill_) 107 Weber, Von, Last Moments of 206 What Was That Knot Tied For? (After _I.E. Gaiser_) 92 "Which in infancy lisped" 246 "Who Said Rats?" _A.H. Thayer_ 175 Winter Sketch, A. (Frontispiece) _George H. Smillie_. Opp. 149 Wolf, Calf and Goat, The _H.L. Stephens_ 124 Wood or Summer Ducks _Gilbert Burling_ 179 "Ye limpid springs and floods," 237 Young Robin Hunter, The _John S. Davis_ 60 Zekle's Courtin' _Frank Beard_ 29 THE ALDINE VOL. V. NEW YORK, JANUARY, 1872. No. 1. [Illustration: MAUD MÜLLER.--DRAWN BY GEORGIE A. DAVIS.] "MAUD MÜLLER looked and sighed: 'Ah, me! That I the Judge's bride might be! "'He would dress me up in silks so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine. "'My father should wear a broad-cloth coat: My brother should sail a painted boat.' "'I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, And the baby should have a new toy each day. "'And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor. And all should bless me who left our door. "The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, And saw Maud Müller standing still. "'A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. "'And her modest answer and graceful air, Show her wise and good as she is fair. "'Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her a harvester of hay.'" --_Whittier's Maud Müller._ THE ALDINE. _JAMES SUTTON & CO., PUBLISHERS_ 23 LIBERTY STREET, NEW YORK. * * * * * $5.00 per Annum (_with chrono._) Single Copies, 50 Cents. * * * * * _AT NEWPORT._ I stand beside the sea once more; Its measured murmur comes to me; The breeze is low upon the shore, And low upon the purple sea. Across the bay the flat sand sweeps, To where the helméd light-house stands Upon his post, and vigil keeps, Far seaward marshaling all the lands. The hollow surges rise and fall, The ships steal up the quiet bay; I scarcely hear or see at all, My thoughts are flown so far away. They follow on yon sea-bird's track. Beyond the beacon's crystal dome; They will not falter, nor come back, Until they find my darkened home. Ah, woe is me! 'tis scarce a year Since, gazing o'er this moaning main, My thoughts flew home without a fear. And with content returned again. To-day, alas! the fancies dark That from my laden bosom flew, Returning, came into the ark, Not with the olive, with the yew. The ships draw slowly towards the strand, The watchers' hearts with hope beat high; But ne'er again wilt thou touch land-- Lost, lost in yonder sapphire sky! --_Geo. H. Boker._ _MILLERISM._ Toward the close of the last century there was born in New England one William Miller, whose life, until he was past fifty, was the life of the average American of his time. He drank, we suppose, his share of New England rum, when a young man; married a comely Yankee girl, and reared a family of chubby-cheeked children; went about his business, whatever it was, on week days, and when Sunday came, went to meeting with commendable regularity. He certainly read the Old Testament, especially the Book of Daniel, and of the New Testament at least the Book of Revelation. Like many a wiser man before him, he was troubled at what he read, filled as it was with mystical numbers and strange beasts, and he sought to understand it, and to apply it to the days in which he lived. He made the discovery that the world was to be destroyed in 1843, and went to and fro in the land preaching that comfortable doctrine. He had many followers--as many as fifty thousand, it is said, who thought they were prepared for the end of all things; some going so far as to lay in a large stock of ascension robes. Though no writer himself, he was the cause of a great deal of writing on the part of others, who flooded the land with a special and curious literature--the literature of Millerism. It is not of that, however, that we would speak now. But before this Miller arose--we proceed to say, if only to show that we are familiar with other members of the family--there was another, and very different Miller, who was born in old England, about one hundred years earlier than our sadly, or gladly, mistaken Second Adventist. His Christian name was Joseph, and he was an actor of repute, celebrated for his excellence in some of the comedies of Congreve. The characters which he played may have been comic ones, but he was a serious man. Indeed, his gravity was so well known in his lifetime that it was reckoned the height of wit, when he was dead, to father off upon him a Jest Book! This joke, bad as it was, was better than any joke in the book. It made him famous, so famous that for the next hundred years every little _bon mot_ was laid at his door, metaphorically speaking, the puniest youngest brat of them being christened "Old Joe." After Joseph Miller had become what Mercutio calls "a grave man," his descendants went into literature largely, as any one may see by turning to Allibone's very voluminous dictionary, where upwards of seventy of the name are immortalized, the most noted of whom are Thomas Miller, basket-maker and poet, and Hugh Miller, the learned stone-mason of Cromarty, whose many works, we confess with much humility, we have not read. To the sixty-eight Millers in Allibone (if that be the exact number), must now be added another--Mr. Joaquin Miller, who published, two or three months since, a collection of poems entitled "Songs of the Sierras." From which one of the Millers mentioned above his ancestry is derived, we are not informed; but, it would seem, from the one first-named. For clearly the end of all things literary cannot be far off, if Mr. Miller is the "coming poet," for whom so many good people have been looking all their lives. We are inclined to think that such is not the fact. We think, on the whole, that it is to the other Miller--Joking Miller--his genealogy is to be traced. But who is Mr. Miller, and what has he done? A good many besides ourselves put that question, less than a year ago, and nobody could answer it. Nobody, that is, in America. In England he was a great man. He went over to England, unheralded, it is stated, and was soon discovered to be a poet. Swinburne took him up; the Rossettis took him up; the critics took him up; he was taken up by everybody in England, except the police, who, as a rule, fight shy of poets. He went to fashionable parties in a red shirt, with trowsers tucked into his boots, and instead of being shown to the door by the powdered footman, was received with enthusiasm. It is incredible, but it is true. A different state of society existed, thirty or forty years ago, when another American poet went to England; and we advise our readers, who have leisure at their command, to compare it with the present social lawlessness of the upper classes among the English. To do this, they have only to turn to the late N.P. Willis's "Pencilings by the Way," and contrast his descriptions of the fashionable life of London then, with almost any journalistic account of the same kind of life now. The contrast will be all the more striking if they will only hunt up the portraits of Disraeli, with his long, dark locks flowing on his shoulders, and the portrait of Bulwer, behind his "stunning" waistcoat, and his cascade of neck-cloth, and then imagine Mr. Miller standing beside them, in his red shirt and high-topped California boots! Like Byron, Mr. Miller "woke up one morning and found himself famous." We compare the sudden famousness of Mr. Miller with the sudden famousness of Byron, because the English critics have done so; and because they are pleased to consider Mr. Miller as Byron's successor! Byron, we are told, was the only poet whom he had read, before he went to England; and is the only poet to whom he bears a resemblance. How any of these critics could have arrived at this conclusion, with the many glaring imitations of Swinburne--at his worst--staring him in the face from Mr. Miller's volume, is inconceivable. But, perhaps, they do not read Swinburne. Do they read Byron? There are, however, some points of resemblance between Byron and Mr. Miller. Byron traveled, when young, in countries not much visited by the English; Mr. Miller claims to have traveled, when young, in countries not visited by the English at all. This was, and is, an advantage to both Byron and Mr. Miller. But it was, and is, a serious disadvantage to their readers, who cannot well ascertain the truth, or falsehood, of the poets they admire. The accuracy of Byron's descriptions of foreign lands has long been admitted; the accuracy of Mr. Miller's descriptions is not admitted, we believe, by those who are familiar with the ground he professes to have gone over. Another point of resemblance between Byron and Mr. Miller is, that the underlying idea of their poetry is autobiographic. We do not say that it was really so in Byron's case, although he, we know, would have had us believe as much; nor do we say that it is really so in Mr. Miller's case, although he, too, we suspect, would have us believe as much. Mr. Miller resembles Byron as his "Arizonian" resembles Byron's "Lara." _Lara_ and _Arizonian_ are birds of the same dark feather. They have journeyed in strange lands; they have had strange experiences; they have returned to Civilization. Each, in his way, is a Blighted Being! "Who is she?" we inquire with the wise old Spanish Judge, for, certainly, _Woman_ is at the bottom of it all. If our readers wish to know _what_ woman, we refer them to "Arizonian:" they, of course, have read "Lara." Byron was a great poet, but Byronism is dead. Mr. Miller is not a great poet, and his spurious Byronism will not live. We shall all see the end of Millerism. _THE REAL ROMANCE._ The author laid down his pen, and leaned back in his big easy chair. The last word had been written--Finis--and there was the complete book, quite a tall pile of manuscript, only waiting for the printer's hands to become immortal: so the author whispered to himself. He had worked hard upon it; great pains had been expended upon the delineations of character, and the tone and play of incident; the plot, too, had been worked up with much artistic force and skill; and, above all, everything was so strikingly original; no one, in regarding the various characters of the tale, could say: this is intended for so-and-so! No, nothing precisely like the persons in his romance had ever actually existed; of that the author was certain, and in that he was very probably correct. To be sure, there was the character of the country girl, Mary, which he had taken from his own little waiting-maid: but that was a very subordinate element, and although, on the whole, he rather regretted having introduced anything so incongruous and unimaginative, he decided to let it go. The romance, as a whole, was too great to be injured by one little country girl, drawn from real life. "And by the way," murmured the author to himself, "I wish Mary would bring in my tea." He settled himself still more comfortably in his easy chair, and thought, and looked at his manuscript; and the manuscript looked back; but all _its_ thinking had been done for it. Neither spoke--the author, because the book already knew all he had to say; and the book, because its time to speak and be immortal had not yet arrived. The fire had all the talking to itself, and it cackled, and hummed, and skipped about so cheerfully that one would have imagined it expected to be the very first to receive a presentation copy of the work on the table. "How I would devour its contents!" laughed the fire. Perhaps the author did not comprehend the full force of the fire's remark, but the voice was so cosy and soothing, the fire itself so ruddy and genial, and the easy chair so softly cushioned and hospitable, that he very soon fell into a condition which enabled him to see, hear, and understand a great many things which might seem remarkable, and, indeed, almost incredible. The manuscript on the table which had hitherto remained perfectly quiet, now rustled its leaves nervously, and finally flung itself wide open. A murmur then arose, as of several voices, and presently there appeared (though whether stepping from between the leaves of the book itself, or growing together from the surrounding atmosphere, the author could not well make out) a number of peculiar-looking individuals, at the first glance appearing to be human beings, though a clear investigation revealed in each some odd lack or exaggeration of gesture, feature, or manner, which might create a doubt as to whether they actually were, after all, what they purported to be, or only some _lusus naturæ_. But the author was not slow to recognize them, more especially as, happening to cast a glance at the manuscript, he noticed that it was such no longer, but a collection of unwritten sheets of paper, blank as when it lay in the drawer at the stationer's--unwitting of the lofty destiny awaiting it. Here, then, were the immortal creations which were soon to astound the world, come, in person, to pay their respects to the author of their being. He arose and made a profound obeisance to the august company, which they one and all returned, though in such a queer variety of ways, that the author, albeit aware that every individual had the best of reasons for employing, under certain special circumstances, his or her particular manner of salute, could scarcely forbear smiling at the effect they all together produced in his own unpretending study. "Your welcome visit," said the author, addressing his guests with all the geniality of which he was master (for they seemed somewhat stiff and ill-at-ease), "gives me peculiar gratification. I regret not having asked some of my friends, the critics, up here to make your acquaintance. I am sure you would all come to the best possible understanding directly." "They cannot fathom _me_," exclaimed a strikingly handsome young man, with pale lofty brow, and dark clustering locks, who was leaning with proud grace against the mantel-piece. "They may take my life, but they cannot read my soul." And he laughed, scornfully, as he always did. [Illustration: THE NOONING.--AFTER DARLEY.] This was a passage from that famous ante-mortem soliloquy in which the hero of the romance indulges in the last chapter but one. The author, while, of course, he could not deny that the elegance of the diction was only equaled by the originality of the sentiment, yet felt a slight uneasiness that his hero should adopt so defiant a tone with those who were indeed to be the arbiters of his existence. "I'm afraid there's not enough perception of the _comme il faut_ in him to suit the every-day world," muttered he. "To be sure, he was not constructed for ordinary ends. Do you find yourself at home in this life, madame?" he continued aloud, turning to a young lady of matchless beauty, whose brief career of passionate love and romantic misery the author had described in thrilling chapters. She raised her luminous eyes to his, and murmured reproachfully: "Why speak to me of Life? if it be not Love, it is Life no longer!" It was very beautiful, and the author recollected having thought, at the time he wrote it down, that it was about the most forcible sentence in that most powerful passage of his book. But it was rather an exaggerated tone to adopt in the face of such common-place surroundings. Had this exquisite creature, after all, no better sense of the appropriate? "No one can know better than I, my dear Constance," said the author, in a fatherly tone, "what a beautiful, tender, and lofty soul yours is; but would it not be well, once in a while, to veil its lustre--to subdue it to a tint more in keeping with the unvariegated hue of common circumstance?" "Heartless and cruel!" sobbed Constance, falling upon the sofa, "hast thou not made me what I am?" This accusation, intended by the author to be leveled at the traitor lover, quite took him aback when directed, with so much aptness, too, at his respectable self. But whom but himself could he blame, if, when common sense demanded only civility and complaisance, she persisted in adhering to the tragic and sentimental? He was provoked that he had not noticed this defect in time to remedy it; yet he had once considered Constance as, perhaps, the completest triumph of his genius! There seemed to be something particularly disenchanting in the atmosphere of that study. "I'm afraid you're a failure, ma'am, after all," sighed the author, eyeing her disconsolately. "You're so one-sided!" At this heartless observation the lady gave a harrowing shriek, thereby summoning to her side a broad-shouldered young fellow, clad in soldier's garb, with a countenance betokening much boldness and determination. He faced the author with an angry frown, which the latter at once recognized as being that of Constance's brother Sam. "Now then, old bloke!" sang out that young gentleman, "what new deviltry are you up to? Down on your knees and beg her pardon, or, by George! I'll run you through the body!" On this character the author had expended much thought and care. He was the type of the hardy and bold adventurer, rough and unpolished, perhaps, but of true and sterling metal, who, by dint of his vigorous common sense and honest, energetic nature, should at once clear and lighten whatever in the atmosphere of the story was obscure and sombre; and, by the salutary contrast of his fresh and rugged character with the delicate or morbid traits of his fellow beings, lend a graceful symmetry to the whole. The sentence Sam had just delivered with so much emphasis ought to have been addressed to the traitor lover, when discovered in the act of inconstancy, and, so given, would have been effective and dramatic. But at a juncture like the present, the author felt it to be simply ludicrous, and had he not been so mortified, would have laughed outright! "Don't make a fool of yourself, Sam," remonstrated he. "Reflect whom you're addressing, and in what company you are, and do try and talk like a civilized being." "Come, come! no palaver," returned Sam, in a loud and boisterous tone (to do him justice, he had never been taught any other); "down on your marrow-bones at once, or here goes for your gizzard!" and he drew his sword with a flourish. So this was the rough diamond--the epitome of common sense! Why, he was a half-witted, impertinent, overbearing booby, and his author longed to get him across his knee, and correct him in the good old way. But meantime the point of the young warrior's sword was getting unpleasantly near the left breast-pocket of the author's dressing gown (which he wore at the time), and the latter happened to recollect, with a nervous thrill, that this was the sword which mortally wounded the traitor lover (for whom Sam evidently mistook him) during the stirring combat so vividly described in the twenty-second chapter. Could he but have foreseen the future, what a different ending that engagement should have had! But again it was too late, and the author sprang behind the big easy chair with astonishing agility, and from that vantage ground endeavored to bring on a parley. Yet how could he argue and expostulate against himself? How arraign Sam of harboring murderous designs which he had himself implanted in his bosom? How, indeed, expect him to comprehend conversation so entirely foreign to his experience? It was an awkward dilemma. It was Sam who took it by the horns. Somebody, he felt, must be mortally wounded; and finding himself defrauded of one subject, he took up with the next he encountered, which chanced to be none other than the venerable and white-haired gentleman who filled the position, in the tale, of a wealthy and benevolent uncle. The author, having always felt a sentiment of exceptional respect and admiration for this reverend and patriarchal personage, who by his gentle words and sage counsels, no less than his noble generosity, had done so much to elevate and sweeten the tone of his book, fell into an ecstasy of terror at witnessing the approach of his seemingly inevitable destruction; especially as he perceived that the poor old fellow (who never in his life had met with aught but reverence and affection, and knew nothing of the nature of deadly weapons and impulses) was, so far, from attempting to defend himself, or even escape, actually opening his arms to the widest extent of avuncular hospitality, and preparing to take his assassin, sword and all, into his fond and forgiving heart! "You old fool!" shrieked the author, in the excess of his irritation and despair; "he isn't your repentant nephew! Why can't you keep your forgiveness until it's wanted?" But Uncle Dudley having been created solely to forgive and benefit, was naturally incapable of taking care of himself, and would certainly have been run through the ample white waistcoat, had not an unexpected and wholly unprecedented interruption averted so awful a catastrophe. A small, graceful figure, wearing a picturesque white cap, with jaunty ribbons, and a short scarlet petticoat, from beneath which peeped the prettiest feet and ancles ever seen, stepped suddenly between the philanthropic victim and his would-be-murderer, dealt the latter a vigorous blow across the face with a broom she carried, thereby toppling him over ignominiously into the coal-scuttle, and then, placing her plump hands saucily akimbo, she exclaimed with enchanting _naivete_: "There! Mr. Free-and-easy! take _that_ for your imperance." This little incident caused the author to fall back into his easy chair in a condition of profound emotion. It appeared to have corrected a certain dimness or obliquity in his vision, of the existence of which its cure rendered him for the first time conscious. The appearance of the little country girl (whose very introduction into the romance the author had looked upon with misgivings) had afforded the first gleam of natural, refreshing, wholesome interest--in fact, the only relief to all that was vapid, irrational, and unreal--which the combined action of the characters in his romance had succeeded in producing. But the enchantress who had effected this, so far from being the most unadulterated product of his own brain and genius, was the only one of all his _dramatis personæ_ who was not in the slightest degree indebted to him for her existence. She was nothing more than an accurate copy of Mary the house-maid, while the others--the mis-formed, ill-balanced, one-sided creations, who, the moment they were placed beyond the pale of their written instructions--put out of the regular and pre-arranged order of their going--displayed in every word and gesture their utter lack and want of comprehension of the simplest elements of human nature: _these_ were the unaided offspring of the author's fancy. And yet it was by help of such as these he had thought to push his way to immortality! How the world would laugh at him! and, as he thought this, a few bitter tears of shame and humiliation trickled down the sides of the poor man's nose. Presently he looked up. The warlike Sam remained sitting disconsolately in the coal-hod; his instructions suggested no means of extrication. Forsaken Constance lay fainting on the sofa, waiting for some one to chafe her hands and bathe her temples. The strikingly handsome betrayer leant in sullen and gloomy silence against the mantel-piece, ready to treat all advances with stern and defiant obduracy. The benevolent uncle stood with open arms and bland smile, never doubting but that everybody was preparing for a simultaneous rush to, and participation in, his embrace; and, finally, the pretty little country girl, with her arms akimbo and her nose in the air, remained mistress of the situation. Her unheard of innovation, of having done something timely, sensible, and decisive, even though not put down in the book, seemed to have paralyzed all the others. Ah! she was the only one there who was not less than a shadow. The author felt his desolate heart yearn towards her, and the next moment found himself on his knees at her feet. "Mary," cried he, "you are my only reality. The others are empty and soulless, but you have a heart. They are the children of a conceited brain and visionary experience; you, only, have I drawn simply and unaffectedly, as you actually existed. Except for you, whom I slighted and despised, my whole romance had been an unmitigated falsehood. To you I owe my preservation from worse than folly, and my initiation into true wisdom. Mary--dear Mary, in return I have but one thing to offer you--my heart! Can you--_will_ you not love me?"-- To his intense surprise, Mary, instead of evincing a becoming sense of her romantic situation, burst forth into a merry peal of laughter, and, catching him by one shoulder, gave him a hearty shake. "La sakes! Mr. Author, do wake up! did ever anybody hear such a man!" There was his room, his fire, his chair, his table, and his closely-written manuscript lying quietly upon it. There was he himself on his knees on the carpet, and--there was Mary the house-maid, one hand holding the brimming tea-pot, the other held by the author against his lips, and laughing and blushing in a tumult of surprise, amusement and, perhaps, something better than either. "Did I say I loved you, Mary?" enquired the author, in a state of bewilderment. "Never mind! I say now that I love you with all my heart and soul, and ten times as much when awake, as when I was dreaming! Will you marry me?" Mary only blushed rosier then ever. But she and the author always thereafter took their tea cosily together. As for the romance, the author took it and threw it into the fire, which roared a genial acknowledgment, and in five minutes had made itself thoroughly acquainted with every page. There remained a bunch of black flakes, and in the center one soft glowing spark, which lingered a long while ere finally taking its flight up the chimney. It was the description of the little country girl. "The next book I write shall be all about you," the author used to say to his wife, in after years, as they sat together before the fire-place, and watched the bright blaze roar up the chimney. --_Julian Hawthorne._ _A FROSTY DAY._ Grass afield wears silver thatch, Palings all are edged with rime, Frost-flowers pattern round the latch, Cloud nor breeze dissolve the clime; When the waves are solid floor, And the clods are iron-bound, And the boughs are crystall'd hoar, And the red leaf nail'd aground. When the fieldfare's flight is slow, And a rosy vapor rim, Now the sun is small and low, Belts along the region dim. When the ice-crack flies and flaws, Shore to shore, with thunder shock, Deeper than the evening daws, Clearer than the village clock. When the rusty blackbird strips, Bunch by bunch, the coral thorn, And the pale day-crescent dips, New to heaven a slender horn. --_John Leicester Warren._ * * * * * Those who come last seem to enter with advantage. They are born to the wealth of antiquity. The materials for judging are prepared, and the foundations of knowledge are laid to their hands. Besides, if the point was tried by antiquity, antiquity would lose it; for the present age is really the oldest, and has the largest experience to plead.--_Jeremy Collier_. [Illustration: COMING OUT OF SCHOOL.--VAUTIER.] _COMING OUT OF SCHOOL._ If there be any happier event in the life of a child than coming out of school, few children are wise enough to discover it. We do not refer to children who go to school unwillingly--thoughtless wights--whose heads are full of play, and whose hands are prone to mischief:--that these should delight in escaping the restraints of the school-room, and the eye of its watchful master, is a matter of course. We refer to children generally, the good and the bad, the studious and the idle, in short, to all who belong to the _genus_ Boy. Perhaps we should include the _genus_ Girl, also, but of that we are not certain; for, not to dwell upon the fact that we have never been a girl, and are, therefore, unable to enter into the feelings of girlhood, we hold that girls are better than boys, as women are better than men, and that, consequently, they take more kindly to school life. What boys are we know, unless the breed has changed very much since we were young, which is now upwards of--but our age does not concern the reader. We did not take kindly to school, although we were sadly in need of what we could only obtain in school, viz., learning. We went to school with reluctance, and remained with discomfort; for we were not as robust as the children of our neighbors. We hated school. We did not dare to play truant, however, like other boys whom we knew (we were not courageous enough for that); so we kept on going, fretting, and pining, and--learning. Oh the long days (the hot days of summer, and the cold days of winter), when we had to sit for hours on hard wooden benches, before uncomfortable desks, bending over grimy slates and ink-besprinkled "copy books," and poring over studies in which we took no interest--geography, which we learned by rote; arithmetic, which always evaded us, and grammar, which we never could master. We could repeat the "rules," but we could not "parse;" we could cipher, but our sums would not "prove;" we could rattle off the productions of Italy--"corn, wine, silk and oil"--but we could not "bound" the State in which we lived. We were conscious of these defects, and deplored them. Our teachers were also conscious of them, and flogged us! We had a morbid dread of corporeal punishment, and strove to the uttermost to avoid it; but it made no difference, it came all the same--came as surely and swiftly to us as to the bad boys who played "hookey," the worse boys who fought, and the worst boy who once stoned his master in the street. With such a school record as this, is it to be wondered at that we rejoiced when school was out? And rejoiced still more when we were out of school? The feeling which we had then appears to be shared by the children in our illustration. Not for the same reasons, however; for we question whether the most ignorant of their number does not know more of grammar than we do to-day, and is not better acquainted with the boundaries of Germany than we could ever force ourselves to be. We like these little fellows for what they are, and what they will probably be. And we like their master, a grave, simple-hearted man, whose proper place would appear to be the parish-pulpit. What his scholars learn will be worth knowing, if it be not very profound. They will learn probity and goodness, and it will not be ferruled into them either. Clearly, they do not fear the master, or they would not be so unconstrained in his presence. They would not make snow balls, as one has done, and another is doing. Soon they will begin to pelt each other, and the passers by will not mind the snow balls, if they will only remember how they themselves felt, and behaved, after coming out of school. There is not much in a group of children coming out of school. So one might say at first sight, but a little reflection will show the fallacy of the remark. One would naturally suppose that in every well-regulated State of antiquity measures would have been taken to ensure the education of all classes of the community, but such was not the case. The Spartans under Lycurgus were educated, but their education was mainly a physical one, and it did not reach the lower orders. The education of Greece generally, even when the Greek mind had attained its highest culture, was still largely physical--philosophers, statesmen, and poets priding themselves as much upon their athletic feats as upon their intellectual endowments. The schools of Rome were private, and were confined to the patricians. There was a change for the better when Christianity became the established religion. Public schools were recommended by a council in the sixth century, but rather as a means of teaching the young the rudiments of their faith, under the direction of the clergy, than as a means of giving them general instruction. It was not until the close of the twelfth century that a council ordained the establishment of grammar schools in cathedrals for the gratuitous instruction of the poor; and not until a century later that the ordinance was carried into effect at Lyons. Luther found time, amid his multitudinous labors, to interest himself in popular education; and, in 1527, he drew up, with the aid of Melanchthon, what is known as the Saxon School System. The seed was sown, but the Thirty Years' War prevented its coming to a speedy maturity. In the middle of the last century several of the German States passed laws making it compulsory upon parents to send their children to school at a certain age; but these laws were not really obeyed until the beginning of the present century. German schools are now open to the poorest as well as the richest children. The only people, except the Germans, who thought of common schools at an early period are the Scotch. It cost, we see, some centuries of mental blindness to discover the need of, and some centuries of struggling to establish schools. [Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.] _A GLIMPSE OF VENICE._ The spell which Venice has cast over the English poets is as powerful, in its way, as was the influence of Italian literature upon the early literature of England. From Chaucer down, the poets have turned to Italy for inspiration, and, what is still better, have found it. It is not too much to say that the "Canterbury Tales" could not have existed, in their present form, if Boccaccio had not written the "Decameron;" and it is to Boccaccio we are told that the writers of his time were indebted for their first knowledge of Homer. Wyatt and Surrey transplanted what they could of grace from Petrarch into the rough England of Henry the Eighth. We know what the early dramatists owe to the Italian storytellers. They went to their novels for the plots of their plays, as the novelists of to-day go to the criminal calendar for the plots of their stories. Shakspeare appears so familiar with Italian life that Mr. Charles Armitage Brown, the author of a very curious work on Shakspeare's Sonnets, declares that he must have visited Italy, basing this conclusion on the minute knowledge of certain Italian localities shown in some of his later plays. At home in Verona, Milan, Mantua, and Padua, Shakspeare is nowhere so much so as in Venice. It is impossible to think of Venice without remembering the poets; and the poet who is first remembered is Byron. If our thoughts are touched with gravity as they should be when we dwell upon the sombre aspects of Venice--when we look, as here, for example, on the Bridge of Sighs--we find ourselves repeating: "I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs." If we are in a gayer mood, as we are likely to be after looking at the brilliant carnival-scene which greets us at the threshold of the present number of _THE ALDINE_, we recall the opening passages of Byron's merry poem of "Beppo:" "Of all the places where the Carnival Was most facetious in the days of yore, For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball, And masque, and mime, and mystery, and more Than I have time to tell now, or at all, Venice the bell from every city bore." * * * * * "And there are dresses splendid, but fantastical, Masks of all times, and nations, Turks and Jews, And harlequins and clowns, with feats gymnastical, Greeks, Romans, Yankee-doodles, and Hindoos All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiastical, All people, as their fancies hit, may choose, But no one in these parts may quiz the clergy, Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers! I charge ye." The Bridge of Sighs (to return to prose) is a long covered gallery, leading from the ducal palace to the old State prisons of Venice. It was frequently traversed, we may be sure, in the days of some of the Doges, to one of whom, our old friend, and Byron's--Marino Faliero--the erection of the ducal palace is sometimes falsely ascribed. Founded in the year 800, A.D., the ducal palace was afterwards destroyed five times, and each time arose from its ruins with increasing splendor until it became, what it is now, a stately marble building of the Saracenic style of architecture, with a grand staircase and noble halls, adorned with pictures by Titian, Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, and other famous masters. It would be difficult to find gloomier dungeons, even in the worst strongholds of despotism, than those in which the State prisoners of Venice were confined. These "pozzi," or wells, were sunk in the thick walls, under the flooring of the chamber at the foot of the Bridge of Sighs. There were twelve of them formerly, and they ran down three or four stories. The Venetian of old time abhorred them as deeply as his descendants, who, on the first arrival of the conquering French, attempted to block or break up the lowest of them, but were not entirely successful; for, when Byron was in Venice, it was not uncommon for adventurous tourists to descend by a trap-door, and crawl through holes, half choked by rubbish, to the depth of two stories below the first range. So says the writer of the _Notes_ to the fourth canto of "Childe Harolde" (Byron's friend Hobhouse, if our memory serves), who adds, "If you are in want of consolation for the extinction of patrician power, perhaps you may find it there. Scarcely a ray of light glimmers into the narrow gallery which leads to the cells, and the places of confinement themselves are totally dark. A little hole in the wall admitted the damp air of the passages, and served for the introduction of the prisoner's food. A wooden pallet, about a foot or so from the ground, was the only furniture. The conductors tell you a light was not allowed. The cells are about five paces in length, two and a half in width, and seven feet in height. They are directly beneath one another, and respiration is somewhat difficult in the lower holes. Only one prisoner was found when the Republicans descended into these hideous recesses, and he is said to have been confined sixteen years." When the prisoner's hour came he was taken out and strangled in a cell upon the Bridge of Sighs! And this was in Venice! The grand old Republic which was once the greatest Power of Eastern Europe; the home of great artists and architects, renowned the world over for arts and arms; the Venice of "blind old Dandolo," who led her galleys to victory at the ripe old age of eighty; the Venice of Doge Foscari, whose son she tortured, imprisoned and murdered, and whose own paternal, patriotic, great heart she broke; the Venice of gay gallants, and noble, beautiful ladies; the Venice of mumming, masking, and the carnival; the bright, beautiful Venice of Shakspeare, Otway, and Byron; joyous, loving Venice; cruel, fatal Venice! * * * * * MODERN SATIRE.--A satire on everything is a satire on nothing; it is mere absurdity. All contempt, all disrespect, implies something respected, as a standard to which it is referred; just as every valley implies a hill. The _persiflage_ of the French and of fashionable worldlings, which turns into ridicule the exceptions and yet abjures the rules, is like Trinculo's government--its latter end forgets its beginning. Can there be a more mortal, poisonous consumption and asphyxy of the mind than this decline and extinction of all reverence?--_Jean Paul_. _WINTER PICTURES FROM THE POETS._ Although English Poetry abounds with pictures of the seasons, its Winter pictures are neither numerous, nor among its best. For one good snow-piece we can readily find twenty delicate Spring pictures--twinkling with morning dew, and odorous with the perfume of early flowers. It would be easy to make a large gallery of Summer pictures; and another gallery, equally large, which should contain only the misty skies, the dark clouds, and the falling leaves of Autumn. Not so with Winter scenes. Not that the English poets have not painted the last, and painted them finely, but that as a rule they have not taken kindly to the work. They prefer to do what Keats did in one of his poems, viz., make Winter a point of departure from which Fancy shall wing her way to brighter days: "Fancy, high-commissioned; send her! She has vassals to attend her, She will bring, in spite of frost, Beauties that the earth hath lost, She will bring thee, all together, All delights of summer weather." But we must not let Keats come between us and the few among his fellows who have sung of Winter for us. Above all, we must not let him keep his and our master, Shakspeare, waiting: "When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipped, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whoo; To-whit, to-whoo, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. "When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw. When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whoo; To-whit, to-whoo, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot." From Shakspeare to Thomson is something of a descent, but we must make it before we can find any Winter poetry worth quoting. Here is a picture, ready-made, for Landseer to put into form and color: "There, warm together pressed, the trooping deer Sleep on the new-fallen snows; and scarce his head Raised o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss. The ruthless hunter wants nor dogs nor toils, Nor with the dread of sounding bows he drives The fearful flying race: with ponderous clubs, As weak against the mountain-heaps they push Their beating breast in vain, and piteous bray, He lays them quivering on the ensanguined snows, And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home." Cowper is superior to Thomson as a painter of Winter, although it is doubtful whether he was by nature the better poet. Here is one of his pictures: "The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence Screens them, and seem half petrified with sleep In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait Their wonted fodder; not like hungering man, Fretful if unsupplied; but silent, meek, And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay. He, from the stack, carves out the accustomed load, Deep plunging, and again deep plunging oft, The broad keen knife into the solid mass: Smooth as a wall, the upright remnant stands, With such undeviating and even force He severs it away: no needless care, Lest storms should overset the leaning pile Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. Forth goes the woodman, leaving, unconcerned, The cheerful haunts of man, to wield the axe And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear, From morn to eve his solitary task. Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears And tail cropped short, half lurcher and half cur, His dog attends him. Close behind his heel Now creeps he slow; and now, with many a frisk, Wide scampering, snatches up the drifted snow With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout; Then shakes his powdered coat, and barks for joy. Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught, But now and then, with pressure of his thumb To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud Streams far behind him, scenting all the air. Now from the roost, or from the neighboring pale, Where, diligent to cast the first faint gleam Of smiling day, they gossiped side by side, Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call The feathered tribes domestic. Half on wing, And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood, Conscious and fearful of too deep a plunge. The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves, To seize the fair occasion; well they eye The scattered grain, and thievishly resolved To escape the impending famine, often scared As oft return, a pert voracious kind. Clean riddance quickly made, one only care Remains to each, the search of sunny nook, Or shed impervious to the blast. Resigned To sad necessity, the cock foregoes His wonted strut; and, wading at their head, With well-considered steps, seems to resent His altered gait and stateliness retrenched." The American poets have excelled their English brethren in painting the outward aspects of Winter. Here is Mr. Emerson's description of a snow storm: "Announced by all the trumpets of the sky Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fire-place, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm. Come see the north wind's masonry. Out of an unseen quarry evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he For number or proportion. Mockingly On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths; A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn: Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, Maugre the farmer's sighs, and at the gate A tapering turret overtops the work. And when his hours are numbered, and the world Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, The frolic architecture of the snow." In Mr. Bryant's "Winter Piece" we have a brilliant description of frost-work: "Look! the massy trunks Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven, Is studded with its trembling water-drops, That glimmer with an amethystine light. But round the parent stem the long low boughs Bend, in a glittering ring, and arbors hide The glassy floor. Oh! you might deem the spot The spacious cavern of some virgin mine, Deep in the womb of earth--where the gems grow, And diamonds put forth radiant rods and bud With amethyst and topaz--and the place Lit up, most royally, with the pure beam That dwells in them. Or haply the vast hall Of fairy palace, that outlasts the night, And fades not in the glory of the sun;-- Where crystal columns send forth slender shafts And crossing arches; and fantastic aisles Wind from the sight in brightness, and are lost, Among the crowded pillars. Raise thine eye; Thou seest no cavern roof, no palace vault; There the blue sky and the white drifting cloud Look in. Again the wildered fancy dreams Of spouting fountains, frozen as they rose, And fixed, with all their branching jets, in air, And all their sluices sealed. All, all is light; Light without shade. But all shall pass away With the next sun. From numberless vast trunks, Loosened, the crashing ice shall make a sound Like the far roar of rivers, and the eve Shall close o'er the brown woods as it was wont." Winter, itself, has never been more happily impersonated than by dear old Spenser. We meant to close with his portrait of Winter, but, on second thoughts, we give, as more seasonable, his description of January. The fourth line can hardly fail to remind the reader of the second line of Shakspeare's song, and to suggest the query--whether Shakspeare borrowed from Spenser, Spenser from Shakspeare, or both from Nature? "Then came old January, wrapped well In many weeds to keep the cold away; Yet did he quake and quiver like to quell, And blow his nayles to warme them if he may; For they were numbed with holding all the day An hatchet keene, with which he felled wood And from the trees did lop the needlesse spray: Upon an huge great earth-pot steane he stood, From whose wide mouth there flowed forth the Romane floud." * * * * * As long as you are engaged in the world, you must comply with its maxims; because nothing is more unprofitable than the wisdom of those persons who set up for reformers of the age. 'Tis a part a man can not act long, without offending his friends, and rendering himself ridiculous.--_St. Gosemond_. _THE PAVILIONS ON THE LAKE._ FROM THE FRENCH OF THEOPHILE GAUTIER. In the province of Canton, several miles from the city, there once lived two rich Chinese merchants, retired from business. One of them was named Tou, the other Kouan. Both were possessed of great riches, and were persons of much consequence in the community. Tou and Kouan were distant relatives, and from early youth had lived and worked side by side. Bound by ties of great affection, they had built their homes near together, and every evening they met with a few select friends to pass the hours in delightful intercourse. Both possessed of much talent, they vied with each other in the production of exquisite Chinese handiwork, and spent the evenings in tracing poetry and fancy designs on rice-paper as they drank each other's success in tiny glasses of delicate cordial. But their characters, apparently so harmonious, as time went on grew more and more apart; they were like an almond tree, growing as one stem, until little by little the branches divide so that the topmost twigs are far from each other--half sending their bitter perfume through the whole garden, while the other half scatter their snow-white flowers outside the garden wall. From year to year Tou grew more serious; his figure increased in dignity, even his double chin wore a solemn expression, and he spent his whole time composing moral inscriptions to hang over the doors of his pavilion. Kouan, on the contrary, grew jolly as his years increased. He sang more gaily than ever in praise of wine, flowers, and birds. His spirit, unburdened by vulgar cares, was light like a young man's, and he dreamed of nothing but pure enjoyment. Little by little an intense hatred sprang up between the friends. They could not meet without indulging in bitter sarcasm. They were like two hedges of brambles, bristling with sharp thorns. At last, things came to such a pass that they could no longer endure each other's society, and each hung a tablet by the door of his dwelling, stating that no person from the neighboring house would be allowed to cross the threshold on any pretext whatever. They would have been glad to move their houses to different parts of the country, but, unhappily, this was not possible. Tou even tried to sell his property but he set such an unreasonable price that no buyer appeared, and he was, moreover, unwilling to leave all the treasures he had accumulated there--the sculptured wainscotting, the polished panels, like mirrors, the transparent windows, the gilded lattice-work, the bamboo lounges, the vases of rare porcelain, the red and black lacquered cabinets, and the cases full of books of ancient poetry. It was hard to give up to strangers the garden where he had planted shade and fruit trees with his own hands, and where, each spring he had watched the opening of the flowers; where in short, each object was bound to his heart by ties delicate as the finest silk, but strong as iron chains. In the days of their friendship, Tou and Kouan had each built a pavilion in his garden, on the shore of a lake, common to both estates. It had been a great delight to sit in their separate balconies and exchange friendly salutations while they smoked opium in pipes of delicate porcelain. But after becoming enemies they built a wall which divided the lake into two equal portions. The water was so deep that the wall was supported on a series of arches, through which the water flowed freely, reflecting upon its placid surface the rival pavilions. These pavilions were exquisite specimens of Chinese architecture. The roofs, covered with tiling, round and brilliant as the scales which glisten on the sides of a gold-fish, were supported upon red and black pillars which rested on a solid foundation, richly ornamented with porcelain slabs bearing all manner of artistic designs. A railing ran all around, formed by a graceful intermingling of branches and flowers wrought in ivory. The interior was not less sumptuous. On the walls were inscribed verses of celebrated Chinese poems, elegantly written in perpendicular lines, with golden characters on a lacquered background. Shades of delicately carved ivory, softened the light to a faint opal tint, and all around stood pots of orchis, peonies, and daisies, which filled the air with delicious perfume. Curtains of rich silk were draped over the entrance, and on the marble tables within were scattered fans, tooth-picks, ebony pipes, and pencils with all conveniences for writing. All around the pavilions were picturesque grounds of rock, among whose clefts grew clumps of willows, their long green twigs swaying on the surface of the water. Under the crystal waves sported myriads of gold-fish, and ducks with gay plumage floated among the broad, shining leaves of water-lilies. Except in the very centre of the pool, where the depth of the water prevented the growth of aquatic plants, the whole surface was covered with these leaves, like a carpet of soft green velvet. Before the unsightly wall had been placed there by the hostile owners, it was impossible to find a more picturesque spot in the whole empire, and even now no philosopher would have wished for a more retired and delicious retreat in which to pass his days. Both Tou and Kouan felt deeply the loss of the enchanting prospect, and gazed sadly upon the barren wall which rose before their eyes, but each consoled himself with the idea that his neighbor was as badly off as himself. Things went on in this way for several years. Grass and weeds choked up the pathway between the two houses, and brambles and branches of low shrubs intertwined across it, as though they would bar all communication forever. It appeared as if the plants understood the quarrel between the two old friends, and took delight in perpetuating it. Meanwhile the wives of both Tou and Kouan were both blessed each with a child. Madame Tou became the mother of a charming girl, and Madame Kouan of the handsomest boy in the world. Each family was ignorant of the happy event which had brought joy into the home of the other, for although their houses were so near together the families were as far apart as if they had been separated by the great wall of the empire, or the ocean itself. What mutual friends they still possessed, never alluded to the affairs of one in the house of the other; even the servants had been forbidden to exchange words with each other, under pain of death. The boy was named Tchin-Sing, and the girl Ju-Kiouan, that is to say, Jasper and Pearl. Their perfect beauty fully justified the choice of their names. As they grew old enough to take notice of their surroundings, the unsightly wall attracted their attention, and each inquired of their parents why that strange barrier was placed across the centre of such a charming sheet of water, and to whom belonged the great trees of which they could see the topmost boughs. Each was told that on the farther side of the wall was the habitation of a strange and wicked family, and that it had been placed there as a protection against such disagreeable neighbors. This explanation was sufficient for the children. They grew accustomed to the sight and thought no more about it. Ju-Kiouan grew in grace and beauty. She was skilled in all lady-like accomplishments. The butterflies which she embroidered upon satin appeared to live and beat their wings, and one could almost hear the song of the birds which grew under her fingers, and smell the perfume of the flowers she wrought upon canvas. She knew the "Book of Odes" by heart, and could repeat the five rules of life without missing a word. Her handwriting was perfection, and she composed in all the different styles of Chinese poetry. Her poems were upon all those delicate themes which would attract the mind of a pure young girl; upon the return of the swallows, the daisies, the weeping willows and similar topics, and were of such merit as to win much praise from the wise men of the country. Tchin-Sing was not less forward in his accomplishments, and his name stood at the head of his class. Although he was very young he had already gained the right to wear the black cap of the wise men, and all the mothers in the country about wished him for a son-in-law. But Tchin-Sing had but one answer to all proposals; it was too soon, and he desired his liberty for some time to come. He refused the hand of Hon-Giu, of Oma, and other beautiful young girls. Never was a young man more courted and more overwhelmed with sweets and flowers than he, but his heart remained insensible to all attractions. Not on account of its coldness, for he appeared full of longing for an object to adore. His heart seemed fixed upon some memory, some dream, perhaps, for whose realization he was waiting and hoping. It was all in vain to tell him of beautiful tresses, languishing eyes, and soft hands waiting for his acceptance. He listened with a distracted air, as if thinking of other things. Ju-Kiouan was not less difficult to please. She refused all suitors for her hand. This did not salute her gracefully, that was not dainty in his habits; one had a bad handwriting, another composed poor verses; in short all had some defect. She drew amusing caricatures of everyone, which made her parents laugh, and show the door to the unlucky lover in the most polite manner possible. At last the parents of both young people became alarmed at the continued refusal of their children to marry, and the mothers commenced to follow the subject in their dreams. One night Madame Kouan dreamed that she saw a pearl of wonderful purity reposing on the breast of her son. On the other hand, Madame Tou dreamed that on her daughter's forehead sparkled a jasper of inestimable value. Much consultation was held as to the significance of these dreams. Madame Kouan's was thought to imply that her son would win the highest honors of the Imperial Academy, while Madame Tou's might signify that her daughter would find some untold treasure in the garden. These interpretations, however, did not satisfy the two mothers, whose whole minds were bent upon the happy marriage of their children. Unfortunately both Tchin-Sing and Ju-Kiouan persisted more obstinately than ever in their refusal to listen to the subject. As young people are not usually so averse to marriage, the parents suspected some secret attachment, but a few days' careful watching sufficed to prove that Tchin-Sing was paying court to no young girl, and that no lover was to be seen under the balcony of Ju-Kiouan. At length both mothers decided to consult the bronze oracle in the temple of Fo. After burning gilt paper and perfume before the oracle, Madame Tou received the unsatisfactory answer that, until the jasper appeared, the pearl would unite with no one, and Madame Kouan was told the jasper would take nothing to his bosom but the pearl. Both women went sadly homeward in deeper perplexity than ever. One day Ju-Kiouan was leaning pensively on the balcony of her pavilion, precisely at the same time when Tchin-Sing was standing by his. The day was clear as crystal, and not a cloud floated in the blue space above. There was not sufficient wind to move the lightest twigs of the willows, and the surface of the water was glistening and placid as a mirror, only disturbed, here and there, when some tiny gold-fish leaped for an instant into the sunshine. The trees and grassy banks were reflected so distinctly that it was impossible to tell where the real world left off, and the land of dreams began. Ju-Kiouan was amusing herself watching the beauteous water-picture when her eyes fell upon that portion of the lake, near the wall, where, with all the clearness of reality, was the reflection of the pavilion on the opposite shore. She had never noticed it before, and what was her surprise to behold an exact reproduction of the one where she was standing, the gilded roof, the red and black pillars, and all the beauteous drapery about the doors. She would have been able to read the inscription upon the tablets, had they not been reversed. But what surprised her more than all was to see, leaning on the balcony, a figure which, if it had not come from the other side of the lake, she would have taken for her own reflection. It was the mirrored image of Tchin-Sing. At first she took it for the reflection of a girl, as he was dressed in robes according to the fashion of the time. As the heat was intense, he had thrown off his student's cap, and his hair fell about his fresh, beardless face. But soon Ju-Kiouan recognized, from the violent beating of her heart, that the reflection in the water was not that of a young girl. Until then she had believed that the earth contained no being created for her, and had often indulged in pensive revery over her loneliness. Never, said she, shall I take my place as a link between the past and future of my family, but I shall enter among the shadows as a lonely shade. But when she beheld the reflection in the water, she found that her beauty had a sister, or, more properly speaking, a brother. Far from being displeased to discover that her beauty was not unrivaled, she was filled with intense joy. Her heart was beating and throbbing with love for another, and in that instant Ju-Kiouan's whole life was changed. It was foolish in her to fall violently in love with a reflection, of whose reality she knew nothing, but after all she was only acting like nearly all young girls who take a husband for his white teeth or his curly hair, knowing nothing whatever of his real character. Tchin-Sing had also perceived the charming reflection of the young girl. "I am dreaming," he cried. "That beautiful image upon the water is the combination of sunshine and the perfume of many flowers. I recognize it well. It is the reflection of the image within my own heart, the divine unknown whom I have worshiped all my life." Tchin-Sing was aroused from his monologue by the voice of his father, who called him to come at once to the grand saloon. "My son," said he, "here is a very rich and very learned man who seeks you as a husband for his daughter. The young girl has imperial blood in her veins, is of a rare beauty, and possesses all the qualities necessary to make her husband happy." Tchin-Sing, whose heart was bursting with love for the reflection seen from the pavilion, refused decidedly. His father, carried away with passion, heaped upon him the most violent imprecations. "Undutiful child," said he, "if you persist in your obstinacy, I will have you confined in one of the strongest fortresses of the empire, where you will see nothing but the sea beating against the rocks, and the mountains covered with mist. There you will have leisure to reflect, and repent of your wicked conduct." These threats did not frighten Tchin-Sing in the least. He quickly replied that he would accept for his wife the first maiden who touched his heart, and until then he should listen to no one. The next day, at the same hour, he went to the pavilion on the lake, and, leaning on the balcony, eagerly watched for the beloved reflection. In a few moments he saw it glisten in the water, beauteous as a boquet of submerged flowers. A radiant smile broke over the face of the reflection, which proved to Tchin-Sing that his presence was not unpleasant to the lovely unknown. But as it was impossible to hold communication with a reflection whose substance is invisible, he made a sign that he would write, and vanished into the interior of the pavilion. He soon reappeared, bearing in his hand a silvered paper, upon which he had written a declaration of love in seven-syllabled stanzas. He carefully folded his verses and placed them in the cup of a white flower, which he rolled in a leaf of the water-lily, and placed the whole tenderly upon the surface of the lake. A light breeze wafted the lover's message through the arches of the wall, and it floated so near Ju-Kiouan that she had only to stretch out her hand to receive it. Fearful of being seen she returned to her private boudoir, where she read with great delight the expressions of love written by Tchin-Sing. Her joy was all the greater, as she recognized from the exquisite hand-writing and choice versification that the writer was a man of culture and talent. And when she read his signature, the significance of which she perceived at once, remembering her mother's dream, she felt that heaven had sent her the long desired companion. The next day the breeze blew in a different direction, so that Ju-Kiouan was able to send an answer in verse by the same subtle messenger, by which, notwithstanding her girlish modesty, it was easy to see that she returned the love of Tchin-Sing. On reading the signature, Tchin-Sing could not repress an exclamation of surprise and delight. "The pearl," said he, "that is the precious jewel my mother saw glittering on my bosom. I must at once entreat this young girl's hand of her parents, for she is the wife appointed for me by the oracle." As he was preparing to go, he suddenly remembered the dislike between the two families, and the prohibitions inscribed upon the tablet over the entrance. Determined to win his prize at any cost, he resolved to confide the whole history to his mother. Ju-Kiouan had also told her love to Madame Tou. The names of Pearl and Jasper troubled the good matrons so much that, not daring to set themselves against what appeared to be the will of the gods, they both went again to the temple of Fo. The bronze oracle replied that this marriage was in reality the true interpretation of the dreams, and that to prevent it would be to incur the eternal anger of the gods. Touched by the entreaties of the mothers, and also by slight mutual advances, the two fathers gave way and consented to a reconciliation of the families. The two old friends, on meeting each other again, were astonished to find what frivolous causes had separated them for so many years, and mourned sincerely over all the pleasure they had lost in being deprived of each other's society. The marriage of the children was celebrated with much rejoicing, and the Jasper and the Pearl were no longer obliged to hold intercourse by means of a reflection on the water. The wall was removed, and the wavelets rippled placidly between the two pavilions on the lake. --_H.S. Conant._ [Illustration: IN THE MOUNTAINS.] _IN THE MOUNTAINS._ A line of Walter Savage Landor's, a poet for poets, was an especial favorite with Southey, and, we believe, with Lamb. It occurs in "Gebir," and drops from the lips of one of its characters, who, being suddenly shown the sea, exclaims, "Is this the mighty ocean?--is this all?" The feeling which underlies this line is generally the first emotion we have when brought face to face with the stupendous forms of Nature. It is the feeling inspired by mountains, the first sight of which is disappointing. They are grand, but not quite what we were led to expect from pictures and books, and, still more, from our own imaginations. The more we see mountains, the more they grow upon us, until, finally, they are clothed with a grandeur not, in all cases, belonging to them--our Mount Washingtons over-topping the Alps, and the Alps the Himmalayas. The poets assist us in thus magnifying them. The American poets have translated the mountains of their native land into excellent verse. Everybody remembers Mr. Bryant's "Monument Mountain," for its touching story, and its clearly-defined descriptions of scenery. Mr. Stedman has a mountain of his own, though perhaps only in Dream-land; and Mr. Bayard Taylor has a whole range of them, the sight of which once filled him with rapture: "O deep, exulting freedom of the hills! O summits vast, that to the climbing view In naked glory stand against the blue! O cold and buoyant air, whose crystal fills Heaven's amethystine gaol! O speeding streams That foam and thunder from the cliffs below! O slippery brinks and solitudes of snow And granite bleakness, where the vulture screams! O stormy pines, that wrestle with the breath Of every tempest, sharp and icy horns And hoary glaciers, sparkling in the morns, And broad dim wonders of the world beneath! I summon ye, and mid the glare that fills The noisy mart, my spirit walks the hills." * * * * * GLADNESS OF NATURE.--Midnight--when asleep so still and silent--seems inspired with the joyous spirit of the owls in their revelry--and answers to their mirth and merriment through all her clouds. The moping owl, indeed!--the boding owl, forsooth! the melancholy owl, you blockhead! why, they are the most cheerful, joy-portending, and exulting of God's creatures. Their flow of animal spirits is incessant--crowing cocks are a joke to them--blue devils are to them unknown--not one hypochondriac in a thousand barns--and the Man-in-the-Moon acknowledges that he never heard one utter a complaint. _THE NOONING._ Mr. Darley's very characteristic picture on the opposite page needs no description, it so thoroughly explains itself, and realizes his intention. The following lines from Mary Howitt seem very appropriate to the sketch: "O golden fields of bending corn, How beautiful they seem! The reaper-folk, the piled up sheaves, To me are like a dream; The sunshine and the very air Seem of old time, and take me there." _A MANDARIN._ FROM THE FRENCH OF AUGUSTE VITU. It was Saturday night, and the pavement sparkled with frost diamonds under flashing lights and echoing steps in the opera quarter. Tinkling carnival bells and wild singing resounded from all the carriages dashing towards Rue Lepelletier; the shops were only half shut, and Paris, wide awake, reveled in a fairy-night frolic. And yet, Felix d'Aubremel, one of the bright applauded heroes of those orgies, seemed in no mood to answer their mad challenge. Plunged in a deep armchair, hands drooping and feet on the fender, he was sunk in sombre revery. An open book lay near him, and a letter was flung, furiously crumpled, on the floor. An orphan at the age of twelve, Felix had watched his mother's slow death through ten years of suffering. The Marquis Gratien d'Aubremel, ruined by reckless dissipation, and driven by necessity, rather than love, into a marriage with an English heiress, Margaret Malden, deserted her, like the wretch he was, as soon as the last of her dowry melted away. A common story enough, and ending in as common a close. D'Aubremel sailed for the Indies to retrieve his fortune, and met death there by yellow fever. So that the sad lessons of Felix's family life stimulated to excess his innate leaning towards misanthropy--if that name may define a resistless urgency of belief in the appearances of evil, linked with a doubt of the reality of good. Probably, at heart, he believed himself incapable of a bad action, but he would take no oath to such a conviction, since by his theory every man must yield under certain circumstances, attacking powerfully his personal interest, while threatening slight danger of failure or detection. This style of thought, set off by a fair share of witty expression and ever-ready impertinence, gave Felix a kind of ascendancy in his circle of intimates--but naturally it gained him no friends. Common reputation grows out of words rather than actions, and Felix suffered the just penalty of his sceptical fancies. They cost him more than they were worth, as he had just learned by sad experience. He had chanced to make the acquaintance of a rich manufacturer, Montmorot by name, whose daughter Ernestine was pleased with the devotion of a charming young fellow, who mingled the rather reckless grace of French cleverness with a reserved style and refined pride gained from the English blood of the Maldens. For his part, Felix really loved the girl, and had let his impatience, that very day, carry him into a step that failed to move the elder Montmorot's inflexibility. He refused absolutely to give his daughter to a man without fortune or prospects. Felix was crushed, his hopes all shattered at a blow, by this answer, though he had a thousand reasons to expect it. And at what a moment! A half-unfolded red ticket, stuffed with disgusting threats, peeped out from between the wall and his sofa. The officers of justice had paid him a little visit. He got into a passion with himself. "Pshaw," he cried, "confound all scruples! If I had been less in love I should be Ernestine's husband now. With a pretty wife, one I am so fond of, too, I should have fortune, position, and the luxury indispensable to my life--now, I don't know where to lay my head to-morrow. To-morrow, at ten o'clock, the sheriff will seize everything--everything, from that Troyou sketch to that china monster, nodding his frightful sneering head at me. They will carry off this casket that was my father's--this locket, with the hair of--of--what the deuce was her name? Poor girl! how she loved me! And now all that is left of her vanishes--even her name! "What, nothing? no hope? Not even one of those silly impulses that used to drive me out into the streets when everybody else was abed, with the firm conviction that at some crossing, in some gutter, some unknown deity must have dropped a fat pocket-book, on purpose for me! I believed in something, then--even in lost pocket-books. And now, now! I would commit no such follies as that, but I believe I could be guilty of even worse things, if crime, common, low, contemptible, shameful crime, were not forbidden to the son of the Marquis d'Aubremel and Margaret Malden. "Oh, great genius!" he went on, taking up the open book near him, "great philosopher, called a sophist by the ignorant--how deep a truth you uttered in writing these lines, that I never read over without a shudder: 'Imagine a Chinese mandarin, living in a fabulous country three thousand leagues away, whom you have never seen and shall never see--imagine, moreover, that the death of this mandarin, this man, almost a myth, would make you a millionaire, and that you have but to lift your finger, at home, in France, to bring about his death, without the possibility of ever being called to account for it by any one; say, what would you do?' "That fearful passage must have made many men dream--and does not Bianchon, that great materialist, so well painted by Balzac, confess that he has got as far as his thirty-third mandarin? What a St. Bartholomew of mandarins, if my philosopher's supposition could grow into a truth!" Felix ceased his soliloquy, and bent his head to let the storm raised in his soul by the atheist philosopher pass over. His bad instincts, aroused, spoke louder at that instant than reason, louder than reality. His glance fell on the chimney-piece, where a porcelain figure, the grotesque _chef d'oeuvre_ of some great Chinese artist, leered at him with its everlasting grin. The young man smiled. "Perhaps that is the likeness of a mandarin--bulbous nose, hanging cheeks, moustaches drooping like plumes, a peaked head, knotty hands--a regular deformity. Reflecting on the ugliness of that idiotic race, there is much to be urged by way of excuse for people who kill mandarins." Some persistent thought evidently haunted Felix's mind. Again he drove it off, and again it beset him. "Pshaw!" he exclaimed, after a last brief struggle, "I am alone, and out of sorts. I will amuse myself with a carnival freak, a mere theoretic and philosophic piece of nonsense. I have tried many worse ones. It wants a quarter to twelve. I give myself fifteen minutes to study my spells. Let me see, what mandarin shall I murder? I don't know any, and I have no peerage list of the Flowery Empire. Let me try the newspapers." It was in the height of the English war with China. On the seventh column of the paper our hero found a proclamation signed by the imperial commissioners, Lin, Lou, Lun, and Li. "Here goes for Li," he said to himself. "He is likely to be the youngest." The clock began to strike, announcing the hour. Felix placed himself solemnly before the mirror, and said aloud, in a grave tone: "If the death of Mandarin Li will make me rich and powerful, whatever may come of it, I vote for the death of Mandarin Li." He lifted his finger--at that instant the porcelain figure rocked on its base, and fell in fragments at Felix's feet. The glass reflected his startled face. He thrilled for an instant with superstitious terror, but recollecting that his finger had touched the fragile figure, he accounted for it as an accident, and went to bed and to such repose as a debtor can enjoy with an execution hanging over his head. Masks and dominos made the street merry under his window. The opera ball was unusually brilliant, experts said, and nothing made the Parisians aware that on the night of January 12th, 1840, Felix d'Aubremel had passed sentence of death on Chinaman Li, son of Mung, son of Tseu, a literate mandarin of the 114th class. Nine months later Felix d'Aubremel was living in furnished lodgings in an alley off the Rue St. Pierre, and living by borrowing. The gentlemanly sceptic owed his landlady a good deal of money; his clothes were aged past wearing, and his tailor had long ago broken off all relations with him. The Marquis d'Aubremel was within a hairsbreadth of that utterly crushed state that ends in madness, or in suicide--which is only a variety of madness. One morning while sitting in the glass cage that leads to the staircase of every lodging-house, waiting to beg another respite from his landlady, he took up a newspaper, and the following notice was lucky enough to catch his attention. "Chiusang, 12th January, 1840. Hostilities have broken out between England and the Celestial Empire. The sudden and inexplicable death of Mandarin Li, the only member of the council who opposed the violent and warlike projects of Lin, led to unfortunate events. At the first attack the Chinese fled, with the basest want of pluck, but in their retreat they murdered several English merchants, and among them an old resident, Richard Maiden, who leaves an estate of half a million sterling. The heirs of the deceased are requested to communicate with William Harrison, Solicitor, Lincoln's Inn." "My uncle!" cried Felix. "Alas, I have killed my uncle and Mandarin Li." He had not a penny to pay for his traveling expenses to London; but, on producing his certificate of birth and the newspaper article, his landlady easily negotiated for him with an honest broker, who advanced him a thousand francs to arrange his affairs, without interest, upon his note for a trifle of eighteen hundred, payable in six weeks. Eight days after reaching London, Felix, established in a fashionable hotel, was awaiting with nervous eagerness the first instalment of a million, the proceeds of a cargo of teas, sold under the direction of Mr. Harrison. He was too restless for thought, burning with impatience to take possession of his property, to handle his wealth, and, as it were, to verify his dream. Yet the fact was indisputable. Richard Malden's death, and his own relationship to the intestate had been legally proved and established. Felix d'Aubremel regularly and assuredly inherited a fortune, and he had no doubts nor scruples on that point. A servant interrupted his reflections, announcing his solicitor's clerk. "Why does not Mr. Harrison come himself?" he was on the point of asking, but amazement at the clerk's appearance took away his breath. He was a shriveled little object, slight, bony, crooked and hideous, with a monstrous head and round eyes, a bald skull, a flat nose, a mouth from ear to ear, and a little jutting paunch that looked like a sack. "I bring the Marquis d'Aubremel the monies he is expecting," said the man, and his voice, shrill and silvery, like a musical box or the bell of a clock, impressed Felix painfully. The voice grated on the nerves. "I have drawn a receipt in regular form," said Felix, extending his hand. But the solicitor's clerk leaned his back against the door, without stirring a step. "Well, sir," Felix exclaimed with a convulsive effort. The man approached slowly, scarcely moving his feet, as if sliding across the floor. His right hand was buried in his coat pocket; he held his head bent down, and his lips moved inaudibly. At last he pulled from his pocket a large bundle of banknotes, bills and papers, drew near the window, and began to count them carefully. Felix was then struck by a strange phenomenon that might well inspire undefined terror. Standing directly in front of the window, the clerk's figure cast no shadow, though the sun's rays fell full upon it, and through his human body, translucent as rock crystal, Felix plainly saw the houses across the street. Then his eyes seemed to be suddenly unsealed. The clerk's black coat took colors, blue, green, and scarlet; it lengthened out into the folds of a robe, and blazed with the dazzling image of the fire-dragon, the son of Buddha; a lock of stiff grayish hair sprouted like a short tuft out of his yellowish skull; his round tawny eyes rolled with frightful rapidity in their sockets. Felix recognized Li, son of Mung, son of Tseu, the literate mandarin of the 114th class. The murderer had never seen his victim, but could not doubt his identity a moment, thanks to the marvelous resemblance between the solicitor's clerk and the china monster that dropped into bits at his feet the night of January 12th, 1840. Meantime the man had done counting his package, and held it out to Felix, saying, in his grating, vibrating tones, "Monsieur le Marquis, here are forty thousand pounds sterling; please to give me your receipt." And Felix heard the voice say in a shriller under-key, "Felix, here is an instalment of the million, the price of your crime. Felix, my assassin, take this money from my hand." "From my hand," echoed a thousand fine voices, quivering all through the air of the room. "No, no," cried Felix, pushing the clerk away, "the money would burn me! Begone with you!" He dropped exhausted into a chair, half suffocated, with drops of sweat rolling down his convulsed face. The man bowed to the floor, and slowly moved away backwards. With every gradual step Felix saw his natural shape return. The rays of the autumn sun ceased to light up that mysterious apparition, and only his attorney's humble clerk stood before Felix. With a rush overpowering his will, Felix dashed after the old man, already across the threshold, and overtook him on the staircase. "My papers!" he shouted imperiously. "Here they are, sir," said the old fellow quietly. Felix regained his room, bolted the door, and counted the immense sum contained in the pocket-book with excitement bordering on frenzy. Then he bathed his burning head with cold water, and threw an anxious look around the room. "I must have had an attack of fever," he muttered. [Illustration: A TROPIC FOREST.--GRANVILLE PERKINS] "Mandarins don't rise from the dead, and a man can't kill another by simply lifting his finger. So my philosopher talked like one who knows nothing of moral experience. If the fancy of an unreal crime almost drove me mad, what must be the remorse of an actual criminal?" The same evening Felix ordered post horses and set out for France. Some months later, Monsieur Montmorot, chevalier of the legion of honor, gave a grand dinner to celebrate his daughter's betrothal with the Marquis Felix d'Aubremel, one of the noblest names in France, as he styled it. The contract settling a part of his fortune on his daughter Ernestine was signed at nine in the evening. The Monday following the pair presented themselves before the civil officials to solemnize their marriage by due legal ceremonies. Felix, a prey to the strange hallucination that incessantly pursued him, saw a likeness between the official and the Chinese figure he had awkwardly thrown down and broken one night long ago. Presently his face darkened, and his eyes began to burn. Behind the magistrate's blue spectacles he caught the gleam and roll of the tawny eyes belonging to Mr. Harrison's clerk, to Li, son of Mung, son of Tseu. When at length the magistrate put the formal question, "Felix Etienne d'Aubremel, do you take for your wife Ernestine Juliette Montmorot," Felix heard a shrill ringing voice say, "Felix, I give you your wife with my hand--my hand." The official repeated the question more loudly. "With my hand--my hand," whispered a thousand mocking little voices. "No!" Felix shouted rather than answered, and rushed away from the spot like a lunatic. Once more at home, he shut out everyone and flung himself on his bed, in a state of stupor that weighed him down till night--a sort of dull torpor of brain, with utter exhaustion of physical strength--a misery of formless thought. Towards evening one persistent idea aroused him from this strange lethargy. "I am a cowardly murderer," he groaned. "I wished for my fellow-being's death. God punishes me--I will execute his sentence." He stretched out his hand in the dark, groping for a dagger that hung from the wall. Then a mild brightness filtered through the curtains and irradiated the bed. Felix distinctly saw the grotesque figure of Mandarin Li standing a few steps away. The shadow of death darkened his face, and without seeming movement of his lips, Felix heard these words, uttered by that shrill ringing voice so hated, now mellowed into divine music. "Felix d'Aubremel, God does not will that you should die, and I, his servant, am sent to tell you his decree. You have been cruel and covetous--you have wished an innocent man's death, and his death caused that of a multitude of victims to the barbarous passions of a great western nation. Man's life must be sacred for every man. God only can take what he gave. Live, then, if you would not add a great crime to a great error. And if forgiveness from one dead can restore in part your strength and courage to endure, Felix, I forgive you." The vision vanished. Felix religiously obeyed the instructions of Li, and consecrated his life by a vow to the relief of human misery wherever he found it. He devoted Richard Malden's vast fortune to founding charitable establishments. Ernestine Montmorot would never consent to see him again. Two years ago, yielding to an impulse easy to understand, he requested the English consul at Chiusang to make inquiries as to the family of Li, who might perhaps be suffering in poverty. Nothing more could be discovered than that the gracious sovereign of the Middle Kingdom had confiscated the property of Li's family, that his wife had died of sorrow, in misery, and that his son, Li, having taken the liberty to complain of the glorious emperor's severity, suffered death by the bowstring, as is proper and reasonable in all well-governed states. * * * * * [Illustration: MOTHER IS HERE!--DEIKER.] MOTHER IS HERE!--A little fawn in the clutches of a fox bleats loudly for help. The mother appears quickly on the scene, and Renard retires, foiled and chagrined at the loss of his dinner. He stays not upon the order of his going, but goes at once. The artist Deiker is a well-known German painter, whose success with these pictures of animal life ranks him with such men as Beckmann and Hammer, whose names are familiar to the friends of _THE ALDINE_. _A TROPIC FOREST._ Trees lifted to the skies their stately heads, Tufted with verdure, like depending plumage, O'er stems unknotted, waving to the wind: Of these in graceful form, and simple beauty, The fruitful cocoa and the fragrant palm Excelled the wilding daughters of the wood, That stretched unwieldly their enormous arms, Clad with luxuriant foliage, from the trunk, Like the old eagle feathered to the heel; While every fibre, from the lowest root To the last leaf upon the topmost twig, Was held by common sympathy, diffusing Through all the complex frame unconscious life. --_Montgomery's Pelican Island_. * * * * * What makes us like new acquaintances is not so much any weariness of our old ones, or the pleasure of change, as disgust at not being sufficiently admired by those who know us too well, and the hope of being more so by those who do not know so much of us.--_La Rochefoucauld_. _AMONG THE DAISIES._ "Laud the first spring daisies-- Chant aloud their praises."--_Ed. Youl._ "When daisies pied and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver white-- And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight." --_Shakspeare._ "Belle et douce Marguerite, aimable soeur du roi Kingcup," enthusiastically exclaims genial Leigh Hunt, "we would tilt for thee with a hundred pens against the stoutest poet that did not find perfection in thy cheek." And yet, who would have the heart to slander the daisy, or cause a blush of shame to tint its whiteness? Tastes vary, and poets may value the flower differently; but a rash, deliberate condemnation of the daisy is as likely to become realized as is a harsh condemnation of the innocence and simplicity of childhood. So the chivalric Hunt need not fear being invoked from the silence of the grave to take part in a lively tournament for "belle et douce Marguerite." Subjectively, the daisy is a theme upon which we love to linger. In our natural state, when flesh and spirit are both models of meekness, two objects are wont to throw us into a kind of ecstasy: a row of nicely painted white railings, and a bunch of fresh daisies. These waft us back along a vista of years, peopled with scenes the most entrancing, and fancies the most pleasing. They call up at once the old country home: the honeysuckle clasping the thatched cottage, contrasting so prettily with the white fence in front: the sloping fields of green painted with daisies, through which, unshackled, the buoyant breeze swept so peacefully. It was an invariable rule, in those days, to troop through the meadows at early morn and, like a young knight-errant, bear home in triumph "Marguerite," the peerless daisy, rescued from the clutches of unmentionable dragons, and now to beam brightly on us for the rest of the day from a neighboring mantel-piece. And it was with great reluctance that we refrained from decapitating the whole field of daisies at one fell sweep, when we were once allowed to touch their upturned faces. A contract was then made on the spot: we were permitted to pluck the daisies on condition that we plucked but one every day. The field was not large, and long before the blasts of autumn had hushed the voices of the flowers, not a single daisy remained. Advancing spring threw lavish handfuls once more on the grass, and on these we sported anew with all the ardor of boyhood. Our enthusiasm for the daisy then is only equaled by the gratitude it now awakens. Too soon does the busy world, with unwarrantable liberty, allure us from boyish scenes. Too soon are the buoyant fancies of youth succeeded by the feverish anxieties of age, happy innocence by the consciousness of evil, confidence by doubt, faith by despair. We must chill our demonstrativeness, restrain our affections, blunt our sensibilities. We must cultivate conscience until we have too much of it, and become monkish, savage and misanthropic. The asceticism of manhood is apparent from the studied air with which everybody is on his guard against his neighbor. In a crowded car, men instinctively clutch their pockets, and fancy a pickpocket in a benevolent-looking old gentleman opposite. When we see men so distrustful, we shun them. They then call us selfish when we feel only solitary. We protest against such manhood as would lower golden ideals of youth to its own contemptible _Avernus_. And now as our daisy, which is blooming before us, sagely nods its white crest as it is swayed by the passing breeze, it seems to bring back of itself decades gone forever. We never intend to become a man. We keep our boy's heart ever fresh and ever warm. We don't care if the whole human race, from the Ascidians to Darwin himself, assail us and fiercely thrust us once more into short jackets and knickerbockers, provided they allow an indefinite vacation in a daisy field. The joy of childhood is said to be vague. It was all satisfying to us once, and we do not intend to allow it to waste in unconscious effervescence among the gaudier though less gratifying delights of manhood. It is, however, of daisies among the poets we would speak at more length. In fact, to the imaginative mind, the daisy in poetry is as suggestive as the daisy in nature. Philosophically, they are identical; in the absence of the one you can commune with the other. Thus unconsciously the daisy undergoes a metempsychosis; its soul is transferred at will from meadow to book and from book to meadow, without losing a particle of its vitality. To premise with the daisy historically: Among the Romans it was called _Bellis_, or "pretty one;" in modern Greece, it is star-flower. In France, Spain, and Italy, it was named "Marguerita," or pearl, a term which, being of Greek origin, doubtless was brought from Constantinople by the Franks. From the word "Marguerita," poems in praise of the daisy were termed "Bargerets." Warton calls them "Bergerets," or "songs du Berger," that is, shepherd songs. These were pastorals, lauding fair mistresses and maidens of the day under the familiar title of the daisy. Froissart has written a characteristic Bargeret; and Chaucer, in his "Flower and the Leaf," sings: "And, at the last, there began, anone, A lady for to sing right womanly, A bargaret in praising the daisie; For as methought among her notes sweet, She said, 'Si douce est la Margarite." Speght supposes that Chaucer here intends to pay a compliment to Lady Margaret, King Edward's daughter, Countess of Pembroke, one of his patronesses. But Warton hesitates to express a decided opinion as to the reference. Chaucer shows his love for the daisy in other places. In his "Prologue to the Legend of Good Women," alluding to the power with which the flowers drive him from his books, he says that "all the floures in the mede, Than love I most these floures white and rede, Soch that men callen daisies in our toun To hem I have so great affectioun, As I sayd erst, whan comen is the May, That in my bedde there daweth me no day, That I nam up and walking in the mede, To seen this floure agenst the Sunne sprede." To see it early in the morn, the poet continues: "That blissfull sight softeneth all my sorow, So glad am I, whan that I have presence Of it, to done it all reverence As she that is of all floures the floure." Chaucer says that to him it is ever fresh, that he will cherish it till his heart dies; and then he describes himself resting on the grass, gazing on the daisy: "Adowne full softly I gan to sink, And leaning on my elbow and my side, The long day I shope me for to abide, For nothing els, and I shall nat lie, But for to looke upon the daisie, That well by reason men it call may The daisie, or els the eye of day." Chaucer gives us the true etymology of the word in the last line. Ben Jonson, to confirm it, writes with more force than elegance, "Days-eyes, and the lippes of cows;" that is, cowslips; a "disentanglement of compounds,"--Leigh Hunt says, in the style of the parodists: "Puddings of the plum And fingers of the lady." The poets abound in allusions to the daisy. It serves both for a moral and for an epithet. The morality is adduced more by our later poets, who have written whole poems in its honor. The earlier poets content themselves generally with the daisy in description, and leave the daisy in ethics to such a philosophico-poetical Titan as Wordsworth. Douglas (1471), in his description of the month of May, writes: "The dasy did on crede (unbraid) hir crownet smale." And Lyndesay (1496), in the prologue to his "Dreme," describes June "Weill bordowrit with dasyis of delyte." The eccentric Skelton, who wrote about the close of the 15th century, in a sonnet, says: "Your colowre Is lyke the daisy flowre After the April showre." Thomas Westwood, in an agreeable little madrigal, pictures the daisies: "All their white and pinky faces Starring over the green places." Thomas Nash (1592), in another of similar quality, exclaims: "The fields breathe sweet, The daisies kiss our feet." Suckling, in his famous "Wedding," in his description of the bride, confesses: "Her cheeks so rare a white was on No daisy makes comparison." Spenser, in his "Prothalamion," alludes to "The little dazie that at evening closes." George Wither speaks of the power of his imagination: "By a daisy, whose leaves spread Shut when Titan goes to bed; Or a shady bush or tree, She could more infuse in me Than all Nature's beauties can In some other wiser man." Poor Chatterton, in his "Tragedy of Ella," refers to the daisy in the line: "In daiseyed mantells is the mountayne dyghte." Hervey, in his "May," describes "The daisy singing in the grass As thro' the cloud the star." And Hood, in his fanciful "Midsummer Fairies," sings of "Daisy stars whose firmament is green." Burns, whose "Ode to a Mountain Daisy" is so universally admired, gives, besides, a few brief notices of the daisy: "The lowly daisy sweetly blows--" "The daisy's for simplicity and unaffected air." Tennyson has made the daisy a subject of one of his most unsatisfactory poems. In "Maud," he writes: "Her feet have touched the meadows And left the daisies rosy." To Wordsworth, the poet of nature, the daisy seems perfectly intelligible. Scattered throughout the lowly places, with meekness it seems to shed beauty over its surroundings, and compensate for gaudy vesture by cheerful contentment. Wordsworth calls the daisy "the poet's darling," "a nun demure," "a little Cyclops," "an unassuming commonplace of nature," and sums up its excellences in a verse which may fitly conclude our attempt to pluck a bouquet of fresh daisies from the poets: "Sweet flower! for by that name at last, When all my reveries are past, I call thee, and to that cleave fast; Sweet silent creature! That breath'st with me in sun and air, Do thou, as thou art wont, repair My heart with gladness, and a share Of thy meek nature!" --_A.S. Isaacs_. * * * * * _COLERIDGE AS A PLAGIARIST._ SOMETHING CHILDISH BUT VERY NATURAL. WRITTEN IN GERMANY 1798-99. If I had but two little wings, And were a little feathery bird, To you I'd fly, my dear! But thoughts like these are idle things, And I stay here. But in my sleep to you I fly: I'm always with you in my sleep! The world is all one's own. But then one wakes, and where am I? All, all alone. Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids, So I love to wake ere break of day: For though my sleep be gone, Yet, while tis dark, one shuts one's lids, And still dreams on. Thus much for Coleridge. Now for his original: "Were I a little bird, Had I two wings of mine, I'd fly to my dear; But that can never be, So I stay here. "Though I am far from thee, Sleeping I'm near to thee, Talk with my dear; When I awake again, I am alone. "Scarce there's an hour in the night When sleep does not take its flight, And I think of thee, How many thousand times Thou gav'st thy heart to me." "This," says Mr. Bayard Taylor, in the _Notes_ to his translation of _Faust_, "this is an old song of the people of Germany. Herder published it in his _Volkslieder_, in 1779, but it was no doubt familiar to Goethe in his childhood. The original melody, to which it is still sung, is as simple and sweet as the words." _AMONG THE PERUVIANS._ The extremes of civilization and barbarism are nearer together in those countries which the Spaniards have wrested from their native inhabitants, than in any other portion of the globe. Before other European races, aboriginal tribes, even the fiercest, gradually disappear. They hold their own before the descendants of the _conquistadores_, who conquered the New World only to be conquered by it. Out of Spain the Spaniard deteriorates, and nowhere so much as in South America. Of course he is superior there to the best of the Indian tribes with which he is thrown in contact; but we doubt whether he is superior to the intelligent, but forgotten, races which peopled the regions around him centuries before Pizzaro set foot therein, and which built enormous cities whose ruins have long been overgrown by forests. To compare the Spaniard of to-day, in Peru, with its ancient Incas is to do him no honor. To be sure, he is a good Catholic, which the Incas were not, but he is indolent, enervated, and enslaved by his own passions. His religion has not done much for him--at least in this world, whatever it may do in the next. It has done still less, if that be possible, for the aboriginal Peruvians. "In all parts of Peru," says a recent traveler, "except amongst the savage Indian tribes, Christianity, at least nominally prevails. The aborigines, however, converted by the sword in the old days of Spanish persecution, do not, as a rule, seem to have more notion of that faith in the country parts, than such as may be obtained from stray visits of some errant, image-bearing friar, whose principal object is to obtain sundry _reals_ in consideration of prayers offered to his little idols. These wandering ministers also distribute execrably colored prints of various saints, besides having indulgences for sale. As to the nature of the pious offerings from their disciples, they are not at all particular. They go upon the easy principle that all is fish that comes into their net. If the ignorant and superstitious givers have not 'filthy lucre' wherewithal to propitiate the ugly represented saints, wax candles, silver ore, cacao, sugar, and any other description of property is as readily received. Thus, it often happens that these peripatetic friars have a long convoy of heavily-laden mules with which to gladden the members of their monastery when they return home. [Illustration: FASHIONABLE LOUNGERS OF LIMA.] "The priests in all parts of Peru dress in a very extraordinary, not to say outlandish manner. One of the lower grade wears a very capacious shovel hat, projecting as much in front as behind, and looking very like a double-ended coal-heaver's _hat_. A loose black serge robe covers him all over, as with a funereal pall, and being fastened together only at the neck, gives to his often obese figure an appearance the very reverse of grave or serious: The superior of a monastery, or the priest in charge of a parish, wears a more stately clerical costume. His hat is of formidable dimensions--a huge, flat, Chinese-umbrella-shaped sort of a concern, which cannot be compared to anything else in creation. He also affects ruffles and lace, a long cassock, and a voluminous cloak like many of those of Geneva combined together; black silk stockings and low shoes complete the clerical array of the higher ecclesiastics." [Illustration: RIDING AND FULL-DRESS COSTUME OF THE PERUVIAN LADIES.] Quite as odd, in their way, as these good padres, are the Peruvian loungers, the "lions" of Lima--a long-haired, becloaked, truculent-looking set of fellows, whose proper place would seem to be among operatic banditti. A greater contrast and disparity than exists between them and the beautiful brunettes to whom they are fain to devote themselves, cannot well be imagined. That the latter generally prefer European gentlemen to these ill-favored beaux, follows as a matter of course. That the discarded "lion" resents this preference of his fair countrywomen, we have the testimony of the traveler already quoted from. "Instinctively, as it were, a feeling of dislike and rivalry seemed to prevail between ourselves and such of these truculent gentry as it was our fortune to come into contact with. They were jealous, no doubt, of the wandering foreigners, whom they chose contemptuously to term _gringos_, but who, they know well enough, are infinitely preferred to themselves by their handsome coquettish countrywomen. It is, indeed, notoriously the fact, that any respectable man of European birth can marry well, and even far above his own social position, amongst the dark-eyed donnas of Peru. The men don't seem exactly to like it. Judging by their appearance, we found but little difficulty in believing the character which report had given them--namely, their proneness to assassination, especially in love affairs, either personally, or, more frequently, by deputy. If the brilliant creole and half-caste women of this warm, tropical country, are some of the most beautiful and lovable of the sex, their sallow, sinister-looking, natural protectors are just the very opposite. The singular difference in the moral and physical characteristics of the two sexes is something really remarkable, and I, for one, cannot satisfactorily explain it to my own mind. That such is the case I venture to affirm; the why and the wherefore I must fain leave to wiser ethnological heads." Not less curious, as regards costume, are the Peruvian ladies. And, as they are _equestriennes_, we will describe their riding-habits in the words of the same traveler: "To commence at the top. This riding dress consisted of a huge felt hat, both tall and broad, and generally ornamented with a plume of three great feathers sticking up in front. Next came an all-round sort of a cape, of no shape in particular, with a wide collar, several rows of fringe, much needle-work (and corresponding waste of time upon so hideous a garment), and of a length sufficient to reach below the waist, and so completely hide and spoil the wearer's generally fine figure. Then came a short overskirt, extending a little below the knees, and beneath which appeared the fair senora or senorita's most unfeminine pantaloons, which, being carefully tied above the ankle in a frill, were allowed to fully display that treasure of treasures, that most valued of charms, the beautiful little foot and ankle. In addition to this absurd dress, which conceals the graceful form of perhaps the handsomest race of women in the world, the fair creatures have a style of riding which, to Europeans accustomed to the side-saddle, certainly seems more peculiar than elegant; that is to say, they ride á la Duchesse de Berri--_Anglicè_, like a man. "The full dress, or evening costume, in the provinces, seemed simply an exaggeration upon that of the towns--the crinoline being more extensive, the petticoats shorter, and the dressing of the hair still more wonderful and elaborate." [Illustration: YOUNG MESTIZO WOMAN. MIDDLE-AGED LIMENA.] Among the _mestizos_, half-castes, of white and Indian origin the women are often very beautiful, especially when the blood of the latter prevails. They are, we are told, the best-looking of all the Peruvian women, possessing brilliantly fair complexions, magnificent long black tresses, lithe and graceful figures of exquisite proportions, regular and classic features, and the most superb great black eyes. "Though often glorious in youth, these dark-skinned, passionate daughters of the sunny Pacific shore soon begin to fade. Although their scant costume and the _manto y saya_--the dress favored at night--serve only to expose and display the charming contour of their youthful form, as the years roll on and rob them of these alluring attractions, the simple array becomes ugly and ridiculous. Often did we laugh at the absurd figure presented by some stout, middle-aged half-caste, or a good many more caste, lady, clad in her _manto y saya_. Especially ludicrous did these staid females appear when viewed from behind." The Peruvian negress, of elderly years, compares not unfavorably with her whiter Spanish sister of the same age. Both display inordinate vanity, which consorts ill with the brawny calves and large feet they cannot help showing on account of their short though voluminous skirts, and both have a womanly love of jewelry. "They manifest a very apparent weakness for all sorts of glittering ornaments, especially in the way of numerous rings, huge ear-rings, and mighty necklaces. Indeed, it is not at all uncommon to see pearls (their favorite gem) of great value, rising and falling, and gleaming with incongruous lustre, upon their bare, black, and massive bosoms; whilst ear-rings of solid gold hang glittering from their large ears, in singular contrast to their common and dirty clothing. "Except for the occasional excitement of theatre, cock-fight, or bull-fight, and the regular attendance at mass and vespers, the life of the higher class Limena is a dreamy existence of languor, amidst siestas, cigarettes, agua-rica, and jasmine perfumes, the tinkling of guitars, and the melody of song. Alas! that I must record it; she is, too, a terrible _intriguante_. The _manto y saya_, the _bête noir_ of many a poor jealous husband, seems a garment for disguise, invented on purpose to oblige her. It is the very thing for an intriguing dame; and, by a stringent custom, bears a sacred inviolate right, for no man dare profane it by a touch, although he may even suspect the bright black eye, it may alone allow to be seen, to be that of his own wife! He can follow, if he likes, the graceful, muffled up figure that he dreads to be so familiar, but woe to the wretch who dares to pull aside a fair Limena's _manto_! If seen, he would surely experience the resentment of the crowd, and become a regular laughing-stock to all who knew him." But let us be just to the women of Peru, who, in the matter of flirting and fondness for finery, are probably not worse than the sex elsewhere. They love where they love with a fervor unknown to the women of Europe, their Spanish sisters, perhaps, excepted, and they are capable of profound patriotism. [Illustration: PERUVIAN PRIESTS.] There is an element of real strength in the wild, stormy nature of these beautiful and impassioned creatures: it is their misfortune not to know how to hide their weaknesses as well as their more sophisticated sisters. The tide of time flows so smoothly with them, through such level summer landscapes steeped in tropical repose, that the desire for excitement naturally arises, and excitement itself becomes a necessity. Lacking many of the indoor employments of the women of colder climates, time hangs heavy on their hands, idleness wearies, and they cast about for a way in which to amuse, enjoy, and distract themselves. They find it in love. If no European is near upon whom they can bestow their smiles and the lustre of their magnificent eyes, they have to be content with their own countrymen, who woo them after the fashion of their Spanish ancestors, by serenades at night, in which the strumming of guitars generally plays a more important part than the words it accompanies. While we are among the Peruvians, we must not entirely overlook their country, and the features of its varied landscapes. It is divided by the Andes into three different lands, so to speak, _La Costa_, the region between the coast and the Andes; _La Sierra_, the mountain region, and _La Montaña_, or the wooded region east of the Andes. _La Costa_, in which Lima is situated, at the distance of about six miles from the sea, may be briefly described as a sandy desert, interspersed with fertile valleys, and watered by several rivers of no great magnitude. It seldom or never rains there, but there are heavy dews at night which freshen and preserve the vegetation. The magnificence of the mountain region baffles all attempts at word-painting, as it baffles the art of the painter. Church, the artist, gives us what is, perhaps, the best representation we are ever likely to have of it, but it is only a glimpse after all. Still more indescribable, if that be possible, are the enormous wildernesses which stretch from the Andes to the vast pampas to the eastward. "Here everything is on Nature's great scale. The whole country is one continuous forest, which, beginning at very different heights, presents an undulating aspect. One moves on his way with trees before, above, and beneath him, in a deep abyss like the ocean. And in these woods, as on the immensity of the waters, the mind is bewildered; whatever way it directs the eye there it meets the majesty of the Infinite. The marvels of Nature are in these regions so common that one becomes accustomed to behold, without emotion, trees whose tops exceed the height of 100 varas (290 English feet), with a proportionate thickness, beyond the belief of such as never saw them; and, supporting on their trunks a hundred different plants, they, individually, present rather the appearance of a small plantation than one great tree. It is only after you leave the woods, and ordinary objects of comparison present themselves to the mind, that you can realize in thought the colossal stature of these samples of Montana vegetation." Peru is a fitting theatre for the great dramas which have been played upon its wild, mountainous stage. The dark background of its past is haunted by the shadows of the unknown race who built its ruined cities and temples. Then come the beneficent, heavenly Incas, and the mild, pastoral people over whom they rule. Last, the cruel, treacherous Spaniard, slaughtering his friendly hosts with one hand, while the other holds the Bible to their lips! _THE OLD MAID'S VILLAGE._ I had been passing the summer on the banks of the Hudson--in that charmed region which lies about what was once the home of Diedrich Knickerbocker, with the enchanted ground of Sleepy Hollow on the one hand, and the shrine of Sunnyside on the other. In many happy morning walks and peaceful twilight rambles, I had made the acquaintance of every winding lane, every shaded avenue, every bosky dell and sunny glade for miles around. I had wandered hither and thither, through all the golden season, and fairly steeped my soul in the beauty, the languor, the poetry of the "Irving country;" and now, filled, as it were, with rare wine, content and happy, I was ready to return to the town, and take up the matter-of-fact habit of life again. But even on the last day of my sojourn, when my trunks stood packed and corded, and the loins of my spirit were girt for departure on the morrow; as I stood at my window somewhat pensively contemplating, for the last time, the peculiarly delicious river-bit which it framed, the door opened suddenly, and Nannette, my _fidus Achates_, and the companion of my summer, ran in. "Do you know," she cried, "I have just learned that we were about to leave the place without visiting one of its greatest curiosities? We have narrowly escaped going without having seen the 'Old Maid's Village!'" "The 'Old Maid's Village!'" I echoed, stupidly. "But what village is _not_ the peculiar property of the race?" "Yes, I know; but this village is really built on an old maid's property, and by her own hands. And there is the 'Cat's Monument,' too. Come! don't stop to talk about it, but let us go and see it. It will be just the thing for a last evening; in memoriam, you know, and all that. Get on your hat, and come, and we shall see the sunset meeting the moonrise on the river once more, as we return." That, at least, was always worth seeing, I reflected; and so, without more ado, I put on my wraps as I was bid, and reported myself under marching orders. How lovely, how indescribably lovely, the world was that September afternoon, as we strolled along the shaded sidewalk where the maples were already laying a mosaic of gold and garnet, and looked off toward the river and the hills beyond--the far blue hills--all veiled in tenderest amber mist! The very air was full of soft, warm color; the sunbeams, mild and level now, played with the shadows across our path, and every now and then a leaf, flecked with orange or crimson, fluttered to our feet. The blue-birds sang in the goldening boughs, unaffrighted by the constant roll of elegant equipages in which, at this hour, the residents of the stately mansions on either side the road were taking the air; and the crickets hopped about undisturbed in the crevices of the gray stone walls. We walked leisurely on, past one and another lofty gateway, until presently reaching an entrance rather less assuming than its neighbors, but, like them, hospitably open, Nannette said, with promptness: "This is the place, I am sure. Square white house; black railing; next to the printing-press man's great gate. Come right in; all are welcome, and not even thank you to pay, for one never sees anyone to speak to here." It seemed to my modesty rather an audacious proceeding, but trusting to my companion's superior information, I followed her in, and we walked up a circular carriage-drive through smooth shaven lawns dotted with brilliant clumps of salvia and gladiolus, towards the house--a square, solid structure, white, and with broad verandas running across its front. At its northern side, sloping towards the wall, was visible what looked like an ordinary terrace, rather low, and ornamented with small shrubs and grotto-work; but which, on nearer approach, proved to be a veritable village in miniature, constructed with a verisimilitude of design, and a fidelity to detail, which was at once in the highest degree amazing and amusing. As Nannette had been assured, no one appeared to interfere with us in any way, and full of a curious wonder at such a manifestation of eccentric ingenuity, we seated ourselves upon a wooden box, evidently kept more for the purpose of protecting the odd out-of-door plaything in bad weather, and proceeded to give it the minute inspection which it merited; the result of which I chronicle here for the benefit of the like curious minded. The terrace, which forms the site of this doll-baby city, is low and semi-circular in shape, and separated from the graveled drive by a close border of box. Within this protecting hedge the ground is laid out in the most picturesque and fantastic manner compatible with a scale of extreme minuteness. Winding roads, shady bye-paths ending in rustic stiles, willow-bordered ponds, streams with fairy bridges, rocky ravines and sunny meadows, ferny dells, and steep hills clambered over with a wilderness of tangled vines, and strewn with lichen-covered stones--all are there, and all reproduced with the most conscientious fidelity to nature, and with Lilliputian diminutiveness. Regular streets, "macadamized" with a gray cement which gives very much the effect of asphaltum, separate one demesne from another; and each meadow, lawn, field, and barn-yard has its own proper fence or wall, constructed in the most workmanlike manner. The streets are bordered by trees, principally evergreens, which, though rigidly kept down to the height of mere shrubs, appear stately by the side of the miniature mansions they overlook; and, in every dooryard, or more pretentious greensward, tiny larches, pines yet in their babyhood, and dwarfed cedars, cast a mimic shade, and bestow an air of dignity and venerableness to the place. The first object upon which the eye is apt to rest on approaching this modern Lilliput is the squire's house, the residence of the landed proprietor. This is a handsome edifice of some eight by ten inches in breadth and height. It stands upon an eminence in the midst of ornamented grounds, and with its white walls, its lofty cupola, and high, square portico, presents a properly imposing appearance. There are signs of social life about the mansion befitting its own style of conscious superiority. In the wide arched entrance hall stands a high-born dame attired in gay Watteau costume--red-heeled slippers, brocaded petticoat, and bodice and train of puce-colored satin. She is receiving the adieux of an elegant gentleman, hatted, booted, and spurred, who, with whip in hand and dog by his side, is about to descend the steps and mount his horse for a ride over his estate. A bird-cage swings by an open window, and, on the lawn, a group of children, in charge of their nurse, are engaged in the time-honored game of "Ring-around-a-rosy." Winding walks, bordered with shrubbery, disappear among fantastic mounds of rock-work, moss-grown grottoes, and tiny dells of fern; and under a ruined arch, gray with lichen and green with vines, flows a placid streamlet, spanned by a rustic bridge. In the meadow beyond, flocks of sheep are cropping the grass, and an old negro is busily engaged in repairing a breach in the stone wall. Hard by this stately demesne is a humbler tenement, built of wattled logs, but showing signs of comfort and thrift all about it. The old grandsire sits in a high-backed chair, sunning himself in front of the door; on a bench, at the side of the house, stand rows of washtubs filled with soiled linen, and a woman is busy wringing out clothes; while another, with a bucket on her head, goes to the well to supply her with a fresh thimbleful of water; and still a third milks a handsome dapple-gray cow in the yard where the dairy stands. There is a well-filled barn behind, with another cow and a horse, too, for that matter, in the stable attached, and the farmer, who is putting the last sheaf on his wheat-stack, looks contented enough with his lot. Just beyond the stream, on whose bank the fisherman sits leisurely dropping his line, stands the village church; a fac-simile of the old Dutch Church which has stood near the entrance of Sleepy Hollow since long before the Revolution, and is hallowed now not only by the pious associations of centuries, but by the near vicinage of Irving's grave. In its little twelve-inch counterpart, every point of the ancient structure is preserved in exact detail. The dull red walls, the beetling roof, the narrow pointed windows and low, arched door; the quaint Dutch weathercock, and odd-shaped tower--aye, even the bell within, no bigger than a doll's thimble--and upon all a sentimental traveler in the person of a china figure perhaps three inches in height, is gazing half pensively, half curiously, as we suppose, at this relic of by-gone years! On the other side of the stream the village school, likewise an ancient and steeple-crowned edifice, stands out in the midst of a bare and clean swept playground. It bears its signature upon its front: "DISTRICT SCHOOL, NO. 2," and its worshipful character is otherwise indicated by the presence of the master, a venerable looking puppet in cocked hat and knee-breeches, in the doorway, and sundry china children playing rather stiffly about the stone steps. Ascending by a steep, rocky path, one arrives at a rather pretentious looking wind-mill, which spreads its wide white arms protectingly over the cottages below. Barrels of flour and sacks of meal, well filled and plentiful in number, attest its thriving business, and the miller himself, in a properly dusty coat, looks about him with contented air. At the foot of the hill upon which the mill is perched, are several dwellings--all showing signs of more or less prosperous life, with the exception of one, which affords the orthodox "haunted house" belonging to every well-regulated village. The ruined walls of this old mansion, with lichen cropping out from every crevice; the unhinged doors and broken windows; the ladder rotting as it leans against the moss-grown roof, the broken well-sweep and deserted barn, offer an aspect of desolation and decay which should prove sufficient bait to tempt any ghost of moderate demands. In direct contrast to the gloom which surrounds this now empty and forsaken home, one observes, in a shady grove surmounting a ridge of hills which rise somewhat steeply here from the roadway, a party of "pic-nickers" gaily attired and disporting themselves after the time-honored manner of such merry-makers; swinging, dancing, or, better still, strolling off arm in arm, in search of cooler shades, and of that company which is never a crowd. At the base of this rocky ridge, the same stream which one meets above flowing darkly under arch and bridge, winds placidly along in sunshine and shadow until it loses itself in a clump of alders and willows quite at the edge of the box-bordered terrace; and here the village ends. Not so my sketch: for I have purposely left it to the last to make mention of the great central idea round which all the rest is gathered, and which, doubtless, formed the germ of the whole oddly-conceived, but most admirably-executed plan. This is the "Cat's Monument" of which Nannette had made mention, and which is a structure so original and imposing that it deserves special and minute description. About midway the terrace, and conspicuous from its size and height, rises a mound of earth shaped into the semblance of an urn or vase, crusted thickly with bits of rock, moss, and pebbles, and overgrown with a tangle of tiny vines. Surmounting this picturesque pedestal is an obelisk of black-veined marble on a granite base, the whole rising some seven feet from the ground. On the polished surface of this memorial pillar is inscribed, in large black capitals, the following classic and touching tribute to the venerable departed who sleeps in peace below: IN MEMORIAM TOMMY FELINI GENERIS OPTIMUS. DECESSIT A VITA MENSE NOVEMBRIS ANNO ÆTATIS 19. * * * * * _Quid me ploras? Nonne decessi gravis senectute? Nonne vivo amicorum ardentium memoria?_ * * * * * On the reverse side of the column appears an inscription even more pathetic and poetic, to yet another departed favorite, who seems, not like Tommy to have been gathered to his fathers ripe in years and honors but to have been cut down in the bloom of youth by some untimely and tragic fate. He is all the more felin'ly lamented: HIC JACET PUSSY SUI GENERIS PULCHERRIMUS. OCCISUS EST MENSE APRILIS ÆTAT. 9. * * * * * "_Vixi, et quum dederat cursum fortuna, peregi. Felix! heu nimium felix! si litora ista nunquam tetigissem!_" * * * * * Thanks to certain by no means homoeopathic doses of the Latin grammar in my early years, I was able to gather the meaning of these elegiac effusions, and when the last stanza embodying poor Pussy's posthumous wail was discovered to be none other than the despairing death-cry of the "infelix Dido" as immortalized by Virgil--the one step from the sublime to the ridiculous seemed to have been passed. I looked at Nannette, and Nannette looked at me, and we burst into silent but irrepressible laughter. Nannette was the first to recover herself. "We ought to be ashamed of ourselves," said she severely: "Honest grief is always respectable; and a fitting tribute to departed worth, no more than what is due from the survivors. I have no doubt but that Tommy and Pussy were most esteemed members of society, and that their loss has left an aching void in the family of which they were the youngest and most petted darlings. I have heard the history of this monument, and the village that has grown up around it, and if you will comport yourself more as a Christian being should in the presence of a solemn memorial, I will relate to you the interesting facts in my possession." I immediately signified a due contrition and full purpose of amendment; when Nannette continued, still speaking with the gravity befitting the subject. "This estate then, this large and respectable mansion, and these pleasant grounds in which we now sit, are the property in common of three most estimable ladies, all past their first youth, and all possessed of sufficient good sense and strength of mind to remain their own mistresses, which has procured for the very remarkable specimen of ingenuity now before us, from some ignorant townspeople, the sobriquet of the 'Old Maid's Village.' "There is only one of the ladies, however, I am informed, who interests herself in the construction of these most ingenious toys. Possessed of ample means, and more than ample leisure, she amuses herself in hours which might otherwise be devoted to gossip and tea, in putting together these various models of buildings, all differing in style, and of most singular materials. The church, for instance, is built of fragments of clinker, gathered from stove and grate, and held firmly together by cement. Nothing could have reproduced so exactly the rough reddish stone of which the old Sleepy Hollow Church is built. The window-glass is represented by carefully framed pieces of tin foil; the gray stone of the gate-posts is imitated by sand rubbed on wooden pillars with a coating of cement. The streets are paved in much the same clever fashion. The well, the pond, the stream, are filled with water each day by the chatelaine's own careful hands. Many of the mimic creatures, human and otherwise, are automata, manufactured to order; the others are wooden or china figures selected with extreme care as to their fitness for their purpose. So rare and so exceedingly pretty are some of these little figures, that they have become objects of unlawful desire to certain soulless curiosity-mongers, who have rewarded an open and confiding hospitality with base attempts at spoliation; and now a person is employed to live in the cottage just beyond us, and do little else than take care of these unique possessions. "No, you need not start. The woman is probably there at her post, and surveying our operations from time to time. But we have behaved like decent people. We are taking away nothing but a remembrance of a singularly interesting hour, and an admiring impression of the originality, the ingenuity, the industry, and the independence of one of our own sex. "Is it not so, my friend? And now, by the length of those cedar shadows, it is time for us to rise up and be gone. Else the moonlight will have met and parted with the sunset ere we reach home." There was nothing to be said; the tale had been told, and with one last, lingering glance, one parting smile, half amused, half touched, I rose, and together we walked home in somewhat pensive mood. Was it not our last day in Fairyland?--_Kate J. Hill_. * * * * * _WINE AND KISSES._ TRANSLATED FROM THE PERSIAN OF MIRTSA SCHAFFY. The lover may be shy-- His bashfulness goes by When first he kisses. The bibber, though so staid, Gets bravely unafraid When wine his bliss is. Yet he who, in his youth, No wine nor kiss hath tasted. Will some day think, in truth, That half his joys were wasted. --_Joel Benton_. * * * * * I have heard it asked why we speak of the dead with unqualified praise: of the living, always with certain reservations. It may be answered, because we have nothing to fear from the former, while the latter may stand in our way: so impure is our boasted solicitude for the memory of the dead. If it were the sacred and earnest feeling we pretend, it would strengthen and animate our intercourse with the living.--_Goethe_. _THE QUEEN'S CLOSET._ Did anybody ever see a fairy in the city? Was a glimpse ever caught of Fairyland there? I say _No_. But I was in the country this summer where a great number of mushrooms grew, and one day when I was walking in a grassy lane I met a little, old queen, who was fanning herself with the leaf of the poor-man's-weather-glass; she had taken off her crown, and it was lying on the top of a lovely red mushroom. I poked the mushroom with my parasol, and instantly felt on my face a faint puff of air, and heard a hum no louder than the buzz of an angry fly. I sat down on the grass, and then my eyes fell on the queen. "You have let my crown fall in the dirt," she said, tossing a wisp of hair from her forehead; "but you great, insensible beings are always in mischief when you are in the country. Why don't you stay at home, in your brick cages that stand on heaps of flat stones? You are watched there all the time by creatures with clubs in their leather belts, so you cannot tear and crush things to pieces as you do here." "Oh, I am so sorry, madam," I answered; "if you knew how unhappy I felt this morning when I started on my last walk, you would pity me. I must go home at once, and my home is in the city--shut in by houses before and behind it. If I look out of the window, I only see a strip of sky above me, where neither sun nor moon passes on its journey round the world; and below me, only the stone pavement over which goes an endless procession of men and women, upon a hundred errands I never guess at." The queen tapped her head with a white stick like a peeled twig, and made such a noise that I examined it, and saw an ivory knob, which reminded me of the budding horns of a young deer. As if in answer to my thought, she said: "It drops off every year. In the fairy-nature all elements are united. We partake of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and add our own; this makes us what we are. We do not suffer, but we experience, without suffering, of course; our long lives glide along like dreams. As you are in sleep, so are we awake. If you love the country, which contains our kingdom, as the filbert-shell contains the kernel, I will endow you with power. I will give you something to take back with you." What do you think she gave me? A little closet with shelves; on each shelf were laid away all my remembrances of the summer, for me to unfold at leisure. When she gave me the key, which looked exactly like a steel pen, she said: "When you turn the key you will understand my power. All things will be alive, will know as much, and talk as fast as you do. The closet, in short, is but a wee corner of my kingdom, where to-day and to-morrow are the same--past and present one. A maid-of-honor wishes to go to town. I'll send her in the closet. My slave, the geometrical spider, must spin her a warm cobweb--and when you open the closet, be sure and not disturb my little Fancie." Some way Queen Imagin disappeared then. To any person less knowing than myself, it would have seemed as if a dandelion ball was floating in the air; but I knew better, and I watched her sailing, sailing away till lost behind the trees. The crown was gone, too; I discovered nothing in the neighborhood of the red mushroom, except a tiny yellow blossom already wilted by the heat of the sun. Well, I am at home. I sit down this misty autumn morning in my lonely room, and wish for some work or if not that, for something to play with. I am too old for dolls, but very young in the way of amusement. Ah--the closet! I'll unlock that; the key is at hand--in my writing-desk. Open Sesame! On the top shelf sits little Fancie, her eyes shining like diamonds in her soft, dusky cobweb. She nods, so do I, and we are in Greenside again--on a summer evening. How the crickets sing; and the tree-toads harp in the trees as if they were a picket guard entirely surrounding us. Hueston's big dog barks in the lane at just the right distance. What security I used to feel when I was a little child, tucked away in my bed, and heard a dog bark a mile away; too far off ever to come up and bite, and yet near enough to frighten prowling robbers! "When in the breeze the distant watch-dog bayed," I was about to say; but Polly, who is at Greenside with me, calls, "Just hear the mosquitoes." The blinds must be closed. What a delicious smell comes in! The dew wetting all the shrubs and flowers distils sweet odors. What a family of moths have rushed in; this big, brown one, with white and red markings, is very enterprising. He has voyaged twice down the lamp chimney, as if it were the funnel of a steamship. Get out, moth! "Sho," she answers in a husky voice, as if very dry, "It is my nature to; that's all you know, turning us to moral purposes, and making us a tiresome metaphor. We are much like you human creatures--only we don't compare ourselves continually with others. We just scorch ourselves as we please. My cousin, Noctilia Glow-worm, who is out late o' nights on the grass-bank in poor company--the Katydids, who board for the season with the widow Poplar--a two-sided, deceitful woman--she does not care where I go, and never shrieks out, 'A burnt moth dreads the lamp chimney.' If she sees me wingless, she coughs, and throws out a green light, but says nothing. Don't mind me; there's more coming." It can't be moths making such a noise on the second shelf. It is Tom, who calls out to us, from his room, to come, and help him catch a bat. "Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wings." "Always mouthing something," somebody mutters. But we rush into Tom's room, and behold him in the middle of the floor, flopping north and south, east and west, with a towel. No bat is to be seen. I hear a pretty singing, however, and declare it to be from a young swallow fallen down the chimney; but as there is no fire-place in the room, my opinion goes for nothing. Tom maintains that it is a bat; that it flew in by the window; and that it is behind the bureau. He is right, for the bat whirrs up to the ceiling and from that height accosts us in a squeaking voice: "I am weak-eyed, am I? and my wings are leathery? Catch me, and you will find my wings are like down, my eyes as bright as diamonds. How much you know, writing yourselves down in books as Naturalists! My name is Vespertila; my family are from Servia, at your service. Could you offer me a fly, or a beetle? I was chasing Judge Blue Bottle, or I should not have been trapped. Go to sleep, dears, and leave me to fan you. When you are asleep, I'll bite a hole in your ear, and sup bountifully on your red blood." Flop went our towels, and down went Miss Vespertila behind the bed crying. Polly crept up to her; and caught her in a towel. What black beads of eyes had Miss Vespertila from Servia, where her grandfather, General Vampire, still commands a brigade of rascals! Her teeth were sharp, and white as pearls. Polly held her up, and she cunningly combed her furry wings with her hind feet, and said: "Polly, dear, I itch dreadfully; do you mind plain speaking? I am full of bat lice. Ariel caught them, and the folks say that Queen Mab often buys fine combs--" "Slanderer!" cried Polly, "fly to your witch home!" She shook the towel out of the window, and the bat soared away. "What's coming next?" we all asked. "There are the rabbits to hear from, the pigeons, the sparrows, the mole, and the striped snake who lives by the garden gate?" Slap, Bang! Fancie has pulled the door to. The cunning Queen Imagin placed her in the closet, perhaps for this purpose. But I have the key. I shall unlock it to-morrow, for I must have the picnic over again, under the beech tree, where the brown thrush built her nest, and reared her young ones, who ate our crumbs, and chirped merrily when we laughed.--_Lolly Dinks's Mother_. * * * * * Doth a man reproach thee for being proud or ill-natured, envious or conceited, ignorant or detractive, consider with thyself whether his reproaches be true. If they are not, consider that thou art not the person whom he reproaches, but that he reviles an imaginary being, and perhaps loves what thou really art, although he hates what thou appearest to be. If his reproaches are true, if thou art the envious, ill-natured man he takes thee for, give thyself another turn, become mild, affable and obliging, and his reproaches of thee naturally cease. His reproaches may indeed continue, but thou art no longer the person he reproaches.--_Epictetus_. _LITERATURE._ "Of the making of many books there is no end," said the Wise Man of old. Of the making of good books there is frequently an end, say we. The good books of one year may be counted on the fingers of one hand. Among those of the present year none ranks higher than Taine's "Art in Greece," a translation of which, by Mr. John Durand, is published by Messrs. Holt & Williams. The French are a nation of critics, and Taine is the critic of the French. This could not have been said with truth during the lifetime of Sainte-Beuve, but since his death it is true. There is nothing, apparently, which Taine is not competent to criticise, so subtle is his intellect, and so wide the range of his studies, but what he is most competent to criticise is Art. We have heard great things of a History of English Literature by him, but as it has not yet appeared in an English dress (although Messrs. Holt & Williams have a translation of it in press) we shall reserve our decision until it appears. Art, it seems to us, is the specialty to which Taine has devoted himself, with the enthusiasm peculiar to his countrymen, and a thoroughness peculiar to himself. Others may have accumulated greater stores of art-knowledge--the knowledge indispensable to the historian of Art, and the biographer of artists--but none has so saturated himself with the spirit of Art as Taine. We may not always agree with him, but he is always worth listening to, and what he says is worthy of our serious consideration. We think he is _too_ philosophical sometimes, but then the fault may be in us. It may be that we are so accustomed to the materialism of the English critics that we fail, at first, to apprehend the spirituality of this most refined and refining of Frenchmen. No English critic could have written his "Art in Greece," because no English critic could put himself in his place. We know what the English think of Greek Art, or may, with a little reading: what Taine thinks of it is--that it is what it is, simply because the Greeks were what they were. Before he tells us what Greek Art is, he tells us what the Greeks were. Nor does he stop here, but goes on to tell us, or rather begins by telling us, what kind of a country it was in which they dwelt, what skies shone over them, what mountains looked down upon them, in the shadow of what trees they walked within sight of the wine-dark sea. He begins at the beginning, as the children say. Whether he succeeds in convincing us that it was Greece alone which made the Greeks what they were, depends somewhat upon the cast of our minds, and somewhat upon our power to resist his eloquence. We think, ourselves, that he lays too much stress upon the mere outward environment of the Grecian people. The influence exercised over their lives, by the Institutions which grew up out of these lives--the influence, in short, of their purely physical culture--is admirably described, as is also the difference between this culture and ours: "Modern people are Christian, and Christianity is a religion of second growth which opposes natural instinct. We may liken it to a violent contraction which has inflected the primitive attitude of the human mind. It proclaims, in effect, that the world is sinful, and that man is depraved--which certainly is indisputable in the century in which it was born. According to it, man must change his ways. Life here below is simply an exile; let us turn our eyes upward to our celestial home. Our natural character is vicious; let us stifle natural desires and mortify the flesh. The experience of our senses and the knowledge of the wise are inadequate and delusive; let us accept the light of revelation, faith and divine illumination. Through penitence, renunciation and meditation let us develop within ourselves the spiritual man; let our life be an ardent awaiting of deliverance, a constant sacrifice of will, an undying yearning for God, a revery of sublime love, occasionally rewarded with ecstasy and a vision of the infinite. For fourteen centuries the ideal of this life was the anchorite or monk. If you would estimate the power of such a conception and the grandeur of the transformation it imposes on human faculties and habits, read, in turn, the great Christian poem and the great pagan poem, one the 'Divine Comedy' and the other the 'Odyssey' and the 'Iliad.' Dante has a vision and is transported out of our little ephemeral sphere into eternal regions; he beholds its tortures, its expiations and its felicities; he is affected by superhuman anguish and horror; all that the infuriate and subtle imagination of the lover of justice and the executioner can conceive of he sees, suffers and sinks under. He then ascends into light; his body loses its gravity; he floats involuntarily, led by the smile of a radiant woman; he listens to souls in the shape of voices and to passing melodies; he sees choirs of angels, a vast rose of living brightness representing the virtues and the celestial powers; sacred utterances and the dogmas of truth reverberate in ethereal space. At this fervid height, where reason melts like wax, both symbol and apparition, one effacing the other, merge into mystic bewilderment, the entire poem, infernal or divine, being a dream which begins with horrors and ends in ravishment. How much more natural and healthy is the spectacle which Homer presents! We have the Troad, the isle of Ithica and the coasts of Greece; still at the present day we follow in his track; we recognize the forms of mountains, the color of the sea; the jutting fountains, the cypress and the alders in which the sea-birds perched; he copied a steadfast and persistent nature: with him throughout we plant our feet on the firm ground of truth. His book is a historical document; the manners and customs of his contemporaries were such as he describes; his Olympus itself is a Greek family." The manifest inferiority of our mixed languages to their one simple language is stated in the following paragraph, with which we must leave Taine for the present: "Almost the whole of our philosophic and scientific vocabulary is foreign; we are obliged to know Greek and Latin to make use of it properly, and, most frequently, employ it badly. Innumerable terms find their way out of this technical vocabulary into common conversation and literary style, and hence it is that we now speak and think with words cumbersome and difficult to manage. We adopt them ready made and conjoined, we repeat them according to routine; we make use of them without considering their scope and without a nice appreciation of their sense; we only approximate to that which we would like to express. Fifteen years are necessary for an author to learn to write, not with genius, for that is not to be acquired, but with clearness, sequence, propriety and precision. He finds himself obliged to weigh and investigate ten or twelve thousand words and diverse expressions, to note their origin, filiation and relationships, to rebuild on an original plan, his ideas and his whole intellect. If he has not done it, and he wishes to reason on rights, duties, the beautiful, the State or any other of man's important interests, he gropes about and stumbles; he gets entangled in long, vague phrases, in sonorous common-places, in crabbed and abstract formulas. Look at the newspapers and the speeches of our popular orators. It is especially the case with workmen who are intelligent but who have had no classical education; they are not masters of words, and, consequently, of ideas; they use a refined language which is not natural to them; it is a perplexity to them and consequently confuses their minds; they have had no time to filter it drop by drop. This is an enormous disadvantage, from which the Greeks were exempt. There was no break with them between the language of concrete facts and that of abstract reasoning, between the language spoken by the people and that of the learned; the one was a counterpart of the other; there was no term in any of Plato's dialogues which a youth, leaving his gymnasia, could not comprehend; there is not a phrase in any of Demosthenes' harangues which did not readily find a lodging-place in the brain of an Athenian peasant or blacksmith. Attempt to translate into Greek one of Pitt's or Mirabeau's discourses, or an extract from Addison or Nicole, and you will be obliged to recast and transpose the thought; you will be led to find for the same thoughts, expressions more akin to facts and to concrete experience; a flood of light will heighten the prominence of all the truths and of all the errors; that which you were wont to call natural and clear will seem to you affected and semi-obscure, and you will perceive by force of contrast why, among the Greeks, the instrument of thought being more simple, it did its office better and with less effort." Among the good books of the year, two belong to a special walk of letters in which we have not hitherto excelled the English Translation. There are periods in the history of English Poetry when translation has played an important part. Such a period occurred just before the Shakspearean era, and it was noted for translations from the Latin poets. Chapman was the first English writer to perceive the greatness of the Greek poets, and, like the poet that he was, he attempted to translate the father of poets, Homer. Chapman's Homer is a noble work, with all its faults; but it is not what Homer should be in English. It was followed by other translations mostly of the Latin poets, the best, perhaps, being Dryden's Virgil, until, finally, the English mind returned to Homer, or supposed it did, in the pretty, musical numbers of Pope. Who will may read Pope's Homer. We cannot. Nor Cowper's either, although it contains some good, manly writing. We can read Lord Derby's Homer, or could, until Mr. Bryant published his translation of the "Iliad," when the necessity no longer existed. No English translation of Homer will compare with Mr. Bryant's; and we are glad that we are soon to have the whole of the "Odyssey," as we already have the whole of the "Iliad." The first volume of Mr. Bryant's translation of the "Odyssey" (J.R. Osgood & Co.) fully sustains the reputation of the writer. It is so admirably done, that, if we did not know to the contrary, we should think we were reading an original poem. The stiffness which generally inheres in translations is wanting; nowhere is there any sense of restraint, but everywhere a delightful sense of ease--the freedom of one great poet shining through the freedom of another great poet, as the sun shines through the sky. It is the ideal English translation of Homer; and we congratulate Mr. Bryant upon having finished it (for we believe he has); and congratulate ourselves that it is the work of an American poet. We offer the like congratulation to Mr. Bayard Taylor for his translation of "Faust," which occupies the same place, as regards German Poetry, that Mr. Bryant's translation of Homer does to Greek Poetry. The difficulty of the task which Mr. Taylor set himself, the task of rendering the original in the measures of the original, was never met before by any English translator of "Faust"--never even attempted, we believe--and, to say that he has accomplished it, is to say that Mr. Taylor is a very skilful poet--how skilful we never knew before, highly as we have always valued his poetical powers. He enables us to understand the _Intention_ of Goethe in "Faust," as no one besides himself has done; and, among the obligations that we owe him for the enjoyment he has given us, we must not forget the obligation we are under to him for his _Notes_. They are scholarly, and to the point. There is not one too many, not one which we could afford to lose, now that we have it. What _might_ have been written, under the pretense of _Notes_--what another translator might not have been able to resist writing--is fearful to think of--Life is so short, and Goethe's Art so long! The year has been fertile in American verse. How much Poetry it has produced is a question into which we do not care to enter. It has witnessed the publication of two volumes by Mr. Bret Harte; of one volume by Mr. John Hay; and of one volume by Mr. William Winter. The title of Mr. Winter's volume, "My Witness," (J.R. Osgood & Co.) is a happy one. It is not every American writer who can afford to place his verse on the stand as his witness; and it is not every American writer whose verse will substantiate what he is so desirous of proving, viz., that he is an American poet. Mr. Winter is not without faults--what American writer is?--but he endeavors to write simply. The virtue of simplicity--always a rare one, and never so rare as at present--he possesses. We have Tennyson, who is not simple; we have Browning, who is not simple; we have Swinburne, who is not simple; and we have Mr. Joaquin Miller, who is not simple. Mr. Winter's book has its defects--among which we observe an occasional lapse into Latinity--but with all its defects it is a very _poetical_ book. Mr. Winter reminds us, more than any recent American poet, of the English poets of the reigns of Charles the First and Second. He has, at his best, all their graces of style, and he has, at all times, the grace of Purity, to which they laid no claim. With the exception of Carew (whom, we dare say, he has never read), Mr. Winter is the daintiest and sweetest of amatory poets. He has the fancy of Carew, without his artificiality; he has Carew's sweetness, without his grossness of suggestion. There is a tinge of sadness in some of Mr. Winter's poems, and the critics, we suppose, will censure him for it. If so, they will be in the wrong. The poet has the right to express his moods, sad or merry, and he is no more to be judged by his sad moods than his merry ones. He is to be judged by both, and the sum of both--if the critic is able to add it up--is the poet. As far as he is revealed in his book, that is, but no further. There is such a thing as Dramatic Poetry, as some critics are aware, and there is such a thing as Representative Poetry, as few critics are aware. The former deals with the passions, the latter with those shadowy and evanescent sensations which we call feelings. Mr. Winter is not a dramatic poet, but he is, in his own way, a representative poet. His poem "Lethe" represents one set of feelings; "The White Flag" another; and "Love's Queen" another. We like the last best. For, while we believe the others to be equally genuine, they do not impress us as being the best expression of his genius. What we feel most after finishing his volume, what seems to us most characteristic of his poetry, is loveliness--the tender loveliness that lingers in the mind after we have seen the sun-set of a quiet summer evening, or after we have heard music on a dreamy summer night. If this poetic melancholy be treason, the critics may make the most of it. Mr. Winter has nothing to fear. He has the authority of the greatest poets with which to defend himself, and confute the critics. _ART._ THE PRODIGAL SON, BY EDOUARD DUBUFE. The sublime lesson of forgiveness, inculcated by the story of the Prodigal Son, is among the earliest and most familiar in the memories of a nation of Bible readers like our own. Every one of us, perhaps unconsciously, carries in mind a simple, straight-forward conception of this subject, formed in early childhood--a time when the imagination rarely goes beyond an attempt to realize the unlooked for forgiveness of the once deserted parent, or the captivating visions of adventure suggested by the changing fortunes of the wanderer during his absence in a "far country." With the painter the picture is his vision, and the panels are the realities. As a man of a different order of thought would have chosen another incident of the story for illustration, so also would a painter of a less independent school have permitted himself to be bound down by the historical facts of the architectural and costume fashions of the time of narration. Dubufe has so far discarded the unities of time and place, if any can _really_ be said to exist--as no date was fixed in the relation of the parable by Christ--that he has adopted the mingled costumes of Europe and the East, which obtained in the fifteenth century, and has placed his figures in a Corinthian porch under the light of Italian skies. Apart from the conception and the "telling of the story," about which there will be various opinions, this picture may be justly regarded as a magnificent work of art. The great David, a pupil of whose pupil Edouard Dubufe was, and Horace Vernet, appear to have been the guides selected by him, rather than the greatest of his masters--Paul Delaroche. The influence of both is to be traced in this work, although it may be said to take rank above any production of either of them. In drawing, color, and composition, rendering of textures, and the exhibition of the resources of the palette, now better known to French painters than ever before, the picture leaves nothing to be desired. The faces of the principal figures are full of that "expression to the life" in which the English are justly considered to excel, while the admirable focus of the groups, the color, and interest, are as un-English as excellent. Fault-finding in more than one or two unimportant details would be hypercriticism where so much is perfect, and it becomes our happy privilege, in this notice, to commend and to point out, to "lay" readers about Art, the manifold beauties of its technical execution. A critical examination will show that the composition is on the pyramidal principle, and the arrangement of groups principally in threes. In the central portion of the canvas, where the marble pillars of the porch fall off in perspective, the Profligate stands holding up a golden cup in his right hand, as in the act of proposing a toast. His red costume and commanding figure attract the eye, and the attention falls at once and equally on him and on the magnificent woman whose arms embrace his neck, and whose eyes, as her chin rests close on his breast, gaze with dangerous fascination into his face. Her dress is of rich white satin, and, with the delicate green and gold sheen of her rival's robe--she with whom the Prodigal's right hand toys in caress--makes up a wonderfully brilliant prismatic chord, having the effect of focusing the richer, but not less gorgeous, pigments spread everywhere on the canvas. The faces of the women are very beautiful, and are made voluptuous by a subtle art which, through all their beauty, tells a story of unrestrained lives of passion and pleasure. The face of the magnificent creature at the Prodigal's left hand is a wondrous piece of drawing. It is thrown back against him and from the spectator, in order that she may look up into his face--at the moment a dissipated, spiritless face, without even the flush of the wine which dyes her's so rosily--a face at once weak and weary, and yet revealing a possible intensity, indeed, the face of a French woman who "has lived," rather than that of a man. Up to this centre leads the other groups. Below, and seated on the rich rugs which cover the marble pavement, musicians and singers pause to listen to impassioned words from a laurel-crowned poet, while further on a sort of orchestra plays time for the sensuous dance of lithe-bodied Oriental dancers--each woman of them more ravishing than the other. Minor incidents, like dice-play and love-making, give interest to the remaining space, and keep up the revel. Throughout, the drawing is true, and good, and graceful. The hands of the figures demand especial mention. The hand of one of the women, near the central group, grasped by her lover at the wrist as he kisses her shoulder, is particularly exquisite in form and color; the more remarkable, perhaps, because the position of it is so trying in nature and so difficult to draw. The type of feature chosen for the women, the dancing girls excepted, is essentially Gallic. As remarked before, the face of the Prodigal, also, is French; but the musicians and the poet have faces of their own which seem to belong to the university of genius. The mere revelers, curiously enough, have a likeness to the figures in some old Italian pictures; one of them looks like a copy of Judas Iscariot, made younger. A distant city and mountains fill up the background, and, on the extreme right of the near middle distance, flights of marble steps ascend to a grand doorway, where servants are seen loitering within easy call of their masters. It was by a sublime inspiration that Dubufe painted the accessory panels in monotone. In that on the right, a dismal sky, filled with rolling clouds and sad presaging ravens flying, over-shadows the outcast, seated on a rock in an attitude of listless dejection, with the swine feeding at his feet. In the panel on the left he is seen in the close embrace of his merciful parent. His head is bowed in humility, and, in an agony of remorse and shame, while the old house-dog sniffs at him for an obtrusive mendicant who has no business with such affectionate welcome. Let us congratulate ourselves that this picture has come to our country, as yet so barren of great works, and pray that the noble school of art of which this is so admirable an exponent, may find favor, not only with our painters, but with those who call themselves connoisseurs, in preference to unmeaning works of microscopic finish, or slick examples of boudoir and millinery painting. * * * * * "_THE ALDINE PRESS._"--JAMES SUTTON & CO., _Printers and Publishers, 23 Liberty St., N.Y._ 
17373	----	[Illustration: _Madonna of Castelfranco_ Photogravure from the Painting by Giorgione in the Parish Church, Castelfranco] THE MADONNA IN ART BY ESTELLE M. HURLL Illustrated A mother is a mother still-- The holiest thing alive. --COLERIDGE. BOSTON L.C. PAGE AND COMPANY (_INCORPORATED_) 1898 _Copyright, 1897_ BY L.C. PAGE AND COMPANY (INCORPORATED) CONTENTS. CHAPTER PREFACE INTRODUCTION I. THE PORTRAIT MADONNA II. THE MADONNA ENTHRONED III. THE MADONNA IN THE SKY IV. THE PASTORAL MADONNA V. THE MADONNA IN A HOME ENVIRONMENT VI. THE MADONNA OF LOVE VII. THE MADONNA IN ADORATION VIII. THE MADONNA AS WITNESS BIBLIOGRAPHY ILLUSTRATIONS. GIORGIONE Madonna of Castelfranco _Frontispiece_ _Parish Church, Castelfranco._ JACOPO BELLINI Madonna and Child _Venice Academy._ GABRIEL MAX Madonna and Child PERUGINO Madonna and Saints (Detail.) _Vatican Gallery, Rome._ GIOVANNI BELLINI Madonna of San Zaccaria. (Detail.) _Church of San Zaccaria, Venice._ VERONESE Madonna and Saints _Venice Academy._ QUENTIN MASSYS Madonna and Child _Berlin Gallery._ FRA ANGELICO Madonna della Stella _Monastery of San Marco, Florence._ UMBRIAN SCHOOL Glorification of the Virgin _National Gallery, London._ MORETTO Madonna in Glory _Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Verona._ SPANISH SCHOOL Madonna on the Crescent Moon _Dresden Gallery._ BOUGUEREAU Madonna of the Angels RAPHAEL Madonna in the Meadow _Belvedere Gallery, Vienna._ LEONARDO DA VINCI Madonna of the Rocks _National Gallery, London._ PALMA VECCHIO Santa Conversazione _Belvedere Gallery, Vienna._ FILIPPINO LIPPI Madonna in a Rose Garden _Pitti Gallery, Florence._ SCHONGAUER Holy Family _Belvedere Gallery, Vienna._ RAPHAEL Madonna dell' Impannata _Pitti Gallery, Florence._ CORREGGIO Madonna della Scala _Parma Gallery._ TITIAN Madonna and Saints. (Detail.) _Belvedere Gallery, Vienna._ DÜRER Madonna and Child _Belvedere Gallery, Vienna._ BODENHAUSEN Madonna and Child _Private Gallery, Washington, D.C._ ANDREA DELLA ROBBIA Madonna in Adoration _National Museum, Florence._ LORENZO DI CREDI Nativity _Uffizi Gallery, Florence._ FILIPPO LIPPI Madonna in Adoration _Uffizi Gallery, Florence_. LUIGI VIVARINI Madonna and Child 179 _Church of the Redentore, Venice._ GIOVANNI BELLINI Madonna between St. George and St. Paul. (Detail.) _Venice Academy._ LUINI Madonna with St. Barbara and St. Anthony _Brera Gallery, Milan._ BOTTICELLI Madonna of the Pomegranate _Uffizi Gallery, Florence._ MURILLO Madonna and Child _Pitti Gallery, Florence._ RAPHAEL Sistine Madonna _Dresden Gallery._ PREFACE. This little book is intended as a companion volume to "Child-Life in Art," and is a study of Madonna art as a revelation of motherhood. With the historical and legendary incidents in the life of the Virgin it has nothing to do. These subjects have been discussed comprehensively and finally in Mrs. Jameson's splendid work on the "Legends of the Madonna." Out of the great mass of Madonna subjects are selected, here, only the idealized and devotional pictures of the Mother and Babe. The methods of classifying such works are explained in the Introduction. Great pains have been taken to choose as illustrations, not only the pictures which are universal favorites, but others which are less widely known and not easily accessible. The cover was designed by Miss Isabelle A. Sinclair, in the various colors appropriate to the Virgin Mary. The lily is the Virgin's flower, _la fleur de Marie_, the highest symbol of her purity. The gold border surrounding the panel is copied from the ornamentation of the mantle worn by Botticelli's Dresden Madonna. ESTELLE M. HURLL. _New Bedford, Mass., May, 1897._ INTRODUCTION. It is now about fifteen centuries since the Madonna with her Babe was first introduced into art, and it is safe to say that, throughout all this time, the subject has been unrivalled in popularity. It requires no very profound philosophy to discover the reason for this. The Madonna is the universal type of motherhood, a subject which, in its very nature, appeals to all classes and conditions of people. No one is too ignorant to understand it, and none too wise to be superior to its charm. The little child appreciates it as readily as the old man, and both, alike, are drawn to it by an irresistible attraction. Thus, century after century, the artist has poured out his soul in this all-prevailing theme of mother love until we have an accumulation of Madonna pictures so great that no one would dare to estimate their number. It would seem that every conceivable type was long since exhausted; but the end is not yet. So long as we have mothers, art will continue to produce Madonnas. With so much available material, the student of Madonna art would be discouraged at the outset were it not possible to approach the subject systematically. Even the vast number of Madonna pictures becomes manageable when studied by some method of classification. Several plans are possible. The historical student is naturally guided in his grouping by the periods in which the pictures were produced; the critic, by the technical schools which they represent. Besides these more scholarly methods, are others, founded on simpler and more obvious dividing lines. Such are the two proposed in the following pages, forming, respectively, Part I. and Part II. of our little volume. The first is based on the style of composition in which the picture is painted; the second, on the subject which it treats. The first examines the mechanical arrangement of the figures; the second asks, what is the real relation between them? The first deals with external characteristics; the second, with the inner significance. Proceeding by the first, we ask, what are the general styles of treatment in which Madonna pictures have been rendered? The answer names the following five classes: 1. The Portrait Madonna, the figures in half-length against an indefinite background. 2. The Madonna Enthroned, where the setting is some sort of a throne or dais. 3. The Madonna in the Sky or the "Madonna in Gloria," where the figures are set in the heavens, as represented by a glory of light, by clouds, by a company of cherubs, or by simple elevation above the earth's surface. 4. The Pastoral Madonna, with a landscape background. 5. The Madonna in a Home Environment, where the setting is an interior. The foregoing subjects are arranged in the order of historical development, so far as is possible. The first and last of the classes enumerated are so small, compared with the others, that they are somewhat insignificant in the whole number of Madonna pictures. Yet, in all probability, it is along these lines that future art is most likely to develop the subject, choosing the portrait Madonna because of its universal adaptability, and representing the Madonna in her home, in an effort to realize, historically, the New Testament scenes. Of the remaining three, the enthroned Madonna is, doubtless, the largest class, historically considered, because of the long period through which it has been represented. The pastoral and enskied Madonnas were in high favor in the first period of their perfection. Our next question is concerned with the aspects of motherhood displayed in Madonna pictures: in what relation to her child has the Madonna been represented? The answer includes the following three subjects: 1. The Madonna of Love (The Mater Amabilis), in which the relation is purely maternal. The emphasis is upon a mother's natural affection as displayed towards her child. 2. The Madonna in Adoration (The Madre Pia), in which the mother's attitude is one of humility, contemplating her child with awe. 3. The Madonna as Witness, in which the Mother is preëminently the Christ-bearer, wearing the honors of her proud position as witness to her son's great destiny. These subjects are mentioned in the order of philosophical climax, and as we go from the first to the second, and from the second to the third, we advance farther and farther into the experience of motherhood. At the same time there is an increase in the dignity of the Madonna and in her importance as an individual. In the Mater Amabilis she is subordinate to her child, absorbed in him, so to speak; his infantine charms often overmatch her own beauty. When she rises to the responsibilities of her high calling, she is, for the time being, of equal interest and importance. Æsthetically, she is now even more attractive than her child, whose seriousness, in such pictures, takes something from his childlikeness. Chronologically, our list reads backwards, as the religious aspect of Mary's motherhood was the first treated in art, while the naturalistic conception came last. Regarded as expressive of national characteristics, the Mater Amabilis is the Madonna best beloved in northern countries, while the other two subjects belong specially to the art of the south. It will be seen that any number of Madonna pictures, having been arranged in the five groups designated in Part I., may be gathered up and redistributed in the three classes of Part II. To make this clear, the pictures mentioned in the first method of classification are frequently referred to a second time, viewed from an entirely different standpoint. Since the lines of cleavage are so widely dissimilar in the two cases, both methods of study are necessary to a complete understanding of a picture. By the first, we learn a convenient term of description by which we may casually designate a Madonna; by the second, we find its highest meaning as a work of art, and are admitted to some new secret of a mother's love. PART I. MADONNAS CLASSED BY THE STYLE OF COMPOSITION. THE MADONNA IN ART. CHAPTER I. THE PORTRAIT MADONNA. The first Madonna pictures known to us are of the portrait style, and are of Byzantine or Greek origin. They were brought to Rome and the western empire from Constantinople (the ancient Byzantium), the capital of the eastern empire, where a new school of Christian art had developed out of that of ancient Greece. Justinian's conquest of Italy sowed the new art-seed in a fertile field, where it soon took root and multiplied rapidly. There was, however, little or no improvement in the type for a long period; it remained practically unchanged till the thirteenth century. Thus, while a Byzantine Madonna is to be found in nearly every old church in Italy, to see one is to see all. They are half-length figures against a background of gold leaf, at first laid on solidly, or, at a somewhat later date, studded with cherubs. The Virgin has a meagre, ascetic countenance, large, ill-shaped eyes, and an almost peevish expression; her head is draped in a heavy, dark blue veil, falling in stiff folds. Unattractive as such pictures are to us from an artistic standpoint, they inspire us with respect if not with reverence. Once objects of mingled devotion and admiration, they are still regarded with awe by many who can no longer admire. Their real origin being lost in obscurity, innumerable legends have arisen, attributing them to miraculous agencies, and also endowing them with power to work miracles. There is an early and widespread tradition, imported with the Madonna from the East, which makes St. Luke a painter. It is said that he painted many portraits of the Virgin, and, naturally, all the churches possessing old Byzantine pictures claim that they are genuine works from the hand of the evangelist. There is one in the Ara Coeli at Rome, and another in S. Maria in Cosmedino, of which marvellous tales are told, besides others of great sanctity in St. Mark's, Venice, and in Padua. It would not be interesting to dwell, in any detail, upon these curious old pictures. We would do better to take our first example from the art which, though founded on Byzantine types, had begun to learn of nature. Such a picture we find in the Venice Academy, by Jacopo Bellini, painted at the beginning of the fifteenth century, somewhat later than any corresponding picture could have been found elsewhere in Italy, as Venice was chronologically behind the other art schools. The background is a glory of cherub heads touched with gold hatching. Both mother and child wear heavy nimbi, ornamented with gold. These points recall Byzantine work; but the gentler face of the Virgin, and the graceful fall of her drapery, show that we are in a different world of art. The child is dressed in a little tunic, in the primitive method. With the dawn of the Italian Renaissance, the old style of portrait Madonna passed out of vogue. More elaborate backgrounds were introduced from the growing resources of technique. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, pictures of the portrait style were comparatively rare. Raphael, however, was not above adopting this method, as every lover of the Granduca Madonna will remember. His friend Bartolommeo also selected this style of composition for some of the loveliest of his works. [Illustration: JACOPO BELLINI.--MADONNA AND CHILD.] The story of the friendship between these two men is full of interest. At the time of Raphael's first appearance in Florence (1504), Bartolommeo had been four years a monk, and had laid aside, apparently forever, the brush he had previously wielded with such promise. The young stranger sought the Frate in his cell at San Marco, and soon found the way to his heart. Stimulated by this new friendship, Bartolommeo roused himself from lethargy and resumed the practice of art with increasing success. It is pleasant to trace the influence which the two artists exerted upon each other. The older man had experience and learning; the younger had enthusiasm and genius. Now it happened that, by nature, Bartolommeo was specially gifted in the arrangement of large compositions, with many figures and stately architectural backgrounds. It is by these that he is chiefly known to-day. So it is the more interesting that, when Raphael's sweet simplicity first touched him, he turned aside, for the time, from these elaborate plans and gave himself to the portrayal of the Madonna in that simplest possible way, the half-length portrait picture. Several of these he painted upon the walls of his own convent, glorifying that dim place of prayer and fasting with visions of radiant and happy motherhood. One of these may still be seen in the cell sometimes called the Capella Giovanato. It instantly recalls the Tempi Madonna of Raphael, both in the pose of the figure and in the genuineness of feeling exhibited. Damp and decay have warred in vain against it, and the modern visitor lingers before the Mother and Babe with hushed admiration. Two other similar frescoes have been removed to the Academy. They show the same motherly tenderness, the same innocent and beautiful babyhood. The mother holds her child close in her arms, pressing her forehead to his, or bending her cheek to receive his kiss. He throws his little arm about her neck, clinging to her veil or caressing her face. Besides this group of pictures by Bartolommeo, there are other scattered instances of portrait Madonnas during the Italian Renaissance, by men too great to be tied to the fashions of their day. Mantegna was such a painter, and Luini another. All told, however, their pictures of this sort make up a class too rare to deserve longer description. A century later, the Spanish school occasionally reverted to the same style of treatment. A pair of notable pictures are the Madonna of Bethlehem, by Alonzo Cano, and the Madonna of the Napkin, by Murillo. Both are in Seville, the latter in the museum, the former still hanging in its original place in the cathedral. Of Cano's work, a great authority[1] on Spanish art has written, that, "in serene, celestial beauty, it is excelled by no image of the blessed Mary ever devised in Spain." Murillo's picture is better known, and has a curious interest from its history. The cook in the Capuchin monastery, where the artist had been painting, begged a picture as a parting gift. No canvas being at hand, a napkin was offered instead, on which the master painted a Madonna, unexcelled among his works in brilliancy of color. [Footnote 1: Stirling-Maxwell, in "Annals of the Artists of Spain."] [Illustration: GABRIEL MAX.--MADONNA AND CHILD.] As the portrait picture was the first style of Madonna known to art, so, also, it is the last. By a leap of nearly a thousand years, we have returned, in our own day, to the method of the tenth century. It is strange that what was once a matter of necessity should at last become an object of choice. In the beginning of Madonna art, the limited resources of technique precluded any attempts to make a more elaborate setting. Such difficulties no longer stand in the way, and where we now see a portrait Madonna, the artist has deliberately discarded all accessories in order better to idealize his theme. Take, for instance, the portrait Madonnas by Gabriel Max. Here are no details to divert the attention from motherhood, pure and simple. We do not ask of the subject whether she is of high or of low estate, a queen or a peasant. We have only to look into the earnest, loving face to read that here is a mother. There are two pictures of this sort, evidently studied from the same Bohemian models. In one, the mother looks down at her babe; in the other, directly at the spectator, with a singularly visionary expression. When weary with the senseless repetition of the set compositions of past ages, we turn with relief to a simple portrait mother like this, at once the most primitive and the most advanced form of Madonna art. It is only another case where the simplest is the best. CHAPTER II. THE MADONNA ENTHRONED. In every true home the mother is queen, enthroned in the hearts of her loving children. There is, therefore, a beautiful double significance, which we should always have in mind, in looking at the Madonna enthroned. According to the theological conception of the period in which it was first produced, the picture stands for the Virgin Mother as Queen of Heaven. Understood typically, it represents the exaltation of motherhood. In the history of art development, the enthroned Madonna begins where the portrait Madonna ends. We may date it from the thirteenth century, when Cimabue, of Florence, and Guido, of Siena, produced their famous pictures. Similar types had previously appeared in the mosaic decorations of churches, but now, for the first time, they were worthily set forth in panel pictures. The story of Cimabue's Madonna is one of the oft-told tales we like to hear repeated. How on a certain day, about 1270, Charles of Anjou was passing through Florence; how he honored the studio of Cimabue by a visit; how the Madonna was then first uncovered; how the people shouted so joyously that the street was thereafter named the Borgo dei Allegri; and how the great picture was finally borne in triumphal procession to the church of Santa Maria Novella,--all these are the scenes in the pretty drama. The late Sir Frederick Leighton has preserved for future centuries this story, already six hundred years old, in a charming pageant picture: "Cimabue's Madonna carried through the streets of Florence." This was the first work ever exhibited by the English artist, and was an important step in the career which ended in the presidency of the Royal Academy. Cimabue's Madonna still hangs in Santa Maria Novella, over the altar of the Ruccellai chapel, and thither many a pilgrim takes his way to honor the memory of the father of modern painting. The throne is a sort of carved armchair, very simple in form, but richly overlaid with gold; the surrounding background is filled with adoring angels. Here sits the Madonna, in stiff solemnity, holding her child on her lap. If we find it hard to admire her beauty, we must note the superiority of the picture to its predecessors. For the enthroned Madonna in a really attractive and beautiful form, we must pass at once to the period of full art development. In the interval, many variations upon the theme have been invented. The throne may be of any size, shape, or material; the composition may consist of any number of figures. The Madonna, seated or standing, is now the centre of an assembly of personages symmetrically grouped about her. There is little or no unity of action among them; each one is an independent figure. The guard of honor may be composed of saints, as in Montagna's Madonna, of the Brera, Milan; or again it is a company of angels, as in the Berlin Madonna, attributed to Botticelli, similar to which is the picture by Ghirlandajo in the Uffizi Gallery. Where saints are represented, each one is marked by some special emblem, the identification of which makes, in itself, an interesting study. St. Peter's key, St. Paul's sword, St. Catherine's wheel, and St. Barbara's tower soon become familiar symbols to those fond of this kind of lore. Among the idealized presences about the Virgin's throne may sometimes be seen the prosaic figure of the donor, whose munificence has made the picture possible. This is well illustrated in the famous Madonna of Victory in the Louvre, painted in commemoration of the Battle of Fornovo, where Mantegna represents Francesco Gonzaga, commander of the Venetian forces, kneeling at the Virgin's feet. A charming feature in many enthroned Madonnas is the group of cherubs below,--one, two, or the mystic three. They are not the exclusive possession of any single school of art; Bartolommeo and Andrea del Sarto of the Florentines, Francia of the Bolognese, and Bellini and Cima of the Venetians were particularly partial to them. The treatment in Northern Italy gives them a more definite purpose in the composition than does that of Florence, for here they are always musicians, playing on all sorts of instruments,--the violin, the mandolin, or the pipe. Bartolommeo was specially successful in the subject of the enthroned Madonna, having fine gifts of composition united with profound religious earnestness. The great picture in the Pitti gallery at Florence may serve as a typical example. Andrea del Sarto's _chef-d'oeuvre_--the Madonna di San Francesco (Uffizi)--may also be assigned to this class, although the arrangement is entirely novel. The Virgin, holding the babe in her arms, stands on a sort of pedestal, carved at the corners with a design of harpies, from which the picture is often known as the Madonna of the Harpies. The pedestal throne is also seen in two of Correggio's Dresden pictures, but here the Virgin is seated, with the child on her lap. An exceedingly simple throne Madonna is that of Luini, in the Brera at Milan, where the Virgin sits on a plain coping not at all high. [Illustration: PERUGINO.--MADONNA AND SAINTS. (DETAIL.)] A beautiful Madonna enthroned is by Perugino, in the Vatican Gallery at Rome; one of the artist's best works in power and vivacity of color. The throne is an architectural structure of elegant simplicity of design, apparently of carved and inlaid marble. The Virgin sits in quiet dignity, her face bent towards the bishops at her right, St. Costantius and St. Herculanus. On the other side stand the youthful St. Laurence and St. Louis of Toulouse. Although Perugino was an exceedingly prolific artist, he did not often choose this particular subject. On this account the picture is especially interesting, and also because it is the original model of well known works by two of the Umbrian painter's most illustrious pupils. Many, indeed, were the apprentices trained in the famous _bottega_ at Perugia, but, among them all, Raphael and Pinturicchio took the lead. These were the two who honored their master by repeating, with modifications of their own, the beautiful composition of the Vatican. Pinturicchio's picture is in the Church of St. Andrea, at Perugia. A charming feature, which he introduced, is a little St. John, standing at the foot of the throne. Raphael's picture is the so-called Ansidei Madonna, of the National Gallery, London, purchased by the English government, in 1885, for the fabulous price of £72,000. The composition is here reduced to its simplest possible form, with only one saint on each side,--St. Nicholas on the right, St. John the Baptist on the left. The Virgin and child give no attention to these personages, but are absorbed in a book which is open on the Mother's knee. Raphael had no great liking for this style of picture, which was rather too formal for his taste. It is noticeable that, in the few instances where he painted it, he took the suggestion, as here, from some previous work. Thus his Madonna of St. Anthony, also in the National Gallery (loaned by the King of Naples), was based upon an old picture by Bernardino di Mariotto, according to the strict orders of the nuns for whose convent it was a commission. The Baldacchino Madonna of the Pitti, at Florence, is closely akin to Bartolommeo's composition in the same gallery. Glancing, briefly, at these scattered examples, we learn that the enthroned Madonna belongs to every school of Italian art, and exhibits an astonishing variety of forms. Probably it was in the North of Italy that it flourished most. The Paduan School has its fine representation in Mantegna's picture, already referred to; the Brescian, in Moretto's Madonna of S. Clemente; the Veronese, in Girolamo dai Libri's splendid altar piece in San Giorgio Maggiore; the Bergamesque, in Lotto's Madonna of S. Bartolommeo. Above all, it was in Venice, the Queen City of the Adriatic, that the enthroned Madonna reached the greatest popularity: the spirit of the composition was peculiarly adapted to the Venetian love of pomp and ceremony. To understand Venetian art aright, we must distinguish the character of the earlier and later periods. With Vivarini, Bellini, and Cima, the Madonna in Trono was the expression of a devout religious feeling. With Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese, it was merely one among many popular art subjects. Thus arose two different general types. The earlier Madonna was a somewhat cold type of beauty; the faultless regularity of her features and the imperturbable calm of her expression make her rather unapproachable; but she shows a strong, sweet purity of character, worthy of profound respect. One of Cima's most important works is the Madonna of this type in the Venice Academy. High on a marble throne, she sits under a pillared portico, behind which stretches a pleasant landscape. Three saints stand on each side,--an old man, a youth, and a maiden. On the steps sit two choristers playing the violin and mandolin. Palma's great altar-piece, at Vicenza, is another splendid enthroned Madonna. Attended by St. George and St. Lucy, and entertained by a musical angel seated at her feet, the Virgin supports her beautiful boy, as he gives his blessing. Bellini's enthroned Madonnas are known throughout the world. The picture by which he established his fame was one of this class, originally painted for a chapel in San Giobbe, but now hanging in the Venice Academy. Ruskin has pronounced it "one of the greatest pictures ever painted in Christendom in her central art power." It is a large composition, with three saints at each side, and three choristers below. The Frari Madonna is in a simpler vein, and consists of three compartments, the central one containing the Virgin's throne. The angioletti, on the steps, are probably the most popular of their charming class in Venice. [Illustration: GIOVANNI BELLINI.--MADONNA OF SAN ZACCARIA. (DETAIL.)] The San Zaccaria Madonna was painted when Bellini was over eighty years old, and has certain technical qualities surpassing any the artist had previously attained. The depth of light and shade is particularly remarkable; the colors rich and harmonious. The attendant saints are St. Lucy on the right, a pretty blonde girl, with St. Jerome beyond her, absorbed in his Bible; opposite, stand St. Catherine, pensively looking down, and St. Peter, in profound meditation. The entire picture, both in conception and execution, may be considered a representative example of the times. Following the Bellini school, and forming, as it were, a connecting link between the earlier and the later art, was Giorgione. Less than a score of existing works give witness to the rare spirit of this master, who was spared to earth only thirty-four years. These are of a quality to place him among the immortals. The enthroned Madonna is the subject of two, one in the Madrid Gallery, and another at Castel-Franco. They create an entirely distinct Madonna ideal,--a poetic being, who sits, with drooping head and dreamy eyes, as if seeing unspeakable visions. The Castel-Franco picture expresses the finest elements in Venetian character. Every other composition seems elaborate and artificial when compared with the simplicity of this. Other Madonnas seem almost coarse beside such delicacy. The Virgin's throne is of an unusual height,--a double plinth,--the upper step of which is somewhat above the heads of the attendant saints, Liberale and Francis. This simple, compositional device emphasizes the effect of her pensive expression. It is as if her high meditations set her apart from human companionship. There is, indeed, something almost pathetic in her isolation, but for the strength of character in her face. The color scheme is as simple and beautiful as the underlying conception. The Virgin's tunic is of green, and the mantle, falling from the right shoulder and lying across her lap, is red, with deep shadows in its large folds. The back of the seat is covered with a strip of red and gold embroidery. The later period of Venetian art is marked by a new ideal of the Virgin. She is now a magnificent creature of flesh and blood. Her face is proud and handsome; her figure large, well-proportioned, and somewhat voluptuous. No Bethlehem stable ever sheltered this haughty beauty; her home is in kings' palaces; she belongs distinctly to the realm of wealth and worldliness. She has never known sorrow, anxiety, or poverty; life has brought her nothing but pleasure and luxury. Her throne stands no longer in the sacred place of some inner sanctuary, where angel choristers make music. It is an elevated platform, at one side of the composition, as in Titian's Pesaro altar-piece, and Veronese's Madonna in the Venice Academy. This gives an opportunity for a display of elaborate draperies, such as we may see in Veronese's picture. The peculiar qualities of art in Verona and Venice are blended in Paolo Veronese. No artist ever enjoyed more the splendors of color, or combined them in more enchanting harmonies. Such gifts transform the commonest materials, and, though his Virgin is a very ordinary woman, she has undeniable charms. An oft-copied figure, in this picture, is that of the little St. John, a universal favorite among child lovers. [Illustration: VERONESE.--MADONNA AND SAINTS.] The reader must have remarked that, though the fundamental idea of the enthroned Madonna is that of queenship, the Virgin wears no crown in any of the pictures thus far cited; the crowned Madonna is not characteristic of Italian art. It is found occasionally in mosaics from the eighth to the eleventh centuries, and in some of the early votive pictures, but does not appear in the later period except in a few Venetian pictures by Giovanni da Murano and Carlo Crivelli. The same idea was often carried out by placing two hovering angels over the Virgin's head, holding the crown between them. Botticelli's Madonna of the Inkhorn is treated in this way. The crown is essentially Teutonic in origin and character. Turning to the representative art of Germany and Belgium, we find the Virgin almost invariably wearing a crown, whether she sits on a throne, or in a pastoral environment. No better example could be named than the celebrated Holbein Madonna, of Darmstadt, known chiefly through the copy in the Dresden Gallery. Here the imposing height of the Virgin is rendered still more impressive by a high, golden crown, richly embossed and edged with pearls. Beneath this her blond hair falls loosely over her beautiful neck, and gleams on the blue garment hanging over her shoulders. Strong and tender, this noble figure sums up the finest elements in the Madonna art of the North. A simple and lovely form for the Madonna's crown is the narrow golden fillet set with pearls, singly or in clusters. This is placed over the Virgin's brow just at the edge of the hair, which is otherwise unconfined. This is seen on Madonnas by Van Eyck (Frankfort), Dürer (woodcut of 1513), Memling (Bruges), Schongauer (Munich). [Illustration: QUENTIN MASSYS.--MADONNA AND CHILD.] In the enthroned Madonna by Quentin Massys, in the Berlin Gallery, we have many typical characteristics of Northern art. The throne itself is exceedingly rich, ornamented with agate pillars with embossed capitals of gold. The Virgin has the fine features and earnest, tender expression which recalls earlier Flemish painters. Her dress falls in rich, heavy folds upon the marble pavement. But, as with Van Eyck and Memling, Holbein and Schongauer, fine clothes do not conceal her girlish simplicity or her loving heart. A low table, spread with food, stands at the left,--a curious domestic element to introduce, and thoroughly Northern in realism. Considered as a symbol of the exaltation of motherhood, there is no reason why the throne should go out of fashion; but if it is to appear, it must be used intelligently, and with some adaptation to present modes of thought, not servilely imitated from the forms of a by-gone age. This is a fact too little appreciated by the artists of to-day. Many modern pictures could be cited--by Bouguereau, Ittenbach, and others--of enthroned Madonnas in which is adopted the form, but not the spirit, of the Italian Rennaissance. In such works, the setting is a mere affectation entirely out of taste. If we are to have a throne, let us have a Madonna who is a veritable queen. CHAPTER III. THE MADONNA IN THE SKY. (THE MADONNA IN GLORIA.) We have seen that the first Madonnas were painted against a background either of solid gold, or of cherub figures, and that the latter style of setting was continued in the early pictures of the enthroned Madonna. The effect was to idealize the subject, and carry it into the region of the heavenly. This was the germinal idea which grew into the "Madonna in Gloria." The glory was originally a sort of nimbus of a larger order, surrounding the entire figure, instead of merely the head. It was oval in shape, like the almond or mandorla. A picture of this class is the famous Madonna della Stella, of Fra Angelico. It is in a beautiful Gothic tabernacle, which is the sole ornament of a cell in San Marco, Florence. At every step in these sacred precincts, we meet some reminder of the Angelic Brother. How the gray walls blossomed, under his brush, into forms and colors of eternal beauty! After seeing the larger wall-paintings in corridors and refectory, this little gem seems to epitomize his choicest gifts. A rich frame, fit setting for the jewel, encloses an outer circle of adoring angels, and within, the central panel contains only the full length figure of the Virgin with her child, against a mandorla formed of golden rays running from centre to circumference. The Madonna is enveloped in a long, dark blue cloak, drawn around her head like a Byzantine veil. A single star gleams above her brow, from which is derived the title of the picture. She holds her child fondly, and he, with responsive affection, nestles against his mother, pressing his little face into her neck. Faithful to the standards of his predecessors, and untouched by the new spirit of naturalism all about him, the monk painter preserves, in his conception, the most sacred traditions of past ages, and yet unites with them an element of love and tenderness which appeals strongly to every human heart. [Illustration: FRA ANGELICO.--MADONNA DELLA STELLA.] It is but a step from this earlier form of the Madonna in Gloria to the more modern style of the Madonna in the Sky, where the field of vision is enlarged, and we see the Virgin and child raised above the surface of the earth. In some pictures, her elevation is very slight. There is a curious composition, by Andrea del Sarto (Berlin Gallery), where we are puzzled to know if the Madonna is enthroned or enskied. A flight of steps in the centre leads up as if to a throne, but above these the Virgin sits in a niche, on a bank of clouds. In Correggio's Madonna of St. Sebastian, in the Dresden Gallery, the Virgin seems to be descending from heaven to earth with her babe, and the surrounding clouds and cherubs rest literally upon the heads of the saints who are honored by the vision. In other pictures the dividing line between earth and heaven is much more strongly marked. We have a landscape below, then a stratum of intervening air, and, in the upper sky, the Madonna with her child. The lower part of the picture is occupied by a company of saints, to whom the heavenly vision is vouchsafed; or, in rare cases, by cherubs. The Virgin appears in a cloud of cherub heads, or accompanied by a few child-angels. There are a few pictures in which her mother, St. Anne, sits with her. Adoring seraphs sometimes attend, one on each side, or even sainted personages. All these variations are exemplified in the pictures which we are to consider. [Illustration: UMBRIAN SCHOOL.--GLORIFICATION OF THE VIRGIN.] The first has come down to us from the hand of some unknown Umbrian painter. In the National Gallery, London, where it now hangs, it was once attributed to Lo Spagna, but is now entered in the catalogue as nameless. It matters little whether or not we know the name of the master; he could ask no higher tribute to his talent than the universal admiration which his picture commands. In the foreground of a quiet Umbrian landscape is a marble balcony, on the railing of which sit two captivating little boy choristers. One roguish fellow pipes on a trumpet, while the other, his face tip-tilted to the heavenly vision, makes music on a small guitar. Above, on a cloud, sits the Virgin, with the sweet, mystic smile on her face, so characteristic of Umbrian art. She supports her babe with her right arm, and in her left hand carries a lily stalk. The child, standing on his mother's knee and clinging to her neck, turns his face out with sweet earnestness. In clouds at the side, tiny cherubs bear tapers, while others, floating above, hold a large crown just over her head. Although we cannot limit this style of picture to any special locality, it appears to have found much favor in the art of Northern Italy. In the Brescian school, Moretto was unusually fond of the subject. His treatment of the theme is somewhat heavy; there is little of the ethereal in his celestial vision, either in the type of womanhood or in the style of arrangement. In defiance of the law of gravitation, he poses his upper figures so as to form a solid pyramid, wide at the base, and tapering abruptly to the apex. [Illustration: MORETTO.--MADONNA IN GLORY.] In the glorified Madonna of St. John the Evangelist, Brescia, the pyramidal effect is accentuated by curtains draped back on either side of the upper part of the composition. In the Madonna of San Giorgio Maggiore, at Verona, we have a much more attractive picture. The "gloria" encompassing the vision is clearly defined, giving so strong an effect of the supernatural that we cease to judge the composition by ordinary standards of natural law. The Virgin's white veil flutters from her head as if caught by some heavenly breeze. Her cloak floats about her by the same mysterious force, held in graceful festoons by winged cherub heads. Below is a group of five virgin martyrs, with St. Cecilia in the centre, wearing a crown of roses; St. Lucia holds the awl, the instrument of her torture, looking down at St. Catherine, who leans against her terrible wheel; St. Agnes, on the other side, reads quietly from a book while she caresses her lamb, and St. Barbara stands behind her, with eyes lifted to the sky. They are all splendid young Amazons, recalling Moretto's fine St. Justina of the Vienna Gallery. There is no trace of ascetism in their strong, well-developed figures, and in their faces no suggestion of an unhealthy pietism. Moretto's ideals were an anticipation of the most advanced ideas of the modern science of physical culture. His Madonna and saints derive their beauty neither from over refinement on the one hand, nor from sensuous charms on the other, but from sane and harmonious self-development. The Berlin Gallery contains a third glorified Madonna by the same painter, treated as a Holy Family. St. Elizabeth sits beside the Virgin, who holds her own boy on her right side, while bending to embrace the little St. John with the left arm. So large a group is not appropriately treated in this way, yet the picture is so fine a work of art as to disarm criticism. Still another representative of the Brescian school must be considered in the person of Savoldo. Born of a noble family, and following painting as an amusement rather than as an actual profession, his works are rare, and one of the finest examples of his art is the Glorification of the Virgin, in the Brera Gallery, at Milan. The mandorla-shaped glory surrounds the Virgin's figure, studded with faintly discerned cherub heads. On either side, a musical angel is in adoration; four saints stand on the earth below. The entire conception is rendered with the utmost delicacy: the grace and beauty of the Madonna are of exactly the quality to make her appearance a beatific vision. From Brescia we turn to Verona, where we again find many pictures of the beautiful subject. There are, in the churches of Verona, at least three notable works, by Gianfrancesco Caroto, in this style. One is in Sant' Anastasia, another is in San Giorgio, and the third--the artist's best existing work--is in San Fermo Maggiore, and shows the Virgin's mother, St. Anne, seated with her in the clouds. Girolamo dai Libri was a few years younger than Caroto, and at one period was, to some extent, an imitator of the latter. Beginning as a miniaturist, he finally attained a high place among the Veronese artists of the first order. His characteristics can nowhere be seen to better advantage than in the Madonna of St. Andrew and St. Peter, in the Verona Gallery. The Virgin is in an oval glory, edged all around with small, fleecy clouds. She has a beautiful, matronly face, with abundant hair, smoothly brushed over her forehead. The two apostles, below, are fine, strong figures, full of virility. Morando, or Cavazzola, was, doubtless, the most gifted of the older school of Verona, possessing some of the best qualities of the later master, Paolo Veronese. We should not leave the school, therefore, without mentioning a remarkable contribution he added to this class of pictures in his latest altar-piece. Here the upper air is filled with a sacred company, the Virgin and child are attended by St. Francis and St. Anthony, and surrounded by seven allegorical figures to represent the cardinal virtues. Below are six saints, specially honored in the Franciscan Order. The picture is called the finest production of the school in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. In the Venetian school, Titian and Tintoretto both painted the subject of the Madonna in glory, but the pictures are not notable compared with many others from their hands. From the North of Italy we naturally turn next to the South, to inquire what Raphael was doing at the same period in Rome. Occupied by many great works under the papal patronage, he still found time for his favorite subject of the Madonna, painting some pictures in the styles already mastered, and two for the first time in the style of the Madonna in the sky. [Illustration: SPANISH SCHOOL.--MADONNA ON THE CRESCENT MOON.] The first was the Foligno Madonna, now in the Vatican Gallery. It was painted in 1511 for the pope's secretary, Sigismund Conti, as a thank-offering for having escaped the danger of a falling meteor at Foligno. No thoughtful observer can be slow to recognize the superiority of this composition over all others of its kind in point of unity. Here is no formal row of saints, each absorbed in his or her own reflections, apart from any common purpose. On the contrary, all unite in paying honor to the Queen of Heaven. Not less superior to his contemporaries was the painter's skill in arranging the figures of Mother and child with such grace of equilibrium that they seem to float in the upper air. In the Sistine Madonna, Raphael carried this form of composition to the highest perfection. So simple and apparently unstudied is its beauty, that we do not realize the masterliness of its art. We seem to be standing before an altar, or, better still, before an open window, from which the curtains have been drawn aside, allowing us to look directly into the heaven of heavens. A cloud of cherub faces fills the air, from the midst of which, and advancing towards us, is the Virgin with her child. The downward force of gravity is perfectly counterbalanced by the vital energy of her progress forward. There is here no uncomfortable sense, on the part of the spectator, that natural law is disregarded. While the seated Madonna in glory seems often in danger of falling to earth, this full-length figure in motion avoids any such solidity of effect. The figures on either side are also so posed as to arouse no surprise at their presence. We should have said beforehand that heavy pontifical robes would be absurdly incongruous in such a composition, but Raphael solves the problem so simply that few would suspect the difficulties. The final touch of beauty is added in the cherub heads below, recalling the naïve charm of the similar figures in the Umbrian picture we have considered. [Illustration: BOUGUEREAU.--MADONNA OF THE ANGELS.] After the time of Raphael, a pretty form of Madonna in glory was occasionally painted, showing the Virgin with her babe sitting above the crescent moon. The conception appears more than once in the paintings of Albert Dürer, and later, artists of all schools adopted it. Sassoferrato's picture in the Vatican Gallery is a popular example. Tintoretto's, in Berlin, is not so well known. In the Dresden Gallery is a work, by an unknown Spanish painter of the seventeenth century, differing from the others in that the Virgin is standing, as in the oft-repeated Spanish pictures of the Immaculate Conception. It is of pictures like this that our poet Longfellow is speaking, when he thus apostrophizes the Virgin: "Thou peerless queen of air, As sandals to thy feet the silver moon dost wear." The enskied Madonna involves many technical difficulties of composition, and demands a high order of artistic imagination. It could hardly be called a frequent subject in the period of greatest artistic daring, and no modern painter has shown any adequate understanding of the subject, though there are not lacking those who have made the attempt. Bodenhausen, Defregger, Bouguereau, have all followed Raphael in representing the Queen of Heaven as a full-length figure in the sky; but their conception has not the dignity corresponding to the style of treatment. Impatient and dissatisfied with such modern art, we turn back to the old masters with new appreciation of their great gifts. CHAPTER IV. THE PASTORAL MADONNA. It was many centuries before art, at first devoted exclusively to figure painting, turned to the study of natural scenery. Thus it was that Madonna pictures, of various kinds, had long been established in popular favor before the idea of a landscape setting was introduced. We need not look for interesting pictures of this class before the latter part of the fifteenth century, and it was not until the sixteenth that the pastoral Madonna, in its highest form, was first produced. Even then there was no great number which show a really sympathetic love of nature. In the ideal pastoral, the landscape entirely fills the picture, and the figures are, as it were, an integral part of it. Such pictures are so rare that we write in golden letters the names of the few who have given us these treasures. Raphael's justly comes first in the list. His earliest Madonnas show his love of natural scenery, in the charming glimpses of Umbrian landscape, which form the background. These are treated, as Müntz points out, with marked "simplicity of outline and breadth of design." They are, however, but the beginning of the great things that were to follow. The young painter's sojourn in Florence witnessed a marvellous development of his powers. Here he was surrounded by the greatest artists of his time, and he was quick to absorb into himself something of excellence from them all. His fertility of production was amazing. In a period of four years (1504-1508), interrupted by visits to Perugia and Urbino, he produced about twenty Madonnas, in which we may trace the new influences affecting him. Leonardo da Vinci was, doubtless, his greatest inspiration, and it was from this master-student of nature that the young man learned, with new enthusiasm, the value of going directly to Nature herself. The fruit of this new study is a group of lovely pastoral Madonnas, which are entirely unique as Nature idyls. Three of these are among the world's great favorites. They are, the Belle Jardinière (The Beautiful Gardener), of the Louvre Gallery, Paris; the Madonna in Grünen (The Madonna in the Meadow), in the Belvedere Gallery, Vienna; and the Cardellino Madonna (The Madonna of the Goldfinch), of the Uffizi, Florence. We turn from one to another of these three beautiful pictures, always in doubt as to which is the greatest. Fortunately, it is a question which there is no occasion to decide, as every lover of art may be the happy possessor of all three, in that highest mode of possession attained by devoted study. In each one we have the typical Tuscan landscape, filling the whole picture with its tranquil beauty. The "glad green earth" blossoms with dainty flowers; the fair blue sky above is reflected in the placid surface of a lake. From its shores rise gently undulating hills, where towers show the signs of happy activity. In the foreground of this peaceful scene sits a beautiful woman with two charming children at her knee. They belong to the landscape as naturally as the trees and flowers; they partake of its tranquil, placid happiness. [Illustration: RAPHAEL.--MADONNA IN THE MEADOW.] Almost identical in general style of composition, the three pictures show many points of dissimilarity when we come to a closer study of the figures. Considered as a type of womanly beauty, the Belle Jardinière is perhaps the most commonplace of the three Virgins, or, to put it negatively, the least attractive. She is distinctly of the peasant class, gentle, amiable, and entirely unassuming. The Madonna in the Meadow is a maturer woman, more dignified, more beautiful. The smooth braids of her hair are coiled about the head, accentuating its lovely outline. The falling mantle reveals the finely modelled shoulders. The Madonna of the Goldfinch is a still higher type of loveliness, uniting with gentle dignity a certain delicate, high-bred grace, which Raphael alone could impart. Her face is charmingly framed in the soft hair which falls modestly about it. One wonders if any modern _coiffeur_ could invent so many styles of hair dressing as does this gifted young painter of the sixteenth century. Turning from the mother to the children, we find the same general types repeated in the three pictures, but with some difference of _motif_. The Christ-child of the Belle Jardinière is looking up fondly to his mother. In the Vienna picture he is eagerly interested in the cross which the little St. John gives him. In the Uffizi picture he is more serious, and strokes the goldfinch with an air of abstraction, meditating on the holy things his mother has been reading to him. The arrangement of the three figures is the same in all the pictures, and is so entirely simple that we forget the greatness of the art. The Virgin, dominating the composition, brings into unity the two smaller figures. This unity is somewhat less perfect in the Belle Jardinière, because the little St. John is almost neglected in the intense absorption of mother and child in each other. Once again, in the later days at Rome, Raphael recurred to the pastoral Madonna type of this Florentine period, and painted the picture known as the Casa Alba Madonna. We have again the same smiling landscape and the same charming children, but a Virgin of an altogether new order. A turbaned Roman beauty of superb, Juno-like physique, she does not belong to the idyllic character of her surroundings. It is as if some brilliant exotic had been transplanted from her native haunts to quiet fields, where hitherto the modest lily had bloomed alone. As Raphael's first inspiration for the pastoral Madonna came from the influence of Leonardo da Vinci, it is of interest to compare his work with that of the great Lombard himself. Critics tell us that the Madonna pictures in which he came nearest to his model are the Madonna in the Meadow and the Holy Family of the Lamb. (Madrid.) These we may place beside the Madonna of the Rocks, which is the only entirely authentic Da Vinci Madonna which we have. It is only the skilled connoisseur who, in travelling from Paris to Vienna, and from Vienna to Madrid, can hold in memory the qualities of technique which link together the three pictures; but for general characteristics of composition, the black and white reproductions may suffice. Leonardo availed himself of his intimate knowledge of Nature to choose from her storehouse something which is unique rather than typical. The rock grotto doubtless has a real counterpart, but we must go far to find it. In the river, gleaming beyond, we see the painter's characteristic treatment of water, which Raphael was glad to adopt. The triangular arrangement of the figures, the relation of the Virgin to the children, the simple, childish beauty of the latter, and their attitude towards each other--all these points suggest the source of Raphael's similar conceptions. The Virgin's hair falls over her shoulders entirely unbound, in gentle, waving ripples. [Illustration: LEONARDO DA VINCI.--MADONNA OF THE ROCKS.] We do not need to be told, though the historian has taken pains to record it, that a feature of personal beauty by which Leonardo was always greatly pleased was "curled and waving hair." We see it in the first touch of his hand when, as a boy in the workshop of Verrochio, he painted the wavy-haired angel in his Master's Baptism; and here, again, in the Virgin, we find it the crowning element of her mysterious loveliness. We try in vain to penetrate the secret of her smile,--it is as evasive as it is enchanting. And herein lies the distinguishing difference between Leonardo and Raphael. The former is always mysterious and subtle; the latter is always frank and ingenuous. While both are true interpreters of nature, Leonardo reveals the rare and inexplicable, Raphael chooses the typical and familiar. Both are possessed of a strong sense of the harmony of nature with human life. The smile of the Virgin of the Rocks is a part of the mystery of her shadowy environment;[2] the serenity of the Madonna in the Meadow belongs to the atmosphere of the open fields. [Footnote 2: That the Leonardesque _smile_ requires a Leonardesque _setting_ is seen, I think, in the pictures by Da Vinci's imitators. The Madonna by Sodoma, recently added to the Brera Gallery at Milan, is an example in point. Here the inevitable smile of mystery seems meaningless in the sunny, open landscape.] Among others who were affected by the influence of Leonardo--and chief of the Lombards--was Luini. His pastoral Madonna has, however, little in common with the landscapes of his master, judging from the lovely example in the Brera. The group of figures is strikingly suggestive of Da Vinci, but the quiet, rural pasture in which the Virgin sits is Luini's own. In the distance is a thick clump of trees, finely drawn in stem and branch. At one side is a shepherd's hut with a flock of sheep grazing near. The child Jesus reaches from his mother's lap to play with the lamb which the little St. John has brought, a _motif_ similar to Raphael's Madrid picture, and perhaps due, in both painters, to the example of Leonardo. It is said by the learned that during the period of the Renaissance the love of nature received an immense impulse from the revival of the Latin poets, and that this impulse was felt most in the large cities. In the pictures noted, we have seen its effect in Florentine and Lombard art; that it was also felt in isolated places, we may see in some of Correggio's work at Parma, at about the same time. Two, at least, of his Madonna pictures are as famous for their beautiful landscapes as for the rare grace and charm of their figures. These are the kneeling Madonna, of the Uffizi, and "La Zingarella," at Naples. Both show a perfect adaptation of the surroundings to the spirit of the scene. In the first it is morning, and the gladness of Nature reflects the Mother's rapturous joy in her awakening babe. A brilliant light floods the figures in the foreground and melts across the green slopes into the hazy distance of the sea-bound horizon. In the second it is twilight, and a calm stillness broods over all, as under the feathery palms the Mother bends, watchful, over her little one's slumbers. Such were the revelations of Nature to the country-bred painter from the little town of Correggio. Turning now to Venice for our last examples, we find that the love of natural scenery was remarkably strong in this city of water and sky, where the very absence of verdure may have created a homesick longing for the green fields. It was Venetian art which originated that form of pastoral Madonna known as the Santa Conversazione. This is usually a long, narrow picture, showing a group of sacred personages, against a landscape setting, centering about the Madonna and child. The composition has none of the formality of the enthroned Madonna. An underlying unity of purpose and action binds all the figures together in natural and harmonious relations. The acknowledged leader of this style of composition--the inventor indeed, according to many--was Palma Vecchio. It is curious that of a painter whose works are so widely admired, almost nothing is known. Even the traditions which once lent color to his life have been shattered by the ruthless hand of the modern investigator. The span of his life extended from 1480 to 1528. Thus he came at the beginning of the century made glorious by Titian, and contributed not a little in his own way to its glory. It is supposed that he studied under Giovanni Bellini, and at one time was a friend and colleague of Lorenzo Lotto. A child of the mountains--for he was born in Serinalta--he never entirely lost the influence of his early surroundings. To the last his figures are grave, vigorous, sometimes almost rude, partaking of the characteristics of the everlasting hills. Perhaps it was these traits which made the Santa Conversazione a favorite composition with him. He has an intense love of Nature in her most luxuriant mood. [Illustration: PALMA VECCHIO.--SANTA CONVERSAZIONE.] For a collection of Palma's pictures, we should choose at least four to represent his treatment of the Santa Conversazione: those at Naples, Dresden, Munich, and Vienna. The Naples picture is considered the most successful of Palma's large pictures of this kind, but it is not easy for the less critical observer to choose a favorite among the four. One general formula describes them all: a sunny landscape with hills clad in their greenest garb; a tree in the foreground, beneath which sits the Virgin, a comely, country-bred matron, who seems to have drawn her splendid vigor from the clear, bright air. On her lap she supports a sprightly little boy, who is the centre of attention. In the simpler compositions the Madonna is at the left, and at the right kneel or sit two saints. One is a handsome young rustic, unkempt and roughly clad, sometimes figuring as St. John the Baptist, and sometimes as St. Roch. With him is contrasted a beautiful young female saint, usually St. Catherine. Where the composition includes other figures, the Virgin is in the centre, with the attendant personages symmetrically grouped on either side. In the Vienna picture the two additional figures at the left are the aged St. Celestin and a fine St. Barbara. Of all schools of painting, the Venetian is the least translatable into black and white, so rich in colors is the palette which composed it. This is especially true of Palma, and to understand aright his Santa Conversazione, we must read into it the harmony of colors which it expresses, the chords of blue, red, brown, and green, the shimmering lights and brilliant atmosphere. [Illustration: FILIPPINO LIPPI.--MADONNA IN A ROSE GARDEN.] The subject of the Santa Conversazione should not be left without a brief reference to other Venetians, who added to the popularity of this charming style of picture. Berenson mentions seven by Palma's pupil, Bonifazio Veronese, and one by his friend, Lorenzo Lotto. Cima, Cariani, Paris Bordone, and last, but not least, the great Titian,[3] lent their gifts to the subject, so that we have abundant evidence of the Venetian love of natural scenery. It remains to consider one more form of the pastoral Madonna, that which represents the Virgin and child in "a garden inclosed," in allusion to the symbolism of Solomon's Song (4:12). The subject is found among the woodcuts of Albert Dürer, but I have never seen it in any German painting. [Footnote 3: See particularly Titian's works in the Louvre, of which the Vierge au Lapin is an especially charming pastoral.] In Italian art there are two famous pictures of this class: by Francia, in the Munich Gallery, and by Filippino Lippi (or so attributed), in the Pitti, at Florence. In both the _motif_ is the same: in the foreground, a square inclosure surrounded by a rose-hedge, with a hilly landscape in the distance; the Virgin kneeling before her child in the centre. Filippino Lippi's is one of those pictures whose beauty attracts crowds of admirers to the canvas. Copyists are kept busy, repeating the composition for eager purchasers, and it has made its way all over the world. The circle of graceful angels who, with the boy St. John, join the mother in adoring the Christ-child, is one of the chief attractions of the picture. It is a pretty conceit that one of these angels showers rose leaves upon the babe. The pastoral Madonna is the sort of picture which can never be outgrown. The charm of nature is as perennial as is the beauty of motherhood, and the two are always in harmony. Here, then, is a proper subject for modern Madonna art, a field which has scarcely been opened by the artists of our own day. Such pastoral Madonnas as have been painted within recent years are all more or less artificial in conception. Compared with the idyllic charm of the sixteenth century pictures, they seem like pretty scenes in a well-mounted opera. We are looking for better things. CHAPTER V. THE MADONNA IN A HOME ENVIRONMENT. A subject so sacred as the Madonna was long held in too great reverence to permit of any common or realistic treatment. The pastoral setting brought the mother and her babe into somewhat closer and more human relations than had before been deemed possible; but art was slow to presume any further upon this familiarity. The Madonna as a domestic subject, represented in the interior of her home, was hesitatingly adopted, and has been so rarely treated, even down to our own times, as to form but a small group of pictures in the great body of art. [Illustration: SCHONGAUER.--HOLY FAMILY.] The Northern painters naturally led the way. Peculiarly home-loving in their tastes, their ideal woman is the _hausfrau_, and it was with them no lowering of the Madonna's dignity to represent her in this capacity. A picture in the style of Quentin Massys hangs in the Munich Gallery, and shows a Flemish bedroom of the fifteenth century. At the left stands the bed, and on the right burns the fire, with a kettle hanging over it. The Virgin sits alone with her babe at her breast. More frequently a domestic scene of this sort includes other figures belonging to the Holy Family. A typical German example is the picture by Schongauer in the Belvedere Gallery at Vienna. The Virgin is seated in homely surroundings, intent upon a bunch of grapes which she holds in her hands, and which she has taken from a basket standing on the floor beside her. Long, waving hair falls over her shoulders; a snowy kerchief is folded primly in the neck of her dress; she is the impersonation of virgin modesty. Her baby boy stands on her lap, nestling against his mother; his eyes fixed on the fruit, his eager little face glowing with pleasure. Beyond are seen the cattle, which Joseph is feeding. He pauses at the door, a bundle of hay in his arms, to look in with fond pride at his young wife and her child. Schongauer's work belongs to the latter part of the fifteenth century, and there was nothing similar to it in Italy at the same period. It is true that Madonnas in domestic settings have been attributed to contemporaneous Italians, but they were probably by some Flemish hand. [Illustration: RAPHAEL.--MADONNA DELL' IMPANNATA.] Giulio Romano, a pupil of Raphael, was perhaps the first of the Italians to give any domestic touch to the subject of the Madonna and child. His Madonna della Catina of the Dresden Gallery is well known. It is so called from the basin in which the Christ-child stands while the little St. John pours in water from a pitcher for the bath. Another picture by the same artist shows the Madonna seated with her child in the interior of a bedchamber. This was one of the "discoveries" of the late Senator Giovanni Morelli, the critic, and is in a private collection in Dresden. To Giulio Romano also, according to recent criticism, is due the domestic Madonna known as the "Impannata," and usually attributed to Raphael. It is probable that both artists had a hand in it, the master in the arrangement of the composition, the pupil in its execution. A bed at one side is concealed by a green curtain. In the rear is the cloth-covered window which gives the picture its name. Elizabeth and Mary Magdalene have brought home the child, who springs to his mother's arms, smiling back brightly at his friends. One other Madonna from Raphael's brush (the Orleans) has an interior setting, but the domestic environment here is undoubtedly the work of some Flemish painter of later date. By the seventeenth century, the Holy Family in a home environment can be found somewhat more often in various localities. By the French painter Mignard there is a well-known picture in the Louvre called La Vierge à la Grappe. By F. Barocci of Urbino there is an example in the National Gallery known as the Madonna del Gatto, in which the child holds a bird out of the reach of a cat. A similar _motif_, certainly not a pleasant one, is seen in Murillo's Holy Family of the Bird, in Madrid. By Salimbeni, in the Pitti, is a Holy Family in an interior, showing the boy Jesus and his cousin St. John playing with puppies. Rembrandt's domestic Madonna pictures, equally homely as to environment, are by no means scenes of hilarity, but rather of frugal contentment. Two similar works bear the title of Le Ménage du Menuisier--the Carpenter's Home. In both, the scene is the interior of a common room devoted to work and household purposes. Joseph is seen in the rear at his bench, while the central figures are the mother and child. In the Louvre picture, the Virgin's mother is present, caressing her grandchild, who is held at his mother's breast. The composition at St. Petersburg (Hermitage Gallery) is simpler, and shows the Virgin contemplating her babe as he lies asleep in the cradle. Another well-known picture by Rembrandt is in the Munich Gallery, where again we have signs of the carpenter's toil, but where the laborer has stopped for a moment to peep at the babe, who has gone off to dreamland at his mother's breast and now sleeps sweetly in her lap. Let those who think such pictures too homely for a sacred theme compare them with the simplicity of the Gospels. PART II. MADONNAS CLASSED ACCORDING TO THEIR SIGNIFICANCE AS TYPES OF MOTHERHOOD. CHAPTER VI. THE MADONNA OF LOVE. (THE MATER AMABILIS.) Undoubtedly the most popular of all Madonna subjects--certainly the most easily understood--is the Mater Amabilis. The mother's mood may be read at a glance: she is showing in one of a thousand tender ways her motherly affection for her child. She clasps him in her arms, holding him to her breast, pressing her face to his, kissing him, caressing him, or playing with him. Love is written in every line of her face; love is the key-note of the picture. The style of composition best adapted to such a theme is manifestly the simplest. The more formal types of the enthroned and glorified Madonnas are the least suitable for the display of maternal affection, while the portrait Madonna, and the Madonna in landscape or domestic scenes, are readily conceived as the Mater Amabilis. Nevertheless, these distinctions have not by any means been rigidly regarded in art. This is manifest in some of the illustrations in Part I., as the Enthroned Madonna, by Quentin Massys, where the mother kisses her child, and Angelico's Madonna in Glory, where she holds him to her cheek. Gathering our examples from so many methods of composition, we are in the midst of a multitude of pictures which no man can number, and which set forth every conceivable phase of motherliness. Let us make Raphael our starting-point. From the same master whose influence led him to the study of external nature, he learned also the study of human nature. To the interpretation of mother-love he brought all the fresh ardor of youth, and a sunny temperament which saw only joy in the face of Nature. One after another of the series of his Florentine pictures gives us a new glimpse of the loving relation between mother and child. The Belle Jardinière gazes into her boy's face in fond absorption. The Tempi Madonna holds him to her heart, pressing her lips to his soft cheek. In the Orleans and Colonna pictures she smiles indulgently into his eyes as he lies across her lap, plucking at the bosom of her dress. Other pictures show the two eagerly reading together from the Book of Wisdom (The Conestabile and Ansidei Madonnas). The painter's later work evinces a growing maturity of thought. In the Holy Family of Francis I., how strong and tender is the mother's attitude, as she stoops to lift her child from his cradle; in the Chair Madonna, how protecting is the capacious embrace with which she gathers him to herself in brooding love. No technical artistic education is necessary for the appreciation of such pictures. All who have known a mother's love look and understand, and look again and are satisfied. Correggio touches the heart in much the same way; he, too, saw the world through rose-colored glasses. His interpretation of life is full of buoyant enjoyment. Beside the tranquil joy of Raphael's ideals, his figures express a tumultuous gladness, an overflowing gayety. This is the more curious because of the singular melancholy which is attributed to him. The outer circumstances of his life moved in a quiet groove which was almost humdrum. He passed his days in comparative obscurity at Parma, far from the great art influences of his time. But isolation seemed the better to develop his rare individuality. He was the architect of his own fortunes, and wrought out independently a style peculiar to himself. His most famous Madonna pictures are large compositions, crowded with figures of extravagant attitudes and expression. The fame of these more pretentious works rests not so much upon their inner significance as upon their splendid technique. They are unsurpassed for masterly handling of color, and for triumphs of chiaroscuro. There are better qualities of sentiment in the smaller pictures, where the mother is alone with her child. It is here that we find something worthy to compare with Raphael. There are several of these, produced in rapid succession during the period when the artist was engaged upon the frescoes of S. Giovanni (Parma), and soon after marriage had opened his heart to sweet, domestic influences. The first was the Uffizi picture, so widely known and loved. The mother has gathered up her mantle so that it covers her head and drops at one side on a step, forming a soft, blue cushion for the babe. Here the little darling lies, looking up into his mother's face. Kneeling on the step below, she bends over him, with her hands playfully outstretched, in a transport of maternal affection. Following this came the picture now in the National Gallery, called the Madonna della Cesta, from the basket that lies on the ground. It is a domestic scene in the outer air: the mother is dressing her babe, and smilingly arrests his hand, which, on a sudden impulse, he has stretched towards some coveted object. The same face is almost exactly repeated in the Madonna of the Hermitage Gallery (St. Petersburg), who offers her breast to her boy, at that moment turning about to receive some fruit presented by a child angel. There are two duplicates of this picture in other galleries. The Zingarella (the Gypsy) is so called from the gypsy turban worn by the Madonna. The mother, supposed to be painted from the artist's wife, sits with the child asleep on her lap. With motherly tenderness she bends so closely over him that her forehead touches his little head. It is unfortunate that this beautiful work is not better known. It is in the Naples Gallery. A comparison of these pictures discloses a remarkable variety in action and grouping. On the other hand, the Madonnas are quite similar in general type. With the exception of the Zingarella, who is the most motherly, they are all in a playful mood. The same playfulness, but of a more sweet and motherly kind, lights the face of the Madonna della Scala. The composition is somewhat in the portrait style, showing the mother in half length, seated under a sort of canopy. The babe clings closely to her neck, turning about at the spectator with a glance half shy and half mischievous. His coyness awakens a smile of tender amusement in the gentle, young face above him. The picture has an interesting history. It was originally painted in fresco over the eastern gate of Parma, where Vasari saw and admired it. In after years, the wall which it decorated was incorporated into a small new church, of which it formed the rear wall. To accommodate the high level of the Madonna, the building was somewhat elevated, and, being entered by a flight of steps, was known as S. Maria della Scala (of the staircase). The name attached itself to the picture even after the church was destroyed (in 1812), and the fresco removed to the town gallery. The marks of defacement which it bears are due to the votive offerings which were formerly fastened upon it,--among them, a silver crown worn by the Madonna as late as the eighteenth century. Though such scars injure its artistic beauty, they add not a little to the romantic interest which invests it. [Illustration: CORREGGIO.--MADONNA DELLA SCALA.] Beside such names as Raphael and Correggio, history furnishes but one other worthy of comparison for the portrayal of the Mater Amabilis--it is Titian. His Madonna is by no means uniformly motherly. There are times when we look in vain for any softening of her aristocratic features; when her stately dignity seems quite incompatible with demonstrativeness.[4] But when love melts her heart how gracious is her unbending, how winning her smile! Once she goes so far as to play in the fields with her little boy, quieting a rabbit with one hand for him to admire. (La Vierge au Lapin, Louvre.) In other pictures she holds him lying across her lap, smiling thoughtfully upon him. Such an one is the Madonna with Sts. Ulfo and Brigida, in the Madrid Gallery. The child is taking the flowers St. Brigida offers him, and his mother looks down with the pleased expression of fond pride. Again, when her babe holds his two little hands full of the roses his cousin St. John has brought him, she smiles gently at the eagerness of the two children. (Uffizi Gallery.) [Footnote 4: See the Madonna of the Cherries in the Belvedere at Vienna, and the Madonna and Saints in the Dresden Gallery.] [Illustration: TITIAN.--MADONNA AND SAINTS. (DETAIL.)] Another similar composition reveals a still sweeter intimacy between mother and son. The babe stretches out his hand coaxingly towards his mother's breast, but she draws her veil about her, gently denying his appeal. A more beautiful mother, or a more bewitching babe, it were hard to find. Three fine half-length figures of saints complete this composition, each of great interest and individuality, but not necessary to the unity of action--the Madonna alone making a complete picture. There are two copies of this work, one in the Belvedere at Vienna, and one in the Louvre at Paris. The _motif_ of this picture is not unique in art, as will have been remarked in passing. The first duty of maternity, and one of its purest joys, is to sustain the newborn life at the mother's breast. A coarse interpretation of the subject desecrates a holy shrine, while a delicate rendering, such as Raphael's or Titian's, invests it with a new beauty. Other pictures of this class should be mentioned in the same connection. There is one in the Hermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg, attributed by late critics to the little-known painter, Bernardino de' Conti. The Madonna's face, her hair drawn smoothly over her temples, has a beautiful matronliness. Still another is the Madonna of the Green Cushion, by Solario, in the Louvre. Here the babe lies on a cushion before his mother, who bends over him ecstatically, her fair young face aglow with maternal love as she sees his contentment. We have noticed that in one of Corregio's pictures the babe lies asleep on his mother's lap. It is interesting to trace this pretty _motif_ through other works of art. No phase of motherhood is more touching than the watchful care which guards the child while he sleeps; nor is infancy ever more appealing than in peaceful and innocent slumber. Mrs. Browning understood this well, when she wrote her beautiful poem interpreting the thoughts of "the Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus." Hopes and fears, joy and pity, are alternately stirred in the heart of the watcher, as she bends over the tiny face, scanning every change that flits across it. Each verse suggests a subject for a picture. We should naturally expect that Raphael would not overlook so beautiful a theme as the mother watching her sleeping child. Nor are we disappointed. The Madonna of the Diadem, in the Louvre, belongs to this class of pictures. Like the pastoral Madonnas of the Florentine period, it includes the figure of the little St. John, to whom, in this instance, the proud mother is showing her babe, daintily lifting the veil which covers his face. The seventeenth century produced many pictures of this class; among them, a beautiful work by Guido Reni, in Rome, deserves mention, being executed with greater care than was usual with him. Sassoferrato and Carlo Dolce frequently painted the subject. Their Madonnas often seem affected, not to say sentimental, after the simpler and nobler types of the earlier period. But nowhere is their peculiar sweetness more appropriate than beside a sleeping babe. The Corsini picture by Carlo Dolce is an exquisite nursery scene. Its popularity depends more, perhaps, upon the babe than the mother. Like Lady Isobel's child in another poem of motherhood by Mrs. Browning, he sleeps-- "Fast, warm, as if its mother's smile, Laden with love's dewy weight, And red as rose of Harpocrate, Dropt upon its eyelids, pressed Lashes to cheek in a sealèd rest." In Northern Madonna art, the Mater Amabilis is the preëminent subject. This fact is due partly to the German theological tendency to subordinate the mother to her divine Son, but more especially to the characteristic domesticity of Teutonic peoples. From Van Eyck and Schongauer, through Dürer and Holbein, down to Rembrandt and Rubens, we trace this strongly marked predilection in every style of composition, regardless of proprieties. Van Eyck does not hesitate to occupy his richly dressed enthroned Madonna at Frankfort with giving her breast to her babe, and Dürer portrays the same maternal duties in the Virgin on the Crescent Moon. Holbein's Meyer Madonna, splendid with her jewelled crown, is not less motherly than Schongauer's young Virgin sitting in a rude stable. Rembrandt in humble Dutch interiors, Rubens in numerous Holy Families modelled upon the Flemish life about him always conceive of the Virgin Mother as delighting in her maternal cares. As has been said of Dürer's Madonna,--and the description applies equally well to many others in the North,--"She suckles her son with a calm feeling of happiness; she gazes upon him with admiration as he lies upon her lap; she caresses him and presses him to her bosom without a thought whether it is becoming to her, or whether she is being admired." [Illustration: DÜRER.--MADONNA AND CHILD.] This entire absence of posing on the part of the German Virgin is one of the most admirable elements in this art. This characteristic is perfectly illustrated in Dürer's portrait Madonna of the Belvedere Gallery, at Vienna. This is an excellent specimen of the master, who, alone of the Germans, is considered the peer of his great Italian contemporaries. Frankly admired both by Titian and Raphael, he has in common with them the supreme gift of seeing and reproducing natural human affections. His work, however, is as thoroughly German as theirs is Italian. The Madonna of this picture has the round, maidenly face of the typical German ideal. A transparent veil droops over the flowing hair, covered by a blue drapery above. The mother holds her child high in her arms, bending her face over him. The babe is a beautiful little fellow, full of vivacity. He holds up a pear gleefully, to meet his mother's smile. The picture is painted with great delicacy of finish. The Mater Amabilis is the subject _par excellence_ of modern Madonna art. Carrying on its surface so much beauty and significance, it is naturally attractive to all figure painters. While other Madonna subjects are too often beyond the comprehension of either the artist or his patron, this falls within the range of both. The shop windows are full of pretty pictures of this kind, in all styles of treatment. There are the portrait Madonnas by Gabriel Max, already mentioned, and pastoral Madonnas by Bouguereau, by Carl Müller, by N. Barabino, and by Dagnan-Bouveret. Others carry the subject into the more formal compositions of the enthroned and enskied Madonnas, being, as we have seen, not without illustrious predecessors among the old masters. Of these we have Guay's Mater Amabilis, where the mother leans from her throne to support her child, playing on the step below with his cousin, St. John; and Mary L. Macomber's picture, where the enthroned Madonna folds her babe in her protecting arms, as if to shield him from impending evil. [Illustration: BODENHAUSEN.--MADONNA AND CHILD.] By Bodenhausen we have the extremely popular Mater Amabilis in Gloria, where a girlish young mother, her long hair streaming about her, stands in upper air, poised above the great ball of the earth, holding her sweet babe to her heart. Pictures like these constantly reiterate the story of a mother's love--an old, old story, which begins again with every new birth. CHAPTER VII. THE MADONNA IN ADORATION. (THE MADRE PIA.) The first tender joys of a mother's love are strangely mingled with awe. Her babe is a precious gift of God, which she receives into trembling hands. A new sense of responsibility presses upon her with almost overwhelming force. Hers is the highest honor given unto woman; she accepts it with solemn joy, deeming herself all too unworthy. This spirit of humility has been idealized in art, in the form of Madonna known as the Madre Pia. It represents the Virgin Mary adoring her son. Sometimes she kneels before him, sometimes she sits with clasped hands, holding him in her lap. Whatever the variation in attitude, the thought is the same: it is an expression of that higher, finer aspect of motherhood which regards infancy as an object not only of love, but of reverent humility. It is a recognition of the great mystery of life which invests even the helpless babe with a dignity commanding respect. A picture with so serious an intention can never be widely understood. The meaning is too subtile for the casual observer. An outgrowth of mediæval pietism, it was superseded by more popular subjects, and has never since been revived. The subject had its origin as an idealized nativity, set in pastoral surroundings which suggest the Bethlehem manger. Theologically it represented the Virgin as the first worshipper of her divine Son. But though the sacred mystery of Mary's experience sets her forever apart as "blessed among women," she is the type of true motherhood in all generations. The Madonna in Adoration is, properly speaking, a fifteenth century subject. It belongs primarily to that most mystic of all schools of art, the Umbrian, centering in the town of Perugia. Nowhere else was painting so distinctly an adjunct of religious services, chiefly designed to aid the worshipper in prayer and contemplation. As an exponent of the typical qualities of the Perugian school stands the artist who is known by its name, Perugino. His favorite subject is the Madre Pia, and his best picture of the kind is the Madonna of the National Gallery. Having once seen her here, the traveller recognizes her again and again in other galleries, in the many replicas of this charming composition. The Madonna kneels in the foreground, adoring with folded hands the child, who is supported in a sitting posture on the ground, by a guardian angel. The Virgin's face is full of fervent and exalted emotion. Perugino had no direct imitator of his Madre Pia, but his Bolognese admirer Francia treated the subject in a way that readily suggests the source of his inspiration. His Madonna of the Rose Garden in Munich instantly recalls Perugino. The artist has, however, chosen a novel _motif_ in representing the moment when the Virgin is just sinking on her knees, as if overcome by emotion. Between the Umbrian school and the Florentine, a reciprocal influence was exerted. If the latter taught the former many secrets of composition and technical execution, the Umbrians in turn imparted something of their mysticism to their more matter-of-fact neighbors. While the Umbrian school of the fifteenth century was occupied with the Madre Pia, Florence also was devoted to the same subject. Sculpture led the race, and in the front ranks was Luca della Robbia, founder of the school which bears his family name. Beginning as a worker in marble, his inventive genius presently wrought out a style of sculpture peculiarly his own. This was the enamelled terra-cotta bas-relief showing pure white figures against a background of pale blue. They were made chiefly in circular medallions, lunettes, and tabernacles, and were scattered throughout the churches and homes of Tuscany. Associated with Luca in his work was his nephew Andrea, who, in turn, had three sculptor sons, Giovanni, Girolamo, and Luca II. So great was the demand for their ware that the Della Robbia studios became a veritable manufactory from which hundreds of pieces went forth. Of these, a goodly number represent the Madonna in Adoration. While it is difficult to trace every one of these with absolute correctness to its individual author, the majority seem to be by Andrea, who, as it would appear, had a special fondness for the subject. It must be acknowledged that the nephew is inferior to his uncle in his ideal of the Virgin, less original than Luca in his conceptions, and less noble in his results. His work, notwithstanding, has many charming qualities, which are specially appropriate to the character of the particular subject under consideration. There is, indeed, a peculiar value in low relief, for purposes of idealization. It has an effect of spiritualizing the material, and giving the figures an ethereal appearance. Andrea profited by this advantage, and, in addition, showed great delicacy of judgment in subduing curves and retaining simplicity in his lines. We may see all this in the popular tabernacle which he designed, and of which there are at least five, and probably more, copies. The Madonna kneels prayerfully before her babe, who lies on the ground by some lily stalks. In the sky above are two cherubim and hands holding a crown. There is a girlish grace in the kneeling figure, and a rare sweetness in the face, entirely free from sentimentality. A severe simplicity of drapery, and the absence of all unnecessary accessories, are points of excellence worth noting. The composition was sometimes varied by the introduction of different figures in the sky, other cherubim, or the head of the Almighty, with the Dove. Only second in popularity to this was Andrea's circular medallion of the Nativity, with the Virgin and St. John in adoration. There are two copies of this in the Florentine Academy, one in the Louvre, and one in Berlin. The effect of crowding so many figures into a small compass is not so pleasing as the classical simplicity of the former composition. [Illustration: ANDREA DELLA ROBBIA.--MADONNA IN ADORATION.] Contemporary with the Della Robbias was another Florentine family of artists equally numerous. Of the five Rossellini, Antonio is of greatest interest to us, as a sculptor who had some qualities in common with the famous porcelain workers. Like them, he had a special gift for the Madonna in Adoration. We can see this subject in his best style of treatment, in the beautiful Nativity in San Miniato, "which may be regarded as one of the most charming productions of the best period of Tuscan art."[5] The tourist will consider it a rich reward for his climb to the quaint old church on the ramparts overhanging the Arno. If perchance his wanderings lead him, on another occasion, to the hill rising on the opposite side, he will find, in the Cathedral of Fiesole, a fitting companion in the altar-piece by Mino da Fiesole. This is a decidedly unique rendering of the Madre Pia. The Virgin kneels in a niche, facing the spectator, adoring the Christ-child, who sits on the steps below her, turning to the little Baptist, who kneels at one side on a still lower step. [Footnote 5: C.C. Perkins, in Tuscan Sculptors.] [Illustration: LORENZO DI CREDI.--NATIVITY.] Passing from the sculpture of Florence to its painting, it is fitting that we mention first of all the friend and fellow-pupil of the Umbrian Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi. The two had much in common. Trained together in the workshop of the sculptor Verrocchio, in those days of intense religious stress, they both became followers of the prophet-prior of San Marco, Savonarola. Their religious earnestness naturally found expression in the beautiful subject of the Madre Pia. The Florentine artist, though not less devout than his friend, introduces into his work an element of joy, characteristic of his surroundings, and more attractive than the somewhat melancholy types of Umbria. His Adoration, in the Uffizi, is an admirable example of his best work. Following the fashion made popular by the Della Robbias, the artist chose for his composition the round picture, or _tondo_. By this elimination of unnecessary corners, the attention centres in the beautiful figure of the Virgin, which occupies a large portion of the circle. In exquisite keeping with the modest loveliness of her face, a delicate, transparent veil is knotted over her smooth hair, and falls over the round curves of her neck. In expression and attitude she is the perfect impersonation of the spirit of humility, joyfully submissive to her high calling, reverently acknowledging her unworthiness. This picture may be taken as a typical example of the subject in Florentine painting. Lorenzo himself repeated the composition many times, and numerous other works could be mentioned, strikingly similar in treatment, by Ghirlandajo, in the Florence Academy; by Signorelli, in the National Gallery; by Albertinelli, in the Pitti; by Filippo Lippi, in the Berlin Gallery; by Filippino Lippi, in the Pitti; and so on through the list. In many cases the subject seems to have been chosen, not so much from any devotional spirit on the part of the painter, as from force of imitation of the prevailing Florentine fashion. This is especially true in the case of Filippo Lippi, who does not bear the best of reputations. Although a brother in the Carmelite monastery, his love of worldly pleasures often led him astray, if we are to believe the gossip of the old annalists. We may allow much for the exaggerations of scandal, but still be forced to admit that his candid realism is plain evidence of a closer study of nature than of theology. Browning has given us a fine analysis of his character in the poem bearing his name, "Fra Lippo Lippi." The artist monk, caught in the streets of the city on his return from some midnight revel, explains his constant quarrel with the rules of art laid down by ecclesiastical authorities. They insist that his business is "to the souls of men," and that it is "quite from the mark of painting" to make "faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the true." On his part, he claims that it will not help the interpretation of soul, by painting body ill. An intense lover of every beautiful line and color in God's world, he believes that these things are given us to be thankful for, not to pass over or despise. Obliged to devote himself to a class of subjects with which he had little sympathy, he compromised with his critics by adopting the traditional forms of composition, and treating them after the manner of _genre_ painters, in types drawn from the ordinary life about him. The kneeling Madre Pia he painted three times: two of the pictures are in the Florence Academy, and the third and best is in the Berlin Gallery. [Illustration: FILIPPO LIPPI.--MADONNA IN ADORATION.] In the Madonna of the Uffizi, he broke away somewhat from tradition, and rendered quite a new version of the subject. The Virgin is seated with folded hands, adoring her child, who is held up before her by two boy angels. His type of childhood is by no means pretty, though altogether natural. The Virgin cannot be called either intellectual or spiritual, but "where," as a noted critic has asked, "can we find a face more winsome and appealing?" Certainly she is a lovely woman, and "If you get simple beauty and naught else, That's somewhat: and you'll find the soul you have missed Within yourself, when you return him thanks." The idea of the seated Madre Pia, comparatively rare in Florentine art, is quite frequent in northern Italy. Sometimes the setting is a landscape, in the foreground of which the Madonna sits adoring the babe lying on her lap. Examples are by Basaiti (Paduan), in the National Gallery, and by a painter of Titian's school, in Berlin. Much more common is the enthroned Madonna in Adoration, and for this we may turn to the pictures of the Vivarini, Bartolommeo and Luigi, or Alvise. These men were of Muranese origin, and in the very beginning of Venetian art-history were at the head of their profession, until finally eclipsed by the rival family of the Bellini. Among their works, we find by each one at least three pictures of the type described. As the most worthy of description, we may select the altar-piece by Luigi, in the Church of the Redentore. As it is one of the most popular Madonnas in Venice, no collection is complete without it. A green curtain forms the background, against which the plain marble throne-chair is brought into relief. The Virgin sits wrapt in her own thoughts, an impersonation of tranquil dignity. A heavy wimple falls low over her forehead, entirely concealing her hair, and with its severe simplicity accentuating the chaste beauty of her face. Two fascinating little cherubs sit on a parapet in front, playing on lutes; and, lulled by their gentle music, the sweet babe sleeps on, serenely unconscious of it all. [Illustration: LUIGI VIVARINI.--MADONNA AND CHILD.] Before such pictures as this, gleaming in the dim light of quiet chapels, many a heart, before unbelieving, may learn a new reverence for the mysterious sanctity of motherhood. CHAPTER VIII. THE MADONNA AS WITNESS. In proportion to a mother's ideals and ambitions for her child does her love take on a higher and purer aspect. The noblest mother is the most unselfish; she regards her child as a sacred charge, only temporarily committed to her keeping. Her care is to nurture and train him for his part in life; this is the object of her constant endeavor. Thus she comes to look upon him as hers and yet not hers. In one sense he is her very own; in another, he belongs to the universal life which he is to serve. There is no conflict between the two ideas; they are the obverse sides of one great truth. Both must be recognized for a complete understanding of life. What is true of all motherhood finds a supreme illustration in the character of the Virgin Mary. She understood from the first that her son had a great mission to fulfil, that his work had somewhat to do with a mighty kingdom. Never for a moment did she lose sight of these things as she "pondered them in her heart." Her highest joy was to present him to the world for the fulfilment of his calling. As a subject of art, this phase of the Madonna's character requires a mode of treatment quite unlike that of the Mater Amabilis or the Madre Pia. The attitude and expression of the Virgin are appropriate to her office as the Christ-bearer. Both mother and child, no longer absorbed in each other, direct their glance towards the people to whom he is given for a witness. (Isaiah 55:4.) These may be the spectators looking at the picture, or the saints and votaries filling the composition. The mother's lap is the throne for the child, from which, standing or sitting, he gives his royal blessing. It will be readily understood that so lofty a theme can not be common in art. In our own day, it has, with the Madre Pia, passed almost entirely out of the range of art subjects; modern painters do not try such heights. Franz Defregger is alone in having made an honest and earnest effort, not without success, to express his conception of the theme. To his Enthroned Madonna at Dölsach, and his less well-known Madonna in Glory, let us pay this passing word of honor. To approach our subject in the most systematic way, we will go back to the beginnings of Madonna art. Mrs. Jameson tells us that the group of Virgin and Son was, in its first intention, a _theological symbol_, and not a _representation_. It was a device set up in the orthodox churches as a definite formalization of a creed. The first Madonnas showed none of the aspects of ordinary motherhood in attitude, gesture, or expression. The theological element in the picture was the first consideration. We may take as a representative case the Virgin Nike-peja (of Victory), supposed to be the same which Eudocia, wife of the Emperor Theodosius II., discovered in her travels in Palestine, and sent to Constantinople, whence it was finally brought to St. Mark's, Venice. The Virgin--a half-length figure--holds the child in front of her, like a doll, as if exhibiting him to the gaze of the worshippers before the altar over which the picture hung. Both faces look directly out at the spectator, with grave and stiff solemnity. The progress of painting, and the growing love of beauty, at length wrought a change. The time came when art saw the possibility of uniting, with the religious conception of previous centuries, a more natural ideal of motherhood. Thus, while the Madonna continues to be preëminently a witness of her son's greatness, it is not at the sacrifice of motherly tenderness. In Venetian art-history, Giovanni Bellini stands at the period when the old was just merging into the new. We have already seen how greatly he and his contemporaries differed from the painters of a later time. Taking advantage of all the progressive methods of the day, they did not relinquish the religious spirit of their predecessors, hence their work embodies the best elements of the old and new. As we examine the Bellini Madonnas, one after another, we can not fail to notice how delicately they interpret the relation of the mother to her child. Loving and gracious as she is, she is not the Mater Amabilis: she is too preoccupied, though not too cold for caresses. Neither is she the Madre Pia, though by no means lacking in humility. Her thoughts are of the future, rather than of the present. True to a mother's instinct, she encircles her child with a protecting arm, but her face is turned, not to his, but to the world. Both are looking steadfastly forward to the great work before them. Their eyes have the far-seeing look of those absorbed in noble dreams. Their faces are full of sweet earnestness, not of the ascetic sort, but joyful, with a calm, tranquil gladness. This description applies almost equally well to a half-dozen or more of Bellini's Madonnas, in various styles of composition. For the sake of definiteness, we may specify the Madonna between St. Paul and St. George in the Venice Academy. The Virgin is in half-length, against a scarlet curtain, supporting the child, who stands on the coping of a balcony. In technical qualities alone, the picture is a notable one for precision of drawing, breadth of light and shade, and brilliant color. In Christian sentiment it is among the rare treasures of Italian art. The National Gallery and the Brera contain others which are very similar in style and conception. The three enthroned Madonnas which have already been noticed are not less remarkable for religious significance. There is a peculiar freshness and vivacity in the San Giobbe picture. Both Virgin and child are alert and eager, welcoming the future with smiling and youthful enthusiasm. The Frari Madonna is of a more subdued type, but is not less true to her ideal. The Virgin of San Zaccaria is more thoughtful and reflective, but she holds her child up bravely, that he may give his blessing to mankind. [Illustration: GIOVANNI BELLINI.--MADONNA BETWEEN ST. GEORGE AND ST. PAUL. (DETAIL.)] It will have been noticed that the throne is an especially appropriate setting for the Madonna as Witness. It is one of the functions of royalty that the queen should show the prince to his people. We therefore turn naturally to this class of pictures for examples. To those of Bellini just cited we may add, from the others mentioned in the second chapter, the Madonnas by Cima, by Palma, and by Montagna in Venetian Art; and by Luini and by Botticelli in the Lombard and Florentine schools respectively. Luini's picture is one which readily touches the heart. The Virgin unites the sweetness of fresh, young motherhood with womanly dignity of character. Her smile has nothing of mystery in it; it is simply sweet and winning. The Christ-child is a lovely boy, steadying himself against his mother's breast, and yet with an air of self-reliance. The two understand each other well. [Illustration: LUINI.--MADONNA WITH ST. BARBARA AND ST. ANTHONY.] One could hardly imagine two more dissimilar spirits than Luini and Botticelli. To Luini's Virgin, the consciousness of her son's greatness is a proud honor, accepted seriously, but gladly. To Botticelli, on the other hand, it brings a profound melancholy. This is so marked that at first sight almost every one is repelled by Botticelli, and yields only after long familiarity to the mysterious fascination of the sad-eyed Madonna, who holds her babe almost listlessly, as her head droops with the weight of her sorrow. Her expression is the same whatever her attitude, when she presses her babe to her bosom as the Mater Amabilis (in the Borghese Gallery at Rome, in the Dresden Gallery, and Louvre), or when, as witness to her son's destiny, she holds him forth to be seen of men. It is in this last capacity that her mood is most intelligible. She seems oppressed rather than humbled by her honors; reluctant, rather than glad to assume them; yet, with proud dignity, determined to do her part, though her heart break in the doing. Her nature is too deep to accept the joy without counting the cost, and her vision looks beyond Bethlehem to Calvary. This is well illustrated in the picture of the Berlin Gallery.[6] The queen mother rises with the prince to receive the homage of humanity. The boy, old beyond his years, gravely raises his right hand to bless his people, the other still clinging, with infantile grace, to the dress of his mother. Lovely, rose-crowned angels hold court on either side, bearing lighted tapers in jars of roses. [Footnote 6: The Berlin Gallery contains two Enthroned Madonnas attributed to Botticelli. The description here, and on page 40 makes it clear that the reference is to the picture numbered 102. This does not appear in Berenson's list of Botticelli's works, but is treated as authentic by Crowe and Cavalcaselle.] The Madonna of the Pomegranate is another work by Botticelli which belongs in this class of pictures. It is a _tondo_ in the Uffizi, showing the figures in half length. The Virgin, encircled by angels, holds the child half reclining on her lap. Her face is inexpressibly sad, and the child shares her mood, as he raises his little hand to bless the spectator. Two angels bear the Virgin's flowers, roses and lilies; two others hold books. They bend towards the queen as the petals of a rose bend towards the centre, with the serious grace peculiar to Botticelli. [Illustration: BOTTICELLI.--MADONNA OF THE POMEGRANATE .] In connection with the peculiar type of melancholy exhibited on the face of Botticelli's Madonna, it will be of interest to refer to the work of Francia. The two artists were, in some points, kindred spirits; both felt the burden of life's mystery and sorrow. Francia, as we have seen, imbibed from the works of Perugino something of the spirit of mysticism common to the Umbrian school. But while there is a certain resemblance between his Madonna and Perugino's, the former has less of sentimentality than the latter, and more real melancholy. Like Botticelli's Virgin, she acts her part half-heartedly, as if the sword had already begun to pierce her heart. Francia's favorite Madonna subjects were of the higher order, the Madre Pia and the Madonna as Witness. In treating the latter, his Christ-child is always in keeping with the mother, a grave little fellow who gives the blessing with almost touching dignity. Enthroned Madonnas illustrating the theme are those of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, of the Belvedere at Vienna, and the famous Bentivoglio Madonna in S. Jacopo Maggiore at Bologna. The last-named is one of the works which enable us to understand Raphael's high praise of the Bolognese master. It is a noble composition, full of strong religious feeling. [Illustration: MURILLO.--MADONNA AND CHILD.] It is a long leap from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, taking us from a period of genuine religious fervor in art, into an age of artificial imitation. In the midst of the decadence of old ideals and the birth of art methods entirely new, arose one who seemed to be the reincarnation of the old spirit in a form peculiar to his age and race. This was Murillo, the peasant-painter of Spain, than whom was never artist more pious, not even excepting the angelic brother of San Marco. He alone in the seventeenth century kept alive the pure flame of religious fervor, which had burned within the devout Italians of the early school. Through all his pictures of the Virgin and child we can see that the Madonna as the Christ-bearer is the ideal he always has in view. He falls short of it, not through any lack of earnestness, but because his type of womanhood is incapable of expressing such lofty idealism. His virgins are modelled upon the simple Andalusian maidens, sweet, timid, dark-eyed creatures. Their faces glow with gentle affection as they look wistfully out of the picture, or raise their eyes to heaven, as if dimly discerning the heights which they have never reached. The Pitti Madonna is one of this sweet company, and perhaps the loveliest of them all. Both she and her beautiful boy are full of gentle earnestness, and if they are too simple-minded to realize what is in store for them, they are none the less ready to do the Father's will. One more picture remains for us to consider as an illustration of the Madonna as Witness. Had we mentioned it first, nothing further could have been said on the subject. The Sistine Madonna is the greatest ever produced, from every point of view. We have already noted the superiority of its artistic composition over all other enskied Madonnas, and are the more ready to appreciate its higher merits; for its strongest hold upon our admiration is in its moral and religious significance. Its theme is the transfiguration of loving and consecrated motherhood. Mother and child, united in love, move towards the glorious consummation of the heavenly kingdom. [Illustration: RAPHAEL.--SISTINE MADONNA.] It has been said that Raphael made no preparatory studies for this Madonna, but, in a larger sense, he spent his life in preparation for it. He had begun by imitating the mystic sweetness of Perugino's types, drawn by an intuitive delicacy of perception to this spiritual idealism, while yet too inexperienced to express any originality. Then, by an inevitable reaction, he threw himself into the creation of a purely naturalistic Madonna, and carried the Mater Amabilis to its utmost perfection. Having mastered all the secrets of woman's beauty, he returned once more to the higher realm of idealism to send forth his matured conception of the Madonna as the Christ-bearer. The Sistine Madonna is above all words of praise; all extravagance of expression is silenced before her simplicity. Hers is the beauty of symmetrically developed womanhood; the perfect poise of her figure is not more marked than the perfect poise of her character. Not one false note, not one exaggerated emphasis, jars upon the harmony of body, soul, and spirit. Confident, but entirely unassuming; serious, but without sadness; joyous, but not to mirthfulness; eager, but without haste; she moves steadily forward with steps timed to the rhythmic music of the spheres. The child is no burden, but a part of her very being. The two are one in love, thought, and purpose. Sharing the secret of his sacred calling, the mother bears her son forth to meet his glorious destiny. Art can pay no higher tribute to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, than to show her in this phase of her motherhood. We sympathize with her maternal tenderness, lavishing fond caresses upon her child. We go still deeper into her experience when we see her bowed in sweet humility before the cares and duties she is called upon to assume. But we are admitted to the most cherished aspirations of her soul, when we see her oblivious of self, carrying her child forth to the service of humanity. It is thus that she becomes one of his "witnesses unto the people;" it is thus that "all generations shall call her blessed." BIBLIOGRAPHY. MRS. ANNA JAMESON: The Legends of the Madonna. Boston, 1896. CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE: History of Painting in Italy. London, 1864. History of Painting in North Italy. London, 1871. Titian: His Life and Times. London, 1877. KUGLER: Handbook of the Italian Schools, revised by A.H. Layard. London, 1887. Handbook of the German, Flemish, and Dutch Schools, revised by J.A. Crowe. London, 1889. MORELLI: Critical Studies of the Italian Painters. Translated by Constance Jocelyn Ffoulkes. London, 1892. J.A. SYMONDS: Renaissance in Italy: The Fine Arts. New York, 1888. WALTER H. PATER: Studies in the History of the Renaissance. London, 1873. BERNHARD BERENSON: The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance. New York, 1894. The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance. New York, 1896. KARL KÁROLY: A Guide to the Paintings of Florence. London and New York, 1893. A Guide to the Paintings of Venice. London and New York, 1895. C.C. PERKINS: Tuscan Sculptors. London, 1864. CAVALUCCI ET MOLINIER: Les Della Robbia: leur vie et leur oeuvre. Paris, 1884. EUGENE MÜNTZ: Raphael. Translated by Walter Armstrong. London, 1882. INDEX OF ARTISTS. Albertinelli, Madonna in the Pitti, 172. Angelico, Fra, Madonna della Stella, 66-69, 132. Barabino, N., Mater Amabilis, 154. Barocci, F., Madonna del Gatto, 126. Bartolommeo, Madonna in the Capella Giovanato, 30; Madonnas in the Florence Academy, 31; Enthroned Madonna in the Pitti, 42, 47. Basaiti, Madonna in the National Gallery, 177. Bellini, Giovanni, Madonna of San Giobbe, 50, 188; Frari Madonna, 50, 191; Madonna of San Zaccaria, 50-53, 191; Madonna between St. Paul and St. George, 188; Madonna in the National Gallery, 188; Madonna in the Brera, 188. Bellini, Jacopo, Madonna in the Venice Academy, 25. Bodenhausen, Madonna, 90, 154. Bonifazio Veronese, Seven pictures of the Santa Conversazione, 115. Botticelli, Enthroned Madonna at Berlin, 40, 191, 195, 196; Madonna in the Borghese, 195; Madonna in the Dresden Gallery, 195; Madonna in the Louvre, 195; Madonna of the Pomegranate, 196; Madonna of the Inkhorn, 59. Bouguereau, Enthroned Madonna, 64; Madonna of the Angels, 90; Mater Amabilis, 154. Byzantine Madonna in the Ara Coeli, 25; in S. Maria in Cosmedino, 25; in St. Mark's, 25, 185; at Padua, 25. Cano, Alonzo, Madonna of Bethlehem, 32. Caroto, Gianfrancesco, Madonna in Sant' Anastasia, 80; Madonna in San Giorgio, 80; Madonna in San Fermo Maggiore, 80. Cavazzola, see Morando. Cima, Enthroned Madonna in the Venice Academy, 49, 191. Cimabue, Ruccellai Madonna, 38-39. Conti, Bernardino de', Madonna in the Hermitage Gallery, 146. Correggio, Madonnas in Dresden, 45; Madonna of St. Sebastian, 70; Madonna in the Uffizi, 106, 136; La Zingarella, 106, 137, 146; Madonna della Cesta, 136; Madonna della Scala, 138, 141. Credi, Lorenzo di, Nativity in the Uffizi, 171. Crivelli, Carlo, Use of Crown by, 59. Dagnan-Bouveret, Mater Amabilis, 154. Defregger, Franz, Madonna at Dölsach, 184; Madonna in Glory, 90, 184. Dolce, Carlo, Madonna, 148. Dürer, Woodcut, 60; Madonna in "garden inclosed," 115; Madonna in the Belvedere, 150-153; Virgin on the Crescent Moon, 89, 149. Eyck, Van, Madonna in Frankfort, 60, 149. Fiesole, Mino da, Altar-piece at Fiesole, 168. Francia, Madonna of the Rose Garden, 115, 161; Enthroned Madonna in the Hermitage, 200; Enthroned Madonna in the Belvedere, 200; Bentivoglio Madonna, 200. Ghirlandajo, Enthroned Madonna in the Uffizi, 40; Madonna in the Florence Academy, 172. Giorgione, Madonna of Castel-Franco, 54; Madonna in Madrid, 54. Guay, Mater Amabilis, 154. Holbein, Meyer Madonna, 60, 149. Ittenbach, Enthroned Madonna, 64. Leonardo da Vinci, see Vinci. Libri, Girolamo dai, Madonna in San Giorgio Maggiore, Verona, 48; Madonna of St. Andrew and St. Peter, 81. Lippi, Filippino, Madonna in the Pitti, 115-116, 172. Lippi, Filippo, Madonna in the Berlin Gallery, 172, 174; Madonnas in the Florence Academy, 174; Madonna in the Uffizi, 174-177. Lotto, Madonna of S. Bartolommeo, 48; Santa Conversazione, 115. Luini, Madonna between St. Anthony and St. Barbara, 45, 191-192; Pastoral Madonna, 104-105. Macomber, Mary L., Madonna, 154. Mantegna, Madonna of Victory, 41, 48. Mariotto, Bernardino di, Madonna, 47. Massys, Quentin, Enthroned Madonna in the Berlin Gallery, 63, 132; Madonna in the Munich Gallery, 121. Max, Gabriel, Madonnas, 35, 154. Memling, Madonna at Bruges, 60. Mignard, La Vierge à la Grappe, 126. Montagna, Madonna in the Brera, 40, 191. Morando, Madonna in Glory in Verona Gallery, 81. Moretto, Madonna of S. Clemente, 48; Madonna of St. John the Evangelist, 77; Madonna of San Giorgio Maggiore, 77; Madonna in the Berlin Gallery, 78-79. Müller, Carl, Mater Amabilis, 154. Murano, Giovanni da, Use of Crown by, 59. Murillo, Madonna of the Napkin, 32; Holy Family of the Bird, 126; Madonna in the Pitti, 203-204. Palma, Enthroned Madonna at Vicenza, 49, 191; Santa Conversazione at Naples, 111; Santa Conversazione at Dresden, 111; Santa Conversazione at Munich, 111; Santa Conversazione at Vienna, 111, 112. Perugino, Enthroned Madonna in the Vatican, 45; Madonna in the National Gallery, 160. Pinturicchio, Madonna in St. Andrea, Perugia, 46. Raphael, Ansidei Madonna, 46, 133; Madonna of St. Anthony, 47; Baldacchino Madonna, 47; Madonna of the Casa Alba, 99; the Chair Madonna, 134; the Colonna Madonna, 133; the Conestabile Madonna, 133; Madonna of the Diadem, 147; Foligno Madonna, 82-85; Granduca Madonna, 29; Madonna of the Goldfinch, 93, 97, 98; Holy Family of Francis I., 133; Holy Family of the Lamb, 100, 105; Madonna dell' Impannata, 125; Belle Jardinière, 93, 97, 98; Madonna in the Meadow, 93, 97, 98, 99, 104; Orleans Madonna, 126, 133; Sistine Madonna, 85, 204, 208; Tempi Madonna, 30, 133. Rembrandt, Le Ménage du Menuisier in the Louvre, 127; in St. Petersburg, 127; Madonna in the Munich Gallery, 127-128. Reni, Guido, Madonna, 147. Robbia, Andrea della, Popular tabernacle, 164; Nativity, 167. Robbia, Giovanni, Son of Andrea, 162. Robbia, Girolamo della, Son of Andrea, 162. Robbia, Luca della, Founder of his school, 162. Robbia, Luca della, II., Son of Andrea, 162. Romano, Giulio, Madonna della Catina, 125; his work on the Madonna dell' Impannata, 125; Madonna in a Bedchamber, 125. Rossellino, Antonio, Nativity in San Miniato, 167. Rubens, Holy Families, 149. Salimbeni, Holy Family, 126. Sarto, Andrea del, Madonna di San Francesco, 42; Madonna in the Berlin Gallery, 69. Sassoferrato, Madonna in Vatican Gallery, 89; Madonna with Sleeping Child, 148. Savoldo, Madonna in the Brera, 79. Schongauer, Madonna in Munich, 60; Holy Family, 121-123. Siena, Guido da, Madonna, 38. Signorelli, Nativity in the National Gallery, 172. Sodoma, Madonna in the Brera, 104 (note). Solario, Madonna of the Green Cushion, 146. Lo Spagna, Madonna once attributed to, 73. Spanish School, Madonna in the Dresden Gallery, 89. Tintoretto, Madonna in the Berlin Gallery, 89. Titian, Vierge au Lapin, 115 (note), 142; Madonna of the Cherries, 141 (note); Madonnas and Saints at Dresden, 141 (note); Madonna with Sts. Ulfo and Brigida, 142; Madonna with Roses, 142; Madonna and Saints, 145; Pesaro Madonna, 56. Titian, School of, Madonna in Berlin, 177. Umbrian School, Madonna by, in the National Gallery, 73-74. Veronese, Madonna in the Venice Academy, 56. Vinci, Leonardo da, Madonna of the Rocks, 100-104. Vivarini, Bartolommeo, Madonnas, 178. Vivarini, Luigi, Madonna in the Church of the Redentore, 178. Art Series THE MADONNA IN ART ESTELLE M. HURLL. CHILD LIFE IN ART ESTELLE M. HURLL. ANGELS IN ART CLARA ERSKINE CLEMENT. LOVE IN ART MARY KNIGHT POTTER. L.C. PAGE AND COMPANY (INCORPORATED) 196 Summer Street, Boston, Mass. 
11391	----	Lectures on Art By Washington Allston Edited by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. MDCCCL. Preface by the Editor. Upon the death of Mr. Allston, it was determined, by those who had charge of his papers, to prepare his biography and correspondence, and publish them with his writings in prose and verse; a work which would have occupied two volumes of about the same size with the present. A delay has unfortunately occurred in the preparation of the biography and correspondence; and, as there have been frequent calls for a publication of his poems, and of the Lectures on Art he is known to have written, it has been thought best to give them to the public in the present form, without awaiting the completion of the whole design. It may be understood, however, that, when the biography and correspondence are published, it will be in a volume precisely corresponding with the present, so as to carry out the original design. I will not anticipate the duty of the biographer by an extended notice of the life of Mr. Allston; but it may be interesting to some readers to know the outline of his life, and the different circumstances under which the several pieces in this volume were written. WASHINGTON ALLSTON was born at Charleston, in South Carolina, on the 5th of November, 1779, of a family distinguished in the history of that State and of the country, being a branch of a family of the baronet rank in the titled commonalty of England. Like most young men of the South in his position at that period, he was sent to New England to receive his school and college education. His school days were passed at Newport, in Rhode Island, under the charge of Mr. Robert Rogers. He entered Harvard College in 1796, and graduated in 1800. While at school and college, he developed in a marked manner a love of nature, music, poetry, and painting. Endowed with senses capable of the nicest perceptions, and with a mental and moral constitution which tended always, with the certainty of a physical law, to the beautiful, the pure, and the sublime, he led what many might call an ideal life. Yet was he far from being a recluse, or from being disposed to an excess of introversion. On the contrary, he was a popular, high-spirited youth, almost passionately fond of society, maintaining an unusual number of warm friendships, and unsurpassed by any of the young men of his day in adaptedness to the elegancies and courtesies of the more refined portions of the moving world. Romances of love, knighthood, and heroic deeds, tales of banditti, and stories of supernatural beings, were his chief delight in his early days. Yet his classical attainments were considerable, and, as a scholar in the literature of his own language, his reputation was early established. He delivered a poem on taking his degree, which was much admired in its day. On leaving college, he returned to South Carolina. Having determined to devote his life to the fine arts, he sold, hastily and at a sacrifice, his share of a considerable patrimonial estate, and embarked for London in the autumn of 1801. Immediately upon his arrival, he became a student of the Royal Academy, of which his countryman, West, was President, with whom he formed an intimate and lasting friendship. After three years spent in England, and a shorter stay at Paris, he went to Italy, where he spent four years devoted exclusively to the study of his art. At Rome began his intimacy with Coleridge. Among the many subsequent expressions of his feeling toward this great man, none, perhaps, is more striking than the following extract from one of his letters:--"To no other man do I owe so much, intellectually, as to Mr. Coleridge, with whom I became acquainted in Rome, and who has honored me with his friendship for more than five-and-twenty years. He used to call Rome the silent city; but I never could think of it as such while with him; for, meet him when and where I would, the fountain of his mind was never dry, but, like the far-reaching aqueducts that once supplied this mistress of the world, its living stream seemed specially to flow for every classic ruin over which we wandered. And when I recall some of our walks under the pines of the Villa Borghese, I am almost tempted to dream that I have once listened to Plato in the groves of the Academy." Readers of Coleridge know in what estimation he held the qualities and the friendship of Mr. Allston. Beside Coleridge and West, he numbered among his friends in England, Wordsworth, Southey, Lamb, Sir George Beaumont, Reynolds, and Fuseli. In 1809, Mr. Allston returned to America, and remained two years in Boston, his adopted home, and there married the sister of Dr. Channing. In 1811, he went again to England, where his reputation as an artist had been completely established. Before his departure, he delivered a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge. During a severe illness, he removed from London to Clifton, at which place he wrote "The Sylphs of the Seasons." In 1813, he made his first, and, with the exception of "Monaldi," twenty-eight years afterwards, his only publication. This was a small volume, entitled "The Sylphs of the Seasons, and other Poems," published in London; and, during the same year, republished in Boston under the direction of his friends, Professor Willard of Cambridge and Mr. Edmund T. Dana. This volume was well received, and gave him a place among the first poets of his country. The smaller poems in that edition extend as far as page 289 of the present volume. Beside the long and serious illness through which he passed, his spirit was destined to suffer a deeper wound by the death of Mrs. Allston, in London, during the same year. These events gave to his mind a more earnest and undivided interest in his spiritual relations, and drew him more closely than ever before to his religious duties. He received the rite of confirmation, and through life was a devout adherent to the Christian doctrine and discipline. The character of Mr. Allston's religious feelings may be gathered, incidentally, from many of his writings. It is a subject to be treated with the reserve and delicacy with which he himself would have had it invested. Few minds have been more thoroughly imbued with belief in the reality of the unseen world; few have given more full assent to the truth, that "the things which are seen are temporal, the things which are not seen are eternal." This was not merely an adopted opinion, a conviction imposed upon his understanding; it was of the essence of his spiritual constitution, one of the conditions of his rational existence. To him, the Supreme Being was no vague, mystical source of light and truth, or an impersonation of goodness and truth themselves; nor, on the other hand, a cold rationalistic notion of an unapproachable executor of natural and moral laws. His spirit rested in the faith of a sympathetic God. His belief was in a Being as infinitely minute and sympathetic in his providences, as unlimited in his power and knowledge. Nor need it be said, that he was a firm believer in the central truths of Christianity, the Incarnation and Redemption; that he turned from unaided speculation to the inspired record and the visible Church; that he sought aid in the sacraments ordained for the strengthening of infirm humanity, and looked for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. After a second residence of seven years in Europe, he returned to America in 1818, and again made Boston his home. There, in a circle of warmly attached friends, surrounded by a sympathy and admiration which his elevation and purity, the entire harmony of his life and pursuits, could not fail to create, he devoted himself to his art, the labor of his love. This is not the place to enumerate his paintings, or to speak of his character as an artist. His general reading he continued to the last, with the earnestness of youth. As he retired from society, his taste inclined him to metaphysical studies, the more, perhaps, from their contrast with the usual occupations of his mind. He took particular pleasure in works of devout Christian speculation, without, however, neglecting a due proportion of strictly devotional literature. These he varied by a constant recurrence to the great epic and dramatic masters, and occasional reading of the earlier and the living novelists, tales of wild romance and lighter fiction, voyages and travels, biographies and letters. Nor was he without a strong interest in the current politics of his own country and of England, as to which his principles were highly conservative. Upon his marriage with the daughter of the late Judge Dana, in 1830, he removed to Cambridge, and soon afterwards began the preparation of a course of lectures on Art, which he intended to deliver to a select audience of artists and men of letters in Boston. Four of these he completed. Rough drafts of two others were found among his papers, but not in a state fit for publication. In 1841, he published his tale of "Monaldi," a production of his early life. The poems in the present volume, not included in the volume of 1813, are, with two exceptions, the work of his later years. In them, as in his paintings of the same period, may be seen the extreme attention to finish, always his characteristic, which, added to increasing bodily pain and infirmity, was the cause of his leaving so much that is unfinished behind him. His death occurred at his own house, in Cambridge, a little past midnight on the morning of Sunday, the 9th of July, 1843. He had finished a day and week of labor in his studio, upon his great picture of Belshazzar's Feast; the fresh paint denoting that the last touches of his pencil were given to that glorious but melancholy monument of the best years of his later life. Having conversed with his retiring family with peculiar solemnity and earnestness upon the obligation and beauty of a pure spiritual life, and on the realities of the world to come, he had seated himself at his nightly employment of reading and writing, which he usually carried into the early hours of the morning. In the silence and solitude of this occupation, in a moment, "with touch as gentle as the morning light," which was even then approaching, his spirit was called away to its proper home. Contents Preface By The Editor Lectures on Art. Preliminary Note.--Ideas Introductory Discourse Art Form Composition Aphorisms. Sentences Written by Mr. Allston on the Walls of His Studio The Hypochondriac Lectures on Art. Preliminary Note. Ideas. As the word _idea_ will frequently occur, and will be found also to hold an important relation to our present subject, we shall endeavour, _in limine_, to possess our readers of the particular sense in which we understand and apply it. An Idea, then, according to our apprehension, is the highest or most perfect _form_ in which any thing, whether of the physical, the intellectual, or the spiritual, may exist to the mind. By form, we do not mean _figure_ or _image_ (though these may be included in relation to the physical); but that condition, or state, in which such objects become cognizable to the mind, or, in other words, become objects of consciousness. Ideas are of two kinds; which we shall distinguish by the terms _primary_ and _secondary_: the first being the _manifestation_ of objective realities; the second, that of the reflex product, so to speak, of the mental constitution. In both cases, they may be said to be self-affirmed,--that is, they carry in themselves their own evidence; being therefore not only independent of the reflective faculties, but constituting the only unchangeable ground of Truth, to which those faculties may ultimately refer. Yet have these Ideas no living energy in themselves; they are but the _forms_, as we have said, through or in which a higher Power manifests to the consciousness the supreme truth of all things real, in respect to the first class; and, in respect to the second, the imaginative truths of the mental products, or mental combinations. Of the nature and mode of operation of the Power to which we refer, we know, and can know, nothing; it is one of those secrets of our being which He who made us has kept to himself. And we should be content with the assurance, that we have in it a sure and intuitive guide to a reverent knowledge of the beauty and grandeur of his works,--nay, of his own adorable reality. And who shall gainsay it, should we add, that this mysterious Power is essentially immanent in that "breath of life," by which man becomes "a living soul"? In the following remarks we shall confine ourself to the first class of Ideas, namely, the Real; leaving the second to be noticed hereafter. As to number, ideas are limited only by the number of kinds, without direct relation to degrees; every object, therefore, having in itself a _distinctive essential_, has also its distinct idea; while two or more objects of the same kind, however differing in degree, must consequently refer only to one and the same. For instance, though a hundred animals should differ in size, strength, or color, yet, if none of these peculiarities are essential to the species, they would all refer to the same supreme idea. The same law applies equally, and with the same limitation, to the essential differences in the intellectual, the moral, and the spiritual. All ideas, however, have but a potential existence until they are called into the consciousness by some real object; the required condition of the object being a predetermined correspondence, or correlation. Every such object we term an _assimilant_. With respect to those ideas which relate to the physical world, we remark, that, though the assimilants required are supplied by the senses, the senses have in themselves no _productive, coöperating_ energy, being but the passive instruments, or medium, through which they are conveyed. That the senses, in this relation, are merely passive, admits of no question, from the obvious difference between the idea and the objects. The senses can do no more than transmit the external in its actual forms, leaving the images in the mind exactly as they found them; whereas the intuitive power rejects, or assimilates, indefinitely, until they are resolved into the proper perfect form. Now the power which prescribes that form must, of necessity, be antecedent to the presentation of the objects which it thus assimilates, as it could not else give consistence and unity to what was before separate or fragmentary. And every one who has ever realized an idea of the class in which alone we compare the assimilants with the ideal form, be he poet, painter, or philosopher, well knows the wide difference between the materials and their result. When an idea is thus realized and made objective, it affirms its own truth, nor can any process of the understanding shake its foundation; nay, it is to the mind an essential, imperative truth, then emerging, as it were, from the dark potential into the light of reality. If this be so, the inference is plain, that the relation between the actual and the ideal is one of necessity, and therefore, also, is the predetermined correspondence between the prescribed form of an idea and its assimilant; for how otherwise could the former become recipient of that which was repugnant or indifferent, when the presence of the latter constitutes the very condition by which it is manifested, or can be known to exist? By actual, here, we do not mean the exclusively physical, but whatever, in the strictest sense, can be called an _object_, as forming the opposite to a mere subject of the mind. It would appear, then, that what we call ourself must have a _dual_ reality, that is, in the mind and in the senses, since neither _alone_ could possibly explain the phenomena of the other; consequently, in the existence of either we have clearly implied the reality of both. And hence must follow the still more important truth, that, in the _conscious presence_ of any _spiritual_ idea, we have the surest proof of a spiritual object; nor is this the less certain, though we perceive not the assimilant. Nay, a spiritual assimilant cannot be perceived, but, to use the words of St. Paul, is "spiritually discerned," that is, by a sense, so to speak, of our own spirit. But to illustrate by example: we could not, for instance, have the ideas of good and evil without their objective realities, nor of right and wrong, in any intelligible form, without the moral law to which they refer,--which law we call the Conscience; nor could we have the idea of a moral law without a moral lawgiver, and, if moral, then intelligent, and, if intelligent, then personal; in a word, we could not now have, as we know we have, the idea of conscience, without an objective, personal God. Such ideas may well be called revelations, since, without any perceived assimilant, we find them equally affirmed with those ideas which relate to the purely physical. But here it may be asked, How are we to distinguish an Idea from a mere _notion_? We answer, By its self-affirmation. For an ideal truth, having its own evidence in itself, can neither be proved nor disproved by any thing out of itself; whatever, then, impresses the mind _as_ truth, _is_ truth until it can be _shown_ to be false; and consequently, in the converse, whatever can be brought into the sphere of the understanding, as a dialectic subject, is not an Idea. It will be observed, however, that we do not say an idea may not be denied; but to deny is not to disprove. Many things are denied in direct contradiction to fact; for the mind can command, and in no measured degree, the power of self-blinding, so that it cannot see what is actually before it. This is a psychological fact, which may be attested by thousands, who can well remember the time when they had once clearly discerned what has now vanished from their minds. Nor does the actual cessation of these primeval forms, or the after presence of their fragmentary, nay, disfigured relics, disprove their reality, or their original integrity, as we could not else call them up in their proper forms at any future time, to the reacknowledging their truth: a _resuscitation_ and result, so to speak, which many have experienced. In conclusion: though it be but one and the same Power that prescribes the form and determines the truth of all Ideas, there is yet an essential difference between the two classes of ideas to which we have referred; for it may well be doubted whether any Primary Idea can ever be fully realized by a finite mind,--at least in the present state. Take, for instance, the idea of beauty. In its highest form, as presented to the consciousness, we still find it referring to something beyond and above itself, as if it were but an approximation to a still higher form. The truth of this, we think, will be particularly felt by the artist, whether poet or painter, whose mind may be supposed, from his natural bias, to be more peculiarly capable of its highest developement; and what true artist was ever satisfied with any idea of beauty of which he is conscious? From this approximated form, however, he doubtless derives a high degree of pleasure, nay, one of the purest of which his nature is capable; yet still is the pleasure modified, if we may so express it, by an undefined yearning for what he feels can never be realized. And wherefore this craving, but for the archetype of that which called it forth?--When we say not satisfied, we do not mean discontented, but simply not in full fruition. And it is better that it should be so, since one of the happiest elements of our nature is that which continually impels it towards the indefinite and unattainable. So far as we know, the like limits may be set to every other primary idea,--as if the Creator had reserved to himself alone the possible contemplation of the archetypes of his universe. With regard to the other class, that of Secondary Ideas, which we have called the reflex product of the mind, their distinguishing characteristic is, that they not only admit of a perfect realization, but also of outward manifestation, so as to be communicated to others. All works of imagination, so called, present examples of this. Hence they may also be termed imitative or imaginative. For, though they draw their assimilants from the actual world, and are likewise regulated by the unknown Power before mentioned, yet are they but the forms of what, _as a whole_, have no actual existence;--they are nevertheless true to the mind, and are made so by the same Power which affirms their possibility. This species of Truth we shall hereafter have occasion to distinguish as Poetic Truth. Introductory Discourse. Next to the developement of our moral nature, to have subordinated the senses to the mind is the highest triumph of the civilized state. Were it possible to embody the present complicated scheme of society, so as to bring it before us as a visible object, there is perhaps nothing in the world of sense that would so fill us with wonder; for what is there in nature that may not fall within its limits? and yet how small a portion of this stupendous fabric will be found to have any direct, much less exclusive, relation to the actual wants of the body! It might seem, indeed, to an unreflecting observer, that our physical necessities, which, truly estimated, are few and simple, have rather been increased than diminished by the civilized man. But this is not true; for, if a wider duty is imposed on the senses, it is only to minister to the increased demands of the imagination, which is now so mingled with our every-day concerns, even with our dress, houses, and furniture, that, except with the brutalized, the purely sensuous wants might almost be said to have become extinct: with the cultivated and refined, they are at least so modified as to be no longer prominent. But this refilling on the physical, like every thing else, has had its opponents: it is declaimed against as artificial. If by artificial is meant unnatural, we cannot so consider it; but hold, on the contrary, that the whole multiform scheme of the civilized state is not only in accordance with our nature, but an essential condition to the proper developement of the human being. It is presupposed by the very wants of his mind; nor could it otherwise have been, any more than could have been the cabin of the beaver, or the curious hive of the bee, without their preëxisting instincts; it is therefore in the highest sense natural, as growing out of the inherent desires of the mind. But we would not be misunderstood. When we speak of the refined state as not out of nature, we mean such results as proceed from the legitimate growth of our mental constitution, which we suppose to be grounded in permanent, universal principles; and, whatever modifications, however subtile, and apparently visionary, may follow their operation in the world of sense, so long as that operation diverge not from its original ground, its effect must be, in the strictest sense, natural. Thus the wildest visions of poetry, the unsubstantial forms of painting, and the mysterious harmonies of music, that seem to disembody the spirit, and make us creatures of the air,--even these, unreal as they are, may all have their foundation in immutable truth; and we may moreover know of this truth by its own evidence. Of this species of evidence we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. But there is another kind of growth, which may well be called unnatural; we mean, of those diseased appetites, whose effects are seen in the distorted forms of the _conventional_, having no ground but in weariness of the true; and it cannot be denied that this morbid growth has its full share, inwardly and outwardly, both of space and importance. These, however, must sooner or later end as they began; they perish in the lie they make; and it were well did not other falsehoods take their places, to prolong a life whose only tenure is inconsequential succession,--in other words, Fashion. If it be true, then, that even the commonplaces of life must all in some degree partake of the mental, there can be but one rule by which to determine the proper rank of any object of pursuit, and that is by its nearer or more remote relation to our inward nature. Every system, therefore, which tends to degrade a mental pleasure to the subordinate or superfluous, is both narrow and false, as virtually reversing its natural order. It pleased our Creator, when he endowed us with appetites and functions by which to sustain the economy of life, at the same time to annex to their exercise a sense of pleasure; hence our daily food, and the daily alternation of repose and action, are no less grateful than imperative. That life may be sustained, and most of its functions performed, without any coincident enjoyment, is certainly possible. Our food may be distasteful, action painful, and rest unrefreshing; and yet we may eat, and exercise, and sleep, nay, live thus for years. But this is not our natural condition, and we call it disease. Were man a mere animal, the very act of living, in his natural or healthy state, would be to him a continuous enjoyment. But he is also a moral and an intellectual being; and, in like manner, is the healthful condition of these, the nobler parts of his nature, attended with something more than a consciousness of the mere process of existence. To the exercise of his intellectual faculties and moral attributes the same benevolent law has superadded a sense of pleasure,--of a kind, too, in the same degree transcending the highest bodily sensation, as must that which is immortal transcend the perishable. It is not for us to ask why it is so; much less, because it squares not with the poor notion of material usefulness, to call in question a fact that announces a nature to which the senses are but passing ministers. Let us rather receive this ennobling law, at least without misgiving, lest in our sensuous wisdom we exchange an enduring gift for a transient gratification. Of the peculiar fruits of this law, which we shall here distinguish by the general term _mental pleasures_, it is our purpose to treat in the present discourse. It is with no assumed diffidence that we venture on this subject; for, though we shall offer nothing not believed to be true, we are but too sensible how small a portion of truth it is in our power to present. But, were it far greater, and the present writer of a much higher order of intellect, there would still be sufficient cause for humility in view of those impassable bounds that have ever met every self-questioning of the mind. But whilst the narrowness of human knowledge may well preclude all self-exaltation, it would be worse than folly to hold as naught the many important truths which have been wrought out for us by the mighty intellects of the past. If they have left us nothing for vainglory, they have left us at least enough to be grateful for. Nor is it a little, that they have taught us to look into those mysterious chambers of our being,--the abode of the spirit; and not a little, indeed, if what we are there permitted to know shall have brought with it the conviction, that we are not abandoned to a blind empiricism, to waste life in guesses, and to guess at last that we have all our lives been guessing wrong,--but, unapproachable though it be to the subordinate Understanding, that we have still within us an abiding Interpreter, which cannot be gainsaid, which makes our duty to God and man clear as the light, which ever guards the fountain of all true pleasures, nay, which holds in subjection the last high gift of the Creator, that imaginative faculty whereby his exalted creature, made in his image, might mould at will, from his most marvellous world, yet unborn forms, even forms of beauty, grandeur, and majesty, having all of truth but his own divine prerogative,--_the mystery of Life_. As the greater part of those Pleasures which we propose to discuss are intimately connected with the material world, it may be well, perhaps, to assign some reason for the epithet _mental_. To many, we know, this will seem superfluous; but, when it is remembered how often we hear of this and that object delighting the eye, or of certain sounds charming the ear, it may not be amiss to show that such expressions have really no meaning except as metaphors. When the senses, as the medium of communication, have conveyed to the mind either the sounds or images, their function ceases. So also with respect to the objects: their end is attained, at least as to us, when the sounds or images are thus transmitted, which, so far as they are concerned, must for ever remain the same within as without the mind. For, where the ultimate end is not in mere bodily sensation, neither the senses nor the objects possess, of themselves, any productive power; of the product that follows, the _tertium aliquid_, whether the pleasure we feel be in a beautiful animal or in according sounds, neither the one nor the other is really the cause, but simply the _occasion_. It is clear, then, that the effect realized supposes of necessity another agent, which must therefore exist only in the mind. But of this hereafter. If the cause of any emotion, which we seem to derive from an outward object, were inherent exclusively in the object itself, there could be no failure in any instance, except where the organs of sense were either diseased or imperfect. But it is a matter of fact that they often do fail where there is no disease or organic defect. Many of us, perhaps, can call to mind certain individuals, whose sense of hearing is as acute as our own, who yet can by no possibility be made to recognize the slightest relation between the according notes of the simplest melody; and, though they can as readily as others distinguish the individual sounds, even to the degrees of flatness and sharpness, the harmonic agreement is to them as mere noise. Let us suppose ourselves present at a concert, in company with one such person and another who possesses what is called musical sensibility. How are they affected, for instance, by a piece of Mozart's? In the sense of hearing they are equal: look at them. In the one we perceive perplexity, annoyance, perhaps pain; he hears nothing but a confused medley of sounds. In the other, the whole being is rapt in ecstasy, the unutterable pleasure gushes from his eyes, he cannot articulate his emotion;--in the words of one, who felt and embodied the subtile mystery in immortal verse, his very soul seems "lapped in Elysium." Now, could this difference be possible, were the sole cause, strictly speaking, in mere matter? Nor do we contradict our position, when we admit, in certain cases,--for instance, in the producer,--the necessity of a nicer organization, in order to the more perfect _transmission_ of the finer emotions; inasmuch as what is to be communicated in space and time must needs be by some medium adapted thereto. Such a person as Paganini, it is said, was able to "discourse most excellent music" on a ballad-monger's fiddle; yet will any one question that he needed an instrument of somewhat finer construction to show forth his full powers? Nay, we might add, that he needed no less than the most delicate _Cremona_,--some instrument, as it were, articulated into humanity,--to have inhaled and respired those attenuated strains, which, those who heard them think it hardly extravagant to say, seemed almost to embody silence. Now this mechanical instrument, by means of which such marvels were wrought, is but one of the many visible symbols of that more subtile instrument through which the mind acts when it would manifest itself. It would be too absurd to ask if any one believed that the music we speak of was created, as well as conveyed, by the instrument. The violin of Paganini may still be seen and handled; but the soul that inspired it is buried with its master. If we admit a distinction between mind and matter, and the result we speak of be purely mental, we should contradict the universal law of nature to assign such a product to mere matter, inasmuch as the natural law forbids in the lower the production of the higher. Take an example from one of the lower forms of organic life,--a common vegetable. Will any one assert that the surrounding inorganic elements of air, earth, heat, and water produce its peculiar form? Though some, or all, of these may be essential to its developement, they are so only as its predetermined correlatives, without which its existence could not be manifested; and in like manner must the peculiar form of the vegetable preëxist in its life,--in its _idea_,--in order to evolve by these assimilants its own proper organism. No possible modification in the degrees or proportion of these elements can change the specific form of a plant,--for instance, a cabbage into a cauliflower; it must ever remain a cabbage, _small or large, good or bad. _ So, too, is the external world to the mind; which needs, also, as the condition of its manifestation, its objective correlative. Hence the presence of some outward object, predetermined to correspond to the preëxisting idea in its living power, is essential to the evolution of its proper end,--the pleasurable emotion. We beg it may be noted that we do not say _sensation_. And hence we hold ourself justified in speaking of such presence as simply the occasion, or condition, and not, _per se_, the cause. And hence, moreover, may be inferred the absolute necessity of Dual Forces in order to the actual existence of any thing. One alone, the incomprehensible Author of all things, is self-subsisting in his perfect Unity. We shall now endeavour to establish the following proposition: namely, that the Pleasures in question have their true source in One Intuitive Universal Principle or living Power, and that the three Ideas of Beauty, Truth, and Holiness, which we assume to represent the _perfect_ in the physical, intellectual, and moral worlds, are but the several realized phases of this sovereign principle, which we shall call _Harmony_. Our first step, then, is to possess ourself of the essential or distinctive characteristic of these pleasurable emotions. Apparently, there is nothing more simple. And yet we are acquainted with no single term that shall fully express it. But what every one has more or less felt may certainly be made intelligible in a more extended form, and, we should think, by any one in the slightest degree competent to self-examination. Let a person, then, be appealed to; and let him put the question as to what passes within him when possessed by these emotions; and the spontaneous feeling will answer for us, that what we call _self_ has no part in them. Nay, we further assert, that, when singly felt, that is, when unallied to other emotions as modifying forces, they are wholly unmixed with _any personal considerations, or any conscious advantage to the individual_. Nor is this assigning too high a character to the feelings in question because awakened in so many instances by the purely physical; since their true origin may clearly be traced to a common source with those profounder emotions which we are wont to ascribe to the intellectual and moral. Besides, it should be borne in mind, that no physical object can be otherwise to the mind than a mere _occasion_; its inward product, or mental effect, being from another Power. The proper view therefore is, not that such alliance can ever degrade the higher agent, but that its more humble and material _assimilant_ is thus elevated by it. So that nothing in nature should be counted mean, which can thus be exalted; but rather be honored, since no object can become so assimilated except by its predetermined correlation to our better nature. Neither is it the privilege of the exclusive few, the refined and cultivated, to feel them deeply. If we look beyond ourselves, even to the promiscuous multitude, the instance will be rare, if existing at all, where some transient touch of these purer feelings has not raised the individual to, at least, a momentary exemption from the common thraldom of self. And we greatly err if their universality is not solely limited by those "shades of the prison-house," which, in the words of the poet, too often "close upon the growing boy." Nay, so far as we have observed, we cannot admit it as a question whether any person through a whole life has always been wholly insensible,--we will not say (though well we might) to the good and true,--but to beauty; at least, to some one kind, or degree, of the beautiful. The most abject wretch, however animalized by vice, may still be able to recall the time when a morning or evening sky, a bird, a flower, or the sight of some other object in nature, has given him a pleasure, which he felt to be distinct from that of his animal appetites, and to which he could attach not a thought of self-interest. And, though crime and misery may close the heart for years, and seal it up for ever to every redeeming thought, they cannot so shut out from the memory these gleams of innocence; even the brutified spirit, the castaway of his kind, has been made to blush at this enduring light; for it tells him of a truth, which might else have never been remembered,--that he has once been a man. And here may occur a question,--which might well be left to the ultra advocates of the _cui bono_,--whether a simple flower may not sometimes be of higher use than a labor-saving machine. As to the objects whose effect on the mind is here discussed, it is needless to specify them; they are, in general, all such as are known to affect us in the manner described. The catalogue will vary both in number and kind with different persons, according to the degree of force or developement in the overruling Principle. We proceed, then, to reply to such objections as will doubtless be urged against the characteristic assumed. And first, as regards the Beautiful, we shall probably be met by the received notion, that we experience in Beauty one of the most powerful incentives to passion; while examples without number will be brought in array to prove it also the wonder-working cause of almost fabulous transformations,--as giving energy to the indolent, patience to the quick, perseverance to the fickle, even courage to the timid; and, _vice versâ_, as unmanning the hero,--nay, urging the honorable to falsehood, treason, and murder; in a word, through the mastered, bewildered, sophisticated _self_, as indifferently raising and sinking the fascinated object to the heights and depths of pleasure and misery, of virtue and vice. Now, if the Beauty here referred to is of the _human being_, we do not gainsay it; but this is beauty in its _mixed mode_,--not in its high, passionless form, its singleness and purity. It is not Beauty as it descended from heaven, in the cloud, the rainbow, the flower, the bird, or in the concord of sweet sounds, that seem to carry back the soul to whence it came. Could we look, indeed, at the human form in its simple, unallied physical structure,--on that, for instance, of a beautiful woman,--and forget, or rather not feel, that it is other than a _form_, there could be but one feeling: that nothing visible was ever so framed to banish from the soul every ignoble thought, and imbue it, as it were, with primeval innocence. We are quite aware that the doctrine assumed in our main proposition with regard to Beauty, as holding exclusive relation to the Physical, is not very likely to forestall favor; we therefore beg for it only such candid attention as, for the reasons advanced, it may appear to deserve. That such effects as have just been objected could not be from Beauty alone, in its pure and single form, but rather from its coincidence with some real or supposed moral or intellectual quality, or with the animal appetites, seems to us clear; as, were it otherwise, we might infer the same from a beautiful infant,--the very thought of which is revolting to common sense. In such conjunction, indeed, it cannot but have a certain influence, but so modified as often to become a mere accessory, subordinated to the animal or moral object, and for the attainment of an end not its own; in proof of which, we find it almost uniformly partaking the penalty imposed on its incidental associates, should ever their desires result in illusion,--namely, in the aversion that follows. But the result of Beauty can never be such; when it seems otherwise, the effect, we think, can readily be traced to other causes, as we shall presently endeavour to show. It cannot be a matter of controversy whether Beauty is limited to the human form; the daily experience of the most ordinary man would answer No: he finds it in the woods, the fields, in plants and animals, nay, in a thousand objects, as he looks upon nature; nor, though indefinitely diversified, does he hesitate to assign to each the same epithet. And why? Because the feelings awakened by all are similar in kind, though varying, doubtless, by many degrees in intenseness. Now suppose he is asked of what personal advantage is all this beauty to him. Verily, he would be puzzled to answer. It gives him pleasure, perhaps great pleasure. And this is all he could say. But why should the effect be different, except in degree, from the beauty of a human being? We have already the answer in this concluding term. For what is a human being but one who unites in himself a physical, intellectual, and moral nature, which cannot in one become even an object of thought without at least some obscure shadowings of its natural allies? How, then, can we separate that which has an exclusive relation to his physical form, without some perception of the moral and intellectual with which it is joined? But how do we know that Beauty is limited to such exclusive relation? This brings us to the great problem; so simple and easy of solution in all other cases, yet so intricate and apparently inexplicable in man. In other things, it would be felt absurd to make it a question, whether referring to form, color, or sound. A single instance will suffice. Let us suppose, then, an unfamiliar object, whose habits, disposition, and so forth, are wholly unknown, for instance, a bird of paradise, to be seen for the first time by twenty persons, and they all instantly call it beautiful;--could there be any doubt that the pleasure it produced in each was of the same kind? or would any one of them ascribe his pleasure to any thing but its form and plumage? Concerning natural objects, and those inferior animals which are not under the influence of domestic associations, there is little or no difference among men: if they differ, it is only in degree, according to their sensibility. Men do not dispute about a rose. And why? Because there is nothing beside the physical to interfere with the impression it was predetermined to make; and the idea of beauty is realized instantly. So, also, with respect to other objects of an opposite character; they can speak without deliberating, and call them plain, homely, ugly, and so on, thus instinctively expressing even their degree of remoteness from the condition of beauty. Who ever called a pelican beautiful, or even many animals endeared to us by their valuable qualities,--such as the intelligent and docile elephant, or the affectionate orang-outang, or the faithful mastiff? Nay, we may run through a long list of most useful and amiable creatures, that could not, under any circumstances, give birth to an emotion corresponding to that which we ascribe to the beautiful. But there is scarcely a subject on which mankind are wider at variance, than on the beauty of their own species,--some preferring this, and others that, particular conformation; which can only be accounted for on the supposition of some predominant expression, either moral, intellectual, or sensual, with which they are in sympathy, or else the reverse. While some will task their memory, and resort to the schools, for their supposed infallible _rules_;--forgetting, meanwhile, that ultimate tribunal to which their canon must itself appeal, the ever-living principle which first evolved its truth, and which now, as then, is not to be reasoned about, but _felt_. It need not be added how fruitful of blunders is this mechanical ground. Now we venture to assert that no mistake was ever made, even in a single glance, concerning any natural object, not disfigured by human caprice, or which the eye had not been trained to look at through some conventional medium. Under this latter circumstance, there are doubtless many things in nature which affect men very differently; and more especially such as, from their familiar nearness, have come under the influence of _opinion_, and been incrusted, as it were, by the successive deposits of many generations. But of the vast and various multitude of objects which have thus been forced from their original state, there is perhaps no one which has undergone so many and such strange disfigurements as the human form; or in relation to which our "ideas," as we are pleased to call them, but in truth our opinions, have been so fluctuating. If an Idea, indeed, had any thing to do with Fashion, we should call many things monstrous to which custom has reconciled us. Let us suppose a case, by way of illustration. A gentleman and lady, from one of our fashionable cities, are making a tour on the borders of some of our new settlements in the West. They are standing on the edge of a forest, perhaps admiring the grandeur of nature; perhaps, also, they are lovers, and sharing with nature their admiration for each other, whose personal charms are set off to the utmost, according to the most approved notions, by the taste and elegance of their dress. Then suppose an Indian hunter, who had never seen one of our civilized world, or heard of our costume, coming suddenly upon them, their faces being turned from him. Would it be possible for him to imagine what kind of animals they were? We think not; and least of all, that he would suppose them to be of his own species. This is no improbable case; and we very much fear, should it ever occur, that the unrefined savage would go home with an impression not very flattering either to the milliner or the tailor. That, under such disguises, we should consider human beauty as a kind of enigma, or a thing to dispute about, is not surprising; nor even that we should often differ from ourselves, when so much of the outward man is thus made to depend on the shifting humors of some paramount Petronius of the shears. But, admitting it to be an easy matter to divest the form, or, what is still more important, our own minds, of every thing conventional, there is the still greater obstacle to any true effect from the person alone, in that moral admixture, already mentioned, which, more or less, must color the most of our impressions from every individual. Is there not, then, sufficient ground for at least a doubt if, excepting idiots, there is one human being in whom the purely physical is _at all times_ the sole agent? We do not say that it does not generally predominate. But, in a compound being like man, it seems next to impossible that the nature within should not at times, in some degree, transpire through the most rigid texture of the outward form. We may not, indeed, always read aright the character thus obscurely indexed, or even be able to guess at it, one way or the other; still, it will affect us; nay, most so, perhaps, when most indefinite. Every man is, to a certain extent, a physiognomist: we do not mean, according to the common acceptation, that he is an interpreter of lines and quantities, which may be reduced to rules; but that he is born one, judging, not by any conscious rule, but by an instinct, which he can neither explain nor comprehend, and which compels him to sit in judgment, whether he will or no. How else can we account for those instantaneous sympathies and antipathies towards an utter stranger? Now this moral influence has a twofold source, one in the object, and another in ourselves; nor is it easy to determine which is the stronger as a counteracting force. Hitherto we have considered only the former; we now proceed with a few remarks upon the latter. Will any man say, that he is wholly without some natural or acquired bias? This is the source of the counteracting influence which we speak of in ourselves; but which, like many other of the secret springs, both of thought and feeling, few men think of. It is nevertheless one which, on this particular subject, is scarcely ever inactive; and according to the bias will be our impressions, whether we be intellectual or sensual, coldly speculative or ardently imaginative. We do not mean that it is always called forth by every thing we approach; we speak only of its usual activity between man and man; for there seems to be a mysterious something in our nature, that, in spite of our wishes, will rarely allow of an absolute indifference towards any of the species; some effect, however slight, even as that of the air which we unconsciously inhale and again respire, must follow, whether directly from the object or reacting from ourselves. Nay, so strong is the law, whether in attraction or repulsion, that we cannot resist it even in relation to those human shadows projected on air by the mere imagination; for we feel it in art only less than in nature, provided, however, that the imagined being possess but the indication of a human soul: yet not so is it, if presenting only the outward form, since a mere form can in itself have no affinity with either the heart or intellect. And here we would ask, Does not this striking exception in the present argument cast back, as it were, a confirmatory reflection? We have often thought, that the power of the mere form could not be more strongly exemplified than at a common paint-shop. Among the annual importations from the various marts of Europe, how many beautiful faces, without an atom of meaning, attract the passengers,--stopping high and low, people of all descriptions, and actually giving pleasure, if not to every one, at least to the majority; and very justly, for they have beauty, and _nothing else_. But let another artist, some man of genius, copy the same faces, and add character,--breathe into them souls: from that moment the passers-by would see as if with other eyes; the affections and the imagination then become the spectators; and, according to the quickness or dulness, the vulgarity or refinement, of these, would be the impression. Thus a coarse mind may feel the beauty in the hard, soulless forms of Van der Werf, yet turn away with apathy from the sanctified loveliness of a Madonna by Raffaelle. But to return to the individual bias, which is continually inclining to, or repelling, What is more common, especially with women, than a high admiration of a plain person, if connected with wit, or a pleasing address? Can we have a stronger case in point than that of the celebrated Wilkes, one of the ugliest, yet one of the most admired men of his time? Even his own sex, blinded no doubt by their sympathetic bias, could see no fault in him, either in mind or person; for, when it was objected to the latter, that "he squinted confoundedly," the reply was, "No, Sir, not more than a gentleman ought to squint." Of the tendency to particular pursuits,--to art, science, or any particular course of life,--we do not speak; the bias we allude to is in the more personal disposition of the man,--in that which gives a tone to his internal character; nor is it material of what proportions compounded, of the affections, or the intellect, or the senses,--whether of some only, or the whole; that these form the ground of every man's bias is no less certain, than the fact that there is scarcely any secret which men are in the habit of guarding with such sedulous care. Nay, it would seem as if every one were impelled to it by some superstitious instinct, that every one might have it to say to himself, There is one thing in me which is all _my own_. Be this as it may, there are few things more hazardous than to pronounce with confidence on any man's bias. Indeed, most men would be puzzled to name it to themselves; but its existence in them is not the less a fact, because the form assumed may be so mixed and complicated as to be utterly undefinable. It is enough, however, that every one feels, and is more or less led by it, whether definite or not. This being the case, how is it possible that it should not in some degree affect our feelings towards every one we meet,--that it should not leave some speck of leaven on each impression, which shall impregnate it with something that we admire and love, or else with that which we hate and despise? And what is the most beautiful or the most ungainly form before a sorcerer like this, who can endow a fair simpleton with the rarest intellect, or transform, by a glance, the intellectual, noble-hearted dwarf to an angel of light? These, of course, are extreme cases. But if true in these, as we have reason to believe, how formidable the power! But though, as before observed, we may not read this secret with precision, it is sometimes possible to make a shrewd guess at the prevailing tendency in certain individuals. Perhaps the most obvious cases are among the sanguine and imaginative; and the guess would be, that a beautiful person would presently be enriched with all possible virtues, while the colder speculatist would only see in it, not what it possessed, but the mind that it wanted. Now it would be curious to imagine (and the case is not impossible) how the eyes of each might be opened, with the probable consequence, how each might feel when his eyes were opened, and the object was seen as it really is. Some untoward circumstance comes unawares on the perfect creature: a burst of temper knits the brow, inflames the eye, inflates the nostril, gnashes the teeth, and converts the angel into a storming fury. What then becomes of the visionary virtues? They have passed into air, and taken with them, also, what was the fair creature's right,--her very beauty. Yet a different change takes place with the dry man of intellect. The mindless object has taken shame of her ignorance; she begins to cultivate her powers, which are gradually developed until they expand and brighten; they inform her features, so that no one can look upon them without seeing the evidence of no common intellect: the dry man, at last, is struck with their superior intelligence, and what more surprises him is the grace and beauty, which, for the first time, they reveal to his eyes. The learned dust which had so long buried his heart is quickly brushed away, and he weds the embodied mind. What third change may follow, it is not to our purpose to foresee. Has human beauty, then, no power? When united with virtue and intellect, we might almost answer,--All power. It is the embodied harmony of the true poet; his visible Muse; the guardian angel of his better nature; the inspiring sibyl of his best affections, drawing him to her with a purifying charm, from the selfishness of the world, from poverty and neglect, from the low and base, nay, from his own frailty or vices:--for he cannot approach her with unhallowed thoughts, whom the unlettered and ignorant look up to with awe, as to one of a race above them; before whom the wisest and best bow down without abasement, and would bow in idolatry but for a higher reverence. No! there is no power like this of mortal birth. But against the antagonist moral, the human beauty of itself has no power, no self-sustaining life. While it panders to evil desires, then, indeed, there are few things may parallel its fearful might. But the unholy alliance must at last have an end. Look at it then, when the beautiful serpent has cast her slough. Let us turn to it for a moment, and behold it in league with elegant accomplishments and a subtile intellect: how complete its triumph! If ever the soul may be said to be intoxicated, it is then, when it feels the full power of a beautiful, bad woman. The fabled enchantments of the East are less strange and wonder-working than the marvellous changes which her spell has wrought. For a time every thought seems bound to her will; the eternal eye of the conscience closes before her; the everlasting truths of right and wrong sleep at her bidding; nay, things most gross and abhorred become suddenly invested with a seeming purity: till the whole mind is hers, and the bewildered victim, drunk with her charms, calls evil good. Then, what may follow? Read the annals of crime; it will tell us what follows the broken spell,--broken by the first degrading theft, the first stroke of the dagger, or the first drop of poison. The felon's eye turns upon the beautiful sorceress with loathing and abhorrence: an asp, a toad, is not more hateful! The story of Milwood has many counterparts. But, although Beauty cannot sustain itself permanently against what is morally bad, and has no direct power of producing good, it yet may, and often does, when unobstructed, through its unimpassioned purity, predispose to the good, except, perhaps, in natures grossly depraved; inasmuch as all affinities to the pure are so many reproaches to the vitiated mind, unless convertible to some selfish end. Witness the beautiful wife, wedded for what is misnamed love, yet becoming the scorn of a brutal husband,--the more bitter, perhaps, if she be also good. But, aside from those counteracting causes so often mentioned, it is as we have said: we are predisposed to feel kindly, and to think purely, of every beautiful object, until we have reason to think otherwise; and according to our own hearts will be our thoughts. We are aware of but one other objection which has not been noticed, and which might be made to the intuitive nature of the Idea. How is it, we may be asked, that artists, who are supposed, from their early discipline, to have overcome all conventional bias, and also to have acquired the more difficult power of analyzing their models, so as to contemplate them in their separate elements, have so often varied as to their ideas of Beauty? Whether artists have really the power thus ascribed to them, we shall not here inquire; it is no doubt, if possible, their business to acquire it. But, admitting it as true, we deny the position: they do not change their ideas. They can have but one Idea of Beauty, inasmuch as that Idea is but a specific phase of one immutable Principle,--if there be such a principle; as we shall hereafter endeavour to show. Nor can they have of it any essentially different, much less opposite, conceptions: but their _apprehension_ of it may undergo many apparent changes, which, nevertheless, are but the various degrees that only mark a fuller conception; as their more extended acquaintance with the higher outward assimilants of Beauty brings them, of course, nearer to a perfect realization of the preëxisting Idea. By _perfect_, here, we mean only the nearest approximation by man. And we appeal to every artist, competent to answer, if it be not so. Does he ever descend from a higher assimilant to a lower? Suppose him to have been born in Italy; would he go to Holland to realize his Idea? But many a Dutchman has sought in Italy what he could not find in his own country. We do not by this intend any reflection on the latter,--a country so fruitful of genius; it is only saying that the human form in Italy is from a finer mould. Then, what directs the artist from one object to another, and determines him which to choose, if he has not the guide within him? And why else should all nations instinctively bow before the superior forms of Greece? We add but one remark. Supposing the artist to be wholly freed from all modifying biases, such is seldom the case with those who criticize his work,--especially those who would show their superiority by detecting faults, and who frequently condemn the painter simply for not expressing what he never aimed at. As to some, they are never content if they do not find beauty, whatever the subject, though it may neutralize the character, if not render it ridiculous. Were Raffaelle, who seldom sought the purely beautiful, to be judged by the want of it, he would fall below Guido. But his object was much higher,--in the intellect and the affections; it was the human being in his endless inflections of thought and passion, in which there is little probability he will ever be approached. Yet false criticism has been as prodigal to him in the ascription of beauty, as parsimonious and unjust to many others. In conclusion, may there not be, in the difficulty we have thus endeavoured to solve, a probable significance of the responsible, as well as distinct, position which the Human being holds in the world of life? Are there no shadowings, in that reciprocal influence between soul and soul, of some mysterious chain which links together the human family in its two extremes, giving to the very lowest an indefeasible claim on the highest, so that we cannot be independent if we would, or indifferent even to the very meanest, without violation of an imperative law of our nature? And does it not at least _hint_ of duties and affections towards the most deformed in body, the most depraved in mind,--of interminable consequences? If man were a mere animal, though the highest animal, could these inscrutable influences affect us as they do? Would not the animal appetites be our true and sole end? What even would Beauty be to the sated appetite? If it did not, as in the last instance, of the brutal husband, become an object of scorn,--which it could not be, from the necessary absence of moral obliquity,--would it be better than a picked bone to a gorged dog? Least of all could it resemble the visible sign of that pure idea, in which so many lofty minds have recognized the type of a far higher love than that of earth, which the soul shall know, when, in a better world, she shall realize the ultimate reunion of Beauty with the coëternal forms of Truth and Holiness. We will now apply the characteristic assumed to the second leading Idea, namely, to Truth. In the first place, we take it for granted, that no one will deny to the perception of truth some positive pleasure; no one, at least, who is not at the same time prepared to contradict the general sense of mankind, nay, we will add, their universal experience. The moment we begin to think, we begin to acquire, whether it be in trifles or otherwise, some kind of knowledge; and of two things presented to our notice, supposing one to be true and the other false, no one ever knowingly, and for its own sake, chooses the false: whatever he may do in after life, for some selfish purpose, he cannot do so in childhood, where there is no such motive, without violence to his nature. And here we are supposing the understanding, with its triumphant pride and subtilty, out of the question, and the child making his choice under the spontaneous sense of the true and the false. For, were it otherwise, and the choice indifferent, what possible foundation for the commonest acts of life, even as it respects himself, would there be to him who should sow with lies the very soil of his growing nature. It is time enough in manhood to begin to lie to one's self; but a self-lying youth can have no proper self to rest on, at any period. So that the greatest liar, even Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, must have loved the truth,--at least at one time of his life. We say _loved_; for a voluntary choice implies of necessity some degree of pleasure in the choosing, however faint the emotion or insignificant the object. It is, therefore, _caeteris paribus_, not only necessary, but natural, to find pleasure in truth. Now the question is, whether the pleasurable emotion, which is, so to speak, the indigenous growth of Truth, can in any case be free of self, or some personal gratification. To this, we apprehend, there will be no lack of answer. Nay, the answer has already been given from the dark antiquity of ages, that even for her own exceeding loveliness has Truth been canonized. If there was any thing of self in the _Eureka_ of Pythagoras, there was not in the acclamations of his country who rejoiced with him. But we may doubt the feeling, if applied to him. If wealth or fame has sometimes followed in the track of Genius, it has followed as an accident, but never preceded, as the efficient conductor to any great discovery. For what is Genius but the prophetic revealer of the unseen True, that can neither be purchased nor bribed into light? If it come, then, at all, it must needs be evoked by a kindred love as pure as itself. Shall we appeal to the artist? If he deserve the name, he will disdain the imputation that either wealth or fame has ever aided at the birth of his ideal offspring: it was Truth that smiled upon him, that made light his travail, that blessed their birth, and, by her fond recognition, imparted to his breast her own most pure, unimpassioned emotion. But, whatever mixed feeling, through the infirmity of the agent, may have influenced the artist, whether poet or painter, there can be but one feeling in the reader or spectator. Indeed, so imperishable is this property of Truth, that it seems to lose nothing of its power, even when causing itself to be reflected from things that in themselves have, properly speaking, no truth. Of this we have abundant examples in some of the Dutch pictures, where the principal object is simply a dish of oysters or a pickled herring. We remember a picture of this kind, consisting solely of these very objects, from which we experienced a pleasure _almost_ exquisite. And we would here remark, that the appetite then was in no way concerned. The pleasure, therefore, must have been from the imitated truth. It is certainly a curious question why this should be, while the things themselves, that is, the actual objects, should produce no such effect. And it seems to be because, in the latter case, there was no truth involved. The real oysters, &c., were indeed so far true as they were actual objects, but they did not contain a _truth_ in _relation_ to any thing. Whereas, in the pictured oysters, their relation to the actual was shown and verified in the mutual resemblance. If this be true, as we doubt not, we have at least one evidence, where it might not be looked for, that there is that in Truth which is satisfying of itself. But a stronger testimony may still be found where, from all _à priori_ reasoning, we might expect, if not positive pain, at least no pleasure; and that is, where we find it united with human suffering, as in the deep scenes of tragedy. Now it cannot be doubted, that some of our most refined pleasures are often derived from this source, and from scenes that in nature we could not look upon. And why is this, but for the reason assigned in the preceding instance of a still-life picture? the only difference being, that the latter is addressed to the senses, and the former to the heart and intellect: which difference, however, well accounts for their vast disparity of effect. But may not these tragic pleasures have their source in sympathy alone? We answer, No. For who ever felt it in watching the progress of actual villany or the betrayal of innocence, or in being an eyewitness of murder? Now, though we revolt at these and the like atrocities in actual life, it would be both new and false to assert that they have no attraction in Art. Nor do we believe that this acknowledged interest can well be traced to any other source than the one assumed; namely, to the truth of _relation_. And in this capacity does Truth stand to the Imagination, which is the proper medium through which the artist, whether poet or painter, projects his scenes. The seat of interest here, then, being _in_ the imagination, it is precisely on that account, and because it cannot be brought home to self, that the pleasure ensues; which is plainly, therefore, derived from its verisimilitude to the actual, and, though together with its appropriate excitement, yet without its imperative condition, namely, its call of _life_ on the living affections. The proper word here is _interest_, not sympathy, for sympathy with actual suffering, be the object good or bad, is in its nature painful; an obvious reason why so few in the more prosaic world have the virtue to seek it. But is it not the business of the artist to touch the heart? True,--and it is his high privilege, as its liege-lord, to sound its very depths; nay, from its lowest deep to touch alike its loftiest breathing pinnacle. Yet he may not even approach it, except through the transforming atmosphere of the imagination, where alone the saddest notes of woe, even the appalling shriek of despair, are softened, as it were, by the tempering dews of this visionary region, ere they fall upon the heart. Else how could we stand the smothered moan of Desdemona, or the fiendish adjuration of Lady Macbeth,--more frightful even than the after-deed of her husband,--or look upon the agony of the wretched Judas, in the terrible picture of Rembrandt, when he returns the purchase of blood to the impenetrable Sanhedrim? Ay, how could we ever stand these but for that ideal panoply through which we feel only their modified vibrations? Let the imitation, or rather copy, be so close as to trench on deception, the effect will be far different; for, the _condition_ of _relation_ being thus virtually lost, the copy becomes as the original,--circumscribed by its own qualities, repulsive or attractive, as the case may be. I remember a striking instance of this in a celebrated actress, whose copies of actual suffering were so painfully accurate, that I was forced to turn away from the scene, unable to endure it; her scream of agony in Belvidera seemed to ring in my ears for hours after. Not so was it with the great Mrs. Siddons, who moved not a step but in a poetic atmosphere, through which the fiercest passions seemed rather to _loom_ like distant mountains when first descried at sea,--massive and solid, yet resting on air. It would appear, then, that there is something in truth, though but seen in the dim shadow of relation, that enforces interest,--and, so it be without pain, at least some degree of pleasure; which, however slight, is not unimportant, as presenting an impassable barrier to the mere animal. We must not, however, be understood as claiming for this Relative Truth the power of exciting a pleasurable interest in all possible cases; there are exceptions, as in the horrible, the loathsome, &c., which under no condition can be otherwise than revolting. It is enough for our purpose, to have shown that its effect is in most cases similar to that we have ascribed to Truth absolute. But objections are the natural adversaries of every adventurer: there is one in our path which we soon descried at our first setting out. And we find it especially opposed to the assertion respecting children; namely, that between two things, where there is no personal advantage to bias the decision, they will always choose that which seems to them true, rather than the other which appears false. To this is opposed the notorious fact of the remarkable propensity which children have to lying. This is readily admitted; but it does not meet us, unless it can be shown that they have not in the act of lying an eye to its _reward_,--setting aside any outward advantage,--in the shape of self-complacent thought at their superior wit or ingenuity. Now it is equally notorious, that such secret triumph will often betray itself by a smile, or wink, or some other sign from the chuckling urchin, which proves any thing but that the lie was gratuitous. No, not even a child can love a lie purely for its own sake; he would else love it in another, which is against fact. Indeed, so far from it, that, long before he can have had any notion of what is meant by honor, the word _liar_ becomes one of his first and most opprobrious terms of reproach. Look at any child's face when he tells his companion he lies. We ask no more than that most logical expression; and, if it speak not of a natural abhorrence only to be overcome by self-interest, there is no trust in any thing. No. We cannot believe that man or child, however depraved, _could_ tell an _unproductive, gratuitous lie_. Of the last and highest source of our pleasurable emotions we need say little; since no one will question that, if sought at all, it can only be for its own sake. But it does not become us--at least in this place--to enter on the subject of Holiness; of that angelic state, whose only manifestation is in the perfect unison with the Divine Will. We may, however, consider it in the next degree, as it is known, and as we believe often realized, among men: we mean Goodness. We presume it is superfluous to define a good act; for every one knows, or ought to know, that no act is good in its true sense, which has any, the least, reference to the agent's self. Nor is it necessary to adduce examples; our object being rather to show that the recognition of goodness--and we beg that the word be especially noted--must result, of necessity, in such an emotion as shall partake of its own character, that is, be entirely devoid of self-interest. This will no doubt appear to many a startling position. But let it be observed, that we have not said it will _always_ be recognized. There are many reasons why it should not be, and is not. We all know how easy it is to turn away from what gives us no pleasure. A long course of vice, together with the consciousness that goodness has departed from ourselves, may make it painful to look upon it. Nay, the contemplation of it may become, on this account, so painful as to amount to agony. But that Goodness can be hated for its own sake we do not believe, except by a devil, or some irredeemable incarnation of evil, if such there be on this side the grave. But it is objected, that bad men have sometimes a pleasure in Evil from which they neither derive nor hope for any personal advantage, that is, simply _because it is evil_. But we deny the fact. We deny that an unmixed pleasure, which is purely abstracted from all reference to self, is in the power of Evil. Should any man assert this even of himself, he is not to be believed; he lies to his own heart,--and this he may do without being conscious of it. But how can this be? Nothing more easy: by a simple dislocation of words; by the aid of that false nomenclature which began with the first Fratricide, and has continued to accumulate through successive ages, till it reached its consummation, for every possible sin, in the French Revolution. Indeed, there are few things more easy; it is only to transfer to the evil the name of its opposite. Some of us, perhaps, may have witnessed the savage exultation of some hardened wretch, when the accidental spectator of an atrocious act. But is such exultation pleasure? Is it at all akin to what is recognized as pleasure even by this hardened wretch? Yet so he may call it. But should we, could we look into his heart? Should we not rather pause for a time, from mere ignorance of the true vernacular of sin. What he feels may thus be a mystery to all but the reprobate; but it is not pleasure either in the deed or the doer: for, as the law of Good is Harmony, so is Discord that of Evil; and as sympathy to Harmony, so is revulsion to Discord. And where is hatred deepest and deadliest? Among the wicked. Yet they often hate the good. True: but not goodness, not the good man's virtues; these they envy, and hate him for possessing them. But more commonly the object of dislike is first stripped of his virtues by detraction; the detractor then supplies their place by the needful vices,--perhaps with his own; then, indeed, he is ripe for hatred. When a sinful act is made personal, it is another affair; it then becomes a _part_ of _the man_; and he may then worship it with the idolatry of a devil. But there is a vast gulf between his own idol and that of another. To prevent misapprehension, we would here observe, that we do not affirm of either Good or Evil any irresistible power of enforcing love or exciting abhorrence, having evidence to the contrary in the multitudes about us; all we affirm is, that, when contemplated abstractly, they cannot be viewed otherwise. Nor is the fact of their inefficiency in many cases difficult of solution, when it is remembered that the very condition to their _true_ effect is the complete absence of self, that they must clearly be viewed _ab extra_; a hard, not to say impracticable, condition to the very depraved; for it may well be doubted if to such minds any act or object having a moral nature can be presented without some personal relation. It is not therefore surprising, that, where the condition is so precluded, there should be, not only no proper response to the law of Good or Evil, but such frequent misapprehension of their true character. Were it possible to see with the eyes of others, this might not so often occur; for it need not be remarked, that few things, if any, ever retain their proper forms in the atmosphere of self-love; a fact that will account for many obliquities besides the one in question. To this we may add, that the existence of a compulsory power in either Good or Evil could not, in respect to man, consist with his free agency,--without which there could be no conscience; nor does it follow, that, because men, with the free power of choice, yet so often choose wrong, there is any natural indistinctness in the absolute character of Evil, which, as before hinted, is sufficiently apparent to them when referring to others; in such cases the obliquitous choice only shows, that, with the full force of right perception, their interposing passions or interests have also the power of giving their own color to every object having the least relation to themselves. Admitting this personal modification, we may then safely repeat our position,--that to hate Good or to love Evil, solely for their own sakes, is only possible with the irredeemably wicked, in other words, with devils. We now proceed to the latter clause of our general proposition. And here it may be asked, on what ground we assume one intuitive universal Principle as the true source of all those emotions which have just been discussed. To this we reply, On the ground of their common agreement. As we shall here use the words _effect_ and _emotion_ as convertible terms, we wish it to be understood, that, when we apply the epithet _common_ or _same_ to _effect_, we do so only in relation to _kind_, and for the sake of brevity, instead of saying the same _class_ of effects; implying also in the word _kind_ the existence of many degrees, but no other difference. For instance, if a beautiful flower and a noble act shall be found to excite a kindred emotion, however slight from the one or deep from the other, they come in effect under the same category. And this we are forced to admit, however heterogeneous, since a common ground is necessarily predicated of a common result. How else, for instance, can we account for a scene in nature, a bird, an animal, a human form, affecting us each in a similar way? There is certainly no similitude in the objects that compose a landscape, and the form of an animal and man; they have no resemblance either in shape, or texture, or color, in roughness, smoothness, or any other known quality; while their several effects are so near akin, that we do not stop to measure even the wide degrees by which they are marked, but class them in a breath by some common term. It is very plain that this singular property of assimilating to one what is so widely unlike cannot proceed from any similar conformation, or quality, or attribute of mere being, that is, of any thing essential to distinctive existence. There must needs, then, be some common ground for their common effect. For if they agree not in themselves one with the other, it follows of necessity that the ground of their agreement must be in relation to something within our own minds, since only _there_ is this common effect known as a fact. We are now brought to the important question, _Where_ and _what_ is this reconciling ground? Certainly not in sensation, for that could only reflect their distinctive differences. Neither can it be in the reflective faculties, since the effect in question, being co-instantaneous, is wholly independent of any process of reasoning; for we do not feel it because we understand, but only because we are conscious of its presence. Nay, it is because we neither do nor can understand it, being therefore a matter aloof from all the powers of reasoning, that its character is such as has been asserted, and, as such, universal. Where, then, shall we search for this mysterious ground but in the mind, since only there, as before observed, is this common effect known as a fact? and where in the mind but in some inherent Principle, which is both intuitive and universal, since, in a greater or less degree, all men feel it _without knowing why?_ But since an inward Principle can, of necessity, have only a potential existence, until called into action by some outward object, it is also clear that any similar effect, which shall then be recognized through it, from any number of differing and distinct objects, can only arise from some mutual relation between a _something_ in the objects and in the Principle supposed, as their joint result and proper product. And, since it would appear that we cannot avoid the admission of some such Principle, having a reciprocal relation to certain outward objects, to account for these kindred emotions from so many distinct and heterogeneous sources, it remains only that we give it a name; which has already been anticipated in the term Harmony. The next question here is, In what consists this _peculiar relation?_ We have seen that it cannot be in any thing that is essential to any condition of mere being or existence; it must therefore consist in some _undiscoverable_ condition indifferently applicable to the Physical, Intellectual, and Moral, yet only applicable in each to certain kinds. And this is all that we do or _can_ know of it. But of this we may be as certain as that we live and breathe. It is true that, for particular purposes, we may analyze certain combinations of sounds and colors and forms, so as to ascertain their relative quantities or collocation; and these facts (of which we shall hereafter have occasion to speak) may be of importance both in Art and Science. Still, when thus obtained, they will be no more than mere facts, on which we can predicate nothing but that, when they are imitated,--that is, when similar combinations of quantities, &c., are repeated in a work of art,--they will produce the same effect. But _why_ they should is a mystery which the reflective faculties do not solve; and never can, because it refers to a living Power that is above the understanding. In the human figure, for instance, we can give no reason why eight heads to the stature please us better than six, or why three or twelve heads seem to us monstrous. If we say, in the latter case, _because_ the head of the one is too small and of the other too large, we give no _reason_; we only state the _fact_ of their disagreeable effect on us. And, if we make the proportion of eight heads our rule, it is because of the fact of its being more pleasing to us than any other; and, from the same feeling, we prefer those statures which approach it the nearest. Suppose we analyze a certain combination of sounds and colors, so as to ascertain the exact relative quantities of the one and the collocation of the other, and then compare them. What possible resemblance can the understanding perceive between these sounds and colors? And yet a something within us responds to both in a similar emotion. And so with a thousand things, nay, with myriads of objects that have no other affinity but with that mysterious harmony which began with our being, which slept with our infancy, and which their presence only seems to have _awakened_. If we cannot go back to our own childhood, we may see its illustration in those about us who are now emerging into that unsophisticated state. Look at them in the fields, among the birds and flowers; their happy faces speak the harmony within them: the divine instrument, which these have touched, gives them a joy which, perhaps, only childhood in its first fresh consciousness can know. Yet what do they understand of musical quantities, or of the theory of colors? And so with respect to Truth and Goodness; whose preëxisting Ideas, being in the living constituents of an immortal spirit, need but the slightest breath of some outward condition of the true and good,--a simple problem, or a kind act,--to awake them, as it were, from their unconscious sleep, and start them for eternity. We may venture to assert, that no philosopher, however ingenious, could communicate to a child the abstract idea of Right, had the latter nothing beyond or above the understanding. He might, indeed, be taught, like the inferior animals,--a dog, for instance,--that, if he took certain forbidden things, he would be punished, and thus do right through fear. Still he would desire the forbidden thing, though belonging to another; nor could he conceive why he should not appropriate to himself, and thus allay his appetite, what was held by another, could he do so undetected; nor attain to any higher notion of right than that of the strongest. But the child has something higher than the mere power of apprehending consequences. The simplest exposition, whether of right or wrong, even by an ignorant nurse, is instantly responded to by something _within him_, which, thus awakened, becomes to him a living voice ever after; and the good and the true must thenceforth answer its call, even though succeeding years would fain overlay them with the suffocating crowds of evil and falsehood. We do not say that these eternal Ideas of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness will, strictly speaking, always act. Though indestructible, they may be banished for a time by the perverted Will, and mockeries of the brain, like the fume-born phantoms from the witches' caldron in Macbeth, take their places, and assume their functions. We have examples of this in every age, and perhaps in none more startling than in the present. But we mean only that they cannot be _forgotten_: nay, they are but, too often recalled with unwelcome distinctness. Could we read the annals which must needs be scored on every heart,--could we look upon those of the aged reprobate,--who will doubt that their darkest passages are those made visible by the distant gleams from these angelic Forms, that, like the Three which stood before the tent of Abraham, once looked upon his youth? And we doubt not that the truest witness to the common source of these inborn Ideas would readily be acknowledged by all, could they return to it now with their matured power of introspection, which is, at least, one of the few advantages of advancing years. But, though we cannot bring back youth, we may still recover much of its purer revelations of our nature from what has been left in the memory. From the dim present, then, we would appeal to that fresher time, ere the young spirit had shrunk from the overbearing pride of the understanding, and confidently ask, if the emotions we then felt from the Beautiful, the True, and the Good, did not seem in some way to refer to a common origin. And we would also ask, if it was then frequent that the influence from one was _singly_ felt,--if it did not rather bring with it, however remotely, a sense of something, though widely differing, yet still akin to it. When we have basked in the beauty of a summer sunset, was there nothing in the sky that spoke to the soul of Truth and Goodness? And when the opening intellect first received the truth of the great law of gravitation, or felt itself mounting through the profound of space, to travel with the planets in their unerring rounds, did never then the kindred Ideas of Goodness and Beauty chime in, as it were, with the fabled music,--not fabled to the soul,--which led you on like one entranced? And again, when, in the passive quiet of your moral nature, so predisposed in youth to all things genial, you have looked abroad on this marvellous, ever teeming Earth,--ever teeming alike for mind and body,--and have felt upon you flow, as from ten thousand springs of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, ten thousand streams of innocent enjoyment; did you not then _almost hear_ them shout in confluence, and almost _see_ them gushing upwards, as if they would prove their unity, in one harmonious fountain? But, though the preceding be admitted as all true in respect to certain "gifted" individuals, it may yet be denied that it is equally true with respect to all, in other words, that the Principle assumed is an inherent constituent of the human being. To this we reply, that universality does not necessarily imply equality. The universality of a Principle does not imply _everywhere_ equal energy or activity, or even the same mode of manifestation, any more than do the essential Faculties of the Understanding. Of this we have an analogous illustration in the faculty of Memory; which is almost indefinitely differenced in different men, both in degree and mode. In some, its greatest power is shown in the retention of thoughts, but not of words, that is, not of the original words in which they were presented. Others possess it in a very remarkable degree as to forms, places, &c., and but imperfectly for other things; others, again, never forget names, dates, or figures, yet cannot repeat a conversation the day after it took place; while some few have the doubtful happiness of forgetting nothing. We might go on with a long list of the various modes and degrees in which this faculty, so essential to the human being, is everywhere manifested. But this is sufficient for our purpose. In like manner is the Principle of Harmony manifested; in one person as it relates to Form, in another to Sound; so, too, may it vary as to the degrees of truth and goodness. We say degrees; for we may well doubt whether, even in the faculty of memory, its apparent absence as to any one essential object is any thing more than a feeble degree of activity: and the doubt is strengthened by the fact, that in many seemingly hopeless cases it has been actually, as it were, brought into birth. And we are still indisposed to admit its entire absence in any one particular for which it was bestowed on man. An imperfect developement, especially as relating to the intellectual and moral, we know to depend, in no slight measure, on the _will_ of the subject. Nay, (with the exception of idiots,) it may safely be affirmed, that no individual ever existed who could not perceive the difference between what is true and false, and right and wrong. We here, of course, except those who have so ingeniously _unmade_ themselves, in order to reconstruct their "humanity" after a better fashion. As to the "_why_" of these differences, we know nothing; it is one of those unfathomable mysteries which to the finite mind must ever be hidden. Though it has been our purpose, throughout this discourse, to direct our inquiries mainly to the essential Elements of the subject, it may not be amiss here to take a brief notice of their collateral product in those mixed modes from which we derive so large a portion of our mental gratification: we allude to the various combinations of the several Ideas, which have just been examined, with each other as well as with their opposites. To this prolific source may be traced much of that many-colored interest which we take in their various forms as presented by the imagination,--in every thing, indeed, which is true, or even partially true, to the great Principle of Harmony, both in nature and in art. It is to these mixed modes more especially, that we owe all that mysterious interest which gives the illusion of life to a work of fiction, and fills us with delight or melts with woe, whether in the happiness or the suffering of some imagined being, uniting goodness with beauty, or virtue with plainness, or uncommon purity and intellect even with deformity; for even that may be so overpowered in the prominent harmony of superior intellect and moral worth, as to be virtually neutralized, at least, to become unobtrusive as a discordant force. Besides, it cannot be expected that _complete_ harmony is ever to be realized in our imperfect state; we should else, perhaps, with such expectation, have no pleasures of the kind we speak of: nor is this necessary, the imagination being always ready to supply deficiencies, whenever the approximation is sufficiently near to call it forth. Nay, if the interest felt be nothing more than mere curiosity, we still refer to this presiding Principle; which is no less essential to a simple combination of events, than to the higher demands of Form or Character. But its presence must be felt, however slightly. Of this we have the evidence in many cases, and, perhaps, most conclusive where the partial harmony is felt to verge on a powerful discord; or where the effort to unite them produces that singular alternation of what is both revolting and pleasing: as in the startling union of evil passions with some noble quality, or with a master intellect. And here we have a solution of that paradoxical feeling of interest and abhorrence, which we experience in such a character as King Richard. And may it not be that we are permitted this interest for a deeper purpose than we are wont to suppose; because Sin is best seen in the light of Virtue,--and then most fearfully when she holds the torch to herself? Be this as it may, with pure, unintellectual, brutal evil it is very different. We cannot look upon it undismayed: we take no interest in it, nor can we. In Richard there is scarce a glimmer of his better nature; yet we do not despise him, for his intellect and courage command our respect. But the fiend Iago,--who ever followed him through the weaving of his spider-like web, without perpetual recurrence to its venomous source,--his devilish heart? Even the intellect he shows seems actually animalized, and we shudder at its subtlety, as at the cunning of a reptile. Whatever interest may have been imputed to him should be placed to the account of his hapless victim; to the first striving with distrust of a generous nature; to the vague sense of misery, then its gradual developement, then the final overthrow of absolute faith; and, last of all, to the throes of agony of the noble Moor, as he writhes and gasps in his accursed toils. To these mixed modes may be added another branch, which we shall term the class of Imputed Attributes. In this class are concerned all those natural objects with which we connect (not by individual association, but by a general law of the mind) certain moral or intellectual attributes; which are not, indeed, supposed to exist in the objects themselves, but which, by some unknown affinity, they awaken or occasion in us, and which we, in our turn, impute to them. However this be, there are multitudes of objects in the inanimate world, which we cannot contemplate without associating with them many of the characteristics which we ascribe to the human being; and the ideas so awakened we involuntarily express by the ascription of such significant epithets as _stately, majestic, grand_, and so on. It is so with us, when we call some tall forest stately, or qualify as majestic some broad and slowly-winding river, or some vast, yet unbroken waterfall, or some solitary, gigantic pine, seeming to disdain the earth, and to hold of right its eternal communion with air; or when to the smooth and far-reaching expanse of our inland waters, with their bordering and receding mountains, as they seem to march from the shores, in the pomp of their dark draperies of wood and mist, we apply the terms _grand_ and _magnificent_: and so onward to an endless succession of objects, imputing, as it were, our own nature, and lending our sympathies, till the headlong rush of some mighty cataract suddenly thunders upon us. But how is it then? In the twinkling of an eye, the outflowing sympathies ebb back upon the heart; the whole mind seems severed from earth, and the awful feeling to suspend the breath;--there is nothing human to which we can liken it. And here begins another kind of emotion, which we call Sublime. We are not aware that this particular class of objects has hitherto been noticed, at least as holding a distinct position. And, if we may be allowed to supply the omission, we should assign to it the intermediate place between the Beautiful and the Sublime. Indeed, there seems to be no other station so peculiarly proper; inasmuch as they would thus form, in a consecutive series, a regular ascent from the sensible material to the invisible spiritual: hence naturally uniting into one harmonious whole every possible emotion of our higher nature. In the preceding discussion, we have considered the outward world only in its immediate relation to Man, and the Human Being as the predetermined centre to which it was designed to converge. As the subject, however, of what are called the sublime emotions, he holds a different position; for the centre here is not himself, nor, indeed, can he approach it within conceivable distance: yet still he is drawn to it, though baffled for ever. Now the question is, Where, and in what bias, is this mysterious attraction? It must needs be in something having a clear affinity with us, or we could not feel it. But the attraction is also both pure and pleasurable; and it has just been shown, that we have in ourselves but one principle by which to recognize any corresponding emotion,--namely, the principle of Harmony. May we not then infer a similar Principle without us, an Infinite Harmony, to which our own is attracted? and may we not further,--if we may so speak without irreverence,--suppose our own to have emanated thence when "man became a living soul"? And though this relation may not be consciously acknowledged in every instance, or even in one, by the mass of men, does it therefore follow that it does not exist? How many things act upon us of which we have no knowledge? If we find, as in the case of the Beautiful, the same, or a similar, effect to follow from a great variety of objects which have no resemblance or agreement with one another, is it not a necessary inference, that for their common effect they must all refer to something without and distinct from themselves? Now in the case of the Sublime, the something referred to is not in man: for the emotion excited has an outward tendency; the mind cannot contain it; and the effort to follow it towards its mysterious object, if long continued, becomes, in the excess of interest, positively painful. Could any finite object account for this? But, supposing the Infinite, we have an adequate cause. If these emotions, then, from whatever object or circumstance, be to prompt the mind beyond its prescribed limits, whether carrying it back to the primitive past, the incomprehensible _beginning_, or sending it into the future, to the unknown _end_, the ever-present Idea of the mighty Author of all these mysteries must still be implied, though we think not of it. It is this Idea, or rather its influence, whether we be conscious of it or not, which we hold to be the source of every sublime emotion. To make our meaning plainer, we should say, that that which has the power of possessing the mind, to the exclusion, for the time, of all other thought, and which presents no _comprehensible_ sense of a whole, though still impressing us with a full apprehension of such as a reality,--in other words, which cannot be circumscribed by the forms of the understanding while it strains them to the utmost,--that we should term a sublime object. But whether this effect be occasioned directly by the object itself, or be indirectly suggested by its relations to some other object, its unknown cause, it matters not; since the apparent power of calling forth the emotion, by whatever means, is, _quoad_ ourselves, its sublime condition. Hence, if a minute insect, an ant, for instance, through its marvellous instinct, lift the mind of the amazed spectator to the still more inscrutable Creator, it must possess, as to _him_, the same power. This is, indeed, an extreme case, and may be objected to as depending on the individual mind; on a mind prepared by cultivation and previous reflection for the effect in question. But to this it may be replied, that some degree of cultivation, or, more properly speaking, of developement by the exercise of its reflective faculties, is obviously essential ere the mind can attain to mature growth,--we might almost say to its natural state, since nothing can be said to have attained its true nature until all its capacities are at least called into birth. No one, for example, would refer to the savages of Australia for a true specimen of what was proper or natural to the human mind; we should rather seek it, if such were the alternative, in a civilized child of five years old. Be this as it may, it will not be denied that ignorance, brutality, and many other deteriorating causes, do practically incapacitate thousands for even an approximation, not only to this, but to many of the inferior emotions, the character of which is purely mental. And this, we think, is quite sufficient to neutralize the objection, if not, indeed, to justify the application of the term to all cases where the _immediate_ effect, whether directly or indirectly, is such as has been described. But, to reduce this to a common-sense view, it is only saying,--what no one will deny,--that a man of education and refinement has not only more, but higher, pleasures of the mind than a mere clown. But though the position here advanced must necessarily exclude many objects which have hitherto, though, as we think, improperly, been classed with the sublime, it will still leave enough, and more than enough, for the utmost exercise of our limited powers; inasmuch as, in addition to the multitude of objects in the material world, not only the actions, passions, and thoughts of men, but whatever concerns the human being, that in any way--by a hint merely--leads the mind, though indirectly, to the Infinite attributes,--all come of right within the ground assumed. It will be borne in mind, that the conscious presence of the Infinite Idea is not only _not_ insisted on, but expressly admitted to be, in most cases, unthought of; it is also admitted, that a sublime effect is often powerfully felt in many instances where this Idea could not truly be predicated of the apparent object. In such cases, however, some kind of resemblance, or, at least, a seeming analogy to an infinite attribute, is nevertheless essential. It must _appear_ to us, for the time, either limitless, indefinite, or in some other way beyond the grasp of the mind: and, whatever an object may _seem_ to be, it must needs _in effect_ be to _us_ even that which it seems. Nor does this transfer the emotion to a different source; for the Infinite Idea, or something analogous, being thus imputed, is in reality its true cause. It is still the unattainable, the _ever-stimulating_, yet _ever-eluding_, in the character of the sublime object, that gives to it both its term and its effect. And whence the conception of this mysterious character, but from its mysterious prototype, the Idea of the Infinite? Neither does it matter, as we have said, whether actual or supposed; for what the imagination cannot master will master the imagination. Take, for instance, but a single _passion_, and clothe it with this character; in the same instant it becomes sublime. So, too, with a single thought. In the Mosaic words so often quoted, "Let there be light, and there was light," we have the sublime of thought, of mere naked thought; but what could more awe the mind with the power of God? Of like nature is the conjecture of Newton, when he imagined stars so distant from the sun that their coeval light has not yet reached us. Let us endeavour for one moment to conceive of this; does not the soul seem to dilate within us, and the body to shrink as to a grain of dust? "Woe is me! unclean, unclean!" said the holy Prophet, when the Infinite Holiness stood before him. Could a more terrible distance be measured, than by these fearful words, between God and man? If it be objected to this view, that many cases occur, having the same conditions with those assumed in our general proposition, which are yet exclusively painful, unmitigated even by a transient moment of pleasure,--in Despair, for instance,--as who can limit it?--to this we reply, that no emotion having its sole, or circle of existence in the individual mind itself, can be to that mind other than a _subject_. A man in despair, or under any mode of extreme suffering of like nature, may, indeed, if all interfering sympathy have been removed by time or after-description, be to _another_ a sublime object,--at least in one of those suggestive forms just noticed; but not to _himself_. The source of the sublime--as all along implied--is essentially _ab extra_. The human mind is not its centre, nor can it be realized except by a contemplative act. Besides, as a mental pleasure,--indeed the highest known,--to be recognized as such, it must needs be accompanied by the same _relative character_ by which is tested every other pleasure coming under that denomination; namely, by the entire absence of _self_, that is, by the same freedom from all personal consideration which has been shown to characterize the true effect of the Three leading Ideas already considered. But if to this also it be further objected, that in certain particular cases, as of personal danger,--from which the sublime emotion has often been experienced,--some personal consideration must necessarily be involved, as without a sense of security we could not enjoy it; we answer, that, if it be meant only that the mind should be in such a state as to enable us to receive an unembarrassed impression, it seems to us superfluous,--an obvious truism placed in opposition to an absurd impossibility. We needed not to be told, that no pleasurable emotion is likely to occur while we are unmanned by fear. The same might be said, also, in respect to the Beautiful: for who was ever alive to it under a paroxysm of terror, or pain of any kind? A terrified person is in any thing but a fit state for such emotion. He may indeed _afterwards_, when his fear is passed off, contemplate the circumstance that occasioned it with a different feeling; but the object of his dismay is _then_ projected, as it were, completely from himself; and he feels the sublimity in a contemplative state: he can feel it in no other. Nor is that state incompatible with a consciousness of peril, though it can never be with personal terror. And, if it is meant that we should have a positive, present conviction that we are in no danger, this we must deny, as we find it contradicted in innumerable instances. So far, indeed, is a sense of security from being essential to the condition of a sublime emotion, that the sense of danger, on the contrary, is one of its most exciting accompaniments. There is a fascination in danger which some persons neither can nor would resist; which seems, as it were, to disenthral them of self;--as if the mysterious Infinite were actually drawing them on by an invisible power. Was it mere scientific curiosity that cost the elder Pliny his life? Might it not have been rather this sublime fascination? But we have repeated examples of it in our own time. Many who will read this may have been in a storm at sea. Did they never feel its sublimity while they knew their danger? We will answer for ourselves; for we have been in one, when the dismasted vessels that surrounded us permitted no mistake as to our peril; it was strongly felt, but still stronger was the sublime emotion in the awful scene. The crater of Vesuvius is even now, perhaps for the thousandth time, reflecting from its lake of fire some ghastly face, with indrawn breath and hair bristling, bent, as by fate, over its sulphurous brink. Let us turn to Mont Blanc, that mighty pyramid of ice, in whose shadow might repose all the tombs of the Pharaohs. It rises before the traveller like the accumulating mausoleum of Europe: perhaps he looks upon it as his own before his natural time; yet he cannot away from it. A terrible charm hurries him over frightful chasms, whose blue depths seem like those of the ocean; he cuts his way up a polished precipice, shining like steel,--as elusive to the touch; he creeps slowly and warily around and beneath huge cliffs of snow; now he looks up, and sees their brows fretted by the percolating waters like a Gothic ceiling, and he fears even to whisper, lest an audible breath should awaken the avalanche: and thus he climbs and climbs, till the dizzy summit fills up his measure of fearful ecstasy. Now, though cases may occur where the emotion in question is attended with a sense of security, as in the reading or hearing the description of an earthquake, such as that of 1768 in Lisbon, while we are safely housed and by a comfortable fire, it does not therefore follow, that this consciousness of safety is its essential condition. It is merely an accidental circumstance. It cannot, therefore, apply, either as a rule or an objection. Besides, even if supported by fact, we might well dismiss it on the ground of irrelevancy, since a sense of personal safety cannot be placed in opposition to and as inconsistent with a disinterested or unselfish state; which is that claimed for the emotion as its true condition. If there be not, then, a sounder objection, we may safely admit the characteristic in question; for the reception of which we have, on the other hand, the weight of experience,--at least negatively, since, strictly speaking, we cannot experience the absence of any thing. But though, according to our theory, there are many things now called sublime that would properly come under a different classification, such as many objects of Art, many sentiments, and many actions, which are strictly human, as well in their _end_ as in their origin; it is not to be inferred that the exclusion of any work of man is _because_ of _its apparent origin_, but of its _end_, the end only being the determining point, as referring to its _Idea_. Now, if the Idea referred to be of the Infinite, which is _out_ of his nature, it cannot strictly be said to originate with man,--that is, absolutely; but it is rather, as it were, a reflected form of it from the Maker of his mind. If we are led to such an Idea, then, by any work of imagination, a poem, a picture, a statue, or a building, it is as truly sublime as any natural object. This, it appears to us, is the sole mystery, without which neither sound, nor color, nor form, nor magnitude, is a true correlative to the unseen cause. And here, as with Beauty, though the test of that be within us, is the _modus operandi_ equally baffling to the scrutiny of the understanding. We feel ourselves, as it were, lifted from the earth, and look upon the outward objects that have so affected us, yet learn not how; and the mystery deepens as we compare them with other objects from which have followed the same effects, and find no resemblance. For instance; the roar of the ocean, and the intricate unity of a Gothic cathedral, whose beginning and end are alike intangible, while its climbing tower seems visibly even to rise to the Idea which it strives to embody,--these have nothing in common,--hardly two things could be named that are more unlike; yet in relation to man they have but one end: for who can hear the ocean when breathing in wrath, and limit it in his mind, though he think not of Him who gives it voice? or ascend that spire without feeling his faculties vanish, as it were with its vanishing point, into the abyss of space? If there be a difference in the effect from these and other objects, it is only in the intensity, the degree of impetus given; as between that from the sudden explosion of a volcano and from the slow and heavy movement of a rising thunder-cloud; its character and its office are the same,--in its awful harmony to connect the created with its Infinite Cause. But let us compare this effect with that from Beauty. Would the Parthenon, for instance, with its beautiful forms,--made still more beautiful under its native sky,--seeming almost endued with the breath of life, as if its conscious purple were a living suffusion brought forth in sympathy by the enamoured blushes of a Grecian sunset;--would this beautiful object even then elevate the soul above its own roof? No: we should be filled with a pure delight,--but with no longing to rise still higher. It would satisfy us; which the sublime does not; for the feeling is too vast to be circumscribed by human content. On the supernatural it is needless to enlarge; for, in whatever form the beings of the invisible world are supposed to visit us, they are immediately connected in the mind with the unknown Infinite; whether the faith be in the heart or in the imagination; whether they bubble up from the earth, like the Witches in Macbeth, taking shape at will, or self-dissolving into air, and no less marvellous, foreknowing thoughts ere formed in man; or like the Ghost in Hamlet, an unsubstantial shadow, having the functions of life, motion, will, and speech; a fearful mystery invests them with a spell not to be withstood; the bewildered imagination follows like a child, leaving the finite world for one unknown, till it aches in darkness, trackless, endless. Perhaps, as being nearest in station to the unsearchable Author of all things, the highest example of this would be found in the Angelic Nature. If it be objected, that the poets have not always so represented it, it rests with them to show cause why they have not. Milton, no doubt, could have assigned a sufficient reason in _the time chosen for his poem_,--that of the creation of the first man, when his intercourse with the highest order of created beings was not only essential to the plan of the poem, but according with the express will of the Creator: hence, he might have considered it no violation of the _then_ relation between man and angels to assign even the epithet _affable_ to the archangel Raphael; for man was then sinless, and in all points save knowledge a fit object of regard, and certainly a fit pupil to his heavenly instructor. But, suppose the poet, throughout his work, (as in the process of his story he was forced to do near the end,)--suppose he had chosen, assuming the philosopher, to assign to Adam the _altered relation of one of his fallen posterity_, how could he have endured a holy spiritual presence? To be consistent, Adam must have been dumb with awe, incapable of holding converse such as is described. Between sinless man and his sinful progeny, the distance is immeasurable. And so, too, must be the effect on the latter, in such a presence; and for this conclusion we have the authority of Scripture, in the dismay of the soldiers at the Saviour's sepulchre, on which more directly. If there be no like effect attending the other angelic visits recorded in Scripture, such as those to Lot and Abraham, the reason is obvious in the _special mission_ to those individuals, who were doubtless _divinely prepared_ for their reception; for it is reasonable to suppose the mission had else been useless. But with the Roman soldiers, where there was no such qualifying circumstance, the case was different; indeed, it was in striking contrast with that of the two Marys, who, though struck with awe, yet being led there, as witnesses, by the Spirit, were not so overpowered. And here, as the Idea of Angels is universally associated with every perfection of _form_, may naturally occur the question so often agitated,--namely, whether Beauty and Sublimity are, under any circumstances, compatible. To us it seems of easy solution. For we see no reason why Beauty, as the condition of a subordinated object or component part, may not incidentally enter into the Sublime, as well as a thousand other conditions of opposite characters, which pertain to the multifarious assimilants that often form its other components. When Beauty is not made _essential_, but enters as a mere contingent, its admission or rejection is a matter of indifference. In an angel, for instance, beauty is the condition of his mere form; but the angel has also an intellectual and moral or spiritual nature, which is essentially paramount: the former being but the condition, so to speak, of his visibility, the latter, his very life,--an Essence next to the inconceivable Giver of life. Could we stand in the presence of one of these holy beings, (if to stand were possible,) what of the Sublime in this lower world would so shake us? Though his beauty were such as never mortal dreamed of, it would be as nothing,--swallowed up as darkness,--in the awful, spiritual brightness of the messenger of God. Even as the soldiers in Scripture, at the sepulchre of the Saviour, we should fall before him,--we should "become," like them, "as dead men." But though Milton does not unveil the "face like lightning"; and though the angel Raphael is made to hold converse with man, and the "severe in youthful beauty" gives even the individual impress to Zephon, and Michael and Abdiel are set apart in their prowess; there is not one he names that does not breathe of Heaven, that is not encompassed with the glory of the Infinite. And why the reader is not overwhelmed in their supposed presence is because he is a beholder _through_ Adam,--through him also a listener; but whenever he is made, by the poet's spell, to forget Adam, and to see, as it were in his own person, the embattled hosts.... If we dwell upon Form _alone_, though it should be of surpassing beauty, the idea would not rise above that of man, for this is conceivable of man: but the moment the angelic nature is touched, we have the higher ideas of supernal intelligence and perfect holiness, to which all the charms and graces of mere form immediately become subordinate, and, though the beauty remain, its agency is comparatively negative under the overpowering transcendence of a celestial spirit. As we have already seen that the Beautiful is limited to no particular form, but possesses its power in some mysterious _condition_, which is applicable to many distinct objects; in like manner does the Sublime include within its sphere, and subdue to its condition, an indefinite variety of objects, with their distinctive conditions; and among them we find that of the Beautiful, as well as, to a _certain degree_, its reverse, so that, though we may truly recognize their coexistence in the same object, it is not possible that their effect upon us should be otherwise than unequal, and that the higher law should not subordinate the lower. We do not deny that the Beautiful may, so to speak, mitigate the awful intensity of the Sublime; but it cannot change its character, much less impart its own; the one will still be awful, the other, of itself, never. When at Rome, we once asked a foreigner, who seemed to be talking somewhat vaguely on the subject, what he understood by the Sublime. His answer was, "Le plus beau"; making it only a matter of degree. Now let us only imagine (if we can) a beautiful earthquake, or a beautiful hurricane. And yet the foreigner is not alone in this. D'Azzara, the biographer of Mengs, speaking of Beauty, talks of "this sublime quality," and in another place, for certain reasons assigned, he says, "The grand style is beautiful." Nay, many writers, otherwise of high authority, seem to have taken the same view; while others who could have had no such notion, having used the words Beauty and the Beautiful in an allegorical or metaphorical sense, have sometimes been misinterpreted literally. Hence Winckelmann reproaches Michael Angelo for his continual talk about Beauty, when he showed nothing of it in his works. But it is very evident that the _Bellà_ and _Bellezza_ of Michael Angelo were never used by him in a literal sense, nor intended to be so understood by others: he adopted the terms solely to express abstract Perfection, which he allegorized as the mistress of his mind, to whose exclusive worship his whole life was devoted. Whether it was the most appropriate term he could have chosen, we shall not inquire. It is certain, however, that the literal adoption of it by subsequent writers has been the cause of much confusion, as well as vagueness. For ourselves, we are quite at a loss to imagine how a notion so obviously groundless has ever had a single supporter; for, if a distinct effect implies a distinct cause, we do not see why distinct terms should not be employed to express the difference, or how the legitimate term for one can in any way be applied to signify a particular degree of the other. Like the two Dromios, they sometimes require a conjurer to tell which is which. If only Perfection, which is a generic term implying the summit of all things, be meant, there is surely nothing to be gained (if we except _intended_ obscurity) by substituting a specific term which is limited to a few. We speak not here of allegorical or metaphorical propriety, which is not now the question, but of the literal and didactic; and we may add, that we have never known but one result from this arbitrary union,--which is, to procreate words. In further illustration of our position, it may be well here to notice one mistaken source of the Sublime, which seems to have been sometimes resorted to, both in poems and pictures; namely, in the sympathy excited by excruciating bodily suffering. Suppose a man on the rack to be placed before us,--perhaps some miserable victim of the Inquisition; the cracking of his joints is made frightfully audible; his calamitous "Ah!" goes to our marrow; then the cruel precision of the mechanical familiar, as he lays bare to the sight his whole anatomy of horrors. And suppose, too, the executioner _compelled_ to his task,--consequently an irresponsible agent, whom we cannot curse; and, finally, that these two objects compose the whole scene. What could we feel but an agony even like that of the sufferer, the only difference being that one is physical, the other mental? And this is all that mere sympathy has any power to effect; it has led us to its extreme point,--our flesh creeps, and we turn away with almost bodily sickness. But let another actor be added to the drama in the presiding Inquisitor, the cool methodizer of this process of torture; in an instant the scene is changed, and, strange to say, our feelings become less painful,--nay, we feel a momentary interest,--from an instant revulsion of our moral nature: we are lost in wonder at the excess of human wickedness, and the hateful wonder, as if partaking of the infinite, now distends the faculties to their utmost tension; for who can set bounds to passion when it seizes the whole soul? It is as the soul itself, without form or limit. We may not think even of the after judgment; we become ourselves _justice_, and we award a hatred commensurate with the sin, so indefinite and monstrous that we stand aghast at our own judgment. _Why_ this extreme tension of the mind, when thus outwardly occasioned, should create in us an interest, we know not; but such is the fact, and we are not only content to endure it for a time, but even crave it, and give to the feeling the epithet _sublime_. We do not deny that much bodily suffering may be admitted with effect as a subordinate agent, when, as in the example last added, it is made to serve as a necessary expositor of moral deformity. Then, indeed, in the hands of a great artist, it becomes one of the most powerful auxiliaries to a sublime end. All that we contend for is that sympathy alone is insufficient as a cause of sublimity. There are yet other sources of the false sublime, (if we may so call it,) which are sometimes resorted to also by poets and painters; such as the horrible, the loathsome, the hideous, and the monstrous: these form the impassable boundaries to the true Sublime. Indeed, there appears to be in almost every emotion a certain point beyond which we cannot pass without recoiling,--as if we instinctively shrunk from what is forbidden to our nature. It would seem, then, that, in relation to man, Beauty is the extreme point, or last summit, of the natural world, since it is in that that we recognize the highest emotion of which we are susceptible from the purely physical. If we ascend thence into the moral, we shall find its influence diminish in the same ratio with our upward progress. In the continuous chain of creation of which it forms a part, the link above it where the moral modification begins seems scarcely changed, yet the difference, though slight, demands another name, and the nomenclator within us calls it Elegance; in the next connecting link, the moral adjunct becomes more predominant, and we call it Majesty; in the next, the physical becomes still fainter, and we call the union Grandeur; in the next, it seems almost to vanish, and a new form rises before us, so mysterious, so undefined and elusive to the senses, that we turn, as if for its more distinct image, within ourselves, and there, with wonder, amazement, awe, we see it filling, distending, stretching every faculty, till, like the Giant of Otranto, it seems almost to burst the imagination: under this strange confluence of opposite emotions, this terrible pleasure, we call the awful form Sublimity. This was the still, small voice that shook the Prophet on Horeb;--though small to his ear, it was more than his imagination could contain; he could not hear it again and live. It is not to be supposed that we have enumerated all the forms of gradation between the Beautiful and the Sublime; such was not our purpose; it is sufficient to have noted the most prominent, leaving the intermediate modifications to be supplied (as they can readily be) by the reader. If we descend from the Beautiful, we shall pass in like manner through an equal variety of forms gradually modified by the grosser material influences, as the Handsome, the Pretty, the Comely, the Plain, &c., till we fall to the Ugly. There ends the chain of pleasurable excitement; but not the chain of Forms; which, taking now as if a literal curve, again bends upward, till, meeting the descending extreme of the moral, it seems to complete the mighty circle. And in this dark segment will be found the startling union of deepening discords,--still deepening, as it rises from the Ugly to the Loathsome, the Horrible, the Frightful,[1] the Appalling. As we follow the chain through this last region of disease, misery, and sin, of embodied Discord, and feel, as we must, in the mutilated affinities of its revolting forms, their fearful relation to this fair, harmonious creation,--how does the awful fact, in these its breathing fragments, speak to us of a fallen world! As the living centre of this stupendous circle stands the Soul of Man; the _conscious Reality_, to which the vast inclosure is but the symbol. How vast, then, his being! If space could measure it, the remotest star would fall within its limits. Well, then, may he tremble to essay it even in thought; for where must it carry him,--that winged messenger, fleeter than light? Where but to the confines of the Infinite; even to the presence of the unutterable _Life_, on which nothing finite can look and live? Finally, we shall conclude our Discourse with a few words on the master Principle, which we have supposed to be, by the will of the Creator, the realizing life to all things fair and true and good: and more especially would we revert to its spiritual purity, emphatically manifested through all its manifold operations,--so impossible of alliance with any thing sordid, or false, or wicked,--so unapprehensible, even, except for its own most sinless sake. Indeed, we cannot look upon it as other than the universal and eternal witness of God's goodness and love, to draw man to himself, and to testify to the meanest, most obliquitous mind,--at least once in life, be it though in childhood,--that there _is_ such a thing as _good without self_. It will be remembered, that, in all the various examples adduced, in which we have endeavoured to illustrate the operation of Harmony, there was but one character to all its effects, whatever the difference in the objects that occasioned them; that it was ever untinged with any personal taint: and we concluded thence its supernal source. We may now advance another evidence still more conclusive of its spiritual origin, namely, in the fact, that it cannot be realized in the Human Being _quoad_ himself. With the fullest consciousness of the possession of this principle, and with the power to realize it in other objects, he has still no power in relation to himself,--that is, to become the object to himself. Now, as the condition of Harmony, so far as we can know it through its effect, is that of _impletion_, where nothing can be added or taken away, it is evident that such a condition can never be realized by the mind in itself. And yet the desire to this end is as evidently implied in that incessant, yet unsatisfying activity, which, under all circumstances, is an imperative, universal law of our nature. It might seem needless to enlarge on what must be generally felt as an obvious truth; still, it may not be amiss to offer a few remarks, by way of bringing it, though a truism, more distinctly before us. In all ages the majority of mankind have been more or less compelled to some kind of exertion for their mere subsistence. Like all compulsion, this has no doubt been considered a hardship. Yet we never find, when by their own industry, or any fortunate circumstance, they have been relieved from this exigency, that any one individual has been contented with doing nothing. Some, indeed, before their liberation, have conceived of idleness as a kind of synonyme with happiness; but a short experience has never failed to prove it no less remote from that desirable state. The most offensive employments, for the want of a better, have often been resumed, to relieve the mind from the intolerable load of _nothing_,--the heaviest of all weights,--as it needs must be to an immortal spirit: for the mind cannot stop, except it be in a mad-house; there, indeed, it may rest, or rather stagnate, on one thought,--its little circle, perhaps of misery. From the very moment of consciousness, the active Principle begins to busy itself with the things about it: it shows itself in the infant, stretching its little hands towards the candle; in the schoolboy, filling up, if alone, his play-hour with the mimic toils of after age; and so on, through every stage and condition of life; from the wealthy spend-thrift, beggaring himself at the gaming-table for employment, to the poor prisoner in the Bastile, who, for the want of something to occupy his thoughts, overcame the antipathy of his nature, and found his companion in a spider. Nay, were there need, we might draw out the catalogue till it darkened with suicide. But enough has been said to show, that, aside from guilt, a more terrible fiend has hardly been imagined than the little word Nothing, when embodied and realized as the master of the mind. And well for the world that it is so; since to this wise law of our nature, to say nothing of conveniences, we owe the endless sources of innocent enjoyment with which the industry and ingenuity of man have supplied us. But the wisdom of the law in question is not merely that it is a preventive to the mind preying on itself; we see in it a higher purpose,--no less than what involves the developement of the human being; and, if we look to its final bearing, it is of the deepest import. It might seem at first a paradox, that, the natural condition of the mind being averse to inactivity, it should still have so strong a desire for rest; but a little reflection will show that this involves no real contradiction. The mind only mistakes the _name_ of its object, neither rest nor action being its real aim; for in a state of rest it desires action, and in a state of action, rest. Now all action supposes a purpose, which purpose can consist of but one of two things; either the attainment of some immediate object as its completion, or the causing of one or more future acts, that shall follow as a consequence. But whether the action terminates in an immediate object, or serves as the procreating cause of an indefinite series of acts, it must have some ultimate object in which it ends,--or is to end. Even supposing such a series of acts to be continued through a whole life, and yet remain incomplete, it would not alter the case. It is well known that many such series have employed the minds of mathematicians and astronomers to their last hour; nay, that those acts have been taken up by others, and continued through successive generations: still, whether the point be arrived at or no, there must have been an end in contemplation. Now no one can believe that, in similar cases, any man would voluntarily devote all his days to the adding link after link to an endless chain, for the mere pleasure of labor. It is true he may be aware of the wholesomeness of such labor as one of the means of cheerfulness; but, if he have no further aim, his being aware of this result makes an equable flow of spirits a positive object. Without _hope_, uncompelled labor is an impossibility; and hope implies an object. Nor would the veriest idler, who passes a whole day in whittling a stick, if he could be brought to look into himself, deny it. So far from having no object, he would and must acknowledge that he was in fact hoping to relieve himself of an oppressive portion of time by whittling away its minutes and hours. Here we have an extreme instance of that which constitutes the real business of life, from the most idle to the most industrious; namely, to attain to a _satisfying state_. But no one will assert that such a state was ever a consequence of the attainment of any object, however exalted. And why? Because the motive of action is left behind, and we have nothing before us. Something to desire, something to look forward to, we _must_ have, or we perish,--even of suicidal rest. If we find it not here in the world about us, it must be sought for in another; to which, as we conceive, that secret ruler of the soul, the inscrutable, ever-present spirit of Harmony, for ever points. Nor is it essential that the thought of harmony should even cross the mind; for a want may be felt without any distinct consciousness of the form of that which is desired. And, for the most part, it is only in this negative way that its influence is acknowledged. But this is sufficient to account for the universal longing, whether definite or indefinite, and the consequent universal disappointment. We have said that man cannot to himself become the object of Harmony,--that is, find its proper correlative in himself; and we have seen that, in his present state, the position is true. How is it, then, in the world of spirit? Who can answer? And yet, perhaps,--if without irreverence we might hazard the conjecture,--as a finite creature, having no centre in himself on which to revolve, may it not be that his true correlative will there be revealed (if, indeed, it be not before) to the disembodied man, in the Being that made him? And may it not also follow, that the Principle we speak of will cease to be potential, and flow out, as it were, and harmonize with the eternal form of Hope,--even that Hope whose living end is in the unapproachable Infinite? Let us suppose this form of hope to be taken away from an immortal being who has no self-satisfying power within him, what would be his condition? A conscious, interminable vacuum, were such a thing possible, would but faintly image it. Hope, then, though in its nature unrealizable, is not a mere _notion_; for so long as it continues hope, it is to the mind an object and an object _to be_ realized; so, where its form is eternal, it cannot but be to it an ever-during object. Hence we may conceive of a never-ending approximation to what can never be realized. From this it would appear, that, while we cannot to ourselves become the object of Harmony, it is nevertheless certain, from the universal desire _so_ to realize it, that we cannot suppress the continual impulse of this paramount Principle; which, therefore, as it seems to us, must have a double purpose; first, by its outward manifestation, which we all recognize, to confirm its reality, and secondly, to convince the mind that its true object is not merely out of, but above, itself,--and only to be found in the Infinite Creator. Art. In treating on Art, which, in its highest sense, and more especially in relation to Painting and Sculpture, is the subject proposed for our present examination, the first question that occurs is, In what consists its peculiar character? or rather, What are the characteristics that distinguish it from Nature, which it professes to imitate? To this we reply, that Art is characterized,-- First, by Originality. Secondly, by what we shall call Human or Poetic Truth; which is the verifying principle by which we recognize the first. Thirdly, by Invention; the product of the Imagination, as grounded on the first, and verified by the second. And, Fourthly, by Unity, the synthesis of all. As the first step to the right understanding of any discourse is a clear apprehension of the terms used, we add, that by Originality we mean any thing (admitted by the mind as _true_) which is peculiar to the Author, and which distinguishes his production from that of all others; by Human or Poetic Truth, that which may be said to exist exclusively in and for the mind, and as contradistinguished from the truth of things in the natural or external world; by Invention, any unpractised mode of presenting a subject, whether by the combination of entire objects already known, or by the union and modification of known but fragmentary parts into new and consistent forms; and, lastly, by Unity, such an agreement and interdependence of all the parts, as shall constitute a whole. It will be our attempt to show, that, by the presence or absence of any one of these characteristics, we shall be able to affirm or deny in respect to the pretension of any object as a work of Art; and also that we shall find within ourselves the corresponding law, or by whatever word we choose to designate it, by which each will be recognized; that is, in the degree proportioned to the developement, or active force, of the law so judging. Supposing the reader to have gone along with us in what has been said of the _Universal_, in our Preliminary Discourse, and as assenting to the position, that any faculty, law, or principle, which can be shown to be _essential_ to _any one_ mind, must necessarily be also predicated of every other sound mind, even where the particular faculty or law is so feebly developed as apparently to amount to its absence, in which case it is inferred potentially,--we shall now assume, on the same grounds, that the originating _cause_, notwithstanding its apparent absence in the majority of men, is an essential reality in the condition of the Human Being; its potential existence in all being of necessity affirmed from its existence in one. Assuming, then, its reality,--or rather leaving it to be evidenced from its known effects,--we proceed to inquire _in what_ consists this originating power. And, first, as to its most simple form. If it be true, (as we hope to set forth more at large in a future discourse,) that no two minds were ever found to be identical, there must then in every individual mind be _something_ which is not in any other. And, if this unknown something is also found to give its peculiar hue, so to speak, to every impression from outward objects, it seems but a natural inference, that, whatever it be, it _must_ possess a pervading force over the entire mind,--at least, in relation to what is external. But, though this may truly be affirmed of man generally, from its evidence in any one person, we shall be far from the fact, should we therefore affirm, that, otherwise than potentially, the power of outwardly manifesting it is also universal. We know that it is not,--and our daily experience proves that the power of reproducing or giving out the individualized impressions is widely different in different men. With some it is so feeble as apparently never to act; and, so far as our subject is concerned, it may practically be said not to exist; of which we have abundant examples in other mental phenomena, where an imperfect activity often renders the existence of some essential faculty a virtual nullity. When it acts in the higher decrees, so as to make another see or feel _as_ the Individual saw or felt,--this, in relation to Art, is what we mean, in its strictest sense, by Originality. He, therefore, who possesses the power of presenting to another the _precise_ images or emotions as they existed in himself, presents that which can be found nowhere else, and was first found by and within himself; and, however light or trifling, where these are true as to his own mind, their author is so far an originator. But let us take an example, and suppose two _portraits_; simple heads, without accessories, that is, with blank backgrounds, such as we often see, where no attempt is made at composition; and both by artists of equal talent, employing the same materials, and conducting their work according to the same technical process. We will also suppose ourselves acquainted with the person represented, with whom to compare them. Who, that has ever made a similar comparison, will expect to find them identical? On the contrary, though in all respects equal, in execution, likeness, &c., we shall still perceive a certain _exclusive something_ that will instantly distinguish the one from the other, and both from the original. And yet they shall both seem to us true. But they will be true to us also in a double sense; namely, as to the living original and as to the individuality of the different painters. Where such is the result, both artists must originate, inasmuch as they both outwardly realize the individual image of their distinctive minds. Nor can the truth they present be ascribed to the technic process, which we have supposed the same with each; as, on such a supposition, with their equal skill, the result must have been identical. No; by whatever it is that one man's mental impression, or his mode of thought, is made to differ from another's, it is that something, which our imaginary artists have here transferred to their pencil, that makes them different, yet both original. Now, whether the medium through which the impressions, conceptions, or emotions of the mind are thus externally realized be that of colors, words, or any thing else, this mysterious though certain principle is, as we believe, the true and only source of all originality. In the power of assimilating what is foreign, or external, to our own particular nature consists the individualizing law, and in the power of reproducing what is thus modified consists the originating cause. Let us turn now to an opposite example,--to a mere mechanical copy of some natural object, where the marks in question are wholly wanting. Will any one be truly affected by it? We think not; we do not say that he will not praise it,--this he may do from various motives; but his _feeling_--if we may so name the index of the law within--will not be called forth to any spontaneous correspondence with the object before him. But why talk of feeling, says the pseudo-connoisseur, where we should only, or at least first, bring knowledge? This is the common cant of those who become critics for the sake of distinction. Let the Artist avoid them, if he would not disfranchise himself in the suppression of that uncompromising _test_ within him, which is the only sure guide to the truth without. It is a poor ambition to desire the office of a judge merely for the sake of passing sentence. But such an ambition is not likely to possess a person of true sensibility. There are some, however, in whom there is no deficiency of sensibility, yet who, either from self-distrust, or from some mistaken notion of Art, are easily persuaded to give up a right feeling, in exchange for what they may suppose to be knowledge,--the barren knowledge of faults; as if there could be a human production without them! Nevertheless, there is little to be apprehended from any conventional theory, by one who is forewarned of its mere negative power,--that it can, at best, only suppress feeling; for no one ever was, or ever can be, argued into a real liking for what he has once felt to be false. But, where the feeling is genuine, and not the mere reflex of a popular notion, so far as it goes it must be true. Let no one, therefore, distrust it, to take counsel of his head, when he finds himself standing before a work of Art. Does he feel its truth? is the only question,--if, indeed, the impertinence of the understanding should then propound one; which we think it will not, where the feeling is powerful. To such a one, the characteristic of Art upon which we are now discoursing will force its way with the power of light; nor will he ever be in danger of mistaking a mechanical copy for a living imitation. But we sometimes hear of "faithful transcripts," nay, of fac-similes. If by these be implied neither more nor less than exists in their originals, they must still, in that case, find their true place in the dead category of Copy. Yet we need not be detained by any inquiry concerning the merits of a fac-simile, since we firmly deny that a fac-simile, in the true sense of the term, is a thing possible. That an absolute identity between any natural object and its represented image is a thing impossible, will hardly be questioned by any one who thinks, and will give the subject a moment's reflection; and the difficulty lies in the nature of things, the one being the work of the Creator, and the other of the creature. We shall therefore assume as a fact, the eternal and insuperable difference between Art and Nature. That our pleasure from Art is nevertheless similar, not to say equal, to that which we derive from Nature, is also a fact established by experience; to account for which we are necessarily led to the admission of another fact, namely, that there exists in Art a _peculiar something_ which we receive as equivalent to the admitted difference. Now, whether we call this equivalent, individualized truth, or human or poetic truth, it matters not; we know by its _effects_, that some such principle does exist, and that it acts upon us, and in a way corresponding to the operation of that which we call Truth and Life in the natural world. Of the various laws growing out of this principle, which take the name of Rules when applied to Art, we shall have occasion to speak in a future discourse. At present we shall confine ourselves to the inquiry, how far the difference alluded to may be safely allowed in any work professing to be an imitation of Nature. The fact, that truth may subsist with a very considerable admixture of falsehood, is too well known to require an argument. However reprehensible such an admixture may be in morals, it becomes in Art, from the limited nature of our powers, a matter of necessity. For the same reason, even the realizing of a thought, or that which is properly and exclusively human, must ever be imperfect. If Truth, then, form but the greater proportion, it is quite as much as we may reasonably look for in a work of Art. But why, it may be asked, where the false predominates, do we still derive pleasure? Simply because of the Truth that remains. If it be further demanded, What is the minimum of truth in order to a pleasurable effect? we reply, So much only as will cause us to feel that the truth _exists_. It is this feeling alone that determines, not only the true, but the degrees of truth, and consequently the degrees of pleasure. Where no such feeling is awakened, and supposing no deficiency in the recipient, he may safely, from its absence, pronounce the work false; nor could any ingenious theory of the understanding convince him to the contrary. He may, indeed, as some are wont to do, make a random guess, and _call_ the work true; but he can never so _feel_ it by any effort of reasoning. But may not men differ as to their impressions of truth? Certainly as to the degrees of it, and in this according to their sensibility, in which we know that men are not equal. By sensibility here we mean the power or capacity of receiving impressions. All men, indeed, with equal organs, may be said in a certain sense to see alike. But will the same natural object, conveyed through these organs, leave the same impression? The fact is otherwise. What, then, causes the difference, if it be not (as before observed) a peculiar something in the individual mind, that modifies the image? If so, there must of necessity be in every true work of Art--if we may venture the expression--another, or distinctive, truth. To recognize this, therefore,--as we have elsewhere endeavoured to show,--supposes in the recipient something akin to it. And, though it be in reality but a _sign_ of life, it is still a sign of which we no sooner receive the impress, than, by a law of our mind, we feel it to be acting upon our thoughts and sympathies, without our knowing how or wherefore. Admitting, therefore, the corresponding instinct, or whatever else it may be called, to vary in men,--which there is no reason to doubt,--the solution of their unequal impression appears at once. Hence it would be no extravagant metaphor, should we affirm that some persons see more with their minds than others with their eyes. Nay, it must be obvious to all who are conversant with Art, that much, if not the greater part, in its higher branches is especially addressed to this mental vision. And it is very certain, if there were no truth beyond the reach of the senses, that little would remain to us of what we now consider our highest and most refined pleasure. But it must not be inferred that originality consists in any contradiction to Nature; for, were this allowed and carried out, it would bring us to the conclusion, that, the greater the contradiction, the higher the Art. We insist only on the modification of the natural by the personal; for Nature is, and ever must be, at least the sensuous ground of all Art: and where the outward and inward are so united that we cannot separate them, there shall we find the perfection of Art. So complete a union has, perhaps, never been accomplished, and _may_ be impossible; it is certain, however, that no approach to excellence can ever be made, if the _idea_ of such a union be not constantly looked to by the artist as his ultimate aim. Nor can the idea be admitted without supposing a _third_ as the product of the two,--which we call Art; between which and Nature, in its strictest sense, there must ever be a difference; indeed, a _difference with resemblance_ is that which constitutes its essential condition. It has doubtless been observed, that, in this inquiry concerning the nature and operation of the first characteristic, the presence of the second, or verifying principle, has been all along implied; nor could it be otherwise, because of their mutual dependence. Still more will its active agency be supposed in our examination of the third, namely, Invention. But before we proceed to that, the paramount index of the highest art, it may not be amiss to obtain, if possible, some distinct apprehension of what we have termed Poetic Truth; to which, it will be remembered, was also prefixed the epithet Human, our object therein being to prepare the mind, by a single word, for its peculiar sphere; and we think it applicable also for a more important reason, namely, that this kind of Truth is the _true ground of the poetical_,--for in what consists the poetry of the natural world, if not in the sentiment and reacting life it receives from the human fancy and affections? And, until it can be shown that sentiment and fancy are also shared by the brute creation, this seeming effluence from the beautiful in nature must rightfully revert to man. What, for instance, can we suppose to be the effect of the purple haze of a summer sunset on the cows and sheep, or even on the more delicate inhabitants of the air? From what we know of their habits, we cannot suppose more than the mere physical enjoyment of its genial temperature. But how is it with the poet, whom we shall suppose an object in the same scene, stretched on the same bank with the ruminating cattle, and basking in the same light that flickers from the skimming birds. Does he feel nothing more than the genial warmth? Ask him, and he perhaps will say,--"This is my soul's hour; this purpled air the heart's atmosphere, melting by its breath the sealed fountains of love, which the cold commonplace of the world had frozen: I feel them gushing forth on every thing around me; and how worthy of love now appear to me these innocent animals, nay, these whispering leaves, that seem to kiss the passing air, and blush the while at their own fondness! Surely they are happy, and grateful too that they are so; for hark! how the little birds send up their song of praise! and see how the waving trees and waving grass, in mute accordance, keep time with the hymn!" This is but one of the thousand forms in which the human spirit is wont to effuse itself on the things without, making to the mind a new and fairer world,--even the shadowing of that which its immortal craving will sometimes dream of in the unknown future. Nay, there is scarcely an object so familiar or humble, that its magical touch cannot invest it with some poetic charm. Let us take an extreme instance,--a pig in his sty. The painter, Morland, was able to convert even this disgusting object into a source of pleasure,--and a pleasure as real as any that is known to the palate. Leaving this to have the weight it may be found to deserve, we turn to the original question; namely, What do we mean by Human or Poetic Truth? When, in respect to certain objects, the effects are found to be uniformly of the same kind, not only upon ourselves, but also upon others, we may reasonably infer that the efficient cause is of one nature, and that its uniformity is a necessary result. And, when we also find that these effects, though differing in degree, are yet uniform in their character, while they seem to proceed from objects which in themselves are indefinitely variant, both in kind and degree, we are still more forcibly drawn to the conclusion, that the _cause_ is not only _one_, but not inherent in the object.[2] The question now arises, What, then, is that which seems to us so like an _alter et idem_,--which appears to act upon, and is recognized by us, through an animal, a bird, a tree, and a thousand different, nay, opposing objects, in the same way, and to the same end? The inference follows of necessity, that the mysterious cause must be in some general law, which is absolute and _imperative_ in relation to every such object under certain conditions. And we receive the solution as true,--because we cannot help it. The reality, then, of such a law becomes a fixture in the mind. But we do not stop here: we would know something concerning the conditions supposed. And in order to this, we go back to the effect. And the answer is returned in the form of a question,--May it not be something _from ourselves_, which is reflected back by the object,--something with which, as it were, we imbue the object, making it correspond to a _reality_ within us? Now we recognize the reality within; we recognize it also in the object,--and the affirming light flashes upon us, not in the form of _deduction_, but of inherent Truth, which we cannot get rid of; and we _call_ it Truth,--for it will take no other name. It now remains to discover, so to speak, its location. In what part, then, of man may this self-evidenced, yet elusive, Truth or power be said to reside? It cannot be in the senses; for the senses can impart no more than they receive. Is it, then, in the mind? Here we are compelled to ask, What is understood by the mind? Do we mean the understanding? We can trace no relation between the Truth we would class and the reflective faculties. Or in the moral principle? Surely not; for we can predicate neither good nor evil by the Truth in question. Finally, do we find it identified with the truth of the Spirit? But what is the truth of the Spirit but the Spirit itself,--the conscious _I_? which is never even thought of in connection with it. In what form, then, shall we recognize it? In its own,--the form of Life,--the life of the Human Being; that self-projecting, realizing power, which is ever present, ever acting and giving judgment on the instant on all things corresponding with its inscrutable self. We now assign it a distinctive epithet, and call it Human. It is a common saying, that there is more in a name than we are apt to imagine. And the saying is not without reason; for when the name happens to be the true one, being proved in its application, it becomes no unimportant indicator as to the particular offices for which the thing named was designed. So we find it with respect to the Truth of which we speak; its distinctive epithet marking out to us, as its sphere of action, the mysterious intercourse between man and man; whether the medium consist in words or colors, in thought or form, or in any thing else on which the human agent may impress, be it in a sign only, his own marvellous life. As to the process or _modus operandi_, it were a vain endeavour to seek it out: that divine secret must ever to man be an humbling darkness. It is enough for him to know that there is that within him which is ever answering to that without, as life to life,--which must be life, and which must be true. We proceed now to the third characteristic. It has already been stated, in the general definition, what we would be understood to mean by the term Invention, in its particular relation to Art; namely, any unpractised mode of presenting a subject, whether by the combination of forms already known, or by the union and modification of known but fragmentary parts into a new and consistent whole: in both cases tested by the two preceding characteristics. We shall consider first that division of the subject which stands first in order,--the Invention which consists in the new combination of known forms. This may be said to be governed by its exclusive relation either to _what is_, or _has been_, or, when limited by the _probable_, to what strictly may be. It may therefore be distinguished by the term Natural. But though we so name it, inasmuch as all its forms have their prototypes in the Actual, it must still be remembered that these existing forms do substantially constitute no more than mere _parts_ to be combined into a _whole_, for which Nature has provided no original. For examples in this, the most comprehensive class, we need not refer to any particular school; they are to be found in all and in every gallery: from the histories of Raffaelle, the landscapes of Claude and Poussin and others, to the familiar scenes of Jan Steen, Ostade, and Brower. In each of these an adherence to the actual, if not strictly observed, is at least supposed in all its parts; not so in the whole, as that relates to the probable; by which we mean such a result as _would be_ true, were the same combination to occur in nature. Nor must we be understood to mean, by adherence to the actual, that one part is to be taken for an exact portrait; we mean only such an imitation as precludes an intentional deviation from already existing and known forms. It must be very obvious, that, in classing together any of the productions of the artists above named, it cannot be intended to reduce them to a level; such an attempt (did our argument require it) must instantly revolt the common sense and feeling of every one at all acquainted with Art. And therefore, perhaps, it may be thought that their striking difference, both in kind and degree, might justly call for some further division. But admitting, as all must, a wide, nay, almost impassable, interval between the familiar subjects of the lower Dutch and Flemish painters, and the higher intellectual works of the great Italian masters, we see no reason why they may not be left to draw their own line of demarcation as to their respective provinces, even as is every day done by actual objects; which are all equally natural, though widely differenced as well in kind as in quality. It is no degradation to the greatest genius to say of him and of the most unlettered boor, that they are both men. Besides, as a more minute division would be wholly irrelevant to the present purpose, we shall defer the examination of their individual differences to another occasion. In order, however, more distinctly to exhibit their common ground of Invention, we will briefly examine a picture by Ostade, and then compare it with one by Raffaelle, than whom no two artists could well be imagined having less in common. The interior of a Dutch cottage forms the scene of Ostade's work, presenting something between a kitchen and a stable. Its principal object is the carcass of a hog, newly washed and hung up to dry; subordinate to which is a woman nursing an infant; the accessories, various garments, pots, kettles, and other culinary utensils. The bare enumeration of these coarse materials would naturally predispose the mind of one, unacquainted with the Dutch school, to expect any thing but pleasure; indifference, not to say disgust, would seem to be the only possible impression from a picture composed of such ingredients. And such, indeed, would be their effect under the hand of any but a real Artist. Let us look into the picture and follow Ostade's _mind_, as it leaves its impress on the several objects. Observe how he spreads his principal light, from the suspended carcass to the surrounding objects, moulding it, so to speak, into agreeable shapes, here by extending it to a bit of drapery, there to an earthen pot; then connecting it, by the flash from a brass kettle, with his second light, the woman and child; and again turning the eye into the dark recesses through a labyrinth of broken chairs, old baskets, roosting fowls, and bits of straw, till a glimpse of sunshine, from a half-open window, gleams on the eye, as it were, like an echo, and sending it back to the principal object, which now seems to act on the mind as the luminous source of all these diverging lights. But the magical whole is not yet completed; the mystery of color has been called in to the aid of light, and so subtly blends that we can hardly separate them; at least, until their united effect has first been felt, and after we have begun the process of cold analysis. Yet even then we cannot long proceed before we find the charm returning; as we pass from the blaze of light on the carcass, where all the tints of the prism seem to be faintly subdued, we are met on its borders by the dark harslet, glowing like rubies; then we repose awhile on the white cap and kerchief of the nursing mother; then we are roused again by the flickering strife of the antagonist colors on a blue jacket and red petticoat; then the strife is softened by the low yellow of a straw-bottomed chair; and thus with alternating excitement and repose do we travel through the picture, till the scientific explorer loses the analyst in the unresisting passiveness of a poetic dream. Now all this will no doubt appear to many, if not absurd, at least exaggerated: but not so to those who have ever felt the sorcery of color. They, we are sure, will be the last to question the character of the feeling because of the ingredients which worked the spell, and, if true to themselves, they must call it poetry. Nor will they consider it any disparagement to the all-accomplished Raffaelle to say of Ostade that he also was an Artist. We turn now to a work of the great Italian,--the Death of Ananias. The scene is laid in a plain apartment, which is wholly devoid of ornament, as became the hall of audience of the primitive Christians. The Apostles (then eleven in number) have assembled to transact the temporal business of the Church, and are standing together on a slightly elevated platform, about which, in various attitudes, some standing, others kneeling, is gathered a promiscuous assemblage of their new converts, male and female. This quiet assembly (for we still feel its quietness in the midst of the awful judgment) is suddenly roused by the sudden fall of one of their brethren; some of them turn and see him struggling in the agonies of death. A moment before he was in the vigor of life,--as his muscular limbs still bear evidence; but he had uttered a falsehood, and an instant after his frame is convulsed from head to foot. Nor do we doubt for a moment as to the awful cause: it is almost expressed in voice by those nearest to him, and, though varied by their different temperaments, by terror, astonishment, and submissive faith, this voice has yet but one meaning,--"Ananias has lied to the Holy Ghost." The terrible words, as if audible to the mind, now direct us to him who pronounced his doom, and the singly-raised finger of the Apostle marks him the judge; yet not of himself,--for neither his attitude, air, nor expression has any thing in unison with the impetuous Peter,--he is now the simple, passive, yet awful instrument of the Almighty: while another on the right, with equal calmness, though with more severity, by his elevated arm, as beckoning to judgment, anticipates the fate of the entering Sapphira. Yet all is not done; lest a question remain, the Apostle on the left confirms the judgment. No one can mistake what passes within him; like one transfixed in adoration, his uplifted eyes seem to ray out his soul, as if in recognition of the divine tribunal. But the overpowering thought of Omnipotence is now tempered by the human sympathy of his companion, whose open hands, connecting the past with the present, seem almost to articulate, "Alas, my brother!" By this exquisite turn, we are next brought to John, the gentle almoner of the Church, who is dealing out their portions to the needy brethren. And here, as most remote from the judged Ananias, whose suffering seems not yet to have reached it, we find a spot of repose,--not to pass by, but to linger upon, till we feel its quiet influence diffusing itself over the whole mind; nay, till, connecting it with the beloved Disciple, we find it leading us back through the exciting scene, modifying even our deepest emotions with a kindred tranquillity. This is Invention; we have not moved a step through the picture but at the will of the Artist. He invented the chain which we have followed, link by link, through every emotion, assimilating many into one; and this is the secret by which he prepared us, without exciting horror, to contemplate the struggle of mortal agony. This too is Art; and the highest art, when thus the awful power, without losing its character, is tempered, as it were, to our mysterious desires. In the work of Ostade, we see the same inventive power, no less effective, though acting through the medium of the humblest materials. We have now exhibited two pictures, and by two painters who may be said to stand at opposite poles. And yet, widely apart as are their apparent stations, they are nevertheless tenants of the same ground, namely, actual nature; the only difference being, that one is the sovereign of the purely physical, the other of the moral and intellectual, while their common medium is the catholic ground of the imagination. We do not fear either skeptical demur or direct contradiction, when we assert that the imagination is as much the medium of the homely Ostade, as of the refined Raffaelle. For what is that, which has just wrapped us as in a spell when we entered his humble cottage,--which, as we wandered through it, invested the coarsest object with a strange charm? Was it the _truth_ of these objects that we there acknowledged? In part, certainly, but not simply the truth that belongs to their originals; it was the truth of his own individual mind superadded to that of nature, nay, clothed upon besides by his imagination, imbuing it with all the poetic hues which float in the opposite regions of night and day, and which only a poet can mingle and make visible in one pervading atmosphere. To all this our own minds, our own imaginations, respond, and we pronounce it true to both. We have no other rule, and well may the artists of every age and country thank the great Lawgiver that there _is no other_. The despised _feeling_ which the schools have scouted is yet the mother of that science of which they vainly boast. But of this we may have more to say in another place. We shall now ascend from the _probable_ to the _possible_, to that branch of Invention whose proper office is from the known but fragmentary to realize the unknown; in other words, to embody the possible, having its sphere of action in the world of Ideas. To this class, therefore, may properly be assigned the term _Ideal_. And here, as being its most important scene, it will be necessary to take a more particular view of the verifying principle, the agent, so to speak, that gives reality to the inward, when outwardly manifested. Now, whether we call this Human or Poetic Truth, or _inward life_, it matters not; we know by _its effects_, (as we have already said, and we now repeat,) that some such principle does exist, and that it acts upon us, and in a way analogous to the operation of that which we call truth and life in the world about us. And that the cause of this analogy is a real affinity between the two powers seems to us confirmed, not only _positively_ by this acknowledged fact, but also _negatively_ by the absence of the effect above mentioned in all those productions of the mind which we pronounce unnatural. It is therefore in effect, or _quoad_ ourselves, both truth and life, addressed, if we may use the expression, to that inscrutable _instinct_ of the imagination which conducts us to the knowledge of all invisible realities. A distinct apprehension of the reality and of the office of this important principle, we cannot but think, will enable us to ascertain with some degree of precision, at least so far as relates to art, the true limits of the Possible,--the sphere, as premised, of Ideal Invention. As to what some have called our _creative_ powers, we take it for granted that no correct thinker has ever applied such expressions literally. Strictly speaking, we can _make_ nothing: we can only construct. But how vast a theatre is here laid open to the constructive powers of the finite creature; where the physical eye is permitted to travel for millions and millions of miles, while that of the mind may, swifter than light, follow out the journey, from star to star, till it falls back on itself with the humbling conviction that the measureless journey is then but begun! It is needless to dwell on the immeasurable mass of materials which a world like this may supply to the Artist. The very thought of its vastness darkens into wonder. Yet how much deeper the wonder, when the created mind looks into itself, and contemplates the power of impressing its thoughts on all things visible; nay, of giving the likeness of life to things inanimate; and, still more marvellous, by the mere combination of words or colors, of evolving into shape its own Idea, till some unknown form, having no type in the actual, is made to seem to us an organized being. When such is the result of any unknown combination, then it is that we achieve the Possible. And here the Realizing Principle may strictly be said to prove itself. That such an effect should follow a cause which we know to be purely imaginary, supposes, as we have said, something in ourselves which holds, of necessity, a predetermined relation to every object either outwardly existing or projected from the mind, which we thus recognize as true. If so, then the Possible and the Ideal are convertible terms; having their existence, _ab initio_, in the nature of the mind. The soundness of this inference is also supported negatively, as just observed, by the opposite result, as in the case of those fantastic combinations, which we sometimes meet with both in Poetry and Painting, and which we do not hesitate to pronounce unnatural, that is, false. And here we would not be understood as implying the preëxistence of all possible forms, as so many _patterns_, but only of that constructive Power which imparts its own Truth to the unseen _real_, and, under certain conditions, reflects the image or semblance of its truth on all things imagined; and which must be assumed in order to account for the phenomena presented in the frequent coincident effect between the real and the feigned. Nor does the absence of consciousness in particular individuals, as to this Power in themselves, fairly affect its universality, at least potentially: since by the same rule there would be equal ground for denying the existence of any faculty of the mind which is of slow or gradual developement; all that we may reasonably infer in such cases is, that the whole mind is not yet revealed to itself. In some of the greatest artists, the inventive powers have been of late developement; as in Claude, and the sculptor Falconet. And can any one believe that, while the latter was hewing his master's marble, and the former making pastry, either of them was conscious of the sublime Ideas which afterwards took form for the admiration of the world? When Raffaelle, then a youth, was selected to execute the noble works which now live on the walls of the Vatican, "he had done little or nothing," says Reynolds, "to justify so high a trust." Nor could he have been certain, from what he knew of himself, that he was equal to the task. He could only hope to succeed; and his hope was no doubt founded on his experience of the progressive developement of his mind in former efforts; rationally concluding, that the originally seeming blank from which had arisen so many admirable forms was still teeming with others, that only wanted the occasion, or excitement, to come forth at his bidding. To return to that which, as the interpreting medium of his thoughts and conceptions, connects the artist with his fellow-men, we remark, that only on the ground of some self-realizing power, like what we have termed Poetic Truth, could what we call the Ideal ever be intelligible. That some such power is inherent and fundamental in our nature, though differenced in individuals by more or less activity, seems more especially confirmed in this latter branch of the subject, where the phenomena presented are exclusively of the Possible. Indeed, we cannot conceive how without it there could ever be such a thing as true Art; for what might be received as such in one age might also be overruled in the next: as we know to be the case with most things depending on opinion. But, happily for Art, if once established on this immutable base, there it must rest: and rest unchanged, amidst the endless fluctuations of manners, habits, and opinions; for its truth of a thousand years is as the truth of yesterday. Hence the beings described by Homer, Shakspeare, and Milton are as true to us now, as the recent characters of Scott. Nor is it the least characteristic of this important Truth, that the only thing needed for its full reception is simply its presence,--being its own evidence. How otherwise could such a being as Caliban ever be true to us? We have never seen his race; nay, we knew not that such a creature _could_ exist, until he started upon us from the mind of Shakspeare. Yet who ever stopped to ask if he were a real being? His existence to the mind is instantly felt;--not as a matter of faith, but of fact, and a fact, too, which the imagination cannot get rid of if it would, but which must ever remain there, verifying itself, from the first to the last moment of consciousness. From whatever point we view this singular creature, his reality is felt. His very language, his habits, his feelings, whenever they recur to us, are all issues from a living thing, acting upon us, nay, forcing the mind, in some instances, even to speculate on his nature, till it finds itself classing him in the chain of being as the intermediate link between man and the brute. And this we do, not by an ingenious effort, but almost by involuntary induction; for we perceive speech and intellect, and yet without a soul. What but an intellectual brute could have uttered the imprecations of Caliban? They would not be natural in man, whether savage or civilized. Hear him, in his wrath against Prospero and Miranda:-- "A wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, Light on you both!" The wild malignity of this curse, fierce as it is, yet wants the moral venom, the devilish leaven, of a consenting spirit: it is all but human. To this we may add a similar example, from our own art, in the Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Who can look at this exquisite little creature, seated on its toadstool cushion, and not acknowledge its prerogative of life,--that mysterious influence which in spite of the stubborn understanding masters the mind,--sending it back to days long past, when care was but a dream, and its most serious business a childish frolic? But we no longer think of childhood as the past, still less as an abstraction; we see it embodied before us, in all its mirth and fun and glee; and the grave man becomes again a child, to feel as a child, and to follow the little enchanter through all his wiles and never-ending labyrinth of pranks. What can be real, if that is not which so takes us out of our present selves, that the weight of years falls from us as a garment,--that the freshness of life seems to begin anew, and the heart and the fancy, resuming their first joyous consciousness, to launch again into this moving world, as on a sunny sea, whose pliant waves yield to the touch, yet, sparkling and buoyant, carry them onward in their merry gambols? Where all the purposes of reality are answered, if there be no philosophy in admitting, we see no wisdom in disputing it. Of the immutable nature of this peculiar Truth, we have a like instance in the Farnese Hercules; the work of the Grecian sculptor Glycon,--we had almost said his immortal offspring. Since the time of its birth, cities and empires, even whole nations, have disappeared, giving place to others, more or less barbarous or civilized; yet these are as nothing to the countless revolutions which have marked the interval in the manners, habits, and opinions of men. Is it reasonable, then, to suppose that any thing not immutable in its nature could possibly have withstood such continual fluctuation? But how have all these changes affected this _visible image of Truth_? In no wise; not a jot; and because what is _true_ is independent of opinion: it is the same to us now as it was to the men of the dust of antiquity. The unlearned spectator of the present day may not, indeed, see in it the Demigod of Greece; but he can never mistake it for a mere exaggeration of the human form; though of mortal mould, he cannot doubt its possession of more than mortal powers; he feels its _essential life_, for he feels before it as in the stirring presence of a superior being. Perhaps the attempt to give form and substance to a pure Idea was never so perfectly accomplished as in this wonderful figure. Who has ever seen the ocean in repose, in its awful sleep, that smooths it like glass, yet cannot level its unfathomed swell? So seems to us the repose of this tremendous personification of strength: the laboring eye heaves on its slumbering sea of muscles, and trembles like a skiff as it passes over them: but the silent intimations of the spirit beneath at length become audible; the startled imagination hears it in its rage, sees it in motion, and sees its resistless might in the passive wrecks that follow the uproar. And this from a piece of marble, cold, immovable, lifeless! Surely there is that in man, which the senses cannot reach, nor the plumb of the understanding sound. Let us turn now to the Apollo called Belvedere. In this supernal being, the human form seems to have been assumed as if to make visible the harmonious confluence of the pure ideas of grace, fleetness, and majesty; nor do we think it too fanciful to add celestial splendor; for such, in effect, are the thoughts which crowd, or rather rush, into the mind on first beholding it. Who that saw it in what may be called the place of its glory, the Gallery of Napoleon, ever thought of it as a man, much less as a statue; but did not feel rather as if the vision before him were of another world,--of one who had just lighted on the earth, and with a step so ethereal, that the next instant he would vault into the air? If I may be permitted to recall the impression which it made on myself, I know not that I could better describe it than as a sudden intellectual flash, filling the whole mind with light,--and light in motion. It seemed to the mind what the first sight of the sun is to the senses, as it emerges from the ocean; when from a point of light the whole orb at once appears to bound from the waters, and to dart its rays, as by a visible explosion, through the profound of space. But, as the deified Sun, how completely is the conception verified in the thoughts that follow the effulgent original and its marble counterpart! Perennial youth, perennial brightness, follow them both. Who can imagine the old age of the sun? As soon may we think of an old Apollo. Now all this may be ascribed to the imagination of the beholder. Granted,--yet will it not thus be explained away. For that is the very faculty addressed by every work of Genius,--whose nature is _suggestive_; and only when it excites to or awakens congenial thoughts and emotions, filling the imagination with corresponding images, does it attain its proper end. The false and the commonplace can never do this. It were easy to multiply similar examples; the bare mention of a single name in modern art might conjure up a host,--the name of Michael Angelo, the mighty sovereign of the Ideal, than whom no one ever trod so near, yet so securely, the dizzy brink of the Impossible. Of Unity, the fourth and last characteristic, we shall say but little; for we know in truth little or nothing of the law which governs it: indeed, all that we know but amounts to this,--that, wherever existing, it presents to the mind the Idea of a Whole,--which is itself a mystery. For what answer can we give to the question, What is a Whole? If we reply, That which has neither more nor less than it ought to have, we do not advance a step towards a definite notion; for the _rule_ (if there be one) is yet undiscovered, by which to measure either the too much or the too little. Nevertheless, incomprehensible as it certainly is, it is what the mind will not dispense with in a work of Art; nay, it will not concede even a right to the name to any production where this is wanting. Nor is it a sound objection, that we also receive pleasure from many things which seem to us fragmentary; for instance, from actual views in Nature,--as we shall hope to show in another place. It is sufficient at present, that, in relation to Art, the law of the imagination demands a whole; in order to which not a single part must be felt to be wanting; all must be there, however imperfectly rendered; nay, such is the craving of this active faculty, that, be they but mere hints, it will often fill them out to the desired end; the only condition being, that the part hinted be founded in truth. It is well known to artists, that a sketch, consisting of little more than hints, will frequently produce the desired effect, and by the same means,--the hints being true so far as expressed, and without an hiatus. But let the artist attempt to _finish_ his sketch, that is, to fill out the parts, and suppose him deficient in the necessary skill, the consequence must be, that the true hints, becoming transformed to elaborate falsehoods, will be all at variance, while the revolted imagination turns away with disgust. Nor is this a thing of rare occurrence: indeed, he is a most fortunate artist, who has never had to deplore a well-hinted whole thus reduced to fragments. These are facts; from which we may learn, that with less than a whole, either already wrought, or so indicated that the excited imagination can of itself complete it, no genuine response will ever be given to any production of man. And we learn from it also this twofold truth; first, that the Idea of a Whole contains in itself a preëxisting law; and, secondly, that Art, the peculiar product of the Imagination, is one of its true and predetermined ends. As to its practical application, it were fruitless to speculate. It applies itself, even as truth, both in action and reaction, verifying itself: and our minds submit, as if it had said, There is nothing wanting; so, in the converse, its dictum is absolute when it announces a deficiency. To return to the objection, that we often receive pleasure from many things in Nature which seem to us fragmentary, we observe, that nothing in Nature can be fragmentary, except in the seeming, and then, too, to the understanding only,--to the feelings never; for a grain of sand, no less than a planet, being an essential part of that mighty whole which we call the universe, cannot be separated from the Idea of the world without a positive act of the reflective faculties, an act of volition; but until then even a grain of sand cannot cease to imply it. To the mere understanding, indeed, even the greatest extent of actual objects which the finite creature can possibly imagine must ever fall short of the vast works of the Creator. Yet we nevertheless can, and do, apprehend the existence of the universe. Now we would ask here, whether the influence of a _real_,--and the epithet here is not unimportant,--whether the influence of a real Whole is at no time felt without an act of consciousness, that is, without thinking of a whole. Is this impossible? Is it altogether out of experience? We have already shown (as we think) that no _unmodified copy_ of actual objects, whether single or multifarious, ever satisfies the imagination,--which imperatively demands a something more, or at least different. And yet we often find that the very objects from which these copies are made _do_ satisfy us. How and why is this? A question more easily put than answered. We may suggest, however, what appears to us a clew, that in abler hands may possibly lead to its solution; namely, the fact, that, among the innumerable emotions of a pleasurable kind derived from the actual, there is not one, perhaps, which is strictly confined to the objects before us, and which we do not, either directly or indirectly, refer to something beyond and not present. Now have we at all times a distinct consciousness of the things referred to? Are they not rather more often vague, and only indicated in some _undefined_ feeling? Nay, is its source more intelligible where the feeling is more definite, when taking the form of a sense of harmony, as from something that diffuses, yet deepens, unbroken in its progress through endless variations, the melody as it were of the pleasurable object? Who has never felt, under certain circumstances, an expansion of the heart, an elevation of mind, nay, a striving of the whole being to pass its limited bounds, for which he could find no adequate solution in the objects around him,--the apparent cause? Or who can account for every mood that thralls him,--at times like one entranced in a dream by airs from Paradise,--at other times steeped in darkness, when the spirit of discord seems to marshal his every thought, one against another? Whether it be that the Living Principle, which permeates all things throughout the physical world, cannot be touched in a single point without conducting to its centre, its source, and confluence, thus giving by a part, though obscurely and indefinitely, a sense of the whole,--we know not. But this we may venture to assert, and on no improbable ground,--that a ray of light is not more continuously linked in its luminous particles than our moral being with the whole moral universe. If this be so, may it not give us, in a faint shadowing at least, some intimation of the many real, though unknown relations, which everywhere surround and bear upon us? In the deeper emotions, we have, sometimes, what seems to us a fearful proof of it. But let us look at it negatively; and suppose a case where this chain is broken,--of a human being who is thus cut off from all possible sympathies, and shut up, as it were, in the hopeless solitude of his own mind. What is this horrible avulsion, this impenetrable self-imprisonment, but the appalling state of _despair?_ And what if we should see it realized in some forsaken outcast, and hear his forlorn cry, "Alone! alone!" while to his living spirit that single word is all that is left him to fill the blank of space? In such a state, the very proudest autocrat would yearn for the sympathy of the veriest wretch. It would seem, then, since this living cement which is diffused through nature, binding all things in one, so that no part can be contemplated that does not, of necessity, even though unconsciously to us, act on the mind with reference to the whole,--since this, as we find, cannot be transferred to any copy of the actual, it must needs follow, if we would imitate Nature in its true effects, that recourse must be had to another, though similar principle, which shall so pervade our production as to satisfy the mind with an efficient equivalent. Now, in order to this there are two conditions required: first, the personal modification, (already discussed) of every separate part,--which may be considered as its proper life; and, secondly, the uniting of the parts by such an interdependence that they shall appear to us as essential, one to another, and all to each. When this is done, the result is a whole. But how do we obtain this mutual dependence? We refer the questioner to the law of Harmony,--that mysterious power, which is only apprehended by its imperative effect. But, be the above as it may, we know it to be a fact, that, whilst nothing in Nature ever affects us as fragmentary, no unmodified copy of her by man is ever felt by us as otherwise. We have thus--and, we trust, on no fanciful ground--endeavoured to establish the real and distinctive character of Art. And, if our argument be admitted, it will be found to have brought us to the following conclusions:--first, that the true ground of all originality lies in the _individualizing law_, that is, in that modifying power, which causes the difference between man and man as to their mental impressions; secondly, that only in a _true_ reproduction consists its evidence; thirdly, that in the involuntary response from other minds lies the truth of the evidence; fourthly, that in order to this response there must therefore exist some universal kindred principle, which is essential to the human mind, though widely differenced in the degree of its activity in different individuals; and finally, that this principle, which we have here denominated Human or Poetic Truth, being independent both of the will and of the reflective faculties, is in its nature _imperative_, to affirm or deny, in relation to every production pretending to Art, from the simple imitation of the actual to the probable, and from the probable to the possible;--in one word, that the several characteristics, Originality, Poetic Truth, Invention, each imply a something not inherent in the objects imitated, but which must emanate alone from the mind of the Artist. And here it may be well to notice an apparent objection, that will probably occur to many, especially among painters. How, then, they may ask, if the principle in question be universal and imperative, do we account for the mistakes which even great Artists have sometimes made as to the realizing of their conceptions? We hope to show, that, so far from opposing, the very fact on which the objection is grounded will be found, on the contrary, to confirm our doctrine. Were such mistakes uniformly permanent, they might, perhaps, have a rational weight; but that this is not the case is clearly evident from the additional fact of the change in the Artist's judgment, which almost invariably follows any considerable interval of time. Nay, should a case occur where a similar mistake is never rectified,--which is hardly probable,--we might well consider it as one of those exceptions that prove the rule,--of which we have abundant examples in other relations, where a true principle is so feebly developed as to be virtually excluded from the sphere of consciousness, or, at least, where its imperfect activity is for all practical purposes a mere nullity. But, without supposing any mental weakness, the case may be resolved by the no less formidable obstacle of a too inveterate memory: and there have been such,--where a thought or an image once impressed is never erased. In Art it is certainly an advantage to be able sometimes to forget. Nor is this a new notion; for Horace, it seems, must have had the same, or he would hardly have recommended so long a time as nine years for the revision of a poem. That Titian also was not unaware of the advantage of forgetting is recorded by Boschini, who relates, that, during the progress of a work, he was in the habit of occasionally turning it to the wall, until it had somewhat faded from his memory, so that, on resuming his labor, he might see with fresh eyes; when (to use his expression) he would criticize the picture with as much severity as his worst enemy. If, instead of the picture on the canvas, Boschini had referred to that in his mind, as what Titian sought to forget, he would have been, as we think, more correct. This practice is not uncommon with Artists, though few, perhaps, are aware of its real object. It has doubtless the appearance of a singular anomaly in the judgment, that it should not always be as correct in relation to our own works as to those of another. Yet nothing is more common than perfect truth in the one case, and complete delusion in the other. Our surprise, however, would be sensibly diminished, if we considered that the reasoning or reflective faculties have nothing to do with either case. It is the Principle of which we have been speaking, the life, or truth within, answering to the life, or rather its sign, before us, that here sits in judgment. Still the question remains unanswered; and again we are asked, Why is it that our own works do not always respond with equal veracity? Simply because we do not always _see_ them,--that is, as they are,--but, looking as it were _through them_, see only their originals in the mind; the mind here acting, instead of being acted upon. And thus it is, that an Artist may suppose his conception realized, while that which gave life to it in his mind is outwardly wanting. But let time erase, as we know it often does, the mental image, and its embodied representative will then appear to its author as it is,--true or false. There is one case, however, where the effect cannot deceive; namely, where it comes upon us as from a foreign source; where our own seems no longer ours. This, indeed, is rare; and powerful must be the pictured Truth, that, as soon as embodied, shall thus displace its own original. Nor does it in any wise affect the essential nature of the Principle in question, or that of the other Characteristics, that the effect which follows is not always of a pleasurable kind; it may even be disagreeable. What we contend for is simply its _reality_; the character of the perception, like that of every other truth, depending on the individual character of the percipient. The common truth of existence in a living person, for instance, may be to us either a matter of interest or indifference, nay, even of disgust. So also may it be with what is true in Art. Temperament, ignorance, cultivation, vulgarity, and refinement have all, in a greater or less degree, an influence in our impressions; so that any reality may be to us either an offence or a pleasure, yet still a reality. In Art, as in Nature, the True is imperative, and must be _felt_, even where a timid, a proud, or a selfish motive refuses to acknowledge it. These last remarks very naturally lead us to another subject, and one of no minor importance; we mean, the education of an Artist; on this, however, we shall at present add but a few words. We use the word _education_ in its widest sense, as involving not only the growth and expansion of the intellect, but a corresponding developement of the moral being; for the wisdom of the intellect is of little worth, if it be not in harmony with the higher spiritual truth. Nor will a moderate, incidental cultivation suffice to him who would become a great Artist. He must sound no less than the full depths of his being ere he is fitted for his calling; a calling in its very condition lofty, demanding an agent by whom, from the actual, living world, is to be wrought an imagined consistent world of Art,--not fantastic, or objectless, but having a purpose, and that purpose, in all its figments, a distinct relation to man's nature, and all that pertains to it, from the humblest emotion to the highest aspiration; the circle that bounds it being that only which bounds his spirit,--even the confines of that higher world, where ideal glimpses of angelic forms are sometimes permitted to his sublimated vision. Art may, in truth, be called the _human world_; for it is so far the work of man, that his beneficent Creator has especially endowed him with the powers to construct it; and, if so, surely not for his mere amusement, but as a part (small though it be) of that mighty plan which the Infinite Wisdom has ordained for the evolution of the human spirit; whereby is intended, not alone the enlargement of his sphere of pleasure, but of his higher capacities of adoration;--as if, in the gift, he had said unto man, Thou shalt know me by the powers I have given thee. The calling of an Artist, then, is one of no common responsibility; and it well becomes him to consider at the threshold, whether he shall assume it for high and noble purposes, or for the low and licentious. Form. The subject proposed for the following discourse is the Human Form; a subject, perhaps, of all others connected with Art, the most obscured by vague theories. It is one, at least, of such acknowledged difficulty as to constrain the writer to confess, that he enters upon it with more distrust than hope of success. Should he succeed, however, in disencumbering this perplexed theme of some of its useless dogmas, it will be quite as much as he has allowed himself to expect. The object, therefore, of the present attempt will be to show, first, that the notion of one or more standard Forms, which shall in all cases serve as exemplars, is essentially false, and of impracticable application for any true purpose of Art; secondly, that the only approach to Science, which the subject admits, is in a few general rules relating to Stature, and these, too, serving rather as convenient _expedients_ than exact guides, inasmuch as, in most cases, they allow of indefinite variations; and, thirdly, that the only efficient Rule must be found in the Artist's mind,--in those intuitive Powers, which are above, and beyond, both the senses and the understanding; which, nevertheless, are so far from precluding knowledge, as, on the contrary, to require, as their effective condition, the widest intimacy with the things external,--without which their very existence must remain unknown to the Artist himself. Supposing, then, certain standard Forms to have been admitted, it may not be amiss to take a brief view of the nature of the Being to whom they are intended to be applied; and to consider them more especially as auxiliaries to the Artist. In the first place, we observe, that the purpose of Art is not to represent any given number of men, but the Human Race; and so that the representation shall affect us, not indeed as living to the senses, but as true to the mind. In order to this, there must be _all_ in the imitation (though it be but hinted) which the mind will recognize as true to the human being: hence the first business of the Artist is to become acquainted with his subject in all its properties. He then naturally inquires, what is its general characteristic; and his own consciousness informs him, that, besides an animal nature, there is also a moral intelligence, and that they together form the man. This important truism (we say important, for it seems to have been not seldom overlooked) makes the foundation of all his future observations; nor can he advance a step without continual reference to this double nature. We find him accordingly in the daily habit of mentally distinguishing this person from that, as a moral being, and of assigning to each a separate character; and this not voluntarily, but simply because he cannot avoid it. Yet, by what does he presume to judge of strangers? He will probably answer, By their general exterior. And what is the inference? There can be but one; namely, that there must be--at least to him--some efficient correspondence between the physical and the moral. This is so plain, that the wonder is, how it ever came to be doubted. Nor is it directly denied, except by those who from habitual disgust reject the guesswork of the various pretenders to scientific systems; yet even these, no less than others, do practically admit it in their common intercourse with the world. And it cannot be otherwise; for what the Creator has joined must have some affinity, although the palpable signs may elude our cognizance. And that they do elude it, except perhaps in a very slight degree, is actually the case, as is well proved by the signal failure of all attempts to reduce them to a science; for neither diagram nor axiom has ever yet corrected an instinctive impression. But man does not live by science; he feels, acts, and judges right in a thousand things without the consciousness of any rule by which he so feels, acts, or judges. And, happily for him, he has a surer guide than human science in that unknown Power within him,--without which he had been without knowledge. But of this we shall have occasion to speak again in another part of our discourse. Though the medium through which the soul acts be, as we have said, elusive to the senses,--in so far as to be irreducible to any distinct form,--it is not therefore the less real, as every one may verify by his own experience; and, though seemingly invisible, it must nevertheless, constituted as we are, act through the physical, and a physical medium expressly constructed for its peculiar action; nay, it does this continually, without our confounding for a moment the soul with its instrument. Who can look into the human eye, and doubt of an influence not of the body? The form and color leave but a momentary impression, or, if we remember them, it is only as we remember the glass through which we have read the dark problems of the sky. But in this mysterious organ we see not even the signs of its mystery. We see, in truth, nothing; for what is there has neither form, nor symbol, nor any thing reducible to a sensuous distinctness; and yet who can look into it, and not be conscious of a real though invisible presence? In the eye of a brute, we see only a part of the animal; it gives us little beyond the palpable outward; at most, it is but the focal point of its fierce, or gentle, affectionate, or timorous character,--the character of the species, But in man, neither gentleness nor fierceness can be more than as relative conditions,--the outward moods of his unseen spirit; while the spirit itself, that daily and hourly sends forth its good and evil, to take shape from the body, still sits in darkness. Yet have we that which can surely reach it; even our own spirit. By this it is that we can enter into another's soul, sound its very depths, and bring up his dark thoughts, nay, place them before him till he starts at himself; and more,--it is by this we _know_ that even the tangible, audible, visible world is not more real than a spiritual intercourse. And yet without the physical organ who can hold it? We can never indeed understand, but we may not doubt, that which has its power of proof in a single act of consciousness. Nay, we may add that we cannot even conceive of a soul without a correlative form,--though it be in the abstract; and _vice versâ_. For, among the many impossibilities, it is not the least to look upon a living human form as a thing; in its pictured copies, as already shown in a former discourse, it may be a thing, and a beautiful thing; but the moment we conceive of it as living, if it show not a soul, we give it one by a moral necessity; and according to the outward will be the spirit with which we endow it. No poetic being, supposed of our species, ever lived to the imagination without some indication of the moral; it is the breath of its life: and this is also true in the converse; if there be but a hint of it, it will instantly clothe itself in a human shape; for the mind cannot separate them. In the whole range of the poetic creations of the great master of truth,--we need hardly say Shakspeare,--not an instance can be found where this condition of life is ever wanting; his men and women all have souls. So, too, when he peoples the air, though he describe no form, he never leaves these creatures of the brain without a shape, for he will sometimes, by a single touch of the moral, enable us to supply one. Of this we have a striking instance in one of his most unsubstantial creations, the "delicate Ariel." Not an allusion to its shape or figure is made throughout the play; yet we assign it a form on its very first entrance, as soon as Prospero speaks of its refusing to comply with the" abhorred commands" of the witch, Sycorax. And again, in the fifth act, when Ariel, after recounting the sufferings of the wretched usurper and his followers, gently adds,-- "Your charm so strongly works them, That, if you now beheld them, your affections Would become tender." On which Prospero remarks,-- "Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling Of their afflictions?" Now, whether Shakspeare intended it or not, it is not possible after this for the reader to think of Ariel but in a human form; for slight as these hints are, if they do not indicate the moral affections, they at least imply something akin to them, which in a manner compels us to invest the gentle Spirit with a general likeness to our own physical exterior, though, perhaps, as indistinct as the emotion that called for it. We have thus considered the human being in his complex condition, of body and spirit, or physical and moral; showing the impossibility of even thinking of him in the one, to the exclusion of the other. We may, indeed, successively think first of the form, and then of the moral character, as we may think of any one part of either analytically; but we cannot think of the _human being_ except as a _whole_. It follows, therefore, as a consequence, that no imitation of man can be true which is not addressed to us in this double condition. And here it may be observed, that in Art there is this additional requirement, that there be no discrepancy between the form and the character intended,--or rather, that the form _must_ express the character, or it expresses nothing: a necessity which is far from being general in actual nature. But of this hereafter. Let us now endeavour to form some general notion of Man in his various aspects, as presented by the myriads which people the earth. But whose imagination is equal to the task,--to the setting in array before it the countless multitudes, each individual in his proper form, his proper character? Were this possible, we should stand amazed at the interminable differences, the hideous variety; and that, too, no less in the moral, than in the physical; nay, so opposite and appalling in the former as hardly to be figured by a chain of animals, taking for the extremes the fierce and filthy hyena and the inoffensive lamb. This is man in the concrete,--to which, according to some, is to be applied the _abstract Ideal!_ Now let us attempt to conceive of a being that shall represent all the diversities of mind, affections, and dispositions, that fleck this heterogeneous mass of humanity, and then to conceive of a Form that shall be in such perfect affinity with it as to indicate them all. The bare statement of the proposition shows its absurdity. Yet this must be the office of a Standard Form; and this it must do, or it will be a falsehood. Nor should we find it easier with any given number, with twenty, fifty, nay, an hundred (so called) generic forms. We do not hesitate to affirm, that, were it possible, it would be quite as easy with one as with a thousand. But to this it may be replied, that the Standard Form was never intended to represent the vicious or degraded, but man in his most perfect developement of mind, affections, and body. This is certainly narrowing its office, and, unfortunately, to the representing of but _one_ man; consequently, of no possible use beyond to the Painter or Sculptor of Humanity, since every repetition of this perfect form would be as the reflection of one multiplied by mirrors. But such repetitions, it may be further answered, were never contemplated, that Form being given only as an exemplar of the highest, to serve as a guide in our approach to excellence; as we could not else know to a certainty to what degree of elevation our conceptions might rise. Still, in that case its use would be limited to a single object, that is, to itself, its own perfectness; it would not aid the Artist in the intermediate ascent to it,--unless it contained within itself all the gradations of human character; which no one will pretend. But let us see how far it is possible to _realize_ the Idea of a _perfect_ Human Form. We have already seen that the mere physical structure is not man, but only a part; the Idea of man including also an internal moral being. The external, then, in an _actually disjoined_ state, cannot, strictly speaking, be the human form, but only a diagram of it. It is, in fact, but a partial condition, becoming human only when united with the internal moral; which, in proof of the union, it must of necessity indicate. If we would have a true Idea of it, therefore, it must be as a whole; consequently, the perfect physical exterior must have, as an essential part, the perfect moral. Now come two important questions. First, In what consists Moral Perfection? We use the word _moral_ here (from a want in our language) in its most comprehensive sense, as including the spiritual and the intellectual. With respect to that part of our moral being which pertains to the affections, in all their high relations to God and man, we have, it is true, a sure and holy guide. In a Christian land, the humblest individual may answer as readily as the most profound scholar, and express its perfection in the single word, Holiness. But what will be the reply in regard to the Intellect? For what is a perfect Intellect? Is it the Dialectic, the Speculative, or the Imaginative? Or, rather, would it not include them all? We proceed next to the Physical. What, then, constitutes its Perfection? Here, it might seem, there can be no difficulty, and the reply will probably be in naming all the excellent qualities in our animal nature, such as strength, agility, fleetness, with every other that can be thought of. The bare enumeration of these few qualities may serve to show the nature of the task; yet a physically perfect form requires them all; none must be omitted; it would else be imperfect; nay, they must not only be there, but all be developed in their highest degrees. We might here exclaim with Hamlet, though in a very different sense, "A combination and a form indeed!" And yet there is no other way to express physical perfection. But can it be so expressed? The reader must reply for himself. We will, however, suppose it possible; still the task is incomplete without the adjustment of these to the perfect Moral, in the highest known degrees of its several elements. To those who can imagine _such_ a form as shall be the sure exponent of _such_ a moral being,--and such it must be, or it will be nothing,--we leave the task of constructing this universal exemplar for multitudinous man. We may add, however, one remark; that, supposing it possible thus to concentrate, and with equal prominence, all the qualities of the species into one individual, it can only be done by supplanting Providence, in other words, by virtually overruling the great principle of subordination so visibly impressed on all created life. For although, as we have elswhere observed, there can be no sound mind (and the like may be affirmed of the whole man), which is deficient in any one essential, it does not therefore follow, that each of these essentials may not be almost indefinitely differenced in the degrees of their developement without impairing the human integrity. And such is the fact in actual nature; nor does this in any wise affect the individual unity,--as will be noticed hereafter. We will now briefly examine the pretensions of what are called the Generic Forms. And here we are met by another important characteristic of the human being, namely, his essential individuality. It is true that the human family, so called, is divided into many distinct races, having each its peculiar conformation, color, and so forth, which together constitute essential differences; but it is to be remembered that these essentials are all physical; and _so far_ they are properly generic, as implying a difference in kind. But, though a striking difference is also observable in their moral being, it is by no means of the same nature with that which marks their physical condition, the difference in the moral being only of degree; for, however fierce, brutal, stupid, or cunning, or gentle, generous, or heroic, the same characteristics may each be paralleled among ourselves; nay, we could hardly name a vice, a passion, or a virtue, in Asia, Africa, or America, that has not its echo in civilized Europe. And what is the inference? That climate and circumstance, if such are the causes of the physical variety, have no controlling power, except in degree, over the Moral. Does not this undeniable fact, then, bring us to the fair conclusion, that the moral being has no genera? To affirm otherwise would be virtually to deny its responsible condition; since the law of its genus must be paramount to all other laws,--to education, government, religion. Nor can the result be evaded, except by the absurd supposition of generic responsibilities! To us, therefore, it seems conclusive that a moral being, as a free agent, cannot be subject to a generic law; nor could he now be--what every man feels himself to be, in spite of his theory--the fearful architect of his own destiny. In one sense, indeed, we may admit a human genus,--such as every man must be in his individual entireness. Man has been called a microcosm, or little world. And such, however mean and contemptible to others, is man to himself; nay, such he must ever be, whether he wills it or not. He may hate, he may despise, yet he cannot but cling to that without which he is not; he is the centre and the circle, be it of pleasure or of pain; nor can he be other. Touch him with misery, and he becomes paramount to the whole world,--to a thousand worlds; for the beauty and the glory of the universe are as nothing to him who is all darkness. Then it is that he will _feel_, should he have before doubted, that he is not a mere part, a fraction, of his kind, but indeed a world; and though little in one sense, yet a world of awful magnitude in its capacity of suffering. In one word, Man is a whole, _an Individual_. If the preceding argument be admitted, it will be found to have relieved the student of two delusive dogmas,--and the more delusive, as carrying with them a plausible show of science. As to the flowery declamations about Beauty, they would not here be noticed, were they not occasionally met with in works of high merit, and not unfrequently mixed up with philosophic truth. If they have any definite meaning, it amounts to this,--that the Beautiful is the summit of every possible excellence! The extravagance, not to say absurdity, of such a proposition, confounding, as it does, all received distinctions, both in the moral and the natural world, needs no comment. It is hardly to be believed, however, that the writers in question could have deliberately intended this. It is more probable, that, in so expressing themselves, they were only giving vent to an enthusiastic feeling, which we all know is generally most vague when associated with admiration; it is not therefore strange that the ardent expression of it should partake of its vagueness. Among the few critical works of authority in which the word is so used, we may mention the (in many respects admirable) Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds, where we find the following sentence:--"The _beauty_ of the Hercules is one, of the Gladiator another, of the Apollo another; which, of course, would present three different Ideas of Beauty." If this had been said of various animals, differing in _kind_, the term so applied might, perhaps, have been appropriate. But the same term is here applied to objects of the same kind, differing not essentially even in age; we say _age_, inasmuch as in the three great divisions, or periods, of human life, namely, childhood, youth, and maturity, the characteristic conditions of each are so _essentially_ distinct, as virtually to separate them into positive kinds. But it is no less idle than invidious to employ our time in overturning the errors of others; if we establish Truth, they will fall of themselves. There cannot be two right sides to any question; and, if we are right, what is opposed to us must of necessity he wrong. Whether we are so or not must be determined by those who admit or reject what has already been advanced on the subject of Beauty, in the first Discourse. It will be remembered, that, in the course of our argument there, we were brought to the conclusion, that Beauty was the Idea of a certain physical _condition_, both general and ultimate; general, as presiding over objects of many kinds, and ultimate, as being the _perfection_ of that peculiar condition in each, and therefore not applicable to, or representing, its degrees in any; which, as approximations only to the one supreme Idea, should truly be distinguished by other terms. Accordingly, we cannot, strictly speaking, say of two persons of the same age and sex, differing from each other, that they are equally beautiful. We hear this, indeed, almost daily; it is nevertheless not the true expression of the actual impression made on the speaker, though he may not take the trouble to examine and compare them. But let him do so, and we doubt not that he would find the one to rise (in however slight a degree) above the other; and, if he did not assign a different term to the lower, it would be only because he was not in the habit of marking, or did not think it worth his while to note, such nice distinctions. If there is a _first_ and a _last_ to any thing, the intermediates can be neither one nor the other; and, if we so name them, we speak falsely. It is no less so with Beauty, which, being at the head, or first in a series, admits no transference of its title. We mean, if speaking strictly; which, however, we freely acknowledge, no one can; but that is owing to the insufficiency of language, which in no dialect could supply a hundredth part of the terms needed to mark every minute shade of difference. Perhaps no subject requiring a wider nomenclature has one so contracted; and the consequence is, that no subject is more obscured by vague expressions. But it is the business of the Artist, if he cannot form to himself the corresponding terms, to be prepared at least to perceive and to note these various shades. We do not say, that an actual acquaintance with all the nice distinctions is an essential requisite, but only that it will not be altogether useless to be aware of their existence; at any rate, it may serve to shield him from the annoyance of false criticism, when censured for wanting beauty where its presence would have been an impertinence. Before we quit the subject, it may not be amiss to observe, that, in the preceding remarks, our object has been not so much to insist on correct speaking as correct thinking. The poverty of language, as already admitted, has made the former impossible; but, though constrained in this, as in many other cases where a subordinate is put for its principal, to apply the term Beautiful to its various degrees, yet a right apprehension of what Beauty _is_ may certainly prevent its misapplication as to other objects having no relation to it. Nor is this a small matter where the avoiding of confusion is an object desirable; and there is clearly some difference between an approach to precision and utter vagueness. We have now to consider how far the Correspondence between the outward form and the inward being, which is assumed by the Artist, is supported by fact. In a fair statement, then, of facts, it cannot be denied that with the mass of men the outward intimation of character is certainly very faint, with many obscure, and with some ambiguous, while with others it has often seemed to express the very reverse of the truth. Perhaps a stronger instance of the latter could hardly occur than that cited in a former discourse in illustration of the physical relation of Beauty; where it was shown that the first and natural impression from a beautiful form was not only displaced, but completely reversed, by the revolting discovery of a moral discrepancy. But while we admit, on the threshold, that the Correspondence in question cannot be sustained as universally obvious, it is, nevertheless, not apprehended that this admission can affect our argument, which, though in part grounded on special cases of actual coincidence, is yet supported by other evidences, which lead us to regard all such discrepancies rather as exceptions, and as so many deviations from the original law of our nature, nay, which lead us also rationally to infer at least a future, potential correspondence in every individual. To the past, indeed, we cannot appeal; neither can the past be cited against us, since little is known of the early history of our race but a chronicle of their actions; of their outward appearance scarcely any thing, certainly not enough to warrant a decision one way or the other. Should we assume, then, the Correspondence as a primeval law, who shall gainsay it? It is not, however, so asserted. We may nevertheless hold it as a matter of _faith_; and simply as such it is here submitted. But faith of any kind must have some ground to rest on, either real or supposed, either that of authority or of inference. Our ground of faith, then, in the present instance, is in the universal desire amongst men to _realize_ the Correspondence. Nothing is more common than, on hearing or reading of any remarkable character, to find this instinctive craving, if we may so term it, instantly awakened, and actively employed in picturing to the imagination some corresponding form; nor is any disappointment more general, than that which follows the detection of a discrepancy on actual acquaintance. Indeed, we can hardly deem it rash, should we rest the validity of this universal desire on the common experience of any individual, taken at random,--provided only that he has a particle of imagination. Nor is its action dependent on our caprice or will. Ask any person of ordinary cultivation, not to say refinement, how it is with him, when, his imagination has not been forestalled by some definite fact; whether he has never found himself _involuntarily_ associating the good with the beautiful, the energetic with the strong, the dignified with the ample, or the majestic with the lofty; the refined with the delicate, the modest with the comely; the base with the ugly, the brutal with the misshapen, the fierce with the coarse and muscular, and so on; there being scarcely a shade of character to which the imagination does not affix some corresponding form. In a still more striking form may we find the evidence of the law supposed, if we turn to the young, and especially to those of a poetic temperament,--to the sanguine, the open, and confiding, the creatures of impulse, who reason best when trusting only to the spontaneous suggestions of feeling. What is more common than implicit faith in their youthful day-dreams,--a faith that lives, though dream after dream vanish into common air when the sorcerer Fact touches their eyes? And whence this pertinacious faith that _will_ not die, but from a spring of life, that neither custom nor the dry understanding can destroy? Look at the same Youth at a more advanced age, when the refining intellect has mixed with his affections, adding thought and sentiment to every thing attractive, converting all things fair to things also of good report. Let us turn, at the same time, to one still more advanced,--even so far as to have entered into the conventional valley of dry bones,--one whom the world is preparing, by its daily practical lessons, to enlighten with unbelief. If we see them together, perhaps we shall hear the senior scoff at his younger companion as a poetic dreamer, as a hunter after phantoms that never were, nor could be, in nature: then may follow a homily on the virtues of experience, as the only security against disappointment. But there are some hearts that never suffer the mind to grow old. And such we may suppose that of the dreamer. If he is one, too, who is accustomed to look into himself,--not as a reasoner,--but with an abiding faith in his nature,--we shall, perhaps, hear him reply,--Experience, it is true, has often brought me disappointment; yet I cannot distrust those dreams, as you call them, bitterly as I have felt their passing off; for I feel the truth of the source whence they come. They could not have been so responded to by my living nature, were they but phantoms; they could not have taken such forms of truth, but from a possible ground. By the word _poetic_ here, we do not mean the visionary or fanciful,--for there may be much fancy where there is no poetic feeling,--but that sensibility to _harmony_ which marks the temperament of the Artist, and which is often most active in his earlier years. And we refer to such natures, not only as being more peculiarly alive to all existing affinities, but as never satisfied with those merely which fall within their experience; ever striving, on the contrary, as if impelled by instinct, to supply the deficiency wherever it is felt. From such minds proceed what are called romantic imaginings, but what we would call--without intending a paradox--the romance of Truth. For it is impossible that the mind should ever have this perpetual craving for the False. But the desire in question is not confined to any particular age or temperament, though it is, doubtless, more ardent in some than in others. Perhaps it is only denied to the habitually vicious. For who, not hardened by vice, has ever looked upon a sleeping child in its first bloom of beauty, and seen its pure, fresh hues, its ever varying, yet according lines, moulding and suffusing, in their playful harmony, its delicate features,--who, not callous, has ever looked upon this exquisite creature, (so like what a poet might fancy of visible music, or embodied odors,) and has not felt himself carried, as it were, out of this present world, in quest of its moral counterpart? It seems to us perfect; we desire no change,--not a line or a hue but as it is; and yet we have a paradoxical feeling of a want,--for it is all _physical_; and we supply that want by endowing the child with some angelic attribute. Why do we this? To make it a _whole_,--not to the eye, but to the mind. Nor is this general disposition to find a coincidence between a fair exterior and moral excellence altogether unsupported by facts of, at least, a partial realization. For, though a perfect correspondence cannot be looked for in a state where all else is imperfect, he is most unfortunate who has never met with many, and very near, approximations to the desired union. But we have a still stronger assurance of their predetermined affinity in the peculiar activity of this desire where there is no such approximation. For example, when we meet with an instance of the higher virtues in an unattractive form, how natural the wish that that form were beautiful! So, too, on beholding a beautiful person, how common the wish that the mind it clothed were also good! What are these wishes but unconscious retrospects to our primitive nature? And why have we them, if they be not the workings of that universal law, which gathers to itself all scattered affinities, bodying them forth in the never-ending forms of harmony,--in the flower, in the tree, in the bird, and the animal,--if they be not the evidence of its continuous, though fruitless, effort to evolve too in _man_ its last consummate work, by the perfect confluence of the body and the spirit? In this universal yearning (for it seems to us no less) to connect the physical with its appropriate moral,--to say nothing of the mysterious intuition that points to the appropriate,--is there not something like a clew to what was originally natural? And, again, in the never-ceasing strivings of the two great elements of our being, each to supply the deficiencies of the other, have we not also an intimation of something that _once was_, that is now lost, and would be recovered? Surely there must be more in this than a mere concernment of Art;--if, indeed, there be not in Art more of the prophetic than we are now aware of. To us it seems that this irrepressible desire to find the good in the beautiful, and the beautiful in the good, implies an end, both beyond and above the trifling present; pointing to deep and dark questions,--to no less than where the mysteries which surround us will meet their solution. One great mystery we see in part resolving itself here. We see the deformities of the body sometimes giving place to its glorious tenant. Some of us may have witnessed this, and felt the spiritual presence gaining daily upon us, till the outward shape seemed lost in its brightness, leaving no trace in the memory. Whether the position we have endeavoured to establish be disputed or not, the absolute correspondence between the Moral and the Physical is, at any rate, the essential ground of the Plastic arts; which could not else exist, since through _Form alone_ they have to convey, not only thought and emotion, but distinct and permanent character. For our own part, we cannot but consider their success in this as having settled the question. From the view here presented, what is the inference in relation to Art? That Man, as a compound being, cannot be represented without an indication as well of Mind as of body; that, by a natural law which we cannot resist, we do continually require that they be to us as mutual exponents, the one of the other; and, finally, that, as a responsible being, and therefore a free agent, he cannot be truly represented, either to the memory or to the imagination, but as an Individual. It would seem, also, from the indefinite varieties in men, though occasioned only by the mere difference of degrees in their common faculties and powers, that the coincidence of an equal developement of all was never intended in nature; but that some one or more of them, becoming dominant, should distinguish the individual. It follows, therefore, if this be the case, that only through the phase of such predominance can the human being ever be contemplated. To the Artist, then, it becomes the only safe ground; the starting-point from whence to ascend to a true Ideal,--which is no other than a partial individual truth made whole in the mind: and thus, instead of one Ideal, and that baseless, he may have a thousand,--nay, as many as there are marked or apprehensible _individuals_. But we must not be understood as confining Art to actual portraits. Within such limits there could not be Art,--certainly not Art in its highest sense; we should have in its place what would be little better than a doubtful empiricism; since the most elevated subject, in the ablest hands, would depend, of necessity, on the chance success of a search after models. And, supposing that we bring together only the rarest forms, still those forms, simply as circumscribed portraits, and therefore insulated parts, would instantly close every avenue to the imagination; for such is the law of the imagination, that it cannot admit, or, in other words, recognize as a whole, that which remains unmodified by some imaginative power, which alone can give unity to separate and distinct objects. Yet, as it regards man, all true Art does, and must, find its proper object in the _Individual_: as without individuality there could not be character, nor without character, the human being. But here it may be asked, In what manner, if we resort not to actual portrait, is the Individual Man to be expressed? We answer, By carrying out the natural individual predominant _fragment_ which is visible to us in actual Form, to its full, consistent developement. The Individual is thus idealized, when, in the complete accordance of all its parts, it is presented to the mind as a _whole_. When we apply the term _fragment_ to a human being, we do not mean in relation to his species, (in regard to which we have already shown him to be a distinct whole,) but in relation to the Idea, to which his predominant characteristic suggests itself but as a partial manifestation, and made partial because counteracted by some inadequate exponent, or else modified by other, though minor, characteristics. How this is effected must be left to the Artist himself. It is impossible to prescribe a rule that would be to much purpose for any one who stands in need of such instruction; if his own mind does not suggest the mode, it would not even be intelligible. Perhaps our meaning, however, may be made more obvious, if we illustrate it by example. We would refer, then, to the restoration of a statue, (a thing often done with success,) where, from a single fragment, the unknown Form has been completely restored, and so remoulded, that the parts added are in perfect unity with the suggestive fragment. Now the parts wanting having never been seen, this cannot be called a mere act of the memory. Nevertheless, it is not from nothing that man can produce even the _semblance_ of any thing. The materials of the Artist are the work of Him who created the Artist himself; but over these, which his senses and mind are given him to observe and collect, he has a _delegated power_, for the purpose of combining and modifying, as unlimited as mysterious. It is by the agency of this intuitive and assimilating Power, elsewhere spoken of, that he is able to separate the essential from the accidental, to proceed also from a part to the whole; thus educing, as it were, an Ideal nature from the germs of the Actual. Nor does the necessity of referring to Nature preclude the Imaginative, or any other class of Art that rests its truth in the desires of the mind. In an especial manner must the personification of Sentiment, of the Abstract, which owe their interest to the common desire of rendering permanent, by embodying, that which has given us pleasure, take its starting-point from the Actual; from something which, by universal association or particular expression, shall recall the Sentiment, Thought, or Time, and serve as their exponents; there being scarcely an object in Nature which the spirit of man has not, as it were, impressed with sympathy, and linked with his being. Of this, perhaps, we could not have a more striking example than in the Aurora of Michael Angelo: which, if not universal, is not so only because the faculty addressed is by no means common. For, as the peculiar characteristic of the Imaginative is its suggestive power, the effect of this figure must of necessity differ in different minds. As in many other cases, there must needs be at least some degree of sympathy with the mind that imagined it, in order to any impression; and the degree in which that is made will always be in proportion to the congeniality between the agent and the recipient. Should it appear, then, to any one as a thing of no meaning, it is not therefore conclusive that the Artist has failed. For, if there be but one in a thousand to whose mind it recalls the deep stillness of Night, gradually broken by the awakening stir of Day, with its myriad forms of life emerging into motion, while their lengthened shadows, undistinguished from their objects, seem to people the earth with gigantic beings; then the dim, gray monotony of color transforming them to stone, yet leaving them in motion, till the whole scene becomes awful and mysterious as with moving statues;--if there be but one in ten thousand who shall have thus imagined, as he stands before this embodied Dawn, then is it, for every purpose of feeling through the excited imagination, as true and real as if instinct with life, and possessing the mind by its living will. Nor is the number so rare of those who have thus felt the suggestive sorcery of this sublime Statue. But the mind so influenced must be one to respond to sublime emotions, since such was the emotion which inspired the Artist. If susceptible only to the gay and beautiful, it will not answer. For this is not the Aurora of golden purple, of laughing flowers and jewelled dew-drops; but the dark Enchantress, enthroned on rocks, or craggy mountains, and whose proper empire is the shadowy confines of light and darkness. How all this is done, we shall not attempt to explain. Perhaps the Artist himself could not answer; as to the _quo modo_ in every particular, we doubt if it were possible to satisfy another. He may tell us, indeed, that having imagined certain appearances and effects peculiar to the Time, he endeavoured to imbue, as it were, some _human form_ with the sentiment they awakened, so that the embodied sentiment should associate itself in the spectator's mind with similar images; and further endeavoured, that the _form_ selected should, by its air, attitude, and gigantic proportions, also excite the ideas of vastness, solemnity, and repose; adding to this that indefinite expression, which, while it is felt to act, still leaves no trace of its indistinct action. So far, it is true, he may retrace the process; but of the _informing life_ that quickened his fiction, thus presenting the presiding Spirit of that ominous Time, he knows nothing but that he felt it, and imparted it to the insensible marble. And now the question will naturally occur, Is all that has been done by the learned in Art, to establish certain canons of Proportion, utterly useless? By no means. If rightly applied, and properly considered,--as it seems to us they must have been by the great artists of Antiquity,--as _expedient fictions_, they undoubtedly deserve at least a careful examination. And, inasmuch as they are the result of a comparison of the finest actual forms through successive ages, and as they indicate the general limits which Nature has been observed to assign to her noblest works, they are so far to be valued. But it must not be forgotten, that, while a race, or class, may be generally marked by a certain average height and breadth, or curve and angle, still is every class and race composed of _Individuals_, who must needs, as such, differ from each other; and though the difference be slight, yet is it "the little more, or the little less," which often separates the great from the mean, the wise from the foolish, in human character;--nay, the widest chasms are sometimes made by a few lines: so that, in every individual case, the limits in question are rather to be departed from, than strictly adhered to. The canon of the Schools is easily mastered by every student who has only memory; yet of the hundreds who apply it, how few do so to any purpose! Some ten or twenty, perhaps, call up life from the quarry, and flesh and blood from the canvas; the rest conjure in vain with their canon; they call up nothing but the dead measures. Whence the difference? The answer is obvious,--In the different minds they each carry to their labors. But let us trace, with the Artist, the beginning and progress of a successful work; a picture, for instance. His method of proceeding may enable us to ascertain how far he is assisted by the science, so called, of which we are speaking. He adjusts the height and breadth of his figures according to the canon, either by the division of heads or faces, as most convenient. By these means, he gets the general divisions in the easiest and most expeditious way. But could he not obtain them without such aid? He would answer, Yes, by the eye alone; but it would be a waste of time were he so to proceed, since he would have to do, and undo, perhaps twenty times, before he could erect this simple scaffolding; whereas, by applying these rules, whose general truth is already admitted, he accomplishes his object in a few minutes. Here we admit the use of the canon, and admire the facility with which it enables his hand, almost without the aid of a thought, thus to lay out his work. But here ends the science; and here begins what may seem to many the work of mutilation: a leg, an arm, a trunk, is increased, or diminished; line after line is erased, or retrenched, or extended, again and again, till not a trace remains of the original draught. If he is asked now by what he is guided in these innumerable changes, he can only answer, By the feeling within me. Nor can he better tell _how_ he knows when he has _hit the mark_. The same feeling responds to its truth; and he repeats his attempts until that is satisfied. It would appear, then, that in the Mind alone is to be found the true or ultimate Rule,--if, indeed, that can be called a rule which changes its measure with every change of character. It is therefore all-important that every aid be sought which may in any way contribute to the due developement of the mental powers; and no one will doubt the efficiency here of a good general education. As to the course of study, that must be left in a great measure to be determined by the student; it will be best indicated by his own natural wants. We may observe, however, that no species of knowledge can ever be _oppressive_ to real genius, whose peculiar privilege is that of subordinating all things to the paramount desire. But it is not likely that a mind so endowed will be long diverted by any studies that do not either strengthen its powers by exercise, or have a direct bearing on some particular need. If the student be a painter, or a sculptor, he will not need to be told that a knowledge of the human being, in all his complicated springs of action, is not more essential to the poet than to him. Nor will a true Artist require to be reminded, that, though _himself_ must be his ultimate dictator and judge, the allegiance of the world is not to be commanded either by a dreamer or a dogmatist. And nothing, perhaps, would be more likely to secure him from either character, than the habit of keeping his eyes open,--nay, his very heart; nor need he fear to open it to the whole world, since nothing not kindred will enter there to abide; for "Evil into the mind ... May come and go, so unapproved, and leave No spot or blame behind." And he may also be sure that a pure heart will shed a refining light on his intellect, which it may not receive from any other source. It cannot be supposed that an Artist, so disciplined, will overlook the works of his predecessors,--especially those exquisite remains of Antiquity which time has spared to us. But to his own discretion must be left the separating of the factitious from the true,--a task of some moment; for it cannot be denied that a mere antiquarian respect for whatever is ancient has preserved, with the good, much that is worthless. Indeed, it is to little purpose that the finest forms are set before us, if we _feel_ not their truth. And here it may be well to remark, that an injudicious _word_ has often given a wrong direction to the student, from which he has found it difficult to recover when his maturer mind has perceived the error. It is a common thing to hear such and such statues, or pictures, recommended as _models_. If the advice is followed,--as it too often is _literally_,--the consequence must be an offensive mannerism; for, if repeating himself makes an artist a mannerist, he is still more likely to become one if he repeat another. There is but one model that will not lead him astray,--which is Nature: we do not mean what is merely obvious to the senses, but whatever is so acknowledged by the mind. So far, then, as the ancient statues are found to represent her,--and the student's own feeling must be the judge of that,--they are undoubtedly both true and important objects of study, as presenting not only a wider, but a higher view of Nature, than might else be commanded, were they buried with their authors; since, with the finest forms of the fairest portion of the earth, we have also in them the realized Ideas of some of the greatest minds. In like manner may we extend our sphere of knowledge by the study of all those productions of later ages which have stood this test. There is no school from which something may not be learned. But chiefly to the Italian should the student be directed, who would enlarge his views on the present subject, and especially to the works of Raffaelle and Michael Angelo; in whose highest efforts we have, so to speak, certain revelations of Nature which could only have been made by her privileged seers. And we refer to them more particularly, as to the two great sovereigns of the two distinct empires of Truth,--the Actual and the Imaginative; in which their claims are acknowledged by _that_ within us, of which we know nothing but that it _must_ respond to all things true. We refer to them, also, as important examples in their mode of study; in which it is evident that, whatever the source of instruction, it was never considered as a law of servitude, but rather as the means of giving visible shape to their own conceptions. From the celebrated antique fragment, called the Torso, Michael Angelo is said to have constructed his forms. If this be true,--and we have no reason to doubt it,--it could nevertheless have been to him little more than a hint. But that is enough to a man of genius, who stands in need, no less than others, of a point to start from. There was something in this fragment which he seems to have felt, as if of a kindred nature to the unembodied creatures in his own mind; and he pondered over it until he mastered the spell of its author. He then turned to his own, to the germs of life that still awaited birth, to knit their joints, to attach the tendons, to mould the muscles,--finally, to sway the limbs by a mighty will. Then emerged into being that gigantic race of the Sistina,--giants in mind no less than in body, that appear to have descended as from another planet. His Prophets and Sibyls seem to carry in their persons the commanding evidence of their mission. They neither look nor move like beings to be affected by the ordinary concerns of life; but as if they could only be moved by the vast of human events, the fall of empires, the extinction of nations; as if the awful secrets of the future had overwhelmed in them all present sympathies. As we have stood before these lofty apparitions of the painter's mind, it has seemed to us impossible that the most vulgar spectator could have remained there irreverent. With many critics it seems to have been doubted whether much that we now admire in Raffaelle would ever have been but for his great contemporary. Be this as it may, it is a fact of history, that, after seeing the works of Michael Angelo, both his form and his style assumed a breadth and grandeur which they possessed not before. And yet these great artists had little, if any thing, in common; a sufficient proof that an original mind may owe, and even freely acknowledge, its impetus to another without any self-sacrifice. As Michael Angelo adopted from others only what accorded with his own peculiar genius, so did Raffaelle; and, wherever collected, the materials of both could not but enter their respective minds as their natural aliment. The genius of Michael Angelo was essentially _Imaginative_. It seems rarely to have been excited by the objects with which we are daily familiar; and when he did treat them, it was rather as things past, as they appear to us through the atmosphere of the hallowing memory. We have a striking instance of this in his statue of Lorenzo de' Medici; where, retaining of the original only enough to mark the individual, and investing the rest with an air of grandeur that should accord with his actions, he has left to his country, not a mere effigy of the person, but an embodiment of the mind; a portrait for posterity, in which the unborn might recognize Lorenzo the Magnificent. But the mind of Raffaelle was an ever-flowing fountain of human sympathies; and in all that concerns man, in his vast varieties and complicated relations, from the highest forms of majesty to the humblest condition of humanity, even to the maimed and misshapen, he may well be called a master. His Apostles, his philosophers, and most ordinary subordinates, are all to us as living beings; nor do we feel any doubt that they all had mothers, and brothers, and kindred. In the assemblage of the Apostles (already referred to) at the Death of Ananias, we look upon men whom the effusion of the Spirit has equally sublimated above every unholy thought; a common power seems to have invested them all with a preternatural majesty. Yet not an iota of the _individual_ is lost in any one; the gentle bearing and amenity of John still follow him in his office of almoner; nor in Peter does the deep repose of the erect attitude of the Apostle, as he deals the death-stroke to the offender by a simple bend of his finger, subdue the energetic, sanguine temperament of the Disciple. If any man may be said to have reigned over the hearts of his fellows, it was Raffaelle Sanzio. Not that he knew better what was in the hearts and minds of men than many others, but that he better understood their relations to the external. In this the greatest names in Art fall before him; in this he has no rival; and, however derived, or in whatever degree improved by study, in him it seems to have risen to intuition. We know not how he touches and enthralls us; as if he had wrought with the simplicity of Nature, we see no effort; and we yield as to a living influence, sure, yet inscrutable. It is not to be supposed that these two celebrated Artists were at all times successful. Like other men, they had their moments of weakness, when they fell into manner, and gave us diagrams, instead of life. Perhaps no one, however, had fewer lapses of this nature than Raffaelle; and yet they are to be found in some of his best works. We shall notice now only one instance,--the figure of St. Catherine in the admirable picture of the Madonna di Sisto; in which we see an evident rescript from the Antique, with all the received lines of beauty, as laid down by the analyst,--apparently faultless, yet without a single inflection which the mind can recognize as allied to our sympathies; and we turn from it coldly, as from the work of an artificer, not of an Artist. But not so can we turn from the intense life, that seems almost to breathe upon us from the celestial group of the Virgin and her Child, and from the Angels below: in these we have the evidence of the divine afflatus,--of inspired Art. In the works of Michael Angelo it were easy to point out numerous examples of a similar failure, though from a different cause; not from mechanically following the Antique, but rather from erecting into a model the exaggerated _shadow_ of his own practice; from repeating lines and masses that might have impressed us with grandeur but for the utter absence of the informing soul. And that such is the character--or rather want of character--of many of the figures in his Last Judgment cannot be gainsaid by his warmest admirers,--among whom there is no one more sincere than the present writer. But the failures of great men are our most profitable lessons,--provided only, that we have hearts and heads to respond to their success. In conclusion. We have now arrived at what appears to us the turning-point, that, by a natural reflux, must carry us back to our original Position; in other words, it seems to us clear, that the result of the argument is that which was anticipated in our main Proposition; namely, that no given number of Standard Forms can with certainty apply to the Human Being; that all Rules therefore, thence derived, can only be considered as _Expedient Fictions_, and consequently subject to be _overruled_ by the Artist,--in whose mind alone is the ultimate Rule; and, finally, that without an intimate acquaintance with Nature, in all its varieties of the moral, intellectual, and physical, the highest powers are wanting in their necessary condition of action, and are therefore incapable of supplying the Rule. Composition. The term Composition, in its general sense, signifies the union of things that were originally separate: in the art of Painting it implies, in addition to this, such an arrangement and reciprocal relation of these materials, as shall constitute them so many essential parts of a whole. In a true Composition of Art will be found the following characteristics:--First, Unity of Purpose, as expressing the general sentiment or intention of the Artist. Secondly, Variety of Parts, as expressed in the diversity of shape, quantity, and line. Thirdly, Continuity, as expressed by the connection of parts with each other, and their relation to the whole. Fourthly, Harmony of Parts. As these characteristics, like every thing which the mind can recognize as true, all have their origin in its natural desires, they may also be termed Principles; and as such we shall consider them. In order, however, to satisfy ourselves that they are truly such, and not arbitrary assumptions, or the traditional dogmas of Practice, it may be well to inquire whence is their authority; for, though the ultimate cause of pleasure and pain may ever remain to us a mystery, yet it is not so with their intermediate causes, or the steps that lead to them. With respect to Unity of Purpose, it is sufficient to observe, that, where the attention is at the same time claimed by two objects, having each a different end, they must of necessity break in upon that free state required of the mind in order to receive a full impression from either. It is needless to add, that such conflicting claims cannot, under any circumstances, be rendered agreeable. And yet this most obvious requirement of the mind has sometimes been violated by great Artists,--though not of authority in this particular, as we shall endeavour to show in another place. We proceed, meanwhile, to the second principle, namely, Variety; by which is to be understood _difference_, yet with _relation_ to a _common end_. Of a ruling Principle, or Law, we can only get a notion by observing the effects of certain things in relation to the mind; the uniformity of which leads us to infer something which is unchangeable and permanent. It is in this way that, either directly or indirectly, we learn the existence of certain laws that invariably control us. Thus, indirectly, from our disgust at monotony, we infer the necessity of variety. But variety, when carried to excess, results in weariness. Some limitation, therefore, seems no less needed. It is, however, obvious, that all attempts to fix the limit to Variety, that shall apply as a universal rule, must be nugatory, inasmuch as the _degree_ must depend on the _kind_, and the kind on the subject treated. For instance, if the subject be of a gay and light character, and the emotions intended to be excited of a similar nature, the variety may be carried to a far greater extent than in one of a graver character. In the celebrated Marriage at Cana, by Paul Veronese, we see it carried, perhaps, to its utmost limits; and to such an extent, that an hour's travel will hardly conduct us through all its parts; yet we feel no weariness throughout this journey, nay, we are quite unconscious of the time it has taken. It is no disparagement of this remarkable picture, if we consider the subject, not according to the title it bears, but as what the Artist has actually made it,--that is, as a Venetian entertainment; and also the effect intended, which was to delight by the exhibition of a gorgeous _pageant_. And in this he has succeeded to a degree unexampled; for literally the eye may be said to _dance_ through the picture, scarcely lighting on one part before it is drawn to another, and another, and another, as by a kind of witchery; while the subtile interlocking of each successive novelty leaves it no choice, but, seducing it onward, still keeps it in motion, till the giddy sense seems to call on the imagination to join in the revel; and every poetic temperament answers to the call, bringing visions of its own, that mingle with the painted crowd, exchanging forms, and giving them voice, like the creatures of a dream. To those who have never seen this picture, our account of its effect may perhaps appear incredible when they are told, that it not only has no story, but not a single expression to which you can attach a sentiment. It is nevertheless for this very reason that we here cite it, as a triumphant verification of those immutable laws of the mind to which the principles of Composition are supposed to appeal; where the simple technic exhibition, or illustration of _Principles_, without story, or thought, or a single definite expression, has still the power to possess and to fill us with a thousand delightful emotions. And here we cannot refrain from a passing remark on certain criticisms, which have obtained, as we think, an undeserved currency. To assert that such a work is solely addressed to the senses (meaning thereby that its only end is in mere pleasurable sensation) is to give the lie to our convictions; inasmuch as we find it appealing to one of the mightiest ministers of the Imagination,--the great Law of Harmony,--which cannot be _touched_ without awakening by its vibrations, so to speak, the untold myriads of sleeping forms that lie within its circle, that start up in tribes, and each in accordance with the congenial instrument that summons them to action. He who can thus, as it were, embody an abstraction is no mere pander to the senses. And who that has a modicum of the imaginative would assert of one of Haydn's Sonatas, that its effect on him was no other than sensuous? Or who would ask for the _story_ in one of our gorgeous autumnal sunsets? In subjects of a grave or elevated kind, the Variety will be found to diminish in the same degree in which they approach the Sublime. In the raising of Lazarus, by Lievens, we have an example of the smallest possible number of parts which the nature of such a subject would admit. And, though a different conception might authorize a much greater number, yet we do not feel in this any deficiency; indeed, it may be doubted if the addition of even one more part would not be felt as obtrusive. By the term _parts_ we are not to be understood as including the minutiae of dress or ornament, or even the several members of a group, which come more properly under the head of detail; we apply the term only to those prominent divisions which constitute the essential features of a composition. Of these the Sublime admits the fewest. Nor is the limitation arbitrary. By whatever causes the stronger passions or higher faculties of the mind become pleasurably excited, if they be pushed as it were beyond their supposed limits, till a sense of the indefinite seems almost to partake of the infinite, to these causes we affix the epithet _Sublime._ It is needless to inquire if such an effect can be produced by any thing short of the vast and overpowering, much less by the gradual approach or successive accumulation of any number of separate forces. Every one can answer from his own experience. We may also add, that the pleasure which belongs to the deeper emotions always trenches on pain; and the sense of pain leads to reaction; so that, singly roused, they will rise but to fall, like men at a breach,--leaving a conquest, not over the living, but the dead. The effect of the Sublime must therefore be sudden, and to be sudden, simple, scarce seen till felt; coming like a blast, bending and levelling every thing before it, till it passes into space. So comes this marvellous emotion; and so vanishes,--to where no straining of our mortal faculties will ever carry them. To prevent misapprehension, we may here observe, that, though the parts be few, it does not necessarily follow that they should always consist of simple or single objects. This narrow inference has often led to the error of mistaking mere space for grandeur, especially with those who have wrought rather from theory than from the true possession of their subjects. Hence, by the mechanical arrangement of certain large and sweeping masses of light and shadow, we are sometimes surprised into a momentary expectation of a sublime impression, when a nearer approach gives us only the notion of a vast blank. And the error lies in the misconception of a mass. For a mass is not a _thing_, but the condition of _things_; into which, should the subject require it, a legion, a host, may be compressed, an army with banners,--yet so that they break not the unity of their Part, that technic form to which they are subordinate. The difference between a Part and a Mass is, that a Mass may include, _per se_, many Parts, yet, in relation to a Whole, is no more than a single component. Perhaps the same distinction may be more simply expressed, if we define it as only a larger division, including several _parts_, which may be said to be analogous to what is termed the detail of a _Part_. Look at the ocean in a storm,--at that single wave. How it grows before us, building up its waters as with conscious life, till its huge head overlooks the mast! A million of lines intersect its surface, a myriad of bubbles fleck it with light; yet its terrible unity remains unbroken. Not a bubble or a line gives a thought of minuteness; they flash and flit, ere the eye can count them, leaving only their aggregate, in the indefinite sense of multitudinous motion: take them away, and you take from the _mass_ the very sign of its power, that fearful impetus which makes it what it is,--a moving mountain of water. We have thus endeavoured, in the opposite characters of the Sublime and the Gay or Magnificent, to exhibit the two extremes of Variety; of the intermediate degrees it is unnecessary to speak, since in these two is included all that is applicable to the rest. Though it is of vital importance to every composition that there be variety of Lines, little can be said on the subject in addition to what has been advanced in relation to parts, that is, to shape and quantity; both having a common origin. By a line in Composition is meant something very different from the geometrical definition. Originally, it was no doubt used as a metaphor; but the needs of Art have long since converted this, and many other words of like application, (as _tone_, &c.,) into technical terms. _Line_ thus signifies the course or medium through which the eye is led from one part of the picture to another. The indication of this course is various and multiform, appertaining equally to shape, to color, and to light and dark; in a word, to whatever attracts and keeps the eye in motion. For the regulation of these lines there is no rule absolute, except that they vary and unite; nor is the last strictly necessary, it being sufficient if they so terminate that the transition from one to another is made naturally, and without effort, by the imagination. Nor can any laws be laid down as to their peculiar character: this must depend on the nature of the subject. In the wild and stormy scenes of Salvator Rosa, they break upon us as with the angular flash of lightning; the eye is dashed up one precipice only to be dashed down another; then, suddenly hurried to the sky, it shoots up, almost in a direct line, to some sharp-edged rock; whence pitched, as it were, into a sea of clouds, bellying with circles, it partakes their motion, and seems to reel, to roll, and to plunge with them into the depths of air. If we pass from Salvator to Claude, we shall find a system of lines totally different. Our first impression from Claude is that of perfect _unity_, and this we have even before we are conscious of a single image; as if, circumscribing his scenes by a magic circle, he had imposed his own mood on all who entered it. The _spell_ then opens ere it seems to have begun, acting upon us with a vague sense of limitless expanse, yet so continuous, so gentle, so imperceptible in its remotest gradations, as scarcely to be felt, till, combining with unity, we find the feeling embodied in the complete image of intellectual repose,--fulness and rest. The mind thus disposed, the charmed eye glides into the scene: a soft, undulating light leads it on, from bank to bank, from shrub to shrub; now leaping and sparkling over pebbly brooks and sunny sands; now fainter and fainter, dying away down shady slopes, then seemingly quenched in some secluded dell; yet only for a moment,--for a dimmer ray again carries it onward, gently winding among the boles of trees and rambling vines, that, skirting the ascent, seem to hem in the twilight; then emerging into day, it flashes in sheets over towers and towns, and woods and streams, when it finally dips into an ocean, so far off, so twin-like with the sky, that the doubtful horizon, unmarked by a line, leaves no point of rest: and now, as in a flickering arch, the fascinated eye seems to sail upward like a bird, wheeling its flight through a mottled labyrinth of clouds, on to the zenith; whence, gently inflected by some shadowy mass, it slants again downward to a mass still deeper, and still to another, and another, until it falls into the darkness of some massive tree,--focused like midnight in the brightest noon: there stops the eye, instinctively closing, and giving place to the Soul, there to repose and to dream her dreams of romance and love. From these two examples of their general effect, some notion may be gathered of the different systems of the two Artists; and though no mention has been made of the particular lines employed, their distinctive character may readily be inferred from the kind of motion given to the eye in the descriptions we have attempted. In the rapid, abrupt, contrasted, whirling movement in the one, we have an exposition of an irregular combination of curves and angles; while the simple combination of the parabola and the serpentine will account for all the imperceptible transitions in the other. It would be easy to accumulate examples from other Artists who differ in the economy of line not only from these but from each other; as Raffaelle, Michael Angelo, Correggio, Titian, Poussin,--in a word, every painter deserving the name of master: for lines here may be called the tracks of thought, in which we follow the author's mind through his imaginary creations. They hold, indeed, the same relation to Painting that versification does to Poetry, an element of style; for what is meant by a line in Painting is analogous to that which in the sister art distinguishes the abrupt gait of Crabbe from the sauntering walk of Cowley, and the "long, majestic march" of Dryden from the surging sweep of Milton. Of Continuity little needs be said, since its uses are implied in the explanation of Line; indeed, all that can be added will be expressed in its essential relation to a _whole_, in which alone it differs from a mere line. For, though a line (as just explained) supposes a continuous course, yet a line, _per se_, does not necessarily imply any relation to other lines. It will still be a line, though standing alone; but the principle of continuity may be called the unifying spirit of every line. It is therefore that we have distinguished it as a separate principle. In fact, if we judge from feeling, the only true test, it is no paradox to say that the excess of variety must inevitably end in monotony; for, as soon as the sense of fatigue begins, every new variety but adds to the pain, till the succeeding impressions are at last resolved into continuous pain. But, supposing a limit to variety, where the mind may be pleasurably excited, the very sense of pleasure, when it reaches the extreme point, will create the desire of renewing it, and naturally carry it back to the point of starting; thus superinducing, with the renewed enjoyment, the fulness of pleasure, in the sense of a whole. It is by this summing up, as it were, of the memory, through recurrence, not that we perceive,--which is instantaneous,--but that we enjoy any thing as a whole. If we have not observed it in others, some of us, perhaps, may remember it in ourselves, when we have stood before some fine picture, though with a sense of pleasure, yet for many minutes in a manner abstracted,--silently passing through all its harmonious transitions without the movement of a muscle, and hardly conscious of action, till we have suddenly found ourselves returning on our steps. Then it was,--as if we had no eyes till then,--that the magic Whole poured in upon us, and vouched for its truth in an outbreak of rapture. The fourth and last division of our subject is the Harmony of Parts; or the essential agreement of one part with another, and of each with the whole. In addition to our first general definition, we may further observe, that by a Whole in Painting is signified the complete expression, by means of form, color, light, and shadow, of one thought, or series of thoughts, having for their end some particular truth, or sentiment, or action, or mood of mind. We say _thought_, because no images, however put together, can ever be separated by the mind from other and extraneous images, so as to comprise a positive whole, unless they be limited by some intellectual boundary. A picture wanting this may have fine parts, but is not a Composition, which implies parts united to each other, and also suited to some specific purpose, otherwise they cannot be known as united. Since Harmony, therefore, cannot be conceived of without reference to a whole, so neither can a whole be imagined without fitness of parts. To give this fitness, then, is the ultimate task and test of genius: it is, in fact, calling form and life out of what before was but a chaos of materials, and making them the subject and exponents of the will. As the master-principle, also, it is the disposer, regulator, and modifier of shape, line, and quantity, adding, diminishing, changing, shaping, till it becomes clear and intelligible, and it finally manifests itself in pleasurable identity with the harmony within us. To reduce the operation of this principle to precise rules is, perhaps, without the province of human power: we might else expect to see poets and painters made by recipe. As in many other operations of the mind, we must here be content to note a few of the more tangible facts, if we may be allowed the phrase, which have occasionally been gathered by observation during the process. The first fact presented is, that equal quantities, when coming together, produce monotony, and, if at all admissible, are only so when absolutely needed, at a proper distance, to echo back or recall the theme, which would otherwise be lost in the excess of variety. We speak of quantity here as of a mass, not of the minutiae; for _the essential components_ of a part may often be _equal quantities_, (as in a piece of architecture, of armour, &c.,) which are analogous to poetic feet, for instance, a spondee. The same effect we find from parallel lines and repetition of shapes. Hence we obtain the law of a limited variety. The next is, that the quantities must be so disposed as to balance each other; otherwise, if all or too many of the larger be on one side, they will endanger the imaginary circle, or other figure, by which every composition is supposed to be bounded, making it appear "lop-sided," or to be falling either in upon the smaller quantities, or out of the picture: from which we infer the necessity of balance. If, without others to counteract and restrain them, the parts converge, the eye, being forced to the centre, becomes stationary; in like manner, if all diverge, it is forced to fly off in tangents: as if the great laws of Attraction and Repulsion were here also essential, and illustrated in miniature. If we add to these Breadth, I believe we shall have enumerated all the leading phenomena of Harmony, which experience has enabled us to establish as rules. By _breadth_ is meant such a massing of the quantities, whether by color, light, or shadow, as shall enable the eye to pass without obstruction, and by easy transitions, from one to another, so that it shall appear to take in the whole at a glance. This may be likened to both the exordium and peroration of a discourse, including as well the last as the first general idea. It is, in other words, a simple, connected, and concise exposition and summary of what the artist intends. We have thus endeavoured to arrange and to give a logical permanency to the several principles of Composition. It is not to be supposed, however, that in these we have every principle that might be named; but they are all, as we conceive, that are of universal application. Of other minor, or rather personal ones, since they pertain to the individual, the number can only be limited by the variety of the human intellect, to which these may be considered as so many simple elementary guides; not to create genius, but to enable it to understand itself, and by a distinct knowledge of its own operations to correct its mistakes,--in a word, to establish the landmarks between the flats of commonplace and the barrens of extravagance. And, though the personal or individual principles referred to may not with propriety be cited as examples in a general treatise like the present, they are not only not to be overlooked, but are to be regarded by the student as legitimate objects of study. To the truism, that we can only judge of other minds by a knowledge of our own, we may add its converse as especially true. In that mysterious tract of the intellect, which we call the Imagination, there would seem to lie hid thousands of unknown forms, of which we are often for years unconscious, until they start up awakened by the footsteps of a stranger. Hence it is that the greatest geniuses, as presenting a wider field for excitement, are generally found to be the widest likers; not so much from affinity, or because they possess the precise kinds of excellence which they admire, but often from the _differences_ which these very excellences in others, as the exciting cause, awaken in themselves. Such men may be said to be endowed with a double vision, an inward and an outward; the inward seeing not unfrequently the reverse of what is seen by the outward. It was this which caused Annibal Caracci to remark, on seeing for the first time a picture by Caravaggio, that he thought a style totally opposite might be made very captivating; and the hint, it is said, sunk deep into and was not lost on Guido, who soon after realized what his master had thus imagined. Perhaps no one ever caught more from others than Raffaelle. I do not allude to his "borrowing," so ingeniously, not soundly, defended by Sir Joshua, but rather to his excitability, (if I may here apply a modern term,)--that inflammable temperament, which took fire, as it were, from the very friction of the atmosphere. For there was scarce an excellence, within his knowledge, of his predecessors or contemporaries, which did not in a greater or less degree contribute to the developement of his powers; not as presenting models of imitation, but as shedding new light on his own mind, and opening to view its hidden treasures. Such to him were the forms of the Antique, of Leonardo da Vinci, and of Michael Angelo, and the breadth and color of Fra Bartolomeo,--lights that first made him acquainted with himself, not lights that he followed; for he was a follower of none. To how many others he was indebted for his impulses cannot now be known; but the new impetus he was known to have received from every new excellence has led many to believe, that, had he lived to see the works of Titian, he would have added to his grace, character, and form, and with equal originality, the splendor of color. "The design of Michael Angelo and the color of Titian," was the inscription of Tintoretto over the door of his painting-room. Whether he intended to designate these two artists as his future models matters not; but that he did not follow them is evidenced in his works. Nor, indeed, could he: the temptation to _follow_, which his youthful admiration had excited, was met by an interdiction not easily withstood,--the decree of his own genius. And yet the decree had probably never been heard but for these very masters. Their presence stirred him; and, when he thought of serving, his teeming mind poured out its abundance, making _him_ a master to future generations. To the forms of Michael Angelo he was certainly indebted for the elevation of his own; there, however, the inspiration ended. With Titian he was nearly allied in genius; yet he thought rather with than after him,--at times even beyond him. Titian, indeed, may be said to have first opened his eyes to the mysteries of nature; but they were no sooner opened, than he rushed into them with a rapidity and daring unwont to the more cautious spirit of his master; and, though irregular, eccentric, and often inferior, yet sometimes he made his way to poetical regions, of whose celestial hues even Titian himself had never dreamt. We might go on thus with every great name in Art. But these examples are enough to show how much even the most original minds, not only may, but _must_, owe to others; for the social law of our nature applies no less to the intellect than to the affections. When applied to genius, it may be called the social inspiration, the simple statement of which seems to us of itself a solution of the oft-repeated question, "Why is it that genius always appears in clusters?" To Nature, indeed, we must all at last recur, as to the only true and permanent foundation of real excellence. But Nature is open to all men alike, in her beauty, her majesty, her grandeur, and her sublimity. Yet who will assert that all men see, or, if they see, are impressed by these her attributes alike? Nay, so great is the difference, that one might almost suppose them inhabitants of different worlds. Of Claude, for instance, it is hardly a metaphor to say that he lived in two worlds during his natural life; for Claude the pastry-cook could never have seen the same world that was made visible to Claude the painter. It was human sympathy, acting through human works, that gave birth to his intellect at the age of forty. There is something, perhaps, ludicrous in the thought of an infant of forty. Yet the fact is a solemn one, that thousands die whose minds have never been born. We could not, perhaps, instance a stronger confutation of the vulgar error which opposes learning to genius, than the simple history of this remarkable man. In all that respects the mind, he was literally a child, till accident or necessity carried him to Rome; for, when the office of color-grinder, added to that of cook, by awakening his curiosity, first excited a love for the Art, his progress through its rudiments seems to have been scarcely less slow and painful than that of a child through the horrors of the alphabet. It was the struggle of one who was learning to think; but, the rudiments being mastered, he found himself suddenly possessed, not as yet of thought, but of new forms of language; then came thoughts, pouring from his mind, and filling them as moulds, without which they had never, perhaps, had either shape or consciousness. Now what was this new language but the product of other minds,--of successive minds, amending, enlarging, elaborating, through successive ages, till, fitted to all its wants, it became true to the Ideal, and the vernacular tongue of genius through all time? The first inventor of verse was but the prophetic herald of Homer, Shakspeare, and Milton. And what was Rome then but the great University of Art, where all this accumulated learning was treasured? Much has been said of self-taught geniuses, as opposed to those who have been instructed by others: but the distinction, it appears to us, is without a difference; for it matters not whether we learn in a school or by ourselves,--we cannot learn any thing without in some way recurring to other minds. Let us imagine a poet who had never read, never heard, never conversed with another. Now if he will not be taught in any thing by another, he must strictly preserve this independent negation. Truly the verses of such a poet would be a miracle. Of similar self-taught painters we have abundant examples in our aborigines,--but nowhere else. But, while we maintain, as a positive law of our nature, the necessity of mental intercourse with our fellow-creatures, in order to the full developement of the _individual_, we are far from implying that any thing which is actually taken from others can by any process become our own, that is, original. We may reverse, transpose, diminish, or add to it, and so skilfully that no scam or mutilation shall be detected; and yet we shall not make it appear original,--in other words, _true_, the offspring of _one_ mind. A borrowed thought will always be borrowed; as it will be felt as such in its _effect_, even while we are ourselves unconscious of the fact: for it will want that _effect of life_, which only the first mind can give it[3]. Of the multifarious retailers of the second-hand in style, the class is so numerous as to make a selection difficult: they meet us at every step in the history of the Art. One instance, however, may suffice, and we select Vernet, as uniting in himself a singular and striking example of the _false_ and the _true_; and also as the least invidious instance, inasmuch as we may prove our position by opposing him to himself. In the landscapes of Vernet, (when not mere views,) we see the imitator of Salvator, or rather copyist of his lines; and these we have in all their angular nakedness, where rocks, trees, and mountains are so jagged, contorted, and tumbled about, that nothing but an explosion could account for their assemblage. They have not the relation which we sometimes find even in a random collocation, as in the accidental pictures of a discolored wall; for the careful hand of the contriver is traced through all this disorder; nay, the very execution, the conventional dash of pencil, betrays what a lawyer would call the _malice prepense_ of the Artist in their strange disfigurement. To many this may appear like hypercriticism; but we sincerely believe that no one, even among his admirers, has ever been deceived into a real sympathy with such technical flourishes: they are felt as factitious; as mere diagrams of composition deduced from pictures. Now let us look at one of his Storms at Sea, when he wrought from his own mind. A dark leaden atmosphere prepares us for something fearful: suddenly a scene of tumult, fierce, wild, disastrous, bursts upon us; and we feel the shock drive, as it were, every other thought from the mind: the terrible vision now seizes the imagination, filling it with sound and motion: we see the clouds fly, the furious waves one upon another dashing in conflict, and rolling, as if in wrath, towards the devoted ship: the wind blows from the canvas; we hear it roar through her shrouds; her masts bend like twigs, and her last forlorn hope, the close-reefed foresail, streams like a tattered flag: a terrible fascination still constrains us to look, and a dim, rocky shore looms on her lee: then comes the dreadful cry of "Breakers ahead!" the crew stand appalled, and the master's trumpet is soundless at his lips. This is the uproar of nature, and we _feel_ it to be _true_; for here every line, every touch, has a meaning. The ragged clouds, the huddled waves, the prostrate ship, though forced by contrast into the sharpest angles, all agree, opposed as they seem,--evolving harmony out of apparent discord. And this is Genius, which no criticism can ever disprove. But all great names, it is said, must have their shadows. In our Art they have many shadows, or rather I should say, reflections; which are more or less distinct according to their proximity to the living originals, and, like the images in opposite mirrors, becoming themselves reflected and re-reflected with a kind of battledoor alternation, grow dimmer and dimmer till they vanish from mere distance. Thus have the great schools of Italy, Flanders, and Holland lived and walked after death, till even their ghosts have become familiar to us. We would not, however, be understood as asserting that we receive pleasure only from original works: this would be contradicting the general experience. We admit, on the contrary, that there are hundreds, nay, thousands, of pictures having no pretensions to originality of any kind, which still afford pleasure; as, indeed, do many things out of the Art, which we know to be second-hand, or imperfect, and even trifling. Thus grace of manner, for instance, though wholly unaided by a single definite quality, will often delight us, and a ready elocution, with scarce a particle of sense, make commonplace agreeable; and it seems to be, that the pain of mental inertness renders action so desirable, that the mind instinctively surrounds itself with myriads of objects, having little to recommend them but the property of keeping it from stagnating. And we are far from denying a certain value to any of these, provided they be innocent: there are times when even the wisest man will find commonplace wholesome. All we have attempted to show is, that the effect of an original work, as opposed to an imitation, is marked by a difference, not of degree merely, but of kind; and that this difference cannot fail to be felt, not, indeed, by every one, but by any competent judge, that is, any one in whom is developed, by natural exercise, that internal sense by which the spirit of life is discerned. * * * * * Every original work becomes such from the infusion, so to speak, of the mind of the Author; and of this the fresh materials of nature alone seem susceptible. The imitated works of man cannot be endued with a second life, that is, with a second mind: they are to the imitator as air already breathed. * * * * * What has been said in relation to Form--that the works of our predecessors, so far as they are recognized as true, are to be considered as an extension of Nature, and therefore proper objects of study--is equally applicable to Composition. But it is not to be understood that this extended Nature (if we may so term it) is in any instance to be imitated as a _whole_, which would be bringing our minds into bondage to another; since, as already shown in the second Discourse, every original work is of necessity impressed with the mind of its author. If it be asked, then, what is the advantage of such study, we shall endeavour to show, that it is not merely, as some have supposed, in enriching the mind with materials, but rather in widening our view of excellence, and, by consequent excitement, expanding our own powers of observation, reflection, and performance. By increasing the power of performance, we mean enlarging our knowledge of the technical process, or the medium through which thought is expressed; a most important species of knowledge, which, if to be otherwise attained, is at least most readily learned from those who have left us the result of their experience. This technical process, which has been well called the language of the Art, includes, of course, all that pertains to Composition, which, as the general medium, also contains most of the elements of this peculiar tongue. From the gradual progress of the various arts of civilization, it would seem that only under the action of some great _social_ law can man arrive at the full developement of his powers. In our Art especially is this true; for the experience of one man must necessarily be limited, particularly if compared with the endless varieties of form and effect which diversify the face of Nature; and the finest of these, too, in their very nature transient, or of rare occurrence, and only known to occur to those who are prepared to seize them in their rapid transit; so that in one short life, and with but one set of senses, the greatest genius can learn but little. The Artist, therefore, must needs owe much to the living, and more to the dead, who are virtually his companions, inasmuch as through their works they still live to our sympathies. Besides, in our great predecessors we may be said to possess a multiplied life, if life be measured by the number of acts,--which, in this case, we may all appropriate to ourselves, as it were by a glance. For the dead in Art may well be likened to the hardy pioneers of our own country, who have successively cleared before us the swamps and forests that would have obstructed our progress, and opened to us lands which the efforts of no individual, however persevering, would enable him to reach. Aphorisms. Sentences Written by Mr. Allston on the Walls of His Studio. 1. "No genuine work of Art ever was, or ever can be, produced but for its own sake; if the painter does not conceive to please himself, he will not finish to please the world."--FUSELI. 2. If an Artist love his Art for its own sake, he will delight in excellence wherever he meets it, as well in the work of another as in his own. This is the test of a true love. 3. Nor is this genuine love compatible with a craving for distinction; where the latter predominates, it is sure to betray itself before contemporary excellence, either by silence, or (as a bribe to the conscience) by a modicum of praise. The enthusiasm of a mind so influenced is confined to itself. 4. Distinction is the consequence, never the object, of a great mind. 5. The love of gain never made a Painter; but it has marred many. 6. The most common disguise of Envy is in the praise of what is subordinate. 7. Selfishness in Art, as in other things, is sensibility kept at home. 8. The Devil's heartiest laugh is at a detracting witticism. Hence the phrase "devilish good" has sometimes a literal meaning. 9. The most intangible, and therefore the worst, kind of lie is a half truth. This is the peculiar device of a _conscientious_ detractor. 10. Reverence is an ennobling sentiment; it is felt to be degrading only by the vulgar mind, which would escape the sense of its own littleness by elevating itself into an antagonist of what is above it. He that has no pleasure in looking up is not fit so much as to look down. Of such minds are mannerists in Art; in the world, tyrants of all sorts. 11. No right judgment can ever be formed on any subject having a moral or intellectual bearing without benevolence; for so strong is man's natural self-bias, that, without this restraining principle, he insensibly becomes a competitor in all such cases presented to his mind; and, when the comparison is thus made personal, unless the odds be immeasurably against him, his decision will rarely be impartial. In other words, no one can see any thing as it really is through the misty spectacles of self-love. We must wish well to another in order to do him justice. Now the virtue in this good-will is not to blind us to his faults, but to our own rival and interposing merits. 12. In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate others; for injustice allowed at home is not likely to be corrected abroad. Never, therefore, expect justice from a vain man; if he has the negative magnanimity not to disparage you, it is the most you can expect. 13. The Phrenologists are right in placing the organ of self-love in the back of the head, it being there where a vain man carries his intellectual light; the consequence of which is, that every man he approaches is obscured by his own shadow. 14. Nothing is rarer than a solitary lie; for lies breed like Surinam toads; you cannot tell one but out it comes with a hundred young ones on its back. 15. If the whole world should agree to speak nothing but truth, what an abridgment it would make of speech! And what an unravelling there would be of the invisible webs which men, like so many spiders, now weave about each other! But the contest between Truth and Falsehood is now pretty well balanced. Were it not so, and had the latter the mastery, even language would soon become extinct, from its very uselessness. The present superfluity of words is the result of the warfare. 16. A witch's skiff cannot more easily sail in the teeth of the wind, than the human _eye_ lie against fact; but the truth will oftener quiver through lips with a lie upon them. 17. An open brow with a clenched hand shows any thing but an open purpose. 18. It is a hard matter for a man to lie _all over_. Nature having provided king's evidence in almost every member. The hand will sometimes act as a vane to show which way the wind blows, when every feature is set the other way; the knees smite together, and sound the alarm of fear, under a fierce countenance; and the legs shake with anger, when all above is calm. 19. Nature observes a variety even in her correspondences; insomuch that in parts which seem but repetitions there will be found a difference. For instance, in the human countenance, the two sides of which are never identical. Whenever she deviates into monotony, the deviation is always marked as an exception by some striking deficiency; as in idiots, who are the only persons that laugh equally on both sides of the mouth. The insipidity of many of the antique Statues may be traced to the false assumption of identity in the corresponding parts. No work wrought by _feeling_ (which, after all, is the ultimate rule of Genius) was ever marked by this monotony. 20. He is but half an orator who turns his hearers into spectators. The best gestures (_quoad_ the speaker) are those which he cannot help. An unconscious thump of the fist or jerk of the elbow is more to the purpose, (whatever that may be,) than the most graceful _cut-and-dried_ action. It matters not whether the orator personates a trip-hammer or a wind-mill; if his mill but move with the grist, or his hammer knead the iron beneath it, he will not fail of his effect. An impertinent gesture is more likely to knock down the orator than his opponent. 21. The only true independence is in humility; for the humble man exacts nothing, and cannot be mortified,--expects nothing, and cannot be disappointed. Humility is also a healing virtue; it will cicatrize a thousand wounds, which pride would keep for ever open. But humility is not the virtue of a fool; since it is not consequent upon any comparison between ourselves and others, but between what we are and what we ought to be,--which no man ever was. 22. The greatest of all fools is the proud fool,--who is at the mercy of every fool he meets. 23. There is an essential meanness in the wish to _get the better_ of any one. The only competition worthy, of a wise man is with himself. 24. He that argues for victory is but a gambler in words, seeking to enrich himself by another's loss. 25. Some men make their ignorance the measure of excellence; these are, of course, very fastidious critics; for, knowing little, they can find but little to like. 26. The Painter who seeks popularity in Art closes the door upon his own genius. 27. Popular excellence in one age is but the _mechanism_ of what was good in the preceding; in Art, the _technic_. 28. Make no man your idol, for the best man must have faults; and his faults will insensibly become yours, in addition to your own. This is as true in Art as in morals. 29. A man of genius should not aim at praise, except in the form of _sympathy_; this assures him of his success, since it meets the feeling which possessed himself. 30. Originality in Art is the individualizing the Universal; in other words, the impregnating some general truth with the individual mind. 31. The painter who is content with the praise of the world in respect to what does not satisfy himself, is not an artist, but an artisan; for though his reward be only praise, his pay is that of a mechanic,--for his time, and not for his art. 32. _Reputation_ is but a synonyme of _popularity_; dependent on suffrage, to be increased or diminished at the will of the voters. It is the creature, so to speak, of its particular age, or rather of a particular state of society; consequently, dying with that which sustained it. Hence we can scarcely go over a page of history, that we do not, as in a church-yard, tread upon some buried reputation. But fame cannot be voted down, having its immediate foundation in the essential. It is the eternal shadow of excellence, from which it can never be separated; nor is it ever made visible but in the light of an intellect kindred with that of its author. It is that light which projects the shadow which is seen of the multitude, to be wondered at and reverenced, even while so little comprehended as to be often confounded with the substance,--the substance being admitted from the shadow, as a matter of faith. It is the economy of Providence to provide such lights: like rising and setting stars, they follow each other through successive ages: and thus the monumental form of Genius stands for ever relieved against its own imperishable shadow. 33. All excellence of every kind is but variety of truth. If we wish, then, for something beyond the true, we wish for that which is false. According to this test, how little truth is there in Art! Little indeed! but how much is that little to him who feels it! 34. Fame does not depend on the _will_ of any man, but Reputation may be given or taken away. Fame is the sympathy of kindred intellects, and sympathy is not a subject of _willing_; while Reputation, having its source in the popular voice, is a sentence which may either be uttered or suppressed at pleasure. Reputation, being essentially contemporaneous, is always at the mercy of the envious and the ignorant; but Fame, whose very birth is _posthumous_, and which is only known _to exist by the echo of its footsteps through congenial minds_, can neither be increased nor diminished by any degree of will. 35. What _light_ is in the natural world, such is _fame_ in the intellectual; both requiring an _atmosphere_ in order to become perceptible. Hence the fame of Michael Angelo is, to some minds, a nonentity; even as the sun itself would be invisible _in vacuo_. 36. Fame has no necessary conjunction with Praise: it may exist without the breath of a word; it is a _recognition of excellence_, which _must be felt_, but need not be _spoken_. Even the envious must feel it,--feel it, and hate it, in silence. 37. I cannot believe that any man who deserved fame ever labored for it; that is, _directly_. For, as fame is but the contingent of excellence, it would be like an attempt to project a shadow, before its substance was obtained. Many, however, have so fancied. "I write, I paint, for fame," has often been repeated: it should have been, "I write, I paint, for reputation." All anxiety, therefore, about Fame should be placed to the account of Reputation. 38. A man may be pretty sure that he has not attained _excellence_, when it is not all in all to him. Nay, I may add, that, if he looks beyond it, he has not reached it. This is not the less true for being good _Irish_. 39. An original mind is rarely understood, until it has been _reflected_ from some half-dozen congenial with it, so averse are men to admitting the _true_ in an unusual form; whilst any novelty, however fantastic, however false, is greedily swallowed. Nor is this to be wondered at; for all truth demands a response, and few people care to _think_, yet they must have something to supply the place of thought. Every mind would appear original, if every man had the power of _projecting_ his own into the mind of others. 40. All effort at originality must end either in the quaint or the monstrous. For no man knows himself as an original; he can only believe it on the report of others to whom _he is made known_, as he is by the projecting power before spoken of. 41. There is one thing which no man, however generously disposed, can _give_, but which every one, however poor, is bound to _pay_. This is Praise. He cannot give it, because it is not his own,--since what is dependent for its very existence on something in another can never become to him a _possession_; nor can he justly withhold it, when the presence of merit claims it as a _consequence_. As praise, then, cannot be made a _gift_, so, neither, when not his due, can any man receive it: he may think he does, but he receives only _words_; for _desert_ being the essential condition of praise, there can be no reality in the one without the other. This is no fanciful statement; for, though praise may be withheld by the ignorant or envious, it cannot be but that, in the course of time, an existing merit will, on _some one_, produce its effects; inasmuch as the existence of any cause without its effect is an impossibility. A fearful truth lies at the bottom of this, an _irreversible justice_ for the weal or woe of him who confirms or violates it. * * * * * [From the back of a pencil sketch.] Let no man trust to the gentleness, the generosity, or seeming goodness of his heart, in the hope that they alone can safely bear him through the temptations of this world. This is a state of probation, and a perilous passage to the true beginning of life, where even the best natures need continually to be reminded of their weakness, and to find their only security in steadily referring all their thoughts, acts, affections, to the ultimate end of their being: yet where, imperfect as we are, there is no obstacle too mighty, no temptation too strong, to the truly humble in heart, who, distrusting themselves, seek to be sustained only by that holy Being who is life and power, and who, in his love and mercy, has promised to give to those that ask.--Such were my reflections, to which I was giving way on reading this melancholy story. If he is satisfied with them, he may rest assured that he is neither fitted for this world nor the next. Even in this, there are wrongs and sorrows which no human remedy can reach;--no, tears cannot restore what is lost. * * * * * [Written in a book of sketches, with a pencil.] A real debt of gratitude--that is, founded on a disinterested act of kindness--cannot be cancelled by any subsequent unkindness on the part of our benefactor. If the favor be of a pecuniary nature, we may, indeed, by returning an equal or greater sum, balance the moneyed part; but we cannot _liquidate_ the _kind motive_ by the setting off against it any number of unkind ones. For an after injury can no more _undo_ a previous kindness, than we can _prevent_ in the future what has happened in the past. So neither can a good act undo an ill one: a fearful truth! For good and evil have a moral _life_, which nothing in time can extinguish; the instant they _exist_, they start for Eternity. How, then, can a man who has _once_ sinned, and who has not of _himself_ cleansed his soul, be fit for heaven where no sin can enter? I seek not to enter into the mystery of the _atonement_, "which even the angels sought to comprehend and could not"; but I feel its truth in an unutterable conviction, and that, without it, all flesh must perish. Equally deep, too, and unalienable, is my conviction that "the fruit of sin is misery." A second birth to the soul is therefore a necessity which sin _forces_ upon us. Ay,--but not against the desperate _will_ that rejects it. This conclusion was not anticipated when I wrote the first sentence of the preceding paragraph. But it does not surprise me. For it is but a recurrence of what I have repeatedly experienced; namely, that I never lighted on _any truth_ which I _inwardly felt_ as such, however apparently remote from our religious being, (as, for instance, in the philosophy of my art,) that, by following it out, did not find its illustration and confirmation in some great doctrine of the Bible,--the only true philosophy, the sole fountain of light, where the dark questions of the understanding which have so long stood, like chaotic spectres, between the fallen soul and its reason, at once lose their darkness and their terror. The Hypochondriac.[4] He would not taste, but swallowed life at once; And scarce had reached his prime ere he had bolted, With all its garnish, mixed of sweet and sour, Full fourscore years. For he, in truth, did wot not What most he craved, and so devoured all; Then, with his gases, followed Indigestion, Making it food for night-mares and their foals. _Bridgen_.[5] It was the opinion of an ancient philosopher, that we can have no want for which Nature does not provide an appropriate gratification. As it regards our physical wants, this appears to be true. But there are moral cravings which extend beyond the world we live in; and, were we in a heathen age, would serve us with an unanswerable argument for the immortality of the soul. That these cravings are felt by all, there can be no doubt; yet that all feel them in the same degree would be as absurd to suppose, as that every man possesses equal sensibility or understanding. Boswell's desires, from his own account, seem to have been limited to reading Shakspeare in the other world,--whether with or without his commentators, he has left us to guess; and Newton probably pined for the sight of those distant stars whose light has not yet reached us. What originally was the particular craving of my own mind I cannot now recall; but that I had, even in my boyish days, an insatiable desire after something which always eluded me, I well remember. As I grew into manhood, my desires became less definite; and by the time I had passed through college, they seemed to have resolved themselves into a general passion for _doing_. It is needless to enumerate the different subjects which one after another engaged me. Mathematics, metaphysics, natural and moral philosophy, were each begun, and each in turn given up in a passion of love and disgust. It is the fate of all inordinate passions to meet their extremes; so was it with mine. Could I have pursued any of these studies with moderation, I might have been to this day, perhaps, both learned and happy. But I could be moderate in nothing. Not content with being employed, I must always be _busy_; and business, as every one knows, if long continued, must end in fatigue, and fatigue in disgust, and disgust in change, if that be practicable,--which unfortunately was my case. The restlessness occasioned by these half-finished studies brought on a severe fit of self-examination. Why is it, I asked myself, that these learned works, which have each furnished their authors with sufficient excitement to effect their completion, should thus weary me before I get midway into them? It is plain enough. As a reader I am merely a recipient, but the composer is an active agent; a vast difference! And now I can account for the singular pleasure, which a certain bad poet of my acquaintance always took in inflicting his verses on every one who would listen to him; each perusal being but a sort of mental echo of the original bliss of composition. I will set about writing immediately. Having, time out of mind, heard the epithet _great_ coupled with Historians, it was that, I believe, inclined me to write a history. I chose my subject, and began collating, and transcribing, night and day, as if I had not another hour to live; and on I went with the industry of a steam-engine; when it one day occurred to me, that, though I had been laboring for months, I had not yet had occasion for one original thought. Pshaw! said I, 't is only making new clothes out of old ones. I will have nothing more to do with history. As it is natural for a mind suddenly disgusted with mechanic toil to seek relief from its opposite, it can easily be imagined that my next resource was Poetry. Every one rhymes now-a-days, and so can I. Shall I write an Epic, or a Tragedy, or a Metrical Romance? Epics are out of fashion; even Homer and Virgil would hardly be read in our time, but that people are unwilling to admit their schooling to have been thrown away. As to Tragedy, I am a modern, and it is a settled thing that no modern _can_ write a tragedy; so I must not attempt that. Then for Metrical Romances,--why, they are now manufactured; and, as the Edinburgh Review says, may be "imported" by us "in bales." I will bind myself to no particular class, but give free play to my imagination. With this resolution I went to bed, as one going to be inspired. The morning came; I ate my breakfast, threw up the window, and placed myself in my elbow-chair before it. An hour passed, and nothing occurred to me. But this I ascribed to a fit of laughter that seized me, at seeing a duck made drunk by eating rum-cherries. I turned my back on the window. Another hour followed, then another, and another: I was still as far from poetry as ever; every object about me seemed bent against my abstraction; the card-racks fascinating me like serpents, and compelling me to read, as if I would get them by heart, "Dr. Joblin," "Mr. Cumberback," "Mr. Milton Bull," &c. &c. I took up my pen, drew a sheet of paper from my writing-desk, and fixed my eyes upon that;--'t was all in vain; I saw nothing on it but the watermark, _D. Ames_. I laid down the pen, closed my eyes, and threw my head back in the chair. "Are you waiting to be shaved, Sir?" said a familiar voice. I started up, and overturned my servant. "No, blockhead!"--"I am waiting to be inspired";--but this I added mentally. What is the cause of my difficulty? said I. Something within me seemed to reply, in the words of Lear, "Nothing comes of nothing." Then I must seek a subject. I ran over a dozen in a few minutes, chose one after another, and, though twenty thoughts very readily occurred on each, I was fain to reject them all; some for wanting pith, some for belonging to prose, and others for having been worn out in the service of other poets. In a word, my eyes began to open on the truth, and I felt convinced that _that_ only was poetry which a man writes because he cannot help writing; the irrepressible effluence of his secret being on every thing in sympathy with it,--a kind of _flowering_ of the soul amid the warmth and the light of nature. I am no poet, I exclaimed, and I will not disfigure Mr. Ames with commonplace verses. I know not how I should have borne this second disappointment, had not the title of a new Novel, which then came into my head, suggested a trial in that branch of letters. I will write a Novel. Having come to this determination, the next thing was to collect materials. They must be sought after, said I, for my late experiment has satisfied me that I might wait for ever in my elbow-chair, and they would never come to me; they must be toiled for,--not in books, if I would not deal in second-hand,--but in the world, that inexhaustible storehouse of all kinds of originals. I then turned over in my mind the various characters I had met with in life; amongst these a few only seemed fitted for any story, and those rather as accessories; such as a politician who hated popularity, a sentimental grave-digger, and a metaphysical rope-dancer; but for a hero, the grand nucleus of my fable, I was sorely at a loss. This, however, did not discourage me. I knew he might be found in the world, if I would only take the trouble to look for him. For this purpose I jumped into the first stage-coach that passed my door; it was immaterial whither bound, my object being men, not places. My first day's journey offered nothing better than a sailor who rebuked a member of Congress for swearing. But at the third stage, on the second day, as we were changing horses, I had the good fortune to light on a face which gave promise of all I wanted. It was so remarkable that I could not take my eyes from it; the forehead might have been called handsome but for a pair of enormous eyebrows, that seemed to project from it like the quarter-galleries of a ship, and beneath these were a couple of small, restless, gray eyes, which, glancing in every direction from under their shaggy brows, sparkled like the intermittent light of fire-flies; in the nose there was nothing remarkable, except that it was crested by a huge wart with a small grove of black hairs; but the mouth made ample amends, being altogether indescribable, for it was so variable in its expression, that I could not tell whether it had most of the sardonic, the benevolent, or the sanguinary, appearing to exhibit them all in succession with equal vividness. My attention, however, was mainly fixed by the sanguinary; it came across me like an east wind, and I felt a cold sweat damping my linen; and when this was suddenly succeeded by the benevolent, I was sure I had got at the secret of his character,--no less than that of a murderer haunted by remorse. Delighted with this discovery, I made up my mind to follow the owner of the face wherever he went, till I should learn his history. I accordingly made an end of my journey for the present, upon learning that the stranger was to pass some time in the place where we stopped. For three days I made minute inquiries; but all I could gather was, that he had been a great traveller, though of what country no one could tell me. On the fourth day, finding him on the move, I took passage in the same coach. Now, said I, is my time of harvest. But I was mistaken; for, in spite of all the lures which I threw out to draw him into a communicative humor, I could get nothing from him but monosyllables. So far from abating my ardor, this reserve only the more whetted my curiosity. At last we stopped at a pleasant village in New Jersey. Here he seemed a little better known; the innkeeper inquiring after his health, and the hostler asking if the balls he had supplied him with fitted the barrels of his pistols. The latter inquiry I thought was accompanied by a significant glance, that indicated a knowledge on the hostler's part of more than met the ear; I determined therefore to sound him. After a few general remarks, that had nothing to do with any thing, by way of introduction, I began by hinting some random surmises as to the use to which the stranger might have put the pistols he spoke of; inquired whether he was in the habit of loading them at night; whether he slept with them under his pillow; if he was in the practice of burning a light while he slept; and if he did not sometimes awake the family by groans, or by walking with agitated steps in his chamber. But it was all in vain, the man protesting that he never knew any thing ill of him. Perhaps, thought I, the hostler having overheard his midnight wanderings, and detected his crime, is paid for keeping the secret. I pumped the landlord, and the landlady, and the barmaid, and the chambermaid, and the waiters, and the cook, and every thing that could speak in the house; still to no purpose, each ending his reply with, "Lord, Sir, he's as honest a gentleman, for aught I know, as any in the world"; then would come a question,--"But perhaps _you_ know something of him yourself?" Whether my answer, though given in the negative, was uttered in such a tone as to imply an affirmative, thereby exciting suspicion, I cannot tell; but it is certain that I soon after perceived a visible change towards him in the deportment of the whole household. When he spoke to the waiters, their jaws fell, their fingers spread, their eyes rolled, with every symptom of involuntary action; and once, when he asked the landlady to take a glass of wine with him, I saw her, under pretence of looking out of the window, throw it into the street; in short, the very scullion fled at his approach, and a chambermaid dared not enter his room unless under guard of a large mastiff. That these circumstances were not unobserved by him will appear by what follows. Though I had come no nearer to facts, this general suspicion, added to the remarkable circumstance that no one had ever heard his name (being known only as _the gentleman_) gave every day new life to my hopes. He is the very man, said I; and I began to revel in all the luxury of detection, when, as I was one night undressing for bed, my attention was caught by the following letter on my table. "SIR, "If you are the gentleman you would be thought, you will not refuse satisfaction for the diabolical calumnies you have so unprovokedly circulated against an innocent man. "Your obedient servant, "TIMOLEON BUB. "P.S. I shall expect you at five o'clock to-morrow morning, at the three elms, by the river-side." This invitation, as may be well imagined, discomposed me not a little. Who Mr. Bub was, or in what way I had injured him, puzzled me exceedingly. Perhaps, thought I, he has mistaken me for another person; if so, my appearing on the ground will soon set matters right. With this persuasion I went to bed, somewhat calmer than I should otherwise have been; nay, I was even composed enough to divert myself with the folly of one bearing so vulgar an appellation taking it into his head to play the _man of honor_, and could not help a waggish feeling of curiosity to see if his name and person were in keeping. I woke myself in the morning with a loud laugh, for I had dreamt of meeting, in the redoubtable Mr. Bub, a little pot-bellied man, with a round face, a red snub-nose, and a pair of gooseberry wall-eyes. My fit of pleasantry was far from passed off when I came in sight of the fatal elms. I saw my antagonist pacing the ground with considerable violence. Ah! said I, he is trying to escape from his unheroic name! and I laughed again at the conceit; but, as I drew a little nearer, there appeared a majestic altitude in his figure very unlike what I had seen in my dream, and my laugh began to stiffen into a kind of rigid grin. There now came upon me something very like a misgiving that the affair might turn out to be no joke. I felt an unaccountable wish that this Mr. Bub had never been born; still I advanced: but if an aërolite had fallen at my feet, I could not have been more startled, than when I found in the person of my challenger--the mysterious stranger. The consequences of my curiosity immediately rushed upon me, and I was no longer at a loss in what way I had injured him. All my merriment seemed to curdle within me; and I felt like a dog that had got his head into a jug, and suddenly finds he cannot extricate it. "Well met, Sir," said the stranger; "now take your ground, and abide the consequences of your infernal insinuations." "Upon my word," replied I,--"upon my honor, Sir,"--and there I stuck, for in truth I knew not what it was I was going to say; when the stranger's second, advancing, exclaimed, in a voice which I immediately recognized, "Why, zounds! Rainbow, are _you_ the man?" "Is it you, Harman?" "What!" continued he, "my old classmate Rainbow turned slanderer? Impossible! Indeed, Mr. Bub, there must be some mistake here." "None, Sir," said the stranger; "I have it on the authority of my respectable landlord, that, ever since this gentleman's arrival, he has been incessant in his attempts to blacken my character with every person at the inn." "Nay, my friend"--But I put an end to Harman's further defence of me, by taking him aside, and frankly confessing the whole truth. It was with some difficulty I could get through the explanation, being frequently interrupted with bursts of laughter from my auditor; which, indeed, I now began to think very natural. In a word, to cut the story short, my friend having repeated the conference verbatim to Mr. Bub, he was good-natured enough to join in the mirth, saying, with one of his best sardonics, he "had always had a misgiving that his unlucky ugly face would one day or other be the death of somebody." Well, we passed the day together, and having cracked a social bottle after dinner, parted, I believe, as heartily friends as we should have been (which is saying a great deal) had he indeed proved the favorite villain in my Novel. But, alas! with the loss of my villain, away went the Novel. Here again I was at a stand; and in vain did I torture my brains for another pursuit. But why should I seek one? In fortune I have a competence,--why not be as independent in mind? There are thousands in the world whose sole object in life is to attain the means of living without toil; and what is any literary pursuit but a series of mental labor, ay, and oftentimes more wearying to the spirits than that of the body. Upon the whole, I came to the conclusion, that it was a very foolish thing to do any thing. So I seriously set about trying to do nothing. Well, what with whistling, hammering down all the nails in the house that had started, paring my nails, pulling my fire to pieces and rebuilding it, changing my clothes to full dress though I dined alone, trying to make out the figure of a Cupid on my discolored ceiling, and thinking of a lady I had not thought of for ten years before, I got along the first week tolerably well. But by the middle of the second week,--'t was horrible! the hours seemed to roll over me like mill-stones. When I awoke in the morning I felt like an Indian devotee, the day coming upon me like the great temple of Juggernaut; cracking of my bones beginning after breakfast; and if I had any respite, it was seldom for more than half an hour, when a newspaper seemed to stop the wheels;--then away they went, crack, crack, noon and afternoon, till I found myself by night reduced to a perfect jelly,--good for nothing but to be ladled into bed, with a greater horror than ever at the thought of sunrise. This will never do, said I; a toad in the heart of a tree lives a more comfortable life than a nothing-doing man; and I began to perceive a very deep meaning in the truism of "something being better than nothing." But is a precise object always necessary to the mind? No: if it be but occupied, no matter with what. That may easily be done. I have already tried the sciences, and made abortive attempts in literature, but I have never yet tried what is called general reading;--that, thank Heaven, is a resource inexhaustible. I will henceforth read only for amusement. My first experiment in this way was on Voyages and Travels, with occasional dippings into Shipwrecks, Murders, and Ghost-stories. It succeeded beyond my hopes; month after month passing away like days, and as for days,--I almost fancied that I could see the sun move. How comfortable, thought I, thus to travel over the world in my closet! how delightful to double Cape Horn and cross the African Desert in my rocking-chair,--to traverse Caffraria and the Mogul's dominions in the same pleasant vehicle! This is living to some purpose; one day dining on barbecued pigs in Otaheite; the next in danger of perishing amidst the snows of Terra del Fuego; then to have a lion cross my path in the heart of Africa; to run for my life from a wounded rhinoceros, and sit, by mistake, on a sleeping boa-constrictor;--this, this, said I, is life! Even the dangers of the sea were but healthful stimulants. If I met with a tornado, it was only an agreeable variety; water-spouts and ice-islands gave me no manner of alarm; and I have seldom been more composed than when catching a whale. In short, the ease with which I thus circumnavigated the globe, and conversed with all its varieties of inhabitants, expanded my benevolence; I found every place, and everybody in it, even to the Hottentots, vastly agreeable. But, alas! I was doomed to discover that this could not last for ever. Though I was still curious, there were no longer curiosities; for the world is limited, and new countries, and new people, like every thing else, wax stale on acquaintance; even ghosts and hurricanes become at last familiar; and books grow old, like those who read them. I was now at what sailors call a dead lift; being too old to build castles for the future, and too dissatisfied with the life I had led to look back on the past. In this state of mind, I bought me a snuffbox; for, as I could not honestly recommend my disjointed self to any decent woman, it seemed a kind of duty in me to contract such habits as would effectually prevent my taking in the lady I had once thought of. I set to, snuffing away till I made my nose sore, and lost my appetite. I then threw my snuffbox into the fire, and took to cigars. This change appeared to revive me. For a short time I thought myself in Elysium, and wondered I had never tried them before. Thou fragrant weed! O, that I were a Dutch poet, I exclaimed, that I might render due honor to thy unspeakable virtues! Ineffable tobacco! Every puff seemed like oil poured upon troubled waters, and I felt an inexpressible calmness stealing over my frame; in truth, it seemed like a benevolent spirit reconciling my soul to my body. But moderation, as I have before said, was never one of my virtues. I walked my room, pouring out volumes like a moving glass-house. My apartment was soon filled with smoke; I looked in the glass and hardly knew myself, my eyes peering at me, through the curling atmosphere, like those of a poodle. I then retired to the opposite end, and surveyed the furniture; nothing retained its original form or position;--the tables and chairs seemed to loom from the floor, and my grandfather's picture to thrust forward its nose like a French-horn, while that of my grandmother, who was reckoned a beauty in her day, looked, in her hoop, like her husband's wig-block stuck on a tub. Whether this was a signal for the fiends within me to begin their operations, I know not; but from that day I began to be what is called nervous. The uninterrupted health I had hitherto enjoyed now seemed the greatest curse that could have befallen me. I had never had the usual itinerant distempers; it was very unlikely that I should always escape them; and the dread of their coming upon me in my advanced age made me perfectly miserable. I scarcely dared to stir abroad; had sandbags put to my doors to keep out the measles; forbade my neighbours' children playing in my yard to avoid the whooping-cough; and, to prevent infection from the small-pox, I ordered all my male servants' heads to be shaved, made the coachman and footman wear tow wigs, and had them both regularly smoked whenever they returned from the neighbouring town, before they were allowed to enter my presence. Nor were these all my miseries; in fact, they were but a sort of running base to a thousand other strange and frightful fancies; the mere skeleton to a whole body-corporate of horrors. I became dreamy, was haunted by what I had read, frequently finding a Hottentot, or a boa-constrictor, in my bed. Sometimes I fancied myself buried in one of the pyramids of Egypt, breaking my shins against the bones of a sacred cow. Then I thought myself a kangaroo, unable to move because somebody had cut off my tail. In this miserable state I one evening rushed out of my house. I know not how far, or how long, I had been from home, when, hearing a well-known voice, I suddenly stopped. It seemed to belong to a face that I knew; yet how I should know it somewhat puzzled me, being then fully persuaded that I was a Chinese Josh. My friend (as I afterwards learned he was) invited me to go to his club. This, thought I, is one of my worshippers, and they have a right to carry me wherever they please; accordingly I suffered myself to be led. I soon found myself in an American tavern, and in the midst of a dozen grave gentlemen who were emptying a large bowl of punch. They each saluted me, some calling me by name, others saying they were happy to make my acquaintance; but what appeared quite unaccountable was my not only understanding their language, but knowing it to be English. A kind of reaction now began to take place in my brain. Perhaps, said I, I am not a Josh. I was urged to pledge my friend in a glass of punch; I did so; my friend's friend, and his friend, and all the rest, in succession, begged to have the same honor; I complied, again and again, till at last, the punch having fairly turned my head topsy-turvy, righted my understanding; and I found myself _myself_. This happy change gave a pleasant fillip to my spirits. I returned home, found no monster in my bed, and slept quietly till near noon the next day. I arose with a slight headache and a great admiration of punch; resolving, if I did not catch the measles from my late adventure, to make a second visit to the club. No symptoms appearing, I went again; and my reception was such as led to a third, and a fourth, and a fifth visit, when I became a regular member. I believe my inducement to this was a certain unintelligible something in three or four of my new associates, which at once gratified and kept alive my curiosity, in their letting out just enough of themselves while I was with them to excite me when alone to speculate on what was kept back. I wondered I had never met with such characters in books; and the kind of interest they awakened began gradually to widen to others. Henceforth I will live in the world, said I; 't is my only remedy. A man's own affairs are soon conned; he gets them by heart till they haunt him when he would be rid of them; but those of another can be known only in part, while that which remains unrevealed is a never-ending stimulus to curiosity. The only natural mode, therefore, of preventing the mind preying on itself,--the only rational, because the only interminable employment,--is to be busy about other people's business. The variety of objects which this new course of life each day presented, brought me at length to a state of sanity; at least, I was no longer disposed to conjure up remote dangers to my door, or chew the cud on my indigested past reading; though sometimes, I confess, when I have been tempted to meddle with a very bad character, I have invariably been threatened with a relapse; which leads me to think the existence of some secret affinity between rogues and boa-constrictors is not unlikely. In a short time, however, I had every reason to believe myself completely cured; for the days began to appear of their natural length, and I no longer saw every thing through a pair of blue spectacles, but found nature diversified by a thousand beautiful colors, and the people about me a thousand times more interesting than hyenas or Hottentots. The world is now my only study, and I trust I shall stick to it for the sake of my health. Footnotes [1] The Frightful is not the Terrible, though often confounded with it. [2] See Introductory Discourse. [3] There is one species of imitation, however, which, as having been practised by some of the most original minds, and also sanctioned by the ablest writers, demands at least a little consideration; namely, the adoption of an attitude, provided it be employed to convey a different thought. So far, indeed, as the imitation has been confined to a suggestion, and the attitude adopted has been modified by the new subject, to which it was transferred, by a distinct change of character and expression, though with but little variation in the disposition of limbs, we may not dissent; such imitations being virtually little more than hints, since they end in thoughts either totally different from, or more complete than, the first. This we do not condemn, for every Poet, as well as Artist, knows that a thought so modified is of right his own. It is the transplanting of a tree, not the borrowing of a seed, against which we contend. But when writers justify the appropriation, of entire figures, without any such change, we do not agree with them; and cannot but think that the examples they have quoted, as in the Sacrifice at Lystra, by Raffaelle, and the Baptism, by Poussin, will fully support our position. The antique _basso rilievo_ which Raffaelle has introduced in the former, being certainly imitated both as to lines and grouping, is so distinct, both in character and form, from the surrounding figures, as to render them a distinct people, and their very air reminds us of another age. We cannot but believe we should have had a very different group, and far superior in expression, had he given us a conception of his own. It would at least have been in accordance with the rest, animated with the superstitious enthusiasm of the surrounding crowd; and especially as sacrificing Priests would they have been amazed and awe-stricken in the living presence of a god, instead of personating, as in the present group, the cold officials of the Temple, going through a stated task at the shrine of their idol. In the figure by Poussin, which he borrowed from Michael Angelo, the discrepancy is still greater. The original figure, which was in the Cartoon at Pisa, (now known only by a print,) is that of a warrior who has been suddenly roused from the act of bathing by the sound of a trumpet; he has just leaped upon the bank, and, in his haste to obey its summons, thrusts his foot through his garment. Nothing could be more appropriate than the violence of this action; it is in unison with the hurry and bustle of the occasion. And this is the figure which Poussin (without the slightest change, if we recollect aright) has transferred to the still and solemn scene in which John baptizes the Saviour. No one can look at this figure without suspecting the plagiarism. Similar instances may be found in his other works; as in the Plague of the Philistines, where the Alcibiades of Raffaelle is coolly sauntering among the dead and dying, and with as little relation to the infected multitude as if he were still with Socrates in the School of Athens. In the same picture may be found also one of the Apostles from the Cartoon of the Draught of Fishes: and we may naturally ask what business he has there. And yet such appropriations have been made to appear no thefts, simply because no attempt seems to have been made at concealment! But theft, we must be allowed to think, is still theft, whether committed in the dark, or in the face of day. And the example is a dangerous one, inasmuch as it comes from men who were not constrained to resort to such shifts by any poverty of invention. Akin to this is another and larger kind of borrowing, which, though it cannot strictly be called copying; yet so evidently betrays a foreign origin, as to produce the same effect. We allude to the adoption of the peculiar lines, handling, and disposition of masses, &c., of any particular master. [4] First printed in 1821, in "The Idle Man," No. II p. 38. [5] A feigned name.--_Editor_. 
17244	----	FRENCH ART _CLASSIC AND CONTEMPORARY PAINTING AND SCULPTURE_ BY W.C. BROWNELL NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1892 Copyright, 1892, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS TO AUGUSTE RODIN CONTENTS PAGE I. Classic Painting, 1 I. Character and origin. II. Claude and Poussin. III. Lebrun and Lesueur. IV. Louis Quinze. V. Greuze and Chardin. VI. David, Ingres, and Prudhon. II. Romantic Painting, 47 I. Romanticism. II. Géricault and Delacroix. III. The Fontainebleau Group. IV. The Academic Painters. V. Couture, Puvis de Chavannes, and Regnault. III. Realistic Painting, 89 I. Realism. II. Courbet and Bastien-Lepage. III. The Landscape Painters; Fromentin and Guillaumet. IV. Historical and Portrait Painters. V. Baudry, Delaunay, Bonvin, Vollon, Gervex, Duez, Roll, L'Hermitte, Lerolle, Béraud, The Illustrators. VI. Manet and Monet. VII. Impressionism; Degas. VIII. The Outlook. IV. Classic Sculpture, 139 I. Claux Sluters. II. Jean Goujon. III. Style. IV. Clodion, Pradier, and Etex. V. Houdon, David d'Angers, and Rude. VI. Carpeaux and Barye. V. Academic Sculpture, 165 I. Its Italianate Character. II. Chapu. III. Dubois. IV. Saint-Marceaux and Mercié. V. Tyranny of Style. VI. Falguière, Barrias, Delaplanche, and Le Feuvre. VII. Frémiet. VIII. The Institute School in General. VI. The New Movement in Sculpture, 205 I. Rodin. II. Dalou. I CLASSIC PAINTING I More than that of any other modern people French art is a national expression. It epitomizes very definitely the national æsthetic judgment and feeling, and if its manifestations are even more varied than are elsewhere to be met with, they share a certain character that is very salient. Of almost any French picture or statue of any modern epoch one's first thought is that it is French. The national quite overshadows the personal quality. In the field of the fine arts, as in nearly every other in which the French genius shows itself, the results are evident of an intellectual co-operation which insures the development of a common standard and tends to subordinate idiosyncrasy. The fine arts, as well as every other department of mental activity, reveal the effect of that social instinct which is so much more powerful in France than it is anywhere else, or has ever been elsewhere, except possibly in the case of the Athenian republic. Add to this influence that of the intellectual as distinguished from the sensuous instinct, and one has, I think, the key to this salient characteristic of French art which strikes one so sharply and always as so plainly French. As one walks through the French rooms at the Louvre, through the galleries of the Luxembourg, through the unending rooms of the _Salon_ he is impressed by the splendid competence everywhere displayed, the high standard of culture universally attested, by the overwhelming evidence that France stands at the head of the modern world æsthetically--but not less, I think, does one feel the absence of imagination, opportunity, of spirituality, of poetry in a word. The French themselves feel something of this. At the great Exposition of 1889 no pictures were so much admired by them as the English, in which appeared, even to an excessive degree, just the qualities in which French art is lacking, and which less than those of any other school showed traces of the now all but universal influence of French art. The most distinct and durable impression left by any exhibition of French pictures is that the French æsthetic genius is at once admirably artistic and extremely little poetic. It is a corollary of the predominance of the intellectual over the sensuous instinct that the true should be preferred to the beautiful, and some French critics are so far from denying this preference of French art that they express pride in it, and, indeed, defend it in a way that makes one feel slightly amateurish and fanciful in thinking of beauty apart from truth. A walk through the Louvre, however, suffices to restore one's confidence in his own convictions. The French rooms, at least until modern periods are reached, are a demonstration that in the sphere of æsthetics science does not produce the greatest artists--that something other than intelligent interest and technical accomplishment are requisite to that end, and that system is fatal to spontaneity. M. Eugène Véron is the mouthpiece of his countrymen in asserting absolute beauty to be an abstraction, but the practice of the mass of French painters is, by comparison with that of the great Italians and Dutchmen, eloquent of the lack of poetry that results from a scepticism of abstractions. The French classic painters--and the classic-spirit, in spite of every force that the modern world brings to its destruction, persists wonderfully in France--show little absorption, little delight in their subject. Contrasted with the great names in painting they are eclectic and traditional, too purely expert. They are too cultivated to invent. Selection has taken the place of discovery in their inspiration. They are addicted to the rational and the regulated. Their substance is never sentimental and incommunicable. Their works have a distinctly professional air. They distrust what cannot be expressed; what can only be suggested does not seem to them worth the trouble of trying to conceive. Beside the world of mystery and the wealth of emotion forming an imaginative penumbra around such a design as Raphael's Vision of Ezekiel, for instance, Poussin's treatment of essentially the same subject is a diagram. On the other hand, qualities intimately associated with these defects are quite as noticeable in the old French rooms of the Louvre. Clearness, compactness, measure, and balance are evident in nearly every canvas. Everywhere is the air of reserve, of intellectual good-breeding, of avoidance of extravagance. That French painting is at the head of contemporary painting, as far and away incontestably it is, is due to the fact that it alone has kept alive the traditions of art which, elsewhere than in France, have given place to other and more material ideals. From the first its practitioners have been artists rather than poets, have possessed, that is to say, the constructive rather than the creative, the organizing rather than the imaginative temperament, but they have rarely been perfunctory and never common. French painting in its preference of truth to beauty, of intelligence to the beatific vision, of form to color, in a word, has nevertheless, and perhaps _à fortiori_, always been the expression of ideas. These ideas almost invariably have been expressed in rigorous form--form which at times fringes the lifelessness of symbolism. But even less frequently, I think, than other peoples have the French exhibited in their painting that contentment with painting in itself that is the dry rot of art. With all their addiction to truth and form they have followed this ideal so systematically that they have never suffered it to become mechanical, merely _formal_--as is so often the case elsewhere (in England and among ourselves, everyone will have remarked) in instances where form has been mainly considered and where sentiment happens to be lacking. Even when care for form is so excessive as to imply an absence of character, the form itself is apt to be so distinguished as itself to supply the element of character, and character consequently particularly refined and immaterial. And one quality is always present: elegance is always evidently aimed at and measurably achieved. Native or foreign, real or factitious as the inspiration of French classicism may be, the sense of style and of that perfection of style which we know as elegance is invariably noticeable in its productions. So that, we may say, from Poussin to Puvis de Chavannes, from Clouet to Meissonier, _taste_--a refined and cultivated sense of what is sound, estimable, competent, reserved, satisfactory, up to the mark, and above all, elegant and distinguished--has been at once the arbiter and the stimulus of excellence in French painting. It is this which has made the France of the past three centuries, and especially the France of to-day--as we get farther and farther away from the great art epochs--both in amount and general excellence of artistic activity, comparable only with the Italy of the Renaissance and the Greece of antiquity. Moreover, it is an error to assume, because form in French painting appeals to us more strikingly than substance, that French painting is lacking in substance. In its perfection form appeals to every appreciation; it is in art, one may say, the one universal language. But just in proportion as form in a work of art approaches perfection, or universality, just in that proportion does the substance which it clothes, which it expresses, seem unimportant to those to whom this substance is foreign. Some critics have even fancied, for example, that Greek architecture and sculpture--the only Greek art we know anything about--were chiefly concerned with form, and that the ideas behind their perfection of form were very simple and elementary ideas, not at all comparable in complexity and elaborateness with those that confuse and distinguish the modern world. When one comes to French art it is still more difficult for us to realize that the ideas underlying its expression are ideas of import, validity, and attachment. The truth is largely that French ideas are not our ideas; not that the French who--except possibly the ancient Greeks and the modern Germans--of all peoples in the world are, as one may say, addicted to ideas, are lacking in them. Technical excellence is simply the inseparable accompaniment, the outward expression of the kind of æsthetic ideas the French are enamoured of. Their substance is not our substance, but while it is perfectly legitimate for us to criticise their substance it is idle to maintain that they are lacking in substance. If we call a painting by Poussin pure style, a composition of David merely the perfection of convention, one of M. Rochegrosse's dramatic canvasses the rhetoric of technic and that only, we miss something. We miss the idea, the substance, behind these varying expressions. These are not the less real for being foreign to us. They are less spiritual and more material, less poetic and spontaneous, more schooled and traditional than we like to see associated with such adequacy of expression, but they are not for that reason more mechanical. They are ideas and substance that lend themselves to technical expression a thousand times more readily than do ours. They are, in fact, exquisitely adapted to technical expression. The substance and ideas which we desire fully expressed in color, form, or words are, indeed, very exactly in proportion to our esteem of them, inexpressible. We like hints of the unutterable, suggestions of significance that is mysterious and import that is incalculable. The light that "never was on sea or land" is the illumination we seek. The "Heaven," not the atmosphere that "lies about us" in our mature age as "in our infancy," is what appeals most strongly to our subordination of the intellect and the senses to the imagination and the soul. Nothing with us very deeply impresses the mind if it does not arouse the emotions. Naturally, thus, we are predisposed insensibly to infer from French articulateness the absence of substance, to assume from the triumphant facility and felicity of French expression a certain insignificance of what is expressed. Inferences and assumptions based on temperament, however, almost invariably have the vice of superficiality, and it takes no very prolonged study of French art for candor and intelligence to perceive that if its substance is weak on the sentimental, the emotional, the poetic, the spiritual side, it is exceptionally strong in rhetorical, artistic, cultivated, æsthetically elevated ideas, as well as in that technical excellence which alone, owing to our own inexpertness, first strikes and longest impresses us. When we have no ideas to express, in a word, we rarely save our emptiness by any appearance of clever expression. When a Frenchman expresses ideas for which we do not care, with which we are temperamentally out of sympathy, we assume that his expression is equally empty. Matthew Arnold cites a passage from Mr. Palgrave, and comments significantly on it, in this sense. "The style," exclaims Mr. Palgrave, "which has filled London with the dead monotony of Gower or Harley Streets, or the pale commonplace of Belgravia, Tyburnia, and Kensington; which has pierced Paris and Madrid with the feeble frivolities of the Rue Rivoli and the Strada de Toledo." Upon which Arnold observes that "the architecture of the Rue Rivoli expresses show, splendor, pleasure, unworthy things, perhaps, to express alone and for their own sakes, but it expresses them; whereas, the architecture of Gower Street and Belgravia merely expresses the impotence of the architect to express anything." And in characterizing the turn for poetry in French painting as comparatively inferior, it will be understood at once, I hope, that I am comparing it with the imaginativeness of the great Italians and Dutchmen, and with Rubens and Holbein and Turner, and not asserting the supremacy in elevated sentiment over Claude and Corot, Chardin, and Cazin, of the Royal Academy, or the New York Society of American Artists. And so far as an absolute rather than a comparative standard may be applied in matters so much too vast for any hope of adequate treatment according to either method, we ought never to forget that in criticising French painting, as well as other things French, we are measuring it by an ideal that now and then we may appreciate better than Frenchmen, but rarely illustrate as well. II Furthermore, the qualities and defects of French painting--the predominance in it of national over individual force and distinction, its turn for style, the kind of ideas that inspire its substance, its classic spirit in fine--are explained hardly less by its historic origin than by the character of the French genius itself. French painting really began in connoisseurship, one may say. It arose in appreciation, that faculty in which the French have always been, and still are, unrivalled. Its syntheses were based on elements already in combination. It originated nothing. It was eclectic at the outset. Compared with the slow and suave evolution of Italian art, in whose earliest dawn its borrowed Byzantine painting served as a stimulus and suggestion to original views of natural material rather than as a model for imitation and modification, the painting that sprang into existence, Minerva-like, in full armor, at Fontainebleau under Francis I, was of the essence of artificiality. The court of France was far more splendid than, and equally enlightened with, that of Florence. The monarch felt his title to Mæcenasship as justified as that of the Medici. He created, accordingly, French painting out of hand--I mean, at all events, the French painting that stands at the beginning of the line of the present tradition. He summoned Leonardo, Andrea del Sarto, Rossi, Primaticcio, and founded the famous Fontainebleau school. Of necessity it was Italianate. It had no Giotto, Masaccio, Raphael behind it. Italian was the best art going; French appreciation was educated and keen; its choice between evolution and adoption was inevitable. It was very much in the position in which American appreciation finds itself to-day. Like our own painters, the French artists of the Renaissance found themselves familiar with masterpieces wholly beyond their power to create, and produced by a foreign people who had enjoyed the incomparable advantage of arriving at their artistic apogee through natural stages of growth, beginning with impulse and culminating in expertness. The situation had its advantages as well as its drawbacks, certainly. It saved French painting an immense amount of fumbling, of laborious experimentation, of crudity, of failure. But it stamped it with an essential artificiality from which it did not fully recover for over two hundred years, until, insensibly, it had built up its own traditions and gradually brought about its own inherent development. In a word, French painting had an intellectual rather than an emotional origin. Its first practitioners were men of culture rather than of feeling; they were inspired by the artistic, the constructive, the fashioning, rather than the poetic, spirit. And so evident is this inclination in even contemporary French painting--and indeed in all French æsthetic expression--that it cannot be ascribed wholly to the circumstances mentioned. The circumstances themselves need an explanation, and find it in the constitution itself of the French mind, which (owing, doubtless, to other circumstances, but that is extraneous) is fundamentally less imaginative and creative than co-ordinating and constructive. Naturally thus, when the Italian influence wore itself out, and the Fontainebleau school gave way to a more purely national art; when France had definitely entered into her Italian heritage and had learned the lessons that Holland and Flanders had to teach her as well; when, in fine, the art of the modern world began, it was an art of grammar, of rhetoric. Certainly up to the time of Géricault painting in general held itself rather pedantically aloof from poetry. Claude, Chardin, what may be called the illustrated _vers de société_ of the Louis Quinze painters--of Watteau and Fragonard--even Prudhon, did little to change the prevailing color and tone. Claude's art is, in manner, thoroughly classic. His _personal_ influence was perhaps first felt by Corot. He stands by himself, at any rate, quite apart. He was the first thoroughly original French painter, if indeed one may not say he was the first thoroughly original modern painter. He has been assigned to both the French and Italian schools--to the latter by Gallophobist critics, however, through a partisanship which in æsthetic matters is ridiculous; there was in his day no Italian school for him to belong to. The truth is that he passed a large part of his life in Italy and that his landscape is Italianate. But more conspicuously still, it is ideal--ideal in the sense intended by Goethe in saying, "There are no landscapes in nature like those of Claude." There are not, indeed. Nature has been transmuted by Claude's alchemy with lovelier results than any other painter--save always Corot, shall I say?--has ever achieved. Witness the pastorals at Madrid, in the Doria Gallery at Rome, the "Dido and Æneas" at Dresden, the sweet and serene superiority of the National Gallery canvases over the struggling competition manifest in the Turners juxtaposed to them through the unlucky ambition of the great English painter. Mr. Ruskin says that Claude could paint a small wave very well, and acknowledges that he effected a revolution in art, which revolution "consisted mainly in setting the sun in heavens." "Mainly" is delightful, but Claude's excellence consists in his ability to paint visions of loveliness, pictures of pure beauty, not in his skill in observing the drawing of wavelets or his happy thought of painting sunlight. Mr. George Moore observes ironically of Mr. Ruskin that his grotesque depreciation of Mr. Whistler--"the lot of critics" being "to be remembered by what they have failed to understand"--"will survive his finest prose passage." I am not sure about Mr. Whistler. Contemporaries are too near for a perfect critical perspective. But assuredly Mr. Ruskin's failure to perceive Claude's point of view--to perceive that Claude's aim and Stanfield's, say, were quite different; that Claude, in fact, was at the opposite pole from the botanist and the geologist whom Mr. Ruskin's "reverence for nature" would make of every landscape painter--is a failure in appreciation than to have shown which it would be better for him as a critic never to have been born. It seems hardly fanciful to say that the depreciation of Claude by Mr. Ruskin, who is a landscape painter himself, using the medium of words instead of pigments, is, so to speak, professionally unjust. "Go out, in the springtime, among the meadows that slope from the shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains. There, mingled with the taller gentians and the white narcissus, the grass grows deep and free; and as you follow the winding mountain paths, beneath arching boughs all veiled and dim with blossom--paths that forever droop and rise over the green banks and mounds sweeping down in scented undulation, steep to the blue water, studded here and there with new-mown heaps, filling the air with fainter sweetness--look up toward the higher hills, where the waves of everlasting green roll silently into their long inlets among the shadows of the pines." Claude's landscape is not Swiss, but if it were it would awaken in the beholder a very similar sensation to that aroused in the reader of this famous passage. Claude indeed painted landscape in precisely this way. He was perhaps the first--though priority in such matters is trivial beside pre-eminence--who painted _effects_ instead of _things_. Light and air were his material, not ponds and rocks and clouds and trees and stretches of plain and mountain outlines. He first generalized the phenomena of inanimate nature, and in this he remains still unsurpassed. But, superficially, his scheme wore the classic aspect, and neither his contemporaries nor his successors, for over two hundred years, discovered the immense value of his point of view, and the puissant charm of his way of rendering nature. Poussin, however, was the incarnation of the classic spirit, and perhaps the reason why a disinterested foreigner finds it difficult to appreciate the French estimate of him is that no foreigner, however disinterested, can quite appreciate the French appreciation of the classic spirit in and for itself. But when one listens to expressions of admiration for the one French "old master," as one may call Poussin without invidiousness, it is impossible not to scent chauvinism, as one scents it in the German panegyrics of Goethe, for example. He was a very great painter, beyond doubt. And as there were great men before Agamemnon there have been great painters since Raphael and Titian, even since Rembrandt and Velasquez. He had a strenuous personality, moreover. You know a Poussin at once when you see it. But to find the suggestion of the infinite, the Shakespearian touch in his work seems to demand the imaginativeness of M. Victor Cherbuliez. When Mr. Matthew Arnold ventured to remark to Sainte-Beuve that he could not consider Lamartine as a very important poet, Sainte-Beuve replied: "He was important to us." Many critics, among them one severer than Sainte-Beuve, the late Edmond Scherer, have given excellent reasons for Lamartine's absolute as well as relative importance, and perhaps it is a failure in appreciation on our part that is really responsible for our feeling that Poussin is not quite the great master the French deem him. Assuredly he might justifiably apply to himself the "Et-Ego-in-Arcadia" inscription in one of his most famous paintings. And the specific service he performed for French painting and the relative rank he occupies in it ought not to obscure his purely personal qualities, which, if not transcendent, are incontestably elevated and fine. His qualities, however, are very thoroughly French qualities--poise, rationality, science, the artistic dominating the poetic faculty, and style quite outshining significance and suggestion. He learned all he knew of art, he said, from the Bacchus Torso at Naples. But he was eclectic rather than imitative, and certainly used the material he found in the works of his artistic ancestors as freely and personally as Raphael the frescos of the Baths of Titus, or Donatello the fragments of antique sculpture. From his time on, indeed, French painting dropped its Italian leading-strings. He might often suggest Raphael--and any painter who suggests Raphael inevitably suffers for it--but always with an individual, a native, a French difference, and he is as far removed in spirit and essence from the Fontainebleau school as the French genius itself is from the Italian which presided there. In Poussin, indeed, the French genius first asserts itself in painting. And it asserts itself splendidly in him. We who ask to be moved as well as impressed, who demand satisfaction of the susceptibility as well as--shall we say rather than?--interest of the intelligence, may feel that for the qualities in which Poussin is lacking those in which he is rich afford no compensation whatever. But I confess that in the presence of even that portion of Poussin's magnificent accomplishment which is spread before one in the Louvre, to wish one's self in the Stanze of the Vatican or in the Sistine Chapel, seems to me an unintelligent sacrifice of one's opportunities. III It is a sure mark of narrowness and defective powers of perception to fail to discover the point of view even of what one disesteems. We talk of Poussin, of Louis Quatorze art--as of its revival under David and its continuance in Ingres--of, in general, modern classic art as if it were an art of convention merely; whereas, conventional as it is, its conventionality is--or was, certainly, in the seventeenth century--very far from being pure formulary. It was genuinely expressive of a certain order of ideas intelligently held, a certain set of principles sincerely believed in, a view of art as positive and genuine as the revolt against the tyrannous system into which it developed. We are simply out of sympathy with its aim, its ideal; perhaps, too, for that most frivolous of all reasons because we have grown tired of it. But the business of intelligent criticism is to be in touch with everything. "Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner," as the French ethical maxim has it, may be modified into the true motto of æsthetic criticism, "Tout comprendre, c'est tout justifier." Of course, by "criticism" one does not mean pedagogy, as so many people constantly imagine, nor does justifying everything include bad drawing. But as Lebrun, for example, is not nowadays held up as a model to young painters, and is not to be accused of bad drawing, why do we so entirely dispense ourselves from comprehending him at all? Lebrun is, perhaps, not a painter of enough personal importance to repay attentive consideration, and historic importance does not greatly concern criticism. But we pass him by on the ground of his conventionality, without remembering that what appears conventional to us was in his case not only sincerity but aggressive enthusiasm. If there ever was a painter who exercised what creative and imaginative faculty he had with an absolute gusto, Lebrun did so. He interested his contemporaries immensely; no painter ever ruled more unrivalled. He fails to interest us because we have another point of view. We believe in our point of view and disbelieve in his as a matter of course; and it would be self-contradictory to say, in the interests of critical catholicity, that in our opinion his may be as sound as our own. But to say that he has no point of view whatever--to say, in general, that modern classic art is perfunctory and mere formulary--is to be guilty of what has always been the inherent vice of protestantism in all fields of mental activity. Nowhere has protestantism exhibited this defect more palpably than in the course of evolution of schools of painting. Pre-Raphaelitism is perhaps the only exception, and pre-Raphaelitism was a violent and emotional counter-revolution rather than a movement characterized by catholicity of critical appreciation. Literary criticism is certainly full of similar intolerance; though when Gautier talks about Racine, or Zola about "Mes Haines," or Mr. Howells about Scott, the polemic temper, the temper most opposed to the critical, is very generally recognized. And in spite of their admirable accomplishment in various branches of literature, these writers will never quite recover from the misfortune of having preoccupied themselves as critics with the defects instead of the qualities of what is classic. Yet the protestantism of the successive schools of painting against the errors of their predecessors has something even more crass about it. Contemporary painters and critics thoroughly alive, and fully in the contemporary æsthetic current, so far from appreciating modern classic art sympathetically, are apt to admire the old masters themselves mainly on technical grounds, and not at all to enter into their general æsthetic attitude. The feeling of contemporary painters and critics (except, of course, historical critics) for Raphael's genius is the opposite of cordial. We are out of touch with the "Disputa," with angels and prophets seated on clouds, with halos and wings, with such inconsistencies as the "Doge praying" in a picture of the marriage of St. Catherine, with the mystic marriage itself. Raphael's grace of line and suave space-filling shapes are mainly what we think of; the rest we call convention. We are become literal and exacting, addicted to the pedantry of the prescriptive, if not of the prosaic. Take such a picture as M. Edouard Detaille's "Le Rêve," which won him so much applause a few years ago. M. Detaille is an irreproachable realist, and may do what he likes in the way of the materially impossible with impunity. Sleeping soldiers, without a gaiter-button lacking, bivouacking on the ground amid stacked arms whose bayonets would prick; above them in the heavens the clash of contending ghostly armies--wraiths born of the sleepers' dreams. That we are in touch with. No one would object to it except under penalty of being scouted as pitiably literal. Yet the scheme is as thoroughly conventional--that is to say, it is as closely based on hypothesis universally assumed for the moment--as Lebrun's "Triumph of Alexander." The latter is as much a true expression of an ideal as Detaille's picture. It is an ideal now become more conventional, undoubtedly, but it is as clearly an ideal and as clearly genuine. The only point I wish to make is, that Lebrun's painting--Louis Quatorze painting--is not the perfunctory thing we are apt to assume it to be. That is not the same thing, I hope, as maintaining that M. Bouguereau is significant rather than insipid. Lebrun was assuredly not a strikingly original painter. His crowds of warriors bear a much closer resemblance to Raphael's "Battle of Constantine and Maxentius" than the "Transfiguration" of the Vatican does to Giotto's, aside from the important circumstance that the difference in the latter instance shows development, while the former illustrates mainly an enfeebled variation. But there is unquestionably something of Lebrun in Lebrun's work--something typical of the age whose artistic spirit he so completely expressed. To perceive that Louis Quatorze art is not all convention it is only necessary to remember that Lesueur is to be bracketed with Lebrun. All the sympathy which the Anglo-Saxon temperament withholds from the histrionism of Lebrun is instinctively accorded to his gentle and graceful contemporary, who has been called--_faute de mieux_, of course--the French Raphael. Really Lesueur is as nearly conventional as Lebrun. He has at any rate far less force; and even if we may maintain that he had a more individual point of view, his works are assuredly more monotonous to the scrutinizing sense. It is impossible to recall any one of the famous San Bruno series with any particularity, or, except in subject, to distinguish these in the memory from the sweet and soft "St. Scholastica" in the _Salon Carré_. With more sapience and less sensitiveness, Bouguereau is Lesueur's true successor, to say which is certainly not to affirm a very salient originality of the older painter. He had a great deal of very exquisite feeling for what is refined and elevated, but clearly it is a moral rather than an æsthetic delicacy that he exhibits, and æsthetically he exercises his sweeter and more sympathetic sensibility within the same rigid limits which circumscribe that of Lebrun. He has, indeed, less invention, less imagination, less sense of composition, less wealth of detail, less elaborateness, no greater concentration or sense of effect; and though his color is more agreeable, perhaps, in hue, it gets its tone through the absence of variety rather than through juxtapositions and balances. The truth is, that both equally illustrate the classic spirit, the spirit of their age _par excellence_ and of French painting in general, in a supreme degree, though the conformability of the one is positive and of the other passive, so to say; and that neither illustrates quite the subserviency to the conventional which we, who have undoubtedly just as many conventions of our own, are wont to ascribe to them, and to Lebrun in particular. IV Fanciful as the Louis Quinze art seems, by contrast with that of Louis Quatorze, it, too, is essentially classic. It is free enough--no one, I think, would deny that--but it is very far from individual in any important sense. It has, to be sure, more personal feeling than that of Lesueur or Lebrun. The artist's susceptibility seems to come to the surface for the first time. Watteau, Fragonard--Fragonard especially, the exquisite and impudent--are as gay, as spontaneous, as careless, as vivacious as Boldini. Boucher's goddesses and cherubs, disporting themselves in graceful abandonment on happily disposed clouds, outlined in cumulus masses against unvarying azure, are as unrestrained and independent of prescription as Monticelli's figures. Lancret, Pater, Nattier, and Van Loo--the very names suggest not merely freedom but a sportive and abandoned license. But in what a narrow round they move! How their imaginativeness is limited by their artificiality! What a talent, what a genius they have for artificiality. It is the era _par excellence_ of dilettantism, and nothing is less romantic than dilettantism. Their evident feeling--and evidently genuine feeling--is feeling for the factitious, for the manufactured, for what the French call the _confectionné_. Their romantic quality is to that of the modern Fontainebleau group as the exquisite _vers de société_ of Mr. Austin Dobson, say, is to the turbulent yet profound romanticism of Heine or Burns. Every picture painted by them would go as well on a fan as in a frame. All their material is traditional. They simply handle it as _enfants terribles_. Intellectually speaking, they are painters of a silver age. Of ideas they have almost none. They are as barren of invention in any large sense as if they were imitators instead of, in a sense, the originators of a new phase. Their originality is arrived at rather through exclusion than discovery. They simply drop pedantry and exult in irresponsibility. They are hardly even a school. Yet they have, one and all, in greater or less degree, that distinct quality of charm which is eternally incompatible with routine. They are as little constructive as the age itself, as anything that we mean when we use the epithet Louis Quinze. Of everything thus indicated one predicates at once unconsciousness, the momentum of antecedent thought modified by the ease born of habit; the carelessness due to having one's thinking done for one and the license of proceeding fancifully, whimsically, even freakishly, once the lines and limits of one's action have been settled by more laborious, more conscientious philosophy than in such circumstances one feels disposed to frame for one's self. There is no break with the Louis Quatorze things, not a symptom of revolt; only, after them the deluge! But out of this very condition of things, and out of this attitude of mind, arises a new art, or rather a new phase of art, essentially classic, as I said, but nevertheless imbued with a character of its own, and this character distinctly charming. Wherein does the charm consist? In two qualities, I think, one of which has not hitherto appeared in French painting, or, indeed, in any art whatever, namely, what we understand by cleverness as a distinct element in treatment--and color. Color is very prominent nowadays in all writing about art, though recently it has given place, in the fashion of the day, to "values" and the realistic representation of natural objects as the painter's proper aim. What precisely is meant by color would be difficult, perhaps, to define. A warmer general tone than is achieved by painters mainly occupied with line and mass is possibly what is oftenest meant by amateurs who profess themselves fond of color. At all events, the Louis Quinze painters, especially Watteau, Fragonard, and Pater--and Boucher has a great deal of the same feeling--were sensitive to that vibration of atmosphere that blends local hues into the _ensemble_ that produces tone. The _ensemble_ of their tints is what we mean by color. Since the Venetians _this_ note had not appeared. They constitute, thus, a sort of romantic interregnum--still very classic, from an intellectual point of view--between the classicism of Lebrun and the still greater severity of David. Nothing in the evolution of French painting is more interesting than this reverberation of Tintoretto and Tiepolo. By cleverness, as exhibited by the Louis Quinze painters, I do not mean mere technical ability, but something more inclusive, something relating quite as much to attitude of mind as to dexterity of treatment. They conceive as cleverly as they execute. There is a sense of confidence and capability in the way they view, as well as in the way they handle, their light material. They know it thoroughly, and are thoroughly at one with it. And they exploit it with a serene air of satisfaction, as if it were the only material in the world worth handling. Indeed, it is exquisitely adapted to their talent. So little significance has it that one may say it exists merely to be cleverly dealt with, to be represented, distributed, compared, and generally utilized solely with reference to the display of the artist's jaunty skill. It is, one may say, merely the raw material for the production of an effect, and an effect demanding only what we mean by cleverness; no knowledge and love of nature, no prolonged study, no acquaintance with the antique, for example, no philosophy whatever--unless poco-curantism be called a philosophy, which eminently it is not. To be adequate to the requirements--rarely very exacting in any case--made of one, never to show stupidity, to have a great deal of taste and an instinctive feeling for what is elegant and refined, to abhor pedantry and take gayety at once lightly and seriously, and beyond this to take no thought, is to be clever; and in this sense the Louis Quinze painters are the first, as they certainly are the typical, clever artists. In Louis Quinze art the subject is more than effaced to give free swing to technical cleverness; it is itself contributory to such cleverness, and really a part of it. The artists evidently look on life, as they paint their pictures, as the web whereon to sketch exhibitions of skill in the composition of sensation-provoking combinations--combinations, thus, provoking sensations of the lightest and least substantial kind. When you stand before one of Fragonard's bewitching models, modishly modified into a great--or rather a little--lady, you not only note the color--full of tone on the one hand and of variety on the other, besides exhibiting the happiest selective quality in warm and yet delicate hues and tints; you not only, furthermore, observe the clever touch just poised between suggestion and expression, coquettishly suppressing a detail here, and emphasizing a characteristic there; you feel, in addition, that the entire object floats airily in an atmosphere of cleverness; that it is but a bit, an example, a miniature type of an environment wholly attuned to the note of cleverness--of competence, facility, grace, elegance, and other abstract but not at all abstruse qualities, quite unrelated to what, in any profound sense, at least, is concrete and vitally significant. Artificiality so permeated the Louis Quinze epoch, indeed, that one may say that nature itself was artificial--that is to say, all the nature Louis Quinze painters had to paint; at least all they could have been called upon to think of painting. What a distinction is, after all, theirs! To have created out of nothing, or next to nothing, something charming, and enduringly charming; something of a truly classic inspiration without dependence at bottom on the real and the actual; something as little indebted to facts and things as a fairy tale, and withal marked by such qualities as color and cleverness in so eminent a degree. The Louis Quinze painters may be said, indeed, to have had the romantic temperament with the classic inspiration. They have audacity rather than freedom, license modified by strict limitation to the lines within which it is exercised. But there can be no doubt that this limitation is more conspicuous in their charmingly irresponsible works than is, essentially speaking, their irresponsibility itself. They never give their imagination free play. Sportive and spontaneous as it appears, it is equally clear that its activities are bounded by conservatory confines. Watteau, born on the Flemish border, is almost an exception. Temperament in him seems constantly on the verge of conquering tradition and environment. Now and then he seems to be on the point of emancipation, and one expects to come upon some work in which he has expressed himself and attested his ideality. But one is as constantly disappointed. His color and his cleverness are always admirable and winning, but his import is perversely--almost bewitchingly--slight. What was he thinking of? one asks, before his delightful canvases; and one's conclusion inevitably is, certainly as near nothing at all as can be consistent with so much charm and so much real power. As to Watteau, one's last thought is of what he would have been in a different æsthetic atmosphere, in an atmosphere that would have stimulated his really romantic temperament to extra-traditional flights, instead of confining it within the inexorable boundaries of classic custom; an atmosphere favorable to the free exercise of his adorable fancy, instead of rigorously insistent on conforming this, so far as might be, to customary canons, and, at any rate, restricting its exercise to material _à la mode_. A little landscape in the La Caze collection in the Louvre, whose romantic and truly poetic feeling agreeably pierces through its elegance, is eloquent of such reflections. V With Greuze and Chardin we are supposed to get into so different a sphere of thought and feeling that the change has been called a "return to nature"--that "return to nature" of which we hear so much in histories of literature as well as of the plastic arts. The notion is not quite sound. Chardin is a painter who seems to me, at least, to stand quite apart, quite alone, in the development of French painting, whereas there could not be a more marked instance of the inherence of the classic spirit in the French æsthetic nature than is furnished by Greuze. The first French painter of _genre_, in the full modern sense of the term, the first true interpreter of scenes from humble life--of lowly incident and familiar situations, of broken jars and paternal curses, and buxom girls and precocious children--he certainly is. There is certainly nothing _régence_ about him. But the beginning and end of Greuze's art is convention. He is less imaginative, less romantic, less real than the painting his replaced. That was at least a mirror of the ideals, the spirit, the society, of the day. A Louis Quinze fan is a genuine and spontaneous product of a free and elastic æsthetic impulse beside one of his stereotyped sentimentalities. The truth is, Greuze is as sentimental as a bullfinch, but he has hardly a natural note in his gamut. Nature is not only never his model, she is never his inspiration. He is distinctively a literary painter; but this description is not minute enough. His conventions are those not merely of the _littérateur_, but of the extremely conventional _littérateur_. An artless platitude is really more artificial than a clever paradox; it doesn't even cast a side-light on the natural material with which it deals. Greuze's _genre_ is really a _genre_ of his own--his own and that of kindred spirits since. It is as systematic and detached as the art of Poussin. The forms it embodies merely have more natural, more familiar associations. But compare one of his compositions with those of the little Dutch and Flemish masters, for truth, feeling, nature handled after her own suggestions, instead of within limits and on lines imposed upon her from without. By the side of Van Ostade or Brauer, for example, one of Greuze's bits of humble life seems like an academic composition, quite out of touch with its subject, and, except for its art, absolutely lifeless and insipid. In a word, his choice of subjects, of _genre_, is really no disguise at all of his essential classicality. Both ideally and technically, in the way he conceives and the way he handles his subject, he is only superficially romantic or real. His literature, so to speak, is as conventional as his composition. One may compare him to Hogarth, though both as a moralist and a technician _a longo intervallo_, of course. He is assuredly not to be depreciated. His scheme of color is clear if not rich, his handling is frank if not unctuous or subtly interesting, his composition is careful and clever, and some of his heads are admirably painted--painted with a genuine feeling for quality. But his merits as well as his failings are decidedly academic, and as a romanticist he is really masquerading. He is much nearer to Fragonard than he is to Edouard Frère even. Chardin, on the other hand, is the one distinguished exception to the general character of French art in the artificial and intellectual eighteenth century. He is as natural as a Dutchman, and as modern as Vollon. As you walk through the French galleries of the Louvre, of all the canvases antedating our own era his are those toward which one feels the most sympathetic attraction, I think. You note at once his individuality, his independence of schools and traditions, his personal point of view, his preoccupation with the object as he perceives it. Nothing is more noteworthy in the history of French art, in the current of which the subordination of the individual genius to the general consensus is so much the rule, than the occasional exception--now of a single man, now of a group of men, destined to become in its turn a school--the occasional accent or interruption of the smooth course of slow development on the lines of academic precedent. Tyrannical as academic precedent is (and nowhere has it been more tyrannical than in French painting) the general interest in æsthetic subjects which a general subscription to academic precedent implies is certainly to be credited with the force and genuineness of the occasional protestant against the very system that has been powerful enough to popularize indefinitely the subject both of subscription and of revolt. Without some such systematic propagandism of the æsthetic cultus as from the first the French Institute has been characterized by, it is very doubtful if, in the complexity of modern society, the interest in æsthetics can ever be made wide enough, universal enough, to spread beyond those immediately and professionally concerned with it. The immense impetus given to this interest by a central organ of authority, that dignifies the subject with which it occupies itself and draws attention to its value and its importance, has, _à priori_, the manifest effect of leading persons to occupy themselves with it, also, who otherwise would never have had their attention drawn to it. It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say, in other words, that but for the Institute there would not be a tithe of the number of names now on the roll of French artists. When art is in the air--and nothing so much as an academy produces this condition--the chances of the production of even an unacademic artist are immensely increased. So in the midst of the Mignardise of Louis Quinze painting it is only superficially surprising to find a painter of the original force and flavor of Chardin. His wholesome and yet subtle variations from the art _à la mode_ of his epoch might have been painted in the Holland of his day, or in our day anywhere that art so good as Chardin's can be produced, so far as subject and moral and technical attitude are concerned. They are, in quite accentuated contra-distinction from the works of Greuze, thoroughly in the spirit of simplicity and directness. One notes in them at once that moral simplicity which predisposes everyone to sympathetic appreciation. The special ideas of his time seem to pass him by unmoved. He has no community of interest with them. While he was painting his still life and domestic genre, the whole fantastic whirl of Louis Quinze society, with its æsthetic standards and accomplishments--accomplishments and standards that imposed themselves everywhere else--was in agitated movement around him without in the least affecting his serene tranquillity, his almost sturdy composure. There can rarely have been such an instance as he affords of an artist's selecting from his environment just those things his own genius needed, and rejecting just what would have hampered or distracted him. He is as sane, as unsentimental, as truthful and unpretending as the most literal and unimaginative Dutchman of his time or before it; but he has also that feeling for style, and that instinct for avoiding the common and unclean which always seem to prevent French painters from "sinking with their subject," as Dutch painters have been said to do. He seems never to let himself go either in the direction of Greuze's literary and sentimental manipulation of his homely material, or in the direction of supine satisfaction with this material, unrelieved and unelevated by an individual point of view, illustrated by the Brauers and Steens and Ostades. One perceives that what he cared for was really art itself, for the æsthetic aspect and significance of the life he painted. Affectionate as his interest in it evidently was, he as evidently thought of its artistic potentialities, its capability of being treated with refinement and delicacy, and of being made to serve the ends of beauty equally well with the conventionally beautiful material of his fan-painting contemporaries. He looked at the world very originally through and over those round, horn-bowed spectacles of his, with a very shrewd and very kindly and sympathetic glance, too; quite untinctured with prejudice or even predisposition. One can read his artistic isolation in his countenance with a very little exercise of fancy. VI It is the fashion to think of David as the painter of the Revolution and the Empire. Really he is Louis Seize. Historical critics say that he had no fewer than four styles, but apart from obvious labels they would be puzzled to tell to which of these styles any individual picture of his belongs. He was from the beginning extremely, perhaps absurdly, enamoured of the antique, and we usually associate addiction to the antique with the Revolutionary period. But perhaps politics are slower than the æsthetic movement; David's view of art and practice of painting were fixed unalterably under the reign of philosophism. Philosophism, as Carlyle calls it, is the ruling spirit of his work. Long before the Revolution--in 1774--he painted what is still his most characteristic picture--"The Oath of the Horatii." His art developed and grew systematized under the Republic and the Empire; but Napoleon, whose genius crystallized the elements of everything in all fields of intellectual effort with which he occupied himself, did little but formally "consecrate," in French phrase, the art of the painter of "The Oath of the Horatii" and the originator and designer of the "Fête" of Robespierre's "Être Suprême." Spite of David's subserviency and that of others, he left painting very much where he found it. And he found it in a state of reaction against the Louis Quinze standards. The break with these, and with everything _régence_, came with Louis Seize, Chardin being a notable exception and standing quite apart from the general drift of the French æsthetic movement; and Greuze being only a pseudo-romanticist, and his work a variant of, rather than reactionary from, the artificiality of his day. Before painting could "return to nature," before the idea and inspiration of true romanticism could be born, a reaction in the direction of severity after the artificial yet irresponsible riot of the Louis Quinze painters was naturally and logically inevitable. Painting was modified in the same measure with every other expression in the general _recueillement_ that followed the extravagance in all social and intellectual fields of the Louis Quinze epoch. But in becoming more chaste it did not become less classical. Indeed, so far as severity is a trait of classicality--and it is only an associated not an essential trait of it--painting became more classical. It threw off its extravagances without swerving from the artificial character of its inspiration. Art in general seemed content with substituting the straight line for the curve--a change from Louis Quinze to Louis Seize that is very familiar even to persons who note the transitions between the two epochs only in the respective furniture of each; a Louis Quinze chair or mirror, for example, having a flowing outline, whereas a Louis Seize equivalent is more rigid and rectilinear. David is artificial, it is to be pointed out, only in his _ensemble_. In detail he is real enough. And he always has an _ensemble_. His compositions, as compositions, are admirable. They make a total impression, and with a vigor and vividness that belong to few constructed pictures. The canvas is always penetrated with David--illustrates as a whole, and with completeness and comparative flawlessness, his point of view, his conception of the subject. This, of course, is the academic point of view, the academic conception. But, as I say, his detail is surprisingly truthful and studied. His picture--which is always nevertheless a picture--is as inconceivable, as traditional in its inspiration, as factitious as you like; his figures are always sapiently and often happily exact. His portraits are absolutely vital characterizations. And in general his sculptural sense, his self-control, his perfect power of expressing what he deemed worth expressing, are really what are noteworthy in his pictures, far more than their monotonous coloration and the coldness and unreality of the pictures themselves, considered as moving, real, or significant compositions. In admiration of these it is impossible for us nowadays to go as far as even the romanticist, though extremely catholic, Gautier. They leave us cold. We have a wholly different ideal, which in order to interest us powerfully painting must illustrate--an ideal of more pertinence and appositeness to our own moods and manner of thought and feeling. Ingres, a painter of considerably less force, I think, comes much nearer to doing this. He is more elastic, less devoted to system. Without being as free, as sensitive to impressions as we like to see an artist of his powers, he escapes pedantry. His subject is not "The Rape of the Sabines," but "The Apotheosis of Homer," academic but not academically fatuitous. To follow the inspiration of the Vatican Stanze in the selection and treatment of ideal subjects is to be far more closely in touch with contemporary feeling as to what is legitimate and proper in imaginative painting, than to pictorialize an actual event with a systematic artificiality and conformity to abstractions that would surely have made the sculptor of the Trajan column smile. Yet I would rather have "The Rape of the Sabines" within visiting distance than "The Apotheosis of Homer." It is better, at least solider, painting. The painter, however dominated by his theory, is more the master of its illustration than Ingres is of the justification of his admiration for Raphael. The "Homer" attempts more, but it is naturally not as successful in getting as effective a unity out of its greater complexity. It is in his less ambitious pictures that the genius of Ingres is unmistakably evident--his heads, his single figures, his exquisite drawings almost in outline. His "Odalisque" of the Louvre is not as forceful as David's portrait of Madame Récamier, but it is a finer thing. I should like the two to have changed subjects in this instance. His "Source" is beautifully drawn and modelled. In everything he did distinction is apparent. Inferior assuredly to David when he attempted the grand style, he had a truer feeling for the subtler qualities of style itself. All his works are linearly beautiful demonstrations of his sincerity--his sanity indeed--in proclaiming that drawing is "the probity of art." With a few contemporary painters and critics, whose specific penetration is sometimes in curious contrast with their imperfect catholicity, he has recently come into vogue again, after having been greatly neglected since the romantic outburst. But he belongs completely to the classic epoch. Neither he nor his refined and sympathetic pupil, Flandrin, did aught to pave the way for the modern movement. Intimations of the shifting point of view are discoverable rather in a painter of far deeper poetic interest than either, spite of Ingres's refinement and Flandrin's elevation--in Prudhon. Prudhon is the link between the last days of the classic supremacy and the rise of romanticism. Like Claude, like Chardin, he stands somewhat apart; but he has distinctly the romantic inspiration, constrained and regularized by classic principles of taste. He is the French Correggio in far more precise parallelism than Lesueur is the French Raphael. With a grace and lambent color all his own--a beautiful mother-of-pearl and opalescent tone underlying his exquisite violets and graver hues; a color-scheme, on the one hand, and a sense of design in line and mass more suave and graceful than anything since the great Italians, on the other--he recalls the lovely chiaro-oscuro of the exquisite Parmesan as it is recalled in no other modern painter. Occupying, as incontestably he does, his own niche in the pantheon of painters, he nevertheless illustrates most distinctly and unmistakably the slipping away of French painting from classic formulas as well as from classic extravagance, and the tendency to new ideals of wider reach and greater tolerance--of more freedom, spontaneity, interest in "life and the world"--of a definitive break with the contracting and constricting forces of classicism. During its next period, and indeed down to the present day, French painting will preserve the essence of its classic traditions, variously modified from decade to decade, but never losing the quality in virtue of which what is French is always measurably the most classic thing going; but of this next period certainly Prudhon is the precursor, who, with all his classic serenity, presages its passion for "storms, clouds, effusion, and relief." II ROMANTIC PAINTING I When we come to Scott after Fielding, says Mr. Stevenson, "we become suddenly conscious of the background." The remark contains an admirable characterization of romanticism; as distinguished from classicism, romanticism is consciousness of the background. With Gros, Géricault, Paul Huet, Michel, Delacroix, French painting ceased to be abstract and impersonal. Instead of continuing the classic detachment, it became interested, curious, and catholic. It broadened its range immensely, and created its effect by observing the relations of its objects to their environment, of its figures to the landscape, of its subjects to their suggestions even in other spheres of thought; Delacroix, Marilhat, Decamps, Fromentin, in painting the aspect of Orientalism, suggested, one may almost say, its sociology. For the abstractions of classicism, its formula, its fastidious system of arriving at perfection by exclusions and sacrifices, it substituted an enthusiasm for the concrete and the actual; it revelled in natural phenomena. Gautier was never more definitely the exponent of romanticism than in saying "I am a man for whom the visible world exists." To lines and curves and masses and their relations in composition, succeeds as material for inspiration and reproduction the varied spectacle of the external world. With the early romanticists it may be said that for the first time the external world "swims into" the painter's "ken." But, above all, in them the element of personality first appears in French painting with anything like general acceptance and as the characteristic of a group, a school, rather than as an isolated exception here and there, such as Claude or Chardin. The "point of view" takes the place of conformity to a standard. The painter expresses himself instead of endeavoring to realize an extraneous and impersonal ideal. What he himself personally thinks, how he himself personally feels, is what we read in his works. It is true that, rightly understood, the romantic epoch is a period of evolution, and orderly evolution at that, if we look below the surface, rather than of systematic defiance and revolt. It is true that it recast rather than repudiated its inheritance of tradition. Nevertheless there has never been a time when the individual felt himself so free, when every man of any original genius felt so keenly the exhilaration of independence, when the "schools" of painting exercised less tyranny and, indeed, counted for so little. If it be exact to speak of the "romantic school" at all, it should be borne in mind that its adherents were men of the most marked and diverse individualities ever grouped under one standard. The impressionists, perhaps, apart, individuality is often spoken of as the essential characteristic of the painters of the present day. But beside the outburst of individuality at the beginning of the romantic epoch, much of the painting of the present day seems both monotonous and eccentric--the variation of its essential monotony, that is to say, being somewhat labored and express in comparison with the spontaneous multifariousness of the epoch of Delacroix and Decamps. In the decade between 1820 and 1830, at all events, notwithstanding the strength of the academic tradition, painting was free from the thraldom of system, and the imagination of its practitioners was not challenged and circumscribed by the criticism that is based upon science. Not only in the painter's freedom in his choice of subject, but in his way of treating it, in the way in which he "takes it," is the revolution--or, as I should be inclined to say, rather, the evolution--shown. And as what we mean by personality is, in general, made up far more of emotion than of mind--there being room for infinitely more variety in feeling than in mental processes among intelligent agents--it is natural to find the French romantic painters giving, by contrast with their predecessors, such free swing to personal feeling that we may almost sum up the origin of the romantic movement in French painting in saying that it was an ebullition of emancipated emotion. And, to go a step farther, we may say that, as nothing is so essential to poetry as feeling, we meet now for the first time with the poetic element as an inspiring motive and controlling force. The romantic painters were, however, by no means merely emotional. They were mainly imaginative. And in painting, as in literature, the great change wrought by romanticism consisted in stimulating the imagination instead of merely satisfying the sense and the intellect. The main idea ceased to be as obviously accentuated, and its natural surroundings were given their natural place; there was less direct statement and more suggestion; the artist's effort was expended rather upon perfecting the _ensemble_, noting relations, taking in a larger circle; a suggested complexity of moral elements took the place of the old simplicity, whose multifariousness was almost wholly pictorial. Instead of a landscape as a tapestry background to a Holy Family, and having no pertinence but an artistic one, we have Corot's "Orpheus." II Géricault and Delacroix are the great names inscribed at the head of the romantic roll. They will remain there. And the distinction is theirs not as awarded by the historical estimate; it is personal. In the case of Géricault perhaps one thinks a little of "the man and the moment" theory. He was, it is true, the first romantic painter--at any rate the first notable romantic painter. His struggles, his steadfastness, his success--pathetically posthumous--have given him an honorable eminence. His example of force and freedom exerted an influence that has been traced not only in the work of Delacroix, his immediate inheritor, but in that of the sculptor Rude, and even as far as that of Millet--to all outward appearance so different in inspiration from that of his own tumultuous and dramatic genius. And as of late years we look on the stages of any evolution as less dependent on individuals than we used to, doubtless just as Luther was confirmed and supported on his way to the Council at Worms by the people calling on him from the house-tops not to deny the truth, Géricault was sustained and stimulated in the face of official obloquy by a more or less considerable æsthetic movement of which he was really but the leader and exponent. But his fame is not dependent upon his revolt against the Institute, his influence upon his successors, or his incarnation of an æsthetic movement. It rests on his individual accomplishment, his personal value, the abiding interest of his pictures. "The Raft of the Medusa" will remain an admirable and moving creation, a masterpiece of dramatic vigor and vivid characterization, of wide and deep human interest and truly panoramic grandeur, long after its contemporary interest and historic importance have ceased to be thought of except by the æsthetic antiquarian. "The Wounded Cuirassier" and the "Chasseur of the Guard" are not documents of æsthetic history, but noble expressions of artistic sapience and personal feeling. What, I think, is the notable thing about both Géricault and Delacroix, however, as exponents, as the initiators, of romanticism, is the way in which they restrained the impetuous temperament they share within the confines of a truly classic reserve. Closely considered, they are not the revolutionists they seemed to the official classicism of their day. Not only do they not base their true claims to enduring fame upon a spirit of revolt against official and academic art--a spirit essentially negative and nugatory, and never the inspiration of anything permanently puissant and attractive--but, compared with their successors of the present day, in whose works individual preference and predilection seem to have a swing whose very freedom and irresponsible audacity extort admiration--compared with the confident temerariousness of what is known as _modernité_, their self-possession and sobriety seem their most noteworthy characteristics. Compared with the "Bar at the Folies-Bergère," either the "Raft of the Medusa" or the "Convulsionists of Tangiers" is a classic production. And the difference is not at all due to the forty years' accretion of Protestantism which Manet represents as compared with the early romanticists. It is due to a complete difference in attitude. Géricault imbued himself with the inspiration of the Louvre. Delacroix is said always to have made a sketch from the old masters or the antique a preliminary to his own daily work. So far from flaunting tradition, they may be said to have, in their own view, restored it; so far from posing as apostles of innovation, they may almost be accused of "harking back"--of steeping themselves in what to them seemed best and finest and most authoritative in art, instead of giving a free rein to their own unregulated emotions and conceptions. Géricault died early and left but a meagre product. Delacroix is _par excellence_ the representative of the romantic epoch. And both by the mass and the quality of his work he forms a true connecting link between the classic epoch and the modern--in somewhat the same way as Prudhon does, though more explicitly and on the other side of the line of division. He represents culture--he knows art as well as he loves nature. He has a feeling for what is beautiful as well as a knowledge of what is true. He is pre-eminently and primarily a colorist--he is, in fact, the introducer of color as a distinct element in French painting after the pale and bleak reaction from the Louis Quinze decorativeness. His color, too, is not merely the prismatic coloration of what had theretofore been mere chiaro-oscuro; it is original and personal to such a degree that it has never been successfully imitated since his day. Withal, it is apparently simplicity itself. Its hues are apparently the primary ones, in the main. It depends upon no subtleties and refinements of tints for its effectiveness. It is significant that the absorbed and affected Rossetti did not like it; it is too frank and clear and open, and shows too little evidence of the morbid brooding and hysterical forcing of an arbitrary and esoteric note dear to the English pre-Raphaelites. It attests a delight in color, not a fondness for certain colors, hues, tints--a difference perfectly appreciable to either an unsophisticated or an educated sense. It has a solidity and strength of range and vibration combined with a subtle sensitiveness, and, as a result of the fusion of the two, a certain splendor that recalls Saracenic decoration. And with this mastery of color is united a combined firmness and expressiveness of design that makes Delacroix unique by emphasizing his truly classic subordination of informing enthusiasm to a severe and clearly perceived ideal--an ideal in a sense exterior to his purely personal expression. In a word, his chief characteristic--and it is a supremely significant trait in the representative painter of romanticism--is a poetic imagination tempered and trained by culture and refinement. When his audacities and enthusiasms are thought of, the directions in his will for his tomb should be remembered too: "Il n'y sera placé ni emblème, ni buste, ni statue; mon tombeau sera copié très exactement sur l'antique, ou Vignoles ou Palladio, avec des saillies très prononcées, contrairement à tout ce qui se fait aujourd'hui en architecture." "Let there be neither emblem, bust, nor statue on my tomb, which shall be copied very scrupulously after the antique, either Vignola or Palladio, with prominent projections, contrary to everything done to-day in architecture." In a sense all Delacroix is in these words. III Delacroix's color deepens into an almost musical intensity occasionally in Decamps, whose oriental landscapes and figures, far less important intellectually, far less _magistrales_ in conception, have at times, one may say perhaps without being too fanciful, a truly symphonic quality that renders them unique. "The Suicide" is like a chord on a violin. But it is when we come to speak of the "Fontainebleau Group," in especial, I think, that the æsthetic susceptibility characteristic of the latter half of the nineteenth century feels, to borrow M. Taine's introduction to his lectures on "The Ideal in Art," that the subject is one only to be treated in poetry. Of the noblest of all so-called "schools," Millet is perhaps the most popular member. His popularity is in great part, certainly, due to his literary side, to the sentiment which pervades, which drenches, one may say, all his later work--his work after he had, on overhearing himself characterized as a painter of naked women, betaken himself to his true subject, the French peasant. A literary, and a very powerful literary side, Millet undoubtedly has; and instead of being a weakness in him it is a power. His sentimental appeal is far from being surplusage, but, as is not I think popularly appreciated, it is subordinate, and the fact of its subordination gives it what potency it has. It is idle to deny this potency, for his portrayal of the French peasant in his varied aspects has probably been as efficient a characterization as that of George Sand herself. But, if a moral instead of an æsthetic effect had been Millet's chief intention, we may be sure that it would have been made far less incisively than it has been. Compare, for example, his peasant pictures with those of the almost purely literary painter Jules Breton, who has evidently chosen his field for its sentimental rather than its pictorial value, and whose work is, perhaps accordingly, by contrast with Millet's, noticeably external and superficial even on the literary side. When Millet ceased to deal in the Correggio manner with Correggiesque subjects, and devoted himself to the material that was really native to him, to his own peasant genius--whatever he may have thought about it himself, he did so because he could treat this material _pictorially_ with more freedom and less artificiality, with more zest and enthusiasm, with a deeper sympathy and a more intimate knowledge of its artistic characteristics, its pictorial potentialities. He is, I think, as a painter, a shade too much preoccupied with this material, he is a little too philosophical in regard to it, his pathetic struggle for existence exaggerated his sentimental affiliations with it somewhat, he made it too exclusively his subject, perhaps. We gain, it may be, at his expense. With his artistic gifts he might have been more fortunate, had his range been broader. But in the main it is his pictorial handling of this material, with which he was in such acute sympathy, that distinguishes his work, and that will preserve its fame long after its humanitarian and sentimental appeal has ceased to be as potent as it now is--at the same time that it has itself enforced this appeal in the subordinating manner I have suggested. When he was asked his intention, in his picture of a maimed calf borne away on a litter by two men, he said it was simply to indicate the sense of weight in the muscular movement and attitude of the bearers' arms. His great distinction, in fine, is artistic. His early painting of conventional subjects is not without significance in its witness to the quality of his talent. Another may paint French peasants all his life and never make them permanently interesting, because he has not Millet's admirable instinct and equipment as a painter. He is a superb colorist, at times--always an enthusiastic one; there is something almost unregulated in his delight in color, in his fondness for glowing and resplendent tone. No one gets farther away from the academic grayness, the colorless chiaro-oscuro of the conventional painters. He runs his key up and loads his canvas, occasionally, in what one may call not so much barbaric as uncultivated and elementary fashion. He cares so much for color that sometimes, when his effect is intended to be purely atmospheric, as in the "Angélus," he misses its justness and fitness, and so, in insisting on color, obtains from the color point of view itself an infelicitous--a colored--result. Occasionally he bathes a scene in yellow mist that obscures all accentuations and play of values. But always his feeling for color betrays him a painter rather than a moralist. And in composition he is, I should say, even more distinguished. His composition is almost always distinctly elegant. Even in so simple a scheme as that of "The Sower," the lines are as fine as those of a Raphael. And the way in which balance is preserved, masses are distributed, and an organic play of parts related to each other and each to the sum of them is secured, is in all of his large works so salient an element of their admirable excellence, that, to those who appreciate it, the dependence of his popularity upon the sentimental suggestion of the raw material with which he dealt seems almost grotesque. In his line and mass and the relations of these in composition, there is a severity, a restraint, a conformity to tradition, however personally felt and individually modified, that evince a strong classic strain in this most unacademic of painters. Millet was certainly an original genius, if there ever was one. In spite of, and in open hostility to, the popular and conventional painting of his day, he followed his own bent and went his own way. Better, perhaps, than any other painter, he represents absolute emancipation from the prescribed, from routine and formulary. But it would be a signal mistake to fail to see, in the most characteristic works of this most personal representative of romanticism, that subordination of the individual whim and isolated point of view to what is accepted, proven, and universal, which is essentially what we mean by the classic attitude. One may almost go so far as to say, considering its reserve, its restraint and poise, its sobriety and measure, its quiet and composure, its subordination of individual feeling to a high sense of artistic decorum, that, romantic as it is, unacademic as it is, its most incontestable claim to permanence is the truly classic spirit which, however modified, inspires and infiltrates it. Beside some of the later manifestations of individual genius in French painting, it is almost academic. In Corot, anyone, I suppose, can see this note, and it would be surplusage to insist upon it. He is the ideal classic-romantic painter, both in temperament and in practice. Millet's subject, not, I think, his treatment--possibly his wider range--makes him seem more deeply serious than Corot, but he is not essentially as nearly unique. He is unrivalled in his way, but Corot is unparalleled. Corot inherits the tradition of Claude; his motive, like Claude's, is always an effect, and, like Claude's, his means are light and air. But his effect is a shade more impalpable, and his means are at once simpler and more subtle. He gets farther away from the phenomena which are the elements of his _ensemble_, farther than Claude, farther than anyone. His touch is as light as the zephyr that stirs the diaphanous drapery of his trees. Beside it Claude's has a suspicion, at least, of unctuousness. It has a pure, crisp, vibrant accent, quite without analogue in the technic of landscape painting. Taking technic in its widest sense, one may speak of Corot's shortcomings--not, I think, of his failures. It would be difficult to mention a modern painter more uniformly successful in attaining his aim, in expressing what he wishes to express, in conveying his impression, communicating his sensations. That a painter of his power, a man of the very first rank, should have been content--even placidly content--to exercise it within a range by no means narrow, but plainly circumscribed, is certainly witness of limitation. "Delacroix is an eagle, I am only a skylark," he remarked once, with his characteristic cheeriness. His range is not, it is true, as circumscribed as is generally supposed outside of France. Outside of France his figure-painting, for example, is almost unknown. We see chiefly variations of his green and gray arbored pastoral--now idyllic, now heroic, now full of freshness, the skylark quality, now of grave and deep harmonies and wild, sweet notes of transitory suggestion. Of his figures we only know those shifting shapes that blend in such classic and charming manner with the glades and groves of his landscapes. Of his "Hagar in the Wilderness," his "St. Jerome," his "Flight into Egypt," his "Democritus," his "Baptism of Christ," with its nine life-size figures, who, outside of France, has even heard? How many foreigners know that he painted what are called architectural subjects delightfully, and even _genre_ with zest? But compared with his landscape, in which he is unique, it is plain that he excels nowhere else. The splendid display of his works in the Centenaire Exposition of the great World's Fair of 1889, was a revelation of his range of interest rather than of his range of power. It was impossible not to perceive that, surprising as were his essays in other fields to those who only knew him as a landscape painter, he was essentially and integrally a painter of landscape, though a painter of landscape who had taken his subject in a way and treated it in a manner so personal as to be really unparalleled. Outside of landscape his interest was clearly not real. In his other works one notes a certain _débonnaire_ irresponsibility. He pursued nothing seriously but out-of-doors, its vaporous atmosphere, its crisp twigs and graceful branches, its misty distances and piquant accents, what Thoreau calls its inaudible panting. His true theme, lightly as he took it, absorbed him; and no one of any sensitiveness can ever regret it. His powers, following the indication of his true temperament, his most genuine inspiration, are concentrated upon the very finest thing imaginable in landscape painting; as, indeed, to produce as they have done the finest landscape in the history of art, they must have been. There are, however, two things worth noting in Corot's landscape, beyond the mere fact that, better even than Rousseau, he expresses the essence of landscape, dwells habitually among its inspirations, and is its master rather than its servant. One is the way in which he poetizes, so to speak, the simplest stretches of sward and clumps of trees, and long clear vistas across still ponds, with distances whose accents are pricked out with white houses and yellow cows and placid fishers and ferrymen in red caps, seen in glimpses through curtains of sparse, feathery leafage--or peoples woodland openings with nymphs and fawns, silhouetted against the sunset glow, or dancing in the cool gray of dusk. A man of no reading, having only the elements of an education in the general sense of the term, his instinctive sense for what is refined was so delicate that we may say of his landscapes that, had the Greeks left any they would have been like Corot's. And this classic and cultivated effect he secured not at all, or only very incidentally, through the force of association, by dotting his hillsides and vaporous distances with bits of classic architecture, or by summing up his feeling for the Dawn in a graceful figure of Orpheus greeting with extended gesture the growing daylight, but by a subtle interpenetration of sensuousness and severity resulting in precisely the sentiment fitly characterized by the epithet classic. The other trait peculiar to Corot's representation of nature and expression of himself is his color. No painter ever exhibited, I think, quite such a sense of refinement in so narrow a gamut. Green and gray, of course, predominate and set the key, but he has an interestingly varied palette on the hither side of splendor whose subtleties are capable of giving exquisite pleasure. Never did anyone use tints with such positive force. Tints with Corot have the vigor and vibration of positive colors--his lilacs, violets, straw-colored hues, his almost Quakerish coquetry with drabs and slates and pure clear browns, the freshness and bloom he imparted to his tones, the sweet and shrinking wild flowers with which as a spray he sprinkled his humid dells and brook margins. But Corot's true distinction--what gives him his unique position at the very head of landscape art, is neither his color, delicate and interesting as his color is, nor his classic serenity harmonizing with, instead of depending upon, the chance associations of architecture and mythology with which now and then he decorates his landscapes; it is the blithe, the airy, the truly spiritual way in which he gets farther away than anyone from both the actual pigment that is his instrument, and from the phenomena that are the objects of his expression--his ethereality, in a word. He has communicated his sentiment almost without material, one may say, so ethereally independent of their actual analogues is the interest of his trees and sky and stretch of sward. This sentiment, thus mysteriously triumphant over color or form, or other sensuous charm, which nevertheless are only subtly subordinated, and by no manner of means treated lightly or inadequately, is as exalted as any that has in our day been expressed in any manner. Indeed, where, outside of the very highest poetry of the century, can one get the same sense of elation, of aspiring delight, of joy unmixed with regret--since "the splendor of truth" which Plato defined beauty to be, is more animating and consoling than the "weary weight of all this unintelligible world," is depressing to a spirit of lofty seriousness and sanity? * * * * * Dupré and Diaz are the decorative painters of the Fontainebleau group. They are, of modern painters, perhaps the nearest in spirit to the old masters, pictorially speaking. They are rarely in the grand style, though sometimes Dupré is restrained enough to emulate if not to achieve its sobriety. But they have the _bel air_, and belong to the aristocracy of the painting world. Diaz, especially, has almost invariably the patrician touch. It lacks the exquisiteness of Monticelli's, in which there is that curiously elevated detachment from the material and the real that the Italians--and the Provençal painter's inspiration and method, as well as his name and lineage, suggest an Italian rather than a French association--exhibit far oftener than the French. But Diaz has a larger sweep, a saner method. He is never eccentric, and he has a dignity that is Iberian, though he is French rather than Spanish on his æsthetic side, and at times is as conservative as Rousseau--without, however, reaching Rousseau's lofty simplicity except in an occasional happy stroke. Both he and Dupré are primarily colorists. Dupré sees nature through a prism. Diaz's groups of dames and gallants have a jewel-like aspect; they leave the same impression as a tangle of ribbons, a bunch of exotic flowers, a heap of gems flung together with the felicity of haphazard. In general, and when they are in most completely characteristic mood, it is not the sentiment of nature that one gets from the work of either painter. It is not even _their_ sentiment of nature--the emotion aroused in their susceptibilities by natural phenomena. What one gets is their personal feeling for color and design--their decorative quality, in a word. The decorative painter is he to whom what is called "subject," even in its least restricted sense and with its least substantial suggestions, is comparatively indifferent. Nature supplies him with objects; she is not in any intimate degree his subject. She is the medium through which, rather than the material of which, he creates his effects. It is her potentialities of color and design that he seeks, or at any rate, of all her infinitely numerous traits, it is her hues and arabesques that strike him most forcibly. He is incurious as to her secrets and calls upon her aid to interpret his own, but he is so independent of her, if he be a decorative painter of the first rank--a Diaz or a Dupré--that his rendering of her, his picture, would have an agreeable effect, owing to its design or color or both, if it were turned upside down. Decorative painting in this sense may easily be carried so far as to seem incongruous and inept, in spite of its superficial attractiveness. The peril that threatens it is whim and freak. Some of Monticelli's, some of Matthew Maris's pictures, illustrate the exaggeration of the decorative impulse. After all, a painter must get his effect, whatever it be and however it may shun the literal and the exact, by rendering things with pigments. And some of the decorative painters only escape things by obtruding pigments, just as the _trompe-l'oeil_ or optical illusion painters get away from pigments by obtruding things. It is the distinction of Diaz and Dupré that they avoid this danger in most triumphant fashion. On the contrary, they help one to see the decorative element in nature, in "things," to a degree hardly attained elsewhere since the days of the great Venetians. Their predilection for the decorative element is held in leash by the classic tradition, with its reserve, its measure, its inculcation of sobriety and its sense of security. Dupré paints Seine sunsets and the edge of the forest at Fontainebleau, its "long mysterious reaches fed with moonlight," in a way that conveys the golden glow, the silvery gleam, the suave outline of spreading leafage, and the massive density of mysterious boscage with the force of an almost abstract acuteness. Does nature look like this? Who knows? But in this semblance, surely, she appeared to Dupré's imagination. And doubtless Diaz saw the mother-of-pearl tints in the complexion of his models, and is not to be accused of artificiality, but to be credited with a true sincerity of selection in juxtaposing his soft corals and carnations and gleaming topaz, amethyst, and sapphire hues. The most exacting literalist can hardly accuse them of solecism in their rendering of nature, true as it is that their decorative sense is so strong as to lead them to impose on nature their own sentiment instead of yielding themselves to absorption in _hers_, and thus, in harmonious and sympathetic concert with her, like Claude and Corot, Rousseau and Daubigny, interpreting her subtle and supreme significance. * * * * * Rousseau carried the fundamental principle of the school farther than the others--with him interest, delight in, enthusiasm for nature became absorption in her. Whereas other men have loved nature, it has been acutely remarked, Rousseau was in love with her. It was felicitously of him, rather than of Dupré or Corot, that the naif peasant inquired, "Why do you paint the tree; the tree is there, is it not?" And never did nature more royally reward allegiance to her than in the sustenance and inspiration she furnished for Rousseau's genius. You feel the point of view in his picture, but it is apparently that of nature herself as well as his own. It is not the less personal for this. On the contrary, it is extremely personal, and few pictures are as individual, as characteristic. Occasionally Diaz approaches him, as I have said, but only in the very happiest and exceptional moments, when the dignity of nature as well as her charm seems specially to impress and impose itself upon the less serious painter. But Rousseau's selection seems instinctive and not sought out. He knows the secret of nature's pictorial element. He is at one with her, adopts her suggestions so cordially and works them out with such intimate sympathy and harmoniousness, that the two forces seem reciprocally to reinforce each other, and the result gains many fold in power from their subtle co-operation. His landscapes have in this way a Wordsworthian directness, simplicity, and severity. They are not troubled and dramatic like Turner's. They are not decorative like Dupré's, they have not the solemn sentiment of Daubigny's, or the airy aspiration and fairy-like blitheness of Corot's. But there is in them "all breathing human passion;" and at times, as in "Le Givre," they rise to majesty and real grandeur because they are impregnated with the sentiment, as well as are records of the phenomena, of nature, and one may say of Rousseau, paraphrasing Mr. Arnold's remark about Wordsworth, that nature seems herself to take the brush out of his hand and to paint for him "with her own bare, sheer, penetrating power." Rousseau, however, is French, and in virtue of his nativity exhibits always what Wordsworth's treatment of nature exhibits only occasionally, namely, the Gallic gift of style. It is rarely as felicitous as in Corot, in every detail of whose every work, one may almost say, its informing, co-ordinating, elevating influence is distinctly to be perceived; but it is always present as a factor, as a force dignifying and relieving from all touch, all taint of the commonness that is so often inseparably associated with art whose absorption in nature is listlessly unthinking instead of enthusiastic and alert. In Rousseau, too, in a word, we have the classic strain, as at least a psychological element, and note as one source of his power his reserve and restraint, his perfect self-possession. In Daubigny a similar attitude toward nature is obvious, but with a sensible difference. Affection for, rather than absorption in her, is his inspiration. Daubigny stands somewhat apart from the Fontainebleau group, with whom nevertheless he is popularly and properly associated, for though he painted Normandy mainly, he was spiritually of the Barbizon kindred. He stands, however, somewhat apart from French painting in general, I think. There is less style, more sentiment, more poetry in his landscapes than in those of his countrymen who are to be compared with him. Beyond what is admirable in them there is something attaching as well. He drew and engraved a good deal, as well as painted. He did not concentrate his powers enough, perhaps, to make as signal and definite a mark as otherwise he might have done. He is a shade desultory, and too spontaneous to be systematic. One must be systematic to reach the highest point, even in the least material spheres. But never have the grave and solemn aspects of landscape found a sweeter and serener spirit to interpret them. In some of his pictures there is a truly religious feeling. His frankness recalls Constable's, but it is more distinguished in being more spiritual. He has not Diaz's elegance, nor Corot's witchery, nor Rousseau's power, but nature is more mysteriously, more mystically significant to him, and sets a deeper chord vibrating within him. He is a sensitive instrument on which she plays, rather than a magician who wins her secrets, or an observer whose generalizing imagination she sets in motion. The design of some of his important works, notably that of his last _Salon_ picture, is very distinguished, and in one of his large canvases representing a road like that from Barbizon through the level plain to Chailly, there is the spirit and sentiment of all the summer evenings that ever were. But he has distinctly less power than the strict Fontainebleau group. He has, in force, less affinity with them than Troyon has, whose force is often magnificent, and whose landscape is so sweet, often, and often so strong as well, that one wonders a little at his fondness for cattle--in spite of the way in which he justifies it by being the first of cattle painters. And neither Daubigny nor Troyon, nor, indeed, Rousseau himself, often reaches in dramatic grandeur the lofty landscape of Michel, who, with Paul Huet (the latter in a more strictly historical sense) were so truly the forerunners and initiators of the romantic landscape movement, both in sentiment and chronology, in spite of their Dutch tradition, as to make the common ascription of its debt to Constable, whose aid was so cordially welcomed in the famous Salon of 1824, a little strained. IV But quite aside from the group of poetic painters which stamped its impress so deeply upon the romantic movement at the outset, that to this day it is Delacroix and Millet, Decamps and Corot whom we think of when we think of the movement itself, the classic tradition was preserved all through the period of greatest stress and least conformity by painters of great distinction, who, working under the romantic inspiration and more or less according to what may be called romantic methods, nevertheless possessed the classic temperament in so eminent a degree that to us their work seems hardly less academic than that of the Revolution and the Empire. Not only Ingres, but Delaroche and Ary Scheffer, painted beside Géricault and Delacroix. Ary Scheffer was an eloquent partisan of romanticism, yet his "Dante and Beatrice" and his "Temptation of Christ" are admirable only from the academic point of view. Delaroche's "Hemicycle" and his many historical tableaux are surely in the classic vein, however free they may seem in subject and treatment by contrast with the works of David and Ingres. They leave us equally cold, at all events, and in the same way--for the same reason. They betray the painter's preoccupation with art rather than with nature. They do, in truth, differ widely from the works which they succeeded, but the difference is not temperamental. They suggest the French phrase, _plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose_. Gérôme, for example, feels the exhilaration of the free air of romanticism fanning his enthusiasm. He does not confine himself, as, born a decade or two earlier, certainly he would have done, to classic subject. He follows Decamps and Marilhat to the Orient, which he paints with the utmost freedom, so far as the choice of theme is concerned--descending even to the _danse du ventre_ of a Turkish café. He paints historical pictures with a realism unknown before his day. He is almost equally famous in the higher class of _genre_ subjects. But throughout everything he does it is easy to perceive the academic point of view, the classic temperament. David assuredly would never have chosen one of Gérôme's themes; but had he chosen it, he would have treated it in much the same way. Allowance made for the difference in time, in general feeling of the æsthetic environment, the change in ideas as to what was fit subject for representation and fitting manner of treating the same subject, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that Ingres would have sincerely applauded Gérôme's "Cleopatra" issuing from the carpet roll before Cæsar. And if he failed to perceive the noble dramatic power in such a work as the "Ave, Cæsar, morituri te salutant," his failure would nowadays, at least among intelligent amateurs, be ascribed to an intolerance which it is one of the chief merits of the romantic movement to have adjudged absurd. It is a source of really æsthetic satisfaction to see everything that is attempted as well done as it is in the works of such painters as Bouguereau and Cabanel. Of course the feeling that denies them large importance is a legitimate one. The very excellence of their technic, its perfect adaptedness to the motive it expresses, is, considering the insignificance of the motive, subject for criticism; inevitably it partakes of the futility of its subject-matter. Of course the personal value of the man, the mind, behind any plastic expression is, in a sense, the measure of the expression itself. If it be a mind interested in "pouncet-box" covers, in the pictorial setting forth of themes whose illustration most intimately appeals to the less cultivated and more rudimentary appreciation of fine art--as indisputably the Madonnas and Charities and Oresteses and Bacchus Triumphs of M. Bouguereau do--one may very well dispense himself from the duty of admiring its productions. Life is short, and more important things, things of more significant import, demand attention. The grounds on which the works of Bouguereau and Cabanel are admired are certainly insufficient. But they are experts in their sphere. What they do could hardly be better done. If they appeal to a _bourgeois_, a philistine ideal of beauty, of interest, they do it with a perfection that is pleasing in itself. No one else does it half so well. To minds to which they appeal at all, they appeal with the force of finality; for these they create as well as illustrate the type of what is admirable and lovely. It is as easy to account for their popularity as it is to perceive its transitory quality. But not only is it a mark of limitation to refuse all interest to such a work as, for example, M. Cabanel's "Birth of Venus," in the painting of which a vast deal of technical expertness is enjoyably evident, and which in every respect of motive and execution is far above similar things done elsewhere than in France; it is a still greater error to confound such painters as M. Cabanel and M. Bouguereau with other painters whose classic temperament has been subjected to the universal romantic influence equally with theirs, but whose production is as different from theirs as is that of the thorough and pure romanticists, the truly poetic painters. The instinct of simplification is an intelligent and sound one. Its satisfaction is a necessary preliminary to efficient action of any kind, and indeed the basis of all fruitful philosophy. But in criticism this instinct can only be satisfied intelligently and soundly by a consideration of everything appealing to consideration, and not at all by heated and wilful, or superior and supercilious, exclusions. Catholicity of appreciation is the secret of critical felicity. To follow the line of least resistance, not to take into account those elements of a problem, those characteristics of a subject, to which, superficially and at first thought, one is insensitive, is to dispense one's self from a great deal of particularly disagreeable industry, but the result is only transitorily agreeable to the sincere intelligence. It is in criticism, I think, though no doubt in criticism alone, preferable to lose one's self in a maze of perplexity--distressing as this is to the critic who appreciates the indispensability of clairvoyance in criticism--rather than to reach swiftly and simply a conclusion which candor would have foreseen as the inevitable and unjudicial result of following one's own likes and whims, and one's contentment with which must be alloyed with a haunting sense of insecurity. In criticism it is perhaps better to keep balancing counter-considerations than to determine brutally by excluding a whole set of them because of the difficulty of assigning them their true weight. In this way, at least, one preserves the attitude of poise, and poise is perhaps the one essential element of criticism. In a word, that catholicity of sensitiveness which may be called mere impressionism, behind which there is no body of doctrine at all, is more truly critical than intolerant depreciation or unreflecting enthusiasm. "The main thing to do," says Mr. Arnold, in a significant passage, "is to get one's self out of the way and let humanity judge." It is temptingly simple to deny all importance to painters who are not poetic painters. And the temptation is especially seductive when the prosaic painters are paralleled by such a distinguished succession of their truly poetic brethren as are the painters of the romantic epoch who are possessed of the classic temperament. But real criticism immediately suggests that prose has its place in painting as in literature. In literature we do not insist even that the poets be poetic. Poetic is not the epithet that would be applied, for instance, to French classic verse or the English verse of the eighteenth century, compared with the poetry, French or English, which we mean when we speak of poetry. Yet no one would think of denying the value of Dryden or even of Boileau. No one would even insist that, distinctly prosaic as are the qualities of Boileau--and I should say his was a crucial instance--he would have done better to abjure verse. And painting, in a wide sense, is just as legitimately the expression of ideas in form and color as literature is the expression of ideas in words. It is perfectly plain that Meissonier was not especially enamoured of beauty, as Corot, as Troyon, as Decamps was. But nothing could be less critical than to deny Meissouier's importance and the legitimate interest he has for every educated and intelligent person, in spite of his literalness and his insensitiveness to the element of beauty, and indeed to any truly pictorial significance whatever in the wide range of subjects that he essayed, with, in an honorable sense, such distinguished success. Especially in America, I think, where of recent years we have shown an Athenian sensitiveness to new impressions, the direct descendants of the classic period of French painting have suffered from the popularity of the Fontainebleau group. Their legitimate attachment to art, instead of the Fontainebleau absorption in nature, has given them a false reputation of artificiality. But the prose element in art has its justification as well as the poetic, and it is witness of a narrow culture to fail in appreciation of its admirable accomplishment. The academic wing of the French romantic painting is marked precisely by a breadth of culture that is itself a source of agreeable and elevated interest. The neo-Grec painters are thoroughly educated. They lack the picturesque and unexpected note of their poetic brethren--they lack the moving and interpreting, the elevating and exquisite touch of these; nay, they lack the penetrating distinction that radiates even from rusticity itself when it is inspired and transfigured as it appears in such works as those of Millet and Rousseau. But their distinction is not less real for being the distinction of cultivation rather than altogether native and absolute. It is perhaps even more marked, more pervasive, more directly associated with the painter's aim and effect. One feels that they are familiar with the philosophy of art, its history and practice, that they are articulate and eclectic, that for being less personal and powerful their horizon is less limited, their purely intellectual range, at all events, and in many cases their æsthetic interest, wider. They have more the cultivated man's bent for experimentation, for variety. They care more scrupulously for perfection, for form. With a far inferior sense of reality and far less felicity in dealing with it, their sapient skill in dealing with the abstractions of art is more salient. To be blind to their successful handling of line and mass and movement, is to neglect a source of refined pleasure. To lament their lack of poetry is to miss their admirable rhetoric; to regret their imperfect feeling for decorativeness is to miss their delightful decorum. V As one has, however, so often occasion to note in France--where in every field of intellectual effort the influence of schools and groups and movements is so great that almost every individuality, no matter how strenuous, falls naturally and intimately into association with some one of them--there is every now and then an exception that escapes these categories and stands quite by itself. In modern painting such exceptions, and widely different from each other as the poles, are Couture and Puvis de Chavannes. Better than in either the true romanticists with the classic strain, or the academic romanticists with the classic temperament, the blending of the classic and romantic inspirations is illustrated in Couture. The two are in him, indeed, actually fused. In Puvis de Chavannes they appear in a wholly novel combination; his classicism is absolutely unacademic, his romanticism unreal beyond the verge of mysticism, and so preoccupied with visions that he may almost be called a man for whom the actual world does _not_ exist--in the converse of Gautier's phrase. His distinction is wholly personal. He lives evidently on an exceedingly high plane--dwells habitually in the delectable uplands of the intellect. The fact that his work is almost wholly decorative is not at all accidental. His talent, his genius if one chooses, requires large spaces, vast dimensions. There has been a great deal of rather profitless discussion as to whether he expressly imitates the _primitifs_ or reproduces them sympathetically. But really he does neither; he deals with their subjects occasionally, but always in a completely modern, as well as a thoroughly personal, way. His color is as original as his general treatment and composition. He had no schooling, in the École des Beaux Arts sense. A brief period in Henri Scheffer's studio, three months under Couture, after he had begun life in an altogether different field of effort, yielded him all the explicit instruction he ever had. His real study was done in Italy, in the presence of the old masters of Florence. With this equipment he revolutionized modern decoration, established, at any rate, a new convention for it. His convention is a little definite, a little bald. One may discuss it apart from his own handling of it, even. It is a shade too express, too confident, too little careless both of tradition and of the typical qualities that secure permanence. In other hands one can easily imagine how insipid it might become. It has too little body, its scheme is too timorous, too vaporous to be handled by another. Puvis de Chavannes will probably have few successful imitators. But one must immediately add that if he does not found a school, his own work is, perhaps for that reason, at all events in spite of it, among the most important of the day. Quite unperturbed by current discussions, which are certainly of the noisiest by which the current of artistic development was ever deflected, he has kept on his way, and has finally won all suffrages for an æsthetic expression that is really antagonistic to the general æsthetic spirit of his time. Puvis de Chavannes is, perhaps, the most interesting figure in French painting to-day. Couture is little more than a name. It is curious to consider why. Twenty years ago he was still an important figure. He had been an unusually successful teacher. Many American painters of distinction, especially, were at one time his pupils--Hunt, La Farge, George Butler. He theorized as much, as well--perhaps even better than--he painted. His "Entretiens d'atelier" are as good in their way as his "Baptism of the Prince Imperial." He had a very distinguished talent, but he was too distinctly clever--clever to the point of sophistication. In this respect he was distinctly a man of the nineteenth century. His great work, "Romains de la Décadence," created as fine an effect at the Centenary Exhibition of the Paris World's Fair in 1889 as it does in the Louvre, whence it was then transferred, but it was distinctly a decorative effect--the effect of a fine panel in the general mass of color and design; it made a fine centre. It remains his greatest performance, the performance upon which chiefly his fame will depend, though as painting it lacks the quality and breadth of "Le Fauconnier," perhaps the most interesting of his works to painters themselves, and of the "Day-Dreams" of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its permanent interest perhaps will be the historical one, due to the definiteness with which it assigns Couture his position in the evolution of French painting. It shows, as everything of Couture shows, the absence of any pictorial feeling so profound and personal as to make an impression strong enough to endure indefinitely. And it has not, on the other hand, the interest of reality--that faithful and enthusiastic rendering of the external world which gives importance to and fixes the character of the French painting of the present day. Had Regnault lived, he would have more adequately--or should I say more plausibly?--marked the transition from romanticism to realism. Temperamentally he was clearly a thorough romanticist--far more so, for instance, than his friend Fortuny, whose intellectual reserve is always conspicuous. He essayed the most vehement kind of subjects, even in the classical field, where he treated them with truly romantic truculence. He was himself always, moreover, and ideally cared as little for nature as a fairy-story teller. In this sense he was more romantic than the romanticists. His "Automedon," his portrait of General Prim, even his "Salome," are wilful in a degree that is either superb or superficial, as one looks at them; but at any rate they are romantic _à outrance_. At the same time it was unmistakably the aspect of things rather than their significance, rather than his view of them, that appealed to him. He was farther away from the classic inspiration than any other romanticist of his fellows; and at the same time he cared for the external world more on its own account and less for its suggestions, than any painter of equal force before Courbet and Bastien-Lepage. The very fact that he was not, intellectually speaking, wholly _dans son assiette_, as the French say, shows that he was a genius of a transitional moment. One's final thought of him is that he died young, and one thinks so not so much because of the dramatic tragedy of his taking off by possibly the last Prussian bullet fired in the war of 1870-71, as because of the essentially experimental character of his painting. Undoubtedly he would have done great things. And undoubtedly they would have been different from those that he did; probably in the direction--already indicated in his most dignified performance--of giving more consistency, more vivid definiteness, more reality, even, to his already striking conceptions. III REALISTIC PAINTING I To an intelligence fully and acutely alive, its own time must, I think, be more interesting than any other. The sentimental, the scholastic, the speculative temperament may look before or after with longing or regret; but that sanity of mind which is practical and productive must find its most agreeable sensations in the data to which it is intimately and inexorably related. The light upon Greek literature and art for which we study Greek history, the light upon Roman history for which we study Latin literature and art, are admirable to us in very exact proportion as we study them for our ends. To every man and every nation that really breathes, true vitality of soul depends upon saying to one's self, with an emotion of equivalent intensity to the emotion of patriotism celebrated in Scott's familiar lines, This is my own, my native era and environment. Culture is impossible apart from cosmopolitanism, but self-respect is more indispensable even than culture. French art alone at the present time possesses absolute self-respect. It possesses this quality in an eminent, in even an excessive degree; but it possesses it, and in virtue of it is endued with a preservative quality that saves it from the emptiness of imitation and the enervation of dilettantism. It has, in consequence, escaped that recrudescence of the primitive and inchoate known in England and among ourselves as pre-Raphaelitism. It has escaped also that almost abject worship of classic models which Winckelmann and Canova made universal in Germany and Italy--not to speak of its echoes elsewhere. It has always stood on its own feet, and, however lacking in the higher qualities of imaginative initiative, on the one hand, and however addicted to the academic and the traditional on the other, has always both respected its æsthetic heritage and contributed something of its own thereto. Why should not one feel the same quick interest, the same instinctive pride in his time as in his country? Is not sympathy with what is modern, instant, actual, and apposite a fair parallel of patriotism? Neglect of other times in the "heir of all the ages" is analogous to chauvinism, and indicative of as ill-judged an attitude as that of provincial blindness to other contemporary points of view and systems of philosophy than one's own. Culture is equally hostile to both, and in art culture is as important a factor as it is in less special fields of activity and endeavor. But in art, as elsewhere, culture is a means to an actual, present end, and the pre-Raphaelite sentiment that dictates mere reproduction of what was once a genuine expression is as sterile as servile imitation of exotic modes of thought, dress, and demeanor is universally felt to be. The past--the antique, the renaissance, the classic, and romantic ideals are to be used, not adopted; in the spirit of Goethe, at once the most original of modern men and the most saturated with culture, exhibited in his famous saying: "Nothing do I call my own which having inherited I have not reconquered for myself." It would indeed be a singular thing were the field of æsthetics the only one uninvaded by the scientific spirit of the time. The one force especially characteristic of our era is, I suppose, the scientific spirit. It is at any rate everywhere manifest, and it possesses the best intellects of the century. _A priori_ one may argue about its hostility, essential or other, to the artistic, the constructive spirit; but to do so is at the most to beat the air, to waste one's breath, to Ruskinize, in a word. Interest in life and the world, instead of speculation or self-expression, is the "note" of the day. The individual has withered terribly. He is supplanted by the type. Materialism has its positive gospel; it is not at all the formulated expression of Goethe's "spirit that denies." Nature has acquired new dignity. She cannot be studied too closely, nor too long. The secret of the universe is now pursued through observation, as formerly it was through fasting and prayer. Nothing is sacred nowadays because everything receives respect. If absolute beauty is now smiled at as a chimera, it is because beauty is perceived everywhere. Whatever is may not be right--the maxim has too much of an _ex cathedra_ sound--but whatever is is interesting. Our attitude is at once humbler and more curious. The sense of the immensity, the immeasurableness of things, is more intimate and profound. What one may do is more modestly conceived; what might be done, more justly appreciated. There is less confidence and more aspiration. The artist's eye is "on the object" in more concentrated gaze than ever heretofore. If his sentiment, his poetry, is no longer "inevitable," as Wordsworth complained Goethe's was not, it is more reverent, at any rate more circumspect. If he is less exalted he is more receptive--he is more alive to impressions for being less of a philosopher. If he scouts authority, if even he accepts somewhat weakly the thraldom of dissent from traditional standards and canons, it is because he is convinced that the material with which he has to deal is superior to all canons and standards. If he esteems truth more than beauty, it is because what he thinks truth is more beautiful in his eyes than the stereotyped beauty he is adjured to attain. In any case, the distinction of the realistic painters--like that of the realists in literature, where, also, it need not be said, France has been in the lead--is measurably to have got rid of solecisms; to have made, indeed, obvious solecisms, and solecisms of conception as well as of execution, a little ridiculous. It is, to be sure, equally ridiculous to subject romantic productions to realistic standards, to blind one's self to the sentiment that saturates such romantic works as Scott's and Dumas's, or Géricault's and Diaz's, and is wholly apposite to its own time and point of view. The great difficulty with a principle is that it is universal, and that when we deal with facts of any kind whatever, universality is an impossible ideal. Scott and Géricault are, nowadays, in what we have come to deem essentials, distinctly old-fashioned. It might be well to try and imitate them, if imitation had any salt in it, which it has not; or if it were possible to do what they did with their different inspiration, which it is not. Mr. Stevenson is, I think, an example of the danger of essaying this latter in literature, just as a dozen eminent painters of less talent--for no one has so much talent as Mr. Stevenson--are examples in painting. But there are a thousand things, not only in the technic of the romanticists but in their whole attitude toward their art and their material, that are nowadays impossible to sincere and spontaneous artists. Details which have no importance whatever in the _ensemble_ of the romantic artist are essential to the realist. Art does not stand still. Its canons change. There is a constant evolution in its standards, its requirements. A conventional background is no more an error in French classic painting than in tapestry; a perfunctory scheme of pure chiaro-oscuro is no blemish in one of Diaz's splendid forest landscapes; such phenomena in a work of Raffaelli or Pointelin would jar, because, measured by the standards to which modern men must, through the very force of evolution itself, subscribe, they can but appear solecisms. In a different set of circumstances, under a different inspiration, and with a different artistic attitude, solecisms they certainly are not. But, as Thackeray makes Ethel Newcome say, "We belong to our belongings." Our circumstances, inspiration, artistic attitude, are involuntary and possess us as our other belongings do. In Gautier's saying, for instance, "I am a man for whom the visible world exists," which I have quoted as expressing the key-note of the romantic epoch, it is to be noted that the visible world is taken as a spectacle simply--significant, suggestive or merely stimulant, in accordance with individual bent. Gautier and the romanticists generally had little concern for its structure. To many of them it was indeed rather a canvas than a spectacle even--just as to many, if not to most, of the realists it is its structure rather than its significance that altogether appeals; the romanticists in general sketched their ideas and impressions upon it, as the naturalists have in the main studied its aspects and constitution, careless of the import of these, pictorially or otherwise. Indeed one is tempted often to inquire of the latter, Why so much interest in what apparently seems to you of so little import? Are we never to have your skill, your observation, your amassing of "documents" turned to any account? Where is the realistic tragedy, comedy, epic, composition of any sort? Courbet's "Cantonniers," Manet's "Bar," or Bastien-Lepage's "Joan of Arc," perhaps. But what is indisputable is, that we are irretrievably committed to the present general æsthetic attitude and inspiration, and must share not only the romanticists' impatience with academic formulæ and conventions, but the realists' devotion to life and the world as they actually exist. The future may be different, but we are living in the present, and what is important is, after all, to live. It is also so difficult that not to take the line of least resistance is fatuity. II It is at least an approximation to ascribe the primacy of realism to Courbet, though ascriptions of the kind are at best approximations. Not only was he the first, or among the first, to feel the interest and importance of the actual world as it is and for what it is rather than for what it suggests, but his feeling in this direction is intenser than that of anyone else. Manet was preoccupied with the values of objects and spaces. Bastien-Lepage, while painting these with the most scrupulous fidelity, was nevertheless always attentive to the significance and import of what he painted. Courbet was a pure pantheist. He was possessed by the material, the physical, the actual. He never varies it a hair's-breadth. He never lifts it a fraction of a degree. But by his very absorption in it he dignifies it immensely. He illustrates magnificently its possibilities. He brings out into the plainest possible view its inherent, integral, æsthetic quality, independent of any extraneity. No painter ever succeeded so well with so little art, one is tempted to say. Beside his, the love of nature which we ascribe to the ordinary realist is a superficial emotion. He had the _sentiment_ of reality in the highest degree; he had it intensely. If he did not represent nature with the searching subtlety of later painters, he is certainly the forerunner of naturalism. He has absolutely no ideality. He is blind to all intimations of immortality, all unearthly voices. Yet it would be wholly an error to suppose him a mere literalist. No one is farther removed from the painstaking, grubbing imitators of detail so justly denounced and ridiculed by Mr. Whistler. He has the generalizing faculty in very distinguished degree, and in very large measure. Every trait of his talent, indeed, is large, manly; but for a certain qualification--which must be made--one might add, Olympian. This qualification perhaps may be not unfairly described as earthiness--never an agreeable trait, and one to which probably is due the depreciation of Courbet that is so popular even among appreciative critics. It is easy to characterize Courbet as brutal and material, but what is easy is generally not exact. What one glibly stigmatizes as brutality and grossness may, after all, be something of a particularly strong savor, enjoyed by the painter himself with a gusto too sterling and instinctive to be justifiably neglected, much less contemned. The first thing to do in estimating an artist's accomplishment, which is to place one's self at his point of view, is, in Courbet's case, unusually difficult. We are all dreamers, more or less--in more or less desultory fashion--and can all appreciate that prismatic turn of what is real and actual into a position wherein it catches glints of the imagination. The imagination is a universal touchstone. The sense of reality is a special, an individual faculty. When one is poetizing in an amateur, a dilettante way, as most of us poetize, a picture of Courbet, which seems to flaunt and challenge the imagination in virtue of its defiant reality, its insistence on the value and significance of the prosaic and the actual, appears coarse and crude. It is not, however. It is very far from that. It is rather elemental than elementary--in itself a prodigious distinction. No modern painter has felt more intensely and reproduced more vigorously the sap that runs through and vivifies the various forms of natural phenomena. To censure his shortcomings, to regret his imaginative incompleteness, is to miss him altogether. It is easy to say he had all the coarseness without the sentiment of the French peasantry, whence he sprang; that his political radicalism attests a lack of the serenity of spirit indispensable to the sincere artist; that he had no conception of the beautiful, the exquisite--the fact remains that he triumphs over all his deficiencies, and in very splendid fashion. He is, in truth, of all the realists for whom he discovered the way, and set the pace, as it were, one of the two naturalistic painters who have shown in any high degree the supreme artistic faculty--that of generalization. However impressive Manet's picture may be; however brilliant Monet's endeavor to reproduce sunlight may seem; however refined and elegant Degas's delicate selection of pictorial material--for broad and masterful generalization, for enduing what he painted with an interest deeper than its surface and underlying its aspect, Courbet has but one rival among realistic painters. I mean, of course, Bastien-Lepage. There is an important difference between the two. In Courbet the sentiment of reality dominates the realism of the technic; in Bastien-Lepage the technic is realistically carried infinitely farther, but the sentiment quite transcends realism. Imagine Courbet essaying a "Jeanne d'Arc!" Bastien-Lepage painting Courbet's "Cantonniers" would not have stopped, as Courbet has done, with expressing their vitality, their actual interest, but at the same time that he represented them in far greater technical completeness he would also have occupied himself with their psychology. He is indeed quite as distinctly a psychologist as he is a painter. His favorite problem, aside from that of technical perfection, which perhaps equally haunted him, is the rendering of that resigned, bewildered, semi-hypnotic, vaguely and yet intensely longing spiritual expression to be noted by those who have the eyes to see it in the faces and attitudes now of the peasant laborer, now of the city pariah. All his peasant women are potentially Jeannes d'Arc--"Les Foins," "Tired," "Petite Fauvette," for example. The "note" is still more evident in the "London Bootblack" and the "London Flower-girl," in which the outcast "East End" spiritlessness of the British capital is caught and fixed with a Zola-like veracity and vigor. Such a phase as this is not so much pictorial or poetic, as psychological. Bastien-Lepage's happiness in rendering it is a proof of the exceeding quickness and sureness of his observation; but his preoccupation with it is equally strong proof of his interest in the things of the mind as well as in those of the senses. This is his great distinction, I think. He beats the realist on his own ground (except perhaps Monet and his followers--I remember no attempt of his to paint sunlight), but he is imaginative as well. He is not, on the other hand, to be in anywise associated with the romanticists. Degas's acid characterization of him, as "the Bouguereau of the modern movement," is only just, if we remember what very radical and fundamental changes the "modern movement" implies in general attitude as well as in special expression. I should be inclined, rather, to apply the analogy to M. Dagnan-Bouveret, though here, too, with many reserves looking mainly to the difference between true and vapid sentiment. It is interesting to note, however, the almost exclusively intellectual character of this imaginative side of Bastien-Lepage. He does not view his material with any apparent sympathy, such as one notes, or at all events divines, in Millet. Both were French peasants; but whereas Millet's interest in his fellows is instinctive and absorbing, Bastien-Lepage's is curious and detached. If his pictures ever succeed in moving us, it is impersonally, in virtue of the camera-like scrutiny he brings to bear on his subject, and the effectiveness with which he renders it, and of the reflections which we institute of ourselves, and which he fails to stimulate by even the faintest trace of a loving touch or the betrayal of any sympathetic losing of himself in his theme. You feel just the least intimation of the _doctrinaire_, the systematic aloofness of the spectator. In moral attitude as well as in technical expression he no more assimilates the various phases of his material, to reproduce them afterward in new and original combination, than he expresses the essence of landscape in general, as the Fontainebleau painters do even in their most photographic moments. Both his figures and his landscapes are clearly portraits--typical and not merely individual, to be sure, but somehow not exactly creations. His skies are the least successful portions of his pictures, I think; one must generalize easily to make skies effective, and perhaps it is not fanciful to note the frequency of high horizons in his work. The fact remains that Bastien-Lepage stands at the head of the modern movement in many ways. His friend, M. André Theuriet, has shown, in a brochure published some years ago, that he was himself as interesting as his pictures. He took his art very seriously, and spoke of it with a dignity rather uncommon in the atmosphere of the studios, where there is apt to be more enthusiasm than reflection. I recall vividly the impatience with which he once spoke to me of painting "to show what you can do." His own standard was always the particular ideal he had formed, never within the reach of his ascertained powers. And whatever he did, one may say, illustrates the sincerity and elevation of this remark, whether one's mood incline one to care most for this psychological side--undoubtedly the more nearly unique side--of his work, or for such exquisite things as his "Forge" or the portrait of Mme Sarah Bernhardt. Incontestably he has the true tradition, and stands in the line of the great painters. And he owes his permanent place among them not less to his perception that painting has a moral and significant, as well as a representative and decorative sanction, than to his perfect harmony with his own time in his way of illustrating this--to his happy fusion of aspect admirably rendered with profound and stimulating suggestion. III Of the realistic landscape painters, the strict impressionists apart, none is more eminent than M. Cazin, whose work is full of interest, and if at times it leaves one a little cold, this is perhaps an affair of the beholder's temperament rather than of M. Cazin's. He is a thoroughly original painter, and, what is more at the present day, an imaginative one. He sees in his own way the nature that we all see, and paints it not literally but personally. But his landscapes invariably attest, above all, an attentive study of the phenomena of light and air, and their truthfulness is the more marked for the personality they illustrate. The impression they make is of a very clairvoyant and enthusiastic observation exercised by an artist who takes more pleasure in appreciation than in expression, whose pleasure in his expression is subordinate to his interest in the external world, and in large measure confined to the delight every artist has in technical felicity when he can attain it. Their skies are beautifully observed--graduated in value with delicate verisimilitude from the horizon up, and wind-swept, or drenched with mist, or ringing clear, as the motive may dictate. All objects take their places with a precision that, nevertheless, is in nowise pedantic, and is perfectly free. Cazin's palette is, moreover, a thoroughly individual one. It is very pure, and if its range is not great, it is at any rate not grayed into insipidity and ineffectualness, but is as positive as if it were more vivid. A distinct air of elegance, a true sense of style, is noteworthy in many of his pictures; not only in the important ones, but occasionally when the theme is so slight as to need hardly any composition whatever--the mere placing of a tree, its outline, its relation to a bank or a roadway, are often unmistakably distinguished. Cazin is not exclusively a landscape painter, and though the landscape element in all his works is a dominant one, even in his "Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert," and his "Judith Setting out for Holofernes's Camp" (in which latter one can hardly identify the heroine at all), the fact that he is not a landscape painter, pure and simple, like Harpignies and Pointelin, perhaps accounts for his inferiority to them in landscape sentiment. In France it is generally assumed that to devote one's self exclusively to any one branch of painting is to betray limitations, and there are few painters who would not resent being called landscapists. Something, perhaps, is lost in this way. It witnesses a greater pride in accomplishment than in instinctive bent. But however that may be, Cazin never penetrates to the sentiment of nature that one feels in such a work as Harpignies's "Moonrise," for example, or in almost any of Pointelin's grave and impressive landscapes. Hardly less truthful, I should say, though perhaps less intimately and elaborately real (a romanticist would say less superficially real) than Cazin's, the work of both these painters is more pictorial. They have a quicker sense for the beautiful, I think. They feel very certainly much more deeply the suggestiveness of a scene. They are not so _débonnaires_ in the presence of their problems. In a sense, for that reason, they understand them better. There is very little feeling of the desert, the illimitable space, where, according to Balzac, God is and man is not, in the "Hagar and Ishmael;" indeed there seems to have been no attempt on the part of the painter to express any. True as his sand-heap is, you feel somehow that there may be a kitchen-garden or the entrance to a coal-mine on the other side of it, or a little farther along. And the landscape of the "Judith," fine as its sweep is, and admirable as are the cool tone and clear distance of the picture, might really be that of the "south meadow" of some particular "farm" or other. The contrast which Guillaumet presents to Fromentin affords a very striking illustration of the growth of the realistic spirit in recent years. Fromentin is so admirable a painter that I can hardly fancy any appreciative person wishing him different. His devoted admirer and biographer, M. Louis Gonse, admits, and indeed expressly records, Fromentin's own lament over the insufficiency of his studies. Fond as he was of horses, for instance, he does not know them as a draughtsman with the science of such a conventional painter in many other respects as Schreyer. But it is not in the slightly amateurish nature of his technical equipment--realized perfectly by himself, of course, as the first critic of the technic of painting among all who have ventured upon the subject--that his painting differs from Guillaumet's. It is his whole point of view. His Africa is that of the critic, the _littérateur_, the _raffiné_. Guillaumet's is Africa itself. You feel before Guillaumet's Luxembourg canvases, as in looking over the slightest of his vivid memoranda, that you are getting in an acute and concentrated form the sensations which the actual scenes and types rendered by the painter would stimulate in you, supposing, of course, that you were sufficiently sensitive. Fromentin, in comparison, is occupied in picture-making--giving you a beautifully colored and highly intelligent pictorial report as against Guillaumet's actual reproduction. There is no question as to which of the two painters has the greater personal interest; but it is just as certain that for abiding value and enduring charm personal interest must either be extremely great or else yield to the interest inherent in the material dealt with, an interest that Guillaumet brings out with a felicity and a puissance that are wholly extraordinary, and that nowadays meet with a readier and more sympathetic recognition that even such delicate personal charm as that of Fromentin. IV So thoroughly has the spirit of realism fastened upon the artistic effort of the present that temperaments least inclined toward interest in the actual feel its influences, and show the effects of these. The most recalcitrant illustrate this technically, however rigorously they may preserve their point of view. They paint at least more circumspectly, however they may think and feel. An historical painter like Jean Paul Laurens, interested as he is in the memorable moments and dramatic incidents of the past, and exhibiting as he does, first of all, a sense of what is ideally forceful and heroic, is nevertheless clearly concerned for the realistic value of his representation far more than a generation ago he would have been. When Luminais paints a scene from Gaulish legend, he is not quite, but nearly, as careful to make it pictorially real as he is to have it dramatically effective. M. François Flameng, expanding his book illustration into a mammoth canvas commemorative of the Vendean insurrection, is almost daintily fastidious about the naturalistic aspect of his abundant detail. M. Benjamin-Constant's artificially conceived seraglio scenes are as realistically rendered as is indicated by a recent caricature depicting an astonished sneak-thief, foiled in an attempted rape of the jewels in a sultana's diadem, painted with such deceptive illusoriness by M. Benjamin-Constant's clever brush. The military painters, Detaille, De Neuville, Berne-Bellecour, do not differ from Vernet more by painting incidents instead of phases of warfare, by substituting the touch of dramatic _genre_ for epic conceptions, than they do by the scrupulously naturalistic rendering that in them supplants the old academic symbolism. Their dragoons and _fantassins_ are not merely more real in what they do, but in how they look. Vernet's look like tin soldiers by comparison; certainly like soldiers _de convenance_. Aimé Morot evidently used instantaneous photography, and his magnificent cavalry charges suggest not only carnage, but Muybridge as well. The great portrait-painters of the day--Carolus-Duran, Bonnat, Ribot--are realists to the core. They are very far from being purely portrait-painters of course, and their realism shows itself with splendid distinction in other works. Few painters of the nude have anything to their credit as fine as the figure M. Carolus-Duran exhibited at the Paris Exposition in 1889. Ribot's "Saint Sebastian" is one of the most powerful pictures of modern French art. Bonnat's "Christ" became at once famous. Each picture is painted with a vigor and point of realistic detail that are peculiar to our own time; painted to-day, Bonnat's fine and sculptural "Fellah Woman and Child," of the Metropolitan Museum, would be accented in a dozen ways in which now it is not. But it is perhaps in portraiture that the eminence of these painters is most explicit. They are at the head of contemporary portraitists, at all events. And their portraits are almost defiantly real, void often of arrangement, and as little artificial as the very frequently prosaic atmosphere appertaining to their sometimes very stark subjects suggests. A portrait by Bonnat blinks nothing in the subject; its aim and accomplishment are the rendering of the character in a vivid fashion--including the reproduction of cobalt cravats and creased trousers even--which would have mightily embarrassed Van Dyck or Velasquez. Ribot reproduces Ribera often, but he deals with fewer externals, fewer effects, taken in the widest sense. Carolus-Duran, the "swell" portrait-painter of the day, artificial as he may be in the quality of his mind, nevertheless seeks and attains, first of all, the sense of an even exaggerated life-likeness in his charming sitters. They are, first of all, people; the pictorial element takes care of itself; sometimes even--so overmastering is the realistic tendency--the plush of the chair, the silk of the robe, the cut of the coat, seems, to an observer who thinks of the old traditions of Titian, of Raphael, of Moroni, unduly emphasized, even for realism. V One element of modernity is a certain order of eclecticism. It is not the eclecticism of the Bolognese painters, for example, illustrating the really hopeless attempt to combine the supposed and superficial excellences, always dissociated from the essence, of different points of view. It is a free choice of attitude, rather, due to the release of the individual from the thraldom of conformity that ruled even during the romantic epoch. Hence a great deal of admirable work, of which one hardly thinks whether it is realistic or not, side by side with the more emphatic expressions of the realistic spirit. And this work is of all degrees of realism, never, however, getting very far away from the naturalistic basis on which more and more everyone is coming to insist as the necessary and only solid pedestal of any flight of fancy. Baudry is perhaps the nearest of the really great men to the Bolognese order of eclecticism. I suppose he must be classed among the really great men, so many painters of intelligence place him there, though I must myself plead the laic privilege of a slight scepticism as to whether time will approve their enthusiasm. He is certainly very effective, and in certainly his own way, idle as it is to say that his drafts on the great Italians are no greater than those of Raphael on the antique frescos. He had a great love of color and a native instinct for it; with perhaps more appreciation than invention, his imagination has something very personal in the zealous enthusiasm with which he exercised it, though I think it must be admitted that his reflections of Tiepolo, Titian, Tintoretto and his attenuated expansions of Michael Angelo's condensed grandiosity, recall the eclecticism of the Carracci far more than that of Raphael. But his manner is the modern manner, and it is altogether more effective, more "fetching," to use a modern term, than anything purely academic can be. Élie Delaunay, another master of decoration, is, on the other hand, as real as the most rigorous literalist could ask of a painter of decorative works. Chartran, who has an individual charm that both Baudry and Delaunay lack, inferior as he is to them in sweep and power, is perhaps in this respect midway between the two. Clairin is, like Mazerolles, a pure _fantaisiste_. Dubufe _fils_, whose at least equally famous father ranks in a somewhat similar category with Couture, shows a distinct advance upon him in reality of rendering, as the term would be understood at present. In other departments of painting the note of realism is naturally still more universally apparent; but as in the work of the painters of decoration it is often most noticeable as an undertone, indicating a point of departure rather than an aim. Bonvin is a realist only as Chardin, as Van der Meer of Delft, as Nicholas Maes were, before the jargon of realism had been thought of. He is, first of all, an exquisite artist, in love with the beautiful in reality, finding in it the humblest material, and expressing it with the gentlest, sweetest, æsthetic severity and composure imaginable. The most fastidious critic needs but a touch of human feeling to convert any characterization of this most refined and elevated of painters into pure panegyric. Vollon's touch is felicity itself, and it is evident that he takes more pleasure in exercising and exploiting it than in its successful imitation, striking as its imitative quality is. Gervex and Duez are very much more than impressionists, both in theory and practice. There is nothing polemic in either. Painters extol in the heartiest way the color, the creative coloration of Gervex's "Rolla," quite aside from its dramatic force or its truth of aspect. Personal feeling is clearly the inspiration of every work of Duez, not the demonstration of a theory of treating light and atmosphere. The same may be said of Roll at his best, as in his superb rendering of what may be called the modern painter's conception of the myth of Europa. Compared with Paul Veronese's admirable classic, that violates all the unities (which Veronese, nevertheless, may readily be pardoned by all but literalists and theorists for neglecting), this splendid nude girl in _plein air_, flecked with splotches of sunlight filtered through a sieve of leafage, with her realistic taurine companion, and their environment of veridically rendered out-of-doors, may stand for an illustrative definition of modernity; but what you feel most of all is Roll. It is ten chances to one that he has never even been to Venice or thought of Veronese. He has not always been so successful; as when in his "Work" he earned Degas's acute comment: "A crowd is made with five persons, not with fifty." ("Il y a cinquante figures, mais je ne vois pas la foule; on fait une foule avec cinq, et non pas avec cinquante.") But he has always been someone. Compare with him L'Hermitte, a painter who illustrates sometimes the possibility of being an artificial realist. His "Vintage" at the Metropolitan Museum, his "Harvesters" at the Luxembourg, are excellently real and true in detail, but in idea and general expression they might compete for the prix de Rome. The same is measurably true of Lerolle, whose pictures are more sympathetic--sometimes they are _very_ sympathetic--but on the whole display less power. But in each instance the advocate _à outrance_ of realism may justly, I think, maintain that a painter with a natural predisposition toward the insipidity of the academic has been saved from it by the inherent sanity and robustness of the realistic method. Jean Béraud, even, owes something to the way in which his verisimilitude of method has reinforced his artistic powers. His delightful Parisiennes--modistes' messengers crossing wet glistening pavements against a background of gray mist accented with poster-bedizened kiosks and regularly recurring horse-chestnut trees; _élégantes_ at prayer, in somewhat distracted mood, on _prie-dieus_ in the vacant and vapid Paris churches; seated at café tables on the busy, leisurely boulevards, or posing _tout bonnement_ for the reproduction of the most fascinating feminine _ensemble_ in the world--owe their charm (I may say again their "fetchingness") to the faithfulness with which their portraitist has studied, and the fidelity with which he has reproduced, their differing types, more than to any personal expression of his own view of them. Fancy Béraud's masterpiece, the Salle Graffard--that admirable characterization of crankdom embodied in a socialist reunion--painted by an academic painter. How absolutely it would lose its pith, its force, its significance, even its true distinction. And his "Magdalen at the Pharisee's House," which is almost equally impressive--far more impressive of course in a literary and, I think, legitimate, sense--owes even its literary effectiveness to its significant realism. What the illustrators of the present day owe to the naturalistic method, it is almost superfluous to point out. "Illustrators" in France are, in general, painters as well, some of them very eminent painters. Daumier, who passed in general for a contributor to illustrated journals, even such journals as _Le Petit Journal pour Rire_, was not only a genius of the first rank, but a painter of the first class. Monvel and Monténard at present are masterly painters. But in their illustration as well as in their painting, they show a notable change from the illustration of the days of Daumier and Doré. The difference between the elegant (or perhaps rather the handsome) drawings of Bida, an artist of the utmost distinction, and that of the illustrators of the present day who are comparable with him--their name is not legion--is a special attestation of the influence of the realistic ideal in a sphere wherein, if anywhere, one may say, realism reigns legitimately, but wherein also the conventional is especially to be expected. One cannot indeed be quite sure that the temptations of the conventional are resisted by the ultra-realistic illustrators of our own time, Rossi, Beaumont, Albert Lynch, Myrbach. They have certainly a very handy way of expressing themselves; one would be justified in suspecting the labor-saving, the art-sparing kodak, behind many of their most unimpeachable successes. But the attitude taken is quite other than it used to be, and the change that has come over French æsthetic activity in general can be noted in very sharp definition by comparing a book illustrated twenty years ago by Albert Lynch, with, for example, Maupassant's "Pierre et Jean," the distinguished realism of whose text is adequately paralleled--and the implied eulogy is by no means trivial--by the pictorical commentary, so to speak, which this first of modern illustrators has supplied. And an even more striking illustration of the evolution of realistic thought and feeling, as well as of rendering, is furnished by the succession of Forain to Grévin, as an illustrator of the follies of the day, the characteristic traits of the Parisian seamy side, morally speaking. Grévin is as conventional as Murger, in philosophy, and--though infinitely cleverer--as "Mars" in drawing. Forain, with the pencil of a realism truly Japanese, illustrates with sympathetic incisiveness the pitiless pessimism of Flaubert, Goncourt, and Maupassant as well. VI But to go back a little and consider the puissant individualities, the great men who have really given its direction to and, as it were, set the pace of, the realistic movement, and for whom, in order more conveniently to consider impressionism pure and simple by itself, I have ventured to disturb the chronological sequence of evolution in French painting--a sequence that, even if one care more for ideas than for chronology, it is more temerarious to vary from in things French than in any others. To go back in a word to Manet; the painter of whom M. Henri Houssaye has remarked: "Manet sowed, M. Bastien-Lepage has reaped." Manet was certainly one of the most noteworthy painters that France or any other country has produced. His is the great, the very rare, merit of having conceived a new point of view. That he did not illustrate this in its completeness, that he was a sign-post, as Albert Wolff very aptly said, rather an exemplar, is nothing. He was totally unheralded, and he was in his way superb. No one before him had essayed--no one before him had ever thought of--the immense project of breaking, not relatively but absolutely, with the conventional. Looking for the first time at one of his pictures, one says that customary notions, ordinary brushes, traditional processes of even the highest authenticity, have been thrown to the winds. Hence, indeed, the scandal which he caused from the first and which went on increasing, until, owing to the acceptance, with modifications, of his point of view by the most virile and vigorous painters of the day, he became, as he has become, in a sense the head of the corner. Manet's great distinction is to have discovered that the sense of reality is achieved with a thousand-fold greater intensity by getting as near as possible to the _actual_, rather than resting content with the _relative_, value of every detail. Everyone who has painted since Manet has either followed him in this effort or has appeared jejune. Take as an illustration of the contrary practice such a masterpiece in its way as Gérôme's "Éminence Grise." In this picture, skilfully and satisfactorily composed, the relative values of all the colors are admirably, even beautifully, observed. The correspondence of the gamut of values to that of the light and dark scale of such an actual scene is perfect. Before Manet, one could have said that this is all that is required or can be secured, arguing that exact _imitation_ of local tints and general tone is impossible, owing to the difference between nature's highest light and lowest dark, and the potentialities of the palette. In other words, one might have said, that inasmuch as you can squeeze absolute white and absolute black out of no tubes, the thing to do is first to determine the scale of your picture and then make every note in it bear the same relation to every other that the corresponding note in nature bears to its fellows in its own corresponding but different scale. This is what Gérôme has done in the "Éminence Grise"--a scene, it will be remembered, on a staircase in a palace interior. Manet inquires what would happen to this house of cards shored up into verisimilitude by mere _correspondence_, if Gérôme had been asked to cut a window in his staircase and admit the light of out-of-doors into his correspondent but artificial scene. The whole thing would have to be done over again. The scale of the picture running from the highest palette white to the lowest palette dark, and yet the key of an actual interior scene being much nearer middle-tint than the tint of an actual out-of-doors scene, it would be impossible to paint with any verisimilitude the illumination of a window from the outside, the resources of the palette having already been exhausted, every object having been given a local value solely with relation, so far as truth of representation is concerned, to the values of every other object, and no effort being made to get the precise value of the object as it would appear under analogous circumstances in nature. It may be replied, and I confess I think with excellent reason, that Gérôme's picture has no window in it, and therefore that to ask of him to paint a picture as he would if he were painting a different picture, is pedantry. The old masters are still admirable, though they only observed a correspondence to the actual scale of natural values, and were not concerned with imitation of it. But it is to be observed that, successful as their practice is, it is successful in virtue of the unconscious co-operation of the beholder's imagination. And nowadays not only is the exercise of the imagination become for better or worse a little old-fashioned, but the one thing that is insisted on as a starting-point and basis, at the very least, is the sense of reality. And it is impossible to exaggerate the way in which the sense of reality has been intensified by Manet's insistence upon getting as near as possible to the individual values of objects as they are seen in nature--in spite of his abandonment of the practice of painting on a parallel scale. Things now drop into their true place, look as they really do, and count as they count in nature, because the painter is no longer content with giving us change for nature, but tries his best to give us nature itself. Perspective acquires its actual significance, solids have substance and bulk as well as surfaces, distance is perceived as it is in nature, by the actual interposition of atmosphere, chiaro-oscuro is abolished--the ways in which reality is secured being in fact legion the moment real instead of relative values are studied. Something is lost, very likely--an artist cannot be so intensely preoccupied with reality as, since Manet, it has been incumbent on painters to be, without missing a whole range of qualities that are so precious as rightly perhaps to be considered indispensable. Until reality becomes in its turn an effect unconsciously attained, the painter's imagination will be held more or less in abeyance. And perhaps we are justified in thinking that nothing can quite atone for its absence. Meantime, however, it must be acknowledged that Manet first gave us this sense of reality in a measure comparable with that which successively Balzac, Flaubert, Zola gave to the readers of their books--a sense of actuality and vividness beside which the traditionary practice seemed absolutely fanciful and mechanical. Applying Manet's method, his invention, his discovery, to the painting of out-of-doors, the _plein air_ school immediately began to produce landscapes of astonishing reality by confining their effort to those values which it is in the power of pigments to imitate. The possible scale of mere correspondence being of course from one to one hundred, they secured greater truth by painting between twenty and eighty, we may say. Hence the grayness of the most successful French landscapes of the present day--those of Bastien-Lepage's backgrounds, of Cazin's pictures. Sunlight being unpaintable, they confined themselves to the representation of what they could represent. In the interest of truth, of reality, they narrowed the gamut of their modulations, they attempted less, upheld by the certainty of accomplishing more. For a time French landscape was pitched in a minor key. Suddenly Claude Monet appeared. Impressionism, as it is now understood, and as Manet had not succeeded in popularizing it, won instant recognition. Monet's discovery was that light is the most important factor in the painting of out-of-doors. He pushed up the key of landscape painting to the highest power. He attacked the fascinating, but of course demonstrably insolvable, problem of painting sunlight, not illusorily, as Fortuny had done by relying on contrasts of light and dark correspondent in scale, but positively and realistically. He realized as nearly as possible the effect of sunlight--that is to say, he did as well and no better in this respect than Fortuny had done--but he created a much greater illusion of a sunlit landscape than anyone had ever done before him, by painting those parts of his picture not in sunlight with the exact truth that in painting objects in shadow the palette can compass. Nothing is more simple. Take a landscape with a cloudy sky, which means diffused light in the old sense of the term, and observe the effect upon it of a sudden burst of sunlight. What is the effect where considerable portions of the scene are suddenly thrown into marked shadow, as well as others illuminated with intense light? Is the absolute value of the parts in shadow lowered or raised? Raised, of course, by reflected light. Formerly, to get the contrast between sunlight and shadow in proper scale, the painter would have painted the shadows darker than they were before the sun appeared. Relatively they are darker, since their value, though heightened, is raised infinitely less than the value of the parts in sunlight. Absolutely, their value is raised considerably. If, therefore, they are painted lighter than they were before the sun appeared, they in themselves seem truer. The part of Monet's picture that is in shadow is measurably true, far truer than it would have been if painted under the old theory of correspondence, and had been unnaturally darkened to express the relation of contrast between shadow and sunlight. Scale has been lost. What has been gained? Simply truth of impressionistic effect. Why? Because we know and judge and appreciate and feel the measure of truth with which objects in shadow are represented; we are insensibly more familiar with them in nature than with objects directly sun-illuminated, the value as well as the definition of which are far vaguer to us on account of their blending and infinite heightening by a luminosity absolutely overpowering. In a word, in sunlit landscapes objects in shadow are what customarily and unconsciously we see and note and know, and the illusion is greater if the relation between them and the objects in sunlight, whose value habitually we do not note, be neglected or falsified. Add to this source of illusion the success of Monet in giving a juster value to the sunlit half of his picture than had even been systematically attempted before his time, and his astonishing _trompe-l'oeil_ is, I think, explained. Each part is truer than ever before, and unless one have a specially developed sense of _ensemble_ in this very special matter of values in and affected by sunlight, one gets from Monet an impression of actuality so much greater than he has ever got before, that he may be pardoned for feeling, and even for enthusiastically proclaiming, that in Monet realism finds its apogee. To sum up: The first realists painted _relative_ values; Manet and his derivatives painted _absolute_ values, but in a wisely limited gamut; Monet paints _absolute values in a very wide range, plus sunlight, as nearly as he can get it_--as nearly as pigment can be got to represent it. Perforce he loses scale, and therefore artistic completeness, but he secures an incomparably vivid effect of reality, of nature--and of nature in her gayest, most inspiring manifestation, illuminated directly and indirectly, and everywhere vibrant and palpitating with the light of all our physical seeing. Monet is so subtle in his own way, so superbly successful within his own limits, that it is time wasted to quarrel with the convention-steeped philistine who refuses to comprehend even his point of view, who judges the pictures he sees by the pictures he has seen. He has not only discovered a new way of looking at nature, but he has justified it in a thousand particulars. Concentrated as his attention has been upon the effects of light and atmosphere, he has reproduced an infinity of nature's moods that are charming in proportion to their transitoriness, and whose fleeting beauties he has caught and permanently fixed. Rousseau made the most careful studies, and then combined them in his studio. Courbet made his sketch, more or less perfect, face to face with his subject, and elaborated it afterward away from it. Corot painted his picture from nature, but put the Corot into it in his studio. Monet's practice is in comparison drastically thorough. After thirty minutes, he says--why thirty instead of forty or twenty, I do not know; these mysteries are Eleusinian to the mere amateur--the light changes; he must stop and return the next day at the same hour. The result is immensely real, and in Monet's hands immensely varied. One may say as much, having regard to their differing degrees of success, of Pissaro, who influenced him, and of Caillebotte, Renoir, Sisley, and the rest of the impressionists who followed him. He is himself the prominent representative of the school, however, and the fact that one representative of it is enough to consider, is eloquent of profound criticism of it. For decorative purposes a hole in one's wall, an additional window through which one may only look satisfactorily during a period of thirty minutes, has its drawbacks. A walk in the country or in a city park is after all preferable to anyone who can really appreciate a Monet--that is, anyone who can feel the illusion of nature which it is his sole aim to produce. After all, what one asks of art is something different from imitative illusion. Its essence is illusion, I think, but illusion taken in a different sense from optical illusion--_trompe-l'oeil_. Its function is to make dreams seem real, not to recall reality. Monet is enduringly admirable mainly to the painter who envies and endeavors to imitate his wonderful power of technical expression--the thing that occupies most the conscious attention of the true painter. To others he must remain a little unsatisfactory, because he is not only not a dreamer, but because he does nothing with his material except to show it as it is--a great service surely, but largely excluding the exercise of that architectonic faculty, personally directed, which is the very life of every truly æsthetic production. VII In fine, the impressionist has his own conventions; no school can escape them, from the very nature of the case and the definition of the term. The conventions of the impressionists, indeed, are particularly salient. Can anyone doubt it who sees an exhibition of their works? In the same number of classic, or romantic, or merely realistic pictures, is there anything quite equalling the monotony that strikes one in a display of canvasses by Claude Monet and his fellows and followers? But the defect of impressionism is not mainly its technical conventionality. It is, as I think everyone except its thick-and-thin advocates must feel, that pursued _à outrance_ it lacks a seriousness commensurate with its claims--that it exhibits indeed a kind of undertone of frivolity that is all the nearer to the absolutely comic for the earnestness, so to speak, of its unconsciousness. The reason is, partly no doubt, to be ascribed to its _débonnaire_ self-satisfaction, its disposition to "lightly run amuck at an august thing," the traditions of centuries namely, to its bumptiousness, in a word. But chiefly, I think, the reason is to be found in its lack of anything properly to be called a philosophy. This is surely a fatal flaw in any system, because it involves a contradiction in terms; and to say that to have no philosophy is the philosophy of the impressionists, is merely a word-juggling bit of question-begging. A theory of technic is not a philosophy, however systematic it may be. It is a mechanical, not an intellectual, point of view. It is not a way of looking at things, but of rendering them. It expresses no idea and sees no relations; its claims on one's interest are exhausted when once its right to its method is admitted. The remark once made of a typically literal person--that he cared so much for facts that he disliked to think they had any relations--is intimately applicable to the whole impressionist school. Technically, of course, the impressionist's relations are extremely just--not exquisite, but exquisitely just. But merely to get just values is not to occupy one's self with values ideally, emotionally, personally. It is merely to record facts. Certainly any impressionist rendering of the light and shade and color relations of objects seems eloquent beside any traditional and conventional rendering of them; but it is because each object is so carefully observed, so truly painted, that its relation to every other is spontaneously satisfactory; and this is a very different thing from the result of truly pictorial rendering with its constructive appeal, its sense of _ensemble_, its presentation of an idea by means of the convergence and interdependence of objects focussed to a common and central effect. To this impressionism is absolutely insensitive. It is the acme of detachment, of indifference. Turgénieff, according to Mr. George Moore, complained of Zola's Gervaise Coupeau, that Zola explained how she felt, never what she thought. "Qu'est que ça me fait si elle suait sous les bras, ou au milieu du dos?" he asked, with most pertinent penetration. He is quite right. Really we only care for facts when they explain truths. The desultory agglomeration of never so definitely rendered details necessarily leaves the civilized appreciation cold. What distinguishes the civilized from the savage appreciation is the passion for order. The tendency to order, said Sénancour, should form "an essential part of our inclinations, of our instinct, like the tendencies to self-preservation and to reproduction." The two latter tendencies the savage possesses as completely as the civilized man, but he does not share the civilized man's instinct for correlation. And in this sense, I think, a certain savagery is justly to be ascribed to the impressionist. His productions have many attractions and many merits--merits and attractions that the traditional painting has not. But they are really only by a kind of automatic inadvertence, pictures. They are not truly pictorial. And a picture should be something more than even pictorial. To be permanently attaching it should give at least a hint of the painter's philosophy--his point of view, his attitude toward his material. In the great pictures you can not only discover this attitude, but the attitude of the painter toward life and the world in general. Everyone has as distinct an idea of the philosophy of Raphael as of the qualities of his designs. The impressionist not only does not show you what he thinks, he does not even show you how he feels, except by betraying a fondness for violets and diffused light, and by exhibiting the temper of the radical and the rioter. The order of a blithe, idyllic landscape by Corot, of one of Delacroix's pieces of concentric coloration, of an example of Ingres's purity of outline, shows not only temperament, but the position of the painter in regard to the whole intellectual world so far as he touches it at all. What does a canvas of Claude Monet show in this respect? It is more truthful but not less impersonal than a photograph. Degas is the only other painter usually classed with the impressionists, of whom this may not be said. But Degas is hardly an impressionist at all. He is one of the most personal painters, if not the most personal painter, of the day. He is as original as Puvis de Chavannes. What allies him with the impressionists is his fondness for fleeting aspects, his caring for nothing beyond aspect--for the look of things and their transitory look. He is an enthusiastic admirer of Ingres--who, one would say, is the antithesis of impressionism. He never paints from nature. His studies are made with the utmost care, but they are arranged, composed, combined by his own sense of what is pictorial--by, at any rate, his own idea of the effects he wishes to create. He cares absolutely nothing for what ordinarily we understand by the real, the actual, so far as its reality is concerned; he sees nothing else, to be sure, and is probably very sceptical about anything but colors and shapes and their decorative arrangement; but he sees what he likes in reality and follows this out with an inerrancy so scrupulous, and even affectionate, as to convey the idea that in his result he himself counts for almost nothing. This at least may be said of him, that he shows what, given genius, can be got out of the impressionist method artistically and practically employed to the end of illustrating a personal point of view. A mere amateur can hardly distinguish between a Caillebotte and a Sisley, for example, but everyone identifies a Degas as immediately and as certainly as he does a Whistler. His work is perfectly sincere and admirably intelligent. It has neither the pose nor the irresponsibility of the impressionists. His artistic apotheosis of the ballet-girl is merely the result of his happy discovery of something delightfully, and in a very true sense naturally, decorative in material that is in the highest degree artificial. His impulse is as genuine and spontaneous as if the substance upon which it is exercised were not the acme of the exotic, and already arranged with the most elaborate conventionality. Nothing indeed could be more opposed to the elementary crudity of impressionism than his distinction and refinement, which may be said to be carried to a really _fin de siècle_ degree. VIII Whatever the painting of the future is to be, it is certain not to be the painting of Monet. For the present, no doubt, Monet is the last word in painting. To belittle him is not only whimsical, but ridiculous. He has plainly worked a revolution in his art. He has taken it out of the vicious circle of conformity to, departure from, and return to abstractions and the so-called ideal. No one hereafter who attempts the representation of nature--and for as far ahead as we can see with any confidence, the representation of nature, the pantheistic ideal if one chooses, will increasingly intrench itself as the painter's true aim--no one who seriously attempts to realize this aim of now universal appeal will be able to dispense with Monet's aid. He must perforce follow the lines laid down for him by this astonishing naturalist. Any other course must result in solecism, and if anything future is certain, it is certain that the future will be not only inhospitable to, but absolutely intolerant of, solecism. Henceforth the basis of things is bound to be solid and not superficial, real and not fantastic. But--whether the future is to commit itself wholly to prose, or is to preserve in new conditions the essence of the poetry that, in one form or another, has persisted since plastic art began--for the superstructure to be erected on the sound basis of just values and true impressions it is justifiably easy to predict a greater interest and a more real dignity than any such preoccupation with the basis of technic as Monet's can possibly have. And though, even as one says it, one has the feeling that the future is pregnant with some genius who will out-Monet Monet, and that painting will in some now inconceivable way have to submit hereafter to a still more rigorous standard than it does at present--I have heard the claims of binocular vision urged--at the same time the true "child of nature" may console himself with the reflection that accuracy and competence are but the accidents, at most the necessary phenomena, of what really and essentially constitutes fine art of any kind--namely, the expression of a personal conception of what is not only true but beautiful as well. In France less than anywhere else is it likely that even such a powerful force as modern realism will long dominate the constructive, the architectonic faculty, which is part of the very fibre of the French genius. The exposition and illustration of a theory believed in with a fervency to be found only among a people with whom the intelligence is the chief element and object of experiment and exercise, are a natural concomitant of mental energy and activity. But no theory holds them long in bondage. At the least, it speedily gives place to another formulation of the mutinous freedom its very acceptance creates. And the conformity that each of them in succession imposes on mediocrity is always varied and relieved by the frequent incarnations in masterful personalities of the natural national traits--of which, I think, the architectonic spirit is one of the most conspicuous. Painting will again become creative, constructive, personally expressive. Its basis having been established as scientifically impeccable, its superstructure will exhibit the taste, the elegance, the imaginative freedom, exhibited within the limits of a cultivated sense of propriety, that are an integral part of the French painter's patrimony. IV CLASSIC SCULPTURE I French sculpture naturally follows very much the same course as French painting. Its beginnings, however, are Gothic, and the Renaissance emancipated rather than created it. Italy, over which the Gothic wave passed with less disturbing effect than anywhere else, and where the Pisans were doing pure sculpture when everywhere farther north sculpture was mainly decorative and rigidly architectural, had a potent influence. But the modern phases of French sculpture have a closer relationship with the Chartres Cathedral than modern French painting has with its earliest practice; and Claux Sluters, the Burgundian Fleming who modelled the wonderful Moses Well and the tombs of Jean Sans Peur and Phillippe le Hardi at Dijon, among his other anachronistic masterpieces, exerted considerably greater influence upon his successors than the Touraine school of painting and the Clouets did upon theirs. These works are a curious compromise between the Gothic and the modern spirits. Sluters was plainly a modern temperament working with Gothic material and amid Gothic ideas. In itself his sculpture is hardly decorative, as we apply the epithet to modern work. It is just off the line of rigidity, of insistence in every detail of its right and title to individuality apart from every other sculptured detail. The prophets in the niches of the beautiful Dijon Well, the monks under the arcades of the beautiful Burgundian tombs, have little relation with each other as elements of a decorative sculptural composition. They are in the same style, that is all. Each of them is in interest quite independent of the other. Compared with one of the Pisans' pulpits they form a congeries rather than a composition. Compared with Goujon's "Fountain of the Innocents" their motive is not decorative at all. Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah asserts his individuality in a way the more sociable prophets of the Sistine Chapel would hesitate to do. They have a little the air of hermits--of artistic anchorites, one may say. They are Gothic, too, not only in being thus sculpturally undecorative and uncomposed, but in being beautifully subordinate to the architecture which it is their unmistakable ancillary function to decorate in the most delightful way imaginable--in being in a word architecturally decorative. The marriage of the two arts is, Gothically, not on equal terms. It never occurred, of course, to the Gothic architect that it should be. His _ensemble_ was always one of which the chief, the overwhelming, one may almost say the sole, interest is structural. He even imposed the condition that the sculpture which decorated his structure should be itself architecturally structural. One figure of the portals of Chartres is almost as like another as one pillar of the interior is like its fellows; for the reason--eminently satisfactory to the architect--that it discharges an identical function. Emancipation from this thraldom of the architect is Sluters's great distinction, however. He is modern in this sense, without going so far--without going anything like so far--as the modern sculptor who divorces his work from that of the architect with whom he is called upon to combine to the end of an _ensemble_ that shall be equally agreeable to the sense satisfied by form and that satisfied by structure. His figures, subordinate as they are to the general architectural purpose and function of what they decorate, are not only not purely structural in their expression, stiff as they still are from the point of view of absolutely free sculpture; they are, moreover, not merely unrelated to each other in any essential sense, such as that in which the figures of the Pisans and of Goujon are related; they are on the contrary each and all wonderfully accentuated and individualized. Every ecclesiastic on the Dijon tombs is a character study. Every figure on the Well has a psychologic as well as a sculptural interest. Poised between Gothic tradition and modern feeling, between a reverend and august æsthetic conventionality and the dawn of free activity, Sluters is one of the most interesting and stimulating figures in the whole history of sculpture. And the force of his characterizations, the vividness of his conceptions, and the combined power and delicacy of his modelling give him the added importance of one of the heroes of his art in any time or country. There is something extremely Flemish in his sense of personality. A similar interest in humanity as such, in the individual apart from the type, is noticeable in the pictures of the Van Eycks, of Memling, of Quentin Matsys, and Roger Van der Weyden, wherein all idea of beauty, of composition, of universal appeal is subordinated as it is in no other art--in that of Holland no more than in that of Italy--to the representation in the most definite, precise, and powerful way of some intensely human personality. There is the same extraordinary concreteness in one of Matsys's apostles and one of Sluters's prophets. Michel Colombe, the pupil of Claux and Anthoniet and the sculptor of the monument of François II., Duke of Brittany, at Nantes, the relief of "St. George and the Dragon" for the Château of Gaillon, now in the Louvre, and the Fontaine de Beaune, at Tours, and Jean Juste, whose noble masterpiece, the Tomb of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany, is the finest ornament of the Cathedral of St. Denis, bridge the distance and mark the transition to Goujon, Cousin, and Germain Pilon far more suavely than the school of Fontainebleau did the change from that of Tours to Poussin. Cousin, though the monument of Admiral Chabot is a truly marvellous work, witnessing a practical sculptor's hand, is really to be classed among painters. And Germain Pilon's compromise with Italian decorativeness, graceful and fertile sculptor as his many works show him to have been, resulted in a lack of personal force that has caused him to be thought on the one hand "seriously injured by the bastard sentiment proper to the school of Fontainebleau," as Mrs. Pattison somewhat sternly remarks, and on the other to be reprehended by Germain Brice in 1718, for evincing _quelque reste du goût gothique_--some reminiscence of Gothic taste. Jean Goujon is really the first modern French sculptor. II He remains, too, one of the very finest, even in a competition constantly growing more exacting since his day. He had a very particular talent, and it was exhibited in manifold ways. He is as fine in relief as in the round. His decorative quality is as eminent as his purely sculptural side. Compared with his Italian contemporaries he is at once full of feeling and severe. He has nothing of Pilon's chameleon-like imitativeness. He does not, on the other hand, break with the traditions of the best models known to him--and, undoubtedly he knew the best. His works cover and line the Louvre, and anyone who visits Paris may get a perfect conception of his genius--certainly anyone who in addition visits Rouen and beholds the lovely tracery of his earliest sculpture on the portal of St. Maclou. He was eminently the sculptor of an educated class, and appealed to a cultivated appreciation. Coming as he did at the acme of the French Renaissance, when France was borrowing with intelligent selection whatever it considered valuable from Italy, he pleased the dilettanti. There is something distinctly "swell" in his work. He does not perhaps express any overmastering personal feeling, nor does he stamp the impress of French national character on his work with any particular emphasis. He is too well-bred and too cultivated, he has too much _aplomb_. But his works show both more personal feeling and more national character than the works of his contemporaries elsewhere. For line he has a very intimate instinct, and of mass, in the sculptor's as well as the painter's sense, he has a native comprehension. Compare his "Diana" of the Louvre with Cellini's in the adjoining room from the point of view of pure sculpture. Goujon's group is superb in every way. Cellini's figure is tormented and distorted by an impulse of decadent though decorative æstheticism. Goujon's caryatides and figures of the Innocents Fountain are equally sculptural in their way--by no means arabesques, as is so much of Renaissance relief, and the modern relief that imitates it. Everything in fine that Goujon did is unified with the rest of his work and identifiable by the mark of style. III What do we mean by style? Something, at all events, very different from manner, in spite of Mr. Hamerton's insistence upon the contrary. Is the quality in virtue of which--as Mr. Dobson paraphrases Gautier-- "The bust outlives the throne, The coin Tiberius" the specific personality of the artist who carved the bust or chiselled the coin that have thus outlived all personality connected with them? Not that personality is not of the essence of enduring art. It is, on the contrary, the condition of any vital art whatever. But what gives the object, once personally conceived and expressed, its currency, its universality, its eternal interest--speaking to strangers with familiar vividness, and to posterity as to contemporaries--is something aside from its personal feeling. And it is this something and not specific personality that style is. Style is the invisible wind through whose influence "the lion on the flag" of the Persian poet "moves and marches." The lion of personality may be painted never so deftly, with never so much expression, individual feeling, picturesqueness, energy, charm; it will not move and march save through the rhythmic, waving influence of style. Nor is style necessarily the grand style, as Arnold seems to imply, in calling it "a peculiar recasting and heightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of what a man has to say in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to it." Perhaps the most explicit examples of pure style owe their production to spiritual coolness; and, in any event, the word "peculiar" in a definition begs the question. Buffon is at once juster and more definite in saying: "Style is nothing other than the order and movement which we put into our thoughts." It is singular that this simple and lucid utterance of Buffon should have been so little noticed by those who have written in English on style. In general English writers have apparently misconceived, in very curious fashion, Buffon's other remark, "le style c'est l'homme;" by which aphorism Buffon merely meant that a man's individual manner depends on his temperament, his character, and which he, of course, was very far from suspecting would ever be taken for a definition. Following Buffon's idea of "order and movement," we may say, perhaps, that style results from the preservation in every part of some sense of the form of the whole. It implies a sense of relations as well as of statement. It is not mere expression of a thought in a manner peculiar to the artist (in words, color, marble, what not), but it is such expression penetrated with both reminiscence and anticipation. It is, indeed, on the contrary, very nearly the reverse of what we mean by expression, which is mainly a matter of personal energy. Style means correctness, precision, that feeling for the _ensemble_ on which an inharmonious detail jars. Expression results from a sense of the value of the detail. If Walt Whitman, for example, were what his admirers' defective sense of style fancies him, he would be expressive. If French academic art had as little expression as its censors assert, it would still illustrate style--the quality which modifies the native and apposite form of the concrete individual thing with reference to what has preceded and what is to follow it; the quality, in a word, whose effort is to harmonize the object with its environment. When this environment is heightened, and universal instead of logical and particular, we have the "grand style;" but we have the grand style generally in poetry, and to be sure of style at all prose--such prose as Goujon's, which in no wise emulates Michael Angelo's poetry--may justifiably neglect in some degree the specific personality that tends to make it poetic and individual. IV After Goujon, Clodion is the great name in French sculpture, until we come to Houdon, who may almost be assigned to the nineteenth century. There were throughout the eighteenth century honorable artists, sculptors of distinction beyond contest. But sculpture is such an abstract art itself that the sculpture which partook of the artificiality of the eighteenth century has less interest for us, less that is concrete and appealing than even the painting of the epoch. It derived its canons and its practice from Puget--the French Bernini, who with less grace and less dilettante extravagance than his Italian exemplar had more force and solidity. With less cleverness, less charm--for Bernini, spite of the disesteem in which his juxtaposition to Michael Angelo and his apparent unconsciousness of the attitude such juxtaposition should have imposed upon him, cause him to be held, has a great deal of charm and is extraordinarily clever--he is more sincere, more thorough-going, more respectable. Coysevox is chiefly Puget exaggerated, and his pupil, Coustou, who comes down to nearly the middle of the eighteenth century, contributed nothing to French sculptural tradition. But Clodion is a distinct break. He is as different from Coysevox and Coustou as Watteau is from Lebrun. He is the essence of what we mean by Louis Quinze. His work is clever beyond characterization. It has in perfection what sculptors mean by color--that is to say a certain warmth of feeling, a certain _insouciance_, a brave carelessness for sculpturesque traditions, a free play of fancy, both in the conception and execution of his subjects. Like the Louis Quinze painters, he has his thoughtless, irresponsible, involuntary side, and like them--like the best of them, that is to say, like Watteau--he is never quite as good as he could be. He seems not so much concerned at expressing his ideal as at pleasing, and pleasing people of too frivolous an appreciation to call forth what is best in him. He devoted himself almost altogether to terra-cotta, which is equivalent to saying that the exquisite and not the impressive was his aim. Thoroughly classic, so far as the avoidance of everything naturalistic is concerned, he is yet as little severe and correct as the painters of his day. He spent nine years in Rome, but though enamoured in the most sympathetic degree of the antique, it was the statuettes and figurines, the gay and social, the elegant and decorative side of antique sculpture that exclusively he delighted in. His work is Tanagra Gallicized. It is not the group of "The Deluge," or the "Entry of the French into Munich," or "Hercules in Repose," for which he was esteemed by contemporaries or is prized by posterity. He is admirable where he is inimitable--that is to say, in the delightful decoration of which he was so prodigal. It is not in his compositions essaying what is usually meant by sculptural effect, but in his vases, clocks, pendants, volutes, little reliefs of nymphs riding dolphins over favoring breakers and amid hospitable foam, his toilettes of Venus, his façade ornamentations, his applied sculpture, in a word, that his true talent lies. After him it is natural that we should have a reversion to quasi-severity and imitation of the antique--just as David succeeded to the Louis Quinze pictorial riot--and that the French contemporaries of Canova and Thorwaldsen, those literal, though enthusiastic illustrators of Winckelmann's theories, should be Pradier and Etex and the so-called Greek school. Pradier's Greek inspiration has something Swiss about it, one may say--he was a Genevan--though his figures were simple and largely treated. He had a keen sense for the feminine element--the _ewig Weibliche_--and expressed it plastically with a zest approaching gusto. Yet his statues are women rather than statues, and, more than that, are handsome rather than beautiful. Etex, it is to be feared, will be chiefly remembered as the unfortunately successful rival of Rude in the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile decoration. V Having in each case more or less relation with, but really wholly outside of and superior to all "schools" whatever--except the school of nature, which permits as much freedom as it exacts fidelity--is the succession of the greatest of French sculptors since the Renaissance and down to the present day: Houdon, David d'Angers, Rude, Carpeaux, and Barye. Houdon is one of the finest examples of the union of vigor with grace. He will be known chiefly as a portraitist, but such a masterpiece as his "Diana" shows how admirable he was in the sphere of purely imaginative theme and treatment. Classic, and even conventionally classic as it is, both in subject and in the way the subject is handled--compared for example with M. Falguière's "Nymph Hunting," which is simply a realistic Diana--it is designed and modelled with as much personal freedom and feeling as if Houdon had been stimulated by the ambition of novel accomplishment, instead of that of rendering with truth and grace a time-honored and traditional sculptural motive. Its treatment is beautifully educated and its effect refined, chaste, and elevated in an extraordinary degree. No master ever steered so near the reef of "clock-tops," one may say, and avoided it so surely and triumphantly. The figure is light as air and wholly effortless at the same time. There has rarely been such a distinguished success in circumventing the great difficulty of sculpture--which is to rob marble or metal of its specific gravity and make it appear light and buoyant, just as the difficulty of the painter is to give weight and substance to his fictions. But Houdon's admirable busts of Molière, Diderot, Washington, Franklin, and Mirabeau, his unequalled statue of Voltaire in the _foyer_ of the Français and his San Bruno in Santa Maria degli Angeli at Rome are the works on which his fame will chiefly rest, and, owing to their masterly combination of strength with style, rest securely. To see the work of David d'Angers, one must go to Angers itself and to Père-Lachaise. The Louvre is lamentably lacking in anything truly representative of this most eminent of all portraitists in sculpture, I think, not excepting even Houdon, if one may reckon the mass as well as the excellence of his remarkable production and the way in which it witnesses that portraiture is just what he was born to do. The "Philopoemen" of the Louvre is a fine work, even impressively large and simple. But it is the competent work of a member of a school and leaves one a little cold. Its academic quality quite overshadows whatever personal feeling one may by searching find in the severity of its treatment and the way in which a classic motive has been followed out naturally and genuinely instead of perfunctorily. It gives no intimation of the faculty that produced the splendid gallery of medallions accentuated by an occasional bust and statue, of David's celebrated contemporaries and quasi-contemporaries in every field of distinction. It is impossible to overestimate the interest and value, the truth and the art of these. Whether the subject be intractable or not seems to have made no difference to David. He invariably produced a work of art at the same time that he expressed the character of its motive with uncompromising fidelity. His portraits, moreover, are pure sculpture. There is nothing of the cameo-cutter's art about them. They are modelled not carved. The outline is no more important than it is in nature, so far as it is employed to the end of identification. It is used decoratively. There are surprising effects of fore-shortening, exhibiting superb, and as it were unconscious ease in handling relief--that most difficult of illusions in respect of having no law (at least no law that it is worth the sculptor's while to try to discover) of correspondence to reality. Forms and masses have a definition and a firmness wholly remarkable in their independence of the usual low relief's reliance on pictorial and purely linear design. They do not blend picturesquely with the background, and do not depend on their suggestiveness for their character. They are always realized, executed--sculpture in a word whose suggestiveness, quite as potent as that of feebler executants, begins only when actual representation has been triumphantly achieved instead of impotently and skilfully avoided. Of Rude's genius one's first thought is of its robustness, its originality. Everything he did is stamped with the impress of his personality. At the same time it is equally evident that Rude's own temperament took its color from the transitional epoch in which he lived, and of which he was _par excellence_ the sculptor. He was the true inheritor of his Burgundian traditions. His strongest side was that which allies him with his artistic ancestor, Claux Sluters. But he lived in an era of general culture and æstheticism, and all his naturalistic tendencies were complicated with theory. He accepted the antique not merely as a stimulus, but as a model. He was not only a sculptor but a teacher, and the formulation of his didacticism complicated considerably the free exercise of his expression. At the last, as is perhaps natural, he reverted to precedent and formulary, and in his "Hebe and the Eagle of Jupiter" and his "L'Amour Dominateur du Monde," is more at variance than anywhere else with his native instinct, which was, to cite the admirable phrase of M. de Fourcaud, _extérioriser nos idées et nos âmes_. But throughout his life he halted a little between two opinions--the current admiration of the classic, and his own instinctive feeling for nature unsystematized and unsophisticated. His "Jeanne d'Arc" is an instance. In spite of the violation of tradition, which at the time it was thought to be, it seems to-day to our eyes to err on the side of the conventional. It is surely intellectual, classic, even factitious in conception as well as in execution. In some of its accessories it is even modish. It illustrates not merely the abstract turn of conceiving a subject which Rude always shared with the great classicists of his art, but also the arbitrariness of treatment against which he always protested. Without at all knowing it, he was in a very intimate sense an eclectic in many of his works. He believed in forming a complete mental conception of every composition before even posing a model, as he used to tell his students, but in complicated compositions this was impossible, and he had small talent for artificial composition. Furthermore, he often distrusted--quite without reason, but after the fatal manner of the rustic--his own intuitions. But one mentions these qualifications of his genius and accomplishment only because both his genius and accomplishment are so distinguished as to make one wish they were more nearly perfect than they are. It is really idle to wish that Rude had neglected the philosophy of his art, with which he was so much occupied, and had devoted himself exclusively to treating sculptural subjects in the manner of a nineteenth century successor of Sluters and Anthoniet. He might have been a greater sculptor than he was, but he is sufficiently great as he is. If his "Mercury" is an essay in conventional sculpture, his "Petit Pêcheur" is frank and free sculptural handling of natural material. His work at Lille and in Belgium, his reclining figure of Cavaignac in the cemetery of Montmartre, his noble figures of Gaspard Monge at Beaune, of Marshal Bertrand, and of Ney, are all cast in the heroic mould, full of character, and in no wise dependent on speculative theory. Few sculptors have displayed anything like his variety and range, which extends, for example, from the "Baptism of Christ" to a statue of "Louis XIII. enfant," and includes portraits, groups, compositions in relief, and heroic statues. In all his successful work one cannot fail to note the force and fire of the man's personality, and perhaps what one thinks of chiefly in connection with him is the misfortune which we owe to the vacillation of M. Thiers of having but one instead of four groups by him on the piers of the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile. Carpeaux used to say that he never passed the "Chant du Départ" without taking off his hat. One can understand his feeling. No one can have any appreciation of what sculpture is without perceiving that this magnificent group easily and serenely takes its rank among the masterpieces of sculpture of all time. It is, in the first place, the incarnation of an abstraction, the spirit of patriotism roused to the highest pitch of warlike intensity and self-sacrifice, and in the second this abstract motive is expressed in the most elaborate and comprehensive completeness--with a combined intricacy of detail and singleness of effect which must be the despair of any but a master in sculpture. VI Carpeaux perhaps never did anything that quite equals the masterpiece of his master Rude. But the essential quality of the "Chant du Départ" he assimilated so absolutely and so naturally that he made it in a way his own. He carried it farther, indeed. If he never rose to the grandeur of this superb group, and he certainly did not, he nevertheless showed in every one of his works that he was possessed by its inspiration even more completely than was Rude himself. His passion was the representation of life, the vital and vivifying force in its utmost exuberance, and in its every variety, so far as his experience could enable him to render it. He was infatuated with movement, with the attestation in form of nervous energy, of the quick translation of thought and emotion into interpreting attitude. His figures are, beyond all others, so thoroughly alive as to seem conscious of the fact and joy of pure existence. They are animated, one may almost say inspired, with the delight of muscular activity, the sensation of exercising the functions with which nature endows them. And accompanying this supreme motive and effect is a delightful grace and winningness of which few sculptors have the secret, and which suggest more than any one else Clodion's decorative loveliness. An even greater charm of sprite-like, fairy attractiveness, of caressing and bewitching fascination, a more penetrating and seductive engagingness plays about Carpeaux's "Flora," I think, than is characteristic even of Clodion's figures and reliefs. Carpeaux is at all events nearer to us, and if he has not the classic detachment of Clodion he substitutes for it a quality of closer attachment and more intimate appeal. He is at his best perhaps in the "Danse" of the Nouvel Opéra façade, wherein his elfin-like grace and exuberant vitality animate a group carefully, and even classically composed, exhibiting skill and restraint as well as movement and fancy. Possibly his temperament gives itself too free a rein in the group of the Luxembourg Gardens, in which he has been accused by his own admirers of sacrificing taste to turbulence and securing expressiveness at the expense of saner and more truly sculptural aims. But fancy the Luxembourg Gardens without "The Four Quarters of the World supporting the Earth." Parisian censure of his exuberance is very apt to display a conventional standard of criticism in the critic rather than to substantiate its charge. Barye's place in the history of art is more nearly unique, perhaps, than that of any of the great artists. He was certainly one of the greatest of sculptors, and he had either the good luck or the mischance to do his work in a field almost wholly unexploited before him. He has in his way no rivals, and in his way he is so admirable that the scope of his work does not even hint at his exclusion from rivalry with the very greatest of his predecessors. A perception of the truth of this apparent paradox is the nearest one may come, I think, to the secret of his excellence. No matter what you do, if you do it well enough, that is, with enough elevation, enough spiritual distinction, enough transmutation of the elementary necessity of technical perfection into true significance--you succeed. And this is not the sense in which motive in art is currently belittled. It is rather the suggestion of Mrs. Browning's lines: "Better far Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means Than a sublime art frivolously." Nothing could be more misleading than to fancy Barye a kind of modern Cellini. Less than any sculptor of modern times is he a decorative artist. The small scale of his works is in great part due to his lack of opportunity to produce larger ones. Nowadays one does what one can, even the greatest artists; and Barye had no Lorenzo de'Medici for a patron, but, instead, a frowning Institute, which confined him to such work as, in the main, he did. He did it _con amore_ it need not be added, and thus lifted it at once out of the customary category of such work. His bronzes were never _articles de Paris_, and their excellence transcends the function of teaching our sculptors and amateurs the lesson that "household" is as dignified a province as monumental, art. His groups are not essentially "clock-tops," and the work of perhaps the greatest artist, in the line from Jean Goujon to Carpeaux can hardly be used to point the moral that "clock-tops" ought to be good. Cellini's "Perseus" is really more of a "parlor ornament" than Barye's smallest figure. Why is he so obviously great as well as so obviously extraordinary? one constantly asks himself in the presence of his bronzes. Perhaps because he expresses with such concreteness, such definiteness and vigor a motive so purely an abstraction. The illustration in intimate elaboration of elemental force, strength, passion, seems to have been his aim, and in everyone of his wonderfully varied groups he attains it superbly--not giving the beholder a symbol of it merely; in no degree depending upon association or convention, but exhibiting its very essence with a combined scientific explicitness and poetic energy to which antique art alone, one may almost say, has furnished a parallel. For this, fauna served him as well as the human figure, though, could he have studied man with the facility which the Jardin des Plantes afforded him of observing the lower animals, he might have used the medium of the human figure more frequently than he did. When he did, he was hardly less successful; and the four splendid groups that decorate the Pavillons Denon and Richelieu of the Louvre are in the very front rank of the heroic sculpture of the modern world. V ACADEMIC SCULPTURE I From Barye to the Institute is a long way. Nothing could be more interhostile than his sculpture and that of the professors at the École des Beaux-Arts. And in considering the French sculpture of the present day we may say that, aside from the great names already mentioned--Houdon, David d'Angers, Rude, Carpeaux, and Barye--and apart from the new movement represented by Rodin and Dalou, it is represented by the Institute, and that the Institute has reverted to the Italian inspiration. The influence of Canova and the example of Pradier and Etex were not lasting. Indeed, Greek sculpture has perished so completely that it sometimes seems to live only in its legend. With the modern French school, the academic school, it is quite supplanted by the sculpture of the Renaissance. And this is not unreasonable. The Renaissance sculpture is modern; its masters did finely and perfectly what since their time has been done imperfectly, but essentially its artistic spirit is the modern artistic spirit, full of personality, full of expression, careless of the type. Nowadays we patronize a little the ideal. You may hear very intelligent critics in Paris--who in Paris is not an intelligent critic?--speak disparagingly of the Greek want of expression; of the lack of passion, of vivid interest, of significance in a word, in Greek sculpture of the Periclean epoch. The conception of absolute beauty having been discovered to be an abstraction, the tradition of the purely ideal has gone with it. The caryatids of the Erechtheum, the horsemen of the Parthenon frieze, the reliefs of the Nike Apteros balustrade are admired certainly; but they are hardly sympathetically admired; there is a tendency to relegate them to the limbo of subjects for æsthetic lectures. And yet no one can have carefully examined the brilliant productions of modern French sculpture without being struck by this apparent paradox: that, whereas all its canons are drawn from a study of the Renaissance, its chief characteristic is, at bottom, a lack of expression, a carefulness for the type. The explanation is this: in the course of time, which "at last makes all things even," the individuality, the romanticism of the Renaissance has itself become the type, is now itself become "classical," and the modern attitude toward it, however sympathetic compared with the modern attitude toward the antique, is to a noteworthy degree factitious and artificial. And in art everything depends upon the attitude of mind. It is this which prevents Ingres from being truly Raphaelesque, and Pradier from being really classical. If, therefore, it can justly be said of modern French sculpture that its sympathy for the Renaissance sculpture obscures its vision of the ideal, it is clearly to be charged with the same absence of individual significance with which its thick-and-thin partisans reproach the antique. The circumstance that, like the Renaissance sculpture, it deals far more largely in pictorial expression than the antique does, is, if it deals in them after the Renaissance fashion and not after a fashion of its own, quite beside the essential fact. There is really nothing in common between an academic French sculptor of the present day and an Italian sculptor of the fifteenth century, except the possession of what is called the modern spirit. But the modern spirit manifests itself in an enormous gamut, and the differences of its manifestations are as great in their way, and so far as our interest in them is concerned, as the difference between their inspiration and the mediæval or the antique inspiration. II Chapu, who died a year or two ago, is perhaps the only eminent sculptor of the time whose inspiration is clearly the antique, and when I add that his work appears to me for this reason none the less original, it will be immediately perceived that I share imperfectly the French objection to the antique. Indeed, nowadays to have the antique inspiration is to be original _ex vi termini_; nothing is farther removed from contemporary conventions. But this is true in a much more integral sense. The pre-eminent fact of Greek sculpture, for example, is, from one point of view, the directness with which it concerns itself with the ideal--the slight temporary or personal element with which it is alloyed. When one calls an artist or a work Greek, this is what is really meant; it is the sense in which Raphael is Greek. Chapu is Greek in this way, and thus individualized among his contemporaries, not only by having a different inspiration from them, but by depending for his interest on no convention fixed or fleeting and on no indirect support of accentuated personal characteristics. Perhaps the antiquary of a thousand years from now, to whom the traits which to us distinguish so clearly the work of certain sculptors who seem to have nothing in common will betray only their common inspiration, will be even less at a loss than ourselves to find traces of a common origin in such apparently different works as Chapu's "Mercury" and his "Jeunesse" of the Regnault monument. He will by no means confound these with the classical productions of M. Millet or M. Cavelier, we may be sure. And this, I repeat, because their purely Greek spirit, the subordination in their conception and execution of the personal element, the direct way in which the sculptor looks at the ideal, the type, not only distinguish them among contemporary works, which are so largely personal expressions, but give them an eminent individuality as well. Like the Greek sculpture, they are plainly the production of culture, which in restraining wilfulness, however happily inspired, and imposing measure and poise, nevertheless acutely stimulates and develops the faculties themselves. The skeptic who may very plausibly inquire the distinction between that vague entity, "the ideal," and the personal idea of the artist concerned with it, can be shown this distinction better than it can be expressed in words. He will appreciate it very readily, to return to Chapu, by contrasting the "Jeanne d'Arc" at the Luxembourg Gallery with such different treatment of the same theme as M. Bastien-Lepage's picture, now in the New York Metropolitan Museum, illustrates. Contrary to his almost invariable practice of neglecting even design in favor of impersonal natural representation, Bastien-Lepage's "Jeanne d'Arc" is the creature of wilful originality, a sort of embodied protest against conventionalism in historical painting; she is the illustration of a theory, she is this and that systematically and not spontaneously; the predominance of the painter's personality is plain in every detail of his creation. Chapu's "Maid" is the ideal, more or less perfectly expressed; she is everybody's "Maid," more or less adequately embodied. The statue is the antipodes of the conventional much more so, even, to our modern sense, than that of Rude; it suggests no competition with that at Versailles or the many other characterless conceptions that abound. It is full of expression--arrested just before it ceases to be suggestive; of individuality restrained on the hither side of peculiarity. The "Maid" is hearing her "voices" as distinctly as Bastien-Lepage's figure is, but the fact is not forced upon the sense, but is rather disclosed to the mind with great delicacy and the dignity becoming sculpture. No one could, of course, mistake this work for an antique--an error that might possibly be made, supposing the conditions favorable, in the case of Chapu's "Mercury;" but it presents, nevertheless, an excellent illustration of a modern working naturally and freely in the antique spirit. It is as affecting, as full of direct appeal, as a modern work essays to be; but its appeal is to the sense of beauty, to the imagination, and its effect is wrought in virtue of its art and not of its reality. No, individuality is no more inconsistent with the antique spirit than it is with eccentricity, with the extravagances of personal expression. Is there more individuality in a thirteenth-century grotesque than in the "Faun" of the Capitol? For sculpture especially, art is eminently, as it has been termed, "the discipline of genius," and it is only after the sculptor's genius has submitted to the discipline of culture that it evinces an individuality which really counts, which is really thrown out in relief on the background of crude personality. And if there be no question of perfection, but only of the artist's attitude, one has but to ask himself the real meaning of the epithet Shakespearian to be assured of the harmony between individuality and the most impersonal practice. Nevertheless, this attitude and this perfection, characteristic as they are of Chapu's work, have their peril. When the quickening impulse, of whose expression they are after all but conditions, fails, they suddenly appear so misplaced as to render insignificant what would otherwise have seemed "respectable" enough work. Everywhere else of great distinction--even in the execution of so perfunctory a task as a commission for a figure of "Mechanical Art" in the Tribunal de Commerce--at the great Triennial Exposition of 1883 Chapu was simply insignificant. There was never a more striking illustration of the necessity of constant renewal of inspiration, of the constant danger of lapse into the perfunctory and the hackneyed, which threatens an artist of precisely Chapu's qualities. Another of equal eminence escapes this peril; there is not the same interdependence of form and "content" to be disturbed by failure in the latter; or, better still, the merits of form are not so distinguished as to require imperatively a corresponding excellence of intention. In fact, it is because of the exceptional position that he occupies in deriving from the antique, instead of showing the academic devotion to Renaissance romanticism which characterizes the general movement of academic French sculpture, that in any consideration of this sculpture Chapu's work makes a more vivid impression than that of his contemporaries, and thus naturally takes a foremost place. III M. Paul Dubois, for example, in the characteristics just alluded to, presents the greatest possible contrast to Chapu; but he will never, we may be sure, give us a work that could be called insignificant. His work will always express himself, and his is a personality of very positive idiosyncrasy. M. Dubois, indeed, is probably the strongest of the Academic group of French sculptors of the day. The tomb of General Lamoricière at Nantes has remained until recently one of the very finest achievements of sculpture in modern times. There is in effect nothing markedly superior in the Cathedral of St. Denis, which is a great deal to say--much more, indeed, than the glories of the Italian Renaissance, which lead us out of mere momentum to forget the French, permit one to appreciate. Indeed, the sculpture of M. Dubois seems positively to have but one defect, a defect which from one point of view is certainly a quality, the defect of impeccability. It is at any rate impeccable; to seek in it a blemish, or, within its own limitations, a distinct shortcoming, is to lose one's pains. As workmanship, and workmanship of the subtler kind, in which every detail of surface and structure is perceived to have been intelligently felt (though rarely enthusiastically rendered), it is not merely satisfactory, but visibly and beautifully perfect. But in the category in which M. Dubois is to be placed that is very little; it is always delightful, but it is not especially complimentary to M. Dubois, to occupy one's self with it. On the other hand, by impeccability is certainly not here meant the mere success of expressing what one has to express--the impeccability of Canova and his successors, for example. The difficulty is with M. Dubois's ideal, with what he so perfectly expresses. In the last analysis this is not his ideal more than ours. And this, indeed, is what makes his work so flawless in our eyes, so impeccable. It seems as if of what he attempts he attains the type itself; everyone must recognize its justness. The reader will say at once here that I am cavilling at M. Dubois for what I praised in Chapu. But let us distinguish. The two artists belong to wholly different categories. Chapu's inspiration is the antique spirit. M. Dubois, is, like all academic French sculptors, except Chapu indeed, absolutely and integrally a romanticist, completely enamoured of the Renaissance. The two are so distinct as to be contradictory. The moment M. Dubois gives us the _type_ in a "Florentine Minstrel," to the exclusion of the personal and the particular, he fails in imaginativeness and falls back on the conventional. The _type_ of a "Florentine Minstrel" is infallibly a convention. M. Dubois, not being occupied directly with the ideal, is bound to carry his subject and its idiosyncrasies much farther than the observer could have foreseen. To rest content with expressing gracefully and powerfully the notion common to all connoisseurs is to fall short of what one justly exacts of the romantic artist. Indeed, in exchange for this one would accept very faulty work in this category with resignation. Whatever we may say or think, however we may admire or approve, in romantic art the quality that charms, that fascinates, is not adequacy but unexpectedness. In addition to the understanding, the instinct demands satisfaction. The virtues of "Charity" and "Faith" and the ideas of "Military Courage" and "Meditation" could not be more adequately illustrated than by the figures which guard the solemn dignity of General Lamoricière's sleep. There is a certain force, a breadth of view in the general conception, something in the way in which the sculptor has taken his task, closely allied to real grandeur. The confident and even careless dependence upon the unaided value of its motive, making hardly any appeal to the fancy on the one hand, and seeking no poignant effect on the other, endues the work with the poise and purity of effortless strength. It conveys to the mind a clear impression of manliness, of qualities morally refreshing. But such work educates us so inexorably, teaches us to be so exacting! After enjoying it to its and our utmost, we demand still something else, something more moving, more stirring, something more directly appealing to our impulse and instinct. Even in his free and charming little "St. John Baptist" of the Luxembourg, and his admirable bust of Baudry one feels like asking for more freedom still, for more "swing." Dubois certainly is the last artist who needs to be on his guard against "letting himself go." Why is it that in varying so agreeably Renaissance themes--compare the "Military Courage" and Michael Angelo's "Pensiero," or the "Charity" and the same group in Della Quercia's fountain at Sienna--it is restraint, rather than audacity, that governs him? Is it caution or perversity? In a word, imaginativeness is what permanently interests and attaches, the imaginativeness to which in sculpture the ordinary conventions of form are mere conditions, and the ordinary conventions of idea mere material. One can hardly apply generalities of the kind to M. Dubois without saying too much, but it is nevertheless true that one may illustrate the grand style and yet fail of being intimately and acutely sympathetic; and M. Dubois, to whose largeness of treatment and nobility of conception no one will deny something truly suggestive of the grand style, does thus fail. It is not that he does not possess charm, and charm in no mean proportion to his largeness and nobility, but for the elevation of these into the realm of magic, into the upper air of spontaneous spiritual activity, his imagination has, for the romantic imagination which it is, a trifle too much self-possession--too much sanity, if one chooses. He has the ambitions, the faculties, of a lyric poet, and he gives us too frequently recitative. IV It is agreeable in many ways to turn from the rounded and complete impeccability of M. Dubois to the fancy of M. Saint-Marceaux. More than any of his rivals, M. Saint-Marceaux possesses the charm of unexpectedness. He is not perhaps to be called an original genius, and his work will probably leave French sculpture very nearly where it found it. Indeed, one readily perceives that he is not free from the trammels of contemporary convention. But how easily he wears them, and if no "severe pains and birth-throes" accompany the evolution of his conceptions, how graceful these conceptions are! They are perhaps of the Canova family; the "Harlequin," for instance, which has had such a prodigious success, is essentially Milanese sculpture; essentially even the "Genius Guarding the Secret of the Tomb" is a fantastic rather than an original work. But how the manner, the treatment, triumphs over the Canova insipidity! It is not only Milanese sculpture better done, the execution beautifully sapient and truthful instead of cheaply imitative, the idea broadly enforced by the details instead of frittered away among them; it is Milanese sculpture essentially elevated and dignified. Loosely speaking, the mere _article de vertu_ becomes a true work of art. And this transformation, or rather this development of a germ of not too great intrinsic importance, is brought about in the work of Saint-Marceaux by the presence of an element utterly foreign to the Canova sculpture and its succession--the element of character. If to the clever workmanship of the Italians he merely opposed workmanship of a superior kind as well as quality--thoroughly artistic workmanship, that is to say--his sculpture would be far less interesting than it is. He does, indeed, noticeably do this; there is a felicity entirely delightful, almost magical, in every detail of his work. But when one compares it with the sculpture of M. Dubois, it is not of this that one thinks so much as of a certain individual character with which M. Saint-Marceaux always contrives to endue it. This is not always in its nature sculptural, it must be admitted, and it approaches perhaps too near the character of _genre_ to have the enduring interest that purely sculptural qualities possess. But it is always individual, piquant, and charming, and in it consists M. Saint-Marceaux's claim upon us as an artist. No one else, even given his powers of workmanship, that is to say as perfectly equipped as he, could have treated so thoroughly conventional a _genre_ subject as the "Harlequin" as he has treated it. The mask is certainly one of the stock properties of the subject, but notice how it is used to confer upon the whole work a character of mysterious witchery. It is as a whole, if you choose, an _article de Paris_, with the distinction of being seriously treated; the modelling and the movement admirable as far as they go, but well within the bounds of that anatomically artistic expression which is the _raison d'être_ of sculpture and its choice of the human form as its material. But the character saves it from this category; what one may almost call its psychological interest redeems its superficial triviality. M. Saint-Marceaux is always successful in this way. One has only to look at the eyes of his figures to be convinced how subtle is his art of expressing character. Here he swings quite clear of all convention and manifests his genius positively and directly. The unfathomable secret of the tomb is in the spiritual expression of the guarding genius, and the elaborately complex movement concentrated upon the urn and directly inspired by the ephebes of the Sistine ceiling is a mere blind. The same is true of the portrait heads which within his range M. Saint Marceaux does better than almost anyone. M. Renan's "Confessions" hardly convey as distinct a notion of character as his bust exhibited at the Triennial of 1883. Many of the sculptors' anonymous heads, so to speak, are hardly less remarkable. Long after the sharp edge of one's interest in the striking pose of his "Harlequin" and the fine movement and bizarre features of his "Genius" has worn away, their curious spiritual interest, the individual _cachet_ of their character, will sustain them. And so integrally true is this of all the productions of M. Saint-Marceaux's talent, that it is quite as perceptible in works where it is not accentuated and emphasized as it is in those of which I have been speaking; it is a quality that will bear refining, that is even better indeed in its more subtle manifestations. The figure of the Luxembourg Gallery, the young Dante reading Virgil, is an example; a girl's head, the forehead swathed in a turban, first exhibited some years ago, is another. The charm of these is more penetrating, though they are by no means either as popular or as "important" works as the "Genius of the Tomb" or the "Harlequin." In the time to come M. Saint-Marceaux will probably rely more and more on their quality of grave and yet alert distinction, and less on striking and eccentric variations of themes from Michael Angelo like the "Genius," and illustrations like the "Harlequin" of the artistic potentialities of the Canova sculpture. With considerably less force than M. Dubois and decidedly less piquancy than M. Saint-Marceaux, M. Antonin Mercié has perhaps greater refinement than either. His outline is a trifle softer, his sentiment more gracious, more suave. His work is difficult to characterize satisfactorily, and the fact may of course proceed from its lack of force, as well as from the well-understood difficulty of translating into epithets anything so essentially elusive as suavity and grace of form. At one epoch in any examination of academic French sculpture that of M. Mercié seems the most interesting; it is so free from exaggeration of any kind on the one hand, it realizes its idea so satisfactorily on the other, and this idea is so agreeable, so refined, and at the same time so dignified. The "David" is an early work now in the Luxembourg gallery, reproductions of which are very popular, and the reader may judge how well it justifies these remarks. Being an early work, one cannot perhaps insist on its originality; in France, a young sculptor must be original at his peril; his education is so complete, he must have known and studied the beauties of classic sculpture so thoroughly, that not to be impressed by them so profoundly as to display his appreciativeness in his first work is apt to argue a certain insensitiveness. And every one cannot have creative genius. What a number of admirable works we should be compelled to forego if creative genius were demanded of an artist of the present day when the best minds of the time are occupied with other things than art! One is apt to forget that in our day the minds that correspond with the artistic miracles of the Renaissance are absorbed in quite different departments of effort. M. Mercié's "David" would perhaps never have existed but for Donatello's. As far as plastic motive is concerned, it may without injustice be called a variant of that admirable creation, and from every point of view except that of dramatic grace it is markedly inferior to its inspiration; as an embodiment of triumphant youth, of the divine ease with which mere force is overcome, it has only a superficial resemblance to the original. But if with M. Mercié "David" was simply a classic theme to be treated, which is exactly what it of course was not with Donatello, it is undeniable that he has expressed himself very distinctly in his treatment. A less sensitive artist would have vulgarized instead of merely varying the conception, whereas one can easily see in M. Mercié's handling of it the ease, science, and felicitous movement that have since expressed themselves more markedly, more positively, but hardly more unmistakably, in the sculptor's maturer works. Of these the chief is perhaps the "Gloria Victis," which now decorates the Square Montholon; and its identity of authorship with the "David" is apparent in spite of its structural complexity and its far greater importance both in subject and execution. Its subject is the most inspiring that a French sculptor since the events of 1870-71 (so lightly considered by those who only see the theatric side of French character) could treat. Its general interest, too, is hardly inferior; there is something generally ennobling in the celebration of the virtues of the brave defeated that surpasses the commonplace of pæans. M. Mercié was, in this sense, more fortunate than the sculptor to whom the Berlinese owe the bronze commemoration of their victory. Perhaps to call his treatment entirely worthy of the theme, is to forget the import of such works as the tombs of the Medici Chapel at Florence. There is a region into whose precincts the dramatic quality penetrates only to play an insufficient part. But in modern art to do more than merely to keep such truths in mind, to insist on satisfactory plastic illustrations of them, is not only to prepare disappointment for one's self, but to risk misjudging admirable and elevated effort; and to regret the fact that France had only M. Mercié and not Michael Angelo to celebrate her "Gloria Victis" is to commit both of these errors. After all, the subjects are different, and the events of 1870-71 had compensations for France which the downfall of Florentine liberty was without; so that, indeed, a note of unmixed melancholy, however lofty its strain, would have been a discord which M. Mercié has certainly avoided. He has avoided it in rather a marked way, it is true. His monument is dramatic and stirring rather than inwardly moving. It is rhetorical rather than truly poetic; and the admirable quality of its rhetoric, its complete freedom from vulgar or sentimental alloy--its immense superiority to Anglo-Saxon rhetoric, in fine--does not conceal the truth that it is rhetoric, that it is prose and not poetry after all. Mercié's "Gloria Victis" is very fine; I know nothing so fine in modern sculpture outside of France. But then there is not very much that is fine at all in modern sculpture outside of France; and modern French sculpture, and M. Mercié along with it as one of its most eminent ornaments, have made it impossible to speak of them in a relative way. The antique and the Renaissance sculpture alone furnish their fit association, and like the Renaissance and the antique sculpture they demand a positive and absolute, and not a comparative criticism. V Well, then, speaking thus absolutely and positively, the cardinal defect of the Institute sculpture--and the refined and distinguished work of M. Mercié better perhaps than almost any other assists us to see this--is its over-carefulness for style. This is indeed the explanation of what I mentioned at the outset as the chief characteristic of this sculpture, the academic inelasticity, namely, with which it essays to reproduce the Renaissance romanticism. But for the fondness for style integral in the French mind and character, it would perceive the contradiction between this romanticism and any canons except such as are purely intuitive and indefinable. In comparison with the Renaissance sculptors, the French academic sculptors of the present day are certainly too exclusive devotees of Buffon's "order and movement," and too little occupied with the thought itself--too little individual. In comparison with the antique, this is less apparent, but I fancy not less real. We are so accustomed to think of the antique as the pure and simple embodiment of style, as a sublimation, so to speak of the individual into style itself, that in this respect we are scarcely fair judges of the antique. In any case we know very little of it; we can hardly speak of it except by periods. But it is plain that the Greek is so superior to any subsequent sculpture in this one respect of style that we rarely think of its other qualities. Our judgment is inevitably a comparative one, and inevitably a comparative judgment fixes our attention on the Greek supremacy of style. Indeed, in looking at the antique the thought itself is often alien to us, and the order and movement, being more nearly universal perhaps, are all that occupy us. A family tombstone lying in the cemetery at Athens, and half buried in the dust which blows from the Piræus roadway, has more style than M. Mercié's "Quand-Même" group for Belfort, which has been the subject of innumerable encomiums, and which has only style and no individuality whatever to commend it. And the Athenian tombstone was probably furnished to order by the marble-cutting artist of the period, corresponding to those whose signs one sees at the entrances of our own large cemeteries. Still we may be sure that the ordinary Athenian citizen who adjudged prizes between Æschylus and Sophocles, and to whom Pericles addressed the oration which only exceptional culture nowadays thoroughly appreciates, found plenty of individuality in the decoration of the Parthenon, and was perfectly conscious of the difference between Phidias and his pupils. Even now, if one takes the pains to think of it, the difference between such works as the so-called "Genius" of the Vatican and the Athenian marbles, or between the Niobe group at Florence and the Venus torso at Naples, for example, seems markedly individual enough, though the element of style is still to our eyes the most prominent quality in each. Indeed, if one really reflects upon the subject, it will not seem exaggeration to say that to anyone who has studied both with any thoroughness it would be more difficult to individualize the mass of modern French sculpture than even that of the best Greek epoch--the epoch when style was most perfect, when its reign was, as it sometimes appears to us, most absolute. And if we consider the Renaissance sculpture, its complexity is so great, its individuality is so pronounced, that one is apt to lose sight of the important part which style really plays in it. In a work by Donatello we see first of all his thought; in a Madonna of Mino's it is the idea that charms us; the Delia Robbia frieze at Pistoja is pure _genre_. But modern academic French sculpture feels the weight of De Musset's handicap--it is born too late into a world too old. French art in general feels this, I think, and painting suffers from it equally with sculpture. Culture, the Institute, oppress individuality. But whereas Corot and Millet have triumphed over the Institute there are--there were, at least, till yesterday--hardly any Millets and Corots of sculpture whose triumph is as yet assured. The tendency, the weight of authority, the verdict of criticism, always conservative in France, are all the other way. At the École des Beaux-Arts one learns, negatively, not to be ridiculous. This is a great deal; it is more than can be learned anywhere else nowadays--witness German, Italian, above all English exhibitions. Positively one learns the importance of style; and if it were not for academic French sculpture, one would say that this was something the importance of which could not be exaggerated. But in academic French sculpture it is exaggerated, and, what is fatal, one learns to exaggerate it in the schools. The traditions of Houdon are noticeably forgotten. Not that Houdon's art is not eminently characterized by style; the "San Bruno" at Rome is in point of style an antique. But compare his "Voltaire" in the foyer of the Comédie Française with Chapu's "Berryer" of the Palais de Justice, to take one of the very finest portrait-statues of the present day. Chapu's statue is more than irreproachable, it is elevated and noble, it is in the grand style; but it is plain that its impressiveness is due to the fact that the subject is conceived as the Orator in general and handled with almost a single eye to style. The personal interest that accentuates every detail of the "Voltaire"--the physiognomy, the pose, the right hand, are marvellously characteristic--simply is not sought for in Chapu's work. Of this quality there is more in Houdon's bust of Molière, whom of course Houdon never saw, than in almost any production of the modern school. Chapu's works, and such exceptions as the heads of Baudry and Renan already mentioned, apart, one perceives that the modern school has made too many statues of the République, too many "Ledas" and "Susannahs" and "Quand-Mêmes" and "Gloria Victis." And its penchant for Renaissance canons only emphasizes the absolute commonplace of many of these. On the other hand, if Houdon's felicitous harmony of style and individual force are forgotten, there is hardly any recognized succession to the imaginative freedom, the _verve_, the triumphant personal fertility of Rude and Carpeaux. At least, such as there is has not preserved the dignity and in many instances scarcely the decorum of those splendid artists. Much of the sculpture which figures at the yearly Salons is, to be sure, the absolute negation of style; its main characteristic is indeed eccentricity; its main virtues, sincerity (which in art, of course, is only a very elementary virtue) and good modelling (which in sculpture is equally elementary). Occasionally in the midst of this display of fantasticality there is a work of promise or even of positive interest. The observer who has not a weak side for the graceful conceits, invariably daintily presented and beautifully modelled, of M. Moreau-Vauthier for example, must be hard to please; they are of the very essence of the _article de Paris_, and only abnormal primness can refuse to recognize the truth that the _article de Paris_ has its art side. M. Moreau-Vauthier is not perhaps a modern Cellini; he has certainly never produced anything that could be classed with the "Perseus" of the Loggia de' Lanzi, or even with the Fontainebleau "Diana;" but he does more than anyone else to keep alive the tradition of Florentine preciosity, and about everything he does there is something delightful. Still the fantastic has not made much headway in the Institute, and it is so foreign to the French genius, which never tolerates it after it has ceased to be novel, that it probably never will. It is a great tribute to French "catholicity of mind and largeness of temper" that Carpeaux's "La Danse" remains in its position on the façade of the Grand Opéra. French sentiment regarding it was doubtless accurately expressed by the fanatic who tried to ink it indelibly after it was first exposed. This vandal was right from his point of view--the point of view of style. Almost the one work of absolute spontaneity among the hundreds which without and within decorate M. Garnier's edifice, it is thus a distinct jar in the general harmony; it distinctly mars the "order and movement" of M. Garnier's thought, which is fundamentally opposed to spontaneity. But imagine the devotion to style of a _milieu_ in which a person who would throw ink on a confessedly fine work of art is actuated by an impersonal dislike of incongruity! Dislike of the incongruous is almost a French passion, and, like all qualities, it has its defect, the defect of tolerating the conventional. It is through this tolerance, for example, that one of the freest of French critics of art, a true Voltairian, Stendhal, was led actually to find Guido's ideal of beauty higher than Raphael's, and to miss entirely the grandeur of Tintoretto. Critical opinion in France has not changed radically since Stendhal's day. VI The French sculptor may draw his inspiration from the sources of originality itself, his audience will measure the result by conventions. It is this fact undoubtedly that is largely responsible for the over-carefulness for style already remarked. Hence the work of M. Aimé-Millet and of Professors Guillaume and Cavelier, and the fact that they are professors. Hence also the election of M. Falguière to succeed to the chair of the Beaux-Arts left vacant by the death of Jouffroy some years ago. All of these have done admirable work. Professor Guillaume's Gracchi group at the Luxembourg is alone enough to atone for a mass of productions of which the "Castalian Fount" of a recent Salon is the cold and correct representative. Cavalier's "Gluck," destined for the Opéra, is spirited, even if a trifle galvanic. Millet's "Apollo," which crowns the main gable of the Opéra, stands out among its author's other works as a miracle of grace and rhythmic movement. M. Falguière's admirers, and they are numerous, will object to the association here made. Falguière's range has always been a wide one, and everything he has done has undoubtedly merited a generous portion of the prodigious encomiums it has invariably obtained. Yet, estimating it in any other way than by energy, variety, and mass, it is impossible to praise it highly with precision. It is too plainly the work of an artist who can do one thing as well as another, and of which cleverness is, after all, the spiritual standard. Bartholdi, who also should not be forgotten in any sketch of French sculpture, would, I am sure, have acquitted himself more satisfactorily than Falguière did in the colossal groups of the Trocadéro and the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile. To acquit himself satisfactorily is Bartholdi's specialty. These two groups are the largest and most important that a sculptor can have to do. The crowning of the Arc de Triomphe at least was a splendid opportunity. Neither of them had any distinction of outline, of mass, of relation, or of idea. Both were conventional to the last degree. That on the Arc had even its ludicrous details, such as occur only from artistic absent-mindedness in a work conceived and executed in a fatigued and hackneyed spirit. The "Saint Vincent de Paul" of the Panthéon, which justly passes for the sculptor's _chef-d'oeuvre_ is in idea a work of large humanity. M. Falguière is behind no one in ability to conceive a subject of this kind with propriety, and his subject here is inspiring if ever a subject was. The "Petit Martyr" of the Luxembourg has a real charm, but it too is content with too little, as one finds out in seeing it often; and it is in no sense a large work, scarcely larger than the tiresomely popular "Running Boy" of the same museum, which nevertheless in its day marked an epoch in modelling. Indeed, so slight is the spiritual hold that M. Falguière has on one, that it really seems as if he were at his best in such a frankly carnal production as his since variously modified "Nymph Hunting" of the Triennial Exposition of 1883. The idea is nothing or next to nothing, but the surface _faire_ is superb. M. Barrias, M. Delaplanche, and M. Le Feuvre have each of them quite as much spontaneity as M. Falguière, though the work of neither is as important in mass and variety. M. Delaplanche is always satisfactory, and beyond this there is something large about what he does that confers dignity even in the absence of quick interest. His proportions are simple, his outline flowing, and the agreeable ease of his compositions makes up to a degree for any lack of sympathetic sentiment or impressive significance: witness his excellent "Maternal Instruction," of the little park in front of Sainte Clothilde. M. Le Feuvre's qualities are very nearly the reverse of these: he has a fondness for integrity quite hostile in his case to simplicity. In his very frank appeal to one's susceptibility he is a little careless of sculptural considerations, which he is prone to sacrifice to pictorial ends. The result is a mannerism that in the end ceases to impress, and even becomes disagreeable. As nearly as may be in a French sculptor it borders on sentimentality, and finally the swaying attitudes of his figures become limp, and the startled-fawn eyes of his maidens and youths appear less touching than lackadaisical. But his being himself too conscious of it should not obscure the fact that he has a way of his own. M. Barrias is an artist of considerably greater powers than either M. Le Feuvre or M. Delaplanche; but one has a vague perception that his powers are limited, and that to desire in his case what one so sincerely wishes in the case of M. Dubois, namely, that he would "let himself go," would be unwise. Happily, when he is at his best there is no temptation to form such a wish. The "Premières Funérailles" is a superb work--"the chef-d'oeuvre of our modern sculpture," a French critic enthusiastically terms it. It is hardly that; it has hardly enough spiritual distinction--not quite enough of either elegance or elevation--to merit such sweeping praise. But it may be justly termed, I think, the most completely representative of the masterpieces of that sculpture. Its triumph over the prodigious difficulties of elaborate composition "in the round"--difficulties to which M. Barrias succumbed in the "Spartacus" of the Tuileries Gardens--and its success in subordinating the details of a group to the end of enforcing a single motive, preserving the while their individual interest, are complete. Nothing superior in this respect has been done since John of Bologna's "Rape of the Sabines." VII M. Emmanuel Frémiet occupies a place by himself. There have been but two modern sculptors who have shown an equally pronounced genius for representing animals--namely, Barye, of course, and Barye's clever but not great pupil, Cain. The tigress in the Central Park, perhaps the best bronze there (the competition is not exacting), and the best also of the several variations of the theme of which, at one time, the sculptor apparently could not tire, familiarizes Americans with the talent of Cain. In this association Rouillard, whose horse in the Trocadéro Gardens is an animated and elegant work, ought to be mentioned, but it is hardly as good as the neighboring elephant of Frémiet as mere animal representation (the _genre_ exists and has excellences and defects of its own), while in more purely artistic worth it is quite eclipsed by its rival. Still if _fauna_ is interesting in and of itself, which no one who knows Barye's work would controvert, it is still more interesting when, to put it brutally, something is done with it. In his ambitious and colossal work at the Trocadéro, M. Frémiet does in fact use his _fauna_ freely as artistic material, though at first sight it is its zoölogical interest that appears paramount. The same is true of the elephant near by, in which it seems as if he had designedly attacked the difficult problem of rendering embodied awkwardness decorative. Still more conspicuous, of course, is the artistic interest, the fancy, the humor, the sportive grace of his Luxembourg group of a young satyr feeding honey to a brace of bear's cubs, because he here concerns himself more directly with his idea and gives his genius freer play. And everyone will remember the sensation caused by his impressively repulsive "Gorilla Carrying off a Woman." But it is when he leaves this kind of thing entirely, and, wholly forgetful of his studies at the Jardin des Plantes, devotes himself to purely monumental work, that he is at his best. And in saying this I do not at all mean to insist on the superiority of monumental sculpture to the sculpture of _fauna_; it is superior, and Barye himself cannot make one content with the exclusive consecration of admirable talent to picturesque anatomy illustrating distinctly unintellectual passions. M. Frémiet, in ecstasy over his picturesque anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes, would scout this; but it is nevertheless true that in such works as the "Âge de la pierre," which, if it may be called a monumental clock-top, is nevertheless certainly monumental; his "Louis d'Orléans," in the quadrangle of the restored Château de Pierrefonds; his "Jeanne d'Arc" (the later statue is not, I think, essentially different from the earlier one); and his "Torch-bearer" of the Middle Ages, in the new Hôtel de Ville of Paris, not only is his subject a subject of loftier and more enduring interest than his elephants and deer and bears, but his own genius finds a more congenial medium of expression. In other words, any one who has seen his "Torch-bearer" or his "Louis d'Orléans" must conclude that M. Frémiet is losing his time at the Jardin des Plantes. In monumental works of the sort he displays a commanding dignity that borders closely upon the grand style itself. The "Jeanne d'Arc" is indeed criticised for lack of style. The horse is fine, as always with M. Frémiet; the action of both horse and rider is noble, and the homogeneity of the two, so to speak, is admirably achieved. But the character of the Maid is not perfectly satisfactory to _à priori_ critics, to critics who have more or less hard and fast notions about the immiscibility of the heroic and the familiar. The "Jeanne d'Arc" is of course a heroic statue, illustrating one of the most puissant of profane legends; and it is unquestionably familiar and, if one chooses, defiantly unpretentious. Perhaps the Maid as M. Frémiet represents her could never have accomplished legend-producing deeds. Certainly she is the Maid neither of Chapu, nor of Bastien-Lepage, nor of the current convention. She is, rather, pretty, sympathetically childlike, _mignonne_; but M. Frémiet's conception is an original and a gracious one, and even the critic addicted to formulæ has only to forget its title to become thoroughly in love with it; beside this merit _à priori_ shortcomings count very little. But the other two works just mentioned are open to no objection of this kind or of any other, and in the category to which they belong they are splendid works. Since Donatello and Verrocchio nothing of the kind has been done which surpasses them; and it is only M. Frémiet's penchant for animal sculpture, and his fondness for exercising his lighter fancy in comparatively trivial _objets de vertu_, that obscure in any degree his fine talent for illustrating the grand style with natural ease and large simplicity. VIII I have already mentioned the most representative among those who have "arrived" of the school of academic French sculpture as it exists to-day, though it would be easy to extend the list with Antonin Carlès, whose "Jeunesse" of the World's Fair of 1889 is a very graceful embodiment of adolescence; Suchetet, whose "Byblis" of the same exhibition caused his early death to be deplored; Adrien Gaudez, Etcheto, Idrac, and, of course, many others of distinction. There is no looseness in characterizing this as a "school;" it has its own qualities and its corresponding defects. It stands by itself--apart from the Greek sculpture and from its inspiration, the Renaissance, and from the more recent traditions of Houdon, or of Rude and Carpeaux. It is a thoroughly legitimate and unaffected expression of national thought and feeling at the present time, at once splendid and simple. The moment of triumph in any intellectual movement is, however, always a dangerous one. A slack-water period of intellectual slothfulness nearly always ensues. Ideas which have previously been struggling to get a hearing have become accepted ideas that have almost the force of axioms; no one thinks of their justification, of their basis in real truth and fact; they take their place in the great category of conventions. The mind feels no longer the exhilaration of discovery, the stimulus of fresh perception; the sense becomes jaded, enthusiasm impossible. Dealing with the same material and guided by the same principles, its production becomes inevitably hackneyed, artificial, lifeless; the _Zeit-Geist_, the Time-Spirit, is really a kind of Sisyphus, and the essence of life is movement. This law of perpetual renewal, of the periodical quickening of the human spirit, explains the barrenness of the inheritance of the greatest men; shows why originality is a necessary element of perfection; why Phidias, Praxiteles, Donatello, Michael Angelo (not to go outside of our subject), had no successors. Once a thing is done it is done for all time, and the study of perfection itself avails only as a stimulus to perfection in other combinations. In fact, the more nearly perfect the model the greater the necessity for an absolute break with it in order to secure anything like an equivalent in living force; in _its_ direction at least everything vital has been done. So its lack of original force, its over-carefulness for style, its inevitable sensitiveness to the criticism that is based on convention, make the weak side of the French academic sculpture of the present day, fine and triumphant as it is. That the national thought and feeling are not a little conventional, and have the academic rather than a spontaneous inspiration, has, however, lately been distinctly felt as a misfortune and a limitation by a few sculptors whose work may be called the beginning of a new movement out of which, whatever may be its own limitations, nothing but good can come to French sculpture and of which the protagonists are Auguste Rodin and Jules Dalou. VI THE NEW MOVEMENT IN SCULPTURE I Side by side with the academic current in French art has moved of recent years a naturalist and romantic impulse whose manifestations have been always vigorous though occasionally exaggerated. In any of the great departments of activity nationally pursued--as art has been pursued in France since Francis I.--there are always these rival currents, of which now one and now the other constantly affects the ebb and flow of the tide of thought and feeling. The classic and romantic duel of 1830, the rise of the naturalist opposition to Hugo and romanticism in our own day, are familiar instances of this phenomenon in literature. The revolt of Géricault and Delacroix against David and Ingres are equally well known in the field of painting. Of recent years the foundation of the periodical _L'Art_ and its rivalry with the conservative _Gazette des Beaux Arts_ mark with the same definiteness, and an articulate precision, the same conflict between truth, as new eyes see it, and tradition. Never, perhaps, since the early Renaissance, however, has nature asserted her supremacy over convention in such unmistakable, such insistent, and, one may say, I think, such intolerant fashion as she is doing at the present moment. Sculpture, in virtue of the defiant palpability of its material, is the most impalpable of the plastic arts, and therefore it feels less quickly than the rest, perhaps, the impress of the influences of the epoch and their classifying canons. Natural imitation shows first in sculpture, and subsists in it longest. But convention once its conqueror, the return to nature is here most tardy, because, owing to the impalpable, the elusive quality of sculpture, though natural standards may everywhere else be in vogue, no one thinks of applying them to so specialized an expression. Its variation depends therefore more completely on the individual artist himself. Niccolò Pisano, for example, died when Giotto was two years old, but, at the other end of the historic line of modern art, it has taken years since Delacroix to furnish recognition for Auguste Rodin. The stronghold of the Institute had been mined many times by revolutionary painters before Dalou took the grand medal of the Salon. Owing to the relative and in fact polemic position which these two artists occupy, the movement which they represent, and of which as yet they themselves form a chief part, a little obscures their respective personalities, which are nevertheless, in sculpture, by far the most positive and puissant of the present epoch. M. Rodin's work, especially, is so novel that one's first impression in its presence is of its implied criticism of the Institute. One thinks first of its attitude, its point of view, its end, aim, and means, and of the utter contrast of these with those of the accepted contemporary masters in his art--of Dubois and Chapu, Mercié and Saint-Marceaux. One judges generally, and instinctively avoids personal and direct impressions. The first thought is not, Are the "Saint Jean" and the "Bourgeois de Calais" successful works of art? But, _Can_ they be successful if the accepted masterpieces of modern sculpture are not to be set down as insipid? One is a little bewildered. It is easy to see and to estimate the admirable traits and the shortcomings of M. Dubois's delightful and impressive reminiscences of the Renaissance, of M. Mercié's refined and graceful compositions. They are of their time and place. They embody, in distinguished manner and in an accentuated degree, the general inspiration. Their spiritual characteristics are traditional and universal, and technically, without perhaps often passing beyond it, they exhaust cleverness. You may enjoy or resent their classic and exemplary excellences, as you feel your taste to have suffered from the lack or the superabundance of academic influences; I cannot fancy an American insensitive to their charm. But it is plain that their perfection is a very different thing from the characteristics of a strenuous artistic personality seeking expression. If these latter when encountered are seen to be evidently of an extremely high order, contemporary criticism, at all events, should feel at once the wisdom of beginning with the endeavor to appreciate, instead of making the degree of its own familiarity with them the test of their merit. French æsthetic authority, which did this in the instances of Barye, of Delacroix, of Millet, of Manet, of Puvis de Chavannes, did it also for many years in the instance of M. Rodin. It owes its defeat in the contest with him--for like the recalcitrants in the other contests, M. Rodin has definitively triumphed--to the unwise attempt to define him in terms heretofore applicable enough to sculptors, but wholly inapplicable to him. It failed to see that the thing to define in his work was the man himself, his temperament, his genius. Taken by themselves and considered as characteristics of the Institute sculptors, the obvious traits of this work might, that is to say, be adjudged eccentric and empty. Fancy Professor Guillaume suddenly subordinating academic disposition of line and mass to true structural expression! One would simply feel the loss of his accustomed style and harmony. With M. Rodin, who deals with nature directly, through the immediate force of his own powerful temperament, to feel the absence of the Institute training and traditions is absurd. The question in his case is simply whether or no he is a great artistic personality, an extraordinary and powerful temperament, or whether he is merely a turbulent and capricious protestant against the measure and taste of the Institute. But this is really no longer a question, however it may have been a few years ago; and when his Dante portal for the new Palais des Arts Décoratifs shall have been finished, and the public had an opportunity to see what the sculptor's friend and only serious rival, M. Dalou, calls "one of the most, if not the most original and astonishing pieces of sculpture of the nineteenth century," it will be recognized that M. Rodin, so far from being amenable to the current canon, has brought the canon itself to judgment. How and why, people will perceive in proportion to their receptivity. Candor and intelligence will suffice to appreciate that the secret of M. Rodin's art is structural expression, and that it is this and not any superficial eccentricity of execution that definitely distinguishes him from the Institute. Just as his imagination, his temperament, his spiritual energy and ardor individualize the positive originality of his motive, so the expressiveness of his treatment sets him aside from all as well as from each of the Institute sculptors in what may be broadly called technical attitude. No sculptor has ever carried expression further. The sculpture of the present day has certainly not occupied itself much with it. The Institute is perhaps a little afraid of it. It abhors the _baroque_ rightly enough, but very likely it fails to see that the expression of such sculpture as M. Rodin's no more resembles the contortions of the Dresden Museum giants than it does the composure of M. Delaplanche. The _baroque_ is only violent instead of placid commonplace, and is as conventional as any professor of sculpture could desire. Expression means individual character completely exhibited rather than conventionally suggested. It is certainly not too much to say that in the sculpture of the present day the sense of individual character is conveyed mainly by convention. The physiognomy has usurped the place of the physique, the gesture of the form, the pose of the substance. And face, gesture, form are, when they are not brutally naturalistic and so not art at all, not individual and native, but typical and classic. Very much of the best modern sculpture might really have been treated like those antique figurines of which the bodies were made by wholesale, being supplied with individual heads when the time came for using them. This has been measurably true since the disappearance of the classic dress and the concealment of the body by modern costume. The nudes of the early Renaissance, in painting still more than in sculpture, are differentiated by the faces. The rest of the figure is generally conventionalized as thoroughly as the face itself is in Byzantine and the hands in Giottesque painting. Giotto could draw admirably, it need not be said. He did draw as well as the contemporary feeling for the human figure demanded. When the Renaissance reached its climax and the study of the antique led artists to look beneath drapery and interest themselves in the form, expression made an immense step forward. Color was indeed almost lost sight of in the new interest, not to reappear till the Venetians. But owing to the lack of visible nudity, to the lack of the classic gymnasia, to the concealments of modern attire, the knowledge of and interest in the form remained, within certain limits, an esoteric affair. The general feeling, even where, as in the Italy of the _quattro_ and _cinque centi_, everyone was a connoisseur, did not hold the artist to expression in his anatomy as the general Greek feeling did. Everyone was a connoisseur of art alone, not of nature as well. Consequently, in spite of such an enthusiastic genius as Donatello, who probably more than any other modern has most nearly approached the Greeks--not in spiritual attitude, for he was eminently of his time, but in his attitude toward nature--the human form in art has for the most part remained, not conventionalized as in the Byzantine and Gothic times, but thoroughly conventional. Michael Angelo himself certainly may be charged with lending the immense weight of his majestic genius to perpetuate the conventional. It is not his distortion of nature, as pre-Raphaelite limitedness glibly asserts, but his carelessness of her prodigious potentialities, that marks one side of his colossal accomplishment. Just as the lover of architecture as architecture will protest that Michael Angelo's was meretricious, however inspiring, so M. Rodin declares his sculpture unsatisfactory, however poetically impressive. "He used to do a little anatomy evenings," he said to me, "and used his chisel next day without a model. He repeats endlessly his one type--the youth of the Sistine ceiling. Any particular felicity of expression you are apt to find him borrowing from Donatello--such as, for instance, the movement of the arm of the 'David,' which is borrowed from Donatello's 'St. John Baptist.'" Most people to whom Michael Angelo's creations appear celestial in their majesty at once and in their winningness would deny this. But it is worth citing both because M. Rodin strikes so many crude apprehensions as a French Michael Angelo, whereas he is so radically removed from him in point of view and in practice that the unquestionable spiritual analogy between them is rather like that between kindred spirits working in different arts, and because, also, it shows not only what M. Rodin is not, but what he is. The grandiose does not run away with him. His imagination is occupied largely in following out nature's suggestions. His sentiment does not so drench and saturate his work as to float it bodily out of the realm of natural into that of supernal beauty, there to crystallize in decorative and puissant visions appearing out of the void and only superficially related to their corresponding natural forms. Standing before the Medicean tombs the modern susceptibility receives perhaps the most poignant, one may almost say the most intolerable, impression to be obtained from any plastic work by the hand of man; but it is a totally different impression from that left by the sculptures of the Parthenon pediments, not only because the sentiment is wholly different, but because in the great Florentine's work it is so overwhelming as wholly to dominate purely natural expression, natural character, natural beauty. In the Medici Chapel the soul is exalted; in the British Museum the mind is enraptured. The object itself seems to disappear in the one case, and to reveal itself in the other. I do not mean to compare M. Rodin with the Greeks--from whom in sentiment and imagination he is, of course, as totally removed as what is intensely modern must be from the antique--any more than I mean to contrast him with Michael Angelo, except for the purposes of clearer understanding of his general æsthetic attitude. Association of anything contemporary with what is classic, and especially with what is greatest in the classic, is always a perilous proceeding. Very little time is apt to play havoc with such classification. I mean only to indicate that the resemblance to Michael Angelo, found by so many persons in such works as the Dante doors, is only of the loosest kind--as one might, through their common lusciousness, compare peaches with pomegranates--and that to the discerning eye, or the eye at all experienced in observing sculpture, M. Rodin's sculpture is far more closely related to that of Donatello and the Greeks. It, too, reveals rather than constructs beauty, and by the expression of character rather than by the suggestion of sentiment. An illustration of M. Rodin's affinity with the antique is an incident which he related to me of his work upon his superb "Âge d'Airain." He was in Naples; he saw nature in freer inadvertence than she allows elsewhere; he had the best of models. Under these favoring circumstances he spent three months on a leg of his statue; "which is equivalent to saying that I had at last absolutely mastered it," said he. One day in the Museo Nazionale he noticed in an antique the result of all his study and research. Nature, in other words, is M. Rodin's _material_ in the same special sense in which it was the antique material, and in which, since Michael Angelo and the high Renaissance, it has been for the most part only the sculptor's _means_. It need not be said that the personality of the artist may be as strenuous in the one case as in the other; unless, indeed, we maintain, as perhaps we may, that individuality is more apt to atrophy in the latter instance; for as one gets farther and farther away from nature he is in more danger from conventionality than from caprice. And this is in fact what has happened since the high Renaissance, the long line of conventionalities being continued, sometimes punctuated here and there as by Clodion or Houdon, David, Rude, or Barye, sometimes rising into great dignity and refinement of style and intelligence, as in the contemporary sculpture of the Institute, but in general almost purely decorative or sentimental, and, so far as natural expression is concerned, confining itself to psychological rather than physical character. What is it, for instance, that distinguishes a group like M. Dubois's "Charity" from the _genre_ sentiment or incident of some German or Italian "professor?" Qualities of style, of refined taste, of elegance, of true intelligence. Its artistic interest is purely decorative and sentimental. Really what its average admirer sees in it is the same moral appeal that delights the simple admirers of German or Italian treatment of a similar theme. It is simply infinitely higher bred. Its character is developed no further. Its significance as form is not insisted on. The parts are not impressively differentiated, and their mysterious mutual relations and correspondences are not dwelt on. The physical character, with its beauties, its salient traits of every kind, appealing so strongly to the sculptor to whom nature appears plastic as well as suggestive, is wholly neglected in favor of the psychological suggestion. And the individual character, the _cachet_ of the whole, the artistic essence and _ensemble_, that is to say, M. Dubois has, after the manner of most modern sculpture, conveyed in a language of convention, which since the time of the Siennese fountain, at all events, has been classical. The literary artist does not proceed in this way. He does not content himself with telling us, for example, that one of his characters is a good man or a bad man, an able, a selfish, a tall, a blonde, or a stupid man, as the case may be. He takes every means to express his character, and to do it, according to M. Taine's definition of a work of art, more completely than it appears in nature. He recognizes its complexity and enforces the sense of reality by a thousand expedients of what one may almost call contrasting masses, derivative movements, and balancing planes. He distinguishes every possible detail that plays any structural part, and, in short, instead of giving us the mere symbol of the Sunday-school books, shows us a concrete organism at once characteristic and complex. Judged with this strictness, which in literary art is elementary, how much of the best modern sculpture is abstract, symbolic, purely typical. What insipid fragments most of the really eminent Institute statues would make were their heads knocked off by some band of modern barbarian invaders. In the event of such an irruption, would there be any torsos left from which future Poussins could learn all they should know of the human form? Would there be any _disjecta membra_ from which skilled anatomists could reconstruct the lost _ensemble_, or at any rate make a shrewd guess at it? Would anything survive mutilation with the serene confidence in its fragmentary but everywhere penetrating interest which seems to pervade the most fractured fraction of a Greek relief on the Athenian acropolis? Yes, there would be the débris of Auguste Rodin's sculpture. In our day the human figure has never been so well understood. Back of such expressive modelling as we note in the "Saint Jean," in the "Adam" and "Eve," in the "Calaisiens," in a dozen figures of the Dante doors, is a knowledge of anatomy such as even in the purely scientific profession of surgery can proceed only from an immense fondness for nature, an insatiable curiosity as to her secrets, an inexhaustible delight in her manifestations. From the point of view of such knowledge and such handling of it, it is no wonder that the representations of nature which issue from the Institute seem superficial. One can understand that from this point of view very delightful sculpture, very refined, very graceful, very perfectly understood within its limits, may appear like _baudruche_--inflated gold-beater's skin, that is to say, of which toy animals are made in France, and which has thus passed into studio _argot_ as the figure for whatever lacks structure and substance. Ask M. Rodin the explanation of a movement, an attitude, in one of his works which strikes your convention-steeped sense as strange, and he will account for it just as an anatomical demonstrator would--pointing out its necessary derivation from some disposition of another part of the figure, and not at all dwelling on its grace or its other purely decorative felicity. Its artistic function in his eyes is to aid in expressing fully and completely the whole of which it forms a part, not to constitute a harmonious detail merely agreeable to the easily satisfied eye. But then the whole will look anatomical rather than artistic. There is the point exactly. Will it? I remember speculating about this in conversation with M. Rodin himself. "Isn't there danger," I said, "of getting too fond of nature, of dissecting with so much enthusiasm that the pleasure of discovery may obscure one's feeling for pure beauty, of losing the artistic in the purely scientific interest, of becoming pedantic, of imitating rather than constructing, of missing art in avoiding the artificial?" I had some difficulty in making myself understood; this perpetual see-saw of nature and art which enshrouds æsthetic dialectics as in a Scotch mist seems curiously factitious to the truly imaginative mind. But I shall always remember his reply, when he finally made me out, as one of the finest severings conceivable of a Gordian knot of this kind. "Oh, yes," said he; "there is, no doubt, such a danger for a mediocre artist." M. Rodin is, whatever one may think of him, certainly not a mediocre artist. The instinct of self-preservation may incline the Institute to assert that he obtrudes his anatomy. But prejudice itself can blind no one of intelligence to his immense imaginative power, to his poetic "possession." His work precisely illustrates what I take to have been, at the best epochs, the relations of nature to such art as is loosely to be called imitative art--what assuredly were those relations in the mind of the Greek artist. Nature supplies the parts and suggests their cardinal relations. Insufficient study of her leaves these superficial and insipid. Inartistic absorption in her leaves them lifeless. The imagination which has itself conceived the whole, the idea, fuses them in its own heat into a new creation which is "imitative" only in the sense that its elements are not inventions. The art of sculpture has retraced its steps far enough to make pure invention, as of Gothic griffins and Romanesque symbology, unsatisfactory to everyone. But, save in M. Rodin's sculpture, it has not fully renewed the old alliance with nature on the old terms--Donatello's terms; the terms which exact the most tribute from nature, which insist on her according her completest significance, her closest secrets, her faculty of expressing character as well as of suggesting sentiment. Very beautiful works are produced without her aid to this extent. We may be sure of this without asking M. Rodin to admit it. He would not do his own work so well were he prepared to; as Millet pointed out when asked to write a criticism of some other painter's canvas, in estimating the production of his fellows an artist is inevitably handicapped by the feeling that he would have done it very differently himself. It is easy not to share M. Rodin's gloomy vaticinations as to French sculpture based on the continued triumph of the Institute style and suavity. The Institute sculpture is too good for anyone not himself engaged in the struggle to avoid being impressed chiefly by its qualities to the neglect of its defects. At the same time it is clear that no art can long survive in undiminished vigor that does not from time to time renew its vitality by resteeping itself in the influences of nature. And so M. Rodin's service to French sculpture becomes, at the present moment, especially signal and salutary because French sculpture, however refined and delightful, shows, just now, very plainly the tendency toward the conventional which has always proved so dangerous, and because M. Rodin's work is a conspicuous, a shining example of the return to nature on the part not of a mere realist, naturalist, or other variety of "mediocre artist," but of a profoundly poetic and imaginative temperament. This is why, one immediately perceives in studying his works, Rodin's treatment, while exhausting every contributary detail to the end of complete expression, is never permitted to fritter away its energy either in the mystifications of optical illusion, or in the infantine idealization of what is essentially subordinate and ancillary. This is why he devotes three months to the study of a leg, for example--not to copy, but to "possess" it. Indeed, no sculptor of our time has made such a sincere and, in general, successful, effort to sink the sense of the material in the conception, the actual object in the artistic idea. One loses all sense of bronze or marble, as the case may be, not only because the artistic significance is so overmastering that one is exclusively occupied in apprehending it, but because there are none of those superficial graces, those felicities of surface modelling, which, however they may delight, infallibly distract as well. Such excellences have assuredly their place. When the motive is conventional or otherwise insipid, or even when its character is distinctly light without being trivial, they are legitimately enough agreeable. And because, in our day, sculptural motives have generally been of this order we have become accustomed to look for such excellences, and, very justly, to miss them when they are absent. Grace of pose, suavity of outline, pleasing disposition of mass, smooth, round deltoids and osseous articulations, and perpetually changing planes of flesh and free play of muscular movement, are excellences which, in the best of academic French sculpture, are sensuously delightful in a high degree. But they invariably rivet our attention on the successful way in which the sculptor has used his bronze or marble to decorative ends, and when they are accentuated so as to dominate the idea they invariably enfeeble its expression. With M. Rodin one does not think of his material at all; one does not reflect whether he used it well or ill, caused it to lose weight and immobility to the eye or not, because all his superficial modelling appears as an inevitable deduction from the way in which he has conceived his larger subject, and not as "handling" at all. In reality, of course, it is the acme of sensitive handling. The point is a nice one. His practice is a dangerous one. It would be fatal to a less strenuous temperament. To leave, in a manner and so far as obvious insistence on it goes, "handling" to take care of itself, is to incur the peril of careless, clumsy, and even brutal, modelling, which, so far from dissembling its existence behind the prominence of the idea, really emphasizes itself unduly because of its imperfect and undeveloped character. Detail that is neglected really acquires a greater prominence than detail that is carried too far, because it is sensuously disagreeable. But when an artist like M. Rodin conceives his spiritual subject so largely and with so much intensity that mere sensuous agreeableness seems too insignificant to him even to be treated with contempt, he treats his detail solely with reference to its centripetal and organic value, which immediately becomes immensely enhanced, and the detail itself, dropping thus into its proper place, takes on a beauty wholly transcending the ordinary agreeable aspect of sculptural detail. And the _ensemble_, of course, is in this way enforced as it can be in no other, and we get an idea of Victor Hugo or St. John Baptist so powerfully and yet so subtly suggested, that the abstraction seems actually all that we see in looking at the concrete bust or statue. Objections to M. Rodin's "handling" as eccentric or capricious, appear to the sympathetic beholder of one of his majestic works the very acme of misappreciation, and their real excuse--which is, as I have said, the fact that such "handling" is as unfamiliar as the motives it accompanies--singularly poor and feeble. As for the common nature of these motives, the character of the personality which appears in their varied presentments, it is almost idle to speak in the absence of the work itself, so eloquent is this at once and so untranslatable. But it may be said approximately that M. Rodin's temperament is in the first place deeply romantic. Everything the Institute likes repels him. He has the poetic conception of art and its mission, and in poetry any authoritative and codifying consensus seems to him paradoxical. Style, in his view, unless it is something wholly uncharacterizable, is a vague and impalpable spirit breathing through the work of some strongly marked individuality, or else it is formalism. He delights in the fantasticality of the Gothic. The west façade of Rouen inspires him more than all the formulæ of Palladian proportions. He detests systematization. He reads Shakespeare, Schiller, Dante almost exclusively. He sees visions and dreams dreams. The awful in the natural forces, moral and material, seems his element. He believes in freedom, in the absolute emancipation of every faculty. As for study, study nature. If then you fail in restraint and measure you are a "mediocre artist," whom no artificial system devised to secure measure and restraint could have rescued from essential insignificance. No poet or landscape painter ever delighted more in the infinitely varied suggestiveness and exuberance of nature, or ever felt the formality of much that passes for art as more chill and drear. Hence in all his works we have the sense, first of all, of an overmastering sincerity; then of a prodigious wealth of fancy; then of a marvellous acquaintance with his material. His imagination has all the vivacity and tumultuousness of Rubens's, but its images, if not better understood, which would perhaps be impossible, are more compact and their evolution more orderly. And they are furthermore one and all vivified by a wholly remarkable feeling for beauty. In spite of all his knowledge of the external world, no artist of our time is more completely mastered by sentiment. In the very circumstance of being free from such conventions as the cameo relief, the picturesque costume details, the goldsmith's work characteristic of the Renaissance, now so much in vogue, M. Rodin's things acquire a certain largeness and loftiness as well as simplicity and sincerity of sentiment. The same model posed for the "Saint Jean" that posed for a dozen things turned out of the academic studios, but compared with the result in the latter cases, that in the former is even more remarkable for sentiment than for its structural sapience and general physical interest. How perfectly insignificant beside its moral impressiveness are the graceful works whose sentiment does not result from the expression of the form, but is conveyed in some convention of pose, of gesture, of physiognomy! It is like the contrast between a great and a graceful actor. The one interests you by his intelligent mastery of convention, by the tact and taste with which he employs in voice, carriage, facial expression, gesture, diction, the several conventions according to which ideas and emotions are habitually conveyed to your comprehension. Salvini, Coquelin, Got, pass immediately outside the realm of conventions. Their language, their medium of communication, is as new as what it expresses. They are inventive as well as intelligent. Their effect is prodigiously heightened because in this way, the warp as well as the woof of their art being expressive and original, the artistic result is greatly fortified. Given the same model, M. Rodin's result is in like manner expressly and originally enforced far beyond the result toward which the academic French school employs the labels of the Renaissance as conventionally as its predecessor at the beginning of the century employed those of the antique. "Formerly we used to do Greek," says M. Rodin, with no small justice; "now we do Italian. That is all the difference there is." And I cannot better conclude this imperfect notice of the work of a great master, in characterizing which such epithets as majestic, Miltonic, grandiose suggest themselves first of all, than by calling attention to the range which it covers, and to the fact that, even into the domain which one would have called consecrate to the imitators of the antique and the Renaissance, M. Rodin's informing sentiment and sense of beauty penetrate with their habitual distinction; and that the little child's head entitled "Alsace," that considerable portion of his work represented by "The Wave and the Shore," for example, and a small ideal female figure, which the manufacturer might covet for reproduction, but which, as Bastien-Lepage said to me, is "a definition of the essence of art," are really as noble as his more majestic works are beautiful. II Aubé is another sculptor of acknowledged eminence who ranges himself with M. Rodin in his opposition to the Institute. His figures of "Bailly" and "Dante" are very fine, full of a most impressive dignity in the _ensemble_, and marked by the most vigorous kind of modelling. One may easily like his "Gambetta" less. But for years Rodin's only eminent fellow sculptor was Dalou. Perhaps his protestantism has been less pronounced than M. Rodin's. It was certainly long more successful in winning both the connoisseur and the public. The state itself, which is now and then even more conservative than the Institute, has charged him with important works, and the Salon has given him its highest medal. And he was thus recognized long before M. Rodin's works had risen out of the turmoil of critical contention to their present envied if not cordially approved eminence. But for being less energetic, less absorbed, less intense than M. Rodin's, M. Dalou's enthusiasm for nature involves a scarcely less uncompromising dislike of convention. He had no success at the École des Beaux Arts. Unlike Rodin, he entered those precincts and worked long within them, but never sympathetically or felicitously. The rigor of academic precept was from the first excessively distasteful to his essentially and eminently romantic nature. He chafed incessantly. The training doubtless stood him in good stead when he found himself driven by hard necessity into commercial sculpture, into that class of work which is on a very high plane for its kind in Paris, but for which the manufacturer rather than the designer receives the credit. But he probably felt no gratitude to it for this, persuaded that but for its despotic prevalence there would have been a clearer field for his spontaneous and agreeable effort to win distinction in. He greatly preferred at this time the artistic anarchy of England, whither he betook himself after the Commune--not altogether upon compulsion, but by prudence perhaps; for like Rodin, his birth, his training, his disposition, his ideas, have always been as liberal and popular in politics as in art, and in France a man of any sincerity and dignity of character has profound political convictions, even though his profession be purely æsthetic. In England he was very successful both at the Academy and with the amateurs of the aristocracy, of many of whom he made portraits, besides finding ready purchasers among them for his imaginative works. The list of these latter begins, if we except some delightful decoration for one of the Champs-Élysées palaces, with a statue called "La Brodeuse," which won for him a medal at the Salon of 1870. Since then his production has been prodigious in view of its originality, of its lack of the powerful momentum extraneously supplied to the productive force that follows convention and keeps in the beaten track. His numerous peasant subjects at one time led to comparison of him with Millet, but the likeness is of the most superficial kind. There is no spiritual kinship whatever between him and Millet. Dalou models the Marquis de Dreux-Brézé with as much zest as he does his "Boulonnaise allaitant son enfant;" his touch is as sympathetic in his Rubens-like "Silenus" as in his naturalistic "Berceuse." Furthermore, there is absolutely no note of melancholy in his realism--which, at the present time, is a point well worth noting. His vivacity excludes the pathetic. Traces of Carpeaux's influence are plain in his way of conceiving such subjects as Carpeaux would have handled. No one could have come so closely into contact with that vigorous individuality without in some degree undergoing its impress, without learning to look for the alert and elegant aspects of his model, whatever it might be. But with Carpeaux's distinction Dalou has more poise. He is considerably farther away from the rococo. His ideal is equally to be summarized in the word Life, but he cares more for its essence, so to speak, than for its phenomena, or at all events manages to make it felt rather than seen. One perceives that humanity interests him on the moral side, that he is interested in its significance as well as its form. Accordingly with him the movement illustrates the form, which is in its turn truly expressive, whereas occasionally, so bitter was his disgust with the pedantry of the schools, with Carpeaux the form is used to exhibit movement. Then, too, M. Dalou has a certain nobility which Carpeaux's vivacity is a shade too animated to reach. Motive and treatment blend in a larger sweep. The graver substance follows the planes and lines of a statelier if less brilliant style. It _has_, in a word, more style. I can find no exacter epithet, on the whole, for Dalou's large distinction, and conscious yet sober freedom, than the word Venetian. There is some subtle phrenotype that associates him with the great colorists. His work is, in fact, full of color, if one may trench on the jargon of the studios. It has the sumptuousness of Titian and Paul Veronese. Its motives are cast in the same ample mould. Many of his figures breathe the same air of high-born ease and well-being, of serene and not too intellectual composure. There is an aristocratic tincture even in his peasants--a kind of native distinction inseparable from his touch. And in his women there is a certain gracious sweetness, a certain exquisite and elusive refinement elsewhere caught only by Tintoretto, but illustrated by Tintoretto with such penetrating intensity as to leave perhaps the most nearly indelible impression that the sensitive amateur carries away with him from Venice. The female figures in the colossal group which should have been placed in the Place de la République, but was relegated by official stupidity to the Place des Nations, are examples of this patrician charm in carriage, in form, in feature, in expression. They have not the witchery, the touch of Bohemian sprightliness that make such figures as Carpeaux's "Flora" so enchanting, but they are at once sweeter and more distinguished. The sense for the exquisite which this betrays excludes all dross from M. Dalou's rich magnificence. Even the "Silenus" group illustrates exuberance without excess: I spoke of it just now as Rubens-like, but it is only because it recalls Rubens's superb strength and riotous fancy; it is in reality a Rubens-like motive purged in the execution of all Flemish grossness. There is even in Dalou's fantasticality of this sort a measure and distinction which temper animation into resemblance to such delicate blitheness as is illustrated by the Bargello "Bacchus" of Jacopo Sansovino. Sansovino afterward, by the way, amid the artificiality of Venice, whither he went, wholly lost his individual force, as M. Dalou, owing to his love of nature, is less likely to do. But his sketch for a monument to Victor Hugo, and perhaps still more his memorial of Delacroix in the Luxembourg Gardens, point warningly in this direction, and it would perhaps be easier than he supposes to permit his extraordinary decorative facility to lead him on to execute works unpenetrated by personal feeling, and recalling less the acme of the Renaissance than the period just afterward, when original effort had exhausted itself and the movement of art was due mainly to momentum--when, as in France at the present moment, the enormous mass of artistic production really forced pedantry upon culture, and prevented any but the most strenuous personalities from being genuine, because of the immensely increased authoritativeness of what had become classic. Certainly M. Dalou is far more nearly in the current of contemporary art than his friend Rodin, who stands with his master Barye rather defiantly apart from the regular evolution of French sculpture, whereas one can easily trace the derivation of M. Dalou and his relations to the present and the immediate past of his art in his country. His work certainly has its Fragonard, its Clodion, its Carpeaux side. Like every temperament that is strongly attracted by the decorative as well as the significant and the expressive, pure style in and for itself has its fascinations, its temptations for him. Of course it does not succeed in getting the complete possession of him that it has of the Institute. And there is, as I have suggested, an important difference, disclosed in the fact that M. Dalou uses his faculty for style in a personal rather than in the conventional way. His decoration is distinctly Dalou, and not arrangements after classic formulæ. It is full of zest, of ardor, of audacity. So that if his work has what one may call its national side, it is because the author's temperament is thoroughly national at bottom, and not because this temperament is feeble or has been academically repressed. But the manifest fitness with which it takes its place in the category of French sculpture shows the moral difference between it and the work of M. Rodin. Morally speaking, it is mainly--not altogether, but mainly--rhetorical, whereas M. Rodin's is distinctly poetic. It is delightful rhetoric and it has many poetic strains--such as the charm of penetrating distinction I have mentioned. But with the passions in their simplest and last analysis he hardly occupies himself at all. Such a work as "La République," the magnificent bas-relief of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, is a triumph of allegorical rhetoric, very noble, not a little moving, prodigious in its wealth of imaginative material, composed from the centre and not arranged with artificial felicity, full of suggestiveness, full of power, abounding in definite sculptural qualities, both moral and technical; it again is Rubens-like in its exuberance, but of firmer texture, more closely condensed. But anything approaching the _kind_ of impressiveness of the Dante portal it certainly does not essay. It is in quite a different sphere. Its exaltation is, if not deliberate, admirably self-possessed. To find it theatrical would be simply a mark of our absurd Anglo-Saxon preference for reserve and repression in circumstances naturally suggesting expansion and elation--a preference surely born of timorousness and essentially very subtly theatrical itself. It is simply not deeply, intensely poetic, but, rather, a splendid piece of rhetoric, as I say. So, too, is the famous Mirabeau relief, which is perhaps M. Dalou's masterpiece, and which represents his national side as completely as the group for the Place des Nations does those of his qualities I have endeavored to indicate by calling them Venetian. Observe the rare fidelity which has contributed its weight of sincerity to this admirable relief. Every prominent head of the many members of the Assembly, who nevertheless rally behind Mirabeau with a fine pell-mell freedom of artistic effect, is a portrait. The effect is like that of similar works designed and executed with the large leisure of an age very different from the competition and struggling hurry of our own. In every respect this work is as French as it is individual. It is penetrated with a sense of the dignity of French history. It is as far as possible removed from the cheap _genre_ effect such a scheme in less skilful hands might easily have had. Mirabeau's gesture, in fact his entire presence, is superb, but the marquis is as fine in his way as the tribune in his. The beholder assists at the climax of a great crisis, unfolded to him in the impartial spirit of true art, quite without partisanship, and though manifestly stimulated by sympathy with the nobler cause, even more acutely conscious of the grandeur of the struggle and the distinction of those on all sides engaged in it, and acquiring from these a kind of elation, of exaltation such as the Frenchman experiences only when he may give expression to his artistic and his patriotic instincts at the same moment. The distinctly national qualities of this masterpiece, and their harmonious association with the individual characteristics of M. Dalou, his love of nature, his native distinction, his charm, and his power, in themselves bear eminent witness to the vitality of modern French sculpture, in spite of all the influences which tend to petrify it with system and convention. M. Rodin stands so wholly apart that it would be unsafe perhaps to argue confidently from his impressive works the potentiality of periodical renewal in an art over which the Institute presides with still so little challenge of its title. But it is different with M. Dalou. Extraordinary as his talent is, its unquestioned and universal recognition is probably in great measure due to the preparedness of the environment to appreciate extraordinary work of the kind, to the high degree which French popular æsthetic education, in a word, has reached. And one's last word about contemporary French sculpture--even in closing a consideration of the works of such protestants as Rodin and Dalou--must be a recognition of the immense service of the Institute in education of this kind. Let some country without an institute, around which what æsthetic feeling the age permits may crystallize, however sharply, give us a Rodin and a Dalou! 
13485	----	AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF TASTE, AND OF THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF BEAUTY, ETC. by Frances Reynolds 1785 With an Introduction by James L. Clifford The Augustan Reprint Society Frances Reynolds _An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of Our Ideas of Beauty, etc._ (1785) With an Introduction by James L. Clifford Publication 27 Los Angeles William Andrews Clark Memorial Library University of California 1951 _GENERAL EDITORS_ H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_ RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_ EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_ JOHN LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_ _ASSISTANT EDITORS_ W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_ _ADVISORY EDITORS_ EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_ BENJAMIN BOYCE, _Duke University_ LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_ CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_ JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_ ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_ SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_ ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_ JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_ H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_ INTRODUCTION Since the early nineteenth century it has been known that Frances Reynolds, the sister of Sir Joshua, was the author of an essay on taste, which she had printed but did not publish. Yet persistent search failed to turn up a single copy. It remained one of those lost pieces which every research scholar hoped someday to discover. In 1935 it appeared that the search was over. Among some manuscripts of Mrs. Thrale-Piozzi, long hidden in Wales, was found a printed copy of an anonymous _Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of Our Ideas of Beauty_, which seemed to be the lost essay. The date was correct; the _Enquiry_ was dedicated to Mrs. Montagu; it contained a quotation from Dr. Johnson; and, best of all, there was attached to the pamphlet a copy (in an unidentified handwriting) of Johnson's well-known letter to Miss Reynolds concerning her essay. Only one thing stood squarely in the way of the identification. James Northcote in his _Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds_, published in 1818 (II, 116-19), after describing Johnson's connection with the manuscript, gives two pages of short excerpts. Most of the quotations are general statements such as "Dress is the strong indication of the moral character" or "The fine arts comprehend all that is excellent in the moral system, and, at the same time, open every path that tends to the corruption of moral excellence." Unfortunately none of these excerpts appears directly in the _Enquiry_. Although some of the ideas are similar, the wording and specific details are different. By no stretch of the imagination could they be considered to come from the same piece. Thus Northcote blocked the solution of the mystery for nearly fifteen years. Recently, however, evidence has turned up which makes the attribution a certainty. It is now obvious that Northcote must have been mistaken in the source of his quotations. Writing as he did many years after the events he was describing, Northcote either had found a copy of the first draft of Miss Reynolds' essay, or erroneously quoted from another anonymous piece which he assumed was by Miss Reynolds. In any event he was not quoting from the final version which she wished the world to see. The story of Miss Reynolds' attempts to publish her essay can at last be pieced together from various bits of evidence, some hitherto unpublished. Just when the essay was written is uncertain. All that we know is that a preliminary version was submitted to the rigorous criticism of Dr. Johnson in 1781. Johnson, who had corrected some of her verses in red ink the year before, commented on 21 July 1781: There is in these such force of comprehension, and such nicety of observation as Locke or Pascal might be proud of. This I say with intention to have you think that I speak my opinion. They cannot however be printed in their present state. Many of your notions seem not very clear in your own mind, many are not sufficiently developed and expanded for the common reader; the expression almost every where wants to be made clearer and smoother. You may by revisal and improvement make it a very elegant and curious work.[1] But Miss Reynolds was not easily discouraged, and Johnson wrote again on 8 April 1782: Your work is full of very penetrating meditation, and very forcible sentiment. I read it with a full perception of the sublime, with wonder and terrour, but I cannot think of any profit from it; it seems not born to be popular. Your system of the mental fabric is exceedingly obscure, and without more attention than will be willingly bestowed, is unintelligible. The Ideas of Beauty will be more easily understood, and are often charming. I was delighted with the different beauty of different ages. I would make it produce something if I could but I have indeed no hope. If a Bookseller would buy it at all, as it must be published without a name, he would give nothing for it worth your acceptance.[2] In passing it might be pointed out that this letter has previously not been associated with Miss Reynolds' essay on taste, largely because the available text of the letter has been so faulty. Where Johnson wrote "The Ideas of Beauty," obviously referring to the second section of the _Enquiry_, Croker, followed by G.B. Hill, printed "The plans of Burnaby." To this Hill added a note; "Burnaby, I conjecture, was a character in the book," with the result that scholars have fruitlessly been searching ever since for the fictitious Mr. Burnaby, One more example of the dangers of using nineteenth-century transcripts! Evidently Johnson's stringent objections temporarily halted her plans, for we hear nothing more about the essay for two years. Meanwhile, as appears from a later letter, she showed it to Bennett Langton, hoping in vain for his help. Nevertheless, she was determined to go ahead and print the work, even at her own expense. Johnson, still counted upon for aid, wrote to her on 12 April 1784: I am not yet able to wait on you, but I can do your business commodiously enough. You must send me the copy to show the printer. If you will come to tea this afternoon we will talk together about it.[3] On 30 April he commented further: "Mr. Allen has looked over the papers and thinks one hundred copies will come to five pounds." Something, however, made her suspicious of his advice, and on 28 May there came an end to Johnson's connection with the matter. He wrote: "I have returned your papers, and am glad that you laid aside the thought of printing them." But Miss Reynolds had no intention of permanently giving up her project. Instead she rewrote parts of the essay which had displeased her critics, and shortly after Johnson's death proceeded to have 250 copies privately printed, with a dedication to Mrs. Montagu. With Johnson gone, "The Queen of the Bluestockings" must have appeared the next best patron. That Mrs. Montagu, while no doubt flattered by the dedication, was herself not overly enthusiastic about the essay may be gathered from a letter written to her by Miss Reynolds on 12 July 1785. Miss Reynolds began by insisting that "the slightest hint" of disapprobation on the part of Mrs. Montagu would "consign the work to oblivion"; then continued: I never did entertain any desire to publish it, tho I might to sell it. And my desire of printing it, originated from a motive which tho' vain I allow, is an natural vanity I wishd to leave behind me a respectable memorial of my existence, which I then flatterd myself this would be. Ten impressions or twenty at the most, were all I wishd to have taken off. Why I had so many as 250 was because Dr. Johnson advised me to print that number, and to sell them, to stand the sale of them was his expression, but I must do Dr. Johnson the justice to say, that, that advice was given me with a proviso that no person was in the secret but himself, for on my informing him to the contrary, he declined or seemd to decline the affair of getting them printed for me, which I perceiving sent to him for the manuscript, foolishly entertaining a slight suspicion which I much reproach myself for, that some other motives besides the want of merit in the work had influenced this change of behaviour. Unluckily from the beginning I made too great allowance in its favour, from an opinion I had con too of Dr. Johnsons being strongly prejudiced against womens literary productions. But I deceived myself. He was sincere, he judged justly of the work, and his opinion exactly corresponded with yours![4] Not that she regretted the cost of printing the 250 copies. That was a minor consideration. She concluded: If I ever should shew it to any person it will be to Mr. Langton, from a motive of wishing him to see the alteration I have made in it for the better, since he saw it, and as it is also since Dr. Johnson saw it, and particularly that part he most objected to, my belief that I had obviated that objection, is another apology for my printing it. To this Mrs. Montagu returned a wordy and diffuse reply, commenting that "having for many years past left off all metaphysical studies," she was "not a competent judge of any work on subjects of that nature," yet insisting that she doubted if contemporary readers would like it. It was obvious that Mrs. Montagu refused to be a party to further dissemination of the printed copies. And there the matter rested for almost three more years. The wish to have some of the copies read by the general public proved too strong, and on 15 April 1788 Miss Reynolds wrote again to Mrs. Montagu, asking her aid in recovering a letter, or transcription of a letter, of Johnson's: It is of great importance to me the recovery of this letter particularly so as I perceive I must not presume to hope for the only patronage that could countervail the loss of Dr. Johnsons, should I ever be induced to publish the work. I do not mean that I would publish the letter, but that the testimony it conveys of Dr. Johnsons approbation, would be highly advantageous to me in the disposal of the copy to a Bookseller, indeed _approbation_ is an improper Word, inadequate to the praises he bestows on the work, I durst not repeat his expressions tho I well remember them. Some friendly strictures also the letter contained, all these I remember I transcribed verbatim in a letter I sent to you in the beginning of the year 82. they begin Many of your notions seem not to be very clear in your own imagination....[5] It was not until the next year that with the help of James Northcote she finally made active preparations to have the work published. As Miss Reynolds wrote to Mrs. Montagu on 5 February, I forgot to say that Mr. Nurse recommended Mr. Northcote to a Mr. Bladen in Paternoster Row for a Publisher, but I sent in the utmost haste to him to prevent his taking any steps towards so disgraceful a place as I imagine that to be so incongruous.[6] In preparation for the new printing, Miss Reynolds had further revised her essay, and in order to enhance the value of the piece for general readers she decided to add three letters from Johnson of which she chanced to have copies. Totally unconnected with the essay, one was to Sir Joseph Banks concerning the motto for his goat's collar; the others concerned the unfortunate Dr. Dodd. But before going ahead she again asked the advice of her patroness. Mrs. Montagu replied: I do not see that there is any objection to publishing the 3 letters, but I own I think Dr Johnson judges too lightly of the crime of forgery ... I believe the tenderness of sentiment Dr Johnson expresses for Dr Dodd in his afflictions will do him honour in the eyes of the Publick, & therefore as his friend you may with propriety publish the letters.[7] Mrs. Montagu concluded, "I wish some name that would do more honour to your work was to appear in the dedication, but to be presented to the publick with such a mark of Mrs Reynolds' friendly regard, will certainly be esteemed an honour...." Sometime between February and July 1789 the _Enquiry_ was reprinted, this time by J. Smeeton (copies of this version may be found in the Bodleian Library and the Library of Congress). The terminal date for the reprinting is established by the fact that the three letters of Johnson which were appended to the essay were reprinted without comment in the July issue of the _European Magazine_. Just where Miss Reynolds secured copies of the Johnson letters is not certain. It is suggestive, however, that the letter to Banks had originally been sent under cover to Sir Joshua Reynolds and that Sir Joshua's copy is now among the Boswell papers at Yale University. There would have been ample opportunity for Frances Reynolds also to have secured a copy. And the letter to Charles Jenkinson of 20 June 1777 and to Dr. Dodd of 26 June were of the sort that an enterprising lady might well have wheedled copies from the Doctor. The important point is that the inclusion of the letters in the 1789 printing of the _Enquiry_ provides incontrovertible proof of Miss Reynolds' connection with the piece. For this second printing the entire pamphlet was reset, with numerous minor changes of wording and punctuation, but with no major alterations in meaning. In general the textual improvements are such as a bluestocking lady might well wish to make. It will be noted that on pages 25 and 49 of the copy here reproduced someone has made minor changes in wording in ink. These corrections are made in the later printing. Moreover, at the end of the 1789 version there is an errata list, indicating three alterations from the 1785 text which were mistakes. The Dedication remained unchanged, but the geometrical illustration was now placed facing the beginning of Chapter I. The _Enquiry_ was written in what is now recognized as one of the most exciting periods in the history of aesthetics, the late eighteenth century being a crucial point in the gradual shift from absolute classical standards to the relative approaches of the next age. Most of the important thinkers of the day--Hume, Burke, Lord Kames, Adam Smith, among others--were thinking deeply about the problem of taste. And if Miss Reynolds' essay is not one of the most perceptive of the discussions, it is at least one of the liveliest. In brief, the _Enquiry_ is what one might expect from an intelligent amateur, from one not a professional writer, yet one who has given much thought to the problems of aesthetics. Of course, many of the ideas are derivative, with echoes of the "moral sense" of Hutcheson, the "line of grace" of Hogarth, and the terrible sublime of Burke. The three divisions of the essay--the development of a mental system, the origin of our ideas of Beauty, and the analysis of taste--follow the customary pattern of eighteenth-century discussions. Yet the piece is no slavish refurbishing of old phrases. It is packed with fresh arguments and novel suggestions. If these are not always completely coherent or logical, they do represent original thinking. Twentieth-century readers may be astonished by some of the ideas: witness the claim that Negroes could never arrive at true taste, because their eyes were so accustomed to objects diametrically opposite to taste. As a further example of Miss Reynolds' occasionally muddled thinking there is the development of her initial assumption. While the groundwork of man is perfection, this perfection has been blemished and man is impelled to recapture it in the sublime. Yet instead of analyzing this impulse, Miss Reynolds appears to take it for granted. Nor does she consider how perfection is to be achieved in taste, preferring to conclude with a diatribe in the manner of Rousseau on the depravity of the times and the corrupting effect of the arts. (For this and many of the following comments I am indebted to Mr. Ralph Cohen of the College of the City of New York.) The cause of some of the ambiguities in her discussion may perhaps be traced to a rather careless use of terms. At one time "instinct" or "impulsion," the moral force driving man toward perfection, is a potentiality developed by cultivation, and at another a force that is created by cultivation. Although the sublime is the apex of her mathematically-definite program and is a moral quality attained by the few, every human being has his point of sublimity in the idea of a Supreme Being. On the one hand, beauty is a preconceived idea in the human species; on the other it is not preconceived, but developed. Finally, the rules of art are perceptions of moral virtue, yet art which exhibits these rules can corrupt. It is easy to pick flaws in Miss Reynolds' thinking, for the lack of sustained logic which Johnson early recognized is apparent at every turn. Yet for students of the history of ideas the _Enquiry_ contains much of interest. As a painter, Miss Reynolds throughout stresses the visual, a concentration which leads her to several valuable insights. She divides form into two categories, masculine and feminine, but makes a novel use of these Ciceronian divisions. All non-human objects--flowers, animals, etc.--are seen as exhibiting male or female attributes. It might almost be said that with this anthropomorphic approach she is attempting to develop a "philosophical" basis for the pathetic fallacy. Furthermore, if the human is used to measure beauty in the non-human, the implication is that man, not God, is the measure of beauty. By setting up man as the mediator between the material and the divine, she points to the concentration in the next century on human values. When discussing the _Enquiry_ in his book on the _Sublime_, Samuel Monk pointed out certain other tendencies which fore-shadow the coming Romantic revolt. This shift may also be noted in Miss Reynolds' extension of countenance, the reflection of internal virtue, to mean "form," and the extension of internal virtue to mean "disposition," "object," or content. In developing this form-content division, she stumbles on a key criticism of associationism: "From association of ideas, any object may be pleasing, though absolutely devoid of beauty, and displeasing with it. The form is _then_ out of the question; it is some _real_ good or evil, with which the object, but not its form, is associated." This notion that associationism leads away from the work of art as such is a perceptive comment. Her notion that form and disposition (or content) must correspond in order to give aesthetic pleasure suggests, though the terms are different, certain of Coleridge's basic ideas. One other point might be stressed: Miss Reynolds takes an extreme moralistic position toward the arts. Again and again it is insisted that taste and beauty are moral attributes, not purely aesthetic concepts. Chapter II ends with the ringing statement: "Of this I am certain, that true refinement is the effect of true virtue; that virtue is truth, and good; and that beauty dwells in them, and they in her." And the next chapter begins: "Taste seems to be an inherent impulsive tendency of the soul towards true good." On the other hand, she sees that the arts are not to be encouraged because such encouragement is apt to lead to the destruction of moral virtue--the desire for fame and wealth. The value of art as education is dismissed as of importance only to the few; the dangers of encouragement will imperil the many. "Though the arts are thus beneficial to the growing principles of taste, respecting a few individuals, it is well known that their establishment in every nation has had a contrary effect on the community in general...." To conclude: despite its many deficiencies Frances Reynolds' _Enquiry_ is worth reading. It serves admirably to mirror the conflicting eighteenth-century theories out of which our own aesthetic concepts have been formed. James L. Clifford Columbia University Notes to the Introduction 1. _Letters_, II, 223-24; corrected from original letter in possession of Professor F.W. Hilles of Yale University, who has given invaluable aid in the present investigation. 2. _Letters_, II, 249-50, corrected from the original by Dr. R.W. Chapman. 3. Copy in possession of Mrs. Doreen Ashworth, Windlesham, Surrey. 4. Original in Huntington Library. 5. Original in possession of Mrs. Ashworth. 6. Rough draft in possession of Mrs. Ashworth. 7. Original in possession of Professor F.W. Hilles. AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES of TASTE, AND OF THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS of BEAUTY, &c. Sunt certi denique fines, Quos ultra citraquè nequit consistere rectum. HOR. To Mrs. MONTAGU. MADAM, Were I not prompted by gratitude, admiration, and affection, to dedicate to you the best produce of my abilities, which I imagine this to be, yet, as the subject, of which it particularly treats, is moral excellence, the universal voice of mankind, with whom your very name is synonymous with virtue itself, must plead my apology for taking this liberty. Besides, madam, it was natural for me, as an author, to with to avail myself of the advantage, which this address affords me, of prepossessing the minds of my readers with an example of that perfection to which all my arguments tend, as a preparative, or aid, to their better comprehending my meaning. The influence of virtue is every way beneficial! Your character, not only secures me from all imputation of flattery, but this public avowal of my admiration of its excellence conveys an honourable testimony of the consistency of my principles; having endeavoured to inculcate, that the love and esteem of true virtue is true honour. And I may add, that the sweet gratification I feel, in the indulging the strongest and best propension of my nature, in thus expatiating in its praise, is true pleasure, true happiness. I am, Madam, Your obliged, Most obedient, And most humble, servant, The AUTHOR. CHAPTER I. A SKETCH of the MENTAL SYSTEM respecting our Perceptions of Taste, &c. The mind of man, introspecting itself, seems, as it were, (in conjunction with the inscrutable principles of nature,) placed in the central point of the creation: from whence, impelled by her energetic powers and illumined by her light, the intellectual faculties, like rays, shoot forth in direct tendency to their ultimate point of perfection; and, as they advance, each individual mind imperceptibly imbibes the influence and light of each, and is by this imbibition alone enabled to approach it. But, though the light of nature and of reason direct the human mind to perfection, or true good, yet, being in its progress perpetually impeded by adventitious causes, casual occurrences, &c. &c. which induce false opinions of good and evil, its progressive powers generally stop at a middle point between mere uncultivated nature and perfection, a medium which constitutes what we call common sense, and which, in degree, seems as distant from the perfection of the mental faculties as common form is from the perfection of form, _beauty_. [Illustration: SUBLIMITY. | GRACE | BEAUTY | TRUTH | COMMON SENSE | COMMON FORM | NATURE] On meditating on this subject, and marking the progressive stages or degrees of human excellence, the great leading general truths, or mental rests, as I may call them, _the common, the beautiful, the graceful, and the sublime_, I have been naturally led to form a kind of diagrammatic representation of their respective distances, &c. &c. which I present to my reader on the opposite page, requesting him to refer to it now and then as he goes on, in order to facilitate his comprehension of my meaning. And here it may be necessary to premise, that, however whimsical and absurd this delineation may appear to my reader, something analogous to the thought may be found in the works of many eminent philosophers, particularly in those of Bacon[A] and of Locke:[B] the latter suggesting that the whole system of morality might be reduced to mathematical demonstration; and the former, in his treatise on the Advancement of Learning, gives a description of the stages of science very much resembling my delineation of the stages of intellectual perfection, or taste. [Footnote A: Advancement of Learning, Book 2d.] [Footnote B: Essay on human Understanding, Chap. 3d, Book the 4th, and Chap. 12th, same Book, Sect. 8th.] It could have been no dishonour to me to have been led by such conductors! Yet, as the truth cannot dishonour me neither, I must aver, that my little system was projected, and brought to the exact state it now is in, without my having the least apprehension that any thing similar had been suggested before by any person whatever; nor have I, in consequence of the discovery I have lately made of the opinions of these respectable authors, added or omitted a single thought in my treatise. But to return from my digression. In the exact center of my circle of humanity, I have placed nature, or the springs of the intellectual powers, which tend, in a straight line, to its boundary; and, on its boundary, I have placed demonstrable beauty and truth, and the utmost power of rules; and, midway; I have placed common sense and common form, half deriving their existence from pure nature, and half from its highest cultivation, as far as art or rules can teach. A conjunction which would itself be the perfection of humanity, but that it is mixed with all that is not nature, and all that is not art, and thereby made mediocrity, i.e. _common sense_. The intellectual powers, arriving at the limit of my common circle, i.e. at the limit of the basis of my pyramidical system, where I have placed the fixed proportions of beauty and of truth, (if they progress,) mount up as a flame, with undulating[A] motion, refining as they advance, and terminate in the pinnacle, or ultimate point, _sublimity_; forming in the imagination the figure of a pyramid, or cone, from the limit of whose base, (on which, as I have before observed, I have placed demonstrable truth and beauty, the utmost power of rules, &c.) from that limit up to the ultimate point of sublimity, I call the region of intellectual pleasure, genius, or taste; and in its center I place grace, whose influence pervades, cheers, and nourishes, every part of it, an object which, in this ideal region, is similar in its situation and degree to that of common sense in the common or fundamental region. Grace seems to partake of the perception both of beauty and of sublimity, as common sense partakes of nature and of art. Grace is the characteristic object or general form of the ideal region, and its perception is the general limit of the powers of imagination or taste. Few, very few, attain to the point of sublimity; the _ne plus ultra_ of human conception! the alpha and omega. The sentiment of sublimity sinks into the source of nature, and that of the source of nature mounts to the sentiment of sublimity, each point seeming to each the cause and the effect; the origin and the end! [Footnote A: I use that expression, because it is the peculiar motion of grace as well as of a flame.] Having thus drawn the outline of my pyramidical mental system, I propose to expatiate a little on each point or stage throughout the great characteristic line of intellectual power. The first point The exact center, _nature_, or the origin of our intellectual faculties, admits of no investigation, its idea, as I have observed before, loses itself in the sentiment of sublimity, and we see nothing; and therefore I pass on to an object which is perceptible, _the common general character of humanity_, _exterior and inferior_. I have placed them on a line, because their ideas are so analogous, that they unite in one. Section 1. _Common Sense and common Form_. Perfection seems to be the ground-work both of common sense and of common form; and, what prevents each from being perfect, is the adventitious blemishes, the additions to, and the diminutions from, what is perfect, making the too little and the too large. But, these defects being distributed in, small portions throughout the general common form and common mind, they constitute an object, whether visible or intellectual, between perfection and imperfection, namely, that of mediocrity, neither exciting admiration nor disgust. And, as experience gives the general idea of the common and true appearance of the human form, as well to the rustic as to the most enlightened philosopher, so consequently does it enable him to see deformity, or what is an unusual appearance in that form. But, though unusual defects seem to be evident to every eye, it is only to the man of taste and nice discernment that the same degree of unusual beauties are equally perceptible; which corresponds with my opinion, that the ground-work of humanity is perfection, and that its blemishes only tinge its pure white, not discolour it so much, but, when held at a distance, i.e. in abstract idea, it is still a white, like a sheet of paper, or cloth of the most perfect white, regularly checkered over with a variety of figures of every colour, and placed at a distance, appearing to the eye a white, a mezzo common white; and, as any unusual figure, I mean unusually large and opaque, on this mezzo ground, would be more conspicuous than any of a greater degree of transparency or a more perfect white could be by an absence of any of the figures; so any degree of deformity is, more opposite to the general common form than beauty, and any degree of insanity is more opposite to common sense than intellectual excellence. And, (to continue my allusion,) as those tints, or blemishes, which obscure the ground, must be discharged to make a perfect white, so must the artist, in creating beauty, discharge the blemishes that tinge and obscure the human form, and which give it the character of mediocrity, till the perfect white, or total absence of defect, or beauty, result. Common sense seems to be diffusive truth, and common form diffusive beauty; and, as this diffusion is always existing with us, externally and internally, it is no wonder that we should more easily perceive what is in opposition to it, _evil_, than what is in unison with it, _good_. On a line with common form and common sense I place common ease of body and of mind: unfelt health, unfelt good, or that arising to the degree of _satisfaction_ and _content_; in fine, whatever we call _commonly_ good, and requisite for the well-being of humanity. Section 2. _Beauty and Truth_. I mean that beauty which is demonstrable truth, and that truth which is demonstrable beauty. _Exactitude. Completion. The just medium. The satisfactory rest of the mind. Perfection_. A point, indeed, in which the mind cannot rest! It must go forward or backward. If the latter, it relapses into the dominion of error; if the former, if assumes the charms of _design_, or _intention_. The artist, arrived at the ultimate limit of rules, or demonstrable truth, stands, as it were, between the visible and invisible world; between that of sense and intellect; the common and the uncommon; and his productions will be a conjunction of both. He looks back through all the variety of common nature, and reviews, through the medium of truth and beauty, the various objects it exhibits; and on its spotless ground, i.e. the abstract idea of nature without defects, can only exist in idea, he arranges those objects, objects, so as they may best produce the effects he aims at in his art. He does not attempt to obliterate any character in the common circle of nature; but, following her own oeconomy, he endeavours, by juxtaposition, &c. to make each subservient to each in creating delight, and giving beauty to the _whole_. But, to descend from the abstract general idea to the particular idea of beauty, or idea of a particular form: We discard every thing, that is not beauty, to compose beauty; but every thing that is not beauty is not therefore deformity. The wrong we see in each individual we do not call deformity: when it is so, it stands on the limit of the common circle, in opposition to beauty. From common form seem to originate beauty and deformity; and, as they recede from each other in opposite directions, they become less and less like their parent, _common form_, but never totally unlike; for it is their likeness to that form that constitutes the one beauty, and the other deformity; for, were there no resemblance in deformity to the common form, it would be a different species, and no longer disgust; and none in beauty, it would no longer please. There is no particular common form, but which, to create beauty, an artist, who studies the perfection of the human form, must improve in some, if not in every part; to effect which, considered as mere form only, rules will suffice, but, considered as grace, it must express a sentiment that no rules can give! That all feel the same sentiment of admiration for that which they think the most perfect, however the objects may differ, has induced some to believe that beauty is an arbitrary idea, and that it exists only in the imagination! But does it follow, that, because it is not possible for the savage or the man of taste to judge of any object but as experience enables him to judge, that therefore there is no preeminence in that form which is beauty to the one above that which is beauty to the other? Somewhere there must exist, whether perceived or not, the perfection, or highest point of excellence of the human form respecting proportion; and somewhere there must exist, or does at times exist, the highest excellence of its expression, i.e. the moral charm of the human countenance, _grace_. The artist, who has only seen the beauty of his own nation, will from that form his standard of perfection. But, when he comes to extend his enquiry, when he has viewed the beauty of other nations, particularly that form and that expression which the Grecian artists (who were probably on a line with the Grecian philosophers) modelled from their ideas of beauty! he will quit his partiality for the beauty of his own country, and prefer that of the Grecian, which I imagine is preferable to that of the whole world! The only criterion to prove it so, I mean its form, would be to select from every nation the most perfect in it, and from that number to choose the most perfect, were this possible to be done, respecting the external form of beauty: it could not respecting the internal expression of beauty, _grace_; for who shall be the world's arbiter of the ne plus ultra of grace! That the artists of all ages and of all nations have terminated their enquiries after beauty in that of the Grecian form is the highest proof that can be given of its superior excellence to that of all the world! Common form, as I have observed before, is so much nearer beauty than deformity, that it is, in abstract idea, the model to compose beauty of form from. The _universal_ appearance of nature is, to every eye, right, fit, faultless, &c. therefore, if every part of the copy be the same, particularly, I mean, in the _human_ form, beauty of form must result. The beauty of every part of the human body, forming a _perfect_ whole, is analogous to an instrument of music in perfect concord, and mere exactitude of proportion in its parts, exclusive of the idea of mind, would, I imagine, have no more effect upon the spectator than the mere concord of the strings of an instrument has on the hearer; it amounts to no more than blameless right, nor, till influenced by sentiment, can it go farther. But, as we are incapable of separating the idea of the human form from the human mind, and as the touch of an instrument in perfect concord gives a presentiment of harmony, so does the perception of the concordance of the parts of a beautiful form give a perception of grace. The mind, as I have observed before, cannot rest in fixed perfection, the _Spotless white_; and its natural transition from beauty must be into the region of grace. Section 3. _Grace_. The principles, which constitute grace, genius, or taste, are one; which is denominated grace in the object, genius in the production of the object, and taste in the perception of it. The existence of grace _seems_ to depend more upon the character of mental than of corporeal beauty. All its motions seem to indicate and, to be regulated by the utmost delicacy of sentiment! I have placed it between the highest sentiment of the human mind, _sublmity_, that no rules can teach, and the highest sentiment that rules can teach, _exact beauty_, the two extremes of the vrai reel and the vrai ideal. Grace seems, as it were, to hang between the influence of both; the irregular sublime giving character and relief to the negative and determined qualities of beauty; and beauty, i.e. truth, confining within due bounds the eccentric qualities of sublimity, forming, both to sight and in idea, orderly variety, _the waving line_, neither straight nor crooked. The waving line is the symbol, or memento, as I may say, of grace, wherever it is seen in whatever form, animate or inanimate; and may be justly styled the line of taste or grace! The perception of grace seems not to be intirely new nor intirely familiar to us; but is, as it were, what we have had a presentiment of in the mind, without examining it, and which the graceful object, or action, &c. calls forth to our view. Being so much our own idea, we like to behold it, to dwell upon it; and yet, not being a familiar idea, it creates a pleasing mild degree of admiration. Grace seems half celestial; for all the virtues accompany, indeed compose, the perception; for none, I imagine, can have a perception of grace that has none of the charms of virtue. The sentiment of grace, caused by the motion of beauty, music, poetry, beneficence, compassion, &c. may be ranked as the highest intellectual pleasure the mind is capable of perceiving, and brings with it a sort of undetermined consciousness of the delicacy of our own perceptions in making the discovery, a degree of that glorying that Longinus observes always accompanies the perception of the sublime. You can no more define grace than you can happiness. The mind cannot so stedfastly behold it as to investigate its real properties. Grace is indeed the point of happiness in the ideal region, both because it arises spontaneously, without effort, &c. and because it seems partly _within_ our own power, and partly _without_ it. As common sense, in my fundamental circle, seems diffusive truth, so grace, in my ideal circle, seems diffusive sublimity; every perception of the former seems to be tinged, as it were, with the colour of the latter. Section 4. _Sublimity_. Where pure grace ends, the awe of the sublime begins, composed of the influence of pain, of pleasure, of grace, and deformity, playing into each other, that the mind is unable to determine which to call it, pain, pleasure, or terror. Without a conjunction of these powers there could be no sublimity. Those only who have passed through the degrees, _common sense, truth_ and _grace_, i.e. the sentiment of grace, can have a sentiment of sublimity. It is the mild admiration of grace raised to _wonder_ and _astonishment_; to a sentiment of _power_ out of _our power_ to produce or control. Grace must have been as familiar to the intellect, in order to discover sublimity, as common sense in the common region must have been to the discovery of truth and beauty. In fine, genius, or taste, which is the sentiment of grace, and which I have called the common sense of the ideal region, can alone discover the true sublime. It is a pinnacle of beatitude bordering upon horror, deformity, madness! an eminence from whence the mind, that dares to look farther, is lost! It seems to stand, or rather to waver, between certainty and uncertainty, between security and destruction. It is the point of terror, of undetermined fear, of undetermined power! The idea of the supreme Being is, I imagine, in every breast, from the clown to the greatest philosopher, his point of sublimity! CHAPTER II. On the ORIGIN of our IDEAS of BEAUTY. In proportion as the principles of beauty exist in the common form, undetermined to the common eye, so do they exist in common sense, undetermined to the common mind. It is cultivation that calls them into view, gives them a determined form, creates the object, and the perception, that 'Truth and good are one, And beauty dwells in them, and they in her.' AKENSIDE. But, though all truth resolves into one truth, one beauty, one good, as all colours resolve into one light; though the scientifical intellectual colours, classes, or leading principles of science, the _physical_, the _moral_, the _metaphysical_, &c. &c. resolve into intellectual light, beauty, or good; it is, I imagine, the moral truth, that is the characteristic truth of beauty: for, were we to analyse the pleasing emotions we feel at the sight of beauty, we should, I imagine, find them composed of our most refined moral affections; and hence the universal interesting charm of beauty. And, as those affections refine by culture, hence the different degrees of the sentiments which beauty creates in the rustic, and in the man of taste. The former perceives only the physical charm of beauty, the freshness of colour, the bloom of youth, &c. but, to the man of taste, the physical pleases only through the medium of the moral: _the body charms because the soul is seen_; beauty, in his breast, is the source from whence _endless streams of fair ideas flow_, extending throughout the whole region of taste, no object of which but is more or less related to the principles of human beauty. But taste, though a subject almost inseparable from that of beauty, I must forbear to enlarge upon in this chapter, as I propose to make it the particular subject of my next. It is but at that period, at which we begin to perceive the charms of moral virtue, that we begin to perceive the real charms of beauty. It is true, a man may attain, by experience, the knowledge of its just proportions; without that concomitant sentiment. He may be unconscious of the characteristic moral charm resulting from the whole. And an artist, I imagine, by the habitual practice of the rules which constitute beauty, may produce forms which charm the moral sense of others, without being conscious of it himself; the utmost limit of the rules of the imitative arts being so intimately united with the intuitive principles of taste, or refined moral sense, that the mind in general cannot distinguish where the one ends or the other begins. The artist, who separates them, _leans on the second cause_ instead of the first. As the strongest proof that the moral sense is the governing principle of beauty, we may remark, that the human form, from infancy to old age, has its peculiar beauty annexed to it from the virtue or affection that nature gives it, and which it exhibits in the countenance. The negative virtue, innocence, is the beauty of the child. The more formed virtues, benevolence, generosity, compassion, &c. are the virtues of youth, and its beauty. The fixed and determined virtues, justice, temperance, fortitude, &c. compose the beauty of manhood. The philosophic and religious cast of countenance is the beauty of old age. Now, were any of these expressions misapplied, i.e. commuted, they would disgust rather than please: without congruity there could be no virtue; without virtue, no beauty, no sentiment of taste. And thus the beauty of each sex is seen only through the medium of the virtues belonging to each. The beauty of the masculine sex is seen only through the medium of the masculine virtues; the beauty of the feminine only through the medium of the feminine. The moral sense gives each its distinct portion of the same virtues, but draws a line which neither can pass without a diminution of their specific beauty. The softness and mildness of the feminine expression would be displeasing in a man. The robust and determined expression of the rigid virtues, justice, fortitude, &c. would be displeasing in a woman. However perfect the Form, if an incongruity that touches the well-being of humanity mingles with the idea, the Form will not afford the pleasing perception of beauty: though the eye may be capable of seeing its regularity, &c. so far is it from pleasing, that it is the more disgusting from its semblance to virtue, because that that semblance is a contradiction to her laws. May it not be owing to these expressions, so familiar to every eye, that the general sense of good taste eternally exists? They are the legible characters of human excellence, no where visible but in the human countenance, every observation of which improves and confirms the moral sentiment, or image of beauty, implanted by nature in the mind of man. The origin of the idea of beauty is the same in every breast, savage and civilized. Every nation's characteristic Form or expression of beauty will be a representation, or portrait, of their characteristic virtue, their happiness, their good. Thus, in the opinion of the wild savage, that face or form will be the most beautiful that assimilates with his idea of savage virtues, corporeal strength, courage, &c. _perfections that are placed in bones and nerves_: as that of the most cultivated nations, witness the Grecians, will indicate or portray the most refined mental virtues. And hence we may conclude, if there be any dignity, any truth, any beauty, in virtue, there must be a _real_ difference, _superior_ and _inferior_ characteristic power of pleasing in the exterior of the human form. It is cultivation that gives birth to beauty as well as to virtue, by calling forth the visible object to correspond with the invisible intellectual object. In the face or form of an idiot, or the lowest rustic, there is no beauty; and, supposing a nation of idiots, and that they never could improve in mental beauty, they never could, I imagine, improve in corporeal, even though their natural form was upon an equality with the rest of mankind; for, without sentiment, they could not only be incapable of expressing any sentiment analogous to beauty, but, wanting the surrounding influence of a moral system, i.e. of the general influence of education on the exterior, they could not suppress or veil a semblance incongruous with beauty. What no person felt no person could teach. In cultivated nations, every precept for exterior appearance, from the first rudiments of the dancing-master to the motion of grace, has for its object _mind_, that is, a desire to impress upon the spectator a favourable idea of our mental character; but, passed the true point of cultivation, they lose with the sentiment of mental excellence that of true beauty; witness the exterior artificial appearance of humanity in a neighbouring nation, which probably is on a par with the most uncultivated rustic. The one does not enough for nature, the other too much. But, as the former has an object before him, to which nature herself directs him, the other is receding from it; and, as it is more agreeable, more easy, and more natural, to the human mind, to learn than to unlearn, I should sooner expect the most uncultivated nation, the negro excepted, to arrive at taste in true beauty than them. The negro-race seems to be the farthest removed from the line of true cultivation of any of the human species; their defect of form and complexion being, I imagine, as strong an obstacle to their acquiring true taste (the produce of mental cultivation) as any natural defect they may have in their intellectual faculties. For if, as I have observed, the total want of cultivation would preclude external beauty, the total want of external beauty would preclude the power of cultivation. It appears to me inconceivable, that the negro-race supposing their mental powers were upon a level with other nations, could ever arrive at true taste, when their eye is accustomed _only_ to objects so diametrically opposite to taste as the face and form of negroes are! Our being used or not used to the object cannot make us perceive any similarity in the lineaments of their countenance to the lineaments, if I may so say, of our refined virtues and affections, which alone constitute beauty; and therefore I am induced to believe that they are a lower order of human beings than the Europeans. Beauty is an assemblage of every human charm; yet what we call the _agreeable_ is often more captivating. The agreeable, in person, is composed of beauties and defects, as is the common form, but differently composed. The beauties and defects of the latter are blended into the idea of mediocrity; those of the former are always distinct and perceptible, contrasting each other, they engage the attention, and create a kind of pleasing _re-creation_ to the mental faculties; and, in proportion as we can bring them to unite with our governing principles of pleasure, they create affection, which gives the person a more fascinating charm than beauty itself. It is the mental character that is the moving principle of affection; and any strong peculiarity, that contradicts not the moral sense, i.e. that is not _unnatural_, gives the object an accessary charm, and raises the affection to passion. The object is at once the common and the uncommon; an union, which constitutes all we call excellent, all we admire! The perception of the charms of the agreeable seem to be wrought up to excellence by the operation of our own powers. We ourselves have blended its beauties and defects into the sentiment of beauty, _pleasure_; and hence, probably, the strength and durability of the passion which it creates. Beauty, on the contrary, is composed to our hands, _full_, _perfect_, and _intire_; its idea is also a compound of the common and the uncommon, being at once like and unlike the general form; but inherently it has no contrast, and therefore affords no recreation, no pleasing exercise, to the mental faculties; there is nothing to re-create, nothing to wish; and hence the instability of the passion which it inspires. Perfect beauty is, like perfect happiness, lost as soon as it is attained. It is, I imagine, to the principles of the masculine and the feminine character, that we owe the perception of beauty or taste, in any object whatever, throughout all nature and all art that imitates nature; and, in objects which differ from the human form, the principles must be in the extreme, because the object is then merely symbolical. Thus, the meekness of the lamb, and the high-spirited prancing steed; the gentle dove, and the impetuous eagle; the placid lake, and the swelling ocean; the lowly valley, and the aspiring mountain. It is the feminine character that is the sweetest, the most interesting, image of beauty; the masculine partakes of the sublime. Thus it will be found, that, in every object that is universally pleasing, there exist principles which are analogous to those that constitute beauty in the human species; and that its appearance does always, in some degree, move the affections, though the mind may be unconscious of its similitude to any idea in which the affections are concerned. But the test of the object's possessing the principles of beauty is when we are able to assimilate its appearance with some amiable interesting affection; and, according as that affection prevails in the breast of the spectator, it will appear with an additional power of pleasing. From association of ideas, any object may be pleasing, though absolutely devoid of beauty, and displeasing with it. The form is _then_ out of the question; it is some _real_ good or evil, with which the object, but not its form, is associated. It is observable, that those animals I have mentioned (and I imagine all animals that are symbolical of our affections have the same) have a double character of beauty, or reference to the affection that is moved: i.e. their form and their disposition, exactly corresponding with each other. Probably on that union depends their power of pleasing; their _form alone_, so different from human beauty, could not sufficiently engage the attention, or afford the interesting perception, which the consistency of truth does, in the _intire_ of an object. Every object of taste has _at least_ a double reference to mental pleasure, whether the object, in the philosophical scale of our perceptions, belongs to those of _sense_ or _intellect_. Thus, the beauty of the rose would not certainly be so perceptible to us, wanting its fragrance, and, with a nauseous smell, would not probably be admitted, as I may say, into the rank of _agreeableness_, though it is in reality a beautiful and pleasing object; nor, supposing the thistle, or any other ugly flower, possessed of the fragrance of the rose, should we therefore think it an object of taste, any more than we can think the form of an elephant beautiful, though endued with almost intellectual beauty. In the form and colour of flowers, there appears to me a striking analogy to the character of human beauty. They afford an ocular demonstration, in the pleasure with which we contemplate their particular forms, that the pleasure, we receive from the beauty of the human form, originates from mental character: witness the charm of the infant, innocence of the snow-drop, of the soft elegance of the hyacinth, &c. and, on the contrary, our dis-relish of the gaudy tulip, the robust, unmeaning, masculine, piony, hollyhock, &c. &c. It is, I imagine, from a resemblance to some pre-conceived idea of beauty in the human species, that we are particularly pleased with the sight of one flower more than with another, though the mind is unconscious of the cause. And thus the pleasure, caused by the apparent beauty of every object throughout the system of human perception, is, according to my sentiment of that pleasure, the same intellectual principle, _moral good_, however diversified, modified, and diminished, even to an unconsciousness or almost imperceptible degree of relation to it. In fine, the true principles of beauty, in every object, may be all _resolved_ into the same principle. But to conclude. I have no more doubt that the principles of beauty are moral, than that the principles of happiness are moral. It is the perception of true beauty, in its various modifications, that makes up the sum of human happiness; and hence the diversity of opinions concerning beauty, but which, however diverse, are never contradictory, but as mens opinions in morals are so; for every view of beauty assimilates with some good, and of course must be in unison. If, in the human system, there exists a principle which constitutes true pleasure, that principle must be that which constitutes human excellence; and, if the visible object which excites true pleasure must necessarily possess the principles of true pleasure, then must every object, which universally and invariably pleases, be relative to the principle that constitutes human excellence, morality. Whatever appears, to each individual, the most excellent in the human system, at once constitutes his idea of _happiness_, of _morality_, and of _beauty_; and all mankind, I imagine, would agree in the same idea, had all the same opportunities of seeing and knowing what was excellent. As I imagine the difference in national beauty is marked by the difference in national morals, so, of course, must the difference of the opinions of individuals on the subject of beauty be. In fine, as the moral sense of mankind is coarse or refined, so will be their taste of beauty. Of this I am certain, that true refinement is the effect of true virtue; that virtue is truth, and good; and that beauty dwells in them, and they in her. CHAPTER III On TASTE. Taste seems to be an inherent impulsive tendency of the soul towards true good, given by nature to all alike, and which improves in its sentiment as the reasoning faculties improve in their knowledge of what _is_ true good. All the human faculties are, as one may say, constituents of the principle or faculty of taste. But its perception seems to be shared between the judgement and the imagination: to the former seems to belong the truth, or good, of an object of taste; to the latter its beauty or grace; and the stamina vitæ, or radical principles of taste, exist, I imagine, in the natural affections of the soul. What the impulsive spring is, which moves the affections invariably to perceive pleasure in the perception of good and beauty, and disgust in the perception of evil or deformity, I leave to my metaphysical readers to determine. I am afraid to give it an appellation so incongruous to the general idea of taste, as that of conscience. Yet, however absurd it may appear, I will venture to say, that, if my readers will give themselves the trouble to analyse the grateful sensation or sentiment, we call _taste_ i.e. their sentiment of what is truly good, beautiful, right, just, ornamental, honourable, &c. &c. they will find it to originate from, and end in, some moral or religious principle. Indeed, some objects (the highest in the scale of our perceptions of excellence) bring with them an immediate conviction of the truth of this assertion; witness the devotional sentiment which the view of the main ocean inspires; the rising and setting sun; the contemplation of the celestial orbs, &c. witness the noblest object of the creation, when viewed in his highest character. Does not the perception of human excellence immediately relate to the source of all excellence? The general diffusion of intellectual light, throughout mankind, constitutes rationality; and the aggregated excellence, or light of rationality, constitutes morality. It is, I imagine, in this second or purified light, that taste begins to exist. It is at this period of cultivation that the mind begins to perceive its true good; that the natural affections rectify, methodize, and refine, in a word, become moral affections, through whose medium, i.e. the _moral sense_, the soul perceives every object of taste. Taste is intellectual pleasure, an approving sense of truth, of good, and of beauty. The latter seems the visible or ostensible principle of the two former, and is that in which the universal idea of taste is comprised. All are pleased with the sight of beauty; but all are by no means sensible that the principles that make it pleasing, that constitute a form beautiful, are those, or, to be more intelligible, relate to those, that constitute man's highest excellence, his first interest, his chief good. Few, indeed, even among those who possess taste, if they have not accustomed themselves to investigate its principles, will readily conceive that they are thus deeply rooted in the mental frame. Indeed, the generality of mankind seem rather to think that taste has no principles at all, or, if any, that they begin and end with the prevailing mode, fashion, &c. of the times; a notion which, though in the highest degree absurd, corroborates my opinion, that the universal perception of taste (the true and the false) exists in the idea of honour. The compound word, or phrase, _le vrai idéal_, universally adopted to denote an object of taste, is the most exact and literal definition of its sentiment that can be conceived; for it implies the union of the judgement and the imagination, without which there could be no sentiment of taste. The judgement, as I observed, perceives the truth of the object, the imagination its beauty; they may be said to relate to each other, in the perception of an object of taste, as a luminous polish does to the substance from whence it proceeds: the substance can exist without its polish, but the polish cannot exist without its substance. The perception of taste seems to me, if I may so express myself, to be illusive, but not erroneous; in a word, to exist in our idea of true honour, i.e. in the polish, lustre, or ornament, of true virtue. As the universal idea or sentiment of taste is honour, so the universal object of its perception is ornament, from the object, whose excellence we contemplate as an ornament or honour to human nature, to every object which in the slightest degree indicates the influence of that excellence. Take away the idea of that influence in the moral sphere, and taste is annihilated; and, in the natural sphere, take away the idea of divine influence, and taste cannot exist. Every sentiment of taste, as I observed before, ultimately relates to the one or to the other of these principles; indeed, strictly speaking, as the moral relates to the divine, it may be said ultimately to do the same. In the progress of civilization, the polishing principle, which I call taste, is chiefly found in the highest sphere of life, highest both for internal and external advantages, wealth accelerates the last degree of cultivation, by giving efficacy to the principles of true honour; but it also accelerates its corruption, by giving efficacy to the principles of false honour, by which the true loses its distinction, becomes less and less apparent, nay, by degrees, less and less real. Wealth becoming the object of honour, every principle of true taste must be reversed. Hence the _dire polish_ of the obdurate heart, repelling the force of nature. Hence avarice and profusion, dissipation, luxurious banqueting, &c. supersede the love of oeconomy, domestic comfort, the sweet reciprocation of the natural affections, &c. &c. Hence the greatest evils of society: the sorrows of the virtuous poor, _the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes_, in a word, the general corruption of morals, and, of course, of true taste! The vulgar, who are strangers to the internal principles of honour, always annex their ideas of taste to the external appearances of the highest rank of life, which being easily acquired, particularly that of dress, the prevalency of modes and fashions, however absurd, is universally adopted. Those of false taste adopt them to attract notice; those of true taste, to avoid it. But, at this present, the difficulty of avoiding singularity in dress is, I imagine, much to be lamented by women of taste and virtue, the prevailing mode of feminine attire being diametrically opposite to every principle of feminine excellence; a melancholy proof of our being arrived at the last stage of depravity! I could expatiate largely on this subject, but it would be inconsistent with my plan, which the reader may perceive, throughout the whole work, to be a mere outline only. The three grand co-existing principles of taste, virtue, honour, and ornament, run through all its perceptions. Their triple union cannot be broken; but taste is nominally distinguished by the one or the other, according as its objects, situations, circumstances, &c. vary. Ornament and honour seem the public character of taste; virtue to be the private and domestic, where, though unperceived by the vulgar, to the eye of taste[A] she appears in her highest ornament, highest honour. [Footnote A: Truth can only judge itself. BACON.] Taste seems to comprize three orders or degrees in its universal comprehension. The first is composed of those objects which immediately relate to the divinity, among which man claims the preeminence, when viewed in his highest character: witness the inexpressible charm which the natural virtuous affections of the soul inspire, when moved by some strong impulse, such as parental tenderness, filial piety, friendship, &c. &c. &c. Do they not unite the moral sentiment to the dïvine? The second is in the immediate external effects of true taste, or moral virtue, in the social sphere; the order, beauty, and honour, which every object derives from its influence; and, of course, its sentiment must be intimately related to moral excellence. The third and last degree is general ornament and honour, appearing in fashions, arts of decoration, &c. &c. objects which seeming not immediately to affect the interests of humanity, the taste they exhibit in this sphere appears as an uncertain light, sometimes bright and sometimes obscured; or rather as refracted rays of taste, broken by the general love of novelty and superfluity; two principles which, though they are, to a certain degree, essential to exterior ornament, and the sentiment of true taste, are those in which taste always begins to corrupt. To illustrate my meaning: true ornament seems equally to partake of the idea of utility and superfluity, and every sentiment of taste seems equally to partake of the idea of novelty and of custom; for, were the object perfectly familiar to us, we should feel no degree of admiration, without which we could feel no sentiment of taste; and, were it totally new, unlike any thing we had ever seen, it would excite wonder instead of admiration, which is a sentiment as distant from taste as the love of fame is from the love of honour. This sphere, the last in my scale of the perceptions of taste, and which borders upon every thing that is contrary to its laws, is properly the sphere of Fancy, who seems an undisciplined offspring of Taste; sometimes sporting within the bounds of parental authority, and sometimes beyond them. Fancy seems to bear the same affinity to Taste as Pleasure does to Happiness. Every object of taste is relative to some principle of excellence from which it derives its power of pleasing; of course, the highest sentiment of taste must exist in the relative principle to our highest object of excellence. True ornament is, to the eye, what eloquence is to the ear: their principles throughout are one, the truth or beauty of which exists in its exact relation or adaptation to the object it adorns, constituting the _just_, the _true_, the _beautiful_, objects, or qualities, which, in the conscious eye of taste, _relate_ to moral beauty. The perception of the first relation, i.e. the adaptation of any thing ornamental to the object it adorns, may, in a great measure, be learned by habit and general observation; but the higher relation, the second concoction (as one may say) of its principles, the moral relation, is the immediate operation of taste. Ornament and harmonious sound are pleasing to the corporeal sense, but, when wanting a relative object, please but for a short time; and, if incongruously joined to an object, i.e. to one with which it can have no relation, will, as soon as the understanding perceives the incongruity, become a principle of disgust. As the virtues differ, in some degree, as the character of the sexes differ,[A] of course so must the sentiment of taste differ. To the man I would give the laws of taste; to the woman, its sensibility. The taste of the former seems more derived from reason; that of the latter from instinct: witness their impulsive maternal affection; that inherent ornament of their sex, modesty; their tender susceptibility of the benevolent virtues, pity, compassion, &c. &c. [Footnote A: Vide page 23.] Taste, however, is as far removed from mere instinct as from mere reason. I only mean to say, that the taste of the masculine character is rather on the side of reason, or the understanding; that of the feminine on the side of instinct, and, let me add, imagination. The taste of the one and of the other seems to differ as justice does from mercy, as modesty from virtue, as grace from sublimity, &c. &c. And, as exterior feminine grace is the most perfect visible object of taste, the highest degree of feminine excellence, externally and internally united, must of course constitute woman, the most perfect existing object of taste in the creation. The cultivation of the social moral affections is the cultivation of taste, and the domestic sphere is the true and almost only one in which it can appear in its highest dignity. It is peculiarly appropriated to feminine taste, and I may say it is _absolutely_ the only one in which it can appear in its true lustre. True taste, particularly the feminine, is retired, calm, modest; it is the private honour of the heart, and is, I imagine, incompatible with the love of fame. In the present state of society, taste seems to be equally excluded from the highest and from the lowest sphere of life. The one seems to be too much encumbered with artificial imaginary necessities; the other too much encumbered with the real and natural necessities of life, to attend to its cultivation. It is in the former that taste is universally thought to reside, which is because the idea of taste is inseparable from that of honour. It is that, indeed, in which the general taste of the nation is exhibited. It is its _face_, as I may say, which expresses the internal character of the heart. In this sphere, namely, the most exalted station of mankind, what true taste it does exhibit is placed in the strongest point of view; its contrary principles are also the same, particularly so to those who have been rightly educated at a distance from it; to such, the wrong will instruct as much as the right; but sure I am, that it is not, at this _period_, the proper sphere for the infant mind to expand and improve in. The wrong will be too familiar to the mind to disgust; and the right, which I imagine is chiefly confined to the _records_ of taste in the fine arts, will be too remote (wanting the preparatory love of nature and virtue) to please. It is not, I imagine, from objects of excellence in the arts, that the mind receives the first impressions of taste, though from them the impressions, we have already received, may be strengthened and improved. The truths they exhibit awaken the recollection of what has pleased us in nature; and we exult in the confirmation of our judgement and taste on finding those objects represented, by genius, in their best and fairest light. Of course, the excellence we perceive in the fine arts, which is always relative to moral excellence, must tend to the improvement of taste.[A] [Footnote A: L'esprit de l'homme est naturellement plein d'un nombre infini d'idées confuses du vrai, que souvent il n'entrevoit qu'à demi; et rien ne lui est plus agréable, que lorsqu'on lui offre quelqu'une de ces idées bien éclaircie et mise dans un beau jour. BOILEAU, Préface.] But, though the arts are thus beneficial to the growing principles of taste, reflecting a few individuals, it is well known that their establishment in every nation has had a contrary effect on the community in general; for, in proportion to the encouragement given them, as that encouragement immediately promotes two of the most pernicious principles that can affect the human heart, the most destructive of moral virtue, namely, the love of fame and the love of riches, the general diffusion of corruption must ensue, and of course the extinction of the natural principles of taste, or relish of the human soul of what is truly beautiful, truly honourable, truly good. To conclude. I will not presume to say, that a man without taste is without virtue; but I think I may venture to say, that it is only as he can have virtue without loving virtue, that he can have virtue without having taste; the definition of taste being, according to my apprehension of its perception, the _love_ of virtue. And, as that love springs from, and tends to, the source of all virtue, all good, may I not add, that it is but as a man can be religious without devotion, that a man can be religious without taste? the sentiment of devotion seeming to be, an aggregation of our most virtuous, most refined, conscious, energies of soul, in the awful vertical point of sublimity. 'From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend, Path, motive, guide, original, and end!' JOHNSON. THE END. William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: University of California THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY _General Editors_ H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_ R.C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_ E.N. HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_ JOHN LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_ The society exists to make available inexpensive reprints (usually facsimile reproductions) of rare seventeenth and eighteenth century works. The editorial policy of the Society continues unchanged. As in the past, the editors welcome suggestions concerning publications. All correspondence concerning subscriptions in the United States and Canada should be addressed to the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2205 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles 18, California. Correspondence concerning editoral matters may be addressed to any of the general editors. Membership fee continues $2.50 per year. British and European subscribers should address B.H. Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England. Publications for the fifth year [1950-1951] (_At least six items, most of them from the following list, will be reprinted.) FRANCES REYNOLDS (?): _An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of Our Ideas of Beauty, &c._ (1785). Introduction by James L. Clifford. THOMAS BAKER: _The Fine Lady's Airs_ (1709). Introduction by John Harrington Smith. DANIEL DEFOE: _Vindication of the Press_ (1718). Introduction by Ortho Clinton Williams. JOHN EVELYN: _An Apologie for the Royal Party_ (1659); _A Panegyric to Charles the Second_ (1661). Introduction by Geoffery Keynes. CHARLES MACKLIN: _Man of the World_ (1781). Introduction by Dougald MacMillan. _Prefaces to Fiction_. Selected and with an Introduction by Benjamin Boyce. THOMAS SPRAT: _Poems_. SIR WILLIAM PETTY: _The Advice of W.P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib for the Advancement of some particular Parts of Learning_ (1648). THOMAS GRAY: _An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard_ (1751). (Facsimile of first edition and of portions of Gray's manuscripts of the poem). * * * * * To the Augustan Reprint Society _Subscriber's Name and Address:_ _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library 2205 West Adams Boulevard Los Angeles 18, California_ _As_ MEMBERSHIP FEE _I enclose for the years marked:_ The current year $ 2.50 The current & the 4th year 5.00 The current, 3rd, & 4th year 7.50 The current, 2nd, 3rd, & 4th year 10.00 The current, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, & 4th year 11.50 (_Publications no. 3 & 4 are out of print_) Make check or money order payable to THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. NOTE: _All income of the Society is devoted to defraying cost of printing and mailing_. _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ PUBLICATIONS OF THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY First Year (1946-1947) 1. Richard Blackmore's _Essay upon Wit_ (1716), and Addison's _Freeholder_ No. 45 (1716). 2. Samuel Cobb's _Of Poetry_ and _Discourse on Criticism_ (1707). 3. _Letter to A.H. Esq.; concerning the Stage_ (1698), and Richard Willis' _Occasional Paper No. IX_ (1698). (OUT OF PRINT) 4. _Essay on Wit_ (1748), together with Characters by Flecknoe, and Joseph Warton's _Adventurer_ Nos. 127 and 133. (OUT OF PRINT) 5. Samuel Wesley's _Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry_ (1700) and _Essay on Heroic Poetry_ (1693). 6. _Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the Stage_(1704) and _Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage_ (1704). Second Year (1947-1948) 7. John Gay's _The Present State of Wit_ (1711); and a section on Wit from _The English Theophrastus_ (1702). 8. Rapin's _De Carmine Pastorali_, translated by Creech (1684). 9. T. Hanmer's (?) _Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet_ (1736). 10. Corbyn Morris _Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, etc_. (1744). 11. Thomas Purney's _Discourse on the Pastoral_ (1717). 12. Essays on the Stage, selected, with an Introduction by Joseph Wood Krutch. Third Year (1948-1949) 13. Sir John Falstaff (pseud.), _The Theatre_ (1720). 14. Edward Moore's _The Gamester_ (1753). 15. John Oldmixon's _Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley_ (1712); and Arthur Mainwaring's _The British Academy_ (1712). 16. Nevil Payne's _Fatal Jealousy_ (1673). 17. Nicholas Rowe's _Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear_ (1709). 18. Aaron Hill's Preface to _The Creation_; and Thomas Brereton's Preface to _Esther_. Fourth Year (1949-1950) 19. Susanna Centlivre's _The Busie Body_ (1709). 20. Lewis Theobald's _Preface to The Works of Shakespeare_ (1734). 21. _Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Gradison, Clarissa, and Pamela_ (1754). 22. Samuel Johnson's _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749) and Two _Rambler_ papers (1750). 23. John Dryden's _His Majesties Declaration Defended_ (1681). 24. Pierre Nicole's _An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in Which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams_, translated by J.V. Cunningham. 
25632	----	None 
25759	----	None 
12045	----	[Illustration: Alinari, Photo. In the Bologna Gallery THE INFANT CHRIST ELISABETTA SIRANI] WOMEN IN THE FINE ARTS FROM THE SEVENTH CENTURY B. C. TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY A. D. BY CLARA ERSKINE CLEMENT 1904 PREFATORY NOTE As a means of collecting material for this book I have sent to many artists in Great Britain and in various countries of Europe, as well as in the United States, a circular, asking where their studies were made, what honors they have received, the titles of their principal works, etc. I take this opportunity to thank those who have cordially replied to my questions, many of whom have given me fuller information than I should have presumed to ask; thus assuring correctness in my statements, which newspaper and magazine notices of artists and their works sometimes fail to do. I wish especially to acknowledge the courtesy of those who have given me photographs of their pictures and sculpture, to be used as illustrations. CLARA ERSKINE CLEMENT. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. THE INFANT CHRIST _Elisabetta Sirani_ In the Bologna Gallery. By permission of Fratelli Alinari. A PORTRAIT _Elizabeth Gowdy Baker_ A PORTRAIT _Adelaide Cole Chase_ From a Copley print. A CANADIAN INTERIOR _Emma Lampert Cooper_ ANGIOLA _Louise Cox_ From a Copley print. DOROTHY _Lydia Field Emmet_ From a Copley print. JUDITH WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES _Artemisia Gentileschi_ In the Pitti Gallery. By permission of Fratelli Alinari. GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD _Berthe Girardet_ THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER _Louise L. Heustis_ From a Copley print. MINIATURE OF PERSIS BLAIR _Laura Coombs Hills_ CHILD OF THE PEOPLE _Helen Hyde_ MOTHER AND CHILD _Phoebe A. Jenks_ MISS ELLEN TERRY AS "PORTIA" _Louise Jopling Rowe_ ANGELICA KAUFFMAN _Angelica Kauffman_ In the Uffizi Gallery. By permission of Fratelli Alinari. PORTRAIT OF ROSA BONHEUR _Anna E. Klumpke_ A FAMILY OF DOGS _Matilda Lotz_ FRITZ _Clara T. MacChesney_ From a Copley print. SAINT CATHERINE _Mary L. Macomber_ From a Copley print. MONUMENT FOR A TOMB _Ida Matton_ In Cemetery in Gefle, Sweden. DELFT _Blanche McManus Mansfield_ AN INDIAN AFTER THE CHASE _Rhoda Holmes Nichols_ FLOWERS _Helen Searle Pattison_ ST. CHRISTOPHER Engraved by _Caroline A. Powell_ In Doge's Palace, Venice GENEVESE WATCHMAKER _Aimée Rapin_ In the Museum at Neuchâtel. MAY DAY AT WHITELANDS COLLEGE, CHELSEA. _Anna Mary Richards_ FRUIT, FLOWERS, AND INSECTS _Rachel Ruysch_ In the Pitti Gallery. By permission of Fratelli Alinari. A FROG FOUNTAIN _Janet Scudder_ A FRENCH PRINCE _Marie Vigée Le Brun_ LA VIERGE AU ROSIER _Sadie Waters_ By courtesy of Braun, Clément et Cie. SONG OF AGES _Ethel Wright_ From a Copley print. STATUE OF DANIEL BOONE _Enid Yandell_ Made for St. Louis Exposition. INTRODUCTION In studying the subject of this book I have found the names of more than a thousand women whose attainments in the Fine Arts--in various countries and at different periods of time before the middle of the nineteenth century--entitle them to honorable mention as artists, and I doubt not that an exhaustive search would largely increase this number. The stories of many of these women have been written with more or less detail, while of others we know little more than their names and the titles of a few of their works; but even our scanty knowledge of them is of value. Of the army of women artists of the last century it is not yet possible to speak with judgment and justice, although many have executed works of which all women may be proud. We have some knowledge of women artists in ancient days. Few stories of that time are so authentic as that of Kora, who made the design for the first bas-relief, in the city of Sicyonia, in the seventh century B. C. We have the names of other Greek women artists of the centuries immediately preceding and following the Christian era, but we know little of their lives and works. Calypso was famous for the excellence of her character pictures, a remarkable one being a portrait of Theodorus, the Juggler. A picture found at Pompeii, now at Naples, is attributed to this artist; but its authorship is so uncertain that little importance can be attached to it. Pliny praised Eirene, among whose pictures was one of "An Aged Man" and a portrait of "Alcisthenes, the Dancer." In the annals of Roman Art we find few names of women. For this reason Laya, who lived about a century before the Christian era, is important. She is honored as the original painter of miniatures, and her works on ivory were greatly esteemed. Pliny says she did not marry, but pursued her art with absolute devotion; and he considered her pictures worthy of great praise. A large picture in Naples is said to be the work of Laya, but, as in the case of Calypso, we have no assurance that it is genuine. It is also said that Laya's portraits commanded larger prices than those of Sopolis and Dyonisius, the most celebrated portrait painters of their time. Our scanty knowledge of individual women artists of antiquity--mingled with fable as it doubtless is--serves the important purpose of proving that women, from very ancient times, were educated as artists and creditably followed their profession beside men of the same periods. This knowledge also awakens imagination, and we wonder in what other ancient countries there were women artists. We know that in Egypt inheritances descended in the female line, as in the case of the Princess Karamat; and since we know of the great architectural works of Queen Hashop and her journey to the land of Punt, we may reasonably assume that the women of ancient Egypt had their share in all the interests of life. Were there not artists among them who decorated temples and tombs with their imperishable colors? Did not women paint those pictures of Isis--goddess of Sothis--that are like precursors of the pictures of the Immaculate Conception? Surely we may hope that a papyrus will be brought to light that will reveal to us the part that women had in the decoration of the monuments of ancient Egypt. At present we have no reliable records of the lives and works of women artists before the time of the Renaissance in Italy. * * * * * M. Taine's philosophy which regards the art of any people or period as the necessary result of the conditions of race, religion, civilization, and manners in the midst of which the art was produced--and esteems a knowledge of these conditions as sufficient to account for the character of the art, seems to me to exclude many complex and mysterious influences, especially in individual cases, which must affect the work of the artists. At the same time an intelligent study of the art of any nation or period demands a study of the conditions in which it was produced, and I shall endeavor in this _résumé_ of the history of women in Art--mere outline as it is--to give an idea of the atmosphere in which they lived and worked, and the influences which affected the results of their labor. It has been claimed that everything of importance that originated in Italy from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century bore the distinctive mark of Fine Art. So high an authority as John Addington Symonds is in accord with this view, and the study of these four centuries is of absorbing interest. Although the thirteenth century long preceded the practice of art by women, its influence was a factor in the artistic life into which they later came. In this century Andrea Tan, Guido da Siena, and other devoted souls were involved in the final struggles of Mediaeval Art, and at its close Cimabue and Duccio da Siena--the two masters whose Madonnas were borne in solemn procession through the streets of Florence and Siena, mid music and the pealing of bells--had given the new impulse to painting which brought them immortal fame. They were the heralds of the time when poetry of sentiment, beauty of color, animation and individuality of form should replace Mediaeval formality and ugliness; a time when the spirit of art should be revived with an impulse prophetic of its coming glory. But neither this portentous period nor the fourteenth century is memorable in the annals of women artists. Not until the fifteenth, the century of the full Renaissance, have we a record of their share in the great rebirth. It is important to remember that the art of the Renaissance had, in the beginning, a distinct office to fill in the service of the Church. Later, in historical and decorative painting, it served the State, and at length, in portrait and landscape painting, in pictures of genre subjects and still-life, abundant opportunity was afforded for all orders of talent, and the generous patronage of art by church, state, and men of rank and wealth, made Italy a veritable paradise for artists. Gradually, with the revival of learning, artists were free to give greater importance to secular subjects, and an element of worldliness, and even of immorality, invaded the realm of art as it invaded the realms of life and literature. This was an era of change in all departments of life. Chivalry, the great "poetic lie," died with feudalism, and the relations between men and women became more natural and reasonable than in the preceding centuries. Women were liberated from the narrow sphere to which they had been relegated in the minstrel's song and poet's rhapsody, but as yet neither time nor opportunity had been given them for the study and development which must precede noteworthy achievement. Remarkable as was the fifteenth century for intellectual and artistic activity, it was not productive in its early decades of great genius in art or letters. Its marvellous importance was apparent only at its close and in the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the works of Leonardo, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian, and their followers emphasized the value of the progressive attainments of their predecessors. The assertion and contradiction of ideas and theories, the rivalries of differing schools, the sweet devotion of Fra Angelico, the innovations of Masolino and Masaccio, the theory of perspective of Paolo Uccello, the varied works of Fabriano, Antonello da Messina, the Lippi, Botticelli, Ghirlandajo, the Bellini, and their contemporaries, culminated in the inimitable painting of the Cinquecento--in works still unsurpassed, ever challenging artists of later centuries to the task of equalling or excelling them. The demands of the art of the Renaissance were so great, and so unlike those of earlier days, that it is not surprising that few women, in its beginning, attained to such excellence as to be remembered during five centuries. Especially would it seem that an insurmountable obstacle had been placed in the way of women, since the study of anatomy had become a necessity to an artist. This, and kindred hindrances, too patent to require enumeration, account for the fact that but two Italian women of this period became so famous as to merit notice--Caterina Vigri and Onorata Rodiana, whose stories are given in the biographical part of this book. * * * * * In Flanders, late in the fourteenth and early in the fifteenth centuries, women were engaged in the study and practice of art. In Bruges, when the Van Eycks were inventing new methods in the preparation of colors, and painting their wonderful pictures, beside them, and scarcely inferior to them, was their sister, Margaretha, who sacrificed much of her artistic fame by painting portions of her brothers' pictures, unless the fact that they thought her worthy of thus assisting them establishes her reputation beyond question. In the fifteenth century we have reason to believe that many women practised art in various departments, but so scanty and imperfect are the records of individual artists that little more than their names are known, and we have no absolute knowledge of the value of their works, or where, if still existing, they are to be seen. The art of the Renaissance reached its greatest excellence during the last three decades of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century. This was a glorious period in the History of Art. The barbarism of the Middle Ages was essentially a thing of the past, but much barbaric splendor in the celebration of ceremonies and festivals still remained to satisfy the artistic sense, while every-day costumes and customs lent a picturesqueness to ordinary life. So much of the pagan spirit as endured was modified by the spirit of the Renaissance. The result was a new order of things especially favorable to painting. An artist now felt himself as free to illustrate the pagan myths as to represent the events in the lives of the Saviour, the Virgin and the saints, and the actors in the sacred subjects were represented with the same beauty and grace of form as were given the heroes and heroines of Hellenic legend. St. Sebastian was as beautiful as Apollo, and the imagination and senses were moved alike by pictures of Danae and the Magdalene--the two subjects being often the work of the same artist. The human form was now esteemed as something more than the mere habitation of a soul; it was beautiful in itself and capable of awakening unnumbered emotions in the human heart. Nature, too, presented herself in a new aspect and inspired the artist with an ardor in her representation such as few of the older painters had experienced in their devotion to religious subjects. This expansion of thought and purpose was inaugurating an art attractive to women, to which the increasing liberty of artistic theory and practice must logically make them welcome; a result which is a distinguishing feature of sixteenth-century painting. * * * * * The sixteenth century was noteworthy for the generous patronage of art, especially in Florence, where the policy of its ruling house could not fail to produce marvellous results, and the history of the Medici discloses many reasons why the bud of the Renaissance perfected its bloom in Florence more rapidly and more gloriously than elsewhere. For centuries Italy had been a treasure-house of Greek, Etruscan, and Byzantine Art. In no other country had a civilization like that of ancient Rome existed, and no other land had been so richly prepared to be the birthplace and to promote the development of the art of the Renaissance. The intellectually progressive life of this period did much for the advancement of women. The fame of Vittoria Colonna, Tullia d'Aragona, Olympia Morata, and many others who merit association in this goodly company, proves the generous spirit of the age, when in the scholastic centres of Italy women were free to study all branches of learning. The pursuit of art was equally open to them and women were pupils in all the schools and in the studios of many masters; even Titian instructed a woman, and all the advantages for study enjoyed by men were equally available for women. Many names of Italian women artists could be added to those of whom I have written in the biographical portion of this book, but too little is known of their lives and works to be of present interest. There is, however, little doubt that many pictures attributed to "the School of" various masters were painted by women. * * * * * Art did not reach its perfection in Venice until later than in Florence, and its special contribution, its glorious color, imparted to it an attraction unequalled on the sensuous plane. This color surrounded the artists of that sumptuous city of luxurious life and wondrous pageants, and was so emphasized by the marvellous mingling of the semi-mist and the brilliancy of its atmosphere that no man who merited the name of artist could be insensible to its inspiration. The old Venetian realism was followed, in the time of the Renaissance, by startling developments. In the works of Tintoretto and Veronese there is a combination of gorgeous draperies, splendid and often licentious costumes, brilliant metal accessories, and every possible device for enhancing and contrasting colors, until one is bewildered and must adjust himself to these dazzling spectacles--religious subjects though they may be--before any serious thought or judgment can be brought to bear upon their artistic merit; these two great contemporaries lived and worked in the final decades of the sixteenth century. We know that many women painted pictures in Venice before the seventeenth century, although we have accurate knowledge of but few, and of these an account is given later in this book. We who go from Paris to London in a few hours, and cross the St. Gothard in a day, can scarcely realize the distance that separated these capitals from the centres of Italian art in the time of the Renaissance. We have, however, abundant proof that the sacred fire of the love of Art and Letters was smouldering in France, Germany, and England--and when the inspiring breath of the Renaissance was wafted beyond the Alps a flame burst forth which has burned clearer and brighter with succeeding centuries. From the time of Vincent de Beauvais, who died in 1264, France had not been wanting in illustrious scholars, but it could not be said that a French school of art existed. François Clouet or Cloet, called Jehannet, was born in Tours about 1500. His portraits are seen in the Gallery of the Louvre, and have been likened to those of Holbein; but they lack the strength and spirit of that artist; in fact, the distinguishing feature of Clouet's work is the remarkable finish of draperies and accessories, while the profusion of jewels distracts attention from the heads of his subjects. The first great French artists were of the seventeenth century, and although Clouet was painter to Francis I. and Henry II., the former, like his predecessors, imported artists from Italy, among whom were Leonardo da Vinci and Benvenuto Cellini. In letters, however, there were French women of the sixteenth century who are still famous. Marguerite de Valois was as cultivated in mind as she was generous and noble in character. Her love of learning was not easily satisfied. She was proficient in Hebrew, the classics, and the usual branches of "profane letters," as well as an accomplished scholar in philosophy and theology. As an author--though her writings are somewhat voluminous and not without merit--she was comparatively unimportant; her great service to letters was the result of the sympathy and encouragement she gave to others. Wherever she might be, she was the centre of a literary and religious circle, as well as of the society in which she moved. She was in full sympathy with her brother in making his "_Collège_" an institution in which greater liberty was accorded to the expression of individual opinion than had before been known in France, and by reason of her protection of liberty in thought and speech she suffered much in the esteem of the bigots of her day. The beautiful Mlle. de Heilly--the Duchesse d'Etampes--whose influence over Francis I. was pre-eminent, while her character was totally unlike that of his sister, was described as "the fairest among the learned, and the most learned among the fair." When learning was thus in favor at Court, it naturally followed that all capacity for it was cultivated and ordinary intelligence made the most of; and the claim that the intellectual brilliancy of the women of the Court of Francis I. has rarely been equalled is generally admitted. There were, however, no artists among them--they wielded the pen rather than the brush. * * * * * In England, as in France, there was no native school of art in the sixteenth century, and Flemish, Dutch, and German artists crossed the channel when summoned to the English Court, as the Italians crossed the Alps to serve the kings of France. English women of this century were far less scholarly than those of Italy and France. At the same time they might well be proud of a queen who "could quote Pindar and Homer in the original and read every morning a portion of Demosthenes, being also the royal mistress of eight languages." With our knowledge of the queen's scholarship in mind we might look to her for such patronage of art and literature as would rival that of Lorenzo the Magnificent; but Elizabeth lacked the generosity of the Medici and that of Marguerite de Valois. Hume tells us that "the queen's vanity lay more in shining by her own learning than in encouraging men of genius by her liberality." Lady Jane Grey and the daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke are familiar examples of learned women, and many English titled and gentlewomen were well versed in Greek and Latin, as well as in Spanish, Italian, and French. Macaulay reminded his readers that if an Englishwoman of that day did not read the classics she could read little, since the then existing books--outside the Italian--would fill a shelf but scantily. Thus English girls read Plato, and doubtless English women excelled Englishmen in their proficiency in foreign languages, as they do at present. * * * * * In Germany the relative position of Art and Letters was the opposite to that in France and England. The School of Cologne was a genuinely native school of art in the fourteenth century. Although the Niebelungen Lied and Gudrun, the Songs of Love and Volkslieder, as well as Mysteries and Passion Plays, existed from an early date, we can scarcely speak of a German Literature before the sixteenth century, when Albert Dürer and the younger Holbein painted their great pictures, while Luther, Melanchthon and their sympathizers disseminated the doctrines of advancing Protestantism. At this period, in the countries we may speak of collectively as German, women artists were numerous. Many were miniaturists, some of whom were invited to the English Court and received with honor. In 1521 Albert Dürer was astonished at the number of women artists in different parts of what, for conciseness, we may call Germany. This was also noticeable in Holland, and Dürer wrote in his diary, in the above-named year: "Master Gerard, of Antwerp, illuminist, has a daughter, eighteen years of age, named Susannah, who illuminated a little book which I purchased for a few guilders. It is wonderful that a woman could do so much!" Antwerp became famous for its women artists, some of whom visited France, Italy, and Spain, and were honorably recognized for their talent and attainments, wherever they went. * * * * * In the later years of the sixteenth century a difference of opinion and purpose arose among the artists of Italy, the effects of which were shown in the art of the seventeenth century. Two distinct schools were formed, one of which included the conservatives who desired to preserve and follow the manner of the masters of the Cinquecento, at the same time making a deeper study of Nature--thus the devotional feeling and many of the older traditions would be retained while each master could indulge his individuality more freely than heretofore. They aimed to unite such a style as Correggio's--who belonged to no school--with that of the severely mannered artists of the preceding centuries. These artists were called Eclectics, and the Bolognese school of the Carracci was the most important centre of the movement, while Domenichino, a native of Bologna--1581-1631--was the most distinguished painter of the school. The original aims of the Eclectics are well summed up in a sonnet by Agostino Carracci, which has been translated as follows: "Let him who wishes to be a good painter acquire the design of Rome, Venetian action and Venetian management of shade, the dignified color of Lombardy--that is of Leonardo da Vinci--the terrible manner of Michael Angelo, Titian's truth and nature, the sovereign purity of Correggio's style and the just symmetry of a Raphael, the decorum and well-grounded study of Tibaldi, the invention of the learned Primaticcio, and a _little_ of Parmigianino's grace; but without so much study and weary labor let him apply himself to imitate the works which our Niccolò--dell Abbate--left us here." Kugler calls this "a patchwork ideal," which puts the matter in a nut-shell. At one period the Eclectics produced harmonious pictures in a manner attractive to women, many of whom studied under Domenichino, Giovanni Lanfranco, Guido Reni, the Campi, and others. Sofonisba Anguisciola, Elisabetta Sirani, and the numerous women artists of Bologna were of this school. The greatest excellence of this art was of short duration; it declined as did the literature, and indeed, the sacred and political institutions of Italy in the seventeenth century. It should not, however, be forgotten, that the best works of Guercino, the later pictures of Annibale Carracci, and the important works of Domenichino and Salvator Rosa belong to this period. The second school was that of the Naturalists, who professed to study Nature alone, representing with brutal realism her repulsive aspects. Naples was the centre of these painters, and the poisoning of Domenichino and many other dark and terrible deeds have been attributed to them. Few women were attracted to this school, and the only one whose association with the Naturalisti is recorded--Aniella di Rosa--paid for her temerity with her life. * * * * * In Rome, Florence, Bologna, Venice, and other Italian cities, there were, in the seventeenth century, many women who made enviable reputations as artists, some of whom were also known for their literary and musical attainments. Anna Maria Ardoina, of Messina, made her studies in Rome. She was gifted as a poet and artist, and so excelled in music that she had the distinguished honor of being elected to the Academy of Arcadia. Not a few gifted women of this time are remembered for their noble charities. Chiara Varotari, under the instruction of her father and her brother, called Padovanino, became a good painter. She was also honored as a skilful nurse, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany placed her portrait in his gallery on account of his admiration and respect for her as a comforter of the suffering. Giovanna Garzoni, a miniaturist, conferred such benefits upon the Academy of St. Luke that a monument was there erected to her memory. Other artists founded convents, became nuns, and imprinted themselves upon their age in connection with various honorable institutions and occupations. * * * * * French Art in the seventeenth century was academic and prosaic, lacking the spontaneity, joyousness, and intensely artistic feeling of Italian Art--a heritage from previous centuries which had not been lost, and in which France had no part. The works of Poussin, which have been likened to painted reliefs, afford an excellent example of French Art in his time--1594-1665--and this in spite of the fact that he worked and studied much in Rome. The Académie des Beaux-Arts was established by Louis XIV., and there was a rapidly growing interest in art. As yet, however, the women of France affected literature rather than painting, and in the seventeenth century they were remarkable for their scholarly attainments and their influence in the world of letters. Madame de Maintenon patronized learning; at the Hôtel Rambouillet men and women of genius met the world of rank and fashion on common ground. Madame Dacier, of whom Voltaire said, "No woman has ever rendered greater services to literature," made her translations from the classics; Madame de Sevigné wrote her marvellous letters; Mademoiselle de Scudéry and Madame Lafayette their novels; Catherine Bernard emulated the manner of Racine in her dramas; while Madame de Guyon interpreted the mystic Song of Solomon. Of French women artists of this period we can mention several names, but they were so overshadowed by authors as to be unimportant, unless, like Elizabeth Chéron, they won both artistic and literary fame. * * * * * The seventeenth century was an age of excellence in the art of Flanders, Belgium, and Holland, and is known as the second great epoch of painting in the Netherlands, this name including the three countries just mentioned. After the calamities suffered under Charles V. and Philip II., with returning peace and prosperity an art was developed, both original and rich in artistic power. The States-General met in 1600, and the greatest artists of the Netherlands did their work in the succeeding fifty years; and before the century closed the appreciation of art and the patronage which had assured its elevation were things of the past. Rubens was twenty-three years old in 1600, just ready to begin his work which raised the school of Belgium to its highest attainments. When we remember how essentially his art dominated his own country and was admired elsewhere, we might think--I had almost said fear--that his brilliant, vigorous, and voluptuous manner would attract all artists of his day to essay his imitation. But among women artists Madame O'Connell was the first who could justly be called his imitator, and her work was done in the middle of the nineteenth century. When we turn to the genre painting of the Flemish and Dutch artists we find that they represented scenes in the lives of coarse, drunken boors and vulgar women--works which brought these artists enduring fame by reason of their wonderful technique; but we can mention one woman only, Anna Breughel, who seriously attempted the practice of this art. She is thought to have been of the family of Velvet Breughel, who lived in the early part of the seventeenth century. Like Rubens, Rembrandt numbered few women among his imitators. The women of his day and country affected pleasing delineations of superficial motives, and Rembrandt's earnestness and intensity were seemingly above their appreciation--certainly far above their artistic powers. A little later so many women painted delicate and insipid subjects that I have not space even for their names. A critic has said that the Dutch school "became a nursery for female talent." It may have reached the Kindergarten stage, but went no farther. Flower painting attained great excellence in the seventeenth century. The most elaborate masters in this art were the brothers De Heem, Willem Kalf, Abraham Mignon, and Jan van Huysum. Exquisite as the pictures by these masters are, Maria van Oosterwyck and Rachel Ruysch disputed honors with them, and many other women excelled in this delightful art. An interesting feature in art at this time was the intimate association of men and women artists and the distinction of women thus associated. Gerard Terburg, whose pictures now have an enormous value, had two sisters, Maria and Gezina, whose genre pictures were not unworthy of comparison with the works of their famous brother. Gottfried Schalken, remarkable for his skill in the representation of scenes by candle light, was scarcely more famous than his sister Maria. Eglon van der Neer is famous for his pictures of elegant women in marvellous satin gowns. He married Adriana Spilberg, a favorite portrait painter. The daughters of the eminent engraver Cornelius Visscher, Anna and Maria, were celebrated for their fine etching on glass, and by reason of their poems and their scholarly acquirements they were called the "Dutch Muses," and were associated with the learned men of their day. This list, though incomplete, suggests that the co-education of artists bore good fruit in their co-operation in their profession. * * * * * In England, while there was a growing interest in painting, the standard was that of foreign schools, especially the Dutch. Foreign artists found a welcome and generous patronage at the English Court. Mary Beale and Anne Carlisle are spoken of as English artists, and a few English women were miniaturists. Among these was Susannah Penelope Gibson, daughter of Richard Gibson, the Dwarf. While these women were not wanting in artistic taste, they were little more than copyists of the Dutch artists with whom they had associated. * * * * * In the early years of the seventeenth century there were a number of Danish women who were painters, engravers, and modellers in wax. The daughter of King Christian IV., Elenora Christina, and her daughter, Helena Christina, were reputable artists. The daughter of Christian V., Sophie Hedwig, made a reputation as a portrait, landscape, and flower painter, which extended beyond her own country; and Anna Crabbe painted a series of portraits of Danish princes, and added to them descriptive verses of her own composition. * * * * * The Art of Spain attained its greatest glory in the seventeenth century--the century of Velasquez, Murillo, Ribera, and other less distinguished but excellent artists. In the last half of this century women artists were prominent in the annals of many Spanish cities. In the South mention is made of these artists, who were of excellent position and aristocratic connection. In Valencia, the daughter of the great portrait painter Alonzo Coello was distinguished in both painting and music. She married Don Francesco de Herrara, Knight of Santiago. In Cordova the sister of Palomino y Vasco--the artist who has been called the Vasari of Spain on account of his Museo Pictorio--was recognized as a talented artist. In Madrid, Velasquez numbered several noble ladies among his pupils; but no detailed accounts of the works of these artists is available--if any such exist--and their pictures are in private collections. * * * * * The above outline of the general conditions of Art in the seventeenth century will suggest the reasons for there being a larger number of women artists in Italy than elsewhere--especially as they were pupils in the studios of the best masters as well as in the schools of the Carracci and other centres of art study. * * * * * Italian artists of the eighteenth century have been called scene painters, and, in truth, many of their works impress one as hurried attempts to cover large spaces. Originality was wanting and a wearisome mediocrity prevailed. At the same time certain national artistic qualities were apparent; good arrangement of figures and admirable effects of color still characterized Italian painting, but the result was, on the whole, academic and uninteresting. The ideals cherished by older artists were lost, and nothing worthy to replace them inspired their followers. The sincerity, earnestness, and devotion of the men who served church and state in the decoration of splendid monuments would have been out of place in the service of amateurs and in the decoration of the salons and boudoirs of the rich, and the painting of this period had little permanent value, in comparison with that of preceding centuries. Italian women, especially in the second half of the century, were professors in universities, lectured to large audiences, and were respectfully consulted by men of science and learning in the various branches of scholarship to which they were devoted. Unusual honors were paid them, as in the case of Maria Portia Vignoli, to whom a statue was erected in the public square of Viterbo to commemorate her great learning in natural science. An artist, Matilda Festa, held a professorship in the Academy of St. Luke in Rome, and Maria Maratti, daughter of the Roman painter Carlo Maratti, made a good reputation both as an artist and a poetess. In Northern Italy many women were famous in sculpture, painting, and engraving. At least forty could be named, artists of good repute, whose lives were lacking in any unusual interest, and whose works are in private collections. One of these was a princess of Parma, who married the Archduke Joseph of Austria, and was elected to the Academy of Vienna in 1789. * * * * * In France, in the beginning of this century Watteau, 1684-1721, painted his interesting pictures of _La Belle Société_, reproducing the court life, costumes, and manners of the reign of Louis XIV. with fidelity, grace, and vivacity. Later in the century, Greuze, 1725-1805, with his attractive, refined, and somewhat mannered style, had a certain influence. Claude Vernet, 1714-1789, and David, 1748-1825, each great in his way, influenced the nineteenth as well as the eighteenth century. Though Vien, 1716-1809, made a great effort to revive classic art, he found little sympathy with his aim until the works of his pupil David won recognition from the world of the First Empire. French Art of this period may be described by a single word--eclectic--and this choice by each important artist of the style he would adopt culminated in the Rococo School, which may be defined as the unusual and fantastic in art. It was characterized by good technique and pleasing color, but lacked purpose, depth, and warmth of feeling. As usual in a _pot-pourri_, it was far enough above worthlessness not to be ignored, but so far short of excellence as not to be admired. In France during this century there was an army of women artists, painters, sculptors, and engravers. Of a great number we know the names only; in fact, of but two of these, Adelaide Vincent and Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun, have we reliable knowledge of their lives and works. The eighteenth century is important in the annals of women artists, since their numbers then exceeded the collective number of those who had preceded them--so far as is known--from the earliest period in the history of art. In a critical review of the time, however, we find a general and active interest in culture and art among women rather than any considerable number of noteworthy artists. Germany was the scene of the greatest activity of women artists. France held the second place and Italy the third, thus reversing the conditions of preceding centuries. * * * * * Many German women emulated the examples of the earlier flower painters, but no one was so important as to merit special attention, though a goodly number were elected to academies and several appointed painters to the minor courts. Among the genre and historical painters we find the names of Anna Amalia of Brunswick and Anna Maria, daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa, both of whom were successful artists. In Berlin and Dresden the interest in art was much greater in the eighteenth than in previous centuries, and with this new impulse many women devoted themselves to various specialties in art. Miniature and enamel painting were much in vogue, and collections of these works, now seen in museums and private galleries, are exquisitely beautiful and challenge our admiration, not only for their beauty, but for the delicacy of their handling and the infinite patience demanded for their execution. The making of medals was carried to great excellence by German women, as may be seen in a medal of Queen Sophie Charlotte, which is preserved in the royal collection of medals. It is the work of Rosa Elizabeth Schwindel, of Leipsic, who was well known in Berlin in the beginning of the century. The cutting of gems was also extensively done by women. Susannah Dorsch was famous for her accomplishment in this art. Her father and grandfather had been gem-cutters, and Susannah could not remember at what age she began this work. So highly was she esteemed as an artist that medals were made in her honor. As frequently happens in a study of this kind, I find long lists of the names of women artists of this period of whose lives and works I find no record, while the events related in other cases are too trivial for repetition. This is especially true in Holland, where we find many names of Dutch women who must have been reputable artists, since they are mentioned in Art Chronicles of their time; but we know little of their lives and can mention no pictures executed by them. * * * * * A national art now existed in England. Hogarth, who has been called the Father of English Painting, was a man of too much originality to be a mere imitator of foreign artists. He devoted his art to the representation of the follies of his time. As a satirist he was eminent, but his mirth-provoking pictures had a deeper purpose than that of amusing. Lord Orford wrote: "Mirth colored his pictures, but benevolence designed them. He smiled like Socrates, that men might not be offended at his lectures, and might learn to laugh at their own folly." Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough were born and died in the eighteenth century; their famous works were contemporary with the founding of the Royal Academy in 1768, when these artists, together with Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser, were among its original members. It was a fashion in England at this time for women to paint; they principally affected miniature and water-color pictures, but of the many who called themselves artists few merit our attention; they practised but a feeble sort of imitative painting; their works of slight importance cannot now be named, while their lives were usually commonplace and void of incident. Of the few exceptions to this rule I have written in the later pages of this book. * * * * * The suggestion that the nineteenth century cannot yet be judged as to its final effect in many directions has already been made, and of nothing is this more true than of its Art. Of one phase of this period, however, we may speak with confidence. No other century of which we know the history has seen so many changes--such progress, or such energy of purpose so largely rewarded as in the century we are considering. To one who has lived through more than three score years of this period, no fairy tale is more marvellous than the changes in the department of daily life alone. When I recall the time when the only mode of travel was by stage-coach, boat, or private carriage--when the journey from Boston to St. Louis demanded a week longer in time than we now spend in going from Boston to Egypt--when no telegraph existed--when letter postage was twenty-five cents and the postal service extremely primitive--when no house was comfortably warmed and women carried foot-stoves to unheated churches--when candles and oil lamps were the only means of "lighting up," and we went about the streets at night with dim lanterns--when women spun and wove and sewed with their hands only, and all they accomplished was done at the hardest--when in our country a young girl might almost as reasonably attempt to reach the moon as to become an artist--remembering all this it seems as if an army of magicians must incessantly have waved their wands above us, and that human brains and hands could not have invented and put in operation the innumerable changes in our daily life during the last half-century. When, in the same way, we review the changes that have taken place in the domains of science, in scholarly research in all directions, in printing, bookmaking, and the methods of illustrating everything that is printed--from the most serious and learned writing to advertisements scattered over all-out-of-doors--when we add to these the revolutions in many other departments of life and industry, we must regard the nineteenth as the century _par excellence_ of expansion, and in various directions an epoch-making era. * * * * * When we turn to our special subject we find an activity and expansion in nineteenth-century art quite in accordance with the spirit of the time. This expansion is especially noticeable in the increased number of subjects represented in works of art, and in the invention of new methods of artistic expression. Prior to this period there had been a certain selection of such subjects for artistic representation as could be called "picturesque," and though more ordinary and commonplace subjects might be rendered with such skill--such drawing, color, and technique--as to demand approbation, it was given with a certain condescension and the feeling was manifested that these subjects, though treated with consummate art, were not artistic. The nineteenth century has signally changed these theories. Nothing that makes a part in human experience is now too commonplace or too unusual and mysterious to afford inspiration to painter and sculptor; while the normal characteristics of human beings and the circumstances common to their lives are not omitted, the artist frequently endeavors to express in his work the most subtle experiences of the heart and soul, and to embody in his picture or statue an absolutely psychologic phenomenon. The present easy communication with all nations has awakened interest in the life of countries almost unknown to us a half-century ago. So customary is it for artists to wander far and wide, seeking new motives for their works, that I felt no surprise when I recently received a letter from a young American woman who is living and painting in Biskra. How short a time has passed since this would have been thought impossible! It is also true that subjects not new in art are treated in a nineteenth-century manner. This is noticeable in the picturing of historical subjects. The more intimate knowledge of the world enables the historical painter of the present to impart to his representations of the important events of the past a more human and emotional element than exists in the historical art of earlier centuries. In a word, nineteenth-century art is sympathetic, and has found inspiration in all countries and classes and has so treated its subjects as to be intelligible to all, from the favored children for whom Kate Greenaway, Walter Crane, and many others have spent their delightful talents, to men and women of all varieties of individual tastes and of all degrees of ability to comprehend and appreciate artistic representations. A fuller acquaintance with the art and art-methods of countries of which but little had before been known has been an element in art expansion. Technical methods which have not been absolutely adopted by European and English-speaking artists have yet had an influence upon their art. The interest in Japanese Art is the most important example of such influence, and it is also true that Japanese artists have been attracted to the study of the art of America and Europe, while some foreign artists resident in Japan--notably Miss Helen Hyde, a young American--have studied and practised Japanese painting to such purpose that Japanese juries have accorded the greatest excellence and its honors to their works, exhibited in competition with native artists. Other factors in the expansion of art have been found in photography and the various new methods of illustration that have filled books, magazines, and newspapers with pictures of more or less (?) merit. Even the painting of "posters" has not been scorned by good artists, some of whom have treated them in such a manner as to make them worthy a place in museums where only works of true merit are exhibited. Other elements in the nineteenth-century expansion in art are seen in the improved productions of the so-called Arts and Crafts which are of inestimable value in cultivating the artistic sense in all classes. Another influence in the same direction is the improved decoration of porcelain, majolica, and pottery, which, while not equal to that of earlier date in the esteem of connoisseurs, brings artistic objects to the sight and knowledge of all, at prices suited to moderate means. * * * * * In America the unparalleled increase of Free Libraries has brought, not books alone, but collections of photographs and other reproductions of the best Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in the world, as well as medals, book-plates, artistic bindings, etc., within reach of students of art. Art Academies and Museums have also been greatly multiplied. It is often a surprise to find, in a comparatively small town, a fine Art Gallery, rich in a variety of precious objects. Such an one is the Art Museum of Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Me. The edifice itself is the most beautiful of the works by McKim that I have seen. The frescoes by La Farge and Vedder are most satisfactory, and one exhibit, among many of interest--that of original drawings by famous Old Masters--would make this Museum a worthy place of pilgrimage. Can one doubt that such a Museum must be an element of artistic development in those who are in contact with it? I cannot omit saying that this splendid monument to the appreciation of art and to great generosity was the gift of women, while the artists who perfected its architecture and decorations are Americans; it is an impressive expression of the expansion of American Art in the nineteenth century. * * * * * The advantages for the study of Art have been largely improved and increased in this period. In numberless studios small classes of pupils are received; in schools of Design, schools of National Academies, and in those of individual enterprise, all possible advantages for study under the direction of the best artists are provided, and these are supplemented by scholarships which relieve the student of limited means from providing for daily needs. All these opportunities are shared by men and women alike. Every advantage is as freely at the command of one as of the other, and we equal, in this regard, the centuries of the Renaissance, when women were Artists, Students, and Professors of Letters and of Law, filling these positions with honor, as women do in these days. In 1859 T. Adolphus Trollope, in his "Decade of Italian Women," in which he wrote of the scholarly women of the Renaissance, says: "The degree in which any social system has succeeded in ascertaining woman's proper position, and in putting her into it, will be a very accurate test of the progress it has made in civilization. And the very general and growing conviction that our own social arrangements, as they exist at present, have not attained any satisfactory measure of success in this respect, would seem, therefore, to indicate that England in her nineteenth century has not yet reached years of discretion after all." Speaking of Elisabetta Sirani he says: "The humbly born artist, admirable for her successful combination in perfect compatibility of all the duties of home and studio." Of how many woman artists we can now say this. Trollope's estimate of the position of women in England, which was not unlike that in America, forty-five years ago, when contrasted with that of the present day, affords another striking example of the expansion of the nineteenth century. * * * * * Although no important changes occur without some preparation, this may be so gradual and unobtrusive in its work that the result appears to have a Minerva-like birth. Doubtless there were influences leading up to the remarkable landscape painting of this century. The "Norwich School," which took shape in 1805, was founded by Crome, among whose associates were Cotman, Stark, and Vincent. Crome exhibited his works at the Royal Academy in 1806, and the twelve following years, and died in 1821 when the pictures of Constable were attracting unusual attention; indeed, it may be said that by his exhibitions at the Royal Academy, Constable inaugurated modern landscape painting, which is a most important feature of art in this century. Not forgetting the splendid landscapes of the Dutch masters, of the early Italians, of Claude and Wilson, the claim that landscape painting was perfected only in the nineteenth century, and then largely as the result of the works of English artists, seems to me to be well founded. To this excellence Turner, contemporary with Constable, David Cox, De Wint, Bonington, and numerous others gloriously contributed. The English landscapes exhibited at the French Salon in the third decade of the century produced a remarkable effect, and emphasized the interest in landscape painting already growing in France, and later so splendidly developed by Rousseau, Corot, Millet, and their celebrated contemporaries. In Germany the Achenbachs, Lessing, and many other artists were active in this movement, while in America, Innes, A. H. Wyant, and Homer Martin, with numerous followers, were raising landscape art to an eminence before unknown. Formerly landscapes had been used as backgrounds, oftentimes attractive and beautiful, while the real purpose of the pictures centred in the human figures. The distinctive feature of nineteenth-century landscape is the representation of Nature alone, and the variety of method used and the differing aims of the artists cover the entire gamut between absolute Realism and the most pronounced Impressionism. * * * * * About the middle of the century there emerged from the older schools two others which may be called the Realist and Idealist, and indeed there were those to whom both these terms could be applied, both methods being united in their remarkable works. Of the Realists Corot and Courbet are distinguished, as were Puvis de Chavannes and Gustave Moreau among the Idealists. Millet, with his marvellous power of observation, painted his landscapes with the fidelity of his school in that art, and so keenly realized the religious element in the peasant life about him--the poetry of these people--that he portrayed his figures in a manner quite his own--at the same time realistic and full of idealism. MacColl in his "Nineteenth-Century Art" called Millet "the most religious figure in modern art after Rembrandt," and adds that "he discovered a patience of beauty, a reconciling, in the concert of landscape mystery with labor." Shall we call Bastien Lepage a follower of Millet, or say that in these men there was a unity of spirit; that while they realized the poetry of their subjects intensely, they fully estimated the reality as well? The "Joan of Arc" is a phenomenal example of this art. The landscape is carefully realistic, and like that in which a French peasant girl of any period would live. But here realism ceases and the peasant girl becomes a supremely exalted being, entranced by a vision of herself in full armor. This art, at once realistic and idealistic, is an achievement of the nineteenth century--so clear and straightforward in its methods as to explain itself far better than words can explain it. * * * * * Contemporary with these last-named artists were the Pre-raphaelites. The centre of this school was called the Brotherhood, which was founded by J. E. Millais, W. Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Michael Rossetti. To these were added Thomas Woolner the sculptor, James Collins, and F. G. Stephens. Other important artists known as Pre-raphaelites, not belonging to the Brotherhood, are Ford Madox Brown and Burne Jones, as well as the water-color painters, Mason, Walker, Boyce, and Goodwin. The aim of these artists was to represent with sincerity what they saw, and the simple sincerity of painters who preceded Raphael led them to choose a name which Ruskin called unfortunate, "because the principles on which its members are working are neither pre- nor post-Raphaelite, but everlasting. They are endeavoring to paint with the highest possible degree of completion what they see in nature, without reference to conventional established rules; but by no means to imitate the style of any past epoch. To paint Nature--Nature as it was around them, by the help of modern science, was the aim of the Brotherhood." At the time when the Pre-raphaelite School came into being the art of other lands as well as that of England was in need of an awakening impulse, and the Pre-raphaelite revolt against conventionality and the machine-like art of the period roused such interest, criticism, and opposition as to stimulate English art to new effort, and much of its progress in the last half-century is doubtless due to the discussions of the theories of this movement as well as of the works it produced. Pre-raphaelitism, scorned and ridiculed in its beginning, came to be appreciated in a degree that at first seemed impossible, and though its apostles were few, its influence was important. The words of Burne Jones, in which he gave his own ideal, appeal to many artists and lovers of art: "I mean by a picture a beautiful, romantic dream of something that never was, never will be--in a light better than any light that ever shone--in a land no one can define or remember, only desire--and the forms divinely beautiful." Rossetti's "Girlhood of Virgin Mary," Holman Hunt's "Light of the World," and Millais' "Christ in the House of His Parents" have been called the Trilogy of Pre-raphaelite Art. Millais did not long remain a strict disciple of this school, but soon adopted the fuller freedom of his later work, which may be called that of modern naturalism. Rossetti remained a Pre-raphaelite through his short life, but his works could not be other than individual, and their distinct personality almost forbade his being considered a disciple of any school. Holman Hunt may be called the one persistent follower of this cult. He has consistently embodied his convictions in his pictures, the value of which to English art cannot yet be determined. This is also true of the marvellous work of Burne Jones; but although they have but few faithful followers, Pre-raphaelite art no longer needs defence nor apology. Its secondary effect is far-reaching. To it may be largely attributed the more earnest study of Nature as well as the simplicity of treatment and lack of conventionality which now characterizes English art to an extent before unknown. * * * * * Impressionism is the most distinctive feature of nineteenth-century art, and is too large a subject to be treated in an introduction--any proper consideration of it demands a volume. The entire execution of a picture out-of-doors was sometimes practised by Constable, more frequently by Turner, and some of the peculiarities of the French impressionist artists were shared by the English landscape painters of the early part of the century. While no one could dream of calling Constable an impressionist, it is interesting to recall the reception of his "Opening of Waterloo Bridge." Ridiculed in London, it was accepted in Paris, and is now honored at the Royal Academy. This picture was covered with pure white, in impasto, a method dear to impressionists. Was Constable in advance of his critics? is a question that comes involuntarily to mind as we read the life of this artist, and recall the excitement which the exhibition of his works caused at the Salon of 1824, and the interest they aroused in Delacroix and other French painters. The word Impressionism calls to mind the names of Manet, Monet, Pissaro, Mme. Berthe Morisot, Paul Cézanne, Whistler, Sargent, Hassam, and many others. Impressionists exhibited their pictures in Paris as early as 1874; not until 1878 were they seen to advantage in London, when Whistler exhibited in the Grosvenor Gallery; and the New English Art Club, founded in 1885, was the outcome of the need of this school to be better represented in its special exhibitions than was possible in other galleries. In a comprehensive sense Impressionism includes all artists who represent their subjects with breadth and collectiveness rather than in detail--in the way in which we see a view at the first glance, before we have time to apprehend its minor parts. The advocates of impressionism now claim that it is the most reformatory movement in modern painting; it is undeniably in full accord with the spirit of the time in putting aside older methods and conventions and introducing a new manner of seeing and representing Nature. The differing phases of Painting in the nineteenth century have had their effect upon that art as a whole. Each one has been important, not only in the country of its special development, but in other lands, each distinctive quality being modified by individual and national characteristics. * * * * * In the early decades of the past century Sculpture was "classic" and conventional rather than natural and sincere. A revolt against these conditions produced such artists as Rodin, St. Gaudens, MacMonnies, and many less famous men who have put life, spirit, and nature into their art. In Sculpture as in Painting many more subjects are treated than were formerly thought suited to representation in marble and bronze, and a large proportion of these recent _motifs_ demand a broad method of treatment--a manner often called "unfinished" by those who approve only the smooth polish of an antique Venus, and would limit sculpture to the narrow class of subjects with which this smoothness harmonizes. The best sculptors of the present treat the minor details of their subjects in a sketchy, or, as some critics contend, in a rough imperfect manner, while others find that this treatment of detail, combined with a careful, comprehensive treatment of the important parts, emphasizes the meaning and imparts strength to the whole, as no smoothness can do. Although the highest possibilities in sculpture may not yet be reached, it is animated with new spirit of life and nature. Nineteenth-century aims and modes of expression have greatly enlarged its province. Like Painting, Sculpture has become democratic. It glorifies Labor and all that is comprised in the term "common, every-day life," while it also commemorates noble and useful deeds with genuine sympathy and an intelligent appreciation of the best to which humanity attains; at the same time poetical fancies, myths, and legends are not neglected, but are rendered with all possible delicacy and tenderness. At present a great number of women are sculptors. The important commissions which are given them in connection with the great expositions of the time--the execution of memorial statues and monuments, fountains, and various other works which is confided to them, testifies to their excellence in their art with an emphasis beyond that of words. * * * * * Want of space forbids any special mention of etching, metal work, enamelling, designing, and decorative work in many directions in which women in great numbers are engaged; indeed, in what direction can we look in which women are not employed--I believe I may say by thousands--in all the minor arts? Between the multitude that pursue the Fine Arts and kindred branches for a maintenance--and are rarely heard of--and those fortunate ones who are commissioned to execute important works, there is an enormous middle class. Paris is their Mecca, but they are known in all art centres, and it is by no means unusual for an artist to study under Dutch, German, and Italian masters, as well as French. The present method of study in Paris--in such academies as that of Julian and the Colarossi--secures to the student the criticism and advice of the best artists of the day, while in summer--in the country and by the sea--there are artistic colonies in which students lead a delightful life, still profiting by the instruction of eminent masters. Year by year the opportunities for art-study by women have been increased until they are welcome in the schools of the world, with rare exceptions. The highest goal seems to have been reached by their admission to the competition for the _Grand prix de Rome_ conferred by _l'École des Beaux Arts_. I regret that the advantages of the American Art Academy in Rome are not open to women. The fact that for centuries women have been members and professors in the Academy of St. Luke, and in view of the recent action of _l'École des Beaux Arts_, this narrowness of the American Academy in the Eternal City is especially pronounced. One can but approve the encouragement afforded women artists in France, by the generosity with which their excellence is recognized. To be an officer in the French Academy is an honor surpassed in France by that of the Legion of Honor only. Within a twelvemonth two hundred and seventy-five women have been thus distinguished, twenty-eight of them being painters and designers. From this famous Academy down, through the International Expositions, the Salons, and the numberless exhibitions in various countries, a large proportion of medals and other honors are conferred on women, who, having now been accorded all privileges necessary for the pursuit of art and for its recompense, will surely prove that they richly merit every good that can be shared with them. <b>AARESTRUP, MARIE HELENE.</b> Born at Flekkefjord, Norway, 1829. She made her studies in Bergen, under Reusch; under Tessier in Paris; and Vautier in Düsseldorf. She excelled in genre and portrait painting. Her "Playing Child" and "Shepherd Boy" are in the Art Union in Christiania; the "Interior of Hotel Cluny" and a "Flower Girl" are in the Museum at Gottenburg. <b>ABBATT, AGNES DEAN.</b> Bronze medal, Cooper Union; silver medal, Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association. Member of American Water Color Society. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>ABBEMA, MME. LOUISE.</b> Officer of the Mérite des Arts; honorable mention, Salon of 1881; bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; Hors Concours, 1903, at Exposition of Limoges. Born at Étampes, 1858. Pupil of Chaplin, Henner, and Carolus-Duran. She exhibited a "Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt," 1876; "The Seasons," 1883; "Portrait of M. Abbema," 1887; "Among the Flowers," 1893; "An April Morning," 1894; "Winter," 1895, etc. This artist has also executed numerous decorations for ceilings and decorative panels for private houses. Her picture of "Breakfast in the Conservatory" is in the Museum of Pau. Mme. Abbema illustrated "La Mer," by Maizeroy, and has contributed to the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_ and several other Parisian publications. At the Salon of the Artistes Français, 1902, she exhibited the "Portrait of Pierre," and in 1903 a portrait of the Countess P. S. Mme. Abbema wears her hair short, and affects such absolute simplicity in her costume that at first sight she reminds one of a charming young man. In no other direction, however, is there a masculine touch about this delightful artist. She has feminine grace, a love for poetry, a passion for flowers, which she often introduces in her pictures; she has, in short, a truly womanly character, which appears in the refinement and attractiveness of her work. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>ABBOTT, KATHERINE G.</b> Bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; honorable mention, Buffalo Exposition, 1901. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>ACHILLE-FOULD, MLLE. GEORGES.</b> Medal, third class, Versailles, 1888; honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1894; medal, third class, 1895; medal, second class, 1897; Hors Concours; bronze medal at Paris Exposition, 1900. Officer of Public Instruction; member of the Société des Artistes Français. Born at Asnières (Seine). Pupil of Cabanel, Antoine Vollon, and Léon Comerre. A painter of figure subjects and portraits. Several of her works are in private collections in the United States. Among these are the "Flower-Seller," the "Knife-Grinder," "M. de Richelieu's Love Knots," exhibited in the Salon of 1902, and "Going to School." "The Dull Season" is in London; "Cinderella" and many others in Paris. This artist, when still in short skirts, sent her first picture, "In the Market Place," to the Salon of 1884. She is most industrious, and her history, as she herself insists, is in her pictures. She has been surrounded by a sympathetic and artistic atmosphere. Her mother was an art critic, who, before her second marriage to Prince Stirberg, signed her articles Gustave Haller. Her home, the Château de Bécon, is an ideal home for an artist, and one can well understand her distaste for realism and the professional model. "M. de Richelieu's Love Knots" is very attractive and was one of the successes of 1902. He is a fine gentleman to whom a bevy of young girls is devoted, tying his ribbons, and evidently admiring him and his exquisite costume. The girls are smiling and much amused, while the young man has an air of immense satisfaction. At the Salon of 1903 Mlle. Fould exhibited "La Chatouilleuse"--Tickling--and "Nasturtiums." The first shows a young woman seated, wearing a décolleté gown, while a mischievous companion steals up behind and tickles her neck with a twig. It is less attractive than many of this artist's pictures. In 1890 Mlle. Fould painted a portrait of her stepfather, and for a time devoted herself to portraits rather than to the subjects she had before studied with such success. In 1893 she painted a portrait of Rosa Bonheur, in her studio, while the latter paused from her work on a large picture of lions. This portrait presents the great animal painter in a calm, thoughtful mood, in the midst of her studio, surrounded by sketches and all the accessories of her work. In the opinion of many who knew the great artist most intimately this is the best portrait of her in existence. Mlle. Fould, at different periods, has painted legendary subjects, at other times religious pictures, but in my judgment the last were the least successful of her works. Her "Cinderella" is delightful; the two "Merry Wives of Windsor," sitting on the basket in which Falstaff is hidden, and from which he is pushing out a hand, is an excellent illustration of this ever-amusing story, and, indeed, all her pictures of this class may well be praised. To the Exposition of 1900 she sent an allegorical picture, called "The Gold Mine." A young woman in gold drapery drops gold coins from her hands. In the background is the entrance to a mine, lighted dimly by a miner's lamp, while a pickaxe lies at the feet of the woman; this picture was accorded a bronze medal. <b>ADAM, MME. NANNY.</b> First prize from the Union of Women Painters and Sculptors, Paris. Medal from the Salon des Artistes Français, and "honors in many other cities." Member of the Société des Artistes Français. Born at Crest (Drôme). Her studies were made under Jean Paul Laurens. Her pictures called "Calme du Soir" and "Le Soir aux Martignes" are in private collections. "Les Remparts de la Ville Close, Concarneau," exhibited at the Salon Artistes Français in 1902, was purchased by the French Government. In 1903 she exhibited "June Twilight, Venice," and "Morning Fog, Holland." <b>ADELSPARRE, SOPHIE ALBERTINE.</b> Born in Oland 1808-62. In Stockholm she received instruction from the sculptor Ovarnström and the painter Ekman; after her father's death she went to Paris and entered the atelier of Cogniet, and later did some work under the direction of her countrymen Wickenberg and Wahlbom. She had, at this time, already made herself known through her copies of some of the Italian masters and Murillo. Her copy of the Sistine Madonna was placed by Queen Josephine in the Catholic church at Christiania. After her return from Dresden where she went from Paris, she painted portraits of King Oscar and Queen Josephine. In 1851, having received a government scholarship, she went to Munich, Bologna, and Florence, and lived three years and a half in Rome, where she was associated with Fogelberg, Overbeck, and Schnetz, and became a Catholic. During this time she copied Raphael's "Transfiguration," now in the Catholic church at Stockholm, and painted from life a portrait of Pius IX. for the castle at Drottningholm. She also painted a "Roman Dancing Girl" and a "Beggar Girl of Terracina." <b>AHRENS, ELLEN WETHERALD.</b> Second Toppan prize, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Second prize and silver medal, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, 1902. Member of the Pennsylvania Academy, the Plastic Club, and the Pennsylvania Society of Miniature Painters. Born in Baltimore. Studied at Boston Museum of Fine Arts under Grundmann, Champney, and Stone; Pennsylvania Academy under Thomas Eakins; Drexel Institute under Howard Pyle. Many of her portraits are in private hands. That called "Sewing," a prize picture, will be in the St. Louis Exhibition. Her portrait of Mr. Ellwood Johnson is in the Pennsylvania Academy. That of Mary Ballard--a miniature--was solicited for exhibition by the Copley Society, Boston. Miss Ahrens is also favorably known as a designer for stained-glass windows. <b>ALCOTT, MAY--MME. NIERIKER.</b> Born in Concord, Massachusetts, 1840-79. A sister of the well-known author, Louisa M. Alcott. This artist studied in the Boston School of Design, in Krug's Studio, Paris, and under Müller. She made wonderful copies of Turner's pictures, both in oil and water colors, which were greatly praised by Ruskin and were used in the South Kensington Art Schools for the pupils to copy. Her still-life and flower pictures are in private collections and much valued. She exhibited at the Paris Salon and in the Dudley Gallery, London, and, student as she still was, her works were approved by art critics on both sides of the Atlantic, and a brilliant future as an artist was foretold for her. Her married life was short, and her death sincerely mourned by a large circle of friends, as well as by the members of her profession who appreciated her artistic genius and her enthusiasm for her work. <b>ALEXANDER, FRANCESCA.</b> Born in Florence, Italy. Daughter of the portrait painter, Francis Alexander. Her pen-and-ink drawing is her best work. The exquisite conceits in her illustrations were charmingly rendered by the delicacy of her work. She thus illustrated an unpublished Italian legend, writing the text also. Mr. Ruskin edited her "Story of Ida" and brought out "Roadside Songs of Tuscany," collected, translated, and illustrated by this artist. A larger collection of these songs, with illustrations, was published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., entitled "Tuscan Songs." <b>ALIPPI-FABRETTI, QUIRINA.</b> Silver medal at Perugia in 1879; honorary member of the Royal Academy in Urbino and of the Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia. Born in Urbino, 1849. She was the daughter of the jurisconsult Luigi Alippi. She studied drawing and painting in Rome with Ortis and De Sanctis. Following her father to Perugia in 1874, whither he had been called to the Court of Appeals, she continued her study under Moretti. She married Ferdinando Fabretti in 1877. She made admirable copies of some of the best pictures in Perugia, notably Perugino's "Presepio" for a church in Mount Lebanon, Syria. She was also commissioned to paint an altar-piece, representing St. Stephen, for the same church. Her interiors are admirable. She exhibited an "Interior of the Great Hall of the Exchange of Perugia" in 1884, at Turin. She painted two interior views of the church of San Giovanni del Cambio in Perugia, and an interior of the vestibule of the Confraternity of St. Francis. Her other works, besides portraits, include an "Odalisk," an "Old Woman Fortune-teller," and a "St. Catherine." <b>ALLINGHAM, HELEN.</b> Honorable mention at Paris Exhibition, 1900; silver medal from Brussels Exhibition, 1901; bronze medal from the Columbian Exhibition, Chicago. Member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colors, London. Born near Burton-on-Trent, 1848. Began the study of art at fourteen, in Birmingham School of Art, where she remained about five years, when she entered the schools of the Royal Academy, where instruction is given by the Royal Academicians in turn. In 1868 she went to Italy. Her first exhibition at the Royal Academy occurred in 1874, under the name Helen Patterson; her pictures were "Wait for Me" and "The Milkmaid." Since that time Mrs. Allingham has constantly exhibited at the Academy and many other exhibitions. Her pictures are of genre subjects, chiefly from English rural life and landscapes. She has also been successful as an illustrator for the _Graphic_, the _Cornhill Magazine_, and other publications. Her water-color portraits of Carlyle in his later years are well known. She introduced his cat "Tib" into a portrait taken in his Chelsea garden. Among her most ambitious works are the "Young Customers," the "Old Men's Garden, Chelsea Hospital," the "Lady of the Manor," "Confidences," "London Flowers," and others of kindred motives. The "Young Customers," water-color, was exhibited at Paris in 1878. When seen at the Academy in 1875, Ruskin wrote of it: "It happens curiously that the only drawing of which the memory remains with me as a possession out of the Old Water-Color Exhibition of this year--Mrs. Allingham's 'Young Customers'--should be not only by an accomplished designer of woodcuts, but itself the illustration of a popular story. The drawing with whatever temporary purpose executed, is forever lovely; a thing which I believe Gainsborough would have given one of his own paintings for--old-fashioned as red-tipped dresses are, and more precious than rubies."--_Notes of the Academy_, 1875. <b>ALMA-TADEMA, LADY LAURA THERESE.</b> Gold medal at International Art Exhibition, Berlin, 1876; medal at Chicago, 1893; second-class medal at Paris Exhibition, 1900. Born in London. From early childhood this artist was fond of drawing and had the usual drawing-class lessons at school and also drew from the antique in the British Museum. Her serious study, however, began at the age of eighteen, under the direction of Laurenz Alma-Tadema. Her pictures are principally of domestic scenes, child-life, and other genre subjects. "Battledore and Shuttlecock" is an interior, with a graceful girl playing the game, to the amusement of a young child sitting on a nurse's lap. The room is attractive, the accessories well painted, and a second girl just coming through the door and turning her eyes up to the shuttlecock is an interesting figure. Of quite a different character is the picture called "In Winter." The landscape is very attractive. In a sled, well wrapped up, is a little girl, with a doll on her lap; the older boy--brother?--who pushes the sled from behind, leaning over the child, does his part with a will, and the dignified and serious expression on the face of the little girl in the sled indicates her sense of responsibility in the care of the doll as well as a feeling of deep satisfaction in her enjoyable outing. Among the more important pictures by Lady Alma-Tadema are "Hush-a-Bye," "Parting," in the Art Gallery at Adelaide, New South Wales, "Silent Persuasion," "The Carol," and "Satisfaction." Her picture in the Academy Exhibition, 1903, a Dutch interior with a young mother nursing "The Firstborn," was much admired and was in harmony with the verse, Lie on mother's knee, my own, Dance your heels about me! Apples leave the tree, my own. Soon you'll live without me." <b>AMEN, MADAME J.</b> Honorable mention, Paris, 1901. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>ANGUISCIOLA, LUCIA.</b> A pupil of her sister Sofonisba, painted a life-size portrait of Piermaria, a physician of Cremona. It is in the gallery of the Prado, Madrid, and is signed, "Lucia Angvisola Amilcares. F. Adolescens." Lucia's portrait of her sister Europa is at Brescia. Some authorities believe that the small portrait in the Borghese Gallery is by Lucia, although it has been attributed to Sofonisba. Vasari relates that Europa and a younger sister, Anna Maria, were artists. A picture of the Holy Family, inscribed with Europa's name, was formerly in the possession of a vicar of the church of San Pietro; it was of far less merit than the works of her sisters. <b>ANGUISCIOLA, SOFONISBA.</b> Born in Cremona, about 1539. Daughter of the patrician, Amilcare Anguisciola, whose only fame rests on the fact that he was the father of six daughters, all of whom were distinguished by unusual talents in music and painting. Dear old Vasari was so charmed by his visit to their palace that he pronounced it "the very home of painting and of all other accomplishments." Sofonisba was the second daughter. The actual date of her birth is unknown, but from various other dates that we have concerning her, that given above is generally adopted. She was educated with great care and began her study of drawing and painting when but seven years old, under the care of Bernardino Campi, the best artist of the five Campi of Cremona. Later she was a pupil of Bernardino Gatti, "il Sojaro," and in turn she superintended the artistic studies of her sisters. Sofonisba excelled in portraits, and when twenty-four years old was known all over Italy as a good artist. Her extraordinary proficiency at an early age is proved by a picture in the Yarborough collection, London--a portrait of a man, signed, and dated 1551, when she was not more than twelve years old. When presented at the court of Milan, then under Spanish rule, Sofonisba was brought to the notice of Philip II., who, through his ambassador, invited her to fill the office of court painter at Madrid. Flattering as this invitation must have been to the artist and her family, it is not surprising that she hesitated and required time for consideration of this honorable proposal. The reputation of the ceremonious Spanish court, under its gloomy and exacting sovereign, was not attractive to a young woman already surrounded by devoted admirers, to one of whom she had given her heart. The separation from her family, too, and the long, fatiguing journey to Spain, were objections not easily overcome, and her final acceptance of the proposal was a proof of her energy and strength of purpose. Her journey was made in 1560 and was conducted with all possible care for her comfort. She was attended by two noble ladies as maids of honor, two chamberlains, and six servants in livery--in truth, her mode of travelling differed but little from that of the young ladies of the royal family. As she entered Madrid she was received by the king and queen, and by them conducted to the royal palace. We can imagine Sofonisba's pleasure in painting the portrait of the lovely Isabella, and her pictures of Philip and his family soon raised her to the very summit of popularity. All the grandees of Madrid desired to have their portraits from her hand, and rich jewels and large sums of money were showered upon her. Gratifying as was her artistic success, the affection of the queen, which she speedily won, was more precious to her. She was soon made a lady-in-waiting to her Majesty, and a little later was promoted to the distinguished position of governess to the Infanta Clara Eugenia. That Sofonisba fully appreciated her gentle mistress is shown in her letter to Pope Pius IV., who had requested her to send him a portrait of the queen. She wrote that no picture could worthily figure the royal lady, and added: "If it were possible to represent to your Holiness the beauty of the Queen's soul, you could behold nothing more wonderful." The Pope bestowed rich gifts on Sofonisba, among which were sacred relics, set with gems. He also wrote an autograph letter, still in existence, in which he assured her that much as he admired her skill in painting, he had been led to believe this the least of her many gifts. Sofonisba soon gained the approval of the serious and solemn King, for while Philip was jealous of the French ladies of the court and desired Isabella to be wholly under Spanish influence, he proposed to the artist a marriage with one of his nobles, by which means she would remain permanently in the Queen's household. When Philip learned that Sofonisba was already betrothed to Don Fabrizio de Monçada--a Sicilian nobleman--in spite of his disappointment he joined Isabella in giving her a dowry of twelve thousand crowns and a pension of one thousand. It would seem that one who could so soften the heart and manners of Philip II. as did Queen Isabella, must have had a charm of person and character that no ordinary mortal could resist. One is compelled to a kindly feeling for this much-hated man, who daily visited the Queen when she was suffering from smallpox. In her many illnesses he was tenderly devoted to her, and when we remember the miseries of royal ladies whose children are girls, we almost love Philip for comforting Isabella when her first baby was not a son. Philip declared himself better pleased that she had given him a daughter, and made the declaration good by devotion to this child so long as he lived. Isabella, in a letter to her mother, wrote: "But for the happiness I have of seeing the King every day I should find this court the dullest in the world. I assure you, however, madame, that I have so kind a husband that even did I deem this place a hundredfold more wearisome I should not complain." While Sofonisba was overwhelmed with commissions in Spain, her sisters were far from idle in Cremona. Europa sent pictures to Madrid which were purchased for private collections, and a picture by Lucia is now in the Gallery of the Queen at Madrid. When the time for Sofonisba's marriage came she was sorry to leave her "second home," as she called Madrid, and as Don Fabrizio lived but a short time, the King urged her return to Spain; but her desire to be once more with her family impelled her to return to Italy. The ship on which she sailed from Sicily was commanded by one of the Lomellini, a noble family of Genoa, with whom Sofonisba fell so desperately in love that she offered him her hand--which, says her biographer, "he accepted like a generous man." Does this mean that she had been ungenerous in depriving him of the privilege of asking for what she so freely bestowed? In Genoa she devotedly pursued her art and won new honors, while she was not forgotten in Madrid. Presents were sent her on her second marriage, and later the Infanta Clara Eugenia and other Spaniards of exalted rank visited her in Genoa. Her palace became a centre of attraction to Genoese artists and men of letters, while many strangers of note sought her acquaintance. She contributed largely to the restoration of art and literature to the importance that had been accorded them in the most brilliant days of Genoese power. We have not space to recount all the honors conferred on Sofonisba, both as a woman and an artist. She lived to an extreme old age, and, although she lost her sight, her intellect was undimmed by time or blindness. Vandyck, who was frequently her guest, more than once declared that he "was more benefited by the counsels of the blind Sofonisba than by all his studies of the masters of his art!" From a pupil of Rubens this was praise indeed! The chief characteristics of Sofonisba's painting were grace and spirit. Her portrait of herself when at her best is in possession of the Lomellini. A second is the splendid picture at Althorpe, in which she is represented as playing the harpsichord. One can scarcely imagine a place in which a portrait would be more severely tested than in the gallery of the Earl of Spencer, beside portraits of lovely women and famous men, painted by master artists. Yet this work of Sofonisba's is praised by discerning critics and connoisseurs. Of the other portraits of herself, that in the Uffizi is signed by her as "of Cremona," which suggests that it was painted before she went to Spain. That in the Vienna Gallery is dated 1551, and inscribed Sophonisba Anguissola. Virgo. Sc. Ipsam Fecit. Still another, in which a man stands beside her, is in the Sienna Gallery. He holds a brush in his hand, and is probably one of her masters. Her portrait of her sisters playing chess, while an old duenna looks on, was in the collection of Lucien Bonaparte and is said to be now in a private gallery in England. Her religious pictures are rare; a "Marriage of St. Catherine" is in the gallery at Wilton House. She painted several pictures of three of her sisters on one canvas; one is in the National Museum of Berlin, and a second, formerly in the Leuchtenberg Gallery, is in the Hermitage at Petersburg. A small Holy Family, signed and dated 1559, belonged to the art critic and author, Morelli. One regrets that so remarkable a woman left no record of her unusual experiences. How valuable would be the story of Don Carlos from so disinterested a person. How interesting had she told us of the _bal masqué_, given by Isabella in the fashion of her own country, when Philip condescended to open the ball with the Queen; or of the sylvan fêtes at Aranjuez, and of the gardens made under the direction of Isabella. Of all this she has told us nothing. We glean the story of her life from the works of various authors, while her fame rests securely on her superiority in the art to which she was devoted. <b>ANCHER, ANNA KRISTINE.</b> Genre painter, won high praise at Berlin in 1900 for two pictures: "Tischgebet," which was masterly in its smoothness and depth of expression, and "Eine blinde Frau in ihrer Stube," in which the full sunlight streaming through the open window produced an affecting contrast. She was born at Skagen, 1859, the daughter of Erik Brondum, and early showed her artistic tendencies. Michael Ancher (whom she married in 1880) noticed and encouraged her talent, which was first displayed in small crayons treating pathetic or humorous subjects. From 1875-78 she studied with Khyn, and later more or less under the direction of her husband. She has painted exclusively small pictures, dealing with simple and natural things, and each picture, as a rule, contains but a single figure. She believes that a dilapidated Skagen hovel may meet every demand of beauty. "Maageplukkerne"--"Gull plucking"--exhibited in 1883, has been called one of the most sympathetic and unaffected pieces of genre painting ever produced by a Danish artist. An "Old Woman of Skagen," "A Mother and Child," and "Coffee is Ready" were among the most attractive of her pictures of homely, familiar Danish life. The last represents an old fisher, who has fallen asleep on the bench by the stove, and a young woman is waking him with the above announcement. "A Funeral Scene" is in the Copenhagen Gallery. The coffin is hung with green wreaths; the walls of the room are red; the people stand around with a serious air. The whole story is told in a simple, homely way. In the "History of Modern Painters" we read: "All her pictures are softly tender and full of fresh light. But the execution is downright and virile. It is only in little touches, in fine and delicate traits of observation which would probably have escaped a man, that these paintings are recognized as the work of a feminine artist." <b>ANTIGNA, MME. HÉLÈNE MARIE.</b> Born at Melun. Pupil of her husband, Jean Pierre Antigna, and of Delacroix. Her best works are small genre subjects, which are excellent and much admired by other artists. In 1877 she exhibited at the Paris Salon "On n'entre pas!" and the "New Cider"; in 1876, an "Interior at Saint Brieuc" and "A Stable"; in 1875, "Tant va la cruche à l'eau," etc. <b>APPIA, MME. THÉRÈSE.</b> Member of the Society of the Permanente Exposition of the Athénée, Geneva. Born at Lausanne. Pupil of Mercié and Rodin at Paris. Mme. Appia, before her marriage, exhibited at the Paris Salon several years continuously. Since then she has exhibited at Turin and Geneva. She has executed many portrait busts; among them are those of M. Guillaume Monod, Paris, Commander Paul Meiller, and a medallion portrait of Père Hyacinthe, etc. <b>ARGYLL, HER ROYAL HIGHNESS, THE PRINCESS LOUISE, DUCHESS OF.</b> This artist has exhibited her work since, 1868. Although her sketches in water-color are clever and attractive, it is as a sculptor that her best work has been done. Pupil of Sir J. E. Boehne, R.A., her unusual natural talent was carefully developed under his advice, and her unflagging industry and devotion to her work have enabled her to rival sculptors who live by their art. Her busts and lesser subjects are refined and delicate, while possessing a certain individuality which this lady is known to exercise in her direction of the assistant she is forced to employ. Her chief attainment, the large seated figure of Queen Victoria in Kensington Gardens, is a work of which she may well be proud. Of this statue Mr. M. H. Spielmann writes: "The setting up of the figure, the arrangement of the drapery, the modelling, the design of the pedestal--all the parts, in fact--are such that the statue must be added to the short list of those which are genuine embellishments to the city of London." The Duchess of Argyll has been commissioned to design a statue of heroic size, to be executed in bronze and placed in Westminster Abbey, to commemorate the colonial troops who gave up their lives in South Africa in the Boer war. <b>ARNOLD, ANNIE R. MERRYLEES.</b> Born at Birkenhead. A Scotch miniature painter. Studied in Edinburgh, first in the School of Art, under Mr. Hodder, and later in the life class of Robert Macgregor; afterward in Paris under Benjamin-Constant. Mrs. Arnold writes me that she thinks it important for miniature painters to do work in a more realistic medium occasionally, and something of a bolder character than can be done in their specialty. She never studied miniature painting, but took it up at the request of a patroness who, before the present fashion for this art had come about, complained that she could find no one who painted miniatures. This lady gave the artist a number of the _Girls' Own Journal,_ containing directions for miniature painting, after which Mrs. Arnold began to work in this specialty. She has painted a miniature of Lady Evelyn Cavendish, owned by the Marquis of Lansdowne; others of the Earl and Countess of Mar and Kellie, the first of which belongs to the Royal Scottish Academy; one of Lady Helen Vincent, one of the daughter of Lionel Phillips, Esquire, and several for prominent families in Baltimore and Washington. Her work is seen in the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, London. In 1903 she exhibited miniatures of Miss M. L. Fenton, the late Mrs. Cameron Corbett, and the Hon. Thomas Erskine, younger son of the Earl of Mar and Kellie. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>ASSCHE, AMÉLIE VAN.</b> Portrait painter and court painter to Queen Louise Marie of Belgium. She was born in 1804, and was the daughter of Henri Jean van Assche. Her first teachers were Mlle. F. Lagarenine and D' Antissier; she later went to Paris, where she spent some time as a pupil of Millet. She made her début at Ghent in 1820, and in Brussels in 1821, with water-colors and pastels, and some of her miniatures figured in the various exhibitions at Brussels between 1830 and 1848, and in Ghent between 1835 and 1838. Her portraits, which are thought to be very good likenesses, are also admirable in color, drawing, and modelling; and her portrait of Leopold I., which she painted in 1839, won for her the appointment at court. <b>ASSCHE, ISABEL CATHERINE VAN.</b> She was born at Brussels, 1794. Landscape painter. She took a first prize at Ghent in 1829, and became a pupil of her uncle, Henri van Assche, who was often called the painter of waterfalls. As early as 1812 and 1813 two of her water-colors were displayed in Ghent and Brussels respectively, and she was represented in the exhibitions at Ghent in 1826, 1829, and 1835; at Brussels in 1827 and 1842; at Antwerp in 1834, 1837, and 1840; and at Lüttich in 1836. Her subjects were all taken from the neighborhood of Brussels, and one of them belongs to the royal collection in the Pavilion at Haarlem. In 1828 she married Charles Léon Kindt. <b>ATHES-PERRELET, LOUISE.</b> First prize and honorable mention, class Gillet and Hébert, 1888; class Bovy, first prize, 1889; Academy class, special mention, 1890; School of Arts, special mention, hors concours, 1891; also, same year, first prize for sculpture, offered by the Society of Arts; first prize offered by the Secretary of the Theatre, 1902. Member of the Union des Femmes and Cercle Artistique. Born at Neuchâtel. Studies made at Geneva under Mme. Carteret and Mme. Gillet and Professors Hébert and B. Penn, in drawing and painting; M. Bovy, in sculpture; and of various masters in decorative work and engraving. Has executed statues, busts, medallion portraits; has painted costumes, according to an invention of her own, for the Theatre of Geneva, and has also made tapestries in New York. All her works have been commended in the journals of Geneva and New York. <b>AUSTEN, WINIFRED.</b> Member of Society of Women Artists, London. Born at Ramsgate. Pupil of Mrs. Jopling-Rowe and Mr. C. E. Swan. Miss Austen exhibits in the Royal Academy exhibitions; her works are well hung--one on the line. Her favorite subjects are wild animals, and she is successful in the illustration of books. Her pictures are in private collections. At the Royal Academy in 1903 she exhibited "The Day of Reckoning," a wolf pursued by hunters through a forest in snow. A second shows a snow scene, with a wolf baying, while two others are apparently listening to him. "While the wolf, in nightly prowl, bays the moon with hideous howl," is the legend with the picture. <b>AUZON, PAULINE.</b> Born in Paris, where she died. 1775-1835. She was a pupil of Regnault and excelled in portraits of women. She exhibited in the Paris Salon from 1793, when but eighteen years old. Her pictures of the "Arrival of Marie Louise in Compiègne" and "Marie Louise Taking Leave of her Family" are in the Versailles Gallery. <b>BABIANO Y MENDEZ NUÑEZ, CARMEN.</b> At the Santiago Exposition, 1875, this artist exhibited two oil paintings and two landscapes in crayon; at Coruña, 1878, a portrait in oil of the Marquis de Mendez Nuñez; at Pontevedra, 1880, several pen and water-color studies, three life-size portraits in crayon, and a work in oil, "A Girl Feeding Chickens." <b>BAILY, CAROLINE A. B.</b> Gold medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; third-class medal, Salon, 1901. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>BAKER, ELIZABETH GOWDY.</b> Medal at Cooper Union. Member of Boston Art Students' Association and Art Workers' Club for Women, New York. Born at Xenia, Ohio. Pupil of the Cooper Union, Art Students' League, New York School of Art, Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, Cowles Art School, Boston; under Frederick Freer, William Chase, and Siddons Mowbray. This artist has painted numerous portraits and has been especially successful with pictures of children. She has a method of her own of which she has recently written me. [Illustration: A PORTRAIT ELIZABETH GOWDY BAKER] She claims that it is excellent for life-size portraits in water-colors. The paper she uses is heavier than any made in this country, and must be imported; the water-colors are very strong. Mrs. Baker claims that in this method she gets "the strength of oils with the daintiness of water-colors, and that it is _beautiful_ for women and children, and sufficiently strong for portraits of men." She rarely exhibits, and her portraits are in private houses. <b>BAKHUYZEN, JUFFROUW GERARDINA JACOBA VAN DE SANDE.</b> Silver medal at The Hague, 1857; honorary medal at Amsterdam, 1861; another at The Hague, 1863; and a medal of distinction at Amsterdam Colonial Exhibition, 1885. Daughter of the well-known animal painter. From childhood she painted flowers, and for a time this made no especial impression on her family or friends, as it was not an uncommon occupation for girls. At length her father saw that this daughter, Gerardina--for he had numerous daughters, and they all desired to be artists--had talent, and when, in 1850, the Minerva Academy at Groningen gave out "Roses and Dahlias" as a subject, and offered a prize of a little more than ten dollars for the best example, he encouraged Gerardina to enter the contest. She received the contemptible reward, and found, to her astonishment, that the Minerva Academy considered the picture as belonging to them. However, this affair brought the name of the artist to the knowledge of the public, and she determined to devote herself to the painting of flowers and fruit, in which she has won unusual fame. There is no sameness in her pictures, and her subjects do not appear to be "arranged"--everything seems to have fallen into its place by chance and to be entirely natural. Gerardina Jacoba and her brother Julius van de Sande Bakhuyzen, the landscape painter, share one studio. She paints with rapidity, as one must in order to picture the freshness of fast-fading flowers. Johan Gram writes of her: "If she paints a basket of peaches or plums, they look as if just picked by the gardener and placed upon the table, without any thought of studied effect; some leaves covering the fruit, others falling out of the basket in the most natural way. If she paints the branch of a rose-tree, it seems to spring from the ground with its flowers in all their luxurious wantonness, and one can almost imagine one's self inhaling their delightful perfume. This talented artist knows so well how to depict with her brush the transparency and softness of the tender, ethereal rose, that one may seek in vain among a crowd of artists for her equal.... The paintings are all bright and sunny, and we are filled with enthusiasm when gazing at her powerful works." This artist was born in 1826 and died in 1895. She lived and died in her family residence. In 1850, at Groningen, she took for her motto, "Be true to nature and you will produce that which is good." To this she remained faithful all her days. <b>BALDWIN, EDITH ELLA.</b> Born at Worcester, Massachusetts. Studied in Paris at Julian Academy, under Bouguereau and Robert-Fleury; at the Colarossi studios under Courtois, also under Julius Rolshoven and Mosler. Paints portraits and miniatures. At the Salon of the Champ de Mars she exhibited a portrait in pastel, in 1901; at exhibitions of the Society of American Artists in 1898 and 1899 she exhibited miniatures; also pictures in oils at Worcester, 1903. <b>BALL, CAROLINE PEDDLE.</b> Honorable mention at Paris Exhibition, 1900. Member of the Guild of Arts and Crafts and of Art Students' League. Born at Terre Haute, Indiana. Pupil at the Art Students' League, under Augustus St. Gaudens and Kenyon Cox. This sculptor exhibited at Paris a Bronze Clock. She designed for the Tiffany Glass Company the figure of the Young Virgin and that of the Christ of the Sacred Heart. A memorial fountain at Flushing, Long Island, a medallion portrait of Miss Cox of Terre Haute, a monument to a child in the same city, a Victory in a quadriga, seen on the United States Building, Paris, 1900, and also at the Buffalo Exhibition, 1901, are among her important works. <b>BAÑUELOS, ANTONIA.</b> At the Paris Exposition of 1878 several portraits by this artist attracted attention, one of them being a portrait of herself. At the Exposition of 1880 she exhibited "A Guitar Player." <b>BARRANTES MANUEL DE ARAGON, MARIA DEL CÁRMEN.</b> Member of the Academy of San Fernando, Madrid, 1816. This institution possesses a drawing by her of the "Virgin with the Christ-Child" and a portrait in oil of a person of the epoch of Charles III. <b>BASHKIRTSEFF, MARIE.</b> Born in Russia of a noble family. 1860-84. This remarkable young woman is interesting in various phases of her life, but here it is as an artist that she is to be considered. Her journal, she tells us, is absolutely truthful, and it is but courteous to take the story of her artistic career from that. She had lessons in drawing, as many children do, but she gives no indication of a special love for art until she visits Florence when fourteen years old, and her love of pictures and statues is awakened. She spent hours in galleries, never sitting down, without fatigue, in spite of her delicacy. She says: "That is because the things one loves do not tire one. So long as there are pictures and, better still, statues to be seen, I am made of iron." After questioning whether she dare say it, she confides to her readers: "I don't like the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael. The countenance of the Virgin is pale, the color is not natural, the expression is that of a waiting-maid rather than of a Madonna. Ah, but there is a Magdalen of Titian that enchanted me. Only--there must always be an only--her wrists are too thick and her hands are too plump--beautiful hands they would be on a woman of fifty. There are things of Rubens and Vandyck that are ravishing. The 'Mensonge' of Salvator Rosa is very natural. I do not speak as a connoisseur; what most resembles nature pleases me most. Is it not the aim of painting to copy nature? I like very much the full, fresh countenance of the wife of Paul Veronese, painted by him. I like the style of his faces. I adore Titian and Vandyck; but that poor Raphael! Provided only no one knows what I write; people would take me for a fool; I do not criticise Raphael; I do not understand him; in time I shall no doubt learn to appreciate his beauties. The portrait of Pope Leo X.--I think it is--is admirable, however." A surprising critique for a girl of her age! When seventeen she made her first picture of any importance. "While they were playing cards last night I made a rough sketch of the players--and this morning I transferred the sketch to canvas. I am delighted to have made a picture of persons sitting down in different attitudes; I copied the position of the hands and arms, the expressions of the countenance, etc. I had never before done anything but heads, which I was satisfied to scatter over the canvas like flowers." Her enthusiasm for her art constantly increased. She was not willing to acknowledge her semi-invalidism and was filled with the desire to do something in art that would live after her. She was opposed by her family, who wished her to be in fashionable society. At length she had her way, and when not quite eighteen began to study regularly at the Julian Academy. She worked eight and nine hours a day. Julian encouraged her, she rejoiced in being with "real artists who have exhibited in the Salon and whose pictures are bought," and declared herself "happy, happy!" Before long M. Julian told her that she might become a great artist, and the first time that Robert-Fleury saw her work and learned how little she had studied, and that she had never before drawn from a living model, he said: "Well, then, you have extraordinary talent for painting; you are specially gifted, and I advise you to work hard." Her masters always assured her of her talent, but she was much of the time depressed. She admired the work of Mlle. Breslau and acknowledged herself jealous of the Swiss artist. But after a year of study she took the second prize in the Academy, and admitted that she ought to be content. Robert-Fleury took much interest in her work, and she began to hope to equal Breslau; but she was as often despondent as she was happy, which no doubt was due to her health, for she was already stricken with the malady from which she died. Julian wondered why, with her talent, it was so difficult for her to paint; to herself she seemed paralyzed. In the autumn of 1879 she took a studio, and, besides her painting, she essayed modelling. In 1880 her portrait of her sister was exhibited at the Salon, and her mother and other friends were gratified by its acceptance. At one time Mlle. Bashkirtseff had suffered with her eyes, and, getting better of that, she had an attack of deafness. For these reasons she went, in the summer of 1880, to Mont-Dore for treatment, and was much benefited in regard to her deafness, though not cured, and now the condition of her lungs was recognized, and what she had realized for some time was told to her family. She suffered greatly from the restrictions of her condition. She could not read very much, as her eyes were not strong enough to read and paint; she avoided people because of her deafness; her cough was very tiresome and her breathing difficult. At the Salon of 1881 her picture was well hung and was praised by artists. In the autumn of that year she was very ill, but happily, about the beginning of 1882, she was much better and again enthusiastic about her painting. She had been in Spain and excited admiration in Madrid by the excellence of her copy of "Vulcan," by Velasquez. January 15th she wrote: "I am wrapped up in my art. I think I caught the sacred fire in Spain at the same time that I caught the pleurisy. From being a student I now begin to be an artist. This sudden influx of power puts me beside myself with joy. I sketch future pictures; I dream of painting an Ophelia. Potain has promised to take me to Saint-Anne to study faces of the mad women there, and then I am full of the idea of painting an old man, an Arab, sitting down singing to the accompaniment of a kind of guitar; and I am thinking also of a large affair for the coming Salon--a view of the Carnival; but for this it would be necessary that I should go to Nice--to Naples first for the Carnival, and then to Nice, where I have my villa, to paint it in open air." She now met Bastien-Lepage, who, while he was somewhat severe in his criticism of her work, told her seriously that she was "marvellously gifted." This gave her great pleasure, and, indeed, just at this time the whole tone of the journal and her art enthusiasm are most comforting after the preceding despairing months. From this time until her death her journal is largely occupied with her health, which constantly failed, but her interest in art and her intense desire to do something worthy of a great artist--something that Julian, Robert-Fleury, and, above all, Bastien-Lepage, could praise, seemed to give her strength, and, in spite of the steady advance of the fell tuberculosis from which she was dying, she worked devotedly. She had a fine studio in a new home of the family, and was seized with an ardent desire to try sculpture--she did a little in this art--but that which proved to be her last and best work was her contribution to the Salon of 1884. This brought her to the notice of the public, and she had great pleasure, although mingled with the conviction of her coming death and the doubts of her ability to do more. Of this time she writes: "Am I satisfied? It is easy to answer that question; I am neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. My success is just enough to keep me from being unhappy. That is all." Again: "I have just returned from the Salon. We remained a long time seated on a bench before the picture. It attracted a good deal of attention, and I smiled to myself at the thought that no one would ever imagine the elegantly dressed young girl seated before it, showing the tips of her little boots, to be the artist. Ah, all this is a great deal better than last year! Have I achieved a success, in the true, serious meaning of the word? I almost think so." The picture was called the "Meeting," and shows seven gamins talking together before a wooden fence at the corner of a street. François Coppée wrote of it: "It is a _chef d'oeuvre_, I maintain. The faces and the attitudes of the children are strikingly real. The glimpse of meagre landscape expresses the sadness of the poorer neighborhoods." Previous to this time, her picture of two boys, called "Jean and Jacques," had been reproduced in the Russian _Illustration_, and she now received many requests for permission to photograph and reproduce her "Meeting," and connoisseurs made requests to be admitted to her studio. All this gratified her while it also surprised. She was at work on a picture called "Spring," for which she went to Sèvres, to paint in the open. Naturally she hoped for a Salon medal, and her friends encouraged her wish--but alas! she was cruelly disappointed. Many thought her unfairly treated, but it was remembered that the year before she had publicly spoken of the committee as "idiots"! People now wished to buy her pictures and in many ways she realized that she was successful. How pathetic her written words: "I have spent six years, working ten hours a day, to gain what? The knowledge of all I have yet to learn in my art, and a fatal disease!" It is probable that the "Meeting" received no medal because it was suspected that Mlle. Bashkirtseff had been aided in her work. No one could tell who had originated this idea, but as some medals had been given to women who did not paint their pictures alone, the committee were timid, although there seems to have been no question as to superiority. A friendship had grown up between the families Bashkirtseff and Bastien-Lepage. Both the great artist and the dying girl were very ill, but for some time she and her mother visited him every two or three days. He seemed almost to live on these visits and complained if they were omitted. At last, ill as Bastien-Lepage was, he was the better able of the two to make a visit. On October 16th she writes of his being brought to her and made comfortable in one easy-chair while she was in another. "Ah, if I could only paint!" he said. "And I?" she replied. "There is the end to this year's picture!" These visits were continued. October 20th she writes of his increasing feebleness. She wrote no more, and in eleven days was dead. In 1885 the works of Marie Bashkirtseff were exhibited. In the catalogue was printed François Coppée's account of a visit he had made her mother a few months before Marie's death. He saw her studio and her works, and wrote, after speaking of the "Meeting," as follows: "At the Exhibition--Salon--before this charming picture, the public had with a unanimous voice bestowed the medal on Mlle. B., who had been already 'mentioned' the year before. Why was this verdict not confirmed by the jury? Because the artist was a foreigner? Who knows? Perhaps because of her wealth. This injustice made her suffer, and she endeavored--the noble child--to avenge herself by redoubling her efforts. "In one hour I saw there twenty canvases commenced; a hundred designs--drawings, painted studies, the cast of a statue, portraits which suggested to me the name of Frans Hals, scenes made from life in the open streets; notably one large sketch of a landscape--the October mist on the shore, the trees half stripped, big yellow leaves strewing the ground. In a word, works in which is incessantly sought, or more often asserts itself, the sentiment of the sincerest and most original art, and of the most personal talent." Mathilde Blind, in her "Study of Marie Bashkirtseff," says: "Marie loved to recall Balzac's questionable definition that the genius of observation is almost the whole of human genius. It was natural it should please her, since it was the most conspicuous of her many gifts. As we might expect, therefore, she was especially successful as a portrait painter, for she had a knack of catching her sitter's likeness with the bloom of nature yet fresh upon it. All her likenesses are singularly individual, and we realize their character at a glance. Look, for example, at her portrait of a Parisian swell, in irreproachable evening dress and white kid gloves, sucking his silver-headed cane, with a simper that shows all his white teeth; and then at the head and bust of a Spanish convict, painted from life at the prison in Granada. Compare that embodiment of fashionable vacuity with this face, whose brute-like eyes haunt you with their sadly stunted look. What observation is shown in the painting of those heavily bulging lips, which express weakness rather than wickedness of disposition--in those coarse hands engaged in the feminine occupation of knitting a blue and white stocking!" <b>BAUCK, JEANNA.</b> Born in Stockholm in 1840. Portrait and landscape painter. In 1863 she went to Dresden, and studied figure work with Professor Ehrhardt; later she moved to Düsseldorf, where she devoted herself to landscape under Flamm, and in 1866 she settled in Munich, where she has since remained, making long visits to Paris, Venice, and parts of Switzerland. Her later work is marked by the romantic influence of C. Ludwig, who was for a time her instructor, but she shows unusual breadth and sureness in dealing with difficult subjects, such as dusky forests with dark waters or bare ruins bordered with stiff, ghost-like trees. Though not without talent and boldness, she lacks a feeling for style. <b>BAUERLÉ, MISS A.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>BAXTER, MARTHA WHEELER.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>BEALE, MARY.</b> 1632-97. This artist was the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Cradock. She married Mr. Beale, an artist and a color-maker. She studied under Sir Peter Lely, who obtained for her the privilege of copying some of Vandyck's most famous works. Mrs. Beale's portraits of Charles II., Cowley, and the Duke of Norfolk are in the National Portrait Gallery, London, and that of Archbishop Tillotson is in Lambeth Palace. This portrait was the first example of an ecclesiastic represented as wearing a wig instead of the usual silk coif. Her drawing was excellent and spirited, her color strong and pure, and her portraits were sought by many distinguished persons. Several poems were written in praise of this artist, in one of which, by Dr. Woodfall, she is called "Belasia." Her husband, Charles Beale, an inferior artist, was proud of his wife, and spent much time in recording the visits she received, the praises lavished on her, and similar matters concerning her art and life. He left more than thirty pocket-notebooks filled with these records, and showed himself far more content that his wife should be appreciated than any praise of himself could have made him. <b>BEAURY-SAUREL, MME. AMÉLIE.</b> Prize of honor at Exposition of Black and White, 1891; third-class medal, Salon, 1883; bronze medal, Exposition, 1889. Born at Barcelona, of French parents. Pupil of Julian Academy. Among her principal portraits are those of Léon Say, Félix Voisin, Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, Mme. Sadi-Carnot, Coralie Cohen, Princess Ghika, etc. She has also painted the "Two Vanquished Ones," "A Woman Physician," and a "Souvenir of a Bull-Fight," pastel, etc. This artist has also contributed to several magazines. At the Salon of the Artistes Français, 1902, she exhibited a portrait and a picture of "Hamlet"; in 1903 a picture, "In the Train." Mme. Beaury-Saurel is also Mme. Julian, wife of the head of the Academy in which she was educated. <b>BEAUX, CECILIA.</b> Mary Smith prize at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1885, 1887, 1891, 1892; gold medal, Philadelphia Art Club, 1893; Dodge prize, National Academy of Design, 1893; bronze medal, Carnegie Institute, 1896; first-class gold medal, $1,500, Carnegie Institute, 1899; Temple gold medal, Pennsylvania Academy, 1900; gold medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; gold medal, (?) 1901. Associate of National Academy of Design, member of Society of American Artists, associate of Société des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Born in Philadelphia. Studied under Mrs. T. A. Janvier, Adolf van der Weilen, and William Sartain in Philadelphia; under Robert-Fleury, Bouguereau, and Benjamin-Constant, in Paris. Her portraits are numerous. In 1894 she exhibited a portrait of a child at the Exhibition of the Society of American Artists, which was much admired and noticed in the _Century Magazine_, September, 1894, as follows: "Few artists have the fresh touch which the child needs and the firm and rapid execution which allows the painter to catch the fleeting expression and the half-forms which make child portraits at once the longing and the despair of portrait painters. Miss Beaux's technique is altogether French, sometimes reminding me a little of Carolus Duran and of Sargent; but her individuality has triumphed over all suggestions of her foreign masters, and the combination of refinement and strength is altogether her own." Seven years later, in the _International Studio_, September, 1901, we read: "The mention of style suggests a reference to the portraits by Miss Cecilia Beaux, while the allusion to characterization suggests at the same time their limitation. The oftener one sees her 'Mother and Daughter,' which gained the gold medal at Pittsburg in 1899 and the gold medal also at last year's Paris Exposition, the less one feels inclined to accept it as a satisfactory example of portraiture. Magnificent assurance of method it certainly has, controlled also by a fine sobriety of feeling, so that no part of the ensemble impinges upon the due importance of the other parts; it is a balanced, dignified picture. But in its lack of intimacy it is positively callous. One has met these ladies on many occasions, but with no increase of acquaintanceship or interest on either side--our meetings are sterile of any human interest. So one turns with relief to Miss Beaux's other picture of 'Dorothea and Francesca'--an older girl leading a younger one in the steps of a dance. They are not concerned with us, but at least interested in one another; and we can attach ourselves, if only as outsiders, to the human interest involved. "These pictures suggest a moment's consideration of the true meaning of the term 'style' as applied to painting. Is it not more than the mere ableness of method, still more than the audacity of brush work, that often passes for style? Is it possible to dissociate the manner of a picture from its embodiment of some fact or idea? For it to have style in the full sense of the word, surely it must embody an expression of life as serious and thorough as the method of record."--_Charles H. Caffin_. In the _International Studio_ of March, 1903, we read: "The portrait of Mrs. Roosevelt, by Miss Cecilia Beaux, seemed to me to be one of the happiest of her creations. Nothing could exceed the skill and daintiness with which the costume is painted, and the characterization of the head is more sympathetic than usual, offering a most winsome type of beautiful, good womanhood. A little child has been added to the picture--an afterthought, I understand, and scarcely a fortunate one; at least in the manner of its presentment. The figure is cleverly merged in half shadow, but the treatment of the face is brusque, and a most unpleasant smirk distorts the child's mouth. It is the portrait of the mother that carries the picture, and its superiority to many of Miss Beaux's portraits consists in the sympathy with her subject which the painter has displayed."--_Charles H. Caffin_. A writer in the _Mail and Express_ says: "Miss Beaux has approached the task of painting the society woman of to-day, not as one to whom this type is known only by the exterior, but with a sympathy as complete as a similar tradition and an artistic temperament will allow. Thus she starts with an advantage denied to all but a very few American portrait painters, and this explains the instinctive way in which she gives to her pictured subjects an air of natural ease and good breeding." Miss Beaux's picture of "Brighton Cats" is so excellent that one almost regrets that she has not emulated Mme. Ronner's example and left portraits of humans to the many artists who cannot paint cats! [_No reply to circular_.] <b>BECK, CAROL H.</b> Mary Smith prize at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1899. Fellow of above Academy and member of the Plastic Club, Philadelphia. Born in Philadelphia. Studied in schools of Pennsylvania Academy, and later in Dresden and Paris. Miss Beck paints portraits and her works have been frequently exhibited. Her portraits are also seen in the University of Pennsylvania, in the Woman's Medical College, Philadelphia, in Wesleyan College, at the capitols of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and other public places, as well as in many private homes. Miss Beck edited the Catalogue of the Wilstach Collection of Paintings in Memorial Hall, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. <b>BECKINGTON, ALICE.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>BEERNAERTS, EUPHROSINE.</b> Landscape painter. In 1873 she won a medal at Vienna, in 1875 a gold medal at the Brussels Salon, and still other medals at Philadelphia (1876), Sydney (1879), and Teplitz (1879). She was made Chévalier de l'Ordre de Léopold in 1881. Mlle. Beernaerts was born at Ostend, 1831, and studied under Kuhner in Brussels. She travelled in Germany, France, and Italy, and exhibited admirable landscapes at Brussels, Antwerp, and Paris, her favorite subjects being Dutch. In 1878 the following pictures by her were shown in Paris: "Lisière de bois dans les Dunes (Zélande)," "Le Village de Domburg (Zélande)," and "Intérieur de bois à Oost-Kapel (Holland)." Other well-known works are "Die Campine" and "Aus der Umgebung von Oosterbeck." <b>BEGAS, LUISE PARMENTIER.</b> Born in Vienna. Pupil of Schindler and Unger. She travelled extensively in Europe and the Orient, and spent some time in Sicily. She married Adalbert Begas in 1877 and then established her studio in Berlin. Her subjects are landscape, architectural monuments, and interiors. Some of the latter are especially fine. Her picture of the "Burial Ground at Scutari" was an unusual subject at the time it was exhibited and attracted much attention. Her rich gift in the use of color is best seen in her pictures of still life and flowers. In Berlin, in 1890, she exhibited "Before the Walls of Constantinople" and "From Constantinople," which were essentially different from her earlier works and attracted much attention. "Taormina in Winter" more nearly resembled her earlier pictures. Fräulein Parmentier also studied etching, in which art Unger was her instructor. In her exquisite architectural pictures and landscapes she has represented Italian motives almost exclusively. Among these are her views of Venice and other South Italian sketches, which are also the subjects of some of her etchings. <b>BELLE, MLLE. ANDRÉE.</b> Member of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts. Born in Paris. Pupil of Cazin. Paints in oils and pastels, landscapes especially, of which she exhibited seventeen in June, 1902. The larger part of these were landscape portraits, so to speak, as they were done on the spots represented with faithfulness to detail. The subjects were pleasing, and the various hours of day, with characteristic lighting, unusually well rendered. At the Salon des Beaux Arts, 1902, this artist exhibited a large pastel, "A Halt at St. Mammès" and a "Souvenir of Bormes," showing the tomb of Cazin. In 1903 she exhibited a pastel called "Calvary," now in the Museum at Amiens, which has been praised for its harmony of color and the manner in which the rainbow is represented. Her pictures of "Twilight" and "Sunset" are unusually successful. <b>BENATO-BELTRAMI, ELISABETTA.</b> Painter and sculptor of the nineteenth century, living in Padua since 1858. Her talent, which showed itself early, was first developed by an unknown painter named Soldan, and later at the Royal Academy in Venice. She made copies of Guido, Sassoferrato and Veronese, the Laokoon group, and the Hercules of Canova, and executed a much-admired bas-relief called "Love and Innocence." Among her original paintings are an "Atala and Chactas," "Petrarch's First Meeting with Laura," a "Descent from the Cross" for the church at Tribano, a "St. Sebastian," "Melancholy," a "St. Ciro," and many Madonnas. Her pictures are noble in conception and firm in execution. <b>BENITO Y TEJADA, BENITA.</b> Born in Bilboa, where she first studied drawing; later she went to Madrid, where she entered the Escuela superior. In the Exposition of 1876 at Madrid "The Guardian" was shown, and in 1881 a large canvas representing "The First Step." <b>BERNHARDT, SARAH.</b> In 1869 this famous actress watched Mathieu-Meusnier making a bust. She made her criticisms and they were always just. The sculptor told her that she had the eye of an artist and should use her talent in sculpture. Not long after she brought to him a medallion portrait of her aunt. So good was it that Mathieu-Meusnier seriously encouraged her to persevere in her art. She was fascinated by the thought of what might be possible for her, took a studio, and sent to the Salon in 1875 a bust, which attracted much attention. In 1876 she exhibited "After the Tempest," the subject taken from the story of a poor woman who, having buried two sons, saw the body of her last boy washed ashore after a storm. This work was marvellously effective, and a great future as a sculptress was foretold for the "divine Sara." At the Salon of 1878 she exhibited two portrait busts in bronze. This remarkable woman is a painter also, and exhibited a picture called "La jeune Fille et la Mort." One critic wrote of it: "Sarah's picture shows very considerable feeling for color and more thought than the vast majority of modern paintings. The envious and evil speakers, who always want to say nasty things, pretend to trace in the picture very frequent touches of Alfred Stevens, who has been Sarah's master in painting, as Mathieu-Meusnier was in sculpture. However that may be, Sarah has posed her figures admirably and her coloring is excellent. It is worthy of notice that, being as yet a comparative beginner, she has not attempted to give any expression to the features of the young girl over whose shoulder Death is peeping." One of the numerous ephemeral journals which the young and old jeunesse of the Latin Quarter is constantly creating has made a very clever caricature of the picture in a sort of Pompeian style. Death is represented by the grinning figure of Coquelin ainé. The legend is "'La Jeune Fille et la Mort,' or Coquelin ainé, presenting Sarah Bernhardt the bill of costs of her fugue." In other words, Coquelin is Death, handing to Sarah the undertaker's bill--300,000 francs--for her civil burial at the Comédie Française. <b>BETHUNE, LOUISE.</b> This architect, whose maiden name was Blanchard, was born in Waterloo, New York, 1856. She studied drawing and architecture, and in 1881 opened an office, being the first woman architect in the United States. Since her marriage to Robert A. Bethune they have practised their art together. Mrs. Bethune is the only woman holding a fellowship in the American Institute of Architects. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>BEVERIDGE, KÜHNE.</b> Honorable mention in Paris twice. Born in Springfield, Illinois. Studied under William R. O'Donovan in New York, and under Rodin in Paris. Among her works are a statue called "Rhodesia," "Rough Rider Monument," a statue called "Lascire," which belongs to Dr. Jameson, busts of Cecil Rhodes, King Edward VII., Grover Cleveland, Vice-President Stevenson, Joseph Jefferson, Buffalo Bill, General Mahon, hero of Mafeking, Thomas L. Johnson, and many others. Miss Beveridge was first noticed as an artist in this country in 1892, when her busts of ex-President Cleveland and Mr. Jefferson called favorable attention to her. In 1899 she married Charles Coghlan, and soon discovered that he had a living wife at the time of her marriage and obtained a divorce. Before she went to South Africa Miss Beveridge had executed several commissions for Cecil Rhodes and others living in that country. Her mother is now the Countess von Wrede, her home being in Europe, where her daughter has spent much time. She has married the second time, an American, Mr. Branson, who resides at Johannesburg, in the Transvaal. <b>BIFFIN, SARAH.</b> 1784-1850. It seems a curious fact that several persons born without arms and hands have become reputable artists. This miniature painter was one of these. Her first teacher, a man named Dukes, persuaded her to bind herself to live in his house and give her time to his service for some years. Later, when the Earl of Morton made her acquaintance, he proved to her that her engagement was not legally binding and wished her to give it up; but Miss Biffin was well treated by the Dukes and preferred to remain with them. The Earl of Morton, however, caused her to study under Mr. Craig, and she attained wonderful excellence in her miniatures. In 1821 the Duke of Sussex, on behalf of the Society of Arts, presented her with a prize medal for one of her pictures. She remained sixteen years with the Dukes, and during this time never received more than five pounds a year! After leaving them she earned a comfortable income. She was patronized by George III. and his successors, and Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort were her generous patrons, as well as many other distinguished persons. After the death of the Earl of Morton she had no other friend to aid her in getting commissions or selling her finished pictures, and she moved to Liverpool. A small annuity was purchased for her, which, in addition to the few orders she received, supported her until her death at the age of sixty-six. Her miniatures have been seen in loan collections in recent years. Her portrait of herself, on ivory, was exhibited in such a collection at South Kensington. <b>BILDERS, MARIE.</b> Family name Van Bosse. Born in Amsterdam, 1837; died in Wiesbaden, 1900. Pupil of Van de Sande-Bakhuyzen, Bosboom, and Johannes W. Bilders. Settled in Oosterbeck, and painted landscapes from views in the neighborhood. This artist was important, and her works are admired especially by certain Dutch artists who are famous in all countries. These facts are well known to me from good authority, but I fail to find a list of her works or a record of their present position.[1] [Footnote 1: See Appendix.] <b>BILINSKA, ANNA.</b> Received the small gold medal at Berlin in 1891, and won distinguished recognition at other international exhibitions in Berlin and Munich by her portraits and figure studies. She was born in Warsaw in 1858, and died there in 1893. She studied in Paris, where she quickly became a favorite painter of aristocratic Russians and Poles. Her pictures are strong and of brilliant technique. <b>BIONDI, NICOLA.</b> Born at Capua, 1866. This promising young Italian painter was a pupil of the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples. One of her pictures, called "Una partita," was exhibited at Naples and attracted much attention. It was purchased by Duke Martini. Another, "Ultima Prova," was exhibited in Rome and favorably noticed. <b>BLAU, TINA.</b> Honorable mention in Paris, 1883, for her "Spring in the Prater." Her "Land Party" is in the possession of the Emperor of Austria, and "In Spring-time" belongs to the Prince Regent of Bavaria. This talented landscape painter was born in Vienna, 1847. She was a pupil of Schäffer in Vienna, and of W. Lindenschmitt in Munich. After travelling in Austria, Holland, and Italy, she followed her predilection for landscape, and chose her themes in great part from those countries. In 1884 she married Heinrich Lang, painter of battle scenes (who died in 1891), and she now works alternately in Munich and Vienna. In 1890 she gave an exhibition of her pictures in Munich; they were thought to show great vigor of composition and color and much delicacy of artistic perception. Her foreign scenes, especially, are characterized by unusual local truth and color. Among her best works are "Studies from the Prater in Vienna," "Canal at Amsterdam," "Harvest Day in Holland," "The Arch of Titus in Rome," "Street in Venice," and "Late Summer." <b>BLOCH, MME. ELISA.</b> Honorable mention, 1894. Officer of public instruction, Commander of the Order of the Liberator; Chevalier of the Order of the Dragon of Annam. Born at Breslau, Silesia, 1848. Pupil of Chapu. She first exhibited at the Salon of 1878, a medallion portrait of M. Bloch; this was followed by "Hope," the "Golden Age," "Virginius Sacrificing his Daughter," "Moses Receiving the Tables of the Law," etc. Mme. Bloch has made numerous portrait busts, among them being the kings of Spain and Portugal, Buffalo Bill, C. Flammarion, etc. At the Salon of the Artistes Français, 1903, Mme. Bloch exhibited a "Portrait of M. Frédéric Passy, Member of the Institute." <b>BOCCARDO, LINA ZERBINAH.</b> Rome. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>BOEMM, RITTA.</b> A Hungarian artist. Has been much talked of in Dresden. She certainly possesses distinguished talents, and is easily in the front rank of Dresden women artists. Her gouache pictures dealing with Hungarian subjects, a "Village Street," a "Peasant Farm," a "Churchyard," exhibited at Dresden in 1892, were well drawn and full of sentiment, but lacking in color sense and power. She works unevenly and seems pleased when she succeeds in setting a scene cleverly. She paints portraits also, mostly in pastel, which are spirited, but not especially good likenesses. What she can do in the way of color may be seen in her "Village Street in Winter," a picture of moderate size, in which the light is exquisite; unfortunately most of her painting is less admirable than this. <b>BOISSONNAS, MME. CAROLINE SORDET.</b> Honorable mention at the Salon of Lyons, 1897. Member of the Exposition Permanente Amis des Beaux-Arts, Geneva. Born in Geneva. Pupil of the School of Fine Arts, Geneva, under Prof. F. Gillet and M. E. Ravel. This artist paints portraits principally. She has been successful, and her pictures are in Geneva, Lausanne, Vevey, Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Dresden, Naples, etc. <b>BOMPIANI-BATTAGLIA, CLELIA.</b> Born in Rome, 1847. Pupil of her father, Roberto Bompiani, and of the professors in the Academy of St. Luke. The following pictures in water-colors have established her reputation as an artist: "Confidential Communication," 1885; the "Fortune-Teller," 1887; "A Public Copyist," 1888; and "The Wooing," 1888. <b>BONHEUR, JULIETTE--MME. PEYROL.</b> Born at Paris. Sister of Rosa Bonheur, and a pupil of her father. Among her pictures are "A Flock of Geese," "A Flock of Sheep Lying Down," and kindred subjects. The last-named work was much remarked at the Salon of 1875. In 1878 she exhibited "The Pool" and "The Mother's Kiss." Mme. Peyrol was associated with her famous sister in the conduct of the Free School of Design, founded by Rosa Bonheur in 1849. <b>BONHEUR, MARIE ROSALIE.</b> 1822-99. Member of Antwerp Institute, 1868. Salon medals, 1845, 1848, 1855, 1867; Legion of Honor, 1865; Leopold Cross, 1880; Commander's Cross, Royal Order of Isabella the Catholic, 1880. Born in Bordeaux. She was taught drawing by her father, who, perceiving that she had unusual talent, permitted her to give up dressmaking, to which, much against her will, she had been apprenticed. From 1855 her fame was established; she was greatly appreciated, and her works competed for in England and the United States, as well as in European countries. Her chief merit is the actual truthfulness with which she represented animals. Her skies might be bettered in some cases--the atmosphere of her pictures was sometimes open to question--but her animals were anatomically perfect and handled with such virility as few men have excelled or even equalled. Her position as an artist is so established that no quoted opinions are needed when speaking of her--she was one of the most famous women of her century. Her home at By was near Fontainebleau, where she lived quietly, and for some years held gratuitous classes for drawing. She left, at her death, a collection of pictures, studies, etchings, etc., which were sold by auction in Paris soon after. Her "Ploughing in the Nivernais," 1848, is in the Luxembourg Gallery; "The Horse Fair," 1853, is seen in the National Gallery, London, in a replica, the original being in the United States, purchased by the late A. T. Stewart. Her "Hay Harvest in the Auvergne," 1855, is one of her most important works. After 1867 Mlle. Bonheur did not exhibit at the Salon until 1899, a few weeks before her death. One must pay a tribute to this artist as a good and generous woman. She founded the Free School of Design for Girls, and in 1849 took the direction of it and devoted much of her valuable time to its interests. How valuable an hour was to her we may understand when we remember that Hamerton says: "I have seen work of hers which, according to the price given, must have paid her a hundred pounds for each day's labor." The story of her life is of great interest, and can be but slightly sketched here. She was afoot betimes in the morning, and often walked ten or twelve miles and worked hard all day. The difficulty of reaching her models proved such a hindrance to her that she conceived the idea of visiting the abattoirs, where she could see animals living and dead and study their anatomy. It is not easy to imagine all the difficulties she encountered in doing this--the many repulsive features of such places--while the company of drovers and butchers made one of the disagreeables of her pursuits. Her love for the animals, too, made it doubly hard for her to see them in the death agony and listen to their pitiful cries for freedom. In all this experience, however, she met no rude or unkind treatment. Her drawings won the admiration of the men who watched her make them and they treated her with respect. She pursued her studies in the same manner in the stables of the Veterinary School at Alfort and in the Jardin des Plantes. At other times she studied in the country the quiet grazing herds, and, though often mistaken for a boy on account of the dress she wore, she inspired only admiration for her simplicity and frankness of manner, while the graziers and horse-dealers respectfully regarded her and wondered at her skill in picturing their favorite animals. Some very amusing stories might be told of her comical embarrassments in her country rambles, when she was determined to preserve her disguise and the pretty girls were equally determined to make love to her! Aside from all this laborious study of living animals, she obtained portions of dead creatures for dissection; also moulds, casts, and illustrated anatomical books; and, in short, she left no means untried by which she could perfect herself in the specialty she had chosen. Her devotion to study and to the practice of her art was untiring, and only the most engrossing interest in it and an indomitable perseverance, supplemented and supported by a physically and morally healthful organization, could have sustained the nervous strain of her life from the day when she was first allowed to follow her vocation to the time when she placed herself in the front rank of animal painters. A most charming picture is drawn of the life of the Bonheur family in the years when Rosa was making her progressive steps. They lived in an humble house in the Rue Rumfort, the father, Auguste, Isidore, and Rosa all working in the same studio. She had many birds and a pet sheep. As the apartment of the Bonheurs was on the sixth floor, this sheep lived on the leads, and from time to time Isidore bore him on his shoulders down all the stairs to the neighboring square, where the animal could browse on the real grass, and afterward be carried back by one of the devoted brothers of his mistress. They were very poor, but they were equally happy. At evening Rosa made small models or illustrations for books or albums, which the dealers readily bought, and by this means she added to the family store for needs or pleasures. In 1841, when Rosa was nineteen years old, she first experienced the pleasures, doubts, and fears attendant upon a public exhibition of one's work. Two small pictures, called "Goats and Sheep" and "Two Rabbits," were hung at the Salon and were praised by critics and connoisseurs. The next year she sent three others, "Animals in a Pasture," "A Cow Lying in a Meadow," and "A Horse for Sale." She continued to send pictures to the Salon and to some exhibitions in other cities, and received several bronze and silver medals. In 1845 she sent twelve works to the Salon, accompanied by those of her father and her brother Auguste, who was admitted that year for the first time. In 1848 Isidore was added to the list, exhibiting a picture and a group in marble, both representing "A Combat between a Lioness and an African Horseman." And, finally, the family contributions were completed when Juliette, now Madame Peyrol, added her pictures, and the works of the five artists were seen in the same Exhibition. In 1849 Rosa Bonheur's "Cantal Oxen" was awarded the gold medal, and was followed by "Ploughing in the Nivernais," so well known the world over by engravings and photographs. When the medal was assigned her, Horace Vernet proclaimed her triumph to a brilliant assemblage, and also presented to her a magnificent vase of Sèvres porcelain, in the name of the French Government. This placed her in the first rank of living artists, and the triumph was of double value to her on account of the happiness it afforded her father, to see this, his oldest child, of whose future he had often despaired, taking so eminent a place in the artistic world. This year of success was also a year of sorrow, for before its end the old Raymond had died. He had been for some time the director of the Government School of Design for Girls, and, being freed from pecuniary anxiety, he had worked with new courage and hope. After her father's death Rosa Bonheur exhibited nothing for two years, but in 1853 she brought out her "Horse Fair," which added to her fame. She was perfectly at home in the mountains, and spent much time in the huts of charcoal burners, huntsmen, or woodcutters, contented with the food they could give her and happy in her study. Thus she made her sketches for "Morning in the Highlands," "The Denizens of the Mountains," etc. She once lived six weeks with her party on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, where they saw no one save muleteers going and coming, with their long lines of loaded mules. Their only food was frogs' legs, which they prepared themselves, and the black bread and curdled milk which the country afforded. At evening the muleteers would amuse the strangers by dancing the national dances, and then repose in picturesque groups just suited to artistic sketching. In Scotland and in Switzerland, as well as in various portions of her own country, she had similar experiences, and her "Hay-Making in Auvergne" proves that she was familiar with the more usual phases of country life. At the Knowles sale in London, in 1865, her picture of "Spanish Muleteers Crossing the Pyrenees," one of the results of the above sojourn in these mountains, sold for two thousand guineas, about ten thousand dollars. I believe that, in spite of the large sums of money that she received, her habitual generosity and indifference to wealth prevented her amassing a large fortune, but her fame as an artist and her womanly virtues brought the rewards which she valued above anything that wealth could bestow--such rewards as will endure through centuries and surround the name of Rosa Bonheur with glory, rewards which she untiringly labored to attain. <b>BONSALL, ELIZABETH F.</b> First Toppan prize, and Mary Smith prize twice, at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Member of Plastic Club, Philadelphia. Born at Philadelphia. Studied at the above-named Academy and in Paris; also at the Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, under Eakins, Courtois, Collin, and Howard Pyle. Miss Bonsall is well known for her pictures of cats. She illustrated the "Fireside Sphinx," by Agnes Repplier. Her picture of "Hot Milk" is in the Pennsylvania Academy; her "Suspense," in a private gallery in New York. An interesting chapter in Miss Winslow's book, "Concerning Cats," is called "Concerning Cat Artists," in which she writes: "Elizabeth Bonsall is a young American artist who has exhibited some good cat pictures, and whose work promises to make her famous some day if she does not 'weary in well-doing.'" Miss Bonsall has prepared a "Cat Calendar" and a "Child's Book about Cats," which were promised to appear in the autumn of 1903. <b>BONSALL, MARY M.</b> First Toppan prize at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Member of the Plastic Club, Philadelphia. Studied at above academy under Vonnoh, De Camp, William Chase, and Cecilia Beaux. This artist paints portraits, which are in private hands. <b>BONTE, PAULA.</b> Born in Magdeburg, 1840, and from 1862 to 1864 was a pupil of Pape in Berlin. She travelled and studied in Northern Italy and Switzerland, and from these regions, as well as from Northern Germany, took her subjects. She has exhibited pictures at various exhibitions, and among her best works should be mentioned: "The Beach at Clovelly in Devonshire," "From the Bernese Oberland," "The Riemenstalden Valley," etc. <b>BOOTT, ELIZABETH.</b> Born in Cambridge. Miss Boott was one of those pupils of William M. Hunt to whom he imparted a wonderful artistic enthusiasm, energy, and devotion. After studying in Boston she studied in Paris under Duveneck--whom she afterward married--and under Couture. Her subjects were genre, still-life, and flowers, and were well considered. Among her genre pictures are "An Old Man Reading," an "Old Roman Peasant," and a "Girl with a Cat." When in Italy she painted a number of portraits, which were successful. Miss Brewster, who lived in Rome, was an excellent critic, and she wrote: "I must say a few words about a studio I have lately visited--Miss Boott's. I saw there three very fine portraits, remarkable for strength and character, as well as rich coloring: one of Mr. Boott, one of Bishop Say, and the third of T. Adolphus Trollope, the well-known writer and brother of the novelist, Anthony Trollope. All are good likenesses and are painted with vigor and skill, but the one of Mr. Trollope is especially clever. Trollope's head and face, though a good study, are not easy to paint, but Miss Boott has succeeded to perfection. His head and beard are very fine. The face in nature, but for the melancholy, kindly look about the eyes and mouth, would be stern; Miss Boott has caught this expression and yet retained all the firm character of the countenance. It is remarkable that an artist who paints male heads with such a vigorous character should also give to flowers softness, transparency, and grace. Nothing can be more lovely than Miss Boott's flower studies. She has some delicious poppies among wheat, lilies, thistles. She gets a transparency into these works that is not facile in oil. A bunch of roses in a vase was as tender and round and soft-colored as in nature. Among all the many studios of Rome I do not know a more attractive one than Miss Boott's." <b>BORTOLAN, ROSA.</b> Born at Treviso. She was placed in the Academy at Venice by her family, where she had the benefit of such masters as Grigoletti, Lipparini, Schiavoni, and Zandomeneghi. She early showed much originality, and after making thorough preliminary studies she began to follow her own ideas. She was of a mystical and contemplative turn of mind, and a great proportion of her work has been of a religious nature. Her pictures began to attract attention about 1847, and she had many commissions for altar-pieces and similar work. The church of Valdobbiadene, at Venice, contains "San Venanziano Fortunatus, Bishop." "Saint Louis" was painted as a commission of Brandolin da Pieve; "Comte Justinian Replying to Bonaparte in Treviso" was a subscription picture presented to Signor Zoccoletto. Portraits of the Countess Canossa-Portalupi and her son, of Luigia Codemo, and of Luigi Giacomelli are thought to possess great merit; while those of Dr. Pasquali (in the Picture Gallery at Treviso) and Michelangelo Codemo have been judged superior to those of Rosalba Carriera and Angelica Kauffmann. Her sacred pictures, strong and good in color, are full of a mystical and spiritual beauty. Her drawing is admirable and her treatment of detail highly finished. <b>BORZINO, LEOPOLDINA.</b> Milanese water-color painter. Has shown excellent genre pictures at various exhibitions. "The Holiday" and the "Return from Mass" were both exhibited and sold at Rome in 1883; "The Way to Calvary" was seen at Venice in 1887. "The Rosary," "Anguish," and "Going to the Fountain" are all distinguished by good color as well as by grace and originality of composition. <b>BOUGUEREAU, MME. ELIZABETH JANE.</b> See Gardner. <b>BOULANGER, MME. MARIE ELIZABETH.</b> Medals at the Paris Salon in 1836 and 1839. Born in Paris, 1810. Her family name was Blavot, and after the death of M. Boulanger she married M. Cavé, director of the Academy of the Beaux-Arts. Her picture of "The Virgin in Tears" is in the Museum of Rouen; and "The Children's Tournament," a triptych, was purchased by the Government. <b>BOURRILLON-TOURNAY, MME. JEANNE.</b> Medal of the second class at Exposition Universelle at Lyons; silver medal at Versailles; honorable mention at Paris Salon, 1896; the two prizes of the Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs--les Palmes Académique, 1895; the Rosette of an Officer of the Public Instruction in 1902. Member of the Société des Artistes Français, of the Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs, and of the Association de Baron Taylor. Born at Paris, 1870. Pupil of Ferdinand Humbert and G. C. Saintpierre. This artist paints portraits, and among them are those of a "Young Girl," which belongs to the general Council of the Seine; one of the Senator Théophile Roussel, of the Institute, and a portrait of an "Aged Lady," both purchased by the Government; one of M. Auguste Boyer, councillor of the Court of Cassation, and many others. At the Salon des Artistes Français, 1902, Mme. Bourrillon-Tournay exhibited two portraits, one being that of her mother; in 1903, that of M. Boyer and one of Mme. B. <b>BOWEN, LOTA.</b> Member of Society of Women Artists, London, the Tempera Society, and the "91" Art Club. Born at Armley, Yorkshire. Studied in Ludovici's studio, London; later in Rome under Santoro, and in the night classes of the Circolo Artistico. Her pictures are principally landscapes, and are chiefly in private collections in England. Among the most important are "On the Venetian Lagoons," "Old Stone Pines, Lido, Venice," "Evening on Lake Lugano," "Evening Glow on the Dolomites," "The Old Bird Fancier," "Moonrise on Crowborough, Sussex." All these have been exhibited at the Academy. "Miss Lota Bowen constantly receives most favorable notices of her works in magazines and journals. She is devotedly fond of her art, and has sought subjects for her brush in many European byways, as well as in North Africa, Turkey, and Montenegro. She paints portraits and figure subjects; has a broad, swinging brush and great love of 'tone.' Miss Bowen has recently built a studio, in Kensington, after her own design. She is in London from Christmas time to August, when she makes an annual journey for sketching." <b>BOZZINO, CANDIDA LUIGIA.</b> Silver medal at Piacenza. Born at Piacenza, 1853. Pupil of her father. Her portrait of Alessandro Manzoni was her prize picture. The "Madonna of the Sacred Heart of Jesus" was painted on a commission from the Bishop of Piacenza, who presented it to Pope Pius IX.; after being exhibited at the Vatican, it was sent to the Bishop of Jesi, for the church of Castelplanio. Other celebrated works of hers are a "Holy Family," the "Madonna of Lourdes," and several copies of the "Viâ Crucis," by Viganoni. In 1881 this artist entered the Ursuline Convent at Piacenza, where she continues to paint religious pictures. <b>BRACKEN, JULIA M.</b> First prize for sculpture, Chicago, 1898; appointed on staff of sculptors for the St. Louis Exposition. Member of Arts Club, Western Society of Artists, Municipal Art League, and Krayle Workshop, Chicago. Born at Apple River, Ill., 1871. Pupil of Chicago Art Institute. Acted as assistant to Lorado Taft, 1887-92. Was much occupied with the decorations for the Columbian Exposition, and executed on an independent commission the statue of "Illinois Welcoming the Nations." There are to be five portrait statues placed in front of the Educational Building at St. Louis, each to be executed by a well-known artist. One of these is to be the work of Miss Bracken, who is the only woman among them. Miss Bracken has modelled an heroic portrait statue of President Monroe; beside the figure is a globe, on which he points out the junction of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>BRACQUEMOND, MME. MARIE.</b> Pupil of Ingres. A portrait painter, also painter of genre subjects. At the Salon of 1875 she exhibited "The Reading"; in 1874 "Marguerite." She has been much occupied in the decoration of the Haviland faience, a branch of these works, at Auteuil, being at one time in charge of her husband, Félix Bracquemond. In 1872 M. Bracquemond was esteemed the first ceramic artist in France. An eminent French critic said of M. and Mme. Bracquemond: "You cannot praise too highly these two artists, who are as agreeable and as clever as they are talented and esteemed." Mme. Bracquemond had the faculty of employing the faience colors so well that she produced a clearness and richness not attained by other artists. The progress made in the Haviland faience in the seventies was very largely due to Mme. Bracquemond, whose pieces were almost always sold from the atelier before being fired, so great was her success. <b>BRANDEIS, ANTOINETTA.</b> Many prizes at the Academy of Venice. Born of Bohemian parents in Miscova, Galitza, 1849. Pupil of Iavurek, of Prague, in the beginning of her studies, but her father dying and her mother marrying again, she was taken to Venice, where she studied in the Academy several years under Grigoletti, Moja, Bresolin, Nani, and Molmenti. Although all her artistic training was received in Italy and she made her first successes there, most of her works have been exhibited in London, under the impression that she was better understood in England. Annoyed by the commendation of her pictures "as the work of a woman," she signed a number of her canvases Antonio Brandeis. Although she painted religious subjects for churches, her special predilection is for views of Venice, preferably those in which the gondola appears. She has studied these in their every detail. "Il canale Traghetto de' San Geremia" is in the Museum Rivoltella at Trieste. This and "Il canale dell' Abbazia della Misericordia" have been much commended by foreign critics, especially the English and Austrians. Other Venetian pictures are "La Chiese della Salute," "Il canale de' Canalregio," and "La Pescaria." <b>BRESLAU, LOUISA CATHERINE.</b> Gold medal at Paris Exposition, 1889; gold medal at Paris Exposition, 1900. Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, 1901. Member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. A Swiss artist, who made her studies at the Julian Academy under Robert-Fleury. She has painted many portraits. Her picture "Under the Apple-Tree" is in the Museum at Lausanne; the "Little Girls" or "The Sisters" and the "Child Dreamer"--exhibited at Salon, 1902--are in the Gallery of the Luxembourg; the "Gamins," in the Museum at Carpentras; the "Tea Party," at the Ministry of the Interior, Paris. At the Salon of 1902 Mlle. Breslau exhibited six pictures, among which were landscapes, two representing September and October at Saint-Cloud; two of fruit and flowers; all of which were admired, while the "Dreamer" was honored with a place in the Luxembourg. In the same Salon she exhibited six pictures in pastel: four portraits, and heads of a gamin and of a little girl. The portrait of Margot is an ideal picture of a happy child, seated at a table, resting her head on her left hand while with the right she turns the leaves of a book. A toy chicken and a doll are on the table beside her. In the Salon of 1903 she exhibited five pictures of flowers and another called the "Child with Long Hair." I was first interested in this artist by the frequent references to her and her work in the journal of Marie Bashkirtseff. They were fellow-pupils in the Julian Academy. Soon after she began her studies there Marie Bashkirtseff writes: "Breslau has been working at the studio two years, and she is twenty; I am seventeen, but Breslau had taken lessons for a long time before coming here.... How well that Breslau draws!" "That miserable Breslau has composed a picture, 'Monday Morning, or the Choice of a Model.' Every one belonging to the studio is in it--Julian standing between Amalie and me. It is correctly done, the perspective is good, the likenesses--everything. When one can do a thing like that, one cannot fail to become a great artist. You have guessed it, have you not? I am jealous. That is well, for it will serve as a stimulus to me." "I am jealous of Breslau. She does not draw at all like a woman." "I am terrified when I think of the future that awaits Breslau; it fills me with wonder and sadness. In her compositions there is nothing womanish, commonplace, or disproportioned. She will attract attention at the Salon, for, in addition to her treatment of it, the subject itself will not be a common one." The above prophecy has been generously fulfilled. Mlle. Breslau is indeed a poet in her ability to picture youth and its sweet intimacies, and she does this so easily. With a touch she reveals the grace of one and the affectations of another subject of her brush, and skilfully renders the varying emotions in the faces of her pictures. Pleasure and suffering, the fleeting thought of the child, the agitation of the young girl are all depicted with rare truthfulness. <b>BREWSTER, ADA AUGUSTA.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>BRICKDALE, MISS ELEANOR FORTESCUE.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>BRICCI OR BRIZIO, PLAUTILLA.</b> Very little is known of this Roman artist of the seventeenth century, but that little marks her as an unusually gifted woman, since she was a practical architect and a painter of pictures. She was associated with her brother in some architectural works in and near Rome, and was the only woman of her time in this profession. She is believed to have erected a small palace near the Porta San Pancrazio, unaided by her brother, and is credited with having designed in the Church of San Luigi de' Francesi the third chapel on the left aisle, dedicated to St. Louis, and with having also painted the altar-piece in this chapel. <b>BRIDGES, FIDELIA.</b> Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1878, when but three other women were thus honored. Born in Salem, Massachusetts. Studied with W. T. Richards in Philadelphia, and later in Europe during one year. She exhibited her pictures from 1869 in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Her subjects were landscapes and flowers. In 1871 she first painted in water-colors, which suited many of her pictures better than oils. She was elected a member of the Water-Color Society in 1875. To the Philadelphia Exposition, 1876, she sent a "Kingfisher and Catkins," a "Flock of Snow Birds," and the "Corner of a Rye-Field." Of the last a writer in the _Art Journal_ said: "Miss Bridges' 'Edge of a Rye-Field,' with a foreground of roses and weeds, is a close study, and shows that she is as happy in the handling of oil colors as in those mixed with water." Another critic wrote: "Her works are like little lyric poems, and she dwells with loving touches on each of her buds, 'like blossoms atilt' among the leaves." Her pictures are in private collections, and are much valued by their owners. <b>BROOKS, MARIA.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>BROWNSCOMBE, JENNIE.</b> Pupil of the National Academy and the Art Students' League, New York, and of Henry Mosler in Paris. Paints genre subjects, among which are: "Love's Young Dream," "Colonial Minuet," "Sir Roger de Coverly at Carvel Hall," "Battle of Roses," etc. The works of this artist have been reproduced in engravings and etchings, and are well known in black and white. Her water-colors, too, have been published in photogravure. Miss Brownscombe exhibits at many American exhibitions and has had her work accepted at the Royal Academy, London. <b>BROWNE, MATILDA.</b> Honorable mention at Chicago, 1893; Dodge prize at National Academy of Design, 1899; Hallgarten prize, 1901. Born in Newark, New Jersey. Pupil of Miss Kate Greatorex; of Carleton Wiggins, New York; of the Julian Academy, Paris; of H. S. Birbing in Holland, and of Jules Dupré on the coast of France. When a child this artist lived very near Thomas Moran and was allowed to spend much time in his studio, where she learned the use of colors. She exhibited her first picture at the National Academy of Design when twelve years old, and has been a constant contributor to its exhibitions since that time; also to the exhibitions of the American Water-Color Society. Her earliest pictures were of flowers, and during several years she had no teacher. At length she decided to study battle painting, and, after a summer under Carleton Wiggins, she went abroad, in 1890, and remained two years, painting in the schools in winter and out of doors in summer. Miss Browne exhibited at the Salon des Beaux-Arts in 1890, and many of her works have been seen in exhibits in this country. The Dodge prize was awarded to a picture called "The Last Load," and the Hallgarten prize to "Repose," a moonlight scene with cattle. Her pictures are in private collections. <b>BROWN, MRS. AGNES--MRS. JOHN APPLETON BROWN.</b> Born in Newburyport. This artist paints in oils. Her subjects are landscapes, flowers, and still life. She has also painted cats successfully. I have a winter landscape by Mrs. Brown which is unusually attractive and is often admired. She sends her works to the exhibitions of the Boston Art Club and to some exhibitions in New York. <b>BROWNE, MME. HENRIETTE.</b> Born at Paris; 1829-1901. Pupil of Chaplin. The family name of this artist was Bouteiller, and she married M. Jules de Saux, but as an artist used the name of an ancestress. Her pictures of genre subjects very early attracted attention, especially in 1855, when she sent to the Salon "A Brother of the Christian School," "School for the Poor at Aix," "Mutual Instruction," and "Rabbits." Her works were popular and brought good prices. In 1868 "The Sisters of Charity" sold for £1,320. In 1878 she exhibited "A Grandmother" and "Convalescence." Her Oriental scenes were much admired. Among these were "A Court in Damascus," "Nubian Dancing Girls," and a "Harem in Constantinople." Mme. Browne was also skilful as an engraver. T. Chasrel wrote in _L'Art_: "Her touch without over-minuteness has the delicacy and security of a fine work of the needle. The accent is just without that seeking for virile energy which too often spoils the most charming qualities. The sentiment is discreet without losing its intensity in order to attract public notice. The painting of Mme. Henriette Browne is at an equal distance from grandeur and insipidity, from power and affectation, and gathers from the just balance of her nature some effects of taste and charm of which a parvenu in art would be incapable." The late Rev. Charles Kingsley wrote of the picture of the "Sisters of Charity," of the sale of which I have spoken, as follows: "The picture which is the best modern instance of this happy hitting of this golden mean, whereby beauty and homely fact are perfectly combined, is in my eyes Henrietta Browne's picture of the 'Sick Child and the Sisters of Charity.' I know not how better to show that it is easy to be at once beautiful and true, if one only knows how, than by describing that picture. Criticise it, I dare not; for I believe that it will surely be ranked hereafter among the very highest works of modern art. If I find no fault in it, it is because I have none to find; because the first sight of the picture produced in me instantaneous content and confidence. There was nothing left to wish for, nothing to argue about. The thing was what it ought to be, and neither more nor less, and I could look on it, not as a critic, but as a learner only." This is praise indeed from an Englishman writing of a Frenchwoman's picture--an Englishman with no temptation to say what he did not think; and we may accept his words as the exact expression of the effect the picture made on him. <b>BRUNE, MME. AIMÉE PAGÈS.</b> Medal of second class at Salon of 1831; first class in 1841. Born in Paris. 1803-66. Pupil of Charles Meynier. Painted historical and genre subjects. In 1831 she exhibited "Undine," the "Elopement," "Sleep," and "Awakening." In 1841 a picture of "Moses." She painted several Bible scenes, among which were the "Daughter of Jairus" and "Jephthah's Daughter." <b>BUECHMANN, FRAU HELENE.</b> Her pictures have been seen at some annual exhibitions in Germany, but she is best known by her portraits of celebrated persons. Born in Berlin, 1849. Pupil of Steffeck and Gussow. Among her portraits are those of Princess Carolath-Beuthen, Countess Brühl, Prince and Princess Biron von Kurland, and the youngest son of Prince Radziwill. She resides in Brussels. <b>BUTLER, MILDRED A.</b> Associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colors and of the Society of Lady Artists. Pupil of Naftel, Calderon, and Garstin. Has exhibited at the Royal Academy and New Gallery. Her picture called the "Morning Bath," exhibited at the Academy in 1896, was purchased under the Chantry Bequest and is in the Tate Gallery. It is a water-color, valued at £50. Miss Butler exhibited "A Corner of the Bargello, Florence," at the London Academy in 1903. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>BUTLER, LADY ELIZABETH.</b> Born in Lausanne about 1844. Elizabeth Southerden Thompson. As a child this artist was fond of drawing soldiers and horses. She studied at the South Kensington School, at Florence under Bellucci, and in Rome. She worked as an amateur some years, first exhibiting at the Academy in 1873 her picture called "Missing," which was praised; but the "Roll-Call," of the following year, placed her in the front rank of the Academy exhibitors. It was purchased by the Queen and hung in Windsor Castle. She next exhibited the "Twenty-Eighth Regiment at Quatre Bras," the "Return from Inkerman," purchased by the Fine Art Society for £3,000. This was followed by kindred subjects. In 1890 Lady Butler exhibited "Evicted," in 1891 the "Camel Corps," in 1892 "Halt in a Forced March," in 1895 the "Dawn of Waterloo," in 1896 "Steady the Drums and Fifes," in 1902 "Tent Pegging in India," in 1903 "Within Sound of the Guns." In 1869 she painted a religious picture called the "Magnificat." In water-colors she has painted "Sketches in Tuscany" and several pictures of soldiers, among which are "Scot's Grays Advancing" and "Cavalry at a Gallop." Lady Butler has recently appeared as an author, publishing "Letters from the Holy Land," illustrated by sixteen most attractive drawings in colors. The _Spectator_ says: "Lady Butler's letters and diary, the outcome of a few weeks' journeyings in Palestine, express simply and forcibly the impressions made on a devout and cultivated mind by the scenes of the Holy Land." In 1875 Ruskin wrote in "Notes of the Academy": "I never approached a picture with more iniquitous prejudice against it than I did Miss Thompson's--'Quatre Bras'--partly because I have always said that no woman could paint, and secondly because I thought what the public made such a fuss about _must_ be good for nothing. But it is Amazon's work this, no doubt of it, and the first fine pre-Raphaelite picture of battle we have had; profoundly interesting, and showing all manner of illustrative and realistic faculty.... The sky is most tenderly painted, and with the truest outline of cloud of all in the Exhibition; and the terrific piece of gallant wrath and ruin on the extreme left, when the cuirassier is catching round the neck of his horse as he falls, and the convulsed fallen horse, seen through the smoke below, is wrought through all the truth of its frantic passion with gradations of color and shade which I have not seen the like of since Turner's death." The _Art Journal_, 1877, says: "'Inkerman' is simply a marvellous production when considered as the work of a young woman who was never on the field of battle.... No matter how many figures she brings into the scene, or how few, you may notice character in each figure, each is a superb study." Her recent picture, "Within Sound of the Guns," shows a company of mounted soldiers on the confines of a river in South Africa. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>CAMERON, KATHERINE.</b> Member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water-Colors; Modern Sketch Club, London; Ladies' Art Club, Glasgow. Born in Glasgow. Studied at Glasgow School of Art under Professor Newbery, and at the Colarossi Academy, Paris, under Raphael Collin and Gustave Courtois. Her pictures are of genre subjects principally, and are in private collections. "'The Sea Urchin,'" Miss Cameron writes, "is in one of the public collections of Germany. I cannot remember which." She also says: "Except for my diploma R. S. W. and having my drawings sometimes in places of honor, usually on the line, and often reproduced in magazines, I have no other honors. I have no medals." In the _Magazine of Art_, June, 1903, her picture of a "Bull Fight in Madrid" is reproduced. It is full of action and true to the life of these horrors as I have seen them in Madrid. Doubtless the color is brilliant, as the costumes of the toreadors are always so, and there are two in this picture. This work was displayed at the exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy, June, 1903--of which a writer says: "A feeling for color has always been predominant in the Scottish school, and it is here conspicuously displayed, together with a method of handling, be it in the domain of figure or landscape, which is personal to the artist and not a mere academic tradition." In the _Studio_ of May, 1903, J. L. C., who writes of the same exhibition, calls this picture "admirable in both action and color." <b>CARL, KATE A.</b> Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1890; Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, 1896; honorable mention, Paris Exposition, 1900. Associé de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Born in New Orleans. Pupil of Julian Academy and of Courtois in Paris. This artist's name has been made prominent by the fact of her being selected to paint a portrait of the Empress of China. Miss Carl has frequently exhibited at the Salon. In 1902 she sent portraits in both oil and water-colors. One of these works, called "Angelina," impresses one as a faithful portrait of a model. She is seated and gracefully posed--the face is in a full front view, the figure turned a little to one side and nude to the waist, the hands are folded on the lap and hold a flower, a gauze-like drapery falls about the left shoulder and the arms, but does not conceal them; the background is a brocade or tapestry curtain. I have seen a reproduction only, and cannot speak of the color. The whole effect of the picture is attractive. For the purpose of painting the portrait of the Chinese Empress, Miss Carl was assigned an apartment in the palace. It is said that the picture was to be finished in December, 1903, and will probably be seen at the St. Louis Exhibition. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>CARLISLE, MISTRESS ANNE.</b> Died in 1680. Was a favorite artist of King Charles I. It is said that on one occasion the King bought a quantity of ultramarine, for which he paid £500, and divided it between Vandyck and Mistress Carlisle. Her copies after the Italian masters were of great excellence. She painted in oils as well as in water-colors. One of her pictures represents her as teaching a lady to use the brush. When we remember that Charles, who was so constantly in contact with Vandyck, could praise Mistress Carlisle, we must believe her to have been a good painter. Mistress Anne has sometimes been confounded with the Countess of Carlisle, who was distinguished as an engraver of the works of Salvator Rosa, etc. <b>CARPENTER, MARGARET SARAH.</b> The largest gold medal and other honors from the Society of Arts, London. Born at Salisbury, England. 1793-1872. Pupil of a local artist in Salisbury when quite young. Lord Radnor's attention was called to her talent, and he permitted her to copy in the gallery of Longford Castle, and advised her sending her pictures to London, and later to go there herself. She made an immediate success as a portrait painter, and from 1814 during fifty-two years her pictures were annually exhibited at the Academy with a few rare exceptions. Her family name was Geddis; her husband was Keeper of the Prints and Drawings in the British Museum more than twenty years, and after his death his wife received a pension of £100 a year in recognition of his services. Her portraits were considered excellent as likenesses; her touch was firm, her color brilliant, and her works in oils and water-colors as well as her miniatures were much esteemed. Many of them were engraved. Her portrait of the sculptor Gibson is in the National Portrait Gallery, London. A life-size portrait of Anthony Stewart, miniature painter, called "Devotion," and the "Sisters," portraits of Mrs. Carpenter's daughters, with a picture of "Ockham Church," are at South Kensington. She painted a great number of portraits of titled ladies which are in the collections of their families. Among the more remarkable were those of Lady Eastnor, 1825; Lady King, daughter of Lord Byron, 1835; Countess Ribblesdale, etc. Her portraits of Fraser Tytler, John Girkin, and Bonington are in the National Portrait Gallery, London. In the South Kensington Gallery are her pictures of "Devotion--St. Francis," which is a life-size study of Anthony Stewart, the miniature painter; "The Sisters," "Ockham Church," and "An Old Woman Spinning." <b>CARPENTIER, MLLE. MADELEINE.</b> Honorable mention, 1890; third-class medal, 1896. Born in Paris, 1865. Pupil of Bonnefoy and of Jules Lefebvre at the Julian Academy. Since 1885 this artist has exhibited many portraits as well as flower and fruit pieces, these last in water-colors. In 1896 her pictures were the "Communicants" and the "Candles," a pastel, purchased by the city of Paris; "Among Friends" is in the Museum of Bordeaux. At the Salon of the Artistes Français, 1902, Mlle. Carpentier exhibited a picture called "Reflection," and in 1903 a portrait of Mme. L. T. and the "Little Goose-Herders." <b>CARRIERA, ROSALBA</b>, better known as Rosalba. Born in Venice 1675-1757--and had an eventful life. Her artistic talent was first manifested in lace-weaving, which as a child she preferred before any games or amusements. She studied painting under several masters, technique under Antonio Balestra, pastel-painting with Antonio Nazari and Diamantini, and miniature painting, in which she was especially distinguished, was taught her by her brother-in-law, Antonio Pellegrini, whom she later accompanied to Paris and London and assisted in the decorative works he executed there. Rosalba's fame in Venice was such that she was invited to the courts of France and Austria, where she painted many portraits. She was honored by election to the Academies of Rome, Bologna, and Paris. This artist especially excelled in portraits of pretty women, while her portraits of men were well considered. Among the most important were those of the Emperor Charles, the kings of France and Denmark, and many other distinguished persons, both men and women. The Grand Duke of Tuscany asked for her own portrait for his gallery. She represented herself with one of her sisters. Her face is noble and most expressive, but, like many of her pictures, while the head is spirited and characteristic, the rest of the figure and the accessories are weak. A second portrait of herself--in crayons--is in the Dresden Gallery, and is very attractive. While in England Rosalba painted many portraits in crayon and pastel, in which art she was not surpassed by any artist of her day. Her diary of two years in Paris was published in Venice. It is curious and interesting, as it sets forth the customs of society, and especially those of artists of the period. Returning to Venice, Rosalba suffered great depression and was haunted by a foreboding of calamity. She lived very quietly. In his "Storia della Pittura Veneziana," Zanetti writes of her at this time: "Much of interest may be written of this celebrated and highly gifted woman, whose spirit, in the midst of her triumphs and the brightest visions of happiness, was weighed down by the anticipation of a heavy calamity. On one occasion she painted a portrait of herself, the brow wreathed with leaves which symbolized death. She explained this as an image of the sadness in which her life would end." Alas, this was but too prophetic! Before she was fifty years old she lost her sight, and gradually the light of reason also, and her darkness was complete. An Italian writer tells the following story: "Nature had endowed Rosalba with lofty aspirations and a passionate soul; her heart yearned for the admiration which her lack of personal attraction forbade her receiving. She fully realized her plainness before the Emperor Charles XI. rudely brought it home to her. When presented to him by the artist Bertoli, the Emperor exclaimed: 'She may be clever, Bertoli mio, this painter of thine, but she is remarkably ugly.' From which it would appear that Charles had not believed his mirror, since his ugliness far exceeded that of Rosalba! Her dark eyes, fine brow, good expression, and graceful pose of the head, as shown in her portrait, impress one more favorably than would be anticipated from this story." Many of Rosalba's works have been reproduced by engravings; a collection of one hundred and fifty-seven of these are in the Dresden Gallery, together with several of her pictures. <b>CASSATT, MARY.</b> Born in Pittsburg. Studied in Pennsylvania schools, and under Soyer and Bellay in Paris. She has lived and travelled much in Europe, and her pictures, which are of genre subjects, include scenes in France, Italy, Spain, and Holland. Among her principal works are "La tasse de thé," "Le lever du bébé," "Reading," "Mère et Enfant," and "Caresse Maternelle." Miss Cassatt has exhibited at the Paris Salon, the National Academy, New York, and various other exhibitions, but her works are rarely if ever exhibited in recent days. It is some years since William Walton wrote of her: "But in general she seems to have attained that desirable condition, coveted by artists, of being able to dispense with the annual exhibitions." Miss Cassatt executed a large, decorative picture for the north tympanum of the Woman's Building at the Columbian Exhibition. A writer in the _Century Magazine_, March, 1899, says: "Of the colony of American artists, who for a decade or two past have made Paris their home, few have been more interesting and none more serious than Miss Cassatt.... Miss Cassatt has found her true bent in her recent pictures of children and in the delineation of happy maternity. These she has portrayed with delicacy, refinement, and sentiment. Her technique appeals equally to the layman and the artist, and her color has all the tenderness and charm that accompanies so engaging a motif." In November, 1903, Miss Cassatt held an exhibition of her works in New York. At the winter exhibition of the Philadelphia Academy, 1904, she exhibited a group, a mother and children, one child quite nude. Arthur Hoeber described it as "securing great charm of manner, of color, and of grace." <b>CATTANEO, MARIA.</b> Bronze medal at the National Exposition, Parma, 1870; silver medal at Florence, 1871; silver medal at the centenary of Ariosto at Ferrara. Made an honorary member of the Brera Academy, Milan, 1874, an honor rarely conferred on a woman; elected to the Academy of Urbino, 1875. Born in Milan. Pupil of her father and of Angelo Rossi. She excels in producing harmony between all parts of her works. She has an exquisite sense of color and a rare technique. Good examples of her work are "The Flowers of Cleopatra," "The Return from the Country," "An Excursion by Gondola." She married the artist, Pietro Michis. Her picture of the "Fish Market in Venice" attracted much attention when it appeared in 1887; it was a most accurate study from life. <b>CHARPENTIER, CONSTANCE MARIE.</b> Pupil of David. Her best known works were "Ulysses Finding Young Astyanax at Hector's Grave" and "Alexander Weeping at the Death of the Wife of Darius." These were extraordinary as the work of a woman. Their size, with the figures as large as life, made them appear to be ambitious, as they were certainly unusual. Her style was praised by the admirers of David, to whose teaching she did credit. The disposition of her figures was good, the details of her costumes and accessories were admirably correct, but her color was hard and she was generally thought to be wanting in originality and too close a follower of her master. <b>CHARRETIE, ANNA MARIA.</b> 1819-75. Her first exhibitions at the Royal Academy, London, were miniatures and flower pieces. Later she painted portraits and figure subjects, as well as flowers. In 1872 "Lady Betty Germain" was greatly admired for the grace of the figure and the exquisite finish of the details. In 1873 she exhibited "Lady Betty's Maid" and "Lady Betty Shopping." "Lady Teazle Behind the Screen" was dated 1871, and "Mistress of Herself tho' China Fall" was painted and exhibited in the last year of her life. <b>CHASE, ADELAIDE COLE.</b> Member of Art Students' Association. Born in Boston. Daughter of J. Foxcroft Cole. Studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, under Tarbell, and also under Jean Paul Laurens and Carolus Duran in Paris; and with Vinton in Boston. Mrs. Chase has painted portraits entirely, most of which are in or near Boston; her artistic reputation among painters of her own specialty is excellent, and her portraits are interesting aside from the persons represented, when considered purely as works of art. [Illustration: From a Copley Print. A PORTRAIT ADELAIDE COLE CHASE] A portrait called a "Woman with a Muff," exhibited recently at the exhibition of the Society of American Artists, in New York, was much admired. At the 1904 exhibition of the Philadelphia Academy Mrs. Chase exhibited a portrait of children, Constance and Gordon Worcester, of which Arthur Hoeber writes: "She has painted them easily, with deftness and feeling, and apparently caught their character and the delicacy of infancy." <b>CHAUCHET, CHARLOTTE.</b> Honorable mention at the Salon, 1901; third-class medal, 1902. Member of the Société des Artistes Français and of l'Union des femmes peintres et sculpteurs. Born at Charleville, Ardennes, in 1878. Pupil of Gabriel Thurner, Benjamin-Constant, Jean Paul Laurens, and Victor Marec. Her principal works are "Marée"--Fish--1899, purchased for the lottery of the International Exposition at Lille; "Breton Interior," purchased by the Society of the Friends of the Arts, at Nantes; "Mother Closmadenc Dressing Fish," in the Museum of Brest; "Interior of a Kitchen at Mont," purchased by the Government; "Portrait of my Grandmother," which obtained honorable mention; "At the Corner of the Fire," "A Little Girl in the Open Air," medal of third class. The works of Mlle. Chauchet have been much praised. The _Petit Moniteur_, June, 1899, says: "Mlle. Chauchet, a very young girl, in her picture of a 'Breton Interior' shows a vigor and decision very rare in a woman." Of the "Marée," the _Dépêche de Brest_ says: "On a sombre background, in artistic disorder, thrown pell-mell on the ground, are baskets and a shining copper kettle, with a mass of fish of all sorts, of varied forms, and changing colors. All well painted. Such is the picture by Mlle. Chauchet." In the _Courrier de l'Est_ we read: "Mlle. Chauchet, taking her grandmother for her model, has painted one of the best portraits of the Salon. The hands, deformed by disease and age, are especially effective; the delicate tone of the hair in contrast with the lace of the cap makes an attractive variation in white." In the _Union Républicaine de la Marne_, H. Bernard writes: "'Le retour des champs' is a picture of the plain of Berry at evening. We see the back of a peasant, nude above the blue linen pantaloons, with the feet in wooden sabots. He is holding his tired, heavy cow by the tether. The setting sun lights up his powerful bronzed back, his prominent shoulders, and the hindquarters of the cow. It is all unusually strong; the drawing is firm and very bold in the foreshortening of the animal. The effect of the whole is a little sad; the sobriety of the execution emphasizes this effect, and, above all, there is in it no suggestion of the feminine. I have already noticed this quality of almost brutal sincerity, of picturesque realism, in the works of Mlle. Chauchet who successfully follows her methods." Chaussée, Mlle. Cécile de. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>CHÉRON, ELIZABETH SOPHIE.</b> Born in Paris in 1648. Her father was an artist, and under his instruction Elizabeth attained such perfection in miniature and enamel painting that her works were praised by the most distinguished artists. In 1674 Charles le Brun proposed her name and she was elected to the Academy. Her exquisite taste in the arrangement of her subjects, the grace of her draperies, and, above all, the refinement and spirituality of her pictures, were the characteristics on which her fame was based. Her life outside her art was interesting. Her father was a rigid Calvinist, and endeavored to influence his daughter to adopt his religious belief; but her mother, who was a fervent Roman Catholic, persuaded Elizabeth to pass a year in a convent, during which time she ardently embraced the faith of her mother. She was an affectionate daughter to both her parents and devoted her earnings to her brother Louis, who made his studies in Italy. In her youth Elizabeth Chéron seemed insensible to the attractions of the brilliant men in her social circle, and was indifferent to the offers of marriage which she received; but when sixty years old, to the surprise of her friends, she married Monsieur Le Hay, a gentleman of her own age. One of her biographers, leaving nothing to the imagination, assures us that "substantial esteem and respect were the foundations of their matrimonial happiness, rather than any pretence of romantic sentiment." Mlle. Chéron's narrative verse was much admired and her spiritual poetry was thought to resemble that of J. B. Rousseau. In 1699 she was elected to the Accademia dei Ricovrati of Padua, where she was known as Erato. The honors bestowed on her did not lessen the modesty of her bearing. She was simple in dress, courteous in her intercourse with her inferiors, and to the needy a helpful friend. She died when sixty-three and was buried in the church of St. Sulpice. I translate the lines written by the Abbé Bosquillon and placed beneath her portrait: "The unusual possession of two exquisite talents will render Chéron an ornament to France for all time. Nothing save the grace of her brush could equal the excellencies of her pen." Pictures by this artist are seen in various collections in France, but the larger number of her works were portraits which are in the families of her subjects. <b>CHERRY, EMMA RICHARDSON.</b> Gold medal from Western Art Association in 1891. Member of above association and of the Denver Art Club. Born at Aurora, Illinois, 1859. Pupil of Julian and Delécluse Academies in Paris, also of Merson, and of the Art Students' League in New York. Mrs. Cherry is a portrait painter, and in 1903 was much occupied in this art in Chicago and vicinity. Among her sitters were Mr. Orrington Lunt, the donor of the Library of the Northwestern University, and Bishop Foster, a former president of the same university; these are to be placed in the library. A portrait by Mrs. Cherry of a former president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Mr. O. Chanute, is to be placed in the club rooms of the society in New York. It has been done at the request of the society. An exhibition of ten portraits by this artist was held in Chicago in 1903, and was favorably noticed. Mrs. Cherry resides in Houston, Texas. <b>CLEMENT, ETHEL.</b> This artist has received several awards from California State fair exhibits, and her pastel portrait of her mother was hung on the line at the Salon of 1898. Member of San Francisco Art Association and of the Sketch Club of that city. Born in San Francisco in 1874. Her studies began in her native city with drawing from the antique and from life under Fred Yates. At the Cowles Art School, Boston, and the Art Students' League, New York, she spent three winters, and at the Julian Academy, Paris, three other winters, drawing from life and painting in oils under the teaching of Jules Lefebvre and Robert-Fleury, supplementing these studies by that of landscape in oils under George Laugée in Picardie. Her portraits, figure subjects, and landscapes are numerous, and are principally in private collections, a large proportion being in San Francisco. Her recent work has been landscape painting in New England. In 1903 she exhibited a number of pictures in Boston which attracted favorable attention. <b>COHEN, KATHERINE M.</b> Honorary member of the American Art Association, Paris, and of the New Century Club, Philadelphia. Born in Philadelphia, 1859. Pupil of School of Design, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and of St. Gaudens at Art Students' League; also six years in Paris schools. This artist executed a portrait of General Beaver for the Smith Memorial in Fairmount Park. She has made many portraits in busts and bas-reliefs, as well as imaginary subjects and decorative works. "The Israelite" is a life-size statue and an excellent work. <b>COLLAERT, MARIE.</b> Born in Brussels, 1842. Is called the Flemish Rosa Bonheur and the Muse of Belgian landscape. Her pictures of country life are most attractive. Her powerful handling of her brush is modified by a tender, feminine sentiment. I quote from the "History of Modern Painters": "In Marie Collaert's pictures may be found quiet nooks beneath clear sky-green stretches of grass where the cows are at pasture in idyllic peace. Here is to be found the cheery freshness of country life." <b>COMAN, CHARLOTTE B.</b> Bronze medal, California Mid-Winter Exposition, 1894. Member of New York Water-Color Club. Born in Waterville, N. Y. Pupil of J. R. Brevoort in America, of Harry Thompson and Émile Vernier in Paris. This artist has painted landscapes, and sent to the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876 "A French Village"; to the Paris Exposition, 1878, "Near Fontainebleau." In 1877 and 1878 she exhibited in Boston, "On the Borders of the Marne" and "Peasant House in Normandy." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>COMERRE-PATON, MME. JACQUELINE.</b> Honorable mention, 1881; medal at Versailles; officer of the Academy. Born at Paris, 1859. Pupil of Cabanel. Her principal works are: "Peau d'Ane, Hollandaise," in the Museum of Lille; "Song of the Wood," Museum of Morlaix; "Mignon," portrait of Mlle. Ugalde; the "Haymaker," etc. <b>COOKESLEY, MARGARET MURRAY.</b> Decorated by the Sultan of Turkey with the Order of the Chefakat, and with the Medaille des Beaux Arts, also a Turkish honor. Medal for the "Lion Tamers in the Time of Nero." Member of the Empress Club. Born in Dorsetshire. Studied in Brussels under Leroy and Gallais, and spent a year at South Kensington in the study of anatomy. Mrs. Cookesley has lived in Newfoundland and in San Francisco. A visit to Constantinople brought her a commission to paint a portrait of the son of the Sultan. No sittings were accorded her, the Sultan thinking a photograph sufficient for the artist to work from. Fortunately Mrs. Cookesley was able to make a sketch of her subject while following the royal carriage in which he was riding. The portrait proved so satisfactory to the Sultan that he not only decorated the artist, but invited her to make portraits of some of his wives, for which Mrs. Cookesley had not time. Her pictures of Oriental subjects have been successful. Among these are: "An Arab Café in the Slums of Cairo," much noticed in the Academy Exhibition of 1895; "Noon at Ramazan," "The Snake-Charmer," "Umbrellas to Mend--Damascus," and a group of the "Soudanese Friends of Gordon." Her "Priestess of Isis" is owned in Cairo. Among her pictures of Western subjects are "The Puritan's Daughter," "Deliver Us from Evil," "The Gambler's Wife." "Widowed" and "Miss Calhoun as Salome" were purchased by Maclean, of the Haymarket Theatre; "Death of the First-Born" is owned in Russia; and "Portrait of Ellen Terry as Imogen" is in a private collection. "Lion Tamers in the Time of Nero" is one of her important pictures of animals, of which she has made many sketches. <b>COOPER, EMMA LAMPERT.</b> Awarded medal at World's Columbian Exposition, 1893; bronze medal, Atlanta Exposition, 1895. Member of Water-Color Club and Woman's Art Club, New York; Water-Color Club and Plastic Club, Philadelphia; Woman's Art Association, Canada; Women's International Art Club, London. Born in Nunda, N. Y. Studied under Agnes D. Abbatt at Cooper Union and at the Art Students' League, New York; in Paris under Harry Thompson and at Delécluse and Colarossi Academies. [Illustration: A CANADIAN INTERIOR EMMA LAMPERT COOPER] Mrs. Cooper's work is principally in water-colors. After several years abroad, in the spring of 1903 she exhibited twenty-two pictures, principally of Dutch interiors, with some sketches in English towns, which last, being more unusual, were thought her best work. Her picture, "Mother Claudius," is in the collection of Walter J. Peck, New York; "High Noon at Cape Ann" is owned by W. B. Lockwood, New York; and a "Holland Interior" by Dr. Gessler, Philadelphia. Of her recent exhibition a critic writes: "The pictures are notable for their careful attention to detail of drawing. Architectural features of the rich old Gothic churches are faithfully indicated instead of blurred, and the treatment is almost devotional in tone, so sympathetic is the quality of the work. There is a total absence of the garish coloring which has become so common, the religious subjects being without exception in a minor key, usually soft grays and blues. It is indeed in composition and careful drawing that this artist excels rather than in coloring, although this afterthought is suggested by the canvasses treating of secular subjects."--_Brooklyn Standard Union_. <b>CORAZZI, GIULITTA.</b> Born at Fivizzano, 1866. Went to Florence when still a child and early began to study art. She took a diploma at the Academy in 1886, having been a pupil of Cassioli. She is a portrait painter, and among her best works are the portraits of the Counts Francesco and Ottorino Tenderini, Giuseppe Erede, and Raffaello Morvanti. Her pictures of flowers are full of freshness and spirit and delightful in color. Since 1885 she has spent much time in teaching in the public schools and other institutions and in private families. <b>CORRELLI, CLEMENTINA.</b> Member of the Society for the Promotion of the Fine Arts, in Naples. Born in Lesso, 1840. This artist is both a painter and a sculptor. Pupil of Biagio Molinari, she supplemented his instructions by constant visits to galleries and museums, where she could study masterpieces of art. A statue called "The Undeceived" and a group, "The Task," did much to establish her reputation. They were exhibited in Naples, Milan, and Verona, and aroused widespread interest. Her pictures are numerous. Among them are "St. Louis," "Sappho," "Petrarch and Laura," "Romeo and Juliet," "Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert," "A Devotee of the Virgin," exhibited at Turin in 1884; a series illustrating the "Seasons," and four others representing the arts. <b>COSWAY, MARIA</b>. The artist known by this name was born Maria Hadfield, the daughter of an Englishman who acquired a fortune as a hotel-keeper in Leghorn, which was Maria's birthplace. She was educated in a convent, and early manifesting unusual artistic ability, was sent to Rome to study painting. Her friends there, among whom were Battoni, Raphael Mengs, and Fuseli, found much to admire and praise in her art. After her father's death Maria ardently desired to become a nun, but her mother persuaded her to go to England. Here she came under the influence of Angelica Kauffman, and devoted herself assiduously to painting. She married Richard Cosway, an eminent painter of miniatures in water-colors. Cosway was a man of fortune with a good position in the fashionable circles of London. For a time after their marriage Maria lived in seclusion, her husband wishing her to acquire the dignity and grace requisite for success in the society which he frequented. Meantime she continued to paint in miniature, and her pictures attracted much attention in the Academy exhibitions. When at length Cosway introduced her to the London world, she was greatly admired; her receptions were crowded, and the most eminent people sat to her for their portraits. Her picture of the Duchess of Devonshire in the character of Spenser's Cynthia was very much praised. Cosway did not permit her to be paid for her work, and as a consequence many costly gifts were made her in return for her miniatures, which were regarded as veritable treasures by their possessors. Maria Cosway had a delicious voice in singing, which, in addition to her other talent, her beauty, and grace, made her unusually popular in society, and her house was a centre for all who had any pretensions to a place in the best circles. Poets, authors, orators, lords, ladies, diplomats, as well as the Prince of Wales, were to be seen in her drawing-rooms. A larger house was soon required for the Cosways, and the description of it in "Nollekens and His Times" is interesting: "Many of the rooms were more like scenes of enchantment pencilled by a poet's fancy, than anything perhaps before displayed in a domestic habitation. Escritoires of ebony, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and rich caskets for antique gems, exquisitely enamelled and adorned with onyx, opals, rubies, and emeralds; cabinets of ivory, curiously wrought; mosaic tables, set with jasper, blood-stone, and lapis-lazuli, their feet carved into the claws of lions and eagles; screens of old raised Oriental Japan; massive musical clocks, richly chased with ormulu and tortoise-shell; ottomans superbly damasked; Persian and other carpets, with corresponding hearth-rugs bordered with ancient family crests and armorial ensigns in the centre, and rich hangings of English tapestry. The carved chimney-pieces were adorned with the choicest bronzes and models in wax and terra-cotta. The tables were covered with Sèvres, blue Mandarin, Nankin, and Dresden china, and the cabinets were surmounted with crystal cups, adorned with the York and Lancaster roses, which might have graced the splendid banquets of the proud Wolsey." In the midst of all this fatiguing luxury, Maria Cosway lost her health and passed several years travelling in Europe. Returning to London, she was again prostrated by the death of her only daughter. She then went to Lodi, near Milan, where she founded a college for the education of girls. She spent much time in Lodi, and after the death of her husband established herself there permanently. A goodly circle of friends gathered about her, and she found occupation and solace for her griefs in the oversight of her college. She continued her painting and the exhibition of her pictures at the Royal Academy. She made illustrations for the works of Virgil, Homer, Spenser, and other poets, and painted portraits of interesting and distinguished persons, among whom were Mme. Le Brun and Mme. Récamier. The life and work of Maria Cosway afford a striking contradiction of the theory that wealth and luxury induce idleness and dull the powers of their possessors. Hers is but one of the many cases in which a woman's a woman "for a' that." At an art sale in London in 1901, an engraving by V. Green after Mrs. Cosway's portrait of herself, first state, brought $1,300, and a second one $200 less. <b>COUDERT, AMALIA KÜSSNER.</b> Born in Terre Haute, Indiana. This distinguished miniaturist writes me that she "never studied." Like Topsy, she must have "growed." By whatever method they are produced or by whatever means the artist in her has been evolved, her pictures would seem to prove that study of a most intelligent order has done its part in her development. She has executed miniature portraits of the Czar and Czarina of Russia, the Grand Duchess Vladimir, King Edward VII., the late Cecil Rhodes, many English ladies of rank, and a great number of the beautiful and fashionable women of America. <b>COUTAN-MONTORGUEIL, MME. LAURE MARTIN.</b> Honorable mention, Salon des Artistes Français, 1894. Born at Dun-sur-Auron, Cher. Pupil of Alfred Boucher. This sculptor has executed the monument to André Gill, Père Lachaise; that of the Poet Moreau, in the cemetery Montparnasse; bust of Taglioni, in the foyer of the Grand Opera House, Paris; bust of the astronomer Leverrier, at the Institute, Paris; a statue, "The Spring," Museum of Bourges; "Sirius," in the Palais of the Governor of Algiers. Also busts of Prince Napoleon, General Boulanger, the Countess de Choiseul, the Countess de Vogué, and numerous statuettes and other compositions. At the Salon, Artistes Français, 1903, she exhibited "Fortune" and "A Statuette." <b>COWLES, GENEVIEVE ALMEDA.</b> Member of the Woman's Art Club, New York; Club of Women Art Workers, New York; and the Paint and Clay Club of New Haven. Born in Farmington, Connecticut, 1871. Pupil of Robert Brandagee; of the Cowles Art School, Boston; and of Professor Niemeyer at the Yale Art School. Together with her twin sister, Maud, this artist has illustrated various magazine articles. Also several books, among which are "The House of the Seven Gables," "Old Virginia," etc. Miss G. A. Cowles designed a memorial window and a decorative border for the chancel of St. Michael's Church, Brooklyn. Together with her sister, she designed a window in the memory of the Deaconess, Miss Stillman, in Grace Church, New York City. These sisters now execute many windows and other decorative work for churches, and also superintend the making and placing of the windows. Regarding their work in the Chapel of Christ Church, New Haven, Miss Genevieve Cowles writes me: "These express the Prayer of the Prisoner, the Prayer of the Soul in Darkness, and the Prayer of Old Age. These are paintings of states of the soul and of deep emotions. The paintings are records of human lives and not mere imagination. We study our characters directly from life." These artists are now, November, 1903, engaged upon a landscape frieze for a dining-room in a house at Watch Hill. Miss Genevieve Cowles writes: "We feel that we are only at the beginning of our life-work, which is to be chiefly in mural decoration and stained glass. I desire especially to work for prisons, hospitals, and asylums--for those whose great need of beauty seems often to be forgotten." <b>COWLES, MAUD ALICE.</b> Twin sister of Genevieve Cowles. Bronze medal at Paris Exposition, 1900, and a medal at Buffalo, 1901. Her studies were the same as her sister's, and she is a member of the same societies. Indeed, what has been said above is equally true of the two sisters, as they usually work on the same windows and decorations, dividing the designing and execution between them. <b>COX, LOUISE--MRS. KENYON COX.</b> Third Hallgarten prize, National Academy of Design; bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; silver medal at Buffalo, 1901; medal at Charleston, 1902; Shaw Memorial prize, Society of American Artists, 1903. Member of Society of American Artists, and an associate of the Academy of Design. Born at San Francisco, 1865. Studies made at Academy of Design, Art Students' League, under C. Turner, George de Forest Brush, and Kenyon Cox. Mrs. Cox paints small decorative pictures and portraits, mostly of children. The Shaw prize was awarded to a child's portrait, called "Olive." Among other subjects she has painted an "Annunciation," the "Fates," and "Angiola," reproduced in this book. [Illustration: From a Copley Print. ANGIOLA LOUISE COX] A writer in the _Cosmopolitan_ says: "Mrs. Cox is an earnest worker and her method is interesting. Each picture is the result of many sketches and the study of many models, representing in a composite way the perfections of all. For the Virgin in her 'Annunciation' a model was first posed in the nude, and then another draped, the artist sketching the figure in the nude, draping it from the second model. The hands are always separately sketched from a model who has a peculiar grace in folding them naturally." Mrs. Cox gives her ideas about her picture of the "Fates" as follows: "My interpretation of the Fates is not the one usually accepted. The idea took root in my mind years ago when I was a student at the League. It remained urgently with me until I was forced to work it out. As you see, the faces of the Fates are young and beautiful, but almost expressionless. The heads are drooping, the eyes heavy as though half asleep. My idea is, that they are merely instruments under the control of a higher power. They perform their work, they must do it without will or wish of their own. It would be beyond human or superhuman endurance for any conscious instrument to bear for ages and ages the horrible responsibility placed upon the Fates." <b>CRESPO DE REIGON, ASUNCION.</b> Honorable mention at the National Exhibition, Madrid, 1860. Member of the Academy of San Fernando, 1839. Pupil of her father. To the exhibition in 1860 she sent a "Magdalen in the Desert," "The Education of the Virgin," "The Divine Shepherdess," "A Madonna," and a "Venus." Her works have been seen in many public exhibitions. In 1846 she exhibited a miniature of Queen Isabel II. Many of her pictures are in private collections. <b>CROMENBURCH, ANNA VON.</b> In the Museum of Madrid are four portraits by this artist: "A Lady of the Netherlands," which belonged to Philip IV.; "A Lady and Child," "A Lady with her Infant before Her," and another "Portrait of a Lady." The catalogue of the Museum gallery says: "It is not known in what place or in what year this talented lady was born. She is said to have belonged to an old and noble family of Friesland. At any rate, she was an excellent portrait painter, and flourished about the end of the sixteenth century. The Museo del Prado is the only gallery in Europe which possesses works signed by this distinguished artist." <b>DAHN-FRIES, SOPHIE.</b> Born in Munich. 1835-98. This artist was endowed with unusual musical and artistic talent. After the education of her only son, she devoted herself to painting, principally of landscape and flowers. After 1868, so long as she lived she was much interested in Frau von Weber's Art School for Girls. In 1886, when a financial crisis came, Mme. Dahn-Fries saved the enterprise from ruin. She exhibited, in 1887, two pictures which are well known--"Harvest Time" and "Forest Depths." <b>DAMER, MRS. ANNE SEYMOUR.</b> Family name Conway. 1748-1828. She was a granddaughter of the Duke of Argyle, a relative of the Marquis of Hertford, and a cousin of Horace Walpole. Her education was conducted with great care; the history of ancient nations, especially in relation to art, was her favorite study. She had seen but few sculptures, but was fascinated by them, and almost unconsciously cherished the idea that she could at least model portraits and possibly give form to original conceptions. Allan Cunningham wrote of her thus: "Her birth entitled her to a life of ease and luxury; her beauty exposed her to the assiduity of suitors and the temptations of courts; but it was her pleasure to forget all such advantages and dedicate the golden hours of her youth to the task of raising a name by working in wet clay, plaster of Paris, stubborn marble, and still more intractable bronze." Before she had seriously determined to attempt the realization of her dreams, she was brought to a decision by a caustic remark of the historian, Hume. Miss Conway was one day walking with him when they met an Italian boy with plaster vases and figures to sell. Hume examined the wares and talked with the boy. Not long after, in the presence of several other people, Miss Conway ridiculed Hume's taste in art; he answered her sarcastically and intimated that no woman could display as much science and genius as had entered into the making of the plaster casts she so scorned. This decided her to test herself, and, obtaining wax and the proper tools, she worked industriously until she had made a head that she was willing to show to others. She then presented it to Hume; it has been said that it was his own portrait, but we do not know if this is true. At all events, Hume was forced to commend her work, and added that modelling in wax was very easy, but to chisel in marble was quite another task. Piqued by this scant praise she worked on courageously, and before long showed her critic a copy of the wax head done in marble. Though Hume genuinely admired certain portions of this work, it is not surprising that he also found defects in it. Doubtless his critical attitude stimulated the young sculptress to industry; but the true art-impulse was awakened, and her friends soon observed that Miss Conway was no longer interested in their usual pursuits. When the whole truth was known, it caused much comment. Of course ladies had painted, but to work with the hands in wet clay and be covered with marble dust--to say the least, Miss Conway was eccentric. She at once began the study of anatomy under Cruikshanks, modelling with Cerrachi, and the handling of marble in the studio of Bacon. Unfortunately for her art, she was married at nineteen to John Darner, eldest son of Lord Milton, a fop and spendthrift, who had run through a large fortune. He committed suicide nine years after his marriage. It is said that Harrington, in Miss Burney's novel of "Cecilia," was drawn from John Damer, and that his wardrobe was sold for $75,000--about half its original cost! Mrs. Damer was childless, and very soon after her husband's death she travelled in Europe and renewed her study and practice of sculpture with enthusiasm. By some of her friends her work was greatly admired, but Walpole so exaggerated his praise of her that one can but think that he wrote out of his cousinly affection for the artist, rather than from a judicial estimate of her talent. He bequeathed to her, for her life, his villa of Strawberry Hill, with all its valuables, and £2,000 a year for its maintenance. Mrs. Damer executed many portrait busts, some animal subjects, two colossal heads, symbolic of the Thames and the Isis, intended for the adornment of the bridge at Henley. Her statue of the king, in marble, was placed in the Register Office in Edinburgh. She made a portrait bust of herself for the Uffizi Gallery, in Florence. Her portrait busts of her relatives were numerous and are still seen in private galleries. She executed two groups of "Sleeping Dogs," one for Queen Caroline and a second for her brother-in-law, the Duke of Richmond. Napoleon asked her for a bust of Fox, which she made and presented to the Emperor. A bust of herself which she made for Richard Payne Knight was by him bequeathed to the British Museum. Her "Death of Cleopatra" was modelled in relief, and an engraving from it was used as a vignette on the title-page of the second volume of Boydell's Shakespeare. Those who have written of Mrs. Darner's art have taken extreme views. They have praised _ad nauseam_, as Walpole did when he wrote: "Mrs. Darner's busts from life are not inferior to the antique. Her shock dog, large as life and only not alive, rivals the marble one of Bernini in the Royal Collection. As the ancients have left us but five animals of equal merit with their human figures--viz., the Barberini Goat, the Tuscan Boar, the Mattei Eagle, the Eagle at Strawberry Hill, and Mr. Jennings' Dog--the talent of Mrs. Damer must appear in the most distinguished light." Cerrachi made a full length figure of Mrs. Damer, which he called the Muse of Sculpture, and Darwin, the poet, wrote: "Long with soft touch shall Damers' chisel charm, With grace delight us, and with beauty warm." Quite in opposition to this praise, other authors and critics have severely denied the value of her talent, her originality, and her ability to finish her work properly. She has also been accused of employing an undue amount of aid in her art. As a woman she was unusual in her day, and as resolute in her opinions as those now known as strong-minded. Englishwoman as she was, she sent a friendly message to Napoleon at the crisis, just before the battle of Waterloo. She was a power in some political elections, and she stoutly stood by Queen Caroline during her trial. Mrs. Damer was much esteemed by men of note. She ardently admired Charles Fox, and, with the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire and Mrs. Crewe, she took an active part in his election; "rustling their silks in the lowest sinks of sin and misery, and in return for the electors' 'most sweet voices' submitting, it is said, their own sweet cheeks to the salutes of butchers and bargemen." She did not hesitate to openly express her sympathy with the American colonies, and bravely defended their cause. At Strawberry Hill Mrs. Damer dispensed a generous hospitality, and many distinguished persons were her guests; Joanna Baillie, Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Garrick, and Mrs. Berry and her daughters were of her intimate circle. She was fond of the theatre and frequently acted as an amateur in private houses. She was excellent in high comedy and recited poetry effectively. Mrs. Damer was one of the most interesting of Englishwomen at a period of unusual excitement and importance. When seventy years old she was persuaded to leave Strawberry Hill, and Lord Waldegrave, on whom it was entailed, took possession. Mrs. Damer then purchased York House, the birthplace of Queen Anne, where she spent ten summers, her winter home being in Park Lane, London. She bequeathed her artistic works to a relative, directed that her apron and tools should be placed in her coffin, and all her letters destroyed, by which she deprived the world of much that would now be historically valuable, since she had corresponded with Nelson and Fox, as well as with other men and women who were active in the important movements of her time. She was buried at Tunbridge, Kent. <b>DASSEL, MRS. HERMINIE,</b> whose family name was Borchard. Daughter of a Prussian gentleman, who, having lost his fortune, came to the United States in 1839. His children had enjoyed the advantages of education and of an excellent position in the world, but here, in a strange land, were forced to consider the means of their support. Herminie determined to be a painter, and in some way earned the money to go to Düsseldorf, where she studied four years under Sohn, all the time supporting herself. Her pictures were genre subjects introducing children, which found a ready sale. She returned to America, determined to earn money to go to Italy. In a year she earned a thousand dollars, and out of it paid some expenses for a brother whom she wished to take with her. Herminie was still young, and so petite in person that her friends were alarmed by her ambitions and strenuously opposed her plans. However, she persevered and reached Italy, but unfortunately the Revolution of 1848 made it impossible for her to remain, and she had many unhappy experiences in returning to New York. Her pictures were appreciated, and several of them were purchased by the Art Union, then existing in New York. Soon after her return to America she married Mr. Dassel, and although she had a large family she continued to paint. Her picture of "Othello" is in the Düsseldorf Gallery. Her painting of "Effie Deans" attracted much attention. Mrs. Dassel interested herself in charities and was admired as an artist and greatly respected as a woman. She died in 1857. <b>DEALY, JANE MARY--MRS. W. LLEWELLYN LEWIS.</b> Silver medal at Royal Academy School and prize for best drawing of the year. Member of Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colors. Born in Liverpool. Studied at Slade School and Royal Academy School. Has exhibited several years at the Royal Academy Exhibition and Institute of Painters in Water-Colors. In 1901 her picture, "A Dutch Bargain," was etched and engraved. "Hush-a-Bye Baby" and "Good-by, Summer," have been published by Messrs. De la Rue et Cie. She has successfully illustrated the following children's books: "Sixes and Sevens," "The Land of Little People," "Children's Prayers," and "Children's Hymns." To the Academy Exhibition of 1903 Mrs. Lewis sent "On the Mountain-side, Engelberg." <b>DE ANGELIS, CLOTILDE.</b> This Neapolitan artist has made a good impression in at least two Italian exhibitions. To the National Exposition, Naples, 1877, she sent "Studio dal Vero" and "Vallata di Porrano," showing costumes of Amalfi. Both her drawing and color are good. <b>DEBILLEMONT-CHARDON, MME. GABRIELLE.</b> Third-class medal, Salon, 1894; honorable mention at Paris Exposition, 1900; second-class medal, Salon, 1901. This miniaturist is well known by her works, in which so much grace, freshness, skill, and delicacy are shown; in which are represented such charming subjects with purity of tone and skilful execution in all regards, as well as with an incomparable spirit of attractiveness. This artist is one of the three miniaturists whose works have a place in the Museum of the Luxembourg. She has had many pupils, and by her influence and example--for they endeavor to imitate their teacher--she has done much to improve and enlarge the style in miniature painting. <b>DE HAAS, MRS. ALICE PREBLE TUCKER.</b> Born in Boston. Studied at the Cooper Union and with M. F. H. de Haas, Swain Gifford, William Chase, and Rhoda Holmes Nicholls. Painter of water-color pictures and miniatures. Her pictures are in private hands in Washington, New York, and Boston. The following article written at the time of an exhibition by Mrs. de Haas gives a just estimate of her work: "Mrs. de Haas is especially devoted to the painting in water-color of landscape and sea views, for which the Atlantic coast affords such a wide and varied range. A constant and keen observer of Nature, she has seized her marvellous witchery of light and color, and reproduced them in the glow of the moonlight on the water when in a stormy mood, and the silvery gleam has become an almost vivid orange tint. She is most happy in the tender opalescent hues of the calm sea and the soft sky above, while the little boats seem to rock quietly on the water, barely stirred by the unruffled tide beneath. "The sunset light is a never-failing source of variety and beauty, and Mrs. de Haas has found a most attractive subject in the steeple of the old church in York Village--whose graceful curves are said to have been designed by Sir Christopher Wren--as it rises above the soft mellow glow of the sky or is pictured against the dark clouds. "In another mood the artist paints the low rocks among the reeds, with the breakers playing about them, while the distant sea stretches out to a horizon, with dark, stormy clouds brooding over the solitary waste. A remarkable union of the beauty of land and water is produced by a foreground of brilliant fancy flowers relieved by a scrubby tree in the background, with the faint responsive touch of yellow in the clouds over a calm sea, where gentle motion is only indicated by the little boat floating on its surface. "The schooners on the Magnolia Shore with Norman's Woe in the distance suggest alike the tragic story of the past and the present beauty, for now the sea is calm and the sails are drying in the sun after the storm is over. "Many other pictures might be mentioned--a quaint old house at Gloucester, a view of Ten Pound Island, with its picturesque surroundings, and the familiar beach, with Fort Head at York Harbor. As a specimen of landscape I would mention a picturesque group of trees at Gerrish Island, full of sunshine. "But Mrs. de Haas has added another most attractive style of art to her resources, and her miniatures, besides their charm of simplicity of treatment and delicacy of coloring, are said to have the merit of faithful likeness to their originals. Of course portraits, being painted on commission, are not generally available for exhibition, but Mrs. de Haas has a few specimens of her work which warrant all that has been said in their praise. "One is a charming picture of a child, which for beauty of delineation and delicacy of tinting recalls the memory of our greatest of miniature painters, Malbone. "Another is the portrait of the artist's father, and is represented with such truth of nature and so much vitality of expression and character as at once to give rise to the remark, 'I must have known that man, he seems so living to me.'" <b>DE KAY, HELENA--MRS. R. WATSON GILDER.</b> This artist has exhibited at the National Academy of Design, New York, since 1874, flower pieces and decorative panels. In 1878 she sent "The Young Mother." She was the first woman elected to the Society of American Artists, and to its first exhibition in 1878 she contributed "The Last Arrow," a figure subject, also a portrait and a picture of still-life. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>DELACROIX-GARNIER, MME. P.</b> Honorable mention, Salon des Artistes Français; medal at Exposition, Paris, 1900, for painting in oils; and a second medal for a treatise on water-colors. Member of the Société des Artistes Français, of the Union of women painters and sculptors, and vice-president from 1894 to 1900. Pupil of Henry Delacroix in painting in oils and of Jules Garnier in water-colors. Mme. Delacroix-Garnier has painted numerous portraits; among them those of the Dowager Duchess d'Uzès, Jules Garnier, and the Marquis Guy de Charnac, the latter exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français, 1903. At the same Salon in 1902 she exhibited the portrait of J. J. Masset, formerly a professor in the Paris Conservatory. Among her pictures are the "Happy Mother," "Temptation," "Far from Paris," "Maternal Joys," and in the Salon des Artistes Français, 1903, "Youth which Passes." <b>DELASALLE, ANGÈLE.</b> Honorable mention, Salon des Artistes Français, 1895; third-class medal, 1897; second-class medal, 1898; travelling purse, 1899; Prix Piot, of the Institute, 1899; silver medal, Paris Exposition, 1900. Member of the Société des Artistes Français, the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Société des prix du Salon et boursiers de voyage de la Société Nationale. Born in Paris. Pupil of Jean Paul Laurens and Benjamin-Constant. Her picture of "Diana in Repose" is in the collection of Alphonse de Rothschild; "Return from the Chase," a prehistoric scene, purchased by the Government; "The Forge," in the Museum of Rouen, where is also a "Souvenir of Amsterdam." Portrait of Benjamin-Constant and several other works of Mlle. Delasalle are in the Luxembourg; other pictures in the collections Demidoff, Coquelin, Georges Petit, etc. At the Salon des Artistes Français, 1902, this artist exhibited the portrait of M. Constant and the "Roof-Maker." At the Salon des Beaux-Arts, 1903, "The Park at Greenwich," "The Pont Neuf," "On the Thames," and a portrait in oils; and in water-colors, "The Coliseum, Rome," "A Tiger Drinking," "A Lion Eating," "Head of a Lion," "The Forge," etc. In the _Magazine of Art_, June, 1902, B. Dufernex writes of Mlle. Delasalle essentially as follows: This artist came into notice in 1895 by means of her picture of "Cain and Enoch's Daughters." Since then her annual contributions have demonstrated her gradual acquirement of unquestionable mastery of her art. Her characteristic energy is such that her sex cannot be detected in her work; in fact, she was made the first and only woman member of the International Association of Painters under the impression that her pictures--signed simply A. Delasalle--were the work of a man. Attracted by the dramatic aspects of human nature, she finds congenial subjects in the great efforts of humanity in the struggle for life. Her power of observation enables her to give freshness to hackneyed subjects, as in "La Forge." The attitudes of the workmen, so sure and decided, turning the half-fused metal are perfect in the precision of their combined efforts; the fatigue of the men who are resting, overwhelmed and stupefied by their exhausting labor, indicates the work of a profound thinker; whilst the atmosphere, the play of the diffused glow of the molten metal, are the production of an innate colorist. Her portrait of Benjamin-Constant represents not only the masterful man, but is also the personification of the painter. The attentive attitude, discerning eye, the openness of the absorbing look, the cerebral mask where rests so much tranquil power, the impressive shape of the leonine face, all combine to make the painting one of the finest portraits of the French school. She has a perfect and rare knowledge of the art of drawing and a faculty for seizing the character of things. Mlle. Delasalle exhibited her pictures at the Grafton Gallery, London, in 1902. <b>DELORME, BERTHE.</b> Medals at Nîmes, Montpellier, Versailles, and London. Member of the Société des Artistes Français. Born at Paris. Pupil of A. Chaplin. Mlle. Delorme has painted a great number of portraits, which are in the hands of her subjects. Her works are exhibited in the Salon au Grand Palais. In 1902 she exhibited a "Portrait of Mlle. Magdeleine D." <b>DEMONT-BRETON, VIRGINIE.</b> Paris Salon, honorable mention, 1880; medals of third and second class, 1881, 1883; Hors Concours; gold medal at Universal Exposition, Amsterdam, 1883; Paris Expositions, 1889 and 1900, gold medals; medal of honor at Exposition at Antwerp; Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and of the Belgian Order of Leopold; officer of the Nichan Iftikhar, a Turkish order which may be translated "A Sign of Glory"; member and honorary president of the Union des femmes peintres et sculpteurs de France, of the Alliance Feminine, of the Alliance Septentrionale; fellow of the Royal Academy, Antwerp; member of the Société des Artistes Français; member of the committee of the Central Union of Decorative Arts and of the American National Institute; member of the Verein der Schriftstellerinnen und Künstlerinnen of Vienna; one of the founders of the Société Populaire des Beaux-Arts and of the Société de bienfaisance l'Allaitement Maternel, etc. Born at Courrière, Pas de Calais, 1859. Pupil of her father, Jules Breton. The works of this artist are in a number of museums and in private collections in several countries. "La Plage" is in the Gallery of the Luxembourg, "Les Loups de Mer" in the Museum of Ghent, "Jeanne d'Arc at Domrémy" in a gallery at Lille; other pictures are in New York, Minneapolis, and other American cities; also in Berlin and Alexandria, Egypt. At the Salon des Artistes Français, in 1902, Mme. Demont-Breton exhibited a picture of "Les Meduses bleues." The fish were left on the beach by the retreating water, and two nude children, a boy and a girl, are watching them with intense interest. The children are very attractive. At the Salon of 1903 she exhibited "Seaweed." A strong young fisherwoman, standing in the water, draws out her net filled with shells, seaweed, and other products of the sea, while two nude children--again a boy and a girl--are selecting what pleases them in the mother's net. At the exhibition of Les Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs, in February, 1903, Mme. Demont-Breton exhibited the "Head of a Young Girl," which attracted much attention. Gray and sober in color, with a firmly closed mouth and serious eyes denoting great strength of character, it is admirably studied and designed and proves the unusual excellence of the art of this gifted daughter of Jules Breton. At the Exposition of Limoges, May to November, 1903, Mme. Demont-Breton was pronounced hors concours in painting. <b>DICKSON, MARY ESTELLE.</b> Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1896; bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; honorable mention, Buffalo Exposition, 1901; third-class medal, Paris Salon, 1902. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>DIÉTERLE, MME. M.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>DIETRICH, ADELHEID.</b> Born in Wittemberg, 1827. Daughter and pupil of Edward Dietrich, whose teaching she supplemented by travel in Italy and Germany. She made her home in Erfurt after her journeys and painted flower and fruit subjects. Her pictures were of forest, field, and garden flowers. They are much valued by their owners and are mostly in private collections. <b>DIETRICHSEN, MATHILDE--NÉE BONNEIRE.</b> Born in Christiania, 1847. When but ten years old she began the study of art at Düsseldorf, under the direction of O. Mengelberg and Tideman. When but fifteen she married, at Stockholm, the historian of art, Dietrichsen. She travelled extensively, visiting Germany, France, Italy, and Greece. She passed three years in Rome. Her pictures show refined, poetic feeling as well as good taste and humor. <b>DILLAYE, BLANCHE.</b> Silver medal at Atlanta Exposition, 1895; medal at American Art Society, 1902. Member of New York and Philadelphia Water-Color Clubs, American Women's Art Association, Paris; first president of Plastic Club, Philadelphia. Pupil of Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; has also studied in Europe. This artist makes a specialty of etching, and the medal she received at Atlanta was for a group of works in that art. She paints in water-colors, and has exhibited at the principal American exhibitions, in London, and in both Paris Salons. Her etchings have been widely noticed. At an early age she showed talent, and preferring etching as a mode of expression, she soon became noted for the qualities which have since made her famous, and is one of the best known among a group of women etchers. Her work, exhibited at the New York Etching Club, is conspicuous on account of its strength, directness, and firmness, allied to delicacy of touch. "In Miss Dillaye's work one sees the influence of her wanderings in many lands; the quaintness of Holland landscapes, the quiet village life in provincial France, the sleepy towns in Norway, and the quietude of English woods."--_Success_, September, 1902. <b>DINA, ELISA.</b> A Venetian figure and portrait painter. Is known through the pictures she has shown at many Italian exhibitions. At Venice, in 1881, she exhibited a graceful, well-executed work called "Caldanino della Nonna." "Di Ritorno dalla Chiesa" appeared at Milan in the same year. The latter, which represented a charming young girl coming out of church, prayer-book in hand, is full of sentiment. She sent to Turin, in 1884, "Popolana," which was much admired. Her portraits are said to be exceedingly life-like. <b>DRINGLINGER, SOPHIE FRIEDERICKE.</b> Born in Dresden, 1736; died 1791. Pupil of Oeser in Leipzig. In the Dresden Gallery are seven miniatures by her of different members of the Dringlinger family. The head of this house was John Melchior Dringlinger, court jeweller of Augustus the Strong. <b>DUBOURG, VICTORIA--MME. FANTIN-LATOUR.</b> Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1894; medal third class, 1895; picture in Gallery of Luxembourg, 1903. Member of the Société des Artistes Français. Born in Paris, 1840. Studies made at the Museum of the Louvre. Mme. Dubourg has exhibited her works at the Salons regularly since 1868, and her pictures are now seen in the Museums of Grenoble and Pau, as well as in many private collections. Her subjects are of still life. At the Salon of the Artistes Français, in 1902, Mme. Dubourg exhibited a "Basket of Flowers." <b>DUBRAY, CHARLOTTE GABRIELLE.</b> Born at Paris, and was the pupil of her father, Gabriel Vital-Dubray. In 1874 she exhibited at the Salon a marble bust of a "Fellah Girl of Cairo"; in 1875, a silvered bronze bust called the "Study of a Head," in the manner of Florence, sixteenth century; in 1876, "The Daughter of Jephthah Weeping on the Mountain," a plaster statue, a bust in bronze, and "A Neapolitan"; in 1877, "The Coquette," a bust in terra-cotta, and a portrait bust, in bronze, of M. B. <b>DUCOUDRAY, MLLE. M.</b> Honorable mention, 1898; honorable mention, Paris Exposition, 1900. At the Salon des Artistes Français, in 1902, this sculptor exhibited "Mon Maître Zacharie Astruc," and in 1903, "En Bretagne." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>DUFAU, CLÉMENTINE HÉLÈNE.</b> Awards from the Salon, Bashkirtseff prize, 1895; medal third class, 1897; travelling purse, 1898; medal second class, 1902; Hors Concours; silver medal, Paris Exposition, 1900. Picture in the Luxembourg, 1902. Member of the Société des Artistes Français and of the Società Heleno Latina, Rome. Born at Quinsac (Gironde). Studies made at Julian Academy, under Bouguereau and Robert-Fleury. Mlle. Dufau calls her works illustrations and posters, and gives the following as the principal examples: "Fils des Mariniers," in Museum of Cognac; "Rhythme," "Dryades," "Automne," a study, Manzi collection; "Espagne," "Été," Behourd collection; "Automne," Gallery of the Luxembourg. The latter is a decorative work of rare interest. At the Salon of 1903 Mlle. Dufau exhibited two works--"La grande Voix" and "Une Partie de Pelotte, au Pays basque." The latter was purchased by the Government, and will be hung in the Luxembourg. <b>DUHEM, MARIE.</b> Officer of the Academy, 1895; member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts; medal at the Paris Exposition, 1900; diploma of honor at Exposition of Women Artists, London, 1900. Born at Guemps (Pas-de-Calais). Has had no masters, has studied and worked by herself. Her pictures are in several museums: "The Communicants," at Cambrai; "Easter Eve," at Calais; "Death of a White Sister," at Arras, etc. The picture of St. Francis of Assisi was exhibited at the Salon of the Beaux-Arts, 1903. The saint, with a large aureole, is standing in the midst of a desolate landscape; his left hand raised, as if speaking--perhaps to some living thing, though nothing is revealed in the reproduction in the illustrated catalogue of the Salon. The other exhibits by Mme. Duhem are flower pictures--jonquils and oranges, chrysanthemums and roses. In 1902 she exhibited "The House with Laurels" in water-colors, and in oils "The High Road" and "The Orison." The first is a scene at nightfall and is rendered with great delicacy and refinement. <b>DUPRÉ, AMALIA.</b> Corresponding member of the Academy of Fine Arts, Florence, and of the Academy of Perugia. Born in Florence, 1845. Pupil of her father, Giovanni Dupré, who detected her artistic promise in her childish attempts at modelling. She has executed a number of notable sepulchral monuments, one for Adèle Stiacchi; one for the daughter of the Duchess Ravaschieri, in Naples, which represents the "Madonna Receiving an Angel in her Arms"; it is praised for its subject and for the action of the figures. "A Sister of Charity" for the tomb of the Cavaliere Aleotti is her work, and for the tomb of her parents, at Fiesole, she reproduced "La Pietà," one of her father's most famous sculptures. For the facade of the Florence Cathedral she made a statue of "Saint Reparata," and finished the "San Zenobi" which her father did not live to complete. She has a wide reputation in Italy for her statues of the "Young Giotto," "St. Peter in Prison," and "San Giuseppe Calasanzio." <b>DURANT, SUSAN D.</b> This English sculptor was educated in Paris, and died there in 1873. She first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1847. She was the teacher of the Princess Louise, and executed medallion portraits and busts of many members of the royal family of England. Her works were constantly exhibited at the Royal Academy. The _Art Journal_, March, 1873, spoke of her as "one of our most accomplished female sculptors." Her bust of Queen Victoria is in the Middle Temple, London; the "Faithful Shepherdess," an ideal figure, executed for the Corporation of London, is in the Mansion House. Among her other works are "Ruth," a bust of Harriet Beecher Stowe, and a monument to the King of Belgium, at Windsor. <b>D'UZÈS, MME. LA DUCHESSE.</b> Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1889. Born in Paris, 1847. Pupil of Bonnassieux and Falguière. The principal works of this artist are "Diana Surprised," in marble; "Saint Hubert," in the church of the Sacré-Coeur; the same subject for a church in Canada; "The Virgin," a commission from the Government, in the church at Poissy; "Jeanne d'Arc," at Mousson; the monument to Émile Augier, the commission for which was obtained in a competition with other sculptors; and many busts and statuettes. In the spring of 1903, at the twenty-second exhibition of the Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, the Duchesse d'Uzès exhibited a large statue of the Virgin which is to be erected in the church of St. Clothilde. It is correct anatomically and moulded with great delicacy. <b>EARL, MAUD.</b> A painter of animals, whose "Early Morning" was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885, and has been followed by "In the Drifts," "Old Benchers," "A Cry for Help," etc. In 1900 she exhibited "The Dogs of Death"; in 1901, "On Dian's Day." Miss Earl has painted portraits of many dogs on the Continent and in Great Britain, notably those belonging to Queen Victoria and to the present King and Queen. This artist exhibits in the United States as well as in the chief cities of England, and has held private exhibitions in Graves' Galleries. In 1902 her principal work was "British Hounds and Gun-Dogs." Many of her pictures have been engraved and published in both England and the United States. Among them are the last-named picture, "Four by Honors," "The Absent-Minded Beggar," and "What We Have We'll Hold." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>EGLOFFSTEIN, COUNTESS JULIA.</b> Born at Hildesheim. 1786-1868. This painter of portraits and genre subjects belonged to a family of distinction in the north of Germany. She was a maid of honor at the court of Weimar. Her pictures were praised by Cornelius and other Munich artists. Her portrait of Goethe, in his seventy-seventh year, is in the Museum at Weimar. She also painted portraits of Queen Theresa Charlotte of Bavaria and of the Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar. Her picture of "Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert" is well known in Germany. <b>EGNER, MARIE.</b> Pupil of Schindler in Vienna. She has exhibited her pictures at the exhibitions of the Vienna Water-Color Club. In 1890 an exquisite series of landscapes and flowers, in 1894 "A Mill in Upper Austria," in gouache, and in 1895 other work in the same medium, confirming previous impressions of her fine artistic ability. <b>EISENSTEIN, ROSA VON.</b> Born in Vienna, 1844. This artist is one of the few Austrian women artists who made all her studies in her native city. She was a pupil of Mme. Wisinger-Florian, Schilcher, C. Probst, and Rudolf Huber. Her pictures are of still-life. She is especially fond of painting birds and is successful in this branch of her art. <b>ELLENRIEDER, ANNA MARIE.</b> Born at Constance. 1791-1863. A pupil of Einsle, a miniaturist, and later of Langer, in Munich. In Rome, where this artist spent several years, she became a disciple of Overbeck. Returning to Switzerland, she received the appointment of Court painter at Baden in 1829. Her works are portraits and pictures of historical subjects, many of the latter being Biblical scenes. Among her best works are the "Martyrdom of Saint Stephen," in the Catholic church at Carlsruhe; a "Saint Cecilia," a "Madonna," and "Mary with the Christ-Child Leaving the Throne of Heaven" are in the Carlsruhe Gallery. "Christ Blessing Little Children" is in the church at Coburg. Among her other works are "John Writing his Revelation at Patmos," "Peter Awaking Tabitha," and "Simeon in the Temple." Her religious subjects sometimes verge on the sentimental, but are of great sweetness, purity, and tenderness. She was happier in her figures of women than in those of men. She also made etchings of portraits and religious subjects in the manner of G. F. Schmidt. <b>EMMET, LYDIA FIELD.</b> Medal at Columbian Exhibition, Chicago, 1893; medal at Atlanta Exhibition, 1895; honorable mention at Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, 1901. Member of the Art Students' League and Art Workers' Club for Women. Born at New Rochelle, New York. Studied at Art Students' League under Chase, Mowbray, Cox, and Reid; at the Julian Academy, Paris, under Robert-Fleury, Giacomotti, and Bouguereau; at the Shinnecock School of Art under W. M. Chase; at Académie Vieté, Paris, under Collin, and in a private studio under Mac Monnies. [Illustration: From a Copley Print. DOROTHY LYDIA FIELD EMMET] Miss Emmet has painted many portraits, which are in private hands in New York, Chicago, Boston, and elsewhere. She executed a decorative painting for the Woman's Building at Chicago which is still in that city. <b>EMMET, ROSINA--MRS. ARTHUR MURRAY SHERWOOD.</b> Silver medal, Paris Exposition, 1889; the Art Department medal, Chicago, 1893; bronze medal, Buffalo, 1901. Member of the Society of American Artists, American Water-Color Society, New York Water-Color Club. Born in New York City. Studied two years under William M. Chase and six months at Julian Academy, Paris. Miss Emmet exhibited at the National Academy of Design, in 1881, a "Portrait of a Boy"; in 1882, a "Portrait of Alexander Stevens" and "Waiting for the Doctor"; in 1883, "Red Rose Land" and "La Mesciana"; her picture called "September" belongs to the Boston Art Club. The greater number of her works are in private collections. <b>ESCALLIER, MME. ÉLÉONORE.</b> Medal at Salon, 1868. A pupil of Ziegler. A painter of still-life whose pictures of flowers and birds were much admired. "Chrysanthemums," exhibited in 1869, was purchased by the Government. "Peaches and Grapes," 1872, is in the Museum at Dijon; and in 1875 she executed decorative panels for the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur. <b>ESCH, MATHILDE.</b> Born at Kletten, Bohemia, 1820. Pupil of Waldmüller in Vienna. She also studied a long time in Düsseldorf and several years in Paris, finally settling in Vienna. She painted charming scenes from German and Hungarian life, as well as flowers and still-life. Most of her works are in private galleries. <b>ESINGER, ADÈLE.</b> Born in Salzburg, 1846. In 1874 she became a student at the Art School in Stuttgart, where she worked under the special direction of Funk, and later entered the Art School at Carlsruhe, where she was a pupil of Gude. She also received instruction from Hansch. Her pictures are remarkable for their poetic feeling; especially is this true of "A Quiet Sea," "The Gollinger Waterfall," and "A Country Party." <b>EYCK, MARGARETHA VAN.</b> In Bruges, in the early decades of the fifteenth century, the Van Eycks were inventing new methods in the preparation of colors. Their discoveries in this regard assured them an undying fame, second only to that of their marvellous pictures. Here, in the quaint old city--a large part of which we still describe as mediaeval--in an atmosphere totally unlike that of Italy, beside her devout brothers, Hubert and Jan, was Margaretha. When we examine the minute detail and delicate finish of the pictures of Jan van Eyck, we see a reason why the sister should have been a miniaturist, and do not wonder that with such an example before her she should have excelled in this art. The fame of her miniatures extended even to Southern Italy, where her name was honorably known. We cannot now point to any pictures as exclusively hers, as she worked in concert with her brothers. It is, however, positively known that a portion of an exquisite Breviary, in the Imperial Library in Paris, was painted by Margaretha, and that she illustrated other precious and costly manuscripts. She was held in high esteem in Bruges and was honored in Ghent by burial in the Church of St. Bavo, where Hubert van Eyck had been interred. Karl van Mander, an early writer on Flemish art, was poetically enthusiastic in praise of Margaretha, calling her "a gifted Minerva, who spurned Hymen and Lucina, and lived in single blessedness." A Madonna in the National Gallery in London is attributed to Margaretha van Eyck. <b>FACIUS, ANGELIKA.</b> Born at Weimar. 1806-87. This artist was distinguished as an engraver of medals and gems. Pupil of her father, Friedrich Wilhelm Facius. Goethe recommended her to Rauch, and in 1827 she went to Berlin to study in his studio. Under her father's instruction she engraved the medal for the celebration at Weimar, 1825, of the jubilee of the Grand Duke Charles Augustus. Under Rauch's direction she executed the medal to commemorate the duke's death. In 1841 she made the medal for the convention of naturalists at Jena. After Neher's designs, she modelled reliefs for the bronze doors at the castle of Weimar. <b>FARNCOMB, CAROLINE.</b> Several first prizes in exhibitions in London, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa. Member of Women's Art Club, London, Ontario. Born near Toronto, Canada. Pupil of Mr. Judson and Mlle. van den Broeck in London, Canada, and later of William Chase in New York. Now studying in Paris. <b>FASSETT, CORNELIA ADÈLE.</b> 1831-1898. Member of the Chicago Academy of Design and the Washington Art Club. Born in Owasco, New York. Studied water-color painting in New York under an English artist, J. B. Wandesforde. Pupil in Paris of Castiglione, La Tour, and Mathieu. Her artistic life was spent in Chicago and Washington, D. C. She painted numerous portraits in miniature and a large number in oils. Among those painted from life were Presidents Grant, Hayes, and Garfield; Vice-President Henry Wilson; Charles Foster, when Governor of Ohio, now in the State House at Columbus, Ohio; Dr. Rankin, president of Howard University, Washington; and many other prominent people of Chicago and Washington. Her chief work and that by which she is best remembered hangs in the Senate wing of the United States Capitol. No picture in the Capitol attracts more attention, and large numbers of people view it daily. It is the "Electoral Commission in Open Session." It represents the old Senate Chamber, now the Supreme Court Room, with William M. Evarts making the opening argument. There are two hundred and fifty-eight portraits of notable men and women, prominent in political, literary, scientific, and social circles. Many of these were painted from life. The _Arcadian_, New York, December 15, 1876, in speaking of this picture, says: "Mr. Evarts is addressing the court, and the large number of people present are naturally and easily grouped. There is no stiffness nor awkwardness in the positions, nothing forced in the whole work. There are, in the crowd, ladies in bright colors to relieve the sombreness of the black-coated men, and the effect of the whole picture is pleasing and artistic, aside from its great value as an historical work." The _Washington Capital_, March 17, 1878: "Mrs. Fassett's 'Electoral Commission' gives evidence of great merit, and this illustration in oil of an historical event in the presidential annals of the country, by the preservation of the likenesses in groups of some of the principal actors, and a few leading correspondents of the press, will be valuable. This picture we safely predict will be a landmark in the history of the nation that will never be erased. It memorizes a most remarkable crisis in our life, and perpetuates, both by reason of its intrinsic value as a chapter of history and its intrinsic worth as an art production, the incident it represents and the name of the artist." In the _Washington Star_, October, 1903, an article appeared from which I quote as follows: "On the walls of the beautiful tessellated corridor of the eastern gallery floor of the Senate wing of the Capitol at Washington, just opposite the door of the caucus room of the Senate Democrats, hangs a large oil painting that never fails to attract the keenest curiosity of sightseers and legislators alike. And for good reason: that painting depicts in glowing colors a scene of momentous import, a chapter of American political history of graver consequence and more far-reaching results than any other since the Civil War. The printed legend on the frame of the picture reads: "'The Florida case before the electoral commission, February 5, 1877. Painted from life sittings in the United States Supreme Court room by Cornelia Adèle Fassett.'" "The painting belongs to Congress, having been purchased from the artist for $15,000. As you face the picture the portraits of two hundred and fifty-eight men and women, who, twenty-six years ago, were part and parcel of the legislative, executive, judicial, social, and journalistic life of Washington, look straight at you as if they were still living and breathing things, as, indeed, many of them are. As a work of art the picture is unique, for each face is so turned that the features can easily be studied, and the likenesses of nearly all are so faithful as to be a source of constant wonder and delight."--_David S. Barry_, in _Pearson's Magazine_. <b>FAUVEAU, FÉLICIE DE.</b> Second-class medal at Florence in 1827, when she made her début by exhibiting a statue, "The Abbot," and a group, "Queen Christine and Monaldeschi." Born in Florence, of French parents, about 1802. For political reasons she was forced to leave Florence about 1834, when she went to Belgium, but later returned to her native city. Among her best works are "St. George and the Dragon," bronze; the "Martyrdom of St. Dorothea," "Judith with the Head of Holofernes," "St. Genoveva," marble, and a monument to Dante. Her works display a wonderful skill in the use of drapery and a purity of taste in composition. She handled successfully the exceedingly difficult subject, a "Scene between Paolo and Francesca da Rimini." <b>FAUX-FROIDURE, MME. EUGÉNIE JULIETTE.</b> Honorable mention at Salon, 1898; the same at the Paris Exposition, 1900; third-class medal at Salon, 1903; first prize of the Union of Women Painters and Sculptors, 1902; chevalier of the Order Nichan Iftikar; Officer of Public Instruction. Member of the Association of Baron Taylor, of the Société des Artistes Français, of the Union of Women Painters and Sculptors, and of the Association of Professors of Design of the City of Paris. Born at Noyen (Sarthe). Pupil of P. V. Galland, Albert Maignan, and G. Saintpierre. Mme. Faux-Froidure's pictures are principally of fruit and flowers, and three have been purchased by the Government. One, "Raisins" (Grapes), is in the Museum at Commerey; a second, "Hortensias" (Hydrangeas), is in the Museum of Mans; the third, which was in the Salon of 1903, has not yet been placed. In 1899 she exhibited a large water-color called "La Barque fleurie," which was much admired and was reproduced in "L'Illustration." Her water-color of "Clematis and Virginia Creeper" is in the Museum at Tunis. In the summer exhibition of 1903, at Évreux, this artist's "Peonies" and "Iris" were delightfully painted--full of freshness and brilliancy, such as would be the despair of a less skilful hand. At the Limoges Exposition, May to November, 1903, Mme. Faux-Froidure was announced as hors concours in water-colors. La Société Français des Amis des Arts purchased from the Salon, 1903, two water-colors by Mme. Faux-Froidure--"Roses" and "Loose Flowers," or "Jonchée fleurie." Her pictures at the Exposition at Toulouse, spring of 1903, were much admired. In one she had most skilfully arranged "Peaches and Grapes." The color was truthful and delicate. The result was a most artistic picture, in which the art was concealed and nature alone was manifest. A second picture of "Zinnias" was equally admirable in the painting of the flowers, while that of the table on which they were placed was not quite true in its perspective. Of a triptych, called the "Life of Roses," exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français, 1903, Jules de Saint Hilaire writes: "Mme. Faux-Froidure was inspired when she painted her charming triptych of 'Rose Life.' In the compartment on the left the roses are twined in a crown resembling those worn in processions; in the centre, in all its dazzling beauty, the red rose, the rose of love, is enthroned; while the panel on the right is consecrated to the faded rose--the souvenir rose, shrivelled, and lying beside the little casket which it still perfumes with its old-time sweetness." <b>FISCHER, CLARA ELIZABETH.</b> Born in Berlin, 1856. Studied under Biermann six years, and later under Julius Jacob. Her pictures are portraits and genre subjects. Among the latter are "What Will Become of the Child?" 1886; "Orphaned," "In the Punishment Corner," and "Morning Devotion." <b>FISCHER, HELENE VON.</b> Born in Bremen, 1843. She first studied under a woman portrait painter in Berlin; later she was a pupil of Frische in Düsseldorf, of Robie in Brussels, and of Hertel and Skarbina in Berlin. She makes a specialty of flowers, fruit, and still-life; her fruit and flower pieces are beautiful, and her pictures of the victims of the chase are excellent. <b>FLESCH-BRUNNENGEN, LUMA VON.</b> Born in Brünn in 1856. In Vienna she worked under Schöner, the interpreter of Venetian and Oriental life, and later in Munich she acquired technical facility under Frithjof Smith. Travels in Italy, France, and Northern Africa furnished many of her themes--mostly interiors with figures, in which the entering light is skilfully managed. "The Embroiderers," showing three characteristic figures, who watch the first attempt of their seriously earnest pupil, is full of humor. In sharp contrast to this is a "Madonna under the Cross," exhibited at Berlin in 1895, in which the mother's anguish is most sympathetically rendered. "Devotion," "Shelterless," and the "Kitchen Garden" are among the paintings which have won her an excellent reputation as a genre painter. <b>FLEURY, MME. FANNY.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>FOCCA, SIGNORA ITALIA ZANARDELLI.</b> Silver medal at Munich, 1893; diploma of gold medal at Women's Exhibition, London, 1900. Member of Società Amatorie Pittori di Belle Arti, of the Unione degli Artisti, and of the Società Cooperativa, all in Rome. Born in Padua, 1872. Pupil of Ottin in Paris, and of the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. The principal works of this sculptor are a "Bacchante," now in St. Petersburg; "Najade," sold in London; "The Virgin Mother," purchased by Cavaliere Alinari of Florence; portrait of the Minister Merlo, which was ordered by the Ministry of Public Instruction. Many other less important works are in various Italian and foreign cities. Signora Focca is a professor of drawing in the Normal Schools of Rome. <b>FOLEY, MARGARET E.</b> A native of New Hampshire. Died in 1877. Without a master, in the quiet of a country village, Miss Foley modelled busts in chalk and carved small figures in wood. At length she made some reputation in Boston, where she cut portraits and ideal heads in cameo. She went to Rome and remained there. She became an intimate friend of Mr. and Mrs. Howitt, and died at their summer home in the Austrian Tyrol. Among her works are busts of Theodore Parker, Charles Sumner, and others; medallions of William and Mary Howitt, Longfellow, and Bryant; and several ideal statues and bas-reliefs. In a critical estimate of Miss Foley we read: "Her head of the somewhat impracticable but always earnest senator from Massachusetts--Sumner--is unsurpassable and beyond praise. It is simple, absolute truth, embodied in marble."--_Tuckerman's Book of the Artists._ "Miss Foley's exquisite medallions and sculptures ought to be reproduced in photograph. Certainly she was a most devoted artist, and America has not had so many sculptors among women that she can afford to forget any one of them."--_Boston Advertiser,_ January, 1878. <b>FONTAINE, JENNY.</b> Silver medal, Julian Academy, 1889; silver medal at Amiens Exposition, 1890 and 1894; honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1892; gold medal at Rouen Exposition, 1893; third-class medal, Salon, 1896; bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1900. Officer of the Academy, 1896; Officer of Public Instruction, 1902. Member of the Société des Artistes Français, Paris; Société de l'Union Artistique, du Pas-de-Calais, at Arras; corresponding member of the Academy of Arras. Pupil of Jules Lefebvre and Benjamin-Constant. Mlle. Fontaine paints portraits only--of these she has exhibited regularly at the Salons for sixteen years. Among her sitters have been many persons of distinction, both men and women. At the Salon of 1902 she exhibited her own portrait; in 1903, portraits of MM. Rene et Georges D. The _Journal des Arts_, giving an account of the exhibition at Rheims, summer, 1903, says: "The portraits here are not so numerous as one might expect, but they are too fine to be overlooked. Mlle. Jenny Fontaine has, for a long time, held a distinguished place as a _portraitiste_ in our Salons, and two of her works are here: a portrait of a young girl and one of General Jeanningros." <b>FONTANA, LAVINIA.</b> Born in Bologna, 1552. Her father was a distinguished portrait painter in Rome in the time of Pope Julius III., but the work of his daughter was preferred before his own. She was elected to the Academy of Rome, while her charms were extolled in poetry and prose. Pope Gregory XIII. made her his painter-in-ordinary. Patrician ladies, cardinals, and Roman nobles contended for the privilege of having their portraits from her hand. Men of rank and scholars paid court to her, but, with a waywardness not altogether uncommon, she married a man who was even thought to be lacking in sense. One of her two daughters was blind of one eye, and her only son was so simple that the loungers in the antechamber of the Pope were accustomed to amuse themselves with his want of wit. She is said to have died of a broken heart after the death of this son, and her portrait of him is considered her masterpiece. Her own portrait was one of her most distinguished works, and though it is in possession of her husband's family, the Zappi, of Imola, it may be judged by an engraving after it in Rossini's "History of Italian Painting." Many portraits by Lavinia Fontana are in the private collections of Italian families for whom they were painted. In the Gallery of Bologna there is a night-scene, the "Nativity of the Virgin," by her, and in the Escorial is a Madonna lifting a veil to regard the sleeping Jesus, while SS. Joseph and John stand near by. In the churches of San Giacomo Maggiore and of the Madonna del Baracano, both in Bologna, are Fontana's pictures of the "Madonna with Saints." In Pieve di Cento are two of her works--a "Madonna" and an "Ascension." It is said that several pictures by this artist are in England, but I have failed to find to what collections they belong. Lavinia Fontana was a distinguished woman in a notable age, and if, in translating the tributes that were paid her by the authors of her day, we should faithfully render their superlatives, these writings would seem absurd in their exaggerations, and our comparatively cold adjectives would be taxed beyond their power of expression. <b>FONTANA, VERONICA.</b> Born in 1576. A pupil of Elisabetta Sirani, who devoted herself to etching and wood-engraving. She is known from her exceedingly fine, delicate portraits on wood and etchings of scenes from the life of the Madonna. <b>FOORD, MISS J.</b> A painter of plants and flowers, which are much praised. An article in the _Studio_, July, 1901, says: "Miss Foord, by patient and observant study from nature, has given us a very pleasing, new form of useful work, that has traits in common; with the illustrations to be found in the excellent botanical books of the beginning of the nineteenth century." After praising the works of this artist, attention is called to her valuable book, "Decorative Flower Studies," illustrated with forty plates printed in colors. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>FOOTE, MARY HALLOCK.</b> Born in Milton, New York. At New York School of Design for Women this artist studied anatomy and composition under William Rimmer, and drawing on wood and black and white under William J. Linton. Mrs. Foote is a member of the Alumni of the School of Design. Her illustrations have been exhibited by the publishers for whom they were made. In the beginning her work was suited to the taste and custom of the time. She illustrated the so-called "Gift Books" and poems in the elaborate fashion of the period. Later she was occupied principally in illustrations for the Century Company and Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Mrs. Foote writes that Miss Regina Armstrong--now Mrs. Niehaus--in a series of articles on "Women Illustrators of America," whom she divided into classes, placed her with the "Story-Tellers." <b>FORBES, MRS. STANHOPE.</b> Mr. Norman Gastin, in an article upon the work of the Royal Academician, Stanhope Forbes, in the _Studio_, July, 1901, pays the following tribute to the wife of the artist, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Armstrong: "Mrs. Stanhope Forbes's work does not ask you for any of that chivalrous gentleness which is in itself so derogatory to the powers of women. As an artist she stands shoulder to shoulder with the very best; she has taste and fancy, without which she could not be an artist. But what strikes one about her most is summed up in the word 'ability.' She is essentially able. The work which that wonderful left hand of hers finds to do, it does with a certainty that makes most other work look tentative beside hers. The gestures and poses she chooses in her models show how little she fears drawing, while the gistness of her criticism has a most solvent effect in dissolving the doubts that hover round the making of pictures." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>FORTI, ENRICA.</b> Rome. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>FORTIN DE COOL, DELFINA.</b> Third-class medal, Madrid, 1864, for the following works reproduced on porcelain: the "Conception" of Murillo, the "Magdalen" of Antolinez, and the portrait of Alonso Cano by Velazquez; also a portrait on ivory of a young girl. This artist, who was French by birth, was a pupil of her father. For paintings executed in the imperial works at Sèvres, she was awarded prizes at Blois, Besançon, Rouen, Perigueux, and Paris. <b>FOULQUES, ELISA.</b> Born in Pjatigorsk, in the Caucasus. She came under Italian influence when but four years old, and was taken to Naples. At the Institute of the Fine Arts she was a pupil of Antoriello, Mancinelli, Perrisi, and Solari. She received a diploma when leaving the Institute. Her picture, "Mendica," was exhibited in Naples, 1886; "Un ultimo Squardo" and "Sogno," 1888. In London, in 1888, "Tipo Napoletano," "Studio dal vero," and "Ricordi" were exhibited. Since 1884 this artist has taught drawing in the Municipal School for Girls in Naples, and has executed many portraits in oil, as well as numerous pastels and water-colors. Among her later works are "La Figlia del Corsaro," "Chiome nere," "Una Carezza al Nonno," and "Di Soppiatto." <b>FRACKLETON, SUSAN STUART.</b> Medal at Antwerp Exposition, 1894; at Paris Exposition, 1900. Founder and first president of National League of Mineral Painters; member of Park and Outdoor Association. Born at Milwaukee, 1848. Pupil of private studios in Milwaukee and New York. Mrs. Frackleton's gas-kilns for firing decorated china and glass are well known; also her book, "Tried by Fire," a treatise on china painting. As a ceramic artist she has exhibited in various countries, and has had numerous prizes for her work. She declined the request of the Mexican Government to be at the head of a National School of Ceramic Decoration, etc. She is also a lecturer on topics connected with the so-called arts and crafts. <b>FREEMAN, FLORENCE.</b> Born in Boston. 1836-1883. Pupil of Richard S. Greenough in Boston and of Hiram Powers in Florence, Italy. After a year in Florence she went to Rome, where she made her home. Among her works are a bust of "Sandalphon," which belonged to Mr. Longfellow, bas-reliefs of Dante, and a statue of the "Sleeping Child." She sent to the Exhibition in Philadelphia, 1876, a chimney-piece on which were sculptured "Children and the Yule-Log and Fireside Spirits." This was purchased by Mrs. Hemenway, of Boston. "Her works are full of poetic fancy; her bas-reliefs of the seven days of the week and of the hours are most lovely and original in conception. Her sketches of Dante in bas-reliefs are equally fine. Her designs for chimney-pieces are gems, and in less prosaic days than these, when people were not satisfied with the work of mechanics, but demanded artistic designs in the commonest household articles, they would have made her famous."--_The Revolution_, May, 1871. <b>FRENCH, JANE KATHLEEN.</b> Member of the Water-Color Society of Ireland. Born in Dublin. Studied in Brussels under M. Bourson, and in Wiesbaden under Herr Kögler. Miss French is a miniaturist and exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1901, a case of her works which she was later specially invited to send to an exhibition in Liverpool, and several other exhibits. The last two years she has exhibited in Ireland only, as her commissions employ her time so fully that she cannot prepare for foreign expositions. <b>FREYBERG, BARONESS MARIE ELECTRINE.</b> Elected to the Academy of St. Luke, 1822. Born in Strassburg. 1797-1847. Daughter and pupil of the landscape painter, Stuntz. After travelling in France and Italy, making special studies in Rome, she settled in Munich. She painted historical and religious subjects, and a few portraits. "Zacharias Naming the Little St. John" is in the New Picture Gallery, Munich; in the same gallery is also a portrait called the "Boy Playing a Flute"; in the Leuchtenberg Gallery, Petersburg, is her "Three Women at the Sepulchre." She painted a picture called the "Glorification of Religion through Art" and a "Madonna in Prayer." She also executed a number of lithographs and etchings. <b>FRIEDLÄNDER, CAMILLA.</b> Born in Vienna, 1856. She was instructed by her father, Friedrich Friedländer. Among her numerous paintings of house furniture, antiquities, and dead animals should be especially mentioned her picture in the Rudolfinum at Prague, which represents all sorts of drinking-vessels, 1888. Some critics affirm that she has shown more patience and industry than wealth of artistic ideas, but her still-life pictures demanded those qualities and brought her success and artistic recognition. <b>FRIEDRICH, CAROLINE FRIEDERIKE.</b> Born in Dresden. 1749-1815. Honorary member of Dresden Academy. In the Dresden Gallery is a picture by this artist, "Pastry on a Plate with a Glass of Wine," signed 1799. <b>FRIEDRICHSON, ERNESTINE.</b> Born in Dantzig, 1824. Pupil of Marie Wiegmann in Düsseldorf, and later of Jordan and Wilhelm Sohn. While still a student she visited Holland, Belgium, England, and Italy. Her favorite subjects were scenes from the every-day life of Poles and Jews. Her best pictures were sold to private collectors. Among these are "Polish Raftsmen Resting in the Forest," 1867; "Polish Raftsmen before a Crucifix," 1869; "A Jew Rag-picker," 1870; "The Jewish Quarter in Amsterdam on Friday Evening," 1881; "A Goose Girl," 1891. <b>FRIES, ANNA.</b> Silver medal at Berne, 1857; two silver medals from the Academy of Urbino; silver medal at the National Exposition by Women in Florence. Honorary member of the Academy Michael Angela, Florence, and of the Academy of Urbino. Born in Zürich, 1827. She encountered much opposition to her desire to study art, but her talent was so manifest that at length she was permitted to study drawing in Zürich, and her rapid progress was finally recognized and she was taken to Paris, where the great works of the masters were an inspiration to her. She has great individuality in her pictures, which have been immoderately praised. She visited Italy, and in 1857 went to Holland, where she painted portraits of Queen Sophia and the Prince of Orange. She returned to Zürich and was urged to remain in Switzerland, but she was ambitious of further study, and went again to Florence. She there painted a portrait of the Grand Duchess Marie of Russia. She turned her attention to decorative painting, and her success in this may be seen in the facades of the Schmitz villa, the Schemboche establishment, and her own home. When we consider the usual monotony of this art, the charming effects which Mme. Fries has produced make her distinguished in this specialty. <b>FRISHMUTH, HARRIET WHITNEY.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>FRITZE, MARGARETHE AUGUSTE.</b> Born in Magdeburg, 1845. This genre painter worked first in Bremen, and went in 1873 to Munich, where she studied with Grützner and Liezen-Meyer. The most significant of her pictures is "The Little Handorgan-Player with His Monkey." She has also executed many strong portraits, and her painting is thought to show the influence of A. von Kotzebue and Alexander Wagner. In 1880 she spent some time in Stuttgart, and later settled in Berlin. <b>FRORIEP, BERTHA.</b> Born in Berlin, 1833. Pupil of Martersteig and Pauwels in Weimar. This artist's pictures were usually of genre subjects. Her small game pictures with single figures are delightful. She also painted an unusually fine portrait of Friedrich Rückert. At an exhibition by the women artists of Berlin, 1892, a pen study by Fräulein Froriep attracted attention and was admired for its spirit and its clear execution. <b>FRUMERIE, MME. DE.</b> Honorable mention at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1893 and 1895. Born in Sweden, she studied in the School of Fine Arts in Stockholm. There she gained a prize which entitled her to study abroad during four years. She has exhibited her works in Paris, and to the Salon of Les Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs, in February, 1903, she contributed a bust of Strindberg which was a delightful example of life-like portraiture. <b>FULLER, LUCIA FAIRCHILD.</b> Bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; silver medal, Buffalo Exposition, 1901. Member of the Society of American Artists and of the American Society of Miniature Painters. Born in Boston. Studied at the Cowles Art School, Boston, under Denis M. Bunker, and at the Art Students' League, New York, under H. Siddons Mowbray and William M. Chase. Mrs. Fuller is a most successful miniature painter. Among her principal works are "Mother and Child," in the collection of Mrs. David P. Kimball, Boston; "Girl with a Hand-Glass," owned by Hearn; and "Girl Drying Her Feet," for which the medal was given in Paris. Mrs. Fuller's miniatures are portraits principally, and are in private hands. Some of her sitters in New York are Mrs. J. Pierpont Morgan and her children, Mrs. H. P. Whitney and children, J. J. Higginson, Esq., Dr. Edwin A. Tucker, and many others. <b>GAGGIOTTI-RICHARDS, EMMA.</b> Historical and portrait painter, of the middle of the nineteenth century, is known by her portrait of Alexander von Humboldt (in possession of the Emperor William II.) and by her portrait of herself before her easel. Her historical paintings include "The Crusader" and a "Madonna." <b>GALLI, EMIRA.</b> Reproduces with great felicity the customs of the lagoons, the boys and fishermen of which she represents with marvellous fidelity. She depicts not only characteristics of features and dress, but of movement. "Giovane veneziana" and "Ragazzo del Popolo" were exhibited at Turin in 1880, and were much admired. "Il Falconiere" was exhibited at both Turin and Milan. "Un Piccolo Accattone" has also been accorded warm praise. <b>GARDNER, ELIZABETH JANE.</b> Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1879; gold medal, 1889; hors concours. Born in Exeter, New Hampshire, 1851, her professional life has been spent in Paris, where she was a pupil of Hugues Merle, Lefebvre, and M. William A. Bouguereau, whom she married. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>GARRIDO Y AGUDO, MARIA DE LA SOLEDAD.</b> Born in Salamanca. Pupil of Juan Peyró. She exhibited two works at the National Exposition, 1876--a portrait and a youth studying a picture. In 1878 she sent to the same exposition "The Sacrifice of the Saguntine Women." At the Philadelphia Exposition, 1876, she exhibited her "Messenger of Love." Her "Santa Lucia" is in the church of San Roque de Gardia. <b>GASSO Y VIDAL, LEOPOLDA.</b> Honorable mention, 1876. Prizes, 1876, for two works sent to the Provincial Exposition of Leon. Member of the Association of Authors and Artists, 1876. Born in the Province of Toledo. Pupil of Manuel Martinez Ferrer and Isidoro Lozano. At Madrid, in 1881, she exhibited "A Pensioner," "A Beggar," a portrait of Señorita M. J., and a landscape; in 1878, "A Coxcomb," "Street Venders of Ávila," and a landscape; and in 1881, at an exhibition held by D. Ricardo Hernandez, were seen a landscape and a portrait of D. Lucas Aguirre y Juarez. <b>GEEFS, MME. FANNY ISABELLE MARIE.</b> Born at Brussels. 1814-1883. Wife of the sculptor, Guillaume Geefs. A painter of portraits and genre subjects which excel the historical pictures she also painted. Her "Assumption of the Virgin" is in a church at Waterloo; "Christ Appearing to His Disciples," in a church at Hauthem. "The Virgin Consoling the Afflicted" was awarded a medal in Paris, and is in the Hospital of St. John at Brussels. The "Virgin and Child" was purchased by the Belgian Government. Her portraits are good, and among her genre subjects the "Young Mother," the "Sailor's Daughter," and "Ophelia" are attractive and artistic in design and execution. <b>GELDER, LUCIA VAN.</b> Born in Wiesbaden. 1864-1899. This artist was the daughter of an art dealer, and her constant association as a child with good pictures stimulated her to study. In Berlin she had lessons in drawing with Liezenmayer, and in color with Max Thedy. She was also a constant student at the galleries. She began to work independently when eighteen, and a number of her pictures achieved great popularity, being reproduced in many art magazines. "The Little Doctor," especially, in which a boy is feeling, with a grave expression of knowledge, the pulse of his sister's pet kitten, has been widely copied in photographs, wood-engravings, and in colors. She repeated the picture in varying forms. She died in Munich, where she was favorably known through such works as "The Village Barber," "Contraband," "The Wonderful Story," "At the Sick Bed," and "The Violin Player," the last painted the year before her death. <b>GENTILESCHI, ARTEMISIA.</b> 1590-1642. A daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, whom she accompanied to England when he was invited to the court of Charles I. Artemisia has been called the pupil, and again the friend, of Guido Reni. Whatever the relation may have been, there is no doubt that the manner of her painting was influenced by Guido, and also by her study of the works of Domenichino. Wagner says that she excelled her father in portraits, and her own likeness, in the gallery at Hampton Court, is a powerful and life-like picture. King Charles had several pictures from her hand, one of which, "David with the Head of Goliath," was much esteemed. Her "Mary Magdalene" and "Judith with the Head of Holofernes" are in the Pitti Palace. The latter work is a proof of her talent. Lanzi says: "It is a picture of strong coloring, of a tone and intensity which inspires awe." Mrs. Jameson praised its execution while she regretted its subject. [Illustration: Alinari, Photo. In the Pitti Gallery, Florence JUDITH WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI] Her picture of the "Birth of John the Baptist," in the Gallery of the Prado, is worthy of attention, even in that marvellous collection, where is also her "Woman Caressing Pigeons." The Historical Society of New York has her picture of "Christ among the Doctors." After her return to Italy from England, this artist was married and resided in Naples. Several of her letters are in existence. They tell of the manner of her life and give an interesting picture of Neapolitan society in her day. <b>GESSLER DE LACROIX, ALEJANDRENA</b>--known in art circles as Madame Anselma. Gold medal at Cadiz, 1880. Honorary member of the Academy of Cadiz. She has spent some years in Paris, where her works are often seen in exhibitions. Her medal picture at Cadiz was an "Adoration of the Cross." One of her most successful works is called "The Choir Boys." <b>GILES, MISS--MRS. BERNARD JENKIN.</b> This sculptor exhibited a life-size marble group, called "In Memoriam," at the Royal Academy in 1900, which attracted much attention. It was graceful in design and of a sympathetic quality. At an open competition in the London Art Union her "Hero" won the prize. In 1901 she exhibited an ambitious group called "After Nineteen Hundred Years, and still They Crucify." It was excellent in modelling, admirable in sentiment, and displayed strength in conception and execution. <b>GINASSI, CATERINA.</b> Born in Rome, 1590. This artist was of noble family, and one of her uncles, a Cardinal, founded the Church of Santa Lucia, in which Caterina, after completing her studies under Lanfranco, painted several large pictures. After the death of the Cardinal, with money which he had given her for the purpose, Caterina founded a cloister, with a seminary for the education of girls. As Abbess of this community she proved herself to be of unusual ability. In her youth she had been trained in practical affairs as well as in art, and, although she felt that "the needle and distaff were enemies to the brush and pencil," her varied knowledge served her well in the responsibilities she had assumed, and at the head of the institution she had founded she became as well known for her executive ability as for her piety. Little as the works of Lanfranco appeal to us, he was a notable artist of the Carracci school; Caterina did him honor as her master, and, in the esteem of her admirers, excelled him as a painter. <b>GIRARDET, BERTHE.</b> Gold medal at the Paris Exposition, 1900; honorable mention, Salon des Artistes Français, 1900; ten silver medals from foreign exhibitions. Member of the Société des Artistes Français and the Union des femmes peintres et sculpteurs. Born at Marseilles. Her father was Swiss and her mother a Miss Rogers of Boston. She was a pupil for three months of Antonin-Carlès, Paris. With this exception, Mme. Girardet writes: "I studied mostly alone, looking to nature as the best teacher, and with energetic perseverance trying to give out in a concrete form all that filled my heart." [Illustration: GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD BERTHE GIRARDET] Among her works are: "L'Enfant Malade," bought by the city of Paris and placed in the Petit Palais des Champs Élysées; a group called the "Grandmother's Blessing," purchased by the Government and placed in a public museum; the bust of an "Old Woman," acquired by the Swiss Government and placed in the Museum of Neuchâtel; a group, the "Madonna and Child," for which the artist received the gold medal; and two groups illustrating the prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread." Also portrait statues and busts belonging to private collections. At the Salon des Artistes Français, 1902, Mme. Girardet exhibited the "Grandmother's Blessing" and "L'Enfant Malade." At the same Salon, 1903, the two groups illustrating the Lord's Prayer. A writer, G. M., in the _Studio_ of December, 1902, writes: "Prominent among the women artists of the day whose talents are attracting attention is Mme. Berthe Girardet. She has a very delicate and very tender vision of things, which stamps her work with genuine originality. She does not seek her subjects far from the life around her; quite the reverse; and therein lies the charm of her sculpture--a great, sincere, and simple charm, which at once arouses one's emotion. What, for instance, could be more poignantly sad than this 'Enfant Malade' group, with the father, racked with anxiety, bending over the pillow of his fragile little son, and the mother, already in an attitude of despair, at the foot of the bed? The whole thing is great in its profound humanity. "The 'Bénédiction de l'Aïeule' is less tragic. Behind the granddaughter, delightful in her white veil and dress of a _première communicante_, stands the old woman, her wrinkled face full of quiet joy. She is thinking of the past, moved by the melancholy of the bells, and she is happy with a happiness with which is mingled something of sorrow and regret. It is really exquisite. By simple means Mme. Berthe Girardet obtains broad emotional effects. She won a great and legitimate success at the Salon of the Société des Artistes Français." <b>GLEICHEN, COUNTESS.</b> Bronze medal at Paris Exposition, 1900. Honorable member of Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colors, of Royal Society of Painter Etchers. Sculptor. Pupil of her father, Prince Victor of Hohenlohe, and of the Slade School, London; also of Professor Legros. She has exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy since 1893. In 1895 she completed a life-size statue of Queen Victoria for the Victoria Hospital, Montreal. The Queen is represented in royal robes, with one child asleep on her knee, while another, with its arm in a sling, stands on the steps of the throne. Shortly before the Queen's death she gave sittings to Countess Gleichen, who then executed a bust of her majesty, now at the Cheltenham Ladies' College. The Constitutional Club, London, has her bust of Queen Alexandra, which was seen at the Academy in 1895. Her "Satan" attracted much attention when exhibited in 1894. He is represented as seated on a throne composed of snakes, while he has scales and wings and is armed like a knight. In 1899 her statue of "Peace" was more pleasing, while a hand-mirror of jade and bronze was much admired both in London and Paris, where it was seen in the Exposition of 1900. In 1901 she executed a fountain with a figure of a nymph for a garden in Paris; a year later, a second fountain for W. Palmer, Esq., Ascot. She has made a half-length figure of Kubelik. Her sculptured portraits include those of Sir Henry Ponsonby, Mme. Calvé, Mrs. Walter Palmer, and a bust of the late Queen, in ivory, which she exhibited in 1903. <b>GLEICHEN, COUNTESS HELENA.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>GLOAG, ISOBEL LILIAN.</b> Born in London, the daughter of Scotch parents. Her early studies were made at St. John's Wood Art School, preparatory to entering the School of the Royal Academy, but the conservative and academic training of these institutions so displeased her that she went to the Slade School. Ill health compelled her to put aside all plans for regular study, and she entered Ridley's studio for private instruction, following this with work at the South Kensington Museum. After still further study with Raphael Collin in Paris, she returned to London and soon had her work accepted at the Royal Academy. Miss Gloag is reported as saying that women have little sense of composition, a failing which she does not seem to share; in this respect and as a colorist she is especially strong. "Rosamond," in which the charming girl in a purple robe, sitting before an embroidery frame, is startled by the shadow of Queen Eleanor bearing the poisoned cup, displays these qualities to great advantage. The leafy bower, the hanging mantle, show great skill in arrangement and a true instinct for color. "The Magic Mantle," "Rapunzel," and the "Miracle of the Roses" have all--especially, the first named--made an impression; another and strikingly original picture, called the "Quick and the Dead," represents a poorhouse, in the ward of which is a group of old women surrounded by the ghosts of men and children. Miss Gloag has also made some admirable designs for stained-glass windows. She has been seriously hampered by ill health, and her achievements in the face of such a drawback are all the more remarkable. <b>GODEWYCK, MARGARETTA.</b> Born at Dort, 1627. A pupil of the celebrated painter, Nicholas Maas. She excelled as a painter of flowers, and was proficient in both ancient and modern languages. She was called by authors of her time, "the lovely flower of Art and Literature of the Merwestrom," which is a poetical way of saying Dordrecht! <b>GOLAY, MARY--MME. SPEICH GOLAY.</b> Silver medal at Geneva Exposition, 1896; eighteen medals and rewards gained in the Art Schools of Geneva, and the highest recompense for excellence in composition and decoration. Member of the Amis des Beaux-Arts, Geneva; Société vaudoise des Beaux Arts, Lausanne. Born in Geneva and studied there under Mittey for flower painting, composition, and ceramic decoration; under Gillet for figure painting. Mme. Golay has executed a variety of pictures both in oil and water-colors. In an exhibition at the Athénée in Geneva, in the autumn of 1902, she exhibited two pictures of sleep, which afforded an almost startling contrast. They were called "Sweet Sleep" and the "Eternal Sleep." The first was a picture of a beautiful young woman, nude, and sleeping in the midst of roses, while angels watching her inspire rosy dreams of life and love. The roses are of all possible shades, rendered with wonderful freshness--scarlet roses, golden roses--and in such masses and so scattered about the nude figure as to give it a character of purity and modesty. The flesh tints are warm, the figure is supple in effect, and the whole is a happy picturing of the sleep and dream of a lovely young woman who has thrown herself down in the carelessness of solitude. It required an effort of will to turn to the second picture. Here lies another young woman, in her white shroud, surrounded with lilies as white as her face, on which pain has left its traces. In the artistic speech of the present day, it is a symphony in white. The figure is as rigid as the other is supple; it is frightfully immovable--and yet the drawing is not exaggerated in its firmness. Certainly these contrasting pictures witness to the skill of the artist. Without doubt the last is by far the most difficult, but Mme. Golay has known how to conquer its obstacles. A third picture by this artist in the exhibition is called the "Abundance of Spring." Mme. Golay's reputation as a flower painter has been so long established that one need not dwell on the excellence of the work. A writer in the Geneva _Tribune_ exclaims: "One has never seen more brilliant peonies, more vigorous or finer branches of lilacs, or iris more delicate and distinguished. How they breathe--how they live--how they smile--these ephemeral blossoms!" <b>GONZALEZ, INÉS.</b> Member of the Academy San Carlos of Valencia. In the expositions of 1845 and 1846 in that city she was represented by several miniatures, one of which, "Dido," was much admired. Another--the portrait of the Baron of Santa Barbara--was acquired by the Economic Society of Valencia. In the Provincial Museum is her picture of the "Two Smokers." <b>GRANBY, MARCHIONESS OF.</b> Replies as follows to circular: "Lady Granby has been written about by Miss Tomlinson, 20 Wigmore Street, London, W. And I advise you if you really want any information to get it from her. V. G." I was not "_really_" anxious enough to be informed about Lady Granby--who drops so readily from the third person to the first--to act on her advice, which I give to my readers, in order that any one who does wish to know about her will be able to obtain the information! <b>GRANT, MARY R.</b> This sculptor studied in Paris and Florence, as well as in London, where she was a pupil of J. H. Foley, R.A. She has exhibited at the Royal Academy since 1870. She has executed portraits of Queen Victoria, Georgina, Lady Dudley, the Duke of Argyll, Mr. C. Parnell, M.P., and Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A. Her memorial work includes a relief of Dean Stanley, Royal Chapel, Windsor; and a relief of Mr. Fawcett, M.P., on the Thames Embankment. The late Queen gave Miss Grant several commissions. In Winchester Cathedral is a screen, on the exterior of Lichfield Cathedral a number of figures, and in the Cathedral of Edinburgh a reredos, all the work of this artist. At the Royal Academy, 1903, she exhibited a medallion portrait in bronze. <b>GRATZ, MARIE.</b> Born at Karlsruhe, 1839. This portrait painter was a pupil of Bergmann, and later of Schick and Canon. Among her best-known portraits are those of Prince and Princess Lippe-Detmold, Princess Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Prince Wittgenstein, the hereditary Princess Reuss, and Princess Biron von Kurland. <b>GRAY, SOPHIE DE BUTTS.</b> First honor, Maryland Institute; second honor, World's Fair, New Orleans; gold medal, Autumn Exhibition, Louisville, 1898; first and second premiums, Nelson County Fair, 1898. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>GREATOREX, ELIZA.</b> In 1869 Mrs. Greatorex was elected associate member of the National Academy, New York, and was the first woman member of the Artists' Fund Society of New York. Born in Ireland. 1820-1897. Studied under Witherspoon and James and William Hart in New York; under Lambinet in Paris; and at the Pinakothek in Munich. Mrs. Greatorex visited England, Paris, Italy, and Germany, spending a summer in Nuremberg and one in Ober-Ammergau. Among her most important works are "Bloomingdale," which was purchased by Mr. Robert Hoe; "Château of Madame Cliffe," the property of Dykeman van Doren; "Landscape, Amsterdam"; pictures of "Bloomingdale Church," "St. Paul's Church," and the "North Dutch Church," all painted on panels taken from these churches. Mrs. Greatorex illustrated the "Homes of Ober-Ammergau" with etchings, published in Munich in 1871; also "Summer Etchings in Colorado," published in 1874; and "Old New York from the Battery to Bloomingdale," published in 1875. Eighteen of the drawings for the "Old New York" were at the Philadelphia Exhibition, 1876. <b>GREENAWAY, KATE.</b> Member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colors, 1890. Born in London. 1846-1901. Her father was a well-known wood-engraver. Miss Greenaway first studied her art at the South Kensington School; then at Heatherley's life class and at the Slade School. She began to exhibit at the Dudley Gallery in 1868. Her Christmas cards first attracted general attention to her as an artist. Their quaint beauty and truthful drawing in depicting children, young girls, flowers, and landscape soon made them more popular than the similar work of other artists. These cards sold by thousands on both sides of the Atlantic and secured consideration for any other work she might do. She soon made illustrations for _Little Folks_ and the _London News_. In 1879 "Under the Window" appeared, and one hundred and fifty thousand copies were sold; it was also translated into French and German. The "Birthday Book," "Mother Goose," and "Little Ann" followed and were accorded the heartiest welcome. It is said that for the above four toy books she received $40,000. Wherever they went--and they were in all civilized countries--they were applauded by artists and critics and loved by all classes of women and children. One can but hope that Kate Greenaway realized the world-wide pleasure she gave to children. The exhibition of her works at the Gallery of the Fine Arts Society, since her death, was even more beautiful than was anticipated. The grace, delicacy, and tenderness with which her little people were created impressed one in an entire collection as no single book or picture could do. It has been said that "Kate Greenaway dressed the children of two continents," and, indeed, her revival of the costumes of a hundred years ago was delightful for the children and for everybody who saw them. Among her papers after her death many verses were found. Had she lived she would doubtless have acquired the courage to give them to the world. She was shy of strangers and the public; had few intimates, but of those few was very fond; the charm of her character was great--indeed, her friends could discover no faults in her; her personality and presence were as lovely to them as were her exquisite flowers. <b>GREENE, MARY SHEPARD.</b> Third-class medal, 1900, second-class medal, 1902, at Salon des Artistes Français. Her picture of 1902 is thus spoken of in _Success_, September of that year: "'Une Petite Histoire' is the title of Miss Mary Shepard Greene's graceful canvas. The lithe and youthful figure of a girl is extended upon a straight-backed settle in somewhat of a Récamier pose. She is intently occupied in the perusal of a book. The turn of the head, the careless attitude, and the flesh tints of throat and face are all admirably rendered. The diaphanous quality of the girlish costume is skilfully worked out, as are also the accessories of the room. Miss Greene's work must commend itself to those who recognize the true in art. Technical dexterity and a fine discrimination of color are attributes of this conscientious artist's work. She has a rare idea of grace and great strength of treatment. "Miss Greene's canvas has a charm all its own, and is essentially womanly, while at the same time it is not lacking in character. Hailing from New England, her first training was in Brooklyn, under Professor Whittaker, from whom she received much encouragement. Afterward she came under the influence of Herbert Adams, and, after pursuing her studies with that renowned artist, she went to Paris, where she was received as a pupil by Raphael Collin. She has exhibited at Omaha, Pittsburg, and at the Salon. Her first picture, called 'Un Regard Fugitif,' won for her a medal of the third class." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>GREY, MRS. EDITH F.</b> Member of the Society of Miniaturists, Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colors, Bewick Club, and Northumbrian Art Institute, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Born at the last-named place, where she also made her studies in the Newcastle School of Art, and later under private masters in London. Mrs. Grey has exhibited miniatures and pictures in both oils and water-colors at the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Academy, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colors, and the exhibitions at Liverpool, Manchester, and York. Since 1890 she has continuously exhibited at the Academy of the Royal Institute, London, except in 1895 and 1902. Mrs. Grey was fortunate in having the first picture she sent to London sold, and has continued to find purchasers for her exhibited works, which are now in many private collections and number about one hundred and fifty. "Empty," a child study in oils, 1897, and a water-color, "A Silver Latch," 1900, are among her important works. To the Academy Exhibition, 1903, she sent a picture of "Nightfall, Cullercoats," and a portrait of "Lily, daughter of Mrs. J. B. Firth." <b>GUILD, MRS. CADWALLADER.</b> I quote from the Boston _Transcript_ a portion of an article relative to this sculptor, some of whose works were exhibited in Boston in 1903: "In spite of the always suspected journalistic laudations of Americans abroad, in spite of the social vogue and intimacy with royalty which these chronicle, the work of Mrs. Guild shows unmistakable talent and such a fresh, free spirit of originality that one can almost accept the alleged dictum of Berlin that Mrs. Guild 'is the greatest genius in sculpture that America has ever had.' "The list of Mrs. Guild's works executed abroad include a painting belonging to the very beginning of her career, of still-life in oils, which was accepted and well hung at the Royal Academy in London; but it is in Berlin that she has been especially successful. To her credit there are: A bust of her royal highness the Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein; Mr. Gladstone, in marble and bronze; G. F. Watts, in bronze, for the 'Permanent Manchester Art Exhibition'; Mr. Peter Brotherhood, inventor of a torpedo engine, in marble and bronze, which held the place of honor at the Royal Academy the year of its exhibition; Princess Henry of Prussia, in marble; her highness Princess Helena of Saxe-Altenburg; his excellency the Baron von Rheinbaben, minister of finance; his excellency Dr. Studt, minister of education in art; Prof. Dr. Henry Thode, of the Heidelberg University; Hans Thoma and Joachim, the violinist; Felix Weingartner; statuette of her royal highness Princess Henry with her little son Prince Henry." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>GUNTHER-AMBERG, JULIE.</b> Born in Berlin, 1855. Daughter and pupil of Wilhelm Amberg; later she studied under Gussow. She painted attractive scenes of domestic life, the setting for these works often representing a landscape characteristic of the shore of the Baltic Sea. Among these pictures are "Schurr-Meer," "The Village Coquette," "Sunday Afternoon," "At the Garden Gate," and "Harvest Day in Misdroy." In 1886 this artist married Dr. Gunther, of Berlin. <b>GUYON, MAXIMILIÈNNE.</b> Medal of third class, Paris salon, 1888; honorable mention and medal of third class at Exposition Universelle, 1889; travelling purse, 1894--first woman to whom the purse was given; bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; gold medal at Exposition of Black and White, Paris; medal in silver-gilt at Amiens. Mme. Guyon is hors concours at Lyons, Versailles, Rouen, etc. Member of the Société des Artistes Français, Société des Aquarellistes Français, and of the Société des Prix du Salon et Boursiers de Voyage. Born at Paris. Pupil of the Julian Academy under Robert-Fleury, Jules Lefebvre, and Gustave Boulanger. Mme. Guyon is a successful portrait painter, and her works are numerous. Among her pictures of another sort are the "Violinist" and "The River." In the Salon des Artistes Français, 1902, she exhibited two portraits. In 1903 she exhibited "Mending of the Fish Nets, a scene in Brittany," and "A Study." The net-menders are three peasant women, seated on the shore, with a large net thrown across their laps, all looking down and working busily. They wear the white Breton caps, and but for these--in the reproduction that I have--it seems a gloomy picture; but one cannot judge of color from the black and white. The net is well done, as are the hands, and the whole work is true to the character of such a scene in the country of these hard-working women. Mme. Guyon is much esteemed as a teacher. She has been an instructor and adviser to the Princess Mathilde, and has had many young ladies in her classes. In her portraits she succeeds in revealing the individual characteristics of her subjects and bringing out that which is sometimes a revelation to themselves in a pronounced manner. Is not this the key to the charm of her works? <b>HAANEN, ELIZABETH ALIDA--MME. KIERS.</b> Member of the Academy of Amsterdam, 1838. Born in Utrecht. 1809-1845. Pupil of her brother, Georg G. van Haanen. The genre pictures by this artist are admirable. "A Dutch Peasant Woman" and "The Midday Prayer of an Aged Couple" are excellent examples of her art and have been made familiar through reproductions. <b>HALE, ELLEN DAY.</b> Medal at exhibition of Mechanics' Charitable Association. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts. Pupil of William M. Hart and of Dr. Rimmer, in Boston, and of the Julian Academy, Paris. Her principal works are decorative. The "Nativity" is in the South Congregational Church, Boston; "Military Music," decorative, is in Philadelphia. She also paints figure subjects. <b>HALLOWELL, MAY.</b> See Loud. <b>HALSE, EMMELINE.</b> This artist, when in the Royal Academy Schools, was awarded two silver medals and a prize of £30. Her works have been accepted at the Academy Exhibitions since 1888, and occasionally she has sent them to the Paris Salons. Born in London. Studied under Sir Frederick Leighton, at Academy Schools, and in Paris under M. Bogino. Miss Halse executed the reredos in St. John's Church, Notting Hill, London; a terra-cotta relief called "Earthward Board" (?) is in St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London; a relief, the "Pleiades," was purchased by the Corporation of Glasgow for the Permanent Exhibition; her restoration of the "Hermes" was placed in the British Museum beside the cast from the original. This artist has made many life-size studies of children, portraits in marble, plaster, and wax, in all sizes, poetical reliefs, and tiny wax figures. <b>HAMMOND, GERTRUDE DEMAIN.</b> Several prizes at the School of the Royal Academy, 1886, 1887, and in 1889 the prize for decorative design; bronze medal at Paris Exposition in 1900. Member of Institute of Painters in Water-Colors. Born at Brixton. After gaining the prize for decorative design Miss Hammond was commissioned to execute her design, in a public building. This was the third time that such a commission was given to a prize student, and the first time it was accorded to a woman. More recently Miss Hammond has illustrated books and magazines; in 1902 she illustrated the "Virginians" in a new American edition of Thackeray's novels. At the Academy, 1903, she exhibited "A Reading from Plato." <b>HARDING, CHARLOTTE.</b> George W. Childs gold medal at Philadelphia School of Design for Women; silver medal at Women's Exposition, London, 1900. Born in Newark, New Jersey, 1873. Pupil of Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts and School of Design for Women. In the latter was awarded the Horstman fellowship. Miss Harding is an illustrator whose works are seen in a number of the principal magazines. <b>HART, LETITIA B.</b> Dodge prize, National Academy of Design, 1898. Born in New York, 1857. Pupil of her father, James M. Hart, and Edgar M. Ward. Her principal works are "The Keepsake," "Unwinding the Skein," "In Silk Attire," and "The Bride's Bouquet." <b>HAVENS, BELLE.</b> Awarded third Hallgarten prize at National Academy of Design, winter of 1903. Born in Franklin County, Ohio. Studied at Art Students' League, New York, and at Colarossi Atelier, Paris. In New York Miss Havens was directed by William Chase, and by Whistler in Paris. In Holland she studied landscape under Hitchcock, and a picture called "Going Home" was accepted at the Salon and later exhibited at the Philadelphia Academy; it is owned by Mr. Caldwell, of Pittsburg. Mr. Harrison N. Howard, in _Brush and Pencil_, writing of the exhibition of the National Academy of Design, says: "'Belle Havens' the 'Last Load' is part and parcel with her other cart-and-horse compositions, commonplace and prosaic in subject, but rendered naturally and forcefully and with no small measure of atmospheric effect. The picture is not one of the winsome sort, and it doubtless makes less appeal to the spectator than any other of the prize-winners." <b>HAZLETON, MARY BREWSTER.</b> First Hallgarten prize, 1896; first prize travelling scholarship, School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1899; honorable mention, Buffalo, 1901. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>HEDINGER, ELISE.</b> Family name Neumann. Born in Berlin, 1854. Pupil of Hoguet, Hertel, and Gussow in Berlin, and of Bracht in Paris. In recent years she has exhibited in Berlin and other cities many exquisite landscapes and admirable pictures of still-life, which have been universally praised. <b>HEEREN, MINNA.</b> Born in Hamburg; living in Düsseldorf. In the Gallery at Hamburg is her "Ruth and Naomi," 1854; other important works are "The Veteran of 1813 and His Grandson, Wounded in 1870," "The Little Boaster," "A Troubled Hour of Rest," etc. <b>HELENA.</b> A Greek painter of the fourth century B. C. Daughter of Timon, an Egyptian. She executed a picture of the "Battle of Issus," which was exhibited in the Temple of Peace, in the time of Vespasian, 333 B. C. <b>HERBELIN, MME. JEANNE MATHILDE.</b> Third-class medal, Paris Salon, 1843; second class, 1844; and first class, 1847, 1848, and 1855. Born in Brunoy, 1820. A painter of miniatures. One of these works by Mme. Herbelin was the first miniature admitted to the Luxembourg Gallery. <b>HEREFORD, LAURA.</b> 1831-1870. This artist is distinguished by the fact that she was the first woman to whom the schools of the Royal Academy were opened. She became a pupil there in 1861 or 1862, and in 1864 sent to the Exhibition "A Quiet Corner"; in 1865, "Thoughtful"; in 1866, "Brother and Sister"; and in 1867, "Margaret." <b>HERMAN, HERMINE VON.</b> Born in Komorn, Hungary, 1857. Studied under Darnaut in Vienna, where she made her home. She is a landscape painter and is known through her "Evening Landscape," "Spring," "Eve," and a picture of roses. <b>HEUSTIS, LOUISE LYONS.</b> Member of Art Workers' Club for Women and the Art Students' League. Born in Mobile, Alabama. Pupil of Art Students' League, New York, under Kenyon Cox and W. M. Chase; at Julian Academy, Paris, under Charles Lasar. [Illustration: From a Copley Print. THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER LOUISE L. HEUSTIS] A portrait painter. At a recent exhibition of the Society of American Artists, Miss Heustis's genre portrait called "The Recitation" was most attractive and well painted. She has painted portraits of Mr. Henry F. Dimock; Mr. Edward L. Tinker, in riding clothes, of which a critic says, "It is painted with distinction and charm"; the portrait of a little boy in a Russian blouse is especially attractive; and a portrait of Miss Soley in riding costume is well done. These are but a small number of the portraits by this artist. She is clever in posing her sitters, manages the effect of light with skill and judgement, and renders the various kinds of textures to excellent advantage. As an illustrator Miss Heustis has been employed by _St. Nicholas, Scribner's_, and _Harper's Magazine_. <b>HILL, AMELIA R.</b> A native of Dunfermline, she lived many years in Edinburgh. A sister of Sir Noel and Walter H. Paton, she married D. O. Hill, of the Royal Scottish Academy. Mrs. Hill made busts of Thomas Carlyle, Sir David Brewster, Sir Noel Paton, Richard Irven, of New York, and others. She also executed many ideal figures. She was the sculptor of the memorial to the Regent Murray at Linlithgow, of the statue of Captain Cook, and that of Dr. Livingstone; the latter was unveiled in Prince's Gardens, Edinburgh, in 1876, and is said to be the first work of this kind executed by a woman and erected in a public square in Great Britain. "Mrs. Hill has mastered great difficulties in becoming a sculptor in established practice."--_Mrs. Tytler's "Modern Painters."_ "Mrs. Hill's Captain Cook--R. Scottish Academy, 1874--is an interesting figure and a perfectly faithful likeness, according to extant portraits of the great circumnavigator."--_Art Journal_, April, 1874. <b>HILLS, LAURA COOMBS.</b> Medal at Art Interchange, 1895; bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; silver medal, Pan-American Exposition, 1901; second prize, Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D. C, 1901. Member of Society of American Artists, Women's Art Club, New York, American Society of Miniature Painters, and Water-Color Club, Boston. Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Studied in Helen M. Knowlton's studio and at Cowles Art School, Boston, and at Art Students' League, New York. [Illustration: MINIATURE OF PERSIS BLAIR LAURA COOMBS HILLS] Miss Hills is a prominent and successful miniaturist, and her numerous pictures are in the possession of her subjects. They are decidedly individual in character. No matter how simple her arrangements, she gives her pictures a cachet of distinction. It may be "a lady in a black gown with a black aigrette in her hair and a background of delicate turquoise blue, or the delicate profile of a red-haired beauty, outlined against tapestry, the snowy head and shoulders rising out of dusky brown velvet; but the effect is gem-like, a revelation of exquisite coloring that is entirely artistic." "An attractive work," reproduced here, "may be called a miniature picture. It is a portrait of a little lady, apparently six or seven years old, in an artistic old-fashioned gown, the bodice low in neck and cut in sharp point at the waist line in front; elbow sleeves, slippers with large rosettes, just peeping out from her dress, her feet not touching the floor, so high is she seated. Her hair, curling about her face, is held back by a ribbon bandeau in front; one long, heavy curl rests on the left side of her neck, and is surmounted by a big butterfly bow. The costume and pose are delightful and striking at first sight, but the more the picture is studied the more the face attracts the attention it merits. It is a sweet little girl's face, modest and sensible. She is holding the arm of her seat with a sort of determination to sit that way and be looked at so long as she must, but her expression shows that she is thinking hard of something that she intends to do so soon as she can jump down and run away to her more interesting occupations." <b>HINMAN, LEANA MCLENNAN.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>HITZ, DORA.</b> Born at Altdorf, near Nuremberg, 1856. During eight years she worked under the direction of Lindenschmit, 1870-1878. She was then invited to Bucharest by the Queen of Roumania, "Carmen Sylva." Here the artist illustrated the Queen's poem, "Ada," with a series of water-color sketches, and painted two landscapes from Roumanian scenery. Between 1883 and 1886 she made sketches for the mural decoration of the music-room at the castle of Sinoia. Later, in Brittany and Normandy, she made illustrations for the fisher-romances of Pierre Loti. At Berlin, in 1891-1892, she painted portraits, and then retired to Charlottenburg. Her exhibition of two beautiful pictures in gouache, at Dresden, in 1892, brought her into notice, and her grasp of her subjects and her method of execution were much commended. Fräulein Hitz could not stem the "classic" art creed of Berlin, where the "new idealism" is spurned. She ventured to exhibit some portraits and studies there in 1894, and was most unfavorably criticised. At Munich, however, in 1895, her exhibition was much admired at the "Secession." Again, in 1898, she exhibited, in Berlin, at the Union of Eleven, a portrait of a young girl, which was received with no more favor than was shown her previous works. In the same year, at the "Livre Esthetique," in Brussels, her pictures were thought to combine a charming grace with a sure sense of light effects, in which the predominating tone was a deep silver gray. A portrait by this artist was exhibited at a Paris Salon in 1895. <b>HOFFMANN, FELICITAS.</b> Born in Venice, she died in Dresden, 1760. Pupil of Rosalba Camera. There are four pictures in the Dresden Gallery attributed to her--"St. George," after Correggio; "Diana with an Italian Greyhound," after Camera; "Winter," a half-length figure by herself; and her own portrait. Her principal works were religious subjects and portraits. <b>HOFFMANN-TEDESCO, GIULIA.</b> Prize at the Beatrice Exposition, Naples. Born at Wurzburg, 1850. This artist has lived in Italy and made her artistic success there, her works having been seen in many exhibitions. Her prize picture at Naples was called "A Mother's Joy." In 1877 she exhibited in the same city "Sappho" and "A Mother," which were much admired; at Turin, 1880, "On the Water" and "The Dance" were seen; at Milan, 1881, she exhibited "Timon of Athens" and a "Sunset"; at Rome, 1883, "A Gipsy Girl" and "Flowers." Her flower pictures are excellent; they are represented with truth, spirit, and grace. <b>HOGARTH, MARY.</b> Exhibits regularly at the New English Art Club, and occasionally at the New Gallery. Born at Barton-on-Humber, Lincolnshire. Pupil of the Slade School under Prof. Fred Brown and P. Wilson Steer. Miss Hogarth's contribution to the exhibition of the New English Art Club, 1902, was called "The Green Shutters," a very peculiar title for what was, in fact, a picture of the Ponte Vecchio and its surroundings, in Florence. It was interesting. It was scarcely a painting; a tinted sketch would be a better name for it. It was an actual portrait of the scene, and skilfully done. <b>HORMUTH-KOLLMORGEN, MARGARETHE.</b> Born at Heidelberg, 1858. Pupil of Ferdinand Keller at Carlsruhe. Married the artist Kollmorgen, 1882. This painter of flowers and still-life has also devoted herself to decorative work, mural designs, fire-screens, etc., in which she has been successful. Her coloring is admirable and her execution careful and firm. <b>HOSMER, HARRIET G.</b> Born in Watertown, Massachusetts, 1830. Pupil in Boston of Stevenson, who taught her to model; pupil of her father, a physician, in anatomy, taking a supplementary course at the St. Louis Medical School. Since 1852 she has resided in Rome, where she was a pupil of Gibson. Two heads, "Daphne" and "Medusa," executed soon after she went to Rome, were praised by critics of authority. "Will-o'-the-Wisp," "Puck," "Sleeping Faun," "Waking Faun," and "Zenobia in Chains" followed each other rapidly. Miss Hosmer made a portrait statue of "Maria Sophia, Queen of the Sicilies," and a monument to an English lady to be placed in a church in Rome. Her "Beatrice Cenci" has been much admired; it is in the Public Library at St. Louis, and her statue of Thomas H. Benton is in a square of the same city. For Lady Ashburton Miss Hosmer made her Triton and Mermaid Fountains, and a Siren Fountain for Lady Marian Alford. <b>HOUSTON, CAROLINE A.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>HOUSTON, FRANCES C.</b> Bronze medal at Atlanta Exposition; honorable mention at Paris Exposition, 1900. Member of the Water-Color Club, Boston, and of the Society of Arts and Crafts. Born in Hudson, Michigan, 1851. Studied in Julian Academy under Lefebvre and Boulanger. A portrait painter whose pictures are in private hands. They have been exhibited in Paris, London, Naples, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Mrs. Houston writes me: "I have not painted many pictures of late years, but always something for exhibition every year." She first exhibited at Paris Salon in 1889, in London Academy in 1890, and annually sends her portraits to the Boston, New York, and Philadelphia Exhibitions. <b>HOXIE, VINNIE REAM.</b> Born in Madison, Wisconsin, 1847. This sculptor was but fifteen years old when she was commissioned to make a life-size statue of Abraham Lincoln, who sat for his bust; her completed statue of him is in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. Congress then gave her the commission for the heroic statue of Admiral Farragut, now in Farragut Square, Washington. These are the only two statues that the United States Government has ordered of a woman. This artist has executed ideal statues and several bust portraits of distinguished men. Of these the bust of Ezra Cornell is at Cornell University; that of Mayor Powell in the City Hall of Brooklyn, etc. <b>HUDSON, GRACE.</b> Gold medal at Hopkins Institute, San Francisco; silver medal at Preliminary World's Fair Exhibition of Pacific States; and medals and honorable mention at several California State exhibitions. Born in Potter Valley, California. Studied at Hopkins Art Institute, San Francisco, under Virgil Williams and Oscar Kunath. Paints genre subjects, some of which are "Captain John," in National Museum; "Laughing Child," in C. P. Huntington Collection; "Who Comes?" in private hands in Denver, etc. Mrs. Hudson's pictures of Indians, the Pomas especially, are very interesting, although when one sees the living article one wonders how a picture of him, conscientiously painted and truthful in detail, can be so little repulsive--or, in fact, not repulsive at all. At all events, Mrs. Hudson has no worthy rival in painting California Indians. If we do not sympathize with her choice of subjects, we are compelled to acknowledge that her pictures are full of interest and emphasize the power of this artist in keeping them above a wearisome commonplace. Her Indian children are attractive, we must admit, and her "Poma Bride," seated in the midst of the baskets that are her dower, is a picture which curiously attracts and holds the attention. Her compositions are simple, and it can only be a rare skill in their treatment that gives them the value that is generally accorded them by critics, who, while approving them, are all the time conscious of surprise at themselves for doing so, and of an unanswered Why? which persists in presenting itself to their thought when seeing or thinking of these pictures. <b>HULBERT, MRS. KATHERINE ALLMOND.</b> Born in Sacramento Valley, California. Pupil of the San Francisco School of Design under Virgil Williams; National Academy of Design, New York, under Charles Noel Flagg; Artist Artisan Institute, New York, under John Ward Stimson. This artist paints in water-colors and her works are much admired. Among the most important are "The Stream, South Egremont," which is in a private gallery in Denver; "In the Woods" belongs to Mr. Whiting, of Great Barrington; and "Sunlight and Shadow" to Mr. Benedict, Albany, New York. Mrs. Hulbert is also favorably known as an illustrator and decorative designer. <b>HUNTER, MARY Y.</b> Four silver medals at Royal Academy Schools Exhibitions; diploma for silver medal, Woman's International Exhibition, Earl's Court, London. Member of Society of Painters in Tempera. Born in New Zealand. Studied at Royal Academy Schools. The following list of the titles of Mrs. Hunter's works will give an idea of the subjects she affects: "Dante and Beatrice," "Joy to the Laborer," "An Italian Garden," "Where shall Wisdom be Found?" and the "Roadmenders," in Academy Exhibition, 1903. The only work of Mrs. Hunter's that I have seen is the "Dante and Beatrice," Academy, 1900, and the impression I received leads me to think an article in the _Studio,_ June, 1903, a just estimate of her work. It is by A. L. Baldry, who writes: "In the band of young artists who are at the present time building up sound reputations which promise to be permanent, places of much prominence must be assigned to Mr. J. Young Hunter and his wife. Though neither of them has been before the public for any considerable period, they have already, by a succession of notable works, earned the right to an amount of attention which, as a rule, can be claimed only by workers who have a large fund of experience to draw upon. But though they have been more than ordinarily successful in establishing themselves among the few contemporary painters whose performances are worth watching, they have not sprung suddenly into notice by some special achievement or by doing work so sensational that it would not fail to set people talking. There has been no spasmodic brilliancy in their progress, none of that strange alternation of masterly accomplishment and hesitating effort which is apt at times to mark the earlier stages of the life of an artist who may or may not attain greatness in his later years. They have gone forward steadily year by year, amplifying their methods and widening the range of their convictions; and there has been no moment since they made their first appeal to the public at which they can be said to have shown any diminution in the earnestness of their artistic intentions. "The school to which they belong is one which has latterly gathered to itself a very large number of adherents among the younger painters--a school that, for want of a better name, can be called that of the new Pre-Raphaelites. It has grown up, apparently, as an expression of the reaction which has recently set in against the realistic beliefs taught so assiduously a quarter of a century ago. At the end of the seventies there was a prevailing idea that the only mission of the artist was to record with absolute fidelity the facts of nature.... To-day the fallacy of that creed is properly recognized, and the artists on whom we have to depend in the immediate future for memorable works have substituted for it something much more reasonable.... There runs through this new school a vein of romantic fantasy which all thinking people can appreciate, because it leads to the production of pictures which appeal, not only to the eye by their attractiveness of aspect, but also to the mind by their charm of sentiment.... It is because Mr. Young Hunter and his wife have carried out consistently the best principles of this school that they have, in a career of some half-dozen years, established themselves as painters of noteworthy prominence. Their romanticism has always been free from exaggeration and from that morbidity of subject and treatment which is occasionally a defect in the work of young artists. They have kept their art wholesome and sincere, and they have cultivated judiciously those tendencies in it which justify most completely the development of the new Pre-Raphaelitism. They are, indeed, standing examples of the value of this movement, which seems destined to make upon history a mark almost as definite as that left by the original Brotherhood in the middle of the nineteenth century. By their help, and that of the group to which they belong, a new artistic fashion is being established, a fashion of a novel sort, for its hold upon the public is a result not of some irrational popular craze, but of the fascinating arguments which are put into visible shape by the painters themselves." <b>HYATT, HARRIET RANDOLPH--MRS. ALFRED L. MAYER.</b> Silver medal at Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, 1895. Member of National Art Club, New York. Born at Salem, Massachusetts. Studied at Cowles Art School and with Ross Turner; later under H. H. Kitson and Ernest L. Major. Among this artist's pictures are "Shouting above the Tide," "Primitive Fishing," "The Choir Invisible," etc. The plaster group called the "Boy with Great Dane" was the work of this artist and her sister, Anna Vaughan Hyatt, and is at the Bureau of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in New York. <b>HYATT, ANNA VAUGHAN.</b> Member of the Copley Society, Boston. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Studied nature at Bostock's Animal Arena, Norumbega Park, and at Sportsman's Exhibition. Criticism from H. H. Kitson. The principal works of this artist are the "Boy with Great Dane," already mentioned, made in conjunction with her sister; a "Bison," in a private collection in Boston; and "Playing with Fire." In November, 1902, Miss Hyatt held an exhibition of her works, in plaster and bronze, at the Boston Art Club. There were many small studies taken from life. <b>HYDE, HELEN.</b> Member of the Art Association, San Francisco. Born in Lima, New York, but has lived so much in California that she is identified with that State, and especially with San Francisco. She made her studies in San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, and Paris, where she was a pupil of Felix Regamy and Albert Sterner. She then went to Holland, where she also studied. On her return to San Francisco she became so enamoured of the Oriental life she saw there that she determined to go to Japan to perfect herself in colored etching. Miss Hyde devoted herself to the study she had chosen during three years. She lived in an old temple at Tokio, made frequent excursions into the country, was a pupil of the best Japanese teachers, adapted herself to the customs of the country, worked on low tables, sitting on the floor, and so gained the confidence of the natives that she easily obtained models, and, in a word, this artist was soon accorded honors in Japanese exhibitions, where her pictures were side by side with those of the best native artists. [Illustration: CHILD OF THE PEOPLE HELEN HYDE] Miss Hyde has made a visit to America and received many commissions which decided her to return to Japan. A letter from a friend in Tokio, written in October, 1903, says that she will soon return to California. <b>IGHINO, MARY.</b> A sculptor residing in Genoa. Since 1884 she has exhibited a number of busts, bas-reliefs, and statues. At Turin in the above-named year she exhibited a group in plaster, "Love Dominating Evil." She is especially successful in bas-relief portraits; one of these is of the Genoese sculptor, Santo Varin. She has also made a bust of Emanuele Filiberto; and in terra-cotta a bust of Oicetta Doria, the fifteenth-century heroine of Mitylene. She has executed a number of decorative and monumental works, and receives many commissions from both Italians and foreigners. <b>INGLIS, HESTER.</b> This artist lived in the last half of the sixteenth and in the early decades of the seventeenth century. In the Library of Christ Church College, Oxford, there is an example of the Psalms, in French, written and decorated by her, which formerly belonged to Queen Elizabeth. In the Royal Library of the British Museum there is also a "Book of Emblems" from her hand. <b>ITASSE, JEANNE.</b> Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1888, and the purse of the city of Paris; at Paris Exposition, honorable mention, 1889; travelling purse, 1891; medal at Chicago Exposition, 1893; medal third class, Salon, 1896; medal second class, 1899; silver medal, Paris Exposition, 1900. Member of Société des Artistes Français, Société Libre, Société des prix du Salon et boursiers de voyage. Born in Paris. Pupil of her father. Several works of this sculptor have been purchased by the Government and are in the Bureaux of Ministers or in provincial museums. A "Bacchante" is in the Museum at Agen; a portrait bust in the Museum of Alger. At the Salon of 1902 Mlle Itasse exhibited a "Madonna"; in 1903, a portrait of M, W. Mlle Itasse knows her art thoroughly. When still a child, at the age when little girls play with dolls, she was in her father's atelier, working in clay with an irresistible fondness for this occupation, and without relaxation making one little object after another, until she acquired that admirable surety of execution that one admires in her work--a quality sometimes lacking in the work of both men and women sculptors. Since her début at the Salon of 1886 she has annually exhibited important works. In 1887 her bust of the danseuse, Marie Salles, was purchased by the Government for the Opera; in 1888 she exhibited a plaster statue, the "Young Scholar," and the following year the bust of her father; in 1890 a "St. Sebastian" in high relief; in 1891 an "Egyptian Harpist," which gained her a traveller's purse and an invitation from the Viceroy of Egypt; in 1893 a Renaissance bas-relief; in 1894 the superb funeral monument dedicated to her father; in 1896 she exhibited, in plaster, the "Bacchante," which in marble was a brilliant success and gained for her a second-class medal and the palmes académique, while the statue was acquired by the Government. Mlle. Itasse has also gained official recompenses in provincial exhibitions and has richly won the right to esteem herself mistress of her art. <b>JACQUEMART, MLLE. NÉLIE.</b> Medals at Paris Salon, 1868, 1869, and 1870. Born in Paris. A very successful portrait painter. Among the portraits she has exhibited at the Paris Salon are those of Marshal Canrobert, General d'Aurelle de Paladines, General de Palikao, Count de Chambrun, M. Dufaure, and many others, both ladies and gentlemen. Her portrait of Thiers in 1872 was greatly admired. Paul d'Abrest wrote of Mlle. Jacquemart, in the _Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst:_ "One feels that this artist does not take her inspirations alone from the sittings of her subjects, but that she finds the best part of her work in her knowledge of character and from her close study of the personnelle of those whom she portrays." <b>JANDA, HERMINIE VON.</b> Born at Klosterbruch, 1854. Pupil of Ludwig Holanska and Hugo Darnaut. Since 1886 her landscapes have been seen in various Austrian exhibitions. One of these was bought for the "Franzens-Museum" at Brünn, while several others were acquired by the Imperial House of Austria. <b>JENKS, PHOEBE A. PICKERING.</b> Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1849. Mrs. Jenks writes that she has had no teachers. Her works, being portraits, are mostly in the homes of their owners, but that of the son of T. Jefferson Coolidge, Jr., has been exhibited in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and that of Mrs. William Slater and her son is in the Slater Museum at Norwich. [Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD PHOEBE JENKS] Mrs. Jenks has been constantly busy in portrait painting for twenty-seven years, and has had no time for clubs and societies. She esteems the fact of her constant commissions the greatest honor that she could have. She has probably painted a greater number of portraits than any other Boston contemporary artist. <b>JERICHAU-BAUMANN, ELIZABETH.</b> 1819-1881. Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1861. Member of the Academy of Copenhagen. Born in Warsaw. Pupil of Karl Sohne and Stilke, in Düsseldorf. In Rome she married the Danish sculptor Jerichau and afterward lived in Copenhagen. She travelled in England, France, Russia, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt. Her picture of a "Polish Woman and Children Leaving Their Home, which had been Destroyed," is in the Raczynski Collection, Berlin; "Polish Peasants Returning to the Ruins of a Burnt House," in the Lansdowne Collection, London; "A Wounded Soldier Nursed by His Betrothed," in the Gallery at Copenhagen, where is also her portrait of her husband; "An Icelandic Maiden," in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg. Her picture, "Reading the Bible," was painted for Napoleon III. at his request. Mme. Jerichau painted a portrait of the present Queen of England, in her wedding dress. A large number of her works are in private houses in Copenhagen. One of her most important pictures was a life-size representation of "Christian Martyrs in the Catacombs." This picture was much talked of in Rome, where it was painted, and the Pope desired to see it. Madame Jerichau took the picture to the Vatican. On seeing it the Pope expressed surprise that one who was not of his Church could paint this picture. Mme. Jerichau, hearing this, replied: "Your Holiness, I am a Christian." Hans Christian Andersen was an intimate friend in the Jerichau family. He attended the wedding in Rome, and wrote the biographies of Professor and Mme. Jerichau. Théophile Gautier once said that but three women in Europe merited the name of artists--Rosa Bonheur, Henrietta Brown, and Elizabeth Jerichau; and Cornelius called her "the one woman in the Düsseldorf School," because of her virile manner of painting. Among her important portraits are those of Frederick VII. of Denmark, the brothers Grimm, and "Hans Christian Andersen Reading His Fairy Tales to a Child." Mme. Jerichau was also an author. In 1874 she published her "Memories of Youth," and later, with her son, the illustrated "Pictures of Travel." <b>JOPLING-ROWE, LOUISE.</b> Member of Royal Society of British Artists, Society of Portrait Painters, Pastel Society, Society of Women Artists. Born at Manchester, 1843. Pupil of Chaplin in Paris; also studied with Alfred Stevens. Since 1871 Mrs. Jopling has been a constant exhibitor at the Royal Academy and other London exhibitions, and frequently also at the Paris Salon. [Illustration: MISS ELLEN TERRY AS "PORTIA" LOUISE JOPLING ROWE] Her pictures are principally portraits and genre subjects. Her first decided success was gained in 1874, when she exhibited at the Academy the "Japanese Tea Party," and from that time she was recognized as an accomplished artist and received as many commissions as she could execute. The Baroness de Rothschild had been convinced of Mrs. Jopling's talent before she became an artist, and had given her great encouragement in the beginning of her career. The portrait of Lord Rothschild, painted for Lord Beaconsfield, is thought to be her best work of this kind, but its owner would not allow it to be exhibited. Her portrait of Ellen Terry, which hangs in the Lyceum Theatre, was at the Academy in 1883. It is in the costume of Portia. Mrs. Jopling's pastels are of an unusual quality, delicate, strong, and brilliant. Her portraits are numerous, and from time to time she has also executed figure subjects. Of late years Mrs. Jopling has been much occupied with a School of Painting. The large number of pupils who wished to study with her made a school the best means of teaching them, and has been successful. From the beginning they draw from life, and at the same time they also study from the antique. Many of her pupils receive good prices for their works, and also earn large sums for their portraits in black and white. Mrs. Jopling writes: "What I know I chiefly learned alone. Hard work and the genius that comes from infinite pains, the eye to see nature, the heart to feel nature, and the courage to follow nature--these are the best qualifications for the artist who would succeed." In the _Art Journal,_ July, 1874, I read: "'The Five-o'Clock Tea' is the largest and most important design we have seen from Mrs. Jopling's hand, and in the disposition of the various figures and the management of color it certainly exhibits very remarkable technical gifts. Especially do we notice in this lady's work a correct understanding of the laws of tone, very rare to find in the works of English painters, giving the artist power to bring different tints, even if they are not harmonious, into right relations with one another." The above-named picture was sold to the Messrs. Agnew, and was followed by "The Modern Cinderella," which was seen at the Paris Exposition in 1878; at the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876 she exhibited "Five Sisters of York." Mrs. Jopling is also known as the founder and president of the Society of the Immortals. She has written several short tales, some poems, and a book called "Hints to Amateurs." At the Royal Academy, 1903, she exhibited "Hark! Hark! the Lark at Heaven's Gate Sings," which is a picture of a poor girl beside a table, on which she has thrown her work, and leaning back in her chair, with hands clasped behind her head, is lost in thought. <b>JORIS, SIGNORINA AGNESE</b>--pseudonym, Altissimi. Was accorded the title of professor at the Institute of the Fine Arts, Rome, 1881. She was successful in a competition for a position in the Scuole Tecniche, Rome, 1888. Honorable mention, Florence, 1890; same at Palermo, 1891 and 1892; silver medal of first class and diploma of silver medal, Rome, 1899 and 1900. Member of the Società Cooperativa, Rome. Born in the same city, and pupil of the Institute of Fine Arts and of her brother, Cavaliere Professore Pio Joris. This artist writes that a list of her works would be too long and require too much time to write it. They are in oils, pastel, and water-colors, with various applications of these to tapestries, etc. She also gives lessons in these different methods of painting. In a private collection in New York is her "Spanish Scene in the Eighteenth Century." She painted a "portrait of the late King Humbert, arranged in the form of a triptych surrounded by a wreath of flowers, painted from some which had lain on the King's bier." She sent this picture to Queen Margharita, "who not only graciously accepted it, but sent the artist a beautiful letter and a magnificent jewel on which was the Royal Cipher." <b>KAERLING, HENRIETTE.</b> Born about 1832. Daughter of the artist, J. T. Kaerling, who was her principal teacher. She practised her art as a painter of portraits, genre subjects, and still-life in Budapest during some years before her marriage to the pianist Pacher, with whom she went to Vienna. She there copied some of the works of the great painters in the Gallery, besides doing original work of acknowledged excellence. In addition to her excellent portraits, she painted in 1851 "The Grandmother"; in 1852, "A Garland with Religious Emblems"; in 1855, "A Crucifix Wound with Flowers." <b>KALCKREUTH, COUNTESS MARIA.</b> Medal at Chicago Exposition, 1893. Member of the Society of Women Artists in Berlin. Born at Düsseldorf. 1857-1897. Much of her artistic life was passed in Munich. Her picture at Chicago was later exhibited at Berlin and was purchased for the Protestant Chapel at Dachau. It represented "Christ Raising a Repentant Sinner"--a strong work, broadly painted. Among her important pictures are "In the Sunshine," "Fainthearted," "Discontented," and several portraits, all of which show the various aspects of her artistic talent. <b>KAUFFMAN, ANGELICA.</b> An original member of the London Academy. She was essentially an Italian artist, since from the age of eleven she lived in Italy and there studied her art. Such different estimates have been made of her works that one may quote a good authority in either praise or blame of her artistic genius and attainment. Kugler, a learned, unimpassioned critic, says: "An easy talent for composition, though of no depth; a feeling for pretty forms, though they were often monotonous and empty, and for graceful movement; a coloring blooming and often warm, though occasionally crude; a superficial but agreeable execution, and especially a vapid sentimentality in harmony with the fashion of the time--all these causes sufficiently account for her popularity." [Illustration: Alinari, Photo. In the Uffizi, Florence PORTRAIT OF ANGELICA KAUFFMAN PAINTED BY HERSELF] Raphael Mengs, himself an artist, thus esteems her: "As an artist she is the pride of the female sex in all times and all nations. Nothing is wanting--composition, coloring, fancy--all are here." Miss Kate Thompson writes: "Her works showed no originality nor any great power of execution, and, while sometimes graceful, were generally weak and insipid." For myself I do not find her worthy of superlative praise or condemnation; one cannot deny her grace in design, which was also creditably correct; her poetical subjects were pleasing in arrangement; her historical subjects lacked strength and variety in expression; her color was as harmonious and mellow as that of the best Italian colorists, always excepting a small number of the greatest masters, and in all her pictures there is a something--it must have been the individuality of the artist--that leads one to entertain a certain fondness for her, even while her shortcomings are fully recognized. The story of Angelica Kauffman's life is of unusual interest. She was born at Coire, in the Grisons. 1742-1807. Her father, an artist, had gone from Schwarzenburg to Coire to execute some frescoes in a church, and had married there. When Angelica was a year old the family settled in Morbegno, in Lombardy. Ten years later, when the child had already shown her predilection for painting and music, a new home was made for her in Como, where there were better advantages for her instruction. Her progress in music was phenomenal, and for a time she loved her two arts--one as well as the other--and could make no choice between them. In one of her pictures she represented herself as a child, standing between allegorical figures of Music and Painting. The exquisite scenery about Como, the stately palaces, charming villas, the lake with its fairy-like pleasure boats, and the romantic life which there surrounded this girl of so impressionable a nature, rapidly developed the poetic element born with her, which later found expression through her varied talents. During her long life the recollections of the two years she passed at Como were among the most precious memories associated with her wandering girlhood. From Como she was taken to Milan, where she had still better advantages for study, and a world of art was opened to her which far exceeded her most ardent imaginings. Leonardo had lived and taught in Milan, and his influence with that of other Lombard masters stirred Angelica to her very soul. Her pictures soon attracted the attention of Robert d'Este, who became her patron and placed her in the care of the Duchess of Carrara. This early association with a circle of cultured and elegant men and women was doubtless the origin of the self-possession and modest dignity which characterized Angelica Kauffman through life and enabled her becomingly to accept the honors that were showered upon her. Her happy life at Milan ended all too soon. Her mother died, and her father decided to return to his native Schwarzenburg to execute some extensive decorative works in that vicinity. In the interior decoration of a church Angelica painted in fresco the figures of the twelve apostles after engravings from the works of Piazetta. The coarse, homely life of Schwarzenburg was in extreme contrast to that of Milan and was most uncongenial to a sensitive nature; but Angelica was saved from melancholy by the companionship she felt in the grand pine forests, which soothed her discontent, while her work left her little time to pine for the happiness she had left or even to mourn the terrible loss of her mother. Her father's restlessness returned, and they were again in Milan for a short time, and then in Florence. Here she studied assiduously awhile, but again her father's discontent drove him on, and they went to Rome. Angelica was now eighteen years old, and in a measure was prepared to profit by the aid and advice of Winckelmann. He conceived an ardent friendship for the young artist, and, though no longer young, and engaged in most important and absorbing research, he found time to interest himself in Angelica's welfare, and allowed her to paint his portrait, to which she gave an expression which proved that she had comprehended the spirit of this remarkable man of threescore years. While at Rome Angelica received a commission to copy some pictures in Naples. After completing these she returned to Rome, in 1764, and continued her studies for a time, but her interests were again sacrificed to her father's unreasonable capriciousness, and she was taken to Bologna and then to Venice. This constant change was disheartening to Angelica and of the greatest disadvantage to her study, and it was most fortunate that she now met Lady Wentworth, who became her friend and afterward took her to England. Angelica had already executed commissions for English families of rank whom she had met in various cities of Italy, and her friends hoped that she would be able to earn more money in England than in Italy, where there were numberless artists and copyists. After visiting Paris she went to London, where a brilliant career awaited her, not only as an artist, but in the social world as well. De Rossi thus describes her at this time: "She was not very tall, but slight, and her figure was well proportioned. She had a dark, clear complexion, a gracious mouth, white and equal teeth, and well-marked features;... above all, her azure eyes, so placid and so bright, charmed you with an expression it is impossible to write; unless you had known her you could not understand how eloquent were her looks." Her English friends belonged to the most cultivated circles, many of them being also of high rank. Artists united to do her honor--showing no professional envy and making no opposition to her election to the Academy. Many interesting incidents in her association with London artists are related, and it is said that both Fuseli and Sir Joshua Reynolds were unsuccessful suitors for her hand. Miss Thackeray, in her novel, "Miss Angel," makes Angelica an attractive heroine. The royal family were much interested in her, and the mother of the King visited her--an honor never before accorded to an artist--and the Princess of Brunswick gave her commissions for several pictures. De Rossi says that her letters at this time were those of a person at the summit of joy and tranquillity. She was able to save money and looked hopefully forward to a time when she could make a home for her unthrifty father. But this happy prosperity was suddenly cut short by her own imprudence. After refusing many eligible offers of marriage, she was secretly married to an adventurer who personated the Count de Horn, and succeeded by plausible falsehoods in convincing her that it was necessary, for good reasons, to conceal their marriage. One day when painting a portrait of Queen Charlotte, who was very friendly to the artist, Angelica was moved to confide the secret of her marriage to the Queen. Until this time no one save her father had known of it. Her Majesty, who loved Angelica, expressed her surprise and interest and desired that Count de Horn should appear at Court. By this means the deceit which had been practised was discovered, and the Queen, as gently as possible, told Angelica the truth. At first she felt that though her husband was not the Count de Horn and had grossly deceived her, he was the man she had married and the vows she had made were binding. But it was soon discovered that the villain had a living wife when he made his pretended marriage with Angelica, who was thus released from any consideration for him. This was a time to prove the sincerity of friends, and Angelica was comforted by the steadfastness of those who had devoted themselves to her in her happier days. Sir Joshua Reynolds was untiring in his friendly offices for her and for her helpless old father. There were as many differing opinions in regard to Angelica Kauffman, the woman, as in regard to the quality of her art. Some of her biographers believed her to be perfectly sincere and uninfluenced by flattery. Nollekens takes another view; he calls her a coquette, and, among other stories, relates that when in Rome, "one evening she took her station in one of the most conspicuous boxes in the theatre, accompanied by two artists, both of whom, as well as many others, were desperately enamoured of her. She had her place between her two adorers, and while her arms were folded before her in front of the box, over which she leaned, she managed to clasp a hand of both, so that each imagined himself the cavalier of her choice." When Angelica could rise above the unhappiness and mortification of her infatuation for the so-called De Horn, she devoted herself to her art, and during twelve years supported her father and herself and strengthened the friendships she had gained in her adopted land. At length, in 1781, her father's failing health demanded their return to Italy; and now, when forty years old, she married Antonio Zucchi, an artist who had long loved her and devoted himself to her and to her father with untiring affection. The old Kauffman lived to visit his home in Schwarzenburg and to reach Southern Italy, but died soon after. Signor Zucchi made his home in Rome. He was a member of the Royal Academy, London, and was in full sympathy with his wife in intellectual and artistic pursuits and pleasures. De Rossi says: "It was interesting to see Angelica and her husband before a picture. While Zucchi spoke with enthusiasm Angelica remained silent, fixing her eloquent glance on the finest portions of the work. In her countenance one could read her emotions, while her observations were limited to a few brief words. These, however, seldom expressed any blame--only the praises of that which was worthy of praise. It belonged to her nature to recognize the beauty alone--as the bee draws honey only out of every flower." Her home in Rome was a centre of attraction to the artistic and literary society of the city, and few persons of note passed any time there without being presented to her. Goethe and Herder were her friends, and the former wrote: "The good Angelica has a most remarkable, and for a woman really unheard-of, talent; one must see and value what she does and not what she leaves undone. There is much to learn from her, particularly as to work, for what she effects is really marvellous." In his work called "Winckelmann and His Century," Goethe again said of her: "The light and pleasing in form and color, in design and execution, distinguish the numerous works of our artist. _No living painter_ excels her in dignity or in the delicate taste with which she handles the pencil." In the midst of the social demands on her time in Rome, she continued to devote herself to her art, and Signor Zucchi, hoping to beguile her into idleness, purchased a charming villa at Castel Gondolfo; but in spite of its attractions she was never content to be long away from Rome and her studio. Thus in her maturer years her life flowed on in a full stream of prosperity until, in 1795, Signor Zucchi died. Angelica survived him twelve years--years of deep sadness. Not only was her personal sorrow heavy to bear, but the French invasion of her beloved Italy disquieted her. Hoping to regain her usual spirits, she revisited the scenes of her youth and remained some time in Venice with the family of Signor Zucchi. Returning to Rome she resumed her accustomed work, so far as her health permitted. She held fast to the German spirit through all the changes in her life, with the same determination which made it possible, in her strenuous labors, to retain her gentle womanliness. Just before she died she desired to hear one of Gellert's spiritual odes. She was buried in Sant' Andrea dei Frati, beside her husband. All the members of the Academy of St. Luke attended her obsequies, and her latest pictures were borne in the funeral procession. Her bust was placed in the Pantheon, and every proper tribute and honor were paid to her memory in Rome, where she was sincerely mourned. Although Angelica lived and worked so long in London and was one of the thirty-six original members of the Royal Academy, I do not think her best pictures are in the public galleries there. Of course many of the portraits painted in London are in private collections. Her pictures are seen in all the important galleries of Europe. Her etchings, executed with grace and spirit, are much esteemed and sell for large prices. Engravings after her works by Bartolozzi are most attractive; numerous as they were, good prints of them are now rare and costly. She painted several portraits of herself; one is in the National Portrait Gallery, London, one at Munich, and a third in the Uffizi, Florence. The last is near that of Madame Le Brun, and the contrast between the two is striking. Angelica is still young, but the expression of her face is so grave as to be almost melancholy; she is sitting on a stone in the midst of a lonely landscape; she has a portfolio in one hand and a pencil in the other, and so unstudied is her pose, and so lacking in any attempt to look her best, that one feels that she is entirely absorbed in her work. The Frenchwoman could not forget to be interesting; Angelica was interesting with no thought of being so. I regard three works by this artist, which are in the Dresden Gallery, as excellent examples of her work; they are "A Young Vestal," "A Young Sibyl," and "Ariadne Abandoned by Theseus." On the margin of one of her pictures she wrote: "I will not attempt to express supernatural things by human inspiration, but wait for that till I reach heaven, if there is painting done there." In 1784 Angelica Kauffman painted "Servius Tullius as a Child" for the Czar of Russia; in 1786 "Hermann and Thusnelda" and "The Funeral of Pallas" for Joseph II. These are now in the Vienna Gallery. Three pictures, "Virgil Reading the Aeneid to the Empress Octavia," "Augustus Reading Verses on the Death of Marcellus," and "Achilles Discovered by Ulysses, in Female Attire," were painted for Catherine II. of Russia. "Religion Surrounded by Virtues," 1798, is in the National Gallery, London. A "Madonna" and a "Scene from the Songs of Ossian" are in the Aschaffenburg Gallery. A "Madonna in Glory" and the "Women of Samaria," 1799, are in the New Pinakothek, Munich, where is also the portrait of Louis I. of Bavaria, as Crown Prince, 1805. The "Farewell of Abelard and Heloise," together with other works of this artist, are in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. A "Holy Family," and others, in the Museo Civico, Venice. "Prudence Warning Virtue against Folly," in the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia. Portraits of Winckelmann in the Städel Institute, Frankfort, and in the Zürich Gallery. Portrait of a Lady, Stuttgart Museum; the Duchess of Brunswick, Hampton Court Palace; the architect Novosielski, National Gallery, Edinburgh. In addition to the portraits of herself mentioned above, there are others in Berlin Museum, the Old Pinakothek, Munich, the Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck, and in the Philadelphia Academy. <b>KAULA, MRS. LEE LUFKIN.</b> Member of the Woman's Art Club, New York. Born in Erie, Pennsylvania. Pupil in New York of Charles Melville Dewey and the Metropolitan Art Schools; in Paris, during three years, pupil of Girardot, Courtois, the Colarossi Academy, and of Aman-Jean. Mrs. Kaula is essentially a portrait painter, although she occasionally paints figure subjects. Her portraits are in private hands in various cities, and her works have been exhibited in Paris, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, etc. She paints in both oil and water-colors. <b>KAYSER, EBBA.</b> Medals in Vienna, Dresden, and Cologne for landscapes and flower pieces. Born in Stockholm, 1846. When twenty years old she went to Vienna, where she studied under Rieser, Geyling, and Karl Hannold. She did not exhibit her works until 1881, since when she has been favorably known, especially in Austria. A water-color of a "Mill near Ischl" and several other pictures by this artist have been purchased for the Imperial Collections. <b>KEITH, DORA WHEELER.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>KEMP-WELCH, LUCY ELIZABETH.</b> Fellow and Associate of Herkomer School, and member of the Royal Society of British Artists. Born at Bournemouth, 1869. Has exhibited annually at the Royal Academy since 1894. In 1897 her picture of "Colt Hunting in the New Forest" was purchased by the trustees of the Chantrey Bequest; in 1900 that of "Horses Bathing in the Sea" was bought for the National Gallery at Victoria. In 1901 she exhibited "Lord Dundonald's Dash on Lady-smith." In July, 1903, in his article on the Royal Academy Exhibition, the editor of the _Magazine of Art_, in enumerating good pictures, mentions: "Miss Lucy Kemp-Welch's well-studied 'Village Street' at dusk, and her clever 'Incoming Tide,' with its waves and rocks and its dipping, wheeling sea gulls." Mr. Frederick Wetmore, in writing of the Spring Exhibition of the Royal Painter Etchers, says: "Miss Kemp-Welch, whose best work, so delicate that it could only lose by the reduction of a process block, shows the ordinary English country, the sign-post of the crossways, and the sheep along the lane." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>KENDELL, MARIE VON.</b> Born in Lannicken, 1838. Pupil of Pape, Otto von Kameke, and Dressier. She travelled in England, Italy, and Switzerland, and many of her works represent scenes in these countries. In 1882 she painted the Cadinen Peaks near Schluderbach, in the Ampezzo Valley. At the exhibition of the Women Artists in Berlin, 1892, she exhibited two mountain landscapes and a view of "Clovelly in Devonshire." The last was purchased by the Emperor. To the same exhibition in 1894 she contributed two Swiss landscapes, which were well considered. <b>KIELLAND, KITTY.</b> Sister of the famous Norwegian novelist, Alexander Kielland. Her pictures of the forests and fjords of Norway are the best of her works and painted _con amore._ Recently she exhibited a portrait which was much praised and said to be so fresh and life-like in treatment, so flexible and vivacious in color, that one is involuntarily attracted by it, without any knowledge of the original. <b>KILLEGREW, ANNE.</b> Was a daughter of Dr. Henry Killegrew, a prebendary of Westminster Cathedral. Anne was born in 1660, and when still quite young was maid of honor to the Duchess of York, whose portrait she painted as well as that of the future King James II. She also painted historical subjects and still-life. One of her admirers wrote of her as "A grace for beauty and a muse for wit." A biographer records her death from smallpox when twenty-five years old, "to the unspeakable reluctancy of her relatives." She was buried in the Savoy Chapel, now a "Royal Peculiar," and a mural tablet set forth her beauty, accomplishments, graces, and piety in a Latin inscription. Anne Killigrew was notable for her poetry as well as for her painting. Dryden wrote an ode in her memory which Dr. Johnson called "the noblest our language has produced." It begins: "Thou youngest virgin daughter of the skies." After praising her poetry Dryden wrote: "Her pencil drew whate'er her soul designed, And oft the happy draught surpassed the image of her mind." Of her portrait of James II. he says: "For, not content to express his outward part, Her hand called out the image of his heart; His warlike mind--his soul devoid of fear-- His high designing thoughts were figured there." Having repeated these panegyrics, it is but just to add that two opinions existed concerning the merit of Mistress Killigrew's art and of Dryden's ode, which another critic called "a harmonious hyperbole, composed of the Fall of Adam--Arethusa--Vestal Virgins--Dian--Cupid--Noah's Ark--the Pleiades--the fall of Jehoshaphat--and the last Assizes." Anthony Wood, however, says: "There is nothing spoken of her which she was not equal to, if not superior, and if there had not been more true history in her praises than compliment, her father never would have suffered them to pass the press." <b>KINDT, ADELE.</b> This painter of history and of genre subjects won her first prize at Ghent when less than twenty-two, and received medals at Douai, Cambrai, Ghent, and Brussels before she was thirty-two. Was made a member of the Brussels, Ghent, and Lisbon Academies. Born in Brussels, 1805. Pupil of Sophie Frémiet and of Navez. Her picture of the "Last Moments of Egmont" is in the Ghent Museum; among her other historical pictures are "Melancthon Predicting Prince Willem's Future" and "Elizabeth Sentencing Mary Stuart," which is in the Hague Museum. The "Obstinate Scholar" and "Happier than a King" are two of her best genre pictures. <b>KING, JESSIE M.</b> A most successful illustrator and designer of book-covers, who was educated as an artist in the Glasgow School of Decorative Art. In this school and at that of South Kensington she was considered a failure, by reason of her utterly unacademic manner. She did not see things by rule and she persistently represented them as she saw them. Her love of nature is intense, and when she illustrated the "Jungle Book" she could more easily imagine that the animals could speak a language that Mowgli could understand, than an academic artist could bring himself to fancy for a moment. Her work is full of poetic imagination, of symbolism, and of the spirit of her subject. Walter P. Watson, in a comprehensive critique of her work, says: "Her imaginations are more perfect and more minutely organized than what is seen by the bodily eye, and she does not permit the outward creation to be a hindrance to the expression of her artistic creed. The force of representation plants her imagined figures before her; she treats them as real, and talks to them as if they were bodily there; puts words in their mouths such as they should have spoken, and is affected by them as by persons. Such creation is poetry in the literal sense of the term, and Miss King's dreamy and poetical nature enables her to create the persons of the drama, to invest them with appropriate figures, faces, costumes, and surroundings; to make them speak after their own characters." Her important works are in part the illustrations of "The Little Princess," "The Magic Grammar," "La Belle Dame sans Merci," "L'Evangile de l'Enfance," "The Romance of the Swan's Nest," etc. She also makes exquisite designs for book-covers, which have the spirit of the book for which they are made so clearly indicated that they add to the meaning as well as to the beauty of the book. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>KIRCHSBERG, ERNESTINE VON.</b> Medal at Chicago Exposition, 1893. Born in Verona, 1857. Pupil of Schäffer and Darnaut. This artist has exhibited in Vienna since 1881, and some of her works have been purchased for the royal collection. Her landscapes, both in oil and water-colors, have established her reputation as an excellent artist, and she gains the same happy effects in both mediums. Her picture shown at Chicago was "A Peasant Home in Southern Austria." <b>KIRSCHNER, MARIE.</b> Born at Prague, 1852. Pupil of Adolf Lier in Munich, and Jules Dupré and Alfred Stevens in Paris. In 1883 she travelled in Italy, and has had her studio in Berlin and in Prague. The Rudolfinum at Prague contains her "Village Tulleschitz in Bohemia." She is also, known by many flower pieces and by the "Storm on the Downs of Heyst," "Spring Morning," and a "Scene on the Moldau." <b>KITSON, MRS. H. H.</b> Honorable mention, Paris Exposition, 1889; and the same at Paris Salon, 1890; two medals from Massachusetts Charitable Association; and has exhibited in all the principal exhibitions of the United States. Born in Brookline. Pupil of her husband, Henry H. Kitson, and of Dagnan-Bouveret in Paris. The women of Michigan commissioned Mrs. Kitson to make two bronze statues representing the woods of their State for the Columbian Exhibition at Chicago. Her principal works are the statue of a volunteer for the Soldiers' Monument at Newburyport; Soldiers' Monument at Ashburnham; Massachusetts State Monument to 29th, 35th, and 36th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry at National Military Park at Vicksburg; also medallion portraits of Generals Dodge, Ransom, Logan, Blair, Howard, A. J. Smith, Grierson, and McPherson, for the Sherman Monument at Washington. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>KLUMPKE, ANNA ELIZABETH.</b> Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1885; silver medal, Versailles, 1886; grand prize, Julian Academy, 1889; Temple gold medal, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1889; bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1889. Member of the Copley Society, Boston; of the Society of Baron Taylor, Paris; and of the Paris Astronomical Society. Born in San Francisco. Pupil of the Julian Academy, under Robert-Fleury, and Jules Lefebvre, where she received, in 1888, the prize of the silver medal and one hundred francs--the highest award given at the annual Portrait Concours, between the men and women students of the above Academy. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ROSA BONHEUR ANNA E. KLUMPKE] Among Miss Klumpke's principal works are: "In the Wash-house," owned by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; portrait of Mrs. Nancy Foster, at the Chicago University; "Maternal Instruction," in the collection of Mr. Randolph Jefferson Coolidge, Boston; many portraits, among which are those of Madame Klumpke, Rosa Bonheur, Mrs. Thorp, Mrs. Sargent, Count Kergaradec, etc. In writing me of her own life-work and that of her family, she says, what we may well believe: "Longfellow's thought, 'Your purpose in life must be to accomplish well your task,' has been our motto from childhood." Anna Klumpke, being the eldest of the four daughters of her mother, had a double duty: her own studies and profession and the loving aid and care of her sisters. In the beginning of her art studies it was only when her home duties were discharged that she could hasten to the Luxembourg, where, curiously enough, her time was devoted to copying "Le Labourage Nivernais," by Rosa Bonheur, whose beloved and devoted friend she later became. Meantime Anna Klumpke had visited Boston and other cities of her native land, and made a success, not only as an artist, but as a woman, whose intelligence, cheerfulness, and broad interests in life made her a delightful companion. Sailing from Antwerp one autumn, I was told by a friend that a lady on board had a letter of introduction to me from Madame Bouguereau. It proved to be Miss Klumpke, and the acquaintance thus begun, as time went on, disclosed to me a remarkable character, founded on a remarkable experience, and it was no surprise to me that the great and good Rosa Bonheur found in Anna Klumpke a sympathetic and reliable friend and companion for her last days. The history of this friendship and its results are too well known to require more than a passing mention. Miss Klumpke is now established in Paris, and writes me that, in addition to her painting, she is writing of Rosa Bonheur. She says: "This biography consists of reminiscences of Rosa Bonheur's life, her impressions of Nature, God, and Art, with perhaps a short sketch of how I became acquainted with the illustrious woman whose precious maternal tenderness will remain forever the most glorious event of my life." At the Salon des Artistes Français, 1903, Miss Klumpke exhibited a picture called "Maternal Affection." <b>KNOBLOCH, GERTRUDE.</b> Born at Breslau, 1867. Pupil of Skirbina in Berlin. Her studio is in Brussels. She paints in oil and water-colors. Among her best pictures are "In the Children's Shoes," "The Forester's Leisure Hours," and a "Madonna with the Christ Child." Two of her works in gouache are worthy of mention: "An Effeminate" and "Children Returning from School." <b>KOLLOCK, MARY.</b> Born at Norfolk, Virginia, 1840. Studied at the Pennsylvania Academy under Robert Wylie, and in New York under J. B. Bristol and A. H. Wynant. Her landscapes have been exhibited at the National Academy, New York. Several of these were scenes about Lake George and the Adirondack regions. "Morning in the Mountains" and "On the Road to Mt. Marcy" were exhibited in 1877; "A November Day" and an "Evening Walk," in 1878; "A House in East Hampton, Two Hundred and Twenty Years Old," in 1880; "On Rondout Creek," in 1881; and "The Brook," in 1882. <b>KOKER, ANNA MARIA DE.</b> A Dutch etcher and engraver of the seventeenth century, who pursued her art from pure love of it, never trying to make her works popular or to sell them. A few of her landscapes fell into the hands of collectors and are much valued for their rarity and excellence. Three examples are the "Landscape with a View of a Village," "The Square Tower," and "Huts by the Water." <b>KOMLOSI, IRMA.</b> Born in Prague, 1850. Pupil of Friederich Sturm. This flower painter resides in Vienna, where her pictures are much appreciated and are seen in good collections. They have been purchased for the Art Associations of Brünn, Prague, and Budapest. <b>KONDELKA, BARONESS PAULINE VON</b>--Frau von Schmerling. Born at Vienna. 1806-1840. She inherited from her father a strong inclination for art, and was placed by him under the instruction of Franz Potter. In the Royal Gallery, Vienna, is her picture called "Silence," 1834. It represents the Virgin with her finger on her lip to warn against disturbing the sleep of the Infant Jesus. The picture is surrounded by a beautiful arrangement of flowers. In 1836 she painted a charming picture called "A Bunch of Flowers." Her favorite subjects were floral, and her works of this sort are much admired. <b>KONEK, IDA.</b> Born at Budapest, 1856. Her early art studies were under G. Vastagh, C. von Telepy, W. Lindenschmit, and Munkácsy; later she was a pupil at the Julian Academy in Paris and the Scuola libera in Florence. In the Parish Church at Köbölkut are three of her pictures of sacred subjects, and in the Hungarian National Museum a picture of still-life. Her "Old Woman," 1885, is mentioned as attracting favorable notice. <b>KORA OR CALLIRHOË.</b> It is a well-authenticated fact that in the Greek city of Sicyonia, about the middle of the seventh century before Christ, there lived the first woman artist of whom we have a reliable account. Her story has been often told, and runs in this wise: Kora, or Callirhoë, was much admired by the young men of Sicyonia for her grace and beauty, of which they caught but fleeting glimpses through her veil when they met her in the flower-market. By reason of Kora's attraction the studio of her father, Dibutades, was frequented by many young Greeks, who watched for a sight of his daughter, while they praised his models in clay. At length one of these youths begged the modeller to receive him as an apprentice, and, his request being granted, he became the daily companion of both Kora and her father. As the apprentice was skilled in letters, it soon came about that he was the teacher and ere long the lover of the charming maiden, who was duly betrothed to him. The time for the apprentice to leave his master came all too soon. As he sat with Kora the evening before his departure, she was seized by an ardent wish for a portrait of her lover, and, with a coal from the brazier, she traced upon the wall the outline of the face so dear to her. This likeness her father instantly recognized, and, hastening to bring his clay, he filled in the sketch and thus produced the first portrait in bas-relief! It is a charming thought that from the inspiration of a pure affection so beautiful an art originated, and doubtless Kora's influence contributed much to the artistic fame which her husband later achieved in Corinth. In the latter city the portrait was preserved two hundred years, and Dibutades became so famous for the excellence of his work that at his death several cities claimed the honor of having been his birthplace. <b>KRAFFT, ANNA BARBARA.</b> Member of the Vienna Academy. She was born at Igto in 1764, and died at Bamberg in 1825. She received instruction from her father, J. N. Steiner, of which she later made good use. Having married an apothecary, she went for a time to Salsburg, and again, after nine years in Prague, spent eighteen years in Salsburg, retiring finally to Bamberg. In the Gallery at Bamberg may be seen her portrait of the founder, J. Hemmerlein; in the Nostitz Gallery, Prague, a portrait of the Archduke Charles; in Strahow Abbey, Prague, a "Madonna"; and in the church at Owencez, near Prague, an altar-piece. <b>KUNTZE, MARTHA.</b> Born in Heinrichsdorf, Prussia, 1849. Pupil of Steffeck and Gussow in Berlin. In 1881 she went to Paris and studied under Carolus Duran and Henner, and later travelled in Italy, pursuing her art in Florence, Rome, and Southern Italy. She has an excellent reputation as a portrait painter, and occasionally paints subjects of still-life. <b>KÜSSNER, AMALIA.</b> See Coudert, Amalia Küssner. <b>LABILLE, ADELAIDE VERTUS.</b> Was born in Paris in 1749. She early developed a taste for art and a desire to study it. J. E. Vincent was her master in miniature painting, while Latour instructed her in the use of pastels. She was successful as a portrait painter and as a teacher, having some members of the royal family as pupils, who so esteemed her that they became her friends. She is known as Madame Vincent, having married the son of her first master in painting. Her portrait of the sculptor Gois gained a prize at the Academy, and in 1781 she was made a member of that institution. We know the subjects of some large, ambitious works by Madame Vincent, on which she relied for her future fame, but unhappily they were destroyed in the time of the French Revolution, and she never again had the courage to attempt to replace them. One of these represented the "Reception of a Member to the Order of St. Lazare," the Grand Master being the brother of the King, who had appointed Madame Vincent Painter to the Court. Another of these works was a portrait of the artist before her easel, surrounded by her pupils, among whom was the Duchesse d'Angoulême and other noble ladies. As Madame Vincent and her husband were staunch royalists, they suffered serious losses during the Revolution; the loss of her pictures was irreparable. She was so disheartened by the destruction of the result of the labors of years that she never again took up her brush with her old-time ambition and devotion. She died in 1803, at the age of fifty-four, having received many honors as an artist, while she was beloved by her friends and esteemed by all as a woman of noble character. <b>LAING, MRS. J. G.</b> Principal studies made in Glasgow under Mr. F. H. Newbery; also in Paris under Jean-Paul Laurens and Aman-Jean. This artist is especially occupied with portraits of children and their mothers. She has, however, exhibited works of another sort. Her "Sweet Repose" and "Masquerading" were sold from the exhibitions in London and Glasgow, where they were shown. "Bruges Lace-Makers" was exhibited in Munich in 1903. The Ladies' Club of Glasgow is enterprising and its exhibitions are interesting, but Mrs. Laing is not a member of any club, and sends her pictures by invitation to exhibitions on the Continent as well as in Great Britain, and sometimes has a private exhibition in Glasgow. Her study at Aman-Jean's and Colarossi's gave a certain daintiness and grace to her work, which is more Parisian than British in style. There is great freedom in her brush and a delicacy well suited to the painting of children's portraits; her children and their mothers really smile, not grin, and are altogether attractive. I cannot say whether the portraits I have seen are good likenesses, but they have an air of individuality which favors that idea. <b>LAMB, ELLA CONDIE</b>--Mrs. Charles R. Lamb. Dodge prize, National Academy, New York; medal at Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893; gold medal, Atlanta Exposition; medal at Pan-American Exposition, 1901. Member of Art Students' League, Woman's Art Club, National Art Club. Born in New York City. Pupil of National Academy of Design and of Art Students' League, New York, under C. Y. Turner, William M. Chase, and Walter Shirlaw; in Paris, pupil of R. Collin and R. Courtois; in England, of Hubert Herkomer, R.A. Among Mrs. Lamb's works are "The Advent Angel"; "The Christ Child," a life-size painting, copied in mosaic for the Conrad memorial, St. Mary's Church, Wayne, Pennsylvania; "The Arts" and "The Sciences," executed in association with Charles R. Lamb, for the Sage Memorial Apse designed by him for Cornell University. Of recent years Mrs. Lamb is much occupied in collaborating with her husband in decorative designs for public edifices. One of the works thus executed is a memorial window to Mrs. Stella Goodrich Russell in Wells College at Aurora. It represents three female figures against a landscape background. Literature is seated in the centre, while Science and Art stand in the side panels. It has the effect of a triptych. <b>LAMB, ROSE.</b> Two bronze medals in Boston exhibitions, 1878 and 1879. Member of the Copley Society. Born in Boston, where her studies have been made, chiefly under William M. Hunt. Miss Lamb has painted portraits principally, a large number of which are in Boston in the homes of the families to which they belong. Among them are Mrs. Robert C. Winthrop, Jr., and her children; Mr. J. Ingersoll Bowditch, Mr. Horace Lamb, the three sons of the late Governor Roger Wolcott, the daughters of Mrs. Shepherd Brooks, the children of Mrs. Walter C. Baylies, etc. In 1887 Miss Lamb painted an admirable portrait of Mohini Mohun Chatterji, a Brahmin, who spent some months in Boston. <b>LANCIANI, MARCELLA.</b> Born in Rome, where her studies were made under Professor Giuseppe Ferrari in figure drawing, and under Signor Onorato Carlandi--the great water-color artist of the Roman Campagna--in landscape and coloring. At the annual spring exhibition in the Palazzo delle Belle Arti, Rome, 1903, this artist exhibited four works: a life-size "Study of the Head of an old Roman Peasant"; a "Sketch near the Mouth of the Tiber at Finniscino"; "An Old Stairway in the Villa d'Este, at Tivoli"; "A View from the Villa Colonna, Rome." Two of her sketches, one of the "Tiber" and one of the "Villa Medici," are in the collection of Mrs. Pierpont Morgan; two similar sketches are in the collection of Mrs. James Leavitt, New York; a copy of a "Madonna" in an old Umbrian church is in a private gallery in Rome; a "Winter Scene in the Villa Borghese" and two other sketches are owned in Edinburgh; the "Lake in the Villa Borghese" is in the collection of Mr. Richard Corbin, Paris; and several other pictures are in private collections in New York. <b>LANDER, LOUISA.</b> Born in Salem, 1826. Manifested a taste for sculpture when quite young, and modelled likenesses of the members of her family. In 1855 she became the pupil of Thomas Crawford in Rome. Among her earlier works are figures in marble of "To-day" and "Galatea," the first being emblematic of America. She executed many portrait busts, one of them being of Nathaniel Hawthorne. "The Captive Pioneer" is a large group. Among her ideal works are a statue of Virginia Dare--the first child born in America of English parents; "Undine," "Evangeline," "Virginia," etc. <b>LAUKOTA, HERMINIE.</b> Born in Prague, 1853. After having studied in Prague, Amsterdam, and Munich, she was a pupil of Doris Raab in etching. She paints portraits, genre and still-life subjects with artistic taste and delicacy. Her studio is in Prague. Among her best pictures are "Battle for Truth," "Sentinels of Peace," "A Contented Old Woman"; and among her etchings may be named "The Veiled Picture of Saïs," "Prometheus," "The Microscopist," "Before the Bar of Reason," etc. The latter was reproduced in _Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst_ in 1893, and was said to show a powerful fancy. In 1875 and 1876 she exhibited her etchings in Vienna. The "Going to Baptism" in the second exhibition was much admired and aroused unusual interest. <b>LA VILLETTE, MME. ELODIE.</b> Third-class medal, Paris Salon, 1875; bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1889; second-class medal, Melbourne Exposition; numerous diplomas and medals from provincial exhibitions in France; also from Vienna, Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam, London, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Munich, and Chicago. Officer of the Academy. Born at Strasbourg. Educated at Lorient. She began to study drawing and painting under Coroller, a professor in the school she attended. She then studied six months in the Atelier School at Strasbourg, and finally became a pupil of Dubois at Arras. She has exhibited since 1870. Her picture of the "Strand at Lohic," 1876, is in the Luxembourg Gallery; the "Cliffs of Yport" is in the Museum of Lille; "A Calm at Villers," in the Museum at Lorient; "Coming Tide at Kervillaine," in the museum of Morlaix, etc. Her marine views are numerous and are much admired. At the Salon of the Artistes Français, 1902, Mme. La Villette exhibited "Twilight, Quiberon, Morbihan"; in 1903, "Fort Penthièvre, Quiberon," and "A Foaming Wave." <b>LE BRUN, MME.</b> See Vigée. <b>LEHMANN, CHARLOTTE.</b> Born in Vienna, 1860. Daughter of an artist, Katharine Lehmann. Pupil of Schilcher and Pitner. Her works are principally portraits and studies of heads, in which she is successful. Her "Styrian Maiden" belongs to the Austrian Emperor, and is in Gödöllö castle. Her portraits are seen at many exhibitions, and art critics mention her with respect. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>LEMAIRE, MME. JEANNE-MADELEINE.</b> Honorable mention, 1877; silver medal, Paris Exposition, 1900. Born at Sainte Rosseline. Pupil of an aunt, who was a miniaturist, and later of Chaplin. She first exhibited at the Salon of 1864, a "Portrait of Madame, the Baroness." She has painted many portraits, and is extremely successful in her pictures of flowers and fruit. Among her principal works are "Diana and Her Dog," "Going out of Church," "Ophelia," "Sleep," "The Fall of the Leaves," and "Manon." She has also painted many pictures in water-colors. Since 1890 she has exhibited at the Champ-de-Mars. Her illustrations in water-colors for "L'Abbé Constantin" and for an edition of "Flirt" are very attractive. Her "Roses" at the Salon of 1903 were especially fine, so fresh and brilliant that they seemed to be actual blossoms. This artist, not many months ago, called to mind the celebrated Greek supper of Mme. Lebrun, which was so famous in the time of that artist. The following is an account of the entertainment given by Mme. Lemaire: "A most fascinating banquet was given in Paris quite recently by Madeleine Lemaire, in her studio, and Parisians pronounce it the most artistic fete that has occurred for many a moon. Athens was reconstructed for a night. A Greek feast, gathering at the same board the most aristocratic moderns, garbed in the antique peplum, as the caprice of a great artist. The invitation cards, on which the hostess had drawn the graceful figure of an Athenian beauty, were worded: 'A Soirée in Athens in the Time of Pericles. Madeleine Lemaire begs you to honor with your presence the Greek fête which she will give in her humble abode on Tuesday. Banquet, dances, games, and cavalcade. Ancient Greek costume de rigueur.' Every one invited responded yes, and from the Duchess d'Uzès, in a superb robe of cloth of gold and long veil surmounted by a circlet of diamonds, to that classic beauty Mme. Barrachin, in white draperies with a crown of pink laurel, the costumes were beautiful. One graceful woman went as Tanagra. The men were some of them splendid in the garb of old Greek warriors, wearing cuirass and helmet of gold. At dessert a bevy of pretty girls in classic costume distributed flowers and fruits to the guests, while Greek choruses sung by female choristers alternated with verses admirably recited by Bartel and Reichenberg. After the banquet Emma Calvé and Mme. Litoinne sang passages from 'Philémon et Bacus,' and then there were Greek dances executed by the leading dancers of the Opera. After supper and much gayety, the evening came to a close by an animated farandole danced by all present. It takes an artist like Madeleine Lemaire to design and execute such a fete, and beside it how commonplace appear the costly functions given by society in Newport and New York." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>LEVICK, RUBY WINIFRED.</b> At the South Kensington Royal College of Art this artist gained the prize for figure design; the medal for a study of a head from life, besides medals and other awards in the National Competition; British Institution scholarship for modelling, 1896; gold medal and the Princess of Wales scholarship, 1897; gold medal in national competition, 1898. Member of the Ridley Art Club. Born in Llandaff, Glamorganshire. This sculptor has exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy since 1898. Among her works are "Boys Wrestling," group in the round; "Study of a Boy," a statuette; "Fishermen Hauling in a Net," "Boys Fishing," "The Hammer Thrower," "Rugby Football," and the "Sea Urchin," a statuette. Miss Levick has executed a panel for the reredos in St. Brelade's Church, Jersey; and another for St. Gabriel's Church, Poplar. She exhibited at the Academy, 1903, "Sledgehammers: Portion of a Frieze in Relief." <b>LEWIS, EDMONIA.</b> Born in the State of New York. This artist descended from both Indian and African ancestors. She had comparatively no instruction, when, in 1865, she exhibited in Boston a portrait bust of Colonel Shaw, which at once attracted much attention. In 1867 she exhibited a statue called the "Freedwoman." Soon after this she took up her residence in Rome and very few of her works were seen in the United States. She sent to the Philadelphia exhibition, in 1876, the "Death of Cleopatra," in marble. The Marquis of Bute bought her "Madonna with the Infant Christ," an altar-piece. Her "Marriage of Hiawatha" was purchased by a New York lady. Among her other works are "An Old Arrow-Maker and His Daughter," "Asleep," and terra-cotta busts of Charles Sumner, Longfellow, John Brown, and others. "Among Miss Lewis's works are two small groups illustrating Longfellow's poem of Hiawatha. Her first, 'Hiawatha's Wooing,' represents Minnehaha seated, making a pair of moccasins, and Hiawatha by her side with a world of love and longing in his eyes. In the 'Marriage' they stand side by side with clasped hands. In both the Indian type of feature is carefully preserved, and every detail of dress, etc., is true to nature. The sentiment equals the execution. They are charming bits, poetic, simple, and natural, and no happier illustrations of Longfellow's most original poem were ever made than these by the Indian sculptor."--_Revolution_, April, 1871. "This was not a beautiful work--'Cleopatra'--but it was very original and very striking, and it merits particular comment, as its ideal was so radically different from those adopted by Story and Gould in their statues of the Egyptian Queen.... The effects of death are represented with such skill as to be absolutely repellent. Apart from all questions of taste, however, the striking qualities of the work are undeniable, and it could only have been produced by a sculptor of very genuine endowments."--_Great American Sculptors._ <b>LEY, SOPHIE.</b> Third-class medal at Melbourne; honor diplomas, Karlsruhe. Member of the Künstlerbund, Karlsruhe. Born at Bodman am Bodensee, 1859. Pupil of the Art School in Stuttgart, where she received several prizes; and of Gude and Bracht in Karlsruhe. Some flower pieces by this artist are in the collection of the Grand Duke of Baden; others belong to the Hereditary Grand Duke and to the Queen of Saxony; still others are in various private galleries. A recently published design for the wall decoration of a school, "Fingerhut im Walde," was awarded a prize. Fräulein Ley receives young women students in her atelier in Karlsruhe. <b>LICATA-FACCIOLI, ORSOLA.</b> A first-class and several other medals as a student of the Academy at Venice. Member of the Academies of Venice and Perugia, 1864. Born in Venice, 1826. In 1848 she married and made a journey with her husband through Italy. Three pictures which she exhibited at Perugia, in 1864, won her election to the Academy; the Marquis Ala-Ponzoni purchased these. The Gallery at Vicenza has several of her views of Venice and Rome, and there are others in the municipal palace at Naples. Her pictures have usually sold immediately upon their exhibition, and are scattered through many European cities. At Hamburg is a view of Capodimonte; at Venice a large picture showing a view of San Marcellino; and at Capodimonte the "Choir of the Capuchins at Rome." Private collectors have also bought many of her landscapes. Since 1867 she has taught drawing in the Royal Institute at Naples. Two of the Signora's later pictures are "Arum Italicum," exhibited at Milan in 1881, and a "Park at Capodimonte," shown at the International Exposition in Rome--the latter is a brilliant piece of work. Her style is vigorous and robust, and her touch sure. Family cares seem never to have interrupted her art activity, for her work has been constant and of an especially high order. <b>LINDEGREN, AMALIA.</b> Member of the Academy of Stockholm. Honorary member of the London Society of Women Artists. Born in Stockholm. 1814-1891. A student in the above-named Academy, she was later a pupil of Cogniet and Tissier, in Paris, and afterward visited Rome and Munich. Her pictures are portraits and genre subjects. In the Gallery at Christiania are her "Mother and Child" and "Grandfather and Granddaughter." "The Dance in a Peasant Cottage" is in the Museum of Stockholm, where are also her portraits of Queen Louise and the Crown Princess of Denmark, 1873. "With her unpretentious representations of the joy of children, the smiling happiness of parents, sorrow resigned, and childish stubbornness, Amalia Lindegren attained great national popularity, for without being a connoisseur it is possible to take pleasure in the fresh children's faces in her pictures."--_History of Modern Painters._ <b>LIPPINCOTT, MARGARETTE.</b> Honorable mention and Mary Smith Prize at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Member of Philadelphia Water-Color Club and Plastic Club. New York Water-Color Club. Born in Philadelphia. Pupil of Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Art Students' League, New York. This artist has painted flowers especially, but of late has taken up genre subjects and landscapes. Among her pictures is one of "Roses," in the Academy of Fine Arts, and "White Roses," in the Art Club of Philadelphia. "Sunset in the Hills" is in a private collection, and "The West Window" is owned in Detroit. <b>LISZEWSKA, ANNA DOROTHEA.</b> Married name was Therbusch. Member of the Academies of Paris and Vienna and of the Institute of Bologna. Born in Berlin. 1722-1782. Was court painter at Stuttgart, and later held the same office under Frederick the Great, whose portrait she painted, 1772. Her picture of "Diana's Return from the Chase" was also painted for Frederick. Her early studies were conducted by her father. After leaving the court of Stuttgart she studied four years in Paris. In the Louvre is her picture of "A Man Holding a Glass of Water"; in the Brunswick Gallery is her portrait of herself; and several of her works are in the Schwerin Gallery. Her pictures of "A Repentant Maiden," 1781, and of "Ariadne at Naxos" attracted much attention. <b>LISZEWSKA, ANNA ROSINA.</b> Member of the Dresden Academy. Born in Berlin. 1716-1783. Pupil of her father. She executed forty portraits of women for the "Hall of Beauty" at Zerbst. One of her portraits, painted in 1770, is in the Gallery at Brunswick. She travelled in Holland in 1766, but was too much occupied with commissions to find time for foreign journeys. She painted a picture called "Artemisia" and a second of "Monime Pulling Down Her Diadem," which were interesting and excellent examples of her style of painting. <b>LOCATELLI, OR LUCATELLI, MARIA CATERINA.</b> Of Bologna. Died in 1723. She studied under Pasinelli, and in the Church of St. Columba in Bologna are two pictures by her--a "St. Anthony" and a "St. Theresa." <b>LOEWENTHAL, BARONESS ANKA.</b> Born at Ogulin, Croatia, 1853. Pupil of Karl von Blaas and Julius von Payer. Some portraits by this artist are in the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Agram. But religious subjects were most frequently treated by her, and a number of these are in the Croatian churches. The "Madonna Immaculata" is in the Gymnasial Kirche, Meran, and a "Mater Dolorosa" in the Klosterkirche, Bruck a. d. Meer. <b>LONGHI, BARBARA.</b> Born in Ravenna. 1552-1619(?). Daughter of Luca Longhi. She was an excellent artist and her works were sought for good collections. A portrait by her is in the Castellani Collection, dated 1589; "St. Monica," "Judith," and the "Healing of St. Agatha" are in the Ravenna Academy; a "Virgin and Child" is in the Louvre, and "Mary with the Children" in the Dresden Gallery. <b>LONGMAN, E. B.</b> This sculptor has a commission to execute a statue of Victory for a dome at the St. Louis Exposition. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>LOOP, MRS. HENRY A.</b> Elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1875. Born in New Haven, 1840. Pupil of Professor Louis Bail in New Haven, of Henry A. Loop in New York, later spending two years in study in Paris, Venice, and Rome. Mrs. Loop is essentially a portrait painter, but occasionally has painted figure pictures, such as "Baby Belle," "A Little Runaway," "A Bouquet for Mama," etc. Her portraits of Professors Low and Hadley of New Haven were much admired; those of Mrs. Joseph Lee, Miss Alexander, and other ladies were exhibited at the Academy. "Mrs. Loop's picture is an honest, unpretending work, well drawn, naturally posed, and clearly, solidly colored. There is not a trace of affectation about it. The artistic effects are produced in the most straightforward way."--_Clarence Cook, in New York Tribune._ "Mrs. Loop is certainly the leading portrait painter among our lady artists. She is vigorous, conscientious, and perceptive."--_Chicago Times,_ 1875. <b>LOTZ, MATILDA.</b> Gold medal at School of Design, California. Born in Franklin, Tennessee. This artist is sometimes called "the Rosa Bonheur of America." She began to draw pictures of animals when seven years old. Later she studied under Virgil Williams in San Francisco and under M. Barrios and Van Marcke in Paris. She has travelled extensively in the East, painting camels, dromedaries, etc. Her work has a vigor and breadth well suited to her subjects, while she gives such attention to details as make her pictures true to life. One critic writes: "Her oxen and camels, like Rosa Bonheur's horses, stand out from canvas as living things. They have been the admiration of art lovers at the Salon in Paris, the Royal Academy in London, and at picture exhibitions in Austria-Hungary and Germany." [Illustration: A FAMILY OF DOGS MATILDA LOTZ] Among her works are "Oxen at Rest," "The Artist's Friends," "Hounds in the Woods," painted in California. "Mourning for Their Master," "The Sick Donkey," and other less important pictures are in private collections in Hungary. "The Early Breakfast" is in a gallery in Washington, D. C. She has painted portraits of famous horses owned by the Duke of Portland, which are in England, as is her picture called "By the Fireside." <b>LOUD, MAY HALLOWELL.</b> Member of the Copley Society and Boston Water-Color Club. Born in West Medford, Massachusetts, 1860. Pupil of the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Julian Academy, Paris; Cowles Art School, Boston. In Paris, under Tony Robert-Fleury, Giacomotti, and Louis Deschamps. Later under Abbott Thayer and Denman W. Ross. Mrs. Loud's works are principally portraits, and are in private hands. Her picture called "The Singer" was purchased by the Atlanta Exposition, and is in a collection in that city. She works mostly in oils, but has been successful in portraits in pastel; two admirable examples were exhibited in Boston recently, and were favorably noticed for their color and "temperance in the use of high relief." <b>LOUISE, PRINCESS.</b> See Argyll. <b>LUSK, MARIE K.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>LUTMER, EMMY.</b> Medal at Munich, 1888. Born at Elberfeld, 1859. Pupil of the School of Art Industries at Munich and of the Museums of Berlin and Vienna. This skilled enamel painter has her studio in Berlin, where she executes fine and beautiful work. <b>MACCHESNEY, CLARA TAGGART.</b> Two medals at Chicago Exposition, 1893; Dodge prize, National Academy, New York, 1894; gold medal, Philadelphia Art Club, 1900; Hallgarten prize, National Academy, 1901; bronze medal, Buffalo Exposition, 1901. Three medals at Colarossi School, Paris. Member of National Art Club, Barnard Club, and Water-Color Club, all of New York. Born in Brownsville, California. Pupil of Virgil Williams in San Francisco Art School; of H. C. Mowbray, J. C. Beckwith, and William Chase in Gotham Art School; and of G. Courtois, A. Girardot, and R. X. Prinet in Colarossi School, Paris. Exhibited at Paris Salon, Beaux Arts, in 1896, 1898, and at the Exposition in 1900. [Illustration: From a Copley Print. FRITZ CLARA T. MacCHESNEY] This artist paints figure subjects. Among these are "Retrospection," Boston Art Club; "Tired," Erie Art Club; "A Good Story," National Arts Club, New York; "The Old Cobbler," etc. Her prize picture at the National Academy, New York, 1894, was called "The Old Spinner." This picture had been refused by the committee of the Society of American Artists, only to be thought worthy a prize at the older institution. <b>MACGREGOR, JESSIE.</b> The gold medal in the Royal Academy Schools for historical painting, a medal given biennially, and but one other woman has received it. Born in Liverpool. Pupil of the Schools of the Royal Academy; her principal teachers were the late Lord Leighton, the late P. H. Calderon, R.A., and John Pettie, R.A. Her principal works are "In the Reign of Terror" and "Jephthah's Vow," both in the Liverpool Permanent Collection; "The Mistletoe Bough"; "Arrested, or the Nihilist"; "Flight," exhibited at Royal Academy in 1901; "King Edward VII.," 1902. Miss Macgregor is a lecturer on art in the Victoria University Extension Lecture Scheme, and has lectured on Italian painting and on the National Gallery in many places. At the London Academy in 1903 she exhibited "The Nun," "If a Woman Has Long Hair, it is a Glory to Her," I Cor. xi. 15; "Behind the Curtain," "Christmas in a Children's Hospital," and "Little Bo-peep." <b>MACKUBIN, FLORENCE.</b> Bronze medal and diploma, Tennessee Exposition, 1897. Vice-president of Baltimore Water-Color Club. Born in Florence, Italy. Studied in Fontainebleau under M. Lainé, in Munich under Professor Herterich, and in Paris under Louis Deschamps and Julius Rolshoven; also with Mlle. J. Devina in miniature painting. Miss Mackubin has exhibited at the Paris Salon, the London Academy, and the National Academy, New York. Her works are portraits in miniature, pastel, and oil colors. She was appointed by the Board of Public Works of Maryland to copy the portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria, for whom Maryland was named. The portrait is by Vandyck and in Warwick Castle. Miss Mackubin's copy is in the State House at Annapolis. Her portraits are numerous. Among them are those of Mrs. Charles J. Bonaparte, Justice Horace Gray, Hon. George F. Hoar, Mrs. Thomas F. Bayard, and many others. In England she painted portraits of the Countess of Warwick, the Marchioness of Bath, and several other ladies. Miss Mackubin's portrait of Cardinal Gibbons, exhibited in Baltimore in 1903, is much praised. He is sitting in an armchair near a table on which are books. The pose of the figure is natural, the drawing excellent, the flesh tints well handled, and the likeness satisfactory to an unusual degree. The accessories are justly rendered and the values well preserved--the texture of the stuffs, the ring on the hand, the hand delicate and characteristic; in short, this is an excellent example of dignified portraiture. <b>MACMONNIES, MARY FAIRCHILD.</b> Awarded a scholarship in Paris by the St. Louis School of Fine Arts; medal at Chicago, 1893; bronze medal at Paris Exposition, 1900; bronze medal at Buffalo, 1901; gold medal at Dresden, 1902; Julia M. Shaw prize, Society of American Artists, New York, 1902. Associate member of Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris; member of the Society of American Artists, New York. Born at New Haven, Connecticut, about 1860. Pupil of School of Fine Arts, St. Louis, Academy Julian, Paris, and of Carolus Duran. Exhibited at Salon des Beaux-Arts, 1902, "The October Sun," "The Last Rays," and "The Rain"; in 1903, "A Snow Scene." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>MACOMBER, MARY L.</b> Bronze medal, Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association, 1895; bronze medal, Cotton State and International Exposition, 1895; Dodge prize, National Academy, New York, 1897; honorable mention, Carnegie Institute, 1901. Member of the Copley Society, Boston. Born in Fall River, Massachusetts, 1861. Pupil of Robert Dunning, School of Boston Art Museum under Otto Grundmann and F. Crowninshield, and of Frank Duveneck. This artist paints figure subjects. Her "Saint Catherine" is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; "Spring Opening the Gate to Love" was in the collection of the late Mrs. S. D. Warren; "The Annunciation" is in the collection of Mrs. D. P. Kimball, Boston. Other works of hers are a triptych, the "Magdalene," "Death and the Captive," "The Virgin of the Book," etc. [Illustration: From a Copley Print. SAINT CATHERINE MARY L. MACOMBER] "One feels, on looking at the Madonnas, Annunciation, or any of Miss Macomber's pictures,... that she must have lived with and in her subject. Delicate coloring harmonizes with refined, spiritual conceptions.... Her most generally liked picture is her 'Madonna.' All the figures wear a sweet, solemn sadness, illumined by immortal faith and love."--_Art Interchange,_ April, 1899. <b>MAGLIANI, FRANCESCA.</b> Born at Palermo in 1845, and studied painting there under a private teacher. Going later to Florence she was a pupil of Bedussi and of Gordigiani. Her early work consisted of copies from the Italian and other masters, and these were so well done that she soon began to receive orders, especially for portraits, from well-known people. Among them were G. Baccelli--the Minister of Public Instruction--King Humbert, and Queen Margherita, the latter arousing much interest when exhibited in Florence. Portraits of her mother, and of her husband, who was the Minister of Finance, were also recognized as admirable examples of portraiture. "Modesty and Vanity" is one of her genre pictures. <b>MANGILLA, ADA.</b> Gold medal at Ferrara for a "Bacchante," which is now in the Gallery there; gold medal at Beatrice, in Florence, 1890, for the "Three Marys." Born in Florence in 1863. Pupil of Cassioli. One of her early works was a design for two mosaic figures in the left door of the Cathedral in Florence, representing Bonifazio Lupi and Piero di Luca Borsi; this was exhibited in 1879, and was received with favor by the public. This artist has had much success with Pompeian subjects, such as "A Pompeian Lady at Her Toilet," and "A Pompeian Flower-Seller." She catches with great accuracy the characteristics of the Pompeian type; and this facility, added to the brilliancy of her color and the spirit and sympathy of her treatment, has given these pictures a vogue. Two of them were sold in Holland. "Floralia" was sold in Venice. To an exhibition of Italian artists in London, in 1889, she contributed "The Young Agrippa," which was sold to Thomas Walker. Her grace and fancy appear in the drawings which she finds time to make for "Florentia," and in such pictures as "The Rose Harvest." This highly accomplished woman, who has musical and literary talent, is the wife of Count Francessetti di Mersenile. <b>MANKIEWICZ, HENRIETTE.</b> Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. A series of her mural decorations was exhibited in various German cities, and finally shown at the Paris Exposition of 1890(?), where they excited such applause that the above honor was accorded her. These decorations are in the form of panels, in which water, in its varying natural aspects, supplies the subordinate features, while the fundamental motive is vegetation of every description. The artist has evidently felt the influence of Markart in Vienna, and some of her conceptions remind one of H. von Preusschen. Her technique is a combination of embroidery, painting, and applications on silk. Whether this combination of methods is desirable is another question, but as a means of decoration it is highly effective. At an exhibition of paintings by women of Saxony, held in Dresden under the patronage of Queen Carola in the fall of 1892, this artist exhibited another decorative panel, done in the same manner, which seems to have been a great disappointment to those who had heard wonderful accounts of the earlier cycle of panels. It was too full of large-leaved flowers, and the latter were too brilliant to serve as a foreground to the Alhambra scenes, which were used as the chief motive. <b>MANLY, ALICE ELFRIDA.</b> A national gold medal and the Queen's gold medal, at the Royal Female School of Art, London. Member of the Dudley Gallery Art Society and the Hampstead Art Society. Born in London. Pupil of the above-mentioned School and of the Royal Academy Schools. This artist has exhibited at the Academy, at the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colors, and other exhibitions. Her pictures have frequently been sold from the exhibitions and reproduced. Among these are "Sympathy," sold as first prize in Derby Art Union; "Diverse Attractions"; "Interesting Discoveries"; "Coming," sold from the Royal Academy; "Gossips"; "The Wedding Gown," etc. Miss Manly has done much work for publishers, which has been reproduced in colors and in black and white. She usually combines figures and landscape. <b>MANTOVANI, SIGNORA S. ROME.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>MARAINI, ADELAIDE.</b> Gold medal in Florence, at Beatrice Exposition, 1903. Born in 1843. This sculptor resides in Rome, where her works have been made. An early example of her art, "Camilla," while it gave proof of her artistic temperament, was unimportant; but her later works, as they have followed each other, have constantly gained in excellence, and have won her an enviable reputation. Among her statues are "Amleto," "The Sulamite Woman," and "Sappho." The last was enthusiastically received in Paris in 1878, and is the work which gained the prize at Florence, where it was said to be the gem of the exhibition. She has also executed a monument to Attilio Lemmi, which represents "Youth Weeping over the Tomb of the Dead," and is in the Protestant Cemetery at Florence; a bas-relief, the "Angels of Prayer and of the Resurrection"; a group, "Romeo and Juliet"; and portraits of Carlo Cattanei, Giuseppe Civinini, Signora Allievi, Senator Musio, the traveller De Albertis, and Victor Emmanuel. <b>MARCELLE, ADÈLE,</b> Duchess of Castiglione-Colonna, family name d'Affry. Born at Fribourg, Switzerland, 1837, and died at Castellamare, 1879. Her early manner was that of the later Cinquecento, but she afterward adopted a rather bombastic and theatrical style. Her only statue, a Pythia, in bronze was placed in the Grand Opera at Paris (1870). In the Luxembourg Museum are marble busts of Bianca Capello (1863) and an "Abyssinian Sheikh" (1870). A "Gorgon" (1865), a "Saviour" (1875), "La Bella Romana" (1875) are among her other works. She left her art treasures, valued at about fifty thousand francs, to the Cantonal Museum at Fribourg, where they occupy a separate room, called the Marcello Museum. <b>MARCOVIGI, CLEMENTINA.</b> Born in Bologna, where she resides. Flower pieces exhibited by her at Turin in 1884 and at Venice in 1887 were commended for perfection of design and charm of color. <b>MARIA FEODOROVNA,</b> wife of the Czar Peter I. As Princess Dorothea Auguste Sophie of Würtemberg she was born at Trepton in 1759, and died at Petersburg in 1858. She studied under Leberecht, and engraved medals and cameos, many of which are portraits of members of the royal family and are in the royal collection at Petersburg. She was elected to the Berlin Academy in 1820. <b>MARIANI, VIRGINIA.</b> Honorary member of the Umbrian Academy and of the Academy of the Virtuosi of the Pantheon. Born in Rome, 1824, where she has met with much success in decorating pottery, as well as in oil and water-color paintings. The Provincial Exposition at Perugia in 1875 displayed her "Mezze Figure," which was highly commended. She has decorated cornices, with flowers in relief, as well as some vases that are very beautiful. Besides teaching in several institutions and receiving private pupils, she has been an inspector, in her own department of art, of the municipal schools of Rome. <b>MARIE, DUCHESS OF WÜRTEMBERG.</b> Daughter of Louis Philippe, and wife of Duke Frederick William Alexander of Würtemberg. Born at Palermo, 1813, and died at Pisa, 1839. She studied drawing with Ary Scheffer. Her statue of "Jeanne d'Arc" is at Versailles; in the Ferdinand Chapel, in the Bois de Boulogne, is the "Peri as a Praying Angel"; in the Saturnin Chapel at Fontainebleau is a stained-glass window with her design of "St. Amalia." Among her other works are "The Dying Bayard," a relief representing the legend of the Wandering Jew, and a bust of the Belgian Queen. Many of her drawings are in possession of her family. She also executed some lithographs, such as "Souvenirs of 1812," 1831, etc. <b>MARIE LOUISE, EMPRESS OF FRANCE.</b> 1791-1846. She studied under Prud'hon. Her "Girl with a Dove" is in the Museum of Besançon. <b>MARLEF, CLAUDE.</b> Bronze medal at Paris Exposition, 1900. Associate of the French National Society of Fine Arts (Beaux-Arts). Born at Nantes. Pupil of A. Roll, Benjamin Constant, Puvis de Chavannes, and Dagnaux. Mme. Marlef is a portrait painter. Her picture, "Manette Salomon," is in the Hotel de Ville, Paris; the "Nymphe Accroupie" is in the Municipal Museum of Nantes. Among her portraits of well-known women are those of Jane Hading, Elsie de Wolfe, Bessie Abbott of the Opera, Rachel Boyer of the Theatre Français, Marguerite Durand, Editeur de la Fronde, Mlle. Richepin, and many others. Mme. Marlef has the power of keen observation, so necessary to a painter of portraits. Although there is a certain element of soft tenderness in her pictures, the bold virility of her drawing misled the critics, who for a time believed that her name was used to conceal the personality of a man. A critic in the Paris _World_ writes of this artist: "She has exquisite color sense and delights in presenting that _exaltation de la vie_, that love, radiance, and joy of life, which are at once the secret of the success and the keynote of the masterful canvases of Roll, in whose studio were first developed Claude Marlef's delicate qualities of truthful perception in the portraiture of woman.... Her perceptions being rapid, she has a remarkable instantaneous insight, enabling her to fix the dominant feature and soul of expression in each of the various types among her numerous sitters." Mme. Marlef's family name is Lefebure. Her husband died in 1891, the year after their marriage, and she then devoted herself to the serious study of painting, which she had practised from childhood. She first exhibited at the Salon, 1895, and has exhibited annually since then. In 1902 she sent her own portrait, and in 1903 that of Bessie Abbott, to the Exhibition of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. <b>MARTIN DE CAMPO, VICTORIA.</b> Member of the Academy of Fine Arts of Cadiz, her native city. In the different expositions of this and other Andalusian capitals she has exhibited since 1840 many works, including portraits, genre, historical pictures, and copies. Among them may be mentioned "Susanna in the Bath," "David Playing the Harp before Saul," a "Magdalen," a "Cupid," a "Boy with a Linnet," and a "Nativity." Some of these were awarded prizes. In the Chapel of Relics in the new Cathedral at Cadiz are her "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence" and a "Mater Dolorosa." <b>MARTINEAU, EDITH.</b> Associate of Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colors; member of the Hampstead Art Society. Born in Liverpool, where she made her first studies in the School of Art, and later became a pupil of the Royal Academy Schools, London. Her pictures are not large and are principally figures or figures in landscape, and all in water-colors. She writes very modestly that so many are sold and in private hands that she will give no list of subjects. <b>MASSARI, LUIGIA.</b> Medal at Piacenza, 1869, and several other medals from art societies. Born at Piacenza, 1810. Pupil of A. Gemmi. Her works are in a number of churches: "St. Martin" in the church at Altoé; "St. Philomena" in the church at Busseto; the "Madonna del Carmine" and "St. Anna" in the church at Monticelli d'Ongina. This artist was also famous for her beautiful embroidery, as seen in her altar-cloths, one of which is in the Guastafredda Chapel at Piacenza. The fruits and flowers produced by her needle are marvellously like those in her pictures. <b>MASSEY, MRS. GERTRUDE.</b> Member of the Society of Miniaturists. Born in London, 1868. Has studied with private teachers in London and Paris. This painter has made a specialty of miniatures and of pictures of dogs. She has been extensively employed by various members of the royal family, of whom she painted eleven miniatures, among which was one of the late Queen. She sends me a list of several pictures of dogs and "Pets," all belonging to titled English ladies; also a long list of miniatures of gentlemen, ladies, and children of high degree, several being of the royal family, in addition, I suppose, to the eleven mentioned above. She writes me: "Constantly met King and Queen and other members. Sittings took place at Windsor Castle, Sandringham, Marlborough House, Osborne, and Balmoral. One dog died after first sitting; had to finish from dead dog. Live in charming little cottage with _genuine_ old-fashioned garden in St. John's Wood." Mrs. Massey has exhibited at the Royal Academy and New Gallery, and has held a special exhibition of her pictures of dogs at the Fine Art Society, New Bond Street, London. <b>MASSIP, MARGUERITE.</b> Member of the Society of Swiss Painters and Sculptors and of the Society of Arts and Letters, Geneva. Born at Geneva. Made her studies in Florence and Paris under the professors in the public schools. Her picture of "Le Buveur" is in the Museum of Geneva; "Five o'Clock Tea," also in a Geneva Museum; "La Bohemienne" is at Nice; "The Engagement"--a dancer--at St. Gall, and a large number of portraits in various cities, belonging to their subjects and their families. Her portrait of Mme. M. L. was very much praised when exhibited in proximity with the works of some of the famous French artists. One critic writes: "The painting is firm and brilliant. The hands are especially beautiful; we scarcely know to whom we can compare Mme. Massip, unless to M. Paul Dubois. They have the same love of art, the same soberness of tone, the same scorn of artifice.... The woman who has signed such a portrait is a great artist." It is well known that the famous sculptor is a remarkable portraitist. In a review of the Salon at Nice we read: "A portrait by Mme. Massip is a magnificent canvas, without a single stroke of the charlatan. The pose is simple and dignified; there is the serenity and repose of a woman no longer young, who makes no pretension to preserve her vanishing beauty; the costume, in black, is so managed that it would not appear superannuated nor ridiculous at any period. The execution is that of a great talent and an artistic conscience. It is not a portrait for a bedchamber, still less for a studio; it is a noble souvenir for a family, and should have a place in the salon, in which, around the hearth, three generations may gather, and in this serene picture may see the wife, the mother, and the grandmother, when they mourn the loss of her absolute presence." <b>MASSOLIEN, ANNA.</b> Born at Görlitz, 1848. A pupil of G. Gräf and of the School of Women Artists in Berlin. Her portraits of Field Marshal von Steinmetz, Brückner, and G. Schmidt by their excellence assured the reputation of this artist, whose later portraits are greatly admired. <b>MATHILDE, PRINCESS.</b> Medal at Paris Salon, 1865. Daughter of King Jerome Bonaparte. Born at Trieste, 1820; died at Paris, 1904. Pupil of Eugene Giraud. She painted genre subjects in water-colors. Her medal picture, "Head of a Young Girl," is in the Luxembourg; "A Jewess of Algiers," 1866, is in the Museum of Lille; "The Intrigue under the Portico of the Doge's Palace" was painted in 1865. <b>MATHILDE CAROLINE,</b> Grand Duchess of Hesse. Was born Princess of Bavaria. 1813-1863. Pupil of Dominik Onaglio. In the New Gallery at Munich are two of her pictures--"View of the Magdalen Chapel in the Garden at Nymphenburg," 1832, and "Outlook on the Islands, Procida and Ischia," 1836. <b>MATTON, IDA.</b> Two grand prizes and a purse, also a travelling purse from the Government of Sweden; honorable mention at the Paris Salon, 1896; honorable mention, Paris Exposition, 1900; prize for sculpture at the Union des femmes peintres et sculpteurs, 1903. Decorated with the "palmes académique" of President Loubet, 1903. Member of the Union des femmes peintres et sculpteurs, Paris. Born at Gefle, Sweden. Pupil of the Technical School, Stockholm, and of H. Chapu, A. Mercie, and D. Puech at Paris. [Illustration: In Cemetery In Gefle, Sweden MONUMENT FOR A TOMB IDA MATTON] Among the works of this artist are "Mama!" a statue in marble; "Loké," a statue; "Dans les Vagues," a marble bust; "Funeral Monument," in bronze, in Gefle, Sweden; and a great number of portrait busts and various subjects in bas-relief. At the Salon des Artistes Français, 1902, she exhibited four portraits, and in 1903, "Confidence." <b>MAURY, CORNELIA F.</b> Member of St. Louis Artists' Guild and Society of Western Artists. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Pupil of St. Louis School of Fine Arts and of Julian Academy, under Collin and Merson. At the Salon of 1900 her picture, "Mother and Child," was hung on the line. Miss Maury has made an especial study of child life. Among her pictures are "Little Sister," "Choir Boy," "Late Breakfast," and "First Steps." The latter picture and the "Baby in a Go-Cart" have been published in the Copley Prints. "Cornelia F. Maury is most successful in portrayals of childhood. Her small figures are simple, unaffected, with no suggestion of pose. They convey that delightful feeling of unconsciousness in the subject that is always so charming either in nature or in artistic expression. The pastel depicting the flaxen-haired child in blue dress drawing a tiny cart is exceedingly artistic, and the same may be said of a pastel showing a small child in a Dutch high-chair near a window. A third picture--also a pastel--represents a choir-boy in a red robe, red cap, and white surplice, sitting in a high-backed, carved chair, holding a book in his hand. Miss Maury really has produced nothing finer than this last. It is a most excellent work."--_The Mirror, St. Louis,_ April 10, 1902. <b>MAYREDER-OBERMAYER, ROSE.</b> Born in Vienna, 1858. Pupil of Darnaut and Charmont. The works of this successful painter of flowers and still-life have been exhibited in Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, and Chicago. She has a broad, sure touch quite unusual in water-colors. She has also executed some notable decorative works, one of which, "November," has attracted much attention. <b>MCCROSSAN, MARY.</b> Silver and bronze medals, Liverpool; silver medal and honorable mention, Paris. Has exhibited at Royal Academy, London, at Royal Institute of Oil Colors, and many other English and Scotch exhibitions. Member of Liverpool Academy of Arts and of the Liverpool Sketching Club. Born in Liverpool. Studied at Liverpool School of Art under John Finnie; Paris, under M. Delécluse; St. Ives, Cornwall, under Julius Ollson. The principal works of this artist are marine subjects and landscapes, and are mostly in private collections. In the _Studio,_ November, 1900, we read: "Miss McCrossan's exhibition of pictures and sketches displayed a pleasant variety of really clever work, mostly in oils, with a few water-colors and pastels. In each medium her color is strong, rich, and luminous, and her drawing vigorous and certain. "While this artist's landscape subjects are intelligently selected and attractively rendered, there is unusual merit in her marine pictures, composed mainly from the fisher-craft of the Isle of Man and the neighborhood of St. Ives, and recording effects of brilliant sunshine lighting up white herring boats lying idly on intensely reflective blue sea, or aground on the harbor mud at low tide. There is a fascination in the choice color treatment of these characteristic pictures." <b>MCLAUGHLIN, MARY LOUISE M.</b> Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1878; silver medal, Paris Exposition, 1889; gold medal, Atlanta, 1895; bronze medal, Buffalo, 1900. Member of the Society of Arts, London; honorary member of National Mineral Painters' League, Cincinnati. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio. Pupil of Cincinnati Art Academy and of H. F. Farny and Frank Duveneck in private classes. Miss McLaughlin has painted in oil and water-colors and exhibited in various places, as indicated by the honors she has received. Having practised under- and over-glaze work on pottery, as well as porcelain etching and decorative etching on metals, she is now devoting herself to making the porcelain known as Losanti Ware. Of a recent exhibition, 1903, a critic wrote: "Perhaps the most beautiful and distinguished group in the exhibition is that of Miss McLaughlin, one of the earliest artistic workers in clay of the United States. She sends a collection of lovely porcelain vases, of a soft white tone and charming in contour. Some of these have open-work borders, others are decorated in relief, and the designs are tinted with delicate jade greens, dark blues, or salmon pinks. This ware goes by the name of Losanti, from the early name of Cincinnati, L'Osantiville." This artist has written several books on china painting and pottery decoration. <b>MCMANUS MANSFIELD, BLANCHE.</b> Diplomas from the New Orleans Centennial and the Woman's Department, Chicago, 1903. Member of the New Vagabonds, London, and the Touring Club of France. Born in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, this artist has made her studies in London and Paris. Her principal work has been done in book illustrations. The following list gives some of her most important publications: "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass." De Luxe edition in color. New York, 1899. "The Calendar of Omar Khayyam." In color. New York, 1900. "The Altar Service." Thirty-six wood-cut blocks printed on Japan vellum. London, 1902. "The Coronation Prayer-Book." (Wood-cut borders.) Oxford University Press, 1902. "Cathedrals of Northern France." In collaboration with Francis Miltoun. Boston and London, 1903. "Cathedrals of Southern France." In collaboration with Francis Miltoun. Sold for publication in London and Boston, 1904. "A Dante Calendar." London, 1903. "A Rubaiyat Calendar." Boston, 1903. "The King's Classics." (Designs and Decorations.) London, 1902-1903. "The Book of Days." A Calendar. Sold in London for 1904. After speaking of several works by Miss McManus, a notice from London says: "A more difficult or at least a more intricate series were the designs cut on wood for 'The Altar Service Book,' just issued in London by that newly founded venture, the De La More Press; which has drawn unto itself such scholars as Dr. Furnival, Professor Skeat, and Israel Gollancz. These designs by Miss McManus were printed direct from the wood blocks in very limited editions, on genuine vellum, on Japanese vellum, and a small issue on a real sixteenth-century hand-made paper. The various editions were immediately taken up in London on publication; hence it is unlikely that copies will be generally seen in America. [Illustration: DELFT BLANCHE McMANUS MANSFIELD] "We learn, however, that the original wood blocks will be shown at the St. Louis Exposition, in the section to be devoted to the work of American artists resident abroad. We suggest that all lovers of latter-day bookmaking 'make a note of it,' recalling meanwhile that it was this successful American designer who produced also the decorative wood-cut borders and initials which were used in 'The Coronation Prayer-Book of King Edward VII.,' issued from the celebrated Oxford University Press. There were forty initials or headings, embodying the coronation regalia, including the crown, sceptre, rose, thistle, shamrock, etc. The magnificent cover for the book was also designed by this artist. "Among the American artists who have made a distinctive place in art circles, not only in America but on 'the other side,' is Mrs. M. F. Mansfield, formerly Blanche McManus of Woodville, Mississippi. "In London she is widely known as a skilful, able, and versatile artist, and her remarkable success there is an illustration of 'the American invasion.' Little has been written in America, especially in the South, of what this talented Southern woman has accomplished. She has never sought personal advertisement; on the contrary, she has shrunk from any kind of publicity--even that which would have accrued from a proper valuation of her work. "She is one of those artists whose talent is equalled only by her modesty, who, enamoured of her art and aiming at a patient, painstaking realization of her ideal, has been content to work on in silence. In the estimation of art connoisseurs, Blanche McManus is an artist of unquestionable talent and varied composition, who has already done much striking work. Her execution in the various branches has attracted international attention. "She paints well in water-colors and in oil, and her etching is considered excellent. Her drawing is stamped good, and every year she has showed rapid improvement in design. She is a highly cultivated woman, with a close and accurate observation. A sincere appreciation of nature was revealed in her earliest efforts, and for some years she devoted much time to its study." Moring's _Quarterly_ says in regard to the special work which Mrs. Mansfield has done: "It is so seldom that an artist is able to take in hand what may be termed the entire decoration of a book--including in that phrase cover, illustration, colophon, head- and tail-pieces, initial letters, and borders--that it is a pleasure to find in the subject of our paper a lady who may be said to be capable of taking all these points into consideration in the embellishment of a volume." <b>MEDICI, MARIE DE'.</b> Wife of Henry IV. Born at Florence, 1573; died at Cologne, 1642. A portrait of herself, engraved on wood, bears the legend, "Maria Medici F. MDLXXXII." Another portrait of a girl, attributed to her, is signed, "L. O. 1617." It may be considered a matter of grave doubt whether the nine-year-old girl drew and engraved with her own hand the first-named charming picture, which has been credited to her with such frank insouciance. <b>MENGS, ANNA MARIA.</b> Member of the Academy of San Fernando. She was a daughter of Anton Rafael Mengs, and was born in Dresden in 1751, where she received instruction from her father. In 1777 she married the engraver Salvador Carmona in Rome, and went with him to Spain, where she died in 1790. Portraits and miniatures of excellent quality were executed by her, and on them her reputation rests. <b>MERIAN, MARIA SIBYLLA.</b> Born at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1647. This artist merits our attention, although her art was devoted to an unusual purpose. Her father was a learned geographer and engraver whose published works are voluminous. Her maternal grandfather was the eminent engraver, Theodore de Bry or Brie. From her childhood Anna Sibylla Merian displayed an aptitude for drawing and a special interest in insect life. The latter greatly disturbed her mother, but she could not turn the child's attention from entomology, and was forced to allow that study to become her chief pursuit. The flower painter, Abraham Mignon, was her master in drawing and painting; but at an early age, before her studies were well advanced, she married an architect, John Andrew Graf, of Nuremberg, with whom she lived unhappily. She passed nearly twenty years in great seclusion, and, as she tells us in the preface to one of her books, she devoted these years to the examination and study of various insects, watching their transformations and making drawings from them. Many of these were in colors on parchment and were readily sold to connoisseurs. Her first published work was called "The Wonderful Transformations of Caterpillars." It appeared in 1679, was fully illustrated by copper plate engravings, executed by herself from her own designs. About 1684 she separated from her husband, and with her daughters returned to Frankfort. Many interesting stories are told of her life there. She made a journey to Friesland and was a convert to the doctrines of Labadie, but she was still devoted to her study and research. She was associated with the notable men of her time, and became the friend of the father of Rachel Ruysch. Although Madame Merian, who had taken her maiden name, was seventeen years older than the gifted flower painter, she became to her an example of industry and devotion to study. Madame Merian had long desired to examine the insects of Surinam, and in 1699, by the aid of the Dutch Government, she made the journey--of which a French poet wrote: "Sibylla à Surinam va chercher la nature, Avec l'esprit d'un Sage, et le coeur d'un Heros" --which indicates the view then held of a journey which would now attract no attention. While in Guiana some natives brought her a box filled with "lantern flies," as they were then called. The noise they made at night was so disturbing that she liberated them, and the flies, regaining liberty, flashed out their most brilliant light, for which Madame Merian was unprepared, and in her surprise dropped the box. From this circumstance a most exaggerated idea obtained concerning the illuminating power of the flies. The climate of Surinam was so unhealthy for Madame Merian that she could remain there but two years, and in that time she gathered the materials for her great work called "Metamorphoses Insectorum Surinamensium," etc. The illustrations were her own, and she pictured many most interesting objects--animals and vegetables as well as insects--which were quite unknown in Europe. Several editions of this book were published both in German and French. Her plates are still approved and testify to the scope and thoroughness of her research, as well as to her powers as an artist. Her chief work, however, was a "History of the Insects of Europe, Drawn from Nature, and Explained by Maria Sibylla Merian." The illustrations of this work were beautiful and of great interest, as the insects, from their first state to their last, were represented with the plants and flowers which they loved, each object being correctly and tastefully pictured. Most of the original paintings for these works are in the British Museum. In the Vienna Gallery is a "Basket of Flowers" by this artist, and in the Basle Museum a picture of "Locust and Chafers." The daughters of this learned artist naturalist, Joanna Maria Helena and Dorothea, shared the pursuits and labors of their mother, and it was her intention to publish their drawings as an appendix to her works. She did not live to do this, and later the daughters published a separate volume of their own. This extraordinary woman, whose studies and writings added so much to the knowledge of her time, was neither beautiful nor graceful. Her portraits present a woman with hard and heavy features, her hair in short curls surmounted by a stiff and curious headdress, made of folds of some black stuff. <b>MERRITT, MRS. ANNA LEA.</b> Honorable mention, Paris Exposition, 1889; two medals and a diploma, Chicago Exposition, 1893. In 1890 her picture of "Love Locked Out" was purchased by the Chantry fund, London, for two hundred and fifty pounds. This honor has been accorded to few women, and of these I think Mrs. Merritt was first. Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers. Born in Philadelphia. Pupil of Heinrich Hoffman in Dresden, and of Henry Merritt--whom she married--in London. Mrs. Merritt has a home in Hampshire, England, but is frequently in Philadelphia, where she exhibits her pictures, which have also been seen at the Royal Academy since 1871. This artist is represented by her pictures in the National Gallery of British Art, in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and by her portrait of Mr. James Russell Lowell in Memorial Hall, Harvard University. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>MICHIS, MARIA.</b> See Cattaneo. <b>MILBACHER, LOUISE VON.</b> Prize at Berlin in 1886. Born at Böhmischbrod, 1845. Pupil of Pönninger and Eisenmenger. A painter of portraits and of sacred and genre subjects. Three of her portraits are well known--those of Baron Thienen, General von Neuwirth, and Baron Eber-Eschenbach. The altar-piece in the chapel of the Vienna Institute, a "Holy Family," is by this artist. She has also painted still-life and animal subjects. <b>MODIGLIANI, SIGNORINA CORINNA.</b> Silver medal at Turin Exposition, 1898; silver medal at the Exposition of Feminine Art, 1899, 1900; diploma at Leghorn, 1901; gold medal. Member of the International Artistic Association. Born in Rome. Pupil of Professore Commendatore Pietro Vanni. This artist has exhibited her works in the Expositions of Rome, Turin, Milan, Leghorn, Munich, Petersburg, and Paris since 1897, and will contribute to the St. Louis Exposition. Her pictures have been sold in Paris, London, and Ireland, as well as in Rome and other Italian cities, where many of them are in the collections of distinguished families. <b>MOLDURA, LILLA.</b> A Neapolitan painter. Her father was an Italian and her mother a Spaniard. She was instructed in the elements of art by various excellent teachers, and then studied oil painting under Maldarelli and water-color under Mancini. She has often exhibited pictures in Naples, to the satisfaction of both artists and critics, and has also won success in London. She has been almost equally happy in views of the picturesque Campagna, and in interiors, both in oil and water-colors. The interior of the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception, in the Church of the Gerolamini, is strong in execution and good in drawing and color. <b>MÖLLER, AGNES SLOTT.</b> Born in 1862. Resides in Copenhagen. The especial work of this artist, by which her reputation is world-wide, is the illustration of old legends for children's books. <b>MONTALBA, CLARA.</b> Associate of the Society of Painters in Water-Colors, London, and of the Belgian Society of Water-Colorists. Born in Cheltenham, 1842. Pupil of Isabey in Paris. Her professional life has been spent in London and Venice. She has sent her pictures to the Academy and the Grosvenor Gallery exhibitions since 1879. "Blessing a Tomb, Westminster," was at the Philadelphia Exposition, 1876; "Corner of St. Mark's" and "Fishing Boats, Venice," were at Paris, 1878. In 1874 she exhibited at the Society of British Artists, "Il Giardino Publico"--the Public Garden--of which a writer in the _Art Journal_ said: "'Il Giardino Publico' stands foremost among the few redeeming features of the exhibition. In delicate perception of natural beauty the picture suggests the example of Corot. Like the great Frenchman, Miss Montalba strives to interpret the sadder moods of nature, when the wind moves the water a little mournfully and the outlines of the objects become uncertain in the filmy air." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>MORETTO, EMMA.</b> Venetian painter, exhibited at Naples, in 1877, "Abbey of St. Gregory at Venice"; at Turin, in 1880, a fine view of the "Canal of the Giudecca," and "Canal of S. Giorgio"; at the National Exposition in Milan, 1881, "Sunset" and a marine view; at Rome, in 1883, "Excursion on the Lagoon." Still others of the same general character are: "A Gondola," "At St. Mark's," "Grand Canal," "Morning at Sea," etc. <b>MORON, THERESE CONCORDIA.</b> Born in Dresden, 1725; died in Rome, 1806. Pupil, of her father, Ismael Mengs. Her attention was divided between enamel painting and pastel, much of the latter being miniature work. In the Dresden Gallery are two of her pastel portraits and two copies in miniature of Correggio, viz., a half-length portrait of herself and a portrait of her sister, Julie Mengs; a copy of St. Jerome, or "The Day"--original in Parma--and "The Night." A curious story has recently been published to the effect that in 1767 this artist sent word to Duke Xavier of Saxony that during the Seven Years' War she painted a copy in miniature of Correggio's "Holy Mother with the Christ Child, Mary Magdalen, Hieronymus, and Two Angels," which she sent by Cardinal Albani to the Duke's father--Frederick Augustus II. of Saxony and Augustus III. of Poland--at Warsaw. It was claimed that two hundred and fifty ducats were due her. Apparently the demand was not met; but, on the other hand, the lady seems to have received for some years a pension of three hundred thalers from the Electorate of Saxony without making any return. Probably her claim was satisfied by this pension. <b>MOSER, MARY.</b> One of the original members of the London Academy. The daughter of a German artist, who resided in London. She was as well known for her wit as for her art. A friend of Fuseli, she was said to be as much in love with him as he was in love with Angelica Kauffman. Dr. Johnson sometimes met Miss Moser at the house of Nollekens, where they made merry over a cup of tea. Queen Charlotte commissioned this painter to decorate a chamber, for which work she paid more than nine hundred pounds, and was so well pleased that she complimented the artist by commanding the apartment to be called "Miss Moser's Room." <b>MOTT, MRS. ALICE.</b> Born at Walton on Thames. Pupil of the Slade School and Royal Academy in London, and of M. Charles Chaplin in Paris in his studio. A miniaturist whose works are much esteemed. Her work is life-like, artistic, and strong in drawing, color, and composition. After finishing her study under masters she took up miniature painting by herself, studying the works of old miniaturists. Recently she writes me: "I have departed from the ordinary portrait miniature, and am now painting what I call picture miniatures. For instance, I am now at work on the portrait of Miss D. C., who is in old-fashioned dress, low bodice, and long leg-of-mutton sleeves. She is represented as running in the open, with sky and tree background. She has a butterfly net over her shoulder, which floats out on the wind; she is looking up and smiling; her hair and her sash are blown out. It is to be called, 'I'd be a Butterfly.' The dress is the yellow of the common butterfly. It is a large miniature. I hope to send it, with others, to the St. Louis Exposition." Her miniatures are numerous and in private hands. A very interesting one belongs to the Bishop of Ripon and is a portrait of Mrs. Carpenter, his mother. <b>MUNTZ, LAURA A.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>MURRAY, ELIZABETH.</b> Member of the Institute of Painters in Water-Colors, London, and of the American Society of Water-Color Painters, New York. Her pictures are of genre subjects, many of them being of Oriental figures. Among these are "Music in Morocco," "A Moorish Saint," "The Greek Betrothed," etc. Other subjects are "The Gipsy Queen," "Dalmatian Peasant," "The Old Story in Spain," etc. <b>NATHAN, SIGNORA LILIAH ASCOLI.</b> Rome. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>NEGRO, TERESA.</b> Born in Turin, where she resides. She has made a study of antique pottery and has been successful in its imitation. Her vases and amphorae have been frequently exhibited and are praised by connoisseurs and critics. At the Italian National Exposition, 1880, she exhibited a terra-cotta reproduction of a classic design, painted in oils; also a wooden dish which resembled an antique ceramic. <b>NELLI, PLAUTILLA.</b> There is a curious fact connected with two women artists of Florence in the middle of the sixteenth century. In that city of pageants--where Ghirlandajo saw, in the streets, in churches, and on various ceremonial occasions, the beautiful women with whom he still makes us acquainted--these ladies, daughters of noble Florentine families, were nuns. No Shakespearean dissector has, to my knowledge, affirmed that Hamlet's advice to Ophelia, "Get thee to a nunnery," and his assertion, "I have heard of your paintings, too," prove that Ophelia was an artist and a nunnery a favorable place in which to set up a studio. Yet I think I could make this assumption as convincing as many that have been "proved" by the _post obitum_ atomizers of the great poet's every word. But we have not far to seek for the reasons which led Plautilla Nelli and Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi to choose the conventual life. The subjects of their pictures prove that their thoughts were fixed on a life quite out of tune with that which surrounded them in their homes. If they pictured rich draperies and rare gems, it was but to adorn with them the Blessed Virgin Mother and the holy saints, in token of their belief that all of pomp and value in this life can but faintly symbolize the glory of the life to come. Plautilla Nelli, born in Florence in 1523, entered the convent of St. Catherine of Siena, in her native city, and in time became its abbess. Patiently, with earnest prayer, she studied and copied the works of Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea del Sarto, until she was able to paint an original "Adoration of the Magi" of such excellence as to secure her a place among the painters of Florence. Many of her pictures remained in her convent, but she also painted a "Madonna Surrounded by Saints" for the choir of Santa Lucia at Pistoja. There are pictures attributed to Plautilla Nelli in Berlin--notably the "Visit of Martha to Christ,"--which are characterized by the earnestness, purity, and grace of her beloved Fra Bartolommeo. Her "Adoration of the Wise Men" is at Parma; the "Descent from the Cross" in Florence; the "Last Supper" in the church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence. There are traditions of her success as a teacher of painting in her convent, but of this we have no exact knowledge such as we have of the work of the "Suor Plautilla," the name by which she came to be known in all Italy. <b>NEMES-RANSONNETT, COUNTESS ELISA.</b> Born at Vienna, 1843. She studied successively with Vastagh, Lulos, Aigner, Schilcher, Lenbach, Angeli, and J. Benczur, and opened her studio at Kun Szent Miklos near Budapest. The "Invitation to the Wedding" was well received, and her portraits of Schiller and Perczel are in public galleries--the former in the Vienna Künstlerhaus, and the latter in the Deputy House at Budapest. <b>NEWCOMB, MARIA GUISE.</b> Born in New Jersey. Pupil of Schenck, Chialiva, and Edouard Detaille in Paris. Travelled in Algeria and the Sahara, studying the Arab and his horses. Very few artists can be compared with Miss Newcomb in representing horses. She has a genius for portraying this animal, and understands its anatomy as few painters have done. She was but a child when sketching horses and cattle was her pastime, and so great was her fondness for it that the usual dolls and other toys were crowded out of her life. Her studies in Paris were comprehensive, and her work shows the results and places her among the distinguished painters of animals. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>NEY, ELISABETH.</b> Born in 1830. After studying at the Academy in Berlin, this sculptor went to Munich, where she was devoted to her art. She then came to Texas and remained some years in America. She returned to Berlin in 1897. Among her best known works are busts of Garibaldi, of J. Grimm, 1863, "Prometheus Bound," 1868, and a statue of Louis II. of Bavaria. <b>NICHOLLS, MRS. RHODA HOLMES.</b> Queen's Scholarship, Bloomsbury Art School, London; gold medal, Competitive Prize Fund Exhibition, New York; medal, Chicago Exposition, 1893; medal, Tennessee Exposition, 1897; bronze medal at Buffalo Exposition, 1901. Member of American Water-Color Society, New York Water-Color Society, Woman's Art Club, American Society of Miniature Painters, Pen and Brush Club; honorable member of Woman's Art Club, Canada. Born in Coventry, England. Pupil of Bloomsbury School of Art, London; of Cannerano and Vertunni in Rome, where she was elected to the Circolo Artistico and the Società degli Aquarelliste. Her pictures are chiefly figure subjects, among which are "Those Evening Bells," "The Scarlet Letter," "A Daughter of Eve," "Indian after the Chase," "Searching the Scriptures," etc. In the _Studio_, March, 1901, in writing of the exhibition of the American Water-Color Society, the critic says: "In her two works, 'Cherries' and 'A Rose,' Mrs. Rhoda Holmes Nicholls shows us a true water-color executed by a master hand. The subject of each is slight; each stroke of her brush is made once and for all, with a precision and dash that are inspiriting; and you have in each painting the sparkle, the deft lightness of touch, the instantaneous impression of form and coloring that a water-color should have." [Illustration: AN INDIAN AFTER THE CHASE RHODA HOLMES NICHOLS] Mrs. Nicholls is also known as an illustrator. Harold Payne says of her: "Rhoda Holmes Nicholls, although an illustrator of the highest order, cannot be strictly classed as one, for the reason that she is equally great in every other branch of art. However, as many of her best examples of water-colors are ultimately reproduced for illustrative purposes, and as even her oil paintings frequently find their way into the pages of art publications, it is not wrong to denominate her as an illustrator, and that of the most varied and prolific type. She may, like most artists, have a specialty, but a walk through her studio and a critical examination of her work--ranging all along the line of oil paintings, water-colors of the most exquisite type, wash drawings, crayons, and pastels--would scarcely result in discovering her specialty.... As a colorist she has few rivals, and her acute knowledge of drawing and genius for composition are apparent in everything she does." <b>NICHOLS, CATHERINE MAUDE, R. E.</b> The pictures of this artist have been hung on the line at the Royal Academy exhibitions a dozen times at least. From Munich she has received an official letter thanking her for sending her works to exhibitions in that city. Fellow of the Royal Painter-Etchers' Society; president of the Woodpecker Art Club, Norwich; Member of Norwich Art Circle and of a Miniature Painters' Society and the Green Park Club, London. Born in Norwich. Self-taught. Has worked in the open at Barbizon, in Normandy, in Cornwall, Devon, London, and all around the east coast of Norfolk. Miss Nichols has held three exhibitions of her pictures both in oil and water-colors in London. She has executed more than a hundred copper plates, chiefly dry-points. The pictures in oils and water-colors, the miniatures and the proofs of her works have found purchasers, almost without exception, and are in private hands. Most of the plates she has retained. Miss Nichols has illustrated some books, her own poems being of the number, as well as her "Old Norwich." She has also made illustrations for journals and magazines. One is impressed most agreeably with the absence of mannerism in Miss Nichols' work, as well as with the pronounced artistic treatment of her subjects. Her sketches of sea and river scenery are attractive; the views from her home county, Norfolk, have a delightful feeling about them. "Norwich River at Evening" is not only a charming picture, but shows, in its perspective and its values, the hand of a skilful artist. "Mousehold Heath," showing a rough and broken country, is one of her strongest pictures in oils; "Stretching to the Sea" is also excellent. Among the water-colors "Strangers' Hall," Norwich, and "Fleeting Clouds," merit attention, as do a number of others. One could rarely see so many works, with such varied subjects, treated in oils, water-colors, dry point, etc., by the same artist. I quote the following paragraph from the _Studio_ of April, 1903: "Miss C. M. Nichols is an artist of unquestionable talent, and her work in the various mediums she employs deserves careful attention. She paints well both in water-colors and in oil, and her etchings are among the best that the lady artists of our time have produced. Her drawing is good, her observation is close and accurate, and she shows year by year an improvement in design. Miss Nichols was for several years the only lady fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers." Her "Brancaster Staithe" and "Fir Trees, Crown Point," dry points, are in the Norwich Art Gallery, presented by Sir Seymour Haden, president of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers. Two of her works, a large oil painting of "Earlham" and a water-color of "Strangers' Hall," have been purchased by subscription and presented to the Norwich Castle Art Gallery. <b>NICOLAU Y PARODY, TERESA.</b> Member of the Academy of San Fernando and of the Academy of San Carlos of Valencia. This artist, who was born in Madrid, early showed an enthusiasm for painting, which she at first practised in various styles, but gradually devoted herself entirely to miniature. She has contributed to many public exhibitions, and has received many prizes and honorable mentions, as well as praise from the critics. Among her portraits are those of Isabel de Braganza, Washington, Mme. de Montespan, Mme. Dubarry, Queen Margaret of Austria, and Don Carlos, son of Philip II. Her other works include a "Magdalen in the Desert," "Laura and Petrarch," "Joseph with the Christ-Child," "Francis I. at the Battle of Pavia," and many good copies after celebrated painters. <b>NIEDERHÄUSEN, MLLE. SOPHIE.</b> Medal at the Swiss National Exposition, 1896. Member of the Exposition permanente de l'Athénée, Geneva. Born at Geneva. Pupil of Professor Wymann and M. Albert Gos, and of M. and Mme. Demont-Breton in France. Mlle. Niederhäusen paints landscapes principally, and has taken her subjects from the environs of Geneva, in the Valais, and in Pas-de-Calais, France. Her picture, called the "Bord du Lac de Genève," was purchased by the city and is in the Rath Museum. She also paints flowers, and uses water-colors as well as oils. <b>NOBILI, ELENA.</b> Silver medal at the Beatrice Exposition, Florence, 1890. Born in Florence, where she resides. She is most successful in figure subjects. She is sympathetic in her treatment of them and is able to impart to her works a sentiment which appeals to the observer. Among her pictures are "Reietti," "The Good-Natured One," "September," "In the Country," "Music," and "Contrasts." <b>NORMAND, MRS. ERNEST--HENRIETTA RAE.</b> Medals in Paris and at Chicago Exposition, 1893. Born in London, 1859. Daughter of T. B. Rae, Esquire. Married the artist, Ernest Normand, 1884. Pupil of Queen's Square School of Art, Heatherley's, British Museum, and Royal Academy Schools. Began the study of art at the age of thirteen. First exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1880, and has sent important pictures there annually since that time. Mrs. Normand executed decorative frescoes in the Royal Exchange, London, the subject being "Sir Richard Whittington and His Charities." In the past ten years she has exhibited "Mariana," 1893; "Psyche at the Throne of Venus," 1894; "Apollo and Daphne," 1895; "Summer," 1896; "Isabella," 1897; "Diana and Calisto," 1899; "Portrait of Marquis of Dufferin and Ava," 1901; "Lady Winifred Renshaw and Son," and the "Sirens," 1903, which is a picture of three nude enchantresses, on a sandy shore, watching a distant galley among rocky islets. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>NOURSE, ELIZABETH.</b> Medal at Chicago Exposition, 1903; Nashville Exposition, 1897; Carthage Institute, Tunis, 1897; elected associate of the Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1895; silver medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; elected Sociétaire des Beaux-Arts, 1901. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she began her studies, later going to the Julian Academy, under Boulanger and Lefebvre, and afterward studying with Carolus Duran and Henner. This artist idealizes the subjects of every-day, practical life, and gives them a poetic quality which is an uncommon and delightful attainment. At the Salon des Beaux-Arts, 1902, Miss Nourse exhibited "The Children," "Evening Toilet of the Baby," "In the Shade at Pen'march," "Brother and Sister at Pen'march," "The Madeleine Chapel at Pen'march." In 1903, "Our Lady of Joy, Pen'march," "Around the Cradle," "The Little Sister," and "A Breton Interior." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>OAKLEY, VIOLET.</b> Member of Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia Water-Color Club, Plastic Club, Philadelphia. Born in New Jersey, but has lived in New York, where she studied at the Art Students' League under Carroll Beckwith. Pupil of Collin and Aman-Jean in Paris and Charles Lasar in England; also in Philadelphia of Joseph de Camp, Henry Thouron, Cecilia Beaux, and Howard Pyle. Miss Oakley has executed mural decorations, a mosaic reredos, and five stained-glass windows in the Church of All Saints, New York City, and a window in the Convent of the Holy Child, at Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania. In the summer of 1903 she was commissioned to decorate the walls of the Governor's reception room in the new Capitol at Harrisburg. Before engaging in this work--the first of its kind to be confided to an American woman--Miss Oakley went to Italy to study mural painting. She then went to England to thoroughly inform herself concerning the historical foundation of her subject, the history of the earliest days of Pennsylvania. At Oxford and in London she found what she required, and on her return to America established herself in a studio in Villa Nova, Pennsylvania, to make her designs for "The Romance of the Founding of the State," which is to be painted on a frieze five feet deep. The room is seventy by thirty feet, and sixteen feet in height. The decoration of this Capitol is to be more elaborate and costly than that of any other public edifice in the United States. In mural decoration Miss Oakley will be associated with Edwin A. Abbey, but the Governor's room is to be her work entirely, and will doubtless occupy her during several years. Mr Charles A. Caffin, in his article upon the exhibition of the New York Water-Color Club, January, 1904, says: "Miss Oakley has had considerable experience in designing stained-glass windows, and has reproduced in some of her designs for book covers a corresponding treatment of the composition, with an attempt, not very logical or desirable, considering the differences between paint and glass, to reproduce also something of her window color schemes.... But for myself, her cover, in which some girls are picking flowers, is far more charming in its easy grace of composition, choice gravity of color, and spontaneity of feeling. Here is revealed a very _naïve_ imagination, free of any obsessions." <b>OCCIONI, SIGNORA LUCILLA MARZOLO.</b> Diploma of gold medal at the Women's Exhibition, Earl's Court, London, 1900. Born in Trieste. Pupil, in Rome, of Professor Giuseppe Ferrari. This artist paints figure subjects, portraits, landscapes, and flowers, in both oils and water-colors, and also makes pen-drawings. Her works are in many private galleries. She gives me no list of subjects. Her pictures have been praised by critics. <b>O'CONNELL, FREDERIQUE EMILIE AUGUSTE MIETHE.</b> Born in Potsdam. 1823-1885. She passed her early life in her native city, having all the advantages of a solid and brilliant education. She early exhibited a love of drawing and devoted herself to the study of anatomical plates. She soon designed original subjects and introduced persons of her own imagination, which early marked her as powerful in her fancy and original in her manner of rendering her ideas. A picture of "Raphael and the Fornarina," which she executed at the age of fifteen, was so satisfactory as to determine her fate, and she was allowed to study art. When about eighteen years old she became the pupil of Charles Joseph Begas, a very celebrated artist of Berlin. Under his supervision she painted her first picture, called the "Day of the Dupes," which, though full of faults, had also virtues enough to secure much attention in the exhibition. It was first hung in a disadvantageous position, but the crowd discovered its merits and would have it noticed. She received a complimentary letter from the Academy of Berlin, and the venerable artist Cornelius made her a visit of congratulation. About 1844 she married and removed to Brussels. Here she came into an entirely new atmosphere and her manner of painting was changed. She sought to free herself from all outer influence and to express her own feeling. She studied color especially, and became an imitator of Rubens. She gained in Brussels all the medals of the Belgian expositions, and there began two historical pictures, "Peter the Great and Catherine" and "Maria Theresa and Frederick the Great." These were not finished until after her removal to Paris in 1853. They were bought by Prince Demidoff for the Russian Government. She obtained her first triumph in Paris, at the Salon of 1853, by a portrait of Rachel. She represented the famous actress dressed entirely in white, with the worn expression which her professional exertions and the fatal malady from which she was already suffering had given to her remarkable face. The critics had no words for this portrait which were not words of praise, and two years later, in 1855, Madame O'Connell reached the height of her talent. "A Faunesse," as it was called, in the exposition of that year, was a remarkable work, and thus described by Barty: "A strong and beautiful young woman was seated near a spring, where beneath the shade of the chestnut trees the water lilies spread themselves out upon the stream which flowed forth. She was nude and her flesh palpitated beneath the caresses of the sun. With feminine caprice she wore a bracelet of pearls of the style of the gold workers of the Renaissance. Her black hair had lights of golden brown upon it, and she opened her great brown eyes with an expression of indifference. A half smile played upon her rosy lips and lessened the oval of the face like that of the 'Dancing Faun.' The whole effect of the lines of the figure was bold and gave an appearance of youth, the extremities were studiously finished, the skin was fine, and the whole tournure elegant. It was a Faunesse of Fontainebleau of the time of the Valois." Mme. O'Connell then executed several fine portraits--two of Rachel, one of M. O'Connell, others of Charles Edward and Théophile Gautier, which were likened to works of Vandyck, and a portrait in crayon of herself which was a _chef-d'oeuvre_. She excelled in rendering passionate natures; she found in her palette the secret of that pallor which spreads itself over the faces of those devoted to study--the fatigues of days and nights without sleep; she knew how to kindle the feverish light in the eyes of poets and of the women of society. She worked with great freedom, used a thick pâte in which she brushed freely and left the ridges thus made in the colors; then, later, she put over a glaze, and all was done. Her etchings were also executed with great freedom, and many parts, especially the hair, were remarkably fine. She finished numerous etchings, among which a "St. Magdalen in the Desert" and a "Charity Surrounded by Children" are worthy of particular notice. After Madame O'Connell removed to Paris she opened a large atelier and received many pupils. It was a most attractive place, with gorgeous pieces of antique furniture, loaded with models of sculpture, books, albums, engravings, and so on, while draperies, tapestries, armor, and ornaments in copper and brass all lent their colors and effects to enhance the attractions of the place. Many persons of rank and genius were among the friends of the artist and she was much in society. In spite of all her talent and all her success the end of Madame O'Connell's life was sad beyond expression. Her health suffered, her reason tottered and faded out, yet life remained and she was for years in an asylum for the insane. Everything that had surrounded her in her Paris home was sold at auction. No time was given and no attempt was made to bring her friends together. No one who had known or loved her was there to shed a tear or to bear away a memento of her happy past. All the beautiful things of which we have spoken were sacrificed and scattered as unconscionably as if she had never loved or her friends enjoyed them. In the busy world of Paris no one remembered the brilliant woman who had flashed upon them, gained her place among them, and then disappeared. They recalled neither her genius nor her womanly qualities which they had admired, appreciated, and so soon forgotten! <b>OOSTERWYCK, MARIA VAN.</b> The seventeenth century is remarkable for the perfection attained in still-life and flower painting. The most famous masters in this art were William van Aelst of Delft, the brothers De Heem of Utrecht, William Kalf and the Van Huysums of Amsterdam. The last of this name, however, Jan van Huysum, belongs to the next century. Maria van Oosterwyck and Rachel Ruysch disputed honors with the above named and are still famous for their talents. The former was a daughter of a preacher of the reformed religion. She was born at Nootdorp, near Delft, in 1630. She was the pupil of Jan David de Heem, and her pictures were remarkable for accuracy in drawing, fine coloring, and an admirable finish. Louis XIV. of France, William III. of England, the Emperor Leopold of Germany, and Augustus I. of Poland gave her commissions for pictures. Large prices were paid her in a most deferential manner, as if the tributes of friendship rather than the reward of labor, and to these generous sums were added gifts of jewels and other precious objects. Of Maria van Oosterwyck Kugler writes: "In my opinion she does not occupy that place in the history of the art of this period that she deserves, which may be partly owing to the rarity of her pictures, especially in public galleries. For although her flower pieces are weak in arrangement and often gaudy in the combination of color, she yet represents her flowers with the utmost truth of drawing, and with a depth, brilliancy, and juiciness of local coloring _unattained by any other flower painter_" A picture in the Vienna Gallery of a sunflower with tulips and poppies, in glowing color, is probably her best work in a public collection. Her pictures are also in the galleries of Dresden, Florence, Carlsruhe, Copenhagen, the Schwerin Gallery, and the Metropolitan Museum of New York. There is a romantic story told of Maria van Oosterwyck, as follows. William van Aelst, the painter of exquisite pictures of still-life, fruits, glass, and objects in gold and silver, was a suitor for her hand. She did not love him, but wishing not to be too abrupt in her refusal, she required, as a condition of his acceptance, that he should work ten hours a day during a year. This he readily promised to do. His studio being opposite that of Maria, she watched narrowly for the days when he did not work and marked them down on her window-sash. At the close of the year Van Aelst claimed her as his bride, assuming that he had fulfilled her condition; but she pointed to the record of his delinquencies, and he could but accept her crafty dismissal of his suit. <b>OSENGA, GIUSEPPINA.</b> This artist resides in Parma, and has there exhibited landscapes that are praised for their color and for the manner in which they are painted, as well as for the attractive subjects she habitually chooses. "A View near Parma," the "Faces of Montmorency," and the "Bridge of Attaro" are three of her works which are especially admired. <b>OSTERTAG, BLANCHE.</b> Member of Society of Western Artists; Arts Club, Chicago; Municipal Art League. Born in St. Louis. From 1892-1896 pupil of Laurens and Raphael Collin in Paris, where her works were hung on the line at the New Gallery, Champ de Mars. A decorative artist who has executed mural decoration in a private house in Chicago, and has illustrated "Max Müller's Memories" and other publications. For use in schools she made a color print, "Reading of the Declaration of Independence before the Army." Her calendars and posters are in demand by collectors at home and in foreign countries. Miss Ostertag has designed elaborate chimney pieces to be executed in mosaic and glass. Her droll conceits in "Mary and Her Lamb," the "Ten Little Injuns," and other juvenile tales were complimented by Boutet de Monvel, who was so much interested in her work that he gave her valuable criticism and advice without solicitation. <b>O'TAMA-CHIOVARA.</b> Gold medal at an exhibition of laces in Rome and prizes at all the exhibitions held in Palermo by the Art Club. Born in Tokio, where she came to the notice of Vicenzo Ragusa, a Sicilian sculptor in the employ of the Japanese Government at Tokio. He taught her design, color, and modelling, and finally induced her to go with his sister to Palermo. Here her merit was soon recognized in a varied collection of water-colors representing flowers and fruits, which were reproduced with surpassing truth. When the School of Applied Art was instituted at Palermo in 1887, she was put in charge of the drawing, water-color, and modelling in the Women's Section. She knows the flowers of various countries--those of Japan and Sicily wonderfully well, and her fancy is inexhaustible; her exquisite embroideries reflect this quality. She has many private pupils, and is as much beloved for her character as she is admired for her talents. When she renounced Buddhism for Christianity, the Princess of Scalca was her godmother. <b>PACZKA-WAGNER, CORNELIA.</b> Honorable mention, Berlin, 1890. Born in Göttingen, 1864. She has been, in the main, her own instructor, living for some years in Rome for the purpose of study. In 1895 she settled in Berlin, where she has made a specialty of women's and children's portraits in olgraphy (?) and lithography. Beautiful drawings by her were exhibited at the International Water-Color Exhibition in Dresden, 1892. An interesting account of a visit to the studio of the Hungarian painter Paczka and his German wife tells of a strong series of paintings in progress there, under the general title, "A Woman's Soul." In freedom and boldness of conception they were said to remind one of Klinger, but in warmth and depth of feeling to surpass him. Frau Paczka had just finished a very large picture, representing the first couple after the expulsion from Paradise. The scene is on the waste, stony slope of a mountain; the sun shines with full force in the background, while upon the unshadowed rocks of the foreground are the prostrate Adam and his wife--more accusing than complaining. In 1899 Frau Paczka exhibited in Berlin, "Vanitas," which excels in richness of fancy and boldness of representation, while wanting somewhat in detail; the ensemble presents a remarkably fine, symbolic composition, which sets forth in rich color the dance of mankind before the golden calf, and the bitter disillusions in the struggle for fame, wealth, and happiness. <b>PARLAGHY, VILMA, OR THE PRINCESS LWOFF.</b> Great gold medal from the Emperor of Austria, 1890; great gold medal, 1894; small gold medal at Berlin, 1890, adjudged to her portrait of Windhorst. Born at Hadju-Dorogh in 1863, and studied in Budapest, Munich, Venice, Florence, and Turin. Her portraits having found great favor at the Court of Berlin, she removed her studio from Munich to that capital. One of her instructors was Lenbach, and she is said by some critics to have appropriated his peculiarities as a colorist and his shortcomings in drawing, without attaining his geniality and power of divination. In 1891 her portrait of Count von Moltke, begun shortly before his death and finished afterward, was sent to the International Exposition at Berlin, but was rejected. The Emperor, however, bought it for his private collection, and at his request it was given a place of honor at the Exposition, the incident causing much comment. She exhibited a portrait of the Emperor William at Berlin in 1893, which Rosenberg called careless in drawing and modelling and inconceivable in its unrefreshing, dirty-gray color. In January, 1895, she gave an exhibition of one hundred and four of her works, mostly portraits, including those of the Emperor, Caprivi, von Moltke, and Kossuth, which had previously been exhibited in Berlin, Munich, and Paris. The proceeds of this exhibition went to the building fund of the Emperor William Memorial Church. Of a portrait exhibited in 1896, at Munich, a critic said that while it was not wholly bad, it was no better than what hundreds of others could do as well, and hundreds of others could do much better. <b>PASCH, ULRICKE FRIEDERIKA.</b> Member of the Academy of Fine Arts of Sweden. Born in Stockholm. 1735-1796. A portrait of Gustavus-Adolphus II. by this artist is in the Castle at Stockholm. She was a sister of Lorenz Pasch. <b>PASCOLI, LUIGIA.</b> This Venetian painter has exhibited in various Italian cities since 1870, when she sent a "Magdalen" to Parma. "First Love" appeared at Naples in 1877, and "The Maskers"--pastel--at Venice in 1881. A "Girl with a Cat," a "Roman Girl," and a "Seller of Eggs"--the latter in Venetian costume--are works of true value. Her copies of Titian's "St. Mark" and of Gian Bellini's "Supper at Emmaus" have attracted attention and are much esteemed. <b>PASSE, MAGDALENA VAN DE.</b> Born at Utrecht about 1600; she died at the age of forty. This engraver was a daughter of Crispus van de Passe, the elder. She practised her art in Germany, England, Denmark, and the Netherlands, and was important as an artist. Her engraving was exceedingly careful and skilful. Among her plates are "Three Sibyls," 1617; an "Annunciation," "Cephalus and Procris," "Latona," and landscapes after the works of Bril, Savery, Willars, etc. <b>PATTISON, HELEN SEARLE.</b> Born in Burlington, Vermont. Daughter of Henry Searle, a talented architect who moved to Rochester, New York, where his daughter spent much of her girlhood. She held the position of art teacher in a school in Batavia, New York, while still a girl herself. About 1860 she became the pupil of Herr Johan Wilhelm Preyer, the well-known painter of still-life, fruit, and flowers. Preyer was a dwarf and an excellent man, but as a rule took no pupils. He was much interested in Miss Searle, and made an exception in her case. She soon acquired the technique of her master and painted much as he did, but with less minute detail, finer color, and far more sentiment. [Illustration: FLOWERS HELEN SEARLE PATTISON] In 1876 Miss Searle married the artist, James William Pattison, now on the staff of the Art Institute, Chicago. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Pattison resided at Écouen, near Paris. Returning to America in 1882, they spent some time in Chicago and New York City, removing to Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1884. Here Mr. Pattison was at the head of the School of Fine Arts. Mrs. Pattison lived but a few months in Jacksonville, dying in November, 1884. Mrs. Pattison's artistic reputation was well established and her works were exhibited at the Paris Salon and in all the German cities of importance. They were frequently seen in England and at the National Academy of Design in New York. Her subjects were still-life, fruit, and flowers, and her works are widely distributed. <b>PAZZI, CATERINA DE</b>, whose conventual name was Maria Maddalena. Was born in Florence in 1566. It would be interesting to know the relation that this gentle lady bore to those Pazzi who had earned a fame so unlike hers fourscore years before she saw the light. Caterina de Pazzi, when a mere girl, entered a convent which stood on the site of the church known by her name in the Via Pinti. The cell of Santa Maddalena--now a chapel--may still be visited. She was canonized by Pope Alexander VIII. in 1670, sixty-two years after her death. The Florentines have many lovely legends associated with her memory. One of these relates that she painted pictures of sacred subjects when asleep. Be this as it may, we know that her pictures were esteemed in the days when the best artists lived and worked beside her. Examples of her art may still be seen in churches in Rome and Parma, as well as in the church of her native city which bears her name. <b>PEALE, ANNA C.</b> Made her mark as a miniature painter and for some years was the only professional woman artist in Philadelphia. Her portrait of General Jackson made in 1819 was well considered. She also made portraits of President Monroe, Henry Clay, R. M. Johnson, John Randolph of Roanoke, and other prominent men. Miss Peale married in 1829 the Rev. William Staughton, a Baptist clergyman, the president of the theological college at Georgetown, Kentucky. He lived but three months after their marriage, and she returned to Philadelphia and again pursued her artistic labors. She married a second husband, General William Duncan, and from this time gave up professional painting. <b>PEALE, SARA M.</b> 1860-1885. Daughter of James Peale, under whose teaching she made her first studies. She was also a pupil of her uncle, the founder of Peale's Museum, Philadelphia. Miss Peale painted portraits and spent some years in Baltimore and Washington. Among her portraits are those of Lafayette, Thomas Benton, Henry A. Wise, Caleb Cushing, and other distinguished men. From 1847 she resided in St. Louis thirty years and then went to Philadelphia. Her later works were still-life subjects, especially fruits. <b>PELICHY, GEERTRUIDA.</b> Honorary member of the Academy of Vienna. Born in Utrecht, 1744; died in Brügge, 1825. Pupil of P. de Cock and Suvée. In 1753, she went to Brügge with her father, and later to Paris and Vienna. She painted portraits of the Emperor Joseph II. and Maria Theresa, some good landscapes, and animal studies. Two of her pictures are in the Museum at Brügge. <b>PELLEGRINO, ITALA.</b> Born at Milan, 1865. Pupil of Battaglia. Her pictures are of genre and marine subjects. At the great exhibition at Turin, 1884, she exhibited a marine view which was bought by Prince Amadeo. Another marine view exhibited at Milan was acquired by the Società Promotrice. In 1888 she sent to the exhibition at Naples, where she resides, a view of Portici, which was added to the Royal Gallery. The excellence of her work is in the strength and certainty of touch and the sincerity and originality of composition. She has painted a "Marine View of Naples," "In the Gulf," "Fair Weather," and "Evening at Sea"; also a genre picture, "Frusta là," which was sold while in an exhibition in Rome. <b>PENICKE, CLARA.</b> Born at Berlin in 1818, where she died in 1899. She studied first with Remy and later with Carl Begas and Edward Magnus. Her work was largely confined to portrait and historical painting. In the Gallery at Schwerin is her "Elector Frederick of Saxony Refusing to Accept the Interim." Another good example of her historical work is the "Reconciliation of Charlemagne with Thassilo of Bavaria." A well-known and strongly modelled portrait of Minister Von Stoach and several Luther portraits, "Luther's Family Devotion" and "Luther Finds the First Latin Bible," show her facility in this branch of art. She also painted a "Christ on the Cross." <b>PERELLI, LIDA.</b> A landscape painter living in Milan, who has become well known by pictures that have been seen at the exhibitions in several Italian cities, especially through some Roman studies that appeared at Florence and Turin in 1884. "A View of Lecco, Lake Como," "Casolare," and "A Lombard Plain" are among her best works. <b>PERMAN, LOUISE E.</b> Born at Birkenshaw, Renfrewshire. Studied in Glasgow. This artist paints roses, and roses only, in oils. In this art she has been very successful. She has exhibited at the Royal Academy and the New Gallery, London; at the Royal Scottish Academy, Glasgow; at art exhibits in Munich, Dresden, Berlin, Prague, Hanover, etc., and wherever her works have been seen they have been sold. In May, 1903, a collection of twenty-five rose pictures were exhibited by a prominent dealer, and but few were left in his hands. A critic in the _Studio_ of April, 1903, writing of the exhibition at the Ladies' Artists' Club, Glasgow, says: "Miss Louise Perman's rose pictures were as refined and charming as ever. This last-named lady certainly has a remarkable power of rendering the beauties of the queen of flowers, whether she chooses to paint the sumptuous yellow of the 'Maréchal Niel,' the blush of the 'Katherine Mermet,' or the crimson glory of the 'Queen of Autumn.' She seems not only to give the richness of color and fulness of contour of the flowers, but to capture for the delight of the beholder the very spiritual essence of them." To the London Academy, 1903, she sent a picture called "York and Lancaster." <b>PERRIER, MARIE.</b> Mention honorable at Salon des Artistes Français, 1899; Prix Marie Bashkirtseff, 1899; honorable mention, Paris Exposition, 1900; numerous medals from foreign and provincial exhibitions; medals in gold and silver at Rouen, Nîmes, Rennes, etc.; bronze medals at Amiens and Angers. Member of the Société des Artistes Français; perpetual member of the Baron Taylor Association, section of the Arts of Painting, etc. Born at Paris. Pupil of Benjamin Constant, Jules Lefebvre, and J. P. Laurens. Mlle. Perrier's picture of "Jeanne d'Arc" is in a provincial museum; several pictures by her belonging to the city of Paris are scenes connected with the schools of the city--"Breakfast at the Communal School"; "After School at Montmartre" were at the Salon des Artistes Français, 1903; others are "Manual Labor at the Maternal School," "Flowers," and "Recreation of the Children at the Maternal School." Of the last Gabriel Moury says, "It is one of the really good pictures in the Salon." This artist decorated a villa near Nîmes with four large panels representing the "Seasons," twelve small panels, the "Hours," and pictures of the labors of the fields, such as the gathering of grapes and picking of olives. She has painted numerous portraits of children and a series of pictures illustrating the "Life of the Children of Paris." They are "Children at School and after School," "Children on the Promenade and Their Games," and "Children at Home." <b>PERRY, CLARA GREENLEAF.</b> Member of the Copley Society. Born at Long Branch, New Jersey. Pupil of Boston Art Museum School, under Mr. Benson and Mr. Tarbell; in Paris pupil of M. Raphael Collin and Robert Henri. Miss Perry has exhibited her portrait of Mrs. U. in the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and in Philadelphia. She paints landscapes and portraits. <b>PERRY, LILLA CABOT.</b> Pupil in Boston of Dennis Bunker and Alfred Collins; in Paris of Alfred Stevens, Robert Fleury, Bouguereau, and Courtois; in Munich of Fritz von Uhde. Mrs. Perry is essentially a portrait painter, but has painted landscapes, especially in Japan, where she spent some years. The scenery of Japan and its wonderfully beautiful Fuziyama would almost compel an artist to paint landscapes. Mrs. Perry says that her pictures of French and Japanese types are, in fact, portraits as truly as are those she is asked to paint. Her picture of a "Japanese Lacemaker" belongs to Mr. Quincy A. Shaw. It has been much admired in the exhibitions in which it has been seen. In the Water-Color Exhibition of the Boston Art Club, 1903, Mrs. Perry's portrait of Miss S. attracted much attention. The delicate flesh tones, the excellent modelling of the features, and what may be called the whole atmosphere of the picture combine in producing an effective and pleasing example of portraiture. <b>PERUGINI, CATERINA E.</b> An Italian painter living in London, where she frequently exhibits her excellent pictures. Among them are "A Siesta," "Dolce far Niente," "Multiplication," and portraits of Guy Cohn, son of Sir Guy Campbell, Bart., and of Peggy and Kitty Hammond, two charming children. At the Academy, 1903, she exhibited "Faith" and "Silken Tresses." <b>PERUGINI, MRS. KATE DICKENS.</b> Younger daughter of Charles Dickens and wife of Charles Edward Perugini. This artist has exhibited at the Royal Academy and at other exhibitions since 1877. Her pictures are of genre subjects, such as the "Dolls' Dressmaker," "Little-Red-Cap," "Old Curiosity Shop," etc. At the Academy, 1903, she exhibited "Some Spring Flowers." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>PETERS, ANNA.</b> Medals at Vienna, 1873; London, 1874; Munich, 1876; Amsterdam and Antwerp, 1877. Born at Mannheim, 1843. Pupil of her father, Pieter Francis Peters, in Stuttgart. Miss Peters travelled over Europe and was commissioned to decorate apartments in the royal castles at Stuttgart and Friedrichshafen. Her picture of "Roses and Grapes" is in the National Gallery, London; and one of "Autumn Flowers" in the Museum at Stuttgart. <b>PILLINI, MARGHERITA.</b> An Italian painter living in Paris. Her most successful exhibitions have been those at Rome, in 1883, when her "Silk-cocoon Carder of Quimper" and "Charity" appeared; and at Turin, in 1884, when "The Three Ages," "The Poor Blind Man," and a portrait of the Prince of Naples were shown, all exquisite in sentiment and excellent in execution. The "Silk-cocoon Carder of Quimper" has been thus noticed by De Rengis: "If I am not mistaken, Signora Margherita Pillini has also taken this road, full of modernity, but not free from great danger. Her 'Silk-cocoon Carder' is touched with great disdain for every suggestion of the old school. Rare worth--if worth it is--that a young woman should be carried by natural inclination into such care for detail." <b>PINTO-SEZZI, IDA.</b> Silver medal at the Beatrice Exposition, Florence, 1890. Since 1882 pictures by this artist have been seen in various Italian exhibitions. In the Beatrice of that year she exhibited "Cocciara," and in 1887 "A Friar Cook." Her "Fortune-Teller" attracted general attention at Venice in 1887. This artist has also given some time to the decoration of terra-cotta in oil colors. An amphora decorated with landscape and figures was exhibited at the Promotrice in Florence in 1889 (?) and much admired. <b>POETTING, COUNTESS ADRIENNE.</b> Born in Chrudim, Bohemia, 1856. The effect of her thorough training under Blass, Straschiripka, and Frittjof Smith is seen in her portraits of the Deputy-Burgomaster Franz Khume, which is in the Rathhaus, Vienna, as well as in those of the Princess Freda von Oldenburg and the writer, Bertha von Suttner. Her excellence is also apparent in her genre subjects, "In the Land of Dreams" being an excellent example of these. <b>POPERT, CHARLOTTE.</b> Silver medal at the Beatrice, Florence, 1890. Born in Hamburg, 1848. Pupil in Weimar of the elder Preller and Carl Gherts; of P. Joris in Rome, and Bonnat in Paris. After extensive travels in the Orient, England, the Netherlands, and Spain, she established herself in Rome and painted chiefly in water-colors. Her "Praying Women of Bethlehem" is an excellent example of her art. In 1883 she exhibited at Rome, "In the Temple at Bethlehem"; at Turin in 1884, "In the Seventeenth Century" and "The Nun"; at Venice in 1887, an exquisite portrait in water-colors. <b>POPPE-LÜDERITZ, ELIZABETH.</b> Honorable mention, Berlin, 1891. For the second time only the Senate of the Berlin Academy conferred this distinction upon a woman. The artist exhibited two portraits, "painted with Holbein-like delicacy and truthfulness"--if we may agree with the critics. This artist was born in Berlin in 1858, and was a pupil of Gussow. Her best pictures are portraits, but her "Sappho" and "Euphrosine" are excellent works. <b>POPP, BABETTE.</b> Born in Regensburg, 1800; died about 1840. Made her studies in Munich. In the Cathedral of Regensburg is her "Adoration of the Kings." <b>POWELL, CAROLINE A.</b> Bronze medal at Chicago, 1893; silver medal at Buffalo, 1901. Member of the Society of American Wood-Engravers and of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. Born in Dublin, Ireland. Pupil of W. J. Linton and Timothy Cole. [Illustration: Doge's Palace, Venice ST. CHRISTOPHER ENGRAVED BY CAROLINE A. POWELL] Miss Powell was an illustrator of the _Century Magazine_ from 1880 to 1895. The engraving after "The Resurrection" by John La Farge, in the Church of St. Thomas, New York, is the work of this artist. She also illustrated "Engravings on Wood," by William M. Laffan, in which book her work is commended. Miss Powell is now employed by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and writes me: "So far as I know, I am, at present, the only woman in America engaged in the practise of engraving as a fine art." <b>PRESTEL, MARIA CATHARINA</B>; FAMILY NAME <B>HOLL.</b> Born in Nuremburg, 1747. Her husband, Johan Prestel, was her teacher, and she was of great assistance in the work which he produced at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in 1783. In 1786, however, she separated from him and went to London, where she devoted herself to aquatints. She executed more than seventy plates, some of them of great size. <b>PRESTEL, URSULA MAGDALENA.</b> Born in Nuremburg. 1777-1845. Daughter of the preceding artist. She worked in Frankfort and London, travelled in France and Switzerland, and died in Brussels. Her moonlight scenes, some of her portraits, and her picture of the "Falls of the Rhine near Laufen," are admirable. <b>PREUSCHEN, HERMINE VON SCHMIDT</b>; married name, Telman. Born at Darmstadt, 1857. Pupil of Ferdinand Keller in Karlsruhe. Travelled in Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Denmark. She remained some time in Munich, Berlin, and Rome, establishing her studio in these cities and painting a variety of subjects. Her flower pictures are her best works. Her "Mors Imperator" created a sensation by reason of its striking qualities rather than by intrinsic artistic merit. In the gallery at Metz is her picture of "Irene von Spilimberg on the Funeral Gondola." In 1883 she exhibited in Rome, "Answered," a study of thistles; "In Autumn," a variety of fruits; and "Questions," a charming study of carnations. At Berlin, in 1890, "Meadow Saffron and Cineraria" was praised for its glowing color and artistic arrangement. A Viennese critic, the same year, lamented that an artist of so much talent should paint lifeless objects only. In Berlin, in 1894, she held an exhibition, in which her landscapes and flower pieces were better than her still-life pictures. Frau Preuschen is also a musician and poet. The painting of flower pieces is a delightful art for man or woman, but so many such pictures which are by amateurs are seen in exhibitions--too good to be refused but not of a satisfactory quality--that one can scarcely sympathize with the critic who would have Mme. Preuschen paint other subjects than these charming blossoms, so exquisite in form and color, into which she paints so much delightful sentiment. <b>PUEHN, SOPHIE.</b> Born at Nuremberg, 1864. This artist studied in Paris and Munich and resides in the latter city. At the International Exhibition, Vienna, 1894, her portrait of a "Lady Drinking Tea" was praised by the critics without exception, and, in fact, her portraits are always well considered. That she is also skilful in etching was shown in her "Forsaken," exhibited in 1896. <b>PUTNAM, SARAH GOOLD.</b> Member of the Copley Society. Born in Boston. Pupil in Boston and New York of J. B. Johnston, F. Duveneck, Abbott Thayer, and William Chase; in Scheveningen, of Bart. J. Blommers; and in Munich, of Wilhelm Dürr. Miss Putnam's portrait of Hon. John Lowell is in the District Court Room in Post-Office Building, Boston; that of William G. Russell, in the Law Library in the Court House, Pemberton Square, same city; that of General Charles G. Loring, for many years Director of Boston Museum of Fine Arts, belongs to his family; among her other portraits are those of Dr. Henry P. Bowditch, Francis Boott, George Partridge Bradford, Edward Silsbee, Mrs. Asa Gray, and Lorin Deland. In addition to the above she has painted more than one hundred portraits of men, women, and children, which belong to the families of the subjects. <b>PUYROCHE, MME. ELISE.</b> Born in Dresden, 1828. Resided in Lyons, France, where she was a pupil of the fine colorist, Simon St. Jean. Mme. Puyroche excelled her master in the arrangement of flowers in her pictures and in the correctness of her drawing, while she acquired his harmonious color. Her picture called the "Tom Wreath," painted in 1850, is in the Dresden Gallery. <b>QUESTIER, CATHERINE.</b> Born in Amsterdam. In 1655 she published two comedies which were illustrated by engravings of her own design and execution. She achieved a good reputation for painting, copper engraving, and modelling in wax, as well as for her writings. <b>RAAB, DORIS.</b> Third-class medal, Nuremberg; also second-class medal, 1892. Born in Nuremberg, 1851. Pupil of her father, Johann Leonhard Raab, in etching and engraving. She has engraved many works by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Cuyp; among her plates after works of more recent artists are Piloty's "Death Warrant of Mary Stuart," Lindenschmidt's "In Thought," and Laufberger's "Hunting Fanfare." This artist resides in Munich. <b>RADOVSKA, BARONESS ANNETTA</b>, of Milan. Her interesting genre pictures are seen in most of the Italian exhibitions. "Old Wine, Young Wife," was at Milan, 1881; in same city, 1883, "An Aggression," "The Visit," "The Betrothed." She also sent to Rome, in 1883, two pictures, one of which, "The Harem," was especially noteworthy. In 1884, at Turin, she exhibited "Tea" and the "Four Ages"; these, were excellent in tone and technique and attractive in subject. At Milan, 1886, her "Will He Arrive?" was heartily commended in the art journals. <b>RAE, HENRIETTA.</b> See Normand, Mrs. Ernest <b>RAGUSA, ELEANORA.</b> See O'Tama. <b>RAPIN, AIMÉE.</b> At the Swiss National Exposition, 1896, a large picture of a "Genevese Watchmaker" by this artist was purchased; By the Government and is in the Museum at Neuchâtel. In 1903 the city of Geneva commissioned her to paint a portrait of Philippe Plantamour, which is in the Museum Mon-Repos, at Geneva. Member of the Société des Beaux-Arts of Lausanne, Société des Femmes peintres et sculpteurs de la Suisse romande, Société de l'exposition permanente des Beaux-Arts, Geneva. Born at Payerne, Canton de Vaud. Studied at Geneva under M. Hebert and Barthelmy Menn, in painting; Hugues Bovy, modelling. [Illustration: In the Museum at Neuchâtel GENEVESE WATCHMAKER AIMÉE RAPIN] Mlle. Rapin writes me: "I am, above all, a portrait painter, and my portraits are in private hands." She names among others of her sitters, Ernest Naville, the philosopher; Raoul Pictet, chemist; Jules Salmson, sculptor, etc. She mentions that she painted a portrait of the present Princess of Wales at the time of her marriage, but as it was painted from photographs the artist has no opinion about its truth to life. Mlle. Rapin has executed many portraits of men, women, and children in Paris, London, and Germany, as well as in Switzerland. She refers me to the following account of herself and her art. In the _Studio_ of April, 1903, R. M. writes: "The subject of these notes is a striking example of the compensations of Nature for her apparent cruelty; also of what the genuine artist is capable of achieving notwithstanding the most singular disadvantages. Some years ago in the little town of Payerne, Canton Vaud, a child was born without arms. One day the mother, while standing near a rose-bush with her infant in her arms, was astonished to observe one of its tiny toes clasp the stem of the rose. Little did she guess at the time that these prehensile toes were destined one day to serve an artist, in the execution of her work, with the same marvellous facility as hands. As the child grew up the greatest care was bestowed upon her education. She early manifested unmistakable artistic promise, and at the age of sixteen was sent to the École des Beaux Arts, Geneva.... For reasons already mentioned Mlle. Rapin holds a unique position amongst that valiant and distinguished group of Swiss lady artists to whose work we hope to have the opportunity of referring.... She is a fine example of that singleness of devotion which characterizes the born artist. Her art is the all-absorbing interest of her life. It is not without its limitations, but within these limitations the artist has known how to be true to herself. Drawing her inspiration direct from nature, she has held on her independent way, steadily faithful to the gift she possesses of evoking a character in a portrait or of making us feel how the common task, when representative of genuine human effort and touched with the poetry of national tradition, of religion, and of nature, becomes a subject of noble artistic treatment. She has kept unimpaired that _merveilleux frisson de sensibilité_ which is one of the most precious gifts of the artistic temperament, and which is quick to respond to the ideal in the real. There are some artists who, though possessed of extraordinary mastery over the materials of their art, bring to their work a spirit which beggars and belittles both art and life; there are others who seem to work with an ever-present sense of the noble purpose of their vocation and the pathos and dignity of existence. Mlle. Rapin belongs to the second category. Her 'L'Horloger' is an example of this. A Genevese watchmaker is bending to his work at a bench covered with tools. Through the window of the workshop one perceives in the blue distance Mont Saléve, and nearer the time-honored towers of the Cathedral of St. Pierre. Here is a composition dealing with simple life--a composition which, from the point of execution, color, and harmony of purpose, leaves little or nothing to be desired. But this is not all. It is, so to speak, an artistic _résumé_ of the life and history of the old city, and that strongly portrayed national type gathers dignity from his alliance with the generations who helped to make one of the main interests of the city, and from his relationship to that eventful past suggested by the Cathedral and the Mountain. "Mlle. Rapin is unmistakably one of the best Swiss portraitists, working for the most part in pastels, her medium by predilection; she has at the same time modelled portraits in bas-relief. We are not only impressed by the intensely living quality of her work as a portraitist, but by the extraordinary power with which she has seized and expressed the individual character and history of each of her subjects." Mlle. Rapin has exhibited her works with success in Paris, Munich, and Berlin. The few specimens of her bas-reliefs which I have seen prove that did she prefer the art of sculpture before that of painting, she would be as successful with her modelling tools as she has been with her brush. <b>RAPPARD, CLARA VON.</b> Second-class medal, London. Born at Wabern, near Berne, 1857. After studying with Skutelzky and Dreber, she worked under Gussow in Berlin. She spent some time in travel, especially in Germany and Italy, and then, choosing Interlaken as her home, turned her attention to the illustration of books, as well as to portrait and genre painting. In the Museum at Freiburg is her "Point-lace-maker." A series of sixteen "Phantasies" by this artist has been published in Munich. <b>RATH, HENRIETTE.</b> Honorary member of the Société des Arts, 1801. Born in 1772, she died in 1856 at Genf, where, with her sister, she founded the Musée Rath. She studied under Isabey, and was well and favorably known as a portrait and enamel painter. <b>REAM, VINNIE.</b> See Hoxie. <b>REDMOND, FRIEDA VOELTER.</b> Medal at the Columbian Exhibition, Chicago. Member of the Woman's Art Club. Born in Thun, Switzerland. Studies made in Switzerland and in Paris. A painter of flowers and still-life. "Mrs. Redmond is a Swiss woman, now residing in New York. She has exhibited her works in the Paris Salon, in the National Academy of Design, at the Society of American Artists' exhibitions, etc., and was awarded a medal at the World's Fair in Chicago. Her work is not only skilful and accurate in description and characterization; it is done with breadth and freedom, and given a quality of fine decorative distinction. Her subjects are roses, cyclamen, chrysanthemums, nasturtiums, double larkspurs, cinneraria, etc., and she makes each panel a distinct study in design, with a background and accessories of appropriate character. For example, the three or four large panels of roses painted at Mentone have a glimpse of the Mediterranean for background, and a suggestion of trellis-work for the support of the vine or bush; and in another rose panel we have a tipped-over Gibraltar basket with its luscious contents strewed about in artful confusion. The double larkspurs make very charming panels for decorative purposes. They are painted with delightful fulness of color and engaging looseness and crispness of touch."--_Boston Transcript_. <b>REGIS, EMMA.</b> This Roman painter has given special attention to figures, and has executed a number of portraits, one of the best of which is that of the Marchioness Durazzo Pallavicini. She has exhibited some delightful work at Turin and at Rome, such as "The Lute-Player," "All is not Gold that Glitters," "Humanity," and "In illo Tempore?" [_No reply to circular_.] <b>REINHARDT, SOPHIE.</b> Born at Kirchberg, 1775; died at Karlsruhe, 1843. Pupil of Becker. She travelled in Austro-Hungary and Italy. In the Kunsthalle at Karlsruhe is her picture of "St. Elizabeth and the Child John." Among her best works are "The Death of St. Catherine of Alexandria," "The Death of Tasso," and twelve illustrations for a volume of Hebel's poems. <b>REMY, MARIE.</b> Born in Berlin, 1829. Daughter of Professor August Remy of the Berlin Academy. Pupil of her father, Hermine Stilke, and Theude Grönland. She travelled extensively in several European countries, making special studies in flowers and still-life, from which many of her water-colors were painted; twenty of these are in the Berlin National Gallery. <b>REUTER, ELIZABETH.</b> Born in Lubeck, 1853. Pupil of Zimmermann in Munich, A. Schliecker in Hamburg, and of H. Eschke in Berlin. She also went to Düsseldorf to work in the Gallery there. Later she travelled in Scandinavia. Her best pictures are landscapes. Among them is a charming series of six water-colors of views in the park of Friedrichsruhe. <b>REVEST, CORNELIA LOUISA.</b> Second-class medals in 1819 and 1831 in Paris. Born in Amsterdam, 1795; died in Paris, 1856. Pupil of Sérangély and Vafflard in Paris. In 1814 she painted a "Magdalen at the Feet of Christ" for a church in Marseilles. She also painted many good portraits and a picture called "The Young Mother Playing the Mandolin." <b>RICHARD, MME. HORTENSE.</b> Honorable mention, Exposition of 1889; third-class medal, 1892; silver medals at Antwerp and Barcelona, and gold medal in London. Born at Paris, 1860. Pupil of James Bertrand, Jules Lefebvre, and Bouguereau. Has exhibited regularly since 1875. Her picture of "Cinderella" is in the Museum of Poitiers; "At Church in Poitou" is in the Luxembourg. She has painted many portraits. <b>RICHARDS, ANNA MARY.</b> Norman Dodge prize, National Academy, New York, 1890. Member of the '91 Art Club, London. Born at Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1870. Pupil of Dennis Bunker in Boston, H. Siddons Mowbray and La Farge in New York, Benjamin Constant and J. P. Laurens in Paris, and always of her father, W. T. Richards. Miss Richards' work is varied. She is fond of color when suited to her subject; she also works much in black and white. When representing nature she is straightforward in her rendering of its aspects and moods, but she also loves the "symbolic expression of emotion" and the so-called "allegorical subjects." The artist writes: "I simply work in the way that at the moment it seems to me fitting to work to express the thing I have in mind. Where the object of the picture is one sort of quality, I use the method that seems to me to emphasize that quality." When but fourteen years old this artist exhibited at the National Academy, New York, a picture of waves, "The Wild Horses of the Sea," which was immediately sold and a duplicate ordered. In England Miss Richards has exhibited at the Academy, and her pictures have been selected for exhibitions in provincial galleries. Miss Richards is earnestly devoted to her art, and has in mind an end toward which she diligently strives--not to become a painter distinguished for clever mannerism, but "to attain a definite end; one which is difficult to reach and requires widely applied effort." Judging from what she has already done at her age, one may predict her success in her chosen method. In February, 1903, Miss Richards and her father exhibited their works in the Noe Galleries. I quote a few press opinions. [Illustration: MAY DAY AT WHITELANDS COLLEGE, CHELSEA ANNA M. RICHARDS] "Miss Richards paints the sea well; she infuses interest into her figures; she has a love of allegory; her studies in Holland and Norway are interesting. Her 'Whitby,' lighted by sunset, with figures massed in the streets in dark relief against it, is beautiful. Her 'Friends,' showing two women watching the twilight fading from the summits of a mountain range, the cedared slopes and river valley below meantime gathering blueness and shadow, is of such strength and sweetness of fancy that it affects one like a strain of music." "Miss Richards becomes symbolic or realistic by turn. Some of her figures are creatures of the imagination, winged and iridescent, like the 'Spirit of Hope.' Again, she paints good, honest Dutchmen, loafing about the docks. Sometimes she has recourse to poetry and quotes Emerson for a title.... If technically she is not always convincing, it is apparent that the artist is doing some thinking for herself, and her endeavors are in good taste." Miss Richards has written "Letter and Spirit," containing fifty-seven "Dramatic Sonnets of Inward Life." These she has illustrated by sixty full-page pictures. Of these drawings the eminent artist, G. F. Watts, says: "In imaginative comprehension they are more than illustrations; they are interpretations. I find in them an assemblage of great qualities--beauty of line, unity and abundance in composition, variety and appreciation of natural effects, with absence of manner; also unusual qualities in drawing, neither academical nor eccentric--all carried out with great purity and completeness." <b>RICHARDS, SIGNORA EMMA GAGIOTTI.</b> Rome. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>RIES, THERESE FEODOROWNA.</b> Bronze medal at Ekaterinburg; Karl Ludwig gold medal, Vienna; gold medal, Paris Exposition, 1900. Officer of the Academy. Born in Moscow. Pupil of the Moscow Academy and of Professor Hellmer, Vienna, women not being admitted to the Vienna Academy. A critic in the _Studio_ of July, 1901, who signs his article A. S. L., writes as follows of this remarkable artist: "Not often does it fall to the lot of a young artist to please both critic and public at the same time, and, having gained their interest, to continue to fill their expectations. But it was so with Feodorowna Ries, a young Russian artist who some eight months ago had never even had a piece of clay in her hand, but who, by dint of 'self,' now stands amongst the foremost of her profession. It was chance that led Miss Ries to the brush, and another chance which led her to abandon the brush for the chisel. Five years ago she was awarded the Carl Ludwig gold medal for her 'Lucifer,' and at the last Paris Exhibition she gained the gold medal for her 'Unbesiegbaren' (The Unconquerable). "Miss Ries was born and educated in Moscow, but Vienna is the city of her adoption. She first studied painting at the Moscow Academy, her work there showing great breadth of character and power of delineation. At the yearly Exhibition in Moscow, held some five months after she had entered as a student, she took the gold medal for her 'Portrait of a Russian Peasant.' She then abandoned painting for sculpture, and one month later gained the highest commendations for a bust of 'Ariadne.' She then began to study the plastic art from life. Dissatisfied with herself, although her 'Somnambulist' gained a prize, Miss Ries left Moscow for Paris, but on her way stayed in Vienna, studying under Professor Hellmer. One year later, at the Vienna Spring Exhibition, she exhibited her 'Die Hexe.' Here is no traditional witch, though the broomstick on which she will ride through the air is _en evidence_. She is a demoniac being, knowing her own power, and full of devilish instinct. The marble is full of life, and one seems to feel the warmth of her delicate, powerfully chiselled, though soft and pliable limbs." "'Die Unbesiegbaren' is a most powerful work, and stood out in the midst of the sculpture at Paris in 1900 with the prominence imparted by unusual power in the perception of the _whole_ of a subject and the skill to render the perception so that others realize its full meaning. There are four figures in this group--men drawing a heavy freight boat along the shore by means of a towline passed round their bodies, on which they throw their weight in such a way that their legs, pressed together, lose their outline--except in the case of the leader--and are as a mass of power. They also pull on the line with their hands. The leader bends over the rope until he looks down; the man behind him raises his head and looks up with an appealing expression; the two others behind are exerting all their force in pulling on the rope, but have twisted the upper part of the body in order to look behind and watch the progress of their great burden. There is not the least resemblance of one to the other, either in feature or expression, and to me it would seem that the woman who had conceived and executed this group might well be content to rest on her laurels. "But an artistic creator who is really inspired with his art and not with himself is never satisfied; he presses on and on--sometimes after he has expressed the best of his talent. This is not yet reached, I believe, by Miss Ries, and we shall see still greater results of her inspiration." The Austrian Government commissioned this artist to execute the figure of a saint. One may well prophesy that there will be nothing conventional in this work. She has already produced a striking "Saint Barbara." Her portrait busts include those of Professor Wegr, Professor Hellmer, Mark Twain, Countess Kinsky, Countess Palffs, Baron Berger, and many others. <b>RIJUTINE, ELISA.</b> A bronze and a gold medal at the Beatrice Exposition, Florence, 1890. Born in Florence, where she resides and devotes herself to painting in imitation of old tapestries. An excellent example of her work is in water-colors and is called "The Gardener's Children." In 1888 and 1889 she exhibited "The Coronation of Esther" and a picture of "Oleanders." <b>ROBERTS, ELIZABETH WENTWORTH.</b> [_No reply to circular_.] <b>ROBINSON, MRS. IMOGENE MORRELL.</b> Medals at the Mechanics' Fair, Boston, and at the Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, 1876. Born in Attleborough, Massachusetts. Pupil of Camphausen in Düsseldorf, and of Couture in Paris, where she resided several years. Among her important works are "The First Battle between the Puritans and Indians" and "Washington and His Staff Welcoming a Provision Train," both at Philadelphia. Mrs. Morrell continued to sign her pictures with her maiden name, Imogene Robinson. A critic of the New York _Evening Post_ said of her pictures at Philadelphia: "In the painting of the horses Mrs. Morrell has shown great knowledge of their action, and their finish is superb. The work is painted with great strength throughout, and its solidity and forcible treatment will be admired by all who take an interest in Revolutionary history.... In the drawing of the figures of Standish and the chief at his side, and the dead and dying savages, there is a fine display of artistic power, and the grouping of the figures is masterly.... In color the works are exceedingly brilliant." <b>ROBUSTI, MARIETTA.</b> Born in Venice. 1560-1590. The parentage of this artist would seem to promise her talent and insure its culture. She was the daughter of Jacopo Robusti, better known as "Il Tintoretto," who has been called "the thunder of art," and who avowed his ambition to equal "the drawing of Michael Angelo and the coloring of Titian." The portrait of Marietta Robusti proves her to have been justly celebrated for her beauty. Her face is sweet and gentle in expression. She was sprightly in manner and full of enthusiasm for anything that interested and attracted her; she had a good talent for music and a charming voice in singing. Her father's fondness for her made him desire her constant companionship, and at times he permitted her to dress as a boy and share with him certain studies that she could only have made in this disguise. Tintoretto carefully cultivated the talents of his daughter, and some of the portraits she painted did her honor. That of Marco dei Vescovi first turned public attention to her artistic merits. The beard was especially praised and it was even said by good judges that she equalled her father. Indeed, her works were so enthusiastically esteemed by some critics that it is difficult to make a just estimate of her as an artist, but we are assured of her exquisite taste in the arrangement of her pictures and of the rare excellence of her coloring. It soon became the fashion in the aristocratic circles of Venice to sit for portraits to this fascinating artist. Her likeness of Jacopo Strada, the antiquarian, was considered a worthy gift for the Emperor Maximilian, and a portrait of Marietta was hung in the chamber of his Majesty. Maximilian, Philip II. of Spain, and the Archduke Ferdinand, each in turn invited Marietta to be the painter of his Court. Tintoretto could not be induced to be separated from his daughter, and the honors she received so alarmed him that he hastened to marry her to Mario Augusti, a wealthy German jeweller, upon the condition that she should remain at home. But the Monarch who asks no consent and heeds no refusal claimed this daughter so beloved. She died at thirty, and it is recorded that both her father and her husband mourned for her so long as they lived. Marietta was buried in the Church of Santa Maria dell' Orto, where, within sight of her tomb, are several of her father's pictures. Tintoretto painting his daughter's portrait after her death has been the subject of pictures by artists of various countries, and has lost nothing of its poetic and pathetic interest in the three centuries and more that have elapsed since that day when the brave old artist painted the likeness of all that remained to him of his idolized child. <b>ROCCHI, LINDA.</b> Born in Florence; she resides in Geneva. Two of her flower pieces, in water-color, were seen at the Fine Arts Exposition, Milan, 1881. In 1883, also in Milan, she exhibited "A Wedding Garland," "Hawthorne," etc. The constantly increasing brilliancy of her work was shown in three pictures, flowers in water-colors, seen at the Milan Exposition, 1886. To Vienna, 1887, she sent four pictures of wild flowers, which were much admired. <b>ROCCO, LILI ROSALIA.</b> Honorable mention, a bronze medal, and four silver medals were accorded this artist at the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples, where she studied from 1880 to 1886, and was also a pupil of Solari. Born in Mazzara del Vallo, Sicily, 1863. In 1886 she exhibited, at Naples, "Cari Fiori!" at Palermo, "Flora"; and in Rome, "A Sicilian Contadina." In 1888 her picture, "Spring," was exhibited in London. Two of her works were in the Simonetti Exposition, 1889, one being a marine view from her birthplace. She has painted many portraits, both in oils and water-colors, and has been appointed a teacher in at least two Government schools in Naples. <b>RODIANA, ONORATA.</b> Was a contemporary of the saintly Caterina de Vigri, but was of quite another order of women. She had one quality which, if not always attractive, at least commands attention. She was unique, since we know of no other woman who was at the same time a successful artist and a valiant soldier! Born in Castelleone, near Cremona, early in the fifteenth century, she was known as a reputable artist while still young, and was commissioned to decorate the palace of the tyrant, Gabrino Fondolo, at Cremona. The girlish painter was beautiful in person, frank and engaging in manner, and most attractive to the gentlemen of the tyrant's court. One day when alone and absorbed in the execution of a wall-painting, a dissolute young noble addressed her with insulting freedom. She could not escape, and in the struggle which ensued she drew a dagger and stabbed her assailant to the heart. Rushing from the palace, she disguised herself in male attire and fled to the mountains, where she joined a company of Condottieri. She soon became so good a soldier that she was made an officer of the band. Fondolo raged as tyrants are wont to do, both on account of the murder and of the escape. He vowed the direst vengeance on Onorata if ever she were again in his power. Later, when his anger had cooled and he had no other artist at command who could worthily complete her decorations, he published her pardon and summoned her to return to his service. Onorata completed her work, but her new vocation held her with a potent spell, and henceforth she led a divided life--never entirely relinquishing her brush, and remaining always a soldier. When Castelleone was besieged by the Venetians, Onorata led her band thither and was victorious in the defence of her birthplace. She was fatally wounded in this action and died soon after, in the midst of the men and women whose homes she had saved. They loved her for her bravery and deeply mourned the sacrifice of her life. Few stories from real life are so interesting and romantic as this, yet little notice has been taken of Onorata's talent or of her prowess, while many less spirited and unusual lives have been commemorated in prose and poetry. <b>RODRIGUEZ DE TORO, LUISA.</b> Honorable mention, Madrid, 1856, for a picture of "Queen Isabel the Catholic Reading with Doña Beatriz de Galindo"; honorable mention, 1860, for her "Boabdil Returning from Prison." Born in Madrid; a descendant of the Counts of Los Villares, and wife of the Count of Mirasol. Pupil of Cárlos Ribera. <b>RONNER, MME. HENRIETTE.</b> Medals and honorable mentions and elections to academies have been showered on Mme. Ronner all over Europe. The King of Belgium decorated her with the Cross of the Order of Leopold. Born in Amsterdam in 1821. The grandfather of this artist was Nicolas Frederick Knip, a flower painter; her father, Josephus Augustus Knip, a landscape painter, went blind, and after this misfortune was the teacher of his daughter; her aunt, for whom she was named, received medals in Paris and Amsterdam for her flower pictures. What could Henriette Knip do except paint pictures? Hers was a clear case of predestination! At all events, almost from babyhood she occupied herself with her pencil, and when she was twelve years old her blind father began to teach her. Even at six years of age it was plainly seen that she would be a painter of animals. When sixteen she exhibited a "Cat in a Window," and from that time was considered a reputable artist. In 1850 she was married and settled in Brussels. From this time for fifteen years she painted dogs almost without exception. Her picture called "Friend of Man" was exhibited in 1850. It is her most famous work and represents an old sand-seller, whose dog, still harnessed to the little sand-wagon, is dying, while two other dogs are looking on with well-defined sympathy. It is a most pathetic scene, wonderfully rendered. About 1870 she devoted herself to pictures of cats, in which specialty of art she has been most important. In 1876, however, she sent to the Philadelphia Exposition a picture of "Setter Dogs." "A Cart Drawn by Dogs" is in the Museum at Hanover; "Dog and Pigeon," in the Stettin Museum; "Coming from Market" is in a private collection in San Francisco. Mme. Ronner has invented a method of posing cats that is ingenious and of great advantage. To the uninitiated it would seem that one could only take the portrait of a sleeping cat, so untiring are the little beasts in their gymnastic performances. But Mme. Ronner, having studied them with infinite patience, proceeded to arrange a glass box, in which, on a comfortable cushion, she persuades her cats to assume the positions she desires. This box is enclosed in a wire cage, and from the top of this she hangs some cat attraction, upon which the creature bounds and shows those wonderful antics that the artist has so marvellously reproduced in her painting. Mme. Ronner has two favorite models, "Jem" and "Monmouth." The last name is classical, since the cat of Mother Michel has been made immortal. Miss Winslow, in "Concerning Cats," says that "Mme. Ronner excels all other cat painters, living or dead. She not only infuses a wonderful degree of life into her little figures, but reproduces the shades of expression, shifting and variable as the sands of the sea, as no other artist of the brush has done. Asleep or awake, her cats look to the" felinarian "like cats with whom he or she is familiar. Curiosity, drowsiness, indifference, alertness, love, hate, anxiety, temper, innocence, cunning, fear, confidence, mischief, earnestness, dignity, helplessness--they are all in Mme. Ronner's cats' faces, just as we see them in our own cats." It is but a short time ago that Mme. Ronner was still painting in Brussels, and had not only cats, but a splendid black dog and a cockatoo to bear her company, while her son is devoted to her. Her house is large and her grounds pleasant, and her fourscore years did not prevent her painting several hours a day, and, like some other ladies of whom we know, she was "eighty years young." The editor of the _Magazine of Art_, M. H. Spielman, in an article on the Royal Academy Exhibition, 1903, writes: "What the dog is to Mr. Riviere, to Madame Ronner is the cat. With what unerring truth she records delightful kittenly nature, the feline nobility of haughty indifference to human approval or discontent, the subtlety of expression, and drawing of heads and bodies, the exact quality and tone of the fur, the expressive eloquence of the tail! With all her eighty years, Madame Ronner's hand, vision, and sensibility have not diminished; only her sobriety of color seems to have increased." Her pictures of this year were called "The Ladybird" and "Coaxing." To the Exhibition of the Beaux-Arts in Brussels, 1903, Mme. Ronner sent pictures of cats, full of life and mischief. <b>ROOSENBOOM, MARGARITE VOGEL.</b> Second-class medal, Munich, 1892. Born in 1843 and died in 1896, near The Hague. She spent a large part of her life near Utrecht, devoting herself mainly to the painting of flowers. One of her works is in the Royal Museum at Amsterdam, and another in the Museum at Breslau. <b>ROPE, ELLEN M.</b> This English sculptor executed four large panels for the Women's Building at the Chicago Exhibition. They represented Faith, Hope, Charity, and Heavenly Wisdom. They are now in the Ladies' Dwelling, Cherries Street, London. A "Memorial" by her is in Salisbury Cathedral. Her reliefs of children are, however, her best works; that of a "Boy on a Dolphin" is most attractive. "Christ Blessing Little Children" is charmingly rendered. At the Academy, 1903, she exhibited a panel for an organ chamber, in low relief. <b>ROSA, ANIELLA DI.</b> 1613-1649. A pupil in Naples of Stanzioni, who, by reason of her violent death, has been called the Neapolitan Sirani. She acquired a good reputation as a historical painter and doubtless had unusual talent, but as she worked in conjunction with Stanzioni and with her husband, Agostino Beltrano, it is difficult to speak of works entirely her own. Two pictures that were acknowledged to be hers represented the birth and death of the Virgin; these were praised and were at one time in a church in Naples, but in a recent search for them I was unable to satisfy myself that the pictures I saw were genuine. Another pupil in the studio of Stanzioni was the Beltrano whom Aniella married. He painted in fresco, Aniella in oils, and they were frequently employed together. The fine picture of San Biagio, in the church of Santa Maria della Sanità, was one of their joint works. Their early married life was very happy, but Aniella was beautiful and Beltrano grew jealous; it is said without cause, through the influence of a woman who loved him and hated Aniella; and in spite of the efforts she made to merit her husband's confidence, his distrust of her increased. Her base rival, by her art and falsehood, finally succeeded in convincing Beltrano that Aniella was unworthy, and in his rage he fatally stabbed her, when, at thirty-six, she was in the prime of her beauty and talent. She survived long enough to convince her husband of her innocence and to pardon him for his crime, but he fled from Italy and lived the life of an outcast during ten years. He then returned to Naples, where after seven years, tormented by remorse, death came to his release. Domenici generously praised the works of Aniella, and quoted her master, Stanzioni, as saying that she was the equal of the best painters of her time. <b>ROSALBA.</b> See Carriera. <b>ROSSI, PROPERZIA DE.</b> Born in Bologna. 1490-1530. This artist was the first woman to succeed as a sculptor whose works can still be seen. Pupil of Raimondi, she was more or less influenced by Tribolo. In the Church of San Petronio, in her native city, in the eleventh chapel, is a beautiful bas-relief of two angels, executed by Properzia. They are near Tribolo's "Ascension." A relief and a portrait bust in the same church are also ascribed to her. Her first work in sculpture was a minute representation of the Crucifixion on a peach stone! The executioners, women, soldiers, and disciples were all represented in this infinitesimal space. She also inserted in a coat of arms a double-headed eagle in silver filigree; eleven peach stones on each side, one set representing eleven apostles with an article of the creed underneath, the other set eleven virgins with the name of a saint and her special attribute on each. Some of these intaglios are still in a private collection in Bologna. At length Properzia saw the folly of thus belittling her talent, and when the facade of San Petronio was to be enriched with sculpture she asked for a share in the work and presented a bust she had made as a pledge of her ability; she was appointed to execute a portion of the decorations. She made a bas-relief, the subject being "Joseph and Potiphar's Wife," which Vasari called "a lovely picture, sculptured with womanly grace, and more than admirable." By this time the jealousy of other artists was aroused, and a story was diligently repeated to the effect that Properzia loved a young nobleman who did not care for her, and that the above work, so much admired, represented her own passion. Albertini and other artists waged an absolute crusade against her, and so influenced the superintendents of the church that Properzia was obliged to leave the work and her relief was never put in place. Through mortification and grief her health failed, and she died when but forty years old. In spite of her persecution she was known in all Italy, not only for her sculpture, but for her copper-plate engraving and etching. When Pope Clement VII. went to Bologna for the coronation of Charles V. he asked for Properzia, only to hear that she had been buried that very week. Her story has been told by Vasari and other writers. She was handsome, accomplished in music, distinguished for her knowledge of science, and withal a good and orderly housewife. "Well calculated to awaken the envy, not of women only, but also of men." Canova ardently admired the work of Properzia that remained in his day, and esteemed her early death as one of the chief misfortunes to the advance of the fine arts in Italy. <b>ROTKY, BARONESS HANNA.</b> Born at Czernowitz in 1857. She studied portrait painting under Blaas, Swerdts, and Trentino, and has worked principally in Vienna. Her portrait of Freiherr von Sterneck is in the Military Academy at Wiener-Neustadt. <b>RUDDER, MME. DE.</b> This lady has made an art of her embroidery, and may be said to have revived this decorative specialty and to have equalled the ancient productions which are so beautiful and valuable. After her marriage to the well-known sculptor this gifted couple began their collaboration. M. P. Verneuil, in _Brush and Pencil_, November, 1903, writes: "The first result of this joint work was shown in 1894 at the Exposition Cercle pour l'Art, in the form of a panel, called 'The Eagle and the Swan.' It was exhibited afterward at the Secession in Vienna, where it was purchased by a well-known amateur and connoisseur. Other works were produced in succession, each more interesting than its predecessor. Not daunted by difficulties that would have discouraged the most ambitious and audacious craftswoman, Mme. de Rudder took for a subject 'The Fates,' to decorate a screen. Aside from the artistic interest attaching to this work, it is remarkable for another quality. The artist yielded to the instinctive liking that she had for useful art--she ornamented a useful article--and in mastering the technical difficulties of her work she created the new method called 're-embroidery.' For the dresses of her 'Fates' ancient silks were utilized for a background. Some of the pieces had moth-holes, which necessitated the addition of 'supplementary ornamental motives,' 'embroidered on cloth to conceal the defects.' The discovery of 're-embroidery' was the result of this enforced expedient. "This screen, finished in 1896, was exhibited at the Cercle Artistique, Brussels, where the mayor, M. Buls, saw it. Realizing the possibilities of the method and the skill of the artist, he gave an order to Mme. de Rudder to decorate the Marriage Hall of the Hotel de Ville. This order was delivered in 1896. During this period Mme. de Rudder worked feverishly. About the same time that the order for the Hotel de Ville was given, she received from M. Van Yssendyck, architect of the Hotel Provincial in Ghent, a commission to design and embroider six large allegorical panels. One of them represented 'Wisdom' in the habiliments of Minerva, modernized, holding an olive branch. The five others were 'Justice,' holding a thistle, symbolizing law; 'Eloquence,' crowned with roses and holding a lyre; 'Strength,' bending an oak branch; 'Truth,' crushing a serpent and bearing a mirror and some lilies; and 'Prudence,' with the horn of plenty and some holly. These six panels are remarkable for the beautiful decorative feeling that suffuses their composition. The tricks of workmanship are varied, and all combine to give a wonderful effect. Contrary to the form of presenting the 'Fates,' all the figures are draped." Her next important commission was for eight large panels, intended to decorate the Congo Free State department in the Brussels Exposition. These panels represent the "Triumph of Civilization over Barbarism," and are now in the Museum at Tervueren. They are curious in their symbols of fetichism, and have an attraction that one can scarcely explain. The above are but a part of her important works, and naturally, when not absorbed by these, Mme. de Rudder executes some smaller pieces which are marvels of patience in their exquisite detail. Perhaps her panels of the "Four Seasons" may be called her _chef-d'oeuvre_. The writer quoted above also says: "To Mme. de Rudder must be given the credit for the interpretation of work demanding large and varied decorative effect, while in the creation of true artistic composition she easily stands at the head of the limited coterie of men and women who have mastered this delicate and difficult art. She is a leader in her peculiar craft." <b>RUDE, MME. SOPHIE FRÉMIET.</b> 1797-1867. Medal at Paris Salon, 1833. Born in Dijon. This artist painted historical and genre subjects as well as portraits. Her picture of the "Sleeping Virgin," 1831, and that of the "Arrest of the Duchess of Burgundy in Bruges," 1841, are in the Dijon Museum. <b>RUYSCH, RACHEL.</b> The perfection of flower-painting is seen in the works of Rachel Ruysch. The daughter of a distinguished professor of anatomy, she was born at Amsterdam in 1664. She was for a time a pupil of William van Aelst, but soon studied from nature alone. Some art critics esteem her works superior to those of De Heem and Van Huysum. Let that be as it may, the pictures with which she was no doubt dissatisfied when they passed from her hand more than two centuries ago are greatly valued to-day and her genius is undisputed. When thirty years old Rachel Ruysch married the portrait painter, Julian van Pool. She bore him ten children, but in the midst of all her cares she never laid her brush aside. Her reputation extended to every court of Europe. She received many honors, and was elected to the Academical Society at The Hague. She was received with distinguished courtesies on the two occasions when she visited Düsseldorf. [Illustration: Alinari, Photo. In the Pitti Gallery, Florence FRUIT, FLOWERS, AND INSECTS RACHEL RUYSCH] The Elector John of Pfalz appointed her painter at his court, and beyond paying her generously for her pictures, bestowed valuable gifts on her. The Elector sent several of her works to the Grand Duke of Tuscany and to other distinguished rulers of that day. The advance of years in no wise dulled her powers. Her pictures painted when eighty years old are as delicately finished as those of many years earlier. She died when eighty-six, "respected by the great, beloved even by her rivals, praised by all who knew her." The pictures by Rachel Ruysch are honorably placed in many public galleries; in those of Florence and Turin, as well as at Amsterdam, The Hague, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, and Munich, they are much valued. Although these pictures are characterized by extreme delicacy of touch, softness, and lightness, this artist knew how so to combine these qualities as to impart an effect of strength to her painting. Her rendering of separate flowers was exquisite, and her roses, either by themselves or combined with other flowers, are especially beautiful. She painted fruits in perfection, and the insects and butterflies which she sometimes added are admirably executed. The chief criticism that can be made of her pictures is that she was less skilful in the grouping of her flowers than in their painting. Many of her works are in private galleries, especially in Holland. They are rarely sold; in London, about thirty years ago, a small "Bouquet of Flowers with Insects" was sold for more than two thousand dollars, and is now of double that value. Her pictures have the same clearness and individuality that are seen in her portrait, in which she has short hair, a simple low-cut dress, with a necklace of beads about the throat. <b>SALLES, ADELHEID.</b> Born in Dresden, 1825; died in Paris, 1890. Pupil of Bernhard and Jacquand, she established her studio in Paris. Many of her works are in museums: "Elijah in the Desert," at Lyons; "The Legend of the Alyscamps," at Nîmes; "The Village Maiden," at Grenoble; "Field Flowers," at Havre, etc. She also painted portraits and historical subjects, among which are "Psyche in Olympus," "The Daughters of Jerusalem in the Babylonian Captivity," and the "Daughter of Jairus." She was a sister of E. Puyroche-Wagner. <b>SARTAIN, EMILY.</b> Medal at Philadelphia Exhibition, 1876; Mary Smith prize at the Pennsylvania Academy for best painting by a woman, in 1881 and 1883. Born in Philadelphia, 1841. Miss Sartain has been the principal of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women since 1886. She studied engraving under her father, John Sartain, and with Luminais in Paris. She engraved and etched book illustrations and numerous larger prints. She is also a painter of portraits and genre pictures, and has exhibited at the Salon des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Miss Sartain has been appointed as delegate from the United States to the International Congress on Instruction in Drawing to be held at Berne next August. Her appointment was recommended by the Secretary of the Interior, the United States Commissioner of Education, and Prof. J. H. Gore. Miss Sartain has also received letters from Switzerland from M. Leon Genoud, president of the Swiss Commission, begging her to accept the appointment. <b>SCHAEFER, MARIA.</b> First-class medal, Bene-merenti, Roumania. Born in Dresden, 1854. Her first studies were made in Darmstadt under A. Noack; later she was a pupil of Budde and Bauer in Düsseldorf, and finally of Eisenmenger in Vienna. After travelling in Italy in 1879, she settled in Darmstadt. She made several beautiful copies of Holbein's "Madonna," one for the King of Roumania, and one as a gift from the city of Darmstadt to the Czarina Alexandra. Among her most excellent portraits are those of Friedrich von Schmidt and his son Henry. Several of her religious paintings ornament German churches: "St. Elizabeth" is at Biedenkopf, "Mary's Departure from the Tomb of Christ" is at Nierstein, and "Christ with St. Louis and St. Elizabeth" and a Rosary picture are in the Catholic church at Darmstadt. <b>SCHEFFER, CAROLINE.</b> The daughter of Ary Lamme and wife of J. B. Scheffer was an artist in the last decades of the eighteenth century, but the special interest connected with her is the fact that she was the mother of Ary and Henry Scheffer. From her artistic standpoint she had an appreciation of what was needed for the benefit of her sons. She took them to Paris to study, devoted herself entirely to their welfare, and died in Paris in 1839. <b>SCHLEH, ANNA.</b> Born in Berlin, 1833. Her principal studies were made in her native city under Schrader, although she went to Rome in 1868, and finally took up her residence there. She had, previous to her work in Rome, painted "The Marys at the Grave." Her later pictures include "The Citron-Vender" and a number of portraits for the Henkel family of Donnersmark. <b>SCHMITT-SCHENKH, MARIA.</b> Born in Baden, 1837. She studied her art in Munich, Carlsruhe, and Italy. She established herself in Munich and painted pictures for churches, which are in Kirrlach, Mauer, Ziegelhausen, and other German towns. She also designed church windows, especially for the Liebfrauenkirche at Carlsruhe. <b>SCHUMANN, ANNA MARIA.</b> Was called by the Dutch poets their Sappho and their Corneille. She was born in 1607, but as her family were Protestants and frequently changed their residence in order to avoid persecution, the place of her birth is unknown. When Anna Maria was eight years old, they went permanently to Utrecht. This distinguished woman was one of the exceptions said to prove rules, for though a prodigy in childhood she did not become a commonplace or stupid woman. Learning was her passion and art her recreation. It is difficult to repeat what is recorded of her unusual attainments and not feel as if one were being misled by a Munchausen! But it would be ungracious to lessen a fame almost three centuries old. We are told that Anna Maria could speak in Latin when seven years old, and translated from Seneca at ten. She acquired the Hebrew, Greek, Samaritan, Arabic, Chaldaic, Syriac, Ethiopian, Turkish, and Persian languages with such thoroughness that her admirers claim that she wrote and spoke them all. She also read with ease and spoke with finished elegance Italian, Spanish, English, and French, besides German and her native tongue. Anna Maria Schurmann wrote verses in various languages, but the chief end which her exhaustive studies served was to aid her in theological research; in this she found her greatest satisfaction and deepest interest. She was respectfully consulted upon important questions by the scholars of different countries. At the University of Utrecht an honorable place was reserved for her in the lecture-rooms, and she frequently took part in the learned discussions there. The professors of the University of Leyden paid her the compliment of erecting a tribune where she could hear all that passed in the lecture-room without being seen by the audience. As an artist the Schurmann reached such excellence that the painter Honthorst valued a portrait by her at a thousand Dutch florins--about four hundred and thirty dollars--an enormous sum when we remember that the works of her contemporary, Albert Cuyp, were sold for thirty florins! and no higher price was paid for his works before the middle of the eighteenth century. A few years ago his picture, called "Morning Light," was sold at a public sale in London for twenty-five thousand dollars. How astonishing that a celebrated artist like Honthorst, who painted in Utrecht when Cuyp painted in Dort, should have valued a portrait by Anna Maria Schurmann at the price of thirty-three works by Cuyp! Such facts as these suggest a question regarding the relative value of the works of more modern artists. Will the judgments of the present be thus reversed in the future? This extraordinary woman filled the measure of possibilities by carving in wood and ivory, engraving on crystal and copper, and having a fine musical talent, playing on several instruments. When it is added that she was of a lovable nature and attractive in manner, one is not surprised that her contemporaries called her "the wonder of creation." Volsius was her friend and taught her Hebrew. She was intimately associated with such scholars as Salmatius and Heinsius, and was in correspondence with scholars, philosophers, and theologians regarding important questions of her time. Anna Maria Schurmann was singularly free from egotism. She rarely consented to publish her writings, though often urged to do so. She avoided publicity and refused complimentary attentions which were urged upon her, conducting herself with a modesty as rare as her endowments. In 1664, when travelling with her brother, she became acquainted with Labadie, the celebrated French enthusiast who preached new doctrines. He had many disciples called Labadists. He taught that God used deceit with man when He judged it well for man to be deceived; that contemplation led to perfection; that self-mortification, self-denial, and prayer were necessary to a godly life; and that the Holy Spirit constantly made new revelations to the human beings prepared to receive them. Anna Maria Schurmann heard these doctrines when prostrated by a double sorrow, the deaths of her father and brother. She put aside all other interests and devoted herself to those of the Labadists. It is said that after the death of Labadie she gathered his disciples together and conducted them to Vivert, in Friesland. William Penn saw her there, and in his account of the meeting he tells how much he was impressed by her grave solemnity and vigorous intellect. From this time she devoted her fortune to charity and died in poverty at the age of seventy-one. Besides her fame as an artist and a scholar, her name was renowned for purity of heart and fervent religious feeling. Her virtues were many and her few faults were such as could not belong to an ignoble nature. <b>SCUDDER, JANET.</b> Medal at Columbian Exposition, 1893. Two of her medallion portraits are in the Luxembourg, Paris. Member of the National Sculpture Society, New York. Born in Terre Haute, Indiana. Pupil of Rebisso in Cincinnati, of Lorado Taft in Chicago, and of Frederic MacMonnies in Paris. At the Chicago Exposition Miss Scudder exhibited two heroic-sized statues representing Illinois and Indiana. The portraits purchased by the French Government are of American women and are the first work of an American woman sculptor to be admitted to the Luxembourg. These medallions are in bas-relief in marble, framed in bronze. Casts from them have been made in gold and silver. The first is said to be the largest medallion ever made in gold; it is about four inches long. [Illustration: A FROG FOUNTAIN JANET SCUDDER] To the Pan-American Exposition Miss Scudder contributed four boys standing on a snail, which made a part of the "Fountain of Abundance." She has exhibited in New York and Philadelphia a fountain, representing a boy dancing hilariously and snapping his fingers at four huge frogs round his pedestal. The water spurts from the mouths of the frogs and covers the naked child. Miss Scudder is commissioned to make a portrait statue of heroic size for the St. Louis Exposition. She will no doubt exhibit smaller works there. Portraits are her specialty, and in these she has made a success, as is proved by the appreciation of her work in Paris. A memorial figure in marble is in Woodlawn Cemetery, also a cinerary urn in stone and bronze; a bronze memorial tablet is in Union College. Miss Scudder also made the seal for the Bar Association of New York. <b>SEARS, SARAH C.</b> Medal at Chicago, 1893; William Evans prize, American Water-Color Society, New York; honorable mention, Paris Exposition, 1900; bronze medal at Buffalo, 1901; silver medal at Charleston, South Carolina. Member of the New York Water-Color Club, Boston Art Students' Association, National Arts Club, Boston Water-Color Club. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Pupil of Ross Turner, Joseph de Camp, Edmund C. Tarbell, and George de Forest Brush. Mrs. Sears has also studied by herself with the criticism of masters. She paints portraits, figures, and flowers, and is much interested in the applied arts. Of her exhibition at the Boston Art Club, 1903, a critic writes: "Nothing could be more brilliant in point of color than the group of seven water-color pictures of a sunny flower-garden by Mrs. Sears. In these works pure and limpid color has been pushed to its extreme capacity, under full daylight conditions, with a splendor of brightness which never crosses the line of crudity, but holds the same relative values as we see in nature, the utmost force of local color courageously set forth and contrasted without apparent artifice, blending into an harmonious unity of tone. Two of these pictures are especially fine, with their cool backgrounds of sombre pines to set off the magnificent masses of flowers in the foreground." At the exhibition of the Philadelphia Water-Color Club, 1903, the _Press_ said: "These brilliant and overpowering combinations of color carry to a limit not before reached the decorative possibilities of flowers." Mrs. Sears' honors have been awarded to her portraits. <b>SEIDLER, CAROLINE LUISE.</b> Born in Jena, 1786; died in Weimar, 1866. Her early studies were made in Gotha with Doell; in 1811 she went to Dresden, where she became a pupil of G. von Kügelgen; in 1817 Langer received her into his Munich studio; and between 1818 and 1823 she was in Italy, making special studies of Vanucci and Raphael. In 1823 she was appointed instructor of the royal princesses at Weimar, and in 1824 inspector of the gallery there, and later became court painter. Among her works are a portrait of Goethe, a picture of "Ulysses and the Sirens," and one of "Christ, the Compassionate," which is in the church at Schestadt, Holstein. <b>SERRANO Y BARTOLOMÉ, JOAQUINA.</b> Born in Fermoselle. Pupil in Madrid of Juan Espalter, of the School of Arts and Crafts, and of the School of Painting. She sent four pictures to the Exposition of 1876 in Madrid: the portrait of a young woman, a still-life subject, a bunch of grapes, and a "Peasant Girl"--the last two are in the Museum of Murcia. In 1878 she sent "A Kitchen Maid on Saturday," a study, a flower piece, and two still-life pictures; and in 1881 two portraits and some landscapes. Her portrait of the painter Fortuny, which belongs to the Society of Authors and Artists, gained her a membership in that Society. Two other excellent portraits are those of her teacher, Espalter, and General Trillo. <b>SEWELL, AMANDA BREWSTER.</b> Bronze medal, Chicago, 1893; bronze medal, Buffalo, 1901; silver medal, Charleston; Clarke prize, Academy of Design, 1903. Member of the Woman's Art Club and an associate of National Academy of Design. Born in Northern New York. Pupil at Cooper Union under Douglas Volk and R. Swain Gifford, and of Art Students' League under William Chase and William Sartain; also of Julian's Academy under Tony Robert Fleury and Bouguereau, and of Carolus Duran. Mrs. Sewell's "A Village Incident" is owned by the Philadelphia Social Art Club; "Where Roses Bloom" is in the Boston Art Club; portrait of Professor William R. Ware is in the Library of Columbia University. Her portrait of Amalia Küssner will be exhibited and published. Mrs. Sewell is the first woman to take the Clarke prize. She has been a careful student in the arrangement of portraits in order to make attractive pictures as well as satisfactory likenesses. Of the pictures she exhibited at the Academy of Design, winter of 1903, Charles H. Caffin writes: "The portrait of Mrs. Charles S. Dodge, by Mrs. A. Brewster Sewell, is the finest example in the exhibition of pictorial treatment, the lady being wrapped in a brown velvet cloak with broad edges of brown fur, and seated before a background of dark foliage. It is a most distinguished canvas, though one may object to the too obvious affectation of the arrangement of the hands and of the gesture of the head--features which will jar upon many eyes and detract from the general handsomeness. The same lady sends a large classical subject, the 'Sacred Hecatomb,' to which the Clarke prize was awarded. It represents a forest scene lit by slanting sunlight, through which winds a string of bulls, the foremost accompanied by a band of youths and maidens with dance and song. The light effects are managed very skilfully and with convincing truth, and the figures are free and animated in movement, though the flesh tints are scarcely agreeable. It is a decorative composition that might be fitly placed in a large hall in some country house." <b>SEYDELMANN, APOLLONIE.</b> Member of the Dresden Academy. Born at Trieste about 1768; died in Dresden, 1840. Pupil of J. C. Seydelmann, whom she married. Later she went to Italy and there studied miniature painting under Madame Maron. She is best known for her excellent copies of old pictures, and especially by her copy of the Sistine Madonna, from which Müller's engraving was made. <b>SHAW, ANNIE C.</b> The first woman elected Academician in the Academy of Design, Chicago, 1876. Born at Troy, New York. Pupil of H. C. Ford. Landscape painter. Among her works are "On the Calumet," "Willow Island," "Keene Valley, New York," "Returning from the Fair," 1878, which was exhibited in Chicago, New York, and Boston. To the Centennial, Philadelphia, 1876, she sent her "Illinois Prairie." "Returning from the Fair" shows a group of Alderney cattle in a road curving through a forest. At the time of its exhibition an art critic wrote: "The eye of the spectator is struck with the rich mass of foliage, passing from the light green of the birches in the foreground, where the light breaks through, to the dark green of the dense forest, shading into the brownish tints of the early September-tinged leaves. Farther on, the eye is carried back through a beautiful vista formed by the road leading through the centre of the picture, giving a fine perspective and distance through a leafy archway of elms and other forest trees that gracefully mingle their branches overhead, through which one catches a glimpse of deep blue sky. As the eye follows this roadway to its distant part the sun lights up the sky, tingeing with a mellow light the group of small trees and willows, contrasting beautifully with the almost sombre tones of the dense forest in the middle distance." <b>SHRIMPTON, ADA M.</b> Has exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Water-Colors, British Artists, and principal provincial galleries in England and in Australia; also at the Paris Salon. Member of Society of Women Artists, London. Born in Old Alresford, Hampshire. Pupil of John Sparkes at South Kensington, and of Jean Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant in Paris. This artist has painted principally figure subjects, among which are "Cedric's Daughter," "Thoughts of Youth are Long Thoughts," "Dream of the Past," "Pippa Passes," "Dorothy's Bridesmaid's Dress," etc., etc. Recently she has devoted herself to portraits of ladies and children, in both oil and water-colors. <b>SIRANI, ELISABETTA.</b> Has been praised as a woman and as an artist by Lanzi, Malvasia, Picinardi, and other writers until one must believe that in spite of the exaggeration of her personal qualities and her artistic genius, she was a singularly admirable woman and a gifted artist. She was born in Bologna about 1640, and, like Artemisia Gentileschi, was the daughter of a painter of the school of Guido Reni, whose follower Elisabetta also became. From the study of her master she seems to have acquired the power to perceive and reproduce the greatest possible beauty with which her subjects could be invested. She worked with such rapidity that she was accused of profiting by her father's assistance, and in order to refute this accusation it was arranged that the Duchess of Brunswick, the Duchess of Mirandola, Duke Cosimo, and others should meet in her studio, on which occasion Elisabetta charmed and astonished her guests by the ease and perfection with which she sketched in and shaded drawings of the subjects which one person after another suggested to her. Her large picture of the "Baptism of Christ" was completed when the artist was but twenty years old. Malvasia gives a list of one hundred and twenty pictures executed by Elisabetta, and yet she was but twenty-five when her mysterious death occurred. In the Pinacoteca of Bologna is the "St. Anthony Adoring the Virgin and Infant Jesus," by the Sirani, which is much admired; several other works of hers are in her native city. "The Death of Abel" is in the Gallery of Turin; the "Charity," in the Sciarra Palace in Rome; "Cupids" and a picture of "Martha and Mary," in the Vienna Gallery; an "Infant Jesus" and a picture called "A Subject after Guido" are in the Hermitage at Petersburg. Her composition was graceful and refined, her drawing good, her color fresh and sweet, with a resemblance to Guido Reni in the half tones. She was especially happy in the heads of the Madonna and the Magdalene, imparting to them an expression of exalted tenderness. Her paintings on copper and her etchings were most attractive; indeed, all her works revealed the innate grace and refinement of her nature. Aside from her art the Sirani was a most interesting woman. She was very beautiful in person, and the sweetness of her temper made her a favorite with her friends, while her charming voice and fine musical talent added to her many attractions. Her admirers have also commended her taste in dress, which was very simple, and have even praised her moderation in eating! She was skilled in domestic matters and accustomed to rise at dawn to attend to her household affairs, not permitting her art to interfere with the more homely duties of her life. One writer says that "her devoted filial affection, her feminine grace, and the artless benignity of her manners rounded out a character regarded as an ideal of perfection by her friends." It may be that her tragic fate caused an exaggerated estimate to be made of her both as a woman and an artist. The actual cause of her death is unknown. There have been many theories concerning it. It was very generally believed that she was poisoned, although neither the reason for the crime nor the name of its perpetrator was known. By some she was believed to have been sacrificed to the same professional jealousy that destroyed Domenichino; others accepted the theory that a princely lover who had made unworthy proposals to her, which she had scorned, had revenged himself by her murder. At length a servant, Lucia Tolomelli, who had been a long time in the Sirani family, was suspected of having poisoned her young mistress, was arrested, tried, and banished. But after a time the father of Elisabetta, finding no convincing reason to believe her guilty, obtained her pardon. Whatever may have been the cause of the artist's death, the effect upon her native city was overwhelming and the day of her burial was one of general mourning, the ceremony being attended with great pomp. She was buried beside Guido Reni, in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary, in the magnificent Church of the Dominicans. Poets and orators vied with each other in sounding her praises, and a book called "Il Penello Lagrimato," published at Bologna soon after her death, is a collection of orations, sonnets, odes, epitaphs, and anagrams, in Latin and Italian, setting forth the love which her native city bore to this beautiful woman, and rehearsing again and again her charms and her virtues. In the Ercolani Gallery there is a picture of Elisabetta painting a portrait of her father. It is said that she also painted a portrait of herself looking up with a spiritual expression, which is in a private collection and seen by few people. <b>SMITH, JESSIE WILLCOX.</b> Mary Smith prize, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1903. Member of the Plastic Club and a fellow of the Academy, Philadelphia. Born in Philadelphia, where she was a pupil of the Academy; also studied under Thomas Eakins, Thomas P. Anschutz, and Howard Pyle. Miss Smith is essentially an illustrator and her work is seen in all the leading American magazines. "The Child's Calendar" is the work of this artist. <b>SONREL, MLLE. E.</b> Honorable mention, Paris, 1893; third-class medal, 1895; bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1900. At the Salon des Artistes Français, 1902, she exhibited "Sybille" and "Monica"; in 1903, "The Dance of Terpsichore" and "Princesse Lointaine." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>SPANÒ, MARIA.</b> Silver medal, Naples, 1859, for a picture of a "Contadina of Sorrento." Born in Naples, 1843. Pupil of her father, Raffaele Spanò, under whose direction she made a thorough study of figure painting, the results of which are evident in her excellent portraits and historical subjects. She has also been greatly interested in landscape painting, in which she has been successful. "A Confidence" was bought by the Gallery at Capodimonte, and two of her pictures were acquired by the Provincial Council of Naples--a "Contadina," life size, and a "Country Farmyard." One of her best pictures is "Bice at the Castle of Rosate." <b>SPILIMBERG, IRENE DI.</b> Born in Udina, 1540. Her family was of German origin and exalted position. She was educated in Venice with great care and all the advantages that wealth could command. She was much in the society of learned men, which she preferred before that of the world of fashion. Titian was her roaster in painting. Lanzi and Rudolfi praised her as an artist, and her fame now rests on the testimony of those who saw her works rather than on the pictures themselves, some of which are said to be in private collections in Italy. Titian painted her portrait as a tribute to her beauty; Tasso celebrated her intellectual charm in a sonnet, and yet she was but nineteen years old when she died. Twenty years later a collection of orations and poems was published, all of which set forth her attractions and acquirements, and emphasized the sadness of her early death and the loss that the world had suffered thereby. When one remembers how soon after death those who have done a life work are forgotten, such a memorial to one so young is worthy of note. <b>SPURR, GERTRUDE E.</b> Associate member of Royal Canadian Academy and member of the Ontario Society of Arts. Born in Scarborough, England. Pupil of the Lambeth Art School in drawing, of E. H. Holder in painting, in England; also of George B. Bridgman in New York. This artist usually paints small pictures of rural scenery in England and Wales--little stone cottages, bridges, river and mountain scenes. "Castle Rock, North Devon," was exhibited at Buffalo, and is owned by Herbert Mason, Esq., of Toronto. "A Peep at Snowdon" and "Dutch Farm Door, Ontario," are in Montreal collections. Her works have been exhibited in London at the Royal Society of British Artists and the Society of Lady Artists, and have been sold from these exhibitions. I quote from the _Queen_, in reference to one of Miss Spurr's London exhibitions: "We know of no more favorite sketching-ground in N. Wales for the artist than Bettws-y-coed. Every yard of that most picturesque district has been painted and sketched over and over again. The artist in this instance reproduces some of the very primitive cottages in which the natives of the principality sojourn. The play of light on the modest dwelling-places is an effective element in the cleverly rendered drawing now in the Society of Artists' Exhibition. Miss Spurr, the daughter of a Scarboro lawyer, commenced her art studies with Mr. E. H. Holder, in the winter painting dead birds, fruit, and other natural objects, and in summer spending her time on the coast or in the woods or about Rievaulx Abbey. Any remaining time to be filled up was occupied by attending the Scarboro School of Art under the instruction of Mr. Strange. In a local sketching club Miss Spurr distinguished herself and gained several prizes, and she has at length taken up her abode in the metropolis, where she has attended the Lambeth Schools, studying diligently both from casts and life." <b>STACEY, ANNA L.</b> Honorable mention at Exhibition of Chicago Artists, 1900; Young Fortnightly Club prize, 1902; Martin B. Cahn prize, Exhibition at Art Institute, Chicago, 1902. Member of Chicago Society of Artists. Born in Glasgow, Missouri. Pupil of Art Institute in Chicago. Paints portraits, figure subjects, and landscapes. The Cahn prize was awarded to the "Village at Twilight." "Florence" is owned by the Klio Club; "Trophies of the Fields," by the Union League Club, Chicago. Recently Miss Stacey has painted a number of successful portraits. <b>STADING, EVELINA.</b> Born in Stockholm. 1803-1829. She was a pupil of Fahlcrantz for a time in her native city, and then went to Dresden, where she made a thorough study and some excellent copies of the works of Ruisdael. In 1827 she went to Rome, making studies in Volzburg and the Tyrol _en route_. She painted views in Switzerland and Italy, and two of her landscapes are in the gallery in Christiania. <b>STANLEY, LADY DOROTHY.</b> Member of the Ladies' Athenaeum Club. Born in London. Pupil of Sir Edward Poynter--then Mr. Poynter--and of M. Legros, at Slade School, University College, London; also of Carolus Duran and Henner in Paris. Lady Stanley has exhibited at the Royal Academy, the new Gallery, at the English provincial exhibitions, and at the Salon, Paris. Her picture, "His First Offence," is in the Tate National Gallery; "Leap Frog," in the National Gallery of Natal, Pietermaritzburg. Other pictures of hers are "A Water Nymph," "The Bathers," etc., which are in private galleries. "Leap Frog" was in the Academy exhibition, 1903. <b>STEBBINS, EMMA.</b> 1815-1882. Born in New York. As an amateur artist Miss Stebbins made a mark by her work in black and white and her pictures in oils. After a time she decided to devote herself to sculpture. In Rome she studied this art and made her first success with a statuette of "Joseph." This was followed by "Columbus" and "Satan Descending to tempt Mankind." For Central Park, New York, she executed a large fountain, the subject being "The Angel of the Waters." <b>STEPHENS, MRS. ALICE BARBER.</b> Mary Smith prize, 1890. Pupil of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and of the Julian Academy, Paris. An illustrator whose favorite subjects are those of every-day home life--the baby, the little child, the grandmother in cap and spectacles, etc. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>STEVENS, EDITH BARRETTO.</b> Two scholarships and a prize of one hundred dollars from the Art Students' League, of which she is a member. Born in Houston, Virginia, in 1878. Studied at Art Students' League and under Daniel C. French and George Gray Barnard. Miss Stevens mentions as her principal works "A Candlestick Representing a Girl Asleep under a Poppy," "Figure of Spring," and the "Spirit of Flame." Miss Stevens is one of the women sculptors who have been selected to share in the decoration of the buildings for the St. Louis Exposition. She is to make two reclining figures on the pediment over the main entrance to the Liberal Arts Building. She has in her studio two reclining figures which will probably serve to fulfil this commission. Miss Stevens is modest about her work and does not care to talk much about this important commission, even suggesting that her design may not be accepted; if she is successful it will certainly be an unusual honor for a woman at her age, whose artistic career covers less than five years. <b>STEVENS, MARY.</b> Bronze medal at the Crystal Palace. Member of the Dudley Gallery, London. Born at Liverpool. Pupil of William Kerry and of her husband, Albert Stevens, in England, and of the Julian Academy, Paris. Mrs. Stevens' pictures were well considered when she exhibited a variety of subjects; of late, however, she has made a specialty of pictures of gardens, and has painted in many famous English and French gardens, among others, those of Holland House, Warwick Castle, and St. Anne's, Dublin. In France, the gardens of the Duchesse de Dino and the Countess Foucher de Careil. Mrs. Stevens--several of whose works are owned in America--has commissions to paint in some American gardens and intends to execute them in 1904. <b>STILLMAN, MARIE SPARTALI.</b> Pupil of Ford Madox Brown. This artist first exhibited in public at the Dudley Gallery, London, in 1867, a picture called "Lady Pray's Desire." In 1870 she exhibited at the Royal Academy, "Saint Barbara" and "The Mystic Tryst." In 1873 she exhibited "The Finding of Sir Lancelot Disguised as a Fool" and "Sir Tristram and La Belle Isolde," both in water-colors. Of these, a writer in the _Art Journal_ said: "Mrs. Stillman has brought imagination to her work. These vistas of garden landscape are conceived in the true spirit of romantic luxuriance, when the beauty of each separate flower was a delight. The figures, too, have a grace that belongs properly to art, and which has been well fitted to pictorial expression. The least satisfactory part of these clever drawings is their color. There is an evident feeling of harmony, but the effect is confused and the prevailing tones are uncomfortably warm." W. M. Rossetti wrote: "Miss Spartali has a fine power of fusing the emotion of her subject into its color and of giving aspiration to both; beyond what is actually achieved one sees a reaching toward something ulterior. As one pauses before her work, a film in that or in the mind lifts or seems meant to lift, and a subtler essence from within the picture quickens the sense. In short, Miss Spartali, having a keen perception of the poetry which resides in beauty and in the means of art for embodying beauty, succeeds in infusing that perception into the spectator of her handiwork." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>STOCKS, MINNA.</b> Born in Scheverin, 1846. Pupil of Schloepke in Scheverin, Stiffeck in Berlin, E. Bosch in Düsseldorf, and J. Bauck in Munich. Her "Lake of Scheverin" is in the Museum of her native city. Her artistic reputation rests largely on her pictures of animals. She exhibits at the Expositions of the Society of Women Artists, Berlin, and among her pictures seen there is "A Journey through Africa," which represents kittens playing with a map of that country. It was attractive and was praised for its artistic merit. In fact, her puppies and kittens are most excellent results--have been called masterpieces--of the most intimate and intelligent study of nature. Among her works are "A Quartet of Cats," "The Hostile Brothers," and "The Outcast." <b>STOKES, MARIANNA.</b> Honorable mention at Paris Salon, 1884; gold medal in Munich, 1890; medal at Chicago in 1893. Member of the Society of Painters in Tempera. Born in Graz-Styria. Pupil of Professor W. von Lindenschmit in Munich, of M. Dagnan Bouveret and M. Courtois in Paris. Her picture, "A Parting," is in the Liverpool Gallery; "Childhood's Wonder," in the Nottingham Gallery; "Aucassin and Nicolette," in the Pittsburg Gallery, etc. Mrs. Stokes writes me that she has taken great interest in the revival of tempera painting in recent years. In reviewing the exhibition in the New Gallery, London, the _Spectator_ of May 2, 1903, speaks of the portraits by Mrs. Stokes as charming, and adds: "They are influenced by the primitive painters, but in the right way. That is, the painter has used a formal and unrealistic style, but without any sacrifice of artistic freedom." Of a portrait of a child the same writer says: "It would be difficult to imagine a happier portrait of a little child,... and in it may be seen how the artist has used her freedom; for although she has preserved a primitive simplicity, the sky, sea, and windmill have modern qualities of atmosphere. The picture is very subtle in drawing and color, and the sympathy for child-life is perfect, seen as it is both in the hands and in the eyes. "Another portrait by the same artist is hung on a marble pillar at the top of the stairs leading up to the balcony. The admirable qualities of decoration are well shown by the way it is hung.... Is a fine piece of strong and satisfactory color, but the decorative aspect in no way takes precedence of the portraiture. We think of the man first and the picture afterward." At the Academy, in 1903, Mrs. Stokes exhibited a portrait of J. Westlake, Esq., K.C. <b>STORER, MRS. MARIA LONGWORTH.</b> Gold medal at Paris Exposition, 1900. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio. Pupil of the Cincinnati Art School, which her father, Joseph Longworth, endowed with three hundred thousand dollars. After working four years, making experiments in clay decoration at the Dallas White Ware Pottery, Mrs. Storer, "who had the enthusiasm of the artistic temperament coupled with fixity of purpose and financial resources,... had the courage to open a Pottery which she called Rookwood, the name of her father's place on the hills beyond. This was in 1880." Nine years later this pottery had become self-supporting, and Mrs. Storer then dissolved her personal association with it, leaving it in charge of Mr. William Watts Taylor, who had collaborated with her during six years. At the Paris Exposition Mrs. Storer exhibited about twenty pieces of pottery mounted in bronze--all her own work. It was an exquisite exhibition, and I was proud that it was the work of one of my countrywomen. In 1897 Mr. Storer was appointed United States minister to Belgium, and Mrs. Storer took a Japanese artist, Asano, to Brussels, to instruct her in bronze work. Two years later Mr. Storer's mission was changed to Spain, and there Mrs. Storer continued, under Asano's guidance, her work in bronze, some of the results being seen in the mounting of her pottery. At present Mr. Storer is our Ambassador to Austria, and Mrs. Storer writes me that she hopes to continue her work in bronze in Vienna. In the summer of 1903 Mrs. Storer was in Colorado Springs, where she was much interested in the pottery made by Mr. Van Briggle. She became one of the directors of the Van Briggle Pottery Company, and encouraged the undertaking most heartily. <b>STUMM, MAUD.</b> Born in Cleveland, Ohio. Pupil of Art Students' League under Kenyon Cox and Siddons Mowbray, and of Oliver Merson in Paris, where her painting was also criticised and approved by Whistler. Her earliest work was flower painting, in which she gained an enviable reputation. In Paris she began the study of figure painting, and her exhibition at the Salon was favorably received, the purity and brilliancy of her coloring being especially commended. Several of Miss Stumm's pictures are well known by reproductions. Among these is the "Mother and Child," the original of which is owned by Mr. Patterson, of the Chicago _Tribune_. Her calendars, too, are artistic and popular; some of these have reached a sale of nearly half a million. A series of studies of Sarah Bernhardt, in pastel, and a portrait of Julia Marlowe are among her works in this medium. Many of her figure subjects, such as "A Venetian Matron" and "A Violinist," are portraits, not studies from professional models. This artist has painted an unusual variety of subjects, but is ambitious in still another department of painting--decorative art--in which she believes she could succeed. Her works are seen in the exhibitions of the Society of American Artists and of the American Water-Color Society. <b>SWOBODA, JOSEPHINE.</b> Born in Vienna, 1861. Pupil of Laufberger and I. V. Berger. This portrait artist has been successful and numbers among her subjects the Princess Henry of Prussia, the late Queen of England, whose portrait she painted at Balmoral in 1893, the Minister Bauhaus, and several members of the royal house of Austria. The portrait of Queen Victoria was exhibited at the Water-Color Club, Vienna. She also paints charming miniatures. Her pictures are in both oil and water-colors, and are praised by the critics of the exhibitions in which they are seen. <b>SWOPE, MRS. KATE.</b> Honorable mention at National Academy of Design, 1888; honorable mention and gold medal, Southern Art League, 1895; highest award, Louisville Art League, 1897. Member of Louisville Art League. Born in Louisville, Kentucky. Pupil of Edgar Ward and M. Flagg in New York, and later of B. R. Fitz. Mrs. Swope devotes herself almost entirely to sacred subjects. The pictures that have been awarded medals are Madonnas. She prefers to paint her pictures out of doors and in the sunlight, which results in her working in a high key and, as she writes, "in tender, opalescent color." One of her medal pictures is the "Head of a Madonna," out of doors, in a hazy, blue shadow, against a background of grapevine foliage. The head is draped in white; the eyes are cast down upon the beholder. A sun spot kisses the white draperies on the shoulder. It is a young, girlish face, but the head is suggestive of great exaltation. A second picture which received an award was a "Madonna and Child," out of doors. The figure is half life size. Dressed in white, the Madonna is stretched at full length upon the grass. Raised on one arm, she gazes into the face of the infant Christ Child. Mrs. Swope has had success in pastel, in which, not long since, she exhibited a "Mother and Child," which was much admired. The mother--in an arbor--held the child up and reverently kissed the cheek. It was called "Love," and was exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Mrs. Swope's most ambitious work--five by three feet in size--represents an allegorical subject and is called "Revelation." <b>SUES, MLLE. LEA.</b> Three silver medals from the School of Arts, Geneva; diploma of honor at the National Swiss Exposition, 1896. Member of l'Athénée, Geneva. Born at Genoa and studied there under Professors Gillet, Poggy, and Castan. This artist paints landscapes, Swiss subjects principally. Her pictures of Mont Blanc and Chamounix are popular and have been readily sold. They are in private collections in several countries, and when exhibited have been praised in German and French as well as in Swiss publications. <b>SYAMOUR, MME. MARGUERITE.</b> Honorable mention, 1887; bronze medal at Exposition at Lyons. Born at Bréry, 1861. Pupil of Mercié. Her principal works are a plaster statue, "New France," 1886, in the Museum of Issoudun; a statue of Voltaire; a plaster statue, "Life"; a plaster group, the "Last Farewells"; a statue of "Diana," in the Museum of Amiens; a great number of portrait busts, among them those of Jules Grévy, Flammarion, J. Claretie, etc. At the Salon, Artistes Français, 1902, this artist exhibited a "Portrait of M. G. L.," and in 1904 "A Vision" and "La Dame aux Camelias." <b>TAYLOR, ELIZABETH V.</b> Sears prize, Boston Art Museum; bronze medal, Nashville Exposition, 1897. Member of the Copley Society, Boston. Pupil of E. C. Tarbell and Joseph de Camp in the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. This artist paints portraits in miniature and in life size. Her works are numerous and have been seen in many exhibitions. <b>THAULOW, MME. ALEXANDRA.</b> Wife of the great Scandinavian painter. This lady is an artist in bookbinding and her work is much admired. A writer, H. F., says, in the _Studio_, December, 1903: "When the exhibition of bookbinding was held some time ago at the Musée Galliera, Madame Thaulow's showcase attracted attention by its variety and its grace. The charm of these bindings lies in the fact that they have none of the massive heaviness of so many productions of this kind. One should be able to handle a book with ease, and not be forced to rest content with beholding it displaying its beauties behind glass or on the library shelf; and Madame Thaulow understood this perfectly when she executed the bindings now reproduced here. But these bindings are interesting not only from the standpoint of their utility and intelligent application; their ornamentation delights one by its graceful interpretation of Nature, rendered with a very special sense of decoration; moreover, the coloring of these mosaics of leather is restrained and fresh, and the hollyhocks and the hortensias, the bunches of mistletoe and the poppies, which form some of her favorite _motifs_, go to make up a delicious symphony." <b>THEVENIN, MARIE ANNE ROSALIE.</b> Medals at the Salons of 1849, 1859, 1861. Born at Lyons. Pupil of Leon Cogniet. Portrait and figure painter. Among her pictures the following are noticeable: "Flora McIvor and Rose Bradwardine," 1848; "Portrait of Abbé Jacquet," 1859; "Portrait of a Lady," 1861. <b>THOMAS-SOYER, MME. MATHILDE.</b> Honorable mention, 1880; third-class medal, 1881; bronze medal, Exposition, 1889. Born at Troyes, 1859. Pupil of Chapu and Cain. The principal works of this sculptor are: "A Russian Horse"; "Lost Dogs"; "Russian Greyhounds"; "Huntsmen and a Poacher," in the Museum of Semur; "Combat of Dogs," purchased by the Government; "Cow and Calf," in the Museum of Nevers; "Stag and Bloodhound," in the Museum of Troyes, etc. At the Salon, Artistes Français, 1902, Mme. Thomas-Soyer exhibited "An Irish Setter and a Laverock," and in 1903 "Under the White Squall." <b>THORNYCROFT, MARY.</b> Born 1814; died 1895. Daughter of John Francis, the sculptor, whose pupil she was. This artist exhibited at the Royal Academy when very young. Her first important work was a life-size figure called "The Flower-Girl." In 1840 she married Thomas Thornycroft, and went to Rome two years later, spending a year in study there. Queen Victoria, after her return, commissioned her to execute statues of the royal children as the Four Seasons. These were much admired when exhibited at the Academy. Later she made portrait statues and busts of many members of the royal family, which were also seen at the Academy Exhibition. In his "Essays on Art," Palgrave wrote: "Sculpture has at no time numbered many successful followers among women. We have, however, in Mrs. Thornycroft, one such artist who, by some recent advance and by the degrees of success which she has already reached, promises fairly for the art. Some of this lady's busts have refinement and feeling." <b>THURBER, CAROLINE NETTLETON.</b> Born in Oberlin, Ohio. Pupil of Howard Helmick in Washington, and of Benjamin Constant and Jean Paul Laurens in Paris. In 1898 Mrs. Thurber took a studio in Paris, where her first work was the portrait of a young violinist, which was exhibited in the Salon of the following spring. This picture met with immediate favor with the public, the art critics, and the press. The Duchess of Sutherland, upon seeing it, sent for the artist and arranged for a portrait of her daughter, which was painted the following autumn while Mrs. Thurber was a guest at Dunrobin Castle. This portrait was subsequently exhibited in London and Liverpool. Mrs. Thurber has painted portraits of many persons of distinction in Paris, among them one of Mlle. Ollivier, only daughter of Émile Ollivier, president of the Académie Française. Monsieur Ollivier, in a personal note to the artist, made the following comment upon the portrait of his daughter: "How much I thank you for the portrait of my daughter; it lives, so powerfully is it colored, and one is tempted to speak to it." Mrs. Thurber is an exhibitor in the Salon, Royal Academy, and New Gallery, London, and other foreign exhibitions, as well as in those of this country. She now has a studio in the family home at Bristol, Rhode Island, on Narragansett Bay, where she works during half the year. In winter she divides her time among the larger cities as her orders demand. While Mrs. Thurber's name is well known through her special success in the portraiture of children, she has painted many prominent men and women in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and New England. Among her later portraits are those of Mrs. James Sullivan, one of the lady commissioners of the St. Louis Exposition; Lieut.-Gen. Nelson A. Miles; Albert, son of Dr. Shaw, editor of the _Review of Reviews_; Mrs. A. A. F. Johnston, former Dean of Oberlin College; Augustus S. Miller, mayor of Providence; Hon. L. F. C. Garvin, governor of Rhode Island; and Judge Austin Adams, late of the Supreme Court of Iowa. <b>THURWANGER, FELICITÉ CHASTANIER.</b> This remarkable artist, not long since, when eighty-four years old, sent to the exhibition at Nice--which is, in a sense, a branch of the Paris Salon--three portraits which she had just finished. "They were hung in the place of honor and unanimously voted to belong to the first class." Mme. Thurwanger was the pupil of Delacroix during five years. The master unconsciously did his pupil an injury by saying to her father: "That daughter of yours is wonderfully gifted, and if she were a man I would make a great artist of her." Hearing this, the young artist burst into tears, and her whole career was clouded by the thought that her sex prevented her being a really great artist, and induced in her an abnormal modesty. This occurred about forty-five years ago; since then we have signally changed all that! Delacroix, who was an enthusiast in color, was the leader of one school of his time, and was opposed by Ingres, who was so wanting in this regard that he was accused of being color-blind. Mme. Thurwanger had a curious experience with these artists. When but seventeen she was commissioned by the Government to copy a picture in the Louvre. One morning, when she was working in the Gallery, Ingres passed by and stopped to look at her picture. He examined it carefully, and with an expression of satisfaction said: "I am so very glad to see that you have the true idea of art! Remember always that there is no color in Nature; the outline is all; if the outline is good, no matter about the coloring, the picture will be good." This story would favor the color-blind theory, as Ingres apparently saw color neither in the original nor the copy. An hour later Delacroix came to watch the work of his pupil, and after a few minutes exclaimed: "I am so happy, my dear girl, to see that you have the true and only spirit of art. Never forget that in Nature there is no line, no outline; everything is color!" In 1852 Mme. Thurwanger was in Philadelphia and remained more than two years. She exhibited her pictures, which were favorably noticed by the Philadelphia _Enquirer_. In July of the above year her portraits were enthusiastically praised. "Not a lineament, not a feature, however trivial, escapes the all-searching eye of the artist, who has the happy faculty of causing the expression of the mind and soul to beam forth in the life-like and speaking face." In October, 1854, her picture of a "Madonna and Child" was thus noticed by the same paper: "For brilliancy, animation, maternal solicitude, form, grace, and feature, it would be difficult to imagine anything more impressive. It is in every sense a gem of the pictorial art, while the execution and finish are such as genius alone could inspire." <b>TIRLINKS, LIEWENA.</b> Born in Bruges, a daughter of Master Simon. This lady was not only esteemed as an artist in London, but she won the heart of an English nobleman, to whom she was given in marriage by Henry VIII. Her miniatures were much admired and greatly in fashion at the court. Some critics have thought the Tirlinks to be the same person with Liewena Bennings or Benic, whose story, as we know it, is much the same as the above. <b>TORMOCZY, BERTHA VON.</b> Diploma of honor, Budapest and Agram. Born at Innspruck, 1846. Pupil of Hausch, Her, and Schindler. Among her pictures are "Girl in the Garden," "Blossoming Meadows," "Autumn Morning," and a variety of landscapes. <b>TORO, PETRONELLA.</b> A painter of miniatures on ivory which have attained distinction. Among those best known are the portraits of the Prince of Carignano, Duke Amadeo, and the Duchess d'Aosta with the sons of the Prince of Carignano. She has painted a young woman in an antique dress and another in a modern costume. Her works are distinguished by firmness of touch and great intelligence. She has executed some most attractive landscapes. <b>TREU, OR TREY, KATHARINA.</b> Born at Bamberg. 1742-1811. A successful painter of flowers and still-life. Her talent was remarkable when but a child, and her father, who was her only master, began her lessons when she was ten years old. When still young she was appointed court painter at Mannheim, and in 1776 was made a professor in the Academy at Düsseldorf. Her pictures are in the Galleries of Bamberg and Carlsruhe, and in the Darmstadt and Stuttgart Museums. <b>URRUTIA DE URMENETA, ANA GERTRUDIS DE.</b> Member of the Academy of Fine Arts, Cadiz, 1846. Born in Cadiz. 1812-1850. She began the study of drawing with Javier, and after her marriage to Juan José de Urmeneta, professor of painting and sculpture and director of the Cadiz Academy, continued her work under his direction. A "St. Filomena" and "Resurrection of the Body," exhibited in 1846, are among her best pictures. Her "St. Jeronimo" is in the new cathedral at Cadiz, and the Academy has shown respect to her memory by placing her portrait in the room in which its sessions are held. <b>VIANI, MARIA.</b> Born at Bologna. 1670-1711. I find no reliable biographical account of this artist, whose name appears in the catalogue of the Dresden Gallery as the painter of the "Reclining Venus, lying on a blue cushion, with a Cupid at her side." <b>VERELST, MARIAN.</b> Born in 1680. This artist belonged in Antwerp and was of the celebrated artistic family of her name. She was a pupil of her father, Hermann, and her uncle, Simon Verelst. She became famous for the excellent likenesses she made and for the artistic qualities of her small portraits. Like so many other artists, she was distinguished for accomplishments outside her art. She was a fine musician and a marvel in her aptitude in acquiring both ancient and modern languages. A very interesting anecdote is related of her, as follows: When in London, one evening at the theatre she sat near six German gentlemen, who expressed their admiration of her in the most flattering terms of their language, and at the same time observed her so closely as to be extremely rude. The artist, in their own tongue, remarked that such extravagant praise was the opposite of a compliment. One of them repeated his words in Latin, when she again replied in the same language. The strangers then asked her if she would give them her name. This she did and further told them that she lived with her uncle, Simon Verelst. In the end she painted the portrait of each of these men, and the story of their experience proved the reason for the acquaintance of the artist being sought by people of culture and position. Walpole speaks in praise of her portraits and also mentions her unusual attainments in languages. <b>VIGÉE, MARIE LOUISE ELIZABETH.</b> Member of the French Academy. Born in Paris in 1755. That happy writer and learned critic, M. Charles Blanc, begins his account of her thus: "All the fairies gathered about the cradle of Elizabeth Vigée, as for the birth of a little princess in the kingdom of art. One gave her beauty, another genius; the fairy Gracious offered her a pencil and a palette. The fairy of marriage, who had not been summoned, told her, it is true, that she should wed M. Le Brun, the expert in pictures--but for her consolation the fairy of travellers promised her that she should bear from court to court, from academy to academy, from Paris to Petersburg, and from Rome to London, her gayety, her talent, and her easel--before which all the sovereigns of Europe and all those whom genius had crowned should place themselves as subjects for her brush." [Illustration: A FRENCH PRINCE MARIE VIGÉE LE BRUN] It is difficult to write of Madame Le Brun in outline because her life was so interesting in detail. Though she had many sorrows, there is a halo of romance and a brilliancy of atmosphere about her which marks her as a prominent woman of her day, and her autobiography is charming--it is so alive that one forgets that she is not present, telling her story! The father of this gifted daughter was an artist of moderate ability and made portraits in pastel, which Elizabeth, in her "Souvenirs," speaks of as good and thinks some of them worthy of comparison with those of the famous Latour. M. Vigée was an agreeable man with much vivacity of manner. His friends were numerous and he was able to present his daughter to people whose acquaintance was of value to her. She was but twelve years old at the time of his death, and he had already so encouraged her talents as to make her future comparatively easy for her. Elizabeth passed five years of her childhood in a convent, where she constantly busied herself in sketching everything that she saw. She tells of her intense pleasure in the use of her pencil, and says that her passion for painting was innate and never grew less, but increased in charm as she grew older. She claimed that it was a source of perpetual youth, and that she owed to it her acquaintance and friendship with the most delightful men and women of Europe. While still a young girl, Mlle. Vigée studied under Briard, Doyen, and Greuze, but Joseph Vernet advised her to study the works of Italian and Flemish masters, and, above all, to study Nature for herself--to follow no school or system. To this advice Mme. Le Brun attributed her success. When sixteen years old she presented two portraits to the French Academy, and was thus early brought to public notice. When twenty-one she married M. Le Brun, of whom she speaks discreetly in her story of her life, but it was well known that he was of dissipated habits and did not hesitate to spend all that his wife could earn. When she left France, thirteen years after her marriage, she had not so much as twenty francs, although she had earned a million! She painted portraits of many eminent people, and was esteemed as a friend by men and women of culture and high position. The friendship between the artist and Marie Antoinette was a sincere and deep affection between two women, neither of whom remembered that one of them was a queen. It was a great advantage to the artist to be thus intimately associated with her sovereign lady. Even in the great state picture of the Queen surrounded by her children, at Versailles, one realizes the tenderness of the painter as she lovingly reproduced her friend. Marie Antoinette desired that Mme. Le Brun should be elected to the Academy; Vernet approved it, and an unusual honor was shown her in being made an Academician before the completion of her reception picture. At that time it was a great advantage to be a member of the Academy, as no other artists were permitted to exhibit their works in the Salon of the Beaux-Arts. Mme. Le Brun had one habit with which she allowed nothing to interfere, which was taking a rest after her work for the day was done. She called it her "calm," and to it she attributed a large share of her power of endurance, although it lost her many pleasures. She could not go out to dinner or entertain at that hour. The evening was her only time for social pleasures. But when one reads her "Souvenirs," and realizes how many notable people she met in her studio and in evening society, it scarcely seems necessary to regret that she could not dine out! Mme. Le Brun was at one period thought to be very extravagant, and one of her entertainments caused endless comments. Her own account of it shows how greatly the cost was exaggerated. She writes that on one occasion she invited twelve or fifteen friends to listen to her brother's reading during her "calm." The poem read was the "Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce," in which a dinner was described, and even the receipts for making various sauces were given. The artist was seized with the idea of improvising a Greek supper. She summoned her cook and instructed her in what had been read. Among her guests were several unusually pretty ladies, who attired themselves in Greek costumes as nearly as the time permitted. Mme. Le Brun retained the white blouse she wore at her work, adding a veil and a crown of flowers. Her studio was rich in antique objects, and a dealer whom she knew loaned her cups, vases, and lamps. All was arranged with the effect an artist knows how to produce. As the guests arrived Mme. Le Brun added here and there an element of Grecian costume until their number was sufficient for an effective _tableau vivant_. Her daughter and a little friend were dressed as pages and bore antique vases. A canopy hung over the table, the guests were posed in picturesque attitudes, and those who arrived later were arrested at the door of the supper-room with surprise and delight. It was as if they had been transported to another clime. A Greek song was chanted to the accompaniment of a lyre, and when the honey, grapes, and other dishes were served _à la Grecque_, the enchantment was complete. The poet recited odes from Anacreon and all passed off delightfully. The fame of this novel supper was spread over Paris, and marvellous tales were told of its magnificence and its cost. Mme. Le Brun writes: "Some ladies asked me to repeat this pleasantry. I refused for various reasons, and several of them were disturbed by my refusal. Soon a report that the supper had cost me twenty thousand francs was spread abroad. The King spoke of it as a joke to the Marquis of Cubières, who fortunately had been one of the guests and was able to convince His Majesty of the folly of such a story. Nevertheless, the modest sum of twenty thousand at Versailles became forty thousand at Rome; at Vienna the Baroness de Strogonoff told me that I had spent sixty thousand francs for my Greek supper; you know that at Petersburg the price at length was fixed at eighty thousand francs, and the truth is that it cost me about fifteen francs!" Early in 1789, when the warnings of the horrors about to take place began to be heard, Mme. Le Brun went to Italy. In each city that she visited she was received with great kindness and many honors were shown her. In Florence she was invited to paint her own portrait, to be hung in that part of the Uffizi set apart for the portraits of famous painters. Later she sent the well-known portrait, near that of Angelica Kauffman. It is interesting to read Goethe's comparison of the two portraits. Speaking of Angelica's first, he writes: "It has a truer tone in the coloring, the position is more pleasing, and the whole exhibits more correct taste and a higher spirit in art. But the work of Le Brun shows more careful execution, has more vigor in the drawing, and more delicate touches. It, has, moreover, a clear though somewhat exaggerated coloring. The Frenchwoman understands the art of adornment--the headdress, the hair, the folds of lace on the bosom, all are arranged with care and, as one might say, _con amore_. The piquant, handsome face, with its lively expression, its parted lips disclosing a row of pearly teeth, presents itself to the beholder's gaze as if coquettishly challenging his admiration, while the hand holds the pencil as in the act of drawing. "The picture of Angelica, with head gently inclined and a soft, intellectual melancholy pervading the countenance, evinces higher genius, even if, in point of artistic skill, the preference should be given to the other." Mme. Le Brun found Rome delightful and declared that if she could forget France she should be the happiest of women. She writes of her fellow artist: "I have been to see Angelica Kauffman, whom I greatly desired to know. I found her very interesting, apart from her fine talent, on account of her mind and her general culture.... She has talked much with me during the two evenings I have passed at her house. Her manner is gentle; she is prodigiously learned, but has no enthusiasm, which, considering my ignorance, has not electrified me.... I have seen several of her works; her sketches please me more than her pictures, because they are of a Titianesque color." Mme. Le Brun received more commissions for portraits than she could find time to paint in the three years she lived in Italy. She tells us: "Not only did I find great pleasure in painting surrounded by so many masterpieces, but it was also necessary for me to make another fortune. I had not a hundred francs of income. Happily I had only to choose among the grandest people the portraits which it pleased me to paint." Her account of her experiences in Italy is very entertaining, but at last the restlessness of the exile overcame her and impelled her to seek other scenes. She went to Vienna and there remained three other years, making many friends and painting industriously until the spirit of unrest drove her to seek new diversions, and she went to Russia. She was there received with great cordiality and remained six years--years crowded with kindness, labor, honor, attainment, joy, and sorrow. Her daughter was the one all-absorbing passion--at once the joy and the grief of her life. She was so charming and so gifted as to satisfy the critical requirements of her mother's desires. In Petersburg, where the daughter was greatly admired and caressed, the artist found herself a thousand times more happy than she had ever been in her own triumphs. Mme. Le Brun was so constantly occupied and the need of earning was so great with her, that she was forced to confide her daughter to the care of others when she made her début in society. Thus it happened that the young girl met M. Nigris, whom she afterward married. Personally he was not agreeable to Mme. Le Brun and his position was not satisfactory to her. We can imagine her chagrin in accepting a son-in-law who even asked her for money with which to go to church on his wedding-day! The whole affair was most distasteful, and the marriage occurred at the time of the death of Mme. Le Brun's mother. She speaks of it as a "time devoted to tears." Her health suffered so much from this sadness that she tried the benefit of change of scene, and went to Moscow. Returning to Petersburg, she determined--in spite of the remonstrances of her friends, and the inducements offered her to remain--to go to France. She several times interrupted her journey in order to paint portraits of persons who had heard of her fame, and desired to have her pictures. She reached Paris in 1801 and writes thus of her return: "I shall not attempt to express my emotions when I was again upon the soil of France, from which I had been absent twelve years. Fright, grief, joy possessed me, each in turn, for all these entered into the thousand varying sentiments which swept over my soul. I wept for the friends whom I had lost upon the scaffold, but I was about to see again those who remained. This France to which I returned had been the scene of atrocious crimes; but this France was my Native Land!" But the new régime was odious to the artist, and she found herself unable to be at home, even in Paris. After a year she went to London, and remained in England three years. She detested the climate and was not in love with the people, but she found a compensation in the society of many French families who had fled from France as she had done. In 1804 Mme. Nigris was in Paris and her mother returned to see her. The young woman was very beautiful and attractive, very fond of society, entirely indifferent to her husband, and not always wise in the choice of her companions. Mme. Le Brun, always hard at work and always having great anxieties, at length found herself so broken in health, and so nervously fatigued that she longed to be alone with Nature, and in 1808 she went to Switzerland. Her letters written to the Countess Potocka at this time are added to her "Souvenirs," and reveal the very best of her nature. Feeling the need of continued repose, she bought a house at Louveciennes, where she spent much time. In 1818 M. Le Brun died, and six years later the deaths of her daughter and her brother left her with no near relative in the world. For a time she sought distractions in new scenes and visited the Touraine and other parts of France, but though she still lived a score of years, she spent them in Paris and Louveciennes. She had with her two nieces, who cared for her more tenderly than any one had done before. One of these ladies was a portrait painter and profited much by the advice of Mme. Le Brun, who wrote of this period and these friends: "They made me feel again the sentiments of a mother, and their tender devotion diffused a great charm over my life. It is near these two dear ones and some friends who remain to me that I hope to terminate peacefully a life which has been wandering but calm, laborious but honorable." During the last years of her life the most distinguished society of Paris was wont to assemble about her--artists, litterateurs, savants, and men of the fashionable world. Here all essential differences of opinion were laid aside and all met on common ground. Her "calm" seemed to have influenced all her life; only good feeling and equality found a place near her, and few women have the blessed fortune to be so sincerely mourned by a host of friends as was Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun, dying at the age of eighty-seven. Mme. Le Brun's works numbered six hundred and sixty portraits--fifteen genre or figure pictures and about two hundred landscapes painted from sketches made on her journeys. Her portraits included those of the sovereigns and royal families of all Europe, as well as the most famous authors, artists, singers, and the learned men in Church and State. As an artist M. Charles Blanc thus esteems her: "In short, Mme. Le Brun belonged entirely to the eighteenth century--I wish to say to that period of our time which rested itself suddenly at David. While she followed the counsels of Vernet, her pencil had a certain suppleness, and her brush a force; but she too often attempted to imitate Greuze in her later works and she weakened the resemblance to her subjects by abusing the _regard noyé_ (cloudy or indistinct effect). She was too early in vogue to make all the necessary studies, and she too often contented herself with an ingenuity a little too manifest. Without judging her as complacently as the Academy formerly judged her, we owe her an honorable place, because in spite of revolutions and reforms she continued to her last day the light, spiritual, and French Art of Watteau, Nattier, and Fragonard." <b>VIGRI, CATERINA DE.</b> Lippo Dalmasii was much admired by Malvasia, who not only extols his pictures, but his spirit as well, and represents him as following his art as a religion, beginning and ending his daily work with prayer. Lippo is believed to have been the master of Caterina de Vigri, and the story of her life is in harmony with the influence of such a teacher. She is the only woman artist who has been canonized; and in the Convent of the Corpus Domini, in Bologna, which she founded, she is known as "La Santa," and as a special patron of the Fine Arts. Caterina was of a noble family of Ferrara, where she was born in 1413. She died when fifty years old; and so great was the reverence for her memory that her remains were preserved, and may still be seen in a chapel of her convent. There are few places in that ever wonderful Italy of such peculiar interest as this chapel, where sits, clothed in a silken robe, with a crown of gold on the head, the incorrupt body of a woman who died four hundred and forty years ago. The body is quite black, while the nails are still pink. She holds a book and a sceptre. Around her, in the well-lighted chapel, are several memorials of her life: the viola on which she played, and a manuscript in her exquisite chirography, also a service book illuminated by Caterina, and, still more important, one of her pictures, a "Madonna and Child," inserted in the wall on the left of the chapel, which is admirable for the beauty of expression in the face of the Holy Mother. We cannot trace Caterina's artist life step by step, but she doubtless worked with the same spirit of consecration and prayer as did that Beato whom we call Angelico, in his Florentine convent, a century earlier. Caterina executed many miniatures, and her easel pictures were not large. These were owned by private families. She is known to us by two pictures of "St. Ursula folding her Robe about her Companions." One is in the Bologna Gallery, the other in the Academy in Venice. The first is on a wooden panel, and was painted when the artist was thirty-nine years old. The Saint is represented as unnaturally tall, the figures of her virgins being very small. The mantle and robe of St. Ursula are of rich brocade ornamented with floral designs, while on each side of her is a white flag, on which is a red cross. The face of the saint is so attractive that one forgets the elongation of her figure. There is a delicacy in the execution, combined with a freedom and firmness of handling fully equal to the standard of her school and time. Many honors were paid to the memory of Caterina de Vigri. She was chosen as the protectress of Academies and Art Institutions, and in the eighteenth century a medal was coined, on which she is represented as painting on a panel held by an angel. How few human beings are thus honored three centuries after death! <b>VINCENT, MME.</b> See Labille. <b>VISSCHER, ANNA AND MARIA.</b> These daughters of the celebrated Dutch engraver were known as "the Dutch Muses." They made their best reputation by their etchings on glass, but they were also well known for their writing of both poetry and prose. They were associated with the scholars of their time and were much admired. <b>VOLKMAR, ANTONIE ELIZABETH CAECILIA.</b> Born in Berlin, 1827. She studied with Schroder in her native city, with L. Cogniet in Paris, and later in Italy. She returned to Berlin, where she painted portraits and genre subjects. Her picture of the "Grandmother telling Stories" is in the Museum of Stettin. Among her works are "An Artist's Travels" a "German Emigrant," and "School Friends." <b>VONNOH, BESSIE POTTER.</b> Bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; Second Prize at Tennessee Centennial. Honorable mention at Buffalo Exposition, 1901. Member of the National Sculpture Society and National Arts Club. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, 1872. This sculptor is a pupil of the Art Institute, Chicago. Among her best works are "A Young Mother"; "Twin Sisters"; "His First Journey"; "Girl Reading," etc. In the _Century Magazine_, September, 1897, Arthur Hoeber wrote: "There were shown at the Society of American Artists in New York, in the Spring of 1896, some statuettes of graceful young womanhood, essentially modern in conception, singularly naïve in treatment, refined, and withal intensely personal.... While the disclosure is by no means novel, Miss Potter makes us aware that in the daily prosaic life about us there are possibilities conventional yet attractive, simple, but containing much of suggestion, waiting only the sympathetic touch to be responsive if the proper chord is struck." This author also notices the affiliation of this young woman with the efforts of the Tanagra workers, and says: "But if the inspiration of the young woman is evident, her work can in no way be called imitative." <b>VOS, MARIA.</b> Born in Amsterdam, 1824. Pupil of P. Kiers. Her pictures were principally of still-life, two of which are seen in the Amsterdam Museum. <b>WAGNER, MARIA DOROTHEA</b>; family name Dietrich. 1728-1792. The gallery of Wiesbaden has two of her landscapes, as has also the Museum at Gotha. "Der Mühlengrund," representing a valley with a brook and a mill, is in the Dresden Gallery. <b>WARD, MISS E.</b> This sculptor has a commission to make a statue of G. R. Clark for the St. Louis Exposition. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>WARD, HENRIETTA MARY ADA.</b> Gold and silver medals at the Crystal Palace; bronze medal at the Vienna Exposition, 1873. Born in Newman Street, London, when that street and the neighborhood was the quarter in which the then celebrated artists resided. Mrs. Ward was a pupil of the Bloomsbury Art School and of Sak's Academy. Her grandfather, James Ward, was a royal Academician, and one of the best animal painters of England. While Sir Thomas Lawrence lived, Mrs. Ward's father, who was a miniaturist, was much occupied in copying the works of Sir Thomas on ivory, as the celebrated portrait painter would permit no other artist to repeat them. After the death of Sir Thomas, Mr. Ward became an engraver. Her mother was also a miniature painter. Her great-uncles were William Ward, R.A., and George Morland; John Jackson, R.A., was her uncle; and her husband, Edward M. Ward, to whom she was married at sixteen, was also a Royal Academican. From 1849, Mrs. Ward exhibited at the Royal Academy during thirty years, without a break, but her husband's death caused her to omit some exhibitions, and since that time her exhibits have been less regular. For some years Mrs. Ward has had successful classes for women at Chester Studios, which have somewhat interfered with her painting. Mrs. Ward's subjects have been historical and genre, some of which are extensively known by prints after them. Among these are "Joan of Arc," "Palissy the Potter," and "Mrs. Fry and Mary Saunderson visiting Prisoners at Newgate," the last dedicated by permission to Queen Victoria. This picture was purchased by an American. Of her picture of "Mary of Scotland, giving her infant to the Care of Lord Mar," Palgrave wrote: "This work is finely painted, and tells its tale with clearness." Among her numerous works are: "The Poet Hogg's First Love"; "Chatterton," the poet, in the Muniment Room, Bristol; "Lady Jane Grey refusing the Crown of England"; "Antwerp Market"; "Queen Mary of Scots' farewell to James I."; "Washing Day at the Liverpool Docks"; "The Princes in the Tower"; "George III. and Mrs. Delayney, with his family at Windsor"; "The Young Pretender," and many others. When sixteen Mrs. Ward exhibited two heads in crayon. In 1903, at the Academy, she exhibited "The Dining-room, Kent House, Knightsbridge." Mrs. Ward painted for Queen Victoria two portraits of the Princess Beatrice, and a life-size copy of a portrait of the Duke of Albany. She also painted a portrait of Princess Alice of Albany, who is about to marry Prince Alexander of Teck. Edward VII. has commissioned this artist to make two copies of the state portrait, painted by S. Luke Fildes, R.A. Mrs. Ward had two more votes for her admission to the Royal Academy than any other woman of her time has had. <b>WASSER, ANNA.</b> Born at Zürich, 1676, is notable among the painters of her country. She was the daughter of an artist, and early developed a love of drawing and an unusual aptitude in the study of languages. In painting she was a pupil of Joseph Werner. After a time she devoted herself to miniature painting; her reputation extended to all the German courts, as well as to Holland and England, and her commissions were so numerous that her father began to regard her as a mine of riches. He allowed her neither rest nor recreation, and was even unwilling that she should devote sufficient time to her pictures to finish them properly. Under this pressure of haste and constant labor her health gave way and she became melancholy. She was separated from her father, and in more agreeable surroundings her health was restored and she resumed her painting. Her father then insisted that she should return to him. On her journey home she had a fall, from the effects of which she died at the age of thirty-four. Fuseli valued a picture by Anna Wasser, which he owned, and praised her correctness of design and her feeling for color. <b>WATERS, SADIE P.</b> 1869-1900. Honorable mention Paris Exposition, 1900. Born in St. Louis, Missouri. This unusually gifted artist made her studies entirely in Paris, under the direction of M. Luc-Olivier Merson. Her earlier works were portraits in miniature, in which she was very successful. That of Jane Hading was much admired. She also excelled in illustrations, but in her later work she found her true province, that of religious subjects. A large picture on ivory, called "La Vierge au Lys," was exhibited in Paris, London, Brussels, and Ghent, and attracted much attention. [Illustration: LA VIERGE AU ROSIER SADIE WATERS] Her picture of the "Vierge aux Rosiers," reproduced here, was in the Salon, 1899, and in the exhibition of Religious Art in Brussels in 1900, after which it was exhibited in New York; and wherever seen it was especially admired. Miss Waters' pictures were exhibited in the Salon Français, Champs Elysées, from 1891 until her death. From the earliest days of childhood she was remarkable for her skill in drawing and in working out, from her own impressions, pictures of events passing about her. If at the theatre she saw a play that appealed to her, she made a picture symbolic of the play, and constantly startled her friends by her original ideas and the pronounced artistic temperament, which was very early the one controlling power in her life. Mr. Carl Gutherz thus speaks of her good fortune in studying with M. Merson. "As the Master and Student became more and more acquainted, and the great artist found in the student those kindred qualities which subsequently made her work so refined and beautiful,... he took the utmost care in developing her drawing--the fidelity of line and of expression, and the ever-pervading purity in her work. The sympathy with all good was reflected in the student, as it was ever present with the master, and only those who are acquainted with M. Merson can appreciate how fortunate it was for Art that the young artist was under a master of his character and temperament." One of her pictures, called "La Chrysanthème," represents a nude figure of a young girl, seated on the ground, leaning against a large basket of chrysanthemums, from which she is plucking blossoms. The figure is beautiful, and shows the deep study the artist had made, although still so young. The following estimate of her work is made by one competent to speak of such matters: "In this epoch of feverish uncertainty, of heated discussions and rivalries in art matters, the quiet, calm figure of Sadie Waters has a peculiar interest and charm generated by her tranquil and persistent pursuit of an ideal--an ideal she attained in her later works, an ideal of the highest mental order, mystical and human, and so far removed from the tendencies of our time that one might truthfully say, it stands alone. Her talents were manifold. She was endowed with the best of artistic qualities. She cultivated them diligently, and slowly acquired the handicraft and skill which enabled her to express herself without restriction. In her miniatures she learned to be careful, precise, and delicate; in her work from nature she was human; and in her studies of illuminating she gained a perfect understanding of ornamental painting and forms; and the subtle ambiance of the beautiful old churches and convents where she worked and pored over the ancient missals, and softly talked with the princely robed Monsignori, no doubt did much to develop her love for the Beautiful Story, the delicate myth of Christianity--and all this, all these rare qualities and honest efforts we find in her last picture, The Virgin. "The beauty and preciseness of this composition, the divine feeling not without a touch of motherly sentiment, its delicacy so rare and so pure, the distinction of its coloring, are all past expression, and give it a place unique in the nineteenth century."--_Paul W. Bartlett_, Paris, 1903. <b>WEGMANN, BERTHA.</b> Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1880; third-class medal, 1882; Thorwaldsen medal at Copenhagen; small gold medal, Berlin, 1894. Born at Soglio, Switzerland, 1847. Studied in Copenhagen, Munich, Paris, and Florence. She paints portraits and genre subjects. Her pictures, seen at Berlin in 1893, were much admired. They included portraits, figure studies, and Danish interiors. At Munich, in 1894, her portraits attracted attention, and were commended by those who wrote of the exhibition. Among her works are many portraits: "Mother and Child in the Garden," and "A Widow and Child," are two of her genre subjects. <b>WEIS, ROSARIO.</b> Silver medal from the Academy of San Fernando, 1842, for a picture called "Silence." Member of the Academy. Pupil of Goya, who early recognized her talent. In 1823, when Goya removed to Burdeos, she studied under the architect Tiburcio Perez. After a time she joined Goya, and remained his pupil until his death in 1828. She then entered the studio Lacour, where she did admirable work. In 1833, for the support of her mother and herself, she made copies of pictures in the Prado on private commissions. In 1842 she was appointed teacher of drawing to the royal family, in which position she did not long continue, her death occurring in 1843. Among her pictures are "Attention!" an allegorical figure; "An Angel"; "A Venus"; and "A Diana." Among her portraits are those of Goya, Velasquez, and Figaro. <b>WIEGMANN, MARIE ELISABETH</b>; family name Hancke. Small gold medal, Berlin. Born 1826 at Solberberg, Silesia; died, 1893, at Düsseldorf. In 1841 she began to study with Stilke in Düsseldorf; later with K. Sohn. She travelled extensively in Germany, England, Holland, and Italy, and settled with her husband, Rudolph Wiegmann, in Düsseldorf. In the Museum at Hanover is "The Colonist's Children Crowning a Negro Woman," and in the National Gallery at Berlin a portrait of Schnaase. Some children's portraits, and one of the Countess Hatzfeld, should also be mentioned among her works. In portraiture her work was distinguished by talent, spirit, and true artistic composition; in genre--especially the so-called ideal genre--she produced some exquisite examples. <b>WENTWORTH, MARQUISE CECILIA DE.</b> Gold medal, Tours National Exposition, Lyons and Turin; Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1891; Bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, 1901. Born in New York. Pupil of the Convent of the Sacred Heart and of Cabanel, in Paris. This artist has painted portraits of Leo XIII., who presented her with a gold medal; of Cardinal Ferrata; of Challemel-Lacour, President of the Senate at the time when the portrait was made, and of many others. Her picture of "Faith" is in the Luxembourg Gallery. At the Salon des Artistes Français, 1903, Madame de Wentworth exhibited the "Portrait of Mlle. X.," and "Solitude." [_No reply to circular_.] <b>WHEELER, JANET.</b> First Toppan Prize and Mary Smith Prize at Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Gold medal, Philadelphia Art Club. Fellow of Academy of Fine Arts, and member of Plastic Club, Philadelphia. Born in Detroit, Michigan. Pupil of Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and of the Julian Academy in Paris. This artist paints portraits almost entirely, which are in private hands. I know of but one figure picture by her, which is called "Beg for It." She was a miniaturist several years before taking up larger portraits. <b>WHITE, FLORENCE.</b> Silver medal at Woman's Exhibition, Earl's Court; silver medal for a pastel exhibited in Calcutta. Born at Brighton, England. Pupil of Royal Academy Schools in London, and of Bouguereau and Perrier in Paris. In 1899 this artist exhibited a portrait in the New Gallery; in 1901 a portrait of Bertram Blunt, Esq., at the Royal Academy; and in 1902 a portrait of "Peggy," a little girl with a poodle. She has sent miniatures to the Academy exhibitions several years; that of Miss Lyall Wilson was exhibited in 1903. <b>WHITMAN, SARAH DE ST. PRIX.</b> Bronze medal at Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893; gold and bronze medals at Atlanta Exposition; diploma at Pan-American, Buffalo, 1901. Member of the Society of American Artists, New York; Copley Society, Boston; Water-Color Club, Boston. Born in Baltimore, Maryland. Pupil of William M. Hunt and Thomas Couture. Mrs. Whitman has painted landscapes and portraits, and of recent years has been much occupied with work in glass. Windows by her are in Memorial Hall, Cambridge; in the Episcopal Church in Andover, Massachusetts, etc. An altar-piece by her is in All Saints' Church, Worcester. Her portrait of Senator Bayard is in the State Department, Washington. <b>WHITNEY, ANNE.</b> Born in Watertown, Massachusetts. Made her studies in Belmont and Boston, and later in Paris and Rome. Miss Whitney's sculptures are in many public places. A heroic size statue of Samuel Adams is in Boston and Washington, in bronze and marble; Harriet Martineau is at Wellesley College, in marble; the "Lotos-Eaters" is in Newton and Cambridge, in marble; "Lady Godiva," a life-size statue in marble, is in a private collection in Milton; a statue of Leif Eriksen, in bronze, is in Boston and Milwaukee; a bust of Professor Pickering, in marble, is in the Observatory, Cambridge; a statue, "Roma," is in Albany, Wellesley, St. Louis, and Newton, in both marble and bronze; Charles Sumner, in bronze of heroic size, is in Cambridge; a bust of President Walker, bronze, is also in Cambridge; President Stearns, a bust in marble, is in Amherst; a bust of Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer is in Cambridge; a bust of Professor Palmer is on a bronze medal; the Calla Fountain, in bronze, is in Franklin Park; and many other busts, medals, etc., in marble, bronze, and plaster, are in private collections. <b>WILSON, MELVA BEATRICE.</b> Prize of one hundred dollars a year for three successive years at Cincinnati Art Museum. Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1897. Born in Cincinnati, 1875. Pupil of Cincinnati Art Museum, under Louis T. Rebisso and Thomas Noble; in Paris, of Rodin and Vincent Norrottny. By special invitation this sculptor has been an exhibitor at the National Sculpture Society, New York. Her principal works are: "The Minute Man," in Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D. C.; "The Volunteer," which was given by the State of New York as a military prize to a Vermont Regiment; an equestrian statue of John F. Doyle, Jr.; "Bull and Bear" and the "Polo Player" in bronze, owned by Tiffany & Co.; "Retribution" in a private collection in New York. Miss Wilson has been accorded the largest commission given any woman sculptor for the decoration of the buildings of the St. Louis Exposition. She is to design eight spandrils for Machinery Hall, each one being twenty-eight by fifteen feet in size, with figures larger than life. The design represents the wheelwright and boiler-making trades. Reclining nude figures, of colossal size, bend toward the keystone of the arch, each holding a tool of a machinist. Interlaced cog-wheels form the background. <b>WIRTH, ANNA MARIE.</b> Member of the Munich Art Association. Born in St. Petersburg, 1846. Studied in Vienna under Straschiripka--commonly known as Johann Canon--and in Paris, although her year's work in the latter city seems to have left no trace upon her manner of painting. The genre pictures, in which she excels, clearly show the influence of the old Dutch school. A writer in "Moderne Kunst" says, in general, that she shows us real human beings under the "précieuses ridicules," the languishing gallants and the pedant, and often succeeds in individualizing all these with the sharpness of a Chodowiecki, though at times she is merely good-natured, and therefore weak. Sometimes, like Terborch, by her anecdotical treatment, she can set a whole romantic story before you; again, in the manner of Gerard Dow, she gives you a penetrating glimpse into old burgher life--work that is quite out of touch with the dilettantism that largely pervades modern art. The admirers of this unusual artist seek out her genre pictures in the exhibitions of to-day, much as one turns to an idyl of Heinrich Voss, after a dose of the "storm and stress" poets. Most of her works are in private galleries. One of her best pictures will be seen at the St. Louis Exposition. <b>WISINGER-FLORIAN, OLGA.</b> Bavarian Ludwig medal, 1891; medal at Chicago, 1893. Born in Vienna, 1844. Pupil of Schäffer and Schwindler. She has an excellent reputation as a painter of flowers. In the New Gallery, Munich, is one of her pictures of this sort; and at Munich, 1893, her flower pieces were especially praised in the reports of the exhibition. She also paints landscapes, in which she gains power each year; her color grows finer and her design or modelling stronger. At Vienna, 1890, it was said that her picture of the "Bauernhofe" was, by its excellent color, a disadvantage to the pictures near it, and the shore motive in "Abbazia" was full of artistic charm. At Vienna, 1893, she exhibited a cycle, "The Months," which bore witness to her admirable mastery of her art. Among her works are some excellent Venetian subjects: "On the Rialto"; "Morning on the Shore"; and "In Venice." <b>WOLFF, BETTY.</b> Honorable mention, Berlin, 1890. Member of the Association of Women Artists and Friends of Art; also of the German Art Association. Born in Berlin, where she was a pupil of Karl Stauffer-Bern; she also studied in Munich under Karl Marr. Besides numerous portraits of children, in pastel, this artist has painted portraits in oils of many well-known persons, among whom are Prof. H. Steinthal, Prof. Albrecht Weber, and General von Zycklinski. <b>WOLTERS, HENRIETTA</b>, family name Van Pee. Born in Amsterdam. 1692-1741. Pupil of her father, and later made a special study of miniature under Christoffel le Blond. Her early work consisted largely in copies from Van de Velde and Van Dyck. Her miniatures were so highly esteemed that Peter the Great offered her a salary of six thousand florins as his court painter; and Frederick William of Prussia invited her to his court, but nothing could tempt her away from her home in Amsterdam. She received four hundred florins for a single miniature, a most unusual price in her time. <b>WOOD, CAROLINE S.</b> Daughter of Honorable Horatio D. Wood, of St. Louis. This sculptor has made unusual advances in her art, to which she has seriously devoted herself less than four years. She has studied in the Art School of Washington University, the Art Institute, Chicago, and is now a student in the Art League, New York. She has been commissioned by the State of Missouri to make a statue to represent "The Spirit of the State of Missouri," for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>WOODBURY, MARCIA OAKES.</b> Prize at Boston Art Club; medals at Mechanics' Association Exhibition, Atlanta and Nashville Expositions. Member of the New York and Boston Water-Color Clubs. Born at South Berwick, Maine. Pupil of Tommasso Juglaris, in Boston, and of Lasar, in Paris. Mrs. Woodbury paints in oils and water-colors; the latter are genre scenes, and among them are several Dutch subjects. She has painted children's portraits in oils. Her pictures are in private hands in Boston, New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati. "The Smoker," and "Mother and Daughter," a triptych, are two of her principal pictures. <b>WOODWARD, DEWING.</b> Grand prize of the Academy Julian, 1894. Member of Water-Color Club, Baltimore; Charcoal Club, Baltimore; L'Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs de France. Born at Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Pupil of Pennsylvania Academy a few months; in Paris, of Bouguereau, Robert-Fleury, and Jules Lefebvre. Her "Holland Family at Prayer," exhibited at the Paris Salon, 1893, and "Jessica," belong to the Public Library in Williamsport; "Clam-Diggers Coming Home--Cape Cod" was in the Venice Exhibition, 1903; one of her pictures shows the "Julian Academy, Criticism Day." She has painted many portraits, and her work has often been thought to be that of a man, which idea is no doubt partly due to her choosing subjects from the lives of working men. She is of the modern school of colorists. <b>WRIGHT, ETHEL.</b> This artist contributed annually to the exhibitions of the London Academy from 1893 to 1900, as follows: In 1893 she exhibited "Milly" and "Echo"; in 1894, "The Prodigal"; in 1895, a water-color, "Lilies"; in 1896, "Rejected"; in 1897, a portrait of Mrs. Laurence Phillips; in 1898, "The Song of Ages," reproduced in this book; in 1899, a portrait of Mrs. Arthur Strauss; and in 1900, one of Miss Vaughan. [_No reply to circular_.] <b>WRIGHT, MRS. PATIENCE.</b> Born at Bordentown, New Jersey, 1725, of a Quaker family. When left a widow, with three children to care for, she went to London, where she found a larger field for her art than she had in the United States, where she had already made a good reputation as a modeller in wax. By reason of this change of residence she has often been called an English sculptress. Although the imaginative and pictorial is not cultivated or even approved by Quakers, Patience Lovell, while still a child, and before she had seen works of art, was content only when supplied with dough, wax, or clay, from which she made figures of men and women. Very early these figures became portraits of the people she knew best, and in the circle of her family and friends she was considered a genius. Very soon after Mrs. Wright reached London she was fully employed. She worked in wax, and her full-length portrait of Lord Chatham was placed in Westminster Abbey, protected by a glass case. This attracted much attention, and the London journals praised the artist. She made portraits of the King and Queen, who, attracted by her brilliant conversation, admitted her to an intimacy at Buckingham House, which could not then have been accorded to an untitled English woman. [Illustration: From a Copley Print. THE SONG OF AGES ETHEL WRIGHT] Mrs. Wright made many portraits of distinguished people; but few, if any, of these can now be seen, although it is said that some of them have been carefully preserved by the families who possess them. To Americans Mrs. Wright is interesting by reason of her patriotism, which amounted to a passion. She is credited with having been an important source of information to the American leaders in the time of the Revolution. In this she was frank and courageous, making no secret of her views. She even ventured to reprove George III. for his attitude toward the Colonists, and by this boldness lost the royal favor. She corresponded with Franklin, in Paris, and new appointments, or other important movements in the British army, were speedily known to him. Washington, when he knew that Mrs. Wright wished to make a bust of him, replied in most flattering terms that he should think himself happy to have his portrait made by her. Mrs. Wright very much desired to make likenesses of those who signed the Treaty of Peace, and of those who had taken a prominent part in making it. She wrote: "To shame the English king, I would go to any trouble and expense, and add my mite to the honor due to Adams, Jefferson, and others." Though so essentially American as a woman, the best of her professional life was passed in England, where she was liberally patronized and fully appreciated. Dunlap calls her an extraordinary woman, and several writers have mentioned her power of judging the character of her visitors, in which she rarely made a mistake, and chose her friends with unusual intelligence. Her eldest daughter married in America, and was well known as a modeller in wax in New York. Her younger daughter married the artist Hoppner, a rival in portraiture of Stuart and Lawrence, while her son Joseph was a portrait painter. His likeness of Washington was much admired. <b>WULFRAAT, MARGARETTA.</b> Born at Arnheim. 1678-1741. Was a pupil of Caspar Netscher of Heidelberg, whose little pictures are of fabulous value. Although he was so excellent a painter he was proud of Margaretta, whose pictures were much admired in her day. Her "Musical Conversation" is in the Museum of Schwerin. Her "Cleopatra" and "Semiramis" are in the Gallery at Amsterdam. <b>YANDELL, ENID.</b> Special Designer's Medal, Chicago, 1893; silver medal, Tennessee Exposition; Honorable Mention, Buffalo, 1901. Member of National Sculpture Society; Municipal Art Society; National Arts Club, all of New York. Born in Louisville, Kentucky. Graduate of Cincinnati Art Academy. Pupil of Philip Martiny in New York, and in Paris of Frederick McMonnies and Auguste Rodin. The principal works of this artist are the Mayor Lewis monument at New Haven, Connecticut; the Chancellor Garland Memorial, Vanderbilt University, Nashville; Carrie Brown Memorial Fountain, Providence; Daniel Boone and the Ruff Fountain, Louisville. Richard Ladegast, in January, 1902, wrote a sketch of Miss Yandell's life and works for the _Outlook_, in which he says that Miss Yandell was the first woman to become a member of the National Sculpture Society. I quote from his article as follows: "The most imposing product of Miss Yandell's genius was the heroic figure of Athena, twenty-five feet in height, which stood in front of the reproduction of the Parthenon at the Nashville Exposition. This is the largest figure ever designed by a woman. [Illustration: STATUE OF DANIEL BOONE ENID YANDELL Made for St. Louis Exposition] "The most artistic was probably the little silver tankard which she did for the Tiffany Company, a bit of modelling which involves the figures of a fisher-boy and a mermaid. The figure of Athena is large and correct; those of the fisher-boy and mermaid poetic and impassioned.... The boy kisses the maid when the lid is lifted. He is always looking over the edge, as if yearning for the fate that each new drinker who lifts the lid forces upon him." Of the Carrie Brown Memorial Fountain he says: "The design of the fountain represents the struggle of life symbolized by a group of figures which is intended to portray, according to Miss Yandell, not the struggle for bare existence, but 'the attempt of the immortal soul within us to free itself from the handicaps and entanglements of its earthly environments. It is the development of character, the triumph of intellectuality and spirituality I have striven to express.' Life is symbolized by the figure of a woman, the soul by an angel, and the earthly tendencies--duty, passion, and avarice--by male figures. Life is represented as struggling to free herself from the gross earthly forms that cling to her. The figure of Life shows a calm, placid strength, well calculated to conquer in a struggle; and the modelling of her clinging robes and the active muscle of the male figures is firm and life-like. The mantle of truth flows from the shoulders of the angel, forming a drapery for the whole group, and serving as a support for the basin, the edges of which are ornamented with dolphins spouting water. "The silhouette formed by the mass of the fountain is most interesting and successful from all points of view. The lines of the composition are large and dignified, especially noticeable in the modelling of the individual figures, which is well studied and technically excellent." At Buffalo, where this fountain was exhibited, it received honorable mention. Miss Yandell has been commissioned to execute a symbolical figure of victory and a statue of Daniel Boone for the St. Louis Exposition. <b>YKENS, LAURENCE CATHERINE.</b> Elected to the Guild of Antwerp in 1659. Born in Antwerp. Pupil of her father, Jan Ykens. Flowers, fruits, and insects were her favorite subjects, and were painted with rare delicacy. Two of these pictures are in the Museo del Prado, at Madrid. They are a "Festoon of Flowers and Fruits with a Medallion in the Centre, on which is a Landscape"; and a "Garland of Flowers with a Similar Medallion." <b>ZIESENSIS, MARGARETTA.</b> There were few women artists in the Scandinavian countries in the early years of the eighteenth century. Among them was Margaretta Ziesensis, a Danish lady, who painted a large number of portraits and some historical subjects. She was best known, however, for her miniature copies of the works of famous artists. These pictures were much the same in effect as the "picture-miniatures" now in vogue. Her copy of Correggio's Zingarella was much admired, and was several times repeated. SUPPLEMENT Containing names previously omitted and additions. The asterisk (*) denotes preceding mention of the artist. *<b>BILDERS, MARIE VAN BOSSE.</b> This celebrated landscape painter became an artist through her determination to be an artist rather than because of any impelling natural force driving her to this career. After patient and continuous toil, she felt that she was developing an artistic impulse. The advice of Van de Sande-Bakhuyzen greatly encouraged her, and the candid and friendly criticism of Bosboom inspired her with the courage to exhibit her work in public. In the summer of 1875, in Vorden, she met Johannes Bilders, under whose direction she studied landscape painting. This master took great pains to develop the originality of his pupil rather than to encourage her adapting the manner of other artists. During her stay in Vorden she made a distinct gain in the attainment of an individual style of painting. After her return to her home at The Hague, Bilders established a studio there and showed a still keener interest in his pupil. This artistic friendship resulted in the marriage of the two artists, and in 1880 they established themselves in Oosterbeck. Here began the intimate study of the heath which so largely influenced the best pictures by Frau Bilders. In the garden of the picturesque house in which the two artists lived was an old barn, which became her studio, where, early and late, in all sorts of weather, she devotedly observed the effects later pictured on her canvases. At this time she executed one of her best works, now in the collection of the Prince Regent of Brunswick. It is thus described by a Dutch writer in Rooses' "Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth Century": "It represents a deep pool, overshadowed by old gnarled willows in their autumnal foliage, their silvery trunks bending over, as if to see themselves in the clear, still water. On the edge of the pool are flowers and variegated grasses, the latter looking as if they wished to crowd out the former--as if _they_ were in the right and the flowers in the wrong; as if such bright-hued creatures had no business to eclipse their more sombre tones; as if _they_ and _they_ alone were suited to this silent, forsaken spot." Johannes Bilders was fully twenty-five years older than his wife, and the failure of both his physical and mental powers in his last days required her absolute devotion to him. In spite of this, the garden studio was not wholly forsaken, and nearly every day she accomplished something there. After her husband's death she had a long illness. On her recovery she returned to The Hague and took the studio which had been that of the artist Mauve. The life of the town was wearisome to her, but she found a compensation in her re-union with her old friends, and with occasional visits to the heath she passed most of her remaining years in the city. Her favorite subjects were landscapes with birch and beech trees, and the varying phases of the heath and of solitary and unfrequented scenes. Her works are all in private collections. Among them are "The Forester's Cottage," "Autumn in Doorwerth," "The Old Birch," and the "Old Oaks of Wodan at Sunset." <b>BOZNANSKA, OLGA.</b> Born in Cracow, where she was a pupil of Matejko. Later, in Munich, she studied with Kricheldorf and Dürr. Her mother was a French woman, and critics trace both Polish and French characteristics in her work. She paints portraits and genre subjects. She is skilful in seizing salient characteristics, and her chief aim is to preserve the individuality of her sitters and models. She skilfully manages the side-lights, and by this means produces strong effects. After the first exhibition of her pictures in Berlin, her "God-given talent" was several times mentioned by the art critics. At Munich she made a good impression by her pictures exhibited in 1893 and 1895; at the Exposition in Paris, 1889, her portrait and a study in pastel were much admired and were generously praised in the art journals. *<b>COX, LOUISE.</b> The picture by Mrs. Cox, reproduced in this book, illustrates two lines in a poem by Austin Dobson, called "A Song of Angiola in Heaven." "Then set I lips to hers, and felt,-- Ah, God,--the hard pain fade and melt." <b>DE MORGAN, EMILY.</b> Family name Pickering. When sixteen years old, this artist entered the Slade School, and eighteen months later received the Slade Scholarship, by which she was entitled to benefit for three years. At the end of the first year, however, she resigned this privilege because she did not wish to accept the conditions of the gift. As a child she had loved the pictures of the precursors of Raphael, in the National Gallery, and her first exhibited picture, "Ariadne in Naxos," hung in the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877, proved how closely she had studied these old masters. At this time she knew nothing of the English Pre-Raphaelites; later, however, she became one of the most worthy followers of Burne-Jones. About the time that she left the Slade School one of her uncles took up his residence in Florence, where she has spent several winters in work and study. One of her most important pictures is inscribed with these lines: "Dark is the valley of shadows, Empty the power of kings; Blind is the favor of fortune, Hungry the caverns of death. Dim is the light from beyond, Unanswered the riddle of life." This pessimistic view of the world is illustrated by the figure of a king, who, in the midst of ruins, places his foot upon the prostrate form of a chained victim; Happiness, with bandaged eyes, scatters treasures into the bottomless pit, a desperate youth being about to plunge into its depths; a kneeling woman, praying for light, sees brilliant figures soaring upward, their beauty charming roses from the thorn bushes. Other pictures by this artist remind one of the works of Botticelli. Of her "Ithuriel" W. S. Sparrow wrote: "It may be thought that this Ithuriel is too mild--too much like Shakespeare's Oberon--to be in keeping with the terrific tragedy depicted in the first four books of the 'Paradise Lost.' Eve, too, lovely as she is, seems to bear no likelihood of resemblance to Milton's superb mother of mankind. But the picture has a sweet, serene grace which should make us glad to accept from Mrs. De Morgan another Eve and another Ithuriel, true children of her own fancy." The myth of "Boreas and Orithyia," though faulty perhaps in technique, is good in conception and arrangement. Mrs. De Morgan has produced some impressive works in sculpture. Among these are "Medusa," a bronze bust; and a "Mater Dolorosa," in terra-cotta. <b>DESCHLY, IRENE.</b> Born in Bucharest, the daughter of a Roumanian advocate. She gave such promise as an artist that a government stipend was bestowed on her, which enabled her to study in Paris, where she was a pupil of Laurens and E. Carrière. Her work is tinged with the melancholy and intensity of her nature--perhaps of her race; yet there is something in her grim conceptions, or rather in her treatment of them, that demands attention and compels admiration. Even in her "Sweet Dream," which represents the half-nude figure of a young girl holding a rose in her hand, there is more sadness than joy, as though she said, "It is only a dream, after all." "Chanson," exhibited at the Paris Exposition, 1900, displays something of the same quality. <b>ERISTOW-KASAK, PRINCESS MARIE.</b> Among the many Russian portraits in the Paris Exposition, 1900, two, the work of this pupil of Michel de Zichys, stood out in splendid contrast with the crass realism or the weak idealism of the greater number. One was a half-length portrait of the laughing Mme. Paquin; full of life and movement were the pose of the figure, the fall of the draperies, and the tilt of the expressive fan. The other was the spirited portrait of Baron von Friedericks, a happy combination of cavalier and soldier in its manly strength. When but sixteen years old, the Princess Marie roused the admiration of the Russian court by her portrait of the Grand Duke Sergius. This led to her painting portraits of various members of the royal family while she was still a pupil of De Zichys. After her marriage she established herself in Paris, where she endeavors to preserve an incognito as an artist in order to work in the most quiet and devoted manner. <b>GOEBELER, ELISE.</b> This artist studied drawing under Steffeck and color under Dürr, in Munich. Connoisseurs in art welcome the name of Elise Goebeler in exhibitions, and recall the remarkable violet-blue lights and the hazy atmosphere in her works, out of which emerges some charming, graceful figure; perhaps a young girl on whose white shoulders the light falls, while a shadow half conceals the rest of the form. These dreamy, Madonna-like beauties are the result of the most severe and protracted study. Without the remarkable excellence of their technique and the unusual quality of their color they would be the veriest sentimentalities; but wherever they are seen they command admiration. Her "Cinderella," exhibited in Berlin in 1880, was bought by the Emperor; another picture of the same subject, but quite different in effect, was exhibited in Munich in 1883. In the same year, in Berlin, "A Young Girl with Pussy-Willows" and "A Neapolitan Water Carrier" were seen. In 1887, in Berlin, her "Vanitas, Vanitatum Vanitas" and the "Net-Mender" were exhibited, and ten years later "Cheerfulness" was highly commended. At Munich, in 1899, her picture, called "Elegie," attracted much attention and received unusual praise. *<b>HERBELIN, JEANE MATHILDE.</b> This miniaturist has recently died at the age of eighty-four. In addition to the medals and honors she had received previous to 1855, it was that year decided that her works should be admitted to the Salon without examination. She was a daughter of General Habert, and a niece of Belloc, under whom she studied her art while still very young. Her early ambition was to paint large pictures, but Delacroix persuaded her to devote herself to miniature painting, in which art she has been called "the best in the world." She adopted the full tones and broad style to which she was accustomed in her larger works, and revolutionized the method of miniature painting in which stippling had prevailed. When eighteen years old, she went to Italy, where she made copies from the masters and did much original work as well. Among her best portraits are those of the Baroness Habert, Guizot, Rossini, Isabey, Robert-Fleury, M. and Mme. de Torigny, Count de Zeppel, and her own portrait. Besides portraits, she painted a picture called "A Child Holding a Rose," "Souvenir," and "A Young Girl Playing with a Fan." <b>JOHNSON, ADELAIDE.</b> Born at Plymouth, Illinois. This sculptor first studied in the St. Louis School of Design, and in 1877, at the St. Louis Exposition, received two prizes for the excellence of her wood carving. During several years she devoted herself to interior decoration, designing not only the form and color to be used in decorating edifices, but also the furniture and all necessary details to complete them and make them ready for use. Being desirous of becoming a sculptor, Miss Johnson went, in 1883, to England, Germany, and Italy. In Rome she was a pupil of Monteverde and of Altini, who was then president of the Academy of St. Luke. After two years she returned to America and began her professional career in Chicago, where she remained but a year before establishing herself in Washington. Her best-known works are portrait busts, which are numerous. Many of these have been seen in the Corcoran Art Gallery and in other public exhibitions. Of her bust of Susan B. Anthony, the sculptor, Lorado Taft, said: "Your bust of Miss Anthony is better than mine. I tried to make her real, but you have made her not only real, but ideal." Among her portraits are those of General Logan, Dr. H. W. Thomas, Isabella Beecher Hooker, William Tebb, Esq., of London, etc. <b>KOEGEL, LINDA.</b> Born at The Hague. A pupil of Stauffer-Bern in Berlin and of Herterich in Munich. Her attachment to impressionism leads this artist to many experiments in color--or, as one critic wrote, "to play with color." She apparently prefers to paint single figures of women and young girls, but her works include a variety of subjects. She also practises etching, pen-and-ink drawing, as well as crayon and water-color sketching. The light touch in some of her genre pictures is admirable, and in contrast, the portrait of her father--- the court preacher--displays a masculine firmness in its handling, and is a very striking picture. In 1895 she exhibited at the Munich Secession the portrait of a woman, delicate but spirited, and a group which was said to set aside every convention in the happiest manner. <b>KROENER, MAGDA.</b> The pictures of flowers which this artist paints prove her to be a devoted lover of nature. She exhibited at Düsseldorf, in 1893, a captivating study of red poppies and another of flowering vetch, which were bought by the German Emperor. The following year she exhibited two landscapes, one of which was so much better than the other that it was suggested that she might have been assisted by her husband, the animal painter, Christian Kroener. One of her most delightful pictures, "A Quiet Corner," represents a retired nook in a garden, overgrown with foliage and flowers, so well painted that one feels that they must be fragrant. <b>LEPSIUS, SABINA.</b> Daughter of Gustav Graf and wife of the portrait painter, Lepsius. She was a pupil of Gussow, then of the Julian Academy in Paris, and later studied in Rome. Her pictures have an unusual refinement; like some other German women artists, she aims at giving a subtle impression of character and personality in her treatment of externals, and her work has been said to affect one like music. The portrait of her little daughter, painted in a manner which suggests Van Dyck, is one of the works which entitle her to consideration. <b>LEYSTER, JUDITH.</b> A native of Haarlem on Zandam, the date of her birth being unknown. She died in 1660. In 1636 she married the well-known artist, Jan Molemaer. She did her work at a most interesting period in Dutch painting. Her earliest picture is dated 1629; she was chosen to the Guild of St. Luke at Haarlem in 1633. Recent investigations make it probable that certain pictures which have for generations been attributed to Frans Hals were the work of Judith Leyster. In 1893 a most interesting lawsuit, which occurred in London and was reported in the _Times_, concerned a picture known as "The Fiddlers," which had been sold as a work of Frans Hals for £4,500. The purchasers found that this claim was not well founded, and sought to recover their money. A searching investigation traced the ownership of the work back to a connoisseur of the time of William III. In 1678 it was sold for a small sum, and was then called "A Dutch Courtesan Drinking with a Young Man." The monogram on the picture was called that of Frans Hals, but as reproduced and explained by C. Hofstede de Groot in the "_Jahrbuch für Königlich-preussischen Kunst-Sammlungen_" for 1893, it seems evident that the signature is J. L. and not F. H. Similar initials are on the "Flute Player," in the gallery at Stockholm; the "Seamstress," in The Hague Gallery, and on a picture in the Six collection at Amsterdam. It is undeniable that these pictures all show the influence of Hals, whose pupil Judith Leyster may have been, and whose manner she caught as Mlle. Mayer caught that of Greuze and Prud'hon. At all events, the present evidence seems to support the claim that the world is indebted to Judith Leyster for these admirable pictures. <b>MACH, HILDEGARDE VON.</b> This painter studied in Dresden and Munich, and under the influence of Anton Pepinos she developed her best characteristics, her fine sense of form and of color. She admirably illustrates the modern tendency in art toward individual expression--a tendency which permits the following of original methods, and affords an outlet for energy and strength of temperament. Fräulein Mach has made a name in both portrait and genre painting. Her "Waldesgrauen" represents two naked children in an attitude of alarm as the forest grows dark around them; it gives a vivid impression of the mysterious charm and the possible dangers which the deep woods present to the childish mind. <b>MAYER, MARIE FRANÇOISE CONSTANCE.</b> As early as 1806 this artist received a gold medal from the Paris Salon, awarded to her picture of "Venus and Love Asleep." Born 1775, died 1821. She studied under Suvée, Greuze, and Prud'hon. There are various accounts of the life of Mlle. Mayer. That of M. Charles Guenllette is the authority followed here. It is probable that Mlle. Mayer came under the influence of Prud'hon as early as 1802, possibly before that time. Prud'hon, a sensitive man, absorbed in his art, had married at twenty a woman who had no sympathy with his ideals, and when she realized that he had no ambition, and was likely to be always poor, her temper got the better of any affection she had ever felt for him. Prud'hon, in humiliation and despair, lived in a solitude almost complete. It was with difficulty that Mlle. Mayer persuaded this master to receive her as a pupil; but this being gained, both these painters had studios in the Sorbonne from 1809 to 1821. At the latter date all artists were obliged to vacate the Sorbonne ateliers to make room for some new department of instruction. Mlle. Mayer had been for some time in a depressed condition, and her friends had been anxious about her. Whether leaving the Sorbonne had a tendency to increase her melancholy is not known, but her suicide came as a great surprise and shock to all who knew her, especially to Prud'hon, who survived her less than two years. Prud'hon painted several portraits of Mlle. Mayer, the best-known being now in the Louvre. It represents an engaging personality, in which vivacity and sensibility are distinctly indicated. Mlle. Mayer had made her début at the Salon of 1896 with a portrait of "Citizeness Mayer," painted by herself, and showing a sketch for the portrait of her mother; also a picture of a "Young Scholar with a Portfolio Under His Arm," and a miniature. From this time her work was seen at each year's salon. Her pictures in 1810 were the "Happy Mother" and the "Unhappy Mother," which are now in the Louvre; the contrast between the joyousness of the mother with her child and the anguish of the mother who has lost her child is portrayed with great tenderness. The "Dream of Happiness," also in the Louvre, represents a young couple in a boat with their child; the boat is guided down the stream of life by Love and Fortune. This is one of her best pictures. It is full of poetic feeling, and the flesh tints are unusually natural. The work of this artist is characterized by delicacy of touch and freshness of color while pervaded by a peculiar grace and charm. Her drawing is good, but the composition is less satisfactory. It is well known that Prud'hon and his pupil painted many pictures in collaboration. This has led to an under-valuation of her ability, and both the inferior works of Prud'hon and bad imitations of him have been attributed to her. M. Guenllette writes that when Mlle. Mayer studied under Greuze she painted in his manner, and he inclines to the opinion that some pictures attributed to Greuze were the work of his pupil. In the same way she imitated Prud'hon, and this critic thinks it by no means certain that the master finished her work, as has been alleged. In the Museum at Nancy are Mlle. Mayer's portraits of Mme. and Mlle. Voiant; in the Museum of Dijon is an ideal head by her, and in the Bordeaux Gallery is her picture, called "Confidence." "Innocence Prefers Love to Riches" and the "Torch of Venus" are well-known works by Mlle. Mayer. <b>MESDAG-VAN HOUTEN, S.</b> Gold medal at Amsterdam, 1884; bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1889. Born at Groningen, 1834. In 1856 she married Mesdag, who, rather late in life decided to follow the career of a painter. His wife, not wishing to be separated from him in any sense, resolved on the same profession, and about 1870 they began their study. Mme. Mesdag acquired her technique with difficulty, and her success was achieved only as the result of great perseverance and continual labor. The artists of Oosterbeck and Brussels, who were her associates, materially aided her by their encouragement. She began the study of drawing at the age of thirty, and her first attempt in oils was made seven years later. Beginning with single twigs and working over them patiently she at length painted whole trees, and later animals. She came to know the peculiarities of nearly all native trees. She built a studio in the woods of Scheveningen, and there developed her characteristics--close observation and careful reproduction of details. In the summer of 1872 M. and Mme. Mesdag went to Friesland and Drenthe, where they made numerous sketches of the heath, sheep, farmhouses, and the people in their quaint costumes. One of Mme. Mesdag's pictures, afterward exhibited at Berlin, is thus described: "On this canvas we see the moon, just as she has broken through a gray cloud, spreading her silvery sheen over the sleepy land; in the centre we are given a sheep-fold, at the door of which a flock of sheep are jostling and pushing each other, all eager to enter their place of rest. The wave-like movement of these animals is particularly graceful and cleverly done. A little shepherdess is guiding them, as anxious to get them in as they are to enter, for this means the end of her day's work. Her worn-out blue petticoat is lighted up by a moonbeam; in her hand she appears to have a hoe. It is a most harmonious picture; every line is in accord with its neighbor." While residing in Brussels these two artists began to collect works of art for what is now known as the Mesdag Museum. In 1887 a wing was added to their house to accommodate their increasing treasures, which include especially good examples of modern French painting, pottery, tapestry, etc. In 1889 an exhibition of the works of these painters was held. Here convincing proof was given of Mme. Mesdag's accuracy, originality of interpretation, and her skill in the use of color. <b>MÖLLER, AGNES SLOTT, OR SLOTT-MÖLLER, AGNES.</b> This artist follows the young romantic movement in Denmark. She has embodied in her work a modern comprehension of old legends. The landscape and people of her native land seem to her as eminently suitable motives, and these realities she renders in the spirit of a by-gone age--that of the national heroes of the sagas and epics of the country, or the lyric atmosphere of the folk-songs. She may depict these conceptions, full of feeling, in the dull colors of the North, or in rich and glowing hues, but the impression she gives is much the same in both cases, a generally restful effect, though the faces in her pictures are full of life and emotion. Her choice of subjects and her manner of treatment almost inevitably introduce some archaic quality in her work. This habit and the fact that she cares more for color than for drawing are the usual criticisms of her pictures. Her "St. Agnes" is an interesting rendering of a well-worn subject. "Adelil the Proud," exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1889, tells the story of the Duke of Frydensburg, who was in love with Adelil, the king's daughter. The king put him to death, and the attendants of Adelil made of his heart a viand which they presented to her. When she learned what this singular substance was--that caused her to tremble violently--she asked for wine, and carrying the cup to her lips with a tragic gesture, in memory of her lover, she died of a broken heart. It is such legends as these that Mme. Slott-Möller revives, and by which she is widely known. <b>MORISOT OR MORIZOT, BERTHE.</b> Married name Manet. Born at Bourges, 1840, died in Paris, 1895. A pupil of Guichard and Oudinot. After her marriage to Eugène Manet she came under the influence of his famous brother, Édouard. This artist signed her pictures with her maiden name, being too modest to use that which she felt belonged only to Édouard Manet, in the world of art. A great interest was, however, aroused in the private galleries, where the works of the early impressionists were seen, by the pictures of Berthe Morisot. Camille Mauclair, an enthusiastic admirer of this school of art, says: "Berthe Morizot will remain the most fascinating figure of Impressionism--the one who has stated most precisely the femininity of this luminous and iridescent art." A great-granddaughter of Fragonard, she seems to have inherited his talent; Corot and Renoir forcibly appealed to her. These elements, modified by her personal attitude, imparted a strong individuality to her works, which divided honors with her personal charms. According to the general verdict, she was equally successful in oils and water-colors. Her favorite subjects--although she painted others--were sea-coast views, flowers, orchards, and gardens and young girls in every variety of costume. After the death of Édouard Manet, she devoted herself to building up an appreciation of his work in the public mind. So intelligent were her methods that she doubtless had great influence in making the memory of his art enduring. Among her most characteristic works are: "The Memories of the Oise," 1864; "Ros-Bras," "Finistère," 1868; "A Young Girl at a Window," 1870; a pastel, "Blanche," 1873; "The Toilet," and "A Young Woman at the Ball." *<b>NEY, ELIZABETH.</b> The Fine Arts jury of the St. Louis Exposition have accepted three works by this sculptor to be placed in the Fine Arts Building. They are the Albert Sidney Johnston memorial; the portrait bust of Jacob Grimm, in marble; and a bronze statuette of Garibaldi. It is unusual to allow so many entries to one artist. <b>PAULI, HANNA</b>, family name, Hirsch. Bronze medal at Paris Exposition, 1889. Born in Stockholm and pupil of the Academy of Fine Arts there; later, of Dagnan-Bouveret, in Paris. Her husband, also an artist, is Georg Pauli. They live in Stockholm, where she paints portraits and genre subjects. At the Paris Exposition, 1900, she exhibited two excellent portraits, one of her father and another of Ellen Key; also a charming genre subject, "The Old Couple." <b>ROMANI, JUANA, H. C.</b> Born at Velletri, 1869. Pupil of Henner and Roybet, in Paris, where she lives. This artist is, _sui generis_, a daughter of the people, of unconventional tastes and habits. She has boldly reproduced upon canvas a fulness of life and joy, such as is rarely seen in pictures. While she has caught something of the dash of Henner, and something of the color of Roybet, and gained a firm mastery of the best French technique, these are infused with the ardor of a Southern temperament. Her favorite subjects are women--either in the strength and beauty of maternity, or in the freshness of youth, or even of childhood. Some critics feel that, despite much that is desirable in her work, the soul is lacking in the women she paints. This is no doubt due in some measure to certain types she has chosen--for example, Salome and Herodias, in whom one scarcely looks for such an element. Her portrait of Roybet and a picture of "Bianca Capello" were exhibited at Munich in 1893 and at Antwerp in 1894. The "Pensierosa" and a little girl were at the Paris Salon in 1894, and were much admired. "Herodias" appeared at Vienna in 1894 and at Berlin the following year, while "Primavera" was first seen at the Salon of 1895. This picture laughs, as children laugh, with perfect abandon. A portrait of Miss Gibson was also at the Salon of 1895, and "Vittoria Colonna" and a "Venetian Girl" were sent to Munich. These were followed by the "Flower of the Alps" and "Desdemona" in 1896; "Doña Mona," palpitating with life, and "Faustalla of Pistoia," with short golden hair and a majestic poise of the head, in 1897; "Salome" and "Angelica," two widely differing pictures in character and color, in 1898; "Mina of Fiesole," and the portrait of a golden-haired beauty in a costume of black and gold, in 1899; the portrait of Mlle. H. D., in 1900; "L'Infante," one of her most noble creations, of a remarkably fine execution, and a ravishing child called "Roger"--with wonderful blond hair--in 1901. Mlle. Romani often paints directly on the canvas without preliminary sketch or study, and sells many of her pictures before they are finished. Some of her works have been purchased by the French Government, and there are examples of these in the Luxembourg, and in the Gallery of Mülhausen. <b>RUPPRECHT, TINI.</b> After having lessons from private instructors, this artist studied under Lenbach. She has been much influenced by Gainsborough, Lawrence, and Reynolds, traces of their manner being evident in her work. She renders the best type of feminine seductiveness with delicacy and grace; she avoids the trivial and gross, but pictures all the allurements of an innocent coquetry. Her portrait of the Princess Marie, of Roumania, was exhibited in Munich in 1901; its reality and personality were notable, and one critic called it "an oasis in a desert of portraits." "Anno 1793" and "A Mother and Child" have attracted much favorable comment in Munich, where her star is in the ascendant, and greater excellence in her work is confidently prophesied. <b>SCHWARTZE, THERESE.</b> Honorable mention, Paris Salon, 1885; gold medal, 1889. Diploma at Ghent, 1892; gold medal, 1892. At International Exhibition, Barcelona, 1898, a gold medal. Made a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau, 1896. Born in Amsterdam about 1851. A pupil of her father until his death, when she became a student under Gabriel Max, in Munich, for a year. Returning to Amsterdam, she was much encouraged by Israels, Bilders, and Bosboom, friends of her father. She went to Paris in 1878 and was so attracted by the artistic life which she saw that she determined to study there. But she did not succeed in finding a suitable studio, neither an instructor who pleased her, and she returned to Amsterdam. It was at this time that she painted the portrait of Frederick Müller. In the spring of 1880 she went again to Paris, only to "feast on things artistic." A little later she was summoned to the palace at Soestdijk to instruct the Princess Henry of the Netherlands. In 1883 she served with many distinguished artists on the art jury of the International Exhibition at Amsterdam. In 1884 she once more yielded to the attraction that Paris had for her, and there made a great advance in her painting. In 1885 she began to work in pastel, and one of her best portraits in this medium was that of the Princess (Queen) Wilhelmina, which was loaned by the Queen Regent for the exhibition of this artist's work in Amsterdam in 1890. The Italian Government requested Miss Schwartze to paint her own portrait for the Uffizi Gallery. This was shown at the Paris Salon, 1889, and missed the gold medal by two votes. This portrait is thought by some good judges to equal that of Mme. Le Brun. The head with the interesting eyes, shaded by the hand which wards off the light, and the penetrating, observant look, are most impressive. She has painted a portrait of Queen Emma, and sent to Berlin in 1902 a portrait of Wolmaran, a member of the Transvaal Government, which was esteemed a work of the first rank. She has painted several portraits of her mother, which would have made for her a reputation had she done no others. She has had many notable men and women among her sitters, and though not a robust woman, she works incessantly without filling all the commissions offered her. Her pictures are in the Museums of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Her work is full of life and strength, and her touch shows her confidence in herself and her technical knowledge. She is, however, a severe critic of her own work and is greatly disturbed by indiscriminating praise. She is serious and preoccupied in her studio, but with her friends she is full of gayety, and is greatly admired, both as a woman and as an artist. <b>VAN DER VEER, MISS.</b> "This artist," says a recent critic, "has studied to some purpose in excellent continental schools, and is endowed withal with a creative faculty and breadth in conception rarely found in American painters of either sex. Her genre work is full of life, light, color, and character, with picturesque grouping, faultless atmosphere, and a breadth of technical treatment that verges on audacity, yet never fails of its designed purpose." The fifty pictures exhibited by Miss Van der Veer in Philadelphia, in February, 1904, included interiors, portraits--mostly in pastel--flower studies and sketches, treating Dutch peasant life. Among the most notable of these may be mentioned "The Chimney Corner," "Saturday Morning," "Mother and Child," and a portrait of the artist herself. <b>WALDAU, MARGARETHE.</b> Born in Breslau, 1860. After studying by herself in Munich, this artist became a pupil of Streckfuss in Berlin, and later, in Nuremberg, studied under the younger Graeb and Ritter. The first subject chosen by her for a picture was the "Portal of the Church of the Magdalene." Her taste for architectural motives was strengthened by travel in Russia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. The fine old churches of Nuremberg and the venerable edifices of Breslau afforded her most attractive subjects, which she treated with such distinction that her pictures were sought by kings and princes as well as by appreciative connoisseurs. Her success increased her confidence in herself and enhanced the boldness and freedom with which she handled her brush. An exhibition of her work in Berlin led to her receiving a commission from the Government to paint two pictures for the Paris Exposition, 1900. "Mayence at Sunset" and the "Leipzig Market-Place in Winter" were the result of this order, and are two of her best works. Occasionally this artist has painted genre subjects, but her real success has not been in this direction. 
13395	----	Proofreading Team. [Illustration: (_Photo: E. Druet_) CÉZANNE] SINCE CÉZANNE BY CLIVE BELL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Most of these Essays appeared in THE NEW REPUBLIC and THE ATHENAEUM: some, however, are reprinted from THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, THE NEW STATESMAN, and ART AND DECORATION. I take this opportunity of thanking the editors of all. C.B. CONTENTS I. Since Cézanne II. The Artistic Problem III. The Douanier Rousseau IV. Cézanne V. Renoir VI. Tradition and Movements VII. Matisse and Picasso VIII. The Place of Art in Art Criticism IX. Bonnard X. Duncan Grant XI. Negro Sculpture XII. Order and Authority (1 and 2) XIII. Marquet XIV. Standards XV. Criticism: 1. First thoughts 2. Second thoughts 3. Last thoughts XVI. Othon Friesz XVII. Wilcoxism XVIII. Art and Politics XIX. The Authority of M. Derain XX. "Plus de Jazz" ILLUSTRATIONS _CÉZANNE_ _SEURAT_ _MATISSE_ _PICASSO_ _BONNARD_ _DUNCAN GRANT_ _OTHON FRIESZ_ _DERAIN_ [Illustration: (_Photo: E. Druet_) SEURAT] SINCE CÉZANNE With anyone who concludes that this preliminary essay is merely to justify the rather appetizing title of my book I shall be at no pains to quarrel. If privately I think it does more, publicly I shall not avow it. Historically and critically, I admit, the thing is as slight as a sketch contained in five-and-thirty pages must be, and certainly it adds nothing to what I have said, in the essays to which it stands preface, on æsthetic theory. The function it is meant to perform--no very considerable one perhaps--is to justify not so much the title as the shape of my book, giving, in the process, a rough sketch of the period with certain aspects of which I am to deal. That the shape needs justification is attributable to the fact that though all, or nearly all, the component articles were written with a view to making one volume, I was conscious, while I wrote them, of dealing with two subjects. Sometimes I was discussing current ideas, and questions arising out of a theory of art; at others I was trying to give some account of the leading painters of the contemporary movement. Sometimes I was writing of Theory, sometimes of Practice. By means of this preface I hope to show why, at the moment, these two, far from being distinct, are inseparable. To understand thoroughly the contemporary movement--that movement in every turn and twist of which the influence of Cézanne is traceable--the movement which may be said to have come into existence contemporaneously almost with the century, and still holds the field--it is necessary to know something of the æsthetic theories which agitated it. One of the many unpremeditated effects of Cézanne's life and work was to set artists thinking, and even arguing. His practice challenged so sharply all current notions of what painting should be that a new generation, taking him for master, found itself often, much to its dismay, obliged to ask and answer such questions as "What am I doing?" "Why am I doing it?" Now such questions lead inevitably to an immense query--"What is Art?" The painters began talking, and from words sprang deeds. Thus it comes about that in the sixteen or seventeen years which have elapsed since the influence of Cézanne became paramount theory has played a part which no critic or historian can overlook. It is because to-day that part appears to be dwindling, because the influence of theory is growing less, that the moment is perhaps not inopportune for a little book such as this is meant to be. It comes, if I am right, just when the movement is passing out of its first into the second phase. During this first phase theory has been much to the fore. But it has been theory, you must remember, working on a generation of direct and intensely personal artists. In so curious an alliance you will expect to find as much stress as harmony; also, you must remember, its headquarters were at Paris where flourishes the strongest and most vital tradition of painting extant. In this great tradition some of the more personal artists, struggling against the intolerable exactions of doctrine, have found powerful support; indeed, only with its aid have they succeeded at last in securing their positions as masters who, though not disdaining to pay homage for what they hold from the new theories, are as independent as feudal princes. But the more I consider the period the more this strange and restless alliance of doctrine with temperament appears to be of its essence; wherefore, I shall not hesitate to make of it a light wherewith to take a hasty look about me. Here are two labels ready to hand--"temperamental" and "doctrinaire." I am under no illusion as to the inadequacy and fallibility of both; neither shall I imagine that, once applied, they are bound to stick. On the contrary, you will see, in a later chapter, how, having dubbed Matisse "temperamental" and Picasso "theorist," I come, on examination, to find in the art of Matisse so much science and in that of Picasso such extraordinary sensibility that in the end I am much inclined to pull off the labels and change them about. But though, for purposes of criticism coarse and sometimes treacherous, this pair of opposites--which are really quite compatible--may prove two useful hacks. As such I accept them; and by them borne along I now propose to make a short tour of inspection, one object of which will be to indicate broadly the lie of the land, another to call attention to a number of interesting artists whose names happen not to have come my way in any other part of this book. I said, and I suppose no one will deny it, that Paris was the centre of the movement: from Paris, therefore, I set out. There the movement originated, there it thrives and develops, and there it can best be seen and understood. Ever since the end of the seventeenth century France has taken the lead in the visual arts, and ever since the early part of the nineteenth Paris has been the artistic capital of Europe. Thither painters of all foreign nations have looked; there many have worked, and many more have made a point of showing their works. Anyone, therefore, who makes a habit of visiting Paris, seeing the big exhibitions, and frequenting dealers and studios, can get a pretty complete idea of what is going on in Europe. There he will find Picasso--the animator [A] of the movement--and some of the best of his compatriots, Juan Gris and Marie Blanchard for instance, to say nothing of such fashionable figures as MM. Zuloaga _et_ Sert. There he will find better Dutchmen than Van Dongen, and an active colony of Scandinavians the most interesting of whom is probably Per Krohg. The career of Krohg, by the way, is worth considering for a moment and watching for the future. Finely gifted in many ways, he started work under three crippling disabilities--a literary imagination, natural facility, and inherited science. The results were at first precisely what might have been expected. Now, however, he is getting the upper hand of his unlucky equipment; and his genuine talent and personal taste, beginning to assert themselves, have made it impossible for criticism any longer to treat him merely as an amiable member of a respectable group. What is true of Spain and Scandinavia is even truer of Poland and what remains of Russia. Goncharova and Larionoff--the former a typically temperamental artist, the latter an extravagantly doctrinaire one--Soudeikine, Grigorieff, Zadkine live permanently in Paris; while Kisling, whom I take to be the best of the Poles, has become so completely identified with the country in which he lives, and for which he fought, that he is often taken by English critics for a Frenchman. Survage (with his eccentric but sure sense of colour), Soutine (with his delicious paint), and Marcoussis (a cubist of great merit) each, in his own way, working in Paris, adds to the artistic reputation of his native country. In the rue La Boëtie you can see the work of painters and sculptors from every country in Europe almost, and from a good many in Africa. The Italian Futurists have often made exhibitions there. While the work of Severini--their most creditable representative--is always to be found _chez_ Léonce Rosenberg, hard by in the rue de la Baume. [Footnote A: For this word, which I think very happily suggests Picasso's role in contemporary painting, I am indebted to my friend M. André Salmon.] However, most of the Futurists have retired to their own country, where we will leave them. On the other hand, the most gifted Italian painter who has appeared this century, Modigliani, was bred on the Boulevard Montparnasse. In the movement he occupies an intermediate position, being neither of the pioneers nor yet of the post-war generation. He was not much heard of before the war, [B] and he died less than a year after peace was signed. In my mind, therefore, his name is associated with the war--then, at any rate, was the hour of his glory; he dominated the cosmopolitan groups of his quarter at a time when most of the French painters, masters and disciples, were in the trenches. Modigliani owed something to Cézanne and a great deal to Picasso: he was no doctrinaire: towards the end he became the slave of a formula of his own devising--but that is another matter. Modigliani had an intense but narrow sensibility, his music is all on one string: he had a characteristically Italian gift for drawing beautifully with ease: and I think he had not much else. I feel sure that those who would place him amongst the masters of the movement--Matisse, Picasso, Derain, Bonnard, and Friesz--mistake; for, with all his charm and originality, he was too thoughtless and superficial to achieve greatly. He invented something which he went on repeating; and he could always fascinate simply by his way of handling a brush or a pencil. His pictures, delightful and surprising at first sight, are apt to grow stale and, in the end, some of them, unbearably thin. A minor artist, surely. [Footnote B: He was at work, however, by 1906--perhaps earlier.] Though Paris is unquestionably the centre of the movement, no one who sees only what comes thither and to London--and that is all I see--can have much idea of what is going on in Germany and America. Germany has not yet recommenced sending her art in quantities that make judgement possible, while it is pretty clear that the American art which reaches Europe is by no means the best that America can do. From both come magazines with photographs which excite our curiosity, but on such evidence it would be mere impertinence to form an opinion. Of contemporary art in Germany and America I shall say nothing. And what shall I say of the home-grown article? Having taken Paris for my point of view, I am excused from saying much. Not much of English art is seen from Paris. We have but one living painter whose work is at all well known to the serious amateurs of that city, and he is Sickert. [C] The name, however, of Augustus John is often pronounced, ill--for they _will_ call him Augustin--and that of Steer is occasionally murmured. Through the _salon d'automne_ Roger Fry is becoming known; and there is a good deal of curiosity about the work of Duncan Grant, and some about that of Mark Gertler and Vanessa Bell. Now, of these, Sickert and Steer are essentially, and in no bad sense, provincial masters. They are belated impressionists of considerable merit working in a thoroughly fresh and personal way on the problems of a bygone age. In the remoter parts of Europe as late as the beginning of the seventeenth century were to be found genuine and interesting artists working in the Gothic tradition: the existence of Sickert and Steer made us realize how far from the centre is London still. On the Continent such conservatism would almost certainly be the outcome of stupidity or prejudice; but both Sickert and Steer have still something of their own to say about the world seen through an impressionist temperament. The prodigious reputation enjoyed by Augustus John is another sign of our isolation. His splendid talent when, as a young man, he took it near enough the central warmth to make it expand (besides the influence of Puvis, remember, it underwent that of Picasso) began to bear flowers of delicious promise. Had he kept it there John might never have tasted the sweets of insular renown: he would have had his place in the history of painting, however. The French know enough of Vorticism to know that it is a provincial and utterly insignificant contrivance which has borrowed what it could from Cubism and Futurism and added nothing to either. They like to fancy that the English tradition is that of Gainsborough and Constable, quite failing to realize what havoc has been made of this admirable plastic tradition by that puerile gospel of literary pretentiousness called Pre-Raphaelism. Towards these mournful quags and quicksands, with their dead-sea flora of anecdote and allegory, the best part of the little talent we produce seems irresistibly to be drawn: by these at last it is sucked down. That, at any rate, is the way that most of those English artists who ten or a dozen years ago gave such good promise have gone. Let us hope better of the new generation--recent exhibitions afford some excuse--a generation which, if reactionarily inclined, can always take Steer for a model, or, if disposed to keep abreast of the times and share in the heritage of Cézanne as well as that of Constable, can draw courage from the fact that there is, after all, one English painter--Duncan Grant--who takes honourable rank beside the best of his contemporaries. [Footnote C: The Irish painter O'Conor, and the Canadian Morrice, are both known and respected in Paris; but because they have lived their lives there and known none but French influences they are rarely thought of as British. In a less degree the same might be said of that admirable painter George Barne.] It is fifteen years since Cézanne died, and only now is it becoming possible to criticize him. That shows how overwhelming his influence was. The fact that at last his admirers and disciples, no longer under any spell or distorting sense of loyalty, recognize that there are in painting plenty of things worth doing which he never did is all to the good. It is now possible to criticize him seriously; and when all his insufficiencies have been fairly shown he remains one of the very greatest painters that ever lived. The serious criticism of Cézanne is a landmark in the history of the movement, and still something of a novelty; for, naturally, I reckon the vulgar vituperation with which his work was greeted, and the faint praise with which it was subsequently damned, as no criticism at all. The hacks and pedagogues and middle-class metaphysicians who abused him, and only when it dawned on them that they were making themselves silly, in the eyes of their own flock even, took to patronizing, are forgot. They babble in the Burlington Fine Arts Club--where nobody marks them--and have their reward in professorships and the direction of public galleries. The criticism that matters, of which we are beginning to hear something, comes mostly from painters, his ardent admirers, who realize that Cézanne attempted things which he failed to achieve and deliberately shunned others worth achieving. Also, they realize that there is always a danger of one good custom corrupting the world. Cézanne is the full-stop between impressionism and the contemporary movement. Of course there is really no such thing as a full-stop in art any more than there is in nature. Movement grows out of movement, and every artist is attached to the past by a thousand binders springing from a thousand places in the great stem of tradition. But it is true that there is hardly one modern artist of importance to whom Cézanne is not father or grandfather, and that no other influence is comparable with his. To be sure there is Seurat, of whom we shall hear more in the next ten years. Although he died as long ago as 1891 his importance has not yet been fully realized, his discoveries have not been fully exploited, not yet has his extraordinary genius received adequate recognition. Seurat may be the Giorgione of the movement. Working in isolation and dying young, he is known to us only by a few pictures which reveal unmistakeable and mysterious genius; but I should not be surprised if from the next generation he were to receive honours equal almost to those paid Cézanne. The brave _douanier_ was hardly master enough to have great and enduring influence; nevertheless, the sincerity of his vision and directness of his method reinforced and even added to one part of the lesson taught by Cézanne: also, it was he who--by his pictures, not by doctrine of course--sent the pick of the young generation to look at the primitives. Such as it was, his influence was a genuinely plastic one, which is more, I think, than can be said for that of Gauguin or of Van Gogh. The former seemed wildly exciting for a moment, partly because he flattened out his forms, designed in two dimensions, and painted without chiaroscuro in pure colours, but even more because he had very much the air of a rebel. "Il nous faut les barbares," said André Gide; "il nous faut les barbares," said we all. Well, here was someone who had gone to live with them, and sent home thrilling, and often very beautiful, pictures which could, if one chose, be taken as challenges to European civilization. To a considerable extent the influence of Gauguin was literary, and therefore in the long run negligible. It is a mistake on that account to suppose--as many seem inclined to do--that Gauguin was not a fine painter. Van Gogh was a fine painter, too; but his influence, like that of Gauguin, has proved nugatory--a fact which detracts nothing from the merit of his work. He was fitted by his admirers into current social and political tendencies, and coupled with Charles-Louis Philippe as an apostle of sentimental anarchy. Sentimental portraits of washerwomen and artisans were compared with Marie Donadieu and Bubu de Montparnasse; and by indiscreet enthusiasm the artist was degraded to the level of a preacher. Nor was this degradation inexcusable: Van Gogh was a preacher, and too often his delicious and sensitive works of art are smeared over, to their detriment, with tendencious propaganda. At his best, however, he is a very great impressionist--a neo-impressionist, or expressionist if you like--but I should say an impressionist much influenced and much to the good, as was Gauguin, by acquaintance with Cézanne in his last and most instructive phase. Indeed, it is clear that Gauguin and Van Gogh would not have come near achieving what they did achieve--achieved, mind you, as genuine painters--had they not been amongst the first to realize and make use of that bewildering revelation which is the art of Cézanne. Of that art I am not here to speak; I am concerned only with its influence. Taking the thing at its roughest and simplest, one may say that the influence of Cézanne during the last seventeen years has manifested itself most obviously in two characteristics--Directness and what is called Distortion. Cézanne was direct because he set himself a task which admitted of no adscititious flourishes--the creation of form which should be entirely self-supporting and intrinsically significant, _la possession de la forme_ as his descendants call it now. To this great end all means were good: all that was not a means to this end was superfluous. To achieve it he was prepared to play the oddest tricks with natural forms--to distort. All great artists have distorted; Cézanne was peculiar only in doing so more consciously and thoroughly than most. What is important in his art is, of course, the beauty of his conceptions and his power in pursuit: indifference to verisimilitude is but the outward and visible sign of this inward and spiritual grace. For some, however, though not for most of his followers his distortion had an importance of its own. To the young painters of 1904, or thereabouts, Cézanne came as the liberator: he it was who had freed painting from a mass of conventions which, useful once, had grown old and stiff and were now no more than so many impediments to expression. To most of them his chief importance--as an influence, of course--was that he had removed all unnecessary barriers between what they felt and its realization in form. It was his directness that was thrilling. But to an important minority the distortions and simplifications--the reduction of natural forms to spheres, cylinders, cones, etc.--which Cézanne had used as means were held to be in themselves of consequence because capable of fruitful development. From them it was found possible to deduce a theory of art--a complete æsthetic even. Put on a fresh track by Cézanne's practice, a group of gifted and thoughtful painters began to speculate on the nature of form and its appeal to the æsthetic sense, and not to speculate only, but to materialize their speculations. The greatest of them, Picasso, invented Cubism. If I call these artists who forged themselves a theory of form and used it as a means of expression Doctrinaires it is because to me that name bears no disparaging implication and seems to indicate well enough what I take to be their one common characteristic: if I call those who, without giving outward sign (they may well have had their private speculations and systems) of an abstract theory, appeared to use distortion when, where, and as their immediate sensibility dictated, Fauves, that is because the word has passed into three languages, is admirably colourless--for all its signifying a colour--and implies the existence of a group without specifying a peculiarity. Into Doctrinaires--Theorists if you like the word better--and Fauves the first generation of Cézanne's descendants could, I feel sure, be divided; whether such a division would serve any useful purpose is another matter. What I am sure of is that to have two such labels, to be applied when occasion requires and cancelled without much compunction, will excellently serve mine, which may, or may not, be useful. I would not insist too strongly on the division; certainly at first it was not felt to be sharp. Plenty of Fauves did their whack of theorizing, while some of the theorists are amongst the most sensitive and personal of the age. What I do insist on--because it explains and excuses the character of my book--is that in this age theory has played so prominent a part, hardly one artist of importance quite escaping its influence, that no critic who proposes to give some account of painting since Cézanne can be expected to overlook it: some, to be sure, may be thought to have stared indecently. The division between Fauves and Theorists, I was saying, in the beginning was not sharp; nevertheless, because it was real, already in the first generation of Cézanne's descendants the seeds of two schools were sown. Already by 1910 two tendencies are visibly distinct; but up to 1914, though there is divergence, there is, I think, no antipathy between them--of antipathies between individuals I say nothing. Solidarity was imposed on the young generation by the virulent and not over scrupulous hostility of the old; it was _l'union sacrée_ in face of the enemy. And just as political allies are apt to become fully alive to the divergence of their aims and ambitions only after they have secured their position by victory, so it was not until the new movement had been recognized by all educated people as representative and dominant that the Fauves felt inclined to give vent to their inevitable dislike of Doctrinaires. Taken as a whole, the first fourteen years of the century, which my malicious friend Jean Cocteau sometimes calls _l'époque héroïque_, possessed most of the virtues and vices that such an epoch should possess. It was rich in fine artists; and these artists were finely prolific. It was experimental, and passionate in its experiments. It was admirably disinterested. Partly from the pressure of opposition, partly because the family characteristics of the Cézannides are conspicuous, it acquired a rather deceptive air of homogeneity. It was inclined to accept recruits without scrutinizing over closely their credentials, though it is to be remembered that it kept its critical faculty sufficiently sharp to reject the Futurists while welcoming the Cubists. I cannot deny, however, that in that moment of enthusiasm and loyalty we were rather disposed to find extraordinary merits in commonplace painters. We knew well enough that a feeble and incompetent disciple of Cézanne was just as worthless as a feeble and incompetent disciple of anyone else--but, then, was our particular postulant so feeble after all? Also, we were fond of arguing that the liberating influence of Cézanne had made it possible for a mediocre artist to express a little store of recondite virtue which under another dispensation must have lain hid for ever. I doubt we exaggerated. We were much too kind, I fancy, to a number of perfectly commonplace young people, and said a number of foolish things about them. What was worse, we were unjust to the past. That was inevitable. The intemperate ferocity of the opposition drove us into Protestantism, and Protestantism is unjust always. It made us narrow, unwilling to give credit to outsiders of merit, and grossly indulgent to insiders of little or none. Certainly we appreciated the Orientals, the Primitives, and savage art as they had never been appreciated before; but we underrated the art of the Renaissance and of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Also, because we set great store by our theories and sought their implications everywhere, we claimed kinship with a literary movement with which, in fact, we had nothing in common. Charles-Louis Philippe and the Unanimistes should never have been compared with the descendants of Cézanne. Happily, when it came to dragging in Tolstoyism, and Dostoievskyism even, and making of the movement something moral and political almost, the connection was seen to be ridiculous and was duly cut. The protagonists of the heroic epoch (1904--1914 shall we say?) were Matisse and Picasso. In modern European painting Picasso remains the paramount influence; of modern French, however, Derain is the chief; while Matisse, who may still be the best painter alive, has hardly any influence at all. In these early days Derain, considerably younger than Matisse and less precocious than Picasso, was less conspicuous than either; yet he always held a peculiar and eminent position, with an intellect apt for theoretical conundrums and sensibility to match that of any Fauve and his personal genius brooding over both. About the best known of Matisse's companions--for they were in no sense his disciples--were, I should say, Friesz, Vlaminck, Laprade, Chabaud, Marquet, Manguin, Puy, Delaunay, Rouault, Girieud, Flandrin. I think I am justified in describing all these, with the exception, perhaps, of Girieud and Flandrin, as Fauves; assuredly I have heard them all so described. In very early days Maurice Denis was by some reckoned a chief, the equal almost of Matisse; but through sloppy sentiment he fell into mere futility, and by now has quite dropped out. Friesz, on the other hand, has gone ahead, and is to-day one of the half-dozen leaders: I shall have a good deal to say about him in a later part of this book. Vlaminck a few years ago had the misfortune to learn a recipe for making attractive and sparkling pictures; he is now, I understand, in retirement trying to unlearn it. Rouault is a very interesting artist of whom we see little; from what I have seen I should be inclined to fear that a taste for romance and drama is too often suffered to smother his remarkable gift for painting. Marquet, with gifts equal to almost anything, is content, it seems, to remain a brilliant but superficial impressionist. Puy is a thoroughly sound artist, and so in a smaller way is Manguin. What has become of Chabaud, who was a bit too clever, and a little vulgar even? And what of Delaunay? And of Flandrin--what has become of him? Something sufficiently interesting, at any rate, to give pause even to a critic in a hurry. His name must not go by unmarked. Flandrin was amongst the first to rebel against Impressionism--against that impressionism, I mean, which remained implicit in post-impressionism. Resolutely he set his face against the prevailing habit of expressing an aspect of things, and tried hard to make a picture. So far he has succeeded imperfectly: but he is still trying. Of one artist who is certainly no Doctrinaire, nor yet, I think, a Fauve, but who has been influenced by Cézanne, I shall here do myself the honour of pronouncing the name. Aristide Maillol is so obviously the best sculptor alive that to people familiar with his work there is something comic about those discussions in which are canvassed the claims of Mestrovic and Epstein, Archipenko and Bourdelle. These have their merits; but Maillol is a great artist. He works in the classical tradition, modified by Cézanne, thanks largely to whom, I imagine, he has freed himself from the impressionism--the tiresome agitation and emphasis--of Rodin. He has founded no school; but one pupil of his, Gimon--a very young sculptor--deserves watching. From the doctrine a small but interesting school of sculpture has come: Laurens, an artist of sensibility and some power, and Lipsitz are its most admired representatives. At home we have Epstein and Dobson; both have been through the stern school of abstract construction, and Epstein has emerged the most brilliant _pasticheur_ alive. Brancuzi (a Bohemian) is, I should say, by temperament more Fauve than Doctrinaire. Older than most of Cézanne's descendants, he has nevertheless been profoundly influenced by the master; but the delicacy of his touch, which gives sometimes to his modelling almost the quality of Wei sculpture, he learnt from no one--such things not being taught. Gaudier Brzcska, a young French sculptor of considerable promise, was killed in the early months of the war. He had been living in England, where his work, probably on account of its manifest superiority to most of what was seen near it, gained an exaggerated reputation. The promise was indisputable; but, after seeing the Leicester Gallery exhibition, I came to the conclusion that there was not much else. Indeed, his drawings often betrayed so superficial a facility, such a turn for calligraphic dexterities, that one began to wonder whether even in expecting much one had not been over sanguine. The extravagant reputation enjoyed by Gaudier in this country will perhaps cross the mind of anyone who happens to read my essay on Wilcoxism: native, or even resident, geese look uncommonly like swans on home waters: to see them as they are you should see them abroad. Bonnard and Vuillard, unlike Aristide Maillol, though being sensitive and intelligent artists who make the most of whatever serves their turn they have taken what they wanted from the atmosphere in which they work, are hardly to be counted of Cézanne's descendants. Rather are they children of the great impressionists who, unlike the majority of their surviving brothers and sisters, instead of swallowing the impressionist doctrine whole, just as official painters do the academic, have modified it charmingly to suit their peculiar temperaments. Not having swallowed the poker, they have none of those stiff and static habits which characterize the later generations of their family. They are free and various; and Bonnard is one of the greatest painters alive. Mistakenly, he is supposed to have influenced Duncan Grant; but Duncan Grant, at the time when he was painting pictures which appear to have certain affinities with those of Bonnard, was wholly unacquainted with the work of that master. On the other hand, it does seem possible that Vuillard has influenced another English painter, Miss Ethel Sands: only, in making attributions of influence one cannot be too careful. About direct affiliations especially, as this case shows, one should never be positive. It is as probable that Miss Sands has been influenced by Sickert, who has much in common with Vuillard, as by Vuillard himself; and most probable of all, perhaps, that the three have inherited from a common ancestor something which each has developed and cultivated as seemed to him or her best. _La recherche de la paternité_ was ever an exciting but hazardous pastime: if Bonnard and Vuillard, in their turn, are claimed, as they sometimes are, for descendants of Renoir, with equal propriety Sickert may be claimed for Degas. And it is worth noting, perhaps, as a curious fact, that in the matter of influence this is about as much as at the moment can be claimed for either of these masters. Both Renoir and Degas lived well on into the period of which I am writing; but though both were admired, the former immensely, neither up to the present has had much direct influence on contemporary painting. From 1908--I choose that year to avoid all risk of ante-dating--there existed side by side, and apparently in alliance, with the Fauves a school of theoretical painters. Of Cubism I have said my say elsewhere: if I have some doubts as to whether, as a complete theory of painting, it has a future, I have none that what it has already achieved is remarkable. Also, I recognize its importance as a school of experiments, some of which are sure to bear fruit and leave a mark on history. Of the merits of many of its professors I say nothing, because they are manifest and admitted. Picasso stands apart: he is the inventor and most eminent exponent, yet I refuse to call him Cubist because he is so many other things. Braque, who at present confines himself to abstractions, and to taste and sensibility adds creative power, is to my mind the best of the bunch: while Léger, Gris, Gleizes, and Metzinger are four painters who, if they did not limit themselves to a means of expression which to most people is still perplexing, if not disagreeable, would be universally acclaimed for what they are--four exceptionally inventive artists, each possessing his own peculiar and precious sense of colour and design. But besides these pure doctrinaires there were a good many painters who, without reducing their forms to geometrical abstractions, by modifying them in accordance with Cubist theory gave a new and impressive coherence to their compositions. Of them the best known, in England at all events, is Jean Marchand, whose admirable work has been admired here ever since the Grafton Galleries exhibition of 1912. Lately he has moved away from Cubism, but has not become less doctrinaire for that. Indeed, if I have a fault to find with his grave and masterly art it is that sometimes it is a little wanting in sensibility and inspiration. Marchand is so determined to paint logically and well that he seems a little to forget that in the greatest art there is more than logic and good painting. It is odd to remember that Lhote, who since the war has been saluted by a band of young painters (not French for the most part, I believe) as chief of a new and profoundly doctrinaire school which is to reconcile Cubism with the great tradition, stood at the time of which I am writing pretty much where Marchand stood. His undeniable gifts, which have not failed him since, were then devoted to combining the amusing qualities of the _imagiers_ (popular print-makers) with the new discoveries. The results were consistently pleasing; and I will here confess that, however little I may like some of his later preaching and however little he may like mine, what Lhote produces in paint never fails to arrest me and very seldom to charm. Herbin, who was another of those who about the year 1910 were modifying natural forms in obedience to Cubist theory, has since gone all lengths in the direction of pure abstraction: his art is none the better for it. Valloton, so far as I can remember, was much where Herbin was. Now apparently he aims at the grand tragic; an aim which rarely fails to lead its votaries by way of the grand academic. Perhaps such aspirations can express themselves only in the consecrated formulæ of traditional rhetoric; at all events, the last I saw of Valloton was furiously classical. [D] And for all that he remains, what he was in the beginning, an Illustrator. [Footnote D: His exhibits in the _salon d'automne_ of 1921, however, suggest that he has come off his high horse.] To me these artists all seem to be of the first generation of Cézanne's descendants. About the dates of one or two, however, I may well be mistaken; and so may I be when I suppose half a dozen more of whose existence I became aware rather later--only a year or two before the war, in fact--to be of a slightly later brood. For instance, it must have been at the end of 1912, or the beginning of 1913, that I first heard of Modigliani, Utrillo, Segonzac, Marie Laurencin, Luc-Albert Moreau and Kisling, though doubtless all were known earlier to wide-awake men on the spot. None of them can fairly be described as doctrinaire: by that time an artist with a pronounced taste for abstractions betook himself to Cubism almost as a matter of course. All owe much to Cézanne--Utrillo least; Modigliani and Marie Laurencin owe a good deal to Picasso's blue period; while Luc-Albert Moreau owes something to Segonzac. Of the two first Modigliani is dead and Utrillo so ill that he is unlikely ever to paint again. [E] A strange artist, Utrillo, personal enough, just as Modigliani was handsome enough, to satisfy the exigences of the most romantic melodrama, with a touch of madness and an odd nostalgic passion--expressing itself in an inimitable white--for the dank and dirty whitewash and cheap cast-iron of the Parisian suburbs. Towards the end, when he was already very ill, he began to concoct a formula for dealing with these melancholy scenes which might have been his undoing. His career was of a few years only, but those years were prolific; beginning in a rather old-fashioned, impressionistic style, he soon found his way into the one he has made famous. To judge his art as a whole is difficult: partly because his early productions are not only unequal to, but positively unlike, what he achieved later; partly because many of the Utrillos with which Paris is overstocked were painted by someone else. [Footnote E: With great pleasure I contradict this. According to latest reports Utrillo is so far recovered that before long he may be painting again.] Perhaps the most interesting, though neither the most startling nor seductive, of this batch is Segonzac. Like all the best things in nature, he matures slowly and gets a little riper every day; so, as he is already a thoroughly good painter, like the nigger of Saint-Cyr he has but to continue. Before nature, or rather cultivation, with its chocolate ploughed fields and bright green trees, as before the sumptuous splendours of a naked body, his reaction is manifestly, flatteringly, lyrical. He might have been a bucolic rhapsodist had not his sensibility been well under the control of as sound a head as you would expect to find on the shoulders of a gentleman of Gascony. His emotions are kept severely in their place by rigorous concentration on the art of painting. Nevertheless, there are critics who complain that his compositions still tend to lack organization and his forms definition. And perhaps they do sometimes: only in these, as in other respects, his art improves steadily. [F] [Footnote F: _Salon d'automne_, 1921: It has again made a big stride forward. Segonzac is now amongst the best painters in France.] "Sa peinture a une petite côté vicieuse qui est adorable"--I have heard the phrase so often that I can but repeat it. Marie Laurencin's painting is adorable; we can never like her enough for liking her own femininity so well, and for showing all her charming talent instead of smothering it in an effort to paint like a man; but she is not a great artist--she is not even the best woman painter alive. She is barely as good as Dufy (a contemporary of Picasso unless I mistake, but for many years known rather as a decorator and illustrator than a painter in oils) who, while he confined himself to designing for the upholsterers and making "images," was very good indeed. His oil-paintings are another matter. Dufy has a formula for making pictures; he has a _cliché_ for a tree, a house, a chimney, even for the smoke coming out of a chimney. In this way he can be sure of producing a pretty article, and, what is more, an article the public likes. Very different is the art of Kisling. Rarely does he produce one of those pictures so appetizing that one fancies they must be good to eat. What you will find in his work, besides much good painting, is a serious preoccupation with the problem of externalizing in form an æsthetic experience. And as, after all, that is the proper end of art his work is treated with respect by all the best painters and most understanding critics, though it has not yet scored a popular success. "Kisling ne triche pas," says André Salmon. The war did not kill the movement: none but a fool could have supposed that it would. Nevertheless, it had one ghastly effect on contemporary painting. When I returned to Paris in the autumn of 1919 I found the painters whom I had known before the war developing, more or less normally, and producing work which fell nowise short of what one had come to expect. I saw all that there was to be seen; I admired; and then I asked one who had already, before the war, established a style and a reputation--I asked Friesz, I think--"Et les jeunes?" "Nous sommes les jeunes" was the reply. Those young French painters who should have been emerging from the ruck of students between 1914 and 1919 had either been killed, or deflected from their career, or gravely retarded. Only now is _la jeunesse_ beginning to give signs of vitality; only now is a new crop coming to the surface; so now I will take the foolhardy risk of pronouncing the names of a few who seem to me to have given proof of undeniable talent--Gabriel-Fournier, Favory, Lotiron, Soutine, Corneau, Durey, Monzain, Richard, Guindet, Togores, Gromaire, Alix, Halicka. I must not be taken to assert that all of these are under thirty, or that none was known to discerning amateurs before the war, or in its first years at any rate. Certainly, the work of Gabriel-Fournier, Favory, Soutine, and I think of Corneau, was known to me even, through photographs, before the Armistice was signed. As certainly I think it is true that all are of a later crop than Segonzac, Marie Laurencin, Luc-Albert Moreau, etc., while Monzain, Richard, Togores, Gromaire, Alix, Guindet, and Halicka are very young indeed. So here are a dozen painters--most of them little known at present outside a smallish circle of artists, critics, and inquisitive amateurs--who appear to give promise of excellence: amongst them I should be inclined to look for the masters of a coming age. [G] [Footnote G: Twelve years ago I made a list of young or youngish painters--the men of thirty or thereabouts--from whom it seemed to me reasonable to expect great things. It included such names as Derain, Picasso, Vlaminck, Marchand, Friesz, Maillol, Duncan Grant: one need not be _laudator temporis acti_ to feel that the men of the new generation are on a smaller scale. This merely confirms my often expressed notion that the decade 1875-85 produced a prodigious quantity of greatly gifted babies. On the other hand, if by comparison with the _salon d'automne_ of 1911 that of '2l seems unexciting, we must not fail to do justice to the extraordinarily high level of painting that has now been attained. And this confirms another of my pet theories--that we live in an age comparable (so far as painting goes) with the _quattro cento_. The works of even the smallest artists of that age enchant us now, because in that age any man of any talent could make a picture; but doubtless at the time critics and amateurs sighed for the first thrilling years of the movement--for the discoveries of Masaccio and Donatello--and were quite ready to welcome the novelties of the high renaissance when they came. The world moves faster nowadays; already we look regretfully back to the days when Matisse and Picasso were launching the movement, and another high renaissance may be nearer than we suppose.] To this list I would add, in no spirit of paradox, two names which, at first sight, must appear singularly out of place--Camoin and Guérin. Both were at work before the contemporary movement--the Cézanne movement--was born or, at any rate, launched; both for a long time seemed to be, if anything, opposed to it; both for some years lay dormant in a chrysalis-like state to emerge recently a pair of very interesting painters. The Camoin and the Guérin with whom I am concerned appeared since the war; they may, of course, relapse into their former condition: time will show. Apparently it was only three or four years ago that Camoin realized that Matisse--his contemporary--was the master from whom he could draw that nourishment which one good artist may very legitimately draw from another. So nourished, he seems to have made a fresh start; at any rate his work has now a freshness and vivacity which in his younger days he could never impart. The case of Guérin is odder still. A passionate admirer of Watteau, he would seem to have locked himself up in a rather sterile devotion to the eighteenth century master. One must suppose that there was something dead in his appreciation, something recognized but unfelt, and therefore not really understood. This deadness came through into his work. Lacking genuine inspiration, struggling in consequence to impart life by tricks and conventions, he occasionally allowed himself to tumble into downright vulgarity. Suddenly, and without renouncing any ancient loyalty, he has come to life. It is Watteau that inspires him still; but the essential Watteau--Watteau the painter--not that superficies which is more or less familiar to every hack, be he limner or penman, who dabbles in the eighteenth century. How amusing to fancy that the just admiration now felt for the genius of Watteau by those descendants of Cézanne who formerly misesteemed it has somehow put Guérin himself in the way of becoming intimate with an art he had formerly worshipped at a distance! Though the war did not kill or even cripple the movement, since the war there has been a change, or, at any rate, a change has become apparent. To begin with, Picasso has, in a sense, retired from public life--from the life of the _cafés_ and studios I mean--and in isolation works out those problems that are for ever presenting themselves to his restless brain. The splendid fruit of his solitude we saw last summer _chez_ Paul Rosenberg. From time to time Picasso still paints a Cubist picture--to keep his mind in--but he is hardly to be reckoned a Cubist, and certainly not a pure one. Of that school, which still flourishes (exhibiting at _la Section d'Or_ or rue de la Baume the work of Braque, Gleizes, Léger, Metzinger, Gris, Laurens, Lipsitz, Marcoussis, Henry Hayden, and the brilliant Irène Lagut), Picasso is the inspiration, perhaps, but not the chief. His influence in the western world and on foreign painters in Paris is as great as ever; but the French, slightly vexed, maybe, at having accepted so long the leadership of a Spaniard, show signs of turning back towards their national tradition. So, though Picasso remains the animator of the doctrinaire school or schools, Lhote may become the master. It is the fashion, I know, not to take his influence seriously. No matter how clever a man he may be, Lhote--they say--is not a big enough painter to be a chief. It may be so--I suspect it is--yet we should not forget that, besides being intelligent and capable of drawing more or less plausible inferences from premises of his own choosing, Lhote can point to a practice by no means despicable. For the rest, he is the apostle of logic and discipline, and so finds plenty to approve in the Cubist doctrine and the French tradition from Poussin to David. I do not know whether Bissière is to be ranked amongst his disciples--I should think not--but Bissière, a most attractive artist, is perhaps significant of the new tendency in that he has chosen to express a whimsical temperament in terms of prim science. About the science of picture-making, as the director of the National Gallery calls it, he has little to learn. He knows the masters, the Primitives especially, and has a way, at once logical and fantastic, of playing on their _motifs_ which gives sometimes the happiest results. Bissière is too fanciful and odd ever to be a _chef d'école_ or representative even; but the very fact that, being what he is, he has chosen such means of expression is symptomatic. So the doctrinaire side of the movement persists, animated by Picasso, and schooled to some extent by Lhote. The main current, however, has found another channel; and, unless I mistake, we are already in the second phase of the movement--a phase in which the revelations of Cézanne and Seurat and the elaborations of their immediate descendants will be modified and revitalized by the pressure and spirit of the great tradition. The leader has already been chosen. Derain is the chief of the new French school--a school destined manifestly to be less cosmopolitan than its predecessor. The tendency towards nationalism everywhere is unmistakeable--a consequence of the war, I suppose. It is useless to deplore the fact or exult in it: one can but accept it as one accepts the weather. Even England has not escaped; and it is to be noted that our best painter, Duncan Grant, a descendant of Cézanne who has run the whole gamut of abstract experiment, is settling down, without of course for a moment denying his master, to exploit the French heritage, with feet planted firmly in the English tradition--the tradition of Gainsborough and Constable. In France, where tradition is so much richer, its weight will confine more closely and drive more intensely the new spirit. One new tendency--that which insists more passionately than ever on order and organization--merely continues the impetus given by Cézanne and received by all his followers; but another, more vague, towards something which I had rather call humanism than humanity, does imply, I think, a definite breach with Cubism and the tenets of the austerer doctrinaires. It is not drama or anecdote or sentiment or symbolism that this would bring back to the plastic arts, but rather that mysterious yet recognizable quality in which the art of Raffael excels--a calm, disinterested, and professional concern with the significance of life as revealed directly in form, a faint desire, perhaps, to touch by a picture, a building, or a simple object of use some curious over-tone of our aesthetic sense. Deep in their quest of that borderland beauty which is common to life and art French painters are once again deeply concerned with life: to borrow an idea from my next essay, they have chosen a new artistic problem. To them, however, "life" does not mean what it means to the sentimentalists or melodramatists, nor even precisely what it meant to the Impressionists. Contemporary French painting has no taste for contemporary actualities. By "life" it understands, not what is going on in the street, but--what to be sure does go on there because it goes on everywhere--the thing that poets used to call "the animating spark." About life, in that sense, the painters of the new generation will, I fancy, have something to say. They will come at it, not by drama or anecdote or symbol, but, as all genuine artists have always come at whatever possessed their imaginations, by plastic expression, or--if you like old-fashioned phrases--by creating significant form. They will seek the vital principle in all sorts of objects and translate it into forms of every kind. That humane beauty after which Derain strives is to be found, I said, in Raffael: it is to be found also in the Parthenon. I think this preliminary essay should close, as it began, on a note of humility and with an explanation. Twenty years ago, when I was an undergraduate, I remember reading just after it was published M. Camille Mauclair's little book on the Impressionists. Long ago I ceased much to admire M. Mauclair's writing: his theorizing and pseudo-science now strike me as silly, and his judgements seem lacking in perspicacity. But whatever I may think of it now I shall not forget what I owe that book. Even at Cambridge the spirit of the age, which is said to pervade the air like a pestilence, had infected me; and I set out on my first visit to Paris full of curiosity about what was then the contemporary movement--at its last gasp. My guide was M. Mauclair; his book it was that put me in the right way. For by bringing me acquainted with current theories and reputations, and by throwing me into a fever of expectation, he brought my æsthetic sensibilities to that state in which they reacted swiftly and generously to the pictures themselves. This, as I shall explain in another essay, is, to my mind, the proper function of criticism. I shall never forget my first visits to the Caillebotte collection; and in the unforgettable thrill of those first visits M. Mauclair's bad science and erratic judgement counted for something--much perhaps. They put me into a mood of sympathetic expectation; and such a mood is, even for highly sensitive people, often an indispensable preliminary to æsthetic appreciation. There are those who have got to be made to feel something before they can begin to feel for themselves--believe me, they are not the least sensitive or genuine of amateurs: they are only the most honest. I should like very much to do for even one of them what M. Mauclair did for me. It would be delightful to believe that by putting him in the way of the best modern painting and the theories concerning or connected with it--theories which, it seems, for some make it more intelligible--I was giving his sensibility a serviceable jog. Everyone, I know, must see with his own eyes and feel through his own nerves; none can lend another eyes or emotions: nevertheless, one can point and gesticulate and in so doing excite. If I have done that I am content. Twenty years hence, it is to be presumed, those who now read my writings will be saying of them what I was saying of M. Mauclair's. The prospect does not distress me. I am not author enough to be pained by the certainty that in ten years' time this book will be obsolete. Like M. Mauclair's, it will have served its turn; and I make no doubt there will be someone at hand to write another, the same in purpose, and in execution let us hope rather neater. We all agree now--by "we" I mean intelligent people under sixty--that a work of art is like a rose. A rose is not beautiful because it is like something else. Neither is a work of art. Roses and works of art are beautiful in themselves. Unluckily, the matter does not end there: a rose is the visible result of an infinitude of complicated goings on in the bosom of the earth and in the air above, and similarly a work of art is the product of strange activities in the human mind. In so far as we are mere spectators and connoisseurs we need not bother about these; all we are concerned with is the finished product, the work of art. To produce the best eggs it may be that hens should be fed on hot meal mash. That is a question for the farmer. For us what matters is the quality of the eggs, since it is them and not hot meal mash that we propose to eat for breakfast. Few, however, can take quite so lordly an attitude towards art. We contemplate the object, we experience the appropriate emotion, and then we begin asking "Why?" and "How?" Personally, I am so conscious of these insistent questions that, at the risk of some misunderstanding, I habitually describe works of art as "significant" rather than "beautiful" forms. For works of art, unlike roses, are the creations and expressions of conscious minds. I beg that no theological red herring may here be drawn across the scent. A work of art is an object beautiful, or significant, in itself, nowise dependent for its value on the outside world, capable by itself of provoking in us that emotion which we call æsthetic. Agreed. But men do not create such things unconsciously and without effort, as they breathe in their sleep. On the contrary, for their production are required special energies and a peculiar state of mind. A work of art, like a rose, is the result of a string of causes: and some of us are so vain as to take more interest in the operations of the human mind than in fertilizers and watering-pots. In the pre-natal history of a work of art I seem to detect at any rate three factors--a state of peculiar and intense sensibility, the creative impulse, and the artistic problem. An artist, I imagine, is one who often and easily is thrown into that state of acute and sympathetic agitation which most of us, once or twice in our lives, have had the happiness of experiencing. And have you noticed that many men and most boys, when genuinely in love, find themselves, the moment the object of their emotion is withdrawn, driven by their feelings into scribbling verses? An artist, I imagine, is always falling in love with everything. Always he is being thrown into a "state of mind." The sight of a tree or an omnibus, the screaming of whistles or the whistling of birds, the smell of roast pig, a gesture, a look, any trivial event may provoke a crisis, filling him with an intolerable desire to express himself. The artist cannot embrace the object of his emotion. He does not even wish to. Once, perhaps, that was his desire; if so, like the pointer and the setter, he has converted the barbarous pouncing instinct into the civilized pleasure of tremulous contemplation. Be that as it may, the contemplative moment is short. Simultaneously almost with the emotion arises the longing to express, to create a form that shall match the feeling, that shall commemorate the moment of ecstasy. This moment of passionate apprehension is, unless I mistake, the source of the creative impulse; indeed, the latter seems to follow so promptly on the former that one is often tempted to regard them as a single movement. The next step is longer. The creative impulse is one thing; creation another. If the artist's form is to be the equivalent of an experience, if it is to be significant in fact, every scrap of it has got to be fused and fashioned in the white heat of his emotion. And how is his emotion to be kept at white heat through the long, cold days of formal construction? Emotions seem to grow cold and set like glue. The intense power and energy called forth by the first thrilling vision grow slack for want of incentive. What engine is to generate the heat and make taut the energies by which alone significant form can be created? That is where the artistic problem comes in. The artistic problem is the problem of making a match between an emotional experience and a form that has been conceived but not created. Evidently the conception of some sort of form accompanies, or closely follows, the creative impulse. The artist says, or rather feels, to himself: I should like to express that in words, or in lines and colours, or in notes. But to make anything out of his impulse he will need something more than this vague desire to express or to create. He will need a definite, fully conceived form into which his experience can be made to fit. And this fitting, this matching of his experience with his form, will be his problem. It will serve the double purpose of concentrating his energies and stimulating his intellect. It will be at once a canal and a goad. And his energy and intellect between them will have to keep warm his emotion. Shakespeare kept tense the muscle of his mind and boiling and racing his blood by struggling to confine his turbulent spirit within the trim mould of the sonnet. Pindar, the most passionate of poets, drove and pressed his feelings through the convolutions of the ode. Bach wrote fugues. The master of St. Vitale found an equivalent for his disquieting ecstasies in severely stylistic portraits wrought in an intractable medium. Giotto expressed himself through a series of pictured legends. El Greco seems to have achieved his stupendous designs by labouring to make significant the fustian of theatrical piety. There is apparently nothing that an artist cannot vivify. He can create a work of art out of some riddle in engineering or harmonics, an anecdote, or the frank representation of a natural object. Only, to be satisfactory, the problem must be for him who employs it a goad and a limitation. A goad that calls forth all his energies; a limitation that focuses them on some object far more precise and comprehensible than the expression of a vague sensibility, or, to say the same thing in another way, the creation of indefinite beauty. However much an artist may have felt, he cannot just sit down and express it; he cannot create form in the vague. He must sit down to write a play or a poem, to paint a portrait or a still life. Almost everyone has had his moment of ecstasy, and the creative impulse is not uncommon; but those only who have a pretty strong sense of art understand the necessity for the artistic problem. What is known of it by the public is not much liked; it has a bad name and is reckoned unsympathetic. For the artistic problem, which limits the artist's freedom, fixes his attention on a point, and drives his emotion through narrow tubes, is what imports the conventional element into art. It seems to come between the spontaneous thrill of the artist and the receptive enthusiasm of his public with an air of artificiality. Thus, a generation brought up on Wordsworth could hardly believe in the genuineness of Racine. Our fathers and grandfathers felt, and felt rightly, that art was something that came from and spoke to the depths of the human soul. But how, said they, should deep call to deep in Alexandrines and a pseudo-classical convention, to say nothing of full-bottomed wigs? They forgot to reckon with the artistic problem, and made the mistake that people make who fancy that nothing looking so unlike a Raphael or a Titian as a Matisse or a Picasso can be a work of art. They thought that because the stuff of art comes from the depths of human nature it can be expressed only in terms of naturalism. They did not realize that the creating of an equivalent for an æsthetic experience out of natural speech or the common forms of nature is only one amongst an infinite number of possible problems. There are still ladies who feel sure that had they been in Laura's shoes Petrarch might have experienced something more vivid than what comes through his mellifluous but elaborate _rime_. To them he would have expressed himself otherwise. Possibly: but whatever he experienced could not have become art--significant form--till it had been withdrawn from the world of experience and converted into poetry by some such exacting problem. One problem in itself is as good as another, just as one kind of nib is as good as another, since problems are valuable only as means. That problem is best for any particular artist that serves that particular artist best. The ideal problem will be the one that raises his power most while limiting his fancy least. The incessant recourse of European writers to dramatic form suggests that here is a problem which to them is peculiarly favourable. Its conventions, I suppose, are sufficiently strict to compel the artist to exert himself to the utmost, yet not so strict as to present those appalling technical difficulties--the sort presented by a sestina or a chant royal--that make self-expression impossible to any but a consummate master. The novel, on the other hand, as we are just beginning to suspect, affords for most writers an unsatisfactory, because insufficiently rigorous, problem. Each age has its favourites. Indeed, the history of art is very much the history of the problem. The stuff of art is always the same, and always it must be converted into form before it can become art; it is in their choice of converting-machines that the ages differ conspicuously. Two tasks that painters and writers sometimes set themselves are often mistaken for artistic problems, but are, in fact, nothing of the sort. One is literal representation: the other the supply of genius direct from the cask. To match a realistic form with an æsthetic experience is a problem that has served well many great artists: Chardin and Tolstoi will do as examples. To make a realistic form and match it with nothing is no problem at all. Though to say just what the camera would say is beyond the skill and science of most of us, it is a task that will never raise an artist's temperature above boiling-point. A painter may go into the woods, get his thrill, go home and fetch his panel-box, and proceed to set down in cold blood what he finds before him. No good can come of it, as the gloomy walls of any official exhibition will show. Realistic novels fail for the same reason: with all their gifts, neither Zola, nor Edmond de Goncourt, nor Mr. Arnold Bennett ever produced a work of art. Also, a thorough anarchist will never be an artist, though many artists have believed that they were thorough anarchists. One man cannot pour an æsthetic experience straight into another, leaving out the problem. He cannot exude form: he must set himself to create a particular form. Automatic writing will never be poetry, nor automatic scrabbling design. The artist must submit his creative impulse to the conditions of a problem. Often great artists set their own problems; always they are bound by them. That would be a shallow critic who supposed that Mallarmé wrote down what words he chose in what order he pleased, unbound by any sense of a definite form to be created and a most definite conception to be realized. Mallarmé was as severely bound by his problem as was Racine by his. It was as definite--for all that it was unformulated--as absolute, and as necessary. The same may be said of Picasso in his most abstract works: but not of all his followers, nor of all Mallarmé's either. Was he really a great painter? A new generation is beginning to ask the question that we answered, once and for all as we thought, ten years ago. Yes, of course, the _douanier_ was--a remarkable painter. The man who influenced Derain, and to some extent Picasso, is not likely to have been less. But a great painter? For the present, at any rate, let us avoid great words. In 1903, when first I lived in Paris, Rousseau appeared to be very much "in the movement." That was because by nature he was what thoughtful and highly trained artists were making themselves by an effort: he was direct. To us it seemed, in those days, that a mass of scientific irrelevancies and intellectual complications had come between the artist and his vision, and, again, between the vision and its expression. In a desperately practical and well-organized age, which recognized objects by their labels and never dreamed of going beneath these to discover the things themselves, artists, we thought, were in danger of losing the very stuff of which visual art is made--the direct, emotional reaction to the visible universe. People had grown so familiar with the idea of a cup, with that purely intellectual label "cup," that they never looked at a particular cup and felt its emotional significance. Also, professional painters had provided themselves with a marvellous scientific apparatus for describing "the idea of a cup" in line and colour: they had at their fingers' ends a plastic notation that corresponded with the labels by which things are intellectually recognized. They neither felt things nor expressed their feelings. For even when an artist was capable of a direct, personal reaction it was almost impossible for him not to lose it in the cogs and chains of that elaborate machinery of scientific representation to which he had been apprenticed. A determination to free artists from utilitarian vision and the disastrous science of representation was the theoretic basis of that movement which is associated with the name of Cézanne. From the latter, at any rate, the _douanier_ needed no freeing. Such science as he acquired in the course of his life was a means to expressing himself and not to picture-making. As for his vision, that was as direct and first-hand as the vision of a Primitive or a child; and to a Primitive his admirers were in the habit of likening him, to a child his detractors. His admirers were right: his art is not childish. Primitives, because they are artists, have to grapple with the artistic problem. They have, that is, to create form that will express an emotional conception; they have to express their sense of something they have seen and felt. A child may well have an artistic vision; for all that, a child is never, or hardly ever, an artist. It wrestles with no problem because it does not try to express anything. It is a mere symbolist who uses a notation not to express what it feels but to convey information. A child's drawing of a horse is not an expression of its sense of a horse, but a symbol by which other people can recognize that what occupies a certain position in its figured story is a horse. The child is not an artist, but an illustrator who uses symbolism. When, using Mr. Bertrand Russell's new symbolism, I say that L^c3nI--C^ct = the Almighty, clearly I am not expressing my feeling for infinite and omnipotent goodness. Neither does the child who teases you to look at its charming coloured diagram of the farmyard expect you to share an emotional experience. Doubtless the vanity of the craftsman demands satisfaction; but chiefly the child wishes to assure itself that some impartial judge can interpret its notation. One definitely artistic gift, however, many children do possess, and that is a sense of the decorative possibilities of their medium. This gift they have in common with the Primitives; and this the _douanier_ possessed in an extraordinary degree. Of Rousseau's sense of the decorative possibilities of paint it is, I suppose, unnecessary to say anything. Gauguin called his black "inimitable." But, indeed, we all agree now that, if the term "decorative" is to be used in this limited and rather injurious sense, Rousseau, as a decorator, takes rank with the very greatest. More important is it to realize that Rousseau had his problem; and that he approached it in the spirit of a Primitive. His reactions were as simple and genuine as those of any child; he experienced them with that passion which alone provokes to creation; his problem was to express them sincerely and simply in the medium of which he could make such exquisite use. His vision was as unsophisticated as that of Orcagna, and in translating it he was as conscientious; but he was a smaller artist because he was less of an artist. It has been said that Rousseau came short of greatness for want of science. That I do not believe. Can it be supposed that any man who has applied himself intelligently to any art for forty years will not have acquired science enough to state clearly what is clear, intense, and clamoring for expression in his mind? I see no reason for supposing that Rousseau ever failed from lack of science to express himself completely. The fault was in what he had to express. Rousseau was inferior to the great Primitives because he lacked their taste, or, to put the matter more forcibly, because he was less of an artist. An artist's conception should be like a perfectly cooked pudding--cooked all through and in every part. His problem is to create an expressive form that shall fit exactly an artistic conception. His subject may be what he pleases. But unless that subject has been carried to the high regions of art, and there, in a dry æsthetic atmosphere, sealed up in a purely æsthetic conception it can never be externalized in pure form. That is what the great Primitives did, and what the _douanier_ could not do always. In his pudding there are doughy patches. He is sentimental; and he is not sentimental as Raphael and El Greco are. With a race of genteel, but strangely obtuse, critics it was formerly the fashion to depreciate Raphael and El Greco on the ground that they were sentimental. Sentimental they are, in a sense. Their subjects are sentimental; and the religiosity of some of Greco's is downright disgusting. But of these subjects every scrap has been passed through the blazing furnace of conception and fused into artistic form. It is as though a potter, working with dirty hands, had left a stain burnt by the fire into his gloriously fashioned clay. The blemish is superficial; the form is untouched. With Rousseau it is otherwise: lumps of unfused matter break through his conception and into his design; his pudding is not thoroughly baked. Take that well-known picture of his, _Le Présent et le Passé_, which used to be in the Jastrebzoff collection, and of which photographs are familiar to everyone: the two silly, detached heads in the sky, stuck in for sentiment's sake, are, as the saying goes, "out of the picture" and yet play the devil with it. They injure the design. What is more, in themselves they are as feeble and commonplace as the drawing of a pavement artist, which, in fact, they resemble. They are unfelt, that is the explanation--unfelt æsthetically. They have not been through the oven. They are artistically insincere. Sentimentality makes strange bedfellows. Rousseau has slipped into the very hole wherein Mr. Frank Dixie and Sir Luke Fildes disport themselves; only, by betraying his vice in a picture that is, for the most part, so exquisitely sure in its simple, delicate expression of a frank and charming vision he gives us an impressive example of the danger, even to a good artist, of bad taste. And there is another fault in Rousseau that springs from this lack of complete artistic integrity. He is something plebeian: he suffers a slightly self-complacent good-fellowship to creep into his pictures. Occasionally there grins through his design, and ever so little disfigures it, a touch of fatuity. He cannot help being glad that he is so simple and so good, nor quite resist telling us about it. Look at that portrait of himself--and I impose a most agreeable task, for it is charming--that portrait dated 1890, and belonging also to M. Jastrebzoff; do you not feel that the author is a little too well pleased with himself? Do you not fancy that he will soon be regaling his sitter with a good, round platitude from the exterior boulevards or a morsel from some regimental ditty in which he once excelled, that, in another moment, he will be tapping him on the back, and that he has gone a little out of his way to tell you these things? The Primitives tell us nothing of that sort; they stick to their business of creating significant form. Whatever of their personalities may reach us has passed through the transmuting fires of art: they never prattle. The Primitives are always distinguished; whereas occasionally the _douanier_ is as much the reverse as the more successful painters to the British aristocracy are always. Yet I daresay it was this jovial and unaffected good-fellowship, quite as much as his unquestionable genius, that won the brave _douanier_ his place in the hearts of those brilliant people who frequented what he used to call his "soirées toutes familiales et artistiques." The artists and intellectuals of my generation--the generation that received and went down before the terrific impact of Dostoievskyism--pursued the simple and unsophisticated at least as earnestly as any follower of an earlier Rousseau. Whatever the real differences between a noble savage and an unspoilt artisan may be, the difference between the ideas of them with which a jaded society diverts itself is negligible. "Il nous faut les barbares," said Gide. Well, we have got them. [H] And, maybe, the next generation but one will make as much fuss about a new Matthew Arnold as we made about Marguerite Audoux. [Footnote H: This essay was written a few weeks after the signing of the Armistice.] Meanwhile the _douanier_ came at the right moment. His "soirées toutes familiales et artistiques" were crowded with admirers--Picasso, Delaunay, Duhamel, Guillaume Apollinaire, Jules Romain, Max Jacob, René Arcos, Braque, André Salmon, Soffici, Blanche Albane, Marie Laurencin, elegant and eminent people from North and South America, Russia, Germany, and Scandinavia, to say nothing of his pupils (he professed both painting and music) and "les demoiselles de son quartier." The entertainment consisted, if I may trust an ear-witness, of a little bad music worse played, a little declamation, a glass of wine, and democracy untainted with the least suspicion of snobbery. There was a delicious absence of culture, on the one hand, and of romantic squalor on the other. The whole thing was solidly and sympathetically lower middle-class. The "soirée tant familiale qu'artistique" closed with a performance of the Marseillaise; and the intelligentsia retired to bed feeling that life was full of beauty and significance. [Illustration: MATISSE (_Photo: E. Druet_)] CÉZANNE [I]. [Footnote I: _Paul Cézanne_. Par Ambroise Vollard. (Paris: Crès. 4fr. 75.)] It was the opinion of Degas that "le peintre en général est bête," and most people seem to think that Cézanne was no exception to the rule. Before agreeing, I should want to know what precisely they understood by the word "bête." Cézanne was silly certainly, but he was not stupid: he was limited and absurd, but not dull; his opinions for the most part were conventional, but his intelligence was not common; and his character was as obviously that of a man of genius as the most ardent hero-worshipper could desire. Cézanne was a great character. It is a mistake to suppose that great characters are always agreeable ones. Few people, I imagine, found Cézanne agreeable; yet painters, one would suppose, were eager to meet him that they might hear what he had to say about painting. Cézanne's ideas on painting are not like ideas at all: they are like sensations; they have the force of sensations. They seem to give the sense of what was in his mind by a method more direct than the ordinary intellectual one. His meaning reaches us, not in a series of pellets, but in a block. These sayings of his remind one oddly of his art; and some of his comments on life are hardly less forcible and to the point. This, for instance, provoked by Zola's "L'Oeuvre," is something more than a professional opinion: On ne peut pas exiger d'un homme qui ne sait pas, qu'il dise des choses raisonnables sur l'art de peindre; mais, N. de D---- et Cézanne se mit à taper comme un sourd sur sa table--comment peut-il oser dire qu'un peintre se tue parce qu'il a fait un mauvais tableau? Quand un tableau n'est pas réalisé, on le f... au feu, et on en recommence un autre! _Réalisé_--Cézanne's incessant complaint that "he was unable to realize" has been taken by many stupid people to imply that Cézanne was conscious in himself of some peculiar and slightly humiliating inhibition from which his fellows were free; and even M. Vollard has thought it necessary to be continually apologizing for and explaining away the phrase, which, moreover, he never does explain. Yet the explanation is as simple as can be. Genius of the very highest order never, probably, succeeds in completely realizing its conceptions, because its conceptions are unrealizable. When Cézanne envied M. Bouguereau his power of realization he was perfectly sincere and perfectly sensible. A Bouguereau can realize completely the little nasty things that are in his mind: if a Cézanne, a Shakespeare, or an Æschylus could realize as completely all that was in his the human race would think more of itself than it does. Cézanne's consciousness of the impossibility of realizing completely his conceptions--his consciousness, rather, that he had not completely realized them--made him regard all his pictures as unfinished. Some day, he thought--or liked to believe--he would push them a little further. His habit of destroying his own works, however, had nothing to do with any sense of failure or incapacity. It was simply a manifestation of rage and a means of appeasement. Some people like cups and saucers: Cézanne preferred oil-paintings, and his own were always to hand. A word of commendation for "les professeurs" ("qui n'ont rien dans le ven_._._n_._._tr_._._re--les salauds--les châtrés--les j_._f_._._._s") or the least denigration of Chardin or Delacroix was sure to cost a still-life or a water-colour at any rate. It is surprising that M. Vollard should not have made this more clear, for he certainly understood the genius and character of Cézanne. His book is an amazingly vivid presentment of both; and to have made such a book out of the life of a man whose whole life went into the art of painting is a remarkable feat. For Cézanne poured all his prodigious energy and genius into a funnel that ended in the point of his brush. He was a painter if ever there was one, and he was nothing else; he had no notion of being anything else. There is enough in Paris, one would have supposed, to attract from himself for a moment the attention of the most preoccupied and self-absorbed of men. When Cézanne lived in Paris he rose early, painted as long as there was light to paint by, and went to bed immediately after dinner. The time during which he was not painting he seems to have spent in wondering whether the light would be satisfactory ("gris clair") next day. Cézanne in Paris, like the peasant in the country, spent most of his spare time thinking about the weather. Comme il se couchait de très bonne heure, il lui arrivait de s'éveiller au milieu de la nuit. Hanté par son idée fixe, il ouvrait la fenêtre. Une fois rassuré, avant de regagner son lit il allait, une bougie à la main, revoir l'étude qui était en train. Si l'impression était bonne, il réveillait sa femme pour lui faire partager sa satisfaction. Et pour la dédommager de ce dérangement, il l'invitait à faire une partie de dames. All of Cézanne went into his painting; only now and then a drop escaped that voracious funnel and splashed on to life. It is by collecting and arranging these odd drops and splashes that M. Vollard has managed to construct his lively picture of this extraordinary character. It is because his task must have been so abominably exacting--the task of catching the artist outside his work--that we easily forgive him a few lapses from good sense when he is not talking about his hero. It is annoying, nevertheless, to hear quite so much of the stupid and insensitive people who attacked and insulted Cézanne. M. Vollard never tires of telling us about those who hid their Cézannes or threw them out of window, or sold them for next to nothing and would now give their eyes to get them back; of those who jeered at Cézanne and would not hang his pictures at exhibitions, refusing him that public recognition he was human enough to covet--in a word, of the now discomfited and penitent majority. I had thoughts once of printing a selection from the press-cuttings that reached us at the Grafton Galleries during the first Post-Impressionist exhibition. It would have revealed our leading critics and experts, our professors and directors, our connoisseurs, our more cultivated dealers and our most popular painters vying with each other in heaping abuse and ridicule on the heads of Cézanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. The project is abandoned. That sort of thing I perceive becomes a bore. And I only wish M. Vollard had perceived it when he was writing about Zola. Zola failed to appreciate Cézanne, of course. Zola was an ordinary middle-class man: he was vain, vulgar, petty; he longed for the consideration of people like himself, and was therefore ostentatious; he had a passion for money and notoriety; he wanted to be thought not only clever but good; he preached, he deprecated, he took a moral standpoint and judged by results; and his taste was execrable. We meet people of Zola's sort every day in third-class railway carriages and first, on the tops of omnibuses and in Chelsea drawing-rooms, at the music-hall, at the opera, at classical concerts, and in Bond Street galleries. We take them for granted and are perfectly civil to them. So why, because he happened to have an astonishing gift of statement and rapid generalization, should Zola be treated as though he were a monster? Though Diggle, the billiards champion, care little or nothing for poetry, he may have an excellent heart, as well as a hand far surpassing in dexterity that of our most accomplished portrait-painters. No one dreams of reviling him. Let us be equally just to Zola; let us notice, too, how amusingly he sets off Cézanne. Both were greatly gifted men: neither was the man of intelligence and talent, the brilliant man with the discursive intellect, who carries his gift about with him, takes it out when and where he pleases, and applies it where and how he likes. Zola, when he was not using his gift, posed as an artist, a saint, or simply "a great man"; but he never contrived to be anything but a bourgeois--a "sale bourgeois," according to Cézanne. Cézanne was all gift: seen as anything but a painter he looked like a fool. At Aix he tried to pass for a respectable _rentier_; he found no difficulty in being silly, but he could not achieve the necessary commonplaceness. He could not be vulgar. He was always an artist. Instead of telling us so much about Zola and _tutti quanti_ M. Vollard might have told us more about Cézanne's artistic development. What, for instance, is the history of his relations with Impressionism? The matter is to me far from clear. Cézanne began his artistic life amongst the Impressionists, he was reckoned a disciple of Pissarro; yet it is plain from his early work that he never swallowed much of the doctrine. Gradually he came to think that the Impressionists were on the wrong tack, that their work was flimsy and their theory misleading, that they failed to "realize." He dreamed of combining their delicate vision, their exquisite _sensation_, with a more positive and elaborate statement. He wanted to make of Impressionism "quelque chose de solide et de durable comme l'art des Musées." He succeeded. But at what moment did his dissent become acute, and to what extent was he aware from the first of its existence? Towards the end of his life he took to scolding the Impressionists, but one fancies that he was never very willing that anyone else should abuse them. "Regardez," said he to a young painter who had caught him coming out of church one stormy Sunday morning, as he pointed to a puddle touched by a sudden ray of sunlight, "comment voulez-vous rendre cela? Il faut se méfier, je vous le dis, des Impressionnistes_..._Tout de même, ils voient juste!" The critical moment in Cézanne's life--if in such a life one moment may without impertinence be thought more critical than another--must have come somewhere about 1870. M. Vollard once asked him what he did during the war. "Ecoutez un peu, monsieur Vollard! Pendant la guerre j'ai beaucoup travaillé sur le motif à l'Estaque." M. Vollard is too good a patriot to add that during the war he also went into hiding, having been called up for military service. Cézanne, I am sorry to say, was an _insoumis_--a deserter. He seems to have supposed that he had something more important to do than to get himself killed for his country. It was not only in art that Cézanne gave proof of a surprisingly sure sense of values. Some fulsome journalist, wishing to flatter the old man after he had become famous, represented him hugging a tree and, with tears in his eyes, crying: "Comme je voudrais, celui-là, le transporter sur ma toile!" For a moment Cézanne contemplated the picture in terrified amazement, then exclaimed: "Dites, monsieur Vollard, c'est effrayant, la vie!" Useless to blame the particular imbecile: it was the world in which such things were possible that filled him with dismay. I stretch my hand towards a copy of the _Burlington Magazine_ and come plumb on the following by the present Director of the Tate Gallery: The truth is that the ecstasy of art and good actions are closely interrelated, the one leading to the other in endless succession or possibly even progression. "Dites, monsieur Vollard, c'est effrayant, la vie!" [J] [Footnote J: Since writing these words I learn that the director of the Tate Gallery has been unable to find, in his series of vast rooms, space for two small and fine works by Cézanne. It is some consolation to know that he has found space for more than twenty by Professor Tonks.] RENOIR [K] [Footnote K: _Renoir_. Par Albert André. Crès et Cie.] Renoir is the greatest painter alive. [L] There are admirers of Matisse and admirers of Picasso who will contradict that, though the artists themselves would probably agree. Also, there are admirers of M. Bouguereau and of Sir Marcus Stone, there are Italian Futurists and members of the New English Art Club, with whom one bandies no words. Renoir is the greatest painter alive. [Footnote L: This essay was written in 1919. He died in 1920.] He is over forty: to be exact, he is seventy-seven years old. Yet, in the teeth of modern theories that have at least the air of physiological certainties, one must admit that he is still alive. A comparison between the five-and-thirty photographs reproduced by M. Besson and those at the end of Herr Meier-Graefe's monograph suggests that even since 1910 his art has developed. But what is certain is that, during his last period, since 1900 that is to say, though so crippled by rheumatism that it is with agonizing difficulty he handles a brush, he has produced works that surpass even the masterpieces of his middle age. Renoir was born in 1841, and in '54 bound prentice to a china-painter. A fortunate invention deprived him of this means of livelihood and drove him into oil. He escaped early from the École des Beaux-Arts, and, of course, came under the influence of Courbet. By 1863 he was being duly refused at the Salon and howled at by the respectable mob. He thus made one of the famous _Salon des Refusés_, and has, in consequence, been generally described as an "Impressionist." It is an honour he neither desires nor deserves. The pure doctrine of Impressionism, as formulated by Claude Monet, enjoins "scientific truth" and submission to Nature, whereas Renoir observed one day to an astonished disciple, "Avec la Nature on ne fait rien"; and on being asked where, then, the student should learn his art added, without any apparent sign of shame or sense of sin--"Au musée, parbleu!" Renoir thus affirmed what every artist knows, that art is the creation and not the imitation of form. In his eyes the most valuable part of an artist's education is the intelligent study of what other artists have done. For his own part he studied Courbet and then Delacroix, and, assuredly, from these picked up useful hints for converting sensibility into significant form. Sensibility he never lacked. Renoir's painting gift may, without unpardonable silliness, be compared with the singing gift of Mozart. His conspicuous characteristics are loveliness and ease. No painter, I suppose, gives more delight, or gives it more frankly. That is why his name provokes an odd, personal enthusiasm in thousands of people who have never seen him. That is why Frenchmen, who have sometimes a terribly intimate way of explaining themselves, have been known to assert that they feel for Renoir the sort of grateful affection that every sensitive man feels for a woman who has given him joy. But Renoir's natural masters--parents one would say if a man could have more than two--were Fragonard, Boucher, and Watteau. These, two of whom he has surpassed, with Rubens, whom he almost equals, are responsible for most of what is derivative in his art during his first great period (1870-1881). That this should be the period beloved of amateurs does not surprise me. It is the period of _Mme. Maître_ (1871), _La Loge_ (1874), _Moulin de la Galette_ (1876), and _M. Choquet_--"portrait d'un fou par un fou," Renoir calls it--pictures of ravishing loveliness to set dancing every chord in a spectator of normal sensibility. Also, it is a period that has an extraordinary charm for the literary connoisseur. It throws glamour over the "seventies," and, for that matter, on to the "eighties." Here are the characters of Flaubert and Maupassant as we should wish them to be. That _déjeuner_ by the Seine was probably organized by the resourceful Jean de Servigny, and there, sure enough, is Yvette with a fringe. The purest of painters becomes historical by accident. He expresses the unalloyed sensibility of an artist in terms of delicious contemporary life and gives us, adventitiously, romance. A fascinating period, but not the great one. Towards the end of 1881 Renoir set out on a tour in Italy, and, as if to show how little he was affected by what he found there, painted at Naples a large and important _Baigneuse_ (now in the Durand-Ruel collection) in which I can discover not the slightest trace of Italian influence. He is too thorough a Frenchman to be much of anything else. The emphatic statement and counter-statement of the great Primitives is not in his way. He prefers to insinuate. Even in his most glorious moments he is discreet and tactful, fonder of a transition than an opposition, never passionate. The new thing that came into his art about this time, and was to affect it for the next twenty years, was not Italy but Ingres. The influence was at first an unhappy one. During three or four years, unable, it seems, to match the new conception of form with his intensely personal reaction, Renoir produced a certain number of unconvincing and uncharacteristic pictures (_e.g._, the dance series, _Dance à la Ville_, etc.). There is an uneasy harshness about the contours, the forms are imperfectly felt, they are wooden even, and in their placing one misses the old inevitability. Signed with another name these essays might by a dashing critic be called doctrinaire. Then in 1885 came the first _Baigneuses_ (collection J.E. Blanche), whereby Renoir put himself a good head above all contemporaries save Cézanne. If this picture were hung in a public gallery, and the numerous drawings made for it ranged alongside, how finely discredited would be those knowing ones who, in their desire to emphasize the difference between form and that of which form is composed, are in the habit of calling Renoir a great colourist and then pausing impressively. I suppose it is because he rarely uses a lead pencil that the wiseacres are able to fulfil their destiny. Drawing in charcoal or pastel need not be taken seriously; while drawing with the brush is apparently not drawing at all. That Renoir is a great draughtsman may be inferred from almost everything he has ever done. But (though that amazing _Boy with a Cat_ was achieved as early as 1868) it is the work of this period--and _Les Baigneuses_, with its attendant studies, are capital examples--that makes patent his mastery and entitles him obviously to a place between Ingres and Daumier. That it should be difficult to find a date for the beginning of Renoir's last period does not much trouble me; but I am sorry that it is quite impossible to indicate in words its character. One can say confidently that the new conception was being elaborated between 1895 and 1900; one can suppose that its final character was to some extent imposed on the master by his growing infirmities. A painter who can hardly move arm or fingers will neither sweep nor wiggle. He must paint, if he is to paint at all, in blobs and smears and patches and soft strokes; and it is out of these that Renoir's latest works are built up. "Built up"--the expression is absurd. Rather, it is as though forms had been melted down to their component colours, and the pool of iridescent loveliness thus created fixed by a touch of the master's magic--lightly frozen over by an enchanting frost. Only ice is cold. At any rate, what happens to the spectator is that first he perceives a tangle of rather hot and apparently inharmonious tones; gradually he becomes aware of a subtle, astonishing, and unlooked-for harmony; finally, from this harmony emerge completely realized and exquisitely related forms. After which, if he has any sense of art, he remains spellbound and uncritical, and ceases to bother about how the thing was done. That, at least, is my impression of Renoir's latest style. Examples of it abound in Paris, notably M. Maurice Gangnat's collection; and it is said that the artist intends these pictures to improve by keeping. In his pleasant, well-written introduction M. Albert André gives a portrait of Renoir that is almost too good to be true: we are encouraged to believe just what we should like to believe. It is incredibly sympathetic. Yet it is very much what we might have guessed from the pictures had we dared. And, indeed, we did dare--some of us; for, besides its purely æsthetic character, its French taste and tact, the art of Renoir has over-tones to which the literary and historical intelligence cannot choose but listen. An intimate eulogy of France by a most lovable Frenchman is what, in our lazy moods, we allow these pictures to give us. They do it charmingly. For instance, though I never saw a Renoir that could justify a district visitor in showing more of her teeth than nature had already discovered, here, unmistakably, are Parisians enjoying themselves in their own Parisian way. Here is the France of the young man's fancy and the old man's envious dreams. Here, if you please, you may smell again that friture that ate so well, one Sunday at Argenteuil, twenty years ago, in the company of a young poet who must have had genius and two models who were certainly divine. And that group with the fat, young mother suckling her baby--there is all French frankness and French tenderness and family feeling without a trace of its wonted grimness and insincerity. Renoir is as French as French can be, and he knows it: Lorsque je regarde les maîtres anciens je me fais l'effet d'un bien petit bonhomme, et pourtant je crois que de tous mes ouvrages il restera assez pour m'assurer une place dans l'école française, cette école que j'aime tant, qui est si gentille, si claire, de si bonne compagnie... Et pas tapageuse. Renoir will have his place in that school, but another niche has been prepared for him amongst an even grander company. When, in 1917, _Les Parapluies_ (a beautiful but not very characteristic work) was placed in the National Gallery some hundred English artists and amateurs seized the opportunity of sending the master a testimony of their admiration which, rather to their surprise and to their intense joy, apparently gave pleasure. In this they said: Dès l'instant où votre tableau s'est trouvé installé parmi les chefs-d'oeuvre des maîtres anciens, nous avons eu la joie de constater qu'un de nos contemporains avait pris place d'emblée parmi les grands maîtres de la tradition européenne. They said not a word too much. TRADITION & MOVEMENTS Much to its embarrassment, the National Gallery finds itself possessed of that superb picture _Les Parapluies_; and as the director at last feels obliged to exhume those masterpieces which, for so many happy months, he and his colleagues have had, albeit in the dark, to themselves, we can now see Renoir amongst his peers. He is perfectly at home there. Renoir takes his place quite simply in the great tradition; and when Cézanne, who is still too cheap to be within the reach of a national collection, has attained a price that guarantees respectability he, too, will be seen to fit neatly into that tradition of which he is as much a part as Ingres or Poussin, Raphael or Piero della Francesca. That Cézanne was a master, just as Poussin and Piero were, and that he, like them, is part of the tradition, is what all sensitive people know and the wiser keep to themselves. For by stating the plain fact that Renoir, Cézanne, and, for that matter, Matisse are all in the great tradition of painting one seems to suggest that the tradition is something altogether different from what most people would wish it to be. If one is right it follows that it is not simply the counter-movement to the contemporary movement; indeed, it follows that it is not a movement at all. This is intolerable. An artist, seen as the protagonist of a movement, the exponent of a theory, and the clue to an age, has a certain interest for all active-minded people; whereas, seen merely as an artist, which is how he must be seen if he is to be seen in the tradition, he is of interest only to those who care for art. The significant characteristics of an artist, considered as the representative of a movement, are those in which he differs most from other artists; set him in the traditions and his one important characteristic is the one he shares with all--his being an artist. In the tradition a work of art loses its value as a means. We must contemplate it as an end--as a direct means to æsthetic emotion rather--or let it be. Tradition, in fact, has to do with art alone; while with movements can be mixed up history, archæology, philosophy, politics, geography, fashions, religion, and crime. So, by insisting on the fact that Matisse, Cézanne, Poussin, Piero, and Giotto are all in the tradition we insist on the fact that they are all artists. We rob them of their amusing but adscititious qualities; we make them utterly uninteresting to precisely 99.99 per cent. of our fellow-creatures; and ourselves we make unpopular. The tradition of art begins with the first artist that ever lived, and will end with the last. Always it is being enriched or modified--never is it exhausted. The earliest artists are driven to creation by an irresistible desire to express themselves. Their over-bubbling minds supply abundance of matter; difficulties begin when they try to express it. Then it is they find themselves confronted by those terrible limitations of the human mind, and by other limitations, only less terrible, imposed by the medium in which they work. Every genuine artist--every artist, that is, with something of his own to say--is faced afresh by the problem, and must solve it for himself. Nevertheless, each one who succeeds in creating an appropriate form for his peculiar experience leaves in that form a record, and from the sum of these records is deduced something, less definite far than a code, by no means a pattern or recipe, which is yet a sign and a source of half-conscious suggestion to those that follow. No artist can escape the tradition of art except by refusing to grapple with the problem; which is how most do escape it. The academic humbug uses the old language to say nothing, the bombastic charlatan devises a new one for the same purpose; but once a man has something to express, and the passion to express it, he will find himself attacking the eternal problem and leaning on the inevitable tradition. Let anyone who doubts this mention quickly the name of some artist who owes nothing to his predecessors. Often, however, owing either to some change in circumstances or to his innate peculiarity, a man of uncommon force and imagination will find himself with something to say for which the traditional instrument is, or at first seems to be, inadequate. What shall he do? Why, what Giotto did, what Masaccio did, what Ronsard and the poets of the Pléiade did, what Wordsworth did, and what Cézanne has done. All these great artists struck new veins, and to work them were obliged to overhaul the tool-chest. Of the traditional instruments some they reshaped and resharpened, some they twisted out of recognition, a few they discarded, many they retained. Above all, they travelled back along the tradition, tapping it and drawing inspiration from it, nearer to its source. Very rarely does the pioneer himself work out his seam: he leaves it to successors along with his technical discoveries. These they develop, themselves making experiments as they go forward, till of the heritage to which they succeeded they have left nothing--nothing but a fashion to be flouted by the next great original genius who shall rise. Such is the shape of a movement. A master, whose sole business it is to express himself, founds it incidentally, just as incidentally he enriches the tradition from which he borrows; successors exploit it; pious great-grand-nephews mummify and adore it. Movements are nothing but the stuff of which tradition is made. At any given moment tradition ends in the contemporary movement; the capital works of any age are almost sure to be capital examples of that movement; but a hundred years later, when these are clear-set in the tradition, the movement will have become dust and ashes--the daily bread of historians and archæologists. Though lecturers still hold up the Renaissance as an example of the happy and stagnant state of the arts in a golden age when rebels were unknown, their pupils are aware that Giotto, the father of Renaissance painting, broke with the _maniera greca_ at least as sharply as Cézanne did with the nineteenth-century convention; that in the art of the fifteenth century we have a revolt against Giottesque which must grievously have wounded many pious souls; and that Raphael himself stood, in his day, for a new movement. But distance gives a sense of proportion. We see the art of the Italian Renaissance whole, growing out of Byzantine and into French. The continuity is patent; and, what is much to my purpose, it is Giotto and his successors rather than the artists of the Palaeologie who seem to us to carry on the Byzantine tradition, while the heirs of the Renaissance are not Salvator Rosa and Carlo Dolci, but Claude and Poussin. The great artists stand out and join hands: the contests that clashed around them, the little men that aped them, the littler that abused, have fallen into one ruin. The odd thing is that, as often as not, the big men themselves have believed that it was the tradition, and not the stupid insensibility of their fellows, that thwarted them. They have made the mistake their enemies made infallibly: they have taken a dead movement for a live tradition. For movements die; that is one of the respects in which they differ most significantly from the tradition. The movement is a vein which is worked out; the tradition a live thing that changes, grows, and persists. The artist with a new vision comes on the tradition at its near end, and finds its implements lying in a heap mixed with the fashions of the moribund movement. He chooses; he changes; what happens next will depend a good deal on the state of public opinion. Should the artist have the luck to be born in a sensitive age and an intelligent country his innovations may be accepted without undue hubbub. In that case he will realize that artists can no more dispense with the tradition than tradition can exist without artists, and will probably come to feel an almost exaggerated reverence for the monuments of the past. But should the public be dull and brutish, and hardening the dust of dead movements into what it is pleased to call "tradition," pelt with that word the thing which above all others is to dull brutes disquieting--I mean passionate conviction--the artist, finding himself assailed in the name of tradition, will probably reply, "Damn the tradition." He will protest. And, for an artist, to become a protestant is even worse than using bad language. Only in France, so far as I know, are the men who are working out the heritage of Cézanne allowed to be artists and expected to be nothing more. Elsewhere, the public by its uncritical attitude seems to encourage them to pose as supermen or to become rebels. Assuredly I am not advocating that slightly fatuous open-mindedness which led some Germans to seize on the movement before it was well grown and deal with it as they have dealt with so many others, collecting its artists as though they were beetles, bottling them, setting them, cataloguing them, making no mistake about them, and arranging them neatly in museums for the dust to settle on. Organized alertness of that sort is only less depressing than the smartness of those Italians who pounced so promptly on the journalistic possibilities of the movement as a means of self-advertisement. All I ask for in the public is a little more intelligence and sensibility, and a more critical attitude. Surely, by now, it should be impossible to hear what I heard only the other day--Mr. Charles Shannon being extolled, to humiliate some enterprising student, as a "traditional artist." Why, it would be as sensible to call the man who makes nest-eggs a traditional Buff Orpington! And ought it still to be possible for a cultivated dealer, because I had refused to admire a stale old crust by some young New English painter, who, to be in the movement, had misshaped a few conventionally drawn objects and put black lines round others--for a dealer, I say, who dabbles in culture to exclaim indignantly, as one did to me not long ago, "I can't think why you don't like it: it's Post-Impressionist, isn't it?" If we cannot lose this habit of calling artists names, at least let us know exactly what we mean by them. By associating artists with movements and counter-movements we encourage the superstition that in art there is some important distinction besides the distinction between good art and bad. There is not. Such distinctions as can be drawn between the genuine artists of one age and another, between traditional artists and eccentrics, though serviceable to historians and archæologists, are pitfalls for critics and amateurs. To him who can help us better to appreciate works of art let us be duly grateful: to him who, from their extraneous qualities, can deduce amusing theories or pleasant fancies we will listen when we have time: but to him who would persuade us that their value can in any way depend on some non-æsthetic quality we must be positively rude. Now, if we are to get rid of those misleading labels from which works of art are supposed to derive a value over and above their æsthetic value, the first to go should be those arch-deceivers, "traditional" and "revolutionary." Let us understand that tradition is nothing but the essence, congealed and preserved for us by the masters in their works, of innumerable movements; and that movements are mere phases of the tradition from which they spring and in which they are swallowed up. We shall then be armed, on the one hand, against the solemn bore who requires us to admire his imitation of an old master because it is in the tradition; on the other, against the portentous "Ist," whose parthenogenetic masterpiece we are not in a state to relish till we have sucked down the pseudo-philosophic bolus that embodies his eponymous "Ism." To each we shall make the same reply: "Be so good as to remove your irrelevant label and we will endeavour to judge your work on its merits." [Illustration: PICASSO (_Collection Paul Rosenberg_)] The names go together, as do those of Shelley and Keats or Fortnum and Mason. Even to people who seldom or never look seriously at a picture they have stood, these ten years, as symbols of modernity. They are pre-eminent; and for this there is reason. Matisse and Picasso are the two immediate heirs to Cézanne. They are in the direct line; and through one of them a great part of the younger generation comes at its share of the patrimony. To their contemporaries they owe nothing: they came into the legacy and had to make what they could of it. They are the elder brothers of the movement, a fact which the movement occasionally resents by treating them as though they were its elder sisters. Even to each other they owe nothing. Matisse, to be sure, swept for one moment out of his course by the overwhelming significance of Picasso's early abstract work, himself made a move in that direction. But this adventure he quickly, and wisely, abandoned; the problems of Cubism could have helped him nothing to materialize his peculiar sensibility. And this sensibility--this peculiar emotional reaction to what he sees--is his great gift. No one ever felt for the visible universe just what Matisse feels; or, if one did, he could not create an equivalent. Because, in addition to this magic power of creation, Matisse has been blest with extraordinary sensibility both of reaction and touch, he is a great artist; because he trusts to it entirely he is not what for a moment apparently he wished to be--a _chef d'école_. Picasso, on the other hand, who never tried to be anything of the sort, is the paramount influence in modern painting--subject, of course, to the supreme influence of Cézanne. All the world over are students and young painters to whom his mere name is thrilling; to whom Picasso is the liberator. His influence is ubiquitous: even in England it is immense. Not only those who, for all their denials--denials that spring rather from ignorance than bad faith--owe almost all they have to the inventor of Cubism, but artists who float so far out of the main stream as the Spensers and the Nashes, Mr. Lamb and Mr. John, would all have painted differently had Picasso never existed. Picasso is a born _chef d'école_. His is one of the most inventive minds in Europe. Invention is as clearly his supreme gift as sensibility is that of Matisse. His career has been a series of discoveries, each of which he has rapidly developed. A highly original and extremely happy conception enters his head, suggested, probably, by some odd thing he has seen. Forthwith he sets himself to analyze it and disentangle those principles that account for its peculiar happiness. He proceeds by experiment, applying his hypothesis in the most unlikely places. The significant elements of negro sculpture are found to repeat their success in the drawing of a lemon. Before long he has established what looks like an infallible method for producing an effect of which, a few months earlier, no one had so much as dreamed. This is one reason why Picasso is a born _chef d'école_. And this is why of each new phase in his art the earlier examples are apt to be the more vital and well-nourished. At the end he is approaching that formula towards which his intellectual effort tends inevitably. It is time for a new discovery. Meanwhile a pack of hungry followers has been eyeing the young master as he made clearer and ever clearer the nature of his last. To this pack he throws hint after hint. And still the wolves pursue. You see them in knots and clusters all along the road he has travelled, gnawing, tugging at some unpicked idea. Worry! worry! worry! Here is a crowd of old laggards still lingering and snuffling over "the blue period." A vaster concourse is scattered about the spot where the nigger's head fell, and of these the strongest have carried off scraps for themselves, which they assimilate at leisure, lying apart; while round the trunk of Cubism is a veritable sea of swaying, struggling, ravenous creatures. The howling is terrific. But Picasso himself is already far away elaborating an idea that came to him one day as he contemplated a drawing by Ingres. And, besides being extraordinarily inventive, Picasso is what they call "an intellectual artist." Those who suppose that an intellectual artist is one who spends his time on his head mistake. Milton and Mantegna were intellectual artists: it may be doubted whether Caravaggio and Rostand were artists at all. An intellectual artist is one who feels first--a peculiar state of emotion being the point of departure for all works of art--and goes on to think. Obviously Picasso has a passionate sense of the significance of form; also, he can stand away from his passion and consider it; apparently in this detached mood it is that he works. In art the motive power is heat always; some drive their engines by means of boiling emotion, others by the incandescence of intellectual passion. These go forward by intense concentration on the problem; those swing with breathless precision from feeling to feeling. Sophocles, Masaccio, and Bach are intellectuals in this sense, while Shakespeare, Correggio, and Mozart trust their sensibility almost as a bird trusts its instinct. It never entered the head of a swallow to criticize its own methods; and if Mozart could not write a tune wrong, that was not because he had first tested his idea at every point, but because he was Mozart. Yet no one ever thought of going to a swallow for lessons in aviation; or, rather, Dædalus did, and we all know what came of it. That is my point. I do not presume to judge between one method of creation and another; I shall not judge between Matisse and Picasso; but I do say that, as a rule, it is the intellectual artist who becomes, in spite of himself, schoolmaster to the rest. And there is a reason for this. By expressing themselves intellectual artists appeal to us æsthetically; but, in addition, by making, or seeming to make, some statement about the nature of the artistic problem they set us thinking. We feel sure they have something to say about the very stuff of art which we, clumsily enough, can grasp intellectually. With purely æsthetic qualities the intellect can do nothing: but here, it seems, is something the brain can get hold of. Therefore we study them and they become our leaders; which does not make them our greatest artists. Matisse may yet be a better painter than Picasso. Be that as it may, from Matisse there is little or nothing to be learned, since Matisse relies on his peculiar sensibility to bring him through. If you want to paint like him, feel what he feels, conduct it to the tips of your fingers, thence on to your canvas, and there you are. The counsel is not encouraging. These airy creatures try us too high. Indeed, it sometimes strikes me that even to appreciate them you must have a touch of their sensibility. A critic who is apt to be sensible was complaining the other day that Matisse had only one instrument in his orchestra. There are orchestras in which fifty instruments sound as one. Only it takes a musician to appreciate them. Also, one hears the others talking about "the pretty, tinkley stuff" of Mozart. Those who call the art of Matisse slight must either be insensitive or know little of it. Certainly Matisse is capable of recording, with an exquisite gesture and not much more, just the smell of something that looked as though it would be good to eat. These are notes. Notes are often slight--I make the critics a present of that. Also of this: it takes a more intense effort of the creative imagination to leave out what Tchehov leaves out of his short stories than to say what Meredith put into his long ones. In the Plutarchian method there was ever a snare, and I have come near treading in it. The difference between Matisse and Picasso is not to be stated in those sharp antitheses that every journalist loves. Nothing could be more obtuse than to represent one as all feeling and the other all thought. The art of Picasso, as a matter of fact, is perhaps more personal even than that of Matisse, just because his sensibility is perhaps even more curious. Look at a Cubist picture by him amongst other Cubists. Here, if anywhere, amongst these abstractions you would have supposed that there was small room for idiosyncrasy. Yet at M. Léonce Rosenberg's gallery no amateur fails to spot the Picassos. His choice of colours, the appropriateness of his most astonishing audacities, the disconcerting yet delightful perfection of his taste, the unlooked-for yet positive beauty of his harmonies make Picasso one of the most personal artists alive. And if Picasso is anything but a dry doctrinaire, Matisse is no singing bird with one little jet of spontaneous melody. I wish his sculpture were better known in England, for it disposes finely of the ridiculous notion that Matisse is a temperament without a head. Amongst his bronze and plaster figures you will find sometimes a series consisting of several versions of the same subject, in which the original superabundant conception has been reduced to bare essentials by a process which implies the severest intellectual effort. Nothing that Matisse has done gives a stronger sense of his genius, and, at the same time, makes one so sharply aware of a brilliant intelligence and of erudition even. Amongst the hundred differences between Matisse and Picasso perhaps, after all, there is but one on which a critic can usefully insist. Even about that he can say little that is definite. Only, it does appear to be true that whereas Matisse is a pure artist, Picasso is an artist and something more--an involuntary preacher if you like. Neither, of course, falls into the habit of puffing out his pictures with literary stuff, though Picasso has, on occasions, allowed to filter into his art a, to me, most distasteful dash of sentimentality. That is not the point, however. The point is that whereas both create without commenting on life, Picasso, by some inexplicable quality in his statement, does unmistakably comment on art. That is why he, and not Matisse, is master of the modern movement. THE PLACE OF ART IN ART CRITICISM The knowing ones--those, I mean, who are always invited to music after tea, and often to supper after the ballet--seem now to agree that in art significant form is the thing. You are not to suppose that, in saying this, I am trying to make out that all these distinguished, or soon to be distinguished, people have been reading my book. On the contrary, I have the solidest grounds for believing that very few of them have done that; and those that have treat me no better than they treated Hegel. For, just as an Hegelian is not so much a follower of that philosopher as an expounder, one who has an interpretation of his own, and can tell you what Hegel would have said if Hegel had been endowed by The Absolute with the power of saying anything, so of those admirable people who agree, for the moment, that significant form is what matters, no two are quite agreed as to what significant form is. Only as to what it is not is there complete unanimity; though there is a tendency to come together on one or two positive points. It is years since I met anyone, careful of his reputation, so bold as to deny that the literary and anecdotic content of a work of visual art, however charming and lively it might be, was mere surplusage. The significance of a picture, according to the _cognoscenti_, must be implicit in its forms; its essential quality is something which appeals directly to the sensibility of any sensitive person; and any reference to life, to be of consequence, must be a reference to that fundamental experience which is the common heritage of mankind. Thus, those who cannot bring themselves to accept the more austere definition of the term are willing to recognize as significant certain qualities which are not purely formal. They will recognize, for instance, the tragedy of Michael Angelo, the gaiety of Fra Angelico, the lyricism of Correggio, the gravity of Poussin, and the romance of Giorgione. They recognize them as pertaining, not to the subjects chosen, but to the mind and character of the artist. Such manifestations in line and colour of personality they admit as relevant; but they are quite clear that the gossip of Frith and the touching prattle of Sir Luke Fildes are nothing to the purpose. And so we get a school of lenient criticism which takes account of an appeal to life, provided that appeal be to universal experience and be made by purely æsthetic means. According to this theory we can be moved æsthetically by references to universal experience implicit in certain arrangements of line and colour, always provided that such references are expressions of the artist's peculiar emotion, and not mere comments on life and history or statements of fact or opinion. These by everyone are deemed unessential. No one seriously pretends that in a picture by a Primitive of some obscure incident in the life of a minor saint there is anything of true æsthetic import which, escaping the subtlest and most sensitive artist, is revealed to the expert hagiographer: neither does anyone still believe that to appreciate Sung painting one must make oneself familiar with the later developments of Buddhist metaphysics as modified by Taoist mysticism. Such is the prevailing critical theory. What of critical practice? It seems to me that even our best come something short of their professions; and when I confess that I am going to pick a quarrel with such fine exponents of their craft as the critics of _The Times_ and the _Nation_ readers will guess that for once I mean to take my confrères seriously. Lately we have seen a hot dispute in which, unless I mistake, both these gentlemen took a hand, raging round a figure of Christ by Mr. Epstein. For me the only interesting fact that emerged from this controversy was that, apparently, most of the disputants had not so much as heard of the greatest living sculptor--I mean Maillol, of course. Certainly, with the art of Maillol clearly in his mind, it is inconceivable that one so discriminating as the critic of the _Nation_ should have said, as I think he did say, that Mr. Epstein now stands for European sculpture as Rodin stood before him. Not only is Maillol quite obviously superior to Mr. Epstein; in the opinion of many he is a better artist than Rodin. But it was not around such questions as these, vexatious, no doubt, but pertinent, that controversy raged. The questions that eminent critics, writers, and dignitaries of divers churches discussed in public, while colonels, Socialists, and cultivated theosophical ladies wrangled over them at home, were: "Has Mr. Epstein done justice to the character of Christ?" and, "What was His character?" Was Christ intelligent or was He something nobler, and what has Mr. Epstein to say about it? Was He disdainful or was He sympathetic? Was He like Mr. Bertrand Russell or more like Mr. Gladstone? And did Mr. Epstein see Him with the eyes of one who knew what for ages Christ had meant to Europe, or with those of a Jew of the first century? Questions such as these--I will not swear to any particular one of them--were what the critics threw into the arena, and no one much blames the parsons and publicists for playing football with them. But the critics must have known that such questions were utterly irrelevant; that it mattered not a straw whether this statue, considered as a work of art, represented Jesus Christ or John Smith. This the critics knew: they knew that the appeal of a work of art is essentially permanent and universal, and they knew that hardly one word in their controversy could have meant anything to the most sensitive Chinaman alive, unless he happened to be familiar with the Christian tradition and Christian ethics. If there be no more in Mr. Epstein's figure than what the critics talked about, then, should the Christian religion ever become obsolete and half-forgotten, Mr. Epstein's figure will become quite insignificant. Most of us know next to nothing about Buddhism and Totemism, and only a little about Greek myths and Byzantine theology, yet works of art historically associated with these remain, by reason of their permanent and universal, that is to say their purely æsthetic, qualities, as moving and intelligible as on the day they left their makers' hands. About Mr. Epstein's sculpture the important thing to discover is whether, and in what degree, it possesses these permanent and universal qualities. But on that subject the critics are dumb. An instructive parallel in literary journalism occurs to me. I have noticed lately a tendency in the intellectual underworld--for here I take leave of first-class criticism--to belittle Ibsen, with the object, apparently, of magnifying Tchekov, and always it is in the name of art that Ibsen is decried. Now, if our literary ragamuffins cared two pence about art they would all be on their knees before Ibsen, who is, I suppose, the finest dramatic artist since Racine. Few things are more perfect as form, more admirably consistent and self-supporting, than his later plays. It was he who invented the modern dramatic method of seizing a situation at the point at which it can last be seized, and from there pushing it forward with imperturbable logic and not one divagation. As an artist Ibsen is to a considerable extent the master of Tchekov; but, as art is the last thing to which an English Intellectual pays attention, this fact has been overlooked. What our latter-day intellectuals take an interest in is what interested their grandmothers--morals. They prefer Tchekov's point of view to that of Ibsen, and so do I. They are vexed by the teaching implicit in Ibsen's tendencious plays; so am I. Yet when I ask myself: "Is Ibsen's moralizing worse than anyone else's?" I am forced to admit that it is not. The fact is all moralizing is tedious, and is recognized as such by everyone the moment it becomes a little stale. Another generation, with other ideals, will be as much irritated by Tchekov's ill-concealed propaganda as our generation is by Ibsen's, and as Ibsen's was by Tennyson's. Depend upon it: by those young people in the next generation but one who talk loudest, wear the worst clothes, and are most earnest about life and least sensitive to art, Tchekov will be voted a bore. What is more, it will be in the name of art that they will cry him down. Every now and then we hear eloquent appeals to the appropriate authorities, praying them to add to their school of journalism a department of art criticism. I hope and believe the appropriate authorities will do no such thing. Should, however, their sense of economy be insufficient to restrain them from paying this last insult to art, they will still find me waiting for them with a practical suggestion. Any student proposing to educate himself as a critic should be compelled to devote the first years of his course to the criticism of non-representative art. Set down to criticize buildings, furniture, textiles, and ceramics, he will find himself obliged to explore the depths of his own æsthetic experience. To explain honestly and precisely why he prefers this chair to that requires, he will find, a far more intense effort of the intellect and imagination than any amount of fine writing about portraits and landscape. It will force him to take account of his purely æsthetic emotions and to discover what exactly provokes them. He will be driven into that world of minute differences and subtle reactions which is the world of art. And until he knows his way about that world he would do well to express no opinion on the merits of pictures and statues. BONNARD [M] [Footnote M: _Bonnard_. Par Léon Werth. Paris: Crès. 40 fr.] In France, where even amateurs of painting enjoy a bit of rhetoric, for two or three days after the death of Renoir one could not be long in any of their haunts without being told either that "Renoir est mort et Matisse est le plus grand peintre de France" or that "Renoir est mort et Derain," etc. Also, so cosmopolitan is Paris, there were those who would put in the query: "Et Picasso?" but, as no Frenchman much cares to be reminded that the man who, since Cézanne, has had the greatest effect on painting is a Spaniard, this interjection was generally ill-received. On the other hand, those who queried: "Et Bonnard?" got a sympathetic hearing always. M. Léon Werth deals neither in rhetoric nor in orders of merit. Bonnard is his theme; and on Bonnard he has written thirty-six pages without, I think, pronouncing the name of one rival, leaving to his readers the agreeable task of putting the right heads in the way of such blows as he occasionally lets fly. Of Bonnard he has written with a delicacy of understanding hardly to be matched in contemporary criticism. He has sketched exquisitely a temperament, and if he has not told us much about its fruits, about the pictures of Bonnard that is to say, he can always refer us to the series of reproductions at the end of the volume. [Illustration: BONNARD (_Photo: E. Druet_)] What M. Werth would say to the distinction implied in my last paragraph I cannot tell; but I am sure it is important. Certainly, behind every work of art lies a temperament, a mind; and it is this mind that creates, that causes and conditions the forms and colours of which a picture consists; nevertheless, what we see are forms and colours, forms and colours are what move us. Doubtless, M. Werth is right in thinking that Bonnard paints beautifully because he loves what he paints; but what Bonnard gives us is something more significant than his feeling for cups or cats or human beings. He gives us created form with a significance of its own, to the making of which went his passion and its object, but which is something quite distinct from both. He gives us a work of art. To consider a picture by Vuillard, whose work is often compared with that of Bonnard, might help us here. Vuillard loves what he paints, and his pictures are attractive, as often as not, chiefly because they represent lovely things. A picture by Bonnard, for all its fascinating overtones, has a life entirely of its own. It is like a flower, which is beautiful not because it represents, or reminds one of, something beautiful, but because it is beautiful. A picture by Bonnard escapes from its subject, and from its author, too. And this is all-important because it is just this independent life of its own that gives to a work of art its peculiar character and power. Unluckily, about this detached life, about a work of art considered as a work of art, there is little or nothing to be said; so perhaps M. Werth has done well to confine himself to the task of giving his readers a taste of the quality of an artist's mind. This task was difficult enough in all conscience; the mind of Bonnard is subtle, delicate, and creative, and it has needed subtlety, delicacy, and not a little creative power, to give us even a glimpse of it. The first thing one gets from a picture by Bonnard is a sense of perplexed, delicious colour: tones of miraculous subtlety seem to be flowing into an enchanted pool and chasing one another there. From this pool emerge gradually forms which appear sometimes vaporous and sometimes tentative, but never vapid and never woolly. When we have realized that the pool of colour is, in fact, a design of extraordinary originality and perfect coherence our æsthetic appreciation is at its height. And not until this excitement begins to flag do we notice that the picture carries a delightful overtone--that it is witty, whimsical, fantastic. Such epithets one uses because they are the best that language affords, hoping that they will not create a false impression. They are literary terms, and the painting of Bonnard is never literary. Whatever, by way of overtone, he may reveal of himself is implicit in his forms: symbolism and caricature are not in his way. You may catch him murmuring to himself, "That's a funny-looking face"; he will never say "That's the face of a man whom I expect you to laugh at." If you choose to take his _Après-Midi Bourgeoise_ (which is not reproduced here) as a sly comment on family life you may: but anyone who goes to it for the sort of criticism he would find in the plays of Mr. Shaw or Mr. Barker is, I am happy to say, doomed to disappointment. What amused Bonnard was not the implication, social, moral, or political, of the scene, but the scene itself--the look of the thing. Bonnard never strays outside the world of visual art. He finds significance in the appearance of things and converts it into form and colour. With the pompous symbolism of the grand-mannerist, or the smart symbolism of the caricaturist, or the half-baked symbolism of the pseudo-philosophical-futuro-dynamitard he has no truck whatever. His ambition is not to convey, without the aid of words, certain elementary ideas, unimportant facts, or obvious sentiments, but to create forms that shall correspond with his intimate sense of the significance of things. The paraphernalia of symbolism are nothing to his purpose: what he requires are subtlety of apprehension and lightness of touch, and these are what he has. So M. Léon Werth meets people who complain that "Bonnard manque de noblesse." Bonnard is not noble. A kitten jumping on to the table moves him, not because he sees in that gesture a symbol of human aspiration or of feminine instability, the spirit of youth or the pathos of the brute creation, nor yet because it reminds him of pretty things, but because the sight is charming. He will never be appreciated by people who want something from art that is not art. But to those who care for the thing itself his work is peculiarly sympathetic, because it is so thoroughly, so unmitigatedly that of an artist; and therefore it does not surprise me that some of them should see in him the appropriate successor to Renoir. Like Renoir, he loves life as he finds it. He, too, enjoys intensely those good, familiar things that perhaps only artists can enjoy to the full--sunshine and flowers, white tables spread beneath trees, fruits, crockery, leafage, the movements of young animals, the grace of girls and the amplitude of fat women. Also, he loves intimacy. He is profoundly French. He reminds one sometimes of Rameau and sometimes of Ravel, sometimes of Lafontaine and sometimes of Laforgue. Renoir never reminded anyone of Ravel or Laforgue. Renoir and Bonnard are not so much alike after all. In fact, both as artists and craftsmen they are extremely different. Renoir's output was enormous; he painted with the vast ease of a lyrical giant. His selections and decisions were instinctive and immediate. He trusted his reactions implicitly. Also, there is nothing that could possibly be called whimsical, nothing critical or self-critical, about him. Bonnard, on the other hand, must be one of the most painstaking artists alive. He comes at beauty by tortuous ways, artful devices, and elaboration. He allows his vision to dawn on you by degrees: no one ever guesses at first sight how serious, how deliberately worked out his compositions are. There is something Chinese about him; and he is one of those rare Europeans who have dealt in "imposed" rather than "built-up" design. Bonnard's pictures grow not as trees; they float as water-lilies. European pictures, as a rule, spring upwards, masonry-wise, from their foundations; the design of a picture by Bonnard, like that of many Chinese pictures and Persian textiles, seems to have been laid on the canvas as one might lay cautiously on dry grass some infinitely precious figured gauze. Assuredly, the hand that lets fall these beauties is as unlike that which, even in the throes of rheumatism, affirmed with supreme confidence the mastery of Renoir, as the easy accessibility of our last old master is unlike this shy, fastidious spirit that M. Léon Werth, by a brilliant stroke of sympathetic intelligence, has contrived to catch and hold for an instant. [Illustration: (_Mrs. Jowitt's Collection_) DUNCAN GRANT] DUNCAN GRANT To-day, [N] when the Carfax Gallery opens its doors at No. 5 Bond Street, and invites the cultivated public to look at the paintings of Duncan Grant, that public will have a chance of discovering what has for some time been known to alert critics here and abroad--that at last we have in England a painter whom Europe may have to take seriously. Nothing of the sort has happened since the time of Constable; so naturally one is excited. [Footnote N: February 6, 1920.] If the public knows little of Duncan Grant the public is not to blame. During the fifteen years that he has been at work not once has he held "a one-man show," while his sendings to periodic exhibitions have been rare and unobtrusive. To be sure, there is a picture by him in the Tate Gallery. But who ever thought of going there to look for a work of art? Besides, during the last few years the Tate, like most other places of the sort, has been given over to civil servants. Duncan Grant is a scrupulous, slow, and not particularly methodical worker. His output is small; and no sooner is a picture finished than it is carried off by one of those watchful amateurs who seem a good deal more eager to buy than he is to sell. Apparently he cares little for fame; so the public gets few opportunities of coming acquainted with his work. Duncan Grant is the best English painter alive. And how English he is! (British, I should say, for he is a Highlander.) Of course, he has been influenced by Cézanne and the modern Frenchmen. He is of the movement. Superficially his work may look exotic and odd. Odd it will certainly look to people unfamiliar with painting. But anyone who has studied and understood the Italians will see at a glance that Duncan Grant is thoroughly in the great tradition; while he who also knows the work of Wilson, Gainsborough, Crome, Cotman, Constable, and Turner will either deny that there is such a thing as an English tradition or admit that Duncan Grant is in it. For my part, I am inclined to believe that an English pictorial tradition exists, though assuredly it is a tiny and almost imperceptible rill, to be traced as often, perhaps, through English poetry as through English painting. At all events, there are national characteristics; and these you will find asserting themselves for good or ill in the work of our better painters. Duncan Grant's ancestors are Piero della Francesca, Gainsborough, and the Elizabethan poets. There is something Greek about him, too; not the archæological Greek of Germany, nor yet the Græco-Roman academicism of France, but rather that romantic, sensuous Hellenism of the English literary tradition. It is, perhaps, most obvious in his early work, where, indeed, all the influences I have named can easily be found. Then, at the right moment, he plunged headlong into the movement, became the student of Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, though not, curiously enough, of Bonnard, the modern artist with whose work his own has the closest affinity, and, for a year or two, suffered his personality to disappear almost beneath the heavy, fertilizing spate. He painted French exercises. He was learning. He has learnt. He can now express, not someone else's ideas, but himself, completely and with delicious ease, in the language of his age. He is a finished and highly personal modern artist. I dare say Duncan Grant's most national characteristic is the ease with which he achieves beauty. To paint beautifully comes as naturally to him as to speak English does to me. Almost all English artists of any merit have had this gift, and most of them have turned it to sorry account. It was so pleasant to please that they tried to do nothing else, so easy to do it that they scampered and gambolled down the hill that ends in mere prettiness. From this catastrophe Duncan Grant has been saved by a gift which, amongst British painters, is far from common. He is extremely intelligent. His intellect is strong enough to keep in hand that most charming and unruly of its sister gifts, sensibility. And a painter who possesses both sensibility and the intellect to direct it is in a fair way to becoming a master. The sensibility of English artists, whether verbal or visual, is as notorious as their sense of beauty. This becomes less surprising when we reflect that the former includes the latter. The fact is, critics, with their habitual slovenliness, apply the term "sensibility" to two different things. Sometimes they are talking about the artist's imagination, and sometimes about his use of the instrument: sometimes about his reactions, and sometimes--in the case of painters--about the tips of his fingers. It is true that both qualities owe their existence to and are conditioned by one fundamental gift--a peculiar poise--a state of feeling--which may well be described as "sensibility." But, though both are consequences of this peculiar delicacy and what I should like to call "light-triggeredness" of temperament, they are by no means identical. By "sensibility" critics may mean an artist's power of responding easily and intensely to the æsthetic significance of what he sees; this power they might call, if they cared to be precise, "sensibility of inspiration." At other times they imply no more than sensibility of touch: in which case they mean that the contact between the artist's brush and his canvas has the quality of a thrilling caress, so that it seems almost as if the instrument that bridged the gulf between his fingers and the surface of his picture must have been as much alive as himself. "Sensibility of handling" or "hand-writing" is the proper name for this. In a word, there is sensibility of the imagination and sensibility of the senses: one is receptive, the other executive. Now, Duncan Grant's reactions before the visible universe are exquisitely vivid and personal, and the quality of his paint is often as charming as a kiss. He is an artist who possesses both kinds of sensibility. These are adorable gifts; but they are not extraordinarily rare amongst English painters of the better sort. In my judgement Gainsborough and Duncan Grant are the English painters who have been most splendidly endowed with sensibility of both sorts, but I could name a dozen who have been handsomely supplied. In my own time there have been four--Burne-Jones (you should look at his early work), Conder, Steer, and John, all of whom had an allowance far above the average, while in America there was Whistler. No one, I suppose, would claim for any of these, save, perhaps, Whistler, a place even in the second rank of artists. From which it follows clearly that something more than delicacy of reaction and touch is needed to make a man first-rate. What is needed is, of course, constructive power. An artist must be able to convert his inspiration into significant form; for in art it is not from a word to a blow, but from a tremulous, excited vision to an orderly mental conception, and from that conception, by means of the problem and with the help of technique, to externalization in form. That is where intelligence and creative power come in. And no British painter has, as yet, combined with sure and abundant sensibility power and intelligence of a sort to do perfectly, and without fail, this desperate and exacting work. In other words, there has been no British painter of the first magnitude. But I mistake, or Gainsborough, Crome, Constable, and Duncan Grant were all born with the possibility of greatness in them. Many British (or, to make myself safe, I will say English-speaking) painters have had enough sensibility of inspiration to make them distinguished and romantic figures. Who but feels that Wilson, Blake, Reynolds, Turner, and Rossetti were remarkable men? Others have had that facility and exquisiteness of handling which gives us the enviable and almost inexhaustible producer of charming objects--Hogarth, Cotman, Keene, Whistler, Conder, Steer, Davies. Indeed, with the exceptions of Blake and Rossetti--two heavy-handed men of genius--and Reynolds, whose reactions were something too perfunctory, I question whether there be a man in either list who wanted much for sensibility of either sort. But what English painter could conceive and effectively carry out a work of art? Crome, I think, has done it; Gainsborough and Constable at any rate came near; and it is because Duncan Grant may be the fourth name in our list that some of us are now looking forward with considerable excitement to his exhibition. An Englishman who is an artist can hardly help being a poet; I neither applaud nor altogether deplore the fact, though certainly it has been the ruin of many promising painters. The doom of Englishmen is not reversed for Duncan Grant: he is a poet; but he is a poet in the right way--in the right way, I mean, for a painter to be a poet. Certainly his vision is not purely pictorial; and because he feels the literary significance of what he sees his conceptions are apt to be literary. But he does not impose his conceptions on his pictures; he works his pictures out of his conceptions. Anyone who will compare them with those of Rossetti or Watts will see in a moment what I mean. In Duncan Grant there is, I agree, something that reminds one unmistakably of the Elizabethan poets, something fantastic and whimsical and at the same time intensely lyrical. I should find it hard to make my meaning clearer, yet I am conscious enough that my epithets applied to painting are anything but precise. But though they may be lyrical or fantastic or witty, these pictures never tell a story or point a moral. My notion is that Duncan Grant often starts from some mixed motif which, as he labours to reduce it to form and colour, he cuts, chips, and knocks about till you would suppose that he must have quite whittled the alloy away. But the fact is, the very material out of which he builds is coloured in poetry. The thing he has to build is a monument of pure visual art; that is what he plans, designs, elaborates, and finally executes. Only, when he has achieved it we cannot help noticing the colour of the bricks. All notice, and some enjoy, this adscititious literary overtone. Make no mistake, however, the literary element in the art of Duncan Grant is what has been left over, not what has been added. A Blake or a Watts conceives a picture and makes of it a story; a Giorgione or a Piero di Cosimo steals the germ of a poem and by curious cultivation grows out of it a picture. In the former class you will find men who may be great figures, but can never be more than mediocre artists: Duncan Grant is of the latter. He is in the English tradition without being in the English rut. He has sensibility of inspiration, beauty of touch, and poetry; but, controlling these, he has intelligence and artistic integrity. He is extremely English; but he is more of an artist than an Englishman. Already the Chelsea show of African and Oceanian sculpture is sending the cultivated public to the ethnographical collections in the British Museum, just as, last autumn, the show organized in Paris by M. Paul Guillaume filled the Trocadero. [O] Fine ladies, young painters, and exquisite amateurs are now to be seen in those long dreary rooms that once were abandoned to missionaries, anthropologists, and colonial soldiers, enhancing their prestige by pointing out to stay-at-home cousins the relics of a civilization they helped to destroy. For my part I like the change. I congratulate the galleries and admire the visitors, though the young painters, I cannot help thinking, have been a little slow. [Footnote O: 1919] Negro art was discovered--its real merit was first recognized, I mean--some fifteen years ago, in Paris, by the painters there. Picasso, Derain, Matisse, and Vlaminck began picking up such pieces as they could find in old curiosity and pawn shops; with Guillaume Apollinaire, literary apostle, following apostolically at their heels. Thus a demand was created which M. Paul Guillaume was there to meet and stimulate. But, indeed, the part played by that enterprising dealer is highly commendable; for the Trocadero collections being, unlike the British, mediocre both in quantity and quality, it was he who put the most sensitive public in Europe--a little cosmopolitan group of artists, critics, and amateurs--in the way of seeing a number of first-rate things. Because, in the past, Negro art has been treated with absurd contempt, we are all inclined now to overpraise it; and because I mean to keep my head I shall doubtless by my best friends be called a fool. Judging from the available data--no great stock, by the way--I should say that Negro art was entitled to a place amongst the great schools, but that it was no match for the greatest. With the greatest I would compare it. I would compare it with the art of the supreme Chinese periods (from Han to Sung), with archaic Greek, with Byzantine, with Mahomedan, which, for archæological purposes, begins under the Sassanians a hundred years and more before the birth of the prophet; I would compare it with Romanesque and early Italian (from Giotto to Raffael); but I would place it below all these. On the other hand, when I consider the whole corpus of black art known to us, and compare it with Assyrian, Roman, Indian, true Gothic (not Romanesque, that is to say), or late Renaissance it seems to me that the blacks have the best of it. And, on the whole, I should be inclined to place West and Central African art, at any rate, on a level with Egyptian. Such sweeping classifications, however, are not to be taken too seriously. All I want to say is that, though the capital achievements of the greatest schools do seem to me to have an absolute superiority over anything Negro I have seen, yet the finest black sculpture is so rich in artistic qualities that it is entitled to a place beside them. I write, thinking mainly of sculpture, because it was an exhibition of sculpture that set me off. It should be remembered, however, that perhaps the most perfect achievements of these savages are to be found amongst their textiles and basket-work. Here, their exquisite taste and sense of quality and their unsurpassed gift for filling a space are seen to greatest advantage, while their shortcomings lie almost hid. But it is their sculpture which, at the moment, excites us most, and by it they may fairly be judged. Exquisiteness of quality is its most attractive characteristic. Touch one of these African figures and it will remind you of the rarest Chinese porcelain. What delicacy in the artist's sense of relief and modelling is here implied! What tireless industry and patience! Run your hand over a limb, or a torso, or, better still, over some wooden vessel; there is no flaw, no break in the continuity of the surface; the thing is alive from end to end. And this extraordinary sense of quality seems to be universal amongst them. I think I never saw a genuine nigger object that was vulgar--except, of course, things made quite recently under European direction. This is a delicious virtue, but it is a precarious one. It is precarious because it is not self-conscious: because it has not been reached by the intelligent understanding of an artist, but springs from the instinctive taste of primitive people. I have seen an Oxfordshire labourer work himself beautifully a handle for his hoe, in the true spirit of a savage and an artist, admiring and envying all the time the lifeless machine-made article hanging, out of his reach, in the village shop. The savage gift is precarious because it is unconscious. Once let the black or the peasant become acquainted with the showy utensils of industrialism, or with cheap, realistic painting and sculpture, and, having no critical sense wherewith to protect himself, he will be bowled over for a certainty. He will admire; he will imitate; he will be undone. At the root of this lack of artistic self-consciousness lies the defect which accounts for the essential inferiority of Negro to the very greatest art. Savages lack self-consciousness and the critical sense because they lack intelligence. And because they lack intelligence they are incapable of profound conceptions. Beauty, taste, quality, and skill, all are here; but profundity of vision is not. And because they cannot grasp complicated ideas they fail generally to create organic wholes. One of the chief characteristics of the very greatest artists is this power of creating wholes which, as wholes, are of infinitely greater value than the sum of their parts. That, it seems to me, is what savage artists generally fail to do. Also, they lack originality. I do not forget that Negro sculptors have had to work in a very strict convention. They have been making figures of tribal gods and fetiches, and have been obliged meticulously to respect the tradition. But were not European Primitives and Buddhists similarly bound, and did they not contrive to circumvent their doctrinal limitations? That the African artists seem hardly to have attempted to conceive the figure afresh for themselves and realize in wood a personal vision does, I think, imply a definite want of creative imagination. Just how serious a defect you will hold this to be will depend on the degree of importance you attach to complete self-expression. Savage artists seem to express themselves in details. You must seek their personality in the quality of their relief, their modulation of surface, their handling of material, and their choice of ornament. Seek, and you will be handsomely rewarded; in these things the niggers have never been surpassed. Only when you begin to look for that passionate affirmation of a personal vision which we Europeans, at any rate, expect to find in the greatest art will you run a risk of being disappointed. It will be then, if ever, that you will be tempted to think that these exquisitely gifted black artists are perhaps as much like birds building their nests as men expressing their profoundest emotions. And now come the inevitable questions--where were these things made, and when? "At different times and in different places," would be the most sensible reply. About the provenance of any particular piece it is generally possible to say something vague; about dates we know next to nothing. At least, I do; and when I consider that we have no records and no trustworthy criteria, and that so learned and brilliant an archæologist as Mr. Joyce professes ignorance, I am not much disposed to believe that anyone knows more. I am aware that certain amateurs think to enhance the value of their collections by conferring dates on their choicer specimens; I can understand why dealers encourage them in this vanity; and, seeing that they go to the collectors and dealers for their information, I suppose one ought not to be surprised when journalists come out with their astounding attributions. The facts are as follows. We know that Portuguese adventurers had a considerable influence on African art in the sixteenth, and even in the fifteenth, century. There begins our certain knowledge. Of work so influenced a small quantity exists. Of earlier periods we know nothing precise. There are oral traditions of migrations, empires, and dynasties: often there is evidence of past invasions and the supersession of one culture by another: and that is all. The discoveries of explorers have so far thrown little light on archæology; and in most parts of West and Central Africa it would be impossible even for trained archæologists to establish a chronological sequence such as can be formed when objects are found buried in the sand one above the other. But, in fact, it is to vague traders and missionaries, rather than to trained archæologists, that we owe most of our fine pieces, which, as often as not, have been passed from hand to hand till, after many wanderings, they reached the coast. Add to all this the fact that most African sculpture is in wood (except, of course, those famous products of early European influence, the bronze castings from Benin), that this wood is exposed to a devastating climate--hot and damp--to say nothing of the still more deadly white ants, and you will probably agree that the dealer or amateur who betickets his prizes with such little tags as "Gaboon, 10th century" evinces a perhaps exaggerated confidence in our gullibility. Whenever these artists may have flourished it seems they flourish no more. The production of idols and fetiches continues, but the production of fine art is apparently at an end. The tradition is moribund, a misfortune one is tempted to attribute, along with most that have lately afflicted that unhappy continent, to the whites. To do so, however, would not be altogether just. Such evidence as we possess--and pretty slight it is--goes to show that even in the uninvaded parts of West Central Africa the arts are decadent: wherever the modern white man has been busy they are, of course, extinct. According to experts Negro art already in the eighteenth century was falling into a decline from some obscure, internal cause. Be that as it may, it was doomed in any case. Before the bagman with his Brummagem goods an art of this sort was bound to go the way that in Europe our applied arts, the art of the potter, the weaver, the builder and the joiner, the arts that in some sort resembled it, have gone. No purely instinctive art can stand against the machine. And thus it comes about that, at the present moment, we have in Europe the extraordinary spectacle of a grand efflorescence of the highly self-conscious, self-critical, intellectual, individualistic art of painting amongst the ruins of the instinctive, uncritical, communal, and easily impressed arts of utility. Industrialism, which, with its vulgar finish and superabundant ornament, has destroyed not only popular art but popular taste, has merely isolated the self-conscious artist and the critical appreciator; and the nineteenth century (from Stephenson to Mr. Ford), which ruined the crafts, in painting (from Ingres to Picasso) rivals the fifteenth. Meanwhile, the scholarly activities of dealers and journalists notwithstanding, there is no such thing as nigger archæology; for which let us be thankful. Here, at any rate, are no great names to scare us into dishonest admiration. Here is no question of dates and schools to give the lecturer his chance of spoiling our pleasure. Here is nothing to distract our attention from the one thing that matters--æsthetic significance. Here is nigger sculpture: you may like it or dislike it, but at any rate you have no inducement to judge it on anything but its merits. ORDER AND AUTHORITY I M. André Lhote is not only a first-rate painter, he is a capable writer as well; so when, some weeks ago, he began to tell us what was wrong with modern art, and how to put it right, naturally we pricked up our ears. We were not disappointed. M. Lhote had several good things to say, and he said them clearly; the thing, however, which he said most emphatically of all was that he, André Lhote, besides being a painter and a writer, is a Frenchman. He has a natural taste for order and a superstitious belief in authority. That is why he recommends to the reverent study of the young of all nations, David--David the Schoolmaster! _Merci_, we have our own Professor Tonks. Not that I would compare David, who was a first-rate practitioner and something of an artist, with the great Agrippa of the Slade. But from David even we have little or nothing to learn. For one thing, art cannot be taught; for another, if it could be, a dry doctrinaire is not the man to teach it. Very justly M. Lhote compares the Bouchers and Fragonards of the eighteenth century with the Impressionists: alike they were charming, a little drunk and disorderly. But when he asserts that it was David who rescued painting from their agreeable frivolity he must be prepared for contradiction: some people will have it that it was rather the pupil Ingres. David, they will say, was little better than a politic pedagogue, who, observing that with the Revolution classical virtues and classical costumes had come into fashion, that Brutus, the tyrannicide, and Aristides, called "the just," were the heroes of the hour, suited his manners to his company and gave the public an art worthy of highly self-conscious liberals. The timely discoveries made at Herculaneum and Pompeii, they will argue, stood him in good stead. From these he learnt just how citizens and citizen-soldiers should be drawn; and he drew them: with the result that the next generation of Frenchmen were sighing: Qui nous délivrera des Grecs et des Romains? Whoever may have rescued European painting from the charming disorder of the age of reason, there can be no question as to who saved it from the riot of impressionism. That was the doing of the Post-Impressionists headed by Cézanne. Forms and colours must be so organized as to compose coherent and self-supporting wholes; that is the central conviction which has inspired the art of the last twenty years. Order: that has been the watchword; but order imposed from within. And order so imposed, order imposed by the artist's inmost sense of what a work of art should be, is something altogether different from the order obtained by submission to a theory of painting. One springs from a personal conviction; the other is enjoined by authority. Modern artists tend to feel strongly the necessity for the former, and, if they be Frenchmen, to believe intellectually in the propriety of the latter. Look at a picture by Cézanne or by Picasso. What could be more orderly? Cubism is nothing but the extreme manifestation of this passion for order, for the complete organization of forms and colours. The artist has subordinated his predilections and prejudices, his peculiar way of seeing and feeling, his whims, his fancies and his eccentricities, to a dominant sense of design. Yet the picture is personal. In the first place a picture must be an organic whole, but that whole may be made up of anything that happens to possess the artist's mind. Now, look at a picture by Baudry or Poynter and you will see the last word in painting by precept. The virtuous apprentice has stuck to the rules. He has done all that his teacher bade him do. And he has done nothing else. David ought to be pleased. Pray, M. Lhote, give him top marks. Post-Impressionism, which reaffirmed the artist's latent sense of order and reawoke a passion to create objects complete in themselves, left the painter in full possession of his individuality. Now individualism is the breath of every artist's life, and a thing of which no Frenchman, in his heart, can quite approve. So, if an artist happens also to be a Frenchman--and the combination is admirably common--what is he to do? Why, look one way and row the other; which is what M. Lhote does. He paints delightfully personal and impenitent pictures, and preaches artistic Cæsarism and David, "the saviour of society." All the week he is a French artist, traditional as all real artists must be, but never denying, when it comes to practice, that tradition is merely an indispensable means to self-expression; and on Sundays, I dare say, he goes, like Cézanne, to lean on M. le Curé, who leans on Rome, while his _concierge_ receives the pure gospel of Syndicalism, which, also, is based on absolute truths, immutable, and above criticism. It is notorious that you may with impunity call a placable Frenchman "butor," "scélérat," "coquin fieffé," "sale chameau," "député" even, or "sénateur"; but two things you may not do: you may not call him "espèce d'individu," and you may not say "vous n'êtes pas logique." It is as unpardonable to call a Frenchman "illogique" as to shout after the Venetian who has almost capsized your gondola "mal educato" M. Lhote is "logique" all right: but "logical" in France has a peculiar meaning. It means that you accept the consequences of your generalizations without bothering about any little discrepancies that may occur between those consequences and the facts ascertained by experience; it does not mean that your high _a priori_ generalizations are themselves to be tested by the nasty, searching instrument of reason. Thus it comes about that the second master to whom M. Lhote would put this wild and wilful age of ours to school is that mysterious trinity of painters which goes by the name of "Le Nain." I can quite understand M. Lhote's liking for the brothers Le Nain, because I share it. Their simple, honest vision and frank statement are peculiarly sympathetic to the generation that swears by Cézanne. Here are men of good faith who feel things directly, and say not a word more than they feel. With a little ingenuity and disingenuousness one might make a _douanier_ of them. They are scrupulous, sincere, and born painters. But they are not orderly. They are not organizers of form and colour. No: they are not. On the contrary, these good fellows had the most elementary notions of composition. They seem hardly to have guessed that what one sees is but a transitory and incoherent fragment out of which it is the business of art to draw permanence and unity. They set down what they saw, and it is a bit of good luck if what they saw turns out to have somewhat the air of a whole. Yet M. Lhote, preaching his crusade against disorder, picks out the Le Nain and sets them up as an example. What is the meaning of this? M. Lhote himself supplies the answer. It is not order so much as authority that he is after; and authority is good wherever found and by whomsoever exercised. "Look," says he, "at Le Nain's peasants. The painter represents them to us in the most ordinary attitude. It is the poetry of everyday duties accepted without revolt. Le Nain's personages are engaged in being independent as little as possible." No Bolshevism here: and what a lesson for us all! Let painters submit themselves lowly and reverently to David, and seventeenth-century peasants to their feudal superiors. Not that I have the least reason for supposing M. Lhote to be in politics an aristocrat: probably he is a better democrat than I am. It is the [Greek: _kratos_], the rule, he cares for. Do as you are told by Louis XIV, or Lenin, or David: only be sure that it is as you are told. M. Lhote, of course, does nothing of the sort. He respects the tradition, he takes tips from Watteau or Ingres or Cézanne, but orders he takes from no man. He is an artist, you see. In many ways this respect for authority has served French art well. It is the source of that traditionalism, that tradition of high seriousness, craftsmanship, and good taste, which, even in the darkest days of early Victorianism, saved French painting from falling into the pit of stale vulgarity out of which English has hardly yet crawled. French revolutions in painting are fruitful, English barren--let the Pre-Raphaelite movement be my witness. The harvest sown by Turner and Constable was garnered abroad. Revolutions depart from tradition. Yes, but they depart as a tree departs from the earth. They grow out of it; and in England there is no soil. On the other hand, it is French conventionality--for that is what this taste for discipline comes to--which holds down French painting, as a whole, below Italian. There are journeys a Frenchman dare not take because, before he reached their end, he would be confronted by one of those bogeys before which the stoutest French heart quails--"C'est inadmissible," "C'est convenu," "La patrie en danger." One day he may be called upon to break bounds, to renounce the national tradition, deny the preeminence of his country, question the sufficiency of Poussin and the perfection of Racine, or conceive it possible that some person or thing should be more noble, reverend, and touching than his mother. On that day the Frenchman will turn back. "C'est inadmissible." France, the greatest country on earth, is singularly poor in the greatest characters--great ones she has galore. Her standard of civilization, of intellectual and spiritual activity, is higher than that of any other nation; yet an absence of vast, outstanding figures is one of the most obvious facts in her history. Her literature is to English what her painting is to Italian. Her genius is enterprising without being particularly bold or original, and though it has brought so much to perfection it has discovered comparatively little. Assuredly France is the intellectual capital of the world, since, compared with hers, all other post-Renaissance civilizations have an air distinctly provincial. Yet, face to face with the rest of the world, France is provincial herself. Here is a puzzle: a solution of which, if it is to be attempted at all, must be attempted in another chapter. II For the last sixty years and more one of the rare pleasures of political philosophers has been to expatiate on "le droit administratif," on the extraordinary powers enjoyed by Government in France, whatever that government may be; and another pleasure, which few have denied themselves, is that of drawing the not very obscure inference that France is democratic rather than liberal, and that the French genius has no patience with extreme individualism. If its effects were confined wholly to politics, to criticize this national characteristic would be no part of my business; but as it has profoundly influenced French art as well as French life and thought, the reader, I trust, will not be unbearably vexed by an essay which has little immediately to do with the subject on which I am paid to write. "What is the cause of French conventionality?" "What are its consequences?" These are questions to which the student of French art cannot well be indifferent; and these are the questions that I shall attempt to answer. The cause, I suspect, is to be found in the defect of a virtue. If it takes two to make a quarrel it takes as many to make a bargain; and if even the best Frenchmen are willing to make terms with society, that must be because society has something to offer them worth accepting. All conventions are limitations on thought, feeling, and action; and, as such, are the enemies of originality and character--hateful, therefore, to men richly endowed with either. French conventions, however, have a specious air of liberality, and France offers to him who will be bound by them partnership in the most perfect of modern civilizations--a civilization, be it noted, of which her conventions are themselves an expression. The bribe is tempting. Also, the pill itself is pleasantly coated. Feel thus, think thus, act thus, says the French tradition, not for moral, still less for utilitarian, reasons, but for æsthetic. Stick to the rules, not because they are right or profitable, but because they are seemly--nay, beautiful. We are not telling you to be respectable, we are inviting you not to be a lout. We are offering you, free of charge, a trade mark that carries credit all the world over. "How French he (or she) is!" Many a foreigner would pay handsomely to have as much said of him. Any English boy born with fine sensibility, a peculiar feeling for art, or an absolutely first-rate intelligence finds himself, from the outset, at loggerheads with the world in which he is to live. For him there can be no question of accepting those conventions which express what is meanest in an unsympathetic society. To begin with, he will not go to church or chapel on Sundays: it might be different were it a question of going to Mass. The hearty conventions of family life which make impossible almost relations at all intimate or subtle arouse in him nothing but a longing for escape. He will be reared, probably, in an atmosphere where all thought that leads to no practical end is despised, or gets, at most, a perfunctory compliment when some great man who in the teeth of opposition has won to a European reputation is duly rewarded with a title or an obituary column in _The Times_. As for artists, they, unless they happen to have achieved commercial success or canonization in some public gallery, are pretty sure to be family jokes. Thus, all his finer feelings will be constantly outraged; and he will live, a truculent, shame-faced misfit, with _John Bull_ under his nose and _Punch_ round the corner, till, at some public school, a course of compulsory games and the Arnold tradition either breaks his spirit or makes him a rebel for life. In violent opposition to most of what surrounds him, any greatly gifted, and tough, English youth is likely to become more and more aware of himself and his own isolation. While his French compeer is having rough corners gently obliterated by contact with a well-oiled whetstone, and is growing daily more conscious of solidarity with his partners in a peculiar and gracious civilization, the English lad grows steadily more individualistic. Daily he becomes more eccentric, more adventurous, and more of a "character." Very easily will he snap all conventional cables and, learning to rely entirely on himself, trust only to his own sense of what is good and true and beautiful. This personal sense is all that he has to follow; and in following it he will meet with no conventional obstacle that he need hesitate for one moment to demolish. English civilization is so smug and hypocritical, so grossly philistine, and at bottom so brutal, that every first-rate Englishman necessarily becomes an outlaw. He grows by kicking; and his personality flourishes, unhampered by sympathetic, clinging conventions, nor much--and this is important, too--by the inquisitorial tyranny of Government. For, at any rate until the beginning of the war, an Englishman who dared to defy the conventions had less than a Frenchman to fear from the laws. I have already suggested that the consequences of this difference between French and English civilization may be studied in the history of their literature and thought. For the abject poverty of English visual art I have attempted to give reasons elsewhere: here I have not space to say more than that it is rarely good for an artist to be a protestant, and that a protestant is just what the English attitude to painting generally forces a genuine artist to be. But consider the literature of the French Renaissance: Rabelais is the one vast figure. Ronsard and his friends are charming, elegant, and erudite; but not of the stupendous. What is even more to the point, already with the _pléiade_ we have a school--a school with its laws and conventions, its "thus far and no further." Nothing is more notorious than the gorgeous individualism and personality of those flamboyant monsters whom we call the Elizabethans, unless it be the absence of that quality in the great French writers of the next age. Had Pascal been as bold as Newton he might have been as big. No one will deny that Descartes was a finer intelligence than Hobbes, or that his meticulous respect for French susceptibilities gave an altogether improbable turn to his speculations. In the eighteenth century it was the English who did the discovering and the French who, on these discoveries being declared _admissibles_, brought them to perfection. Even in the nineteenth, the Revolution notwithstanding, French genius, except in painting, asserted itself less vividly and variously than the Russian or English, and less emphatically than the German. In recording the consequences of this French taste for authority we have had to register profit and loss. It is true that the picture presented by French history offers comparatively few colossal achievements or stupendous characters. With the latter, indeed, it is particularly ill-supplied. Whereas most of the great and many of the secondary English writers, thinkers, and artists have been great "characters," the slightly monotonous good sense and refinement of French literary and artistic life is broken only by a few such massive or surprising figures as those of Rabelais, La Fontaine, Poussin, Rousseau, Flaubert, Cézanne--a formidable list but a short one, to which, however, a few names could be added. On the other hand, what France has lost in colour she has gained in fertility; and in a universal Honours List for intellectual and artistic prowess the number of French names would be out of all proportion to the size and wealth of the country. Furthermore, it is this traditional basis that has kept French culture up to a certain level of excellence. France has never been without standards. Therefore it has been to France that the rest of Europe has always looked for some measure of fine thinking, delicate feeling, and general amenity. Without her conventionality it may be doubted whether France could have remained so long the centre of civilization. One commonly deplored consequence of French conventionality is that it makes Frenchmen incapable of well understanding or appreciating anything foreign, or of judging acutely between foreigners and themselves. But is even this a serious misfortune? French critics can discriminate between French productions with unsurpassable delicacy and precision. As for the spring of French inspiration, it is so copious that the creative genius of that favoured race seems to need nothing more from outside than an occasional new point of departure, to the grasping of which its imperfect knowledge and unprehensile taste are adequate. Indeed, the rare endeavours of Frenchmen seriously to cultivate alien methods and points of view more often than not end in disaster. Shortly before the war a school of particularly intelligent and open-minded writers discovered, what we in England are only too familiar with, the æsthetic possibilities of charity and the beauty of being good. Dostoevsky began it. First, they ran after _him_; then, setting themselves, as well as they could, to study Wordsworth and Walt Whitman, in translations, they soon plunged miserably into a morass of sentimentality. A gifted novelist and a charming poet, Charles-Louis Philippe and Vildrac, were amongst the first to fall in. A Wordsworth can moralize, a Sterne can pipe his eye, with impunity; but late eighteenth and early twentieth-century literature prove how dangerous it is for a French author to trespass in pursuit of motives beyond the limits of his tradition. The reason why Frenchmen are incompetent to judge or appreciate what is not French is that they apply to all things the French measure. They have no universal standards, and, what is worse, they take for such their own conventions. To read a French critic on Shakespeare or Ibsen or Dostoevsky or Goethe is generally a humiliating experience for one who loves France. As often as not you will find that he is depending on a translation. It seems never to strike him that there is something ludicrous in appraising nicely the qualities of a work written in a language one cannot understand. Rather it seems to him ludicrous that books should be written in any language but his own; and, until they are translated, for him they do not exist. Many years ago, at Cambridge, I remember having a sharpish altercation with Rupert Brooke, who had taken it upon himself to denigrate the art of Racine. Before long it came out that he had read the plays only in a translation; for at that time--he was in his second year, I think--he had little or no French. Everyone laughed, and the argument collapsed. Set the scene in Paris, imagine a detractor of Shakespeare or Goethe being convicted of similar ignorance, and ask yourself whether one Frenchman of the party would have felt that by such an admission the critic was put out of court. It cannot be denied, I fear, that the conventional habits of the French mind lead easily to ignorance and self-satisfaction. To be frank, the complacent aberrations of French taste, with its passion for Poe and its pathetic confidence in Kipling and Chesterton, have become a standing joke abroad. There is no great reason why the French should know anything of foreign thought and literature; but there is every reason why, knowing nothing, they should refrain from comment. And how many Frenchmen do know anything? When I reflect that hardly one can quote a line of English without committing or, at any rate, permitting the grossest and most nonsensical blunders, I am inclined to suspect that the answer is, very few. And I suppose it is this combination of ignorance with an incapacity for handling criteria of universal validity which gives to the nation that is assuredly the centre of civilization its paradoxical air of provinciality. A Frenchman discoursing on foreign peoples or on mankind in general--a favourite topic--suggests to me sometimes the fantastic vision of a dog-fancier criticizing a steer. Grant his premises--that whatever he admires in the one must be essential to the other--and nothing could be more just and luminous than his remarks. Undeniably the creature is a bit thick in the girth and, what is worse, bull-necked. Only, as the points of an ox are different from those of a poodle, the criticism is something beside the mark: and there is not much more virtue in the objection to Shakespeare's later tragedies that they are not written in rhymed verse. Blank verse, however, is not in the great tradition; and the French critic, with one eye fixed submissively on authority, doubts whether he would be justified in admiring it unreservedly. Such are the inevitable consequences of conventionality: and French conventionality is, in its turn, the inevitable consequence of a civilization so gracious and attractive that even the most lawless of its children cannot bear to appear disloyal. MARQUET [P] [Footnote P: _Marquet_. Par George Besson.] The best picture by Marquet I ever saw was in the Grafton Gallery exhibition of 1912. It represented a naked woman sitting in a rocking-chair. Since then I have seen scores of things by him, admirable, as a rule, and invariably brilliant, but never one that was quite first-rate. And here comes M. George Besson, with an essay and an album of photographs, to show us a few works which, surpassing anything of which we had supposed him capable, emerge triumphantly from that stream of clever variations on a theme which Marquet has made only too much his own. Anyone who compares these nudes with what Matisse was doing a dozen or fifteen years ago will not fail to discover a common factor: neither will he be surprised to learn that at one time these two artists were treated almost as equals. Both achieved a strange and disquieting intensity by bold simplifications and distortion, by concentration on the vital movements and characteristics of the human body, and by an absolute indifference to its literary and sentimental interest. "Lorsque je dessine j'ai devant un homme les mêmes préoccupations que devant un bec de gaz." That is well said: what is more, the saying has been put successfully into practice. Such pictures as numbers 19, 25, and 27 are entitled to a place beside those of no matter what contemporary. Needless to say, the integrity of Marquet's vision has considerably distressed those who have no taste for art; and from one of them, Marquet's friend Charles-Louis Philippe, it drew a bit of art criticism that ought not to be lost. "Le ciel me préserve," exclaims the author of _Marie Donadieu_, "d'aimer d'un amour total un art dont l'ironie parfois atteint à la cruauté! Et quand, tous les usages admis qui veulent qu'on ne présente un homme que sous ses bons côtés, quand l'amitié même que j'éprouve pour M. Marquet m'eussent engagé, à me taire, un devoir plus impérieux me sollicitait, et j'aurais eu le sentiment de me rabaisser moi-même en y manquant." Not even an art critic can be expected to lower himself in his own eyes by turning a deaf ear to the solicitations of imperious duty. So Monsieur Philippe very honourably concludes his observations by expressing the opinion that "il n'a pas droit à toute l'admiration des hommes puisqu'il a été sans pitié." The cry of this soft and silly sentimentalist has been neatly put by M. Besson to the purpose of illustrating, and perhaps a little exaggerating, the merits of a painter who is, assuredly, neither one nor the other. Too clever by half, that rather is the fault with which Marquet must be taxed. The artist who has given us a dozen first-rate things--superb nudes, "felt" as solid, three-dimensional forms, and realized as such--is always being forestalled by an astonishing caricaturist who can knock you off something brilliant, rapid, and telling while you wait for the boat. Always this brisk and agile person is stepping forward in front of the artist and jotting down his neat symbols in the space reserved for significant form. The landscapes and boats and street-scenes of Marquet, with their joyously emphatic statement, their lively contrasts, and their power of giving you the pith of the matter in a few strokes, are about as valuable as the best things of Forain. They are statements of fact, not expressions of emotion. Marquet, the inimitable captor of life as it hurries by, is not much better than a caricaturist; and as he becomes more and more proficient in his craft he bothers less and less about that to which it should be a means. The art of Marquet tends ever to become the repetition of a formula. Lately, in London, we have been looking at the works of Pissarro, and I could wish that Marquet would look at them, too. Like him, Pissarro was a painter of streets and landscapes who returned again and again to the same motif. In the course of a long life he must, I should think, have painted the Quai Voltaire, the Quai des Grands Augustins, and the Quai St. Michel almost as often as Marquet has knocked them off. And if Pissarro never invented a shorthand wherewith to make notes of what was going on beneath his window, that was because Pissarro, for all his impressionist theory, was less concerned with the transitory aspect of things than with their æsthetic significance. He, too, approached everything, men and women, trees, rivers, and houses, in the same spirit: he approached them in the spirit of a painter. Never for the ugliest harlot, the sorriest thief, or the most woebegone gas-jet did he feel that whimpering, simpering, sentiment that Tolstoy frankly admired and Philippe felt the want of. But always he seems to have seen his motif with the finely disinterested passion of an artist. Now, the passion of an artist is not to be jotted down: it has to be deliberately transmuted into form. If Marquet were as familiar with naked women as he is with the hats, coats, and petticoats he sees from his window, doubtless by this time he would have elaborated a set of symbols wherewith to record his sense of them. Happily he is not: so, before the model, he finds himself obliged to demand of the artist that is in him some plastic equivalent for his intense and agitated vision. Thus goaded and disarmed he can produce a masterpiece. And, therefore, were it for me to give advice, what I should say to Marquet would be--throw away your sketch-book and panel-box, and settle down in a studio, with a top light, a model or two, and a six-foot canvas. Only, as this must be just what M. Lhote has been telling him, naturally he would tell me to mind my own business. His apologist, M. Besson, at any rate, has no patience with those who would set artists in the way they should go. In this essay he gives them a piece of his mind, and he does it so well and so gaily that it is a pleasure to be scolded. First, he has a few words with "une dame, que Gérome fit héritière de ses uniformes et qui devint la muse d'un géomètre-arpenteur de certaine récente peinture." (Whom can he mean?) Je connais l'atelier de Marquet, Madame, en marge de l'Atelier où l'on esthétise, où l'on fabrique les manifestes et les novateurs de génie. Marquet garde son rôle de peintre. Il n'est guère pour lui de souci plus sérieux que le souci de sa liberté. Il veut être libre pour peindre, libre même pour oublier la peinture, libre encore, libre davantage pour n'être ni questionné ni consulté, pour ne devenir ni un expert, ni un éducateur de sots. Et voilà pourquoi, vous n'avez jamais fait de conférence en son atelier. And again: Pour n'avoir jamais asservi son art à la construction d'un système, pour avoir senti la vanité des théories, pour n'avoir pas fait tout les pèlerinages d'oû l'on revient avec des règles, l'art d'Albert Marquet donne une impression de peinture heureuse. Of course M. Besson is right. Few in this world cut a more ludicrous figure than art-masters; few things are more deplorable than propaganda. Yet M. Besson should be careful: one thing there is more ridiculous still, and that is counter-propaganda. Protestantism in art is the devil; but the devil is not such a fool as to protest against protestantism. He leaves that to the young bloods of the Rotonde and the Café Royal. By all means let M. Besson claim liberty for his artist, but, in doing so, let him beware of denying it to another, even though what that other demands be "liberty of prophesying" or the right to preach the gospel according to David. STANDARDS Some people in England are beginning to realize that while we have been "saving civilization," first from Germans, and then from Bolsheviks, we have come near losing it ourselves. [Q] This disquieting truth has been borne in on them by various signs and portents, not least by the utter collapse of taste. At life's feast we are like people with colds in their heads: we have lost all power of discrimination. As ever, "Dido, Queen of Carthage," and better things than that, are caviare to the general: what is new, and worse, to our most delicate epicures bloater paste is now caviare. [Footnote Q: Written in March 1919.] At a London dinner-party even a peeress, even an American lady who has married a peer, dare not commit herself to an adverse literary judgement--except in the case of notoriously disaffected writers--for the very good reason that she does not know where to go for a literary judgement that shall be above reproach. We have as little confidence in our critics as in our ministers. Indeed, since all our officers, and most of our privates, took to publishing pages of verse or, at any rate, of prose that looks odd enough to be verse, the habit of criticism has been voted unpatriotic. To grudge a man in the trenches a column of praise loud enough to drown for a moment the noise of battle would have seemed ungrateful and, what is worse, fastidious. Our critics were neither; they did their bit: and no one was surprised to hear the stuff with which schoolboys line their lockers described as "one of the truest, deepest, and most moving notes that have been struck since the days of Elizabeth." This sort of thing was encouraging at the time, and kept our lads in good heart; but, in the long run, it has proved demoralizing to our critics as well as to their clients. For, now that the war is over, those who so loyally proclaimed that any bugle-boy was a better musician than any fiddler find themselves incapable of distinguishing, not only between fiddlers, but even between buglers. Perhaps it was natural that when, during the war, T.S. Eliot, about the best of our young poets--if ours I may call him--published _Prufrock_, no English paper, so far as I know, should have given him more than a few words of perfunctory encouragement: natural that when Virginia Woolf, the best of our younger novelists, and Middleton Murry published works of curious imagination and surprising subtlety, critics, worn in the service of Mr. Bennett of the Propaganda Office and our Mr. Wells, should not have noticed that here were a couple of artists: but is it not as strange as sad that our patriot geese, time out of mind a nation's oracles, should still be unable to tell us whether Lieutenant Brooke, Captain Nicholls, Major Grenfell, or Lieut.-Colonel Maurice Baring is the greatest poet of this age? And in painting and music things are no better. Even our old prejudices are gone. All is welcome now, except real art; and even that gets splashed in the wild outpour of adulation. To admire everything is, perhaps, a more amiable kind of silliness than to admire nothing: it is silliness all the same. Also, it has brought taste to such a pass that, except the Russian ballet, there was not last winter [R] in London one entertainment at which a person of reasonable intelligence could bear to spend an hour. As for the ballet, it was a music-hall turn, lasting fifteen minutes, which the public seemed to like rather better than the performing dogs and distinctly less than the ventriloquist. The public accepted it because it accepts whatever is provided. Nevertheless, the subtler of our music-hall comedians have obviously been ordered to coarsen their methods or clear out, and the rare jokes that used to relieve the merry misery of our revues and plays are now dispensed with as superfluous. [Footnote R: The winter 1918-19.] The war is not entirely to blame: the disease was on us long before 1914. War, however, created an atmosphere in which it was bound to prevail. Active service conditions are notoriously unfavourable to the critical spirit. The army canteen need not tempt its customers: neither need the ordinary shop under a rationing system: and, it must be confessed, the habit of catering for colonial soldiers has not tended to make our public entertainments more subtle or amusing. But the disease of which taste is sick unto death has been on us these fifty years. It is the emporium malady. We are slaves of the trade-mark. Our tastes are imposed on us by our tradesmen, under which respectable title I include newspaper owners, booksellers' touts, book-stall keepers, music-hall kings, opera syndicates, picture-dealers, and honest bagmen. As for the tradesman, he is no longer an expert any more than the critic or the impressario is. No longer a merchant, no longer a shop-keeper even, he is to-day a universal provider. Fifty years ago the nice housewife still prided herself on knowing the right place for everything. There was a little man in a back street who imported just the coffee she wanted, another who blended tea to perfection, a third who could smoke a ham as a ham should be smoked. All have vanished now; and the housewife betakes herself to the stores. We no longer insist on getting what we like, we like what we get. The March Hare's paradox has ceased to be paradoxical. For five years Europe has been doing what it was told to do; for five years our experts have subjected their critical sense to a sense of patriotism and a desire to keep in with the majority; at last the producers themselves have lost their sense of values and can no longer test the quality of their own productions. There are no standards. Let no one imagine that standards are, like police regulations, things that can be imposed by authority. Standards exist in the mind, where they grow out of that personal sense of values which is one of the twin pillars on which civilization rests. All that authority can do is to stimulate and sharpen that sense by subtle education and absolute sincerity. The critic can put good things in another man's way and present them in a sympathetic light; also, he can resolutely refuse ever to pretend that he likes what he does not like. Standards are imposed from above in the sense that people who have the ability and leisure to cultivate their sense of values will, if they take advantage of their opportunities, inevitably influence those less favourably placed. In the fine arts, certainly, taste is bound to be very much directed by people blest with peculiar gifts and armed with special equipment. But, besides taste in the fine arts, there is such a thing as taste in life; a power of discerning and choosing for one's self in life's minor matters; and on this taste in life, this sense of the smaller values, is apt to flourish that subtler and more precious æsthetic sense. Without this taste no civilization can exist; for want of it European civilization is seemingly about to perish. Take the thing at its lowest. A rich, good-humoured fellow, replete with a fabulously expensive but distressingly ill-chosen dinner in a magnificently ill-furnished and over-lit restaurant, excited by Saumur (recommended as "Perrier Jouet, 1911") and a great deal of poor conversation drowned, for the most part, by even noisier music, may be heard to say, as he permits the slovenly waiter to choose him the most expensive cigar--"That will do, sonny, the best's good enough for me." The best is not good enough for anyone who has standards; but the modern Englishman seems to have none. To go to the most expensive shop and buy the dearest thing there is his notion of getting the best. You may dine at any of the half-dozen "smartest" restaurants in London, pay a couple of pounds for your meal, and be sure that a French commercial traveller, bred to the old standards of the provincial ordinary, would have sent for the cook and given him a scolding. It is not to be supposed that the most expensive English restaurants fail to engage the most expensive French chefs; they are engaged, but they soon fall below the mark because there is no one to keep them up to it. The clients have no standards. Go to the opera and look at the rich ladies' frocks: they might have come out of an antimacassar factory. They express no sense of what is personally becoming nor a sense of insolent luxury even: they bear witness to an utter lack of standards, and they cost a great deal of money. The best is good enough for these fine ladies, and their best is the dressmaker's most expensive. This is no mere question of fashions and conventions. If standards go, civilization goes. To hear people talk you might suppose there had never been such things as dark ages. Not only have there been dark ages, there has been an unmeasured tract of pre-historic savagery, and sharp eyes--notably those of Louis Weber--are beginning to detect certain similarities between this age and that. The peculiarity of the historic age, man's brilliant age, the age of civilization, is the conservatism of its technique and its spiritual restlessness. In the pre-historic age man's best energies were apparently devoted to perfecting the means to material existence. Improving the instrument was the grand preoccupation. From the old stone age to the new, from that to bronze, and from bronze to iron is the story of pre-historic development. Then follow some forty centuries during which man rests content with his instrument. Between the Minoan age and the Industrial Revolution his technical discoveries are insignificant by comparison with his spiritual adventures. Content with the plough, the wagon, and the loom, man turns the sharp edge of his mind to things of the mind, considers himself in all his relations, thinks, feels, states, expresses, concerns himself with spiritual, rather than material, problems. With the Industrial Revolution begins the third act. Again human intelligence and ingenuity concentrate on the prehistoric problem--the perfecting of the instrument. For a hundred years Europe marches merrily back towards barbarism. Then, at the very moment when she is becoming alarmed and self-critical, at the very moment when she is wondering how she is to reconcile her new material ambitions with the renascent claims of the spirit, comes a war that relegates to the dust-bin or the gaol all that is not of immediate practical utility. The smoke of battle drifts slowly away and reveals a situation almost hopeless. We have lost our standards, our taste in life: we have lost the very thing by which we recognized that there were such things as spiritual values. In one of his early essays Renan points out that the proper apology for the old French aristocracy is that it performed the proper function of a leisured class. It maintained standards. Unlike the English, it concerned itself neither with politics nor with money-making, nor yet with local affairs: it stood apart, "formant dans la nation une classe qui n'avait d'autre souci que les choses libérales." Renan recognized that a leisured class is the source of civilization; whether he also recognized that there is no earthly reason why a leisured class should be the ruling class is not clear. In Europe we have now no leisured class; we have only a number of rich men, mere wealth-producers, who perform for high wages the useful functions that miners and milkmaids perform for low ones. Our leisured class, moribund before the war, died peacefully in its sleep the year before last. There is no class on this side the Atlantic to insist on quality now. But if, as I am told, we all owe money to America, has not America acquired, along with her financial supremacy, certain moral obligations? Has she not become the leisured class of the world, and, as such, responsible to civilization for the maintenance of those standards without which civilization falls? If so, it is for America to insist in the fine arts on some measure of talent and intelligence, in society on decent manners, in life on a critical attitude: it is for her to reaffirm those standards of excellence below which neither art nor thought nor manners nor merchandize shall be suffered to fall: for her to teach us once again to be fastidious, to embolden us to say to a poet, a painter, a politician, a newspaper proprietor, or even to a _maître d'hôtel_--"This is not good enough." America possesses the means; she can crack the only whip that carries much conviction nowadays. Whether she has the will to use it is quite another matter. CRITICISM (I) _Criticism_ Critics do not exist for artists any more than palæontologists exist for fossils. If both critics and artists could recognize this, how much poorer the world would be in malice and rancour! To help the artist is no part of a critic's business: artists who cannot help themselves must borrow from other artists. The critic's business is to help the public. With the artist he is not directly concerned: he is concerned only with his finished products. So it is ridiculous for the artist to complain that criticism is unhelpful, and absurd for the critic to read the artist lectures with a view to improving his art. If the critic reads lectures it must be with a view to helping the public to appreciate, not the artist to create. To put the public in the way of æsthetic pleasure, that is the end for which critics exist, and to that end all means are good. Connoisseurs in pleasure--of whom I count myself one--know that nothing is more intensely delightful than the æsthetic thrill. Now, though many are capable of tasting this pleasure, few can get it for themselves: for only those who have been born with a peculiar sensibility, and have known how to cherish it, enjoy art naturally, simply, and at first hand as most of us enjoy eating, drinking, and kissing. But, fortunately, it is possible for the peculiarly sensitive, or for some of them, by infecting others with their enthusiasm, to throw these into a state of mind in which they, too, can experience the thrill of æsthetic comprehension. And the essence of good criticism is this: that, instead of merely imparting to others the opinions of the critic, it puts them in a state to appreciate the work of art itself. A man blest with peculiar sensibility, who happens also to possess this infecting power, need feel no more shame in becoming a critic than Socrates would have felt in becoming a don. The vocations are much alike. The good critic puts his pupil in the way of enjoying art, the good don or schoolmaster teaches his how to make the most of life; while bad critics and pedagogues stuff their victims with those most useless of all useless things, facts and opinions. Primarily, a critic is a sign-post. He points to a work of art and says--"Stop! Look!" To do that he must have the sensibility that distinguishes works of art from rubbish, and, amongst works of art, the excellent from the mediocre. Further, the critic has got to convince, he has got to persuade the spectator that there is something before him that is really worth looking at. His own reaction, therefore, must be genuine and intense. Also, he must be able to stimulate an appreciative state of mind; he must, that is to say, have the art of criticism. He should be able, at a pinch, to disentangle and appraise the qualities which go to make up a masterpiece, so that he may lead a reluctant convert by partial pleasures to a sense of the whole. And, because nothing stands more obstructively between the public and the grand æsthetic ecstasies than the habit of feeling a false emotion for a pseudo-work-of-art, he must be as remorseless in exposing shams as a good schoolmaster would be in exposing charlatans and short-cuts to knowledge. Since, in all times and places, the essence of art--the externalizing in form of something that lies at the very depths of personality--has been the same, it may seem strange, at first sight, that critical methods should have varied. One moment's reflection will suffice to remind us that there are often ten thousand paths to the same goal; and a second's may suggest that the variety in critical methods is, at any rate, not more surprising than the variety in the methods of artists. Always have artists been striving to convert the thrill of inspiration into significant form; never have they stuck long to any one converting-machine. Throughout the ages there has been a continual chopping and changing of "the artistic problem." Canons in criticism are as unessential as subjects in painting. There are ends to which a variety of means are equally good: the artist's end is to create significant form; that of the critic to bring his spectator before a work of art in an alert and sympathetic frame of mind. If we can realize that Giotto, with his legends, and Picasso, with his cubes, are after the same thing, surely we can understand that when Vasari talks of "Truth to Nature" or "nobility of sentiment," and Mr. Roger Fry of "planes" and "relations," both are about the same business. Only a fool could suppose that the ancients were less sensitive to art than we are. Since they were capable of producing great art it seems silly to pretend that they were incapable of appreciating it. We need not be dismayed by the stories of Apelles and Polygnotus with their plums and sparrows. These are merely the instruments of criticism: by such crude means did ancient critics excite the public and try to express their own subtle feelings. If anyone seriously believes that the Athenians admired the great figures on the Parthenon for their fidelity to Nature I would invite him to take into consideration the fact that they are not faithful at all. More probably a sensitive Athenian admired them for much the same reasons as we admire them. He felt much what we feel: only, he expressed his admiration and thus provoked the admiration of others, by calling these grand, distorted, or "idealized" figures "lifelike." Reading the incomparable Vasari, one is not more struck by his sensibility and enthusiasm than by the improbability of his having liked the pictures he did like for the childish reasons he is apt to allege. Could anyone be moved by the verisimilitude of Uccello? I forget whether that is what Vasari commends: what I am sure of is that he was moved by the same beauties that move us. The fact is, it matters hardly at all what words the critic employs provided they have the power of infecting his audience with his genuine enthusiasm for an authentic work of art. No one can state in words just what he feels about a work of art--especially about a work of visual art. He may exclaim; indeed, if he be a critic he should exclaim, for that is how he arrests the public. He may go on to seek some rough equivalent in words for his excited feelings. But whatever he may say will amount to little more than steam let off. He cannot describe his feelings; he can only make it clear that he has them. That is why analytical criticism of painting and music is always beside the mark: neither, I think, is analytical criticism of literary art much more profitable. With literature that is not pure art the case is different, facts and ideas being, of course, the analyst's natural prey. But before a work of art the critic can do little more than jump for joy. And that is all he need do if, like Cherubino, he is "good at jumping." The warmth and truth of Vasari's sentiment comes straight through all his nonsense. Because he really felt he can still arrest. Take an artist who has always been popular, and see what the ages have had to say about him. For more than two hundred and fifty years Poussin has been admired by most of those who have been born sensitive to the visual arts. No pretexts could be more diverse than those alleged by these admirers. Yet it would be as perverse to suppose that they have all liked him for totally different reasons as to maintain that all those who, since the middle of the seventeenth century, have relished strawberries have tasted different flavours. What is more, when I read, say, the fantastic discourses on the pictures of Poussin delivered by the Academicians of 1667, I feel certain that some of these erudite old gentlemen had, in fact, much the same sort of enthusiasm, stirred by the monumental qualities of his design and the sober glory of his colours, that I have myself. Through all the dry dust of their pedantry the accent of æsthetic sensibility rings clear. Poussin's contemporaries praised him chiefly as a preceptor, an inculcator of historical truths, more especially the truths of classical and Hebrew history. That is why Philippe de Champaigne deplores the fact that in his _Rebecca_ "Poussin n'ait pas traité le sujet de son tableau avec toute la fidélité de l'histoire, parce qu'il a retranché la représentation des chameaux, dont l'Ecriture fait mention." But Le Brun, approaching the question from a different angle, comes heavily down on his scrupulous colleague with the rejoinder that "M. Poussin a rejeté les objets bizarres qui pouvaient débaucher l'oeil du spectateur et l'amuser à des minuties." The philosophic eighteenth century remarked with approval that Poussin was the exponent of a wholesome doctrine calculated to advance the happiness of mankind. But to the fervid pages of Diderot, wherein that tender enthusiast extols Poussin to the skies, asserting that one finds in his work "le charme de la nature avec les incidents ou les plus doux ou les plus terribles de la vie," our modern sensibility makes no response. And we are right. The whole panegyric rings hollow. For to visual art Diderot had no reaction, as every line he wrote on the subject shows. That devout critic who, in the reign of the respectable Louis-Philippe, discovered that "Nicolas Poussin était doué d'une foi profonde: la piété fut son seul refuge," is in the same boat. And for companion they have Mr. Ruskin, who, being, like them, incapable of a genuine æsthetic emotion, is likewise incapable of infecting a truly sensitive reader. So far as I remember, Ruskin's quarrel with Poussin is that to his picture of the _Flood_ he has given a prevailing air of sobriety and gloom, whereas it is notorious that an abundance of rain causes all green things to flourish and the rocks to shine like agate. But when Ingres attributes the excellence of Poussin to the fact that he was a faithful disciple of the ancients we feel that he is talking about the thing that matters, and that he is talking sense. And we feel the same--what instance could more prettily illustrate my theory?--when Delacroix passionately asserts that Poussin was an arch-revolutionary. [S] [Footnote S: For this little history of Poussin criticism I am indebted to M. Paul Desjardins: _Poussin_ (Paris, Librairie Renouard).] The divergence between the pretexts alleged by our ancestors for their enthusiasm and the reasons given by us, moderns, is easily explained by our intense self-consciousness. We are deeply interested in our own states of mind: we are all psychologists now. From psychology springs the modern interest in æsthetics; those who care for art and the processes of their own minds finding themselves æstheticians willy-nilly. Now, art-criticism and æsthetics are two things, though at the present moment the former is profoundly influenced by the latter. By works of art we are thrown into an extraordinary state of mind, and, unlike our forefathers, we want to give some exacter account of that state than that it is pleasant, and of the objects that provoke it some more accurate and precise description than that they are lifelike, or poetical, or beautiful even. We expect our critics to find some plausible cause for so considerable an effect. We ask too much. It is for the æsthetician to analyze a state of mind and account for it: the critic has only to bring into sympathetic contact the object that will provoke the emotion and the mind that can experience it. Therefore, all that is required of him is that he should have sensibility, conviction, and the art of making his conviction felt. Fine sensibility he must have. He must be able to spot good works of art. No amount of eloquence in the critic can give form significance. To create that is the artist's business. It is for the critic to put the public in the way of enjoying it. 2. _Second Thoughts_ It is becoming fashionable to take criticism seriously, or, more exactly, serious critics are trying to make it so. How far they have succeeded may be measured by the fact that we are no longer ashamed to reprint our reviews: how far they are justified is another question. It is one the answer to which must depend a good deal on our answer to that old and irritating query--is beauty absolute? For, if the function of a critic be merely to perform the office of a sign-post, pointing out what he personally likes and stimulating for that as much enthusiasm as possible, his task is clearly something less priestlike than it would be if, beauty being absolute, it were his to win for absolute beauty adequate appreciation. I do not disbelieve in absolute beauty any more than I disbelieve in absolute truth. On the contrary, I gladly suppose that the proposition--this object must be either beautiful or not beautiful--is absolutely true. Only, can we recognize it? Certainly, at moments we believe that we can. We believe it when we are taken unawares and bowled over by the purely æsthetic qualities of a work of art. The purely æsthetic qualities, I say, because we can be thrown into that extraordinarily lucid and unself-conscious transport wherein we are aware only of a work of art and our reaction to it by æsthetic qualities alone. Every now and then the beauty, the bald miracle, the "significant form"--if I may venture the phrase--of a picture, a poem, or a piece of music--of something, perhaps, with which we had long believed ourselves familiar--springs from an unexpected quarter and lays us flat. We were not on the look-out for that sort of thing, and we abandon ourselves without one meretricious gesture of welcome. What we feel has nothing to do with a pre-existent mood; we are transported into a world washed clean of all past experience æsthetic or sentimental. When we have picked ourselves up we begin to suppose that such a state of mind must have been caused by something of which the significance was inherent and the value absolute. "This," we say, "is absolute beauty." Perhaps it is. Only, let us hesitate to give that rather alarming style to anything that has moved us less rapturously or less spontaneously. For, ninety-nine out of a hundred of our æsthetic experiences have been carefully prepared. Art rarely catches us: we go half way to meet it, we hunt it down even with a pack of critics. In our chastest moments we enter a concert-hall or gallery with the deliberate intention of being moved; in our most abandoned we pick up Browning or Alfred de Musset and allow our egotism to bask in their oblique flattery. Now, when we come to art with a mood of which we expect it to make something brilliant or touching there can be no question of being possessed by absolute beauty. The emotion that we obtain is thrilling enough, and exquisite may be; but it is self-conscious and reminiscent: it is conditioned. It is conditioned by our mood: what is more--critics please take note--this precedent mood not only colours and conditions our experience, but draws us inevitably towards those works of art in which it scents sympathy and approval. To a reflective moralist Wordsworth will always mean more than a yellow primrose meant to Peter Bell. In our moments of bitter disillusionment it is such a comfort to jest with Pope and His Lordship that we lose all patience with the advanced politician who prefers Blake. And, behold, we are in a world of personal predilections, a thousand miles from absolute values. Discussion of this question is complicated by the fact that a belief in the absolute nature of beauty is generally considered meritorious. It can be hitched onto, and even made to support, a disbelief in the theory that the universe is a whimsical and unpremeditated adventure which rolls merrily down the road to ruin without knowing in the least where it is going or caring to go anywhere in particular. This theory is unpopular. Wherefore, absolute beauty is too often fitted into a whole system of absolutes or rather into The Absolute; and, of course, it would be intolerable to suppose that we could ever fail to recognize--should I say Him? Unluckily, history and personal experience--those two black beasts of _a priori_ idealists--here await us. If beauty be absolute, the past was sometimes insensitive, or we are: for the past failed to recognize the beauty of much that seems to us supremely beautiful, and sincerely admired much that to us seems trash. And we, ourselves, did we never despise what to-day we adore? Murillo and Salvator Rosa and forgers of works by both enjoyed for years the passionate admiration of the _cognoscenti_ In Dr. Johnson's time "no composition in our language had been oftener perused than Pomfret's _Choice_." If ever there was a man who should have been incapable of going wrong about poetry that man was Thomas Gray. How shall we explain his enthusiasm for Macpherson's fraud? And if there be another of whom the bowling over might be taken as conclusive evidence in the court of literary appeal that other is surely Coleridge. Hark to him: "My earliest acquaintances will not have forgotten the undisciplined eagerness and impetuous zeal with which I laboured to make proselytes, not only of my companions, but of all with whom I conversed, of whatever rank, and in whatever place.... And with almost equal delight did I receive the three or four following publications of the same author." That author was the Reverend Mr. Bowles. I was saying that any work of art that has given the authentic thrill to a man of real sensibility must have an absolute and inherent value: and, of course, we all are really sensitive. Only, it is sometimes difficult to be sure that our thrill was the real _coup de foudre_ and not the mere gratification of a personal appetite. Let us admit so much: let us admit that we do sometimes mistake what happens to suit us for what is absolutely and universally good; which once admitted, it will be easy to concede further that no one can hope to recognize all manifestations of beauty. History is adamant against any other conclusion. No one can quite escape his age, his civilization, and his peculiar disposition; from which it seems to follow that not even the unanimous censure of generations can utterly discredit anything. The admission comes in the nick of time: history was on the point of calling attention to the attitude of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to Gothic, Romanesque, and Byzantine art. The fact is, most of our enthusiasms and antipathies are the bastard offspring of a pure æsthetic sense and a permanent disposition or a transitory mood. The best of us start with a temperament and a point of view, the worst with a cut-and-dried theory of life; and for the artist who can flatter and intensify these we have a singular kindness, while to him who appears indifferent or hostile it is hard to be even just. What is more, those who are most sensitive to art are apt to be most sensitive to these wretched, irrelevant implications. They pry so deeply into a work that they cannot help sometimes spying on the author behind it. And remember, though rightly we set high and apart that supreme rapture in which we are carried to a world of impersonal and disinterested admiration, our æsthetic experience would be small indeed were it confined to this. More often than not it must be of works that have moved him partly by matching a mood that the best of critics writes. More often than not he is disentangling and exhibiting qualities of which all he can truly say is that they have proved comfortable or exhilarating to a particular person at a particular moment. He is dealing with matters of taste; and about tastes, you know, _non est disputandum_. I shall not pretend that when I call the poetry of Milton good I suppose my judgement to have no more validity than what may be claimed for that of the urchin who says the same of peppermints: but I do think a critic should cultivate a sense of humour. If he be very sure that his enthusiasm is the only appropriate response of a perfectly disinterested sensibility to absolute beauty, let him be as dogmatic as is compatible with good breeding: failing that, I counsel as great a measure of modesty as may be compatible with the literary character. Let him remember that, as a rule, he is not demanding homage for what he knows to be absolutely good, but pointing to what he likes and trying to explain why he likes it. That, to my mind, is the chief function of a critic. After all, an unerring eye for masterpieces is perhaps of more use to a dealer than to him. Mistakes do not matter much: if we are to call mistakes what are very likely no more than the records of a perverse or obscure mood. Was it a mistake in 1890 to rave about Wagner? Is it a mistake to find him intolerable now? Frankly, I suspect the man or woman of the nineties who was unmoved by Wagner of having wanted sensibility, and him or her who to-day revels in that music of being æsthetically oversexed. Be that as it may, never to pretend to like what bores or dislike what pleases him, to be honest in his reactions and exact in their description, is all I now ask of a critic. It is asking a good deal, I think. To a lady who protested that she knew what she liked, Whistler is said to have replied--"So, madame, do the beasts of the field." Do they? Then all I can say is the beasts of the field are more highly developed than most of the ladies and gentlemen who write about art in the papers. 3. _Last Thoughts_ Already I am in a scrape with the critics. I am in a scrape for having said, a couple of years ago, that a critic was nothing but a sign-post, and for having added, somewhat later, that he was a fallible sign-post at that. So now, contributing to a supplement [T] which, being written by critics, is sure to be read by them, I naturally take the opportunity of explaining that what I said, if rightly understood, was perfectly civil and obliging. [Footnote T: Contributed to the Critical Supplement of _The New Republic_.] Perhaps I shall stand a better chance of pardon when it is perceived that I, too, am fallible, and, what is more, that I am quite aware of the fact. The reader can see for himself that, from first thoughts to last--in three years, that is--not only have my opinions on the art of criticism been modified, but my critical opinions have themselves become less confident. So, to recall what I did say: I said that critics exist for the public, and that it is no part of their business to help artists with good advice. I argued that a critic no more exists for artists than a palæontologist does for the Dinosaurs on whose fossils he expatiates, and that, though artists happen to create those exciting objects which are the matter of a critic's discourse, that discourse is all for the benefit of the critic's readers. For these, I said, he is to procure æsthetic pleasures: and his existence is made necessary by the curious fact that, though works of art are charged with a power of provoking extraordinarily intense and desirable emotions, the most sensitive people are often incapable of experiencing them until a jog or a drop of stimulant even has been given to their appreciative faculties. A critic should be a guide and an animator. His it is first to bring his reader into the presence of what he believes to be art, then to cajole or bully him into a receptive frame of mind. He must, therefore, besides conviction, possess a power of persuasion and stimulation; and if anyone imagines that these are common or contemptible gifts he mistakes. It would, of course, be much nicer to think that the essential part of a critic's work was the discovery and glorification of absolute beauty: only, unluckily, it is far from certain that absolute beauty exists, and most unlikely, if it does, that any human being can distinguish it from what is relative. The wiser course, therefore, is to ask of critics no more than sincerity, and to leave divine certitude to superior beings--magistrates, for instance, and curates, and fathers of large families, and Mr. Bernard Shaw. At any rate, it is imprudent, I am sure, in us critics to maintain so stoutly as we are apt to do, that when we call a work of art "good" we do not mean simply that we like it with passion and conviction but that it is absolutely so, seeing that the most sensitive people of one age have ever extolled some things which the most sensitive of another have cried down, and have cried down what others have extolled. And, indeed, I will bet whatever this essay may be worth that there is not a single contributor to this supplement who would not flatly contradict a vast number of the æsthetic judgements which have been pronounced with equal confidence by the most illustrious of his predecessors. No critic can be sure that what he likes has absolute value; and it is a mark of mere silliness to suppose that what he dislikes can have no value at all. Neither is there any need of certainty. A critic must have sincerity and conviction--he must be convinced of the genuineness of his own feelings. Never may he pretend to feel more or less or something other than what he does feel; and what he feels he should be able to indicate, and even, to some extent, account for. Finally, he must have the power of infecting others with his own enthusiasm. Anyone who possesses these qualities and can do these things I call a good critic. "And what about discrimination?" says someone. "What about the very meaning of the word?" Certainly the power of discriminating between artists, that of discriminating between the parts and qualities of a work of art, and the still different power of discriminating between one's own reactions, are important instruments of criticism; but they are not the only ones, nor, I believe, are they indispensable. At any rate, if the proper end of criticism be the fullest appreciation of art, if the function of a critic be the stimulation of the reader's power of comprehending and enjoying, all means to that end must be good. The rest of this essay will be devoted to a consideration of the means most commonly employed. Discriminating critics, as opposed to those other two great classes--the Impressionistic and the Biographical--are peculiar in this amongst other things: they alone extract light from refuse and deal profitably with bad art. I am not going back on my axiom--the proper end of criticism is appreciation: but I must observe that one means of stimulating a taste for what is most excellent is an elaborate dissection of what is not. I remember walking with an eminent contributor to _The New Republic_ and a lady who admired so intemperately the writings of Rupert Brooke that our companion was at last provoked into analyzing them with magisterial severity. He concluded by observing that a comparison of the more airy and fantastic productions of this gallant young author with the poems of Andrew Marvell would have the instant effect of putting the former in their place. The lady took the hint; and has since confessed that never before had she so clearly seen or thoroughly enjoyed the peculiar beauties, the sweetness, the artful simplicity and sly whimsicality of the most enchanting of English poets. The discriminating critic is not afraid of classifying artists and putting them in their places. Analysis is one of his most precious instruments. He will pose the question--"Why is Milton a great poet?"--and will proceed to disengage certain definite qualities the existence of which can be proved by demonstration and handled objectively with almost scientific precision. This sort of criticism was brought to perfection in the eighteenth century; and certainly it did sometimes lead critics quite out of sight and reach of the living spirit of poetry. It was responsible for masses of amazing obtuseness (especially in criticism of the visual arts); it was the frequent cause of downright silliness; it made it possible for Dr. Johnson, commenting on the line _Time and the hour runs through the roughest day_, to "suppose every reader is disgusted at the tautology"; but it performed the immense service of stimulating enthusiasm for clear thought and exact expression. These discriminating and objective critics will always be particularly useful to those whose intellects dominate their emotions, and who need some sort of intellectual jolt to set their æsthetic sensibilities going. Happily, the race shows no signs of becoming extinct, and Sir Walter Raleigh and M. Lanson are the by no means unworthy successors of Dr. Johnson and Saint-Evremond. It is inexact to say that the nineteenth century invented impressionist criticism, the nineteenth century invented nothing except the electric light and Queen Victoria. But it was in the later years of that century that Impressionism became self-conscious and pompous enough to array itself in a theory. The method everyone knows: the critic clears his mind of general ideas, of canons of art, and, so far as possible, of all knowledge of good and evil; he gets what emotions he can from the work before him, and then confides them to the public. [U] He does not attempt to criticize in the literal sense of the word; he merely tells us what a book, a picture, or a piece of music makes him feel. This method can be intensely exciting; what is more, it has made vast additions to our æsthetic experience. It is the instrument that goes deepest: sometimes it goes too deep, passes clean through the object of contemplation, and brings up from the writer's own consciousness something for which in the work itself no answerable provocation is to be found. This leads, of course, to disappointment and vexation, or else to common dishonesty, and can add nothing to the reader's appreciation. On the other hand, there are in some works of art subtleties and adumbrations hardly to be disentangled by any other means. In much of the best modern poetry--since Dante and Chaucer, I mean--there are beauties which would rarely have been apprehended had not someone, throwing the whole apparatus of objective criticism aside, vividly described, not the beauties themselves, but what they made him feel. And I will go so far as to admit that in a work of art there may be qualities, significant and precious, but so recondite and elusive that we shall hardly grasp them unless some adventurer, guided by his own experience, can trace their progress and show us their roots in the mind from which they sprang. [Footnote U: Happily, I have never laid great claims to that prevalent modern virtue, originality; otherwise, I might have been somewhat dashed by coming across the following passage, only the other day, in the miscellaneous writings of Gibbon (_de mes lectures Oct_. 3, 1762): "Till now (says he) I was acquainted only with two ways of criticising a beautiful passage: the one, to shew, by an exact anatomy of it, the distinct beauties of it, and whence they sprung; the other, an idle exclamation, or a general encomium which leaves nothing behind it. Longinus has shown me that there is a third. He tells me his own feelings upon reading it; and tells them with such energy that he communicates them."] Impressionistic criticism of literature is not much approved nowadays, though Mr. Arthur Symonds and one or two of his contemporaries still preserve it from the last outrages of a new and possibly less subtle generation, while M. Proust, by using it to fine effect in his extraordinary masterpiece, may even bring it again into fashion. But it has got a bad name by keeping low company; for it has come to be associated with those journalistic reviewers who describe, not the feelings and ideas provoked in them by reading a book, but what they thought and felt and did at or about the time they were supposed to be reading it. These are the chatterboxes who will tell you how they got up, cut themselves shaving, ate sausages, spilt the tea, and nearly missed the train in which they began to read the latest work of Benedetto Croce, which, unluckily, having got into conversation with a pretty typist or a humorous bagman, they quite forgot, left in the carriage, and so can tell you no more about. But this is not Impressionism, it is mere vulgarity. If in literary criticism the impressionist method is falling into disfavour, in the criticism of music and painting it holds the field. Nor is this surprising: to write objectively about a symphony or a picture, to seize its peculiar intrinsic qualities and describe them exactly in words, is a feat beyond the power of most. Wherefore, as a rule, the unfortunate critic must either discourse on history, archæology, and psychology, or chatter about his own feelings. With the exception of Mr. Roger Fry there is not in England one critic capable of saying so much, to the purpose, about the intrinsic qualities of a work of visual art as half a dozen or more--Sir Walter Raleigh, Mr. Murry, Mr. Squire, Mr. Clutton Brock, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, and Mr. McCarthy to begin with--can be trusted to say easily, and, if necessary, weekly, about the intrinsic qualities of a book. To be sure, Mr. Fry is a great exception: with my own ears have I heard him take two or three normally intelligent people through a gallery and by severely objective means provoke in them a perfect frenzy of enthusiasm for masterpieces of utterly different schools and ages. Doubtless that is what art-criticism should be; but perhaps it is wrong to despise utterly those who achieve something less. Just at present it is the thing to laugh at biographical and historical critics, a class of which Sainte-Beuve is the obvious representative, and to which belong such writers as Taine and Francesco de Sanctis and all who try to explain works of art by describing their social and political circumstances. "At any rate," it is said, "these are not _critics_." I shall not quarrel over words; but I am persuaded that, when they care genuinely for books and have a gift of exposition, these perform the same function as their more æsthetically-minded brethren. I am sure that a _causerie_ by Sainte-Beuve often sends a reader, with a zest he had never found unaided, to a book he had never opened unadvised. There are plenty of men and women, equipped to relish the finest and subtlest things in literature, who can hardly come at a book save through its author, or at an author save through the story of his life and a picture of his surroundings; wherefore, few things do more to promote and disseminate a taste for art and letters and, I will add, for all things of the spirit, than biographical and historical criticism and the discussion of tendencies and ideas. And this brings me to my conclusion. Though the immediate object of criticism is to put readers in the way of appreciating fully a work or works in the merit of which the critic believes, its ultimate value lies further afield in more general effects. Good criticism not only puts people in the way of appreciating particular works; it makes them feel, it makes them remember, what intense and surprising pleasures are peculiar to the life of the spirit. For these it creates an appetite, and keeps that appetite sharp: and I would seriously advise anyone who complains that his taste for reading has deserted him to take a dip into the great critics and biographers and see whether they will not send him back to his books. For, though books, pictures, and music stand charged with a mysterious power of delighting and exciting and enhancing the value of life; though they are the keys that unlock the door to the world of the spirit--the world that is best worth living in--busy men and women soon forget. It is for critics to be ever jogging their memories. Theirs it is to point the road and hold open the unlocked doors. In that way they become officers in the kingdom of the mind, or, to use a humbler and preferable term, essential instruments of culture. OTHON FRIESZ Friesz is a painter who has "come on" visibly since the war. He has drawn right away from "the field" to join those leaders--Matisse, Picasso, Derain, Bonnard, shall we say, with one or two more in close attendance--a cursory glance at whom, as they flash by, provokes this not unprofitable exclamation: "How different they are!" Apparently, amongst the chiefs, that famous movement no longer counts for much. Look at them; to an eye at all practised these artists are as unlike each other as are hounds to the eye of a huntsman. Certainly, they all owe something to Cézanne: but what other important characteristic have they in common which they do not share with the best of the last hundred years? It was ever thus: the best, who are all alike in some ways, in others are, from the first, the most sharply differentiated simply because they are the most personal. Also, as they mature they become more and more peculiar because they tend to rely less and less on anything but themselves and the grand tradition. Each creates and inhabits a world of his own, which, by the way, he is apt to mistake for the world of everyone who is not maliciously prejudiced against him. And Friesz, whose character and intelligence are utterly unlike those of his compeers, is now, naturally enough, producing work which has little in common with that even of Matisse-- [Illustration: OTHON FRIESZ] Matisse, to whom, not fifteen years ago, I saw a picture of his attributed by a competent amateur who was the friend of both. Friesz has an air of being more professional than any other artist of this first rank--for Marchand, I think, is not quite of it. Indeed, for a moment, Friesz may appear alarmingly professional. Certainly, he leaves nothing to chance: all is planned, and planned not in haste and agitation, fingers itching to be at it, but with the deliberation, the critical thoroughness, of an engineer or an architect. There is so much of the painstaking craftsman in his method that for a moment you may overlook the sensitive artist who conceives and executes. But, in fact, the effective alliance of practical intelligence with fine sensibility is the secret of his strength, as I realized one day, when I had the privilege of studying a large decoration (a sketch for a fragment of which is to be seen in this exhibition) [V] which Friesz had just carried out. Since then I have not doubted that he was the man who might give this age that of which the age talks much and gets little--monumental decoration. [Footnote V: At the Independent Gallery, 1921.] Large decorative schemes--when they are not, what most are, mere wastes of tumid pomposity--are apt to fail for one of two reasons: either they are too much like pictures or too little like works of art. Because very few artists are capable by taking thought of adapting their means to an unfamiliar end, it will happen that a sensitive and gifted painter sets about a decoration as though he were beginning an easel picture. He has his sense of the importance of richness, of filling a picture to the brim; he has a technique adequate to his conception; but he has neither the practical readiness nor the intellectual robustness which would enable him to adjust these to a new problem. He endeavours, therefore, to key every part of his scheme up to the highest pitch of intensity that line and colour can bear. He is attempting the impossible; his conception is inappropriate; and, in any case, his technique is unequal to so vast an undertaking. He produces something which may be delicious in detail but is pretty sure to be unsatisfactory as a whole. He fails to fill his space. His work has the vice of Sidney's _Arcadia_ and the _Religio Medici_: it is good to dip into. You cannot write an epic as though it were a sonnet. On the other hand, you must not write an epic as though you were telling a tale in the bar-parlour, lest you should create another _Earthly Paradise_, leaving quite untouched the subtler and more energetic chords in your listener's appreciative faculty. The craftsman decorator, though he may know how to fill vast spaces, will never fill them with lively images. His plan may be cleverly devised to surmount difficulties of structure and material; it will not be inspired. Incapable of keying his instrument too high, he will be satisfied with a slack string and abominable flatness. His forms will be conventional; his handling impersonal; ten to one he will give us a row of insipid Gothic figures or something in the pseudo-Veronese taste. Almost everyone would admit that, considered as pictures, those great decorations in the Doges' Palace were a little empty; no one can deny that as parts of a vast scheme they are superbly adequate. Very much the same might be said of the decorations I have in mind. It is clear that Friesz plotted and reasoned with himself until he had contrived a method of matching means with ends. By constructing it out of forms less charged, more fluent, and more in the nature of arabesques than those he habitually employs he gave to his scheme continuity and easy comprehensibility: but never did he allow those forms to subside into mere coloured spaces, or the lines to become mere flourishes: always every detail was doing something, and so the whole was significant and alive. The scheme which was planned with caution was carried through with passion. Now, obviously, a painter capable of performing this feat must possess a rare, at this moment possibly unique, gift. Friesz is one who can bring the whole weight of his intellect to bear on his sensibility. That sensibility let no one underrate. Before his vision of the external world, especially before what we are pleased to call Nature, Friesz has a reaction as delicate and enthusiastic as that of an English poet. Only, unlike most English painters, he would never dream of jotting it down and leaving it at that. Such hit-or-miss frivolity is not in his way. He is no amateur. He takes his impressions home and elaborates them; he brings his intellect to bear on them; and, as this exhibition shows, without robbing them of their bloom, makes of them something solid and satisfying. To realize what a power this is we may, I hope without indiscretion, glance for an instant at another handsomely endowed French painter. That M. Lhote does not want for sensibility is shown by his sketches and water-colours, that his intellect is sharp enough is proved by his writings; but the devitalized rectitude of his more ambitious pieces shows how appallingly difficult it is to bring intellect to bear on sensibility without crushing it. The failure of M. Lhote is the measure of M. Friesz's achievement. If I am right, it is only natural that pictures by Friesz should improve on acquaintance. The studied logic of the composition may for a time absorb the spectator's attention and blind him to more endearing qualities; but, sooner or later, he will begin to perceive not only that a scrupulously honest vision has been converted into a well-knit design, but that the stitches are lovely. In every part he will be discovering subtle and seductive harmonies and balances of which the delicacy dawns on him as he gazes. The more he looks the more will he get of that curiously gratifying thrill which comes of the recognition of unostentatious rightness. But, though he offers the sensitive amateur an unusually generous allowance of the amateur's most delicate pleasure, Friesz is, above all, a painters' painter. He has been called a theorist. And, because he is a painter of exceptionally good understanding, who thinks logically about his art and can find words for what he thinks, I suppose the appellation is admissible. But, remember, he never dreams of trying to convert his theories of art into theories of life. His are not of the kind that can be so converted; I said he was a painters', not a journalists', painter. Also, unlike the theories of the mere craftsman, his are based always on the assumption that there is such a thing as art--something that is created by and appeals to peculiar faculties, something rare and personal, something not to be had simply by taking thought and pains, something as utterly unlike honest craftsmanship as it is unlike the cryptic mutterings of boozy mountebanks: subject, however, to this assumption, his theories are severely practical. They have to do solely with the art of painting; they are born of his own experience; and he makes visible use of them. That is why I call Friesz a painters' painter. I wonder whether the Italian Primitives, with that disquietingly unself-conscious inspiration of theirs, directed with such amazing confidence along well devised, practical channels, were not a little like him. The exhibition is fairly representative of Friesz's later work; and if it cannot be said quite to summarize a stage of his career, at least it is a milestone. Friesz has arrived: that is to say, what he has already achieved suffices to affirm the existence of a distinct, personal talent entitled to its place in the republic of painting. At that point we leave him. But we may be sure that, with his remarkable gift and even more remarkable power of turning it to account, his energy, his patience, and his manifest ambition, he will soon have gone beyond it. WILCOXISM To return from Paris, full of enthusiasm for contemporary art, and find oneself forced immediately into an attitude of querulous hostility is surely a melancholy thing. It is my fate; but it is not my fault. Had I found our native quidnuncs in a slightly less exalted humour, had they gushed a little less over their imperial painters at Burlington House, had they made the least effort to preserve a sense of proportion, I, for my part, had held my peace. But, deafened by the chorus of hearty self-applause with which British art has just been regaling itself, [W] a critic who hopes that his country is not once again going to make itself the laughing-stock of Europe is bound at all risks to say something disagreeable. [Footnote W: February 1920.] In that delightful book _The Worlds and I_, for bringing me acquainted with which I shall ever be grateful to _The Athenæum_, nothing is more delightful than the chapter in which Mrs. Wilcox takes us through the list of the great writers she has known. We are almost as much pleased by the authoress's confident expectation that we shall be thrilled to learn any new fact about Miss Aldrich, who wrote "one of the most exquisite lyrics in the language"; about Rhoda Hero Dunn, "a genius" with "an almost Shakespearean quality in her verse," or about Elsa Barker, whose poem _The Frozen Grail_, "dedicated to Peary and his band, is an epic of august beauty," and whose sonnet _When I am Dead_ "ranks with the great sonnets of the world," as she would be surprised to discover that we had never heard of one of them. Mrs. Wilcox believed, in perfect good faith, that the crowd of magazine-makers with whom she associated were, in fact, the great figures of the age. She had no reason for supposing that we should not be as much interested in first-hand personal gossip about Zona Gale and Ridgeley Torrence, Arthur Grissom (first editor of the _Smart Set_), Judge Malone, Theodosia Garrison, and Julie Opp Faversham ("even to talk with whom over the telephone gives me a sense of larger horizons") as we should have been in similar gossip about Swinburne and Hardy, Henry James and Mallarmé, Laforgue, Anatole France, Tolstoy, Tchekov, or Dostoevsky. And, as Mrs. Wilcox had no reason for supposing that her friends were not the greatest writers alive, what reason had she for supposing that they were not the greatest that ever lived? Without the taste, the intelligence, or the knowledge which alone can give some notion of what's what in art, she was obliged to rely on more accessible criteria. The circulation of her own works, for instance, must have compared favourably with that of most poets. To be sure there was Shakespeare and the celebrated Hugo--or was it Gambetta? But what grounds could there be for thinking that she was not superior to the obscure John Donne or the obscurer Andrew Marvel, or to Arthur Rimbaud, of whom no one she had ever heard of had ever heard? Mrs. Wilcox was not dishonest in assuming that the most successful writer in her set was the best in the world; she was not conceited even; she was merely ridiculous. It is disquieting to find the same sort of thing going on in England, where our painters are fiercely disputing with each other the crown of European painting, and our critics appraising the respective claims of Mr. Augustus John and Mr. John Nash as solemnly as if they were comparing Cézanne with Renoir. It is more than disquieting, it is alarming, to detect symptoms of the disease--this distressing disease of Wilcoxism--in _The Athenæum_ itself. Yet I am positive that not long since I read in this very paper that Mr. Wyndham Lewis was more than a match for Matisse and Derain; and, having said so much, the critic not unnaturally went on to suggest that he was a match for Lionardo da Vinci. Since then I have trembled weekly lest the infection should have spread to our literary parts. Will it be asserted, one of these Fridays, that the appetizing novels of Mr. Gilbert Cannan are distinctly better than Hardy's Wessex tales, and comparable rather with the works of Jane Austen? To save ourselves from absurdity, and still more to save our painters from inspissating that trickle of fatuity which wells from heads swollen with hot air, critics should set themselves to check this nasty malady. Let them make it clear that to talk of modern English painting as though it were the rival of modern French is silly. In old racing days--how matters stand now I know not--it used to be held that French form was about seven pounds below English: the winner of the Derby, that is to say, could generally give the best French colt about that weight and a beating. In painting, English form is normally a stone below French. At any given moment the best painter in England is unlikely to be better than a first-rate man in the French second class. Whistler was never a match for Renoir, Degas, Seurat, and Manet; but Whistler, Steer, and Sickert may profitably be compared with Boudin, Jongkind, and Berthe Morisot. And though Duncan Grant holds his own handsomely with Marchand, Vlaminck, Lhote, de Segonzac, Bracque and Modigliani, I am not yet prepared to class him with Matisse, Picasso, Derain, and Bonnard. Having bravely recognized this disagreeable truth, let us take as much interest in contemporary British painting as we can. I will try to believe that it merits more enthusiasm than I have been able to show, provided it is not made a point of patriotism to excite oneself about the Imperial War Museum's pictures exhibited at Burlington House. As a matter of fact, the most depressing thing about that show was the absence of the very quality for which British art has been most justly admired--I mean sensibility. Mr. Wilson Steer's picture seemed to me the best in the place, just because Mr. Steer has eyes with which, not only to see, but to feel. To see is something; Mr. Steer also feels for what he sees; and this emotion is the point of departure for his pictures. That he seems almost completely to have lost such power as he ever had of giving to his vision a coherent and self-supporting form is unfortunate; still, he does convey to us some modicum of the thrill provoked in him by his vision of Dover Harbour. Those thoughtful young men, on the other hand, whose works have been causing such a commotion might almost as well have been blind. They seem to have seen nothing; at any rate, they have not reacted to what they saw in that particular way in which visual artists react. They are not expressing what they feel for something that has moved them as artists, but, rather, what they think about something that has horrified them as men. Their pictures depart, not from a visual sensation, but from a moral conviction. So, naturally enough, what they produce is mere "arty" anecdote. This, perhaps, is the secret of their success--their success, I mean, with the cultivated public. Those terrible young fellows who were feared to be artists turn out after all to be innocent Pre-Raphaelites. They leave Burlington House without a stain upon their characters. This is plain speaking; how else should a critic, who believes that he has diagnosed the disease, convince a modern patient of his parlous state? To just hint a fault and hesitate dislike (not Pope, but I split that infinitive) is regarded nowadays merely as a sign of a base, compromising spirit; or not regarded at all. Artists, especially in England, cannot away with qualified praise or blame: and if they insist on all or nothing I can but offer them the latter. Nevertheless, I must assert, for my own satisfaction, that in many even of our most imperial artists, in the brothers Spenser and the brothers Nash, in Mr. Lewis, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Bomberg, and Mr. Lamb, I discover plenty of ability; only I cannot help fancying that they may have mistaken the nature of their gifts. Were they really born to be painters? I wonder. But of this I am sure: their friends merely make them look silly by comparing them with contemporary French masters, or even with Lionardo da Vinci. Wilcoxism is a terrible disease because it slowly but surely eats away our sense of imperfection, our desire for improvement, and our power of self-criticism. Modesty and knowledge are the best antidotes; and a treatment much recommended by the faculty is to take more interest in art and less in one's own prestige. Above all, let us cultivate a sense of proportion. Let us admire, for instance, the admirable, though somewhat negative, qualities in the work of Mr. Lewis--the absence of vulgarity and false sentiment, the sobriety of colour, the painstaking search for design--without forgetting that in the Salon d'Automne or the Salon des Indépendants a picture by him would neither merit nor obtain from the most generous critic more than a passing word of perfunctory encouragement; for in Paris there are perhaps five hundred men and women--drawn from the four quarters of the earth--all trying to do what Mr. Lewis tries to do, and doing it better. ART AND POLITICS Mr. Roger Fry, by means of an instructive tale (_Athenæum_, August 13, 1920), has shown us that in their dealings with art Bolshevik politicians remain true to type. Like the rest of their breed, they have no use for it unless they can exploit it to their own ends. For my part, I was never so simple as to suppose that, if the _de facto_ government of Russia professed admiration for Matisse and Picasso, that admiration had anything to do with the artistic gifts of either of these painters, any more than that the respect with which the British Government treats the names of Raphael and Michel Angelo should be taken to imply that any single one of His Majesty's ministers has ever experienced an æsthetic emotion. Consequently, I was not at all surprised to learn that the sure, though unconscious, taste of the statesman had led the rulers of Russia to reject their first loves; that instinctively they had divined that both Matisse and Picasso were too much like genuine artists to be trustworthy; and that they had, therefore, transferred their affections to the thin, and fundamentally academic, work of Larionoff, which should, I fancy, be just the thing for advanced politicians. Some time ago, however, before Picasso was found out, a young Russian æsthete--so Mr. Fry tells us--was licensed by the competent authority to pronounce that artist's eulogy, on the understanding, of course, that the lecture should somehow serve as a stick wherewith to beat the opposition. Nothing easier: Picasso was pitted against Renoir. Picasso was a great artist, because, abstract and austere, he was the man for the proletariat; whereas Renoir, who painted pretty pictures for the _bourgeoisie_, was no earthly good. The lecturer, as might have been expected, was out even in his facts: for Renoir--who came from the people, by the way--might, were he less of an artist, by means of the taking and almost anecdotic quality of his earlier work, give some pleasure to a working man; whereas Picasso--the son of middle-class parents, too--could not possibly win from an honest labourer, left to himself, anything but sarcastic laughter or ferocious abuse. But even if true, the lecturer's facts would have been beside the point. To say that a work is aristocratic or democratic, moral or immoral, is to say something silly and irrelevant, or rather, silly if meant to be relevant to its value as art. In the work of Renoir and of Picasso, in all works of art for that matter, the essential quality, as every sensitive person knows, is the same. Whatever it may be that makes art matter is to be found in every work that does matter. And though, no doubt, "subject" and to some extent "attack" may be conditioned by an artist's opinions and attitude to life, such things are irrelevant to his work's final significance. Strange as it may seem, the essential quality in a work of art is purely artistic. It has nothing to do with the moral, religious, or political views of its creator. It has to do solely with his æsthetic experience and his power of expressing that. But, as no politician is capable of appreciating, or even becoming aware of, this essential quality, it is perhaps only natural that politicians should look elsewhere for the significance of art. This painful but certain fact once grasped, it becomes possible to understand several things that have considerably puzzled critics and historians. For instance, it is often remarked, and generally with surprise, that progressive politicians are commonly averse to new movements in art. The attitude of the present Russian Government to the contemporary movement makes neither for nor against this view, for that novelty it took over as a going concern. Let us see how it looks on the next, which will be very likely a return to the tradition of Ingres. The example usually cited by exponents of this theory--that progressive politicians are reactionary in art--is the notorious hostility of Liberals to the romantic movement; but I believe that were they to study closely the histories of the Impressionist, the Pre-Raphaelite, and the Wagnerian movements they would find in them, too, evidence on the whole favourable to their case. Be that as it may, this theory, which once seemed paradoxical, quite loses its fantastic air when considered in the light of our discovery. Had art anything to do with opinion it would be strange, indeed, if new art were ill-received by those who like their opinions new. But as art has nothing whatever to do with such things there is no more reason why a Radical should like new forms of art than why he should like new brands of tea. The essential qualities of a work of art are purely artistic; and since politicians, if not too coarse by nature, soon make themselves so by practice, to apprehend these they must, unless they can leave art alone, seek its significance in what is unessential. Progressive politicians, who have a way of taking ethics under their wing and even conceive themselves the active promoters of good, are apt to seek it in morals. One might have supposed that a message was to be found as easily in new forms of art as in old; but, unluckily, new forms are to most incomprehensible. And though to a hardened sinner here and there what is incomprehensible may be nothing worse than disconcerting, to him who seeks good in all things, and is constantly on the look-out for uplifting influences, whatever disappoints this longing is positively and terribly evil. Now, a new and genuine work of art is something unmistakably alive and, at the same time, unprovided, as yet, with moral credentials. It is unintelligible without being negligible. It comes from an unfamiliar world and shakes a good man's belief in the obvious. It must be very wicked. And the proper reaction to what is wicked is a blind fury of moral indignation. Well, blind fury is blind. So no one could be much worse placed than the political moralist for seeing whatever there may be to be seen in what is, at once, strange and subtle. We are in a position now to clear up another difficulty, which has distressed so deeply the best and wisest of men that to get rid of it some have felt justified in tampering with the truth. If art had anything to do with politics, evidently art should have flourished most gloriously in those ages of political freedom which do us all so much credit. The necessity of this inference has been felt strongly enough by Liberal historians to make them accept without demur the doctrine that the age of Pericles was the great age of visual art, and repeat it without mentioning the fact that in that age an aristocracy of some twenty-five thousand citizens was supported by the compulsory labours of some four hundred thousand slaves. The truth is, of course, that art may flourish under any form of government. It flourished in the Athenian aristocracy and under the despotic bureaucracies of China, Persia, and Byzantium. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries it flourished under the feudal system, and in the fifteenth amongst the oligarchies and tyrannies of Italy. On the other hand, neither the Roman Republic nor the Roman Empire gave us anything much worth remembering: and no period in French history has been less fruitful in art and letters than the first republic and empire. There was Ingres, of course; but the period on the whole was singularly barren, and it may be just worth remarking that at no time, perhaps, has French art been so academic, professorial, timid, and uninspired as in the first glorious years of the great Revolution. Here there is nothing to surprise us. But what does, at first sight, seem odd is that art should apparently be indifferent, not only to political systems, but to social conditions as well. Barbarism or Civilization: it is all one to art. Old-fashioned historians, who had a pleasant, tidy way of dealing with the past, used to plot out from that wilderness four great periods of civilization: the Athenian (from 480 B.C. to the death of Aristotle, 322), the first and second centuries of the Roman Empire, Italy in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and from the end of the Fronde, 1653, to the Revolution. For my part, I should be inclined to subtract from these the Roman period, and add, if only I knew more about it, the age of Sung. But accepting, by way of compromise, all five, we find that three--the Greek, Chinese, and Italian--were rich in visual art, whereas Rome was utterly barren and the eighteenth century not extraordinarily prolific. To make matters worse, we see in the dark and early middle ages a steady flow of first-rate art from societies more or less barbarous, while lately we have learnt that black and naked savages can create exquisitely. Are we, then, to assume that there is no connection between art and civilization? I think not. A connection there is, but, as was to be expected, an unessential one. The essential quality in art is invariable, and what gives the Parthenon its significance is what gives significance to a nigger's basket-work box. There is such a thing as civilized art, but its civility lies in adventitious and subsidiary qualities--in the means, not in the end. It seems to me we do mean something when we say that Phidias, Sophocles, and Aristophanes, Raphael, Racine, Molière, Poussin, Milton, Wren, Jane Austen and Mozart are highly civilized artists, and that the creators of the Gothic cathedrals and the author of the _Chanson de Roland_, Villon, Webster, Rembrandt, Blake, Wordsworth, Emily Brontë, Whitman, Turner, Wagner and the Congolese fetish-makers are not. But, whatever we may mean, assuredly we do not mean that one set is superior to the other. They differ widely; but they differ in the means by which they compass the same end. It is absurd to argue that civilization is either favourable or unfavourable to art; but it is reasonable to suppose that it may be the one or the other to a particular artist. Different temperaments thrive in different atmospheres. How many mute, inglorious Miltons, Raphaels, and Mozarts may not have lost heart and gone under in the savage insecurity of the dark ages? And may not the eighteenth century, which clipped the wings of Blake, have crushed the fluttering aspirations of a dozen Gothically-minded geniuses and laughed some budding Wagner out of all idea of expressing his ebullient personality? It is possible to speak of civilized or uncivilized art and mean something by our words; but what we mean has nothing to do with the ultimate value of the work. And, in the same way, there may be an unessential connection between art and politics, though more remote and unimportant still. As I have explained too often already, an artist, before he can create effectively, has got to work himself into a passion; by some means he has got to raise his feelings to the creative temperature and his energies to a corresponding pitch of intensity. He must make himself drunk somehow, and political passion is as good a tipple as another. Religion, Science, Morals, Love, Hate, Fear, Lust--all serve the artist's turn, and Politics and Patriotism have done their bit. It is clear that Wordsworth was thrown into the state of mind in which he wrote his famous sonnets by love of England and detestation of France, by fear of revolution and longing for order; but how much patriotism or constitutionalism has to do with the suave beauty of those harmonious masterpieces may be inferred from the fact that "hoarse Fitzgerald" and Mr. Kipling are quite as patriotic and even more reactionary. Amongst painters David is the conspicuous example of an artist--a small one, to be sure--intoxicated by politics. David set out as a humble, eighteenth-century follower of Fragonard. But the Revolution filled his poor head with notions about the Greeks and the Romans, Harmodius and Aristogiton, Cornelia and the Gracchi, _sic semper tyrannis_, and Phrygian caps. And his revolutionary enthusiasm changed the whole manner of his attack on that central, artistic problem which never, in any style, did he succeed in solving. But the influence of this new style was immense, and paramount in French painting for the next forty or fifty years. It is to be noted, however, that David's great and immediate follower, the mighty Ingres, who frankly adopted this style, redolent of all republican virtues, was himself one of the most virulent reactionaries that ever lived. And that, perhaps, would be all that needed saying about Art and Politics were it not that at this moment the subject has an unusual importance. Movements in art have, more often than not, been the result of an extraordinarily violent preoccupation, on the part of artists, with the unessential and insignificant. David rescued painting from the charming and slightly sentimental disorder of the later eighteenth century by concentrating on Roman virtues and generals' uniforms. The Romantics freed themselves from Davidism by getting frantically excited about a little hazy nonsense rather unfairly attributed to Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott. From this the Impressionists escaped by persuading themselves that they were men of science. And against this my contemporaries set up a conscious æstheticism, slightly tinged with certain metaphysico-moral doctrines concerning the cowiness of cows and the thing in itself. With Cubism conscious æstheticism holds the field, for the Cubist theory is, in the main, æsthetic. That is one reason why I cannot think that there is any great future for Cubism. An artistic movement is unlikely to live long on anything so relevant to art; for artists, it seems, must believe that they are concerned with something altogether different. Wherefore, I think it not improbable--indeed, there are indications already [X]--that, political progress having in the last few years somewhat outrun civilization, and the new democracy being apparently hostile to art and culture, artists will take to believing passionately in what they will call "order." If so, in the name of Napoleon and Louis XIV, but, let us hope, with the science and restraint of Poussin and Ingres, they will turn, most likely, to the classical tradition and, while endeavouring to create significant form, will assert vehemently that they are expressing their political convictions. [Footnote X: September 1920.] [Illustration: DERAIN (_Photo: Bernheim jeune_)] THE AUTHORITY OF M. DERAIN Sooner or later the critic who wishes to be taken seriously must say his word about Derain. It is an alarming enterprise. Not only does he run a considerable risk of making himself absurd, he may make a formidable and contemptuous enemy as well. "On ne peut pas me laisser tranquille!" grumbles Derain; to which the only reply I can think of is--"on ne peut pas." Derain is now the greatest power amongst young French painters. I would like to lay stress on the words "power" and "French," because I do not wish to say, what may nevertheless be true, that Derain is the greatest painter in France, or seemingly to forget that Picasso's is the paramount influence in Europe. For all their abjurations most of the younger and more intelligent foreigners, within and without the gates of Paris, know well enough that Picasso is still their animator. Wherever a trace of Cubism or of _tête-de-nègre_, or of that thin, anxious line of the "blue period" is still to be found, there the ferment of his unquiet spirit is at work. And I believe it is in revolt against, perhaps in terror of, this profoundly un-French spirit that the younger Frenchmen are seeking shelter and grace under the vast though unconscious nationalism of Derain. For the French have never loved Cubism, though Braque uses it beautifully. How should they love anything so uncongenial to their temperament? How should that race which above all others understands and revels in life care for an art of abstractions? How, having raised good sense to the power of genius, should France quite approve æsthetic fanaticism? What would Poussin have said to so passionate a negation of common sense? Well, happily, we know the opinion of Molière: La parfaite raison fuit toute extrémité, Et veut que l'on soit sage avec sobriété. Did ever Frenchmen sympathize absolutely with Don Quixote? At any rate, because at the very base of his civilization lies that marvellous sense of social relations and human solidarity, a French artist will never feel entirely satisfied unless he can believe that his art is somehow related to, and justified by, Life. Now, Picasso is not Spanish for nothing. He is a mystic; which, of course, does not prevent him being a remarkably gay and competent man of the world. Amateurs who knew him in old days are sometimes surprised to find Picasso now in a comfortable flat or staying at the Savoy. I should not be surprised to hear of him in a Kaffir kraal or at Buckingham Palace, and wherever he might be I should know that under that urbane and slightly quizzical surface still would be kicking and struggling the tireless problem. That problem his circumstances cannot touch. It has nothing to do with Life; for not only was Picasso never satisfied with a line that did not seem right in the eyes of God--of the God that is in him, I mean--but never would it occur to him that a line could be right in any other way. For him Life proves nothing and signifies not much; it is the raw material of art. His problem is within; for ever he is straining and compelling his instrument to sing in unison with that pitiless voice which in El Greco's day they called the voice of God. Derain's problem is different, and perhaps more exacting still. It seems odd, I know, but I think it is true to say that Derain's influence over the younger Frenchmen depends as much on his personality as on his pictures. Partly this may be because his pictures are not much to be seen; for he is neither prolific not particularly diligent, and always there are half a dozen hungry dealers waiting to snap up whatever he may contrive to finish. But clearly this is not explanation enough, and to appreciate Derain's position in Paris one should be, what unluckily I am not, a psychologist. One should be able to understand why his pictures are imitated hardly at all, and why his good opinion is coveted; why young painters want to know what Derain thinks and feels, not only about their art, but about art in general, and even about life; and why instinctively they pay him this compliment of supposing that he does not wish them simply to paint as he paints. What is it Derain wants of them? I shall be satisfied, and a good deal surprised, if I can discover even what he wants of himself. A year or two ago it was the fashion to insist on Derain's descent from the Italian Primitives: I insisted with the rest. But as he matures his French blood asserts more and more its sovranty, and now completely dominates the other elements in his art. Assuredly he is in the great European tradition, but specifically he is of the French: Chardin, Watteau, and Poussin are his direct ancestors. Of Poussin no one who saw _La Boutique Fantasque_ will have forgotten how it made one think. No one will have forgotten the grave beauty of those sober greys, greens, browns, and blues. They made one think of Poussin, and of Racine, too. And yet the ballet was intensely modern; always you were aware that Derain had been right through the movement--through Fauvism, Negroism, Cubism. Here was an artist who had refused nothing and feared nothing. Could anyone be less of a reactionary and at the same time less of an anarchist? And, I will add, could anyone be less _gavroche_? _La Boutique Fantasque_, which is not only the most amusing, but the most beautiful, of Russian ballets, balances on a discord. Even the fun of Derain is not the essentially modern fun of Massine. Derain is neither flippant nor exasperated; he is humorous, and tragic sometimes. English criticism is puzzled by Derain because very often it is confronted by things of his which seem dull and commonplace, to English critics. These are, in fact, the protests of Derain's genius against his talent, and whether they are good or not I cannot say. Derain has a super-natural gift for making things: give him a tin kettle and in half a morning he will hammer you out a Summerian head; he has the fingers of a pianist, an aptitude that brings beauty to life with a turn of the wrist; in a word, that sensibility of touch which keeps an ordinary craftsman happy for a lifetime: and these things terrify him. He ties both hands behind his back and fights so. Deliberately he chooses the most commonplace aspects and the most unlovely means of expression, hoping that, talent thus bound, genius will be stung into action. Sometimes, no doubt, Achilles stays sulking in his tent. I suppose Derain can be dull. But what does he want this genius of his to do? Nothing less, I believe, than what the French genius did at its supreme moment, in the seventeenth century, what the Greek did in the fifth. My notion is that he wants to create art which shall be perfectly uncompromising and at the same time human, and he would like it none the worse, I dare say, were it to turn out popular as well. After all, Racine did this, and Molière and La Bruyère and Watteau and Chardin and Renoir. It is in the French tradition to believe that there is a beauty common to life and art. The Greeks had it, so runs the argument, and the Italians of the high renaissance, but the English poets tended to sacrifice art to beauty, and the moderns--so Derain may think--sacrifice beauty and grandeur to discretion. The motto "Safety first" did, I will confess, just float across my eyes as I walked through the last _salon d'automne_. And, then, Derain may feel that there is in him something besides his power of creation and sense of form, something which philosophers would call, I dare say, a sense of absolute beauty in things, of external harmony. However we may call it, what I mean is the one thing at all worth having which the Greeks had and the Byzantines had not, which Raphael possesses more abundantly than Giotto. In Derain this sense is alive and insistent; it is urging him always to capture something that is outside him; the question is, can he, without for one moment compromising the purity of his art, obey it? I do not know. But if he cannot, then there is no man alive to give this age what Phidias, Giorgione, and Watteau gave theirs. The French are not unwilling to believe that they are the heirs of Greece and Rome. So, if I am right, the extraordinary influence of Derain may be accounted for partly, at any rate, by the fact that he, above all living Frenchmen, has the art to mould, in the materials of his age, a vessel that might contain the grand classical tradition. What is more, it is he, if anyone, who has the strength to fill it. No one who ever met him but was impressed by the prodigious force of his character and his capacity for standing alone. At moments he reminds one oddly of Johnson. He, too, is a dictator, at once humorous and tragic like the mirific doctor, but, unlike him, infinitely subtle. He, too, is troubled, and not by any sense of isolation nor yet by the gnawings of vanity and small ambition. It is the problem that tortures him. Can he do what Raphael and Racine did? Can he create something that shall be uncompromising as art and at the same time humane? Face to face with that problem Derain stands for what is to-day most vital and valid in France--a passionate love of the great tradition, a longing for order and the will to win it, and that mysterious thing which the Athenians called [Greek: _spoudiotês_]; and schoolmasters call "high seriousness." He accepts the age into which he has stumbled with all its nastiness, vulgarity, and cheek. He accepts that woebegone, modern democracy which could not even make its great war fine. He believes he can make something of it. Because he has a first-rate intellect he can afford to mistrust reason; and so sure is he of his own taste that he can brush refinement aside. Yet neither his scepticisms nor his superstitions alienate the intelligent, nor are the sensitive offended by his total disregard of their distinctions. And though all this has nothing to do with painting, on painters, I surmise, it has its effect. "PLUS DE JAZZ" [Y] [Footnote Y: 1921] On the first night of the Russian ballet in Paris, somewhere about the middle of May, perhaps the best painter in France, one of the best musicians, and an obscure journalist were sitting in a small _bistrot_ on the Boulevard St. Germain. They should all have been at the spectacle; all had promised to go; and yet they sat on over their _alcools_ and _bocks_, and instead of going to the ballet began to abuse it. And from the ballet they passed to modern music in general, and from music to literature: till gradually into the conversation came, above the familiar note of easy denigration, a note of energy, of conviction, of aspiration, which so greatly astonished one, at least, of the three that, just before two o'clock--the hour at which the patron puts even his most faithful clients out of doors--he exclaimed, with an emphasis in him uncommon, "Plus de Jazz!" It was the least important of the three who said it, and, had it been the most, I am not suggesting that, like the walls of Jericho, a movement would have tottered at an ejaculation. Jazz will not die because a few clever people have discovered that they are getting sick of it; Jazz is dying, and the conversation to which I have referred is of importance only as an early recognition of the fact. For the rest it was unjust, as such conversations will be; the Jazz movement, short and slightly irritating though it was, having served its turn and added its quota to the tradition. But Jazz is dead--or dying, at any rate--and the moment has come for someone who likes to fancy himself wider awake than his fellows to write its obituary notice. In doing so he may, adventitiously, throw light on something more interesting than the past; he may adumbrate the outline of the coming movement. For always movements are conditioned partly by their predecessors, against which, in some sort, they must ever be reactions. The Jazz movement is a ripple on a wave; the wave--the large movement which began at the end of the nineteenth century in a reaction against realism and scientific paganism--still goes forward. The wave is essentially the movement which one tends to associate, not very accurately perhaps, with the name of Cézanne: it has nothing to do with Jazz; its most characteristic manifestation is modern painting, which, be it noted, Jazz had left almost untouched. "Picasso?" queries someone. I shall come to Picasso presently. The great modern painters--Derain, Matisse, Picasso, Bonnard, Friesz, Braque, etc.--were firmly settled on their own lines of development before ever Jazz was heard of: only the riff-raff has been affected. Italian Futurism is the nearest approach to a pictorial expression of the Jazz spirit. The movement bounced into the world somewhere about the year 1911. It was headed by a Jazz band and a troupe of niggers, dancing. Appropriately it took its name from music--the art that is always behind the times. Gavroche was killed on the barricades, and it was with his name that Jazz should have been associated. Impudence is its essence--impudence in quite natural and legitimate revolt against nobility and beauty: impudence which finds its technical equivalent in syncopation: impudence which rags. "The Ragtime movement" would have been the better style, but the word "Jazz" has passed into at least three languages, and now we must make the best of it. After impudence comes the determination to surprise: you shall not be gradually moved to the depths, you shall be given such a start as makes you jigger all over. And from this determination issues the grateful corollary--thou shalt not be tedious. The best Jazz artists are never long-winded. In their admirable and urbane brevity they remind one rather of the French eighteenth century. But surprise is an essential ingredient. An accomplished Jazz artist, whether in notes or words, will contrive, as a rule, to stop just where you expected him to begin. Themes and ideas are not to be developed; to say all one has to say smells of the school, and may be a bore, and--between you and me--a "giveaway" to boot. Lastly, it must be admitted there is a typically modern craving for small profits and quick returns. Jazz art is soon created, soon liked, and soon forgotten. It is the movement of masters of eighteen; and these masterpieces created by boys barely escaped from college can be appreciated by the youngest Argentine beauty at the Ritz. Jazz is very young: like short skirts, it suits thin, girlish legs, but has a slightly humiliating effect on grey hairs. Its fears and dislikes--for instance, its horror of the noble and the beautiful--are childish; and so is its way of expressing them. Not by irony and sarcasm, but by jeers and grimaces does Jazz mark its antipathies. Irony and wit are for the grown-ups. Jazz dislikes them as much as it dislikes nobility and beauty. They are the products of the cultivated intellect, and Jazz cannot away with intellect or culture. Niggers can be admired artists without any gifts more singular than high spirits; so why drag in the intellect? Besides, to bring intellect into art is to invite home a guest who is apt to be inquisitive and even impartial. Intellect in Jazz circles is treated rather as money was once in polite society--it is taken for granted. Nobility, beauty, and intellectual subtlety are alike ruled out: the first two are held up to ridicule, the last is simply abused. What Jazz wants are romps and fun, and to make fun; that is why, as I have said, its original name Ragtime was the better. At its best Jazz rags every thing. The inspiration of Jazz is the same as that of the art of the _grand siècle_. Everyone knows how in the age of Louis XIV artists found in _la bonne compagnie_ their standards, their critics, and many of their ideas. It was by studying and writing for this world that Racine, Molière, and Boileau gave an easier and less professional gait to French literature, which--we should not forget--during its most glorious period was conditioned and severely limited by the tastes and prejudices of polite society. Whether the inventors of Jazz thought that, in their pursuit of beauty and intensity, the artists of the nineteenth century had strayed too far from the tastes and interests of common but well-to-do humanity I know not, but certain it is that, like Racine and Molière, and unlike Beaudelaire and Mallarmé and César Franck, they went to _la bonne compagnie_ for inspiration and support. _La bonne compagnie_ they found in the lounges of great hotels, on transatlantic liners, in _wagons-lits_, in music-halls, and in expensive motor-cars and restaurants. _La bonne compagnie_ was dancing one-steps to ragtime music. This, they said, is the thing. The artists of the nineteenth century had found _la bonne compagnie_--the rich, that is to say--dancing waltzes to sentimental _Olgas_ and _Blue Danubes_, but they had drawn quite other conclusions. Yet waltzes and waltz-tunes are just as good as, and no better than, fox-trots and ragtime. Both have their merits; but it is a mistake, perhaps, for artists to take either seriously. Be that as it may, the serious artists of the nineteenth century never dreamed of supposing that the pleasures of the rich were the proper stuff of art; so it was only natural that the twentieth should go to the hotel lounges for inspiration. And, of course, it was delightful for those who sat drinking their cocktails and listening to nigger-bands to be told that, besides being the jolliest people on earth, they were the most sensitive and critically gifted. They, along with the children and savages whom in so many ways they resembled, were the possessors of natural, uncorrupted taste. They first had appreciated ragtime and surrendered themselves to the compelling qualities of Jazz. Their instinct might be trusted: so, no more classical concerts and music-lessons; no more getting Lycidas by heart; no more Bædeker; no more cricking one's neck in the Sistine Chapel: unless the coloured gentleman who leads the band at the Savoy has a natural leaning towards these things you may depend upon it they are noble, pompous, and fraudulent. And it was delightful, too, for people without a vestige of talent--and even then these were in the majority--people who could just strum a tune or string a few lines of doggerel, to be told that all that distinguishes what used to be called "serious art" from their productions was of no consequence whatever, and that, on the contrary, it was these, if any, that ought to be taken seriously. The output of verse, which was manifestly much too easy to write and difficult to read, went up suddenly by leaps and bounds. What is more, some of it got printed: publishers, and even editors, bowed the knee. Naturally, the movement was a success at the Ritz and in Grub Street, Mayfair. On the other hand, because to people who reflected for an instant it seemed highly improbable that fox-trotters and shimmy-shakers were sensitive or interesting people, that Christy Minstrels were great musicians, or that pub-crawlers and _demi-mondaines_ were poets, there sprang simultaneously into existence a respectable, intelligent, and ill-tempered opposition which did, and continues to do, gross injustice to the genuine artists who have drawn inspiration, or sustenance at any rate, from Jazz. During the last ten years Jazz had dominated music and coloured literature: on painting, as I have said, its effect has been negligible. What, for want of a better name, I must call the Cézanne movement was too profound a stream to be modified by so shallow a current. All the great contemporary painters are extremely serious; they make no faces at their predecessors, or at anyone else. They are not _gavroche_. Surprise is the last emotion they wish to arouse. And, assuredly, they have neither gone to the hotel-loungers for inspiration nor shown the slightest desire to amuse them. This is as true of Picasso as of Derain: only, Picasso's prodigious inventiveness may sometimes give the impression of a will to surprise, while his habit of turning everything to account certainly does lead him to cast an inquisitive eye on every new manifestation of vitality. I have seen him enthusiastic over _la politique_ Lloyd-George, and I should not be in the least surprised if he found something in it to serve some one or other of his multifarious purposes. If, however, surprise were what Picasso aimed at he could go a very much easier way about it. He could do what his tenth-rate imitators try to do--for instance, he could agreeably shock the public with monstrous caricatures and cubist photography--those pictures, I mean, which the honest stockbroker recognizes, with a thrill of excitement at his own cleverness, as his favourite picture-postcards rigged out to look naughty. But Picasso shows such admirable indifference to the public that you could never guess from his pictures that such a thing existed: and that, of course, is how it should be. He never startles for the sake of startling; neither does he mock. Certainly, unlike the best of his contemporaries, he seems almost as indifferent to the tradition as he is to the public; but he no more laughs at the one than he tries to startle the other. Only amongst the whipper-snappers of painting will you discover a will to affront tradition, or attract attention by deliberate eccentricity. Only, I think, the Italian Futurists, their transalpine apes, a few revolutionaries on principle, but especially the Futurists with their electric-lit presentation of the more obvious peculiarities of contemporary life and their taste for popular actualities can be said definitely to have attempted a pictorial expression of Jazz. On music, however, and literature its influence has been great, and here its triumphs are considerable. It is easy to say that the genius of Stravinsky--a musician, unless I mistake, of the first order and in the great line--rises superior to movements. To be sure it does: so does the genius of Molière. But just as the genius of Molière found its appropriate food in one kind of civilization, so does the genius of Stravinsky in another; and with that civilization his art must inevitably be associated. Technically, too, he has been influenced much by nigger rhythms and nigger methods. He has composed ragtimes. So, if it is inexact to say that Stravinsky writes Jazz, it is true to say that his genius has been nourished by it. Also, he sounds a note of defiance, and sometimes, I think, does evince a will to insult. That he surprises and startles is clear; what is more, I believe he means to do it: but tricks of self-advertisement are, of course, beneath so genuine an artist. No more than Picasso does he seek small profits or quick returns; on the contrary, he casts his bread upon the waters with a finely reckless gesture. The fact is, Stravinsky is too big to be covered by a label; but I think the Jazz movement has as much right to claim him for its own as any movement has to claim any first-rate artist. Similarly, it may claim Mr. T.S. Eliot--a poet of uncommon merit and unmistakably in the great line--whose agonizing labours seem to have been eased somewhat by the comfortable ministrations of a black and grinning muse. Midwifery, to be sure, seems an odd occupation for a lady whom one pictures rather in the rôle of a flapper: but a midwife was what the poet needed, and in that capacity she has served him. Apparently it is only by adopting a demurely irreverent attitude, by being primly insolent, and by playing the devil with the instrument of Shakespeare and Milton that Mr. Eliot is able occasionally to deliver himself of one of those complicated and remarkable imaginings of his: apparently it is only in language of an exquisite purity so far as material goes, but twisted and ragged out of easy recognition, that these nurslings can be swathed. As for surprise, that, presumably, is an emotion which the author of _Ara Vos Prec_ is not unwilling to provoke. Be that as it may, Mr. Eliot is about the best of our living poets, and, like Stravinsky, he is as much a product of the Jazz movement as so good an artist can be of any. In literature Jazz manifests itself both formally and in content. Formally its distinctive characteristic is the familiar one--syncopation. It has given us a ragtime literature which flouts traditional rhythms and sequences and grammar and logic. In verse its products--rhythms which are often indistinguishable from prose rhythms and collocations of words to which sometimes is assignable no exact intellectual significance--are by now familiar to all who read. Eliot is too personal to be typical of anything, and the student who would get a fair idea of Jazz poetry would do better to spend half an hour with a volume of Cocteau or Cendrars. In prose I think Mr. Joyce will serve as a, perhaps, not very good example: I choose him because he is probably better known to readers than any other writer who affects similar methods. In his later publications Mr. Joyce does deliberately go to work to break up the traditional sentence, throwing overboard sequence, syntax, and, indeed, most of those conventions which men habitually employ for the exchange of precise ideas. Effectually, and with a will, he rags the literary instrument: unluckily, this will has at its service talents which though genuine are moderate only. A writer of greater gifts, Virginia Woolf, has lately developed a taste for playing tricks with traditional constructions. Certainly she "leaves out" with the boldest of them: here is syncopation if you like it. I am not sure that I do. At least, I doubt whether the concentration gained by her new style for _An Unwritten Novel_ and _Monday or Tuesday_ makes up for the loss of those exquisite but old-fashioned qualities which make _The Mark on the Wall_ a masterpiece of English prose. But, indeed, I do not think of Mrs. Woolf as belonging properly to the movement; she is not imbued with that spirit which inspires the authentic Jazz writers, whether of verse that looks oddly like prose or of prose that raises a false hope of turning out to be verse, and conditions all that they produce. She is not _gavroche_. In her writings I find no implicit, and often well-merited, jeer at accepted ideas of what prose and verse should be and what they should be about; no nervous dislike of traditional valuations, of scholarship, culture, and intellectualism; above all, no note of protest against the notion that one idea or emotion can be more important or significant than another. Assuredly, Mrs. Woolf is not of the company on whose banner is inscribed "No discrimination!" "No culture!" "Not much thought!" She is not of that school whose grand object it is to present, as surprisingly as possible, the chaos of any mind at any given moment. The Jazz theory of art, if theory there be, seems stupid enough--as do most. What matters, however, are not theories, but works: so what of the works of Jazz? If Stravinsky is to be claimed for the movement, Jazz has its master: it has also its _petits maîtres_--Eliot, Cendrars, Picabia, and Joyce, for instance, and _les six_. Oddly enough, _les six_ consist of four musicians--Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, Poulenc, and Germaine Taillefer [Z]--chaperoned by the brilliant Jean Cocteau. All five have their places in contemporary civilization: and such talents are not to be disposed of simply by the present of a bad name. For it is not enough to call an artist "extremist" or "reactionary," "Cubist" or "Impressionist," and condemn or approve him as such. These classifications are merely journalistic or, if you will, archæological conveniences. It is the critic's business to inquire not so much whether an artist is "advanced" or "Cubist" or "Jazz," as whether he is good, bad, or interesting; and that is what most critics fail to do. One's general opinion of a movement or school ought not to affect one's opinion of any particular work. One may, for excellent reasons, dislike a movement; one may hold that it hampers or sets on a false scent more artists than it serves; that it induces students of promise to waste time and energy on fruitless problems; that it generally fails to get the best out of its most gifted adherents, while it pumps into a multitude of empty heads so much hot air as to swell them to disquieting proportions. This is pretty much what I think of Cubism; but I am not such a fool as to deny that, experimenting in these very problems which seem to me to lead most artists into a rather unprofitable world of abstractions, Picasso and Braque have produced works of the greatest beauty and significance, while those of Fernand Léger, Jean Metsinger, and other avowed Cubists are of extraordinary merit and deserve the most careful attention. I can think of no movement except that called "Art nouveau," which has not contributed something to the world's artistic capital and to the great tradition. Only, to realize this, one must be able to distinguish not only between movements, but between the artists of a movement. That is what angry critics will not do. That is why the admirable Mr. Dent--whose brilliant lacerations of _les six_, and other exponents of Jazz, I sometimes have the pleasure of translating to his victims--knew no better, the other day, than to bracket Poulenc with Miss Edith Sitwell. Confusions of this sort seem to me to take the sting out of criticism; and that, I am sure, is the last thing Mr. Dent would wish to do. He, at any rate, who comes to bury Jazz should realize what the movement has to its credit, _viz._, one great musician, one considerable poet, ten or a dozen charming or interesting little masters and mistresses, and a swarm of utterly fatuous creatures who in all good faith believe themselves Artists. [Footnote Z: Honegger, I think, was never officially of the band.] The encouragement given to fatuous ignorance to swell with admiration of its own incompetence is perhaps what has turned most violently so many intelligent and sensitive people against Jazz. They see that it encourages thousands of the stupid and vulgar to fancy that they can understand art, and hundreds of the conceited to imagine that they can create it. All the girls in the "dancings" and sportsmen at the bar who like a fox-trot or a maxixe have been given to believe, by people who ought to know better, that they are more sensitive to music than those who prefer Beethoven. The fact that Stravinsky wants his music to be enjoyed in the cafés gives pub-loafers fair ground for supposing that Stravinsky respects their judgement. Well, the music of Brahms is not enjoyed by pub-loafers; but formerly the concert-goers were allowed to know better. Stravinsky is reported to have said that he would like people to be eating, drinking, and talking while his music was being played (how furious he would be if they did anything of the sort!), so, when a boxful of bounders begin chattering in the middle of an opera and the cultivated cry "hush" the inference is that the cultivated are making themselves ridiculous. Again: if rules were made by pedants for pedants, must not mere lawlessness be a virtue? And, since savages think little and know less, and since savage art has been extolled by the knowing ones (I take my share of whatever blame may be going) as much as "cultured" has been decried does it not follow that ignorant and high-spirited lads are likely to write better verses than such erudite old buffers as Milton, Spenser, and Gray? Above all, because it has been said that the intellect has nothing to do with art, it is assumed by the mob of ladies and gentlemen, who if they wrote not with ease could not write at all, that there is no such thing as the artistic problem. And it is, I believe, chiefly because all genuine artists are beginning to feel more and more acutely the need of a severe and exacting problem, and because everyone who cares seriously for art feels the need of severe critical standards, that, with a sigh of relief, people are timidly murmuring to each other "Plus de Jazz!" And, indeed, there are autumnal indications: the gay _papier-maché_ pagoda is beginning to lose its colours: visibly it is wilting. When, a few days after the conversation I have recorded, it was rumoured in Paris that the admired Prokofieff, composer of _Chout_, had said that he detested ragtime, the consternation into which were thrown some fashionable bars and _salons_ was as painful to behold as must have been that into which were thrown parlours and vicarage gardens when Professor Huxley began pouring cold water on Noah's Ark. We hurried away to the Southern Syncopated Orchestra, only to find it sadly fallen off. But had it really changed so much as we? And, more and more, immense musical and literary activity notwithstanding, people are looking to the painters, with their high seriousness, professionalism, conscience, reverence, and vitality as the sole exponents and saviours of "le grand art." Not for nothing is Derain the most admired of Frenchmen by the young _élite_; for Derain is humorous without being _gavroche_, respects the tradition yet is subservient to no school, and believes that all the highest human faculties are not more than sufficient to the production of the smallest work of art. What the pick of the new generation in France, and in England too, I fancy, is beginning to feel is that art, though it need never be solemn, must always be serious; that it is a matter of profound emotion and of intense and passionate thought; and that these things are rarely found in dancing-palaces and hotel lounges. Even to understand art a man must make a great intellectual effort. One thing is not as good as another; so artists and amateurs must learn to choose. No easy matter that: discrimination of this sort being something altogether different from telling a Manhattan from a Martini. To select as an artist or discriminate as a critic are needed feeling and intellect and--most distressing of all--study. However, unless I mistake, the effort will be made. The age of easy acceptance of the first thing that comes is closing. Thought rather than spirits is required, quality rather than colour, knowledge rather than irreticence, intellect rather than singularity, wit rather than romps, precision rather than surprise, dignity rather than impudence, and lucidity above all things: _plus de Jazz_. Meanwhile, whether the ladies and gentlemen in the restaurants will soon be preferring sentimental waltz-tunes to flippant ragtimes is a question on which I cannot pretend to an opinion. Neither does it matter. What these people like or dislike has nothing to do with art. That is the discovery. 
16655	----	ARTIST AND PUBLIC AND OTHER ESSAYS ON ART SUBJECTS BY KENYON COX [Illustration: From a photograph by Braun, Clement & Co. Plate 1.--Millet. "The Goose Girl." In the collection of Mme. Saulnier, Bordeaux.] ARTIST AND PUBLIC AND OTHER ESSAYS ON ART SUBJECTS BY KENYON COX _WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS_ CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK MCMXIV _Copyright, 1914, by Charles Scribner's Sons Published September, 1914_ TO J.D.C. IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF UNFAILING KINDNESS THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED PREFACE In "The Classic Point of View," published three years ago, I endeavored to give a clear and definitive statement of the principles on which all my criticism of art is based. The papers here gathered together, whether earlier or later than that volume, may be considered as the more detailed application of those principles to particular artists, to whole schools and epochs, even, in one case, to the entire history of the arts. The essay on Raphael, for instance, is little else than an illustration of the chapter on "Design"; that on Millet illustrates the three chapters on "The Subject in Art," on "Design," and on "Drawing"; while "Two Ways of Painting" contrasts, in specific instances, the classic with the modern point of view. But there is another thread connecting these essays, for all of them will be found to have some bearing, more or less direct, upon the subject of the title essay. "The Illusion of Progress" elaborates a point more slightly touched upon in "Artist and Public"; the careers of Raphael and Millet are capital instances of the happy productiveness of an artist in sympathy with his public or of the difficulties, nobly conquered in this case, of an artist without public appreciation; the greatest merit attributed to "The American School" is an abstention from the extravagances of those who would make incomprehensibility a test of greatness. Finally, the work of Saint-Gaudens is a noble example of art fulfilling its social function in expressing and in elevating the ideals of its time and country. This last essay stands, in some respects, upon a different footing from the others. It deals with the work and the character of a man I knew and loved, it was originally written almost immediately after his death, and it is therefore colored, to some extent, by personal emotion. I have revised it, rearranged it, and added to it, and I trust that this coloring may be found to warm, without falsifying, the picture. The essay on "The Illusion of Progress" was first printed in "The Century," that on Saint-Gaudens in "The Atlantic Monthly." The others originally appeared in "Scribner's Magazine." KENYON COX. Calder House, Croton-on-Hudson, June 6, 1914. CONTENTS ESSAY PAGE I. ARTIST AND PUBLIC 1 II. JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET 44 III. THE ILLUSION OF PROGRESS 77 IV. RAPHAEL 99 V. TWO WAYS OF PAINTING 134 VI. THE AMERICAN SCHOOL 149 VII. AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS 169 ILLUSTRATIONS MILLET: 1. "The Goose Girl," _Saulnier Collection, Bordeaux_ _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE 2. "The Sower," _Vanderbilt Collection, Metropolitan Museum, New York_ 46 3. "The Gleaners," _The Louvre_ 50 4. "The Spaders" 54 5. "The Potato Planter," _Shaw Collection_ 58 6. "The Grafter," _William Rockefeller Collection_ 62 7. "The New-Born Calf," _Art Institute, Chicago_ 66 8. "The First Steps," 70 9. "The Shepherdess," _Chauchard Collection, Louvre_ 72 10. "Spring," _The Louvre_ 74 RAPHAEL: 11. "Poetry," _The Vatican_ 112 12. "The Judgment of Solomon," _The Vatican_ 114 13. The "Disputa," _The Vatican_ 116 14. "The School of Athens," _The Vatican_ 118 15. "Parnassus," _The Vatican_ 120 16. "Jurisprudence," _The Vatican_ 122 17. "The Mass of Bolsena," _The Vatican_ 124 18. "The Deliverance of Peter," _The Vatican_ 126 19. "The Sibyls," _Santa Maria della Pace, Rome_ 128 20. "Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami," _Gardner Collection_ 130 JOHN S. SARGENT: 21. "The Hermit," _Metropolitan Museum, New York_ 136 TITIAN: 22. "Saint Jerome in the Desert," _Brera Gallery, Milan_ 142 SAINT-GAUDENS: 23. "Plaquette Commemorating Cornish Masque" 182 24. "Amor Caritas" 196 25. "The Butler Children" 206 26. "Sarah Redwood Lee" 208 27. "Farragut," _Madison Square, New York_ 212 28. "Lincoln," _Chicago, Ill._ 214 29. "Deacon Chapin," _Springfield, Mass._ 216 30. "Adams Memorial," _Washington, D.C._ 218 31. "Shaw Memorial," _Boston, Mass._ 220 32. "Sherman," _The Plaza, Central Park, New York_ 224 ARTIST AND PUBLIC I ARTIST AND PUBLIC In the history of art, as in the history of politics and in the history of economics, our modern epoch is marked off from all preceding epochs by one great event, the French Revolution. Fragonard, who survived that Revolution to lose himself in a new and strange world, is the last at the old masters; David, some sixteen years his junior, is the first of the moderns. Now if we look for the most fundamental distinction between our modern art and the art of past times, I believe we shall find it to be this: the art of the past was produced for a public that wanted it and understood it, by artists who understood and sympathized with their public; the art of our time has been, for the most part, produced for a public that did not want it and misunderstood it, by artists who disliked and despised the public for which they worked. When artist and public were united, art was homogeneous and continuous. Since the divorce of artist and public art has been chaotic and convulsive. That this divorce between the artist and his public--this dislocation of the right and natural relations between them--has taken place is certain. The causes of it are many and deep-lying in our modern civilization, and I can point out only a few of the more obvious ones. The first of these is the emergence of a new public. The art of past ages had been distinctively an aristocratic art, created for kings and princes, for the free citizens of slave-holding republics, for the spiritual and intellectual aristocracy of the church, or for a luxurious and frivolous nobility. As the aim of the Revolution was the destruction of aristocratic privilege, it is not surprising that a revolutionary like David should have felt it necessary to destroy the traditions of an art created for the aristocracy. In his own art of painting he succeeded so thoroughly that the painters of the next generation found themselves with no traditions at all. They had not only to work for a public of enriched bourgeois or proletarians who had never cared for art, but they had to create over again the art with which they endeavored to interest this public. How could they succeed? The rift between artist and public had begun, and it has been widening ever since. If the people had had little to do with the major arts of painting and sculpture, there had yet been, all through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, a truly popular art--an art of furniture making, of wood-carving, of forging, of pottery. Every craftsman was an artist in his degree, and every artist was but a craftsman of a superior sort. Our machine-making, industrial civilization, intent upon material progress and the satisfaction of material wants, has destroyed this popular art; and at the same time that the artist lost his patronage from above he lost his support from below. He has become a superior person, a sort of demi-gentleman, but he has no longer a splendid nobility to employ him or a world of artist artisans to surround him and understand him. And to the modern artist, so isolated, with no tradition behind him, no direction from above and no support from below, the art of all times and all countries has become familiar through modern means of communication and modern processes of reproduction. Having no compelling reason for doing one thing rather than another, or for choosing one or another way of doing things, he is shown a thousand things that he may do and a thousand ways of doing them. Not clearly knowing his own mind he hears the clash and reverberation of a thousand other minds, and having no certainties he must listen to countless theories. Mr. Vedder has spoken of a certain "home-made" character which he considers the greatest defect of his art, the character of an art belonging to no distinctive school and having no definite relation to the time and country in which it is produced. But it is not Mr. Vedder's art alone that is home-made. It is precisely the characteristic note of our modern art that all of it that is good for anything is home-made or self-made. Each artist has had to create his art as best he could out of his own temperament and his own experience--has sat in his corner like a spider, spinning his web from his own bowels. If the art so created was essentially fine and noble the public has at last found it out, but only after years of neglect have embittered the existence and partially crippled the powers of its creator. And so, to our modern imagination, the neglected and misunderstood genius has become the very type of the great artist, and we have allowed our belief in him to color and distort our vision of the history of art. We have come to look upon the great artists of all times as an unhappy race struggling against the inappreciation of a stupid public, starving in garrets and waiting long for tardy recognition. The very reverse of this is true. With the exception of Rembrandt, who himself lived in a time of political revolution and of the emergence to power of a burgher class, you will scarce find an unappreciated genius in the whole history of art until the beginning of the nineteenth century. The great masters of the Renaissance, from Giotto to Veronese, were men of their time, sharing and interpreting the ideals of those around them, and were recognized and patronized as such. Rembrandt's greatest contemporary, Rubens, was painter in ordinary to half the courts of Europe, and Velazquez was the friend and companion of his king. Watteau and Boucher and Fragonard painted for the frivolous nobility of the eighteenth century just what that nobility wanted, and even the precursors of the Revolution, sober and honest Chardin, Greuze the sentimental, had no difficulty in making themselves understood, until the revolutionist David became dictator to the art of Europe and swept them into the rubbish heap with the rest. It is not until the beginning of what is known as the Romantic movement, under the Restoration, that the misunderstood painter of genius definitely appears. Millet, Corot, Rousseau were trying, with magnificent powers and perfect single-mindedness, to restore the art of painting which the Revolution had destroyed. They were men of the utmost nobility and simplicity of character, as far as possible from the gloomy, fantastic, vain, and egotistical person that we have come to accept as the type of unappreciated genius; they were classically minded and conservative, worshippers of the great art of the past; but they were without a public and they suffered bitter discouragement and long neglect. Upon their experience is founded that legend of the unpopularity of all great artists which has grown to astonishing proportions. Accepting this legend, and believing that all great artists are misunderstood, the artist has come to cherish a scorn of the public for which he works and to pretend a greater scorn than he feels. He cannot believe himself great _unless_ he is misunderstood, and he hugs his unpopularity to himself as a sign of genius and arrives at that sublime affectation which answers praise of his work with an exclamation of dismay: "Is it as bad as that?" He invents new excesses and eccentricities to insure misunderstanding, and proclaims the doctrine that, as anything great must be incomprehensible, so anything incomprehensible must be great. And the public has taken him, at least partly, at his word. He may or may not be great, but he is certainly incomprehensible and probably a little mad. Until he succeeds the public looks upon the artist as a more or less harmless lunatic. When he succeeds it is willing to exalt him into a kind of god and to worship his eccentricities as a part of his divinity. So we arrive at a belief in the insanity of genius. What would Raphael have thought of such a notion, or that consummate man of the world, Titian? What would the serene and mighty Veronese have thought of it, or the cool, clear-seeing Velazquez? How his Excellency the Ambassador of his Most Catholic Majesty, glorious Peter Paul Rubens, would have laughed! It is this lack of sympathy and understanding between the artist and his public--this fatal isolation of the artist--that is the cause of nearly all the shortcomings of modern art; of the weakness of what is known as official or academic art no less than of the extravagance of the art of opposition. The artist, being no longer a craftsman, working to order, but a kind of poet, expressing in loneliness his personal emotions, has lost his natural means of support. Governments, feeling a responsibility for the cultivation of art which was quite unnecessary in the days when art was spontaneously produced in answer to a natural demand, have tried to put an artificial support in its place. That the artist may show his wares and make himself known, they have created exhibitions; that he may be encouraged they have instituted medals and prizes; that he may not starve they have made government purchases. And these well-meant efforts have resulted in the creation of pictures which have no other purpose than to hang in exhibitions, to win medals, and to be purchased by the government and hung in those more permanent exhibitions which we call museums. For this purpose it is not necessary that a picture should have great beauty or great sincerity. It _is_ necessary that it should be large in order to attract attention and sufficiently well drawn and executed to seem to deserve recognition. And so was evolved the salon picture, a thing created for no man's pleasure, not even the artist's; a thing which is neither the decoration of a public building nor the possible ornament of a private house; a thing which, after it has served its temporary purpose, is rolled up and stored in a loft or placed in a gallery where its essential emptiness becomes more and more evident as time goes on. Such government-encouraged art had at least the merit of a well-sustained and fairly high level of accomplishment in the more obvious elements of painting. But as exhibitions became larger and larger and the competition engendered by them grew fiercer, it became increasingly difficult to attract attention by mere academic merit. So the painters began to search for sensationalism of subject, and the typical salon picture, no longer decorously pompous, began to deal in blood and horror and sensuality. It was Regnault who began this sensation hunt, but it has been carried much further since his day than he can have dreamed of, and the modern salon picture is not only tiresome but detestable. The salon picture, in its merits and its faults, is peculiarly French, but the modern exhibition has sins to answer for in other countries than France. In England it has been responsible for a great deal of sentimentality and anecdotage which has served to attract the attention of a public that could not be roused to interest in mere painting. Everywhere, even in this country, where exhibitions are relatively small and ill-attended, it has caused a certain stridency and blatancy, a keying up to exhibition pitch, a neglect of finer qualities for the sake of immediate effectiveness. Under our modern conditions the exhibition has become a necessity, and it would be impossible for our artists to live or to attain a reputation without it. The giving of medals and prizes and the purchase of works of art by the state may be of more doubtful utility, though such efforts at the encouragement of art probably do more good than harm. But there is one form of government patronage that is almost wholly beneficial, and that the only form of it which we have in this country--the awarding of commissions for the decoration of public buildings. The painter of mural decorations is in the old historical position, in sound and natural relations to the public. He is doing something which is wanted and, if he continues to receive commissions, he may fairly assume that he is doing it in a way that is satisfactory. With the decorative or monumental sculptor he is almost alone among modern artists in being relieved of the necessity of producing something in the isolation of his studio and waiting to see if any one will care for it; of trying, against the grain, to produce something that he thinks may appeal to the public because it does not appeal to himself; or of attempting to bamboozle the public into buying what neither he nor the public really cares for. If he does his best he may feel that he is as fairly earning his livelihood as his fellow workmen, the blacksmith and the stonecutter, and is as little dependent as they upon either charity or humbug. The best that government has done for art in France is the commissioning of the great decorative paintings of Baudry and Puvis. In this country, also, governments, national, State, or municipal, are patronizing art in the best possible way, and in making buildings splendid for the people are affording opportunity for the creation of a truly popular art. Without any artificial aid from the government the illustrator has a wide popular support and works for the public in a normal way; and, therefore, illustration has been one of the healthiest and most vigorous forms of modern art. The portrait-painter, too, is producing something he knows to be wanted, and, though his art has had to fight against the competition of the photograph and has been partially vulgarized by the struggle of the exhibitions, it has yet remained, upon the whole, comprehensible and human; so that much of the soundest art of the past century has gone into portraiture. It is the painters of pictures, landscape or genre, who have most suffered from the misunderstanding between artist and public. Without guidance some of them have hewed a path to deserved success. Others have wandered into strange byways and no-thoroughfares. The nineteenth century is strewn with the wrecks of such misunderstood and misunderstanding artists, but it was about the sixties when their searching for a way began to lead them in certain clearly marked directions. There are three paths, in especial, which have been followed since then by adventurous spirits: the paths of æstheticism, of scientific naturalism, and of pure self-expression; the paths of Whistler, of Monet, and of Cézanne. Whistler was an artist of refined and delicate talent with great weaknesses both in temperament and training; being also a very clever man and a brilliant controversialist, he proceeded to erect a theory which should prove his weaknesses to be so many virtues, and he nearly succeeded in convincing the world of its validity. Finding the representation of nature very difficult, he decided that art should not concern itself with representation but only with the creation of "arrangements" and "symphonies." Having no interest in the subject of pictures, he proclaimed that pictures should have no subjects and that any interest in the subject is vulgar. As he was a cosmopolitan with no local ties, he maintained that art had never been national; and as he was out of sympathy with his time, he taught that "art happens" and that "there never was an artistic period." According to the Whistlerian gospel, the artist not only has now no point of contact with the public, but he should not have and never has had any. He has never been a man among other men, but has been a dreamer "who sat at home with the women" and made pretty patterns of line and color because they pleased him. And the only business of the public is to accept "in silence" what he chooses to give them. This kind of rootless art he practised. Some of the patterns he produced are delightful, but they are without imagination, without passion, without joy in the material and visible world--the dainty diversions of a dilettante. One is glad that so gracefully slender an art should exist, but if it has seemed great art to us it is because our age is so poor in anything better. To rank its creator with the abounding masters of the past is an absurdity. In their efforts to escape from the dead-alive art of the salon picture, Monet and the Impressionists took an entirely different course. The gallery painter's perfunctory treatment of subject bored them, and they abandoned subject almost as entirely as Whistler had done. The sound if tame drawing and the mediocre painting of what they called official art revolted them as it revolted Whistler; but while he nearly suppressed representation they could see in art nothing but representation. They wanted to make that representation truer, and they tried to work a revolution in art by the scientific analysis of light and the invention of a new method of laying on paint. Instead of joining in Whistler's search for pure pattern they fixed their attention on facts alone, or rather on one aspect of the facts, and in their occupation with light and the manner of representing it they abandoned form almost as completely as they had abandoned significance and beauty. So it happened that Monet could devote some twenty canvases to the study of the effects of light, at different hours of the day, upon two straw stacks in his farmyard. It was admirable practice, no doubt, and neither scientific analysis nor the study of technical methods is to be despised; but the interest of the public, after all, is in what an artist does, not in how he learns to do it. The twenty canvases together formed a sort of demonstration of the possibilities of different kinds of lighting. Any one of them, taken singly, is but a portrait of two straw stacks, and the world will not permanently or deeply care about those straw stacks. The study of light is, in itself, no more an exercise of the artistic faculties than the study of anatomy or the study of perspective; and while Impressionism has put a keener edge upon some of the tools of the artist, it has inevitably failed to produce a school of art. After Impressionism, what? We have no name for it but Post-Impressionism. Such men as Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh recognized the sterility of Impressionism and of a narrow æstheticism, while they shared the hatred of the æsthetes and the Impressionists for the current art of the salons. No more than the æsthetes or the Impressionists were they conscious of any social or universal ideals that demanded expression. The æsthetes had a doctrine; the Impressionists had a method and a technic. The Post-Impressionists had nothing, and were driven to the attempt at pure self-expression--to the exaltation of the great god Whim. They had no training, they recognized no traditions, they spoke to no public. Each was to express, as he thought best, whatever he happened to feel or to think, and to invent, as he went along, the language in which he should express it. I think some of these men had the elements of genius in them and might have done good work; but their task was a heart-breaking and a hopeless one. An art cannot be improvised, and an artist must have some other guide than unregulated emotion. The path they entered upon had been immemorially marked "no passing"; for many of them the end of it was suicide or the madhouse. But whatever the aberrations of these, the true Post-Impressionists--whatever the ugliness, the eccentricity, or the moral dinginess into which they were betrayed--I believe them to have been, in the main, honest if unbalanced and ill-regulated minds. Whatever their errors, they paid the price of them in poverty, in neglect, in death. With those who pretend to be their descendants to-day the case is different; they are not paying for their eccentricity or their madness, they are making it pay. The enormous engine of modern publicity has been discovered by these men. They have learned to advertise, and they have found that morbidity, eccentricity, indecency, extremes of every kind and of any degree are capital advertisement. If one cannot create a sound and living art, one can at least make something odd enough to be talked about; if one cannot achieve enduring fame, one may make sure of a flaming notoriety. And, as a money-maker, present notoriety is worth more than future fame, for the speculative dealer is at hand. His interest is in "quick returns" and he has no wish to wait until you are famous--or dead--before he can sell anything you do. His process is to buy anything he thinks he can "boom," to "boom" it as furiously as possible, and to sell it before the "boom" collapses. Then he will exploit something else, and there's the rub. Once you have entered this mad race for notoriety, there is no drawing out of it. The same sensation will not attract attention a second time; you must be novel at any cost. You must exaggerate your exaggerations and out-Herod Herod, for others have learned how easy the game is to play, and are at your heels. It is no longer a matter of misunderstanding and being misunderstood by the public; it is a matter of deliberately flouting and outraging the public--of assuming incomprehensibility and antagonism to popular feeling as signs of greatness. And so is founded what Frederic Harrison has called the "shock-your-grandmother school." It is with profound regret that one must name as one of the founders of this school an artist of real power, who has produced much admirable work--Auguste Rodin. At the age of thirty-seven he attained a sudden and resounding notoriety, and from that time he has been the most talked-of artist in Europe. He was a consummate modeller, a magnificent workman, but he had always grave faults and striking mannerisms. These faults and mannerisms he has latterly pushed to greater and greater extremes while neglecting his great gift, each work being more chaotic and fragmentary in composition, more hideous in type, more affected and emptier in execution, until he has produced marvels of mushiness and incoherence hitherto undreamed of and has set up as public monuments fantastically mutilated figures with broken legs or heads knocked off. Now, in his old age, he is producing shoals of drawings the most extraordinary of which few are permitted to see. Some selected specimens of them hang in a long row in the Metropolitan Museum, and I assure you, upon my word as a lifelong student of drawing, they are quite as ugly and as silly as they look. There is not a touch in them that has any truth to nature, not a line that has real beauty or expressiveness. They represent the human figure with the structure of a jellyfish and the movement of a Dutch doll; the human face with an expression I prefer not to characterize. If they be not the symptoms of mental decay, they can be nothing but the means of a gigantic mystification. With Henri Matisse we have not to deplore the deliquescence of a great talent, for we have no reason to suppose he ever had any. It is true that his admirers will assure you he could once draw and paint as everybody does; what he could _not_ do was to paint enough better than everybody does to make his mark in the world; and he was a quite undistinguished person until he found a way to produce some effect upon his grandmother the public by shocking her into attention. His method is to choose the ugliest models to be found; to put them into the most grotesque and indecent postures imaginable; to draw them in the manner of a savage, or a depraved child, or a worse manner if that be possible; to surround his figures with blue outlines half an inch wide; and to paint them in crude and staring colors, brutally laid on in flat masses. Then, when his grandmother begins to "sit up," she is told with a grave face that this is a reaction from naturalism, a revival of abstract line and color, a subjective art which is not the representation of nature but the expression of the artist's soul. No wonder she gasps and stares! It seemed, two or three years ago, that the limit of mystification had been reached--that this comedy of errors could not be carried further; but human ingenuity is inexhaustible, and we now have whole schools, Cubists, Futurists, and the like, who joyously vie with each other in the creation of incredible pictures and of irreconcilable and incomprehensible theories. The public is inclined to lump them all together and, so far as their work is concerned, the public is not far wrong; yet in theory Cubism and Futurism are diametrically opposed to each other. It is not easy to get any clear conception of the doctrines of these schools, but, so far as I am able to understand them--and I have taken some pains to do so--they are something like this: Cubism is static; Futurism is kinetic. Cubism deals with bulk; Futurism deals with motion. The Cubist, by a kind of extension of Mr. Berenson's doctrine of "tactile values," assumes that the only character of objects which is of importance to the artist is their bulk and solidity--what he calls their "volumes." Now the form in which volume is most easily apprehended is the cube; do we not measure by it and speak of the cubic contents of anything? The inference is easy: reduce all objects to forms which can be bounded by planes and defined by straight lines and angles; make their cubic contents measurable to the eye; transform drawing into a burlesque of solid geometry; and you have, at once, attained to the highest art. The Futurist, on the other hand, maintains that we know nothing but that things are in flux. Form, solidity, weight are illusions. Nothing exists but motion. Everything is changing every moment, and if anything were still we ourselves are changing. It is, therefore, absurd to give fixed boundaries to anything or to admit of any fixed relations in space. If you are trying to record your impression of a face it is certain that by the time you have done one eye the other eye will no longer be where it was--it may be at the other side of the room. You must cut nature into small bits and shuffle them about wildly if you are to reproduce what we really see. Whatever its extravagance, Cubism remains a form of graphic art. However pedantic and ridiculous its transformation of drawing, it yet recognizes the existence of drawing. Therefore, to the Futurist, Cubism is reactionary. What difference does it make, he asks, whether you draw a head round or square? Why draw a head at all? The Futurist denies the fundamental postulates of the art of painting. Painting has always, and by definition, represented upon a surface objects supposed to lie beyond it and to be seen through it. Futurism pretends to place the spectator inside the picture and to represent things around him or behind him as well as those in front of him. Painting has always assumed the single moment of vision, and, though it has sometimes placed more than one picture on the same canvas, it has treated each picture as seen at a specific instant of time. Futurism attempts systematically to combine the past and the future with the present, as if all the pictures in a cinematograph film were to be printed one over the other; to paint no instant but to represent the movement of time. It aims at nothing less than the abrogation of all recognized laws, the total destruction of all that has hitherto passed for art. Do you recall the story of the man who tried to count a litter of pigs, but gave it up because one little pig ran about so fast that he could not be counted? One finds oneself in somewhat the same predicament when one tries to describe these "new movements" in art. The movement is so rapid and the men shift their ground so quickly that there is no telling where to find them. You have no sooner arrived at some notion of the difference between Cubism and Futurism than you find your Cubist doing things that are both Cubist and Futurist, or neither Cubist nor Futurist, according as you look at them. You find things made up of geometrical figures to give volume, yet with all the parts many times repeated to give motion. You find things that have neither bulk nor motion but look like nothing so much as a box of Chinese tangrams scattered on a table. Finally, you have assemblages of lines that do not draw anything, even cubes or triangles; and we are assured that there is now a newest school of all, called Orphism, which, finding still some vestiges of intelligibility in any assemblage of lines, reduces everything to shapeless blotches. Probably the first of Orphic pictures was that produced by the quite authentic donkey who was induced to smear a canvas by lashing a tail duly dipped in paint. It was given a title as Orphic as the painting, was accepted by a jury anxious to find new forms of talent, and was hung in the _Salon d'Automne._ In all this welter of preposterous theories there is but one thing constant--one thing on which all these theorists are agreed. It is that all this strange stuff is symbolic and shadows forth the impressions and emotions of the artist: represents not nature but his feeling about nature; is the expression of his mind or, as they prefer to call it, his soul. It may be so. All art is symbolic; images are symbols; words are symbols; all communication is by symbols. But if a symbol is to serve any purpose of communication between one mind and another it must be a symbol accepted and understood by both minds. If an artist is to choose his symbols to suit himself, and to make them mean anything he chooses, who is to say what he means or whether he means anything? If a man were to rise and recite, with a solemn voice, words like "Ajakan maradak tecor sosthendi," would you know what he meant? If he wished you to believe that these symbols express the feeling of awe caused by the contemplation of the starry heavens, he would have to tell you so _in your own language_; and even then you would have only his word for it. He may have meant them to express that, but do they? The apologists of the new schools are continually telling us that we must give the necessary time and thought to learn the language of these men before we condemn them. Why should we? Why should not they learn the universal language of art? It is they who are trying to say something. When they have learned to speak that language and have convinced us that they have something to say in it which is worth listening to, then, and not till then, we may consent to such slight modification of it as may fit it more closely to their thought. If these gentlemen really believe that their capriciously chosen symbols are fit vehicles for communication with others, why do they fall back on that old, old symbol, the written word? Why do they introduce, in the very midst of a design in which everything else is dislocated, a name or a word in clear Roman letters? Or why do they give their pictures titles and, lest you should neglect to look in the catalogue, print the title quite carefully and legibly in the corner of the picture itself? They know that they must set you to hunting for their announced subject or you would not look twice at their puzzles. Now, there is only one word for this denial of all law, this insurrection against all custom and tradition, this assertion of individual license without discipline and without restraint; and that word is "anarchy." And, as we know, theoretic anarchy, though it may not always lead to actual violence, is a doctrine of destruction. It is so in art, and these artistic anarchists are found proclaiming that the public will never understand or accept their art while anything remains of the art of the past, and demanding that therefore the art of the past shall be destroyed. It is actual, physical destruction of pictures and statues that they call for, and in Italy, that great treasury of the world's art, has been raised the sinister cry: "Burn the museums!" They have not yet taken to the torch, but if they were sincere they would do it; for their doctrine calls for nothing less than the reduction of mankind to a state of primitive savagery that it may begin again at the beginning. Fortunately, they are not sincere. There may be among them those who honestly believe in that exaltation of the individual and that revolt against all law which is the danger of our age. But, for the most part, if they have broken from the fold and "like sheep have gone astray," they have shown a very sheep-like disposition to follow the bell-wether. They are fond of quoting a saying of Gauguin's that "one must be either a revolutionist or a plagiary"; but can any one tell these revolutionists apart? Can any one distinguish among them such definite and logically developed personalities as mark even schoolmen and "plagiarists" like Meissonier and Gérôme? If any one of these men stood alone, one might believe his eccentricities to be the mark of an extreme individuality; one cannot believe it when one finds the same eccentricities in twenty of them. No, it is not for the sake of unhampered personal development that young artists are joining these new schools; it is because they are offered a short cut to a kind of success. As there are no more laws and no more standards, there is nothing to learn. The merest student is at once set upon a level with the most experienced of his instructors, and boys and girls in their teens are hailed as masters. Art is at last made easy, and there are no longer any pupils, for all have become teachers. To borrow Doctor Johnson's phrase, "many men, many women, and many children" could produce art after this fashion; and they do. So right are the practitioners of this puerile art in their proclaimed belief that the public will never accept it while anything else exists, that one might be willing to treat it with the silent contempt it deserves were it not for the efforts of certain critics and writers for the press to convince us that it ought to be accepted. Some of these men seem to be intimidated by the blunders of the past. Knowing that contemporary criticism has damned almost every true artist of the nineteenth century, they are determined not to be caught napping; and they join in shouts of applause as each new harlequin steps upon the stage. They forget that it is as dangerous to praise ignorantly as to blame unjustly, and that the railer at genius, though he may seem more malevolent, will scarce appear so ridiculous to posterity as the dupe of the mountebank. Others of them are, no doubt, honest victims of that illusion of progress to which we are all more or less subject--to that ingrained belief that all evolution is upward and that the latest thing must necessarily be the best. They forget that the same process which has relieved man of his tail has deprived the snake of his legs and the kiwi of his wings. They forget that art has never been and cannot be continuously progressive; that it is only the sciences connected with art that are capable of progress; and that the "Henriade" is not a greater poem than the "Divine Comedy" because Voltaire has learned the falsity of the Ptolemaic astronomy. Finally, these writers, like other people, desire to seem knowing and clever; and if you appear to admire vastly what no one else understands you pass for a clever man. I have looked through a good deal of the writings of these "up-to-date" critics in the effort to find something like an intelligible argument or a definite statement of belief. I have found nothing but the continually repeated assumption that these new movements, in all their varieties, are "living" and "vital." I can find no grounds stated for this assumption and can suppose only that what is changing with great rapidity is conceived to be alive; yet I know nothing more productive of rapid changes than putrefaction. Do not be deceived. This is not vital art, it is decadent and corrupt. True art has always been the expression by the artist of the ideals of his time and of the world in which he lived--ideals which were his own because he was a part of that world. A living and healthy art never has existed and never can exist except through the mutual understanding and co-operation of the artist and his public. Art is made for man and has a social function to perform. We have a right to demand that it shall be both human and humane; that it shall show some sympathy in the artist with our thoughts and our feelings; that it shall interpret our ideals to us in that universal language which has grown up in the course of ages. We have a right to reject with pity or with scorn the stammerings of incompetence, the babble of lunacy, or the vaporing of imposture. But mutual understanding implies a duty on the part of the public as well as on the part of the artist, and we must give as well as take. We must be at the pains to learn something of the language of art in which we bid the artist speak. If we would have beauty from him we must sympathize with his aspiration for beauty. Above all, if we would have him interpret for us our ideals we must have ideals worthy of such interpretation. Without this co-operation on our part we may have a better art than we deserve, for noble artists will be born, and they will give us an art noble in its essence however mutilated and shorn of its effectiveness by our neglect. It is only by being worthy of it that we can hope to have an art we may be proud of--an art lofty in its inspiration, consummate in its achievement, disciplined in its strength. II JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET Jean François Millet, who lived hard and died poor, is now perhaps the most famous artist of the nineteenth century. His slightest work is fought for by dealers and collectors, and his more important pictures, if they chance to change hands, bring colossal and almost incredible prices. And of all modern reputations his, so far as we can see, seems most likely to be enduring. If any painter of the immediate past is definitively numbered with the great masters, it is he. Yet the popular admiration for his art is based on a I misapprehension almost as profound as that of those contemporaries who decried and opposed him. They thought him violent, rude, ill-educated, a "man of the woods," a revolutionist, almost a communist. We are apt to think of him as a gentle sentimentalist, a soul full of compassion for the hard lot of the poor, a man whose art achieves greatness by sheer feeling rather than by knowledge and intellect. In spite of his own letters, in spite of the testimony of many who knew him well, in spite of more than one piece of illuminating criticism, these two misconceptions endure; and, for the many, Millet is still either the painter of "The Man with the Hoe," a powerful but somewhat exceptional work, or the painter of "L'Angelus," precisely the least characteristic picture he ever produced. There is a legendary Millet, in many ways a very different man from the real one, and, while the facts of his life are well known and undisputed, the interpretation of them is colored by preconceptions and strained to make them fit the legend. Altogether too much, for instance, has been made of the fact that Millet was born a peasant. He was so, but so were half the artists and poets who come up to Paris and fill the schools and the cafés of the student quarters. To any one who has known these young _rapins_, and wondered at the grave and distinguished members of the Institute into which many of them have afterward developed, it is evident that this studious youth--who read Virgil in the original and Homer and Shakespeare and Goethe in translations--probably had a much more cultivated mind and a much sounder education than most of his fellow students under Delaroche. Seven years after this Norman farmer's son came to Paris, with a pension of 600 francs voted by the town council of Cherbourg, the son of a Breton sabot-maker followed him there with a precisely similar pension voted by the town council of Roche-sur-Yon; and the pupil of Langlois had had at least equal opportunities with the pupil of Sartoris. Both cases were entirely typical of French methods of encouraging the fine arts, and the peasant origin of Millet is precisely as significant as the peasant origin of Baudry. [Illustration: Plate 2.--Millet. "The Sower." In the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vanderbilt collection.] Baudry persevered in the course marked out for him and, after failing three times, received the _Prix de Rome_ and became the pensioner of the state. Millet took umbrage at Delaroche's explanation that his support was already pledged to another candidate for the prize, and left the _atelier_ of that master after little more than a year's work. But that he had already acquired most of what was to be learned there is shown, if by nothing else, by the master's promise to push him for the prize the year following. This was in 1838, and for a year or two longer Millet worked in the life classes of Suisse and Boudin without a master. His pension was first cut down and then withdrawn altogether, and he was thrown upon his own resources. His struggles and his poverty during the next few years were those of many a young artist, aggravated, in his case, by two imprudent marriages. But during all the time that he was painting portraits in Cherbourg or little nudes in Paris he was steadily gaining reputation and making friends. If we had not the pictures themselves to show us how able and how well-trained a workman he was, the story told us by Wyatt Eaton, in "Modern French Masters," would convince us. It was in the last year of Millet's life that he told the young American how, in his early days, a dealer would come to him for a picture and, "having nothing painted, he would offer the dealer a book and ask him to wait for a little while that he might add a few touches to the picture." He would then go into his studio and take a fresh canvas, or a panel, and in two hours bring out a little nude figure, which he had painted during that time, and for which he would receive twenty or twenty-five francs. It was the work of this time that Diaz admired for its color and its "immortal flesh painting"; that caused Guichard, a pupil of Ingres, to tell his master that Millet was the finest draughtsman of the new school; that earned for its author the title of "master of the nude." He did all kinds of work in these days, even painting signs and illustrating sheet music, and it was all capital practice for a young man, but it was not what he wanted to do. A great deal has been made of the story of his overhearing some one speak of him as "a fellow who never paints anything but naked women," and he is represented as undergoing something like a sudden conversion and as resolving to "do no more of the devil's work." As a matter of fact, he had, from the first, wanted to paint "men at work in the fields," with their "fine attitudes," and he only tried his hand at other things because he had his living to earn. Sensier saw what seems to have been the first sketch for "The Sower" as early as 1847, and it existed long before that, while "The Winnower" was exhibited in 1848; and the overheard conversation is said to have taken place in 1849. There was nothing indecent or immoral in Millet's early work, and the best proof that he felt no moral reprobation for the painting of the nude--as what true painter, especially in France, ever did?--is that he returned to it in the height of his power and, in the picture of the little "Goose Girl" (Pl. 1) by the brook side, her slim, young body bared for the bath, produced the loveliest of his works. No, what happened to Millet in 1849 was simply that he resolved to do no more pot-boiling, to consult no one's taste but his own, to paint what he pleased and as he pleased, if he starved for it. He went to Barbizon for a summer's holiday and to escape the cholera. He stayed there because living was cheap and the place was healthful, and because he could find there the models and the subjects on which he built his highly abstract and ideal art. [Illustration: Plate 3.--Millet. "The Gleaners." In the Louvre.] At Barbizon he neither resumed the costume nor led the life of a peasant. He wore sabots, as hundreds of other artists have done, before and since, when living in the country in France. Sabots are very cheap and very dry and not uncomfortable when you have acquired the knack of wearing them. In other respects he dressed and lived like a small bourgeois, and was _monsieur_ to the people about him. Barbizon was already a summer resort for artists before he came there, and the inn was full of painters; while others, of whom Rousseau was one, were settled there more or less permanently. It is but a short distance from Paris, and the exhibitions and museums were readily accessible. The life that Millet lived there was that of many poor, self-respecting, hard-working artists, and if he had been a landscape painter that life would never have seemed in any way exceptional. It is only because he was a painter of the figure that it seems odd he should have lived in the country; only because he painted peasants that he has been thought of as a peasant himself. If he accepted the name, with a kind of pride, it was in protest against the frivolity and artificiality of the fashionable art of the day. But if too much has been made of Millet's peasant origin, perhaps hardly enough has been made of his race. It is at least interesting that the two Frenchmen whose art has most in common with his, Nicolas Poussin and Pierre Corneille, should have been Normans like himself. In the severely restrained, grandly simple, profoundly classical work of these three men, that hard-headed, strong-handed, austere, and manly race has found its artistic expression. For Millet is neither a revolutionary nor a sentimentalist, nor even a romanticist; he is essentially a classicist of the classicists, a conservative of the conservatives, the one modern exemplar of the grand style. It is because his art is so old that it was "too new" for even Corot to understand it; because he harked back beyond the pseudoclassicism of his time to the great art of the past, and was classic as Phidias and Giotto and Michelangelo were classic, that he seemed strange to his contemporaries. In everything he was conservative. He hated change; he wanted things to remain as they had always been. He did not especially pity the hard lot of the peasant; he considered it the natural and inevitable lot of man who "eats bread in the sweat of his brow." He wanted the people he painted "to look as if they belonged to their place--as if it would be impossible for them ever to think of being anything else but what they are." In the herdsman and the shepherd, the sower and the reaper, he saw the immemorial types of humanity whose labors have endured since the world began and were essentially what they now are when Virgil wrote his "Georgics" and when Jacob kept the flocks of Laban. This is the note of all his work. It is the permanent, the essential, the eternally significant that he paints. The apparent localization of his subjects in time and place is an illusion. He is not concerned with the nineteenth century or with Barbizon but with mankind. At the very moment when the English Pre-raphaelites were trying to found a great art on the exhaustive imitation of natural detail, he eliminated detail as much as possible. At the very beginning of our modern preoccupation with the direct representation of facts, he abandoned study from the model almost entirely and could say that he "had never painted from nature." His subjects would have struck the amiable Sir Joshua as trivial, yet no one has ever more completely followed that writer's precepts. His confession of faith is in the words, "One must be able to make use of the trivial for the expression of the sublime"; and this painter of "rustic genre" is the world's greatest master of the sublime after Michelangelo. [Illustration: Plate 4.--Millet. "The Spaders."] The comparison with Michelangelo is inevitable and has been made again and again by those who have felt the elemental grandeur of Millet's work. As a recent writer has remarked: "An art highly intellectualized, so as to convey a great idea with the lucidity of language, must needs be controlled by genius akin to that which inspired the ceiling paintings of the Sistine Chapel."[A] This was written of the Trajanic sculptors, whose works both Michelangelo and Millet studied and admired, and indeed it is to this old Roman art, or to the still older art of Greece, that one must go for the truest parallel of Millet's temper and his manner of working. He was less impatient, less romantic and emotional than Michelangelo; he was graver, quieter, more serene; and if he had little of the Greek sensuousness and the Greek love of physical beauty, he had much of the antique clarity and simplicity. To express his idea clearly, logically, and forcibly; to make a work of art that should be "all of a piece" and in which "things should be where they are for a purpose"; to admit nothing for display, for ornament, even for beauty, that did not necessarily and inevitably grow out of his central theme, and to suppress with an iron rigidity everything useless or superfluous--this was his constant and conscious effort. It is an ideal eminently austere and intellectual--an ideal, above all, especially and eternally classic. [A] Eugénie Strong, "Roman Sculpture," p. 224. Take, for an instance, the earliest of his masterpieces, the first great picture by which he marked his emancipation and his determination henceforth to produce art as he understood it without regard to the preferences of others. Many of his preliminary drawings and studies exist and we can trace, more or less clearly, the process by which the final result was arrived at. At first we have merely a peasant sowing grain; an everyday incident, truly enough observed but nothing more. Gradually the background is cut down, the space restricted, the figure enlarged until it fills its frame as a metope of the Parthenon is filled. The gesture is ever enlarged and given more sweep and majesty, the silhouette is simplified and divested of all accidental or insignificant detail. A thousand previous observations are compared and resumed in one general and comprehensive formula, and the typical has been evolved from the actual. What generations of Greek sculptors did in their slow perfectioning of certain fixed types he has done almost at once. We have no longer a man sowing, but "The Sower" (Pl. 2), justifying the title he instinctively gave it by its air of permanence, of inevitability, of universality. All the significance which there is or ever has been for mankind in that primæval action of sowing the seed is crystallized into its necessary expression. The thing is done once for all, and need never--can never be done again. Has any one else had this power since Michelangelo created his "Adam"? [Illustration: Plate 5.--Millet. "The Potato Planters." In the Quincy A. Shaw Collection.] If even Millet never again attained quite the august impressiveness of this picture it is because no other action of rustic man has so wide or so deep a meaning for us as this of sowing. All the meaning there is in an action he could make us feel with entire certainty, and always he proceeds by this method of elimination, concentration, simplification, insistence on the essential and the essential only. One of the most perfect of all his pictures--more perfect than "The Sower" on account of qualities of mere painting, of color, and of the rendering of landscape, of which I shall speak later--is "The Gleaners" (Pl. 3). Here one figure is not enough to express the continuousness of the movement; the utmost simplification will not make you feel, as powerfully as he wishes you to feel it, the crawling progress, the bending together of back and thighs, the groping of worn fingers in the stubble. The line must be reinforced and reduplicated, and a second figure, almost a facsimile of the first, is added. Even this is not enough. He adds a third figure, not gathering the ear, but about to do so, standing, but stooped forward and bounded by one great, almost uninterrupted curve from the peak of the cap over her eyes to the heel which half slips out of the sabot, and the thing is done. The whole day's work is resumed in that one moment. The task has endured for hours and will endure till sunset, with only an occasional break while the back is half-straightened--there is not time to straighten it wholly. It is the triumph of significant composition, as "The Sower" is the triumph of significant draughtsmanship. Or, when an action is more complicated and difficult of suggestion, as is that, for instance, of digging, he takes it at the beginning and at the end, as in "The Spaders" (Pl. 4), and makes you understand everything between. One man is doubled over his spade, his whole weight brought to bear on the pressing foot which drives the blade into the ground. The other, with arms outstretched, gives the twisting motion which lets the loosened earth fall where it is to lie. Each of these positions is so thoroughly understood and so definitely expressed that all the other positions of the action are implied in them. You feel the recurrent rhythm of the movement and could almost count the falling of the clods. So far did Millet push the elimination of non-essentials that his heads have often scarcely any features, his hands, one might say, are without fingers, and his draperies are so simplified as to suggest the witty remark that his peasants are too poor to afford any folds in their garments. The setting of the great, bony planes of jaw and cheek and temple, the bulk and solidity of the skull, and the direction of the face--these were, often enough, all he wanted of a head. Look at the hand of the woman in "The Potato Planters" (Pl. 5), or at those of the man in the same picture, and see how little detail there is in them, yet how surely the master's sovereign draughtsmanship has made you feel their actual structure and function! And how inevitably the garments, with their few and simple folds, mould and accent the figures beneath them, "becoming, as it were, a part of the body and expressing, even more than the nude, the larger and simpler forms of nature"! How explicitly the action of the bodies is registered, how perfectly the amount of effort apparent is proportioned to the end to be attained! One can feel, to an ounce, it seems, the strain upon the muscles implied by that hoe-full of earth. Or look at the easier attitude of "The Grafter" (Pl. 6), engaged upon his gentler task, and at the monumental silhouette of the wife, standing there, babe in arms, a type of eternal motherhood and of the fruitfulness to come. [Illustration: Plate 6.--Millet. "The Grafter." In the collection of William Rockefeller.] Oftener than anything, perhaps, it was the sense of weight that interested Millet. It is the adjustment of her body to the weight of the child she carries that gives her statuesque pose to the wife of the grafter. It is the drag of the buckets upon the arms that gives her whole character to the magnificent "Woman Carrying Water," in the Vanderbilt collection. It is the erect carriage, the cautious, rhythmic walk, keeping step together, forced upon them by the sense of weight, which gives that gravity and solemnity to the bearers of "The New-Born Calf" (Pl. 7), which was ridiculed by Millet's critics as more befitting the bearers of the bull Apis or the Holy Sacrament. The artist himself was explicit in this instance as in that of the "Woman Carrying Water." "The expression of two men carrying a load on a litter," he says, "naturally depends on the weight which rests upon their arms. Thus, if the weight is equal, their expression will be the same, whether they bear the Ark of the Covenant or a calf, an ingot of gold or a stone." Find that expression, whether in face or figure, render it clearly, "with largeness and simplicity," and you have a great, a grave, a classic work of art. "We are never so truly Greek," he said, "as when we are simply painting our own impressions." Certainly his own way of painting his impressions was more Greek than anything else in the whole range of modern art. In the epic grandeur of such pictures as these there is something akin to sadness, though assuredly Millet did not mean them to be sad. Did he not say of the "Woman Carrying Water": "I have avoided, as I always do, with a sort of horror, everything that might verge on the sentimental"? He wished her to seem "to do her work simply and cheerfully ... as a part of her daily task and the habit of her life." And he was not always in the austere and epical mood. He could be idyllic as well, and if he could not see "the joyous side" of life or nature he could feel and make us feel the charm of tranquillity. Indeed, this remark of his about the joyous side of things was made in the dark, early days when life was hardest for him. He broadened in his view as he grew older and conditions became more tolerable, and he has painted a whole series of little pictures of family life and of childhood that, in their smiling seriousness, are endlessly delightful. The same science, the same thoughtfulness, the same concentration and intellectual grasp that defined for us the superb gesture of "The Sower" have gone to the depiction of the adorable uncertainty, between walking and falling, of those "First Steps" (Pl. 8) from the mother's lap to the outstretched arms of the father; and the result, in this case as in the other, is a thing perfectly and permanently expressed. Whatever Millet has done is done. He has "characterized the type," as it was his dream to do, and written "hands off" across his subject for all future adventurers. Finally, he rises to an almost lyric fervor in that picture of the little "Goose Girl" bathing, which is one of the most purely and exquisitely beautiful things in art. In this smooth, young body quivering with anticipation of the coolness of the water; in these rounded, slender limbs with their long, firm, supple lines; in the unconscious, half-awkward grace of attitude and in the glory of sunlight splashing through the shadow of the willows, there is a whole song of joy and youth and the goodness of the world. The picture exists in a drawing or pastel, which has been photographed by Braun, as well as in the oil-painting, and Millet's habit of returning again and again to a favorite subject renders it difficult to be certain which is the earlier of the two; but I imagine this drawing to be a study for the picture. At first sight the figure in it is more obviously beautiful than in the other version, and it is only after a time that one begins to understand the changes that the artist was impelled to make. It is almost too graceful, too much like an antique nymph. No one could find any fault with it, but by an almost imperceptible stiffening of the line here and there, a little greater turn of the foot upon the ankle and of the hand upon the wrist, the figure in the painting has been given an accent of rusticity that makes it more human, more natural, and more appealing. She is no longer a possible Galatea or Arethusa, she is only a goose girl, and we feel but the more strongly on that account the eternal poem of the healthy human form. [Illustration: Plate 7.--Millet. "The New-Born Calf." In the Art Institute, Chicago.] The especial study of the nineteenth century was landscape, and Millet was so far a man of his time that he was a great landscape painter; but his treatment of landscape was unlike any other, and, like his own treatment of the figure, in its insistence on essentials, its elimination of the accidental, its austere and grand simplicity. I have heard, somewhere, a story of his saying, in answer to praise of his work or inquiry as to his meaning: "I was trying to express the difference between the things that lie flat and the things that stand upright." That is the real motive of one of his masterpieces--one that in some moods seems the greatest of them all--"The Shepherdess" (Pl. 9), that is, or used to be, in the Chauchard collection. In this nobly tranquil work, in which there is no hint of sadness or revolt, are to be found all his usual inevitableness of composition and perfection of draughtsmanship--note the effect of repetition in the sheep, "forty feeding like one"--but the glory of the picture is in the infinite recession of the plain that lies flat, the exact notation of the successive positions upon it of the things that stand upright, from the trees and the hay wain in the extreme distance, almost lost in sky, through the sheep and the sheep-dog and the shepherdess herself, knitting so quietly, to the dandelions in the foreground, each with its "aureole" of light. Of these simple, geometrical relations, and of the enveloping light and air by which they are expressed, he has made a hymn of praise. The background of "The Gleaners," with its baking stubble-field under the midday sun, its grain stacks and laborers and distant farmstead, all tremulous in the reflected waves of heat, indistinct and almost indecipherable yet unmistakable, is nearly as wonderful; and no one has ever so rendered the solemnity and the mystery of night as has he in the marvellous "Sheepfold" of the Walters collection. But the greatest of all his landscapes--one of the greatest landscapes ever painted--is his "Spring" (Pl. 10), of the Louvre, a pure landscape this time, containing no figure. In the intense green of the sunlit woods against the black rain-clouds that are passing away, in the jewel-like brilliancy of the blossoming apple-trees, and the wet grass in that clear air after the shower; in the glorious rainbow drawn in dancing light across the sky, we may see, if anywhere in art, some reflection of the "infinite splendors" which Millet tells us he saw in nature. [Illustration: Plate 8.--Millet. "The First Steps."] In the face of such results as these it seems absurd to discuss the question whether or not Millet was technically a master of his trade, as if the methods that produced them could possibly be anything but good methods for the purpose; but it is still too much the fashion to say and think that the great artist was a poor painter--to speak slightingly of his accomplishment in oil-painting and to seem to prefer his drawings and pastels to his pictures. We have seen that he was a supremely able technician in his pot-boiling days and that the color and handling of his early pictures were greatly admired by so brilliant a virtuoso as Diaz. But this "flowery manner" would not lend itself to the expression of his new aims and he had to invent another. He did so stumblingly at first, and the earliest pictures of his grand style have a certain harshness and ruggedness of surface and heaviness of color which his critics could not forgive any more than the Impressionists, who have outdone that ruggedness, can forgive him his frequent use of a warm general tone inclining to brownness. His ideal of form and of composition he possessed complete from the beginning; his mastery of light and color and the handling of materials was slower of acquirement; but he did acquire it, and in the end he is as absolute a master of painting as of drawing. He did not see nature in blue and violet, as Monet has taught us to see it, and little felicities and facilities of rendering, and anything approaching cleverness or the parade of virtuosity he hated; but he knew just what could be done with thick or thin painting, with opaque or transparent pigment, and he could make his few and simple colors say anything he chose. In his mature work there is a profound knowledge of the means to be employed and a great economy in their use, and there is no approach to indiscriminate or meaningless loading. "Things are where they are for a purpose," and if the surface of a picture is rough in any place it is because just that degree of roughness was necessary to attain the desired effect. He could make mere paint express light as few artists have been able to do--"The Shepherdess" is flooded with it--and he could do this without any sacrifice of the sense of substance in the things on which the light falls. If some of his canvases are brown it is because brown seemed to him the appropriate note to express what he had to say; "The Gleaners" glows with almost the richness of a Giorgione, and other pictures are honey-toned or cool and silvery or splendidly brilliant. And in whatever key he painted, the harmony of his tones and colors is as large, as simple, and as perfect as the harmony of his lines and masses. [Illustration: Plate 9.--Millet. "The Shepherdess." In the Chauchard collection, Louvre.] But if we cannot admit that Millet's drawings are better than his paintings, we may be very glad he did them. His great epic of the soil must have lacked many episodes, perhaps whole books and cantos, if it had been written only in the slower and more elaborate method. The comparative slightness and rapidity of execution of his drawings and pastels enabled him to register many inventions and observations that we must otherwise have missed, and many of these are of the highest value. His long training in seizing the essential in anything he saw enabled him, often, to put more meaning into a single rapid line than another could put into a day's painful labor, and some of his slightest sketches are astonishingly and commandingly expressive. Other of his drawings were worked out and pondered over almost as lovingly as his completest pictures. But so instinctively and inevitably was he a composer that everything he touched is a complete whole--his merest sketch or his most elaborated design is a unit. He has left no fragments. His paintings, his countless drawings, his few etchings and woodcuts are all of a piece. About everything there is that air of finality which marks the work destined to become permanently a classic. [Illustration: Plate 10.--Millet. "Spring." In the Louvre.] Here and there, by one or another writer, most or all of what I have been trying to say has been said already. It is the more likely to be true. And if these true things have been said, many other things have been said also which seem to me not so true, or little to the purpose, so that the image I have been trying to create must differ, for better or for worse, from that which another might have made. At least I may have looked at the truth from a slightly different angle and so have shown it in a new perspective. And, at any rate, it is well that true things should be said again from time to time. It can do no harm that one more person should endeavor to give a reason for his admiration of a great and true artist and should express his conviction that among the world's great masters the final place of Jean François Millet is not destined to be the lowest. III THE ILLUSION OF PROGRESS[B] [B] Read before the joint meeting of The American Academy of Arts and Letters and The National Institute of Arts and Letters, December 13, 1912. In these days all of us, even Academicians, are to some extent believers in progress. Our golden age is no longer in the past, but in the future. We know that our early ancestors were a race of wretched cave-dwellers, and we believe that our still earlier ancestors were possessed of tails and pointed ears. Having come so far, we are sometimes inclined to forget that not every step has been an advance and to entertain an illogical confidence that each future step must carry us still further forward; having indubitably progressed in many things, we think of ourselves as progressing in all. And as the pace of progress in science and in material things has become more and more rapid, we have come to expect a similar pace in art and letters, to imagine that the art of the future must be far finer than the art of the present or than that of the past, and that the art of one decade, or even of one year, must supersede that of the preceding decade or the preceding year, as the 1913 model in automobiles supersedes the model of 1912. More than ever before "To have done is to hang quite out of fashion," and the only title to consideration is to do something quite obviously new or to proclaim one's intention of doing something newer. The race grows madder and madder. It was scarce two years since we first heard of "Cubism" when the "Futurists" were calling the "Cubists" reactionary. Even the gasping critics, pounding manfully in the rear, have thrown away all impedimenta of traditional standards in the desperate effort to keep up with what seems less a march than a stampede. But while we talk so loudly of progress in the arts we have an uneasy feeling that we are not really progressing. If our belief in our own art were as full-blooded as was that of the great creative epochs, we should scarce be so reverent of the art of the past. It is, perhaps, a sign of anæmia that we have become founders of museums and conservers of old buildings. If we are so careful of our heritage, it is surely from some doubt of our ability to replace it. When art has been vigorously alive it has been ruthless in its treatment of what has gone before. No cathedral builder thought of reconciling his own work to that of the builder who preceded him; he built in his own way, confident of its superiority. And when the Renaissance builder came, in his turn, he contemptuously dismissed all mediæval art as "Gothic" and barbarous, and was as ready to tear down an old façade as to build a new one. Even the most cock-sure of our moderns might hesitate to emulate Michelangelo in his calm destruction of three frescoes by Perugino to make room for his own "Last Judgment." He, at least, had the full courage of his convictions, and his opinion of Perugino is of record. Not all of us would consider even Michelangelo's arrogance entirely justified, but it is not only the Michelangelos who have had this belief in themselves. Apparently the confidence of progress has been as great in times that now seem to us decadent as in times that we think of as truly progressive. The past, or at least the immediate past, has always seemed "out of date," and each generation, as it made its entrance on the stage, has plumed itself upon its superiority to that which was leaving it. The architect of the most debased baroque grafted his "improvements" upon the buildings of the high Renaissance with an assurance not less than that with which David and his contemporaries banished the whole charming art of the eighteenth century. Van Orley and Frans Floris were as sure of their advance upon the ancient Flemish painting of the Van Eycks and of Memling as Rubens himself must have been of his advance upon them. We can see plainly enough that in at least some of these cases the sense of progress was an illusion. There was movement, but it was not always forward movement. And if progress was illusory in some instances, may it not, possibly, have been so in all? It is at least worth inquiry how far the fine arts have ever been in a state of true progress, going forward regularly from good to better, each generation building on the work of its predecessors and surpassing that work, in the way in which science has normally progressed when material conditions were favorable. If, with a view to answering this question, we examine, however cursorily, the history of the five great arts, we shall find a somewhat different state of affairs in the case of each. In the end it may be possible to formulate something like a general rule that shall accord with all the facts. Let us begin with the greatest and simplest of the arts, the art of poetry. In the history of poetry we shall find less evidence of progress than anywhere else, for it will be seen that its acknowledged masterpieces are almost invariably near the beginning of a series rather than near the end. Almost as soon as a clear and flexible language has been formed by any people, a great poem has been composed in that language, which has remained not only unsurpassed, but unequalled, by any subsequent work. Homer is for us, as he was for the Greeks, the greatest of their poets; and if the opinion could be taken of all cultivated readers in those nations that have inherited the Greek tradition, it is doubtful whether he would not be acclaimed the greatest poet of the ages. Dante has remained the first of Italian poets, as he was one of the earliest. Chaucer, who wrote when our language was transforming itself from Anglo-Saxon into English, has still lovers who are willing for his sake to master what is to them almost a foreign tongue, and yet other lovers who ask for new translations of his works into our modern idiom; while Shakespeare, who wrote almost as soon as that transformation had been accomplished, is universally reckoned one of the greatest of world poets. There have, indeed, been true poets at almost all stages of the world's history, but the pre-eminence of such masters as these can hardly be questioned, and if we looked to poetry alone for a type of the arts, we should almost be forced to conclude that art is the reverse of progressive. We should think of it as gushing forth in full splendor when the world is ready for it, and as unable ever again to rise to the level of its fount. The art of architecture is later in its beginning than that of poetry, for it can exist only when men have learned to build solidly and permanently. A nomad may be a poet, but he cannot be an architect; a herdsman might have written the Book of Job, but the great builders are dwellers in cities. But since men first learned to build they have never quite forgotten how to do so. At all times there have been somewhere peoples who knew enough of building to mould its utility into forms of beauty, and the history of architecture may be read more continuously than that of any other art. It is a history of constant change and of continuous development, each people and each age forming out of the old elements a new style which should express its mind, and each style reaching its point of greatest distinctiveness only to begin a further transformation into something else; but is it a history of progress? Building, indeed, has progressed at one time or another. The Romans, with their domes and arches, were more scientific builders than the Greeks, with their simple post and lintel, but were they better architects? We of to-day, with our steel construction, can scrape the sky with erections that would have amazed the boldest of mediæval craftsmen; can we equal his art? If we ask where in the history of architecture do its masterpieces appear, the answer must be: "Almost anywhere." Wherever men have had the wealth and the energy to build greatly, they have builded beautifully, and the distinctions are less between style and style or epoch and epoch than between building and building: The masterpieces of one time are as the masterpieces of another, and no man may say that the nave of Amiens is finer than the Parthenon or that the Parthenon is nobler than the nave of Amiens. One may say only that each is perfect in its kind, a supreme expression of the human spirit. Of the art of music I must speak with the diffidence becoming to the ignorant; but it seems to me to consist of two elements and to contain an inspirational art as direct and as simple as that of poetry, and a science so difficult that its fullest mastery is of very recent achievement. In melodic invention it is so far from progressive that its most brilliant masters are often content to elaborate and to decorate a theme old enough to have no history--a theme the inventor of which has been so entirely forgotten that we think of it as sprung not from the mind of one man, but from that of a whole people, and call it a folk-song. The song is almost as old as the race, but the symphony has had to wait for the invention of many instruments and for a mastery of the laws of harmony, and so symphonic music is a modern art. We are still adding new instruments to the orchestra and admitting to our compositions new combinations of sounds, but have we in a hundred years made any essential progress even in this part of the art? Have we produced anything, I will not say greater, but anything as great as the noblest works of Bach and Beethoven? Already, and before considering the arts of painting and sculpture, we are coming within sight of our general law. This law seems to be that, so far as an art is dependent upon any form of exact knowledge, so far it partakes of the nature of science and is capable of progress. So far as it is expressive of a mind and soul, its greatness is dependent upon the greatness of that mind and soul, and it is incapable of progress. It may even be the reverse of progressive, because as an art becomes more complicated and makes ever greater demands upon technical mastery, it becomes more difficult as a medium of expression, while the mind to be expressed becomes more sophisticated and less easy of expression in any medium. It would take a greater mind than Homer's to express modern ideas in modern verse with Homer's serene perfection; it would take, perhaps, a greater mind than Bach's to employ all the resources of modern music with his glorious ease and directness. And greater minds than those of Bach and Homer the world has not often the felicity to possess. The arts of painting and sculpture are imitative arts above all others, and therefore more dependent than any others upon exact knowledge, more tinged with the quality of science. Let us see how they illustrate our supposed law. Sculpture depends, as does architecture, upon certain laws of proportion in space which are analogous to the laws of proportion in time and in pitch upon which music is founded. But as sculpture represents the human figure, whereas architecture and music represent nothing, sculpture requires for its perfection the mastery of an additional science, which is the knowledge of the structure and movement of the human body. This knowledge may be acquired with some rapidity, especially in times and countries where man is often seen unclothed. So, in the history of civilizations, sculpture developed early, after poetry, but with architecture, and before painting and polyphonic music. It reached the greatest perfection of which it is capable in the age of Pericles, and from that time progress was impossible to it, and for a thousand years its movement was one of decline. After the dark ages sculpture was one of the first arts to revive; and again it develops rapidly--though not so rapidly as before, conditions of custom and climate being less favorable to it--until it reaches, in the first half of the sixteenth century, something near its former perfection. Again it can go no further; and since then it has changed but has not progressed. In Phidias, by which name I would signify the sculptor of the pediments of the Parthenon, we have the coincidence of a superlatively great artist with the moment of technical and scientific perfection in the art, and a similar coincidence crowns the work of Michelangelo with a peculiar glory. But, apart from the work of these two men, a the essential value of a work of sculpture is by no means always equal to its technical and scientific completeness. There are archaic statues that are almost as nobly beautiful as any work by Phidias and more beautiful than almost any work that has been done since his time. There are bits of Gothic sculpture that are more valuable expressions of human feeling than anything produced by the contemporaries of Buonarroti. Even in times of decadence a great artist has created finer things than could be accomplished by a mediocre talent of the great epochs, and the world could ill spare the Victory of Samothrace or the portrait busts of Houdon. As sculpture is one of the simplest of the arts, painting is one of the most complicated. The harmonies it constructs are composed of almost innumerable elements of lines and forms and colors and degrees of light and dark, and the science it professes is no less than that of the visible aspect of the whole of nature--a science so vast that it never has been and perhaps never can be mastered in its totality. Anything approaching a complete art of painting can exist only in an advanced stage of civilization. An entirely complete art of painting never has existed and probably never will exist. The history of painting, after its early stages, is a history of loss here balancing gain there, of a new means of expression acquired at the cost of an old one. We know comparatively little of the painting of antiquity, but we have no reason to suppose that that art, however admirable, ever attained to ripeness, and we know that the painting of the Orient has stopped short at a comparatively early stage of development. For our purpose the art to be studied is the painting of modern times in Europe from its origin in the Middle Ages. Even in the beginning, or before the beginning, while painting is a decadent reminiscence of the past rather than a prophecy of the new birth, there are decorative splendors in the Byzantine mosaics hardly to be recaptured. Then comes primitive painting, an art of the line and of pure color with little modulation and no attempt at the rendering of solid form. It gradually attains to some sense of relief by the use of degrees of light and less light; but the instant it admits the true shadow the old brightness and purity of color have become impossible. The line remains dominant for a time and is carried to the pitch of refinement and beauty, but the love for solid form gradually overcomes it, and in the art of the high Renaissance it takes a second place. Then light-and-shade begins to be studied for its own sake; color, no longer pure and bright, but deep and resonant, comes in again; the line vanishes altogether, and even form becomes secondary. The last step is taken by Rembrandt, and even color is subordinated to light-and-shade, which exists alone in a world of brownness. At every step there has been progress, but there has also been regress. Perhaps the greatest balance of gain against loss and the nearest approach to a complete art of painting were with the great Venetians. The transformation is still going on, and in our own day we have conquered some corners of the science of visible aspects which were unexplored by our ancestors. But the balance has turned against us; our loss has been greater than our gain; and our art, even in its scientific aspect, is inferior to that of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And just because there never has been a complete art of painting, entirely rounded and perfected, it is the clearer to us that the final value of a work in that art never has depended on its approach to such completion. There is no one supreme master of painting but a long succession of masters of different yet equal glory. If the masterpieces of architecture are everywhere because there has often been a complete art of architecture, the masterpieces of painting are everywhere for the opposite reason. And if we do not always value a master the more as his art is more nearly complete, neither do we always value him especially who has placed new scientific conquests at the disposal of art. Palma Vecchio painted by the side of Titian, but he is only a minor master; Botticelli remained of the generation before Leonardo, but he is one of the immortal great. Paolo Ucello, by his study of perspective, made a distinct advance in pictorial science, but his interest for us is purely historic; Fra Angelico made no advance whatever, but he practised consummately the current art as he found it, and his work is eternally delightful. At every stage of its development the art of painting has been a sufficient medium for the expression of a great man's mind; and wherever and whenever a great man has practised it, the result has been a great and permanently valuable work of art. For this seems, finally, to be the law of all the arts--the one essential prerequisite to the production of a great work of art is a great man. You cannot have the art without the man, and when you have the man you have the art. His time and his surroundings will color him; his art will not be at one time or place precisely what it might be at another; but at bottom the art is the man and at all times and in all countries is just as great as the man. Let us clear our minds, then, of the illusion that there is in any important sense such a thing as progress in the fine arts. We may with a clear conscience judge every new work for what it appears in itself to be, asking of it that it be noble and beautiful and reasonable, not that it be novel or progressive. If it be great art it will always be novel enough, for there will be a great mind behind it, and no two great minds are alike. And if it be novel without being great, how shall we be the better off? There are enough forms of mediocre or evil art in the world already. Being no longer intimidated by the fetich of progress, when a thing calling itself a work of art seems to us hideous and degraded, indecent and insane, we shall have the courage to say so and shall not care to investigate it further. Detestable things have been produced in the past, and they are none the less detestable because we are able to see how they came to be produced. Detestable things are produced now, and they will be no more admirable if we learn to understand the minds that create them. Even should such things prove to be not the mere freaks of a diseased intellect that they seem but a necessary outgrowth of the conditions of the age and a true prophecy of "the art of the future," they are not necessarily the better for that. It is only that the future will be very unlucky in its art. IV RAPHAEL There used to be on the cover of the "Portfolio Monographs" little medallions of Raphael and Rembrandt, placed there, as the editor, Mr. Hamerton, has somewhere explained, as portraits of the two most widely influential artists that ever lived. In the eighteenth century, one imagines, Rembrandt's presence by the side of Raphael would have been thought little less than a scandal. To-day it is Raphael's place that would be contested, and he would be superseded, likely enough, by Velazquez. There is no more striking instance of the vicissitudes of critical opinion than the sudden fall of Raphael from his conceded rank as "the prince of painters." Up to the middle of the nineteenth century his right to that title was so uncontested that it alone was a sufficient identification of him--only one man could possibly be meant. That he should ever need defending or re-explaining to a generation grown cold to him would have seemed incredible. Then came the rediscovery of an earlier art that seemed more frank and simple than his; still later the discovery of Rembrandt and Velazquez--the romanticist and the naturalist--and Raphael, as a living influence, almost ceased to exist. It was but a few years ago that the author of a volume of essays on art was gravely praised by a reviewer for the purely accidental circumstance that that volume contained no essay on Raphael; and a little later the writer of a book on the pictures in Rome "had to confess unutterable boredom" in the presence of the Stanze of the Vatican. It is not probable that any critic who greatly valued his reputation, or who had any serious reputation to value, would take quite this tone; but, leaving out of consideration the impressionistic and ultra-modern criticism which ignores Raphael altogether, it is instructive to note the way in which a critic so steeped in Italian art as Mr. Berenson approaches the fallen prince. The artist who used to be considered the greatest of draughtsmen he will hardly admit to be a draughtsman at all, ranking him far below Pollaiuolo and positively speaking of him as "a poor creature, most docile and patient." As a colorist and a manipulator of paint, he places him with Sebastiano del Piombo--that is, among the mediocrities. Almost the only serious merit, from his point of view, which he will allow him is a mastery in the rendering of space, shared in nearly equal measure by Perugino, as, to some extent, by nearly all the painters of the Umbrian school. For, while he admits that Raphael was the greatest master of composition that Europe has produced, he evidently thinks of composition, as do so many other moderns, as a matter of relatively little importance. It is not Raphael's popularity that is in question; that is, perhaps, as great as ever it was. His works, in one form or another of reproduction, from the finest carbon print to the cheapest lithograph, are still to be found, in the humblest homes as in the most splendid, in nearly every quarter of the globe. That popularity was always based on what Berenson calls the "illustrative" qualities of Raphael's work, on the beauty of his women, the majesty of his men; on his ability to tell a story as we like it told and to picture a world that we wish might be real. One may not be prepared to consider these illustrative qualities so negligible as do many modern critics, or to echo Mr. Berenson's phrase about "that which in art ... is so unimportant as what ... we call beauty." One might point out that the greatest artists, from Phidias to Rembrandt, have occupied themselves with illustration, and that to formulate the ideals of a race and an epoch is no mean task. But, for the moment, we may neglect all that, our present inquiry being why an artist, once counted the greatest of all, is no longer considered very significant by those who measure by purely artistic standards rather than by that of illustrative success and consequent popularity. We may also leave out of our present consideration Raphael's achievement in the suggestion of space. It is a very real quality and a high one. It has doubtless always been an important element in the enjoyability of Raphael's art, as it is almost the only enjoyable element, for many of us, in the art of Perugino. But it is an element that has only very recently been clearly perceived to exist. If it was enjoyed by the artists and critics, from Raphael's day almost to our own, they were unconscious of the fact, and the probability is that we enjoy it more than they did. It will not account for the estimation in which they held Raphael, and still less will it account for the relative lack of interest in him to-day. In truth the reason why many modern critics and painters almost dislike Raphael is the very reason for which he was so greatly revered. Coming in the nick of time, at the close of an epoch of investigation, himself a man of wide culture and quick intellect but of no special originality or emotional power, he learned from all his predecessors what they had to teach and, choosing from the elements of their art those which were suited to his purpose, formed a perfectly balanced and noble style which was immediately accepted as the only style suitable to the expression of lofty ideas in monumental form. He became the lawgiver, the founder of classicism, the formulator of the academic ideal. Not to admire him was to confess oneself a barbarian, and even those who did not really care for his art hardly dared to say so. As long as the academic ideal retained any validity his supremacy endured, and it was only with the definitive turning of modern art into the paths of romanticism and naturalism that revolt became possible. But when the world became tired of Raphaelism it inevitably became unjust to Raphael. It forgot that it was not he who had made his art the test of that of others--who had erected what, with him, was a spontaneous and original creation into a rigid system of laws. It confounded him with his followers and imitators, and, being bored by them, began to find the master himself a bore. For, eclectic as he was by nature, and founder as he was of the academic régime, the "grand style" of Raphael was yet a new and personal contribution to art. He drew from many sources, but the principle of combination was his own. His originality was in that mastery of composition which no one has ever denied him, but which is very differently rated as a quality of art by different temperaments. Almost everything specifically Raphaelesque in his work is the offspring of that power of design in which he is still the unapproached master. Modern criticism is right in denying that he was a draughtsman, if by draughtsman is meant one deeply preoccupied with form and structure for its own sake. His distinction was to invest the human figure with such forms as should best fit it to play its part in a scheme of monumental composition. The "style" of his draperies, so much and so justly admired, is composition of draperies. He was not a colorist as Titian was a colorist, or a painter as Velazquez was a painter--he was just so much of a colorist and a painter as is compatible with being the greatest of decorative designers. Everything in his finest works is entirely subordinated to the beauty and expressiveness of composition, and nothing is allowed to have too great an individual interest for its predestined part in the final result. Probably he could not have drawn like Michelangelo or painted like Hals--certainly, when he once understood himself, he would not have desired to do so. Even in his early work he showed his gifts as a composer, and some of the small pictures of his Florentine period are quite perfect in design. Nothing could be better composed within their restricted field than the "Madonna del Cardellino" or the "Belle Jardinière." Nearly at the end of the period he made his greatest failure, the "Entombment" of the Borghese Gallery. It was his most ambitious effort up to this time and he wanted to put everything that he had learned into it, to draw like Michelangelo and to express emotion like Mantegna. He made a host of studies for it, tried it this way and that, lost all spontaneity and all grasp of the ensemble. What he finally produced is a thing of fragments, falling far below his models in the qualities he was attempting to rival and redeemed by little or nothing of the quality proper to himself. But, apparently, it answered its purpose. It freed him from preoccupation with the work of others. When his great opportunity came to him, in the commission to decorate the Camera della Segnatura, his painfully acquired knowledge was sufficiently at his command to give him no further trouble. He could concentrate himself on the essential part of his problem, the creation of an entirely appropriate, dignified, and beautiful decorative design. It was the work for which he was born, and he succeeded so immediately and so admirably in it that neither he nor any one else has ever been able to fill such spaces so perfectly again. There are fourteen important compositions in the room. The decoration of the ceiling had already been begun by Sodoma, and Sodoma's decorative framework Raphael allowed to remain; partly, perhaps, from courtesy, more probably because its general disposition was admirable and not to be improved on. If Sodoma had begun any of the larger paintings which were to fill his frames they were removed to make way for the new work. There has always been a great deal of discussion as to whether Raphael himself invented the admirable scheme of subjects by which the room was made to illustrate the Renaissance ideal of culture with its division into the four great fields of learning: divinity, philosophy (including science), poetry, and law. In reality, the question is of little importance. There seems to be at least one bit of internal evidence, to be mentioned presently, that even here the artist did not have a perfectly free hand, as we know he did not later. Whoever thought of the subjects, it was Raphael who discovered how to treat them in such a way as to make of this room the most perfectly planned piece of decoration in the world. Sodoma had left, on the vaulting, four circular medallions and four rectangular spaces which were to be filled with figure compositions. In the circles, each directly above one of the great wall spaces, Raphael placed figures personifying Theology, Philosophy, Poetry and Justice; in the rectangles he illustrated these subjects with the stories of "The Fall of Man," "Apollo and Marsyas," and "The Judgment of Solomon," and with that figure, leaning over a celestial globe, which must be meant for Science. All of these panels are on curved surfaces, and Raphael's decorative instinct led him, on this account and to preserve the supremacy of the great wall spaces below, to suppress all distance, placing his figures against a background of simulated gold mosaic and arranging them, virtually, upon one plane. There is, therefore, no possible question of "space composition" here. These panels depend for their effect entirely upon composition in two dimensions--upon the perfect balancing of filled and empty spaces, the invention of interesting shapes, and the arrangement of beautiful lines. It is the pattern that counts, and the pattern is perfect. The "Poetry" (Pl. 11) is the most beautiful of the medallions, but they are all much alike: a draped female figure in the middle, seated to give it scale, large enough to fill the height of the circle amply but without crowding, and winged _putti_, bearing inscribed tablets, on either side. There are other ways of filling a circle acceptably, as Botticelli had shown and as Raphael was to show again in more than one _tondo_, but for their situation, marking the principal axes of the room, there is no way so adequate as this. As Mr. Blashfield has said, speaking from experience: "When a modern painter has a medallion to fill and has tried one arrangement after another, he inevitably realizes that it is Raphael who has found the best ordering that could be found; and the modern painter builds upon his lines, laid down so distinctly that the greater the practice of the artist the more complete becomes his realization of Raphael's comprehension of essentials in composition." Not only so, but the modern painter finds as inevitably that, accepting this ordering as the best, even then he cannot add another figure to these four. He may, perhaps, draw it better in detail or give more character to the head, but he cannot capture that felicity of spacing, that absoluteness of balance, that variety and vivacity combined with monumental repose. The more his nature and training have made him a designer the more certainly he feels, before that single medallion of Poetry, that he is in the presence of the inimitable master of design. [Illustration: Plate 11.--Raphael. "Poetry." In the Vatican.] If the composition of the rectangles is less inevitable it is only because the variety of ways in which such simple rectangles may be filled is almost infinite. Composition more masterly than that of the "Judgment of Solomon" (Pl. 12), for instance, you will find nowhere; so much is told in a restricted space, yet with no confusion, the space is so admirably filled and its shape so marked by the very lines that enrich and relieve it. It is as if the design had determined the space rather than the space the design. If you had a tracing of the figures in the midst of an immensity of white paper you could not bound them by any other line than that of the actual frame. One of the most remarkable things about it is the way in which the angles, which artists usually avoid and disguise, are here sharply accented. A great part of the dignity and importance given to the king is due to the fact that his head fills one of these angles, and the opposite one contains the hand of the executioner and the foot by which the living child is held aloft, and to this point the longest lines of the picture lead. The dead child and the indifferent mother fill the lower corners. In the middle, herself only half seen and occupying little space, is the true mother, and it seems that her explosive energy, as she rushes to the rescue of her child, has forced all these other figures back to the confines of the picture. Compare this restless yet subtly balanced composition, full of oblique lines and violent movement, with the gracious, placid formality of the "Adam and Eve," and you will have some notion of the meaning of this gift of design. [Illustration: Plate 12.--Raphael. "The Judgment of Solomon." In the Vatican.] But it is the frescoes on the four walls of this room which are Raphael's greatest triumphs--the most perfect pieces of monumental decoration in the world. On the two longer walls, nearly unbroken lunettes of something over a semicircle, he painted the two great compositions of Theology and Philosophy known as the "Disputa" and the "School of Athens." The "Disputa" (Pl. 13), the earlier of the two, has the more connection with the art of the past. The use of gilded relief in the upper part recalls the methods of Pintoricchio, and the hint of the whole arrangement was doubtless taken from those semidomes which existed in many churches. But what an original idea it was to transform the flat wall of a room into the apse of a cathedral, and what a solemnity it imparts to the discussion that is going on! The upper part is formal in the extreme, as it need be for the treatment of such a theme, but even here there is variety as well as stateliness in the attitudes and the spacing. In the lower part the variety becomes almost infinite, yet there is never a jar--not a line or a fold of drapery that mars the supreme order of the whole. Besides the uncounted cherubs which float among the rays of glory or support the cloudy thrones of the saints and prophets, there are between seventy and eighty figures in the picture; yet the hosts of heaven and the church on earth seem gathered about the altar with its sacred wafer--the tiny circle which is the focus of the great composition and the inevitable goal of all regards, as it is the central mystery of Catholic dogma. [Illustration: Plate 13.--Raphael. The "Disputa." In the Vatican.] Opposite, in the "School of Athens" (Pl. 14), the treatment is different but equally successful. The hieratic majesty of the "Disputa" was here unnecessary, but a tranquil and spacious dignity was to be attained, and it is attained through the use of vertical and horizontal lines--the lines of stability and repose, while the bounding curve is echoed again and again in the diminishing arches of the imagined vaulting. The figures, fewer in number than in the "Disputa" and confined to the lower half of the composition, are ranged in two long lines across the picture; but the nearer line is broken in the centre and the two figures on the steps, serving as connecting-links between the two ranks, give to the whole something of that semicircular grouping so noticeable in the companion picture. The bas-reliefs upon the architecture and the great statues of Apollo and Minerva above them draw the eye upward at the sides, and this movement is intensified by the arrangement of the lateral groups of figures. By these means the counter curve to the arch above, the one fixed necessity, apparently, of the lunette, is established. It is more evident in the perspective curve of the painted dome. Cover this line with a bit of paper, or substitute for it a straight lintel like that seen beyond, and you will be surprised to find how much of the beauty of the picture has disappeared. The grouping of the figures themselves, the way they are played about into clumps or separated to give greater importance, by isolation, to a particular head, is even more beyond praise than in the "Disputa." The whole design has but one fault, and that is an afterthought. In the cartoon the disproportioned bulk of Heraclitus, thrust into the foreground and writing in an impossible attitude on a desk in impossible perspective, is not to be found. It is such a blot upon the picture that one cannot believe that Raphael added it of his own motion; rather it must have been placed there at the dictation of some meddling cardinal or learned humanist who, knowing nothing of art, could not see why any vacant space should not be filled with any figure whose presence seemed to him historically desirable. One is tempted to suspect even, so clumsy is the figure and so out of scale with its neighbors, that the master refused to disfigure his work himself and left the task to one of his apprentices. If it had been done by one of them, say Giulio Romano, after the picture was entirely completed and at the time of the "Incendio del' Borgo," it could not be more out of keeping. [Illustration: Plate 14.--Raphael. "The School of Athens." In the Vatican.] Each of these walls has a doorway at one end, and the way in which these openings are dissimulated and utilized is most ingenious, particularly in the "Disputa," where the bits of parapet which play an important part at either side of the composition, one pierced, the other solid, were suggested solely by the presence of this door. In the end walls the openings, large windows much higher than the doors, become of such importance that the whole nature of the problem is changed. It is the pierced lunette that is to be dealt with, and Raphael has dealt with it in two entirely different ways. One wall is symmetrical, the window in the middle, and on that wall he painted the "Parnassus" (Pl. 15), Apollo and the Muses in the centre with groups of poets a little lower on either side and other groups filling the spaces to right and left of the window head. At first sight the design seems less symmetrical and formal than the others, with a lyrical freedom befitting the subject, but in reality it is no less perfect in its ponderation. The group of trees above Apollo and the reclining figures either side of him accent the centrality of his position. From this point the line of heads rises in either direction to the figures of Homer and of the Muse whose back is turned to the spectator, and the perpendicularity of these two figures carries upward into the arch the vertical lines of the window. From this point the lateral masses of foliage take up the drooping curve and unite it to the arch, and this curve is strongly reinforced by the building up toward either side of the foreground groups and by the disposition of the arms of Sappho and of the poets immediately behind her, while, to disguise its formality, it is contradicted by the long line of Sappho's body, which echoes that of the bearded poet immediately to the right of the window and gives a sweep to the left to the whole lower part of the composition. It is the immediate and absolute solution of the problem, and so small a thing as the scarf of the back-turned Muse plays its necessary part in it, balancing, as it does, the arm of the Muse who stands highest on the left and establishing one of a number of subsidiary garlands that play through and bind together the wonderful design. [Illustration: Plate 15.--Raphael. "Parnassus." In the Vatican.] The window in the opposite wall is to one side of the middle, and here Raphael meets the new problem with a new solution. He places a separate picture in each of the unequal rectangles, carries a simulated cornice across at the level of the window head, and paints, in the segmental lunette thus left, the so-called "Jurisprudence" (Pl. 16), which seems to many decorators the most perfect piece of decorative design that even Raphael ever created--the most perfect piece of design, therefore, in the world. Its subtlety of spacing, its exquisiteness of line, its monumental simplicity, rippled through with a melody of falling curves from end to end, are beyond description--the reader must study them for himself in the illustration. One thing he might miss were not his attention called to it--the ingenious way in which the whole composition is adjusted to a diagonal axis that the asymmetry of the wall may be minimized. Draw an imaginary straight line from the boss in the soffit of the arch through the middle of the Janus-head of Prudence. It will accurately bisect the central group, composed of this figure and her two attendant genii, will pass through her elevated left knee, the centre of a system of curves, and the other end of it will strike the top of the post or mullion that divides the window opening into two parts. [Illustration: Plate 16.--Raphael. "Jurisprudence." In the Vatican.] This single room, the Camera della Segnatura, marks the brief blossoming time of Raphael's art, an art consummate in science yet full of a freshness and spontaneity--the dew still upon it--as wonderful as its learning. The master himself could not duplicate it. He tried for Venetian warmth of color in the "Mass of Bolsena" (Pl. 17) and experimented with tricks of illumination in the "Deliverance of Peter" (Pl. 18), and in these two compositions, struck out new and admirable ways of filling pierced lunettes. The balancing, in the one, of the solitary figure of the pope against the compact group of seven figures--a group that has to be carried up above the curved screen in order to counteract the importance given to Julius by his isolation and by the greater mass of his supporting group below--is a triumph of arrangement; and here, again, it is notable that the bleeding wafer, the necessary centre of interest, is situated on a straight line drawn diagonally from the keystone of the arch to the centre of the window head, and almost exactly half-way between these two points, while the great curve of the screen leads to it from either side. In the symmetrically pierced lunette opposite, the distribution of the space into three distinct but united pictures, the central one seen through the grating of the prison, is a highly ingenious and, on the whole, an acceptable variant on previous inventions. But these two are the last of the Vatican frescoes that show Raphael's infallible instinct as a composer. He grows tired, exaggerates his mannerisms, gives a greater and greater share of the work to his pupils. The later Stanze are either pompous or confused, or both, until we reach the higgledy-piggledy of the "Burning of the Borgo" or that inextricable tangle, suggestive of nothing so much as of a dish of macaroni, the "Battle of Constantine," a picture painted after the master's death, but for which he probably left something in the way of sketches. [Illustration: Plate 17.--Raphael. "The Mass of Bolsena." In the Vatican.] Yet even in what seems this decadence of his talent Raphael only needed a new problem to revive his admirable powers in their full splendor. In 1514 he painted the "Sibyls" (Pl. 19) of Santa Maria della Pace, in a frieze-shaped panel cut by a semicircular arch, and the new shape given him to fill inspired a composition as perfect in itself and as indisputably the only right one for the place as anything he ever did. Among his latest works were the pendentives of the Farnesina, with the story of Cupid and Psyche--works painted and even drawn by his pupils, coarse in types and heavy in color but altogether astonishing in freedom and variety of design. The earlier painters covered their vaulting with ornamental patterns in which spaces were reserved for independent pictures, like the rectangles of the Stanza della Segnatura. It was a bold innovation when Michelangelo discarded this system and placed in the pendentives of the Sistine his colossal figures of the Prophets and the Sibyls, each on its architectural throne. It was reserved for Raphael to take a step that no earlier painter could have dreamed of and to fill these triangular spaces with free groups relieved against a clear sky which is the continuous background of the whole series. One may easily think the earlier system more architecturally fitting, but the skill with which these groups are composed, their perfect naturalness, their exhaustless variety, the perfection with which they fill these awkward shapes, as it were inevitably and without effort, is nothing short of amazing. It is decoration of a festal and informal order--the decoration of a kind of summer house, fitted for pleasure, rather than of a stately chamber--but it is decoration the most consummate, the fitting last word of the greatest master of decorative design that the world has seen. [Illustration: Plate 18.--Raphael. "The Deliverance of Peter." In the Vatican.] It is this master designer that is the real Raphael, and, but for the element of design always present in the least of his works, the charming illustrator, the mere "painter of Madonnas," might be allowed to sink comfortably into artistic oblivion without cause for protest. But there is another Raphael we could spare less easily, Raphael the portrait-painter. The great decorators have nearly always been great portrait-painters as well, although--perhaps because--there is little resemblance between the manner of feeling and working necessary for success in the two arts. The decorator, constantly occupied with relations of line and space which have little to do with imitation, finds in the submissive attention to external fact necessary to success in portraiture a source of refreshment and of that renewed contact with nature which is constantly necessary to art if it is not to become too arid an abstraction. Certainly it was so with Raphael, and the master of design has left us a series of portraits comparable only to those of that other great designer whose fate was to leave little but portraits behind him, Hans Holbein. Allowing for the necessary variation of type and costume in their models and for the difference between an Italian and a northern education, their methods are singularly alike. Raphael has greater elegance and feeling for style, Holbein a richer color sense and, above all, a finer craftsmanship, an unapproachable material perfection. They have the same quiet, intense observation, the same impeccable accuracy, the same preoccupation with the person before them and with nothing else--an individuality to be presented with all it contains, neither more nor less--to be rendered entirely, and without flattery as without caricature. There have been portrait-painters who were greater painters, in the more limited sense of the word, than these two, and there has been at least one painter whose imaginative sympathy gave an inner life to his portraits absent from theirs, but in the essential qualities of portraiture, as distinguished from all other forms of art, perhaps no one else has quite equalled them. One can give no greater praise to the "Castiglione" or the "Donna Velata" than to say that they are fit to hang beside the "Georg Gyze" or the "Christina of Milan"; and at least one portrait by Raphael, the "Tommaso Inghirami," in the collection of Mrs. Gardner (Pl. 20)--the original of which the picture in the Pitti Palace is a replica--has a beauty of surface and of workmanship almost worthy of Holbein himself. [Illustration: Plate 19.--Raphael. "The Sibyls." Santa Maria della Pace, Rome.] [Illustration: Plate 20.--Raphael. "Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami." In the collection of Mrs. Gardner.] Raphael's portraits alone, had he done nothing else, would justify a great reputation, but they form so relatively small a part of his work that they may almost be neglected in examining his claims to the rank that used to be assigned him among the world's greatest artists. It is, after all, his unique mastery of composition that is his chief title to fame, and his glory must always be in proportion to the estimation in which that quality is held. It was because composition was to him a comparatively unimportant part of painting that Velazquez thought little of Raphael. It is because, for them, composition, as a distinct element of art, has almost ceased to exist that so many modern painters and critics decry Raphael altogether. The decorators have always known that design is the essence of their art, and therefore they have always appreciated the greatest of designers. That is why Paul Baudry, in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, idolized Raphael and based his own art upon that of the great Umbrian. To-day, in our own country, mural decoration is again becoming a living art, and the desire for the appropriate decoration of important buildings with monumental works of painting is more wide-spread, perhaps, than it has been anywhere at any time since the Italian Renaissance. So surely as the interest in decorative painting and the knowledge of its true principles become more widely spread, so surely will the name of Raphael begin to shine again with something of its ancient splendor. But design is something more than the essential quality of mural decoration--it is the common basis of all the arts, the essential thing in art itself. Each of the arts has its qualities proper to it alone, and it may be right to estimate the painter, the sculptor, the architect, or the musician according to his eminence in those qualities which are distinctive of his particular art and which separate it most sharply from the other arts. In that sense we are right to call Frans Hals a greater painter than Raphael. But if we estimate a man's artistry by the same standard, whatever the form of art in which it expresses itself, rating him by his power of co-ordinating and composing notes or forms or colors into a harmonious and beautiful unity, then must we place Raphael pretty near where he used to be placed, admitting but a choice few of the very greatest to any equality with him. If we no longer call him "the prince of painters" we must call him one of the greatest artists among those who have practised the art of painting. V TWO WAYS OF PAINTING Among the modern paintings in the Metropolitan Museum is a brilliant and altogether remarkable little picture by John Sargent, entitled "The Hermit" (Pl. 21). Mr. Sargent is a portrait-painter by vocation, and the public knows him best as a penetrating and sometimes cruel reader of human character. He is a mural painter by avocation and capable, on occasion, of a monumental formality. In this picture, as in the wonderful collection of watercolors in the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, one fancies one sees the essential John Sargent, working for himself alone without regard to external demands, and doing what he really cares most to do. In such work he is a modern of the moderns and, in the broadest sense of the word, a thorough Impressionist. Not that he shows himself a disciple of Monet or occupies himself with the broken touch or the division of tones--his method is as direct as that of Sorolla and his impressionism is of the same kind--a bending of all his energies to the vivid realization of the effect of the scene rendered as one might perceive it in the first flash of vision if one came upon it unexpectedly. This picture is better than Sorolla--it is better than almost any one. It is perhaps the most astonishing realization of the modern ideal, the most accomplished transcript of the actual appearance of nature, that has yet been produced. It is because of its great merit, because of its extraordinary success in what it attempts, that it leads one to the serious consideration of the nature of the attempt and of the gain and loss involved in the choice that modern art has made. The picture is exactly square--the choice of this form is, of itself, typically modern in its unexpectedness--and represents a bit of rough wood interior under intense sunlight. The light is studied for its brilliancy rather than for its warmth, and if the picture has a fault, granted the point of view of the painter, it is in a certain coldness of color; but such conditions of glaring and almost colorless light do exist in nature. One sees a few straight trunks of some kind of pine or larch, a network of branches and needles, a tumble of moss-spotted and lichened rocks, a confusion of floating lights and shadows, and that is all. The conviction of truth is instantaneous--it is an actual bit of nature, just as the painter found it. One is there on that ragged hillside, half dazzled by the moving spots of light, as if set down there suddenly, with no time to adjust one's vision. Gradually one's eyes clear and one is aware, first of a haggard human head with tangled beard and unkempt hair, then of an emaciated body. There is a man in the wood! And then--did they betray themselves by some slight movement?--there are a couple of slender antelopes who were but now invisible and who melt into their surroundings again at the slightest inattention. It is like a pictorial demonstration of protective coloring in men and animals. [Illustration: Plate 21.--Sargent. "The Hermit." In the Metropolitan Museum of Art.] Now, almost any one can see how superbly all this is rendered. Any one can marvel at and admire the free and instantaneous handling, the web of slashing and apparently meaningless brush strokes which, at a given distance, take their places by a kind of magic and _are_ the things they represent. But it takes a painter to know how justly it is observed. In these days no painter, whatever may be his deepest convictions, can escape the occasional desire to be modern; and most of us have attempted, at one time or another, the actual study of the human figure in the open air. We have taken our model into a walled garden or a deep wood or the rocky ravine of a brook and have set ourselves seriously to find out what a naked man or woman really looks like in the setting of outdoor nature. And we have found just what Sargent has painted. The human figure, as a figure, has ceased to exist. Line and structure and all that we have most cared for have disappeared. Even the color of flesh has ceased to count, and the most radiant blond skin of the fairest woman has become an insignificant pinkish spot no more important than a stone and not half so important as a flower. Humanity is absorbed into the landscape. Obviously, there are two courses open to the painter. If he is a modern by feeling and by training, full of curiosity and of the scientific temper, caring more for the investigation of the aspects of nature and the rendering of natural light and atmosphere than for the telling of a story or the construction of a decoration, he will, if he is able enough, treat his matter much as Sargent has treated it. The figure will become, for him, only an incident in the landscape. It will be important only as a thing of another texture and another color, valuable for the different way in which it receives the light and reflects the sky, just as rocks and foliage and water and bare earth are valuable. For to the true Impressionist light and atmosphere are the only realities, and objects exist only to provide surfaces for the play of light and atmosphere. He will abandon all attempt at rendering the material and physical significance of the human form and will still less concern himself with its spiritual significance. He will gain a great vividness of illusion, and he may console himself for what he loses with the reflection that he has expressed the true relation of man to the universe--that he has expressed either man's insignificance or man's oneness with nature, according as his temper is pessimistic or optimistic. If, on the other hand, the painter is one to whom the figure as a figure means much; one to whom line and bulk and modelling are the principal means of expression, and who cares for the structure and stress of bone and muscle; if the glow and softness of flesh appeal strongly to him; above all, if he has the human point of view and thinks of his figures as people engaged in certain actions, having certain characters, experiencing certain states of mind and body; then he will give up the struggle with the truths of aspect that seem so vital to the painter of the other type and, by a frank use of conventions, will seek to increase the importance of his figure at the expense of its surroundings. He will give it firmer lines and clearer edges, will strengthen its light and shade, will dwell upon its structure or its movement and expression. He will so compose his landscape as to subordinate it to his figure and will make its lines echo and accentuate that figure's action or repose. When he has accomplished his task he will have painted not man insignificant before nature but man dominating nature. For an example of this way of representing man's relation to the world about him, let us take Titian's "Saint Jerome" (Pl. 22)--a picture somewhat similar to Sargent's in subject and in the relative size of the figure and its surroundings. Titian has here given more importance to the landscape than was common in his day. He also has meant, as Sargent has, to make a great deal of the wilderness to which his saint has retired, and to make his saint a lonely human being in a savage place. But the saint and his emotion is, after all, what interests Titian most, and the wildness of nature is valuable to him mainly for its sympathy with this emotion. He wants to give a single powerful feeling and to give it with the utmost dramatic force--to give it theatrically even, one might admit of this particular picture; for it is by no means so favorable an example of Titian's method, or of the older methods of art in general, as is Sargent's "Hermit" of the modern way of seeing and painting. To attain this end he simplifies and arranges everything. He lowers the pitch of his coloring to a sombre glow and concentrates the little light upon his kneeling figure. He spends all his knowledge on so drawing and modelling that figure as to make you feel to the utmost its bulk and reality and the strain upon its muscles and tendons, and he so places everything else on his canvas as to intensify its action and expression. The gaze of the saint is fixed upon a crucifix high on the right of the picture, and the book behind him, the lines of the rocks, the masses of the foliage, even the general formation of the ground, are so disposed as to echo and reinforce the great diagonal. There is a splendid energy of invention in the drawing of the tree stems, but the effect is clear and simple with nothing of Sargent's dazzle and confusion. As for the lion, he is a mere necessary mark of identification, and Titian has taken no interest in him. [Illustration: Plate 22.--Titian. "St. Jerome in the Desert." In the Brera Gallery, Milan.] Now, it is evident that there is not nearly so much literal truth to the appearance of nature in this picture as in Sargent's. It is not only that it would never have occurred to Titian to try to paint the glittering spottiness of sunlight splashing through leafage, or to attempt to raise his key of light to something like that of nature, at the cost of fulness of color. It is not merely that he translates and simplifies and neglects certain truths that the world had not yet learned to see. He deliberately and intentionally falsifies. He knew as well as we do that a natural landscape would not arrange itself in such lines and masses for the purpose of throwing out the figure and of enhancing its emotion. But to him natural facts were but so much material, to be treated as he pleased for the carrying out of his purpose. He was a colorist and a chiaroscurist; and he had a great deal more interest in light and in landscape than most of the painters of his time. If he had been pre-eminently a draughtsman, like Michelangelo, he would have reduced his light and shade to the amount strictly necessary to give that powerful modelling of the figure which is the draughtsman's means of expression, would have greatly increased the relative size and importance of the figure, and would have reduced the landscape to a barely intelligible symbol. Had he been a linealist, like Botticelli, he would have eliminated modelling almost altogether, would have concentrated his attention upon the edges of things, and would have reduced his picture to a flat pattern in which the beauty and expressiveness of the lines should be almost the only attraction. For all art is an exchange of gain against loss--you cannot have Sargent's truth of impression and Titian's truth of emotion in the same picture, nor Michelangelo's beauty of structure with Botticelli's beauty of line. To be a successful artist is to know what you want and to get it at any necessary sacrifice, though the greatest artists maintain a noble balance and sacrifice no more than is necessary. And if a painter of to-day is like-minded with these older masters he will have to express himself much in their manner. He will have to make, with his eyes open, the sacrifices which they made, more or less unconsciously, and to deny a whole range of truths with which his fellows are occupied that he may express clearly and forcibly the few truths which he has chosen. All truths are good, and all ways of painting are legitimate that are necessary to the expression of any truth. I am not here concerned to show that one way is better than another or one set of truths more important than another set of truths. For the present I am desirous only of showing why there is more than one way--of explaining the necessity of different methods for the expression of different individualities and different ways of envisaging nature and art. But a little while ago it was the modern or impressionistic manner that needed explanation. It was new, it was revolutionary, and it was misunderstood and disliked. A generation of critics has been busy in explaining it, a generation of artists has been busy in practising it, and now the balance has turned the other way. The pressure of conformity is upon the other side, and it is the older methods that need justification and explanation. The prejudices of the workers and the writers have gradually and naturally become the prejudices of at least a part of the public, and it has become necessary to show that the small minority of artists who still follow the old roads do so not from ignorance or stupidity or a stolid conservatism, still less from mere wilful caprice, but from necessity, because those roads are the only ones that can lead them where they wish to go. No more magnificent demonstration of the qualities possible to the purely modern methods of painting has been made than this brilliant little picture of Sargent's. All the more is it a demonstration of the qualities impossible to these methods. If such qualities have any permanent value and interest for the modern world it is a gain for art that some painters should try to keep alive the methods that render possible their attainment. VI THE AMERICAN SCHOOL In the catalogues of our museums you may find entries like this: "John Smith, American school; The Empty Jug" or what-not. In such entries little more than a bare statement of nationality is intended. John Smith is an American, by birth or adoption; that is all that the statement is meant to convey. But the question occurs: Have we an American school in a more specific sense than this? Have we a body of painters with certain traits in common and certain differences from the painters of other countries? Has our production in painting sufficient homogeneity and sufficient national and local accent to entitle it to the name of American school in the sense in which there is, undoubtedly, a French school and an English school? Under the conditions of to-day there are no longer anywhere such distinctive local schools as existed in the Renaissance. In Italy, in those days, there were not only such great schools as the Venetian, the Florentine, and the Umbrian, differing widely in their point of view, their manner of seeing, and their technical traditions--each little town had a school with something characteristic that separated its painters from those of other schools in the surrounding towns. To-day every one knows and is influenced by the work of every one else, and it is only broad national characteristics that still subsist. Modern pictures are singularly alike, but, on the whole, it is still possible to tell an English picture from a French one, and a German or Italian picture from either. We may still speak of a Dutch school or a Spanish school with some reasonableness. Is it similarly and equally reasonable to speak of an American school? Does a room full of American pictures have a different look from a room full of pictures by artists of any other nationality? Does one feel that the pictures in such a room have a something in common that makes them kin and a something different that distinguishes them from the pictures of all other countries? I think the answer must be in the affirmative. We have already passed the stage of mere apprenticeship, and it can no longer be said that our American painters are mere reflections of their European masters. Twenty or even ten years ago there may have been some truth in the accusation. To-day many of our younger painters have had no foreign training at all, or have had such as has left no specific mark of a particular master; and from the work of most of our older painters it would be difficult to guess who their masters were without reference to a catalogue. They have, through long work in America and under American conditions, developed styles of their own bearing no discoverable resemblance to the styles of their first instructors. To take specific examples, who would imagine from the mural paintings of Blashfield or the decorations by Mowbray in the University Club of New York that either had been a pupil of Bonnat? Or who, looking at the exquisite landscapes or delicate figure pieces of Weir, would find anything to recall the name of Gérôme? Some of the pupils of Carolus Duran are almost the only painters we have who acquired in their school-days a distinctive method of work which still marks their production, and even they are hardly distinguishable to-day from others; for the method of Duran, as modified and exemplified by John Sargent, has become the method of all the world, and a pupil of Carolus simply paints in the modern manner, like the rest. Those American painters who have adopted the impressionist point of view, again, have modified its technic to suit their own purposes and are at least as different from the Impressionists of France as are the Impressionists of Scandinavia. We have painters who are undeniably influenced by Whistler, but so have other countries--the school of Whistler is international--and, after all, Whistler was an American. In short, the resemblances between American painting and the painting of other countries are to-day no greater than the resemblances between the painting of any two of those countries. And I think the differences between American painting and that of other countries are quite as great as, if not greater than, the differences between the paintings of any two of those countries. Another accusation that used to be heard against our painters has been out-lived. We used to be told, with some truth, that we had learned to paint but had nothing to say with our painting, that we produced admirable studies but no pictures. The accusation never was true of our landscape-painting. Whatever may be the final estimation of the works of Inness and Wyant, there can be no doubt that they produced pictures--things conceived and worked out to give one definite and complete impression; things in which what was presented and what was eliminated were equally determined by a definite purpose; things in which accident and the immediate dominance of nature had little or no part. As for Winslow Homer, whether in landscape or figure painting, his work was unfailingly pictorial, whatever else it might be. He was a great and original designer, and every canvas of his was completely and definitely composed--a quality which at once removes from the category of mere sketches and studies even his slighter and more rapid productions. And our landscape-painters of to-day are equally painters of pictures. Some of them might be thought, by a modern taste, too conventionally painters of pictures--too much occupied with composition and tone and other pictorial qualities at the expense of freshness of observation--while our briskest and most original observers have, many of them, a power of design and a manner of casting even their freshest observations into pictorial form that is as admirable as it is remarkable. No one could enter one of our exhibitions without feeling the definitely pictorial quality of American landscape-painting, but these exhibitions do less justice to the achievement of our figure-painters. The principal reason for this is that many of our most serious figure-painters have been so much occupied with mural decoration that their work seldom appears in the exhibitions at all, while the work that they have done is so scattered over our vast country that we rather forget its existence and, assuredly, have little realization of its amount. It is one of the defects of our exhibition system that work of this kind, while it is, of course, on permanent exhibition in the place for which it is painted, is hardly ever "exhibited," in the ordinary sense, in the centres where it is produced. The regular visitor to the Paris salons might know almost all that has been done in France in the way of mural painting. The public of our American exhibitions knows only vaguely and by hearsay what our mural painters have done and are doing. It is true that such work is infinitely better seen in place, but it is a pity it cannot be seen, even imperfectly, by the people who attend our exhibitions--people who can rarely have the necessary knowledge to read such collections of sketches, studies, and photographs as are shown at the exhibitions of the Architectural League, where, alone, our mural painters can show anything. If it were seen it would surely alter the estimation in which American figure-painting is held. Such work as was done by the late John La Farge, such work as is being done by Blashfield and Mowbray and Simmons and a dozen others, if not, in the most limited sense of the word, pictorial, is even further removed from the mere sketch or study--the mere bit of good painting--than is the finest easel picture. But it is not only in mural decoration that serious figure-painting is being done in this country. I do not see how any one can deny the name of pictures to the genre paintings of Mr. Tarbell and Mr. Paxton unless he is prepared to deny pictorial quality to the whole Dutch school of the seventeenth century; and the example of these men is influencing a number of others toward the production of thoroughly thought-out and executed genre pictures. We have long had such serious figure-painters as Thayer and Brush, Dewing and Weir. The late Louis Loeb was attempting figure subjects of a very elaborate sort. To-day every exhibition shows an increasing number of worthy efforts at figure-painting in either the naturalistic or the ideal vein. We have pictures with subjects intelligently chosen and intelligibly treated, pictures with a pattern and a clear arrangement of line and mass, pictures soundly drawn and harmoniously colored as well as admirably painted. The painters of America are no longer followers of foreign masters or students learning technic and indifferent to anything else. They are a school producing work differing in character from that of other schools and at least equal in quality to that of any school existing to-day. If so much may be taken as proved, the question remains for consideration: What are the characteristics of the American school of painting? Its most striking characteristic is one that may be considered a fault or a virtue according to the point of view and the prepossessions of the observer. It is a characteristic that has certainly been a cause of the relatively small success of American work at recent international exhibitions. The American school is, among the schools of to-day, singularly old-fashioned. This characteristic has, undoubtedly, puzzled and repelled the foreigner. It is a time when the madness for novelty seems to be carrying everything before it, when anything may be accepted so long as it is or seems new, when the effort of all artists is to get rid of conventions and to shake off the "shackles of tradition." Here is a new people in the blessed state of having no traditions to shake off and from whom, therefore, some peppery wildness might be expected for the tickling of jaded palates. Behold, they are sturdily setting themselves to recover for art the things the others have thrown away! They are trying to revive the old fashion of thoughtful composition, the old fashion of good drawing, the old fashion of lovely color, and the old fashion of sound and beautiful workmanship. This conservatism of American painting, however, is not of the kind that still marks so much of the painting of England. Excepting exceptions, English painting is somewhat stolidly staying where it was. America's conservatism is ardent, determined, living. It is not standing still; it is going somewhere as rapidly as possible--it might, perhaps, be more truly called not conservatism but reaction. We have, of course, our ultramodernists, but their audacities are mild compared to those of the French or German models they imitate. We have, even more of course, the followers of the easiest way--the practitioners of current and accepted methods who are alike everywhere. But our most original and most distinguished painters, those who give the tone to our exhibitions and the national accent to our school, are almost all engaged in trying to get back one or another of the qualities that marked the great art of the past. They have gone back of the art of the day and are retying the knots that should bind together the art of all ages. This tendency shows itself strongly even in those whose work seems, at first sight, most purely naturalistic or impressionistic. Among those of our painters who have adopted and retained the impressionist technic, with its hatching of broken colors, the two most notable are Mr. Hassam and Mr. Weir. But Mr. Hassam, at his best, is a designer with a sense of balance and of classic grace almost equal to that of Corot, and he often uses the impressionist method to express otherwise the delicate shimmer of thin foliage that Corot loved. Nay, so little is he a pure naturalist, he cannot resist letting the white sides of naked nymphs gleam among his tree trunks--he cannot refrain from the artist's immemorial dream of Arcady. As for Mr. Weir, surely nothing could be more unlike the instantaneousness of true impressionism than his long-brooded-over, subtle-toned, infinitely sensitive art. There is little dreaminess in the work of Mr. Tarbell and the growing number of his followers. Theirs is almost a pure naturalism, a "making it like." Yet, notably in the work of Mr. Tarbell himself, and to some extent in that of the others, there is an elegance of arrangement, a thoroughness in the notation of gradations of light, a beauty and a charm that were learned of no modern. Their art is an effort to bring back the artistic quality of the most artistic naturalism ever practised, that of Vermeer of Delft. Others of our artists are going still further back in the history of art for a part of their inspiration. Mr. Brush has always been a linealist and a student of form, but his earlier canvases, admirable as they were, were those of a docile pupil of Gérôme applying the thoroughness of Gérôme's method to a new range of subjects and painting the American Indian as Gérôme had painted the modern Egyptian. In recent years each new picture of his has shown more clearly the influence of the early Italians--each has been more nearly a symphony of pure line. Even in purely technical matters our painters have been experimenting backward, trying to recover lost technical beauties. The last pictures of Louis Loeb were underpainted throughout in monochrome, the final colors being applied in glazes and rubbings, and to-day a number of others, landscape and figure painters, are attempting to restore and master this, the pure Venetian method, while still others, among them Emil Carlsen, are reviving the use of tempera. But it is in our mural painting even more than elsewhere that the conservative or reactionary tendency of American painting is most clearly marked. John La Farge was always himself, but when the general movement in mural painting began in this country with the Chicago World's Fair and the subsequent decoration of the Library of Congress, the rest of us were much under the influence of Puvis de Chavannes. Even then the design was not his, but was founded on earlier examples of decorative composition, but his pale tones were everywhere. Little by little the study of the past has taught us better. American mural painting has grown steadily more monumental in design, and at the same time it has grown richer and fuller in color. To-day, while it is not less but more personal and original than it was, it has more kinship with the noble achievements of Raphael and Veronese than has any other modern work extant. And this brings us to the second characteristic of the American school of painting: it is rapidly becoming a school of color. We have still plenty of painters who work in the blackish or chalky or muddy and opaque tones of modern art, but I think we have more men who produce rich and powerful color and more men who produce subtle and delicate color than any other modern school. The experiments in reviving old technical methods have been undertaken for the sake of purity and luminosity of color and have largely succeeded. The pictures of Mr. Tarbell are far more colored than those of the European painter whose work is, in some ways, most analogous to his, M. Joseph Bail. Mr. Hassam's color is always sparkling and brilliant, Mr. Dewing's delicate and charming, Mr. Weir's subtle and harmonious and sometimes very full. Even Mr. Brush's linear arrangements are clothed in sombre but often richly harmonious tones, and the decorative use of powerful color is the main reliance of such painters as Hugo Ballin. But the note of color runs through the school and one hardly needs to name individual men. Whether our landscapists glaze and scumble with the tonalists, or use some modification of the impressionist hatching, it is for the sake of color; and even our most forthright and dashing wielders of the big brush often achieve a surprising power of resonant coloring. Power, fulness, and beauty of coloring are hardly modern qualities. Much as impressionism has been praised for restoring color to a colorless art, its result has been, too often, to substitute whitishness for blackishness. Color has characterized no modern painting since that of Delacroix and Millet as it characterizes much of the best American painting. The love for and the success in color of our school is, after all, a part of its conservatism. It may seem an odd way of praising a modern school to call it the least modern of any. It _would_ be an odd way of praising that school if its lack of modernness were a mere matter of lagging behind or of standing still and marking time. But if the "march of progress" has been down-hill--if the path that is trod leads into a swamp or over a precipice--then there may be most hopefulness for those who can 'bout face and march the other way. I have, elsewhere in this volume, given at some length some of my reasons for thinking that modern art has been following a false route and is in danger of perishing in the bog or falling over the cliff. If it is so we may congratulate ourselves that those of our painters who are still following the rest of the world have not so nearly reached the end of the road, and that those who are more independent have discovered in time what that end is and have turned back. It is because it is least that of to-day that I believe our art may be that of to-morrow--it is because it is, of all art now going, that which has most connection with the past that I hope the art of America may prove to be the art of the future. VII AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS[C] [C] Address delivered before the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences on February 22, 1908. Now revised and enlarged. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was born in Dublin, Ireland, on the first day of March, 1848, but was brought to America at the age of six months. His childhood and youth were passed in the city of New York, as was a great part of his working life; and though his origin was foreign, lifelong associations had stamped him indelibly an American. The greater part of his work was done in America; almost all of it was done for America; and I do not think it is fancy that sees in his art the expression of a distinctively American spirit. Yet from his mixed French and Irish blood he may well have derived that mingling of the Latin sense of form with a Celtic depth of sentiment which was so markedly characteristic of his genius. His father, Bernard Paul Ernest Saint-Gaudens, was a shoemaker from the little town of Aspet in Haute-Garonne, only a few miles from the town of Saint-Gaudens, from which the family must have drawn its origin and its name. His mother was Mary McGuinness, a native of Dublin. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was one of several children born to this couple and not the only artist among them, for his younger brother Louis also attained some reputation as a sculptor, though his entire lack of ambition prevented his achieving all that was expected of him by those who knew his delicate talent. The boy Augustus attended the public schools of New York and received there all the formal education he ever had; but at thirteen it was necessary for him to face the problem of earning his living. His artistic proclivities were probably already well marked, and to give them some scope, while assuring him a regular trade at which money could be earned, he was apprenticed in the good old way to a cameo cutter named Louis Avet, said to be the first man to cut stone cameos in the United States. Thus it came about that the greatest of American sculptors had much such a practical apprenticeship as a Florentine of the fifteenth century might have had. He himself always spoke of it as "one of the most fortunate things that ever happened to him" and attributed much of his success to the habit of faithful labor acquired at this time. Probably, also, the habit of thinking in terms of relief, fostered by years of work at this ancient art, was not without influence in the moulding of his talent. His relations with Avet lasted from 1861 to 1864, when his master quarrelled with him and abruptly dismissed him from his shop. The boy was already a determined person; he believed that he had suffered an injustice, and, though Avet went to his parents and tried to induce them to send him back, he refused to return. A new master was found for him in the person of a shell-cameo cutter named Jules LeBrethon, and with him Saint-Gaudens remained three years. During his six years' apprenticeship under his two masters the youth showed already that energy and power of will that made him what he was. He meant to be something more than an artisan, and he spent his evenings in the classes, first of the Cooper Union, afterward of the National Academy of Design, in the hard study of drawing, the true foundation of all the fine arts. It was one of the elements of his superiority in his profession that he could draw as few sculptors can, and he always felt that he owed an especial debt to the Cooper Union, which he was glad to repay when he modelled the statue of its venerable founder. Of the other institution by whose freely given instruction he had profited, the National Academy of Design, he became one of the most honored members. By 1867, when he was nineteen years old, he had saved a little money and was master of a trade that could be relied on to bring in more, and he determined to go to Paris and begin the serious study of sculpture. He worked, for a time, at the Petite École, and entered the studio of Jouffroy in the École des Beaux-Arts in 1868, remaining until 1870. During this time, and afterward, he was self-supporting, working half his time at cameo cutting until his efforts at sculpture on a larger scale began to bring in an income. When the Franco-Prussian War broke out Paris ceased to be a place for the carrying on of the serious study of art, and Saint-Gaudens went to Rome, where his associates were the French prizemen of the day, of whom Mercié was one. He remained there until 1874, except for a visit to New York in the winter of 1872-3 for the purpose of modelling a bust of Senator Evarts, and one or two other busts, which were put into marble upon his return to Rome. In those Roman days he executed his first statue, a "Hiawatha," one of his few studies of the nude, and a "Silence," a not very characteristic draped figure which yet fills with some impressiveness her niche at the head of the grand stairway of the Masonic Temple on Twenty-fourth Street. From 1875 to 1877 he had a studio in New York, where he seems to have executed some of his earliest portrait reliefs. During these years he came into contact with La Farge, for whom he turned painter and aided in the execution of the decorations of Trinity Church in Boston. It was at this time, also, that he received his first commissions for important public work, those for the Farragut statue in Madison Square, the Randall at Sailors' Snug Harbor, and the angels for Saint Thomas's Church. He had married Augusta F. Homer in 1877, and in that year, taking his bride and his commissions with him, he returned to Paris, feeling, as many another young Paris-bred artist has felt, that there only could such important works be properly carried out. The "Farragut" was completed and exhibited in the plaster at the Salon of 1880, and from that time his success was assured. For the rest of his life he was constantly busy, receiving almost more commissions for work of importance than it was possible for him to carry out. He returned to New York in 1880, and in 1881 he opened the studio in Thirty-sixth Street, where he remained for sixteen years and where so many of his greatest works were executed. From that studio came many of his exquisite portraits in relief, his caryatids and angelic figures, such as those for the Morgan tomb, so unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1882 (a fate since shared by the earlier angels of Saint Thomas's), the great statues of Lincoln and Chapin, the "Shaw Memorial," and the "Adams Memorial"; and in it was done all the preliminary work of the great equestrian monument to General Sherman. It is in these years of his prime that he will ever be most fondly remembered by those--and they are many--who had the privilege of his friendship. Admittedly our foremost sculptor, and one of the founders of the Society of American Artists, he became at once a person of importance in the world of art; and as his brilliant career developed he established intimate relationships with an ever-widening circle of men in every walk of life, while no one who ever knew him well can have felt anything but an abiding affection for him. That long, white studio became a familiar meeting-place for all who were interested in any form of art; and the Sunday afternoon concerts that were held there for many years will be looked back to with regret as long as any of their auditors remain alive. This studio was given up when Saint-Gaudens went abroad for the third time, in 1897, to execute the Sherman group, and he never resumed his residence in New York. In 1885 he had purchased a property at Cornish, N.H., just across the Connecticut River from Windsor, Vt., and when he returned to this country in 1900, covered with fresh honors but an ill man, he made what had been a summer home his permanent abode. He named it Aspet, after his father's birthplace, and there he erected two studios and finished his Sherman statue. In these studios were executed the second "Lincoln," the Parnell statue for Dublin, and much other work. The larger studio was burned in 1904, but was rebuilt and the lost work re-begun and carried to a conclusion. What can never be quite replaced were two portraits of himself. A study, of the head only, in the collection of the National Academy of Design and a sketch by Will H. Low, painted in Paris in 1877, are now the only existing portraits of him done from life in his best years. The Metropolitan Museum possesses a portrait of him in his last years, by Miss Ellen Emmet, and a replica, painted since his death, of my own earlier portrait. From the illness he brought back from Paris in 1900 Saint-Gaudens never recovered. At times he showed something of his old vigor and was able not only to do fine work but to indulge more in out-of-door sports than he had ever done in his youth, while a growing love for nature and for literature made his life fuller, in some respects, than in the days when his own art more entirely absorbed him. But year by year his strength grew less and his intervals of freedom from pain grew shorter, and he was more and more forced to rely upon the corps of able and devoted assistants which he gathered about him. He developed to an extraordinary extent the faculty of communicating his ideas and desires to others and of producing through their hands work essentially his own and of a quality entirely beyond their ability; but it was at the cost of a strain upon brain and nerve almost infinitely greater than would have been involved in work done with his own hand. In the summer of 1906 he broke down utterly, the work of his studio was interrupted, and he ceased to see even his most intimate friends. He rallied somewhat from this attack, and began again his heroic struggle against fate, directing the work of assistants while himself so weak that he had to be carried from the house to the studio. The end came on the evening of August 3, 1907. He died as he had lived, a member of no church, but a man of pure and lofty character. As he had wished, his body was cremated, and his ashes were temporarily deposited in the cemetery at Windsor, Vt., across the river from his home. An informal funeral service was held in his private studio on August 7, attended by friends and neighbors and by a few old friends from a distance; but the gathering could include but a few of the many who felt his death as a personal loss. The merits of Saint-Gaudens's work were fully recognized in his lifetime. He was an officer of the Legion of Honor, a Corresponding Member of the Institute of France, a member of half a dozen academies, and the bearer of honorary degrees from the universities of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. But of all the honors he received there were two, one of a public, the other of a private nature, which he himself valued most highly: the one as showing the estimation in which his art was held by his fellow artists, the other as an evidence of the personal affection felt for him by his friends. At the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, upon the unanimous recommendation of the Jury of Fine Arts, composed of painters, sculptors, and architects, he was awarded a special diploma and medal of honor, "apart from and above all other awards," an entirely exceptional honor, which marked him as the first of American artists, as previously received honors had marked him one of the greatest sculptors of his time. On June 23, 1905, the artistic and literary colony which had gradually grown up about his home in Cornish celebrated the twentieth anniversary of his coming there by a fête and open-air masque held in the groves of Aspet. The beauty of this spectacle has become almost legendary. The altar with its columned canopy, which served for a background to the play, still stands, or recently stood, though much dilapidated by weather, as it was immortalized by the sculptor himself in a commemorative plaquette (Pl. 23) which is among the most charming of his minor works. He planned if he had lived to perpetuate it in enduring marble, and this task has now been taken up by his wife, who means to dedicate the monument as a fitting memorial to a great artist and a noble man in the place he loved as his chosen home. Some part of the vivid and lovable personality of Augustus Saint-Gaudens must have been visible, almost at a glance, to any one who ever came in contact with him--to any one, even, who ever saw his portrait. In his spare but strong-knit figure, his firm but supple hands, his manner of carrying himself, his every gesture, one felt the abounding vitality, the almost furious energy of the man. That extraordinary head, with its heavy brow beetling above the small but piercing eyes, its red beard and crisp, wiry hair, its projecting jaw and great, strongly modelled nose, was alive with power--with power of intellect no less than of will. His lack of early education gave him a certain diffidence and a distrust of his own gifts of expression. He was apt to overrate the mere verbal facility of others and to underestimate himself in the comparison--indeed, a certain humility was strongly marked in him, even as regards his art, though he was self-confident also. When he was unconstrained his great powers of observation, his shrewdness of judgment, his bubbling humor, and a picturesque vivacity of phrase not uncommon among artists made him one of the most entrancing of talkers. [Illustration: Copyright, De W.C. Ward. Plate 23.--Saint-Gaudens. "Plaquette Commemorating Cornish Masque."] Underneath his humor and his gayety, however, there lay a deep-seated Celtic melancholy, and beside his energy was an infinite patience at the service of an exacting artistic conscience. The endless painstaking of his work and the time he took over it were almost proverbial. He was twelve years engaged upon the "Shaw Memorial" and eleven upon the "Sherman," and, though he did much other work while these were in progress, yet it was his constant revision, his ever-renewed striving for perfection that kept them so long achieving. The "Diana" of the Madison Square Garden was taken down from her tower because he and the architect, Stanford White, thought her too large, and was entirely remodelled on a smaller scale. And with this patience went a gentleness, a sweetness, a delicate sensitiveness, and an abounding humanity and sympathy. He could be almost ruthless in the assertion of his will when the interests of his art or of justice seemed to demand it, yet there was a tender-heartedness in him which made it distressing to him to inflict pain on any one. The conflict of these elements in his nature sometimes made his actions seem inconsistent and indecipherable even to those who knew him. He would be long-suffering, compromising, disinclined to strike; but when he was at last roused the blow would be as staggering as it was unexpected. It was as if he struck the harder to have done with it and to spare himself the pain of striking again. It was his whole-hearted devotion to his art which caused his rare acts of self-assertion, and it was this same devotion, no less than his natural kindliness, that made him ever helpful to younger artists who showed any promise of future worth. Even in his last days of unspeakable suffering he would summon what was left of his old strength to give a word of criticism and advice, above all, a word of commendation, to any one who needed the one or had earned the other. The essential goodness of the man was most felt by those who stood nearest him, and most of all, perhaps, by his actual coworkers. He could command, as few have been able to do, the love and devotion of his assistants. To all who knew him the man himself seemed finer, rarer, sweeter than his work, and the gap he has left in their lives will be even more impossible to fill than his place in American art. But the personality of an artist, though he be a great one, is for the memory of his private friends. It is only as it colors his art that it is of public interest. It is his art itself, his gift to the world, that the world cares for; it is of the kind and quality of that art, the nature and the degree of its greatness, that the world wishes to hear. Because the man was my friend I have wished to give some glimpse of the manner of man he was; because the artist was the greatest our country has produced I am to try to give some idea of his art, of the elements of its strength, and of the limitations which are as necessary as its qualities. The time of Saint-Gaudens's study in Paris was a time of great importance in the development of modern sculpture, and, although Jouffroy was not himself a sculptor of the highest rank, his studio was a centre for what was then the new movement in the sculpture of France. The essential thing in this movement was the abandoning of the formal imitation of second-rate antiques and the substitution of the sculpture of the Italian Renaissance as a source of inspiration and of the direct study of nature as a means of self-expression. There had always been individual sculptors of power and originality in France, but the movement of the French school of sculpture, as a whole, away from the pseudo classicism which had long dominated it was really inaugurated by Paul Dubois only a few years before Saint-Gaudens's arrival in Paris. Many of the men destined to a brilliant part in the history of modern sculpture were trained in the _atelier_ of Jouffroy. Falguière and Saint-Marceau had but just left that studio when the young American entered it, and Mercié was his fellow student there. Dalou and Rodin have since made these men seem old-fashioned and academic, but they were then, and for many years afterward, the heads of the new school; and of this new school, so different from anything he had known in America, Saint-Gaudens inevitably became a part. His own pronounced individuality, and perhaps his comparative isolation during the years of his greatest productivity, gave his art a character of its own, unlike any other, but to the French school of sculpture of the third quarter of the nineteenth century he essentially belonged. Of course, his style was not formed in a moment. His "Hiawatha" seems, to-day, much such a piece of neo-classicism as was being produced by other men in the Rome of that time, and the "Silence," though somewhat more modern in accent, is an academic work such as might have been expected from a docile pupil of his master. The relief of angels for the reredos of Saint Thomas's Church is the earliest important work which shows his personal manner. It was undertaken in collaboration with John La Farge, and perhaps the influence of La Farge, and of that eminently picturesque genius Stanford White, mingled with that of the younger French school in forming its decorative and almost pictorial character. It was a kind of improvisation, done at prodigious speed and without study from nature--a sketch rather than a completed work of art, but a sketch to be slowly developed into the reliefs of the Farragut pedestal, the angels of the Morgan tomb, the caryatids of the Vanderbilt mantelpiece, and, at length, into such a masterpiece as the "Amor-Caritas." In each of these developments the work becomes less picturesque and more formal, the taste is purified, the exuberance of decorative feeling is more restrained. The final term is reached in the caryatids for the Albright Gallery at Buffalo--works of his last days, when his hands were no longer able to shape the clay, yet essentially his though he never touched them; works of an almost austere nobility of style, the most grandly monumental figures he ever produced. The commonest criticism on Saint-Gaudens's art has been that it is not, primarily, sculptural in its inspiration; and, in a sense, the criticism is justified. One need not, perhaps, greatly care whether it is true or not. It is, after all, only a matter of definition, and if we were forbidden to call his work sculpture at all and required to find another name for it, the important fact that it is art--art of the finest, the most exquisite, at times the most powerful--would in no wise be altered. Ghiberti went beyond the traditions of sculpture in relief, introduced perspective into his compositions, modelled trees and rocks and clouds and cast them in bronze, made pictures, if you like, instead of reliefs. Does any one care? Is it not enough that they are beautiful pictures? The gates of the Baptistry of Florence are still worthy, as the greatest sculptor since the Greeks thought them, to be the gates of paradise. A work of art remains a work of art, call it what you please, and a thing of beauty will be a joy forever, whether or not you can pigeonhole it in some ready-made category. After all, the critical pigeonholes are made for the things, not the things for the pigeonholes. The work is there, and if it does not fit your preconceived definition the fault is as likely to be in the definition as in the work itself. And the first and most essential thing to note about the art of Augustus Saint-Gaudens is that it is always art of the purest--free in an extraordinary degree from the besetting sins of naturalism and the scientific temper on the one hand and of the display of cleverness and technical brilliancy on the other. Never more than in our own day have these been the great temptations of an able artist: that he should in the absorption of study forget the end in the means and produce demonstrations of anatomy or of the laws of light rather than statues or pictures; or that he should, in the joy of exercising great talents, seem to say, "See how well I can do it!" and invent difficulties for the sake of triumphantly resolving them, becoming a virtuoso rather than a creator. Of the meaner temptation of mere sensationalism--the desire to attract attention by ugliness and eccentricity lest one should be unable to secure it by truth and beauty--one need not speak. It is the temptation of vulgar souls. But great and true artists have yielded, occasionally or habitually, to these other two; Saint-Gaudens never does. I know no work of his to which raw nature has been admitted, in which a piece of study has been allowed to remain as such without the moulding touch of art to subdue it to its place; and I know only one which has any spice of bravura--the Logan statue--and the bravura is there because the subject seemed to demand it, not because the artist wished it. The dash and glitter are those of "Black Jack Logan," not of Saint-Gaudens. The sculptor strove to render them as he strove to render higher qualities at other times, but they remain antipathetic to his nature, and the statue is one of the least satisfactory of his works. He is essentially the artist--the artificer of beauty--ever bent on the making of a lovely and significant thing; and the study of nature and the resources of his craft are but tools and are never allowed to become anything more. If, then, the accusation that Saint-Gaudens's art is not sculptural means that he was a designer rather than a modeller, that he cared for composition more than for representation, that the ensemble interested him more than the details, I would cheerfully admit that the accusation is well founded. Such marvels of rendering as Rodin could give us, before he lost himself in the effort to deserve that reputation as a profound thinker which has been thrust upon him, were not for Saint-Gaudens. The modelling of the _morceau_ was not particularly his affair. The discrimination of hard and soft, of bone and muscle and integument, the expression of tension where a fleshy tissue is tightly drawn over the framework beneath, or of weight where it falls away from it--these were not the things that most compelled his interest or in which he was most successful. For the human figure as a figure, for the inherent beauty of its marvellous mechanism, he did not greatly care. The problems of bulk and mass and weight and movement which have occupied sculptors from the beginning were not especially his problems. It may have been due to the nature of the commissions he received that, after the "Hiawatha" of his student days, he modelled no nude except the "Diana" of the tower--a purely decorative figure, designed for distant effect, in which structural modelling would have been out of place because invisible. But it was not accident that in such draped figures as the "Amor-Caritas" (Pl. 24) or the caryatids of the Vanderbilt mantelpiece there is little effort to make the figure visible beneath the draperies. In the hands of a master of the figure--of one of those artists to whom the expressiveness and the beauty of the human structure is all in all--drapery is a means of rendering the masses and the movement of the figure more apparent than they would be in the nude. In such works as these it is a thing beautiful in itself, for its own ripple and flow and ordered intricacy. The figure is there beneath the drapery, but the drapery is expressive of the mood of the artist and of the sentiment of the work rather than especially explanatory of the figure. [Illustration: Copyright, De W.C. Ward. Plate 24.--Saint-Gaudens. "Amor Caritas."] First of all, by nature and by training, Saint-Gaudens was a designer, and exquisiteness of design was the quality he most consciously strove for--the quality on which he expended his unresting, unending, persevering toil. From the start one feels that design is his principal preoccupation, that he is thinking mainly of the pattern of the whole, its decorative effect and play of line, its beauty of masses and spaces, its fitness for its place and its surroundings; in a word, its composition. In the beginning, as a workman in the shop of the cameo cutter, he was concerned with a kind of art in which perfection of composition is almost the sole claim to serious consideration. Then he produces a multiplicity of small reliefs, dainty, exquisite, infallibly charming in their arrangement--things which are so dependent on design for their very existence that they seem scarcely modelled at all. He goes on to decorative figures in the round, to heroic statues, to monumental groups, but always it is design that he thinks of first and last--design, now, in three dimensions rather than in two--design properly sculptural rather than pictorial, in so much as it deals with bosses and concaves, with solid matter in space--but still design. This power of design rises to higher uses as time goes on, is bent to the interpretation of lofty themes and the expression of deep emotions, but it is in its nature the same power that produced the delicate, ethereal beauty of the reliefs. The infinite fastidiousness of a master designer, constantly reworking and readjusting his design, that every part shall be perfect and that no fold or spray of leafage shall be out of its proper place, never satisfied that his composition is beyond improvement while an experiment remains untried--this is what cost him years of labor. His first important statue, the "Farragut," is a masterpiece of restrained and elegant yet original and forceful design--a design, too, that includes the pedestal and the bench below, and of which the figures in bas-relief are almost as important a part as the statue itself. In later and maturer work, with a more clarified taste and a deeper feeling, he can reach such unsurpassable expressiveness of composition as is shown in the "Shaw Memorial" or the great equestrian statue of Sherman. Saint-Gaudens's mastery of low relief was primarily a matter of this power of design, but it was conditioned also upon two other qualities: knowledge of drawing and extreme sensitiveness to delicate modulation of surface. And by drawing I mean not merely knowledge of form and proportion and the exact rendering of these, in which sense a statue may be said to be well drawn if its measurements are correct--I mean that much more subtle and difficult art, the rendering in two dimensions only of the appearance of objects of three dimensions. Sculpture in the round is the simplest and, in a sense, the easiest of the arts. It deals with actual form--a piece of sculpture does not merely look like the form of an object, it _is_ the form of an object. Leaving out of the count, for the moment, the refinements and the illusions which may be added to it--which must be added to it to make it art--it is the reproduction in another material of the actual forms of things. Something which shall answer for it, to the uninitiate, may be produced by merely casting natural objects; and there is a great deal that is called sculpture which scarcely aims at anything more than the production, by a more difficult method, of something like a plaster cast from nature. It is the very simplicity of the art that makes its difficulty, for to avoid the look of casting and achieve the feeling of art requires the most delicate handling and the most powerful inspiration, and there is need in the art of sculpture for the rarest qualities of the greatest minds. The art of drawing is entirely different. It is all illusion, it deals only in appearances. Its aim is to depict on a flat surface the aspect of objects supposed to stand behind it and to be seen through it, and its means are two branches of the science of optics. It is based on the study of perspective and on the study of the way light falls upon objects and reveals their shapes and the direction of their surfaces by the varying degrees of their illumination. Of this art a sculptor in the round need not necessarily know anything, and, in fact, many of them, unfortunately, know altogether too little of it. The maker of a statue need not think about foreshortenings: if he gives the correct form the foreshortening will take care of itself. Sometimes it does so in a disastrous manner! Theoretically he need not worry over light and shade, although of course he does, in practice, think about it and rely upon it, more or less. If he gives the true forms they will necessarily have the true light and shade. But low relief, standing between sculpture and drawing, is really more closely related to drawing than to sculpture--is really a kind of drawing--and this is why so few sculptors succeed in it. It is a kind of drawing but an exceedingly difficult kind--the most delicate and difficult of any of the arts that deal with form alone. As to the contour, it stands on the same ground with drawing in any other material. The linear part of it requires exactly the same degree and the same kind of talent as linear design with a pen or with a burin. But for all that stands within the contour, for the suggestion of interior forms and the illusion of solidity, it depends on means of the utmost subtlety. It exists, as all drawing does, by light and shade, but the shadows are not produced by the mere darkening of the surface--they are produced by projections and recessions, by the inclination of the planes away from or toward the light. The lower the relief the more subtle and tender must be the variation of the surface which produces them, and therefore success in relief is one of the best attainable measures of a sculptor's fineness of touch and perfection of craftsmanship. But as the light and shade is produced by actual forms which are yet quite unlike the true forms of nature, it follows that the artist in relief can never imitate either the shape or the depth of the shadow he sees in nature. His art becomes one of suggestions and equivalents--an art which can give neither the literal truth of form nor the literal truth of aspect--an art at the farthest remove from direct representation. And success in it becomes, therefore, one of the best tests of a sculptor's artistry--of his ability to produce essential beauty by the treatment of his material, rather than to imitate successfully external fact. As the degree of relief varies, also, from the lowest possible to that highest relief which, nearly approaches sculpture in the round, the problems involved constantly vary. At each stage there is a new compromise to be made, a new adjustment to find, between fact and illusion, between the real form and the desired appearance. And there may be a number of different degrees of relief in the same work, even in different parts of the same figure, so that the art of relief becomes one of the most complicated and difficult of arts. It has not, indeed, the added complication of color, but neither has it the resources of color, success in which will more or less compensate for failure elsewhere. There is no permissible failure in bas-relief, any more than in sculpture in the round, and its difficulties are far greater. Nothing but truest feeling, completest knowledge, consummate skill will serve. This explanation may give some measure of what I mean when I say that I believe Augustus Saint-Gaudens the most complete master of relief since the fifteenth century. He has produced a series of works which run through the whole range of the art, from lowest relief to highest; from things of which the relief is so infinitesimal that they seem as if dreamed into existence rather than wrought in bronze or marble to things which are virtually engaged statues; from things which you fear a chance touch might brush away, like a pastel of Whistler's, to things as solid and enduring in appearance as in actual material. And in all these things there is the same inevitable mastery of design and of drawing, the same infinite resource and the same technical perfection. The "Butler Children" (Pl. 25), the "Schiff Children," the "Sarah Redwood Lee" (Pl. 26), to name but a few of his masterpieces of this kind, are in their perfection of spacing, their grace of line, their exquisite and ethereal illusiveness of surface, comparable only to the loveliest works of the Florentine Renaissance; while the assured mastery of the most complicated problems of relief evinced in the "Shaw Memorial"--a mastery which shows, in the result, no trace of the strenuous and long-continued effort that it cost--is unsurpassed--I had almost said unequalled--in any work of any epoch. [Illustration: Copyright, De W.C. Ward. Plate 25.--Saint-Gaudens. "The Butler Children."] Illustration can give but a faint idea of the special beauties of this or that particular work in this long series. It can show no more than the composition and the draughtsmanship. The refinement of workmanship, the sensitiveness and subtlety of modelling, can be appreciated only before the works themselves. And this sensitiveness and delicacy of workmanship, this mastery of the problems of relief, with its reliance on illusion and its necessary abstention from realization, is applied to sculpture in the round, and becomes with Saint-Gaudens, as it did with the sculptors of the Florentine Renaissance, the means of escape from the matter of fact. The concrete art of sculpture becomes an art of mystery and of suggestion--an art having affinities with that of painting. Hollows are filled up, shadows are obliterated, lines are softened or accentuated, as the effect may require, details are eliminated or made prominent as they are less or more essential and significant, as they hinder or aid the expressiveness of the whole. It is by such methods that beauty is achieved, that the most unpromising material is subdued to the purposes of art, that even our hideous modern costume may be made to yield a decorative effect. Pure sculpture, as the ancients understood it, the art of form _per se_, demands the nude figure, or a costume which reveals it rather than hides it. The costume of to-day reveals as little of the figure as possible, and, unlike mediæval armor, it has no beauty of its own. A painter may make it interesting by dwelling on color or tone or texture, or may so lose it in shadow that it ceases to count at all except as a space of darkness. A sculptor can do none of these things, and if he is to make it serve the ends of beauty he has need of all the resourcefulness and all the skill of the master of low relief. It was fortunate that the artist whose greatest task was to commemorate the heroes of the Civil War should have had the temperament and the training of such a master, and I know of no other sculptor than Saint-Gaudens who has so magnificently succeeded in the rendering of modern clothing--no other who could have made the uniform of Farragut or the frock coat of Lincoln as interesting as the armor of Colleone or the toga of Augustus. [Illustration: Copyright, De W.C. Ward. Plate 26.--Saint-Gaudens. "Sarah Redwood Lee."] But if the genius of Saint-Gaudens was primarily a decorative genius--if it was, even, in his earlier work, a trifle picturesque, so that, as he said himself, he had "to fight against picturesqueness," his work was never pictorial. He never indulged in perspective or composed his reliefs on more than one plane; never took such liberties with the traditions of sculpture as did Ghiberti, or painted pictures in bronze or marble as more than one modern has done. His very feeling for decoration kept him from pictorial realism, and his fight against picturesqueness was nobly won. His design becomes ever cleaner and more classic; by years of work and of experience he becomes stronger and stronger in the more purely sculptural qualities--attains a grasp of form and structure only second to his mastery of composition. He is always a consummate artist--in his finest works he is a great sculptor in the strictest sense of the word. I have dwelt somewhat at length upon technical matters because technical power is the first necessity for an artist; because technical mastery is that for which he consciously endeavors; because the technical language of his art is the necessary vehicle of expression for his thoughts and emotions, and determines, even, the nature of the thoughts and emotions he shall express. But while the technical accomplishment of an artist is the most necessary part of his art, without which his imagination would be mute, it is not the highest or the most significant part of it. I have tried to show that Saint-Gaudens was a highly accomplished artist, the equal of any of his contemporaries, the superior of most. What made him something much more than this--something infinitely more important for us--was the vigor and loftiness of his imagination. Without his imaginative power he would have been an artist of great distinction, of whom any country might be proud; with it he became a great creator, able to embody in enduring bronze the highest ideals and the deepest feelings of a nation and of a time. It is a penetrating and sympathetic imagination that gave him his unerring grasp of character, that enabled him to seize upon the significant elements of a personality, to divine the attitude and the gesture that should reveal it, to eliminate the unessential, to present to us the man. This is the imagination of the portrait-painter, and Saint-Gaudens has shown it again and again, in many of his reliefs and memorial tablets, above all in his portrait statues. He showed it conclusively in so early a work as the "Farragut" (Pl. 27), a work that remains one of the modern masterpieces of portrait statuary. The man stands there forever, feet apart, upon his swaying deck, his glass in one strong hand, cool, courageous, ready, full of determination but absolutely without bluster or braggadocio, a sailor, a gentleman, and a hero. He showed it again, and with ampler maturity, in that august figure of "Lincoln" (Pl. 28), grandly dignified, austerely simple, sorrowfully human, risen from the chair of state that marks his office, but about to speak as a man to men, his bent head and worn face filled with a sense of power, but even more with the sadness of responsibility--filled, above all, with a yearning, tender passion of sympathy and love. In imaginative presentation of character, in nobility of feeling and breadth of treatment, no less than in perfection of workmanship, these are among the world's few worthy monuments to its great men. [Illustration: Copyright, De W.C. Ward. Plate 27.--Saint-Gaudens. "Farragut."] And they are monuments to Americans by an American. Saint-Gaudens had lived through the time of the Civil War, had felt, as a boy, the stir of its great happenings in his blood, and its epic emotions had become a part of his consciousness, deep-seated at the roots of his nature. The feelings of the American people were his feelings, and his representations of these and of other heroes of that great struggle are among the most national as they are among the most vital things that our country has produced in art. But if Saint-Gaudens's imagination was thus capable of raising the portrait to the dignity of the type, it was no less capable of endowing the imagined type with all the individuality of the portrait. In the "Deacon Chapin" (Pl. 29), of Springfield, we have a purely ideal production, the finest embodiment of New England Puritanism in our art, for no portrait of the real Chapin existed. This swift-striding, stern-looking old man, who clasps his Bible as Moses clasped the tables of the law and grips his peaceful walking-stick as though it were a sword, is a Puritan of the Puritans; but he is an individual also--a rough-hewn piece of humanity with plenty of the old Adam about him--an individual so clearly seen and so vigorously characterized that one can hardly believe the statue an invention or realize that no such old Puritan deacon ever existed in the flesh. Something of this imaginative quality there is in almost everything Saint-Gaudens touched, even in his purely decorative figures. His angels and caryatides are not classical goddesses but modern women, lovely, but with a personal and particular loveliness, not insisted upon but delicately suggested. And it is not the personality of the model who chanced to pose for them but an invented personality, the expression of the nobility, the sweetness, and the pure-mindedness of their creator. And in such a figure as that of the "Adams Memorial" (Pl. 30), in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, his imaginative power reaches to a degree of impressiveness almost unequalled in modern art. One knows of nothing since the tombs of the Medici that fills one with the same hushed awe as this shrouded, hooded, deeply brooding figure, rigid with contemplation, still with an eternal stillness, her soul rapt from her body on some distant quest. Is she Nirvana? Is she The Peace of God? She has been given many names--her maker would give her none. Her meaning is mystery; she is the everlasting enigma. [Illustration: Copyright, De W.C. Ward. Plate 28.--Saint-Gaudens. "Lincoln."] Not the greatest artist could twice sound so deep a note as this. The figure remains unique in the work of the sculptor as it is unique in the art of the century. Yet, perhaps, Saint-Gaudens's greatest works are two in which all the varied elements of his genius find simultaneous expression; into which his mastery of composition, his breadth and solidity of structure, his technical skill, his insight into character, and his power of imagination enter in nearly equal measure: the "Shaw Memorial" and the great equestrian group of the "Sherman Monument." The "Shaw Memorial" (Pl. 31) is a relief, but a relief of many planes. The marching troops are in three files, one behind the other, the varying distances from the spectator marked by differences of the degree of projection. Nearer than all of them is the equestrian figure of Shaw himself, the horse and rider modelled nearly but not quite in the round. The whole scale of relief was altered in the course of the work, after it had once been nearly completed, and the mastery of the infinitely complicated problem of relief in many degrees is supreme. But all the more because the scheme was so full and so varied, the artist has carefully avoided the pictorial in his treatment. There is no perspective, the figures being all on the same scale, and there is no background, no setting of houses or landscape. Everywhere, between and above the figures, is the flat surface which is the immemorial tradition of sculpture in relief; and the fact that it _is_ a surface, representing nothing, is made more clear by the inscription written upon it--an inscription placed there, consciously or unconsciously, that it might have that very effect. The composition is magnificent, whether for its intrinsic beauty of arrangement--its balancing of lines and spaces--or for its perfect expressiveness. The rhythmic step of marching men is perfectly rendered, and the guns fill the middle of the panel in an admirable pattern, without confusion or monotony. The heads are superb in characterization, strikingly varied and individual, yet each a strongly marked racial type, unmistakably African in all its forms. [Illustration: Plate 29.--Saint-Gaudens. "Deacon Chapin."] These are merits, and merits of a very high order, enough of themselves to place the work in the front rank of modern sculpture, but they are, after all, its minor merits. What makes it the great thing it is is the imaginative power displayed in it--the depth of emotion expressed, and expressed with perfect simplicity and directness and an entire absence of parade. The negro troops are marching steadily, soberly, with high seriousness of purpose, and their white leader rides beside them, drawn sword in hand, but with no military swagger, courageous, yet with a hint of melancholy, ready not only to lay down his life but to face, if need be, an ignominious death for the cause he believes to be just. And above them, laden with poppy and with laurels, floats the Death Angel pointing out the way. [Illustration: Copyright, Curtis & Cameron. Plate 30.--Saint-Gaudens. "Adams Memorial."] It is a work which artists may study again and again with growing admiration and increasing profit, yet it is one that has found its way straight to the popular heart. It is not always--it is not often--that the artists and the public are thus at one. When they are it is safe to assume that the work they equally admire is truly great--that it belongs to the highest order of noble works of art. The Sherman group (Pl. 32), though it has been more criticised than the "Shaw Memorial," seems to me, if possible, an even finer work. The main objection to it has been that it is not sufficiently "monumental," and, indeed, it has not the massiveness nor the repose of such a work as Donatello's "Gattamelata," the greatest of all equestrian statues. It could not well have these qualities in the same degree, its motive being what it is, but they are, perhaps, not ill exchanged for the character and the nationalism so marked in horse and rider and for the irresistible onward rush of movement never more adequately expressed. In all other respects the group seems to me almost beyond criticism. The composition--composition, now, in the round and to be considered from many points of view--builds up superbly; the flow of line in wing and limb and drapery is perfect; the purely sculptural problems of anatomical rendering, equine and human, are thoroughly resolved; the modelling, as such, is almost as fine as the design. [Illustration: Copyright, De. W.C. Ward. Plate 31.--Saint-Gaudens. "Shaw Memorial."] To the boyish Saint-Gaudens Sherman had seemed the typical American hero. To the matured artist he had sat for an admirable bust. The sculptor had thus an unusual knowledge of his subject, a perfect sympathy with his theme; and he has produced a work of epic sweep and significance. Tall and erect, the general sits his horse, his military cloak bellying out behind him, his trousers strapped down over his shoes, his hat in his right hand, dropping at arm's length behind his knee, his bare head like that of an old eagle, looking straight forward. The horse is as long and thin as his rider, with a tremendous stride; and his big head, closely reined in, twitches viciously at the bridle. Before the horse and rider, upon the ground, yet as if new-lighted there from an aerial existence, half walks, half flies, a splendid winged figure, one arm outstretched, the other brandishing the palm--Victory leading them on. She has a certain fierce wildness of aspect, but her rapt gaze and half-open mouth indicate the seer of visions--peace is ahead, and an end of war. On the bosom of her gown is broidered the eagle of the United States, for she is an American Victory, as this is an American man on an American horse; and the broken pine bough beneath the horse's feet localizes the victorious march--it is the march through Georgia to the sea. Long ago I expressed my conviction that the "Sherman Monument" is third in rank of the great equestrian statues of the world. To-day I am not sure that that conviction remains unaltered. Donatello's "Gattamelata" is unapproached and unapproachable in its quiet dignity; Verrocchio's "Colleone" is unsurpassed in picturesque attractiveness. Both are consecrated by the admiration of centuries. To-day I am not sure that this work of an American sculptor is not, in its own way, equal to either of them. There are those who are troubled by the introduction of the symbolical figures in such works as the "Shaw Memorial" and the Sherman statue; and, indeed, it was a bold enterprise to place them where they are, mingling thus in the same work the real and the ideal, the actual and the allegorical. But the boldness seems to me abundantly justified by success. In either case the entire work is pitched to the key of these figures; the treatment of the whole is so elevated by style and so infused with imagination that there is no shock of unlikeness or difficulty of transition. And these figures are not merely necessary to the composition, an essential part of its beauty--they are even more essential to the expression of the artist's thought. Without that hovering Angel of Death, the negro troops upon the "Shaw Memorial" might be going anywhere, to battle or to review. We should have a passing regiment, nothing more. Without the striding Victory before him, the impetuous movement of Sherman's horse would have no especial significance. And these figures are no mere conventional allegories; they are true creations. To their creator the unseen was as real as the seen--nay, it was more so. That Shaw was riding to his death at the command of duty was, the only thing that made Shaw memorable. That Sherman was marching to a victory the fruits of which should be peace was the essential thing about Sherman. Death and Duty--Victory and Peace--in each case the compound ideal found its expression in a figure entirely original and astonishingly living: a _person_ as truly as Shaw or Sherman themselves. He could not have left them out. It were better to give up the work entirely than to do it otherwise than as he saw it. [Illustration: Copyright, De W.C. Ward. Plate 32.--Saint-Gaudens. "Sherman."] I have described and discussed but a few of the many works of this great artist, choosing those which seem to me the most significant and the most important, and in doing so I have keenly felt the inadequacy of words to express the qualities of an art which exists by forms. Fortunately, the works themselves are, for the most part, readily accessible. In the originals, in casts, or in photographs, they may be studied by every one. Nothing is more difficult than to estimate justly the greatness of an object that is too near to us--it is only as it recedes into the distance that the mountain visibly overtops its neighboring hills. It is difficult to understand that this man so lately familiar to us, moving among us as one of ourselves, is of the company of the immortals. Yet I believe, as we make this study of his works, as we yield ourselves to the graciousness of his charm or are exalted by the sweep of his imagination, we shall come to feel an assured conviction that Augustus Saint-Gaudens was not merely the most accomplished artist of America, not merely one of the foremost sculptors of his time--we shall feel that he is one of those great, creative minds, transcending time and place, not of America or of to-day, but of the world and forever. Where, among such minds, he will take his rank we need not ask. It is enough that he is among them. Such an artist is assuredly a benefactor of his country, and it is eminently fitting that his gift to us should be acknowledged by such tribute as we can pay him. By his works in other lands and by his world-wide fame he sheds a glory upon the name of America, helping to convince the world that here also are those who occupy themselves with the things of the spirit, that here also are other capabilities than those of industrial energy and material success. In his many minor works he has endowed us with an inexhaustible heritage of beauty--beauty which is "about the best thing God invents." He is the educator of our taste and of more than our taste--of our sentiment and our emotions. In his great monuments he has not only given us fitting presentments of our national heroes; he has expressed, and in expressing elevated, our loftiest ideals; he has expressed, and in expressing deepened, our profoundest feelings. He has become the voice of all that is best in the American people, and his works are incentives to patriotism and lessons in devotion to duty. But the great and true artist is more than a benefactor of his country, he is a benefactor of the human race. The body of Saint-Gaudens is ashes, but his mind, his spirit, his character have taken on enduring forms and are become a part of the inheritance of mankind. And if, in the lapse of ages, his very name should be forgotten--as are the names of many great artists who have gone before him--yet his work will remain; and while any fragment of it is decipherable the world will be the richer in that he lived. [Transcriber's Note: In the Table of Illustrations and in the caption for plate 17, Bolensa was corrected to Bolsena.] 
16917	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 16917-h.htm or 16917-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/9/1/16917/16917-h/16917-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/9/1/16917/16917-h.zip) ART by CLIVE BELL 1913 [Illustration: WEI FIGURE, FIFTH CENTURY _In M. Vignier's Collection_] New York Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers Printed in Great Britain All rights reserved PREFACE In this little book I have tried to develop a complete theory of visual art. I have put forward an hypothesis by reference to which the respectability, though not the validity, of all aesthetic judgments can be tested, in the light of which the history of art from palaeolithic days to the present becomes intelligible, by adopting which we give intellectual backing to an almost universal and immemorial conviction. Everyone in his heart believes that there is a real distinction between works of art and all other objects; this belief my hypothesis justifies. We all feel that art is immensely important; my hypothesis affords reason for thinking it so. In fact, the great merit of this hypothesis of mine is that it seems to explain what we know to be true. Anyone who is curious to discover why we call a Persian carpet or a fresco by Piero della Francesca a work of art, and a portrait-bust of Hadrian or a popular problem-picture rubbish, will here find satisfaction. He will find, too, that to the familiar counters of criticism--_e.g._ "good drawing," "magnificent design," "mechanical," "unfelt," "ill-organised," "sensitive,"--is given, what such terms sometimes lack, a definite meaning. In a word, my hypothesis works; that is unusual: to some it has seemed not only workable but true; that is miraculous almost. In fifty or sixty thousand words, though one may develop a theory adequately, one cannot pretend to develop it exhaustively. My book is a simplification. I have tried to make a generalisation about the nature of art that shall be at once true, coherent, and comprehensible. I have sought a theory which should explain the whole of my aesthetic experience and suggest a solution of every problem, but I have not attempted to answer in detail all the questions that proposed themselves, or to follow any one of them along its slenderest ramifications. The science of aesthetics is a complex business and so is the history of art; my hope has been to write about them something simple and true. For instance, though I have indicated very clearly, and even repetitiously, what I take to be essential in a work of art, I have not discussed as fully as I might have done the relation of the essential to the unessential. There is a great deal more to be said about the mind of the artist and the nature of the artistic problem. It remains for someone who is an artist, a psychologist, and an expert in human limitations to tell us how far the unessential is a necessary means to the essential--to tell us whether it is easy or difficult or impossible for the artist to destroy every rung in the ladder by which he has climbed to the stars. My first chapter epitomises discussions and conversations and long strands of cloudy speculation which, condensed to solid argument, would still fill two or three stout volumes: some day, perhaps, I shall write one of them if my critics are rash enough to provoke me. As for my third chapter--a sketch of the history of fourteen hundred years--that it is a simplification goes without saying. Here I have used a series of historical generalisations to illustrate my theory; and here, again, I believe in my theory, and am persuaded that anyone who will consider the history of art in its light will find that history more intelligible than of old. At the same time I willingly admit that in fact the contrasts are less violent, the hills less precipitous, than they must be made to appear in a chart of this sort. Doubtless it would be well if this chapter also were expanded into half a dozen readable volumes, but that it cannot be until the learned authorities have learnt to write or some writer has learnt to be patient. Those conversations and discussions that have tempered and burnished the theories advanced in my first chapter have been carried on for the most part with Mr. Roger Fry, to whom, therefore, I owe a debt that defies exact computation. In the first place, I can thank him, as joint-editor of _The Burlington Magazine_, for permission to reprint some part of an essay contributed by me to that periodical. That obligation discharged, I come to a more complicated reckoning. The first time I met Mr. Fry, in a railway carriage plying between Cambridge and London, we fell into talk about contemporary art and its relation to all other art; it seems to me sometimes that we have been talking about the same thing ever since, but my friends assure me that it is not quite so bad as that. Mr. Fry, I remember, had recently become familiar with the modern French masters--Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse: I enjoyed the advantage of a longer acquaintance. Already, however, Mr. Fry had published his _Essay in Aesthetics_, which, to my thinking, was the most helpful contribution to the science that had been made since the days of Kant. We talked a good deal about that essay, and then we discussed the possibility of a "Post-Impressionist" Exhibition at the Grafton Galleries. We did not call it "Post-Impressionist"; the word was invented later by Mr. Fry, which makes me think it a little hard that the more advanced critics should so often upbraid him for not knowing what "Post-Impressionism" means. For some years Mr. Fry and I have been arguing, more or less amicably, about the principles of aesthetics. We still disagree profoundly. I like to think that I have not moved an inch from my original position, but I must confess that the cautious doubts and reservations that have insinuated themselves into this Preface are all indirect consequences of my friend's criticism. And it is not only of general ideas and fundamental things that we have talked; Mr. Fry and I have wrangled for hours about particular works of art. In such cases the extent to which one may have affected the judgment of the other cannot possibly be appraised, nor need it be: neither of us, I think, covets the doubtful honours of proselytism. Surely whoever appreciates a fine work of art may be allowed the exquisite pleasure of supposing that he has made a discovery? Nevertheless, since all artistic theories are based on aesthetic judgments, it is clear that should one affect the judgments of another, he may affect, indirectly, some of his theories; and it is certain that some of my historical generalisations have been modified, and even demolished, by Mr. Fry. His task was not arduous: he had merely to confront me with some work over which he was sure that I should go into ecstasies, and then to prove by the most odious and irrefragable evidence that it belonged to a period which I had concluded, on the highest _a priori_ grounds, to be utterly barren. I can only hope that Mr. Fry's scholarship has been as profitable to me as it has been painful: I have travelled with him through France, Italy, and the near East, suffering acutely, not always, I am glad to remember, in silence; for the man who stabs a generalisation with a fact forfeits all claim on good-fellowship and the usages of polite society. I have to thank my friend Mr. Vernon Rendall for permission to make what use I chose of the articles I have contributed from time to time to _The Athenaeum_: if I have made any use of what belongs by law to the proprietors of other papers I herewith offer the customary dues. My readers will be as grateful as I to M. Vignier, M. Druet, and Mr. Kevorkian, of the Persian Art Gallery, since it is they who have made it certain that the purchaser will get something he likes for his money. To Mr. Eric Maclagan of South Kensington, and Mr. Joyce of the British Museum, I owe a more private and particular debt. My wife has been good enough to read both the MS. and proof of this book; she has corrected some errors, and called attention to the more glaring offences against Christian charity. You must not attempt, therefore, to excuse the author on the ground of inadvertence or haste. CLIVE BELL. November 1913. CONTENTS I. WHAT IS ART? I. THE AESTHETIC HYPOTHESIS page 3 II. AESTHETICS AND POST-IMPRESSIONISM 38 III. THE METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESIS 49 II. ART AND LIFE I. ART AND RELIGION 75 II. ART AND HISTORY 95 III. ART AND ETHICS 106 III. THE CHRISTIAN SLOPE I. THE RISE OF CHRISTIAN ART 121 II. GREATNESS AND DECLINE 138 III. THE CLASSICAL RENAISSANCE AND ITS DISEASES 156 IV. ALID EX ALIO 181 IV. THE MOVEMENT I. THE DEBT TO CÉZANNE 199 II. SIMPLIFICATION AND DESIGN 215 III. THE PATHETIC FALLACY 239 V. THE FUTURE I. SOCIETY AND ART 251 II. ART AND SOCIETY 276 ILLUSTRATIONS I. WEI FIGURE FRONTISPIECE II. PERSIAN DISH 3 III. PERUVIAN POT 75 IV. BYZANTINE MOSAIC 121 V. CÉZANNE 199 VI. PICASSO 251 I WHAT IS ART? I. THE AESTHETIC HYPOTHESIS II. AESTHETICS AND POST-IMPRESSIONISM III. THE METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESIS [Illustration: PERSIAN DISH, ELEVENTH CENTURY (?) _By permission of Mr. Kevorkian of the Persian Art Gallery_] I THE AESTHETIC HYPOTHESIS It is improbable that more nonsense has been written about aesthetics than about anything else: the literature of the subject is not large enough for that. It is certain, however, that about no subject with which I am acquainted has so little been said that is at all to the purpose. The explanation is discoverable. He who would elaborate a plausible theory of aesthetics must possess two qualities--artistic sensibility and a turn for clear thinking. Without sensibility a man can have no aesthetic experience, and, obviously, theories not based on broad and deep aesthetic experience are worthless. Only those for whom art is a constant source of passionate emotion can possess the data from which profitable theories may be deduced; but to deduce profitable theories even from accurate data involves a certain amount of brain-work, and, unfortunately, robust intellects and delicate sensibilities are not inseparable. As often as not, the hardest thinkers have had no aesthetic experience whatever. I have a friend blessed with an intellect as keen as a drill, who, though he takes an interest in aesthetics, has never during a life of almost forty years been guilty of an aesthetic emotion. So, having no faculty for distinguishing a work of art from a handsaw, he is apt to rear up a pyramid of irrefragable argument on the hypothesis that a handsaw is a work of art. This defect robs his perspicuous and subtle reasoning of much of its value; for it has ever been a maxim that faultless logic can win but little credit for conclusions that are based on premises notoriously false. Every cloud, however, has its silver lining, and this insensibility, though unlucky in that it makes my friend incapable of choosing a sound basis for his argument, mercifully blinds him to the absurdity of his conclusions while leaving him in full enjoyment of his masterly dialectic. People who set out from the hypothesis that Sir Edwin Landseer was the finest painter that ever lived will feel no uneasiness about an aesthetic which proves that Giotto was the worst. So, my friend, when he arrives very logically at the conclusion that a work of art should be small or round or smooth, or that to appreciate fully a picture you should pace smartly before it or set it spinning like a top, cannot guess why I ask him whether he has lately been to Cambridge, a place he sometimes visits. On the other hand, people who respond immediately and surely to works of art, though, in my judgment, more enviable than men of massive intellect but slight sensibility, are often quite as incapable of talking sense about aesthetics. Their heads are not always very clear. They possess the data on which any system must be based; but, generally, they want the power that draws correct inferences from true data. Having received aesthetic emotions from works of art, they are in a position to seek out the quality common to all that have moved them, but, in fact, they do nothing of the sort. I do not blame them. Why should they bother to examine their feelings when for them to feel is enough? Why should they stop to think when they are not very good at thinking? Why should they hunt for a common quality in all objects that move them in a particular way when they can linger over the many delicious and peculiar charms of each as it comes? So, if they write criticism and call it aesthetics, if they imagine that they are talking about Art when they are talking about particular works of art or even about the technique of painting, if, loving particular works they find tedious the consideration of art in general, perhaps they have chosen the better part. If they are not curious about the nature of their emotion, nor about the quality common to all objects that provoke it, they have my sympathy, and, as what they say is often charming and suggestive, my admiration too. Only let no one suppose that what they write and talk is aesthetics; it is criticism, or just "shop." The starting-point for all systems of aesthetics must be the personal experience of a peculiar emotion. The objects that provoke this emotion we call works of art. All sensitive people agree that there is a peculiar emotion provoked by works of art. I do not mean, of course, that all works provoke the same emotion. On the contrary, every work produces a different emotion. But all these emotions are recognisably the same in kind; so far, at any rate, the best opinion is on my side. That there is a particular kind of emotion provoked by works of visual art, and that this emotion is provoked by every kind of visual art, by pictures, sculptures, buildings, pots, carvings, textiles, &c., &c., is not disputed, I think, by anyone capable of feeling it. This emotion is called the aesthetic emotion; and if we can discover some quality common and peculiar to all the objects that provoke it, we shall have solved what I take to be the central problem of aesthetics. We shall have discovered the essential quality in a work of art, the quality that distinguishes works of art from all other classes of objects. For either all works of visual art have some common quality, or when we speak of "works of art" we gibber. Everyone speaks of "art," making a mental classification by which he distinguishes the class "works of art" from all other classes. What is the justification of this classification? What is the quality common and peculiar to all members of this class? Whatever it be, no doubt it is often found in company with other qualities; but they are adventitious--it is essential. There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless. What is this quality? What quality is shared by all objects that provoke our aesthetic emotions? What quality is common to Sta. Sophia and the windows at Chartres, Mexican sculpture, a Persian bowl, Chinese carpets, Giotto's frescoes at Padua, and the masterpieces of Poussin, Piero della Francesca, and Cézanne? Only one answer seems possible--significant form. In each, lines and colours combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions. These relations and combinations of lines and colours, these aesthetically moving forms, I call "Significant Form"; and "Significant Form" is the one quality common to all works of visual art. At this point it may be objected that I am making aesthetics a purely subjective business, since my only data are personal experiences of a particular emotion. It will be said that the objects that provoke this emotion vary with each individual, and that therefore a system of aesthetics can have no objective validity. It must be replied that any system of aesthetics which pretends to be based on some objective truth is so palpably ridiculous as not to be worth discussing. We have no other means of recognising a work of art than our feeling for it. The objects that provoke aesthetic emotion vary with each individual. Aesthetic judgments are, as the saying goes, matters of taste; and about tastes, as everyone is proud to admit, there is no disputing. A good critic may be able to make me see in a picture that had left me cold things that I had overlooked, till at last, receiving the aesthetic emotion, I recognise it as a work of art. To be continually pointing out those parts, the sum, or rather the combination, of which unite to produce significant form, is the function of criticism. But it is useless for a critic to tell me that something is a work of art; he must make me feel it for myself. This he can do only by making me see; he must get at my emotions through my eyes. Unless he can make me see something that moves me, he cannot force my emotions. I have no right to consider anything a work of art to which I cannot react emotionally; and I have no right to look for the essential quality in anything that I have not _felt_ to be a work of art. The critic can affect my aesthetic theories only by affecting my aesthetic experience. All systems of aesthetics must be based on personal experience--that is to say, they must be subjective. Yet, though all aesthetic theories must be based on aesthetic judgments, and ultimately all aesthetic judgments must be matters of personal taste, it would be rash to assert that no theory of aesthetics can have general validity. For, though A, B, C, D are the works that move me, and A, D, E, F the works that move you, it may well be that _x_ is the only quality believed by either of us to be common to all the works in his list. We may all agree about aesthetics, and yet differ about particular works of art. We may differ as to the presence or absence of the quality _x_. My immediate object will be to show that significant form is the only quality common and peculiar to all the works of visual art that move me; and I will ask those whose aesthetic experience does not tally with mine to see whether this quality is not also, in their judgment, common to all works that move them, and whether they can discover any other quality of which the same can be said. Also at this point a query arises, irrelevant indeed, but hardly to be suppressed: "Why are we so profoundly moved by forms related in a particular way?" The question is extremely interesting, but irrelevant to aesthetics. In pure aesthetics we have only to consider our emotion and its object: for the purposes of aesthetics we have no right, neither is there any necessity, to pry behind the object into the state of mind of him who made it. Later, I shall attempt to answer the question; for by so doing I may be able to develop my theory of the relation of art to life. I shall not, however, be under the delusion that I am rounding off my theory of aesthetics. For a discussion of aesthetics, it need be agreed only that forms arranged and combined according to certain unknown and mysterious laws do move us in a particular way, and that it is the business of an artist so to combine and arrange them that they shall move us. These moving combinations and arrangements I have called, for the sake of convenience and for a reason that will appear later, "Significant Form." A third interruption has to be met. "Are you forgetting about colour?" someone inquires. Certainly not; my term "significant form" included combinations of lines and of colours. The distinction between form and colour is an unreal one; you cannot conceive a colourless line or a colourless space; neither can you conceive a formless relation of colours. In a black and white drawing the spaces are all white and all are bounded by black lines; in most oil paintings the spaces are multi-coloured and so are the boundaries; you cannot imagine a boundary line without any content, or a content without a boundary line. Therefore, when I speak of significant form, I mean a combination of lines and colours (counting white and black as colours) that moves me aesthetically. Some people may be surprised at my not having called this "beauty." Of course, to those who define beauty as "combinations of lines and colours that provoke aesthetic emotion," I willingly concede the right of substituting their word for mine. But most of us, however strict we may be, are apt to apply the epithet "beautiful" to objects that do not provoke that peculiar emotion produced by works of art. Everyone, I suspect, has called a butterfly or a flower beautiful. Does anyone feel the same kind of emotion for a butterfly or a flower that he feels for a cathedral or a picture? Surely, it is not what I call an aesthetic emotion that most of us feel, generally, for natural beauty. I shall suggest, later, that some people may, occasionally, see in nature what we see in art, and feel for her an aesthetic emotion; but I am satisfied that, as a rule, most people feel a very different kind of emotion for birds and flowers and the wings of butterflies from that which they feel for pictures, pots, temples and statues. Why these beautiful things do not move us as works of art move is another, and not an aesthetic, question. For our immediate purpose we have to discover only what quality is common to objects that do move us as works of art. In the last part of this chapter, when I try to answer the question--"Why are we so profoundly moved by some combinations of lines and colours?" I shall hope to offer an acceptable explanation of why we are less profoundly moved by others. Since we call a quality that does not raise the characteristic aesthetic emotion "Beauty," it would be misleading to call by the same name the quality that does. To make "beauty" the object of the aesthetic emotion, we must give to the word an over-strict and unfamiliar definition. Everyone sometimes uses "beauty" in an unaesthetic sense; most people habitually do so. To everyone, except perhaps here and there an occasional aesthete, the commonest sense of the word is unaesthetic. Of its grosser abuse, patent in our chatter about "beautiful huntin'" and "beautiful shootin'," I need not take account; it would be open to the precious to reply that they never do so abuse it. Besides, here there is no danger of confusion between the aesthetic and the non-aesthetic use; but when we speak of a beautiful woman there is. When an ordinary man speaks of a beautiful woman he certainly does not mean only that she moves him aesthetically; but when an artist calls a withered old hag beautiful he may sometimes mean what he means when he calls a battered torso beautiful. The ordinary man, if he be also a man of taste, will call the battered torso beautiful, but he will not call a withered hag beautiful because, in the matter of women, it is not to the aesthetic quality that the hag may possess, but to some other quality that he assigns the epithet. Indeed, most of us never dream of going for aesthetic emotions to human beings, from whom we ask something very different. This "something," when we find it in a young woman, we are apt to call "beauty." We live in a nice age. With the man-in-the-street "beautiful" is more often than not synonymous with "desirable"; the word does not necessarily connote any aesthetic reaction whatever, and I am tempted to believe that in the minds of many the sexual flavour of the word is stronger than the aesthetic. I have noticed a consistency in those to whom the most beautiful thing in the world is a beautiful woman, and the next most beautiful thing a picture of one. The confusion between aesthetic and sensual beauty is not in their case so great as might be supposed. Perhaps there is none; for perhaps they have never had an aesthetic emotion to confuse with their other emotions. The art that they call "beautiful" is generally closely related to the women. A beautiful picture is a photograph of a pretty girl; beautiful music, the music that provokes emotions similar to those provoked by young ladies in musical farces; and beautiful poetry, the poetry that recalls the same emotions felt, twenty years earlier, for the rector's daughter. Clearly the word "beauty" is used to connote the objects of quite distinguishable emotions, and that is a reason for not employing a term which would land me inevitably in confusions and misunderstandings with my readers. On the other hand, with those who judge it more exact to call these combinations and arrangements of form that provoke our aesthetic emotions, not "significant form," but "significant relations of form," and then try to make the best of two worlds, the aesthetic and the metaphysical, by calling these relations "rhythm," I have no quarrel whatever. Having made it clear that by "significant form" I mean arrangements and combinations that move us in a particular way, I willingly join hands with those who prefer to give a different name to the same thing. The hypothesis that significant form is the essential quality in a work of art has at least one merit denied to many more famous and more striking--it does help to explain things. We are all familiar with pictures that interest us and excite our admiration, but do not move us as works of art. To this class belongs what I call "Descriptive Painting"--that is, painting in which forms are used not as objects of emotion, but as means of suggesting emotion or conveying information. Portraits of psychological and historical value, topographical works, pictures that tell stories and suggest situations, illustrations of all sorts, belong to this class. That we all recognise the distinction is clear, for who has not said that such and such a drawing was excellent as illustration, but as a work of art worthless? Of course many descriptive pictures possess, amongst other qualities, formal significance, and are therefore works of art: but many more do not. They interest us; they may move us too in a hundred different ways, but they do not move us aesthetically. According to my hypothesis they are not works of art. They leave untouched our aesthetic emotions because it is not their forms but the ideas or information suggested or conveyed by their forms that affect us. Few pictures are better known or liked than Frith's "Paddington Station"; certainly I should be the last to grudge it its popularity. Many a weary forty minutes have I whiled away disentangling its fascinating incidents and forging for each an imaginary past and an improbable future. But certain though it is that Frith's masterpiece, or engravings of it, have provided thousands with half-hours of curious and fanciful pleasure, it is not less certain that no one has experienced before it one half-second of aesthetic rapture--and this although the picture contains several pretty passages of colour, and is by no means badly painted. "Paddington Station" is not a work of art; it is an interesting and amusing document. In it line and colour are used to recount anecdotes, suggest ideas, and indicate the manners and customs of an age: they are not used to provoke aesthetic emotion. Forms and the relations of forms were for Frith not objects of emotion, but means of suggesting emotion and conveying ideas. The ideas and information conveyed by "Paddington Station" are so amusing and so well presented that the picture has considerable value and is well worth preserving. But, with the perfection of photographic processes and of the cinematograph, pictures of this sort are becoming otiose. Who doubts that one of those _Daily Mirror_ photographers in collaboration with a _Daily Mail_ reporter can tell us far more about "London day by day" than any Royal Academician? For an account of manners and fashions we shall go, in future, to photographs, supported by a little bright journalism, rather than to descriptive painting. Had the imperial academicians of Nero, instead of manufacturing incredibly loathsome imitations of the antique, recorded in fresco and mosaic the manners and fashions of their day, their stuff, though artistic rubbish, would now be an historical gold-mine. If only they had been Friths instead of being Alma Tademas! But photography has made impossible any such transmutation of modern rubbish. Therefore it must be confessed that pictures in the Frith tradition are grown superfluous; they merely waste the hours of able men who might be more profitably employed in works of a wider beneficence. Still, they are not unpleasant, which is more than can be said for that kind of descriptive painting of which "The Doctor" is the most flagrant example. Of course "The Doctor" is not a work of art. In it form is not used as an object of emotion, but as a means of suggesting emotions. This alone suffices to make it nugatory; it is worse than nugatory because the emotion it suggests is false. What it suggests is not pity and admiration but a sense of complacency in our own pitifulness and generosity. It is sentimental. Art is above morals, or, rather, all art is moral because, as I hope to show presently, works of art are immediate means to good. Once we have judged a thing a work of art, we have judged it ethically of the first importance and put it beyond the reach of the moralist. But descriptive pictures which are not works of art, and, therefore, are not necessarily means to good states of mind, are proper objects of the ethical philosopher's attention. Not being a work of art, "The Doctor" has none of the immense ethical value possessed by all objects that provoke aesthetic ecstasy; and the state of mind to which it is a means, as illustration, appears to me undesirable. The works of those enterprising young men, the Italian Futurists, are notable examples of descriptive painting. Like the Royal Academicians, they use form, not to provoke aesthetic emotions, but to convey information and ideas. Indeed, the published theories of the Futurists prove that their pictures ought to have nothing whatever to do with art. Their social and political theories are respectable, but I would suggest to young Italian painters that it is possible to become a Futurist in thought and action and yet remain an artist, if one has the luck to be born one. To associate art with politics is always a mistake. Futurist pictures are descriptive because they aim at presenting in line and colour the chaos of the mind at a particular moment; their forms are not intended to promote aesthetic emotion but to convey information. These forms, by the way, whatever may be the nature of the ideas they suggest, are themselves anything but revolutionary. In such Futurist pictures as I have seen--perhaps I should except some by Severini--the drawing, whenever it becomes representative as it frequently does, is found to be in that soft and common convention brought into fashion by Besnard some thirty years ago, and much affected by Beaux-Art students ever since. As works of art, the Futurist pictures are negligible; but they are not to be judged as works of art. A good Futurist picture would succeed as a good piece of psychology succeeds; it would reveal, through line and colour, the complexities of an interesting state of mind. If Futurist pictures seem to fail, we must seek an explanation, not in a lack of artistic qualities that they never were intended to possess, but rather in the minds the states of which they are intended to reveal. Most people who care much about art find that of the work that moves them most the greater part is what scholars call "Primitive." Of course there are bad primitives. For instance, I remember going, full of enthusiasm, to see one of the earliest Romanesque churches in Poitiers (Notre-Dame-la-Grande), and finding it as ill-proportioned, over-decorated, coarse, fat and heavy as any better class building by one of those highly civilised architects who flourished a thousand years earlier or eight hundred later. But such exceptions are rare. As a rule primitive art is good--and here again my hypothesis is helpful--for, as a rule, it is also free from descriptive qualities. In primitive art you will find no accurate representation; you will find only significant form. Yet no other art moves us so profoundly. Whether we consider Sumerian sculpture or pre-dynastic Egyptian art, or archaic Greek, or the Wei and T'ang masterpieces,[1] or those early Japanese works of which I had the luck to see a few superb examples (especially two wooden Bodhisattvas) at the Shepherd's Bush Exhibition in 1910, or whether, coming nearer home, we consider the primitive Byzantine art of the sixth century and its primitive developments amongst the Western barbarians, or, turning far afield, we consider that mysterious and majestic art that flourished in Central and South America before the coming of the white men, in every case we observe three common characteristics--absence of representation, absence of technical swagger, sublimely impressive form. Nor is it hard to discover the connection between these three. Formal significance loses itself in preoccupation with exact representation and ostentatious cunning.[2] Naturally, it is said that if there is little representation and less saltimbancery in primitive art, that is because the primitives were unable to catch a likeness or cut intellectual capers. The contention is beside the point. There is truth in it, no doubt, though, were I a critic whose reputation depended on a power of impressing the public with a semblance of knowledge, I should be more cautious about urging it than such people generally are. For to suppose that the Byzantine masters wanted skill, or could not have created an illusion had they wished to do so, seems to imply ignorance of the amazingly dexterous realism of the notoriously bad works of that age. Very often, I fear, the misrepresentation of the primitives must be attributed to what the critics call, "wilful distortion." Be that as it may, the point is that, either from want of skill or want of will, primitives neither create illusions, nor make display of extravagant accomplishment, but concentrate their energies on the one thing needful--the creation of form. Thus have they created the finest works of art that we possess. Let no one imagine that representation is bad in itself; a realistic form may be as significant, in its place as part of the design, as an abstract. But if a representative form has value, it is as form, not as representation. The representative element in a work of art may or may not be harmful; always it is irrelevant. For, to appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing from life, no knowledge of its ideas and affairs, no familiarity with its emotions. Art transports us from the world of man's activity to a world of aesthetic exaltation. For a moment we are shut off from human interests; our anticipations and memories are arrested; we are lifted above the stream of life. The pure mathematician rapt in his studies knows a state of mind which I take to be similar, if not identical. He feels an emotion for his speculations which arises from no perceived relation between them and the lives of men, but springs, inhuman or super-human, from the heart of an abstract science. I wonder, sometimes, whether the appreciators of art and of mathematical solutions are not even more closely allied. Before we feel an aesthetic emotion for a combination of forms, do we not perceive intellectually the rightness and necessity of the combination? If we do, it would explain the fact that passing rapidly through a room we recognise a picture to be good, although we cannot say that it has provoked much emotion. We seem to have recognised intellectually the rightness of its forms without staying to fix our attention, and collect, as it were, their emotional significance. If this were so, it would be permissible to inquire whether it was the forms themselves or our perception of their rightness and necessity that caused aesthetic emotion. But I do not think I need linger to discuss the matter here. I have been inquiring why certain combinations of forms move us; I should not have travelled by other roads had I enquired, instead, why certain combinations are perceived to be right and necessary, and why our perception of their rightness and necessity is moving. What I have to say is this: the rapt philosopher, and he who contemplates a work of art, inhabit a world with an intense and peculiar significance of its own; that significance is unrelated to the significance of life. In this world the emotions of life find no place. It is a world with emotions of its own. To appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing but a sense of form and colour and a knowledge of three-dimensional space. That bit of knowledge, I admit, is essential to the appreciation of many great works, since many of the most moving forms ever created are in three dimensions. To see a cube or a rhomboid as a flat pattern is to lower its significance, and a sense of three-dimensional space is essential to the full appreciation of most architectural forms. Pictures which would be insignificant if we saw them as flat patterns are profoundly moving because, in fact, we see them as related planes. If the representation of three-dimensional space is to be called "representation," then I agree that there is one kind of representation which is not irrelevant. Also, I agree that along with our feeling for line and colour we must bring with us our knowledge of space if we are to make the most of every kind of form. Nevertheless, there are magnificent designs to an appreciation of which this knowledge is not necessary: so, though it is not irrelevant to the appreciation of some works of art it is not essential to the appreciation of all. What we must say is that the representation of three-dimensional space is neither irrelevant nor essential to all art, and that every other sort of representation is irrelevant. That there is an irrelevant representative or descriptive element in many great works of art is not in the least surprising. Why it is not surprising I shall try to show elsewhere. Representation is not of necessity baneful, and highly realistic forms may be extremely significant. Very often, however, representation is a sign of weakness in an artist. A painter too feeble to create forms that provoke more than a little aesthetic emotion will try to eke that little out by suggesting the emotions of life. To evoke the emotions of life he must use representation. Thus a man will paint an execution, and, fearing to miss with his first barrel of significant form, will try to hit with his second by raising an emotion of fear or pity. But if in the artist an inclination to play upon the emotions of life is often the sign of a flickering inspiration, in the spectator a tendency to seek, behind form, the emotions of life is a sign of defective sensibility always. It means that his aesthetic emotions are weak or, at any rate, imperfect. Before a work of art people who feel little or no emotion for pure form find themselves at a loss. They are deaf men at a concert. They know that they are in the presence of something great, but they lack the power of apprehending it. They know that they ought to feel for it a tremendous emotion, but it happens that the particular kind of emotion it can raise is one that they can feel hardly or not at all. And so they read into the forms of the work those facts and ideas for which they are capable of feeling emotion, and feel for them the emotions that they can feel--the ordinary emotions of life. When confronted by a picture, instinctively they refer back its forms to the world from which they came. They treat created form as though it were imitated form, a picture as though it were a photograph. Instead of going out on the stream of art into a new world of aesthetic experience, they turn a sharp corner and come straight home to the world of human interests. For them the significance of a work of art depends on what they bring to it; no new thing is added to their lives, only the old material is stirred. A good work of visual art carries a person who is capable of appreciating it out of life into ecstasy: to use art as a means to the emotions of life is to use a telescope for reading the news. You will notice that people who cannot feel pure aesthetic emotions remember pictures by their subjects; whereas people who can, as often as not, have no idea what the subject of a picture is. They have never noticed the representative element, and so when they discuss pictures they talk about the shapes of forms and the relations and quantities of colours. Often they can tell by the quality of a single line whether or no a man is a good artist. They are concerned only with lines and colours, their relations and quantities and qualities; but from these they win an emotion more profound and far more sublime than any that can be given by the description of facts and ideas. This last sentence has a very confident ring--over-confident, some may think. Perhaps I shall be able to justify it, and make my meaning clearer too, if I give an account of my own feelings about music. I am not really musical. I do not understand music well. I find musical form exceedingly difficult to apprehend, and I am sure that the profounder subtleties of harmony and rhythm more often than not escape me. The form of a musical composition must be simple indeed if I am to grasp it honestly. My opinion about music is not worth having. Yet, sometimes, at a concert, though my appreciation of the music is limited and humble, it is pure. Sometimes, though I have a poor understanding, I have a clean palate. Consequently, when I am feeling bright and clear and intent, at the beginning of a concert for instance, when something that I can grasp is being played, I get from music that pure aesthetic emotion that I get from visual art. It is less intense, and the rapture is evanescent; I understand music too ill for music to transport me far into the world of pure aesthetic ecstasy. But at moments I do appreciate music as pure musical form, as sounds combined according to the laws of a mysterious necessity, as pure art with a tremendous significance of its own and no relation whatever to the significance of life; and in those moments I lose myself in that infinitely sublime state of mind to which pure visual form transports me. How inferior is my normal state of mind at a concert. Tired or perplexed, I let slip my sense of form, my aesthetic emotion collapses, and I begin weaving into the harmonies, that I cannot grasp, the ideas of life. Incapable of feeling the austere emotions of art, I begin to read into the musical forms human emotions of terror and mystery, love and hate, and spend the minutes, pleasantly enough, in a world of turbid and inferior feeling. At such times, were the grossest pieces of onomatopoeic representation--the song of a bird, the galloping of horses, the cries of children, or the laughing of demons--to be introduced into the symphony, I should not be offended. Very likely I should be pleased; they would afford new points of departure for new trains of romantic feeling or heroic thought. I know very well what has happened. I have been using art as a means to the emotions of life and reading into it the ideas of life. I have been cutting blocks with a razor. I have tumbled from the superb peaks of aesthetic exaltation to the snug foothills of warm humanity. It is a jolly country. No one need be ashamed of enjoying himself there. Only no one who has ever been on the heights can help feeling a little crestfallen in the cosy valleys. And let no one imagine, because he has made merry in the warm tilth and quaint nooks of romance, that he can even guess at the austere and thrilling raptures of those who have climbed the cold, white peaks of art. About music most people are as willing to be humble as I am. If they cannot grasp musical form and win from it a pure aesthetic emotion, they confess that they understand music imperfectly or not at all. They recognise quite clearly that there is a difference between the feeling of the musician for pure music and that of the cheerful concert-goer for what music suggests. The latter enjoys his own emotions, as he has every right to do, and recognises their inferiority. Unfortunately, people are apt to be less modest about their powers of appreciating visual art. Everyone is inclined to believe that out of pictures, at any rate, he can get all that there is to be got; everyone is ready to cry "humbug" and "impostor" at those who say that more can be had. The good faith of people who feel pure aesthetic emotions is called in question by those who have never felt anything of the sort. It is the prevalence of the representative element, I suppose, that makes the man in the street so sure that he knows a good picture when he sees one. For I have noticed that in matters of architecture, pottery, textiles, &c., ignorance and ineptitude are more willing to defer to the opinions of those who have been blest with peculiar sensibility. It is a pity that cultivated and intelligent men and women cannot be induced to believe that a great gift of aesthetic appreciation is at least as rare in visual as in musical art. A comparison of my own experience in both has enabled me to discriminate very clearly between pure and impure appreciation. Is it too much to ask that others should be as honest about their feelings for pictures as I have been about mine for music? For I am certain that most of those who visit galleries do feel very much what I feel at concerts. They have their moments of pure ecstasy; but the moments are short and unsure. Soon they fall back into the world of human interests and feel emotions, good no doubt, but inferior. I do not dream of saying that what they get from art is bad or nugatory; I say that they do not get the best that art can give. I do not say that they cannot understand art; rather I say that they cannot understand the state of mind of those who understand it best. I do not say that art means nothing or little to them; I say they miss its full significance. I do not suggest for one moment that their appreciation of art is a thing to be ashamed of; the majority of the charming and intelligent people with whom I am acquainted appreciate visual art impurely; and, by the way, the appreciation of almost all great writers has been impure. But provided that there be some fraction of pure aesthetic emotion, even a mixed and minor appreciation of art is, I am sure, one of the most valuable things in the world--so valuable, indeed, that in my giddier moments I have been tempted to believe that art might prove the world's salvation. Yet, though the echoes and shadows of art enrich the life of the plains, her spirit dwells on the mountains. To him who woos, but woos impurely, she returns enriched what is brought. Like the sun, she warms the good seed in good soil and causes it to bring forth good fruit. But only to the perfect lover does she give a new strange gift--a gift beyond all price. Imperfect lovers bring to art and take away the ideas and emotions of their own age and civilisation. In twelfth-century Europe a man might have been greatly moved by a Romanesque church and found nothing in a T'ang picture. To a man of a later age, Greek sculpture meant much and Mexican nothing, for only to the former could he bring a crowd of associated ideas to be the objects of familiar emotions. But the perfect lover, he who can feel the profound significance of form, is raised above the accidents of time and place. To him the problems of archaeology, history, and hagiography are impertinent. If the forms of a work are significant its provenance is irrelevant. Before the grandeur of those Sumerian figures in the Louvre he is carried on the same flood of emotion to the same aesthetic ecstasy as, more than four thousand years ago, the Chaldean lover was carried. It is the mark of great art that its appeal is universal and eternal.[3] Significant form stands charged with the power to provoke aesthetic emotion in anyone capable of feeling it. The ideas of men go buzz and die like gnats; men change their institutions and their customs as they change their coats; the intellectual triumphs of one age are the follies of another; only great art remains stable and unobscure. Great art remains stable and unobscure because the feelings that it awakens are independent of time and place, because its kingdom is not of this world. To those who have and hold a sense of the significance of form what does it matter whether the forms that move them were created in Paris the day before yesterday or in Babylon fifty centuries ago? The forms of art are inexhaustible; but all lead by the same road of aesthetic emotion to the same world of aesthetic ecstasy. II AESTHETICS AND POST-IMPRESSIONISM By the light of my aesthetic hypothesis I can read more clearly than before the history of art; also I can see in that history the place of the contemporary movement. As I shall have a great deal to say about the contemporary movement, perhaps I shall do well to seize this moment, when the aesthetic hypothesis is fresh in my mind and, I hope, in the minds of my readers, for an examination of the movement in relation to the hypothesis. For anyone of my generation to write a book about art that said nothing of the movement dubbed in this country Post-Impressionist would be a piece of pure affectation. I shall have a great deal to say about it, and therefore I wish to see at the earliest possible opportunity how Post-Impressionism stands with regard to my theory of aesthetics. The survey will give me occasion for stating some of the things that Post-Impressionism is and some that it is not. I shall have to raise points that will be dealt with at greater length elsewhere. Here I shall have a chance of raising them, and at least suggesting a solution. Primitives produce art because they must; they have no other motive than a passionate desire to express their sense of form. Untempted, or incompetent, to create illusions, to the creation of form they devote themselves entirely. Presently, however, the artist is joined by a patron and a public, and soon there grows up a demand for "speaking likenesses." While the gross herd still clamours for likeness, the choicer spirits begin to affect an admiration for cleverness and skill. The end is in sight. In Europe we watch art sinking, by slow degrees, from the thrilling design of Ravenna to the tedious portraiture of Holland, while the grand proportion of Romanesque and Norman architecture becomes Gothic juggling in stone and glass. Before the late noon of the Renaissance art was almost extinct. Only nice illusionists and masters of craft abounded. That was the moment for a Post-Impressionist revival. For various reasons there was no revolution. The tradition of art remained comatose. Here and there a genius appeared and wrestled with the coils of convention and created significant form. For instance, the art of Nicolas Poussin, Claude, El Greco, Chardin, Ingres, and Renoir, to name a few, moves us as that of Giotto and Cézanne moves. The bulk, however, of those who flourished between the high Renaissance and the contemporary movement may be divided into two classes, virtuosi and dunces. The clever fellows, the minor masters, who might have been artists if painting had not absorbed all their energies, were throughout that period for ever setting themselves technical acrostics and solving them. The dunces continued to elaborate chromophotographs, and continue. The fact that significant form was the only common quality in the works that moved me, and that in the works that moved me most and seemed most to move the most sensitive people--in primitive art, that is to say--it was almost the only quality, had led me to my hypothesis before ever I became familiar with the works of Cézanne and his followers. Cézanne carried me off my feet before ever I noticed that his strongest characteristic was an insistence on the supremacy of significant form. When I noticed this, my admiration for Cézanne and some of his followers confirmed me in my aesthetic theories. Naturally I had found no difficulty in liking them since I found in them exactly what I liked in everything else that moved me. There is no mystery about Post-Impressionism; a good Post-Impressionist picture is good for precisely the same reasons that any other picture is good. The essential quality in art is permanent. Post-Impressionism, therefore, implies no violent break with the past. It is merely a deliberate rejection of certain hampering traditions of modern growth. It does deny that art need ever take orders from the past; but that is not a badge of Post-Impressionism, it is the commonest mark of vitality. Even to speak of Post-Impressionism as a movement may lead to misconceptions; the habit of speaking of movements at all is rather misleading. The stream of art has never run utterly dry: it flows through the ages, now broad now narrow, now deep now shallow, now rapid now sluggish: its colour is changing always. But who can set a mark against the exact point of change? In the earlier nineteenth century the stream ran very low. In the days of the Impressionists, against whom the contemporary movement is in some ways a reaction, it had already become copious. Any attempt to dam and imprison this river, to choose out a particular school or movement and say: "Here art begins and there it ends," is a pernicious absurdity. That way Academization lies. At this moment there are not above half a dozen good painters alive who do not derive, to some extent, from Cézanne, and belong, in some sense, to the Post-Impressionist movement; but tomorrow a great painter may arise who will create significant form by means superficially opposed to those of Cézanne. Superficially, I say, because, essentially, all good art is of the same movement: there are only two kinds of art, good and bad. Nevertheless, the division of the stream into reaches, distinguished by differences of manner, is intelligible and, to historians at any rate, useful. The reaches also differ from each other in volume; one period of art is distinguished from another by its fertility. For a few fortunate years or decades the output of considerable art is great. Suddenly it ceases; or slowly it dwindles: a movement has exhausted itself. How far a movement is made by the fortuitous synchronisation of a number of good artists, and how far the artists are helped to the creation of significant form by the pervasion of some underlying spirit of the age, is a question that can never be decided beyond cavil. But however the credit is to be apportioned--and I suspect it should be divided about equally--we are justified, I think, looking at the history of art as a whole, in regarding such periods of fertility as distinct parts of that whole. Primarily, it is as a period of fertility in good art and artists that I admire the Post-Impressionist movement. Also, I believe that the principles which underlie and inspire that movement are more likely to encourage artists to give of their best, and to foster a good tradition, than any of which modern history bears record. But my interest in this movement, and my admiration for much of the art it has produced, does not blind me to the greatness of the products of other movements; neither, I hope, will it blind me to the greatness of any new creation of form even though that novelty may seem to imply a reaction against the tradition of Cézanne. Like all sound revolutions, Post-Impressionism is nothing more than a return to first principles. Into a world where the painter was expected to be either a photographer or an acrobat burst the Post-Impressionist, claiming that, above all things, he should be an artist. Never mind, said he, about representation or accomplishment--mind about creating significant form, mind about art. Creating a work of art is so tremendous a business that it leaves no leisure for catching a likeness or displaying address. Every sacrifice made to representation is something stolen from art. Far from being the insolent kind of revolution it is vulgarly supposed to be, Post-Impressionism is, in fact, a return, not indeed to any particular tradition of painting, but to the great tradition of visual art. It sets before every artist the ideal set before themselves by the primitives, an ideal which, since the twelfth century, has been cherished only by exceptional men of genius. Post-Impressionism is nothing but the reassertion of the first commandment of art--Thou shalt create form. By this assertion it shakes hands across the ages with the Byzantine primitives and with every vital movement that has struggled into existence since the arts began. Post-Impressionism is not a matter of technique. Certainly Cézanne invented a technique, admirably suited to his purpose, which has been adopted and elaborated, more or less, by the majority of his followers. The important thing about a picture, however, is not how it is painted, but whether it provokes aesthetic emotion. As I have said, essentially, a good Post-Impressionist picture resembles all other good works of art, and only differs from some, superficially, by a conscious and deliberate rejection of those technical and sentimental irrelevancies that have been imposed on painting by a bad tradition. This becomes obvious when one visits an exhibition such as the _Salon d'Automne_ or _Les Indépendants_, where there are hundreds of pictures in the Post-Impressionist manner, many of which are quite worthless.[4] These, one realises, are bad in precisely the same way as any other picture is bad; their forms are insignificant and compel no aesthetic reaction. In truth, it was an unfortunate necessity that obliged us to speak of "Post-Impressionist pictures," and now, I think, the moment is at hand when we shall be able to return to the older and more adequate nomenclature, and speak of good pictures and bad. Only we must not forget that the movement of which Cézanne is the earliest manifestation, and which has borne so amazing a crop of good art, owes something, though not everything, to the liberating and revolutionary doctrines of Post-Impressionism. The silliest things said about Post-Impressionist pictures are said by people who regard Post-Impressionism as an isolated movement, whereas, in fact, it takes its place as part of one of those huge slopes into which we can divide the history of art and the spiritual history of mankind. In my enthusiastic moments I am tempted to hope that it is the first stage in a new slope to which it will stand in the same relation as sixth-century Byzantine art stands to the old. In that case we shall compare Post-Impressionism with that vital spirit which, towards the end of the fifth century, flickered into life amidst the ruins of Graeco-Roman realism. Post-Impressionism, or, let us say the Contemporary Movement, has a future; but when that future is present Cézanne and Matisse will no longer be called Post-Impressionists. They will certainly be called great artists, just as Giotto and Masaccio are called great artists; they will be called the masters of a movement; but whether that movement is destined to be more than a movement, to be something as vast as the slope that lies between Cézanne and the masters of S. Vitale, is a matter of much less certainty than enthusiasts care to suppose. Post-Impressionism is accused of being a negative and destructive creed. In art no creed is healthy that is anything else. You cannot give men genius; you can only give them freedom--freedom from superstition. Post-Impressionism can no more make good artists than good laws can make good men. Doubtless, with its increasing popularity, an annually increasing horde of nincompoops will employ the so-called "Post-Impressionist technique" for presenting insignificant patterns and recounting foolish anecdotes. Their pictures will be dubbed "Post-Impressionist," but only by gross injustice will they be excluded from Burlington House. Post-Impressionism is no specific against human folly and incompetence. All it can do for painters is to bring before them the claims of art. To the man of genius and to the student of talent it can say: "Don't waste your time and energy on things that don't matter: concentrate on what does: concentrate on the creation of significant form." Only thus can either give the best that is in him. Formerly because both felt bound to strike a compromise between art and what the public had been taught to expect, the work of one was grievously disfigured, that of the other ruined. Tradition ordered the painter to be photographer, acrobat, archaeologist and littérateur: Post-Impressionism invites him to become an artist. III THE METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESIS For the present I have said enough about the aesthetic problem and about Post-Impressionism; I want now to consider that metaphysical question--"Why do certain arrangements and combinations of form move us so strangely?" For aesthetics it suffices that they do move us; to all further inquisition of the tedious and stupid it can be replied that, however queer these things may be, they are no queerer than anything else in this incredibly queer universe. But to those for whom my theory seems to open a vista of possibilities I willingly offer, for what they are worth, my fancies. It seems to me possible, though by no means certain, that created form moves us so profoundly because it expresses the emotion of its creator. Perhaps the lines and colours of a work of art convey to us something that the artist felt. If this be so, it will explain that curious but undeniable fact, to which I have already referred, that what I call material beauty (_e.g._ the wing of a butterfly) does not move most of us in at all the same way as a work of art moves us. It is beautiful form, but it is not significant form. It moves us, but it does not move us aesthetically. It is tempting to explain the difference between "significant form" and "beauty"--that is to say, the difference between form that provokes our aesthetic emotions and form that does not--by saying that significant form conveys to us an emotion felt by its creator and that beauty conveys nothing. For what, then, does the artist feel the emotion that he is supposed to express? Sometimes it certainly comes to him through material beauty. The contemplation of natural objects is often the immediate cause of the artist's emotion. Are we to suppose, then, that the artist feels, or sometimes feels, for material beauty what we feel for a work of art? Can it be that sometimes for the artist material beauty is somehow significant--that is, capable of provoking aesthetic emotion? And if the form that provokes aesthetic emotion be form that expresses something, can it be that material beauty is to him expressive? Does he feel something behind it as we imagine that we feel something behind the forms of a work of art? Are we to suppose that the emotion which the artist expresses is an aesthetic emotion felt for something the significance of which commonly escapes our coarser sensibilities? All these are questions about which I had sooner speculate than dogmatise. Let us hear what the artists have got to say for themselves. We readily believe them when they tell us that, in fact, they do not create works of art in order to provoke our aesthetic emotions, but because only thus can they materialise a particular kind of feeling. What, precisely, this feeling is they find it hard to say. One account of the matter, given me by a very good artist, is that what he tries to express in a picture is "a passionate apprehension of form." I have set myself to discover what is meant by "a passionate apprehension of form," and, after much talking and more listening, I have arrived at the following result. Occasionally when an artist--a real artist--looks at objects (the contents of a room, for instance) he perceives them as pure forms in certain relations to each other, and feels emotion for them as such. These are his moments of inspiration: follows the desire to express what has been felt. The emotion that the artist felt in his moment of inspiration he did not feel for objects seen as means, but for objects seen as pure forms--that is, as ends in themselves. He did not feel emotion for a chair as a means to physical well-being, nor as an object associated with the intimate life of a family, nor as the place where someone sat saying things unforgettable, nor yet as a thing bound to the lives of hundreds of men and women, dead or alive, by a hundred subtle ties; doubtless an artist does often feel emotions such as these for the things that he sees, but in the moment of aesthetic vision he sees objects, not as means shrouded in associations, but as pure forms. It is for, or at any rate through, pure form that he feels his inspired emotion. Now to see objects as pure forms is to see them as ends in themselves. For though, of course, forms are related to each other as parts of a whole, they are related on terms of equality; they are not a means to anything except emotion. But for objects seen as ends in themselves, do we not feel a profounder and a more thrilling emotion than ever we felt for them as means? All of us, I imagine, do, from time to time, get a vision of material objects as pure forms. We see things as ends in themselves, that is to say; and at such moments it seems possible, and even probable, that we see them with the eye of an artist. Who has not, once at least in his life, had a sudden vision of landscape as pure form? For once, instead of seeing it as fields and cottages, he has felt it as lines and colours. In that moment has he not won from material beauty a thrill indistinguishable from that which art gives? And, if this be so, is it not clear that he has won from material beauty the thrill that, generally, art alone can give, because he has contrived to see it as a pure formal combination of lines and colours? May we go on to say that, having seen it as pure form, having freed it from all casual and adventitious interest, from all that it may have acquired from its commerce with human beings, from all its significance as a means, he has felt its significance as an end in itself? What is the significance of anything as an end in itself? What is that which is left when we have stripped a thing of all its associations, of all its significance as a means? What is left to provoke our emotion? What but that which philosophers used to call "the thing in itself" and now call "ultimate reality"? Shall I be altogether fantastic in suggesting, what some of the profoundest thinkers have believed, that the significance of the thing in itself is the significance of Reality? Is it possible that the answer to my question, "Why are we so profoundly moved by certain combinations of lines and colours?" should be, "Because artists can express in combinations of lines and colours an emotion felt for reality which reveals itself through line and colour"? If this suggestion were accepted it would follow that "significant form" was form behind which we catch a sense of ultimate reality. There would be good reason for supposing that the emotions which artists feel in their moments of inspiration, that others feel in the rare moments when they see objects artistically, and that many of us feel when we contemplate works of art, are the same in kind. All would be emotions felt for reality revealing itself through pure form. It is certain that this emotion can be expressed only in pure form. It is certain that most of us can come at it only through pure form. But is pure form the only channel through which anyone can come at this mysterious emotion? That is a disturbing and a most distasteful question, for at this point I thought I saw my way to cancelling out the word "reality," and saying that all are emotions felt for pure form which may or may not have something behind it. To me it would be most satisfactory to say that the reason why some forms move us aesthetically, and others do not, is that some have been so purified that we can feel them aesthetically and that others are so clogged with unaesthetic matter (_e.g._ associations) that only the sensibility of an artist can perceive their pure, formal significance. I should be charmed to believe that it is as certain that everyone must come at reality through form as that everyone must express his sense of it in form. But is that so? What kind of form is that from which the musician draws the emotion that he expresses in abstract harmonies? Whence come the emotions of the architect and the potter? I know that the artist's emotion can be expressed only in form; I know that only by form can my aesthetic emotions be called into play; but can I be sure that it is always by form that an artist's emotion is provoked? Back to reality. Those who incline to believe that the artist's emotion is felt for reality will readily admit that visual artists--with whom alone we are concerned--come at reality generally through material form. But don't they come at it sometimes through imagined form? And ought we not to add that sometimes the sense of reality comes we know not whence? The best account I know of this state of being rapt in a mysterious sense of reality is the one that Dante gives: "O immaginativa, che ne rube tal volta sì di fuor, ch' uom non s'accorge perchè d'intorno suonin mille tube; chi move te, se il senso non ti porge? Moveti lume, che nel ciel s'informa, per sè, o per voler che giù lo scorge. * * * * * e qui fu la mia mente sì ristretta dentro da sè, che di fuor non venia cosa che fosse allor da lei recetta." Certainly, in those moments of exaltation that art can give, it is easy to believe that we have been possessed by an emotion that comes from the world of reality. Those who take this view will have to say that there is in all things the stuff out of which art is made--reality; artists, even, can grasp it only when they have reduced things to their purest condition of being--to pure form--unless they be of those who come at it mysteriously unaided by externals; only in pure form can a sense of it be expressed. On this hypothesis the peculiarity of the artist would seem to be that he possesses the power of surely and frequently seizing reality (generally behind pure form), and the power of expressing his sense of it, in pure form always. But many people, though they feel the tremendous significance of form, feel also a cautious dislike for big words; and "reality" is a very big one. These prefer to say that what the artist surprises behind form, or seizes by sheer force of imagination, is the all-pervading rhythm that informs all things; and I have said that I will never quarrel with that blessed word "rhythm." The ultimate object of the artist's emotion will remain for ever uncertain. But, unless we assume that all artists are liars, I think we must suppose that they do feel an emotion which they can express in form--and form alone. And note well this further point; artists try to express emotion, not to make statements about its ultimate or immediate object. Naturally, if an artist's emotion comes to him from, or through, the perception of forms and formal relations, he will be apt to express it in forms derived from those through which it came; but he will not be bound by his vision. He will be bound by his emotion. Not what he saw, but only what he felt will necessarily condition his design. Whether the connection between the forms of a created work and the forms of the visible universe be patent or obscure, whether it exist or whether it does not, is a matter of no consequence whatever. No one ever doubted that a Sung pot or a Romanesque church was as much an expression of emotion as any picture that ever was painted. What was the object of the potter's emotion? What of the builder's? Was it some imagined form, the synthesis of a hundred different visions of natural things; or was it some conception of reality, unrelated to sensual experience, remote altogether from the physical universe? These are questions beyond all conjecture. In any case, the form in which he expresses his emotion bears no memorial of any external form that may have provoked it. Expression is no wise bound by the forms or emotions or ideas of life. We cannot know exactly what the artist feels. We only know what he creates. If reality be the goal of his emotion, the roads to reality are several. Some artists come at it through the appearance of things, some by a recollection of appearance, and some by sheer force of imagination. To the question--"Why are we so profoundly moved by certain combinations of forms?" I am unwilling to return a positive answer. I am not obliged to, for it is not an aesthetic question. I do suggest, however, that it is because they express an emotion that the artist has felt, though I hesitate to make any pronouncement about the nature or object of that emotion. If my suggestion be accepted, criticism will be armed with a new weapon; and the nature of this weapon is worth a moment's consideration. Going behind his emotion and its object, the critic will be able to surprise that which gives form its significance. He will be able to explain why some forms are significant and some are not; and thus he will be able to push all his judgments a step further back. Let me give one example. Of copies of pictures there are two classes; one class contains some works of art, the other none. A literal copy is seldom reckoned even by its owner a work of art. It leaves us cold; its forms are not significant. Yet if it were an absolutely exact copy, clearly it would be as moving as the original, and a photographic reproduction of a drawing often is--almost. Evidently, it is impossible to imitate a work of art exactly; and the differences between the copy and the original, minute though they may be, exist and are felt immediately. So far the critic is on sure and by this time familiar ground. The copy does not move him, because its forms are not identical with those of the original; and just what made the original moving is what does not appear in the copy. But why is it impossible to make an absolutely exact copy? The explanation seems to be that the actual lines and colours and spaces in a work of art are caused by something in the mind of the artist which is not present in the mind of the imitator. The hand not only obeys the mind, it is impotent to make lines and colours in a particular way without the direction of a particular state of mind. The two visible objects, the original and the copy, differ because that which ordered the work of art does not preside at the manufacture of the copy. That which orders the work of art is, I suggest, the emotion which empowers artists to create significant form. The good copy, the copy that moves us, is always the work of one who is possessed by this mysterious emotion. Good copies are never attempts at exact imitation; on examination we find always enormous differences between them and their originals: they are the work of men or women who do not copy but can translate the art of others into their own language. The power of creating significant form depends, not on hawklike vision, but on some curious mental and emotional power. Even to copy a picture one needs, not to see as a trained observer, but to feel as an artist. To make the spectator feel, it seems that the creator must feel too. What is this that imitated forms lack and created forms possess? What is this mysterious thing that dominates the artist in the creation of forms? What is it that lurks behind forms and seems to be conveyed by them to us? What is it that distinguishes the creator from the copyist? What can it be but emotion? Is it not because the artist's forms express a particular kind of emotion that they are significant?--because they fit and envelop it, that they are coherent?--because they communicate it, that they exalt us to ecstasy? One word of warning is necessary. Let no one imagine that the expression of emotion is the outward and visible sign of a work of art. The characteristic of a work of art is its power of provoking aesthetic emotion; the expression of emotion is possibly what gives it that power. It is useless to go to a picture gallery in search of expression; you must go in search of significant form. When you have been moved by form, you may begin to consider what makes it moving. If my theory be correct, rightness of form is invariably a consequence of rightness of emotion. Right form, I suggest, is ordered and conditioned by a particular kind of emotion; but whether my theory be true or false, the form remains right. If the forms are satisfactory, the state of mind that ordained them must have been aesthetically right. If the forms are wrong, it does not follow that the state of mind was wrong; between the moment of inspiration and the finished work of art there is room for many a slip. Feeble or defective emotion is at best only one explanation of unsatisfactory form. Therefore, when the critic comes across satisfactory form he need not bother about the feelings of the artist; for him to feel the aesthetic significance of the artist's forms suffices. If the artist's state of mind be important, he may be sure that it was right because the forms are right. But when the critic attempts to account for the unsatisfactoriness of forms he may consider the state of mind of the artist. He cannot be sure that because the forms are wrong the state of mind was wrong; because right forms imply right feeling, wrong forms do not necessarily imply wrong feeling; but if he has got to explain the wrongness of form, here is a possibility he cannot overlook. He will have left the firm land of aesthetics to travel in an unstable element; in criticism one catches at any straw. There is no harm in that, provided the critic never forgets that, whatever ingenious theories he may put forward, they can be nothing more than attempts to explain the one central fact--that some forms move us aesthetically and others do not. This discussion has brought me close to a question that is neither aesthetic nor metaphysical but impinges on both. It is the question of the artistic problem, and it is really a technical question. I have suggested that the task of the artist is either to create significant form or to express a sense of reality--whichever way you prefer to put it. But it is certain that few artists, if any, can sit down or stand up just to create nothing more definite than significant form, just to express nothing more definite than a sense of reality. Artists must canalise their emotion, they must concentrate their energies on some definite problem. The man who sets out with the whole world before him is unlikely to get anywhere. In that fact lies the explanation of the absolute necessity for artistic conventions. That is why it is easier to write good verse than good prose, why it is more difficult to write good blank verse than good rhyming couplets. That is the explanation of the sonnet, the ballade, and the rondeau; severe limitations concentrate and intensify the artist's energies. It would be almost impossible for an artist who set himself a task no more definite than that of creating, without conditions or limitations material or intellectual, significant form ever so to concentrate his energies as to achieve his object. His objective would lack precision and therefore his efforts would lack intention. He would almost certainly be vague and listless at his work. It would seem always possible to pull the thing round by a happy fluke, it would rarely be absolutely clear that things were going wrong. The effort would be feeble and the result would be feeble. That is the danger of aestheticism for the artist. The man who feels that he has got nothing to do but to make something beautiful hardly knows where to begin or where to end, or why he should set about one thing more than another. The artist has got to feel the necessity of making his work of art "right." It will be "right" when it expresses his emotion for reality or is capable of provoking aesthetic emotion in others, whichever way you care to look at it. But most artists have got to canalise their emotion and concentrate their energies on some more definite and more maniable problem than that of making something that shall be aesthetically "right." They need a problem that will become the focus of their vast emotions and vague energies, and when that problem is solved their work will be "right." "Right" for the spectator means aesthetically satisfying; for the artist at work it means the complete realisation of a conception, the perfect solution of a problem. The mistake that the vulgar make is to suppose that "right" means the solution of one particular problem. The vulgar are apt to suppose that the problem which all visual and literary artists set themselves is to make something lifelike. Now, all artistic problems--and their possible variety is infinite--must be the _foci_ of one particular kind of emotion, that specific artistic emotion which I believe to be an emotion felt for reality, generally perceived through form: but the nature of the focus is immaterial. It is almost, though not quite, true to say that one problem is as good as another. Indeed all problems are, in themselves, equally good, though, owing to human infirmity, there are two which tend to turn out badly. One, as we have seen, is the pure aesthetic problem; the other is the problem of accurate representation. The vulgar imagine that there is but one focus, that "right" means always the realisation of an accurate conception of life. They cannot understand that the immediate problem of the artist may be to express himself within a square or a circle or a cube, to balance certain harmonies, to reconcile certain dissonances, to achieve certain rhythms, or to conquer certain difficulties of medium, just as well as to catch a likeness. This error is at the root of the silly criticism that Mr. Shaw has made it fashionable to print. In the plays of Shakespeare there are details of psychology and portraiture so realistic as to astonish and enchant the multitude, but the conception, the thing that Shakespeare set himself to realise, was not a faithful presentation of life. The creation of Illusion was not the artistic problem that Shakespeare used as a channel for his artistic emotion and a focus for his energies. The world of Shakespeare's plays is by no means so lifelike as the world of Mr. Galsworthy's, and therefore those who imagine that the artistic problem must always be the achieving of a correspondence between printed words or painted forms and the world as they know it are right in judging the plays of Shakespeare inferior to those of Mr. Galsworthy. As a matter of fact, the achievement of verisimilitude, far from being the only possible problem, disputes with the achievement of beauty the honour of being the worst possible. It is so easy to be lifelike, that an attempt to be nothing more will never bring into play the highest emotional and intellectual powers of the artist. Just as the aesthetic problem is too vague, so the representative problem is too simple. Every artist must choose his own problem. He may take it from wherever he likes, provided he can make it the focus of those artistic emotions he has got to express and the stimulant of those energies he will need to express them. What we have got to remember is that the problem--in a picture it is generally the subject--is of no consequence in itself. It is merely one of the artist's means of expression or creation. In any particular case one problem may be better than another, as a means, just as one canvas or one brand of colours may be; that will depend upon the temperament of the artist, and we may leave it to him. For us the problem has no value; for the artist it is the working test of absolute "rightness." It is the gauge that measures the pressure of steam; the artist stokes his fires to set the little handle spinning; he knows that his machine will not move until he has got his pointer to the mark; he works up to it and through it; but it does not drive the engine. What, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter? No more than this, I think. The contemplation of pure form leads to a state of extraordinary exaltation and complete detachment from the concerns of life: of so much, speaking for myself, I am sure. It is tempting to suppose that the emotion which exalts has been transmitted through the forms we contemplate by the artist who created them. If this be so, the transmitted emotion, whatever it may be, must be of such a kind that it can be expressed in any sort of form--in pictures, sculptures, buildings, pots, textiles, &c., &c. Now the emotion that artists express comes to some of them, so they tell us, from the apprehension of the formal significance of material things; and the formal significance of any material thing is the significance of that thing considered as an end in itself. But if an object considered as an end in itself moves us more profoundly (_i.e._ has greater significance) than the same object considered as a means to practical ends or as a thing related to human interests--and this undoubtedly is the case--we can only suppose that when we consider anything as an end in itself we become aware of that in it which is of greater moment than any qualities it may have acquired from keeping company with human beings. Instead of recognising its accidental and conditioned importance, we become aware of its essential reality, of the God in everything, of the universal in the particular, of the all-pervading rhythm. Call it by what name you will, the thing that I am talking about is that which lies behind the appearance of all things--that which gives to all things their individual significance, the thing in itself, the ultimate reality. And if a more or less unconscious apprehension of this latent reality of material things be, indeed, the cause of that strange emotion, a passion to express which is the inspiration of many artists, it seems reasonable to suppose that those who, unaided by material objects, experience the same emotion have come by another road to the same country. That is the metaphysical hypothesis. Are we to swallow it whole, accept a part of it, or reject it altogether? Each must decide for himself. I insist only on the rightness of my aesthetic hypothesis. And of one other thing am I sure. Be they artists or lovers of art, mystics or mathematicians, those who achieve ecstasy are those who have freed themselves from the arrogance of humanity. He who would feel the significance of art must make himself humble before it. Those who find the chief importance of art or of philosophy in its relation to conduct or its practical utility--those who cannot value things as ends in themselves or, at any rate, as direct means to emotion--will never get from anything the best that it can give. Whatever the world of aesthetic contemplation may be, it is not the world of human business and passion; in it the chatter and tumult of material existence is unheard, or heard only as the echo of some more ultimate harmony. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: The existence of the Ku K'ai-chih makes it clear that the art of this period (fifth to eighth centuries), was a typical primitive movement. To call the great vital art of the Liang, Chen, Wei, and Tang dynasties a development out of the exquisitely refined and exhausted art of the Han decadence--from which Ku K'ai-chih is a delicate straggler--is to call Romanesque sculpture a development out of Praxiteles. Between the two some thing has happened to refill the stream of art. What had happened in China was the spiritual and emotional revolution that followed the onset of Buddhism.] [Footnote 2: This is not to say that exact representation is bad in itself. It is indifferent. A perfectly represented form may be significant, only it is fatal to sacrifice significance to representation. The quarrel between significance and illusion seems to be as old as art itself, and I have little doubt that what makes most palaeolithic art so bad is a preoccupation with exact representation. Evidently palaeolithic draughtsmen had no sense of the significance of form. Their art resembles that of the more capable and sincere Royal Academicians: it is a little higher than that of Sir Edward Poynter and a little lower than that of the late Lord Leighton. That this is no paradox let the cave-drawings of Altamira, or such works as the sketches of horses found at Bruniquel and now in the British Museum, bear witness. If the ivory head of a girl from the Grotte du Pape, Brassempouy (_Musée St. Germain_) and the ivory torso found at the same place (_Collection St. Cric_), be, indeed, palaeolithic, then there were good palaeolithic artists who created and did not imitate form. Neolithic art is, of course, a very different matter.] [Footnote 3: Mr. Roger Fry permits me to make use of an interesting story that will illustrate my view. When Mr. Okakura, the Government editor of _The Temple Treasures of Japan_, first came to Europe, he found no difficulty in appreciating the pictures of those who from want of will or want of skill did not create illusions but concentrated their energies on the creation of form. He understood immediately the Byzantine masters and the French and Italian Primitives. In the Renaissance painters, on the other hand, with their descriptive pre-occupations, their literary and anecdotic interests, he could see nothing but vulgarity and muddle. The universal and essential quality of art, significant form, was missing, or rather had dwindled to a shallow stream, overlaid and hidden beneath weeds, so the universal response, aesthetic emotion, was not evoked. It was not till he came on to Henri Matisse that he again found himself in the familiar world of pure art. Similarly, sensitive Europeans who respond immediately to the significant forms of great Oriental art, are left cold by the trivial pieces of anecdote and social criticism so lovingly cherished by Chinese dilettanti. It would be easy to multiply instances did not decency forbid the labouring of so obvious a truth.] [Footnote 4: Anyone who has visited the very latest French exhibitions will have seen scores of what are called "Cubist" pictures. These afford an excellent illustration of my thesis. Of a hundred cubist pictures three or four will have artistic value. Thirty years ago the same might have been said of "Impressionist" pictures; forty years before that of romantic pictures in the manner of Delacroix. The explanation is simple,--the vast majority of those who paint pictures have neither originality nor any considerable talent. Left to themselves they would probably produce the kind of painful absurdity which in England is known as an "Academy picture." But a student who has no original gift may yet be anything but a fool, and many students understand that the ordinary cultivated picture-goer knows an "Academy picture" at a glance and knows that it is bad. Is it fair to condemn severely a young painter for trying to give his picture a factitious interest, or even for trying to conceal beneath striking wrappers the essential mediocrity of his wares? If not heroically sincere he is surely not inhumanly base. Besides, he has to imitate someone, and he likes to be in the fashion. And, after all, a bad cubist picture is no worse than any other bad picture. If anyone is to be blamed, it should be the spectator who cannot distinguish between good cubist pictures and bad. Blame alike the fools who think that because a picture is cubist it must be worthless, and their idiotic enemies who think it must be marvellous. People of sensibility can see that there is as much difference between Picasso and a Montmartre sensationalist as there is between Ingres and the President of the Royal Academy.] II ART AND LIFE I. ART AND RELIGION II. ART AND HISTORY III. ART AND ETHICS [Illustration: EARLY PERUVIAN POT FROM THE NASCA VALLEY _In the British Museum_] I ART AND RELIGION If in my first chapter I had been at pains to show that art owed nothing to life the title of my second would invite a charge of inconsistency. The danger would be slight, however; for though art owed nothing to life, life might well owe something to art. The weather is admirably independent of human hopes and fears, yet few of us are so sublimely detached as to be indifferent to the weather. Art does affect the lives of men; it moves to ecstasy, thus giving colour and moment to what might be otherwise a rather grey and trivial affair. Art for some makes life worth living. Also, art is affected by life; for to create art there must be men with hands and a sense of form and colour and three-dimensional space and the power to feel and the passion to create. Therefore art has a great deal to do with life--with emotional life. That it is a means to a state of exaltation is unanimously agreed, and that it comes from the spiritual depths of man's nature is hardly contested. The appreciation of art is certainly a means to ecstasy, and the creation probably the expression of an ecstatic state of mind. Art is, in fact, a necessity to and a product of the spiritual life. Those who do not part company with me till the last stage of my metaphysical excursion agree that the emotion expressed in a work of art springs from the depths of man's spiritual nature; and those even who will hear nothing of expression agree that the spiritual part is profoundly affected by works of art. Art, therefore, has to do with the spiritual life, to which it gives and from which, I feel sure, it takes. Indirectly, art has something to do with practical life, too; for those emotional experiences must be very faint and contemptible that leave quite untouched our characters. Through its influence on character and point of view art may affect practical life. But practical life and human sentiment can affect art only in so far as they can affect the conditions in which artists work. Thus they may affect the production of works of art to some extent; to how great an extent I shall consider in another place. Also a great many works of visual art are concerned with life, or rather with the physical universe of which life is a part, in that the men who created them were thrown into the creative mood by their surroundings. We have observed, as we could hardly fail to do, that, whatever the emotion that artists express may be, it comes to many of them through the contemplation of the familiar objects of life. The object of an artist's emotion seems to be more often than not either some particular scene or object, or a synthesis of his whole visual experience. Art may be concerned with the physical universe, or with any part or parts of it, as a means to emotion--a means to that peculiar spiritual state that we call inspiration. But the value of these parts as means to anything but emotion art ignores--that is to say, it ignores their practical utility. Artists are often concerned with things, but never with the labels on things. These useful labels were invented by practical people for practical purposes. The misfortune is that, having acquired the habit of recognising labels, practical people tend to lose the power of feeling emotion; and, as the only way of getting at the thing in itself is by feeling its emotional significance, they soon begin to lose their sense of reality. Mr. Roger Fry has pointed out that few can hope ever to see a charging bull as an end in itself and yield themselves to the emotional significance of its forms, because no sooner is the label "Charging Bull" recognised than we begin to dispose ourselves for flight rather than contemplation.[5] This is where the habit of recognising labels serves us well. It serves us ill, however, when, although there is no call for action or hurry, it comes between things and our emotional reaction to them. The label is nothing but a symbol that epitomises for busy humanity the significance of things regarded as "means." A practical person goes into a room where there are chairs, tables, sofas, a hearth-rug and a mantel-piece. Of each he takes note intellectually, and if he wants to set himself down or set down a cup, he will know all he needs to know for his purpose. The label tells him just those facts that serve his practical ends; of the thing itself that lurks behind the label nothing is said. Artists, _qua_ artists, are not concerned with labels. They are concerned with things only as means to a particular kind of emotion, which is the same as saying that they are only concerned with things perceived as ends in themselves; for it is only when things are _perceived_ as ends that they _become_ means to this emotion. It is only when we cease to regard the objects in a landscape as means to anything that we can feel the landscape artistically. But when we do succeed in regarding the parts of a landscape as ends in themselves--as pure forms, that is to say--the landscape becomes _ipso facto_ a means to a peculiar, aesthetic state of mind. Artists are concerned only with this peculiar emotional significance of the physical universe: because they _perceive_ things as "ends," things _become_ for them "means" to ecstasy. The habit of recognising the label and overlooking the thing, of seeing intellectually instead of seeing emotionally, accounts for the amazing blindness, or rather visual shallowness, of most civilised adults. We do not forget what has moved us, but what we have merely recognised leaves no deep impression on the mind. A friend of mine, a man of taste, desired to make some clearance in his gardens, encumbered as they were with a multitude of trees; unfortunately most of his friends and all his family objected on sentimental or aesthetic grounds, declaring that the place would never be the same to them if the axe were laid to a single trunk. My friend was in despair, until, one day, I suggested to him that whenever his people were all away on visits or travels, as was pretty often the case, he should have as many trees cut down as could be completely and cleanly removed during their absence. Since then, several hundreds have been carted from his small park and pleasure grounds, and should the secret be betrayed to the family I am cheerfully confident that not one of them would believe it. I could cite innumerable instances of this insensibility to form. How often have I been one of a party in a room with which all were familiar, the decoration of which had lately been changed, and I the only one to notice it. For practical purposes the room remained unaltered; only its emotional significance was new. Question your friend as to the disposition of the furniture in his wife's drawing-room; ask him to sketch the street down which he passes daily; ten to one he goes hopelessly astray. Only artists and educated people of extraordinary sensibility and some savages and children feel the significance of form so acutely that they know how things look. These see, because they see emotionally; and no one forgets the things that have moved him. Those forget who have never felt the emotional significance of pure form; they are not stupid nor are they generally insensitive, but they use their eyes only to collect information, not to capture emotion. This habit of using the eyes exclusively to pick up facts is the barrier that stands between most people and an understanding of visual art. It is not a barrier that has stood unbreached always, nor need it stand so for all future time. In ages of great spiritual exaltation the barrier crumbles and becomes, in places, less insuperable. Such ages are commonly called great religious ages: nor is the name ill-chosen. For, more often than not, religion is the whetstone on which men sharpen the spiritual sense. Religion, like art, is concerned with the world of emotional reality, and with material things only in so far as they are emotionally significant. For the mystic, as for the artist, the physical universe is a means to ecstasy. The mystic feels things as "ends" instead of seeing them as "means." He seeks within all things that ultimate reality which provokes emotional exaltation; and, if he does not come at it through pure form, there are, as I have said, more roads than one to that country. Religion, as I understand it, is an expression of the individual's sense of the emotional significance of the universe; I should not be surprised to find that art was an expression of the same thing. Anyway, both seem to express emotions different from and transcending the emotions of life. Certainly both have the power of transporting men to superhuman ecstasies; both are means to unearthly states of mind. Art and religion belong to the same world. Both are bodies in which men try to capture and keep alive their shyest and most ethereal conceptions. The kingdom of neither is of this world. Rightly, therefore, do we regard art and religion as twin manifestations of the spirit; wrongly do some speak of art as a manifestation of religion. If it were said that art and religion were twin manifestations of something that, for convenience sake, may be called "the religious spirit," I should make no serious complaint. But I should insist on the distinction between "religion," in the ordinary acceptation of the word, and "the religious spirit" being stated beyond all possibility of cavil. I should insist that if we are to say that art is a manifestation of the religious spirit, we must say the same of every respectable religion that ever has existed or ever can exist. Above all, I should insist that whoever said it should bear in mind, whenever he said it, that "manifestation" is at least as different from "expression" as Monmouth is from Macedon. The religious spirit is born of a conviction that some things matter more than others. To those possessed by it there is a sharp distinction between that which is unconditioned and universal and that which is limited and local. It is a consciousness of the unconditioned and universal that makes people religious; and it is this consciousness or, at least, a conviction that some things are unconditioned and universal, that makes their attitude towards the conditioned and local sometimes a little unsympathetic. It is this consciousness that makes them set justice above law, passion above principle, sensibility above culture, intelligence above knowledge, intuition above experience, the ideal above the tolerable. It is this consciousness that makes them the enemies of convention, compromise, and common-sense. In fact, the essence of religion is a conviction that because some things are of infinite value most are profoundly unimportant, that since the gingerbread is there one need not feel too strongly about the gilt. It is useless for liberal divines to pretend that there is no antagonism between the religious nature and the scientific. There is no antagonism between religion and science, but that is a very different matter. In fact, the hypotheses of science begin only where religion ends: but both religion and science are born trespassers. The religious and the scientific both have their prejudices; but their prejudices are not the same. The scientific mind cannot free itself from a prejudice against the notion that effects may exist the causes of which it ignores. Not only do religious minds manage to believe that there may be effects of which they do not know, and may never know, the causes--they cannot even see the absolute necessity for supposing that everything is caused. Scientific people tend to trust their senses and disbelieve their emotions when they contradict them; religious people tend to trust emotion even though sensual experience be against it. On the whole, the religious are the more open-minded. Their assumption that the senses may mislead is less arrogant than the assumption that through them alone can we come at reality, for, as Dr. McTaggart has wittily said, "If a man is shut up in a house, the transparency of the windows is an essential condition of his seeing the sky. But it would not be prudent to infer that, if he walked out of the house, he could not see the sky, because there was no longer any glass through which he might see it."[6] Examples of scientific bigotry are as common as blackberries. The attitude of the profession towards unorthodox medicine is the classical instance. In the autumn of 1912 I was walking through the Grafton Galleries with a man who is certainly one of the ablest, and is reputed one of the most enlightened, of contemporary men of science. Looking at the picture of a young girl with a cat by Henri-Matisse, he exclaimed--"I see how it is, the fellow's astigmatic." I should have let this bit of persiflage go unanswered, assuming it to be one of those witty sallies for which the princes of science are so justly famed and to which they often treat us even when they are not in the presence of works of art, had not the professor followed up his clue with the utmost gravity, assuring me at last that no picture in the gallery was beyond the reach of optical diagnostic. Still suspicious of his good faith, I suggested, tentatively, that perhaps the discrepancies between the normal man's vision and the pictures on the wall were the result of intentional distortion on the part of the artists. At this the professor became passionately serious--"Do you mean to tell me," he bawled, "that there has ever been a painter who did not try to make his objects as lifelike as possible? Dismiss such silly nonsense from your head." It is the old story: "Clear your mind of cant," that is to say, of anything which appears improbable or unpalatable to Dr. Johnson. The religious, on the other hand, are apt to be a little prejudiced against common-sense; and, for my own part, I confess that I am often tempted to think that a common-sense view is necessarily a wrong one. It was common-sense to see that the world must be flat and that the sun must go round it; only when those fantastical people made themselves heard who thought that the solar system could not be quite so simple an affair as common-sense knew it must be were these opinions knocked on the head. Dr. Johnson, the great exemplar of British common-sense, observing in autumn the gathered swallows skimming over pools and rivers, pronounced it certain that these birds sleep all the winter--"A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves under water, and lie in the bed of a river": how sensibly, too, did he dispose of Berkeley's Idealism--"striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone"--"I refute it thus." Seriously, is the common-sense view ever the right one? Lately, the men of sense and science have secured allies who have brought to their cause what most it lacked, a little fundamental thought. Those able and honest people, the Cambridge rationalists, headed by Mr. G.E. Moore, to whose _Principia Ethica_ I owe so much, are, of course, profoundly religious and live by a passionate faith in the absolute value of certain states of mind; also they have fallen in love with the conclusions and methods of science. Being extremely intelligent, they perceive, however, that empirical arguments can avail nothing for or against a metaphysical theory, and that ultimately all the conclusions of science are based on a logic that precedes experience. Also they perceive that emotions are just as real as sensations. They find themselves confronted, therefore, by this difficulty; if someone steps forward to say that he has a direct, disinterested, _a priori_, conviction of the goodness of his emotions towards the Mass, he puts himself in the same position as Mr. Moore, who feels a similar conviction about the goodness of his towards the Truth. If Mr. Moore is to infer the goodness of one state of mind from his feelings, why should not someone else infer the goodness of another from his? The Cambridge rationalists have a short way with such dissenters. They simply assure them that they do not feel what they say they feel. Some of them have begun to apply their cogent methods to aesthetics; and when we tell them what we feel for pure form they assure us that, in fact, we feel nothing of the sort. This argument, however, has always struck me as lacking in subtlety. Much as he dislikes mentioning the fact or hearing it mentioned, the common man of science recognises no other end in life than protracted and agreeable existence. That is where he joins issue with the religious; it is also his excuse for being a eugenist. He declines to believe in any reality other than that of the physical universe. On that reality he insists dogmatically.[7] Man, he says, is an animal who, like other animals, desires to live; he is provided with senses, and these, like other animals, he seeks to gratify: in these facts he bids us find an explanation of all human aspiration. Man wants to live and he wants to have a good time; to compass these ends he has devised an elaborate machinery. All emotion, says the common man of science, must ultimately be traced to the senses. All moral, religious and aesthetic emotions are derived from physical needs, just as political ideas are based on that gregarious instinct which is simply the result of a desire to live long and to live in comfort. We obey the by-law that forbids us to ride a bicycle on the footpath, because we see that, in the long run, such a law is conducive to continued and agreeable existence, and for very similar reasons, says the man of science, we approve of magnanimous characters and sublime works of art. "Not so," reply saints, artists, Cambridge rationalists, and all the better sort; for they feel that their religious, aesthetic, or moral emotions are not conditioned, directly or indirectly, by physical needs, nor, indeed, by anything in the physical universe. Some things, they feel, are good, not because they are means to physical well-being, but because they are good in themselves. In nowise does the value of aesthetic or religious rapture depend upon the physical satisfaction it affords. There are things in life the worth of which cannot be related to the physical universe,--things of which the worth is not relative but absolute. Of these matters I speak cautiously and without authority: for my immediate purpose--to present my conception of the religious character--I need say only that to some the materialistic conception of the universe does not seem to explain those emotions which they feel with supreme certainty and absolute disinterestedness. The fact is, men of science, having got us into the habit of attempting to justify all our feelings and states of mind by reference to the physical universe, have almost bullied some of us into believing that what cannot be so justified does not exist. I call him a religious man who, feeling with conviction that some things are good in themselves, and that physical existence is not amongst them, pursues, at the expense of physical existence, that which appears to him good. All those who hold with uncompromising sincerity that spiritual is more important than material life, are, in my sense, religious. For instance, in Paris I have seen young painters, penniless, half-fed, unwarmed, ill-clothed, their women and children in no better case, working all day in feverish ecstasy at unsaleable pictures, and quite possibly they would have killed or wounded anyone who suggested a compromise with the market. When materials and credit failed altogether, they stole newspapers and boot-blacking that they might continue to serve their masterful passion. They were superbly religious. All artists are religious. All uncompromising belief is religious. A man who so cares for truth that he will go to prison, or death, rather than acknowledge a God in whose existence he does not believe, is as religious, and as much a martyr in the cause of religion, as Socrates or Jesus. He has set his criterion of values outside the physical universe. In material things, half a loaf is said to be better than no bread. Not so in spiritual. If he thinks that it may do some good, a politician will support a bill which he considers inadequate. He states his objections and votes with the majority. He does well, perhaps. In spiritual matters such compromises are impossible. To please the public the artist cannot give of his second best. To do so would be to sacrifice that which makes life valuable. Were he to become a liar and express something different from what he feels, truth would no longer be in him. What would it profit him to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? He knows that there is that within him which is more important than physical existence--that to which physical existence is but a means. That he may feel and express it, it is good that he should be alive. But unless he may feel and express the best, he were better dead. Art and Religion are, then, two roads by which men escape from circumstance to ecstasy. Between aesthetic and religious rapture there is a family alliance. Art and Religion are means to similar states of mind. And if we are licensed to lay aside the science of aesthetics and, going behind our emotion and its object, consider what is in the mind of the artist, we may say, loosely enough, that art is a manifestation of the religious sense. If it be an expression of emotion--as I am persuaded that it is--it is an expression of that emotion which is the vital force in every religion, or, at any rate, it expresses an emotion felt for that which is the essence of all. We may say that both art and religion are manifestations of man's religious sense, if by "man's religious sense" we mean his sense of ultimate reality. What we may not say is, that art is the expression of any particular religion; for to do so is to confuse the religious spirit with the channels in which it has been made to flow. It is to confuse the wine with the bottle. Art may have much to do with that universal emotion that has found a corrupt and stuttering expression in a thousand different creeds: it has nothing to do with historical facts or metaphysical fancies. To be sure, many descriptive paintings are manifestos and expositions of religious dogmas: a very proper use for descriptive painting too. Certainly the blot on many good pictures is the descriptive element introduced for the sake of edification and instruction. But in so far as a picture is a work of art, it has no more to do with dogmas or doctrines, facts or theories, than with the interests and emotions of daily life. II ART AND HISTORY And yet there is a connection between art and religion, even in the common and limited sense of that word. There is an historical XXXXXXXXXX: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX between the history of art and the history of religion. Religions are vital and sincere only so long as they are animated by that which animates all great art--spiritual ferment. It is a mistake, by the way, to suppose that dogmatic religion cannot be vital and sincere. Religious emotions tend always to anchor themselves to earth by a chain of dogma. That tendency is the enemy within the gate of every movement. Dogmatic religion can be vital and sincere, and what is more, theology and ritual have before now been the trumpet and drum of spiritual revolutions. But dogmatic or intellectually free, religious ages, ages of spiritual turmoil, ages in which men set the spirit above the flesh and the emotions above the intellect, are the ages in which is felt the emotional significance of the universe. Then it is men live on the frontiers of reality and listen eagerly to travellers' tales. Thus it comes about that the great ages of religion are commonly the great ages of art. As the sense of reality grows dim, as men become more handy at manipulating labels and symbols, more mechanical, more disciplined, more specialised, less capable of feeling things directly, the power of escaping to the world of ecstasy decays, and art and religion begin to sink. When the majority lack, not only the emotion out of which art and religion are made, but even the sensibility to respond to what the few can still offer, art and religion founder. After that, nothing is left of art and religion but their names; illusion and prettiness are called art, politics and sentimentality religion. Now, if I am right in thinking that art is a manifestation--a manifestation, mark, and not an expression--of man's spiritual state, then in the history of art we shall read the spiritual history of the race. I am not surprised that those who have devoted their lives to the study of history should take it ill when one who professes only to understand the nature of art hints that by understanding his own business he may become a judge of theirs. Let me be as conciliatory as possible. No one can have less right than I, or, indeed, less inclination to assume the proud title of "scientific historian": no one can care less about historical small-talk or be more at a loss to understand what precisely is meant by "historical science." Yet if history be anything more than a chronological catalogue of facts, if it be concerned with the movements of mind and spirit, then I submit that to read history aright we must know, not only the works of art that each age produced, but also their value as works of art. If the aesthetic significance or insignificance of works of art does, indeed, bear witness to a spiritual state, then he who can appreciate that significance should be in a position to form some opinion concerning the spiritual state of the men who produced those works and of those who appreciated them. If art be at all the sort of thing it is commonly supposed to be, the history of art must be an index to the spiritual history of the race. Only, the historian who wishes to use art as an index must possess not merely the nice observation of the scholar and the archaeologist, but also a fine sensibility. For it is the aesthetic significance of a work that gives a clue to the state of mind that produced it; so the ability to assign a particular work to a particular period avails nothing unaccompanied by the power of appreciating its aesthetic significance. To understand completely the history of an age must we know and understand the history of its art? It seems so. And yet the idea is intolerable to scientific historians. What becomes of the great scientific principle of water-tight compartments? Again, it is unjust: for assuredly, to understand art we need know nothing whatever about history. It may be that from works of art we can draw inferences as to the sort of people who made them: but the longest and most intimate conversations with an artist will not tell us whether his pictures are good or bad. We must see them: then we shall know. I may be partial or dishonest about the work of my friend, but its aesthetic significance is not more obvious to me than that of a work that was finished five thousand years ago. To appreciate fully a work of art we require nothing but sensibility. To those that can hear Art speaks for itself: facts and dates do not; to make bricks of such stuff one must glean the uplands and hollows for tags of auxiliary information and suggestion; and the history of art is no exception to the rule. To appreciate a man's art I need know nothing whatever about the artist; I can say whether this picture is better than that without the help of history; but if I am trying to account for the deterioration of his art, I shall be helped by knowing that he has been seriously ill or that he has married a wife who insists on his boiling her pot. To mark the deterioration was to make a pure, aesthetic judgment: to account for it was to become an historian. To understand the history of art we must know something of other kinds of history. Perhaps, to understand thoroughly any kind of history we must understand every kind of history. Perhaps the history of an age or of a life is an indivisible whole. Another intolerable idea! What becomes of the specialist? What of those formidable compendiums in which the multitudinous activities of man are kept so jealously apart? The mind boggles at the monstrous vision of its own conclusions. But, after all, does it matter to me? I am not an historian of art or of anything else. I care very little when things were made, or why they were made; I care about their emotional significance to us. To the historian everything is a means to some other means; to me everything that matters is a direct means to emotion. I am writing about art, not about history. With history I am concerned only in so far as history serves to illustrate my hypothesis: and whether history be true or false matters very little, since my hypothesis is not based on history but on personal experience, not on facts but on feelings. Historical fact and falsehood are of no consequence to people who try to deal with realities. They need not ask, "Did this happen?"; they need ask only, "Do I feel this?" Lucky for us that it is so: for if our judgments about real things had to wait upon historical certitude they might have to wait for ever. Nevertheless it is amusing to see how far that of which we are sure agrees with that which we should expect. My aesthetic hypothesis--that the essential quality in a work of art is significant form--was based on my aesthetic experience. Of my aesthetic experiences I am sure. About my second hypothesis, that significant form is the expression of a peculiar emotion felt for reality--I am far from confident. However, I assume it to be true, and go on to suggest that this sense of reality leads men to attach greater importance to the spiritual than to the material significance of the universe, that it disposes men to feel things as ends instead of merely recognising them as means, that a sense of reality is, in fact, the essence of spiritual health. If this be so, we shall expect to find that ages in which the creation of significant form is checked are ages in which the sense of reality is dim, and that these ages are ages of spiritual poverty. We shall expect to find the curves of art and spiritual fervour ascending and descending together. In my next chapter I shall glance at the history of a cycle of art with the intention of following the movement of art and discovering how far that movement keeps pace with changes in the spiritual state of society. My view of the rise, decline and fall of art in Christendom is based entirely on a series of independent aesthetic judgments in the rightness of which I have the arrogance to feel considerable confidence. I pretend to a power of distinguishing between significant and insignificant form, and it will interest me to see whether a decline in the significance of forms--a deterioration of art, that is to say--synchronises generally with a lowering of the religious sense. I shall expect to find that whenever artists have allowed themselves to be seduced from their proper business, the creation of form, by other and irrelevant interests, society has been spiritually decadent. Ages in which the sense of formal significance has been swamped utterly by preoccupation with the obvious, will turn out, I suspect, to have been ages of spiritual famine. Therefore, while following the fortunes of art across a period of fourteen hundred years, I shall try to keep an eye on that of which art may be a manifestation--man's sense of ultimate reality. To criticise a work of art historically is to play the science-besotted fool. No more disastrous theory ever issued from the brain of a charlatan than that of evolution in art. Giotto did not creep, a grub, that Titian might flaunt, a butterfly. To think of a man's art as leading on to the art of someone else is to misunderstand it. To praise or abuse or be interested in a work of art because it leads or does not lead to another work of art is to treat it as though it were not a work of art. The connection of one work of art with another may have everything to do with history: it has nothing to do with appreciation. So soon as we begin to consider a work as anything else than an end in itself we leave the world of art. Though the development of painting from Giotto to Titian may be interesting historically, it cannot affect the value of any particular picture: aesthetically, it is of no consequence whatever. Every work of art must be judged on its own merits. Therefore, be sure that, in my next chapter, I am not going to make aesthetic judgments in the light of history; I am going to read history in the light of aesthetic judgments. Having made my judgments, independently of any theory, aesthetic or non-aesthetic, I shall be amused to see how far the view of history that may be based on them agrees with accepted historical hypotheses. If my judgments and the dates furnished by historians be correct, it will follow that some ages have produced more good art than others: but, indeed, it is not disputed that the variety in the artistic significance of different ages is immense. I shall be curious to see what relation can be established between the art and the age that produced it. If my second hypothesis--that art is the expression of an emotion for ultimate reality--be correct, the relation between art and its age will be inevitable and intimate. In that case, an aesthetic judgment will imply some sort of judgment about the general state of mind of the artist and his admirers. In fact, anyone who accepts absolutely my second hypothesis with all its possible implications--which is more than I am willing to do--will not only see in the history of art the spiritual history of the race, but will be quite unable to think of one without thinking of the other. If I do not go quite so far as that, I stop short only by a little. Certainly it is less absurd to see in art the key to history than to imagine that history can help us to an appreciation of art. In ages of spiritual fervour I look for great art. By ages of spiritual fervour I do not mean pleasant or romantic or humane or enlightened ages; I mean ages in which, for one reason or another, men have been unusually excited about their souls and unusually indifferent about their bodies. Such ages, as often as not, have been superstitious and cruel. Preoccupation with the soul may lead to superstition, indifference about the body to cruelty. I never said that ages of great art were sympathetic to the middle-classes. Art and a quiet life are incompatible I think; some stress and turmoil there must be. Need I add that in the snuggest age of materialism great artists may arise and flourish? Of course: but when the production of good art is at all widespread and continuous, near at hand I shall expect to find a restless generation. Also, having marked a period of spiritual stir, I shall look, not far off, for its manifestation in significant form. But the stir must be spiritual and genuine; a swirl of emotionalism or political frenzy will provoke nothing fine.[8] How far in any particular age the production of art is stimulated by general exaltation, or general exaltation by works of art, is a question hardly to be decided. Wisest, perhaps, is he who says that the two seem to have been interdependent. Just how dependent I believe them to have been, will appear when, in my next chapter, I attempt to sketch the rise, decline, and fall of the Christian slope. III ART AND ETHICS Between me and the pleasant places of history remains, however, one ugly barrier. I cannot dabble and paddle in the pools and shallows of the past until I have answered a question so absurd that the nicest people never tire of asking it: "What is the moral justification of art?" Of course they are right who insist that the creation of art must be justified on ethical grounds: all human activities must be so justified. It is the philosopher's privilege to call upon the artist to show that what he is about is either good in itself or a means to good. It is the artist's duty to reply: "Art is good because it exalts to a state of ecstasy better far than anything a benumbed moralist can even guess at; so shut up." Philosophically he is quite right; only, philosophy is not so simple as that. Let us try to answer philosophically. The moralist inquires whether art is either good in itself or a means to good. Before answering, we will ask what he means by the word "good," not because it is in the least doubtful, but to make him think. In fact, Mr. G.E. Moore has shown pretty conclusively in his _Principia Ethica_ that by "good" everyone means just good. We all know quite well what we mean though we cannot define it. "Good" can no more be defined than "Red": no quality can be defined. Nevertheless we know perfectly well what we mean when we say that a thing is "good" or "red." This is so obviously true that its statement has greatly disconcerted, not to say enraged, the orthodox philosophers. Orthodox philosophers are by no means agreed as to what we do mean by "good," only they are sure that we cannot mean what we say. They used to be fond of assuming that "good" meant pleasure; or, at any rate, that pleasure was the sole good as an end: two very different propositions. That "good" means "pleasure" and that pleasure is the sole good was the opinion of the Hedonists, and is still the opinion of any Utilitarians who may have lingered on into the twentieth century. They enjoy the honour of being the only ethical fallacies worth the powder and shot of a writer on art. I can imagine no more delicate or convincing piece of logic than that by which Mr. G.E. Moore disposes of both. But it is none of my business to do clumsily what Mr. Moore has done exquisitely. I have no mind by attempting to reproduce his dialectic to incur the merited ridicule of those familiar with the _Principia Ethica_ or to spoil the pleasure of those who will be wise enough to run out this very minute and order a masterpiece with which they happen to be unacquainted. For my immediate purpose it is necessary only to borrow one shaft from that well-stocked armoury. To him who believes that pleasure is the sole good, I will put this question: Does he, like John Stuart Mill, and everyone else I ever heard of, speak of "higher and lower" or "better and worse" or "superior and inferior" pleasures? And, if so, does he not perceive that he has given away his case? For, when he says that one pleasure is "higher" or "better" than another, he does not mean that it is greater in _quantity_ but superior in _quality_. On page 7 of _Utilitarianism_, J.S. Mill says:-- "If one of the two (pleasures) is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account." But if pleasure be the sole good, the only possible criterion of pleasures is quantity of pleasure. "Higher" or "better" can only mean containing more pleasure. To speak of "better pleasures" in any other sense is to make the goodness of the sole good as an end depend upon something which, _ex hypothesi_, is not good as an end. Mill is as one who, having set up sweetness as the sole good quality in jam, prefers Tiptree to Crosse and Blackwell, not because it is sweeter, but because it possesses a better kind of sweetness. To do so is to discard sweetness as an ultimate criterion and to set up something else in its place. So, when Mill, like everyone else, speaks of "better" or "higher" or "superior" pleasures, he discards pleasure as an ultimate criterion, and thereby admits that pleasure is not the sole good. He feels that some pleasures are better than others, and determines their respective values by the degree in which they possess that quality which all recognise but none can define--goodness. By higher and lower, superior and inferior pleasures we mean simply more good and less good pleasures. There are, therefore, two different qualities, Pleasantness and Goodness. Pleasure, amongst other things, may be good; but pleasure cannot mean good. By "good" we cannot mean "pleasureable;" for, as we see, there is a quality, "goodness," so distinct from pleasure that we speak of pleasures that are more or less good without meaning pleasures that are more or less pleasant. By "good," then, we do not mean "pleasure," neither is pleasure the sole good. Mr. Moore goes on to inquire what things are good in themselves, as ends that is to say. He comes to a conclusion with which we all agree, but for which few could have found convincing and logical arguments: "states of mind," he shows, alone are good as ends.[9] People who have very little taste for logic will find a simple and satisfactory proof of this conclusion afforded by what is called "the method of isolation." That which is good as an end will retain some, at any rate, of its value in complete isolation: it will retain all its value as an end. That which is good as a means only will lose all its value in isolation. That which is good as an end will remain valuable even when deprived of all its consequences and left with nothing but bare existence. Therefore, we can discover whether honestly we feel some thing to be good as an end, if only we can conceive it in complete isolation, and be sure that so isolated it remains valuable. Bread is good. Is bread good as an end or as a means? Conceive a loaf existing in an uninhabited and uninhabitable planet. Does it seem to lose its value? That is a little too easy. The physical universe appears to most people immensely good, for towards nature they feel violently that emotional reaction which brings to the lips the epithet "good"; but if the physical universe were not related to mind, if it were never to provoke an emotional reaction, if no mind were ever to be affected by it, and if it had no mind of its own, would it still appear good? There are two stars: one is, and ever will be, void of life, on the other exists a fragment of just living protoplasm which will never develop, will never become conscious. Can we say honestly that we feel one to be better than the other? Is life itself good as an end? A clear judgment is made difficult by the fact that one cannot conceive anything without feeling something for it; one's very conceptions provoke states of mind and thus acquire value as means. Let us ask ourselves, bluntly, can that which has no mind and affects no mind have value? Surely not. But anything which has a mind can have intrinsic value, and anything that affects a mind may become valuable as a means, since the state of mind produced may be valuable in itself. Isolate that mind. Isolate the state of mind of a man in love or rapt in contemplation; it does not seem to lose all its value. I do not say that its value is not decreased; obviously, it loses its value as a means to producing good states of mind in others. But a certain value does subsist--an intrinsic value. Populate the lone star with one human mind and every part of that star becomes potentially valuable as a means, because it may be a means to that which is good as an end--a good state of mind. The state of mind of a person in love or rapt in contemplation suffices in itself. We do not stay to inquire "What useful purpose does this serve, whom does it benefit, and how?" We say directly and with conviction--"This is good." When we are challenged to justify our opinion that anything, other than a state of mind, is good, we, feeling it to be a means only, do very properly seek its good effects, and our last justification is always that it produces good states of mind. Thus, when asked why we call a patent fertiliser good, we may, if we can find a listener, show that the fertiliser is a means to good crops, good crops a means to food, food a means to life, and life a necessary condition of good states of mind. Further we cannot go. When asked why we hold a particular state of mind to be good, the state of aesthetic contemplation for instance, we can but reply that to us its goodness is self-evident. Some states of mind appear to be good independently of their consequences. No other things appear to be good in this way. We conclude, therefore, that good states of mind are alone good as ends. To justify ethically any human activity, we must inquire--"Is this a means to good states of mind?" In the case of art our answer will be prompt and emphatic. Art is not only a means to good states of mind, but, perhaps, the most direct and potent that we possess. Nothing is more direct, because nothing affects the mind more immediately; nothing is more potent, because there is no state of mind more excellent or more intense than the state of aesthetic contemplation. This being so, to seek any other moral justification for art, to seek in art a means to anything less than good states of mind, is an act of wrong-headedness to be committed only by a fool or a man of genius. Many fools have committed it and one man of genius has made it notorious. Never was cart put more obstructively before horse than when Tolstoi announced that the justification of art was its power of promoting good actions. As if actions were ends in themselves! There is neither virtue nor vice in running: but to run with good tidings is commendable, to run away with an old lady's purse is not. There is no merit in shouting: but to speak up for truth and justice is well, to deafen the world with charlatanry is damnable. Always it is the end in view that gives value to action; and, ultimately, the end of all good actions must be to create or encourage or make possible good states of mind. Therefore, inciting people to good actions by means of edifying images is a respectable trade and a roundabout means to good. Creating works of art is as direct a means to good as a human being can practise. Just in this fact lies the tremendous importance of art: there is no more direct means to good. To pronounce anything a work of art is, therefore, to make a momentous moral judgment. It is to credit an object with being so direct and powerful a means to good that we need not trouble ourselves about any other of its possible consequences. But even were this not the case, the habit of introducing moral considerations into judgments between particular works of art would be inexcusable. Let the moralist make a judgment about art as a whole, let him assign it what he considers its proper place amongst means to good, but in aesthetic judgments, in judgments between members of the same class, in judgments between works of art considered as art, let him hold his tongue. If he esteem art anything less than equal to the greatest means to good he mistakes. But granting, for the sake of peace, its inferiority to some, I will yet remind him that his moral judgments about the value of particular works of art have nothing to do with their artistic value. The judge at Epsom is not permitted to disqualify the winner of the Derby in favour of the horse that finished last but one on the ground that the latter is just the animal for the Archbishop of Canterbury's brougham. Define art as you please, preferably in accordance with my ideas; assign it what place you will in the moral system; and then discriminate between works of art according to their excellence in that quality, or those qualities, that you have laid down in your definition as essential and peculiar to works of art. You may, of course, make ethical judgments about particular works, not as works of art, but as members of some other class, or as independent and unclassified parts of the universe. You may hold that a particular picture by the President of the Royal Academy is a greater means to good than one by the glory of the New English Art Club, and that a penny bun is better than either. In such a case you will be making a moral and not an aesthetic judgment. Therefore it will be right to take into account the area of the canvases, the thickness of the frames, and the potential value of each as fuel or shelter against the rigours of our climate. In casting up accounts you should not neglect their possible effects on the middle-aged people who visit Burlington House and the Suffolk Street Gallery; nor must you forget the consciences of those who handle the Chantry funds, or of those whom high prices provoke to emulation. You will be making a moral and not an aesthetic judgment; and if you have concluded that neither picture is a work of art, though you may be wasting your time, you will not be making yourself ridiculous. But when you treat a picture as a work of art, you have, unconsciously perhaps, made a far more important moral judgment. You have assigned it to a class of objects so powerful and direct as means to spiritual exaltation that all minor merits are inconsiderable. Paradoxical as it may seem, the only relevant qualities in a work of art, judged as art, are artistic qualities: judged as a means to good, no other qualities are worth considering; for there are no qualities of greater moral value than artistic qualities, since there is no greater means to good than art. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 5: "An Essay in Aesthetics," by Roger Fry: _The New Quarterly_, No. 6, vol. ii.] [Footnote 6: McTaggart: _Some Dogmas of Religion_.] [Footnote 7: I am aware that there are men of science who preserve an open mind as to the reality of the physical universe, and recognise that what is known as "the scientific hypothesis" leaves out of account just those things that seem to us most real. Doubtless these are the true men of science; they are not the common ones.] [Footnote 8: I should not have expected the wars of so-called religion or the Puritan revolution to have awakened in men a sense of the emotional significance of the universe, and I should be a good deal surprised if Sir Edward Carson's agitation were to produce in the North-East of Ireland a crop of first-rate formal expression.] [Footnote 9: Formerly he held that inanimate beauty also was good in itself. But this tenet, I am glad to learn, he has discarded.] III THE CHRISTIAN SLOPE I. THE RISE OF CHRISTIAN ART II. GREATNESS AND DECLINE III. THE CLASSICAL RENAISSANCE AND ITS DISEASES IV. ALID EX ALIO [Illustration: _Photo, Alinari_ BYZANTINE MOSAIC, SIXTH CENTURY _S. Vitale, Ravenna_] I THE RISE OF CHRISTIAN ART What do I mean by a slope? That I hope to make clear in the course of this chapter and the next. But, as readers may expect something to go on with, I will explain immediately that, though I recognise the continuity of the stream of art, I believe that it is possible and proper to divide that stream into slopes and movements. About the exact line of division there can be no certainty. It is easy to say that in the passage of a great river from the hills to the sea, the depth, the width, the colour, the temperature, and the velocity of the waters are bound to change; to fix precisely the point of change is another matter. If I try to picture for myself the whole history of art from earliest times in all parts of the world I am unable, of course, to see it as a single thread. The stuff of which it is made is unchangeable, it is always water that flows down the river, but there is more than one channel: for instance, there is European art and Oriental. To me the universal history of art has the look of a map in which several streams descend from the same range of mountains to the same sea. They start from different altitudes but all descend at last to one level. Thus, I should say that the slope at the head of which stand the Buddhist masterpieces of the Wei, Liang, and T'ang dynasties begins a great deal higher than the slope at the head of which are the Greek primitives of the seventh century, and higher than that of which early Sumerian sculpture is the head; but when we have to consider contemporary Japanese art, Graeco-Roman and Roman sculpture, and late Assyrian, we see that all have found the same sea-level of nasty naturalism. By a slope, then, I mean that which lies between a great primitive morning, when men create art because they must, and that darkest hour when men confound imitation with art. These slopes can be subdivided into movements. The downward course of a slope is not smooth and even, but broken and full of accidents. Indeed the procession of art does not so much resemble a river as a road from the mountains to the plain. That road is a sequence of ups and downs. An up and a down together form a movement. Sometimes the apex of one movement seems to reach as high as the apex of the movement that preceded it, but always its base carries us farther down the slope. Also, in the history of art the summit of one movement seems always to spring erect from the trough of its predecessor. The upward stroke is vertical, the downward an inclined plane. For instance, from Duccio to Giotto is a step up, sharp and shallow. From Giotto to Lionardo is a long and, at times, almost imperceptible fall. Duccio is a fine decadent of that Basilian movement which half survived the Latin conquest and came to an exquisite end under the earlier Palaeologi. The peak of that movement rises high above Giotto, though Duccio near its base is below him. Giotto's art is definitely inferior to the very finest Byzantine of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and Giotto is the crest of a new movement destined and doomed inevitably to sink to depths undreamed of by Duccio. All that was spiritual in Greek civilisation was sick before the sack of Corinth, and all that was alive in Greek art had died many years earlier. That it had died before the death of Alexander let his tomb at Constantinople be my witness. Before they set the last stone of the Parthenon it was ailing: the big marbles in the British Museum are the last significant examples of Greek art; the frieze, of course, proves nothing, being mere artisan work. But the man who made what one may as well call "The Theseus" and "The Ilissus," the man whom one may as well call Phidias, crowns the last vital movement in the Hellenic slope. He is a genius, but he is no oddity: he falls quite naturally into his place as the master of the early decadence; he is the man in whom runs rich and fast but a little coarsened the stream of inspiration that gave life to archaic Greek sculpture. He is the Giotto--but an inferior Giotto--of the slope that starts from the eighth century B.C.--so inferior to the sixth century A.D.--to peter out in the bogs of Hellenistic and Roman rubbish. Whence sprang that Hellenic impulse? As yet we cannot tell. Probably, from the ruins of some venerable Mediterranean civility, against the complex materialism of which it was, in its beginnings, I dare say, a reaction. The story of its prime can be read in fragments of archaic sculpture scattered throughout Europe, and studied in the National Museum at Athens, where certain statues of athletes, dating from about 600, reveal the excellences and defects of Greek art at its best. Of its early decline in the fifth century Phidias is the second-rate Giotto; the copies of his famous contemporaries and immediate predecessors are too loathsome to be at all just; Praxiteles, in the fourth century, the age of accomplished prettiness, is the Correggio, or whatever delightful trifler your feeling for art and chronology may suggest. Fifth and fourth century architecture forbid us to forget the greatness of the Greeks in the golden age of their intellectual and political history. The descent from sensitive, though always rather finikin, drawing through the tasteful and accomplished to the feebly forcible may be followed in the pots and vases of the sixth, fifth, fourth, and third centuries. In the long sands and flats of Roman realism the stream of Greek inspiration is lost for ever. Before the death of Marcus Aurelius, Europe was as weary of materialism as England before the death of Victoria. But what power was to destroy a machine that had enslaved men so completely that they dared not conceive an alternative? The machine was grown so huge that man could no longer peer over its side; man could see nothing but its cranks and levers, could hear nothing but its humming, could mark the spinning fly-wheel and fancy himself in contemplation of the revolving spheres. Annihilation was the only escape for the Roman citizen from the Roman Empire. Yet, while in the West Hadrian was raising the Imperial talent for brutalisation to a system and a science, somewhere in the East, in Egypt, or in Asia Minor, or, more probably in Syria, in Mesopotamia, or even Persia, the new leaven was at work. That power which was to free the world was in ferment. The religious spirit was again coming to birth. Here and there, in face of the flat contradiction of circumstances, one would arise and assert that man does not live by bread alone. Orphism, Mythraism, Christianity, many forms of one spirit, were beginning to mean something more than curious ritual and discreet debauch. Very slowly a change was coming over the face of Europe. There was change before the signs of it became apparent. The earliest Christian paintings in the catacombs are purely classical. If the early Christians felt anything new they could not express it. But before the second century was out Coptic craftsmen had begun to weave into dead Roman designs something vital. The academic patterns are queerly distorted and flattened out into forms of a certain significance, as we can feel for ourselves if we go to the textile room at South Kensington. Certainly, these second century Coptic textiles are more like works of art than anything that had been produced in the Roman Empire for more than four hundred years. Egyptian paintings of the third century bear less positive witness to the fumblings of a new spirit. But at the beginning of the fourth century Diocletian built his palace at Spalato, where we have all learned to see classicism and the new spirit from the East fighting it out side by side; and, if we may trust Strzygowski, from the end of that century dates the beautiful church of Kodja-Kalessi in Isauria. The century in which the East finally dominated the West (350-450) is a period of incubation. It is a time of disconcerting activity that precedes the unmistakable launch of art upon the Christian slope. I would confidently assert that every artistic birth is preceded by a period of uneasy gestation in which the unborn child acquires the organs and energy that are to carry it forward on its long journey, if only I possessed the data that would give a tottering support to so comforting a generalisation. Alas! the births of the great slopes of antiquity are shrouded in a night scarcely ruffled by the minute researches of patient archaeologists and impervious to the startling discoveries by experts of more or less palpable forgeries. Of these critical periods we dare not speak confidently; nevertheless we can compare the fifth century with the nineteenth and draw our own conclusions. In 450 they built the lovely Galla Placidia at Ravenna. It is a building essentially un-Roman; that is to say, the Romanism that clings to it is accidental and adds nothing to its significance. The mosaics within, however, are still coarsely classical. There is a nasty, woolly realism about the sheep, and about the good shepherd more than a suspicion of the stodgy, Graeco-Roman, Apollo. Imitation still fights, though it fights a losing battle, with significant form. When S. Vitale was begun in 526 the battle was won. Sta. Sophia at Constantinople was building between 532 and 537; the finest mosaics in S. Vitale, S. Apollinare-Nuovo and S. Apollinare-in-Classe belong to the sixth century; so do SS. Sergius and Bacchus at Constantinople and the Duomo at Parenzo. In fact, to the sixth century belong the most majestic monuments of Byzantine art. It is the primitive and supreme summit of the Christian slope. The upward spring from the levels of Graeco-Romanism is immeasurable. The terms in which it could be stated have yet to be discovered. It is the whole length of the slope from Sta. Sophia to the Victoria Memorial pushed upright to stand on a base of a hundred years. We are on heights from which the mud-flats are invisible; resting here, one can hardly believe that the flats ever were, or, at any rate, that they will ever be again. Go to Ravenna, and you will see the masterpieces of Christian art, the primitives of the slope: go to the Tate Gallery or the Luxembourg, and you will see the end of that slope--Christian art at its last gasp. These _memento mori_ are salutary in an age of assurance when, looking at the pictures of Cézanne, we feel, not inexcusably, that we are high above the mud and malaria. Between Cézanne and another Tate Gallery, what lies in store for the human spirit? Are we in the period of a new incubation? Or is the new age born? Is it a new slope that we are on, or are we merely part of a surprisingly vigorous premonitory flutter? These are queries to ponder. Is Cézanne the beginning of a slope, a portent, or merely the crest of a movement? The oracles are dumb. This alone seems to me sure: since the Byzantine primitives set their mosaics at Ravenna no artist in Europe has created forms of greater significance unless it be Cézanne. With Sta. Sophia at Constantinople, and the sixth century churches and mosaics at Ravenna, the Christian slope establishes itself in Europe.[10] In the same century it took a downward twist at Constantinople; but in one part of Europe or another the new inspiration continued to manifest itself supremely for more than six hundred years. There were ups and downs, of course, movements and reactions; in some places art was almost always good, in others it was never first-rate; but there was no universal, irreparable depreciation till Norman and Romanesque architecture gave way to Gothic, till twelfth-century sculpture became thirteenth-century figuration. Christian art preserved its primitive significance for more than half a millennium. Therein I see no marvel. Even ideas and emotions travelled slowly in those days. In one respect, at any rate, trains and steam-boats have fulfilled the predictions of their exploiters--they have made everything move faster: the mistake lies in being quite so positive that this is a blessing. In those dark ages things moved slowly; that is one reason why the new force had not spent itself in six hundred years. Another is that the revelation came to an age that was constantly breaking fresh ground. Always there was a virgin tract at hand to take the seed and raise a lusty crop. Between 500 and 1000 A.D. the population of Europe was fluid. Some new race was always catching the inspiration and feeling and expressing it with primitive sensibility and passion. The last to be infected was one of the finest; and in the eleventh century Norman power and French intelligence produced in the west of Europe a manifestation of the Christian ferment only a little inferior to that which five hundred years earlier had made glorious the East. Let me insist once again that, when I speak of the Christian ferment or the Christian slope, I am not thinking of dogmatic religion. I am thinking of that religious spirit of which Christianity, with its dogmas and rituals, is one manifestation, Buddhism another. And when I speak of art as a manifestation of the religious spirit I do not mean that art expresses particular religious emotions, much less that it expresses anything theological. I have said that if art expresses anything, it expresses an emotion felt for pure form and that which gives pure form its extraordinary significance. So, when I speak of Christian art, I mean that this art was one product of that state of enthusiasm of which the Christian Church is another. So far was the new spirit from being a mere ebullition of Christian faith that we find manifestations of it in Mohammedan art; everyone who has seen a photograph of the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem knows that. The emotional renaissance in Europe was not the wide-spreading of Christian doctrines, but it was through Christian doctrine that Europe came to know of the rediscovery of the emotional significance of the Universe. Christian art is not an expression of specific Christian emotions; but it was only when men had been roused by Christianity that they began to feel the emotions that express themselves in form. It was Christianity that put Europe into that state of emotional turmoil from which sprang Christian art. For a moment, in the sixth century, the flood of enthusiasm seems to have carried the Eastern world, even the official world, off its feet. But Byzantine officials were no fonder of swimming than others. The men who worked the imperial machine, studied the Alexandrine poets, and dabbled in classical archaeology were not the men to look forward. Only the people, led by the monks, were vaguely, and doubtless stupidly, on the side of emotion and the future. Soon after Justinian's death the Empire began to divide itself into two camps. Appropriately, religious art was the standard of the popular party, and around that standard the battle raged. "No man," said Lord Melbourne, "has more respect for the Christian religion than I; but when it comes to dragging it into private life...." At Constantinople they began dragging religion, and art too, into the sanctity of private capital. Now, no official worth his salt can watch the shadow being recklessly sacrificed to the substance without itching to set the police on somebody; and the vigilance and sagacity of Byzantine civilians has become proverbial. We learn from a letter written by Pope Gregory II to the Emperor Leo, the iconoclast, that men were willing to give their estates for a picture. This, to Pope, Emperor, and Mr. Finlay the historian, was proof enough of appalling demoralisation. For a parallel, I suppose, they recalled the shameful imprudence of the Magdalene. There were people at Constantinople who took art seriously, though in a rather too literary spirit--"dicunt enim artem pictoriam piam esse." This sort of thing had to be stopped. Early in the eighth century began the iconoclast onslaught. The history of that hundred years' war, in which the popular party carried on a spirited and finally successful resistance, does not concern us. One detail, however, is worth noticing. During the iconoclast persecution a new popular art makes its appearance in and about those remote monasteries that were the strongholds of the mystics. Of this art the Chloudof Psalter is the most famous example. Certainly the art of the Chloudof Psalter is not great. A desire to be illustrative generally mars both the drawing and the design. It mars, but does not utterly ruin; in many of the drawings something significant persists. There is, however, always too much realism and too much literature. But neither the realism nor the literature is derived from classical models. The work is essentially original. It is also essentially popular. Indeed, it is something of a party pamphlet; and in one place we see the Emperor and his cabinet doing duty as a conclave of the damned. It would be easy to overrate the artistic value of the Chloudof Psalter, but as a document it is of the highest importance, because it brings out clearly the opposition between the official art of the iconoclasts that leaned on the Hellenistic tradition and borrowed bluntly from Bagdad, and the vital art that drew its inspiration from the Christian movement and transmuted all its borrowing into something new. Side by side with this live art of the Christian movement we shall see a continuous output of work based on the imitation of classical models. Those coarse and dreary objects that crop up more or less frequently in early Byzantine, Merovingian, Carolingian, Ottonian, Romanesque, and early Italian art, are not, however, an inheritance from the iconoclastic period; they are the long shadow thrown across history by the gigantic finger of imperial Rome. The mischief done by the iconoclasts was not irreparable, but it was grave. True to their class, Byzantine officials indulged a taste for furniture, giving thereby an unintentional sting to their attack. Like the grandees of the Classical Renaissance, they degraded art, which is a religion, to upholstery, a menial trade. They patronised craftsmen who looked not into their hearts, but into the past--who from the court of the Kalif brought pretty patterns, and from classical antiquity elegant illusions, to do duty for significant design. They looked to Greece and Rome as did the men of the Renaissance, and, like them, lost in the science of representation the art of creation. In the age of the iconoclasts, modelling--the coarse Roman modelling--begins to bulge and curl luxuriously at Constantinople. The eighth century in the East is a portent of the sixteenth in the West. It is the restoration of materialism with its paramour, obsequious art. The art of the iconoclasts tells us the story of their days; it is descriptive, official, eclectic, historical, plutocratic, palatial, and vulgar. Fortunately, its triumph was partial and ephemeral. For art was still too vigorous to be strangled by a pack of cultivated mandarins. In the end the mystics triumphed. Under the Regent Theodora (842) the images were finally restored; under the Basilian dynasty (867-1057) and under the Comneni Byzantine art enjoyed a second golden age. And though I cannot rate the best Byzantine art of the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries quite so high as I rate that of the sixth, I am inclined to hold it superior, not only to anything that was to come, but also to the very finest achievement of the greatest ages of Egypt, Crete, and Greece. II GREATNESS AND DECLINE Having glanced at the beginnings of Christian art, we must not linger over the history of Byzantine. Eastern traders and artisans, pushing into Western Europe from the Adriatic and along the valley of the Rhone, carried with them the ferment. Monks driven out of the East by the iconoclast persecutions found Western Europe Christian and left it religious. The strength of the movement in Europe between 500 and 900 is commonly under-rated. That is partly because its extant monuments are not obvious. Buildings are the things to catch the eye, and, outside Ravenna, there is comparatively little Christian architecture of this period. Also the cultivated, spoon-fed art of the renaissance court of Charlemagne is too often allowed to misrepresent one age and disgust another. Of course the bulk of those opulent knick-knacks manufactured for the Carolingian and Ottonian Emperors, and now to be seen at Aachen, are as beastly as anything else that is made simply to be precious. They reflect German taste at its worst; and, in tracing the line, or estimating the value, of the Christian slope it is prudent to overlook even the best of Teutonic effort.[11] For the bulk of it is not primitive or mediaeval or renaissance art, but German art. At any rate it is a manifestation of national character rather than of aesthetic inspiration. Most aesthetic creation bears the mark of nationality; very few manifestations of German nationality bear a trace of aesthetic creation. The differences between the treasures of Aachen, early German architecture, fifteenth-century German sculpture, and the work produced to-day at Munich are superficial. Almost all is profoundly German, and nothing else. That is to say, it is conscientious, rightly intentioned, excessively able, and lacking in just that which distinguishes a work of art from everything else in the world. The inspiration and sensibility of the dark ages can be felt most surely and most easily in the works of minor art produced in France and Italy.[12] In Italy, however, there is enough architecture to prove up to the hilt, were further proof required, that the spirit was vigorous. It is the age of what Sig. Rivoira calls Pre-Lombardic Architecture--Italian Byzantine: it is the age of the Byzantine school of painting at Rome.[13] What the "Barbarians" did, indirectly, for art cannot be over-estimated. They almost extinguished the tradition of culture, they began to destroy the bogey of imperialism, they cleaned the slate. They were able to provide new bottles for the new wine. Artists can scarcely repress their envy when they hear that academic painters and masters were sold into slavery by the score. The Barbarians handed on the torch and wrought marvels in its light. But in those days men were too busy fighting and ploughing and praying to have much time for anything else. Material needs absorbed their energies without fattening them; their spiritual appetite was ferocious, but they had a live religion as well as a live art to satisfy it. It is supposed that in the dark ages insecurity and want reduced humanity to something little better than bestiality. To this their art alone gives the lie, and there is other evidence. If turbulence and insecurity could reduce people to bestiality, surely the Italians of the ninth century were the men to roar and bleat. Constantly harassed by Saracens, Hungarians, Greeks, French, and every sort of German, they had none of those encouragements to labour and create which in the vast security of the _pax Romana_ and the _pax Britannica_ have borne such glorious fruits of private virtue and public magnificence. Yet in 898 Hungarian scouts report that northern Italy is thickly populated and full of fortified towns.[14] At the sack of Parma (924) forty-four churches were burnt, and these churches were certainly more like Santa Maria di Pomposa or San Pietro at Toscanella than the Colosseum or the Royal Courts of Justice. That the artistic output of the dark ages was to some extent limited by its poverty is not to be doubted; nevertheless, more first-rate art was produced in Europe between the years 500 and 900 than was produced in the same countries between 1450 and 1850. For in estimating the artistic value of a period one tends first to consider the splendour of its capital achievements. After that one reckons the quantity of first-rate work produced. Lastly, one computes the proportion of undeniable works of art to the total output. In the dark ages the proportion seems to have been high. This is a characteristic of primitive periods. The market is too small to tempt a crowd of capable manufacturers, and the conditions of life are too severe to support the ordinary academy or salon exhibitor who lives on his private means and takes to art because he is unfit for anything else. This sort of producer, whose existence tells us less about the state of art than about the state of society, who would be the worst navvy in his gang or the worst trooper in his squadron, and is the staple product of official art schools, is unheard of in primitive ages. In drawing inferences, therefore, we must not overlook the advantage enjoyed by barbarous periods in the fact that of those who come forward as artists the vast majority have some real gift. I would hazard a guess that of the works that survive from the dark age as high a proportion as one in twelve has real artistic value. Were a proportion of the work produced between 1450 and 1850 identical with that of the work produced between 500 and 900 to survive, it might very well happen that it would not contain a single work of art. In fact, we tend to see only the more important things of this period and to leave unvisited the notorious trash. Yet judging from the picked works brought to our notice in galleries, exhibitions, and private collections, I cannot believe that more than one in a hundred of the works produced between 1450 and 1850 can be properly described as a work of art. Between 900 and 1200 the capital achievements of Christian art are not superior in quality to those of the preceding age--indeed, they fall short of the Byzantine masterpieces of the sixth century; but the first-rate art of this second period was more abundant, or, at any rate, has survived more successfully, than that of the first. The age that has bequeathed us Romanesque, Lombardic, and Norman architecture gives no sign of dissolution. We are still on the level heights of the Christian Renaissance. Artists are still primitive. Men still feel the significance of form sufficiently to create it copiously. Increased wealth purchases increased leisure, and some of that leisure is devoted to the creation of art. I do not marvel, therefore, at the common, though I think inexact, opinion that this was the period in which Christian Europe touched the summit of its spiritual history: its monuments are everywhere majestic before our eyes. Not only in France, Italy, and Spain, but in England, and as far afield as Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, we can see the triumphs of Romanesque art. This was the last level stage on the long journey from Santa Sophia to St. John's Wood. With Gothic architecture the descent began. Gothic architecture is juggling in stone and glass. It is the convoluted road that ends in a bridecake or a cucumber frame. A Gothic cathedral is a _tour de force_; it is also a melodrama. Enter, and you will be impressed by the incredible skill of the constructor; perhaps you will be impressed by a sense of dim mystery and might; you will not be moved by pure form. You may groan "A-a-h" and collapse: you will not be strung to austere ecstasy. Walk round it, and take your pleasure in subtleties of the builder's craft, quaint corners, gargoyles, and flying buttresses, but do not expect the thrill that answers the perception of sheer rightness of form. In architecture the new spirit first came to birth; in architecture first it dies. We find the spirit alive at the very end of the twelfth century in Romanesque sculpture and in stained glass: we can see it at Chartres and at Bourges. At Bourges there is an indication of the way things are going in the fact that in an unworthy building we find glass and some fragments of sculpture worthy of Chartres, and not unworthy of any age or place. Cimabue and Duccio are the last great exponents in the West of the greater tradition--the tradition that held the essential everything and the accidental nothing. For with Duccio, at any rate, the sense of form was as much traditional as vital: and the great Cimabue is _fin de siècle_. They say that Cimabue died in 1302; Duccio about fifteen years later. With Giotto (born 1276), a greater artist than either, we turn a corner as sharp as that which had been turned a hundred years earlier with the invention of Gothic architecture in France. For Giotto could be intentionally second-rate. He was capable of sacrificing form to drama and anecdote. He never left the essential out, but he sometimes knocked its corners off. He was always more interested in art than in St. Francis, but he did not always remember that St. Francis has nothing whatever to do with art. In theory that is right enough; the Byzantines had believed that they were more interested in dogmatic theology than in form, and almost every great artist has had some notion of the sort. Indeed, it seems that there is nothing so dangerous for an artist as consciously to care about nothing but art. For an artist to believe that his art is concerned with religion or politics or morals or psychology or scientific truth is well; it keeps him alive and passionate and vigorous: it keeps him up out of sentimental aestheticism: it keeps to hand a suitable artistic problem. But for an artist not to be able to forget all about these things as easily as a man who is playing a salmon forgets his lunch is the devil. Giotto lacked facility in forgetting. There are frescoes in which, failing to grasp the significance of a form, he allows it to state a fact or suggest a situation. Giotto went higher than Cimabue but he often aimed lower. Compare his "Virgin and Child" in the Accademia with that of Cimabue in the same gallery, and you will see how low his humanism could bring him. The coarse heaviness of the forms of that woman and her baby is unthinkable in Cimabue; for Cimabue had learnt from the Byzantines that forms should be significant and not lifelike. Doubtless in the minds of both there was something besides a preoccupation with formal combinations; but Giotto has allowed that "something" to dominate his design, Cimabue has forced his design to dominate it. There is something protestant about Giotto's picture. He is so dreadfully obsessed by the idea that the humanity of the mother and child is the important thing about them that he has insisted on it to the detriment of his art. Cimabue was incapable of such commonness. Therefore make the comparison--it is salutary and instructive; and then go to Santa Croce or the Arena Chapel and admit that if the greatest name in European painting is not Cézanne it is Giotto. From the peak that is Giotto the road falls slowly but steadily. Giotto heads a movement towards imitation and scientific picture-making. A genius such as his was bound to be the cause of a movement; it need not have been the cause of such a movement. But the spirit of an age is stronger than the echoes of tradition, sound they never so sweetly. And the spirit of that age, as every extension lecturer knows, moved towards Truth and Nature, away from supernatural ecstasies. There is a moment at which the spirit begins to crave for Truth and Nature, for naturalism and verisimilitude; in the history of art it is known as the early decadence. Nevertheless, on naturalism and materialism a constant war is waged by one or two great souls athirst for pure aesthetic rapture; and this war, strangely enough, is invariably described by the extension lecturer as a fight for Truth and Nature. Never doubt it, in a hundred years or less they will be telling their pupils that in an age of extreme artificiality arose two men, Cézanne and Gaugin, who, by simplicity and sincerity, led back the world to the haunts of Truth and Nature. Strangest of all, some part of what they say will be right. The new movement broke up the great Byzantine tradition,[15] and left the body of art a victim to the onslaught of that strange, new disease, the Classical Renaissance. The tract that lies between Giotto and Lionardo is the beginning of the end; but it is not the end. Painting came to maturity late, and died hard; and the art of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--especially the Tuscan schools--is not a mere historical link: it is an important movement, or rather two. The great Sienese names, Ugolino, Ambrogio Lorenzetti,[16] and Simone Martini, belong to the old world as much as to the new; but the movement that produced Masaccio, Masolino, Castagno, Donatello, Piero della Francesca, and Fra Angelico is a reaction from the Giottesque tradition of the fourteenth century, and an extremely vital movement. Often, it seems, the stir and excitement provoked by the ultimately disastrous scientific discoveries were a cause of good art. It was the disinterested adoration of perspective, I believe, that enabled Uccello and the Paduan Mantegna to apprehend form passionately. The artist must have something to get into a passion about. Outside Italy, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the approaches of spiritual bankruptcy are more obvious, though here, too, painting makes a better fight than architecture. Seven hundred years of glorious and incessant creation seem to have exhausted the constructive genius of Europe. Gothic architecture becomes something so nauseous[17] that one can only rejoice when, in the sixteenth century, the sponge is thrown up for good, and, abandoning all attempt to create, Europe settles down quietly to imitate classical models. All true creation was dead long before that; its epitaph had been composed by the master of the "Haute Oeuvre" at Beauvais. Only intellectual invention dragged on a sterile and unlucky existence. A Gothic church of the late Middle Ages is a thing made to order. A building formula has been devised within which the artificer, who has ousted the artist, finds endless opportunity for displaying his address. The skill of the juggler and the taste of the pastrycook are in great demand now that the power to feel and the genius to create have been lost. There is brisk trade in pretty things; buildings are stuck all over with them. Go and peer at each one separately if you have a tooth for cheap sweet-meats. Painting, outside Italy, was following more deliberately the road indicated by architecture. In illuminated manuscripts it is easy to watch the steady coarsening of line and colour. By the beginning of the fourteenth century, Limoges enamels have fallen into that state of damnation from which they have never attempted to rise. Of trans-Alpine figuration after 1250 the less said the better. If in Italian painting the slope is more gentle, that is partly because the spirit of the Byzantine renaissance died harder there, partly because the descent was broken by individual artists who rose superior to their circumstances. But here, too, intellect is filling the void left by emotion; science and culture are doing their work. By the year 1500 the stream of inspiration had grown so alarmingly thin that there was only just enough to turn the wheels of the men of genius. The minor artists seem already prepared to resign themselves to the inevitable. Since we are no longer artists who move, let us be craftsmen who astonish. 'Tis a fine thing to tempt urchins with painted apples: that makes the people stare. To be sure, such feats are rather beneath the descendants of Giotto; we leave them to the Dutchmen, whom we envy a little all the same. We have lost art; let us study the science of imitation. Here is a field for learning and dexterity. And, as our patrons who have lost their aesthetic perceptions have not lost all their senses, let us flatter them with grateful objects: let our grapes and girls be as luscious as lifelike. But the patrons are not all sensualists; some of them are scholars. The trade in imitations of the antique is almost as good as the trade in imitations of nature. Archaeology and connoisseurship, those twin ticks on palsied art, are upon us. To react to form a man needs sensibility; to know whether rules have been respected knowledge of these rules alone is necessary. By the end of the fifteenth century art is becoming a question of rules; appreciation a matter of connoisseurship. Literature is never pure art. Very little literature is a pure expression of emotion; none, I think is an expression of pure inhuman emotion. Most of it is concerned, to some extent, with facts and ideas: it is intellectual. Therefore literature is a misleading guide to the history of art. Its history is the history of literature; and it is a good guide to the history of thought. Yet sometimes literature will provide the historian of art with a pretty piece of collateral evidence. For instance, the fact that Charles the Great ordained that the Frankish songs should be collected and written down makes a neat pendant to the renaissance art of Aachen. People who begin to collect have lost the first fury of creation. The change that came over plastic art in France towards the end of the twelfth century is reflected in the accomplished triviality of Chrétien de Troyes. The eleventh century had produced the _Chanson de Roland_, a poem as grand and simple as a Romanesque church. Chrétien de Troyes melted down the massive conceptions of his betters and twisted them into fine-spun conceits. He produced a poem as pinnacled, deft, and insignificant as Rouen Cathedral. In literature, as in the visual arts, Italy held out longest, and, when she fell, fell like Lucifer, never to rise again. In Italy there was no literary renaissance; there was just a stirring of the rubbish heap. If ever man was a full-stop, that man was Boccaccio. Dante died at Ravenna in 1321. His death is a landmark in the spiritual history of Europe. Behind him lies that which, taken with the _Divina Commedia_, has won for Italy an exaggerated literary reputation. In the thirteenth century there was plenty of poetry hardly inferior to the _Lamento_ of Rinaldo; in the fourteenth comes Petrarch with the curse of mellifluous phrase-making. May God forget me if I forget the great Italian art of the fifteenth century. But, a host of individual geniuses and a cloud of admirable painters notwithstanding, the art of the fifteenth century was further from grace than that of the Giottesque painters of the fourteenth. And the whole output of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is immeasurably inferior to the great Byzantine and Romanesque production of the eleventh and twelfth. Indeed, it is inferior in quality, if not in quantity, to the decadent Byzantine and Italian Byzantine of the thirteenth. Therefore I will say that, already at the end of the fourteenth century, though Castagno and Masolino and Gentile da Fabriano and Fra Angelico were alive, and Masaccio and Piero and Bellini had yet to be born, it looked as if the road that started from Constantinople in the sixth century were about to end in a glissade. From Buda-Pest to Sligo, "late Gothic" stands for something as foul almost as "revival." Having come through the high passes, Europe, it seemed, was going to end her journey by plunging down a precipice. Perhaps it would have been as well; but it was not to be. The headlong rush was to be checked. The descent was to be eased by a strange detour, by a fantastic adventure, a revival that was no re-birth, a Medea's cauldron rather, an extravagant disease full of lust and laughter; the life of the old world was to be prolonged by four hundred years or so, by the galvanising power of the Classical Renaissance. III THE CLASSICAL RENAISSANCE AND ITS DISEASES The Classical Renaissance is nothing more than a big kink in the long slope; but it is a very big one. It is an intellectual event. Emotionally the consumption that was wasting Europe continued to run its course; the Renaissance was a mere fever-flash. To literature, however, its importance is immense: for literature can make itself independent of spiritual health, and is as much concerned with ideas as with emotions. Literature can subsist in dignity on ideas. Finlay's history of the Byzantine Empire provokes no emotion worth talking about, yet I would give Mr. Finlay a place amongst men of letters, and I would do as much for Hobbes, Mommsen, Sainte-Beuve, Samuel Johnson, and Aristotle. Great thinking without great feeling will make great literature. It is not for their emotional qualities that we value many of our most valued books. And when it is for an emotional quality, to what extent is that emotion aesthetic? I know how little the intellectual and factual content of great poetry has to do with its significance. The actual meaning of the words in Shakespeare's songs, the purest poetry in English, is generally either trivial or trite. They are nursery-rhymes or drawing-room ditties;-- "Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid." Could anything be more commonplace? "Hark, hark! Bow, wow, The watch-dogs bark; Bow, wow, Hark, hark! I hear The strain of strutting chanticleer Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!" What could be more nonsensical? In the verse of our second poet, Milton--so great that before his name the word "second" rings false as the giggle of fatuity--the ideas are frequently shallow and the facts generally false. In Dante, if the ideas are sometimes profound and the emotions awful, they are also, as a rule, repugnant to our better feelings: the facts are the hoardings of a parish scold. In great poetry it is the formal music that makes the miracle. The poet expresses in verbal form an emotion but distantly related to the words set down. But it is related; it is not a purely artistic emotion. In poetry form and its significance are not everything; the form and the content are not one. Though some of Shakespeare's songs approach purity, there is, in fact, an alloy. The form is burdened with an intellectual content, and that content is a mood that mingles with and reposes on the emotions of life. That is why poetry, though it has its raptures, does not transport us to that remote aesthetic beatitude in which, freed from humanity, we are up-stayed by musical and pure visual form. The Classical Renaissance was a new reading of human life, and what it added to the emotional capital of Europe was a new sense of the excitingness of human affairs. If the men and women of the Renaissance were moved by Art and Nature, that was because in Art and Nature they saw their own reflections. The Classical Renaissance was not a re-birth but a re-discovery; and that superb mess of thought and observation, lust, rhetoric, and pedantry, that we call Renaissance literature, is its best and most characteristic monument. What it rediscovered were the ideas from the heights of which the ancients had gained a view of life. This view the Renaissance borrowed. By doing so it took the sting out of the spiritual death of the late Middle Ages. It showed men that they could manage very well without a soul. It made materialism tolerable by showing how much can be done with matter and intellect. That was its great feat. It taught men how to make the best of a bad job; it proved that by cultivating the senses and setting the intellect to brood over them it is easy to whip up an emotion of sorts. When men had lost sight of the spirit it covered the body with a garment of glamour. That the Classical Renaissance was essentially an intellectual movement is proved, I think, by the fact that it left the uneducated classes untouched almost. They suffered from its consequences; it gave them nothing. A wave of emotion floods the back-gardens; an intellectual stream is kept within the irrigation channels. The Classical Renaissance made absolute the divorce of the classes from the masses. The mediaeval lord in his castle and the mediaeval hind in his hut were spiritual equals who thought and felt alike, held the same hopes and fears, and shared, to a surprising extent, the pains and pleasures of a simple and rather cruel society. The Renaissance changed all that. The lord entered the new world of ideas and refined sensuality; the peasant stayed where he was, or, as the last vestiges of spiritual religion began to disappear with the commons, sank lower. Popular art changed so gradually that in the late fifteenth and in the sixteenth century we still find, in remote corners, things that are rude but profoundly moving. Village masons could still create in stone at the time when Jacques Coeur was building himself the first "residence worthy of a millionaire" that had been "erected" since the days of Honorius. But that popular art pursued the downhill road sedately while plutocratic art went with a run is a curious accident of which the traces are soon lost; the outstanding fact is that with the Renaissance Europe definitely turns her back on the spiritual view of life. With that renunciation the power of creating significant form becomes the inexplicable gift of the occasional genius. Here and there an individual produces a work of art, so art comes to be regarded as something essentially sporadic and peculiar. The artist is reckoned a freak. We are in the age of names and catalogues and genius-worship. Now, genius-worship is the infallible sign of an uncreative age. In great ages, though we may not all be geniuses, many of us are artists, and where there are many artists art tends to become anonymous. The Classical Renaissance was something different in kind from what I have called the Christian Renaissance. It must be placed somewhere between 1350 and 1600. Place it where you will. For my part I always think of it as the gorgeous and well-cut garment of the years that fall between 1453 and 1594, between the capture of Constantinople and the death of Tintoretto. To me, it is the age of Lionardo, of Charles VIII and Francis I, of Cesare Borgia and Leo X, of Raffael, of Machiavelli, and of Erasmus, who carries us on to the second stage, the period of angry ecclesiastical politics, of Clement VII, Fontainebleau, Rabelais, Titian, Palladio, and Vasari. But, on any computation, in the years that lie between the spiritual exaltation of the early twelfth century and the sturdy materialism of the late sixteenth lies the Classical Renaissance. Whatever happened, happened between those dates. And all that did happen was nothing more than a change from late manhood to early senility complicated by a house-moving, bringing with it new hobbies and occupations. The decline from the eleventh to the seventeenth century is continuous and to be foreseen; the change from the world of Aurelian to the world of Gregory the Great is catastrophic. Since the Christian Renaissance, new ideas and knowledge notwithstanding, the world has grown rotten with decency and order. It takes more than the rediscovery of Greek texts and Graeco-Roman statues to provoke the cataclysms and earthquakes with which it grew young. The art of the High Renaissance was conditioned by the demands of its patrons. There is nothing odd about that; it is a recognised stage in the rake's progress. The patrons of the Renaissance wanted plenty of beauty of the kind dear to the impressionable stock-jobber. Only, the plutocrats of the sixteenth century had a delicacy and magnificence of taste which would have made the houses and manners of modern stock-jobbers intolerable to them. Renaissance millionaires could be vulgar and brutal, but they were great gentlemen. They were neither illiterate cads nor meddlesome puritans, nor even saviours of society. Yet, if we are to understand the amazing popularity of Titian's and of Veronese's women, we must take note of their niceness to kiss and obvious willingness to be kissed. That beauty for which can be substituted the word "desirableness," and that insignificant beauty which is the beauty of gems, were in great demand. Imitation was wanted, too; for if pictures are to please as suggestions and mementoes, the objects that suggest and remind must be adequately portrayed. These pictures had got to stimulate the emotions of life, first; aesthetic emotion was a secondary matter. A Renaissance picture was meant to say just those things that a patron would like to hear. That way lies the end of art: however wicked it may be to try to shock the public, it is not so wicked as trying to please it. But whatever the Italian painters of the Renaissance had to say they said in the grand manner. Remember, we are not Dutchmen. Therefore let all your figures suggest the appropriate emotion by means of the appropriate gesture--the gesture consecrated by the great tradition. Straining limbs, looks of love, hate, envy, fear and horror, up-turned or downcast eyes, hands outstretched or clasped in despair--by means of our marvellous machinery, and still more marvellous skill, we can give them all they ask without forestalling the photographers. But we are not recounters all, for some of our patrons are poets. To them the visible Universe is suggestive of moods or, at any rate, sympathetic with them. These value objects for their association with the fun and folly and romance of life. For them, too, we paint pictures, and in their pictures we lend Nature enough humanity to make her interesting. My lord is lascivious? Correggio will give him a background to his mood. My lord is majestic? Michelangelo will tell him that man is, indeed, a noble animal whose muscles wriggle heroically as watch-springs. The sixteenth century produced a race of artists peculiar in their feeling for material beauty, but normal, coming as they do at the foot of the hills, in their technical proficiency and aesthetic indigence. Craft holds the candle that betrays the bareness of the cupboard. The aesthetic significance of form is feebly and impurely felt, the power of creating it is lost almost; but finer descriptions have rarely been painted. They knew how to paint in the sixteenth century: as for the primitives--God bless them--they did their best: what more could they do when they couldn't even round a lady's thighs? The Renaissance was a re-birth of other things besides a taste for round limbs and the science of representing them; we begin to hear again of two diseases, endemic in imperial Rome, from which a lively and vigorous society keeps itself tolerably free--Rarity-hunting and Expertise. These parasites can get no hold on a healthy body; it is on dead and dying matter that they batten and grow fat. The passion to possess what is scarce, and nothing else, is a disease that develops as civilisation grows old and dogs it to the grave: it is saprophytic. The rarity-hunter may be called a "collector" if by "collector" you do not mean one who buys what pleases or moves him. Certainly, such an one is unworthy of the name; he lacks the true magpie instinct. To the true collector the intrinsic value of a work of art is irrelevant; the reasons for which he prizes a picture are those for which a philatelist prizes a postage-stamp. To him the question "Does this move me?" is ludicrous: the question "Is it beautiful?"--otiose. Though by the very tasteful collector of stamps or works of art beauty is allowed to be a fair jewel in the crown of rarity, he would have us understand from the first that the value it gives is purely adventitious and depends for its existence on rarity. No rarity, no beauty. As for the profounder aesthetic significance, if a man were to believe in its existence he would cease to be a collector. The question to be asked is--"Is this rare?" Suppose the answer favourable, there remains another--"Is it genuine?" If the work of any particular artist is not rare, if the supply meets the demand, it stands to reason that the work is of no great consequence. For good art is art that fetches good prices, and good prices come of a limited supply. But though it be notorious that the work of Velasquez is comparatively scarce and therefore good, it has yet to be decided whether the particular picture offered at fifty thousand is really the work of Velasquez. Enter the Expert, whom I would distinguish from the archaeologist and the critic. The archaeologist is a man with a foolish and dangerous curiosity about the past: I am a bit of an archaeologist myself. Archaeology is dangerous because it may easily overcloud one's aesthetic sensibility. The archaeologist may, at any moment, begin to value a work of art not because it is good, but because it is old or interesting. Though that is less vulgar than valuing it because it is rare and precious it is equally fatal to aesthetic appreciation. But so long as I recognise the futility of my science, so long as I recognise that I cannot appreciate a work of art the better because I know when and where it was made, so long as I recognise that, in fact, I am at a certain disadvantage in judging a sixth-century mosaic compared with a person of equal sensibility who knows and cares nothing about Romans and Byzantines, so long as I recognise that art criticism and archaeology are two different things, I hope I may be allowed to dabble unrebuked in my favourite hobby: I hope I am harmless. Art criticism, in the present state of society, seems to me a respectable and possibly a useful occupation. The prejudice against critics, like most prejudices, lives on fear and ignorance. It is quite unnecessary and rather provincial, for, in fact, critics are not very formidable. They are suspected of all sorts of high-handed practices--making and breaking reputations, running up and down, booming and exploiting--of which I should hardly think them capable. Popular opinion notwithstanding, I doubt whether critics are either omnipotent or utterly depraved. Indeed, I believe that some of them are not only blameless but even lovable characters. Those sinister but flattering insinuations and open charges of corruption fade woefully when one considers how little the critic of contemporary art can hope to get for "writing up" pictures that sell for twenty or thirty guineas apiece. The expert, to be sure, is exposed to some temptation, since a few of his words, judiciously placed, may promote a canvas from the twenty to the twenty thousand mark; but, as everyone knows, the morality of the expert is above suspicion. Useless as the occupation of the critic may be, it is probably honest; and, after all, is it more useless than all other occupations, save only those of creating art, producing food, drink, and tobacco, and bearing beautiful children? If the collector asks me, as a critic, for my opinion of the Velasquez he is about to buy, I will tell him honestly what I think of it, as a work of art. I will tell him whether it moves me much or little, and I will try to point out those qualities and relations of line and colour in which it seems to me to excel or fall short. I will try to account for the degree of my aesthetic emotion. That, I conceive, is the function of the critic. But all conjectures as to the authenticity of a work based on its formal significance, or even on its technical perfection, are extremely hazardous. It is always possible that someone else was the master's match as artist and craftsman, and of that someone's work there may be an overwhelming supply. The critic may sell the collector a common pup instead of the one uncatalogued specimen of Pseudo-kuniskos; and therefore the wary collector sends for someone who can furnish him with the sort of evidence of the authenticity of his picture that would satisfy a special juryman and confound a purchasing dealer. At artistic evidence he laughs noisily in half-crown periodicals and five-guinea tomes. Documentary evidence is what he prefers; but, failing that, he will put up with a cunning concoction of dates and watermarks, cabalistic signatures, craquelure, patina, chemical properties of paint and medium, paper and canvas, all sorts of collateral evidence, historical and biographical, and racy tricks of brush or pen. It is to adduce and discuss this sort of evidence that the Collector calls in the Expert. Anyone whom chance or misfortune has led into the haunts of collectors and experts will admit that I have not exaggerated the horror of the diseases that we have inherited from the Classical Renaissance. He will have heard the value of a picture made to depend on the interpretation of a letter. He will have heard the picture discussed from every point of view except that of one who feels its significance. By whom was it made? For whom was it made? When was it made? Where was it made? Is it all the work of one hand? Who paid for it? How much did he pay? Through what collections has it passed? What are the names of the figures portrayed? What are their histories? What the style and cut of their coats, breeches, and beards? How much will it fetch at Christie's? All these are questions to moot; and mooted they will be, by the hour. But in expert conclaves who has ever heard more than a perfunctory and silly comment on the aesthetic qualities of a masterpiece? We have seen the scholars at loggerheads over the genuineness of a picture in the National Gallery. The dispute rages round the interpretation of certain marks in the corner of the canvas. Are they, or are they not, a signature? Whatever the final decision may be, the picture will remain unchanged; but if it can be proved that the marks are the signature of the disciple, it will be valueless. If the Venus of Velasquez should turn out to be a Spanish model by del Mazo, the great ones who guide us and teach the people to love art will see to it, I trust, that the picture is moved to a position befitting its mediocrity. It is this unholy alliance between Expertise and Officialdom[18] that squanders twenty thousand on an unimpeachable Frans Hals, and forty thousand on a Mabuse for which no minor artist will wish to take credit.[19] For the money a judicious purchaser could have made one of the finest collections in England. The unholy alliance has no use for contemporary art. The supply is considerable and the names are not historic. Snobbery makes acceptable the portrait of a great lady, though it be by Boldini; and even Mr. Lavery may be welcome if he come with the picture of a king. But how are our ediles to know whether a picture of a commoner, or of some inanimate and undistinguished object, by Degas or Cézanne is good or bad? They need not know whether a picture by Hals is good; they need only know that it is by Hals. I will not describe in any detail the end of the slope, from the beginning of the seventeenth to the middle of the nineteenth century. The seventeenth century is rich in individual geniuses; but they are individual. The level of art is very low. The big names of El Greco, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Vermeer, Rubens, Jordaens, Poussin, and Claude, Wren and Bernini (as architects) stand out; had they lived in the eleventh century they might all have been lost in a crowd of anonymous equals. Rembrandt, indeed, perhaps the greatest genius of them all, is a typical ruin of his age. For, except in a few of his later works, his sense of form and design is utterly lost in a mess of rhetoric, romance, and chiaroscuro. It is difficult to forgive the seventeenth century for what it made of Rembrandt's genius. One great advantage over its predecessor it did enjoy: the seventeenth century had ceased to believe sincerely in the ideas of the Classical Renaissance. Painters could not devote themselves to suggesting the irrelevant emotions of life because they did not feel them.[20] For lack of human emotion they were driven back on art. They talked a great deal about Magnanimity and Nobility, but they thought more of Composition. For instance, in the best works of Nicolas Poussin, the greatest artist of the age, you will notice that the human figure is treated as a shape cut out of coloured paper to be pinned on as the composition directs. That is the right way to treat the human figure; the mistake lay in making these shapes retain the characteristic gestures of Classical rhetoric. In much the same way Claude treats temples and palaces, trees, mountains, harbours and lakes, as you may see in his superb pictures at the National Gallery. There they hang, beside the Turners, that all the world may see the difference between a great artist and an after-dinner poet. Turner was so much excited by his observations and his sentiments that he set them all down without even trying to co-ordinate them in a work of art: clearly he could not have done so in any case. That was a cheap and spiteful thought that prompted the clause wherein it is decreed that his pictures shall hang for ever beside those of Claude. He wished to call attention to a difference and he has succeeded beyond his expectations: curses, like hens, come home to roost. In the eighteenth century, with its dearth of genius, we perceive more clearly that we are on the flats. Chardin is the one great artist. Painters are, for the most part, upholsterers to the nobility and gentry. Some fashion handsome furniture for the dining-room, others elegant knick-knacks for the boudoir; many are kept constantly busy delineating for the respect of future generations his lordship, or her ladyship's family. The painting of the eighteenth century is brilliant illustration still touched with art. For instance, in Watteau, Canaletto, Crome, Cotman, and Guardi there is some art, some brilliance, and a great deal of charming illustration. In Tiepolo there is hardly anything but brilliance; only when one sees his work beside that of Mr. Sargent does one realise the presence of other qualities. In Hogarth there is hardly anything but illustration; one realises the presence of other qualities only by remembering the work of the Hon. John Collier. Beside the upholsterers who work for the aristocracy there is another class supported by the connoisseurs. There are the conscientious bores, whose modest aim it is to paint and draw correctly in the manner of Raffael and Michelangelo. Their first object is to stick to the rules, their second to show some cleverness in doing so. One need not bother about them. So the power of creating is almost lost, and limners must be content to copy pretty things. The twin pillars of painting in the eighteenth century were what they called "Subject" and "Treatment." To paint a beautiful picture, a boudoir picture, take a pretty woman, note those things about her that a chaste and civil dinner-partner might note, and set them down in gay colours and masses of Chinese white: you may do the same by her toilette battery, her fancy frocks, and picnic parties. Imitate whatever is pretty and you are sure to make a pretty job of it. To make a noble picture, a dining-room piece, you must take the same lady and invest her in a Doric chiton or diploida and himation; give her a pocillum, a censer, a sacrificial ram, and a distant view of Tivoli; round your modelling, and let your brush-strokes be long and slightly curved; affect sober and rather hot pigments; call the finished article "Dido pouring libations to the Goddess of Love." To paint an exhibition picture, the sort preferred by the more rigid _cognoscenti_, be sure to make no mark for which warrant cannot be found in Rubens, Sarto, Guido Reni, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Raffael, Michelangelo, or Trajan's Column. For further information consult "The Discourses" of Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A., whose recipes are made palatable by a quality infrequent in his dishes, luminosity. The intellectual reaction from Classical to Romantic is duly registered by a change of subject. Ruins and mediaeval history come into fashion. For art, which is as little concerned with the elegant bubbles of the eighteenth century as with the foaming superabundance of the Romantic revival, this change is nothing more than the swing of an irrelevant pendulum. But the new ideas led inevitably to antiquarianism, and antiquarians found something extraordinarily congenial in what was worst in Gothic art. Obedient limners follow the wiseacres. What else is there for them to follow? Stragglers from the age of reason are set down to trick out simpering angels. No longer permitted to stand on the laws of propriety or their personal dignity, they are ordered to sweeten their cold meats with as much amorous and religious sentiment as they can exude. Meanwhile the new fellows, far less sincere than the old, who felt nothing and said so, begin to give themselves the airs of artists. These Victorians are intolerable: for now that they have lost the old craft and the old tradition of taste, the pictures that they make are no longer pleasantly insignificant; they bellow "stinking mackerel." About the middle of the nineteenth century art was as nearly dead as art can be. The road ran drearily through the sea-level swamps. There were, of course, men who felt that imitation, whether of nature or of another's work, was not enough, who felt the outrage of calling the staple products of the "forties" and "fifties" art; but generally they lacked the power to make an effective protest. Art cannot die out utterly; but it lay sick in caves and cellars. There were always one or two who had a right to call themselves artists: the great Ingres[21] overlaps Crome; Corot and Daumier overlap Ingres; and then come the Impressionists. But the mass of painting and sculpture had sunk to something that no intelligent and cultivated person would dream of calling art. It was in those days that they invented the commodity which is still the staple of official exhibitions throughout Europe. You may see acres of it every summer at Burlington House and in the Salon; indeed, you may see little else there. It does not pretend to be art. If the producers mistake it for art sometimes, they do so in all innocence: they have no notion of what art is. By "art" they mean the imitation of objects, preferably pretty or interesting ones; their spokesmen have said so again and again. The sort of thing that began to do duty for art about 1840, and still passes muster with the lower middle class, would have been inconceivable at any time between the fall of the Roman Empire and the death of George IV. Even in the eighteenth century, when they could not create significant form, they knew that accurate imitation was of no value in itself. It is not until what is still official painting and sculpture and architecture gets itself accepted as a substitute for art, that we can say for certain that the long slope that began with the Byzantine primitives is ended. But when we have reached this point we know that we can sink no lower. We must mark the spot near which a huge impulse died; but we need not linger in the fetid swamps--or only long enough to say a word of justice. Do not rail too bitterly against official painters, living or dead. They cannot harm art, because they have nothing to do with it: they are not artists. If rail you must, rail at that public which, having lost all notion of what art is, demanded, and still demands, in its stead, the thing that these painters can supply. Official painting is the product of social conditions which have not yet passed away. Thousands of people who care nothing about art are able to buy and are in the habit of buying pictures. They want a background, just as the ladies and gentlemen of the _ancien régime_ wanted one; only their idea of what a background should be is different. The painter of commerce supplies what is wanted and in his simplicity calls it art. That it is not art, that it is not even an amenity, should not blind us to the fact that it is an honest article. I admit that the man who produces it satisfies a vulgar and unprofitable taste; so does the very upright tradesman who forces insipid asparagus for the Christmas market. Sir Georgius Midas will never care for art, but he will always want a background; and, unless things are going to change with surprising suddenness, it will be some time before he is unable to get what he wants, at a price. However splendid and vital the new movement may be, it will not, I fancy, unaided, kill the business of picture-making. The trade will dwindle; but I suspect it will survive until there is no one who can afford ostentatious upholstery, until the only purchasers are those who willingly make sacrifices for the joy of possessing a work of art. IV ALID EX ALIO In the nineteenth century the spirit seems to enter one of those prodigious periods of incubation for a type of which we turn automatically to the age that saw the last infirmity of Roman imperialism and of Hellenistic culture. About Victorian men and movements there is something uneasy. It is as though, having seen a shilling come down "tails," one were suddenly to surprise the ghost of a head--you could have sworn that "heads" it was. It doesn't matter, but it's disquieting. And after all, perhaps it does matter. Seen from odd angles, Victorian judges and ministers take on the airs of conspirators: there is something prophetic about Mr. Gladstone--about the Newcastle programme something pathetic. Respectable hypotheses are caught implying the most disreputable conclusions. And yet the respectable classes speculate while anarchists and supermen are merely horrified by the card-playing and champagne-drinking of people richer than themselves. Agnostics see the finger of God in the fall of godless Paris. Individualists clamour for a large and vigilant police force. That is how the nineteenth century looks to us. Most of the mountains are in labour with ridiculous mice, but the spheres are shaken by storms in intellectual teacups. The Pre-Raffaelites call in question the whole tradition of the Classical Renaissance, and add a few more names to the heavy roll of notoriously bad painters. The French Impressionists profess to do no more than push the accepted theory of representation to its logical conclusion, and by their practice, not only paint some glorious pictures, but shake the fatal tradition and remind the more intelligent part of the world that visual art has nothing to do with literature. Whistler draws, not the whole, but a part of the true moral. What a pity he was not a greater artist! Still, he was an artist; and about the year 1880 the race was almost extinct in this country.[22] Through the fog of the nineteenth century, which began in 1830, loom gigantic warnings. All the great figures are ominous. If they do not belong to the new order, they make impossible the old. Carlyle and Dickens and Victor Hugo, the products and lovers of the age, scold it. Flaubert points a contemptuous finger. Ibsen, a primitive of the new world, indicates the cracks in the walls of the old. Tolstoi is content to be nothing but a primitive until he becomes little better than a bore. By minding his own business, Darwin called in question the business of everyone else. By hammering new sparks out of an old instrument, Wagner revealed the limitations of literary music. As the twentieth century dawns, a question, which up to the time of the French Revolution had been judiciously kept academic, shoulders its way into politics: "Why is this good?" About the same time, thanks chiefly to the Aesthetes and the French Impressionists, an aesthetic conscience, dormant since before the days of the Renaissance, wakes and begins to cry, "Is this art?" It is amusing to remember that the first concerted clamour against the Renaissance and its florid sequelae arose in England; for the Romantic movement, which was as much French and German as English, was merely a reaction from the classicism of the eighteenth century, and hardly attacked, much less threw off, the dominant tyranny. We have a right to rejoice in the Pre-Raffaelite movement as an instance of England's unquestioned supremacy in independence and unconventionality of thought. Depression begins when we have to admit that the revolt led to nothing but a great many bad pictures and a little thin sentiment. The Pre-Raffaelites were men of taste who felt the commonness of the High Renaissance and the distinction of what they called Primitive Art, by which they meant the art of the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries. They saw that, since the Renaissance, painters had been trying to do something different from what the primitives had done; but for the life of them they could not see what it was that the primitives did. They had the taste to prefer Giotto to Raffael, but the only genuine reason they could give for their preference was that they felt Raffael to be vulgar. The reason was good, but not fundamental; so they set about inventing others. They discovered in the primitives scrupulous fidelity to nature, superior piety, chaste lives. How far they were from guessing the secret of primitive art appeared when they began to paint pictures themselves. The secret of primitive art is the secret of all art, at all times, in all places--sensibility to the profound significance of form and the power of creation. The band of happy brothers lacked both; so perhaps it is not surprising that they should have found in acts of piety, in legends and symbols, the material, and in sound churchmanship the very essence, of mediaeval art. For their own inspiration they looked to the past instead of looking about them. Instead of diving for truth they sought it on the surface. The fact is, the Pre-Raffaelites were not artists, but archaeologists who tried to make intelligent curiosity do the work of impassioned contemplation. As artists they do not differ essentially from the ruck of Victorian painters. They will reproduce the florid ornament of late Gothic as slavishly as the steady Academician reproduces the pimples on an orange; and if they do attempt to simplify--some of them have noticed the simplification of the primitives--they do so in the spirit, not of an artist, but of the "sedulous ape." Simplification is the conversion of irrelevant detail into significant form. A very bold Pre-Raffaelite was capable of representing a meadow by two minutely accurate blades of grass. But two minutely accurate blades of grass are just as irrelevant as two million; it is the formal significance of a blade of grass or of a meadow with which the artist is concerned. The Pre-Raffaelite method is at best symbolism, at worst pure silliness. Had the Pre-Raffaelites been blessed with profoundly imaginative minds they might have recaptured the spirit of the Middle Ages instead of imitating its least significant manifestations. But had they been great artists they would not have wished to recapture anything. They would have invented forms for themselves or derived them from their surroundings, just as the mediaeval artists did. Great artists never look back. When art is as nearly dead as it was in the middle of the nineteenth century, scientific accuracy is judged the proper end of painting. Very well, said the French Impressionists, be accurate, be scientific. At best the Academic painter sets down his concepts; but the concept is not a scientific reality; the men of science tell us that the visible reality of the Universe is vibrations of light. Let us represent things as they are--scientifically. Let us represent light. Let us paint what we see, not the intellectual superstructure that we build over our sensations. That was the theory: and if the end of art were representation it would be sound enough. But the end of art is not representation, as the great Impressionists, Renoir, Degas, Manet, knew (two of them happily know it still) the moment they left off arguing and bolted the studio door on that brilliant theorist, Claude Monet. Some of them, to be sure, turned out polychromatic charts of desolating dullness--Monet towards the end, for instance. The Neo-Impressionists--Seurat, Signac, and Cross--have produced little else. And any Impressionist, under the influence of Monet and Watteau, was capable of making a poor, soft, formless thing. But more often the Impressionist masters, in their fantastic and quite unsuccessful pursuit of scientific truth, created works of art tolerable in design and glorious in colour. Of course this oasis in the mid-century desert delighted the odd people who cared about art; they pretended at first to be absorbed in the scientific accuracy of the thing, but before long they realised that they were deceiving themselves, and gave up the pretence. For they saw very clearly that these pictures differed most profoundly from the anecdotic triumphs of Victorian workshops, not in their respectful attention to scientific theory, but in the fact that, though they made little or no appeal to the interests of ordinary life, they provoked a far more potent and profound emotion. Scientific theories notwithstanding, the Impressionists provoked that emotion which all great art provokes--an emotion in the existence of which the bulk of Victorian artists and critics were, for obvious reasons, unable to believe. The virtue of these Impressionist pictures, whatever it might be, depended on no reference to the outside world. What could it be? "Sheer beauty," said the enchanted spectators. They were not far wrong. That beauty is the one essential quality in a work of art is a doctrine that has been too insistently associated with the name of Whistler, who is neither its first nor its last, nor its most capable, exponent--but only of his age the most conspicuous. To read Whistler's _Ten o'Clock_ will do no one any harm, or much good. It is neither very brilliant nor at all profound, but it is in the right direction. Whistler is not to be compared with the great controversialists any more than he is to be compared with the great artists. To set _The Gentle Art_ beside _The Dissertation on the Letters of Phalaris_, Gibbon's _Vindication_, or the polemics of Voltaire, would be as unjust as to hang "Cremorne Gardens" in the Arena Chapel. Whistler was not even cock of the Late Victorian walk; both Oscar Wilde and Mr. Bernard Shaw were his masters in the art of controversy. But amongst Londoners of the "eighties" he is a bright figure, as much alone almost in his knowledge of what art is, as in his power of creating it: and it is this that gives a peculiar point and poignance to all his quips and quarrels. There is dignity in his impudence. He is using his rather obvious cleverness to fight for something dearer than vanity. He is a lonely artist, standing up and hitting below the belt for art. To the critics, painters, and substantial men of his age he was hateful because he was an artist; and because he knew that their idols were humbugs he was disquieting. Not only did he have to suffer the grossness and malice of the most insensitive pack of butchers that ever scrambled into the seat of authority; he had also to know that not one of them could by any means be made to understand one word that he spoke in seriousness. Overhaul the English art criticism of that time, from the cloudy rhetoric of Ruskin to the journalese of "'Arry," and you will hardly find a sentence that gives ground for supposing that the writer has so much as guessed what art is. "As we have hinted, the series does not represent any Venice that we much care to remember; for who wants to remember the degradation of what has been noble, the foulness of what has been fair?"--"'Arry" in the _Times_. No doubt it is becoming in an artist to leave all criticism unanswered; it would be foolishness in a schoolboy to resent stuff of this sort. Whistler replied; and in his replies to ignorance and insensibility, seasoned with malice, he is said to have been ill-mannered and caddish. He was; but in these respects he was by no means a match for his most reputable enemies. And ill-mannered, ill-tempered, and almost alone, he was defending art, while they were flattering all that was vilest in Victorianism. As I have tried to show in another place, it is not very difficult to find a flaw in the theory that beauty is the essential quality in a work of art--that is, if the word "beauty" be used, as Whistler and his followers seem to have used it, to mean insignificant beauty. It seems that the beauty about which they were talking was the beauty of a flower or a butterfly; now I have very rarely met a person delicately sensitive to art who did not agree, in the end, that a work of art moved him in a manner altogether different from, and far more profound than, that in which a flower or a butterfly moved him. Therefore, if you wish to call the essential quality in a work of art "beauty" you must be careful to distinguish between the beauty of a work of art and the beauty of a flower, or, at any rate, between the beauty that those of us who are not great artists perceive in a work of art and that which the same people perceive in a flower. Is it not simpler to use different words? In any case, the distinction is a real one: compare your delight in a flower or a gem with what you feel before a great work of art, and you will find no difficulty, I think, in differing from Whistler. Anyone who cares more for a theory than for the truth is at liberty to say that the art of the Impressionists, with their absurd notions about scientific representation, is a lovely fungus growing very naturally on the ruins of the Christian slope. The same can hardly be said about Whistler, who was definitely in revolt against the theory of his age. For we must never forget that accurate representation of what the grocer thinks he sees was the central dogma of Victorian art. It is the general acceptance of this view--that the accurate imitation of objects is an essential quality in a work of art--and the general inability to create, or even to recognise, aesthetic qualities, that mark the nineteenth century as the end of a slope. Except stray artists and odd amateurs, and you may say that in the middle of the nineteenth century art had ceased to exist. That is the importance of the official and academic art of that age: it shows us that we have touched bottom. It has the importance of an historical document. In the eighteenth century there was still a tradition of art. Every official and academic painter, even at the end of the eighteenth century, whose name was known to the cultivated public, whose works were patronised by collectors, knew perfectly well that the end of art was not imitation, that forms must have some aesthetic significance. Their successors in the nineteenth century did not. Even the tradition was dead. That means that generally and officially art was dead. We have seen it die. The Royal Academy and the Salon have been made to serve their useful, historical purpose. We need say no more about them. Whether those definitely artistic cliques of the nineteenth century, the men who made form a means to aesthetic emotion and not a means of stating facts and conveying ideas, the Impressionists and the Aesthetes, Manet and Renoir, Whistler and Conder, &c. &c., are to be regarded as accidental flowers blossoming on a grave or as portents of a new age, will depend upon the temperament of him who regards them. But a sketch of the Christian slope may well end with the Impressionists, for Impressionist theory is a blind alley. Its only logical development would be an art-machine--a machine for establishing values correctly, and determining what the eye sees scientifically, thereby making the production of art a mechanical certainty. Such a machine, I am told, was invented by an Englishman. Now if the praying-machine be admittedly the last shift of senile religion, the value-finding machine may fairly be taken for the psychopomp of art. Art has passed from the primitive creation of significant form to the highly civilised statement of scientific fact. I think the machine, which is the intelligent and respectable end, should be preserved, if still it exists, at South Kensington or in the Louvre, along with the earlier monuments of the Christian slope. As for that uninteresting and disreputable end, official nineteenth-century art, it can be studied in a hundred public galleries and in annual exhibitions all over the world. It is the mouldy and therefore the obvious end. The spirit that came to birth with the triumph of art over Graeco-Roman realism dies with the ousting of art by the picture of commerce. But if the Impressionists, with their scientific equipment, their astonishing technique, and their intellectualism, mark the end of one era, do they not rumour the coming of another? Certainly to-day there is stress in the cryptic laboratory of Time. A great thing is dead; but, as that sagacious Roman noted: "haud igitur penitus pereunt quaecumque videntur, quando alid ex alio reficit natura nec ullam rem gigni patitur nisi morte adiuta aliena." And do not the Impressionists, with their power of creating works of art that stand on their own feet, bear in their arms a new age? For if the venial sin of Impressionism is a grotesque theory and its justification a glorious practice, its historical importance consists in its having taught people to seek the significance of art in the work itself, instead of hunting for it in the emotions and interests of the outer world. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 10: I am not being so stupid as to suggest that in the sixth century the Hellenistic influence died. It persisted for another 300 years at least. In sculpture and ivory carving it was only ousted by the Romanesque movement of the eleventh century. Inevitably a great deal of Hellenistic stuff continued to be produced after the rise of Byzantine art. For how many years after the maturity of Cézanne will painters continue to produce chromophotographs? Hundreds perhaps. For all that, Cézanne marks a change--the birth of a movement if not of a slope.] [Footnote 11: It will be found instructive to study cases 10-14 of enamels and metal-work at South Kensington. The tyro will have no difficulty in "spotting" the German and Rheinish productions. Alas! the only possible mistake would be a confusion between German and English. Certainly the famous Gloucester candlestick (1100) is as common as anything in the place, unless it be the even more famous Cologne Reliquary (1170).] [Footnote 12: Patriots can take pleasure in the study of Saxon sculpture.] [Footnote 13: Several schools of painting and drawing flourished during these centuries in Italy and north of the Alps. In S. Clemente alone it is easy to discover the work of two distinct periods between 600 and 900. The extant examples of both are superb.] [Footnote 14: _The Making of Western Europe_: C.L.R. Fletcher.] [Footnote 15: Throughout the whole primitive and middle period, however, two tendencies are distinguishable--one vital, derived from Constantinople, the other, dead and swollen, from imperial Rome. Up to the thirteenth century the Byzantine influence is easily predominant. I have often thought that an amusing book might be compiled in which the two tendencies would be well distinguished and illustrated. In Pisa and its neighbourhood the author will find a surfeit of Romanised primitives.] [Footnote 16: Pietro is, of course, nearer to Giotto.] [Footnote 17: Owing to the English invention of "Perpendicular," the least unsatisfactory style of Gothic architecture, the English find it hard to realise the full horrors of late Gothic.] [Footnote 18: In speaking of officialdom it is not the directors of galleries and departments whom I have in mind. Many of them are on the right side; we should all be delighted to see Sir Charles Holroyd or Mr. Maclagan, for instances, let loose amongst the primitives with forty thousand pounds in pocket. I am thinking of those larger luminaries who set their important faces against the acquisition of works of art, the men who have been put in authority over directors and the rest of us.] [Footnote 19: The Mabuse, however, was a bargain that the merchants and money-lenders who settle these things could hardly be expected to resist. The ticket price is said to have been £120,000.] [Footnote 20: It was Mr. Roger Fry who made this illuminating discovery.] [Footnote 21: It is pleasant to remember that by the painters, critics, and rich amateurs of "the old gang" the pictures of Ingres were treated as bad jokes. Ingres was accused of distortion, ugliness, and even of incompetence! His work was called "mad" and "puerile." He was derided as a pseudo-primitive, and hated as one who would subvert the great tradition by trying to put back the clock four hundred years. The same authorities discovered in 1824 that Constable's _Hay Wain_ was the outcome of a sponge full of colour having been thrown at a canvas. _Nous avons changé tout ça._] [Footnote 22: As Mr. Walter Sickert reminds me, there was Sickert.] IV THE MOVEMENT I. THE DEBT TO CÉZANNE II. SIMPLIFICATION AND DESIGN III. THE PATHETIC FALLACY [Illustration: CÉZANNE _Photo, Druet_] I THE DEBT TO CÉZANNE That with the maturity of Cézanne a new movement came to birth will hardly be disputed by anyone who has managed to survive the "nineties"; that this movement is the beginning of a new slope is a possibility worth discussing, but about which no decided opinion can yet be held. In so far as one man can be said to inspire a whole age, Cézanne inspires the contemporary movement: he stands a little apart, however, because he is too big to take a place in any scheme of historical development; he is one of those figures that dominate an age and are not to be fitted into any of the neat little pigeon-holes so thoughtfully prepared for us by evolutionists. He passed through the greater part of life unnoticed, and came near creeping out of it undiscovered. No one seems to have guessed at what was happening. It is easy now to see how much we owe to him, and how little he owed to anyone; for us it is easy to see what Gaugin and Van Gogh borrowed--in 1890, the year in which the latter died, it was not so. They were sharp eyes, indeed, that discerned before the dawn of the new century that Cézanne had founded a movement. That movement is still young. But I think it would be safe to say that already it has produced as much good art as its predecessor. Cézanne, of course, created far greater things than any Impressionist painter; and Gaugin, Van Gogh, Matisse, Rousseau, Picasso, de Vlaminck, Derain, Herbin, Marchand, Marquet, Bonnard, Duncan Grant, Maillol, Lewis, Kandinsky, Brancuzi, von Anrep, Roger Fry, Friesz, Goncharova, L'Hôte, are Rolands for the Olivers of any other artistic period.[23] They are not all great artists, but they all are artists. If the Impressionists raised the proportion of works of art in the general pictorial output from about one in five hundred thousand to one in a hundred thousand, the Post-Impressionists (for after all it is sensible to call the group of vital artists who immediately follow the Impressionists by that name) have raised the average again. To-day, I daresay, it stands as high as one in ten thousand. Indeed, it is this that has led some people to see in the new movement the dawn of a new age; for nothing is more characteristic of a "primitive" movement than the frequent and widespread production of genuine art. Another hopeful straw at which the sanguine catch is the admirable power of development possessed by the new inspiration. As a rule, the recognition of a movement as a movement is its death. As soon as the pontiffs discovered Impressionism, some twenty years after its patent manifestation, they academized it. They set their faces against any sort of development and drove into revolt or artistic suicide every student with an ounce of vitality in him. Before the inspiration of Cézanne had time to grow stale, it was caught up by such men as Matisse and Picasso; by them it was moulded into forms that suited their different temperaments, and already it shows signs of taking fresh shape to express the sensibility of a younger generation.[24] This is very satisfactory but it does not suffice to prove that the new movement is the beginning of a new slope; it does not prove that we stand now where the early Byzantines stood, with the ruins of a civilisation clattering about our ears and our eyes set on a new horizon. In favour of that view there are no solid arguments; yet are there general considerations, worth stating and pondering, though not to be pushed too violently. He who would cast the horoscope of humanity, or of any human activity, must neither neglect history nor trust her overmuch. Certainly the neglect of history is the last mistake into which a modern speculator is likely to fall. To compare Victorian England with Imperial Rome has been the pastime of the half-educated these fifty years. "_Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento_," is about as much Latin as it is becoming in a public schoolman to remember. The historically minded should travel a little further with their comparison (to be sure, some have done so in search of arguments against Socialism), on their way, they will not have failed to remark the materialism, the mechanical cunning, the high standard of comfort, the low standard of honesty, the spiritual indigence, the unholy alliance of cynicism with sentimentality, the degradation of art and religion to menial and mountebank offices, common in both, and in both signifying the mouldy end of what was once a vital agitation. To similise the state superstitions and observances of Rome with our official devotions and ministration, the precise busts in the British Museum with the "speaking likenesses" in the National Portrait Gallery, the academic republicanism of the cultivated patricians with English Liberalism, and the thrills of the arena with those of the playing-field, would be pretty sport for any little German boy. I shall not encourage the brat to lay an historical finger on callousness, bravado, trembling militarism, superficial culture, mean political passion, megalomania, and a taste for being in the majority as attributes common to Imperial Rome and Imperial England. Rather I will inquire whether the rest of Europe does not labour under the proverbial disability of those who live in glass-houses. It is not so much English politics as Western civilisation that reminds me of the last days of the Empire. The facility of the comparison disfavours the raking up of similarities; I need not compare Mr. Shaw with Lucian or the persecution of Christians with the savage out-bursts of our shopkeepers against anarchists. One may note, though, that it is as impossible to determine exactly when and whence came the religious spirit that was to make an end of Graeco-Roman materialism as to assign a birth-place to the spiritual ferment that pervades modern Europe. For though we may find a date for the maturity of Cézanne, and though I agree that the art of one genius may produce a movement, even Cézanne will hardly suffice to account for what looks like the beginning of an artistic slope and a renaissance of the human spirit. One would hesitate to explain the dark and middle ages by the mosaics at Ravenna. The spirit that was to revive the moribund Roman world came from the East; that we know. It was at work long before the world grew conscious of its existence. Its remotest origins are probably undiscoverable. To-day we can name pioneers, beside Cézanne, in the new world of emotion; there was Tolstoi, and there was Ibsen; but who can say that these did not set out in search of Eldorados of which already they had heard travellers' tales. Ruskin shook his fist at the old order to some purpose; and, if he could not see clearly what things counted, succeeded at least in making contemptible some that did not. Nietzsche's preposterous nonsense knocked the bottom out of nonsense more preposterous and far more vile. But to grub for origins is none of my business; when the Church shall be established be sure that industrious hagiographers will do justice to its martyrs and missionaries. Consider, too, that a great emotional renaissance must be preceded by an intellectual, destructive movement. To that how shall we assign a starting-point? It could be argued, I suppose, that it began with Voltaire and the Encyclopædists. Having gone so far back, the historian would find cause for going further still. How could he justify any frontier? Every living organism is said to carry in itself the germ of its own decay, and perhaps a civilisation is no sooner alive than it begins to contrive its end. Gradually the symptoms of disease become apparent to acute physicians who state the effect without perceiving the cause. Be it so; circular fatalism is as cheerful as it is sad. If ill must follow good, good must follow ill. In any case, I have said enough to show that if Europe be again at the head of a pass, if we are about to take the first step along a new slope, the historians of the new age will have plenty to quarrel about. It may be because the nineteenth century was preparing Europe for a new epoch, that it understood better its destructive critics than its constructive artists. At any rate before that century ended it had produced one of the great constructive artists of the world, and overlooked him. Whether or no he marks the beginning of a slope, Cézanne certainly marks the beginning of a movement the main characteristics of which it will be my business to describe. For, though there is some absurdity in distinguishing one artistic movement from another, since all works of art, to whatever age they belong, are essentially the same; yet these superficial differences which are the characteristics of a movement have an importance beyond that dubious one of assisting historians. The particular methods of creating form, and the particular kinds of form affected by the artists of one generation, have an important bearing on the art of the next. For whereas the methods and forms of one may admit of almost infinite development, the methods and forms of another may admit of nothing but imitation. For instance, the fifteenth century movement that began with Masaccio, Uccello, and Castagno opened up a rich vein of rather inferior ore; whereas the school of Raffael was a blind alley. Cézanne discovered methods and forms which have revealed a vista of possibilities to the end of which no man can see; on the instrument that he invented thousands of artists yet unborn may play their own tunes. What the future will owe to Cézanne we cannot guess: what contemporary art owes to him it would be hard to compute. Without him the artists of genius and talent who to-day delight us with the significance and originality of their work might have remained port-bound for ever, ill-discerning their objective, wanting chart, rudder, and compass. Cézanne is the Christopher Columbus of a new continent of form. In 1839 he was born at Aix-en-Provence, and for forty years he painted patiently in the manner of his master Pissarro. To the eyes of the world he appeared, so far as he appeared at all, a respectable, minor Impressionist, an admirer of Manet, a friend, if not a protégé, of Zola, a loyal, negligible disciple. He was on the right side, of course--the Impressionist side, the side of the honest, disinterested artists, against the academic, literary pests. He believed in painting. He believed that it could be something better than an expensive substitute for photography or an accompaniment to poor poetry. So in 1870 he was for science against sentimentality. But science will neither make nor satisfy an artist: and perhaps Cézanne saw what the great Impressionists could not see, that though they were still painting exquisite pictures their theories had led art into a _cul de sac_. So while he was working away in his corner of Provence, shut off completely from the aestheticism of Paris, from Baudelairism and Whistlerism, Cézanne was always looking for something to replace the bad science of Claude Monet. And somewhere about 1880 he found it. At Aix-en-Provence came to him a revelation that has set a gulf between the nineteenth century and the twentieth: for, gazing at the familiar landscape, Cézanne came to understand it, not as a mode of light, nor yet as a player in the game of human life, but as an end in itself and an object of intense emotion. Every great artist has seen landscape as an end in itself--as pure form, that is to say; Cézanne has made a generation of artists feel that compared with its significance as an end in itself all else about a landscape is negligible. From that time forward Cézanne set himself to create forms that would express the emotion that he felt for what he had learnt to see. Science became as irrelevant as subject. Everything can be seen as pure form, and behind pure form lurks the mysterious significance that thrills to ecstasy. The rest of Cézanne's life is a continuous effort to capture and express the significance of form. I have tried to say in another place that there are more roads than one by which a man may come at reality. Some artists seem to have come at it by sheer force of imagination, unaided by anything without them; they have needed no material ladder to help them out of matter. They have spoken with reality as mind to mind, and have passed on the message in forms which owe nothing but bare existence to the physical universe. Of this race are the best musicians and architects; of this race is not Cézanne. He travelled towards reality along the traditional road of European painting. It was in what he saw that he discovered a sublime architecture haunted by that Universal which informs every Particular. He pushed further and further towards a complete revelation of the significance of form, but he needed something concrete as a point of departure. It was because Cézanne could come at reality only through what he saw that he never invented purely abstract forms. Few great artists have depended more on the model. Every picture carried him a little further towards his goal--complete expression; and because it was not the making of pictures but the expression of his sense of the significance of form that he cared about, he lost interest in his work so soon as he had made it express as much as he had grasped. His own pictures were for Cézanne nothing but rungs in a ladder at the top of which would be complete expression. The whole of his later life was a climbing towards an ideal. For him every picture was a means, a step, a stick, a hold, a stepping-stone--something he was ready to discard as soon as it had served his purpose. He had no use for his own pictures. To him they were experiments. He tossed them into bushes, or left them in the open fields to be stumbling-blocks for a future race of luckless critics. Cézanne is a type of the perfect artist; he is the perfect antithesis of the professional picture-maker, or poem-maker, or music-maker. He created forms because only by so doing could he accomplish the end of his existence--the expression of his sense of the significance of form. When we are talking about aesthetics, very properly we brush all this aside, and consider only the object and its emotional effect on us; but when we are trying to explain the emotional effectiveness of pictures we turn naturally to the minds of the men who made them, and find in the story of Cézanne an inexhaustible spring of suggestion. His life was a constant effort to create forms that would express what he felt in the moment of inspiration. The notion of uninspired art, of a formula for making pictures, would have appeared to him preposterous. The real business of his life was not to make pictures, but to work out his own salvation. Fortunately for us he could only do this by painting. Any two pictures by Cézanne are bound to differ profoundly. He never dreamed of repeating himself. He could not stand still. That is why a whole generation of otherwise dissimilar artists have drawn inspiration from his work. That is why it implies no disparagement of any living artist when I say that the prime characteristic of the new movement is its derivation from Cézanne. The world into which Cézanne tumbled was a world still agitated by the quarrels of Romantics and Realists. The quarrel between Romance and Realism is the quarrel of people who cannot agree as to whether the history of Spain or the number of pips is the more important thing about an orange. The Romantics and Realists were deaf men coming to blows about the squeak of a bat. The instinct of a Romantic invited to say what he felt about anything was to recall its associations. A rose, for instance, made him think of old gardens and young ladies and Edmund Waller and sundials, and a thousand quaint and gracious things that, at one time or another, had befallen him or someone else. A rose touched life at a hundred pretty points. A rose was interesting because it had a past. "Bosh," said the Realist, "I will tell you what a rose is; that is to say, I will give you a detailed account of the properties of _Rosa setigera_, not forgetting to mention the urn-shaped calyx-tube, the five imbricated lobes, or the open corolla of five obovate petals." To a Cézanne one account would appear as irrelevant as the other, since both omit the thing that matters--what philosophers used to call "the thing in itself," what now, I imagine, they call "the essential reality." For, after all, what is a rose? What is a tree, a dog, a wall, a boat? What is the particular significance of anything? Certainly the essence of a boat is not that it conjures up visions of argosies with purple sails, nor yet that it carries coals to Newcastle. Imagine a boat in complete isolation, detach it from man and his urgent activities and fabulous history, what is it that remains, what is that to which we still react emotionally? What but pure form, and that which, lying behind pure form, gives it its significance. It was for this Cézanne felt the emotion he spent his life in expressing. And the second characteristic of the new movement is a passionate interest, inherited from Cézanne, in things regarded as ends in themselves. In saying this I am saying no more than that the painters of the movement are consciously determined to be artists. Peculiarity lies in the consciousness--the consciousness with which they set themselves to eliminate all that lies between themselves and the pure forms of things. To be an artist, they think, suffices. How many men of talent, and even of genius, have missed being effective artists because they tried to be something else? II SIMPLIFICATION AND DESIGN At the risk of becoming a bore I repeat that there is something ludicrous about hunting for characteristics in the art of to-day or of yesterday, or of any particular period. In art the only important distinction is the distinction between good art and bad. That this pot was made in Mesopotamia about 4000 B.C., and that picture in Paris about 1913 A.D., is of very little consequence. Nevertheless, it is possible, though not very profitable, to distinguish between equally good works made at different times in different places; and although the practice of associating art with the age in which it was produced can be of no service to art or artists, I am not sure that it can be of no service whatever. For if it be true that art is an index to the spiritual condition of an age, the historical consideration of art cannot fail to throw some light on the history of civilisation. It is conceivable therefore that a comparative study of artistic periods might lead us to modify our conception of human development, and to revise a few of our social and political theories. Be that as it may, this much is sure: should anyone wish to infer from the art it produced the civility of an age, he must be capable of distinguishing the work of that age from the work of all other ages. He must be familiar with the characteristics of the movement. It is my intention to indicate a few of the more obvious characteristics of the contemporary movement. But how comes it that the art of one age differs from that of another? At first sight it seems odd that art, which is the expression of man's sense of the significance of form, should vary even superficially from age to age. Yet, deeply considered, it is as certain that superficially art will always be changing as that essentially it cannot change. It seems that the ape-instinct in man is so strong that unless he were continually changing he would cease to create and merely imitate. It is the old question of the artistic problem. Only by setting himself new problems can the artist raise his powers to the white heat of creation. The forms in which artists can express themselves are infinite, and their desire to express themselves keeps up a constant change and reaction in artistic form. Not only is there something of the ancestral ape in man, there is something of the ancestral sheep; there are fashions in forms and colours and the relations of forms and colours; or, to put the matter more pleasantly, and more justly, there is sufficient accord in the sensibilities of an age to induce a certain similarity of forms. It seems as though there were strange powers in the air from which no man can altogether escape; we call them by pet names--"Movements," "Forces," "Tendencies," "Influences," "The Spirit of the Age"--but we never understand them. They are neither to be frightened nor cajoled by our airs of familiarity, which impress the public only. They exist, however, and if they did not we should have to invent them; for how else are we to explain the fact that not only do the artists of a particular period affect particular kinds of form, but that even the spectators of each new generation seem to be born with sensibilities specially apt to be flattered by them. In this age it is possible to take refuge under the magic word "Cézanne"; we can say that Cézanne has imposed his forms on Georgian painters and public, just as Wagner imposed his on Edwardian musicians and concert-goers. This explanation seems to me inadequate; and in any case it will not account for the predominance of formal fashions in ages undominated by any masterful genius. The spirit of an artistic age is, I suspect, a composition that defies complete analysis; the work of one great mind is generally one part of it, the monuments of some particular past age are often another. Technical discoveries have sometimes led to artistic changes. For instance, to men who have been in the habit of painting on wood, the invention of canvas would suggest all sorts of fascinating novelties. Lastly, there is a continual change in the appearance of those familiar objects which are the raw material of most visual artists. So, though the essential quality--significance--is constant, in the choice of forms there is perpetual change; and these changes seem to move in long flights or shorter jumps, so that we are able, with some precision, to lay our fingers on two points between which there is a certain amount of art possessing certain common characteristics. That which lies between two such points historians call a period or movement. The period in which we find ourselves in the year 1913 begins with the maturity of Cézanne (about 1885). It therefore overlaps the Impressionist movement, which certainly had life in it till the end of the nineteenth century. Whether Post-Impressionism will peter out as Impressionism has done, or whether it is the first flowering of a new artistic vitality with centuries of development before it, is, I have admitted, a matter of conjecture. What seems to me certain is that those who shall be able to contemplate our age as something complete, as a period in the history of art, will not so much as know of the existence of the artisans still amongst us who create illusions and chaffer and quarrel in the tradition of the Victorians. When they think of the early twentieth-century painters they will think only of the artists who tried to create form--the artisans who tried to create illusions will be forgotten. They will think of the men who looked to the present, not of those who looked to the past; and, therefore, it is of them alone that I shall think when I attempt to describe the contemporary movement.[25] Already I have suggested two characteristics of the movement; I have said that in their choice of forms and colours most vital contemporary artists are, more or less, influenced by Cézanne, and that Cézanne has inspired them with the resolution to free their art from literary and scientific irrelevancies. Most people, asked to mention a third, would promptly answer, I suspect--Simplification. To instance simplification as a peculiarity of the art of any particular age seems queer, since simplification is essential to all art. Without it art cannot exist; for art is the creation of significant form, and simplification is the liberating of what is significant from what is not. Yet to such depths had art sunk in the nineteenth century, that in the eyes of the rabble the greatest crime of Whistler and the Impressionists was their by no means drastic simplification. And we are not yet clear of the Victorian slough. The spent dip stinks on into the dawn. You have only to look at almost any modern building to see masses of elaboration and detail that form no part of any real design and serve no useful purpose. Nothing stands in greater need of simplification than architecture, and nowhere is simplification more dreaded and detested than amongst architects. Walk the streets of London; everywhere you will see huge blocks of ready-made decoration, pilasters and porticoes, friezes and façades, hoisted on cranes to hang from ferro-concrete walls. Public buildings have become public laughing-stocks. They are as senseless as slag-heaps, and far less beautiful. Only where economy has banished the architect do we see masonry of any merit. The engineers, who have at least a scientific problem to solve, create, in factories and railway-bridges, our most creditable monuments. They at least are not ashamed of their construction, or, at any rate, they are not allowed to smother it in beauty at thirty shillings a foot. We shall have no more architecture in Europe till architects understand that all these tawdry excrescences have got to be simplified away, till they make up their minds to express themselves in the materials of the age--steel, concrete, and glass--and to create in these admirable media vast, simple, and significant forms. The contemporary movement has pushed simplification a great deal further than Manet and his friends pushed it, thereby distinguishing itself from anything we have seen since the twelfth century. Since the twelfth century, in sculpture and glass, the thirteenth, in painting and drawing, the drift has been towards realism and away from art. Now the essence of realism is detail. Since Zola, every novelist has known that nothing gives so imposing an air of reality as a mass of irrelevant facts, and very few have cared to give much else. Detail is the heart of realism, and the fatty degeneration of art. The tendency of the movement is to simplify away all this mess of detail which painters have introduced into pictures in order to state facts. But more than this was needed. There were irrelevancies introduced into pictures for other purposes than that of statement. There were the irrelevancies of technical swagger. Since the twelfth century there has been a steady elaboration of technical complexities. Writers with nothing to say soon come to regard the manipulation of words as an end in itself. So cooks without eggs might come to regard the ritual of omelette-making, the mixing of condiments, the chopping of herbs, the stoking of fires, and the shaping of white caps, as a fine art. As for the eggs,--why that's God business: and who wants omelettes when he can have cooking? The movement has simplified the _batterie de cuisine_. Nothing is to be left in a work of art which merely shows that the craftsman knows how to put it there. Alas! It generally turns out that Life and Art are rather more complicated than we could wish; to understand exactly what is meant by simplification we must go deeper into the mysteries. It is easy to say eliminate irrelevant details. What details are not irrelevant? In a work of art nothing is relevant but what contributes to formal significance. Therefore all informatory matter is irrelevant and should be eliminated. But what most painters have to express can only be expressed in designs so complex and subtle that without some clue they would be almost unintelligible. For instance, there are many designs that can only be grasped by a spectator who looks at them from a particular point of view. Not every picture is as good seen upside down as upside up. To be sure, very sensitive people can always discover from the design itself how it should be viewed, and, without much difficulty, will place correctly a piece of lace or embroidery in which there is no informatory clue to guide them. Nevertheless, when an artist makes an intricate design it is tempting and, indeed, reasonable, for him to wish to provide a clue; and to do so he has only to work into his design some familiar object, a tree or a figure, and the business is done. Having established a number of extremely subtle relations between highly complex forms, he may ask himself whether anyone else will be able to appreciate them. Shall he not give a hint as to the nature of his organisation, and ease the way for our aesthetic emotions? If he give to his forms so much of the appearance of the forms of ordinary life that we shall at once refer them back to something we have already seen, shall we not grasp more easily their aesthetic relations in his design? Enter by the back-door representation in the quality of a clue to the nature of design. I have no objection to its presence. Only, if the representative element is not to ruin the picture as a work of art, it must be fused into the design. It must do double duty; as well as giving information, it must create aesthetic emotion. It must be simplified into significant form. Let us make no mistake about this. To help the spectator to appreciate our design we have introduced into our picture a representative or cognitive element. This element has nothing whatever to do with art. The recognition of a correspondence between the forms of a work of art and the familiar forms of life cannot possibly provoke aesthetic emotion. Only significant form can do that. Of course realistic forms may be aesthetically significant, and out of them an artist may create a superb work of art, but it is with their aesthetic and not with their cognitive value that we shall then be concerned. We shall treat them as though they were not representative of anything. The cognitive or representative element in a work of art can be useful as a means to the perception of formal relations and in no other way. It is valuable to the spectator, but it is of no value to the work of art; or rather it is valuable to the work of art as an ear-trumpet is valuable to one who would converse with the deaf: the speaker could do as well without it, the listener could not. The representative element may help the spectator; it can do the picture no good and it may do harm. It may ruin the design; that is to say, it may deprive the picture of its value as a whole; and it is as a whole, as an organisation of forms, that a work of art provokes the most tremendous emotions. From the point of view of the spectator the Post-Impressionists have been particularly happy in their simplification. As we know, a design can be composed just as well of realistic forms as of invented; but a fine design composed of realistic forms runs a great risk of being aesthetically underrated. We are so immediately struck by the representative element that the formal significance passes us by. It is very hard at first sight to appreciate the design of a picture by a highly realistic artist--Ingres, for instance; our aesthetic emotions are overlaid by our human curiosity. We do not see the figures as forms, because we immediately think of them as people. On the other hand, a design composed of purely imaginary forms, without any cognitive clue (say a Persian carpet), if it be at all elaborate and intricate, is apt to non-plus the less sensitive spectators. Post-Impressionists, by employing forms sufficiently distorted to disconcert and baffle human interest and curiosity yet sufficiently representative to call immediate attention to the nature of the design, have found a short way to our aesthetic emotions. This does not make Post-Impressionist pictures better or worse than others; it makes them more easily appreciable as works of art. Probably it will always be difficult for the mass of men to consider pictures as works of art, but it will be less difficult for them so to consider Post-Impressionist than realistic pictures; while, if they ceased to consider objects unprovided with representative clues (_e.g._ some oriental textiles) as historical monuments, they would find it very difficult to consider them at all. To assure his design, the artist makes it his first care to simplify. But mere simplification, the elimination of detail, is not enough. The informatory forms that remain have got to be made significant. The representative element, if it is not to injure the design, must become a part of it; besides giving information it has got to provoke aesthetic emotion. That is where symbolism fails. The symbolist eliminates, but does not assimilate. His symbols, as a rule, are not significant forms, but formal intelligencers. They are not integral parts of a plastic conception, but intellectual abbreviations. They are not informed by the artist's emotion, they are invented by his intellect. They are dead matter in a living organism. They are rigid and tight because they are not traversed by the rhythm of the design. The explanatory legends that illustrators used to produce from the mouths of their characters are not more foreign to visual art than the symbolic forms with which many able draughtsmen have ruined their designs. In the famous "Melancholia," and, to some extent, in a few other engravings--"St. Eustace," for instance, and "The Virgin and Child" (B. 34. British Museum),--Dürer has managed to convert a mass of detail into tolerably significant form; but in the greater part of his work (_e.g._ "The Knight," "St. Jerome") fine conception is hopelessly ruined by a mass of undigested symbolism. Every form in a work of art has, then, to be made aesthetically significant; also every form has to be made a part of a significant whole. For, as generally happens, the value of the parts combined into a whole is far greater than the value of the sum of the parts. This organisation of forms into a significant whole is called Design; and an insistence--an exaggerated insistence some will say--on design is the fourth characteristic of the Contemporary Movement. This insistence, this conviction that a work should not be good on the whole, but as a whole, is, no doubt, in part a reaction from the rather too easy virtue of some of the Impressionists, who were content to cover their canvases with charming forms and colours, not caring overmuch whether or how they were co-ordinated. Certainly this was a weakness in Impressionism--though by no means in all the Impressionist masters--for it is certain that the profoundest emotions are provoked by significant combinations of significant forms. Also, it seems certain that only in these organised combinations can the artist express himself completely. It seems that an artist creates a good design when, having been possessed by a real emotional conception, he is able to hold and translate it. We all agree, I think, that till the artist has had his moment of emotional vision there can be no very considerable work of art; but, the vision seen and felt, it still remains uncertain whether he has the force to hold and the skill to translate it. Of course the vast majority of pictures fail in design because they correspond to no emotional vision; but the interesting failures are those in which the vision came but was incompletely grasped. The painters who have failed for want of technical skill to set down what they have felt and mastered could be counted on the fingers of one hand--if, indeed, there are any to be counted. But on all sides we see interesting pictures in which the holes in the artist's conception are obvious. The vision was once perfect, but it cannot be recaptured. The rapture will not return. The supreme creative power is wanting. There are holes, and they have to be filled with putty. Putty we all know when we see it--when we feel it. It is dead matter--literal transcriptions from nature, intellectual machinery, forms that correspond with nothing that was apprehended emotionally, forms unfired with the rhythm that thrilled through the first vision of a significant whole. There is an absolute necessity about a good design arising, I imagine, from the fact that the nature of each form and its relation to all the other forms is determined by the artist's need of expressing exactly what he felt. Of course, a perfect correspondence between expression and conception may not be established at the first or the second attempt. But if the work is to be a success there will come a moment in which the artist will be able to hold and express completely his hour or minute of inspiration. If that moment does not come the design will lack necessity. For though an artist's aesthetic sense enables him, as we shall see, to say whether a design is right or wrong, only this masterful power of seizing and holding his vision enables him to make it right. A bad design lacks cohesion; a good design possesses it; if I conjecture that the secret of cohesion is the complete realisation of that thrill which comes to an artist when he conceives his work as a whole, I shall not forget that it is a conjecture. But it is not conjecture to say that when we call a design good we mean that, as a whole, it provokes aesthetic emotion, and that a bad design is a congeries of lines and colours, individually satisfactory perhaps, but as a whole unmoving. For, ultimately, the spectator can determine whether a design is good or bad only by discovering whether or no it moves him. Having made that discovery he can go on to criticise in detail; but the beginning of all aesthetic judgment and all criticism is emotion. It is after I have been left cold that I begin to notice that defective organisation of forms which I call bad design. And here, in my judgments about particular designs, I am still on pretty sure ground: it is only when I attempt to account for the moving power of certain combinations that I get into the world of conjecture. Nevertheless, I believe that mine are no bad guesses at truth, and that on the same hypothesis we can account for the difference between good and bad drawing. Design is the organisation of forms: drawing is the shaping of the forms themselves. Clearly there is a point at which the two commingle, but that is a matter of no present importance. When I say that drawing is bad, I mean that I am not moved by the contours of the forms that make up the work of art. The causes of bad drawing and bad design I believe to be similar. A form is badly drawn when it does not correspond with a part of an emotional conception. The shape of every form in a work of art should be imposed on the artist by his inspiration. The hand of the artist, I believe, must be guided by the necessity of expressing something he has felt not only intensely but definitely. The artist must know what he is about, and what he is about must be, if I am right, the translation into material form of something that he felt in a spasm of ecstasy. Therefore, shapes that merely fill gaps will be ill-drawn. Forms that are not dictated by any emotional necessity, forms that state facts, forms that are the consequences of a theory of draughtsmanship, imitations of natural objects or of the forms of other works of art, forms that exist merely to fill spaces--padding in fact,--all these are worthless. Good drawing must be inspired, it must be the natural manifestation of that thrill which accompanies the passionate apprehension of form. One word more to close this discussion. No critic is so stupid as to mean by "bad drawing," drawing that does not represent the model correctly. The gods of the art schools, Michelangelo, Mantegna, Raffael, &c. played the oddest tricks with anatomy. Everyone knows that Giotto's figures are less accurately drawn than those of Sir Edward Poynter; no one supposes that they are not drawn better. We do possess a criterion by which we can judge drawing, and that criterion can have nothing to do with truth to nature. We judge drawing by concentrating our aesthetic sensibility on a particular part of design. What we mean when we speak of "good drawing" and "bad drawing" is not doubtful; we mean "aesthetically moving" and "aesthetically insignificant." Why some drawing moves and some does not is a very different question. I have put forward an hypothesis of which I could write a pretty sharp criticism: that task, however, I leave to more willing hands. Only this I will say: just as a competent musician knows with certainty when an instrument is out of tune though the criterion resides nowhere but in his own sensibility; so a fine critic of visual art can detect lines and colours that are not alive. Whether he be looking at an embroidered pattern or at a careful anatomical study, the task is always the same, because the criterion is always the same. What he has to decide is whether the drawing is, or is not, aesthetically significant. Insistence on design is perhaps the most obvious characteristic of the movement. To all are familiar those circumambient black lines that are intended to give definition to forms and to reveal the construction of the picture. For almost all the younger artists,--Bonnard is an obvious exception--affect that architectural method of design which indeed has generally been preferred by European artists. The difference between "architectural design" and what I call "imposed design" will be obvious to anyone who compares a picture by Cézanne with a picture by Whistler. Better still, compare any first-rate Florentine of the fourteenth or fifteenth century with any Sung picture. Here are two methods of achieving the same end, equally good, so far as I can judge, and as different as possible. We feel towards a picture by Cézanne or Masaccio or Giotto as we feel towards a Romanesque church; the design seems to spring upwards, mass piles itself on mass, forms balance each other masonrywise: there is a sense of strain, and of strength to meet it. Turn to a Chinese picture; the forms seem to be pinned to the silk or to be hung from above. There is no sense of thrust or strain; rather there is the feeling of some creeper, with roots we know not where, that hangs itself in exquisite festoons along the wall. Though architectural design is a permanent characteristic of Western art, of four periods I think it would be fairly accurate to say that it is a characteristic so dominant as to be distinctive; and they are Byzantine VIth Century, Byzantine IX-XIIIth Century, Florentine XIVth and XVth Century, and the Contemporary Movement. To say that the artists of the movement insist on design is not to deny that some of them are exceptionally fine colourists. Cézanne is one of the greatest colourists that ever lived; Henri-Matisse is a great colourist. Yet all, or nearly all, use colour as a mode of form. They design in colour, that is in coloured shapes. Very few fall into the error of regarding colour as an end in itself, and of trying to think of it as something different from form. Colour in itself has little or no significance. The mere juxtaposition of tones moves us hardly at all. As colourists themselves are fond of saying, "It is the quantities that count." It is not by his mixing and choosing, but by the shapes of his colours, and the combinations of those shapes, that we recognise the colourist. Colour becomes significant only when it becomes form. It is a virtue in contemporary artists that they have set their faces against the practice of juxtaposing pretty patches of colour without much considering their formal relations, and that they attempt so to organise tones as to raise form to its highest significance. But it is not surprising that a generation of exceptionally sweet and attractive but rather formless colourists should be shocked by the obtrusion of those black lines that seem to do violence to their darling. They are irritated by pictures in which there is to be no accidental charm of soft lapses and lucky chiaroscuro. They do not admire the austere determination of these young men to make their work independent and self-supporting and unbeholden to adventitious dainties. They cannot understand this passion for works that are admirable as wholes, this fierce insistence on design, this willingness to leave bare the construction if by so doing the spectator may be helped to a conception of the plan. Critics of the Impressionist age are vexed by the naked bones and muscles of Post-Impressionist pictures. But, for my own part, even though these young artists insisted on a bareness and baldness exceeding anything we have yet seen, I should be far from blaming a band of ascetics who in an age of unorganised prettiness insisted on the paramount importance of design. III THE PATHETIC FALLACY Many of those who are enthusiastic about the movement, were they asked what they considered its most important characteristic, would reply, I imagine, "The expression of a new and peculiar point of view." "Post-Impressionism," I have heard people say, "is an expression of the ideas and feelings of that spiritual renaissance which is now growing into a lusty revolution." With this I cannot, of course, agree. If art expresses anything, it expresses some profound and general emotion common, or at least possible, to all ages, and peculiar to none. But if these sympathetic people mean, as I believe they do, that the art of the new movement is a manifestation of something different from--they will say larger than--itself, of a spiritual revolution in fact, I will not oppose them. Art is as good an index to the spiritual state of this age as of another; and in the effort of artists to free painting from the clinging conventions of the near past, and to use it as a means only to the most sublime emotions, we may read signs of an age possessed of a new sense of values and eager to turn that possession to account. It is impossible to visit a good modern exhibition without feeling that we are back in a world not altogether unworthy to be compared with that which produced primitive art. Here are men who take art seriously. Perhaps they take life seriously too, but if so, that is only because there are things in life (aesthetic ecstasy, for instance) worth taking seriously. In life, they can distinguish between the wood and the few fine trees. As for art, they know that it is something more important than a criticism of life; they will not pretend that it is a traffic in amenities; they know that it is a spiritual necessity. They are not making handsome furniture, nor pretty knick-knacks, nor tasteful souvenirs; they are creating forms that stir our most wonderful emotions. It is tempting to suppose that art such as this implies an attitude towards society. It seems to imply a belief that the future will not be a mere repetition of the past, but that by dint of willing and acting men will conquer for themselves a life in which the claims of spirit and emotion will make some headway against the necessities of physical existence. It seems, I say: but it would be exceedingly rash to assume anything of the sort, and, for myself, I doubt whether the good artist bothers much more about the future than about the past. Why should artists bother about the fate of humanity? If art does not justify itself, aesthetic rapture does. Whether that rapture is to be felt by future generations of virtuous and contented artisans is a matter of purely speculative interest. Rapture suffices. The artist has no more call to look forward than the lover in the arms of his mistress. There are moments in life that are ends to which the whole history of humanity would not be an extravagant means; of such are the moments of aesthetic ecstasy. It is as vain to imagine that the artist works with one eye on The Great State of the future, as to go to his art for an expression of political or social opinions. It is not their attitude towards the State or towards life, but the pure and serious attitude of these artists towards their art, that makes the movement significant of the age. Here are men who refuse all compromise, who will hire no half-way house between what they believe and what the public likes; men who decline flatly, and over-stridently sometimes, to concern themselves at all with what seems to them unimportant. To call the art of the movement democratic--some people have done so--is silly. All artists are aristocrats in a sense, since no artist believes honestly in human equality; in any other sense to call an artist an aristocrat or a democrat is to call him something irrelevant or insulting. The man who creates art especially to move the poor or especially to please the rich prostitutes whatever of worth may be in him. A good many artists have maimed or ruined themselves by pretending that, besides the distinction between good art and bad, there is a distinction between aristocratic art and plebeian. In a sense all art is anarchical; to take art seriously is to be unable to take seriously the conventions and principles by which societies exist. It may be said with some justice that Post-Impressionism is peculiarly anarchical because it insists so emphatically on fundamentals and challenges so violently the conventional tradition of art and, by implication, I suppose, the conventional view of life. By setting art so high, it sets industrial civilisation very low. Here, then, it may shake hands with the broader and vaguer spirit of the age; the effort to produce serious art may bear witness to a stir in the underworld, to a weariness of smug materialism and a more passionate and spiritual conception of life. The art of the movement, in so far as it is art, expresses nothing temporal or local; but it may be a manifestation of something that is happening here and now, something of which the majority of mankind seems hardly yet to be aware. Men and women who have been thrilled by the pure aesthetic significance of a work of art go away into the outer world in a state of excitement and exaltation which makes them more sensitive to all that is going forward about them. Thus, they realise with a heightened intensity the significance and possibility of life. It is not surprising that they should read this new sense of life into that which gave it. Not in the least; and I shall not quarrel with them for doing so. It is far more important to be moved by art than to know precisely what it is that moves. I should just like to remind them, though, that if art were no more than they sometimes fancy it to be, art would not move them as it does. If art were a mere matter of suggesting the emotions of life a work of art would give to each no more than what each brought with him. It is because art adds something new to our emotional experience, something that comes not from human life but from pure form, that it stirs us so deeply and so mysteriously. But that, for many, art not only adds something new, but seems to transmute and enrich the old, is certain and by no means deplorable. The fact is, this passionate and austere art of the Contemporary Movement is not only an index to the general ferment, it is also the inspiration, and even the standard, of a young, violent, and fierce generation. It is the most visible and the most successful manifestation of their will, or they think it is. Political reform, social reform, literature even, move slowly, ankle-deep in the mud of materialism and deliquescent tradition. Though not without reason Socialists claim that Liberals ride their horses, the jockeys still wear blue and buff. Mr. Lloyd George stands unsteadily on the shoulders of Mr. Gladstone; the bulk of his colleagues cling on behind. If literature is to be made the test, we shall soon be wishing ourselves back in the nineteenth century. Unless it be Thomas Hardy, there is no first-rate novelist in Europe; there is no first-rate poet; without disrespect to D'Annunzio, Shaw, or Claudel, it may be said that Ibsen was their better. Since Mozart, music has just kept her nose above the slough of realism, romance, and melodrama. Music seems to be where painting was in the time of Courbet; she is drifting through complex intellectualism and a brilliant, exasperating realism, to arrive, I hope, at greater purity.[26] Contemporary painting is the one manifest triumph of the young age. Not even the oldest and wisest dare try to smile it away. Those who cannot love Cézanne and Matisse hate them; and they not only say it, they shriek it. It is not surprising, then, that visual art, which seems to many the mirror in which they see realised their own ideals, should have become for some a new religion. Not content with its aesthetic significance, these seek in art an inspiration for the whole of life. For some of us, to be sure, the aesthetic significance is a sufficient inspiration; for the others I have no hard words. To art they take their most profound and subtle emotions, their most magnanimous ideas, their dearest hopes; from art they bring away enriched and purified emotion and exaltation, and fresh sources of both. In art they imagine that they find an expression of their most intimate and mysterious feelings; and, though they miss, not utterly but to some extent, the best that art has to give, if of art they make a religion I do not blame them. In the days of Alexander Severus there lived at Rome a Greek freed man. As he was a clever craftsman his lot was not hard. His body was secure, his belly full, his hands and brain pleasantly busy. He lived amongst intelligent people and handsome objects, permitting himself such reasonable emotions as were recommended by his master, Epicurus. He awoke each morning to a quiet day of ordered satisfaction, the prescribed toll of unexacting labour, a little sensual pleasure, a little rational conversation, a cool argument, a judicious appreciation of all that the intellect can apprehend. Into this existence burst suddenly a cranky fanatic, with a religion. To the Greek it seemed that the breath of life had blown through the grave, imperial streets. Yet nothing in Rome was changed, save one immortal, or mortal, soul. The same waking eyes opened on the same objects; yet all was changed; all was charged with meaning. New things existed. Everything mattered. In the vast equality of religious emotion the Greek forgot his status and his nationality. His life became a miracle and an ecstasy. As a lover awakes, he awoke to a day full of consequence and delight. He had learnt to feel; and, because to feel a man must live, it was good to be alive. I know an erudite and intelligent man, a man whose arid life had been little better than one long cold in the head, for whom that madman, Van Gogh, did nothing less. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 23: Need I say that this list is not intended to be exhaustive? It is merely representative.] [Footnote 24: Let us hope that it will. There certainly are ominous signs of academization amongst the minor men of the movement. There is the beginning of a tendency to regard certain simplifications and distortions as ends in themselves and party badges. There is some danger of an attempt to impose a formula on the artist's individuality. At present the infection has not spread far, and the disease has taken a mild form.] [Footnote 25: Of course there are some good artists alive who owe nothing to Cézanne. Fortunately two of Cézanne's contemporaries, Degas and Renoir, are still at work. Also there are a few who belong to the older movement, _e.g._ Mr. Walter Sickert, M. Simon Bussy, M. Vuillard, Mr. J.W. Morrice. I should be as unwilling to omit these names from a history of twentieth century art as to include them in a chapter devoted to the contemporary movement.] [Footnote 26: June 1913. _Ariadne in Naxos._ Is Strauss, our one musician of genius, himself the pivot on which the wheel is beginning to swing? Having drained the cup of Wagnerism and turned it upside down, is he now going to school with Mozart?] V THE FUTURE I. SOCIETY AND ART II. ART AND SOCIETY [Illustration: PICASSO] I SOCIETY AND ART To bother much about anything but the present is, we all agree, beneath the dignity of a healthy human animal. Yet how many of us can resist the malsane pleasure of puzzling over the past and speculating about the future? Once admit that the Contemporary Movement is something a little out of the common, that it has the air of a beginning, and you will catch yourself saying "Beginning of what?" instead of settling down quietly to enjoy the rare spectacle of a renaissance. Art, we hope, serious, alive, and independent is knocking at the door, and we are impelled to ask "What will come of it?" This is the general question, which, you will find, divides itself into two sufficiently precise queries--"What will Society do with Art?" and "What will Art do with Society?" It is a mistake to suppose that because Society cannot affect Art directly, it cannot affect it at all. Society can affect Art indirectly because it can affect artists directly. Clearly, if the creation of works of art were made a capital offence, the quantity, if not the quality, of artistic output would be affected. Proposals less barbarous, but far more terrible, are from time to time put forward by cultivated state-projectors who would make of artists, not criminals, but highly-paid officials. Though statesmanship can do no positive good to art, it can avoid doing a great deal of harm: its power for ill is considerable. The one good thing Society can do for the artist is to leave him alone. Give him liberty. The more completely the artist is freed from the pressure of public taste and opinion, from the hope of rewards and the menace of morals, from the fear of absolute starvation or punishment, and from the prospect of wealth or popular consideration, the better for him and the better for art, and therefore the better for everyone. Liberate the artist: here is something that those powerful and important people who are always assuring us that they would do anything for art can do. They might begin the work of encouragement by disestablishing and disendowing art; by withdrawing doles from art schools, and confiscating the moneys misused by the Royal Academy. The case of the schools is urgent. Art schools do nothing but harm, because they must do something. Art is not to be learned; at any rate it is not to be taught. All that the drawing-master can teach is the craft of imitation. In schools there must be a criterion of excellence and that criterion cannot be an artistic one; the drawing-master sets up the only criterion he is capable of using--fidelity to the model. No master can make a student into an artist; but all can, and most do, turn into impostors, maniacs, criminals, or just cretins, the unfortunate boys and girls who had been made artists by nature. It is not the master's fault and he ought not to be blamed. He is there to bring all his pupils to a certain standard of efficiency appreciable by inspectors and by the general public, and the only quality of which such can judge is verisimilitude. The only respects in which one work can be seen to differ from another by an ordinarily insensitive person (_e.g._ a Board of Education inspector) are choice of subject and fidelity to common vision. So, even if a drawing-master could recognise artistic talent, he would not be permitted to encourage it. It is not that drawing-masters are wicked, but that the system is vicious. Art schools must go. The money that the State at present devotes to the discouragement of Art had better, I dare say, be given to the rich. It would be tempting to save it for the purchase of works of art, but perhaps that can lead to nothing but mischief. It is unthinkable that any Government should ever buy what is best in the work of its own age; it is a question how far purchase by the State even of fine old pictures is a benefit to art. It is not a question that need be discussed; for though a State may have amongst its employés men who can recognise a fine work of art, provided it be sufficiently old, a modern State will be careful to thwart and stultify their dangerously good taste. State-acquisition of fine ancient art might or might not be a means to good--I daresay it would be; but the purchase of third-rate old masters and _objets d'art_ can benefit no one except the dealers. As I shall hope to show, something might be said for supporting and enriching galleries and museums, if only the public attitude towards, and the official conception of, these places could be changed. As for contemporary art, official patronage is the surest method of encouraging in it all that is most stupid and pernicious. Our public monuments, the statues and buildings that disgrace our streets, our postage-stamps, coins, and official portraits are mere bait to the worst instincts of the worst art-students and to the better a formidable temptation. Some of those generous prophets who sit at home dreaming of pure communistic societies have been good enough to find a place in them for the artist. Demos is to keep for his diversion a kennel of mountebanks. Artists will be chosen by the State and supported by the State. The people will pay the piper and call the tune. In the choice of politicians the method works well enough, but to art it would be fatal. The creation of soft artistic jobs is the most unlikely method of encouraging art. Already hundreds take to it, not because they have in them that which must be expressed, but because art seems to offer a pleasant and genteel career. When the income is assured the number of those who fancy art as a profession will not diminish. On the contrary, in the great State of the future the competition will be appalling. I can imagine the squeezing and intriguing between the friends of applicants and their parliamentary deputies, between the deputies and the Minister of Fine Arts; and I can imagine the art produced to fulfil a popular mandate in the days when private jobbery will be the only check on public taste. Can we not all imagine the sort of man that would be chosen? Have we no experience of what the people love? Comrades, dear democratic ladies and gentlemen, pursue, by all means, your schemes for righting the world, dream your dreams, conceive Utopias, but leave the artists out. For, tell me honestly, does any one of you believe that during the last three hundred years a single good artist would have been supported by your system? And remember, unless it had supported him it would not have allowed him to exist. Remember, too, that you will have to select or reject your artists while yet they are students--you will not be able to wait until a name has been imposed on you by years of reputation with a few good judges. If Degas is now reverenced as a master that is because his pictures fetch long prices, and his pictures fetch long prices because a handful of people who would soon have been put under the great civic pump have been for years proclaiming his mastery. And during those long years how has Degas lived? On the bounty of the people who love all things beautiful, or on the intelligence and discrimination of a few rich or richish patrons? In the great State you will not be able to take your masters ready-made with years of reputation behind them; you will have to pick them yourselves, and pick them young. Here you are, then, at the door of your annual exhibition of students' work; you are come to choose two State pensioners, and pack the rest off to clean the drains of Melbourne. They will be chosen by popular vote--the only fair way of inducting a public entertainer to a snug billet. But, unknown to you, I have placed amongst the exhibits two drawings by Claude and one by Ingres; and at this exhibition there are no names on the catalogue. Do you think my men will get a single vote? Possibly; but dare one of you suggest that in competition with any rubbishy sensation-monger either of them will stand a chance? "Oh, but," you say, "in the great new State everyone will be well educated." "Let them," I reply, "be as well educated as the M.A.s of Oxford and Cambridge who have been educated from six to six-and-twenty: and I suggest that to do even that will come pretty dear. Well, then, submit your anonymous collection of pictures to people qualified to elect members of parliament for our two ancient universities, and you know perfectly well that you will get no better result. So, don't be silly: even private patronage is less fatal to art than public. Whatever else you may get, you will never get an artist by popular election." You say that the State will select through two or three highly sensitive officials. In the first place you have got to catch your officials. And remember, these, too, in the eyes of their fellow-workers, will be men who have got hold of a soft thing. The considerations that govern the selection of State-paid artists will control the election of State-paid experts. By what sign shall the public recognise the man of sensibility, always supposing that it is a man of sensibility the public wants? John Jones, the broker's man, thinks himself quite as good a judge of art as Mr. Fry, and apparently Mr. Asquith thinks the trustees of the National Gallery better than either. Suppose you have by some miracle laid hands on a man of aesthetic sensibility and made him your officer, he will still have to answer for his purchases to a popularly elected parliament. Things are bad enough at present: the people will not tolerate a public monument that is a work of art, neither do their obedient servants wish to impose such a thing on them; but when no one can live as an artist without becoming a public servant, when all works of art are public monuments, do you seriously expect to have any art at all? When the appointment of artists becomes a piece of party patronage does anyone doubt that a score of qualifications will stand an applicant in better stead than that of being an artist? Imagine Mr. Lloyd George nominating Mr. Roger Fry Government selector of State-paid artists. Imagine--and here I am making no heavy demand on your powers--imagine Mr. Fry appointing some obscure and shocking student of unconventional talent. Imagine Mr. Lloyd George going down to Limehouse to defend the appointment before thousands of voters, most of whom have a son, a brother, a cousin, a friend, or a little dog who, they feel sure, is much better equipped for the job. If the great communistic society is bent on producing art--and the society that does not produce live art is damned--there is one thing, and one only, that it can do. Guarantee to every citizen, whether he works or whether he loafs, a bare minimum of existence--say sixpence a day and a bed in the common dosshouse. Let the artist be a beggar living on public charity. Give to the industrious practical workers the sort of things they like, big salaries, short hours, social consideration, expensive pleasures. Let the artist have just enough to eat, and the tools of his trade: ask nothing of him. Materially make the life of the artist sufficiently miserable to be unattractive, and no one will take to art save those in whom the divine daemon is absolute. For all let there be a choice between a life of dignified, highly-paid, and not over-exacting employment and the despicable life of a vagrant. There can be little doubt about the choice of most, and none about that of a real artist. Art and Religion are very much alike, and in the East, where they understand these things, there has always been a notion that religion should be an amateur affair. The pungis of India are beggars. Let artists all over the world be beggars too. Art and Religion are not professions: they are not occupations for which men can be paid. The artist and the saint do what they have to do, not to make a living, but in obedience to some mysterious necessity. They do not produce to live--they live to produce. There is no place for them in a social system based on the theory that what men desire is prolonged and pleasant existence. You cannot fit them into the machine, you must make them extraneous to it. You must make pariahs of them, since they are not a part of society but the salt of the earth. In saying that the mass of mankind will never be capable of making delicate aesthetic judgments, I have said no more than the obvious truth. A sure sensibility in visual art is at least as rare as a good ear for music. No one imagines that all are equally capable of judging music, or that a perfect ear can be acquired by study: only fools imagine that the power of nice discrimination in other arts is not a peculiar gift. Nevertheless there is no reason why the vast majority should not become very much more sensitive to art than it is; the ear can be trained to a point. But for the better appreciation, as for the freer creation, of art more liberty is needed. Ninety-nine out of every hundred people who visit picture galleries need to be delivered from that "museum atmosphere" which envelops works of art and asphyxiates beholders. They, the ninety-nine, should be encouraged to approach works of art courageously and to judge them on their merits. Often they are more sensitive to form and colour than they suppose. I have seen people show a nice taste in cottons and calicoes, and things not recognised as "Art" by the custodians of museums, who would not hesitate to assert of any picture by Andrea del Sarto that it must be more beautiful than any picture by a child or a savage. In dealing with objects that are not expected to imitate natural forms or to resemble standard masterpieces they give free rein to their native sensibility. It is only in the presence of a catalogue that complete inhibition sets in. Traditional reverence is what lies heaviest on spectators and creators, and museums are too apt to become conventicles of tradition. Society can do something for itself and for art by blowing out of the museums and galleries the dust of erudition and the stale incense of hero-worship. Let us try to remember that art is not something to be come at by dint of study; let us try to think of it as something to be enjoyed as one enjoys being in love. The first thing to be done is to free the aesthetic emotions from the tyranny of erudition. I was sitting once behind the driver of an old horse-omnibus when a string of sandwich-men crossed us carrying "The Empire" poster. The name of Genée was on the bill. "Some call that art," said the driver, turning to me, "but we know better" (my longish hair, I surmise, discovered a fellow connoisseur): "if you want art you must go for it to the museums." How this pernicious nonsense is to be knocked out of people's heads I cannot guess. It has been knocked in so solemnly and for so long by the schoolmasters and the newspapers, by cheap text-books and profound historians, by district visitors and cabinet ministers, by clergymen and secularists, by labour leaders, teetotallers, anti-gamblers, and public benefactors of every sort, that I am sure it will need a brighter and braver word than mine to knock it out again. But out it has to be knocked before we can have any general sensibility to art; for, while it remains, to ninety-nine out of every hundred a work of art will be dead the moment it enters a public gallery. The museums and galleries terrify us. We are crushed by the tacit admonition frowned from every corner that these treasures are displayed for study and improvement, by no means to provoke emotion. Think of Italy--every town with its public collection; think of the religious sightseers! How are we to persuade these middle-class masses, so patient and so pathetic in their quest, that really they could get some pleasure from the pictures if only they did not know, and did not care to know, who painted them. They cannot all be insensitive to form and colour; and if only they were not in a flutter to know, or not to forget, who painted the pictures, when they were painted, and what they represent, they might find in them the key that unlocks a world in the existence of which they are, at present, unable to believe. And the millions who stay at home, how are they to be persuaded that the thrill provoked by a locomotive or a gasometer is the real thing?--when will they understand that the iron buildings put up by Mr. Humphrey are far more likely to be works of art than anything they will see at the summer exhibition of the Royal Academy?[27] Can we persuade the travelling classes that an ordinarily sensitive human being has a better chance of appreciating an Italian primitive than an expert hagiographer? Will they understand that, as a rule, the last to feel aesthetic emotion is the historian of art? Can we induce the multitude to seek in art, not edification, but exaltation? Can we make them unashamed of the emotion they feel for the fine lines of a warehouse or a railway bridge? If we can do this we shall have freed works of art from the museum atmosphere; and this is just what we have got to do. We must make people understand that forms can be significant without resembling Gothic cathedrals or Greek temples, and that art is the creation, not the imitation, of form. Then, but not till then, can they go with impunity to seek aesthetic emotion in museums and galleries. It is argued with plausibility that a sensitive people would have no use for museums. It is said that to go in search of aesthetic emotion is wrong, that art should be a part of life--something like the evening papers or the shop windows that people enjoy as they go about their business. But, if the state of mind of one who enters a gallery in search of aesthetic emotion is necessarily unsatisfactory, so is the state of one who sits down to read poetry. The lover of poetry shuts the door of his chamber and takes down a volume of Milton with the deliberate intention of getting himself out of one world and into another. The poetry of Milton is not a part of daily life, though for some it makes daily life supportable. The value of the greatest art consists not in its power of becoming a part of common existence but in its power of taking us out of it. I think it was William Morris who said that poetry should be something that a man could invent and sing to his fellows as he worked at the loom. Too much of what Morris wrote may well have been so invented. But to create and to appreciate the greatest art the most absolute abstraction from the affairs of life is essential. And as, throughout the ages, men and women have gone to temples and churches in search of an ecstasy incompatible with and remote from the preoccupations and activities of laborious humanity, so they may go to the temples of art to experience, a little out of this world, emotions that are of another. It is not as sanctuaries from life--sanctuaries devoted to the cult of aesthetic emotion--but as class-rooms, laboratories, homes of research and warehouses of tradition, that museums and galleries become noxious. Human sensibility must be freed from the dust of erudition and the weight of tradition; it must also be freed from the oppression of culture. For, of all the enemies of art, culture is perhaps the most dangerous, because the least obvious. By "culture" it is, of course, possible to mean something altogether blameless. It may mean an education that aims at nothing but sharpening sensibility and strengthening the power of self-expression. But culture of that sort is not for sale: to some it comes from solitary contemplation, to others from contact with life; in either case it comes only to those who are capable of using it. Common culture, on the other hand, is bought and sold in open market. Cultivated society, in the ordinary sense of the word, is a congeries of persons who have been educated to appreciate _le beau et le bien_. A cultivated person is one on whom art has not impressed itself, but on whom it has been impressed--one who has not been overwhelmed by the significance of art, but who knows that the nicest people have a peculiar regard for it. The characteristic of this Society is that, though it takes an interest in art, it does not take art seriously. Art for it is not a necessity, but an amenity. Art is not something that one might meet and be overwhelmed by between the pages of _Bradshaw_, but something to be sought and saluted at appropriate times in appointed places. Culture feels no imperative craving for art such as one feels for tobacco; rather it thinks of art as something to be taken in polite and pleasant doses, as one likes to take the society of one's less interesting acquaintances. Patronage of the Arts is to the cultivated classes what religious practice is to the lower-middle, the homage that matter pays to spirit, or, amongst the better sort, that intellect pays to emotion. Neither the cultivated nor the pious are genuinely sensitive to the tremendous emotions of art and religion; but both know what they are expected to feel, and when they ought to feel it. Now if culture did nothing worse than create a class of well-educated ladies and gentlemen who read books, attend concerts, travel in Italy, and talk a good deal about art without ever guessing what manner of thing it is, culture would be nothing to make a fuss about. Unfortunately, culture is an active disease which causes positive ill and baulks potential good. In the first place, cultivated people always wish to cultivate others. Cultivated parents cultivate their children; thousands of wretched little creatures are daily being taught to love the beautiful. If they happen to have been born insensitive this is of no great consequence, but it is misery to think of those who have had real sensibilities ruined by conscientious parents: it is so hard to feel a genuine personal emotion for what one has been brought up to admire. Yet if children are to grow up into acceptable members of the cultivated class they must be taught to hold the right opinions--they must recognise the standards. Standards of taste are the essence of culture. That is why the cultured have ever been defenders of the antique. There grows up in the art of the past a traditional classification under standard masterpieces by means of which even those who have no native sensibility can discriminate between works of art. That is just what culture wants; so it insists on the veneration of standards and frowns on anything that cannot be justified by reference to them. That is the serious charge against culture. A person familiar with the masterpieces of Europe, but insensitive to that which makes them masterpieces, will be utterly non-plussed by a novel manifestation of the mysterious "that." It is well that old masters should be respected; it were better that vital art should be welcome. Vital art is a necessity, and vital art is stifled by culture, which insists that artists shall respect the standards, or, to put it bluntly, shall imitate old masters. The cultured, therefore, who expect in every picture at least some reference to a familiar masterpiece, create, unconsciously enough, a thoroughly unwholesome atmosphere. For they are rich and patronising and liberal. They are the very innocent but natural enemies of originality, for an original work is the touchstone that exposes educated taste masquerading as sensibility. Besides, it is reasonable that those who have been at such pains to sympathise with artists should expect artists to think and feel as they do. Originality, however, thinks and feels for itself; commonly the original artist does not live the refined, intellectual life that would befit the fancy-man of the cultured classes. He is not picturesque; perhaps he is positively inartistic; he is neither a gentleman nor a blackguard; culture is angry and incredulous. Here is one who spends his working hours creating something that seems strange and disquieting and ugly, and devotes his leisure to simple animalities; surely one so utterly unlike ourselves cannot be an artist? So culture attacks and sometimes ruins him. If he survives, culture has to adopt him. He becomes part of the tradition, a standard, a stick with which to beat the next original genius who dares to shove an unsponsored nose above water. In the nineteenth century cultured people were amazed to find that such cads as Keats and Burns were also great poets. They had to be accepted, and their caddishness had to be explained away. The shocking intemperance of Burns was deplored in a paragraph, and passed over--as though Burns were not as essentially a drunkard as a poet! The vulgarity of Keats's letters to Fanny Brawne did not escape the nice censure of Matthew Arnold who could not be expected to see that a man incapable of writing such letters would not have written "The Eve of St. Agnes." In our day culture having failed to suppress Mr. Augustus John welcomes him with undiscriminating enthusiasm some ten years behind the times. Here and there, a man of power may force the door, but culture never loves originality until it has lost the appearance of originality. The original genius is ill to live with until he is dead. Culture will not live with him; it takes as lover the artificer of the _faux-bon_. It adores the man who is clever enough to imitate, not any particular work of art, but art itself. It adores the man who gives in an unexpected way just what it has been taught to expect. It wants, not art, but something so much like art that it can feel the sort of emotions it would be nice to feel for art. To be frank, cultivated people are no fonder of art than the Philistines; but they like to get thrills, and they like to see old faces under new bonnets. They admire Mr. Lavery's seductive banalities and the literary and erudite novelettes of M. Rostand. They go silly over Reinhardt and Bakst. These confectioners seem to give the distinction of art to the natural thoughts and feelings of cultivated people. Culture is far more dangerous than Philistinism because it is more intelligent and more pliant. It has a specious air of being on the side of the artist. It has the charm of its acquired taste, and it can corrupt because it can speak with an authority unknown in Philistia. Because it pretends to care about art, artists are not indifferent to its judgments. Culture imposes on people who would snap their fingers at vulgarity. With culture itself, even in the low sense in which I have been using the word, we need not pick a quarrel, but we must try to free the artist and the public too from the influence of cultivated opinion. The liberation will not be complete until those who have already learned to despise the opinion of the lower middle-classes learn also to neglect the standards and the disapproval of people who are forced by their emotional limitations to regard art as an elegant amenity. If you would have fine art and fine appreciation of art, you must have a fine free life for your artists and for yourselves. That is another thing that Society can do for art: it can kill the middle-class ideal. Was ever ideal so vulnerable? The industrious apprentice who by slow pettifogging hardness works his way to the dignity of material prosperity, Dick Whittington, what a hero for a high-spirited nation! What dreams our old men dream, what visions float into the minds of our seers! Eight hours of intelligent production, eight hours of thoughtful recreation, eight hours of refreshing sleep for all! What a vision to dangle before the eyes of a hungry people! If it is great art and fine life that you want, you must renounce this religion of safe mediocrity. Comfort is the enemy; luxury is merely the bugbear of the bourgeoisie. No soul was ever ruined by extravagance or even by debauch; it is the steady, punctual gnawing of comfort that destroys. That is the triumph of matter over mind; that is the last tyranny. For how are they better than slaves who must stop their work because it is time for luncheon, must break up a conversation to dress for dinner, must leave on the doorstep the friend they have not seen for years so as not to miss the customary train? Society can do something for art, because it can increase liberty, and in a liberal atmosphere art thrives. Even politicians can do something. They can repeal censorious laws and abolish restrictions on freedom of thought and speech and conduct. They can protect minorities. They can defend originality from the hatred of the mediocre mob. They can make an end of the doctrine that the State has a right to crush unpopular opinions in the interests of public order. A mighty liberty to be allowed to speak acceptable words to the rabble! The least that the State can do is to protect people who have something to say that may cause a riot. What will not cause a riot is probably not worth saying. At present, to agitate for an increase of liberty is the best that any ordinary person can do for the advancement of art. II ART AND SOCIETY What might Art do for Society? Leaven it; perhaps even redeem it: for Society needs redemption. Towards the end of the nineteenth century life seemed to be losing its savour. The world had grown grey and anæmic, lacking passion, it seemed. Sedateness became fashionable; only dull people cared to be thought spiritual. At its best the late nineteenth century reminds one of a sentimental farce, at its worst of a heartless joke. But, as we have seen, before the turn, first in France, then throughout Europe, a new emotional movement began to manifest itself. This movement if it was not to be lost required a channel along which it might flow to some purpose. In the Middle Ages such a channel would have been ready to hand; spiritual ferment used to express itself through the Christian Church, generally in the teeth of official opposition. A modern movement of any depth cannot so express itself. Whatever the reasons may be, the fact is certain. The principal reason, I believe, is that the minds of modern men and women can find no satisfaction in dogmatic religion; and Christianity, by a deplorable mischance, has been unwilling to relinquish dogmas that are utterly irrelevant to its essence. It is the entanglement of religion in dogma that still keeps the world superficially irreligious. Now, though no religion can escape the binding weeds of dogma, there is one that throws them off more easily and light-heartedly than any other. That religion is art; for art is a religion. It is an expression of and a means to states of mind as holy as any that men are capable of experiencing; and it is towards art that modern minds turn, not only for the most perfect expression of transcendent emotion, but for an inspiration by which to live. From the beginning art has existed as a religion concurrent with all other religions. Obviously there can be no essential antagonism between it and them. Genuine art and genuine religion are different manifestations of one spirit, so are sham art and sham religion. For thousands of years men have expressed in art their ultra-human emotions, and have found in it that food by which the spirit lives. Art is the most universal and the most permanent of all forms of religious expression, because the significance of formal combinations can be appreciated as well by one race and one age as by another, and because that significance is as independent as mathematical truth of human vicissitudes. On the whole, no other vehicle of emotion and no other means to ecstasy has served man so well. In art any flood of spiritual exaltation finds a channel ready to nurse and lead it: and when art fails it is for lack of emotion, not for lack of formal adaptability. There never was a religion so adaptable and catholic as art. And now that the young movement begins to cast about for a home in which to preserve itself and live, what more natural than that it should turn to the one religion of unlimited forms and frequent revolutions? For art is the one religion that is always shaping its form to fit the spirit, the one religion that will never for long be fettered in dogmas. It is a religion without a priesthood; and it is well that the new spirit should not be committed to the hands of priests. The new spirit is in the hands of the artists; that is well. Artists, as a rule, are the last to organise themselves into official castes, and such castes, when organised, rarely impose on the choicer spirits. Rebellious painters are a good deal commoner than rebellious clergymen. On compromise which is the bane of all religion--since men cannot serve two masters--almost all the sects of Europe live and grow fat. Artists have been more willing to go lean. By compromise the priests have succeeded marvellously in keeping their vessel intact. The fine contempt for the vessel manifested by the original artists of each new movement is almost as salutary as their sublime belief in the spirit. To us, looking at the history of art, the periods of abjection and compromise may appear unconscionably long, but by comparison with those of other religions they are surprisingly short. Sooner or later a true artist arises, and often by his unaided strength succeeds in so reshaping the vessel that it shall contain perfectly the spirit. Religion which is an affair of emotional conviction should have nothing to do with intellectual beliefs. We have an emotional conviction that some things are better than others, that some states of mind are good and that others are not; we have a strong emotional conviction that a good world ought to be preferred to a bad; but there is no proving these things. Few things of importance can be proved; important things have to be felt and expressed. That is why people with things of importance to say tend to write poems rather than moral treatises. I make my critics a present of that stick. The original sin of dogmatists is that they are not content to feel and express but must needs invent an intellectual concept to stand target for their emotion. From the nature of their emotions they infer an object the existence of which they find themselves obliged to prove by an elaborately disingenuous metaphysic. The consequence is inevitable; religion comes to mean, not the feeling of an emotion, but adherence to a creed. Instead of being a matter of emotional conviction it becomes a matter of intellectual propositions. And here, very properly, the sceptic steps in and riddles the _ad hoc_ metaphysic of the dogmatist with unanswerable objections. No Cambridge Rationalist can presume to deny that I feel a certain emotion, but the moment I attempt to prove the existence of its object I lay myself open to a bad four hours. No one, however, wishes to deny the existence of the immediate object of aesthetic emotion--combinations of lines and colours. For my suggestion that there may be a remote object I shall probably get into trouble. But if my metaphysical notions are demolished in a paragraph, that will not matter in the least. No metaphysical notions about art matter. All that matter are the aesthetic emotion and its immediate object. As to the existence of a remote object and its possible nature there have been innumerable theories, most, if not all, of which have been discredited. Though a few have been defended fiercely, they have never been allowed to squeeze out art completely: dogma has never succeeded in ousting religion. It has been realised always to some extent that the significance of art depends chiefly on the emotion it provokes, that works are more important than theories. Although attempts have been made to impose dogmas, to define the remote object and to direct the emotion, a single original artist has generally been strong enough to wreck the spurious orthodoxy. Dimly it has always been perceived that a picture which moves aesthetically cannot be wrong; and that the theory that condemns it as heretical condemns itself. Art remains an undogmatic religion. You are invited to feel an emotion, not to acquiesce in a theory. Art, then, may satisfy the religious need of an age grown too acute for dogmatic religion, but to do so art must enlarge its sphere of influence. There must be more popular art, more of that art which is unimportant to the universe but important to the individual: for art can be second-rate yet genuine. Also, art must become less exclusively professional. That will not be achieved by bribing the best artists to debase themselves, but by enabling everyone to create such art as he can. It is probable that most are capable of expressing themselves, to some extent, in form; it is certain that in so doing they can find an extraordinary happiness. Those who have absolutely nothing to express and absolutely no power of expression are God's failures; they should be kindly treated along with the hopelessly idiotic and the hydrocephalous. Of the majority it is certainly true that they have some vague but profound emotions, also it is certain that only in formal expression can they realise them. To caper and shout is to express oneself, yet is it comfortless; but introduce the idea of formality, and in dance and song you may find satisfying delight. Form is the talisman. By form the vague, uneasy, and unearthly emotions are transmuted into something definite, logical, and above the earth. Making useful objects is dreary work, but making them according to the mysterious laws of formal expression is half way to happiness. If art is to do the work of religion, it must somehow be brought within reach of the people who need religion, and an obvious means of achieving this is to introduce into useful work the thrill of creation. But, after all, useful work must remain, for the most part, mechanical; and if the useful workers want to express themselves as completely as possible, they must do so in their leisure. There are two kinds of formal expression open to all--dancing and singing. Certainly it is in dance and song that ordinary people come nearest to the joy of creation. In no age can there be more than a few first-rate artists, but in any there might be millions of genuine ones; and once it is understood that art which is unfit for public exhibition may yet be created for private pleasure no one will feel shame at being called an amateur. We shall not have to pretend that all our friends are great artists, because they will make no such pretence themselves. In the great State they will not be of the company of divine beggars. They will be amateurs who consciously use art as a means to emotional beatitude; they will not be artists who, consciously or unconsciously, use everything as a means to art. Let us dance and sing, then, for dancing and singing are true arts, useless materially, valuable only for their aesthetic significance. Above all, let us dance and devise dances--dancing is a very pure art, a creation of abstract form; and if we are to find in art emotional satisfaction, it is essential that we shall become creators of form. We must not be content to contemplate merely; we must create; we must be active in our dealings with art. It is here that I shall fall foul of certain excellent men and women who are attempting to "bring art into the lives of the people" by dragging parties of school children and factory girls through the National Gallery and the British Museum. Who is not familiar with those little flocks of victims clattering and shuffling through the galleries, inspissating the gloom of the museum atmosphere? What is being done to their native sensibilities by the earnest bear-leader with his (or her) catalogue of dates and names and appropriate comments? What have all these tags of mythology and history, these pedagogic raptures and peripatetic ecstasies, to do with genuine emotion? In the guise of what grisly and incomprehensible charlatan is art being presented to the people? The only possible effect of personally conducted visits must be to confirm the victims in their suspicion that art is something infinitely remote, infinitely venerable, and infinitely dreary. They come away with a respectful but permanent horror of that old sphinx who sits in Trafalgar Square propounding riddles that are not worth answering, tended by the cultured and nourished by the rich. First learn to walk, then try running. An artisan of exceptional sensibility may get something from the masterpieces of the National Gallery, provided there is no cultivated person at hand to tell him what to feel, or to prevent him feeling anything by telling him to think. An artisan of ordinary sensibility had far better keep away until, by trying to express himself in form, he has gained some glimmer of a notion of what artists are driving at. Surely there can be no reason why almost every man and woman should not be a bit of an artist since almost every child is. In most children a sense of form is discernible. What becomes of it? It is the old story: the child is father to the man; and if you wish to preserve for the man the gift with which he was born, you must catch him young, or rather prevent his being caught. Can we by any means thwart the parents, the teachers, and the systems of education that turn children into modern men and women? Can we save the artist that is in almost every child? At least we can offer some practical advice. Do not tamper with that direct emotional reaction to things which is the genius of children. Do not destroy their sense of reality by teaching them to manipulate labels. Do not imagine that adults must be the best judges of what is good and what matters. Don't be such an ass as to suppose that what excites uncle is more exciting than what excites Tommy. Don't suppose that a ton of experience is worth a flash of insight, and don't forget that a knowledge of life can help no one to an understanding of art. Therefore do not educate children to be anything or to feel anything; put them in the way of finding out what they want and what they are. So much in general. In particular I would say, do not take children to galleries and museums; still less, of course, send them to art schools to be taught high-toned commercialism. Do not encourage them to join guilds of art and crafts, where, though they may learn a craft, they will lose their sense of art. In those respectable institutions reigns a high conception of sound work and honest workmanship. Alas! why cannot people who set themselves to be sound and honest remember that there are other things in life? The honest craftsmen of the guilds have an ideal which is praiseworthy and practical, which is mediocre and unmagnanimous, which is moral and not artistic. Craftsmen are men of principle, and, like all men of principle, they abandon the habit of thinking and feeling because they find it easier to ask and answer the question, "Does this square with my principles?"--than to ask and answer the question, "Do I feel this to be good or true or beautiful?" Therefore, I say, do not encourage a child to take up with the Arts and Crafts. Art is not based on craft, but on sensibility; it does not live by honest labour, but by inspiration. It is not to be taught in workshops and schoolrooms by craftsmen and pedants, though it may be ripened in studios by masters who are artists. A good craftsman the boy must become if he is to be a good artist; but let him teach himself the tricks of his trade by experiment, not in craft, but in art. To those who busy themselves about bringing art into the lives of the people, I would also say--Do not dabble in revivals. The very word smacks of the vault. Revivals look back; art is concerned with the present. People will not be tempted to create by being taught to imitate. Except that they are charming, revivals of morris-dancing and folk-singing are little better than Arts and Crafts in the open. The dust of the museum is upon them. They may turn boys and girls into nimble virtuosi; they will not make them artists. Because no two ages express their sense of form in precisely the same way all attempts to recreate the forms of another age must sacrifice emotional expression to imitative address. Old-world merry-making can no more satisfy sharp spiritual hunger than careful craftsmanship or half hours with our "Art Treasures." Passionate creation and ecstatic contemplation, these alone will satisfy men in search of a religion. I believe it is possible, though extremely difficult, to give people both--if they really want them. Only, I am sure that, for most, creation must precede contemplation. In Monsieur Poiret's _Ecole Martine_[28] scores of young French girls, picked up from the gutter or thereabouts, are at this moment creating forms of surprising charm and originality. That they find delight in their work is not disputed. They copy no master, they follow no tradition; what they owe to the past--and it is much--they have borrowed quite unconsciously with the quality of their bodies and their minds from the history and traditional culture of their race. Their art differs from savage art as a French _midinette_ differs from a squaw, but it is as original and vital as the work of savages. It is not great art, it is not profoundly significant, it is often frankly third-rate, but it is genuine; and therefore I rate the artisans of the _Ecole Martine_ with the best contemporary painters, not as artists, but as manifestations of the movement. I am no devout lover of rag-time and turkey-trotting, but they too are manifestations. In those queer exasperated rhythms I find greater promise of a popular art than in revivals of folk-song and morris-dancing. At least they bear some relationship to the emotions of those who sing and dance them. In so far as they are significant they are good, but they are of no great significance. It is not in the souls of bunny-huggers that the new ferment is potent; they will not dance and sing the world out of its lethargy; not to them will the future owe that debt which I trust it will be quick to forget. There is nothing very wonderful or very novel about rag-time or tango, but to overlook any live form of expression is a mistake, and to attack it is sheer silliness. Tango and rag-time are kites sped by the breeze that fills the great sails of visual art. Not every man can keep a cutter, but every boy can buy a kite. In an age that is seeking new forms in which to express that emotion which can be expressed satisfactorily in form alone, the wise will look hopefully at any kind of dancing or singing that is at once unconventional and popular. So, let the people try to create form for themselves. Probably they will make a mess of it; that will not matter. The important thing is to have live art and live sensibility; the copious production of bad art is a waste of time, but, so long as it is not encouraged to the detriment of good, nothing worse. Let everyone make himself an amateur, and lose the notion that art is something that lives in the museums understood by the learned alone. By practising an art it is possible that people will acquire sensibility; if they acquire the sensibility to appreciate, even to some extent, the greatest art they will have found the new religion for which they have been looking. I do not dream of anything that would burden or lighten the catalogues of ecclesiastical historians. But if it be true that modern men can find little comfort in dogmatic religion, and if it be true that this age, in reaction from the materialism of the nineteenth century, is becoming conscious of its spiritual need and longs for satisfaction, then it seems reasonable to advise them to seek in art what they want and art can give. Art will not fail them; but it may be that the majority must always lack the sensibility that can take from art what art offers. That will be very sad for the majority; it will not matter much to art. For those who can feel the significance of form, art can never be less than a religion. In art these find what other religious natures found and still find, I doubt not, in impassioned prayer and worship. They find that emotional confidence, that assurance of absolute good, which makes of life a momentous and harmonious whole. Because the aesthetic emotions are outside and above life, it is possible to take refuge in them from life. He who has once lost himself in an "O Altitudo" will not be tempted to over-estimate the fussy excitements of action. He who can withdraw into the world of ecstasy will know what to think of circumstance. He who goes daily into the world of aesthetic emotion returns to the world of human affairs equipped to face it courageously and even a little contemptuously. And if by comparison with aesthetic rapture he finds most human passion trivial, he need not on that account become unsympathetic or inhuman. For practical purposes, even, it is possible that the religion of art will serve a man better than the religion of humanity. He may learn in another world to doubt the extreme importance of this, but if that doubt dims his enthusiasm for some things that are truly excellent it will dispel his illusions about many that are not. What he loses in philanthropy he may gain in magnanimity; and because his religion does not begin with an injunction to love all men, it will not end, perhaps, in persuading him to hate most of them. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 27: An example of this was the temporary police-court set up recently in Francis Street, just off the Tottenham Court Road. I do not know whether it yet stands; if so, it is one of the few tolerable pieces of modern architecture in London.] [Footnote 28: We may hope much from the Omega Workshops in London; but at present they employ only trained artists. We have yet to see what effect they will have on the untrained.] THE END Printed in England at the Ballantyne Press Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. L'td. Colchester, London & Eton 
18653	----	THE MIND OF THE ARTIST [Illustration: _Rembrandt_ THE POLISH RIDER _Berlin Photographic Co_] THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS ON THEIR ART COLLECTED & ARRANGED BY MRS. LAURENCE BINYON WITH A PREFACE BY GEORGE CLAUSEN, R.A. LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1909 _All rights reserved_ PREFACE It is always interesting and profitable to get the views of workmen on their work, and on the principles which guide them in it; and in bringing together these sayings of artists Mrs. Binyon has done a very useful thing. A great number of opinions are presented, which, in their points of agreement and disagreement, bring before us in the most charming way the wide range of the artist's thought, and enable us to realise that the work of the great ones is not founded on vague caprice or so-called inspiration, but on sure intuitions which lead to definite knowledge; not merely the necessary knowledge of the craftsman, which many have possessed whose work has failed to hold the attention of the world, but also a knowledge of nature's laws. "The Mind of the Artist" speaks for itself, and really requires no word of introduction. These opinions as a whole, seem to me to have a harmony and consistency, and to announce clearly that the directing impulse must be a desire for expression, that art is a language, and that the thing to be said is of more importance than the manner of saying it. This desire for expression is the driving-force of the artist; it informs, controls, and animates his method of working; it governs the hand and eye. That figures should give the impression of life and spontaneity, that the sun should shine, trees move in the wind, and nature be felt and represented as a living thing--this is the firm ground in art; and in those who have this feeling every effort will, consciously or unconsciously, lead towards its realisation. It should be the starting-point of the student. It does not absolve him from the need of taking the utmost pains, from making the most searching study of his model; rather it impels him, in the examination of whatever he feels called on to represent, to look for the vital and necessary things: and the artist will carry his work to the utmost degree of completion possible to him, in the desire to get at the heart of his theme. "Truth to nature," like a wide mantle, shelters us all, and covers not only the outward aspect of things, but their inner meanings and the emotions felt through them, differently by each individual. And the inevitable differences of point of view, which one encounters in this book, are but small matters compared with the agreement one finds on essential things; I may instance particularly the stress laid on the observation of nature. Whether the artist chooses to depict the present, the past, or to express an abstract ideal, he must, if his work is to live, found it on his own experience of nature. But he must at every step also refer to the past. He must find the road that the great ones have made, remembering that the problems they solved were the same that he has before him, and that now, no less than in Dürer's time, "art is hidden in nature: it is for the artist to drag her forth." GEORGE CLAUSEN. NOTE This little volume, it need hardly be said, does not aim at being complete, in the sense of representing all the artists who have written on art. It is hoped, however, that the sayings chosen will be found fairly representative of what painters and sculptors, typical of their race and time, have said about the various aspects of their work. In making the collection, I have had recourse less to famous comprehensive treatises and expositions of theory like those of Leonardo and of Reynolds, than to the more intimate avowals and working notes contained in letters and diaries, or recorded in memoirs. The selection of these has entailed considerable research; and in tracing what was often by no means easy to find, I wish to acknowledge the kind assistance, especially, of M. Raphael Petrucci, M. Louis Dimier, and Mr. Tancred Borenius. I have also to thank Lady Burne-Jones, Miss Birnie Philip, Mrs. Watts, Mrs. C. W. Furse, Mr. W. M. Rossetti, Mr. J. G. Millais, Mr. Samuel Calvert, and Mr. Sydney Cockerell, for permission to make quotations from Burne-Jones, Whistler, Watts, Furse, D. G. Rossetti, Madox Brown, Millais, Edward Calvert, and William Morris; also Sir Martin Conway, Sir Charles Holroyd, Mrs. Herringham, Mr. E. McCurdy, and Mr. Everard Meynell, for allowing me to use their translations from Dürer, Francisco d'Ollanda (conversations with Michael Angelo), Cennino Cennini, Leonardo, and Corot, respectively. Thankful acknowledgment is also made to the authors of any other quotations whose names may inadvertently have been omitted. Above all, I thank my husband for his advice and help. C. M. B. ILLUSTRATIONS THE POLISH RIDER. Rembrandt _Frontispiece_ _Tarnowski Collection, Dzikow_ FACING PAGE THE CASTLE IN THE PARK. Rubens. (_Detail_) 28 _Vienna_ LOVE. Millais 48 _The Victoria and Albert Museum_ THE MUSIC OF PAN. Signorelli 74 _Berlin_ PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST'S WIFE. J. Van Eyck 96 _Bruges_ HOPE. Puvis de Chavannes 102 _By permission of Messrs. Durand-Revel_ THE MASS OF BOLSENA. Raphael. (_Detail_) 118 _The Vatican_ THE CHILDREN AND THE BUTTERFLY. Gainsborough 134 _National Gallery_ THE MIND OF THE ARTIST I An able painter by his power of penetration into the mysteries of his art is usually an able critic. _Alfred Stevens._[1] [Footnote 1: The Belgian painter, not the English sculptor.] II Art, like love, excludes all competition, and absorbs the man. _Fuseli._ III A good painter has two chief objects to paint, namely, man, and the intention of his soul. The first is easy, the second difficult, because he has to represent it through the attitudes and movements of the limbs. This should be learnt from the dumb, who do it better than any other sort of person. _Leonardo da Vinci._ IV In my judgment that is the excellent and divine painting which is most like and best imitates any work of immortal God, whether a human figure, or a wild and strange animal, or a simple and easy fish, or a bird of the air, or any other creature. And this neither with gold nor silver nor with very fine tints, but drawn only with a pen or a pencil, or with a brush in black and white. To imitate perfectly each of these things in its species seems to me to be nothing else but to desire to imitate the work of immortal God. And yet that thing will be the most noble and perfect in the works of painting which in itself reproduced the thing which is most noble and of the greatest delicacy and knowledge. _Michael Angelo._ V The art of painting is employed in the service of the Church, and by it the sufferings of Christ and many other profitable examples are set forth. It preserveth also the likeness of men after their death. By aid of delineations the measurements of the earth, the waters, and the stars are better to be understood; and many things likewise become known unto men by them. The attainment of true, artistic, and lovely execution in painting is hard to come unto; it needeth long time and a hand practised to almost perfect freedom. Whosoever, therefore, falleth short of this cannot attain a right understanding (in matters of painting) for it cometh alone by inspiration from above. The art of painting cannot be truly judged save by such as are themselves good painters; from others verily is it hidden even as a strange tongue. It were a noble occupation for ingenious youths without employment to exercise themselves in this art. _Dürer._ AIMS AND IDEALS VI Give thou to God no more than he asketh of thee; but to man also, that which is man's. In all that thou doest, work from thine own heart, simply; for his heart is as thine, when thine is wise and humble; and he shall have understanding of thee. One drop of rain is as another, and the sun's prism in all: and shalt not thou be as he, whose lives are the breath of One? Only by making thyself his equal can he learn to hold communion with thee, and at last own thee above him. Not till thou lean over the water shalt thou see thine image therein: stand erect, and it shall slope from thy feet and be lost. Know that there is but this means whereby thou mayst serve God with man.... Set thine hand and thy soul to serve man with God.... Chiaro, servant of God, take now thine Art unto thee, and paint me thus, as I am, to know me; weak, as I am, and in the weeds of this time; only with eyes which seek out labour, and with a faith, not learned, yet jealous of prayer. Do this; so shall thy soul stand before thee always, and perplex thee no more. _Rossetti._ VII I know that this world is a world of imagination and vision. I see everything I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To the eyes of a miser a guinea is far more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy, is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way.... To the eye of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. _Blake._ VIII Painting is nothing but the art of expressing the invisible by the visible. _Fromentin._ IX The picture I speak of is a small one, and represents merely the figure of a woman, clad to the hands and feet with a green and grey raiment, chaste and early in its fashion, but exceedingly simple. She is standing: her hands are held together lightly, and her eyes set earnestly open. The face and hands in this picture, though wrought with great delicacy, have the appearance of being painted at once, in a single sitting: the drapery is unfinished. As soon as I saw the figure, it drew an awe upon me, like water in shadow. I shall not attempt to describe it more than I have already done, for the most absorbing wonder of it was its literality. You knew that figure, when painted, had been seen; yet it was not a thing to be seen of men. _Rossetti._ X A great work of high art is a noble theme treated in a noble manner, awakening our best and most reverential feelings, touching our generosity, our tenderness, or disposing us generally to seriousness--a subject of human endurance, of human justice, of human aspiration and hope, depicted worthily by the special means art has in her power to use. In Michael Angelo and Raphael we have high art; in Titian we have high art; in Turner we have high art. The first appeals to our highest sensibilities by majesty of line, the second mainly by dignified serenity, the third by splendour especially, the Englishman by a combination of these qualities, but, lacking the directly human appeal to human sympathies, his work must be put on a lower level. _Watts._ XI THE SIX CANONS OF ART Rhythmic vitality, anatomical structure, conformity with nature, suitability of colouring, artistic composition, and finish. _Hsieh Ho_ (Chinese, sixth century A.D.). XII In painting, the most troublesome subject is man, then landscape, then dogs and horses, then buildings, which being fixed objects are easy to manage up to a certain point, but of which it is difficult to get finished pictures. _Ku K'ai-Chih_ (Chinese, fourth century A.D.). XIII First it is necessary to know what this sort of imitation is, and to define it. Definition: It is an imitation made with lines and with colours on some plane surface of everything that can be seen under the sun. Its object is to give delight. Principles which may be learnt by all men of reason: No visible object can be presented without light. No visible object can be presented without a transparent medium. No visible object can be presented without a boundary. No visible object can be presented without colour. No visible object can be presented without distance. No visible object can be presented without an instrument. What follows cannot be learnt, it is born with the painter. _Nicholas Poussin._ XIV "In painting, and above all in portraiture," says Madame Cavé in her charming essay, "it is soul which speaks to soul: and not knowledge which speaks to knowledge." This observation, more profound perhaps than she herself was aware, is an arraignment of pedantry in execution. A hundred times I have said to myself, "Painting, speaking materially, is nothing but a bridge between the soul of the artist and that of the spectator." _Delacroix._ XV The art of painting is perhaps the most indiscreet of all the arts. It is an unimpeachable witness to the moral state of the painter at the moment when he held the brush. The thing he willed to do he did: that which he only half-heartedly willed can be seen in his indecisions: that which he did not will at all is not to be found in his work, whatever he may say and whatever others may say. A distraction, a moment's forgetfulness, a glow of warmer feeling, a diminution of insight, relaxation of attention, a dulling of his love for what he is studying, the tediousness of painting and the passion for painting, all the shades of his nature, even to the lapses of his sensibility, all this is told by the painter's work as clearly as if he were telling it in our ears. _Fromentin._ XVI The first merit of a picture is to feast the eyes. I don't mean that the intellectual element is not also necessary; it is as with fine poetry ... all the intellect in the world won't prevent it from being bad if it grates harshly on the ear. We talk of having an ear; so it is not every eye which is fitted to enjoy the subtleties of painting. Many people have a false eye or an indolent eye; they can see objects literally, but the exquisite is beyond them. _Delacroix._ XVII I would like my work to appeal to the eye and mind as music appeals to the ear and heart. I have something that I want to say which may be useful to and touch mankind, and to say it as well as I can in form and colour is my endeavour; more than that I cannot do. _Watts._ XVIII Give me leave to say, that to paint a very beautiful Woman, I ought to have before me those that are the most so; with this Condition, that your Lordship might assist me in choosing out the greatest Beauty. But as I am under a double Want, both of good Judgment and fine Women, I am forced to go by a certain Idea which I form in my own Mind. Whether this hath any Excellence of Art in it, I cannot determine; but 'tis what I labour at. _Raphael._ XIX I mean by a picture a beautiful romantic dream of something that never was, never will be--in a light better than any light that ever shone--in a land no one can define or remember, only desire--and the forms divinely beautiful--and then I wake up with the waking of Brynhild. _Burne-Jones._ XX I love everything for what it is. _Courbet._ XXI I look for my tones; it is quite simple. _Courbet._ XXII Many people imagine that art is capable of an indefinite progress toward perfection. This is a mistake. There is a limit where it must stop. And for this reason: the conditions which govern the imitation of nature are fixed. The object is to produce a picture, that is to say, a plane surface either with or without a border, and on this surface the representation of something produced by the sole means of different colouring substances. Since it is obliged to remain thus circumscribed, it is easy to foresee the limit of perfectibility. When the picture has succeeded in satisfying our minds in all the conditions imposed on its production, it will cease to interest. Such is the fate of everything which has attained its end: we grow indifferent and abandon it. In the conditions governing the production of the picture, every means has been explored. The most difficult problem was that of complete relief, depth of perspective carried to the point of perfect illusion. The stereoscope has solved the problem. It only remains now to combine this perfection with the other kinds of perfection already found. Let no man imagine that art, bound by these conditions of the plane surface, can ever free itself from the circle which limits it. It is easy to foresee that its last word will soon have been said. _Wiertz._ XXIII In his admirable book on Shakespeare, Victor Hugo has shown that there is no progress in the arts. Nature, their model, is unchangeable; and the arts cannot transcend her limits. They attain completeness of expression in the work of a master, on whom other masters are formed. Then comes development, and then a lapse, an interval. By-and-by, art is born anew under the stimulus of a man who catches from Light a new convention. _Bracquemond._ XXIV The painter ... does not set his palette with the real hues of the rainbow. When he pictures to us the character of a hero, or paints some scene of nature, he does not present us with a living man in the character of the hero (for this is the business of dramatic art); nor does he make up his landscape of real rocks, or trees, or water, but with fictitious resemblances of these. Yet in these figments he is as truly bound by the laws of the appearance of those realities, of which they are the copy (and very much to the same extent), as the musician is by the natural laws and properties of sound. In short, the whole object of physical science, or, in other words, the whole of sensible nature, is included in the domain of imitative art, either as the subjects, the objects, or the materials of imitation: every fine art, therefore, has certain physical sciences collateral to it, on the abstractions of which it builds, more or less, according to its nature and purpose. But the drift of the art itself is something totally distinct from that of the physical science to which it is related; and it is not more absurd to say that physiology or anatomy constitute the science of poetry or dramatic art than that acoustics and harmonics are the science of music; optics, of painting; mechanics, or other branches of physical science, that of architecture. _Dyce._ XXV After all I have seen of Art, with nothing am I more impressed than with the necessity, in all great work, for suppressing the workman and all the mean dexterity of practice. The result itself, in quiet dignity, is the only worthy attainment. Wood-engraving, of all things most ready for dexterity, reads us a good lesson. _Edward Calvert._ XXVI Shall Painting be confined to the sordid drudgery of facsimile representations of merely mortal and perishing substances, and not be as poetry and music are, elevated into its own proper sphere of invention and visionary conception? No, it shall not be so! Painting, as well as poetry and music, exists and exults in immortal thoughts. _Blake._ XXVII If any man has any poetry in him, he should paint, for it has all been said and written, and they have scarcely begun to paint it. _William Morris._ XXVIII Long live conscience and simplicity! there lies the only way to the true and the sublime. _Corot._ XXIX All the young men of this school of Ingres have something of the pedant about them; they seem to think that merely to be enrolled among the party of serious painters is a merit in itself. Serious painting is their party cry. I told Demay that a crowd of people of talent had done nothing worth speaking of because of all these factious dogmas that they get enslaved to, or that the prejudice of the moment imposes on them. So, for example, with this famous cry of _Beauty_, which is, according to the world's opinion, the goal of the arts: if it is the one and only goal, what becomes of men who, like Rubens, Rembrandt, and northern natures in general, prefer other qualities? Demand of Puget purity, beauty in fact, and it is good-bye to his verve. Speaking generally, men of the North are less attracted to beauty; the Italian prefers decoration; this applies to music too. _Delacroix._ XXX At the present time the task is easier. It is a question of allowing to everything its own interest, of putting man back in his place, and, if need be, of doing without him. The moment has come to think less, to aim less high, to look more closely, to observe better, to paint as well but differently. This is the painting of the crowd, of the townsman, the workman, the parvenu, the man in the street; done wholly for him, done from him. It is a question of becoming humble before humble things, small before small things, subtle before subtle things; of gathering them all together without omission and without disdain, of entering familiarly into their intimacy, affectionately into their way of being; it is a matter of sympathy, attentive curiosity, patience. Henceforth, genius will consist in having no prejudice, in not being conscious of one's knowledge, in allowing oneself to be taken by surprise by one's model, in asking only from him how he shall be represented. As for beautifying--never! ennobling--never! correcting--never! These are lies and useless trouble. Is there not in every artist worthy of the name a something which sees to this naturally and without effort? _Fromentin._ XXXI I send you also some etchings and a "Woman drinking Absinthe," drawn this winter from life in Paris. It is a girl called Marie Joliet, who used every evening to come drunk to the Bal Bullier, and who had a look in her eyes of death galvanised into life. I made her sit to me and tried to render what I saw. This is my principle in the task I have set before me. I am determined to make no book-illustration but it shall be a means of contributing towards an _effect of life_ and nothing more. A patch of colour and it is sufficient; we must leave these childish thoughts behind us. Life! we must try to render life, and it is hard enough. _Félicien Rops._ XXXII So this damned Realism made an instinctive appeal to my painter's vanity, and deriding all traditions, cried aloud with the confidence of ignorance, "Back to Nature!" _Nature!_ ah, my friend, what mischief that cry has done me. Where was there an apostle apter to receive this doctrine, so convenient for me as it was--beautiful Nature, and all that humbug? It is nothing but that. Well, the world was watching; and it saw "The Piano," the "White Girl," the Thames subjects, the marines ... canvases produced by a fellow who was puffed up with the conceit of being able to prove to his comrades his magnificent gifts, qualities which only needed a rigorous training to make their possessor to-day a master, instead of a dissipated student. Ah, why was I not a pupil of Ingres? I don't say that out of enthusiasm for his pictures; I have only a moderate liking for them. Several of his canvases, which we have looked at together, seem to me of a very questionable style, not at all Greek, as people want to call it, but French, and viciously French. I feel that we must go far beyond this, that there are far more beautiful things to be done. Yet, I repeat, why was I not his pupil? What a master he would have been for us! How salutary would have been his guidance! _Whistler._ XXXIII It has been said, "Who will deliver us from the Greeks and Romans?" Soon we shall be saying, "Who will deliver us from realism?" Nothing is so tiring as a constant close imitation of life. One comes back inevitably to imaginative work. Homer's fictions will always be preferred to historical truth, Rubens' fabulous magnificence to all the frippery copied exactly from the lay figure. The painter who is a machine will pass away, the painter who is a mind will remain; the spirit for ever triumphs over matter. _Wiertz._ XXXIV A little book by the Russian soldier and artist Verestchagin is interesting to the student. As a realist, he condemns all art founded on the principles of picture-makers, and depends only on exact imitation, and the conditions of accident. In our seeking after truth, and endeavour never to be unreal or affected, it must not be forgotten that this endeavour after truth is to be made with materials altogether unreal and different from the object to be imitated. Nothing in a picture is real; indeed, the painter's art is the most unreal thing in the whole range of our efforts. Though art must be founded on nature, art and nature are distinctly different things; in a certain class of subjects probability may, indeed must, be violated, provided the violation is not disagreeable. Everything in a work of art must accord. Though gloom and desolation would deepen the effects of a distressing incident in real life, such accompaniments are not necessary to make us feel a thrill of horror or awaken the keenest sympathy. The most awful circumstances may take place under the purest sky, and amid the most lovely surroundings. The human sensibilities will be too much affected by the human sympathies to heed the external conditions; but to awaken in a picture similar impressions, certain artificial aids must be used; the general aspect must be troubled or sad. _Watts._ XXXV The remarks made on my "Man with the Hoe" seem always very strange to me, and I am obliged to you for repeating them to me, for once more it sets me marvelling at the ideas they impute to me. In what club have my critics ever encountered me? A Socialist, they cry! Well, really, I might answer the charge as the commissary from Auvergne did when he wrote home: "They have been saying that I am a Saint-Simonian: it's not true; I don't know what a Saint-Simonian is." Can't they then simply admit such ideas as may occur to the mind in looking at a man doomed to gain his living by the sweat of his brow? There are some who tell me that I deny the charm of the country. I find in the country much more than charm; I find infinite splendour; I look on everything as they do on the little powers of which Christ said, "I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." I see and note the aureole on the dandelion, and the sun which, far away, beyond the stretching country, spends his glory on the clouds. I see just as much in the flat plain; in the horses steaming as they toil; and then in a stony place I see a man quite exhausted, whose gasps have been audible since morning, who tries to draw himself up for a moment to take breath. The drama is surrounded by splendours. This is no invention of mine; and it is long since that expression "the cry of the earth" was discovered. My critics are men of learning and taste, I imagine; but I cannot put myself into their skins, and since I have never in my life seen anything but the fields, I try to tell, as best I can, what I have seen and experienced as I worked. _Millet._ XXXVI One of the hardest things in the world is to determine how much realism is allowable in any particular picture. It is of so many different kinds too. For instance, I want a shield or a crown or a pair of wings or what not, to look real. Well, I make what I want, or a model of it, and then make studies from that. So that what eventually gets on to the canvas is a reflection of a reflection of something purely imaginary. The three Magi never had crowns like that, supposing them to have had crowns at all, but the effect is realistic because the crown from which the studies were made is real--and so on. _Burne-Jones._ XXXVII Do you understand now that all my intelligence rejects is in immediate relation to all my heart aspires to, and that the spectacle of human blunders and human vileness is an equally powerful motive for action in the exercise of art with springs of tranquil contemplation that I have felt within me since I was a child? We have come far, I hope, from the shadowy foliage crowning the humble roof of the primitive human dwelling, far from the warbling of the birds that brood among the branches; far from all these tender things. We left them, notwithstanding, the other day; and even if we had stayed, do you think we should have continued to enjoy them? Believe me, everything comes from the universal; we must embrace to give life. Whatever interest one may get from material offered by a period, religion, manners, history, &c., in representing a particular type, it will avail nothing without an understanding of the universal agency of atmosphere, that modelling of infinity; it shall come to pass that a stone fence, about which the air seems to move and breathe, shall be, in a museum, a grander conception than any ambitious work which lacks this universal element and expresses only something personal. All the personal and particular majesty of a portrait of Louis XIV. by Lebrun or by Rigaud shall be as nothing beside the simplicity of a tuft of grass shining clear in a gleam of sunlight. _Rousseau._ XXXVIII Of all the things that is likely to give us back popular art in England, the cleaning of England is the first and the most necessary. Those who are to make beautiful things must live in a beautiful place. _William Morris._ XXXIX On the whole, one must suppose that beauty is a marketable quality, and that the better the work is all round, both as a work of art and in its technique, the more likely it is to find favour with the public. _William Morris._ ART AND SOCIETY XL With the language of beauty in full resonance around him, art was not difficult to the painter and sculptor of old as it is with us. No anatomical study will do for the modern artist what habitual acquaintance with the human form did for Pheidias. No Venetian painted a horse with the truth and certainty of Horace Vernet, who knew the animal by heart, rode him, groomed him, and had him constantly in his studio. Every artist must paint what he sees, rather every artist must paint what is around him, can produce no great work unless he impress the character of his age upon his production, not necessarily taking his subjects from it (better if he can), but taking the impress of its life. The great art of Pheidias did not deal with the history of his time, but compressed into its form the qualities of the most intellectual period the world has seen; nor were any materials to be invented or borrowed, he had them all at hand, expressing himself in a natural language derived from familiarity with natural objects. Beauty is the language of art, and with this at command thoughts as they arise take visible form perhaps almost without effort, or (certain technical difficulties overcome) with little more than is required in writing--this not absolving the artist or the poet from earnest thought and severe study. In many respects the present age is far more advanced than preceding times, incomparably more full of knowledge; but the language of great art is dead, for general, noble beauty, pervades life no more. The artist is obliged to return to extinct forms of speech if he would speak as the great ones have spoken. Nothing beautiful is seen around him, excepting always sky and trees and sea; these, as he is mainly a dweller in cities, he cannot live enough with. But it is, perhaps, in the real estimation in which art is held that we shall find the reason for failure. If the world cared for her language, art could not help speaking, the utterance being, perhaps, simply beautiful. But even in these days when we have ceased to prize this, if it were demanded that art should take its place beside the great intellectual outflow of the time, the response would hardly be doubtful. _Watts._ XLI You refer to the use and purpose of the liberal arts; not a city in Europe, at present, is fulfilling them. And if any one in Melbourne were now to produce, even on a small scale, a picture fulfilling the conditions of liberal art, then Melbourne might take the lead of civilised cities. But it is not the ambition of leading, nor the restlessness of a competitive spirit that may accomplish this. A good poem, whether painted or written, whether large or small, should represent _beautiful life_. Are you able to name any one who has conceived this beauty of the life of men? I will not complicate the requirements of painted poesy by speaking of the music of colour with which it should be clothed; black and white were enough. The very attempt to express the confession of love were fulfilment sufficient. _Edward Calvert._ XLII So art has become foolishly confounded with education, that all should be equally qualified. Whereas, while polish, refinement, culture, and breeding are in no way arguments for artistic result, it is also no reproach to the most finished scholar or greatest gentleman in the land that he be absolutely without eye for painting or ear for music--that in his heart he prefer the popular print to the scratch of Rembrandt's needle, or the songs of the hall to Beethoven's "C Minor Symphony." Let him have but the wit to say so, and not let him feel the admission a proof of inferiority. Art happens--no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend on it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about, and puny efforts to make it universal end in quaint comedy and coarse farce. This is as it should be; and all attempts to make it otherwise are due to the eloquence of the ignorant, the zeal of the conceited. _Whistler._ XLIII Art will not grow and flourish, nay it will not long exist, unless it be shared by all people; and for my part I don't wish that it should. _William Morris._ XLIV No, art is not an element of corruption. The man who drinks from a wooden bowl is nearer to the brute that drinks from a stone trough than he who quenches his thirst from a crystal cup; and the artist who gave the glass its shape, impressed as in a mould of bronze by the simple means of a second's breath and yet more cheaply than the fashioning of the wooden bowl, has done more to ennoble and improve his neighbour than any inventor of a system: in his work he gives him the use and the enjoyment of things for which orators can only create a craving. _Jules Klagmann._ XLV The improviser never makes fine poetry. _Titian._ XLVI Agatharcus said to Zeuxis--For my part I soon despatch my Pictures. You are a happy Man, replies Zeuxis; I do mine with Time and application, because I would have them good, and I am satisfyed, that what is soon done, will soon be forgotten. XLVII Art is not a pleasure trip. It is a battle, a mill that grinds. _Millet._ STUDY AND TRAINING XLVIII Raphael and Michael Angelo owe that immortal fame of theirs, which has gone out into the ends of the earth, to the passion of curiosity and delight with which this noble subject inspired them. No man who has not studied the sciences can make a work that shall bring him great praise, save from ignorant and easily satisfied persons. _Jean Goujon._ XLIX He that would be a painter must have a natural turn thereto. Love and delight therein are better teachers of the Art of Painting than compulsion is. If a man is to become a really good painter he must be educated thereto from his very earliest years. He must copy much of the work of good artists until he attain a free hand. To paint is to be able to portray upon a flat surface any visible thing whatsoever that may be chosen. It is well for any one first to learn how to divide and reduce to measure the human figure, before learning anything else. _Dürer._ L The painter requires such knowledge of mathematics as belongs to painting, and severance from companions who are not in sympathy with his studies, and his brain should have the power of adapting itself to the tenor of the objects which present themselves before it, and he should be freed from all other cares. And if, while considering and examining one subject, a second should intervene, as happens when an object occupies the mind, he ought to decide which of these subjects presents greater difficulties in investigation, and follow that until it becomes entirely clear, and afterwards pursue the investigation of the other. And above all he should keep his mind as clear as the surface of a mirror, which becomes changed to as many different colours as are those of the objects within it, and his companions should resemble him in a taste for these studies; and if he fail to find any such, he should accustom himself to be alone in his investigations, for in the end he will find no more profitable companionship. _Leonardo._ LI If you are fond of copying other Men's Work, as being Originals more constant to be seen and imitated than any living Object, I should rather advise to copy anything moderately carved than excellently painted: For by imitating a Picture, we only habituate our Hand to take a mere Resemblance; whereas by drawing from a carved Original, we learn not only to take this Resemblance, but also the true Lights. _Leon Battista Alberti._ LII There are a thousand proofs that the old masters and all good painters from Raphael onwards executed their frescoes from cartoons and their little easel pictures from more or less finished drawings.... Your model gives you exactly what you want to paint neither in character of drawing nor in colour, but at the same time you cannot do without him. To paint Achilles the most goodly of men, though you had for your model the most abject you must depend on him, and can depend on him for the structure of the human body, for its movement and poise. The proof of this is that Raphael used his pupils in his studies for the movements of the figures in his divine pictures. Whatever your talents may be, if you paint not from your studies after nature, but directly from the model, you will always be a slave and your pictures will show it. Raphael, on the contrary, had so completely mastered nature and had his mind so full of her, that instead of being ruled by her, one might say that she obeyed him and came at his command to place herself in his pictures. _Ingres._ LIII No one can ever design till he has learned the language of Art by making many finished copies both of Nature, Art, and of whatever comes in his way, from earliest childhood. The difference between a bad artist and a good is, that the bad artist _seems_ to copy a great deal, the good one _does_ copy a great deal. _Blake._ LIV If you deprive an artist of all he has borrowed from the experience of others the originality left will be but a twentieth part of him. Originality by itself cannot constitute a remarkable talent. _Wiertz._ LV I am convinced that to reach the highest degree of perfection as a painter, it is necessary, not only to be acquainted with the ancient statues, but we must be inwardly imbued with a thorough comprehension of them. _Rubens._ LVI First of all copy drawings by a good master made by his art from nature and not as exercises; then from a relief, keeping by you a drawing done from the same relief; then from a good model, and of this you ought to make a practice. _Leonardo._ LVII I wish to do something purely Greek; I feed my eyes on the antique statues, I mean even to imitate some of them. The Greeks never scrupled to reproduce a composition, a movement, a type already received and used. They put all their care, all their art, into perfecting an idea which had been used by others before them. They thought, and thought rightly, that in the arts the manner of rendering and expressing an idea matters more than the idea itself. [Illustration: _Rubens_ THE CASTLE IN THE PARK _Hanfstaengl_] To give a clothing, a perfect form to one's thought is to be an artist ... it is the only way. Well, I have done my best and I hope to attain my object. _L. David._ LVIII Who amongst us, if he were to attempt in reality to represent a celebrated work of Apelles or Timanthus, such as Pliny describes them, but would produce something absurd, or perfectly foreign to the exalted greatness of the ancients? Each one, relying on his own powers, would produce some wretched, crude, unfermented stuff, instead of an exquisite old wine, uniting strength and mellowness, outraging those great spirits whom I endeavour reverently to follow, satisfied, however, to honour the marks of their footsteps, instead of supposing--I acknowledge it candidly--that I can ever attain to their eminence even in mere conception. _Rubens._ LIX [You have stated that you thought these Marbles had great truth and imitation of nature; do you consider that that adds to their value?] It considerably adds to it, because I consider them as united with grand form. There is in them that variety that is produced in the human form, by the alternate action and repose of the muscles, that strike one particularly. I have myself a very good collection of the best casts from the antique statues, and was struck with that difference in them, in returning from the Elgin Marbles to my own house. _Lawrence._ LX It is absolutely necessary that at some moment or other in one's career one should reach the point, not of despising all that is outside oneself, but of abandoning for ever that almost blind fanaticism which impels us all to imitate the great masters, and to swear only by their works. It is necessary to say to oneself, That is good for Rubens, this for Raphael, Titian, or Michael Angelo. What they have done is their own business; I am not bound to this master or to that. It is necessary to learn to make what one has found one's own: a pinch of personal inspiration is worth everything else. _Delacroix._ LXI From Phidias to Clodion, from Correggio to Fragonard, from the greatest to the least of those who have deserved the name of master, Art has been pursuing the Chimæra, attempting to reconcile two opposites--the most slavish fidelity to nature and the most absolute independence of her, an independence so absolute that the work of art may claim to be a creation. This is the persistent problem offered by the unstable character of the point of view at which it is approached; the whole mystery of art. The subject, as presented in nature, cannot keep the place which art with its transforming instinct would assign it; and therefore a single formula can never be adequate to the totality of nature's manifestations; the draughtsman will talk of its form, a colourist of its effect. Considered in this light, nature is nothing more than one of the instruments of the arts, in the same category with their principles, elements, formulas, conventions, tools. _Bracquemond._ LXII One must copy nature always, and learn how to see her rightly. It is for this that one should study the antique and the great masters, not in order to imitate them, but, I repeat, to learn to see. Do you think I send you to the Louvre to find there what people call "le beau idéal," something which is outside nature? It was stupidity like this which in bad periods led to the decadence of art. I send you there to learn from the antique how to see nature, because they themselves are nature: therefore one must live among them, and absorb them. It is the same in the painting of the great ages. Do you think, when I tell you to copy, that I want to make copyists of you? No, I want you to take the sap from the plant. _Ingres._ LXIII The strict copying of nature is not art; it is only a means to an end, an element in the whole. Art, while presenting nature, must manifest itself in its own essence. It is not a mirror, uncritically reflecting every image; it is the artist who must mould the image to his will; else his work is not performed. _Bracquemond._ LXIV Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music. But the artist is born to pick, and choose, and group with science, these elements, that the result may be beautiful; as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he bring forth from chaos glorious harmony. To say to the painter that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player that he may sit on the piano. _Whistler._ LXV When you have thoroughly learnt perspective, and have fixed in your memory all the various parts and forms of things, you should often amuse yourself when you take a walk for recreation, in watching and taking note of the attitudes and actions of men as they talk and dispute, or laugh or come to blows one with another, both their actions and those of the bystanders who either intervene or stand looking on at these things; noting these down with rapid strokes in this way, in a little pocket-book, which you ought always to carry with you. And let this be of tinted paper, so that it may not be rubbed out; but you should change the old for a new one, for these are not things to be rubbed out but preserved with the utmost diligence; for there is such an infinite number of forms and actions of things that the memory is incapable of preserving them, and therefore you should keep those (sketches) as your patterns and teachers. _Leonardo._ LXVI Two men stop to talk together: I pencil them in detail, beginning at the head, for example; they separate and I have nothing but a fragment on my paper. Some children are sitting on the steps of a church; I begin, their mother calls them; my sketch-book becomes filled with tips of noses and locks of hair. I make a resolution not to go home without a whole figure, and I try for the first time to draw in mass, to draw rapidly, which is the only possible way of drawing, and which is to-day one of the chief faculties of our moderns. I put myself to draw in the winking of an eye the first group that presents itself; if it moves on I have at least put down the general character; if it stops, I can go on to the details. I do many such exercises, and have even gone so far as to cover the lining of my hat with lightning sketches of opera-ballets and opera scenery. _Corot._ LXVII There is my model (the artist pointed to the crowd which thronged a market-place); art lives by studying nature, not by imitating any artist. _Eupompus._ LXVIII When you have clearly and distinctly learned in what good colouring consists, you cannot do better than have recourse to nature herself, who is always at hand, and in comparison of whose true splendour the best coloured pictures are but faint and feeble. However, as the practice of copying is not entirely to be excluded, since the mechanical practice of painting is learned in some measure by it, let those choice parts only be selected which have recommended the work to notice. If its excellence consists in its general effect, it would be proper to make slight sketches of the machinery and general management of the picture. Those sketches should be kept always by you for the regulation of your style. Instead of copying the touches of those great masters, copy only their conceptions. Instead of treading in their footsteps, endeavour only to keep the same road. Labour to invent on their general principles and way of thinking. Possess yourself with their spirit. Consider with yourself how a Michael Angelo or a Raffaelle would have treated this subject; and work yourself into a belief that your picture is to be seen and criticised by them when completed. Even an attempt of this kind will rouse your powers. _Reynolds._ LXIX What do you mean--that you have been working, but without success? Do you mean that you cannot get the price you ask? then sell it for less, till, by practice, you shall improve, and command a better price. Or do you only mean that you are not satisfied with your work? nobody ever was that I know, except J---- W----. Peg away! While you're at work you must be improving. Do something from Nature indoors when you cannot get out, to keep your hand and eye in practice. Don't get into the way of working too much at your drawings away from Nature. _Charles Keene._ LXX The purpose of art is no other than to delineate the form and express the spirit of an object, animate or inanimate, as the case may be. The use of art is to produce copies of things; and if an artist has a thorough knowledge of the properties of the thing he paints he can assuredly make a name. Just as a writer of profound erudition and good memory has ever at his command an inexhaustible supply of words and phrases which he freely makes use of in writing, so can a painter, who has accumulated experience by drawing from nature, paint any object without a conscious effort. The artist who confines himself to copying from models painted by his master, fares no better than a literatus who cannot rise above transcribing others' compositions. An ancient critic says that writing ends in describing a thing or narrating an event, but painting can represent the actual forms of things. Without the true depiction of objects, there can be no pictorial art. Nobility of sentiment and such-like only come after a successful delineation of the external form of an object. The beginner in art should direct his efforts more to the latter than to the former. He should learn to paint according to his own ideas, not to slavishly copy the models of old artists. Plagiarism is a crime to be avoided not only by men of letters but also by painters. _Okio_ (Japanese, eighteenth century). LXXI I remember Dürer the painter, who used to say that, as a young man, he loved extraordinary and unusual designs in painting, but that in his old age he took to examining Nature, and strove to imitate her as closely as he possibly could; but he found by experience how hard it is not to deviate from her. _Dürer_ (quoted by Melancthon). LXXII I have heard painters acknowledge, though in that acknowledgment no degradation of themselves was intended, that they could do better without Nature than with her; or, as they expressed it themselves, _that it only put them out_. A painter with such ideas and such habits, is indeed in a most hopeless state. _The art of seeing Nature_, or, in other words, the art of using models, is in reality the great object, the point to which all our studies are directed. As for the power of being able to do tolerably well, from practice alone, let it be valued according to its worth. But I do not see in what manner it can be sufficient for the production of correct, excellent, and finished pictures. Works deserving this character never were produced, nor ever will arise, from memory alone; and I will venture to say, that an artist who brings to his work a mind tolerably furnished with the general principles of art, and a taste formed upon the works of good artists, in short, who knows in what excellence consists, will, with the assistance of models, which we will likewise suppose he has learnt the art of using, be an over-match for the greatest painter that ever lived who should be debarred such advantages. _Reynolds._ LXXIII Do not imitate; do not follow others--you will always be behind them. _Corot._ LXXIV Never paint a subject unless it calls insistently and distinctly upon your eye and heart. _Corot._ LXXV I should never paint anything that was not the result of an impression received from the aspect of nature, whether in landscape or figures. _Millet._ LXXVI You must interpret nature with entire simplicity and according to your personal sentiment, altogether detaching yourself from what you know of the old masters or of contemporaries. Only in this way will you do work of real feeling. I know gifted people who will not avail themselves of their power. Such people seem to me like a billiard-player whose adversary is constantly giving him good openings, but who makes no use of them. I think that if I were playing with that man, I would say, "Very well, then, I will give you no more." If I were to sit in judgment, I would punish the miserable creatures who squander their natural gifts, and I would turn their hearts to work. _Corot._ LXXVII Sensation is rude and false unless _informed_ by intellection; and, however delicate be the touch in obedience to remote gradation, yet knowledge of the genus necessarily invests the representation with perspicuous and truthful relations that ignorance could not possibly have observed. Hence--Paint what you see; but know what you see. _Only paint what you love in what you see_, and discipline yourself to separate this essence from its dumb accompaniments, so that the accents fall upon the points of passion. Let that which must be expressed of the rest be merged, syncopated in the largeness of the _modulation_. Boldly dare to omit the impertinent or irrelevant, and let the features of the passion be modulated in _fewness_. Not a touch without its meaning or its significance throughout the courses. There is no disgrace, but on the contrary, honour, be the touches never so few, if studied. By determined refusal to touch vaguely, and with persistence in the slowness of thoughtful work, a noble style may be at length obtained: swift as sublime. _Edward Calvert._ LXXVIII I started on Monday, 25th August, for Honfleur, where I stayed till 5th September in the most blessed condition of spirit. There I worked with my head, with my eyes, harvesting effects in the mind; then, going over everything again, I called up within myself the figures desired for the completion of the composition. Once I had evoked all this world from nothingness, and envisaged it, and had found where each thing was to be, I had to return to Paris to ask for nature's authorisation and make sure of my advance. Nature justified me, and, as she is kind to those who approach her reverentially, gave me of her grace without stint. _Puvis de Chavannes._ LXXIX I wish to tell you, Francisco d'Ollanda, of an exceedingly great beauty in this science of ours, of which perhaps you are aware, and which, I think, you consider the highest, namely, that what one has most to work and struggle for in painting, is to do the work with a great amount of labour and study in such a way that it may afterwards appear, however much it was laboured, to have been done almost quickly and almost without any labour, and very easily, although it was not. And this is a very excellent beauty. At times some things are done with little work in the way I have said, but very seldom; most are done by dint of hard work and appear to have been done very quickly. _Michael Angelo._ METHODS OF WORK LXXX Every successful work is rapidly performed; quickness is only execrable when it is empty--small. No one condemns the swiftness of an eagle. To him who knows not the burden of process--the attributes that are to claim attention with every epocha of the performance--all attempt at swiftness will be mere pretence. _Edward Calvert._ LXXXI I am planning a large picture, and I regard all you say, but I do not enter into that notion of varying one's plans to keep the public in good humour. Change of weather and effect will always afford variety. What if Van der Velde had quitted his sea-pieces, or Ruysdael his waterfalls, or Hobbema his native woods? The world would have lost so many features in art. I know that you wish for no material alteration, but I have to combat from high quarters--even from Lawrence--the plausible argument that _subject_ makes the picture. Perhaps you think an evening effect might do; perhaps it might start me some new admirers, but I should lose many old ones. I imagine myself driving a nail; I have driven it some way, and by persevering I may drive it home; by quitting it to attack others, though I may amuse myself, I do not advance beyond the first, while that particular nail stands still. No man who can do any one thing well will be able to do any other different thing equally well; and this is true of Shakespeare, the greatest master of variety. _Constable._ LXXXII To work on the _Ladye_. Found part of the drapery bad, rubbed it out, heightened the seat she sits on, mended the heads again; did a great deal, but not finished yet. Any one might be surprised to read how I work whole days on an old drawing done many years since, and which I have twice worked over since it was rejected from the Royal Academy in '47, and now under promise of sale to White for £20. But I cannot help it. When I see a work going out of my hands, it is but natural, if I see some little defect, that I should try to mend it, and what follows is out of my power to direct: if I give one touch to a head, I give myself three days' work, and spoil it half-a-dozen times over. _Ford Madox Brown._ LXXXIII In literature as in art the rough sketches of the masters are made for connoisseurs, not for the vulgar crowd. _A. Préault._ LXXXIV It is true sketches, or such drawings as painters generally make for their works, give this pleasure of imagination to a high degree. From a slight, undetermined drawing, where the ideas of the composition and character are, as I may say, only just touched upon, the imagination supplies more than the painter himself, probably, could produce; and we accordingly often find that the finished work disappoints the expectation that was raised from the sketch; and this power of the imagination is one of the causes of the great pleasure we have in viewing a collection of drawings by great painters. _Reynolds._ LXXXV I have just been examining all the sketches I have used in making this work. How many there are which fully satisfied me at the beginning, and which seem feeble, inadequate, or ill-composed, now that the paintings are advanced. I cannot tell myself often enough that it means an immense deal of labour to bring a work to the highest pitch of impressiveness of which it is capable. The oftener I revise it, the more it will gain in expressiveness.... Though the touch disappear, though the fire of execution be no longer the chief merit of the painting, there is no doubt about this; and again how often does it happen that after this intense labour, which has turned one's thought back on itself in every direction, the hand obeys more swiftly and surely in giving the desired lightness to the last touches. _Delacroix._ LXXXVI Let us agree as to the meaning of the word "finished." What finishes a picture is not the quantity of detail in it, but the rightness of the general effect. A picture is not limited only by its frame. Whatever be the subject, there must be a principal object on which your eyes rest continually: the other objects are only the complement of this, they are less interesting to you; and after that there is nothing more for your eye. There is the real limit of your picture. This principal object must seem so to the spectator of your work. Therefore, one must always return to this, and state its colour with more and more decision. _Rousseau._ LXXXVII ON PROTOGENES He was a great Master, but he often spoil'd his Pieces by endeavouring to make them Perfect; he did not know when he had done well; a Man may do too much as well as too little; and he is truly skilful, who knew what was sufficient. _Apelles._ FINISH LXXXVIII A picture must always be a little spoilt in the finishing of it. The last touches, which are intended to draw the picture together, take off from its freshness. To appear before the public one must cut out all those happy accidents which are the joy of the artist. I compare these murderous retouchings to those banal flourishes with which all airs of music end, and to those insignificant spaces which the musician is forced to put between the interesting parts of his work in order to lead on from one motive to another or to give them their proper value. Re-touching, however, is not so fatal to a picture as one might think, when the picture has been well thought out and worked at with deep feeling. Time, in effacing the touches, old as well as new, gives back to the work its complete effect. _Delacroix._ LXXXIX A picture, the effect of which is true, is finished. _Goya._ XC You please me much, by saying that no other fault is found in your picture than the roughness of the surface; for that part being of use in giving force to the effect at a proper distance, and what a judge of painting knows an original from a copy by--in short, being the touch of the pencil which is harder to preserve than smoothness, I am much better pleased that they should spy out things of that kind, than to see an eye half an inch out of its place, or a nose out of drawing when viewed at a proper distance. I don't think it would be more ridiculous for a person to put his nose close to the canvas and say the colours smelt offensive, than to say how rough the paint lies; for one is just as material as the other with regard to hurting the effect and drawing of a picture. _Gainsborough._ XCI The picture[2] will be seen to the greatest advantage if it is hung in a strong light, and in such a manner that the spectator can stand at some distance from it. _Rembrandt._ [Footnote 2: Probably the "Blinding of Samson."] XCII Don't look at a picture close, it smells bad. _Rembrandt._ XCIII Try to be frank in drawing and in colour; give things their full relief; make a painting which can be seen at a distance; this is indispensable. _Chassériau._ XCIV If I might point out to you another defect, very prevalent of late, in our pictures, and one of the same contracted character with those you so happily illustrate, it would be that of the _want of breadth_, and in others a perpetual division and subdivision of parts, to give what their perpetrators call space; add to this a constant disturbing and torturing of everything whether in light or in shadow, by a niggling touch, to produce fulness of subject. This is the very reverse of what we see in Cuyp or Wilson, and even, with all his high finishing, in Claude. I have been warning our friend Collins against this, and was also urging young Landseer to beware of it; and in what I have been doing lately myself have been studying much from Rembrandt and from Cuyp, so as to acquire what the great masters succeeded so well in, namely, that power by which the chief objects, and even the minute finishing of parts, tell over everything that is meant to be subordinate in their pictures. Sir Joshua had this remarkably, and could even make _the features of the face_ tell over everything, however strongly painted. I find that repose and breadth in the shadows and half-tints do a great deal towards it. Zoffany's figures derive great consequence from this; and I find that those who have studied light and shadow the most never appear to fail in it. _Wilkie._ XCV The commonest error into which a critic can fall is the remark we so often hear that such-and-such an artist's work is "careless," and "would be better had more labour been spent upon it." As often as not this is wholly untrue. As soon as the spectator can _see_ that "more labour has been spent upon it," he may be sure that the picture is to that extent incomplete and unfinished, while the look of freshness that is inseparable from a really successful picture would of necessity be absent. If the high finish of a picture is so apparent as immediately to force itself upon the spectator, he may _know_ that it is not as it should be; and from the moment that the artist feels his work is becoming a labour, he may depend upon it it will be without freshness, and to that extent without the merit of a true work of art. Work should always look as though it had been done with ease, however elaborate; what we see should appear to have been done without effort, whatever may be the agonies beneath the surface. M. Meissonier surpasses all his predecessors, as well as all his contemporaries, in the quality of high finish, but what you see is evidently done easily and without labour. I remember Thackeray saying to me, concerning a certain chapter in one of his books that the critics agreed in accusing of carelessness; "Careless? If I've written that chapter once I've written it a dozen times--and each time worse than the last!" a proof that labour did not assist in his case. When an artist fails it is not so much from carelessness: to do his best is not only profitable to him, but a joy. But it is not given to every man--not, indeed, to any--to succeed whenever and however he tries. The best painter that ever lived never entirely succeeded more than four or five times; that is to say, no artist ever painted more than four or five _masterpieces_, however high his general average may have been, for such success depends on the coincidence, not only of genius and inspiration, but of health and mood and a hundred other mysterious contingencies. For my own part, I have often been laboured, but whatever I am I am never careless. I may honestly say that I never consciously placed an idle touch upon canvas, and that I have always been earnest and hard-working; yet the worst pictures I ever painted in my life are those into which I threw most trouble and labour, and I confess I should not grieve were half my works to go to the bottom of the Atlantic--if I might choose the half to go. Sometimes as I paint I may find my work becoming laborious; but as soon as I detect any evidence of that labour I paint the whole thing out without more ado. _Millais._ [Illustration: _Millais_ LOVE _By permission of F. Warne & Co._] XCVI I think that a work of art should not only be careful and sincere, but that the care and sincerity should also be evident. No ugly smears should be allowed to do duty for the swiftness which comes from long practice, or to find excuse in the necessity which the accomplished artist feels to speak distinctly. That necessity must never receive impulse from a desire to produce an effect on the walls of a gallery: there is much danger of this working _un_consciously in the accomplished artist, _consciously_ in the student. _Watts._ XCVII Real effect is making out the parts. Why are we to be told that masters, who could think, had not the judgment to perform the inferior parts of art? (as Reynolds artfully calls them); that we are to learn to _think_ from great masters, and to perform from underlings--to learn to design from Raphael, and to execute from Rubens? _Blake._ XCVIII If I knew that my portrait was still at Antwerp, I would have it kept back for the case to be opened, so that one could see that it had not been hurt by so long a time spent in a case without being exposed to the air, and that, as often happens to colours freshly put on, it has not turned rather yellow, thereby losing all its first effect. The remedy, if this has happened, is to expose it repeatedly to the sun, the rays of which absorb the superfluity of oil which causes this change; and if at any time it still turns brown, it must be exposed afresh to the sun. Warmth is the only remedy for this serious mischief. _Rubens._ EFFECTS OF TIME ON PAINTING XCIX The only way to judge of the treasures the Old Masters of whatever age have left us--whether in architecture, sculpture, or painting--with any hope of sound deduction, is to look at the work and ask oneself--"What was that like when it was new?" The Elgin Marbles are allowed by common consent to be the perfection of art. But how much of our feeling of reverence is inspired by time? Imagine the Parthenon as it must have looked with the frieze of the mighty Phidias fresh from the chisel. Could one behold it in all its pristine beauty and splendour we should see a white marble building, blinding in the dazzling brightness of a southern sun, the figures of the exquisite frieze in all probability painted--there is more than a suspicion of that--and the whole standing out against the intense blue sky; and many of us, I venture to think, would cry at once, "How excessively crude." No; Time and Varnish are two of the greatest of Old Masters, and their merits and virtues are too often attributed by critics--I do not of course allude to the professional art-critics--to the painters of the pictures they have toned and mellowed. The great artists all painted in _bright_ colours, such as it is the fashion nowadays for men to decry as crude and vulgar, never suspecting that what they applaud in those works is merely the result of what they condemn in their contemporaries. Take a case in point--the "Bacchus and Ariadne" in the National Gallery, with its splendid red robe and its rich brown grass. You may rest assured that the painter of that bright red robe never painted the grass brown. He saw the colour as it was, and painted it as it was--distinctly green; only it has faded with time to its present beautiful mellow colour. Yet many men nowadays will not have a picture with green in it; there are even buyers who, when giving a commission to an artist, will stipulate that the canvas shall contain none of it. But God Almighty has given us green, and you may depend upon it it's a fine colour. _Millais._ C I must further dissent from any opinion that beauty of surface and what is technically called "quality" are mainly due to time. Sir John himself has quoted the early pictures of Rembrandt as examples of hard and careful painting, devoid of the charm and mystery so remarkable in his later work. The early works of Velasquez are still more remarkable instances, being, as they are, singularly tight and disagreeable--time having done little or nothing towards making them more agreeable. _Watts._ CI I am painting for thirty years hence. _Monticelli._ CII Sir John Millais is certainly right in his estimate of strong and even bright colour, but it seems to me that he is mistaken in believing that the colour of the Venetians was ever crude, or that time will ever turn white into colour. The colour of the best-preserved pictures by Titian shows a marked distinction between light flesh tones and white drapery. This is most distinctly seen in the small "Noli Me Tangere" in our National Gallery, in the so-called "Venus" of the Tribune and in the "Flora" of the Uffizi, both in Florence, and in Bronzino's "All is Vanity," also in the National Gallery. In the last-named picture, for example, the colour is as crude and the surface as bare of mystery as if it had been painted yesterday. As a matter of fact, white unquestionably tones down, but never becomes colour; indeed, under favourable conditions, and having due regard to what is underneath, it changes very little. In the "Noli Me Tangere" to which I have referred, the white sleeve of the Magdalen is still a beautiful white, quite different from the white of the fairest of Titian's flesh--proving that Titian never painted his flesh white. The so-called "Venus" in the Tribune at Florence is a more important example still, as it is an elaborately painted picture owing nothing to the brightness that slight painting often has and retains, the colours being untormented by repeated re-touching. This picture is a proof that when the method is good and the pigments pure, the colours change very little. More than three hundred years have passed, and the white sheet on which the figure lies is still, in effect, white against the flesh. The flesh is most lovely in colour--neither violent by shadows or strong colour--but beautiful flesh. It cannot be compared to ivory or snow, or any other substance or material; it is simply beautiful lustre on the surface with a circulation of blood underneath--an absolute triumph never repeated except by Titian himself. It is probable that the pictures by Reynolds are often lower in tone than they were, but it is doubtful whether the Strawberry Hill portraits are as much changed as may be supposed. Walpole, no doubt, called them "white and pinky," but it must be remembered that, living before the days of picture cleaning, he was accustomed to expect them to be brown and dark, probably even to associate colour with dirt in the Old Masters. The purer, clearer, and richer the colours are, the better a picture will be; and I think this should be especially insisted upon, since white is so effective in a modern exhibition that young artists are naturally prompted to profit by the means cheaply afforded and readily at hand. I think it is probable that where Titian has used brown-green he intended it, since in many of the Venetian pictures we find green draperies of a beautiful colour. Sir John seems to infer that the colours used in the decoration of the Parthenon (no doubt used) were crude. The extraordinary refinements demonstrated in a lecture by Mr. Penrose on the spot last year, at which I had the good fortune to be present, forbid such a conclusion. A few graduated inches in the circumference of the columns, and deflection from straight line in the pediment and in the base-line, proved by measurement and examination to be carefully intentional, will not permit us for a moment to believe this could have been the case; so precise in line, rhythmical in arrangement, lovely in detail, and harmonious in effect, it could never have been crude in colour. No doubt the marble was white, but illuminated by such a sun, and set against such a sky and distance, the white, with its varieties of shadow, aided by the colours employed, could have gleaned life and flame in its splendour. Colour was certainly used, and the modern eye might at first have something to get over, but there could have been nothing harsh and crude. The exquisite purity of line and delicacy of edge could never have been matched with crudity or anything like harshness of colour. To this day the brightest colours may be seen on the columns at Luxor and Philae with beautiful effect. _Watts._ CIII I am getting on with my pictures, and have now got them all three into a fairly forward state of _under_ painting; completion, however, will only be reached in the course of next winter, for I intend to execute them with minute care. I have simplified my method of painting, and forsworn all _tricks_. I endeavour to advance from the beginning as much as possible, and equally try to mix the right tint, and slowly and carefully to put it on the right spot, and _always_ with the model before me; what does not exactly suit has to be adapted; one can derive benefit from every head. Schwind says that he cannot work from models, they _worry_ him! A splendid teacher for his pupils! Nature worries every one at first, but one must so discipline oneself that, instead of checking and hindering, she shall illuminate and help, and solve all doubts. Has Schwind, with his splendid and varied gifts, ever been able to model a head with a brush? Those who place the brush behind the pencil, under the pretence that _form_ is before all things, make a very great mistake. Form _is certainly all-important_; one cannot study it enough; _but_ the greater part of _form_ falls within the province of the tabooed _brush_. The ever-lasting hobby of _contour_ which belongs to the drawing material is first the _place_ where the _form_ comes in; what, however, reveals true knowledge of form, is a powerful, organic, refined finish of modelling, full of feeling and knowledge--and that is the affair of the brush. _Leighton._ MANNER CIV Manner is always seductive. It is more or less an imitation of what has been done already, therefore always plausible. It promises the short road, the near cut to present fame and emolument, by availing ourselves of the labours of others. It leads to almost immediate reputation, because it is the wonder of the ignorant world. It is always accompanied by certain blandishments, showy and plausible, and which catch the eye. As manner comes by degrees, and is fostered by success in the world, flattery, &c., all painters who would be really great should be perpetually on their guard against it. Nothing but a close and continual observance of nature can protect them from the danger of becoming mannerists. _Constable._ CV Have a holy horror of useless impasto, which gets sticky and dull, turns blue and heavy. When you have painted a bit of which you are doubtful, wait till the moment when it will be possible for you to take it out. Judge it; and if it is condemned, remove it firmly with your palette-knife, without rubbing by rags which spoil the limpidity of the pigment. You will have left a delicate foundation, to which you can return and finish with little labour, because your canvas will have received a first coating. Loading and massing the pigment is an abomination. In twenty-four hours gold turns to lead. _Puvis de Chavannes._ CVI From the age of six I began to draw, and for eighty-four years I have worked independently of the schools, my thoughts all the time being turned towards drawing. It being impossible to express everything in so small a space, I wished only to teach the difference between vermilion and crimson lake, between indigo and green, and also in a general way to teach how to handle round shapes and square, straight lines and curved; and if one day I make a sequel to this volume, I shall show children how to render the violence of ocean, the rush of rapids, the tranquillity of still pools, and among the living beings of the earth, their state of weakness or strength. There are in nature birds that do not fly high, flowering trees that never fruit; all these conditions of the life we live among are worth studying thoroughly; and if I ever succeed in convincing artists of this, I shall have been the first to show the way. _Hokusai._ CVII Let every man who is here understand this well: design, which by another name is called drawing, and consists of it, is the fount and body of painting and sculpture and architecture and of every other kind of painting, and the root of all sciences. Let whoever may have attained to so much as to have the power of drawing know that he holds a great treasure; he will be able to make figures higher than any tower, either in colours or carved from the block, and he will not be able to find a wall or enclosure which does not appear circumscribed and small to his brave imagination. And he will be able to paint in fresco in the manner of old Italy, with all the mixtures and varieties of colour usually employed in it. He will be able to paint in oils very suavely with more knowledge, daring, and patience than painters. And finally, on a small piece of parchment he will be most perfect and great, as in all other manners of painting. Because great, very great is the power of design and drawing. _Michael Angelo._ DRAWING AND DESIGN CVIII Pupils, I give you the whole art of sculpture when I tell you--_draw!_ _Donatello._ CIX Drawing is the probity of art. _Ingres._ CX To draw does not mean only to reproduce an outline, drawing does not consist only of line; drawing is more than this, it is expression, it is the inner form, the structure, the modelling. After that what is left? Drawing includes seven-eighths of what constitutes painting. If I had to put a sign above my door I would write on it "School of Drawing," and I am sure that I should turn out painters. _Ingres._ CXI Draw with a pure but ample line. Purity and breadth, that is the secret of drawing, of art. _Ingres._ CXII Continue to draw for long before you think of painting. When one builds on a solid foundation one can sleep at ease. _Ingres._ CXIII The great painters like Raphael and Michael Angelo insisted on the outline when finishing their work. They went over it with a fine brush, and thus gave new animation to the contours; they impressed on their design force and fire. _Ingres._ CXIV The first thing to seize in an object, in order to draw it, is the contrast of the principal lines. Before putting chalk to paper, get this well into the mind. In Girodet's work, for example, one sometimes sees this admirably shown, because through intense preoccupation with his model he has caught, willy-nilly, something of its natural grace; but it has been done as if by accident. He applied the principle without recognising it as such. X---- seems to me the only man who has understood it and carried it out. That is the whole secret of his drawing. The most difficult thing is to apply it, like him, to the whole body. Ingres has done it in details like hands, &c. Without mechanical aids to help the eye, it would be impossible to arrive at the principle; aids such as prolonging a line, &c., drawing often on a pane of glass. All the other painters, not excepting Michael Angelo and Raphael, draw by instinct, by inspiration, and found beauty by being struck with it in nature; but they did not know X----'s secret, accuracy of eye. It is not at the moment of carrying out a design that one ought to tie oneself down to working with measuring-rules, perpendiculars, &c.; this accuracy of eye must be an acquired habit, which in the presence of nature will spontaneously assist the imperious need of rendering her aspect. Wilkie, again, has the secret. In portraiture it is indispensable. When, for example, one has made out the _ensemble_ of a design, and when one knows the lines by heart, so to speak, one should be able to reproduce them geometrically, in a fashion, on the picture. Above all with women's portraits; the first thing to seize is to seize the grace of the _ensemble_. If you begin with the details, you will be always heavy. For instance: if you have to draw a thoroughbred horse, if you let yourself go into details, your outline will never be salient enough. _Delacroix._ CXV Drawing is the means employed by art to set down and imitate the light of nature. Everything in nature is manifested to us by means of light and its complementaries, reflection and shadow. This it is which drawing verifies. Drawing is the counterfeit light of art. _Bracquemond._ CXVI It won't do to begin painting heads or much detail in this picture till it's all settled. I do so believe in getting in the bones of a picture properly first, then putting on the flesh and afterwards the skin, and then another skin; last of all combing its hair and sending it forth to the world. If you begin with the flesh and the skin and trust to getting the bones right afterwards, it's such a slippery process. _Burne-Jones._ CXVII The creative spirit in descending into a pictorial conception must take upon itself organic structure. This great imaginative scheme forms the bony system of the work; lines take the place of nerves and arteries, and the whole is covered with the skin of colour. _Hsieh Ho_ (Chinese, sixth century). CXVIII Simplicity in composition or distinctness of parts is ever to be attended to, as it is one part of beauty, as has been already said: but that what I mean by distinctness of parts in this place may be better understood it will be proper to explain it by an example. When you would compose an object of a great variety of parts, let several of those parts be distinguished by themselves, by their remarkable difference from the next adjoining, so as to make each of them, as it were, one well-shaped quantity or part (these are like what they call passages in music, and in writing paragraphs) by which means not only the whole, but even every part, will be better understood by the eye: for confusion will hereby be avoided when the object is seen near, and the shapes will seem well varied, though fewer in number, at a distance. The parsley-leaf, in like manner, from whence a beautiful foliage in ornament was originally taken, is divided into three distinct passages; which are again divided into other odd numbers; and this method is observed, for the generality, in the leaves of all plants and flowers, the most simple of which are the trefoil and cinquefoil. Observe the well-composed nosegay, how it loses all distinctness when it dies; each leaf and flower then shrivels and loses its distinct shape, and the firm colours fade into a kind of sameness; so that the whole gradually becomes a confused heap. If the general parts of objects are preserved large at first, they will always admit of further enrichments of a small kind, but then they must be so small as not to confound the general masses or quantities; thus, you see, variety is a check upon itself when overdone, which of course begets what is called a _petit taste_ and a confusion to the eye. _Hogarth._ CXIX Drawing includes everything except the tinting of the picture. _Ingres._ CXX One must always be drawing, drawing with the eye when one cannot draw with the pencil. If observation does not keep step with practice you will do nothing really good. _Ingres._ CXXI As a means of practising this perspective of the variation and loss or diminution of the proper essence of colours, take at distances, a hundred braccia apart, objects standing in the landscape, such as trees, houses, men, and places, and in front of the first tree fix a piece of glass so that it is quite steady, and then let your eye rest upon it and trace out a tree upon the glass above the outline of the tree; and afterwards remove the glass so far to one side that the actual tree seems almost to touch the one that you have drawn. Then colour your drawing in such a way that the two are alike in colour and form, and that if you close one eye both seem painted on the glass and the same distance away. Then proceed in the same way with a second and a third tree, at distances of a hundred braccia from each other. And these will always serve as your standards and teachers when you are at work on pictures where they can be applied, and they will cause the work to be successful in its distance. But I find it is a rule that the second is reduced to four-fifths the size of the first when it is twenty braccia distant from it. _Leonardo._ CXXII The great and golden rule of art, as well as of life, is this: That the more distinct, sharp, and wiry the bounding line, the more perfect the work of art.... Great inventors in all ages knew this: Protogenes and Apelles knew each other by this line; Raphael and Michael Angelo, and Albert Dürer, are known by this and this alone. The want of this determinate and bounding form evidences the idea of want in the artist's mind. _Blake._ CXXIII My opinion is that he who knows how to draw well and merely does a foot or a hand or a neck, can paint everything created in the world; and yet there are painters who paint everything there is in the world so impatiently and so much without worth that it would be better not to do it at all. One recognises the knowledge of a great man in the fear with which he does a thing the more he understands it; and, on the contrary, the ignorance of others in the foolhardy daring with which they fill pictures with what they know nothing about. There may be an excellent master who has never painted more than a single figure, and without painting anything more deserves more renown and honour than those who have painted a thousand pictures: he knows better how to do what he has not done than the others know what they do. _Michael Angelo._ CXXIV It is known that bodies in motion always describe some line or other in the air, as the whirling round of a firebrand apparently makes a circle, the waterfall part of a curve, the arrow and bullet, by the swiftness of their motions, nearly a straight line; waving lines are formed by the pleasing movement of a ship on the waves. Now, in order to obtain a just idea of action, at the same time to be judiciously satisfied of being in the right in what we do, let us begin with imagining a line formed in the air by any supposed point at the end of a limb or part that is moved, or made by the whole part or limb, or by the whole body together. And that thus much of movements may be conceived at once is evident, on the least recollection; for whoever has seen a fine Arabian war-horse, unbacked and at liberty, and in a wanton trot, cannot but remember what a large waving line his rising, and at the same time pressing forward cuts through the air, the equal continuation of which is varied by his curveting from side to side; whilst his long mane and tail play about in serpentine movements. _Hogarth._ CXXV Distinguish the various planes of a picture by circumscribing them each in turn; class them in the order in which they present themselves to the daylight; before beginning to paint, settle which have the same value. Thus, for example, in a drawing on tinted paper make the parts that glitter gleam out with your white, then the lights, rendered also with white, but fainter; afterwards those of the half-tones that can be managed by means of the paper, then a first half-tone with the chalk, &c. When at the edge of a plane which you have accurately marked, you have a little more light than at the centre of it, you give so much more definition of its flatness or projection. This is the secret of modelling. It will be of no use to add black; that will not give the modelling. It follows that one can model with very slight materials. _Delacroix._ CXXVI Take a style of silver or brass, or anything else provided the point is silver, sufficiently fine (sharp) and polished and good. Then to acquire command of hand in using the style, begin to draw with it from a copy as freely as you can, and so lightly that you can scarcely see what you have begun to do, deepening your strokes little by little, and going over them repeatedly to make the shadows. Where you would make it darkest go over it many times; and, on the contrary, make but few touches on the lights. And you must be guided by the light of the sun, and the light of your eye, and your hand; and without these three things you can do nothing properly. Contrive always when you draw that the light is softened, and that the sun strikes on your left hand; and in this manner you should begin to practise drawing only a short time every day, that you may not become vexed or weary. _Cennino Cennini._ CXXVII _Charcoal._ You can't draw, you paint with it. _Pencil._ It is always touch and go whether I can manage it even now. Sometimes knots will come in it, and I never can get them out--I mean little black specks. If I have once india-rubbered it, it doesn't make a good drawing. I look on a perfectly successful drawing as one built upon a groundwork of clear lines till it is finished. It's the same kind of thing with red chalk--it mustn't be taken out: rubbing with the finger is all right. In fact you don't succeed with any process until you find out how you may knock it about and in what way you must be careful. Slowly built-up texture in oil-painting gives you the best chance of changing without damage when it is necessary. _Burne-Jones._ CXXVIII The simpler your lines and forms are the stronger and more beautiful they will be. Whenever you break up forms you weaken them. It is as with everything else that is split and divided. _Ingres._ CXXIX The draperies with which you dress figures ought to have their folds so accommodated as to surround the parts they are intended to cover; that in the mass of light there be not any dark fold, and in the mass of shadows none receiving too great a light. They must go gently over, describing the parts; but not with lines across, cutting the members with hard notches, deeper than the part can possibly be; at the same time, it must fit the body, and not appear like an empty bundle of cloth; a fault of many painters, who, enamoured of the quantity and variety of folds, have encumbered their figures, forgetting the intention of clothes, which is to dress and surround the parts gracefully wherever they touch; and not to be filled with wind, like bladders puffed up where the parts project. I do not deny that we ought not to neglect introducing some handsome folds among these draperies, but it must be done with great judgment, and suited to the parts, where, by the actions of the limbs and position of the whole body, they gather together. Above all, be careful to vary the quality and quantity of your folds in compositions of many figures; so that, if some have large folds, produced by thick woollen cloth, others being dressed in thinner stuff, may have them narrower; some sharp and straight, others soft and undulating. _Leonardo._ CXXX Do not spare yourself in drawing from the living model, draped as well as undraped; in fact, draw drapery continually, for remember that the beauty of your design must largely depend on the design of the drapery. What you should aim at is to get so familiar with all this that you can at last make your design with ease and something like certainty, without drawing from models in the first draught, though you should make studies from nature afterwards. _William Morris._ CXXXI A woman's shape is best in repose, but the fine thing about a man is that he is such a splendid machine, so you can put him in motion, and make as many knobs and joints and muscles about him as you please. _Burne-Jones._ CXXXII I want to draw from the nude this summer as much as I possibly can; I am sure that it is the only way to keep oneself up to the standard of draughtsmanship that is so absolutely necessary to any one who wishes to become a craftsman in preference to a glorified amateur. _C. W. Furse._ CXXXIII Always when you draw make up your mind definitely as to what are the salient characteristics of the object, and express those as personally as you can, not minding whether your view is or is not shared by your relatives and friends. Now this is not _carte blanche_ to be capricious, nor does it intend to make you seek for novelty; but if you are true to your own vision, as heretofore you have been, you will always be original and personal in your work. In stating your opinion on the structural character of man, bird, or beast, always wilfully caricature; it gives you something to prune, which is ever so much more satisfactory than having constantly to fill gaps which an unincisive vision has caused, and which will invariably make work dull and mediocre and wooden. _C. W. Furse._ CXXXIV In Japanese painting form and colour are represented without any attempt at relief, but in European methods relief and illusion are sought for. _Hokusai._ CXXXV It is indeed ridiculous that most of our people are disposed to regard Western paintings as a kind of Uki-ye. As I have repeatedly remarked, a painting which is not a faithful copy of nature has neither beauty nor is worthy of the name. What I mean to say is this: be the subject what it may, a landscape, a bird, a bullock, a tree, a stone, or an insect, it should be treated in a way so lifelike that it is instinct with life and motion. Now this is beyond the possibility of any other art save that of the West. Judged from this point of view, Japanese and Chinese paintings look very puerile, hardly deserving the name of art. Because people have been accustomed to such daub-like productions, whenever they see a master painting of the West, they merely pass it by as a mere curiosity, or dub it a Uki-ye, a misconception which betrays sheer ignorance. _Shiba Kokan_ (Japanese, eighteenth century). CXXXVI These accents are to painting what melody is to the harmonic base, and more than anything else they decide victory or defeat. A method is of little account at those moments when the final effect is at hand; one uses any means, even diabolical invocations, and when the need comes, when I have exhausted the resources of pigment, I use a scraper, pumice-stone, and if nothing else serves, the handle of my brush. _Rousseau._ CXXXVII The noblest relievo in painting is that which is resultant from the treatment of the masses, not from the vulgar swelling and rounding of the bodies; and the noble Venetian massing is excellent in this quality. Those parts in which there is necessity for salient quality of relief must be expressed with a certain quadrature, a certain varied grace of accent like that which the bony ridge develops in beautiful wrists and ankles, also in some of the tunic-folds that fall behind the arm of the recumbent Fate over the middle of the figure of the Newlands Titian; and again in some of the happiest passages in the graceful women of Lodovico Caracci, and in their vesture folds, _e.g._ the bosom and waist of the St. Catherine. Doubtless there is a choice, or design were vain. There must be courage to _reject_ no less than to _gather_. A man is at liberty to neglect things that are repugnant to his disposition. He may, if he please, have nothing to do with thistle or thorn, with bramble or brier.... Nevertheless sharp and severe things are yet dear to some souls. Nor should I understand the taste that would reject the wildness of the thorn and holly, or the child-loving labyrinths of the bramble, or wholesome ranges of the downs and warrens fragrant with gorse. No one requires of the painter that he even attempt to render the multitude and infinitude of Nature; but that he _represent_ it through the chastened elements of his proper instrument, with a performance rendered distinctive and facile by study and genial impulse. _Edward Calvert._ CXXXVIII Modelling is parent of the art of chasing, as of the art of sculpturing. Skilful as he was in these arts, he executed nothing which he had not modelled. _Pasiteles._ CXXXIX Don't _invent_ arrangements, select them, leaving out what you consider to be unimportant, and above all things don't be influenced in the arrangements you select by any pictures you may see, except perhaps the Japanese. _C. W. Furse._ CXXXIXa He alone can conceive and compose who sees the whole at once before him. _Fuseli._ COLOUR CXL He who desires to be a painter must learn to rule the black, and red, and white. _Titian._ CXLI There is the black which is old and the black which is fresh, lustrous black and dull black, black in sunlight and black in shadow. For the old black, one must use an admixture of red; for the fresh black, an admixture of blue; for the dull black, an admixture of white; for lustrous black, gum must be added; black in sunlight must have grey reflections. _Hokusai._ CXLII When you are painting put a piece of black velvet between your eye and nature; by this means you will easily convince yourself that in nature everything is blond, even the dark trunks of trees relieved against the sky. Black, when it is in shadow, is strong in tone, but ceases to be black. _Dutilleux._ CXLIII The Variation of Colour in uneven Superficies, is what confounds an unskilful Painter; but if he takes Care to mark the Outlines of his Superficie, and the Seat of his Lights, he will find the true Colouring no such difficult matter: For first he will alter the Superficies properly as far as the Line of Separation, either with White or Black sparingly as only with gentle Dew; then he will in the same Manner bedew the other Side of the Line, if I may be allowed the expression, then this again and so on by turns, till the light Side is brightened with more transparent Colour, and the same Colour on the other Side dies away like Smoak into an easy Shade. But you should always remember, that no Superficie should ever be made so white that you cannot make it still brighter: Even in Painting the whitest Cloaths you should abstain from coming near the strongest of that Colour; because the Painter has nothing but White wherewith to imitate the Polish of the most shining Superficie whatsoever, as I know of none but Black with which he can represent the utmost Shade and Obscurity of Night. For this Reason, when he paints a white Habit, he should take one of the four Kinds of Colours that are clear and open; and so again in painting any black Habit, let him use another Extream, but not absolute Black, as for Instance, the Colour of the Sea where it is very deep, which is extreamly dark. In a Word, this Composition of Black and White has so much Power, that when practised with Art and Method, it is capable of representing in Painting the Superficie either of Gold or of Silver, and even of the clearest Glass. Those Painters, therefore, are greatly to be condemned, who make use of White immoderately and of Black without Judgment; for which reason I could wish that the Painters were obliged to buy their White at a greater Price than the most costly Gems, and that both White and Black were to be made of those Pearls which Cleopatra dissolved in Vinegar; that they might be more chary of it. _Leon Battista Alberti._ [Illustration: _Signorelli_ THE MUSIC OF PAN _Hanfstaengl_] CXLIV A word as to colour. One can only give warnings against possible faults; it is clearly impossible to teach colour by words, even ever so little of it, though it can be taught in a workshop, at least partially. Well, I should say, be rather restrained than over-luxurious in colour, or you weary the eye. Do not attempt over-refinements in colour, but be frank and simple. If you look at the pieces of colouring that most delight you in ornamental work, as, _e.g._ a Persian carpet, or an illuminated book of the Middle Ages, and analyse its elements, you will, if you are not used to the work, be surprised at the simplicity of it, the few tints used, the modesty of the tints, and therewithal the clearness and precision of all boundary lines. In all fine flat colouring there are regular systems of dividing colour from colour. Above all, don't attempt iridescent blendings of colour, which look like decomposition. They are about as much as possible the reverse of useful. _William Morris._ CXLV After seeing all the fine pictures in France, Italy, and Germany, one must come to this conclusion--that _colour_, if not the first, is at least an essential quality in painting. No master has as yet maintained his ground beyond his own time without it. But in oil painting it is richness and depth alone that can do justice to the material. Upon this subject every prejudice with which I left home is, if anything, not only confirmed but increased. What Sir Joshua wrote, and what our friend Sir George so often supported, _was right_; and after seeing what I have seen, I am not now to be _talked_ out of it. With us, as you know, every young exhibitor with pink, white, and blue, thinks himself a colourist like Titian; than whom perhaps no painter is more misrepresented or misunderstood. I saw myself at Florence his famous Venus upon an easel, with Kirkup and Wallis by me. This picture, so often copied, and every copy a fresh mistake, is, what I expected it to be, deep yet brilliant; indescribable in its hues, yet simple beyond example in its execution and its colouring. Its flesh (O how our friends at home would stare!) is a simple, sober, mixed-up tint, and apparently, like your skies, completed while wet. No scratchings, no hatchings, no scumbling nor multiplicity of repetitions--no ultramarine lakes nor vermilions--not even a mark of the brush visible; all seemed melted in the fat and glowing mass, solid yet transparent, giving the nearest approach to life that the painter's art has ever yet reached. _Wilkie._ CXLVI In painting, get the main tones first. Do not forget that white by itself should be used very sparingly; to make anything of a beautiful colour, accentuate the tones clearly, lay them fresh and in facets; no compromise with ambiguous and false tones; colour in nature is a mixture of single tones adapted to one another. _Chassériau._ CXLVII A thing to remember always: avoid greenish tones. _Chassériau._ CXLVIII One is a colourist by values, by colour and light; there are colourists who are luminarists as there are colourists pure and simple. Titian is a colourist but not a luminarist, while Correggio is a colourist and a luminarist. The simple colourists are those who content themselves with representing the tones in their value and colour without troubling about the magic of light; they also give to tones all their intensity. The luminarists, as the word indicates, make light the most important thing. Three names will make you understand; Rembrandt, Correggio, and Claude Lorraine. Claude, taking the light of the sun for a starting-point, justifies his method by nature: you know that he starts from a luminous point, and that point is the sun. To make this brilliant you must make great sacrifices, for you have no doubt remarked that we painters always begin with a half-tint; as our paintings are not brightened by the light of the sun, and start with a half-tint, it is necessary by the magic of tones to make this half-tint shine like a luminous thing. You see that it is a difficult problem to solve; how does Claude do it? He does not copy the exact tones of nature, since beginning with a dull one, he is obliged to make it luminous. He transposes as in music; he observes all things constituting light, remarks that the rays prevent us from seizing the outline of a bright object, that then the flame is enveloped by a bright halo; then by a second one less vivid, and so on until the tones become dull and sombre. In short, to make myself understood, his picture seen from distance represents a flame. Correggio also works in this way. Take for example his picture of Antiope. The woman, enveloped in a panther skin, is as bright as a flame. The soft red tone forms the first halo, then the light blue draperies with a slight greenish tint form the second halo. The Satyr has a value a few degrees below that of the draperies, making it the third halo. When the bouquet is thus formed, Correggio surrounds it with beautiful dark leaves, shading towards the extremities of the canvas. These gradations are so well observed, that if you put the picture at so great a distance that you cannot see the figures, you will still have the representation of light. _Couture._ CXLIX Painters who are not colourists make illuminations and not paintings. Painting, properly speaking--unless one wants to produce a monochrome--implies the idea of colour as one of its fundamental elements, together with chiaroscuro, proportion, and perspective. Proportion applies to sculpture as to painting. Perspective determines the outline; chiaroscuro produces relief by the arrangement of shadow and light in relation to the background; colour gives the appearance of life, &c. The sculptor does not begin his work with an outline; he builds up with his material a likeness of the object which, rough at first, establishes from the beginning the essential conditions of relief and solidity. Colourists, being those who unite all the qualities of painting, must, in a single process and at first setting to work, secure the conditions peculiar and essential to their art. They have to mass with colour, as the sculptor with clay, marble, or stone; their sketch, like the sculptor's, must show proportion, perspective, effect, and colour. Outline is as ideal and conventional in painting as in sculpture; it should result naturally from the good arrangement of the essential parts. The combined preparation of effect which implies perspective and colour will approach more or less the actual aspect of things, according to the degree of the painter's skill; but this foundation will contain potentially everything included in the final result. _Delacroix._ CL I believe colour to be a quite indispensable quality in the _highest_ art, and that no picture ever belonged to the highest order without it; while many, by possessing it--as the works of Titian--are raised certainly into the highest _class_, though not to the very highest grade of that class, in spite of the limited degree of their other great qualities. Perhaps the _only_ exception which I should be inclined to admit exists in the works of Hogarth, to which I should never dare to assign any but the very highest place, though their colour is certainly not a prominent feature in them. I must add, however, that Hogarth's colour is seldom other than pleasing to myself, and that for my own part I should almost call him a colourist, though not aiming at colour. On the other hand, there are men who, merely on account of bad colour, prevent me from thoroughly enjoying their works, though full of other qualities. For instance, Wilkie or Delaroche (in nearly all his works, though the Hémicycle is fine in colour). From Wilkie I would at any time prefer a thoroughly fine engraving--though of course he is in no respect even within hail of Hogarth. Colour is the physiognomy of a picture; and, like the shape of the human forehead, it cannot be perfectly beautiful without proving goodness and greatness. Other qualities are in its life exercised; but this is the body of its life, by which we know and love it at first sight. _Rossetti._ CLI In regard to the different modes of painting the flesh, I belief it is of little consequence which is pursued, if you only keep the colours distinct; too much mixing makes them muddy and destroys their brilliancy, you know. Sir Joshua was of opinion that the grey tints in the flesh of Titian's pictures were obtained by scumbling cool tints over warm ones; and others prefer commencing in a cool grey manner, and leaving the greys for the middle tints, whilst they paint upon the lights with warmer colours, also enriching the shadows with warmer and deeper colours too. But for my own part, I have always thought it a good way to consider the flesh as composed of different coloured network laid over each other, as is really the case in nature, and may be seen by those who will take the pains to look carefully into it. _Northcote._ CLII The utmost beauty of colouring depends on the great principle of varying by all the means of varying, and on the proper and artful union of that variety. I am apt to believe that the not knowing nature's artful and intricate method of uniting colours for the production of the variegated composition, or prime tint of flesh, hath made colouring, in the art of painting, a kind of mystery in all ages; insomuch, that it may fairly be said, out of the many thousands who have labour'd to attain it, not above ten or twelve painters have happily succeeded therein; Correggio (who lived in a country village, and had nothing but the life to study after) is said almost to have stood alone for this particular excellence. Guido, who made beauty his chief aim, was always at a loss about it. Poussin scarce ever obtained a glimpse of it, as is manifest by his many different attempts: indeed France hath not produced one remarkable good colourist. Rubens boldly, and in a masterly manner, kept his bloom tints bright, separate, and distinct, but sometimes too much so for easel or cabinet pictures; however, his manner was admirably well calculated for great works, to be seen at a considerable distance, such as his celebrated ceiling at Whitehall Chapel: which upon a nearer view will illustrate what I have advanc'd with regard to the separate brightness of the tints; and shew, what indeed is known to every painter, that had the colours there seen so bright and separate been all smooth'd and absolutely blended together, they would have produced a dirty grey instead of flesh-colour. The difficulty then lies in bringing _blue_, the third original colour, into flesh, on account of the vast variety introduced thereby; and this omitted, all the difficulty ceases; and a common sign-painter that lays his colours smooth, instantly becomes, in point of colouring, a Rubens, a Titian, or a Correggio. _Hogarth._ CLIII COPY ON CANVAS IN OIL OF THE DORIA CORREGGIO IN THE PALAZZO PASQUA It seems painted in (their) juicy, fat colour, the parts completed one after another upon the bare pannel, the same as frescoes upon the flattened wall. Simplicity of tint and of colour prevails; no staining or mottled varieties: the flesh, both in light and shadow, is produced by one mixed up tint so melted that no mark of the brush is seen. There is here no scratching or scumbling--no repetitions; all seems prepared at once for the glaze, which, simple as the painting is, gives to it with fearless hand the richness and glow of Correggio. All imitations of this master are complicated compared to this, and how complicated and abstruse does it make all attempts of the present day to give similar effects in colouring! Here is one figure in outline upon the prepared board, with even the finger-marks in colour of the painter himself. Here is the preparation of the figures painted up at once, and, strange to say, with solid and even sunny colours. Here are the heads of a woman and of a naked child, completed with the full zest and tone of Correggio, in texture fine, and in expression rich and luxurious, and as fine an example of his powers as any part to be found in his most celebrated work. _Wilkie._ CLIV In a modern exhibition pictures lose by tone at first glance, but in the Louvre pictures gained, and Titian, Correggio, Rubens, Cuyp, and Rembrandt combated everything by the depth of their tones; and one still hopes that, when toning is successfully done, it will prevail. You have now got your exhibition open in Edinburgh: do you find tone and depth an advantage there or not? Painting bright and raw, if one can find in his heart to lower and glaze it afterwards, is always satisfactory; but unless strength can be combined with this, it will never be the fashion in our days. _Wilkie._ CLV I went into the National Gallery and refreshed myself with a look at the pictures. One impression I had was of how much more importance the tone of them is than the actual tint of any part of them. I looked close into the separate colours and they were all very lovely in their quality--but the whole colour-effect of a picture then is not very great. It is the entire result of the picture that is so wonderful. I peered into the whites to see how they were made, and it is astonishing how little white there would be in a white dress--none at all, in fact--and yet it looks white. I went again and looked at the Van Eyck, and saw how clearly the like of it is not to be done by me. But he had many advantages. For one thing, he had all his objects in front of him to paint from. A nice, clean, neat floor of fair boards well scoured, pretty little dogs and everything. Nothing to bother about but making good portraits--dresses and all else of exactly the right colour and shade of colour. But the tone of it is simply marvellous, and the beautiful colour each little object has, and the skill of it all. He permits himself extreme darkness though. It's all very well to say it's a purple dress--very dark brown is more the colour of it. And the black, no words can describe the blackness of it. But the like of it is not for me to do--can't be--not to be thought of. As I walked about there I thought if I had my life all over again, what would I best like to do in the way of making a new start once more; it would be to try and paint more like the Italian painters. And that's rather happy for a man to feel in his last days--to find that he is still true to his first impulse, and doesn't think he has wasted his life in wrong directions. _Burne-Jones._ CLVI All painting consists of sacrifices and _parti-pris_. _Goya._ CLVII In nature, colour exists no more than line,--there is only light and shade. Give me a piece of charcoal, and I will paint your portrait for you. _Goya._ CLVIII It requires much more observation and study to arrive at perfection in the shadowing of a picture than in merely drawing the lines of it. The proof of this is, that the lines may be traced upon a veil or a flat glass placed between the eye and the object to be imitated. But that cannot be of any use in shadowing, on account of the infinite gradation of shades, and the blending of them which does not allow of any precise termination; and most frequently they are confused, as will be demonstrated in another place. _Leonardo._ LIGHT AND SHADE CLIX Forget not therefore that the principal part of Painting or Drawing after the life consisteth in the truth of the line, as one sayeth in a place that he hath seen the picture of her Majesty in four lines very like, meaning by four lines but the plain lines, as he might as well have said in one line, but best in plain lines without shadowing; for the line without shadow showeth all to a good Judgement, but the shadow without line showeth nothing, as, for example, though the shadow of a man against a white wall sheweth like a man, yet it is not the shadow but the line of the shadow, which is so true that it resembleth excellently well, as drawn by that line about the shadow with a coal, and when the shadow is gone it will resemble better than before, and may, if it be a fair face, have sweet countenance even in the line; for the line only giveth the countenance, but both line and colour giveth the lively likeness, and shadows shew the roundness and the effect or Defect of the light wherein the picture was drawn. This makes me to remember the words also and reasoning of her Majesty when first I came in her highness' presence to draw, who after shewing me how she noted great difference of shadowing in the works and Diversity of Drawers of sundry nations, and that the Italians who had the name to be cunningest and to Draw best, shadowed not. Requiring of me the reason of it, seeing that best to shew oneself needeth no shadow of place but rather the open light, to which I granted, affirmed that shadows in pictures were indeed caused by the shadow of the place or coming in of the light at only one way into the place at some small or high window, which many workmen covet to work in for ease to their sight, and to give unto them a grosser line and a more apparent line to be deserved, and maketh the work imborse well and show very well afar off, which to Limning work needeth not, because it is to be viewed of necessity in hand near unto the Eye. Here her Majesty conceived the reason, and therefore chose her place to sit in for that purpose in the open alley of a goodly garden, where no tree was near nor any shadow at all, save that as the Heaven is lighter than the earth, so must that little shadow that was from the earth; this her Majesty's curious Demand hath greatly bettered my Judgement, besides divers other like questions in Art by her most excellent Majesty, which to speak or write of were fitter for some better clerk. This matter only of the light let me perfect that no wise man longer remain in Error of praising much shadows in pictures which are to be viewed in hand; great pictures high or far off Require hard shadows to become the better then nearer in story work better than pictures of the life; for beauty and good favour is like clear truth, which is not shadowed with the light nor made to be obscured, as a picture a little shadowed may be borne withal for the rounding of it, but so greatly smutted or Darkened as some use Disgrace it, and in like truth ill told, if a very well favoured woman show in a place where is great shadow, yet showeth she lovely not because of the shadow but because of her sweet favour consisting in the line or proportion, even that little which the light scarcely showeth greatly pleaseth, proving the Desire to see more. _Nicholas Hilliard._ CLX The lights cast from small windows also present a strong contrast of light and shadow, more especially if the chamber lit by them is large; and this is not good to use in painting. _Leonardo._ CLXI When you are drawing from nature the light should be from the north, so that it may not vary; and if it is from the south keep the window covered with a curtain so that though the sun shine upon it all day long the light will undergo no change. The elevation of the light should be such that each body casts a shadow on the ground which is of the same length as its height. _Leonardo._ CLXII Above all let the figures that you paint have sufficient light and from above, that is, all living persons whom you paint, for the people whom you see in the streets are all lighted from above; and I would have you know that you have no acquaintance so intimate but that if the light fell on him from below you would find it difficult to recognise him. _Leonardo._ CLXIII If by accident it should happen, that when drawing or copying in chapels, or colouring in other unfavourable places, you cannot have the light on your left hand, or in your usual manner, be sure to give relief to your figures or design according to the arrangement of the windows which you find in these places, which have to give you light, and thus accommodating yourself to the light on which side soever it may be, give the proper lights and shadows. Or if it were to happen that the light should enter or shine right opposite or full in your face, make your lights and shades accordingly; or if the light should be favourable at a window larger than the others in the above-mentioned places, adopt always the best light, and try to understand and follow it carefully, because, wanting this, your work would be without relief, a foolish thing without mastery. _Cennino Cennini._ CLXIV You have heard about Merlin's magic art; here in Venice you may _see_ that of Titian, Giorgione, and all the others. In the Palazzo Barbarigo we went to the room which is said to have been Titian's studio for some time. The window faces the south, and the sun is shining on the floor by two o'clock. This made us think, whether you should not, after all, let the sun be there while you are painting. A temperate sunlight in the room makes the lights golden, and through the many, crossing, warm reflections the shadows get clearer and more transparent. But the difficulty is to know how to deal with such a shimmer; it is easier to paint with the light coming from the north. On the other hand, you see that the Venetians never tried to render in painting the impression of real, open sunlight. Their delicate sense of colour found a greater delight in looking at the fine fused tones and shades which are seen when the sunlight is only reflected under the clear blue sky and between the high palaces. Therefore, you often think that you see, for instance, groups of gondoliers on the Piazzetta in gay silvery notes, as in any painting by Paolo Veronese; and in the warm daylight in the great, gorgeous halls of the Palazzo Ducale there are still figures walking about in a colour as golden and fresh as if they were paintings by Titian. _E. Lundgren._ PORTRAITURE CLXV Painting the face of a pretty young girl is like carving a portrait in silver. There may be great elaboration, but no likeness will be forthcoming. It is better to put the elaboration into the young lady's clothes, and trust to a touch here and a stroke there to bring out her beauty as it really is. _Ku K'ai-Chih_ (Chinese, fourth century). CLXVI Portraiture may be great art. There is a sense, indeed, in which it is perhaps the greatest art of any. And portraiture involves expression. Quite true, but expression of what? Of a passion, an emotion, a mood? Certainly not. Paint a man or a woman with the damned "pleasing expression," or even the "charmingly spontaneous" so dear to the "photographic artist," and you see at once that the thing is a mask, as silly as the old tragic and comic mask. The only expression allowable in great portraiture is the expression of character and moral quality, not of anything temporary, fleeting, and accidental. Apart from portraiture you don't want even so much, or very seldom: in fact, you only want types, symbols, suggestions. The moment you give what people call expression, you destroy the typical character of heads and degrade them into portraits which stand for nothing. _Burne-Jones._ CLXVII It produces a magnificent effect to place whole figures and groups, which are in shade, against a light field. The contrary, _i.e._ figures that are in light against a dark field, cannot be so perfectly expressed, because every illuminated figure, with or without a side light, will have some shade. The nearest approach to this is when the object so treated happen to be very fair, with other objects reflecting into their shades. Shade against shade is indefinite. Light and shade against shade are mediate. Light against shade is perspicuous. Light and shade against light is mediate. Light against light is indefinite or indistinct. _Edward Calvert._ CLXVIII Most of the masters have had a way, slavishly imitated by their schools and following, of exaggerating the darkness of the backgrounds which they give their portraits. They thought in this way to make the heads more interesting, but this darkness of background, in conjunction with faces lighted as we see them in nature, deprives these portraits of that character of simplicity which should be dominant in them. This darkness places the objects intended to be thrown into relief in quite abnormal conditions. Is it natural that a face seen in light should stand out against a really dark background--that is to say, one which receives no light? Ought not the light which falls on the figure to fall also on the wall, or the tapestry against which the figure stands? Unless it should happen that the face stands out against drapery of an extremely dark tone--but this condition is very rare, or against the entrance of a cavern or cellar entirely deprived of daylight--a circumstance still rarer--the method cannot but appear factitious. The chief charm in a portrait is simplicity. I do not count among true portraits those in which the aim has been to idealise the features of a famous man when the painter has to reconstruct the face from traditional likenesses; there, invention rightly plays a part. True portraits are those painted from contemporaries. We like to see them on the canvas as we meet them in daily life, even though they should be persons of eminence and fame. _Delacroix._ CLXIX Verestchagin says the old-fashioned way of setting a portrait-head against a dark ground is not only unnecessary, but being usually untrue when a person is seen by daylight, should be exploded as false and unreal. But it is certain a light garish background behind a painted head will not permit that head to have the importance it should have in reality, when the actual facts, solidity, movement, play of light and shadow, personal knowledge of the individual or his history, joined to the effects of different planes, distances, materials, &c., will combine to invest the reality with interests the most subtle and dexterous artistic contrivances cannot compete with, and which certainly the artist cannot with reason be asked to resign. A sense of the power of an autocrat, from whose lips one might be awaiting consignment to a dungeon or death, would be as much felt if he stood in front of the commonest wall-paper, in the commonest lodging-house, in the meanest watering-place, but no such impressions could be conveyed by the painter who depicted such surroundings. Lastly, I must strongly dissent from the opinion recently expressed by some, that seems to imply that a portrait-picture need have no interest excepting in the figure, and that the background had better be without any. This may be a good principle for producing an effect on the walls of an exhibition-room, where the surroundings are incongruous and inharmonious; an intellectual or beautiful face should be more interesting than any accessories the artist could put into the background. No amount of elaboration in the background could disturb the attention of any one looking at the portrait of Julius the Second by Raphael, also in the Tribune, which I cannot help thinking is _the_ finished portrait in the world. A portrait is _the most truly historical picture_, and this the most monumental and historical of portraits. The longer one looks at it the more it demands attention. A superficial picture is like a superficial character--it may do for an acquaintance, but not for a friend. One never gets to the end of things to interest and admire in many old portrait-pictures. _Watts._ [Illustration: _J. Van Eyck_ PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST'S WIFE _Bruckmann_] CLXX There is one point that has always forced itself upon me strongly in comparing the portrait-painting qualities of Rembrandt and Velasquez. In Rembrandt I see a delightful human sympathy between himself and his sitters; he is always more interested in that part of them which conforms to some great central human type, and is comparatively uninterested in those little distinctions which delight the caricaturist and are the essence of that much applauded quality, "the catching of a likeness." I don't believe he was a very good catcher of likenesses, but I am sure his rendering was the biggest and fullest side of that man--there is always a fine ironical appreciation of character moulded by circumstance; whereas in Velasquez I find the other thing. _C. W. Furse._ CLXXI I have wished to oblige the beholder, on looking at the portrait, to think wholly of the face in front of him, and nothing of the man who painted it. And it is my opinion that the artist who paints portraits in this way need have no fear of the pitfall of _mannerism_ either in treatment or touch. _Watts._ CLXXII Let us ... examine modern portraits. I shut my eyes and think of those full lengths in the New Gallery and the Academy, which I have not seen this year, but whose every detail is familiar to me. You will find that a uniform light stretches from their chins to their toes; in all probability the background is a slab of grey into whose insensitive surface neither light nor air penetrates; or perhaps that most offensive portrait-painter's property, a sham room in which none of the furniture has been seen in its proper relation of light to the face, but has been muzzed in with slippery insincerity, and with an amiable hope that it may take its place behind the figure. The face, in all but one or two portraits, will lack definition of plane--will be flat and flabby. A white spot on the nose and high light on the forehead will serve for modelling; little or no attempt will have been made to get a light which will help the observer to concentrate on the head, or give the head its full measure of rotundity--your eyes will wander aimlessly from cheek to chiffon, from glinting satin to the pattern on the floor, forgetful of the purpose of the portrait, and only arrested by some dab of pink or mauve, which will remind you that the artist is developing a somewhat irrelevant colour scheme. For solidity, for the realisation of the great constructive planes of things, for that element of sculpture which exists in all good painting, you will look in vain. I am sure that in an average Academy there are not three real attempts to get the values--that is, the inevitable relation of objects in light and shade that must exist under any circumstances--and not one attempt to contrive an artificial composition of light and shade which shall concentrate the attention of the spectator on the crucial point, and shall introduce these delightful effects of dark things against light and light against dark, which lend such richness and variety of tone and such vitality of construction to Titian, Rembrandt, and Reynolds. If we turn for a moment to the National Gallery and look at Gainsborough's "Baillie Family," or Reynolds' "Three Ladies decorating the Term of Hymen," we see at once the difference; in Gainsborough's case the group is in a mellow flood of light, there are no strong shadows on any of the faces, and none of the figures are used to cast shadows on other figures in the group; and yet as you look you see the whole light of the picture culminating in the central head of the mother, the sides and bottom of the picture fade off into artificial shadow, exquisitely used, without which that glorious light would have been dissipated over the picture, losing all its effectiveness and carrying power. See how finely he has understood the reticent tones of the man behind, and how admirably the loosely painted convention of landscape background is made to carry on the purely artificial arrangement of light and shade. In the Reynolds the shadowed figure on the left, and the shadows that flit across the skirts of the other two figures, and the fine relief of the dark trees, give a wonderful richness of design to a picture that is not in other respects of the highest interest. _C. W. Furse._ CLXXIII Why have I not before now finished the miniature I promised to Mrs. Butts? I answer I have not till now in any degree pleased myself, and now I must entreat you to excuse faults, for portrait painting is the direct contrary to designing and historical painting in every respect. If you have not nature before you for every touch, you cannot paint portrait; and if you have nature before you at all, you cannot paint history. It was Michael Angelo's opinion and is mine. _Blake._ CLXXIV I often find myself wondering why people are so frequently dissatisfied with their portraits, but I think I have discovered the principal reason--they are not pleased with themselves, and therefore cannot endure a faithful representation. I find it is the same with myself. I cannot bear any portraits of myself, except those of my own painting, where I have had the opportunity of coaxing them, so as to suit my own feelings. _Northcote._ LIGHT AND SHADE CLXXV Don't be afraid of splendour of effect; nothing is more brilliant, nothing more radiant than nature. Painting tends to become confused and to lose its power to strike hard. Make things monumental and yet real; set down the lights and the shadows as in reality. Heads which are all in a half-tone flushed with colour from a strong sun; heads in the light, full of air and freshness; these should be a delight to paint. _Chassériau._ CLXXVI The first object of a painter is to make a simple flat surface appear like a relievo, and some of its parts detached from the ground; he who excels all others in that part of the art deserves the greatest praise. This perfection of the art depends on the correct distribution of lights and shades called _Chiaro-scuro_. If the painter, then, avoids shadows, he may be said to avoid the glory of the art, and to render his work despicable to real connoisseurs, for the sake of acquiring the esteem of vulgar and ignorant admirers of fine colours, who never have any knowledge of relievo. _Leonardo._ CLXXVII Chiaroscuro, to use untechnical language and to speak of it as it is employed by all the schools, is the art of making atmosphere visible and painting objects in an envelope of air. Its aim is to create all the picturesque accidents of the shadows, of the half-tones and the light, of relief and distance, and to give in consequence more variety, more unity of effect, of caprice, and of relative truth, to forms as to colours. The opposite conception is one more ingenuous and abstract, a method by which one shows objects as they are, seen close, the atmosphere being suppressed, and in consequence without any perspective except the linear perspective, which results from the diminution in the size of objects and their relation to the horizon. When we talk of aeriel perspective we presuppose a certain amount of chiaroscuro. _Fromentin._ CLXXVIII A painter must study his picture in every degree of light; it is all little enough. You know, I suppose, that this period of the day between daylight and darkness is called "the painter's hour"? There is, however, this inconvenience attending it, which allowance must be made for--the reds look darker than by day, indeed almost black, and the light blues turn white, or nearly so. This low, fading light also suggests many useful hints as to arrangement, from the circumstance of the dashings of the brush in a picture but newly commenced, suggesting forms that were not originally intended, but which often prove much finer ones. Ah, sometimes I see something very beautiful in these forms; but then I have such coaxing to do to get it fixed!--for when I draw near the canvas the vision is gone, and I have to go back and creep up to it again and again, and, at last, to hold my brush at the utmost length of my arm before I can fix it, so that I can avail myself of it the next day. The way to paint a really fine picture is first to paint it in the mind, to imagine it as strongly and distinctly as possible, and then to sketch it while the impression is strong and vivid. [Illustration: _Puvis de Chavannes_ HOPE] I have frequently shut myself up in a dark room for hours, or even days, when I have been endeavouring to imagine a scene I was about to paint, and have never stirred till I had got it clear in my mind; then I have sketched it as quickly as I could, before the impression has left me. _Northcote._ DECORATIVE ART CLXXIX Decoration is the activity, the life of art, its justification, and its social utility. _Bracquemond._ CLXXX The true function of painting is to animate wall-spaces. Apart from this, pictures should never be larger than one's hand. _Puvis de Chavannes._ CLXXXI I want big things to do and vast spaces, and for common people to see them and say Oh!--only Oh! _Burne-Jones._ CLXXXII I insist upon mural painting for three reasons--first, because it is an exercise of art which demands the absolute knowledge only to be obtained by honest study, the value of which no one can doubt, whatever branch of art the student might choose to follow afterwards; secondly, because the practice would bring out that gravity and nobility deficient in the English school, but not in the English character, and which being latent might therefore be brought out; and, thirdly, for the sake of action upon the public mind. For public improvement it is necessary that works of sterling but simple excellence should be scattered abroad as widely as possible. At present the public never see anything beautiful excepting in exhibition rooms, when the novelty of sight-seeing naturally disturbs the intellectual perceptions. It is a melancholy fact that scarcely a single object amongst those that surround us has any pretension to real beauty, or could be put simply into a picture with noble effect. And as I believe the love of beauty to be inherent in the human mind, it follows that there must be some unfortunate influence at work; to counteract this should be the object of a fine-art institution, and I feel assured if really good things were scattered amongst the people, it would not be long before satisfactory results exhibited themselves. _G. F. Watts._ CLXXXIII I have ... gone for great masses of light and shade, relieved against one another, the only bright local colour being the blue of the workmens' coats and trousers. I have intentionally avoided the whole business of "flat decoration" by "making the things part of the walls," as one is told is so important. On the contrary, I have treated them as pictures and have tried to make holes in the wall--that is, as far as relief of strong light and shade goes; in the figures I have struggled to keep a certain quality of bas-relief--that is, I have avoided distant groups--and have woven my compositions as tightly as I can in the very foreground of the pictures, as without this I felt they would lose their weight and dignity, which does seem to me the essential business in a mural decoration, and which makes Puvis de Chavannes a great decorator far more than his flat mimicry of fresco does.... Tintoretto, in S. Rocco, is my idea of the big way to decorate a building; great clustered groups sculptured in light and shade filling with amazing ingenuity of design the architectural spaces at his disposal: a far richer and more satisfying result to me than the flat and unprofitable stuff which of late years has been called "decoration."... Above all, I thoroughly disbelieve in the cant of mural decorations preserving the flatness of a wall. I see no merit in it whatever. Let them be massive as sculpture, but let every quality of value and colour lend them depth and vitality, and I am sure the hall or room will be richer and nobler as a result. _C. W. Furse._ CLXXXIV People usually declare that landscape is an easy matter. I think it a very difficult one. For whenever you wish to produce a landscape, it is necessary to carry about the details, and work them out in the mind for some days before the brush may be applied. Just as in composition: there is a period of bitter thought over the theme; and until this is resolved, you are in the thrall of bonds and gyves. But when inspiration comes, you break loose and are free. _A Chinese Painter_ (about 1310 A.D.). CLXXXV One word: there are _tendencies_, and it is these which are meant by _schools_. Landscape, above all, cannot be considered from the point of view of a school. Of all artists the landscape painter is the one who is in most direct communion with nature, with nature's very soul. _Paul Huet._ CLXXXVI From what motives springs the love of high-minded men for landscapes? In his very nature man loves to be in a garden with hills and streams, whose water makes cheerful music as it glides among the stones. What a delight does one derive from such sights as that of a fisherman engaging in his leisurely occupation in a sequestered nook, or of a woodman felling a tree in a secluded spot, or of mountain scenery with sporting monkeys and cranes!... Though impatient to enjoy a life amidst the luxuries of nature, most people are debarred from indulging in such pleasures. To meet this want artists have endeavoured to represent landscapes so that people may be able to behold the grandeur of nature without stepping out of their houses. In this light, painting affords pleasures of a nobler sort by removing from one the impatient desire of actually observing nature. _Kuo Hsi_ (Chinese, eleventh century A.D.). LANDSCAPE CLXXXVII Landscape is a big thing, and should be viewed from a distance in order to grasp the scheme of hill and stream. The figures of men and women are small matters, and may be spread out on the hand or on a table for examination, when they will be taken in at a glance. Those who study flower-painting take a single stalk and put it into a deep hole, and then examine it from above, thus seeing it from all points of view. Those who study bamboo-painting take a stalk of bamboo, and on a moonlight night project its shadow on to a piece of white silk on a wall; the true form of the bamboo is thus brought out. It is the same with landscape painting. The artist must place himself in communion with his hills and streams, and the secret of the scenery will be solved.... Hills without clouds look bare; without water they are wanting in fascination; without paths they are wanting in life; without trees they are dead; without depth-distance they are shallow; without level-distance they are near; and without height-distance they are low. _Kuo Hsi_ (Chinese, eleventh century A.D.). CLXXXVIII I have brushed up my "Cottage" into a pretty look, and my "Heath" is almost safe, but I must stand or fall by my "House." I had on Friday a long visit from M---- alone; but my pictures do not come into his rules or whims of the art, and he said I had "lost my way." I told him that I had "perhaps other notions of art than picture admirers have in general. I looked on pictures as _things to be avoided_, connoisseurs looked on them as things to be _imitated_; and that, too, with such a deference and humbleness of submission, amounting to a total prostration of mind and original feeling; as must serve only to fill the world with abortions." But he was very agreeable, and I endured the visit, I trust, without the usual courtesies of life being violated. What a sad thing it is that this lovely art is so wrested to its own destruction! Used only to blind our eyes, and to prevent us from seeing the sun shine, the fields bloom, the trees blossom, and from hearing the foliage rustle; while old--black--rubbed out and dirty canvases take the place of God's own works. I long to see you. I love to cope with you, like Jaques, in my "sullen moods," for I am not fit for the present world of art.... Lady Morley was here yesterday. On seeing the "House," she exclaimed, "How fresh, how dewy, how exhilarating!" I told her half of this, if I could think I deserved it, was worth all the talk and cant about pictures in the world. _Constable._ CLXXXIX A wood all powdered with sunshine, all the tones of the trees illuminated and delicate, the whole in a mist of sun, and high lights only on the stems; a delicious, new, and rich effect. _Chassériau._ CXC The forests and their trees give superb strong tones in which violet predominates--above all, in the shadows--and give value to the green tones of the grass. The upright stems show bare with colours as of stones and of rocks--grey, tawny, flushed, always very luminous (like an agate) in the reflections: the whole takes a sombre colour which vies in vigour with the foreground. A magnificent spectacle is that of mountains covered with ice and snow, towards evening, when the clouds roll up and hide their base. The summits may stand out in places against the sky. The blue background at such a time emphasises the warm gold colour of the shadows, and the lower parts are lost in a deep and sinister grey. We have seen this effect at Kandersteg. _Dutilleux._ CXCI In your letter you wish me to give you my opinion of your picture. I should have liked it better if you had made it more of a whole--that is, the trees stronger, the sky running from them in shadow up to the opposite corner; that might have produced what, I think, it wanted, and have made it much less a two-picture effect.... I cannot let your sky go off without some observation. I think the character of your clouds too affected, that is, too much of some of our modern painters, who mistake some of our great masters; because they sometimes put in some of those round characters of clouds, they must do the same; but if you look at any of their skies, they either assist in the composition or make some figure in the picture--nay, sometimes play the first fiddle.... Breadth must be attended to if you paint; but a muscle, give it breadth. Your doing the same by the sky, making parts broad and of a good shape, that they may come in with your composition, forming one grand plan of light and shade--this must always please a good eye and keep the attention of the spectator, and give delight to every one. Trifles in nature must be overlooked that we may have our feelings raised by seeing the whole picture at a glance, not knowing how or why we are so charmed. I have written you a long rigmarole story about giving dignity to whatever you paint--I fear so long that I should be scarcely able to understand what I mean myself. You will, I hope, take the will for the deed. _Old Crome._ CXCII I am most anxious to get into my London painting-room, for I do not consider myself at work unless I am before a six-foot canvas. I have done a good deal of skying, for I am determined to conquer all difficulties, and that among the rest. And now, talking of skies, it is amusing to us to see how admirably you fight my battles; you certainly take the best possible ground for getting your friend out of a scrape (the example of the Old Masters). That landscape painter who does not make his skies a very material part of his composition neglects to avail himself of one of his greatest aids. Sir Joshua Reynolds, speaking of the landscapes of Titian, of Salvator, and of Claude, says: "Even their _skies_ seem to sympathise with their subjects." I have often been advised to consider my sky as "_a white sheet thrown behind the objects_." Certainly, if the sky is obtrusive, as mine are, it is bad; but if it is evaded, as mine are not, it is worse; it must and always shall with me make an effectual part of the composition. It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the keynote, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment. You may conceive, then, what a "white sheet" would do for me, impressed as I am with these notions, and they cannot be erroneous. The sky is the source of light in nature, and governs everything; even our common observations on the weather of every day are altogether suggested by it. The difficulty of skies in painting is very great, both as to composition and execution; because, with all their brilliancy, they ought not to come forward, or, indeed, be hardly thought of any more than extreme distances are; but this does not apply to phenomena or accidental effects of sky, because they always attract particularly. I may say all this to you, though _you_ do not want to be told that I know very well what I am about, and that my skies have not been neglected, though they have often failed in execution, no doubt, from an over-anxiety about them which will alone destroy that easy appearance which nature always has in all her movements. _Constable._ CXCIII He was looking at a seventy-four gun ship, which lay in the shadow under Saltash. The ship seemed one dark mass. "I told you that would be the effect," said Turner, referring to some previous conversation. "Now, as you perceive, it is all shade!" "Yes, I perceive it; and yet the ports are there." "We can only take what is visible--no matter what may be there. There are people in the ship; we don't see them through the planks." _Turner._ CXCIV Looked out for landscapes this evening; but although all around one is lovely, how little of it will work up into a picture! that is, without great additions and alterations, which is a work of too much time to suit my purpose just now. I want little subjects that will paint off at once. How despairing it is to view the loveliness of nature towards sunset, and know the impossibility of imitating it!--at least in a satisfactory manner, as one could do, would it only remain so long enough. Then one feels the want of a life's study, such as Turner devoted to landscape; and even then what a botch is any attempt to render it! What wonderful effects I have seen this evening in the hay-fields! The warmth of the uncut grass, the greeny greyness of the unmade hay in furrows or tufts with lovely violet shadows, and long shades of the trees thrown athwart all, and melting away one tint into another imperceptibly; and one moment more a cloud passes and all the magic is gone. Begin to-morrow morning, all is changed: the hay and the reapers are gone most likely; the sun too, or if not, it is in quite the opposite quarter, and all that _was_ loveliest is all that is tamest now, alas! It is better to be a poet; still better a mere lover of Nature; one who never dreams of possession.... _Ford Madox Brown._ CXCV You should choose an old tumbledown wall and throw over it a piece of white silk. Then morning and evening you should gaze at it, until at length you can see the ruin through the silk--its prominences, its levels, its zigzags, and its cleavages, storing them up in the mind and fixing them in the eye. Make the prominences your mountains, the lower parts your water, the hollows your ravines, the cracks your streams, the lighter parts your nearer points, the darker parts your more distant points. Get all these thoroughly into you, and soon you will see men, birds, plants, and trees, flying and moving among them. You may then ply your brush according to your fancy, and the result will be of heaven, not of men. _Sung Ti_ (Chinese, eleventh century). CXCVI By looking attentively at old and smeared walls, or stones and veined marble of various colours, you may fancy that you see in them several compositions--landscapes, battles, figures in quick motion, strange countenances, and dresses, with an infinity of other objects. By these confused lines the inventive genius is excited to new exertions. _Leonardo._ CXCVII Out by a quarter to eight to examine the river Brent at Hendon; a mere brooklet, running in most dainty sinuosity under overshadowing oaks and all manner of leafiness. Many beauties, and hard to choose amongst, for I had determined to make a little picture of it. However, Nature, that at first sight appears so lovely, is on consideration almost always incomplete; moreover, there is no painting intertangled foliage without losing half its beauties. If imitated exactly it can only be done as seen from one eye, and quite flat and confused therefore. _Ford Madox Brown._ CXCVIII To gaze upon the clouds of autumn, a soaring exaltation in the soul; to feel the spring breeze stirring wild exultant thoughts;--what is there in the possession of gold and jewels to compare with delights like these? And then, to unroll the portfolio and spread the silk, and to transfer to it the glories of flood and fell, the green forest, the blowing winds, the white water of the rushing cascade, as with a turn of the hand a divine influence descends upon the scene. These are the joys of painting. _Wang Wei_ (Chinese, fifth century). CXCIX In the room where I am writing there are hanging up two beautiful small drawings by Cozens: one, a wood, close, and very solemn; the other, a view from Vesuvius looking over Portici--very lovely. I borrowed them from my neighbour, Mr. Woodburn. Cozens was all poetry, and your drawing is a lovely specimen. _Constable._ CXCIXa Selection is the invention of the landscape painter. _Fuseli._ CC Don't imagine that I do not like Corot's picture, _La Prairie avec le fossé_; on the contrary we thought, Rousseau and I, that it would be a pity to have one picture without the other, each makes so lively an impression of its own. You are perfectly right in liking the picture very much. What particularly struck us in the other one was that it has in an especial degree the look of being done by some one who knew nothing about painting but who had done his best, filled with a great longing to paint. In fact, a spontaneous discovery of the art! These are both very beautiful things. We will talk about them, for in writing one never gets to the end. _Millet._ CCI TO ROUSSEAU The day after I left you I went to see your exhibition.... To-day I assure you that in spite of knowing your studies of Auvergne and those earlier ones, I was struck once more in seeing them all together by the fact that a force is a force from its first beginnings. With the very earliest you show a freshness of vision which leaves no doubt as to the pleasure you took in seeing nature, and one sees that she spoke directly to you, and that you saw her through your own eyes. Your work is your own _et non de l'aultruy_, as Montaigne says. Don't think I mean to go through everything of yours bit by bit, down to the present moment. I only wish to mention the starting point, which is the important thing, because it shows that a man is born to his calling. From the beginning you were the little oak which will grow into a big oak. There! I must tell you once more how much it moved me to see all this. _Millet._ CCII I don't know if Corot is not greater than Delacroix. Corot is the father of modern landscape. There is no landscape painter of to-day who--knowingly or not--does not derive from him. I have never seen a picture of Corot's which was not beautiful, or a line which did not mean something. Among modern painters it is Corot who as a colourist has most in common with Rembrandt. The colour scheme is golden with the one and grey with the other throughout the whole harmony of tones. In appearance their methods are the opposite of each other, but the desired result is the same. In a portrait by Rembrandt all details melt into shadow in order that the spectator's gaze may be concentrated on a single part, often the eyes, and this part is handled more caressingly than the rest. Corot, on the other hand, sacrifices the details which are in the light--the extremities of trees, and so on--and brings us always to the spot which he has chosen for his main appeal to the spectator's eye. _Dutilleux._ CCIII Landscape has taken refuge in the theatre; scene-painters alone understand its true character and can put it into practice with a happy result. But Corot? Oh that man's soul rebounds like a steel spring; he is no mere landscape painter, but an artist--a real artist, and rare and exceptional genius. _Delacroix._ CCIV TO VERWÉE There is an International Exhibition at Petit's now, and I am showing some sea-pieces there with great success. The exhibition is made up, with one or two exceptions, of young men. They are very clever, but all alike; they follow a fashion--there is no more individuality. Everybody paints, everybody is clever. [Illustration: _Raphael_ THE MASS OF BOLSENA (Detail) _Anderson_] We shall end by adoring J. Dupré. I don't always like him, but he has individuality. Too many painters, my dear fellow, and too many exhibitions! But you see, at my age, I'm not afraid of showing my pictures among the young men's sometimes. Yet I hate exhibitions; one can hardly ever judge of a picture there. _Alfred Stevens._ ITALIAN MASTERS CCV There is something ... in those deities of intellect in the Sistine Chapel that converts the noblest personages of Raphael's drama into the audience of Michael Angelo, before whom you know that, equally with yourself, they would stand silent and awe-struck. _Lawrence._ CCVI My only disagreement with you would be in the estimate of his comparative excellence in sculpture and painting. He called himself sculptor, but we seldom gauge rightly our own strength and weakness. The paintings in the Sistine Chapel are to my mind entirely beyond criticism or praise, not merely with reference to design and execution, but also for colour, right noble and perfect in their place. I was never more surprised than by this quality, to which I do not think justice has ever been done; nothing in his sculpture comes near to the perfection of his Adam or the majesty of the Dividing the Light from Darkness; his sculpture lacks the serene strength that is found in the Adam and many other figures in the great frescoes. Dominated by the fierce spirit of Dante, he was less influenced by the grave dignity of the Greek philosophy and art than might have been expected from the contemporary and possible pupil of Poliziano. In my estimate of him as a Sculptor in comparison with him as Painter, I am likely to be in a minority of one! but _I_ think that when he is thought of as a painter his earlier pictures are thought of, and these certainly are unworthy of him, but the Prophets and Sibyls are the greatest things ever painted. As a rule he certainly insists too much upon the anatomy; some one said admirably, "Learn anatomy, and forget it"; Michael Angelo did the first and not the second, and the fault of almost all his work is, that it is too much an anatomical essay. The David is an example of this, besides being very faulty in proportion, with hands and feet that are monstrous. It is, I think, altogether bad. The hesitating pose is good, and goes with the sullen expression of the face, but is not that of the ardent heroic boy! This seems presumptuous criticism; and you might, considering my aspirations and efforts, say to me: "Do better!" but I am not Michael Angelo, but I am a pupil of the greatest sculptor of all, Pheidias (a master the great Florentine knew nothing of), and, so far, feel a right to set up judgment on the technique only. _Watts._ CCVII ITALIAN ART IN FLANDERS As to Italian art, here at Brussels there is nothing but a reminiscence of it. It is an art which has been falsified by those who have tried to acclimatise it, and even the specimens of it which have passed into Flanders lose by their new surroundings. When in a part of the gallery which is least Flemish, one sees two portraits by Tintoret, not of the first rank, sadly retouched, but typical--one finds it difficult to understand them side by side with Memling, Martin de Vos, Van Orley, Rubens, Van Dyck, and even Antonio More. It is the same with Veronese. He is out of his element; his colour is lifeless, it smacks of the tempera painter; his style seems frigid, his magnificence unspontaneous and almost bombastic. Yet the picture is a superb piece, in his finest manner; a fragment of an allegorical triumph taken from a ceiling in the Ducal Palace, and one of his best; but Rubens is close by, and that is enough to give the Rubens of Venice an accent which is not of this country. Which of the two is right? And listening merely to the language so admirably spoken by the two men, who shall decide between the correct and learned rhetoric of Venetian speech, and the emphatic, warmly coloured, grandiose incorrectness of the Antwerp idiom? At Venice one leans to Veronese; in Flanders one has a better ear for Rubens. Italian art has this in common with all powerful traditions, that it is at the same time very cosmopolitan because it has penetrated everywhere, and very lofty because it has been self-sufficient. It is at home, in all Europe, except in two countries; Belgium, the genius of which it has appreciably affected without ever dominating it; and Holland, which once made a show of consulting it but which has ended by passing it by; so that, while it is on neighbourly terms with Spain, while it is enthroned in France, where, at least in historical painting, our best painters have been Romans, it encounters in Flanders two or three men, great men of a great race, sprung from the soil, who hold sway there and have no mind to share their empire with any other. _Fromentin._ CCVIII I am never tired of looking at Titian's pictures; they possess such extreme breadth, which to me is so delightful a quality. In my opinion there never will, to the end of time, arise a portrait-painter superior to Titian. Next to him in this kind of excellence is Raphael. There is this difference between Raphael and Titian: Raphael, with all his excellence, possessed the utmost gentleness; it was as if he had said, "If another person can do better, _I_ have no objections." But Titian was a man who would keep down every one else to the uttermost; he was determined that the art should come in and go out with himself; the expression in all the portraits of him told as much. When any stupendous work of antiquity remains with us--say, a building or a bridge--the common people cannot account for it, and they say it was erected _by the devil_. Now I feel this same thing in regard to the works of Titian;--they seem to me as if painted by a devil, or at any rate from inspiration; I cannot account for them. _Northcote._ NORTHERN MASTERS CCIX Raphael, to be plain with you--for I like to be candid and outspoken--does not please me at all. In Venice are found the good and the beautiful; to their brush I give the first place; it is Titian that bears the banner. _Velasquez._ CCX Perhaps some day the world will discover that Rembrandt is a much greater painter than Raphael. I write this blasphemy--one to make the hair of the Classicists stand on end--without definitely taking a side; only I seem to find as I grow older that the most beautiful and most rare thing in the world is truth. Let us say, if you will, that Rembrandt has not Raphael's nobility. Yet perhaps this nobility which Raphael manifests in his line is shown by Rembrandt in the mysterious conception of his subjects, in the profound naïveté of his expressions and gestures. However much one may prefer the majestic emphasis of Raphael, which answers perhaps to the grandeur inherent in certain subjects, one might assert, without being stoned by men of taste--I mean men whose taste is real and sincere--that the great Dutchman was more a born painter than the studious pupil of Perugino. _Delacroix._ CCXI Rembrandt's principle was to extract from things one element among the rest, or rather to abstract every element in order to concentrate on the seizure of one only. Thus in all his works he has set himself to analyse, to distil; or, in better phrase, has been metaphysician even more than poet. Reality never appealed to him by its general effects. One might doubt, from his way of treating human forms, whether their "envelope" interested him. He loved women, and never saw them otherwise than unshapely; he loved textures, and did not imitate them; but then, if he ignored grace and beauty, purity of line and the delicacy of the skin, he expressed the nude body by suggestions of suppleness, roundness, elasticity, with a love of material substance, a sense of the live being, which enchant the practical painter. He resolved everything into its component parts, colour as well as light, so that, by eliminating the complicated and condensing the scattered elements from a given scene, he succeeded in drawing without outline, in painting a portrait almost without strokes that show, in colouring without colour, in concentrating the light of the solar system into a sunbeam. It would be impossible in a plastic art to carry the curiosity for the essential to an intenser pitch. For physical beauty he substitutes expression of character; for the imitation of things, their almost complete transformation; for studious scrutiny, the speculation of the psychologist; for precise observation, whether trained or natural, the visions of a seer and apparitions of such vividness that he himself is deceived by them. By virtue of this faculty of second sight, of intuitions like those of a somnambulist, he sees farther into the supernatural world than any one else whatever. The life that he perceives in dream has a certain accent of the other world, which makes real life seem pale and almost cold. Look at his "Portrait of a Woman in the Louvre," two paces from "Titian's Mistress." Compare the two women, study closely the two pictures, and you will understand the difference between the two brains. Rembrandt's ideal, sought as in a dream with closed eyes, is Light: the nimbus around objects, the phosphorescence that comes against a black background. It is something fugitive and uncertain, formed of lineaments scarce perceptible, ready to disappear before the eye has fixed them, ephemeral and dazzling. To arrest the vision, to set it on the canvas, to give it its shape and moulding, to preserve the fragility of its texture, to render its brilliance, and yet achieve in the result a solid, masculine, substantial painting, real beyond any other master's work, and able to hold its own with a Rubens, a Titian, a Veronese, a Giorgione, a Van Dyck--this is Rembrandt's aim. Has he succeeded? The testimony of the world answers for him. _Fromentin._ CCXII The painting of Flanders will generally satisfy any devout person more than the painting of Italy, which will never cause him to shed many tears; this is not owing to the vigour and goodness of that painting, but to the goodness of such devout person; women will like it, especially very old ones or very young ones. It will please likewise friars and nuns, and also some noble persons who have no ear for true harmony. They paint in Flanders, only to deceive the external eye, things that gladden you and of which you cannot speak ill, and saints and prophets. Their painting is of stuffs--bricks and mortar, the grass of the fields, the shadows of trees, and bridges and rivers, which they call landscapes, and little figures here and there; and all this, although it may appear good to some eyes, is in truth done without reasonableness or art, without symmetry or proportion, without care in selecting or rejecting, and finally, without any substance or verve; and in spite of all this, painting in some other parts is worse than it is in Flanders. Neither do I speak so badly of Flemish painting because it is all bad, but because it tries to do so many things at once (each of which alone would suffice for a great work), so that it does not do anything really well. Only works which are done in Italy can be called true painting, and therefore we call good painting Italian; for if it were done so well in another country, we should give it the name of that country or province. As for the good painting of this country, there is nothing more noble or devout; for with wise persons nothing causes devotion to be remembered, or to arise, more than the difficulty of the perfection which unites itself with and joins God; because good painting is nothing else but a copy of the perfections of God and a reminder of His painting. Finally, good painting is a music and a melody which intellect only can appreciate, and with great difficulty. This painting is so rare that few are capable of doing or attaining to it. _Michael Angelo._ CCXIII All Dutch painting is concave: what I mean is that it is composed of curves described about a point determined by the pictorial interest; circular shadows round a dominant light. Design, colouring, and lighting fall into a concave scheme, with a strongly defined base, a retreating ceiling, and corners rounded and converging on the centre; whence it follows that the painting is all depth, and that it is far from the eye to the objects represented. No type of painting leads with more certain directness from the foreground to the background, from the frame to the horizon. One can live in it, walk in it, see to the uttermost ends of it; one is tempted to raise one's head to measure the distance of the sky. Everything conspires to this illusion: the exactness of the aerial perspective, the perfect harmony of colour and tones with the plane on which the object is placed. The rendering of the heights of space, of the envelope of atmosphere, of the distant effect, which absorbs this school makes the painting of all other schools seem flat, something laid upon the surface of the canvas. _Fromentin._ CCXIV In Van Eyck there is more structure, more muscle, more blood in the veins; hence the impressive virility of his faces and the strong style of his pictures. Altogether he is a portrait-painter of Holbein's kin--exact, shrewd, and with a gift of penetration that is almost cruel. He sees things with more perfect rightness than Memling, and also in a bigger and some summary way. The sensations which the aspect of things evokes in him are more powerful; his feeling for their colour is more intense; his palette has a fullness, a richness, a distinctness, which Memling's has not. His colour schemes are of more even power, better held together, composed of values more cunningly found. His whites are fatter, his purple richer, and the indigo blue--that fine blue as of old Japanese enamel, which is peculiar to him--has more depth of dye, more solidity of texture. The splendour and the costliness of the precious things, of which the superb fashions of his time were so lavish, appealed to him more strongly. _Fromentin._ CCXV Van Eyck saw with his eyes, Memling begins to see with his soul. The one had a good and a right vein of thought; the other does not seem to think so much, but he has a heart which beats in a quite different way. The one copied and imitated, the other copies too and imitates, but transfigures. The former reproduced--without any preoccupation with the ideal types of humanity--above all, the masculine types, which passed before his eyes in every rank of the society of his time; the latter contemplates nature in a reverie, translates her with imagination, dwells upon everything which is most delicate and lovely in human forms, and creates, above all, in his type of woman a being exquisite and elect, unknown before and lost with him. _Fromentin_ CCXVI BRUGES, 1849 This is a most stunning place, immeasurably the best we have come to. There is a quantity of first-rate architecture, and very little or no Rubens. But by far the best of all are the miraculous works of Memling and Van Eyck. The former is here in a strength that quite stunned us--and perhaps proves himself to have been a greater man even than the latter. In fact, he was certainly so intellectually, and quite equal in mechanical power. His greatest production is a large triptych in the Hospital of St. John, representing in its three compartments: firstly, the "Decollation of St. John Baptist"; secondly, the "Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine to the Infant Saviour"; and thirdly, the "Vision of St. John Evangelist in Patmos." I shall not attempt any description; I assure you that the perfection of character and even drawing, the astounding finish, the glory of colour, and, above all, the pure religious sentiment and ecstatic poetry of these works is not to be conceived or described. Even in seeing them the mind is at first bewildered by such godlike completeness; and only after some while has elapsed can at all analyse the causes of its awe and admiration; and then finds these feelings so much increased by analysis that the last impression left is mainly one of utter shame at its own inferiority. Van Eyck's picture at the Gallery may give you some idea of the style adopted by Memling in these great pictures; but the effect of light and colour is much less poetical in Van Eyck's; partly owing to _his_ being a more sober subject and an interior, but partly also, I believe, to the intrinsic superiority of Memling's intellect. In the background of the first compartment there is a landscape more perfect in the abstract lofty feeling of nature than anything I have ever seen. The visions of the third compartment are wonderfully mystic and poetical. _Rossetti._ CCXVII VAN DYCK Van Dyck completed Rubens by adding to his achievement portraits absolutely worthy of his master's brush, better than Rubens' own. He created in his own country an art which was original, and consequently he has his share in the creation of a new art. Besides this he did yet more: he begot a whole school in a foreign country, the English school--Reynolds, Lawrence, Gainsborough, and I would add to them nearly all the genre painters who are faithful to the English tradition, and the most powerful landscape painters issue directly from Van Dyck, and indirectly from Rubens through Van Dyck. These are high claims. And so posterity, always just in its instincts, gives Van Dyck a place apart between the men of the first and those of the second rank. The world has never decided the exact precedence which ought to be his in the procession of the masters, and since his death, as during his life, he seems to have held the privilege of being placed near the throne and of making a stately figure there. _Fromentin._ SPANISH PAINTING CCXVIII VELASQUEZ What we are all trying to do with great labour, he does at once. _Reynolds._ CCXIX Saw again to-day the Spanish school in the Museum,--Velasquez, a surprising fellow! The "Hermits in a Rocky Desert" pleased me much; also a "Dark Wood at Nightfall." He is Teniers on a large scale: his handling is of the most sparkling kind, owing much of its dazzling effect to the flatness of the ground it is placed upon. The picture of "Children in Grotesque Dresses," in his painting-room, is a surprising piece of handling. Still he would gain, and indeed does gain, when he glazes his pictures. He makes no use of his ground; lights and shadows are opaque. Chilliness and blackness are sometimes the result; and often a cold blue or green prevails, requiring all his brilliancy of touch and truth of effect to make tolerable. Velasquez, however, may be said to be the origin of what is now doing in England. His feeling they have caught almost without seeing his works; which here seem to anticipate Reynolds, Romney, Raeburn, Jackson, and even Sir Thomas Lawrence. Perhaps there is this difference: he does at once what we do by repeated and repeated touches. It may truly be said, that wheresoever Velasquez is admired, the paintings of England must be acknowledged and admired with him. _Wilkie._ CCXX VELASQUEZ Never did any one think less of a style or attain it more consummately. He was far too much occupied with the divining of the qualities of light and atmosphere that enveloped his subjects, and with stating those truths in the most direct and poignant way to have time to spare on mere adornments and artifices that amuse us in the work of lesser men. Every stroke in Velasquez means something, records an observation. You never see a splodge of light that entertains you for a moment and relapses into _chic_ as you analyse it; even the most elusive bits of painting like the sword-hilt in the "Admiral Pulido" are utterly just, and observed as the light flickers and is lost over the steel shapes. No one ever had the faculty of observing the true character of two diverse forms at the same time as he did. If you look at any quilted sleeve you will feel the whole texture of the material and recognise its own shape, and yet under it and through it each nuance of muscle and arm-form reveals itself. It is no light praise, mind you, when one says that every touch is the record of a tireless observation--you have only to look at a great Sir Joshua to see that quite half of every canvas is merely a recipe, a painted yawn in fact, as the intensity of his vision relaxed; but in a Velasquez your attention is riveted by the passionate search of the master and his ceaseless absorption in the thing before him--and this is all the more astounding because the work is hardly ever conceived from a point of view of bravura; there is nothing over-enthusiastic, insincerely impetuous, but a quiet suave dignity informing the whole, and penetrating into the least detail of the canvas. There is one quality Velasquez never falters in; from earliest days he is master of his medium; he understands its every limitation, realises exactly how far his palette is capable of rendering nature; and so you are never disturbed in your appreciation of his pictures by a sense that he is battling against insuperable difficulties, severely handicapped by an unsympathetic medium; but rather that here is the consummate workman who, gladly recognising the measure of his freedom within the four walls of his limitations, illustrates for you that fine old statement, "Whose service is perfect freedom." _C. W. Furse._ CCXXI ON GAINSBOROUGH We must not forget, whilst we are on this subject, to make some remarks on his custom of painting by night, which confirms what I have already mentioned,--his great affection to his art; since he could not amuse himself in the evening by any other means so agreeable to himself. I am indeed much inclined to believe that it is a practice very advantageous and improving to an artist: for by this means he will acquire a new and a higher perception of what is great and beautiful in nature. By candlelight not only objects appear more beautiful, but from their being in a greater breadth of light and shadow, as well as having a greater breadth and uniformity of colour, nature appears in a higher style; and even the flesh seems to take a higher and richer tone of colour. Judgment is to direct us in the use to be made of this method of study; but the method itself is, I am very sure, advantageous. I have often imagined that the two great colourists, Titian and Correggio, though I do not know that they painted by night, formed their high ideas of colouring from the effects of objects by this artificial light. _Reynolds._ [Illustration: _Gainsborough_ THE CHILDREN AND THE BUTTERFLY _Mansell_] MODERN PAINTING CCXXII ON REYNOLDS Damn him! how various he is! _Gainsborough._ CCXXIII I shall take advantage of Sir John's[3] mention of Reynolds and Gainsborough to provoke some useful refutation, by stating that it seems to me the latter is by no means the rival of the former; though in this opinion I should expect to find myself in a minority of one. Reynolds knew little about the human structure, Gainsborough nothing at all; Reynolds was not remarkable for good drawing, Gainsborough was remarkable for bad; nor did the latter ever approach Reynolds in dignity, colour, or force of character, as in the portraits of John Hunter and General Heathfield for example. It may be conceded that more refinement, and perhaps more individuality, is to be found in Gainsborough, but his manner (and both were mannerists) was scratchy and thin, while that of Reynolds was manly and rich. Neither Reynolds nor Gainsborough was capable of anything ideal; but the work of Reynolds indicates thought and reading, and I do not know of anything by Gainsborough conveying a like suggestion. _Watts._ [Footnote 3: Sir John Millais.] CCXXIV I was thinking yesterday, as I got up, about the special charm of the English school. The little I saw of it has left me memories. They have a real sensitiveness which triumphs over all the studies in concoction which appear here and there, as in our dismal school; with us that sensitiveness is the rarest thing: everything has the look of being painted with clumsy tools, and what is worse, by obtuse and vulgar minds. Take away Meissonier, Decamps, one or two others, and some of the youthful pictures of Ingres, and all is tame, nerveless, without intention, without fire. One need only cast one's eye over that stupid, commonplace paper _L'Illustration_, manufactured by pettifogging artists over here, and compare it with the corresponding English publication to realise how wretchedly flat, flabby, and insipid is the character of most of our productions. This supposed home of drawing shows really no trace of it, and our most pretentious pictures show as little as any. In these little English designs nearly every object is treated with the amount of interest it demands; landscapes, sea-pieces, costumes, incidents of war, all these are delightful, done with just the right touch, and, above all, well drawn.... I do not see among us any one to be compared with Leslie, Grant, and all those who derive partly from Wilkie and partly from Hogarth, with a little of the suppleness and ease introduced by the school of forty years back, Lawrence and his comrades, who shone by their elegance and lightness. _Delacroix._ CCXXV THE ENGLISH SCHOOL I shall never care to see London again. I should not find there my old memories, and, above all, I should not find the same men to enjoy with me what there is to be seen now. Perhaps I might find myself obliged to break a lance for Reynolds, or for that adorable Gainsborough, whom you are indeed right to love. Not that I am the opponent of the present movement in the painting of England. I am even struck by the prodigious conscientiousness that these people can bring to bear even on work of the imagination; it seems that in coming back to excessive detail they are more in their own element than when they imitated the Italian painters and the Flemish colourists. But what does the skin matter? Under this seeming transformation they are always English. Thus instead of making imitations pure and simple of the primitive Italians, as the fashion has been among us, they mix with this imitation of the manner of the old schools an infinitely personal sentiment; they put into it the interest which is generally missing in our cold imitations of the formulas and the style of schools which have had their day. I am writing without pulling myself up, and saying everything that comes into my head. Perhaps the impressions I received at that former time might be a little modified to-day. Perhaps I should find in Lawrence an exaggeration of methods and effects too closely reminiscent of the school of Reynolds; but his amazing delicacy of drawing, and the air of life he gives to his women, who seem almost to be talking with one, give him, considered as a portrait-painter, a certain superiority over Van Dyck, whose admirable figures are immobile in their pose. Lustrous eyes and parted lips are admirably rendered by Lawrence. He welcomed me with much kindness; he was a man of most charming manners, except when you criticised his pictures.... Our school has need of a little new blood. Our school is old, and the English school seems young. They seem to seek after nature while we busy ourselves with imitating other pictures. Don't get me stoned by mentioning abroad these opinions, which alas! are mine. _Delacroix._ CCXXVI There are only two occasions, I conceive, on which a foreign artist could with propriety be invited to execute a great national work in this country, namely, in default of our having any artist at all competent to such an undertaking, or for the purpose of introducing a superior style of art, to correct a vicious taste prevalent in the nation. The consideration of the first parts of this statement I leave to those who have witnessed with what ability Mr. Flaxman, Mr. Westmacott, and the other candidates have designed their models, and with respect to the style and good taste of the English school. I dare, and am proud, to assert its superiority over any that has appeared in Europe since the age of the Caracci. _Hoppner._ CCXXVII (Watts is) the only man who understands great art. _Alfred Stevens._ CCXXVIII There is only Puvis de Chavannes who holds his place; as for all the others, one must gild their monuments. _Meissonier._ CCXXIX PRUDHON In short, he has his own manner; he is the Boucher, the Watteau of our day. We must let him do as he will; it can do no harm at the present time, and in the state the school is in. He deceives himself, but it is not given to every one to deceive themselves like him; his talent has a sure foundation. What I cannot forgive him is that he always draws the same heads, the same arms, and the same hands. All his faces have the same expression, and this expression is always the same grimace. It is not thus we should envisage nature, we who are disciples and admirers of the ancients. _L. David._ CCXXX ON DELACROIX Delacroix (except in two pictures, which show a kind of savage genius) is a perfect beast, though almost worshipped here. _Rossetti (1849)._ CCXXXI Delacroix is one of the mighty ones of the earth, and Ingres misses being so creditably. _Rossetti (1856)._ CCXXXII ON DELACROIX Must I say that I prefer Delacroix with his exaggerations, his mistakes, his obvious falls, because he belongs to no one but himself, because he represents the spirit, the time, and the idiom of his time? Sickly, too highly strung, perhaps, since his art has the melodies of our generation, since in the strained note of his lamentations as in his resounding triumphs, there is always a gasp of the breath, a cry, a fever that are alike our own and his. We are no longer in the Olympian Age, like Raphael, Veronese, and Rubens; and Delacroix's art is powerful, as a voice from Dante's Inferno. _Rousseau._ CCXXXIII A DELACROIX EXHIBITION Feminine painting is invading us; and if our time, of which Delacroix is the true representative, _has not dared enough_, what will the enervated art of the future be like? Only paintings are exhibited just now. Two rooms scarcely hold his riches; and when one thinks that there are here but the elements of Delacroix's production, one is bewildered. What strikes one above all in his sketches is the note of nervous, contained intensity, which during all his full career he never lost; neither fashion nor the influence of others affected it; never was there a more sincere note. Plenty of incorrectness, I grant you, but with a great feeling for drawing. Whatever one may say, if drawing is an instrument of expression, Delacroix was a draughtsman. A great style, a marvellous invention, passion expressed in form as well as in colour, Delacroix is typically the artist, and not a professor of drawing who fills out weakness and mediocrity by rhetoric. _Paul Huet._ CCXXXIV COROT'S METHOD OF WORK Corot is a true artist. One must see a painter in his home to have an idea of his merit. I saw again there, and with a quite new appreciation of them, pictures which I had seen at the museum and only cared for moderately. His great "Baptism of Christ" is full of naïve beauties; his trees are superb. I asked him about the tree I have to do in the "Orpheus." He told me to walk straight ahead, giving myself up to whatever might come in my way; usually this is what he does. He does not admit that taking infinite pains is lost labour. Titian, Raphael, Rubens, &c., worked easily. They only attempted what they knew; only their range was wider than that of the man who, for instance, only paints landscapes or flowers. Notwithstanding this facility, labour too is indispensable. Corot broods much over things. Ideas come to him, and he adds as he works. It is the right way. _Delacroix._ CCXXXV From the age of six, I had the passion for drawing the forms of things. By the age of fifty, I had published an infinity of designs; but all that I produced before the age of seventy is of no account. Only when I was seventy-three had I got some sort of insight into the real structure of nature--animals, plants, trees, birds, fish, and insects. Consequently, at the age of eighty I shall have advanced still further; at ninety, I shall grasp the mystery of things; at a hundred, I shall be a marvel, and at a hundred and ten every blot, every line from my brush shall be alive! _Hokusai._ CCXXXVI It takes an artist fifty years to learn to do anything, and fifty years to learn what not to do--and fifty years to sift and find what he simply desires to do--and 300 years to do it, and when it is done neither heaven nor earth much needs it nor heeds it. Well, I'll peg away; I can do nothing else, and wouldn't if I could. _Burne-Jones._ CCXXXVII If the Lord lets me live two years longer, I think that I can paint something beautiful. _Corot at 77._ ARS LONGA CCXXXVIII If Heaven would give me ten years more ... if Heaven would give me only five years more ... I might become a really great painter. _Hokusai._ CCXXXIX I will have my Bed to be a Bed of Honour, and cannot die in a better Posture than with my Pencil in my Hand. _Lucas of Leyden._ CCXL Adieu! I go above to see if friend Corot has found me new landscapes to paint. _Daubigny_ (on his death-bed). CCXLI Leaving my brush in the city of the East, I go to gaze on the divine landscapes of the Paradise of the West. _Hiroshige_ (on his death-bed). CCXLII Much will hereafter be written about subjects and refinements of painting. Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will write both well and better about this art and will teach it better than I. For I myself hold my art at a very mean value, for I know what my faults are. Let every man therefore strive to better these my errors according to his powers. Would to God it were possible for me to see the work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I know that I might be improved. Ah! how often in my sleep do I behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof never appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake even the remembrance of them leaveth me. Let none be ashamed to learn, for a good work requireth good counsel. Nevertheless, whosoever taketh counsel in the arts let him take it from one thoroughly versed in those matters, who can prove what he saith with his hand. Howbeit any one _may_ give thee counsel; and when thou hast done a work pleasing to thyself, it is good for thee to show it to dull men of little judgment that they may give their opinion of it. As a rule, they pick out the most faulty points, whilst they entirely pass over the good. If thou findest something they say true, thou mayest thus better thy work. _Dürer._ CCXLIII I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit; I want nothing; I am quite happy. _Blake._ INDEX OF ARTISTS Agatharcus, 46 Alberti Leon Battista, 51, 143 Anon (Chinese), 184 Apelles, 87 Blake, 7, 26, 53, 97, 122, 173, 243 Bracquemond, 23, 61, 63, 115, 179 Brown, Ford Madox, 82, 194, 197 Burne-Jones, 19, 36, 116, 127, 131, 155, 166, 181, 236 Calvert, Edward, 25, 41, 77, 80, 137, 167 Cennini, Cennino, 126, 163 Chassériau, 93, 146, 147, 175, 189 Constable, 81, 104, 188, 192, 199 Corot, 28, 66, 73, 74, 76, 237 Crome, 191 Courbet, 20, 21 Couture, 148 Daubigny, 240 David, Louis, 57, 229 Delacroix, 14, 16, 29, 60, 85, 88, 114, 125, 149, 168, 203, 210, 224, 225, 234 Donatello, 108 Dürer, 5, 49, 71, 242 Dutilleux, 142, 190, 202 Dyce, 24 Eupompus, 67 Fromentin, 8, 15, 30, 177, 207, 211, 213, 214, 215, 217 Furse, 132, 133, 139, 170, 172, 183, 197, 220 Fuseli, 2, 139A, 199A Gainsborough, 90, 222 Goujon, 48 Goya, 89, 156, 157 Hilliard, 159 Hiroshige, 241 Hogarth, 118, 124, 141, 152 Hokusai, 106, 134, 141, 235, 238 Hoppner, 226 Hsieh Ho, 11, 117 Huet, 185, 233 Ingres, 52, 62, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 119, 120, 128 Keene, 69 Klagmann, 44 Ku K'ai-Chih, 12, 165 Kuo Hsi, 186, 187 Lawrence, 59, 205 Leighton, 103 Leonardo, 3, 50, 56, 65, 121, 129, 158, 160, 161, 162, 176, 196 Lucas of Leyden, 239 Lundgren, E., 164 Meissonier, 228 Michael Angelo, 4, 79, 107, 123, 212 Millais, 95, 99 Millet, 35, 47, 75, 200, 201 Monticelli, 101 Morris, William, 27, 38, 39, 43, 130, 144 Northcote, 151, 174, 178, 208 Okio, 70 Pasiteles, 138 Poussin, N., 13 Préault, 83 Puvis de Chavannes, 78, 105, 180 Raphael, 18 Rembrandt, 91, 92 Reynolds, 68, 72, 84, 218, 221 Rops, 31 Rossetti, 6, 9, 150, 216, 230, 231 Rousseau, 37, 86, 136, 232 Rubens, 55, 58, 98 Shiba Kokan, 135 Stevens, A. (the Belgian painter), 1, 204 Stevens, A. (the English sculptor), 227 Sung Ti, 195 Titian, 45, 140 Turner, 193 Velasquez, 209 Wang Wei, 198 Watts, 10, 17, 34, 40, 96, 100, 102, 169, 171, 182, 206, 223 Whistler, 32, 42, 64 Wiertz, 22, 33, 54 Wilkie, 94, 145, 153, 154, 219 Zeuxis, 46 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. Edinburgh & London 
19980	----	"A JOY FOR EVER"; (AND ITS PRICE IN THE MARKET): BEING THE SUBSTANCE (WITH ADDITIONS) OF TWO LECTURES ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART, _Delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857._ BY JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D., HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND HONORARY FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD. "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever."--KEATS. SIXTEENTH THOUSAND. LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD. 1904. [_All rights reserved_] Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. At the Ballantyne Press PREFACE TO THE RE-ISSUE OF 1880. The title of this book,--or, more accurately, of its subject;--for no author was ever less likely than I have lately become, to hope for perennial pleasure to his readers from what has cost himself the most pains,--will be, perhaps, recognised by some as the last clause of the line chosen from Keats by the good folks of Manchester, to be written in letters of gold on the cornice, or Holy rood, of the great Exhibition which inaugurated the career of so many,--since organized, by both foreign governments and our own, to encourage the production of works of art, which the producing nations, so far from intending to be their "joy for ever," only hope to sell as soon as possible. Yet the motto was chosen with uncomprehended felicity: for there never was, nor can be, any essential beauty possessed by a work of art, which is not based on the conception of its honoured permanence, and local influence, as a part of appointed and precious furniture, either in the cathedral, the house, or the joyful thoroughfare, of nations which enter their gates with thanksgiving, and their courts with praise. "Their" courts--or "His" courts;--in the mind of such races, the expressions are synonymous: and the habits of life which recognise the delightfulness, confess also the sacredness, of homes nested round the seat of a worship unshaken by insolent theory: themselves founded on an abiding affection for the past, and care for the future; and approached by paths open only to the activities of honesty, and traversed only by the footsteps of peace. The exposition of these truths, to which I have given the chief energy of my life, will be found in the following pages first undertaken systematically and in logical sequence; and what I have since written on the political influence of the Arts has been little more than the expansion of these first lectures, in the reprint of which not a sentence is omitted or changed. The supplementary papers added contain, in briefest form, the aphorisms respecting principles of art-teaching of which the attention I gave to this subject during the continuance of my Professorship at Oxford confirms me in the earnest and contented re-assertion. JOHN RUSKIN, BRANTWOOD, _April 29th, 1880._ PREFACE TO THE 1857 EDITION. The greater part of the following treatise remains in the exact form in which it was read at Manchester; but the more familiar passages of it, which were trusted to extempore delivery, have been written with greater explicitness and fulness than I could give them in speaking; and a considerable number of notes are added, to explain the points which could not be sufficiently considered in the time I had at my disposal in the lecture room. Some apology may be thought due to the reader, for an endeavour to engage his attention on a subject of which no profound study seems compatible with the work in which I am usually employed. But profound study is not, in this case, necessary either to writer or readers, while accurate study, up to a certain point, is necessary for us all. Political economy means, in plain English, nothing more than "citizen's economy"; and its first principles ought, therefore, to be understood by all who mean to take the responsibility of citizens, as those of household economy by all who take the responsibility of householders. Nor are its first principles in the least obscure: they are, many of them, disagreeable in their practical requirements, and people in general pretend that they cannot understand, because they are unwilling to obey them: or rather, by habitual disobedience, destroy their capacity of understanding them. But there is not one of the really great principles of the science which is either obscure or disputable,--which might not be taught to a youth as soon as he can be trusted with an annual allowance, or to a young lady as soon as she is of age to be taken into counsel by the housekeeper. I might, with more appearance of justice, be blamed for thinking it necessary to enforce what everybody is supposed to know. But this fault will hardly be found with me, while the commercial events recorded daily in our journals, and still more the explanations attempted to be given of them, show that a large number of our so-called merchants are as ignorant of the nature of money as they are reckless, unjust, and unfortunate in its employment. The statements of economical principles given in the text, though I know that most, if not all, of them are accepted by existing authorities on the science, are not supported by references, because I have never read any author on political economy, except Adam Smith, twenty years ago. Whenever I have taken up any modern book upon this subject, I have usually found it encumbered with inquiries into accidental or minor commercial results, for the pursuit of which an ordinary reader could have no leisure, and by the complication of which, it seemed to me, the authors themselves had been not unfrequently prevented from seeing to the root of the business. Finally, if the reader should feel induced to blame me for too sanguine a statement of future possibilities in political practice, let him consider how absurd it would have appeared in the days of Edward I. if the present state of social economy had been then predicted as necessary, or even described as possible. And I believe the advance from the days of Edward I. to our own, great as it is confessedly, consists, not so much in what we have actually accomplished, as in what we are now enabled to conceive. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. PAGE THE DISCOVERY AND APPLICATION OF ART 1 _A Lecture delivered at Manchester, July 10th, 1857._ LECTURE II. THE ACCUMULATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF ART 70 _Continuation of the previous Lecture; delivered July 13th, 1857._ ADDENDA. NOTE 1.--"FATHERLY AUTHORITY" 151 " 2.--"RIGHT TO PUBLIC SUPPORT" 159 " 3.--"TRIAL SCHOOLS" 169 " 4.--"PUBLIC FAVOUR" 180 " 5.--"INVENTION OF NEW WANTS" 183 " 6.--"ECONOMY OF LITERATURE" 187 " 7.--"PILOTS OF THE STATE" 189 " 8.--"SILK AND PURPLE" 193 SUPPLEMENTARY ADDITIONAL PAPERS. EDUCATION IN ART 213 ART SCHOOL NOTES 229 SOCIAL POLICY 240 "A JOY FOR EVER." LECTURE I. THE DISCOVERY AND APPLICATION OF ART. _A Lecture delivered at Manchester, July 10, 1857._ 1. Among the various characteristics of the age in which we live, as compared with other ages of this not yet _very_ experienced world, one of the most notable appears to me to be the just and wholesome contempt in which we hold poverty. I repeat, the _just_ and _wholesome_ contempt; though I see that some of my hearers look surprised at the expression. I assure them, I use it in sincerity; and I should not have ventured to ask you to listen to me this evening, unless I had entertained a profound respect for wealth--true wealth, that is to say; for, of course, we ought to respect neither wealth nor anything else that is false of its kind: and the distinction between real and false wealth is one of the points on which I shall have a few words presently to say to you. But true wealth I hold, as I said, in great honour; and sympathize, for the most part, with that extraordinary feeling of the present age which publicly pays this honour to riches. 2. I cannot, however, help noticing how extraordinary it is, and how this epoch of ours differs from all bygone epochs in having no philosophical nor religious worshippers of the ragged godship of poverty. In the classical ages, not only were there people who voluntarily lived in tubs, and who used gravely to maintain the superiority of tub-life to town-life, but the Greeks and Latins seem to have looked on these eccentric, and I do not scruple to say, absurd people, with as much respect as we do upon large capitalists and landed proprietors; so that really, in those days, no one could be described as purse proud, but only as empty-purse proud. And no less distinct than the honour which those curious Greek people pay to their conceited poor, is the disrespectful manner in which they speak of the rich; so that one cannot listen long either to them, or to the Roman writers who imitated them, without finding oneself entangled in all sorts of plausible absurdities; hard upon being convinced of the uselessness of collecting that heavy yellow substance which we call gold, and led generally to doubt all the most established maxims of political economy. 3. Nor are matters much better in the Middle Ages. For the Greeks and Romans contented themselves with mocking at rich people, and constructing merry dialogues between Charon and Diogenes or Menippus, in which the ferryman and the cynic rejoiced together as they saw kings and rich men coming down to the shore of Acheron, in lamenting and lamentable crowds, casting their crowns into the dark waters, and searching, sometimes in vain, for the last coin out of all their treasures that could ever be of use to them. 4. But these Pagan views of the matter were indulgent, compared with those which were held in the Middle Ages, when wealth seems to have been looked upon by the best men not only as contemptible, but as criminal. The purse round the neck is, then, one of the principal signs of condemnation in the pictured Inferno; and the Spirit of Poverty is reverenced with subjection of heart, and faithfulness of affection, like that of a loyal knight for his lady, or a loyal subject for his queen. And truly, it requires some boldness to quit ourselves of these feelings, and to confess their partiality or their error, which, nevertheless, we are certainly bound to do. For wealth is simply one of the greatest powers which can be entrusted to human hands: a power, not indeed to be envied, because it seldom makes us happy; but still less to be abdicated or despised; while, in these days, and in this country, it has become a power all the more notable, in that the possessions of a rich man are not represented, as they used to be, by wedges of gold or coffers of jewels, but by masses of men variously employed, over whose bodies and minds the wealth, according to its direction, exercises harmful or helpful influence, and becomes, in that alternative, Mammon either of Unrighteousness or of Righteousness. 5. Now, it seemed to me that since, in the name you have given to this great gathering of British pictures, you recognize them as Treasures--that is, I suppose, as part and parcel of the real wealth of the country--you might not be uninterested in tracing certain commercial questions connected with this particular form of wealth. Most persons express themselves as surprised at its quantity; not having known before to what an extent good art had been accumulated in England: and it will, therefore, I should think, be held a worthy subject of consideration, what are the political interests involved in such accumulations, what kind of labour they represent, and how this labour may in general be applied and economized, so as to produce the richest results. 6. Now, you must have patience with me, if in approaching the specialty of this subject, I dwell a little on certain points of general political science already known or established: for though thus, as I believe, established, some which I shall have occasion to rest arguments on are not yet by any means universally accepted; and therefore, though I will not lose time in any detailed defence of them, it is necessary that I should distinctly tell you in what form I receive, and wish to argue from them; and this the more, because there may perhaps be a part of my audience who have not interested themselves in political economy, as it bears on ordinary fields of labour, but may yet wish to hear in what way its principles can be applied to Art. I shall, therefore, take leave to trespass on your patience with a few elementary statements in the outset, and with the expression of some general principles, here and there, in the course of our particular inquiry. 7. To begin, then, with one of these necessary truisms: all economy, whether of states, households, or individuals, may be defined to be the art of managing labour. The world is so regulated by the laws of Providence, that a man's labour, well applied, is always amply sufficient to provide him during his life with all things needful to him, and not only with those, but with many pleasant objects of luxury; and yet farther, to procure him large intervals of healthful rest and serviceable leisure. And a nation's labour, well applied, is, in like manner, amply sufficient to provide its whole population with good food and comfortable habitation; and not with those only, but with good education besides, and objects of luxury, art treasures, such as these you have around you now. But by those same laws of Nature and Providence, if the labour of the nation or of the individual be misapplied, and much more if it be insufficient,--if the nation or man be indolent and unwise,--suffering and want result, exactly in proportion to the indolence and improvidence--to the refusal of labour, or to the misapplication of it. Wherever you see want, or misery, or degradation, in this world about you, there, be sure, either industry has been wanting, or industry has been in error. It is not accident, it is not Heaven-commanded calamity, it is not the original and inevitable evil of man's nature, which fill your streets with lamentation, and your graves with prey. It is only that, when there should have been providence, there has been waste; when there should have been labour, there has been lasciviousness; and wilfulness, when there should have been subordination.[1] [Note 1: Proverbs xiii. 23: "Much food is in the tillage of the poor, but there is that is destroyed for want of judgment."] 8. Now, we have warped the word "economy" in our English language into a meaning which it has no business whatever to bear. In our use of it, it constantly signifies merely sparing or saving; economy of money means saving money--economy of time, sparing time, and so on. But that is a wholly barbarous use of the word--barbarous in a double sense, for it is not English, and it is bad Greek; barbarous in a treble sense, for it is not English, it is bad Greek, and it is worse sense. Economy no more means saving money than it means spending money. It means, the administration of a house; its stewardship; spending or saving, that is, whether money or time, or anything else, to the best possible advantage. In the simplest and clearest definition of it, economy, whether public or private, means the wise management of labour; and it means this mainly in three senses: namely, first, _applying_ your labour rationally; secondly, _preserving_ its produce carefully; lastly, _distributing_ its produce seasonably. 9. I say first, applying your labour rationally; that is, so as to obtain the most precious things you can, and the most lasting things, by it: not growing oats in land where you can grow wheat, nor putting fine embroidery on a stuff that will not wear. Secondly, preserving its produce carefully; that is to say, laying up your wheat wisely in storehouses for the time of famine, and keeping your embroidery watchfully from the moth: and lastly, distributing its produce seasonably; that is to say, being able to carry your corn at once to the place where the people are hungry, and your embroideries to the places where they are gay; so fulfilling in all ways the Wise Man's description, whether of the queenly housewife or queenly nation: "She riseth while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry, her clothing is silk and purple. Strength and honour are in her clothing, and she shall rejoice in time to come." 10. Now, you will observe that in this description of the perfect economist, or mistress of a household, there is a studied expression of the balanced division of her care between the two great objects of utility and splendour: in her right hand, food and flax, for life and clothing; in her left hand, the purple and the needlework, for honour and for beauty. All perfect housewifery or national economy is known by these two divisions; wherever either is wanting, the economy is imperfect. If the motive of pomp prevails, and the care of the national economist is directed only to the accumulation of gold, and of pictures, and of silk and marble, you know at once that the time must soon come when all these treasures shall be scattered and blasted in national ruin. If, on the contrary, the element of utility prevails, and the nation disdains to occupy itself in any wise with the arts of beauty or delight, not only a certain quantity of its energy calculated for exercise in those arts alone must be entirely wasted, which is bad economy, but also the passions connected with the utilities of property become morbidly strong, and a mean lust of accumulation merely for the sake of accumulation, or even of labour merely for the sake of labour, will banish at last the serenity and the morality of life, as completely, and perhaps more ignobly, than even the lavishness of pride, and the likeness of pleasure. And similarly, and much more visibly, in private and household economy, you may judge always of its perfectness by its fair balance between the use and the pleasure of its possessions. You will see the wise cottager's garden trimly divided between its well-set vegetables, and its fragrant flowers; you will see the good housewife taking pride in her pretty table-cloth, and her glittering shelves, no less than in her well-dressed dish, and her full storeroom; the care in her countenance will alternate with gaiety, and though you will reverence her in her seriousness, you will know her best by her smile. 11. Now, as you will have anticipated, I am going to address you, on this and our succeeding evening, chiefly on the subject of that economy which relates rather to the garden than the farm-yard. I shall ask you to consider with me the kind of laws by which we shall best distribute the beds of our national garden, and raise in it the sweetest succession of trees pleasant to the sight, and (in no forbidden sense) to be desired to make us wise. But, before proceeding to open this specialty of our subject, let me pause for a few moments to plead with you for the acceptance of that principle of government or authority which must be at the root of all economy, whether for use or for pleasure. I said, a few minutes ago, that a nation's labour, well applied, was amply sufficient to provide its whole population with good food, comfortable clothing, and pleasant luxury. But the good, instant, and constant application is everything. We must not, when our strong hands are thrown out of work, look wildly about for want of something to do with them. If ever we feel that want, it is a sign that all our household is out of order. Fancy a farmer's wife, to whom one or two of her servants should come at twelve o'clock at noon, crying that they had got nothing to do; that they did not know what to do next: and fancy still farther, the said farmer's wife looking hopelessly about her rooms and yard, they being all the while considerably in disorder, not knowing where to set the spare handmaidens to work, and at last complaining bitterly that she had been obliged to give them their dinner for nothing. That's the type of the kind of political economy we practise too often in England. Would you not at once assert of such a mistress that she knew nothing of her duties? and would you not be certain, if the household were rightly managed, the mistress would be only too glad at any moment to have the help of any number of spare hands; that she would know in an instant what to set them to;--in an instant what part of to-morrow's work might be most serviceably forwarded, what part of next month's work most wisely provided for, or what new task of some profitable kind undertaken; and when the evening came, and she dismissed her servants to their recreation or their rest, or gathered them to the reading round the work-table, under the eaves in the sunset, would you not be sure to find that none of them had been overtasked by her, just because none had been left idle; that everything had been accomplished because all had been employed; that the kindness of the mistress had aided her presence of mind, and the slight labour had been entrusted to the weak, and the formidable to the strong; and that as none had been dishonoured by inactivity, so none had been broken by toil? 12. Now, the precise counterpart of such a household would be seen in a nation in which political economy was rightly understood. You complain of the difficulty of finding work for your men. Depend upon it, the real difficulty rather is to find men for your work. The serious question for you is not how many you have to feed, but how much you have to do; it is our inactivity, not our hunger, that ruins us: let us never fear that our servants should have a good appetite--our wealth is in their strength, not in their starvation. Look around this island of yours, and see what you have to do in it. The sea roars against your harbourless cliffs--you have to build the breakwater, and dig the port of refuge; the unclean pestilence ravins in your streets--you have to bring the full stream from the hills, and to send the free winds through the thoroughfare; the famine blanches your lips and eats away your flesh--you have to dig the moor and dry the marsh, to bid the morass give forth instead of engulfing, and to wring the honey and oil out of the rock. These things, and thousands such, we have to do, and shall have to do constantly, on this great farm of ours; for do not suppose that it is anything else than that. Precisely the same laws of economy which apply to the cultivation of a farm or an estate, apply to the cultivation of a province or of an island. Whatever rebuke you would address to the improvident master of an ill-managed patrimony, precisely that rebuke we should address to ourselves, so far as we leave our population in idleness and our country in disorder. What would you say to the lord of an estate who complained to you of his poverty and disabilities, and when you pointed out to him that his land was half of it overrun with weeds, and that his fences were all in ruin, and that his cattle-sheds were roofless, and his labourers lying under the hedges faint for want of food, he answered to you that it would ruin him to weed his land or to roof his sheds--that those were too costly operations for him to undertake, and that he knew not how to feed his labourers nor pay them? Would you not instantly answer, that instead of ruining him to weed his fields, it would save him; that his inactivity was his destruction, and that to set his labourers to work was to feed them? Now, you may add acre to acre, and estate to estate, as far as you like, but you will never reach a compass of ground which shall escape from the authority of these simple laws. The principles which are right in the administration of a few fields, are right also in the administration of a great country from horizon to horizon: idleness does not cease to be ruinous because it is extensive, nor labour to be productive because it is universal. 13. Nay, but you reply, there is one vast difference between the nation's economy and the private man's: the farmer has full authority over his labourers; he can direct them to do what is needed to be done, whether they like it or not; and he can turn them away if they refuse to work, or impede others in their working, or are disobedient, or quarrelsome. There _is_ this great difference; it is precisely this difference on which I wish to fix your attention, for it is precisely this difference which you have to do away with. We know the necessity of authority in farm, or in fleet, or in army; but we commonly refuse to admit it in the body of the nation. Let us consider this point a little. 14. In the various awkward and unfortunate efforts which the French have made at the development of a social system, they have at least stated one true principle, that of fraternity or brotherhood. Do not be alarmed; they got all wrong in their experiments, because they quite forgot that this fact of fraternity implied another fact quite as important--that of paternity, or fatherhood. That is to say, if they were to regard the nation as one family, the condition of unity in that family consisted no less in their having a head, or a father, than in their being faithful and affectionate members, or brothers. But we must not forget this, for we have long confessed it with our lips, though we refuse to confess it in our lives. For half an hour every Sunday we expect a man in a black gown, supposed to be telling us truth, to address us as brethren, though we should be shocked at the notion of any brotherhood existing among us out of church. And we can hardly read a few sentences on any political subject without running a chance of crossing the phrase "paternal government," though we should be utterly horror-struck at the idea of governments claiming anything like a father's authority over us. Now, I believe those two formal phrases are in both instances perfectly binding and accurate, and that the image of the farm and its servants which I have hitherto used, as expressing a wholesome national organization, fails only of doing so, not because it is too domestic, but because it is not domestic enough; because the real type of a well-organized nation must be presented, not by a farm cultivated by servants who wrought for hire, and might be turned away if they refused to labour, but by a farm in which the master was a father, and in which all the servants were sons; which implied, therefore, in all its regulations, not merely the order of expediency, but the bonds of affection and responsibilities of relationship; and in which all acts and services were not only to be sweetened by brotherly concord, but to be enforced by fatherly authority.[2] [Note 2: See note 1st, in Addenda.] 15. Observe, I do not mean in the least that we ought to place such an authority in the hands of any one person, or of any class or body of persons. But I do mean to say that as an individual who conducts himself wisely must make laws for himself which at some time or other may appear irksome or injurious, but which, precisely at the time they appear most irksome, it is most necessary he should obey, so a nation which means to conduct itself wisely, must establish authority over itself, vested either in kings, councils, or laws, which it must resolve to obey, even at times when the law or authority appears irksome to the body of the people, or injurious to certain masses of it. And this kind of national law has hitherto been only judicial; contented, that is, with an endeavour to prevent and punish violence and crime: but, as we advance in our social knowledge, we shall endeavour to make our government paternal as well as judicial; that is, to establish such laws and authorities as may at once direct us in our occupations, protect us against our follies, and visit us in our distresses: a government which shall repress dishonesty, as now it punishes theft; which shall show how the discipline of the masses may be brought to aid the toils of peace, as discipline of the masses has hitherto knit the sinews of battle; a government which shall have its soldiers of the ploughshare as well as its soldiers of the sword, and which shall distribute more proudly its golden crosses of industry--golden as the glow of the harvest, than now it grants its bronze crosses of honour--bronzed with the crimson of blood. 16. I have not, of course, time to insist on the nature or details of government of this kind; only I wish to plead for your several and future consideration of this one truth, that the notion of Discipline and Interference lies at the very root of all human progress or power; that the "Let-alone" principle is, in all things which man has to do with, the principle of death; that it is ruin to him, certain and total, if he lets his land alone--if he lets his fellow-men alone--if he lets his own soul alone. That his whole life, on the contrary, must, if it is healthy life, be continually one of ploughing and pruning, rebuking and helping, governing and punishing; and that therefore it is only in the concession of some great principle of restraint and interference in national action that he can ever hope to find the secret of protection against national degradation. I believe that the masses have a right to claim education from their government; but only so far as they acknowledge the duty of yielding obedience to their government. I believe they have a right to claim employment from their governors; but only so far as they yield to the governor the direction and discipline of their labour; and it is only so far as they grant to the men whom they may set over them the father's authority to check the childishnesses of national fancy, and direct the waywardnesses of national energy, that they have a right to ask that none of their distresses should be unrelieved, none of their weaknesses unwatched; and that no grief, nor nakedness, nor peril, should exist for them, against which the father's hand was not outstretched, or the father's shield uplifted.[3] [Note 3: Compare Wordsworth's Essay on the Poor Law Amendment Bill. I quote one important passage: "But, if it be not safe to touch the abstract question of man's right in a social state to help himself even in the last extremity, may we not still contend for the duty of a Christian government, standing _in loco parentis_ towards all its subjects, to make such effectual provision that no one shall be in danger of perishing either through the neglect or harshness of its legislation? Or, waiving this, is it not indisputable that the claim of the State to the allegiance, involves the protection of the subject? And, as all rights in one party impose a correlative duty upon another, it follows that the right of the State to require the services of its members, even to the jeopardizing of their lives in the common defence, establishes a right in the people (not to be gainsaid by utilitarians and economists) to public support when, from any cause, they may be unable to support themselves."--(See note 2nd, in Addenda.)] 17. Now, I have pressed this upon you at more length than is needful or proportioned to our present purposes of inquiry, because I would not for the first time speak to you on this subject of political economy without clearly stating what I believe to be its first grand principle. But its bearing on the matter in hand is chiefly to prevent you from at once too violently dissenting from me when what I may state to you as advisable economy in art appears to imply too much restraint or interference with the freedom of the patron or artist. We are a little apt, though on the whole a prudent nation, to act too immediately on our impulses, even in matters merely commercial; much more in those involving continual appeals to our fancies. How far, therefore, the proposed systems or restraints may be advisable, it is for you to judge; only I pray you not to be offended with them merely because they _are_ systems and restraints. 18. Do you at all recollect that interesting passage of Carlyle, in which he compares, in this country and at this day, the understood and commercial value of man and horse; and in which he wonders that the horse, with its inferior brains and its awkward hoofiness, instead of handiness, should be always worth so many tens or scores of pounds in the market, while the man, so far from always commanding his price in the market, would often be thought to confer a service on the community by simply killing himself out of their way? Well, Carlyle does not answer his own question, because he supposes we shall at once see the answer. The value of the horse consists simply in the fact of your being able to put a bridle on him. The value of the man consists precisely in the same thing. If you can bridle him, or, which is better, if he can bridle himself, he will be a valuable creature directly. Otherwise, in a commercial point of view, his value is either nothing, or accidental only. Only, of course, the proper bridle of man is not a leathern one: what kind of texture it is rightly made of, we find from that command, "Be ye not as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose mouths must be held in with bit and bridle." You are not to be without the reins, indeed; but they are to be of another kind: "I will guide thee with mine Eye." So the bridle of man is to be the Eye of God; and if he rejects that guidance, then the next best for him is the horse's and the mule's, which have no understanding; and if he rejects that, and takes the bit fairly in his teeth, then there is nothing left for him than the blood that comes out of the city, up to the horse-bridles. 19. Quitting, however, at last these general and serious laws of government--or rather bringing them down to our own business in hand--we have to consider three points of discipline in that particular branch of human labour which is concerned, not with procuring of food, but the expression of emotion; we have to consider respecting art: first, how to apply our labour to it; then, how to accumulate or preserve the results of labour; and then, how to distribute them. But since in art the labour which we have to employ is the labour of a particular class of men--men who have special genius for the business--we have not only to consider how to apply the labour, but, first of all, how to produce the labourer; and thus the question in this particular case becomes fourfold: first, how to get your man of genius; then, how to employ your man of genius; then, how to accumulate and preserve his work in the greatest quantity; and, lastly, how to distribute his work to the best national advantage. Let us take up these questions in succession. 20. I. Discovery.--How are we to get our men of genius: that is to say, by what means may we produce among us, at any given time, the greatest quantity of effective art-intellect? A wide question, you say, involving an account of all the best means of art education. Yes, but I do not mean to go into the consideration of those; I want only to state the few principles which lie at the foundation of the matter. Of these, the first is that you have always to find your artist, not to make him; you can't manufacture him, any more than you can manufacture gold. You can find him, and refine him: you dig him out as he lies nugget-fashion in the mountain-stream; you bring him home; and you make him into current coin, or household plate, but not one grain of him can you originally produce. A certain quantity of art-intellect is born annually in every nation, greater or less according to the nature and cultivation of the nation, or race of men; but a perfectly fixed quantity annually, not increasable by one grain. You may lose it, or you may gather it; you may let it lie loose in the ravine, and buried in the sands, or you may make kings' thrones of it, and overlay temple gates with it, as you choose: but the best you can do with it is always merely sifting, melting, hammering, purifying--never creating. 21. And there is another thing notable about this artistical gold; not only is it limited in quantity, but in use. You need not make thrones or golden gates with it unless you like, but assuredly you can't do anything else with it. You can't make knives of it, nor armour, nor railroads. The gold won't cut you, and it won't carry you: put it to a mechanical use, and you destroy it at once. It is quite true that in the greatest artists, their proper artistical faculty is united with every other; and you may make use of the other faculties, and let the artistical one lie dormant. For aught I know, there may be two or three Leonardo da Vincis employed at this moment in your harbours and railroads: but you are not employing their Leonardesque or golden faculty there,--you are only oppressing and destroying it. And the artistical gift in average men is not joined with others: your born painter, if you don't make a painter of him, won't be a first-rate merchant, or lawyer; at all events, whatever he turns out, his own special gift is unemployed by you; and in no wise helps him in that other business. So here you have a certain quantity of a particular sort of intelligence, produced for you annually by providential laws, which you can only make use of by setting it to its own proper work, and which any attempt to use otherwise involves the dead loss of so much human energy. 22. Well then, supposing we wish to employ it, how is it to be best discovered and refined? It is easily enough discovered. To wish to employ it is to discover it. All that you need is, a school of trial[4] in every important town, in which those idle farmers' lads whom their masters never can keep out of mischief, and those stupid tailors' 'prentices who are always stitching the sleeves in wrong way upwards, may have a try at this other trade; only this school of trial must not be entirely regulated by formal laws of art education, but must ultimately be the workshop of a good master painter, who will try the lads with one kind of art and another, till he finds out what they are fit for. [Note 4: See note 3rd, in Addenda.] 23. Next, after your trial school, you want your easy and secure employment, which is the matter of chief importance. For, even on the present system, the boys who have really intense art capacity, generally make painters of themselves; but then, the best half of their early energy is lost in the battle of life. Before a good painter can get employment, his mind has always been embittered, and his genius distorted. A common mind usually stoops, in plastic chill, to whatever is asked of it, and scrapes or daubs its way complacently into public favour.[5] But your great men quarrel with you, and you revenge yourselves by starving them for the first half of their lives. Precisely in the degree in which any painter possesses original genius, is at present the increase of moral certainty that during his early years he will have a hard battle to fight; and that just at the time when his conceptions ought to be full and happy, his temper gentle, and his hopes enthusiastic--just at that most critical period, his heart is full of anxieties and household cares; he is chilled by disappointments, and vexed by injustice; he becomes obstinate in his errors, no less than in his virtues, and the arrows of his aims are blunted, as the reeds of his trust are broken. [Note 5: See note 4th, in Addenda.] 24. What we mainly want, therefore, is a means of sufficient and unagitated employment: not holding out great prizes for which young painters are to scramble; but furnishing all with adequate support, and opportunity to display such power as they possess without rejection or mortification. I need not say that the best field of labour of this kind would be presented by the constant progress of public works involving various decoration; and we will presently examine what kind of public works may thus, advantageously for the nation, be in constant progress. But a more important matter even than this of steady employment, is the kind of criticism with which you, the public, receive the works of the young men submitted to you. You may do much harm by indiscreet praise and by indiscreet blame; but remember the chief harm is always done by blame. It stands to reason that a young man's work cannot be perfect. It _must_ be more or less ignorant; it must be more or less feeble; it is likely that it may be more or less experimental, and if experimental, here and there mistaken. If, therefore, you allow yourself to launch out into sudden barking at the first faults you see, the probability is that you are abusing the youth for some defect naturally and inevitably belonging to that stage of his progress; and that you might just as rationally find fault with a child for not being as prudent as a privy councillor, or with a kitten for not being as grave as a cat. 25. But there is one fault which you may be quite sure is unnecessary, and therefore a real and blamable fault: that is haste, involving negligence. Whenever you see that a young man's work is either bold or slovenly, then you may attack it firmly; sure of being right. If his work is bold, it is insolent; repress his insolence: if it is slovenly, it is indolent; spur his indolence. So long as he works in that dashing or impetuous way, the best hope for him is in your contempt: and it is only by the fact of his seeming not to seek your approbation that you may conjecture he deserves it. 26. But if he does deserve it, be sure that you give it him, else you not only run a chance of driving him from the right road by want of encouragement, but you deprive yourselves of the happiest privilege you will ever have of rewarding his labour. For it is only the young who can receive much reward from men's praise: the old, when they are great, get too far beyond and above you to care what you think of them. You may urge them then with sympathy, and surround them then with acclamation; but they will doubt your pleasure, and despise your praise. You might have cheered them in their race through the asphodel meadows of their youth; you might have brought the proud, bright scarlet into their faces, if you had but cried once to them "Well done," as they dashed up to the first goal of their early ambition. But now, their pleasure is in memory, and their ambition is in heaven. They can be kind to you, but you nevermore can be kind to them. You may be fed with the fruit and fulness of their old age, but you were as the nipping blight to them in their blossoming, and your praise is only as the warm winds of autumn to the dying branches. 27. There is one thought still, the saddest of all, bearing on this withholding of early help. It is possible, in some noble natures, that the warmth and the affections of childhood may remain unchilled, though unanswered; and that the old man's heart may still be capable of gladness, when the long-withheld sympathy is given at last. But in these noble natures it nearly always happens that the chief motive of earthly ambition has not been to give delight to themselves, but to their parents. Every noble youth looks back, as to the chiefest joy which this world's honour ever gave him, to the moment when first he saw his father's eyes flash with pride, and his mother turn away her head, lest he should take her tears for tears of sorrow. Even the lover's joy, when some worthiness of his is acknowledged before his mistress, is not so great as that, for it is not so pure--the desire to exalt himself in her eyes mixes with that of giving her delight; but he does not need to exalt himself in his parents' eyes: it is with the pure hope of giving them pleasure that he comes to tell them what he has done, or what has been said of him; and therefore he has a purer pleasure of his own. And this purest and best of rewards you keep from him if you can: you feed him in his tender youth with ashes and dishonour; and then you come to him, obsequious, but too late, with your sharp laurel crown, the dew all dried from off its leaves; and you thrust it into his languid hand, and he looks at you wistfully. What shall he do with it? What can he do, but go and lay it on his mother's grave? 28. Thus, then, you see that you have to provide for your young men: first, the searching or discovering school; then the calm employment; then the justice of praise: one thing more you have to do for them in preparing them for full service--namely, to make, in the noble sense of the word, gentlemen of them; that is to say, to take care that their minds receive such training, that in all they paint they shall see and feel the noblest things. I am sorry to say, that of all parts of an artist's education, this is the most neglected among us; and that even where the natural taste and feeling of the youth have been pure and true, where there was the right stuff in him to make a gentleman of, you may too frequently discern some jarring rents in his mind, and elements of degradation in his treatment of subject, owing to want of gentle training, and of the liberal influence of literature. This is quite visible in our greatest artists, even in men like Turner and Gainsborough; while in the common grade of our second-rate painters the evil attains a pitch which is far too sadly manifest to need my dwelling upon it. Now, no branch of art economy is more important than that of making the intellect at your disposal pure as well as powerful; so that it may always gather for you the sweetest and fairest things. The same quantity of labour from the same man's hand, will, according as you have trained him, produce a lovely and useful work, or a base and hurtful one; and depend upon it, whatever value it may possess, by reason of the painter's skill, its chief and final value, to any nation, depends upon its being able to exalt and refine, as well as to please; and that the picture which most truly deserves the name of an art-treasure is that which has been painted by a good man. 29. You cannot but see how far this would lead, if I were to enlarge upon it. I must take it up as a separate subject some other time: only noticing at present that no money could be better spent by a nation than in providing a liberal and disciplined education for its painters, as they advance into the critical period of their youth; and that, also, a large part of their power during life depends upon the kind of subjects which you, the public, ask them for, and therefore the kind of thoughts with which you require them to be habitually familiar. I shall have more to say on this head when we come to consider what employment they should have in public buildings. 30. There are many other points of nearly as much importance as these, to be explained with reference to the development of genius; but I should have to ask you to come and hear six lectures instead of two if I were to go into their detail. For instance, I have not spoken of the way in which you ought to look for those artificers in various manual trades, who, without possessing the order of genius which you would desire to devote to higher purposes, yet possess wit, and humour, and sense of colour, and fancy for form--all commercially valuable as quantities of intellect, and all more or less expressible in the lower arts of iron-work, pottery, decorative sculpture, and such like. But these details, interesting as they are, I must commend to your own consideration, or leave for some future inquiry. I want just now only to set the bearings of the entire subject broadly before you, with enough of detailed illustration to make it intelligible; and therefore I must quit the first head of it here, and pass to the second--namely, how best to employ the genius we discover. A certain quantity of able hands and heads being placed at our disposal, what shall we most advisably set them upon? 31. II. APPLICATION.--There are three main points the economist has to attend to in this. First, To set his men to various work. Secondly, To easy work. Thirdly, To lasting work. I shall briefly touch on the first two, for I want to arrest your attention on the last. 32. I say first to various work. Supposing you have two men of equal power as landscape painters--and both of them have an hour at your disposal. You would not set them both to paint the same piece of landscape. You would, of course, rather have two subjects than a repetition of one. Well, supposing them sculptors, will not the same rule hold? You naturally conclude at once that it will; but you will have hard work to convince your modern architects of that. They will put twenty men to work, to carve twenty capitals; and all shall be the same. If I could show you the architects' yards in England just now, all open at once, perhaps you might see a thousand clever men, all employed in carving the same design. Of the degradation and deathfulness to the art-intellect of the country involved in such a habit, I have more or less been led to speak before now; but I have not hitherto marked its definite tendency to increase the price of _work_, as such. When men are employed continually in carving the same ornaments, they get into a monotonous and methodical habit of labour--precisely correspondent to that in which they would break stones, or paint house-walls. Of course, what they do so constantly, they do easily; and if you excite them temporarily by an increase of wages, you may get much work done by them in a little time. But, unless so stimulated, men condemned to a monotonous exertion, work--and always, by the laws of human nature, _must_ work--only at a tranquil rate, not producing by any means a maximum result in a given time. But if you allow them to vary their designs, and thus interest their heads and hearts in what they are doing, you will find them become eager, first, to get their ideas expressed, and then to finish the expression of them; and the moral energy thus brought to bear on the matter quickens, and therefore cheapens, the production in a most important degree. Sir Thomas Deane, the architect of the new Museum at Oxford, told me, as I passed through Oxford on my way here, that he found that, owing to this cause alone, capitals of various design could be executed cheaper than capitals of similar design (the amount of hand labour in each being the same) by about 30 per cent. 33. Well, that is the first way, then, in which you will employ your intellect well; and the simple observance of this plain rule of political economy will effect a noble revolution in your architecture, such as you cannot at present so much as conceive. Then the second way in which we are to guard against waste is by setting our men to the easiest, and therefore the quickest, work which will answer the purpose. Marble, for instance, lasts quite as long as granite, and is much softer to work; therefore, when you get hold of a good sculptor, give him marble to carve--not granite. 34. That, you say, is obvious enough. Yes; but it is not so obvious how much of your workmen's time you waste annually in making them cut glass, after it has got hard, when you ought to make them mould it while it is soft. It is not so obvious how much expense you waste in cutting diamonds and rubies, which are the hardest things you can find, into shapes that mean nothing, when the same men might be cutting sandstone and freestone into shapes that meant something. It is not so obvious how much of the artists' time in Italy you waste, by forcing them to make wretched little pictures for you out of crumbs of stone glued together at enormous cost, when the tenth of the time would make good and noble pictures for you out of water-colour. 35. I could go on giving you almost numberless instances of this great commercial mistake; but I should only weary and confuse you. I therefore commend also this head of our subject to your own meditation, and proceed to the last I named--the last I shall task your patience with to-night. You know we are now considering how to apply our genius; and we were to do it as economists, in three ways:-- To _various_ work; To _easy_ work; To _lasting_ work. 36. This lasting of the work, then, is our final question. Many of you may perhaps remember that Michael Angelo was once commanded by Pietro di Medici to mould a statue out of snow, and that he obeyed the command.[6] I am glad, and we have all reason to be glad, that such a fancy ever came into the mind of the unworthy prince, and for this cause: that Pietro di Medici then gave, at the period of one great epoch of consummate power in the arts, the perfect, accurate, and intensest possible type of the greatest error which nations and princes can commit, respecting the power of genius entrusted to their guidance. You had there, observe, the strongest genius in the most perfect obedience; capable of iron independence, yet wholly submissive to the patron's will; at once the most highly accomplished and the most original, capable of doing as much as man could do, in any direction that man could ask. And its governor, and guide, and patron sets it to build a statue in snow--to put itself into the service of annihilation--to make a cloud of itself, and pass away from the earth. [Note 6: See the noble passage on this tradition in "Casa Guidi Windows."] 37. Now this, so precisely and completely done by Pietro di Medici, is what we are all doing, exactly in the degree in which we direct the genius under our patronage to work in more or less perishable materials. So far as we induce painters to work in fading colours, or architects to build with imperfect structure, or in any other way consult only immediate ease and cheapness in the production of what we want, to the exclusion of provident thought as to its permanence and serviceableness in after ages; so far we are forcing our Michael Angelos to carve in snow. The first duty of the economist in art is, to see that no intellect shall thus glitter merely in the manner of hoar-frost; but that it shall be well vitrified, like a painted window, and shall be set so between shafts of stone and bands of iron, that it shall bear the sunshine upon it, and send the sunshine through it, from generation to generation. 38. I can conceive, however, some political economist to interrupt me here, and say, "If you make your art wear too well, you will soon have too much of it; you will throw your artists quite out of work. Better allow for a little wholesome evanescence--beneficent destruction: let each age provide art for itself, or we shall soon have so many good pictures that we shall not know what to do with them." Remember, my dear hearers, who are thus thinking, that political economy, like every other subject, cannot be dealt with effectively if we try to solve two questions at a time instead of one. It is one question, how to get plenty of a thing; and another, whether plenty of it will be good for us. Consider these two matters separately; never confuse yourself by interweaving one with the other. It is one question, how to treat your fields so as to get a good harvest; another, whether you wish to have a good harvest, or would rather like to keep up the price of corn. It is one question, how to graft your trees so as to grow most apples; and quite another, whether having such a heap of apples in the storeroom will not make them all rot. 39. Now, therefore, that we are talking only about grafting and growing, pray do not vex yourselves with thinking what you are to do with the pippins. It may be desirable for us to have much art, or little--we will examine that by-and-bye; but just now, let us keep to the simple consideration how to get plenty of good art if we want it. Perhaps it might be just as well that a man of moderate income should be able to possess a good picture, as that any work of real merit should cost 500_l._ or 1,000_l._; at all events, it is certainly one of the branches of political economy to ascertain how, if we like, we can get things in quantities--plenty of corn, plenty of wine, plenty of gold, or plenty of pictures. It has just been said, that the first great secret is to produce work that will last. Now, the conditions of work lasting are twofold: it must not only be in materials that will last, but it must be itself of a quality that will last--it must be good enough to bear the test of time. If it is not good, we shall tire of it quickly, and throw it aside--we shall have no pleasure in the accumulation of it. So that the first question of a good art-economist respecting any work is, Will it lose its flavour by keeping? It may be very amusing now, and look much like a work of genius; but what will be its value a hundred years hence? You cannot always ascertain this. You may get what you fancy to be work of the best quality, and yet find to your astonishment that it won't keep. But of one thing you may be sure, that art which is produced hastily will also perish hastily; and that what is cheapest to you now, is likely to be dearest in the end. 40. I am sorry to say, the great tendency of this age is to expend its genius in perishable art of this kind, as if it were a triumph to burn its thoughts away in bonfires. There is a vast quantity of intellect and of labour consumed annually in our cheap illustrated publications; you triumph in them; and you think it so grand a thing to get so many woodcuts for a penny. Why, woodcuts, penny and all, are as much lost to you as if you had invested your money in gossamer. More lost, for the gossamer could only tickle your face, and glitter in your eyes; it could not catch your feet and trip you up: but the bad art can, and does; for you can't like good woodcuts as long as you look at the bad ones. If we were at this moment to come across a Titian woodcut, or a Dürer woodcut, we should not like it--those of us at least who are accustomed to the cheap work of the day. We don't like, and can't like, _that_ long; but when we are tired of one bad cheap thing, we throw it aside and buy another bad cheap thing; and so keep looking at bad things all our lives. Now, the very men who do all that quick bad work for us are capable of doing perfect work. Only, perfect work can't be hurried, and therefore it can't be cheap beyond a certain point. But suppose you pay twelve times as much as you do now, and you have one woodcut for a shilling instead of twelve; and the one woodcut for a shilling is as good as art can be, so that you will never tire of looking at it; and is struck on good paper with good ink, so that you will never wear it out by handling it; while you are sick of your penny-each cuts by the end of the week, and have torn them mostly in half too. Isn't your shilling's worth the best bargain? 41. It is not, however, only in getting prints or woodcuts of the best kind that you will practise economy. There is a certain quality about an original drawing which you cannot get in a woodcut, and the best part of the genius of many men is only expressible in original work, whether with pen or ink--pencil or colours. This is not always the case; but in general, the best men are those who can only express themselves on paper or canvas; and you will therefore, in the long run, get most for your money by buying original work; proceeding on the principle already laid down, that the best is likely to be the cheapest in the end. Of course, original work cannot be produced under a certain cost. If you want a man to make you a drawing which takes him six days, you must, at all events, keep him for six days in bread and water, fire and lodging; that is the lowest price at which he can do it for you, but that is not very dear: and the best bargain which can possibly be made honestly in art--the very ideal of a cheap purchase to the purchaser--is the original work of a great man fed for as many days as are necessary on bread and water, or perhaps we may say with as many onions as will keep him in good humour. That is the way by which you will always get most for your money; no mechanical multiplication or ingenuity of commercial arrangements will ever get you a better penny's worth of art than that. 42. Without, however, pushing our calculations quite to this prison-discipline extreme, we may lay it down as a rule in art-economy, that original work is, on the whole, cheapest and best worth having. But precisely in proportion to the value of it as a production, becomes the importance of having it executed in permanent materials. And here we come to note the second main error of the day, that we not only ask our workmen for bad art, but we make them put it into bad substance. We have, for example, put a great quantity of genius, within the last twenty years, into water-colour drawing, and we have done this with the most reckless disregard whether either the colours or the paper will stand. In most instances, neither will. By accident, it may happen that the colours in a given drawing have been of good quality, and its paper uninjured by chemical processes. But you take not the least care to ensure these being so; I have myself seen the most destructive changes take place in water-colour drawings within twenty years after they were painted; and from all I can gather respecting the recklessness of modern paper manufacture, my belief is, that though you may still handle an Albert Dürer engraving, two hundred years old, fearlessly, not one-half of that time will have passed over your modern water-colours, before most of them will be reduced to mere white or brown rags; and your descendants, twitching them contemptuously into fragments between finger and thumb, will mutter against you, half in scorn and half in anger, "Those wretched nineteenth century people! they kept vapouring and fuming about the world, doing what they called business, and they couldn't make a sheet of paper that wasn't rotten." 43. And note that this is no unimportant portion of your art economy at this time. Your water-colour painters are becoming every day capable of expressing greater and better things; and their material is especially adapted to the turn of your best artists' minds. The value which you could accumulate in work of this kind would soon become a most important item in the national art-wealth, if only you would take the little pains necessary to secure its permanence. I am inclined to think, myself, that water-colour ought not to be used on paper at all, but only on vellum, and then, if properly taken care of, the drawing would be almost imperishable. Still, paper is a much more convenient material for rapid work; and it is an infinite absurdity not to secure the goodness of its quality, when we could do so without the slightest trouble. Among the many favours which I am going to ask from our paternal government, when we get it, will be that it will supply its little boys with good paper. You have nothing to do but to let the government establish a paper manufactory, under the superintendence of any of our leading chemists, who should be answerable for the safety and completeness of all the processes of the manufacture. The government stamp on the corner of your sheet of drawing-paper, made in the perfect way, should cost you a shilling, which would add something to the revenue; and when you bought a water-colour drawing for fifty or a hundred guineas, you would have merely to look in the corner for your stamp, and pay your extra shilling for the security that your hundred guineas were given really for a drawing, and not for a coloured rag. There need be no monopoly or restriction in the matter; let the paper manufacturers compete with the government, and if people liked to save their shilling, and take their chance, let them; only, the artist and purchaser might then be sure of good material, if they liked, and now they cannot be. 44. I should like also to have a government colour manufactory; though that is not so necessary, as the quality of colour is more within the artist's power of testing, and I have no doubt that any painter may get permanent colour from the respectable manufacturers, if he chooses. I will not attempt to follow the subject out at all as it respects architecture, and our methods of modern building; respecting which I have had occasion to speak before now. 45. But I cannot pass without some brief notice our habit--continually, as it seems to me, gaining strength--of putting a large quantity of thought and work, annually, into things which are either in their nature necessarily perishable, as dress; or else into compliances with the fashion of the day, in things not necessarily perishable, as plate. I am afraid almost the first idea of a young rich couple setting up house in London, is, that they must have new plate. Their father's plate may be very handsome, but the fashion is changed. They will have a new service from the leading manufacturer, and the old plate, except a few apostle spoons, and a cup which Charles the Second drank a health in to their pretty ancestress, is sent to be melted down, and made up with new flourishes and fresh lustre. Now, so long as this is the case--so long, observe, as fashion has influence on the manufacture of plate--so long _you cannot have a goldsmith's art in this country_. Do you suppose any workman worthy the name will put his brains into a cup, or an urn, which he knows is to go to the melting-pot in half a score years? He will not; you don't ask or expect it of him. You ask of him nothing but a little quick handicraft--a clever twist of a handle here, and a foot there, a convolvulus from the newest school of design, a pheasant from Landseer's game cards; a couple of sentimental figures for supporters, in the style of the signs of insurance offices, then a clever touch with the burnisher, and there's your epergne, the admiration of all the footmen at the wedding-breakfast, and the torment of some unfortunate youth who cannot see the pretty girl opposite to him, through its tyrannous branches. 46. But you don't suppose that _that's_ goldsmith's work? Goldsmith's work is made to last, and made with the men's whole heart and soul in it; true goldsmith's work, when it exists, is generally the means of education of the greatest painters and sculptors of the day. Francia was a goldsmith; Francia was not his own name, but that of his master the jeweller; and he signed his pictures almost always, "Francia, the goldsmith," for love of his master; Ghirlandajo was a goldsmith, and was the master of Michael Angelo; Verrocchio was a goldsmith, and was the master of Leonardo da Vinci. Ghiberti was a goldsmith, and beat out the bronze gates which Michael Angelo said might serve for gates of Paradise.[7] But if ever you want work like theirs again, you must keep it, though it should have the misfortune to become old-fashioned. You must not break it up, nor melt it any more. There is no economy in that; you could not easily waste intellect more grievously. Nature may melt her goldsmith's work at every sunset if she chooses; and beat it out into chased bars again at every sunrise; but you must not. The way to have a truly noble service of plate, is to keep adding to it, not melting it. At every marriage, and at every birth, get a new piece of gold or silver if you will, but with noble workmanship on it, done for all time, and put it among your treasures; that is one of the chief things which gold was made for, and made incorruptible for. When we know a little more of political economy, we shall find that none but partially savage nations need, imperatively, gold for their currency;[8] but gold has been given us, among other things, that we might put beautiful work into its imperishable splendour, and that the artists who have the most wilful fancies may have a material which will drag out, and beat out, as their dreams require, and will hold itself together with fantastic tenacity, whatever rare and delicate service they set it upon. [Note 7: Several reasons may account for the fact that goldsmith's work is so wholesome for young artists: first, that it gives great firmness of hand to deal for some time with a solid substance; again, that it induces caution and steadiness--a boy trusted with chalk and paper suffers an immediate temptation to scrawl upon it and play with it, but he dares not scrawl on gold, and he cannot play with it; and, lastly, that it gives great delicacy and precision of touch to work upon minute forms, and to aim at producing richness and finish of design correspondent to the preciousness of the material.] [Note 8: See note in Addenda on the nature of property.] 47. So here is one branch of decorative art in which rich people may indulge themselves unselfishly; if they ask for good art in it, they may be sure in buying gold and silver plate that they are enforcing useful education on young artists. But there is another branch of decorative art in which I am sorry to say we cannot, at least under existing circumstances, indulge ourselves, with the hope of doing good to anybody: I mean the great and subtle art of dress. 48. And here I must interrupt the pursuit of our subject for a moment or two, in order to state one of the principles of political economy, which, though it is, I believe, now sufficiently understood and asserted by the leading masters of the science, is not yet, I grieve to say, acted upon by the plurality of those who have the management of riches. Whenever we spend money, we of course set people to work: that is the meaning of spending money; we may, indeed, lose it without employing anybody; but, whenever we spend it, we set a number of people to work, greater or less, of course, according to the rate of wages, but, in the long run, proportioned to the sum we spend. Well, your shallow people, because they see that however they spend money they are always employing somebody, and, therefore, doing some good, think and say to themselves, that it is all one _how_ they spend it--that all their apparently selfish luxury is, in reality, unselfish, and is doing just as much good as if they gave all their money away, or perhaps more good; and I have heard foolish people even declare it as a principle of political economy, that whoever invented a new want[9] conferred a good on the community. I have not words strong enough--at least, I could not, without shocking you, use the words which would be strong enough--to express my estimate of the absurdity and the mischievousness of this popular fallacy. So, putting a great restraint upon myself, and using no hard words, I will simply try to state the nature of it, and the extent of its influence. [Note 9: See note 5th, in Addenda.] 49. Granted, that whenever we spend money for whatever purpose, we set people to work; and passing by, for the moment, the question whether the work we set them to is all equally healthy and good for them, we will assume that whenever we spend a guinea we provide an equal number of people with healthy maintenance for a given time. But, by the way in which we spend it, we entirely direct the labour of those people during that given time. We become their masters or mistresses, and we compel them to produce, within a certain period, a certain article. Now, that article may be a useful and lasting one, or it may be a useless and perishable one--it may be one useful to the whole community, or useful only to ourselves. And our selfishness and folly, or our virtue and prudence, are shown, not by our spending money, but by our spending it for the wrong or the right thing; and we are wise and kind, not in maintaining a certain number of people for a given period, but only in requiring them to produce during that period, the kind of things which shall be useful to society, instead of those which are only useful to ourselves. 50. Thus, for instance: if you are a young lady, and employ a certain number of sempstresses for a given time, in making a given number of simple and serviceable dresses--suppose, seven; of which you can wear one yourself for half the winter, and give six away to poor girls who have none, you are spending your money unselfishly. But if you employ the same number of sempstresses for the same number of days, in making four, or five, or six beautiful flounces for your own ball-dress--flounces which will clothe no one but yourself, and which you will yourself be unable to wear at more than one ball--you are employing your money selfishly. You have maintained, indeed, in each case, the same number of people; but in the one case you have directed their labour to the service of the community; in the other case you have consumed it wholly upon yourself. I don't say you are never to do so; I don't say you ought not sometimes to think of yourselves only, and to make yourselves as pretty as you can; only do not confuse coquettishness with benevolence, nor cheat yourselves into thinking that all the finery you can wear is so much put into the hungry mouths of those beneath you: it is not so; it is what you yourselves, whether you will or no, must sometimes instinctively feel it to be--it is what those who stand shivering in the streets, forming a line to watch you as you step out of your carriages, _know_ it to be; those fine dresses do not mean that so much has been put into their mouths, but that so much has been taken out of their mouths. 51. The real politico-economical signification of every one of those beautiful toilettes, is just this: that you have had a certain number of people put for a certain number of days wholly under your authority, by the sternest of slave-masters--hunger and cold; and you have said to them, "I will feed you, indeed, and clothe you, and give you fuel for so many days; but during those days you shall work for me only: your little brothers need clothes, but you shall make none for them: your sick friend needs clothes, but you shall make none for her: you yourself will soon need another and a warmer dress, but you shall make none for yourself. You shall make nothing but lace and roses for me; for this fortnight to come, you shall work at the patterns and petals, and then I will crush and consume them away in an hour." You will perhaps answer--"It may not be particularly benevolent to do this, and we won't call it so; but at any rate we do no wrong in taking their labour when we pay them their wages: if we pay for their work, we have a right to it." 52. No;--a thousand times no. The labour which you have paid for, does indeed become, by the act of purchase, your own labour: you have bought the hands and the time of those workers; they are, by right and justice, your own hands, your own time. But have you a right to spend your own time, to work with your own hands, only for your own advantage?--much more, when, by purchase, you have invested your own person with the strength of others; and added to your own life, a part of the life of others? You may, indeed, to a certain extent, use their labour for your delight: remember, I am making no general assertions against splendour of dress, or pomp of accessories of life; on the contrary, there are many reasons for thinking that we do not at present attach enough importance to beautiful dress, as one of the means of influencing general taste and character. But I _do_ say, that you must weigh the value of what you ask these workers to produce for you in its own distinct balance; that on its own worthiness or desirableness rests the question of your kindness, and not merely on the fact of your having employed people in producing it: and I say further, that as long as there are cold and nakedness in the land around you, so long there can be no question at all but that splendour of dress is a crime. In due time, when we have nothing better to set people to work at, it may be right to let them make lace and cut jewels; but as long as there are any who have no blankets for their beds, and no rags for their bodies, so long it is blanket-making and tailoring we must set people to work at--not lace. 53. And it would be strange, if at any great assembly which, while it dazzled the young and the thoughtless, beguiled the gentler hearts that beat beneath the embroidery, with a placid sensation of luxurious benevolence--as if by all that they wore in waywardness of beauty, comfort had been first given to the distressed, and aid to the indigent; it would be strange, I say, if, for a moment, the spirits of Truth and of Terror, which walk invisibly among the masques of the earth, would lift the dimness from our erring thoughts, and show us how--inasmuch as the sums exhausted for that magnificence would have given back the failing breath to many an unsheltered outcast on moor and street--they who wear it have literally entered into partnership with Death; and dressed themselves in his spoils. Yes, if the veil could be lifted not only from your thoughts, but from your human sight, you would see--the angels do see--on those gay white dresses of yours, strange dark spots, and crimson patterns that you knew not of--spots of the inextinguishable red that all the seas cannot wash away; yes, and among the pleasant flowers that crown your fair heads, and glow on your wreathed hair, you would see that one weed was always twisted which no one thought of--the grass that grows on graves. 54. It was not, however, this last, this clearest and most appalling view of our subject, that I intended to ask you to take this evening; only it is impossible to set any part of the matter in its true light, until we go to the root of it. But the point which it is our special business to consider is, not whether costliness of dress is contrary to charity; but whether it is not contrary to mere worldly wisdom: whether, even supposing we knew that splendour of dress did not cost suffering or hunger, we might not put the splendour better in other things than dress. And, supposing our mode of dress were really graceful or beautiful, this might be a very doubtful question; for I believe true nobleness of dress to be an important means of education, as it certainly is a necessity to any nation which wishes to possess living art, concerned with portraiture of human nature. No good historical painting ever yet existed, or ever can exist, where the dresses of the people of the time are not beautiful: and had it not been for the lovely and fantastic dressing of the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, neither French, nor Florentine, nor Venetian art could have risen to anything like the rank it reached. Still, even then, the best dressing was never the costliest; and its effect depended much more on its beautiful and, in early times, modest, arrangement, and on the simple and lovely masses of its colour, than on gorgeousness of clasp or embroidery. 55. Whether we can ever return to any of those more perfect types of form, is questionable; but there can be no more question that all the money we spend on the forms of dress at present worn, is, so far as any good purpose is concerned, wholly lost. Mind, in saying this, I reckon among good purposes the purpose which young ladies are said sometimes to entertain--of being married; but they would be married quite as soon (and probably to wiser and better husbands) by dressing quietly, as by dressing brilliantly: and I believe it would only be needed to lay fairly and largely before them the real good which might be effected by the sums they spend in toilettes, to make them trust at once only to their bright eyes and braided hair for all the mischief they have a mind to. I wish we could, for once, get the statistics of a London season. There was much complaining talk in Parliament, last week, of the vast sum the nation has given for the best Paul Veronese in Venice--14,000_l._: I wonder what the nation meanwhile has given for its ball-dresses! Suppose we could see the London milliners' bills, simply for unnecessary breadths of slip and flounce, from April to July; I wonder whether 14,000_l._ would cover _them_. But the breadths of slip and flounce are by this time as much lost and vanished as last year's snow; only they have done less good: but the Paul Veronese will last for centuries, if we take care of it; and yet, we grumble at the price given for the painting, while no one grumbles at the price of pride. 56. Time does not permit me to go into any farther illustration of the various modes in which we build our statue out of snow, and waste our labour on things that vanish. I must leave you to follow out the subject for yourselves, as I said I should, and proceed, in our next lecture, to examine the two other branches of our subject--namely, how to accumulate our art, and how to distribute it. But, in closing, as we have been much on the topic of good government, both of ourselves and others, let me just give you one more illustration of what it means, from that old art of which, next evening, I shall try to convince you that the value, both moral and mercantile, is greater than we usually suppose. 57. One of the frescoes by Ambrozio Lorenzetti, in the town-hall of Siena, represents, by means of symbolical figures, the principles of Good Civic Government and of Good Government in general. The figure representing this noble Civic Government is enthroned, and surrounded by figures representing the Virtues, variously supporting or administering its authority. Now, observe what work is given to each of these virtues. Three winged ones--Faith, Hope, and Charity--surround the head of the figure; not in mere compliance with the common and heraldic laws of precedence among Virtues, such as we moderns observe habitually, but with peculiar purpose on the part of the painter. Faith, as thus represented ruling the thoughts of the Good Governor, does not mean merely religious faith, understood in those times to be necessary to all persons--governed no less than governors--but it means the faith which enables work to be carried out steadily, in spite of adverse appearances and expediencies; the faith in great principles, by which a civic ruler looks past all the immediate checks and shadows that would daunt a common man, knowing that what is rightly done will have a right issue, and holding his way in spite of pullings at his cloak and whisperings in his ear, enduring, as having in him a faith which is evidence of things unseen. 58. And Hope, in like manner, is here not the heavenward hope which ought to animate the hearts of all men; but she attends upon Good Government, to show that all such government is _expectant_ as well as _conservative_; that if it ceases to be hopeful of better things, it ceases to be a wise guardian of present things: that it ought never, as long as the world lasts, to be wholly content with any existing state of institution or possession, but to be hopeful still of more wisdom and power; not clutching at it restlessly or hastily, but feeling that its real life consists in steady ascent from high to higher: conservative, indeed, and jealously conservative of old things, but conservative of them as pillars, not as pinnacles--as aids, but not as idols; and hopeful chiefly, and active, in times of national trial or distress, according to those first and notable words describing the queenly nation: "She riseth, _while it is yet night_." 59. And again, the winged Charity which is attendant on Good Government has, in this fresco, a peculiar office. Can you guess what? If you consider the character of contest which so often takes place among kings for their crowns, and the selfish and tyrannous means they commonly take to aggrandize or secure their power, you will, perhaps, be surprised to hear that the office of Charity is to crown the King. And yet, if you think of it a little, you will see the beauty of the thought which sets her in this function: since, in the first place, all the authority of a good governor should be desired by him only for the good of his people, so that it is only Love that makes him accept or guard his crown: in the second place, his chief greatness consists in the exercise of this love, and he is truly to be revered only so far as his acts and thoughts are those of kindness; so that Love is the light of his crown, as well as the giver of it: lastly, because his strength depends on the affections of his people, and it is only their love which can securely crown him, and for ever. So that Love is the strength of his crown as well as the light of it. 60. Then, surrounding the King, or in various obedience to him, appear the dependent virtues, as Fortitude, Temperance, Truth, and other attendant spirits, of all which I cannot now give account, wishing you only to notice the one to whom are entrusted the guidance and administration of the public revenues. Can you guess which it is likely to be? Charity, you would have thought, should have something to do with the business; but not so, for she is too hot to attend carefully to it. Prudence, perhaps, you think of in the next place. No, she is too timid, and loses opportunities in making up her mind. Can it be Liberality then? No: Liberality is entrusted with some small sums; but she is a bad accountant, and is allowed no important place in the exchequer. But the treasures are given in charge to a virtue of which we hear too little in modern times, as distinct from others; Magnanimity: largeness of heart: not softness or weakness of heart, mind you--but capacity of heart--the great _measuring_ virtue, which weighs in heavenly balances all that may be given, and all that may be gained; and sees how to do noblest things in noblest ways: which of two goods comprehends and therefore chooses the greater: which of two personal sacrifices dares and accepts the larger: which, out of the avenues of beneficence, treads always that which opens farthest into the blue fields of futurity: that character, in fine, which, in those words taken by us at first for the description of a Queen among the nations, looks less to the present power than to the distant promise; "Strength and honour are in her clothing,--and she shall rejoice IN TIME TO COME." LECTURE II. THE ACCUMULATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF ART. _Continuation of the previous Lecture; delivered July 13, 1857._ 61. The heads of our subject which remain for our consideration this evening are, you will remember, the accumulation and the distribution of works of art. Our complete inquiry fell into four divisions--first, how to get our genius; then, how to apply our genius; then, how to accumulate its results; and lastly, how to distribute them. We considered, last evening, how to discover and apply it;--we have to-night to examine the modes of its preservation and distribution. 62. III. ACCUMULATION.--And now, in the outset, it will be well to face that objection which we put aside a little while ago; namely, that perhaps it is not well to have a great deal of good art; and that it should not be made too cheap. "Nay," I can imagine some of the more generous among you exclaiming, "we will not trouble you to disprove that objection; of course it is a selfish and base one: good art, as well as other good things, ought to be made as cheap as possible, and put as far as we can within the reach of everybody." 63. Pardon me, I am not prepared to admit that. I rather side with the selfish objectors, and believe that art ought not to be made cheap, beyond a certain point; for the amount of pleasure that you can receive from any great work, depends wholly on the quantity of attention and energy of mind you can bring to bear upon it. Now, that attention and energy depend much more on the freshness of the thing than you would at all suppose; unless you very carefully studied the movements of your own minds. If you see things of the same kind and of equal value very frequently, your reverence for them is infallibly diminished, your powers of attention get gradually wearied, and your interest and enthusiasm worn out; and you cannot in that state bring to any given work the energy necessary to enjoy it. If, indeed, the question were only between enjoying a great many pictures each a little, or one picture very much, the sum of enjoyment being in each case the same, you might rationally desire to possess rather the larger quantity than the small; both because one work of art always in some sort illustrates another, and because quantity diminishes the chances of destruction. 64. But the question is not a merely arithmetical one of this kind. Your fragments of broken admirations will not, when they are put together, make up one whole admiration; two and two, in this case, do not make four, nor anything like four. Your good picture, or book, or work of art of any kind, is always in some degree fenced and closed about with difficulty. You may think of it as of a kind of cocoanut, with very often rather an unseemly shell, but good milk and kernel inside. Now, if you possess twenty cocoanuts, and being thirsty, go impatiently from one to the other, giving only a single scratch with the point of your knife to the shell of each, you will get no milk from all the twenty. But if you leave nineteen of them alone, and give twenty cuts to the shell of one, you will get through it, and at the milk of it. And the tendency of the human mind is always to get tired before it has made its twenty cuts; and to try another nut: and moreover, even if it has perseverance enough to crack its nuts, it is sure to try to eat too many, and to choke itself. Hence, it is wisely appointed for us that few of the things we desire can be had without considerable labour, and at considerable intervals of time. We cannot generally get our dinner without working for it, and that gives us appetite for it, we cannot get our holiday without waiting for it, and that gives us zest for it; and we ought not to get our picture without paying for it, and that gives us a mind to look at it. 65. Nay, I will even go so far as to say that we ought not to get books too cheaply. No book, I believe, is ever worth half so much to its reader as one that has been coveted for a year at a bookstall, and bought out of saved halfpence; and perhaps a day or two's fasting. That's the way to get at the cream of a book. And I should say more on this matter, and protest as energetically as I could against the plague of cheap literature, with which we are just now afflicted, but that I fear your calling me to order, as being unpractical, because I don't quite see my way at present to making everybody fast for their books. But one may see that a thing is desirable and possible, even though one may not at once know the best way to it,--and in my island of Barataria, when I get it well into order, I assure you no book shall be sold for less than a pound sterling; if it can be published cheaper than that, the surplus shall all go into my treasury, and save my subjects taxation in other directions; only people really poor, who cannot pay the pound, shall be supplied with the books they want for nothing, in a certain limited quantity. I haven't made up my mind about the number yet, and there are several other points in the system yet unsettled; when they are all determined, if you will allow me, I will come and give you another lecture, on the political economy of literature.[10] [Note 10: See note 6th, in Addenda.] 66. Meantime, returning to our immediate subject, I say to my generous hearers, who want to shower Titians and Turners upon us, like falling leaves, "Pictures ought not to be too cheap;" but in much stronger tone I would say to those who want to keep up the prices of pictorial property, that pictures ought not to be too dear--that is to say, not as dear as they are. For, as matters at present stand, it is wholly impossible for any man in the ordinary circumstances of English life to possess himself of a piece of great art. A modern drawing of average merit, or a first-class engraving, may, perhaps, not without some self-reproach, be purchased out of his savings by a man of narrow income; but a satisfactory example of first-rate art--masterhands' work--is wholly out of his reach. And we are so accustomed to look upon this as the natural course and necessity of things, that we never set ourselves in any wise to diminish the evil; and yet it is an evil perfectly capable of diminution. 67. It is an evil precisely similar in kind to that which existed in the Middle Ages, respecting good books, and which everybody then, I suppose, thought as natural as we do now our small supply of good pictures. You could not then study the work of a great historian, or great poet, any more than you can now study that of a great painter, but at heavy cost. If you wanted a book, you had to get it written out for you, or to write it out for yourself. But printing came, and the poor man may read his Dante and his Homer; and Dante and Homer are none the worse for that. But it is only in literature that private persons of moderate fortune can possess and study greatness: they can study at home no greatness in art; and the object of that accumulation which we are at present aiming at, as our third object in political economy, is to bring great art in some degree within the reach of the multitude; and, both in larger and more numerous galleries than we now possess, and by distribution, according to his wealth and wish, in each man's home, to render the influence of art somewhat correspondent in extent to that of literature. Here, then, is the subtle balance which your economist has to strike: to accumulate so much art as to be able to give the whole nation a supply of it, according to its need, and yet to regulate its distribution so that there shall be no glut of it, nor contempt. 68. A difficult balance, indeed, for us to hold, if it were left merely to our skill to poise; but the just point between poverty and profusion has been fixed for us accurately by the wise laws of Providence. If you carefully watch for all the genius you can detect, apply it to good service, and then reverently preserve what it produces, you will never have too little art; and if, on the other hand, you never force an artist to work hurriedly, for daily bread, nor imperfectly, because you would rather have showy works than complete ones, you will never have too much. Do not force the multiplication of art, and you will not have it too cheap; do not wantonly destroy it, and you will not have it too dear. 69. "But who wantonly destroys it?" you will ask. Why, we all do. Perhaps you thought, when I came to this part of our subject, corresponding to that set forth in our housewife's economy by the "keeping her embroidery from the moth," that I was going to tell you only how to take better care of pictures, how to clean them, and varnish them, and where to put them away safely when you went out of town. Ah, not at all. The utmost I have to ask of you is, that you will not pull them to pieces, and trample them under your feet. "What!" you will say, "when do we do such things? Haven't we built a perfectly beautiful gallery for all the pictures we have to take care of?" Yes, you have, for the pictures which are definitely sent to Manchester to be taken care of. But there are quantities of pictures out of Manchester which it is your business, and mine too, to take care of no less than of these, and which we are at this moment employing ourselves in pulling to pieces by deputy. I will tell you what they are, and where they are, in a minute; only first let me state one more of those main principles of political economy on which the matter hinges. 70. I must begin a little apparently wide of the mark, and ask you to reflect if there is any way in which we waste money more in England than in building fine tombs? Our respect for the dead, when they are _just_ dead, is something wonderful, and the way we show it more wonderful still. We show it with black feathers and black horses; we show it with black dresses and bright heraldries; we show it with costly obelisks and sculptures of sorrow, which spoil half of our most beautiful cathedrals. We show it with frightful gratings and vaults, and lids of dismal stone, in the midst of the quiet grass; and last, and not least, we show it by permitting ourselves to tell any number of lies we think amiable or credible, in the epitaph. This feeling is common to the poor as well as the rich; and we all know how many a poor family will nearly ruin themselves, to testify their respect for some member of it in his coffin, whom they never much cared for when he was out of it; and how often it happens that a poor old woman will starve herself to death, in order that she may be respectably buried. 71. Now, this being one of the most complete and special ways of wasting money,--no money being less productive of good, or of any percentage whatever, than that which we shake away from the ends of undertakers' plumes,--it is of course the duty of all good economists, and kind persons, to prove and proclaim continually, to the poor as well as the rich, that respect for the dead is not really shown by laying great stones on them to tell us where they are laid; but by remembering where they are laid, without a stone to help us; trusting them to the sacred grass and saddened flowers; and still more, that respect and love are shown to them, not by great monuments to them which we build with _our_ hands, but by letting the monuments stand, which they built with _their own_. And this is the point now in question. 72. Observe, there are two great reciprocal duties concerning industry, constantly to be exchanged between the living and the dead. We, as we live and work, are to be always thinking of those who are to come after us; that what we do may be serviceable, as far as we can make it so, to them, as well as to us. Then, when we die, it is the duty of those who come after us to accept this work of ours with thanks and remembrance, not thrusting it aside or tearing it down the moment they think they have no use for it. And each generation will only be happy or powerful to the pitch that it ought to be, in fulfilling these two duties to the Past and the Future. Its own work will never be rightly done, even for itself--never good, or noble, or pleasurable to its own eyes--if it does not prepare it also for the eyes of generations yet to come. And its own possessions will never be enough for it, and its own wisdom never enough for it, unless it avails itself gratefully and tenderly of the treasures and the wisdom bequeathed to it by its ancestors. 73. For, be assured, that all the best things and treasures of this world are not to be produced by each generation for itself; but we are all intended, not to carve our work in snow that will melt, but each and all of us to be continually rolling a great white gathering snowball, higher and higher--larger and larger--along the Alps of human power. Thus the science of nations is to be accumulative from father to son: each learning a little more and a little more; each receiving all that was known, and adding its own gain: the history and poetry of nations are to be accumulative; each generation treasuring the history and the songs of its ancestors, adding its own history and its own songs: and the art of nations is to be accumulative, just as science and history are; the work of living men is not superseding, but building itself upon the work of the past. Nearly every great and intellectual race of the world has produced, at every period of its career, an art with some peculiar and precious character about it, wholly unattainable by any other race, and at any other time; and the intention of Providence concerning that art, is evidently that it should all grow together into one mighty temple; the rough stones and the smooth all finding their place, and rising, day by day, in richer and higher pinnacles to heaven. 74. Now, just fancy what a position the world, considered as one great workroom--one great factory in the form of a globe--would have been in by this time, if it had in the least understood this duty, or been capable of it. Fancy what we should have had around us now, if, instead of quarrelling and fighting over their work, the nations had aided each other in their work, or if even in their conquests, instead of effacing the memorials of those they succeeded and subdued, they had guarded the spoils of their victories. Fancy what Europe would be now, if the delicate statues and temples of the Greeks--if the broad roads and massy walls of the Romans--if the noble and pathetic architecture of the middle ages, had not been ground to dust by mere human rage. You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm--we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish--ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame; and the soul of man is to its own work as the moth that frets when it cannot fly, and as the hidden flame that blasts where it cannot illuminate. All these lost treasures of human intellect have been wholly destroyed by human industry of destruction; the marble would have stood its two thousand years as well in the polished statue as in the Parian cliff; but we men have ground it to powder, and mixed it with our own ashes. The walls and the ways would have stood--it is we who have left not one stone upon another, and restored its pathlessness to the desert; the great cathedrals of old religion would have stood--it is we who have dashed down the carved work with axes and hammers, and bid the mountain-grass bloom upon the pavement, and the sea-winds chant in the galleries. 75. You will perhaps think all this was somehow necessary for the development of the human race. I cannot stay now to dispute that, though I would willingly; but do you think it is _still_ necessary for that development? Do you think that in this nineteenth century it is still necessary for the European nations to turn all the places where their principal art-treasures are into battle-fields? For that is what they are doing even while I speak; the great firm of the world is managing its business at this moment, just as it has done in past time. Imagine what would be the thriving circumstances of a manufacturer of some delicate produce--suppose glass, or china--in whose workshop and exhibition rooms all the workmen and clerks began fighting at least once a day, first blowing off the steam, and breaking all the machinery they could reach; and then making fortresses of all the cupboards, and attacking and defending the show-tables, the victorious party finally throwing everything they could get hold of out of the window, by way of showing their triumph, and the poor manufacturer picking up and putting away at last a cup here and a handle there. A fine prosperous business that would be, would it not? and yet that is precisely the way the great manufacturing firm of the world carries on its business. 76. It has so arranged its political squabbles for the last six or seven hundred years, that not one of them could be fought out but in the midst of its most precious art; and it so arranges them to this day. For example, if I were asked to lay my finger, in a map of the world, on the spot of the world's surface which contained at this moment the most singular concentration of art-teaching and art-treasure, I should lay it on the name of the town of Verona. Other cities, indeed, contain more works of carriageable art, but none contain so much of the glorious local art, and of the springs and sources of art, which can by no means be made subjects of package or porterage, nor, I grieve to say, of salvage. Verona possesses, in the first place, not the largest, but the most perfect and intelligible Roman amphitheatre that exists, still unbroken in circle of step, and strong in succession of vault and arch: it contains minor Roman monuments, gateways, theatres, baths, wrecks of temples, which give the streets of its suburbs a character of antiquity unexampled elsewhere, except in Rome itself. But it contains, in the next place, what Rome does not contain--perfect examples of the great twelfth-century Lombardic architecture, which was the root of all the mediæval art of Italy, without which no Giottos, no Angelicos, no Raphaels would have been possible: it contains that architecture, not in rude forms, but in the most perfect and loveliest types it ever attained--contains those, not in ruins, nor in altered and hardly decipherable fragments, but in churches perfect from porch to apse, with all their carving fresh, their pillars firm, their joints unloosened. Besides these, it includes examples of the great thirteenth and fourteenth-century Gothic of Italy, not merely perfect, but elsewhere unrivalled. At Rome, the Roman--at Pisa, the Lombard--architecture may be seen in greater or in equal nobleness; but not at Rome, nor Pisa, nor Florence, nor in any city of the world, is there a great mediæval Gothic like the Gothic of Verona. Elsewhere, it is either less pure in type or less lovely in completion: only at Verona may you see it in the simplicity of its youthful power, and the tenderness of its accomplished beauty. And Verona possesses, in the last place, the loveliest Renaissance architecture of Italy, not disturbed by pride, nor defiled by luxury, but rising in fair fulfilment of domestic service, serenity of effortless grace, and modesty of home seclusion; its richest work given to the windows that open on the narrowest streets and most silent gardens. All this she possesses, in the midst of natural scenery such as assuredly exists nowhere else in the habitable globe--a wild Alpine river foaming at her feet, from whose shore the rocks rise in a great crescent, dark with cypress, and misty with olive: illimitably, from before her southern gates, the tufted plains of Italy sweep and fade in golden light; around her, north and west, the Alps crowd in crested troops, and the winds of Benacus bear to her the coolness of their snows. 77. And this is the city--such, and possessing such things as these--at whose gates the decisive battles of Italy are fought continually: three days her towers trembled with the echo of the cannon of Arcola; heaped pebbles of the Mincio divide her fields to this hour with lines of broken rampart, whence the tide of war rolled back to Novara; and now on that crescent of her eastern cliffs, whence the full moon used to rise through the bars of the cypresses in her burning summer twilights, touching with soft increase of silver light the rosy marbles of her balconies,--along the ridge of that encompassing rock, other circles are increasing now, white and pale; walled towers of cruel strength, sable-spotted with cannon-courses. I tell you, I have seen, when the thunderclouds came down on those Italian hills, and all their crags were dipped in the dark, terrible purple, as if the winepress of the wrath of God had stained their mountain-raiment--I have seen the hail fall in Italy till the forest branches stood stripped and bare as if blasted by the locust; but the white hail never fell from those clouds of heaven as the black hail will fall from the clouds of hell, if ever one breath of Italian life stirs again in the streets of Verona. 78. Sad as you will feel this to be, I do not say that you can directly prevent it; you cannot drive the Austrians out of Italy, nor prevent them from building forts where they choose. But I do say,[11] that you, and I, and all of us, ought to be both acting and feeling with a full knowledge and understanding of these things; and that, without trying to excite revolutions or weaken governments, we may give our own thoughts and help, so as in a measure to prevent needless destruction. We should do this, if we only realized the thing thoroughly. You drive out day by day through your own pretty suburbs, and you think only of making, with what money you have to spare, your gateways handsomer, and your carriage-drives wider--and your drawing-rooms more splendid, having a vague notion that you are all the while patronizing and advancing art; and you make no effort to conceive the fact that, within a few hours' journey of you, there are gateways and drawing-rooms which might just as well be yours as these, all built already; gateways built by the greatest masters of sculpture that ever struck marble; drawing-rooms, painted by Titian and Veronese; and you won't accept nor save these as they are, but you will rather fetch the house-painter from over the way, and let Titian and Veronese house the rats. [Note 11: The reader can hardly but remember Mrs. Browning's beautiful appeal for Italy, made on the occasion of the first great Exhibition of Art in England:-- Magi of the east and of the west, Your incense, gold, and myrrh are excellent!-- What gifts for Christ, then, bring ye with the rest? Your hands have worked well. Is your courage spent In handwork only? Have you nothing best, Which generous souls may perfect and present, And He shall thank the givers for? no light Of teaching, liberal nations, for the poor, Who sit in darkness when it is not night? No cure for wicked children? Christ,--no cure, No help for women, sobbing out of sight Because men made the laws? no brothel-lure Burnt out by popular lightnings? Hast thou found No remedy, my England, for such woes? No outlet, Austria, for the scourged and bound, No call back for the exiled? no repose, Russia for knouted Poles worked underground, And gentle ladies bleached among the snows? No mercy for the slave, America? No hope for Rome, free France, chivalric France? Alas, great nations have great shames, I say. No pity, O world, no tender utterance Of benediction, and prayers stretched this way For poor Italia, baffled by mischance? O gracious nations, give some ear to me! You all go to your Fair, and I am one Who at the roadside of humanity Beseech your alms,--God's justice to be done. So, prosper! ] 79. "Yes," of course, you answer; "we want nice houses here, not houses in Verona. What should we do with houses in Verona?" And I answer, do precisely what you do with the most expensive part of your possessions here: take pride in them--only a noble pride. You know well, when you examine your own hearts, that the greater part of the sums you spend on possessions is spent for pride. Why are your carriages nicely painted and finished outside? You don't see the outsides as you sit in them--the outsides are for other people to see. Why are your exteriors of houses so well finished, your furniture so polished and costly, but for other people to see? You are just as comfortable yourselves, writing on your old friend of a desk, with the white cloudings in his leather, and using the light of a window which is nothing but a hole in the brick wall. And all that is desirable to be done in this matter is merely to take pride in preserving great art, instead of in producing mean art; pride in the possession of precious and enduring things, a little way off, instead of slight and perishing things near at hand. You know, in old English times, our kings liked to have lordships and dukedoms abroad: and why should not your merchant princes like to have lordships and estates abroad? Believe me, rightly understood, it would be a prouder, and in the full sense of our English word, more "respectable" thing to be lord of a palace at Verona, or of a cloister full of frescoes at Florence, than to have a file of servants dressed in the finest liveries that ever tailor stitched, as long as would reach from here to Bolton:--yes, and a prouder thing to send people to travel in Italy, who would have to say every now and then, of some fair piece of art, "Ah! this was _kept_ here for us by the good people of Manchester," than to bring them travelling all the way here, exclaiming of your various art treasures, "These were _brought_ here for us, (not altogether without harm) by the good people of Manchester." 80. "Ah!" but you say, "the Art Treasures Exhibition will pay; but Veronese palaces won't." Pardon me. They _would_ pay, less directly, but far more richly. Do you suppose it is in the long run good for Manchester, or good for England, that the Continent should be in the state it is? Do you think the perpetual fear of revolution, or the perpetual repression of thought and energy that clouds and encumbers the nations of Europe, is eventually profitable for _us_? Were we any the better of the course of affairs in '48? or has the stabling of the dragoon horses in the great houses of Italy any distinct effect in the promotion of the cotton-trade? Not so. But every stake that you could hold in the stability of the Continent, and every effort that you could make to give example of English habits and principles on the Continent, and every kind deed that you could do in relieving distress and preventing despair on the Continent, would have tenfold reaction on the prosperity of England, and open and urge, in a thousand unforeseen directions, the sluices of commerce and the springs of industry. 81. I could press, if I chose, both these motives upon you, of pride and self-interest, with more force, but these are not motives which ought to be urged upon you at all. The only motive that I ought to put before you is simply that it would be right to do this; that the holding of property abroad, and the personal efforts of Englishmen to redeem the condition of foreign nations, are among the most direct pieces of duty which our wealth renders incumbent upon us. I do not--and in all truth and deliberateness I say this--I do not know anything more ludicrous among the self-deceptions of well-meaning people than their notion of patriotism, as requiring them to limit their efforts to the good of their own country;--the notion that charity is a geographical virtue, and that what it is holy and righteous to do for people on one bank of a river, it is quite improper and unnatural to do for people on the other. It will be a wonderful thing, some day or other, for the Christian world to remember, that it went on thinking for two thousand years that neighbours were neighbours at Jerusalem, but not at Jericho; a wonderful thing for us English to reflect, in after-years, how long it was before we could shake hands with anybody across that shallow salt wash, which the very chalk-dust of its two shores whitens from Folkestone to Ambleteuse. 82. Nor ought the motive of gratitude, as well as that of mercy, to be without its influence on you, who have been the first to ask to see, and the first to show to us, the treasures which this poor lost Italy has given to England. Remember, all these things that delight you here were hers--hers either in fact or in teaching; hers, in fact, are all the most powerful and most touching paintings of old time that now glow upon your walls; hers in teaching are all the best and greatest of descendant souls--your Reynolds and your Gainsborough never could have painted but for Venice; and the energies which have given the only true life to your existing art were first stirred by voices of the dead that haunted the Sacred Field of Pisa. Well, all these motives for some definite course of action on our part towards foreign countries rest upon very serious facts; too serious, perhaps you will think, to be interfered with; for we are all of us in the habit of leaving great things alone, as if Providence would mind them, and attending ourselves only to little things which we know, practically, Providence doesn't mind unless we do. We are ready enough to give care to the growing of pines and lettuces, knowing that they don't grow Providentially sweet or large unless we look after them; but we don't give any care to the good of Italy or Germany, because we think that they will grow Providentially happy without any of our meddling. 83. Let us leave the great things, then, and think of little things; not of the destruction of whole provinces in war, which it may not be any business of ours to prevent; but of the destruction of poor little pictures in peace, from which it surely would not be much out of our way to save them. You know I said, just now, we were all of us engaged in pulling pictures to pieces by deputy, and you did not believe me. Consider, then, this similitude of ourselves. Suppose you saw (as I doubt not you often do see) a prudent and kind young lady sitting at work, in the corner of a quiet room, knitting comforters for her cousins, and that just outside, in the hall, you saw a cat and her kittens at play among the family pictures; amusing themselves especially with the best Vandykes, by getting on the tops of the frames, and then scrambling down the canvases by their claws; and on some one's informing the young lady of these proceedings of the cat and kittens, suppose she answered that it wasn't her cat, but her sister's, and the pictures weren't hers, but her uncle's, and she couldn't leave her work, for she had to make so many pairs of comforters before dinner. Would you not say that the prudent and kind young lady was, on the whole, answerable for the additional touches of claw on the Vandykes? 84. Now, that is precisely what we prudent and kind English are doing, only on a larger scale. Here we sit in Manchester, hard at work, very properly, making comforters for our cousins all over the world. Just outside there in the hall--that beautiful marble hall of Italy--the cats and kittens and monkeys are at play among the pictures: I assure you, in the course of the fifteen years in which I have been working in those places in which the most precious remnants of European art exist, a sensation, whether I would or no, was gradually made distinct and deep in my mind, that I was living and working in the midst of a den of monkeys;--sometimes amiable and affectionate monkeys, with all manner of winning ways and kind intentions,--more frequently selfish and malicious monkeys; but, whatever their disposition, squabbling continually about nuts, and the best places on the barren sticks of trees; and that all this monkeys' den was filled, by mischance, with precious pictures, and the witty and wilful beasts were always wrapping themselves up and going to sleep in pictures, or tearing holes in them to grin through; or tasting them and spitting them out again, or twisting them up into ropes and making swings of them; and that sometimes only, by watching one's opportunity, and bearing a scratch or a bite, one could rescue the corner of a Tintoret, or Paul Veronese, and push it through the bars into a place of safety. 85. Literally, I assure you, this was, and this is, the fixed impression on my mind of the state of matters in Italy. And see how. The professors of art in Italy, having long followed a method of study peculiar to themselves, have at last arrived at a form of art peculiar to themselves; very different from that which was arrived at by Correggio and Titian. Naturally, the professors like their own form the best; and, as the old pictures are generally not so startling to the eye as the modern ones, the dukes and counts who possess them, and who like to see their galleries look new and fine (and are persuaded also that a celebrated chef-d'oeuvre ought always to catch the eye at a quarter of a mile off), believe the professors who tell them their sober pictures are quite faded, and good for nothing, and should all be brought bright again; and, accordingly, give the sober pictures to the professors, to be put right by rules of art. Then, the professors repaint the old pictures in all the principal places, leaving perhaps only a bit of background to set off their own work. And thus the professors come to be generally figured, in my mind, as the monkeys who tear holes in the pictures, to grin through. Then the picture-dealers, who live by the pictures, cannot sell them to the English in their old and pure state; all the good work must be covered with new paint, and varnished so as to look like one of the professorial pictures in the great gallery, before it is saleable. And thus the dealers come to be imaged, in my mind, as the monkeys who make ropes of the pictures, to swing by. Then, every now and then at some old stable, or wine-cellar, or timber-shed, behind some forgotten vats or faggots, somebody finds a fresco of Perugino's or Giotto's, but doesn't think much of it, and has no idea of having people coming into his cellar, or being obliged to move his faggots; and so he whitewashes the fresco, and puts the faggots back again; and these kind of persons, therefore, come generally to be imaged, in my mind, as the monkeys who taste the pictures, and spit them out, not finding them nice. While, finally, the squabbling for nuts and apples (called in Italy "bella libertà") goes on all day long. 86. Now, all this might soon be put an end to, if we English, who are so fond of travelling in the body, would also travel a little in soul! We think it a great triumph to get our packages and our persons carried at a fast pace, but we never take the slightest trouble to put any pace into our perceptions; we stay usually at home in thought, or if we ever mentally see the world, it is at the old stage-coach or waggon rate. Do but consider what an odd sight it would be, if it were only quite clear to you how things are really going on--how, here in England, we are making enormous and expensive efforts to produce new art of all kinds, knowing and confessing all the while that the greater part of it is bad, but struggling still to produce new patterns of wall-papers, and new shapes of teapots, and new pictures, and statues, and architecture; and pluming and cackling if ever a teapot or a picture has the least good in it;--all the while taking no thought whatever of the best possible pictures, and statues, and wall-patterns already in existence, which require nothing but to be taken common care of, and kept from damp and dust: but we let the walls fall that Giotto patterned, and the canvases rot that Tintoret painted, and the architecture be dashed to pieces that St. Louis built, while we are furnishing our drawing-rooms with prize upholstery, and writing accounts of our handsome warehouses to the country papers. Don't think I use my words vaguely or generally: I speak of literal facts. Giotto's frescoes at Assisi are perishing at this moment for want of decent care; Tintoret's pictures in San Sebastian, at Venice, are at this instant rotting piecemeal into grey rags; St. Louis's chapel, at Carcassonne, is at this moment lying in shattered fragments in the market-place. And here we are all cawing and crowing, poor little half-fledged daws as we are, about the pretty sticks and wool in our own nests. There's hardly a day passes, when I am at home, but I get a letter from some well-meaning country clergyman, deeply anxious about the state of his parish church, and breaking his heart to get money together that he may hold up some wretched remnant of Tudor tracery, with one niche in the corner and no statue--when all the while the mightiest piles of religious architecture and sculpture that ever the world saw are being blasted and withered away, without one glance of pity or regret. The country clergyman does not care for _them_--he has a sea-sick imagination that cannot cross channel. What is it to him, if the angels of Assisi fade from its vaults, or the queens and kings of Chartres fall from their pedestals? They are not in his parish. 87. "What!" you will say, "are we not to produce any new art, nor take care of our parish churches?" No, certainly not, until you have taken proper care of the art you have got already, and of the best churches out of the parish. Your first and proper standing is not as churchwardens and parish overseers, in an English county, but as members of the great Christian community of Europe. And as members of that community (in which alone, observe, pure and precious ancient art exists, for there is none in America, none in Asia, none in Africa), you conduct yourselves precisely as a manufacturer would, who attended to his looms, but left his warehouse without a roof. The rain floods your warehouse, the rats frolic in it, the spiders spin in it, the choughs build in it, the wall-plague frets and festers in it; and still you keep weave, weave, weaving at your wretched webs, and thinking you are growing rich, while more is gnawed out of your warehouse in an hour than you can weave in a twelvemonth. 88. Even this similitude is not absurd enough to set us rightly forth. The weaver would, or might, at least, hope that his new woof was as stout as the old ones, and that, therefore, in spite of rain and ravage, he would have something to wrap himself in when he needed it. But _our_ webs rot as we spin. The very fact that we despise the great art of the past shows that we cannot produce great art now. If we could do it, we should love it when we saw it done--if we really cared for it, we should recognize it and keep it; but we don't care for it. It is not art that we want; it is amusement, gratification of pride, present gain--anything in the world but art: let it rot, we shall always have enough to talk about and hang over our sideboards. 89. You will (I hope) finally ask me what is the outcome of all this, practicable tomorrow morning by us who are sitting here? These are the main practical outcomes of it: In the first place, don't grumble when you hear of a new picture being bought by Government at a large price. There are many pictures in Europe now in danger of destruction which are, in the true sense of the word, priceless; the proper price is simply that which it is necessary to give to get and to save them. If you can get them for fifty pounds, do; if not for less than a hundred, do; if not for less than five thousand, do; if not for less than twenty thousand, do; never mind being imposed upon: there is nothing disgraceful in being imposed upon; the only disgrace is in imposing; and you can't in general get anything much worth having, in the way of Continental art, but it must be with the help or connivance of numbers of people who, indeed, ought to have nothing to do with the matter, but who practically have, and always will have, everything to do with it; and if you don't choose to submit to be cheated by them out of a ducat here and a zecchin there, you will be cheated by them out of your picture; and whether you are most imposed upon in losing that, or the zecchins, I think I may leave you to judge; though I know there are many political economists, who would rather leave a bag of gold on a garret-table, than give a porter sixpence extra to carry it downstairs. That, then, is the first practical outcome of the matter. Never grumble, but be glad when you hear of a new picture being bought at a large price. In the long run, the dearest pictures are always the best bargains; and, I repeat, (for else you might think I said it in mere hurry of talk, and not deliberately,) there are some pictures which are without price. You should stand, nationally, at the edge of Dover cliffs--Shakespeare's--and wave blank cheques in the eyes of the nations on the other side of the sea, freely offered, for such and such canvases of theirs. 90. Then the next practical outcome of it is--Never buy a copy of a picture, under any circumstances whatever. All copies are bad; because no painter who is worth a straw ever _will_ copy. He will make a study of a picture he likes, for his own use, in his own way; but he won't and can't copy. Whenever you buy a copy, you buy so much misunderstanding of the original, and encourage a dull person in following a business he is not fit for, besides increasing ultimately chances of mistake and imposture, and farthering, as directly as money _can_ farther, the cause of ignorance in all directions. You may, in fact, consider yourself as having purchased a certain quantity of mistakes; and, according to your power, being engaged in disseminating them. 91. I do not mean, however, that copies should never be made. A certain number of dull persons should always be employed by a Government in making the most accurate copies possible of all good pictures; these copies, though artistically valueless, would be historically and documentarily valuable, in the event of the destruction of the original picture. The studies also made by great artists for their own use, should be sought after with the greatest eagerness; they are often to be bought cheap; and in connection with the mechanical copies, would become very precious: tracings from frescoes and other large works are also of great value; for though a tracing is liable to just as many mistakes as a copy, the mistakes in a tracing are of one kind only, which may be allowed for, but the mistakes of a common copyist are of all conceivable kinds: finally, engravings, in so far as they convey certain facts about the pictures, without pretending adequately to represent or give an idea of the pictures, are often serviceable and valuable. I can't, of course, enter into details in these matters just now; only this main piece of advice I can safely give you--never to buy copies of pictures (for your private possession) which pretend to give a facsimile that shall be in any wise representative of, or equal to, the original. Whenever you do so, you are only lowering your taste, and wasting your money. And if you are generous and wise, you will be ready rather to subscribe as much as you would have given for a copy of a great picture towards its purchase, or the purchase of some other like it, by the nation. There ought to be a great National Society instituted for the purchase of pictures; presenting them to the various galleries in our great cities, and watching there over their safety: but in the meantime, you can always act safely and beneficially by merely allowing your artist friends to buy pictures for you, when they see good ones. Never buy for yourselves, nor go to the foreign dealers; but let any painter whom you know be entrusted, when he finds a neglected old picture in an old house, to try if he cannot get it for you; then, if you like it, keep it; if not, send it to the hammer, and you will find that you do not lose money on pictures so purchased. 92. And the third and chief practical outcome of the matter is this general one: Wherever you go, whatever you do, act more for _preservation_ and less for _production_. I assure you, the world is, generally speaking, in calamitous disorder, and just because you have managed to thrust some of the lumber aside, and get an available corner for yourselves, you think you should do nothing but sit spinning in it all day long--while, as householders and economists, your first thought and effort should be, to set things more square all about you. Try to set the ground floors in order, and get the rottenness out of your granaries. _Then_ sit and spin, but not till then. 93. IV. DISTRIBUTION.--And now, lastly, we come to the fourth great head of our inquiry, the question of the wise distribution of the art we have gathered and preserved. It must be evident to us, at a moment's thought, that the way in which works of art are on the whole most useful to the nation to which they belong, must be by their collection in public galleries, supposing those galleries properly managed. But there is one disadvantage attached necessarily to gallery exhibition--namely, the extent of mischief which may be done by one foolish curator. As long as the pictures which form the national wealth are disposed in private collections, the chance is always that the people who buy them will be just the people who are fond of them; and that the sense of exchangeable value in the commodity they possess, will induce them, even if they do not esteem it themselves, to take such care of it as will preserve its value undiminished. At all events, so long as works of art are scattered through the nation, no universal destruction of them is possible; a certain average only are lost by accidents from time to time. But when they are once collected in a large public gallery, if the appointment of curator becomes in any way a matter of formality, or the post is so lucrative as to be disputed by place-hunters, let but one foolish or careless person get possession of it, and perhaps you may have all your fine pictures repainted, and the national property destroyed, in a month. That is actually the case at this moment, in several great foreign galleries. They are the places of execution of pictures: over their doors you only want the Dantesque inscription, "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi che entrate." 94. Supposing, however, this danger properly guarded against, as it would be always by a nation which either knew the value, or understood the meaning, of painting,[12] arrangement in a public gallery is the safest, as well as the most serviceable, method of exhibiting pictures; and it is the only mode in which their historical value can be brought out, and their historical meaning made clear. But great good is also to be done by encouraging the private possession of pictures; partly as a means of study, (much more being always discovered in any work of art by a person who has it perpetually near him than by one who only sees it from time to time,) and also as a means of refining the habits and touching the hearts of the masses of the nation in their domestic life. [Note 12: It would be a great point gained towards the preservation of pictures if it were made a rule that at every operation they underwent, the exact spots in which they have been repainted should be recorded in writing.] 95. For these last purposes, the most serviceable art is the living art of the time; the particular tastes of the people will be best met, and their particular ignorances best corrected, by painters labouring in the midst of them, more or less guided to the knowledge of what is wanted by the degree of sympathy with which their work is received. So then, generally, it should be the object of government, and of all patrons of art, to collect, as far as may be, the works of dead masters in public galleries, arranging them so as to illustrate the history of nations, and the progress and influence of their arts; and to encourage the private possession of the works of _living_ masters. And the first and best way in which to encourage such private possession is, of course, to keep down the prices of them as far as you can. I hope there are not a great many painters in the room; if there are, I entreat their patience for the next quarter of an hour: if they will bear with me for so long, I hope they will not, finally, be offended by what I am going to say. 96. I repeat, trusting to their indulgence in the interim, that the first object of our national economy, as respects the distribution of modern art, should be steadily and rationally to limit its prices, since by doing so, you will produce two effects: you will make the painters produce more pictures, two or three instead of one, if they wish to make money; and you will, by bringing good pictures within the reach of people of moderate income, excite the general interest of the nation in them, increase a thousandfold the demand for the commodity, and therefore its wholesome and natural production. 97. I know how many objections must arise in your minds at this moment to what I say; but you must be aware that it is not possible for me in an hour to explain all the moral and commercial bearings of such a principle as this. Only, believe me, I do not speak lightly; I think I have considered all the objections which could be rationally brought forward, though I have time at present only to glance at the main one--namely, the idea that the high prices paid for modern pictures are either honourable, or serviceable, to the painter. So far from this being so, I believe one of the principal obstacles to the progress of modern art to be the high prices given for good modern pictures. For observe first the action of this high remuneration on the artist's mind. If he "gets on," as it is called, catches the eye of the public, and especially of the public of the upper classes, there is hardly any limit to the fortune he may acquire; so that, in his early years, his mind is naturally led to dwell on this worldly and wealthy eminence as the main thing to be reached by his art; if he finds that he is not gradually rising towards it, he thinks there is something wrong in his work; or, if he is too proud to think that, still the bribe of wealth and honour warps him from his honest labour into efforts to attract attention; and he gradually loses both his power of mind and his rectitude of purpose. This, according to the degree of avarice or ambition which exists in any painter's mind, is the necessary influence upon him of the hope of great wealth and reputation. But the harm is still greater, in so far as the possibility of attaining fortune of this kind tempts people continually to become painters who have no real gift for the work; and on whom these motives of mere worldly interest have exclusive influence;--men who torment and abuse the patient workers, eclipse or thrust aside all delicate and good pictures by their own gaudy and coarse ones, corrupt the taste of the public, and do the greatest amount of mischief to the schools of art in their day which it is possible for their capacities to effect; and it is quite wonderful how much mischief may be done even by small capacity. If you could by any means succeed in keeping the prices of pictures down, you would throw all these disturbers out of the way at once. 98. You may perhaps think that this severe treatment would do more harm than good, by withdrawing the wholesome element of emulation, and giving no stimulus to exertion; but I am sorry to say that artists will always be sufficiently jealous of one another, whether you pay them large or low prices; and as for stimulus to exertion, believe me, no good work in this world was ever done for money, nor while the slightest thought of money affected the painter's mind. Whatever idea of pecuniary value enters into his thoughts as he works, will, in proportion to the distinctness of its presence, shorten his power. A real painter will work for you exquisitely, if you give him, as I told you a little while ago, bread and water and salt; and a bad painter will work badly and hastily, though you give him a palace to live in, and a princedom to live upon. Turner got, in his earlier years, half a crown a day and his supper (not bad pay, neither); and he learned to paint upon that. And I believe that there is no chance of art's truly flourishing in any country, until you make it a simple and plain business, providing its masters with an easy competence, but rarely with anything more. And I say this, not because I despise the great painter, but because I honour him; and I should no more think of adding to his respectability or happiness by giving him riches, than, if Shakespeare or Milton were alive, I should think we added to _their_ respectability, or were likely to get better work from them, by making them millionaires. 99. But, observe, it is not only the painter himself whom you injure, by giving him too high prices; you injure all the inferior painters of the day. If they are modest, they will be discouraged and depressed by the feeling that their doings are worth so little, comparatively, in your eyes;--if proud, all their worst passions will be aroused, and the insult or opprobrium which they will try to cast on their successful rival will not only afflict and wound him, but at last sour and harden him: he cannot pass through such a trial without grievous harm. 100. That, then, is the effect you produce on the painter of mark, and on the inferior ones of his own standing. But you do worse than this; you deprive yourselves, by what you give for the fashionable picture, of the power of helping the younger men who are coming forward. Be it admitted, for argument's sake, if you are not convinced by what I have said, that you do no harm to the great man by paying him well; yet certainly you do him no special good. His reputation is established, and his fortune made; he does not care whether you buy or not; he thinks he is rather doing you a favour than otherwise by letting you have one of his pictures at all. All the good you do him is to help him to buy a new pair of carriage horses; whereas, with that same sum which thus you cast away, you might have relieved the hearts and preserved the health of twenty young painters; and if, among those twenty, you but chanced on one in whom a true latent power had been hindered by his poverty, just consider what a far-branching, far-embracing good you have wrought with that lucky expenditure of yours. I say, "Consider it," in vain; you cannot consider it, for you cannot conceive the sickness of heart with which a young painter of deep feeling toils through his first obscurity;--his sense of the strong voice within him, which you will not hear;--his vain, fond, wondering witness to the things you will not see;--his far-away perception of things that he could accomplish if he had but peace, and time, all unapproachable and vanishing from him, because no one will leave him peace or grant him time: all his friends falling back from him; those whom he would most reverently obey rebuking and paralysing him; and, last and worst of all, those who believe in him the most faithfully suffering by him the most bitterly;--the wife's eyes, in their sweet ambition, shining brighter as the cheek wastes away; and the little lips at his side parched and pale, which one day, he knows, though he may never see it, will quiver so proudly when they call his name, calling him "our father." You deprive yourselves, by your large expenditure for pictures of mark, of the power of relieving and redeeming _this_ distress; you injure the painter whom you pay so largely;--and what, after all, have you done for yourselves or got for yourselves? It does not in the least follow that the hurried work of a fashionable painter will contain more for your money than the quiet work of some unknown man. In all probability, you will find, if you rashly purchase what is popular at a high price, that you have got one picture you don't care for, for a sum which would have bought twenty you would have delighted in. 101. For remember always, that the price of a picture by a living artist never represents, never _can_ represent, the quantity of labour or value in it. Its price represents, for the most part, the degree of desire which the rich people of the country have to possess it. Once get the wealthy classes to imagine that the possession of pictures by a given artist adds to their "gentility," and there is no price which his work may not immediately reach, and for years maintain; and in buying at that price, you are not getting value for your money, but merely disputing for victory in a contest of ostentation. And it is hardly possible to spend your money in a worse or more wasteful way; for though you may not be doing it for ostentation yourself, you are, by your pertinacity, nourishing the ostentation of others; you meet them in their game of wealth, and continue it for them; if they had not found an opposite player, the game would have been done; for a proud man can find no enjoyment in possessing himself of what nobody disputes with him. So that by every farthing you give for a picture beyond its fair price--that is to say, the price which will pay the painter for his time--you are not only cheating yourself and buying vanity, but you are stimulating the vanity of others; paying, literally, for the cultivation of pride. You may consider every pound that you spend above the just price of a work of art, as an investment in a cargo of mental quick-lime or guano, which, being laid on the fields of human nature, is to grow a harvest of pride. You are in fact ploughing and harrowing, in a most valuable part of your land, in order to reap the whirlwind; you are setting your hand stoutly to Job's agriculture--"Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley." 102. Well, but you will say, there is one advantage in high prices, which more than counter-balances all this mischief, namely, that by great reward we both urge and enable a painter to produce rather one perfect picture than many inferior ones: and one perfect picture (so you tell us, and we believe it) is worth a great number of inferior ones. It is so; but you cannot get it by paying for it. A great work is only done when the painter gets into the humour for it, likes his subject, and determines to paint it as well as he can, whether he is paid for it or not; but bad work, and generally the worst sort of bad work, is done when he is trying to produce a showy picture, or one that shall appear to have as much labour in it as shall be worth a high price.[13] [Note 13: When this lecture was delivered, I gave here some data for approximate estimates of the average value of good modern pictures of different classes; but the subject is too complicated to be adequately treated in writing, without introducing more detail than the reader will have patience for. But I may state, roughly, that prices above a hundred guineas are in general extravagant for water-colours, and above five hundred for oils. An artist almost always does wrong who puts more work than these prices will remunerate him for into any single canvas--his talent would be better employed in painting two pictures than one so elaborate. The water-colour painters also are getting into the habit of making their drawings too large, and in a measure attaching their price rather to breadth and extent of touch than to thoughtful labour. Of course marked exceptions occur here and there, as in the case of John Lewis, whose drawings are wrought with unfailing precision throughout, whatever their scale. Hardly any price can be remunerative for such work.] 103. There is, however, another point, and a still more important one, bearing on this matter of purchase, than the keeping down of prices to a rational standard. And that is, that you pay your prices into the hands of living men, and do not pour them into coffins. For observe that, as we arrange our payment of pictures at present, no artist's work is worth half its proper value while he is alive. The moment he dies, his pictures, if they are good, reach double their former value; but, that rise of price represents simply a profit made by the intelligent dealer or purchaser on his past purchases. So that the real facts of the matter are, that the British public, spending a certain sum annually in art, determines that, of every thousand it pays, only five hundred shall go to the painter, or shall be at all concerned in the production of art; and that the other five hundred shall be paid merely as a testimonial to the intelligent dealer, who knew what to buy. Now, testimonials are very pretty and proper things, within due limits; but testimonial to the amount of a hundred per cent. on the total expenditure is not good political economy. Do not, therefore, in general, unless you see it to be necessary for its preservation, buy the picture of a dead artist. If you fear that it may be exposed to contempt or neglect, buy it; its price will then, probably, not be high: if you want to put it into a public gallery, buy it; you are sure, then, that you do not spend your money selfishly: or, if you loved the man's work while he was alive, and bought it then, buy it also now, if you can see no living work equal to it. But if you did not buy it while the man was living, never buy it after he is dead: you are then doing no good to him, and you are doing some shame to yourself. Look around you for pictures that you really like, and in buying which you can help some genius yet unperished--that is the best atonement you can make to the one you have neglected--and give to the living and struggling painter at once wages, and testimonial. 104. So far then of the motives which should induce us to keep down the prices of modern art, and thus render it, as a private possession, attainable by greater numbers of people than at present. But we should strive to render it accessible to them in other ways also--chiefly by the permanent decoration of public buildings; and it is in this field that I think we may look for the profitable means of providing that constant employment for young painters of which we were speaking last evening. The first and most important kind of public buildings which we are always sure to want, are schools: and I would ask you to consider very carefully, whether we may not wisely introduce some great changes in the way of school decoration. Hitherto, as far as I know, it has either been so difficult to give all the education we wanted to our lads, that we have been obliged to do it, if at all, with cheap furniture and bare walls; or else we have considered that cheap furniture and bare walls are a proper part of the means of education; and supposed that boys learned best when they sat on hard forms, and had nothing but blank plaster about and above them whereupon to employ their spare attention; also, that it was as well they should be accustomed to rough and ugly conditions of things, partly by way of preparing them for the hardships of life, and partly that there might be the least possible damage done to floors and forms, in the event of their becoming, during the master's absence, the fields or instruments of battle. All this is so far well and necessary, as it relates to the training of country lads, and the first training of boys in general. But there certainly comes a period in the life of a well-educated youth, in which one of the principal elements of his education is, or ought to be, to give him refinement of habits; and not only to teach him the strong exercises of which his frame is capable, but also to increase his bodily sensibility and refinement, and show him such small matters as the way of handling things properly, and treating them considerately. 105. Not only so; but I believe the notion of fixing the attention by keeping the room empty, is a wholly mistaken one: I think it is just in the emptiest room that the mind wanders most; for it gets restless, like a bird, for want of a perch, and casts about for any possible means of getting out and away. And even if it be fixed, by an effort, on the business in hand, that business becomes itself repulsive, more than it need be, by the vileness of its associations; and many a study appears dull or painful to a boy, when it is pursued on a blotted deal desk, under a wall with nothing on it but scratches and pegs, which would have been pursued pleasantly enough in a curtained corner of his father's library, or at the lattice window of his cottage. Now, my own belief is, that the best study of all is the most beautiful; and that a quiet glade of forest, or the nook of a lake shore, are worth all the schoolrooms in Christendom, when once you are past the multiplication table; but be that as it may, there is no question at all but that a time ought to come in the life of a well-trained youth, when he can sit at a writing-table without wanting to throw the inkstand at his neighbour; and when also he will feel more capable of certain efforts of mind with beautiful and refined forms about him than with ugly ones. When that time comes, he ought to be advanced into the decorated schools; and this advance ought to be one of the important and honourable epochs of his life. 106. I have not time, however, to insist on the mere serviceableness to our youth of refined architectural decoration, as such; for I want you to consider the probable influence of the particular kind of decoration which I wish you to get for them, namely, historical painting. You know we have hitherto been in the habit of conveying all our historical knowledge, such as it is, by the ear only, never by the eye; all our notion of things being ostensibly derived from verbal description, not from sight. Now, I have no doubt that, as we grow gradually wiser--and we are doing so every day--we shall discover at last that the eye is a nobler organ than the ear; and that through the eye we must, in reality, obtain, or put into form, nearly all the useful information we are to have about this world. Even as the matter stands, you will find that the knowledge which a boy is supposed to receive from verbal description is only available to him so far as in any underhand way he gets a sight of the thing you are talking about. I remember well that, for many years of my life, the only notion I had of the look of a Greek knight was complicated between recollection of a small engraving in my pocket Pope's Homer, and reverent study of the Horse Guards. And though I believe that most boys collect their ideas from more varied sources and arrange them more carefully than I did; still, whatever sources they seek must always be ocular: if they are clever boys, they will go and look at the Greek vases and sculptures in the British Museum, and at the weapons in our armouries--they will see what real armour is like in lustre, and what Greek armour was like in form, and so put a fairly true image together, but still not, in ordinary cases, a very living or interesting one. 107. Now, the use of your decorative painting would be, in myriads of ways, to animate their history for them, and to put the living aspect of past things before their eyes as faithfully as intelligent invention can; so that the master shall have nothing to do but once to point to the schoolroom walls, and for ever afterwards the meaning of any word would be fixed in a boy's mind in the best possible way. Is it a question of classical dress--what a tunic was like, or a chlamys, or a peplus? At this day, you have to point to some vile woodcut, in the middle of a dictionary page, representing the thing hung upon a stick; but then, you would point to a hundred figures, wearing the actual dress, in its fiery colours, in all actions of various stateliness or strength; you would understand at once how it fell round the people's limbs as they stood, how it drifted from their shoulders as they went, how it veiled their faces as they wept, how it covered their heads in the day of battle. _Now_, if you want to see what a weapon is like, you refer, in like manner, to a numbered page, in which there are spear-heads in rows, and sword-hilts in symmetrical groups; and gradually the boy gets a dim mathematical notion how one scimitar is hooked to the right and another to the left, and one javelin has a knob to it and another none: while one glance at your good picture would show him,--and the first rainy afternoon in the schoolroom would for ever fix in his mind,--the look of the sword and spear as they fell or flew; and how they pierced, or bent, or shattered--how men wielded them, and how men died by them. 108. But far more than all this, is it a question not of clothes or weapons, but of men? how can we sufficiently estimate the effect on the mind of a noble youth, at the time when the world opens to him, of having faithful and touching representations put before him of the acts and presences of great men--how many a resolution, which would alter and exalt the whole course of his after-life, might be formed, when in some dreamy twilight he met, through his own tears, the fixed eyes of those shadows of the great dead, unescapable and calm, piercing to his soul; or fancied that their lips moved in dread reproof or soundless exhortation? And if but for one out of many this were true--if yet, in a few, you could be sure that such influence had indeed changed their thoughts and destinies, and turned the eager and reckless youth, who would have cast away his energies on the race-horse or the gambling-table, to that noble life-race, that holy life-hazard, which should win all glory to himself and all good to his country,--would not that, to some purpose, be "political economy of art"? 109. And observe, there could be no monotony, no exhaustibleness, in the scenes required to be thus portrayed. Even if there were, and you wanted for every school in the kingdom, one death of Leonidas; one battle of Marathon; one death of Cleobis and Bito; there need not therefore be more monotony in your art than there was in the repetition of a given cycle of subjects by the religious painters of Italy. But we ought not to admit a cycle at all. For though we had as many great schools as we have great cities (one day I hope we _shall_ have), centuries of painting would not exhaust, in all the number of them, the noble and pathetic subjects which might be chosen from the history of even one noble nation. But, beside this, you will not, in a little while, limit your youths' studies to so narrow fields as you do now. There will come a time--I am sure of it--when it will be found that the same practical results, both in mental discipline and in political philosophy, are to be attained by the accurate study of mediæval and modern as of ancient history; and that the facts of mediæval and modern history are, on the whole, the most important to us. And among these noble groups of constellated schools which I foresee arising in our England, I foresee also that there will be divided fields of thought; and that while each will give its scholars a great general idea of the world's history, such as all men should possess--each will also take upon itself, as its own special duty, the closer study of the course of events in some given place or time. It will review the rest of history, but it will exhaust its own special field of it; and found its moral and political teaching on the most perfect possible analysis of the results of human conduct in one place, and at one epoch. And then, the galleries of that school will be painted with the historical scenes belonging to the age which it has chosen for its special study. 110. So far, then, of art as you may apply it to that great series of public buildings which you devote to the education of youth. The next large class of public buildings in which we should introduce it, is one which I think a few years more of national progress will render more serviceable to us than they have been lately. I mean, buildings for the meetings of guilds of trades. And here, for the last time, I must again interrupt the course of our chief inquiry, in order to state one other principle of political economy, which is perfectly simple and indisputable; but which, nevertheless, we continually get into commercial embarrassments for want of understanding; and not only so, but suffer much hindrance in our commercial discoveries, because many of our business men do not practically admit it. Supposing half a dozen or a dozen men were cast ashore from a wreck on an uninhabited island, and left to their own resources, one of course, according to his capacity, would be set to one business and one to another; the strongest to dig and cut wood, and to build huts for the rest: the most dexterous to make shoes out of bark and coats out of skins; the best educated to look for iron or lead in the rocks, and to plan the channels for the irrigation of the fields. But though their labours were thus naturally severed, that small group of shipwrecked men would understand well enough that the speediest progress was to be made by helping each other,--not by opposing each other: and they would know that this help could only be properly given so long as they were frank and open in their relations, and the difficulties which each lay under properly explained to the rest. So that any appearance of secrecy or separateness in the actions of any of them would instantly, and justly, be looked upon with suspicion by the rest, as the sign of some selfish or foolish proceeding on the part of the individual. If, for instance, the scientific man were found to have gone out at night, unknown to the rest, to alter the sluices, the others would think, and in all probability rightly think, that he wanted to get the best supply of water to his own field; and if the shoemaker refused to show them where the bark grew which he made the sandals of, they would naturally think, and in all probability rightly think, that he didn't want them to see how much there was of it, and that he meant to ask from them more corn and potatoes in exchange for his sandals than the trouble of making them deserved. And thus, although each man would have a portion of time to himself in which he was allowed to do what he chose without let or inquiry,--so long as he was working in that particular business which he had undertaken for the common benefit, any secrecy on his part would be immediately supposed to mean mischief; and would require to be accounted for, or put an end to: and this all the more because whatever the work might be, certainly there would be difficulties about it which, when once they were well explained, might be more or less done away with by the help of the rest; so that assuredly every one of them would advance with his labour not only more happily, but more profitably and quickly, by having no secrets, and by frankly bestowing, and frankly receiving, such help as lay in his way to get or to give. 111. And, just as the best and richest result of wealth and happiness to the whole of them would follow on their perseverance in such a system of frank communication and of helpful labour;--so precisely the worst and poorest result would be obtained by a system of secrecy and of enmity; and each man's happiness and wealth would assuredly be diminished in proportion to the degree in which jealousy and concealment became their social and economical principles. It would not, in the long run, bring good, but only evil, to the man of science, if, instead of telling openly where he had found good iron, he carefully concealed every new bed of it, that he might ask, in exchange for the rare ploughshare, more corn from the farmer, or, in exchange for the rude needle, more labour from the sempstress: and it would not ultimately bring good, but only evil, to the farmers, if they sought to burn each other's cornstacks, that they might raise the value of their grain, or if the sempstresses tried to break each other's needles, that each might get all the stitching to herself. 112. Now, these laws of human action are precisely as authoritative in their application to the conduct of a million of men, as to that of six or twelve. All enmity, jealousy, opposition, and secrecy are wholly, and in all circumstances, destructive in their nature--not productive; and all kindness, fellowship, and communicativeness are invariably productive in their operation,--not destructive; and the evil principles of opposition and exclusiveness are not rendered less fatal, but more fatal, by their acceptance among large masses of men; more fatal, I say, exactly in proportion as their influence is more secret. For though the opposition does always its own simple, necessary, direct quantity of harm, and withdraws always its own simple, necessary, measurable quantity of wealth from the sum possessed by the community, yet, in proportion to the size of the community, it does another and more refined mischief than this, by concealing its own fatality under aspects of mercantile complication and expediency, and giving rise to multitudes of false theories based on a mean belief in narrow and immediate appearances of good done here and there by things which have the universal and everlasting nature of evil. So that the time and powers of the nation are wasted, not only in wretched struggling against each other, but in vain complaints, and groundless discouragements, and empty investigations, and useless experiments in laws, and elections, and inventions; with hope always to pull wisdom through some new-shaped slit in a ballot-box, and to drag prosperity down out of the clouds along some new knot of electric wire; while all the while Wisdom stands calling at the corners of the streets, and the blessing of Heaven waits ready to rain down upon us, deeper than the rivers and broader than the dew, if only we will obey the first plain principles of humanity, and the first plain precepts of the skies: "Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion, every man to his brother; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart."[14] [Note 14: It would be well if, instead of preaching continually about the doctrine of faith and good works, our clergymen would simply explain to their people a little what good works mean. There is not a chapter in all the book we profess to believe, more specially and directly written for England than the second of Habakkuk, and I never in all my life heard one of its practical texts preached from. I suppose the clergymen are all afraid, and know their flocks, while they will sit quite politely to hear syllogisms out of the epistle to the Romans, would get restive directly if they ever pressed a practical text home to them. But we should have no mercantile catastrophes, and no distressful pauperism, if we only read often, and took to heart, those plain words:--"Yea, also, because he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and cannot be satisfied,--Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, 'Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his: and to him that _ladeth himself with thick clay_'?" (What a glorious history in one metaphor, of the life of a man greedy of fortune!) "Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness that he may set his nest on high. Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and establisheth a city by iniquity. Behold, is it not of the Lord of Hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?" The Americans, who have been sending out ships with sham bolt-heads on their timbers, and only half their bolts, may meditate on that "buildeth a town with blood."] 113. Therefore, I believe most firmly, that as the laws of national prosperity get familiar to us, we shall more and more cast our toil into social and communicative systems; and that one of the first means of our doing so, will be the re-establishing guilds of every important trade in a vital, not formal, condition;--that there will be a great council or government house for the members of every trade, built in whatever town of the kingdom occupies itself principally in such trade, with minor council-halls in other cities; and to each council-hall, officers attached, whose first business may be to examine into the circumstances of every operative, in that trade, who chooses to report himself to them when out of work, and to set him to work, if he is indeed able and willing, at a fixed rate of wages, determined at regular periods in the council-meetings; and whose next duty may be to bring reports before the council of all improvements made in the business, and means of its extension: not allowing private patents of any kind, but making all improvements available to every member of the guild, only allotting, after successful trial of them, a certain reward to the inventors. 114. For these, and many other such purposes, such halls will be again, I trust, fully established, and then, in the paintings and decorations of them, especial effort ought to be made to express the worthiness and honourableness of the trade for whose members they are founded. For I believe one of the worst symptoms of modern society to be, its notion of great inferiority, and ungentlemanliness, as necessarily belonging to the character of a tradesman. I believe tradesmen may be, ought to be--often are, more gentlemen than idle and useless people: and I believe that art may do noble work by recording in the hall of each trade, the services which men belonging to that trade have done for their country, both preserving the portraits, and recording the important incidents in the lives, of those who have made great advances in commerce and civilization. I cannot follow out this subject--it branches too far, and in too many directions; besides, I have no doubt you will at once see and accept the truth of the main principle, and be able to think it out for yourselves. I would fain also have said something of what might be done, in the same manner, for almshouses and hospitals, and for what, as I shall try to explain in notes to this lecture, we may hope to see, some day, established with a different meaning in their name than that they now bear--work-houses; but I have detained you too long already, and cannot permit myself to trespass further on your patience except only to recapitulate, in closing, the simple principles respecting wealth which we have gathered during the course of our inquiry; principles which are nothing more than the literal and practical acceptance of the saying which is in all good men's mouths--namely, that they are stewards or ministers of whatever talents are entrusted to them. 115. Only, is it not a strange thing, that while we more or less accept the meaning of that saying, so long as it is considered metaphorical, we never accept its meaning in its own terms? You know the lesson is given us under the form of a story about money. Money was given to the servants to make use of: the unprofitable servant dug in the earth, and hid his lord's money. Well, we, in our political and spiritual application of this, say, that of course money doesn't mean money: it means wit, it means intellect, it means influence in high quarters, it means everything in the world except itself. And do not you see what a pretty and pleasant come-off there is for most of us, in this spiritual application? Of course, if we had wit, we would use it for the good of our fellow-creatures. But we haven't wit. Of course, if we had influence with the bishops, we would use it for the good of the Church; but we haven't any influence with the bishops. Of course, if we had political power, we would use it for the good of the nation; but we have no political power; we have no talents entrusted to us of any sort or kind. It is true we have a little money, but the parable can't possibly mean anything so vulgar as money; our money's our own. 116. I believe, if you think seriously of this matter, you will feel that the first and most literal application is just as necessary a one as any other--that the story does very specially mean what it says--plain money; and that the reason we don't at once believe it does so, is a sort of tacit idea that while thought, wit, and intellect, and all power of birth and position, are indeed _given_ to us, and, therefore, to be laid out for the Giver--our wealth has not been given to us; but we have worked for it, and have a right to spend it as we choose. I think you will find that is the real substance of our understanding in this matter. Beauty, we say, is given by God--it is a talent; strength is given by God--it is a talent; position is given by God--it is a talent; but money is proper wages for our day's work--it is not a talent, it is a due. We may justly spend it on ourselves, if we have worked for it. 117. And there would be some shadow of excuse for this, were it not that the very power of making the money is itself only one of the applications of that intellect or strength which we confess to be talents. Why is one man richer than another? Because he is more industrious, more persevering, and more sagacious. Well, who made him more persevering or more sagacious than others? That power of endurance, that quickness of apprehension, that calmness of judgment, which enable him to seize the opportunities that others lose, and persist in the lines of conduct in which others fail--are these not talents?--are they not, in the present state of the world, among the most distinguished and influential of mental gifts? And is it not wonderful, that while we should be utterly ashamed to use a superiority of body, in order to thrust our weaker companions aside from some place of advantage, we unhesitatingly use our superiorities of mind to thrust them back from whatever good that strength of mind can attain? You would be indignant if you saw a strong man walk into a theatre or a lecture-room, and, calmly choosing the best place, take his feeble neighbour by the shoulder, and turn him out of it into the back seats, or the street. You would be equally indignant if you saw a stout fellow thrust himself up to a table where some hungry children were being fed, and reach his arm over their heads and take their bread from them. But you are not the least indignant if, when a man has stoutness of thought and swiftness of capacity, and, instead of being long-armed only, has the much greater gift of being long-headed--you think it perfectly just that he should use his intellect to take the bread out of the mouths of all the other men in the town who are of the same trade with him; or use his breadth and sweep of sight to gather some branch of the commerce of the country into one great cobweb, of which he is himself to be the central spider, making every thread vibrate with the points of his claws, and commanding every avenue with the facets of his eyes. You see no injustice in this. 118. But there is injustice; and, let us trust, one of which honourable men will at no very distant period disdain to be guilty. In some degree, however, it is indeed not unjust; in some degree, it is necessary and intended. It is assuredly just that idleness should be surpassed by energy; that the widest influence should be possessed by those who are best able to wield it; and that a wise man, at the end of his career, should be better off than a fool. But for that reason, is the fool to be wretched, utterly crushed down, and left in all the suffering which his conduct and capacity naturally inflict?--Not so. What do you suppose fools were made for? That you might tread upon them, and starve them, and get the better of them in every possible way? By no means. They were made that wise people might take care of them. That is the true and plain fact concerning the relations of every strong and wise man to the world about him. He has his strength given him, not that he may crush the weak, but that he may support and guide them. In his own household he is to be the guide and the support of his children; out of his household he is still to be the father--that is, the guide and support--of the weak and the poor; not merely of the meritoriously weak and the innocently poor, but of the guiltily and punishably poor; of the men who ought to have known better--of the poor who ought to be ashamed of themselves. It is nothing to give pension and cottage to the widow who has lost her son; it is nothing to give food and medicine to the workman who has broken his arm, or the decrepit woman wasting in sickness. But it is something to use your time and strength to war with the waywardness and thoughtlessness of mankind; to keep the erring workman in your service till you have made him an unerring one; and to direct your fellow-merchant to the opportunity which his dulness would have lost. This is much; but it is yet more, when you have fully achieved the superiority which is due to you, and acquired the wealth which is the fitting reward of your sagacity, if you solemnly accept the responsibility of it, as it is the helm and guide of labour far and near. 119. For you who have it in your hands are in reality the pilots of the power and effort of the State. It is entrusted to you as an authority to be used for good or evil, just as completely as kingly authority was ever given to a prince, or military command to a captain. And, according to the quantity of it that you have in your hands, you are the arbiters of the will and work of England; and the whole issue, whether the work of the State shall suffice for the State or not, depends upon you. You may stretch out your sceptre over the heads of the English labourers, and say to them, as they stoop to its waving, "Subdue this obstacle that has baffled our fathers, put away this plague that consumes our children; water these dry places, plough these desert ones, carry this food to those who are in hunger; carry this light to those who are in darkness; carry this life to those who are in death;" or on the other side you may say to her labourers: "Here am I; this power is in my hand; come, build a mound here for me to be throned upon, high and wide; come, make crowns for my head, that men may see them shine from far away; come, weave tapestries for my feet, that I may tread softly on the silk and purple; come, dance before me, that I may be gay; and sing sweetly to me, that I may slumber; so shall I live in joy, and die in honour." And better than such an honourable death it were that the day had perished wherein we were born, and the night in which it was said there is a child conceived. 120. I trust that in a little while there will be few of our rich men who, through carelessness or covetousness, thus forfeit the glorious office which is intended for their hands. I said, just now, that wealth ill-used was as the net of the spider, entangling and destroying: but wealth well used is as the net of the sacred fisher who gathers souls of men out of the deep. A time will come--I do not think even now it is far from us--when this golden net of the world's wealth will be spread abroad as the flaming meshes of morning cloud are over the sky; bearing with them the joy of light and the dew of the morning, as well as the summons to honourable and peaceful toil. What less can we hope from your wealth than this, rich men of England, when once you feel fully how, by the strength of your possessions--not, observe, by the exhaustion, but by the administration of them and the power,--you can direct the acts--command the energies--inform the ignorance--prolong the existence, of the whole human race; and how, even of worldly wisdom, which man employs faithfully, it is true, not only that her ways are pleasantness, but that her paths are peace; and that, for all the children of men, as well as for those to whom she is given, Length of days is in her right hand, as in her left hand Riches and Honour? ADDENDA Note, p. 18.--"_Fatherly authority._" 121. This statement could not, of course, be heard without displeasure by a certain class of politicians; and in one of the notices of these lectures given in the Manchester journals at the time, endeavour was made to get quit of it by referring to the Divine authority, as the only Paternal power with respect to which men were truly styled "brethren." Of course it is so, and, equally of course, all human government is nothing else than the executive expression of this Divine authority. The moment government ceases to be the practical enforcement of Divine law, it is tyranny; and the meaning which I attach to the words "paternal government," is, in more extended terms, simply this--"The executive fulfilment, by formal human methods, of the will of the Father of mankind respecting His children." I could not give such a definition of Government as this in a popular lecture; and even in written form, it will necessarily suggest many objections, of which I must notice and answer the most probable. Only, in order to avoid the recurrence of such tiresome phrases as "it may be answered in the second place," and "it will be objected in the third place," etc., I will ask the reader's leave to arrange the discussion in the form of simple dialogue, letting _O._ stand for objector, and _R._ for response. 122. _O._--You define your paternal government to be the executive fulfilment, by formal human methods, of the Divine will. But, assuredly, that will cannot stand in need of aid or expression from human laws. It cannot fail of its fulfilment. _R._ 122. In the final sense it cannot; and in that sense, men who are committing murder and stealing are fulfilling the will of God as much as the best and kindest people in the world. But in the limited and present sense, the only sense with which _we_ have anything to do, God's will concerning man is fulfilled by some men, and thwarted by others. And those men who either persuade or enforce the doing of it, stand towards those who are rebellious against it exactly in the position of faithful children in a family, who, when the father is out of sight, either compel or persuade the rest to do as their father would have them, were he present; and in so far as they are expressing and maintaining, for the time, the paternal authority, they exercise, in the exact sense in which I mean the phrase to be understood, paternal government over the rest. _O._--But, if Providence has left a liberty to man in many things in order to prove him, why should human law abridge that liberty, and take upon itself to compel what the great Lawgiver does not compel? 123. _R._--It is confessed, in the enactment of any law whatsoever, that human lawgivers have a right to do this. For, if you have no right to abridge any of the liberty which Providence has left to man, you have no right to punish any one for committing murder or robbery. You ought to leave them to the punishment of God and Nature. But if you think yourself under obligation to punish, as far as human laws can, the violation of the will of God by these great sins, you are certainly under the same obligation to punish, with proportionately less punishment, the violation of His will in less sins. _O._--No; you must not attempt to punish less sins by law, because you cannot properly define nor ascertain them. Everybody can determine whether murder has been committed or not, but you cannot determine how far people have been unjust or cruel in minor matters, and therefore cannot make or execute laws concerning minor matters. _R._--If I propose to you to punish faults which cannot be defined, or to execute laws which cannot be made equitable, reject the laws I propose. But do not generally object to the principle of law. _O._--Yes; I generally object to the principle of law as applied to minor things; because, if you could succeed (which you cannot) in regulating the entire conduct of men by law in little things as well as great, you would take away from human life all its probationary character, and render many virtues and pleasures impossible. You would reduce virtue to the movement of a machine, instead of the act of a spirit. 124. _R._--You have just said, parenthetically, and I fully and willingly admit it, that it is impossible to regulate all minor matters by law. Is it not probable, therefore, that the degree in which it is _possible_ to regulate them by it, is also the degree in which it is _right_ to regulate them by it? Or what other means of judgment will you employ, to separate the things which ought to be formally regulated from the things which ought not? You admit that great sins should be legally repressed; but you say that small sins should not be legally repressed. How do you distinguish between great and small sins? and how do you intend to determine, or do you in practice of daily life determine, on what occasions you should compel people to do right, and on what occasions you should leave them the option of doing wrong? _O._--I think you cannot make any accurate or logical distinction in such matters; but that common sense and instinct have, in all civilised nations, indicated certain crimes of great social harmfulness, such as murder, theft, adultery, slander, and such like, which it is proper to repress legally; and that common sense and instinct indicate also the kind of crimes which it is proper for laws to let alone, such as miserliness, ill-natured speaking, and many of those commercial dishonesties which I have a notion you want your paternal government to interfere with. _R._--Pray do not alarm yourself about what my paternal government is likely to interfere with, but keep to the matter in hand. You say that "common sense and instinct" have, in all civilised nations, distinguished between the sins that ought to be legally dealt with and that ought not. Do you mean that the laws of all civilised nations are perfect? _O._--No; certainly not. _R._--Or that they are perfect at least in their discrimination of what crimes they should deal with, and what crimes they should let alone? _O._--No; not exactly. _R._--What _do_ you mean, then? 125. _O._--I mean that the general tendency is right in the laws of civilised nations; and that, in due course of time, natural sense and instinct point out the matters they should be brought to bear upon. And each question of legislation must be made a separate subject of inquiry as it presents itself: you cannot fix any general principles about what should be dealt with legally, and what should not. _R._--Supposing it to be so, do you think there are any points in which our English legislation is capable of amendment, as it bears on commercial and economical matters, in this present time? _O._--Of course I do. _R._--Well, then, let us discuss these together quietly; and if the points that I want amended seem to you incapable of amendment, or not in need of amendment, say so: but don't object, at starting, to the mere proposition of applying law to things which have not had law applied to them before. You have admitted the fitness of my expression, "paternal government": it only has been, and remains, a question between us, how far such government should extend. Perhaps you would like it only to regulate, among the children, the length of their lessons; and perhaps I should like it also to regulate the hardness of their cricket-balls: but cannot you wait quietly till you know what I want it to do, before quarrelling with the thing itself? _O._--No; I cannot wait quietly; in fact, I don't see any use in beginning such a discussion at all, because I am quite sure from the first, that you want to meddle with things that you have no business with, and to interfere with healthy liberty of action in all sorts of ways; and I know that you can't propose any laws that would be of real use.[15] [Note 15: If the reader is displeased with me for putting this foolish speech into his mouth, I entreat his pardon; but he may be assured that it is a speech which would be made by many people, and the substance of which would be tacitly felt by many more, at this point of the discussion. I have really tried, up to this point, to make the objector as intelligent a person as it is possible for an author to imagine anybody to be who differs with him.] 126. _R._--If you indeed know that, you would be wrong to hear me any farther. But if you are only in painful doubt about me, which makes you unwilling to run the risk of wasting your time, I will tell you beforehand what I really do think about this same liberty of action, namely, that whenever we can make a perfectly equitable law about any matter, or even a law securing, on the whole, more just conduct than unjust, we ought to make that law; and that there will yet, on these conditions, always remain a number of matters respecting which legalism and formalism are impossible; enough, and more than enough, to exercise all human powers of individual judgment, and afford all kinds of scope to individual character. I think this; but of course it can only be proved by separate examination of the possibilities of formal restraint in each given field of action; and these two lectures are nothing more than a sketch of such a detailed examination in one field, namely, that of art. You will find, however, one or two other remarks on such possibilities in the next note. * * * * * Note 2nd, p. 21.--"_Right to public support._" 127. It did not appear to me desirable, in the course of the spoken lecture, to enter into details or offer suggestions on the questions of the regulation of labour and distribution of relief, as it would have been impossible to do so without touching on many disputed or disputable points, not easily handled before a general audience. But I must now supply what is wanting to make my general statement clear. I believe, in the first place, that no Christian nation has any business to see one of its members in distress without helping him, though, perhaps, at the same time punishing him: help, of course--in nine cases out of ten--meaning guidance, much more than gift, and, therefore, interference with liberty. When a peasant mother sees one of her careless children fall into a ditch, her first proceeding is to pull him out; her second, to box his ears; her third, ordinarily, to lead him carefully a little way by the hand, or send him home for the rest of the day. The child usually cries, and very often would clearly prefer remaining in the ditch; and if he understood any of the terms of politics, would certainly express resentment at the interference with his individual liberty: but the mother has done her duty. Whereas the usual call of the mother nation to any of her children, under such circumstances, has lately been nothing more than the foxhunter's,--"Stay still there; I shall clear you." And if we always _could_ clear them, their requests to be left in muddy independence might be sometimes allowed by kind people, or their cries for help disdained by unkind ones. But we can't clear them. The whole nation is, in fact, bound together, as men are by ropes on a glacier--if one falls, the rest must either lift him or drag him along with them[16] as dead weight, not without much increase of danger to themselves. And the law of right being manifestly in this--as, whether manifestly or not, it is always, the law of prudence--the only question is, how this wholesome help and interference are to be administered. [Note 16: It is very curious to watch the efforts of two shop-keepers to ruin each other, neither having the least idea that his ruined neighbour must eventually be supported at his own expense, with an increase of poor rates; and that the contest between them is not in reality which shall get everything for himself, but which shall first take upon himself and his customers the gratuitous maintenance of the other's family.] 128. The first interference should be in education. In order that men may be able to support themselves when they are grown, their strength must be properly developed while they are young; and the State should always see to this--not allowing their health to be broken by too early labour, nor their powers to be wasted for want of knowledge. Some questions connected with this matter are noticed farther on under the head "trial schools": one point I must notice here, that I believe all youths, of whatever rank, ought to learn some manual trade thoroughly; for it is quite wonderful how much a man's views of life are cleared by the attainment of the capacity of doing any one thing well with his hands and arms. For a long time, what right life there was in the upper classes of Europe depended in no small degree on the necessity which each man was under of being able to fence; at this day, the most useful things which boys learn at public schools are, I believe, riding, rowing, and cricketing. But it would be far better that members of Parliament should be able to plough straight, and make a horseshoe, than only to feather oars neatly or point their toes prettily in stirrups. Then, in literary and scientific teaching, the great point of economy is to give the discipline of it through knowledge which will immediately bear on practical life. Our literary work has long been economically useless to us because too much concerned with dead languages; and our scientific work will yet, for some time, be a good deal lost, because scientific men are too fond or too vain of their systems, and waste the student's time in endeavouring to give him large views, and make him perceive interesting connections of facts; when there is not one student, no, nor one man, in a thousand, who can feel the beauty of a system, or even take it clearly into his head; but nearly all men can understand, and most will be interested in, the facts which bear on daily life. Botanists have discovered some wonderful connection between nettles and figs, which a cowboy who will never see a ripe fig in his life need not be at all troubled about; but it will be interesting to him to know what effect nettles have on hay, and what taste they will give to porridge; and it will give him nearly a new life if he can be got but once, in a spring time, to look well at the beautiful circlet of white nettle blossom, and work out with his schoolmaster the curves of its petals, and the way it is set on its central mast. So, the principle of chemical equivalents, beautiful as it is, matters far less to a peasant boy, and even to most sons of gentlemen, than their knowing how to find whether the water is wholesome in the back-kitchen cistern, or whether the seven-acre field wants sand or chalk. 129. Having, then, directed the studies of our youth so as to make them practically serviceable men at the time of their entrance into life, that entrance should always be ready for them in cases where their private circumstances present no opening. There ought to be government establishments for every trade, in which all youths who desired it should be received as apprentices on their leaving school; and men thrown out of work received at all times. At these government manufactories the discipline should be strict, and the wages steady, not varying at all in proportion to the demand for the article, but only in proportion to the price of food; the commodities produced being laid up in store to meet sudden demands, and sudden fluctuations in prices prevented:--that gradual and necessary fluctuation only being allowed which is properly consequent on larger or more limited supply of raw material and other natural causes. When there was a visible tendency to produce a glut of any commodity, that tendency should be checked by directing the youth at the government schools into other trades; and the yearly surplus of commodities should be the principal means of government provisions for the poor. That provision should be large, and not disgraceful to them. At present there are very strange notions in the public mind respecting the receiving of alms: most people are willing to take them in the form of a pension from government, but unwilling to take them in the form of a pension from their parishes. There may be some reason for this singular prejudice, in the fact of the government pension being usually given as a definite acknowledgment of some service done to the country;--but the parish pension is, or ought to be, given precisely on the same terms. A labourer serves his country with his spade, just as a man in the middle ranks of life serves it with his sword, pen, or lancet: if the service is less, and therefore the wages during health less, then the reward, when health is broken, may be less, but not, therefore, less honourable; and it ought to be quite as natural and straight-forward a matter for a labourer to take his pension from his parish, because he has deserved well of his parish, as for a man in higher rank to take his pension from his country, because he has deserved well of his country. 130. If there be any disgrace in coming to the parish, because it may imply improvidence in early life, much more is there disgrace in coming to the government: since improvidence is far less justifiable in a highly educated than in an imperfectly educated man; and far less justifiable in a high rank, where extravagance must have been luxury, than in a low rank, where it may only have been comfort. So that the real fact of the matter is, that people will take alms delightedly, consisting of a carriage and footmen, because those do not look like alms to the people in the street; but they will not take alms consisting only of bread and water and coals, because everybody would understand what those meant. Mind, I do not want any one to refuse the carriage who ought to have it; but neither do I want them to refuse the coals. I should indeed be sorry if any change in our views on these subjects involved the least lessening of self-dependence in the English mind: but the common shrinking of men from the acceptance of public charity is not self-dependence, but mere base and selfish pride. It is not that they are unwilling to live at their neighbours' expense, but that they are unwilling to confess they do: it is not dependence they wish to avoid, but gratitude. They will take places in which they know there is nothing to be done--they will borrow money they know they cannot repay--they will carry on a losing business with other people's capital--they will cheat the public in their shops, or sponge on their friends at their houses; but to say plainly they are poor men, who need the nation's help and go into an almshouse,--this they loftily repudiate, and virtuously prefer being thieves to being paupers. 131. I trust that these deceptive efforts of dishonest men to appear independent, and the agonizing efforts of unfortunate men to remain independent, may both be in some degree checked by a better administration and understanding of laws respecting the poor. But the ordinances for relief and the ordinances for labour must go together; otherwise distress caused by misfortune will always be confounded, as it is now, with distress caused by idleness, unthrift, and fraud. It is only when the State watches and guides the middle life of men, that it can, without disgrace to them, protect their old age, acknowledging in that protection that they have done their duty, or at least some portion of their duty, in better days. I know well how strange, fanciful, or impracticable these suggestions will appear to most of the business men of this day; men who conceive the proper state of the world to be simply that of a vast and disorganized mob, scrambling each for what he can get, trampling down its children and old men in the mire, and doing what work it finds _must_ be done with any irregular squad of labourers it can bribe or inveigle together, and afterwards scatter to starvation. A great deal may, indeed, be done in this way by a nation strong-elbowed and strong-hearted as we are--not easily frightened by pushing, nor discouraged by falls. But it is still not the right way of doing things, for people who call themselves Christians. Every so named soul of man claims from every other such soul, protection and education in childhood,--help or punishment in middle life,--reward or relief, if needed, in old age; all of these should be completely and unstintingly given; and they can only be given by the organization of such a system as I have described. * * * * * Note 3rd, p. 27.--"_Trial Schools._" 132. It may be seriously questioned by the reader how much of painting talent we really lose on our present system,[17] and how much we should gain by the proposed trial schools. For it might be thought that, as matters stand at present, we have more painters than we ought to have, having so many bad ones, and that all youths who had true painters' genius forced their way out of obscurity. [Note 17: It will be observed that, in the lecture, it is _assumed_ that works of art are national treasures; and that it is desirable to withdraw all the hands capable of painting or carving from other employments, in order that they may produce this kind of wealth. I do not, in assuming this, mean that works of art add to the monetary resources of a nation, or form part of its wealth, in the vulgar sense. The result of the sale of a picture in the country itself is merely that a certain sum of money is transferred from the hands of B, the purchaser, to those of A, the producer; the sum ultimately to be distributed remaining the same, only A ultimately spending it instead of B, while the labour of A has been in the meantime withdrawn from productive channels; he has painted a picture which nobody can live upon, or live in, when he might have grown corn or built houses: when the sale therefore is effected in the country itself, it does not add to, but diminishes, the monetary resources of the country, except only so far as it may appear probable, on other grounds, that A is likely to spend the sum he receives for his picture more rationally and usefully than B would have spent it. If, indeed, the picture, or other work of art, be sold in foreign countries, either the money or the useful products of the foreign country being imported in exchange for it, such sale adds to the monetary resources of the selling, and diminishes those of the purchasing nation. But sound political economy, strange as it may at first appear to say so, has nothing whatever to do with separations between national interests. Political economy means the management of the affairs of _citizens_; and it either regards exclusively the administration of the affairs of one nation, or the administration of the affairs of the world considered as one nation. So when a transaction between individuals which enriches A impoverishes B in precisely the same degree, the sound economist considers it an unproductive transaction between the individuals; and if a trade between two nations which enriches one, impoverishes the other in the same degree, the sound economist considers it an unproductive trade between the nations. It is not a general question of political economy, but only a particular question of local expediency, whether an article, in itself valueless, may bear a value of exchange in transactions with some other nation. The economist considers only the actual value of the thing done or produced; and if he sees a quantity of labour spent, for instance, by the Swiss, in producing woodwork for sale to the English, he at once sets the commercial impoverishment of the English purchaser against the commercial enrichment of the Swiss seller; and considers the whole transaction productive only as far as the woodwork itself is a real addition to the wealth of the world. For the arrangement of the laws of a nation so as to procure the greatest advantages to itself, and leave the smallest advantages to other nations, is not a part of the science of political economy, but merely a broad application of the science of fraud. Considered thus in the abstract, pictures are not an _addition_ to the monetary wealth of the world, except in the amount of pleasure or instruction to be got out of them day by day: but there is a certain protective effect on wealth exercised by works of high art which must always be included in the estimate of their value. Generally speaking, persons who decorate their houses with pictures will not spend so much money in papers, carpets, curtains, or other expensive and perishable luxuries as they would otherwise. Works of good art, like books, exercise a conservative effect on the rooms they are kept in; and the wall of the library or picture gallery remains undisturbed, when those of other rooms are repapered or re-panelled. Of course this effect is still more definite when the picture is on the walls themselves, either on canvas stretched into fixed shapes on their panels, or in fresco; involving, of course, the preservation of the building from all unnecessary and capricious alteration. And, generally speaking, the occupation of a large number of hands in painting or sculpture in any nation may be considered as tending to check the disposition to indulge in perishable luxury. I do not, however, in my assumption that works of art are treasures, take much into consideration this collateral monetary result. I consider them treasures, merely as permanent means of pleasure and instruction; and having at other times tried to show the several ways in which they can please and teach, assume here that they are thus useful, and that it is desirable to make as many painters as we can.] This is not so. It is difficult to analyse the characters of mind which cause youths to mistake their vocation, and to endeavour to become artists, when they have no true artist's gift. But the fact is, that multitudes of young men do this, and that by far the greater number of living artists are men who have mistaken their vocation. The peculiar circumstances of modern life, which exhibit art in almost every form to the sight of the youths in our great cities, have a natural tendency to fill their imaginations with borrowed ideas, and their minds with imperfect science; the mere dislike of mechanical employments, either felt to be irksome, or believed to be degrading, urges numbers of young men to become painters, in the same temper in which they would enlist or go to sea; others, the sons of engravers or artists, taught the business of the art by their parents, and having no gift for it themselves, follow it as the means of livelihood, in an ignoble patience; or, if ambitious, seek to attract regard, or distance rivalry, by fantastic, meretricious, or unprecedented applications of their mechanical skill; while finally, many men, earnest in feeling, and conscientious in principle, mistake their desire to be useful for a love of art, and their quickness of emotion for its capacity, and pass their lives in painting moral and instructive pictures, which might almost justify us in thinking nobody could be a painter but a rogue. On the other hand, I believe that much of the best artistical intellect is daily lost in other avocations. Generally, the temper which would make an admirable artist is humble and observant, capable of taking much interest in little things, and of entertaining itself pleasantly in the dullest circumstances. Suppose, added to these characters, a steady conscientiousness which seeks to do its duty wherever it may be placed, and the power, denied to few artistical minds, of ingenious invention in almost any practical department of human skill, and it can hardly be doubted that the very humility and conscientiousness which would have perfected the painter, have in many instances prevented his becoming one; and that in the quiet life of our steady craftsmen--sagacious manufacturers, and uncomplaining clerks--there may frequently be concealed more genius than ever is raised to the direction of our public works, or to be the mark of our public praises. 133. It is indeed probable, that intense disposition for art will conquer the most formidable obstacles, if the surrounding circumstances are such as at all to present the idea of such conquest to the mind; but we have no ground for concluding that Giotto would ever have been more than a shepherd, if Cimabue had not by chance found him drawing; or that among the shepherds of the Apennines there were no other Giottos, undiscovered by Cimabue. We are too much in the habit of considering happy accidents as what are called 'special Providences'; and thinking that when any great work needs to be done, the man who is to do it will certainly be pointed out by Providence, be he shepherd or seaboy; and prepared for his work by all kinds of minor providences, in the best possible way. Whereas all the analogies of God's operations in other matters prove the contrary of this; we find that "of thousand seeds, He often brings but one to bear," often not one; and the one seed which He appoints to bear is allowed to bear crude or perfect fruit according to the dealings of the husbandman with it. And there cannot be a doubt in the mind of any person accustomed to take broad and logical views of the world's history, that its events are ruled by Providence in precisely the same manner as its harvests; that the seeds of good and evil are broadcast among men, just as the seeds of thistles and fruits are; and that according to the force of our industry, and wisdom of our husbandry, the ground will bring forth to us figs or thistles. So that when it seems needed that a certain work should be done for the world, and no man is there to do it, we have no right to say that God did not wish it to be done; and therefore sent no men able to do it. The probability (if I wrote my own convictions, I should say certainty) is, that He sent many men, hundreds of men, able to do it; and that we have rejected them, or crushed them; by our previous folly of conduct or of institution, we have rendered it impossible to distinguish, or impossible to reach them; and when the need for them comes, and we suffer for the want of them, it is not that God refuses to send us deliverers, and specially appoints all our consequent sufferings; but that He has sent, and we have refused, the deliverers; and the pain is then wrought out by His eternal law, as surely as famine is wrought out by eternal law for a nation which will neither plough nor sow. No less are we in error in supposing, as we so frequently do, that if a man be found, he is sure to be in all respects fitted for the work to be done, as the key is to the lock: and that every accident which happened in the forging him, only adapted him more truly to the wards. It is pitiful to hear historians beguiling themselves and their readers, by tracing in the early history of great men the minor circumstances which fitted them for the work they did, without ever taking notice of the other circumstances which as assuredly unfitted them for it; so concluding that miraculous interposition prepared them in all points for everything, and that they did all that could have been desired or hoped for from them; whereas the certainty of the matter is that, throughout their lives, they were thwarted and corrupted by some things as certainly as they were helped and disciplined by others; and that, in the kindliest and most reverent view which can justly be taken of them, they were but poor mistaken creatures, struggling with a world more profoundly mistaken than they;--assuredly sinned against or sinning in thousands of ways, and bringing out at last a maimed result--not what they might or ought to have done, but all that could be done against the world's resistance, and in spite of their own sorrowful falsehood to themselves. 134. And this being so, it is the practical duty of a wise nation, first to withdraw, as far as may be, its youth from destructive influences;--then to try its material as far as possible, and to lose the use of none that is good. I do not mean by "withdrawing from destructive influences" the keeping of youths out of trials; but the keeping them out of the way of things purely and absolutely mischievous. I do not mean that we should shade our green corn in all heat, and shelter it in all frost, but only that we should dyke out the inundation from it, and drive the fowls away from it. Let your youth labour and suffer; but do not let it starve, nor steal, nor blaspheme. 135. It is not, of course, in my power here to enter into details of schemes of education; and it will be long before the results of experiments now in progress will give data for the solution of the most difficult questions connected with the subject, of which the principal one is the mode in which the chance of advancement in life is to be extended to all, and yet made compatible with contentment in the pursuit of lower avocations by those whose abilities do not qualify them for the higher. But the general principle of trial schools lies at the root of the matter--of schools, that is to say, in which the knowledge offered and discipline enforced shall be all a part of a great assay of the human soul, and in which the one shall be increased, the other directed, as the tried heart and brain will best bear, and no otherwise. One thing, however, I must say, that in this trial I believe all emulation to be a false motive, and all giving of prizes a false means. All that you can depend upon in a boy, as significative of true power, likely to issue in good fruit, is his will to work for the work's sake, not his desire to surpass his school-fellows; and the aim of the teaching you give him ought to be, to prove to him and strengthen in him his own separate gift, not to puff him into swollen rivalry with those who are everlastingly greater than he: still less ought you to hang favours and ribands about the neck of the creature who is the greatest, to make the rest envy him. Try to make them love him and follow him, not struggle with him. 136. There must, of course, be examination to ascertain and attest both progress and relative capacity; but our aim should be to make the students rather look upon it as a means of ascertaining their own true positions and powers in the world, than as an arena in which to carry away a present victory. I have not, perhaps, in the course of the lecture, insisted enough on the nature of relative capacity and individual character, as the roots of all real _value_ in Art. We are too much in the habit, in these days, of acting as if Art worth a price in the market were a commodity which people could be generally taught to produce, and as if the _education_ of the artist, not his _capacity_, gave the sterling value to his work. No impression can possibly be more absurd or false. Whatever people can teach each other to do, they will estimate, and ought to estimate, only as common industry; nothing will ever fetch a high price but precisely that which cannot be taught, and which nobody can do but the man from whom it is purchased. No state of society, nor stage of knowledge, ever does away with the natural pre-eminence of one man over another; and it is that pre-eminence, and that only, which will give work high value in the market, or which ought to do so. It is a bad sign of the judgment, and bad omen for the progress, of a nation, if it supposes itself to possess many artists of equal merit. Noble art is nothing less than the expression of a great soul; and great souls are not common things. If ever we confound their work with that of others, it is not through liberality, but through blindness. * * * * * Note 4th, p. 28.--"_Public favour._" 137. There is great difficulty in making any short or general statement of the difference between great and ignoble minds in their behaviour to the 'public.' It is by no means _universally_ the case that a mean mind, as stated in the text, will bend itself to what you ask of it: on the contrary, there is one kind of mind, the meanest of all, which perpetually complains of the public, and contemplates and proclaims itself as a 'genius,' refuses all wholesome discipline or humble office, and ends in miserable and revengeful ruin; also, the greatest minds are marked by nothing more distinctly than an inconceivable humility, and acceptance of work or instruction in any form, and from any quarter. They will learn from everybody, and do anything that anybody asks of them, so long as it involves only toil, or what other men would think degradation. But the point of quarrel, nevertheless, assuredly rises some day between the public and them, respecting some matter, not of humiliation, but of Fact. Your great man always at last comes to see something the public don't see. This something he will assuredly persist in asserting, whether with tongue or pencil, to be as _he_ sees it, not as _they_ see it; and all the world in a heap on the other side, will not get him to say otherwise. Then, if the world objects to the saying, he may happen to get stoned or burnt for it, but that does not in the least matter to him; if the world has no particular objection to the saying, he may get leave to mutter it to himself till he dies, and be merely taken for an idiot; that also does not matter to him--mutter it he will, according to what he perceives to be fact, and not at all according to the roaring of the walls of Red Sea on the right hand or left of him. Hence the quarrel, sure at some time or other to be started between the public and him; while your mean man, though he will spit and scratch spiritedly at the public, while it does not attend to him, will bow to it for its clap in any direction, and say anything when he has got its ear, which he thinks will bring him another clap; and thus, as stated in the text, he and it go on smoothly together. There are, however, times when the obstinacy of the mean man looks very like the obstinacy of the great one; but if you look closely into the matter, you will always see that the obstinacy of the first is in the pronunciation of "I;" and of the second, in the pronunciation of "It." * * * * * Note 5th, p. 56.--"_Invention of new wants._" 138. It would have been impossible for political economists long to have endured the error spoken of in the text,[18] had they not been confused by an idea, in part well founded, that the energies and refinements, as well as the riches of civilised life, arose from imaginary wants. It is quite true, that the savage who knows no needs but those of food, shelter, and sleep, and after he has snared his venison and patched the rents of his hut, passes the rest of his time in animal repose, is in a lower state than the man who labours incessantly that he may procure for himself the luxuries of civilisation; and true also, that the difference between one and another nation in progressive power depends in great part on vain desires; but these idle motives are merely to be considered as giving exercise to the national body and mind; they are not sources of wealth, except so far as they give the habits of industry and acquisitiveness. If a boy is clumsy and lazy, we shall do good if we can persuade him to carve cherry-stones and fly kites; and this use of his fingers and limbs may eventually be the cause of his becoming a wealthy and happy man; but we must not therefore argue that cherry-stones are valuable property, or that kite-flying is a profitable mode of passing time. In like manner, a nation always wastes its time and labour _directly_, when it invents a new want of a frivolous kind, and yet the invention of such a want may be the sign of a healthy activity, and the labour undergone to satisfy the new want may lead, _indirectly_, to useful discoveries or to noble arts; so that a nation is not to be discouraged in its fancies when it is either too weak or foolish to be moved to exertion by anything but fancies, or has attended to its serious business first. If a nation will not forge iron, but likes distilling lavender, by all means give it lavender to distil; only do not let its economists suppose that lavender is as profitable to it as oats, or that it helps poor people to live, any more than the schoolboy's kite provides him his dinner. Luxuries, whether national or personal, must be paid for by labour withdrawn from useful things; and no nation has a right to indulge in them until all its poor are comfortably housed and fed. [Note 18: I have given the political economist too much credit in saying this. Actually, while these sheets are passing through the press, the blunt, broad, unmitigated fallacy is enunciated, formally and precisely, by the common councilmen of New York, in their report on the present commercial crisis. Here is their collective opinion, published in the _Times_ of November 23rd, 1857:--"Another erroneous idea is that luxurious living, extravagant dressing, splendid turn-outs and fine houses, are the cause of distress to a nation. No more erroneous impression could exist. Every extravagance that the man of 100,000 or 1,000,000 dollars indulges in adds to the means, the support, the wealth of ten or a hundred who had little or nothing else but their labour, their intellect, or their taste. If a man of 1,000,000 dollars spends principal and interest in ten years, and finds himself beggared at the end of that time, he has actually made a hundred who have catered to his extravagance, employers or employed, so much richer by the division of his wealth. He may be ruined, but the nation is better off and richer, for one hundred minds and hands, with 10,000 dollars apiece, are far more productive than one with the whole." Yes, gentlemen of the common council; but what has been doing in the time of the transfer? The spending of the fortune has taken a certain number of years (suppose ten), and during that time 1,000,000 dollars' worth of work has been done by the people, who have been paid that sum for it. Where is the product of that work? By your own statements, wholly consumed; for the man for whom it has been done is now a beggar. You have given therefore, as a nation, 1,000,000 dollars' worth of work, and ten years of time, and you have produced, as ultimate result, one beggar. Excellent economy, gentlemen! and sure to conduce, in due sequence, to the production of _more_ than one beggar. Perhaps the matter may be made clearer to you, however, by a more familiar instance. If a schoolboy goes out in the morning with five shillings in his pocket, and comes home penniless, having spent his all in tarts, principal and interest are gone, and fruiterer and baker are enriched. So far so good. But suppose the schoolboy, instead, has bought a book and a knife; principal and interest are gone, and book-seller and cutler are enriched. But the schoolboy is enriched also, and may help his school-fellows next day with knife and book, instead of lying in bed and incurring a debt to the doctor.] 139. The enervating influence of luxury, and its tendencies to increase vice, are points which I keep entirely out of consideration in the present essay; but, so far as they bear on any question discussed, they merely furnish additional evidence on the side which I have taken. Thus, in the present case, I assume that the luxuries of civilized life are in possession harmless, and in acquirement serviceable as a motive for exertion; and even on those favourable terms, we arrive at the conclusion that the nation ought not to indulge in them except under severe limitations. Much less ought it to indulge in them if the temptation consequent on their possession, or fatality incident to their manufacture, more than counter-balances the good done by the effort to obtain them. * * * * * Note 6th, p. 74.--"_Economy of literature._" 140. I have been much impressed lately by one of the results of the quantity of our books; namely, the stern impossibility of getting anything understood, that required patience to understand. I observe always, in the case of my own writings, that if ever I state anything which has cost me any trouble to ascertain, and which, therefore, will probably require a minute or two of reflection from the reader before it can be accepted,--that statement will not only be misunderstood, but in all probability taken to mean something very nearly the reverse of what it does mean. Now, whatever faults there may be in my modes of expression, I know that the words I use will always be found, by Johnson's dictionary, to bear, first of all, the sense I use them in; and that the sentences, whether awkwardly turned or not, will, by the ordinary rules of grammar, bear no other interpretation than that I mean them to bear; so that the misunderstanding of them must result, ultimately, from the mere fact that their matter sometimes requires a little patience. And I see the same kind of misinterpretation put on the words of other writers, whenever they require the same kind of thought. 141. I was at first a little despondent about this; but, on the whole, I believe it will have a good effect upon our literature for some time to come; and then, perhaps, the public may recover its patience again. For certainly it is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else. And though I often hear moral people complaining of the bad effects of want of thought, for my part, it seems to me that one of the worst diseases to which the human creature is liable is its disease of thinking. If it would only just _look_[19] at a thing instead of thinking what it must be like, or _do_ a thing instead of thinking it cannot be done, we should all get on far better. [Note 19: There can be no question, however, of the mischievous tendency of the hurry of the present day, in the way people undertake this very _looking_. I gave three years' close and incessant labour to the examination of the chronology of the architecture of Venice; two long winters being wholly spent in the drawing of details on the spot; and yet I see constantly that architects who pass three or four days in a gondola going up and down the Grand Canal, think that their first impressions are just as likely to be true as my patiently wrought conclusions. Mr. Street, for instance, glances hastily at the façade of the Ducal Palace--so hastily that he does not even see what its pattern is, and misses the alternation of red and black in the centres of its squares--and yet he instantly ventures on an opinion on the chronology of its capitals, which is one of the most complicated and difficult subjects in the whole range of Gothic archæology. It may, nevertheless, be ascertained with very fair probability of correctness by any person who will give a month's hard work to it, but it can be ascertained no otherwise.] * * * * * Note 7th, p. 147.--"_Pilots of the State._" 142. While, however, undoubtedly, these responsibilities attach to every person possessed of wealth, it is necessary both to avoid any stringency of statement respecting the benevolent modes of spending money, and to admit and approve so much liberty of spending it for selfish pleasures as may distinctly make wealth a personal _reward_ for toil, and secure in the minds of all men the right of property. For although, without doubt, the purest pleasures it can procure are not selfish, it is only as a means of personal gratification that it will be desired by a large majority of workers; and it would be no less false ethics than false policy to check their energy by any forms of public opinion which bore hardly against the wanton expenditure of honestly got wealth. It would be hard if a man who has passed the greater part of his life at the desk or counter could not at last innocently gratify a caprice; and all the best and most sacred ends of almsgiving would be at once disappointed, if the idea of a moral claim took the place of affectionate gratitude in the mind of the receiver. 143. Some distinction is made by us naturally in this respect between earned and inherited wealth; that which is inherited appearing to involve the most definite responsibilities, especially when consisting in revenues derived from the soil. The form of taxation which constitutes rental of lands places annually a certain portion of the national wealth in the hands of the nobles, or other proprietors of the soil, under conditions peculiarly calculated to induce them to give their best care to its efficient administration. The want of instruction in even the simplest principles of commerce and economy, which hitherto has disgraced our schools and universities, has indeed been the cause of ruin or total inutility of life to multitudes of our men of estate; but this deficiency in our public education cannot exist much longer, and it appears to be highly advantageous for the State that a certain number of persons distinguished by race should be permitted to set examples of wise expenditure, whether in the advancement of science, or in patronage of art and literature; only they must see to it that they take their right standing more firmly than they have done hitherto, for the position of a rich man in relation to those around him is, in our present real life, and is also contemplated generally by political economists as being, precisely the reverse of what it ought to be. A rich man ought to be continually examining how he may spend his money for the advantage of others: at present, others are continually plotting how they may beguile him into spending it apparently for his own. The aspect which he presents to the eyes of the world is generally that of a person holding a bag of money with a staunch grasp, and resolved to part with none of it unless he is forced, and all the people about him are plotting how they may force him: that is to say, how they may persuade him that he wants this thing or that; or how they may produce things that he will covet and buy. One man tries to persuade him that he wants perfumes; another that he wants jewellery; another that he wants sugarplums; another that he wants roses at Christmas. Anybody who can invent a new want for him is supposed to be a benefactor to society: and thus the energies of the poorer people about him are continually directed to the production of covetable, instead of serviceable, things; and the rich man has the general aspect of a fool, plotted against by the world. Whereas the real aspect which he ought to have is that of a person wiser than others, entrusted with the management of a larger quantity of capital, which he administers for the profit of all, directing each man to the labour which is most healthy for him, and most serviceable for the community. * * * * * Note 8th, p. 148.--"_Silk and purple._" 144. In various places throughout these lectures I have had to allude to the distinction between productive and unproductive labour, and between true and false wealth. I shall here endeavour, as clearly as I can, to explain the distinction I mean. Property may be divided generally into two kinds; that which produces life, and that which produces the objects of life. That which produces or maintains life consists of food, in so far as it is nourishing; of furniture and clothing, in so far as they are protective or cherishing; of fuel; and of all land, instruments, or materials necessary to produce food, houses, clothes, and fuel. It is specially and rightly called useful property. The property which produces the objects of life consists of all that gives pleasure or suggests and preserves thought: of food, furniture, and land, in so far as they are pleasing to the appetite or the eye; of luxurious dress, and all other kinds of luxuries; of books, pictures, and architecture. But the modes of connection of certain minor forms of property with human labour render it desirable to arrange them under more than these two heads. Property may therefore be conveniently considered as of five kinds. 145. (1) Property necessary to life, but not producible by labour, and therefore belonging of right, in a due measure, to every human being as soon as he is born, and morally inalienable. As for instance, his proper share of the atmosphere, without which he cannot breathe, and of water, which he needs to quench his thirst. As much land as he needs to feed from is also inalienable; but in well-regulated communities this quantity of land may often be represented by other possessions, or its need supplied by wages and privileges. (2) Property necessary to life, but only producible by labour, and of which the possession is morally connected with labour, so that no person capable of doing the work necessary for its production has a right to it until he has done that work;--"he that will not work, neither should he eat." It consists of simple food, clothing, and habitation, with their seeds and materials, or instruments and machinery, and animals used for necessary draught or locomotion, etc. It is to be observed of this kind of property, that its increase cannot usually be carried beyond a certain point, because it depends not on labour only, but on things of which the supply is limited by nature. The possible accumulation of corn depends on the quantity of corn-growing land possessed or commercially accessible; and that of steel, similarly on the accessible quantity of coal and iron-stone. It follows from this natural limitation of supply that the accumulation of property of this kind in large masses at one point, or in one person's hands, commonly involves, more or less, the scarcity of it at another point and in other persons' hands; so that the accidents or energies which may enable one man to procure a great deal of it, may, and in all likelihood will, partially prevent other men procuring a sufficiency of it, however willing they may be to work for it; therefore, the modes of its accumulation and distribution need to be in some degree regulated by law and by national treaties, in order to secure justice to all men. Another point requiring notice respecting this sort of property is, that no work can be wasted in producing it, provided only the kind of it produced be preservable and distributable, since for every grain of such commodities we produce we are rendering so much more life possible on earth.[20] But though we are sure, thus, that we are employing people well, we cannot be sure we might not have employed them _better_; for it is possible to direct labour to the production of life, until little or none is left for that of the objects of life, and thus to increase population at the expense of civilization, learning, and morality: on the other hand, it is just as possible--and the error is one to which the world is, on the whole, more liable--to direct labour to the objects of life till too little is left for life, and thus to increase luxury or learning at the expense of population. Right political economy holds its aim poised justly between the two extremes, desiring neither to crowd its dominions with a race of savages, nor to found courts and colleges in the midst of a desert. [Note 20: This point has sometimes been disputed; for instance, opening Mill's 'Political Economy' the other day, I chanced on a passage in which he says that a man who makes a coat, if the person who wears the coat does nothing useful while he wears it, has done no more good to society than the man who has only raised a pineapple. But this is a fallacy induced by endeavour after too much subtlety. None of us have a right to say that the life of a man is of no use to _him_, though it may be of no use to _us_; and the man who made the coat, and thereby prolonged another man's life, has done a gracious and useful work, whatever may come of the life so prolonged. We may say to the wearer of the coat, "You who are wearing coats, and doing nothing in them, are at present wasting your own life and other people's;" but we have no right to say that his existence, however wasted, is wasted _away_. It may be just dragging itself on, in its thin golden line, with nothing dependent upon it, to the point where it is to strengthen into good chain cable, and have thousands of other lives dependent on it. Meantime, the simple fact respecting the coat-maker is, that he has given so much life to the creature, the results of which he cannot calculate; they may be--in all probability will be--infinite results in some way. But the raiser of pines, who has only given a pleasant taste in the mouth to some one, may see with tolerable clearness to the end of the taste in the mouth, and of all conceivable results therefrom.] 146. (3) The third kind of property is that which conduces to bodily pleasures and conveniences, without directly tending to sustain life; perhaps sometimes indirectly tending to destroy it. All dainty (as distinguished from nourishing) food, and means of producing it; all scents not needed for health; substances valued only for their appearance and rarity (as gold and jewels); flowers of difficult culture; animals used for delight (as horses for racing), and such like, form property of this class; to which the term 'luxury,' or 'luxuries,' ought exclusively to belong. Respecting which we have to note, first, that all such property is of doubtful advantage even to its possessor. Furniture tempting to indolence, sweet odours, and luscious food, are more or less injurious to health: while jewels, liveries, and other such common belongings of wealthy people, certainly convey no pleasure to their owners proportionate to their cost. Farther, such property, for the most part, perishes in the using. Jewels form a great exception--but rich food, fine dresses, horses and carriages, are consumed by the owner's use. It ought much oftener to be brought to the notice of rich men what sums of interest of money they are paying towards the close of their lives, for luxuries consumed in the middle of them. It would be very interesting, for instance, to know the exact sum which the money spent in London for ices, at its desserts and balls, during the last twenty years, had it been saved and put out at compound interest, would at this moment have furnished for useful purposes. Also, in most cases, the enjoyment of such property is wholly selfish, and limited to its possessor. Splendid dress and equipage, however, when so arranged as to produce real beauty of effect, may often be rather a generous than a selfish channel of expenditure. They will, however, necessarily in such cases involve some of the arts of design; and therefore take their place in a higher category than that of luxuries merely. 147. (4) The fourth kind of property is that which bestows intellectual or emotional pleasure, consisting of land set apart for purposes of delight more than for agriculture, of books, works of art, and objects of natural history. It is, of course, impossible to fix an accurate limit between property of the last class and of this class, since things which are a mere luxury to one person are a means of intellectual occupation to another. Flowers in a London ball-room are a luxury; in a botanical garden, a delight of the intellect; and in their native fields, both; while the most noble works of art are continually made material of vulgar luxury or of criminal pride; but, when rightly used, property of this fourth class is the only kind which deserves the name of _real_ property, it is the only kind which a man can truly be said to 'possess.' What a man eats, or drinks, or wears, so long as it is only what is needful for life, can no more be thought of as his possession than the air he breathes. The air is as needful to him as the food; but we do not talk of a man's wealth of air, and what food or clothing a man possesses more than he himself requires must be for others to use (and, to him, therefore, not a real property in itself, but only a means of obtaining some real property in exchange for it). Whereas the things that give intellectual or emotional enjoyment may be accumulated, and do not perish in using; but continually supply new pleasures and new powers of giving pleasures to others. And these, therefore, are the only things which can rightly be thought of as giving 'wealth' or 'well being.' Food conduces only to 'being,' but these to '_well_ being.' And there is not any broader general distinction between lower and higher orders of men than rests on their possession of this real property. The human race may be properly divided by zoologists into "men who have gardens, libraries, or works of art; and those who have none;" and the former class will include all noble persons, except only a few who make the world their garden or museum; while the people who have not, or, which is the same thing, do not care for gardens or libraries, but care for nothing but money or luxuries, will include none but ignoble persons: only it is necessary to understand that I mean by the term 'garden' as much the Carthusian's plot of ground fifteen feet square between his monastery buttresses, as I do the grounds of Chatsworth or Kew; and I mean by the term 'art' as much the old sailor's print of the _Arethusa_ bearing up to engage the _Belle Poule_, as I do Raphael's "Disputa," and even rather more; for when abundant, beautiful possessions of this kind are almost always associated with vulgar luxury, and become then anything but indicative of noble character in their possessors. The ideal of human life is a union of Spartan simplicity of manners with Athenian sensibility and imagination; but in actual results, we are continually mistaking ignorance for simplicity, and sensuality for refinement. 148. (5) The fifth kind of property is representative property, consisting of documents or money, or rather documents only--for money itself is only a transferable document, current among societies of men, giving claim, at sight, to some definite benefit or advantage, most commonly to a certain share of real property existing in those societies. The money is only genuine when the property it gives claim to is real, or the advantages it gives claim to certain; otherwise, it is false money, and may be considered as much 'forged' when issued by a government, or a bank, as when by an individual. Thus, if a dozen of men, cast ashore on a desert island, pick up a number of stones, put a red spot on each stone, and pass a law that every stone marked with a red spot shall give claim to a peck of wheat;--so long as no wheat exists, or can exist, on the island, the stones are not money. But the moment as much wheat exists as shall render it possible for the society always to give a peck for every spotted stone, the spotted stones would become money, and might be exchanged by their possessors for whatever other commodities they chose, to the value of the peck of wheat which the stones represented. If more stones were issued than the quantity of wheat could answer the demand of, the value of the stone coinage would be depreciated, in proportion to its increase above the quantity needed to answer it. 149. Again, supposing a certain number of the men so cast ashore were set aside by lot, or any other convention, to do the rougher labour necessary for the whole society, they themselves being maintained by the daily allotment of a certain quantity of food, clothing, etc. Then, if it were agreed that the stones spotted with red should be signs of a Government order for the labour of these men; and that any person presenting a spotted stone at the office of the labourers, should be entitled to a man's work for a week or a day, the red stones would be money; and might--probably would--immediately pass current in the island for as much food, or clothing, or iron, or any other article, as a man's work for the period secured by the stone was worth. But if the Government issued so many spotted stones that it was impossible for the body of men they employed to comply with the orders,--as, suppose, if they only employed twelve men, and issued eighteen spotted stones daily, ordering a day's work each,--then the six extra stones would be forged or false money; and the effect of this forgery would be the depreciation of the value of the whole coinage by one-third, that being the period of shortcoming which would, on the average, necessarily ensue in the execution of each order. Much occasional work may be done in a state or society, by help of an issue of false money (or false promises) by way of stimulants; and the fruit of this work, if it comes into the promiser's hands, may sometimes enable the false promises at last to be fulfilled: hence the frequent issue of false money by governments and banks, and the not unfrequent escapes from the natural and proper consequences of such false issues, so as to cause a confused conception in most people's minds of what money really is. I am not sure whether some quantity of such false issue may not really be permissible in a nation, accurately proportioned to the minimum average produce of the labour it excites; but all such procedures are more or less unsound; and the notion of unlimited issue of currency is simply one of the absurdest and most monstrous that ever came into disjointed human wits. 150. The use of objects of real or supposed value for currency, as gold, jewellery, etc., is barbarous; and it always expresses either the measure of the distrust in the society of its own government, or the proportion of distrustful or barbarous nations with whom it has to deal. A metal not easily corroded or imitated, it is a desirable medium of currency for the sake of cleanliness and convenience, but, were it possible to prevent forgery, the more worthless the metal itself, the better. The use of worthless media, unrestrained by the use of valuable media, has always hitherto involved, and is therefore supposed to involve necessarily, unlimited, or at least improperly extended, issue; but we might as well suppose that a man must necessarily issue unlimited promises because his words cost nothing. Intercourse with foreign nations must, indeed, for ages yet to come, at the world's present rate of progress, be carried on by valuable currencies; but such transactions are nothing more than forms of barter. The gold used at present as a currency is not, in point of fact, currency at all, but the real property[21] which the currency gives claim to, stamped to measure its quantity, and mingling with the real currency occasionally by barter. 151. The evils necessarily resulting from the use of baseless currencies have been terribly illustrated while these sheets have been passing through the press; I have not had time to examine the various conditions of dishonest or absurd trading which have led to the late 'panic' in America and England; this only I know, that no merchant deserving the name ought to be more liable to 'panic' than a soldier should; for his name should never be on more paper than he can at any instant meet the call of, happen what will. I do not say this without feeling at the same time how difficult it is to mark, in existing commerce, the just limits between the spirit of enterprise and of speculation. Something of the same temper which makes the English soldier do always all that is possible, and attempt more than is possible, joins its influence with that of mere avarice in tempting the English merchant into risks which he cannot justify, and efforts which he cannot sustain; and the same passion for adventure which our travellers gratify every summer on perilous snow wreaths, and cloud-encompassed precipices, surrounds with a romantic fascination the glittering of a hollow investment, and gilds the clouds that curl round gulfs of ruin. Nay, a higher and a more serious feeling frequently mingles in the motley temptation; and men apply themselves to the task of growing rich, as to a labour of providential appointment, from which they cannot pause without culpability, nor retire without dishonour. Our large trading cities bear to me very nearly the aspect of monastic establishments in which the roar of the mill-wheel and the crane takes the place of other devotional music; and in which the worship of Mammon or Moloch is conducted with a tender reverence and an exact propriety; the merchant rising to his Mammon matins with the self-denial of an anchorite, and expiating the frivolities into which he may be beguiled in the course of the day by late attendance at Mammon vespers. But, with every allowance that can be made for these conscientious and romantic persons, the fact remains the same, that by far the greater number of the transactions which lead to these times of commercial embarrassment may be ranged simply under two great heads--gambling and stealing; and both of these in their most culpable form, namely, gambling with money which is not ours, and stealing from those who trust us. I have sometimes thought a day might come, when the nation would perceive that a well-educated man who steals a hundred thousand pounds, involving the entire means of subsistence of a hundred families, deserves, on the whole, as severe a punishment as an ill-educated man who steals a purse from a pocket, or a mug from a pantry. [Note 21: Or rather, equivalent to such real property, because everybody has been accustomed to look upon it as valuable; and therefore everybody is willing to give labour or goods for it. But real property does ultimately consist only in things that nourish body or mind; gold would be useless to us if we could not get mutton or books for it. Ultimately all commercial mistakes and embarrassments result from people expecting to get goods without working for them, or wasting them after they have got them. A nation which labours, and takes care of the fruits of labour, would be rich and happy though there were no gold in the universe. A nation which is idle, and wastes the produce of what work it does, would be poor and miserable, though all its mountains were of gold, and had glens filled with diamond instead of glacier.] 152. But without hoping for this excess of clear-sightedness, we may at least labour for a system of greater honesty and kindness in the minor commerce of our daily life; since the great dishonesty of the great buyers and sellers is nothing more than the natural growth and outcome from the little dishonesty of the little buyers and sellers. Every person who tries to buy an article for less than its proper value, or who tries to sell it at more than its proper value--every consumer who keeps a tradesman waiting for his money, and every tradesman who bribes a consumer to extravagance by credit, is helping forward, according to his own measure of power, a system of baseless and dishonourable commerce, and forcing his country down into poverty and shame. And people of moderate means and average powers of mind would do far more real good by merely carrying out stern principles of justice and honesty in common matters of trade, than by the most ingenious schemes of extended philanthropy, or vociferous declarations of theological doctrine. There are three weighty matters of the law--justice, mercy, and truth; and of these the Teacher puts truth last, because that cannot be known but by a course of acts of justice and love. But men put, in all their efforts, truth first, because they mean by it their own opinions; and thus, while the world has many people who would suffer martyrdom in the cause of what they call truth, it has few who will suffer even a little inconvenience, in that of justice and mercy. SUPPLEMENTARY ADDITIONAL PAPERS. EDUCATION IN ART. ART SCHOOL NOTES. SOCIAL POLICY. EDUCATION IN ART. (_Read for the author before the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science in the autumn of 1858; and printed in the Transactions of the Society for that year, pp. 311-16._) 153. I will not attempt in this paper to enter into any general consideration of the possible influence of art on the masses of the people. The inquiry is one of great complexity, involved with that into the uses and dangers of luxury; nor have we as yet data enough to justify us in conjecturing how far the practice of art may be compatible with rude or mechanical employments. But the question, however difficult, lies in the same light as that of the uses of reading or writing; for drawing, so far as it is possible to the multitude, is mainly to be considered as a means of obtaining and communicating knowledge. He who can accurately represent the form of an object, and match its colour, has unquestionably a power of notation and description greater in most instances than that of words; and this science of notation ought to be simply regarded as that which is concerned with the record of form, just as arithmetic is concerned with the record of number. Of course abuses and dangers attend the acquirement of every power. We have all of us probably known persons who, without being able to read or write, discharged the important duties of life wisely and faithfully; as we have also without doubt known others able to read and write whose reading did little good to themselves and whose writing little good to any one else. But we do not therefore doubt the expediency of acquiring those arts, neither ought we to doubt the expediency of acquiring the art of drawing, if we admit that it may indeed become practically useful. 154. Nor should we long hesitate in admitting this, it we were not in the habit of considering instruction in the arts chiefly as a means of promoting what we call "taste" or dilettanteism, and other habits of mind which in their more modern developments in Europe have certainly not been advantageous to nations, or indicative of worthiness in them. Nevertheless, true taste, or the instantaneous preference of the noble thing to the ignoble, is a necessary accompaniment of high worthiness in nations or men; only it is not to be acquired by seeking it as our chief object, since the first question, alike for man and for multitude, is not at all what they are to like, but what they are to do; and fortunately so, since true taste, so far as it depends on original instinct, is not equally communicable to all men; and, so far as it depends on extended comparison, is unattainable by men employed in narrow fields of life. We shall not succeed in making a peasant's opinion good evidence on the merits of the Elgin and Lycian marbles; nor is it necessary to dictate to him in his garden the preference of gillyflower or of rose; yet I believe we may make art a means of giving him helpful and happy pleasure, and of gaining for him serviceable knowledge. 155. Thus, in our simplest codes of school instruction, I hope some day to see local natural history assume a principal place, so that our peasant children may be taught the nature and uses of the herbs that grow in their meadows, and may take interest in observing and cherishing, rather than in hunting or killing, the harmless animals of their country. Supposing it determined that this local natural history should be taught, drawing ought to be used to fix the attention, and test, while it aided, the memory. "Draw such and such a flower in outline, with its bell towards you. Draw it with its side towards you. Paint the spots upon it. Draw a duck's head--her foot. Now a robin's--a thrush's--now the spots upon the thrush's breast." These are the kinds of tasks which it seems to me should be set to the young peasant student. Surely the occupation would no more be thought contemptible which was thus subservient to knowledge and to compassion; and perhaps we should find in process of time that the Italian connexion of art with _diletto_, or delight, was both consistent with, and even mainly consequent upon, a pure Greek connexion of art with _arete_, or virtue. 156. It may perhaps be thought that the power of representing in any sufficient manner natural objects such as those above instanced would be of too difficult attainment to be aimed at in elementary instruction. But I have had practical proof that it is not so. From workmen who had little time to spare, and that only after they were jaded by the day's labour, I have obtained, in the course of three or four months from their first taking a pencil in hand, perfectly useful, and in many respects admirable, drawings of natural objects. It is, however, necessary, in order to secure this result, that the student's aim should be absolutely restricted to the representation of visible fact. All more varied or elevated practice must be deferred until the powers of true sight and just representation are acquired in simplicity; nor, in the case of children belonging to the lower classes, does it seem to me often advisable to aim at anything more. At all events, their drawing lessons should be made as recreative as possible. Undergoing due discipline of hard labour in other directions, such children should be painlessly initiated into employments calculated for the relief of toil. It is of little consequence that they should know the principles of art, but of much that their attention should be pleasurably excited. In our higher public schools, on the contrary, drawing should be taught rightly; that is to say, with due succession and security of preliminary steps,--it being here of little consequence whether the student attains great or little skill, but of much that he should perceive distinctly what degree of skill he has attained, reverence that which surpasses it, and know the principles of right in what he has been able to accomplish. It is impossible to make every boy an artist or a connoisseur, but quite possible to make him understand the meaning of art in its rudiments, and to make him modest enough to forbear expressing, in after life, judgments which he has not knowledge enough to render just. 157. There is, however, at present this great difficulty in the way of such systematic teaching--that the public do not believe the principles of art are determinable, and, in no wise, matters of opinion. They do not believe that good drawing is good, and bad drawing bad, whatever any number of persons may think or declare to the contrary--that there is a right or best way of laying colours to produce a given effect, just as there is a right or best way of dyeing cloth of a given colour, and that Titian and Veronese are not merely accidentally admirable but eternally right. 158. The public, of course, cannot be convinced of this unity and stability of principle until clear assertion of it is made to them by painters whom they respect; and the painters whom they respect are generally too modest, and sometimes too proud, to make it. I believe the chief reason for their not having yet declared at least the fundamental laws of labour as connected with art-study is a kind of feeling on their part that "_cela va sans dire_." Every great painter knows so well the necessity of hard and systematized work, in order to attain even the lower degrees of skill, that he naturally supposes if people use no diligence in drawing, they do not care to acquire the power of it, and that the toil involved in wholesome study being greater than the mass of people have ever given, is also greater than they would ever be willing to give. Feeling, also, as any real painter feels, that his own excellence is a gift, no less than the reward of toil, perhaps slightly disliking to confess the labour it has cost him to perfect it, and wholly despairing of doing any good by the confession, he contemptuously leaves the drawing-master to do the best he can in his twelve lessons, and with courteous unkindness permits the young women of England to remain under the impression that they can learn to draw with less pains than they can learn to dance. I have had practical experience enough, however, to convince me that this treatment of the amateur student is unjust. Young girls will work with steadiest perseverance when once they understand the need of labour, and are convinced that drawing is a kind of language which may for ordinary purposes be learned as easily as French or German; this language, also, having its grammar and its pronunciation, to be conquered or acquired only by persistence in irksome exercise--an error in a form being as entirely and simply an error as a mistake in a tense, and an ill-drawn line as reprehensible as a vulgar accent. 159. And I attach great importance to the sound education of our younger females in art, thinking that in England the nursery and the drawing-room are perhaps the most influential of academies. We address ourselves in vain to the education of the artist while the demand for his work is uncertain or unintelligent; nor can art be considered as having any serious influence on a nation while gilded papers form the principal splendour of the reception room, and ill-wrought though costly trinkets the principal entertainment of the boudoir. It is surely, therefore, to be regretted that the art-education of our Government schools is addressed so definitely to the guidance of the artizan, and is therefore so little acknowledged hitherto by the general public, especially by its upper classes. I have not acquaintance enough with the practical working of that system to venture any expression of opinion respecting its general expediency; but it is my conviction that, so far as references are involved in it to the designing of patterns capable of being produced by machinery, such references must materially diminish its utility considered as a general system of instruction. 160. We are still, therefore, driven to the same point,--the need of an authoritative recommendation of some method of study to the public; a method determined upon by the concurrence of some of our best painters, and avowedly sanctioned by them, so as to leave no room for hesitation in its acceptance. Nor need it be thought that, because the ultimate methods of work employed by painters vary according to the particular effects produced by each, there would be any difficulty in obtaining their collective assent to a system of elementary precept. The facts of which it is necessary that the student should be assured in his early efforts, are so simple, so few, and so well known to all able draughtsmen that, as I have just said, it would be rather doubt of the need of stating what seemed to them self-evident, than reluctance to speak authoritatively on points capable of dispute, that would stand in the way of their giving form to a code of general instruction. To take merely two instances: It will perhaps appear hardly credible that among amateur students, however far advanced in more showy accomplishments, there will not be found one in a hundred who can make an accurate drawing to scale. It is much if they can copy anything with approximate fidelity of its real size. Now, the inaccuracy of eye which prevents a student from drawing to scale is in fact nothing else than an entire want of appreciation of proportion, and therefore of composition. He who alters the relations of dimensions to each other in his copy, shows that he does not enjoy those relations in the original--that is to say, that all appreciation of noble design (which is based on the most exquisite relations of magnitude) is impossible to him. To give him habits of mathematical accuracy in transference of the outline of complex form, is therefore among the first, and even among the most important, means of educating his taste. A student who can fix with precision the cardinal points of a bird's wing, extended in any fixed position, and can then draw the curves of its individual plumes without measurable error, has advanced further towards a power of understanding the design of the great masters than he could by reading many volumes of criticism, or passing many months in undisciplined examination of works of art. 161. Again, it will be found that among amateur students there is almost universal deficiency in the power of expressing the roundness of a surface. They frequently draw with considerable dexterity and vigour, but never attain the slightest sense of those modulations in form which can only be expressed by gradations in shade. They leave sharp edges to their blots of colour, sharp angles in their contours of lines, and conceal from themselves their incapacity of completion by redundance of object. The assurance to such persons that no object could be rightly seen or drawn until the draughtsman had acquired the power of modulating surfaces by gradations wrought with some pointed instrument (whether pen, pencil, or chalk), would at once prevent much vain labour, and put an end to many errors of that worst kind which not only retard the student, but blind him; which prevent him from either attaining excellence himself, or understanding it in others. 162. It would be easy, did time admit it, to give instances of other principles which it is equally essential that the student should know, and certain that all painters of eminence would sanction; while even those respecting which some doubt may exist in their application to consummate practice, are yet perfectly determinable, so far as they are needed to guide a beginner. It may, for instance, be a question how far local colour should be treated as an element of chiaroscuro in a master's drawing of the human form. But there can be no question that it must be so treated in a boy's study of a tulip or a trout. 163. A still more important point would be gained if authoritative testimony of the same kind could be given to the merit and exclusive sufficiency of any series of examples of works of art, such as could at once be put within the reach of masters of schools. For the modern student labours under heavy disadvantages in what at first sight might appear an assistance to him, namely, the number of examples of many different styles which surround him in galleries or museums. His mind is disturbed by the inconsistencies of various excellences, and by his own predilection for false beauties in second or third-rate works. He is thus prevented from observing any one example long enough to understand its merit, or following any one method long enough to obtain facility in its practice. It seems, therefore, very desirable that some such standard of art should be fixed for all our schools,--a standard which, it must be remembered, need not necessarily be the highest possible, provided only it is the rightest possible. It is not to be hoped that the student should imitate works of the most exalted merit, but much to be desired that he should be guided by those which have fewest faults. 164. Perhaps, therefore, the most serviceable examples which could be set before youth might be found in the studies or drawings, rather than in the pictures, of first-rate masters; and the art of photography enables us to put renderings of such studies, which for most practical purposes are as good as the originals, on the walls of every school in the kingdom. Supposing (I merely name these as examples of what I mean), the standard of manner in light-and-shade drawing fixed by Leonardo's study, No. 19, in the collection of photographs lately published from drawings in the Florence Gallery; the standard of pen drawing with a wash, fixed by Titian's sketch, No. 30 in the same collection; that of etching, fixed by Rembrandt's spotted shell; and that of point work with the pure line, by Dürer's crest with the cock; every effort of the pupil, whatever the instrument in his hand, would infallibly tend in a right direction, and the perception of the merits of these four works, or of any others like them, once attained thoroughly, by efforts, however distant or despairing, to copy portions of them, would lead securely in due time to the appreciation of other modes of excellence. 165. I cannot, of course, within the limits of this paper, proceed to any statement of the present requirements of the English operative as regards art education. But I do not regret this, for it seems to me very desirable that our attention should for the present be concentrated on the more immediate object of general instruction. Whatever the public demand the artist will soon produce; and the best education which the operative can receive is the refusal of bad work and the acknowledgment of good. There is no want of genius among us, still less of industry. The least that we do is laborious, and the worst is wonderful. But there is a want among us, deep and wide, of discretion in directing toil, and of delight in being led by imagination. In past time, though the masses of the nation were less informed than they are now, they were for that very reason simpler judges and happier gazers; it must be ours to substitute the gracious sympathy of the understanding for the bright gratitude of innocence. An artist can always paint well for those who are lightly pleased or wisely displeased, but he cannot paint for those who are dull in applause and false in condemnation. REMARKS ADDRESSED TO THE MANSFIELD ART NIGHT CLASS _Oct. 14th, 1873._[22] 166. It is to be remembered that the giving of prizes can only be justified on the ground of their being the reward of superior diligence and more obedient attention to the directions of the teacher. They must never be supposed, because practically they never can become, indications of superior genius; unless in so far as genius is likely to be diligent and obedient, beyond the strength and temper of the dull. [Note 22: This address was written for the Art Night Class, Mansfield, but not delivered by me. In my absence--I forget from what cause, but inevitable--the Duke of St. Albans honoured me by reading it to the meeting.] But it so frequently happens that the stimulus of vanity, acting on minds of inferior calibre, produces for a time an industry surpassing the tranquil and self-possessed exertion of real power, that it may be questioned whether the custom of bestowing prizes at all may not ultimately cease in our higher Schools of Art, unless in the form of substantial assistance given to deserving students who stand in need of it: a kind of prize, the claim to which, in its nature, would depend more on accidental circumstances, and generally good conduct, than on genius. 167. But, without any reference to the opinion of others, and without any chance of partiality in your own, there is one test by which you can all determine the rate of your real progress. Examine, after every period of renewed industry, how far you have enlarged your faculty of _admiration_. Consider how much more you can see, to reverence, in the work of masters; and how much more to love, in the work of nature. This is the only constant and infallible test of progress. That you wonder more at the work of great men, and that you care more for natural objects. You have often been told by your teachers to expect this last result: but I fear that the tendency of modern thought is to reject the idea of that essential difference in rank between one intellect and another, of which increasing reverence is the wise acknowledgment. You may, at least in early years, test accurately your power of doing anything in the least rightly, by your increasing conviction that you never will be able to do it as well as it has been done by others. 168. That is a lesson, I repeat, which differs much, I fear, from the one you are commonly taught. The vulgar and incomparably false saying of Macaulay's, that the intellectual giants of one age become the intellectual pigmies of the next, has been the text of too many sermons lately preached to you. You think you are going to do better things--each of you--than Titian and Phidias--write better than Virgil--think more wisely than Solomon. My good young people, this is the foolishest, quite pre-eminently--perhaps almost the harmfullest--notion that could possibly be put into your empty little eggshells of heads. There is not one in a million of you who can ever be great in _any_ thing. To be greater than the greatest that _have_ been, is permitted perhaps to one man in Europe in the course of two or three centuries. But because you cannot be Handel and Mozart--is it any reason why you should not learn to sing "God save the Queen" properly, when you have a mind to? Because a girl cannot be prima donna in the Italian Opera, is it any reason that she should not learn to play a jig for her brothers and sisters in good time, or a soft little tune for her tired mother, or that she should not sing to please herself, among the dew, on a May morning? Believe me, joy, humility, and usefulness, always go together: as insolence with misery, and these both with destructiveness. You may learn with proud teachers how to throw down the Vendôme Column, and burn the Louvre, but never how to lay so much as one touch of safe colour, or one layer of steady stone: and if indeed there be among you a youth of true genius, be assured that he will distinguish himself first, not by petulance or by disdain, but by discerning firmly what to admire, and whom to obey. 169. It will, I hope, be the result of the interest lately awakened in art through our provinces, to enable each town of importance to obtain, in permanent possession, a few--and it is desirable there should be no more than a few--examples of consummate and masterful art: an engraving or two by Dürer--a single portrait by Reynolds--a fifteenth century Florentine drawing--a thirteenth century French piece of painted glass, and the like; and that, in every town occupied in a given manufacture, examples of unquestionable excellence in that manufacture should be made easily accessible in its civic museum. I must ask you, however, to observe very carefully that I use the word _manufacture_ in its literal and proper sense. It means the making of things _by the hand_. It does not mean the making them by machinery. And, while I plead with you for a true humility in rivalship with the works of others, I plead with you also for a just pride in what you really can honestly do yourself. You must neither think your work the best ever done by man:--nor, on the other hand, think that the tongs and poker can do better--and that, although you are wiser than Solomon, all this wisdom of yours can be outshone by a shovelful of coke. 170. Let me take, for instance, the manufacture of lace, for which, I believe, your neighbouring town of Nottingham enjoys renown. There is still some distinction between machine-made and hand-made lace. I will suppose that distinction so far done away with, that, a pattern once invented, you can spin lace as fast as you now do thread. Everybody then might wear, not only lace collars, but lace gowns. Do you think they would be more comfortable in them than they are now in plain stuff--or that, when everybody could wear them, anybody would be proud of wearing them? A spider may perhaps be rationally proud of his own cobweb, even though all the fields in the morning are covered with the like, for he made it himself--but suppose a machine spun it for him? Suppose all the gossamer were Nottingham-made, would a sensible spider be either prouder, or happier, think you? A sensible spider! You cannot perhaps imagine such a creature. Yet surely a spider is clever enough for his own ends? You think him an insensible spider, only because he cannot understand yours--and is apt to impede yours. Well, be assured of this, sense in human creatures is shown also, not by cleverness in promoting their own ends and interests, but by quickness in understanding other people's ends and interests, and by putting our own work and keeping our own wishes in harmony with theirs. 171. But I return to my point, of cheapness. You don't think that it would be convenient, or even creditable, for women to wash the doorsteps or dish the dinners in lace gowns? Nay, even for the most ladylike occupations--reading, or writing, or playing with her children--do you think a lace gown, or even a lace collar, so great an advantage or dignity to a woman? If you think of it, you will find the whole value of lace, as a possession, depends on the fact of its having a beauty which has been the reward of industry and attention. That the thing itself is a prize--a thing which everybody cannot have. That it proves, by the _look_ of it, the _ability_ of its _maker_; that it proves, by the _rarity_ of it, the _dignity_ of its _wearer_--either that she has been so industrious as to save money, which can buy, say, a piece of jewellery, of gold tissue, or of fine lace--or else, that she is a noble person, to whom her neighbours concede, as an honour, the privilege of wearing finer dresses than they. If they all choose to have lace too--if it ceases to be a prize--it becomes, does it not, only a cobweb? The real good of a piece of lace, then, you will find, is that it should show, first, that the designer of it had a pretty fancy; next, that the maker of it had fine fingers; lastly, that the wearer of it has worthiness or dignity enough to obtain what is difficult to obtain, and common sense enough not to wear it on all occasions. I limit myself, in what farther I have to say, to the question of the manufacture--nay, of one requisite in the manufacture: that which I have just called a pretty fancy. 172. What do you suppose I mean by a pretty fancy? Do you think that, by learning to draw, and looking at flowers, you will ever get the ability to design a piece of lace beautifully? By no means. If that were so, everybody would soon learn to draw--everybody would design lace prettily--and then,--nobody would be paid for designing it. To some extent, that will indeed be the result of modern endeavour to teach design. But against all such endeavours, mother-wit, in the end, will hold her own. But anybody who _has_ this mother-wit, may make the exercise of it more pleasant to themselves, and more useful to other people, by learning to draw. An Indian worker in gold, or a Scandinavian worker in iron, or an old French worker in thread, could produce indeed beautiful design out of nothing but groups of knots and spirals: but you, when you are rightly educated, may render your knots and spirals infinitely more interesting by making them suggestive of natural forms, and rich in elements of true knowledge. 173. You know, for instance, the pattern which for centuries has been the basis of ornament in Indian shawls--the bulging leaf ending in a spiral. The Indian produces beautiful designs with nothing but that spiral. You cannot better his powers of design, but you may make them more civil and useful by adding knowledge of nature to invention. Suppose you learn to draw rightly, and, therefore, to know correctly the spirals of springing ferns--not that you may give ugly names to all the species of them--but that you may understand the grace and vitality of every hour of their existence. Suppose you have sense and cleverness enough to translate the essential character of this beauty into forms expressible by simple lines--therefore expressible by thread--you might then have a series of fern-patterns which would each contain points of distinctive interest and beauty, and of scientific truth, and yet be variable by fancy, with quite as much ease as the meaningless Indian one. Similarly, there is no form of leaf, of flower, or of insect, which might not become suggestive to you, and expressible in terms of manufacture, so as to be interesting, and useful to others. 174. Only don't think that this kind of study will ever "pay" in the vulgar sense. It will make you wiser and happier. But do you suppose that it is the law of God, or nature, that people shall be paid in money for becoming wiser and happier? They are so, by that law, for honest work; and as all honest work makes people wiser and happier, they are indeed, in some sort, paid in money for becoming wise. But if you seek wisdom only that you may get money, believe me, you are exactly on the foolishest of all fools' errands. "She is more precious than rubies"--but do you think that is only because she will help you to buy rubies? "All the things thou canst desire are not to be compared to her." Do you think that is only because she will enable you to get all the things you desire? She is offered to you as a blessing _in herself_. She is the reward of kindness, of modesty, of industry. She is the prize of Prizes--and alike in poverty or in riches--the strength of your Life now, the earnest of whatever Life is to come. SOCIAL POLICY BASED ON NATURAL SELECTION. _Paper read before the Metaphysical Society, May 11th, 1875._[23] 175. It has always seemed to me that Societies like this of ours, happy in including members not a little diverse in thought and various in knowledge, might be more useful to the public than perhaps they can fairly be said to have approved themselves hitherto, by using their variety of power rather to support intellectual conclusions by concentric props, than to shake them with rotatory storms of wit; and modestly endeavouring to initiate the building of walls for the Bridal city of Science, in which no man will care to identify the particular stones he lays, rather than complying farther with the existing picturesque, but wasteful, practice of every knight to throw up a feudal tower of his own opinions, tenable only by the most active pugnacity, and pierced rather with arrow-slits from which to annoy his neighbours, than windows to admit light or air. [Note 23: I trust that the Society will not consider its privileges violated by the publication of an essay, which, for such audience, I wrote with more than ordinary care.] 176. The paper read at our last meeting was unquestionably, within the limits its writer had prescribed to himself, so logically sound, that (encouraged also by the suggestion of some of our most influential members), I shall endeavour to make the matter of our to-night's debate consequent upon it, and suggestive of possibly further advantageous deductions. It will be remembered that, in reference to the statement in the Bishop of Peterborough's Paper, of the moral indifference of certain courses of conduct on the postulate of the existence only of a Mechanical base of Morals, it was observed by Dr. Adam Clarke that, even on such mechanical basis, the word "moral" might still be applied specially to any course of action which tended to the development of the human race. Whereupon I ventured myself to inquire, in what direction such development was to be understood as taking place; and the discussion of this point being then dropped for want of time, I would ask the Society's permission to bring it again before them this evening in a somewhat more extended form; for in reality the question respecting the development of men is twofold,--first, namely, in what direction; and secondly, in what social relations, it is to be sought. I would therefore at present ask more deliberately than I could at our last meeting,--first, in what direction it is desirable that the development of humanity should take place? Should it, for instance, as in Greece, be of physical beauty,--emulation, (Hesiod's second Eris),--pugnacity, and patriotism? or, as in modern England, of physical ugliness,--envy, (Hesiod's first Eris),--cowardice, and selfishness? or, as by a conceivably humane but hitherto unexampled education might be attempted, of physical beauty, humility, courage, and affection, which should make all the world one native land, and [Greek: pasa gê taphos]? 177. I do not doubt but that the first automatic impulse of all our automatic friends here present, on hearing this sentence, will be strenuously to deny the accuracy of my definition of the aims of modern English education. Without attempting to defend it, I would only observe that this automatic development of solar caloric in scientific minds must be grounded on an automatic sensation of injustice done to the members of the School Board, as well as to many other automatically well-meaning and ingenious persons; and that this sense of the injuriousness and offensiveness of my definition cannot possibly have any other basis (if I may be permitted to continue my professional similitudes) than the fallen remnants and goodly stones, not one now left on another, but still forming an unremovable cumulus of ruin, and eternal Birs Nimroud, as it were, on the site of the old belfry of Christian morality, whose top looked once so like touching Heaven. For no offence could be taken at my definition, unless traceable to adamantine conviction,--that ugliness, however indefinable, envy, however natural, and cowardice, however commercially profitable, are nevertheless eternally disgraceful; contrary, that is to say, to the grace of our Lord Christ, if there be among us any Christ; to the grace of the King's Majesty, if there be among us any King; and to the grace even of Christless and Kingless Manhood, if there be among us any Manhood. To this fixed conception of a difference between Better and Worse, or, when carried to the extreme, between good and evil in conduct, we all, it seems to me, instinctively and, therefore, rightly, attach the term of Moral sense;--the sense, for instance, that it would be better if the members of this Society who are usually automatically absent were, instead, automatically present; or better, that this Paper, if (which is, perhaps, too likely) it be thought automatically impertinent, had been made by the molecular action of my cerebral particles, pertinent. 178. Trusting, therefore, without more ado, to the strength of rampart in this Old Sarum of the Moral sense, however subdued into vague banks under the modern steam-plough, I will venture to suppose the first of my two questions to have been answered by the choice on the part at least of a majority of our Council, of the third direction of development above specified as being the properly called "moral" one; and will go on to the second subject of inquiry, both more difficult and of great practical importance in the political crisis through which Europe is passing,--namely, what relations between men are to be desired, or with resignation allowed, in the course of their Moral Development? Whether, that is to say, we should try to make some men beautiful at the cost of ugliness in others, and some men virtuous at the cost of vice in others,--or rather, all men beautiful and virtuous in the degree possible to each under a system of equitable education? And evidently our first business is to consider in what terms the choice is put to us by Nature. What can we do, if we would? What must we do, whether we will or not? How high can we raise the level of a diffused Learning and Morality? and how far shall we be compelled, if we limit, to exaggerate, the advantages and injuries of our system? And are we prepared, if the extremity be inevitable, to push to their utmost the relations implied when we take off our hats to each other, and triple the tiara of the Saint in Heaven, while we leave the sinner bareheaded in Cocytus? 179. It is well, perhaps, that I should at once confess myself to hold the principle of limitation in its utmost extent; and to entertain no doubt of the rightness of my ideal, but only of its feasibility. I am ill at ease, for instance, in my uncertainty whether our greatly regretted Chairman will ever be Pope, or whether some people whom I could mention, (not, of course, members of our Society,) will ever be in Cocytus. But there is no need, if we would be candid, to debate the principle in these violences of operation, any more than the proper methods of distributing food, on the supposition that the difference between a Paris dinner and a platter of Scotch porridge must imply that one-half of mankind are to die of eating, and the rest of having nothing to eat. I will therefore take for example a case in which the discrimination is less conclusive. 180. When I stop writing metaphysics this morning it will be to arrange some drawings for a young lady to copy. They are leaves of the best illuminated MSS. I have, and I am going to spend my whole afternoon in explaining to her what she is to aim at in copying them. Now, I would not lend these leaves to any other young lady that I know of; nor give up my afternoon to, perhaps, more than two or three other young ladies that I know of. But to keep to the first-instanced one, I lend her my books, and give her, for what they are worth, my time and most careful teaching, because she at present paints butterflies better than any other girl I know, and has a peculiar capacity for the softening of plumes and finessing of antennæ. Grant me to be a good teacher, and grant her disposition to be such as I suppose, and the result will be what might at first appear an indefensible iniquity, namely, that this girl, who has already excellent gifts, having also excellent teaching, will become perhaps the best butterfly-painter in England; while myriads of other girls, having originally inferior powers, and attracting no attention from the Slade Professor, will utterly lose their at present cultivable faculties of entomological art, and sink into the vulgar career of wives and mothers, to which we have Mr. Mill's authority for holding it a grievous injustice that any girl should be irrevocably condemned. 181. There is no need that I should be careful in enumerating the various modes, analogous to this, in which the Natural selection of which we have lately heard, perhaps, somewhat more than enough, provokes and approves the Professorial selection which I am so bold as to defend; and if the automatic instincts of equity in us, which revolt against the great ordinance of Nature and practice of Man, that "to him that hath, shall more be given," are to be listened to when the possessions in question are only of wisdom and virtue, let them at least prove their sincerity by correcting, first, the injustice which has established itself respecting more tangible and more esteemed property; and terminating the singular arrangement prevalent in commercial Europe that to every man with a hundred pounds in his pocket there shall annually be given three, to every man with a thousand, thirty, and to every man with nothing, none. 182. I am content here to leave under the scrutiny of the evening my general statement, that as human development, when moral, is with special effort in a given direction, so, when moral, it is with special effort in favour of a limited class; but I yet trespass for a few moments on your patience in order to note that the acceptance of this second principle still leaves it debatable to what point the disfavour of the reprobate class, or the privileges of the elect, may advisably extend. For I cannot but feel for my own part as if the daily bread of moral instruction might at least be so widely broken among the multitude as to preserve them from utter destitution and pauperism in virtue; and that even the simplest and lowest of the rabble should not be so absolutely sons of perdition, but that each might say for himself,--"For my part--no offence to the General, or any man of quality--I hope to be saved." Whereas it is, on the contrary, implied by the habitual expressions of the wisest aristocrats, that the completely developed persons whose Justice and Fortitude--poles to the Cardinal points of virtue--are marked as their sufficient characteristics by the great Roman moralist in his phrase, "Justus, et tenax propositi," will in the course of nature be opposed by a civic ardour, not merely of the innocent and ignorant, but of persons developed in a contrary direction to that which I have ventured to call "moral," and therefore not merely incapable of desiring or applauding what is right, but in an evil harmony, _prava jubentium_, clamorously demanding what is wrong. 183. The point to which both Natural and Divine Selection would permit us to advance in severity towards this profane class, to which the enduring "Ecce Homo," or manifestation of any properly human sentiment or person, must always be instinctively abominable, seems to be conclusively indicated by the order following on the parable of the Talents,--"Those mine enemies, bring hither, and slay them before me." Nor does it seem reasonable, on the other hand, to set the limits of favouritism more narrowly. For even if, among fallible mortals, there may frequently be ground for the hesitation of just men to award the punishment of death to their enemies, the most beautiful story, to my present knowledge, of all antiquity, that of Cleobis and Bito, might suggest to them the fitness on some occasions, of distributing without any hesitation the reward of death to their friends. For surely the logical conclusion of the Bishop of Peterborough, respecting the treatment due to old women who have nothing supernatural about them, holds with still greater force when applied to the case of old women who have everything supernatural about them; and while it might remain questionable to some of us whether we had any right to deprive an invalid who had no soul, of what might still remain to her of even painful earthly existence; it would surely on the most religious grounds be both our privilege and our duty at once to dismiss any troublesome sufferer who _had_ a soul, to the distant and inoffensive felicities of heaven. 184. But I believe my hearers will approve me in again declining to disturb the serene confidence of daily action by these speculations in extreme; the really useful conclusion which, it seems to me, cannot be evaded, is that, without going so far as the exile of the inconveniently wicked, and translation of the inconveniently sick, to their proper spiritual mansions, we should at least be certain that we do not waste care in protracting disease which might have been spent in preserving health; that we do not appease in the splendour of our turreted hospitals the feelings of compassion which, rightly directed, might have prevented the need of them; nor pride ourselves on the peculiar form of Christian benevolence which leaves the cottage roofless to model the prison, and spends itself with zealous preference where, in the keen words of Carlyle, if you desire the material on which maximum expenditure of means and effort will produce the minimum result, "here you accurately have it." 185. I cannot but, in conclusion, most respectfully but most earnestly, express my hope that measures may be soon taken by the Lords Spiritual of England to assure her doubting mind of the real existence of that supernatural revelation of the basis of morals to which the Bishop of Peterborough referred in the close of his paper; or at least to explain to her bewildered populace the real meaning and force of the Ten Commandments, whether written originally by the finger of God or Man. To me personally, I own, as one of that bewildered populace, that the essay by one of our most distinguished members on the Creed of Christendom seems to stand in need of explicit answer from our Divines; but if not, and the common application of the terms "Word of God" to the books of Scripture be against all question tenable, it becomes yet more imperative on the interpreters of that Scripture to see that they are not made void by our traditions, and that the Mortal sins of Covetousness, Fraud, Usury, and contention be not the essence of a National life orally professing submission to the laws of Christ, and satisfaction in His Love. J. RUSKIN. "Thou shalt not covet; but tradition Approves all forms of Competition." ARTHUR CLOUGH. INDEX. [Transcriber's note: entries here of page numbers followed by _n._ should indicate that references will be found in a note on that page number. However, most of these references to notes on particular pages are inaccurate. The direct page number links, however, are accurate.] (_The references are made to the numbered paragraphs, not to the pages, and are thus applicable to every edition of the book since that of 1880._) Accumulation of learning, its law, 73. Accuracy and depth of study, distinct, 1857 _pref._ Admiration, increase of, a test of progress in art, 167. Almsgiving, 142. " parish, &c., 129. Almshouses, decoration of, 115. " prejudice of poor against, 129-30. Alpine climbing, risks of, 151. Ambition, in youth and age, 26. America, absence of great art in, 87. " bad shipbuilding in, 112 _n._ " commercial panic in, 151. Ancestors, respect for their work insisted on, 72. Architecture, Gothic, sculpture to be in easiest materials, 34. " " to be studied at Verona, 76. " variety in, to be demanded, 32. " " cheapens the price, _ib._ Arcola, battle of, 77. Arethusa, the, and the Belle-Poule engraving, 147. [Greek: Aretê] and art, 155. Art, cheap, its purchase, 40. " " great art not to be too cheap, and why, 62 _seq._ " demand for good, and the possibility of having too much, 38. " dress, beauty of, essential to good art, 54. " education in (author's paper on), 153 _seq._ " function of, to exalt as well as to please, 38. " -gift and art-study, 172. " good, to be lasting in its materials and power, 39. " " to be done for and be worthy of all time, 46. " great, the expression of a great soul, 136. " has laws, which must be recognised, 157. " -intellect in a nation, cannot be created, 20-1. " its debt to Italy, 82. " labour and, 19. " " the labour to be various, easy, permanent, 31 _seq._ " literature and, the cost of, 67. " love of old, essential to produce new, 88. " materials of, to be lasting, 39, 42. " models in art schools, 162-4. " modern interest in, 168. " " " objects of, and old pictures, 86. " original work, the best to buy, 41. " permanency of--e.g., a painted window, 37. " -power a gift, 158. " " in a nation, how to produce, 132. " " waste of, on perishable things, 45. " preservation of works of, 73-4. " " (1857) more important than production, 92. " price of good, 41. See s. Pictures. " progress in, tested by increased imagination, 167. " public to demand noble subjects of, 29. " " effect of public demand on, 165. " repetition in, monotonous, 32. " schools, trial, 22-3. " " provincial, to have good art-models, 169. " students, 153 seq. " -study will not "pay," 174. " test of good, will it please a century hence? 39. " value of, depends on artist's capacity, not education, 136. " variety of work, 32. " work, hard, needed for, 158. " works of, illustrate each other, 63. " works of, property in, 147. " " provincial distribution of, 169. " " their conservative effect, 132 _n._ " " to be lasting, 36. See s. Admiration, America, Architecture, Arethusa, Aretê, Artist, Beauty, Buildings, Cheapness, Colour, Criticism, Design, Diletto, Drawing, Dress, Education, Europe, Florence, France, Genius, Glass, Gold, Goldsmiths, Historical painting, Indian shawls, Italy, Jewels, Labour, Lace, Lombard, Marble, Mosaic, Painter, Philosophy, Pictures, Reverence, Schools, Trade, Wall-paper, War, Water colour, Wealth, Woodcuts. Artist, education of the, to be a gentleman--_i.e._, feel nobly, 28. " encouragement of, in youth, 23. " goldsmith's work, good training for, 46. " greatest, have other powers than their art, 21. " jealousy among, 98. " modern training of, 132. " _nascitur non fit_, 20. " temper of, what, 132. " to be a good man, 28. " trial schools to discover, 22-3. See s. Dürer, Francia, Gainsborough, Ghiberti, Ghirlandajo, Giotto, Leonardo, Lewis, Lorenzetti, Michael Angelo, Rembrandt, Reynolds, Tintoret, Titian, Turner, Veronese, Verrocchio. "Asphodel meadows of our youth," 26. Athletic games and education, 128. Austrians, in Italy, 78. Author, his idea of a knight, when a child, 106. " " teaching young lady to copy old MS., 180. life of: at Brantwood, April 29, 1880. " Manchester, July 10 and 13, 1857, 1, 61. " Metaphysical Society, 1875, 175. " Oxford, art teaching, _pref._ ix. " Working Men's College, 156. " Venice, 141 _n._ " teaching of: misunderstood, 180. political economy, has read no modern books on, 1857 _pref._ political influence of art, 1880 _pref._ true wealth honoured by, 1. words fail him to express modern folly, 49. " books of, quoted, &c.: " A Joy for Ever" contains germs of subsequent work, 1880 _pref._ " revision for press, 1857 _pref._ " title, 1880 _pref._ on his own writings, 140. they cost him pain, and he does not expect then to give pleasure, 1880 _pref._ Barataria, the island of ("Don Quixote "), 65. Beauty in art, on what based, vi. Bible, The, to be realised as (not only called) God's Word 185. _Quoted, or referred to._ Job iii. 3, "Let the day perish wherein I was born ... a child conceived, 119. " xxxi. 40, "Let thistles grow instead of wheat," &c., 101. Ps. xxxii. 8, "I will guide thee with mine eye," 18. " xxxii. 9, "Be ye not as the horse or mule," 18. " c. 4, "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving," 1880 _pref._ Prov. i. 20, "Wisdom uttereth her voice in the streets," 112 _n._ " iii. 15, "Wisdom more precious than rubies," 174. " iii. 16, "Length of days are in her right hand," &c., 130. " iii. 17, "Her ways pleasantness and her paths peace," 120. " xiii. 23, "Much food is in the tillage of the poor," 7 _n._ " xxxi. 15, "She riseth while it is yet night," 9, 58. " xxxi. 25, "Strength and honour are in her clothing," &c., 60. Hab. ii., its practical lessons, 112 n. " ii. 6, "Woe to him ... that ladeth himself with thick clay," 112 _n._ " ii. 12, "Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood," 112 _n._ " ii. 13, "The people weary themselves for vanity," 112 _n._ Zach. vii. 9, 10, "Execute true judgment ... and let none imagine evil," &c., 112 _n._ Matt. vii. 16, "Gather figs of thistles," 133. Luke xix. 26, "To him that hath shall be given," 181. " xix. 27, "Those mine enemies bring hither and slay them before me, 183. 2 Thess. iii. 10, "If any work not, neither shall he eat," 145. Books, not to be too cheap, and why, 65. " numbers of, nowadays, and the result, 140. Botany, what to learn in, 128. Bridle of man, the Eye of God, 18. Brotherhood--"All men are brothers," what it implies, 14. " politically and divinely, 121. Browning, E. B., on Italy, 78 _n._ Buildings, public, their decoration, 104. Capitalist, the, his command over men, 4. Carlyle, T., on the value of horses and men, 18. " "keen words" of, _quoted_, 184. Casa Guidi, windows of the, referred to, 36 _n._ Charity, crowning kingship (Siena fresco), 59. " in preserving health, not in protracting disease, 184. " is guidance, 127. " not a geographical virtue, 81. " true, defined, 118. Charon, 3. Chartres, 86. Cheapness not to be considered in producing art, 37. " of good art, undesirable and why, 62 _seq._ Cheating disgraceful, but being cheated is not, 89. Church-going and life, 14. " restoration, mania for, 86-7. Clarke, Dr. Adam, at the Metaphysical Society, 176. Cleobis and Bito, death of, 109. " story of, beautiful, 183. Clergymen, to preach practically--_e.g._, on trade, 112 _n._ Cleverness, best shown in sympathy with the aims of others, 170. Clough, Arthur, _quoted_, 185 _n._ Cocoa-nut, simile from a, as to the cheapness of good art, 64. Colour, good, to be lasting, 44. " local, as an element of chiaroscuro, 162. Commerce, cowardice and, 177. " frauds of, 151-2. " modern, 1857 _pref._ xi. Competition, a bad thing in education, 135. Conservatism, true, 58. Country, serving one's, with plough, pen, and sword, 129. Cricket, the game of, 128. Criticism, mistaken blame worse than mistaken praise, 24. " public, its effect on artists, 24. Currency, national, its nature, 149. Dante--_Inferno_, the purse round the neck as a sign of condemnation, 4. " " _Lasciate ogni speranza_, 93. Deane, Sir T., on the Oxford Museum, 32. Death, as a reward, 183. Design, dependent on proportion, 160. " study of, 159. " subjects of, 172-3. Development, the direction of human, 175. Dialogue on "paternal government," 121. Diamond-cutting, waste of time, 34. Dictionary of classical antiquities, woodcuts in, 107. "Diletto" and art, 155. Diogenes, respected, 2-3. Discipline the basis of progress, 16. Discovery of men of genius, 20. Disobedience destroys power of understanding, 1857 _pref._ x. Drawing as a means of description, 153. " lessons, 156. " to be learnt, as reading or writing, 153, 158. " to scale, to be learnt, 160. Dress, art of, 47. " beautiful, essential to great art--_e.g._, its portraiture, 54. " " characteristics of, 54. " " a means of education, 54. " best, not the costliest, 54. " employment of labour--_e.g._, ball-dresses, 50. " fashion in, wasted power of design, 45. " fine, the spoils of death, 53. " " as a subject of expenditure, 146. " " under what circumstance, right and wrong, 52. " lace, its value, 171. Dürer's engravings, art-models, 169. " " permanency of, 42. " " crest with cock, as art-model, 164. " woodcuts, 40. Economy, its true meaning (application: accumulation: distribution), 8 _seq._ " the art of managing labour, 7, 8. " the balance of splendour and utility, 10. " does not mean saving money, 8. " simile of farm life, 11. " the laws of, same for nation and individual, 12 _seq._ See s. Almsgiving, Author, Capitalist, Charity, Cheating, Commerce, Currency, Education, Employment, England, Farm, Gentlemen, Gold, Labour, Land, Luxury, Money, National works, Panics, Parish relief, Pension, Political Economy, Poor, Poverty, Property, Trade, Wealth. Education, best claimed by offering obedience, 16. " drawing to be part of, 156. " dress as a means of, 54. " eye, the best medium of, 106. " formative, not reformative only, 15. " in Art, author's paper on, 153 _seq._ " liberty to be controlled by, 128. " manual trade to be learnt by all youths, 128. " modern, 135. " " in England, its bad tendency, 177. " schools of, to be beautiful, 104-5. " refinement of habits, a part of, 104. " waste of, on dead languages, 128. " young men, their, 134. Edward I., progress since the days of, 1857 _pref._ Emotion, quickness of, is not capacity for it, 132. Employment, may be claimed by the obedient, 16. England, art-treasures in, their number, 5. " modern, its ugliness, 176. " the rich men of, their duty, 118-9. English character, impulse and prudence of, 17. " " self-dependence, 130. Envy, vile, 177. Europe, no great art, except in, 87. Examinations, their educational aim and value, 136. Eye, the, nobler than the ear, and a better means of education, 106. Faith, frescoes of, Ambrozio Lorenzetti, Siena, 57. " kinds of, 57. Famine, how it comes, 133. Fancy, as essential to fine manufacture, 172. Farm, metaphor of a, applied to national economy, 11. Fashion, change of, as wasting power of design, 45. Florence, art and dress of, 54. " drawing at, 1400-1500, art-models, 169. Fools, the wise to take of the, 118. France, art in, great, and beautiful dress, 54. " English prejudice against, 81. " social philosophy in, "fraternité" a true principle, 14. Francia, a goldsmith, 46. Frescoes, whitewashing of Italian, 85. Fraternity implies paternity, 14 (cp. Time and Tide, 177). Funeral, English love of a "decent," 70. Gainsborough, his want of gentle training, 28. " learns from Italian art, 82. Genius, men of, and art, four questions as to (production, employment, accumulation, distribution), 19. " " their early struggles, due to their starting on wrong work, 23. Gentlemen, tradesmen to be accounted, 114. Ghiberti's gates, M. Angelo on, 46. " a goldsmith, 46. Ghirlandajo, a goldsmith, 46. " M. Angelo's master, 46. Giotto's frescoes, Assisi, perishing for want of care, 86. " discovered by Cimabue, 133. Glass, cut, waste of labour on, 34. " painted, French 1200-1300, the best, 169. God always sends men for the work, but we crush them, 133. " His work, its fulfilment by men, 122. Gold, its uses, as a medium of exchange, 150. " " incorruptible and to be used for lasting things, 46. " " not therefore to be used for coinage, 46. Goldsmiths, artists who have been, 46. " educational training for artists, 46 _n._ " work of, 45 _seq._ Government, enforcement of divine law, 121. " in details, 122 _seq._ " paternal, 14. " " "in loco parentis," 16 _n._ " " defined, 121. " principles of, at the root of economy, 11 " " Faith, Hope, Charity, 57. " to be conservative, but expectant, 58. " to form, not only reform, 15. " to give work to all who want it, 129. Great men and the public, 137 " the work they are sent to do, 133 Greatness, the humility of, 137. Greece, development of physical beauty, 176. Guilds of trade, decoration of their buildings, 116 _seq._ Hesiod's "Eris", 176. Historians, mistaken way of pointing out how great men are fitted for their work, 133. Historical painting as a means of education, 106-7. History, the study of mediæval, as well as ancient, insisted on, 109. Horace, "justus, et propositi tenax," 182. " "prava jubentium," _ib._ Horse and man, bridling of, 18. Hospitals, decoration of, 114. Housewife, her seriousness and her smile, 10. Housewifery, perfect, 10. Humility of greatness, 137. " the companion of joy and usefulness, 168. Illustrations, modern, bad art of, 40. Independence, dishonest efforts after, 131. Indian shawls, design of, 173. Industry, its duty to the past and future, 72. Infidelity, modern, 177. Invention, national, of new wants, 138. Inventors, to be publicly rewarded, but to have no patents, 113. Island, desert, analogy of a, and political economy, 110. Italy, Austrians in, 78. " cradle of art, 82. " destruction of art in modern, 84. " modern art of, 85. " state of, 1857, 84. " thunderclouds in, "the winepress of God's wrath," 77. Italian character, 84. Jewels, cutting of, 52. " modern, bad and costly, 159. " property in, 146. Jews, Christian dislike of, 81. Keats, quoted, "a joy for ever," 1880 _pref._ ix-x. King, the virtues of a (Siena fresco), 60. Kingship, crowned by charity (Siena fresco), 59. " modern contempt for, 177. Labour, a claim to property, 145. " constant, not intermittent, needed, 11. " end of, is happiness, not money, 174. " " to bring the whole country under cultivation, 12. " management of, _is_ economy, 7. " organisation of, no "out of work" cry, 11-12. " " under government, planned, 127-31. " sufficiency of a man's labour for all his needs, 7. " " " nation's " its " 7. Labour, _continued_;-- " waste of, in various kinds of useless art, cut-glass, mosaic, &c, 34. " " dress, 50 _seq._ Lace-making, 52. " machine and hand-made, 170. " value of, in its labour, 171. Laissez-aller, a ruinous principle, 16. Land, the laws of cultivation, the same for a continent as for an acre, 12. -owners, their duties, 143. Law and liberty, 123. " most irksome, when most necessary, 15. " principles of, applied to minor things, 123. " should regulate everything it can, 126. " systems of, none perfect, 124. " to be protective, not merely punitive, 15. Legislation, paternal, dialogue on, 121. Leonardo da Vinci, an engineer, 21. " " " pupil of Verrocchio, 46. " " "work by, at Florence, 164. Leonidas' death, 109. Lewis, John, his work, and its prices, 102 n. Liberalism in government, true, 58. Liberty, law and, 123. " to be interfered with, for good of nation, 123-26. Life, battles of early, for men of genius, 23. " ideal of, simplicity _plus_ imagination, 147. Literature, cheap, modern, 65. Lombard architecture at Pisa and Verona, 76. London season, cost of, in dress, 55. Look, people will not, at things, 141. Lorenzetti, Ambrozio, his frescoes of "government" at Siena, 57. Love and Kingship, _see_ s. Charity. Luxury, articles of, as "property," 146. " does not add to wealth, 48. " the influences of, 138. Macaulay's false saying, "the giants of one age, the pigmies of the next," 168. Magnanimity, the virtue of, its full meaning, 60. Mammon worship, in English commercial centres, 151. Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition 1858, 5, 69. " " motto of, "A joy for ever," 1880 _pref._ Mansfield Art Night Class, address to, 1873, 166 _seq._ Manufacture, defined, 169. Marathon, 109. Marble, a better material for sculpture than granite, 34. Marriage, desire for, in girls, 55. Medici, Pietro de, orders M. Angelo's snow-statue, 36. Menippus, 3. Metaphysical Society, author, May 4, 1875, reads paper at, 175. Michael Angelo, author's praise of, 36. " " Ghirlandajo's pupil, 46. " " on Ghiberti's gates, 46. " " snow-statue, 36. Mill, J. S., on wealth, 145_n._ " " on women, 180. Misery, always the result of indolence or mistaken industry, 7. Mistress, of a house, ideal, described, 9, 10. Modernism, contempt for poverty and honour of wealth, 1 seq. _See_ s. Commerce, Education, England, Italy, Wealth. Money, a document of title, 148. " God's gift and not our own, and why, 116 _seq._ " great work never done for, 98, 102. " spending, is to employ labour, 48. " the way we spend it, important, 48-9. Morality, mechanical basis of, 176. " not to be limited to a class, 182. Moral sense, the, defined, 177. Mosaic, Florentine, waste of labour, 34. Motive, the only real, and rightness, 81. Mourning, English love of, 70. Museums, provincial, art-models for, 169. National works, as a means of art employment, 24. Nations in "brotherly concord and fatherly authority," 14. " energy of, to be directed, 16. " laws of, to be protective as well as punitive, 14. Natural forms, as subjects of design, 172. " History, the study of, to be extended, 155. " Science, and drawing, 156. New York, council of, on luxury, 138_n._ Nottingham lace, 170. Novara, battle of, 77. Obedience, to what we dislike, 1857 _pref._ Obstinacy of great men against the public, 137-8. Overwork, decried, 11. Oxford Museum, Sir T. Deane on the, 32. Painter, poverty of early years, 100. " prices paid to a, 98. Panics, commercial--_e.g._, 1857, 151. Paper, necessity of good, for water-colour art, 43. Parable, The Ten Talents, its practical application, 114-15. Parents, noble delight of pleasing one's, possible only to the young, 27. Paris, destruction of, 1870-1, 168. Parish relief, no more _infra dig._ than State pensions, 129. Patents, no, but private inventions to be publicly rewarded, 113. Patriotism, what, 81. Pensions, are Government alms, 129. Peterborough, Bishop of, paper read at Metaphysical Society, 176, 183, 185. Photography, as a means of providing art-models, 164. " collections of Florentine Gallery photos, _ib._ Pictures, copies of, to be made, but not to be bought, 90. " dealers, and old pictures, 85. " destruction of, 69. " galleries, in all great cities, 91. " " their supervision and curators, 93. " pictorial method of education, 106 _seq._ " price of, 101, 38. Pictures, price of, _continued_:-- " " effect of high prices on artists and on art, 97 _seq._ " " by living artists, shows not value, but demand, 101. " " by dead and living masters, 103. " " modern prices, 38. " " of oil and water-colour, 102 _n._ " " to be limited but not too cheap, 66, 95-6. " private possession of, its value, 93-4. " purchase of, private buyers to buy the works of living artists, the public those of dead, 103, 94, 5. " " for ostentation, 101. " " the government to buy great works, 89. " restoration of, notes of, to be kept for reference, 94 _n._ " " in Italy, 85. " sale of a picture, its politico-economical effect, 132 _n._ " studies for, tracings, and copies of, to be kept, 90 _seq._ Pisa, architecture at, 76. " Campo Santo, The, 82. Plate, changes of fashion in, deplored, 45. " gold and silver to be gradually accumulated, not melted down and remodelled, 46. Ploughing, boys to learn, 128. Political economists, their thrift, 89. " Economy, modern books on, 1857 _pref._ " " the aim of true, 145. " " is citizen's economy, 1857 _pref._ " " definition and true meaning of, 132 _n._ " " first principles of, simple but misunderstood, 1857 _pref._ " " its questions to be dealt with one by one, 38. " " study of, to be accurate, if not deep, 1857 _pref._ " " secrecy in trade bad, 110 _seq._ " " _See_ s. Economy. Politics, English, 82. " European, 1848, 1857, 80. " _See_ s. Conservatism, Liberalism. Poor, the, their right to State education and support, 127. Poor, the, _continued_;-- " are kept at the expense of the rich, 127 _n._ " to be taken care of, 118. Poverty, classical writers on, 2. " mediæval view of, 4. " modern contempt for, just and right, 1 _seq._ Posterity, thought for, 72. Praise, only the young can enjoy, for the old are above it, if they deserve it, 26. Pride, as a motive of expenditure, 79. Prize-giving, a bad thing in education, 135. " its true value and meaning, 166. Productive and unproductive transactions, 132 _n._ Progress, modern, since Edward I., 1857 _pref._ Property, division of, into things producing (_a_) life, (_b_) the objects of life, 144 _seq._ " the right of, to be acknowledged, 142. Providence, notion of a special, 133. Public, the, favour of, 137. " great men and, 137. " impatient of what it cannot understand, 140-1. Punishment, the rationale of human, 123. Purse-pride, modern and ancient, 2. Railway speed, 86. Raphael's Disputation, 147. Religion, national, its beauty, _pref._ Rembrandt's "spotted shell" as a model in etching, 164. Renaissance architecture at Verona, 76. Restraint, the law of life, 16. Reverence for art, a test of art power, 167. Reynolds, Sir J., learns much from Italian art, 82. " portraits of, models of art, 169. Rich, the duty of the strong and, 118. Riding, as part of education, 128. Rowing, as part of education, 128. St. Albans, Duke of, reads paper for author at Mansfield, 166 _n._ St. Louis' chapel at Carcassonne, painting, 86. Salvation, not to be limited to a class, 182. School Board, the, 177. Schools of art, bare schoolrooms do not fix the attention, 105. " " decoration of, reasons for, 104. " " proposals for, 132. Science, controversy in, too much nowadays, 175. " education in, 128. " the bridal city of, 175. Selection, Natural, and Social Policy, paper by author, 175. Shakespeare's Cliff, 89. Siena, frescoes of Antonio Lorenzetti, 57. Smith, Adam, 1857 _pref._ Soldiers of the ploughshare as well as of the sword, 15. Speculation, commercial, 151. Spider, web of a, 170. Street, Mr., on the Ducal Palace, 141 _n._ Students in art, not to aim at being great masters, 168. Surfaces, drawing of round, &c., 161. Sympathy, the cleverness of, 170. Systems, not easily grasped, 128. Taste, defined, 154. " education of, 160. Tennyson, _In Mem._ LV. "Of fifty seeds, she often brings but one to bear," 133 (_cp._ Time and Tide, 67). Thought, not to take the place of fact, 141. Time, man is the true destroyer, not, 74. _Times_, The, Nov. 23, 1857, referred to, 138 _n._ Tintoret's St. Sebastian (Venice), perishing, 86. Titian, eternally right, 157. " sketch by (Florence), 164. " woodcuts of, 70. Tombs, English waste of money on, 78. Trade, art-faculty, its employment in design in, 30. " freedom from rivalry, healthful, 110 _seq._ " government direction of, 129. " guilds, decoration of their buildings, 110 _seq._ Trade, guilds, _continued_:-- " " under public management, 114. " secrecy of, bad, 110 _seq._ " true co-operation in, what, 112. " youths to learn some manual, 128. Tradesmen, their modern social position wrong, 114. Truth, dependent on justice and love, 152. Turner, prices of his pictures, when a boy, 98. " his want of gentle training, 28. Ugliness, is evil, 177. Usury, a "mortal sin," 185. Utility, not to be the sole object of life, 10. Vellum, for water-colour drawing, 43. Venice, art of, aided by beautiful dress, 54. " Ducal Palace, chronology of the capital, 141 _n._ Verona, amphitheatre of, 76. " battle-fields of, 77. " greatest art-treasury in the world, 76 _seq._ " typical of Gothic architecture, 76. Veronese, P., eternally right, 157. " "Family of Darius," purchased by National Gallery, for £14,000, 55. Verrocchio, a goldsmith, 46. " master of Leonardo, 46. Virtues, the, fresco of, by A. Lorenzetti, at Siena, 57. " winged (Siena), _ib._ _seq._ Wages, fixed rate of, advocated, 113, 129. Wall-paper, 159. Wants, the invention of new, 138. War, destruction of works of art by, 75. Water-colour drawings, perishable, and why, 42. " " to be on vellum, not paper, 43. Wealth, author's respect for true, 1. " duty and, 119-20. " earned and inherited, 143. Wealth, _continued_:-- " freedom of spending, to be allowed, 142. " how gained, 117. " means well-being, 147. " mediæval view of, 4. " modern honour paid to, 1, 2. " power of, 4. " principles of, 114 _seq._ " works of art, how far they are, 132 _n._ Wealthy, the, "pilots of the State," 119, 142. " " claims of the poor on, 143. " " way in which they should spend their money, 143. Wisdom, preciousness of, 174. Women, education of, drawing, 158-9. " J. S. Mill on the position of, 180. Woodcuts, cheap and nasty, 40. Wordsworth's essay on the Poor Law Amendment Bill, 16 _n._ Workhouses, to be worthy their name, 114. Working-men's College, drawing at the, 156. Youth, encouragement good for, 26 _seq._ " of a nation, to be guarded, 134. " work of a, necessarily imperfect, but blameable, if bold or slovenly, 25. THE END. Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. Edinburgh & London 
21790	----	The Dance of Death by Hans Holbein, with an introductory note by Austin Dobson New York SCOTT-THAW COMPANY mcmiii Copyright, 1903, by SCOTT-THAW COMPANY _The Heintzemann Press, Boston_ THE DANCE OF DEATH =The Book= "_Les Simulachres & Historiées Faces de la Mort avtant elegamtment pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées._" This may be Englished as follows: _The Images and Storied Aspects of Death, as elegantly delineated as [they are] ingeniously imagined._ Such is the literal title of the earliest edition of the famous book now familiarly known as "_Holbein's Dance of Death._" It is a small _quarto_, bearing on its title-page, below the French words above quoted, a nondescript emblem with the legend _Vsus me Genuit_, and on an open book, _Gnothe seauton_. Below this comes again, "_A Lyon, Soubz l'escu de Coloigne_: M. D. XXXVIII," while at the end of the volume is the imprint "_Excvdebant Lvgdvni Melchoir et Gaspar Trechsel fratres: 1538_,"--the Trechsels being printers of German origin, who had long been established at Lyons. There is a verbose "Epistre" or Preface in French to the "_moult reuerende Abbesse du religieux conuent S. Pierre de Lyon, Madame Iehanne de Touszele_," otherwise the Abbess of Saint Pierre les Nonnains, a religious house containing many noble and wealthy ladies, and the words, "_Salut d'un vray Zèle_," which conclude the dedicatory heading, are supposed to reveal indirectly the author of the "Epistre" itself, namely, Jean de Vauzelles, Pastor of St. Romain and Prior of Monrottier, one of three famous literary brothers in the city on the Rhone, whose motto was "_D'un vray Zelle_." After the Preface comes "_Diuerses Tables de Mort, non painctes, mais extraictes de l'escripture saincte, colorées par Docteurs Ecclesiastiques, & umbragées par Philosophes_." Then follow the cuts, forty-one in number, each having its text from the Latin Bible above it, and below, its quatrain in French, this latter being understood to be from the pen of one Gilles Corozet. To the cuts succeed various makeweight Appendices of a didactic and hortatory character, the whole being wound up by a profitable discourse, _De la Necessite de la Mort qui ne laisse riens estre pardurable_. Various editions ensued to this first one of 1538, the next or second of 1542 (in which Corozet's verses were translated into Latin by Luther's brother-in-law, George Oemmel or Aemilius), being put forth by Jean and François Frellon, into whose hands the establishment of the Trechsels had fallen. There were subsequent issues in 1545, 1547, 1549, 1554, and 1562. To the issues of 1545 and 1562 a few supplementary designs were added, some of which have no special bearing upon the general theme, although attempts, more or less ingenious, have been made to connect them with the text. After 1562 no addition was made to the plates. =The Artist= From the date of the _editio princeps_ it might be supposed that the designs were executed at or about 1538--the year of its publication. But this is not the case; and there is good evidence that they were not only designed but actually cut on the wood some eleven years before the book itself was published. There are, in fact, several sets of impressions in the British Museum, the Berlin Museum, the Basle Museum, the Imperial Library at Paris, and the Grand Ducal Cabinet at Carlsruhe, all of which correspond with each other, and are believed to be engraver's proofs from the original blocks. These, which include every cut in the edition of 1538, except "The Astrologer," would prove little of themselves as to the date of execution. But, luckily, there exists in the Cabinet at Berlin a set of coarse enlarged drawings in Indian ink, on brownish paper, of twenty-three of the series. These are in circular form; and were apparently intended as sketches for glass painting. That they are copied from the woodcuts is demonstrable, first, because they are not reversed as they would have been if they were the originals; and, secondly, because one of them, No. 36 ("The Duchess"), repeats the conjoined "H.L." on the bed, which initials are held to be the monogram of the woodcutter, and not to be part of the original design. The Berlin drawings must therefore have been executed subsequently to the woodcuts; and as one of them, that representing the Emperor, is dated "1527," we get a date before which both the woodcuts, and the designs for the woodcuts, must have been prepared. It is generally held that they were so prepared _circa_ 1524 and 1525, the date of the Peasants' War, of the state of feeling excited by which they exhibit evident traces. In the Preface to this first edition, certain ambiguous expressions, to which we shall presently refer, led some of the earlier writers on the subject to doubt as to the designer of the series. But the later researches of Wornum and Woltmann, of M. Paul Mantz and, more recently, of Mr. W. J. Linton leave no doubt that they were really drawn by the artist to whom they have always been traditionally assigned, to wit, Hans Holbein the younger. He was resident in Basle up to the autumn of 1526, before which time, according to the above argument, the drawings must have been produced; he had already designed an Alphabet of Death; and, moreover, on the walls of the cemetery of the Dominican monastery at Basle there was a famous wall-painting of the Dance of Death, which would be a perpetual stimulus to any resident artist. Finally, and this is perhaps the most important consideration of all, the designs are in Holbein's manner. =The Woodcutter= But besides revealing an inventor of the highest order, the _Dance of Death_ also discloses an interpreter in wood of signal, and even superlative, ability. The designs are cut--to use the word which implies the employment of the knife as opposed to that of the graver--in a manner which has never yet been excelled. In this matter there could be no better judge than Mr. W. J. Linton; and he says that nothing, either by knife or by graver, is of higher quality than these woodcuts. Yet the woodcutter's very name was for a long time doubtful, and even now the particulars which we possess with regard to him are scanty and inconclusive. That he was dead when the Trechsels published the book in 1538, must be inferred from the "Epistre" of Jean de Vauzelles, since that "Epistre" expressly refers to "_la mort de celluy, qui nous en a icy imaginé si elegantes figures_"; and without entering into elaborate enquiry as to the exact meaning of "_imaginer_" in sixteenth-century French, it is obvious that, although the deceased is elsewhere loosely called "_painctre_," this title cannot refer to Holbein, who was so far from being dead that he survived until 1543. The only indication of the woodcutter's name is supplied by the monogram, "HL" upon the bedstead in No. 36 ("The Duchess"); and these initials have been supposed to indicate one Hans Lutzelburger, or Hans of Luxemburg, "otherwise Franck," a form-cutter ("formschneider"), whose full name is to be found attached to the so-called "Little Dance of Death," an alphabet by Holbein, impressions of which are in the British Museum. His signature ("H. L. F. 1522") is also found appended to another alphabet; to a cut of a fight in a forest, dated also 1522; and to an engraved title-page in a German New Testament of the year following. This is all we know with certainty concerning his work, though the investigations of Dr. Édouard His have established the fact that a "formschneider" named Hans, who had business transactions with the Trechsels of Lyons, had died at Basle before June, 1526; and it is conjectured, though absolute proof is not forthcoming, that this must have been the "H. L.," or Hans of Luxemburg, who cut Holbein's designs upon the wood. In any case, unless we must assume another woodcutter of equal merit, it is probable that the same man cut the signed Alphabet in the British Museum and the initialed _Dance of Death_. But why the cuts of the latter, which, as we have shown above, were printed _circa_ 1526, were not published at Lyons until 1538; and why Holbein's name was withheld in the Preface to the book of that year, are still unexplained. The generally accepted supposition is that motives of timidity, arising from the satirical and fearlessly unsparing character of the designs, may be answerable both for delay in the publication and mystification in the "Preface." And if intentional mystification be admitted, the doors of enquiry, after three hundred and fifty years, are practically sealed to the critical picklock. =Other Reproductions= The _Dance of Death_ has been frequently copied. Mr. W. J. Linton enumerates a Venice reproduction of 1545; and a set (enlarged) by Jobst Dienecker of Augsburg in 1554. Then there is the free copy, once popular with our great grandfathers, by Bewick's younger brother John, which Hodgson of Newcastle published in 1789 under the title of _Emblems of Mortality_. Wenceslaus Hollar etched thirty of the designs in 1651, and in 1788 forty-six of them were etched by David Deuchar. In 1832 they were reproduced upon stone with great care by Joseph Schlotthauer, Professor in the Academy of Fine Arts at Munich; and these were reissued in this country in 1849 by John Russell Smith. They have also been rendered in photo-lithography for an edition issued by H. Noel Humphreys, in 1868; and for the Holbein Society in 1879. In 1886, Dr. F. Lippmann edited for Mr. Quaritch a set of reproductions of the engraver's proofs in the Berlin Museum; and the _editio princeps_ has been facsimiled by one of the modern processes for Hirth of Munich, as vol. x. of the Liebhaber-Bibliothek, 1884. =The Present Issue= The copies given in the present issue are impressions from the blocks engraved in 1833 for Douce's _Holbein's Dance of Death_. They are the best imitations in wood, says Mr. Linton. It is of course true, as he also points out, that a copy with the graver can never quite faithfully follow an original which has been cut with the knife,--more especially, it may be added, when the cutter is a supreme craftsman like him of Luxemburg. But against etched, lithographed, phototyped and otherwise-processed copies, these of Messrs. Bonner and John Byfield have one incontestable advantage: they are honest attempts to repeat by the same method,--that is, in wood,--the original and incomparable woodcuts of Hans Lutzelburger. THE DANCE OF DEATH (CHANT ROYAL, AFTER HOLBEIN)[1] "_Contra vim Mortis_ _Non est medicamen in hortis._" He is the despots' Despot. All must bide, Later or soon, the message of his might; Princes and potentates their heads must hide, Touched by the awful sigil of his right; Beside the Kaiser he at eve doth wait And pours a potion in his cup of state; The stately Queen his bidding must obey; No keen-eyed Cardinal shall him affray; And to the Dame that wantoneth he saith-- "Let be, Sweet-heart, to junket and to play." There is no king more terrible than Death. The lusty Lord, rejoicing in his pride, He draweth down; before the armèd Knight With jingling bridle-rein he still doth ride; He crosseth the strong Captain in the fight; The Burgher grave he beckons from debate; He hales the Abbot by his shaven pate, Nor for the Abbess' wailing will delay; No bawling Mendicant shall say him nay; E'en to the pyx the Priest he followeth, Nor can the Leech his chilling finger stay ... There is no king more terrible than Death. All things must bow to him. And woe betide The Wine-bibber,--the Roisterer by night; Him the feast-master, many bouts defied, Him 'twixt the pledging and the cup shall smite; Woe to the Lender at usurious rate, The hard Rich Man, the hireling Advocate; Woe to the Judge that selleth right for pay; Woe to the Thief that like a beast of prey With creeping tread the traveller harryeth:-- These, in their sin, the sudden sword shall slay ... There is no king more terrible than Death. He hath no pity,--nor will be denied. When the low hearth is garnishèd and bright, Grimly he flingeth the dim portal wide, And steals the Infant in the Mother's sight; He hath no pity for the scorned of fate:-- He spares not Lazarus lying at the gate, Nay, nor the Blind that stumbleth as he may; Nay, the tired Ploughman,--at the sinking ray,-- In the last furrow,--feels an icy breath, And knows a hand hath turned the team astray ... There is no king more terrible than Death. He hath no pity. For the new-made Bride, Blithe with the promise of her life's delight, That wanders gladly by her Husband's side, He with the clatter of his drum doth fright; He scares the Virgin at the convent grate; The Maid half-won, the lover passionate; He hath no grace for weakness and decay: The tender Wife, the Widow bent and gray, The feeble Sire whose footstep faltereth,-- All these he leadeth by the lonely way ... There is no king more terrible than Death. ENVOY. Youth, for whose ear and monishing of late, I sang of Prodigals and lost estate, Have thou thy joy of living and be gay; But know not less that there must come a day,-- Aye, and perchance e'en now it hasteneth,-- When thine own heart shall speak to thee and say,-- There is no king more terrible than Death. 1877. A. D. [Footnote 1: This Chant Royal of the King of Terrors is--with Mr. AUSTIN DOBSON'S consent--here reprinted from his _Collected Poems_, 1896.] LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS N.B.--The German titles are in general modernized from those which appear above the engraver's proofs. The numerals are those of the cuts. THE CREATION I _Die Schöpfung aller Ding._ Eve is taken from the side of Adam. THE TEMPTATION II "_Adam Eua im Paradyss._" Eve, having received an apple from the serpent, prompts Adam to gather more. THE EXPULSION III "_Vsstribung Ade Eue._" Adam and Eve, preceded by Death, playing on a beggar's lyre or hurdy-gurdy, are driven by the angel from Eden. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL IV _Adam baut die Erden._ Adam, aided by Death, tills the earth. Eve, with a distaff, suckles Cain in the background. A CEMETERY V _Gebein aller Menschen._ A crowd of skeletons, playing on horns, trumpets, and the like, summon mankind to the grave. THE POPE VI _Der Päpst._ The Pope (Leo X.) with Death at his side, crowns an Emperor, who kisses his foot. Another Death, in a cardinal's hat, is among the assistants. THE EMPEROR VII _Der Kaiser._ The Emperor (Maximilian I.) rates his minister for injustice to a suitor. But even in the act Death discrowns him. THE KING VIII _Der König._ The King (Francis I.) sits at feast under a baldachin sprinkled with _fleurs-de-lis_. Death, as a cup-bearer, pours his last draught. THE CARDINAL IX _Der Cardinal._ Death lifts off the Cardinal's hat as he is handing a letter of indulgence to a rich man. Luther's opponent, Cardinal Cajetan, is supposed to be represented. THE EMPRESS X _Die Kaiserinn._ The Empress, walking with her women, is intercepted by a female Death, who conducts her to an open grave. THE QUEEN XI _Die Königinn._ Death, in the guise of a court-jester, drags away the Queen as she is leaving her palace. THE BISHOP XII _Der Bischof._ The sun is setting, and Death leads the aged Bishop from the sorrowing shepherds of his flock. THE DUKE XIII _Der Herzog._ The Duke turns pitilessly from a beggar-woman and her child. Meanwhile Death, fantastically crowned, lays hands on him. THE ABBOT XIV _Der Abt._ Death, having despoiled the Abbot of mitre and crozier, hales him along unwilling, and threatening his enemy with his breviary. THE ABBESS XV _Die Abtissin._ Death, in a wreath of flags, pulls away the Abbess by her scapulary in sight of a shrieking nun. THE NOBLEMAN XVI _Der Edelmann._ Death drags the resisting Nobleman towards a bier in the background. THE CANON, OR PREBENDARY XVII _Der Domherr._ The Canon, with his falconer, page, and jester, enters the church door. Death shows him that his sands have run. THE JUDGE XVIII _Der Richter._ Death withdraws the Judge's staff as he takes a bribe from a rich suitor. THE ADVOCATE XIX _Der Fürsprach._ Death comes upon him in the street while he is being feed by a rich client. THE COUNSELLOR, OR SENATOR XX _Der Rathsherr._ The Counsellor, prompted by a devil, is absorbed by a nobleman, and turns unheeding from a poor suppliant. But Death, with glass and spade, is waiting at his feet. THE PREACHER XXI _Der Predicant._ Death, in a stole, stands in the pulpit behind the fluent Preacher, and prepares to strike him down with a jaw-bone. THE PRIEST, OR PASTOR XXII _Der Pfarrherr._ He carries the host to a sick person. But Death precedes him as his sacristan. THE MENDICANT FRIAR XXIII _Der Mönch._ Death seizes him just as his begging box and bag are filled. THE NUN XXIV _Die Nonne._ The young Nun kneels at the altar, but turns to her lover who plays upon a lute. Death meantime, as a hideous old hag, extinguishes the altar candles. THE OLD WOMAN XXV _Das Altweib._ "_Melior est mors quam vita_" to the aged woman who crawls gravewards with her bone rosary while Death makes music in the van. THE PHYSICIAN XXVI _Der Arzt._ Death brings him a hopeless patient, and bids him cure himself. THE ASTROLOGER XXVII (_See p. 10, l. 12._) He contemplates a pendent sphere. But Death thrusts a skull before his eyes. THE RICH MAN XXVIII _Der Reichmann._ Death finds him at his pay-table and seizes the money. THE MERCHANT XXIX _Der Kaufmann._ Death arrests him among his newly-arrived bales. THE SHIPMAN XXX _Der Schiffmann._ Death breaks the mast of the ship, and the crew are in extremity. THE KNIGHT XXXI _Der Ritter._ Death, in cuirass and chain-mail, runs him through the body. THE COUNT XXXII _Der Graf._ Death, as a peasant with a flail, lifts away his back-piece. THE OLD MAN XXXIII _Der Altmann._ Death, playing on a dulcimer, leads him into his grave. THE COUNTESS XXXIV _Die Grafinn._ Death helps her at her tiring by decorating her with a necklet of dead men's bones. THE NOBLE LADY, OR BRIDE XXXV _Die Edelfrau._ "_Me et te sola mors separabit_"--says the motto. And Death already dances before her. THE DUCHESS XXXVI _Die Herzoginn._ Death seizes her in bed, while his fellow plays the fiddle. THE PEDLAR XXXVII _Der Kramer._ Death stops him on the road with his wares at his back. THE PLOUGHMAN XXXVIII _Der Ackermann._ Death runs at the horses' sides as the sun sinks, and the furrows are completed. THE YOUNG CHILD XXXIX _Das Junge Kind._ As the meagre cottage meal is preparing, Death steals the youngest child. THE LAST JUDGMENT XL _Das jüngste Gericht._ "_Omnes stabimus ante tribunal Domini._" THE ESCUTCHEON OF DEATH XLI _Die Wappen des Todes._ The supporters represent Holbein and his wife. [_Added in later editions_] THE SOLDIER XLII Death, armed only with a bone and shield, fights with the Soldier on the field of battle. THE GAMESTER XLIII Death and the Devil seize upon the Gambler at his cards. THE DRUNKARD XLIV Men and women carouse: down the throat of one bloated fellow Death pours the wine. THE FOOL XLV The Fool dances along the highway with Death, who plays the bagpipes. THE ROBBER XLVI Death seizes the Robber in the act of pillage. THE BLIND MAN XLVII Death leads the Blind Man by his staff. THE WAGGONER XLVIII The waggon is overturned; one Death carries off a wheel, the other loosens the fastening of a cask. THE BEGGAR XLIX The Beggar, lying on straw outside the city, cries in vain for Death. [Two others, not found in the earlier editions, "The Young Wife," and "The Young Husband," are not included in the Douce reprint for which the foregoing blocks were engraved.] Les simulachres & HISTORIEES FACES DE LA MORT, AVTANT ELE gammêt pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées. [Illustration: Vsus me genuit.] A LYON, Soubz l'escu de COLOIGNE, M. D. XXXVIII. I. [Illustration: THE CREATION.] Formauit DOMINVS DEVS hominem de limo terræ, ad imagine suam creauit illum, masculum & foeminam creauit eos. Genesis i. & ii. DIEV, Ciel, Mer, Terre, procrea De rien demonstrant sa puissance Et puis de la terre crea L'homme, & la femme a sa semblance. II. [Illustration: THE TEMPTATION.] Quia audisti vocem vxoris tuæ, & comedisti de ligno ex quo preceperam tibi ne comederes, &c. Genesis iii. ADAM fut par EVE deceu Et contre DIEV mangea la pomme, Dont tous deux ont la Mort receu, Et depuis fut mortel tout homme. III. [Illustration: THE EXPULSION.] Emisit eum DOMINVS DEVS de Paradiso voluptatis, vt operaretur terram de qua sumptus est. Genesis iii. DIEV chassa l'homme de plaisir Pour uiure au labeur de ses mains: Alors la Mort le uint saisir, Et consequemment tous humains. IV. [Illustration: THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL.] Maledicta terra in opere tuo, in laboribus comedes cunctis diebus vitæ tuæ, donec reuertaris, &c. Genesis iii. Mauldicte en ton labeur la terre. En labeur ta uie useras, Iusques que la Mort te soubterre. Toy pouldre en pouldre tourneras. V. [Illustration: A CEMETERY.] Væ væ væ habitantibus in terra. Apocalypsis viii. Cuncta in quibus spiraculum vitæ est, mortua sunt. Genesis vii. Malheureux qui uiuez au monde Tousiours remplis d'aduersitez, Pour quelque bien qui uous abonde, Serez tous de Mort uisitez. VI. [Illustration: THE POPE.] Moriatur sacerdos magnus. Iosve xx. Et episcopatum eius accipiat alter. Psalmista cviii. Qui te cuydes immortel estre Par Mort seras tost depesché, Et combien que tu soys grand prebstre, Vng aultre aura ton Euesché. VII. [Illustration: THE EMPEROR.] Dispone domui tuæ, morieris enim tu, & non viues. Isaiæ xxxviii. Ibi morieris, & ibi erit currus gloriæ tuæ. Isaiæ xxii. De ta maison disposeras Comme de ton bien transitoire, Car là ou mort reposeras, Seront les chariotz de ta gloire. VIII. [Illustration: THE KING.] Sicut & rex hodie est, & cras morietur, nemo enim ex regibus aliud habuit. Ecclesiastici x. Ainsi qu'auiourdhuy il est Roy, Demain sera en tombe close. Car Roy aulcun de son arroy N'a sceu emporter aultre chose. IX. [Illustration: THE CARDINAL.] Væ qui iustificatis impium pro muneribus, & iustitiam iusti aufertis ab eo. Esaiæ v. Mal pour uous qui iustifiez L'inhumain, & plain de malice Et par dons le sanctifiez, Ostant au iuste sa iustice. X. [Illustration: THE EMPRESS.] Gradientes in superbia potest Deus humiliare. Danie iiii. Qui marchez en pompe superbe La Mort vng iour uous pliera. Cõme soubz uoz piedz ployez l'herbe Ainsi uous humiliera. XI. [Illustration: THE QUEEN.] Mulieres opulentæ surgite, & audite vocem meam. Post dies, & annum, & vos conturbemini. Isaiæ xxxii. Leuez uous dames opulentes. Ouyez la uoix des trespassez. Apres maintz ans & iours passez, Serez troublées & doulentes. XII. [Illustration: THE BISHOP.] Percutiam pastorem, & dispergentur oues. xxvi. Mar. xiiii. Le pasteur aussi frapperay, Mitres & crosses renuersées. Et lors quand ie l'attrapperay, Seront ses brebis dispersées. XIII. [Illustration: THE DUKE.] Princeps induetur moerore. Et quiescere faciam superbiã potentium. Ezechie. vii. Vien, prince, auec moy, & delaisse Honneurs mondains tost finissantz. Seule suis qui, certes, abaisse L'orgueil & pompe des puissantz. XIV. [Illustration: THE ABBOT.] Ipse morietur. Quia nõ habuit disciplinam, & in multitudine stultitiæ suæ decipietur. Prover. v. Il mourra. Car il n'a receu En soy aulcune discipline, Et au nombre sera deceu De folie qui le domine. XV. [Illustration: THE ABBESS.] Laudaui magis mortuos quàm viuentes. Eccle. iiii. I'ay tousiours les mortz plus loué Que les uisz, esquelz mal abonde, Toucesfoys la Mort ma noué Au ranc de ceulx qui sont au monde. XVI. [Illustration: THE NOBLEMAN.] Quis est homo qui viuet, & non videbit mortem, eruet animã suam de manu inferi? Psal. lxxxviii. Qui est celluy, tant soit grande homme, Qui puisse uiure sans mourir? Et de la Mort, qui tout assomme, Puisse son Ame recourir? XVII. [Illustration: THE CANON.] Ecce appropinquat hora. Mat. xxvi. Tu uas au choeur dire tes heures Paiant Dieu pour toy, & ton proche. Mais il fault ores que tu meures. Voy tu pas l'heure qui approche? XVIII. [Illustration: THE JUDGE.] Disperdam iudicem de medio eius. Amos ii. Du mylieu d'eulx uous osteray Iuges corrumpus par presentz. Point ne serez de Mort exemptz. Car ailleurs uous transporteray. XIX. [Illustration: THE ADVOCATE.] Callidus vidit malum, & abscõdit se innocens, pertransijt, & afflictus est damno. Prover. xxii. L'homme cault a ueu la malice Pour l'innocent faire obliger, Et puis par uoye de iustice Est uenu le pauure affliger. XX. [Illustration: THE COUNSELLOR.] Qui obturat aurem suam ad clamorem pauperis, & ipse clamabit, & non exaudietur. Prover. xxi. Les riches conseillez tousiours, Et aux pauures clouez l'oreille. Vous crierez aux derniers iours, Mais Dieu uous fera la pareille. XXI. [Illustration: THE PREACHER.] Væ qui dicitis malum bonum, & bonum malu, ponentes tenebras lucem, & lucem tenebras, ponentes amarum dulce, & dulce in amarum. Isaiæ xv. Mal pour uous qui ainsi osez Le mal pour le bien nous blasmer, Et le bien pour mal exposez, Mettant auec le doulx l'amer. XXII. [Illustration: THE PRIEST.] Sum quidem & ego mortalis homo. Sap. vii. Ie porte le sainct sacrement Cuidant le mourant secourir, Qui mortel suis pareillement. Et comme luy me fault mourir. XXIII. [Illustration: THE MENDICANT FRIAR.] Sedentes in tenebris, & in vmbra mortis, vinctos in mendicitate. Psal. cvi. Toy qui n'as soucy, ny remord Sinon de ta mendicité, Tu fierras a l'umbre de Mort Pour t'ouster de necessité. XXIV. [Illustration: THE NUN.] Est via quæ videtur homini iusta: nouissima autem eius deducunt hominem ad mortem. Prover. iiii. Telle uoye aux humains est bonne, Et a l'homme tresiuste semble. Mais la fin d'elle a l'homme donne, La Mort, qui tous pecheurs assemble. XXV. [Illustration: THE OLD WOMAN.] Melior est mors quàm vita. Eccle. xxx. En peine ay uescu longuement Tant que nay plus de uiure enuie, Mais bien ie croy certainement, Meilleure la Mort que la uie. XXVI. [Illustration: THE PHYSICIAN.] Medice, cura teipsum. Lvcæ iiii. Tu congnoys bien la maladie Pour le patient secourir, Et si ne scais teste estourdie, Le mal dont tu deburas mourir. XXVII. [Illustration: THE ASTROLOGER.] Indica mihi si nosti omnia. Sciebas quòd nasciturus esses, & numerum dierum tuorum noueras? Iob xxviii. Tu dis par Amphibologie Ce qu'aux aultres doibt aduenir. Dy moy donc par Astrologie Quand tu deburas a moy uenir? XXVIII. [Illustration: THE RICH MAN.] Stulte hac nocte repetunt animam tuam, & quæ parasti cuius erunt? Lvcæ xii. Ceste nuict la Mort te prendra, Et demain seras enchassé. Mais dy moy, fol, a qui uiendra Le bien que tu as amassé? XXIX. [Illustration: THE MERCHANT.] Qui congregat thesauros mendacij vanus & excors est, & impingetur ad laqueos mortis. Prover. xxi. Vain est cil qui amassera Grandz biens, & tresors pour mentir, La Mort l'en fera repentir. Car en ses lacz surpris sera. XXX. [Illustration: THE SHIPMAN.] Qui volunt diuites fieri incidunt in laqueum diaboli, & desideria multa, & nociua, quæ mergunt homines in interitum. I. Ad Timo. vi. Pour acquerir des biens mondains Vous entrez en tentation, Qui uous met es perilz soubdains, Et uous maine a perdition. XXXI. [Illustration: THE KNIGHT.] Subito morientur, & in media nocte turbabuntur populi, & auferent violentum absque manu. Iob xxxiiii. Peuples soubdain s'esleuront A lencontre de l'inhumain, Et le uiolent osteront D'auec eulx sans force de main. XXXII. [Illustration: THE COUNT.] Quoniam cùm interiet non sumet secum omnia, neque cum eo descendet gloria eius. Psal. xlviii. Auec soy rien n'emportera, Mais qu'une foys la Mort le tombe, Rien de sa gloire n'ostera, Pour mettre auec soy en sa tombe. XXXIII. [Illustration: THE OLD MAN.] Spiritus meus attenuabitur, dies mei breuiabuntur, & solum mihi superest sepulchrum. Iob xvii. Mes esperitz sont attendriz, Et ma uie s'en ua tout beau. Las mes longziours sont amoindriz, Plus ne me reste qu'un tombeau. XXXIV. [Illustration: THE COUNTESS.] Ducunt in bonis dies suos, & in puncto ad inferna descendunt. Iob xxi. En biens mõdains leurs iours despendet En uoluptez, & en tristesse, Puis soubdain aux Enfers descendent Ou leur ioye passe en tristesse. XXXV. [Illustration: THE NOBLE LADY.] Me & te sola mors separabit. Rvth. i. Amour qui unyz nous faict uiure, En foy noz cueurs preparera, Qui long temps ne nous pourra suyure, Car la Mort nous separera. XXXVI. [Illustration: THE DUCHESS.] De lectulo super quem ascendisti non descendes, sed morte morieris. iiii. Reg. i. Du lict sus lequel as monté Ne descendras a ton plaisir. Car Mort t'aura tantost dompté, Et en brief te uiendra saisir. XXXVII. [Illustration: THE PEDLAR.] Venite ad me qui onerati estis. Matth. xi. Venez, & apres moy marchez Vous qui estes par trop charge. Cest assez suiuy les marchez: Vous serez par moy decharge. XXXVIII. [Illustration: THE PLOUGHMAN.] In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo. Gene. i. A la sueur de ton uisaige Tu gaigneras ta pauure uie. Apres long trauail, & usaige, Voicy la Mort qui te conuie. XXXIX. [Illustration: THE YOUNG CHILD.] Homo natus de muliere, breui viuens tempore repletur multis miserijs, qui quasi flos egreditur, & conteritur, & fugit velut vmbra. Iob xiiii. Tout homme de la femme yssant Remply de misere, & d'encombre, Ainsi que fleur tost finissant. Sort & puis fuyt comme faict l'umbre. XL. [Illustration: THE LAST JUDGMENT.] Omnes stabimus ante tribunal domini. Roma. xiiii. Vigilate, & orate, quia nescitis qua hora venturus sit dominus. Matt. xxiiii. Deuante le trosne du grand iuge Chascun de soy compte rendra Pourtant ueillez, qu'il ne uous iuge. Car ne scauez quand il uiendra. XLI. [Illustration: THE ESCUTCHEON OF DEATH.] Memorare nouissima, & in æternum non peccabis. Eccle. vii. Si tu ueulx uiure sans peché Voy ceste imaige a tous propos, Et point ne seras empesché, Quand tu t'en iras a repos. [ADDED IN LATER EDITIONS] XLII. [Illustration: THE SOLDIER.] Cum fortis armatus custodit atrium suum, &c. Si autem fortior eo superueniens vicerit eum, uniuersa eius arma aufert, in quibus confidebat. Le sort armé en jeune corps Pense auoir seure garnison; Mais Mort plus forte, le met hors De sa corporelle maison. XLIII. [Illustration: THE GAMESTER.] Quid prodest homini, si vniuersum Mundum lucretur, animæ autem suæ detrimentum patiatur? Matt. xvi. Que vault à l'homme tout le Monde Gaigner d'hazard, & chance experte, S'il recoit de sa uie immonde Par Mort, irreparable perte? XLIV. [Illustration: THE DRUNKARD.] Ne inebriemini vino, in quo est luxuria. Ephes. v. De vin (auquel est tout exces) Ne vous enyurez pour dormir Sommeil de Mort qui au deces Vous face l'ame, & sang vomir. XLV. [Illustration: THE FOOL.] Quasi agnus lasciuiens, & ignorans, nescit quòd ad vincula stultus trahatur. Proverb vii. Le Fol vit en ioye, & deduict San scavoir qu'il s'en va mourant, Tant qu'à sa fin il est conduict Ainsi que l'agneau ignorant. XLVI. [Illustration: THE ROBBER.] Domine, vim patior. Isaiæ xxxviii. La foible femme brigandée Crie, O seigneur on me fait force. Lors de Dieu la mort est mandée, Qui les estrangle à dure estorce. XLVII. [Illustration: THE BLIND MAN.] Cæcus cæcum ducit: & ambo in foueam cadunt. Matth. xv. L'aueugle un autre aueugle guide, L'un par l'autre en la fosse tombe: Car quand plus oultre aller il cuide, La MORT l'homme iecte en la tombe. XLVIII. [Illustration: THE WAGGONER.] Corruit in curru suo. i Chron. xxii. Au passage de MORT peruerse Raison, chartier tout esperdu, Du corps le char, & cheuaux verse, Le vin (sang de vie) espandu. XLIX. [Illustration: THE BEGGAR.] Miser ego homo! Quis nie liberabit de corpore mortis huius? Rom. vii. Qui hors la chair veult en Christ viure Ne craint mort, mais dit un mortel, Helas, qui me rendra deliure Pouure homme de ce corps mortel? * * * * * _Of this edition of Holbein's "The Dance of Death," seven hundred and fifty copies have been printed on Japan vellum, for the Scott-Thaw Co., by the Heintzemann Press, July, MCMIII._ [Transcriber's Note: In the work used for this digitization, each pair of facing pages has the Latin biblical quotation at the top of the left page printed in red, the French quatrain at the bottom of the left page printed in black, and the illustration (numbered above, and captioned below) on the right page, opposite the text. For clarity in the text-only version, the plate numbers and captions have been moved to precede their corresponding verses.] 
21212	----	THE LIVES OF THE PAINTERS, SCULPTORS & ARCHITECTS by GIORGIO VASARI In Eight Volumes Vol. One CONTENTS CIMABUE (1240-1302) ARNOLFO DI LAPO (1232-1310) BONANNO (fl. 1174-1186 LAPO (1190-1260) NICCOLA AND GIOVANNI PISANI fl 1205, 1278, 1250-1328) ANDREA TAFI (1250-1320) GADDO GADDI (1259-1333) MARGARITONE (1210-1293) GIOTTO (1267-1337) PUCCIO CAPANNA (fl. 1350) AGOSTINO AND AGNOLO (fl. 1286-1330) STEFANO AND UGOLINO (1301-1350, 1260-1339) PIETRO LAURATI (died c. 1350) ANDREA PISANO (1270-1348) BUONAMICO BUFFALMACCO (fl. 1311-1351) AMBRUOGIO LORENZETTI (died c. 1338) PIETRO CAVALLINI (1259-1334) SIMONE MARTINI AND LIPPO MEMMI (1285-1344; died 1357) PREFACE TO THE LIVES I am aware that it is commonly held as a fact by most writers that sculpture, as well as painting, was naturally discovered originally by the people of Egypt, and also that there are others who attribute to the Chaldeans the first rough carvings of statues and the first reliefs. In like manner there are those who credit the Greeks with the invention of the brush and of colouring. But it is my opinion that design, which is the creative principle in both arts, came into existence at the time of the origin of all things. When the Most High created the world and adorned the heavens with shining lights, His perfect intellect passing through the limpid air and alighting on the solid earth, formed man, thus disclosing the first form of sculpture and painting in the charming invention of things. Who will deny that from this man, as from a living example, the ideas of statues and sculpture, and the questions of pose and of outline, first took form; and from the first pictures, whatever they may have been, arose the first ideas of grace, unity, and the discordant concords made by the play of lights and shadows? Thus the first model from which the first image of man arose was a lump of earth, and not without reason, for the Divine Architect of time and of nature, being all perfection, wished to demonstrate, in the imperfection of His materials, what could be done to improve them, just as good sculptors and painters are in the habit of doing, when, by adding additional touches and removing blemishes, they bring their imperfect sketches to such a state of completion and of perfection as they desire. God also endowed man with a bright flesh colour, and the same shades may be drawn from the earth, which supplies materials to counterfeit everything which occurs in painting. It is indeed true that it is impossible to feel absolutely certain as to what steps men took for the imitation of the beautiful works of Nature in these arts before the flood, although it appears, most probable that even then they practised all manner of painting and sculpture; for Bel, son of the proud Nimrod, about 200 years after the flood, had a statue made, from which idolatry afterwards arose; and his celebrated daughter-in-law, Semiramis, queen of Babylon, in the building of that city, introduced among the ornaments there coloured representations from life of divers kinds of animals, as well as of herself and of her husband Ninus, with the bronze statues of her father, her mother-in-law, and her great-grandmother, as Diodorus relates, calling them Jove, Juno, and Ops--Greek names, which did not then exist. It was, perhaps, from these statues that the Chaldeans learned to make the images of their gods. It is recorded in Genesis how 150 years later, when Rachel was fleeing from Mesopotamia with her husband Jacob, she stole the idols of her father Laban. Nor were the Chaldeans singular in making statues, for the Egyptians also had theirs, devoting great pains to those arts, as is shown by the marvellous tomb of that king of remote antiquity, Osimandyas, described at length by Diodorus, and, as the severe command of Moses proves, when, on leaving Egypt, he gave orders that no images should be made to God, upon pain of death. Moses also, after having ascended the Mount, and having found a golden calf manufactured and adored by his people, was greatly troubled at seeing divine honours accorded to the image of a beast; so that he not only broke it to powder, but, in the punishment of so great a fault, caused the Levites to put to death many thousands of the false Israelites who had committed this idolatry. But as the sin consisted in adoring idols and not in making them, it is written in Exodus that the art of design and of making statues, not only in marble but in all kinds of metal, was given by the mouth of God himself to Bezaleel, of the tribe of Judah, and to Aholiab, of the tribe of Dan, who made the two cherubim of gold, the candles, the veil, and the borders of the sacerdotal vestments, together with a number of other beautiful things in the tabernacle, for no other purpose than that people should put them on for their own adornment and delight. From the things seen before the flood, the pride of man found the means to make statues of those who wished their fame in the world to be immortal; and the Greeks, who give a different origin to this, say that the Ethiopians found the first statues, according to Diodorus, the Egyptians imitated these, while the Greeks followed the Egyptians. From this time until Homer's day it is clear that sculpture and painting were perfect, as we may see from the description of Achilles' shield by that divine poet, who represents it with such skill that the image of it is presented to our minds as clearly as if we had seen the thing itself. Lactantius Firmianus attributes the credit of the invention to Prometheus, who like God formed the human form out of dust. But according to Pliny this art was introduced into Egypt by Gyges of Lydia, who on seeing his shadow cast by the fire, at once drew a representation of himself on the wall with a piece of coal. For some time after that it was the custom to draw in outline only, without any colouring, Pliny again being our authority. This was afterwards introduced by Philocles of Egypt with considerable pains, and also by Cleanthes and Ardices of Corinth and by Telephanes of Sicyon. Cleophantes of Corinth was the first of the Greeks to use colours, and Apollodorus was the first to introduce the brush. Polignotus of Thasos, Zeuxis and Timagoras of Chalcis, Pythia and Aglaphon followed them, all most celebrated, and after them came the renowned Apelles who was so highly esteemed and honoured for his skill by Alexander the Great, for his wonderful delineation of Calumny and Favour, as Lucian relates. Almost all the painters and sculptors were of high excellence, being frequently endowed by heaven, not only with the additional gift of poetry, as we read in Pacuvius, but also with that of philosophy. Metrodorus is an instance in point, for he was equally skilled as a philosopher and as a painter, and when Apelles was sent by the Athenians to Paulus Emilius to adorn his triumph he remained to teach philosophy to the general's sons. Sculpture was thus generally practised in Greece, where there flourished a number of excellent artists, among them being Phidias of Athens, Praxiteles and Polycletus, very great masters. Lysippus and Pyrgoteles who were of considerable skill in engraving, and Pygmalion in ivory carving in relief, it being recorded of him that he obtained life by his prayers for the figure of a maid carved by him. The ancient Greeks and Romans also honoured and rewarded painting, since they granted the citizenship and very liberal gifts to those who excelled in this art. Painting flourished in Rome to such an extent that Fabius gave a name to his house, subscribing himself in the beautiful things he did in the temple of safety as Fabius the painter. By public decree slaves were prohibited from practising painting, and so much honour was continually afforded by the people to the art and to artists that rare works were sent to Rome among the spoils to appear in the triumphs; excellent artists who were slaves obtained their liberty and received notable rewards from the republic. The Romans bore such a reverence for the art that when the city of Syracuse was sacked Marcellus gave orders that his men should treat with respect a famous artist there, and also that they should be careful not to set fire to a quarter in which there was a very fine picture. This was afterwards carried to Rome to adorn his triumph. To that city in the course of time almost all the spoils of the world were brought, and the artists themselves gathered there beside these excellent works. By such means Rome became an exceedingly beautiful city, more richly adorned by the statues of foreign artists than by those made by natives. It is known that in the little island city of Rhodes there were more than 30,000 statues, in bronze and marble, nor did the Athenians possess less, while those of Olympus and Delphi were more numerous still, and those of Corinth were without number, all being most beautiful and of great price. Does not every one know how Nicomedes, king of Lycia, expended almost all the wealth of his people owing to his passion for a Venus by the hand of Praxiteles? Did not Attalus do the same? who without an afterthought expended more than 6000 sesterces to have a picture of Bacchus painted by Aristides. This picture was placed by Lucius Mummius, with great pomp to adorn Rome, in the temple of Ceres. But although the nobility of this art was so highly valued, it is uncertain to whom it owes its origin. As I have already said, it is found in very ancient times among the Chaldeans, some attribute the honour to the Ethiopians, while the Greeks claim it for themselves. Besides this there is good reason for supposing that the Tuscans may have had it earlier, as our own Leon Batista Alberti asserts, and weighty evidence in favour of this view is supplied by the marvellous tomb of Porsena at Chiusi, where not long ago some tiles of terracotta were found under the ground, between the walls of the Labyrinth, containing some figures in half-relief, so excellent and so delicately fashioned that it is easy to see that art was not in its infancy at that time, for to judge by the perfection of these specimens it was nearer its zenith than its origin. Evidence to the same purport is supplied every day by the quantity of pieces of red and black Aretine vases, made about the same time, to judge by the style, with light carvings and small figures and scenes in bas-relief, and a quantity of small round masks, cleverly made by the masters of that age, and which prove the men of the time to have been most skilful and accomplished in that art. Further evidence is afforded by the statues found at Viterbo at the beginning of the pontificate of Alexander VI., showing that sculpture was valued and had advanced to no small state of perfection in Tuscany. Although the time when they were made is not exactly known, yet from the style of the figures and from the manner of the tombs and of the buildings, no less than by the inscriptions in Tuscan letters, it may be conjectured with great reason that they are of great antiquity, and that they were made at a time when such things were highly valued. But what clearer evidence can be desired than the discovery made in our own day in the year 1554 of a bronze figure representing the Chimæra of Bellerophon, during the excavation of the fortifications and walls of Arezzo. This figure exhibits the perfection of the art attained by the Tuscans. Some small letters carved on a paw are presumed, in the absence of a knowledge of the Etruscan language, to give the master's name, and perhaps the date. This figure, on account of its beauty and antiquity, has been placed by Duke Cosimo in a chamber in his palace in the new suite of rooms which contains my paintings of the deeds of Pope Leo X. The Duke also possesses a number of small bronze figures which were found in the same place. But as the antiquity of the works of the Greeks, Ethiopians, Chaldeans, and Tuscans is enveloped in darkness, and because it is necessary in such matters to base one's opinions on conjectures, although these are not so ill founded that one is in danger of going very far astray, yet I think that anyone who will take the trouble to consider the matter carefully will arrive at the same conclusion as I have, that art owes its origin to Nature herself, that this beautiful creation the world supplied the first model, while the original teacher was that divine intelligence which has not only made us superior to the other animals, but like God Himself, if I may venture to say it. In our own time it has been seen, as I hope to show quite shortly, that simple children, roughly brought up in the woods, have begun to draw by themselves aided by the vivacity of their intellect, instructed solely by the example of these beautiful paintings and sculptures of Nature. Much more then is it probable that the first men, being less removed from their divine origin, were more perfect, possessing a brighter intelligence, and that with Nature as a guide, a pure intellect for master, and the lovely world as a model, they originated these noble arts, and by gradually improving them brought them at length, from small beginnings, to perfection. I do not deny that there must have been an originator, since I know quite well that there must have been a beginning at some time, due to some individual. Neither will I deny that it is possible for one person to help another, and to teach and open the way to design, colour, and relief, because I know that our art consists entirely of imitation, first of Nature, and then, as it cannot rise so high of itself, of those things which are produced from the masters with the greatest reputation. But I will say that an attempt to determine the exact identity of such men is a very dangerous task, and the knowledge when gained would probably prove unprofitable, since we have seen the true and original root of all. But the life and fame of artists depend upon their works which are destroyed by time one after the other in the order of their creation. Thus the artists themselves are unknown as there was no one to write about them and could not be, so that this source of knowledge was not granted to posterity. But when writers began to commemorate things made before their time, they were unable to speak of those of which they had seen no notice, so that those who came nearest to these were the last of whom no memorial remains. Thus Homer is by common consent admitted to be the first of the poets, not because there were none before him, for there were although they were not so excellent, and in his own works this is clearly shown, but because all knowledge of these, such as they were, had been lost two thousand years before. But we will now pass over these matters which are too vague on account of their antiquity and we will proceed to deal with clearer questions, namely, the rise of the arts to perfection, their decline and their restoration or rather renaissance, and here we stand on much firmer ground. The practice of the arts began late in Rome, if the first figures were, as reported, the image of Ceres made of the money of Spurius Caasius, who was condemned to death without remorse by his own father, because he was plotting to make himself king. But although the arts of painting and sculpture continued to flourish until the death of the last of the twelve Cæsars, yet they did not maintain that perfection and excellence which had characterised them before, as is seen as seen in the buildings of the time. The arts declined steadily from day to day, until at length by a gradual process they entirety lost all perfection of design. Clear testimony to this is afforded by the works in sculpture and architecture produced in Rome in the time of Constantine, notably in the triumphal arch made for him by the Roman people at the Colosseum, where we see, that for lack of good masters not only did they make use of marble works carved in the time of Trajan, but also of spoils brought to Rome from various places. These bas-reliefs, statues, the columns, the cornices and other ornaments which belong to another epoch only serve to expose the defects in those parts of the work which are entirely due to the sculptors of the day and which are most rude. Very rude also are some scenes of small figures in marble under the circles and the pediment, representing victories, while between the side arches there are some rivers also very crude and so poor that they leave one firmly under the impression that the art of sculpture had been in a state of decadence for a long while. Yet the Goths and the other barbarous and foreign nations who combined to destroy all the superior arts in Italy had not then appeared. It is true that architecture suffered less than the other arts of design. The bath erected by Constantine at the entrance of the principal portico of the Lateran contains, in addition to its porphyry columns, capitals carved in marble and beautifully carved double bases taken from elsewhere, the whole composition of the building being very well ordered. On the other hand, the stucco, the mosaic and some incrustations of the walls made by the masters of the time are not equal to those which had been taken away for the most part from the temples of the gods of the heathen, and which Constantine caused to be placed in the same building. Constantine observed the same methods, according to report, with the garden of Æquitius in building the temple which he afterwards endowed and gave to Christian priests. In like manner the magnificent church of S. John Lateran, built by the same emperor, may serve as evidence of the same fact, namely, that sculpture had already greatly declined in his time, because the figures of the Saviour and of the twelve apostles in silver, which he caused to be made, were very base works, executed without art and with very little design. In addition to this, it is only necessary to examine the medals of this emperor, and other statues made by the sculptors of his day, which are now at the Capitol, to clearly perceive how far removed they are from the perfection of the medals and statues of the other emperors, all of which things prove that sculpture had greatly declined long before the coming of the Goths to Italy. Architecture, as I have said, maintained its excellence at a higher though not at the highest level. Nor is this a matter for surprise, since large buildings were almost entirely constructed of spoils, so that it was easy for the architects to imitate the old in making the new, since they had the former continually before their eyes. This was an easier task for them than far the sculptors, as the art of imitating the good figures of the ancients had declined. A good illustration of the truth of this statement is afforded by the church of the chief of the apostles in the Vatican, which is rich in columns, bases, capitals, architraves, cornices, doors and other incrustations and ornaments which were all taken from various places and buildings, erected before that time in very magnificent style. The same remarks apply to S. Croce at Jerusalem, which Constantine erected at the entreaty of his mother, Helena; of S. Lorenzo outside the wall, and of S. Agnesa, built by the same emperor at the request of his daughter Constance. Who also is not aware that the font which served for the baptism of the latter and of one of her sisters, was ornamented with fragments of great antiquity? as were the porphyry pillar carved with beautiful figures and some marble candelabra exquisitely carved with leaves, and some children in bas-relief of extraordinary beauty? In short, by these and many other signs, it is clear that sculpture was in decadence in the time of Constantine, and with it the other superior arts. If anything was required to complete their ruin it was supplied by the departure of Constantine from Rome when he transferred the seat of government to Byzantium, as he took with him to Greece not only all the best sculptors and other artists of the age, such as they were, but also a quantity of statues and other beautiful works of sculpture. After the departure of Constantine, the Caesars whom he left in Italy, were continually building in Rome and elsewhere, endeavouring to make these works as good as possible, but as we see, sculpture, painting and architecture were steadily going from bad to worse. This arose perhaps from the fact that when human affairs begin to decline, they grow steadily worse until the time comes when they can no longer deteriorate any further. In the time of Pope Liberius the architects of the day took considerable pains to produce a masterpiece when they built S. Maria Maggiore, but they were not very happy in the result, because although the building, which is also mostly constructed of spoils, is of very fair proportions, it cannot be denied that, not to speak of other defects, the decoration of the church with stucco and painting above the columns is of very poor design, and that many other things to be seen there leave no doubt as to the degradation of the arts. Many years later, when the Christians were suffering persecution under Julian the Apostate, a church was erected on the Celian Hill to SS. John and Paul, the martyrs, in so inferior a style to the others mentioned above that it is quite clear that at that time, art had all but entirely disappeared. The edifices erected in Tuscany at the same time bear out this view to the fullest extent. The church outside the walls of Arezzo, built to St Donato, bishop of that city, who suffered martyrdom with Hilarion the monk, under the same Julian the Apostate, is in no way superior to the others, and this is only one of many. It cannot be contended that such a state of affairs was due to anything but the lack of good architects, since the church in question, which is still standing, has eight sides, and was built of the spoils of the theatre, colosseum and other buildings erected in Arezzo before it was converted to the Christian faith. No expense has been spared, its columns being of granite and porphyry and variegated marble which, had formerly adorned the ancient buildings. For my own part, I have no doubt, seeing the expense incurred, that if the Aretines had been able to employ better architects they would have produced something marvellous, since what they actually accomplished proves that they spared themselves nothing in order to make this building as magnificent and complete as possible. But as architecture had lost less of its excellence than the other arts, as I have often said before, some good things may be seen there. At the same period the church of S. Maria in Grado was enlarged in honour of St Hilarion, who had lived in the city a long time before he accompanied Donato to receive the palm of martyrdom. But as Fortune, when she has brought men to the top of the wheel, either for amusement or because she repents, usually turns them to the bottom, it came to pass after these things that almost all the barbarian nations rose in divers parts of the world against the Romans, the result being the abasement of that great empire in a short time, and the destruction of everything, notably of Rome herself. That fall involved the complete destruction of the most excellent artists, sculptors, painters and architects who abandoned their profession and were themselves buried and submerged under the debris and ruins of that most celebrated city. The first to go were painting and sculpture, as being arts which served rather for pleasure than for utility, the other art, namely architecture, being necessary and useful for the welfare of the body, continued in use, but not in its perfection and purity. The very memory of painting and sculpture would have speedily disappeared had they not represented before the eyes of the rising generation, the distinguished men of another age. Some of them were commemorated by effigies and by inscriptions placed on public and private buildings, such as amphitheatres, theatres, baths, aqueducts, temples, obelisks, colosseums, pyramids, arches, reservoirs and treasuries, yes, and even on the very tombs. The majority of these were destroyed and obliterated by the barbarians, who had nothing human about them but their shape and name. Among others there were the Visigoths, who having made Alaric their king, invaded Italy and twice sacked Rome without respect for anything. The Vandals who came from Africa with Genseric, their king, did the like. But he, not content with his plunder and booty and the cruelties he inflicted, led into servitude the people there, to their infinite woe, and with them Eudoxia the wife of the Emperor Valentinian, who had only recently been assassinated by his own soldiers. These men had greatly degenerated from the ancient Roman valour, because a great while before, the best of them had all gone to Constantinople with the Emperor Constantine, and those left behind were dissolute and abandoned. Thus true men and every sort of virtue perished at the same time; laws, habits, names and tongues suffered change, and these varied misfortunes, collectively and singly, debased and degraded every fine spirit and every lofty soul. But the most harmful and destructive force which operated against these fine arts was the fervent zeal of the new Christian religion, which, after long and sanguinary strife, had at length vanquished and abolished the old faith of the heathen, by means of a number of miracles and by the sincerity of its acts. Every effort was put forth to remove and utterly extirpate the smaller things from which errors might arise, and thus not only were the marvellous statues, sculptures, paintings, mosaics and ornaments of the false pagan gods destroyed and thrown down, but also the memorials and honours of countless excellent persons, to whose distinguished merits statues and other memorials had been set up by a most virtuous antiquity. Besides all this, in order to build churches for the use of the Christians, not only were the most honoured temples of the idols destroyed, but in order to ennoble and decorate S. Peter's with more ornaments than it then possessed, the mole of Hadrian, now the castle of S. Angelo, was despoiled of its stone columns, as well as of many other things which are now seen in ruins. Now, although the Christian religion did not act thus from any hatred for talent, but only because of its contempt for the heathen gods, yet the utter ruin of these honourable professions, which entirely lost their form, was none the less entirely due to this burning zeal. That nothing might be wanting to these grave disasters there followed the rage of Totila against Rome, who destroyed the walls, ruined all the most magnificent and noble buildings with fire and sword, burned it from one end to another, and having stripped it of every living creature left it a prey to the flames, so that for the space of eighteen days not a living soul could be found there. He utterly destroyed the marvellous statues, paintings, mosaics and stuccos, so that he left Rome not only stripped of every trace of her former majesty, but destitute of shape and life. The ground floors of the palaces and other building had been adorned with paintings, stuccos and statues, and these were buried under the debris, so that many good things have come to light in our own day. Those who came after, judging everything to be ruined, planted vines over them so that these ruined chambers remained entirely underground, and the moderns have called them grottos and the paintings found there grotesques. The Ostrogoths being exterminated by Narses, the ruins of Rome were inhabited in a wretched fashion when after an interval of a hundred years there came the Emperor Constans of Constantinople, who was received in a friendly manner by the Romans. However he wasted, plundered and carried away everything that had been left in the wretched city of Rome, abandoned rather by chance than by the deliberate purpose of those who had laid it waste. It is true that he was not able to enjoy this booty, for being driven to Sicily by a storm at sea, he was killed by his followers, a fate he richly deserved, and thus lost his spoils, his kingdom and his life. But as if the troubles of Rome had not been sufficient, for the things which had been taken away could never return, there came an army of Saracens to ravage that island, who carried away the property of the Sicilians and the spoils of Rome to Alexandria, to the infinite shame and loss of Italy and of all Christendom. Thus what the popes had not destroyed, notably St Gregory, who is said to have put under the ban all that remained of the statues and of the spoils of the buildings, finally perished through the instrumentality of this traitorous Greek. Not a trace or a vestige of any good thing remained, so that the generations which followed being rough and material, particularly in painting and sculpture, yet feeling themselves impelled by nature and inspired by the atmosphere of the place, set themselves to produce things, not indeed according to the rules of art, for they had none, but as they were instructed by their own intelligence. The arts of design having arrived at this pitch, both before and during the time that the Lombards ruled Italy, they subsequently grew worse and worse, until at length they reached the lowest depths of baseness. An instance of their utter tastelessness and crudeness may be seen in some figures over the door in the portico of S. Peter's at Rome, in memory of some holy fathers who had disputed for Holy Church in certain councils. Further evidence is supplied by a number of examples in the same style in the city and in the whole of the Exarchate of Ravenna, notably some in S. Maria Rotonda outside that city, which were made shortly after the Lombards were driven from Italy. But I will not deny that there is one very notable and marvellous thing in this church, and that is the vault or cupola which covers it, which is ten braccia across and serves as the roof of the building, and yet is of a single piece and so large that it appears impossible that a stone of this description, weighing more than 200,000 pounds, could be placed so high up. But to return to our point, the masters of that day produced nothing but shapeless and clumsy things which may still be seen to-day. It was the same with architecture, for it was necessary to build, and as form and good methods were lost by the death of good artists and the destruction of good buildings, those who devoted themselves to this profession built erections devoid of order or measure, and totally deficient in grace, proportion or principle. Then new architects arose who created that style of building, for their barbarous nations, which we call German, and produced some works which are ridiculous to our modern eyes, but appeared admirable to theirs. This lasted until a better form somewhat similar to the good antique manner was discovered by better artists, as is shown by the oldest churches in Italy which are not antique, which were built by them, and by the palaces erected for Theoderic, King of Italy, at Ravenna, Pavia, and Modena, though the style is barbarous and rather rich and grand than well conceived or really good. The same may be said of S. Stefano at Rimini and of S. Martino at Ravenna, of the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista in the same city built by Galla Placida about the year of grace 438, of S. Vitale which was built in the year 547, and of the abbey of Classi di fuori, and indeed of many other monasteries and churches built after the time of the Lombards. All these buildings, as I have said, are great and magnificent, but the architecture is very rude. Among them are many abbeys in France built to S. Benedict and the church and monastery of Monte Casino, the church of S. Giovanni Battista built by that Theodelinda, Queen of the Goths, to whom S. Gregory the Pope wrote his dialogues. In this place that queen caused the history of the Lombards to be painted. We thus see that they shaved the backs of their heads, and wore tufts in front, and were dyed to the chin. Their clothes were of broad linen, like those worn by the Angles and Saxons, and they wore a mantle of divers colours; their shoes were open to the toes and bound above with small leather straps. Similar to the churches enumerated above were the church of S. Giovanni, Pavia, built by Gundiperga, daughter of Theodelinda, and the church of S. Salvatore in the same city, built by Aribert, the brother of the same queen, who succeeded Rodoaldo, husband of Gundiberta, in the government; the church of S. Ambruogio at Pavia, built by Grimoald, King of the Lombards, who drove from the kingdom Aribert's son Perterit. This Perterit being restored to his throne after Grimoald's death built a nunnery at Pavia called the Monasterio Nuovo, in honour of Our Lady and of St Agatha, and the queen built another dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Pertica outside the walls. Cunibert, Perterit's son, likewise built a monastery and church to St George called di Coronato, in a similar style, on the spot where he had won a great victory over Alahi. Not unlike these was the church which the Lombard king Luit-prand, who lived in the time of King Pepin, the father of Charlemagne, built at Pavia, called S. Piero, in Cieldauro, or that which Desiderius, who succeeded Astolf, built to S. Piero Clivate in the diocese of Milan; or the monastery of S. Vincenzo at Milan, or that of S. Giulia at Brescia, because all of them were very costly, but in a most ugly and rambling style. In Florence the style of architecture was slightly improved somewhat later, the church of S. Apostolo built by Charlemagne, although small, being very beautiful, because the shape of the columns, although made up of pieces, is very graceful and beautifully made, and the capitals and the arches in the vaulting of the side aisles show that some good architect was left in Tuscany, or had arisen there. In fine the architecture of this church is such that Pippo di Ser Brunnellesco did not disdain to make use of it as his model in designing the churches of S. Spirito and S. Lorenzo in the same city. The same progress may be noticed in the church of S. Mark's at Venice, not to speak of that of S. Giorgio Maggiore erected by Giovanni Morosini in the year 978. S. Mark's was begun under the Doge Giustiniano and Giovanni Particiaco next to S. Teodosio, when the body of the Evangelist was brought from Alexandria to Venice. After the Doge's palace and the church had suffered severely from a series of fires, it was rebuilt upon the same foundations in the Byzantine style as it stands to-day, at a great cost and with the assistance of many architects, in the time of the Doge Domenico Selvo, in the year 973, the columns being brought from the places where they could be obtained. The construction was continued until the year 1140, M. Piero Polani being then Doge, from the plans of several masters who were all Greeks, as I have said. Erected at the same time, and also in the Byzantine style, were the seven abbeys built in Tuscany by Count Hugh, Marquis of Brandenburg, such as the Badia of Florence, the abbey of Settimo, and the others. All these structures and the vestiges of others which are not standing bear witness to the fact that architecture maintained its footing though in a very bastard form far removed from the good antique style. Further evidence is afforded by a number of old palaces erected in Florence in Tuscan work after the destruction of Fiesole, but the measurements of the doors and the very elongated windows and the sharp-pointed arches after the manner of the foreign architects of the day, denote some amount of barbarism. In the year after 1013 the art appears to have received an access of vigour in the rebuilding of the beautiful church of S. Miniato on the Mount in the time of M. Alibrando, citizen and bishop of Florence, for, in addition to the marble ornamentation both within and without, the façade shows that the Tuscan architects were making efforts to imitate the good ancient order in the doors, windows, columns, arches and cornices, so far as they were able, having as a model the very ancient church of S. Giovanni in their city. At the same period, pictorial art, which had all but disappeared, seems to have made some progress, as is shown by a mosaic in the principal chapel of the same church of S. Miniato. From such beginnings design and a general improvement in the arts began to make headway in Tuscany, as in the year 1016 when the Pisans began to erect their Duomo. For in that time it was a considerable undertaking to build such a church, with its five aisles and almost entirely constructed of marble both inside and out. This church, built from the plans and under the direction of Buschetto, a clever Greek architect from Dulichium, was erected and adorned by the Pisans when at the zenith of their power with an endless quantity of spoils brought by sea from various distant parts, as the columns, bases, capitals, cornices and other stones there of every description, amply demonstrate. Now since all these things were of all sizes, great, medium, and small, Buschetto displayed great judgment in adapting them to their places, so that the whole building is excellently devised in every part, both within and without. Amongst other things he devised the façade, which is made up of a series of stages, gradually diminishing toward the top and consisting of a great number of columns, adorning it with other columns and antique statues. He carried out the principal doors of that façade in the same style, beside one of which, that of the Carroccio, he afterwards received honourable burial, with three epitaphs, one being in Latin verse, not unlike other things of the time: _Quod vix mille boum possent juga juncta movere Et quod vix potuit per mare ferre ratis Buschetti nisu, quod erat Mirabile visu Dena puellarum turba levavit onus._ As I have mentioned the church of S. Apostolo at Florence above, I will here give an inscription which may be read on a marble slab on one of the sides of the high altar, which runs: VIII. v. Die vi. Aprilis in resurrectione Domini Karolus Francorum Rex Roma revertens, ingressus Florentiam cum magno gaudio et tripudio succeptus, civium copiam torqueis aureis decoravit. Ecclesia Sanctorum Apostolorum in altari inclusa est laminea plumbea, in qua descripta apparet praefacta fundatio et consecratio facta per Archiepiscopum Turpinum, testibus Rolando et Uliverio. The edifice of the Duomo at Pisa gave a new impulse to the minds of many men in all Italy, and especially in Tuscany, and led to the foundation in the city of Pistoia in 1032 of the church of S. Paolo, in the presence of S. Atto, the bishop there, as a contemporary deed relates, and indeed of many other buildings, a mere mention of which would occupy too much space. I must not forget to mention either, how in the course of time the round church of S. Giovanni was erected at Pisa in the year 1060, opposite the Duomo and on the same piazza. A marvellous and almost incredible statement in connection with this church is that of an ancient record in a book of the Opera of the Duomo, that the columns, pillars and vaulting were erected and completed in fifteen days and no more. The same book, which may be examined by any one, relates that an impost of a penny a hearth was exacted for the building of the temple, but it does not state whether this was to be of gold or of base metal. The same book states that there were 34,000 hearths in Pisa at that time. It is certain that the work was very costly and presented formidable difficulties, especially the vaulting of the tribune, which is pear-shaped and covered outside with lead. The exterior is full of columns, carving, scenes, and the middle part of the frieze of the doorway contains figures of Christ and the twelve apostles in half-relief and in the Byzantine style. About the same time, namely in 1061, the Lucchese, in emulation of the Pisans, began the church of S. Martino at Lucea, from the designs of some pupils of Buschetto, there being no other artists then in Tuscany. The façade has a marble portico in front of it containing many ornaments and carvings in honour of Pope Alexander II., who had been bishop of the city just before he was raised to the pontificate. Nine lines in Latin relate the whole history of the façade and of the Pope, repeated in some antique letters carved in marble inside the doors of the portico. The façade also contains some figures and a number of scenes in half-relief below the portico relating to the life of St Martin executed in marble and in the Byzantine style. But the best things there, over one of these doors, were done by Niccola Pisano, 170 years later, and completed in 1233, as will be related in the proper place, Abellenato and Aliprando being the craftsmen at the beginning, as some letters carved in marble in the same place fully relate. The figures by Niccola Pisano show to what an extent the art was improved by him. Most of the buildings erected in Italy from this time until the year 1250 were similar in character to these, for architecture made little or no apparent progress in all these years, but remained stationary, the same rude style being retained. Many examples of this may be seen to-day, but I will not now enumerate them, because I shall refer to them again as the occasion presents itself. The admirable sculptures and paintings buried in the ruins of Italy remained hidden or unknown to the men of this time who were engrossed in the rude productions of their own age, in which they used no sculptures or paintings except such as were produced by the old artists of Greece, who still survived, making images of clay or stone, or painting grotesque figures and only colouring the first lineaments. These artists were invited to Italy for they were the best and indeed the only representatives of their profession. With them they brought the mosaics, sculptures, and paintings which they themselves produced and thus they taught their methods to the Italians, after their own rough and clumsy style. The Italians practised the art in this fashion up to a certain time, as I shall relate. As the men of the age were not accustomed to see any excellence or greater perfection than the things thus produced, they greatly admired them, and considered them to be the type of perfection, base as they were. Yet some rising spirits aided by some quality in the air of certain places, so far purged themselves of this crude style that in 1250 Heaven took compassion on the fine minds that the Tuscan soil was producing every day, and directed art into its former channels. And although the preceding generations had before them the remains of arches, colossi, statues, pillars or stone columns which were left after the plunder, ruin and fire which Rome had passed through, yet they could never make use of them or derive any profit from them until the period named. Those who came after were able to distinguish the good from the bad, and abandoning the old style they began to copy the ancients with all ardour and industry. That the distinction I have made between old and ancient may be better understood I will explain that I call ancient the things produced before Constantine at Corinth, Athens, Rome and other renowned cities, until the days of Nero, Vaspasian, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus; the old works are those which are due to the surviving Greeks from the days of St Silvester, whose art consisted rather of tinting than of painting. For the original artists of excellence had perished in the wars, as I have said, and the surviving Greeks, of the old and not the ancient manner, could only trace profiles on a ground of colour. Countless mosaics done by these Greeks in every part of Italy bear testimony to this, and every old church of Italy possesses examples, notably the Duomo of Pisa, S. Marco at Venice and yet other places. Thus they produced a constant stream of figures in this style, with frightened eyes, outstretched hands and on the tips of their toes, as in S. Miniato outside Florence between the door of the sacristy and that of the convent, and in S. Spirito in the same city, all the side of the cloister towards the church, and in Arezzo in S. Giuliano and S. Bartolommeo and other churches, and at Rome in old S. Peter's in the scenes about the windows, all of which are more like monsters than the figures which they are supposed to represent. They also produced countless sculptures, such as those in bas-relief still over the door of S. Michele on the piazza Padella at Florence, and in Ognissanti, and in many places, in tombs and ornaments for the doors of churches, where there are some figures acting as corbels to carry the roof, so rude and coarse, so grossly made, and in such a rough style, that it is impossible to imagine worse. Up to the present, I have discoursed exclusively upon the origin of sculpture and painting, perhaps more at length than was necessary at this stage. I have done so, not so much because I have been carried away by my love for the arts, as because I wish to be of service to the artists of our own day, by showing them how a small beginning leads to the highest elevation, and how from so noble a situation it is possible to fall to utterest ruin, and consequently, how the nature of these arts resembles nature in other things which concern our human bodies; there is birth, growth, age, death, and I hope by this means they will be enabled more easily to recognise the progress of the renaissance of the arts, and the perfection to which they have attained in our own time. And again, if ever it happens, which God forbid, that the arts should once more fall to a like ruin and disorder, through the negligence of man, the malignity of the age, or the ordinance of Heaven, which does not appear to wish that the things of this world should remain stationary, these labours of mine, such as they are (if they are worthy of a happier fate), by means of the things discussed before, and by those which remain to be said, may maintain the arts in life, or, at any rate, encourage the better spirits to provide them with assistance, so that, by my good will and the labours of such men, they may have an abundance of those aids and embellishments which, if I may speak the truth freely, they have lacked until now. But it is now time to come to the life of Giovanni Cimabue, who originated the new method of design and painting, so that it is right that his should be the first of the Lives. And here I may remark that I shall follow the schools rather than a chronological order. And in describing the appearance and the arts of the artists, I shall be brief, because their portraits, which I have collected at great expense, and with much labour and diligence, will show what manner of men they were to look at much better than any description could ever do. If some portraits are missing, that is not my fault, but because they are not to be found anywhere. If it chance that some of the portraits do not appear to be exactly like others which are extant, it is necessary to reflect that a portrait of a man of eighteen or twenty years can never be like one made fifteen or twenty years later, and, in addition to this, portraits in black and white are never so good as those which are coloured, besides which the engravers, who do not design, always take something from the faces, because they are never able to reproduce those small details which constitute the excellence of a work, or to copy that perfection which is rarely, if ever, to be found in wood engravings. To conclude, the reader will be able to appreciate the amount of labour, expense, and care which I have bestowed upon this matter when he sees what efforts I have made in my researches. VASARI'S LIVES OF THE PAINTERS. Cimabue, Painter of Florence. The endless flood of misfortunes which overwhelmed unhappy Italy not only ruined everything worthy of the name of a building, but completely extinguished the race of artists, a far more serious matter. Then, as it pleased God, there was born in the year 1240 in the city of Florence, Giovanni, surnamed Cimabue, of the noble family of the Cimabui, to shed the first light on the art of painting. As he grew up he appeared to his father and others to be a boy of quick intelligence, so that he was accordingly sent to receive instruction in letters to a relation, a master at S. Maria Novella, who then taught grammar to the novices of that convent. Instead of paying attention to his lessons, Cimabue spent the whole day in drawing men, horses, houses, and various other fancies on his books and odd sheets, like one who felt himself compelled to do so by nature. Fortune proved favourable to this natural inclination, for some Greek artists were summoned to Florence by the government of the city for no other purpose than the revival of painting in their midst, since that art was not so much debased as altogether lost. Among the other works which they began in the city, they undertook the chapel of the Gondi, the vaulting and walls of which are to-day all but destroyed by the ravages of time. It is situated in S. Maria Novella, next the principal chapel. In this way Cimabue made a beginning in the art which attracted him, for he often played the truant and spent the whole day in watching the masters work. Thus it came about that his father and the artists considered him so fitted to be a painter that, if he devoted himself to the profession, he might look for honourable success in it, and to his great satisfaction his father procured him employment with the painters. Then, by dint of continual practice and with the assistance of his natural talent, he far surpassed the manner of his teachers both in design and in colour. For they had never cared to make any progress, and had executed their works, not in the good manner of ancient Greece, but in the rude modern style of that time. But although Cimabue imitated the Greeks he introduced many improvements in the art, and in a great measure emancipated himself from their awkward manner, bringing honour to his country by his name and by the works which he produced. The pictures which he executed in Florence bear testimony to this, such as the antipendium to the altar of St Cecilia, and a Madonna in S. Croce, which was then and still is fastened to a pillar on the right hand side of the choir. Subsequently he painted on a panel a St Francis, on a gold ground. He drew this from nature, to the best of his powers, although it was a novelty to do so in those days, and about it he represented the whole of the saint's life in twenty small pictures full of little figures, on a gold ground. He afterwards undertook a large picture for the monks of Vallombrosa in their abbey of S, Trinita at Florence. This was a Madonna with the child in her arms, surrounded by many adoring angels, on a gold ground. To justify the high opinion in which he was already held, he worked at it with great industry, showing improved powers of invention and exhibiting our lady in a pleasing attitude. The painting when finished was placed by the monks over the high altar of the church, whence it was afterwards removed to make way for the picture of Alesso Baldovinetti, which is there to-day. It was afterwards placed in a small chapel of the south aisle in that church. Cimabue next worked in fresco at the hospital of the Porcellana, at the corner of the via Nuova which leads to the Borgo Ognissanti. On one side of the façade, in the middle of which is the principal door, he represented an Annunciation, and on the other side, Jesus Christ with Cleophas and Luke, life-size figures. In this work he abandoned the old manner, making the draperies, garments, and other things somewhat more life-like, natural and soft than the style of the Greeks, full as that was of lines and profiles as well in mosaics as in painting. The painters of those times had taught one another that rough, awkward and common-place style for a great number of years, not by means of study but as a matter of custom, without ever dreaming of improving their designs by beauty of colouring or by any invention of worth. After this was finished Cimabue again received a commission from the same superior for whom he had done the work at S. Croce. He now made him a large crucifix of wood, which may still be seen in the church. The work caused the superior, who was well pleased with it, to take him to their convent of S. Francesco at Pisa, to paint a picture of St Francis there. When completed it was considered most remarkable by the people there, since they recognised a certain quality of excellence in the turn of the heads and in the fall of the drapery which was not to be found in the Byzantine style in any work executed up to that time not only in Pisa but throughout Italy. For the same church Cimabue afterwards painted a large picture of Our Lady with the child in her arms, surrounded by several angels, on a gold ground. In order to make room for the marble altar which is now there it was soon afterwards removed from its original situation and placed inside the church, near the door on the left hand. For this work he was much praised and rewarded by the Pisans. In Pisa also he painted a panel of St Agnes surrounded by a number of small figures representing scenes from her life, at the request of the Abbot of S. Paolo in Ripa d'Arno. The panel is to-day over the altar of the Virgin in that church. The name of Cimabue having become generally known through these works, he was taken to Assisi, a city of Umbria, where, in conjunction with some Greek masters, he painted a part of the vaulting of the lower Church of S. Franceso, and on the walls, the life of Jesus Christ and that of St Francis. In these paintings he far surpassed the Greek masters, and encouraged by this, he began to paint the upper church in fresco unaided, and on the large gallery over the choir, on the four walls, he painted some subjects from the history of Our Lady, that is to say, her death, when her soul is carried to Heaven by Christ on a throne of clouds, and when He crowns her in the midst of a choir of angels, with a number of saints beneath. These are now destroyed by time and dust. He then painted several things at the intersections of the vaulting of that church, which are five in number. In the first one over the choir he represented the four Evangelists, larger than life-size, and so well done, that even to-day they are acknowledged to possess some merit; and the freshness of the flesh colouring shows, that by his efforts, fresco-painting was beginning to make great progress. The second intersection he filled with gilt stars on an ultramarine field. In the third he represented Jesus Christ, the Virgin his mother, St John the Baptist and St Francis in medallions, that is to say, a figure in each medallion and a medallion in each of the four divisions of the vault. The fourth intersection like the second he painted with gilt stars on ultramarine. In the fifth he represented the four Doctors of the church, and beside each of them a member of the four principal religious orders. This laborious undertaking was carried out with infinite diligence. When he had finished the vaults he painted the upper part of the walla on the left side of the church from one end to the other, also in fresco. Near the high altar between the windows and right up to the vaulting he represented eight subjects from the Old Testament, starting from the beginning of Genesis and selecting the most noteworthy incidents. In the space flanking the windows to the point where they terminate at the gallery which runs round the inside of the church, he painted the remainder of the Old Testament history in eight other subjects. Opposite these and corresponding to them he painted sixteen subjects representing the deeds of Our Lady and of Jesus Christ, while on the end wall over the principal entrance and about the rose window above it, he painted the Ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. This work which is most extraordinary for richness and beauty, must, in my opinion, have astounded the people of those times, painting having been in such blindness for so long a apace. When I saw it again in the year 1563 it seemed most beautiful, as I reflected how marvellous it was that Cimabue should see so much light in the midst of so great darkness. But it is worthy of note that of all these paintings those of the vaults are much the best preserved since they are less injured by the dust and other accidents. When these works were finished Giovanni set about painting the walls beneath, namely those beneath the windows, and he did some things there, but as he was summoned to Florence on some affairs of his own, he did not pursue the task, which was finished by Giotto many years after, as will be related when the time comes. Cimabue having thus returned to Florence painted in the cloister of S. Spirito, where the whole length of wall towards the church is done in the Byzantine style by other masters, events from the life of Christ, in three arches, with considerable excellence of design. At the same time, he sent to Empoli some things executed by him in Florence, which are held in great reverence to this day in the Pieve of that town. He next painted a picture of Our Lady for the church of S. Maria Novella, where it hangs high up between the chapel of the Rucellai and that of the Bardi of Vernio. The figure was of a larger size than any which had been executed up to that time, and the angels about it show that, although be still had the Byzantine style, he was making, some progress towards the lineaments and methods of modern times. The people of that day, who had never seen anything better, considered this work so marvellous, that they carried it to the church from Cimabue's house in a stately procession with great rejoicing and blowing of trumpets, while Cimabue himself was highly rewarded and honoured. It is reported, and some records of the old painters relate that while Cimabue was painting this picture in some gardens near the gate of S. Piero, the old king Charles of Anjou passed through Florence. Among the many entertainments prepared for him by the men of the city, they brought him to see the picture of Cimabue. As it had not then been seen by anyone, all the men and women of Florence flocked thither in a crowd, with the greatest rejoicings, so that those who lived in the neighbourhood called the place Borgo Allegri (Joyful Quarter), because of the rejoicing there. This name it has ever afterwards retained, being in the course of time enclosed within the walls of the city. At S. Francesco, at Pisa, where Cimabue executed some other works, which have been mentioned above, in the cloister, at a corner beside the doorway leading into the church, is a small picture in tempera by his hand, representing Christ on the cross, surrounded by some angels who are weeping, and hold in their hands certain words written about the head of Christ, and which they are directing towards the ears of our Lady, who is standing weeping on the right hand side; and on the other side to St John the Evangelist, who is there, plunged in grief. The words to the Virgin are: "_Mulier, ecce filius tuus_," and those to St John: "_Ecce mater tua_." Another angel, separated from these, holds in its hands the sentence: "_Ex illa hora accepit eam discipulus in suam_." In this we perceive how Cimabue began to give light and open the way to inventions, bringing words, as he does here, to the help of his art in order to express his meaning, a curious device certainly and an innovation. By means of these works Cimabue had now acquired a great name and much profit, so that he was associated with Arnolfo Lapi, an excellent architect of that time, in the building of S. Maria del Fiore, at Florence. But at length, when he had lived sixty years, he passed to the other life in the year 1300, having achieved hardly less than the resurrection of painting from the dead. He left behind a number of disciples, and among others Giotto, who was afterwards an excellent painter. Giotto dwelt in his master's old house in the via del Cocomero after Cimabue's death. Cimabue was buried in S. Maria del Fiore, with this epitaph made for him by one of the Nini:-- "Credidit ut Clmabos picturæ castra tenere Sic tenuit vivens, nunc tenet astra poli." I must not omit to say that if the greatness of Giotto, his pupil, had not obscured the glory of Cimabue, the fame of the latter would have been more considerable, as Dante points out in his Commedia in the eleventh canto of the Purgatorio, with an allusion to the inscription on the tomb, where he says: "Credette Cimabue nella pintura Tener lo campo, ed ora ha Giotto il grido Si che la fama di colui oscura." A commentator on Dante, who wrote during Giotto's lifetime, about 1334, some ten or twelve years after the poet's death, in his explanation of these lines, says the following words in speaking of Cimabue: "Cimabue was a painter of Florence in the time of our author, a man of unusual eminence and so arrogant and haughty withal, that if any one pointed out a fault or defect in his work, or if he discovered any himself, since it frequently happens that an artist makes mistakes through a defect in the materials which he employs, or because of some fault in the instrument with which he works, he immediately destroyed that work, however costly it might be. Giotto was, and is, the most eminent among the painters of the same city of Florence, as his works testify, at Rome, Naples, Avignon, Florence, Padua, and many parts of the world," etc. This commentary is now in the possession of the Very Rev. Vincenzio Borghini, prior of the Innocents, a man distinguished for his eminence, piety and learning, but also for his love for and skill in all the superior arts, so that he has well deserved his judicious selection by Duke Cosimo to be the ducal representative in our academy of design. Returning to Cimabue, Giotto certainly overshadowed his renown, just as a great light eclipses a much smaller one, and although Cimabue was, as it were, the first cause of the revival of the art of painting, yet Giotto, his disciple, moved by a praiseworthy ambition, and aided by Heaven and by Nature, penetrated deeper in thought, and threw open the gates of Truth to those who afterwards brought art to that perfection and grandeur which we see in our own age. In fact the marvels, miracles, and impossibilities executed at the present time by those who practise this art, and which are to be seen every day, have brought things to such a pitch, that no one marvels at them although they are rather divine than human, and those who make the most praiseworthy efforts may consider themselves fortunate, if, instead of being praised and admired, they escape censure, and even disgrace. The portrait of Cimabue by the hand of Simone of Siena may be seen in the chapter-house of S. Maria Novella, executed in profile in the picture of the Faith. The face is thin the small beard is somewhat red and pointed, and he wears a hood after the fashion of the day, bound gracefully round his head and throat. The one beside him is Simone himself, the designer of the work, who drew himself with the aid of two mirrors placed opposite each other, which have enabled him to draw his head in profile. The soldier in armour between them is said to be Count Guido Novello, lord of Poppi. In concluding this life I have to remark that I have some small things by Cimabue's hand in the beginning of a book in which I have collected drawings by the hand of every artist, from Cimabue onwards. These little things of Cimabue are done like miniatures, and although they may appear rather crude than otherwise to modern eyes, yet they serve to show to what an extent the art of design profited by his labours. Arnolfo di Lapo, Florentine Architect. In the preface to these lives I have spoken of some edifices in the old but not antique style, and I was silent respecting the names of the artists who executed the work, because I did not know them. In the introduction to the present life I propose to mention some other buildings made in Arnolfo's time, or shortly before, the authors of which are equally unknown, and then to speak of those which were erected during his lifetime, the architects of which are known, either because they may be recognised through the style of the buildings, or because there is some notice of them in the writings and memorials left by them in the works done. This will not be beside the point, for although the buildings are neither beautiful nor in good style, but only very large and magnificent, yet they are none the less worthy of some consideration. In the time of Lapo, and of Arnolfo his son, many buildings of importance were erected in Italy and outside, of which I have not been able to find the names of the architects. Among these are the abbey of Monreale in Sicily, the Piscopio of Naples, the Certosa of Pavia, the Duomo of Milan, S. Pietro and S. Petrodio of Bologna, and many others, which may be seen in all parts of Italy, erected at incredible cost. I have seen and examined all these buildings, as well as many sculptures of these times, particularly at Ravenna, but I have never found any memorial of the masters, and frequently not even the date when they were erected, so that I cannot but marvel at the simplicity and indifference to fame exhibited by the men of that age. But to return to our subject. After the buildings just enumerated there arose some persons of a more exalted temper, who, if they did not succeed in lighting upon the good, at least made the attempt. The first was Buono, of whom I knew neither the country nor the surname, since he himself has put nothing beyond his simple name to the works which he has signed. He was both a sculptor and architect, and he worked at first in Ravenna, building many palaces and churches, and executing some sculptures, in the year of grace 1152. Becoming known by these things, he was summoned to Naples, where he began the Castel Capoano and the Castel dell' Uovo, although they were afterwards finished by others, as will be related. Subsequently, in the time of the Doge Domenico Morosini, he founded the campanile of S. Marco at Venice, with much prudence and good judgment, and so well did he drive the piles and lay the foundations of that tower, that it has never moved a hair's breadth, as many buildings erected in that city before his time may be seen to have done. Perhaps it was from him that the Venetians learned their present method of laying the foundations of the rich and beautiful edifices which are erected every day to adorn that most noble city. At the same time it must be admitted that the tower has no other excellence of its own, either in style or decoration, or indeed anything which is worthy of much praise. It was finished under the Popes Anastasius IV. and Adrian IV. in the year 1154. Buono was also the architect of the Church of S. Andrea at Pistoia, and a marble architrave over the door, full of figures executed in the Gothic style, is his work; On this architrave his name is carved, as well as the date at which the work was done by him, which was in the year 1166. Being afterwards summoned to Florence, he prepared the design for enlarging the Church of S. Maria Maggiore, which was carried out. The church was then outside the city, and was held in veneration, because Pope Pelagius had consecrated it many years before, and because it was in size and style a building of considerable merit. Buono was next invited by the Aretines to their city, where he built the old residence of the lords of Arezzo, a palace in the Gothic style, and near it a tower for a bell. This building, which was very tolerable for that style, was thrown down in 1533 because it was opposite and too near the fortifications of the city. The art now began to receive some amount of improvement through the works of a certain Guglielmo, a German by race, as I believe, and some buildings were erected at a great expense and in a slightly better style. In the year 1174 this Guglielmo, in conjunction with Bonanno, a sculptor, is said to have founded the campanile of the Duomo at Pisa, where the following words are carved: _A.D. M..C. 74 campanile hoc fuit fundatum Mense Aug._ But these two architects had not much experience in laying foundations in Pisa, and since they did not drive in piles as they should have done, before they were half through the work, there was a subsidence on one side, and the building leant over on its weaker side, so that the campanile hangs 6-1/2 braccia out of the straight according to the subsidence on that side, and although this appears slight from below, it is very apparent above, so that one is filled with amazement that the tower can stand thus without falling and without the walls being cracked. The reason is that the building is round both within and without, and the stones are so arranged and bound together, that its fall is all but impossible, and it is supported moreover by foundations raised 3 braccia above the ground level, which were made to maintain it after the subsidence had taken place, as may be seen. Had it been square; I am convinced that it would not be standing, to-day, as the corners of the square would have pushed out the sides so that they would have fallen, a thing which frequently happens. And if the Carisenda tower at Bologna, which is square, leans without falling, that is because it is lighter and does not hang over so much, nor is it nearly so heavy a structure as this campanile, which is praised, not because of its design or good style, but simply by reason of its extraordinary position, since to a spectator it does not appear possible that it can remain standing. The Bonanno mentioned above, while he was engaged on the campanile, also executed in 1180 the principal door of the Duomo of Pisa in bronze. On it may be seen these words: _Ego Bonannus Pis, mea arle hanc portam uno anno perfeci tempore Benedicti operarii._ That the art was making steady progress may be seen by the walls of S. Giovanni Lateran at Rome, which were constructed of the spoils of antiquity under Popes Lucius III. and Urban III., when the Emperor Frederick was crowned by the latter, because certain small temples and chapels there, made with these spoils, possess considerable merit of design and contain some things which are worth notice, and this, among others, that the vaults were made of small tubes with compartments of stucco, so as not to overload the side walls of the buildings, a very praiseworthy contrivance for those times. The cornices and other parts show that the artists were helping one another to find the good. Innocent III. afterwards caused two palaces to be erected on the Vatican hill, and from what can be seen of them they appear to have been in a fairly good style, but since they were destroyed by other popes, and especially by Nicholas V., who pulled down and rebuilt the greater part of the palace, I will say no more about them, except that a part of them may be seen in the great round tower, and a part in the old sacristy of St Peter's. This Innocent III., who wore the tiara for nineteen years, took great delight in architecture, and erected many buildings in Rome, notably the tower of the Conti, so called after the name of his family, from designs by Marchionne, an architect and sculptor of Arezzo. In the year that Innocent died this artist completed the Pieve of Arezzo, as well as the campanile. He adorned the front of the church with three rows of columns, one above the other, in great variety, not only in the shape of the capitals and bases, but even in the shafts, some being heavy, others slender, some bound together in pairs, others in fours. In like manner some are covered with representations of the vine, while others are made to become supporting figures, variously carved. He further introduced many animals of different kinds, which carry the weight of the columns on their backs, the whole exhibiting the strangest and most extravagant fantasies imaginable, not only altogether removed from the excellent antique order, but opposed to all good and reasonable proportion. Yet in spite of all this, anyone who will justly consider the matter will see that he was making strenuous efforts to do well, and possibly he imagined that he had discovered the way in this manner of work and in this wondrous variety. The same artist carved a rather large God the Father, with certain angels in half-relief in the arch over the door of that church in a rude style, together with the twelve months of the year, adding underneath his name, cut in round letters, as was customary, and the date, 1216. It is said that Marchionne also erected for Pope Innocent the old building and church of the hospital of S. Spirito in Sassia, in the Borgo Vecchio at Rome, where some part of the old work may still be seen. Indeed the old church remained standing to our own day, when It was restored in the modern style, with more ornament and design, by Pope Paul III. of the house of the Farnese. In S. Maria Maggiore, also in Rome, he made the marble chapel, which contains the manger of Jesus Christ, in which he placed a portrait of Pope Honorius III., drawn from life. He also made that Pope's tomb, decorating it with ornaments which were somewhat better than, and very different from, the style then prevalent throughout Italy. At the same time also Marchionne made the lateral door of S. Pietro at Bologna, which truly was a very great work for those times, because of the number of sculptures which are seen in it, such as lions in relief, which sustain columns, with men and other animals, also bearing burdens. In the arch above he made the twelve months in relief, with varied fancies, each month with its zodiacal sign, a work which must have been considered marvellous in those times. About the same time the order of the friars minors of St Francis was established, which, after it had been confirmed by Pope Innocent III., increased the general devoutness and the number of friars, not only in Italy, but in every part of the world, to such an extent, that there was scarcely a city of note which did not build churches and convents for them at very great cost, each one according to its ability. Thus brother Elias, who was superior of that order at Assisi, founded a church, dedicated to Our Lady in that place, two years before the death of St Francis, while the saint, as general of the order, was away preaching. After the death of St Francis all Christendom crowded to visit the body of a man, who, both in life and in death, was known to have been so much beloved of God. As every man did alms to the saint according to his ability, it was determined that the church begun by friar Elias should be made much larger and more magnificent. But since there was a scarcity of good architects, and as the work demanded an excellent one, it being necessary to erect the building on a very high hill, round the base of which runs a torrent called Tescio, a German master named Jacopo was brought to Assisi after much deliberation, as being the best man who was then to be found. After he had examined the site and understood the wishes of the friars, who held a chapter general at Assisi for the purpose, he designed a most beautiful church and convent, making it in three stories. One of these was underground, while the two others served as churches, the lower one to be a vestibule with a portico of considerable size about it, the other as the church proper. The ascent from the first to the second was managed by means of a very convenient arrangement of steps, which encircled the chapel and which were divided into two flights for the sake of greater comfort, leading up to the second church. He built this in the form of the letter T, making it five times as long as it was broad, dividing one nave from the other by great stone pillars, uniting them with stout arches, between which he set up the vaulting. This truly monumental work then was carried out from such plans in every detail, except that he did not use the Cross vaulting on the walls between the body of the church and the principal chapel, but employed barrel vaulting for the sake of greater strength. He afterwards placed the altar before the principal chapel of the lower church, and when this was finished he deposited the body of St Francis beneath, after a most solemn translation. And because the tomb of the glorious saint is in the first or lower church, where no one ever goes, and which has its doors walled up, there is a magnificent iron railing about the altar, richly adorned with marble and mosaic which permits the tomb to be seen. On one side of the building were erected two sacristies and a lofty campanile, five times as high as it is broad. Above it there was originally a lofty spire of eight sides, but it was removed because it threatened to fall down. The work was brought to a conclusion in the space of four years and no more by the ability of Master Jacopo the German, and by the industry of friar Elias. After the friar's death twelve strong towers were erected about the lower church in order that the vast erection should never be destroyed; in each of these is a spiral staircase ascending from the ground to the summit. In the course of time, moreover, several chapels were added and other rich ornaments, of which it is not necessary to speak further, as enough has been said about the matter for the present, especially as it is in the power of every one to see how much that is useful, ornamental, and beautiful has been added to this beginning of Master Jacopo, by popes, cardinals, princes, and many other great persons of all Europe. And now to return to Master Jacopo. By means of this work he acquired such renown throughout Italy that he was invited to Florence by the government of the city, and was afterwards received there with the utmost goodwill. But the Florentines, in accordance with a custom of abbreviating names which they practised then as they do now, called him not Jacopo, but Lapo, all his life, for he settled permanently in that city with all his family. And although at divers times he went away to erect a number of buildings in Tuscany his residence was always at Florence. As examples of such buildings I may cite the palace of the Poppi at Casentino which he built for the count there, who had married the beautiful Gualdrada, with the Casentino as her dower; the Vescovado for the Aretines, and the Palazzo Vecchio of the lords of Pietramela. It was at Florence that he laid the piles of the ponte alla Carraia, then called the ponte Nuovo, in 1218, and finished them in two years. A short while afterwards it was completed in wood, as was then the custom. In the year 1221 he prepared plans for the church of S. Salvadore del Vescovado which was begun under his direction, as was the church of S. Michele on the piazza Padella where there are some sculptures in the style of those days. He next designed a system of drainage for the city, raised the piazza S. Giovanni, and in the time of M. Rubaconte da Mandella of Milan, constructed the bridge which still bears his name. It was he who discovered the useful method of paving the streets with stone, when they had previously been paved only with bricks. He designed the existing Podesta palace, which was originally built for the _amziani_, and finally, after he had designed the tomb of the Emperor Frederick for the abbey of Monreale in Sicily, by the order of Manfred, he died, leaving Arnolfo, his son, heir to his ability, no leas than to his fortune. Arnolfo, by whose talents architecture was no less improved than painting had been by Cimabue, was born in the year 1232, and was thirty-two years of age at his father's death. He was at that time held in very great esteem, because, not only had he learned all that his father had to teach, but had studied design under Cimabue in order to make use of it in sculpture, so that he was reputed the best architect in Tuscany. Thus not only did the Florentines found, under his direction, the last circuit of the walls of their city in the year 1284, but they also built, after his design, the loggia and pillars of Or San Michele, where grain is sold, constructing it of brick with a simple roof above. It was also in conformity with his advice that when the cliff of the Magnoli fell, on the slope of S, Giorgio above S. Lucia in the via dei Bardi, a public decree was issued the same year that no walls or edifices should ever more be erected in that place seeing that they would always be in danger owing to the undermining of the rock by water. That this is true has been seen in our day in the fall of many buildings and fine houses of the aristocracy. The year after, 1285, he founded the loggia and piazza of the priors, and in the Bödia of Florence he constructed the principal chapel and those on either side of it, restoring both the church and choir, which had originally been built on a much smaller scale by Count Ugo, the founder. For the cardinal Giovanni degli Orsini, papal legate in Tuscany, he built the campanile of that church, which woo some praise among the works of those times, but it did not receive its stone finishing until after the year 1303. His next work was the foundation, in 1294, of the church of S, Croce, where the friars minors are. Arnolfo designed the nave and side aisles of this church on such a large scale that he was unable to vault the space under the roof owing to the great distances, so with much judgment he made arches from pillar to pillar, and on these he placed the roof with stone gutters along the top of the arches to carry off the water, inclined at such an angle that the roof should be safe, as it is, from the danger of damp. This thing was so novel and ingenious that it well deserves the consideration of our day. He next prepared plans for the first cloisters of the old convent of that church, and shortly after he removed from the outside of the church of S. Giovanni all the arches and tombs of marble and stone which were there and put a part of them behind the campanile in the façade of the Canonical Palace, beside the oratory of S. Zanobi, when he proceeded to incrust all the eight sides of the exterior of the church with black Prato marble, removing the rough stone which was originally used with the antique marbles. In the meantime the Florentines were desirous of erecting buildings in Valdarno above the castle of S. Giovanni and Castelfranco for the convenience of the city and for the supply of victuals to their markets. Arnolfo prepared the plan for this in the year 1295, and gave such general satisfaction, as indeed he had in his other works, that he was awarded the citizenship of Florence. After these things the Florentines took counsel together, as Giovanni Villani relates in his History, to build a principal church for their city, and to make it so grand and magnificent that nothing larger or finer could be desired by the industry and power of man; and thus Arnolfo prepared the plans for the church of S. Maria del Fiore, a building which it is impossible to praise too highly. He provided that the exterior should be entirely incrusted with polished marble, with all the cornices, pillars, columns, carvings of leaves, figures, and other things which may be seen to-day, and which were brought very near completion, although not quite. But the most marvellous circumstance of all in this undertaking was the care and judgment with which he made the foundations, for in clearing the site, which is a very fine one, other small churches and houses about S. Reparata were involved beside that edifice itself. He made the foundations of this great structure both broad and deep, filling them with good materials, such as gravel and lime, with large stones at the bottom, so that they have been able without difficulty to bear the weight of the huge dome with which Filippo di Ser Brunellesco vaulted the church, as may be seen to-day. The excellence of this initial work was such that the place is still called Lungo i Fondamenti (beside the foundations). The laying of the foundations and the initiation of so great a church was celebrated with much ceremony. The first stone was laid on the day of the Nativity of Our Lady 1298 by the cardinal legate of the Pope, in the presence not only of many bishops and of all the clergy, but also of the podesta, captains, priors, and other magistrates of the city, and indeed of all the people of Florence, the church being called S. Maria del Fiore. Now, as it was estimated that the expenses of this work would be very heavy, as they afterwards proved to be, a tax of four deniers the pound was imposed at the chamber of the commune on everything exported from the city, as well as a tax of two soldi per head yearly. In addition to this, the Pope and the legate offered the most liberal indulgences to those who would contribute alms towards the work. I must not omit to mention, however, that besides the broad foundations of 15 braccia deep, buttresses were, with great foresight, placed at each angle of the eight sides, and it was the presence of these which encouraged Brunellesco to impose a much greater weight there than Arnolfo had originally contemplated. It is said that when Arnolfo began the two first lateral doors of S. Maria del Fiore, he caused some fig leaves to be carved in a frieze, which were the armorial bearings of his father Lapo, from which it may be inferred that the family of the Lapi, now among the nobility of Florence, derives its origin from him. Others say that Filippo di Ser Brunellesco was also among the descendants of Arnolfo. But I let this pass for what it is worth, and return to Arnolfo, for there are some who say that the Lapi originally came from Figaruolo, a castle situated at the mouth of the Po. I say that for this magnificent achievement he deserved unstinted praise and an immortal renown, since he caused the exterior of the building to be incrusted with marble of various colours, and the interior with hard stone, making even the most insignificant corners of the building of the same stone. But, in order that every one may know the proportions of this marvellous edifice, I will add that from the doorway to the far end of the chapel of St Zanobi the length is 260 braccia, the breadth at the transepts is 166 braccia, that of nave and aisles 66. The nave is 72 braccia high, and the aisles 48. The external circumference of the entire church is 1280 braccia; the cupola, from the ground to the base of the lantern, is 154 braccia; the lantern, without the ball, is 36 braccia high, the ball 4 braccia high, and the cross 8 braccia; the entire cupola, from the ground to the top of the cross, is 202 braccia. But to return to Arnolfo, I say that he was considered so excellent, and so much confidence was felt in him, that nothing of importance was discussed without his advice being first asked. Thus the foundation of the final circuit of the city walls having been finished that same year by the community of Florence, the commencement of which was referred to above, and also the gate towers, and the work being well forward, he began the palace of the Signori, making it similar in design to that which his father Lapo had erected for the counts of Poppi. But he was unable to realise the grand and magnificent conception which he had formed in that perfection which his art and judgment required, because a piazza had been made by the dismantling and throwing down of the houses of the Uberti, rebels against the Florentine people and Ghibellines, and the blind prejudice of certain persons prevailed against all the arguments brought forward by Arnolfo to such an extent that he could not even obtain permission to make the palace square, because the rulers of the city were most unwilling to allow the building to have its foundations in the land of the Uberti, and they would rather suffer the destruction of the south nave of S. Piero Scheraggio than give him free scope in the space designated. They were also desirous that he should include and adapt to the palace the tower of the Fieraboschi, called the Torre della Vacca (Cow Tower), 50 braccia in height, in which the great bell was hung, together with some houses bought by the commune for such a building. For these reasons it is no marvel if the foundations of the palace are awry and out of the square, as, in order to get the tower in the middle and to make it stronger, he was obliged to surround it with the walls of the palace. These were found to be in excellent condition in the year 1561 by Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect, when he restored the palace in the time of Duke Cosimo, Thus, as Arnolfo filled the tower with good materials, it was easy for other masters to erect upon it the lofty campanile which we see to-day, since he himself finished no more than the palace in the space of two years. It was in later years that the building received those improvements to which it owes its present grandeur and majesty. After all these things, and many others not less useful than beautiful, Arnolfo died at the age of seventy, in the year 1300, about the time when Giovanni Villani began to write the general history of his times. And since he left S. Maria del Fiore not only with its foundations laid, but saw three principal apses under the cupola vaulted in, to his great praise, he deserves the memorial set up to him in the church on the side opposite the campanile, with these lines carved in the marble in round letters:-- "Anno millenis centum bis octo nogenis Venit legatus Roma bonitate donatus Qui lapidem fixit fundo, simul et benedixit Praesule Francisco, gestante pontificatum Istud ab Arnolpho templum fuit aedificatum Hoc opus insigne decorans Florentia digne Reginæ coeli construxit mente fideli Quam tu, Virgo pia, semper defende, Maria," I have written the life of Arnolfo with the greatest possible brevity because, although his works do not nearly approach the perfection of those of the present time, yet he none the less deserves to be remembered with affection, since, in the midst of so great darkness, he pointed out the road to perfection to those who came after him. The portrait of Arnolfo, by the hand of Giotto, may be seen in S. Croce, next to the principal chapel, where the friars are mourning the death of St Francis. He is represented in the foreground as one of the two men who are talking together. A representation of the exterior of the church of S. Maria del Fiore, with the dome, by the hand of Simon of Siena, may be seen in the chapter-house of S. Maria Novella. It was taken from the actual model of wood which Arnolfo made. From this representation it is clear that Arnolfo proposed to begin to vault his space, starting immediately above the first cornice, whilst Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, desiring to lighten the weight and make the appearance of the structure more graceful, added above this the whole of the space which contains the round windows before he began his vaulting. This matter would be even more obvious than it is had not the negligence and carelessness of those who had charge of the works of S. Maria del Fiore in past years allowed Arnolfo's own model, as well as those of Brunellesco and others, to be lost. Niccola and Giovanni Pisani, Sculptors and Architects. Having discussed the arts of design and painting in dealing with Cimabue, and that of architecture in the life of Arnolfo Lapo, we now propose to treat of sculpture, and of the very important architectural works of Niccola and Giovanni Pisani. Their achievements in both sculpture and architecture are alike remarkable for the manner in which they have been conceived as well as for the style in which they are executed, since to a great extent they emancipated themselves from the clumsy and ill-proportioned Byzantine style in both arts, showing more originality in the treatment of their subjects and arranging their figures in better postures. Niccola Pisani was originally associated with some Greek sculptors who were engaged upon the figures and other ornaments in relief for the Duomo at Pisa and the church of San Giovanni there. Among the spoils brought home by the Pisan fleet was a very fine sarcophagus on which was an admirable representation of the chase of Meleager, hunting the Calydonian boar. Both the nude and the draped figures of this composition are executed with much skill, while the design is perfect. This sarcophagus, on account of its beauty, was afterwards placed by the Pisans in the façade of the Duomo opposite S, Rocco, against the principal door on that side. It originally served as a tombstone for the mother of the Countess Matilda, if we may credit the inscription cut in the marble: _Anno Domini MCXVI. Kal. Aug. obiit D. Matilda felisis memoriae comitissa, quae pro anima genetricis suae D. Beatricis comitissae venerabilis in hoc tumba honorabili quiescsnts in multis partis mirificc hanc dotavit ecclesiam, quarum animae requiescent in pace_. And then follows: _Anno Domini MCCCIII. sub dignissimo optrario Burgundio Tadi occasione graduum fiendorum per ipsum circa ecclesiam supradictam tumba superius notata bis trantlata fuit, nunc de sedibus primis in ecclesiam, nunc de ecclesia in hunc locum, ut cernitis eccelentem_. Niccola, considering the excellence of this work, which greatly delighted him, applied such diligence in imitating that style, studying carefully both the sarcophagus and other excellent sculptures on other antique sarcophagi, that before long he was considered the best sculptor of his time. There was indeed, after Arnolfo, no other sculptor of repute in Tuscany except Fuccio, a Florentine architect and sculptor. Fuccio designed S. Maria sopra Arno at Florence in 1229, putting his name over the door. The marble tomb of the queen of Cyprus in the church of St Francis of Assisi is also his work. It contains a number of figures, the principal one being the queen herself, seated on a lion, as emblematical of her strength of mind. She had bequeathed a large sum of money for the completion of these works. Niccola having proved himself a much greater master than Fuccio, was summoned to Bologna in 1225 to make a marble tomb for St Domenic Calagora, founder of the order of the Friars Preachers, then recently deceased. Having, arranged with those who had charge of the work, he designed a tomb full of figures, as may be seen at this day. The task was completed in 1231, and the finished tomb was greatly praised, it being considered a remarkable work, and the best piece of sculpture executed up to that time. He further made plans for the church there and for a great part of the convent. On returning to Tuscany, he learned that Fuccio had set out from Florence and was gone to Rome, at the time when the Emperor Frederick was crowned there by Honorius. From Rome Fuccio accompanied Frederick to Naples, where he finished the castle of Capoana, now called "la Vicheria," where all the courts of that kingdom are held. He also completed the Castel del' Uovo, founding the towers, made the gate on the side of the River Volturno at Capua, constructed a park near Gravina for fowling, enclosing it by a wall, and made another at Amalfi for winter hunting, besides many other things which are omitted for the sake of brevity. Meanwhile Niccola was staying at Florence, obtaining practice not only in sculpture but also in architecture by means of the works which were in progress throughout Italy, but especially in Tuscany, with some amount of good design. Thus he contributed not a little to the abbey of Settimo, left unfinished by the executors of Count Hugh of Brandenburg, as the other six had been, as we have noticed above. For although an inscription on the campanile of the abbey reads "_Gugliel me fecit_" yet it is clear from the style of the work that it was carried out under the control of Niccola. At the same time he was building the old palace of the _anziani_ at Pisa. This building has been dismantled at the present time by Duke Casino, who has used a part of the old edifice for the erection of the magnificent palace and convent of the new order of the knights of St Stephen, after the designs of Giorgio Vasari, Aretine painter and architect, who has done his best with the old walls, to adapt them to the modern style. Niccola designed many other palaces and churches at Pisa, and he was the first, after the loss of good methods of construction, who introduced the founding of buildings at Pisa upon pillars connected by arches, first driving piles in under the pillars. This method renders the building absolutely secure, as is shown by experience, whereas without the piles, the foundations are liable to give way, causing the walls to fall down. The church of S. Michele in Borgo of the monks of Gamaldoli was also built after his plans. But the most beautiful, ingenious and fanciful piece of architecture that Niccola ever constructed was the campanile of S. Niccola at Pisa, where the friars of St Augustine are. Outside it is octagonal, but the interior is round with a winding staircase rising to the top leaving the middle space void like a well, while on every fourth step there are columns with lame arches, which follow the curve of the building. The spring of the vaulting rests upon these arches, and the ascent is of such sort that anyone on the ground always sees those who are going up, those who are at the top see those who are on the ground, while those who are in the middle see both those who are above and those below. This curious invention was afterwards adopted by Bramante in a better style with more balanced measurements and richer ornamentation, for Pope Julius II. in the Belvedere at Rome, and by Antonio da Sangallo for Pope Clement VII. in the well at Orvieto, as will be said when the time comes. To return to Niccola who excelled no less as a sculptor than as an architect. For the church of S. Martino at Lucca he executed a deposition from the Cross, which is under the portico above the minor doorway on the left hand as one enters the church. It is executed in marble, and is full of figures in half relief, carried out with great care, the marble being pierced through, and the whole finished in such style as to give rise to hopes in those who first practised this art with the most severe labour, that one would soon come who would give them more assistance with greater ease. It was Niccola also who in the year 1240 designed the church of S. Jacopo at Pistoia, and set some Tuscan masters to work there in mosaic, who did the vaulting of the apse. But although it was considered a difficult and costly thing at the time, it rather moves one to laughter and compassion to-day, and not to admiration, oh account of the poorness of the design, a defect which was prevalent not only in Tuscany, but throughout Italy, where the number of buildings and other things erected without method and without design betray the poverty of their minds no less than the bountiful riches lavished on them by the men of their day; a wasteful expenditure of wealth, because there was no masters capable of executing in a good style the things which they made for them. Now Niccola was steadily increasing his renown in both sculpture and architecture, and was of greater account than the sculptors and architects who were then at work in the Romagna, as one may see in S. Ippolito and S. Giovanni at Faenza, in the Duomo of Ravenna, in S. Francesco, in the houses of the Traversari, and in the church of Prato, and at Rimini, in the public palace, in the houses of the Malatesti, and in other buildings which are much worse than the old buildings erected in Tuscany at the same time; and what is here said of the Romagna, may be repeated with even more truth of a part of Lombardy. It is only necessary to see the Duomo of Ferrara and the other buildings erected for the Marquis Azzo, to perceive at once how different they are from the Santo of Padua, built from Niccola's model, and from the church of the friars minors at Venice, both of them magnificent and famous buildings. In Niccola's day there were many moved by a laudable spirit of emulation, who applied themselves more diligently to sculpture than they had done before, especially in Milan, where many Lombards and Germans were gathered for the building of the Duomo. These were afterwards scattered throughout Italy by the dissensions which arose between the Milanese and the Emperor Frederick. They then began to compete among themselves, both in carving marble and in erecting buildings, and produced works of some amount of excellence. The same thing happened in Florence after the works of Arnolfo and Niccola were seen. The latter, while the little church of the Misericordia on the piazza S. Giovanni was being built after his designs, carved a marble statue of Our Lady with St Domenic and another saint on either side, which may still be seen on the façade of that church. It was also in Niccola's time that the Florentines began to demolish many towers, erected previously in a rude style in order that the people should suffer less by their means in the frequent collisions between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, or for the greater security of the commonweal. One of these, the tower of Guardamorto, situated on the piazza S; Giovanni, presented unusual difficulty to those who wished to destroy it because the walls were so well knit that the stones could not be removed with the pickaxe, and also because the tower was a very high one. Niccola, however, caused a piece to be cut out of one of the sides of the tower and closed the gap with wooden supports, a braccia and a half long, he then set fire to the props, and so soon as these were consumed the tower fell down and was totally destroyed. The idea seemed so ingenious and so well adapted for such emergencies, that it afterwards came into general use, so that whenever it was necessary to destroy a building, the task was speedily accomplished in this most facile manner. Niccola was present when the foundations of the Duomo of Siena were laid, and he designed the Church of S. Giovanni in that city. He went back to Florence in the year of the return of the Guelphs, and designed the church of S. Trinita, and the women's convent at Faenza, pulled down in recent years to make the citadel. Being subsequently summoned to Naples, and not wishing to abandon his enterprises in Tuscany, he sent thither his pupil Maglione, sculptor and architect, who in the time of Conrad afterwards built the church of S. Lorenzo at Naples, finished a part of the Vescorado, and made some tombs there, in which he closely imitated the manner of his master, Niccola. In the meantime Niccola went to Volterra, in the year that the people of that place came under the dominion of the Florentines (1254), in response to a summons, because they wished him to enlarge their Duomo, which was small; and although it was very irregular, he improved its appearance, and made it more magnificent than it was originally. Then at length he returned to Pisa and made the marble pulpit of S. Giovanni, devoting all his skill to it, so that he might leave a memory of himself in his native place. Among other things in it he carved the Last Judgment, filling it with a number of figures, and if they are not perfectly designed they are at any rate executed with patience and diligence, as may be seen; and because he considered that he had completed a work which was worthy of praise, as indeed he had, he carved the following lines at the foot: "Anno milleno bis centum bisque trideno. Hoc opus insigne sculpsit Nicola Pisanus." The people of Siena, moved by the fame of this work, which greatly delighted not only the Pisans, but whoever saw it, assigned to Niccola the task of making for their Duomo the pulpit from which the gospel is sung, at the time when Guglielmo Mariscotti was praetor. In this Niccola introduced a number of subjects from the life of Jesus Christ, especially remarkable for the figures which they contain, which stand out in high relief, all but severed from the background, a work of great difficulty. He likewise designed the church and convent of S. Domenico at Arezzo, for the lords of Pietramela who built it, and at the request of the bishop Ubertini he restored the Pieve of Cortona, and founded the church of S. Margherita for the friars of St Francis, on the highest ground in that city. The fame of Niccola was continually on the increase, owing to these works, so that in 1267 he was invited by Pope Clement IV. to Viterbo, where, among many other things he restored the church and convent of the Friars Preachers. From Viterbo he went to Naples to King Charles, who having defeated and slain Curradino on the plain of Tagliacozzo, founded a wealthy church and abbey on the spot, for the burial-place of the large number of men who had fallen on that day, ordaining that prayers should be offered for their souls both day and night by many monks. King Charles was so delighted with the work of Niccola in this building that he loaded him with honours and rewards. On the way back from Naples to Tuscany Niccola stayed to take part in the building of S. Maria at Orvieto, where he worked in the company of some Germans, making figures in high relief in marble for the front of that church, and more particularly a Last Judgment, comprising both Paradise and Hell; and as he took the greatest pains to render the souls of the blessed in Paradise as beautifully as he possibly could, so he introduced into his Hell the most fantastic shape of devils imaginable, all intent on tormenting the souls of the damned. In this work not only did he surpass the Germans who were working there, but even himself, to his great glory, and because he introduced a great number of figures and spared no pains, it has been praised even to our own day by those whose judgment does not extend beyond such circumstances. Among other children Niccola had a son called Giovanni, who was always with his father, and under his care learned both sculpture and architecture, so that in the course of a few years he became not only the equal of his father, but his superior in some things. Thus, as Niccola was already old, he withdrew to Pisa and lived quietly there, leaving the control of everything to his son. At the death in Perugia of Pope Urban IV., Giovanni was sent for to make the tomb, which he executed in marble; but it was afterwards thrown down, together with that of Pope Martin IV., when the Perugians enlarged their Vescovado, so that only a few remains may be seen to-day dispersed about the church. At the same time the Perugians, thanks to the skill and industry of a friar of the Silvestrini, had brought to their city from the hill of Pacciano, two miles away, an abundance of water. The ornamentation of the fountain in both bronze and marble was entrusted to Giovanni, so that he thereupon set his hand to the work, making three basins, one above the other, two in marble and one in bronze. The first is placed at the top of a flight of steps of twelve faces, the second rests on some pillars which rise from the centre of the first, while the third, which is of bronze, is supported by three figures; and in the middle are griffins, also of bronze, which throw out water on every side. And as Giovanni considered that he had executed an excellent piece of work, he put his name to it. The arches and conduits of this fountain, which cost 160,000 gold ducats, were found to be very much worn and broken about the year 1560, but Vincenzio Danti, sculptor of Perugia, contrived a means, to his great glory, of bringing water to the fountain in the original way, without rebuilding the arches, which would have been very costly. When the work was finished Giovanni felt anxious to return to see his old father, who was sick, and he set out from Perugia intending to return to Pisa; but on his way through Florence he was compelled to stay there, to assist with others at the mills of the Arno, which were being made at S. Gregorio, near the piazza dei Mozzi. But at length receiving word that his father Niccola was dead, he departed for Pisa, where he was received with great honour by all the city, on account of his worth, since everyone rejoiced that although Niccola was lost to them, yet they still possessed Giovanni, who inherited his father's ability as well as his property. Nor were they deceived in him when the time of testing arrived, for when it was necessary to do some few things for the tiny but highly-ornate church of S. Maria della Spina, the task was entrusted to Giovanni. He therefore put his hand to the work and brought the ornamentation of that oratory to the state of perfection which it possesses to-day, the more so as he introduced the portrait of Niccola, taken from life, executed to the best of his ability. When the Pisans had seen this they decided to entrust him the construction of the Campo Santo, which is against the piazza del Duomo towards the walls, as they had long desired and talked of having a place for the burial of all their dead, both gentle and simple, so that the Duomo should not be filled with tombs, or for other reasons. Thus Giovanni with good designs and great judgment erected the building as we now see it, in style, size, and marble ornamentation, and as no expense was spared, it was roofed with lead. On the outside of the principle entrance may be read these words, carved in the marble: "A.D. MCCLXXVIII. tempore Domini Federigi archiepiscopi Pisani, et Domini Terlati potestatis operario Orlando Sardella, Johanne magistro aedificante." In the completion of this work, 1283, Giovanni went to Naples, where he erected the Castel Nuovo for King Charles; and in order to enlarge it and add to its strength, he was compelled to pull down a number of houses and churches, among them a convent of the friars of St Francis, which was afterwards rebuilt on a larger and grander scale at some distance from the castle, with the title of S. Maria della Nuova. After these building had been set on foot and were well advanced, Giovanni left Naples to return to Tuscany, but when he reached Siena he was not allowed to go farther, but was induced to design the façade of the Duomo of that city, which was subsequently erected from his plans in a very rich and magnificent style. In the following year, 1286, while the bishop's palace at Arezzo was being built from the design of Margaritone, architect of Arezzo, Giovanni was fetched from Sienna to that city by Guglielmo Ubertini, the bishop there. He there executed in marble the table of the high altar, full of figures cut in relief of leaves and other ornaments, dividing the work into compartments by fine mosaics and enamels on silver plates, fixed into the marble with great care. In the midst is Our Lady with the child at her neck, and on one side of her is St Gregory the Pope (which is a portrait of Pope Honorius IV. drawn from life), and on the other side St Donato, the bishop and protector of that city, whose body, with those of St Antilia and other saints, rest under that same altar. And as the altar stands out by itself, the sides are decorated with small representations in bas-relief from the life of St Donato, and the work is crowned with a series of niches, full of marble figures in relief, of exquisite workmanship. On the Madonna's breast is an ornament shaped like a gold casket, containing, if report be true, jewels of great value, although it is believed that they, as well as some other small figures on the top and about the work, were taken away by the soldiers, who do not often respect the even most Holy Sacrament. On these works the Aretines expended 30,000 florins, as is found in some records. Nor does this appear impossible, because at that time it was considered to be a thing of the most precious and rare description, so that when Frederick Barbarossa returned from his coronation at Rome, and was passing through Arezzo many years after its completion, he praised and admired it infinitely, and indeed with good cause, since the joints are constructed of tiny pieces so excellently welded together, that to an inexperienced eye, the whole work seems to be made in one piece. In the same church Giovanni made the chapel of the Ubertini, a noble family, and lords of a castle, as they still are, though they were formerly of greater estate. He adorned this with many marble ornaments, which are to-day covered over by many large ornaments of stone, placed there in the year 1535, after plans by Giorgio Vasari, for the support of an organ of extraordinary excellence and beauty which rests upon them. Giovanni Pisano also designed the church of S. Maria dei Servi, which has been destroyed in our day, together with many palaces of the noblest families of the city, for the reasons mentioned above. I must not omit to note that in the construction of the marble altar Giovanni was assisted by some Germans, who associated with him, rather for the sake of learning the art, than for gain, and who profited so much by his instruction, that when they went to Rome, after the completion of that work, they served Pope Boniface VIII. in many works of sculpture executed for St Peter's, and also in architecture, when he made Civita Castellana. They were, moreover, sent by that Pope to S. Maria at Orvieto, where they made a number of marble figures for the façade of the church, which were very tolerable for those times. But among the others who assisted Giovanni in his undertakings for the Vescovado at Arezzo, were Agostino and Agnolo, sculptors and architects of Siena, who far surpassed all the others, as will be said in the proper place. But to return to Giovanni. When he left Orvieto he came to Florence to see Arnolfo's building of S. Maria del Fiore, and also to see Giotto, of whom he had heard a great deal elsewhere; but no sooner had he arrived in Florence than he was appointed by the intendants of the fabric of S. Maria del Fiore to make the Madonna, which stands between two small angels above the door of that church, which leads into the canons' quarters, a work much praised at the time. He next made the small font for S. Giovanni, containing representations from the life of that saint in half-relief. Proceeding thence to Bologna he directed the construction of the principal chapel of the church of St Domenico, in which he was also commissioned to make the marble altar by Teodorico Borgognoni of Lucca, then bishop, a friar of that order. Later on (1298), in the same place, he made the marble table in which are Our Lady and eight other figures, all of very tolerable workmanship. In the year 1300, when Niccola da Prato was at Florence as cardinal legate of the Pope, for the purpose of settling the discords among the Florentines, he caused Giovanni to build a nunnery for him at Prato, which was called S. Niccola after him, and in the same district he made him restore the convent of S. Domenico, as well as that of Pistoia, in both of which the arms of that cardinal may still be seen. And since the Pistolese held the name of Niccola, Giovanni's father, in great respect, because he had displayed his talents in that city, they commissioned Giovanni to make a marble pulpit for the church of S. Andrea, similar to that which he had made for the Duomo of Siena, and in competition with one which had been made shortly before for the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista by a German, which had been much praised. Giovanni finished his task in four years, dividing the work into four subjects from the life of Jesus Christ, and further introducing a Last Judgment, working with the utmost diligence in order to equal, and perhaps surpass, that celebrated pulpit of Orvieto. About the pulpit above some columns which support it and in the architrave he carved the following lines, since he thought that he had completed a great and beautiful work, as indeed he had, considering the attainments of the age: Hoc opus sculpsit Johannes, qui res non egit inanes. Nicoli natus . . . meliora beatus Quam genuit Pisa, doctum super omnia visa. At the same time Giovanni made the holy water vessel in marble for the same church of S. Giovanni Evangelista, borne by three figures, Temperance, Prudence and Justice, and as it was then considered a work of great beauty, it was placed in the middle of the church as a remarkable object. Before he left Pistoia he made the model for the campanile of S. Jacopo, the principal church of the city, although the work was not then begun. The tower is situated beside the church in the piazza of S. Jacopo, and bears the date A.D. 1301. On the death of Pope Benedict IX. at. Perugia, Giovanni was sent for to make his tomb, which he executed in marble in the old church of S. Domenico of the Friars Preachers, placing the Pope's effigy, taken from life, and in his pontifical habit, upon the sarcophagus with two angels holding a curtain, one on either side, and Our Lady above, between two saints, executed in relief, as well as many other ornaments carved on the tomb. Similarly in the new church of the same order he made the tomb of M. Niccolo Guidalotti of Perugia, bishop of Recanati, who was the founder of the new University of Perugia. In this same new church, which had been previously founded by others, he directed the construction of the principal nave, and this part of the building was much more securely founded than the rest, which leans over to one side, and threatens to fall down, owing to the faulty laying of the foundations. And in truth he who undertakes to build or perform any things of importance ought always to take the advice, not of those who know little, but of those most competent to help him, so that he may not afterwards have to repent with loss and shame that he was ill-directed when he was in most need of assistance. When he had completed his labours in Perugia, Giovanni wished to go to Rome to learn from the few antique things there, as his father had done, but being hindered by good reasons, he was never able to fulfil his desire, chiefly because he heard that the court had just gone to Avignon. So he returned to Pisa, where Nello di Giovanni Falconi, craftsman, entrusted to him the great pulpit of the Duomo, which is fixed to the choir on the right hand side as one approaches the high altar. He set to work on this, and on a number of figures in full relief, three braccia high, which he intended to use for it, and little by little he brought it to its present form, resting in part on the said figures and in part upon lions, while on the sides he represented scenes from the life of Jesus Christ. It is truly a sin that so much money, such diligence and labour should not be accompanied by good design, and that it should lack that perfection, invention, grace, and good style which any work of our own day would possess, even were it executed at much less cost and with less difficulty. Yet it must have excited no small admiration among the men of the time, who had only been accustomed to see the rudest productions. It was finished in the year 1320, as appears in certain lines which run round the pulpit and read thus: "Laudo Deum verum, per quem sunt optima rerum Qui dedit has puras homini formate figuras; Hoc opus, his annis Domini sculpsere Johannis Arte manus sole quandam, natique Nicole. Cursis undenis tercentum milleque plenis." There are thirteen other lines, which I do not write here, because I do not wish to weary the reader, and because these are sufficient to show not only that the pulpit is by the hand of Giovanni, but that the men of that time were alike in their shortcomings. A Madonna between St John the Baptist and another saint may be seen over the principal of the door of the Duomo; it is in marble, and by the hand of Giovanni, and the figure kneeling at her feet is said to be Piero Gambacorti, the warden. However this may be, the following words are cut in the pedestal, on which the image of Our Lady stands: "Sub Petri cura haec pia fuit scutpta figura Nicoli nato sculptore Johanne vocato." Moreover there is another marble Madonna, by Giovanni, over the side door, which is opposite the campanile, while on one side of her kneel a lady and two children, representing Pisa, and on the other side the Emperor Henry. On the base are these words: Ave gratia plena, Dominus teum, and then-- Nobilis arte manus sculpsit Johannes Pisanus Sculpsit sub Burgundio Tadi benigno. And about the base of Pisa: Virginis ancilla sum Pisa quieta sub illa, and about the base of Henry: Imperat Henricus qui Cliristo fertur amicus. In the old Pieve at Prato, beneath the altar of the principal chapel, was preserved for many years the girdle of Our Lady, which Michele da Prato had brought back with him from the Holy Land, and had deposited it with Uberto, provost of the church, who laid it in the said place, where it was always held in great veneration. In the year 1312 an attempt to steal it was made by a native of Prato, a man of a most evil life, another Ser Ciappelletto, but he was discovered and put to death for sacrilege. Moved by this deed, the people of Prato proposed to make a strong and suitable receptacle in which the girdle should be kept with greater security, and sent for Giovanni, who was now an old man. Acting upon his advice, they constructed the chapel in the principal church, where Our Lady's girdle now reposes. They then greatly increased their church also from his plans, and incrusted both the church and the campanile with white and black marble on the outside, as may be seen. At length Giovanni died at a ripe old age in the year 1320, after having completed many works in sculpture and architecture besides those which are mentioned here. And in truth a great debt is due to him and to Niccola his father, since in an age which lacked every element of good design, in the midst of all the darkness they threw so much light on those arts in which they were really excellent. Giovanni was honourably buried in the Campo Santo, in the same tomb in which his father Niccola was laid. Many disciples of his flourished after him, but especially Lino, sculptor and architect of Siena, who made the chapel which contains the body of St Ranieri in the Duomo of Pisa, richly decorated with marble; and also the baptismal font of that cathedral which bears his name. Let no one marvel that Niccola and Giovanni executed so many works, for besides the fact that they lived to a good age, they were the foremost masters in Europe of their time, so that nothing of importance was undertaken without their taking part in it, as may be seen in many inscriptions besides those which have been quoted. Whilst speaking of these two sculptors and architects, I have often referred to Pisa, so that I do not hesitate at this stage to quote some words written on the pedestal of a vase mounted on a column of porphyry and supported by a lion, which is situated on the steps of the new hospital there. They are as follows: "This is the talent which the Emperor Cæesar gave to Pisa, to the intent that the tribute which they rendered to him should be regulated thereby. The talent was set upon this column and lion in the time of Giovanni Rosso, master of the work of S. Maria Maggiore, Pisa, A.D. MCCCXIII., the second Indiction, in March." Andrea Tafi, Florentine Painter. Just as the works of Cimabue excited no small amount of wonder in the men of that time, since he introduced a better design and form into the art of painting, whereas they had only been accustomed to see things executed on the Byzantine style, so the mosaics of Andrea Tafi, who was a contemporary, were much admired and even considered divine, for the people of that day, who had not been used to see anything different did not think that it was possible to produce better works in that art. But in truth, as he was not the most capable man in the world, and having reflected that working in mosaic was more valued on account of its greater durability, be left Florence for Venice, where some Greek painters were working in mosaic at S. Marco. There he formed a close intimacy with them, and by dint of persuasion, money, and promises he at length contrived to bring to Florence Master Apollonio, a Greek painter, who taught him how to bake the glass of the mosaic, and how to make the cement in which to fix it. With him Andrea worked at the tribune of S. Giovanni, doing the upper part which contains the Dominions, Principalities, and Powers. Afterwards when he had gained more experience, he did the Christ which is in the same church above the principal chapel as will be related below. But as I have mentioned S. Giovanni, I will take this opportunity of saying that that ancient sanctuary is incrusted both within and without with marbles of the Corinthian order, and not only is it perfectly proportioned and finished in all its parts, but most beautifully adorned with doors and windows. Each face is supplied with two columns of granite, 11 braccia high, forming three compartments, above which are the architraves, which rest on the columns, to carry the whole weight of the double roof, which is praised by modern architects as a remarkable thing, and justly, because this church helped to demonstrate to Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, Donatello, and the other masters of their time what possibilities there were in that art. They all studied architecture from this building and from the church of S. Apostolo at Florence, a work of such a good style that it approaches the true antique, since, as I have said before, all the columns are measured and arranged with such care that much may be learned from a careful examination of the entire structure. But I will refrain from saying more about the good architecture of this church, though much might be added to what precedes, and I will content myself by saying that those who rebuilt the marble façade of the church of S. Miniato del Monte, deviated widely from this model and from this excellent style. This work was carried out in honour of the conversion of the blessed Giovanni Gualberto, citizen of Florence and founder of the congregation of the monks of Vallombrosa, because these and many other works erected afterwards are not to be compared for excellence to those two buildings. The art of sculpture experienced a similar fate because all the masters of the time who were then working in Italy, as has been said in the preface to the lives, were very rude. This may be seen in many places, but especially in S. Bartolommeo of the regular canons at Pistoia where there is a pulpit very rudely executed by Guido da Como, containing the beginning of the life of Jesus Christ, with these words inscribed there by the artist himself in the year 1199: "Sculptor laudatur, quod doctus in arte probatur, Guido da Como me cunctis carmine promo." But to return to S. Giovanni, I pass by the history of its foundation because that has been written by Giovanni Villani and other authors, and, as I have already remarked that the good architecture in use to-day is derived from that building, I will now add that, to judge by appearances, the tribune is of a later date. At the time when Alesso Baldovinetti, succeeding the Florentine painter Lippo, repaired the mosaics it appeared as if it had anciently been painted in red, the designs being executed on the stucco. Now Andrea Tafi and Apollonius the Greek, in their scheme for the decoration of the tribune, divided it into compartments. Starting from the top of the vault next to the lantern these became gradually larger until they reached the cornice below. The upper part is divided into rings representing various subjects. The first contains all the ministers and performers of the Divine will, such as the Angels, Archangels, Cherubim, Seraphim, Dominions, Principalities, Powers. The second, in which the mosaics are executed in the Byzantine style, are the principal acts of God from the creation of light to the flood. The circle underneath this which descends with increased space to the eight faces of the tribune contains the history of Joseph and his twelve brethren. These are followed by other spaces of the same size and a like situation containing the life of Jesus Christ in mosaic from the Conception of Mary to the Ascension. Next, following the same order, under the three friezes, is the life of St John the Baptist, beginning with the apparition of the angel to Zacharias the priest and continuing to John's beheading and the burial of his body by the disciples. All these things are rude, without design and without art, and they are no advance upon the Byzantine style of the time so that I cannot praise them absolutely, though they merit some commendation, when one considers the methods in use at the time and the imperfect state in which pictorial art then was. Besides, the work is sound and the pieces of mosaic are very well set. In short, the latter part of the work is much better or rather less bad than is the beginning, although the whole, when compared with the works of to-day rather excites laughter than pleasure or admiration. Ultimately Andrea made the Christ, 7 braccia high, for the tribune on the wall of the principal chapel, which may be seen there to-day, and this he did by himself without the aid of Apollonio, to his great glory. Having become famous throughout Italy by these works and being reputed excellent in his own land, he received the richest honours and rewards. It was certainly a great good fortune for Andrea to be born at a time when only rude works were produced, so that things which should have been considered of very slight account or even worthless, were held in reasonable repute. The same thing happened to fra Jacopo da Turrita, of the order of St Francis, who received extraordinary rewards for the mosaics which he executed for the small choir behind the altar of S. Giovanni, although they deserved little praise, and he was afterwards invited to Rome as a great master, where he was employed on some works in the chapel of the high altar of S. Giovanni Lateram and in that of S. Maria Maggiore. He was next invited to Pisa, where he did the Evangelists and other things which are in the principal tribune of the Duomo, in the same style as the other things which he executed, although he was assisted by Andrea Tafi and Gaddo Gaddi. These were finished by Vicino, for Jacopo left them in a very imperfect state. The works of these masters obtained credit for some time, but when the productions of Andrea, Cimabue, and the rest had to bear comparison with those of Giotto, as will be said when the time comes, people came to recognise in which direction perfection in art lay, for they saw how great a difference there was between the first manner of Cimabue and that of Giotto in the delineation of figures, a difference equally strongly marked in the case of their pupils and imitators. From this time others gradually sought to follow in the footsteps of the better masters, surpassing each other more and more every day, so that art rose from these humble beginnings to that summit of perfection to which it has attained to-day. Andrea lived eighty-one years and died before Cimabue in 1294. The reputation and honour which he won by his mosaics, because it was he who had first brought to Tuscany the better manner of executing and who had taught it to the men of that province, led to the execution of the excellent works in that art by Gaddo Gaddi, Giotto, and the rest, which have brought them fame and immortality. After Andrea's death his merits were magnified in the following inscription: Here lies Andrea, who produced graceful and beautiful works In all Tuscany. Now he has gone. To adorn the realm of the stars. Buonamico Buffalmacco was a pupil of Andrea, and played many pranks on him when a youth. From his master Buonamico had the portraits of Pope Celestine IV. and Innocent IV., both of which he afterwards introduced in the paintings which he made in S. Paolo a Ripa d'Arno at Pisa. Another pupil was Antonio di Andrea Tafi, who may possibly have been his son. He was a fair painter, but I have not been able to find any works by his hand, and there is nothing beyond a bare mention of him in the old book of the company of artists in design. But Andrea Tafi deserves a high place among the old masters, because, although he learned the principles of mosaic from the craftsman whom he brought from Venice to Florence, yet he introduced such improvements into the art, uniting the pieces with great care, and making his surfaces as smooth as a table (a very important thing in mosaics), that he prepared the way for Giotto among others, as will be said in that artist's life; and not for Giotto alone, but for all those who have since practised this branch of pictorial art to our own day. Thus it may be asserted with perfect truth that the marvellous works in mosaic, which are now being carried out in S. Marco, at Venice, owe their origin to Andrea Tafi. Gaddo Gaddi, Florentine Painter. Gaddo, painter of Florence, who flourished at this same time, showed more design in the works which he produced in the Byzantine style, and which he executed with great care, than did Andrea Tafi and the other painters who preceded him. This was possibly due to his close friendship and intercourse with Cimabue, for, whether it was through congeniality of disposition or through the goodness of their hearts, they became very much attached to each other, and their frequent conversations together, and their friendly discussions upon the difficulties of the arts, gave rise to many great and beautiful ideas in their minds. This came to pass the more readily, because they were aided by the quality of the air of Florence, which usually produces ingenious and subtle spirits, and which made them strangers to that ruggedness and coarseness from which Nature cannot entirely free herself even when assisted by the rivalry of the good craftsmen and the precepts laid down by them in every age. It is, indeed, abundantly clear that, when things have been talked over in a friendly way, without any reserve of convention, although this rarely happens, they may be brought to a great state of perfection. The same remark applies to those who study the sciences; for, by discussing difficulties among themselves when they arise, they remove them, rendering the path so clear and easy, that the greatest glory may be won thereby. But, on the other hand, there are some who, with devilish arts, and led by envy and malice, make profession of friendship under the guise of truth and affection, give the most pernicious advice, so that the arts do not attain to excellence so soon as they do where the minds of noble spirits are united by such a bond of love as that which drew together Gaddo and Cimabue, and, in like manner, Andrea Tafi and Gaddo. It was Andrea who took Gaddo into his companionship to finish the mosaics of S. Giovanni. Here Gaddo learned so much, that he was able, without assistance, to make the prophets, which may be seen round the walls of that sanctuary, in the squares under the windows; and, as he executed these unaided and in a much improved style, they brought him great renown. Encouraged by this, he prepared himself to work alone, and devoted himself constantly to the study of the Byzantine style, combined with that of Cimabue. By such means, it was not long before he became an excellent artist; so that the wardens of S. Maria del Fiore entrusted to him the semi-circular space within the building above the principal entrance, where he introduced a Coronation of the Virgin, in mosaic. Upon its completion, it was pronounced by all the foreign and native masters to be the finest work of its kind that had yet been seen in Italy, for they recognised that it possessed more design and more judgment, and displayed the results of more study, than were to be found in all the remaining works in mosaic then in existence in the peninsula. Thus, his fame being spread abroad by this work, he was summoned to Rome by Clement V. in the year 1308,--that is to say, in the year following the great fire, in which the church and palaces of the Lateran were destroyed. There he completed for the Pope some works in mosaic, which had been left unfinished by Jacopo da Turrita. His next work, also in mosaic, was in the church of St Peter's, where he executed some things in the principal chapel and for other parts of the church; but especially a God the Father, of large size with many figures, which he did for the façade. He also assisted in the completion of some mosaics on the façade of S. Maria Maggiore, somewhat improving the style, and departing slightly from the Byzantine manner, which was entirely devoid of merit. On his return to Tuscany, he did some work in mosaic for the Tarlati, lords of Pietramala, in the old Duomo, outside Arezzo, in a vault entirely constructed of spungite. He covered the middle part of this building with mosaics; but the church fell down in the time of Bishop Gentile Urbinate, because the old stone vaulting was too heavy for it, and it was afterwards rebuilt in brick by that bishop. On his departure from Arezzo, Gaddo went to Pisa, where he made, for a niche in the chapel of the Incoronata in the Duomo, the Ascension of Our Lady into Heaven, where Jesus Christ is awaiting her, with a richly appareled throne for her seat. This work was executed so well and so carefully for the time, that it is in an excellent state of preservation to-day. After this, Gaddo returned to Florence, intending to rest. Accordingly he amused himself in making some small mosaics, some of which are composed of egg-shells, with incredible diligence and patience, and a few of them, which are in the church of S. Giovanni at Florence, may still be seen. It is related that he made two of these for King Robert, but nothing more is known of the matter. This much must suffice for the mosaics of Gaddo Gaddi. Of pictures he painted a great number, among them that which is on the screen of the chapel of the Minerbetti in S. Maria Novella, and many others sent to different places in Tuscany. Thus, by producing now mosaics and now paintings, he executed many very tolerable works in both mediums, which will always assure him good credit and reputation. There is a great deal more which I might say about Gaddo, but I will pass it over in silence, because the manner of the painters of those days cannot be of great assistance to artists; and I shall dwell at greater length upon the lives of those who may be of some help, because they introduced improvements into the art. Gaddo lived seventy-three years, and died in 1312. He was honourably buried in S. Croce by his son Taddeo. This Taddeo, who had Giotto for his godfather, was the only one of all Gaddo's children who became a painter, learning the rudiments of the art from his father and the rest from Giotto. Besides Taddeo, a Pisan painter named Vicino was also a pupil of Gaddo. He did some excellent work in mosaic for the great tribune of the Duomo of Pisa, where the following words still testify to his authorship: "Tempore Domini Johannis Rossi operarii istius ecclesiæ, Vicinus pictor incepit et perfecit hanc imaginem B. Mariæ, sed Majestatis, et Evangelistae per alios inceptæ, ipse complevit et perfecit. Anno Domini 1321. De mense Septembris. Benedictum sit nomen Domini Dei nostri Jesu Christi. Amen." The portrait of Gaddo, by the hand of Taddeo his son, may be seen in the Baroncelli chapel in the church of S. Croce, where he stands by the side of Andrea Tafi, in the marriage of the Virgin. In the book, which I have mentioned above, there is a miniature by Gaddo, like those of Cimabue, and which serves to show his ability as a draughtsman. Now, because an old book from which I have extracted these few notices about Gaddo Gaddi, speaks of the building of the church of S. Maria Novella in Florence for the Friars Preachers, a truly magnificent and imposing structure, I will take this opportunity of relating the circumstances of its erection. While St Dominic was at Bologna, the place of Ripoli outside Florence was granted to him. Accordingly he sent twelve friars thither under the care of the blessed Giovanni da Salerno. Not many years after they came to Florence, to the church and place of S. Pancrazio, and established themselves there. When Dominic himself came to Florence they left it, and went to stay in the church of S. Paolo, as he wished them to do. Subsequently when the place of S. Maria Novella and all its possessions were granted to Blessed Giovanni by the papal legate and by the bishop of the city, they entered into possession and began to live in that place on the last day of October 1221. But as this church was rather small, with a western aspect and the entrance on the old piazza, the friars, who had increased in numbers and who were in great credit in the city, began to think of enlarging their church and convent. So, having collected a great sum of money, and many people of the city having promised every assistance, they began the construction of a new church on St Luke's day, 1278, when the first stone was laid with great ceremony by the Cardinal Latino degli Orsini, legate of Pope Nicholas III. to the Florentines. The architects of the church were fra Giovanni of Florence, and fra Ristoro of Campi, lay brethren of the order, who had restored the ponte alia Carraia, and that of S. Trinita, after their destruction by the flood of October 1264. The greater part of the land covered by the church and convent was given to the friars by the heirs of M. Jacopo, de' Tornaquinci knight. The cost, as has been said, was defrayed partly by alms, partly by the money of various persons who gave assistance readily, but especially by the good offices of friar Aldobrandino Cavalcanti, who was, afterwards bishop of Arezzo, and who is buried over the gate of the Virgin. Besides other things this friar is said to have collected by his industry all the labour and materials required for the church. It was completed when fra Jacopo Passavanti was prior of the convent, who thus deserved his marble tomb which is on the left hand side in front of the principal chapel. The church was consecrated by Pope Martin V. in the year 1470, as appears by an inscription on marble on a pillar on the right of the principal chapel, which runs: Anno Domini 1420 die Septembris, Dominus Martinus divina providentia Papa V personaliter hanc ecclesiam consecravit, et magnas indulgentias contulit visitantibus eamdem. All these things and many more are related in a chronicle of the building of this church, which is in the possession of the fathers of S. Maria Novella, as well as in the history of Giovanni Villani. I did not wish to omit these few particulars, because the church is one of the finest and most important in Florence, and also because it contains many excellent works of the most famous artists of a later time, as will be related hereafter. Margaritone, Painter, Sculptor and Architect of Arezzo. Among the other painters of old time, in whom the well-deserved praise accorded to Cimabue and his pupil Giotto aroused a great deal of fear, for their good workmanship in painting was hailed throughout Italy, was one Margaritone, painter of Arezzo, who recognised equally well with the others who previously occupied the foremost positions in painting in that unhappy age, that the work of these two men would probably all but obliterate his own reputation. Margaritone was considered excellent among the painters of the age who worked in the Byzantine style, and he did a number of pictures in tempera at Arezzo. He worked in fresco also, painting almost the whole of the church of S. Clemente, an abbey of the order of the Camaldolites, but these occupied him a long time and cost him much trouble. The church is entirely destroyed to-day, together with many other buildings, including a strong fortress called S. dementi, because the Duke Cosimo de' Medici not only here, but round the whole circuit of the city, pulled down many buildings and the old walls which had been restored by Guido Petramalesco, a former bishop and lord of the city, in order to reconstruct them with curtains and bastions much stronger and of less circuit than the former ones had been, and consequently more easy to defend with a smaller number of men. Margaritone's pictures in this church contained many figures both small and great, and although they were executed in the Byzantine style, yet they were admitted to show evidence of having been executed with good judgment and with love of art, as may be inferred from the works of this painter which are still extant in that city. Of these the principal is a picture, now in the chapel of the Conception in S. Francesco, representing a Madonna with modern ornamentation, which is held in great veneration by the friars there. In the same church he did a large crucifix, also in the Byzantine style, which is now placed in the chapel where the quarters of the superintendent are situated. The Saviour is delineated upon the axes of the cross, and Margaritone made many such crucifixes in that city. For the nuns of S. Margherita he painted a work which is now placed in the transept of their church. This is canvas stretched on a panel, containing subjects from the life of Our Lady and of St John the Baptist in small figures, executed in a much better style, and with more diligence and grace than the large ones. This work is noteworthy, not only because the little figures in it are so carefully finished that they resemble the work of an illuminator, but because it is a wonderful thing that a picture on canvas should have lasted three hundred years. He did an extraordinary number of pictures for all the city, and a St Francis drawn from life at Sargiano, a convent of the bare-footed friars. To this he placed his name, because he considered that it was more than usually well done. He afterwards made a large crucifix in wood, painted in the Byzantine manner, and sent it to Florence to M. Farinata degli Uberti, a most famous citizen who, in addition to many other notable exploits, had saved his native city from imminent danger and ruin. This crucifix is now in S. Croce, between the chapel of the Peruzzi and that of the Giugni. In S. Domenico, at Arezzo, a church and convent built by the lords of Pietramela in the year 1275, as their coat of arms proves, he did many things before returning to Rome, where he had already given great satisfaction to Pope Urban IV. by doing some things in fresco for him in the portico of St Peter's; for although in the Byzantine style of the time, they were not without merit. After he had finished a St Francis at Ganghereto, a place above Terranuova in the Valdarno, he devoted himself to sculpture, as he was of an ambitious spirit, and he studied with such diligence that he succeeded much better than he had done in painting; for although his first sculptures were in the Byzantine style, as may be seen in four figures in wood of a Deposition from the Cross in the Pieve, and some other figures in relief which are in the chapel of St Francis above the baptismal font, yet he adopted a much better manner after he had visited Florence and had seen the works of Arnolfo, and of the other more celebrated sculptors of the time. In the year 1275 he returned to Arezzo in the suite of Pope Gregory, who passed through Florence on his journey from Avignon to Rome. Here an opportunity presented itself to make himself better known, for the Pope died at Arezzo after having given 30,000 scudi to the Commune wherewith to finish the building of the Vescovado which had been begun by Master Lapo, and had made but little progress. The Aretines therefore ordained that the chapel of St Gregory should be made in memory of the Pope in the Vescovado, in which Margaritone afterwards placed a picture, and in addition that Margaritone should make a marble tomb for the Pope in the Vescovado. He set to work upon the task and brought it to such a successful completion, introducing the Pope's portrait from life both in marble and in painting, that it was considered to be the best work which he had ever produced. Margaritone then set to work to complete the Vescovado, following the design of Lapo, and he displayed great activity; but he did not complete it, for a few years later, in 1289, war broke out again between the Florentines and Aretines, through the fault of Guglielmo Ubertini, bishop and lord of Arezzo, aided by the Tarlati of Pietramela and by the Pazzi of Val d'Arno, when all the money left by the Pope for the building of the Vescovado was expended upon the war, while evil befell the leaders, who were routed and slain at Campaldino. The Aretines then ordained that the tolls paid by the surrounding country, called a _dazio_, should be set aside for the use of the building, and this toll has lasted to our own day. To return to Margaritone, he seems to have been the first, so far as one can judge by his works, who thought it necessary to take precautions, when painting on wood, that the joints should be secure, so that no cracks or fissures should appear after the completion of the painting, and it was his practice to cover the panel completely with canvas, fastened on by a strong glue made of shreds of parchment and boiled in the fire; he then treated the surface with gypsum, as may be seen in many of his own pictures and in those of others. Over the gypsum, thus mixed with the glue, he made lines and diadems and other rounded ornaments in relief; and it was he who invented the method of grounding in bol-ar-moniac, on which he laid gold leaf which he afterwards burnished. All these things which had never been seen before may be noticed in his works, especially in an antependium in the Pieve of Arezzo, which contains scenes from the life of St Donate, and also in S. Agnesa and S. Niccolo in the same city. Margaritone produced many works in his own country which were sent out of it, part of which were at Rome in S. Giovanni and in St Peter's, and some at S. Caterina at Pisa, where there is a St Catherine of his over an altar in the transept, containing many small figures in a representation of her life, and also a panel of St Francis with many subjects from his life, on a gold ground. In the upper church of S. Francesco at Assisi is a crucifix by his hand painted in the Byzantine style, on a beam which spans the church. All these works were greatly prized by the people of the time, although they are not valued to-day, except as being curious on account of their age; indeed they could only be considered good in an age when art was not at its zenith, as it is to-day. Margaritone also paid some attention to architecture, although I have not mentioned any things made from his designs because they are of slight importance. However, I must not forget to say that he designed the palace of the governors of the city of Ancona, as I have found, in 1270, in the Byzantine style; and what is more, he carved in sculpture eight windows for the façade, each of which has two columns in the middle, which support two arches. Over each window is a representation in half relief, occupying the space between the arches and the top of the window, of an Old Testament subject, carved in a species of stone found in the country. Under the windows and on the façade are some letters, the purport of which must be conjectured, so badly are they done, which give the date and time at which the work was executed. The design of the church of S. Ciriaco at Ancona was also by his hand. Margaritone died at the age of seventy-seven, regretting, it is said, that he had lived long enough to see the changes of the age and the honours accorded to the new artists. He was buried in the old Duomo of Arezzo, in a tomb of Travertine, which has been destroyed in our own time by the demolition of that church. The following epitaph was written for him: Hic jacet ille bonus pictura Margaritonus, Cui requiem Dominus tradat uhique plus. Margaritone's portrait was in the old Duomo by the hand of Spinello, in the Adoration of the Magi, and was copied by me before the church was pulled down. Giotto, Painter, Sculptor, and Architect of Florence. The debt which painters owe to Nature, which serves continually as an example to them, that from her they may select the best and finest parts for reproduction and imitation, is due also to the Florentine painter, Giotto; because, when the methods and outlines of good painting had been buried for so many years under the ruins caused by war, he alone, although born in the midst of unskilful artists, was able, through God's gift in him, to endow art with a proper form after it had been revived in a bad style. Certainly it was nothing short of a miracle, in so gross and unskilful an age, that Giotto should have worked to such purpose that design of which the men of the time had little or no conception, was revived to a vigorous life by his means. The birth of this great man took place in the year 1276, fourteen miles from Florence, in the town of Vespignano, his father, who was a simple field labourer, being named Bondone. He brought up Giotto as well as his position in life allowed. When the boy had attained the age of ten years he exhibited, in all his childish ways, an extraordinary quickness and readiness of mind, which made him a favourite, not only with his father, but with all who knew him, both in the village and beyond it. Bondone then set him to watch a few sheep, and while he was following these from place to place to find pasture, he was always drawing something from nature or representing the fancies which came into his head, with a stone on the ground or on sand, so much was he attracted to the art of design by his natural inclination. Thus one day when Cimabue was going on some business from Florence to Vespignano, he came upon Giotto, who, while his sheep were grazing, was drawing one of them from life with a pointed piece of stone upon a smooth surface of rock, although he had never had any master but nature. Cimabue stopped in amazement at the sight, and asked the boy if he would like to come and stay with him. Giotto replied he would go willingly if his father would consent. Cimabue lost no time in finding Bondone, who joyfully consented and allowed his son to accompany Cimabue to Florence. After his arrival there, assisted by his natural talent and taught by Cimabue, the boy not only equalled his master's style in a short time, but became such a good imitator of nature that he entirely abandoned the rude Byzantine manner and revived the modern and good style of painting, introducing the practice of making good portraits of living persons, a thing which had not been in use for more than two hundred years. And although there were some few portraits made in this manner, as has been said above, yet they had not been very successful, nor were they nearly so well executed as those of Giotto. Among other portraits which he made, the chapel of the Podesta palace at Florence still contains that of Dante Aligheri, his close companion and friend, no less famous as a poet than Giotto then was as a painter. This poet has been warmly praised by M. Giovanni Boccaccio in the introduction to the story of M. Forese da Rabatta. In this same chapel Giotto has also painted his own portrait as well as those of Ser Brunetto Latini, Dante's master, and M. Corso Donati, a famous citizen of the time. Giotto's first paintings were in the chapel of the high altar of the Badia at Florence, in which he made a number of things which were considered beautiful, but especially an Annunciation. In this he has represented with extraordinary truth the fear and astonishment of the Virgin Mary at the salutation of Gabriel, who, in her terror seems ready to run away. The picture of the high altar in the same chapel is also by Giotto's hand, and it has continued to retain its position there, rather because of a certain reverence which is felt for the work of such a man than for any other reason. In S. Croce there are four chapels decorated by his hand, three between the sacristy and the principal chapel, and one on the other side. In the first of these, that of M. Ridolfo de' Bardi, in which the bell ropes hang, is the life of St Francis, at whose death a number of friars exhibit the effect of weeping with considerable fidelity to nature. In the second, which is that of the family of the Peruzzi, are two subjects from the life of St John the Baptist, to whom the chapel is dedicated. Here is a very life-like representation of the dancing of Herodias, and of the promptitude with which some servants are performing the service of the table. In the same chapel are two miracles of St John the Evangelist, the one representing the raising of Drusiana, the other his being caught up into Heaven. The third chapel, that of the Giugni and dedicated to the Apostles, contains representations by Giotto of the martyrdom of many of them. In the fourth, that of the Tosinghi and Spinelli, which is on the north side of the church and is dedicated to the Assumption of Our Lady, Giotto painted the Nativity of the Virgin, her marriage, the Annunciation, the adoration of the Magi, and the presentation of the Christ child to Simeon. This last is a most beautiful thing, for not only is the warmest love depicted in the face of the old man as he receives the Christ, but the action of the child, who is afraid of him and stretches out his arms to return to his mother, could not be represented with more tenderness or greater beauty. In the Death of Our Lady the Apostles are represented with a number of very beautiful angels. The Baroncelli chapel in the same church contains a painting in tempera by Giotto's hand, in which he has represented with great care the coronation of Our Lady. It contains a very large number of small figures and a choir of angels and saints, produced with great diligence. On this work he has written his name and the date in gold letters. Artists who reflect that at this time Giotto was laying the foundations of the proper method of design and of colouring, unaided by the advantages of seeing the light of the good style, will be compelled to hold him in the highest veneration. In the same church of S. Croce there are in addition a crucifix above the marble tomb of Carlo Marzuppini of Arezzo, Our Lady with St John and the Magdalene at the foot of the cross, and opposite on the other side of the building an Annunciation towards the high altar over the tomb of Lionardo Aretino, which has been restored by modern artists with great lack of judgment. In the refectory he has done the history of St Louis, a Last Supper, and a Tree of the Cross, while the presses of the sacristy are decorated with some scenes from the lives of Christ and of St Francis in small figures. At the church of the Carmine in the chapel of St John the Baptist he represented the whole of that saint's life in several pictures; and in the Palazzo della parte Guelfa at Florence there is the history of the Christian faith painted admirably by him in fresco, and containing the portrait of Pope Clement IV., who founded that monastery to which he gave his arms, retained by them ever since. After these works Giotto set out from Florence for Assisi in order to finish what Cimabue had begun there. On his way through Arezzo he painted the chapel of St Francis, which is above the baptistery in the Pieve there, and a St Francis and a St Dominic, portraits from life, on a round pillar near to a most beautiful antique Corinthian capital. In the Duomo outside Arezzo he decorated the interior of a large chapel with the Stoning of St Stephen, an admirable composition of figures. On completing these things he proceeded to Assisi, a city of Umbria, whither he was summoned by fra Giovanni di Muro della Marca, at that time general of the friars of St Francis. In the upper church of this town he painted a series of thirty-two frescoes of the life of St Francis, under the corridor which traverses the windows, sixteen on each side, with such perfection that he acquired the highest reputation thereby. In truth the work exhibits great variety, not only in the postures of the different figures, but in the composition of each subject, besides which it is very interesting to see the various costumes of those times and certain imitations and observations of Nature. One of the most beautiful of these represents a thirsty man, whose desire for water is represented in the most lively manner as he kneels on the ground to drink from a spring, with such wonderful reality that one might imagine him to be a real person. There are many other things most worthy of notice into which I will not enter now, because I do not wish to be tedious. Let it suffice to say that by these works Giotto acquired the highest reputation for the excellence of his figures, for his arrangement, sense of proportion, fidelity to Nature, and his innate facility which he had greatly increased by study, while in addition to this he never failed to express his meaning clearly. Giotto indeed was not so much the pupil of any human master as of Nature herself, for in addition to his splendid natural gifts, he studied Nature diligently, arid was always contriving new things and borrowing ideas from her. When these works were completed Giotto painted in the lower church of the same place the upper part of the walls beside the high altar, and all four angles of the vaulting over the spot where the body of St Francis lies, the whole displaying his beautiful and inventive imagination. The first contains St Francis glorified in Heaven, surrounded by those Virtues which are required of those who wish to be perfect in the sight of God. On the one side Obedience puts a yoke on the neck of a friar who kneels before her, the bands of which are drawn by hands to Heaven. With one finger on her mouth she signifies silence, and her eyes are turned towards Jesus Christ, who is shedding blood from his side. Beside her are Prudence and Humility to show that where true obedience exists, there also will be humility and prudence, causing everything to prosper. In the second angle is Chastity, who will not allow herself to be won by the kingdoms, crowns, or palms which are being offered to her. At her feet stands Purity who is washing the naked, while Fortitude is bringing others to be washed and cleansed. On one side of Chastity is Penitence, chasing a winged Love with the cord of discipline and putting to flight Uncleanness. Poverty occupies the third space, treading on thorns with her bare feet; behind her barks a dog, while a boy is throwing stones at her and another is pushing thorns into her legs with a stick. Poverty here is espoused by St Francis, while Jesus Christ holds her hand in the mystical presence of Hope and Chastity. In the fourth and last of these places is a St Francis in glory, clothed in the white tunic of a deacon, in triumph and surrounded by a multitude of angels who form a choir about him and hold a banner on which are a cross and seven stars, while over all is the Holy Spirit. In each of these angles are some Latin words explanatory of the subject. Besides these four angles the paintings on the side walls are most beautiful, and deserve to be highly valued both for the perfection which they exhibit and because they were produced with such skill that they are in an excellent state of preservation to-day. These paintings contain an excellent portrait of Giotto himself, and over the door of the sacristy is a fresco by his hand of St Francis receiving the stigmata, so full of tenderness and devotion that it seems to me to be the most excellent painting that Giotto has produced here, though all are really beautiful and worthy of praise. When S. Francesco was at length finished Giotto returned to Florence, where he painted with extraordinary care, a picture of St Francis in the fearful desert of Vernia, to be sent to Pisa. Besides a landscape full of trees and rocks, a new thing in those days, the attitude of the saint, who is receiving the stigmata on his knees with great eagerness, exhibits an ardent desire to receive them and an infinite love towards Jesus Christ, who is in the air surrounded by seraphim granting them to him, the varied emotions being all represented in the most telling manner imaginable. The predella of the picture contains three finely executed subjects from the life of the same saint. The work may now be seen in S. Francesco at Pisa, on a pillar beside the high altar, where it is held in high veneration in memory of so great a man. It led the Pisans, on the completion of their Campo Santo from the plan of Giovanni di Niccola Pisano, as already related, to entrust to Giotto the painting of a part of the walls. For as the exterior of the walls was incrusted with marble and sculptures at a great cost, the roof being of lead, and the interior filled with antique sarcophagi and tombs of Pagan times, gathered together in that city from all parts of the world, the Pisans wished the walls to be decorated with a series of noble paintings. Accordingly Giotto went to Pisa, and beginning at the end of one of the walls of the Campo Santo he depicted the life of the patient Job in six frescoes. Now it occurred to him that the marbles of the part of the building in which he was at work were turned towards the sea, and being exposed to the south-east wind, they are always moist and throw out a certain saltness, as do nearly all the bricks of Pisa, and because the colours and paintings are eaten away by these causes, and as he wished to protect his work from destruction as far as possible, he prepared a coating for the whole of the surface on which he proposed to paint his frescoes, which consisted of a plaster or incrusture made up of lime, chalk and brick-dust. This device has proved so successful, that the paintings which he subsequently executed on this surface, have endured to this day, and they would have stood better had not the neglect of those who should have taken care of them, allowed them to be much damaged by the damp. The want of attention to this detail, which would have involved little trouble, has caused the pictures to suffer a great deal in some places where the damp has converted the crimsons into black and caused the plaster to fall off. Besides this it is the nature of chalk when mixed with lime to become corroded and to peel, whence it happens that the colours are destroyed, although they may originally appear to take well. These frescoes contain the portrait of M. Farinata degli Uberti, besides many fine figures, among which one may remark some countrymen, who in bringing the sad news to Job, exhibit the utmost sorrow for the lost animals and the other misfortunes. There is also much grace in the figure of a servant, who with a fan of branches stands near the bowed figure of Job, abandoned by everyone else, for in addition to the figure being well executed in every particular, his attitude is wonderful, as with one hand he drives away the flies from his leprous and noisome master, and holds his nose with the other with disgust, to escape the smell. Very fine also are the other figures of these pictures and the heads of both men and women, and the delicate treatment of the drapery, so that it is small wonder that the work brought Giotto such renown in that city and elsewhere; that Pope Benedict IX., who was proposing to decorate St Peter's with some paintings, sent a courtier from Treviso to Tuscany, to see what manner of man Giotto was, and to report on the quality of his work. On the way the courtier learned that there were other excellent masters in painting and mosaic in Florence, and he interviewed a number of artists at Siena. When he had received designs from these, he proceeded to Florence. Entering Giotto's shop one morning, as he was at work, the envoy explained to him the Pope's intention, and the manner in which he wished to make use of his work, and finally asked Giotto for some small specimen of work to send to His Holiness. Giotto, who was always courteous, took a sheet of paper and a red pencil, pressed his arm to his side to make a compass of it, and then with a turn of his hand, produced a circle so perfect in every particular that it was a marvel to see. This done, he turned smiling to the courtier and said: "Here is the design." The latter, who thought he was joking, said: "Am I to have no other design but this?" "It is enough and more than enough," replied Giotto; "send it in with the others and you will see if it is recognised." The messenger perceived that he would obtain nothing else, and left in a state of considerable dissatisfaction, imagining that he had been laughed at. However, when he sent in the other designs with the names of their authors, he included that of Giotto, and related how the artist had executed it without moving his arm and without compasses. From this the Pope and all the courtiers present recognised to what an extent Giotto surpassed all the other painters of the time in excellence. When the story became public it gave rise to a saying which is still used for people of dull wits: "You are more round (_tondo_) than Giotto's O." This proverb deserves to be considered a good one, not only from the circumstances out of which it arose, but much more for its meaning, which is due to the two-fold significance of the word _tondo_ in Tuscany, that of a perfect circle, and slowness and heaviness of mind. Accordingly the Pope sent for Giotto to Rome, where he received him with great honour, and recognised his worth. He caused him to paint for the tribune of St Peter's five subjects from the life of Christ, and the principal picture for the sacristy, all of which were executed with great care, nothing in tempera ever leaving his hands before it was perfectly finished; thus he richly deserved the reward of 600 gold ducats which the delighted Pope gave to him, bestowing many other favours upon him, so that it became the talk of all Italy. As I do not wish to omit a memorable circumstance concerning art, I will notice here that there happened to be in Rome at this time a great friend of Giotto named Oderigi d'Aggobbio, an excellent illuminator of the day, who adorned many books for the Pope for the palace library, though they are now mostly destroyed by time. In my own book of old designs there are some remnants by his hand, and he certainly was a clever artist. But a much better master than he was Francis, an illuminator of Bologna, who did some very fair things for the Pope for the same library at that very time, in a like style, as may be seen in my book, where I have some designs by his hand, both for painting and illuminations, among them an eagle, excellently done, and a fine lion tearing up a tree. These two excellent illuminators are referred to by Dante in the passage on the vainglorious in the eleventh chapter of the Purgatorio, in these lines: "Oh, dissi lui, non se' tu Oderisi L'onor d'Aggobbio e l'onor di quell' arte Ch' alluminare è chimata in Parisi? Frate, diss' egli, più ridon le carte, Che pennelleggia Franco Bolognese L'onor è tutto or suo, e mio in parte." When the Pope had seen these works he was so enchanted by Giotto's style that he commissioned him to surround the walls of St Peter's with scenes from the Old and New Testaments. Giotto therefore began these, and painted the fresco of the angle, seven braccia high, which is above the organ, and many other paintings, of which some have been restored by other artists in our own day, and some have been either destroyed or carried away from the old building of St Peter's during the founding of the new walls and set under the organ. Among these was a representation of Our Lady on a wall. In order that it might not be thrown down with the rest, it was cut out, supported by beams and iron, and so taken away. On account of its great beauty, it was afterwards built into a place selected by the devotion of M. Niccolo Acciancoli, a Florentine doctor enthusiastic over the excellent things of art, who has richly adorned it with stucco and other modern paintings. Giotto is also the author of the mosaic known as the Navicella, which is over the three doors of the portico in the courtyard of St Peter's. This is a truly marvellous work, well deserving its high reputation among all persons of taste. In addition to its excellent design, the apostles are admirably disposed, toiling in different ways in the midst of the tempest, while the winds fill the sail, which bellies out exactly like a real one; and yet it is a difficult task so to unite those pieces of glass to form the light and shade of so real a sail, which, even with the brush, could only be equalled by a great effort. Besides all this, there is a fisherman who is standing on a rock and fishing with a line, whose attitude is expressive of the extreme patience proper to that art, while his face betrays his hope and desire to catch something. Beneath the Navicella are three small arches painted in fresco, but as they are almost entirely effaced, I will say no more about them. All artists, however, unite in praise of these works. At last, when Giotto had painted a large crucifix in tempera in the Minerva, a church of the Friars Preachers, which was then much admired, he returned to his own country, from which he had been absent for six years. But soon after Pope Clement V. was elected at Perugia, on the death of Pope Benedict IX., and Giotto was obliged to accompany the new pontiff to his court at Avignon to execute some works there. Thus, not only in Avignon, but in several other places of France, he painted many very beautiful frescoes and pictures, which greatly delighted the Pope and all his court. When he at length received his dismissal, he was sent away kindly with many gifts, so that he returned, home no less rich than honoured and famous. Among other things which he brought away with him was the Pope's portrait, which he afterwards gave to Taddeo Gaddi, his pupil. The date of this return to Florence was the year 1316. But he was not long permitted to remain in Florence, as he was invited to Padua to do some work for the lords della Scala, for whom he painted a beautiful chapel in the Santo, a church built in those times. He thence proceeded to Verona, where he did some pictures for the palace of Messer Cane, particularly the portrait of that lord, and a picture for the friars of S. Francesco. On the completion of these things he was detained at Ferrara, on his way back to Tuscany, to paint for the lords of Esti in their palace and S. Agostino some things which may be seen there to this day. When the news of Giotto's presence at Ferrara reached the Florentine poet Dante, he succeeded in inducing his friend to visit Ravenna, where the poet was exiled, and caused him to paint some frescoes about the church of S. Francesco for the lords of Polenta, which are of considerable merit. From Ravenna Giotto proceeded to Urbino, and did a few things there. Afterwards he happened to be passing through Arezzo, and being unable to refuse a favour to Piero Saccone, who had been very kind to him, he executed in fresco, on a pillar of the principal chapel of the Vescovado, a St Martin, who is cutting his mantle in two and giving part of it to a beggar who is all but naked. Then, when he had painted in tempera a large crucifix in wood for the Abbey of S. Fiore, which is now in the middle of that church, he at length reached Florence. Here, among many other things, he painted some pictures in fresco and tempera for the Nunnery of Faenza, which no longer exist owing to the destruction of that house. In 1321 occurred the death of Giotto's dearest friend Dante, to his great grief; and in the following year he went to Lucca, where, at the request of Castruccio, then lord of that city, his birthplace, he made a picture of St Martin, with Christ above in the air, and the four patron saints of the city--St Peter, St Regulus, St Martin, and St Paulinus--who seem to be presenting a pope and an emperor, believed by many to be Frederick of Bavaria and the anti-Pope Nicholas V. There are also some who believe that Giotto designed the impregnable fortress of the Giusta at S. Fridiano at Lucca. When Giotto had returned to Florence, King Robert of Naples wrote to his eldest son Charles, King of Calabria, who was then in that city, to use every means to induce the painter to go to Naples, where the king had just completed the building of the Nunnery of S. Chiara and the royal church, which he wished to have decorated with noble paintings. When Giotto learned that he was wanted by so popular and famous a king, he departed to serve him with the greatest alacrity, and on his arrival he painted many scenes from the Old and New Testaments in some chapels of the monastery. It is said that the scenes from the Apocalypse which he made in one of those chapels were suggested by Dante, as also perchance were some of the much-admired works at Assisi, of which I have already spoken at length; and although Dante was dead at this time, it is possible that they had talked over these things, as friends frequently do. To return to Naples, Giotto did many works in the Castel dell' Uovo, especially in the chapel, which greatly delighted the king, who became so fond of him that he often came to talk with the artist while he was at work, and took delight in seeing him at work and in listening to his conversation. Giotto, who always had a jest ready or some sharp retort, entertained the king with his hand in painting and with his tongue by his pleasant discourse. Thus it once happened that the king told him it was his intention to make him the first man in Naples, to which Giotto replied: "No doubt that is why I am lodged at the Porta Reale to be the first man in Naples." Another day the king said to him: "Giotto, if I were you, this hot day, I would leave off painting for a while." He answered: "So I should, certainly, if I were you." Being thus on very friendly terms with the king, he painted a good number of pictures for him in the chamber which King Alfonso I. pulled down to make the castle, and also in the Incoronata, and among those in the chamber were the portraits of many famous men, Giotto among the number. One day, by some caprice, the king asked Giotto to paint his kingdom. It is said that Giotto painted for him a saddled ass, with another new saddle at its feet at which it was sniffing, as if he wished for it in place of the one he had on. On each saddle were the royal crown and the sceptre of power. When the king asked Giotto for the meaning of this picture, he replied: "Such are your subjects and such is the kingdom, where every day they are wanting to change their master." On his departure from Naples for Rome, Giotto stayed at Gaeta, where he was constrained to paint some subjects from the New Testament in the Nunziata, which have suffered from the ravages of time, but not to such an extent that it is not possible to distinguish a portrait of Giotto himself near a large crucifix of great beauty. This done, he remained a few days at Rome, in the service of the Signor Malatesta, whom he could not refuse this favour, and then he went on to Rimini, of which city Malatesta was lord, and there in the church of S. Francesco he painted a large number of pictures, which were afterwards destroyed by Gismondo, son of Pandolfo Malatesta, who rebuilt the whole of that church. In the cloister of the same church, towards the church front, he painted in fresco the life of the Blessed Michelina, which ranks with the best things which he ever did, on account of the many fine things which he took into consideration in executing it, for, quite apart from the beauty of the drapery and the grace and vigour of the heads, which are truly marvellous, there is a young woman of the most exquisite beauty, who in order to free herself from an accusation of adultery, takes a most solemn oath upon a book, keeping her eyes fixed on those of her husband, who has made her swear because his suspicions had been aroused by her giving birth to a black son, whom he could not be persuaded to acknowledge as his own. Just as the husband shows his anger and mistrust in his face, so his wife betrays, to those who look carefully at her, her innocence and simplicity, by the trouble in her face and eyes, and the wrong which is done to her in making her swear and in proclaiming her publicly as an adulteress. Giotto has also expressed with great realism a man afflicted with sores, as all the women who are about him, disgusted by the stench, turn away with various contortions in the most graceful manner imaginable. Then again the foreshortening in a picture containing a number of lame beggars is highly praiseworthy, and should be much prized by artists, since it is from these works that the origin of foreshortening is derived; and when it is remembered that they are the first, they must be considered very tolerable achievements. But the most remarkable thing of all in this series is the action of the saint with regard to certain usurers who are paying her the money realised by the sale of her possessions, which she intends to give to the poor. Her face displays contempt for money and other earthly things, which she seems to abhor, while the usurers are the very picture of human avarice and greed. Similarly the face of one who is counting the money, which he appears to be communicating to the notary who is writing, is very fine, for although his eyes are turned towards the notary, yet he keeps his hand over the money, thus betraying his greed, avarice, and mistrust. Also the three figures in the air representing Obedience, Patience, and Poverty, who are holding up the habit of St Francis, are worthy of the highest praise, chiefly on account of the natural folds of the drapery, showing that Giotto was born to throw light on the art of painting. Finally he has introduced into this work a portrait of the Signor Malatesta in a ship, which is most life-like; and his excellence is also displayed in the vigour, disposition, and posture of the sailors and other people, particularly of one figure who is speaking with others and putting his hand to his face spits into the sea. Certainly these things may be classed among the very best works in painting produced by the master, because, in spite of the large number of figures, there is not one which is not produced with the most consummate art, being at the same time exhibited in an attractive posture. Accordingly there is small need for wonder that the Signor Malatesta loaded him with rewards and praise. When Giotto had completed his works for this Signor, he did a St Thomas Aquinas reading to his brethren for the outside of the church door of S. Cataldo at Rimini at the request of the prior, who was a Florentine. Having set out thence he returned to Ravenna, where he executed a much admired painting in fresco in a chapel of S. Giovanni Evangelista. When he next returned to Florence, laden with honours and riches, he made a large wooden crucifix in tempera for S. Marco, of more than life-size, with a gold ground, and it was put on the right-hand side of the church. He made another like it for S. Maria Novella, in which his pupil Puccio Capanna collaborated with him. This is now over the principal entrance to the church, on the right-hand side, above the tomb of the Gaddi. For the same church he made a St Louis, for Paolo di Lotto Ardinghelli, with portraits of the donor and his wife at the saint's feet. This picture is placed on the screen. In the following year, 1327, occurred the death of Guido Tarlati da Pietramala, bishop and lord of Arezzo, at Massa di Maremma, on his return from Lucca, where he had been visiting the Emperor. His body was brought to Arezzo, where it received the honour of a stately funeral, and Pietro Saccone and Dolfo da Pietramala, the bishop's brother, determined to erect a marble tomb which should be worthy of the greatness of such a man, who had been both spiritual and temporal lord and the leader of the Ghibelline party in Tuscany. Accordingly they wrote to Giotto, desiring him to design a very rich tomb, as ornate as possible; and when they had supplied him with the necessary measurements, they asked him to send them at once the man who was, in his opinion, the most excellent sculptor then living in Italy, for they relied entirely upon his judgment. Giotto, who was very courteous, prepared the design and sent it to them, and from it the tomb was made, as will be said in the proper place. Now Pietro Saccone was a great admirer of Giotto's worth, and when, not long after, he took the Borgo a S. Sepolero, he brought from that place to Arezzo a picture by the artist's hand, of small figures, which was afterwards broken into fragments; but Baccio Gondi, a Florentine of gentle birth, a lover of the noble arts and of every kind of virtue, made a diligent search for the pieces of this picture when he was commissioner at Arezzo, and succeeded in finding some. He brought them to Florence, where he holds them in great veneration, as well as some other things in his possession, also by Giotto, who produced so much that an enumeration of all his works would excite incredulity. It is not many years since that I happened to be at the hermitage of Camaldoli, where I have done a number of things for the fathers, and in a cell to which I was taken by the Very Rev. Don Antonio da Pisa, then general of the congregation of Camaldoli, I saw a very beautiful crucifix, on a gold ground, by Giotto, with his signature. I am informed by the Rev. Don Silvano Razza, a Camaldolian monk, that this crucifix is now in the cell of the principal, where it is treasured for its author's sake as a most precious thing, together with a very beautiful little picture by the hand of Raphael of Urbino. For the Umiliati brethren of Ognissanti at Florence Giotto painted a chapel and four pictures, one of them representing Our Lady surrounded by a number of angels, with the child at her neck, on a large crucifix of wood, the design of which was subsequently copied by Puccio Capanna, and reproduced in every part of Italy, for he closely followed Giotto's style. When this work of the Lives was printed for the first time, the screen of that church contained a picture painted in tempera by Giotto, representing the death of Our Lady, surrounded by the apostles, while Christ receives her soul into His arms. The work has been much praised by artists, and especially by Michelagnolo Buonarotti who declared, as is related elsewhere, that it was not possible to represent this scene in a more realistic manner. This picture, being as I say held in great esteem, has been carried away since the publication of the first edition of this work, by one who may possibly have acted from love of art and reverence for the work, which may have seemed then to be too little valued, and who thus from motives of pity showed himself pitiless, as our poet says. It is certainly a marvel that Giotto should have produced such beautiful paintings in those times, especially when it is considered that he may in a certain sense be said to have learned the art without a master. After these things, in the year 1334, on the ninth day of July, he began work on the campanile of S. Maria del Fiore, the foundations of which were laid on a surface of large stones, after the ground had been dug out to a depth of 20 braccia, the materials excavated being water and gravel. On this surface he laid 12 braccia of concrete, the remaining 8 braccia being filled up with masonry. In the inauguration of this work the bishop of the city took part, laying the first stone with great ceremonial in the presence of all the clergy and magistrates. As the work was proceeding on its original plan, which was in the German style in use at the time, Giotto designed all the subjects comprised in the ornamentation, and marked out with great care the distribution of the black, white, and red colours in the arrangement of the stones and lines. The circuit of the tower at the base was 100 braccia, or 25 braccia on each side, and the height 144 braccia. If what Lorenzo di Cione Giberti has written be true, and I most firmly believe it, Giotto not only made the model of this campanile, but also executed some of the marble sculptures in relief, which represent the origin of all the arts. Lorenzo asserts that he had seen models in relief by the hand of Giotto, and particularly those of these works, and this may readily be credited, since design and invention are the father and mother of all the fine arts, and not of one only. According to Giotto's model, the campanile should have received a pointed top or quadrangular pyramid over the existing structure, 50 braccia in height, but because it was a German thing, and in an old-fashioned style, modern architects have always discountenanced its construction, considering the building to be better as it is. For all these things Giotto received the citizenship of Florence, in addition to a pension of one hundred gold florins yearly from the Commune of Florence, a great thing in those days. He was also appointed director of the work which was carried on after him by Taddeo Gaddi, as he did not live long enough to see its completion. While the campanile was in progress, Giotto made a picture for the nuns of S. Giorgio, and three half-length figures in the Badia of Florence, in an arch over the doorway inside, now whitewashed over to lighten the church. In the great hall of the podesta at Florence, he painted a representation of the Commune, which has been appropriated by many people. The figure represents a judge, seated with a sceptre in his hand, over whose head are the scales, equally poised to indicate the just measures meted out by him, while he is assisted by four Virtues, Fortitude with the soul, Prudence with the laws, Justice with arms, and Temperance with words; a fine painting, and an appropriate and plausible idea. Giotto made a second visit to Padua, where besides painting a number of chapels and other things, he executed a famous series of pictures in the place of the Arena, which brought him much honour and profit. In Milan also he left a few things which are scattered about the city, and which are considered very beautiful to this day. At length, shortly after his return from Milan, he rendered his soul to God in the year 1336, to the great grief of all his fellow-citizens, and of all those who had known him or even heard his name, for he had produced so many beautiful works in his life, and was as good a Christian as he was an excellent painter. He was buried with honour, as his worth deserved, for in his life he was beloved by everyone, and especially by distinguished men of every profession. Besides Dante, of whom we have spoken above, he and his works were highly esteemed by Petrarch, who in his will left to Signor Francesco da Carrara, lord of Padua, among other things which were held in the greatest veneration, a Madonna by Giotto's hand, as a rare thing, and the gift most worthy to be offered to him. The words of this part of the will ran thus:--_Transeo ad dispositionem aliarum rerum; et predicto igitur domino meo Paduano, quia et ipse per Dei gratiam nan eget, et ego nihil aliud habeo dignum se, mitto tabulam meam sive historiam Beatæ Vlrginis Mariae, operis Jocti pictoris egregii, quæ mihi ab amico meo Michaele Vannis de Florentia missa est, in cujus pulchritudinem ignorantes non intelligunt, magistri autem artis stupent: hanc iconem ipsi domino lego, ut ipsa Virgo benedicta sibi sit propitia apud filium suum Jesum Christum, &c_. It was Petrarch also who said the following words in the fifth book of his Familiari written to his intimate friends: _Atquc (ut a veteribus ad nova, ab externis ad nostra transgrediar) duos ego novi pictores egregios, nec formosos, Jottum Florentinorum civem, cujus inter modernos fama urgens est, et Simonem Sanensem. Novi scultores aliquot, &c_. Giotto was buried in S. Maria del Fiore, on the left hand as one enters the church, where a white marble slab is set up to the memory of this great man. As I remarked in the life of Cimabue, a contemporary commentator of Dante said: "Giotto was, and is the chief among the painters in that same city of Florence, as his works in Rome, Naples, Avignon, Florence, Padua, and many other parts of the world testify." Giotto's pupils were Taddeo Gaddi, his godson as I have already said, and Puccio Capanna, a Florentine, who painted for the Dominican church of S. Cataldo at Rimini a most perfect fresco representing a ship apparently about to sink, while the men are throwing their goods into the water. Puccio has here portrayed himself in the midst of the sailors. After Giotto's death, the same artist painted a number of things in the church of S. Francesco at Assisi, and for the chapel of the Strozzi, beside the door on the river front of the church of Trinita he did in fresco a coronation of the Virgin with a choir of angels, in which he followed Giotto's style rather closely, while on the side walls are some very well executed scenes from the life of St Lucy. In the Badia of Florence he painted the chapel of S. Giovanni Evangelista of the family of the Covoni, which is next to the sacristy. At Pistoia he did frescoes in the principal chapel of S. Francesco, and the chapel of S. Ludovico, with scenes from the lives of the patron saints, which are very tolerable productions. In the middle of the church of S. Domenico in the same city is a crucifix with a Madonna and St John, executed with much softness, and at the feet an entire human skeleton, an unusual thing at that time, which shows that Puccio had made efforts to understand the principles of his art. This work contains his name, written after this fashion: _Puccio di Fiorenza me Fece_. In the same church, in the tympanum above the door of S. Maria Nuova are three half-length figures,--Our Lady, with the Child on her arm, St Peter on the one side and St Francis on the other, by the same artist. In the lower church of S. Francesco at Assisi he further painted in fresco some scenes from the passion of Jesus Christ, with considerable skill and much vigour, and in the chapel of S. Maria degli Angeli of that church he executed in fresco a Christ in glory, with the Virgin, who is interceding with Him for Christian people, a work of considerable merit, but much smoked by the lamps and candles which are always burning there in great quantity. In truth, so far as one can judge, although Puccio adopted the style and methods of his master Giotto, yet he did not make sufficient use of them in his works, although, as some assert, he did not live long, but sickened and died through working too much in fresco. His hand may also be recognised in the chapel of St Martin in the same church, in the history of the saint, done in fresco for the Cardinal Gentile. In the middle of a street called Portica may also be seen a Christ at the Column, and a picture of Our Lady between St Catherine and St Clare. His works are scattered about in many other places, such as Bologna, where there is a picture of the passion of Christ in the transept of the church, and scenes from the life of St Francis, besides other things which I omit for the sake of brevity. But at Assisi, where the majority of his works are, and where I believe he helped Giotto to paint, I found that they consider him to be a fellow-citizen, and there are some members of the family of the Capanni in that city to this day. From this we may gather that he was born in Florence, since he himself wrote that he was a pupil of Giotto, but that he took his wife from Assisi, and had children there, whose descendants still inhabit the town. But this matter is of very slight importance, and it is enough to know that he was a skilful master. Another pupil of Giotto, and a very skilful painter was Ottaviano da Faenza, who painted many things in S. Giorgio at Ferrara, a convent of the monks of Monte Oliveto. In Faenza, where he lived and died, he painted in the tympanum above the door of S. Francesco, Our Lady and St Peter and St Paul, and many other things in his own country and at Bologna. Another pupil was Pace di Faenza, who was often with his master, and helped him in many things. At Bologna there are some scenes in fresco by his hand on the outside front of S. Giovanni Decollato. This Pace was a clever artist, especially in painting small figures, as may be seen to-day in the church of S. Francesco at Forli, in a tree of the cross and in a panel in tempera containing the life of Christ, and four small subjects from the life of Our Lady, which are all very well executed. It is said that he executed in fresco for the chapel of St Anthony at Assisi, some scenes from the life of that saint for a duke of Spoleto, who is buried there with a son. These two princes had been killed while fighting in the suburbs of Assisi, as may be seen by a long inscription on the sarcophagus of their tomb. The old book of the company of painters records that one Francesco, called "of Master Giotto," was another pupil of the master, but I know nothing more about him. Yet another pupil of Giotto was Guglielmo da Forli, who, besides many other works, painted the chapel of the high altar for S. Domenico at Forli, his native place. Other pupils were Pietro Laureati, Simone Memmi of Siena, Stefano of Florence, and Pietro Cavallini of Rome. But as I intend to deal fully with these in their lives, I shall content myself here with simply saying that they were pupils of Giotto. That the master drew extremely well for his day may be seen on a number of parchments containing some water colours, pen and ink drawings, chiaroscuros with the lights in white, by his hand, in our book of designs, which are truly marvellous when compared with those of the masters who preceded him, and afford a good example of his style. As has been said, Giotto was a very witty and pleasant person, very ready in speech, many of his sayings being still fresh in the memory of his fellow-citizens. Besides the one related by M. Giovanni Boccaccio, several very good stories are told by Franco Sacchetti in his "Three Hundred Tales." I give one in the author's own words, because it contains many expressions and phrases characteristic of the time. The rubric of this one runs: "Giotto, the great painter, is requested by a person of low birth to paint his buckler. Making a jest of the matter, he paints it so as to cover the applicant with confusion." TALE LXIII. Every one must have heard of Giotto, and how as a painter he surpassed all others. His fame came to the ears of a rude artizan, who, having to do service in some castle, wanted his buckler painted. Accordingly he presented himself abruptly at Giotto's workshop, with a man to carry the buckler behind him. He found Giotto in, and began: "God save thee, Master, I want to have my arms painted on this buckler." Giotto took stock of the man and his manners, but he said nothing except "When do you want it," and the man told him. "Leave it to me," said Giotto, and the man departed. When Giotto was alone he reflected: "What is the meaning of this? Has someone sent him here to play a trick on me? Be that as it may, no one has ever before brought me a buckler to paint. And the fellow who brought it is a simple creature, and asks me to paint his arms as if he was of the royal house of France. Decidedly I shall have to make him some new arms." Reflecting thus with himself he sat down before the buckler, and having designed what he thought proper, he called a pupil and told him to complete the painting of it, which he accordingly did. The painting represented a light helmet, a gorget, a pair of arm pieces, a pair of iron gauntlets, a pair of cuirasses, a pair of cuisses and gambadoes, a sword, a knife, and a lance. When the worthy man returned, who knew nothing of all this, he came up and said: "Master, is the buckler finished." "Oh yes," said Giotto, "go you and bring it here." When it arrived this gentleman by proxy looked hard at it and said to Giotto: "What rubbish have you painted here?" "Will you think it rubbish to pay for it?" said Giotto. "I won't pay you four deniers," said the man. "What did you ask me to paint?" asked Giotto. "My arms," replied the man. "Well," said Giotto, "are they not here, are any wanting?" "That is so," said the man. "A plague on you," said Giotto, "you must needs be very simple. If anyone asked you who you were you would be at a loss to tell him, and yet you come here and say, 'paint me my arms.' If you had been one of the Bardi, well and good, but what arms do you bear? Where do you come from? Who were your ancestors? Begin at least by coming into the world before you talk of arms as if you were the Dusnam of Bavaria. I have represented all your arms on the buckler, and if you have any more tell me and I will have them painted." "You have given me rough words," said the man, "and spoilt my buckler." He then departed to the justice, and procured a summons against Giotto. The latter appeared, and on his side issued a summons against the man for two florins, as the price of the painting. When the magistrates had heard the arguments, which were much better advanced on Giotto's side, they adjudged that the man should take away his buckler, and give six lire to Giotto, because he was in the right. Accordingly the rustic took his buckler, paid the money, and was allowed to go. Thus this man, who did not know his place, had it pointed out to him, and may this befall all such fellows who wish to have arms and found houses, and whose antecedents have often been picked up at the foundling hospitals! It is said that while Giotto was still a boy, and with Cimabue, he once painted a fly on the nose of a figure which Cimabue had made, so naturally that when his master turned round to go on with his work, he more than once attempted to drive the fly away with his hand, believing it to be real, before he became aware of his mistake. I could tell many more of Giotto's practical jokes, and relate many of his sharp retorts, but I wish to confine myself to the things which concern the arts, and I must leave the rest to Franco and the others. In conclusion, in order that Giotto should not be without a memorial, in addition to the works which came from his hand, and to the notices left by the writers of his day, since it was he who found once again the true method of painting, which had been lost many years before his time, it was decreed by public order that his bust in marble, executed by Benedetto da Maiano, an Excellent sculptor, should be placed in S. Maria del Fiore. This was due to the activity and zeal displayed by Lorenzo dei Medici, the Magnificent, the elder, who greatly admired Giotto's talents. The following verses by that divine man, Messer Angelo Poliziano, were inscribed on the monument, so that all men who excelled in any profession whatever, might hope to earn such a memorial, which Giotto, for his part, had most richly deserved and earned: Ille ego sum, per quem pictura extincta revixit, Cui quam recta manus. tam fuit et facilis. Naturae deerat nostrae, quod defait arti: Plus licuit nulli pingere, nec melius. Miraris turrim egregiam sacro aere sonantem? Haec quoque de modulo crevit ad astra meo. Denique sum Jottus, quid opus fuit illa referre? Hoc nomen longi carminis instar erit. And in order that those who come after may see by Giotto's own designs the nature of the excellence of this great man, there are some magnificent specimens in my book, which I have collected with great care as well as with much trouble and expense. Agostino and Agnolo, Sculptors and Architects of Siena. Among the others who worked in the school of the sculptors Giovanni and Niccola Pisani were Agostino and Agnolo, sculptors of Siena, whose lives we are now writing, and who achieved great success according to the standard of the time. I have discovered that their father and mother were both Sienese, and their antecedents were architects, for the Fontebranda was completed by them in the year 1190, under the government of the three Consols, and in the following year they founded the Custom House and other buildings of Siena, under the same consulship. Indeed it is often seen that where the seeds of talent have existed for a long time they often germinate and put forth shoots so that they afterwards produce greater and better fruit than the first plants had done. Thus Agostino and Agnolo added many improvements to the style of Giovanni and Niccola Pisani, and enriched art with better designs and inventions, as their works clearly show. It is said that when Giovanni Pisano returned to Pisa from Naples in the year 1284, he stopped at Siena to design and found the façade of the Duomo, where the three principal doors are, so that it should be entirely adorned with marble. It was then that Agostino, who was not more than fifteen years of age at the time, associated with him in order to study sculpture, of which he had learned the first principles, being no less attracted by that art than by architecture. Under Giovanni's instruction and by means of unremitting study he surpassed all his fellow-pupils in design, grace and style, so that everyone remarked that he was his master's right eye. And because it is natural to desire for those whom one loves beyond all other gifts of nature, mind or fortune, that quality of worth which alone renders men great and noble in this life and blessed in the next, Agostino took advantage of Giovanni's presence to secure the same advantages for his younger brother Agnolo; nor was if very difficult to do so, for the practice already enjoyed by Agnolo with Agostino and the other sculptors, and the honour and benefits which he perceived could be gained from this art, had so inflamed him with a desire to take up the study of sculpture, that he had already made a few things in secret before the idea had occurred to Agostino. The elder brother was engaged with Giovanni in making the marble reliefs for the high altar of the Vescovado of Arezzo, which has been mentioned above, and he succeeded in securing the co-operation of Agnolo in that work, who did so well, that when it was completed, it was found that he had surpassed Agostino in excellence. When this became known to Giovanni, he employed both brothers in many other works undertaken by him subsequently in Pistoia, Pisa, and other places. And because Agostino practised architecture as well as sculpture, it was not long before he designed a palace in Malborghetto for the Nine who then ruled in Siena, that is to say, in the year 1308. The execution of this work won the brothers such a reputation in their native place, that, when they returned to Siena after the death of Giovanni, they were both appointed architects of the State, so that in the year 1317 the north front of the Duomo was made under their direction, and in 1321 the building of the wall of the porta Romana, then known as the porta S. Martino, was begun from their plans in its present style, being finished in 1326. They restored the Tufi Gate, originally called the Gate of S. Agata all Arco, and in the same year the church and convent of S. Francesco were begun from their design, in the presence of the cardinal of Gaeta, the papal legate. Not long afterwards Agostino and Agnolo were invited by means of some of the Tolomei who were staying in exile at Orvieto, to make some sculptures for the work of S. Maria in that city. Going thither they made in sculpture some prophets which are now on the façade, and are the finest and best proportioned parts of that celebrated work. Now in the year 1326 it chanced that Giotto was summoned to Naples by means of Charles, Duke of Calabria, who was then staying in Florence, to do some things in S. Chiara and other places there for King Robert, as has been related in that master's life. On his way to Naples Giotto stopped at Orvieto to see the work which had been executed there and which was still being carried on by so many men, wishing to examine everything minutely. But the prophets of Agostino and Agnolo of Siena pleased him more than all the other sculptures, from which circumstance it arose that Giotto not only commended them, but counted them among the number of his friends, to their great delight, and further recommended them to Piero Saccone of Pietramala, as the best sculptors of the day, and the best fitted to make the tomb of Guido, the lord and bishop of Arezzo, a matter referred to in the life of Giotto. Thus the fact that Giotto had seen the work of many sculptors at Orvieto and had considered that of Agostino and Agnolo of Siena to be the best, gave rise to their being commissioned to make this tomb after his designs and in accordance with the model which he had sent to Piero Saccone. They finished the tomb in the space of four years, conducting the work with great care, and they set it up in the chapel of the Sacrament in the church of the Vescovado of Arezzo. Above the sarcophagus, which rests on brackets carved in a really admirable manner, is stretched the form of the bishop, in marble, while at the side are some angels drawing curtains, done with considerable skill. Twelve square panels contain scenes of the life and acts of the bishop in an infinite number of small figures carved in half-relief. I do not think it too much trouble to relate the subjects of these scenes, so that it may appear with what labour they were executed, and how these sculptors endeavoured to discover the good style by study. The first shows how the bishop, aided by the Ghibelline party of Milan, who sent him 400 masons and money, entirely rebuilt the wall of Arezzo, lengthening it more than it had previously been so that it took the shape of a galley. The second is the taking of Lucignano di Valdichiana; the third, that of Chiusi; the fourth, that of Fronzoli, a strong castle of that time above Poppi, held by the sons of the count of Battifolle. The fifth contains the final surrender to the bishop of the castle of Rondine, after it had been besieged by the Aretines for many months. The sixth is the capture of the castle del Bucine in Valdarno. The seventh contains the storming of the Rocca di Caprese, which belonged to the Count of Romena, after it had been besieged for several months. In the eighth the bishop is dismantling the castle of Laterino, and causing the hill which rises above it to be cut in form of a cross, so that it should not be possible to make another fortress there. The ninth represents the destruction and burning of Monte Sansavino and the driving out of all the inhabitants. The eleventh contains the bishop's coronation, with a number of richly dressed soldiers, both horse and foot, and of other people. The twelfth and last represents the bishop being carried by his men from Montenero, where he fell sick, to Massa, and thence, after his death, to Arezzo. In many places about the tomb are the Ghibelline insignia and the bishop's arms, which are six-squared stones or on a field _azure_, following the same arrangements as the six balls in the arms of the Medici. These arms of the bishop's house were described by friar Guittone, knight and poet of Arezzo, when he wrote of the site of the castle of Pietramala, whence the family derived its origin, in the lines: Dove si scontra il Giglion con la Chiassa Ivi furon i miei antecessori, Che in campo azzurro d'or portan sei sassa. Agnolo and Agostino displayed more art, invention, and diligence in this work than had ever been employed on anything before their time. And indeed they deserve the highest praise, having introduced into it so many figures, such a variety of landscapes, places, towns, horses, men, and other things, that it is a veritable marvel. And although the tomb has been almost entirely destroyed by the French of the Duke of Anjou, who sacked the greater part of the city in revenge for some injuries received by them from their enemies, yet it is still clear that it was executed with the most excellent judgment by Agostino and Agnolo, who carved on it in rather large letters: _Hoc opus fecit magister Augustinus et magister Angelus de Senis_. In 1329 they did a marble bas-relief for the church of S. Francesco at Bologna, which is in a very fair manner, and besides the carved ornamentation, which is very fine, they introduced figures a braccia and a half high, of Christ crowning Our Lady, with three similar figures on either side, St Francis, St James, St Domenic, St Anthony of Padua, St Petronio, and St John the Evangelist, and under each of these figures is carved in bas-relief a scene from the life of the saint above. All these scenes contain a great number of half-length figures, which make a rich and beautiful ornamentation after the manner of those times. It is very apparent that Agostino and Agnolo threw an immense amount of labour into this work, and that they applied all their care and knowledge to make it worthy of praise, as it truly was, and even now when it is half destroyed, it is possible to read their names and the date, by means of which and of a knowledge of the time when they began it, one may see that they spent eight whole years upon it, although it is true that at the same time they made many other small things in different places for various persons. Now while they were at work at Bologna, that city gave itself freely to the Church, through the mediation of the papal legate, and the Pope in return promised that he and his court would go to live at Bologna, but that for his security he wished to build a castle or fortress there. This was granted by the Bolognese, and the castle was quickly built under the direction and from the design of Agostino and Agnolo; but it had a very short life, for when the Bolognese discovered that all the promises made by the Pope were vain, they dismantled and destroyed it much more quickly than it had been made. It is said that while these two sculptors were staying at Bologna, the Po impetuously burst its banks, doing incredible damage to the territories of Mantua and Ferrara, causing the death of more than ten thousand persons, and wasting the country for miles around. Being clever and worthy men, the assistance of Agostino and Agnolo was requested, and they succeeded in finding means of reducing that terrible river to its bed, and of confining it there with ditches and other effective remedies. This brought them much praise and benefit, for besides the fame which they acquired thereby, their services were acknowledged by the lords of Mantua and by the house of Este with most liberal rewards. When they next returned to Siena in the year 1338, the new church of S. Maria, near the old Duomo, towards the piazza Manetti, was made under their direction from their design, and not long after, the Sienese, who were greatly pleased with all the works which they executed for them, decided to seize this excellent opportunity of carrying into effect a plan which they had long discussed, but till then without any result, namely, the erection of a public fountain on the principal piazza opposite the palace of the Signoria. The charge of this undertaking was entrusted to Agostino and Agnolo, and although it was a matter of great difficulty they brought water to the fountain by pipes made of lead and earth, and the first jet of water was thrown up on 1st June 1343, to the great delight and contentment of all the city, which on this account was under a great obligation to the talent of these two citizens. At the same time the hall of the greater council was made in the Palazzo del Pubblico, and the same artists directed and designed the building of the tower of that palace, which they completed in the year 1344, hanging two great bells on it, one of which came from Grosseto, while the other was made at Siena. In the course of time Agnolo arrived at Assisi, where he made a chapel in the lower church of S. Francesco, and a marble tomb for a brother of Napoleone Orsini, a cardinal and a Franciscan friar, who had died in that place. Agostino, who had remained at Siena in the service of the State, died while he was engaged upon the designs for the ornamentation of the piazza fountain, mentioned above, and was buried in the Duomo with honour. I have not been able to discover how or when Agnolo died, so that I can say nothing about it, nor do I know of any other works of importance by his hand, and so this is the end of their lives. It would, however, be an error, as I am following a Chronological order, not to make mention of some, who, although they have not done things which would justify a narration of their whole life, have nevertheless in some measure added things of utility and beauty to art and to the world. Therefore in connection with the mention made above of the Vescovado and Pieve of Arezzo, let me here relate that Pietro and Paolo, goldsmiths of Arezzo, who learned design from Agnolo and Agostino of Siena, were the first who executed great works of any excellence with the chisel; for they made for the head priest of the Pieve of Arezzo a silver head of life-size, in which was put the head of St Donato, bishop and protector of that city, a work which was certainly praiseworthy, if only because they introduced into it some figures in enamel, which were, as I have said, among the first things executed with the chisel. About the same time, or shortly before, the art of the Calimara at Florence, entrusted to Master Cione, an excellent goldsmith, the greater part, if not the whole, of the silver altar of S. Giovanni Batista, which contains many scenes from the life of that saint, engraved in a very creditable manner on a silver plate. This work, on account of its dimensions, and the novelty of its execution, was considered marvellous by everyone who saw it. The same Master Cione, in 1330, when the body of St Zenobius was found under the vaults of St Reparata, placed in a silver head of life-size, the piece of the head of that saint which is still preserved therein, and is carried in procession. This head was considered a most beautiful thing at the time, and brought much reputation to the artist, who died soon after, a wealthy man, and held in high esteem. Master Cione left many pupils, and among others, Forzore di Spinello of Arezzo, who did all manner of engraving excellently, but was especially good in making scenes in enamel on silver, such as may be seen in the Vescovado at Arezzo, for which he made a mitre with a beautiful border of enamel, and a fine pastoral staff in silver. He also executed many things in silver for the Cardinal Galeotto da Pietramala, who bequeathed them to the friars of la Vernia, where he wished to be buried, and where, besides the wall, which the Count Orlando, lord of Chiusi, a small castle below la Vernia, had caused to be set up, he built the church and many rooms in the convent, and all this without leaving any notice or other memorial of himself in any part of that place. Another pupil of Master Cione was Lionardo di Ser Giovanni of Florence, who executed a number of works with the chisel and with solder, with a better design than those who preceded him, especially the altar and silver bas-reliefs of S. Jacopo at Pistoia, where, beside a large number of subjects, the half-length figure of St James, more than a braccia high, is much admired. It is in full relief, and finished with such elaboration, that it seems to have been cast rather than engraved. The figure is placed in the midst of the scenes of the altar table, about which runs a legend in letters of enamel: Ad honorem Dei et S. Jacobi Apostoli, hoc opus factum fuit tempore Domini Franc. Pagni dictae operae operarii sub anno 1371 per me Leonardum Ser Jo. de Floren. aurific. Now to return to Agostino and Agnolo, they had many pupils who produced many works after them in architecture and sculpture in Lombardy and other places in Italy. Among them was Jacopo Lanfrani of Venice, who founded S. Francesco of Imola, and executed the sculptures for the principal door, where he carved his name and the date, 1343; for the church of S. Domenico at Bologna the same Master Jacopo made a marble tomb for Gio. Andrea Calduino, doctor of law and secretary of Pope Clement VI., and another very well executed also in marble and in the same church for Taddeo Peppoli, protector of the people and of justice at Bologna. In the same year, that is to say in 1347, after the completion of this tomb, or shortly before, Master Jacopo returned to his native Venice and there founded the church of S. Antonio, which was originally of wood, at the request of a Florentine abbot of the ancient family of the Abati, M. Andrea Dandolo, being doge at the time. This church was completed in the year 1349. Then again Jacobello and Pietro Paolo, Venetians, who were pupils of Agostino and Agnolo, erected in S. Domenico at Bologna a marble tomb for M. Giovanni da Lignano, doctor of laws, in the year 1383. All these and many other sculptors continued for a long space of time to employ the same manner, so that they filled all Italy with examples of it. It is further believed that the native of Pesaro, who besides many other things did the door of the church of S. Domenico in his native town, with the three marble figures of God the Father, St John the Baptist and St Mark, was a pupil of Agostino and Agnolo, and the style of the work gives colour to the supposition. This work was completed in the year 1385. But since it would take much too long to enter into particulars of the works made in this style by many masters of the time, I will let what I have said, in this general way, suffice, chiefly because they have not exercised a great influence upon our arts. Yet I thought it good to mention these men, because even if they do not deserve a long notice, yet they are not so insignificant as to be altogether passed over in silence. Stefano, Painter of Florence, and Ugolino of Siena. Stefano, painter of Florence and pupil of Giotto, was so excellent that not only did he surpass all the artists who had studied the arts before him, but he so far surpassed his master himself that he was deservedly considered the best of the painters up to that time, as his works clearly prove. He painted the Madonna in fresco for the Campo Santo at Pisa, and it is somewhat superior in design and colouring to the work of Giotto. In the cloister of S. Spirito at Florence he painted three arches in fresco, in the first of which, containing the Transfiguration with Moses and Elias, he represented the three disciples in fine and striking attitudes. He has formed a fine conception of the dazzling splendour which astonished them, their clothes being in disorder, and falling in new folds, a thing first seen in this picture, as he tried to base his work upon the nude figures, an idea which had not occurred to anyone before, no not even to Giotto himself. Under that arch, in which he made a Christ releasing a demoniac, he drew an edifice in perspective, perfectly, in a style then little known, displaying improved form and more science. He further executed it in the modern manner with great judgment, and displayed such art and such invention and proportion in the columns, doors, windows and cornices, and such different methods from the other masters that it seemed as if he had begun to see some glimpses of the light of the good and perfect manner of the moderns. Among other ingenious things he contrived a very difficult flight of steps, which are shown both in painting and in relief, and possess such design, variety, and invention, and are so useful and convenient that Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, the elder, made use of the design for the steps outside the palace of Poggio a Caiano, now the principal villa of the Most Illustrious Duke. In the other arch is a representation of Christ saving St Peter from the fury of the waters, so well done that one seems to hear the voice of Peter saying: _Domine, salva nos, perimus_. This work is considered much finer than the other, because, besides the grace of the draperies, there is a sweetness in the bearing of the heads, a fear of the fortunes of the sea, while the terror of the apostles at various motions and appearances of the water, are represented in very suitable attitudes and with great beauty. And although time has partly destroyed the labour expended by Stefano on this work, one may still discern confusedly that the apostles are defending themselves with spirit from the fury of the winds and waves. This work, which has been highly praised by the moderns, must certainly have appeared a miracle in all Tuscany at the time when it was produced, Stefano then painted in the first cloister of S. Maria Novella a St Thomas Aquinas, next a door, where he also made a crucifix which has since been much damaged by other painters in restoring it. He also left unfinished a chapel in the church, which he began, now much damaged by time. In it may be seen the fall of the angels through the pride of Lucifer, in divers forms. Here it is noteworthy that the foreshortening of the arms, busts, and legs of the figures is much better done than ever before, and this shows us that Stefano began to recognise and had partially overcome the difficulties which stand in the way of the highest excellence, the mastery of which by his successors, by means of unremitting study, has rendered their works so remarkable. For this cause artists have well named him the ape of nature. Some time after Stefano was invited to Milan where he began many things for Matteo Visconti, but was not able to complete them, because having fallen sick owing to the change of air, he was compelled to return to Florence. There he regained his strength and executed in fresco in the chapel of the Asini in S. Croce, the story of the martyrdom of St Mark by being drawn asunder, with many figures which possess merit. As a pupil of Giotto he was then invited to Rome where he did in fresco for the principal chapel of St Peter's, which contains the altar of that saint, some scenes from the life of Christ between the windows of the large apse, with such care that he approaches very closely to the modern style and surpasses his master Giotto in design and other things. After this he executed in fresco, at Araceli, on a pillar beside the principal chapel on the left, a St Louis, which is much admired because it possesses a vivacity which had not been apparent in any works up to that time, not even in those of Giotto. Indeed Stefano had great facility in design, as may be seen in a drawing by his hand in our book, in which the transfiguration is represented which he made for the cloister of S. Spirito, and indeed in my opinion he designed much better than Giotto. He next went to Assisi and in the apse of the principal chapel of the lower church, where the choir is, he began a representation in fresco of the Heavenly Glory; and although he did not finish it, what he did perform shows that he used the utmost diligence. In this work he began a series of saints with such beautiful variety in the faces of the youths, the men of middle age and the old men, that nothing better could be desired, and those blessed spirits exhibit so sweet and so united a style that it appears all but impossible that they could have been done by Stefano at that time. He however did execute them, although no more than the heads of the figures are finished. Above them is a choir of angels rejoicing in various attitudes, appropriately carrying theological symbols in their hands. All are turned towards a crucified Christ who is in the midst of the work immediately above a St Francis, who is surrounded by a multitude of saints. Besides this he made some angels as a border for the work, each of them holding one of those churches of which St John the Evangelist writes in the Apocalypse. These angels are represented with such grace that I am amazed to find a man of that age capable of producing them. Stefano began this work with the intention of thoroughly completing it, and he would have succeeded had he not been forced to leave it imperfect and to return to Florence on some important affairs of his own. During this stay at Florence and in order to lose no time, he painted for the Granfigliazzi lung' Arno, between their houses and the ponte alle Carraia in a small tabernacle on one side, Our Lady seated sewing, to whom a clothed child who is seated, is offering a bird, done with such care that although it is small it merits no less praise than the more ambitious efforts of the master. On the completion of this work and the settling of his affairs, Stefano was summoned to Pistoia by the lords there, and was set by them to paint the chapel of St James in the year 1346. In the vault he did a God the Father with some apostles, and on the side walls the life of the saint, notably the scene where his mother, the wife of Zebedee, asks Jesus Christ to permit that her two sons shall sit, one on His right hand and the other on His left in the kingdom of His Father. Near this is a fine presentation of the beheading of the saint. It is thought that Maso, called Giottino, of whom I shall speak afterwards, was the son of this Stefano, and although, on account of his name, many believe him to be the son of Giotto, I consider it all but certain that he was rather the son of Stefano, both because of certain documents which I have seen, and also because of some notices written in good faith by Lorenzo Ghiberti and by Domenico del Grillandaio. However, this may be, and to return to Stefano, to him is due the credit of the greatest improvement in painting since the days of Giotto; because, besides being more varied in his inventions, he showed more unity in colouring and more shading than all the others, and above all, in diligence he had no rival. And although the foreshortenings which he made exhibit, as I have said, a bad manner owing to the difficulties of execution, yet as the first investigator of these difficulties he deserves a much higher place than those who follow after the path has been made plain for them. Thus a great debt is due to Stefano, because he who presses on through the darkness and shows the way, heartens the others, enabling them to overcome the difficulties of the way, so that in time they arrive at the desired haven. In Perugia also, in the church of S. Domenico, Stefano began in fresco the chapel of St Catherine which is still unfinished. At the same time there lived a Sienese painter, called Ugolino, of considerable repute, and a great friend of Stefano. He did many pictures and chapels in all parts of Italy. But he kept in great part to the Byzantine style, to which he had become attached by habit, and always preferred, from a caprice of his own, to follow the manner of Cimabue rather than that of Giotto, which was held in such esteem. His works consist of a picture for the high altar of S. Croce, on a gold ground, and another picture which stood for many years on the high altar of S. Maria Novella, and which is now in the chapter-house, where every year the Spanish nation celebrates with a solemn feast the day of St James and its other offices and burial services. Besides these he did many other things in a good style, but without in the least departing from the manner of his master. It was he who painted on a pillar of bricks in the loggia, which Lapo had built on the piazza of Orsanmichele, that Madonna which, not many years after, worked so many miracles that the loggia was for a great time full of images, and to this day is held in the highest veneration. Finally, in the chapel of M. Ridolfo de' Bardi, in S. Croce, where Giotto painted the life of St Francis, he did a crucifix in tempera with the Magdalene and St John weeping, and two friars on either side. Ugolino died at an advanced age in the year 1349, and was honourably buried at Siena, his native place. But to return to Stefano, who, they say, was also a good architect, and what has been said above makes this likely; he died, it is said, at the beginning of the Jubilee of 1350, at the age of forty-nine, and was buried at S. Spirito in the tomb of his ancestors with this epitaph: Stephano Florentino pictori, faciundis imaginibus ac colorandis figuris nulli unquam inferiori; Affines moestiss. pos. vix. an. XXXXIX. Pietro Laurati, Painter of Siena. Pietro Laurati, an excellent painter of Siena, proved by his life how great may be the contentment of men of undoubted talent, who realise that their works are valued, both in their native land and outside it, and who see themselves in request by all men; for in the course of his life he was employed and caressed by all Tuscany. The first works which brought him into notice were the scenes which he painted in fresco in la Scala, a hospital of Siena, in which he imitated the style of Giotto so successfully that these paintings became known throughout Tuscany and gave rise to the well-founded belief that he would become a better master than Cimabue, Giotto, and the others, as he actually did. In these scenes he represented the Virgin mounting the steps of the Temple, accompanied by Joachim and Anna, and received by the priest; then her marriage, both remarkable for good ornamentation, well-draped figures with simple folds of the clothes, and a majesty in the carnage of the heads, while the disposition of the figures is in the finest style. During the progress of this work, which introduced the good style of painting to Siena, being the first gleam of light for the many fine spirits who have flourished in that land in every age, Pietro was summoned to Monte Oliveto di Chiusuri, where he painted a picture in tempera which is now placed in the paradiso under the church. He next painted a tabernacle at Florence, opposite the left door of the church of S. Spirito, on the side where a butcher's shop now stands, which merits the highest praise from every attentive artist, on account of the grace of the heads and the smoothness which it exhibits. Proceeding from Florence to Pisa, he did for the Campo Santo on the wall next the principal door, all the life of the Holy Fathers, with such striking reality and in such fine attitudes, that they rival Giotto. For this work he won the highest praise, having expressed in some heads, in drawing and colour, all the vivacity of which the manner of the time was capable. From Pisa he passed to Pistoia, and in S. Francesco did a picture of Our Lady in tempera, surrounded by some angels, very well arranged, the predella beneath containing some scenes with small figures, presented with a vigour and life remarkable for those times. This work satisfied him as much as it delighted others, and accordingly he put his name to it in these words: _Petrus Laurati de Senis_. Afterwards, in the year 1355, Pietro was summoned to Arezzo by M. Guglielmo, head priest, and by Margarito Boschi and the other wardens of the Pieve of Arezzo. This church had been brought to an advanced stage in a better style and manner than had been practised in Tuscany up to that time, being ornamented with squared stones and carvings by the hand of Margaritone, as has been said. There Pietro painted in fresco the tribune and all the great apse of the chapel of the high altar, representing twelve scenes from the life of Our Lady, with life-size figures, from the chasing of Joachim out of the Temple, to the birth of Jesus Christ. In these works in fresco one meets with the ideas, lineaments, carriage of the heads, and attitudes of the figures characteristic of Giotto, his master. And although the whole of this work is beautiful, yet the paintings in the vault of the apse are certainly much better than the rest, because, in the place where he represented the ascent of Our Lady to heaven, besides making the apostles four braccia high each, in which he showed his greatness of mind, being the first artist who attempted to aggrandise his style, he gave such a beautiful turn to the heads and such grace to the vestments that more could not have been desired in those days. In like manner he painted in the vaulting a choir of angels flying in the air about a Madonna. As they gracefully dance they appear to be singing, with a joy truly angelic and divine; whilst they are playing various instruments their eyes are fixed and intent on another choir of angels, sustained by a cloud of almond shape bearing the Madonna to heaven arranged in beautiful attitudes and surrounded by rainbows. This work, which was deservedly popular, procured him a commission to paint in tempera the picture of the high altar of that Pieve, where in five panels of life-size figures, represented to the knees, he made Our Lady with the Child on her arm, with St John the Baptist and St Matthew on one side of her, and on the other the Evangelist and St Donate. In the predella are many small figures, as well as in the frame of the picture above, all really fine and executed in the best style. I have entirely restored this altar at my own expense and with my own hands, so that this picture has been placed above the altar of St Christopher, at the bottom of the church. I may take this opportunity, without appearing to be impertinent, of saying in this place that I have myself restored this ancient collegiate church, moved by Christian piety and by the affection which I bear to the venerable building, because it was my first instructress in my early childhood. This I did also because it appeared to me to be as it were abandoned, and it may now be said to have been called back to life from the dead. Besides increasing the light, for it was very dark, by enlarging the original windows and making new ones, I also took away the choir, which used to occupy a great part of the church, and put it behind the high altar, to the great satisfaction of the canons there. The new altar stands alone, and has on the table before it a Christ calling Peter and Andrew from their nets, and on the side next the choir is another picture of St George killing the serpent. On the sides are four panels, each of which contains two saints of life-size. Above and below in the predella are numerous other figures, which are omitted for the sake of brevity. The ornamentation of the altar is thirteen braccia high, and the predella two braccia. The interior is hollow and is approached by a staircase through a small iron door, very well arranged. Many valuable relics are preserved there, which may be seen from the outside through two iron gratings in the front. Among others is the head of St Donato, bishop and protector of Arezzo. In a chest of various materials, three braccia high, which I have caused to be newly made, are the bones of four saints. The predella of the altar, which entirely surrounds it, has in front of it the tabernacle or _ciborium_ of the Sacrament, in carved wood, all gilt, about three braccia high, and it may be seen from the choir side as well as from the front. As I have spared neither pains nor expense, since I considered myself bound to do my best to honour God, I may venture to affirm that, so far as my ability would allow, this work lacks nothing in the way of ornament, whether of gold, carving, painting, marble, trevertine, porphyry, or other stones. Now to return to Pietro Laurati. When he had completed the picture mentioned above, he did many things for St Peter's at Rome, which were afterwards destroyed in building the new church. He also executed some works at Cortona and at Arezzo, besides those already mentioned, and some others in the church of S. Fiore e Lucilla, a monastery of black monks, notably a representation in a chapel of St Thomas putting his hand into the wound in Christ's side. A pupil of Pietro was Bartolommeo Bologhini of Siena, who executed many pictures at Siena and other places in Italy. There is one by his hand at Florence, on the altar of the chapel of St Silvester in S. Croce. The paintings of this man were executed about the year 1350. In my book, which I have so often referred to, may be seen a drawing by Pietro, representing a shoemaker sewing in a simple but most natural manner with an admirable expression. It affords a good example of Pietro's peculiar style. His portrait by the hand of Bartolommeo Bologhini was in a picture at Siena, where not many years ago I copied it, in the manner seen above. Andrea Pisano, Sculptor and Architect. While the art of painting has flourished, sculptors have never been lacking who could produce excellent work. To the attentive mind, the works of every age bear testimony to this fact, for the two arts are really sisters, born at the same time and nourished and animated by the same spirit. This is seen in Andrea Pisano, who practised sculpture in the time of Giotto, and made so much improvement in that art, both by practice and study, that he was considered the best exponent of the profession who had until then appeared in Tuscany, especially in casting bronze. For this reason his works were so honoured and prized by those who knew him, and especially by the Florentines, that he was able without a pang to change his country, relations, property, and friends. It was a great advantage to him that the masters who had preceded him in sculpture had experienced so much difficulty in the art that their works were rough and common, so that those who saw his productions, judged him a miracle by comparison. That these first works were rude may be credited, as has been said elsewhere, upon an examination of some which are over the principal door of S. Paolo at Florence, and some stone ones in the church of Ognissanti, which are so executed as to move to laughter those who regard them, rather than to excite in them any admiration or pleasure. It is certain that it was much more easy to recover the art of sculpture when the statues had been lost, as a man is a round figure by nature, and is so represented by that art, whereas in painting, on the other hand, it is not so easy to find the right shapes and the best manner of portraying them, which are essential to the majesty, beauty, grace, and ornament of a picture. In one circumstance fortune was favourable to Andrea, because, as has been said elsewhere, by means of the numerous victories won by the Pisans at sea, many antiquities and sarcophagi were brought to Pisa, which are still about the Duomo and Campo Santo. These gave him great assistance and much light, advantages which could not be enjoyed by Giotto, because the ancient paintings which have been preserved are not so numerous as the sculptures. And although statues have frequently been destroyed by fire, devastation, and the fury of war, or buried or transported to various places, yet it is easy for a connoisseur to recognise the productions of all the different countries by their various styles. For example, the Egyptian is slender, with long figures; the Greek is artificial, and much care is displayed on the nude, while the heads nearly always have the same turn; and the ancient Tuscan is careful in the treatment of hair and somewhat rude. As regards the Romans, and I call Roman for the most part those things which were brought to Rome after Greece was subjugated, as all that was good and beautiful in the world was carried thither; this Roman work, I say, is so beautiful in expression, attitudes, movements both in nude figures and in draperies, that the Romans may be said to have extracted the beautiful from all the other provinces and gathered it into a single style, making it the best and the most divine of all the arts. At the time of Andrea all these good methods and arts were lost, and the only style in use was that which had been brought to Tuscany by the Goths and the rude Greeks. Thus he noted the new style of Giotto and such few antiquities as were known to him, and somewhat refined a great part of the grossness of that wretched manner by his own judgment, so that he began to work in better style, and endow his works with far more beauty than had hitherto been seen. When his intelligence, skill, and dexterity had become known he was assisted by many of his compatriots, and while he was still a young man, he was commissioned to make some small figures in marble for S. Maria a Ponte. These brought him such a good name that he was most earnestly desired to come to work at Florence by those in charge of the building of S. Maria del Fiore, as after the façade of the three doors had been begun, there was a lack of masters to execute the subjects which Giotto had designed for the beginning of that structure. Accordingly Andrea went to Florence in order to undertake that work, and because at that time the Florentines were desirous of making themselves agreeable and friendly to Pope Boniface VIII., who was then chief pontiff of the church of God, they wished Andrea, before everything else, to make his statue in marble. Andrea therefore set to work, and did not rest until he had finished the Pope's figure placed between St Peter and St Paul, the three figures being set up on the façade of S. Maria del Fiore, where they still are. Afterwards Andrea made some figures of prophets for the middle door of that church, in some tabernacles or niches. These showed that he had made great improvements in the art, and that in excellence and design he surpassed all those who had laboured for that structure up to that time. Hence it was decided that all works of importance should be entrusted to him and not to others. Soon after he was commissioned to make four statues of the principal doctors of the church--St Jerome, St Ambrose, St Augustine, and St Gregory. When these were finished they brought him favour and renown with the craftsmen and throughout the city, and he was commissioned to make two other figures in marble of the same size. These were St Stephen and St Laurence, which are on the front of S. Maria del Fiore at the outside angle. By Andrea's hand also is the marble Madonna, three and a half braccia high with the child at her neck, which is over the altar of the little church and company of the Misericordia on the piazza of S. Giovanni at Florence. This was much praised in those times, especially as on either side of the Madonna he put an angel two and a half braccia high. A setting of very finely carved wood has been made for this in our own day by Maestro Antonio called "Il Carota," with a predella beneath, full of most beautiful figures coloured in oil by Ridolfo, son of Domenico Grillandai. In like manner the half-length Madonna in marble which is over the side-door of the Misericordia, on the façade of the Cialdonai, is by Andrea's hand, and was highly praised, because in it he had imitated the good antique manner, contrary to his habit, which was always different from it, as shown by some designs of his which are in our book, and in which he represents all the scenes from the Apocalypse. Now Andrea had studied architecture in his youth, and an opportunity occurred for his employment in this art by the commune of Florence, for as Arnolfo was dead and Giotto absent, he was entrusted with the preparation of plans for the castle of Scarperia, which is in Mugello at the foot of the Alps. Some say, though I will not vouch for the truth of it, that Andrea stayed a year at Venice, and there executed some small marble figures which are on the façade of S. Marco, and that in the time of M. Piero Gradenigo, doge of that republic, he designed the Arsenal. But as I know nothing of this beyond the bare mention of it which occurs in some writers, I must leave the matter to the judgment of my readers. From Venice he returned to Florence, where the city, fearing the coming of the emperor, with Andrea's co-operation, hastily added eight braccia to part of the wall between S. Gallo and the Prato Gate, and in other places he made bastions, palisades and works in earth and wood. Now some three years before, he had shown his skill in casting bronze in a much admired cross which he had sent to the Pope at Avignon, by means of his close friend Giotto; accordingly he was commissioned to make in bronze one of the doors of the church of S. Giovanni, for which Giotto had already made a very fine design. This, as I say, was given to him to finish, because he was considered the most talented, skilful, and judicious master of all those who had worked until then, not only in Tuscany, but throughout Italy. He set to work, resolved to spare neither time, pains, nor diligence upon the completion of a task of such importance. Fate was propitious to him in his casting, at a time when men were ignorant of the secrets known today, so that in the space of twenty-two years he brought the door to its present stage of perfection; and what is more, at the same time he made not only the tabernacle of the high altar of S. Giovanni, with an angel on either side which were considered most beautiful, but also the small marble figures about the base of the door of the campanile of S. Maria del Fiore, after Giotto's design, and about that campanile, in certain mandorle, the seven planets, the seven virtues, and the seven works of mercy in small figures in half-relief, which were then much admired. At the same time he made the three figures of four braccia high, which were placed in niches in that campanile, on the side towards the place where the Pupilli now are, that is towards the south, figures which were considered at the time to be of considerable merit. But to return to my starting-point, I say that the bronze door contains scenes in bas-relief from the life of St John the Baptist, from his birth to his death, most happily conceived and executed with great care. And although many are of opinion that these stories do not exhibit that fine design nor that high art which should be put into figures, yet Andrea merits the highest praise, because he was the first who undertook to complete a work which rendered it possible for those who came after him to produce what is beautiful, difficult and good in the other two doors, and in the exterior ornaments now to be seen. This work was set in the middle door of the church, and remained there until Lorenzo Ghiberti made the present one, when it was removed and set up opposite the Misericordia, where it is at the present time. I must not omit to say that in making this door Andrea was assisted by his son Nino, who afterwards became a much better master than his father had been, and that it was finished in the year 1339--that is to say, not only polished and cleaned, but gilt at the fire. It is thought that the metal was cast by some Venetian masters very skilful in founding; and a record of this is in the library of the art of the Calimara, guardians of the work of S. Giovanni. Whilst the door was being made, Andrea not only made the altars aforesaid, but many others, and in particular the model of the church of S. Giovanni at Pistoia, which was founded in the year 1337. In this same year, on the 25th day of January, was found the body of St Atto, bishop of that city, in excavating the foundations of the church. The body had been buried in that place for 137 years. The architecture of that temple, which is round, was meritorious for the time. Also by the hand of Andrea is a marble tomb in the principal church of Pistoia, the body of the sarcophagus of which is full of small figures, with some larger ones above. In this tomb rests the body of M. Cino d'Angibolgi, doctor of laws, and a very famous man of letters in his day, as M. Francesco Petrarca testifies in the sonnet: "Piangette donne, e con voi pianga Amore;" and in the fourth chapter of the _Trionfo d'Amore_, where he says: "Ecco Cin da Pistoia; Guitton d'Arezzo, Che di non esser primo per ch' ira aggia." This marble tomb of Andrea's contains the portrait of M. Cino, who is represented as teaching a number of his scholars, who are about him, with such a fine attitude and style that it must have been considered a marvellous thing in those days, although it would not be valued now. Walter, Duke of Athens and tyrant of Florence, also employed Andrea to enlarge the piazza, and to fortify his palace by barring the bottom of all the windows on the first floor, where the hall of the Two Hundred now is, with very strong square iron bars. The same duke also added, opposite S. Piero Scheraggio, the rough stone walls which are beside the palace to augment it, and in the thickness of the wall he made a secret staircase, to mount and descend unperceived. At the bottom face of the wall he made a great door, which now serves for the Customs, and over this he set his arms, the whole after the designs and with the advice of Andrea. Although the arms were defaced by the magistracy of the twelve, who took pains to obliterate every memorial of that duke, yet on the square shield there remained the form of the lion rampant with two tails, as any attentive observer may see. For the same duke Andrea made many towers about the city, and not only began the fine gate of S. Friano, leaving it in its present form, but also made the walls of the portals and all the gates of the city, and the smaller gates for the convenience of the people. And, because the duke purposed to make a fortress on the hill of S. Giorgio, Andrea prepared a model for it, which was never used, as the work was not begun, the duke being driven out in the year 1343. The duke's plan to convert the palace into a strong castle was in great measure effected, for a considerable addition was made to the original building, as may be seen to-day, the circuit comprising the houses of the Filipetri, the tower and houses of the Amidei, and Mancini, and those of the Bellaberti. And because, after this great undertaking was begun, all the materials required for it and for the great walls and barbicans were not ready, he kept back the building of the Ponte Vecchio, which was being hurried forward as a necessary thing, and made use of the dressed stones and timber designed for this without any consideration. Although Taddeo Gaddi was probably not inferior to Andrea Pisano as an architect, the duke would not employ him on these works because he was a Florentine, but made use of Andrea. The same Duke Walter wished to pull down S. Cicilia, in order to obtain a view of the Strada Romana and the Mercato Nuovo from his palace, and would also have destroyed S. Piero Scheraggio for his convenience, but the Pope would not grant him licence. At length, as has been said above, he was driven out by the fury of the people. For his honoured labours of so many years Andrea not only deserved the highest rewards, but also civil honours. Accordingly he was made a Florentine citizen by the Signoria, offices and magistracies in the city were given to him, and his works were valued during his life and after his death, as no one was found to surpass him in workmanship until the advent of Niccolo of Arezzo, Jacopo della Quercia of Siena, Donatello, Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, and Lorenzo Ghiberti, whose sculptures and other works were such that people recognised in what error they had been living up till then, as these men had again discovered the true excellence which had been hidden for so great a number of years. The works of Andrea were executed about the year of grace 1340. The pupils of Andrea were numerous, and, among others, Tommaso, architect and sculptor, of Pisa, who finished the chapel of the Campo Santo, and brought the campanile of the Duomo to completion--that is to say, the last part, where the bells are. This Tommaso was Andrea's son, if we may believe an inscription on the high altar of S. Francesco at Pisa, on which a Madonna and other saints are carved by him in half relief, with his name and that of his father beneath. Andrea left a son Nino, who devoted himself to sculpture, his first work being in S. Maria Novella at Florence, where he finished a marble Madonna, begun by his father, which is inside the door, near the chapel of the Minerbetti. Going afterwards to Pisa, he made for the Spina a half-length marble Madonna suckling the infant Jesus Christ, clothed in delicate draperies. In the year 1522 a marble ornament for this Madonna was made for M. Jacopo Corbini, who had a much larger and finer one made for another full-length marble Madonna of Nino, representing with great grace the mother offering a rose to the child, who takes it in childish fashion, and so prettily, that one may say that Nino had made some steps to subduing the roughness of the stone, and endowing it with the attributes of living flesh. The figure is between a St John and a St Peter in marble, the head of the latter being a portrait of Andrea. Nino also made two marble statues for an altar of S. Caterina at Pisa--that is to say, the Madonna and an angel in an Annunciation, executed, like his other works, with such care that they may be considered as the best productions of those times. On the base beneath this Madonna Nino carved the following words: "On the first day of February 1370;" and beneath the angel: "Nino, son of Andrea Pisano, made these figures." He produced yet other works in that city and at Naples which it is not necessary to mention here. Andrea died at the age of seventy-five, in the year 1345, and was buried by Nino in S. Maria del Fiore with the following epitaph: "Ingenti Andreas jacet hie Pisanus in urna, Marmore qui potuit spirantes ducere vultus Et simulacra Deum mediis imponere templis Ex acre, ex auro, candenti et pulcro elephanto." Buonamico Buffalmacco, Painter of Florence. Buonamico di Cristofano, called Buffalmacco, painter of Florence, who was a pupil of Andrea Tafi, celebrated for his jests by M. Giovanni Boccaccio in his "Decameron," is well known to have been the close companion of Bruno and Calandrino, painters, and themselves facetious and pleasant men. He possessed a very fair judgment in the art of painting, as may be seen by his works, which are scattered throughout Tuscany. Franco Sacchetti relates in his "Three Hundred Tales" (to begin with the deeds of this artist while he was still young) that, while Buffalmacco was a boy with Andrea, it was his master's custom, when the nights were long, to rise to work before dawn and to call the boys. This thing displeased Buonamico, who enjoyed a good sleep, and he tried to devise a plan that should induce Andrea to leave off calling them to work so much before daylight. He soon found one, for in an ill-swept loft he happened to find thirty great beetles or cockroaches. With some thin needles and corks he fixed a small candle on the back of each beetle, and when the hour came for Andrea to rise he lighted the candles and put the beetles one by one through a hole leading into Andrea's room. When the master awoke, just about the hour when he was accustomed to call Buffalmacco, and saw these lights he began to tremble with fear, and to recommend himself to God, repeating his prayers and psalms. At length he put his head under the clothes and did not call Buffalmacco that night, but remained trembling in that posture until the day. The following morning when he arose he asked Buonamico if he, like himself, had seen more than a thousand devils. Buonamico said "No," because he had kept his eyes shut, and had wondered why he had not been called. "What!" said Tafi; "I had something else to think of besides painting, and I am resolved to go and live in another house." The following night, although Buonamico only put three beetles into Tafi's chamber, yet the poor man did not sleep a jot, owing to his fear of the past night and to those devils which he saw. No sooner was day come than he left the house, declaring he would never return to it, and it was long before they were able to induce him to change his mind. But Buonamico brought him the priest of the parish, who consoled him as best he could. When Tafi and Buonamico were talking over the matter afterwards, the latter said: "I have always heard tell that the devils are the greatest enemies of God, and consequently they must also be the chief adversaries of painters, because, besides the fact that we always make them very ugly, We do nothing else but represent saints on walls and tables, in order to render men more devout or better in despite of the devils. For this cause the devils are enraged with us, and as they have more power at night than during the day, they come and play these pranks, and will do worse if this practice of early rising is not entirely abandoned." With these words, and many others, Buffalmacco succeeded in settling the matter, as the priest supported his arguments, so that Tafi left off his early rising and the devils ceased to go through the house at night with lights. But not many months afterwards, when Tafi, induced by desire of gain, and crushing every fear, began once more to rise and work at night and to call Buffalmacco, the beetles also began to make their rounds, so that the master was compelled by fear to give it up entirely, being strongly advised to this by the priest. When this thing became known through the city, it for a while prevented other painters as well as Tafi from rising to work at night. When, shortly afterwards, Buffalmacco himself became a fairly good master he left Tafi, as the same Franco relates, and began to work by himself, and he never lacked employment. Accordingly he took a house to serve equally as a workshop and a dwelling-house, next door to a worker of wool in easy circumstances, who, being a raw simpleton, was called Goosehead. This man's wife rose early every night, when Buffalmacco, who had worked up to that time, was going to rest, and setting herself at her spinning wheel, which she unfortunately placed over against Buffalmacco's bed, she spent all the night in spinning thread. Buonamico was unable to sleep a moment, and began to devise a means whereby to rid himself of this nuisance. It was not long before he perceived that, behind the brick wall which separated him from Goosehead, was the fire of his objectionable neighbour, and by means of a crack he could see everything that she did at the fire. Accordingly he devised a new trick, and provided himself with a long tube. When he found that the wife of Goosehead was not at the fire, he every now and again put through that hole in the wall into his neighbour's pot as much salt as he wished. When Goosehead returned either to dine or to sup he could, as a rule, neither eat nor drink or taste either soup or meat, as everything was made bitter by too much salt. For a little while he had patience, and only spoke of it or grumbled; but when he found that words did not suffice, he frequently gave blows to the poor woman, who was in despair, because she thought she had been more than cautious in salting the dish. As her husband beat her from time to time, she tried to excuse herself, which only increased the anger of Goosehead, so that he began to strike her again, and as she cried out at the top of her voice, the noise penetrated the whole neighbourhood, and drew thither Buffalmacco among others. When he heard of what Goosehead accused his wife and how she excused herself, he said to Goosehead: "Worthy friend, you should be reasonable; you complain that your morning and evening dishes are too salt, but I only wonder that your wife makes them so well as she does. I cannot understand how she is able to keep going all day, considering that she is sitting up the whole night over her spinning, and does not, I believe, sleep an hour. Let her give up rising at midnight, and you will see, when she has enough sleep, her brain will not wander, and she will not fall into such serious mistakes." Then he turned to the other neighbours, and succeeded so well in convincing them that he had found the true explanation that they all told Goosehead that Buonamico was right, and that he should follow this advice. Goosehead, believing what he was told, ordered his wife not to rise so soon, and the dishes were afterwards reasonably salted, except sometimes when the goodwife had risen early, because then Buffalmacco had recourse to his remedy, a fact which induced Goosehead to cause his wife to give up early rising altogether. One of the earliest works Buffalmacco did was the decoration of the church of the nunnery of Faenza at Florence, where the citadel of Prato now is. Here he represented scenes from the life of Christ, among other things, everything in which is in good style, and he also did there the massacre of the Innocents by Herod's order. Here he displays with considerable vigour the expressions of the murderers as well as of the other figures, because some nurses and mothers, who are snatching the children from the hands of the murderers, are using their hands, nails, teeth, and every bodily agent to help them as much as possible, showing that their minds are not less full of rage and fury than of grief. As the monastery is destroyed to-day, nothing more of this work is to be seen than a coloured drawing in our book of designs, which contains the sketch for this by Buonamico's hand. In executing this work for the nuns of Faenza, Buffalmacco, who was as eccentric in his dress as his behaviour, did not always happen to wear the hood and mantle customary in those times, and the nuns who sometimes looked at him through the screen which he had caused to be made, began to say to the custodian that they objected to seeing him always in his doublet. After he had reassured them, they remained quiescent for a while. At length, as they always saw him attired after the same fashion, they thought he must be the boy to mix the colours and accordingly they induced the abbess to tell him that they should like to see the master himself at work and not this other one always. Buonamico, who always loved his joke, told them that so soon as the master arrived he would let them know, although he was sensible of the small amount of confidence which they placed in him. Then he took a table and put another on the top of it, setting a water jug on this, over the handle of which he put a hood and then covered the rest of the pitcher in a civilian's mantle, fastening it firmly about the tables. After this he put a brush in the spout from which the water flows, and there left it. When the nuns returned to see the work through an opening where he had torn the canvas, they saw the supposed master in his attire. They believed that he was working there to the utmost of his power, and would do much better than the mere boy had done, so they were several days thinking of nothing else. At last they were anxious to see what beautiful things the master had made. Fifteen days had passed since Buonamico had set foot in the place, and one night they went to see the paintings, thinking that the master could no longer be there. They were covered with confusion and blushes when one bolder than the rest discovered the nature of the solemn master, who had not done a stroke in the fortnight. When they learned that Buonamico had treated them according to their deserts, and that the works which he had made were excellent, they recalled him and he returned with much laughter and joking to take up the work, making them see that there is a difference between men and dummies, and that works must not always be judged by the clothes of those who produce them. After a few days he finished one subject there, with which they were very delighted since it appeared to them to be satisfactory in all its parts, except that the figures in the flesh colouring seemed to them to be rather too pale. When Buonamico heard this and learning that the abbess had the best vernaccia in Florence, which served for the sacrifice of the mass, he told them that in order to remedy such a defect, nothing would be serviceable except to temper the colours with a good vernaccia, for if the cheeks and other flesh parts of the figures were touched with this, they would become red and very freshly coloured. When the good sisters heard this they believed it completely and afterwards kept him supplied with the best vernaccia so long as the work lasted, while he on his part made merry and thenceforward with his ordinary colours rendered his figures more fresh and brilliant. On the completion of this work Buffalmacco painted in the abbey of Settimo some scenes from the life of St James in the chapel dedicated to that saint which is in the cloister, on the vault of which he did the four Patriarchs and the four Evangelists, among whom the attitude of Luke is noteworthy for the natural way in which he is blowing his pen to make the ink flow. In the subjects for the walls, which are five, the figures are represented in fine attitudes and everything is carried out with originality and judgment. In order to make his flesh colouring easier to paint Buonamico used a ground of _pavonazzo di sale_, as is seen in this work, which in the course of time has caused a saltness by which the white and other colours are corroded and consumed so that it is no marvel that the work is damaged and destroyed, while many that were made long before have been excellently preserved. I formerly considered that the injury was caused by the damp, but afterwards by an examination of his other works I have proved by experience that it is not the damp, but this peculiar practice of Buffalmacco which has caused them to be so damaged that it is not possible to see the design or anything else, and where the flesh colour should be there remains nothing but the _pavonazzo_. This method of working should not be practised by anyone who desires a long life for his paintings. After the two pictures mentioned above, Buonamico did two others in tempera for the monks of the Certosa at Florence, one of which is in the place where the singing books for the choir rest, and the other is below in the old chapels. In the Badia at Florence he painted in fresco the chapel of the Gondi and Bastari, beside the principal chapel, which was afterwards granted to the family of the Boscoli, and still retains these paintings of Buffalmacco. Here he did the Passion of Christ, with fine and original expressions, showing in Christ, when He washes the disciples' feet, the greatest humility and benignity, and cruelty and fierceness in the Jews who lead Him to Herod. But he displayed especial originality and facility in a Pilate whom he painted in prison and in Judas, hung to a tree, from which we may readily believe what is related of this pleasant painter, that when he wished to be diligent and take pains, which rarely happened, he was not inferior to any other artist of his time. That this is true is proved by his works in fresco in Ognissanti, where the cemetery now is, produced with such diligence and with such precautions that the water which has rained upon them for many years has not injured them or caused any harm except by preventing a recognition of their excellence. They are so well preserved because they were done simply upon fresh lime. On the walls are the Nativity of Jesus Christ and the Adoration of the Magi, that is to say, over the tomb of the Aliotti. After these works Buonamico went to Bologna, where he painted in fresco on the vaults of the chapel of the Bolognini in S. Petronio, but did not finish them, for some reason unknown to me. It is said that in the year 1302 he was summoned to Assisi, and in the chapel of St Catherine in the church of S. Francesco he painted the history of the former saint's life in fresco, works which are very well preserved, and containing some figures well worthy of praise. When he had completed the chapel and was on his way through Arezzo, the bishop Guido, who had heard that Buonamico was a pleasant man and a painter of talent, wished him to stay in the city and paint for him the chapel in the Vescovado containing the Baptism of Christ. Buonamico put his hand to the work and had already done a considerable part of it when a very strange adventure happened to him, related by Franco Sacchetti in his "Three Hundred Tales." The bishop possessed a baboon, the most mischievous and malignant creature that ever was seen. This animal was one day standing on his perch and watching Buonamico work, having lost thought of everything else, and never taking his eyes off him as he mixed the colours, managed the tools, broke the eggs to make the tempera, or did any other thing, no matter what. One Saturday evening Buonamico left the work and this baboon; on Sunday morning, although he had a great log of wood attached to his legs, which the bishop made him carry so that he should not leap everywhere, notwithstanding this heavy weight, leapt on to the scaffolding where Buonamico used to stand to work, and there took up the phials and emptied them one by one, made the mixtures, broke as many eggs as were there, and began to daub all the figures with the brush, never resting until he had repainted everything himself. That done he made a fresh mixture of all the colours which were left over, although they happened to be few, and then descended from the scaffolding and departed. When Buonamico came back to his work on Monday morning and saw his figures spoiled, his phials emptied and everything upside down, he was filled with amazement and confusion. After turning the matter over in his mind for some time he concluded that some Aretine had done this from envy or for some other reason. Accordingly he went to the bishop and told him what had happened and what he suspected, at which the bishop was much troubled, yet he encouraged Buonamico to go on with the work, and to repaint the part which had been spoiled. He further pledged himself to give the artist six armed men of his infantry, who should stand with falchions to watch, when he was not working, and to cut to pieces without mercy anyone who should come. Accordingly the figures were repainted a second time, and one day while the soldiers were on the watch they heard a curious rolling noise in the church, and soon after the baboon appeared, jumped upon the seat, made the mixtures in an instant, and set to work upon the saints of Buonamico. The guard then called the master, and showed him the criminal, and when they saw him standing with them and watching the animal work, they burst into laughter, and Buonamico himself, though grieved at the damage, could not help laughing in the midst of his sorrow. At length he dismissed the soldiers who had been on guard with their falchions, and went to the bishop and said to him: "My lord, you like my manner of painting, but your baboon prefers another." He then related the matter, adding: "It was not necessary for you to send away for painters since you had a master in the house, although perhaps he did not know how to mix his colours properly. Now that he knows, let him work by himself, for I am of no further use here, and as his worth is now recognised, I shall be contented with no other wages for my work except permission to return to Florence." Although much displeased, the bishop could not refrain from laughing when he heard this, especially when he considered that a beast had made a jest of the most jest-loving man in the world. After they had laughed and talked over this new adventure, the bishop prevailed so far, that Buonamico set himself a third time to do the work, and he finished it. The baboon, as a punishment and penance for his fault, was shut up in a large cage of wood, and kept there while Buonamico worked, until the painting was quite finished. It is not possible to imagine the antics which the great beast played in that cage with his mouth, his body and his hands, at seeing others work while he was not able to imitate them. When the decoration of the chapel was completed the bishop asked, for a jest or for some other reason, that Buffalmacco should paint him on a wall of his palace an eagle on the back of a lion which it had killed. The cunning painter promised to do as the bishop desired, and made a large partition of boards, saying that he did not wish anyone to see such a thing being painted. This done, and while being shut up all alone inside, he painted the contrary to what the bishop wished, a lion crushing an eagle. When the work was completed, he asked licence from the bishop to go to Florence to procure some colours which he needed. Accordingly, having locked up his picture, he went to Florence intending never to return. The bishop after waiting some time and seeing that the painter did not return, caused the painting to be opened, and found that Buonamico was wiser than himself. Furious at the trick which had been played upon him he threatened to take the artist's life. When Buonamico heard this, he sent to tell him to do his worst, wherefore the bishop menaced him with a malediction. But at length he reflected that the artist had only been jesting, and that he should take the matter as a jest, whereupon he pardoned Buonamico the insult, and acknowledged his pains most liberally. What is more, he induced him to come again to Arezzo not long after, and caused him to paint many things in the old Duomo, which have been thrown down to-day, treating him always as his friend and most faithful servant. The same artist also painted in Arezzo the apse of the principal chapel of S. Giustino. Some write that when Buonamico was in Florence he was often in the workshop of Maso del Saggio with his friends and companions. He was also present with many others in arranging the regatta which the men of the borgo S. Friano in Arno celebrate on the calends of May, and that when the ponte alla Carraia, which was then of wood, broke down because it was too crowded with people, who had run thither to see the spectacle, he did not perish then like many others, because when the bridge fell right on a machine, representing Hell in a barque on the Arno, he had gone to buy some things that were wanted for the feast. Not long after these things Buonamico was invited to Pisa, and painted a series of subjects from the Old Testament, from the Creation of Man to the building of the Tower of Nimrod, for the abbey of S. Paolo a ripa d'Arno, which then belonged to the monks of Vallombrosa, on the whole of the crossing of that church, on three sides, from the roof to the ground. This work, which is now almost entirely destroyed, is remarkable for the vigour of the figures, the skill and beauty of the colouring and artist's faculty of expressing his ideas, although he was not very good in design. On the wall of this crossing opposite that which contains the side door, there are some scenes of the life of St Anastasia, where some women, painted in a graceful manner, exhibit certain antique habits and gestures, very prettily and well. No less fine are some figures in a barque, arranged in well designed attitudes, among them being the portrait of Pope Alexander IV., which it is said Buonamico had from his master Tafi, who had represented that pontiff in mosaic in St Peter's. Similarly in the last subject which represents the martyrdom of the saint, and of others, Buonamico finely expresses in the faces the fear of death, the grief and dread of those who are standing by to see her tormented and put to death, while she stands bound to a tree, and above the fire. Bruno di Giovanni, a painter, assisted Buonamico in this work. He is called painter in the old book of the company. This Bruno, also celebrated as a joke-loving man by Boccaccio, finished the said scenes for the walls, and painted the altar of St Ursula for the same church, with her company of virgins, inserting in one hand of the saint a standard with the arms of Pisa, which are a white cross on a red ground, while she places the other on a woman who is rising between two mountains, and touches the sea with one foot and places her hands together in an act of entreaty. This woman represents Pisa, her head being circled with a gold crown, while she wears a garment full of circles and eagles, and being in much trouble at sea she petitions the saint. But because Bruno complained when he executed those figures that they were not life-like as those of Buonamico were, the latter in jest, to teach him to make figures, which if not life-like, should at least converse, made him put some words issuing from the mouth of the woman who is entreating the saint, and also the saint's reply to her, a device which Buonamico had seen in the works executed by Cimabue in the same church. This thing pleased Bruno and other foolish men of the time, just as to-day it pleases certain clumsy fellows, who have thus employed vulgar devices worthy of themselves. It is certainly curious that in this way advice intended simply as a jest has been generally followed, so much so that a great part of the Campo Santo done by masters of repute is full of this clumsiness. The works of Buonamico having greatly pleased the Pisans, those in charge of the fabric of the Campo Santo commissioned him to do four scenes in fresco from the beginning of the world until the building of Noah's ark, surrounding them with an ornamentation, in which he drew his own portrait from life, that is to say, in a border in the middle and at the corners of which are some heads, among which, as I have said, is his own. He wears a hood, just like the one that may be seen above. This work contains a God who holds in his arms the heavens and the elements, and all the apparatus of the universe, so that Buonamico, explaining his scene with verses, like the paintings of the age, wrote at the foot in capital letters with his own hand the following sonnet, as may be seen, which for its antiquity and simplicity of diction peculiar to the time, has seemed to me to be worth insertion in this place, so that if it does not perchance give much pleasure, though I think it will, yet it is a matter which will perhaps bear testimony to the amount of the knowledge of the men of that age: "Voi che avvisate questa dipintura Di Dio pietoso sommo creatore, Lo qual fe' tutte cose con amore Pesate, numerate ed in misura. In nove gradi angelica natura In ello empirio ciel pien di splendore, Colui che non si muove et è motore, Ciascuna cosa fecie buona e pura. Levate gli occhi del vostro intelletto Considerate quanto è ordinato Lo mondo universale; e con affetto Lodate lui che l' ha si ben creato: Pensate di passare a tal diletto Tra gli angeli, dove e ciascun beato. Per questo mondo si vede la gloria, Lo basso, e il mezzo, e Palto in questa storia." It was indeed bold of Buonamico to set himself to make a God the Father five braccia high, the hierarchy, the heavens, the angels, the zodiac, and all the things above to the sky of the moon, and then the element of fire, the air, the earth, and finally the centre. For the two lower corners he did a St Augustine and a St Thomas Aquinas. At the top of this Campo Santo, where the marble tomb of the Corte now is, Buonamico painted the Passion of Christ, with a great number of figures on foot and on horse, all in varied and beautiful attitudes, and in conformity with the story. He also did the Resurrection and the Apparition of Christ to the apostles very satisfactorily. When he had completed these labours, and had at the same time spent everything that he had gained at Pisa, which was not a little, he returned to Florence as poor as he had left it, and there he did many pictures and works in fresco, which it is not necessary to describe further. When his close friend Bruno, with whom he had returned from Pisa after squandering everything, was employed to do some works in S. Maria Novella, because he had not much skill in design or invention, Buonamico designed for him all that he afterwards did for a wall of that church opposite the pulpit, filling the space between column and column. This was the story of St Maurice and his companions, who were beheaded for the faith of Jesus Christ. Bruno executed this work for Guido Campese, then constable of the Florentines. The artist took his portrait before his death, in the year 1320, and afterwards put it in this work, as an armed man, as was customary in those days, and behind him he made an array of warriors, all armed in the antique style, forming a fine spectacle, while Guido himself kneels before Our Lady, who has the child Jesus in her arms while St Domenic and St Agnes, who are on either side of her, intercede for him. Although this painting is not remarkable for its design and invention, yet it is worthy of some amount of praise, chiefly on account of the variety of clothing, and of the barbed and other armour of the time. I myself made use of it in some scenes which I did for Duke Cosimo, in which it was necessary to represent an armed man in the antique style and other similar things of that age. This thing greatly pleased His Most Illustrious Excellency and others who have seen it. From this it may be seen what an advantage it is to draw materials from inventions and works made by these ancients, for although they are not perfect, yet it is useful to know in what manner they can be made of service, since they opened the way to the marvels which have since been produced. Whilst Bruno was engaged upon these works, a rustic desired him to do a St Christopher, and they made an agreement at Florence, the terms being that the price should be eight florins, and the figure should be twelve braccia high. Accordingly Buonamico went to the church where he was to do the St Christopher, and found that as its length and breadth did not exceed nine braccia he could not manage to get the figure in, so he determined, in order to fulfil the agreement, to make the figure lying down, but as even then it would not entirely come in, he was compelled to turn it from the knees downwards on to another wall. When the work was completed the rustic refused to pay for it, exclaiming that he had been cheated. The matter thus came before the official of the Grascia, who judged that Buonamico was justified by the terms of the contract. At S. Giovanni in l'Arcore there was a very fine Passion of Jesus Christ by Buonamico's hand, and among other much admired things it contained a Judas hanging from a tree, done with much judgment and in good style. There was also an old man blowing his nose very naturally, and the Maries are represented with such a sad air in weeping that they merit high praise for a time when men had not acquired the facility of expressing the emotions of the soul with the brush. In the same wall is a St Ivo of Brittany with many widows and orphans at his feet--a good figure--and two angels in the air who crown him, executed in the sweetest style. This building, together with the paintings, was thrown down in the year of the war of 1529. Again Buonamico painted many things in the Vescovado of Cortona for M. Aldebrando, bishop of that city, especially the chapel and the picture of the high altar; but as during the restoration of the palace and church everything was thrown down, it is not worth while to say more about them. In S. Francesco and in S. Margherita of the same city, there are still some pictures by the hand of Buonamico. From Cortona he went once more to Assisi, where in the lower church of S. Francesco he painted in fresco all the chapel of the Cardinal Egidio Alvaro of Spain, and because he was successful he was liberally recognised by the cardinal. Finally, after Buonamico had done many pictures in every part of la Marca, he stayed at Perugia on his way back to Florence, and there painted the chapel of the Buontempi in fresco in the church of S. Domenico, representing scenes from the life of St Catherine, virgin and martyr. In the old church of S. Domenico he painted also in fresco on the wall the scene where St Catherine, daughter of King Costa, disputes with, convinces, and converts certain philosophers to the faith of Christ. As this scene is the finest that Buonamico ever produced, it may be said with truth that he has surpassed himself, and moved by this, as Franco Sacchetti writes, the Perugians directed that he should paint on the piazza St Ercolano, bishop and protector of that city. Accordingly when the terms had been settled a screen of boards and wicker work was made in the place where he was to paint, so that the master should not be seen at work, and this done he set himself to the task. But before ten days had passed everyone who passed asked when the picture would be finished, as if such things were cast in moulds. This disgusted Buonamico, who was angered by such importunity, and when the work was finished he resolved to be quietly avenged on the people for their impatience. An idea came to him, and before he uncovered his work he showed it to the people, who were delighted. But when the Perugians wanted to remove the screen, Buonamico said that they must let it remain for two days longer, because he wished to retouch some things _a secco_, and this was done. Buonamico then climbed up to where he had made a great diadem of gold for the saint, done in relief with the lime, as was customary in those days, and replaced it by a crown or garland of fish. That done, permission to depart being granted to him, he went away to Florence. When two days had passed, the Perugians not seeing the painter about, as he was accustomed to be, enquired what had become of him, and learned that he had returned to Florence. Accordingly they at once went to uncover the work, and found their St Ercolano solemnly crowned with fishes. They immediately informed their magistrates, and horsemen were sent off in haste to find Buonamico. But all was in vain, since he had returned with great speed to Florence. They, therefore, agreed to get one of their own painters to remove the crown of fishes and to repaint the saint's diadem, saying all the evil things imaginable of Buonamico and of the other Florentines. Thus Buonamico returned to Florence, caring little for what the Perugians said, and began to do many works which I shall not mention for fear of being too tedious. I will only remark that having painted a Madonna and child at Calcinaia, the man who had commissioned him to paint it, gave him promises instead of gold. Buonamico, who had not reckoned upon being used and cheated in this way, determined to be even with him. Accordingly he went one morning to Calcinaia and converted the child which he had painted in the Virgin's arms into a little bear, with simple tints, without glue or tempera, but made with water only. When the countryman saw this not long after, he was in despair, and went to find Buonamico, begging him to be so good as to remove the bear and repaint a child as at first, because he was ready to satisfy him. Buonamico did this with pleasure, for a wet sponge sufficed to set everything right, and he was paid for his first and second labours without further delay. As I should occupy too much space if I wished to describe all the jests and paintings of Buonamico Buffalmacco, especially these perpetrated in the workshop of Maso del Saggio, which was a resort of citizens and of all the pleasant and jest-loving men in Florence, I shall conclude this notice of him. He died at the age of seventy-eight, and he was of the company of the Misericordia, because he was very poor, and had spent more than he had earned, that being his temperament, and in his misfortunes he went to S. Maria Nuova, a hospital of Florence. He was buried in the year 1340, like the other poor in the Ossa, the name of a cloister or cemetery of the hospital. His works were valued during his lifetime, and they have since been considered meritorious for productions of that age. Ambruogio Lorenzetti, Painter of Siena. Great as the debt owed by artists of genius to Nature undoubtedly is, our debt to them is far greater, seeing that they labour to fill our cities with noble and useful buildings and with beautiful paintings, while they usually win fame and riches for themselves. This was the case with Ambruogio Lorenzetti, painter of Siena, whose powers of invention were fine and prolific, and who excelled in the arrangement and disposition of the figures in his subjects. Evidence of this may be seen at the Friars Minors at Siena in a very gracefully painted scene by him in the cloister. Here he represented the manner in which a youth becomes a friar, and how he and some others go to the Soldan, and are there beaten and sentenced to the gallows, hung to a tree, and finally beheaded, during the progress of a fearful tempest. In this painting he has very admirably and skilfully depicted the disturbance of the and the fury of the rain and wind, by the efforts of the figures. From these modern masters have learned originally how to treat such a scene, for which reason the artist deserves the highest commendation. Ambruogio was a skilful colourist in fresco, and he exhibited great address and dexterity in his treatment of colours in tempera, as may still be seen in the pictures which he completed at Siena in the hospital called Mona Agnesa, in which he painted and finished a scene with new and beautiful composition. On the front of the great hospital he did in fresco the Nativity of Our Lady, and when she goes among the virgins to the temple. For the friars of St Augustine in that city he did the chapterhouse, on the vault of which are represented the Apostles holding scrolls containing that part of the Credo which each of them made. At the foot of each is a small scene representing the meaning of the writing above. On the principal wall are three scenes of the life of St Catherine the Martyr, representing her dispute with the tyrant in the temple, and in the middle is the Passion of Christ with the thieves on the Cross and the Maries below, supporting the Virgin, who has fallen down. These things were finished by Ambruogio with considerable grace, and in a good style. He also depicted in the great hall of the palace of the Signoria at Siena the war of Asinalunga, the peace following, and the events which then took place, comprising a map, perfect for the time. In the same palace he did eight scenes in _terra verde_ very smoothly. It is said that he also sent to Volterra a picture in tempera, which was much admired in that city; and at Massa, in conjunction with others, he did a chapel in fresco and a picture in tempera, showing the excellence of his judgment and talent in the art of painting. At Orvieto he painted in fresco the principal chapel of St Mary. After these works he betook himself to Florence, and in S. Procolo did a picture and the life of St Nicholas on small figures in a chapel, to please some of his friends, who were anxious to see a specimen of his work. He completed this painting in so short a time, and with such skill, that he greatly increased his name and reputation. This work, in the predella of which he made his own portrait, procured him an invitation to Cortona, by command of the Bishop degli Ubertini, then lord of that city, where he worked in the church of S. Margherita, which had shortly before been erected on the summit of the mountain for the friars of St Francis. Some of this, particularly parts of the vaulting and walls, is so well done, that even now when they are almost destroyed by time, it is clear that the figures had very good expressions, and show that he deserved the commendation which he received. On the completion of this work Ambruogio returned to Siena, where he passed the remainder of his days, honoured not only because he was an excellent master in painting, but also because in his youth he had devoted himself to letters, which were a sweet and useful companion to painting, and such an ornament to all his life, that they rendered him no less amiable and pleasing than the profession of painting had done. Thus he not only conversed with men of letters and of worth, but was also employed on the affairs of his republic with much honour and profit. The manners of Ambruogio were in every respect meritorious, and rather those of a gentleman and a philosopher than of an artist. Moreover, and this tests the prudence of men more severely, he was always ready to accept what the world and time brought him, so that he supported with an equable mind the good and the evil which Fortune sent him. In truth it is impossible to overestimate what art gains by good society, gentle manners, and modesty, joined with other excellent traits, especially when these emanate from the intellect and from superior minds. Thus everyone should render himself no less pleasing by his character than by the excellence of his art. At the end of his life Ambruogio executed a much admired picture for Monte Oliveto of Chiusuri. Soon after, at the age of eighty-three, he passed in a happy and Christian manner to the better life. His works were executed about 1340. As has been said, the portrait of Ambruogio by his own hand may be seen in S. Procolo in the predella of his picture, where he is wearing a hood on his head. His skill as a designer may be seen in our book, which contains some things by his hand of considerable merit. Pietro Cavallini, Painter of Rome. At a time when Rome had been deprived for many centuries, not only of good letters and of the glory of arms, but also of all the sciences and fine arts, there was born in that city, by God's will, one Pietro Cavallini, at the very time when Giotto, who may be said to have restored life to painting, had attained to the chief place among the painters of Italy. Pietro, who had been a pupil of Giotto, and had done some mosaics with him in St Peter's, was the first after him who illuminated that art, and who first showed signs that he was not an unworthy pupil of so great a master, when he painted over the door of the sacristy at Araceli, some scenes which are now destroyed by time, and in S. Maria di Trastevere very many coloured things in fresco for the whole church. Afterwards he worked in mosaic in the principal chapel, and did the front of the church, proving that he was capable of working in mosaic without Giotto's assistance, as he had already succeeded in doing in painting. In the church of S. Grisogono he also did many scenes in fresco and endeavoured to make himself known as the best pupil of Giotto and as a good artist. In the Trastevere also he painted almost the whole of the church of S. Cecilia in fresco, and many things in the church of S. Francesco appresso Ripa. He then executed in mosaic the front of S. Paolo, outside Rome, and in the middle nave did many scenes from the Old Testament. In executing some things in fresco for the chapter-house of the first cloister, he displayed such diligence that he was considered by men of judgment to be a most excellent master, and was for the same reason so much favoured by the prelates, that they employed him to do the wall space between the windows inside St Peter's. Among these things he did the four Evangelists, of extraordinary size as compared with the figures of the time usually seen, executed very finely in fresco; also a St Peter and a St Paul, and in the nave a good number of figures, in which, because the Byzantine style greatly pleased him, he always used it in conjunction with that of Giotto. We see by this work that he spared no effort to give his figures the utmost possible relief. But the best work produced by him in that city was in the church of Araceli sul Campidoglio mentioned above, where he painted in fresco on the vaulting of the principal apse, Our Lady with the child in her arms, surrounded by a circle of suns; beneath her is the Emperor Octavian, adorning the Christ who is pointed out to him by the Tiburtine sybil. The figures in this work, as has been said elsewhere, are much better preserved than the others, because dust cannot attack the vaulting so seriously as the walls. After these things Pietro came to Tuscany in order to see the works of the other pupils of his master Giotto, and those of the master himself. Upon this occasion he painted in S. Marco at Florence many figures which are not visible to-day, the church having been whitewashed with the exception of an Annunciation which is beside the principal door of the church, and which is covered over. In S. Basilio, by the aide of the Macine, there is another Annunciation in fresco on the wall, so similar to the one which he had previously made for S. Marco, and to another which is at Florence that there are those who believe, not without some amount of reason, that all of them are by the hand of this Pietro; certainly it is impossible that they could more closely resemble each other. Among the figures which he made for S. Marco of Florence was the portrait of Pope Urban V., with the heads of St Peter and St Paul. From this portrait Fra Giovanni da Fiesole copied the one which is in a picture in S. Domenico, also at Fiesole. This is a fortunate circumstance because the portrait which was in S. Marco was covered with whitewash as I have said, together with many other figures in fresco in that church, when the convent was taken from the monks who were there originally and given to the Friars Preachers, everything being whitewashed with little judgment and discretion. On his way back to Rome Pietro passed through Assisi in order not only to see the buildings and notable works done then by his master and by some of his fellow-pupils, but to leave something of his own there. In the transept on the sacristy side of the lower church of S. Francesco he painted in fresco a Crucifixion of Jesus Christ with armed men on horseback, in varied fashions, with a great variety of extraordinary costumes characteristic of divers foreign nations. In the air he made some angels floating on their wings in various attitudes; all are weeping, some pressing their hands to their breasts, some crossing them, and some beating their hands, showing the extremity of their grief at the death of the Son of God, and all melt into the air, from the middle downwards, or from the middle upwards. In this work which is well executed in fresh and vivacious colouring, the joints of the lime are so well made that it looks as if it had all been done in a single day: in it I have found the arms of Walter, Duke of Athens, but as it contains no date or other writing, I cannot affirm that it was executed by command of that prince. But besides the fact that everyone considers it to be by Pietro's hand, the style alone is a sufficient indication, while it seems most probable that the work was made by Pietro at the duke's command seeing that the painter flourished at the time when the duke was in Italy. Be that as it may, the painting is certainly admirable for an antique production, and its style, besides the common report, proclaims it as being by Pietro's hand. In the church of S. Marco at Orvieto, which contains the most holy relic of the Corporale, Pietro executed in fresco some scenes of the life of Christ and of His body, with much diligence. It is said that he did this for M. Benedetto, son of M. Buonconte Monaldeschi, at that time lord and tyrant of the city. Some further affirm that Pietro made some sculptures with success, because he excelled in whatever he set himself to do, and that the Crucifix which is in the great church of S. Paolo outside Rome is by him. This is said to be the same one that spoke to St Brigida in the year 1370, and we are bound to believe it. By the same hand were some other things in that style which were thrown down when the old church of St Peter's was destroyed to make the new one. Pietro was very diligent in all his efforts and endeavoured steadily to do himself honour and to acquire fame in art. Not only was he a good Christian, but very devoted and kind to the poor, and beloved for his goodness, not only in his native city of Rome, but by every one who knew him or his works. In his extreme old age he devoted himself so thoroughly to religion, leading an exemplary life, that he was considered almost a saint. Thus there is no cause for marvel if his crucifix spoke to the saint, as is said, nor that a Madonna, by his hand, has worked and still works miracles. I do not propose to speak of this work, although it is famous throughout Italy, and although it is all but certain that it is by Pietro's hand by the style of the painting, but Pietro's admirable life and piety to God are worthy of imitation by all men. Let no one believe by this that it is impossible to attain to honoured rank without good conduct, and without the fear and grace of God, for constant experience proves the contrary. Giovanni of Pistoia was a pupil of Pietro, and did some things of no great importance in his native place. Pietro died at length in Rome, at the age of eighty-five, of a malady in his side caused by working at a wall, by the damp and by standing continually at that exercise. His paintings were executed about 1364. He was buried in S. Paolo outside Rome, with honour, and with this epitaph: "Quantum Romans Petrus decus addidit urbi Pictura, tantum, dat decus ipse polo." Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi, Painters of Siena. Happy indeed may we call those men who are inclined by nature to those arts which may bring them not only honour and great profit, but what is more, fame, and an all but immortal name. How much more happy then are those who, from their cradle, besides such an inclination, exhibit gentleness and civil manners, which render them very acceptable to all men. But the most happy of all, I speak of artists, are those who, besides having a natural inclination to the good, and whose manners are noble by nature and training, live in the time of some famous writer, by whose works they sometimes receive a reward of eternal honour and fame in return for some small portrait or other courtesy of an artistic kind. This reward should be specially desired and sought after by painters, since their works, being on a surface and a field of colour, cannot hope for that eternity that bronze and marble give to sculpture, and which the strength of building materials afford to the architect. It was thus a very fortunate matter for Simone that he lived in the time of M. Francesco Petrarca, and happened to meet this amorous poet at the court of Avignon, anxious to have the portrait of Madonna Laura by his hand; because when he had received one as beautiful as he desired, he celebrated Simone in two sonnets, one of which begins: "Per mirar Policleto a prova fiso Con gli altri, che ebber fama di quell' arte;" and the other: "Quando giunse a Simon l'alto concetto Ch'a mio nome gli pose in man lo stile." In truth these sonnets and the mention of the artist in one of his intimate letters in the fifth book, beginning _Non sum nescius_, have given more fame to the poor life of Simone than all his own works have done or ever will do, for a day will come when they will be no more, whereas the writings of such a man as Petrarch endure for all time. Simone Memmi of Siena then was an excellent painter, remarkable in his own day and much esteemed at the Pope's court, because, after the death of his master Giotto, whom he had followed to Rome when he did the _Navicella_ in mosaic, and other things, he had imitated his master's style in making a Virgin Mary in the porch of St Peter's, and a St Peter and a St Paul in that place near where the bronze pine apple is, in a wall between the arches of the portico, on the outside. For this style he was praised, especially as he had introduced into the work a portrait of a sacristan of St Peter's lighting some lamps, and has made his figures very vigorous. This led to Simone being summoned very urgently to the Pope's court at Avignon, where he executed so many pictures in fresco and on panels that his works realised the fame which had preceded him thither. Returning to Siena in great credit and high in favour, he was employed by the Signoria to paint in fresco a Virgin Mary, with many figures about her in a chamber in their palace. He completed this with every perfection, to his great glory and advantage. In order to show that he was no less skilful in painting on panels than in fresco, he executed a panel in that palace, for which reason he was afterwards commissioned to do two in the Duomo and a Madonna with the child in her arms in a most beautiful attitude, above the door of the opera of that building. In this picture some angels which are holding up a standard in the air, are flying and looking down on saints below them, who are surrounding Our Lady, forming a very beautiful and decorative composition. That done, Simone was invited to Florence by the general of St Augustine and did the chapter-house in S. Spirito, showing remarkable invention and judgment in the figures and horses, as may be believed on seeing the story of the Passion of Christ, remarkable alike for the ingenuity, discretion, and exquisite grace displayed by the artist. The thieves on the cross are seen in the act of expiring, the soul of the good one being carried with rejoicing to heaven by angels, while that of the guilty one is roughly dragged down by devils to hell. Simone has also shown originality and judgment in the disposition and bitter weeping of some angels about the cross. But most remarkable of all is the way in which the spirits cleave the air with their shoulders, because they maintain the movement of their flight while turning in a circle. This work would supply much clearer evidence of Simone's excellence if, in addition to the ravages of time, it had not been further damaged in the year 1560, through the fathers who, not being able to use the chapter-house on account of the damp, and throwing down the little that remained of the paintings of this man, in replacing a worm-eaten floor by vaulting. About the same time Simone painted in tempera on a panel Our Lady and a St Luke with other saints, which is to-day in the chapel of the Gondi in S. Maria Novella, signed with his name. Simone afterwards did three sides of the chapter-house of S. Maria Novella very successfully. On the first, that over the entrance door, he did the life of St Domenic; on the next one towards the church he represented the religious and order of that saint fighting against the heretics, who are represented by wolves attacking some sheep, these being defended by a number of dogs, spotted white and black, the wolves being repulsed and slain. There are also some heretics who have been convinced in the disputes and are tearing up their books, and, having repented, they confess, and their souls pass to the gate of Paradise, in which are many small figures doing various things. In heaven is seen the glory of the saints and Jesus Christ. In the world below the pleasures and delights are represented by human figures, especially some ladies, seated among whom is Petrarch's Laura drawn from life, clothed in green, with a small flame of fire between her breast and her throat. There also is the Church of Christ, guarding which are the Pope, the Emperor, the King, Cardinals, Bishops, and all the Christian Princes, among them, beside a knight of Rhodes, M. Francesco Petrarch, also drawn from life, which Simone did in order to keep green the memory of the man who had made him immortal. For the Church Universal he made the church of S. Maria del Fiore, not as it stands to-day, but as he had taken it from the model and design left by the architect Arnolfo in the Opera, as a guide to those who were to continue the building after his death. As I have said elsewhere, no memory of these models would have been preserved, owing to the negligence of the wardens of S. Maria del Fiore, had not Simone painted them in this work. On the third side, that of the altar, he did the Passion of Christ, who is going up from Jerusalem with the cross on His shoulder, and proceeds to Mount Calvary, followed by a throng of people, where He is seen raised on the cross between the thieves, together with the other incidents of that story. I shall not attempt to describe the presence of a good number of horses, the throwing of lots by the servants of the court for the raiment of Christ, the release of the Holy Fathers from limbo, and all the other clever inventions which would be most excellent in a modern master and are remarkable in an ancient one. Here he occupies the entire wall and carefully makes the different scenes, one above the other, not dividing the separate subjects from one another by ornaments, as the ancients used to do, and according to the practice of many moderns, who put the earth above the air four or five times. This has been done in the principal chapel of the same church, and in the Campo Santo at Pisa, where Simone painted many things in fresco, and was compelled against his will to make such divisions, as the other painters who had worked there, such as Giotto and Buonamico his master, had begun the scenes in this bad style. Accordingly he continued that style in the Campo Santo, and made in fresco a Madonna above the principal door on the inside. She is borne to heaven by a choir of angels, who sing and play so realistically that they exhibit all the various expressions which musicians are accustomed to show when playing or singing, such as bending the ear to the sound, opening the mouth in various ways, raising the eyes to heaven, puffing the cheeks, swelling the throat, and in short all the movements which are made in music. Under this Assumption, in three pictures, he did the life of St Ranieri of Pisa. In the first is the youth playing the psalter, to the music of which some little children are dancing,--very beautiful for the arrangement of the folds, the ornamentation of the clothes, and the head-dresses of those times. The same Ranieri is next seen rescued from such lasciviousness by St Albert the hermit. He stands weeping with his face down, and his eyes red with tears, full of repentance for his sin, while God in the air, surrounded by a heavenly light, makes as if to pardon him. The second picture represents Ranieri distributing his property among God's poor, then mounting into a barque he has about him a throng of poor and maimed, of women and children, anxiously pressing forward to petition and to thank him. In the same picture is when the saint after receiving the pilgrim's dress in the church, stands before Our Lady, who is surrounded by many angels, and shows him that he shall rest, in her bosom at Pisa. The heads of all these figures are vigorous with a fine bearing. The third picture represents the saint's return after seven years from beyond the sea, where he had spent three terms of forty days in the Holy Land, and how while standing in the choir and hearing the divine offices where a number of boys are singing, he is tempted by the devil, who is seen to be repelled by the firm purpose guiding Ranieri not to offend God, assisted by a figure made by Simone to represent Constancy, who drives away the ancient adversary represented with fine originality not only as terrified, but holding his hands to his head in his flight, with his head buried as far as possible in his shoulders, and saying, according to the words issuing from his mouth: "I can do no more." The last scene in the same picture is when Ranieri kneeling on Mount Tabor sees Christ miraculously in the air with Moses and Elias. All the parts of this work and other things which concern it show that Simone was very ingenious, and understood the good method of composing figures lightly in the style of the time. When these scenes were finished he made two pictures in tempera in the same city, assisted by Lippo Memmi his brother, who had also helped him to paint the chapter-house of S. Maria Novella and other works. Although Lippo did not possess Simone's genius, yet he followed his style so far as he was able, and did many things in fresco, in conjunction with his brother in S. Croce at Florence, the picture of the high altar of the Friars Preachers in S. Catarina at Pisa, and in S. Paolo on the River Arno, and besides many beautiful scenes in fresco, he did the picture in tempera now over the high altar, comprising Our Lady, St Peter, St Paul, St John the Baptist, and other saints, to which work Lippo put his name. After these things he did by himself a picture in tempera for the friars of St Augustine in S. Gimigniano, and acquired such fame thereby, that he was obliged to send to Arezzo to the Bishop Guido de' Tarlati a picture with three half-length figures, which is now in the chapel of St Gregory in the Vescovado. While Simone was working at Florence, a cousin of his who was a clever architect, Neroccio by name, succeeded in the year 1332 in sounding the great bell of the commune of Florence, which no one had been able to accomplish for the space of seventeen years, except by the efforts of twelve men. This man, however, balanced it so that it could be moved by two persons, and when once in motion one person alone could ring it, although it weighed more than sixteen thousand pounds; accordingly, in addition to the honour, he received three hundred gold florins as his reward, a considerable sum for that time. But to return to our two masters of Siena. Besides the things already mentioned, Lippo executed from Simone's design a picture in tempera, which was taken to Pistoia and put over the high altar of the church of S. Francesco, where it was considered very fine. When Simone and Lippo at length returned to their native Siena, the former began a large coloured work over the great gate of Camollia. Here he represented the coronation of Our Lady with a quantity of figures, but the work remained incomplete, as he fell very sick, and succumbing to the disease he passed from this life in the year 1345, to the great sorrow of the whole city, and of Lippo his brother, who gave him honoured burial in S. Francesco. Lippo afterwards finished many pictures which Simone had left imperfect. Among these were a Passion of Jesus Christ at Ancona, over the high altar of S. Niccola, in which Lippo finished what Simone had begun, imitating what he had done in the chapter-house of S. Spirito at Florence, and which Simone had entirely completed. This work is worthy of a longer life than it appears likely to enjoy, for it contains many finely posed horses and soldiers, actively engaged in various matters, wondering whether or no they have crucified the Son of God. At Assisi he also finished some figures which Simone had begun in the lower church of S. Francesco, at the altar of St Elizabeth, which is at the entrance of the door leading into the chapel, representing Our Lady, a St Louis, King of France, and other saints, eight figures in all, from the knees upwards, but good and very well coloured. Besides this Simone had begun in the principal refectory of that monastery, at the top of the wall, many small scenes and a crucifix with a Tree of the Cross. This remained unfinished, and is drawn, as may be seen to-day, in red with the brush on the rough wall. This method was favoured by the old masters in order to work in fresco with greater rapidity, for after they had sectioned out all their work on the rough wall, they drew it with the brush, following a small design which served as a guide, increasing this to the proper size, and this done they at once set to work. That many other works were painted in the same manner as this is seen in those cases where the work has peeled off, the design in red remaining on the rough wall. But to return to Lippo. He drew very fairly, as may be seen in our book, in a hermit with his legs crossed. He survived Simone twelve years, doing many things for all parts of Italy, but especially two pictures in S. Croce at Florence. As the style of the two brothers is somewhat similar, their works may be distinguished thus: Simone wrote at the bottom of his: _Simonis Memmi Senensis opus_; Lippo omitted his surname and careless of his Latinity wrote: _Opus Memmi de Seals me fecit_. On the wall of the chapter-house of S. Maria Novella, besides the portraits of Petrarch and Laura mentioned above by Simone's hand, are those of Cimabue, Lapo the architect, Arnolfo his son, and Simone himself, the Pope being a portrait of Benedict XI. of Treviso, a friar preacher, whose figure had been given to Simone by his master Giotto, when the latter returned from the Pope's court at Avignon. In the same place, next to the Pope, he portrayed the Cardinal Niccola da Prato, who had at that time come to Florence as the Pope's legate, as Giov. Villani relates in his "History." Over Simone's tomb was set the following epitaph: "_Simoni Memmio pictorum omnium omnis aetatis celeberrimo, Vixit ann. ix. metis ii. d. iii_." As may be seen in our book, Simone did not excel greatly in design, but was naturally full of invention and was very fond of drawing from life. In this he was considered the best master of his time, so that the lord Pandolfo Malatesta sent him to Avignon to make the portrait of M. Francesco Petrarch, at whose request he afterwards made the much admired portrait of Madonna Laura. Taddeo Gaddi, Painter of Florence. It is a truly useful and admirable task to reward talent largely at every opportunity, because great abilities which would otherwise lie dormant, are excited by this stimulus and endeavour with all industry, not only to learn, but to excel, to raise themselves to a useful and honourable rank, from which flow honour to their country, glory to themselves, and riches and nobility to their descendants, who, being brought up on such principles, often become very rich and noble, as did the descendants of Taddeo Gaddi the painter, by means of his works. This Taddeo di Gaddo Gaddi of Florence, after the death of Gaddo, had been the pupil of his godfather Giotto for twenty-four years, as Cennino di Drea Ceninni, painter of Colle di Valdelsa writes. On the death of Giotto he became the first painter of the day, by reason of his judgment and genius, surpassing his fellow-pupils. His first works, executed with a facility due to natural ability rather than to acquired skill, were in the church of S. Croce at Florence in the chapel of the sacristy, where, in conjunction with his fellow-pupils of the dead Giotto, he did some fine scenes from the life of St Mary Magdalene, the figures and draperies being very remarkable, the costumes being those then worn. In the chapel of the Baroncelli and Bandini, where Giotto had already done a picture in tempera, Taddeo did some scenes from the life of the Virgin in fresco on the wall, which were considered very beautiful. Over the door of the same sacristy he painted the scene of Christ disputing with the doctors in the temple, which was afterwards destroyed when Cosimo de' Medici the elder built the noviciate, the chapel and the vestibule of the sacristy, in order to put a stone cornice above that door. In the same church he painted in fresco the chapel of the Bellacci and that of St Andrew, next to one of the three done by Giotto, in which he represented Christ calling Andrew and Peter from their nets, and the crucifixion of the latter apostle with such truth that it was much admired and praised when it was completed, and is still held in esteem at the present day. Over the side door and under the tomb of Carlo Marsupini of Arezzo, he made a dead Christ with Mary, in fresco, which was much admired. Below the screen of the church, on the left hand above the crucifix of Donato, he painted in fresco a miracle of St Francis, where he raises a boy killed by a fall from a terrace, with an apparition in the air. In this scene he drew the portraits of his master Giotto, the poet Dante, Guido Cavalcanti, and some say of himself. In different places in the same church he made a number of figures, which are recognised by artists from their style. For the company of the Temple he painted the tabernacle which is at the corner of the via del Crocifisso, containing a fine deposition from the cross. In the cloister of S. Spirito he did two scenes in the arches next the chapter-house, in one of which he represented Judas selling Christ, and in the other the Last Supper with the Apostles. In the same convent over the door of the refectory he painted a crucifix and some saints, which distinguish him, among the others who worked there, as a true imitator of the style of Giotto, whom he always held in the highest veneration. In S. Stefano of the Ponte Vecchio he painted the picture and predella of the high altar with great care, and in the oratory of S. Michele in Orto he very skilfully represented in a picture a dead Christ, wept over by Mary, and deposited in the sepulchre by Nicodemus with great devotion. In the church of the Servites he painted the chapel of St Nicholas, belonging to the Palagio family, with stories of that saint, where, in his painting of a barque, he has clearly shown with the greatest judgment and grace, that he had a thorough knowledge of a tempestuous sea and of the fury of Fortune. In this work St Nicholas appears in the air, while the mariners are emptying the ship and throwing out the merchandise, and frees them from their danger. This work gave great satisfaction and was much admired, so that Taddeo was commissioned to paint the chapel of the high altar of that church. Here he did in fresco some stories of Our Lady, and in tempera on a panel, Our Lady with many saints, a very vigorous representation. Similarly, on the predella of this picture he did some stories of Our Lady in small figures, into the details of which it is not necessary to enter, because everything was destroyed in the year 1467 when Ludovico, Marquis of Mantua, made in that place the tribune which is there now, from the design of Leon Battista Alberti, and the choir of the friars, causing the picture to be taken to the chapter-house of that convent, in the refectory of which he made above the wooden backs, the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles, and above that a crucifix with many saints. When Taddeo had completed this work he was invited to Pisa where he painted the principal chapel of S. Francesco in fresco, very well coloured, for Gherardo and Bonaccorso Gambacorti, with many figures and stories of the saint, and of St Andrew and St Nicholas. On the vaulting and the wall is Pope Honorius confirming the rule, and a representation of Taddeo from life, in profile, with a hood folded over his head. At the bottom of this scene are these words: _Magister Taddeus Gaddus de Florentia pinxit hanc hittoriam Sancti Francisci et Sancti Andreæ et Sancti Nicolai anno Domini MCCCXLII. de mense Augusti._ In the cloister of the same convent he further made a Madonna in fresco, with the child at her neck, very well coloured. In the middle of the church, on the left hand on entering, is seated a St Louis the bishop, to whom St Gherardo da Villamagna, who was a friar of the order, is recommending one fra Bartolommeo, then superior of the convent. The figures of this work, being drawn from life, exhibit the utmost vivacity and grace, in that simple style which was in some respects better than Giotto's, particularly in the expression of intercession, joy, grief, and other feelings, the good representation of which always constitutes the highest claim of the painter to honour. Taddeo then returned to Florence and continued for the commune the work of Orsan-michele, refounding the pillars of the Loggia, using dressed and hewn stones in place of the original bricks, but without making any change in the design left by Arnolfo, who provided that a palace with two vaults should be made above the Loggia for the preservation of the provisions of grain made by the people and commune of Florence. For the completion of this work the Art of the Porta S. Maria, to whom the charge of the structure had been entrusted, ordained the payment of the gabelle of the piazza and of the grain market, and some other changes of very small importance. But an ordinance of far more importance was that each of the arts of Florence should make a pilaster for itself, placing on a niche in it the patron saint of each, and that every year the consuls of the arts should go to make offerings on their saints' feast days and keep their standard and insignia there all that day, but that the alms so collected should be made to the Virgin for the needy poor. In the year 1333 a great flood had carried away the parapets of the Ponte Rubaconte, thrown down the castle of Altafronte, left nothing of the Ponte Vecchio except the two middle piles, entirely destroyed the Ponte S. Trinita, a single shattered pile alone standing, and half the Ponte alla Carraia, breaking down the flood-gates of Ognissanti. For this cause the rulers of the city took counsel together, because they did not wish that those who dwelt beyond the Arno should again suffer this inconvenience of having to cross by barques. Accordingly they called in Taddeo Gaddi, because his master Giotto had gone to Milan, and instructed him to make the model and design of the Ponte Vecchio, directing him to render it as strong and as beautiful as it could possibly be. To this end he spared neither pains nor expense, building it with such strong piers and such fine arches, all of hewn stone, that it now sustains twenty-two shops on either side, making forty-four in all, to the great benefit of the commune, who that year expended upon it eight hundred florins of rent. The length of the span from one side to the other is 32 braccia, the middle way is 16, and the shops on either side 8 braccia. For this work, which cost sixty thousand gold florins, Taddeo not only deserved the praise accorded by his contemporaries, but he merits our commendation to-day to an even greater degree, for, not to speak of many other floods, the bridge did not move in the year 1537, on 13th September, when the Ponte a Santa Trinita, two arches of the Carraia, and a great part of the Rubaconte all fell, and more damage was done. Certainly no man of judgment can refrain from amazement, or at least wonder, when he considers how firmly the Ponte Vecchio resisted the impetus of the water, the timber, and other debris, without yielding. At the same time Taddeo laid the foundations of the Ponte a Santa Trinita, which was finished with less success in the year 1346 at a cost of twenty thousand gold florins. I say with less success, because, unlike the Ponte Vecchio, it was ruined by the flood of 1557. It was also under Taddeo's direction that the wall on the side of S. Gregorio was made at the same time, with driven piles, two piers of the bridge being taken to enlarge the ground on the side of the piazza de' Mozzi, and to set up the mills which are still there. Whilst all these things were being done under Taddeo's direction and from his plans, he did not allow them to stop his painting, and did the tribunal of the old Mercanzia, where, with poetical imagination, he represented the tribunal of six men, that being the number of the chief of that magistracy, who are watching Truth taking out Falsehood's tongue, the former clothed in velvet over her naked skin, the latter in black: underneath are these lines: "La pura Verita per ubbidire Alla santa Giustizia che non tarda Cava la lingua alla falsa bugiarda." Lower down are the following lines: "Taddeo dipinse questo bel rigestro Discepol fu di Giotto il buon maestro." In Arezzo some works in fresco were allotted to him, which he carried out with the greatest perfection with the aid of his pupil Giovanni da Milano. One of these, representing the Passion of Jesus Christ, may still be seen in the oratory of the Holy Spirit, in front of the high altar. It contains many horses, and the thieves on the cross, and is considered a very beautiful thing on account of his conception of the nailing to the cross, where there are some figures which vividly express the rage of the Jews, some drawing Him by the legs with a rope, others bringing the sponge, and others in various attitudes, such as Longinus, who pierces His side with the spear, and the three soldiers who are playing for His garments, their faces depicting hope and fear in throwing the dice. The first of these men stands in a constrained attitude awaiting his turn, and is so eager to draw that he apparently does not notice the discomfort; the second is loading the dice-box, and frowns as he looks at the dice, his mouth and eyes open as if from suspicion of fraud, showing clearly to an observant beholder his eagerness to win; the third, who is about to throw the dice, spreads out on the ground with trembling arm the garments, where he shows with a smile that he intends to throw them. On the sides of the church also may be seen some stories of St John the Evangelist, which are executed with such wonderful style and design that they cannot fail to excite astonishment. In the chapel of St Sebastian, next the sacristy in S. Agostino, he did the life of that martyr and the dispute of Christ with the doctors, so well executed and finished that the beauty and variety displayed, as well as the grace of their colouring, are marvellous. In Casentino, in the church of the Sasso del Vernia, he painted in the chapel the scene where S. Francis receives the stigmata. Here Taddeo was assisted in matters of minor importance by Jacopo di Casentino, who thus became his pupil. When this was completed Taddeo returned with Giovanni of Milan to Florence, where in the city and without they made a number of panels and pictures of importance. In the process of time Taddeo acquired so much money that, by steadily saving, he founded the wealth and nobility of his family, being always considered a wise and courteous man. In S. Maria Novella he painted the chapter-house which was allotted to him by the prior of the place, who supplied him with the idea. It is known that, because the work was a great one, and as the chapter-house of S. Spirito was uncovered at the same time as the bridges were building, to the great glory of Simone Memmi who painted it, the prior wished to secure Simone to do half of the work; accordingly he consulted Taddeo, who was very willing to agree to this, since Simone had been a fellow-pupil of Giotto with him, and they had always remained close friends and companions. O truly noble souls to love one another fraternally without emulation, ambition, or envy, so that each rejoiced at the advancement and honour of his friend as if it had been his own. The work was accordingly divided, three sides being allotted to Simone, as I have said in his life, and the left side and the whole of the vaulting to Taddeo, who divided his work into four divisions or quarters, according to the disposition of the vaulting. In the first he made the Resurrection of Christ, in which he apparently endeavours to cause the glorified body to emit light, which is reflected on a city and on some mountain rocks; but he abandoned this device in the figures and in the rest of the composition, possibly because he was not confident of his ability to carry it out, owing to the difficulties which presented themselves. In the second compartment he made Jesus Christ delivering Peter from drowning, when the apostles, who are managing the boat, are certainly very fine, and especially a man who is fishing with a line on the sea-shore (a thing first attempted by Giotto in the mosaic of the _Navicella_ in St Peter's), represented with vigorous and life-like expression. In the third he painted the Ascension of Christ, while the fourth represents the Descent of the Holy Spirit, remarkable for the fine attitudes of the Jews, who are endeavouring to enter the door. On the wall beneath are the seven sciences, with their names, and appropriate figures below each. Grammar habited like a woman is teaching a boy; beneath her sits the writer Donato. Next to Grammar sits Rhetoric, at whose feet is a figure with its two hands resting on books, while it draws a third hand from beneath a mantle and holds it to its mouth. Logic has a serpent in her hand, and is veiled, with Zeno Eleate at her feet reading. Arithmetic holds the table of the Abacus, and under her sits Abraham, its inventor. Music has musical instruments, with Tubal Cain beneath, beating with two hammers upon an anvil, with his ears listening to the sound. Geometry has the quadrant and sextant, with Euclid beneath. Astrology has the sphere of the heavens in her hands, and Atlas under her feet. On the other side sit the seven theological sciences, each one having beneath it a person of an appropriate condition, pope, emperor, king, cardinal, duke, bishop, marquis, etc., the pope being a portrait of Clement V. In the middle, and occupying a higher place, is St Thomas Aquinas, who was master of all these sciences, and certain heretics under his feet, Arius, Sabellius, and Averroes. About him are Moses, Paul, John the Evangelist, and some other figures with the four cardinal virtues, and the three theological ones, in addition to an infinite number of other ideas set forth by Taddeo with no small design and grace, so that this may be considered the best devised and the most finely preserved of all his works. In the same S. Maria Novello, over the transept he did a St Jerome dressed as a cardinal. He held that saint in reverence, choosing him as the protector of his house, and after Taddeo's death his son Agnolo made a tomb for his descendants covered with a marble slab adorned with the arms of the Gaddi under this picture. For these descendants the cardinal Jerome, aided by their merits and the goodness of Taddeo, has obtained from God most distinguished places in the church, such as clerkships of the chamber, bishoprics, cardinalates, provostships, and most honourable knighthoods. The descendants of Taddeo have uniformly valued and encouraged men of genius in painting and sculpture, assisting them to the utmost of their power. At length when Taddeo had reached the age of fifty years, he was seized with a severe fever and passed from this life in the year 1350, leaving Agnolo his son and Giovanni to carry on the painting, recommending them to Jacopo di Casentino for their material well being, and to Giovanni da Milano for instruction in art. This Giovanni, besides many other things, made a picture, after Taddeo's death, which was placed in S. Croce at the altar of St Gherardo da Villamagna, fourteen years after he had been left without his master, and also the high altar picture of Ognissanti, where the Umiliati friars are stationed, a much admired work; and in Assisi he made for the tribune of the high altar a crucifix, Our Lady, and St Clare, and on the side wall stories of Our Lady. He subsequently went to Milan, where he did many works in tempera and in fresco, and at length died there. Now Taddeo always adopted Giotto's style, but did not greatly improve it, except in the colouring, which he made fresher and more vivid. Giotto had made such efforts to overcome other difficulties of this art, that although he considered colouring also, yet it was not granted to him to master this completely. Taddeo, on the other hand, profiting by his master's labours, had an easier task, and was able to add something of his own in improving the colouring. Taddeo was buried by Agnolo and Giovanni his sons in S. Croce, in the first cloister, and in the tomb which he had made for Gaddo his father. He was much honoured in the verses of the learned of the time as a man who had deserved much for his character, and because he had, besides his pictures, successfully completed many structures very useful to his city. In addition to the works already mentioned, he had with care and diligence completed the campanile of S. Maria del Fiore from the design of his master Giotto. This campanile was so constructed that it would be impossible to join stones with more care, or to make a tower which should be finer in the matter of ornament, expense, and design. The epitaph made for Taddeo was as follows: Hoc uno dici poterat Florentia felix Vivente: at certa est non potuisse mori. Taddeo's method of designing was very broad and bold, as may be seen in our book, which contains a drawing by his hand of the scene which he did in the chapel of St Andrew in S. Croce, at Florence. Andrea di Cione Orcagna, Painter, Sculptor, and Architect of Florence. It frequently happens that when a man of genius excels in one thing, he is easily able to learn another, especially such as are similar to his first profession, and which proceed, as it were, from the same source. An example of this is Orcagna of Florence, who was painter, sculptor, architect, and poet, as will be said below. He was born in Florence, and while quite a child began to practise sculpture under Andrea Pisano, and so continued for many years. When he afterwards became desirous of enriching his invention for the purpose of composing beautiful scenes, he carefully studied design, aided as he was by nature, who wished to make him a universal genius, and as one thing leads to another, he practised painting in colours in tempera and fresco, and succeeded so well with the aid of Bernardo Orcagna his brother, that Bernardo himself procured his assistance to do the life of Our Lady in the principal chapel of S. Maria Novella, which then belonged to the family of the Ricci. This work was considered very beautiful, although, owing to the neglect of those who afterwards had charge of it, it was destroyed by water through the breaking of the roof not many years after, and consequently it is restored in its present manner, as will be said in the proper place. Suffice it to say, that Domenico Grillandai, who repainted it, made considerable use of the inventions of Orcagna which were there. In the same church, and in conjunction with his brother Bernardo, Andrea did in fresco the chapel of the Strozzi, which is near the door of the sacristy and the belfry. In this chapel, which is approached by some stone steps, he painted on one wall the glory of Paradise, with all the saints in the various habits and head-dresses of the time. On the other wall he did Hell, with the holes, centres, and other things described by Dante, of whom Andrea was a diligent student. In the church of the Servites, in the same city he painted in fresco, also in conjunction with Bernardo, the chapel of the family of the Cresci, and in S. Pier Maggiore in a picture of considerable size, the Coronation of the Virgin, and another picture in S. Romeo near the side door. He and his brother Bernardo also painted in fresco together the façade of S. Apollinare, with such diligence that the colours are bright and beautiful and marvellously preserved to this day in that exposed place. The governors of Pisa, moved by the renown of these works of Orcagna, which were much admired, sent for him to do a part of the wall in the Campo Santo of that city, as Giotto and Buffalmacco had previously done. Accordingly he put his hand to the work, and painted a Last Judgment, with some fancies of his own, on the wall towards the Duomo, next to the Passion of Christ made by Buffalmacco. In the first scene he represented all ranks of temporal lords enjoying the pleasures of this world, seating them in a flowery meadow under the shadow of many orange trees, forming a most agreeable wood. Above the branches are some cupids, who are flying round and over a number of young women, evidently portraits of noble women and ladies of the day, though they are not recognisable after this lapse of time. The cupids are preparing to transfix the hearts of the ladies, near whom are young men and lords listening to playing and singing and watching the amorous dancing of men and maidens, delighting in the sweetness of their loves. Among these lords Orcagna drew Castruccio, the lord of Lucca, a youth of the most striking aspect, with a blue hood bound about his head and a sparrowhawk on his hand. Near him are other lords of the time, whose identity is not known. In fine, in this first part he represented in a most gracious manner all the delights of the world in accordance with the demands of the place and the requirements of art. On the other side of the same scene he represented, on a high mountain, the life of those who, being moved by penitence for their sins and by the desire of salvation, have escaped from the world to this mountain, which is thus full of holy hermits serving the Lord, and doing various things with very realistic expressions. Some are reading and praying, and are all intent on contemplation; while others are working to earn their living, and are exercising themselves in various activities. Here is a hermit milking a goat in the most vigorous and realistic manner. Below this is St Macario showing to three kings, who are riding to hunt with their ladies and suite, the corpses of three kings, partly consumed in a tomb, emblematic of human misery, and which are regarded with attention by the living kings in fine and varied attitudes, expressive of wonder, and they seem to be reflecting that they themselves must shortly become such. One of these kings is the portrait of Uguccione della Faggiuola of Arezzo, in a figure represented as holding his nose with his hand in order not to smell the odour of the dead kings. In the middle of this scene is Death, flying through the air and clothed in black, while he raises his scythe to take the life of many who are on the earth, of every state and condition, poor, rich, lame, whole, young, old, men, women, and, in short, a multitude of every age and sex. And because Orcagna knew that the invention of Buffalmacco had pleased the Pisans, by which Bruno caused his figures in S. Paolo a ripa d'Arno to speak, making letters issue from their mouths, he has filled all these works of his with such writings, of which the greater number, being destroyed by time, cannot be deciphered. He makes some lame old men say-- Da che prosperitade ci ha lasciati. O morte medecina d'ogni pena Deh vieni a darne omai l'ultima cena, with other words which cannot be made out, and similar lines composed in the old style by Orcagna himself, as I have discovered, for he was addicted to poetry, and wrote some sonnets. About these bodies are some devils, who take their souls out of their mouths and carry them to gulfs full of fire upon the top of a very high mountain. On the other hand, there are some angels who, in like manner, take the souls of the dead, who happen to have been good, out of their mouths, and carry them flying to Paradise. In this scene is a large scroll, held by two angels, containing the following words: Ischermo di savere e di richezza, Di nobilitate ancora e di prodezza, Vale neente ai colpi di costei, with some other words which cannot easily be understood. Underneath in the ornamentation of these scenes are nine angels who hold some words written in the border of the painting, in the vulgar tongue and in Latin, put there because they would spoil the scene if placed higher, and to omit them altogether did not appear fitting to the author, who considered this method very fine, and perhaps it was to the taste of that age. The greater part of these are omitted here in order not to tire the reader with impertinent matter of little interest, and moreover the greater number of the scrolls are obliterated, while the remainder are in a very imperfect condition. After this Orcagna made the Last Judgment. He placed Jesus Christ on high above the clouds in the midst of his twelve Apostles to judge the quick and the dead, exhibiting on the one side, with great art and vigour, the despair of the damned, as they are driven weeping to Hell by furious demons; and on the other side the joy and rejoicing of the elect, who are transported to the right hand side of the blessed by a troop of Angels led by the Archangel Michael. It is truly lamentable that for lack of writers, the names and identity of few or none of these can be ascertained out of such a multitude of magistrates, knights and other lords, who are evidently drawn from life, although the pope there is said to be Innocent IV. the friend of Manfred. After this work and some sculptures in marble executed to his great glory in the Madonna, which is on the side of the Ponte Vecchio, Andrea left his brother Bernardo to work by himself in the Campo Santo at a Hell made according to Dante's description, which was afterwards much damaged in 1530, and restored by Solazzino, a painter of our own day. Meanwhile Andrea returned to Florence, where he painted in fresco in the middle of the Church of S. Croce on a very large wall on the right hand, the same things which he had done in the Campo Santo at Pisa, in three similar pictures, but omitting the scene in which St Macario is showing human wretchedness to the three kings, and the life of the hermits who are serving God on the mountain. But he did all the rest of that work, displaying better design and more diligence than at Pisa, but retaining almost the same methods in the inventions, style, scrolls and the rest, without changing anything except the portraits from life; because in this work he introduced the portraits of some of his dearest friends into his Paradise, while he condemned his enemies to hell. Among the elect may be seen the portrait in profile of Pope Clement VI. with the tiara on his head, who reduced the Jubilee from a hundred to fifty years, was a friend of the Florentines, and possessed some of their paintings which he valued highly. Here also is Maestro Dino del Garbo, then a most excellent physician, clothed after the manner of the doctors of that day with a red cap on his head lined with miniver, while an angel holds him by the hand. There are also many other portraits which have not been identified. Among the damned he drew the Guardi, sergeant of the Commune of Florence, dragged by the devil with a hook. He may be recognised by three red lilies on his white hat, such as were worn by the sergeants and other like officials. Andrea did this because the sergeant had upon one occasion distrained his goods. He also drew there the notary and the judge who were against him in that cause. Next to Guardi is Cecco d'Ascoli, a famous wizard of the time, and slightly above him, and in the middle is a hypocritical friar, who is furtively trying to mingle with the good, while an angel discovers him and thrusts him among the damned. Besides Bernardo, Andrea had another brother called Jacopo, who devoted himself, but with little success, to sculpture. For this brother Andrea had sometimes made designs in relief in clay, and this led him to wish to do some things in marble to see if he remembered that art, which he had studied at Pisa, as has been said. Accordingly he applied himself earnestly to that pursuit, and attained to such a measure of success that he afterwards made use of it with credit, as will be said. He next devoted all his energies to the study of architecture, thinking that he might have occasion to make use of it. Nor was he mistaken, for in the year 1355 the Commune of Florence bought some private houses near the palace to enlarge that building and increase the piazza, and also to make a place where citizens could withdraw in time of rain, and in winter to do under cover the things which were done in the uncovered arcade when bad weather did not interfere. They procured a number of designs for the construction of a large and magnificent loggia near the palace for this purpose as well as for a mint for coining money. Among these designs prepared by the best masters of the city, that of Orcagna was universally approved and accepted as being larger, finer and more magnificent than the others, and the large loggia of the piazza was begun under his direction by order of the Signoria and Commune, upon foundations laid in the time of the Duke of Athens, and was carried forward with much diligence in squared stones excellently laid. The arches of the vaults were constructed in a manner new for that time, not being pointed as had previously been customary, but in half circles after a new pattern, with much grace and beauty, and the building was completed under Andrea's direction in a short time. If it had occurred to him to erect it next to S. Romolo and to turn its back towards the north, which he perhaps omitted to do in order that it should be convenient for the door of the palace, it would have been a most useful construction for all the city, as it is a most beautiful piece of work, whereas it is impossible to remain there in winter owing to the strong wind. In the decoration of this loggia Orcagna made seven marble figures in half relief between the arches of the façade representing the seven virtues, theological and cardinal. These are so fine, that taken in conjunction with the whole work they prove their author to have been an excellent sculptor as well as a distinguished painter and architect. Besides this he was in all his deeds a pleasant, well-bred and amiable man so that his fellow was never seen. And since he never abandoned the study of one of his three professions when he took up another, he painted a picture in tempera with many small figures while the loggia was building, and a predella of small figures for that chapel of the Strozzi where his brother Bernardo had already done some things in fresco. On this picture he wrote his name thus: _Anno Domini MCCCLVII Andreas Cionis de Florentia me pinxit_, being of opinion that it would exhibit his powers to better advantage than his works in fresco could. When this was finished he did some paintings on a panel which were sent to the pope to Avignon, in the cathedral church of which they still remain. Shortly afterwards, the men of the company of Orsanmichele, having collected a quantity of money of alms and goods given to the Madonna there on account of the mortality of 1348, they decided that they would make about her a chapel or tabernacle richly adorned not only with marble carved in every manner and with other stones of price, but also with mosaic and ornaments of bronze, the best that could be desired, so that in workmanship and material it should surpass every other work produced up to that day. The execution of this was entrusted to Orcagna as being the foremost man of the age. He made a number of designs, one of which was chosen by the directors of the work as being the best of all. Accordingly the task was allotted to him and everything was committed to his judgment and counsel. He and his brother undertook to do all the figures, giving the rest to various masters from other countries. On the completion of the work, he caused it to be built up and joined together very carefully without lime, the joints, being of lead and copper so that the shining and polished marbles should not be blemished. This proved so successful and has been of such use and honour to those who came after him, that it appears to an observer that the chapel is hollowed out of a single piece of marble, so excellently are parts welded together, thanks to this device of Orcagna. Although in the German style its grace and proportions are such that it holds the first place among the things of the time, owing chiefly to the excellent composition of its great and small figures and of the angels and prophets in half-relief about the Madonna. The casting of the carefully polished bronze ornaments which surround it is marvellous, for they encircle the whole work, enclose it and bind it together, so that this part is as remarkable for its strength as the other parts are for their beauty. But he devoted the highest powers of his genius to the scene in half-relief on the back of the tabernacle, representing in figures of a braccia and a half, the twelve apostles looking up at the Madonna ascending to heaven in a mandorla, surrounded by angels. He represented himself in marble as one of the apostles, an old man, clean shaven, a hood wound round his head, with a flat round face as shown in his portrait above, which it taken from this. On the base he wrote these words in the marble: _Andreas Cionis pictor florentinus oratorii archimagister extitit hujus, MCCCLIX_. It appears that the erection of the loggia and of the marble tabernacle, with all the workmanship involved cost 96,000 gold florins, which were very well expended, because in architecture, in sculpture and other ornaments they are comparable in beauty with any other work of the time, without exception, and so excellent as to assure to the name of Andrea Orcagna immortality and greatness. In signing his paintings he used to write Andrea di Clone, sculptor, and on his sculptures, Andrea di Cione, painter, wishing his sculpture to recommend his painting and his painting his sculpture. Florence is full of his paintings, some of which may be recognised by the name, such as those in S. Romeo, and some by his style, like that in the chapter-house of the monastery of the Angeli. Some which he left imperfect were finished by his brother Bernardo, who survived him, though not for many years. Andrea, as I have said, amused himself in making verses and other poems, and when he was an old man he wrote some sonnets to Burchiello, then a youth. At length at the age of sixty he completed the course of his life in 1389, and was borne with honour to burial from his house in the via Vecchia de' Corazzai. In the days of the Orcagna there were many who were skilful in sculpture and architecture, whose names are unknown, but their works show that they are worthy of high praise and commendation. An example of such work is the Monastery of the Certosa of Florence, erected at the cost of the noble family of the Acciaiuoli, and particularly of M. Niccola, Grand Seneschal of the King of Naples, containing Niccola's tomb with his effigy in stone, and those of his father and a sister, both of whose portraits in the marble were made from life in the year 1366. There also and by the same hand may be seen the tomb of M. Lorenzo, Niccola's son, who died at Naples, arid was brought to Florence and buried there with most honourable obsequies. Similarly the tomb of the Cardinal S. Croce of the same family, which is before the high altar in a choir then newly built, contains his portrait in a marble stone very well executed in the year 1390. The pupils of Andrea in painting were Bernardo Nello di Giovanni Falconi of Pisa, who did a number of pictures for the Duomo of Pisa, and Tommaso di Marco of Florence, who, besides many other things, painted a picture in the year 1392, which is in S. Antonio at Pisa on the screen of the church. After Andrea's death, his brother Jacopo, who, as has been said, professed sculpture and architecture, was employed in the year 1328 in building the tower and gate of S. Pietro Gattolini, and it is said that the four gilded stone lions at the four corners of the principal palace of Florence are by his hand. This work incurred no little censure, because it was placed there without reason, and was perhaps a greater weight than was safe. Many would have preferred the lions to have been made of copper gilded over and hollow inside, and then set up in the same place, when they would have been much less heavy and more durable. It is said that the horse in relief in S. Maria del Fiore at Florence is by the same hand. It is gilded, and stands over the door leading to the oratory of S. Zanobi. It is believed to be a monument to Pietro Farnese, captain of the Florentines, but as I know nothing more of the matter I cannot assert this positively. At the same time Andrea's nephew Mariotto made a Paradise in fresco for S. Michel Bisdomini in the via de' Servi at Florence, over the altar, and another picture with many figures for Mona Cecilia de' Boscoli, which is in the same church near the door. But of all Orcagna's pupils none excelled Francesco Traini, who executed for a lord of the house of Coscia, buried at Pisa in the chapel of St Dominic in the church of S. Caterina, a St Dominic on a panel on a gold ground, with six scenes from his life surrounding him, very vigorous and life-like and excellently coloured. In the chapel of St Thomas Aquinas in the same church he made a picture in tempera, with delightful invention, and which is much admired. He introduced a figure of St Thomas seated, from life; I say from life because the friars of the place brought a portrait of him from the abbey of Fossanuova, where he had died in 1323. St Thomas is seated in the air with some books in his hand, illuminating with their rays and splendour the Christian people; kneeling below him are a large number of doctors and clerks of every condition, bishops, cardinals and popes, including the portrait of Pope Urban VI. Under the saint's feet are Sabellius, Arius, Averroes, and other heretics and philosophers with their books all torn. On either side of St Thomas are Plato, showing the Timæus, and Aristotle pointing to his Ethics. Above is Jesus Christ, also in the air, with the four Evangelists about him. He is blessing St Thomas, and apparently sending the Holy Spirit upon him, filling him therewith and with His grace. On the completion of this work Francesco Traini acquired great name and fame, for he had far surpassed his master Andrea in colouring, in unity, and in invention. Andrea was very careful in his designs, as may be seen in our book. Tommaso called Giottino, painter of Florence. When there is emulation among the arts which are based on design and when artists work in competition with each other there is no doubt that men's abilities, being stimulated by constant study, discover new things every day to satisfy the varied tastes of man. Thus in painting, some introduce obscure and eccentric things into their work and by a mastery of the difficulties display the brightness of their talent in the midst of darkness. Others employ themselves on soft and delicate things conceiving that these should be more pleasing to the eye of the beholder; so that they pleasantly attract the greater number of men. Others again paint smoothly, softening the colours and confining the lights and shades of the figures to their places, for which they merit the highest praise, displaying their intention with wonderful skill. This smooth style is always apparent in the works of Tommaso di Stefano, called Giottino, who was born in the year 1324, and after he had learned the elements of painting from his father, he resolved while still a youth, that he would most carefully imitate Giotto's style rather than that of Stefano. He succeeded so well in this that he won thereby in addition to the style, which was much finer than his master's, the nickname of Giottino, which he always retained. Hence many, misled by his manner and name, believed him to be Giotto's son, but they fell into a very great error, for it is certain, or rather highly probable (since no one can affirm such things absolutely), that he was the son of Stefano, painter of Florence. Tommaso was so diligent in painting and so fond of it, that although not many of his works have been found, yet those which are extant are good and in excellent style. For the draperies, hair, beards, and other details are executed and composed with such grace and care that they prove him to have possessed a far better idea of unity in art than was to be found in the works of Giotto, master of Stefano his father. In his youth Giottino painted in S. Stefano at the Ponte Vecchio at Florence, a chapel by the side door, and although it has suffered a great deal from the damp, yet enough remains to prove the skill and genius of the craftsman. He next did SS. Cosmo and Damian beside the mills in the Frati Ermini, of which but little can now be seen owing to the ravages of time. He did a chapel in fresco in the old S. Spirito of that city, which was afterwards destroyed at the burning of that church. Over the principal door of the same church he painted in fresco the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and on the piazza of the church, leading to the side of the Cuculia, next the convent, he did the tabernacle which may still be seen there, with Our Lady and other saints about her, who in their heads and other parts approach very closely to the modern style, because Tommaso endeavoured to vary and change the flesh tints and to combine a graceful and judicious treatment of the figures with variety in the colouring and in the draperies. In the chapel of St Silvester at S. Croce he did the history of Constantine with great care, with many fine ideas in the gestures of the figures. His next work was to be placed behind a marble ornament made for the tomb of M. Bettino de' Bardi, a man of eminent military rank of the time. He represented him from life, in armour, rising on his knees from the tomb, summoned by the Last Trump sounded by two angels who accompany a Christ in the clouds, very well done. At the entrance to S. Pancrazio, on the right hand side, he did a Christ carrying the cross, and some saints near, markedly in Giotto's style. In S. Gallo, a convent outside the gate of that name, and which was destroyed at the siege, he painted a Pieta in fresco in a cloister, a copy of which is in S. Pancrazio mentioned above, on a pilaster beside the principal chapel. He painted SS. Cosmo and Damian in fresco in S. Maria Novella at the chapel of St Lorenzo de' Giuochi, at the entry of the church by the right hand door, on the front wall. In Ognissanti he did a St Christopher and a St George, which were ruined by bad weather and were restored by some ignorant painters. An uninjured work of Tommaso in the same church is in the tympanum over the sacristy door, which contains a Madonna in fresco, with the child in her arms; it is a good thing as he took pains with it. By means of these works Giottino acquired so much renown, imitating his master, as I have said, both in design and in inventions, that the spirit of Giotto himself was said to be in him, owing to the freshness of his colouring and to his skill in design. Now, on 2nd July 1343, when the Duke of Athens was hunted from Florence, and had by oath renounced the government and rendered the Florentines their liberty, Giottino was constrained by the Twelve Reformers of the State, and especially by the prayers of M. Agnolo Acciaiuoli, then a very distinguished citizen, who had great influence over him, to paint on the tower of the Podesta Palace the duke and his followers, M. Ceritieri Visdomini, M. Maladiasse, his Conservator and M. Ranieri da S. Gimignano, all with mitres of Justice on their heads, represented thus shamefully as a sign of contempt. About the duke's head he painted many beasts of prey and other sorts, indicative of his nature and quality; and one of these counsellors had in his hand the palace of the priors of the city, which he was offering to the duke, like a false traitor. Beneath everyone of them were the arms and insignia of their families, with inscriptions which can now only be read with difficulty owing to the ravages of time. This work, because it was well designed and very carefully executed, gave universal satisfaction, and the method of the artist pleased everyone. He next made a St Cosmo and a St Damian at the Campora, a place of the black monks outside the gate of S. Piero Gattolini. These were afterwards destroyed in whitewashing the church. On the bridge at Romiti in Valdarno he did the tabernacle which is built in the middle, painting it in fresco in a very fine style. It is recorded by many writers that Tommaso practised sculpture, and did a marble figure four braccia high for the campanile of S. Maria del Fiore at Florence, towards the place where the orphan asylum now stands. At Rome again he successfully completed a scene in S. John Lateran in which he represented the pope in various dignities, but the painting is now much damaged and eaten by time. In the house of the Orsini he did a hall full of famous men, and a very fine St Louis on a pilaster at Araceli, on the right-hand side at the high altar. Above the pulpit in the lower church of S. Francesco at Assisi, that being the only place left undecorated, he painted a coronation of Our Lady, in an arch, surrounded by many angels, so graceful, with such beautiful faces, so soft and so delicate, exhibiting that union of colours customary in the artist, and which constitutes his peculiar excellence, that he may clearly be compared with any of his predecessors. About this arch he did some stories of St Nicholas. Similarly, in the middle of the church, in the monastery of S. Chiara, in the same city, he painted a scene in fresco of St Clare, upheld in the air by two angels, represented with much life, raising a dead child, whilst many beautiful women standing about are filled with amazement, all being dressed in very graceful costumes of the time. In the same city of Assisi, in an arch over the inside of the city door which leads to the Duomo, he did a Madonna and child with so much care that she seems alive, and a very fine St Francis, with other saints. These two works, although the scene with St Clare is unfinished, for Tommaso returned sick to Florence, are perfect and worthy of all praise. It is said that Tommaso was a melancholy and solitary man, but very diligent and fond of his art. This is clearly shown in a picture of his in tempera in the church of S. Romeo at Florence, placed on the screen on the right-hand side, for nothing was ever better done on wood. It represents a dead Christ with Mary and Nicodemus, accompanied with other figures, who are weeping bitterly for the dead. Their gentleness and sweetness are remarkable as they twist their hands and beat themselves, showing in their faces the bitter sorrow that our sins should cost so dear. It is a marvellous thing, not that Tommaso could rise to this height of imagination, but that he could express his thought so well with his brush. Consequently this work deserves the highest praise, not so much because of the subject and conception as for the art in which he exhibited the heads of some who are weeping, for although the brows, eyes, nose and mouth are distorted by the emotion, yet this does not mar or destroy the beauty of his faces, which usually suffers much at the hands of those who represent weeping if they are not versed in the good methods of art. But it is no wonder that Giottino was so successful with this picture, because the object of all his labour was rather fame and glory than any other reward or desire of gain, which causes the masters of our own time to be less careful and good. Not only Tommaso did not endeavour to acquire great wealth, but he went without many of the comforts of life, living in poverty, seeking rather to please others than to live at ease; so managing badly and working hard, he died of phthisis at the age of thirty-two, and was buried by his relations outside S. Maria Novella at the gate of Martello, near the tomb of Bontura. The pupils of Giottino, who left more fame than property, were Giovanni Tossicani of Arezzo, Michelino, Giovanni dal Ponte, and Lippo, who were meritorious masters of the art. Giovanni Tossicani excelled the others, and after Tommaso's death he executed many works in that same style, in all Tuscany, and particularly in the Pieve of Arezzo, where he did the chapel of St Maria Maddalena of the Tuccerelli, and in the Pieve of Empoli, where he did a St James on a pilaster. Again, he did some things in the Duomo at Pisa, which were afterwards removed to make way for modern works. His last work was executed in a chapel of the Vescovado of Arezzo, for the Countess Giovanna, wife of Tarlato di Pietramala, and represented an Annunciation, with St James and St Philip. As this work was on a wall, the back of which is exposed to the north, it was almost destroyed by the damp, when Master Agnolo di Lorenzo of Arezzo restored the Annunciation, and Giorgio Vasari, then a youth, restored the SS. James and Philip, to his great advantage, as he learnt a great deal which he had not been able to obtain from other masters, by observing Giovanni's methods, and from the shadows and colours of this work, damaged as it was. The following words of the epitaph to the Countess, who caused the work to be done, may still be read: Anno Domini 1335 de mense Augusti hanc capellam constitui fecit nobilis Domina comitissa Joanna de Sancta Flora uxor nobilis militis Domini Tarlati de Petramela ad honorem Beatæ Mariæ Virginis. I make no mention of the works of the other pupils of Giottino, because they are quite ordinary and bear little resemblance to those of their master and of Giovanni Tossicani, their fellow-pupil. Tommaso drew very well, as appears by some sheets by his hand which are in our book, which are very carefully executed. Giovanni da Ponte, Painter of Florence. Although the old proverb that a bon vivant never lacks means is untrue and unworthy of confidence, the contrary being the case, since a man who does not live within his means comes at last to live in want, and dies in misery; yet it sometimes happens that Fortune rather assists those who throw away without reserve than those who are orderly and careful in all things. When the favour of Fortune is wanting, Death frequently repairs the defect and remedies the consequences of men's thoughtlessness, for it comes at the very moment when they would begin to realise, with sorrow, how wretched a thing it is to have squandered everything when young to pass one's age on shortened means in poverty and toil. This would have been the fate of Giovanni da S. Stefano a Ponte of Florence, if, after he had devoured his patrimony as well as the gains which came into his hand, rather through good fortune than by his desserts, and some legacies which came to him from unexpected quarters, he had not reached the end of his life at the very time when he had exhausted his means. He was a pupil of Buonamico Buffalmacco, and imitated his master more in following worldly pleasures than in endeavouring to make himself a skilful painter. He was born in the year 1307, and was Buffalmacco's pupil in his youth. He executed his first works in fresco in the Pieve of Empoli in the chapel of St Laurence, painting many scenes from the life of that saint with such care, that so good a beginning was considered to promise much better things in the future. Accordingly he was invited in the year 1344 to Arezzo, where he did an Assumption in a chapel in S. Francesco. Being in some credit in that city, for lack of other artists, he next painted in the Pieve the chapel of St Onofrio and that of St Anthony, ruined to-day by the damp. He left other paintings in S. Giustina and S. Matteo, which were pulled down with the churches when Duke Cosimo was fortifying the city. Almost on this very spot, near S. Giustina, at the foot of the abutment of an ancient bridge, at the point where the river enters the city, they there found a fine marble head of Appius Ciccus, and one of his son, with an ancient epitaph, which are now in the Duke's wardrobe. When Giovanni returned to Florence, at the time when the middle arch of the Ponte a S. Trinita was being completed, he decorated a chapel built on a pile, and dedicated to St Michael the Archangel, an ancient and beautiful building, doing many figures, both inside and out, and the whole of the principal front. This chapel was carried away, together with the bridge, in the flood of 1557. Some assert that he owed his name of Giovanni dal Ponte to these works. In Pisa, in the year 1335, he did some scenes in fresco behind the altar in the principal chapel of St Paolo a ripa d'Arno, which are now ruined by damp and time. Another work of his is the chapel of the Scali in S. Trinita at Florence, and another beside it, as well as one of the stories of St Paul beside the principal chapel, which contains the tomb of Maestro Paolo, the astrologer. In S. Stefano, at the Ponte Vecchio, he did a panel and other paintings in tempera and fresco for Florence and elsewhere, which won him considerable renown. He was beloved by his friends, but rather in his pleasures than in his labours, and he was a friend of men of letters, and especially of all those who were studying his own art in the hope of excelling in it; and although he had not troubled to acquire for himself what he desired for others, he never ceased to advise others to work diligently. At length, when he had lived fifty-nine years, he departed this life in a few days in consequence of a disorder of the chest. Had he lived a little longer, he would have suffered much inconvenience, as there remained hardly sufficient in his house to afford him decent burial in S. Stefano dal Ponte Vecchio. His works were executed about 1345. Our book of designs of various ancient and modern masters contains a water-colour by Giovanni representing St George on horseback killing a serpent; also a skeleton, the two affording an excellent illustration of his method and his style in designing. Agnolo Gaddi, Painter of Florence. The virtue and husbandry of Taddeo Gaddi afford an excellent illustration of the advantages and honours accruing from excellence in a noble art, for by his industry and labour he provided a considerable property, and left the affairs of his family so ordered that when he passed to the other life his sons Agnolo and Giovanni were enabled without difficulty to lay the foundations of the vast wealth and distinction of the house of Gaddi, which is now amongst the noblest in Florence and of high repute in all Christendom. Indeed it was no more than reasonable, after Gaddo, Taddeo, Agnolo and Giovanni had adorned with their art and talents so many considerable churches, that their descendants should be decorated with the highest ecclesiastical dignities by the Holy Roman Church and her Pontiffs. Taddeo, whose life we have already written, left two sons, Agnolo and Giovanni, among his many pupils, and he hoped that Agnolo in particular would attain to considerable excellence in painting. But although Agnolo when a youth promised to far surpass his father, he did not realise the good opinions which were then formed about him. Being born and brought up in ease, which is often a hindrance to application, he was more devoted to trading and commerce than to the art of painting. This is no new or strange circumstance, for avarice almost invariably proves a bar to those geniuses who would have attained the summit of their powers, had not the desire of gain stood in their way in their first and best years. In his youth Andrea did a small scene for S. Jacopo tra fossi at Florence, in figures of little more than a braccia high, representing the Resurrection of Lazarus, who had been four days dead. Considering the corrupt state of the body, which had been in the tomb three days, he presented the grave clothes bound about him as soiled by the putrefaction of the flesh, and certain livid and yellowish marks in the flesh about the eyes, between quick and dead, very well considered. He also shows the astonishment of the disciples and other figures, who in varied and remarkable attitudes are holding their garments to their noses so as not to smell the stench of the corrupt body, and exhibit every shade of fear and terror at this marvellous event, as well as the joy and delight of Mary and Martha at seeing the dead body of their brother return to life. This work was deemed so excellent that there were many who thought that the talents of Andrea would prove superior to those of all the pupils of Taddeo and even to those of the master himself. But the event proved otherwise, for as in youth will conquers every difficulty in the effort after fame, so it often happens that the years bring with them a certain heedlessness which causes men to go backwards instead of forwards, as was the case with Agnolo. Owing to the high repute of his ability, the family of the Soderini, expecting a great deal, allotted to him the principal chapel of the Carmine, where he painted the whole of the life of Our Lady, but in a style so inferior to the Resurrection of Lazarus that anyone could perceive that he had little desire to devote all his energies to the study of painting. In the whole of this great work there is not more than a single good scene, namely, that in which Our Lady is in an apartment surrounded by a number of maidens, whose habits and headdresses vary according to the divers customs of the time, and who are engaged in various employments, some spinning, some sewing, some winding silk, and some weaving and doing other things, all very well conceived and executed by Agnolo. Similarly in painting in fresco the principal chapel of the church of S. Croce for the noble family of the Alberti, he represented the incidents which took place on the finding of the Cross, executing the work with much skill, though it is somewhat lacking in design, the colouring alone being meritorious. He succeeded much better afterwards in some other paintings in fresco in the chapel of the Bardi, and in some stories of St Louis in the same church. He worked capriciously, sometimes with great care and sometimes with little. Thus in S. Spirito at Florence, where he did the inside of a door leading from the piazza to the convent, and above another door a Madonna and child, with St Augustine and St Nicholas, all in fresco--they are all so well done that they look as if they had been painted yesterday. The secret of working in mosaic had as it were descended to Agnolo by inheritance, and in his house he had the instruments and other apparatus used by his grandfather Gaddo; accordingly to para the time, and for one reason or another, he did some things in mosaic when he had the whim. Thus since many of the marble facings of the exterior of S. Giovanni were wasted by time, and as the damp had pierced through and done considerable injury to the mosaics previously executed there by Andrea Tafi, the Consuls of the Art of the Merchants proposed to restore the greater part of this marble covering, in order that no further damage should be done, and also to repair the mosaics. The commission for this was given to Agnolo, and in the year 1346 he caused the building to be covered with new marble, overlaying the joints to a distance of two fingers with great care, notching the half of each stone as far as the middle. He then cemented them together with a mixture of mastic and wax, and completed the whole with such care that from that time forward neither the vaulting nor the roof has ever suffered any harm from the water. His subsequent restoration of the mosaics led by his advice to the reconstruction from his well-devised plans of the whole of the cornice of the church above the marble, under the roof, in its present form, whereas it was originally much smaller and by no means remarkable. He also directed the construction of the vaulting for the hall of the Podesta palace, where an ordinary roof had formerly existed, so that in addition to the added beauty which it gave the room, it rendered it proof against damage by fire, which it had frequently suffered before. By his advice the present battlements were added to the palace, where nothing of the kind had previously existed. While these works were proceeding, he did not entirely abandon painting, but executed in tempera a picture of Our Lady for the high altar of S. Pancrazio, with St John the Baptist, St John the Evangelist, the brothers St Nereus, Achilleus, and Prancrazius, and other saints hard by. But the best part of this work, and indeed the only part of it which is really good, is the predella filled with small figures, divided into eight scenes dealing with the Madonna and St Reparata. Subsequently in a picture for the high altar of S. Maria Novella at Florence, executed for Barone Capelli in 1348, he made a very fair group of angels about a Coronation of the Virgin. Shortly afterwards he painted in fresco a series of subjects from the life of the Virgin in the Pieve of Prato, which had been rebuilt under the direction of Giovanni Pisano in 1312, as has been said above, in the chapel where Our Lady's girdle was deposited, and he did a number of other works in other churches of that same country which is full of very considerable monasteries and convents. In Florence he next painted the arch over the gate of S. Romeo, and in Orto S. Michele did in tempera a Christ disputing with the doctors in the temple. At the same time for the enlargement of the piazza of the Signori a large number of buildings was pulled down, and notably the church of S. Romolo, which was rebuilt from Agnolo's plans. In the churches of this city many pictures by his hand may be seen, and a quantity of his works may be met with in the lordship. These he produced with great advantage to himself, although he worked rather for the sake of following in the steps of his ancestors than from any inclination of his own; for he had devoted all his attention to trading, which was of great service to him, as appeared when his sons, who did not wish to live by painting any longer, devoted themselves entirely to commerce, opening an establishment at Venice in conjunction with their father, who after a certain time abandoned painting altogether, only to take it up as an amusement and pastime. By dint of trading and practising his art, Agnolo had amassed considerable wealth when he came to die in the sixty-third year of his life, succumbing to a malignant fever which carried him off in a few days. His pupils were Maestro Antonio da Ferrara, who did many fine works in Urbino and at Citta di Castello, and Stefano da Verona, who painted with the greatest perfection in fresco, as may be seen in several places in his native Verona, and at Mantua, where his works are numerous. Among other things he excelled in beautifully rendering the expressions of the faces of children, women and old men, as his works show, which were all imitated and copied by that Piero da Perugia, miniature painter, who illuminated all the books in the library of Pope Pius in the Duomo of Siena, and who was a skilful colourist in fresco. Other pupils of Agnolo were Michaele da Milano and his own brother Giovanni, who in the cloister of S. Spirito, where the arches of Gaddo and Taddeo are, painted the dispute of Christ with the doctors in the temple, the Purification of the Virgin, the Temptation of Christ in the wilderness, and the baptism of John, but after having given rise to the highest expectations he died. Cennino di Drea Cennini da Colle of Valdelsa also learned painting from Andrea. He was very fond of his art and wrote a book describing the methods of working in fresco, in tempera, in glue and in gum, and also how to illuminate and all the ways of laying on gold. This book is in the possession of Giuliano, goldsmith of Siena, an excellent master and fond of that art. The first part of the book deals with the nature of colours, both minerals and earths, as he had learned it of Agnolo his master. As he did not perhaps succeed in painting with perfection, he was at least anxious to know the peculiarities of the colours, the temperas, the glues and of chalks, and what colours one ought to avoid mixing as injurious, and in short many other hints which I need not dilate upon, since all these matters, which he then considered very great secrets, are now universally known. But I must not omit to note that he makes no mention of some earth colours, such as dark terra rossa, cinnabar and some greens in glass, perhaps because they were not in use. In like manner umber, yellow-lake, the smalts in fresco and in oil, and some greens and yellows in glass which the painters of that age lacked, have since been discovered. The end of the treatise deals with mosaics, with the grinding of colours in oil to make red, blue, green and other kinds of grounds, and with mordants for the application of gold but not at that time for figures. Besides the works which he produced with his master in Florence, there is a Madonna with saints by his hand under the loggia of the hospital of Bonifazio Lupi, of such style and colouring that it has been very well preserved up to the present day. In the first chapter of his book Cennino says these words in speaking of himself: "I, Cennino di Drea Cennini da Colle of Valdelsa, was instructed in this art for twelve years by Agnolo di Taddeo of Florence, my master, who learned the art of his father Taddeo, whose godfather was Giotto and who was Giotto's pupil for twenty-four years. This Giotto transmuted the art of painting from Greek into Latin, and modernised it, and it is certain that he gave more pleasure than any one else had ever done." These are Cennino's very words, by which it appears that as those who translate from Greek into Latin render a very great service to those who do not understand Greek, so Giotto, in transmuting the art of painting from a style which was understood by no one, except perhaps as being extremely rude, into a beautiful, facile, and smooth manner, known and understood by all people of taste who possess the slightest judgment, conferred a great benefit upon mankind. All these pupils of Agnolo did him the greatest credit. He was buried by his sons, to whom he is said to have left the value of 50,000 florins or more, in S. Maria Novella, in the tomb which he had made for himself and his descendants, in the year 1387. The portrait of Agnolo by his own hand may be seen in the chapel of the Alberti in S. Croce in the scene in which the Emperor Heraclius is bearing the cross; he is painted in profile standing beside a door. He wears a small beard and has a red hood on his head, after the manner of the time. He was not a good draughtsman, according to the evidence of some sheets from his hand which are in our book. Berna, Painter of Siena. If the thread of life of those who take pains to excel in some noble profession was not frequently cut off by death in the best years, there is no doubt that many geniuses would attain the goal desired by them and by the world. But the short life of man and the bitterness of the various accidents which intervene on every hand sometimes deprive us too early of such men. An example of this was poor Berna of Siena, who died while quite young, although the nature of his works would lead one to believe that he had lived very long, for he left such excellent productions that it is probable, had he not died so soon, he would have become a most excellent and rare artist. Two of his works may be seen in Siena in two chapels of S. Agostino, being some small scenes of figures in fresco, and in the church on a wall which has recently been demolished to make chapels there, a scene of a young man led to punishment, of the highest imaginable excellence, the representation of pallor and of the fear of death being so realistic that it merits the warmest admiration. Beside the youth is a friar who is consoling him, with excellent gestures, and in fine the entire scene is executed with such vigour as to leave no doubt that Berna had penetrated deeply into the horror of that situation, full of bitter and cold fear, since he was able to represent it so well with the brush that the actual event passing before one's eyes could not move one more. In Cortona, besides many things scattered up and down the city, he painted the greater part of the vaulting and walls of the church of S. Margherita where the Zoccolanti friars now are. From Cortona he proceeded to Arezzo in the year 1369, at the very time when the Tarlati, formerly lords of Pietramela, had finished the convent and church of S. Agostino, under the direction of Moccio, sculptor and architect of Siena. In the aisles of this building where many citizens had erected chapels and tombs for their families, Berna painted in fresco in the chapel of St James, some scenes from the life of that saint. Among these the most remarkable is the story of the cozener Marino, who through love of gain had contracted his soul to the devil and then recommended his soul to St James, begging him to free him from his promise, whilst a devil shows him the deed and makes a great disturbance. Berna expresses the emotions of all these figures with great vigour, especially in the face of Marino, who is divided between his fear and his faith and confidence in St James, although he sees the marvellously ugly devil against him, employing all his eloquence to convince the saint. St James, after he has brought Marino to a thorough penitence for his sin, promises him immunity, delivers him and brings him back to God. According to Lorenzo Ghiberti, Berna reproduced this story in S. Spirito at Florence before it was burned, in a chapel of the Capponi dedicated to St Nicholas. After these works Berna painted a large crucifix in a chapel of the Vescovado of Arezzo for M. Guccio di Vanni Tarlati of Pietramela, with Our Lady at the foot of the cross, St John the Baptist, St Francis la a very sad attitude, and St Michael the archangel, with such care that he deserves no small praise, especially as it is so well preserved that it might have been made yesterday. At the foot of the cross, lower down, is the portrait of Guccio himself, in armour and kneeling. In the Pieve of the same city he did a number of stories of Our Lady for the chapel of the Paganelli, and there drew from life a portrait of St Ranieri, a holy man and prophet of that house, who is giving alms to a crowd of poor people surrounding him. Again in S. Bartolommeo he painted some scenes from the Old Testament and the story of the Magi, and in the church of S. Spirito he did some stories of St John the Evangelist, drawing his own portrait and those of many of his noble friends of the city in some figures there. When these labours were completed he returned to his native city and did many pictures on wood, both small and great. But he did not remain there long, because he was invited to Florence to decorate the chapel of St Nicholas in S. Spirito, as mentioned above, and which was greatly admired, as well as to do some other things which perished in the unfortunate fire at that church. In the Pieve of S. Gimignano di Valdelsa he did in fresco some scenes from the New Testament. When he was on the point of completing these things he fell to the ground from the scaffolding, suffering such severe injuries that he expired in two days, by which art suffered a greater loss than he, for he passed to a better sphere. The people of S. Gimignano gave him honourable burial in that Pieve, with stately obsequies, having the same regard for him when dead as they had entertained for him while alive, while for many months they were constantly affixing to the tomb epitaphs in the Latin and vulgar tongues, for the people of those parts take a natural pleasure in _belles lettres_. This then was the fitting reward of the honourable labours of Berna, that those whom he had honoured with his paintings should celebrate him with their pens. Giovanni da Asciano, who was a pupil of Berna, completed his work and did some pictures for the hospital of the Scala at Siena. In Florence also he did some things in the old houses of the Medici, by which he acquired a considerable reputation. The works of Berna of Siena were produced about 1381. Besides what we have already said, he was a fairly facile draughtsman and the first who began to draw animals well, as we see by some sheets by his hand in our book, covered with wild beasts of various parts, so that he merits the highest praise and that his name should be honoured among artists. Another pupil of his was Luca di Tome of Siena who painted many works in Siena and in all Tuscany, but especially the picture and chapel of the Dragomanni in S. Domenico at Arezzo. The chapel is in the German style and was very handsomely decorated by that picture and by the frescoes executed there by the skill and talent of Luda of Siena. Duccio, Painter of Siena. There is do doubt that those who invent anything noteworthy occupy the greatest share of the attention of historians, The reason for this is that original inventors are more noticed and excite more wonder, because new things always possess a greater charm than improvements subsequently introduced to perfect them. For if no one ever made a beginning, there would never be any advance or improvement, and the full achievement of marvellous beauty would never be attained. Accordingly Duccio, a much esteemed painter of Siena, is worthy to receive the praise of those who have followed him many years after, since in the pavement of the Duomo of Siena he initiated the treatment in marble of figures in chiaroscuro, in which modern artists have performed such wonders in these days. Duccio devoted himself to the imitation of the old style and very judiciously gave the correct forms to his figures, overcoming the difficulty presented by such an art. Imitating the paintings in chiaroscuro, he designed the first part of the pavement with his own hand; and painted a picture in the Duomo which was then put at the high altar and afterwards removed to make room for the tabernacle of the body of Christ which is now seen there. According to Lorenzo di Bartolo Ghiberti, this picture was a Coronation of Our Lady, very much in the Byzantine style, though mingled with much that is modern. It was painted on both sides, as the altar stood out by itself, and on the back Duccio had with great care painted all the principal incidents of the New Testament in some very fine small figures. I have endeavoured to discover the whereabouts of the picture at the present time, but although I have taken the utmost pains in the search, I have not succeeded in finding it or of learning what Francesco di Giorgio the sculptor did with it, when he restored the tabernacle in bronze as well as the marble ornaments there. At Siena Duccio did many pictures on a gold ground and an Annunciation for S. Trinita, Florence. He afterwards painted many things at Pisa, Lucca and Pistoia for different churches, which were all much admired and brought him much reputation and profit. The place of his death is not known, nor are we aware what relations, pupils or property he left. It is enough that he left to art the inheritance of his inventions in painting, marble and chiaroscuro, for which he is worthy of the highest commendation and praise. He may safely be enumerated among the benefactors who have increased the dignity and beauty of our craft, and those who pursue investigations into the difficulties of rare inventions, deserve a special place in our remembrance for this cause apart from their marvellous productions. It is said at Siena that in 1348 Duccio designed the chapel which is on the piazza in front of the principal palace. It is also recorded that another native of Siena called Moccio, flourished at the same time. He was a fair sculptor and architect and did many works in every part of Tuscany, but chiefly at Arezzo in the Church of S. Domenico, where he made a marble tomb for of the Cerchi. This tomb supports and decorates the organ of that church, and if some object that it is not a work of high excellence, I reply that it must be considered a very fair production seeing that he made it in the year 1356 while quite a youth. He was employed on the work of S. Maria del Fiore as under architect and as sculptor, doing some things in marble for that structure. In Arezzo he rebuilt the Church of S. Agostino, which was small, in its present form, the expense being borne by heirs of Piero Saccone de' Tarlati, who had provided for this before his death at Bibbiena in the territory of Casentino. As Moccio constructed this church without vaulting, he imposed the burden of the roof on the arcading of the columns, running a considerable risk, for the enterprise was too bold. He also built the Church and Convent of S. Antonio, which were at the Faenza gate before the siege of Florence, and are now entirely in ruins. In sculpture he decorated the gate of S. Agostino at Ancona, with many figures and ornaments like those which are at the gate of S. Francesco in the same city. In this church of St Agostino he also made the tomb of Fra Zenone Vigilanti, bishop and general of the order of St Augustine, and finally the loggia of the merchants in that city, which has from time to time received, for one cause and another, many improvements in modern style, and ornamentation of various descriptions. All these things, although very much below the general level of excellence of to-day, received considerable praise then owing to the state of information of the time. But to return to Duccio, his works were executed about the year of grace 1350. Antonio, Painter of Venice. There are many men who, through being persecuted by the envy and oppressed by the tyranny of their fellow-citizens, have left their native place and have chosen for a home some spot where their worth has been recognised and rewarded, producing their works there and taking the greatest pains to excel, in order, in a sense, to be avenged on those by whom they have been outraged. In this way they frequently become great men, whereas had they remained quietly at home they might possibly have achieved little more than mediocrity in their art. Antonio of Venice, who went to Florence, in the train of Agnolo Gaddi, to learn painting, so far acquired the proper methods that not only was he esteemed and loved by the Florentines, but made much of for this talent and for his other good qualities. Then, becoming possessed by a desire to return to his native city and enjoy the fruits of his labours, he went back to Venice. There, having made himself known by many things done in fresco and tempera, he was commissioned by the Signoria to paint one of the walls of the Council Chamber, a work which he executed with such skill and majesty that its merits should have brought him honours and rewards; but the rivalry, or rather the envy, of the other artists, together with the preference accorded by some noblemen to other and alien painters, brought about a different result. Hence poor Antonio, feeling himself repelled and rebutted, thought it would be as well to go back to Florence, deciding that he would never again return to Venice, but would make Florence his home. Having reached that city, he painted in an arch in the cloister of S. Spirito the calling of Peter and Andrew from their nets, with Zebedee and his sons. Under the three arches of Stefano he painted the miracle of the loaves and fishes, exhibiting great diligence and love, as may be seen in the figure of Christ Himself, whose face and aspect betray His compassion for the crowd and the ardent charity which leads Him to distribute the bread. The same scene also shows very beautifully the affection of an apostle, who is very active in distributing the bread from a basket. The picture affords a good illustration of the value in art of always painting figures so that they appear to speak, for otherwise they are not prized. Antonio showed this on the façade in a small representation of the Fall of the Manna, executed with such skill and finished with such grace, that it may truly be called excellent. He next did some stories of St Stephen in the predella of the high altar of S. Stefano at the Ponte Vecchio, with so much loving care that even in illuminations it would not be possible to find more graceful or more delicate work. Again he painted the tympanum over the door of S. Antonio on the Ponte alla Carraia. This and the church were both pulled down in our own day by Monsignor Ricasoli, bishop of Pistoia, because they took away the view from his houses, and in any case even if he had not done so, we should have been deprived of the work, for, as I have said elsewhere, the flood of 1557 carried away two arches on this side, as well as that part of the bridge on which the little church of S. Antonio was situated. After these works Antonio was invited to Pisa by the wardens of the Campo Santo, and there continued the series dealing with the life of St Ranieri, a holy man of that city, which had been begun by Simone of Siena and under his direction. In the first part of Antonio's portion of the work is a representation of the embarkation of Ranieri to return to Pisa, with a goodly number of figures executed with diligence, including the portrait of Count Gaddo, who had died ten years before, and of Neri, his uncle, who had been lord of Pisa. Another notable figure in the group is that of a man possessed, with distorted, convulsive gestures, his eyes glistening, and his mouth grinning and showing his teeth, so remarkably like a person really possessed that nothing more true or life-like can be imagined. The next picture contains three really beautiful figures, lost in wonder at seeing St Ranieri reveal the devil in the form of a cat on a tub to a fat innkeeper, who looks like a boon companion, and who is commending himself fearfully to the saint; their attitudes are excellently disposed in the style of the draperies, the variety of poses of the heads, and in all other particulars. Hard by are the maidservants of the innkeeper, who could not possibly be represented with more grace as Antonio has made them with disengaged garments arranged after the manner of those worn by the servants at an inn, so that nothing better can be imagined. Nothing of this artist gives more pleasure than the wall containing another scene from the same series in which the canons of the Duomo of Pisa, in the fine robes of the time, very different from those in use to-day and very graceful, receive St Ranieri at table, all the figures being made with great care. The next of his scenes is the death of the saint, containing fine representations not only of the effect of weeping, but of the movements of certain angels who are carrying his soul to heaven surrounded by a brilliant light, done with fine originality. In the scene where the saint's body is being carried by the clergy to the Duomo one can but marvel at the representation of the priests singing, for in their gestures, carriage, and all their movements they exactly resemble a choir of singers. This scene is said to contain a portrait of the Bavarian. Antonio likewise painted with the greatest care the miracles wrought by Ranieri when he was being carried to burial, and those wrought in another place, after his body had been deposited in the Duomo, such as blind who receive their sight, withered men who recover the use of their limbs, demoniacs who are released, and other miracles represented with great vigour. But one of the most remarkable figures of all is a dropsical man, whose withered face, dry lips, and swollen body exhibit with as much realism as a living man could, the devouring thirst of those suffering from dropsy and the other symptoms of that disease. Another marvellous thing for the time in this work is a ship delivered by the saint after it had undergone various mishaps. It contains an excellent representation of the activity of the mariners, comprising everything that is usually done in such case. Some are casting into the greedy sea without a thought the valuable merchandise won with so much toil, some are running to preserve the ship which is splitting, and in short performing all the other duties of seamen which it would take too long to tell. Suffice it to say that all are executed with remarkable vigour, and in a fine style. In the same place beneath the lives of the holy fathers painted by Pietro Laurati of Siena, Antonio did the bodies of St Oliver and the Abbot Paphnuce, and many circumstances of their lives, represented on a marble sarcophagus, the figure being very well painted. In short, all the works of Antonio in the Campo Santo are such that they are universally considered, and with good cause, to be the best of the entire series of works produced there by many excellent masters over a considerable interval of time. In addition to the particulars already mentioned, Antonio did everything in fresco, and never retouched anything _a secco_. This is the reason why his colours have remained so fresh to the present day, and this should teach artists to recognise the injury that is done to pictures and works by retouching _a secco_ things done in fresco with other colours, as is said in the theories, for it is an established fact that this retouching ages the painting, and the new colours which have no body of their own will not stand the test of time, being tempered with gum-tragacanth, egg, size, or some such thing which varnishes what is beneath it, and it does not permit the lapse of time and the air to purge what has been actually painted in fresco upon the soft stucco, as they would do had not other colours been superimposed after the drying. Upon the completion of this truly admirable work Antonio was worthily rewarded by the Pisans, who always entertained a great affection for him. He then returned to Florence, where he painted at Nuovoli outside the gate leading to Prato, in a tabernacle at Giovanni degli Agli, a dead Christ, with a quantity of figures, the story of the Magi and the Last Judgment, all very fine. Invited next to the Certosa, he painted for the Acciaiuoli, who built that place, the picture of the high altar, which survived to our own day, when it was consumed by fire through the carelessness of a sacristan of the monastery, who left the censer hung at the altar full of fire, which led to the picture being burnt. It was afterwards made entirely of marble by the monks, as it is now. In the same place this same master did a very fine Transfiguration in fresco on a cupboard in the chapel. Being much inclined by nature to the study of herbs, he devoted himself to the mastery of Dioscorides, taking pleasure in learning the properties and virtues of each plant, so that he ultimately abandoned painting and devoted himself to distilling simples with great assiduity. Having thus transformed himself from a painter into a physician, he pursued the latter profession for some time. At length he fell-sick of a disorder of the stomach, or, as some say, through treating the plague, and finished the course of his life at the age of seventy-four in the year 1384, when the plague was raging in Florence. His skill as a physician equalled his diligence as a painter, for he gained an extensive experience in medicine from those who had employed him in their need, and he left behind him a high reputation in both arts. Antonio was a very graceful designer with the pen, and so excellent in chiaroscuro that some sheets of his in our book, in which he did the arch of S. Spirito, are the best of the age. Gherardo Starnini of Florence was a pupil of Antonio, and closely imitated him, while another pupil of his, Paolo Uccello, brought him no small credit. The portrait of Antonio of Venice by his own hand is in the Campo Santo at Pisa. Jacopo di Casentino, Painter. As the fame and renown of the paintings of Giotto and his pupils had been spread abroad for many years, many, who were desirous of obtaining fame and riches by means of the art of painting, began to be animated by the hope of glory, and by natural inclination, to make progress towards the improvement of the art, feeling confident that, with effort, they would be able to surpass in excellence Giotto, Taddeo, and the other painters. Among these was one Jacopo di Casentino, who was born, as we read, of the family of M. Cristoforo Landino of Pratovecchio, and was associated by the friar of Casentino, then superior at the Sasso del Vernia, with Taddeo Gaddi, while he was working in that convent, in order that he might learn design and colour. In a few years he so far succeeded, that, being taken to Florence in the company of Giovanni di Milano, in the service of their master, Taddeo, where they were doing many things, he was asked to paint in tempera the tabernacle of the Madonna of the Old Market, with the picture there, and also the one on the Via del Cocomoro side of the Piazza S. Niccolo. A few years ago both of these were restored by a very inferior master to Jacopo. For the Dyers, he did the one at S. Nofri, on the side of their garden wall, opposite S. Giuseppe. While the vaulting of Orsanmichele, upon its twelve pillars, was being completed, and covered with a low, rough roof, awaiting the completion of the building of the palace, which was to be the granary of the Commune, the painting of these vaults was entrusted to Jacopo di Casentino, as a very skilled artist. Here he painted some prophets and the patriarchs, with the heads of the tribes, sixteen figures in all, on an ultramarine ground, now much damaged, without other ornamentation. He next did the lower walls and pilasters with many miracles of Our Lady, and other things which may be recognised by their style. This done, he returned to Casentino, and after painting many works in Pratovecchio, Poppi, and other places of that valley, he proceeded to Arezzo, which then governed itself with a council of sixty of the richest and most honoured citizens, to whom all the affairs of the state were entrusted. Here, in the principal chapel of the Vescovado, he painted a story of St Martin, and a good number of pictures in the old Duomo, now pulled down, including a portrait of Pope Innocent VI. in the principal chapel. He next did the wall where the high altar is, and the chapel of St Maria della Neve, in the church of S. Bartolommeo, for the chapter of the canons of the Pieve, and for the old brotherhood of S. Giovanni de' Peducci he did a number of scenes from the life of that saint, which are now whitewashed over. He also did the chapel of St Christopher in the church of S. Domenico, introducing a portrait of the blessed Masuolo releasing from prison a merchant of the Fei family, who built the chapel. This saint was a contemporary of the artist, and a prophet who predicted many misfortunes for the Aretines. In the church of S. Agostino, Jacopo did some stories of St Laurence in fresco in the chapel and at the altar of the Nardi with marvellous style and skill. Since he also practised architecture, he was employed by the sixty chief citizens mentioned above to bring under the walls of Arezzo the water which comes from the slopes of Pori, 300 braccia from the city. In the time of the Romans this water had been originally brought to the theatre, traces of which still exist, and thence from its situation on the hill where the fortress now is, to the amphitheatre of the city in the plain, the buildings and conduits of this being afterwards entirely destroyed by the Goths. Thus after Jacopo had, as I have said, brought the water under the wall, he made the fountain, then known as the Fonte Guizianelli, but is now called by corruption Fonte Viniziana. It remained standing from 1354 until 1527, but no longer, because the plague of the following year, and the war which followed, deprived it of many of its advantages for the use of the gardens, particularly as Jacopo did not bring it inside, and for these reasons it is not standing to-day, as it should be. Whilst Jacopo was engaged in bringing water to the city he did not abandon his painting, and in the palace which was in the old citadel, destroyed in our day, he did many scenes of the deeds of the Bishop Guide and of Piero Sacconi, who had done great and notable things for the city both in peace and war. He also did the story of St Matthew under the organ in the Pieve, and a considerable number of other works. By these paintings, which he did in every part of the city, he taught Spinello of Arezzo the first principles of that art which he himself had learned from Agnolo, and which Spinello afterwards taught to Bernardo Daddi, who worked in the city and adorned it with many fine paintings, which, united to his other excellent qualities, brought him much honour among his fellow-citizens, who employed him a great deal in magistracies and other public affairs. The paintings of Bernardo were numerous and highly valued, first in St Croce, the chapel of St Laurence and those of St Stephen of the Pulci and Berardi, and many other paintings in various other parts of that church. At length, after he had painted some pictures on the inside of the gates of the city of Florence, he died, full of years, and was buried honourably in S. Felicita in the year 1380. To return to Jacopo. In the year 1350 was founded the company and brotherhood of the Painters. For the masters who then flourished, both those who practised the old Byzantine style and those who followed the new school of Cimabue, seeing that they were numerous, and that the art of design had been revived in Tuscany and in their own Florence, created this society under the name and protection of St Luke the Evangelist, to render praise and thanks to God in the sanctuary of that saint, to meet together from time to time, remembering the welfare of their souls as well as of the bodies of those who might be in need of assistance at various times. This is still the practice of many of the Arts in Florence, but it was much more common in former times. Their first sanctuary was the principal chapel of the hospital of S. Maria Nuova, which was granted them by the family of the Portinari. The first governors of the company were six in number, with the title of captains, and in addition there were two councillors and two chamberlains. This may be seen in the old book of the company begun then, the first chapter of which opens thus: "These articles and regulations were agreed upon and drawn up by the good and discreet men of the art of the Painters of Florence, and in the time of Lapo Gucci, painter; Vanni Cinuzzi, painter; Corsino Buonaiuti, painter; Pasquino Cenni, painter; Segnia d'Antignano, painter. The councillors were Bernardo Daddi and Jacopo di Casentino, painters. Consiglio Gherardi and Domenico Pucci, painters, the chamberlains." The company being thus formed by the consent of the captains and others, Jacopo di Casentino painted the picture of their chapel, representing St Luke drawing a picture of Our Lady, and in the predella, all the men of the company kneeling on one side and all the women on the other. From this beginning, whether they meet or no, the company has existed continuously from this time and has recently been remodelled, as is related in the new articles of the company approved by the Most Illustrious Lord, Duke Cosimo, the very benignant protector of these arts of design. At length Jacopo, overwhelmed with years and toil, returned to Casentino and died there at Prato Vecchio, at the age of eighty. He was buried by his relations and friends in S. Agnolo, an abbey of the Camaldoline order, outside Prato Vecchio. Spinello introduced his portrait into a picture of the Magi in the old Duomo, and his style of draughtsmanship may be seen in our book. Spinello, Painter of Arezzo. Upon one of the occasions when the Ghibellines were driven from Florence and when they settled at Arezzo, Luca Spinelli had a son born to him there, to whom he gave the name of Spinello. This boy had so much natural inclination to be a painter, that almost without a master and while still quite a child he knew more than many who have practised under the best teachers, and what is more, he contracted a friendship with Jacopo di Casentino while the latter was working at Arezzo, and learned something from him, so much so indeed that before he was twenty years of age he was a far better master, young as he was, than Jacopo, who was already an old man. Spinello's early reputation as a good painter induced M. Dardano Acciaiuoli to employ him to decorate the church of S. Niccolo at the pope's halls, which he had just erected, behind S. Maria Novella in the Via dei Scala, and there buried a brother who was a bishop. Here Spinello painted scenes from the life of St Nicholas, bishop of Bari, in fresco, completing the work in 1334 after two years of unremitting labour. In it he exhibited equal excellence as a colourist and as a designer, so that the colours remained in excellent preservation up to our own day, and the excellence of the figures was well expressed, until a few years ago when they were in great part damaged by a fire which unfortunately broke out in the church at a time when it happened to be full of straw, brought there by some indiscreet persons who made use of the building as a barn for the storage of straw. The fame of the work induced M. Barone Capelli, citizen of Florence, to employ Spinello to paint in the principal chapel of S. Maria Maggiore, a number of stories of the Madonna in fresco, and some of St Anthony the abbot, and near them the consecration of that very ancient church by Pope Paschal II. Spinello did all this so well that it looks as if it had all been the work of a single day and not of many months, as was actually the case. Near the pope is the portrait of M. Barone from life, in the dress of the time, excellently done and with good judgment. On the completion of this, Spinello worked in the church of the Carmine in fresco, doing the chapel of St James and St John, apostles, where, among other things, he has given a very careful representation of the request made of Christ by the wife of Zebedee and mother of James, that her sons should sit the one on the right and the other on the left of the Father in the kingdom of Heaven. A little further over one sees Zebedee, James and John leaving their nets and following Christ, done with wonderful vigour and style. In another chapel of the same church, beside the principal one, Spinello also did in fresco some stories of the Madonna and the Apostles, their miraculous appearance to her before her death, her death and her being carried to Heaven by angels. As the scene was on a large scale, and the chapel being a very small one of not more than ten braccia in length and five in height, would not take it all, especially in the case of the Assumption of Our Lady, Spinello very judiciously continued the scene to the vaulting on one of the sides at the place where Christ and the angels are receiving her. In a chapel of S. Trinita, Spinello made a very fine Annunciation and for the high altar picture of the church of S. Apostolo he painted in tempera the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles in tongues of fire. In S. Lucia de' Bardi he also painted a panel and did a larger one for the chapel of St John the Baptist, decorated by Giotto. After these things, and on account of the great reputation which his labours in Florence had procured for him, Spinello was recalled to Arezzo by the sixty citizens who governed it, and was commissioned by the Commune to paint the story of the Magi in the old Duomo outside the city, and in the chapel of St Gismondo, a St Donate, who by means of a benediction causes a serpent to burst. Similarly he made some various figures on many pilasters of that Duomo, and on a wall he did a Magdalene in the house of Simon anointing Christ's feet, with other paintings which there is no need to mention, since that church is now entirely destroyed, though it was then full of tombs, the bones of saints and other notable things. But in order that the memory of it may at least remain, I will remark that it was built by the Aretines more than thirteen hundred years ago, at the time when they were first converted to the faith of Jesus Christ by St Donato, who afterwards became bishop of the city. It was dedicated to him, and richly adorned both within and without with very ancient spoils of antiquity. The ground plan of the church, which is discussed at length elsewhere, was divided on the outside into sixteen faces, and on the inside into eight, and all were full of the spoils of those times which had originally been dedicated to idols; in short, it was, at the time of its destruction, as beautiful as such a very ancient church could possibly be. After the numerous paintings which he had done in the Duomo, Spinello painted for the chapel of the Marsupini in S. Francesco, Pope Honorius confirming and approving the rule of that saint, the pope being a portrait of Innocent IV., he having by some means obtained the likeness. In the chapel of St Michael, the Archangel, in the same church in which the bells are rung, he painted many scenes relating to him; and rather lower down, in the chapel of M. Giuliano Baccio, he did an Annunciation, with other figures, which are much admired. The whole of the works in this church were done in fresco with great boldness and skill between the years 1334 and 1338. In the Pieve of the same city he afterwards painted the chapel of St Peter and St Paul, and below it that of St Michael the Archangel; for the fraternity of S. Maria della Misericordia he did the chapel of St James and St Philip; and over the principal door of the fraternity which is on the piazza, that is to say, in the tympanum, he painted a Pieta, with a St John, at the request of the rectors of the fraternity. The foundation of the brotherhood took place in this way. A certain number of good and honourable citizens began to go about asking alms for the poor who were ashamed to beg, and to succour them in all their necessities, in the year of the plague of 1348. The fraternity acquired a great reputation, acquired by means of the efforts of these good men, in helping the poor and infirm, burying the dead, and performing other kindred acts of charity, so that the bequests, donations and inheritances left to them became so considerable that they amounted to one-third of the entire wealth of Arezzo. The same happened in 1383, which was also a year of severe plague. Spinello then being of the company, often undertook to visit the infirm, bury the dead, and perform other like pious duties which the best citizens have always undertaken and still do in that city. In order to leave a memorial of this in his paintings, he painted for the company on the wall of the church of S. Laurentino and Pergentino, a Madonna with her mantle open in front, and beneath her the people of Arezzo, comprising portraits of many of the earliest members of the fraternity, drawn from life, with wallets round their necks and a wooden hammer in their hands, like those with which they knocked at the doors to ask alms. Similarly, in the company of the Annunciation he painted the large tabernacle which is outside the church, and part of a portico which is opposite it, and the picture of the company, which is an Annunciation, in tempera. The picture which is now in the church of the nuns of S. Giusto, where a little Christ, who is at His mother's neck, is espousing St Catherine, with six small scenes in little figures of the acts of that saint, is also a work of Spinello and much admired. Being afterwards invited to the famous abbey of Camaldoli in Casentino in the year 1361, he painted for the hermits of that place the picture of the high altar, which was taken away in the year 1539, when the entire church was rebuilt and Giorgio Vasari did a new picture, painting the principal chapel of the abbey all in fresco, the transept of the church in fresco and two pictures. Summoned thence to Florence by D. Jacopo d'Arezzo, Abbot of S. Miniato in Monte of the order of Monte Oliveto, Spinello painted the vaulting and four walls of the sacristy of that monastery, besides the picture of the altar, all in tempera, with many stories of the life of St Benedict, executed with much skill and a great vivacity in the colouring, learned by him by means of long practice and continual labour, with study and diligence, such as are necessary to every one who wishes to acquire an art perfectly. After these things the said abbot left Florence and received the direction of the monastery of S. Bernardo of the same order, in his native land, at the very time when it was almost entirely completed on the land granted by the Aretines, on the site of the Colosseum. Here the abbot induced Spinello to paint in fresco two chapels which are beside the principal chapel, and two others, one on either side of the door leading to the choir in the screen of the church. In one of the two, next the principal chapel, is an Annunciation in fresco, made with the greatest diligence, and on a wall beside it, is the Madonna ascending the steps of the Temple, accompanied by Joachim and Anna; in the other chapel is a Crucifix with the Madonna and St John weeping, and a St Bernard adoring on his knees. On the inner wall of the church where the altar of Our Lady stands, he painted the Virgin with the child at her neck, which was considered a very beautiful figure, and did many other things for the church, painting above the choir Our Lady, St Mary Magdalene and St Bernard, very vivaciously. In the Pieve of Arezzo in the Chapel of St Bartholomew, he did a number of scenes from the life of that saint, and on the opposite side of the church, in the chapel of St Matthew, under the organ, which was painted by his master Jacopo di Casentino, besides many stories of that saint, which are meritorious, he did the four Evangelists in some medallions, in an original style, for above the bust and human limbs he gave St John the head of an eagle, St Mark the head of a lion, St Luke that of an ox, while only St Matthew has a human face, that is to say an angel's. Outside Arezzo, he decorated the church of S. Stefano, built by the Aretines upon many columns of granite and marble, to honour and preserve the names of several martyrs who were put to death by Julian the Apostate. Here he did a number of figures and scenes with great diligence and such a style of colouring that they were in a wonderfully fresh state of preservation when they were destroyed not many years ago. But the really remarkable piece of work in that place, besides the stories of St Stephen, in figures larger than life size, is the sight of Joseph, in the story of the Magi, beside himself with joy at the coming of those kings, and keenly watching the kings as they are opening the vessels of their treasures and are offering them to him. In the same church is a Madonna offering a rose to the Christ child, which was and is considered a most beautiful figure, and so highly reverenced by the Aretines that when the church of S. Stefano was pulled down, without sparing either pains or expense, they cut it out of the wall, ingeniously removed it and carried it into the city, depositing it in a small church in order to honour it, as they do, with the same devotion which they bestowed upon it at first. There is no wonder that the work inspired such reverence, for it is a natural characteristic of Spinello to endow his figures with a certain simple grace, partaking of modesty and holiness, so that his saints and particularly his Virgins breathe an indefinable sanctity and divinity which inspire men with devotion. This may be seen also in a Madonna which is on the side of the Albergetti, in one on an outside wall of the Pieve in Seteria, and in another of the same kind on the side of the canal. By Spinello's hand also is the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, on the wall of the hospital of S. Spirito, which is very fine, as are the two scenes below representing St Cosmo and St Damian cutting a healthy leg off a dead Moor to attach it to a man whose broken limb they have removed. In like manner the _Noli me tangere_ between these two works is very beautiful. In a chapel of the company of the Puracciuoli on the piazza of St Agostino he did a very finely coloured Annunciation, and in the cloister of that convent he painted a Madonna in fresco with St James and St Anthony and the portrait of an armed soldier kneeling there, with these words: _Hoc opus fecit fieri Clemens Pucci de Monte Catino, cujus corpus jacet hic, etc. Anno Domini 1367 die 15 mensis Maii_. The representations in the chapel of that church, of St Anthony and other saints are known by their style to be by Spinello's hand, and he afterwards painted the whole of a portico in the hospital of S. Marco, now the monastery of the nuns of St Croce as their original house, which was outside, was pulled down. The figure of St Gregory the Pope, among the many represented in this work, standing beside a Misericordia, is a portrait of Pope Gregory IX. The chapel of St Philip and St James at the entry into the church of S. Domenico in the same city, was done in fresco by Spinello in a fine and vigorous style, as was also a three-quarter length figure of St Anthony, painted on the wall of the church, which is so fine that it apes life. It is placed in the midst of four scenes from his life, and these and many other scenes of the life of St Anthony, also by Spinello's hand, are in the chapel of St Anthony, in the church of S. Giustino. On one side of the church of S. Lorenzo he painted some stories of the Madonna, and outside the church he painted her seated, doing the work very gracefully in fresco. In a small hospital opposite of the nuns of S. Spirito, near the gate on the road to Rome, the whole of the portico is painted by his hand with a representation of the dead Christ in the lap of the Maries, executed with so much skill and judgment that it proves him to have equalled Giotto in the matter of design and to have far surpassed him as a colourist. In the same place he has represented Christ seated, with a very ingenious theological signification, having placed the Trinity inside a Sun so that the same rays and the same glory issue from each of the three figures. But the same fate has befallen this work as has happened to many others, to the infinite loss of the lovers of this art, for it was thrown down to make way for the fortifications of the city. At the company of the Trinity may be seen a tabernacle outside the church, by Spinello very finely worked in fresco, comprising the Trinity, St Peter and SS. Cosmo and Damian dressed in the robes habitually worn by the physicians of the time. During the production of these works D. Jacopo d'Arezzo was appointed general of the congregation of Monte Oliveto, nineteen years after he had employed Spinello to do a number of things at Florence and at Arezzo, as has been said above. Being stationed according to the custom of the order, at Monte Oliveto the greater, of Chiusuri in the Siena district, as being the principal house of that body, he conceived a longing to have a beautiful picture made in that place. Accordingly he sent for Spinello, remembering how well he had been served upon other occasions, and induced him to do the picture for the principal chapel. Here Spinello produced a large number of figures in tempera, both small and great, on a gold ground, with great judgment, and afterwards caused it to be framed in an ornament in half-relief by Simone Cini of Florence, while in some parts he put an additional ornament with stucco of a rather firm glue, which proved very successful. It was gilded all over by Gabriello Saracini, who wrote at the bottom the three names: Simone Cini of Florence did the carving, Gabriello Saracini the gilding, and Spinello di Luca of Arezzo the painting, in the year 1385. On the completion of this work, Spinello returned to Arezzo having received numerous favours from the general and other monks, besides his payment. But he did not remain long there for the city was in disorder owing to the feuds of the Guelph and Ghibelline parties and was just then sacked. He removed with his family and his son Parri, who was learning painting, to Florence, where he had a goodly number of friends and relations. In that city, in order to pass the time, he painted an Annunciation in a tabernacle outside the gate at S. Piero Gattolini on the Roman road, where the way branches to Pozzolatico, a work which is now half destroyed, and other pictures in another tabernacle, where the ruin of Galluzzo is. Being afterwards invited to Pisa to finish in the Campo Santo beneath the life of St Ranieri the remainder of other subjects in a blank space, in order to unite them to the scenes painted by Giotto, Simone of Siena, and Antonio of Venice, he there executed in fresco six stories of St Petitus and St Epirus. The first represents the saint as a young man, presented by his mother to the Emperor Diocletian, and appointed general of the armies which were to march against the Christians. As he is riding with his troop Christ appears to him, and showing him a white cross commands the youth not to persecute Him. Another scene represents the angel of the Lord giving to the saint, while he is riding, the banner of the Faith, with a white cross on a red field, which has ever afterwards constituted the arms of the Pisans, because St Epirus had besought God to give him a sign to wear against the enemy. Next to this is another scene of a fierce battle engaged between the saint and the Pagans, many armed angels fighting for the victory of the former. Here Spinello produced many things worthy of consideration in that day when art had not yet the ability nor any good method of expressing the ideas of the mind in colour in a lively manner. Among many other things in this composition are two soldiers, who have seized each other by the beard, and are endeavouring to kill each other with the naked rapiers which they hold in their disengaged hands; their faces and all the movement of their limbs show the desire of victory, their proud spirits being without fear and of the highest courage. Also among those who are fighting on horseback there is a finely executed knight who is fastening the head of an enemy to earth with his lance, the other having fallen backward from his terrified horse. Another scene shows the saint presented to the Emperor Diocletian, who is questioning him about the faith, and who afterwards consigns him to the torture, putting him in a furnace in which he remains uninjured, whilst the servants who are very ready on every side are burned in his stead. In short, all the acts of the saint are shown, to his beheading, after which his soul is carried to Heaven. The last scene shows the transportation of the bones and relics of St Petitus from Alexandria to Pisa. The whole work in its colouring and conception is the finest, most finished, and best executed of Spinello's paintings, and this is shown by its present excellent state of preservation, for its fresh appearance excites the wonder of everyone who sees it. When this work in the Campo Santo was completed, Spinello painted in the church of S. Francesco, in the second chapel from the high altar, many stories of St Bartholomew, St Andrew, St James, and St John the apostles, and he might perhaps have remained longer at work in Pisa, because his paintings were admired and rewarded there, but seeing the city thrown into an uproar and turned upside down through the murder of M. Pietro Gambacorti by the Lanfranchini, who were Pisan citizens, he once more removed to Florence with all his family, for he was by this time an old man. He remained there for one year only, and in the chapel of the Macchiavelli in S. Croce, dedicated to SS. Philip and James, he did many stories of the life and death of those saints. The picture of the chapel he did at Arezzo, and sent it on from there in the year 1400, for he was anxious to return to his native place, or, to speak more correctly, to the place which he looked upon as such. Having thus returned thither at the age of seventy-seven or more, he was lovingly received by his relations and friends, and remained there, much loved and honoured, until the end of his life, which was in the ninety-second year of his age. Although at the time of his return to Arezzo he was quite an old man, and had enough property to enable him to live without working, yet he could not remain idle, since he had always been accustomed to work, and undertook to do some stories of St Michael for the company of S. Agnolo in that city. These are roughly drawn in red on the plastered wall, as was the most ordinary method of the old artists, and as an example he did a single scene in one corner, colouring it entirely, which gave considerable satisfaction. Having afterwards agreed upon the price with the wardens, he completed the entire front of the high altar, representing Lucifer establishing his seat in the north, and the fall of the angels who change into devils as they rain upon the earth. In the air is St Michael fighting with the serpent of seven heads and ten horns, and in the middle of the lower part is Lucifer already changed into a hideous monster. It gave Spinello so much satisfaction to make him horrible and distorted that it is said (so great is the power of imagination) that the figure in the picture appeared to him in a dream, and demanded when the artist had seen him so ugly, asking why he did him so great an indignity with his brush. Spinello awoke from his dream speechless from fear, and shook so violently that his wife hastened to assist him. Yet he ran considerable risk of dying suddenly, through the failure of the heart, owing to this misfortune, and it caused his death a short while afterwards, until when he lived in an utterly dispirited manner with wide open eyes. He died greatly lamented by his friends, and left the world two sons--one called Forzore was a goldsmith, who did some admirable work in _niello_ in Florence; the other, Parri, who followed his father and pursued the art of painting, far surpassing Spinello in design. The Aretines were much grieved at this sad chance, although Spinello was old, at being deprived of ability and excellence such as his. He died at the age of ninety-two, and was buried in S. Agostino at Arezzo, where there is a stone with a coat of arms made after a fancy of his own, containing a hedgehog. Spinello was far better able to design than to put his thoughts into practice, as our book of designs shows, which contains two Evangelists and a St Louis by his hand, all very fine. His portrait given above was taken by me from one which was in the old Duomo before it was pulled down. His paintings were executed between the years 1380 and 1400. Gherardo Stamina, Painter of Florence. Certainly those who travel far from home to dwell in other parts very frequently do so to the advantage of their temperament, for by seeing divers customs abroad, even if they be of rather an extraordinary nature, they learn to be reasonable, kind and patient with considerably greater ease than they would have done had they remained at home. Indeed those who desire to refine men in their worldly conversation need no other fire and no better cement than this, because those who are naturally rough become gentle, and the gentle become even more gracious. Gherardo di Jacopo Stamina, painter of Florence, though rather hasty than good-natured, being very hard and rough in his dealings, did more harm by this to himself than to his friends, and it would have been even worse for him had he not remained a long time in Spain, where he learned to be gentle and courteous, for he there became so changed from his former nature that when he returned to Florence a very large number of those who had mortally hated him before his departure, received him with very great friendliness and continued to cherish a great affection for him, so gentle and courteous had he become. Gherardo was born in Florence in the year 1354, and as he grew up and was naturally bent to the art of designing, he was put with Antonio da Vinezia to learn to design and to paint. In the space of many years he not only learned the art and practice of colours, but had shown his ability by some things produced in a good style; accordingly he left Antonio and began to work on his own account. In the chapel of the Castellani at S. Croce, which was given to him to paint by Michaele di Vanno, an honoured citizen of that family, he did in fresco many stories of St Anthony the abbot and of St Nicholas the bishop, in such a good style that they attracted the attention of certain Spaniards then staying in Florence on business, and ultimately led to his being invited to Spain to their king, who saw and received him very gladly, there being at that time a great lack of good painters in that country. Nor was it a difficult matter to induce Gherardo to leave his country, for as he had had hard words with some men after the affair of the Ciompi and the appointment of Michele di Lando as gonfaloniere, he was in considerable danger of his life. Accordingly he went to Spain and did many things for the king there, and became rich and honoured by the great rewards which he earned for his labours. At length becoming desirous of showing himself to his friends in his improved estate, he returned home and was warmly welcomed and received in a very friendly manner by all his fellow-citizens. It was not long before he was employed to paint the chapel of St Jerome in the Carmine, where he did many stories of that saint, and in the story of Paul, Eustace and Jerome he represented some of the Spanish habits of the day with very happy invention and an abundance of fashions and ideas in the attitudes of the figures. Among other things, in a scene where St Jerome is receiving his earliest instruction, he represented a master who has caused one boy to mount upon the back of another and strikes him with the whip in such a manner that the poor child is twisting his legs with pain and appears to be crying out and trying to bite the ear of the boy who is holding him. The whole is executed with much grace and lightness, and Gherardo appears to have delighted in these touches of nature. In like manner, when St Jerome, being at the point of death, is making his will, he has hit off some friars in a delightful and realistic manner, for some are writing, others listening attentively and looking about, observing all the words of their master with great earnestness. This work won Stamina much fame and a high rank among artists, and his courteous and mild manners gave him a great reputation, so that his name was famous throughout Tuscany and indeed in all Italy. Being at this time invited to Pisa to paint the chapter-house of S. Niccola in that city, he sent in his place Antonio Vite of Pistoia, because he did not wish to leave Florence. Antonio, who had learned Stamina's style under him, did the Passion of Jesus Christ there, completing it in its present form in the year 1403, to the great delight of the Pisans. Afterwards, it is said, he finished the chapel of the Pugliesi; and as the works which he did there at S. Girolamo greatly pleased the Florentines, because he had expressed in a lively manner many gestures and attitudes which had not been attempted by any painters before his time, the Commune of Florence in the year that Gabriel Maria, lord of Pisa, sold that city to the Florentines for 200,000 scudi (after Giovanni Gambacorta had stood a siege of thirteen months, although even he at length agreed to the sale), employed Stamina to paint on a wall of the Palazzo di parte Guelfa, St Denis the bishop, with two angels, and below it an accurate representation of the city of Pisa. In the execution of this he displayed such diligence in every detail, especially in the colouring in fresco, that notwithstanding the action of air and water and a northern aspect, the picture has always remained in excellent condition, and even now it has all the appearance of having been newly painted, an achievement worthy of high praise. Gherardo having by this and other works acquired a great reputation and much renown both at home and abroad, death, the envious enemy of virtuous deeds, cut off at the height of his powers the great promise of much better things than the world had yet seen from him; and having come to his end unexpectedly in the forty-ninth year of his age, he was buried with much pomp in the church of S. Jacopo sopra Arno. The pupils of Gherardo were Masolino da Panicale, who was at first an excellent goldsmith and then a painter, and some others whom it is not necessary to mention, as they did not possess any remarkable talent. The portrait of Gherardo occurs in the story of St Jerome, mentioned above; he is one of the figures who are standing about the dying saint, represented in profile with a hood about his head and a mantle buttoned about him. In our book are some designs of Gherardo done with the pen on parchment, which are of considerable excellence. Lippo, Painter of Florence. Invention has been, and always will be considered the true mother of architecture, painting and poetry, as well as of all the superior arts and of all the marvels produced by man. By its aid artists develop their ideas, caprices and fancies, and are able to display more variety, for all those who work at these honourable professions always seek after a laudable diversity, and possess the power of delicate flattery and of tactful criticism. Lippo, then, painter of Florence, who was as varied and choice in his inventions as his works were really unfortunate and his life short, was born at Florence about the year of grace 1354; and although he took up the art of painting somewhat late, when he was already a man, yet he was so far assisted by natural inclination and by his fine talents that he soon distinguished himself brilliantly. He first painted in Florence and in S. Benedetto, a large and fine monastery outside the gate of the Pinti belonging to the Camaldoline order, now destroyed; he did a number a figures which were considered very beautiful, particularly the whole of a chapel, which affords an example of how close study quickly leads to great performances in anyone who honestly takes pains with the desire for fame. Being invited to Arezzo from Florence, he did for the chapel of the Magi in the church of S. Antonio a large scene in fresco in which they are adoring Christ; and in the Vescovado he did the chapel of St James and St Christopher for the family of the Ubertini. All these things were very fine, for the invention displayed in the composition of scenes and in the colouring. He was the first who began, as it were, to play with his figures, and to awaken the minds of those who came after him, a thing which had never been done before, only attempted. After he had done many things in Bologna and a meritorious picture at Pistoia, he returned to Florence, where he painted the chapel of the Beccuti in S. Maria Maggiore in the year 1383 with scenes from the life of St John the evangelist. Following on from this chapel, which is beside the principal one, on the left hand, six scenes from the life of this saint are represented along the wall, by the same hand. Their composition is excellent and they are well arranged, one scene in particular being very vivid, namely, that in which St John causes St Dionisius the Areopagite to put his vest on some dead men, who come to life again in the name of Jesus Christ, to the great wonderment of some who are present who can hardly believe their own eyes. The foreshortening of some of the dead figures shows great art and proves that Lippo was conscious of some of the difficulties of his profession and endeavoured to some extent to overcome them. It was Lippo also who painted the wings of the tabernacle of the church of S. Giovanni, where are Andrea's angels and his St John, in relief, doing some stories of St John the Baptist in tempera, with great diligence. Being very fond of working in mosaic, he did some in that church over the door leading towards the Misericordia, between the windows, which was considered very beautiful and the best work in mosaic produced in that place with them. In the same church he further repaired some mosaics which had been damaged. Outside Florence, in S. Giovanni fra l'Arcora, without the gate leading to Faenza, he painted a number of figures in fresco beside Buffalmacco's Crucifixion, which was considered very beautiful by all who saw them. In certain small hospitals near the Fænza gate and in S. Antonio inside that gate near the hospital, he did some poor men, in fresco, in some varied styles and attitudes, very beautifully executed, and in the cloister within he made, with beautiful and new invention, the vision of St Anthony of the deceits of the world, and next to that the desires and appetites of men, who are drawn hither and thither to divers things of this world, the whole of the work being executed with much consideration and judgment. Lippo also did mosaic work in many places of Italy, and in the Guelph quarter at Florence he made a figure with a glass head, while Pisa contains a number of his productions. Yet in spite of all this he must be considered a really unfortunate man, since at the present time the greater part of his works have disappeared, having been destroyed in the siege of Florence, and also because his career was terminated in a very tragic manner; for being a quarrelsome man and liking turmoil belter than quiet, he happened one morning to say some very insulting words to an opponent at the tribunal of the Mercanzia, and that evening as he was returning home, he was dogged by this man and stabbed in the breast with a knife, so that in a few days he perished miserably. His paintings were produced about 1410. There flourished at Bologna in Lippo's time another painter whose name was also Lippo Dalmasi, who was a worthy man, and among other things he painted a Madonna in the year 1407, which may still be seen in S. Petronio at Bologna and which is held in great veneration. He also painted in fresco the tympanum above the door of S. Procolo, and in the church of S. Francesco in the tribune of the high altar, he made a large Christ, half length, and a St Peter and a St Paul, in a very graceful style. Under these works may be seen his name written in large letters. He also designed very fairly, as may be seen in our book, and he afterwards taught the art to M. Galante da Bologna, who afterwards designed much better than he, as may be seen in the same book in a portrait of a figure dressed in a short coat with wide open sleeves. Don Lorenzo, Monk of the Angeli of Florence, Painter. I believe that it is a great joy to a good and religious person to find some honourable employment for their hands whether it be letters, music, painting or other liberal and mechanical arts which involve no reproach but are on the contrary useful and helpful to other men, for after the divine offices the time may be passed with the pleasure taken in the easy labours of peaceful exercises. To these advantages we may add that not only is such a monk esteemed and valued by others during his life-time, except by such as are envious and malignant, but he is honoured by all men after his death, for his works and the good name which he has left behind him. Indeed whoever spends his time in this manner, lives in quiet contemplation without any danger from those ambitious stirrings which are almost always to be seen among the idle and slothful, who are usually ignorant, to their shame and hurt. If it should happen that a man of ability acting thus is slandered by the malicious, the power of virtue is such that time will reestablish his reputation and bury the malignity of the evil disposed, while the man of ability will remain distinguished and illustrious in the centuries which succeed. Thus Don Lorenzo, painter of Florence, being a monk of the order of the Camaldolines in the monastery of the Angeli (founded in 1294 by Fra Giuttone of Arezzo of the order of the Virgin Mother of Jesus Christ, or of the Rejoicing friars as the monks of that order were commonly called), devoted so much time in his early years to design and to painting, that he was afterwards deservedly numbered among the best men of his age in that profession. The first works of this painter monk, who adopted the style of Taddeo Gaddi and his school, were in the monastery of the Angeli, where besides many of the things he painted the high altar picture, which may still be seen in their church. When completed it was placed there in the year 1413 as may be seen by the letters written at the bottom of the frame. He also painted a picture for the monastery of S. Benedetto of the same order of the Camaldoli, outside the Pinti gate, destroyed at the siege of Florence in 1529. It represented the Coronation of Our Lady and resembled the one he had previously done for the church of the Angeli. It is now in the first cloister of the monastery of the Angeli, on the right hand side in the chapel of the Alberti. At the same time, and possibly before, he painted in fresco the chapel and altar picture of the Ardinghelli in S. Trinita, Florence, which was then much admired, and into this he introduced portraits of Dante and Petrarch. In S. Piero Maggiore he painted the chapel of the Fioravanti and in a chapel of S. Piero Scheraggio he did the altar picture, while in the church of S. Trinita he further painted the chapel of the Bartolini. In S. Jacopo sopra Arno a picture by his hand may still be seen, executed with infinite diligence, after the manner of the time. Also in the Certosa outside Florence he painted some things with considerable skill, and in S. Michele at Pisa, a monastery of his own order, he did some very fair pictures. In Florence, in the church of the Romiti (Hermits), which also belonged to the Camaldolines, and which is now in ruins as well as the monastery, leaving nothing but its name Camaldoli to that part beyond the Arno, he did a crucifix on a panel, besides many other things, and a St John, which were considered very beautiful. At last he fell sick of a cruel abscess, and after lingering for many months he died at the age of fifty-five, and was honourably buried by the monks in the chapter-house of their monastery as his virtues demanded. Experience shows that in the course of time many shoots frequently spring from a single germ owing to the diligence and ability of men, and so it was in the monastery of the Angeli, where the monks had always paid considerable attention to painting and design. Don Lorenzo was not the only excellent artist among them, but men distinguished in design flourished there for a long time both before and after him. Thus I cannot possibly pass over in silence one Don Jacopo of Florence, who flourished a long time before D. Lorenzo, because as he was the best and most methodical of monks, so he was the best writer of large letters who has ever existed before or since, not only in Tuscany but in all Europe, as is clearly testified not only by the twenty large choir books which he left in his monastery, the writing in which is most beautiful, the books themselves being perhaps the largest in Italy, but an endless number of other books which may still be found in Rome and in Venice and many other places, notably in S. Michele and S. Mania at Murano, a monastery of the Camaldoline order. By these works the good father has richly deserved the honours accorded to him many years after he had passed to a better life, his celebration in many Latin verses by D. Paolo Orlandini, a very learned monk of the same monastery, as well as the preservation of the right hand which wrote the books, with great veneration in a tabernacle, together with that of another monk, D. Silvestro, who illuminated the same books with no less excellence, when the conditions of the time are taken into consideration, than D. Jacopo had written them. I, who have seen them many times, am lost in astonishment that they should have been executed with such good design and with so much diligence at that time, when all the arts of design were little better than lost, since the works of these monks were executed about the year of grace 1350, or a little before or after, as may be seen in each of the said books. It is reported, and some old men relate that when Pope Leo X. came to Florence he wished to see and closely examine these books, since he remembered having heard them highly praised by the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici, his father; and that after he had attentively looked through them and admired them as they were all lying open on the choir-desks, he said, "If they were in accordance with the rules of the Roman Church and not of the Camaldolines, I should like some specimens for S. Peter's at Rome, for which I would pay the monks a just price." There were, and perhaps still are, two very fine ones at S. Peter's by the same monks. In the same monastery of the Angeli is a quantity of very ancient embroidery, done in a very fine style, with excellent designs by the fathers of the house while they were in perpetual seclusion, with the title not of monks but of hermits, and who never came out of the monastery as the nuns and monks do in our day. This practice of seclusion lasted until 1470. But to return to D. Lorenzo. He taught Francesco Fiorentino, who, after his death, did the tabernacle which is on the side of S. Maria Novella at the head of the via della Scala leading to the Pope's chamber. He also had another pupil, a Pisan, who painted in the chapel of Rutilio di Ser Baccio Maggiolini, in the church of S. Francesco at Pisa, Our Lady, a St Peter, St John the Baptist, St Francis and St Ranieri, with three scenes of small figures in the predella of the altar. This painting, executed in 1315, was considered meritorious for a work done in tempera. In our book of designs I have the theological virtues done by D. Lorenzo's hand in chiaroscuro, with good design and a beautiful and graceful style, so that they are perhaps better than the designs of any other master of the time. Antonio Vite of Pistoia was a meritorious painter in Lorenzo's time, and is said to have painted, among many other things described in the life of Stamina, in the palace of the Geppo of Prato, the life of Francesco di Marco, who was the founder of that pious place. Taddeo Bartoli, Painter of Siena. Those artists who put themselves to a great deal of pains in painting in order to win fame, deserve a better fate than the placing of their works in obscure and unhonoured places where they may be blamed by persons whose knowledge of the subject is not considerable. Their productions ought to be so prominently placed with plenty of light and air that they may be properly seen and examined by every one. This is the case of the public work of Taddeo Bartoli, painter of Siena for the chapel of the palace of the Signoria at Siena. Taddeo was the son of Bartoli son of the master Fredi, who was a mediocre painter in his day, and painted scenes from the Old Testament on a wall of the Pieve of S. Gimignano, on the left hand side on entering. In the middle of this work, which if the truth must be told was not very good, the following inscription may still be read: _Ann: Dom 1356 Bartolus magistri Fredi de Senis me pinxit_. Bartoli must have been young at the time, for there is a picture of his of the year 1388, in S. Agostino of the same district, on the left hand side on entering the principal door. The subject is the Circumcision of our Lord with certain saints, and it is in a far better style both as regards design and colouring, some of the heads being really fine although the feet of the figures are in the ancient style. In fact many other works of Bartoli may be seen about that district. But to return to Taddeo, as the best master of the time, he received a commission, as I have said, to paint the chapel of the palace of the Signoria for his native place, and he executed it with such diligence, with consideration for so honoured a place, and he was so richly rewarded by the Signoria, that he greatly increased his glory and renown. Thus not only did he afterwards make many pictures for his native land, to his great honour and benefit, but he was invited and asked of the Signoria of Siena as a great favour by Francesco da Carrara, lord of Padua, to go there, as he did, and do some things in that most noble city. He did some pictures and other things there, notably in the Arena and in the Santo with great care, to his own great honour and to the infinite satisfaction of the said lord and of the whole city. Returning subsequently to Tuscany he did a picture in tempera in S. Gimignano, which is something in the style of Ugolino of Siena and is now behind the high altar of the Pieve facing the choir of the priests. He next went to Siena, but did not remain long there as he was summoned to Pisa by one of the Lanfranchi, a warden of the Duomo. Having proceeded thither he did for the chapel of the Nunziata the scene where the Madonna is ascending the steps of the temple, where the priest in his pontificals is awaiting her, a highly finished work. The face of the priest is the portrait of the man who had invited him, while his own is hard by. On the completion of this work, the same patron induced him to paint over the chapel in the Campo Santo, the Coronation of Our Lady by Jesus Christ, with many angels, in most beautiful attitudes and very finely coloured. For the chapel of the sacristy of St Francesco at Pisa, Taddeo also painted a picture in tempera of the Madonna and some saints, signing his name to it and the year 1394. About the same time he did some pictures in tempera at Volterra, and another picture at Monte Oliveto, while on the wall he did an Inferno, following the arrangement of Dante as regards the division of the damned and the nature of their punishment, but as regards the site he either could not or would not imitate him, or perhaps he lacked the necessary knowledge. He also sent to Arezzo a picture which is in S. Agostino containing a portrait of Pope Gregory IX., the one who returned to Italy after the papal court had been so many decades in France. After these things he returned to Siena, but did not make a long stay there as he was invited to Perugia to work in the church of S. Domenico. Here he painted the whole of the life of St Catherine in the chapel dedicated to that saint, and did some figures in S. Francesco beside the sacristy door, which may still be discerned to-day, and are recognisable as being by Taddeo, because he always retained the same manner. Shortly after, in the year 1398, Biroldo, lord of Perugia, was assassinated. Taddeo accordingly returned to Siena, where he devoted constant work and steady application to the study of art, in order to make himself a worthy painter. It may be affirmed that if he did not perhaps attain his purpose, it was not on account of any defect or negligence on his part, but solely because of an obstructive malady which prevented him from ever realising his desire. Taddeo died at the age of fifty-nine, after having taught the art to a nephew of his called Domenico. His paintings were done about the year of grace 1410. Thus, as I have said, he left Domenico Bartoli, his nephew and pupil, who devoted himself to the art of painting, and painted with superior skill. In the subjects which he represented he exhibited much more wealth and variety in various matters than his uncle had done. In the hall of the pilgrims of the great hospital of Siena there are two large scenes in fresco by Domenico, which contain prospectives and other ornaments, composed with considerable ingenuity. It is said that Domenico was modest and gentle and of a singularly amiable and liberal courtesy, which did no less honour to his name than the art of painting itself. His works were executed about the year of our Lord 1436, and the last were in S. Trinita at Florence, a picture of the Annunciation and the high altar picture in the church of the Carmine. Alvaro di Piero of Portugal flourished at the same time, and adopted a very similar style, but made his colouring more clear and his figures shorter. In Volterra he did several pictures, and there is one in S. Antonio at Pisa and others in various places, but as they are of no great excellence it is not necessary to mention them. In our book there is a sheet of drawings by Taddeo, containing a Christ and two angels, etc., very skilfully executed. Lorenzo di Bicci, Painter of Florence. When those who excel in any honourable employment, no matter what, unite with their skill as craftsmen, a gentleness of manners and of good breeding, and especially courtesy, serving those who employ them with speed and goodwill, there is no doubt that they are pursuing to their great honour and advantage almost everything which can be desired in this world. This was the case with Lorenzo di Bicci, painter of Florence, born in Florence in the year 1400, at the very moment when Italy was beginning to be disturbed by the wars which ended so badly for her, was in very good credit from his earliest years; for under his father's discipline he learned good manners, and from Spinello's instruction he acquired the art of painting, so that he had a reputation not only of being an excellent painter, but of being a most courteous and able man. While he was still a youth, Lorenzo did some works in fresco at Florence and outside to gain facility, and Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, having remarked the excellence of his style, employed him to paint in the hall of the old house of the Medici, which afterwards was left to Lorenzo, natural brother of Cosmo the Ancient, after the great palace was built, all those famous men who may still be seen in a fairly good state of preservation. This work being completed, Lorenzo di Bicci was anxious, like the doctors who experiment in their art on the skins of poor rustics, to have practice in the art of painting in a place where things are not so closely criticised, and for some time he accepted everything which presented itself; hence, outside the gate of S. Friano at the ponte a Scandicci, he painted a tabernacle, as it may now be seen, and at Cerbaia under a portico he painted very agreeably a Madonna and many saints on a wall. Afterwards a chapel in S. Marco at Florence was allotted to him by the family of the Martini, and on the walls he painted in fresco a number of scenes from the life of Our Lady, and on the altar picture the Virgin herself in the midst of many saints. In the same church over the chapel of St John the Evangelist, of the family of the Landi, he painted in fresco the angel Raphael and Tobias. In the year 1418 for Ricciardo di M. Niccolo Spinello, on the piazza front of the convent of S. Croce he painted a large scene in fresco of St Thomas examining the wounds of Jesus Christ in the presence of all the other apostles who are kneeling reverently at the sight. Next to this scene and also in fresco he did a St Christopher, twelve and a half braccia high, which is a rare thing, because with the exception of the St Christopher of Buffalmacco, a larger figure had never been seen, and although the style is not good it is the most meritorious and best proportioned representation of the saint. Besides this the pictures were executed with such skill that although they have been exposed to the air for many years, and being turned to the north, they have suffered the violence of rain and storm, yet they have never lost the brilliancy of their colouring and are in no wise injured by these accidents. Lorenzo also made a crucifix with many figures inside the door which is in the middle of these figures, called the door of the knocker, at the request of the same Ricciardo and of the superior of the convent, and on the encircling wall he did the confirmation of the rule of St Francis by Pope Honorius, and then the martyrdom of some friars of that order, who are going to preach the faith to the Saracens. In the arches and on the vaulting he did some kings of France, friars and followers of St Francis, drawing them from life, as well as many learned men of the order, distinguished by their several dignities of bishop, cardinal and pope. Among these are the portraits from life of Popes Nicholas IV. and Alexander V., in medallions. For all these figures Lorenzo made the grey habits, but with variety owing to his skill in workmanship, so that they all differ from one another, some inclining towards red, others to blue, some being dark and others more light, so that all are varied and worthy of consideration. What is more, it is said that he produced these works with such facility and speed that when the superior, who paid his expenses in designing, called him one day, when he had just made the colour for a figure and was beginning it, he answered, "Make the soup and I will come when I have finished this figure." Accordingly it is said with a great show of reason that no one ever exhibited such quickness of the hands, such skill in colouring, or was so resolute as he. By his hand also is the tabernacle in fresco which is beside the nunnery of Foligno and the Madonna and saints over the door of the church of that nunnery, among them being a St Francis espousing Poverty. In the church of Camaldoli at Florence, he painted for the company of the Martyrs some scenes of the martyrdom of certain saints, and decorated the chapels on either side of the principal chapel. As these paintings gave considerable satisfaction to the whole city, he was commissioned on their completion, to paint a wall of the church in the Carmine for the family of the Salvestrini, now almost extinct, there being so far as I know, no other surviving member than a friar of the Angeli at Florence, called Fra Nemesio, a good and courteous monk. Here he did the martyrs, when they are condemned to death, being stripped naked and made to walk bare-footed on thorns sown by the servants of the tyrants, whilst they are on the way to be crucified, and higher up they are represented on the cross in varied and extraordinary attitudes. In this work, the largest which had ever been produced, everything is done with great skill and design, according to the knowledge of the time, being full of the expressions showing the divers ways of dying of those who are put to death with violence. For this cause I am not surprised that many men of ability have made use of some things found in this picture. After this Lorenzo did many other figures in the same church, and decorated two chapels in the screen. At the same time he did the tabernacle on the side of the Cuculia, and the one in the via de' Martelli on the wall of the houses, and over the knocker door of S. Spirito he did a St Augustine in fresco, who is giving the rule to his brethren. In S. Trinita in the chapel of Neri Capponi he painted in fresco the life of St John Gualbert. In the principal chapel of S. Lucia in the via de' Bardi he did some scenes in fresco from the life of St Lucy for Niccolo da Uzzano, whose portrait he introduced there from life together with those of some other citizens. This Niccolo with the assistance and model of Lorenzo, built his own palace near the church, and began a magnificent college or studium between the convent of the Servites and that of S. Marco, that is to say, where the lions now are. This truly magnificent work, rather worthy of a prince than of a private citizen, was not completed, because the immense sum of money which Niccolo left in his bank at Florence for the building and endowment of it were expended by the Florentines on war and other needs of the city. Although Fortune can never obscure the memory and greatness of the spirit of Niccolo da Uzzano, the community suffered a great loss by the non-completion of the work. Therefore, let anyone who desires to help the world in such a manner, and to leave an honourable memorial of himself, do so himself in his life-time, and not trust to the faithfulness of posterity and of his heirs, as it very rarely happens that a thing is carried out where it is left to successors. But to return to Lorenzo. Besides what has been already mentioned, he painted a Madonna and certain saints very fairly in a tabernacle on the ponte Rubaconte in fresco. Not long after, Ser Michele di Fruosino, master of the hospital of S. Maria Nuova at Florence, a building founded by Folco Portinari, citizen of Florence, proposed, as the property of the hospital had increased, to enlarge his church outside Florence, dedicated to St Giles, which was of small importance. Accordingly he consulted Lorenzo di Bicci, his close friend, and on 5th September 1418 he began the new church, which was completed in its present form in a year, and then solemnly consecrated by Pope Martin V. at the request of Ser Michele, who was the eighth master and a member of the family of the Portinari. Lorenzo afterwards painted this consecration, at the desire of Ser Michele, on the front of the church, introducing the portrait of the Pope and of some cardinals. This work was then much admired as something new and beautiful. For this cause Lorenzo was judged worthy to be the first to paint in the principal church of his native city, that is S. Maria del Fiore, where, under the windows of each chapel, he did the saints to which they are dedicated; and afterwards, on the pillars and through the church, he did the twelve Apostles with the crosses of the consecration, as the church was solemnly consecrated in that very year by Pope Eugenius IV. of Venice. In the same church the wardens, by a public ordinance, employed him to paint on the wall in fresco a deposition, finished in marble, in memory of the Cardinal de' Corsini, whose effigy is there, upon the sarcophagus. Above this is another like it, in memory of Master Luigi Marsili, a most famous theologian, who went as ambassador with M. Luigi Giuccardini and M. Guccio di Gino, most honoured knights, to the Duke of Anjou. Lorenzo was afterwards invited to Arezzo by D. Laurentino, abbot of S. Bernardo, a monastery of the order of Monte Oliveto, where he painted scenes from the life of St Bernard in fresco for the principal chapel for M. Carlo Marsupino. But as he was about to paint the life of St Benedict in the cloister of the convent, after he had painted the principal chapel of the church of S. Francesco, for Francesco de' Bacci, the elder, where he alone did the vaulting and half the tympanum, he fell sick of a chest affection. Accordingly he caused himself to be carried to Florence, and left instructions that Marco da Montepulciano, his pupil, should do these scenes from the life of St Benedict in the cloister, from a design which he had made and left with D. Laurentino. These Marco did to the best of his ability, completing them in the year 1448 on 24th April, the whole work being in chiaroscuro, and his name may be seen written there, with verses which are not less rude than the painting. Lorenzo returned to his country, and, having recovered, he painted on the same wall of the convent of S. Croce, where he had done the St Christopher, the Assumption of Our Lady surrounded in Heaven by a choir of angels, and below a St Thomas receiving the girdle. In the execution of this work, as Lorenzo was sick, he was assisted by Donatello, then quite a youth, and by means of such effective aid it was completed in the year 1450, so that I believe it to be the best work both in design and in colouring that Lorenzo ever produced. Not long after, being an old man and worn out, he died at the age of about sixty years, leaving two sons who practised painting, one of whom, named Bicci, assisted him in many of his works, and the other, called Neri, drew the portraits of his father and himself in the chapel of the Lenzi in Ognissanti, in two medallions, with letters about them giving the names of both. In this same chapel Neri did some stories of Our Lady, and took great pains to copy many of the costumes of his day, both of men and women. He did the altar picture for the chapel in tempera, and painted some pictures in the Abbey of S. Felice, of the Camaldoline order, on the piazza of Florence, as well as the high altar of S. Michele of Arezzo of the same order. Outside Arezzo, at S. Maria delle Grazie, in the church of S. Bernardino, he did a Madonna with the people of Arezzo under her mantle, and on one side St Bernardino is kneeling, with a wooden cross in his hand, such as he was accustomed to carry when he went through Arezzo preaching; and on the other side are St Nicholas and St Michael the Archangel. The predella contains the acts of St Bernardino and the miracles which, he performed, especially those done in that place. The same Neri did the high altar picture for S. Romolo at Florence, and in the chapel of the Spini in S. Trinita he did the life of St John Gualbert in fresco, as well as the picture in tempera which is above the altar. From these works it is clear that if Neri had lived, instead of dying at the age of thirty-six, he would have done many better and more numerous works than his father Lorenzo. The latter was the last master to adopt the old manner of Giotto, and accordingly his life will be the last in this first part, which I have now completed, with God's help. Notes PAGE LINE xxiii. 5. "braccia," may be considered roughly to represent about two feet; literally translated it means an arm. 7. 6. "fresco," Painting _al fresco_, upon fresh or wet ground is executed with mineral and earthy pigments upon a freshly laid stucco ground of lime or gypsum.--_Fairholt_. 9. 28. "old king Charles of Anjou," the brother of St Louis, crowned king of Sicily in 1266. 10. 10. "tempera," a method in which the pigments are mixed with chalk or clay and diluted with size. 11. 19. "Credette," etc. "Cimabue thought To lord it over painting's field; and now The cry is Giotto's, and his name eclips'd."--_Cary_. 15. 13. "drawings." It is stated that the knight Gaddi sold five volumes of drawings to some merchants for several thousands of scudi, which composed Vasari's famous book, so often referred to by h m. Card. Leopold de' Medici collected several of those by the most famous artists. This collection was sent to the Uffizi gallery in 1700, where they are merged with the other drawings. 25. 11. "bridge which still bears his name." M. Rubaconte was podesta of Florence in 1237 and in addition to laying the foundation stone of this bridge, he also caused the city to be paved. _Villani_, vi. 26. The bridge is now known as the Ponte alle Grazie. 45. 32. "Frederick Barbarossa." Impossible, for Barbarossa died two centuries before. Perhaps Vasari means the Emperor Frederick III. 51. 31. "Ser Ciappelletto," the hero of the first story in Boccaccio's _Decameron_, forger, murderer, blasphemer, fornicator, drunkard and gambler, "he was probably the worst man who was ever born," to crown all, he so deceived the priest to whom he confessed that he was canonised. 55. 23. "S. Giovanni." Bk. i., cap. 42. Villani states that it was originally built by the Romans in the time of Octavian as a temple to Mars. 67. 25. "M. Farinata degli Uberti."_Cf_, p. 30 above. After the battle of Montaperti in 1260, in which the Sienese aided by the Ghibelline exiles of Florence won a complete victory over the Florentines, a council was held in which it was proposed to destroy Florence utterly. The project was defeated by Farinata, one of the most prominent of the victorious Florentines. _Villani_, bk. vi., cap. 81. _Cf_, Dante _Inferno_, x. 1. 92. 75. 19. "M. Forese da Rabatta," _Decameron_, 6th Day, Novella 5. 81. 23. "life of the patient Job." It is now a well established fact that these frescoes were painted by Francesco da Volterra in 1371, several years after Giotto's death. 85. 10. "Oh dissi lui," etc. "Oh," I exclaimed, "Art thou not Oderigi, art not thou Agobbio's glory, glory of that art Which they of Paris call the limner's skill? Brother, said he, with tints that gayer smile, Bolognian Franco's pencil lines the leaves. His all the honour now; mine borrowed light." --Cary. 102. 4. "Franco Sacchetti," born at Florence in 1335. His Novelle were considered the best after those of Boccaccio. 110. 24. Where the Giglion joins the Chiassa There did my ancestors flourish Who bear six golden stones on azure ground. 151. 14. "An eagle on the back of a lion." The bishop was a prominent Ghibelline, whose figure was the imperial eagle, while the lion signified the opposing Guelph party. Buffalmacco as a Florentine would belong to the latter faction. 155. 5. "Voi che avvisate," etc. Ye who behold this painting Think, weigh and consider Upon the merciful God, supreme creator, Who made all things in love. He fashioned that angelic nature in new orders, In that resplendent empire of heaven. Motionless Himself yet the source of all motion He made everything good and pure. Raise the eyes of your mind, Reflect upon the ordering Of the entire globe and reverently Praise Him who has created so well. Think that you also may taste the delight Of living among the angels, where all are blessed. In this scene also we see the glory of the world, The base, the mean, and the lofty. 188. ii. "arts of Florence." The arts or guilds of Florence formed the basis of the government of the city. They were of two orders, the greater and the lesser. The seven greater arts were: Lawyers (St Luke), the Calimara or dealers in foreign cloth (St John Baptist), money-changers (St Matthew), woollen manufacturers (St Thomas), physicians (Virgin Mary), silk manufacturers (St John the Divine), and the furriers (St James). The lesser arts were fourteen in number, including armourers (St George), locksmiths (St Mark), farriers (St Eloi), drapers (St Stephen), shoemakers (St Philip), butchers (St Peter). They were admitted to the full citizenship in 1378. 199. 21. "Da che prosperitade," etc. "Since every happiness has abandoned us, Come death, the cure of every grief, Come and give us our last meal." 200. 3. "Ischermo di saveri," etc. "Knowledge and wealth, Birth and valour, all Are alike powerless against his strokes." 212. 10. "the Duke of Athens." Walter de Brienne, a Frenchman, elected captain and protector of Florence in June 1342;. he endeavoured to become master of the city, but was expelled in the popular rising referred to. 239. 31. "the Bavarian." Louis of Bavaria, the emperor who died in 1347. 241. 3 "_a secco_." Fresco painting in secco is that kind which absorbs the colours into the plaster and gives them a dry sunken appearance.--_Fairholt_. 263. 31 "affair of the Ciompi": the name given to the rising of the lesser people against the powerful guilds, resulting in a wider distribution of the powers of government. The lower classes won and appointed Michele del Lando as their Gonfaloniere. Ciompi means the lowest classes. 265. 14. "200,000 scudi," worth about £44,444, 9s. 
2176	----	Transcribed from the 1901 Cassell and Company edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk. Proofing by David, Dawn Smith, Uzma, Jane Foster, Juliana Rew, Marie Rhoden and Jo Osment. SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART by Joshua Reyonds INTRODUCTION It is a happy memory that associates the foundation of our Royal Academy with the delivery of these inaugural discourses by Sir Joshua Reynolds, on the opening of the schools, and at the first annual meetings for the distribution of its prizes. They laid down principles of art from the point of view of a man of genius who had made his power felt, and with the clear good sense which is the foundation of all work that looks upward and may hope to live. The truths here expressed concerning Art may, with slight adjustment of the way of thought, be applied to Literature or to any exercise of the best powers of mind for shaping the delights that raise us to the larger sense of life. In his separation of the utterance of whole truths from insistance upon accidents of detail, Reynolds was right, because he guarded the expression of his view with careful definitions of its limits. In the same way Boileau was right, as a critic of Literature, in demanding everywhere good sense, in condemning the paste brilliants of a style then in decay, and fixing attention upon the masterly simplicity of Roman poets in the time of Augustus. Critics by rule of thumb reduced the principles clearly defined by Boileau to a dull convention, against which there came in course of time a strong reaction. In like manner the teaching of Reynolds was applied by dull men to much vague and conventional generalisation in the name of dignity. Nevertheless, Reynolds taught essential truths of Art. The principles laid down by him will never fail to give strength to the right artist, or true guidance towards the appreciation of good art, though here and there we may not wholly assent to some passing application of them, where the difference may be great between a fashion of thought in his time and in ours. A righteous enforcement of exact truth in our day has led many into a readiness to appreciate more really the minute imitation of a satin dress, or a red herring, than the noblest figure in the best of Raffaelle's cartoons. Much good should come of the diffusion of this wise little book. Joshua Reynolds was born on the 15th of July, 1723, the son of a clergyman and schoolmaster, at Plympton in Devonshire. His bent for Art was clear and strong from his childhood. In 1741 at the age of nineteen, he began study, and studied for two yours in London under Thomas Hudson, a successful portrait painter. Then he went back to Devonshire and painted portraits, aided for some time in his education by attention to the work of William Gandy of Exeter. When twenty-six years old, in May, 1749, Reynolds was taken away by Captain Keppel to the Mediterranean, and brought into contact with the works of the great painters of Italy. He stayed two years in Rome, and in accordance with the principles afterwards laid down in these lectures, he refused, when in Rome, commissions for copying, and gave his mind to minute observation of the art of the great masters by whose works he was surrounded. He spent two months in Florence, six weeks in Venice, a few days in Bologna and Parma. "If," he said, "I had never seen any of the fine works of Correggio, I should never, perhaps, have remarked in Nature the expression which I find in one of his pieces; or if I had remarked it, I might have thought it too difficult, or perhaps impossible to execute." In 1753 Reynolds came back to England, and stayed three months in Devonshire before setting up a studio in London, in St. Martin's Lane, which was then an artists' quarter. His success was rapid. In 1755 he had one hundred and twenty-five sitters. Samuel Johnson found in him his most congenial friend. He moved to Newport Street, and he built himself a studio--where there is now an auction room--at 47, Lincoln's Inn Fields. There he remained for life. In 1760 the artists opened, in a room lent by the Society of Arts, a free Exhibition for the sale of their works. This was continued the next year at Spring Gardens, with a charge of a shilling for admission. In 1765 they obtained a charter of incorporation, and in 1768 the King gave his support to the foundation of a Royal Academy of Arts by seceders from the preceding "Incorporated Society of Artists," into which personal feelings had brought much division. It was to consist, like the French Academy, of forty members, and was to maintain Schools open to all students of good character who could give evidence that they had fully learnt the rudiments of Art. The foundation by the King dates from the 10th of December, 1768. The Schools were opened on the 2nd of January next following, and on that occasion Joshua Reynolds, who had been elected President--his age was then between forty-five and forty-six--gave the Inaugural Address which formed the first of these Seven Discourses. The other six were given by him, as President, at the next six annual meetings: and they were all shaped to form, when collected into a volume, a coherent body of good counsel upon the foundations of the painter's art. H. M. TO THE KING The regular progress of cultivated life is from necessaries to accommodations, from accommodations to ornaments. By your illustrious predecessors were established marts for manufactures, and colleges for science; but for the arts of elegance, those arts by which manufactures are embellished and science is refined, to found an academy was reserved for your Majesty. Had such patronage been without effect, there had been reason to believe that nature had, by some insurmountable impediment, obstructed our proficiency; but the annual improvement of the exhibitions which your Majesty has been pleased to encourage shows that only encouragement had been wanting. To give advice to those who are contending for royal liberality has been for some years the duty of my station in the Academy; and these Discourses hope for your Majesty's acceptance as well-intended endeavours to incite that emulation which your notice has kindled, and direct those studies which your bounty has rewarded. May it please your Majesty, Your Majesty's Most dutiful servant, And most faithful subject, JOSHUA REYNOLDS. TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. Gentlemen,--That you have ordered the publication of this Discourse is not only very flattering to me, as it implies your approbation of the method of study which I have recommended; but likewise, as this method receives from that act such an additional weight and authority as demands from the students that deference and respect, which can be due only to the united sense of so considerable a body of artists. I am, With the greatest esteem and respect, GENTLEMEN, Your most humble And obedient servant, JOSHUA REYNOLDS SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART A DISCOURSE Delivered at the Opening of the Royal Academy, January 2nd, 1769, by the President. Gentlemen,--An academy in which the polite arts may be regularly cultivated is at last opened among us by royal munificence. This must appear an event in the highest degree interesting, not only to the artists, but to the whole nation. It is indeed difficult to give any other reason why an Empire like that of Britain should so long have wanted an ornament so suitable to its greatness than that slow progression of things which naturally makes elegance and refinement the last effect of opulence and power. An institution like this has often been recommended upon considerations merely mercantile. But an academy founded upon such principles can never effect even its own narrow purposes. If it has an origin no higher, no taste can ever be formed in it which can be useful even in manufactures; but if the higher arts of design flourish, these inferior ends will be answered of course. We are happy in having a prince who has conceived the design of such an institution, according to its true dignity, and promotes the arts, as the head of a great, a learned, a polite, and a commercial nation; and I can now congratulate you, gentlemen, on the accomplishment of your long and ardent wishes. The numberless and ineffectual consultations that I have had with many in this assembly, to form plans and concert schemes for an academy, afford a sufficient proof of the impossibility of succeeding but by the influence of Majesty. But there have, perhaps, been times when even the influence of Majesty would have been ineffectual, and it is pleasing to reflect that we are thus embodied, when every circumstance seems to concur from which honour and prosperity can probably arise. There are at this time a greater number of excellent artists than were ever known before at one period in this nation; there is a general desire among our nobility to be distinguished as lovers and judges of the arts; there is a greater superfluity of wealth among the people to reward the professors; and, above all, we are patronised by a monarch, who, knowing the value of science and of elegance, thinks every art worthy of his notice that tends to soften and humanise the mind. After so much has been done by his Majesty, it will be wholly our fault if our progress is not in some degree correspondent to the wisdom and, generosity of the institution; let us show our gratitude in our diligence, that, though our merit may not answer his expectations, yet, at least, our industry may deserve his protection. But whatever may be our proportion of success, of this we may be sure, that the present institution will at least contribute to advance our knowledge of the arts, and bring us nearer to that ideal excellence which it is the lot of genius always to contemplate and never to attain. The principal advantage of an academy is, that, besides furnishing able men to direct the student, it will be a repository for the great examples of the art. These are the materials on which genius is to work, and without which the strongest intellect may be fruitlessly or deviously employed. By studying these authentic models, that idea of excellence which is the result of the accumulated experience of past ages may be at once acquired, and the tardy and obstructed progress of our predecessors may teach us a shorter and easier way. The student receives at one glance the principles which many artists have spent their whole lives in ascertaining; and, satisfied with their effect, is spared the painful investigation by which they come to be known and fixed. How many men of great natural abilities have been lost to this nation for want of these advantages? They never had an opportunity of seeing those masterly efforts of genius which at once kindle the whole soul, and force it into sudden and irresistible approbation. Raffaelle, it is true, had not the advantage of studying in an academy; but all Rome, and the works of Michael Angelo in particular, were to him an academy. On the site of the Capel la Sistina he immediately from a dry, Gothic, and even insipid manner, which attends to the minute accidental discriminations of particular and individual objects, assumed that grand style of painting, which improves partial representation by the general and invariable ideas of nature. Every seminary of learning may be said to be surrounded with an atmosphere of floating knowledge, where every mind may imbibe somewhat congenial to its own original conceptions. Knowledge, thus obtained, has always something more popular and useful than that which is forced upon the mind by private precepts or solitary meditation. Besides, it is generally found that a youth more easily receives instruction from the companions of his studies, whose minds are nearly on a level with his own, than from those who are much his superiors; and it is from his equals only that he catches the fire of emulation. One advantage, I will venture to affirm, we shall have in our academy, which no other nation can boast. We shall have nothing to unlearn. To this praise the present race of artists have a just claim. As far as they have yet proceeded they are right. With us the exertions of genius will henceforward be directed to their proper objects. It will not be as it has been in other schools, where he that travelled fastest only wandered farthest from the right way. Impressed as I am, therefore, with such a favourable opinion of my associates in this undertaking, it would ill become me to dictate to any of them. But as these institutions have so often failed in other nations, and as it is natural to think with regret how much might have been done, and how little has been done, I must take leave to offer a few hints, by which those errors may be rectified, and those defects supplied. These the professors and visitors may reject or adopt as they shall think proper. I would chiefly recommend that an implicit obedience to the rules of art, as established by the great masters, should be exacted from the _young_ students. That those models, which have passed through the approbation of ages, should be considered by them as perfect and infallible guides as subjects for their imitation, not their criticism. I am confident that this is the only efficacious method of making a progress in the arts; and that he who sets out with doubting will find life finished before he becomes master of the rudiments. For it may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on his own sense has ended his studies as soon as he has commenced them. Every opportunity, therefore, should be taken to discountenance that false and vulgar opinion that rules are the fetters of genius. They are fetters only to men of no genius; as that armour, which upon the strong becomes an ornament and a defence, upon the weak and misshapen turns into a load, and cripples the body which it was made to protect. How much liberty may be taken to break through those rules, and, as the poet expresses it, "To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art," may be an after consideration, when the pupils become masters themselves. It is then, when their genius has received its utmost improvement, that rules may possibly be dispensed with. But let us not destroy the scaffold until we have raised the building. The directors ought more particularly to watch over the genius of those students who, being more advanced, are arrived at that critical period of study, on the nice management of which their future turn of taste depends. At that age it is natural for them to be more captivated with what is brilliant than with what is solid, and to prefer splendid negligence to painful and humiliating exactness. A facility in composing, a lively, and what is called a masterly handling the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed, captivating qualities to young minds, and become of course the objects of their ambition. They endeavour to imitate those dazzling excellences, which they will find no great labour in attaining. After much time spent in these frivolous pursuits, the difficulty will be to retreat; but it will be then too late; and there is scarce an instance of return to scrupulous labour after the mind has been debauched and deceived by this fallacious mastery. By this useless industry they are excluded from all power of advancing in real excellence. Whilst boys, they are arrived at their utmost perfection; they have taken the shadow for the substance; and make that mechanical facility the chief excellence of the art, which is only an ornament, and of the merit of which few but painters themselves are judges. This seems to me to be one of the most dangerous sources of corruption; and I speak of it from experience, not as an error which may possibly happen, but which has actually infected all foreign academies. The directors were probably pleased with this premature dexterity in their pupils, and praised their despatch at the expense of their correctness. But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought masterly inciting them on one hand, but also their natural sloth tempting them on the other. They are terrified at the prospect before them, of the toil required to attain exactness. The impetuosity of youth is distrusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They wish to find some shorter path to excellence, and hope to obtain the reward of eminence by other means than those which the indispensable rules of art have prescribed. They must, therefore, be told again and again that labour is the only price of solid fame, and that whatever their force of genius may be, there is no easy method of becoming a good painter. When we read the lives of the most eminent painters, every page informs us that no part of their time was spent in dissipation. Even an increase of fame served only to augment their industry. To be convinced with what persevering assiduity they pursued their studies, we need only reflect on their method of proceeding in their most celebrated works. When they conceived a subject, they first made a variety of sketches; then a finished drawing of the whole; after that a more correct drawing of every separate part, heads, hands, feet, and pieces of drapery; they then painted the picture, and after all re-touched it from the life. The pictures, thus wrought with such pain, now appear like the effect of enchantment, and as if some mighty genius had struck them off at a blow. But, whilst diligence is thus recommended to the students, the visitors will take care that their diligence be effectual; that it be well directed and employed on the proper object. A student is not always advancing because he is employed; he must apply his strength to that part of the art where the real difficulties lie; to that part which distinguishes it as a liberal art, and not by mistaken industry lose his time in that which is merely ornamental. The students, instead of vying with each other which shall have the readiest band, should be taught to contend who shall have the purest and most correct outline, instead of striving which shall produce the brightest tint, or, curiously trifling endeavour to give the gloss of stuffs so as to appear real, let their ambition be directed to contend which shall dispose his drapery in the most graceful folds, which shall give the most grace and dignity to the human figure. I must beg leave to submit one thing more to the consideration of the visitors, which appears to me a matter of very great consequence, and the omission of which I think a principal defect in the method of education pursued in all the academies I have ever visited. The error I mean is, that the students never draw exactly from the living models which they have before them. It is not indeed their intention, nor are they directed to do it. Their drawings resemble the model only in the attitude. They change the form according to their vague and uncertain ideas of beauty, and make a drawing rather of what they think the figure ought to be than of what it appears. I have thought this the obstacle that has stopped the progress of many young men of real genius; and I very much doubt whether a habit of drawing correctly what we see will not give a proportionable power of drawing correctly what we imagine. He who endeavours to copy nicely the figure before him not only acquires a habit of exactness and precision, but is continually advancing in his knowledge of the human figure; and though he seems to superficial observers to make a slower progress, he will be found at last capable of adding (without running into capricious wildness) that grace and beauty which is necessary to be given to his more finished works, and which cannot be got by the moderns, as it was not acquired by the ancients, but by an attentive and well-compared study of the human form. What I think ought to enforce this method is, that it has been the practice (as may be seen by their drawings) of the great masters in the art. I will mention a drawing of Raffaelle, "The Dispute of the Sacrament," the print of which, by Count Cailus, is in every hand. It appears that he made his sketch from one model; and the habit he had of drawing exactly from the form before him appears by his making all the figures with the same cap, such as his model then happened to wear; so servile a copyist was this great man, even at a time when he was allowed to be at his highest pitch of excellence. I have seen also academy figures by Annibale Caracci, though he was often sufficiently licentious in his finished works, drawn with all the peculiarities of an individual model. This scrupulous exactness is so contrary to the practice of the academies, that it is not without great deference that I beg leave to recommend it to the consideration of the visitors, and submit it to them, whether the neglect of this method is not one of the reasons why students so often disappoint expectation, and being more than boys at sixteen, become less than men at thirty. In short, the method I recommend can only be detrimental when there are but few living forms to copy; for then students, by always drawing from one alone, will by habit be taught to overlook defects, and mistake deformity for beauty. But of this there is no danger, since the council has determined to supply the academy with a variety of subjects; and indeed those laws which they have drawn up, and which the secretary will presently read for your confirmation, have in some measure precluded me from saying more upon this occasion. Instead, therefore, of offering my advice, permit me to indulge my wishes, and express my hope, that this institution may answer the expectations of its royal founder; that the present age may vie in arts with that of Leo X. and that "the dignity of the dying art" (to make use of an expression of Pliny) may be revived under the reign of George III. A DISCOURSE Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 11, 1769, by the President. Gentlemen,--I congratulate you on the honour which you have just received. I have the highest opinion of your merits, and could wish to show my sense of them in something which possibly may be more useful to you than barren praise. I could wish to lead you into such a course of study as may render your future progress answerable to your past improvement; and, whilst I applaud you for what has been done, remind you of how much yet remains to attain perfection. I flatter myself, that from the long experience I have had, and the unceasing assiduity with which I have pursued those studies, in which, like you, I have been engaged, I shall be acquitted of vanity in offering some hints to your consideration. They are indeed in a great degree founded upon my own mistakes in the same pursuit. But the history of errors properly managed often shortens the road to truth. And although no method of study that I can offer will of itself conduct to excellence, yet it may preserve industry from being misapplied. In speaking to you of the theory of the art, I shall only consider it as it has a relation to the method of your studies. Dividing the study of painting into three distinct periods, I shall address you as having passed through the first of them, which is confined to the rudiments, including a facility of drawing any object that presents itself, a tolerable readiness in the management of colours, and an acquaintance with the most simple and obvious rules of composition. This first degree of proficiency is, in painting, what grammar is in literature, a general preparation to whatever species of the art the student may afterwards choose for his more particular application. The power of drawing, modelling, and using colours is very properly called the language of the art; and in this language, the honours you have just received prove you to have made no inconsiderable progress. When the artist is once enabled to express himself with some degree of correctness, he must then endeavour to collect subjects for expression; to amass a stock of ideas, to be combined and varied as occasion may require. He is now in the second period of study, in which his business is to learn all that has hitherto been known and done. Having hitherto received instructions from a particular master, he is now to consider the art itself as his master. He must extend his capacity to more sublime and general instructions. Those perfections which lie scattered among various masters are now united in one general idea, which is henceforth to regulate his taste and enlarge his imagination. With a variety of models thus before him, he will avoid that narrowness and poverty of conception which attends a bigoted admiration of a single master, and will cease to follow any favourite where he ceases to excel. This period is, however, still a time of subjection and discipline. Though the student will not resign himself blindly to any single authority when he may have the advantage of consulting many, he must still be afraid of trusting his own judgment, and of deviating into any track where he cannot find the footsteps of some former master. The third and last period emancipates the student from subjection to any authority but what he shall himself judge to be supported by reason. Confiding now in his own judgment, he will consider and separate those different principles to which different modes of beauty owe their original. In the former period he sought only to know and combine excellence, wherever it was to be found, into one idea of perfection; in this he learns, what requires the most attentive survey and the subtle disquisition, to discriminate perfections that are incompatible with each other. He is from this time to regard himself as holding the same rank with those masters whom he before obeyed as teachers, and as exercising a sort of sovereignty over those rules which have hitherto restrained him. Comparing now no longer the performances of art with each other, but examining the art itself by the standard of nature, he corrects what is erroneous, supplies what is scanty, and adds by his own observation what the industry of his predecessors may have yet left wanting to perfection. Having well established his judgment, and stored his memory, he may now without fear try the power of his imagination. The mind that has been thus disciplined may be indulged in the warmest enthusiasm, and venture to play on the borders of the wildest extravagance. The habitual dignity, which long converse with the greatest minds has imparted to him, will display itself in all his attempts, and he will stand among his instructors, not as an imitator, but a rival. These are the different stages of the art. But as I now address myself particularly to those students who have been this day rewarded for their happy passage through the first period, I can with no propriety suppose they want any help in the initiatory studies. My present design is to direct your view to distant excellence, and to show you the readiest path that leads to it. Of this I shall speak with such latitude as may leave the province of the professor uninvaded, and shall not anticipate those precepts which it is his business to give and your duty to understand. It is indisputably evident that a great part of every man's life must be employed in collecting materials for the exercise of genius. Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory. Nothing can come of nothing. He who has laid up no materials can produce no combinations. A student unacquainted with the attempts of former adventurers is always apt to overrate his own abilities, to mistake the most trifling excursions for discoveries of moment, and every coast new to him for a new-found country. If by chance he passes beyond his usual limits, he congratulates his own arrival at those regions which they who have steered a better course have long left behind them. The productions of such minds are seldom distinguished by an air of originality: they are anticipated in their happiest efforts; and if they are found to differ in anything from their predecessors, it is only in irregular sallies and trifling conceits. The more extensive therefore your acquaintance is with the works of those who have excelled the more extensive will be your powers of invention; and what may appear still more like a paradox, the more original will be your conceptions. But the difficulty on this occasion is to determine who ought to be proposed as models of excellence, and who ought to be considered as the properest guides. To a young man just arrived in Italy, many of the present painters of that country are ready enough to obtrude their precepts, and to offer their own performances as examples of that perfection which they affect to recommend. The modern, however, who recommends _himself_ as a standard, may justly be suspected as ignorant of the true end, and unacquainted with the proper object of the art which he professes. To follow such a guide will not only retard the student, but mislead him. On whom, then, can he rely, or who shall show him the path that leads to excellence? The answer is obvious: Those great masters who have travelled the same road with success are the most likely to conduct others. The works of those who have stood the test of ages have a claim to that respect and veneration to which no modern can pretend. The duration and stability of their fame is sufficient to evince that it has not been suspended upon the slender thread of fashion and caprice, but bound to the human heart by every tie of sympathetic approbation. There is no danger of studying too much the works of those great men, but how they may be studied to advantage is an inquiry of great importance. Some who have never raised their minds to the consideration of the real dignity of the art, and who rate the works of an artist in proportion as they excel, or are defective in the mechanical parts, look on theory as something that may enable them to talk but not to paint better, and confining themselves entirely to mechanical practice, very assiduously toil on in the drudgery of copying, and think they make a rapid progress while they faithfully exhibit the minutest part of a favourite picture. This appears to me a very tedious, and I think a very erroneous, method of proceeding. Of every large composition, even of those which are most admired, a great part may be truly said to be common-place. This, though it takes up much time in copying, conduces little to improvement. I consider general copying as a delusive kind of industry; the student satisfies himself with the appearance of doing something; he falls into the dangerous habit of imitating without selecting, and of labouring without any determinate object; as it requires no effort of the mind, he sleeps over his work; and those powers of invention and composition which ought particularly to be called out and put in action lie torpid, and lose their energy for want of exercise. It is an observation that all must have made, how incapable those are of producing anything of their own who have spent much of their time in making finished copies. To suppose that the complication of powers, and variety of ideas necessary to that mind which aspires to the first honours ill the art of painting, can be obtained by the frigid contemplation of a few single models, is no less absurd than it would be in him who wishes to be a poet to imagine that by translating a tragedy he can acquire to himself sufficient knowledge of the appearances of nature, the operations of the passions, and the incidents of life. The great use in copying, if it be at all useful, should seem to be in learning to colour; yet even colouring will never be perfectly attained by servilely copying the mould before you. An eye critically nice can only be formed by observing well-coloured pictures with attention: and by close inspection, and minute examination you will discover, at last, the manner of handling, the artifices of contrast, glazing, and other expedients, by which good colourists have raised the value of their tints, and by which nature has been so happily imitated. I must inform you, however, that old pictures deservedly celebrated for their colouring are often so changed by dirt and varnish, that we ought not to wonder if they do not appear equal to their reputation in the eyes of unexperienced painters, or young students. An artist whose judgment is matured by long observation, considers rather what the picture once was, than what it is at present. He has acquired a power by habit of seeing the brilliancy of tints through the cloud by which it is obscured. An exact imitation, therefore, of those pictures, is likely to fill the student's mind with false opinions, and to send him back a colourist of his own formation, with ideas equally remote from nature and from art, from the genuine practice of the masters and the real appearances of things. Following these rules, and using these precautions, when you have clearly and distinctly learned in what good colouring consists, you cannot do better than have recourse to nature herself, who is always at hand, and in comparison of whose true splendour the best coloured pictures are but faint and feeble. However, as the practice of copying is not entirely to be excluded, since the mechanical practice of painting is learned in some measure by it, let those choice parts only be selected which have recommended the work to notice. If its excellence consists in its general effect, it would be proper to make slight sketches of the machinery and general management of the picture. Those sketches should be kept always by you for the regulation of your style. Instead of copying the touches of those great masters, copy only their conceptions. Instead of treading in their footsteps, endeavour only to keep the same road. Labour to invent on their general principles and way of thinking. Possess yourself with their spirit. Consider with yourself how a Michael Angelo or a Raffaelle would have treated this subject: and work yourself into a belief that your picture is to be seen and criticised by them when completed. Even an attempt of this kind will rouse your powers. But as mere enthusiasm will carry you but a little way, let me recommend a practice that may be equivalent, and will perhaps more efficaciously contribute to your advancement, than even the verbal corrections of those masters themselves, could they be obtained. What I would propose is, that you should enter into a kind of competition, by painting a similar subject, and making a companion to any picture that you consider as a model. After you have finished your work, place it near the model, and compare them carefully together. You will then not only see, but feel your own deficiencies more sensibly than by precepts, or any other means of instruction. The true principles of painting will mingle with your thoughts. Ideas thus fixed by sensible objects, will be certain and definitive; and sinking deep into the mind, will not only be more just, but more lasting than those presented to you by precepts only: which will, always be fleeting, variable, and undetermined. This method of comparing your own efforts with those of some great master, is indeed a severe and mortifying task, to which none will submit, but such as have great views, with fortitude sufficient to forego the gratifications of present vanity for future honour. When the student has succeeded in some measure to his own satisfaction, and has felicitated himself on his success, to go voluntarily to a tribunal where he knows his vanity must be humbled, and all self-approbation must vanish, requires not only great resolution, but great humility. To him, however, who has the Ambition to be a real master, the solid satisfaction which proceeds from a consciousness of his advancement (of which seeing his own faults is the first step) will very abundantly compensate for the mortification of present disappointment. There is, besides, this alleviating circumstance. Every discovery he makes, every acquisition of knowledge he attains, seems to proceed from his own sagacity; and thus he acquires a confidence in himself sufficient to keep up the resolution of perseverance. We all must have experienced how lazily, and consequently how ineffectually, instruction is received when forced upon the mind by others. Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers. We prefer those instructions which we have given ourselves, from our affection to the instructor; and they are more effectual, from being received into the mind at the very time when it is most open and eager to receive them. With respect to the pictures that you are to choose for your models, I could wish that you would take the world's opinion rather than your own. In other words, I would have you choose those of established reputation rather than follow your own fancy. If you should not admire them at first, you will, by endeavouring to imitate them, find that the world has not been mistaken. It is not an easy task to point out those various excellences for your imitation which he distributed amongst the various schools. An endeavour to do this may perhaps be the subject of some future discourse. I will, therefore, at present only recommend a model for style in painting, which is a branch of the art more immediately necessary to the young student. Style in painting is the same as in writing, a power over materials, whether words or colours, by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed. And in this Lodovico Carrache (I mean in his best works) appears to me to approach the nearest to perfection. His unaffected breadth of light and shadow, the simplicity of colouring, which holding its proper rank, does not draw aside the least part of the attention from the subject, and the solemn effect of that twilight which seems diffused over his pictures, appear to me to correspond with grave and dignified subjects, better than the more artificial brilliancy of sunshine which enlightens the pictures of Titian. Though Tintoret thought that Titian's colouring was the model of perfection, and would correspond even with the sublime of Michael Angelo; and that if Angelo had coloured like Titian, or Titian designed like Angelo, the world would once have had a perfect painter. It is our misfortune, however, that those works of Carrache which I would recommend to the student are not often found out of Bologna. The "St. Francis in the midst of his Friars," "The Transfiguration," "The Birth of St. John the Baptist," "The Calling of St. Matthew," the "St. Jerome," the fresco paintings in the Zampieri Palace, are all worthy the attention of the student. And I think those who travel would do well to allot a much greater portion of their time to that city than it has been hitherto the custom to bestow. In this art, as in others, there are many teachers who profess to show the nearest way to excellence, and many expedients have been invented by which the toil of study might be saved. But let no man be seduced to idleness by specious promises. Excellence is never granted to man but as the reward of labour. It argues, indeed, no small strength of mind to persevere in habits of industry, without the pleasure of perceiving those advances; which, like the hand of a clock, whilst they make hourly approaches to their point, yet proceed so slowly as to escape observation. A facility of drawing, like that of playing upon a musical instrument, cannot be acquired but by an infinite number of acts. I need not, therefore, enforce by many words the necessity of continual application; nor tell you that the port-crayon ought to be for ever in your hands. Various methods will occur to you by which this power may be acquired. I would particularly recommend that after your return from the academy (where I suppose your attendance to be constant) you would endeavour to draw the figure by memory. I will even venture to add, that by perseverance in this custom, you will become able to draw the human figure tolerably correct, with as little effort of the mind as to trace with a pen the letters of the alphabet. That this facility is not unattainable, some members in this academy give a sufficient proof. And, be assured, that if this power is not acquired whilst you are young, there will be no time for it afterwards: at least, the attempt will be attended with as much difficulty as those experience who learn to read or write after they have arrived to the age of maturity. But while I mention the port-crayon as the student's constant companion, he must still remember that the pencil is the instrument by which he must hope to obtain eminence. What, therefore, I wish to impress upon you is, that whenever an opportunity offers, you paint your studies instead of drawing them. This will give you such a facility in using colours, that in time they will arrange themselves under the pencil, even without the attention of the hand that conducts it. If one act excluded the other, this advice could not with any propriety be given. But if painting comprises both drawing and colouring and if by a short struggle of resolute industry the same expedition is attainable in painting as in drawing on paper, I cannot see what objection can justly be made to the practice; or why that should be done by parts, which may be done altogether. If we turn our eyes to the several schools of painting, and consider their respective excellences, we shall find that those who excel most in colouring pursued this method. The Venetian and Flemish schools, which owe much of their fame to colouring, have enriched the cabinets of the collectors of drawings with very few examples. Those of Titian, Paul Veronese, Tintoret, and the Bassans, are in general slight and undetermined. Their sketches on paper are as rude as their pictures are excellent in regard to harmony of colouring. Correggio and Barocci have left few, if any, finished drawings behind them. And in the Flemish school, Rubens and Vandyke made their designs for the most part either in colours or in chiaroscuro. It is as common to find studies of the Venetian and Flemish painters on canvas, as of the schools of Rome and Florence on paper. Not but that many finished drawings are sold under the names of those masters. Those, however, are undoubtedly the productions either of engravers or of their scholars who copied their works. These instructions I have ventured to offer from my own experience; but as they deviate widely from received opinions, I offer them with diffidence; and when better are suggested, shall retract them without regret. There is one precept, however, in which I shall only be opposed by the vain, the ignorant, and the idle. I am not afraid that I shall repeat it too often. You must have no dependence on your own genius. If you have great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. Nothing is denied to well-directed labour: nothing is to be obtained without it. Not to enter into metaphysical discussions on the nature or essence of genius, I will venture to assert, that assiduity unabated by difficulty, and a disposition eagerly directed to the object of its pursuit, will produce effects similar to those which some call the result of natural powers. Though a man cannot at all times, and in all places, paint or draw, yet the mind can prepare itself by laying in proper materials, at all times, and in all places. Both Livy and Plutarch, in describing Philopoemen, one of the ablest generals of antiquity, have given us a striking picture of a mind always intent on its profession, and by assiduity obtaining those excellences which some all their lives vainly expect from Nature. I shall quote the passage in Livy at length, as it runs parallel with the practice I would recommend to the painter, sculptor, or architect. "Philopoemen was a man eminent for his sagacity and experience in choosing ground, and in leading armies; to which he formed his mind by perpetual meditation, in times of peace as well as war. When, in any occasional journey, he came to a straight difficult passage, if he was alone, he considered with himself, and if he was in company he asked his friends what it would be best to do if in this place they had found an enemy, either in the front, or in the rear, on the one side, or on the other. 'It might happen,' says he, 'that the enemy to be opposed might come on drawn up in regular lines, or in a tumultuous body, formed only by the nature of the place.' He then considered a little what ground he should take; what number of soldiers he should use, and what arms he should give them; where he should lodge his carriages, his baggage, and the defenceless followers of his camp; how many guards, and of what kind, he should send to defend them; and whether it would be better to press forward along the pass, or recover by retreat his former station: he would consider likewise where his camp could most commodiously be formed; how much ground he should enclose within his trenches; where he should have the convenience of water; and where he might find plenty of wood and forage; and when he should break up his camp on the following day, through what road he could most safely pass, and in what form he should dispose his troops. With such thoughts and disquisitions he had from his early years so exercised his mind, that on these occasions nothing could happen which he had not been already accustomed to consider." I cannot help imagining that I see a promising young painter, equally vigilant, whether at home, or abroad in the streets, or in the fields. Every object that presents itself is to him a lesson. He regards all nature with a view to his profession; and combines her beauties, or corrects her defects. He examines the countenance of men under the influence of passion; and often catches the most pleasing hints from subjects of turbulence or deformity. Even bad pictures themselves supply him with useful documents; and, as Leonardo da Vinci has observed, he improves upon the fanciful images that are sometimes seen in the fire, or are accidentally sketched upon a discoloured wall. The artist who has his mind thus filled with ideas, and his hand made expert by practice, works with ease and readiness; whilst he who would have you believe that he is waiting for the inspirations of genius, is in reality at a loss how to beam, and is at last delivered of his monsters with difficulty and pain. The well-grounded painter, on the contrary, has only maturely to consider his subject, and all the mechanical parts of his art follow without his exertion, Conscious of the difficulty of obtaining what he possesses he makes no pretensions to secrets, except those of closer application. Without conceiving the smallest jealousy against others, he is contented that all shall be as great as himself who are willing to undergo the same fatigue: and as his pre-eminence depends not upon a trick, he is free from the painful suspicions of a juggler, who lives in perpetual fear lest his trick should be discovered. A DISCOURSE Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution of the Prizes, December, 14, 1770, by the President. Gentlemen,--It is not easy to speak with propriety to so many students of different ages and different degrees of advancement. The mind requires nourishment adapted to its growth; and what may have promoted our earlier efforts, might, retard us in our nearer approaches to perfection. The first endeavours of a young painter, as I have remarked in a former discourse, must be employed in the attainment of mechanical dexterity, and confined to the mere imitation of the object before him. Those who have advanced beyond the rudiments, may, perhaps, find advantage in reflecting on the advice which I have likewise given them, when I recommended the diligent study of the works of our great predecessors; but I at the same time endeavoured to guard them against an implicit submission to the authority of any one master, however excellent; or by a strict imitation of his manner, to preclude ourselves from the abundance and variety of nature. I will now add that nature herself is not to be too closely copied. There are excellences in the art of painting, beyond what is commonly called the imitation of nature: and these excellences I wish to point out. The students who, having passed through the initiatory exercises, are more advanced in the art, and who, sure of their hand, have leisure to exert their understanding, must now be told that a mere copier of nature can never produce anything great; can never raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator. The wish of the genuine painter must be more extensive: instead of endeavouring to amuse mankind with the minute neatness of his imitations, he must endeavour to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas; instead of seeking praise, by deceiving the superficial sense of the spectator, he must strive for fame, by captivating the imagination. The principle now laid down, that the perfection of this art does not consist in mere imitation, is far from being new or singular. It is, indeed, supported by the general opinion of the enlightened part of mankind. The poets, orators, and rhetoricians of antiquity, are continually enforcing this position, that all the arts receive their perfection from an ideal beauty, superior to what is to be found in individual nature. They are ever referring to the practice of the painters and sculptors of their times, particularly Phidias (the favourite artist of antiquity), to illustrate their assertions. As if they could not sufficiently express their admiration of his genius by what they knew, they have recourse to poetical enthusiasm. They call it inspiration; a gift from heaven. The artist is supposed to have ascended the celestial regions, to furnish his mind with this perfect idea of beauty. "He," says Proclus, "who takes for his model such forms as nature produces, and confines himself to an exact imitation of them, will never attain to what is perfectly beautiful. For the works of nature are full of disproportion, and fall very short of the true standard of beauty. So that Phidias, when he formed his Jupiter, did not copy any object ever presents to his sight; but contemplated only that image which he had conceived in his mind from Homer's description." And thus Cicero, speaking of the same Phidias: "Neither did this artist," says he, "when he carved the image of Jupiter or Minerva, set before him any one human figure as a pattern, which he was to copy; but having a more perfect idea of beauty fixed in his mind, this he steadily contemplated, and to the imitation of this all his skill and labour were directed." The moderns are not less convinced than the ancients of this superior power existing in the art; nor less conscious of its effects. Every language has adopted terms expressive of this excellence. The _Gusto grande_ of the Italians; the _Beau ideal_ of the French and the _great style_, _genius_, and _taste_ among the English, are but different appellations of the same thing. It is this intellectual dignity, they say, that ennobles the painter's art; that lays the line between him and the mere mechanic; and produces those great effects in an instant, which eloquence and poetry, by slow and repeated efforts, are scarcely able to attain. Such is the warmth with which both the ancients and moderns speak of this divine principle of the art; but, as I have formerly observed, enthusiastic admiration seldom promotes knowledge. Though a student by such praise may have his attention roused, and a desire excited, of running in this great career, yet it is possible that what has been said to excite, may only serve to deter him. He examines his own mind, and perceives there nothing of that divine inspiration with which he is told so many others have been favoured. He never travelled to heaven to gather new ideas; and he finds himself possessed of no other qualifications than what mere common observation and a plain understanding can confer. Thus he becomes gloomy amidst the splendour of figurative declamation, and thinks it hopeless to pursue an object which he supposes out of the reach of human industry. But on this, as upon many other occasions, we ought to distinguish how much is to be given to enthusiasm, and how much to reason. We ought to allow for, and we ought to commend, that strength of vivid expression which is necessary to convey, in its full force, the highest sense of the most complete effect of art; taking care at the same time not to lose in terms of vague admiration that solidity and truth of principle upon which alone we can reason, and may be enabled to practise. It is not easy to define in what this great style consists; nor to describe, by words, the proper means of acquiring it, if the mind of the student should be at all capable of such an acquisition. Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius. But though there neither are, nor can be, any precise invariable rules for the exercise or the acquisition of those great qualities, yet we may as truly say that they always operate in proportion to our attention in observing the works of nature, to our skill in selecting, and to our care in digesting, methodising, and comparing our observations. There are many beauties in our art, that seem, at first, to lie without the reach of precept, and yet may easily be reduced to practical principles. Experience is all in all; but it is not every one who profits by experience; and most people err, not so much from want of capacity to find their object, as from not knowing what object to pursue. This great ideal perfection and beauty are not to be sought in the heavens, but upon the earth. They are about us, and upon every side of us. But the power of discovering what is deformed in nature, or in other words, what is particular and uncommon, can be acquired only by experience; and the whole beauty and grandeur of the art consists, in my opinion, in being able to get above all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and details of every kind. All the objects which are exhibited to our view by nature, upon close examination will be found to have their blemishes and defects. The most beautiful forms have something about them like weakness, minuteness, or imperfection. But it is not every eye that perceives these blemishes. It must be an eye long used to the contemplation and comparison of these forms; and which, by a long habit of observing what any set of objects of the same kind have in common, that alone can acquire the power of discerning what each wants in particular. This long laborious comparison should be the first study of the painter who aims at the greatest style. By this means, he acquires a just idea of beautiful forms; he corrects nature by herself, her imperfect state by her more perfect. His eye being enabled to distinguish the accidental deficiencies, excrescences, and deformities of things from their general figures, he makes out an abstract idea of their forms more perfect than any one original; and what may seem a paradox, he learns to design naturally by drawing his figures unlike to any one object. This idea of the perfect state of nature, which the artist calls the ideal beauty, is the great leading principle by which works of genius are conducted. By this Phidias acquired his fame. He wrought upon a sober principle what has so much excited the enthusiasm of the world; and by this method you, who have courage to tread the same path, may acquire equal reputation. This is the idea which has acquired, and which seems to have a right to the epithet of Divine; as it may be said to preside, like a supreme judge, over all the productions of nature; appearing to be possessed of the will and intention of the Creator, as far as they regard the external form of living beings. When a man once possesses this idea in its perfection, there is no danger but that he will he sufficiently warmed by it himself, and be able to warm and ravish every one else. Thus it is from a reiterated experience, and a close comparison of the objects in nature, that an artist becomes possessed of the idea of that central form, if I may so express it, from which every deviation is deformity. But the investigation of this form I grant is painful, and I know but of one method of shortening the road; this is, by a careful study of the works of the ancient sculptors; who, being indefatigable in the school of nature, have left models of that perfect form behind them, which an artist would prefer as supremely beautiful, who had spent his whole life in that single contemplation. But if industry carried them thus far, may not you also hope for the same reward from the same labour? We have the same school opened to us that was opened to them; for nature denies her instructions to none who desire to become her pupils. To the principle I have laid down, that the idea of beauty in each species of beings is invariably one, it may be objected that in every particular species there are various central forms, which are separate and distinct from each other, and yet are undeniably beautiful; that in the human figure, for instance, the beauty of the Hercules is one, of the gladiator another, of the Apollo another, which makes so many different ideas of beauty. It is true, indeed, that these figures are each perfect in their kind, though of different characters and proportions; but still none of them is the representation of an individual, but of a class. And as there is one general form, which, as I have said, belongs to the human kind at large, so in each of these classes there is one common idea and central form, which is the abstract of the various individual forms belonging to that class. Thus, though the forms of childhood and age differ exceedingly, there is a common form in childhood, and a common form in age,--which is the more perfect, as it is more remote from all peculiarities. But I must add further, that though the most perfect forms of each of the general divisions of the human figure are ideal, and superior to any individual form of that class, yet the highest perfection of the human figure is not to be found in any one of them. It is not in the Hercules, nor in the gladiator, nor in the Apollo; but in that form which is taken from them all, and which partakes equally of the activity of the gladiator, of the delicacy of the Apollo, and of the muscular strength of the Hercules. For perfect beauty in any species must combine all the characters which are beautiful in that species. It cannot consist in any one to the exclusion of the rest: no one, therefore, must be predominant, that no one may be deficient. The knowledge of these different characters, and the power of separating and distinguishing them, is undoubtedly necessary to the painter, who is to vary his compositions with figures of various forms and proportions, though he is never to lose sight of the general idea of perfection in each kind. There is, likewise, a kind of symmetry or proportion, which may properly be said to belong to deformity. A figure lean or corpulent, tall or short, though deviating from beauty, may still have a certain union of the various parts, which may contribute to make them, on the whole, not unpleasing. When the artist has by diligent attention acquired a clear and distinct idea of beauty and symmetry; when he has reduced the variety of nature to the abstract idea; his next task will be to become acquainted with the genuine habits of nature, as distinguished from those of fashion. For in the same manner, and on the same principles, as he has acquired the knowledge of the real forms of nature, distinct from accidental deformity, he must endeavour to separate simple chaste nature from those adventitious, those affected and forced airs or actions, with which she is loaded by modern education. Perhaps I cannot better explain what I mean than by reminding you of what was taught us by the Professor of Anatomy, in respect to the natural position and movement of the feet. He observed that the fashion of turning, them outwards was contrary to the intent of nature, as might be seen from the structure of the bones, and from the weakness that proceeded from that manner of standing. To this we may add the erect position of the head, the projection of the chest, the walking with straight knees, and many such actions, which are merely the result of fashion, and what nature never warranted, as we are sure that we have been taught them when children. I have mentioned but a few of those instances, in which vanity or caprice have contrived to distort and disfigure the human form; your own recollection will add to these a thousand more of ill-understood methods, that have been practised to disguise nature, among our dancing-masters, hair-dressers, and tailors, in their various schools of deformity. However the mechanic and ornamental arts may sacrifice to fashion, she must be entirely excluded from the art of painting; the painter must never mistake this capricious changeling for the genuine offspring of nature; he must divest himself of all prejudices in favour of his age or country; he must disregard all local and temporary ornaments, and look only on those general habits that are everywhere and always the same. He addresses his works to the people of every country and every age; he calls upon posterity to be his spectators, and says with Zeuxis, _In aeternitatem pingo_. The neglect of separating modern fashions from the habits of nature, leads to that ridiculous style which has been practised by some painters who have given to Grecian heroes the airs and graces practised in the court of Louis XIV.; an absurdity almost as great as it would have been to have dressed them after the fashion of that court. To avoid this error, however, and to retain the true simplicity of nature, is a task more difficult than at first sight it may appear. The prejudices in favour of the fashions and customs that we have been used to, and which are justly called a second nature, make it too often difficult to distinguish that which is natural from that which is the result of education; they frequently even give a predilection in favour of the artificial mode; and almost every one is apt to be guided by those local prejudices who has not chastised his mind, and regulated the instability of his affections, by the eternal invariable idea of nature. Here, then, as before, we must have recourse to the ancients as instructors. It is from a careful study of their works that you will be enabled to attain to the real simplicity of nature; they will suggest many observations, which would probably escape you, if your study were confined to nature alone. And, indeed, I cannot help suspecting, that in this instance the ancients had an easier task than the moderns. They had, probably, little or nothing to unlearn, as their manners were nearly approaching to this desirable simplicity; while the modern artist, before he can see the truth of things, is obliged to remove a veil, with which the fashion of the times has thought proper to cover her. Having gone thus far in our investigation of the great style in painting; if we now should suppose that the artist has formed the true idea of beauty, which enables him to give his works a correct and perfect design; if we should suppose also that he has acquired a knowledge of the unadulterated habits of nature, which gives him simplicity; the rest of his talk is, perhaps, less than is generally imagined. Beauty and simplicity have so great a share in the composition of a great style, that he who has acquired them has little else to learn. It must not, indeed, be forgot that there is a nobleness of conception, which goes beyond anything in the mere exhibition, even of perfect form; there is an art of animating and dignifying the figures with intellectual grandeur, of impressing the appearance of philosophic wisdom or heroic virtue. This can only be acquired by him that enlarges the sphere of his understanding by a variety of knowledge, and warms his imagination with the best productions of ancient and modern poetry. A hand thus exercised, and a mind thus instructed, will bring the art to a higher degree of excellence than, perhaps, it has hitherto attained in this country. Such a student will disdain the humbler walks of painting, which, however profitable, can never assure him a permanent reputation. He will leave the meaner artist servilely to suppose that those are the best pictures which are most likely to deceive the spectator. He will permit the lower painter, like the florist or collector of shells, to exhibit the minute discriminations which distinguish one object of the same species from another; while he, like the philosopher, will consider nature in the abstract, and represent in every one of his figures the character of its species. If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art, there is no doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would be more apt to succeed: but it is not the eye, it is the mind, which the painter of genius desires to address; nor will he waste a moment upon these smaller objects, which only serve to catch the sense, to divide the attention, and to counteract his great design of speaking to the heart. This is the ambition I could wish to excite in your minds; and the object I have had in my view, throughout this discourse, is that one great idea which gives to painting its true dignity, that entitles it to the name of a Liberal Art, and ranks it as a sister of poetry. It may possibly have happened to many young students whose application was sufficient to overcome all difficulties, and whose minds were capable of embracing the most extensive views, that they have, by a wrong direction originally given, spent their lives in the meaner walks of painting, without ever knowing there was a nobler to pursue. "Albert Durer," as Vasari has justly remarked, "would probably have been one of the first painters of his age (and he lived in an era of great artists) had he been initiated into those great principles of the art which were so well understood and practised by his contemporaries in Italy. But unluckily, having never seen or heard of any other manner, he considered his own, without doubt, as perfect." As for the various departments of painting, which do not presume to make such high pretensions, they are many. None of them are without their merit, though none enter into competition with this great universal presiding idea of the art. The painters who have applied themselves more particularly to low and vulgar characters, and who express with precision the various shades of passion, as they are exhibited by vulgar minds (such as we see in the works of Hogarth) deserve great praise; but as their genius has been employed on low and confined subjects, the praise that we give must be as limited as its object. The merrymaking or quarrelling of the Boors of Teniers; the same sort of productions of Brouwer, or Ostade, are excellent in their kind; and the excellence and its praise will be in proportion, as, in those limited subjects and peculiar forms, they introduce more or less of the expression of those passions, as they appear in general and more enlarged nature. This principle may be applied to the battle pieces of Bourgognone, the French gallantries of Watteau, and even beyond the exhibition of animal life, to the landscapes of Claude Lorraine, and the sea-views of Vandervelde. All these painters have, in general, the same right, in different degrees, to the name of a painter, which a satirist, an epigrammatist, a sonnetteer, a writer of pastorals, or descriptive poetry, has to that of a poet. In the same rank, and, perhaps, of not so great merit, is the cold painter of portraits. But his correct and just imitation of his object has its merit. Even the painter of still life, whose highest ambition is to give a minute representation of every part of those low objects, which he sets before him, deserves praise in proportion to his attainment; because no part of this excellent art, so much the ornament of polished life, is destitute of value and use. These, however, are by no means the views to which the mind of the student ought to be _primarily_ directed. By aiming at better things, if from particular inclination, or from the taste of the time and place he lives in, or from necessity, or from failure in the highest attempts, he is obliged to descend lower; he will bring into the lower sphere of art a grandeur of composition and character that will raise and ennoble his works far above their natural rank. A man is not weak, though he may not be able to wield the club of Hercules; nor does a man always practise that which he esteems the beat; but does that which he can best do. In moderate attempts, there are many walks open to the artist. But as the idea of beauty is of necessity but one, so there can be but one great mode of painting; the leading principle of which I have endeavoured to explain. I should be sorry if what is here recommended should be at all understood to countenance a careless or indetermined manner of painting. For though the painter is to overlook the accidental discriminations of nature, he is to pronounce distinctly, and with precision, the general forms of things. A firm and determined outline is one of the characteristics of the great style in painting; and, let me add, that he who possesses the knowledge of the exact form, that every part of nature ought to have, will be fond of expressing that knowledge with correctness and precision in all his works. To conclude: I have endeavoured to reduce the idea of beauty to general principles. And I had the pleasure to observe that the professor of painting proceeded in the same method, when he showed you that the artifice of contrast was founded but on one principle. And I am convinced that this is the only means of advancing science, of clearing the mind from a confused heap of contradictory observations, that do but perplex and puzzle the student when he compares them, or misguide him if he gives himself up to their authority; but bringing them under one general head can alone give rest and satisfaction to an inquisitive mind. A DISCOURSE Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1771, by the President. Gentlemen,--The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labour employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced by it. As this principle is observed or neglected, our profession becomes either a liberal art or a mechanical trade. In the hands of one man it makes the highest pretensions, as it is addressed to the noblest faculties, In those of another it is reduced to a mere matter of ornament, and the painter has but the humble province of furnishing our apartments with elegance. This exertion of mind, which is the only circumstance that truly ennobles our art, makes the great distinction between the Roman and Venetian schools. I have formerly observed that perfect form is produced by leaving out particularities, and retaining only general ideas. I shall now endeavour to show that this principle, which I have proved to be metaphysically just, extends itself to every part of the art; that it gives what is called the grand style to invention, to composition, to expression, and even to colouring and drapery. Invention in painting does not imply the invention of the subject, for that is commonly supplied by the poet or historian. With respect to the choice, no subject can be proper that is not generally interesting. It ought to be either some eminent instance of heroic action or heroic suffering. There must be something either in the action or in the object in which men are universally concerned, and which powerfully strikes upon the public sympathy. Strictly speaking, indeed, no subject can be of universal, hardly can it be of general concern: but there are events and characters so popularly known in those countries where our art is in request, that they may be considered as sufficiently general for all our purposes. Such are the great events of Greek and Roman fable and history, which early education and the usual course of reading have made familiar and interesting to all Europe, without being degraded by the vulgarism of ordinary life in any country. Such, too, are the capital subjects of Scripture history, which, besides their general notoriety, become venerable by their connection with our religion. As it is required that the subject selected should be a general one, it is no less necessary that it should be kept unembarrassed with whatever may any way serve to divide the attention of the spectator. Whenever a story is related, every man forms a picture in his mind of the action and the expression of the persons employed. The power of representing this mental picture in canvas is what we call invention in a painter. And as in the conception of this ideal picture the mind does not enter into the minute peculiarities of the dress, furniture, or scene of action, so when the painter comes to represent it he contrives those little necessary concomitant circumstances in such a manner that they shall strike the spectator no more than they did himself in his first conception of the story. I am very ready to allow that some circumstances of minuteness and particularity frequently tend to give an air of truth to a piece, and to interest the spectator in an extraordinary manner. Such circumstances, therefore, cannot wholly be rejected; but if there be anything in the art which requires peculiar nicety of discernment, it is the disposition of these minute circumstantial parts which, according to the judgment employed in the choice, become so useful to truth or so injurious to grandeur. However, the usual and most dangerous error is on the side of minuteness, and, therefore, I think caution most necessary where most have failed. The general idea constitutes real excellence. All smaller things, however perfect in their way, are to be sacrificed without mercy to the greater. The painter will not inquire what things may be admitted without much censure. He will not think it enough to show that they may be there; he will show that they must be there, that their absence would render his picture maimed and defective. Thus, though to the principal group a second or third be added, and a second and third mass of light, care must be yet taken that these subordinate actions and lights, neither each in particular, nor all together, come into any degree of competition with the principal; they should make a part of that whole which would be imperfect without them. To every part of painting this rule may be applied. Even in portraits, the grace and, we may add, the likeness, consists more in taking the general air than in observing the effect similitude of every feature. Thus figures must have a ground whereon to stand; they must be clothed, there must be a background, there must be light and shadow; but none of these ought to appear to have taken up any part of the artist's attention. They should be so managed as not even to catch that of the spectator. We know well enough, when we analyse a piece, the difficulty and the subtlety with which an artist adjusts the background, drapery, and masses of light; we know that a considerable part of the grace and effect of his picture depends upon them; but this art is so much concealed, even to a judicious eye, that no remains of any of these subordinate parts occur to memory when the picture is not present. The great end of the art is to strike the imagination. The painter is, therefore, to make no ostentation of the means by which this is done; the spectator is only to feel the result in his bosom. An inferior artist is unwilling that any part of his industry should be lost upon the spectator. He takes as much pains to discover, as the greater artist does to conceal, the marks of his subordinate assiduity. In works of the lower kind everything appears studied and encumbered; it is all boastful art and open affectation. The ignorant often part from such pictures with wonder in their mouths, and indifference in their hearts. But it is not enough in invention that the artist should restrain and keep under all the inferior parts of his subject; he must sometimes deviate from vulgar and strict historical truth in pursuing the grandeur of his design. How much the great style exacts from its professors to conceive and represent their subjects in a poetical manner, not confined to mere matter of fact, may be seen in the cartoons of Raffaelle. In all the pictures in which the painter has represented the apostles, he has drawn them with great nobleness; he has given them as much dignity as the human figure is capable of receiving yet we are expressly told in Scripture they had no such respectable appearance; and of St. Paul in particular, we are told by himself, that his bodily presence was mean. Alexander is said to have been of a low stature: a painter ought not so to represent him. Agesilaus was low, lame, and of a mean appearance. None of these defects ought to appear in a piece of which he is the hero. In conformity to custom, I call this part of the art history painting; it ought to be called poetical, as in reality it is. All this is not falsifying any fact; it is taking an allowed poetical licence. A painter of portraits retains the individual likeness; a painter of history shows the man by showing his actions. A painter must compensate the natural deficiencies of his art. He has but one sentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit. He cannot, like the poet or historian, expatiate, and impress the mind with great veneration for the character of the hero or saint he represents, though he lets us know at the same time that the saint was deformed, or the hero lame. The painter has no other means of giving an idea of the dignity of the mind, but by that external appearance which grandeur of thought does generally, though not always, impress on the countenance, and by that correspondence of figure to sentiment and situation which all men wish, but cannot command. The painter, who may in this one particular attain with ease what others desire in vain, ought to give all that he possibly can, since there are so many circumstances of true greatness that he cannot give at all. He cannot make his hero talk like a great man; he must make him look like one. For which reason he ought to be well studied in the analysis of those circumstances which constitute dignity of appearance in real life. As in invention, so likewise in, expression, care must be taken not to run into particularities, Those expressions alone should be given to the figures which their respective situations generally produce. Nor is this enough; each person should also have that expression which men of his rank generally exhibit. The joy or the grief of a character of dignity is not to be expressed in the same manner as a similar passion in a vulgar face. Upon this principle Bernini, perhaps, may be subject to censure. This sculptor, in many respects admirable, has given a very mean expression to his statue of David, who is represented as just going to throw the stone from the sling; and in order to give it the expression of energy he has made him biting his under-lip. This expression is far from being general, and still farther from being dignified. He might have seen it in an instance or two, and he mistook accident for universality. With respect to colouring, though it may appear at first a part of painting merely mechanical, yet it still has its rules, and those grounded upon that presiding principle which regulates both the great and the little in the study of a painter. By this, the first effect of the picture is produced; and as this is performed the spectator, as he walks the gallery, will stop, or pass along. To give a general air of grandeur at first view, all trifling or artful play of little lights or an attention to a variety of tints is to be avoided; a quietness and simplicity must reign over the whole work; to which a breadth of uniform and simple colour will very much contribute. Grandeur of effect is produced by two different ways, which seem entirely opposed to each other. One is, by reducing the colours to little more than chiaroscuro, which was often the practice of the Bolognian schools; and the other, by making the colours very distinct and forcible, such as we see in those of Rome and Florence; but still, the presiding principle of both those manners is simplicity. Certainly, nothing can be more simple than monotony, and the distinct blue, red, and yellow colours which are seen in the draperies of the Roman and Florentine schools, though they have not that kind of harmony which is produced by a variety of broken and transparent colours, have that effect of grandeur that was intended. Perhaps these distinct colours strike the mind more forcibly, from there not being any great union between them; as martial music, which is intended to rouse the noble passions, has its effect from the sudden and strongly marked transitions from one note to another, which that style of music requires; whilst in that which is intended to move the softer passions the notes imperceptibly melt into one another. In the same manner as the historical painter never enters into the detail of colours, so neither does he debase his conceptions with minute attention to the discriminations of drapery. It is the inferior style that marks the variety of stuffs. With him, the clothing is neither woollen, nor linen, nor silk, satin, or velvet: it is drapery; it is nothing more. The art of disposing the foldings of the drapery make a very considerable part of the painter's study. To make it merely natural is a mechanical operation, to which neither genius or taste are required; whereas, it requires the nicest judgment to dispose the drapery, so that the folds have an easy communication, and gracefully follow each other, with such natural negligence as to look like the effect of chance, and at the same time show the figure under it to the utmost advantage. Carlo Maratti was of opinion that the disposition of drapery was a more difficult art than even that of drawing the human figure; that a student might be more easily taught the latter than the former; as the rules of drapery, he said, could not be so well ascertained as those for delineating a correct form, This, perhaps, is a proof how willingly we favour our own peculiar excellence. Carlo Maratti is said to have valued himself particularly upon his skill in this part of the art yet in him the disposition appears so artificial, that he is inferior to Raffaelle, even in that which gave him his best claim to reputation. Such is the great principle by which we must be directed in the nobler branches of our art. Upon this principle the Roman, the Florentine, the Bolognese schools, have formed their practice; and by this they have deservedly obtained the highest praise. These are the three great schools of the world in the epic style. The best of the French school, Poussin, Le Sueur, and Le Brun, have formed themselves upon these models, and consequently may be said, though Frenchmen, to be a colony from the Roman school. Next to these, but in a very different style of excellence, we may rank the Venetian, together with the Flemish and the Dutch schools, all professing to depart from the great purposes of painting, and catching at applause by inferior qualities. I am not ignorant that some will censure me for placing the Venetians in this inferior class, and many of the warmest admirers of painting will think them unjustly degraded; but I wish not to be misunderstood. Though I can by no means allow them to hold any rank with the nobler schools of painting, they accomplished perfectly the thing they attempted. But as mere elegance is their principal object, as they seem more willing to dazzle than to affect, it can be no injury to them to suppose that their practice is useful only to its proper end. But what may heighten the elegant may degrade the sublime. There is a simplicity, and I may add, severity, in the great manner, which is, I am afraid, almost incompatible with this comparatively sensual style. Tintoret, Paul Veronese, and others of the Venetian schools, seem to have painted with no other purpose than to be admired for their skill and expertness in the mechanism of painting, and to make a parade of that art which, as I before observed, the higher style requires its followers to conceal. In a conference of the French Academy, at which were present Le Brun, Sebastian Bourdon, and all the eminent artists of that age, one of the academicians desired to have their opinion on the conduct of Paul Veronese, who, though a painter of great consideration, had, contrary to the strict rules of art, in his picture of Perseus and Andromeda, represented the principal figure in shade. To this question no satisfactory answer was then given. But I will venture to say, that if they had considered the class of the artist, and ranked him as an ornamental painter, there would have been no difficulty in answering: "It was unreasonable to expect what was never intended. His intention was solely to produce an effect of light and Shadow; everything was to be sacrificed to that intent, and the capricious composition of that picture suited very well with the style he professed." Young minds are indeed too apt to be captivated by this splendour of style, and that of the Venetians will be particularly pleasing; for by them all those parts of the art that give pleasure to the eye or sense have been cultivated with care, and carried to the degree nearest to perfection. The powers exerted in the mechanical part of the art have been called the language of painters; but we must say, that it is but poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk. Words should be employed as the means, not as the end: language is the instrument, conviction is the work. The language of painting must indeed be allowed these masters; but even in that they have shown more copiousness than choice, and more luxuriancy than judgment. If we consider the uninteresting subjects of their invention, or at least the uninteresting manner in which they are treated; if we attend to their capricious composition, their violent and affected contrasts, whether of figures, or of light and shadow, the richness of their drapery, and, at the same time, the mean effect which the discrimination of stuffs gives to their pictures; if to these we add their total inattention to expression, and then reflect on the conceptions and the learning of Michael Angelo, or the simplicity of Raffaelle, we can no longer dwell on the comparison. Even in colouring, if we compare the quietness and chastity of the Bolognese pencil to the bustle and tumult that fills every part of, a Venetian picture, without the least attempt to interest the passions, their boasted art will appear a mere struggle without effect; an empty tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Such as suppose that the great style might happily be blended with the ornamental, that the simple, grave, and majestic dignity of Raffaelle could unite with the glow and bustle of a Paulo or Tintoret, are totally mistaken. The principles by which each are attained are so contrary to each other, that they seem, in my opinion, incompatible, and as impossible to exist together, as to unite in the mind at the same time the most sublime ideas and the lowest sensuality. The subjects of the Venetian painters are mostly such as give them an opportunity of introducing a great number of figures, such as feasts, marriages, and processions, public martyrdoms, or miracles. I can easily conceive that Paul Veronese, if he were asked, would say that no subject was proper for an historical picture but such as admitted at least forty figures; for in a less number, he would assert, there could be no opportunity of the painter's showing his art in composition, his dexterity of managing and disposing the masses of light, and groups of figures, and of introducing a variety of Eastern dresses and characters in their rich stuffs. But the thing is very different with a pupil of the greater schools. Annibale Caracci thought twelve figures sufficient for any story: he conceived that more would contribute to no end but to fill space; that they would, be but cold spectators of the general action, or, to use his own expression, that they would be figures to be let. Besides, it is impossible for a picture composed of so many parts to have that effect, so indispensably necessary to grandeur, of one complete whole. However contradictory it may be in geometry, it is true in taste, that many little things will not make a great one. The sublime impresses the mind at once with one great idea; it is a single blow: the elegant indeed may be produced by a repetition, by an accumulation of many minute circumstances. However great the difference is between the composition of the Venetian and the rest of the Italian schools, there is full as great a disparity in the effect of their pictures as produced by colours. And though in this respect the Venetians must be allowed extraordinary skill, yet even that skill, as they have employed it, will but ill correspond with the great style. Their colouring is not only too brilliant, but, I will venture to say, too harmonious to produce that solidity, steadiness, and simplicity of effect which heroic subjects require, and which simple or grave colours only can give to a work. That they are to be cautiously studied by those who are ambitious of treading the great walk of history is confirmed, if it wants confirmation, by the greatest of all authorities, Michael Angelo. This wonderful man, after having seen a picture by Titian, told Vasari, who accompanied him, "that he liked much his colouring and manner; but then he added, that it was a pity the Venetian painters did not learn to draw correctly in their early youth, and adopt a better manner of study." By this it appears that the principal attention of the Venetian painters, in the opinion of Michael Angelo, seemed to be engrossed by the study of colours, to the neglect of the ideal beauty of form, or propriety of expression. But if general censure was given to that school from the sight of a picture of Titian, how much more heavily, and more justly, would the censure fall on Paulo Veronese, or more especially on Tintoret? And here I cannot avoid citing Vasari's opinion of the style and manner of Tintoret. "Of all the extraordinary geniuses," says he, "that have ever practised the art of painting, for wild, capricious, extravagant, and fantastical inventions, for furious impetuosity and boldness in the execution of his work, there is none like Tintoret; his strange whims are even beyond extravagance; and his works seem to be produced rather by chance than in consequence of any previous design, as if he wanted to convince the world that, the art was a trifle, and of the most easy attainment." For my own part, when I speak of the Venetian painters, I wish to be understood to mean Paulo Veronese and Tintoret, to the exclusion of Titian; for though his style is not so pure as that of many other of the Italian schools, yet there is a sort of senatorial dignity about him, which, however awkward in his imitators, seems to become him exceedingly. His portraits alone, from the nobleness and simplicity of character which he always gave them, will entitle him to the greatest respect, as he undoubtedly stands in the first rank in this branch of the art. It is not with Titian, but with the seducing qualities of the two former, that I could wish to caution you, against being too much captivated. These are the persons who may be said to have exhausted all the powers of florid eloquence, to debauch the young and unexperienced, and have, without doubt, been the cause of turning off the attention of the connoisseur and of the patron of art, as well as that of the painter, from those higher excellences of which the art is capable, and which ought to be required in every considerable production. By them, and their imitators, a style merely ornamental has been disseminated throughout all Europe. Rubens carried it to Flanders, Voet to France, and Luca Giordano to Spain and Naples. The Venetian is indeed the most splendid of the schools of elegance; and it is not without reason that the best performances in this lower school are valued higher than the second-rate performances of those above them; for every picture has value when it has a decided character, and is excellent in its kind. But the student must take care not to be so much dazzled with this splendour as to be tempted to imitate what must ultimately lead from perfection. Poussin, whose eye was always steadily fixed on the sublime, has been often heard to say, "That a particular attention to colouring was an obstacle to the student in his progress to the great end and design of the art; and that he who attaches himself to this principal end will acquire by practice a reasonably good method of colouring." Though it be allowed that elaborate harmony of colouring, a brilliancy of tints, a soft and gradual transition from one to another, present to the eye what an harmonious concert of music does to the ear, it must be remembered that painting is not merely a gratification of the sight. Such excellence, though properly cultivated where nothing higher than elegance is intended, is weak and unworthy of regard, when the work aspires to grandeur and sublimity. The same reasons that have been urged why a mixture of the Venetian style cannot improve the great style will hold good in regard to the Flemish and Dutch schools. Indeed, the Flemish school, of which Rubens is the head, was formed upon that of the Venetian; like them, he took his figures too much from the people before him. But it must be allowed in favour of the Venetians that he was more gross than they, and carried all their mistaken methods to a far greater excess. In the Venetian school itself, where they all err from the same cause, there is a difference in the effect. The difference between Paulo and Bassano seems to be only that one introduced Venetian gentlemen into his pictures, and the other the boors of the district of Bassano, and called them patriarchs and prophets. The painters of the Dutch school have still more locality. With them, a history piece is properly a portrait of themselves; whether they describe the inside or outside of their houses, we have their own people engaged in their own peculiar occupations, working or drinking, playing or fighting. The circumstances that enter into a picture of this kind are so far from giving a general view of human life that they exhibit all the minute particularities of a nation differing in several respects from the rest of mankind. Yet, let them have their share of more humble praise. The painters of this school are excellent in their own way; they are only ridiculous when they attempt general history on their own narrow principles, and debase great events by the meanness of their characters. Some inferior dexterity, some extraordinary mechanical power, is apparently that from which they seek distinction. Thus, we see, that school alone has the custom of representing candle-light, not as it really appears to us by night, but red, as it would illuminate objects to a spectator by day. Such tricks, however pardonable in the little style, where petty effects are the sole end, are inexcusable in the greater, where the attention should never be drawn aside by trifles, but should be entirely occupied by the subject itself. The same local principles which characterise the Dutch school extend even to their landscape painters; and Rubens himself, who has painted many landscapes, has sometimes transgressed in this particular. Their pieces in this way are, I think, always a representation of an individual spot, and each in its kind a very faithful but very confined portrait. Claude Lorraine, on the contrary, was convinced that taking nature as he found it seldom produced beauty. His pictures are a composition of the various draughts which he has previously made from various beautiful scenes and prospects. However, Rubens in some measure has made amends for the deficiency with which he is charged; he has contrived to raise and animate his otherwise uninteresting views, by introducing a rainbow, storm, or some particular accidental effect of light. That the practice of Claude Lorraine, in respect to his choice, is to be adopted by landscape painters, in opposition to that of the Flemish and Dutch schools, there can be no doubt, as its truth is founded upon the same principle as that by which the historical painter acquires perfect form. But whether landscape painting has a right to aspire so far as to reject what the painters call accidents of nature is not easy to determine. It is certain Claude Lorraine seldom, if ever, availed himself of those accidents; either he thought that such peculiarities were contrary to that style of general nature which he professed, or that it would catch the attention too strongly, and destroy that quietness and repose which he thought necessary to that kind of painting. A portrait painter likewise, when he attempts history, unless he is upon his guard, is likely to enter too much into the detail. He too frequently makes his historical heads look like portraits; and this was once the custom amongst those old painters who revived the art before general ideas were practised or understood. A history painter paints man in general; a portrait painter, a particular man, and consequently a defective model. Thus an habitual practice in the lower exercises of the art will prevent many from attaining the greater. But such of us who move in these humbler walks of the profession are not ignorant that, as the natural dignity of the subject is less, the more all the little ornamental helps are necessary to its embellishment. It would be ridiculous for a painter of domestic scenes, of portraits, landscapes, animals, or of still life, to say that he despised those qualities which have made the subordinate schools so famous. The art of colouring, and the skilful management of light and shadow, are essential requisites in his confined labours. If we descend still lower, what is the painter of fruit and flowers without the utmost art in colouring, and what the painters call handling; that is, a lightness of pencil that implies great practice, and gives the appearance of being done with ease? Some here, I believe, must remember a flower-painter whose boast it was that he scorned to paint for the million; no, he professed to paint in the true Italian taste; and despising the crowd, called strenuously upon the few to admire him. His idea of the Italian taste was to paint as black and dirty as he could, and to leave all clearness and brilliancy of colouring to those who were fonder of money than of immortality. The consequence was such as might be expected. For these pretty excellences are here essential beauties; and without this merit the artist's work will be more short-lived than the objects of his imitation. From what has been advanced, we must now be convinced that there are two distinct styles in history painting: the grand, and the splendid or ornamental. The great style stands alone, and does not require, perhaps does not so well admit, any addition from inferior beauties. The ornamental style also possesses its own peculiar merit. However, though the union of the two may make a sort of composite style, yet that style is likely to be more imperfect than either of those which go to its composition. Both kinds have merit, and may be excellent though in different ranks, if uniformity be preserved, and the general and particular ideas of nature be not mixed. Even the meanest of them is difficult enough to attain; and the first place being already occupied by the great artists in either department, some of those who followed thought there was less room for them, and feeling the impulse of ambition and the desire of novelty, and being at the same time perhaps willing to take the shortest way, they endeavoured to make for themselves a place between both. This they have effected by forming a union of the different orders. But as the grave and majestic style would suffer by a union with the florid and gay, so also has the Venetian ornament in some respect been injured by attempting an alliance with simplicity. It may be asserted that the great style is always more or less contaminated by any meaner mixture. But it happens in a few instances that the lower may be improved by borrowing from the grand. Thus, if a portrait painter is desirous to raise and improve his subject, he has no other means than by approaching it to a general idea. He leaves out all the minute breaks and peculiarities in the face, and changes the dress from a temporary fashion to one more permanent, which has annexed to it no ideas of meanness from its being familiar to us. But if an exact resemblance of an individual be considered as the sole object to be aimed at, the portrait painter will be apt to lose more than he gains by the acquired dignity taken from general nature. It is very difficult to ennoble the character of a countenance but at the expense of the likeness, which is what is most generally required by such as sit to the painter. Of those who have practised the composite style, and have succeeded in this perilous attempt, perhaps the foremost is Correggio. His style is founded upon modern grace and elegance, to which is super, added something of the simplicity of the grand style. A breadth of light and colour, the general ideas of the drapery, an uninterrupted flow of outline, all conspire to this effect. Next him (perhaps equal to him) Parmegiano has dignified the genteelness of modern effeminacy by uniting it with the simplicity of the ancients and the grandeur and severity of Michael Angelo. It must be confessed, however, that these two extraordinary men, by endeavouring to give the utmost degree of grace, have sometimes, perhaps, exceeded its boundaries, and have fallen into the most hateful of all hateful qualities, affectation. Indeed, it is the peculiar characteristic of men of genius to be afraid of coldness and insipidity, from which they think they never can be too far removed. It particularly happens to these great masters of grace and elegance. They often boldly drive on to the very verge of ridicule; the spectator is alarmed, but at the same time admires their vigour and intrepidity. Strange graces still, and stranger flights they had, . . . Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create Ae when they touch'd the brink of all we hate. The errors of genius, however, are pardonable, and none even of the more exalted painters are wholly free from them; but they have taught us, by the rectitude of their general practice, to correct their own affected or accidental deviation. The very first have not been always upon their guard, and perhaps there is not a fault but what may take shelter under the most venerable authorities; yet that style only is perfect in which the noblest principles are uniformly pursued; and those masters only are entitled to the first rank in, our estimation who have enlarged the boundaries of their art, and have raised it to its highest dignity, by exhibiting the general ideas of nature. On the whole, it seems to me that there is but one presiding principle which regulates and gives stability to every art. The works, whether of poets, painters, moralists, or historians, which are built upon general nature, live for ever; while those which depend for their existence on particular customs and habits, a partial view of nature, or the fluctuation of fashion, can only be coeval with that which first raised them from obscurity. Present time and future maybe considered as rivals, and he who solicits the one must expect to be discountenanced by the other. A DISCOURSE Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1772, by the President. Gentlemen,--I purpose to carry on in this discourse the subject which I began in my last. It was my wish upon that occasion to incite you to pursue the higher excellences of the art. But I fear that in this particular I have been misunderstood. Some are ready to imagine, when any of their favourite acquirements in the art are properly classed, that they are utterly disgraced. This is a very great mistake: nothing has its proper lustre but in its proper place. That which is most worthy of esteem in its allotted sphere becomes an object, not of respect, but of derision, when it is forced into a higher, to which it is not suited; and there it becomes doubly a source of disorder, by occupying a situation which is not natural to it, and by putting down from the first place what is in reality of too much magnitude to become with grace and proportion that subordinate station, to which something of less value would be much better suited. My advice in a word is this: keep your principal attention fixed upon the higher excellences. If you compass them and compass nothing more, you are still in the first class. We may regret the innumerable beauties which you may want: you may be very imperfect: but still, you are an imperfect person of the highest order. If, when you have got thus far, you can add any, or all, of the subordinate qualifications, it is my wish and advice that you should not neglect them. But this is as much a matter of circumspection and caution at least as of eagerness and pursuit. The mind is apt to be distracted by a multiplicity of pursuits; and that scale of perfection, which I wish always to be preserved, is in the greatest danger of being totally disordered, and even inverted. Some excellences bear to be united, and are improved by union, others are of a discordant nature; and the attempt to join them only produces a harsher jarring of incongruent principles. The attempt to unite contrary excellences (of form, for instance) in a single figure, can never escape degenerating into the monstrous, but by sinking into the insipid, taking away its marked character, and weakening its expression. This remark is true to a certain degree with regard to the passions. If you mean to preserve the most perfect beauty in its most perfect state, you cannot express the passions, which produce (all of them) distortion and deformity, more or less, in the most beautiful faces. Guido, from want of choice in adapting his subject to his ideas and his powers, or in attempting to preserve beauty where it could not be preserved has in this respect succeeded very ill. His figures are often engaged in subjects that required great expression: yet his "Judith and Holofernes," the "Daughter of Herodias with the Baptist's Head," the "Andromeda," and even the "Mothers of the Innocents," have little more expression than his "Venus attired by the Graces." Obvious as these remarks appear, there are many writers on our art, who, not being of the profession, and consequently not knowing what can or what cannot be done, have been very liberal of absurd praises in their descriptions of favourite works. They always find in them what they are resolved to find. They praise excellences that can hardly exist together, and above all things are fond of describing with great exactness the expression of a mixed passion, which more particularly appears to me out of the reach of our art. Such are many disquisitions which I have read on some of the cartoons and other pictures of Raffaelle, where the critics have described their own imagination; or indeed where the excellent master himself may have attempted this expression of passions above the powers of the art; and has, therefore, by an indistinct and imperfect marking, left room for every imagination, with equal probability to find a passion of his own. What has been, and what can be done in the art, is sufficiently difficult; we need not be mortified or discouraged for not being able to execute the conceptions of a romantic imagination. Art has its boundaries, though imagination has none. We can easily, like the ancients, suppose a Jupiter to be possessed of all those powers and perfections which the subordinate Deities were endowed with separately. Yet, when they employed their art to represent him, they confined his character to majesty alone. Pliny, therefore, though we are under great obligations to him for the information he has given us in relation to the works of the ancient artists, is very frequently wrong when he speaks of them, which he does very often in the style of many of our modern connoisseurs. He observes that in a statue of Paris, by Fuphranor, you might discover at the same time three different characters; the dignity of a judge of the goddesses, the lover of Helen, and the conqueror of Achilles. A statue in which you endeavour to unite stately dignity, youthful elegance, and stern valour, must surely possess none of these to any eminent degree. From hence it appears that there is much difficulty as well as danger in an endeavour to concentrate upon a single subject those various powers which, rising from different points, naturally move in different directions. The summit of excellence seems to be an assemblage of contrary qualities, but mixed, in such proportions, that no one part is found to counteract the other. How hard this is to be attained in every art, those only know who have made the greatest progress in their respective professions. To conclude what I have to say on this part of the subject, which I think of great importance, I wish you to understand that I do not discourage the younger students from the noble attempt of uniting all the excellences of art, but to make them aware that, besides the difficulties which attend every arduous attempt, there is a peculiar difficulty in the choice of the excellences which ought to be united; I wish you to attend to this, that you may try yourselves, whenever you are capable of that trial, what you can, and what you cannot do: and that, instead of dissipating your natural faculties over the immense field of possible excellence, you may choose some particular walk in which you may exercise all your powers, in order each of you to be the first in his way. If any man shall be master of such a transcendant, commanding, and ductile genius, as to enable him to rise to the highest, and to stoop to the lowest flights of art, and to sweep over all of them unobstructed and secure, he is fitter to give example than to receive instruction. Having said thus much on the union of excellences, I will next say something of the subordination in which various excellences ought to be kept. I am of opinion that the ornamental style, which in my discourse of last year I cautioned you against considering as principal, may not be wholly unworthy the attention of those who aim even at the grand style; when it is properly placed and properly reduced. But this study will be used with far better effect, if its principles are employed in softening the harshness and mitigating the rigour of the great style, than if in attempt to stand forward with any pretensions of its own to positive and original excellence. It was thus Lodovico Caracci, whose example I formerly recommended to you, employed it. He was acquainted with the works both of Correggio and the Venetian painters, and knew the principles by which they produced those pleasing effects which at the first glance prepossess us so much in their favour; but he took only as much from each as would embellish, but not overpower, that manly strength and energy of style, which is his peculiar character. Since I have already expatiated so largely in my former discourse, and in my present, upon the styles and characters of painting, it will not be at all unsuitable to my subject if I mention to you some particulars relative to the leading principles, and capital works of those who excelled in the great style, that I may bring you from abstraction nearer to practice, and by exemplifying the propositions which I have laid down, enable you to understand more clearly what I would enforce. The principal works of modern art are in fresco, a mode of painting which excludes attention to minute elegancies: yet these works in fresco are the productions on which the fame of the greatest masters depend: such are the pictures of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle in the Vatican, to which we may add the cartoons, which, though not strictly to be called fresco, yet may be put under that denomination; and such are the works of Giulio Romano at Mantua. If these performances were destroyed, with them would be lost the best part of the reputation of those illustrious painters, for these are justly considered as the greatest efforts of our art which the world can boast. To these, therefore, we should principally direct our attention for higher excellences. As for the lower arts, as they have been once discovered, they may be easily attained by those possessed of the former. Raffaelle, who stands in general foremost of the first painters, owes his reputation, as I have observed, to his excellence in the higher parts of the art. Therefore, his works in fresco ought to be the first object of our study and attention. His easel-works stand in a lower degree of estimation; for though he continually, to the day of his death, embellished his works more and more with the addition of these lower ornaments, which entirely make the merit of some, yet he never arrived at such perfection as to make him an object of imitation. He never was able to conquer perfectly that dryness, or even littleness of manner, which he inherited from his master. He never acquired that nicety of taste in colours, that breadth of light and shadow, that art and management of uniting light, to light, and shadow to shadow, so as to make the object rise out of the ground with that plenitude of effect so much admired in the works of Correggio. When he painted in oil, his hand seemed to be so cramped and confined that he not only lost that facility and spirit, but I think even that correctness of form, which is so perfect and admirable in his fresco works. I do not recollect any pictures of his of this kind, except perhaps the "Transfiguration," in which there are not some parts that appear to be even feebly drawn. That this is not a necessary attendant on oil-painting, we have abundant instances in more modern painters. Lodovico Caracci, for instance, preserved in his works in oil the same spirit, vigour, and correctness, which he had in fresco. I have no desire to degrade Raffaelle from the high rank which he deservedly holds: but by comparing him with himself, he does not appear to me to be the same man in oil as in fresco. From those who have ambition to tread in this great walk of the art, Michael Angelo claims the next attention. He did not possess so many excellences as Raffaelle, but those he had were of the highest kind. He considered the art as consisting of little more than what may be attained by sculpture, correctness of form, and energy of character. We ought not to expect more than an artist intends in his work. He never attempted those lesser elegancies and graces in the art. Vasari says, he never painted but one picture in oil, and resolved never to paint another, saying it was an employment only fit for women and children. If any man had a right to look down upon the lower accomplishments as beneath his attention, it was certainly Michael Angelo: nor can it be thought strange that such a mind should have slighted or have been withheld from paying due attention to all those graces and embellishments of art which have diffused such lustre over the works of other painters. It must be acknowledged likewise, that together with these, which we wish he had more attended to, he has rejected all the false though specious ornaments which disgrace the works even of the most esteemed artists; and I will venture to say, that when those higher excellences are more known and cultivated by the artists and the patrons of arts, his fame and credit will increase with our increasing knowledge. His name will then be held in the same veneration as it was in the enlightened age of Leo the Tenth: and it is remarkable that the reputation of this truly great man has been continually declining as the art itself has declined. For I must remark to you, that it has long been much on the decline, and that our only hope of its revival will consist in your being thoroughly sensible of its depravation and decay. It is to Michael Angelo that we owe even the existence of Raffaelle; it is to him Raffaelle owes the grandeur of his style. He was taught by him to elevate his thoughts, and to conceive his subjects with dignity. His genius, however, formed to blaze and to shine, might, like fire in combustible matter, for ever have lain dormant if it had not caught a spark by its contact with Michael Angelo: and though it never burst out with that extraordinary heat and vehemence, yet it must be acknowledged to be a more pure, regular, and chaste flame. Though our judgment will upon the whole decide in favour of Raffaelle: yet he never takes that firm hold and entire possession of the mind in such a manner as to desire nothing else, and feel nothing wanting. The effect of the capital works of Michael Angelo perfectly correspond to what Bourchardon said he felt from reading Homer. His whole frame appeared to himself to be enlarged, and all nature which surrounded him diminished to atoms. If we put those great artists in a light of comparison with each other, Raffaelle had more taste and fancy, Michael Angelo more genius and imagination. The one excelled in beauty, the other in energy. Michael Angelo has more of the poetical inspiration; his ideas are vast and sublime; his people are a superior order of beings; there is nothing about them, nothing in the air of their actions or their attitudes, or the style and cast of their very limbs or features, that puts one in mind of their belonging, to our own species. Raffaelle's imagination is not so elevated; his figures are not so much disjoined from our own diminutive race of beings, though his ideas are chaste, noble, and of great conformity to their subjects. Michael Angelo's works have a strong, peculiar, and marked character; they seem to proceed from his own mind entirely, and that mind so rich and abundant, that he never needed, or seemed to disdain, to look abroad for foreign help. Raffaelle's materials are generally borrowed, though the noble structure is his own. The excellency of this extraordinary man lay in the propriety, beauty, and majesty of his characters, his judicious contrivance of his composition, correctness of drawing, purity of taste, and the skilful accommodation of other men's conceptions to his own purpose. Nobody excelled him in that judgment, with which he united to his own observations on nature the energy of Michael Angelo, and the beauty and simplicity of the antique. To the question, therefore, which ought to hold the first rank, Raffaelle or Michael Angelo, it must be answered, that if it is to be given to him who possessed a greater combination of the higher qualities of the art than any other man, there is no doubt but Raffaelle is the first. But if, according to Longinus, the sublime, being the highest excellence that human composition can attain to, abundantly compensates the absence of every other beauty, and atones for all other deficiencies, then Michael Angelo demands the preference. These two extraordinary men carried some of the higher excellences of the art to a greater degree of perfection than probably they ever arrived at before. They certainly have not been excelled, nor equalled since. Many of their successors were induced to leave this great road as a beaten path, endeavouring to surprise and please by something uncommon or new. When this desire after novelty has proceeded from mere idleness or caprice, it is not worth the trouble of criticism; but when it has been in consequence of a busy mind of a peculiar complexion, it is always striking and interesting, never insipid. Such is the great style as it appears in those who possessed it at its height; in this, search after novelty in conception or in treating the subject has no place. But there is another style, which, though inferior to the former, has still great merit, because it shows that those who cultivated it were men of lively and vigorous imagination. This I call the original or characteristical style; this, being less referred to any true architype existing either in general or particular nature, must be supported by the painter's consistency in the principles he has assumed, and in the union and harmony of his whole design. The excellency of every style, but I think of the subordinate ones more especially, will very much depend on preserving that union and harmony between all the component parts, that they appear to hang well together, as if the whole proceeded from one mind. It is in the works of art, as in the characters of men. The faults or defects of some men seem to become them when they appear to be the natural growth, and of a piece with the rest of their character. A faithful picture of a mind, though it be not of the most elevated kind, though it be irregular, wild, and incorrect, yet if it be marked with that spirit and firmness which characterises works of genius, will claim attention, and be more striking than a combination of excellences that do not seem to hang well together, or we may say than a work that possesses even all excellences, but those in a moderate degree. One of the strongest marked characters of this kind, which must be allowed to be subordinate to the great style, is that of Salvator Rosa. He gives us a peculiar cast of nature, which, though void of all grace, elegance, and simplicity; though it has nothing of that elevation and dignity which belongs to the grand style, yet has that sort of dignity which belongs to savage and uncultivated nature. But what is most to be admired in him is the perfect correspondence which he observed between the subjects which he chose, and his manner of treating them. Everything is of a piece: his rocks, trees, sky, even to his handling have the same rude and wild character which animates his figures. To him we may contrast the character of Carlo Maratti, who, in my own opinion, had no great vigour of mind or strength of original genius. He rarely seizes the imagination by exhibiting the higher excellences, nor does he captivate us by that originality which attends the painter who thinks for himself. He knew and practised all the rules of art, and from a composition of Raffaelle, Caracci, and Guido, made up a style, of which its only fault was, that it had no manifest defects and no striking beauties, and that the principles of his composition are never blended together, so as to form one uniform body, original in its kind, or excellent in any view. I will mention two other painters who, though entirely dissimilar, yet by being each consistent with himself, and possessing a manner entirely his own, have both gained reputation, though for very opposite accomplishments. The painters I mean are Rubens and Poussin. Rubens I mention in this place, as I think him a remarkable instance of the same mind being seen in all the various parts of the art. The whole is so much of a piece that one can scarce be brought to believe but that if any one of them had been more correct and perfect, his works would not be so complete as they now appear. If we should allow a greater purity and correctness of drawing, his want of simplicity in composition, colouring, and drapery would appear more gross. In his composition his art is too apparent. His figures have expression, and act with energy, but without simplicity or dignity. His colouring, in which he is eminently skilled, is, notwithstanding, too much of what we call tinted. Throughout the whole of his works there is a proportionable want of that nicety of distinction and elegance of mind which is required in the higher walks of painting; and to this want it may be in some degree ascribed that those qualities which make the excellency of this subordinate style appear in him with their greatest lustre. Indeed, the facility with which he invented, the richness of his composition, the luxuriant harmony and brilliancy of his colouring, so dazzle the eye, that whilst his works continue before us we cannot help thinking that all his deficiencies are fully supplied. Opposed to this florid, careless, loose, and inaccurate style, that of the simple, careful, pure, and correct style of Poussin seems to be a complete contrast. Yet however opposite their characters, in one thing they agreed, both of them having a perfect correspondence between all the parts of their respective manners. One is not sure but every alteration of what is considered as defective in either, would destroy the effect of the whole. Poussin lived and conversed with the ancient statues so long, that he may be said to be better acquainted with then than with the people who were about him. I have often thought that he carried his veneration for them so far as to wish to give his works the air of ancient paintings. It is certain he copied some of the antique paintings, particularly the "Marriage in the Albrobrandini Palace at Rome," which I believe to be the best relique of those remote ages that has yet been found. No works of any modern has so much of the air of antique painting as those of Poussin. His best performances have a remarkable dryness of manner, which, though by no means to be recommended for imitation, yet seems perfectly correspondent to that ancient simplicity which distinguishes his style. Like Polidoro he studied them so much, that he acquired a habit of thinking in their way, and seemed to know perfectly the actions and gestures they would use on every occasion. Poussin in the latter part of his life changed from his dry manner to one much softer and richer, where there is a greater union between the figures and the ground, such as the "Seven Sacraments" in the Duke of Orleans' collection; but neither these, nor any in this manner, are at all comparable to many in his dry manner which we have in England. The favourite subjects of Poussin were ancient fables; and no painter was ever better qualified to paint such subjects, not only from his being eminently skilled in the knowledge of ceremonies, customs, and habits of the ancients, but from his being so well acquainted with the different characters which those who invented them gave their allegorical figures. Though Rubens has shown great fancy in his Satyrs, Silenuses, and Fauns, yet they are not that distinct separate class of beings which is carefully exhibited by the ancients and by Poussin. Certainly when such subjects of antiquity are represented, nothing in the picture ought to remind us of modern times. The mind is thrown back into antiquity, and nothing ought to be introduced that may tend to awaken it from the illusion. Poussin seemed to think that the style and the language in which such stories are told is not the worse for preserving some relish of the old way of painting which seemed to give a general uniformity to the whole, so that the mind was thrown back into antiquity not only by the subject, but the execution. If Poussin, in imitation of the ancients, represents Apollo driving his chariot out of the sea by way of representing the sun rising, if he personifies lakes and rivers, it is no ways offensive in him; but seems perfectly of a piece with the general air of the picture. On the contrary, if the figures which people his pictures had a modern air or countenance, if they appeared like our countrymen, if the draperies were like cloth or silk of our manufacture, if the landscape had the appearance of a modern view, how ridiculous would Apollo appear instead of the sun, an old man or a nymph with an urn instead of a river or lake. I cannot avoid mentioning here a circumstance in portrait painting which may help to confirm what has been said. When a portrait is painted in the historical style, as it is neither an exact minute representation of an individual nor completely ideal, every circumstance ought to correspond to this mixture. The simplicity of the antique air and attitude, however much to be admired, is ridiculous when joined to a figure in a modern dress. It is not to my purpose to enter into the question at present, whether this mixed style ought to be adopted or not; yet if it is chosen it is necessary it should be complete and all of a piece: the difference of stuffs, for instance, which make the clothing, should be distinguished in the same degree as the head deviates from a general idea. Without this union, which I have so often recommended, a work can have no marked and determined character, which is the peculiar and constant evidence of genius. But when this is accomplished to a high degree, it becomes in some sort a rival to that style which we have fixed as the highest. Thus I have given a sketch of the characters of Rubens and Salvator Rosa, as they appear to me to have the greatest uniformity of mind throughout their whole work. But we may add to these, all these artists who are at the head of the class, and have had a school of imitators from Michael Angelo down to Watteau. Upon the whole it appears that setting aside the ornamental style, there are two different paths, either of which a student may take without degrading the dignity of his art. The first is to combine the higher excellences and embellish them to the greatest advantage. The other is to carry one of these excellences to the highest degree. But those who possess neither must be classed with them, who, as Shakespeare says, are men of no mark or likelihood. I inculcate as frequently as I can your forming yourselves upon great principles and great models. Your time will be much misspent in every other pursuit. Small excellences should be viewed, not studied; they ought to be viewed, because nothing ought to escape a painter's observation, but for no other reason. There is another caution which I wish to give you. Be as select in those whom you endeavour to please, as in those whom you endeavour to imitate. Without the love of fame you can never do anything excellent; but by an excessive and undistinguishing thirst after it, you will come to have vulgar views; you will degrade your style; and your taste will be entirely corrupted. It is certain that the lowest style will be the most popular, as it falls within the compass of ignorance itself; and the vulgar will always be pleased with what is natural in the confined and misunderstood sense of the word. One would wish that such depravation of taste should be counteracted, with such manly pride as Euripides expressed to the Athenians, who criticised his works, "I do not compose," says he, "my works in order to be corrected by you, but to instruct you." It is true, to have a right to speak thus, a man must be a Euripides. However, thus much may be allowed, that when an artist is sure that he is upon firm ground, supported by the authority and practice of his predecessors of the greatest reputation, he may then assume the boldness and intrepidity of genius; at any rate, he must not be tempted out of the right path by any tide of popularity that always accompanies the lower styles of painting. I mention this, because our exhibitions, that produce such admirable effects by nourishing emulation, and calling out genius, have also a mischievous tendency by seducing the painter to an ambition of pleasing indiscriminately the mixed multitude of people who resort to them. A DISCOURSE Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1774, by the President. Gentlemen,--When I have taken the liberty of addressing you on the course and order of your studies, I never proposed to enter into a minute detail of the art. This I have always left to the several professors, who pursue the end of our institution with the highest honour to themselves, and with the greatest advantage to the students. My purpose in the discourses I have held in the Academy is to lay down certain general ideas, which seem to me proper for the formation of a sound taste; principles necessary to guard the pupils against those errors into which the sanguine temper common at their time of life, has a tendency to lead them, and which have rendered abortive the hopes of so many successions of promising young men in all parts of Europe. I wish, also, to intercept and suppress those prejudices which particularly prevail when the mechanism of painting is come to its perfection, and which when they do prevail are certain to prevail to the utter destruction of the higher and more valuable parts of this literate and liberal profession. These two have been my principal purposes; they are still as much my concern as ever; and if I repeat my own ideas on the subject, you who know how fast mistake and prejudice, when neglected, gain ground upon truth and reason, will easily excuse me. I only attempt to set the same thing in the greatest variety of lights. The subject of this discourse will be imitation, as far as a painter is concerned in it. By imitation I do not mean imitation in its largest sense, but simply the following of other masters, and the advantage to be drawn from the study of their works. Those who have undertaken to write on our art, and have represented it as a kind of inspiration, as a gift bestowed upon peculiar favourites at their birth, seem to ensure a much more favourable disposition from their readers, and have a much more captivating and liberal air, than he who goes about to examine, coldly, whether there are any means by which this art may be acquired; how our mind may be strengthened and expanded, and what guides will show the way to eminence. It is very natural for those who are unacquainted with the cause of anything extraordinary to be astonished at the effect, and to consider it as a kind of magic. They, who have never observed the gradation by which art is acquired, who see only what is the full result of long labour and application of an infinite number, and infinite variety of acts, are apt to conclude from their entire inability to do the same at once, that it is not only inaccessible to themselves, but can be done by those only who have some gift of the nature of inspiration bestowed upon them. The travellers into the East tell us that when the ignorant inhabitants of these countries are asked concerning the ruins of stately edifices yet remaining amongst them, the melancholy monuments of their former grandeur and long-lost science, they always answer that they were built by magicians. The untaught mind finds a vast gulf between its own powers and these works of complicated art which it is utterly unable to fathom. And it supposes that such a void can be passed only by supernatural powers. And, as for artists themselves, it is by no means their interest to undeceive such judges, however conscious they may be of the very natural means by which the extraordinary powers were acquired; our art being intrinsically imitative, rejects this idea of inspiration more, perhaps, than any other. It is to avoid this plain confession of truth, as it should seem, that this imitation of masters--indeed, almost all imitation which implies a more regular and progressive method of attaining the ends of painting--has ever been particularly inveighed against with great keenness, both by ancient and modern writers. To derive all from native power, to owe nothing to another, is the praise which men, who do not much think what they are saying, bestow sometimes upon others, and sometimes on themselves; and their imaginary dignity is naturally heightened by a supercilious censure of the low, the barren, the grovelling, the servile imitator. It would be no wonder if a student, frightened by these terrors and disgraceful epithets, with which the poor imitators are so often loaded, should let fall his pencil in mere despair, conscious how much he has been indebted to the labours of others, how little, how very little of his art was born with him; and, considering it as hopeless, to set about acquiring by the imitation of any human master what he is taught to suppose is matter of inspiration from heaven. Some allowance must be made for what is said in the gaiety or ambition of rhetoric. We cannot suppose that any one can really mean to exclude all imitation of others. A position so wild would scarce deserve a serious answer, for it is apparent, if we were forbid to make use of the advantages which our predecessors afford us, the art would be always to begin, and consequently remain always in its infant state; and it is a common observation that no art was ever invented and carried to perfection at the same time. But to bring us entirely to reason and sobriety, let it be observed, that a painter must not only be of necessity an imitator of the works of nature, which alone is sufficient to dispel this phantom of inspiration, but he must be as necessarily an imitator of the works of other painters. This appears more humiliating, but it is equally true; and no man can be an artist, whatever he may suppose, upon any other terms. However, those who appear more moderate and reasonable allow that study is to begin by imitation, but that we should no longer use the thoughts of our predecessors when we are become able to think for ourselves. They hold that imitation is as hurtful to the more advanced student as it was advantageous to the beginner. For my own part, I confess I am not only very much disposed to lay down the absolute necessity of imitation in the first stages of the art, but am of opinion that the study of other masters, which I here call imitation, may be extended throughout our whole life without any danger of the inconveniences with which it is charged, of enfeebling the mind, or preventing us from giving that original air which every work undoubtedly ought always to have. I am, on the contrary, persuaded that by imitation only, variety, and even originality of invention is produced. I will go further; even genius, at least what generally is so called, is the child of imitation. But as this appears to be contrary to the general opinion, I must explain my position before I enforce it. Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellences which are out of the reach of the rules of art--a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire. This opinion of the impossibility of acquiring those beauties which stamp the work with the character of genius, supposes that it is something more fixed than in reality it is, and that we always do, and ever did agree, about what should be considered as a characteristic of genius. But the truth is that the degree of excellence which proclaims genius is different in different times and different places; and what shows it to be so is that mankind have often changed their opinion upon this matter. When the arts were in their infancy, the power of merely drawing the likeness of any object was considered as one of its greatest efforts. The common people, ignorant of the principles of art, talk the same language even to this day. But when it was found that every man could be taught to do this, and a great deal more, merely by the observance of certain precepts, the name of genius then shifted its application, and was given only to those who added the peculiar character of the object they represented; to those who had invention, expression, grace, or dignity; or, in short, such qualities or excellences the producing of which could not then be taught by any known and promulgated rules. We are very sure that the beauty of form, the expression of the passions, the art of composition, even the power of giving a general air of grandeur to your work, is at present very much under the dominion of rules. These excellences were, heretofore, considered merely as the effects of genius; and justly, if genius is not taken for inspiration, but as the effect of close observation and experience. He who first made any of these observations and digested them, so as to form an invariable principle for himself to work by, had that merit; but probably no one went very far at once; and generally the first who gave the hint did not know how to pursue it steadily and methodically, at least not in the beginning. He himself worked on it, and improved it; others worked more, and improved farther, until the secret was discovered, and the practice made as general as refined practice can be made. How many more principles may be fixed and ascertained we cannot tell; but as criticism is likely to go hand in hand with the art which is its subject, we may venture to say that as that art shall advance, its powers will be still more and more fixed by rules. But by whatever strides criticism may gain ground, we need be under no apprehension that invention will ever be annihilated or subdued, or intellectual energy be brought entirely within the restraint of written law. Genius will still have room enough to expatiate, and keep always the same distance from narrow comprehension and mechanical performance. What we now call genius begins, not where rules, abstractedly taken, end, but where known vulgar and trite rules have no longer any place. It must of necessity be that even works of genius, as well as every other effect, as it must have its cause, must likewise have its rules; it cannot be by chance that excellences are produced with any constancy, or any certainty, for this is not the nature of chance, but the rules by which men of extraordinary parts, and such as are called men of genius work, are either such as they discover by their own peculiar observation, or of such a nice texture as not easily to admit handling or expressing in words, especially as artists are not very frequently skilful in that mode of communicating ideas. Unsubstantial, however, as these rules may seem, and difficult as it may be to convey them in writing, they are still seen and felt in the mind of the artist, and he works from them with as much certainty as if they were embodied, as I may say, upon paper. It is true these refined principles cannot be always made palpable, like the more gross rules of art; yet it does not follow but that the mind may be put in such a train that it shall perceive, by a kind of scientific sense, that propriety which words, particularly words of unpractised writers such as we are, can but very feebly suggest. Invention is one of the great marks of genius, but if we consult experience, we shall find that it is by being conversant with the inventions of others that we learn to invent, as by reading the thoughts of others we learn to think. Whoever has so far formed his taste as to be able to relish and feel the beauties of the great masters has gone a great way in his study; for, merely from a consciousness of this relish of the right, the mind swells with an inward pride, and is almost as powerfully affected as if it had itself produced what it admires. Our hearts frequently warmed in this manner by the contact of those whom we wish to resemble, will undoubtedly catch something of their way of thinking, and we shall receive in our own bosoms some radiation at least of their fire and splendour. That disposition, which is so strong in children, still continues with us, of catching involuntarily the general air and manner of those with whom we are most conversant; with this difference only, that a young mind is naturally pliable and imitative, but in a more advanced state it grows rigid, and must be warmed and softened before it will receive a deep impression. From these considerations, which a little of your reflection will carry a great way further, it appears of what great consequence it is that our minds should be habituated to the contemplation of excellence, and that, far from being contented to make such habits the discipline of our youth only, we should, to the last moment of our lives, continue a settled intercourse with all the true examples of grandeur. Their inventions are not only the food of our infancy, but the substance which supplies the fullest maturity of our vigour. The mind is but a barren soil; is a soil soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilised and enriched with foreign matter. When we have had continually before us the great works of art to impregnate our minds with kindred ideas, we are then, and not till then, fit to produce something, of the same species. We behold all about us with the eyes of these penetrating observers, and our minds, accustomed to think the thoughts of the noblest and brightest intellects, are prepared for the discovery and selection of all that is great and noble in nature. The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock: he who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own will be soon reduced, from mere barrenness, to the poorest of all imitations; he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what he has before often repeated. When we know the subject designed by such men, it will never be difficult to guess what kind of work is to be produced. It is vain for painters or poets to endeavour to invent without materials on which the mind may work, and from which invention must originate. Nothing can come of nothing. Homer is supposed to be possessed of all the learning of his time. And we are certain that Michael Angelo and Raffaelle were equally possessed of all knowledge in the art which was discoverable in the works of their predecessors. A mind enriched by an assemblage of all the treasures of ancient and modern art will be more elevated and fruitful in resources in proportion to the number of ideas which have been carefully collected and thoroughly digested. There can be no doubt that he who has the most materials has the greatest means of invention; and if he has not the power of using them, it must proceed from a feebleness of intellect or from the confused manner in which those collections have been laid up in his mind. The addition of other men's judgment is so far from weakening, as is the opinion of many, our own, that it will fashion and consolidate those ideas of excellence which lay in their birth feeble, ill-shaped, and confused, but which are finished and put in order by the authority and practice of those whose works may be said to have been consecrated by having stood the test of ages. The mind, or genius, has been compared to a spark of fire which is smothered by a heap of fuel and prevented from blazing into a flame. This simile, which is made use of by the younger Pliny, may be easily mistaken for argument or proof. There is no danger of the mind's being over-burdened with knowledge, or the genius extinguished by any addition of images; on the contrary, these acquisitions may as well, perhaps better, be compared, if comparisons signified anything in reasoning, to the supply of living embers, which will contribute to strengthen the spark that without the association of more would have died away. The truth is, he whose feebleness is such as to make other men's thoughts an incumbrance to him can have no very great strength of mind or genius of his own to be destroyed, so that not much harm will be done at worst. We may oppose to Pliny the greater authority of Cicero, who is continually enforcing the necessity of this method of study. In his dialogue on Oratory he makes Crassus say, that one of the first and most important precepts is to choose a proper model for our imitation. _Hoc fit primum in preceptis meis ut demonstremus quem imitemur_. When I speak of the habitual imitation and continued study of masters, it is not to be understood that I advise any endeavour to copy the exact peculiar colour and complexion of another man's mind; the success of such an attempt must always be like his who imitates exactly the air, manner, and gestures of him whom he admires. His model may be excellent, but the copy will be ridiculous; this ridicule does not arise from his having imitated, but from his not having chosen the right mode of imitation. It is a necessary and warrantable pride to disdain to walk servilely behind any individual, however elevated his rank. The true and liberal ground of imitation is an open field, where, though he who precedes has had the advantage of starting before you, yet it is enough to pursue his course; you need not tread in his footsteps, and you certainly have a right to outstrip him if you can. Nor, whilst I recommend studying the art from artists, can I be supposed to mean that nature is to be neglected? I take this study in aid and not in exclusion of the other. Nature is, and must be, the fountain which alone is inexhaustible; and from which all excellences must originally flow. The great use of studying our predecessors is to open the mind, to shorten our labour, and to give us the result of the selection made by those great minds of what is grand or beautiful in nature: her rich stores are all spread out before us; but it is an art, and no easy art, to know how or what to choose, and how to attain and secure the object of our choice. Thus the highest beauty of form must be taken from nature; but it is an art of long deduction and great experience to know how to find it. We must not content ourselves with merely admiring and relishing; we must enter into the principles on which the work is wrought; these do not swim on the superficies, and consequently are not open to superficial observers. Art in its perfection is not ostentatious; it lies hid, and works its effect itself unseen. It is the proper study and labour of an artist to uncover and find out the latent cause of conspicuous beauties, and from thence form principles for his own conduct; such an examination is a continual exertion of the mind, as great, perhaps, as that of the artist whose works he is thus studying. The sagacious imitator not only remarks what distinguishes the different manner or genius of each master; he enters into the contrivance in the composition, how the masses of lights are disposed, the means by which the effect is produced, how artfully some parts are lost in the ground, others boldly relieved, and how all these are mutually altered and interchanged according to the reason and scheme of the work. He admires not the harmony of colouring alone, but he examines by what artifice one colour is a foil to its neighbour. He looks close into the tints, of what colours they are composed, till he has formed clear and distinct ideas, and has learnt to see in what harmony and good colouring consists. What is learnt in this manner from the works of others becomes really our own, sinks deep, and is never forgotten; nay, it is by seizing on this clue that we proceed forward, and get further and further in enlarging the principle and improving the practice. There can be no doubt but the art is better learnt from the works themselves than from the precepts which are formed upon these works; but if it is difficult to choose proper models for imitation, it requires no less circumspection to separate and distinguish what in those models we ought to imitate. I cannot avoid mentioning here, though it is not my intention at present to enter into the art and method of study, an error which students are too apt to fall into. He that is forming himself must look with great caution and wariness on those peculiarities, or prominent parts, which at first force themselves upon view, and are the marks, or what is commonly called the manner, by which that individual artist is distinguished. Peculiar marks I hold to be generally, if not always, defects, however difficult it may be, wholly to escape them. Peculiarities in the works of art are like those in the human figure; it is by them that we are cognisable and distinguished one from another, but they are always so many blemishes, which, however, both in the one case and in the other, cease to appear deformities to those who have them continually before their eyes. In the works of art, even the most enlightened mind, when warmed by beauties of the highest kind, will by degrees find a repugnance within him to acknowledge any defects; nay, his enthusiasm will carry him so far as to transform them into beauties and objects of imitation. It must be acknowledged that a peculiarity of style, either from its novelty, or by seeming to proceed from a peculiar turn of mind, often escapes blame; on the contrary, it is sometimes striking and pleasing; but this it is vain labour to endeavour to imitate, because novelty and peculiarity being its only merit, when it ceases to be new, it ceases to have value. A manner, therefore, being a defect, and every painter, however excellent, having a manner, it seems to follow that all kinds of faults, as well as beauties, may be learned under the sanction of the greatest authorities. Even the great name of Michael Angelo may be used to keep in countenance a deficiency, or rather neglect of colouring, and every other ornamental part of the art. If the young student is dry and hard, Poussin is the same. If his work has a careless and unfinished air, he has most of the Venetian School to support him. If he makes no selection of objects, but takes individual nature just as he finds it, he is like Rembrandt. If he is incorrect in the proportions of his figures, Correggio was likewise incorrect. If his colours are not blended and united, Rubens was equally crude. In short, there is no defect but may be excused, if it is a sufficient excuse that it can be imputed to considerable artists; but it must be remembered that it was not by these defects they acquired their reputation: they have a right to our pardon, but not to our admiration. However, to imitate peculiarities or mistake defects for beauties that man will be most liable who confines his imitation to one favourite master; and, even though he chooses the best, and is capable of distinguishing the real excellences of his model, it is not by such narrow practice that a genius or mastery in the art is acquired. A man is as little likely to form a true idea of the perfection of the art by studying a single artist as he would be of producing a perfectly beautiful figure by an exact imitation of any individual living model. And as the painter, by bringing together in one piece those beauties which are dispersed amongst a great variety of individuals, produces a figure more beautiful than can be found in nature, so that artist who can unite in himself the excellences of the various painters, will approach nearer to perfection than any one of his masters. He who confines himself to the imitation of an individual, as he never proposes to surpass, so he is not likely to equal, the object of imitation. He professes only to follow, and he that follows must necessarily be behind. We should imitate the conduct of the great artists in the course of their studies, as well as the works which they produced, when they were perfectly formed. Raffaelle began by imitating implicitly the manner of Pietro Perugino, under whom he studied; so his first works are scarce to be distinguished from his master's; but soon forming higher and more extensive views, he imitated the grand outline of Michael Angelo. He learnt the manner of using colours from the works of Leonardo da Vinci and Fratre Bartolomeo: to all this he added the contemplation of all the remains of antiquity that were within his reach, and employed others to draw for him what was in Greece and distant places. And it is from his having taken so many models that he became himself a model for all succeeding painters, always imitating, and always original. If your ambition therefore be to equal Raffaelle, you must do as Raffaelle did; take many models, and not take even him for your guide alone to the exclusion of others. And yet the number is infinite of those who seem, if one may judge by their style, to have seen no other works but those of their master, or of some favourite whose manner is their first wish and their last. I will mention a few that occur to me of this narrow, confined, illiberal, unscientific, and servile kind of imitators. Guido was thus meanly copied by Elizabetta Sirani, and Simone Cantarini; Poussin, by Verdier and Cheron; Parmigiano, by Jeronimo Mazzuoli; Paolo Veronese and Iacomo Bassan had for their imitators their brothers and sons; Pietro de Cortona was followed by Ciro Ferri and Romanelli; Rubens, by Jacques Jordans and Diepenbeck; Guercino, by his own family, the Gennari; Carlo Marratti was imitated by Giuseppe Chiari and Pietro da Pietri; and Rembrandt, by Bramer, Eckhout, and Flink. All these, to whom may be added a much longer list of painters, whose works among the ignorant pass for those of their masters, are justly to be censured for barrenness and servility. To oppose to this list a few that have adopted a more liberal style of imitation: Pelegrino Tibaldi, Rosso, and Primaticio did not coldly imitate, but caught something of the fire that animates the works of Michael Angelo. The Carraches formed their style from Pelegrino Tibaldi, Correggio, and the Venetian School. Domenichino, Guido, Lanfranco, Albano, Guercino, Cavidone, Schidone, Tiarini, though it is sufficiently apparent that they came from the School of the Carraches, have yet the appearance of men who extended their views beyond the model that lay before them, and have shown that they had opinions of their own, and thought for themselves, after they had made themselves masters of the general principles of their schools. Le Seure's first manner resembles very much that of his master Vovet: but as he soon excelled him, so he differed from him in every part of the art. Carlo Marratti succeeded better than those I have first named, and I think owes his superiority to the extension of his views; besides his master Andrea Sacchi, he imitated Raffaelle, Guido, and the Carraches. It is true, there is nothing very captivating in Carlo Marratti; but this proceeded from wants which cannot be completely supplied; that is, want of strength of parts. In this, certainly men are not equal, and a man can bring home wares only in proportion to the capital with which he goes to market. Carlo, by diligence, made the most of what he had; but there was undoubtedly a heaviness about him, which extended itself, uniformly to his invention, expression, his drawing, colouring, and the general effect of his pictures. The truth is, he never equalled any of his patterns in any one thing, and he added little of his own. But we must not rest contented, even in this general study of the moderns; we must trace back the art to its fountain head, to that source from whence they drew their principal excellences, the monuments of pure antiquity. All the inventions and thoughts of the ancients, whether conveyed to us in statues, bas-reliefs, intaglios, cameos, or coins, are to be sought after and carefully studied: The genius that hovers over these venerable relics may be called the father of modern art. From the remains of the works of the ancients the modern arts were revived, and it is by their means that they must be restored a second time. However it may mortify our vanity, we must be forced to allow them our masters; and we may venture to prophecy, that when they shall cease to be studied, arts will no longer flourish, and we shall again relapse into barbarism. The fire of the artist's own genius operating upon these materials which have been thus diligently collected, will enable him to make new combinations, perhaps, superior to what had ever before been in the possession of the art. As in the mixture of the variety of metals, which are said to have been melted and run together at the burning of Corinth, a new and till then unknown metal was produced equal in value to any of those that had contributed to its composition. And though a curious refiner may come with his crucibles, analyse and separate its various component parts, yet Corinthian brass would still hold its rank amongst the most beautiful and valuable of metals. We have hitherto considered the advantages of imitation as it tends to form the taste, and as a practice by which a spark of that genius may be caught which illumines these noble works, that ought always to be present to our thoughts. We come now to speak of another kind of imitation; the borrowing a particular thought, an action, attitude, or figure, and transplanting it into your own work: this will either come under the charge of plagiarism, or be warrantable, and deserve commendation, according to the address with which it is performed. There is some difference likewise whether it is upon the ancients or the moderns that these depredations are made. It is generally allowed that no man need be ashamed of copying the ancients: their works are considered as a magazine of common property, always open to the public, whence every man has a right to what materials he pleases; and if he has the art of using them, they are supposed to become to all intents and purposes his own property. The collection which Raffaelle made of the thoughts of the ancients with so much trouble, is a proof of his opinion on this subject. Such collections may be made with much more ease, by means of an art scarce known in his time; I mean that of engraving, by which, at an easy rate, every man may now avail himself of the inventions of antiquity. It must be acknowledged that the works of the moderns are more the property of their authors; he who borrows an idea from an artist, or perhaps from a modern, not his contemporary, and so accommodates it to his own work that it makes a part of it, with no seam or joining appearing, can hardly be charged with plagiarism; poets practise this kind of borrowing without reserve. But an artist should not be contented with this only; he should enter into a competition with his original, and endeavour to improve what he is appropriating to his own work. Such imitation is so far from having anything in it of the servility of plagiarism, that it is a perpetual exercise of the mind, a continual invention. Borrowing or stealing with such art and caution will have a right to the same lenity as was used by the Lacedemonians; who did not punish theft, but the want of artifice to conceal it. In order to encourage you to imitation, to the utmost extent, let me add, that very finished artists in the inferior branches of the art will contribute to furnish the mind and give hints of which a skilful painter, who is sensible of what he wants, and is in no danger of being infected by the contact of vicious models, will know how to avail himself. He will pick up from dunghills what by a nice chemistry, passing through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold; and, under the rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even sublime inventions. In the luxuriant style of Paul Veronese, in the capricious compositions of Tintoret, he will find something that will assist his invention, and give points, from which his own imagination shall rise and take flight, when the subject which he treats will, with propriety, admit of splendid effects. In every school, whether Venetian, French, or Dutch, he will find either ingenious compositions, extraordinary effects, some peculiar expressions, or some mechanical excellence, well worthy his attention and, in some measure, of his imitation; even in the lower class of the French painters, great beauties are often found united with great defects. Though Coypel wanted a simplicity of taste, and mistook a presumptuous and assuming air for what is grand and majestic; yet he frequently has good sense and judgment in his manner of telling his stories, great skill in his compositions, and is not without a considerable power of expressing the passions, The modern affectation of grace in his works, as well as in those of Bouche and Watteau, may be said to be separated by a very thin partition from the more simple and pure grace of Correggio and Parmigiano. Amongst the Dutch painters, the correct, firm, and determined pencil, which was employed by Bamboccio and Jan Miel on vulgar and mean subjects, might without any change be employed on the highest, to which, indeed, it seems more properly to belong. The greatest style, if that style is confined to small figures such as Poussin generally painted, would receive an additional grace by the elegance and precision of pencil so admirable in the works of Teniers. Though this school more particularly excelled in the mechanism of painting, yet there are many who have shown great abilities in expressing what must be ranked above mechanical excellences. In the works of Frank Hals the portrait painter may observe the composition of a face, the features well put together as the painters express it, from whence proceeds that strong marked character of individual nature which is so remarkable in his portraits, and is not to be found in an equal degree in any other painter. If he had joined to this most difficult part of the art a patience in finishing what he had so correctly planned, he might justly have claimed the place which Vandyke, all things considered, so justly holds as the first of portrait painters. Others of the same school have shown great power in expressing the character and passions of those vulgar people which are the subjects of their study and attention. Amongst those, Jean Stein seems to be one of the most diligent and accurate observers of what passed in those scenes which he frequented, and which were to him an academy. I can easily imagine that if this extraordinary man had had the good fortune to have been born in Italy instead of Holland, had he lived in Rome instead of Leyden, and had been blessed with Michael Angelo and Raffaelle for his masters instead of Brower and Van Gowen, that the same sagacity and penetration which distinguished so accurately the different characters and expression in his vulgar figures, would, when exerted in the selection and imitation of what was great and elevated in nature, have been equally successful, and his name would have been now ranged with the great pillars and supporters of our art. Men who, although thus bound down by the almost invincible powers of early habits, have still exerted extraordinary abilities within their narrow and confined circle, and have, from the natural vigour of their mind, given such an interesting expression, such force and energy to their works, though they cannot be recommended to be exactly imitated, may yet invite an artist to endeavour to transfer, by a kind of parody, those excellences to his own works. Whoever has acquired the power of making this use of the Flemish, Venetian, and French schools is a real genius, and has sources of knowledge open to him which were wanting to the great artists who lived in the great age of painting. To find excellences however dispersed, to discover beauties however concealed by the multitude of defects with which they are surrounded, can be the work only of him who, having a mind always alive to his art, has extended his views to all ages and to all schools, and has acquired from that comprehensive mass which he has thus gathered to himself, a well digested and perfect idea of his art, to which everything is referred. Like a sovereign judge and arbiter of art, he is possessed of that presiding power which separates and attracts every excellence from every school, selects both from what is great and what is little, brings home knowledge from the east and from the west, making the universe tributary towards furnishing his mind and enriching his works with originality and variety of inventions. Thus I have ventured to give my opinion of what appears to me the true and only method by which an artist makes himself master of his profession, which I hold ought to be one continued course of imitation, that is not to cease but with our lives. Those who, either from their own engagements and hurry of business, or from indolence, or from conceit and vanity, have neglected looking out of themselves, as far as my experience and observation reaches, have from that time not only ceased to advance and improve in their performance, but have gone backward. They may be compared to men who have lived upon their principal till they are reduced to beggary and left without resources. I can recommend nothing better, therefore, than that you endeavour to infuse into your works what you learn from the contemplation of the works of others. To recommend this has the appearance of needless and superfluous advice, but it has fallen within my own knowledge that artists, though they are not wanting in a sincere love for their art, though they have great pleasure in seeing good pictures, and are well skilled to distinguish what is excellent or defective in them, yet go on in their own manner, without any endeavour to give a little of those beauties which they admire in others, to their own works. It is difficult to conceive how the present Italian painters, who live in the midst of the treasures of art, should be contented with their own style. They proceed in their common-place inventions, and never think it worth while to visit the works of those great artists with which they are surrounded. I remember several years ago to have conversed at Rome with an artist of great fame throughout Europe; he was not without a considerable degree of abilities, but those abilities were by no means equal to his own opinion of them. From the reputation he had acquired he too fondly concluded that he stood in the same rank, when compared to his predecessors, as he held with regard to his miserable contemporary rivals. In conversation about some particulars of the works of Raffaelle, he seemed to have, or to affect to have, a very obscure memory of them. He told me that he had not set his foot in the Vatican for fifteen years together; that indeed he had been in treaty to copy a capital picture of Raffaelle, but that the business had gone off; however, if the agreement had held, his copy would have greatly exceeded the original. The merit of this artist, however great we may suppose it, I am sure would have been far greater, and his presumption would have been far less if he had visited the Vatican, as in reason he ought to have done, once at least every month of his life. I address myself, gentlemen, to you who have made some progress in the art, and are to be for the future under the guidance of your own judgment and discretion. I consider you as arrived to that period when you have a right to think for yourselves, and to presume that every man is fallible; to study the masters with a suspicion that great men are not always exempt from great faults; to criticise, compare, and rank their works in your own estimation, as they approach to or recede from that standard of perfection which you have formed in your own mind, but which those masters themselves, it must be remembered, have taught you to make, and which you will cease to make with correctness when you cease to study them. It is their excellences which have taught you their defects. I would wish you to forget where you are, and who it is that speaks to you. I only direct you to higher models and better advisers. We can teach you here but very little; you are henceforth to be your own teachers. Do this justice, however, to the English Academy, to bear in mind, that in this place you contracted no narrow habits, no false ideas, nothing that could lead you to the imitation of any living master, who may be the fashionable darling of the day. As you have not been taught to flatter us, do not learn to flatter yourselves. We have endeavoured to lead you to the admiration of nothing but what is truly admirable. If you choose inferior patterns, or if you make your own _former_ works, your patterns for your _latter_, it is your own fault. The purpose of this discourse, and, indeed, of most of my others, is to caution you against that false opinion, but too prevalent amongst artists, of the imaginary power of native genius, and its sufficiency in great works. This opinion, according to the temper of mind it meets with, almost always produces, either a vain confidence, or a sluggish despair, both equally fatal to all proficiency. Study, therefore, the great works of the great masters for ever. Study as nearly as you can, in the order, in the manner, on the principles, on which they studied. Study nature attentively, but always with those masters in your company; consider them as models which you are to imitate, and at the same time as rivals which you are to combat. A DISCOURSE Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10th, 1776, by the President. Gentlemen,--It has been my uniform endeavour, since I first addressed you from this place, to impress you strongly with one ruling idea. I wished you to be persuaded, that success in your art depends almost entirely on your own industry; but the industry which I principally recommended, is not the industry of the _hands_, but of the _mind_. As our art is not a divine gift, so neither is it a mechanical trade. Its foundations are laid in solid science. And practice, though essential to perfection, can never attain that to which it aims, unless it works under the direction of principle. Some writers upon art carry this point too far, and suppose that such a body of universal and profound learning is requisite, that the very enumeration of its kind is enough to frighten a beginner. Vitruvius, after going through the many accomplishments of nature, and the many acquirements of learning, necessary to an architect, proceeds with great gravity to assert that he ought to be well skilled in the civil law, that he may not be cheated in the title of the ground he builds on. But without such exaggeration, we may go so far as to assert, that a painter stands in need of more knowledge than is to be picked off his pallet, or collected by looking on his model, whether it be in life or in picture. He can never be a great artist who is grossly illiterate. Every man whose business is description ought to be tolerably conversant with the poets in some language or other, that he may imbibe a poetical spirit and enlarge his stock of ideas. He ought to acquire a habit of comparing and divesting his notions. He ought not to be wholly unacquainted with that part of philosophy which gives him an insight into human nature, and relates to the manners, characters, passions, and affections. He ought to know something concerning the mind, as well as a great deal concerning the body of man. For this purpose, it is not necessary that he should go into such a compass of reading, as must, by distracting his attention, disqualify him for the practical part of his profession, and make him sink the performer in the critic. Reading, if it can be made the favourite recreation of his leisure hours, will improve and enlarge his mind without retarding his actual industry. What such partial and desultory reading cannot afford, may be supplied by the conversation of learned and ingenious men, which is the best of all substitutes for those who have not the means or opportunities of deep study. There are many such men in this age; and they will be pleased with communicating their ideas to artists, when they see them curious and docile, if they are treated with that respect and deference which is so justly their due. Into such society, young artists, if they make it the point of their ambition, will by degrees be admitted. There, without formal teaching, they will insensibly come to feel and reason like those they live with, and find a rational and systematic taste imperceptibly formed in their minds, which they will know how to reduce to a standard, by applying general truth to their own purposes, better perhaps than those to whom they owed the original sentiment. Of these studies and this conversation, the desired and legitimate offspring is a power of distinguishing right from wrong, which power applied to works of art is denominated taste. Let me then, without further introduction, enter upon an examination whether taste be so far beyond our reach as to be unattainable by care, or be so very vague and capricious that no care ought to be employed about it. It has been the fate of arts to be enveloped in mysterious and incomprehensible language, as if it was thought necessary that even the terms should correspond to the idea entertained of the instability and uncertainty of the rules which they expressed. To speak of genius and taste as any way connected with reason or common sense, would be, in the opinion of some towering talkers, to speak like a man who possessed neither, who had never felt that enthusiasm, or, to use their own inflated language, was never warmed by that Promethean fire, which animates the canvas and vivifies the marble. If, in order to be intelligible, I appear to degrade art by bringing her down from her visionary situation in the clouds, it is only to give her a more solid mansion upon the earth. It is necessary that at some time or other we should see things as they really are, and not impose on ourselves by that false magnitude with which objects appear when viewed indistinctly as through a mist. We will allow a poet to express his meaning, when his meaning is not well known to himself, with a certain degree of obscurity, as it is one source of the sublime. But when, in plain prose, we gravely talk of courting the muse in shady bowers, waiting the call and inspiration of genius, finding out where he inhabits, and where he is to be invoked with the greatest success; of attending to times and seasons when the imagination shoots with the greatest vigour, whether at the summer solstice or the equinox, sagaciously observing how much the wild freedom and liberty of imagination is cramped by attention to established rules, and how this same imagination begins to grow dim in advanced age, smothered and deadened by too much judgment. When we talk such language, or entertain such sentiments as these, we generally rest contented with mere words, or at best entertain notions not only groundless, but pernicious. If all this means what it is very possible was originally intended only to be meant, that in order to cultivate an art, a man secludes himself from the commerce of the world, and retires into the country at particular seasons; or that at one time of the year his body is in better health, and consequently his mind fitter for the business of hard thinking than at another time; or that the mind may be fatigued and grow confused by long and unremitted application; this I can understand. I can likewise believe that a man eminent when young for possessing poetical imagination, may, from having taken another road, so neglect its cultivation as to show less of its powers in his latter life. But I am persuaded that scarce a poet is to be found, from Homer down to Dryden, who preserved a sound mind in a sound body, and continued practising his profession to the very last, whose later works are not as replete with the fire of imagination as those which were produced in his more youthful days. To understand literally these metaphors or ideas expressed in poetical language, seems to be equally absurd as to conclude that because painters sometimes represent poets writing from the dictates of a little winged boy or genius, that this same genius did really inform him in a whisper what he was to write, and that he is himself but a mere machine, unconscious of the operations of his own mind. Opinions generally received and floating in the world, whether true or false, we naturally adopt and make our own; they may be considered as a kind of inheritance to which we succeed and are tenants for life, and which we leave to our posterity very near in the condition in which we received it; not much being in any one man's power either to impair or improve it. The greatest part of these opinions, like current coin in its circulation, we are obliged to take without weighing or examining; but by this inevitable inattention, many adulterated pieces are received, which, when we seriously estimate our wealth, we must throw away. So the collector of popular opinions, when he embodies his knowledge, and forms a system, must separate those which are true from those which are only plausible. But it becomes more peculiarly a duty to the professors of art not to let any opinions relating to that art pass unexamined. The caution and circumspection required in such examination we shall presently have an opportunity of explaining. Genius and taste, in their common acceptation, appear to be very nearly related; the difference lies only in this, that genius has superadded to it a habit or power of execution. Or we may say, that taste, when this power is added, changes its name, and is called genius. They both, in the popular opinion, pretend to an entire exemption from the restraint of rules. It is supposed that their powers are intuitive; that under the name of genius great works are produced, and under the name of taste an exact judgment is given, without our knowing why, and without being under the least obligation to reason, precept, or experience. One can scarce state these opinions without exposing their absurdity, yet they are constantly in the mouths of men, and particularly of artists. They who have thought seriously on this subject, do not carry the point so far; yet I am persuaded, that even among those few who may be called thinkers, the prevalent opinion gives less than it ought to the powers of reason; and considers the principles of taste, which give all their authority to the rules of art, as more fluctuating, and as having less solid foundations than we shall find, upon examination, they really have. The common saying, that tastes are not to be disputed, owes its influence, and its general reception, to the same error which leads us to imagine it of too high original to submit to the authority of an earthly tribunal. It will likewise correspond with the notions of those who consider it as a mere phantom of the imagination, so devoid of substance as to elude all criticism. We often appear to differ in sentiments from each other, merely from the inaccuracy of terms, as we are not obliged to speak always with critical exactness. Something of this too may arise from want of words in the language to express the more nice discriminations which a deep investigation discovers. A great deal, however, of this difference vanishes when each opinion is tolerably explained and understood by constancy and precision in the use of terms. We apply the term taste to that act of the mind by which we like or dislike, whatever be the subject. Our judgment upon an airy nothing, a fancy which has no foundation, is called by the same name which we give to our determination concerning those truths which refer to the most general and most unalterable principles of human nature, to works which are only to be produced by the greatest efforts of the human understanding. However inconvenient this may be, we are obliged to take words as we find them; all we can do is to distinguish the things to which they are applied. We may let pass those things which are at once subjects of taste and sense, and which having as much certainty as the senses themselves, give no occasion to inquiry or dispute. The natural appetite or taste of the human mind is for truth; whether that truth results from the real agreement or equality of original ideas among themselves; from the agreement of the representation of any object with the thing represented; or from the correspondence of the several parts of any arrangement with each other. It is the very same taste which relishes a demonstration in geometry, that is pleased with the resemblance of a picture to an original, and touched with the harmony of music. All these have unalterable and fixed foundations in nature, and are therefore equally investigated by reason, and known by study; some with more, some with less clearness, but all exactly in the same way. A picture that is unlike, is false. Disproportionate ordinance of parts is not right because it cannot be true until it ceases to be a contradiction to assert that the parts have no relation to the whole. Colouring is true where it is naturally adapted to the eye, from brightness, from softness, from harmony, from resemblance; because these agree with their object, nature, and therefore are true: as true as mathematical demonstration; but known to be true only to those who study these things. But besides real, there is also apparent truth, or opinion, or prejudice. With regard to real truth, when it is known, the taste which conforms to it is, and must be, uniform. With regard to the second sort of truth, which may be called truth upon sufferance, or truth by courtesy, it is not fixed, but variable. However, whilst these opinions and prejudices on which it is founded continue, they operate as truth; and the art, whose office it is to please the mind, as well as instruct it, must direct itself according to opinion, or it will not attain its end. In proportion as these prejudices are known to be generally diffused, or long received, the taste which conforms to them approaches nearer to certainty, and to a sort of resemblance to real science, even where opinions are found to be no better than prejudices. And since they deserve, on account of their duration and extent, to be considered as really true, they become capable of no small decree of stability and determination by their permanent and uniform nature. As these prejudices become more narrow, more local, more transitory, this secondary taste becomes more and more fantastical; recedes from real science; is less to be approved by reason, and less followed in practice; though in no case perhaps to be wholly neglected, where it does not stand, as it sometimes does, in direct defiance of the most respectable opinions received amongst mankind. Having laid down these positions, I shall proceed with less method, because less will serve, to explain and apply them. We will take it for granted that reason is something invariable and fixed in the nature of things; and without endeavouring to go back to an account of first principles, which for ever will elude our search, we will conclude that whatever goes under the name of taste, which we can fairly bring under the dominion of reason, must be considered as equally exempt from change. If therefore, in the course of this inquiry, we can show that there are rules for the conduct of the artist which are fixed and invariable, it implies, of course, that the art of the connoisseur, or, in other words, taste, has likewise invariable principles. Of the judgment which we make on the works of art, and the preference that we give to one class of art over another, if a reason be demanded, the question is perhaps evaded by answering, "I judge from my taste"; but it does not follow that a better answer cannot be given, though for common gazers this may be sufficient. Every man is not obliged to investigate the causes of his approbation or dislike. The arts would lie open for ever to caprice and casualty, if those who are to judge of their excellences had no settled principles by which they are to regulate their decisions, and the merit or defect of performances were to be determined by unguided fancy. And indeed we may venture to assert that whatever speculative knowledge is necessary to the artist, is equally and indispensably necessary to the connoisseur. The first idea that occurs in the consideration of what is fixed in art, or in taste, is that presiding principle of which I have so frequently spoken in former discourses, the general idea of nature. The beginning, the middle, and the end of everything that is valuable in taste, is comprised in the knowledge of what is truly nature; for whatever ideas are not conformable to those of nature, or universal opinion, must be considered as more or less capricious. The idea of nature comprehending not only the forms which nature produces, but also the nature and internal fabric and organisation, as I may call it, of the human mind and imagination: general ideas, beauty, or nature, are but different ways of expressing the same thing, whether we apply these terms to statues, poetry, or picture. Deformity is not nature, but an accidental deviation from her accustomed practice. This general idea therefore ought to be called nature, and nothing else, correctly speaking, has a right to that name. But we are so far from speaking, in common conversation, with any such accuracy, that, on the contrary, when we criticise Rembrandt and other Dutch painters, who introduced into their historical pictures exact representations of individual objects with all their imperfections, we say, though it is not in a good taste, yet it is nature. This misapplication of terms must be very often perplexing to the young student. Is not, he may say, art an imitation of nature? Must he not, therefore, who imitates her with the greatest fidelity be the best artist? By this mode of reasoning Rembrandt has a higher place than Raffaelle. But a very little reflection will serve to show us that these particularities cannot be nature: for how can that be the nature of man, in which no two individuals are the same? It plainly appears that as a work is conducted under the influence of general ideas or partial it is principally to be considered as the effect of a good or a bad taste. As beauty therefore does not consist in taking what lies immediately before you, so neither, in our pursuit of taste, are those opinions which we first received and adopted the best choice, or the most natural to the mind and imagination. In the infancy of our knowledge we seize with greediness the good that is within our reach; it is by after-consideration, and in consequence of discipline, that we refuse the present for a greater good at a distance. The nobility or elevation of all arts, like the excellence of virtue itself, consists in adopting this enlarged and comprehensive idea, and all criticism built upon the more confined view of what is natural, may properly be called shallow criticism, rather than false; its defect is that the truth is not sufficiently extensive. It has sometimes happened that some of the greatest men in our art have been betrayed into errors by this confined mode of reasoning. Poussin, who, upon the whole, may be produced as an instance of attention to the most enlarged and extensive ideas of nature, from not having settled principles on this point, has in one instance at least, I think, deserted truth for prejudice. He is said to have vindicated the conduct of Julio Romano, for his inattention to the masses of light and shade, or grouping the figures, in the battle of Constantine, as if designedly neglected, the better to correspond with the hurry and confusion of a battle. Poussin's own conduct in his representations of Bacchanalian triumphs and sacrifices, makes us more easily give credit to this report, since in such subjects, as well indeed as in many others, it was too much his own practice. The best apology we can make for this conduct is what proceeds from the association of our ideas, the prejudice we have in favour of antiquity. Poussin's works, as I have formerly observed, have very much the air of the ancient manner of painting, in which there are not the least traces to make us think that what we call the keeping, the composition of light and shade, or distribution of the work into masses, claimed any part of their attention. But surely whatever apology we may find out for this neglect, it ought to be ranked among the defects of Poussin, as well as of the antique paintings; and the moderns have a right to that praise which is their due, for having given so pleasing an addition to the splendour of the art. Perhaps no apology ought to be received for offences committed against the vehicle (whether it be the organ of seeing or of hearing) by which our pleasures are conveyed to the mind. We must take the same care that the eye be not perplexed and distracted by a confusion of equal parts, or equal lights, as of offending it by an unharmonious mixture of colours. We may venture to be more confident of the truth of this observation, since we find that Shakespeare, on a parallel occasion, has made Hamlet recommend to the players a precept of the same kind, never to offend the ear by harsh sounds:--"In the very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of your passions," says he, "you must beget a temperance that may give it smoothness." And yet, at the same time, he very justly observes, "The end of playing, both at the first and now, is to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature." No one can deny but that violent passions will naturally emit harsh and disagreeable tones; yet this great poet and critic thought that this imitation of nature would cost too much, if purchased at the expense of disagreeable sensations, or, as he expresses it, of "splitting the ear." The poet and actor, as well as the painter of genius who is well acquainted with all the variety and sources of pleasure in the mind and imagination, has little regard or attention to common nature, or creeping after common sense. By overleaping those narrow bounds, he more effectually seizes the whole mind, and more powerfully accomplishes his purpose. This success is ignorantly imagined to proceed from inattention to all rules, and in defiance of reason and judgment; whereas it is in truth acting according to the best rules, and the justest reason. He who thinks nature, in the narrow sense of the word, is alone to be followed, will produce but a scanty entertainment for the imagination: everything is to be done with which it is natural for the mind to be pleased, whether it proceeds from simplicity or variety, uniformity or irregularity: whether the scenes are familiar or exotic; rude and wild, or enriched and cultivated; for it is natural for the mind to be pleased with all these in their turn. In short, whatever pleases has in it what is analogous to the mind, and is therefore, in the highest and best sense of the word, natural. It is this sense of nature or truth which ought more particularly to be cultivated by the professors of art; and it may be observed that many wise and learned men, who have accustomed their minds to admit nothing for truth but what can be proved by mathematical demonstration, have seldom any relish for those arts which address themselves to the fancy, the rectitude and truth of which is known by another kind of proof: and we may add that the acquisition of this knowledge requires as much circumspection and sagacity, as to attain those truths which are more open to demonstration. Reason must ultimately determine our choice on every occasion; but this reason may still be exerted ineffectually by applying to taste principles which, though right as far as they go, yet do not reach the object. No man, for instance, can deny that it seems at first view very reasonable, that a statue which is to carry down to posterity the resemblance of an individual should be dressed in the fashion of the times, in the dress which he himself wore: this would certainly be true if the dress were part of the man. But after a time the dress is only an amusement for an antiquarian; and if it obstructs the general design of the piece, it is to be disregarded by the artist. Common sense must here give way to a higher sense. In the naked form, and in the disposition of the drapery, the difference between one artist and another is principally seen. But if he is compelled to the modern dress, the naked form is entirely hid, and the drapery is already disposed by the skill of the tailor. Were a Phidias to obey such absurd commands, he would please no more than an ordinary sculptor; since, in the inferior parts of every art, the learned and the ignorant are nearly upon a level. These were probably among the reasons that induced the sculptor of that wonderful figure of Laocoon to exhibit him naked, notwithstanding he was surprised in the act of sacrificing to Apollo, and consequently ought to be shown in his sacerdotal habits, if those greater reasons had not preponderated. Art is not yet in so high estimation with us as to obtain so great a sacrifice as the ancients made, especially the Grecians, who suffered themselves to be represented naked, whether they were generals, lawgivers, or kings. Under this head of balancing and choosing the greater reason, or of two evils taking the least, we may consider the conduct of Rubens in the Luxembourg gallery, of mixing allegorical figures with representations of real personages, which, though acknowledged to be a fault, yet, if the artist considered himself as engaged to furnish this gallery with a rich and splendid ornament, this could not be done, at least in an equal degree, without peopling the air and water with these allegorical figures: he therefore accomplished that he purposes. In this case all lesser considerations, which tend to obstruct the great end of the work, must yield and give way. If it is objected that Rubens judged ill at first in thinking it necessary to make his work so very ornamental, this brings the question upon new ground. It was his peculiar style; he could paint in no other; and he was selected for that work, probably, because it was his style. Nobody will dispute but some of the best of the Roman or Bolognian schools would have produced a more learned and more noble work. This leads us to another important province of taste, of weighing the value of the different classes of the art, and of estimating them accordingly. All arts have means within them of applying themselves with success both to the intellectual and sensitive part of our natures. It can be no dispute, supposing both these means put in practice with equal abilities, to which we ought to give the preference: to him who represents the heroic arts and more dignified passions of man, or to him who, by the help of meretricious ornaments, however elegant and graceful, captivates the sensuality, as it may be called, of our taste. Thus the Roman and Bolognian schools are reasonably preferred to the Venetian, Flemish, or Dutch schools, as they address themselves to our best and noblest faculties. Well-turned periods in eloquence, or harmony of numbers in poetry, which are in those arts what colouring is in painting, however highly we may esteem them, can never be considered as of equal importance with the art of unfolding truths that are useful to mankind, and which make us better or wiser. Nor can those works which remind us of the poverty and meanness of our nature, be considered as of equal rank with what excites ideas of grandeur, or raises and dignifies humanity; or, in the words of a late poet, which makes the beholder learn to venerate himself as man. It is reason and good sense therefore which ranks and estimates every art, and every part of that art, according to its importance, from the painter of animated down to inanimated nature. We will not allow a man, who shall prefer the inferior style, to say it is his taste; taste here has nothing, or at least ought to have nothing to do with the question. He wants not taste, but sense, and soundness of judgment. Indeed, perfection in an inferior style may be reasonably preferred to mediocrity in the highest walks of art. A landscape of Claude Lorraine may be preferred to a history of Luca Jordano; but hence appears the necessity of the connoisseur's knowing in what consists the excellence of each class, in order to judge how near it approaches to perfection. Even in works of the same kind, as in history painting, which is composed of various parts, excellence of an inferior species, carried to a very high degree, will make a work very valuable, and in some measure compensate for the absence of the higher kind of merits. It is the duty of the connoisseur to know and esteem, as much as it may deserve, every part of painting; he will not then think even Bassano unworthy of his notice, who, though totally devoid of expression, sense, grace, or elegance, may be esteemed on account of his admirable taste of colours, which, in his best works, are little inferior to those of Titian. Since I have mentioned Bassano, we must do him likewise the justice to acknowledge that, though he did not aspire to the dignity of expressing the characters and passions of men, yet, with respect to the facility and truth in his manner of touching animals of all kinds, and giving them what painters call their character, few have ever excelled him. To Bassano we may add Paul Veronese and Tintoret, for their entire inattention to what is justly esteemed the most essential part of our art, the expression of the passions. Notwithstanding these glaring deficiencies, we justly esteem their works; but it must be remembered that they do not please from those defects, but from their great excellences of another kind, and in spite of such transgressions. These excellences, too, as far as they go, are founded in the truth of general nature. They tell the truth, though not the whole truth. By these considerations, which can never be too frequently impressed, may be obviated two errors which I observed to have been, formerly at least, the most prevalent, and to be most injurious to artists: that of thinking taste and genius to have nothing to do with reason, and that of taking particular living objects for nature. I shall now say something on that part of taste which, as I have hinted to you before, does not belong so much to the external form of things, but is addressed to the mind, and depends on its original frame, or, to use the expression, the organisation of the soul; I mean the imagination and the passions. The principles of these are as invariable as the former, and are to be known and reasoned upon in the same manner, by an appeal to common sense deciding upon the common feelings of mankind. This sense, and these feelings, appear to me of equal authority, and equally conclusive. Now this appeal implies a general uniformity and agreement in the minds of men. It would be else an idle and vain endeavour to establish rules of art; it would be pursuing a phantom to attempt to move affections with which we were entirely unacquainted. We have no reason to suspect there is a greater difference between our minds than between our forms, of which, though there are no two alike, yet there is a general similitude that goes through the whole race of mankind; and those who have cultivated their taste can distinguish what is beautiful or deformed, or, in other words, what agrees with or what deviates from the general idea of nature, in one case as well as in the other. The internal fabric of our mind, as well as the external form of our bodies, being nearly uniform, it seems then to follow, of course, that as the imagination is incapable of producing anything originally of itself, and can only vary and combine these ideas with which it is furnished by means of the senses, there will be, of course, an agreement in the imaginations as in the senses of men. There being this agreement, it follows that in all cases, in our lightest amusements as well as in our most serious actions and engagements of life, we must regulate our affections of every kind by that of others. The well-disciplined mind acknowledges this authority, and submits its own opinion to the public voice. It is from knowing what are the general feelings and passions of mankind that we acquire a true idea of what imagination is; though it appears as if we had nothing to do but to consult our own particular sensations, and these were sufficient to ensure us from all error and mistake. A knowledge of the disposition and character of the human mind can be acquired only by experience: a great deal will be learned, I admit, by a habit of examining what passes in our bosoms, what are our own motives of action, and of what kind of sentiments we are conscious on any occasion. We may suppose a uniformity, and conclude that the same effect will be produced by the same cause in the minds of others. This examination will contribute to suggest to us matters of inquiry; but we can never be sure that our own sensations are true and right till they are confirmed by more extensive observation. One man opposing another determines nothing but a general union of minds, like a general combination of the forces of all mankind, makes a strength that is irresistible. In fact, as he who does not know himself does not know others, so it may be said with equal truth, that he who does not know others knows himself but very imperfectly. A man who thinks he is guarding himself against Prejudices by resisting the authority of others, leaves open every avenue to singularity, vanity, self-conceit, obstinacy, and many other vices, all tending to warp the judgment and prevent the natural operation of his faculties. This submission to others is a deference which we owe, and indeed are forced involuntarily to pay. In fact we are never satisfied with our opinions till they are ratified and confirmed by the suffrages of the rest of mankind. We dispute and wrangle for ever; we endeavour to get men to come to us when we do not go to them. He therefore who is acquainted with the works which have pleased different ages and different countries, and has formed his opinion on them, has more materials and more means of knowing what is analogous to the mind of man than he who is conversant only with the works of his own age or country. What has pleased, and continues to please, is likely to please again: hence are derived the rules of art, and on this immovable foundation they must ever stand. This search and study of the history of the mind ought not to be confined to one art only. It is by the analogy that one art bears to another that many things are ascertained which either were but faintly seen, or, perhaps, would not have been discovered at all if the inventor had not received the first hints from the practices of a sister art on a similar occasion. The frequent allusions which every man who treats of any art is obliged to draw from others in order to illustrate and confirm his principles, sufficiently show their near connection and inseparable relation. All arts having the same general end, which is to please, and addressing themselves to the same faculties through the medium of the senses, it follows that their rules and principles must have as great affinity as the different materials and the different organs or vehicles by which they pass to the mind will permit them to retain. We may therefore conclude that the real substance, as it may be called, of what goes under the name of taste, is fixed and established in the nature of things; that there are certain and regular causes by which the imagination and passions of men are affected; and that the knowledge of these causes is acquired by a laborious and diligent investigation of nature, and by the same slow progress as wisdom or knowledge of every kind, however instantaneous its operations may appear when thus acquired. It has been often observed that the good and virtuous man alone can acquire this true or just relish, even of works of art. This opinion will not appear entirely without foundation when we consider that the same habit of mind which is acquired by our search after truth in the more serious duties of life, is only transferred to the pursuit of lighter amusements: the same disposition, the same desire to find something steady, substantial, and durable, on which the mind can lean, as it were, and rest with safety. The subject only is changed. We pursue the same method in our search after the idea of beauty and perfection in each; of virtue, by looking forwards beyond ourselves to society, and to the whole; of arts, by extending our views in the same manner to all ages and all times. Every art, like our own, has in its composition fluctuating as well as fixed principles. It is an attentive inquiry into their difference that will enable us to determine how far we are influenced by custom and habit, and what is fixed in the nature of things. To distinguish how much has solid foundation, we may have recourse to the same proof by which some hold wit ought to be tried--whether it preserves itself when translated. That wit is false which can subsist only in one language; and that picture which pleases only one age or one nation, owes its reception to some local or accidental association of ideas. We may apply this to every custom and habit of life. Thus the general principles of urbanity, politeness, or civility, have been ever the same in all nations; but the mode in which they are dressed is continually varying. The general idea of showing respect is by making yourself less: but the manner, whether by bowing the body, kneeling, prostration, pulling off the upper part of our dress, or taking away the lower, is a matter of habit. It would be unjust to conclude that all ornaments, because they were at first arbitrarily contrived, are therefore undeserving of our attention; on the contrary, he who neglects the cultivation of those ornaments, acts contrarily to nature and reason. As life would be imperfect without its highest ornaments, the arts, so these arts themselves would be imperfect without _their_ ornaments. Though we by no means ought to rank these with positive and substantial beauties, yet it must be allowed that a knowledge of both is essentially requisite towards forming a complete, whole, and perfect taste. It is in reality from the ornaments that arts receive their peculiar character and complexion; we may add that in them we find the characteristical mark of a national taste, as by throwing up a feather in the air we know which way the wind blows, better than by a more heavy matter. The striking distinction between the works of the Roman, Bolognian, and Venetian schools, consists more in that general effect which is produced by colours than in the more profound excellences of the art; at least it is from thence that each is distinguished and known at first sight. As it is the ornaments rather than the proportions of architecture which at the first glance distinguish the different orders from each other; the Doric is known by its triglyphs, the Ionic by its volutes, and the Corinthian by its acanthus. What distinguishes oratory from a cold narration, is a more liberal though chaste use of these ornaments which go under the name of figurative and metaphorical expressions; and poetry distinguishes itself from oratory by words and expressions still more ardent and glowing. What separates and distinguishes poetry is more particularly the ornament of _verse_; it is this which gives it its character, and is an essential, without which it cannot exist. Custom has appropriated different metre to different kinds of composition, in which the world is not perfectly agreed. In England the dispute is not yet settled which is to be preferred, rhyme or blank verse. But however we disagree about what these metrical ornaments shall be, that some metre is essentially necessary is universally acknowledged. In poetry or eloquence, to determine how far figurative or metaphorical language may proceed, and when it begins to be affectation or beside the truth, must be determined by taste, though this taste we must never forget is regulated and formed by the presiding feelings of mankind, by those works which have approved themselves to all times and all persons. Thus, though eloquence has undoubtedly an essential and intrinsic excellence, and immovable principles common to all languages, founded in the nature of our passions and affections, yet it has its ornaments and modes of address which are merely arbitrary. What is approved in the Eastern nations as grand and majestic, would be considered by the Greeks and Romans as turgid and inflated; and they, in return, would be thought by the Orientals to express themselves in a cold and insipid manner. We may add likewise to the credit of ornaments, that it is by their means that art itself accomplishes its purpose. Fresnoy calls colouring, which is one of the chief ornaments of painting, _lena sororis_, that which procures lovers and admirers to the more valuable excellences of the art. It appears to be the same right turn of mind which enables a man to acquire the _truth_, or the just idea of what is right in the ornaments, as in the more stable principles of art. It has still the same centre of perfection, though it is the centre of a smaller circle. To illustrate this by the fashion of dress, in which there is allowed to be a good or, bad taste. The component parts of dress are continually changing from great to little, from short to long, but the general form still remains; it is still the same general dress which is comparatively fixed, though on a very slender foundation, but it is on this which fashion must rest. He who invents with the most success, or dresses in, the best taste, would probably, from the same sagacity employed to greater purposes, have discovered equal skill, or have formed the same correct taste in the highest labours of art. I have mentioned taste in dress, which is certainly one of the lowest subjects to which this word is applied; yet, as I have before observed, there is a right even here, however narrow its foundation respecting the fashion of any particular nation. But we have still more slender means of determining, in regard to the different customs of different ages or countries, to which to give the preference, since they seem to be all equally removed from nature. If an European, when he has cut off his beard, and put false hair on his head, or bound up his own natural hair in regular hard knots, as unlike nature as he can possibly make it; and having rendered them immovable by the help of the fat of hogs, has covered the whole with flour, laid on by a machine with the utmost regularity; if, when thus attired he issues forth, he meets a Cherokee Indian, who has bestowed as much time at his toilet, and laid on with equal care and attention his yellow and red ochre on particular parts of his forehead or cheeks, as he judges most becoming; whoever despises the other for this attention to the fashion of his country, whichever of these two first feels himself provoked to laugh, is the barbarian. All these fashions are very innocent, neither worth disquisition, nor any endeavour to alter them, as the change would, in all probability, be equally distant from nature. The only circumstances against which indignation may reasonably be moved, are where the operation is painful or destructive of health, such as is practised at Otahaiti, and the straight lacing of the English ladies; of the last of which, how destructive it must be to health and long life, the professor of anatomy took an opportunity of proving a few days since in this Academy. It is in dress as in things of greater consequence. Fashions originate from those only who have the high and powerful advantages of rank, birth, and fortune; as many of the ornaments of art, those at least for which no reason can be given, are transmitted to us, are adopted, and acquire their consequence from the company in which we have been used to see them. As Greece and Rome are the fountains from whence have flowed all kinds of excellence, to that veneration which they have a right to claim for the pleasure and knowledge which they have afforded us, we voluntarily add our approbation of every ornament and every custom that belonged to them, even to the fashion of their dress. For it may be observed that, not satisfied with them in their own place, we make no difficulty of dressing statues of modern heroes or senators in the fashion of the Roman armour or peaceful robe; we go so far as hardly to bear a statue in any other drapery. The figures of the great men of those nations have come down to us in sculpture. In sculpture remain almost all the excellent specimens of ancient art. We have so far associated personal dignity to the persons thus represented, and the truth of art to their manner of representation, that it is not in our power any longer to separate them. This is not so in painting; because, having no excellent ancient portraits, that connection was never formed. Indeed, we could no more venture to paint a general officer in a Roman military habit, than we could make a statue in the present uniform. But since we have no ancient portraits, to show how ready we are to adopt those kind of prejudices, we make the best authority among the moderns serve the same purpose. The great variety of excellent portraits with which Vandyke has enriched this nation, we are not content to admire for their real excellence, but extend our approbation even to the dress which happened to be the fashion of that age. We all very well remember how common it was a few years ago for portraits to be drawn in this Gothic dress, and this custom is not yet entirely laid aside. By this means it must be acknowledged very ordinary pictures acquired something of the air and effect of the works of Vandyke, and appeared therefore at first sight to be better pictures than they really were; they appeared so, however, to those only who had the means of making this association, for when made, it was irresistible. But this association is nature, and refers to that Secondary truth that comes from conformity to general prejudice and opinion; it is therefore not merely fantastical. Besides the prejudice which we have in favour of ancient dresses, there may be likewise other reasons, amongst which we may justly rank the simplicity of them, consisting of little more than one single piece of drapery, without those whimsical capricious forms by which all other dresses are embarrassed. Thus, though it is from the prejudice we have in favour of the ancients, who have taught us architecture, that we have adopted likewise their ornaments; and though we are satisfied that neither nature nor reason is the foundation of those beauties which we imagine we see in that art, yet if any one persuaded of this truth should, therefore, invent new orders of equal beauty, which we will suppose to be possible, yet they would not please, nor ought he to complain, since the old has that great advantage of having custom and prejudice on its side. In this case we leave what has every prejudice in its favour to take that which will have no advantage over what we have left, but novelty, which soon destroys itself, and, at any rate, is but a weak antagonist against custom. These ornaments, having the right of possession, ought not to be removed but to make room for not only what has higher pretensions, but such pretensions as will balance the evil and confusion which innovation always brings with it. To this we may add, even the durability of the materials will often contribute to give a superiority to one object over another. Ornaments in buildings, with which taste is principally concerned, are composed of materials which last longer than those of which dress is composed; it, therefore, makes higher pretensions to our favour and prejudice. Some attention is surely required to what we can no more get rid of than we can go out of ourselves. We are creatures of prejudice; we neither can nor ought to eradicate it; we must only regulate, it by reason, which regulation by reason is, indeed, little more than obliging the lesser, the focal and temporary prejudices, to give way to those which are more durable and lasting. He, therefore, who in his practice of portrait painting wishes to dignify his subject, which we will suppose to be a lady, will not paint her in the modern dress, the familiarity of which alone is sufficient to destroy all dignity. He takes care that his work shall correspond to those ideas and that imagination which he knows will regulate the judgment of others, and, therefore, dresses his figure something with the general air of the antique for the sake of dignity, and preserves something of the modern for the sake of likeness. By this conduct his works correspond with those prejudices which we have in favour of what we continually see; and the relish of the antique simplicity corresponds with what we may call the, more learned and scientific prejudice. There was a statue made not long since of Voltaire, which the sculptor, not having that respect for the prejudices of mankind which he ought to have, has made entirely naked, and as meagre and emaciated as the original is said to be. The consequence is what might be expected; it has remained in the sculptor's shop, though it was intended as a public ornament and a public honour to Voltaire, as it was procured at the expense of his cotemporary wits and admirers. Whoever would reform a nation, supposing a bad taste to prevail in it, will not accomplish his purpose by going directly against the stream of their prejudices. Men's minds must be prepared to receive what is new to them. Reformation is a work of time. A national taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally change at once; we must yield a little to the prepossession which has taken hold on the mind, and we may then bring people to adopt what would offend them if endeavoured to be introduced by storm. When Battisto Franco was employed, in conjunction with Titian, Paul Veronese, and Tintoret, to adorn the library of St. Mark, his work, Vasari says, gave less satisfaction than any of the others: the dry manner of the Roman school was very ill calculated to please eyes that had been accustomed to the luxuriance, splendour, and richness of Venetian colouring. Had the Romans been the judges of this work, probably the determination would have been just contrary; for in the more noble parts of the art Battisto Franco was, perhaps, not inferior to any of his rivals. * * * * * Gentlemen,--It has been the main scope and principal end of this discourse to demonstrate the reality of a standard in taste, as well as in corporeal beauty; that a false or depraved taste is a thing as well known, as easily discovered, as anything that is deformed, misshapen, or wrong in our form or outward make; and that this knowledge is derived from the uniformity of sentiments among mankind, from whence proceeds the knowledge of what are the general habits of nature, the result of which is an idea of perfect beauty. If what has been advanced be true, that besides this beauty or truth which is formed on the uniform eternal and immutable laws of nature, and which of necessity can be but one; that besides this one immutable verity there are likewise what we have called apparent or secondary truths proceeding from local and temporary prejudices, fancies, fashions, or accidental connection of ideas; if it appears that these last have still their foundation, however slender, in the original fabric of our minds, it follows that all these truths or beauties deserve and require the attention of the artist in proportion to their stability or duration, or as their influence is more or less extensive. And let me add that as they ought not to pass their just bounds, so neither do they, in a well- regulated taste, at all prevent or weaken the influence of these general principles, which alone can give to art its true and permanent dignity. To form this just taste is undoubtedly in your own power, but it is to reason and philosophy that you must have recourse; from them we must borrow the balance by which is to be weighed and estimated the value of every pretension that intrudes itself on your notice. The general objection which is made to the introduction of philosophy into the regions of taste is, that it checks and restrains the flights of the imagination, and gives that timidity which an over-carefulness not to err or act contrary to reason is likely to produce. It is not so. Fear is neither reason nor philosophy. The true spirit of philosophy by giving knowledge gives a manly confidence, and substitutes rational firmness in the place of vain presumption. A man of real taste is always a man of judgment in other respects; and those inventions which either disdain or shrink from reason, are generally, I fear, more like the dreams of a distempered brain than the exalted enthusiasm of a sound and true genius. In the midst of the highest flights of fancy or imagination, reason ought to preside from first to last, though I admit her more powerful operation is upon reflection. I cannot help adding that some of the greatest names of antiquity, and those who have most distinguished themselves in works of genius and imagination, were equally eminent for their critical skill. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Horace; and among the moderns, Boileau, Corneille, Pope, and Dryden, are at least instances of genius not being destroyed by attention or subjection to rules and science. I should hope, therefore, that the natural consequence likewise of what has been said would be to excite in you a desire of knowing the principles and conduct of the great masters of our art, and respect and veneration for them when known. 
11242	----	THE LIFE OF MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI By JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS TO THE CAVALIERE GUIDO BIAGI, DOCTOR IN LETTERS, PREFECT OF THE MEDICEO-LAURENTIAN LIBRARY, ETC., ETC. I DEDICATE THIS WORK ON MICHELANGELO IN RESPECT FOR HIS SCHOLARSHIP AND LEARNING ADMIRATION OF HIS TUSCAN STYLE AND GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS GENEROUS ASSISTANCE CONTENTS CHAPTER I. BIRTH, BOYHOOD, YOUTH AT FLORENCE, DOWN TO LORENZO DE' MEDICI'S DEATH. 1475-1492. II. FIRST VISITS TO BOLOGNA AND ROME--THE MADONNA DELLA FEBBRE AND OTHER WORKS IN MARBLE. 1492-1501. III. RESIDENCE IN FLORENCE--THE DAVID. 1501-1505. IV. JULIUS II. CALLS MICHELANGELO TO ROME--PROJECT FOR THE POPE'S TOMB--THE REBUILDING OF S. PETER'S--FLIGHT FROM ROME--CARTOON FOR THE BATTLE OF PISA. 1505, 1506. V. SECOND VISIT TO BOLOGNA--THE BRONZE STATUE OF JULIUS II--PAINTING OF THE SISTINE VAULT. 1506-1512. VI. ON MICHELANGELO AS DRAUGHTSMAN, PAINTER, SCULPTOR. VII. LEO X. PLANS FOR THE CHURCH OF S. LORENZO AT FLORENCE--MICHELANGELO'S LIFE AT CARRARA. 1513-1521. VIII. ADRIAN VI AND CLEMENT VII--THE SACRISTY AND LIBRARY OF S. LORENZO. 1521-1526. IX. SACK OF ROME AND SIEGE OF FLORENCE--MICHELANGELO'S FLIGHT TO VENICE--HIS RELATIONS TO THE MEDICI. 1527-1534. X. ON MICHELANGELO AS ARCHITECT. XI. FINAL SETTLEMENT IN ROME--PAUL III.--THE LAST JUDGMENT AND THE PAOLINE CHAPEL--THE TOMB OF JULIUS. 1535-1542. XII. VITTORIA COLONNA AND TOMMASO CAVALIERI--MICHELANGELO AS POET AND MAN OF FEELING. XIII. MICHELANGELO APPOINTED ARCHITECT-IN-CHIEF AT THE VATICAN--HISTORY OF S. PETER'S. 1542-1557. XIV. LAST YEARS OF LIFE--MICHELANGELO'S PORTRAITS--ILLNESS OF OLD AGE. 1557-1564. XV. DEATH AT ROME--BURIAL AND OBSEQUIES AT FLORENCE--ANECDOTES--ESTIMATE OF MICHELANGELO AS MAN AND ARTIST. THE LIFE OF MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI CHAPTER I I The Buonarroti Simoni, to whom Michelangelo belonged, were a Florentine family of ancient burgher nobility. Their arms appear to have been originally "azure two bends or." To this coat was added "a label of four points gules inclosing three fleur-de-lys or." That augmentation, adopted from the shield of Charles of Anjou, occurs upon the scutcheons of many Guelf houses and cities. In the case of the Florentine Simoni, it may be ascribed to the period when Buonarrota di Simone Simoni held office as a captain of the Guelf party (1392). Such, then, was the paternal coat borne by the subject of this Memoir. His brother Buonarroto received a further augmentation in 1515 from Leo X., to wit: "upon a chief or, a pellet azure charged with fleur-de-lys or, between the capital letters L. and X." At the same time he was created Count Palatine. The old and simple bearing of the two bends was then crowded down into the extreme base of the shield, while the Angevine label found room beneath the chief. According to a vague tradition, the Simoni drew their blood from the high and puissant Counts of Canossa. Michelangelo himself believed in this pedigree, for which there is, however, no foundation in fact, and no heraldic corroboration. According to his friend and biographer Condivi, the sculptor's first Florentine ancestor was a Messer Simone dei Conti di Canossa, who came in 1250 as Podestà to Florence. "The eminent qualities of this man gained for him admission into the burghership of the city, and he was appointed captain of a Sestiere; for Florence in those days was divided into Sestieri, instead of Quartieri, as according to the present usage." Michelangelo's contemporary, the Count Alessandro da Canossa, acknowledged this relationship. Writing on the 9th of October 1520, he addresses the then famous sculptor as "honoured kinsman," and gives the following piece of information: "Turning over my old papers, I have discovered that a Messere Simone da Canossa was Podestà of Florence, as I have already mentioned to the above-named Giovanni da Reggio." Nevertheless, it appears now certain that no Simone da Canossa held the office of Podestà at Florence in the thirteenth century. The family can be traced up to one Bernardo, who died before the year 1228. His grandson was called Buonarrota, and the fourth in descent was Simone. These names recur frequently in the next generations. Michelangelo always addressed his father as "Lodovico di Lionardo di Buonarrota Simoni," or "Louis, the son of Leonard, son of Buonarrota Simoni;" and he used the family surname of Simoni in writing to his brothers and his nephew Lionardo. Yet he preferred to call himself Michelangelo Buonarroti; and after his lifetime Buonarroti became fixed for the posterity of his younger brother. "The reason," says Condivi, "why the family in Florence changed its name from Canossa to Buonarroti was this: Buonarroto continued for many generations to be repeated in their house, down to the time of Michelangelo, who had a brother of that name; and inasmuch as several of these Buonarroti held rank in the supreme magistracy of the republic, especially the brother I have just mentioned, who filled the office of Prior during Pope Leo's visit to Florence, as may be read in the annals of that city, this baptismal name, by force of frequent repetition, became the cognomen of the whole family; the more easily, because it is the custom at Florence, in elections and nominations of officers, to add the Christian names of the father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and sometimes even of remoter ancestors, to that of each citizen. Consequently, through the many Buonarroti who followed one another, and from the Simone who was the first founder of the house in Florence, they gradually came to be called Buonarroti Simoni, which is their present designation." Excluding the legend about Simone da Canossa, this is a pretty accurate account of what really happened. Italian patronymics were formed indeed upon the same rule as those of many Norman families in Great Britain. When the use of Di and Fitz expired, Simoni survived from Di Simone, as did my surname Symonds from Fitz-Symond. On the 6th of March 1475, according to our present computation, Lodovico di Lionardo Buonarroti Simoni wrote as follows in his private notebook: "I record that on this day, March 6, 1474, a male child was born to me. I gave him the name of Michelangelo, and he was born on a Monday morning four or five hours before daybreak, and he was born while I was Podestà of Caprese, and he was born at Caprese; and the godfathers were those I have named below. He was baptized on the eighth of the same month in the Church of San Giovanni at Caprese. These are the godfathers:-- DON DANIELLO DI SER BUONAGUIDA of Florence, Rector of San Giovanni at Caprese; DON ANDREA DI .... of Poppi, Rector of the Abbey of Diasiano (_i.e._, Dicciano); JACOPO DI FRANCESCO of Casurio (?); MARCO DI GIORGIO of Caprese; GIOVANNI DI BIAGIO of Caprese; ANDREA DI BIAGIO of Caprese; FRANCESCO DI JACOPO DEL ANDUINO (?) of Caprese; SER BARTOLOMMEO DI SANTI DEL LANSE (?), Notary." Note that the date is March 6, 1474, according to Florentine usage _ab incarnatione_, and according to the Roman usage, _a nativitate_, it is 1475. Vasari tells us that the planets were propitious at the moment of Michelangelo's nativity: "Mercury and Venus having entered with benign aspect into the house of Jupiter, which indicated that marvellous and extraordinary works, both of manual art and intellect, were to be expected from him." II Caprese, from its beauty and remoteness, deserved to be the birthplace of a great artist. It is not improbable that Lodovico Buonarroti and his wife Francesca approached it from Pontassieve in Valdarno, crossing the little pass of Consuma, descending on the famous battle-field of Campaldino, and skirting the ancient castle of the Conti Guidi at Poppi. Every step in the romantic journey leads over ground hallowed by old historic memories. From Poppi the road descends the Arno to a richly cultivated district, out of which emerges on its hill the prosperous little town of Bibbiena. High up to eastward springs the broken crest of La Vernia, a mass of hard millstone rock (_macigno_) jutting from desolate beds of lime and shale at the height of some 3500 feet above the sea. It was here, among the sombre groves of beech and pine which wave along the ridge, that S. Francis came to found his infant Order, composed the Hymn to the Sun, and received the supreme honour of the stigmata. To this point Dante retired when the death of Henry VII. extinguished his last hopes for Italy. At one extremity of the wedge-like block which forms La Vernia, exactly on the watershed between Arno and Tiber, stands the ruined castle of Chiusi in Casentino. This was one of the two chief places of Lodovico Buonarroti's podesteria. It may be said to crown the valley of the Arno; for the waters gathered here flow downwards toward Arezzo, and eventually wash the city walls of Florence. A few steps farther, travelling south, we pass into the valley of the Tiber, and, after traversing a barren upland region for a couple of hours, reach the verge of the descent upon Caprese. Here the landscape assumes a softer character. Far away stretch blue Apennines, ridge melting into ridge above Perugia in the distance. Gigantic oaks begin to clothe the stony hillsides, and little by little a fertile mountain district of chestnut-woods and vineyards expands before our eyes, equal in charm to those aërial hills and vales above Pontremoli. Caprese has no central commune or head-village. It is an aggregate of scattered hamlets and farmhouses, deeply embosomed in a sea of greenery. Where the valley contracts and the infant Tiber breaks into a gorge, rises a wooded rock crowned with the ruins of an ancient castle. It was here, then, that Michelangelo first saw the light. When we discover that he was a man of more than usually nervous temperament, very different in quality from any of his relatives, we must not forget what a fatiguing journey had been performed by his mother, who was then awaiting her delivery. Even supposing that Lodovico Buonarroti travelled from Florence by Arezzo to Caprese, many miles of rough mountain-roads must have been traversed by her on horseback. III Ludovico, who, as we have seen, was Podestà of Caprese and of Chiusi in the Casentino, had already one son by his first wife, Francesca, the daughter of Neri di Miniato del Sera and Bonda Rucellai. This elder brother, Lionardo, grew to manhood, and become a devoted follower of Savonarola. Under the influence of the Ferrarese friar, he determined to abjure the world, and entered the Dominican Order in 1491. We know very little about him, and he is only once mentioned in Michelangelo's correspondence. Even this reference cannot be considered certain. Writing to his father from Rome, July 1, 1497, Michelangelo says: "I let you know that Fra Lionardo returned hither to Rome. He says that he was forced to fly from Viterbo, and that his frock had been taken from him, wherefore he wished to go there (_i.e._, to Florence). So I gave him a golden ducat, which he asked for; and I think you ought already to have learned this, for he should be there by this time." When Lionardo died is uncertain. We only know that he was in the convent of S. Mark at Florence in the year 1510. Owing to this brother's adoption of the religious life, Michelangelo became, early in his youth, the eldest son of Lodovico's family. It will be seen that during the whole course of his long career he acted as the mainstay of his father, and as father to his younger brothers. The strength and the tenacity of his domestic affections are very remarkable in a man who seems never to have thought of marrying. "Art," he used to say, "is a sufficiently exacting mistress." Instead of seeking to beget children for his own solace, he devoted himself to the interests of his kinsmen. The office of Podestà lasted only six months, and at the expiration of this term Lodovico returned to Florence. He put the infant Michelangelo out to nurse in the village of Settignano, where the Buonarroti Simoni owned a farm. Most of the people of that district gained their livelihood in the stone-quarries around Settignano and Maiano on the hillside of Fiesole. Michelangelo's foster-mother was the daughter and the wife of stone-cutters. "George," said he in after-years to his friend Vasari, "if I possess anything of good in my mental constitution, it comes from my having been born in your keen climate of Arezzo; just as I drew the chisel and the mallet with which I carve statues in together with my nurse's milk." When Michelangelo was of age to go to school, his father put him under a grammarian at Florence named Francesco da Urbino. It does not appear, however, that he learned more than reading and writing in Italian, for later on in life we find him complaining that he knew no Latin. The boy's genius attracted him irresistibly to art. He spent all his leisure time in drawing, and frequented the society of youths who were apprenticed to masters in painting and sculpture. Among these he contracted an intimate friendship with Francesco Granacci, at that time in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandajo. Granacci used to lend him drawings by Ghirlandajo, and inspired him with the resolution to become a practical artist. Condivi says that "Francesco's influence, combined with the continual craving of his nature, made him at last abandon literary studies. This brought the boy into disfavour with his father and uncles, who often used to beat him severely; for, being insensible to the excellence and nobility of Art, they thought it shameful to give her shelter in their house. Nevertheless, albeit their opposition caused him the greatest sorrow, it was not sufficient to deter him from his steady purpose. On the contrary, growing even bolder he determined to work in colours." Condivi, whose narrative preserves for us Michelangelo's own recollections of his youthful years, refers to this period the painted copy made by the young draughtsman from a copper-plate of Martin Schöngauer. We should probably be right in supposing that the anecdote is slightly antedated. I give it, however, as nearly as possible in the biographer's own words. "Granacci happened to show him a print of S. Antonio tormented by the devils. This was the work of Martino d'Olanda, a good artist for the times in which he lived; and Michelangelo transferred the composition to a panel. Assisted by the same friend with colours and brushes, he treated his subject in so masterly a way that it excited surprise in all who saw it, and even envy, as some say, in Domenico, the greatest painter of his age. In order to diminish the extraordinary impression produced by this picture, Ghirlandajo went about saying that it came out of his own workshop, as though he had some part in the performance. While engaged on this piece, which, beside the figure of the saint, contained many strange forms and diabolical monstrosities, Michelangelo coloured no particular without going first to Nature and comparing her truth with his fancies. Thus he used to frequent the fish-market, and study the shape and hues of fishes' fins, the colour of their eyes, and so forth in the case of every part belonging to them; all of which details he reproduced with the utmost diligence in his painting." Whether this transcript from Schöngauer was made as early as Condivi reports may, as I have said, be reasonably doubted. The anecdote is interesting, however, as showing in what a naturalistic spirit Michelangelo began to work. The unlimited mastery which he acquired over form, and which certainly seduced him at the close of his career into a stylistic mannerism, was based in the first instance upon profound and patient interrogation of reality. IV Lodovico perceived at length that it was useless to oppose his son's natural bent. Accordingly, he sent him into Ghirlandajo's workshop. A minute from Ghirlandajo's ledger, under the date 1488, gives information regarding the terms of the apprenticeship. "I record this first of April how I, Lodovico di Lionardo di Buonarrota, bind my son Michelangelo to Domenico and Davit di Tommaso di Currado for the next three ensuing years, under these conditions and contracts: to wit, that the said Michelangelo shall stay with the above-named masters during this time, to learn the art of painting, and to practise the same, and to be at the orders of the above-named; and they, for their part, shall give to him in the course of these three years twenty-four florins (_fiorini di suggello_): to wit, six florins in the first year, eight in the second, ten in the third; making in all the sum of ninety-six pounds (_lire_)." A postscript, dated April 16th of the same year, 1488, records that two florins were paid to Michelangelo upon that day. It seems that Michelangelo retained no very pleasant memory of his sojourn with the Ghirlandajo brothers. Condivi, in the passage translated above, hints that Domenico was jealous of him. He proceeds as follows: "This jealousy betrayed itself still more when Michelangelo once begged the loan of a certain sketch-book, wherein Domenico had portrayed shepherds with their flocks and watchdogs, landscapes, buildings, ruins, and such-like things. The master refused to lend it; and indeed he had the fame of being somewhat envious; for not only showed he thus scant courtesy toward Michelangelo, but he also treated his brother likewise, sending him into France when he saw that he was making progress and putting forth great promise; and doing this not so much for any profit to David, as that he might himself remain the first of Florentine painters. I have thought fit to mention these things, because I have been told that Domenico's son is wont to ascribe the genius and divinity of Michelangelo in great part to his father's teaching, whereas the truth is that he received no assistance from that master. I ought, however, to add that Michelangelo does not complain: on the contrary, he praises Domenico both as artist and as man." This passage irritated Vasari beyond measure. He had written his first Life of Michelangelo in 1550. Condivi published his own modest biography in 1553, with the expressed intention of correcting errors and supplying deficiencies made by "others," under which vague word he pointed probably at Vasari. Michelangelo, who furnished Condivi with materials, died in 1564; and Vasari, in 1568, issued a second enlarged edition of the Life, into which he cynically incorporated what he chose to steal from Condivi's sources. The supreme Florentine sculptor being dead and buried, Vasari felt that he was safe in giving the lie direct to this humble rival biographer. Accordingly, he spoke as follows about Michelangelo's relations with Domenico Ghirlandajo: "He was fourteen years of age when he entered that master's service, and inasmuch as one (Condivi), who composed his biography after 1550, when I had published these Lives for the first time, declares that certain persons, from want of familiarity with Michelangelo, have recorded things that did not happen, and have omitted others worthy of relation; and in particular has touched upon the point at issue, accusing Domenico of envy, and saying that he never rendered Michelangelo assistance."--Here Vasari, out of breath with indignation, appeals to the record of Lodovico's contract with the Ghirlandajo brothers. "These minutes," he goes on to say, "I copied from the ledger, in order to show that everything I formerly published, or which will be published at the present time, is truth. Nor am I acquainted with any one who had greater familiarity with Michelangelo than I had, or who served him more faithfully in friendly offices; nor do I believe that a single man could exhibit a larger number of letters written with his own hand, or evincing greater personal affection, than I can." This contention between Condivi and Vasari, our two contemporary authorities upon the facts of Michelangelo's life, may not seem to be a matter of great moment for his biographer after the lapse of four centuries. Yet the first steps in the art-career of so exceptional a genius possess peculiar interest. It is not insignificant to ascertain, so far as now is possible, what Michelangelo owed to his teachers. In equity, we acknowledge that Lodovico's record on the ledger of the Ghirlandajo brothers proves their willingness to take him as a prentice, and their payment to him of two florins in advance; but the same record does not disprove Condivi's statement, derived from his old master's reminiscences, to the effect that Domenico Ghirlandajo was in no way greatly serviceable to him as an instructor. The fault, in all probability, did not lie with Ghirlandajo alone. Michelangelo, as we shall have occasions in plenty to observe, was difficult to live with; frank in speech to the point of rudeness, ready with criticism, incapable of governing his temper, and at no time apt to work harmoniously with fellow-craftsmen. His extraordinary force and originality of genius made themselves felt, undoubtedly, at the very outset of his career; and Ghirlandajo may be excused if, without being positively jealous of the young eagle settled in his homely nest, he failed to do the utmost for this gifted and rough-natured child of promise. Beethoven's discontent with Haydn as a teacher offers a parallel; and sympathetic students of psychology will perceive that Ghirlandajo and Haydn were almost superfluous in the training of phenomenal natures like Michelangelo and Beethoven. Vasari, passing from controversy to the gossip of the studio, has sketched a pleasant picture of the young Buonarroti in his master's employ. "The artistic and personal qualities of Michelangelo developed so rapidly that Domenico was astounded by signs of power in him beyond the ordinary scope of youth. He perceived, in short, that he not only surpassed the other students, of whom Ghirlandajo had a large number under his tuition, but also that he often competed on an equality with the master. One of the lads who worked there made a pen-drawing of some women, clothed, from a design of Ghirlandajo. Michelangelo took up the paper, and with a broader nib corrected the outline of a female figure, so as to bring it into perfect truth to life. Wonderful it was to see the difference of the two styles, and to note the judgment and ability of a mere boy, so spirited and bold, who had the courage to chastise his master's handiwork! This drawing I now preserve as a precious relique, since it was given me by Granacci, that it might take a place in my Book of Original Designs, together with others presented to me by Michelangelo. In the year 1550, when I was in Rome, I Giorgio showed it to Michelangelo, who recognised it immediately, and was pleased to see it again, observing modestly that he knew more about the art when he was a child than now in his old age. "It happened then that Domenico was engaged upon the great Chapel of S. Maria Novella; and being absent one day, Michelangelo set himself to draw from nature the whole scaffolding, with some easels and all the appurtenances of the art, and a few of the young men at work there. When Domenico returned and saw the drawing, he exclaimed: 'This fellow knows more about it than I do,' and remained quite stupefied by the new style and the new method of imitation, which a boy of years so tender had received as a gift from heaven." Both Condivi and Vasari relate that, during his apprenticeship to Ghirlandajo, Michelangelo demonstrated his technical ability by producing perfect copies of ancient drawings, executing the facsimile with consummate truth of line, and then dirtying the paper so as to pass it off as the original of some old master. "His only object," adds Vasari, "was to keep the originals, by giving copies in exchange; seeing that he admired them as specimens of art, and sought to surpass them by his own handling; and in doing this he acquired great renown." We may pause to doubt whether at the present time--in the case, for instance, of Shelley letters or Rossetti drawings--clever forgeries would be accepted as so virtuous and laudable. But it ought to be remembered that a Florentine workshop at that period contained masses of accumulated designs, all of which were more or less the common property of the painting firm. No single specimen possessed a high market value. It was, in fact, only when art began to expire in Italy, when Vasari published his extensive necrology and formed his famous collection of drawings, that property in a sketch became a topic for moral casuistry. Of Michelangelo's own work at this early period we possess probably nothing except a rough scrawl on the plaster of a wall at Settignano. Even this does not exist in its original state. The Satyr which is still shown there may, according to Mr. Heath Wilson's suggestion, be a _rifacimento_ from the master's hand at a subsequent period of his career. V Condivi and Vasari differ considerably in their accounts of Michelangelo's departure from Ghirlandajo's workshop. The former writes as follows: "So then the boy, now drawing one thing and now another, without fixed place or steady line of study, happened one day to be taken by Granacci into the garden of the Medici at San Marco, which garden the magnificent Lorenzo, father of Pope Leo, and a man of the first intellectual distinction, had adorned with antique statues and other reliques of plastic art. When Michelangelo saw these things and felt their beauty, he no longer frequented Domenico's shop, nor did he go elsewhere, but, judging the Medicean gardens to be the best school, spent all his time and faculties in working there." Vasari reports that it was Lorenzo's wish to raise the art of sculpture in Florence to the same level as that of painting; and for this reason he placed Bertoldo, a pupil and follower of Donatello, over his collections, with a special commission to aid and instruct the young men who used them. With the same intention of forming an academy or school of art, Lorenzo went to Ghirlandajo, and begged him to select from his pupils those whom he considered the most promising. Ghirlandajo accordingly drafted off Francesco Granacci and Michelangelo Buonarroti. Since Michelangelo had been formally articled by his father to Ghirlandajo in 1488, he can hardly have left that master in 1489 as unceremoniously as Condivi asserts. Therefore we may, I think, assume that Vasari upon this point has preserved the genuine tradition. Having first studied the art of design and learned to work in colours under the supervision of Ghirlandajo, Michelangelo now had his native genius directed to sculpture. He began with the rudiments of stone-hewing, blocking out marbles designed for the Library of San Lorenzo, and acquiring that practical skill in the manipulation of the chisel which he exercised all through his life. Condivi and Vasari agree in relating that a copy he made for his own amusement from an antique Faun first brought him into favourable notice with Lorenzo. The boy had begged a piece of refuse marble, and carved a grinning mask, which he was polishing when the Medici passed by. The great man stopped to examine the work, and recognised its merit. At the same time he observed with characteristic geniality: "Oh, you have made this Faun quite old, and yet have left him all his teeth! Do you not know that men of that great age are always wanting in one or two?" Michelangelo took the hint, and knocked a tooth out from the upper jaw. When Lorenzo saw how cleverly he had performed the task, he resolved to provide for the boy's future and to take him into his own household. So, having heard whose son he was, "Go," he said, "and tell your father that I wish to speak with him." A mask of a grinning Faun may still be seen in the sculpture-gallery of the Bargello at Florence, and the marble is traditionally assigned to Michelangelo. It does not exactly correspond to the account given by Condivi and Vasari; for the mouth shows only two large tusk-like teeth, with the tip of the tongue protruding between them. Still, there is no reason to feel certain that we may not have here Michelangelo's first extant work in marble. "Michelangelo accordingly went home, and delivered the message of the Magnificent. His father, guessing probably what he was wanted for, could only be persuaded by the urgent prayers of Granacci and other friends to obey the summons. Indeed, he complained loudly that Lorenzo wanted to lead his son astray, abiding firmly by the principle that he would never permit a son of his to be a stonecutter. Vainly did Granacci explain the difference between a sculptor and a stone-cutter: all his arguments seemed thrown away. Nevertheless, when Lodovico appeared before the Magnificent, and was asked if he would consent to give his son up to the great man's guardianship, he did not know how to refuse. 'In faith,' he added, 'not Michelangelo alone, but all of us, with our lives and all our abilities, are at the pleasure of your Magnificence!' When Lorenzo asked what he desired as a favour to himself, he answered: 'I have never practised any art or trade, but have lived thus far upon my modest income, attending to the little property in land which has come down from my ancestors; and it has been my care not only to preserve these estates, but to increase them so far as I was able by my industry.' The Magnificent then added: 'Well, look about, and see if there be anything in Florence which will suit you. Make use of me, for I will do the utmost that I can for you.' It so happened that a place in the Customs, which could only be filled by a Florentine citizen, fell vacant shortly afterwards. Upon this Lodovico returned to the Magnificent, and begged for it in these words: 'Lorenzo, I am good for nothing but reading and writing. Now, the mate of Marco Pucci in the Customs having died, I should like to enter into this office, feeling myself able to fulfil its duties decently.' The Magnificent laid his hand upon his shoulder, and said with a smile: 'You will always be a poor man;' for he expected him to ask for something far more valuable. Then he added: 'If you care to be the mate of Marco, you can take the post, until such time as a better becomes vacant.' It was worth eight crowns the month, a little more or a little less." A document is extant which shows that Lodovico continued to fill this office at the Customs till 1494, when the heirs of Lorenzo were exiled; for in the year 1512, after the Medici returned to Florence, he applied to Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, to be reinstated in the same. If it is true, as Vasari asserts, that Michelangelo quitted Ghirlandajo in 1489, and if Condivi is right in saying that he only lived in the Casa Medici for about two years before the death of Lorenzo, April 1492, then he must have spent some twelve months working in the gardens at San Marco before the Faun's mask called attention to his talents. His whole connection with Lorenzo, from the spring of 1489 to the spring of 1492, lasted three years; and, since he was born in March 1475, the space of his life covered by this patronage extended from the commencement of his fifteenth to the commencement of his eighteenth year. These three years were decisive for the development of his mental faculties and special artistic genius. It is not necessary to enlarge here upon Lorenzo de' Medici's merits and demerits, either as the ruler of Florence or as the central figure in the history of the Italian Renaissance. These have supplied stock topics for discussion by all writers who have devoted their attention to that period of culture. Still we must remember that Michelangelo enjoyed singular privileges under the roof of one who was not only great as diplomatist and politician, and princely in his patronage, but was also a man of original genius in literature, of fine taste in criticism, and of civil urbanity in manners. The palace of the Medici formed a museum, at that period unique, considering the number and value of its art treasures--bas-reliefs, vases, coins, engraved stones, paintings by the best contemporary masters, statues in bronze and marble by Verocchio and Donatello. Its library contained the costliest manuscripts, collected from all quarters of Europe and the Levant. The guests who assembled in its halls were leaders in that intellectual movement which was destined to spread a new type of culture far and wide over the globe. The young sculptor sat at the same board as Marsilio Ficino, interpreter of Plato; Pico della Mirandola, the phoenix of Oriental erudition; Angelo Poliziano, the unrivalled humanist and melodious Italian poet; Luigi Pulci, the humorous inventor of burlesque romance--with artists, scholars, students innumerable, all in their own departments capable of satisfying a youth's curiosity, by explaining to him the particular virtues of books discussed, or of antique works of art inspected. During those halcyon years, before the invasion of Charles VIII., it seemed as though the peace of Italy might last unbroken. No one foresaw the apocalyptic vials of wrath which were about to be poured forth upon her plains and cities through the next half-century. Rarely, at any period of the world's history, perhaps only in Athens between the Persian and the Peloponnesian wars, has culture, in the highest and best sense of that word, prospered more intelligently and pacifically than it did in the Florence of Lorenzo, through the co-operation and mutual zeal of men of eminence, inspired by common enthusiasms, and labouring in diverse though cognate fields of study and production. Michelangelo's position in the house was that of an honoured guest or adopted son. Lorenzo not only allowed him five ducats a month by way of pocket-money, together with clothes befitting his station, but he also, says Condivi, "appointed him a good room in the palace, together with all the conveniences he desired, treating him in every respect, as also at his table, precisely like one of his own sons. It was the custom of this household, where men of the noblest birth and highest public rank assembled round the daily board, for the guests to take their places next the master in the order of their arrival; those who were present at the beginning of the meal sat, each according to his degree, next the Magnificent, not moving afterwards for any one who might appear. So it happened that Michelangelo found himself frequently seated above Lorenzo's children and other persons of great consequence, with whom that house continually flourished and abounded. All these illustrious men paid him particular attention, and encouraged him in the honourable art which he had chosen. But the chief to do so was the Magnificent himself, who sent for him oftentimes in a day, in order that he might show him jewels, cornelians, medals, and such-like objects of great rarity, as knowing him to be of excellent parts and judgment in these things." It does not appear that Michelangelo had any duties to perform or services to render. Probably his patron employed him upon some useful work of the kind suggested by Condivi. But the main business of his life in the Casa Medici was to make himself a valiant sculptor, who in after years should confer lustre on the city of the lily and her Medicean masters. What he produced during this period seems to have become his own property, for two pieces of statuary, presently to be described, remained in the possession of his family, and now form a part of the collection in the Casa Buonarroti. VI Angelo Poliziano, who was certainly the chief scholar of his age in the new learning, and no less certainly one of its truest poets in the vulgar language, lived as tutor to Lorenzo's children in the palace of the Medici at Florence. Benozzo Gozzoli introduced his portrait, together with the portraits of his noble pupils, in a fresco of the Pisan Campo Santo. This prince of humanists recommended Michelangelo to treat in bas-relief an antique fable, involving the strife of young heroes for some woman's person. Probably he was also able to point out classical examples by which the boyish sculptor might be guided in the undertaking. The subject made enormous demands upon his knowledge of the nude. Adult and youthful figures, in attitudes of vehement attack and resistance, had to be modelled; and the conditions of the myth required that one at least of them should be brought into harmony with equine forms. Michelangelo wrestled vigorously with these difficulties. He produced a work which, though it is imperfect and immature, brings to light the specific qualities of his inherent art-capacity. The bas-relief, still preserved in the Casa Buonarroti at Florence, is, so to speak, in fermentation with powerful half-realised conceptions, audacities of foreshortening, attempts at intricate grouping, violent dramatic action and expression. No previous tradition, unless it was the genius of Greek or Greco-Roman antiquity, supplied Michelangelo with the motive force for this prentice-piece in sculpture. Donatello and other Florentines worked under different sympathies for form, affecting angularity in their treatment of the nude, adhering to literal transcripts from the model or to conventional stylistic schemes. Michelangelo discarded these limitations, and showed himself an ardent student of reality in the service of some lofty intellectual ideal. Following and closely observing Nature, he was also sensitive to the light and guidance of the classic genius. Yet, at the same time, he violated the aesthetic laws obeyed by that genius, displaying his Tuscan proclivities by violent dramatic suggestions, and in loaded, overcomplicated composition. Thus, in this highly interesting essay, the horoscope of the mightiest Florentine artist was already cast. Nature leads him, and he follows Nature as his own star bids. But that star is double, blending classic influence with Tuscan instinct. The roof of the Sistine was destined to exhibit to an awe-struck world what wealths of originality lay in the artist thus gifted, and thus swayed by rival forces. For the present, it may be enough to remark that, in the geometrical proportions of this bas-relief, which is too high for its length, Michelangelo revealed imperfect feeling for antique principles; while, in the grouping of the figures, which is more pictorial than sculpturesque, he already betrayed, what remained with him a defect through life, a certain want of organic or symmetrical design in compositions which are not rigidly subordinated to architectural framework or limited to the sphere of an _intaglio_. Vasari mentions another bas-relief in marble as belonging to this period, which, from its style, we may, I think, believe to have been designed earlier than the Centaurs. It is a seated Madonna with the Infant Jesus, conceived in the manner of Donatello, but without that master's force and power over the lines of drapery. Except for the interest attaching to it as an early work of Michelangelo, this piece would not attract much attention. Vasari praises it for grace and composition above the scope of Donatello; and certainly we may trace here the first germ of that sweet and winning majesty which Buonarroti was destined to develop in his Pietà of S. Peter, the Madonna at Bruges, and the even more glorious Madonna of S. Lorenzo. It is also interesting for the realistic introduction of a Tuscan cottage staircase into the background. This bas-relief was presented to Cosimo de' Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany, by Michelangelo's nephew Lionardo. It afterwards came back into the possession of the Buonarroti family, and forms at present an ornament of their house at Florence. VII We are accustomed to think of Michelangelo as a self-withdrawn and solitary worker, living for his art, avoiding the conflict of society, immersed in sublime imaginings. On the whole, this is a correct conception of the man. Many passages of his biography will show how little he actively shared the passions and contentions of the stirring times through which he moved. Yet his temperament exposed him to sudden outbursts of scorn and anger, which brought him now and then into violent collision with his neighbours. An incident of this sort happened while he was studying under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, and its consequences marked him physically for life. The young artists whom the Magnificent gathered round him used to practise drawing in the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine. There Masaccio and his followers bequeathed to us noble examples of the grand style upon the frescoed panels of the chapel walls. It was the custom of industrious lads to make transcripts from those broad designs, some of which Raphael deigned in his latest years to repeat, with altered manner, for the Stanze of the Vatican and the Cartoons. Michelangelo went one day into the Carmine with Piero Torrigiano and other comrades. What ensued may best be reported in the narration which Torrigiano at a later time made to Benvenuto Cellini. "This Buonarroti and I used, when we were boys, to go into the Church of the Carmine to learn drawing from the chapel of Masaccio. It was Buonarroti's habit to banter all who were drawing there; and one day, when he was annoying me, I got more angry than usual, and, clenching my fist, I gave him such a blow on the nose that I felt bone and cartilage go down like biscuit beneath my knuckles; and this mark of mine he will carry with him to the grave." The portraits of Michelangelo prove that Torrigiano's boast was not a vain one. They show a nose broken in the bridge. But Torrigiano, for this act of violence, came to be regarded by the youth of Florence with aversion, as one who had laid sacrilegious hands upon the sacred ark. Cellini himself would have wiped out the insult with blood. Still Cellini knew that personal violence was not in the line of Michelangelo's character; for Michelangelo, according to his friend and best biographer, Condivi, was by nature, "as is usual with men of sedentary and contemplative habits, rather timorous than otherwise, except when he is roused by righteous anger to resent unjust injuries or wrongs done to himself or others, in which case he plucks up more spirit than those who are esteemed brave; but, for the rest, he is most patient and enduring." Cellini, then, knowing the quality of Michelangelo's temper, and respecting him as a deity of art, adds to his report of Torrigiano's conversation: "These words begat in me such hatred of the man, since I was always gazing at the masterpieces of the divine Michelangelo, that, although I felt a wish to go with him to England, I now could never bear the sight of him." VIII The years Michelangelo spent in the Casa Medici were probably the blithest and most joyous of his lifetime. The men of wit and learning who surrounded the Magnificent were not remarkable for piety or moral austerity. Lorenzo himself found it politically useful "to occupy the Florentines with shows and festivals, in order that they might think of their own pastimes and not of his designs, and, growing unused to the conduct of the commonwealth, might leave the reins of government in his hands." Accordingly he devised those Carnival triumphs and processions which filled the sombre streets of Florence with Bacchanalian revellers, and the ears of her grave citizens with ill-disguised obscenity. Lorenzo took part in them himself, and composed several choruses of high literary merit to be sung by the masqueraders. One of these carries a refrain which might be chosen as a motto for the spirit of that age upon the brink of ruin:-- _Youths and maids, enjoy to-day: Naught ye know about to-morrow!_ He caused the triumphs to be carefully prepared by the best artists, the dresses of the masquers to be accurately studied, and their chariots to be adorned with illustrative paintings. Michelangelo's old friend Granacci dedicated his talents to these shows, which also employed the wayward fancy of Piero di Cosimo and Pontormo's power as a colourist. "It was their wont," says Il Lasca, "to go forth after dinner; and often the processions paraded through the streets till three or four hours into the night, with a multitude of masked men on horseback following, richly dressed, exceeding sometimes three hundred in number, and as many on foot with lighted torches. Thus they traversed the city, singing to the accompaniment of music arranged for four, eight, twelve, or even fifteen voices, and supported by various instruments." Lorenzo represented the worst as well as the best qualities of his age. If he knew how to enslave Florence, it was because his own temperament inclined him to share the amusements of the crowd, while his genius enabled him to invest corruption with charm. His friend Poliziano entered with the zest of a poet and a pleasure-seeker into these diversions. He helped Lorenzo to revive the Tuscan Mayday games, and wrote exquisite lyrics to be sung by girls in summer evenings on the public squares. This giant of learning, who filled the lecture-rooms of Florence with Students of all nations, and whose critical and rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history of scholarship, was by nature a versifier, and a versifier of the people. He found nothing' easier than to throw aside his professor's mantle and to improvise _ballate_ for women to chant as they danced their rounds upon the Piazza di S. Trinità. The frontispiece to an old edition of such lyrics represents Lorenzo surrounded with masquers in quaint dresses, leading the revel beneath the walls of the Palazzo. Another woodcut shows an angle of the Casa Medici in Via Larga, girls dancing the _carola_ upon the street below, one with a wreath and thyrsus kneeling, another presenting the Magnificent with a book of loveditties. The burden of all this poetry was: "Gather ye roses while ye may, cast prudence to the winds, obey your instincts." There is little doubt that Michelangelo took part in these pastimes; for we know that he was devoted to poetry, not always of the gravest kind. An anecdote related by Cellini may here be introduced, since it illustrates the Florentine customs I have been describing. "Luigi Pulci was a young man who possessed extraordinary gifts for poetry, together with sound Latin scholarship. He wrote well, was graceful in manners, and of surpassing personal beauty. While he was yet a lad and living in Florence, it was the habit of folk in certain places of the city to meet together during the nights of summer on the open streets, and he, ranking among the best of the improvisatori, sang there. His recitations were so admirable that the divine Michelangelo, that prince of sculptors and of painters, went, wherever he heard that he would be, with the greatest eagerness and delight to listen to him. There was a man called Piloto, a goldsmith, very able in his art, who, together with myself, joined Buonarroti upon these occasions." In like manner, the young Michelangelo probably attended those nocturnal gatherings upon the steps of the Duomo which have been so graphically described by Doni: "The Florentines seem to me to take more pleasure in summer airings than any other folk; for they have, in the square of S. Liberata, between the antique temple of Mars, now the Baptistery, and that marvellous work of modern architecture, the Duomo: they have, I say, certain steps of marble, rising to a broad flat space, upon which the youth of the city come and lay themselves full length during the season of extreme heat. The place is fitted for its purpose, because a fresh breeze is always blowing, with the blandest of all air, and the flags of white marble usually retain a certain coolness. There then I seek my chiefest solace, when, taking my aërial flights, I sail invisibly above them; see and hear their doings and discourses: and forasmuch as they are endowed with keen and elevated understanding, they always have a thousand charming things to relate; as novels, intrigues, fables; they discuss duels, practical jokes, old stories, tricks played off by men and women on each other: things, each and all, rare, witty, noble, decent and in proper taste. I can swear that during all the hours I spent in listening to their nightly dialogues, I never heard a word that was not comely and of good repute. Indeed, it seemed to me very remarkable, among such crowds of young men, to overhear nothing but virtuous conversation." At the same period, Michelangelo fell under very different influences; and these left a far more lasting impression on his character than the gay festivals and witty word-combats of the lords of Florence. In 1491 Savonarola, the terrible prophet of coming woes, the searcher of men's hearts, and the remorseless denouncer of pleasant vices, began that Florentine career which ended with his martyrdom in 1498. He had preached in Florence eight years earlier, but on that occasion he passed unnoticed through the crowd. Now he took the whole city by storm. Obeying the magic of his eloquence and the magnetism of his personality, her citizens accepted this Dominican friar as their political leader and moral reformer, when events brought about the expulsion of the Medici in 1494. Michelangelo was one of his constant listeners at S. Marco and in the Duomo. He witnessed those stormy scenes of religious revival and passionate fanaticism which contemporaries have impressively described. The shorthand-writer to whom we owe the text of Savonarola's sermons at times breaks off with words like these: "Here I was so overcome with weeping that I could not go on." Pico della Mirandola tells that the mere sound of the monk's voice, startling the stillness of the Duomo, thronged through all its space with people, was like a clap of doom; a cold shiver ran through the marrow of his bones the hairs of his head stood on end while he listened. Another witness reports: "Those sermons caused such terror, alarm, sobbing, and tears, that every one passed through the streets without speaking, more dead than alive." One of the earliest extant letters of Michelangelo, written from Rome in 1497 to his brother Buonarroto, reveals a vivid interest in Savonarola. He relates the evil rumours spread about the city regarding his heretical opinions, and alludes to the hostility of Fra Mariano da Genezzano; adding this ironical sentence: "Therefore he ought by all means to come and prophesy a little in Rome, when afterwards he will be canonised; and so let all his party be of good cheer." In later years, it is said that the great sculptor read and meditated Savonarola's writings together with the Bible. The apocalyptic thunderings and voices of the Sistine Chapel owe much of their soul-thrilling impressiveness to those studies. Michelet says, not without justice, that the spirit of Savonarola lives again in the frescoes of that vault. On the 8th of April 1492, Michelangelo lost his friend and patron. Lorenzo died in his villa at Careggi, aged little more than forty-four years. Guicciardini implies that his health and strength had been prematurely broken by sensual indulgences. About the circumstances of his last hours there are some doubts and difficulties; but it seems clear that he expired as a Christian, after a final interview with Savonarola. His death cast a gloom over Italy. Princes and people were growing uneasy with the presentiment of impending disaster; and now the only man who by his diplomatical sagacity could maintain the balance of power had been taken from them. To his friends and dependants in Florence the loss appeared irreparable. Poliziano poured forth his sorrow in a Latin threnody of touching and simple beauty. Two years later both he and Pico della Mirandola followed their master to the grave. Marsilio Ficino passed away in 1499; and a friend of his asserted that the sage's ghost appeared to him. The atmosphere was full of rumours, portents, strange premonitions of revolution and doom. The true golden age of the Italian Renaissance may almost be said to have ended with Lorenzo de' Medici's life. CHAPTER II I After the death of Lorenzo de' Medici, Michelangelo returned to his father's home, and began to work upon a statue of Hercules, which is now lost. It used to stand in the Strozzi Palace until the siege of Florence in 1530, when Giovanni Battista della Palla bought it from the steward of Filippo Strozzi, and sent it into France as a present to the king. The Magnificent left seven children by his wife Clarice, of the princely Roman house of the Orsini. The eldest, Piero, was married to Alfonsina, of the same illustrious family. Giovanni, the second, had already received a cardinal's hat from his kinsman, Innocent VIII. Guiliano, the third, was destined to play a considerable part in Florentine history under the title of Duke of Nemours. One daughter was married to a Salviati, another to a Ridolfi, a third to the Pope's son, Franceschetto Cybò. The fourth, Luisa, had been betrothed to her distant cousin, Giovanni de' Medici; but the match was broken off, and she remained unmarried. Piero now occupied that position of eminence and semi-despotic authority in Florence which his father and grandfather had held; but he was made of different stuff, both mentally and physically. The Orsini blood, which he inherited from his mother, mixed but ill in his veins with that of Florentine citizens and bankers. Following the proud and insolent traditions of his maternal ancestors, he began to discard the mask of civil urbanity with which Cosimo and Lorenzo had concealed their despotism. He treated the republic as though it were his own property, and prepared for the coming disasters of his race by the overbearing arrogance of his behaviour. Physically, he was powerful, tall, and active; fond of field-sports, and one of the best pallone-players of his time in Italy. Though he had been a pupil of Poliziano, he displayed but little of his father's interest in learning, art, and literature. Chance brought Michelangelo into personal relations with this man. On the 20th of January 1494 there was a heavy fall of snow in Florence, and Piero sent for the young sculptor to model a colossal snow-man in the courtyard of his palace. Critics have treated this as an insult to the great artist, and a sign of Piero's want of taste; but nothing was more natural than that a previous inmate of the Medicean household should use his talents for the recreation of the family who lived there. Piero upon this occasion begged Michelangelo to return and occupy the room he used to call his own during Lorenzo's lifetime. "And so," writes Condivi, "he remained for some months with the Medici, and was treated by Piero with great kindness; for the latter used to extol two men of his household as persons of rare ability, the one being Michelangelo, the other a Spanish groom, who, in addition to his personal beauty, which was something wonderful, had so good a wind and such agility that when Piero was galloping on horseback he could not outstrip him by a hand's-breadth." II At this period of his life Michelangelo devoted himself to anatomy. He had a friend, the Prior of S. Spirito, for whom he carved a wooden crucifix of nearly life-size. This liberal-minded churchman put a room at his disposal, and allowed him to dissect dead bodies. Condivi tells us that the practice of anatomy was a passion with his master. "His prolonged habits of dissection injured his stomach to such an extent that he lost the power of eating or drinking to any profit. It is true, however, that he became so learned in this branch of knowledge that he has often entertained the idea of composing a work for sculptors and painters, which should treat exhaustively of all the movements of the human body, the external aspect of the limbs, the bones, and so forth, adding an ingenious discourse upon the truths discovered by him through the investigations of many years. He would have done this if he had not mistrusted his own power of treating such a subject with the dignity and style of a practised rhetorician. I know well that when he reads Albert Dürer's book, it seems to him of no great value; his own conception being so far fuller and more useful. Truth to tell, Dürer only treats of the measurements and varied aspects of the human form, making his figures straight as stakes; and, what is more important, he says nothing about the attitudes and gestures of the body. Inasmuch as Michelangelo is now advanced in years, and does not count on bringing his ideas to light through composition, he has disclosed to me his theories in their minutest details. He also began to discourse upon the same topic with Messer Realdo Colombo, an anatomist and surgeon of the highest eminence. For the furtherance of such studies this good friend of ours sent him the corpse of a Moor, a young man of incomparable beauty, and admirably adapted for our purpose. It was placed at S. Agata, where I dwelt and still dwell, as being a quarter removed from public observation. "On this corpse Michelangelo demonstrated to me many rare and abstruse things, which perhaps have never yet been fully understood, and all of which I noted down, hoping one day, by the help of some learned man, to give them to the public. Of Michelangelo's studies in anatomy we have one grim but interesting record in a pen-drawing by his hand at Oxford. A corpse is stretched upon a plank and trestles. Two men are bending over it with knives in their hands; and, for light to guide them in their labours, a candle is stuck into the belly of the subject." As it is not my intention to write the political history of Michelangelo's period, I need not digress here upon the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII., which caused the expulsion of the Medici from Florence, and the establishment of a liberal government under the leadership of Savonarola. Michelangelo appears to have anticipated the catastrophe which was about to overwhelm his patron. He was by nature timid, suspicious, and apt to foresee disaster. Possibly he may have judged that the haughty citizens of Florence would not long put up with Piero's aristocratical insolence. But Condivi tells a story on the subject which is too curious to be omitted, and which he probably set down from Michelangelo's own lips. "In the palace of Piero a man called Cardiere was a frequent inmate. The Magnificent took much pleasure in his society, because he improvised verses to the guitar with marvellous dexterity, and the Medici also practised this art; so that nearly every evening after supper there was music. This Cardiere, being a friend of Michelangelo, confided to him a vision which pursued him, to the following effect. Lorenzo de' Medici appeared to him barely clad in one black tattered robe, and bade him relate to his son Piero that he would soon be expelled and never more return to his home. Now Piero was arrogant and overbearing to such an extent that neither the good-nature of the Cardinal Giovanni, his brother, nor the courtesy and urbanity of Giuliano, was so strong to maintain him in Florence as his own faults to cause his expulsion. Michelangelo encouraged the man to obey Lorenzo and report the matter to his son; but Cardiere, fearing his new master's temper, kept it to himself. On another morning, when Michelangelo was in the courtyard of the palace, Cardiere came with terror and pain written on his countenance. Last night Lorenzo had again appeared to him in the same garb of woe; and while he was awake and gazing with his eyes, the spectre dealt him a blow on the cheek, to punish him for omitting to report his vision to Piero. Michelangelo immediately gave him such a thorough scolding that Cardiere plucked up courage, and set forth on foot for Careggi, a Medicean villa some three miles distant from the city. He had traveled about halfway, when he met Piero, who was riding home; so he stopped the cavalcade, and related all that he had seen and heard. Piero laughed him to scorn, and, beckoning the running footmen, bade them mock the poor fellow. His Chancellor, who was afterwards the Cardinal of Bibbiena, cried out: 'You are a madman! Which do you think Lorenzo loved best, his son or you? If his son, would he not rather have appeared to him than to some one else?' Having thus jeered him, they let him go; and he, when he returned home and complained to Michelangelo, so convinced the latter of the truth of his vision that Michelangelo after two days left Florence with a couple of comrades, dreading that if what Cardiere had predicted should come true, he would no longer be safe in Florence." This ghost-story bears a remarkable resemblance to what Clarendon relates concerning the apparition of Sir George Villiers. Wishing to warn his son, the Duke of Buckingham, of his coming murder at the hand of Lieutenant Felton, he did not appear to the Duke himself, but to an old man-servant of the family; upon which behaviour of Sir George's ghost the same criticism has been passed as on that of Lorenzo de' Medici. Michelangelo and his two friends travelled across the Apennines to Bologna, and thence to Venice, where they stopped a few days. Want of money, or perhaps of work there drove them back upon the road to Florence. When they reached Bologna on the return journey, a curious accident happened to the party. The master of the city, Giovanni Bentivoglio, had recently decreed that every foreigner, on entering the gates, should be marked with a seal of red wax upon his thumb. The three Florentines omitted to obey this regulation, and were taken to the office of the Customs, where they were fined fifty Bolognese pounds. Michelangelo did not possess enough to pay this fine; but it so happened that a Bolognese nobleman called Gianfrancesco Aldovrandi was there, who, hearing that Buonarroti was a sculptor, caused the men to be released. Upon his urgent invitation, Michelangelo went to this gentleman's house, after taking leave of his two friends and giving them all the money in his pocket. With Messer Aldovrandi he remained more than a year, much honoured by his new patron, who took great delight in his genius; "and every evening he made Michelangelo read aloud to him out of Dante or Petrarch, and sometimes Boccaccio, until he went to sleep." He also worked upon the tomb of San Domenico during this first residence at Bologna. Originally designed and carried forward by Niccolò Pisano, this elaborate specimen of mediaeval sculpture remained in some points imperfect. There was a San Petronio whose drapery, begun by Niccolò da Bari, was unfinished. To this statue Michelangelo put the last touches; and he also carved a kneeling angel with a candelabrum, the workmanship of which surpasses in delicacy of execution all the other figures on the tomb. III Michelangelo left Bologna hastily. It is said that a sculptor who had expected to be employed upon the _arca_ of S. Domenic threatened to do him some mischief if he stayed and took the bread out of the mouths of native craftsmen. He returned to Florence some time in 1495. The city was now quiet again, under the rule of Savonarola. Its burghers, in obedience to the friar's preaching, began to assume that air of pietistic sobriety which contrasted strangely with the gay licentiousness encouraged by their former master. Though the reigning branch of the Medici remained in exile, their distant cousins, who were descended from Lorenzo, the brother of Cosimo, Pater Patriae, kept their place in the republic. They thought it prudent, however, at this time, to exchange the hated name of de' Medici for Popolano. With a member of this section of the Medicean family, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, Michelangelo soon found himself on terms of intimacy. It was for him that he made a statue of the young S. John, which was perhaps rediscovered at Pisa in 1874. For a long time this S. Giovannino was attributed to Donatello; and it certainly bears decided marks of resemblance to that master's manner, in the choice of attitude, the close adherence to the model, and the treatment of the hands and feet. Still it has notable affinities to the style of Michelangelo, especially in the youthful beauty of the features, the disposition of the hair, and the sinuous lines which govern the whole composition. It may also be remarked that those peculiarities in the hands and feet which I have mentioned as reminding us of Donatello--a remarkable length in both extremities, owing to the elongation of the metacarpal and metatarsal bones and of the spaces dividing these from the forearm and tibia--are precisely the points which Michelangelo retained through life from his early study of Donatello's work. We notice them particularly in the Dying Slave of the Louvre, which is certainly one of his most characteristic works. Good judges are therefore perhaps justified in identifying this S. Giovannino, which is now in the Berlin Museum, with the statue made for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. The next piece which occupied Michelangelo's chisel was a Sleeping Cupid. His patron thought this so extremely beautiful that he remarked to the sculptor: "If you were to treat it artificially, so as to make it look as though it had been dug up, I would send it to Rome; it would be accepted as an antique, and you would be able to sell it at a far higher price." Michelangelo took the hint. His Cupid went to Rome, and was sold for thirty ducats to a dealer called Messer Baldassare del Milanese, who resold it to Raffaello Riario, the Cardinal di S. Giorgio, for the advanced sum of 200 ducats. It appears from this transaction that Michelangelo did not attempt to impose upon the first purchaser, but that this man passed it off upon the Cardinal as an antique. When the Cardinal began to suspect that the Cupid was the work of a modern Florentine, he sent one of his gentlemen to Florence to inquire into the circumstances. The rest of the story shall be told in Condivi's words. "This gentleman, pretending to be on the lookout for a sculptor capable of executing certain works in Rome, after visiting several, was addressed to Michelangelo. When he saw the young artist, he begged him to show some proof of his ability; whereupon Michelangelo took a pen (for at that time the crayon [_lapis_] had not come into use), and drew a hand with such grace that the gentleman was stupefied. Afterwards, he asked if he had ever worked in marble, and when Michelangelo said yes, and mentioned among other things a Cupid of such height and in such an attitude, the man knew that he had found the right person. So he related how the matter had gone, and promised Michelangelo, if he would come with him to Rome, to get the difference of price made up, and to introduce him to his patron, feeling sure that the latter would receive him very kindly. Michelangelo, then, partly in anger at having been cheated, and partly moved by the gentleman's account of Rome as the widest field for an artist to display his talents, went with him, and lodged in his house, near the palace of the Cardinal." S. Giorgio compelled Messer Baldassare to refund the 200 ducats, and to take the Cupid back. But Michelangelo got nothing beyond his original price; and both Condivi and Vasari blame the Cardinal for having been a dull and unsympathetic patron to the young artist of genius he had brought from Florence. Still the whole transaction was of vast importance, because it launched him for the first time upon Rome, where he was destined to spend the larger part of his long life, and to serve a succession of Pontiffs in their most ambitious undertakings. Before passing to the events of his sojourn at Rome, I will wind up the story of the Cupid. It passed first into the hands of Cesare Borgia, who presented it to Guidobaldo di Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. On the 30th of June 1502, the Marchioness of Mantua wrote a letter to the Cardinal of Este, saying that she should very much like to place this piece, together with an antique statuette of Venus, both of which had belonged to her brother-in-law, the Duke of Urbino, in her own collection. Apparently they had just become the property of Cesare Borgia, when he took and sacked the town of Urbino upon the 20th of June in that year. Cesare Borgia seems to have complied immediately with her wishes; for in a second letter, dated July 22, 1502, she described the Cupid as "without a peer among the works of modern times." IV Michelangelo arrived in Rome at the end of June 1496. This we know from the first of his extant letters, which is dated July 2, and addressed to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. The superscription, however, bears the name of Sandro Botticelli, showing that some caution had still to be observed in corresponding with the Medici, even with those who latterly assumed the name of Popolani. The young Buonarroti writes in excellent spirits: "I only write to inform you that last Saturday we arrived safely, and went at once to visit the Cardinal di San Giorgio; and I presented your letter to him. It appeared to me that he was pleased to see me, and he expressed a wish that I should go immediately to inspect his collection of statues. I spent the whole day there, and for that reason was unable to deliver all your letters. Afterwards, on Sunday, the Cardinal came into the new house, and had me sent for. I went to him, and he asked what I thought about the things which I had seen. I replied by stating my opinion, and certainly I can say with sincerity that there are many fine things in the collection. Then he asked me whether I had the courage to make some beautiful work of art. I answered that I should not be able to achieve anything so great, but that he should see what I could do. We have bought a piece of marble for a life-size statue, and on Monday I shall begin to work." After describing his reception, Michelangelo proceeds to relate the efforts he was making to regain his Sleeping Cupid from Messer Baldassare: "Afterwards, I gave your letter to Baldassare, and asked him for the child, saying I was ready to refund his money. He answered very roughly, swearing he would rather break it in a hundred pieces; he had bought the child, and it was his property; he possessed writings which proved that he had satisfied the person who sent it to him, and was under no apprehension that he should have to give it up. Then he complained bitterly of you, saying that you had spoken ill of him. Certain of our Florentines sought to accommodate matters, but failed in their attempt. Now I look to coming to terms through the Cardinal; for this is the advice of Baldassare Balducci. What ensues I will report to you." It is clear that Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, being convinced of the broker's sharp practice, was trying to recover the Sleeping Cupid (the child) at the price originally paid for it, either for himself or for Buonarroti. The Cardinal is mentioned as being the most likely person to secure the desired result. Whether Condivi is right in saying that S. Giorgio neglected to employ Michelangelo may be doubted. We have seen from this letter to Lorenzo that the Cardinal bought a piece of marble and ordered a life-size statue. But nothing more is heard about the work. Professor Milanesi, however, has pointed out that when the sculptor was thinking of leaving Rome in 1497 he wrote to his father on the 1st of July as follows: "Most revered and beloved father, do not be surprised that I am unable to return, for I have not yet settled my affairs with the Cardinal, and I do not wish to leave until I am properly paid for my labour; and with these great patrons one must go about quietly, since they cannot be compelled. I hope, however, at any rate during the course of next week, to have completed the transaction." Michelangelo remained at Rome for more than two years after the date of the letter just quoted. We may conjecture, then, that he settled his accounts with the Cardinal, whatever these were, and we know that he obtained other orders. In a second letter to his father, August 19, 1497, he writes thus: "Piero de' Medici gave me a commission for a statue, and I bought the marble. But I did not begin to work upon it, because he failed to perform what he promised. Wherefore I am acting on my own account, and am making a statue for my own pleasure. I bought the marble for five ducats, and it turned out bad. So I threw my money away. Now I have bought another at the same price, and the work I am doing is for my amusement. You will therefore understand that I too have large expenses and many troubles." During the first year of his residence in Rome (between July 2, 1496, and August 19, 1497) Michelangelo must have made some money, else he could not have bought marble and have worked upon his own account. Vasari asserts that he remained nearly twelve months in the household of the Cardinal, and that he only executed a drawing of S. Francis receiving the stigmata, which was coloured by a barber in S. Giorgio's service, and placed in the Church of S. Pietro a Montorio. Benedetto Varchi describes this picture as having been painted by Buonarroti's own hand. We know nothing more for certain about it. How he earned his money is therefore, unexplained, except upon the supposition that S. Giorgio, unintelligent as he may have been in his patronage of art, paid him for work performed. I may here add that the Piero de' Medici who gave the commission mentioned in the last quotation was the exiled head of the ruling family. Nothing had to be expected from such a man. He came to Rome in order to be near the Cardinal Giovanni, and to share this brother's better fortunes; but his days and nights were spent in debauchery among the companions and accomplices of shameful riot. Michelangelo, in short, like most young artists, was struggling into fame and recognition. Both came to him by the help of a Roman gentleman and banker, Messer Jacopo Gallo. It so happened that an intimate Florentine friend of Buonarroti, the Baldassare Balducci mentioned at the end of his letter to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, was employed in Gallo's house of business. It is probable, therefore, that this man formed the link of connection between the sculptor and his new patron. At all events, Messer Gallo purchased a Bacchus, which now adorns the sculpture-gallery of the Bargello, and a Cupid, which may possibly be the statue at South Kensington. Condivi says that this gentleman, "a man of fine intelligence, employed him to execute in his own house a marble Bacchus, ten palms in height, the form and aspect of which correspond in all parts to the meaning of ancient authors. The face of the youth is jocund, the eyes wandering and wanton, as is the wont with those who are too much addicted to a taste for wine. In his right hand he holds a cup, lifting it to drink, and gazing at it like one who takes delight in that liquor, of which he was the first discoverer. For this reason, too, the sculptor has wreathed his head with vine-tendrils. On his left arm hangs a tiger-skin, the beast dedicated to Bacchus, as being very partial to the grape. Here the artist chose rather to introduce the skin than the animal itself, in order to hint that sensual indulgence in the pleasure of the grape-juice leads at last to loss of life. With the hand of this arm he holds a bunch of grapes, which a little satyr, crouched below him, is eating on the sly with glad and eager gestures. The child may seem to be seven years, the Bacchus eighteen of age." This description is comparatively correct, except that Condivi is obviously mistaken when he supposes that Michelangelo's young Bacchus faithfully embodies the Greek spirit. The Greeks never forgot, in all their representations of Dionysos, that he was a mystic and enthusiastic deity. Joyous, voluptuous, androgynous, he yet remains the god who brought strange gifts and orgiastic rites to men. His followers, Silenus, Bacchantes, Fauns, exhibit, in their self-abandonment to sensual joy, the operation of his genius. The deity descends to join their revels from his clear Olympian ether, but he is not troubled by the fumes of intoxication. Michelangelo has altered this conception. Bacchus, with him, is a terrestrial young man, upon the verge of toppling over into drunkenness. The value of the work is its realism. The attitude could not be sustained in actual life for a moment without either the goblet spilling its liquor or the body reeling side-ways. Not only are the eyes wavering and wanton, but the muscles of the mouth have relaxed into a tipsy smile; and, instead of the tiger-skin being suspended from the left arm, it has slipped down, and is only kept from falling by the loose grasp of the trembling hand. Nothing, again, could be less godlike than the face of Bacchus. It is the face of a not remarkably good-looking model, and the head is too small both for the body and the heavy crown of leaves. As a study of incipient intoxication, when the whole person is disturbed by drink, but human dignity has not yet yielded to a bestial impulse, this statue proves the energy of Michelangelo's imagination. The physical beauty of his adolescent model in the limbs and body redeems the grossness of the motive by the inalienable charm of health and carnal comeliness. Finally, the technical merits of the work cannot too strongly be insisted on. The modelling of the thorax, the exquisite roundness and fleshiness of the thighs and arms and belly, the smooth skin-surface expressed throughout in marble, will excite admiration in all who are capable of appreciating this aspect of the statuary's art. Michelangelo produced nothing more finished in execution, if we except the Pietà at S. Peter's. His Bacchus alone is sufficient to explode a theory favoured by some critics, that, left to work unhindered, he would still have preferred a certain vagueness, a certain want of polish in his marbles. Nevertheless, the Bacchus leaves a disagreeable impression on the mind--as disagreeable in its own way as that produced by the Christ of the Minerva. That must be because it is wrong in spiritual conception--brutally materialistic, where it ought to have been noble or graceful. In my opinion, the frank, joyous naturalism of Sansovino's Bacchus (also in the Bargello) possesses more of true Greek inspiration than Michelangelo's. If Michelangelo meant to carve a Bacchus, he failed; if he meant to imitate a physically desirable young man in a state of drunkenness, he succeeded. What Shelley wrote upon this statue may here be introduced, since it combines both points of view in a criticism of much spontaneous vigour. "The countenance of this figure is the most revolting mistake of the spirit and meaning of Bacchus. It looks drunken, brutal, and narrow-minded, and has an expression of dissoluteness the most revolting. The lower part of the figure is stiff, and the manner in which the shoulders are united to the breast, and the neck to the head, abundantly inharmonious. It is altogether without unity, as was the idea of the deity of Bacchus in the conception of a Catholic. On the other hand, considered merely as a piece of workmanship, it has great merits. The arms are executed in the most perfect and manly beauty; the body is conceived with great energy, and the lines which describe the sides and thighs, and the manner in which they mingle into one another, are of the highest order of boldness and beauty. It wants, as a work of art, unity and simplicity; as a representation of the Greek deity of Bacchus, it wants everything." Jacopo Gallo is said to have also purchased a Cupid from Michelangelo. It has been suggested, with great plausibility, that this Cupid was the piece which Michelangelo began when Piero de' Medici's commission fell through, and that it therefore preceded the Bacchus in date of execution. It has also been suggested that the so-called Cupid at South Kensington is the work in question. We have no authentic information to guide us in the matter. But the South Kensington Cupid is certainly a production of the master's early manhood. It was discovered some forty years ago, hidden away in the cellars of the Gualfonda (Rucellai) Gardens at Florence, by Professor Miliarini and the famous Florentine sculptor Santarelli. On a cursory inspection they both declared it to be a genuine Michelangelo. The left arm was broken, the right hand damaged, and the hair had never received the sculptor's final touches. Santarelli restored the arm, and the Cupid passed by purchase into the possession of the English nation. This fine piece of sculpture is executed in Michelangelo's proudest, most dramatic manner. The muscular young man of eighteen, a model of superb adolescence, kneels upon his right knee, while the right hand is lowered to lift an arrow from the ground. The left hand is raised above the head, and holds the bow, while the left leg is so placed, with the foot firmly pressed upon the ground, as to indicate that in a moment the youth will rise, fit the shaft to the string, and send it whistling at his adversary. This choice of a momentary attitude is eminently characteristic of Michelangelo's style; and, if we are really to believe that he intended to portray the god of love, it offers another instance of his independence of classical tradition. No Greek would have thus represented Eros. The lyric poets, indeed, Ibycus and Anacreon, imaged him as a fierce invasive deity, descending like the whirlwind on an oak, or striking at his victim with an axe. But these romantic ideas did not find expression, so far as I am aware, in antique plastic art. Michelangelo's Cupid is therefore as original as his Bacchus. Much as critics have written, and with justice, upon the classical tendencies of the Italian Renaissance, they have failed to point out that the Paganism of the Cinque Cento rarely involved a servile imitation of the antique or a sympathetic intelligence of its spirit. Least of all do we find either of these qualities in Michelangelo. He drew inspiration from his own soul, and he went straight to Nature for the means of expressing the conception he had formed. Unlike the Greeks, he invariably preferred the particular to the universal, the critical moment of an action to suggestions of the possibilities of action. He carved an individual being, not an abstraction or a generalisation of personality. The Cupid supplies us with a splendid illustration of this criticism. Being a product of his early energy, before he had formed a certain manneristic way of seeing Nature and of reproducing what he saw, it not only casts light upon the spontaneous working of his genius, but it also shows how the young artist had already come to regard the inmost passion of the soul. When quite an old man, rhyming those rough platonic sonnets, he always spoke of love as masterful and awful. For his austere and melancholy nature, Eros was no tender or light-winged youngling, but a masculine tyrant, the tamer of male spirits. Therefore this Cupid, adorable in the power and beauty of his vigorous manhood, may well remain for us the myth or symbol of love as Michelangelo imagined that emotion. In composition, the figure is from all points of view admirable, presenting a series of nobly varied line-harmonies. All we have to regret is that time, exposure to weather, and vulgar outrage should have spoiled the surface of the marble. VI It is natural to turn from the Cupid to another work belonging to the English nation, which has recently been ascribed to Michelangelo. I mean the Madonna, with Christ, S. John, and four attendant male figures, once in the possession of Mr. H. Labouchere, and now in the National Gallery. We have no authentic tradition regarding this tempera painting, which in my judgment is the most beautiful of the easel pictures attributed to Michelangelo. Internal evidence from style renders its genuineness in the highest degree probable. No one else upon the close of the fifteenth century was capable of producing a composition at once so complicated, so harmonious, and so clear as the group formed by Madonna, Christ leaning on her knee to point a finger at the book she holds, and the young S. John turned round to combine these figures with the exquisitely blended youths behind him. Unfortunately the two angels or genii upon the left hand are unfinished; but had the picture been completed, we should probably have been able to point out another magnificent episode in the composition, determined by the transverse line carried from the hand upon the last youth's shoulder, through the open book and the upraised arm of Christ, down to the feet of S. John and the last genius on the right side. Florentine painters had been wont to place attendant angels at both sides of their enthroned Madonnas. Fine examples might be chosen from the work of Filippino Lippi and Botticelli. But their angels were winged and clothed like acolytes; the Madonna was seated on a rich throne or under a canopy, with altar-candles, wreaths of roses, flowering lilies. It is characteristic of Michelangelo to adopt a conventional motive, and to treat it with brusque originality. In this picture there are no accessories to the figures, and the attendant angels are Tuscan lads half draped in succinct tunics. The style is rather that of a flat relief in stone than of a painting; and though we may feel something of Ghirlandajo's influence, the spirit of Donatello and Luca della Robbia are more apparent. That it was the work of an inexperienced painter is shown by the failure to indicate pictorial planes. In spite of the marvellous and intricate beauty of the line-composition, it lacks that effect of graduated distances which might perhaps have been secured by execution in bronze or marble. The types have not been chosen with regard to ideal loveliness or dignity, but accurately studied from living models. This is very obvious in the heads of Christ and S. John. The two adolescent genii on the right hand possess a high degree of natural grace. Yet even here what strikes one most is the charm of their attitude, the lovely interlacing of their arms and breasts, the lithe alertness of the one lad contrasted with the thoughtful leaning languor of his comrade. Only perhaps in some drawings of combined male figures made by Ingres for his picture of the Golden Age have lines of equal dignity and simple beauty been developed. I do not think that this Madonna, supposing it to be a genuine piece by Michelangelo, belongs to the period of his first residence in Rome. In spite of its immense intellectual power, it has an air of immaturity. Probably Heath Wilson was right in assigning it to the time spent at Florence after Lorenzo de' Medici's death, when the artist was about twenty years of age. I may take this occasion for dealing summarily with the Entombment in the National Gallery. The picture, which is half finished, has no pedigree. It was bought out of the collection of Cardinal Fesch, and pronounced to be a Michelangelo by the Munich painter Cornelius. Good judges have adopted this attribution, and to differ from them requires some hardihood. Still it is painful to believe that at any period of his life Michelangelo could have produced a composition so discordant, so unsatisfactory in some anatomical details, so feelingless and ugly. It bears indubitable traces of his influence; that is apparent in the figure of the dead Christ. But this colossal nude, with the massive chest and attenuated legs, reminds us of his manner in old age; whereas the rest of the picture shows no trace of that manner. I am inclined to think that the Entombment was the production of a second-rate craftsman, working upon some design made by Michelangelo at the advanced period when the Passion of our Lord occupied his thoughts in Rome. Even so, the spirit of the drawing must have been imperfectly assimilated; and, what is more puzzling, the composition does not recall the style of Michelangelo's old age. The colouring, so far as we can understand it, rather suggests Pontormo. VII Michelangelo's good friend, Jacopo Gallo, was again helpful to him in the last and greatest work which he produced during this Roman residence. The Cardinal Jean de la Groslaye de Villiers François, Abbot of S. Denys, and commonly called by Italians the Cardinal di San Dionigi, wished to have a specimen of the young sculptor's handiwork. Accordingly articles were drawn up to the following effect on August 26, 1498: "Let it be known and manifest to whoso shall read the ensuing document, that the most Rev. Cardinal of S. Dionigi has thus agreed with the master Michelangelo, sculptor of Florence, to wit, that the said master shall make a Pietà of marble at his own cost; that is to say, a Virgin Mary clothed, with the dead Christ in her arms, of the size of a proper man, for the price of 450 golden ducats of the Papal mint, within the term of one year from the day of the commencement of the work." Next follow clauses regarding the payment of the money, whereby the Cardinal agrees to disburse sums in advance. The contract concludes with a guarantee and surety given by Jacopo Gallo. "And I, Jacopo Gallo, pledge my word to his most Rev. Lordship that the said Michelangelo will finish the said work within one year, and that it shall be the finest work in marble which Rome to-day can show, and that no master of our days shall be able to produce a better. And, in like manner, on the other side, I pledge my word to the said Michelangelo that the most Rev. Card. will disburse the payments according to the articles above engrossed. To witness which, I, Jacopo Gallo, have made this present writing with my own hand, according to the date of year, month, and day as above." The Pietà raised Michelangelo at once to the highest place among the artists of his time, and it still remains unrivalled for the union of sublime aesthetic beauty with profound religious feeling. The mother of the dead Christ is seated on a stone at the foot of the cross, supporting the body of her son upon her knees, gazing sadly at his wounded side, and gently lifting her left hand, as though to say, "Behold and see!" She has the small head and heroic torso used by Michelangelo to suggest immense physical force. We feel that such a woman has no difficulty in holding a man's corpse upon her ample lap and in her powerful arms. Her face, which differs from the female type he afterwards preferred, resembles that of a young woman. For this he was rebuked by critics who thought that her age should correspond more naturally to that of her adult son. Condivi reports that Michelangelo explained his meaning in the following words: "Do you not know that chaste women maintain their freshness far longer than the unchaste? How much more would this be the case with a virgin, into whose breast there never crept the least lascivious desire which could affect the body? Nay, I will go further, and hazard the belief that this unsullied bloom of youth, besides being maintained in her by natural causes, may have been miraculously wrought to convince the world of the virginity and perpetual purity of the Mother. This was not necessary for the Son. On the contrary, in order to prove that the Son of God took upon himself, as in very truth he did take, a human body, and became subject to all that an ordinary man is subject to, with the exception of sin; the human nature of Christ, instead of being superseded by the divine, was left to the operation of natural laws, so that his person revealed the exact age to which he had attained. You need not, therefore, marvel if, having regard to these considerations, I made the most Holy Virgin, Mother of God, much younger relatively to her Son than women of her years usually appear, and left the Son such as his time of life demanded." "This reasoning," adds Condivi, "was worthy of some learned theologian, and would have been little short of marvellous in most men, but not in him, whom God and Nature fashioned, not merely to be peerless in his handiwork, but also capable of the divinest concepts, as innumerable discourses and writings which we have of his make clearly manifest." The Christ is also somewhat youthful, and modelled with the utmost delicacy; suggesting no lack of strength, but subordinating the idea of physical power to that of a refined and spiritual nature. Nothing can be more lovely than the hands, the feet, the arms, relaxed in slumber. Death becomes immortally beautiful in that recumbent figure, from which the insults of the scourge, the cross, the brutal lance have been erased. Michelangelo did not seek to excite pity or to stir devotion by having recourse to those mediaeval ideas which were so passionately expressed in S. Bernard's hymn to the Crucified. The aesthetic tone of his dead Christ is rather that of some sweet solemn strain of cathedral music, some motive from a mass of Palestrina or a Passion of Sebastian Bach. Almost involuntarily there rises to the memory that line composed by Bion for the genius of earthly loveliness bewailed by everlasting beauty-- _E'en as a corpse he is fair, fair corpse as fallen aslumber._ It is said that certain Lombards passing by and admiring the Pietà ascribed it to Christoforo Solari of Milan, surnamed Il Gobbo. Michelangelo, having happened to overhear them, shut himself up in the chapel, and engraved the belt upon the Madonna's breast with his own name. This he never did with any other of his works. This masterpiece of highest art combined with pure religious feeling was placed in the old Basilica of S. Peter's, in a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Fever, Madonna della Febbre. Here, on the night of August 19, 1503, it witnessed one of those horrid spectacles which in Italy at that period so often intervened to interrupt the rhythm of romance and beauty and artistic melody. The dead body of Roderigo Borgia, Alexander VI., lay in state from noon onwards in front of the high altar; but since "it was the most repulsive, monstrous, and deformed corpse which had ever yet been seen, without any form or figure of humanity, shame compelled them to partly cover it." "Late in the evening it was transferred to the chapel of Our Lady of the Fever, and deposited in a corner by six hinds or porters and two carpenters, who had made the coffin too narrow and too short. Joking and jeering, they stripped the tiara and the robes of office from the body, wrapped it up in an old carpet, and then with force of fists and feet rammed it down into the box, without torches, without a ministering priest, without a single person to attend and bear a consecrated candle." Of such sort was the vigil kept by this solemn statue, so dignified in grief and sweet in death, at the ignoble obsequies of him who, occupying the loftiest throne of Christendom, incarnated the least erected spirit of his age. The ivory-smooth white corpse of Christ in marble, set over against that festering corpse of his Vicar on earth, "black as a piece of cloth or the blackest mulberry," what a hideous contrast! VIII It may not be inappropriate to discuss the question of the Bruges Madonna here. This is a marble statue, well placed in a chapel of Notre Dame, relieved against a black marble niche, with excellent illumination from the side. The style is undoubtedly Michelangelesque, the execution careful, the surface-finish exquisite, and the type of the Madonna extremely similar to that of the Pietà at S. Peter's. She is seated in an attitude of almost haughty dignity, with the left foot raised upon a block of stone. The expression of her features is marked by something of sternness, which seems inherent in the model. Between her knees stands, half reclining, half as though wishing to step downwards from the throne, her infant Son. One arm rests upon his mother's knee; the right hand is thrown round to clasp her left. This attitude gives grace of rhythm to the lines of his nude body. True to the realism which controlled Michelangelo at the commencement of his art career, the head of Christ, who is but a child, slightly overloads his slender figure. Physically he resembles the Infant Christ of our National Gallery picture, but has more of charm and sweetness. All these indications point to a genuine product of Michelangelo's first Roman manner; and the position of the statue in a chapel ornamented by the Bruges family of Mouscron renders the attribution almost certain. However, we have only two authentic records of the work among the documents at our disposal. Condivi, describing the period of Michelangelo's residence in Florence (1501-1504), says: "He also cast in bronze a Madonna with the Infant Christ, which certain Flemish merchants of the house of Mouscron, a most noble family in their own land, bought for two hundred ducats, and sent to Flanders." A letter addressed under date August 4, 1506, by Giovanni Balducci in Rome to Michelangelo at Florence, proves that some statue which was destined for Flanders remained among the sculptor's property at Florence. Balducci uses the feminine gender in writing about this work, which justifies us in thinking that it may have been a Madonna. He says that he has found a trustworthy agent to convey it to Viareggio, and to ship it thence to Bruges, where it will be delivered into the hands of the heir of John and Alexander Mouscron and Co., "as being their property." This statue, in all probability, is the "Madonna in marble" about which Michelangelo wrote to his father from Rome on the 31st of January 1507, and which he begged his father to keep hidden in their dwelling. It is difficult to reconcile Condivi's statement with Balducci's letter. The former says that the Madonna bought by the Mouscron family was cast in bronze at Florence. The Madonna in the Mouscron Chapel at Notre Dame is a marble. I think we may assume that the Bruges Madonna is the piece which Michelangelo executed for the Mouscron brothers, and that Condivi was wrong in believing it to have been cast in bronze. That the statue was sent some time after the order had been given, appears from the fact that Balducci consigned it to the heir of John and Alexander, "as being their property;" but it cannot be certain at what exact date it was begun and finished. IX While Michelangelo was acquiring immediate celebrity and immortal fame by these three statues, so different in kind and hitherto unrivalled in artistic excellence, his family lived somewhat wretchedly at Florence. Lodovico had lost his small post at the Customs after the expulsion of the Medici; and three sons, younger than the sculptor, were now growing up. Buonarroto, born in 1477, had been put to the cloth-trade, and was serving under the Strozzi in their warehouse at the Porta Rossa. Giovan-Simone, two years younger (he was born in 1479), after leading a vagabond life for some while, joined Buonarroto in a cloth-business provided for them by Michelangelo. He was a worthless fellow, and gave his eldest brother much trouble. Sigismondo, born in 1481, took to soldiering; but at the age of forty he settled down upon the paternal farm at Settignano, and annoyed his brother by sinking into the condition of a common peasant. The constant affection felt for these not very worthy relatives by Michelangelo is one of the finest traits in his character. They were continually writing begging letters, grumbling and complaining. He supplied them with funds, stinting himself in order to maintain them decently and to satisfy their wishes. But the more he gave, the more they demanded; and on one or two occasions, as we shall see in the course of this biography, their rapacity and ingratitude roused his bitterest indignation. Nevertheless, he did not swerve from the path of filial and brotherly kindness which his generous nature and steady will had traced. He remained the guardian of their interests, the custodian of their honour, and the builder of their fortunes to the end of his long life. The correspondence with his father and these brothers and a nephew, Lionardo, was published in full for the first time in 1875. It enables us to comprehend the true nature of the man better than any biographical notice; and I mean to draw largely upon this source, so as gradually, by successive stipplings, as it were, to present a miniature portrait of one who was both admirable in private life and incomparable as an artist. This correspondence opens in the year 1497. From a letter addressed to Lodovico under the date August 19, we learn that Buonarroto had just arrived in Rome, and informed his brother of certain pecuniary difficulties under which the family was labouring. Michelangelo gave advice, and promised to send all the money he could bring together. "Although, as I have told you, I am out of pocket myself, I will do my best to get money, in order that you may not have to borrow from the Monte, as Buonarroto says is possible. Do not wonder if I have sometimes written irritable letters; for I often suffer great distress of mind and temper, owing to matters which must happen to one who is away from home.... In spite of all this, I will send you what you ask for, even should I have to sell myself into slavery." Buonarroto must have paid a second visit to Rome; for we possess a letter from Lodovico to Michelangelo, under date December 19, 1500, which throws important light upon the latter's habits and designs. The old man begins by saying how happy he is to observe the love which Michelangelo bears his brothers. Then he speaks about the cloth-business which Michelangelo intends to purchase for them. Afterwards, he proceeds as follows: "Buonarroto tells me that you live at Rome with great economy, or rather penuriousness. Now economy is good, but penuriousness is evil, seeing that it is a vice displeasing to God and men, and moreover injurious both to soul and body. So long as you are young, you will be able for a time to endure these hardships; but when the vigour of youth fails, then diseases and infirmities make their appearance; for these are caused by personal discomforts, mean living, and penurious habits. As I said, economy is good; but, above all things, shun stinginess. Live discreetly well, and see you have what is needful. Whatever happens, do not expose yourself to physical hardships; for in your profession, if you were once to fall ill (which God forbid), you would be a ruined man. Above all things, take care of your head, and keep it moderately warm, and see that you never wash: have yourself rubbed down, but do not wash." This sordid way of life became habitual with Michelangelo. When he was dwelling at Bologna in 1506, he wrote home to his brother Buonarroto: "With regard to Giovan-Simone's proposed visit, I do not advise him to come yet awhile, for I am lodged here in one wretched room, and have bought a single bed, in which we all four of us (_i.e_., himself and his three workmen) sleep." And again: "I am impatient to get away from this place, for my mode of life here is so wretched, that if you only knew what it is, you would be miserable." The summer was intensely hot at Bologna, and the plague broke out. In these circumstances it seems miraculous that the four sculptors in one bed escaped contagion. Michelangelo's parsimonious habits were not occasioned by poverty or avarice. He accumulated large sums of money by his labour, spent it freely on his family, and exercised bountiful charity for the welfare of his soul. We ought rather to ascribe them to some constitutional peculiarity, affecting his whole temperament, and tinging his experience with despondency and gloom. An absolute insensibility to merely decorative details, to the loveliness of jewels, stuffs, and natural objects, to flowers and trees and pleasant landscapes, to everything, in short, which delighted the Italians of that period, is a main characteristic of his art. This abstraction and aridity, this ascetic devotion of his genius to pure ideal form, this almost mathematical conception of beauty, may be ascribed, I think, to the same psychological qualities which determined the dreary conditions of his home-life. He was no niggard either of money or of ideas; nay, even profligate of both. But melancholy made him miserly in all that concerned personal enjoyment; and he ought to have been born under that leaden planet Saturn rather than Mercury and Venus in the house of Jove. Condivi sums up his daily habits thus: "He has always been extremely temperate in living, using food more because it was necessary than for any pleasure he took in it; especially when he was engaged upon some great work; for then he usually confined himself to a piece of bread, which he ate in the middle of his labour. However, for some time past, he has been living with more regard to health, his advanced age putting this constraint upon his natural inclination. Often have I heard him say: 'Ascanio, rich as I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man.' And this abstemiousness in food he has practised in sleep also; for sleep, according to his own account, rarely suits his constitution, since he continually suffers from pains in the head during slumber, and any excessive amount of sleep deranges his stomach. While he was in full vigour, he generally went to bed with his clothes on, even to the tall boots, which he has always worn, because of a chronic tendency to cramp, as well as for other reasons. At certain seasons he has kept these boots on for such a length of time, that when he drew them off the skin came away together with the leather, like that of a sloughing snake. He was never stingy of cash, nor did he accumulate money, being content with just enough to keep him decently; wherefore, though innumerable lords and rich folk have made him splendid offers for some specimen of his craft, he rarely complied, and then, for the most part, more out of kindness and friendship than with any expectation of gain." In spite of all this, or rather because of his temperance in food and sleep and sexual pleasure, together with his manual industry, he preserved excellent health into old age. I have thought it worth while to introduce this general review of Michelangelo's habits, without omitting some details which may seem repulsive to the modern reader, at an early period of his biography, because we ought to carry with us through the vicissitudes of his long career and many labours an accurate conception of our hero's personality. For this reason it may not be unprofitable to repeat what Condivi says about his physical appearance in the last years of his life. "Michelangelo is of a good complexion; more muscular and bony than fat or fleshy in his person: healthy above all things, as well by reason of his natural constitution as of the exercise he takes, and habitual continence in food and sexual indulgence. Nevertheless, he was a weakly child, and has suffered two illnesses in manhood. His countenance always showed a good and wholesome colour. Of stature he is as follows: height middling; broad in the shoulders; the rest of the body somewhat slender in proportion. The shape of his face is oval, the space above the ears being one sixth higher than a semicircle. Consequently the temples project beyond the ears, and the ears beyond the cheeks, and these beyond the rest; so that the skull, in relation to the whole head, must be called large. The forehead, seen in front, is square; the nose, a little flattened--not by nature, but because, when he was a young boy, Torrigiano de' Torrigiani, a brutal and insolent fellow, smashed in the cartilage with his fist. Michelangelo was carried home half dead on this occasion; and Torrigiano, having been exiled from Florence for his violence, came to a bad end. The nose, however, being what it is, bears a proper proportion to the forehead and the rest of the face. The lips are thin, but the lower is slightly thicker than the upper; so that, seen in profile, it projects a little. The chin is well in harmony with the features I have described. The forehead, in a side-view, almost hangs over the nose; and this looks hardly less than broken, were it not for a trifling proturberance in the middle. The eyebrows are not thick with hair; the eyes may even be called small, of a colour like horn, but speckled and stained with spots of bluish yellow. The ears in good proportion; hair of the head black, as also the beard, except that both are now grizzled by old age; the beard double-forked, about five inches long, and not very bushy, as may partly be observed in his portrait." We have no contemporary account of Michelangelo in early manhood; but the tenor of his life was so even, and, unlike Cellini, he moved so constantly upon the same lines and within the same sphere of patient self-reserve, that it is not difficult to reconstruct the young and vigorous sculptor out of this detailed description by his loving friend and servant in old age. Few men, notably few artists, have preserved that continuity of moral, intellectual, and physical development in one unbroken course which is the specific characterisation of Michelangelo. As years advanced, his pulses beat less quickly and his body shrank. But the man did not alter. With the same lapse of years, his style grew drier and more abstract, but it did not alter in quality or depart from its ideal. He seems to me in these respects to be like Milton: wholly unlike the plastic and assimilative genius of a Raphael. CHAPTER III I Michelangelo returned to Florence in the spring of 1501. Condivi says that domestic affairs compelled him to leave Rome, and the correspondence with his father makes this not improbable. He brought a heightened reputation back to his native city. The Bacchus and the Madonna della Febbre had placed him in advance of any sculptor of his time. Indeed, in these first years of the sixteenth century he may be said to have been the only Tuscan sculptor of commanding eminence. Ghiberti, Della Quercia, Brunelleschi, Donatello, all had joined the majority before his birth. The second group of distinguished craftsmen--Verocchio, Luca della Robbia, Rossellino, Da Maiano, Civitali, Desiderio da Settignano--expired at the commencement of the century. It seemed as though a gap in the ranks of plastic artists had purposely been made for the entrance of a predominant and tyrannous personality. Jacopo Tatti, called Sansovino, was the only man who might have disputed the place of preeminence with Michelangelo, and Sansovino chose Venice for the theatre of his life-labours. In these circumstances, it is not singular that commissions speedily began to overtax the busy sculptor's power of execution. I do not mean to assert that the Italians, in the year 1501, were conscious of Michelangelo's unrivalled qualities, or sensitive to the corresponding limitations which rendered these qualities eventually baneful to the evolution of the arts; but they could not help feeling that in this young man of twenty-six they possessed a first-rate craftsman, and one who had no peer among contemporaries. The first order of this year came from the Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, who was afterwards elected Pope in 1503, and who died after reigning three weeks with the title of Pius III. He wished to decorate the Piccolomini Chapel in the Duomo of Siena with fifteen statues of male saints. A contract was signed on June 5, by which Michelangelo agreed to complete these figures within the space of three years. One of them, a S. Francis, had been already begun by Piero Torrigiano; and this, we have some reason to believe, was finished by the master's hand. Accounts differ about his share in the remaining fourteen statues; but the matter is of no great moment, seeing that the style of the work is conventional, and the scale of the figures disagreeably squat and dumpy. It seems almost impossible that these ecclesiastical and tame pieces should have been produced at the same time as the David by the same hand. Neither Vasari nor Condivi speaks about them, although it is certain that Michelangelo was held bound to his contract during several years. Upon the death of Pius III., he renewed it with the Pope's heirs, Jacopo and Andrea Piccolomini, by a deed dated September 15, 1504; and in 1537 Anton Maria Piccolomini, to whom the inheritance succeeded, considered himself Michelangelo's creditor for the sum of a hundred crowns, which had been paid beforehand for work not finished by the sculptor. A far more important commission was intrusted to Michelangelo in August of the same year, 1501. Condivi, after mentioning his return to Florence, tells the history of the colossal David in these words: "Here he stayed some time, and made the statue which stands in front of the great door of the Palace of the Signory, and is called the Giant by all people. It came about in this way. The Board of Works at S. Maria del Fiore owned a piece of marble nine cubits in height, which had been brought from Carrara some hundred years before by a sculptor insufficiently acquainted with his art. This was evident, inasmuch as, wishing to convey it more conveniently and with less labour, he had it blocked out in the quarry, but in such a manner that neither he nor any one else was capable of extracting a statue from the block, either of the same size, or even on a much smaller scale. The marble being, then, useless for any good purpose, Andrea del Monte San Savino thought that he might get possession of it from the Board, and begged them to make him a present of it, promising that he would add certain pieces of stone and carve a statue from it. Before they made up their minds to give it, they sent for Michelangelo; then, after explaining the wishes and the views of Andrea, and considering his own opinion that it would be possible to extract a good thing from the block, they finally offered it to him. Michelangelo accepted, added no pieces, and got the statue out so exactly, that, as any one may see, in the top of the head and at the base some vestiges of the rough surface of the marble still remain. He did the same in other works, as, for instance, in the Contemplative Life upon the tomb of Julius; indeed, it is a sign left by masters on their work, proving them to be absolute in their art. But in the David it was much more remarkable, for this reason, that the difficulty of the task was not overcome by adding pieces; and also he had to contend with an ill-shaped marble. As he used to say himself, it is impossible, or at least extraordinarily difficult in statuary to set right the faults of the blocking out. He received for this work 400 ducats, and carried it out in eighteen months." The sculptor who had spoiled this block of marble is called "Maestro Simone" by Vasari; but the abundant documents in our possession, by aid of which we are enabled to trace the whole history of Michelangelo's David with minuteness, show that Vasari was misinformed. The real culprit was Agostino di Antonio di Duccio, or Guccio, who had succeeded with another colossal statue for the Duomo. He is honourably known in the history of Tuscan sculpture by his reliefs upon the façade of the Duomo at Modena, describing episodes in the life of S. Gemignano, by the romantically charming reliefs in marble, with terracotta settings, on the Oratory of S. Bernardino at Perugia, and by a large amount of excellent surface-work in stone upon the chapels of S. Francesco at Rimini. We gather from one of the contracts with Agostino that the marble was originally blocked out for some prophet. But Michelangelo resolved to make a David; and two wax models, now preserved in the Museo Buonarroti, neither of which corresponds exactly with the statue as it exists, show that he felt able to extract a colossal figure in various attitudes from the damaged block. In the first contract signed between the Consuls of the Arte della Lana, the Operai del Duomo, and the sculptor, dated August 16, 1501, the terms are thus settled: "That the worthy master Michelangelo, son of Lodovico Buonarroti, citizen of Florence, has been chosen to fashion, complete, and finish to perfection that male statue called the Giant, of nine cubits in height, now existing in the workshop of the cathedral, blocked out aforetime by Master Agostino of Florence, and badly blocked; and that the work shall be completed within the term of the next ensuing two years, dating from September, at a salary of six golden florins per month; and that what is needful for the accomplishment of this task, as workmen, timbers, &c., which he may require, shall be supplied him by the Operai; and when the statue is finished, the Consuls and Operai who shall be in office shall estimate whether he deserve a larger recompense, and this shall be left to their consciences." II Michelangelo began to work on Monday morning, September 13, in a wooden shed erected for the purpose, not far from the cathedral. On the 28th of February 1502, the statue, which is now called for the first time "the Giant, or David," was brought so far forward that the judges declared it to be half finished, and decided that the sculptor should be paid in all 400 golden florins, including the stipulated salary. He seems to have laboured assiduously during the next two years, for by a minute of the 25th of January 1504 the David is said to be almost entirely finished. On this date a solemn council of the most important artists resident in Florence was convened at the Opera del Duomo to consider where it should be placed. We possess full minutes of this meeting, and they are so curious that I shall not hesitate to give a somewhat detailed account of the proceedings. Messer Francesco Filarete, the chief herald of the Signory, and himself an architect of some pretensions, opened the discussion in a short speech to this effect: "I have turned over in my mind those suggestions which my judgment could afford me. You have two places where the statue may be set up: the first, that where the Judith stands; the second, in the middle of the courtyard where the David is. The first might be selected, because the Judith is an omen of evil, and no fit object where it stands, we having the cross and lily for our ensign; besides, it is not proper that the woman should kill the male; and, above all, this statue was erected under an evil constellation, since you have gone continually from bad to worse since then. Pisa has been lost too. The David of the courtyard is imperfect in the right leg; and so I should counsel you to put the Giant in one of these places, but I give the preference myself to that of the Judith." The herald, it will be perceived, took for granted that Michelangelo's David would be erected in the immediate neighbourhood of the Palazzo Vecchio. The next speaker, Francesco Monciatto, a wood-carver, advanced the view that it ought to be placed in front of the Duomo, where the Colossus was originally meant to be put up. He was immediately followed, and his resolution was seconded, by no less personages than the painters Cosimo Rosselli and Sandro Botticelli. Then Giuliano da San Gallo, the illustrious architect, submitted a third opinion to the meeting. He began his speech by observing that he agreed with those who wished to choose the steps of the Duomo, but due consideration caused him to alter his mind. "The imperfection of the marble, which is softened by exposure to the air, rendered the durability of the statue doubtful. He therefore voted for the middle of the Loggia dei Lanzi, where the David would be under cover." Messer Angelo di Lorenzo Manfidi, second herald of the Signory, rose to state a professional objection. "The David, if erected under the middle arch of the Loggia, would break the order of the ceremonies practised there by the Signory and other magistrates. He therefore proposed that the arch facing the Palazzo (where Donatello's Judith is now) should be chosen." The three succeeding speakers, people of no great importance, gave their votes in favour of the chief herald's resolution. Others followed San Gallo, among whom was the illustrious Lionardo da Vinci. He thought the statue could be placed under the middle arch of the Loggia without hindrance to ceremonies of state. Salvestro, a jeweller, and Filippino Lippi, the painter, were of opinion that the neighbourhood of the Palazzo should be adopted, but that the precise spot should be left to the sculptor's choice. Gallieno, an embroiderer, and David Ghirlandajo, the painter, suggested a new place--namely, where the lion or Marzocco stood on the Piazza. Antonio da San Gallo, the architect, and Michelangelo, the goldsmith, father of Baccio Bandinelli, supported Giuliano da San Gallo's motion. Then Giovanni Piffero--that is, the father of Benvenuto Cellini--brought the discussion back to the courtyard of the palace. He thought that in the Loggia the statue would be only partly seen, and that it would run risks of injury from scoundrels. Giovanni delle Corniole, the incomparable gem-cutter, who has left us the best portrait of Savonarola, voted with the two San Galli, "because he hears the stone is soft." Piero di Cosimo, the painter, and teacher of Andrea del Sarto, wound up the speeches with a strong recommendation that the choice of the exact spot should be left to Michelangelo Buonarroti. This was eventually decided on, and he elected to have his David set up in the place preferred by the chief herald--that is to say, upon the steps of the Palazzo Vecchio, on the right side of the entrance. The next thing was to get the mighty mass of sculptured marble safely moved from the Duomo to the Palazzo. On the 1st of April, Simone del Pollajuolo, called Il Cronaca, was commissioned to make the necessary preparations; but later on, upon the 30th, we find Antonio da San Gallo, Baccio d'Agnolo, Bernardo della Ciecha, and Michelangelo associated with him in the work of transportation. An enclosure of stout beams and planks was made and placed on movable rollers. In the middle of this the statue hung suspended, with a certain liberty of swaying to the shocks and lurches of the vehicle. More than forty men were employed upon the windlasses which drew it slowly forward. In a contemporary record we possess a full account of the transit: "On the 14th of May 1504, the marble Giant was taken from the Opera. It came out at 24 o'clock, and they broke the wall above the gateway enough to let it pass. That night some stones were thrown at the Colossus with intent to harm it. Watch had to be kept at night; and it made way very slowly, bound as it was upright, suspended in the air with enormous beams and intricate machinery of ropes. It took four days to reach the Piazza, arriving on the 18th at the hour of 12. More than forty men were employed to make it go; and there were fourteen rollers joined beneath it, which were changed from hand to hand. Afterwards, they worked until the 8th of June 1504 to place it on the platform _(ringhiero)_ where the Judith used to stand. The Judith was removed and set upon the ground within the palace. The said Giant was the work of Michelangelo Buonarroti." Where the masters of Florence placed it, under the direction of its maker, Michelangelo's great white David stood for more than three centuries uncovered, open to all injuries of frost and rain, and to the violence of citizens, until, for the better preservation of this masterpiece of modern art, it was removed in 1873 to a hall of the Accademia delle Belle Arti. On the whole, it has suffered very little. Weather has slightly worn away the extremities of the left foot; and in 1527, during a popular tumult, the left arm was broken by a huge stone cast by the assailants of the palace. Giorgio Vasari tells us how, together with his friend Cecchino Salviati, he collected the scattered pieces, and brought them to the house of Michelangelo Salviati, the father of Cecchino. They were subsequently put together by the care of the Grand Duke Cosimo, and restored to the statue in the year 1543. III In the David Michelangelo first displayed that quality of _terribilità_, of spirit-quailing, awe-inspiring force, for which he afterwards became so famous. The statue imposes, not merely by its size and majesty and might, but by something vehement in the conception. He was, however, far from having yet adopted those systematic proportions for the human body which later on gave an air of monotonous impressiveness to all his figures. On the contrary, this young giant strongly recalls the model; still more strongly indeed than the Bacchus did. Wishing perhaps to adhere strictly to the Biblical story, Michelangelo studied a lad whose frame was not developed. The David, to state the matter frankly, is a colossal hobbledehoy. His body, in breadth of the thorax, depth of the abdomen, and general stoutness, has not grown up to the scale of the enormous hands and feet and heavy head. We feel that he wants at least two years to become a fully developed man, passing from adolescence to the maturity of strength and beauty. This close observance of the imperfections of the model at a certain stage of physical growth is very remarkable, and not altogether pleasing in a statue more than nine feet high. Both Donatello and Verocchio had treated their Davids in the same realistic manner, but they were working on a small scale and in bronze. I insist upon this point, because students of Michelangelo have been apt to overlook his extreme sincerity and naturalism in the first stages of his career. Having acknowledged that the head of David is too massive and the extremities too largely formed for ideal beauty, hypercriticism can hardly find fault with the modelling and execution of each part. The attitude selected is one of great dignity and vigour. The heroic boy, quite certain of victory, is excited by the coming contest. His brows are violently contracted, the nostrils tense and quivering, the eyes fixed keenly on the distant Philistine. His larynx rises visibly, and the sinews of his left thigh tighten, as though the whole spirit of the man were braced for a supreme endeavour. In his right hand, kept at a just middle point between the hip and knee, he holds the piece of wood on which his sling is hung. The sling runs round his back, and the centre of it, where the stone bulges, is held with the left hand, poised upon the left shoulder, ready to be loosed. We feel that the next movement will involve the right hand straining to its full extent the sling, dragging the stone away, and whirling it into the air; when, after it has sped to strike Goliath in the forehead, the whole lithe body of the lad will have described a curve, and recovered its perpendicular position on the two firm legs. Michelangelo invariably chose some decisive moment; in the action he had to represent; and though he was working here under difficulties, owing to the limitations of the damaged block at his disposal, he contrived to suggest the imminence of swift and sudden energy which shall disturb the equilibrium of his young giant's pose. Critics of this statue, deceived by its superficial resemblance to some Greek athletes at rest, have neglected the candid realism of the momentary act foreshadowed. They do not understand the meaning of the sling. Even Heath Wilson, for instance, writes: "The massive shoulders are thrown back, the right arm is pendent, and _the right hand grasps resolutely the stone_ with which the adversary is to be slain." This entirely falsifies the sculptor's motive, misses the meaning of the sling, renders the broad strap behind the back superfluous, and changes into mere plastic symbolism what Michelangelo intended to be a moment caught from palpitating life. It has often been remarked that David's head is modelled upon the type of Donatello's S. George at Orsanmichele. The observation is just; and it suggests a comment on the habit Michelangelo early formed of treating the face idealistically, however much he took from study of his models. Vasari, for example, says that he avoided portraiture, and composed his faces by combining several individuals. We shall see a new ideal type of the male head emerge in a group of statues, among which the most distinguished is Giuliano de' Medici at San Lorenzo. We have already seen a female type created in the Madonnas of S. Peter's and Notre Dame at Bruges. But this is not the place to discuss Michelangelo's theory of form in general. That must be reserved until we enter the Sistine Chapel, in order to survey the central and the crowning product of his genius in its prime. We have every reason to believe that Michelangelo carved his David with no guidance but drawings and a small wax model about eighteen inches in height. The inconvenience of this method, which left the sculptor to wreak his fury on the marble with mallet and chisel, can be readily conceived. In a famous passage, disinterred by M. Mariette from a French scholar of the sixteenth century, we have this account of the fiery master's system: "I am able to affirm that I have seen Michelangelo, at the age of more than sixty years, and not the strongest for his time of life, knock off more chips from an extremely hard marble in one quarter of an hour than three young stone-cutters could have done in three or four--a thing quite incredible to one who has not seen it. He put such impetuosity and fury into his work that I thought the whole must fly to pieces; hurling to the ground at one blow great fragments three or four inches thick, shaving the line so closely that if he had overpassed it by a hair's-breadth he ran the risk of losing all, since one cannot mend a marble afterwards or repair mistakes, as one does with figures of clay and stucco." It is said that, owing to this violent way of attacking his marble, Michelangelo sometimes bit too deep into the stone, and had to abandon a promising piece of sculpture. This is one of the ways of accounting for his numerous unfinished statues. Accordingly a myth has sprung up representing the great master as working in solitude upon huge blocks, with nothing but a sketch in wax before him. Fact is always more interesting than fiction; and, while I am upon the topic of his method, I will introduce what Cellini has left written on this subject. In his treatise on the Art of Sculpture, Cellini lays down the rule that sculptors in stone ought first to make a little model two palms high, and after this to form another as large as the statue will have to be. He illustrates this by a critique of his illustrious predecessors. "Albeit many able artists rush boldly on the stone with the fierce force of mallet and chisel, relying on the little model and a good design, yet the result is never found by them to be so satisfactory as when they fashion the model on a large scale. This is proved by our Donatello, who was a Titan in the art, and afterwards by the stupendous Michelangelo, who worked in both ways. Discovering latterly that the small models fell far short of what his excellent genius demanded, he adopted the habit of making most careful models exactly of the same size as the marble statue was to be. This we have seen with our own eyes in the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo. Next, when a man is satisfied with his full-sized model, he must take charcoal, and sketch out the main view of his figure on the marble in such wise that it shall be distinctly traced; for he who has not previously settled his design may sometimes find himself deceived by the chiselling irons. Michelangelo's method in this matter was the best. He used first to sketch in the principal aspect; and then to begin work by removing the surface stone upon that side, just as if he intended to fashion a figure in half-relief; and thus he went on gradually uncovering the rounded form." Vasari, speaking of four rough-hewn Captives, possibly the figures now in a grotto of the Boboli Gardens, says: They are well adapted for teaching a beginner how to extract statues from the marble without injury to the stone. The safe method which they illustrate may be described as follows. You first take a model in wax or some other hard material, and place it lying in a vessel full of water. The water, by its nature, presents a level surface; so that, if you gradually lift the model, the higher parts are first exposed, while the lower parts remain submerged; and, proceeding thus, the whole round shape at length appears above the water. Precisely in the same way ought statues to be hewn out from the marble with the chisel; first uncovering the highest surfaces, and proceeding to disclose the lowest. This method was followed by Michelangelo while blocking out the Captives, and therefore his Excellency the Duke was fain to have them used as models by the students in his Academy. It need hardly be remarked that the ingenious process of "pointing the marble" by means of the "pointing machine" and "scale-stones," which is at present universally in use among sculptors, had not been invented in the sixteenth century. IV I cannot omit a rather childish story which Vasari tells about the David. After it had been placed upon its pedestal before the palace, and while the scaffolding was still there, Piero Soderini, who loved and admired Michelangelo, told him that he thought the nose too large. The sculptor immediately ran up the ladder till he reached a point upon the level of the giant's shoulder. He then took his hammer and chisel, and, having concealed some dust of marble in the hollow of his hand, pretended to work off a portion from the surface of the nose. In reality he left it as he found it; but Soderini, seeing the marble dust fall scattering through the air, thought that his hint had been taken. When, therefore, Michelangelo called down to him, "Look at it now!" Soderini shouted up in reply, "I am far more pleased with it; you have given life to the statue." At this time Piero Soderini, a man of excellent parts and sterling character, though not gifted with that mixture of audacity and cunning which impressed the Renaissance imagination, was Gonfalonier of the Republic. He had been elected to the supreme magistracy for life, and was practically Doge of Florence. His friendship proved on more than one occasion of some service to Michelangelo; and while the gigantic David was in progress he gave the sculptor a new commission, the history of which must now engage us. The Florentine envoys to France had already written in June 1501 from Lyons, saying that Pierre de Rohan, Maréchal de Gié, who stood high in favour at the court of Louis XII., greatly desired a copy of the bronze David by Donatello in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio. He appeared willing to pay for it, but the envoys thought that he expected to have it as a present. The French alliance was a matter of the highest importance to Florence, and at this time the Republic was heavily indebted to the French crown. Soderini, therefore, decided to comply with the Marshal's request, and on the 12th of August 1502 Michelangelo undertook to model a David of two cubits and a quarter within six months. In the bronze-casting he was assisted by a special master, Benedetto da Rovezzano. During the next two years a brisk correspondence was kept up between the envoys and the Signory about the statue, showing the Marshal's impatience. Meanwhile De Rohan became Duke of Nemours in 1503 by his marriage with a sister of Louis d'Armagnac, and shortly afterwards he fell into disgrace. Nothing more was to be expected from him at the court of Blois. But the statue was in progress, and the question arose to whom it should be given. The choice of the Signory fell on Florimond Robertet, secretary of finance, whose favour would be useful to the Florentines in their pecuniary transactions with the King. A long letter from the envoy, Francesco Pandolfini, in September 1505, shows that Robertet's mind had been sounded on the subject; and we gather from a minute of the Signory, dated November 6, 1508, that at last the bronze David, weighing about 800 pounds, had been "packed in the name of God" and sent to Signa on its way to Leghorn. Robertet received it in due course, and placed it in the courtyard of his château of Bury, near Blois. Here it remained for more than a century, when it was removed to the château of Villeroy. There it disappeared. We possess, however, a fine pen-and-ink drawing by the hand of Michelangelo, which may well have been a design for this second David. The muscular and naked youth, not a mere lad like the colossal statue, stands firmly posed upon his left leg with the trunk thrown boldly back. His right foot rests on the gigantic head of Goliath, and his left hand, twisted back upon the buttock, holds what seems meant for the sling. We see here what Michelangelo's conception of an ideal David would have been when working under conditions more favourable than the damaged block afforded. On the margin of the page the following words may be clearly traced: "Davicte cholla fromba e io chollarcho Michelagniolo,"--David with the sling, and I with the bow. Meanwhile Michelangelo received a still more important commission on the 24th of April 1503. The Consuls of the Arte della Lana and the Operai of the Duomo ordered twelve Apostles, each 4-1/4 cubits high, to be carved out of Carrara marble and placed inside the church. The sculptor undertook to furnish one each year, the Board of Works defraying all expenses, supplying the costs of Michelangelo's living and his assistants, and paying him two golden florins a month. Besides this, they had a house built for him in the Borgo Pinti after Il Cronaca's design. He occupied this house free of charges while he was in Florence, until it became manifest that the contract of 1503 would never be carried out. Later on, in March 1508, the tenement was let on lease to him and his heirs. But he only held it a few months; for on the 15th of June the lease was cancelled, and the house transferred to Sigismondo Martelli. The only trace surviving of these twelve Apostles is the huge blocked-out S. Matteo, now in the courtyard of the Accademia. Vasari writes of it as follows: "He also began a statue in marble of S. Matteo, which, though it is but roughly hewn, shows perfection of design, and teaches sculptors how to extract figures from the stone without exposing them to injury, always gaining ground by removing the superfluous material, and being able to withdraw or change in case of need." This stupendous sketch or shadow of a mighty form is indeed instructive for those who would understand Michelangelo's method. It fully illustrates the passages quoted above from Cellini and Vasari, showing how a design of the chief view of the statue must have been chalked upon the marble, and how the unfinished figure gradually emerged into relief. Were we to place it in a horizontal position on the ground, that portion of a rounded form which has been disengaged from the block would emerge just in the same way as a model from a bath of water not quite deep enough to cover it. At the same time we learn to appreciate the observations of Vigenere while we study the titanic chisel-marks, grooved deeply in the body of the stone, and carried to the length of three or four inches. The direction of these strokes proves that Michelangelo worked equally with both hands, and the way in which they are hatched and crossed upon the marble reminds one of the pen-drawing of a bold draughtsman. The mere surface-handling of the stone has remarkable affinity in linear effect to a pair of the master's pen-designs for a naked man, now in the Louvre. On paper he seems to hew with the pen, on marble to sketch with the chisel. The saint appears literally to be growing out of his stone prison, as though he were alive and enclosed there waiting to be liberated. This recalls Michelangelo's fixed opinion regarding sculpture, which he defined as the art "that works by force of taking away." In his writings we often find the idea expressed that a statue, instead of being a human thought invested with external reality by stone, is more truly to be regarded as something which the sculptor seeks and finds inside his marble--a kind of marvellous discovery. Thus he says in one of his poems: "Lady, in hard and craggy stone the mere removal of the surface gives being to a figure, which ever grows the more the stone is hewn away." And again-- _The best of artists hath no thought to show Which the rough stone in its superfluous shell Doth not include: to break the marble spell Is all the hand that serves the brain can do._ S. Matthew seems to palpitate with life while we scrutinise the amorphous block; and yet there is little there more tangible than some such form as fancy loves to image in the clouds. To conclude what I have said in this section about Michelangelo's method of working on the marble, I must confirm what I have stated about his using both left and right hand while chiselling. Raffaello da Montelupo, who was well acquainted with him personally, informs us of the fact: "Here I may mention that I am in the habit of drawing with my left hand, and that once, at Rome, while I was sketching the Arch of Trajan from the Colosseum, Michelangelo and Sebastiano del Piombo, both of whom were naturally left-handed (although they did not work with the left hand excepting when they wished to use great strength), stopped to see me, and expressed great wonder, no sculptor or painter ever having done so before me, as far as I know." V If Vasari can be trusted, it was during this residence at Florence, when his hands were so fully occupied, that Michelangelo found time to carve the two _tondi_, Madonnas in relief enclosed in circular spaces, which we still possess. One of them, made for Taddeo Taddei, is now at Burlington House, having been acquired by the Royal Academy through the medium of Sir George Beaumont. This ranks among the best things belonging to that Corporation. The other, made for Bartolommeo Pitti, will be found in the Palazzo del Bargello at Florence. Of the two, that of our Royal Academy is the more ambitious in design, combining singular grace and dignity in the Madonna with action playfully suggested in the infant Christ and little S. John. That of the Bargello is simpler, more tranquil, and more stately. The one recalls the motive of the Bruges Madonna, the other almost anticipates the Delphic Sibyl. We might fancifully call them a pair of native pearls or uncut gems, lovely by reason even of their sketchiness. Whether by intention, as some critics have supposed, or for want of time to finish, as I am inclined to believe, these two reliefs are left in a state of incompleteness which is highly suggestive. Taking the Royal Academy group first, the absolute roughness of the groundwork supplies an admirable background to the figures, which seem to emerge from it as though the whole of them were there, ready to be disentangled. The most important portions of the composition--Madonna's head and throat, the drapery of her powerful breast, on which the child Christ reclines, and the naked body of the boy--are wrought to a point which only demands finish. Yet parts of these two figures remain undetermined. Christ's feet are still imprisoned in the clinging marble; His left arm and hand are only indicated, and His right hand is resting on a mass of broken stone, which hides a portion of His mother's drapery, but leaves the position of her hand uncertain. The infant S. John, upright upon his feet, balancing the chief group, is hazily subordinate. The whole of his form looms blurred through the veil of stone, and what his two hands and arms are doing with the hidden right arm and hand of the Virgin may hardly be conjectured. It is clear that on this side of the composition the marble was to have been more deeply cut, and that we have the highest surfaces of the relief brought into prominence at those points where, as I have said, little is wanting but the finish of the graver and the file. The Bargello group is simpler and more intelligible. Its composition by masses being quite apparent, we can easily construct the incomplete figure of S. John in the background. What results from the study of these two circular sketches in marble is that, although Michelangelo believed all sculpture to be imperfect in so far as it approached the style of painting, yet he did not disdain to labour in stone with various planes of relief which should produce the effect of chiaroscuro. Furthermore, they illustrate what Cellini and Vasari have already taught us about his method. He refused to work by piecemeal, but began by disengaging the first, the second, then the third surfaces, following a model and a drawing which controlled the cutting. Whether he preferred to leave off when his idea was sufficiently indicated, or whether his numerous engagements prevented him from excavating the lowest surfaces, and lastly polishing the whole, is a question which must for ever remain undecided. Considering the exquisite elaboration given to the Pietà of the Vatican, the Madonna at Bruges, the Bacchus and the David, the Moses and parts of the Medicean monuments, I incline to think that, with time enough at his disposal, he would have carried out these rounds in all their details. A criticism he made on Donatello, recorded for us by Condivi, to the effect that this great master's works lost their proper effect on close inspection through a want of finish, confirms my opinion. Still there is no doubt that he must have been pleased, as all true lovers of art are with the picturesque effect--an effect as of things half seen in dreams or emergent from primeval substances--which the imperfection of the craftsman's labour leaves upon the memory. At this time Michelangelo's mind seems to have been much occupied with circular compositions. He painted a large Holy Family of this shape for his friend Angelo Doni, which may, I think, be reckoned the only easel-picture attributable with absolute certainty to his hand. Condivi simply says that he received seventy ducats for this fine work. Vasari adds one of his prattling stories to the effect that Doni thought forty sufficient; whereupon Michelangelo took the picture back, and said he would not let it go for less than a hundred: Doni then offered the original sum of seventy, but Michelangelo replied that if he was bent on bargaining he should not pay less than 140. Be this as it may, one of the most characteristic products of the master's genius came now into existence. The Madonna is seated in a kneeling position on the ground; she throws herself vigorously backward, lifting the little Christ upon her right arm, and presenting him to a bald-headed old man, S. Joseph, who seems about to take him in his arms. This group, which forms a tall pyramid, is balanced on both sides by naked figures of young men reclining against a wall at some distance, while a remarkably ugly little S. John can be discerned in one corner. There is something very powerful and original in the composition of this sacred picture, which, as in the case of all Michelangelo's early work, develops the previous traditions of Tuscan art on lines which no one but himself could have discovered. The central figure of the Madonna, too, has always seemed to me a thing of marvellous beauty, and of stupendous power in the strained attitude and nobly modelled arms. It has often been asked what the male nudes have got to do with the subject. Probably Michelangelo intended in this episode to surpass a Madonna by Luca Signorelli, with whose genius he obviously was in sympathy, and who felt, like him, the supreme beauty of the naked adolescent form. Signorelli had painted a circular Madonna with two nudes in the landscape distance for Lorenzo de' Medici. The picture is hung now in the gallery of the Uffizi. It is enough perhaps to remark that Michelangelo needed these figures for his scheme, and for filling the space at his disposal. He was either unable or unwilling to compose a background of trees, meadows, and pastoral folk in the manner of his predecessors. Nothing but the infinite variety of human forms upon a barren stage of stone or arid earth would suit his haughty sense of beauty. The nine persons who make up the picture are all carefully studied from the life, and bear a strong Tuscan stamp. S. John is literally ignoble, and Christ is a commonplace child. The Virgin Mother is a magnificent _contadina_ in the plenitude of adult womanhood. Those, however, who follow Mr. Ruskin in blaming Michelangelo for carelessness about the human face and head, should not fail to notice what sublime dignity and grace he has communicated to his model here. In technical execution the Doni Madonna is faithful to old Florentine usage, but lifeless and unsympathetic. We are disagreeably reminded by every portion of the surface that Lionardo's subtle play of tones and modulated shades, those _sfumature_, as Italians call them, which transfer the mystic charm of nature to the canvas, were as yet unknown to the great draughtsman. There is more of atmosphere, of colour suggestion, and of chiaroscuro in the marble _tondi_ described above. Moreover, in spite of very careful modelling, Michelangelo has failed to make us feel the successive planes of his composition. The whole seems flat, and each distance, instead of being graduated, starts forward to the eye. He required, at this period of his career, the relief of sculpture in order to express the roundness of the human form and the relative depth of objects placed in a receding order. If anything were needed to make us believe the story of his saying to Pope Julius II. that sculpture and not painting was his trade, this superb design, so deficient in the essential qualities of painting proper, would suffice. Men infinitely inferior to himself in genius and sense of form, a Perugino, a Francia, a Fra Bartolommeo, an Albertinelli, possessed more of the magic which evokes pictorial beauty. Nevertheless, with all its aridity, rigidity, and almost repulsive hardness of colour, the Doni Madonna ranks among the great pictures of the world. Once seen it will never be forgotten: it tyrannises and dominates the imagination by its titanic power of drawing. No one, except perhaps Lionardo, could draw like that, and Lionardo would not have allowed his linear scheme to impose itself so remorselessly upon the mind. VI Just at this point of his development, Michelangelo was brought into competition with Lionardo da Vinci, the only living rival worthy of his genius. During the year 1503 Piero Soderini determined to adorn the hall of the Great Council in the Palazzo Vecchio with huge mural frescoes, which should represent scenes in Florentine history. Documents regarding the commencement of these works and the contracts made with the respective artists are unfortunately wanting. But it appears that Da Vinci received a commission for one of the long walls in the autumn of that year. We have items of expenditure on record which show that the Municipality of Florence assigned him the Sala del Papa at S. Maria Novella before February 1504, and were preparing the necessary furniture for the construction of his Cartoon. It seems that he was hard at work upon the 1st of April, receiving fifteen golden florins a month for his labour. The subject which he chose to treat was the battle of Anghiari in 1440, when the Florentine mercenaries entirely routed the troops of Filippo Maria Visconti, led by Niccolò Piccinino, one of the greatest generals of his age. In August 1504 Soderini commissioned Michelangelo to prepare Cartoons for the opposite wall of the great Sala, and assigned to him a workshop in the Hospital of the Dyers at S. Onofrio. A minute of expenditure, under date October 31, 1504, shows that the paper for the Cartoon had been already provided; and Michelangelo continued to work upon it until his call to Rome at the beginning of 1505. Lionardo's battle-piece consisted of two groups on horseback engaged in a fierce struggle for a standard. Michelangelo determined to select a subject which should enable him to display all his power as the supreme draughtsman of the nude. He chose an episode from the war with Pisa, when, on the 28th of July 1364, a band of 400 Florentine soldiers were surprised bathing by Sir John Hawkwood and his English riders. It goes by the name of the Battle of Pisa, though the event really took place at Cascina on the Arno, some six miles above that city. We have every reason to regard the composition of this Cartoon as the central point in Michelangelo's life as an artist. It was the watershed, so to speak, which divided his earlier from his later manner; and if we attach any value to the critical judgment of his enthusiastic admirer, Cellini, even the roof of the Sistine fell short of its perfection. Important, however, as it certainly is in the history of his development, I must defer speaking of it in detail until the end of the next chapter. For some reason or other, unknown to us, he left his work unfinished early in 1505, and went, at the Pope's invitation, to Rome. When he returned, in the ensuing year, to Florence, he resumed and completed the design. Some notion of its size may be derived from what we know about the material supplied for Lionardo's Cartoon. This, say Crowe and Cavalcaselle, "was made up of one ream and twenty-nine quires, or about 288 square feet of royal folio paper, the mere pasting of which necessitated a consumption of eighty-eight pounds of flour, the mere lining of which required three pieces of Florentine linen." Condivi, summing up his notes of this period spent by Michelangelo at Florence, says: "He stayed there some time without working to much purpose in his craft, having taken to the study of poets and rhetoricians in the vulgar tongue, and to the composition of sonnets for his pleasure." It is difficult to imagine how Michelangelo, with all his engagements, found the leisure to pursue these literary amusements. But Condivi's biography is the sole authentic source which we possess for the great master's own recollections of his past life. It is, therefore, not improbable that in the sentence I have quoted we may find some explanation of the want of finish observable in his productions at this point. Michelangelo was, to a large extent, a dreamer; and this single phrase throws light upon the expanse of time, the barren spaces, in his long laborious life. The poems we now possess by his pen are clearly the wreck of a vast multitude; and most of those accessible in manuscript and print belong to a later stage of his development. Still the fact remains that in early manhood he formed the habit of conversing with writers of Italian and of fashioning his own thoughts into rhyme. His was a nature capable indeed of vehement and fiery activity, but by constitution somewhat saturnine and sluggish, only energetic when powerfully stimulated; a meditative man, glad enough to be inert when not spurred forward on the path of strenuous achievement. And so, it seems, the literary bent took hold upon him as a relief from labour, as an excuse for temporary inaction. In his own art, the art of design, whether this assumed the form of sculpture or of painting or of architecture, he did nothing except at the highest pressure. All his accomplished work shows signs of the intensest cerebration. But he tried at times to slumber, sunk in a wise passiveness. Then he communed with the poets, the prophets, and the prose-writers of his country. We can well imagine, therefore, that, tired with the labours of the chisel or the brush, he gladly gave himself to composition, leaving half finished on his easel things which had for him their adequate accomplishment. I think it necessary to make these suggestions, because, in my opinion, Michelangelo's inner life and his literary proclivities have been hitherto too much neglected in the scheme of his psychology. Dazzled by the splendour of his work, critics are content to skip spaces of months and years, during which the creative genius of the man smouldered. It is, as I shall try to show, in those intervals, dimly revealed to us by what remains of his poems and his correspondence, that the secret of this man, at once so tardy and so energetic; has to be discovered. A great master of a different temperament, less solitary, less saturnine, less sluggish, would have formed a school, as Raffaello did. Michelangelo formed no school, and was incapable of confiding the execution of his designs to any subordinates. This is also a point of the highest importance to insist upon. Had he been other than he was--a gregarious man, contented with the _à peu près_ in art--he might have sent out all those twelve Apostles for the Duomo from his workshop. Raffaello would have done so; indeed, the work which bears his name in Rome could not have existed except under these conditions. Now nothing is left to us of the twelve Apostles except a rough-hewn sketch of S. Matthew. Michelangelo was unwilling or unable to organise a band of craftsmen fairly interpretative of his manner. When his own hand failed, or when he lost the passion for his labour, he left the thing unfinished. And much of this incompleteness in his life-work seems to me due to his being what I called a dreamer. He lacked the merely business faculty, the power of utilising hands and brains. He could not bring his genius into open market, and stamp inferior productions with his countersign. Willingly he retired into the solitude of his own self, to commune with great poets and to meditate upon high thoughts, while he indulged the emotions arising from forms of strength and beauty presented to his gaze upon the pathway of experience. CHAPTER IV I Among the many nephews whom Sixtus IV. had raised to eminence, the most distinguished was Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal of S. Pietro in Vincoli, and Bishop of Ostia. This man possessed a fiery temper, indomitable energy, and the combative instinct which takes delight in fighting for its own sake. Nature intended him for a warrior; and, though circumstances made him chief of the Church, he discharged his duties as a Pontiff in the spirit of a general and a conqueror. When Julius II. was elected in November 1503, it became at once apparent that he intended to complete what his hated predecessors, the Borgias, had begun, by reducing to his sway all the provinces over which the See of Rome had any claims, and creating a central power in Italy. Unlike the Borgias, however, he entertained no plan of raising his own family to sovereignty at the expense of the Papal power. The Della Roveres were to be contented with their Duchy of Urbino, which came to them by inheritance from the Montefeltri. Julius dreamed of Italy for the Italians, united under the hegemony of the Supreme Pontiff, who from Rome extended his spiritual authority and political influence over the whole of Western Europe. It does not enter into the scheme of this book to relate the series of wars and alliances in which this belligerent Pope involved his country, and the final failure of his policy, so far as the liberation of Italy from the barbarians was concerned. Suffice it to say, that at the close of his stormy reign he had reduced the States of the Church to more or less complete obedience, bequeathing to his successors an ecclesiastical kingdom which the enfeebled condition of the peninsula at large enabled them to keep intact. There was nothing petty or mean in Julius II.; his very faults bore a grandiose and heroic aspect. Turbulent, impatient, inordinate in his ambition, reckless in his choice of means, prolific of immense projects, for which a lifetime would have been too short, he filled the ten years of his pontificate with a din of incoherent deeds and vast schemes half accomplished. Such was the man who called Michelangelo to Rome at the commencement of 1505. Why the sculptor was willing to leave his Cartoon unfinished, and to break his engagement with the Operai del Duomo, remains a mystery. It is said that the illustrious architect, Giuliano da San Gallo, who had worked for Julius while he was cardinal, and was now his principal adviser upon matters of art, suggested to the Pope that Buonarroti could serve him admirably in his ambitious enterprises for the embellishment of the Eternal City. We do not know for certain whether Julius, when he summoned Michelangelo from Florence, had formed the design of engaging him upon a definite piece of work. The first weeks of his residence in Rome are said to have been spent in inactivity, until at last Julius proposed to erect a huge monument of marble for his own tomb. Thus began the second and longest period of Michelangelo's art-industry. Henceforth he was destined to labour for a series of Popes, following their whims with distracted energies and a lamentable waste of time. The incompleteness which marks so much of his performance was due to the rapid succession of these imperious masters, each in turn careless about the schemes of his predecessor, and bent on using the artist's genius for his own profit. It is true that nowhere but in Rome could Michelangelo have received commissions on so vast a scale. Nevertheless we cannot but regret the fate which drove him to consume years of hampered industry upon what Condivi calls "the tragedy of Julius's tomb," upon quarrying and road-making for Leo X., upon the abortive plans at S. Lorenzo, and upon architectural and engineering works, which were not strictly within his province. At first it seemed as though fortune was about to smile on him. In Julius he found a patron who could understand and appreciate his powers. Between the two men there existed a strong bond of sympathy due to community of temperament. Both aimed at colossal achievements in their respective fields of action. The imagination of both was fired by large and simple rather than luxurious and subtle thoughts. Both were _uomini terribili_, to use a phrase denoting vigour of character and energy of genius, made formidable by an abrupt, uncompromising spirit. Both worked with what the Italians call fury, with the impetuosity of daemonic natures; and both left the impress of their individuality stamped indelibly upon their age. Julius, in all things grandiose, resolved to signalise his reign by great buildings, great sculpture, great pictorial schemes. There was nothing of the dilettante and collector about him. He wanted creation at a rapid rate and in enormous quantities. To indulge this craving, he gathered round him a band of demigods and Titans, led by Bramante, Raffaello, Michelangelo, and enjoyed the spectacle of a new world of art arising at his bidding through their industry of brain and hand. II What followed upon Michelangelo's arrival in Rome may be told in Condivi's words: "Having reached Rome, many months elapsed before Julius decided on what great work he would employ him. At last it occurred to him to use his genius in the construction of his own tomb. The design furnished by Michelangelo pleased the Pope so much that he sent him off immediately to Carrara, with commission to quarry as much marble as was needful for that undertaking. Two thousand ducats were put to his credit with Alamanni Salviati at Florence for expenses. He remained more than eight months among those mountains, with two servants and a horse, but without any salary except his keep. One day, while inspecting the locality, the fancy took him to convert a hill which commands the sea-shore into a Colossus, visible by mariners afar. The shape of the huge rock, which lent itself admirably to such a purpose, attracted him; and he was further moved to emulate the ancients, who, sojourning in the place peradventure with the same object as himself, in order to while away the time, or for some other motive, have left certain unfinished and rough-hewn monuments, which give a good specimen of their craft. And assuredly he would have carried out this scheme, if time enough had been at his disposal, or if the special purpose of his visit to Carrara had permitted. I one day heard him lament bitterly that he had not done so. Well, then, after quarrying and selecting the blocks which he deemed sufficient, he had them brought to the sea, and left a man of his to ship them off. He returned to Rome, and having stopped some days in Florence on the way, when he arrived there, he found that part of the marble had already reached the Ripa. There he had them disembarked, and carried to the Piazza of S. Peter's behind S. Caterina, where he kept his lodging, close to the corridor connecting the Palace with the Castle of S. Angelo. The quantity of stone was enormous, so that, when it was all spread out upon the square, it stirred amazement in the minds of most folk, but joy in the Pope's. Julius indeed began to heap favours upon Michelangelo; for when he had begun to work, the Pope used frequently to betake himself to his house, conversing there with him about the tomb, and about other works which he proposed to carry out in concert with one of his brothers. In order to arrive more conveniently at Michelangelo's lodgings, he had a drawbridge thrown across from the corridor, by which he might gain privy access." The date of Michelangelo's return to Rome is fixed approximately by a contract signed at Carrara between him and two shipowners of Lavagna. This deed is dated November 12, 1505. It shows that thirty-four cartloads of marble were then ready for shipment, together with two figures weighing fifteen cartloads more. We have a right to assume that Michelangelo left Carrara soon after completing this transaction. Allowing, then, for the journey and the halt at Florence, he probably reached Rome in the last week of that month. III The first act in the tragedy of the sepulchre had now begun, and Michelangelo was embarked upon one of the mightiest undertakings which a sovereign of the stamp of Julius ever intrusted to a sculptor of his titanic energy. In order to form a conception of the magnitude of the enterprise, I am forced to enter into a discussion regarding the real nature of the monument. This offers innumerable difficulties, for we only possess imperfect notices regarding the original design, and two doubtful drawings belonging to an uncertain period. Still it is impossible to understand those changes in the Basilica of S. Peter's which were occasioned by the project of Julius, or to comprehend the immense annoyances to which the tomb exposed Michelangelo, without grappling with its details. Condivi's text must serve for guide. This, in fact, is the sole source of any positive value. He describes the tomb, as he believed it to have been first planned, in the following paragraph:-- "To give some notion of the monument, I will say that it was intended to have four faces: two of eighteen cubits, serving for the sides, and two of twelve for the ends, so that the whole formed one great square and a half. Surrounding it externally were niches to be filled with statues, and between each pair of niches stood terminal figures, to the front of which were attached on certain consoles projecting from the wall another set of statues bound like prisoners. These represented the Liberal Arts, and likewise Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, each with characteristic emblems, rendering their identification easy. The intention was to show that all the talents had been taken captive by death, together with Pope Julius, since never would they find another patron to cherish and encourage them as he had done. Above these figures ran a cornice, giving unity to the whole work. Upon the flat surface formed by this cornice were to be four large statues, one of which, that is, the Moses, now exists at S. Pietro ad Vincula. And so, arriving at the summit, the tomb ended in a level space, whereon were two angels who supported a sarcophagus. One of them appeared to smile, rejoicing that the soul of the Pope had been received among the blessed spirits; the other seemed to weep, as sorrowing that the world had been robbed of such a man. From one of the ends, that is, by the one which was at the head of the monument, access was given to a little chamber like a chapel, enclosed within the monument, in the midst of which was a marble chest, wherein the corpse of the Pope was meant to be deposited. The whole would have been executed with stupendous finish. In short, the sepulchre included more than forty statues, not counting the histories in half-reliefs, made of bronze, all of them pertinent to the general scheme and representative of the mighty Pontiff's actions." Vasari's account differs in some minor details from Condivi's, but it is of no authoritative value. Not having appeared in the edition of 1550, we may regard it as a _réchauffée_ of Condivi, with the usual sauce provided by the Aretine's imagination. The only addition I can discover which throws light upon Condivi's narrative is that the statues in the niches were meant to represent provinces conquered by Julius. This is important, because it leads us to conjecture that Vasari knew a drawing now preserved in the Uffizi, and sought, by its means, to add something to his predecessor's description. The drawing will occupy our attention shortly; but it may here be remarked that in 1505, the date of the first project, Julius was only entering upon his conquests. It would have been a gross act of flattery on the part of the sculptor, a flying in the face of Nemesis on the part of his patron, to design a sepulchre anticipating length of life and luck sufficient for these triumphs. What then Condivi tells us about the first scheme is, that it was intended to stand isolated in the tribune of S. Peter's; that it formed a rectangle of a square and half a square; that the podium was adorned with statues in niches flanked by projecting dadoes supporting captive arts, ten in number; that at each corner of the platform above the podium a seated statue was placed, one of which we may safely identify with the Moses; and that above this, surmounting the whole monument by tiers, arose a second mass, culminating in a sarcophagus supported by two angels. He further adds that the tomb was entered at its extreme end by a door, which led to a little chamber where lay the body of the Pope, and that bronze bas-reliefs formed a prominent feature of the total scheme. He reckons that more than forty statues would have been required to complete the whole design, although he has only mentioned twenty-two of the most prominent. More than this we do not know about the first project. We have no contracts and no sketches that can be referred to the date 1505. Much confusion has been introduced into the matter under consideration by the attempt to reconcile Condivi's description with the drawing I have just alluded to. Heath Wilson even used that drawing to impugn Condivi's accuracy with regard to the number of the captives, and the seated figures on the platform. The drawing in question, as we shall presently see, is of great importance for the subsequent history of the monument; and I believe that it to some extent preserves the general aspect which the tomb, as first designed, was intended to present. Two points about it, however, prevent our taking it as a true guide to Michelangelo's original conception. One is that it is clearly only part of a larger scheme of composition. The other is that it shows a sarcophagus, not supported by angels, but posed upon the platform. Moreover, it corresponds to the declaration appended in 1513 by Michelangelo to the first extant document we possess about the tomb. Julius died in February 1513, leaving, it is said, to his executors directions that his sepulchre should not be carried out upon the first colossal plan. If he did so, they seem at the beginning of their trust to have disregarded his intentions. Michelangelo expressly states in one of his letters that the Cardinal of Agen wished to proceed with the tomb, but on a larger scale. A deed dated May 6, 1513, was signed, at the end of which Michelangelo specified the details of the new design. It differed from the former in many important respects, but most of all in the fact that now the structure was to be attached to the wall of the church. I cannot do better than translate Michelangelo's specifications. They run as follows: "Let it be known to all men that I, Michelangelo, sculptor of Florence, undertake to execute the sepulchre of Pope Julius in marble, on the commission of the Cardinal of Agens and the Datary (Pucci), who, after his death, have been appointed to complete this work, for the sum of 16,500 golden ducats of the Camera; and the composition of the said sepulchre is to be in the form ensuing: A rectangle visible from three of its sides, the fourth of which is attached to the wall and cannot be seen. The front face, that is, the head of this rectangle, shall be twenty palms in breadth and fourteen in height, the other two, running up against the wall, shall be thirty-five palms long and likewise fourteen palms in height. Each of these three sides shall contain two tabernacles, resting on a basement which shall run round the said space, and shall be adorned with pilasters, architrave, frieze, and cornice, as appears in the little wooden model. In each of the said six tabernacles will be placed two figures about one palm taller than life (_i.e._, 6-3/4 feet), twelve in all; and in front of each pilaster which flanks a tabernacle shall stand a figure of similar size, twelve in all. On the platform above the said rectangular structure stands a sarcophagus with four feet, as may be seen in the model, upon which will be Pope Julius sustained by two angels at his head, with two at his feet; making five figures on the sarcophagus, all larger than life, that is, about twice the size. Round about the said sarcophagus will be placed six dadoes or pedestals, on which six figures of the same dimensions will sit. Furthermore, from the platform, where it joins the wall, springs a little chapel about thirty-five palms high (26 feet 3 inches), which shall contain five figures larger than all the rest, as being farther from the eye. Moreover, there shall be three histories, either of bronze or of marble, as may please the said executors, introduced on each face of the tomb between one tabernacle and another." All this Michelangelo undertook to execute in seven years for the stipulated sum. The new project involved thirty-eight colossal statues; and, fortunately for our understanding of it, we may be said with almost absolute certainty to possess a drawing intended to represent it. Part of this is a pen-and-ink sketch at the Uffizi, which has frequently been published, and part is a sketch in the Berlin Collection. These have been put together by Professor Middleton of Cambridge, who has also made out a key-plan of the tomb. With regard to its proportions and dimensions as compared with Michelangelo's specification, there remain some difficulties, with which I cannot see that Professor Middleton has grappled. It is perhaps not improbable, as Heath Wilson suggested, that the drawing had been thrown off as a picturesque forecast of the monument without attention to scale. Anyhow, there is no doubt that in this sketch, so happily restored by Professor Middleton's sagacity and tact, we are brought close to Michelangelo's conception of the colossal work he never was allowed to execute. It not only answers to the description translated above from the sculptor's own appendix to the contract, but it also throws light upon the original plan of the tomb designed for the tribune of S. Peter's. The basement of the podium has been preserved, we may assume, in its more salient features. There are the niches spoken of by Condivi, with Vasari's conquered provinces prostrate at the feet of winged Victories. These are flanked by the terminal figures, against which, upon projecting consoles, stand the bound captives. At the right hand facing us, upon the upper platform, is seated Moses, with a different action of the hands, it is true, from that which Michelangelo finally adopted. Near him is a female figure, and the two figures grouped upon the left angle seem to be both female. To some extent these statues bear out Vasari's tradition that the platform in the first design was meant to sustain figures of the contemplative and active life of the soul--Dante's Leah and Rachel. This great scheme was never carried out. The fragments which may be safely assigned to it are the Moses at S. Pietro in Vincoli and the two bound captives of the Louvre; the Madonna and Child, Leah and Rachel, and two seated statues also at S. Pietro in Vincoli, belong to the plan, though these have undergone considerable alterations. Some other scattered fragments of the sculptor's work may possibly be connected with its execution. Four male figures roughly hewn, which are now wrought into the rock-work of a grotto in the Boboli Gardens, together with the young athlete trampling on a prostrate old man (called the Victory) and the Adonis of the Museo Nazionale at Florence, have all been ascribed to the sepulchre of Julius in one or other of its stages. But these attributes are doubtful, and will be criticised in their proper place and time. Suffice it now to say that Vasari reports, beside the Moses, Victory, and two Captives at the Louvre, eight figures for the tomb blocked out by Michelangelo at Rome, and five blocked out at Florence. Continuing the history of this tragic undertaking, we come to the year 1516. On the 8th of July in that year, Michelangelo signed a new contract, whereby the previous deed of 1513 was annulled. Both of the executors were alive and parties to this second agreement. "A model was made, the width of which is stated at twenty-one feet, after the monument had been already sculptured of a width of almost twenty-three feet. The architectural design was adhered to with the same pedestals and niches and the same crowning cornice of the first story. There were to be six statues in front, but the conquered provinces were now dispensed with. There was also to be one niche only on each flank, so that the projection of the monument from the wall was reduced more than half, and there were to be only twelve statues beneath the cornice and one relief, instead of twenty-four statues and three reliefs. On the summit of this basement a shrine was to be erected, within which was placed the effigy of the Pontiff on his sarcophagus, with two heavenly guardians. The whole of the statues described in this third contract amount to nineteen." Heath Wilson observes, with much propriety, that the most singular fact about these successive contracts is the departure from certain fixed proportions both of the architectural parts and the statues, involving a serious loss of outlay and of work. Thus the two Captives of the Louvre became useless, and, as we know, they were given away to Ruberto Strozzi in a moment of generosity by the sculptor. The sitting figures detailed in the deed of 1516 are shorter than the Moses by one foot. The standing figures, now at S. Pietro in Vincoli, correspond to the specifications. What makes the matter still more singular is, that after signing the contract under date July 8, 1516, Michelangelo in November of the same year ordered blocks of marble from Carrara, with measurements corresponding to the specifications of the deed of 1513. The miserable tragedy of the sepulchre dragged on for another sixteen years. During this period the executors of Julius passed away, and the Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere replaced them. He complained that Michelangelo neglected the tomb, which was true, although the fault lay not with the sculptor, but with the Popes, his taskmasters. Legal proceedings were instituted to recover a large sum of money, which, it was alleged, had been disbursed without due work delivered by the master. Michelangelo had recourse to Clement VII., who, being anxious to monopolise his labour, undertook to arrange matters with the Duke. On the 29th of April 1532 a third and solemn contract was signed at Rome in presence of the Pope, witnessed by a number of illustrious personages. This third contract involved a fourth design for the tomb, which Michelangelo undertook to furnish, and at the same time to execute six statues with his own hand. On this occasion the notion of erecting it in S. Peter's was finally abandoned. The choice lay between two other Roman churches, that of S. Maria del Popolo, where monuments to several members of the Della Rovere family existed, and that of S. Pietro in Vincoli, from which Julius II. had taken his cardinal's title. Michelangelo decided for the latter, on account of its better lighting. The six statues promised by Michelangelo are stated in the contract to be "begun and not completed, extant at the present date in Rome or in Florence." Which of the several statues blocked out for the monument were to be chosen is not stated; and as there are no specifications in the document, we cannot identify them with exactness. At any rate, the Moses must have been one; and it is possible that the Leah and Rachel, Madonna, and two seated statues, now at S. Pietro, were the other five. It might have been thought that at last the tragedy had dragged on to its conclusion. But no; there was a fifth act, a fourth contract, a fifth design. Paul III. succeeded to Clement VII., and, having seen the Moses in Michelangelo's workshop, declared that this one statue was enough for the deceased Pope's tomb. The Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere died in 1538, and was succeeded by his son, Guidobaldo II. The new Duke's wife was a granddaughter of Paul III., and this may have made him amenable to the Pope's influence. At all events, upon the 20th of August 1542 a final contract was signed, stating that Michelangelo had been prevented "by just and legitimate impediments from carrying out" his engagement under date April 29, 1532, releasing him from the terms of the third deed, and establishing new conditions. The Moses, finished by the hand of Michelangelo, takes the central place in this new monument. Five other statues are specified: "to wit, a Madonna with the child in her arms, which is already finished; a Sibyl, a Prophet, an Active Life and a Contemplative Life, blocked out and nearly completed by the said Michelangelo." These four were given to Raffaello da Montelupo to finish. The reclining portrait-statue of Julius, which was carved by Maso del Bosco, is not even mentioned in this contract. But a deed between the Duke's representative and the craftsmen Montelupo and Urbino exists, in which the latter undertakes to see that Michelangelo shall retouch the Pope's face. Thus ended the tragedy of the tomb of Pope Julius II. It is supposed to have been finally completed in 1545, and was set up where it still remains uninjured at S. Pietro in Vincoli. IV I judged it needful to anticipate the course of events by giving this brief history of a work begun in 1505, and carried on with so many hindrances and alterations through forty years of Michelangelo's life. We shall often have to return to it, since the matter cannot be lightly dismissed. The tomb of Julius empoisoned Michelangelo's manhood, hampered his energy, and brought but small if any profit to his purse. In one way or another it is always cropping up, and may be said to vex his biographers and the students of his life as much as it annoyed himself. We may now return to those early days in Rome, when the project had still a fascination both for the sculptor and his patron. The old Basilica of S. Peter on the Vatican is said to have been built during the reign of Constantine, and to have been consecrated in 324 A.D. It was one of the largest of those Roman buildings, measuring 435 feet in length from the great door to the end of the tribune. A spacious open square or atrium, surrounded by a cloister-portico, gave access to the church. This, in the Middle Ages, gained the name of the Paradiso. A kind of tabernacle, in the centre of the square, protected the great bronze fir-cone, which was formerly supposed to have crowned the summit of Hadrian's Mausoleum, the Castle of S. Angelo. Dante, who saw it in the courtyard of S. Peter's, used it as a standard for his giant Nimrod. He says-- _La faccia sua ml parea lunga e grossa, Come la pina di San Pietro a Roma. --(Inf._ xxxi. 58.) This mother-church of Western Christendom was adorned inside and out with mosaics in the style of those which may still be seen at Ravenna. Above the lofty row of columns which flanked the central aisle ran processions of saints and sacred histories. They led the eye onward to what was called the Arch of Triumph, separating this portion of the building from the transept and the tribune. The concave roof of the tribune itself was decorated with a colossal Christ, enthroned between S. Peter and S. Paul, surveying the vast spaces of his house: the lord and master, before whom pilgrims from all parts of Europe came to pay tribute and to perform acts of homage. The columns were of precious marbles, stripped from Pagan palaces and temples; and the roof was tiled with plates of gilded bronze, torn in the age of Heraclius from the shrine of Venus and of Roma on the Sacred Way. During the eleven centuries which elapsed between its consecration and the decree for its destruction, S. Peter's had been gradually enriched with a series of monuments, inscriptions, statues, frescoes, upon which were written the annals of successive ages of the Church. Giotto worked there under Benedict II. in 1340. Pope after Pope was buried there. In the early period of Renaissance sculpture, Mino da Fiesole, Pollaiuolo, and Filarete added works in bronze and marble, which blent the grace of Florentine religious tradition with quaint neo-pagan mythologies. These treasures, priceless for the historian, the antiquary, and the artist, were now going to be ruthlessly swept away at a pontiff's bidding, in order to make room for his haughty and self-laudatory monument. Whatever may have been the artistic merits of Michelangelo's original conception for the tomb, the spirit was in no sense Christian. Those rows of captive Arts and Sciences, those Victories exulting over prostrate cities, those allegorical colossi symbolising the mundane virtues of a mighty ruler's character, crowned by the portrait of the Pope, over whom Heaven rejoiced while Cybele deplored his loss--all this pomp of power and parade of ingenuity harmonised but little with the humility of a contrite soul returning to its Maker and its Judge. The new temple, destined to supersede the old basilica, embodied an aspect of Latin Christianity which had very little indeed in common with the piety of the primitive Church. S. Peter's, as we see it now, represents the majesty of Papal Rome, the spirit of a secular monarchy in the hands of priests; it is the visible symbol of that schism between the Teutonic and the Latin portions of the Western Church which broke out soon after its foundation, and became irreconcilable before the cross was placed upon its cupola. It seemed as though in sweeping away the venerable traditions of eleven hundred years, and replacing Rome's time-honoured Mother-Church with an edifice bearing the brand-new stamp of hybrid neo-pagan architecture, the Popes had wished to signalise that rupture with the past and that atrophy of real religious life which marked the counter-reformation. Julius II. has been severely blamed for planning the entire reconstruction of his cathedral. It must, however, be urged in his defence that the structure had already, in 1447, been pronounced insecure. Nicholas V. ordered his architects, Bernardo Rossellini and Leo Battista Alberti, to prepare plans for its restoration. It is, of course, impossible for us to say for certain whether the ancient fabric could have been preserved, or whether its dilapidation had gone so far as to involve destruction. Bearing in mind the recklessness of the Renaissance and the passion which the Popes had for engaging in colossal undertakings, one is inclined to suspect that the unsound state of the building was made a pretext for beginning a work which flattered the architectural tastes of Nicholas, but was not absolutely necessary. However this may have been, foundations for a new tribune were laid outside the old apse, and the wall rose some feet above the ground before the Pope's death. Paul II. carried on the building; but during the pontificates of Sixtus, Innocent, and Alexander it seems to have been neglected. Meanwhile nothing had been done to injure the original basilica; and when Julius announced his intention of levelling it to the ground, his cardinals and bishops entreated him to refrain from an act so sacrilegious. The Pope was not a man to take advice or make concessions. Accordingly, turning a deaf ear to these entreaties, he had plans prepared by Giuliano da San Gallo and Bramante. Those eventually chosen were furnished by Bramante; and San Gallo, who had hitherto enjoyed the fullest confidence of Julius, is said to have left Rome in disgust. For reasons which will afterwards appear, he could not have done so before the summer months of 1506. It is not yet the proper time to discuss the building of S. Peter's. Still, with regard to Bramante's plan, this much may here be said. It was designed in the form of a Greek cross, surmounted with a huge circular dome and flanked by two towers. Bramante used to boast that he meant to raise the Pantheon in the air; and the plan, as preserved for us by Serlio, shows that the cupola would have been constructed after that type. Competent judges, however, declare that insuperable difficulties must have arisen in carrying out this design, while the piers constructed by Bramante were found in effect to be wholly insufficient for their purpose. For the aesthetic beauty and the commodiousness of his building we have the strongest evidence in a letter written by Michelangelo, who was by no means a partial witness. "It cannot be denied," he says, "that Bramante's talent as an architect was equal to that of any one from the times of the ancients until now. He laid the first plan of S. Peter's, not confused, but clear and simple, full of light and detached from surrounding buildings, so that it interfered with no part of the palace. It was considered a very fine design, and indeed any one can see with his own eyes now that it is so. All the architects who departed from Bramante's scheme, as did Antonio da San Gallo, have departed from the truth." Though Michelangelo gave this unstinted praise to Bramante's genius as a builder, he blamed him severely both for his want of honesty as a man, and also for his vandalism in dealing with the venerable church he had to replace. "Bramante," says Condivi, "was addicted, as everybody knows, to every kind of pleasure. He spent enormously, and, though the pension granted him by the Pope was large, he found it insufficient for his needs. Accordingly he made profit out of the works committed to his charge, erecting the walls of poor material, and without regard for the substantial and enduring qualities which fabrics on so huge a scale demanded. This is apparent in the buildings at S. Peter's, the Corridore of the Belvedere, the Convent of San Pietro ad Vincula, and other of his edifices, which have had to be strengthened and propped up with buttresses and similar supports in order to prevent them tumbling down." Bramante, during his residence in Lombardy, developed a method of erecting piers with rubble enclosed by hewn stone or plaster-covered brickwork. This enabled an unconscientious builder to furnish bulky architectural masses, which presented a specious aspect of solidity and looked more costly than they really were. It had the additional merit of being easy and rapid in execution. Bramante was thus able to gratify the whims and caprices of his impatient patron, who desired to see the works of art he ordered rise like the fabric of Aladdin's lamp before his very eyes. Michelangelo is said to have exposed the architect's trickeries to the Pope; what is more, he complained with just and bitter indignation of the wanton ruthlessness with which Bramante set about his work of destruction. I will again quote Condivi here, for the passage seems to have been inspired by the great sculptor's verbal reminiscences: "The worst was, that while he was pulling down the old S. Peter's, he dashed those marvellous antique columns to the ground, without paying the least attention, or caring at all when they were broken into fragments, although he might have lowered them gently and preserved their shafts intact. Michelangelo pointed out that it was an easy thing enough to erect piers by placing brick on brick, but that to fashion a column like one of these taxed all the resources of art." On the 18th of April 1506, Julius performed the ceremony of laying the foundation-stone of the new S. Peter's. The place chosen was the great sustaining pier of the dome, near which the altar of S. Veronica now stands. A deep pit had been excavated, into which the aged Pope descended fearlessly, only shouting to the crowd above that they should stand back and not endanger the falling in of the earth above him. Coins and medals were duly deposited in a vase, over which a ponderous block of marble was lowered, while Julius, bareheaded, sprinkled the stone with holy water and gave the pontifical benediction. On the same day he wrote a letter to Henry VII. of England, informing the King that "by the guidance of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ he had undertaken to restore the old basilica which was perishing through age." V The terms of cordial intimacy which subsisted between Julius and Michelangelo at the close of 1505 were destined to be disturbed. The Pope intermitted his visits to the sculptor's workshop, and began to take but little interest in the monument. Condivi directly ascribes this coldness to the intrigues of Bramante, who whispered into the Pontiff's ear that it was ill-omened for a man to construct his own tomb in his lifetime. It is not at all improbable that he said something of the sort, and Bramante was certainly no good friend to Michelangelo. A manoeuvring and managing individual, entirely unscrupulous in his choice of means, condescending to flattery and lies, he strove to stand as patron between the Pope and subordinate craftsmen. Michelangelo had come to Rome under San Gallo's influence, and Bramante had just succeeded in winning the commission to rebuild S. Peter's over his rival's head. It was important for him to break up San Gallo's party, among whom the sincere and uncompromising Michelangelo threatened to be very formidable. The jealousy which he felt for the man was envenomed by a fear lest he should speak the truth about his own dishonesty. To discredit Michelangelo with the Pope, and, if possible, to drive him out of Rome, was therefore Bramante's interest: more particularly as his own nephew, Raffaello da Urbino, had now made up his mind to join him there. We shall see that he succeeded in expelling both San Gallo and Buonarroti during the course of 1506, and that in their absence he reigned, together with Raffaello, almost alone in the art-circles of the Eternal City. I see no reason, therefore, to discredit the story told by Condivi and Vasari regarding the Pope's growing want of interest in his tomb. Michelangelo himself, writing from Rome in 1542, thirty-six years after these events, says that "all the dissensions between Pope Julius and me arose from the envy of Bramante and Raffaello da Urbino, and this was the cause of my not finishing the tomb in his lifetime. They wanted to ruin me. Raffaello indeed had good reason; for all he had of art he owed to me." But, while we are justified in attributing much to Bramante's intrigues, it must be remembered that the Pope at this time was absorbed in his plans for conquering Bologna. Overwhelmed with business and anxious about money, he could not have had much leisure to converse with sculptors. Michelangelo was still in Rome at the end of January. On the 31st of that month he wrote to his father, complaining that the marbles did not arrive quickly enough, and that he had to keep Julius in good humour with promises. At the same time he begged Lodovico to pack up all his drawings, and to send them, well secured against bad weather, by the hand of a carrier. It is obvious that he had no thoughts of leaving Rome, and that the Pope was still eager about the monument. Early in the spring he assisted at the discovery of the Laocoon. Francesco, the son of Giuliano da San Gallo, describes how Michelangelo was almost always at his father's house; and coming there one day, he went, at the architect's invitation, down to the ruins of the Palace of Titus. "We set off, all three together; I on my father's shoulders. When we descended into the place where the statue lay, my father exclaimed at once, 'That is the Laocoon, of which Pliny speaks.' The opening was enlarged, so that it could be taken out; and after we had sufficiently admired it, we went home to breakfast." Julius bought the marble for 500 crowns, and had it placed in the Belvedere of the Vatican. Scholars praised it in Latin lines of greater or lesser merit, Sadoleto writing even a fine poem; and Michelangelo is said, but without trustworthy authority, to have assisted in its restoration. This is the last glimpse we have of Michelangelo before his flight from Rome. Under what circumstances he suddenly departed may be related in the words of a letter addressed by him to Giuliano da San Gallo in Rome upon the 2nd of May 1506, after his return to Florence. "Giuliano,--Your letter informs me that the Pope was angry at my departure, as also that his Holiness is inclined to proceed with the works agreed upon between us, and that I may return and not be anxious about anything. "About my leaving Rome, it is a fact that on Holy Saturday I heard the Pope, in conversation with a jeweller at table and with the Master of Ceremonies, say that he did not mean to spend a farthing more on stones, small or great. This caused me no little astonishment. However, before I left his presence, I asked for part of the money needed to carry on the work. His Holiness told me to return on Monday. I did so, and on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, and on Thursday, as the Pope saw. At last, on Friday morning, I was sent away, or plainly turned out of doors. The man who did this said he knew me, but that such were his orders. I, who had heard the Pope's words on Saturday, and now perceived their result in deeds, was utterly cast down. This was not, however, quite the only reason of my departure; there was something else, which I do not wish to communicate; enough that it made me think that, if I stayed in Rome, that city would be my tomb before it was the Pope's. And this was the cause of my sudden departure. "Now you write to me at the Pope's instance. So I beg you to read him this letter, and inform his Holiness that I am even more than ever disposed to carry out the work." Further details may be added from subsequent letters of Michelangelo. Writing in January 1524 to his friend Giovanni Francesco Fattucci, he says: "When I had finished paying for the transport of these marbles, and all the money was spent, I furnished the house I had upon the Piazza di S. Pietro with beds and utensils at my own expense, trusting to the commission of the tomb, and sent for workmen from Florence, who are still alive, and paid them in advance out of my own purse. Meanwhile Pope Julius changed his mind about the tomb, and would not have it made. Not knowing this, I applied to him for money, and was expelled from the chamber. Enraged at such an insult, I left Rome on the moment. The things with which my house was stocked went to the dogs. The marbles I had brought to Rome lay till the date of Leo's creation on the Piazza, and both lots were injured and pillaged." Again, a letter of October 1542, addressed to some prelate, contains further particulars. We learn he was so short of money that he had to borrow about 200 ducats from his friend Baldassare Balducci at the bank of Jacopo Gallo. The episode at the Vatican and the flight to Poggibonsi are related thus:-- "To continue my history of the tomb of Julius: I say that when he changed his mind about building it in his lifetime, some ship-loads of marble came to the Ripa, which I had ordered a short while before from Carrara; and as I could not get money from the Pope to pay the freightage, I had to borrow 150 or 200 ducats from Baldassare Balducci, that is, from the bank of Jacopo Gallo. At the same time workmen came from Florence, some of whom are still alive; and I furnished the house which Julius gave me behind S. Caterina with beds and other furniture for the men, and what was wanted for the work of the tomb. All this being done without money, I was greatly embarrassed. Accordingly, I urged the Pope with all my power to go forward with the business, and he had me turned away by a groom one morning when I came to speak upon the matter. A Lucchese bishop, seeing this, said to the groom: 'Do you not know who that man is?' The groom replied to me: 'Excuse me, gentleman; I have orders to do this.' I went home, and wrote as follows to the Pope: 'Most blessed Father, I have been turned out of the palace to-day by your orders; wherefore I give you notice that from this time forward, if you want me, you must look for me elsewhere than at Rome.' I sent this letter to Messer Agostino, the steward, to give it to the Pope. Then I sent for Cosimo, a carpenter, who lived with me and looked after household matters, and a stone-heaver, who is still alive, and said to them: 'Go for a Jew, and sell everything in the house, and come to Florence.' I went, took the post, and travelled towards Florence. The Pope, when he had read my letter, sent five horsemen after me, who reached me at Poggibonsi about three hours after nightfall, and gave me a letter from the Pope to this effect: 'When you have seen these present, come back at once to Rome, under penalty of our displeasure.' The horsemen were anxious I should answer, in order to prove that they had overtaken me. I replied then to the Pope, that if he would perform the conditions he was under with regard to me, I would return; but otherwise he must not expect to have me again. Later on, while I was at Florence, Julius sent three briefs to the Signory. At last the latter sent for me and said: 'We do not want to go to war with Pope Julius because of you. You must return; and if you do so, we will write you letters of such authority that, should he do you harm, he will be doing it to this Signory.' Accordingly I took the letters, and went back to the Pope, and what followed would be long to tell." These passages from Michelangelo's correspondence confirm Condivi's narrative of the flight from Rome, showing that he had gathered his information from the sculptor's lips. Condivi differs only in making Michelangelo send a verbal message, and not a written letter, to the Pope. "Enraged by this repulse, he exclaimed to the groom: 'Tell the Pope that if henceforth he wants me, he must look for me elsewhere.'" It is worth observing that only the first of these letters, written shortly after the event, and intended for the Pope's ear, contains a hint of Michelangelo's dread of personal violence if he remained in Rome. His words seem to point at poison or the dagger. Cellini's autobiography yields sufficient proof that such fears were not unjustified by practical experience; and Bramante, though he preferred to work by treachery of tongue, may have commanded the services of assassins, _uomini arditi e facinorosi_, as they were somewhat euphemistically called. At any rate, it is clear that Michelangelo's precipitate departure and vehement refusal to return were occasioned by more pungent motives than the Pope's frigidity. This has to be noticed, because we learn from several incidents of the same kind in the master's life that he was constitutionally subject to sudden fancies and fears of imminent danger to his person from an enemy. He had already quitted Bologna in haste from dread of assassination or maltreatment at the hands of native sculptors. VI The negotiations which passed between the Pope and the Signory of Florence about what may be called the extradition of Michelangelo form a curious episode in his biography, throwing into powerful relief the importance he had already acquired among the princes of Italy. I propose to leave these for the commencement of my next chapter, and to conclude the present with an account of his occupations during the summer months at Florence. Signor Gotti says that he passed three months away from Julius in his native city. Considering that he arrived before the end of April, and reached Bologna at the end of November 1506, we have the right to estimate this residence at about seven months. A letter written to him from Rome on the 4th of August shows that he had not then left Florence upon any intermediate journey of importance. Therefore there is every reason to suppose that he enjoyed a period of half a year of leisure, which he devoted to finishing his Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa. It had been commenced, as we have seen, in a workshop at the Spedale dei Tintori. When he went to Bologna in the autumn, it was left, exposed presumably to public view, in the Sala del Papa at S. Maria Novella. It had therefore been completed; but it does not appear that Michelangelo had commenced his fresco in the Sala del Gran Consiglio. Lionardo began to paint his Battle of the Standard in March 1505. The work advanced rapidly; but the method he adopted, which consisted in applying oil colours to a fat composition laid thickly on the wall, caused the ruin of his picture. He is said to have wished to reproduce the encaustic process of the ancients, and lighted fires to harden the surface of the fresco. This melted the wax in the lower portions of the paste, and made the colours run. At any rate, no traces of the painting now remain in the Sala del Gran Consiglio, the walls of which are covered by the mechanical and frigid brush-work of Vasari. It has even been suggested that Vasari knew more about the disappearance of his predecessor's masterpiece than he has chosen to relate. Lionardo's Cartoon has also disappeared, and we know the Battle of Anghiari only by Edelinck's engraving from a drawing of Rubens, and by some doubtful sketches. The same fate was in store for Michelangelo's Cartoon. All that remains to us of that great work is the chiaroscuro transcript at Holkham, a sketch for the whole composition in the Albertina Gallery at Vienna, which differs in some important details from the Holkham group, several interesting pen-and-chalk drawings by Michelangelo's own hand, also in the Albertina Collection, and a line-engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi, commonly known as "Les Grimpeurs." We do not know at what exact time Michelangelo finished his Cartoon in 1506. He left it, says Condivi, in the Sala del Papa. Afterwards it must have been transferred to the Sala del Gran Consiglio; for Albertini, in his _Memoriale_, or Guide-Book to Florence, printed in 1510, speaks of both "the works of Lionardo da Vinci and the designs of Michelangelo" as then existing in that hall. Vasari asserts that it was taken to the house of the Medici, and placed in the great upper hall, but gives no date. This may have taken place on the return of the princely family in 1512. Cellini confirms this view, since he declares that when he was copying the Cartoon, which could hardly have happened before 1513, the Battle of Pisa was at the Palace of the Medici, and the Battle of Anghiari at the Sala del Papa. The way in which it finally disappeared is involved in some obscurity, owing to Vasari's spite and mendacity. In the first, or 1550, edition of the "Lives of the Painters," he wrote as follows: "Having become a regular object of study to artists, the Cartoon was carried to the house of the Medici, into the great upper hall; and this was the reason that it came with too little safeguard into the hands of those said artists: inasmuch as, during the illness of the Duke Giuliano, when no one attended to such matters, it was torn in pieces by them and scattered abroad, so that fragments may be found in many places, as is proved by those existing now in the house of Uberto Strozzi, a gentleman of Mantua, who holds them in great respect." When Vasari published his second edition, in 1568, he repeated this story of the destruction of the Cartoon, but with a very significant alteration. Instead of saying "it was torn in pieces _by them_" he now printed "it was torn in pieces, _as hath been told elsewhere_." Now Bandinelli, Vasari's mortal enemy, and the scapegoat for all the sins of his generation among artists, died in 1559, and Vasari felt that he might safely defame his memory. Accordingly he introduced a Life of Bandinelli into the second edition of his work, containing the following passage: "Baccio was in the habit of frequenting the place where the Cartoon stood more than any other artists, and had in his possession a false key; what follows happened at the time when Piero Soderini was deposed in 1512, and the Medici returned. Well, then, while the palace was in tumult and confusion through this revolution, Baccio went alone, and tore the Cartoon into a thousand fragments. Why he did so was not known; but some surmised that he wanted to keep certain pieces of it by him for his own use; some, that he wished to deprive young men of its advantages in study; some, that he was moved by affection for Lionardo da Vinci, who suffered much in reputation by this design; some, perhaps with sharper intuition, believed that the hatred he bore to Michelangelo inspired him to commit the act. The loss of the Cartoon to the city was no slight one, and Baccio deserved the blame he got, for everybody called him envious and spiteful." This second version stands in glaring contradiction to the first, both as regards the date and the place where the Cartoon was destroyed. It does not, I think, deserve credence, for Cellini, who was a boy of twelve in 1512, could hardly have drawn from it before that date; and if Bandinelli was so notorious for his malignant vandalism as Vasari asserts, it is most improbable that Cellini, while speaking of the Cartoon in connection with Torrigiano, should not have taken the opportunity to cast a stone at the man whom he detested more than any one in Florence. Moreover, if Bandinelli had wanted to destroy the Cartoon for any of the reasons above assigned to him, he would not have dispersed fragments to be treasured up with reverence. At the close of this tedious summary I ought to add that Condivi expressly states: "I do not know by what ill-fortune it subsequently came to ruin." He adds, however, that many of the pieces were found about in various places, and that all of them were preserved like sacred objects. We have, then, every reason to believe that the story told in Vasari's first edition is the literal truth. Copyists and engravers used their opportunity, when the palace of the Medici was thrown into disorder by the severe illness of the Duke of Nemours, to take away portions of Michelangelo's Cartoon for their own use in 1516. Of the Cartoon and its great reputation, Cellini gives us this account: "Michelangelo portrayed a number of foot-soldiers, who, the season being summer, had gone to bathe in the Arno. He drew them at the very moment the alarm is sounded, and the men all naked run to arms; so splendid is their action, that nothing survives of ancient or of modern art, which touches the same lofty point of excellence; and, as I have already said, the design of the great Lionardo was itself most admirably beautiful. These two Cartoons stood, one in the palace of the Medici, the other in the hall of the Pope. So long as they remained intact, they were the school of the world. Though the divine Michelangelo in later life finished that great chapel of Pope Julius (the Sistine), he never rose halfway to the same pitch of power; his genius never afterwards attained to the force of those first studies." Allowing for some exaggeration due to enthusiasm for things enjoyed in early youth, this is a very remarkable statement. Cellini knew the frescoes of the Sistine well, yet he maintains that they were inferior in power and beauty to the Battle of Pisa. It seems hardly credible; but, if we believe it, the legend of Michelangelo's being unable to execute his own designs for the vault of that chapel falls to the ground. VII The great Cartoon has become less even than a memory, and so, perhaps, we ought to leave it in the limbo of things inchoate and unaccomplished. But this it was not, most emphatically. Decidedly it had its day, lived and sowed seeds for good or evil through its period of brief existence: so many painters of the grand style took their note from it; it did so much to introduce the last phase of Italian art, the phase of efflorescence, the phase deplored by critics steeped in mediaeval feeling. To recapture something of its potency from the description of contemporaries is therefore our plain duty, and for this we must have recourse to Vasari's text. He says: "Michelangelo filled his canvas with nude men, who, bathing at the time of summer heat in Arno, were suddenly called to arms, the enemy assailing them. The soldiers swarmed up from the river to resume their clothes; and here you could behold depicted by the master's godlike hands one hurrying to clasp his limbs in steel and give assistance to his comrades, another buckling on the cuirass, and many seizing this or that weapon, with cavalry in squadrons giving the attack. Among the multitude of figures, there was an old man, who wore upon his head an ivy wreath for shade. Seated on the ground, in act to draw his hose up, he was hampered by the wetness of his legs; and while he heard the clamour of the soldiers, the cries, the rumbling of the drums, he pulled with all his might; all the muscles and sinews of his body were seen in strain; and what was more, the contortion of his mouth showed what agony of haste he suffered, and how his whole frame laboured to the toe-tips. Then there were drummers and men with flying garments, who ran stark naked toward the fray. Strange postures too: this fellow upright, that man kneeling, or bent down, or on the point of rising; all in the air foreshortened with full conquest over every difficulty. In addition, you discovered groups of figures sketched in various methods, some outlined with charcoal, some etched with strokes, some shadowed with the stump, some relieved in white-lead; the master having sought to prove his empire over all materials of draughtsmanship. The craftsmen of design remained therewith astonished and dumbfounded, recognising the furthest reaches of their art revealed to them by this unrivalled masterpiece. Those who examined the forms I have described, painters who inspected and compared them with works hardly less divine, affirm that never in the history of human achievement was any product of a man's brain seen like to them in mere supremacy. And certainly we have the right to believe this; for when the Cartoon was finished, and carried to the Hall of the Pope, amid the acclamation of all artists, and to the exceeding fame of Michelangelo, the students who made drawings from it, as happened with foreigners and natives through many years in Florence, became men of mark in several branches. This is obvious, for Aristotele da San Gallo worked there, as did Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, Francesco Granaccio, Baccio Bandinelli, and Alonso Berughetta, the Spaniard; they were followed by Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio, Jacopo Sansovino, Rosso, Maturino, Lorenzetto, Tribolo, then a boy, Jacopo da Pontormo, and Pierin del Vaga: all of them first-rate masters of the Florentine school." It does not appear from this that Vasari pretended to have seen the great Cartoon. Born in 1512, he could not indeed have done so; but there breathes through his description a gust of enthusiasm, an afflatus of concurrent witnesses to its surpassing grandeur. Some of the details raise a suspicion that Vasari had before his eyes the transcript _en grisaille_ which he says was made by Aristotele da San Gallo, and also the engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi. The prominence given to the ivy-crowned old soldier troubled by his hose confirms the accuracy of the Holkham picture and the Albertina drawing. But none of these partial transcripts left to us convey that sense of multitude, space, and varied action which Vasari's words impress on the imagination. The fullest, that at Holkham, contains nineteen figures, and these are schematically arranged in three planes, with outlying subjects in foreground and background. Reduced in scale, and treated with the arid touch of a feeble craftsman, the linear composition suggests no large aesthetic charm. It is simply a bas-relief of carefully selected attitudes and vigorously studied movements --nineteen men, more or less unclothed, put together with the scientific view of illustrating possibilities and conquering difficulties in postures of the adult male body. The extraordinary effect, as of something superhuman, produced by the Cartoon upon contemporaries, and preserved for us in Cellini's and Vasari's narratives, must then have been due to unexampled qualities of strength in conception, draughtsmanship, and execution. It stung to the quick an age of artists who had abandoned the representation of religious sentiment and poetical feeling for technical triumphs and masterly solutions of mechanical problems in the treatment of the nude figure. We all know how much more than this Michelangelo had in him to give, and how unjust it would be to judge a masterpiece from his hand by the miserable relics now at our disposal. Still I cannot refrain from thinking that the Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa, taken up by him as a field for the display of his ability, must, by its very brilliancy, have accelerated the ruin of Italian art. Cellini, we saw, placed it above the frescoes of the Sistine. In force, veracity, and realism it may possibly have been superior to those sublime productions. Everything we know about the growth of Michelangelo's genius leads us to suppose that he departed gradually but surely from the path of Nature. He came, however, to use what he had learned from Nature as means for the expression of soul-stimulating thoughts. This, the finest feature of his genius, no artist of the age was capable of adequately comprehending. Accordingly, they agreed in extolling a cartoon which displayed his faculty of dealing with _un bel corpo ignudo_ as the climax of his powers. As might be expected, there was no landscape in the Cartoon. Michelangelo handled his subject wholly from the point of view of sculpture. A broken bank and a retreating platform, a few rocks in the distance and a few waved lines in the foreground, showed that the naked men were by a river. Michelangelo's unrelenting contempt for the many-formed and many-coloured stage on which we live and move--his steady determination to treat men and women as nudities posed in the void, with just enough of solid substance beneath their feet to make their attitudes intelligible--is a point which must over and over again be insisted on. In the psychology of the master, regarded from any side one likes to take, this constitutes his leading characteristic. It gives the key, not only to his talent as an artist, but also to his temperament as a man. Marcantonio seems to have felt and resented the aridity of composition, the isolation of plastic form, the tyranny of anatomical science, which even the most sympathetic of us feel in Michelangelo. This master's engraving of three lovely nudes, the most charming memento preserved to us from the Cartoon, introduces a landscape of grove and farm, field and distant hill, lending suavity to the muscular male body and restoring it to its proper place among the sinuous lines and broken curves of Nature. That the landscape was adapted from a copper-plate of Lucas van Leyden signifies nothing. It serves the soothing purpose which sensitive nerves, irritated by Michelangelo's aloofness from all else but thought and naked flesh and posture, gratefully acknowledge. While Michelangelo was finishing his Cartoon, Lionardo da Vinci was painting his fresco. Circumstances may have brought the two chiefs of Italian art frequently together in the streets of Florence. There exists an anecdote of one encounter, which, though it rests upon the credit of an anonymous writer, and does not reflect a pleasing light upon the hero of this biography, cannot be neglected. "Lionardo," writes our authority, "was a man of fair presence, well-proportioned, gracefully endowed, and of fine aspect. He wore a tunic of rose-colour, falling to his knees; for at that time it was the fashion to carry garments of some length; and down to the middle of his breast there flowed a beard beautifully curled and well arranged. Walking with a friend near S. Trinità, where a company of honest folk were gathered, and talk was going on about some passage from Dante, they called to Lionardo, and begged him to explain its meaning. It so happened that just at this moment Michelangelo went by, and, being hailed by one of them, Lionardo answered: 'There goes Michelangelo; he will interpret the verses you require.' Whereupon Michelangelo, who thought he spoke in this way to make fun of him, replied in anger: 'Explain them yourself, you who made the model of a horse to cast in bronze, and could not cast it, and to your shame left it in the lurch.' With these words, he turned his back to the group, and went his way. Lionardo remained standing there, red in the face for the reproach cast at him; and Michelangelo, not satisfied, but wanting to sting him to the quick, added: 'And those Milanese capons believed in your ability to do it!'" We can only take anecdotes for what they are worth, and that may perhaps be considered slight when they are anonymous. This anecdote, however, in the original Florentine diction, although it betrays a partiality for Lionardo, bears the aspect of truth to fact. Moreover, even Michelangelo's admirers are bound to acknowledge that he had a rasping tongue, and was not incapable of showing his bad temper by rudeness. From the period of his boyhood, when Torrigiano smashed his nose, down to the last years of his life in Rome, when he abused his nephew Lionardo and hurt the feelings of his best and oldest friends, he discovered signs of a highly nervous and fretful temperament. It must be admitted that the dominant qualities of nobility and generosity in his nature were alloyed by suspicion bordering on littleness, and by petulant yieldings to the irritation of the moment which are incompatible with the calm of an Olympian genius. CHAPTER V I While Michelangelo was living and working at Florence, Bramante had full opportunity to poison the Pope's mind in Rome. It is commonly believed, on the faith of a sentence in Condivi, that Bramante, when he dissuaded Julius from building the tomb in his own lifetime, suggested the painting of the Sistine Chapel. We are told that he proposed Michelangelo for this work, hoping his genius would be hampered by a task for which he was not fitted. There are many improbabilities in this story; not the least being our certainty that the fame of the Cartoon must have reached Bramante before Michelangelo's arrival in the first months of 1505. But the Cartoon did not prove that Buonarroti was a practical wall-painter or colourist; and we have reason to believe that Julius had himself conceived the notion of intrusting the Sistine to his sculptor. A good friend of Michelangelo, Pietro Rosselli, wrote this letter on the subject, May 6, 1506: "Last Saturday evening, when the Pope was at supper, I showed him some designs which Bramante and I had to test; so, after supper, when I had displayed them, he called for Bramante, and said: 'San Gallo is going to Florence to-morrow, and will bring Michelangelo back with him.' Bramante answered: 'Holy Father, he will not be able to do anything of the kind. I have conversed much with Michelangelo, and he has often told me that he would not undertake the chapel, which you wanted to put upon him; and that, you notwithstanding, he meant only to apply himself to sculpture, and would have nothing to do with painting.' To this he added: 'Holy Father, I do not think he has the courage to attempt the work, because he has small experience in painting figures, and these will be raised high above the line of vision, and in foreshortening (i.e., because of the vault). That is something different from painting on the ground.' The Pope replied: 'If he does not come, he will do me wrong; and so I think that he is sure to return.' Upon this I up and gave the man a sound rating in the Pope's presence, and spoke as I believe you would have spoken for me; and for the time he was struck dumb, as though he felt that he had made a mistake in talking as he did. I proceeded as follows: 'Holy Father, that man never exchanged a word with Michelangelo, and if what he has just said is the truth, I beg you to cut my head off, for he never spoke to Michelangelo; also I feel sure that he is certain to return, if your Holiness requires it.'" This altercation throws doubt on the statement that Bramante originally suggested Michelangelo as painter of the Sistine. He could hardly have turned round against his own recommendation; and, moreover, it is likely that he would have wished to keep so great a work in the hands of his own set, Raffaello, Peruzzi, Sodoma, and others. Meanwhile, Michelangelo's friends in Rome wrote, encouraging him to come back. They clearly thought that he was hazarding both profit and honour if he stayed away. But Michelangelo, whether the constitutional timidity of which I have spoken, or other reasons damped his courage, felt that he could not trust to the Pope's mercies. What effect San Gallo may have had upon him, supposing this architect arrived in Florence at the middle of May, can only be conjectured. The fact remains that he continued stubborn for a time. In the lengthy autobiographical letter written to some prelate in 1542, Michelangelo relates what followed: "Later on, while I was at Florence, Julius sent three briefs to the Signory. At last the latter sent for me and said: 'We do not want to go to war with Pope Julius because of you. You must return; and if you do so, we will write you letters of such authority that, should he do you harm, he will be doing it to this Signory.' Accordingly I took the letters, and went back to the Pope." Condivi gives a graphic account of the transaction which ensued. "During the months he stayed in Florence three papal briefs were sent to the Signory, full of threats, commanding that he should be sent back by fair means or by force. Piero Soderini, who was Gonfalonier for life at that time, had sent him against his own inclination to Rome when Julius first asked for him. Accordingly, when the first of these briefs arrived, he did not compel Michelangelo to go, trusting that the Pope's anger would calm down. But when the second and the third were sent, he called Michelangelo and said: 'You have tried a bout with the Pope on which the King of France would not have ventured; therefore you must not go on letting yourself be prayed for. We do not wish to go to war on your account with him, and put our state in peril. Make your mind up to return.' Michelangelo, seeing himself brought to this pass, and still fearing the anger of the Pope, bethought him of taking refuge in the East. The Sultan indeed besought him with most liberal promises, through the means of certain Franciscan friars, to come and construct a bridge from Constantinople to Pera, and to execute other great works. When the Gonfalonier got wind of this intention he sent for Michelangelo and used these arguments to dissuade him: 'It were better to choose death with the Pope than to keep in life by going to the Turk. Nevertheless, there is no fear of such an ending; for the Pope is well disposed, and sends for you because he loves you, not to do you harm. If you are afraid, the Signory will send you with the title of ambassador; forasmuch as public personages are never treated with violence, since this would be done to those who send them.'" We only possess one brief from Julius to the Signory of Florence. It is dated Rome, July 8, 1506, and contains this passage: "Michelangelo the sculptor, who left us without reason, and in mere caprice, is afraid, as we are informed, of returning, though we for our part are not angry with him, knowing the humours of such men of genius. In order, then, that he may lay aside all anxiety, we rely on your loyalty to convince him in our name, that if he returns to us, he shall be uninjured and unhurt, retaining our apostolic favour in the same measure as he formerly enjoyed it." The date, July 8, is important in this episode of Michelangelo's life. Soderini sent back an answer to the Pope's brief within a few days, affirming that "Michelangelo the sculptor is so terrified that, notwithstanding the promise of his Holiness, it will be necessary for the Cardinal of Pavia to write a letter signed by his own hand to us, guaranteeing his safety and immunity. We have done, and are doing, all we can to make him go back; assuring your Lordship that, unless he is gently handled, he will quit Florence, as he has already twice wanted to do." This letter is followed by another addressed to the Cardinal of Volterra under date July 28. Soderini repeats that Michelangelo will not budge, because he has as yet received no definite safe-conduct. It appears that in the course of August the negotiations had advanced to a point at which Michelangelo was willing to return. On the last day of the month the Signory drafted a letter to the Cardinal of Pavia in which they say that "Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, citizen of Florence, and greatly loved by us, will exhibit these letters present, having at last been persuaded to repose confidence in his Holiness." They add that he is coming in good spirits and with good-will. Something may have happened to renew his terror, for this despatch was not delivered, and nothing more is heard of the transaction till toward the close of November. It is probable, however, that Soderini suddenly discovered how little Michelangelo was likely to be wanted; Julius, on the 27th of August, having started on what appeared to be his mad campaign against Perugia and Bologna. On the 21st of November following the Cardinal of Pavia sent an autograph letter from Bologna to the Signory, urgently requesting that they would despatch Michelangelo immediately to that town, inasmuch as the Pope was impatient for his arrival, and wanted to employ him on important works. Six days later, November 27, Soderini writes two letters, one to the Cardinal of Pavia and one to the Cardinal of Volterra, which finally conclude the whole business. The epistle to Volterra begins thus: "The bearer of these present will be Michelangelo, the sculptor, whom we send to please and satisfy his Holiness. We certify that he is an excellent young man, and in his own art without peer in Italy, perhaps also in the universe. We cannot recommend him more emphatically. His nature is such, that with good words and kindness, if these are given him, he will do everything; one has to show him love and treat him kindly, and he will perform things which will make the whole world wonder." The letter to Pavia is written more familiarly, reading like a private introduction. In both of them Soderini enhances the service he is rendering the Pope by alluding to the magnificent design for the Battle of Pisa which Michelangelo must leave unfinished. Before describing his reception at Bologna, it may be well to quote two sonnets here which throw an interesting light upon Michelangelo's personal feeling for Julius and his sense of the corruption of the Roman Curia. The first may well have been written during this residence at Florence; and the autograph of the second has these curious words added at the foot of the page: "_Vostro Michelagniolo_, in Turchia." Rome itself, the Sacred City, has become a land of infidels, and Michelangelo, whose thoughts are turned to the Levant, implies that he would find himself no worse off with the Sultan than the Pope. _My Lord! If ever ancient saw spake sooth, Hear this which saith: Who can doth never will. Lo, thou hast lent thine ear to fables still. Rewarding those who hate the name of truth. I am thy drudge, and have been from my youth-- Thine, like the rays which the sun's circle fill; Yet of my dear time's waste thou think'st no ill: The more I toil, the less I move thy ruth. Once 'twas my hope to raise me by thy height; But 'tis the balance and the powerful sword Of Justice, not false Echo, that we need. Heaven, as it seems, plants virtue in despite Here on the earth, if this be our reward-- To seek for fruit on trees too dry to breed. Here helms and swords are made of chalices: The blood of Christ is sold so much the quart: His cross and thorns are spears and shields; and short Must be the time ere even His patience cease._ _Nay, let Him come no more to raise the fees. Of this foul sacrilege beyond, report: For Rome still flays and sells Him at the court, Where paths are closed, to virtue's fair increase, Now were fit time for me to scrape a treasure, Seeing that work and gain are gone; while he Who wears the robe, is my Medusa still. God welcomes poverty perchance with pleasure: But of that better life what hope have we, When the blessed banner leads to nought but ill?_ While Michelangelo was planning frescoes and venting his bile in sonnets, the fiery Pope had started on his perilous career of conquest. He called the Cardinals together, and informed them that he meant to free the cities of Perugia and Bologna from their tyrants. God, he said, would protect His Church; he could rely on the support of France and Florence. Other Popes had stirred up wars and used the services of generals; he meant to take the field in person. Louis XII. is reported to have jeered among his courtiers at the notion of a high-priest riding to the wars. A few days afterwards, on the 27th of August, the Pope left Rome attended by twenty-four cardinals and 500 men-at-arms. He had previously secured the neutrality of Venice and a promise of troops from the French court. When Julius reached Orvieto, he was met by Gianpaolo Baglioni, the bloody and licentious despot of Perugia. Notwithstanding Baglioni knew that Julius was coming to assert his supremacy, and notwithstanding the Pope knew that this might drive to desperation a man so violent and stained with crime as Baglioni, they rode together to Perugia, where Gianpaolo paid homage and supplied his haughty guest with soldiers. The rashness of this act of Julius sent a thrill of admiration throughout Italy, stirring that sense of _terribilità_ which fascinated the imagination of the Renaissance. Machiavelli, commenting upon the action of the Baglioni, remarks that the event proved how difficult it is for a man to be perfectly and scientifically wicked. Gianpaolo, he says, murdered his relations, oppressed his subjects, and boasted of being a father by his sister; yet, when he got his worst enemy into his clutches, he had not the spirit to be magnificently criminal, and murder or imprison Julius. From Perugia the Pope crossed the Apennines, and found himself at Imola upon the 20th of October. There he received news that the French governor of Milan, at the order of his king, was about to send him a reinforcement of 600 lances and 3000 foot-soldiers. This announcement, while it cheered the heart of Julius, struck terror into the Bentivogli, masters of Bologna. They left their city and took refuge in Milan, while the people of Bologna sent envoys to the Pope's camp, surrendering their town and themselves to his apostolic clemency. On the 11th of November, S. Martin's day, Giuliano della Rovere made his triumphal entry into Bologna, having restored two wealthy provinces to the states of the Church by a stroke of sheer audacity, unparalleled in the history of any previous pontiff. Ten days afterwards we find him again renewing negotiations with the Signory for the extradition of Michelangelo. II "Arriving then one morning at Bologna, and going to hear Mass at S. Petronio, there met him the Pope's grooms of the stable, who immediately recognised him, and brought him into the presence of his Holiness, then at table in the Palace of the Sixteen. When the Pope beheld him, his face clouded with anger, and he cried: 'It was your duty to come to seek us, and you have waited till we came to seek you; meaning thereby that his Holiness having travelled to Bologna, which is much nearer to Florence than Rome, he had come to find him out. Michelangelo knelt, and prayed for pardon in a loud voice, pleading in his excuse that he had not erred through forwardness, but through great distress of mind, having been unable to endure the expulsion he received. The Pope remained holding his head low and answering nothing, evidently much agitated; when a certain prelate, sent by Cardinal Soderini to put in a good word for Michelangelo, came forward and said: 'Your Holiness might overlook his fault; he did wrong through ignorance: these painters, outside their art, are all like this.' Thereupon the Pope answered in a fury: 'It is you, not I, who are insulting him. It is you, not he, who are the ignoramus and the rascal. Get hence out of my sight, and bad luck to you!' When the fellow did not move, he was cast forth by the servants, as Michelangelo used to relate, with good round kicks and thumpings. So the Pope, having spent the surplus of his bile upon the bishop, took Michelangelo apart and pardoned him. Not long afterwards he sent for him and said: 'I wish you to make my statue on a large scale in bronze. I mean to place it on the façade of San Petronio.' When he went to Rome in course of time, he left 1000 ducats at the bank of Messer Antonmaria da Lignano for this purpose. But before he did so Michelangelo had made the clay model. Being in some doubt how to manage the left hand, after making the Pope give the benediction with the right, he asked Julius, who had come to see the statue, if he would like it to hold a book. 'What book?' replied he: 'a sword! I know nothing about letters, not I.' Jesting then about the right hand, which was vehement in action, he said with a smile to Michelangelo: 'That statue of yours, is it blessing or cursing?' To which the sculptor replied: 'Holy Father, it is threatening this people of Bologna if they are not prudent.'" Michelangelo's letter to Fattucci confirms Condivi's narrative. "When Pope Julius went to Bologna the first time, I was forced to go there with a rope round my neck to beg his pardon. He ordered me to make his portrait in bronze, sitting, about seven cubits (14 feet) in height. When he asked what it would cost, I answered that I thought I could cast it for 1000 ducats; but that this was not my trade, and that I did not wish to undertake it. He answered: 'Go to work; you shall cast it over and over again till it succeeds; and I will give you enough to satisfy your wishes.' To put it briefly, I cast the statue twice; and at the end of two years, at Bologna, I found that I had four and a half ducats left. I never received anything more for this job; and all the moneys I paid out during the said two years were the 1000 ducats with which I promised to cast it. These were disbursed to me in instalments by Messer Antonio Maria da Legnano, a Bolognese." The statue must have been more than thrice life-size, if it rose fourteen feet in a sitting posture. Michelangelo worked at the model in a hall called the Stanza del Pavaglione behind the Cathedral. Three experienced workmen were sent, at his request, from Florence, and he began at once upon the arduous labour. His domestic correspondence, which at this period becomes more copious and interesting, contains a good deal of information concerning his residence at Bologna. His mode of life, as usual, was miserable and penurious in the extreme. This man, about whom popes and cardinals and gonfaloniers had been corresponding, now hired a single room with one bed in it, where, as we have seen, he slept together with his three assistants. There can be no doubt that such eccentric habits prevented Michelangelo from inspiring his subordinates with due respect. The want of control over servants and workmen, which is a noticeable feature of his private life, may in part be attributed to this cause. And now, at Bologna, he soon got into trouble with the three craftsmen he had engaged to help him. They were Lapo d'Antonio di Lapo, a sculptor at the Opera del Duomo; Lodovico del Buono, surnamed Lotti, a metal-caster and founder of cannon; and Pietro Urbano, a craftsman who continued long in his service. Lapo boasted that he was executing the statue in partnership with Michelangelo and upon equal terms, which did not seem incredible considering their association in a single bedroom. Beside this, he intrigued and cheated in money matters. The master felt that he must get rid of him, and send the fellow back to Florence. Lapo, not choosing to go alone, lest the truth of the affair should be apparent, persuaded Lodovico to join him; and when they reached home, both began to calumniate their master. Michelangelo, knowing that they were likely to do so, wrote to his brother Buonarroto on the 1st of February 1507: "I inform you further how on Friday morning I sent away Lapo and Lodovico, who were in my service. Lapo, because he is good for nothing and a rogue, and could not serve me. Lodovico is better, and I should have been willing to keep him another two months, but Lapo, in order to prevent blame falling on himself alone, worked upon the other so that both went away together. I write you this, not that I regard them, for they are not worth three farthings, the pair of them, but because if they come to talk to Lodovico (Buonarroti) he must not be surprised at what they say. Tell him by no means to lend them his ears; and if you want to be informed about them, go to Messer Angelo, the herald of the Signory; for I have written the whole story to him, and he will, out of his kindly feeling, tell you just what happened." In spite of these precautions, Lapo seems to have gained the ear of Michelangelo's father, who wrote a scolding letter in his usual puzzle-headed way. Michelangelo replied in a tone of real and ironical humility, which is exceedingly characteristic: "Most revered father, I have received a letter from you to-day, from which I learn that you have been informed by Lapo and Lodovico. I am glad that you should rebuke me, because I deserve to be rebuked as a ne'er-do-well and sinner as much as any one, or perhaps more. But you must know that I have not been guilty in the affair for which you take me to task now, neither as regards them nor any one else, except it be in doing more than was my duty." After this exordium he proceeds to give an elaborate explanation of his dealings with Lapo, and the man's roguery. The correspondence with Buonarroto turns to a considerable extent upon a sword-hilt which Michelangelo designed for the Florentine, Pietro Aldobrandini. It was the custom then for gentlemen to carry swords and daggers with hilt and scabbard wonderfully wrought by first-rate artists. Some of these, still extant, are among the most exquisite specimens of sixteenth-century craft. This little affair gave Michelangelo considerable trouble. First of all, the man who had to make the blade was long about it. From the day when the Pope came to Bologna, he had more custom than all the smiths in the city were used in ordinary times to deal with. Then, when the weapon reached Florence, it turned out to be too short. Michelangelo affirmed that he had ordered it exactly to the measure sent, adding that Aldobrandini was "probably not born to wear a dagger at his belt." He bade his brother present it to Filippo Strozzi, as a compliment from the Buonarroti family; but the matter was bungled. Probably Buonarroto tried to get some valuable equivalent; for Michelangelo writes to say that he is sorry "he behaved so scurvily toward Filippo in so trifling an affair." Nothing at all transpires in these letters regarding the company kept by Michelangelo at Bologna. The few stories related by tradition which refer to this period are not much to the sculptor's credit for courtesy. The painter Francia, for instance, came to see the statue, and made the commonplace remark that he thought it very well cast and of excellent bronze. Michelangelo took this as an insult to his design, and replied: "I owe the same thanks to Pope Julius who supplied the metal, as you do to the colourmen who sell you paints." Then, turning to some gentlemen present there, he added that Francia was "a blockhead." Francia had a son remarkable for youthful beauty. When Michelangelo first saw him he asked whose son he was, and, on being informed, uttered this caustic compliment: "Your father makes handsomer living figures than he paints them." On some other occasion, a stupid Bolognese gentleman asked whether he thought his statue or a pair of oxen were the bigger. Michelangelo replied: "That is according to the oxen. If Bolognese, oh! then with a doubt ours of Florence are smaller." Possibly Albrecht Dürer may have met him in the artistic circles of Bologna, since he came from Venice on a visit during these years; but nothing is known about their intercourse. III Julius left Bologna on the 22nd of February 1507. Michelangelo remained working diligently at his model. In less than three months it was nearly ready to be cast. Accordingly, the sculptor, who had no practical knowledge of bronze-founding, sent to Florence for a man distinguished in that craft, Maestro dal Ponte of Milan. During the last three years he had been engaged as Master of the Ordnance under the Republic. His leave of absence was signed upon the 15th of May 1507. Meanwhile the people of Bologna were already planning revolution. The Bentivogli retained a firm hereditary hold on their affections, and the government of priests is never popular, especially among the nobles of a state. Michelangelo writes to his brother Giovan Simone (May 2) describing the bands of exiles who hovered round the city and kept its burghers in alarm: "The folk are stifling in their coats of mail; for during four days past the whole county is under arms, in great confusion and peril, especially the party of the Church." The Papal Legate, Francesco Alidosi, Cardinal of Pavia, took such prompt measures that the attacking troops were driven back. He also executed some of the citizens who had intrigued with the exiled family. The summer was exceptionally hot, and plague hung about; all articles of food were dear and bad. Michelangelo felt miserable, and fretted to be free; but the statue kept him hard at work. When the time drew nigh for the great operation, he wrote in touching terms to Buonarroto: "Tell Lodovico (their father) that in the middle of next month I hope to cast my figure without fail. Therefore, if he wishes to offer prayers or aught else for its good success, let him do so betimes, and say that I beg this of him." Nearly the whole of June elapsed, and the business still dragged on. At last, upon the 1st of July, he advised his brother thus: "We have cast my figure, and it has come out so badly that I verily believe I shall have to do it all over again. I reserve details, for I have other things to think of. Enough that it has gone wrong. Still I thank God, because I take everything for the best." From the next letter we learn that only the lower half of the statue, up to the girdle, was properly cast. The metal for the rest remained in the furnace, probably in the state of what Cellini called a cake. The furnace had to be pulled down and rebuilt, so as to cast the upper half. Michelangelo adds that he does not know whether Master Bernardino mismanaged the matter from ignorance or bad luck. "I had such faith in him that I thought he could have cast the statue without fire. Nevertheless, there is no denying that he is an able craftsman, and that he worked with good-will. Well, he has failed, to my loss and also to his own, seeing he gets so much blame that he dares not lift his head up in Bologna." The second casting must have taken place about the 8th of July; for on the 10th Michelangelo writes that it is done, but the clay is too hot for the result to be reported, and Bernardino left yesterday. When the statue was uncovered, he was able to reassure his brother: "My affair might have turned out much better, and also much worse. At all events, the whole is there, so far as I can see; for it is not yet quite disengaged. I shall want, I think, some months to work it up with file and hammer, because it has come out rough. Well, well, there is much to thank God for; as I said, it might have been worse." On making further discoveries, he finds that the cast is far less bad than he expected; but the labour of cleaning it with polishing tools proved longer and more irksome than he expected: "I am exceedingly anxious to get away home, for here I pass my life in huge discomfort and with extreme fatigue. I work night and day, do nothing else; and the labour I am forced to undergo is such, that if I had to begin the whole thing over again, I do not think I could survive it. Indeed, the undertaking has been one of enormous difficulty; and if it had been in the hand of another man, we should have fared but ill with it. However, I believe that the prayers of some one have sustained and kept me in health, because all Bologna thought I should never bring it to a proper end." We can see that Michelangelo was not unpleased with the result; and the statue must have been finished soon after the New Year. However, he could not leave Bologna. On the 18th of February 1508 he writes to Buonarroto that he is kicking his heels, having received orders from the Pope to stay until the bronze was placed. Three days later--that is, upon the 21st of February--the Pope's portrait was hoisted to its pedestal above the great central door of S. Petronio. It remained there rather less than three years. When the Papal Legate fled from Bologna in 1511, and the party of the Bentivogli gained the upper hand, they threw the mighty mass of sculptured bronze, which had cost its maker so much trouble, to the ground. That happened on the 30th of December. The Bentivogli sent it to the Duke Alfonso d'Este of Ferrara, who was a famous engineer and gunsmith. He kept the head intact, but cast a huge cannon out of part of the material, which took the name of La Giulia. What became of the head is unknown. It is said to have weighed 600 pounds. So perished another of Michelangelo's masterpieces; and all we know for certain about the statue is that Julius was seated, in full pontificals, with the triple tiara on his head, raising the right hand to bless, and holding the keys of S. Peter in the left. Michelangelo reached Florence early in March. On the 18th of that month he began again to occupy his house at Borgo Pinti, taking it this time on hire from the Operai del Duomo. We may suppose, therefore, that he intended to recommence work on the Twelve Apostles. A new project seems also to have been started by his friend Soderini--that of making him erect a colossal statue of Hercules subduing Cacus opposite the David. The Gonfalonier was in correspondence with the Marquis of Carrara on the 10th of May about a block of marble for this giant; but Michelangelo at that time had returned to Rome, and of the Cacus we shall hear more hereafter. IV When Julius received news that his statue had been duly cast and set up in its place above the great door of S. Petronio, he began to be anxious to have Michelangelo once more near his person. The date at which the sculptor left Florence again for Rome is fixed approximately by the fact that Lodovico Buonarroti emancipated his son from parental control upon the 13th of March 1508. According to Florentine law, Michelangelo was not of age, nor master over his property and person, until this deed had been executed. In the often-quoted letter to Fattucci he says: "The Pope was still unwilling that I should complete the tomb, and ordered me to paint the vault of the Sistine. We agreed for 3000 ducats. The first design I made for this work had twelve apostles in the lunettes, the remainder being a certain space filled in with ornamental details, according to the usual manner. After I had begun, it seemed to me that this would turn out rather meanly; and I told the Pope that the Apostles alone would yield a poor effect, in my opinion. He asked me why. I answered, 'Because they too were poor.' Then he gave me commission to do what I liked best, and promised to satisfy my claims for the work, and told me to paint down the pictured histories upon the lower row." There is little doubt that Michelangelo disliked beginning this new work, and that he would have greatly preferred to continue the sepulchral monument, for which he had made such vast and costly preparations. He did not feel certain how he should succeed in fresco on a large scale, not having had any practice in that style of painting since he was a prentice under Ghirlandajo. It is true that the Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa had been a splendid success; still this, as we have seen, was not coloured, but executed in various methods of outline and chiaroscuro. Later on, while seriously engaged upon the Sistine, he complains to his father: "I am still in great distress of mind, because it is now a year since I had a farthing from the Pope; and I do not ask, because my work is not going forward in a way that seems to me to deserve it. That comes from its difficulty, and also _from this not being my trade._ And so I waste my time without results. God help me." We may therefore believe Condivi when he asserts that "Michelangelo, who had not yet practised colouring, and knew that the painting of a vault is very difficult, endeavoured by all means to get himself excused, putting Raffaello forward as the proper man, and pleading that this was not his trade, and that he should not succeed." Condivi states in the same chapter that Julius had been prompted to intrust him with the Sistine by Bramante, who was jealous of his great abilities, and hoped he might fail conspicuously when he left the field of sculpture. I have given my reasons above for doubting the accuracy of this tradition; and what we have just read of Michelangelo's own hesitation confirms the statement made by Bramante in the Pope's presence, as recorded by Rosselli. In fact, although we may assume the truth of Bramante's hostility, it is difficult to form an exact conception of the intrigues he carried on against Buonarroti. Julius would not listen to any arguments. Accordingly, Michelangelo made up his mind to obey the patron whom he nicknamed his Medusa. Bramante was commissioned to erect the scaffolding, which he did so clumsily, with beams suspended from the vault by huge cables, that Michelangelo asked how the holes in the roof would be stopped up when his painting was finished. The Pope allowed him to take down Bramante's machinery, and to raise a scaffold after his own design. The rope alone which had been used, and now was wasted, enabled a poor carpenter to dower his daughter. Michelangelo built his own scaffold free from the walls, inventing a method which was afterwards adopted by all architects for vault-building. Perhaps he remembered the elaborate drawing he once made of Ghirlandajo's assistants at work upon the ladders and wooden platforms at S. Maria Novella. Knowing that he should need helpers in so great an undertaking, and also mistrusting his own ability to work in fresco, he now engaged several excellent Florentine painters. Among these, says Vasari, were his friends Francesco Granacci and Giuliano Bugiardini, Bastiano da San Gallo surnamed Aristotele, Angelo di Donnino, Jacopo di Sandro, and Jacopo surnamed l'Indaco. Vasari is probably accurate in his statement here; for we shall see that Michelangelo, in his _Ricordi_, makes mention of five assistants, two of whom are proved by other documents to have been Granacci and Indaco. We also possess two letters from Granacci which show that Bugiardini, San Gallo, Angelo di Donnino, and Jacopo l'Indaco were engaged in July. The second of Granacci's letters refers to certain disputes and hagglings with the artists. This may have brought Michelangelo to Florence, for he was there upon the 11th of August 1508, as appears from the following deed of renunciation: "In the year of our Lord 1508, on the 11th day of August, Michelangelo, son of Lodovico di Lionardo di Buonarrota, repudiated the inheritance of his uncle Francesco by an instrument drawn up by the hand of Ser Giovanni di Guasparre da Montevarchi, notary of Florence, on the 27th of July 1508." When the assistants arrived at Rome is not certain. It must, however, have been after the end of July. The extracts from Michelangelo's notebooks show that he had already sketched an agreement as to wages several weeks before. "I record how on this day, the 10th of May 1508, I, Michelangelo, sculptor, have received from the Holiness of our Lord Pope Julius II. 500 ducats of the Camera, the which were paid me by Messer Carlino, chamberlain, and Messer Carlo degli Albizzi, on account of the painting of the vault of the Sistine Chapel, on which I begin to work to-day, under the conditions and contracts set forth in a document written by his Most Reverend Lordship of Pavia, and signed by my hand. "For the painter-assistants who are to come from Florence, who will be five in number, twenty gold ducats of the Camera apiece, on this condition; that is to say, that when they are here and are working in harmony with me, the twenty ducats shall be reckoned to each man's salary; the said salary to begin upon the day they leave Florence. And if they do not agree with me, half of the said money shall be paid them for their travelling expenses, and for their time." On the strength of this _Ricordo_, it has been assumed that Michelangelo actually began to paint the Sistine on the 10th of May 1508. That would have been physically and literally impossible. He was still at Florence, agreeing to rent his house in Borgo Pinti, upon the 18th of March. Therefore he had no idea of going to Rome at that time. When he arrived there, negotiations went on, as we have seen, between him and Pope Julius. One plan for the decoration of the roof was abandoned, and another on a grander scale had to be designed. To produce working Cartoons for that immense scheme in less than two months would have been beyond the capacities of any human brain and hands. But there are many indications that the vault was not prepared for painting, and the materials for fresco not accumulated, till a much later date. For instance, we possess a series of receipts by Piero Rosselli, acknowledging several disbursements for the plastering of the roof between May 11 and July 27. We learn from one of these that Granacci was in Rome before June 3; and Michelangelo writes for fine blue colours to a certain Fra Jacopo Gesuato at Florence upon the 13th of May. All is clearly in the air as yet, and on the point of preparation. Michelangelo's phrase, "on which I begin work to-day," will have to be interpreted, therefore, in the widest sense, as implying that he was engaging assistants, getting the architectural foundation ready, and procuring a stock of necessary articles. The whole summer and autumn must have been spent in taking measurements and expanding the elaborate design to the proper scale of working drawings; and if Michelangelo had toiled alone without his Florentine helpers, it would have been impossible for him to have got through with these preliminary labours in so short a space of time. Michelangelo's method in preparing his Cartoons seems to have been the following. He first made a small-scale sketch of the composition, sometimes including a large variety of figures. Then he went to the living models, and studied portions of the whole design in careful transcripts from Nature, using black and red chalk, pen, and sometimes bistre. Among the most admirable of his drawings left to us are several which were clearly executed with a view to one or other of these great Cartoons. Finally, returning to the first composition, he repeated that, or so much of it as could be transferred to a single sheet, on the exact scale of the intended fresco. These enlarged drawings were applied to the wet surface of the plaster, and their outlines pricked in with dots to guide the painter in his brush-work. When we reflect upon the extent of the Sistine vault (it is estimated at more than 10,000 square feet of surface), and the difficulties presented by its curves, lunettes, spandrels, and pendentives; when we remember that this enormous space is alive with 343 figures in every conceivable attitude, some of them twelve feet in height, those seated as prophets and sibyls measuring nearly eighteen feet when upright, all animated with extraordinary vigour, presenting types of the utmost variety and vivid beauty, imagination quails before the intellectual energy which could first conceive a scheme so complex, and then carry it out with mathematical precision in its minutest details. The date on which Michelangelo actually began to paint the fresco is not certain. Supposing he worked hard all the summer, he might have done so when his Florentine assistants arrived in August; and, assuming that the letter to his father above quoted (_Lettere_, x.) bears a right date, he must have been in full swing before the end of January 1509. In that letter he mentions that Jacopo, probably l'Indaco, "the painter whom I brought from Florence, returned a few days ago; and as he complained about me here in Rome, it is likely that he will do so there. Turn a deaf ear to him; he is a thousandfold in the wrong, and I could say much about his bad behaviour toward me." Vasari informs us that these assistants proved of no use; whereupon, he destroyed all they had begun to do, refused to see them, locked himself up in the chapel, and determined to complete the work in solitude. It seems certain that the painters were sent back to Florence. Michelangelo had already provided for the possibility of their not being able to co-operate with him; but what the cause of their failure was we can only conjecture. Trained in the methods of the old Florentine school of fresco-painting, incapable of entering into the spirit of a style so supereminently noble and so astoundingly original as Michelangelo's, it is probable that they spoiled his designs in their attempts to colour them. Harford pithily remarks: "As none of the suitors of Penelope could bend the bow of Ulysses, so one hand alone was capable of wielding the pencil of Buonarroti." Still it must not be imagined that Michelangelo ground his own colours, prepared his daily measure of wet plaster, and executed the whole series of frescoes with his own hand. Condivi and Vasari imply, indeed, that this was the case; but, beside the physical impossibility, the fact remains that certain portions are obviously executed by inferior masters. Vasari's anecdotes, moreover, contradict his own assertion regarding Michelangelo's singlehanded labour. He speaks about the caution which the master exercised to guard himself against any treason of his workmen in the chapel. Nevertheless, far the larger part, including all the most important figures, and especially the nudes, belongs to Michelangelo. These troubles with his assistants illustrate a point upon which I shall have to offer some considerations at a future time. I allude to Michelangelo's inaptitude for forming a school of intelligent fellow-workers, for fashioning inferior natures into at least a sympathy with his aims and methods, and finally for living long on good terms with hired subordinates. All those qualities which the facile and genial Raffaello possessed in such abundance, and which made it possible for that young favourite of heaven and fortune to fill Rome with so much work of mixed merit, were wanting to the stern, exacting, and sensitive Buonarroti. But the assistants were not the only hindrance to Michelangelo at the outset. Condivi says that "he had hardly begun painting, and had finished the picture of the Deluge, when the work began to throw out mould to such an extent that the figures could hardly be seen through it. Michelangelo thought that this excuse might be sufficient to get him relieved of the whole job. So he went to the Pope and said: 'I already told your Holiness that painting is not my trade; what I have done is spoiled; if you do not believe it, send to see.' The Pope sent San Gallo, who, after inspecting the fresco, pronounced that the lime-basis had been put on too wet, and that water oozing out produced this mouldy surface. He told Michelangelo what the cause was, and bade him proceed with the work. So the excuse helped him nothing." About the fresco of the Deluge Vasari relates that, having begun to paint this compartment first, he noticed that the figures were too crowded, and consequently changed his scale in all the other portions of the ceiling. This is a plausible explanation of what is striking--namely, that the story of the Deluge is quite differently planned from the other episodes upon the vaulting. Yet I think it must be rejected, because it implies a total change in all the working Cartoons, as well as a remarkable want of foresight. Condivi continues: "While he was painting, Pope Julius used oftentimes to go and see the work, climbing by a ladder, while Michelangelo gave him a hand to help him on to the platform. His nature being eager and impatient of delay, he decided to have the roof uncovered, although Michelangelo had not given the last touches, and had only completed the first half--that is, from the door to the middle of the vault." Michelangelo's letters show that the first part of his work was executed in October. He writes thus to his brother Buonarroto: "I am remaining here as usual, and shall have finished my painting by the end of the week after next--that is, the portion of it which I began; and when it is uncovered, I expect to be paid, and shall also try to get a month's leave to visit Florence." V The uncovering took place upon November 1, 1509. All Rome flocked to the chapel, feeling that something stupendous was to be expected after the long months of solitude and seclusion during which the silent master had been working. Nor were they disappointed. The effect produced by only half of the enormous scheme was overwhelming. As Vasari says, "This chapel lighted up a lamp for our art which casts abroad lustre enough to illuminate the World, drowned, for so many centuries in darkness." Painters saw at a glance that the genius which had revolutionised sculpture was now destined to introduce a new style and spirit into their art. This was the case even with Raffaello, who, in the frescoes he executed at S. Maria della Pace, showed his immediate willingness to learn from Michelangelo, and his determination to compete with him. Condivi and Vasari are agreed upon this point, and Michelangelo himself, in a moment of hasty indignation, asserted many years afterwards that what Raffaello knew of art was derived from him. That is, of course, an over-statement; for, beside his own exquisite originality, Raffaello formed a composite style successively upon Perugino, Fra Bartolommeo, and Lionardo. He was capable not merely of imitating, but of absorbing and assimilating to his lucid genius the excellent qualities of all in whom he recognised superior talent. At the same time, Michelangelo's influence was undeniable, and we cannot ignore the testimony of those who conversed with both great artists--of Julius himself, for instance, when he said to Sebastian del Piombo: "Look at the work of Raffaello, who, after seeing the masterpieces of Michelangelo, immediately abandoned Perugino's manner, and did his utmost to approach that of Buonarroti." Condivi's assertion that the part uncovered in November 1509 was the first half of the whole vault, beginning from the door and ending in the middle, misled Vasari, and Vasari misled subsequent biographers. We now know for certain that what Michelangelo meant by "the portion I began" was the whole central space of the ceiling--that is to say, the nine compositions from Genesis, with their accompanying genii and architectural surroundings. That is rendered clear by a statement in Albertini's Roman Handbook, to the effect that the "upper portion of the whole vaulted roof" had been uncovered when he saw it in 1509. Having established this error in Condivi's narrative, what he proceeds to relate may obtain some credence. "Raffaello, when he beheld the new and marvellous style of Michelangelo's work, being extraordinarily apt at imitation, sought, by Bramante's means, to obtain a commission for the rest." Had Michelangelo ended at a line drawn halfway across the breadth of the vault, leaving the Prophets and Sibyls, the lunettes and pendentives, all finished so far, it would have been a piece of monstrous impudence even in Bramante, and an impossible discourtesy in gentle Raffaello, to have begged for leave to carry on a scheme so marvellously planned. But the history of the Creation, Fall, and Deluge, when first exposed, looked like a work complete in itself. Michelangelo, who was notoriously secretive, had almost certainly not explained his whole design to painters of Bramante's following; and it is also improbable that he had as yet prepared his working Cartoons for the lower and larger portion of the vault. Accordingly, there remained a large vacant space to cover between the older frescoes by Signorelli, Perugino, Botticelli, and other painters, round the walls below the windows, and that new miracle suspended in the air. There was no flagrant impropriety in Bramante's thinking that his nephew might be allowed to carry the work downward from that altitude. The suggestion may have been that the Sistine Chapel should become a Museum of Italian art, where all painters of eminence could deposit proofs of their ability, until each square foot of wall was covered with competing masterpieces. But when Michelangelo heard of Bramante's intrigues, he was greatly disturbed in spirit. Having begun his task unwillingly, he now felt an equal or greater unwillingness to leave the stupendous conception of his brain unfinished. Against all expectation of himself and others, he had achieved a decisive victory, and was placed at one stroke, Condivi says, "above the reach of envy." His hand had found its cunning for fresco as for marble. Why should he be interrupted in the full swing of triumphant energy? "Accordingly, he sought an audience with the Pope, and openly laid bare all the persecutions he had suffered from Bramante, and discovered the numerous misdoings of the man." It was on this occasion, according to Condivi, that Michelangelo exposed Bramante's scamped work and vandalism at S. Peter's. Julius, who was perhaps the only man in Rome acquainted with his sculptor's scheme for the Sistine vault, brushed the cobwebs of these petty intrigues aside, and left the execution of the whole to Michelangelo. There is something ignoble in the task of recording rivalries and jealousies between artists and men of letters. Genius, however, like all things that are merely ours and mortal, shuffles along the path of life, half flying on the wings of inspiration, half hobbling on the feet of interest the crutches of commissions. Michelangelo, although he made the David and the Sistine, had also to make money. He was entangled with shrewd men of business, and crafty spendthrifts, ambitious intriguers, folk who used undoubted talents, each in its kind excellent and pure, for baser purposes of gain or getting on. The art-life of Rome seethed with such blood-poison; and it would be sentimental to neglect what entered so deeply and so painfully into the daily experience of our hero. Raffaello, kneaded of softer and more facile clay than Michelangelo, throve in this environment, and was somehow able--so it seems--to turn its venom to sweet uses. I like to think of the two peers, moving like stars on widely separated orbits, with radically diverse temperaments, proclivities, and habits, through the turbid atmosphere enveloping but not obscuring their lucidity. Each, in his own way, as it seems to me, contrived to keep himself unspotted by the world; and if they did not understand one another and make friends, this was due to the different conceptions they were framed to take of life the one being the exact antipodes to the other. VI Postponing descriptive or aesthetic criticism of the Sistine frescoes, I shall proceed with the narration of their gradual completion. We have few documents to guide us through the period of time which elapsed between the first uncovering of Michelangelo's work on the roof of the Sistine (November 1, 1509) and its ultimate accomplishment (October 1512). His domestic correspondence is abundant, and will be used in its proper place; but nothing transpires from those pages of affection, anger, and financial negotiation to throw light upon the working of the master's mind while he was busied in creating the sibyls and prophets, the episodes and idyls, which carried his great Bible of the Fate of Man downwards through the vaulting to a point at which the Last Judgment had to be presented as a crowning climax. For, the anxious student of his mind and life-work, nothing is more desolating than the impassive silence he maintains about his doings as an artist. He might have told us all we want to know, and never shall know here about them. But while he revealed his personal temperament and his passions with singular frankness, he locked up the secret of his art, and said nothing. Eventually we must endeavour to grasp Michelangelo's work in the Sistine as a whole, although it was carried out at distant epochs of his life. For this reason I have thrown these sentences forward, in order to embrace a wide span of his artistic energy (from May 10, 1508, to perhaps December 1541). There is, to my mind, a unity of conception between the history depicted on the vault, the prophets and forecomers on the pendentives, the types selected for the spandrels, and the final spectacle of the day of doom. Living, as he needs must do, under the category of time, Michelangelo was unable to execute his stupendous picture-book of human destiny in one sustained manner. Years passed over him of thwarted endeavour and distracted energies--years of quarrying and sculpturing, of engineering and obeying the vagaries of successive Popes. Therefore, when he came at last to paint the Last Judgment, he was a worn man, exhausted in services of many divers sorts. And, what is most perplexing to the reconstructive critic, nothing in his correspondence remains to indicate the stages of his labour. The letters tell plenty about domestic anxieties, annoyances in his poor craftsman's household, purchases of farms, indignant remonstrances with stupid brethren; but we find in them, as I have said, no clue to guide us through that mental labyrinth in which the supreme artist was continually walking, and at the end of which he left to us the Sistine as it now is. VII The old reckoning of the time consumed by Michelangelo in painting the roof of the Sistine, and the traditions concerning his mode of work there, are clearly fabulous. Condivi says: "He finished the whole in twenty months, without having any assistance whatsoever, not even of a man to grind his colours." From a letter of September 7, 1510, we learn that the scaffolding was going to be put up again, and that he was preparing to work upon the lower portion of the vaulting. Nearly two years elapse before we hear of it again. He writes to Buonarroto on the 24th of July 1512: "I am suffering greater hardships than ever man endured, ill, and with overwhelming labour; still I put up with all in order to reach the desired end." Another letter on the 21st of August shows that he expects to complete his work at the end of September; and at last, in October, he writes to his father: "I have finished the chapel I was painting. The Pope is very well satisfied." On the calculation that he began the first part on May 10, 1508, and finished the whole in October 1512, four years and a half were employed upon the work. A considerable part of this time was of course taken up with the preparation of Cartoons; and the nature of fresco-painting rendered the winter months not always fit for active labour. The climate of Rome is not so mild but that wet plaster might often freeze and crack during December, January, and February. Besides, with all his superhuman energy, Michelangelo could not have painted straight on daily without rest or stop. It seems, too, that the master was often in need of money, and that he made two journeys to the Pope to beg for supplies. In the letter to Fattucci he says: "When the vault was nearly finished, the Pope was again at Bologna; whereupon, I went twice to get the necessary funds, and obtained nothing, and lost all that time until I came back to Rome. When I reached Rome, I began to make Cartoons--that is, for the ends and sides of the said chapel, hoping to get money at last and to complete the work. I never could extract a farthing; and when I complained one day to Messer Bernardo da Bibbiena and to Atalante, representing that I could not stop longer in Rome, and that I should be forced to go away with God's grace, Messer Bernardo told Atalante he must bear this in mind, for that he wished me to have money, whatever happened." When we consider, then, the magnitude of the undertaking, the arduous nature of the preparatory studies, and the waste of time in journeys and through other hindrances, four and a half years are not too long a period for a man working so much alone as Michelangelo was wont to do. We have reason to believe that, after all, the frescoes of the Sistine were not finished in their details. "It is true," continues Condivi, "that I have heard him say he was not suffered to complete the work according to his wish. The Pope, in his impatience, asked him one day when he would be ready with the Chapel, and he answered: 'When I shall be able.' To which his Holiness replied in a rage: 'You want to make me hurl you from that scaffold!' Michelangelo heard and remembered, muttering: 'That you shall not do to me.' So he went straightway, and had the scaffolding taken down. The frescoes were exposed to view on All Saints' day, to the great satisfaction of the Pope, who went that day to service there, while all Rome flocked together to admire them. What Michelangelo felt forced to leave undone was the retouching of certain parts with ultramarine upon dry ground, and also some gilding, to give the whole a richer effect. Giulio, when his heat cooled down, wanted Michelangelo to make these last additions; but he, considering the trouble it would be to build up all that scaffolding afresh, observed that what was missing mattered little. 'You ought at least to touch it up with gold,' replied the Pope; and Michelangelo, with that familiarity he used toward his Holiness, said carelessly: 'I have not observed that men wore gold.' The Pope rejoined: 'It will look poor.' Buonarroti added: 'Those who are painted there were poor men.' So the matter turned into pleasantry, and the frescoes have remained in their present state." Condivi goes on to state that Michelangelo received 3000 ducats for all his expenses, and that he spent as much as twenty or twenty-five ducats on colours alone. Upon the difficult question of the moneys earned by the great artist in his life-work, I shall have to speak hereafter, though I doubt whether any really satisfactory account can now be given of them. VIII Michelangelo's letters to his family in Florence throw a light at once vivid and painful over the circumstances of his life during these years of sustained creative energy. He was uncomfortable in his bachelor's home, and always in difficulties with his servants. "I am living here in discontent, not thoroughly well, and undergoing great fatigue, without money, and with no one to look after me." Again, when one of his brothers proposed to visit him in Rome, he writes: "I hear that Gismondo means to come hither on his affairs. Tell him not to count on me for anything; not because I do not love him as a brother, but because I am not in the position to assist him. I am bound to care for myself first, and I cannot provide myself with necessaries. I live here in great distress and the utmost bodily fatigue, have no friends, and seek none. I have not even time enough to eat what I require. Therefore let no additional burdens be put upon me, for I could not bear another ounce." In the autumn of 1509 he corresponded with his father about the severe illness of an assistant workman whom he kept, and also about a boy he wanted sent from Florence. "I should be glad if you could hear of some lad at Florence, the son of good parents and poor, used to hardships, who would be willing to come and live with me here, to do the work of the house, buy what I want, and go around on messages; in his leisure time he could learn. Should such a boy be found, please let me know; because there are only rogues here, and I am in great need of some one." All through his life, Michelangelo adopted the plan of keeping a young fellow to act as general servant, and at the same time to help in art-work. Three of these servants are interwoven with the chief events of his later years, Pietro Urbano, Antonio Mini, and Francesco d'Amadore, called Urbino, the last of whom became his faithful and attached friend till death parted them. Women about the house he could not bear. Of the serving-maids at Rome he says: "They are all strumpets and swine." Well, it seems that Lodovico found a boy, and sent him off to Rome. What followed is related in the next letter. "As regards the boy you sent me, that rascal of a muleteer cheated me out of a ducat for his journey. He swore that the bargain had been made for two broad golden ducats, whereas all the lads who come here with the muleteers pay only ten carlins. I was more angry at this than if I had lost twenty-five ducats, because I saw that his father had resolved to send him on mule-back like a gentleman. Oh, I had never such good luck, not I! Then both the father and the lad promised that he would do everything, attend to the mule, and sleep upon the ground, if it was wanted. And now I am obliged to look after him. As if I needed more worries than the one I have had ever since I arrived here! My apprentice, whom I left in Rome, has been ill from the day on which I returned until now. It is true that he is getting better; but he lay for about a month in peril of his life, despaired of by the doctors, and I never went to bed. There are other annoyances of my own; and now I have the nuisance of this lad, who says that he does not want to waste time, that he wants to study, and so on. At Florence he said he would be satisfied with two or three hours a day. Now the whole day is not enough for him, but he must needs be drawing all the night. It is all the fault of what his father tells him. If I complained, he would say that I did not want him to learn. I really require some one to take care of the house; and if the boy had no mind for this sort of work, they ought not to have put me to expense. But they are good-for-nothing, and are working toward a certain end of their own. Enough, I beg you to relieve me of the boy; he has bored me so that I cannot bear it any longer. The muleteer has been so well paid that he can very well take him back to Florence. Besides, he is a friend of the father. Tell the father to send for him home. I shall not pay another farthing. I have no money. I will have patience till he sends; and if he does not send, I will turn the boy out of doors. I did so already on the second day of his arrival, and other times also, and the father does not believe it. "_P.S._--If you talk to the father of the lad, put the matter to him nicely: as that he is a good boy, but too refined, and not fit for my service, and say that he had better send for him home." The repentant postscript is eminently characteristic of Michelangelo. He used to write in haste, apparently just as the thoughts came. Afterwards he read his letter over, and softened its contents down, if he did not, as sometimes happened, feel that his meaning required enforcement; in that case he added a stinging tail to the epigram. How little he could manage the people in his employ is clear from the last notice we possess about the unlucky lad from Florence. "I wrote about the boy, to say that his father ought to send for him, and that I would not disburse more money. This I now confirm. The driver is paid to take him back. At Florence he will do well enough, learning his trade and dwelling with his parents. Here he is not worth a farthing, and makes me toil like a beast of burden; and my other apprentice has not left his bed. It is true that I have not got him in the house; for when I was so tired out that I could not bear it, I sent him to the room of a brother of his. I have no money." These household difficulties were a trifle, however, compared with the annoyances caused by the stupidity of his father and the greediness of his brothers. While living like a poor man in Rome, he kept continually thinking of their welfare. The letters of this period are full of references to the purchase of land, the transmission of cash when it was to be had, and the establishment of Buonarroto in a draper's business. They, on their part, were never satisfied, and repaid his kindness with ingratitude. The following letter to Giovan Simone shows how terrible Michelangelo could be when he detected baseness in a brother:-- "Giovan Simone,--It is said that when one does good to a good man, he makes him become better, but that a bad man becomes worse. It is now many years that I have been endeavouring with words and deeds of kindness to bring you to live honestly and in peace with your father and the rest of us. You grow continually worse. I do not say that you are a scoundrel; but you are of such sort that you have ceased to give satisfaction to me or anybody. I could read you a long lesson on your ways of living; but they would be idle words, like all the rest that I have wasted. To cut the matter short, I will tell you as a fact beyond all question that you have nothing in the world: what you spend and your house-room, I give you, and have given you these many years, for the love of God, believing you to be my brother like the rest. Now, I am sure that you are not my brother, else you would not threaten my father. Nay, you are a beast; and as a beast I mean to treat you. Know that he who sees his father threatened or roughly handled is bound to risk his own life in this cause. Let that suffice. I repeat that you have nothing in the world; and if I hear the least thing about your ways of going on, I will come to Florence by the post, and show you how far wrong you are, and teach you to waste your substance, and set fire to houses and farms you have not earned. Indeed you are not where you think yourself to be. If I come, I will open your eyes to what will make you weep hot tears, and recognise on what false grounds you base your arrogance. "I have something else to say to you, which I have said before. If you will endeavour to live rightly, and to honour and revere your father, I am willing to help you like the rest, and will put it shortly within your power to open a good shop. If you act otherwise, I shall come and settle your affairs in such a way that you will recognise what you are better than you ever did, and will know what you have to call your own, and will have it shown to you in every place where you may go. No more. What I lack in words I will supply with deeds. "Michelangelo _in Rome_. "I cannot refrain from adding a couple of lines. It is as follows. I have gone these twelve years past drudging about through Italy, borne every shame, suffered every hardship, worn my body out in every toil, put my life to a thousand hazards, and all with the sole purpose of helping the fortunes of my family. Now that I have begun to raise it up a little, you only, you alone, choose to destroy and bring to ruin in one hour what it has cost me so many years and such labour to build up. By Christ's body this shall not be; for I am the man to put to the rout ten thousand of your sort, whenever it be needed. Be wise in time, then, and do not try the patience of one who has other things to vex him." Even Buonarroto, who was the best of the brothers and dearest to his heart, hurt him by his graspingness and want of truth. He had been staying at Rome on a visit, and when he returned to Florence it appears that he bragged about his wealth, as if the sums expended on the Buonarroti farms were not part of Michelangelo's earnings. The consequence was that he received a stinging rebuke from his elder brother. "The said Michele told me you mentioned to him having spent about sixty ducats at Settignano. I remember your saying here too at table that you had disbursed a large sum out of your own pocket. I pretended not to understand, and did not feel the least surprise, because I know you. I should like to hear from your ingratitude out of what money you gained them. If you had enough sense to know the truth, you would not say: 'I spent so and so much of my own;' also you would not have come here to push your affairs with me, seeing how I have always acted toward you in the past, but would have rather said: 'Michelangelo remembers what he wrote to us, and if he does not now do what he promised, he must be prevented by something of which we are ignorant,' and then have kept your peace; because it is not well to spur the horse that runs as fast as he is able, and more than he is able. But you have never known me, and do not know me. God pardon you; for it is He who granted me the grace to bear what I do bear and have borne, in order that you might be helped. Well, you will know me when you have lost me." Michelangelo's angry moods rapidly cooled down. At the bottom of his heart lay a deep and abiding love for his family. There is something caressing in the tone with which he replies to grumbling letters from his father. "Do not vex yourself. God did not make us to abandon us." "If you want me, I will take the post, and be with you in two days. Men are worth more than money." His warm affection transpires even more clearly in the two following documents: "I should like you to be thoroughly convinced that all the labours I have ever undergone have not been more for myself than for your sake. What I have bought, I bought to be yours so long as you live. If you had not been here, I should have bought nothing. Therefore, if you wish to let the house and farm, do so at your pleasure. This income, together with what I shall give you, will enable you to live like a lord." At a time when Lodovico was much exercised in his mind and spirits by a lawsuit, his son writes to comfort the old man. "Do not be discomfited, nor give yourself an ounce of sadness. Remember that losing money is not losing one's life. I will more than make up to you what you must lose. Yet do not attach too much value to worldly goods, for they are by nature untrustworthy. Thank God that this trial, if it was bound to come, came at a time when you have more resources than you had in years past. Look to preserving your life and health, but let your fortunes go to ruin rather than suffer hardships; for I would sooner have you alive and poor; if you were dead, I should not care for all the gold in the world. If those chatterboxes or any one else reprove you, let them talk, for they are men without intelligence and without affection." References to public events are singularly scanty in this correspondence. Much as Michelangelo felt the woes of Italy--and we know he did so by his poems--he talked but little, doing his work daily like a wise man all through the dust and din stirred up by Julius and the League of Cambrai. The lights and shadows of Italian experience at that time are intensely dramatic. We must not altogether forget the vicissitudes of war, plague, and foreign invasion, which exhausted the country, while its greatest men continued to produce immortal masterpieces. Aldo Manuzio was quietly printing his complete edition of Plato, and Michelangelo was transferring the noble figure of a prophet or a sibyl to the plaster of the Sistine, while young Gaston de Foix was dying at the point of victory upon the bloody shores of the Ronco. Sometimes, however, the disasters of his country touched Michelangelo so nearly that he had to write or speak about them. After the battle of Ravenna, on the 11th of April 1512, Raimondo de Cardona and his Spanish troops brought back the Medici to Florence. On their way, the little town of Prato was sacked with a barbarity which sent a shudder through the whole peninsula. The Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, who entered Florence on the 14th of September, established his nephews as despots in the city, and intimidated the burghers by what looked likely to be a reign of terror. These facts account for the uneasy tone of a letter written by Michelangelo to Buonarroto. Prato had been taken by assault upon the 30th of August, and was now prostrate after those hideous days of torment, massacre, and outrage indescribable which followed. In these circumstances Michelangelo advises his family to "escape into a place of safety, abandoning their household gear and property; for life is far more worth than money." If they are in need of cash, they may draw upon his credit with the Spedalingo of S. Maria Novella. The constitutional liability to panic which must be recognised in Michelangelo emerges at the close of the letter. "As to public events, do not meddle with them either by deed or word. Act as though the plague were raging. Be the first to fly." The Buonarroti did not take his advice, but remained at Florence, enduring agonies of terror. It was a time when disaffection toward the Medicean princes exposed men to risking life and limb. Rumours reached Lodovico that his son had talked imprudently at Rome. He wrote to inquire what truth there was in the report, and Michelangelo replied: "With regard to the Medici, I have never spoken a single word against them, except in the way that everybody talks--as, for instance, about the sack of Prato; for if the stones could have cried out, I think they would have spoken. There have been many other things said since then, to which, when I heard them, I have answered: 'If they are really acting in this way, they are doing wrong;' not that I believed the reports; and God grant they are not true. About a month ago, some one who makes a show of friendship for me spoke very evilly about their deeds. I rebuked him, told him that it was not well to talk so, and begged him not to do so again to me. However, I should like Buonarroto quietly to find out how the rumour arose of my having calumniated the Medici; for if it is some one who pretends to be my friend, I ought to be upon my guard." The Buonarroti family, though well affected toward Savonarola, were connected by many ties of interest and old association with the Medici, and were not powerful enough to be the mark of violent political persecution. Nevertheless, a fine was laid upon them by the newly restored Government. This drew forth the following epistle from Michelangelo:-- "Dearest Father,--Your last informs me how things are going on at Florence, though I already knew something. We must have patience, commit ourselves to God, and repent of our sins; for these trials are solely due to them, and more particularly to pride and ingratitude. I never conversed with a people more ungrateful and puffed up than the Florentines. Therefore, if judgment comes, it is but right and reasonable. As for the sixty ducats you tell me you are fined, I think this a scurvy trick, and am exceedingly annoyed. However, we must have patience as long as it pleases God. I will write and enclose two lines to Giuliano de' Medici. Read them, and if you like to present them to him, do so; you will see whether they are likely to be of any use. If not, consider whether we can sell our property and go to live elsewhere.... Look to your life and health; and if you cannot share the honours of the land like other burghers, be contented that bread does not fail you, and live well with Christ, and poorly, as I do here; for I live in a sordid way, regarding neither life nor honours--that is, the world--and suffer the greatest hardships and innumerable anxieties and dreads. It is now about fifteen years since I had a single hour of well-being, and all that I have done has been to help you, and you have never recognised this nor believed it. God pardon us all! I am ready to go on doing the same so long as I live, if only I am able." We have reason to believe that the petition to Giuliano proved effectual, for in his next letter he congratulates his father upon their being restored to favour. In the same communication he mentions a young Spanish painter whom he knew in Rome, and whom he believes to be ill at Florence. This was probably the Alonso Berughetta who made a copy of the Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa. In July 1508 Michelangelo wrote twice about a Spaniard who wanted leave to study the Cartoon; first begging Buonarroto to procure the keys for him, and afterwards saying that he is glad to hear that the permission was refused. It does not appear certain whether this was the same Alonso; but it is interesting to find that Michelangelo disliked his Cartoon being copied. We also learn from these letters that the Battle of Pisa then remained in the Sala del Papa. IX I will conclude this chapter by translating a sonnet addressed to Giovanni da Pistoja, in which Michelangelo humorously describes the discomforts he endured while engaged upon the Sistine. Condivi tells us that from painting so long in a strained attitude, gazing up at the vault, he lost for some time the power of reading except when he lifted the paper above his head and raised his eyes. Vasari corroborates the narrative from his own experience in the vast halls of the Medicean palace. _I've grown a goitre by dwelling in this den-- As cats from stagnant streams in Lombardy, Or in what other land they hap to be-- Which drives the belly close beneath the chin: My beard turns up to heaven; my nape falls in, Fixed on my spine: my breast-bone visibly Grows like a harp: a rich embroidery Bedews my face from brush-drops thick and thin. My loins into my paunch like levers grind: My buttock like a crupper bears my weight; My feet unguided wander to and fro; In front my skin grows loose and long; behind, By bending it becomes more taut and strait; Crosswise I strain me like a Syrian bow: Whence false and quaint, I know, Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye; For ill can aim the gun that bends awry. Come then, Giovanni, try To succour my dead pictures and my fame, Since foul I fare and painting is my shame._ CHAPTER VI I The Sistine Chapel was built in 1473 by Baccio Pontelli, a Florentine architect, for Pope Sixtus IV. It is a simple barn-like chamber, 132 feet in length, 44 in breadth, and 68 in height from the pavement. The ceiling consists of one expansive flattened vault, the central portion of which offers a large plane surface, well adapted to fresco decoration. The building is lighted by twelve windows, six upon each side of its length. These are placed high up, their rounded arches running parallel with the first spring of the vaulting. The ends of the chapel are closed by flat walls, against the western of which is raised the altar. When Michelangelo was called to paint here, he found both sides of the building, just below the windows, decorated in fresco by Perugino, Cosimo Rosselli, Sandro Botticelli, Luca Signorelli, and Domenico Ghirlandajo. These masters had depicted, in a series of twelve subjects, the history of Moses and the life of Jesus. Above the lines of fresco, in the spaces between the windows and along the eastern end at the same height, Botticelli painted a row of twenty-eight Popes. The spaces below the frescoed histories, down to the seats which ran along the pavement, were blank, waiting for the tapestries which Raffaello afterwards supplied from cartoons now in possession of the English Crown. At the west end, above the altar, shone three decorative frescoes by Perugino, representing the Assumption of the Virgin, between the finding of Moses and the Nativity. The two last of these pictures opened respectively the history of Moses and the life of Christ, so that the Old and New Testaments were equally illustrated upon the Chapel walls. At the opposite, or eastern end, Ghirlandajo painted the Resurrection, and there was a corresponding picture of Michael contending with Satan for the body of Moses. Such was the aspect of the Sistine Chapel when Michelangelo began his great work. Perugino's three frescoes on the west wall were afterwards demolished to make room for his Last Judgment. The two frescoes on the east wall are now poor pictures by very inferior masters; but the twelve Scripture histories and Botticelli's twenty-eight Popes remain from the last years of the fifteenth century. Taken in their aggregate, the wall-paintings I have described afforded a fair sample of Umbrian and Tuscan art in its middle or _quattrocento_ age of evolution. It remained for Buonarroti to cover the vault and the whole western end with masterpieces displaying what Vasari called the "modern" style in its most sublime and imposing manifestation. At the same time he closed the cycle of the figurative arts, and rendered any further progress on the same lines impossible. The growth which began with Niccolò of Pisa and with Cimabue, which advanced through Giotto and his school, Perugino and Pinturicchio, Piero della Francesca and Signorelli, Fra Angelico and Benozzo Gozzoli, the Ghirlandajo brothers, the Lippi and Botticelli, effloresced in Michelangelo, leaving nothing for aftercomers but manneristic imitation. II Michelangelo, instinctively and on principle, reacted against the decorative methods of the fifteenth century. If he had to paint a biblical or mythological subject, he avoided landscapes, trees, flowers, birds, beasts, and subordinate groups of figures. He eschewed the arabesques, the labyrinths of foliage and fruit enclosing pictured panels, the candelabra and gay bands of variegated patterns, which enabled a _quattrocento_ painter, like Gozzoli or Pinturicchio, to produce brilliant and harmonious general effects at a small expenditure of intellectual energy. Where the human body struck the keynote of the music in a work of art, he judged that such simple adjuncts and naïve concessions to the pleasure of the eye should be avoided. An architectural foundation for the plastic forms to rest on, as plain in structure and as grandiose in line as could be fashioned, must suffice. These principles he put immediately to the test in his first decorative undertaking. For the vault of the Sistine he designed a mighty architectural framework in the form of a hypaethral temple, suspended in the air on jutting pilasters, with bold cornices, projecting brackets, and ribbed arches flung across the void of heaven. Since the whole of this ideal building was painted upon plaster, its inconsequence, want of support, and disconnection from the ground-plan of the chapel do not strike the mind. It is felt to be a mere basis for the display of pictorial art, the theatre for a thousand shapes of dignity and beauty. I have called this imaginary temple hypaethral, because the master left nine openings in the flattened surface of the central vault. They are unequal in size, five being short parallelograms, and four being spaces of the same shape but twice their length. Through these the eye is supposed to pierce the roof and discover the unfettered region of the heavens. But here again Michelangelo betrayed the inconsequence of his invention. He filled the spaces in question with nine dominant paintings, representing the history of the Creation, the Fall, and the Deluge. Taking our position at the west end of the chapel and looking upwards, we see in the first compartment God dividing light from darkness; in the second, creating the sun and the moon and the solid earth; in the third, animating the ocean with His brooding influence; in the fourth, creating Adam; in the fifth, creating Eve. The sixth represents the temptation of our first parents and their expulsion from Paradise. The seventh shows Noah's sacrifice before entering the ark; the eighth depicts the Deluge, and the ninth the drunkenness of Noah. It is clear that, between the architectural conception of a roof opening on the skies and these pictures of events which happened upon earth, there is no logical connection. Indeed, Michelangelo's new system of decoration bordered dangerously upon the barocco style, and contained within itself the germs of a vicious mannerism. It would be captious and unjust to push this criticism home. The architectural setting provided for the figures and the pictures of the Sistine vault is so obviously conventional, every point of vantage has been so skilfully appropriated to plastic uses, every square inch of the ideal building becomes so naturally, and without confusion, a pedestal for the human form, that we are lost in wonder at the synthetic imagination which here for the first time combined the arts of architecture, sculpture, and painting in a single organism. Each part of the immense composition, down to the smallest detail, is necessary to the total effect. We are in the presence of a most complicated yet mathematically ordered scheme, which owes life and animation to one master-thought. In spite of its complexity and scientific precision, the vault of the Sistine does not strike the mind as being artificial or worked out by calculation, but as being predestined to existence, inevitable, a cosmos instinct with vitality. On the pendentives between the spaces of the windows, running up to the ends of each of the five lesser pictures, Michelangelo placed alternate prophets and sibyls upon firm projecting consoles. Five sibyls and five prophets run along the side-walls of the chapel. The end-walls sustain each of them a prophet. These twelve figures are introduced as heralds and pioneers of Christ the Saviour, whose presence on the earth is demanded by the fall of man and the renewal of sin after the Deluge. In the lunettes above the windows and the arched recesses or spandrels over them are depicted scenes setting forth the genealogy of Christ and of His Mother. At each of the four corner-spandrels of the ceiling, Michelangelo painted, in spaces of a very peculiar shape and on a surface of embarrassing inequality, one magnificent subject symbolical of man's redemption. The first is the raising of the Brazen Serpent in the wilderness; the second, the punishment of Haman; the third, the victory of David over Goliath; the fourth, Judith with the head of Holofernes. Thus, with a profound knowledge of the Bible, and with an intense feeling for religious symbolism, Michelangelo unrolled the history of the creation of the world and man, the entrance of sin into the human heart, the punishment of sin by water, and the reappearance of sin in Noah's family. Having done this, he intimated, by means of four special mercies granted to the Jewish people--types and symbols of God's indulgence--that a Saviour would arise to redeem the erring human race. In confirmation of this promise, he called twelve potent witnesses, seven of the Hebrew prophets and five of the Pagan sibyls. He made appeal to history, and set around the thrones on which these witnesses are seated scenes detached from the actual lives of our Lord's human ancestors. The intellectual power of this conception is at least equal to the majesty and sublime strength of its artistic presentation. An awful sense of coming doom and merited damnation hangs in the thunderous canopy of the Sistine vault, tempered by a solemn and sober expectation of the Saviour. It is much to be regretted that Christ, the Desired of all Nations, the Redeemer and Atoner, appears nowhere adequately represented in the Chapel. When Michelangelo resumed his work there, it was to portray him as an angered Hercules, hurling curses upon helpless victims. The August rhetoric of the ceiling loses its effective value when we can nowhere point to Christ's life and work on earth; when there is no picture of the Nativity, none of the Crucifixion, none of the Resurrection; and when the feeble panels of a Perugino and a Cosimo Rosselli are crushed into insignificance by the terrible Last Judgment. In spite of Buonarroti's great creative strength, and injuriously to his real feeling as a Christian, the piecemeal production which governs all large art undertakings results here in a maimed and one-sided rendering of what theologians call the Scheme of Salvation. III So much has been written about the pictorial beauty, the sublime imagination, the dramatic energy, the profound significance, the exact science, the shy graces, the terrible force, and finally the vivid powers of characterisation displayed in these frescoes, that I feel it would be impertinent to attempt a new discourse upon a theme so time-worn. I must content myself with referring to what I have already published, which will, I hope, be sufficient to demonstrate that I do not avoid the task for want of enthusiasm. The study of much rhetorical criticism makes me feel strongly that, in front of certain masterpieces, silence is best, or, in lieu of silence, some simple pregnant sayings, capable of rousing folk to independent observation. These convictions need not prevent me, however, from fixing attention upon a subordinate matter, but one which has the most important bearing upon Michelangelo's genius. After designing the architectural theatre which I have attempted to describe, and filling its main spaces with the vast religious drama he unrolled symbolically in a series of primeval scenes, statuesque figures, and countless minor groups contributing to one intellectual conception, he proceeded to charge the interspaces--all that is usually left for facile decorative details--with an army of passionately felt and wonderfully executed nudes, forms of youths and children, naked or half draped, in every conceivable posture and with every possible variety of facial type and expression. On pedestals, cornices, medallions, tympanums, in the angles made by arches, wherever a vacant plane or unused curve was found, he set these vivid transcripts from humanity in action. We need not stop to inquire what he intended by that host of plastic shapes evoked from his imagination. The triumphant leaders of the crew, the twenty lads who sit upon their consoles, sustaining medallions by ribands which they lift, have been variously and inconclusively interpreted. In the long row of Michelangelo's creations, those young men are perhaps the most significant--athletic adolescents, with faces of feminine delicacy and poignant fascination. But it serves no purpose to inquire what they symbolise. If we did so, we should have to go further, and ask, What do the bronze figures below them, twisted into the boldest attitudes the human frame can take, or the twinned children on the pedestals, signify? In this region, the region of pure plastic play, when art drops the wand of the interpreter and allows physical beauty to be a law unto itself, Michelangelo demonstrated that no decorative element in the hand of a really supreme master is equal to the nude. Previous artists, with a strong instinct for plastic as opposed to merely picturesque effect, had worked upon the same line. Donatello revelled in the rhythmic dance and stationary grace of children. Luca Signorelli initiated the plan of treating complex ornament by means of the mere human body; and for this reason, in order to define the position of Michelangelo in Italian art-history, I shall devote the next section of this chapter to Luca's work at Orvieto. But Buonarroti in the Sistine carried their suggestions to completion. The result is a mapped-out chart of living figures--a vast pattern, each detail of which is a masterpiece of modelling. After we have grasped the intellectual content of the whole, the message it was meant to inculcate, the spiritual meaning present to the maker's mind, we discover that, in the sphere of artistic accomplishment, as distinct from intellectual suggestion, one rhythm of purely figurative beauty has been carried throughout--from God creating Adam to the boy who waves his torch above the censer of the Erythrean sibyl. IV Of all previous painters, only Luca Signorelli deserves to be called the forerunner of Michelangelo, and his Chapel of S. Brizio in the Cathedral at Orvieto in some remarkable respects anticipates the Sistine. This eminent master was commissioned in 1499 to finish its decoration, a small portion of which had been begun by Fra Angelico. He completed the whole Chapel within the space of two years; so that the young Michelangelo, upon one of his journeys to or from Rome, may probably have seen the frescoes in their glory. Although no visit to Orvieto is recorded by his biographers, the fame of these masterpieces by a man whose work at Florence had already influenced his youthful genius must certainly have attracted him to a city which lay on the direct route from Tuscany to the Campagna. The four walls of the Chapel of S. Brizio are covered with paintings setting forth events immediately preceding and following the day of judgment. A succession of panels, differing in size and shape, represent the preaching of Antichrist, the destruction of the world by fire, the resurrection of the body, the condemnation of the lost, the reception of saved souls into bliss, and the final states of heaven and hell. These main subjects occupy the upper spaces of each wall, while below them are placed portraits of poets, surrounded by rich and fanciful arabesques, including various episodes from Dante and antique mythology. Obeying the spirit of the fifteenth century, Signorelli did not aim at what may be termed an architectural effect in his decoration of this building. Each panel of the whole is treated separately, and with very unequal energy, the artist seeming to exert his strength chiefly in those details which made demands on his profound knowledge of the human form and his enthusiasm for the nude. The men and women of the Resurrection, the sublime angels of Heaven and of the Judgment, the discoloured and degraded fiends of Hell, the magnificently foreshortened clothed figures of the Fulminati, the portraits in the preaching of Antichrist, reveal Luca's specific quality as a painter, at once impressively imaginative and crudely realistic. There is something in his way of regarding the world and of reproducing its aspects which dominates our fancy, does violence to our sense of harmony and beauty, leaves us broken and bewildered, resentful and at the same moment enthralled. He is a power which has to be reckoned with; and the reason for speaking about him at length here is that, in this characteristic blending of intense vision with impassioned realistic effort after truth to fact, this fascination mingled with repulsion, he anticipated Michelangelo. Deep at the root of all Buonarroti's artistic qualities lie these contradictions. Studying Signorelli, we study a parallel psychological problem. The chief difference between the two masters lies in the command of aesthetic synthesis, the constructive sense of harmony, which belonged to the younger, but which might, we feel, have been granted in like measure to the elder, had Luca been born, as Michelangelo was, to complete the evolution of Italian figurative art, instead of marking one of its most important intermediate moments. The decorative methods and instincts of the two men were closely similar. Both scorned any element of interest or beauty which was not strictly plastic--the human body supported by architecture or by rough indications of the world we live in. Signorelli invented an intricate design for arabesque pilasters, one on each side of the door leading from his chapel into the Cathedral. They are painted _en grisaille_, and are composed exclusively of nudes, mostly male, perched or grouped in a marvellous variety of attitudes upon an ascending series of slender-stemmed vases, which build up gigantic candelabra by their aggregation. The naked form is treated with audacious freedom. It appears to be elastic in the hands of the modeller. Some dead bodies carried on the backs of brawny porters are even awful by the contrast of their wet-clay limpness with the muscular energy of brutal life beneath them. Satyrs giving drink to one another, fauns whispering in the ears of stalwart women, centaurs trotting with corpses flung across their cruppers, combatants trampling in frenzy upon prostrate enemies, men sunk in self-abandonment to sloth or sorrow--such are the details of these incomparable columns, where our sense of the grotesque and vehement is immediately corrected by a perception of rare energy in the artist who could play thus with his plastic puppets. We have here certainly the preludings to Michelangelo's serener, more monumental work in the Sistine Chapel. The leading motive is the same in both great masterpieces. It consists in the use of the simple body, if possible the nude body, for the expression of thought and emotion, the telling of a tale, the delectation of the eye by ornamental details. It consists also in the subordination of the female to the male nude as the symbolic unit of artistic utterance. Buonarroti is greater than Signorelli chiefly through that larger and truer perception of aesthetic unity which seems to be the final outcome of a long series of artistic effort. The arabesques, for instance, with which Luca wreathed his portraits of the poets, are monstrous, bizarre, in doubtful taste. Michelangelo, with a finer instinct for harmony, a deeper grasp on his own dominant ideal, excluded this element of _quattrocento_ decoration from his scheme. Raffaello, with the graceful tact essential to the style, developed its crude rudiments into the choice forms of fanciful delightfulness which charm us in the Loggie. Signorelli loved violence. A large proportion of the circular pictures painted _en grisaille_ on these walls represent scenes of massacre, assassination, torture, ruthless outrage. One of them, extremely spirited in design, shows a group of three executioners hurling men with millstones round their necks into a raging river from the bridge which spans it. The first victim flounders half merged in the flood; a second plunges head foremost through the air; the third stands bent upon the parapet, his shoulders pressed down by the varlets on each side, at the very point of being flung to death by drowning. In another of these pictures a man seated upon the ground is being tortured by the breaking of his teeth, while a furious fellow holds a club suspended over him, in act to shatter his thigh-bones. Naked soldiers wrestle in mad conflict, whirl staves above their heads, fling stones, displaying their coarse muscles with a kind of frenzy. Even the classical subjects suffer from extreme dramatic energy of treatment. Ceres, seeking her daughter through the plains of Sicily, dashes frantically on a car of dragons, her hair dishevelled to the winds, her cheeks gashed by her own crooked fingers. Eurydice struggles in the clutch of bestial devils; Pluto, like a mediaeval Satan, frowns above the scene of fiendish riot; the violin of Orpheus thrills faintly through the infernal tumult. Gazing on the spasms and convulsions of these grim subjects, we are inclined to credit a legend preserved at Orvieto to the effect that the painter depicted his own unfaithful mistress in the naked woman who is being borne on a demon's back through the air to hell. No one who has studied Michelangelo impartially will deny that in this preference for the violent he came near to Signorelli. We feel it in his choice of attitude, the strain he puts upon the lines of plastic composition, the stormy energy of his conception and expression. It is what we call his _terribilità_. But here again that dominating sense of harmony, that instinct for the necessity of subordinating each artistic element to one strain of architectonic music, which I have already indicated as the leading note of difference between him and the painter of Cortona, intervened to elevate his terribleness into the region of sublimity. The violence of Michelangelo, unlike that of Luca, lay not so much in the choice of savage subjects (cruelty, ferocity, extreme physical and mental torment) as in a forceful, passionate, tempestuous way of handling all the themes he treated. The angels of the Judgment, sustaining the symbols of Christ's Passion, wrestle and bend their agitated limbs like athletes. Christ emerges from the sepulchre, not in victorious tranquillity, but with the clash and clangour of an irresistible energy set free. Even in the Crucifixion, one leg has been wrenched away from the nail which pierced its foot, and writhes round the knee of the other still left riven to the cross. The loves of Leda and the Swan, of Ixion and Juno, are spasms of voluptuous pain; the sleep of the Night is troubled with fantastic dreams, and the Dawn starts into consciousness with a shudder of prophetic anguish. There is not a hand, a torso, a simple nude, sketched by this extraordinary master, which does not vibrate with nervous tension, as though the fingers that grasped the pen were clenched and the eyes that viewed the model glowed beneath knit brows. Michelangelo, in fact, saw nothing, felt nothing, interpreted nothing, on exactly the same lines as any one who had preceded or who followed him. His imperious personality he stamped upon the smallest trifle of his work. Luca's frescoes at Orvieto, when compared with Michelangelo's in the Sistine, mark the transition from the art of the fourteenth, through the art of the fifteenth, to that of the sixteenth century, with broad and trenchant force. They are what Marlowe's dramas were to Shakespeare's. They retain much of the mediaeval tradition both as regards form and sentiment. We feel this distinctly in the treatment of Dante, whose genius seems to have exerted at least as strong an influence over Signorelli's imagination as over that of Michelangelo. The episodes from the Divine Comedy are painted in a rude Gothic spirit. The spirits of Hell seem borrowed from grotesque bas-reliefs of the Pisan school. The draped, winged, and armed angels of Heaven are posed with a ceremonious research of suavity or grandeur. These and other features of his work carry us back to the period of Giotto and Niccolò Pisano. But the true force of the man, what made him a commanding master of the middle period, what distinguished him from all his fellows of the _quattrocento_, is the passionate delight he took in pure humanity--the nude, the body studied under all its aspects and with no repugnance for its coarseness--man in his crudity made the sole sufficient object for figurative art, anatomy regarded as the crowning and supreme end of scientific exploration. It is this in his work which carries us on toward the next age, and justifies our calling Luca "the morning-star of Michelangelo." It would be wrong to ascribe too much to the immediate influence of the elder over the younger artist--at any rate in so far as the frescoes of the Chapel of S. Brizio may have determined the creation of the Sistine. Yet Vasari left on record that "even Michelangelo followed the manner of Signorelli, as any one may see." Undoubtedly, Buonarroti, while an inmate of Lorenzo de' Medici's palace at Florence, felt the power of Luca's Madonna with the naked figures in the background; the leading motive of which he transcended in his Doni Holy Family. Probably at an early period he had before his eyes the bold nudities, uncompromising designs, and awkward composition of Luca's so-called School of Pan. In like manner, we may be sure that during his first visit to Rome he was attracted by Signorelli's solemn fresco of Moses in the Sistine. These things were sufficient to establish a link of connection between the painter of Cortona and the Florentine sculptor. And when Michelangelo visited the Chapel of S. Brizio, after he had fixed and formed his style (exhibiting his innate force of genius in the Pietà, the Bacchus, the Cupid, the David, the statue of Julius, the Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa), that early bond of sympathy must have been renewed and enforced. They were men of a like temperament, and governed by kindred aesthetic instincts. Michelangelo brought to its perfection that system of working wholly through the human form which Signorelli initiated. He shared his violence, his _terribilità_, his almost brutal candour. In the fated evolution of Italian art, describing its parabola of vital energy, Michelangelo softened, sublimed, and harmonised his predecessor's qualities. He did this by abandoning Luca's naïvetés and crudities; exchanging his savage transcripts from coarse life for profoundly studied idealisations of form; subordinating his rough and casual design to schemes of balanced composition, based on architectural relations; penetrating the whole accomplished work, as he intended it should be, with a solemn and severe strain of unifying intellectual melody. Viewed in this light, the vault of the Sistine and the later fresco of the Last Judgment may be taken as the final outcome of all previous Italian art upon a single line of creative energy, and that line the one anticipated by Luca Signorelli. In like manner, the Stanze and Loggie of the Vatican were the final outcome of the same process upon another line, suggested by Perugino and Fra Bartolommeo. Michelangelo adapted to his own uses and bent to his own genius motives originated by the Pisani, Giotto, Giacopo della Quercia, Donatello, Masaccio, while working in the spirit of Signorelli. He fused and recast the antecedent materials of design in sculpture and painting, producing a quintessence of art beyond which it was impossible to advance without breaking the rhythm, so intensely strung, and without contradicting too violently the parent inspiration. He strained the chord of rhythm to its very utmost, and made incalculable demands upon the religious inspiration of its predecessors. His mighty talent was equal to the task of transfusion and remodelling which the exhibition of the supreme style demanded. But after him there remained nothing for successors except mechanical imitation, soulless rehandling of themes he had exhausted by reducing them to his imperious imagination in a crucible of fiery intensity. V No critic with a just sense of phraseology would call Michelangelo a colourist in the same way as Titian and Rubens were colourists. Still it cannot be denied with justice that the painter of the Sistine had a keen perception of what his art required in this region, and of how to attain it. He planned a comprehensive architectural scheme, which served as setting and support for multitudes of draped and undraped human figures. The colouring is kept deliberately low and subordinate to the two main features of the design--architecture, and the plastic forms of men and women. Flesh-tints, varying from the strong red tone of Jonah's athletic manhood, through the glowing browns of the seated Genii, to the delicate carnations of Adam and the paler hues of Eve; orange and bronze in draperies, medallions, decorative nudes, russets like the tints of dead leaves; lilacs, cold greens, blue used sparingly; all these colours are dominated and brought into harmony by the greys of the architectural setting. It may indeed be said that the different qualities of flesh-tints, the architectural greys, and a dull bronzed yellow strike the chord of the composition. Reds are conspicuous by their absence in any positive hue. There is no vermilion, no pure scarlet or crimson, but a mixed tint verging upon lake. The yellows are brought near to orange, tawny, bronze, except in the hair of youthful personages, a large majority of whom are blonde. The only colour which starts out staringly is ultramarine, owing of course to this mineral material resisting time and change more perfectly than the pigments with which it is associated. The whole scheme leaves a grave harmonious impression on the mind, thoroughly in keeping with the sublimity of the thoughts expressed. No words can describe the beauty of the flesh-painting, especially in the figures of the Genii, or the technical delicacy with which the modelling of limbs, the modulation from one tone to another, have been carried from silvery transparent shades up to the strongest accents. VI Mr. Ruskin has said, and very justly said, that "the highest art can do no more than rightly represent the human form." This is what the Italians of the Renaissance meant when, through the mouths of Ghiberti, Buonarroti, and Cellini, they proclaimed that the perfect drawing of a fine nude, "un bel corpo ignudo," was the final test of mastery in plastic art. Mr. Ruskin develops his text in sentences which have peculiar value from his lips. "This is the simple test, then, of a perfect school--that it has represented the human form so that it is impossible to conceive of its being better done. And that, I repeat, has been accomplished twice only: once in Athens, once in Florence. And so narrow is the excellence even of these two exclusive schools, that it cannot be said of either of them that they represented the entire human form. The Greeks perfectly drew and perfectly moulded the body and limbs, but there is, so far as I am aware, no instance of their representing the face as well as any great Italian. On the other hand, the Italian painted and carved the face insuperably; but I believe there is no instance of his having perfectly represented the body, which, by command of his religion, it became his pride to despise and his safety to mortify." We need not pause to consider whether the Italian's inferiority to the Greek's in the plastic modelling of human bodies was due to the artist's own religious sentiment. That seems a far-fetched explanation for the shortcomings of men so frankly realistic and so scientifically earnest as the masters of the Cinque Cento were. Michelangelo's magnificent cartoon of Leda and the Swan, if it falls short of some similar subject in some _gabinetto segreto_ of antique fresco, does assuredly not do so because the draughtsman's hand faltered in pious dread or pious aspiration. Nevertheless, Ruskin is right in telling us that no Italian modelled a female nude equal to the Aphrodite of Melos, or a male nude equal to the Apoxyomenos of the Braccio Nuovo. He is also right in pointing out that no Greek sculptor approached the beauty of facial form and expression which we recognise in Raffaello's Madonna di San Sisto, in Sodoma's S. Sebastian, in Guercino's Christ at the Corsini Palace, in scores of early Florentine sepulchral monuments and pictures, in Umbrian saints and sweet strange portrait-fancies by Da Vinci. The fact seems to be that Greek and Italian plastic art followed different lines of development, owing to the difference of dominant ideas in the races, and to the difference of social custom. Religion naturally played a foremost part in the art-evolution of both epochs. The anthropomorphic Greek mythology encouraged sculptors to concentrate their attention upon what Hegel called "the sensuous manifestation of the idea," while Greek habits rendered them familiar with the body frankly exhibited. Mediaeval religion withdrew Italian sculptors and painters from the problems of purely physical form, and obliged them to study the expression of sentiments and aspirations which could only be rendered by emphasising psychical qualities revealed through physiognomy. At the same time, modern habits of life removed the naked body from their ken. We may go further, and observe that the conditions under which Greek art flourished developed what the Germans call "Allgemeinheit," a tendency to generalise, which was inimical to strongly marked facial expression or characterisation. The conditions of Italian art, on the other hand, favoured an opposite tendency--to particularise, to enforce detail, to emphasise the artist's own ideal or the model's quality. When the type of a Greek deity had been fixed, each successive master varied this within the closest limits possible. For centuries the type remained fundamentally unaltered, undergoing subtle transformations, due partly to the artist's temperament, and partly to changes in the temper of society. Consequently those aspects of the human form which are capable of most successful generalisation, the body and the limbs, exerted a kind of conventional tyranny over Greek art. And Greek artists applied to the face the same rules of generalisation which were applicable to the body. The Greek god or goddess was a sensuous manifestation of the idea, a particle of universal godhood incarnate in a special fleshly form, corresponding to the particular psychological attributes of the deity whom the sculptor had to represent. No deviation from the generalised type was possible. The Christian God, on the contrary, is a spirit; and all the emanations from this spirit, whether direct, as in the person of Christ, or derived, as in the persons of the saints, owe their sensuous form and substance to the exigencies of mortal existence, which these persons temporarily and phenomenally obeyed. Since, then, the sensuous manifestation has now become merely symbolic, and is no longer an indispensable investiture of the idea, it may be altered at will in Christian art without irreverence. The utmost capacity of the artist is now exerted, not in enforcing or refining a generalised type, but in discovering some new facial expression which shall reveal psychological quality in a particular being. Doing so, he inevitably insists upon the face; and having formed a face expressive of some defined quality, he can hardly give to the body that generalised beauty which belongs to a Greek nymph or athlete. What we mean by the differences between Classic and Romantic art lies in the distinctions I am drawing. Classicism sacrifices character to breadth. Romanticism sacrifices breadth to character. Classic art deals more triumphantly with the body, because the body gains by being broadly treated. Romantic art deals more triumphantly with the face, because the features lose by being broadly treated. This brings me back to Mr. Ruskin, who, in another of his treatises, condemns Michelangelo for a want of variety, beauty, feeling, in his heads and faces. Were this the case, Michelangelo would have little claim to rank as one of the world's chief artists. We have admitted that the Italians did not produce such perfectly beautiful bodes and limbs as the Greeks did, and have agreed that the Greeks produced less perfectly beautiful faces than the Italians. Suppose, then, that Michelangelo failed in his heads and faces, he, being an Italian, and therefore confessedly inferior to the Greeks in his bodies and limbs, must, by the force of logic, emerge less meritorious than we thought him. VII To many of my readers the foregoing section will appear superfluous, polemical, sophistic--three bad things. I wrote it, and I let it stand, however, because it serves as preface to what I have to say in general about Michelangelo's ideal of form. He was essentially a Romantic as opposed to a Classic artist. That is to say, he sought invariably for character--character in type, character in attitude, character in every action of each muscle, character in each extravagance of pose. He applied the Romantic principle to the body and the limbs, exactly to that region of the human form which the Greeks had conquered as their province. He did so with consummate science and complete mastery of physiological law. What is more, he compelled the body to become expressive, not, as the Greeks had done, of broad general conceptions, but of the most intimate and poignant personal emotions. This was his main originality. At the same time, being a Romantic, he deliberately renounced the main tradition of that manner. He refused to study portraiture, as Vasari tells us, and as we see so plainly in the statues of the Dukes at Florence. He generalised his faces, composing an ideal cast of features out of several types. In the rendering of the face and head, then, he chose to be a Classic, while in the treatment of the body he was vehemently modern. In all his work which is not meant to be dramatic--that is, excluding the damned souls in the Last Judgment, the bust of Brutus, and some keen psychological designs--character is sacrificed to a studied ideal of form, so far as the face is concerned. That he did this wilfully, on principle, is certain. The proof remains in the twenty heads of those incomparable genii of the Sistine, each one of whom possesses a beauty and a quality peculiar to himself alone. They show that, if he had so chosen, he could have played upon the human countenance with the same facility as on the human body, varying its expressiveness _ad infinitum_. Why Michelangelo preferred to generalise the face and to particularise the body remains a secret buried in the abysmal deeps of his personality. In his studies from the model, unlike Lionardo, he almost always left the features vague, while working out the trunk and limbs with strenuous passion. He never seems to have been caught and fascinated by the problem offered by the eyes and features of a male or female. He places masks or splendid commonplaces upon frames palpitant and vibrant with vitality in pleasure or in anguish. In order to guard against an apparent contradiction, I must submit that, when Michelangelo particularised the body and the limbs, he strove to make them the symbols of some definite passion or emotion. He seems to have been more anxious about the suggestions afforded by their pose and muscular employment than he was about the expression of the features. But we shall presently discover that, so far as pure physical type is concerned, he early began to generalise the structure of the body, passing finally into what may not unjustly be called a mannerism of form. These points may be still further illustrated by what a competent critic has recently written upon Michelangelo's treatment of form. "No one," says Professor Brücke, "ever knew so well as Michelangelo Buonarroti how to produce powerful and strangely harmonious effects by means of figures in themselves open to criticism, simply by his mode of placing and ordering them, and of distributing their lines. For him a figure existed only in his particular representation of it; how it would have looked in any other position was a matter of no concern to him." We may even go further, and maintain that Michelangelo was sometimes wilfully indifferent to the physical capacities of the human body in his passionate research of attitudes which present picturesque and novel beauty. The ancients worked on quite a different method. They created standard types which, in every conceivable posture, would exhibit the grace and symmetry belonging to well-proportioned frames. Michelangelo looked to the effect of a particular posture. He may have been seduced by his habit of modelling figures in clay instead of going invariably to the living subject, and so may have handled nature with unwarrantable freedom. Anyhow, we have here another demonstration of his romanticism. VIII The true test of the highest art is that it should rightly represent the human form. Agreed upon this point, it remains for us to consider in what way Michelangelo conceived and represented the human form. If we can discover his ideal, his principles, his leading instincts in this decisive matter, we shall unlock, so far as that is possible, the secret of his personality as man and artist. The psychological quality of every great master must eventually be determined by his mode of dealing with the phenomena of sex. In Pheidias we find a large impartiality. His men and women are cast in the same mould of grandeur, inspired with equal strength and sweetness, antiphonal notes in dual harmony. Praxiteles leans to the female, Lysippus to the male; and so, through all the gamut of the figurative craftsmen, we discover more or less affinity for man or woman. One is swayed by woman and her gracefulness, the other by man and his vigour. Few have realised the Pheidian perfection of doing equal justice. Michelangelo emerges as a mighty master who was dominated by the vision of male beauty, and who saw the female mainly through the fascination of the other sex. The defect of his art is due to a certain constitutional callousness, a want of sensuous or imaginative sensibility for what is specifically feminine. Not a single woman carved or painted by the hand of Michelangelo has the charm of early youth or the grace of virginity. The Eve of the Sistine, the Madonna of S. Peter's, the Night and Dawn of the Medicean Sacristy, are female in the anatomy of their large and grandly modelled forms, but not feminine in their sentiment. This proposition requires no proof. It is only needful to recall a Madonna by Raphael, a Diana by Correggio, a Leda by Lionardo, a Venus by Titian, a S. Agnes by Tintoretto. We find ourselves immediately in a different region--the region of artists who loved, admired, and comprehended what is feminine in the beauty and the temperament of women. Michelangelo neither loved, nor admired, nor yielded to the female sex. Therefore he could not deal plastically with what is best and loveliest in the female form. His plastic ideal of the woman is masculine. He builds a colossal frame of muscle, bone, and flesh, studied with supreme anatomical science. He gives to Eve the full pelvis and enormous haunches of an adult matron. It might here be urged that he chose to symbolise the fecundity of her who was destined to be the mother of the human race. But if this was his meaning, why did he not make Adam a corresponding symbol of fatherhood? Adam is an adolescent man, colossal in proportions, but beardless, hairless; the attributes of sex in him are developed, but not matured by use. The Night, for whom no symbolism of maternity was needed, is a woman who has passed through many pregnancies. Those deeply delved wrinkles on the vast and flaccid abdomen sufficiently indicate this. Yet when we turn to Michelangelo's sonnets on Night, we find that he habitually thought of her as a mysterious and shadowy being, whose influence, though potent for the soul, disappeared before the frailest of all creatures bearing light. The Dawn, again, in her deep lassitude, has nothing of vernal freshness. Built upon the same type as the Night, she looks like Messalina dragging herself from heavy slumber, for once satiated as well as tired, stricken for once with the conscience of disgust. When he chose to depict the acts of passion or of sensual pleasure, a similar want of sympathy with what is feminine in womanhood leaves an even more discordant impression on the mind. I would base the proof of this remark upon the marble Leda of the Bargello Museum, and an old engraving of Ixion clasping the phantom of Juno under the form of a cloud. In neither case do we possess Michelangelo's own handiwork; he must not, therefore, be credited with the revolting expression, as of a drunken profligate, upon the face of Leda. Yet in both cases he is indubitably responsible for the general design, and for the brawny carnality of the repulsive woman. I find it difficult to resist the conclusion that Michelangelo felt himself compelled to treat women as though they were another and less graceful sort of males. The sentiment of woman, what really distinguishes the sex, whether voluptuously or passionately or poetically apprehended, emerges in no eminent instance of his work. There is a Cartoon at Naples for a Bacchante, which Bronzino transferred to canvas and coloured. This design illustrates the point on which I am insisting. An athletic circus-rider of mature years, with abnormally developed muscles, might have posed as model for this female votary of Dionysus. Before he made this drawing, Michelangelo had not seen those frescoes of the dancing Bacchantes from Pompeii; nor had he perhaps seen the Maenads on Greek bas-reliefs tossing wild tresses backwards, swaying virginal lithe bodies to the music of the tambourine. We must not, therefore, compare his concept with those masterpieces of the later classical imagination. Still, many of his contemporaries, vastly inferior to him in penetrative insight, a Giovanni da Udine, a Perino del Vaga, a Primaticcio, not to speak of Raffaello or of Lionardo, felt what the charm of youthful womanhood upon the revel might be. He remained insensible to the melody of purely feminine lines; and the only reason why his transcripts from the female form are not gross like those of Flemish painters, repulsive like Rembrandt's, fleshly like Rubens's, disagreeable like the drawings made by criminals in prisons, is that they have little womanly about them. Lest these assertions should appear too dogmatic, I will indicate the series of works in which I recognise Michelangelo's sympathy with genuine female quality. All the domestic groups, composed of women and children, which fill the lunettes and groinings between the windows in the Sistine Chapel, have a charming twilight sentiment of family life or maternal affection. They are among the loveliest and most tranquil of his conceptions. The Madonna above the tomb of Julius II. cannot be accused of masculinity, nor the ecstatic figure of the Rachel beneath it. Both of these statues represent what Goethe called "das ewig Weibliche" under a truly felt and natural aspect. The Delphian and Erythrean Sibyls are superb in their majesty. Again, in those numerous designs for Crucifixions, Depositions from the Cross, and Pietàs, which occupied so much of Michelangelo's attention during his old age, we find an intense and pathetic sympathy with the sorrows of Mary, expressed with noble dignity and a pious sense of godhead in the human mother. It will be remarked that throughout the cases I have reserved as exceptions, it is not woman in her plastic beauty and her radiant charm that Michelangelo has rendered, but woman in her tranquil or her saddened and sorrow-stricken moods. What he did not comprehend and could not represent was woman in her girlishness, her youthful joy, her physical attractiveness, her magic of seduction. Michelangelo's women suggest demonic primitive beings, composite and undetermined products of the human race in evolution, before the specific qualities of sex have been eliminated from a general predominating mass of masculinity. At their best, they carry us into the realm of Lucretian imagination. He could not have incarnated in plastic form Shakespeare's Juliet and Imogen, Dante's Francesca da Rimini, Tasso's Erminia and Clorinda; but he might have supplied a superb illustration to the opening lines of the Lucretian epic, where Mars lies in the bed of Venus, and the goddess spreads her ample limbs above her Roman lover. He might have evoked images tallying the vision of primal passion in the fourth book of that poem. As I have elsewhere said, writing about Lucretius: "There is something almost tragic in these sighs and pantings and pleasure-throes, these incomplete fruitions of souls pent within their frames of flesh. We seem to see a race of men and women such as never lived, except perhaps in Rome or in the thought of Michelangelo, meeting in leonine embracements that yield pain, whereof the climax is, at best, relief from rage and respite for a moment from consuming fire. There is a life elemental rather than human in those mighty limbs; and the passion that twists them on the marriage-bed has in it the stress of storms, the rampings and roarings of leopards at play. Take this single line:-- _et Venus in silvis jungebat corpora amantum._ What a picture of primeval breadth and vastness! The forest is the world, and the bodies of the lovers are things natural and unashamed, and Venus is the tyrannous instinct that controls the blood in spring." What makes Michelangelo's crudity in his plastic treatment of the female form the more remarkable is that in his poetry he seems to feel the influence of women mystically. I shall have to discuss this topic in another place. It is enough here to say that, with very few exceptions, we remain in doubt whether he is addressing a woman at all. There are none of those spontaneous utterances by which a man involuntarily expresses the outgoings of his heart to a beloved object, the throb of irresistible emotion, the physical ache, the sense of wanting, the joys and pains, the hopes and fears, the ecstasies and disappointments, which belong to genuine passion. The woman is, for him, an allegory, something he has not approached and handled. Of her personality we learn nothing. Of her bodily presentment, the eyes alone are mentioned; and the eyes are treated as the path to Paradise for souls which seek emancipation from the flesh. Raffaello's few and far inferior sonnets vibrate with an intense and potent sensibility to this woman or to that. Michelangelo's "donna" might just as well be a man; and indeed the poems he addressed to men, though they have nothing sensual about them, reveal a finer touch in the emotion of the writer. It is difficult to connect this vaporous incorporeal "donna" of the poems with those brawny colossal adult females of the statues, unless we suppose that Michelangelo remained callous both to the physical attractions and the emotional distinction of woman as she actually is. I have tried to demonstrate that, plastically, he did not understand women, and could not reproduce their form in art with sympathetic feeling for its values of grace, suavity, virginity, and frailty. He imported masculine qualities into every female theme he handled. The case is different when we turn to his treatment of the male figure. It would be impossible to adduce a single instance, out of the many hundreds of examples furnished by his work, in which a note of femininity has been added to the masculine type. He did not think enough of women to reverse the process, and create hermaphroditic beings like the Apollino of Praxiteles or the S. Sebastian of Sodoma. His boys and youths and adult men remain, in the truest and the purest sense of the word, virile. Yet with what infinite variety, with what a deep intelligence of its resources, with what inexhaustible riches of enthusiasm and science, he played upon the lyre of the male nude! How far more fit for purposes of art he felt the man to be than the woman is demonstrated, not only by his approaching woman from the masculine side, but also by his close attention to none but male qualities in men. I need not insist or enlarge upon this point. The fact is apparent to every one with eyes to see. It would be futile to expound Michelangelo's fertility in dealing with the motives of the male figure as minutely as I judged it necessary to explain the poverty of his inspiration through the female. But it ought to be repeated that, over the whole gamut of the scale, from the grace of boyhood, through the multiform delightfulness of adolescence into the firm force of early manhood, and the sterner virtues of adult age, one severe and virile spirit controls his fashioning of plastic forms. He even exaggerates what is masculine in the male, as he caricatures the female by ascribing impossible virility to her. But the exaggeration follows here a line of mental and moral rectitude. It is the expression of his peculiar sensibility to physical structure. IX When we study the evolution of Michelangelo's ideal of form, we find at the beginning of his life a very short period in which he followed the traditions of Donatello and imitated Greek work. The seated Madonna in bas-relief and the Giovannino belong to this first stage. So does the bas-relief of the Centaurs. It soon becomes evident, however, that Michelangelo was not destined to remain a continuator of Donatello's manner or a disciple of the classics. The next period, which includes the Madonna della Febbre, the Bruges Madonna, the Bacchus, the Cupid, and the David, is marked by an intense search after the truth of Nature. Both Madonnas might be criticised for unreality, owing to the enormous development of the thorax and something artificial in the type of face. But all the male figures seem to have been studied from the model. There is an individuality about the character of each, a naturalism, an aiming after realistic expression, which separate this group from previous and subsequent works by Buonarroti. Traces of Donatello's influence survive in the treatment of the long large hands of David, the cast of features selected for that statue, and the working of the feet. Indeed it may be said that Donatello continued through life to affect the genius of Michelangelo by a kind of sympathy, although the elder master's naïveté was soon discarded by the younger. The second period culminated in the Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa. This design appears to have fixed the style now known to us as Michelangelesque, and the loss of it is therefore irreparable. It exercised the consummate science which he had acquired, his complete mastery over the male nude. It defined his firm resolve to treat linear design from the point of view of sculpture rather than of painting proper. It settled his determination to work exclusively through and by the human figure, rejecting all subordinate elements of decoration. Had we possessed this epoch-making masterpiece, we should probably have known Michelangelo's genius in its flower-period of early ripeness, when anatomical learning was still combined with a sustained dependence upon Nature. The transition from the second to the third stage in this development of form-ideal remains imperfectly explained, because the bathers in the Arno were necessary to account for the difference between the realistic David and the methodically studied genii of the Sistine. The vault of the Sistine shows Michelangelo's third manner in perfection. He has developed what may be called a scheme of the human form. The apparently small head, the enormous breadth of shoulder, the thorax overweighing the whole figure, the finely modelled legs, the large and powerful extremities, which characterise his style henceforward, culminate in Adam, repeat themselves throughout the genii, govern the prophets. But Nature has not been neglected. Nothing is more remarkable in that vast decorative mass of figures than the variety of types selected, the beauty and animation of the faces, the extraordinary richness, elasticity, and freshness of the attitudes presented to the eye. Every period of life has been treated with impartial justice, and both sexes are adequately handled. The Delphian, Erythrean, and Libyan Sibyls display a sublime sense of facial beauty. The Eve of the Temptation has even something of positively feminine charm. This is probably due to the fact that Michelangelo here studied expression and felt the necessity of dramatic characterisation in this part of his work. He struck each chord of what may be called the poetry of figurative art, from the epic cantos of Creation, Fall, and Deluge, through the tragic odes uttered by prophets and sibyls down to the lyric notes of the genii, and the sweet idyllic strains of the groups in the lunettes and spandrels. It cannot be said that even here Michelangelo felt the female nude as sympathetically as he felt the male. The women in the picture of the Deluge are colossal creatures, scarcely distinguishable from the men except by their huge bosoms. His personal sense of beauty finds fullest expression in the genii. The variations on one theme of youthful loveliness and grace are inexhaustible; the changes rung on attitude, and face, and feature are endless. The type, as I have said, has already become schematic. It is adolescent, but the adolescence is neither that of the Greek athlete nor that of the nude model. Indeed, it is hardly natural; nor yet is it ideal in the Greek sense of that term. The physical gracefulness of a slim ephebus was never seized by Michelangelo. His Ganymede displays a massive trunk and brawny thighs. Compare this with the Ganymede of Titian. Compare the Cupid at South Kensington with the Praxitelean Genius of the Vatican--the Adonis and the Bacchus of the Bargello with Hellenic statues. The bulk and force of maturity are combined with the smoothness of boyhood and with a delicacy of face that borders on the feminine. It is an arid region, the region of this mighty master's spirit. There are no heavens and no earth or sea in it; no living creatures, forests, flowers; no bright colours, brilliant lights, or cavernous darks. In clear grey twilight appear a multitude of naked forms, both male and female, yet neither male nor female of the actual world; rather the brood of an inventive intellect, teeming with preoccupations of abiding thoughts and moods of feeling, which become for it incarnate in these stupendous figures. It is as though Michelangelo worked from the image in his brain outwards to a physical presentment supplied by his vast knowledge of life, creating forms proper to his own specific concept. Nowhere else in plastic art does the mental world peculiar to the master press in so immediately, without modification and without mitigation, upon our sentient imagination. I sometimes dream that the inhabitants of the moon may be like Michelangelo's men and women, as I feel sure its landscape resembles his conception of the material universe. What I have called Michelangelo's third manner, the purest manifestation of which is to be found in the vault of the Sistine, sustained itself for a period of many years. The surviving fragments of sculpture for the tomb of Julius, especially the Captives of the Louvre and the statues in the Sacristy at S. Lorenzo, belong to this stage. A close and intimate _rapport_ with Nature can be perceived in all the work he designed and executed during the pontificates of Leo and Clement. The artist was at his fullest both of mental energy and physical vigour. What he wrought now bears witness to his plenitude of manhood. Therefore, although the type fixed for the Sistine prevailed--I mean that generalisation of the human form in certain wilfully selected proportions, conceived to be ideally beautiful or necessary for the grand style in vast architectonic schemes of decoration--still it is used with an exquisite sensitiveness to the pose and structure of the natural body, a delicate tact in the definition of muscle and articulation, an acute feeling for the qualities of flesh and texture. None of the creations of this period, moreover, are devoid of intense animating emotions and ideas. Unluckily, during all the years which intervened between the Sistine vault and the Last Judgment, Michelangelo was employed upon architectural problems and engineering projects, which occupied his genius in regions far removed from that of figurative art. It may, therefore, be asserted, that although he did not retrograde from want of practice, he had no opportunity of advancing further by the concentration of his genius on design. This accounts, I think, for the change in his manner which we notice when he began to paint in Rome under Pope Paul III. The fourth stage in his development of form is reached now. He has lost nothing of his vigour, nothing of his science. But he has drifted away from Nature. All the innumerable figures of the Last Judgment, in all their varied attitudes, with divers moods of dramatic expression, are diagrams wrought out imaginatively from the stored-up resources of a lifetime. It may be argued that it was impossible to pose models, in other words, to appeal to living men and women, for the foreshortenings of falling or soaring shapes in that huge drift of human beings. This is true; and the strongest testimony to the colossal powers of observation possessed by Michelangelo is that none of all those attitudes are wrong. We may verify them, if we take particular pains to do so, by training the sense of seeing to play the part of a detective camera. Michelangelo was gifted with a unique faculty for seizing momentary movements, fixing them upon his memory, and transferring them to fresco by means of his supreme acquaintance with the bony structure and the muscular capacities of the human frame. Regarded from this point of view, the Last Judgment was an unparalleled success. As such the contemporaries of Buonarroti hailed it. Still, the breath of life has exaled from all those bodies, and the tyranny of the schematic ideal of form is felt in each of them. Without meaning to be irreverent, we might fancy that two elastic lay-figures, one male, the other female, both singularly similar in shape, supplied the materials for the total composition. Of the dramatic intentions and suggestions underlying these plastic and elastic shapes I am not now speaking. It is my present business to establish the phases through which my master's sense of form passed from its cradle to its grave. In the frescoes of the Cappella Paolina, so ruined at this day that we can hardly value them, the mechanic manner of the fourth stage seems to reach its climax. Ghosts of their former selves, they still reveal the poverty of creative and spontaneous inspiration which presided over their nativity. Michelangelo's fourth manner might be compared with that of Milton in "Paradise Regained" and "Samson Agonistes." Both of these great artists in old age exaggerate the defects of their qualities. Michelangelo's ideal of line and proportion in the human form becomes stereotyped and strained, as do Milton's rhythms and his Latinisms. The generous wine of the Bacchus and of "Comus," so intoxicating in its newness, the same wine in the Sistine and "Paradise Lost," so overwhelming in its mature strength, has acquired an austere aridity. Yet, strange to say, amid these autumn stubbles of declining genius we light upon oases more sweet, more tenderly suggestive, than aught the prime produced. It is not my business to speak of Milton here. I need not recall his "Knights of Logres and of Lyonesse," or resume his Euripidean garlands showered on Samson's grave. But, for my master Michelangelo, it will suffice to observe that all the grace his genius held, refined, of earthly grossness quit, appeared, under the dominance of this fourth manner, in the mythological subjects he composed for Tommaso Cavalieri, and, far more nobly, in his countless studies for the celebration of Christ's Passion. The designs bequeathed to us from this period are very numerous. They were never employed in the production of any monumental work of sculpture or of painting. For this very reason, because they were occasional improvisations, preludes, dreams of things to be, they preserve the finest bloom, the Indian summer of his fancy. Lovers of Michelangelo must dedicate their latest and most loving studies to this phase of his fourth manner. X If we seek to penetrate the genius of an artist, not merely forming a correct estimate of his technical ability and science, but also probing his personality to the core, as near as this is possible for us to do, we ought to give our undivided study to his drawings. It is there, and there alone, that we come face to face with the real man, in his unguarded moments, in his hours of inspiration, in the laborious effort to solve a problem of composition, or in the happy flow of genial improvisation. Michelangelo was wont to maintain that all the arts are included in the art of design. Sculpture, painting, architecture, he said, are but subordinate branches of draughtsmanship. And he went so far as to assert that the mechanical arts, with engineering and fortification, nay, even the minor arts of decoration and costume, owe their existence to design. The more we reflect upon this apparent paradox, the more shall we feel it to be true. At any rate, there are no products of human thought and feeling capable of being expressed by form which do not find their common denominator in a linear drawing. The simplicity of a sketch, the comparative rapidity with which it is produced, the concentration of meaning demanded by its rigid economy of means, render it more symbolical, more like the hieroglyph of its maker's mind, than any finished work can be. We may discover a greater mass of interesting objects in a painted picture or a carved statue; but we shall never find exactly the same thing, never the involuntary revelation of the artist's soul, the irrefutable witness to his mental and moral qualities, to the mysteries of his genius and to its limitations. If this be true of all artists, it is in a peculiar sense true of Michelangelo. Great as he was as sculptor, painter, architect, he was only perfect and impeccable as draughtsman. Inadequate realisation, unequal execution, fatigue, satiety, caprice of mood, may sometimes be detected in his frescoes and his statues; but in design we never find him faulty, hasty, less than absolute master over the selected realm of thought. His most interesting and instructive work remains what he performed with pen and chalk in hand. Deeply, therefore, must we regret the false modesty which made him destroy masses of his drawings, while we have reason to be thankful for those marvellous photographic processes which nowadays have placed the choicest of his masterpieces within the reach of every one. The following passages from Vasari's and Condivi's Lives deserve attention by those who approach the study of Buonarroti's drawings. Vasari says: "His powers of imagination were such, that he was frequently compelled to abandon his purpose, because he could not express by the hand those grand and sublime ideas which he had conceived in his mind; nay, he has spoiled and destroyed many works for this cause; and I know, too, that some short time before his death he burnt a large number of his designs, sketches, and cartoons, that none might see the labours he had endured, and the trials to which he had subjected his spirit, in his resolve not to fall short of perfection. I have myself secured some drawings by his hand, which were found in Florence, and are now in my book of designs, and these, although they give evidence of his great genius, yet prove also that the hammer of Vulcan was necessary to bring Minerva from the head of Jupiter. He would construct an ideal shape out of nine, ten and even twelve different heads, for no other purpose than to obtain a certain grace of harmony and composition which is not to be found in the natural form, and would say that the artist must have his measuring tools, not in the hand, but in the eye, because the hands do but operate, it is the eye that judges; he pursued the same idea in architecture also." Condivi adds some information regarding his extraordinary fecundity and variety of invention: "He was gifted with a most tenacious memory, the power of which was such that, though he painted so many thousands of figures, as any one can see, he never made one exactly like another or posed in the same attitude. Indeed, I have heard him say that he never draws a line without remembering whether he has drawn it before; erasing any repetition, when the design was meant to be exposed to public view. His force of imagination is also most extraordinary. This has been the chief reason why he was never quite satisfied with his own work, and always depreciated its quality, esteeming that his hand failed to attain the idea which he had formed within his brain." XI The four greatest draughtsmen of this epoch were Lionardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raffaello, and Andrea del Sarto. They are not to be reckoned as equals; for Lionardo and Michelangelo outstrip the other two almost as much as these surpass all lesser craftsmen. Each of the four men expressed his own peculiar vision of the world with pen, or chalk, or metal point, finding the unique inevitable line, the exact touch and quality of stroke, which should present at once a lively transcript from real Nature, and a revelation of the artist's particular way of feeling Nature. In Lionardo it is a line of subtlety and infinite suggestiveness; in Michelangelo it compels attention, and forcibly defines the essence of the object; in Raffaello it carries melody, the charm of an unerring rhythm; in Andrea it seems to call for tone, colour, atmosphere, and makes their presence felt. Raffaello was often faulty: even in the wonderful pen-drawing of two nudes he sent to Albrecht Dürer as a sample of his skill, we blame the knees and ankles of his models. Lionardo was sometimes wilful, whimsical, seduced by dreamland, like a god born amateur. Andrea allowed his facility to lead him into languor, and lacked passion. Michelangelo's work shows none of these shortcomings; it is always technically faultness, instinct with passion, supereminent in force. But we crave more of grace, of sensuous delight, of sweetness, than he chose, or perhaps was able, to communicate. We should welcome a little more of human weakness if he gave a little more of divine suavity. Michelangelo's style of design is that of a sculptor, Andrea's of a colourist, Lionardo's of a curious student, Raffaello's of a musician and improvisatore. These distinctions are not merely fanciful, nor based on what we know about the men in their careers. We feel similar distinctions in the case of all great draughtsmen. Titian's chalk-studies, Fra Bartolommeo's, so singularly akin to Andrea del Sarto's, Giorgione's pen-and-ink sketch for a Lucretia, are seen at once by their richness and blurred outlines to be the work of colourists. Signorelli's transcripts from the nude, remarkably similar to those of Michelangelo, reveal a sculptor rather than a painter. Botticelli, with all his Florentine precision, shows that, like Lionardo, he was a seeker and a visionary in his anxious feeling after curve and attitude. Mantegna seems to be graving steel or cutting into marble. It is easy to apply this analysis in succession to any draughtsman who has style. To do so would, however, be superfluous: we should only be enforcing what is a truism to all intelligent students of art--namely, that each individual stamps his own specific quality upon his handiwork; reveals even in the neutral region of design his innate preference for colour or pure form as a channel of expression; betrays the predominance of mental energy or sensuous charm, of scientific curiosity or plastic force, of passion or of tenderness, which controls his nature. This inevitable and unconscious revelation of the man in art-work strikes us as being singularly modern. We do not apprehend it to at all the same extent in the sculpture of the ancients, whether it be that our sympathies are too remote from Greek and Roman ways of feeling, or whether the ancients really conceived art more collectively in masses, less individually as persons. No master exhibits this peculiarly modern quality more decisively than Michelangelo, and nowhere is the personality of his genius, what marks him off and separates him from all fellow-men, displayed with fuller emphasis than in his drawings. To use the words of a penetrative critic, from whom it is a pleasure to quote: "The thing about Michelangelo is this; he is not, so to say, at the head of a class, but he stands apart by himself: he is not possessed of a skill which renders him unapproached or unapproachable; but rather, he is of so unique an order, that no other artist whatever seems to suggest comparison with him." Mr. Selwyn Image goes on to define in what a true sense the words "creator" and "creative" may be applied to him: how the shows and appearances of the world were for him but hieroglyphs of underlying ideas, with which his soul was familiar, and from which he worked again outward; "his learning and skill in the arts supplying to his hand such large and adequate symbols of them as are otherwise beyond attainment." This, in a very difficult and impalpable region of aesthetic criticism, is finely said, and accords with Michelangelo's own utterances upon art and beauty in his poems. Dwelling like a star apart, communing with the eternal ideas, the permanent relations of the universe, uttering his inmost thoughts about these mysteries through the vehicles of science and of art, for which he was so singularly gifted, Michelangelo, in no loose or trivial sense of that phrase, proved himself to be a creator. He introduces us to a world seen by no eyes except his own, compels us to become familiar with forms unapprehended by our senses, accustoms us to breathe a rarer and more fiery atmosphere than we were born into. The vehicles used by Michelangelo in his designs were mostly pen and chalk. He employed both a sharp-nibbed pen of some kind, and a broad flexible reed, according to the exigencies of his subject or the temper of his mood. The chalk was either red or black, the former being softer than the latter. I cannot remember any instances of those chiaroscuro washes which Raffaello handled in so masterly a manner, although Michelangelo frequently combined bistre shading with pen outlines. In like manner he does not seem to have favoured the metal point upon prepared paper, with which Lionardo produced unrivalled masterpieces. Some drawings, where the yellow outline bites into a parchment paper, blistering at the edges, suggest a rusty metal in the instrument. We must remember, however, that the inks of that period were frequently corrosive, as is proved by the state of many documents now made illegible through the gradual attrition of the paper by mineral acids. It is also not impossible that artists may have already invented what we call steel pens. Sarpi, in the seventeenth century, thanks a correspondent for the gift of one of these mechanical devices. Speaking broadly, the reed and the quill, red and black chalk, or _matita,_ were the vehicles of Michelangelo's expression as a draughtsman. I have seen very few examples of studies heightened with white chalk, and none produced in the fine Florentine style of Ghirlandajo by white chalk alone upon a dead-brown surface. In this matter it is needful to speak with diffidence; for the sketches of our master are so widely scattered that few students can have examined the whole of them; and photographic reproductions, however admirable in their fidelity to outline, do not always give decisive evidence regarding the materials employed. One thing seems manifest. Michelangelo avoided those mixed methods with which Lionardo, the magician, wrought wonders. He preferred an instrument which could be freely, broadly handled, inscribing form in strong plain strokes upon the candid paper. The result attained, whether wrought by bold lines, or subtly hatched, or finished with the utmost delicacy of modulated shading, has always been traced out conscientiously and firmly, with one pointed stylus (pen, chalk, or matita), chosen for the purpose. As I have said, it is the work of a sculptor, accustomed to wield chisel and mallet upon marble, rather than that of a painter, trained to secure effects by shadows and glazings. It is possible, I think, to define, at least with some approximation to precision, Michelangelo's employment of his favourite vehicles for several purposes and at different periods of his life. A broad-nibbed pen was used almost invariably in making architectural designs of cornices, pilasters, windows, also in plans for military engineering. Sketches of tombs and edifices, intended to be shown to patrons, were partly finished with the pen; and here we find a subordinate and very limited use of the brush in shading. Such performances may be regarded as products of the workshop rather than as examples of the artist's mastery. The style of them is often conventional, suggesting the intrusion of a pupil or the deliberate adoption of an office mannerism. The pen plays a foremost part in all the greatest and most genial creations of his fancy when it worked energetically in preparation for sculpture or for fresco. The Louvre is rich in masterpieces of this kind--the fiery study of a David; the heroic figures of two male nudes, hatched into stubborn salience like pieces of carved wood; the broad conception of the Madonna at S. Lorenzo in her magnificent repose and passionate cascade of fallen draperies; the repulsive but superabundantly powerful profile of a goat-like faun. These, and the stupendous studies of the Albertina Collection at Vienna, including the supine man with thorax violently raised, are worked with careful hatchings, stroke upon stroke, effecting a suggestion of plastic roundness. But we discover quite a different use of the pen in some large simple outlines of seated female figures at the Louvre; in thick, almost muddy, studies at Vienna, where the form emerges out of oft-repeated sodden blotches; in the grim light and shade, the rapid suggestiveness of the dissection scene at Oxford. The pen in the hand of Michelangelo was the tool by means of which he realised his most trenchant conceptions and his most picturesque impressions. In youth and early manhood, when his genius was still vehement, it seems to have been his favourite vehicle. The use of chalk grew upon him in later life, possibly because he trusted more to his memory now, and loved the dreamier softer medium for uttering his fancies. Black chalk was employed for rapid notes of composition, and also for the more elaborate productions of his pencil. To this material we owe the head of Horror which he gave to Gherardo Perini (in the Uffizi), the Phaethon, the Tityos, the Ganymede he gave to Tommaso Cavalieri (at Windsor). It is impossible to describe the refinements of modulated shading and the precision of predetermined outlines by means of which these incomparable drawings have been produced. They seem to melt and to escape inspection, yet they remain fixed on the memory as firmly as forms in carven basalt. The whole series of designs for Christ's Crucifixion and Deposition from the Cross are executed in chalk, sometimes black, but mostly red. It is manifest, upon examination, that they are not studies from the model, but thoughts evoked and shadowed forth on paper. Their perplexing multiplicity and subtle variety--as though a mighty improvisatore were preluding again and yet again upon the clavichord to find his theme, abandoning the search, renewing it, altering the key, changing the accent--prove that this continued seeking with the crayon after form and composition was carried on in solitude and abstract moments. Incomplete as the designs may be, they reveal Michelangelo's loftiest dreams and purest visions. The nervous energy, the passionate grip upon the subject, shown in the pen-drawings, are absent here. These qualities are replaced by meditation and an air of rapt devotion. The drawings for the Passion might be called the prayers and pious thoughts of the stern master. Red chalk he used for some of his most brilliant conceptions. It is not necessary to dwell upon the bending woman's head at Oxford, or the torso of the lance-bearer at Vienna. Let us confine our attention to what is perhaps the most pleasing and most perfect of all Michelangelo's designs--the "Bersaglio," or the "Arcieri," in the Queen's collection at Windsor. It is a group of eleven naked men and one woman, fiercely footing the air, and driving shafts with all their might to pierce a classical terminal figure, whose face, like that of Pallas, and broad breast are guarded by a spreading shield. The draughtsman has indicated only one bow, bent with fury by an old man in the background. Yet all the actions proper to archery are suggested by the violent gestures and strained sinews of the crowd. At the foot of the terminal statue, Cupid lies asleep upon his wings, with idle bow and quiver. Two little genii of love, in the background, are lighting up a fire, puffing its flames, as though to drive the archers onward. Energy and ardour, impetuous movement and passionate desire, could not be expressed with greater force, nor the tyranny of some blind impulse be more imaginatively felt. The allegory seems to imply that happiness is not to be attained, as human beings mostly strive to seize it, by the fierce force of the carnal passions. It is the contrast between celestial love asleep in lustful souls, and vulgar love inflaming tyrannous appetites:-- _The one love soars, the other downward tends; The soul lights this, while that the senses stir, And still lust's arrow at base quarry flies._ This magnificent design was engraved during Buonarroti's lifetime, or shortly afterwards, by Niccolò Beatrizet. Some follower of Raffaello used the print for a fresco in the Palazzo Borghese at Rome. It forms one of the series in which Raffaello's marriage of Alexander and Roxana is painted. This has led some critics to ascribe the drawing itself to the Urbinate. Indeed, at first sight, one might almost conjecture that the original chalk study was a genuine work of Raffaello, aiming at rivalry with Michelangelo's manner. The calm beauty of the statue's classic profile, the refinement of all the faces, the exquisite delicacy of the adolescent forms, and the dominant veiling of strength with grace, are not precisely Michelangelesque. The technical execution of the design, however, makes its attribution certain. Well as Raffaello could draw, he could not draw like this. He was incapable of rounding and modelling the nude with those soft stipplings and granulated shadings which bring the whole surface out like that of a bas-relief in polished marble. His own drawing for Alexander and Roxana, in red chalk, and therefore an excellent subject for comparison with the Arcieri, is hatched all over in straight lines; a method adopted by Michelangelo when working with the pen, but, so far as I am aware, never, or very rarely, used when he was handling chalk. The style of this design and its exquisite workmanship correspond exactly with the finish of the Cavalieri series at Windsor. The paper, moreover, is indorsed in Michelangelo's handwriting with a memorandum bearing the date April 12, 1530. We have then in this masterpiece of draughtsmanship an example, not of Raffaello in a Michelangelising mood, but of Michelangelo for once condescending to surpass Raffaello on his own ground of loveliness and rhythmic grace. CHAPTER VII I Julius died upon the 21st of February 1513. "A prince," says Guicciardini, "of inestimable courage and tenacity, but headlong, and so extravagant in the schemes he formed, that his own prudence and moderation had less to do with shielding him from ruin than the discord of sovereigns and the circumstances of the times in Europe: worthy, in all truth, of the highest glory had he been a secular potentate, or if the pains and anxious thought he employed in augmenting the temporal greatness of the Church by war had been devoted to her spiritual welfare in the arts of peace." Italy rejoiced when Giovanni de' Medici was selected to succeed him, with the title of Leo X. "Venus ruled in Rome with Alexander, Mars with Julius, now Pallas enters on her reign with Leo." Such was the tenor of the epigrams which greeted Leo upon his triumphal progress to the Lateran. It was felt that a Pope of the house of Medici would be a patron of arts and letters, and it was hoped that the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent might restore the equilibrium of power in Italy. Leo X. has enjoyed a greater fame than he deserved. Extolled as an Augustus in his lifetime, he left his name to what is called the golden age of Italian culture. Yet he cannot be said to have raised any first-rate men of genius, or to have exercised a very wise patronage over those whom Julius brought forward. Michelangelo and Raffaello were in the full swing of work when Leo claimed their services. We shall see how he hampered the rare gifts of the former by employing him on uncongenial labours; and it was no great merit to give a free rein to the inexhaustible energy of Raffaello. The project of a new S. Peter's belonged to Julius. Leo only continued the scheme, using such assistants as the times provided after Bramante's death in 1514. Julius instinctively selected men of soaring and audacious genius, who were capable of planning on a colossal scale. Leo delighted in the society of clever people, poetasters, petty scholars, lutists, and buffoons. Rome owes no monumental work to his inventive brain, and literature no masterpiece to his discrimination. Ariosto, the most brilliant poet of the Renaissance, returned in disappointment from the Vatican. "When I went to Rome and kissed the foot of Leo," writes the ironical satirist, "he bent down from the holy chair, and took my hand and saluted me on both cheeks. Besides, he made me free of half the stamp-dues I was bound to pay; and then, breast full of hope, but smirched with mud, I retired and took my supper at the Ram." The words which Leo is reported to have spoken to his brother Giuliano when he heard the news of his election, express the character of the man and mark the difference between his ambition and that of Julius. "Let us enjoy the Papacy, since God has given it us." To enjoy life, to squander the treasures of the Church on amusements, to feed a rabble of flatterers, to contract enormous debts, and to disturb the peace of Italy, not for some vast scheme of ecclesiastical aggrandisement, but in order to place the princes of his family on thrones, that was Leo's conception of the Papal privileges and duties. The portraits of the two Popes, both from the hand of Raffaello, are eminently characteristic. Julius, bent, white-haired, and emaciated, has the nervous glance of a passionate and energetic temperament. Leo, heavy-jawed, dull-eyed, with thick lips and a brawny jowl, betrays the coarser fibre of a sensualist. II We have seen already that Julius, before his death, provided for his monument being carried out upon a reduced scale. Michelangelo entered into a new contract with the executors, undertaking to finish the work within the space of seven years from the date of the deed, May 6, 1513. He received in several payments, during that year and the years 1514, 1515, 1516, the total sum of 6100 golden ducats. This proves that he must have pushed the various operations connected with the tomb vigorously forward, employing numerous workpeople, and ordering supplies of marble. In fact, the greater part of what remains to us of the unfinished monument may be ascribed to this period of comparatively uninterrupted labour. Michelangelo had his workshop in the Macello de' Corvi, but we know very little about the details of his life there. His correspondence happens to be singularly scanty between the years 1513 and 1516. One letter, however, written in May 1518, to the Capitano of Cortona throws a ray of light upon this barren tract of time, and introduces an artist of eminence, whose intellectual affinity to Michelangelo will always remain a matter of interest. "While I was at Rome, in the first year of Pope Leo, there came the Master Luca Signorelli of Cortona, painter. I met him one day near Monte Giordano, and he told me that he was come to beg something from the Pope, I forget what: he had run the risk of losing life and limb for his devotion to the house of Medici, and now it seemed they did not recognise him: and so forth, saying many things I have forgotten. After these discourses, he asked me for forty giulios [a coin equal in value to the more modern paolo, and worth perhaps eight shillings of present money], and told me where to send them to, at the house of a shoemaker, his lodgings. I not having the money about me, promised to send it, and did so by the hand of a young man in my service, called Silvio, who is still alive and in Rome, I believe. After the lapse of some days, perhaps because his business with the Pope had failed, Messer Luca came to my house in the Macello de' Corvi, the same where I live now, and found me working on a marble statue, four cubits in height, which has the hands bound behind the back, and bewailed himself with me, and begged another forty, saying that he wanted to leave Rome. I went up to my bedroom, and brought the money down in the presence of a Bolognese maid I kept, and I think the Silvio above mentioned was also there. When Luca got the cash, he went away, and I have never seen him since; but I remember complaining to him, because I was out of health and could not work, and he said: 'Have no fear, for the angels from heaven will come to take you in their arms and aid you.'" This is in several ways an interesting document. It brings vividly before our eyes magnificent expensive Signorelli and his meanly living comrade, each of them mighty masters of a terrible and noble style, passionate lovers of the nude, devoted to masculine types of beauty, but widely and profoundly severed by differences in their personal tastes and habits. It also gives us a glimpse into Michelangelo's workshop at the moment when he was blocking out one of the bound Captives at the Louvre. It seems from what follows in the letter that Michelangelo had attempted to recover the money through his brother Buonarroto, but that Signorelli refused to acknowledge his debt. The Capitano wrote that he was sure it had been discharged. "That," adds Michelangelo, "is the same as calling me the biggest blackguard; and so I should be, if I wanted to get back what had been already paid. But let your Lordship think what you like about it, I am bound to get the money, and so I swear." The remainder of the autograph is torn and illegible; it seems to wind up with a threat. The records of this period are so scanty that every detail acquires a certain importance for Michelangelo's biographer. By a deed executed on the 14th of June 1514, we find that he contracted to make a figure of Christ in marble, "life-sized, naked, erect, with a cross in his arms, and in such attitude as shall seem best to Michelangelo." The persons who ordered the statue were Bernardo Cencio (a Canon of S. Peter's), Mario Scappucci, and Metello Varj dei Porcari, a Roman of ancient blood. They undertook to pay 200 golden ducats for the work; and Michelangelo promised to finish it within the space of four years, when it was to be placed in the Church of S. Maria sopra Minerva. Metello Varj, though mentioned last in the contract, seems to have been the man who practically gave the commission, and to whom Michelangelo was finally responsible for its performance. He began to hew it from a block, and discovered black veins in the working. This, then, was thrown aside, and a new marble had to be attacked. The statue, now visible at the Minerva, was not finished until the year 1521, when we shall have to return to it again. There is a point of some interest in the wording of this contract, on which, as facts to dwell upon are few and far between at present, I may perhaps allow myself to digress. The master is here described as _Michelangelo (di Lodovico) Simoni, Scultore_. Now Michelangelo always signed his own letters Michelangelo Buonarroti, although he addressed the members of his family by the surname of Simoni. This proves that the patronymic usually given to the house at large was still Simoni, and that Michelangelo himself acknowledged that name in a legal document. The adoption of Buonarroti by his brother's children and descendants may therefore be ascribed to usage ensuing from the illustration of their race by so renowned a man. It should also be observed that at this time Michelangelo is always described in deeds as sculptor, and that he frequently signs with Michelangelo, Scultore. Later on in life he changed his views. He wrote in 1548 to his nephew Lionardo: "Tell the priest not to write to me again as _Michelangelo the sculptor_, for I am not known here except as Michelangelo Buonarroti. Say, too, that if a citizen of Florence wants to have an altar-piece painted, he must find some painter; for I was never either sculptor or painter in the way of one who keeps a shop. I have always avoided that, for the honour of my father and my brothers. True, I have served three Popes; but that was a matter of necessity." Earlier, in 1543, he had written to the same effect: "When you correspond with me, do not use the superscription _Michelangelo Simoni_, nor _sculptor_; it is enough to put _Michelangelo Buonarroti_, for that is how I am known here." On another occasion, advising his nephew what surname the latter ought to adopt, he says: "I should certainly use _Simoni_, and if the whole (that is, the whole list of patronymics in use at Florence) is too long, those who cannot read it may leave it alone." These communications prove that, though he had come to be known as Buonarroti, he did not wish the family to drop their old surname of Simoni. The reason was that he believed in their legendary descent from the Counts of Canossa through a Podestà of Florence, traditionally known as Simone da Canossa. This opinion had been confirmed in 1520, as we have seen above, by a letter he received from the Conte Alessandro da Canossa, addressing him as "Honoured kinsman." In the correspondence with Lionardo, Michelangelo alludes to this act of recognition: "You will find a letter from the Conte Alessandro da Canossa in the book of contracts. He came to visit me at Rome, and treated me like a relative. Take care of it." The dislike expressed by Michelangelo to be called _sculptor_, and addressed upon the same terms as other artists, arose from a keen sense of his nobility. The feeling emerges frequently in his letters between 1540 and 1550. I will give a specimen: "As to the purchase of a house, I repeat that you ought to buy one of honourable condition, at 1500 or 2000 crowns; and it ought to be in our quarter (Santa Croce), if possible. I say this, because an honourable mansion in the city does a family great credit. It makes more impression than farms in the country; and we are truly burghers, who claim a very noble ancestry. I always strove my utmost to resuscitate our house, but I had not brothers able to assist me. Try then to do what I write you, and make Gismondo come back to live in Florence, so that I may not endure the shame of hearing it said here that I have a brother at Settignano who trudges after oxen. One day, when I find the time, I will tell you all about our origin, and whence we sprang, and when we came to Florence. Perhaps you know nothing about it; still we ought not to rob ourselves of what God gave us." The same feeling runs through the letters he wrote Lionardo about the choice of a wife. One example will suffice: "I believe that in Florence there are many noble and poor families with whom it would be a charity to form connections. If there were no dower, there would also be no arrogance. Pay no heed should people say you want to ennoble yourself, since it is notorious that we are ancient citizens of Florence, and as noble as any other house." Michelangelo, as we know now, was mistaken in accepting his supposed connection with the illustrious Counts of Canossa, whose castle played so conspicuous a part in the struggle between Hildebrand and the Empire, and who were imperially allied through the connections of the Countess Matilda. Still he had tradition to support him, confirmed by the assurance of the head of the Canossa family. Nobody could accuse him of being a snob or parvenu. He lived like a poor man, indifferent to dress, establishment, and personal appearances. Yet he prided himself upon his ancient birth; and since the Simoni had been indubitably noble for several generations, there was nothing despicable in his desire to raise his kinsfolk to their proper station. Almost culpably careless in all things that concerned his health and comfort, he spent his earnings for the welfare of his brothers, in order that an honourable posterity might carry on the name he bore, and which he made illustrious. We may smile at his peevishness in repudiating the title of sculptor after bearing it through so many years of glorious labour; but when he penned the letters I have quoted, he was the supreme artist of Italy, renowned as painter, architect, military engineer; praised as a poet; befriended with the best and greatest of his contemporaries; recognised as unique, not only in the art of sculpture. If he felt some pride of race, we cannot blame the plain-liver and high-thinker, who, robbing himself of luxuries and necessaries even, enabled his kinsmen to maintain their rank among folk gently born and nobly nurtured. III In June 1515 Michelangelo was still working at the tomb of Julius. But a letter to Buonarroto shows that he was already afraid of being absorbed for other purposes by Leo: "I am forced to put great strain upon myself this summer in order to complete my undertaking; for I think that I shall soon be obliged to enter the Pope's service. For this reason, I have bought some twenty migliaia [measure of weight] of brass to cast certain figures." The monument then was so far advanced that, beside having a good number of the marble statues nearly finished, he was on the point of executing the bronze reliefs which filled their interspaces. We have also reason to believe that the architectural basis forming the foundation of the sepulchre had been brought well forward, since it is mentioned, in the next ensuing contracts. Just at this point, however, when two or three years of steady labour would have sufficed to terminate this mount of sculptured marble, Leo diverted Michelangelo's energies from the work, and wasted them in schemes that came to nothing. When Buonarroti penned that sonnet in which he called the Pope his Medusa, he might well have been thinking of Leo, though the poem ought probably to be referred to the earlier pontificate of Julius. Certainly the Medici did more than the Delia Rovere to paralyse his power and turn the life within him into stone. Writing to Sebastiano del Piombo in 1521, Michelangelo shows how fully he was aware of this. He speaks of "the three years I have lost." A meeting had been arranged for the late autumn of 1515 between Leo X. and Francis I. at Bologna. The Pope left Rome early in November, and reached Florence on the 30th. The whole city burst into a tumult of jubilation, shouting the Medicean cry of _"Palle"_ as Leo passed slowly through the streets, raised in his pontifical chair upon the shoulders of his running footmen. Buonarroto wrote a long and interesting account of this triumphal entry to his brother in Rome. He describes how a procession was formed by the Pope's court and guard and the gentlemen of Florence. "Among the rest, there went a bevy of young men, the noblest in our commonwealth, all dressed alike with doublets of violet satin, holding gilded staves in their hands. They paced before the Papal chair, a brave sight to see. And first there marched his guard, and then his grooms, who carried him aloft beneath a rich canopy of brocade, which was sustained by members of the College, while round about the chair walked the Signory." The procession moved onward to the Church of S. Maria del Fiore, where the Pope stayed to perform certain ceremonies at the high altar, after which he was carried to his apartments at S. Maria Novella. Buonarroto was one of the Priors during this month, and accordingly he took an official part in all the entertainments and festivities, which continued for three days. On the 3rd of December Leo left Florence for Bologna, where Francis arrived upon the 11th. Their conference lasted till the 15th, when Francis returned to Milan. On the 18th Leo began his journey back to Florence, which he re-entered on the 22nd. On Christmas day (Buonarroto writes _Pasgua_) a grand Mass was celebrated at S. Maria Novella, at which the Signory attended. The Pope celebrated in person, and, according to custom on high state occasions, the water with which he washed his hands before and during the ceremony had to be presented by personages of importance. "This duty," says Buonarroto, "fell first to one of the Signori, who was Giannozzo Salviati; and as I happened that morning to be Proposto, I went the second time to offer water to his Holiness; the third time, this was done by the Duke of Camerino, and the fourth time by the Gonfalonier of Justice." Buonarroto remarks that "he feels pretty certain it will be all the same to Michelangelo whether he hears or does not hear about these matters. Yet, from time to time, when I have leisure, I scribble a few lines." Buonarroto himself was interested in this event; for, having been one of the Priors, he received from Leo the title of Count Palatine, with reversion to all his posterity. Moreover, for honourable addition to his arms, he was allowed to bear a chief charged with the Medicean ball and fleur-de-lys, between the capital letters L. and X. Whether Leo conceived the plan of finishing the façade of S. Lorenzo at Florence before he left Rome, or whether it occurred to him during this visit, is not certain. The church had been erected by the Medici and other magnates from Brunelleschi's designs, and was perfect except for the façade. In its sacristy lay the mortal remains of Cosimo, Lorenzo the Magnificent, and many other members of the Medicean family. Here Leo came on the first Sunday in Advent to offer up prayers, and the Pope is said to have wept upon his father's tomb. It may possibly have been on this occasion that he adopted the scheme so fatal to the happiness of the great sculptor. Condivi clearly did not know what led to Michelangelo's employment on the façade of S. Lorenzo, and Vasari's account of the transaction is involved. Both, however, assert that he was wounded, even to tears, at having to abandon the monument of Julius, and that he prayed in vain to be relieved of the new and uncongenial task. IV Leo at first intended to divide the work between several masters, giving Buonarroti the general direction of the whole. He ordered Giuliano da San Gallo, Raffaello da Urbino, Baccio d'Agnolo, Andrea and Jacopo Sansovino to prepare plans. While these were in progress, Michelangelo also thought that he would try his hand at a design. As ill-luck ruled, Leo preferred his sketch to all the rest. Vasari adds that his unwillingness to be associated with any other artist in the undertaking, and his refusal to follow the plans of an architect, prevented the work from being executed, and caused the men selected by Leo to return in desperation to their ordinary pursuits. There may be truth in the report; for it is certain that, after Michelangelo had been forced to leave the tomb of Julius and to take part in the façade, he must have claimed to be sole master of the business. The one thing we know about his mode of operation is, that he brooked no rival near him, mistrusted collaborators, and found it difficult to co-operate even with the drudges whom he hired at monthly wages. Light is thrown upon these dissensions between Michelangelo and his proposed assistants by a letter which Jacopo Sansovino wrote to him at Carrara, on the 30th of June 1517. He betrays his animus at the commencement by praising Baccio Bandinelli, to mention whom in the same breath with Buonarroti was an insult. Then he proceeds: "The Pope, the Cardinal, and Jacopo Salviati are men who when they say yes, it is a written contract, inasmuch as they are true to their word, and not what you pretend them to be. You measure them with your own rod; for neither contracts nor plighted troth avail with you, who are always saying nay and yea, according as you think it profitable. I must inform you, too, that the Pope promised me the sculptures, and so did Salviati; and they are men who will maintain me in my right to them. In what concerns you, I have done all I could to promote your interests and honour, not having earlier perceived that you never conferred a benefit on any one, and that, beginning with myself, to expect kindness from you, would be the same as wanting water not to wet. I have reason for what I say, since we have often met together in familiar converse, and may the day be cursed on which you ever said any good about anybody on earth." How Michelangelo answered this intemperate and unjust invective is not known to us. In some way or other the quarrel between the two sculptors must have been made up--probably through a frank apology on Sansovino's part. When Michelangelo, in 1524, supplied the Duke of Sessa with a sketch for the sepulchral monument to be erected for himself and his wife, he suggested that Sansovino should execute the work, proving thus by acts how undeserved the latter's hasty words had been. The Church of S. Lorenzo exists now just as it was before the scheme for its façade occurred to Leo. Not the smallest part of that scheme was carried into effect, and large masses of the marbles quarried for the edifice lay wasted on the Tyrrhene sea-shore. We do not even know what design Michelangelo adopted. A model may be seen in the Accademia at Florence ascribed to Baccio d'Agnolo, and there is a drawing of a façade in the Uffizi attributed, to Michelangelo, both of which have been supposed to have some connection with S. Lorenzo. It is hardly possible, however, that Buonarroti's competitors could have been beaten from the field by things so spiritless and ugly. A pen-and-ink drawing at the Museo Buonarroti possesses greater merit, find may perhaps have been a first rough sketch for the façade. It is not drawn to scale or worked out in the manner of practical architects; but the sketch exhibits features which we know to have existed in Buonarroti's plan--masses of sculpture, with extensive bas-reliefs in bronze. In form the façade would not have corresponded to Brunelleschi's building. That, however, signified nothing to Italian architects, who were satisfied when the frontispiece to a church or palace agreeably masked what lay behind it. As a frame for sculpture, the design might have served its purpose, though there are large spaces difficult to account for; and spiteful folk were surely justified in remarking to the Pope that no one life sufficed for the performance of the whole. Nothing testifies more plainly to the ascendancy which this strange man acquired over the imagination of his contemporaries, while yet comparatively young, than the fact that Michelangelo had to relinquish work for which he was pre-eminently fitted (the tomb of Julius) for work to which his previous studies and his special inclinations in no-wise called him. He undertook the façade of S. Lorenzo reluctantly, with tears in his eyes and dolour in his bosom, at the Pope Medusa's bidding. He was compelled to recommence art at a point which hitherto possessed for him no practical importance. The drawings of the tomb, the sketch of the façade, prove that in architecture he was still a novice. Hitherto, he regarded building as the background to sculpture, or the surface on which frescoes might be limned. To achieve anything great in this new sphere implied for him a severe course of preliminary studies. It depends upon our final estimate of Michelangelo as an architect whether we regard the three years spent in Leo's service for S. Lorenzo as wasted. Being what he was, it is certain that, when the commission had been given, and he determined to attack his task alone, the man set himself down to grasp the principles of construction. There was leisure enough for such studies in the years during which we find him moodily employed among Tuscan quarries. The question is whether this strain upon his richly gifted genius did not come too late. When called to paint the Sistine, he complained that painting was no art of his. He painted, and produced a masterpiece; but sculpture still remained the major influence in all he wrought there. Now he was bidden to quit both sculpture and painting for another field, and, as Vasari hints, he would not work under the guidance of men trained to architecture. The result was that Michelangelo applied himself to building with the full-formed spirit of a figurative artist. The obvious defects and the salient qualities of all he afterwards performed as architect seem due to the forced diversion of his talent at this period to a type of art he had not properly assimilated. Architecture was not the natural mistress of his spirit. He bent his talents to her service at a Pontiff's word, and, with the honest devotion to work which characterised the man, he produced renowned monuments stamped by his peculiar style. Nevertheless, in building, he remains a sublime amateur, aiming at scenical effect, subordinating construction to decoration, seeking ever back toward opportunities for sculpture or for fresco, and occasionally (as in the cupola of S. Peter's) hitting upon a thought beyond the reach of inferior minds. The paradox implied in this diversion of our hero from the path he ought to have pursued may be explained in three ways. First, he had already come to be regarded as a man of unique ability, from whom everything could be demanded. Next, it was usual for the masters of the Renaissance, from Leo Battista Alberti down to Raffaello da Urbino and Lionardo da Vinci, to undertake all kinds of technical work intrusted to their care by patrons. Finally, Michelangelo, though he knew that sculpture was his goddess, and never neglected her first claim upon his genius, felt in him that burning ambition for greatness, that desire to wrestle with all forms of beauty and all depths of science, which tempted him to transcend the limits of a single art and try his powers in neighbour regions. He was a man born to aim at all, to dare all, to embrace all, to leave his personality deep-trenched on all the provinces of art he chose to traverse. V The whole of 1516 and 1517 elapsed before Leo's plans regarding S. Lorenzo took a definite shape. Yet we cannot help imagining that when Michelangelo cancelled his first contract with the executors of Julius, and adopted a reduced plan for the monument, he was acting under Papal pressure. This was done at Rome in July, and much against the will of both parties. Still it does not appear that any one contemplated the abandonment of the scheme; for Buonarroti bound himself to perform his new contract within the space of nine years, and to engage "in no work of great importance which should interfere with its fulfilment." He spent a large part of the year 1516 at Carrara, quarrying marbles, and even hired the house of a certain Francesco Pelliccia in that town. On the 1st of November he signed an agreement with the same Pelliccia involving the purchase of a vast amount of marble, whereby the said Pelliccia undertook to bring down four statues of 4-1/2 cubits each and fifteen of 4-1/4 cubits from the quarries where they were being rough-hewn. It was the custom to block out columns, statues, &c., on the spot where the stone had been excavated, in order, probably, to save weight when hauling. Thus the blocks arrived at the sea-shore with rudely adumbrated outlines of the shape they were destined to assume under the artist's chisel. It has generally been assumed that the nineteen figures in question were intended for the tomb. What makes this not quite certain, however, is that the contract of July specifies a greatly reduced quantity and scale of statues. Therefore they may have been intended for the façade. Anyhow, the contract above-mentioned with Francesco Pelliccia was cancelled on the 7th of April following, for reasons which will presently appear. During the month of November 1516 Michelangelo received notice from the Pope that he was wanted in Rome. About the same time news reached him from Florence of his father's severe illness. On the 23rd he wrote as follows to Buonarroto: "I gathered from your last that Lodovico was on the point of dying, and how the doctor finally pronounced that if nothing new occurred he might be considered out of danger. Since it is so, I shall not prepare to come to Florence, for it would be very inconvenient. Still, if there is danger, I should desire to see him, come what might, before he died, if even I had to die together with him. I have good hope, however, that he will get well, and so I do not come. And if he should have a relapse--from which may God preserve him and us--see that he lacks nothing for his spiritual welfare and the sacraments of the Church, and find out from him if he wishes us to do anything for his soul. Also, for the necessaries of the body, take care that he lacks nothing; for I have laboured only and solely for him, to help him in his needs before he dies. So bid your wife look with loving-kindness to his household affairs. I will make everything good to her and all of you, if it be necessary. Do not have the least hesitation, even if you have to expend all that we possess." We may assume that the subsequent reports regarding Lodovico's health were satisfactory; for on the 5th of December Michelangelo set out for Rome. The executors of Julius had assigned him free quarters in a house situated in the Trevi district, opposite the public road which leads to S. Maria del Loreto. Here, then, he probably took up his abode. We have seen that he had bound himself to finish the monument of Julius within the space of nine years, and to engage "in no work of great moment which should interfere with its performance." How this clause came to be inserted in a deed inspired by Leo is one of the difficulties with which the whole tragedy of the sepulchre bristles. Perhaps we ought to conjecture that the Pope's intentions with regard to the façade of S. Lorenzo only became settled in the late autumn. At any rate, he had now to transact with the executors of Julius, who were obliged to forego the rights over Michelangelo's undivided energies which they had acquired by the clause I have just cited. They did so with extreme reluctance, and to the bitter disappointment of the sculptor, who saw the great scheme of his manhood melting into air, dwindling in proportions, becoming with each change less capable of satisfactory performance. Having at last definitely entered the service of Pope Leo, Michelangelo travelled to Florence, and intrusted Baccio d'Agnolo with the construction of the model of his façade. It may have been upon the occasion of this visit that one of his father's whimsical fits of temper called out a passionate and sorry letter from his son. It appears that Pietro Urbano, Michelangelo's trusty henchman at this period, said something which angered Lodovico, and made him set off in a rage to Settignano:-- "Dearest Father,--I marvelled much at what had happened to you the other day, when I did not find you at home. And now, hearing that you complain of me, and say that I have turned you out of doors, I marvel much the more, inasmuch as I know for certain that never once from the day that I was born till now had I a single thought of doing anything or small or great which went against you; and all this time the labours I have undergone have been for the love of you alone. Since I returned from Rome to Florence, you know that I have always cared for you, and you know that all that belongs to me I have bestowed on you. Some days ago, then, when you were ill, I promised solemnly never to fail you in anything within the scope of my whole faculties so long as my life lasts; and this I again affirm. Now I am amazed that you should have forgotten everything so soon. And yet you have learned to know me by experience these thirty years, you and your sons, and are well aware that I have always thought and acted, so far as I was able, for your good. How can you go about saying I have turned you out of doors? Do you not see what a reputation you have given me by saying I have turned you out? Only this was wanting to complete my tale of troubles, all of which I suffer for your love. You repay me well, forsooth. But let it be as it must: I am willing to acknowledge that I have always brought shame and loss on you, and on this supposition I beg your pardon. Reckon that you are pardoning a son who has lived a bad life and done you all the harm which it is possible to do. And so I once again implore you to pardon me, scoundrel that I am, and not bring on me the reproach of having turned you out of doors; for that matters more than you imagine to me. After all, I am your son." From Florence Michelangelo proceeded again to Carrara for the quarrying of marble. This was on the last day of December. From his domestic correspondence we find that he stayed there until at least the 13th of March 1517; but he seems to have gone to Florence just about that date, in order to arrange matters with Baccio d'Agnolo about the model. A fragmentary letter to Buonarroto, dated March 13, shows that he had begun a model of his own at Carrara, and that he no longer needed Baccio's assistance. On his arrival at Florence he wrote to Messer Buoninsegni, who acted as intermediary at Rome between himself and the Pope in all things that concerned the façade: "Messer Domenico, I have come to Florence to see the model which Baccio has finished, and find it a mere child's plaything. If you think it best to have it sent, write to me. I leave again to-morrow for Carrara, where I have begun to make a model in clay with Grassa [a stone-hewer from Settignano]." Then he adds that, in the long run, he believes that he shall have to make the model himself, which distresses him on account of the Pope and the Cardinal Giulio. Lastly, he informs his correspondent that he has contracted with two separate companies for two hundred cartloads of Carrara marble. An important letter to the same Domenico Buoninsegni, dated Carrara, May 2, 1517, proves that Michelangelo had become enthusiastic about his new design. "I have many things to say to you. So I beg you to take some patience when you read my words, because it is a matter of moment. Well, then, I feel it in me to make this façade of S. Lorenzo such that it shall be a mirror of architecture and of sculpture to all Italy. But the Pope and the Cardinal must decide at once whether they want to have it done or not. If they desire it, then they must come to some definite arrangement, either intrusting the whole to me on contract, and leaving me a free hand, or adopting some other plan which may occur to them, and about which I can form no idea." He proceeds at some length to inform Buoninsegni of various transactions regarding the purchase of marble, and the difficulties he encounters in procuring perfect blocks. His estimate for the costs of the whole façade is 35,000 golden ducats, and he offers to carry the work through for that sum in six years. Meanwhile he peremptorily demands an immediate settlement of the business, stating that he is anxious to leave Carrara. The vigorous tone of this document is unmistakable. It seems to have impressed his correspondents; for Buoninsegni replies upon the 8th of May that the Cardinal expressed the highest satisfaction at "the great heart he had for conducting the work of the façade." At the same time the Pope was anxious to inspect the model. Leo, I fancy, was always more than half-hearted about the façade. He did not personally sympathise with Michelangelo's character; and, seeing what his tastes were, it is impossible that he can have really appreciated the quality of his genius. Giulio de' Medici, afterwards Pope Clement VII., was more in sympathy with Buonarroti both as artist and as man. To him we may with probability ascribe the impulse given at this moment to the project. After several visits to Florence during the summer, and much correspondence with the Medici through their Roman agent, Michelangelo went finally, upon the 31st of August, to have the model completed under his own eyes by a workman in his native city. It was carefully constructed of wood, showing the statuary in wax-relief. Nearly four months were expended on this miniature. The labour was lost, for not a vestige of it now remains. Near the end of December he despatched his servant, Pietro Urbano, with the finished work to Rome. On the 29th of that month, Urbano writes that he exposed the model in Messer Buoninsegni's apartment, and that the Pope and Cardinal were very well pleased with it. Buoninsegni wrote to the same effect, adding, however, that folk said it could never be finished in the sculptor's lifetime, and suggesting that Michelangelo should hire assistants from Milan, where he, Buoninsegni, had seen excellent stonework in progress at the Duomo. Some time in January 1518, Michelangelo travelled to Rome, conferred with Leo, and took the façade of S. Lorenzo on contract. In February he returned by way of Florence to Carrara, where the quarry-masters were in open rebellion against him, and refused to carry out their contracts. This forced him to go to Genoa, and hire ships there for the transport of his blocks. Then the Carraresi corrupted the captains of these boats, and drove Michelangelo to Pisa (April 7), where he finally made an arrangement with a certain Francesco Peri to ship the marbles lying on the sea-shore at Carrara. The reason of this revolt against him at Carrara may be briefly stated. The Medici determined to begin working the old marble quarries of Pietra Santa, on the borders of the Florentine domain, and this naturally aroused the commercial jealousy of the folk at Carrara. "Information," says Condivi, "was sent to Pope Leo that marbles could be found in the high-lands above Pietra Santa, fully equal in quality and beauty to those of Carrara. Michelangelo, having been sounded on the subject, chose to go on quarrying at Carrara rather than to take those belonging to the State of Florence. This he did because he was befriended with the Marchese Alberigo, and lived on a good understanding with him. The Pope wrote to Michelangelo, ordering him to repair to Pietra Santa, and see whether the information he had received from Florence was correct. He did so, and ascertained that the marbles were very hard to work, and ill-adapted to their purpose; even had they been of the proper kind, it would be difficult and costly to convey them to the sea. A road of many miles would have to be made through the mountains with pick and crowbar, and along the plain on piles, since the ground there was marshy. Michelangelo wrote all this to the Pope, who preferred, however, to believe the persons who had written to him from Florence. So he ordered him to construct the road." The road, it may parenthetically be observed, was paid for by the wealthy Wool Corporation of Florence, who wished to revive this branch of Florentine industry. "Michelangelo, carrying out the Pope's commands, had the road laid down, and transported large quantities of marbles to the sea-shore. Among these were five columns of the proper dimensions, one of which may be seen upon the Piazza di S. Lorenzo. The other four, forasmuch as the Pope changed his mind and turned his thoughts elsewhere, are still lying on the sea-beach. Now the Marquis of Carrara, deeming that Michelangelo had developed the quarries at Pietra Santa out of Florentine patriotism, became his enemy, and would not suffer him to return to Carrara, for certain blocks which had been excavated there: all of which proved the source of great loss to Michelangelo." When the contract with Francesco Pellicia was cancelled, April 7, 1517, the project for developing the Florentine stone-quarries does not seem to have taken shape. We must assume, therefore, that the motive for this step was the abandonment of the tomb. The _Ricordi_ show that Michelangelo was still buying marbles and visiting Carrara down to the end of February 1518. His correspondence from Pietra Santa and Serravezza, where he lived when he was opening the Florentine quarries of Monte Altissimo, does not begin, with any certainty, until March 1518. We have indeed one letter written to Girolamo del Bardella of Porto Venere upon the 6th of August, without date of year. This was sent from Serravezza, and Milanesi, when he first made use of it, assigned it to 1517. Gotti, following that indication, asserts that Michelangelo began his operations at Monte Altissimo in July 1517; but Milanesi afterwards changed his opinion, and assigned it to the year 1519. I believe he was right, because the first letter, bearing a certain date from Pietra Santa, was written in March 1518 to Pietro Urbano. It contains the account of Michelangelo's difficulties with the Carraresi, and his journey to Genoa and Pisa. We have, therefore, every reason to believe that he finally abandoned Carrara, for Pietra Santa at the end of February 1518. Pietra Santa is a little city on the Tuscan seaboard; Serravezza is a still smaller fortress-town at the foot of the Carrara mountains. Monte Altissimo rises above it; and on the flanks of that great hill lie the quarries Della Finocchiaja, which Michelangelo opened at the command of Pope Leo. It was not without reluctance that Michelangelo departed from Carrara, offending the Marquis Malaspina, breaking his contracts, and disappointing the folk with whom he had lived on friendly terms ever since his first visit in 1505. A letter from the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici shows that great pressure was put upon him. It runs thus: "We have received yours, and shown it to our Lord the Pope. Considering that all your doings are in favour of Carrara, you have caused his Holiness and us no small astonishment. What we heard from Jacopo Salviati contradicts your opinion. He went to examine the marble-quarries at Pietra Santa, and informed us that there are enormous quantities of stone, excellent in quality and easy to bring down. This being the case, some suspicion has arisen in our minds that you, for your own interests, are too partial to the quarries of Carrara, and want to depreciate those of Pietra Santa. This of a truth, would be wrong in you, considering the trust we have always reposed in your honesty. Wherefore we inform you that, regardless of any other consideration, his Holiness wills that all the work to be done at S. Peter's or S. Reparata, or on the façade of S. Lorenzo, shall be carried out with marbles supplied from Pietra Santa, and no others, for the reasons above written. Moreover, we hear that they will cost less than those of Carrara; but, even should they cost more, his Holiness is firmly resolved to act as I have said, furthering the business of Pietra Santa for the public benefit of the city. Look to it, then, that you carry out in detail all that we have ordered without fail; for if you do otherwise, it will be against the expressed wishes of his Holiness and ourselves, and we shall have good reason to be seriously wroth with you. Our agent Domenico (Buoninsegni) is bidden to write to the same effect. Reply to him how much money you want, and quickly, banishing from your mind every kind of obstinacy." Michelangelo began to work with his usual energy at roadmaking and quarrying. What he learned of practical business as engineer, architect, master of works, and paymaster during these years among the Carrara mountains must have been of vast importance for his future work. He was preparing himself to organise the fortifications of Florence and the Leonine City, and to crown S. Peter's with the cupola. Quarrying, as I have said, implied cutting out and rough-hewing blocks exactly of the right dimensions for certain portions of a building or a piece of statuary. The master was therefore obliged to have his whole plan perfect in his head before he could venture to order marble. Models, drawings made to scale, careful measurements, were necessary at each successive step. Day and night Buonarroti was at work; in the saddle early in the morning, among stone-cutters and road-makers; in the evening, studying, projecting, calculating, settling up accounts by lamplight. VI The narrative of Michelangelo's personal life and movements must here be interrupted in order to notice an event in which he took no common interest. The members of the Florentine Academy addressed a memorial to Leo X., requesting him to authorise the translation of Dante Alighieri's bones from Ravenna to his native city. The document was drawn up in Latin, and dated October 20, 1518. Among the names and signatures appended, Michelangelo's alone is written in Italian: "I, Michelangelo, the sculptor, pray the like of your Holiness, offering my services to the divine poet for the erection of a befitting sepulchre to him in some honourable place in this city." Nothing resulted from this petition, and the supreme poet's remains still rest beneath "the little cupola, more neat than solemn," guarded by Pietro Lombardi's half-length portrait. Of Michelangelo's special devotion to Dante and the "Divine Comedy" we have plenty of proof. In the first place, there exist the two fine sonnets to his memory, which were celebrated in their author's lifetime, and still remain among the best of his performances in verse. It does not appear when they were composed. The first is probably earlier than the second; for below the autograph of the latter is written, "Messer Donato, you ask of me what I do not possess." The Donato is undoubtedly Donato Giannotti, with whom Michelangelo lived on very familiar terms at Rome about 1545. I will here insert my English translation of these sonnets:-- _From heaven his spirit came, and, robed in clay, The realms of justice and of mercy trod: Then rose a living man to gaze on God, That he might make the truth as clear as day._ _For that pure star, that brightened with his ray The undeserving nest where I was born, The whole wide world would be a prize to scorn; None but his Maker can due guerdon pay. I speak of Dante, whose high work remains Unknown, unhonoured by that thankless brood, Who only to just men deny their wage. Were I but he! Born for like lingering pains, Against his exile coupled with his good I'd gladly change the world's best heritage! No tongue can tell of him what should be told, For on blind eyes his splendour shines too strong; 'Twere easier to blame those who wrought him wrong, Than sound his least praise with a mouth of gold. He to explore the place of pain was bold, Then soared to God, to teach our souls by song; The gates heaven oped to bear his feet along, Against his just desire his country rolled. Thankless I call her, and to her own pain The nurse of fell mischance; for sign take this, That ever to the best she deals more scorn; Among a thousand proofs let one remain; Though ne'er was fortune more unjust than his, His equal or his better ne'er was born._ The influence of Dante over Buonarroti's style of composition impressed his contemporaries. Benedetto Varchi, in the proemium to a lecture upon one of Michelangelo's poems, speaks of it as "a most sublime sonnet, full of that antique purity and Dantesque gravity." Dante's influence over the great artist's pictorial imagination is strongly marked in the fresco of the Last Judgment, where Charon's boat, and Minos with his twisted tail, are borrowed direct from the _Inferno._ Condivi, moreover, informs us that the statues of the Lives Contemplative and Active upon the tomb of Julius were suggested by the Rachel and Leah of the _Purgatorio._ We also know that he filled a book with drawings illustrative of the "Divine Comedy." By a miserable accident this most precious volume, while in the possession of Antonio Montauti, the sculptor, perished at sea on a journey from Livorno to Rome. But the strongest proof of Michelangelo's reputation as a learned student of Dante is given in Donato Giannotti's Dialogue upon the number of days spent by the poet during his journey through Hell and Purgatory. Luigi del Riccio, who was a great friend of the sculptor's, is supposed to have been walking one day toward the Lateran with Antonio Petreo. Their conversation fell upon Cristoforo Landino's theory that the time consumed by Dante in this transit was the whole of the night of Good Friday, together with the following day. While engaged in this discussion, they met Donato Giannotti taking the air with Michelangelo. The four friends joined company, and Petreo observed that it was a singular good fortune to have fallen that morning upon two such eminent Dante scholars. Donato replied: "With regard to Messer Michelangelo, you have abundant reason to say that he is an eminent Dantista, since I am acquainted with no one who understands him better and has a fuller mastery over his works." It is not needful to give a detailed account of Buonarroti's Dantesque criticism, reported in these dialogues, although there are good grounds for supposing them in part to represent exactly what Giannotti heard him say. This applies particularly to his able interpretation of the reason why Dante placed Brutus and Cassius in hell--not as being the murderers of a tyrant, but as having laid violent hands upon the sacred majesty of the Empire in the person of Caesar. The narrative of Dante's journey through Hell and Purgatory, which is put into Michelangelo's mouth, if we are to believe that he really made it extempore and without book, shows a most minute knowledge of the _Inferno_. VII Michelangelo's doings at Serravezza can be traced with some accuracy during the summers of 1518 and 1519. An important letter to Buonarroto, dated April 2, 1518, proves that the execution of the road had not yet been decided on. He is impatient to hear whether the Wool Corporation has voted the necessary funds and appointed him to engineer it. "With regard to the construction of the road here, please tell Jacopo Salviati that I shall carry out his wishes, and he will not be betrayed by me. I do not look after any interests of my own in this matter, but seek to serve my patrons and my country. If I begged the Pope and Cardinal to give me full control over the business, it was that I might be able to conduct it to those places where the best marbles are. Nobody here knows anything about them. I did not ask for the commission in order to make money; nothing of the sort is in my head." This proves conclusively that much which has been written about the waste of Michelangelo's abilities on things a lesser man might have accomplished is merely sentimental. On the contrary, he was even accused of begging for the contract from a desire to profit by it. In another letter, of April 18, the decision of the Wool Corporation was still anxiously expected. Michelangelo gets impatient. "I shall mount my horse, and go to find the Pope and Cardinal, tell them how it is with me, leave the business here, and return to Carrara. The folk there pray for my return as one is wont to pray to Christ." Then he complains of the worthlessness and disloyalty of the stone-hewers he brought from Florence, and winds up with an angry postscript: "Oh, cursed a thousand times the day and hour when I left Carrara! This is the cause of my utter ruin. But I shall go back there soon. Nowadays it is a sin to do one's duty." On the 22nd of April the Wool Corporation assigned to Michelangelo a contract for the quarries, leaving him free to act as he thought best. Complaints follow about his workmen. One passage is curious: "Sandro, he too has gone away from here. He stopped several months with a mule and a little mule in grand style, doing nothing but fish and make love. He cost me a hundred ducats to no purpose; has left a certain quantity of marble, giving me the right to take the blocks that suit my purpose. However, I cannot find among them what is worth twenty-five ducats, the whole being a jumble of rascally work. Either maliciously or through ignorance, he has treated me very ill." Upon the 17th April 1517, Michelangelo had bought a piece of ground in Via Mozza, now Via S. Zanobi, at Florence, from the Chapter of S. Maria del Fiore, in order to build a workshop there. He wished, about the time of the last letter quoted, to get an additional lot of land, in order to have larger space at his command for the finishing of marbles. The negotiations went on through the summer of 1518, and on the 24th of November he records that the purchase was completed. Premises adapted to the sculptor's purpose were erected, which remained in Michelangelo's possession until the close of his life. In August 1518 he writes to a friend at Florence that the road is now as good as finished, and that he is bringing down his columns. The work is more difficult than he expected. One man's life had been already thrown away, and Michelangelo himself was in great danger. "The place where we have to quarry is exceedingly rough, and the workmen are very stupid at their business. For some months I must make demands upon my powers of patience until the mountains are tamed and the men instructed. Afterwards we shall proceed more quickly. Enough, that I mean to do what I promised, and shall produce the finest thing that Italy has ever seen, if God assists me." There is no want of heart and spirit in these letters. Irritable at moments, Michelangelo was at bottom enthusiastic, and, like Napoleon Buonaparte, felt capable of conquering the world with his sole arm. In September we find him back again at Florence, where he seems to have spent the winter. His friends wanted him to go to Rome; they thought that his presence there was needed to restore the confidence of the Medici and to overpower calumniating rivals. In reply to a letter of admonition written in this sense by his friend Lionardo di Compagno, the saddle-maker, he writes: "Your urgent solicitations are to me so many stabs of the knife. I am dying of annoyance at not being able to do what I should like to do, through my ill-luck." At the same time he adds that he has now arranged an excellent workshop, where twenty statues can be set up together. The drawback is that there are no means of covering the whole space in and protecting it against the weather. This yard, encumbered with the marbles for S. Lorenzo, must have been in the Via Mozza. Early in the spring he removed to Serravezza, and resumed the work of bringing down his blocked-out columns from the quarries. One of these pillars, six of which he says were finished, was of huge size, intended probably for the flanks to the main door at S. Lorenzo. It tumbled into the river, and was smashed to pieces. Michelangelo attributed the accident solely to the bad quality of iron which a rascally fellow had put into the lewis-ring by means of which the block was being raised. On this occasion he again ran considerable risk of injury, and suffered great annoyance. The following letter of condolence, written by Jacopo Salviati, proves how much he was grieved, and also shows that he lived on excellent terms with the Pope's right-hand man and counsellor: "Keep up your spirits and proceed gallantly with your great enterprise, for your honour requires this, seeing you have commenced the work. Confide in me; nothing will be amiss with you, and our Lord is certain to compensate you for far greater losses than this. Have no doubt upon this point, and if you want one thing more than another, let me know, and you shall be served immediately. Remember that your undertaking a work of such magnitude will lay our city under the deepest obligation, not only to yourself, but also to your family for ever. Great men, and of courageous spirit, take heart under adversities, and become more energetic." A pleasant thread runs through Michelangelo's correspondence during these years. It is the affection he felt for his workman Pietro Urbano. When he leaves the young man behind him at Florence, he writes frequently, giving him advice, bidding him mind his studies, and also telling him to confess. It happened that Urbano fell ill at Carrara, toward the end of August. Michelangelo, on hearing the news, left Florence and travelled by post to Carrara. Thence he had his friend transported on the backs of men to Serravezza, and after his recovery sent him to pick up strength in his native city of Pistoja. In one of the _Ricordi_ he reckons the cost of all this at 33-1/2 ducats. While Michelangelo was residing at Pietra Santa in 1518, his old friend and fellow-worker, Pietro Rosselli, wrote to him from Rome, asking his advice about a tabernacle of marble which Pietro Soderini had ordered. It was to contain the head of S. John the Baptist, and to be placed in the Church of the Convent of S. Silvestro. On the 7th of June Soderini wrote upon the same topic, requesting a design. This Michelangelo sent in October, the execution of the shrine being intrusted to Federigo Frizzi. The incident would hardly be worth mentioning, except for the fact that it brings to mind one of Michelangelo's earliest patrons, the good-hearted Gonfalonier of Justice, and anticipates the coming of the only woman he is known to have cared for, Vittoria Colonna. It was at S. Silvestro that she dwelt, retired in widowhood, and here occurred those Sunday morning conversations of which Francesco d'Olanda has left us so interesting a record. During the next year, 1519, a certain Tommaso di Dolfo invited him to visit Adrianople. He reminded him how, coming together in Florence, when Michelangelo lay there in hiding from Pope Julius, they had talked about the East, and he had expressed a wish to travel into Turkey. Tommaso di Dolfo dissuaded him on that occasion, because the ruler of the province was a man of no taste and careless about the arts. Things had altered since, and he thought there was a good opening for an able sculptor. Things, however, had altered in Italy also, and Buonarroti felt no need to quit the country where his fame was growing daily. Considerable animation is introduced into the annals of Michelangelo's life at this point by his correspondence with jovial Sebastiano del Piombo. We possess one of this painter's letters, dating as early as 1510, when he thanks Buonarroti for consenting to be godfather to his boy Luciano; a second of 1512, which contains the interesting account of his conversation with Pope Julius about Michelangelo and Raffaello; and a third, of 1518, turning upon the rivalry between the two great artists. But the bulk of Sebastiano's gossipy and racy communications belongs to the period of thirteen years between 1520 and 1533; then it suddenly breaks off, owing to Michelangelo's having taken up his residence at Rome during the autumn of 1533. A definite rupture at some subsequent period separated the old friends. These letters are a mine of curious information respecting artistic life at Rome. They prove, beyond the possibility of doubt, that, whatever Buonarroti and Sanzio may have felt, their flatterers, dependants, and creatures cherished the liveliest hostility and lived in continual rivalry. It is somewhat painful to think that Michelangelo could have lent a willing ear to the malignant babble of a man so much inferior to himself in nobleness of nature--have listened when Sebastiano taunted Raffaello as "Prince of the Synagogue," or boasted that a picture of his own was superior to "the tapestries just come from Flanders." Yet Sebastiano was not the only friend to whose idle gossip the great sculptor indulgently stooped. Lionardo, the saddle-maker, was even more offensive. He writes, for instance, upon New Year's Day, 1519, to say that the Resurrection of Lazarus, for which Michelangelo had contributed some portion of the design, was nearly finished, and adds: "Those who understand art rank it far above Raffaello. The vault, too, of Agostino Chigi has been exposed to view, and is a thing truly disgraceful to a great artist, far worse than the last hall of the Palace. Sebastiano has nothing to fear." We gladly turn from these quarrels to what Sebastiano teaches us about Michelangelo's personal character. The general impression in the world was that he was very difficult to live with. Julius, for instance, after remarking that Raffaello changed his style in imitation of Buonarroti, continued: "'But he is terrible, as you see; one cannot get on with him.' I answered to his Holiness that your terribleness hurt nobody, and that you only seem to be terrible because of your passionate devotion to the great works you have on hand." Again, he relates Leo's estimate of his friend's character: "I know in what esteem the Pope holds you, and when he speaks of you, it would seem that he were talking about a brother, almost with tears in his eyes; for he has told me you were brought up together as boys" (Giovanni de' Medici and the sculptor were exactly of the same age), "and shows that he knows and loves you. But you frighten everybody, even Popes!" Michelangelo must have complained of this last remark, for Sebastiano, in a letter dated a few days later, reverts to the subject: "Touching what you reply to me about your terribleness, I, for my part, do not esteem you terrible; and if I have not written on this subject do not be surprised, seeing you do not strike me as terrible, except only in art--that is to say, in being the greatest master who ever lived: that is my opinion; if I am in error, the loss is mine." Later on, he tells us what Clement VII. thought: "One letter to your friend (the Pope) would be enough; you would soon see what fruit it bore; because I know how he values you. He loves you, knows your nature, adores your work, and tastes its quality as much as it is possible for man to do. Indeed, his appreciation is miraculous, and such as ought to give great satisfaction to an artist. He speaks of you so honourably, and with such loving affection, that a father could not say of a son what he does of you. It is true that he has been grieved at times by buzzings in his ear about you at the time of the siege of Florence. He shrugged his shoulders and cried, 'Michelangelo is in the wrong; I never did him any injury.'" It is interesting to find Sebastiano, in the same letter, complaining of Michelangelo's sensitiveness. "One favour I would request of you, that is, that you should come to learn your worth, and not stoop as you do to every little thing, and remember that eagles do not prey on flies. Enough! I know that you will laugh at my prattle; but I do not care; Nature has made me so, and I am not Zuan da Rezzo." VIII The year 1520 was one of much importance for Michelangelo. A _Ricordo_ dated March 10 gives a brief account of the last four years, winding up with the notice that "Pope Leo, perhaps because he wants to get the façade at S. Lorenzo finished quicker than according to the contract made with me, and I also consenting thereto, sets me free ... and so he leaves me at liberty, under no obligation of accounting to any one for anything which I have had to do with him or others upon his account." It appears from the draft of a letter without date that some altercation between Michelangelo and the Medici preceded this rupture. He had been withdrawn from Serravezza to Florence in order that he might plan the new buildings at S. Lorenzo; and the workmen of the Opera del Duomo continued the quarrying business in his absence. Marbles which he had excavated for S. Lorenzo were granted by the Cardinal de' Medici to the custodians of the cathedral, and no attempt was made to settle accounts. Michelangelo's indignation was roused by this indifference to his interests, and he complains in terms of extreme bitterness. Then he sums up all that he has lost, in addition to expected profits. "I do not reckon the wooden model for the said façade, which I made and sent to Rome; I do not reckon the period of three years wasted in this work; I do not reckon that I have been ruined (in health and strength perhaps) by the undertaking; I do not reckon the enormous insult put on me by being brought here to do the work, and then seeing it taken away from me, and for what reason I have not yet learned; I do not reckon my house in Rome, which I left, and where marbles, furniture and blocked-out statues have suffered to upwards of 500 ducats. Omitting all these matters, out of the 2300 ducats I received, only 500 remain in my hands." When he was an old man, Michelangelo told Condivi that Pope Leo changed his mind about S. Lorenzo. In the often-quoted letter to the prelate he said: "Leo, not wishing me to work at the tomb of Julius, _pretended that he wanted to complete_ the façade of S. Lorenzo at Florence." What was the real state of the case can only be conjectured. It does not seem that the Pope took very kindly to the façade; so the project may merely have been dropped through carelessness. Michelangelo neglected his own interests by not going to Rome, where his enemies kept pouring calumnies into the Pope's ears. The Marquis of Carrara, as reported by Lionardo, wrote to Leo that "he had sought to do you honour, and had done so to his best ability. It was your fault if he had not done more--the fault of your sordidness, your quarrelsomeness, your eccentric conduct." When, then, a dispute arose between the Cardinal and the sculptor about the marbles, Leo may have felt that it was time to break off from an artist so impetuous and irritable. Still, whatever faults of temper Michelangelo may have had, and however difficult he was to deal with, nothing can excuse the Medici for their wanton waste of his physical and mental energies at the height of their development. On the 6th of April 1520 Raffaello died, worn out with labour and with love, in the flower of his wonderful young manhood. It would be rash to assert that he had already given the world the best he had to offer, because nothing is so incalculable as the evolution of genius. Still we perceive now that his latest manner, both as regards style and feeling, and also as regards the method of execution by assistants, shows him to have been upon the verge of intellectual decline. While deploring Michelangelo's impracticability--that solitary, self-reliant, and exacting temperament which made him reject collaboration, and which doomed so much of his best work to incompleteness--we must remember that to the very end of his long life he produced nothing (except perhaps in architecture) which does not bear the seal and superscription of his fervent self. Raffaello, on the contrary, just before his death, seemed to be exhaling into a nebulous mist of brilliant but unsatisfactory performances. Diffusing the rich and facile treasures of his genius through a host of lesser men, he had almost ceased to be a personality. Even his own work, as proved by the Transfiguration, was deteriorating. The blossom was overblown, the bubble on the point of bursting; and all those pupils who had gathered round him, drawing like planets from the sun their lustre, sank at his death into frigidity and insignificance. Only Giulio Romano burned with a torrid sensual splendour all his own. Fortunately for the history of the Renaissance, Giulio lived to evoke the wonder of the Mantuan villa, that climax of associated crafts of decoration, which remains for us the symbol of the dream of art indulged by Raffaello in his Roman period. These pupils of the Urbinate claimed now, on their master's death, and claimed with good reason, the right to carry on his great work in the Borgian apartments of the Vatican. The Sala de' Pontefici, or the Hall of Constantine, as it is sometimes called, remained to be painted. They possessed designs bequeathed by Raffaello for its decoration, and Leo, very rightly, decided to leave it in their hands. Sebastiano del Piombo, however, made a vigorous effort to obtain the work for himself. His Raising of Lazarus, executed in avowed competition with the Transfiguration, had brought him into the first rank of Roman painters. It was seen what the man, with Michelangelo to back him up, could do. We cannot properly appreciate this picture in its present state. The glory of the colouring has passed away; and it was precisely here that Sebastiano may have surpassed Raffaello, as he was certainly superior to the school. Sebastiano wrote letter after letter to Michelangelo in Florence. He first mentions Raffaello's death, "whom may God forgive;" then says that the _"garzoni"_ of the Urbinate are beginning to paint in oil upon the walls of the Sala de' Pontefici. "I pray you to remember me, and to recommend me to the Cardinal, and if I am the man to undertake the job, I should like you to set me to work at it; for I shall not disgrace you, as indeed I think I have not done already. I took my picture (the Lazarus) once more to the Vatican, and placed it beside Raffaello's (the Transfiguration), and I came without shame out of the comparison." In answer, apparently, to this first letter on the subject, Michelangelo wrote a humorous recommendation of his friend and gossip to the Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena. It runs thus: "I beg your most reverend Lordship, not as a friend or servant, for I am not worthy to be either, but as a low fellow, poor and brainless, that you will cause Sebastian, the Venetian painter, now that Rafael is dead, to have some share in the works, at the Palace. If it should seem to your Lordship that kind offices are thrown away upon a man like me, I might suggest that on some rare occasions a certain sweetness may be found in being kind even to fools, as onions taste well, for a change of food, to one who is tired of capons. You oblige men of mark every day. I beg your Lordship to try what obliging me is like. The obligation will be a very great one, and Sebastian is a worthy man. If, then, your kind offers are thrown away on me, they will not be so on Sebastian, for I am certain he will prove a credit to your Lordship." In his following missives Sebastiano flatters Michelangelo upon the excellent effect produced by the letter. "The Cardinal informed me that the Pope had given the Hall of the Pontiffs to Raffaello's 'prentices, and they have begun with a figure in oils upon the wall, a marvellous production which eclipses all the rooms painted by their master, and proves that when it is finished, this hall will beat the record, and be the finest thing done in painting since the ancients. Then he asked if I had read your letter. I said, No. He laughed loudly, as though at a good joke, and I quitted him with compliments. Bandinelli, who is copying the Laocoon, tells me that the Cardinal showed him your letter, and also showed it to the Pope; in fact, nothing is talked about at the Vatican except your letter, and it makes everybody laugh." He adds that he does not think the hall ought to be committed to young men. Having discovered what sort of things they meant to paint there, battle-pieces and vast compositions, he judges the scheme beyond their scope. Michelangelo alone is equal to the task. Meanwhile, Leo, wishing to compromise matters, offered Sebastiano the great hall in the lower apartments of the Borgias, where Alexander VI. used to live, and where Pinturicchio painted--rooms shut up in pious horror by Julius when he came to occupy the palace of his hated and abominable predecessor. Sebastiano's reliance upon Michelangelo, and his calculation that the way to get possession of the coveted commission would depend on the latter's consenting to supply him with designs, emerge in the following passage: "The Cardinal told me that he was ordered by the Pope to offer me the lower hall. I replied that I could accept nothing without your permission, or until your answer came, which is not to hand at the date of writing. I added that, unless I were engaged to Michelangelo, even if the Pope commanded me to paint that hall, I would not do so, because I do not think myself inferior to Raffaello's 'prentices, especially after the Pope, with his own mouth, had offered me half of the upper hall; and anyhow, I do not regard it as creditable to myself to paint the cellars, and they to have the gilded chambers. I said they had better be allowed to go on painting. He answered that the Pope had only done this to avoid rivalries. The men possessed designs ready for that hall, and I ought to remember that the lower one was also a hall of the Pontiffs. My reply was that I would have nothing to do with it; so that now they are laughing at me, and I am so worried that I am well-nigh mad." Later on he adds: "It has been my object, through you and your authority, to execute vengeance for myself and you too, letting malignant fellows know that there are other demigods alive beside Raffael da Urbino and his 'prentices." The vacillation of Leo in this business, and his desire to make things pleasant, are characteristic of the man, who acted just in the same way while negotiating with princes. IX When Michelangelo complained that he was "rovinato per detta opera di San Lorenzo," he probably did not mean that he was ruined in purse, but in health and energy. For some while after Leo gave him his liberty, he seems to have remained comparatively inactive. During this period the sacristy at S. Lorenzo and the Medicean tombs were probably in contemplation. Giovanni Cambi says that they were begun at the end of March 1520. But we first hear something definite about them in a _Ricordo_ which extends from April 9 to August 19, 1521. Michelangelo says that on the former of these dates he received money from the Cardinal de' Medici for a journey to Carrara, whither he went and stayed about three weeks, ordering marbles for "the tombs which are to be placed in the new sacristy at S. Lorenzo. And there I made out drawings to scale, and measured models in clay for the said tombs." He left his assistant Scipione of Settignano at Carrara as overseer of the work and returned to Florence. On the 20th of July following he went again to Carrara, and stayed nine days. On the 16th of August the contractors for the blocks, all of which were excavated from the old Roman quarry of Polvaccio, came to Florence, and were paid for on account. Scipione returned on the 19th of August. It may be added that the name of Stefano, the miniaturist, who acted as Michelangelo's factotum through several years, is mentioned for the first time in this minute and interesting record. That the commission for the sacristy came from the Cardinal Giulio, and not from the Pope, appears in the document I have just cited. The fact is confirmed by a letter written to Fattucci in 1523: "About two years have elapsed since I returned from Carrara, whither I had gone to purchase marbles for the tombs of the Cardinal." The letter is curious in several respects, because it shows how changeable through many months Giulio remained about the scheme; at one time bidding Michelangelo prepare plans and models, at another refusing to listen to any proposals; then warming up again, and saying that, if he lived long enough, he meant to erect the façade as well. The final issue of the affair was, that after Giulio became Pope Clement VII., the sacristy went forward, and Michelangelo had to put the sepulchre of Julius aside. During the pontificate of Adrian, we must believe that he worked upon his statues for that monument, since a Cardinal was hardly powerful enough to command his services; but when the Cardinal became Pope, and threatened to bring an action against him for moneys received, the case was altered. The letter to Fattucci, when carefully studied, leads to these conclusions. Very little is known to us regarding his private life in the year 1521. We only possess one letter, relating to the purchase of a house. In October he stood godfather to the infant son of Niccolò Soderini, nephew of his old patron, the Gonfalonier. This barren period is marked by only one considerable event--that is, the termination of the Cristo Risorto, or Christ Triumphant, which had been ordered by Metello Varj de' Porcari in 1514. The statue seems to have been rough-hewn at the quarries, packed up, and sent to Pisa on its way to Florence as early as December 1518, but it was not until March 1521 that Michelangelo began to occupy himself about it seriously. He then despatched Pietro Urbano to Rome with orders to complete it there, and to arrange with the purchaser for placing it upon a pedestal. Sebastiano's letters contain some references to this work, which enable us to understand how wrong it would be to accept it as a representative piece of Buonarroti's own handicraft. On the 9th of November 1520 he writes that his gossip, Giovanni da Reggio, "goes about saying that you did not execute the figure, but that it is the work of Pietro Urbano. Take good care that it should be seen to be from your hand, so that poltroons and babblers may burst." On the 6th of September 1521 he returns to the subject. Urbano was at this time resident in Rome, and behaving himself so badly, in Sebastiano's opinion, that he feels bound to make a severe report. "In the first place, you sent him to Rome with the statue to finish and erect it. What he did and left undone you know already. But I must inform you that he has spoiled the marble wherever he touched it. In particular, he shortened the right foot and cut the toes off; the hands too, especially the right hand, which holds the cross, have been mutilated in the fingers. Frizzi says they seem to have been worked by a biscuit-maker, not wrought in marble, but kneaded by some one used to dough. I am no judge, not being familiar with the method of stone-cutting; but I can tell you that the fingers look to me very stiff and dumpy. It is clear also that he has been peddling at the beard; and I believe my little boy would have done so with more sense, for it looks as though he had used a knife without a point to chisel the hair. This can easily be remedied, however. He has also spoiled one of the nostrils. A little more, and the whole nose would have been ruined, and only God could have restored it." Michelangelo apparently had already taken measures to transfer the Christ from Urbano's hands to those of the sculptor Federigo Frizzi. This irritated his former friend and workman. "Pietro shows a very ugly and malignant spirit after finding himself cast off by you. He does not seem to care for you or any one alive, but thinks he is a great master. He will soon find out his mistake, for the poor young man will never be able to make statues. He has forgotten all he knew of art, and the knees of your Christ are worth more than all Rome together." It was Sebastiano's wont to run babbling on this way. Once again he returns to Pietro Urbano. "I am informed that he has left Rome; he has not been seen for several days, has shunned the Court, and I certainly believe that he will come to a bad end. He gambles, wants all the women of the town, struts like a Ganymede in velvet shoes through Rome, and flings his cash about. Poor fellow! I am sorry for him since, after all, he is but young." Such was the end of Pietro Urbano. Michelangelo was certainly unfortunate with his apprentices. One cannot help fancying he may have spoiled them by indulgence. Vasari, mentioning Pietro, calls him "a person of talent, but one who never took the pains to work." Frizzi brought the Christ Triumphant into its present state, patching up what "the lither lad" from Pistoja had boggled. Buonarroti, who was sincerely attached to Varj, and felt his artistic reputation now at stake, offered to make a new statue. But the magnanimous Roman gentleman replied that he was entirely satisfied with the one he had received. He regarded and esteemed it "as a thing of gold," and, in refusing Michelangelo's offer, added that "this proved his noble soul and generosity, inasmuch as, when he had already made what could not be surpassed and was incomparable, he still wanted to serve his friend better." The price originally stipulated was paid, and Varj added an autograph testimonial, strongly affirming his contentment with the whole transaction. These details prove that the Christ of the Minerva must be regarded as a mutilated masterpiece. Michelangelo is certainly responsible for the general conception, the pose, and a large portion of the finished surface, details of which, especially in the knees, so much admired by Sebastiano, and in the robust arms, are magnificent. He designed the figure wholly nude, so that the heavy bronze drapery which now surrounds the loins, and bulges drooping from the left hip, breaks the intended harmony of lines. Yet, could this brawny man have ever suggested any distinctly religious idea? Christ, victor over Death and Hell, did not triumph by ponderosity and sinews. The spiritual nature of his conquest, the ideality of a divine soul disencumbered from the flesh, to which it once had stooped in love for sinful man, ought certainly to have been emphasised, if anywhere through art, in the statue of a Risen Christ. Substitute a scaling-ladder for the cross, and here we have a fine life-guardsman, stripped and posing for some classic battle-piece. We cannot quarrel with Michelangelo about the face and head. Those vulgarly handsome features, that beard, pomaded and curled by a barber's 'prentice, betray no signs of his inspiration. Only in the arrangement of the hair, hyacinthine locks descending to the shoulders, do we recognise the touch of the divine sculptor. The Christ became very famous. Francis I. had it cast and sent to Paris, to be repeated in bronze. What is more strange, it has long been the object of a religious cult. The right foot, so mangled by poor Pietro, wears a fine brass shoe, in order to prevent its being kissed away. This almost makes one think of Goethe's hexameter: "Wunderthätige Bilder sind meist nur schlechte Gemälde." Still it must be remembered that excellent critics have found the whole work admirable. Gsell-Fels says: "It is his second Moses; in movement and physique one of the greatest masterpieces; as a Christ-ideal, the heroic conception of a humanist." That last observation is just. We may remember that Vida was composing his _Christiad_ while Frizzi was curling the beard of the Cristo Risorto. Vida always speaks of Jesus as _Heros_ and of God the Father as _Superum Pater Nimbipotens_ or _Regnator Olympi_. CHAPTER VIII I Leo X. expired upon the 1st day of December 1521. The vacillating game he played in European politics had just been crowned with momentary success. Some folk believed that the Pope died of joy after hearing that his Imperial allies had entered the town of Milan; others thought that he succumbed to poison. We do not know what caused his death. But the unsoundness of his constitution, over-taxed by dissipation and generous living, in the midst of public cares for which the man had hardly nerve enough, may suffice to account for a decease certainly sudden and premature. Michelangelo, born in the same year, was destined to survive him through more than eight lustres of the life of man. Leo was a personality whom it is impossible to praise without reserve. The Pope at that time in Italy had to perform three separate functions. His first duty was to the Church. Leo left the See of Rome worse off than he found it: financially bankrupt, compromised by vague schemes set on foot for the aggrandisement of his family, discredited by many shameless means for raising money upon spiritual securities. His second duty was to Italy. Leo left the peninsula so involved in a mesh of meaningless entanglements, diplomatic and aimless wars, that anarchy and violence proved to be the only exit from the situation. His third duty was to that higher culture which Italy dispensed to Europe, and of which the Papacy had made itself the leading propagator. Here Leo failed almost as conspicuously as in all else he attempted. He debased the standard of art and literature by his ill-placed liberalities, seeking quick returns for careless expenditure, not selecting the finest spirits of his age for timely patronage, diffusing no lofty enthusiasm, but breeding round him mushrooms of mediocrity. Nothing casts stronger light upon the low tone of Roman society created by Leo than the outburst of frenzy and execration which exploded when a Fleming was elected as his successor. Adrian Florent, belonging to a family surnamed Dedel, emerged from the scrutiny of the Conclave into the pontifical chair. He had been the tutor of Charles V., and this may suffice to account for his nomination. Cynical wits ascribed that circumstance to the direct and unexpected action of the Holy Ghost. He was the one foreigner who occupied the seat of S. Peter after the period when the metropolis of Western Christendom became an Italian principality. Adrian, by his virtues and his failings, proved that modern Rome, in her social corruption and religious indifference, demanded an Italian Pontiff. Single-minded and simple, raised unexpectedly by circumstances into his supreme position, he shut his eyes absolutely to art and culture, abandoned diplomacy, and determined to act only as the chief of the Catholic Church. In ecclesiastical matters Adrian was undoubtedly a worthy man. He returned to the original conception of his duty as the Primate of Occidental Christendom; and what might have happened had he lived to impress his spirit upon Rome, remains beyond the reach of calculation. Dare we conjecture that the sack of 1527 would have been averted? Adrian reigned only a year and eight months. He had no time to do anything of permanent value, and was hardly powerful enough to do it, even if time and opportunity had been afforded. In the thunderstorm gathering over Rome and the Papacy, he represents that momentary lull during which men hold their breath and murmur. All the place-seekers, parasites, flatterers, second-rate artificers, folk of facile talents, whom Leo gathered round him, vented their rage against a Pope who lived sparsely, shut up the Belvedere, called statues "idols of the Pagans," and spent no farthing upon twangling lutes and frescoed chambers. Truly Adrian is one of the most grotesque and significant figures upon the page of modern history. His personal worth, his inadequacy to the needs of the age, and his incompetence to control the tempest loosed by Della Roveres, Borgias, and Medici around him, give the man a tragic irony. After his death, upon the 23rd of September 1523, the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici was made Pope. He assumed the title of Clement VII. upon the 9th of November. The wits who saluted Adrian's doctor with the title of "Saviour of the Fatherland," now rejoiced at the election of an Italian and a Medici. The golden years of Leo's reign would certainly return, they thought; having no foreknowledge of the tragedy which was so soon to be enacted, first at Rome, and afterwards at Florence, Michelangelo wrote to his friend Topolino at Carrara: "You will have heard that Medici is made Pope; all the world seems to me to be delighted, and I think that here at Florence great things will soon be set on foot in our art. Therefore, serve well and faithfully." II Our records are very scanty, both as regards personal details and art-work, for the life of Michelangelo during the pontificate of Adrian VI. The high esteem in which he was held throughout Italy is proved by three incidents which may shortly be related. In 1522, the Board of Works for the cathedral church of S. Petronio at Bologna decided to complete the façade. Various architects sent in designs; among them Peruzzi competed with one in the Gothic style, and another in that of the Classical revival. Great differences of opinion arose in the city as to the merits of the rival plans, and the Board in July invited Michelangelo, through their secretary, to come and act as umpire. They promised to reward him magnificently. It does not appear that Michelangelo accepted the offer. In 1523, Cardinal Grimani, who was a famous collector of art-objects, wrote begging for some specimen of his craft. Grimani left it open to him "to choose material and subject; painting, bronze, or marble, according to his fancy." Michelangelo must have promised to fulfill the commission, for we have a letter from Grimani thanking him effusively. He offers to pay fifty ducats at the commencement of the work, and what Michelangelo thinks fit to demand at its conclusion: "for such is the excellence of your ability, that we shall take no thought of money-value." Grimani was Patriarch of Aquileja. In the same year, 1523, the Genoese entered into negotiations for a colossal statue of Andrea Doria, which they desired to obtain from the hand of Michelangelo. Its execution must have been seriously contemplated, for the Senate of Genoa banked 300 ducats for the purpose. We regret that Michelangelo could not carry out a work so congenial to his talent as this ideal portrait of the mighty Signer Capitano would have been; but we may console ourselves by reflecting that even his energies were not equal to all tasks imposed upon him. The real matter for lamentation is that they suffered so much waste in the service of vacillating Popes. To the year 1523 belongs, in all probability, the last extant letter which Michelangelo wrote to his father. Lodovico was dissatisfied with a contract which had been drawn up on the 16th of June in that year, and by which a certain sum of money, belonging to the dowry of his late wife, was settled in reversion upon his eldest son. Michelangelo explains the tenor of the deed, and then breaks forth into the, following bitter and ironical invective: "If my life is a nuisance to you, you have found the means of protecting yourself, and will inherit the key of that treasure which you say that I possess. And you will be acting rightly; for all Florence knows how mighty rich you were, and how I always robbed you, and deserve to be chastised. Highly will men think of you for this. Cry out and tell folk all you choose about me, but do not write again, for you prevent my working. What I have now to do is to make good all you have had from me during the past five-and-twenty years. I would rather not tell you this, but I cannot help it. Take care, and be on your guard against those whom it concerns you. A man dies but once, and does not come back again to patch up things ill done. You have put off till the death to do this. May God assist you!" In another draft of this letter Lodovico is accused of going about the town complaining that he was once a rich man, and that Michelangelo had robbed him. Still, we must not take this for proved; one of the great artist's main defects was an irritable suspiciousness, which caused him often to exaggerate slights and to fancy insults. He may have attached too much weight to the grumblings of an old man, whom at the bottom of his heart he loved dearly. III Clement, immediately after his election, resolved on setting Michelangelo at work in earnest on the Sacristy. At the very beginning of January he also projected the building of the Laurentian Library, and wrote, through his Roman agent, Giovanni Francesco Fattucci, requesting to have two plans furnished, one in the Greek, the other in the Latin style. Michelangelo replied as follows: "I gather from your last that his Holiness our Lord wishes that I should furnish the design for the library. I have received no information, and do not know where it is to be erected. It is true that Stefano talked to me about the scheme, but I paid no heed. When he returns from Carrara I will inquire, and will do all that is in my power, _albeit architecture is not my profession_." There is something pathetic in this reiterated assertion that his real art was sculpture. At the same time Clement wished to provide for him for life. He first proposed that Buonarroti should promise not to marry, and should enter into minor orders. This would have enabled him to enjoy some ecclesiastical benefice, but it would also have handed him over firmly bound to the service of the Pope. Circumstances already hampered him enough, and Michelangelo, who chose to remain his own master, refused. As Berni wrote: "Voleva far da se, non comandato." As an alternative, a pension was suggested. It appears that he only asked for fifteen ducats a month, and that his friend Pietro Gondi had proposed twenty-five ducats. Fattucci, on the 13th of January 1524, rebuked him in affectionate terms for his want of pluck, informing him that "Jacopo Salviati has given orders that Spina should be instructed to pay you a monthly provision of fifty ducats." Moreover, all the disbursements made for the work at S. Lorenzo were to be provided by the same agent in Florence, and to pass through Michelangelo's hands. A house was assigned him, free of rent, at S. Lorenzo, in order that he might be near his work. Henceforth he was in almost weekly correspondence with Giovanni Spina on affairs of business, sending in accounts and drawing money by means of his then trusted servant, Stefano, the miniaturist. That Stefano did not always behave himself according to his master's wishes appears from the following characteristic letter addressed by Michelangelo to his friend Pietro Gondi: "The poor man, who is ungrateful, has a nature of this sort, that if you help him in his needs, he says that what you gave him came out of superfluities; if you put him in the way of doing work for his own good, he says you were obliged, and set him to do it because you were incapable; and all the benefits which he received he ascribes to the necessities of the benefactor. But when everybody can see that you acted out of pure benevolence, the ingrate waits until you make some public mistake, which gives him the opportunity of maligning his benefactor and winning credence, in order to free himself from the obligation under which he lies. This has invariably happened in my case. No one ever entered into relations with me--I speak of workmen--to whom I did not do good with all my heart. Afterwards, some trick of temper, or some madness, which they say is in my nature, which hurts nobody except myself, gives them an excuse for speaking evil of me and calumniating my character. Such is the reward of all honest men." These general remarks, he adds, apply to Stefano, whom he placed in a position of trust and responsibility, in order to assist him. "What I do is done for his good, because I have undertaken to benefit the man, and cannot abandon him; but let him not imagine or say that I am doing it because of my necessities, for, God be praised, I do not stand in need of men." He then begs Gondi to discover what Stefano's real mind is. This is a matter of great importance to him for several reasons, and especially for this: "If I omitted to justify myself, and were to put another in his place, I should be published among the Piagnoni for the biggest traitor who ever lived, even though I were in the right." We conclude, then, that Michelangelo thought of dismissing Stefano, but feared lest he should get into trouble with the powerful political party, followers of Savonarola, who bore the name of Piagnoni at Florence. Gondi must have patched the quarrel up, for we still find Stefano's name in the _Ricordi_ down to April 4, 1524. Shortly after that date, Antonio Mini seems to have taken his place as Michelangelo's right-hand man of business. These details are not so insignificant as they appear. They enable us to infer that the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo may have been walled and roofed in before the end of April 1524; for, in an undated letter to Pope Clement, Michelangelo says that Stefano has finished the lantern, and that it is universally admired. With regard to this lantern, folk told him that he would make it better than Brunelleschi's. "Different perhaps, but better, no!" he answered. The letter to Clement just quoted is interesting in several respects. The boldness of the beginning makes one comprehend how Michelangelo was terrible even to Popes:-- "Most Blessed Father,--Inasmuch as intermediates are often the cause of grave misunderstandings, I have summoned up courage to write without their aid to your Holiness about the tombs at S. Lorenzo. I repeat, I know not which is preferable, the evil that does good, or the good that hurts. I am certain, mad and wicked as I may be, that if I had been allowed to go on as I had begun, all the marbles needed for the work would have been in Florence to-day, and properly blocked out, with less cost than has been expended on them up to this date; and they would have been superb, as are the others I have brought here." After this he entreats Clement to give him full authority in carrying out the work, and not to put superiors over him. Michelangelo, we know, was extremely impatient of control and interference; and we shall see, within a short time, how excessively the watching and spying of busybodies worried and disturbed his spirits. But these were not his only sources of annoyance. The heirs of Pope Julius, perceiving that Michelangelo's time and energy were wholly absorbed at S. Lorenzo, began to threaten him with a lawsuit. Clement, wanting apparently to mediate between the litigants, ordered Fattucci to obtain a report from the sculptor, with a full account of how matters stood. This evoked the long and interesting document which has been so often cited. There is no doubt whatever that Michelangelo acutely felt the justice of the Duke of Urbino's grievances against him. He was broken-hearted at seeming to be wanting in his sense of honour and duty. People, he says, accused him of putting the money which had been paid for the tomb out at usury, "living meanwhile at Florence and amusing himself." It also hurt him deeply to be distracted from the cherished project of his early manhood in order to superintend works for which he had no enthusiasm, and which lay outside his sphere of operation. It may, indeed, be said that during these years Michelangelo lived in a perpetual state of uneasiness and anxiety about the tomb of Julius. As far back as 1518 the Cardinal Leonardo Grosso, Bishop of Agen, and one of Julius's executors, found it necessary to hearten him with frequent letters of encouragement. In one of these, after commending his zeal in extracting marbles and carrying on the monument, the Cardinal proceeds: "Be then of good courage, and do not yield to any perturbations of the spirit, for we put more faith in your smallest word than if all the world should say the contrary. We know your loyalty, and believe you to be wholly devoted to our person; and if there shall be need of aught which we can supply, we are willing, as we have told you on other occasions, to do so; rest then in all security of mind, because we love you from the heart, and desire to do all that may be agreeable to you." This good friend was dead at the time we have now reached, and the violent Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere acted as the principal heir of Pope Julius. In a passion of disgust he refused to draw his pension, and abandoned the house at S. Lorenzo. This must have happened in March 1524, for his friend Leonardo writes to him from Rome upon the 24th: "I am also told that you have declined your pension, which seems to me mere madness, and that you have thrown the house up, and do not work. Friend and gossip, let me tell you that you have plenty of enemies, who speak their worst; also that the Pope and Pucci and Jacopo Salviati are your friends, and have plighted their troth to you. It is unworthy of you to break your word to them, especially in an affair of honour. Leave the matter of the tomb to those who wish you well, and who are able to set you free without the least encumbrance, and take care you do not come short in the Pope's work. Die first. And take the pension, for they give it with a willing heart." How long he remained in contumacy is not quite certain; apparently until the 29th of August. We have a letter written on that day to Giovanni Spina: "After I left you yesterday, I went back thinking over my affairs; and, seeing that the Pope has set his heart on S. Lorenzo, and how he urgently requires my service, and has appointed me a good provision in order that I may serve him with more convenience and speed; seeing also that not to accept it keeps me back, and that I have no good excuse for not serving his Holiness; I have changed my mind, and whereas I hitherto refused, I now demand it (_i.e._, the salary), considering this far wiser, and for more reasons than I care to write; and, more especially, I mean to return to the house you took for me at S. Lorenzo, and settle down there like an honest man: inasmuch as it sets gossip going, and does me great damage not to go back there." From a _Ricordo_ dated October 19, 1524, we learn in fact that he then drew his full pay for eight months. IV Since Michelangelo was now engaged upon the Medicean tombs at S. Lorenzo, it will be well to give some account of the several plans he made before deciding on the final scheme, which he partially executed. We may assume, I think, that the sacristy, as regards its general form and dimensions, faithfully represents the first plan approved by Clement. This follows from the rapidity and regularity with which the structure was completed. But then came the question of filling it with sarcophagi and statues. As early as November 28, 1520, Giulio de' Medici, at that time Cardinal, wrote from the Villa Magliana. to Buonarroti, addressing him thus: "_Spectabilis vir, amice noster charissime_." He says that he is pleased with the design for the chapel, and with the notion of placing the four tombs in the middle. Then he proceeds to make some sensible remarks upon the difficulty of getting these huge masses of statuary into the space provided for them. Michelangelo, as Heath Wilson has pointed out, very slowly acquired the sense of proportion on which technical architecture depends. His early sketches only show a feeling for mass and picturesque effect, and a strong inclination to subordinate the building to sculpture. It may be questioned who were the four Medici for whom these tombs were intended. Cambi, in a passage quoted above, writing at the end of March 1520(?), says that two were raised for Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, and that the Cardinal meant one to be for himself. The fourth he does not speak about. It has been conjectured that Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano, fathers respectively of Leo and of Clement, were to occupy two of the sarcophagi; and also, with greater probability, that the two Popes, Leo and Clement, were associated with the Dukes. Before 1524 the scheme expanded, and settled into a more definite shape. The sarcophagi were to support statue-portraits of the Dukes and Popes, with Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano. At their base, upon the ground, were to repose six rivers, two for each tomb, showing that each sepulchre would have held two figures. The rivers were perhaps Arno, Tiber, Metauro, Po, Taro, and Ticino. This we gather from a letter written to Michelangelo on the 23rd of May in that year. Michelangelo made designs to meet this plan, but whether the tombs were still detached from the wall does not appear. Standing inside the sacristy, it seems impossible that six statue-portraits and six river-gods on anything like a grand scale could have been crowded into the space, especially when we remember that there was to be an altar, with other objects described as ornaments--"gli altri ornamenti." Probably the Madonna and Child, with SS. Cosimo and Damiano, now extant in the chapel, formed an integral part of the successive schemes. One thing is certain, that the notion of placing the tombs in the middle of the sacristy was soon abandoned. All the marble panelling, pilasters, niches, and so forth, which at present clothe the walls and dominate the architectural effect, are clearly planned for mural monuments. A rude sketch preserved in the Uffizi throws some light upon the intermediate stages of the scheme. It is incomplete, and was not finally adopted; but we see in it one of the four sides of the chapel, divided vertically above into three compartments, the middle being occupied by a Madonna, the two at the sides filled in with bas-reliefs. At the base, on sarcophagi or _cassoni_, recline two nude male figures. The space between these and the upper compartments seems to have been reserved for allegorical figures, since a colossal naked boy, ludicrously out of scale with the architecture and the recumbent figures, has been hastily sketched in. In architectural proportion and sculpturesque conception this design is very poor. It has the merit, however, of indicating a moment in the evolution of the project when the mural scheme had been adopted. The decorative details which surmount the composition confirm the feeling every one must have, that, in their present state, the architecture of the Medicean monuments remains imperfect. In this process of endeavouring to trace the development of Michelangelo's ideas for the sacristy, seven original drawings at the British Museum are of the greatest importance. They may be divided into three groups. One sketch seems to belong to the period when the tombs were meant to be placed in the centre of the chapel. It shows a single facet of the monument, with two sarcophagi placed side by side and seated figures at the angles. Five are variations upon the mural scheme, which was eventually adopted. They differ considerably in details, proving what trouble the designer took to combine a large number of figures in a single plan. He clearly intended at some time to range the Medicean statues in pairs, and studied several types of curve for their sepulchral urns. The feature common to all of them is a niche, of door or window shape, with a powerfully indented architrave. Reminiscences of the design for the tomb of Julius are not infrequent; and it may be remarked, as throwing a side-light upon that irrecoverable project of his earlier manhood, that the figures posed upon the various spaces of architecture differ in their scale. Two belonging to this series are of especial interest, since we learn from them how he thought of introducing the rivers at the basement of the composition. It seems that he hesitated long about the employment of circular spaces in the framework of the marble panelling. These were finally rejected. One of the finest and most comprehensive of the drawings I am now describing contains a rough draft of a curved sarcophagus, with an allegorical figure reclining upon it, indicating the first conception of the Dawn. Another, blurred and indistinct, with clumsy architectural environment, exhibits two of these allegories, arranged much as we now see them at S. Lorenzo. A river-god, recumbent beneath the feet of a female statue, carries the eye down to the ground, and enables us to comprehend how these subordinate figures were wrought into the complex harmony of flowing lines he had imagined. The seventh study differs in conception from the rest; it stands alone. There are four handlings of what begins like a huge portal, and is gradually elaborated into an architectural scheme containing three great niches for statuary. It is powerful and simple in design, governed by semicircular arches--a feature which is absent from the rest. All these drawings are indubitably by the hand of Michelangelo, and must be reckoned among his first free efforts to construct a working plan. The Albertina Collection at Vienna yields us an elaborate design for the sacristy, which appears to have been worked up from some of the rougher sketches. It is executed in pen, shaded with bistre, and belongs to what I have ventured to describe as office work. It may have been prepared for the inspection of Leo and the Cardinal. Here we have the sarcophagi in pairs, recumbent figures stretched upon a shallow curve inverted, colossal orders of a bastard Ionic type, a great central niche framing a seated Madonna, two male figures in side niches, suggestive of Giuliano and Lorenzo as they were at last conceived, four allegorical statues, and, to crown the whole structure, candelabra of a peculiar shape, with a central round, supported by two naked genii. It is difficult, as I have before observed, to be sure how much of the drawings executed in this way can be ascribed with safety to Michelangelo himself. They are carefully outlined, with the precision of a working architect; but the sculptural details bear the aspect of what may be termed a generic Florentine style of draughtsmanship. Two important letters from Michelangelo to Fattucci, written in October 1525 and April 1526, show that he had then abandoned the original scheme, and adopted one which was all but carried into effect. "I am working as hard as I can, and in fifteen days I shall begin the other captain. Afterwards the only important things left will be the four rivers. The four statues on the sarcophagi, the four figures on the ground which are the rivers, the two captains, and Our Lady, who is to be placed upon the tomb at the head of the chapel; these are what I mean to do with my own hand. Of these I have begun six; and I have good hope of finishing them in due time, and carrying the others forward in part, which do not signify so much." The six he had begun are clearly the Dukes and their attendant figures of Day, Night, Dawn, Evening. The Madonna, one of his noblest works, came within a short distance of completion. SS. Cosimo and Damiano passed into the hands of Montelupo and Montorsoli. Of the four rivers we have only fragments in the shape of some exquisite little models. Where they could have been conveniently placed is difficult to imagine; possibly they were abandoned from a feeling that the chapel would be overcrowded. V According to the plan adopted in this book, I shall postpone such observations as I have to make upon the Medicean monuments until the date when Michelangelo laid down his chisel, and shall now proceed with the events of his life during the years 1525 and 1526. He continued to be greatly troubled about the tomb of Julius II. The lawsuit instituted by the Duke of Urbino hung over his head; and though he felt sure of the Pope's powerful support, it was extremely important, both for his character and comfort, that affairs should be placed upon a satisfactory basis. Fattucci in Rome acted not only as Clement's agent in business connected with S. Lorenzo; he also was intrusted with negotiations for the settlement of the Duke's claims. The correspondence which passed between them forms, therefore, our best source of information for this period. On Christmas Eve in 1524 Michelangelo writes from Florence to his friend, begging him not to postpone a journey he had in view, if the only business which detained him was the trouble about the tomb. A pleasant air of manly affection breathes through this document, showing Michelangelo to have been unselfish in a matter which weighed heavily and daily on his spirits. How greatly he was affected can be inferred from a letter written to Giovanni Spina on the 19th of April 1525. While reading this, it must be remembered that the Duke laid his action for the recovery of a considerable balance, which he alleged to be due to him upon disbursements made for the monument. Michelangelo, on the contrary, asserted that he was out of pocket, as we gather from the lengthy report he forwarded in 1524 to Fattucci. The difficulty in the accounts seems to have arisen from the fact that payments for the Sistine Chapel and the tomb had been mixed up. The letter to Spina runs as follows: "There is no reason for sending a power of attorney about the tomb of Pope Julius, because I do not want to plead. They cannot bring a suit if I admit that I am in the wrong; so I assume that I have sued and lost, and have to pay; and this I am disposed to do, if I am able. Therefore, if the Pope will help me in the matter--and this would be the greatest satisfaction to me, seeing I am too old and ill to finish the work--he might, as intermediary, express his pleasure that I should repay what I have received for its performance, so as to release me from this burden, and to enable the relatives of Pope Julius to carry out the undertaking by any master whom they may choose to employ. In this way his Holiness could be of very great assistance to me. Of course I desire to reimburse as little as possible, always consistently with justice. His Holiness might employ some of my arguments, as, for instance, the time spent for the Pope at Bologna, and other times wasted without any compensation, according to the statements I have made in full to Ser Giovan Francesco (Fattucci). Directly the terms of restitution have been settled, I will engage my property, sell, and put myself in a position to repay the money. I shall then be able to think of the Pope's orders and to work; as it is, I can hardly be said to live, far less to work. There is no other way of putting an end to the affair more safe for myself, nor more agreeable, nor more certain to ease my mind. It can be done amicably without a lawsuit. I pray to God that the Pope may be willing to accept the mediation, for I cannot see that any one else is fit to do it." Giorgio Vasari says that he came in the year 1525 for a short time as pupil to Michelangelo. In his own biography he gives the date, more correctly, 1524. At any rate, the period of Vasari's brief apprenticeship was closed by a journey which the master made to Rome, and Buonarroti placed the lad in Andrea del Sarto's workshop. "He left for Rome in haste. Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, was again molesting him, asserting that he had received 16,000 ducats to complete the tomb, while he stayed idling at Florence for his own amusement. He threatened that, if he did not attend to the work, he would make him suffer. So, when he arrived there, Pope Clement, who wanted to command his services, advised him to reckon with the Duke's agents, believing that, for what he had already done, he was rather creditor than debtor. The matter remained thus." We do not know when this journey to Rome took place. From a hint in the letter of December 24, 1524, to Fattucci, where Michelangelo observes that only he in person would be able to arrange matters, it is possible that we may refer it to the beginning of 1525. Probably he was able to convince, not only the Pope, but also the Duke's agents that he had acted with scrupulous honesty, and that his neglect of the tomb was due to circumstances over which he had no control, and which he regretted as acutely as anybody. There is no shadow of doubt that this was really the case. Every word written by Michelangelo upon the subject shows that he was heart-broken at having to abandon the long-cherished project. Some sort of arrangement must have been arrived at. Clement took the matter into his own hands, and during the summer of 1525 amicable negotiations were in progress. On the 4th of September Michelangelo writes again to Fattucci, saying that he is quite willing to complete the tomb upon the same plan as that of the Pope Pius (now in the Church of S. Andrea della Valle)--that is, to adopt a mural system instead of the vast detached monument. This would take less time. He again urges his friend not to stay at Rome for the sake of these affairs. He hears that the plague is breaking out there. "And I would rather have you alive than my business settled. If I die before the Pope, I shall not have to settle any troublesome affairs. If I live, I am sure the Pope will settle them, if not now, at some other time. So come back. I was with your mother yesterday, and advised her, in the presence of Granacci and John the turner, to send for you home." While in Rome Michelangelo conferred with Clement about the sacristy and library at S. Lorenzo. For a year after his return to Florence he worked steadily at the Medicean monuments, but not without severe annoyances, as appears from the following to Fattucci: "The four statues I have in hand are not yet finished, and much has still to be done upon them. The four rivers are not begun, because the marble is wanting, and yet it is here. I do not think it opportune to tell you why. With regard to the affairs of Julius, I am well disposed to make the tomb like that of Pius in S. Peter's, and will do so little by little, now one piece and now another, and will pay for it out of my own pocket, if I keep my pension and my house, as you promised me. I mean, of course, the house at Rome, and the marbles and other things I have there. So that, in fine, I should not have to restore to the heirs of Julius, in order to be quit of the contract, anything which I have hitherto received; the tomb itself, completed after the pattern of that of Pius, sufficing for my full discharge. Moreover, I undertake to perform the work within a reasonable time, and to finish the statues with my own hand." He then turns to his present troubles at Florence. The pension was in arrears, and busybodies annoyed him with interferences of all sorts. "If my pension were paid, as was arranged, I would never stop working for Pope Clement with all the strength I have, small though that be, since I am old. At the same time I must not be slighted and affronted as I am now, for such treatment weighs greatly on my spirits. The petty spites I speak of have prevented me from doing what I want to do these many months; one cannot work at one thing with the hands, another with the brain, especially in marble. 'Tis said here that these annoyances are meant to spur me on; but I maintain that those are scurvy spurs which make a good steed jib. I have not touched my pension during the past year, and struggle with poverty. I am left in solitude to bear my troubles, and have so many that they occupy me more than does my art; I cannot keep a man to manage my house through lack of means." Michelangelo's dejection caused serious anxiety to his friends. Jacopo Salviati, writing on the 30th October from Rome, endeavoured to restore his courage. "I am greatly distressed to hear of the fancies you have got into your head. What hurts me most is that they should prevent your working, for that rejoices your ill-wishers, and confirms them in what they have always gone on preaching about your habits." He proceeds to tell him how absurd it is to suppose that Baccio Bandinelli is preferred before him. "I cannot perceive how Baccio could in any way whatever be compared to you, or his work be set on the same level as your own." The letter winds up with exhortations to work. "Brush these cobwebs of melancholy away; have confidence in his Holiness; do not give occasion to your enemies to blaspheme, and be sure that your pension will be paid; I pledge my word for it." Buonarroti, it is clear, wasted his time, not through indolence, but through allowing the gloom of a suspicious and downcast temperament--what the Italians call _accidia_--to settle on his spirits. Skipping a year, we find that these troublesome negotiations about the tomb were still pending. He still hung suspended between the devil and the deep sea, the importunate Duke of Urbino and the vacillating Pope. Spina, it seems, had been writing with too much heat to Rome, probably urging Clement to bring the difficulties about the tomb to a conclusion. Michelangelo takes the correspondence up again with Fattucci on November 6, 1526. What he says at the beginning of the letter is significant. He knows that the political difficulties in which Clement had become involved were sufficient to distract his mind, as Julius once said, from any interest in "stones small or big." Well, the letter starts thus: "I know that Spina wrote in these days past to Rome very hotly about my affairs with regard to the tomb of Julius. If he blundered, seeing the times in which we live, I am to blame, for I prayed him urgently to write. It is possible that the trouble of my soul made me say more than I ought. Information reached me lately about the affair which alarmed me greatly. It seems that the relatives of Julius are very ill-disposed towards me. And not without reason.--The suit is going on, and they are demanding capital and interest to such an amount that a hundred of my sort could not meet the claims. This has thrown me into terrible agitation, and makes me reflect where I should be if the Pope failed me. I could not live a moment. It is that which made me send the letter alluded to above. Now, I do not want anything but what the Pope thinks right. I know that he does not desire my ruin and my disgrace." He proceeds to notice that the building work at S. Lorenzo is being carried forward very slowly, and money spent upon it with increasing parsimony. Still he has his pension and his house; and these imply no small disbursements. He cannot make out what the Pope's real wishes are. If he did but know Clement's mind, he would sacrifice everything to please him. "Only if I could obtain permission to begin something either here or in Rome, for the tomb of Julius, I should be extremely glad; for, indeed, I desire to free myself from that obligation more than to live." The letter closes on a note of sadness: "If I am unable to write what you will understand, do not be surprised, for I have lost my wits entirely." After this we hear nothing more about the tomb in Michelangelo's correspondence till the year 1531. During the intervening years Italy was convulsed by the sack of Rome, the siege of Florence, and the French campaigns in Lombardy and Naples. Matters only began to mend when Charles V. met Clement at Bologna in 1530, and established the affairs of the peninsula upon a basis which proved durable. That fatal lustre (1526-1530) divided the Italy of the Renaissance from the Italy of modern times with the abruptness of an Alpine watershed. Yet Michelangelo, aged fifty-one in 1526, was destined to live on another thirty-eight years, and, after the death of Clement, to witness the election of five successive Popes. The span of his life was not only extraordinary in its length, but also in the events it comprehended. Born in the mediaeval pontificate of Sixtus IV., brought up in the golden days of Lorenzo de' Medici, he survived the Franco-Spanish struggle for supremacy, watched the progress of the Reformation, and only died when a new Church and a new Papacy had been established by the Tridentine Council amid states sinking into the repose of decrepitude. VI We must return from this digression and resume the events of Michelangelo's life in 1525. The first letter to Sebastiano del Piombo is referred to April of that year. He says that a picture, probably the portrait of Anton Francesco degli Albizzi, is eagerly expected at Florence. When it arrived in May, he wrote again under the influence of generous admiration for his friend's performance: "Last evening our friend the Captain Cuio and certain other gentlemen were so kind as to invite me to sup with them. This gave me exceeding great pleasure, since it drew me forth a little from my melancholy, or shall we call it my mad mood. Not only did I enjoy the supper, which was most agreeable, but far more the conversation. Among the topics discussed, what gave me most delight was to hear your name mentioned by the Captain; nor was this all, for he still added to my pleasure, nay, to a superlative degree, by saying that, in the art of painting he held you to be sole and without peer in the whole world, and that so you were esteemed at Rome. I could not have been better pleased. You see that my judgment is confirmed; and so you must not deny that you are peerless, when I write it, since I have a crowd of witnesses to my opinion. There is a picture too of yours here, God be praised, which wins credence for me with every one who has eyes." Correspondence was carried on during this year regarding the library at S. Lorenzo; and though I do not mean to treat at length about that building in this chapter, I cannot omit an autograph postscript added by Clement to one of his secretary's missives: "Thou knowest that Popes have no long lives; and we cannot yearn more than we do to behold the chapel with the tombs of our kinsmen, or at any rate to hear that it is finished. Likewise, as regards the library. Wherefore we recommend both to thy diligence. Meantime we will betake us (as thou saidst erewhile) to a wholesome patience, praying God that He may put it into thy heart to push the whole forward together. Fear not that either work to do or rewards shall fail thee while we live. Farewell, with the blessing of God and ours.--Julius." [Julius was the Pope's baptismal name.--ED.] Michelangelo began the library in 1526, as appears from his _Ricordi._ Still the work went on slowly, not through his negligence, but, as we have seen, from the Pope's preoccupation with graver matters. He had a great many workmen in his service at this period, and employed celebrated masters in their crafts, as Tasso and Carota for wood-carving, Battista del Cinque and Ciapino for carpentry, upon the various fittings of the library. All these details he is said to have designed; and it is certain that he was considered responsible for their solidity and handsome appearance. Sebastiano, for instance, wrote to him about the benches: "Our Lord wishes that the whole work should be of carved walnut. He does not mind spending three florins more; for that is a trifle, if they are Cosimesque in style, I mean resemble the work done for the magnificent Cosimo." Michelangelo could not have been the solitary worker of legend and tradition. The nature of his present occupations rendered this impossible. For the completion of his architectural works he needed a band of able coadjutors. Thus in 1526 Giovanni da Udine came from Rome to decorate the vault of the sacristy with frescoed arabesques. His work was nearly terminated in 1533, when some question arose about painting the inside of the lantern. Sebastiano, apparently in good faith, made the following burlesque suggestion: "For myself, I think that the Ganymede would go there very well; one could put an aureole about him, and turn him into a S. John of the Apocalypse when he is being caught up into the heavens." The whole of one side of the Italian Renaissance, its so-called neo-paganism, is contained in this remark. While still occupied with thoughts about S. Lorenzo, Clement ordered Michelangelo to make a receptacle for the precious vessels and reliques collected by Lorenzo the Magnificent. It was first intended to place this chest, in the form of a ciborium, above the high altar, and to sustain it on four columns. Eventually, the Pope resolved that it should be a sacrarium, or cabinet for holy things, and that this should stand above the middle entrance door to the church. The chest was finished, and its contents remained there until the reign of the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, when they were removed to the chapel next the old sacristy. Another very singular idea occurred to his Holiness in the autumn of 1525. He made Fattucci write that he wished to erect a colossal statue on the piazza of S. Lorenzo, opposite the Stufa Palace. The giant was to surmount the roof of the Medicean Palace, with its face turned in that direction and its back to the house of Luigi della Stufa. Being so huge, it would have to be composed of separate pieces fitted together. Michelangelo speedily knocked this absurd plan on the head in a letter which gives a good conception of his dry and somewhat ponderous humour. "About the Colossus of forty cubits, which you tell me is to go or to be placed at the corner of the loggia in the Medicean garden, opposite the corner of Messer Luigi della Stufa, I have meditated not a little, as you bade me. In my opinion that is not the proper place for it, since it would take up too much room on the roadway. I should prefer to put it at the other, where the barber's shop is. This would be far better in my judgment, since it has the square in front, and would not encumber the street. There might be some difficulty about pulling down the shop, because of the rent. So it has occurred to me that the statue might be carved in a sitting position; the Colossus would be so lofty that if we made it hollow inside, as indeed is the proper method for a thing which has to be put together from pieces, the shop might be enclosed within it, and the rent be saved. And inasmuch as the shop has a chimney in its present state, I thought of placing a cornucopia in the statue's hand, hollowed out for the smoke to pass through. The head too would be hollow, like all the other members of the figure. This might be turned to a useful purpose, according to the suggestion made me by a huckster on the square, who is my good friend. He privily confided to me that it would make an excellent dovecote. Then another fancy came into my head, which is still better, though the statue would have to be considerably heightened. That, however, is quite feasible, since towers are built up of blocks; and then the head might serve as bell-tower to San Lorenzo, which is much in need of one. Setting up the bells inside, and the sound booming through the mouth, it would seem as though the Colossus were crying mercy, and mostly upon feast-days, when peals are rung most often and with bigger bells." Nothing more is heard of this fantastic project; whence we may conclude that the irony of Michelangelo's epistle drove it out of the Pope's head. CHAPTER IX I It lies outside the scope of this work to describe the series of events which led up to the sack of Rome in 1527. Clement, by his tortuous policy, and by the avarice of his administration, had alienated every friend and exasperated all his foes. The Eternal City was in a state of chronic discontent and anarchy. The Colonna princes drove the Pope to take refuge in the Castle of S. Angelo; and when the Lutheran rabble raised by Frundsberg poured into Lombardy, the Duke of Ferrara assisted them to cross the Po, and the Duke of Urbino made no effort to bar the passes of the Apennines. Losing one leader after the other, these ruffians, calling themselves an Imperial army, but being in reality the scum and offscourings of all nations, without any aim but plunder and ignorant of policy, reached Rome upon the 6th of May. They took the city by assault, and for nine months Clement, leaning from the battlements of Hadrian's Mausoleum, watched smoke ascend from desolated palaces and desecrated temples, heard the wailing of women and the groans of tortured men, mingling with the ribald jests of German drunkards and the curses of Castilian bandits. Roaming those galleries and gazing from those windows, he is said to have exclaimed in the words of Job: "Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?" The immediate effect of this disaster was that the Medici lost their hold on Florence. The Cardinal of Cortona, with the young princes Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici, fled from the city on the 17th of May, and a popular government was set up under the presidency of Niccolò Capponi. During this year and the next, Michelangelo was at Florence; but we know very little respecting the incidents of his life. A _Ricordo_ bearing the date April 29 shows the disturbed state of the town. "I record how, some days ago, Piero di Filippo Gondi asked for permission to enter the new sacristy at S. Lorenzo, in order to hide there certain goods belonging to his family, by reason of the perils in which we are now. To-day, upon the 29th of April 1527, he has begun to carry in some bundles, which he says are linen of his sisters; and I, not wishing to witness what he does or to know where he hides the gear away, have given him the key of the sacristy this evening." There are only two letters belonging to the year 1527. Both refer to a small office which had been awarded to Michelangelo with the right to dispose of the patronage. He offered it to his favourite brother, Buonarroto, who does not seem to have thought it worth accepting. The documents for 1528 are almost as meagre. We do not possess a single letter, and the most important _Ricordi_ relate to Buonarroto's death and the administration of his property. He died of the plague upon the 2nd of July, to the very sincere sorrow of his brother. It is said that Michelangelo held him in his arms while he was dying, without counting the risk to his own life. Among the minutes of disbursements made for Buonarroto's widow and children after his burial, we find that their clothes had been destroyed because of the infection. All the cares of the family now fell on Michelangelo's shoulders. He placed his niece Francesca in a convent till the time that she should marry, repaid her dowry to the widow Bartolommea, and provided for the expenses of his nephew Lionardo. For the rest, there is little to relate which has any bearing on the way in which he passed his time before the siege of Florence began. One glimpse, however, is afforded of his daily life and conversation by Benvenuto Cellini, who had settled in Florence after the sack of Rome, and was working in a shop he opened at the Mercato Nuovo. The episode is sufficiently interesting to be quoted. A Sienese gentleman had commissioned Cellini to make him a golden medal, to be worn in the hat. "The subject was to be Hercules wrenching the lion's mouth. While I was working at this piece, Michel Agnolo Buonarroti came oftentimes to see it. I had spent infinite pains upon the design, so that the attitude of the figure and the fierce passion of the beast were executed in quite a different style from that of any craftsman who had hitherto attempted such groups. This, together with the fact that the special branch of art was totally unknown to Michel Agnolo, made the divine master give such praises to my work that I felt incredibly inspired for further effort. "Just then I met with Federigo Ginori, a young man of very lofty spirit. He had lived some years in Naples and being endowed with great charms of person and presence, had been the lover of a Neapolitan princess. He wanted to have a medal made with Atlas bearing the world upon his shoulders, and applied to Michel Agnolo for a design. Michel Agnolo made this answer: 'Go and find out a young goldsmith named Benvenuto; he will serve you admirably, and certainly he does not stand in need of sketches by me. However, to prevent your thinking that I want to save myself the trouble of so slight a matter, I will gladly sketch you something; but meanwhile speak to Benvenuto, and let him also make a model; he can then execute the better of the two designs.' Federigo Ginori came to me and told me what he wanted, adding thereto how Michel Agnolo had praised me, and how he had suggested I should make a waxen model while he undertook to supply a sketch. The words of that great man so heartened me, that I set myself to work at once with eagerness upon the model; and when I had finished it, a painter who was intimate with Michel Agnolo, called Giuliano Bugiardini, brought me the drawing of Atlas. On the same occasion I showed Giuliano my little model in wax, which was very different from Michel Agnolo's drawing; and Federigo, in concert with Bugiardini, agreed that I should work upon my model. So I took it in hand, and when Michel Agnolo saw it, he praised me to the skies." The courtesy shown by Michelangelo on this occasion to Cellini may be illustrated by an inedited letter addressed to him from Vicenza. The writer was Valerio Belli, who describes himself as a cornelian-cutter. He reminds the sculptor of a promise once made to him in Florence of a design for an engraved gem. A remarkably fine stone has just come into his hands, and he should much like to begin to work upon it. These proofs of Buonarroti's liberality to brother artists are not unimportant, since he was unjustly accused during his lifetime of stinginess and churlishness. II At the end of the year 1528 it became clear to the Florentines that they would have to reckon with Clement VII. As early as August 18, 1527, France and England leagued together, and brought pressure upon Charles V., in whose name Rome had been sacked. Negotiations were proceeding, which eventually ended in the peace of Barcelona (June 20, 1529), whereby the Emperor engaged to sacrifice the Republic to the Pope's vengeance. It was expected that the remnant of the Prince of Orange's army would be marched up to besiege the town. Under the anxiety caused by these events, the citizens raised a strong body of militia, enlisted Malatesta Baglioni and Stefano Colonna as generals, and began to take measures for strengthening the defences. What may be called the War Office of the Florentine Republic bore the title of Dieci della Guerra, or the Ten. It was their duty to watch over and provide for all the interests of the commonwealth in military matters, and now at this juncture serious measures had to be taken for putting the city in a state of defence. Already in the year 1527, after the expulsion of the Medici, a subordinate board had been created, to whom very considerable executive and administrative faculties were delegated. This board, called the Nove della Milizia, or the Nine, were empowered to enrol all the burghers under arms, and to take charge of the walls, towers, bastions, and other fortifications. It was also within their competence to cause the destruction of buildings, and to compensate the evicted proprietors at a valuation which they fixed themselves. In the spring of 1529 the War Office decided to gain the services of Michelangelo, not only because he was the most eminent architect of his age in Florence, but also because the Buonarroti family had always been adherents of the Medicean party, and the Ten judged that his appointment to a place on the Nove di Milizia would be popular with the democracy. The patent conferring this office upon him, together with full authority over the work of fortification, was issued on the 6th of April. Its terms were highly complimentary. "Considering the genius and practical attainments of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti, our citizen, and knowing how excellent he is in architecture, beside his other most singular talents in the liberal arts, by virtue whereof the common consent of men regards him as unsurpassed by any masters of our times; and, moreover, being assured that in love and affection toward the country he is the equal of any other good and loyal burgher; bearing in mind, too, the labour he has undergone and the diligence he has displayed, gratis and of his free will, in the said work (of fortification) up to this day; and wishing to employ his industry and energies to the like effect in future; we, of our motion and initiative, do appoint him to be governor and procurator-general over the construction and fortification of the city walls, as well as every other sort of defensive operation and munition for the town of Florence, for one year certain, beginning with the present date; adding thereto full authority over all persons in respect to the said work of reparation or pertaining to it." From this preamble it appears that Michelangelo had been already engaged in volunteer service connected with the defence of Florence. A stipend of one golden florin per diem was fixed by the same deed; and upon the 22nd of April following a payment of thirty florins was decreed, for one month's salary, dating from the 6th of April. If the Government thought to gain popular sympathy by Michelangelo's appointment, they made the mistake of alienating the aristocracy. It was the weakness of Florence at this momentous crisis in her fate, to be divided into parties, political, religious, social; whose internal jealousies deprived her of the strength which comes alone from unity. When Giambattista Busini wrote that interesting series of letters to Benedetto Varchi from which the latter drew important materials for his annals of the siege, he noted this fact. "Envy must always be reckoned as of some account in republics, especially when the nobles form a considerable element, as in ours: for they were angry, among other matters, to see a Carducci made Gonfalonier, Michelangelo a member of the Nine, a Cei or a Giugni elected to the Ten." Michelangelo had scarcely been chosen to control the general scheme for fortifying Florence, when the Signory began to consider the advisability of strengthening the citadels of Pisa and Livorno, and erecting lines along the Arno. Their commissary at Pisa wrote urging the necessity of Buonarroti's presence on the spot. In addition to other pressing needs, the Arno, when in flood, threatened the ancient fortress of the city. Accordingly we find that Michelangelo went to Pisa on the 5th of June, and that he stayed there over the 13th, returning to Florence perhaps upon the 17th of the month. The commissary, who spent several days in conferring with him and in visiting the banks of the Arno, was perturbed in mind because Michelangelo refused to exchange the inn where he alighted for an apartment in the official residence. This is very characteristic of the artist. We shall soon find him, at Ferrara, refusing to quit his hostelry for the Duke's palace, and, at Venice, hiring a remote lodging on the Giudecca in order to avoid the hospitality of S. Mark. An important part of Michelangelo's plan for the fortification of Florence was to erect bastions covering the hill of S. Miniato. Any one who stands upon the ruined tower of the church there will see at a glance that S. Miniato is the key to the position for a beleaguering force; and "if the enemy once obtained possession of the hill, he would become immediately master of the town." It must, I think, have been at this spot that Buonarroti was working before he received the appointment of controller-general of the works. Yet he found some difficulty in persuading the rulers of the state that his plan was the right one. Busini, using information supplied by Michelangelo himself at Rome in 1549, speaks as follows: "Whatever the reason may have been, Niccolò Capponi, while he was Gonfalonier, would not allow the hill of S. Miniato to be fortified, and Michelangelo, who is a man of absolute veracity, tells me that he had great trouble in convincing the other members of the Government, but that he could never convince Niccolò. However, he began the work, in the way you know, with those fascines of tow. But Niccolò made him abandon it, and sent him to another post; and when he was elected to the Nine, they despatched him twice or thrice outside the city. Each time, on his return, he found the hill neglected, whereupon he complained, feeling this a blot upon his reputation and an insult to his magistracy. Eventually, the works went on, until, when the besieging army arrived, they were tenable." Michelangelo had hitherto acquired no practical acquaintance with the art of fortification. That the system of defence by bastions was an Italian invention (although Albert Dürer first reduced it to written theory in his book of 1527, suggesting improvements which led up to Vauban's method) is a fact acknowledged by military historians. But it does not appear that Michelangelo did more than carry out defensive operations in the manner familiar to his predecessors. Indeed, we shall see that some critics found reason to blame him for want of science in the construction of his outworks. When, therefore, a difference arose between the controller-general of defences and the Gonfalonier upon this question of strengthening S. Miniato, it was natural that the War Office should have thought it prudent to send their chief officer to the greatest authority upon fortification then alive in Italy. This was the Duke of Ferrara. Busini must serve as our text in the first instance upon this point. "Michelangelo says that, when neither Niccolò Capponi nor Baldassare Carducci would agree to the outworks at S. Miniato, he convinced all the leading men except Niccolò of their necessity, showing that Florence could not hold out a single day without them. Accordingly he began to throw up bastions with fascines of tow; but the result was far from perfect, as he himself confessed. Upon this, the Ten resolved to send him to Ferrara to inspect that renowned work of defence. Thither accordingly he went; nevertheless, he believes that Niccolò did this in order to get him out of the way, and to prevent the construction of the bastion. In proof thereof he adduces the fact that, upon his return, he found the whole work interrupted." Furnished with letters to the Duke, and with special missives from the Signory and the Ten to their envoy, Galeotto Giugni, Michelangelo left Florence for Ferrara after the 28th of July, and reached it on the and of August. He refused, as Giugni writes with some regret, to abandon his inn, but was personally conducted with great honour by the Duke all round the walls and fortresses of Ferrara. On what day he quitted that city, and whither he went immediately after his departure, is uncertain. The Ten wrote to Giugni on the 8th of August, saying that his presence was urgently required at Florence, since the work of fortification was going on apace, "a multitude of men being employed, and no respect being paid to feast-days and holidays." It would also seem that, toward the close of the month, he was expected at Arezzo, in order to survey and make suggestions on the defences of the city. These points are not insignificant, since we possess a _Ricordo_ by Michelangelo, written upon an unfinished letter bearing the date "Venice, September 10," which has been taken to imply that he had been resident in Venice fourteen days--that is, from the 28th of August. None of his contemporaries or biographers mention a visit to Venice at the end of August 1529. It has, therefore, been conjectured that he went there after leaving Ferrara, but that his mission was one of a very secret nature. This seems inconsistent with the impatient desire expressed by the War Office for his return to Florence after the 8th of August. Allowing for exchange of letters and rate of travelling, Michelangelo could not have reached home much before the 15th. It is also inconsistent with the fact that he was expected in Arezzo at the beginning of September. I shall have to return later on to the _Ricordo_ in question, which has an important bearing on the next and most dramatic episode in his biography. III Michelangelo must certainly have been at Florence soon after the middle of September. One of those strange panics to which he was constitutionally subject, and which impelled him to act upon a suddenly aroused instinct, came now to interrupt his work at S. Miniato, and sent him forth into outlawry. It was upon the 21st of September that he fled from Florence, under circumstances which have given considerable difficulty to his biographers. I am obliged to disentangle the motives and to set forth the details of this escapade, so far as it is possible for criticism to connect them into a coherent narrative. With this object in view, I will begin by translating what Condivi says upon the subject. "Michelangelo's sagacity with regard to the importance of S. Miniato guaranteed the safety of the town, and proved a source of great damage to the enemy. Although he had taken care to secure the position, he still remained at his post there, in case of accidents; and after passing some six months, rumours began to circulate among the soldiers about expected treason. Buonarroti, then, noticing these reports, and being also warned by certain officers who were his friends, approached the Signory, and laid before them what he had heard and seen. He explained the danger hanging over the city, and told them there was still time to provide against it, if they would. Instead of receiving thanks for this service, he was abused, and rebuked as being timorous and too suspicious. The man who made him this answer would have done better had he opened his ears to good advice; for when the Medici returned he was beheaded, whereas he might have kept himself alive. When Michelangelo perceived how little his words were worth, and in what certain peril the city stood, he caused one of the gates to be opened, by the authority which he possessed, and went forth with two of his comrades, and took the road for Venice." As usual with Condivi, this paragraph gives a general and yet substantially accurate account of what really took place. The decisive document, however, which throws light upon Michelangelo's mind in the transaction, is a letter written by him from Venice to his friend Battista della Palla on the 25th of September. Palla, who was an agent for Francis I. in works of Italian art, antiques, and bric-a-brac, had long purposed a journey into France; and Michelangelo, considering the miserable state of Italian politics, agreed to join him. These explanations will suffice to make the import of Michelangelo's letter clear. "Battista, dearest friend, I left Florence, as I think you know, meaning to go to France. When I reached Venice, I inquired about the road, and they told me I should have to pass through German territory, and that the journey is both perilous and difficult. Therefore I thought it well to ask you, at your pleasure, whether you are still inclined to go, and to beg you; and so I entreat you, let me know, and say where you want me to wait for you, and we will travel together, I left home without speaking to any of my friends, and in great confusion. You know that I wanted in any case to go to France, and often asked for leave, but did not get it. Nevertheless I was quite resolved, and without any sort of fear, to see the end of the war out first. But on Tuesday morning, September 21, a certain person came out by the gate at S. Niccolò, where I was attending to the bastions, and whispered in my ear that, if I meant to save my life, I must not stay at Florence. He accompanied me home, dined there, brought me horses, and never left my side till he got me outside the city, declaring that this was my salvation. Whether God or the devil was the man, I do not know. "Pray answer the questions in this letter as soon as possible, because I am burning with impatience to set out. If you have changed your mind, and do not care to go, still let me know, so that I may provide as best I can for my own journey." What appears manifest from this document is that Michelangelo was decoyed away from Florence by some one, who, acting on his sensitive nervous temperament, persuaded him that his life was in danger. Who the man was we do not know, but he must have been a person delegated by those who had a direct interest in removing Buonarroti from the place. If the controller-general of the defences already scented treason in the air, and was communicating his suspicions to the Signory, Malatesta Baglioni, the archtraitor, who afterwards delivered Florence over for a price to Clement, could not but have wished to frighten him away. From another of Michelangelo's letters we learn that he carried 3000 ducats in specie with him on the journey. It is unlikely that he could have disposed so much cash upon his person. He must have had companions. Talking with Michelangelo in 1549--that is, twenty years after the event--Busini heard from his lips this account of the flight. "I asked Michelangelo what was the reason of his departure from Florence. He spoke as follows: 'I was one of the Nine when the Florentine troops mustered within our lines under Malatesta Baglioni and Mario Orsini and the other generals: whereupon the Ten distributed the men along the walls and bastions, assigning to each captain his own post, with victuals and provisions; and among the rest, they gave eight pieces of artillery to Malatesta for the defence of part of the bastions at S. Miniato. He did not, however, mount these guns within the bastions, but below them, and set no guard.' Michelangelo, as architect and magistrate, having to inspect the lines at S. Miniato, asked Mario Orsini how it was that Malatesta treated his artillery so carelessly. The latter answered: 'You must know that the men of his house are all traitors, and in time he too will betray this town.' These words inspired him with such terror that he was obliged to fly, impelled by dread lest the city should come to misfortune, and he together with it. Having thus resolved, he found Rinaldo Corsini, to whom he communicated his thought, and Corsini replied lightly: 'I will go with you.' So they mounted horse with a sum of money, and road to the Gate of Justice, where the guards would not let them pass. While waiting there, some one sung out: 'Let him by, for he is of the Nine, and it is Michelangelo.' So they went forth, three on horseback, he, Rinaldo, and that man of his who never left him. They came to Castelnuovo (in the Garfagnana), and heard that Tommaso Soderini and Niccolò Capponi were staying there. Michelangelo refused to go and see them, but Rinaldo went, and when he came back to Florence, as I shall relate, he reported how Niccolò had said to him: 'O Rinaldo, I dreamed to-night that Lorenzo Zampalochi had been made Gonfalonier;' alluding to Lorenzo Giacomini, who had a swollen leg, and had been his adversary in the Ten. Well, they took the road for Venice; but when they came to Polesella, Rinaldo proposed to push on to Ferrara and have an interview with Galeotto Giugni. This he did, and Michelangelo awaited him, for so he promised. Messer Galeotto, who was spirited and sound of heart, wrought so with Rinaldo that he persuaded him to turn back to Florence. But Michelangelo pursued his journey to Venice, where he took a house, intending in due season to travel into France." Varchi follows this report pretty closely, except that he represents Rinaldo Corsini as having strongly urged him to take flight, "affirming that the city in a few hours, not to say days, would be in the hands of the Medici." Varchi adds that Antonio Mini rode in company with Michelangelo, and, according to his account of the matter, the three men came together to Ferrara. There the Duke offered hospitality to Michelangelo, who refused to exchange his inn for the palace, but laid all the cash he carried with him at the disposition of his Excellency. Segni, alluding briefly to this flight of Michelangelo from Florence, says that he arrived at Castelnuovo with Rinaldo Corsini, and that what they communicated to Niccolò Capponi concerning the treachery of Malatesta and the state of the city, so affected the ex-Gonfalonier that he died of a fever after seven days. Nardi, an excellent authority on all that concerns Florence during the siege, confirms the account that Michelangelo left his post together with Corsini under a panic; "by common agreement, or through fear of war, as man's fragility is often wont to do." Vasari, who in his account of this episode seems to have had Varchi's narrative under his eyes, adds a trifle of information, to the effect that Michelangelo was accompanied upon his flight, not only by Antonio Mini, but also by his old friend Piloto. It may be worth adding that while reading in the Archivio Buonarroti, I discovered two letters from a friend named Piero Paesano addressed to Michelangelo on January 1, 1530, and April 21, 1532, both of which speak of his having "fled from Florence." The earlier plainly says: "I heard from Santi Quattro (the Cardinal, probably) that you have left Florence in order to escape from the annoyance and also from the evil fortune of the war in which the country is engaged." These letters, which have not been edited, and the first of which is important, since it was sent to Michelangelo in Florence, help to prove that Michelangelo's friends believed he had run away from Florence. It was necessary to enter into these particulars, partly in order that the reader may form his own judgment of the motives which prompted Michelangelo to desert his official post at Florence, and partly because we have now to consider the _Ricordo_ above mentioned, with the puzzling date, September 10. This document is a note of expenses incurred during a residence of fourteen days at Venice. It runs as follows:-- "Honoured Sir. In Venice, this tenth day of September.... Ten ducats to Rinaldo Corsini. Five ducats to Messer Loredan for the rent of the house. Seventeen lire for the stockings of Antonio (Mini, perhaps). For two stools, a table to eat on, and a coffer, half a ducat. Eight soldi for straw. Forty soldi for the hire of the bed. Ten lire to the man (_fante_) who came from Florence. Three ducats to Bondino for the journey to Venice with boats. Twenty soldi to Piloto for a pair of shoes. Fourteen days' board in Venice, twenty lire." It has been argued from the date of the unfinished letter below which these items are jotted down, that Michelangelo must have been in Venice early in September, before his flight from Florence at the end of that month. But whatever weight we may attach to this single date, there is no corroborative proof that he travelled twice to Venice, and everything in the _Ricordo_ indicates that it refers to the period of his flight from Florence. The sum paid to Corsini comes first, because it must have been disbursed when that man broke the journey at Ferrara. Antonio Mini and Piloto are both mentioned: a house has been engaged, and furnished with Michelangelo's usual frugality, as though he contemplated a residence of some duration. All this confirms Busini, Varchi, Segni, Nardi, and Vasari in the general outlines of their reports. I am of opinion that, unassisted by further evidence, the _Ricordo_, in spite of its date, will not bear out Gotti's view that Michelangelo sought Venice on a privy mission at the end of August 1529. He was not likely to have been employed as ambassador extraordinary; the Signory required his services at home; and after Ferrara, Venice had little of importance to show the controller-general of defences in the way of earthworks and bastions. IV Varchi says that Michelangelo, when he reached Venice, "wishing to avoid visits and ceremonies, of which he was the greatest enemy, and in order to live alone, according to his custom, far away from company, retired quietly to the Giudecca; but the Signory, unable to ignore the advent of so eminent a man, sent two of their first noblemen to visit him in the name of the Republic, and to offer kindly all things which either he or any persons of his train might stand in need of. This public compliment set forth the greatness of his fame as artist, and showed in what esteem the arts are held by their magnificent and most illustrious lordships." Vasari adds that the Doge, whom he calls Gritti, gave him commission to design a bridge for the Rialto, marvellous alike in its construction and its ornament. Meanwhile the Signory of Florence issued a decree of outlawry against thirteen citizens who had quitted the territory without leave. It was promulgated on the 30th of September, and threatened them with extreme penalties if they failed to appear before the 8th of October. On the 7th of October a second decree was published, confiscating the property of numerous exiles. But this document does not contain the name of Michelangelo; and by a third decree, dated November 16, it appears that the Government were satisfied with depriving him of his office and stopping his pay. We gather indeed, from what Condivi and Varchi relate, that they displayed great eagerness to get him back, and corresponded to this intent with their envoy at Ferrara. Michelangelo's flight from Florence seemed a matter of sufficient importance to be included in the despatches of the French ambassador resident at Venice. Lazare de Baïf, knowing his master's desire to engage the services of the great sculptor, and being probably informed of Buonarroti's own wish to retire to France, wrote several letters in the month of October, telling Francis that Michelangelo might be easily persuaded to join his court. We do not know, however, whether the King acted on this hint. His friends at home took the precaution of securing his effects, fearing that a decree for their confiscation might be issued. We possess a schedule of wine, wheat, and furniture found in his house, and handed over by the servant Caterina to his old friend Francesco Granacci for safe keeping. They also did their best to persuade Michelangelo that he ought to take measures for returning under a safe-conduct. Galeotto Giugni wrote upon this subject to the War Office, under date October 13, from Ferrara. He says that Michelangelo has begged him to intercede in his favour, and that he is willing to return and lay himself at the feet of their lordships. In answer to this despatch, news was sent to Giugni on the 20th that the Signory had signed a safe-conduct for Buonarroti. On the 22nd Granacci paid Sebastiano di Francesco, a stone-cutter, to whom Michelangelo was much attached, money for his journey to Venice. It appears that this man set out upon the 23rd, carrying letters from Giovan Battista della Palla, who had now renounced all intention of retiring to France, and was enthusiastically engaged in, the defence of Florence. On the return of the Medici, Palla was imprisoned in the castle of Pisa, and paid the penalty of his patriotism by death. A second letter which he wrote to Michelangelo on this occasion deserves to be translated, since it proves the high spirit with which the citizens of Florence were now awaiting the approach of the Prince of Orange and his veteran army. "Yesterday I sent you a letter, together with ten from other friends, and the safe-conduct granted by the Signory for the whole month of November and though I feel sure that it will reach you safely, I take the precaution of enclosing a copy under this cover. I need hardly repeat what I wrote at great length in my last, nor shall I have recourse to friends for the same purpose. They all of them, I know, with one voice, without the least disagreement or hesitation, have exhorted you, immediately upon the receipt of their letters and the safe-conduct, to return home, in order to preserve your life, your country, your friends, your honour, and your property, and also to enjoy those times so earnestly desired and hoped for by you. If any one had foretold that I could listen without the least affright to news of an invading army marching on our walls, this would have seemed to me impossible. And yet I now assure you that I am not only quite fearless, but also full of confidence in a glorious victory. For many days past my soul has been filled with such gladness, that if God, either for our sins or for some other reason, according to the mysteries of His just judgment, does not permit that army to be broken in our hands, my sorrow will be the same as when one loses, not a good thing hoped for, but one gained and captured. To such an extent am I convinced in my fixed imagination of our success, and have put it to my capital account. I already foresee our militia system, established on a permanent basis, and combined with that of the territory, carrying our city to the skies. I contemplate a fortification of Florence, not temporary, as it now is, but with walls and bastions to be built hereafter. The principal and most difficult step has been already taken; the whole space round the town swept clean, without regard for churches or for monasteries, in accordance with the public need. I contemplate in these our fellow-citizens a noble spirit of disdain for all their losses and the bygone luxuries of villa-life; an admirable unity and fervour for the preservation of liberty; fear of God alone; confidence in Him and in the justice of our cause; innumerable other good things, certain to bring again the age of gold, and which I hope sincerely you will enjoy in company with all of us who are your friends. For all these reasons, I most earnestly entreat you, from the depth of my heart, to come at once and travel through Lucca, where I will meet you, and attend you with due form and ceremony until here: such is my intense desire that our country should not lose you, nor you her. If, after your arrival at Lucca, you should by some accident fail to find me, and you should not care to come to Florence without my company, write a word, I beg. I will set out at once, for I feel sure that I shall get permission.... God, by His goodness, keep you in good health, and bring you back to us safe and happy." Michelangelo set forth upon his journey soon after the receipt of this letter. He was in Ferrara on the 9th of November, as appears from a despatch written by Galeotto Giugni, recommending him to the Government of Florence. Letters patent under the seal of the Duke secured him free passage through the city of Modena and the province of Garfagnana. In spite of these accommodations, he seems to have met with difficulties on the way, owing to the disturbed state of the country. His friend Giovan Battista Palla was waiting for him at Lucca, without information of his movements, up to the 18th of the month. He had left Florence on the 11th, and spent the week at Pisa and Lucca, expecting news in vain. Then, "with one foot in the stirrup," as he says, "the license granted by the Signory" having expired, he sends another missive to Venice, urging Michelangelo not to delay a day longer. "As I cannot persuade myself that you do not intend to come, I urgently request you to reflect, if you have not already started, that the property of those who incurred outlawry with you is being sold, and if you do not arrive within the term conceded by your safe-conduct--that is, during this month--the same will happen to yourself without the possibility of any mitigation. If you do come, as I still hope and firmly believe, speak with my honoured friend Messer Filippo Calandrini here, to whom I have given directions for your attendance from this town without trouble to yourself. God keep you safe from harm, and grant we see you shortly in our country, by His aid, victorious." With this letter, Palla, who was certainly a good friend to the wayward artist, and an amiable man to boot, disappears out of this history. At some time about the 20th of November, Michelangelo returned to Florence. We do not know how he finished the journey, and how he was received; but the sentence of outlawry was commuted, on the 23rd, into exclusion from the Grand Council for three years. He set to work immediately at S. Miniato, strengthening the bastions, and turning the church-tower into a station for sharpshooters. Florence by this time had lost all her territory except a few strong places, Pisa, Livorno, Arezzo, Empoli, Volterra. The Emperor Charles V. signed her liberties away to Clement by the peace of Barcelona (June 20,1529), and the Republic was now destined to be the appanage of his illegitimate daughter in marriage with the bastard Alessandro de' Medici. It only remained for the army of the Prince of Orange to reduce the city. When Michelangelo arrived, the Imperial troops were leaguered on the heights above the town. The inevitable end of the unequal struggle could be plainly foreseen by those who had not Palla's enthusiasm to sustain their faith. In spite of Ferrucci's genius and spirit, in spite of the good-will of the citizens, Florence was bound to fall. While admitting that Michelangelo abandoned his post in a moment of panic, we must do him the justice of remembering that he resumed it when all his darkest prognostications were being slowly but surely realised. The worst was that his old enemy, Malatesta Baglioni, had now opened a regular system of intrigue with Clement and the Prince of Orange, terminating in the treasonable cession of the city. It was not until August 1530 that Florence finally capitulated. Still the months which intervened between that date and Michelangelo's return from Venice were but a dying close, a slow agony interrupted by spasms of ineffectual heroism. In describing the works at S. Miniato, Condivi lays great stress upon Michelangelo's plan for arming the bell-tower. "The incessant cannonade of the enemy had broken it in many places, and there was a serious risk that it might come crashing down, to the great injury of the troops within the bastion. He caused a large number of mattresses well stuffed with wool to be brought, and lowered these by night from the summit of the tower down to its foundations, protecting those parts which were exposed to fire. Inasmuch as the cornice projected, the mattresses hung free in the air, at the distance of six cubits from the wall; so that when the missiles of the enemy arrived, they did little or no damage, partly owing to the distance they had travelled, and partly to the resistance offered by this swinging, yielding panoply." An anonymous writer, quoted by Milanesi, gives a fairly intelligible account of the system adopted by Michelangelo. "The outer walls of the bastion were composed of unbaked bricks, the clay of which was mingled with chopped tow. Its thickness he filled in with earth; and," adds this critic, "of all the buildings which remained, this alone survived the siege." It was objected that, in designing these bastions, he multiplied the flanking lines and embrasures beyond what was either necessary or safe. But, observes the anonymous writer, all that his duty as architect demanded was that he should lay down a plan consistent with the nature of the ground, leaving details to practical engineers and military men. "If, then, he committed any errors in these matters, it was not so much his fault as that of the Government, who did not provide him with experienced coadjutors. But how can mere merchants understand the art of war, which needs as much science as any other of the arts, nay more, inasmuch as it is obviously more noble and more perilous?" The confidence now reposed in him is further demonstrated by a license granted on the 22nd of February 1530, empowering him to ascend the cupola of the Duomo on one special occasion with two companions, in order to obtain a general survey of the environs of Florence. Michelangelo, in the midst of these serious duties, could not have had much time to bestow upon his art. Still there is no reason to doubt Vasari's emphatic statement that he went on working secretly at the Medicean monuments. To have done so openly while the city was in conflict to the death with Clement, would have been dangerous; and yet every one who understands the artist's temperament must feel that a man like Buonarroti was likely to seek rest and distraction from painful anxieties in the tranquillising labour of the chisel. It is also certain that, during the last months of the siege, he found leisure to paint a picture of Leda for the Duke of Ferrara, which will be mentioned in its proper place. Florence surrendered in the month of August 1530. The terms were drawn up by Don Ferrante Gonzaga, who commanded the Imperial forces after the death of Filiberto, Prince of Orange, in concert with the Pope's commissary-general, Baccio Valori. Malatesta Baglioni, albeit he went about muttering that Florence "was no stable for mules" (alluding to the fact that all the Medici were bastards), approved of the articles, and showed by his conduct that he had long been plotting treason. The act of capitulation was completed on the 12th, and accepted unwillingly by the Signory. Valori, supported by Baglioni's military force, reigned supreme in the city, and prepared to reinstate the exiled family of princes. It said that Marco Dandolo of Venice, when news reached the Pregadi of the fall of Florence, exclaimed aloud: "Baglioni has put upon his head the cap of the biggest traitor upon record." V The city was saved from wreckage by a lucky quarrel between the Italian and Spanish troops in the Imperial camp. But no sooner was Clement aware that Florence lay at his mercy, than he disregarded the articles of capitulation, and began to act as an autocratic despot. Before confiding the government to his kinsmen, the Cardinal Ippolito and Alessandro Duke of Penna, he made Valori institute a series of criminal prosecutions against the patriots. Battista della Palla and Raffaello Girolami were sent to prison and poisoned. Five citizens were tortured and decapitated in one day of October. Those who had managed to escape from Florence were sentenced to exile, outlawry, and confiscation of goods by hundreds. Charles V. had finally to interfere and put a stop to the fury of the Pope's revenges. How cruel and exasperated the mind of Clement was, may be gathered from his treatment of Fra Benedetto da Foiano, who sustained the spirit of the burghers by his fiery preaching during the privations of the siege. Foiano fell into the clutches of Malatesta Baglioni, who immediately sent him down to Rome. By the Pope's orders the wretched friar was flung into the worst dungeon in the Castle of S. Angelo, and there slowly starved to death by gradual diminution of his daily dole of bread and water. Readers of Benvenuto Cellini's Memoirs will remember the horror with which he speaks of this dungeon and of its dreadful reminiscences, when it fell to his lot to be imprisoned there. Such being the mood of Clement, it is not wonderful that Michelangelo should have trembled for his own life and liberty. As Varchi says, "He had been a member of the Nine, had fortified the hill and armed the bell-tower of S. Miniato. What was more annoying, he was accused, though falsely, of proposing to raze the palace of the Medici, where in his boyhood Lorenzo and Piero de' Medici had shown him honour as a guest at their own tables, and to name the space on which it stood the Place of Mules." For this reason he hid himself, as Condivi and Varchi assert, in the house of a trusty friend. The Senator Filippo Buonarroti, who diligently collected traditions about his illustrious ancestor, believed that his real place of retreat was the bell-tower of S. Nicolò, beyond the Arno. "When Clement's fury abated," says Condivi, "he wrote to Florence ordering that search should be made for Michelangelo, and adding that when he was found, if he agreed to go on working at the Medicean monuments, he should be left at liberty and treated with due courtesy. On hearing news of this, Michelangelo came forth from his hiding-place, and resumed the statues in the sacristy of S. Lorenzo, moved thereto more by fear of the Pope than by love for the Medici." From correspondence carried on between Rome and Florence during November and December, we learn that his former pension of fifty crowns a month was renewed, and that Giovan Battista Figiovanni, a Prior of S. Lorenzo, was appointed the Pope's agent and paymaster. An incident of some interest in the art-history of Florence is connected with this return of the Medici, and probably also with Clement's desire to concentrate Michelangelo's energies upon the sacristy. So far back as May 10, 1508, Piero Soderini wrote to the Marquis of Massa-Carrara, begging him to retain a large block of marble until Michelangelo could come in person and superintend its rough-hewing for a colossal statue to be placed on the Piazza. After the death of Leo, the stone was assigned to Baccio Bandinelli; but Michelangelo, being in favour with the Government at the time of the expulsion of the Medici, obtained the grant of it. His first intention, in which Bandinelli followed him, was to execute a Hercules trampling upon Cacus, which should stand as pendant to his own David. By a deliberation of the Signory, under date August 22, 1528, we are informed that the marble had been brought to Florence about three years earlier, and that Michelangelo now received instructions, couched in the highest terms of compliment, to proceed with a group of two figures until its accomplishment. If Vasari can be trusted, Michelangelo made numerous designs and models for the Cacus, but afterwards changed his mind, and thought that he would extract from the block a Samson triumphing over two prostrate Philistines. The evidence for this change of plan is not absolutely conclusive. The deliberation of August 22, 1528, indeed left it open to his discretion whether he should execute a Hercules and Cacus, or any other group of two figures; and the English nation at South Kensington possesses one of his noble little wax models for a Hercules. We may perhaps, therefore, assume that while Bandinelli adhered to the Hercules and Cacus, Michelangelo finally decided on a Samson. At any rate, the block was restored in 1530 to Bandinelli, who produced the misbegotten group which still deforms the Florentine Piazza. Michelangelo had some reason to be jealous of Bandinelli, who exercised considerable influence at the Medicean court, and was an unscrupulous enemy both in word and deed. A man more widely and worse hated than Bandinelli never lived. If any piece of mischief happened which could be fixed upon him with the least plausibility, he bore the blame. Accordingly, when Buonarroti's workshop happened to be broken open, people said that Bandinelli was the culprit. Antonio Mini left the following record of the event: "Three months before the siege, Michelangelo's studio in Via Mozza was burst into with chisels, about fifty drawings of figures were stolen, and among them the designs for the Medicean tombs, with others of great value; also four models in wax and clay. The young men who did it left by accident a chisel marked with the letter M., which led to their discovery. When they knew they were detected, they made off or hid themselves, and sent to say they would return the stolen articles, and begged for pardon." Now the chisel branded with an M. was traced to Michelangelo, the father of Baccio Bandinelli, and no one doubted that he was the burglar. The history of Michelangelo's Leda, which now survives only in doubtful reproductions, may be introduced by a passage from Condivi's account of his master's visit to Ferrara in 1529. "The Duke received him with great demonstrations of joy, no less by reason of his eminent fame than because Don Ercole, his son, was Captain of the Signory of Florence. Riding forth with him in person, there was nothing appertaining to the business of his mission which the Duke did not bring beneath his notice, whether fortifications or artillery. Beside this, he opened his own private treasure-room, displaying all its contents, and particularly some pictures and portraits of his ancestors, executed by masters in their time excellent. When the hour approached for Michelangelo's departure, the Duke jestingly said to him: 'You are my prisoner now. If you want me to let you go free, I require that you shall promise to make me something with your own hand, according to your will and fancy, be it sculpture or painting.' Michelangelo agreed; and when he arrived at Florence, albeit he was overwhelmed with work for the defences, he began a large piece for a saloon, representing the congress of the swan with Leda. The breaking of the egg was also introduced, from which sprang Castor and Pollux, according to the ancient fable. The Duke heard of this; and on the return of the Medici, he feared that he might lose so great a treasure in the popular disturbance which ensued. Accordingly he despatched one of his gentlemen, who found Michelangelo at home, and viewed the picture. After inspecting it, the man exclaimed: 'Oh! this is a mere trifle.' Michelangelo inquired what his own art was, being aware that men can only form a proper judgment in the arts they exercise. The other sneered and answered: 'I am a merchant.' Perhaps he felt affronted at the question, and at not being recognised in his quality of nobleman; he may also have meant to depreciate the industry of the Florentines, who for the most part are occupied with trade, as though to say: 'You ask me what my art is? Is it possible you think a man like me could be a trader?' Michelangelo, perceiving his drift, growled out: 'You are doing bad business for your lord! Take yourself away!' Having thus dismissed the ducal messenger, he made a present of the picture, after a short while, to one of his serving-men, who, having two sisters to marry, begged for assistance. It was sent to France, and there bought by King Francis, where it still exists." As a matter of fact, we know now that Antonio Mini, for a long time Michelangelo's man of all work, became part owner of this Leda, and took it with him to France. A certain Francesco Tedaldi acquired pecuniary interest in the picture, of which one Benedetto Bene made a copy at Lyons in 1532. The original and the copy were carried by Mini to Paris in 1533, and deposited in the house of Giuliano Buonaccorsi, whence they were transferred in some obscure way to the custody of Luigi Alamanni, and finally passed into the possession of the King. Meanwhile, Antonio Mini died, and Tedaldi wrote a record of his losses and a confused account of money matters and broker business, which he sent to Michelangelo in 1540. The Leda remained at Fontainebleau till the reign of Louis XIII., when M. Desnoyers, Minister of State, ordered the picture to be destroyed because of its indecency. Pierre Mariette says that this order was not carried into effect; for the canvas, in a sadly mutilated state, reappeared some seven or eight years before his date of writing, and was seen by him. In spite of injuries, he could trace the hand of a great master; "and I confess that nothing I had seen from the brush of Michelangelo showed better painting." He adds that it was restored by a second-rate artist and sent to England. What became of Mini's copy is uncertain. We possess a painting in the Dresden Gallery, a Cartoon in the collection of the Royal Academy of England, and a large oil picture, much injured, in the vaults of the National Gallery. In addition to these works, there is a small marble statue in the Museo Nazionale at Florence. All of them represent Michelangelo's design. If mere indecency could justify Desnoyers in his attempt to destroy a masterpiece, this picture deserved its fate. It represented the act of coition between a swan and a woman; and though we cannot hold Michelangelo responsible for the repulsive expression on the face of Leda, which relegates the marble of the Bargello to a place among pornographic works of art, there is no reason to suppose that the general scheme of his conception was abandoned in the copies made of it. Michelangelo, being a true artist, anxious only for the presentation of his subject, seems to have remained indifferent to its moral quality. Whether it was a crucifixion, or a congress of the swan with Leda, or a rape of Ganymede, or the murder of Holofernes in his tent, or the birth of Eve, he sought to seize the central point in the situation, and to accentuate its significance by the inexhaustible means at his command for giving plastic form to an idea. Those, however, who have paid attention to his work will discover that he always found emotional quality corresponding to the nature of the subject. His ways of handling religious and mythological motives differ in sentiment, and both are distinguished from his treatment of dramatic episodes. The man's mind made itself a mirror to reflect the vision gloating over it; he cared not what that vision was, so long as he could render it in lines of plastic harmony, and express the utmost of the feeling which the theme contained. Among the many statues left unfinished by Michelangelo is one belonging to this period of his life. "In order to ingratiate himself with Baccio Valori," says Vasari, "he began a statue of three cubits in marble. It was an Apollo drawing a shaft from his quiver. This he nearly finished. It stands now in the chamber of the Prince of Florence; a thing of rarest beauty, though not quite completed." This noble piece of sculpture illustrates the certainty and freedom of the master's hand. Though the last touches of the chisel are lacking, every limb palpitates and undulates with life. The marble seems to be growing into flesh beneath the hatched lines left upon its surface. The pose of the young god, full of strength and sinewy, is no less admirable for audacity than for ease and freedom. Whether Vasari was right in his explanation of the action of this figure may be considered more than doubtful. Were we not accustomed to call it an Apollo, we should rather be inclined to class it with the Slaves of the Louvre, to whom in feeling and design it bears a remarkable resemblance. Indeed, it might be conjectured with some probability that, despairing of bringing his great design for the tomb of Julius to a conclusion, he utilised one of the projected captives for his present to the all-powerful vizier of the Medicean tyrants. It ought, in conclusion, to be added, that there was nothing servile in Michelangelo's desire to make Valori his friend. He had accepted the political situation; and we have good reason, from letters written at a later date by Valori from Rome, to believe that this man took a sincere interest in the great artist. Moreover, Varchi, who is singularly severe in his judgment on the agents of the Medici, expressly states that Baccio Valori was "less cruel than the other Palleschi, doing many and notable services to some persons out of kindly feeling, and to others for money (since he had little and spent much); and this he was well able to perform, seeing he was then the lord of Florence, and the first citizens of the land paid court to him and swelled his train." VI During the siege Lodovico Buonarroti passed his time at Pisa. His little grandson, Lionardo, the sole male heir of the family, was with him. Born September 25, 1519, the boy was now exactly eleven years old, and by his father's death in 1528 he had been two years an orphan. Lionardo was ailing, and the old man wearied to return. His two sons, Gismondo and Giansimone, had promised to fetch him home when the country should be safe for travelling. But they delayed; and at last, upon the 30th of September, Lodovico wrote as follows to Michelangelo: "Some time since I directed a letter to Gismondo, from whom you have probably learned that I am staying here, and, indeed, too long; for the flight of Buonarroto's pure soul to heaven, and my own need and earnest desire to come home, and Nardo's state of health, all makes me restless. The boy has been for some days out of health and pining, and I am anxious about him." It is probable that some means were found for escorting them both safely to Settignano. We hear no more about Lodovico till the period of his death, the date of which has not been ascertained with certainty. From the autumn of 1530 on to the end of 1533 Michelangelo worked at the Medicean monuments. His letters are singularly scanty during all this period, but we possess sufficient information from other sources to enable us to reconstruct a portion of his life. What may be called the chronic malady of his existence, that never-ending worry with the tomb of Julius, assumed an acute form again in the spring of 1531. The correspondence with Sebastiano del Piombo, which had been interrupted since 1525, now becomes plentiful, and enables us to follow some of the steps which led to the new and solemn contract of May 1532. It is possible that Michelangelo thought he ought to go to Rome in the beginning of the year. If we are right in ascribing a letter written by Benvenuto della Volpaia from Rome upon the 18th of January to the year 1531, and not to 1532, he must have already decided on this step. The document is curious in several respects. "Yours of the 13th informs me that you want a room. I shall be delighted if I can be of service to you in this matter; indeed, it is nothing in respect to what I should like to do for you. I can offer you a chamber or two without the least inconvenience; and you could not confer on me a greater pleasure than by taking up your abode with me in either of the two places which I will now describe. His Holiness has placed me in the Belvedere, and made me guardian there. To-morrow my things will be carried thither, for a permanent establishment; and I can place at your disposal a room with a bed and everything you want. You can even enter by the gate outside the city, which opens into the spiral staircase, and reach your apartment and mine without passing through Rome. From here I can let you into the palace, for I keep a key at your service; and what is better, the Pope comes every day to visit us. If you decide on the Belvedere, you must let me know the day of your departure, and about when you will arrive. In that case I will take up my post at the spiral staircase of Bramante, where you will be able to see me. If you wish, nobody but my brother and Mona Lisabetta and I shall know that you are here, and you shall do just as you please; and, in short, I beg you earnestly to choose this plan. Otherwise, come to the Borgo Nuovo, to the houses which Volterra built, the fifth house toward S. Angelo. I have rented it to live there, and my brother Fruosino is also going to live and keep shop in it. There you will have a room or two, if you like, at your disposal. Please yourself, and give the letter to Tommaso di Stefano Miniatore, who will address it to Messer Lorenzo de' Medici, and I shall have it quickly." Nothing came of these proposals. But that Michelangelo did not abandon the idea of going to Rome appears from a letter of Sebastiano's written on the 24th of February. It was the first which passed between the friends since the terrible events of 1527 and 1530. For once, the jollity of the epicurean friar has deserted him. He writes as though those awful months of the sack of Rome were still present to his memory. "After all those trials, hardships, and perils, God Almighty has left us alive and in health, by His mercy and piteous kindness. A thing, in sooth, miraculous, when I reflect upon it; wherefore His Majesty be ever held in gratitude.... Now, gossip mine, since we have passed through fire and water, and have experienced things we never dreamed of, let us thank God for all; and the little remnant left to us of life, may we at least employ it in such peace as can be had. For of a truth, what fortune does or does not do is of slight importance, seeing how scurvy and how dolorous she is. I am brought to this, that if the universe should crumble round me, I should not care, but laugh at all. Menighella will inform you what my life is, how I am. I do not yet seem to myself to be the same Bastiano I was before the Sack. I cannot yet get back into my former frame of mind." In a postscript to this letter, eloquent by its very naivete, Sebastiano says that he sees no reason for Michelangelo's coming to Rome, except it be to look after his house, which is going to ruin, and the workshop tumbling to pieces. In another letter, of April 29, Sebastiano repeats that there is no need for Michelangelo to come to Rome, if it be only to put himself right with the Pope. Clement is sincerely his friend, and has forgiven the part he played during the siege of Florence. He then informs his gossip that, having been lately at Pesaro, he met the painter Girolamo Genga, who promised to be serviceable in the matter of the tomb of Julius. The Duke of Urbino, according to this man's account, was very eager to see it finished. "I replied that the work was going forward, but that 8000 ducats were needed for its completion, and we did not know where to get this money. He said that the Duke would provide, but his Lordship was afraid of losing both the ducats and the work, and was inclined to be angry. After a good deal of talking, he asked whether it would not be possible to execute the tomb upon a reduced scale, so as to satisfy both parties. I answered that you ought to be consulted." We have reason to infer from this that the plan which was finally adopted, of making a mural monument with only a few figures from the hand of Michelangelo, had already been suggested. In his next letter, Sebastiano communicates the fact that he has been appointed to the office of Piombatore; "and if you could see me in my quality of friar, I am sure you would laugh. I am the finest friar loon in Rome." The Duke of Urbino's agent, Hieronimo Staccoli, now appears for the first time upon the stage. It was through his negotiations that the former contracts for the tomb of Julius were finally annulled and a new design adopted. Michelangelo offered, with the view of terminating all disputes, to complete the monument on a reduced scale at his own cost, and furthermore to disburse the sum of 2000 ducats in discharge of any claims the Della Rovere might have against him. This seemed too liberal, and when Clement was informed of the project, he promised to make better terms. Indeed, during the course of these negotiations the Pope displayed the greatest interest in Michelangelo's affairs. Staccoli, on the Duke's part, raised objections; and Sebastiano had to remind him that, unless some concessions were made, the scheme of the tomb might fall through: "for it does not rain Michelangelos, and men could hardly be found to preserve the work, far less to finish it." In course of time the Duke's ambassador at Rome, Giovan Maria della Porta, intervened, and throughout the whole business Clement was consulted upon every detail. Sebastiano kept up his correspondence through the summer of 1531. Meanwhile the suspense and anxiety were telling seriously on Michelangelo's health. Already in June news must have reached Rome that his health was breaking down; for Clement sent word recommending him to work less, and to relax his spirits by exercise. Toward the autumn he became alarmingly ill. We have a letter from Paolo Mini, the uncle of his servant Antonio, written to Baccio Valori on the 29th of September. After describing the beauty of two statues for the Medicean tombs, Mini says he fears that "Michelangelo will not live long, unless some measures are taken for his benefit. He works very hard, eats little and poorly, and sleeps less. In fact, he is afflicted with two kinds of disorder, the one in his head, the other in his heart. Neither is incurable, since he has a robust constitution; but for the good of his head, he ought to be restrained by our Lord the Pope from working through the winter in the sacristy, the air of which is bad for him; and for his heart, the best remedy would be if his Holiness could accommodate matters with the Duke of Urbino." In a second letter, of October 8, Mini insists again upon the necessity of freeing Michelangelo's mind from his anxieties. The upshot was that Clement, on the 21st of November, addressed a brief to his sculptor, whereby Buonarroti was ordered, under pain of excommunication, to lay aside all work except what was strictly necessary for the Medicean monuments, and to take better care of his health. On the 26th of the same month Benvenuto della Volpaia wrote, repeating what the Pope had written in his brief, and adding that his Holiness desired him to select some workshop more convenient for his health than the cold and cheerless sacristy. In spite of Clement's orders that Michelangelo should confine himself strictly to working on the Medicean monuments, he continued to be solicited with various commissions. Thus the Cardinal Cybo wrote in December begging him to furnish a design for a tomb which he intended to erect. Whether Michelangelo consented is not known. Early in December Sebastiano resumed his communications on the subject of the tomb of Julius, saying that Michelangelo must not expect to satisfy the Duke without executing the work, in part at least, himself. "There is no one but yourself that harms you: I mean, your eminent fame and the greatness of your works. I do not say this to flatter you. Therefore, I am of opinion that, without some shadow of yourself, we shall never induce those parties to do what we want. It seems to me that you might easily make designs and models, and afterwards assign the completion to any master whom you choose. But the shadow of yourself there must be. If you take the matter in this way, it will be a trifle; you will do nothing, and seem to do all; but remember that the work must be carried out under your shadow." A series of despatches, forwarded between December 4, 1531, and April 29, 1532, by Giovan Maria della Porta to the Duke of Urbino, confirm the particulars furnished by the letters which Sebastiano still continued to write from Rome. At the end of 1531 Michelangelo expressed his anxiety to visit Rome, now that the negotiations with the Duke were nearly complete. Sebastiano, hearing this, replies: "You will effect more in half an hour than I can do in a whole year. I believe that you will arrange everything after two words with his Holiness; for our Lord is anxious to meet your wishes." He wanted to be present at the drawing up and signing of the contract. Clement, however, although he told Sebastiano that he should be glad to see him, hesitated to send the necessary permission, and it was not until the month of April 1532 that he set out. About the 6th, as appears from the indorsement of a letter received in his absence, he must have reached Rome. The new contract was not ready for signature before the 29th, and on that date Michelangelo left for Florence, having, as he says, been sent off by the Pope in a hurry on the very day appointed for its execution. In his absence it was duly signed and witnessed before Clement; the Cardinals Gonzaga and da Monte and the Lady Felice della Rovere attesting, while Giovan Maria della Porta and Girolamo Staccoli acted for the Duke of Urbino. When Michelangelo returned and saw the instrument, he found that several clauses prejudicial to his interests had been inserted by the notary. "I discovered more than 1000 ducats charged unjustly to my debit, also the house in which I live, and certain other hooks and crooks to ruin me. The Pope would certainly not have tolerated this knavery, as Fra Sebastiano can bear witness, since he wished me to complain to Clement and have the notary hanged. I swear I never received the moneys which Giovan Maria della Porta wrote against me, and caused to be engrossed upon the contract." It is difficult to understand why Michelangelo should not have immediately taken measures to rectify these errors. He seems to have been well aware that he was bound to refund 2000 ducats, since the only letter from his pen belonging to the year 1532 is one dated May, and addressed to Andrea Quarantesi in Pisa. In this document he consults Quarantesi about the possibility of raising that sum, with 1000 ducats in addition. "It was in my mind, in order that I might not be left naked, to sell houses and possessions, and to let the lira go for ten soldi." As the contract was never carried out, the fraudulent passages inserted in the deed did not prove of practical importance. Delia Porta, on his part, wrote in high spirits to his master: "Yesterday we executed the new contract with Michelangelo, for the ratification of which by your Lordship we have fixed a limit of two months. It is of a nature to satisfy all Rome, and reflects great credit on your Lordship for the trouble you have taken in concluding it. Michelangelo, who shows a very proper respect for your Lordship, has promised to make and send you a design. Among other items, I have bound him to furnish six statues by his own hand, which will be a world in themselves, because they are sure to be incomparable. The rest he may have finished by some sculptor at his own choice, provided the work is done under his direction. The Pope allows him to come twice a year to Rome, for periods of two months each, in order to push the work forward. And he is to execute the whole at his own costs." He proceeds to say, that since the tomb cannot be put up in S. Peter's, S. Pietro in Vincoli has been selected as the most suitable church. It appears that the Duke's ratification was sent upon the 5th of June and placed in the hands of Clement, so that Michelangelo probably did not see it for some months. Della Porta, writing to the Duke again upon the 19th of June, says that Clement promised to allow Michelangelo to come to Rome in the winter, and to reside there working at the tomb. But we have no direct information concerning his doings after the return to Florence at the end of April 1532. It will be worth while to introduce Condivi's account of these transactions relating to the tomb of Julius, since it throws some light upon the sculptor's private feelings and motives, as well as upon the falsification of the contract as finally engrossed. "When Michelangelo had been called to Rome by Pope Clement, he began to be harassed by the agents of the Duke of Urbino about the sepulchre of Julius. Clement, who wished to employ him in Florence, did all he could to set him free, and gave him for his attorney in this matter Messer Tommaso da Prato, who was afterwards datary. Michelangelo, however, knowing the devil disposition of Duke Alessandro toward him, and being in great dread on this account, also because he bore love and reverence to the memory of Pope Julius and to the illustrious house of Della Rovere, strained every nerve to remain in Rome and busy himself about the tomb. What made him more anxious was that every one accused him of having received from Pope Julius at least 16,000 crowns, and of having spent them on himself without fulfilling his engagements. Being a man sensitive about his reputation, he could not bear the dishonour of such reports, and wanted the whole matter to be cleared up; nor, although he was now old, did he shrink from the very onerous task of completing what he had begun so long ago. Consequently they came to strife together, and his antagonists were unable to prove payments to anything like the amount which had first been noised abroad; indeed, on the contrary, more than two thirds of the whole sum first stipulated by the two Cardinals was wanting. Clement then thinking he had found an excellent opportunity for setting him at liberty and making use of his whole energies, called Michelangelo to him, and said: 'Come, now, confess that you want to make this tomb, but wish to know who will pay you the balance.' Michelangelo, knowing well that the Pope was anxious to employ him on his own work, answered: 'Supposing some one is found to pay me.' To which Pope Clement: 'You are a great fool if you let yourself believe that any one will come forward to offer you a farthing.' Accordingly, his attorney, Messer Tommaso, and the agents of the Duke, after some negotiations, came to an agreement that a tomb should at least be made for the amount he had received. Michelangelo, thinking the matter had arrived at a good conclusion, consented with alacrity. He was much influenced by the elder Cardinal di Monte, who owed his advancement to Julius II., and was uncle of Julius III., our present Pope by grace of God. The arrangement was as follows: That he should make a tomb of one façade only; should utilise those marbles which he had already blocked out for the quadrangular monument, adapting them as well as circumstances allowed; and finally, that he should be bound to furnish six statues by his own hand. In spite of this arrangement, Pope Clement was allowed to employ Michelangelo in Florence or where he liked during four months of the year, that being required by his Holiness for his undertakings at S. Lorenzo. Such then was the contract made between the Duke and Michelangelo. But here it has to be observed, that after all accounts had been made up, Michelangelo secretly agreed with the agents of his Excellency that it should be reported that he had received some thousands of crowns above what had been paid to him; the object being to make his obligation to the Duke of Urbino seem more considerable, and to discourage Pope Clement from sending him to Florence, whither he was extremely unwilling to go. This acknowledgment was not only bruited about in words, but, without his knowledge or consent, was also inserted into the deed; not when this was drawn up, but when it was engrossed; a falsification which caused Michelangelo the utmost vexation. The ambassador, however, persuaded him that this would do him no real harm: it did not signify, he said, whether the contract specified a thousand or twenty thousand crowns, seeing they were agreed that the tomb should be reduced to suit the sums actually received; adding, that nobody was concerned in the matter except himself, and that Michelangelo might feel safe with him on account of the understanding between them. Upon this Michelangelo grew easy in his mind, partly because he thought he might have confidence, and partly because he wished the Pope to receive the impression I have described above. In this way the thing was settled for the time, but it did not end there; for when he had worked his four months in Florence and came back to Rome, the Pope set him to other tasks, and ordered him to paint the wall above the altar in the Sistine Chapel. He was a man of excellent judgment in such matters, and had meditated many different subjects for this fresco. At last he fixed upon the Last Judgment, considering that the variety and greatness of the theme would enable the illustrious artist to exhibit his powers in their full extent. Michelangelo, remembering the obligation he was under to the Duke of Urbino, did all he could to evade this new engagement; but when this proved impossible, he began to procrastinate, and, pretending to be fully occupied with the cartoons for his huge picture, he worked in secret at the statues intended for the monument." VII Michelangelo's position at Florence was insecure and painful, owing to the undisguised animosity of the Duke Alessandro. This man ruled like a tyrant of the worst sort, scandalising good citizens by his brutal immoralities, and terrorising them by his cruelties. "He remained," says Condivi, "in continual alarm; because the Duke, a young man, as is known to every one, of ferocious and revengeful temper, hated him exceedingly. There is no doubt that, but for the Pope's protection, he would have been removed from this world. What added to Alessandro's enmity was that when he was planning the fortress which he afterwards erected, he sent Messer Vitelli for Michelangelo, ordering him to ride with them, and to select a proper position for the building. Michelangelo refused, saying that he had received no commission from the Pope. The Duke waxed very wroth; and so, through this new grievance added to old grudges and the notorious nature of the Duke, Michelangelo not unreasonably lived in fear. It was certainly by God's aid that he happened to be away from Florence when Clement died." Michelangelo was bound under solemn obligations to execute no work but what the Pope ordered for himself or permitted by the contract with the heirs of Julius. Therefore he acted in accordance with duty when he refused to advise the tyrant in this scheme for keeping the city under permanent subjection. The man who had fortified Florence against the troops of Clement could not assist another bastard Medici to build a strong place for her ruin. It may be to this period of his life that we owe the following madigral, written upon the loss of Florentine liberty and the bad conscience of the despot:-- _Lady, for joy of lovers numberless Thou wast created fair as angels are. Sure God hath fallen asleep in heaven afar When one man calls the bliss of many his! Give back to streaming eyes The daylight of thy face, that seems to shun Those who must live defrauded of their bliss! Vex not your pure desire with tears and sighs: For he who robs you of my light hath none. Dwelling in fear, sin hath no happiness; Since, amid those who love, their joy is less, Whose great desire great plenty still curtails, Than theirs who, poor, have hope that never fails._ During the siege Michelangelo had been forced to lend the Signory a sum of about 1500 ducats. In the summer of 1533 he corresponded with Sebastiano about means for recovering this loan. On the 16th of August Sebastiano writes that he has referred the matter to the Pope. "I repeat, what I have already written, that I presented your memorial to his Holiness. It was about eight in the evening, and the Florentine ambassador was present. The Pope then ordered the ambassador to write immediately to the Duke; and this he did with such vehemence and passion as I do not think he has displayed on four other occasions concerning the affairs of Florence. His rage and fury were tremendous, and the words he used to the ambassador would stupefy you, could you hear them. Indeed, they are not fit to be written down, and I must reserve them for _viva voce_. I burn to have half an hour's conversation with you, for now I know our good and holy master to the ground. Enough, I think you must have already seen something of the sort. In brief, he has resolved that you are to be repaid the 400 ducats of the guardianship and the 500 ducats lent to the old Government." It may be readily imagined that this restitution of a debt incurred by Florence when she was fighting for her liberties, to which act of justice her victorious tyrant was compelled by his Papal kinsman, did not soften Alessandro's bad feeling for the creditor. Several of Sebastiano's letters during the summer and autumn of 1533 refer to an edition of some madrigals by Michelangelo, which had been set to music by Bartolommeo Tromboncino, Giacomo Archadelt, and Costanzo Festa. We have every reason to suppose that the period we have now reached was the richest in poetical compositions. It was also in 1532 or 1533 that he formed the most passionate attachment of which we have any knowledge in his life; for he became acquainted about this time with Tommaso Cavalieri. A few years later he was destined to meet with Vittoria Colonna. The details of these two celebrated friendships will be discussed in another chapter. Clement VII. journeyed from Rome in September, intending to take ship at Leghorn for Nice and afterwards Marseilles, where his young cousin, Caterina de' Medici, was married to the Dauphin. He had to pass through S. Miniato al Tedesco, and thither Michelangelo went to wait upon him on the 22nd. This was the last, and not the least imposing, public act of the old Pope, who, six years after his imprisonment and outrage in the Castle of S. Angelo, was now wedding a daughter of his plebeian family to the heir of the French crown. What passed between Michelangelo and his master on this occasion is not certain. The years 1532-1534 form a period of considerable chronological perplexity in Michelangelo's life. This is in great measure due to the fact that he was now residing regularly part of the year in Rome and part in Florence. We have good reason to believe that he went to Rome in September 1532, and stayed there through the winter. It is probable that he then formed the friendship with Cavalieri, which played so important a part in his personal history. A brisk correspondence carried on between him and his two friends, Bartolommeo Angelini and Sebastiano del Piombo, shows that he resided at Florence during the summer and early autumn of 1533. From a letter addressed to Figiovanni on the 15th of October, we learn that he was then impatient to leave Florence for Rome. But a _Ricordo,_ bearing date October 29, 1533, renders it almost certain that he had not then started. Angelini's letters, which had been so frequent, stop suddenly in that month. This renders it almost certain that Michelangelo must have soon returned to Rome. Strangely enough there are no letters or _Ricordi_ in his handwriting which bear the date 1534. When we come to deal with this year, 1534, we learn from Michelangelo's own statement to Vasari that he was in Florence during the summer, and that he reached Rome two days before the death of Clement VII., _i.e._, upon September 23. Condivi observes that it was lucky for him that the Pope did not die while he was still at Florence, else he would certainly have been exposed to great peril, and probably been murdered or imprisoned by Duke Alessandro. Nevertheless, Michelangelo was again in Florence toward the close of 1534. An undated letter to a certain Febo (di Poggio) confirms this supposition. It may probably be referred to the month of December. In it he says that he means to leave Florence next day for Pisa and Rome, and that he shall never return. Febo's answer, addressed to Rome, is dated January 14, 1534, which, according to Florentine reckoning, means 1535. We may take it, then, as sufficiently well ascertained that Michelangelo departed from Florence before the end of 1534, and that he never returned during the remainder of his life. There is left, however, another point of importance referring to this period, which cannot be satisfactorily cleared up. We do not know the exact date of his father, Lodovico's, death. It must have happened either in 1533 or in 1534. In spite of careful researches, no record of the event has yet been discovered, either at Settignano or in the public offices of Florence. The documents of the Buonarroti family yield no direct information on the subject. We learn, however, from the Libri delle Età, preserved at the Archivio di Stato, that Lodovico di Lionardo di Buonarrota Simoni was born upon the 11th of June 1444. Now Michelangelo, in his poem on Lodovico's death, says very decidedly that his father was ninety when he breathed his last. If we take this literally, it must be inferred that he died after the middle of June 1534. There are many reasons for supposing that Michelangelo was in Florence when this happened. The chief of these is that no correspondence passed between the Buonarroti brothers on the occasion, while Michelangelo's minutes regarding the expenses of his father's burial seem to indicate that he was personally responsible for their disbursement. I may finally remark that the schedule of property belonging to Michelangelo, recorded under the year 1534 in the archives of the Decima at Florence, makes no reference at all to Lodovico. We conclude from it that, at the time of its redaction, Michelangelo must have succeeded to his father's estate. The death of Lodovico and Buonarroto, happening within a space of little more than five years, profoundly affected Michelangelo's mind, and left an indelible mark of sadness on his life. One of his best poems, a _capitolo_, or piece of verse in _terza rima_ stanzas, was written on the occasion of his father's decease. In it he says that Lodovico had reached the age of ninety. If this statement be literally accurate, the old man must have died in 1534, since he was born upon the 11th of June 1444. But up to the present time, as I have observed above, the exact date of his death has not been discovered. One passage of singular and solemn beauty may be translated from the original:-- _Thou'rt dead of dying, and art made divine, Nor fearest now to change or life or will; Scarce without envy can I call this thine. Fortune and time beyond your temple-sill Dare not advance, by whom is dealt for us A doubtful gladness, and too certain ill. Cloud is there none to dim you glorious: The hours distinct compel you not to fade: Nor chance nor fate o'er you are tyrannous. Your splendour with the night sinks not in shade, Nor grows with day, howe'er that sun ride high Which on our mortal hearts life's heat hath rayed. Thus from thy dying I now learn to die, Dear father mine! In thought I see thy place, Where earth but rarely lets men climb the sky._ _Not, as some deem, is death the worst disgrace For one whose last day brings him to the first, The next eternal throne to God's by grace. There by God's grace I trust that thou art nursed, And hope to find thee, If but my cold heart High reason draw from earthly slime accursed._ CHAPTER X I The collegiate church of S. Lorenzo at Florence had long been associated with the Medicean family, who were its most distinguished benefactors, Giovanni d'Averardo de' Medici, together with the heads of six other Florentine houses, caused it to be rebuilt at the beginning of the fifteenth century. He took upon himself the entire costs of the sacristy and one chapel; it was also owing to his suggestion that Filippo Brunelleschi, in the year 1421, designed the church and cloister as they now appear. When he died, Giovanni was buried in its precincts, while his son Cosimo de' Medici, the father of his country, continued these benevolences, and bestowed a capital of 40,000 golden florins on the Chapter. He too was buried in the church, a simple monument in the sacristy being erected to his memory. Lorenzo the Magnificent followed in due course, and found his last resting-place at S. Lorenzo. We have seen in a previous chapter how and when Leo X. conceived the idea of adding a chapel which should serve as mausoleum for several members of the Medicean family at S. Lorenzo, and how Clement determined to lodge the famous Medicean library in a hall erected over the west side of the cloister. Both of these undertakings, as well as the construction of a façade for the front of the church, were assigned to Michelangelo. The ground plan of the monumental chapel corresponds to Brunelleschi's sacristy, and is generally known as the Sagrestia Nuova. Internally Buonarroti altered its decorative panellings, and elevated the vaulting of the roof into a more ambitious cupola. This portion of the edifice was executed in the rough during his residence at Florence. The façade was never begun in earnest, and remains unfinished. The library was constructed according to his designs, and may be taken, on the whole, as a genuine specimen of his style in architecture. The books which Clement lodged there were the priceless manuscripts brought together by Cosimo de' Medici in the first enthusiasm of the Revival, at that critical moment when the decay of the Eastern Empire transferred the wrecks of Greek literature from Constantinople to Italy. Cosimo built a room to hold them in the Convent of S. Marco, which Flavio Biondo styled the first library opened for the use of scholars. Lorenzo the Magnificent enriched the collection with treasures acquired during his lifetime, buying autographs wherever it was possible to find them, and causing copies to be made. In the year 1508 the friars of S. Marco sold this inestimable store of literary documents, in order to discharge the debts contracted by them during their ill-considered interference in the state affairs of the Republic. It was purchased for the sum of 2652 ducats by the Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, a second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and afterwards Pope Leo X. He transferred them to his Roman villa, where the collection was still further enlarged by all the rarities which a prince passionate for literature and reckless in expenditure could there assemble. Leo's cousin and executor, Giulio de' Medici, Pope Clement VII., fulfilled his last wishes by transferring them to Florence, and providing the stately receptacle in which they still repose. The task assigned to Michelangelo, when he planned the library, was not so simple as that of the new sacristy. Some correspondence took place before the west side of the cloister was finally decided on. What is awkward in the approach to the great staircase must be ascribed to the difficulty of fitting this building into the old edifice; and probably, if Michelangelo had carried out the whole work, a worthier entrance from the piazza into the loggia, and from the loggia into the vestibule, might have been devised. II Vasari, in a well-known passage of his Life of Michelangelo, reports the general opinion of his age regarding the novelties introduced by Buonarroti into Italian architecture. The art of building was in a state of transition. Indeed, it cannot be maintained that the Italians, after they abandoned the traditions of the Romanesque manner, advanced with certitude on any line of progress in this art. Their work, beautiful as it often is, ingenious as it almost always is, marked invariably by the individuality of the district and the builder, seems to be tentative, experimental. The principles of the Pointed Gothic style were never seized or understood by Italian architects. Even such cathedrals as those of Orvieto and Siena are splendid monuments of incapacity, when compared with the Romanesque churches of Pisa, S. Miniato, S. Zenone at Verona, the Cathedral of Parma. The return from Teutonic to Roman standards of taste, which marked the advent of humanism, introduced a hybrid manner. This, in its first commencement, was extremely charming. The buildings of Leo Battista Alberti, of Brunelleschi, and of Bramante are distinguished by an exquisite purity and grace combined with picturesqueness. No edifice in any style is more stately, and at the same time more musical in linear proportions, than the Church of S. Andrea at Mantua. The Cappella dei Pazzi and the Church of S. Spirito at Florence are gems of clear-cut and harmonious dignity. The courtyard of the Cancelleria at Rome, the Duomo at Todi, show with what supreme ability the great architect of Casteldurante blended sublimity with suavity, largeness and breadth with naïveté and delicately studied detail. But these first endeavours of the Romantic spirit to assimilate the Classic mannerism--essays no less interesting than those of Boiardo in poetry, of Botticelli in painting, of Donatello and Omodei in sculpture--all of them alike, whether buildings, poems, paintings, or statues, displaying the genius of the Italic race, renascent, recalcitrant against the Gothic style, while still to some extent swayed by its influence (at one and the same time both Christian and chivalrous, Pagan and precociously cynical; yet charmingly fresh, unspoiled by dogma, uncontaminated by pedantry)--these first endeavours of the Romantic spirit to assimilate the Classic mannerism could not create a new style representative of the national life. They had the fault inherent in all hybrids, however fanciful and graceful. They were sterile and unprocreative. The warring elements, so deftly and beautifully blent in them, began at once to fall asunder. The San Galli attempted to follow classical precedent with stricter severity. Some buildings of their school may still be reckoned among the purest which remain to prove the sincerity of the Revival of Learning. The Sansovini exaggerated the naïveté of the earlier Renaissance manner, and pushed its picturesqueness over into florid luxuriance or decorative detail. Meanwhile, humanists and scholars worked slowly but steadily upon the text of Vitruvius, impressing the paramount importance of his theoretical writings upon practical builders. Neither students nor architects reflected that they could not understand Vitruvius; that, if they could understand him, it was by no means certain he was right; and that, if he was right for his own age, he would not be right for the sixteenth century after Christ. It was just at this moment, when Vitruvius began to dominate the Italian imagination, that Michelangelo was called upon to build. The genial adaptation of classical elements to modern sympathies and uses, which had been practised by Alberti, Brunelleschi, Bramante, yielded now to painful efforts after the appropriation of pedantic principles. Instead of working upon antique monuments with their senses and emotions, men approached them through the medium of scholastic erudition. Instead of seeing and feeling for themselves, they sought by dissection to confirm the written precepts of a defunct Roman writer. This diversion of a great art from its natural line of development supplies a striking instance of the fascination which authority exercises at certain periods of culture. Rather than trust their feeling for what was beautiful and useful, convenient and attractive, the Italians of the Renaissance surrendered themselves to learning. Led by the spirit of scholarship, they thought it their duty to master the text of Vitruvius, to verify his principles by the analysis of surviving antique edifices, and, having formed their own conception of his theory, to apply this, as well as they were able, to the requirements of contemporary life. Two exits from the false situation existed: one was the picturesqueness of the Barocco style; the other was the specious vapid purity of the Palladian. Michelangelo, who was essentially the genius of this transition, can neither be ascribed to the Barocco architects, although he called them into being, nor yet can he be said to have arrived at the Palladian solution. He held both types within himself in embryo, arriving at a moment of profound and complicated difficulty for the practical architect; without technical education, but gifted with supreme genius, bringing the imperious instincts of a sublime creative amateur into every task appointed him. We need not wonder if a man of his calibre left the powerful impress of his personality upon an art in chaos, luring lesser craftsmen into the Barocco mannerism, while he provoked reaction in the stronger, who felt more scientifically what was needed to secure firm standing-ground. Bernini and the superb fountain of Trevi derive from Michelangelo on one side; Vignola's cold classic profiles and Palladio's resuscitation of old Rome in the Palazzo della Ragione at Vicenza emerge upon the other. It remained Buonarroti's greatest-glory that, lessoned by experience and inspired for high creation by the vastness of the undertaking, he imagined a world's wonder in the cupola of S. Peter's. III Writing in the mid-stream of this architectural regurgitation, Vasari explains what contemporaries thought about Michelangelo's innovations. "He wished to build the new sacristy upon the same lines as the older one by Brunelleschi, but at the same time to clothe the edifice with a different style of decoration. Accordingly, he invented for the interior a composite adornment, of the newest and most varied manner which antique and modern masters joined together could have used. The novelty of his style consisted in those lovely cornices, capitals, basements, doors, niches, and sepulchres which transcended all that earlier builders, working by measurements, distribution of parts, and rule, had previously effected, following Vitruvius and the ancient relics. Such men were afraid to supplement tradition with original invention. The license he introduced gave great courage to those who studied his method, and emboldened them to follow on his path. Since that time, new freaks of fancy have been seen, resembling the style of arabesque and grotesque more than was consistent with tradition. For this emancipation of the art, all craftsmen owe him an infinite and everduring debt of gratitude, since he at one blow broke down the bands and chains which barred the path they trod in common." If I am right in thus interpreting an unusually incoherent passage of Vasari's criticism, no words could express more clearly the advent of Barocco mannerism. But Vasari proceeds to explain his meaning with still greater precision. Afterwards he made a plainer demonstration of his intention in the library of S. Lorenzo, by the splendid distribution of the windows, the arrangement of the upper chamber, and the marvellous entrance-hall into that enclosed building. "The grace and charm of art were never seen more perfectly displayed in the whole and in the parts of any edifice than here. I may refer in particular to the corbels, the recesses for statues, and the cornices. The staircase, too, deserves attention for its convenience, with the eccentric breakage of its flights of steps; the whole construction being so altered from the common usage of other architects as to excite astonishment in all who see it." What emerges with distinctness from Vasari's account of Michelangelo's work at S. Lorenzo is that a practical Italian architect, who had been engaged on buildings of importance since this work was carried out, believed it to have infused freedom and new vigour into architecture. That freedom and new vigour we now know to have implied the Barocco style. IV In estimating Michelangelo's work at S. Lorenzo, we must not forget that at this period of his life he contemplated statuary, bronze bas-relief, and painting, as essential adjuncts to architecture. The scheme is, therefore, not so much constructive as decorative, and a great many of its most offensive qualities may be ascribed to the fact that the purposes for which it was designed have been omitted. We know that the façade of S. Lorenzo was intended to abound in bronze and marble carvings. Beside the Medicean tombs, the sacristy ought to have contained a vast amount of sculpture, and its dome was actually painted in fresco by Giovanni da Udine under Michelangelo's own eyes. It appears that his imagination still obeyed those leading principles which he applied in the rough sketch for the first sepulchre of Julius. The vestibule and staircase of the library cannot therefore be judged fairly now; for if they had been finished according to their maker's plan, the faults of their construction would have been compensated by multitudes of plastic shapes. M. Charles Gamier, in _L'OEuvre et la Vie_, speaking with the authority of a practical architect, says: "Michelangelo was not, properly speaking, an architect. He made architecture, which is quite a different thing; and most often it was the architecture of a painter and sculptor, which points to colour, breadth, imagination, but also to insufficient studies and incomplete education. The thought may be great and strong, but the execution of it is always feeble and naïve.... He had not learned the language of the art. He has all the qualities of imagination, invention, will, which form a great composer; but he does not know the grammar, and can hardly write.... In seeking the great, he has too often found the tumid; seeking the original, he has fallen upon the strange, and also on bad taste." There is much that is true in this critique, severe though it may seem to be. The fact is that Michelangelo aimed at picturesque effect in his buildings; not, as previous architects had done, by a lavish use of loosely decorative details, but by the piling up and massing together of otherwise dry orders, cornices, pilasters, windows, all of which, in his conception, were to serve as framework and pedestals for statuary. He also strove to secure originality and to stimulate astonishment by bizarre modulations of accepted classic forms, by breaking the lines of architraves, combining angularities with curves, adopting a violently accented rhythm and a tortured multiplicity of parts, wherever this was possible. V In this new style, so much belauded by Vasari, the superficial design is often rich and grandiose, making a strong pictorial appeal to the imagination. Meanwhile, the organic laws of structure have been sacrificed; and that chaste beauty which emerges from a perfectly harmonious distribution of parts, embellished by surface decoration only when the limbs and members of the building demand emphasis, may be sought for everywhere in vain. The substratum is a box, a barn, an inverted bottle; built up of rubble, brick, and concrete; clothed with learned details, which have been borrowed from the pseudo-science of the humanist. There is nothing here of divine Greek candour, of dominant Roman vigour, of Gothic vitality, of fanciful invention governed by a sincere sense of truth. Nothing remains of the shy graces, the melodious simplicities, the pure seeking after musical proportion, which marked the happier Italian effort of the early Renaissance, through Brunelleschi and Alberti, Bramante, Giuliano da Sangallo, and Peruzzi. Architecture, in the highest sense of that word, has disappeared. A scenic scheme of panelling for empty walls has superseded the conscientious striving to construct a living and intelligible whole. The fault inherent in Italian building after the close of the Lombard period, reaches its climax here. That fault was connected with the inability of the Italians to assimilate the true spirit of the Gothic style, while they attempted its imitation in practice. The fabrication of imposing and lovely façades at Orvieto, at Siena, at Cremona, and at Crema, glorious screens which masked the poverty of the edifice, and corresponded in no point to the organism of the structure, taught them to overrate mere surface-beauty. Their wonderful creativeness in all the arts which can be subordinated to architectural effect seduced them further. Nothing, for instance, taken by itself alone, can be more satisfactory than the façade of the Certosa at Pavia; but it is not, like the front of Chartres or Rheims or Amiens, a natural introduction to the inner sanctuary. At the end of the Gothic period architecture had thus come to be conceived as the art of covering shapeless structures with a wealth of arabesques in marble, fresco, bronze, mosaic. The revival of learning and a renewed interest in the antique withdrew the Italians for a short period from this false position. With more or less of merit, successive builders, including those I have above mentioned, worked in a pure style: pure because it obeyed the laws of its own music, because it was intelligible and self-consistent, aiming at construction as the main end, subordinating decoration of richer luxuriance or of sterner severity to the prime purpose of the total scheme. But this style was too much the plaything of particular minds to create a permanent tradition. It varied in the several provinces of Italy, and mingled personal caprice with the effort to assume a classic garb. Meanwhile the study of Vitruvius advanced, and that pedantry which infected all the learned movements of the Renaissance struck deep and venomous roots into the art of building. Michelangelo arrived at the moment I am attempting to indicate. He protested that architecture was not his trade. Over and over again he repeated this to his Medicean patrons; but they compelled him to build, and he applied himself with the predilections and prepossessions of a plastic artist to the task. The result was a retrogression from the point reached by his immediate predecessors to the vicious system followed by the pseudo-Gothic architects in Italy. That is to say, he treated the structure as an inert mass, to be made as substantial as possible, and then to be covered with details agreeable to the eye. At the beginning of his career he had a defective sense of the harmonic ratios upon which a really musical building may be constructed out of mere bricks and mortar--such, for example, as the Church of S. Giustina at Padua. He was overweighted with ill-assimilated erudition; and all the less desirable licenses of Brunelleschi's school, especially in the abuse of square recesses, he adopted without hesitation. It never seems to have occurred to him that doors which were intended for ingress and egress, windows which were meant to give light, and attics which had a value as the means of illumination from above, could not with any propriety be applied to the covering of blank dead spaces in the interiors of buildings. The vestibule of the Laurentian Library illustrates his method of procedure. It is a rectangular box of about a cube and two thirds, set length-way up. The outside of the building, left unfinished, exhibits a mere blank space of bricks. The interior might be compared to a temple in the grotesque-classic style turned outside in: colossal orders, meaningless consoles, heavy windows, square recesses, numerous doors--the windows, doors, and attics having no right to be there, since they lead to nothing, lend view to nothing, clamour for bronze and sculpture to explain their existence as niches and receptacles for statuary. It is nevertheless indubitably true that these incongruous and misplaced elements, crowded together, leave a strong impression of picturesque force upon the mind. From certain points and angles, the effect of the whole, considered as a piece of deception and insincerity, is magnificent. It would be even finer than it is, were not the Florentine _pietra serena_ of the stonework so repellent in its ashen dulness, the plaster so white, and the false architectural system so painfully defrauded of the plastic forms for which it was intended to subserve as setting. We have here no masterpiece of sound constructive science, but a freak of inventive fancy using studied details for the production of a pictorial effect. The details employed to compose this curious illusion are painfully dry and sterile; partly owing to the scholastic enthusiasm for Vitruvius, partly to the decline of mediaeval delight in naturalistic decoration, but, what seems to me still more apparent, through Michelangelo's own passionate preoccupation with the human figure. He could not tolerate any type of art which did not concede a predominant position to the form of man. Accordingly, his work in architecture at this period seems waiting for plastic illustration, demanding sculpture and fresco for its illumination and justification. It is easy, one would think, to make an appeal to the eye by means of colossal orders, bold cornices, enormous consoles, deeply indented niches. How much more easy to construct a box, and then say, "Come, let us cover its inside with an incongruous and inappropriate but imposing parade of learning," than to lift some light and genial thing of beauty aloft into the air, as did the modest builder of the staircase to the hall at Christ Church, Oxford! The eye of the vulgar is entranced, the eye of the artist bewildered. That the imagination which inspired that decorative scheme was powerful, original, and noble, will not be denied; but this does not save us from the desolating conviction that the scheme itself is a specious and pretentious mask, devised to hide a hideous waste of bricks and mortar. Michelangelo's imagination, displayed in this distressing piece of work, was indeed so masterful that, as Vasari says, a new delightful style in architecture seemed to be revealed by it. A new way of clothing surfaces, falsifying façades, and dealing picturesquely with the lifeless element of Vitruvian tradition had been demonstrated by the genius of one who was a mighty amateur in building. In other words, the _Barocco_ manner had begun; the path was opened to prank, caprice, and license. It required the finer tact and taste of a Palladio to rectify the false line here initiated, and to bring the world back to a sense of seriousness in its effort to deal constructively and rationally with the pseudo-classic mannerism. The qualities of wilfulness and amateurishness and seeking after picturesque effect, upon which I am now insisting, spoiled Michelangelo's work as architect, until he was forced by circumstance, and after long practical experience, to confront a problem of pure mathematical construction. In the cupola of S. Peter's he rose to the stern requirements of his task. There we find no evasion of the builder's duty by mere surface-decoration, no subordination of the edifice to plastic or pictorial uses. Such side-issues were excluded by the very nature of the theme. An immortal poem resulted, an aërial lyric of melodious curves and solemn harmonies, a thought combining grace and audacity translated into stone uplifted to the skies. After being cabined in the vestibule to the Laurentian Library, our soul escapes with gladness to those airy spaces of the dome, that great cloud on the verge of the Campagna, and feels thankful that we can take our leave of Michelangelo as architect elsewhere. VI While seeking to characterise what proved pernicious to contemporaries in Michelangelo's work as architect, I have been led to concentrate attention upon the Library at S. Lorenzo. This was logical; for, as we have seen, Vasari regarded that building as the supreme manifestation of his manner. Vasari never saw the cupola of S. Peter's in all its glory, and it may be doubted whether he was capable of learning much from it. The sacristy demands separate consideration. It was an earlier work, produced under more favourable conditions of place and space, and is in every way a purer specimen of the master's style. As Vasari observed, the Laurentian Library indicated a large advance upon the sacristy in the development of Michelangelo's new manner. At this point it may not unprofitably be remarked, that none of the problems offered for solution at S. Lorenzo were in the strictest sense of that word architectural. The façade presented a problem of pure panelling. The ground-plan of the sacristy was fixed in correspondence with Brunelleschi's; and here again the problem resolved itself chiefly into panelling. A builder of genius, working on the library, might indeed have displayed his science and his taste by some beautiful invention adapted to the awkward locality; as Baldassare Peruzzi, in the Palazzo Massimo at Rome, converted the defects of the site into graces by the exquisite turn he gave to the curved portion of the edifice. Still, when the scheme was settled, even the library became more a matter of panelling and internal fittings than of structural design. Nowhere at S. Lorenzo can we affirm that Michelangelo enjoyed, the opportunity of showing what he could achieve in the production of a building independent in itself and planned throughout with a free hand. Had he been a born architect, he would probably have insisted upon constructing the Medicean mausoleum after his own conception instead of repeating Brunelleschi's ground-plan, and he would almost certainly have discovered a more genial solution for the difficulties of the library. But he protested firmly against being considered an architect by inclination or by education. Therefore he accepted the most obvious conditions of each task, and devoted himself to schemes of surface decoration. The interior of the sacristy is planned with a noble sense of unity. For the purpose of illuminating a gallery of statues, the lighting may be praised without reserve; and there is no doubt whatever that Michelangelo intended every tabernacle to be filled with figures, and all the whitewashed spaces of the walls to be encrusted with bas-reliefs in stucco or painted in fresco. The recesses or niches, taking the form of windows, are graduated in three degrees of depth to suit three scales of sculptural importance. The sepulchres of the Dukes had to emerge into prominence; the statues subordinate to these main masses occupied shallower recesses; the shallowest of all, reserved for minor statuary, are adorned above with garlands, which suggest the flatness of the figures to be introduced. Architecturally speaking, the building is complete; but it sadly wants the plastic decoration for which it was designed, together with many finishing touches of importance. It is clear, for instance, that the square pedestals above the double pilasters flanking each of the two Dukes were meant to carry statuettes or candelabra, which would have connected the marble panelling with the cornices and stucchi and frescoed semicircles of the upper region. Our eyes are everywhere defrauded of the effect calculated by Michelangelo when he planned this chapel. Yet the total impression remains harmonious. Proportion has been observed in all the parts, especially in the relation of the larger to the smaller orders, and in the balance of the doors and windows. Merely decorative carvings are used with parsimony, and designed in a pure style, although they exhibit originality of invention. The alternation of white marble surfaces and mouldings with _pietra serena_ pilasters, cornices, and arches, defines the structural design, and gives a grave but agreeable sense of variety. Finally, the recess behind the altar adds lightness and space to what would otherwise have been a box. What I have already observed when speaking of the vestibule to the library must be repeated here: the whole scheme is that of an exterior turned outside in, and its justification lies in the fact that it demanded statuary and colour for its completion. Still the bold projecting cornices, the deeper and shallower niches resembling windows, have the merit of securing broken lights and shadows under the strong vertical illumination, all of which are eminently picturesque. No doubt remains now that tradition is accurate in identifying the helmeted Duke with Lorenzo de' Medici, and the more graceful seated hero opposite with Giuliano. The recumbent figures on the void sepulchres beneath them are with equal truth designated as Night and Day, Morning and Evening. But Michelangelo condescended to no realistic portraiture in the statues of the Dukes, and he also meant undoubtedly to treat the phases of time which rule man's daily life upon the planet as symbols for far-reaching thoughts connected with our destiny. These monumental figures are not men, not women, but vague and potent allegories of our mortal fate. They remain as he left them, except that parts of Giuliano's statue, especially the hands, seem to have been worked over by an assistant. The same is true of the Madonna, which will ever be regarded, in her imperfectly finished state, as one of the finest of his sculptural conceptions. To Montelupo belongs the execution of S. Damiano, and to Montorsoli that of S. Cosimo. Vasari says that Tribolo was commissioned by Michelangelo to carve statues of Earth weeping for the loss of Giuliano, and Heaven rejoicing over his spirit. The death of Pope Clement, however, put a stop to these subordinate works, which, had they been accomplished, might perhaps have shown us how Buonarroti intended to fill the empty niches on each side of the Dukes. When Michelangelo left Florence for good at the end of 1534, his statues had not been placed; but we have reason to think that the Dukes and the four allegorical figures were erected in his lifetime. There is something singular in the maladjustment of the recumbent men and women to the curves of the sarcophagi, and in the contrast between the roughness of their bases and the smooth polish of the chests they rest on. These discrepancies do not, however, offend the eye, and they may even have been deliberately adopted from a keen sense of what the Greeks called _asymmetreia_ as an adjunct to effect. It is more difficult to understand what he proposed to do with the Madonna and her two attendant saints. Placed as they now are upon a simple ledge, they strike one as being too near the eye, and out of harmony with the architectural tone of the building. It is also noticeable that the saints are more than a head taller than the Dukes, while the Madonna overtops the saints by more than another head. We are here in a region of pure conjecture; and if I hazard an opinion, it is only thrown out as a possible solution of a now impenetrable problem. I think, then, that Michelangelo may have meant to pose these three figures where they are, facing the altar; to raise the Madonna upon a slightly projecting bracket above the level of SS. Damiano and Cosimo, and to paint the wall behind them with a fresco of the Crucifixion. That he had no intention of panelling that empty space with marble may be taken for granted, considering the high finish which has been given to every part of this description of work in the chapel. Treated as I have suggested, the statue of the Madonna, with the patron saints of the House of Medici, overshadowed by a picture of Christ's sacrifice, would have confronted the mystery of the Mass during every celebration at the altar. There are many designs for the Crucifixion, made by Michelangelo in later life, so lofty as almost to suggest a group of figures in the foreground, cutting the middle distance. At the close of Michelangelo's life the sacristy was still unfinished. It contained the objects I have described--the marble panelling, the altar with its candelabra, the statues of the Dukes and their attendant figures, the Madonna and two Medicean patron saints--in fact, all that we find there now, with the addition of Giovanni da Udine's frescoes in the cupola, the relics of which have since been buried under cold Florentine whitewash. All the views I have advanced in the foregoing paragraphs as to the point at which Michelangelo abandoned this chapel, and his probable designs for its completion, are in the last resort based upon an important document penned at the instance of the Duke of Florence by Vasari to Buonarroti, not long before the old man's death in Rome. This epistle has so weighty a bearing upon the matter in hand that I shall here translate it. Careful study of its fluent periods will convince an unprejudiced mind that the sacristy, as we now see it, is even less representative of its maker's design than it was when Vasari wrote. The frescoes of Giovanni da Udine are gone. It will also show that the original project involved a wealth of figurative decoration, statuary, painting, stucco, which never arrived at realisation. VII Vasari, writing in the spring of 1562, informs Michelangelo concerning the Academy of Design founded by Duke Cosimo de' Medici, and of the Duke's earnest desire that he should return to Florence in order that the sacristy at S. Lorenzo may be finished. "Your reasons for not coming are accepted as sufficient. He is therefore considering --forasmuch as the place is being used now for religious services by day and night, according to the intention of Pope Clement--he is considering, I say, a plan for erecting the statues which are missing in the niches above the sepulchres and the tabernacles above the doors. The Duke then wishes that all the eminent sculptors of this academy, in competition man with man, should each of them make one statue, and that the painters in like manner should exercise their art upon the chapel. Designs are to be prepared for the arches according to your own project, including works of painting and of stucco; the other ornaments and the pavement are to be provided; in short, he intends that the new academicians shall complete the whole imperfect scheme, in order that the world may see that, while so many men of genius still exist among us, the noblest work which was ever yet conceived on earth has not been left unfinished. He has commissioned me to write to you and unfold his views, begging you at the same time to favour him by communicating to himself or to me what your intentions were, or those of the late Pope Clement, with regard to the name and title of the chapel; moreover, to inform us what designs you made for the four tabernacles on each side of the Dukes Lorenzo and Giuliano; also what you projected for the eight statues above the doors and in the tabernacles of the corners; and, finally, what your idea was of the paintings to adorn the flat walls and the semicircular spaces of the chapel. He is particularly anxious that you should be assured of his determination to alter nothing you have already done or planned, but, on the contrary, to carry out the whole work according to your own conception. The academicians too are unanimous in their hearty desire to abide by this decision. I am furthermore instructed to tell you, that if you possess sketches, working cartoons, or drawings made for this purpose, the same would be of the greatest service in the execution of his project; and he promises to be a good and faithful administrator, so that honour may ensue. In case you do not feel inclined to do all this, through the burden of old age or for any other reason, he begs you at least to communicate with some one who shall write upon the subject; seeing that he would be greatly grieved, as indeed would the whole of our academy, to have no ray of light from your own mind, and possibly to add things to your masterpiece which were not according to your designs and wishes. We all of us look forward to being comforted by you, if not with actual work, at least with words. His Excellency founds this hope upon your former willingness to complete the edifice by allotting statues to Tribolo, Montelupo, and the Friar (Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli). The last named of these masters is here, eagerly desirous to have the opportunity of doing you honour. So are Francesco Sangallo, Giovanni Bologna, Benvenuto Cellini, Ammanato, Rossi and Vincenzio Danti of Perugia, not to mention other sculptors of note. The painters, headed by Bronzino, include many talented young men, skilled in design, and colourists, quite capable of establishing an honourable reputation. Of myself I need not speak. You know well that in devotion, attachment, love, and loyalty (and let me say this with prejudice to no one) I surpass the rest of your admirers by far. Therefore, I entreat you, of your goodness, to console his Excellency, and all these men of parts, and our city, as well as to show this particular favour to myself, who have been selected by the Duke to write to you, under the impression that, being your familiar and loving friend, I might obtain from you some assistance of sterling utility for the undertaking. His Excellency is prepared to spend both substance and labour on the task, in order to honour you. Pray then, albeit age is irksome, endeavour to aid him by unfolding your views; for, in doing so, you will confer benefits on countless persons, and will be the cause of raising all these men of parts to higher excellence, each one of whom has learned what he already knows in the sacristy, or rather let me say our school." This eloquent despatch informs us very clearly that the walls of the sacristy, above the tall Corinthian order which, encloses the part devoted to sculpture, were intended to be covered with stucco and fresco paintings, completing the polychromatic decoration begun by Giovanni da Udine in the cupola. Twelve statues had been designed for the niches in the marble panelling; and one word used by Vasari, _facciate_, leaves the impression that the blank walls round and opposite the altar were also to be adorned with pictures. We remain uncertain how Michelangelo originally meant to dispose of the colossal Madonna with SS. Damian and Cosimo. Unhappily, nothing came of the Duke's project. Michelangelo was either unable or unwilling--probably unable--to furnish the necessary plans and drawings. In the eighth chapter of this book I have discussed the hesitations with regard to the interior of the sacristy which are revealed by some of his extant designs for it. We also know that he was not in the habit of preparing accurate working cartoons for the whole of a large scheme, but that he proceeded from point to point, trusting to slight sketches and personal supervision of the work. Thus, when Vasari wrote to him from Rome about the staircase of the library, he expressed a perfect readiness to help, but could only remember its construction in a kind of dream. We may safely assume, then, that he had not sufficient material to communicate; plans definite enough in general scope and detailed incident to give a true conception of his whole idea were lacking. VIII Passing to aesthetical considerations, I am forced to resume here what I published many years ago about the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, as it now exists. Repeated visits to that shrine have only renewed former impressions, which will not bear to be reproduced in other language, and would lose some of their freshness by the stylistic effort. No other course remains then but to quote from my own writings, indorsing them with such weight as my signature may have acquired since they were first given to the world. "The sacristy may be looked on either as the masterpiece of a sculptor who required fit setting for his statues, or of an architect who designed statues to enhance the structure he had planned. Both arts are used with equal ease, nor has the genius of Michelangelo dealt more masterfully with the human frame than with the forms of Roman architecture in this chapel. He seems to have paid no heed to classic precedent, and to have taken no pains to adapt the parts to the structural purpose of the building. It was enough for him to create a wholly novel framework for the modern miracle of sculpture it enshrines, attending to such rules of composition as determine light and shade, and seeking by the relief of mouldings and pilasters to enhance the terrible and massive forms that brood above the Medicean tombs. The result is a product of picturesque and plastic art as true to the Michelangelesque spirit as the Temple of the Wingless Victory to that of Pheidias. But where Michelangelo achieved a triumph of boldness, lesser natures were betrayed into bizarrerie; and this chapel of the Medici, in spite of its grandiose simplicity, proved a stumbling-block to subsequent architects by encouraging them to despise propriety and violate the laws of structure. "We may assume then that the colossal statues of Giuliano and Lorenzo were studied with a view to their light and shadow as much as to their form; and this is a fact to be remembered by those who visit the chapel where Buonarroti laboured both as architect and sculptor. Of the two Medici, it is not fanciful to say that the Duke of Urbino is the most immovable of spectral shapes eternalised in marble; while the Duke of Nemours, more graceful and elegant, seems intended to present a contrast to this terrible thought-burdened form. The allegorical figures, stretched on segments of ellipses beneath the pedestals of the two Dukes, indicate phases of darkness and of light, of death and life. They are two women and two men; tradition names them Night and Day, Twilight and Dawning. Thus in the statues themselves and in their attendant genii we have a series of abstractions, symbolising the sleep and waking of existence, action and thought, the gloom of death, the lustre of life, and the intermediate states of sadness and of hope that form the borderland of both. Life is a dream between two slumbers; sleep is death's twin-brother; night is the shadow of death; death is the gate of life:--such is the mysterious mythology wrought by the sculptor of the modern world in marble. All these figures, by the intensity of their expression, the vagueness of their symbolism, force us to think and question. What, for example, occupies Lorenzo's brain? Bending forward, leaning his chin upon his wrist, placing the other hand upon his knee, on what does he for ever ponder? "The sight, as Rogers said well, 'fascinates and is intolerable.' Michelangelo has shot the beaver of the helmet forward on his forehead, and bowed his head, so as to clothe the face in darkness. But behind the gloom there lurks no fleshless skull, as Rogers fancied. The whole frame of the powerful man is instinct with some imperious thought. Has he outlived his life and fallen upon everlasting contemplation? Is he brooding, injured and indignant, over his own doom and the extinction of his race? Is he condemned to witness in immortal immobility the woes of Italy he helped to cause? Or has the sculptor symbolised in him the burden of that personality we carry with us in this life, and bear for ever when we wake into another world? Beneath this incarnation of oppressive thought there lie, full length and naked, the figures of Dawn and Twilight, Morn and Evening. So at least they are commonly called, and these names are not inappropriate; for the breaking of the day and the approach of night are metaphors for many transient conditions of the soul. It is only as allegories in a large sense, comprehending both the physical and intellectual order, and capable of various interpretation, that any of these statues can be understood. Even the Dukes do not pretend to be portraits, and hence in part perhaps the uncertainty that has gathered round them. Very tranquil and noble is Twilight: a giant in repose, he meditates, leaning upon his elbow, looking down. But Dawn starts from her couch, as though some painful summons had reached her, sunk in dreamless sleep, and called her forth to suffer. Her waking to consciousness is like that of one who has been drowned, and who finds the return to life agony. Before her eyes, seen even through the mists of slumber, are the ruin and the shame of Italy. Opposite lies Night, so sorrowful, so utterly absorbed in darkness and the shade of death, that to shake off that everlasting lethargy seems impossible. Yet she is not dead. If we raise our voices, she too will stretch her limbs, and, like her sister, shudder into sensibility with sighs. Only we must not wake her; for he who fashioned her has told us that her sleep of stone is great good fortune. Both of these women are large and brawny, unlike the Fates of Pheidias, in their muscular maturity. The burden of Michelangelo's thought was too tremendous to be borne by virginal and graceful beings. He had to make women no less capable of suffering, no less world-wearied, than his country. "Standing before these statues, we do not cry, How beautiful! We murmur, How terrible, how grand! Yet, after long gazing, we find them gifted with beauty beyond grace. In each of them there is a palpitating thought, torn from the artist's soul and crystallised in marble. It has been said that architecture is petrified music. In the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo we feel impelled to remember phrases of Beethoven. Each of these statues becomes for us a passion, fit for musical expression, but turned like Niobe to stone. They have the intellectual vagueness, the emotional certainty, that belong to the motives of a symphony. In their allegories, left without a key, sculpture has passed beyond her old domain of placid concrete form. The anguish of intolerable emotion, the quickening of the consciousness to a sense of suffering, the acceptance of the inevitable, the strife of the soul with destiny, the burden and the passion of mankind:--that is what they contain in their cold chisel-tortured marble. It is open to critics of the school of Lessing to object that here is the suicide of sculpture. It is easy to remark that those strained postures and writhen limbs may have perverted the taste of lesser craftsmen. Yet if Michelangelo was called to carve Medicean statues after the sack of Rome and the fall of Florence--if he was obliged in sober sadness to make sculpture a fit language for his sorrow-laden heart--how could he have wrought more truthfully than this? To imitate him without sharing his emotion or comprehending his thoughts, as the soulless artists of the decadence attempted, was without all doubt a grievous error. Surely also we may regret, not without reason, that in the evil days upon which he had fallen, the fair antique _Heiterkeit_ and _Allgemeinheit_ were beyond his reach." That this regret is not wholly sentimental may be proved, I think, by an exchange of verses, which we owe to Vasari's literary sagacity. He tells us that when the statue of the Night was opened to the public view, it drew forth the following quatrain from an author unknown to himself by name:-- _The Night thou seest here, posed gracefully In act of slumber, was by an Angel wrought Out of this stone; sleeping, with life she's fraught: Wake her, incredulous wight; she'll speak to thee._ Michelangelo would have none of these academical conceits and compliments. He replied in four verses, which show well enough what thoughts were in his brain when he composed the nightmare-burdened, heavy-sleeping women: _Dear is my sleep, but more to be mere stone, So long as ruin and dishonour reign: To hear naught, to feel naught, is my great gain; Then wake me not; speak in an undertone._ CHAPTER XI I After the death of Clement VII., Michelangelo never returned to reside for any length of time at Florence. The rest of his life was spent in Rome, and he fell almost immediately under the kind but somewhat arbitrary patronage of Alessandro Farnese, who succeeded to the Papal chair in October 1534, with the title of Paul III. One of the last acts of Clement's life had been to superintend the second contract with the heirs of Julius, by which Michelangelo undertook to finish the tomb upon a reduced scale within the space of three years. He was allowed to come to Rome and work there during four months annually. Paul, however, asserted his authority by upsetting these arrangements and virtually cancelling the contract. "In the meanwhile," writes Condivi, "Pope Clement died, and Paul III. sent for him, and requested him to enter his service. Michelangelo saw at once that he would be interrupted in his work upon the Tomb of Julius. So he told Paul that he was not his own master, being bound to the Duke of Urbino until the monument was finished. The Pope grew angry, and exclaimed: 'It is thirty years that I have cherished this desire, and now that I am Pope, may I not indulge it? Where is the contract? I mean to tear it up.' Michelangelo, finding himself reduced to these straits, almost resolved to leave Rome and take refuge in the Genoese, at an abbey held by the Bishop of Aleria, who had been a creature of Julius, and was much attached to him. He hoped that the neighbourhood of the Carrara quarries, and the facility of transporting marbles by sea, would help him to complete his engagements. He also thought of settling at Urbino, which he had previously selected as a tranquil retreat, and where he expected to be well received for the sake of Pope Julius. Some months earlier, he even sent a man of his to buy a house and land there. Still he dreaded the greatness of the Pontiff, as indeed he had good cause to do; and for this reason he abandoned the idea of quitting Rome, hoping to pacify his Holiness with fair words. "The Pope, however, stuck to his opinion; and one day he visited Michelangelo at his house, attended by eight or ten Cardinals. He first of all inspected the cartoon prepared in Clement's reign for the great work of the Sistine; then the statues for the tomb, and everything in detail. The most reverend Cardinal of Mantua, standing before the statue of Moses, cried out: 'That piece alone is sufficient to do honour to the monument of Julius.' Pope Paul, having gone through the whole workshop, renewed his request that Michelangelo should enter his service; and when the latter still resisted, he clinched the matter by saying: 'I will provide that the Duke of Urbino shall be satisfied with three statues from your hand, and the remaining three shall be assigned to some other sculptor.' Accordingly, he settled on the terms of a new contract with the agents of the Duke, which were confirmed by his Excellency, who did not care to displeasure the Pope. Michelangelo, albeit he was now relieved from the obligation of paying for the three statues, preferred to take this cost upon himself, and deposited 1580 ducats for the purpose. And so the Tragedy of the Tomb came at last to an end. This may now be seen at S. Pietro ad Vincula; and though, truth to tell, it is but a mutilated and botched-up remnant of Michelangelo's original design, the monument is still the finest to be found in Rome, and perhaps elsewhere in the world, if only for the three statues finished by the hand of the great master." II In this account, Condivi, has condensed the events of seven years. The third and last contract with the heirs of Julius was not ratified until the autumn of 1542, nor was the tomb erected much before the year 1550. We shall see that the tragedy still cost its hero many anxious days during this period. Paul III., having obtained his object, issued a brief, whereby he appointed Michelangelo chief architect, sculptor, and painter at the Vatican. The instrument is dated September 1, 1535, and the terms with which it describes the master's eminence in the three arts are highly flattering. Allusion is directly made to the fresco of the Last Judgment, which may therefore have been begun about this date. Michelangelo was enrolled as member of the Pontifical household, with a permanent pension of 1200 golden crowns, to be raised in part on the revenues accruing from a ferry across the Po at Piacenza. He did not, however, obtain possession of this ferry until 1537, and the benefice proved so unremunerative that it was exchanged for a little post in the Chancery at Rimini. When Michelangelo began to work again in the Sistine Chapel, the wall above the altar was adorned with three great sacred subjects by the hand of Pietro Perugino. In the central fresco of the Assumption Perugino introduced a portrait of Sixtus IV. kneeling in adoration before the ascending Madonna. The side panels were devoted to the Nativity and the finding of Moses. In what condition Michelangelo found these frescoes before the painting of the Last Judgment we do not know. Vasari says that he caused the wall to be rebuilt with well-baked carefully selected bricks, and sloped inwards so that the top projected half a cubit from the bottom. This was intended to secure the picture from dust. Vasari also relates that Sebastiano del Piombo, acting on his own responsibility, prepared this wall with a ground for oil-colours, hoping to be employed by Michelangelo, but that the latter had it removed, preferring the orthodox method of fresco-painting. The story, as it stands, is not very probable; yet we may perhaps conjecture that, before deciding on the system to be adopted for his great work, Buonarroti thought fit to make experiments in several surfaces. The painters of that period, as is proved by Sebastiano's practice, by Lionardo da Vinci's unfortunate innovations at Florence, and by the experiments of Raffaello's pupils in the hall of Constantine, not unfrequently invented methods for mural decoration which should afford the glow and richness of oil-colouring. Michelangelo may even have proposed at one time to intrust a large portion of his fresco to Sebastiano's executive skill, and afterwards have found the same difficulties in collaboration which reduced him to the necessity of painting the Sistine vault in solitude. Be that as it may, when the doors of the chapel once closed behind the master, we hear nothing whatsoever about his doings till they opened again on Christmas Day in 1541. The reticence of Michelangelo regarding his own works is one of the most trying things about him. It is true indeed that his correspondence between 1534 and 1541 almost entirely fails; still, had it been abundant, we should probably have possessed but dry and laconic references to matters connected with the business of his art. He must have been fully occupied on the Last Judgment during 1536 and 1537. Paul III. was still in correspondence with the Duke of Urbino, who showed himself not only willing to meet the Pope's wishes with regard to the Tomb of Julius, but also very well disposed toward the sculptor. In July 1537, Hieronimo Staccoli wrote to the Duke of Camerino about a silver salt-cellar which Michelangelo had designed at his request. This prince, Guidobaldo della Rovere, when he afterwards succeeded to the Duchy of Urbino, sent a really warm-hearted despatch to his "dearest Messer Michelangelo." He begins by saying that, though he still cherishes the strongest wish to see the monument of his uncle completed, he does not like to interrupt the fresco in the Sistine Chapel, upon which his Holiness has set his heart. He thoroughly trusts in Michelangelo's loyalty, and is assured that his desire to finish the tomb, for the honour of his former patron's memory, is keen and sincere. Therefore, he hopes that when the picture of the Last Judgment is terminated, the work will be resumed and carried to a prosperous conclusion. In the meantime, let Buonarroti attend to his health, and not put everything again to peril by overstraining his energies. Signer Gotti quotes a Papal brief, issued on the 18th of September 1537, in which the history of the Tomb of Julius up to date is set forth, and Michelangelo's obligations toward the princes of Urbino are recited. It then proceeds to declare that Clement VII. ordered him to paint the great wall of the Sistine, and that Paul desires this work to be carried forward with all possible despatch. He therefore lets it be publicly known that Michelangelo has not failed to perform his engagements in the matter of the tomb through any fault or action of his own, but by the express command of his Holiness. Finally, he discharges him and his heirs from all liabilities, pecuniary or other, to which he may appear exposed by the unfulfilled contracts. III While thus engaged upon his fresco, Michelangelo received a letter, dated Venice, September 15, 1537, from that rogue of genius, Pietro Aretino. It opens in the strain of hyperbolical compliment and florid rhetoric which Aretino affected when he chose to flatter. The man, however, was an admirable stylist, the inventor of a new epistolary manner. Like a volcano, his mind blazed with wit, and buried sound sense beneath the scoriae and ashes it belched forth. Gifted with a natural feeling for rhetorical contrast, he knew the effect of some simple and impressive sentence, placed like a gem of value in the midst of gimcrack conceits. Thus: "I should not venture to address you, had not my name, accepted by the ears of every prince in Europe, outworn much of its native indignity. And it is but meet that that I should approach you with this reverence; for the world has many kings, and one only Michelangelo. "Strange miracle, that Nature, who cannot place aught so high but that you explore it with your art, should be impotent to stamp upon her works that majesty which she contains within herself, the immense power of your style and your chisel! Wherefore, when we gaze on you, we regret no longer that we may not meet with Pheidias, Apelles, or Vitruvius, whose spirits were the shadow of your spirit." He piles the panegyric up to its climax, by adding it is fortunate for those great artists of antiquity that their masterpieces cannot be compared with Michelangelo's, since, "being arraigned before the tribunal of our eyes, we should perforce proclaim you unique as sculptor, unique as painter, and as architect unique." After the blare of this exordium, Aretino settles down to the real business of his letter, and communicates his own views regarding the Last Judgment, which he hears that the supreme master of all arts is engaged in depicting. "Who would not quake with terror while dipping his brush into the dreadful theme? I behold Anti-christ in the midst of thronging multitudes, with an aspect such as only you could limn. I behold affright upon the forehead of the living; I see the signs of the extinction of the sun, the moon, the stars; I see the breath of life exhaling from the elements; I see Nature abandoned and apart, reduced to barrenness, crouching in her decrèpitude; I see Time sapless and trembling, for his end has come, and he is seated on an arid throne; and while I hear the trumpets of the angels with their thunder shake the hearts of all, I see both Life and Death convulsed with horrible confusion, the one striving to resuscitate the dead, the other using all his might to slay the living; I see Hope and Despair guiding the squadrons of the good and the cohorts of the wicked; I see the theatre of clouds, blazing with rays that issue from the purest fires of heaven, upon which among his hosts Christ sits, ringed round with splendours and with terrors; I see the radiance of his face, coruscating flames of light both glad and awful, filling the blest with joy, the damned with fear intolerable. Then I behold the satellites of the abyss, who with horrid gestures, to the glory of the saints and martyrs, deride Caesar and the Alexanders; for it is one thing to have trampled on the world, but more to have conquered self. I see Fame, with her crowns and palms trodden under foot, cast out among the wheels of her own chariots. And to conclude all, I see the dread sentence issue from the mouth of the Son of God. I see it in the form of two darts, the one of salvation, the other of damnation; and as they hustle down, I hear the fury of its onset shock the elemental frame of things, and, with the roar of thunderings and voices, smash the universal scheme to fragments. I see the vault of ether merged in gloom, illuminated only by the lights of Paradise and the furnaces of hell. My thoughts, excited by this vision of the day of Doom, whisper: 'If we quake in terror before the handiwork of Buonarroti, how shall we shake and shrink affrighted when He who shall judge passes sentence on our souls?'" This description of the Last Day, in which it is more than doubtful whether a man like Aretino had any sincere faith, possesses considerable literary interest. In the first place, it is curious as coming from one who lived on terms of closest intimacy with painters, and who certainly appreciated art; for this reason, that nothing less pictorial than the images evoked could be invented. Then, again, in the first half of the sixteenth century it anticipated the rhetoric of the _barocco_ period--the eloquence of seventeenth-century divines, Dutch poets, Jesuit pulpiteers. Aretino's originality consisted in his precocious divination of a whole new age of taste and style, which was destined to supersede the purer graces of the Renaissance. The letter ends with an assurance that if anything could persuade him to break a resolution he had formed, and to revisit Rome, it would be his great anxiety to view the Last Judgment of the Sistine Chapel with his own eyes. Michelangelo sent an answer which may be cited as an example of his peculiar irony. Under the form of elaborate compliment it conceals the scorn he must have conceived for Aretino and his insolent advice. Yet he knew how dangerous the man could be, and felt obliged to humour him. "Magnificent Messer Pietro, my lord and brother,--The receipt of your letter gave me both joy and sorrow. I rejoiced exceedingly, since it came from you, who are without peer in all the world for talent. Yet at the same time I grieved, inasmuch as, having finished a large part of the fresco, I cannot realise your conception, which is so complete, that if the Day of Judgment had come, and you had been present and seen it with your eyes, your words could not have described it better. Now, touching an answer to my letter, I reply that I not only desire it, but I entreat you to write one, seeing that kings and emperors esteem it the highest favour to be mentioned by your pen. Meanwhile, if I have anything that you would like, I offer it with all my heart. In conclusion, do not break your resolve of never revisiting Rome on account of the picture I am painting, for this would be too much." Aretino's real object was to wheedle some priceless sketch or drawing out of the great master. This appears from a second letter written by him on the 20th of January 1538. "Does not my devotion deserve that I should receive from you, the prince of sculpture and of painting, one of those cartoons which you fling into the fire, to the end that during life I may enjoy it, and in death carry it with me to the tomb?" After all, we must give Aretino credit for genuine feelings of admiration toward illustrious artists like Titian, Sansovino, and Michelangelo. Writing many years after the date of these letters, when he has seen an engraving of the Last Judgment, he uses terms, extravagant indeed, but apparently sincere, about its grandeur of design. Then he repeats his request for a drawing. "Why will you not repay my devotion to your divine qualities by the gift of some scrap of a drawing, the least valuable in your eyes? I should certainly esteem two strokes of the chalk upon a piece of paper more than all the cups and chains which all the kings and princes gave me." It seems that Michelangelo continued to correspond with him, and that Benvenuto Cellini took part in their exchange of letters. But no drawings were sent; and in course of time the ruffian got the better of the virtuoso in Aretino's rapacious nature. Without ceasing to fawn and flatter Michelangelo, he sought occasion to damage his reputation. Thus we find him writing in January 1546 to the engraver Enea Vico, bestowing high praise upon a copper-plate which a certain Bazzacco had made from the Last Judgment, but criticising the picture as "licentious and likely to cause scandal with the Lutherans, by reason of its immodest exposure of the nakedness of persons of both sexes in heaven and hell." It is not clear what Aretino expected from Enea Vico. A reference to the Duke of Florence seems to indicate that he wished to arouse suspicions among great and influential persons regarding the religious and moral quality of Michelangelo's work. This malevolent temper burst out at last in one of the most remarkable letters we possess of his. It was obviously intended to hurt and insult Michelangelo as much as lay within his power of innuendo and direct abuse. The invective offers so many points of interest with regard to both men, that I shall not hesitate to translate it here in full. "Sir, when I inspected the complete sketch of the whole of your Last Judgment, I arrived at recognising the eminent graciousness of Raffaello in its agreeable beauty of invention. "Meanwhile, as a baptized Christian, I blush before the license, so forbidden to man's intellect, which you have used in expressing ideas connected with the highest aims and final ends to which our faith aspires. So, then, that Michelangelo stupendous in his fame, that Michelangelo renowned for prudence, that Michelangelo whom all admire, has chosen to display to the whole world an impiety of irreligion only equalled by the perfection of his painting! Is it possible that you, who, since you are divine, do not condescend to consort with human beings, have done this in the greatest temple built to God, upon the highest altar raised to Christ, in the most sacred chapel upon earth, where the mighty hinges of the Church, the venerable priests of our religion, the Vicar of Christ, with solemn ceremonies and holy prayers, confess, contemplate, and adore his body, his blood, and his flesh? "If it were not infamous to introduce the comparison, I would plume myself upon my virtue when I wrote _La Nanna_. I would demonstrate the superiority of my reserve to your indiscretion, seeing that I, while handling themes lascivious and immodest, use language comely and decorous, speak in terms beyond reproach and inoffensive to chaste ears. You, on the contrary, presenting so awful a subject, exhibit saints and angels, these without earthly decency, and those without celestial honours. "The pagans, when they modelled a Diana, gave her clothes; when they made a naked Venus, hid the parts which are not shown with the hand of modesty. And here there comes a Christian, who, because he rates art higher than the faith, deems it a royal spectacle to portray martyrs and virgins in improper attitudes, to show men dragged down by their shame, before which things houses of ill-fame would shut the eyes in order not to see them. Your art would be at home in some voluptuous bagnio, certainly not in the highest chapel of the world. Less criminal were it if you were an infidel, than, being a believer, thus to sap the faith of others. Up to the present time the splendour of such audacious marvels hath not gone unpunished; for their very superexcellence is the death of your good name. Restore them to repute by turning the indecent parts of the damned to flames, and those of the blessed to sunbeams; or imitate the modesty of Florence, who hides your David's shame beneath some gilded leaves. And yet that statue is exposed upon a public square, not in a consecrated chapel. "As I wish that God may pardon you, I do not write this out of any resentment for the things I begged of you. In truth, if you had sent me what you promised, you would only have been doing what you ought to have desired most eagerly to do in your own interest; for this act of courtesy would silence the envious tongues which say that only certain Gerards and Thomases dispose of them. "Well, if the treasure bequeathed you by Pope Julius, in order that you might deposit his ashes in an urn of your own carving, was not enough to make you keep your plighted word, what can I expect from you? It is not your ingratitude, your avarice, great painter, but the grace and merit of the Supreme Shepherd, which decide his fame. God wills that Julius should live renowned for ever in a simple tomb, inurned in his own merits, and not in some proud monument dependent on your genius. Meantime, your failure to discharge your obligations is reckoned to you as an act of thieving. "Our souls need the tranquil emotions of piety more than the lively impressions of plastic art. May God, then, inspire his Holiness Paul with the same thoughts as he instilled into Gregory of blessed memory, who rather chose to despoil Rome of the proud statues of the Pagan deities than to let their magnificence deprive the humbler images of the saints of the devotion of the people. "Lastly, when you set about composing your picture of the universe and hell and heaven, if you had steeped your heart with those suggestions of glory, of honour, and of terror proper to the theme which I sketched out and offered to you in the letter I wrote you and the whole world reads, I venture to assert that not only would nature and all kind influences cease to regret the illustrious talents they endowed you with, and which to-day render you, by virtue of your art, an image of the marvellous: but Providence, who sees all things, would herself continue to watch over such a masterpiece, so long as order lasts in her government of the hemispheres. "Your servant, "The Aretine. "Now that I have blown off some of the rage I feel against you for the cruelty you used to my devotion, and have taught you to see that, while you may be divine, I am not made of water, I bid you tear up this letter, for I have done the like, and do not forget that I am one to whose epistles kings and emperors reply. "To the great Michelangelo Buonarroti in Rome." The malignancy of this letter is only equalled by its stylistic ingenuity. Aretino used every means he could devise to wound and irritate a sensitive nature. The allusion to Raffaello, the comparison of his own pornographic dialogues with the Last Judgment in the Sistine, the covert hint that folk gossiped about Michelangelo's relations to young men, his sneers at the great man's exclusiveness, his cruel insinuations with regard to the Tomb of Julius, his devout hope that Paul will destroy the fresco, and the impudent eulogy of his precious letter on the Last Day, were all nicely calculated to annoy. Whether the missive was duly received by Buonarroti we do not know. Gaye asserts that it appears to have been sent through the post. He discovered it in the Archives of the Strozzi Palace. The virtuous Pietro Aretino was not the only one to be scandalised by the nudities of the Last Judgment; and indeed it must be allowed that when Michelangelo treated such a subject in such a manner, he was pushing the principle of art for art's sake to its extremity. One of the most popular stories told about this work shows that it early began to create a scandal. When it was three fourths finished, Pope Paul went to see the fresco, attended by Messer Biagio da Cesena, his Master of the Ceremonies. On being asked his opinion of the painting, Messer Biagio replied that he thought it highly improper to expose so many naked figures in a sacred picture, and that it was more fit for a place of debauchery than for the Pope's chapel. Michelangelo, nettled by this, drew the prelate's portrait to the life, and placed him in hell with horns on his head and a serpent twisted round his loins. Messer Biagio, finding himself in this plight, and being no doubt laughed at by his friends, complained to the Pope, who answered that he could do nothing to help him. "Had the painter sent you to Purgatory, I would have used my best efforts to get you released; but I exercise no influence in hell; _ubi nulla est redemptio_." Before Michelangelo's death, his follower, Daniele da Volterra, was employed to provide draperies for the most obnoxious figures, and won thereby the name of _Il Braghettone_, or the breeches-maker. Paul IV. gave the painter this commission, having previously consulted Buonarroti on the subject. The latter is said to have replied to the Pope's messenger: "Tell his Holiness that this is a small matter, and can easily be set straight. Let him look to setting the world in order: to reform a picture costs no great trouble." Later on, during the Pontificate of Pio V., a master named Girolamo da Fano continued the process begun by Daniele da Volterra. As a necessary consequence of this tribute to modesty, the scheme of Michelangelo's colouring and the balance of his masses have been irretrievably damaged. IV Vasari says that not very long before the Last Judgment was finished, Michelangelo fell from the scaffolding, and seriously hurt his leg. The pain he suffered and his melancholy made him shut himself up at home, where he refused to be treated by a doctor. There was a Florentine physician in Rome, however, of capricious humour, who admired the arts, and felt a real affection for Buonarroti. This man contrived to creep into the house by some privy entrance, and roamed about it till he found the master. He then insisted upon remaining there on watch and guard until he had effected a complete cure. The name of this excellent friend, famous for his skill and science in those days, was Baccio Rontini. After his recovery Michelangelo returned to work, and finished the Last Judgment in a few months. It was exposed to the public on Christmas Day in 1541. Time, negligence, and outrage, the dust of centuries, the burned papers of successive conclaves, the smoke of altar-candles, the hammers and the hangings of upholsterers, the brush of the breeches-maker and restorer, have so dealt with the Last Judgment that it is almost impossible to do it justice now. What Michelangelo intended by his scheme of colour is entirely lost. Not only did Daniele da Volterra, an execrable colourist, dab vividly tinted patches upon the modulated harmonies of flesh-tones painted by the master; but the whole surface has sunk into a bluish fog, deepening to something like lamp-black around the altar. Nevertheless, in its composition the fresco may still be studied; and after due inspection, aided by photographic reproductions of each portion, we are not unable to understand the enthusiasm which so nobly and profoundly planned a work of art aroused among contemporaries. It has sometimes been asserted that this enormous painting, the largest and most comprehensive in the world, is a tempest of contending forms, a hurly-burly of floating, falling, soaring, and descending figures. Nothing can be more opposed to the truth. Michelangelo was sixty-six years of age when he laid his brush down at the end of the gigantic task. He had long outlived the spontaneity of youthful ardour. His experience through half a century in the planning of monuments, the painting of the Sistine vault, the designing of façades and sacristies and libraries, had developed the architectonic sense which was always powerful in his conceptive faculty. Consequently, we are not surprised to find that, intricate and confused as the scheme may appear to an unpractised eye, it is in reality a design of mathematical severity, divided into four bands or planes of grouping. The wall, since it occupies one entire end of a long high building, is naturally less broad than lofty. The pictorial divisions are therefore horizontal in the main, though so combined and varied as to produce the effect of multiplied curves, balancing and antiphonally inverting their lines of sinuosity. The pendentive upon which the prophet Jonah sits, descends and breaks the surface at the top, leaving a semicircular compartment on each side of its corbel. Michelangelo filled these upper spaces with two groups of wrestling angels, the one bearing a huge cross, the other a column, in the air. The cross and whipping-post are the chief emblems of Christ's Passion. The crown of thorns is also there, the sponge, the ladder, and the nails. It is with no merciful intent that these signs of our Lord's suffering are thus exhibited. Demonic angels, tumbling on clouds like Leviathans, hurl them to and fro in brutal wrath above the crowd of souls, as though to demonstrate the justice of damnation. In spite of a God's pain and shameful death, mankind has gone on sinning. The Judge is what the crimes of the world and Italy have made him. Immediately below the corbel, and well detached from the squadrons of attendant saints, Christ rises from His throne. His face is turned in the direction of the damned, His right hand is lifted as though loaded with thunderbolts for their annihilation. He is a ponderous young athlete; rather say a mass of hypertrophied muscles, with the features of a vulgarised Apollo. The Virgin sits in a crouching attitude at His right side, slightly averting her head, as though in painful expectation of the coming sentence. The saints and martyrs who surround Christ and His Mother, while forming one of the chief planes in the composition, are arranged in four unequal groups of subtle and surprising intricacy. All bear the emblems of their cruel deaths, and shake them in the sight of Christ as though appealing to His judgment-seat. It has been charitably suggested that they intend to supplicate for mercy. I cannot, however, resist the impression that they are really demanding rigid justice. S. Bartholomew flourishes his flaying-knife and dripping skin with a glare of menace. S. Catherine struggles to raise her broken wheel. S. Sebastian frowns down on hell with a sheaf of arrows quivering in his stalwart arm. The saws, the carding-combs, the crosses, and the grid-irons, all subserve the same purpose of reminding Christ that, if He does not damn the wicked, confessors will have died with Him in vain. It is singular that, while Michelangelo depicted so many attitudes of expectation, eagerness, anxiety, and astonishment in the blest, he has given to none of them the expression of gratitude, or love, or sympathy, or shrinking awe. Men and women, old and young alike, are human beings of Herculean build. Paradise, according to Buonarroti's conception, was not meant for what is graceful, lovely, original, and tender. The hosts of heaven are adult and over-developed gymnasts. Yet, while we record these impressions, it would be unfair to neglect the spiritual beauty of some souls embracing after long separation in the grave, with folding arms, and clasping hands, and clinging lips. While painting these, Michelangelo thought peradventure of his father and his brother. The two planes which I have attempted to describe occupy the upper and the larger portion of the composition. The third in order is made up of three masses. In the middle floats a band of Titanic cherubs, blowing their long trumpets over earth and sea to wake the dead. Dramatically, nothing can be finer than the strained energy and superhuman force of these superb creatures. Their attitudes compel our imagination to hear the crashing thunders of the trump of doom. To the left of the spectator are souls ascending to be judged, some floating through vague ether, enwrapped with grave-clothes, others assisted by descending saints and angels, who reach a hand, a rosary, to help the still gross spirit in its flight. To the right are the condemned, sinking downwards to their place of torment, spurned by seraphs, cuffed by angelic grooms, dragged by demons, hurling, howling, huddled in a mass of horror. It is just here, and still yet farther down, that Michelangelo put forth all his power as a master of expression. While the blessed display nothing which is truly proper to their state of holiness and everlasting peace, the damned appear in every realistic aspect of most stringent agony and terror. The colossal forms of flesh with which the multitudes of saved and damned are equally endowed, befit that extremity of physical and mental anguish more than they suit the serenity of bliss eternal. There is a wretch, twined round with fiends, gazing straight before him as he sinks; one half of his face is buried in his hand, the other fixed in a stony spasm of despair, foreshadowing perpetuity of hell. Nothing could express with sublimity of a higher order the sense of irremediable loss, eternal pain, a future endless without hope, than the rigid dignity of this not ignoble sinner's dread. Just below is the place to which the doomed are sinking. Michelangelo reverted to Dante for the symbolism chosen to portray hell. Charon, the demon, with eyes of burning coal, compels a crowd of spirits in his ferryboat. They land and are received by devils, who drag them before Minos, judge of the infernal regions. He towers at the extreme right end of the fresco, indicating that the nether regions yawn infinitely deep, beyond our ken; just as the angels above Christ suggest a region of light and glory, extending upward through illimitable space. The scene of judgment on which attention is concentrated forms but an episode in the universal, sempiternal scheme of things. Balancing hell, on the left hand of the spectator, is brute earth, the grave, the forming and the swallowing clay, out of which souls, not yet acquitted or condemned, emerge with difficulty, in varied forms of skeletons or corpses, slowly thawing into life eternal. Vasari, in his description of the Last Judgment, seized upon what after all endures as the most salient aspect of this puzzling work, at once so fascinating and so repellent. "It is obvious," he says, "that the peerless painter did not aim at anything but the portrayal of the human body in perfect proportions and most varied attitudes, together with the passions and affections of the soul. That was enough for him, and here he has no equal. He wanted to exhibit the grand style: consummate draughtsmanship in the nude, mastery over all problems of design. He concentrated his power upon the human form, attending to that alone, and neglecting all subsidiary things, as charm of colour, capricious inventions, delicate devices and novelties of fancy." Vasari might have added that Michelangelo also neglected what ought to have been a main object of his art: convincing eloquence, the solemnity proper to his theme, spirituality of earthly grossness quit. As a collection of athletic nudes in all conceivable postures of rest and action, of foreshortening, of suggested movement, the Last Judgment remains a stupendous miracle. Nor has the aged master lost his cunning for the portrayal of divinely simple faces, superb limbs, masculine beauty, in the ideal persons of young men. The picture, when we dwell long enough upon its details, emerges into prominence, moreover, as indubitably awe-inspiring, terrifying, dreadful in its poignant expression of wrath, retaliation, thirst for vengeance, cruelty, and helpless horror. But the supreme point even of Doomsday, of the Dies Irae, has not been seized. We do not hear the still small voice of pathos and of human hope which thrills through Thomas a Celano's hymn:-- _Quaerens me sedisti lassus, Redemisti crucem passus: Tantus labor non sit cassus._ The note is one of sustained menace and terror, and the total scheme of congregated forms might be compared to a sense-deafening solo on a trombone. While saying this, we must remember that it was the constant impulse of Michelangelo to seize one moment only, and what he deemed the most decisive moment, in the theme he had to develop. Having selected the instant of time at which Christ, half risen from his Judgment-seat of cloud, raises an omnific hand to curse, the master caused each fibre of his complex composition to thrill with the tremendous passion of that coming sentence. The long series of designs for Crucifixions, Depositions from the Cross, and Pietàs which we possess, all of them belonging to a period of his life not much later than 1541, prove that his nature was quite as sensitive to pathos as to terror; only, it was not in him to attempt a combination of terror and pathos. "He aimed at the portrayal of the human body. He wanted to exhibit the grand style." So says Vasari, and Vasari is partly right. But we must not fall into the paradox, so perversely maintained by Ruskin in his lecture on Tintoretto and Michelangelo, that the latter was a cold and heartless artist, caring chiefly for the display of technical skill and anatomical science. Partial and painful as we may find the meaning of the Last Judgment, that meaning has been only too powerfully and personally felt. The denunciations of the prophets, the woes of the Apocalypse, the invectives of Savonarola, the tragedies of Italian history, the sense of present and indwelling sin, storm through and through it. Technically, the masterpiece bears signs of fatigue and discontent, in spite of its extraordinary vigour of conception and execution. The man was old and tired, thwarted in his wishes and oppressed with troubles. His very science had become more formal, his types more arid and schematic, than they used to be. The thrilling life, the divine afflatus, of the Sistine vault have passed out of the Last Judgment. Wholly admirable, unrivalled, and unequalled by any other human work upon a similar scale as this fresco may be in its command over the varied resources of the human body, it does not strike our mind as the production of a master glorying in carnal pride and mental insolence, but rather as that of one discomfited and terrified, upon the point of losing heart. Henri Beyle, jotting down his impressions in the Sistine Chapel, was reminded of the Grand Army's flight after the burning of Moscow. "When, in our disastrous retreat from Russia, it chanced that we were suddenly awakened in the middle of the dark night by an obstinate cannonading, which at each moment seemed to gain in nearness, then all the forces of a man's nature gathered close around his heart; he felt himself in the presence of fate, and having no attention left for things of vulgar interest, he made himself ready to dispute his life with destiny. The sight of Michelangelo's picture has brought back to my consciousness that almost forgotten sensation." This is a piece of just and sympathetic criticism, and upon its note I am fain to close. V It is probable that the fame of the Last Judgment spread rapidly abroad through Italy, and that many visits to Rome were made for the purpose of inspecting it. Complimentary sonnets must also have been addressed to the painter. I take it that Niccolò Martelli sent some poems on the subject from Florence, for Michelangelo replied upon the 20th of January 1542 in the following letter of singular modesty and urbane kindness:-- "I received from Messer Vincenzo Perini your letter with two sonnets and a madrigal. The letter and the sonnet addressed to me are so marvellously fine, that if a man should find in them anything to castigate, it would be impossible to castigate him as thoroughly as they are castigated. It is true they praise me so much, that had I Paradise in my bosom, less of praise would suffice. I perceive that you suppose me to be just what God wishes that I were. I am a poor man and of little merit, who plod along in the art which God gave me, to lengthen out my life as far as possible. Such as I am, I remain your servant and that of all the house of Martelli. I thank you for your letter and the poems, but not as much as duty bids, for I cannot soar to such heights of courtesy." When the Last Judgment was finished, Michelangelo not unreasonably hoped that he might resume his work upon the Tomb of Julius. But this was not to be. Antonio da San Gallo had just completed the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in the Vatican, which is known as the Cappella Paolina, and the Pope resolved that its frescoes should be painted by Buonarroti. The Duke of Urbino, yielding to his wishes, wrote to Michelangelo upon the 6th of March 1542, saying that he should be quite satisfied if the three statues by his hand, including the Moses, were assigned to the tomb, the execution of the rest being left to competent workmen under his direction. In effect, we possess documents proving that the tomb was consigned to several masters during this year, 1542. The first is a contract dated February 27, whereby Raffaello da Montelupo undertakes to finish three statues, two of these being the Active Life and the Contemplative. The second is a contract dated May 16, in which Michelangelo assigns the architectural and ornamental portion of the monument conjointly to Giovanni de' Marchesi and Francesco d' Amadore, called Urbino, providing that differences which may arise between them shall be referred to Donato Giannotti. There is a third contract, under date June 1, about the same work intrusted to the same two craftsmen, prescribing details with more exactitude. It turned out that the apprehension of disagreement between the masters about the division of their labour was not unfounded, for Michelangelo wrote twice in July to his friend Luigi del Riccio, complaining bitterly of their dissensions, and saying that he has lost two months in these trifles. He adds that one of them is covetous, the other mad, and he fears their quarrel may end in wounds or murder. The matter disturbs his mind greatly, chiefly on account of Urbino, because he has brought him up, and also because of the time wasted over "their ignorance and bestial stupidity." The dispute was finally settled by the intervention of three master-masons (acting severally for Michelangelo, Urbino, and Giovanni), who valued the respective portions of the work. I must interrupt this narrative of the tomb to explain who some of the persons just mentioned were, and how they came to be connected with Buonarroti. Donato Giannotti was the famous writer upon political and literary topics, who, after playing a conspicuous part in the revolution of Florence against the Medici, now lived in exile at Rome. His dialogues on Dante, and Francesco d'Olanda's account of the meetings at S. Silvestro, prove that he formed a member of that little circle which included Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna. Luigi del Riccio was a Florentine merchant, settled in the banking-house of the Strozzi at Rome. For many years he acted as Michelangelo's man of business; but their friendship was close and warm in many other ways. They were drawn together by a common love of poetry, and by the charm of a rarely gifted youth called Cecchino dei Bracci. Urbino was the great sculptor's servant and man of all work, the last and best of that series, which included Stefano Miniatore, Pietro Urbino, Antonio Mini. Michelangelo made Urbino's fortune, mourned his death, and undertook the guardianship of his children, as will appear in due course. All through his life the great sculptor was dependent upon some trusted servant, to whom he became personally attached, and who did not always repay his kindness with gratitude. After Urbino's death, Ascanio Condivi filled a similar post, and to this circumstance we owe the most precious of our contemporary biographies. Our most important document with regard to the Tomb of Julius is an elaborate petition addressed by Michelangelo to Paul III. upon the 20th of July. It begins by referring to the contract of April 18, 1532, and proceeds to state that the Pope's new commission for the Cappella Paolina has interfered once more with the fulfilment of the sculptor's engagements. Then it recites the terms suggested by the Duke of Urbino in his letter of March 6, 1542, according to which three of the statues of the tomb may be assigned to capable craftsmen, while the other three, including the Moses, will have to be finished by Michelangelo himself. Raffaello da Montelupo has already undertaken the Madonna and Child, a Prophet, and a Sibyl. Giovanni de' Marchese and Francesco da Urbino are at work upon the architecture. It remains for Michelangelo to furnish the Moses and two Captives, all three of which are nearly completed. The Captives, however, were designed for a much larger monument, and will not suit the present scheme. Accordingly, he has blocked out two other figures, representing the Active and Contemplative Life. But even these he is unable to finish, since the painting of the chapel absorbs his time and energy. He therefore prays the Pope to use his influence with the Duke of Urbino, so that he may be henceforward wholly and absolutely freed from all obligations in the matter of the tomb. The Moses he can deliver in a state of perfection, but he wishes to assign the Active and Contemplative Life to Raffaello or to any other sculptor who may be preferred by the Duke. Finally, he is prepared to deposit a sum of 1200 crowns for the total costs, and to guarantee that the work shall be efficiently executed in all its details. It is curious that in this petition and elsewhere no mention is made of what might be considered the most important portion of the tomb--namely, the portrait statue of Julius. The document was presented to Messer Piero Giovanni Aliotti, Bishop of Forli, and keeper of the wardrobe to Pope Paul. Accordingly, the final contract regarding the tomb was drawn up and signed upon the 20th of August. I need not recapitulate its terms, for I have already printed a summary of them in a former chapter of this work. Suffice it to say that Michelangelo was at last released from all active responsibility with regard to the tomb, and that the vast design of his early manhood now dwindled down to the Moses. To Raffaello da Montelupo was left the completion of the remaining five statues. This lamentable termination to the cherished scheme of his lifetime must have preyed upon Michelangelo's spirits. The letters in which he alludes to it, after the contract had been signed, breathe a spirit of more than usual fretfulness. Moreover, the Duke of Urbino now delayed to send his ratification, by which alone the deed could become valid. In October, writing to Del Riccio, Michelangelo complains that Messer Aliotti is urging him to begin painting in the chapel; but the plaster is not yet fit to work on. Meanwhile, although he has deposited 1400 crowns, "which would have kept him working for seven years, and would have enabled him to finish two tombs," the Duke's ratification does not come. "It is easy enough to see what that means without writing it in words! Enough; for the loyalty of thirty-six years, and for having given myself of my own free will to others, I deserve no better. Painting and sculpture, labour and good faith, have been my ruin, and I go continually from bad to worse. Better would it have been for me if I had set myself to making matches in my youth! I should not be in such distress of mind.... I will not remain under this burden, nor be vilified every day for a swindler by those who have robbed my life and honour. Only death or the Pope can extricate me." It appears that at this time the Duke of Urbino's agents were accusing him of having lent out moneys which he had received on account for the execution of the monument. Then follows, in the same month of October, that stormy letter to some prelate, which is one of the most weighty autobiographical documents from the hand of Michelangelo in our possession. "Monsignore,--Your lordship sends to tell me that I must begin to paint, and have no anxiety. I answer that one paints with the brain and not with the hands; and he who has not his brains at his command produces work that shames him. Therefore, until my business is settled, I can do nothing good. The ratification of the last contract does not come. On the strength of the other, made before Clement, I am daily stoned as though I had crucified Christ.... My whole youth and manhood have been lost, tied down to this tomb.... I see multitudes with incomes of 2000 or 3000 crowns lying in bed, while I with all my immense labour toil to grow poor.... I am not a thief and usurer, but a citizen of Florence, noble, the son of an honest man, and do not come from Cagli." (These and similar outbursts of indignant passion scattered up and down the epistle, show to what extent the sculptor's irritable nature had been exasperated by calumnious reports. As he openly declares, he is being driven mad by pin-pricks. Then follows the detailed history of his dealings with Julius, which, as I have already made copious use of it, may here be given in outline.) "In the first year of his pontificate, Julius commissioned me to make his tomb, and I stayed eight months at Carrara quarrying marbles and sending them to the Piazza of S. Peter's, where I had my lodgings behind S. Caterina. Afterwards the Pope decided not to build his tomb during his lifetime, and set me down to painting. Then he kept me two years at Bologna casting his statue in bronze, which has been destroyed. After that I returned to Rome and stayed with him until his death, always keeping my house open without post or pension, living on the money for the tomb, since I had no other income. After the death of Julius, Aginensis wanted me to go on with it, but on a larger scale. So I brought the marbles to the Macello dei Corvi, and got that part of the mural scheme finished which is now walled in at S. Pietro in Vincoli, and made the figures which I have at home still. Meanwhile, Leo, not wishing me to work at the tomb, pretended that he wanted to complete the façade of S. Lorenzo at Florence, and begged me of the Cardinal. "To continue my history of the tomb of Julius, I say that when he changed his mind about building it in his lifetime, some shiploads of marble came to the Ripa, which I had ordered a short while before from Carrara, and as I could not get money from the Pope to pay the freightage, I had to borrow 150 or 200 ducats from Baldassare Balducci--that is, from the bank of Jacopo Gallo. At the same time workmen came from Florence, some of whom are still alive; and I furnished the house which Julius gave me behind S. Caterina with beds and other furniture for the men, and what was wanted for the work of the tomb. All this being done without money, I was greatly embarrassed. Accordingly, I urged the Pope with all my power to go forward with the business, and he had me turned away by a groom one morning when I came to speak upon the matter." (Here intervenes the story of the flight to Florence, which has been worked up in the course of Chapter IV.) "Later on, while I was at Florence, Julius sent three briefs to the Signory. At last the latter sent for me and said: 'We do not want to go to war with Pope Julius because of you. You must return; and if you do so, we will write you letters of such authority that if he does you harm, he will be doing it to this Signory.' Accordingly, I took the letters, and went back to the Pope, and what followed would be long to tell! "All the dissensions between Pope Julius and me arose from the envy of Bramante and Raffaello da Urbino; and this was the cause of my not finishing the tomb in his lifetime. They wanted to ruin me. Raffaello had indeed good reason, for all he had of art, he had from me." Twice again in October Michelangelo wrote to Luigi del Riccio about the ratification of his contract. "I cannot live, far less paint." "I am resolved to stop at home and finish the three figures, as I agreed to do. This would be better for me than to drag my limbs daily to the Vatican. Let him who likes get angry. If the Pope wants me to paint, he must send for the Duke's ambassador and procure the ratification." What happened at this time about the tomb can be understood by help of a letter written to Salvestro da Montauto on the 3rd of February 1545. Michelangelo refers to the last contract, and says that the Duke of Urbino ratified the deed. Accordingly, five statues were assigned to Raffaello da Montelupo. "But while I was painting the new chapel for Pope Paul III., his Holiness, at my earnest prayer, allowed me a little time, during which I finished two of them, namely, the Active and Contemplative Life, with my own hand." With all his good-will, however, Michelangelo did not wholly extricate himself from the anxieties of this miserable affair. As late as the year 1553, Annibale Caro wrote to Antonio Gallo entreating him to plead for the illustrious old man with the Duke of Urbino. "I assure you that the extreme distress caused him by being in disgrace with his Excellency is sufficient to bring his grey hairs to the grave before his time." VI The Tomb of Julius, as it now appears in the Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, is a monument composed of two discordant parts, by inspecting which a sympathetic critic is enabled to read the dreary history of its production. As Condivi allows, it was a thing "rattoppata e rifatta," patched together and hashed up. The lower half represents what eventually survived from the grandiose original design for one façade of that vast mount of marble which was to have been erected in the Tribune of St. Peter's. The socles, upon which captive Arts and Sciences were meant to stand, remain; but instead of statues, inverted consoles take their places, and lead lamely up to the heads and busts of terminal old men. The pilasters of these terms have been shortened. There are four of them, enclosing two narrow niches, where beautiful female figures, the Active Life and the Contemplative Life, still testify to the enduring warmth and vigour of the mighty sculptor's genius. As single statues duly worked into a symmetrical scheme, these figures would be admirable, since grace of line and symbolical contrast of attitude render both charming. In their present position they are reduced to comparative insignificance by heavy architectural surroundings. The space left free between the niches and the terms is assigned to the seated statue of Moses, which forms the main attraction of the monument, and of which, as a masterpiece of Michelangelo's best years, I shall have to speak later on. The architectural plan and the surface decoration of this lower half are conceived in a style belonging to the earlier Italian Renaissance. Arabesques and masks and foliated patterns adorn the flat slabs. The recess of each niche is arched with a concave shell. The terminal busts are boldly modelled, and impose upon the eye. The whole is rich in detail, and, though somewhat arid in fanciful invention, it carries us back to the tradition of Florentine work by Mino da Fiesole and Desiderio da Settignano. When we ascend to the upper portion, we seem to have passed, as indeed we do pass, into the region of the new manner created by Michelangelo at S. Lorenzo. The orders of the pilasters are immensely tall in proportion to the spaces they enclose. Two of these spaces, those on the left and right side, are filled in above with meaningless rectangular recesses, while seated statues occupy less than a whole half in altitude of the niches. The architectural design is nondescript, corresponding to no recognised style, unless it be a bastard Roman Doric. There is absolutely no decorative element except four shallow masks beneath the abaci of the pilasters. All is cold and broad and dry, contrasting strangely with the accumulated details of the lower portion. In the central niche, immediately above the Moses, stands a Madonna of fine sculptural quality, beneath a shallow arch, which repeats the shell-pattern. At her feet lies the extended figure of Pope Julius II., crowned with the tiara, raising himself in a half-recumbent attitude upon his right arm. Of the statues in the upper portion, by far the finest in artistic merit is the Madonna. This dignified and gracious lady, holding the Divine Child in her arms, must be reckoned among Buonarroti's triumphs in dealing with the female form. There is more of softness and sweetness here than in the Madonna of the Medicean sacristy, while the infant playing with a captured bird is full of grace. Michelangelo left little in this group for the chisel of Montelupo to deform by alteration. The seated female, a Sibyl, on the left, bears equally the stamp of his design. Executed by himself, this would have been a masterpiece for grandeur of line and dignified repose. As it is, the style, while seeming to aim at breadth, remains frigid and formal. The so-called Prophet on the other side counts among the signal failures of Italian sculpture. It has neither beauty nor significance. Like a heavy Roman consul of the Decadence, the man sits there, lumpy and meaningless; we might take it for a statue-portrait erected by some provincial municipality to celebrate a local magnate; but of prophecy or inspiration there is nothing to detect in this inert figure. We wonder why he should be placed so near a Pope. It is said that Michelangelo expressed dissatisfaction with Montelupo's execution of the two statues finally committed to his charge, and we know from documents that the man was ill when they were finished. Still we can hardly excuse the master himself for the cold and perfunctory performance of a task which had such animated and heroic beginnings. Competent judges, who have narrowly surveyed the monument, say that the stones are badly put together, and the workmanship is defective in important requirements of the sculptor-mason's craft. Those who defend Buonarroti must fall back upon the theory that weariness and disappointment made him at last indifferent to the fate of a design which had cost him so much anxiety, pecuniary difficulties, and frustrated expectations in past years. He let the Tomb of Julius, his first vast dream of art, be botched up out of dregs and relics by ignoble hands, because he was heart-sick and out of pocket. As artist, Michelangelo might, one thinks, have avoided the glaring discord of styles between the upper and the lower portions of the tomb; but sensitiveness to harmony of manner lies not in the nature of men who rapidly evolve new forms of thought and feeling from some older phase. Probably he felt the width and the depth of that gulf which divided himself in 1505 from the same self in 1545, less than we do. Forty years in a creative nature introduce subtle changes, which react upon the spirit of the age, and provoke subsequent criticism to keen comments and comparisons. The individual and his contemporaries are not so well aware of these discrepancies as posterity. The Moses, which Paul and his courtiers thought sufficient to commemorate a single Pope, stands as the eminent jewel of this defrauded tomb. We may not be attracted by it. We may even be repelled by the goat-like features, the enormous beard, the ponderous muscles, and the grotesque garments of the monstrous statue. In order to do it justice, Jet us bear in mind that the Moses now remains detached from a group of environing symbolic forms which Michelangelo designed. Instead of taking its place as one among eight corresponding and counterbalancing giants, it is isolated, thrust forward on the eye; whereas it was intended to be viewed from below in concert with a scheme of balanced figures, male and female, on the same colossal scale. Condivi writes not amiss, in harmony with the gusto of his age, and records what a gentle spirit thought about the Moses then: "Worthy of all admiration is the statue of Moses, duke and captain of the Hebrews. He sits posed in the attitude of a thinker and a sage, holding beneath his right arm the tables of the law, and with the left hand giving support to his chin, like one who is tired and full of anxious cares. From the fingers of this hand escape long flowing lines of beard, which are very beautiful in their effect upon the eye. The face is full of vivid life and spiritual force, fit to inspire both love and terror, as perhaps the man in truth did. He bears, according to the customary wont of artists while portraying Moses, two horns upon the head, not far removed from the summit of the brows. He is robed and girt about the legs with hosen, the arms bare, and all the rest after the antique fashion. It is a marvellous work, and full of art: mostly in this, that underneath those subtleties of raiment one can perceive the naked form, the garments detracting nothing from the beauty of the body; as was the universal way of working with this master in all his clothed figures, whether painted or sculptured." Except that Condivi dwelt too much upon the repose of this extraordinary statue, too little upon its vivacity and agitating unrest, his description serves our purpose as well as any other. He does not seem to have felt the turbulence and carnal insolence which break our sense of dignity and beauty now. Michelangelo left the Moses incomplete in many details, after bringing the rest of the figure to a high state of polish. Tooth-marks of the chisel are observable upon the drapery, the back, both hands, part of the neck, the hair, and the salient horns. It seems to have been his habit, as Condivi and Cellini report, to send a finished statue forth with some sign-manual of roughness in the final touches. That gave his work the signature of the sharp tools he had employed upon it. And perhaps he loved the marble so well that he did not like to quit the good white stone without sparing a portion of its clinging strength and stubbornness, as symbol of the effort of his brain and hand to educe live thought from inert matter. In the century after Michelangelo's death a sonnet was written by Giovanni Battista Felice Zappi upon this Moses. It is famous in Italian literature, and expresses adequately the ideas which occur to ordinary minds when they approach the Moses. For this reason I think that it is worthy of being introduced in a translation here:-- _Who is the man who, carved in this huge stone, Sits giant, all renowned things of art Transcending? he whose living lips, that start, Speak eager words? I hear, and take their tone. He sure is Moses. That the chin hath shown By its dense honour, the brows' beam bipart: 'Tis Moses, when he left the Mount, with part, A great-part, of God's glory round him thrown. Such was the prophet when those sounding vast Waters he held suspense about him; such When he the sea barred, made it gulph his foe. And you, his tribes, a vile calf did you cast? Why not an idol worth like this so much? To worship that had wrought you lesser woe._ VII Before quitting the Tomb of Julius, I must discuss the question of eight scattered statues, partly unfinished, which are supposed, on more or less good grounds, to have been designed for this monument. About two of them, the bound Captives in the Louvre, there is no doubt. Michelangelo mentions these in his petition to Pope Paul, saying that the change of scale implied by the last plan obliged him to abstain from using them. We also know their history. When the sculptor was ill at Rome in 1544, Luigi del Riccio nursed him in the palace of the Strozzi. Gratitude for this hospitality induced him to make a present of the statues to Ruberto degli Strozzi, who took them to France and offered them to the King. Francis gave them to the Constable de Montmorenci; and he placed them in his country-house of Ecouen. In 1793 the Republic offered them for sale, when they were bought for the French nation by M. Lenoir. One of these Captives deserves to be called the most fascinating creation of the master's genius. Together with the Adam, it may be taken as fixing his standard of masculine beauty. He is a young man, with head thrown back, as though in swoon or slumber; the left arm raised above the weight of massy curls, the right hand resting on his broad full bosom. There is a divine charm in the tranquil face, tired but not fatigued, sad but not melancholy, suggesting that the sleeping mind of the immortal youth is musing upon solemn dreams. Praxiteles might have so expressed the Genius of Eternal Repose; but no Greek sculptor would have given that huge girth to the thorax, or have exaggerated the mighty hand with such delight in sinewy force. These qualities, peculiar to Buonarroti's sense of form, do not detract from the languid pose and supple rhythm of the figure, which flows down, a sinuous line of beauty, through the slightly swelling flanks, along the finely moulded thighs, to loveliest feet emerging from the marble. It is impossible, while gazing on this statue, not to hear a strain of intellectual music. Indeed, like melody, it tells no story, awakes no desire, but fills the soul with something beyond thought or passion, subtler and more penetrating than words. The companion figure has not equal grace. Athletically muscular, though adolescent, the body of this young man, whose hands are tied behind his back, is writhed into an attitude of vehement protest and rebellion. He raises his face with appealing pain to heaven. The head, which is only blocked out, overweighs the form, proving that Michelangelo, unlike the Greeks, did not observe a fixed canon of proportion for the human frame. This statue bears a strong resemblance in feeling and conception to the Apollo designed for Baccio Valori. There are four rough-hewn male figures, eccentrically wrought into the rock-work of a grotto in the Boboli Gardens, which have been assigned to the Tomb of Julius. This attribution involves considerable difficulties. In the first place, the scale is different, and the stride of one of them, at any rate, is too wide for the pedestals of that monument. Then their violent contortions and ponderous adult forms seem to be at variance with the spirit of the Captives. Mr. Heath Wilson may perhaps be right in his conjecture that Michelangelo began them for the sculptural decoration on the façade of S. Lorenzo. Their incompleteness baffles criticism; yet we feel instinctively that they were meant for the open air and for effect at a considerable distance. They remind us of Deucalion's men growing out of the stones he threw behind his back. We could not wish them to be finished, or to lose their wild attraction, as of primeval beings, the remnants of dim generations nearer than ourselves to elemental nature. No better specimens of Buonarroti's way of working in the marble could be chosen. Almost savage hatchings with the point blend into finer touches from the toothed chisel; and here and there the surface has been treated with innumerable smoothing lines that round it into skin and muscle. To a man who chiselled thus, marble must have yielded like softest freestone beneath his tools; and how recklessly he wrought is clear from the defective proportions of one old man's figure, whose leg below the knee is short beyond all excuse. A group of two figures, sometimes called the Victory, now in the Bargello Palace, was catalogued without hesitation by Vasari among the statues for the tomb. A young hero, of gigantic strength and height, stands firmly poised upon one foot, while his other leg, bent at the knee, crushes the back of an old man doubled up beneath him. In the face of the vanquished warrior critics have found a resemblance to Michelangelo. The head of the victorious youth seems too small for his stature, and the features are almost brutally vacuous, though burning with an insolent and carnal beauty. The whole forcible figure expresses irresistible energy and superhuman litheness combined with massive strength. This group cannot be called pleasing, and its great height renders it almost inconceivable that it was meant to range upon one monument with the Captives of the Louvre. There are, however, so many puzzles and perplexities connected with that design in its several stages, that we dare affirm or deny nothing concerning it. M. Guillaume, taking it for granted that the Victory was intended for the tomb, makes the plausible suggestion that some of the peculiarities which render it in composition awkward, would have been justified by the addition of bronze wings. Mr. Heath Wilson, seeking after an allegory, is fain to believe that it represents Michelangelo's own state of subjection while employed upon the Serravezza quarries. Last comes the so-called Adonis of the Bargello Palace, which not improbably was designed for one of the figures prostrate below the feet of a victorious Genius. It bears, indeed, much resemblance to a roughly indicated nude at the extreme right of the sketch for the tomb. Upon this supposition, Michelangelo must have left it in a very unfinished state, with an unshaped block beneath the raised right thigh. This block has now been converted into a boar. Extremely beautiful as the Adonis undoubtedly is, the strained, distorted attitude seems to require some explanation. That might have been given by the trampling form and robes of a Genius. Still it is difficult to comprehend why the left arm and hand, finished, I feel almost sure, by Michelangelo, should have been so carefully executed. The Genius, if draped, would have hidden nearly the whole of that part of the statue. The face of this Adonis displays exactly the same type as that of the so-called Victory and of Giuliano de' Medici. Here the type assumes singular loveliness. CHAPTER XII I After the death of Clement VII. Michelangelo never returned to reside at Florence. The rest of his life was spent in Rome. In the year 1534 he had reached the advanced age of fifty-nine, and it is possible that he first became acquainted with the noble lady Vittoria Colonna about 1538. Recent students of his poetry and friendships have suggested that their famous intimacy began earlier, during one of his not infrequent visits to Rome. But we have no proof of this. On the contrary, the only letters extant which he sent to her, two in number, belong to the year 1545. It is certain that anything like friendship between them grew up at some considerable time after his final settlement in Rome. Vittoria was the daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, Grand Constable of Naples, by his marriage with Agnesina di Montefeltro, daughter of Federigo, Duke of Urbino. Blood more illustrious than hers could not be found in Italy. When she was four years old, her parents betrothed her to Ferrante Francesco d'Avalos, a boy of the same age, the only son of the Marchese di Pescara. In her nineteenth year the affianced couple were married at Ischia, the fief and residence of the house of D'Avalos. Ferrante had succeeded to his father's title early in boyhood, and was destined for a brilliant military career. On the young bride's side at least it was a love-match. She was tenderly attached to her handsome husband, ignorant of his infidelities, and blind to his fatal faults of character. Her happiness proved of short duration. In 1512 Pescara was wounded and made prisoner at the battle of Ravenna, and, though he returned to his wife for a short interval, duty called him again to the field of war in Lombardy in 1515. After this date Vittoria saw him but seldom. The last time they met was in October 1522. As general of the Imperial forces, Pescara spent the next years in perpetual military operations. Under his leadership the battle of Pavia was won in 1525, and King Francis became his master's prisoner. So far, nothing but honour, success, and glory waited on the youthful hero. But now the tide turned. Pescara, when he again settled down at Milan, began to plot with Girolamo Morone, Grand Chancellor of Francesco Sforza's duchy. Morone had conceived a plan for reinstating his former lord in Milan by the help of an Italian coalition. He offered Pescara the crown of Naples if he would turn against the Emperor. The Marquis seems at first to have lent a not unwilling ear to these proposals, but seeing reason to doubt the success of the scheme, he finally resolved to betray Morone to Charles V., and did this with cold-blooded ingenuity. A few months afterwards, on November 25, 1525, he died, branded as a traitor, accused of double treachery, both to his sovereign and his friend. If suspicions of her husband's guilt crossed Vittoria's mind, as we have some reason to believe they did, these were not able to destroy her loyalty and love. Though left so young a widow and childless, she determined to consecrate her whole life to his memory and to religion. His nephew and heir, the Marchese del Vasto, became her adopted son. The Marchioness survived Pescara two-and-twenty years, which were spent partly in retirement at Ischia, partly in journeys, partly in convents at Orvieto and Viterbo, and finally in a semi-monastic seclusion at Rome. The time spared from pious exercises she devoted to study, the composition of poetry, correspondence with illustrious men of letters, and the society of learned persons. Her chief friends belonged to that group of earnest thinkers who felt the influences of the Reformation without ceasing to be loyal children of the Church. With Vittoria's name are inseparably connected those of Gasparo Contarini, Reginald Pole, Giovanni Morone, Jacopo Sadoleto, Marcantonio Flaminio, Pietro Carnesecchi, and Fra Bernardino Ochino. The last of these avowed his Lutheran principles, and was severely criticised by Vittoria Colonna for doing so. Carnesecchi was burned for heresy. Vittoria never adopted Protestantism, and died an orthodox Catholic. Yet her intimacy with men of liberal opinions exposed her to mistrust and censure in old age. The movement of the Counter-Reformation had begun, and any kind of speculative freedom aroused suspicion. This saintly princess was accordingly placed under the supervision of the Holy Office, and to be her friend was slightly dangerous. It is obvious that Vittoria's religion was of an evangelical type, inconsistent with the dogmas developed by the Tridentine Council; and it is probable that, like her friend Contarini, she advocated a widening rather than a narrowing of Western Christendom. To bring the Church back to purer morals and sincerity of faith was their aim. They yearned for a reformation and regeneration from within. In all these matters, Michelangelo, the devout student of the Bible and the disciple of Savonarola, shared Vittoria's sentiments. His nature, profoundly and simply religious from the outset, assumed a tone of deeper piety and habitual devotion during the advance of years. Vittoria Colonna's influence at this period strengthened his Christian emotions, which remained untainted by asceticism or superstition. They were further united by another bond, which was their common interest in poetry. The Marchioness of Pescara was justly celebrated during her lifetime as one of the most natural writers of Italian verse. Her poems consist principally of sonnets consecrated to the memory of her husband, or composed on sacred and moral subjects. Penetrated by genuine feeling, and almost wholly free from literary affectation, they have that dignity and sweetness which belong to the spontaneous utterances of a noble heart. Whether she treats of love or of religion, we find the same simplicity and sincerity of style. There is nothing in her pious meditations that a Christian of any communion may not read with profit, as the heartfelt outpourings of a soul athirst for God and nourished on the study of the gospel. Michelangelo preserved a large number of her sonnets, which he kept together in one volume. Writing to his nephew Lionardo in 1554, he says: "Messer Giovan Francesco (Fattucci) asked me about a month ago if I possessed any writings of the Marchioness. I have a little book bound in parchment, which she gave me some ten years ago. It has one hundred and three sonnets, not counting another forty she afterwards sent on paper from Viterbo. I had these bound into the same book, and at that time I used to lend them about to many persons, so that they are all of them now in print. In addition to these poems I have many letters which she wrote from Orvieto and Viterbo. These then are the writings I possess of the Marchioness." He composed several pieces, madrigals and sonnets, under the genial influence of this exchange of thoughts. It was a period at which his old love of versifying revived with singular activity. Other friends, like Tommaso Cavalieri, Luigi del Riccio, and afterwards Vasari, enticed his Muse to frequent utterance. Those he wrote for the Marchioness were distributed in manuscript among his private friends, and found their way into the first edition of his collected poems. But it is a mistake to suppose that she was the sole or even the chief source of his poetical inspiration. We shall see that it was his custom to mark his feeling for particular friends by gifts of drawings as well as of poems. He did this notably in the case of both Vittoria Colonna and Tommaso dei Cavalieri. For the latter he designed subjects from Greek mythology; for the former, episodes in the Passion of our Lord. "At the request of this lady," says Condivi, "he made a naked Christ, at the moment when, taken from the cross, our Lord would have fallen like an abandoned corpse at the feet of his most holy Mother, if two angels did not support him in their arms. She sits below the cross with a face full of tears and sorrow, lifting both her widespread arms to heaven, while on the stem of the tree above is written this legend, 'Non vi si pensa quanto sangue costa.' The cross is of the same kind as that which was carried in procession by the White Friars at the time of the plague of 1348, and afterwards deposited in the Church of S. Croce at Florence. He also made, for love of her, the design of a Jesus Christ upon the cross, not with the aspect of one dead, as is the common wont, but in a divine attitude, with face raised to the Father, seeming to exclaim, 'Eli! Eli!' In this drawing the body does not appear to fall, like an abandoned corpse, but as though in life to writhe and quiver with the agony it feels." Of these two designs we have several more or less satisfactory mementoes. The Pietà was engraved by Giulio Bonasoni and Tudius Bononiensis (date 1546), exactly as Condivi describes it. The Crucifixion survives in a great number of pencil-drawings, together with one or two pictures painted by men like Venusti, and many early engravings of the drawings. One sketch in the Taylor Museum at Oxford is generally supposed to represent the original designed for Vittoria. II What remains of the correspondence between Michelangelo and the Marchioness opens with a letter referring to their interchange of sonnets and drawings. It is dated Rome, 1545. Vittoria had evidently sent him poems, and he wishes to make her a return in kind: "I desired, lady, before I accepted the things which your ladyship has often expressed the will to give me--I desired to produce something for you with my own hand, in order to be as little as possible unworthy of this kindness. I have now come to recognise that the grace of God is not to be bought, and that to keep it waiting is a grievous sin. Therefore I acknowledge my error, and willingly accept your favours. When I possess them, not indeed because I shall have them in my house, but for that I myself shall dwell in them, the place will seem to encircle me with Paradise. For which felicity I shall remain ever more obliged to your ladyship than I am already, if that is possible. "The bearer of this letter will be Urbino, who lives in my service. Your ladyship may inform him when you would like me to come and see the head you promised to show me." This letter is written under the autograph copy of a sonnet which must have been sent with it, since it expresses the same thought in its opening quatrain. My translation of the poem runs thus: _Seeking at least to be not all unfit For thy sublime and-boundless courtesy, My lowly thoughts at first were fain to try What they could yield for grace so infinite. But now I know my unassisted wit Is all too weak to make me soar so high, For pardon, lady, for this fault I cry, And wiser still I grow, remembering it. Yea, well I see what folly 'twere to think That largess dropped from thee like dews from heaven Could e'er be paid by work so frail as mine! To nothingness my art and talent sink; He fails who from his mortal stores hath given A thousandfold to match one gift divine_. Michelangelo's next letter refers to the design for the Crucified Christ, described by Condivi. It is pleasant to find that this was sent by the hand of Cavalieri: "Lady Marchioness,--Being myself in Rome, I thought it hardly fitting to give the Crucified Christ to Messer Tommaso, and to make him an intermediary between your ladyship and me, your servant; especially because it has been my earnest wish to perform more for you than for any one I ever knew upon the world. But absorbing occupations, which still engage me, have prevented my informing your ladyship of this. Moreover, knowing that you know that love needs no taskmaster, and that he who loves doth not sleep, I thought the less of using go-betweens. And though I seemed to have forgotten, I was doing what I did not talk about in order to effect a thing that was not looked for. My purpose has been spoiled: _He sins who faith like this so soon forgets._" A sonnet which may or may not have been written at this time, but seems certainly intended for the Marchioness, shall here be given as a pendant to the letter:-- _Blest spirit, who with loving tenderness Quickenest my heart, so old and near to die, Who 'mid thy joys on me dost bend an eye, Though many nobler men around thee press! As thou wert erewhile wont my sight to bless, So to console, my mind thou now dost fly; Hope therefore stills the pangs of memory, Which, coupled with desire, my soul distress. So finding in thee grace to plead for me-- Thy thoughts for me sunk in so sad a case-- He who now writes returns thee thanks for these. Lo! it were foul and monstrous usury To send thee ugliest paintings in the place Of thy fair spirit's living phantasies. Unfortunately we possess no other document in prose addressed immediately to Vittoria. But four of her letters to him exist, and from these I will select some specimens reflecting light upon the nature of the famous intimacy. The Marchioness writes always in the tone and style of a great princess, adding that peculiar note of religious affectionateness which the French call "_onction_," and marking her strong admiration of the illustrious artist. The letters are not dated; but this matters little, since they only turn on literary courtesies exchanged, drawings presented, and pious interests in common. "Unique Master Michelangelo, and my most singular friend,--I have received your letter, and examined the crucifix, which truly hath crucified in my memory every other picture I ever saw. Nowhere could one find another figure of our Lord so well executed, so living, and so exquisitely finished. Certes, I cannot express in words how subtly and marvellously it is designed. Wherefore I am resolved to take the work as coming from no other hand but yours, and accordingly I beg you to assure me whether this is really yours or another's. Excuse the question. If it is yours, I must possess it under any conditions. In case it is not yours, and you want to have it carried out by your assistant, we will talk the matter over first. I know how extremely difficult it would be to copy it, and therefore I would rather let him finish something else than this. But if it be in fact yours, rest assured, and make the best of it, that it will never come again into your keeping. I have examined it minutely in full light and by the lens and mirror, and never saw anything more perfect.--Yours to command, "The Marchioness of Pescara." Like many grand ladies of the highest rank, even though they are poetesses, Vittoria Colonna did not always write grammatically or coherently. I am not therefore sure that I have seized the exact meaning of this diplomatical and flattering letter. It would appear, however, that Michelangelo had sent her the drawing for a crucifix, intimating that, if she liked it, he would intrust its execution to one of his workmen, perhaps Urbino. This, as we know, was a common practice adopted by him in old age, in order to avoid commissions which interfered with his main life-work at S. Peter's. The noble lady, fully aware that the sketch is an original, affects some doubt upon the subject, declines the intervention of a common craftsman, and declares her firm resolve to keep it, leaving an impression that she would gladly possess the crucifix if executed by the same hand which had supplied the masterly design. Another letter refers to the drawing of a Christ upon the cross between two angels. "Your works forcibly stimulate the judgment of all who look at them. My study of them made me speak of adding goodness to things perfect in themselves, and I have seen now that 'all is possible to him who believes.' I had the greatest faith in God that He would bestow upon you supernatural grace for the making of this Christ. When I came to examine it, I found it so marvellous that it surpasses all my expectations. Wherefore, emboldened by your miracles, I conceived a great desire for that which I now see marvellously accomplished: I mean that the design is in all parts perfect and consummate, and one could not desire more, nor could desire attain to demanding so much. I tell you that I am mighty pleased that the angel on the right hand is by far the fairer, since Michael will place you, Michelangelo, upon the right hand of our Lord at that last day. Meanwhile, I do not know how else to serve you than by making orisons to this sweet Christ, whom you have drawn so well and exquisitely, and praying you to hold me yours to command as yours in all and for all." The admiration and the good-will of the great lady transpire in these somewhat incoherent and studied paragraphs. Their verbiage leaves much to be desired in the way of logic and simplicity. It is pleasanter perhaps to read a familiar note, sent probably by the hand of a servant to Buonarroti's house in Rome. "I beg you to let me have the crucifix a short while in my keeping, even though it be unfinished. I want to show it to some gentlemen who have come from the Most Reverend the Cardinal of Mantua. If you are not working, will you not come to-day at your leisure and talk with me?--Yours to command, "The Marchioness of Pescara." It seems that Michelangelo's exchange of letters and poems became at last too urgent. We know it was his way (as in the case of Luigi del Riccio) to carry on an almost daily correspondence for some while, and then to drop it altogether when his mood changed. Vittoria, writing from Viterbo, gives him a gentle and humorous hint that he is taking up too much of her time: "Magnificent Messer Michelangelo,--I did not reply earlier to your letter, because it was, as one might say, an answer to my last: for I thought that if you and I were to go on writing without intermission according to my obligation and your courtesy, I should have to neglect the Chapel of S. Catherine here, and be absent at the appointed hours for company with my sisterhood, while you would have to leave the Chapel of S. Paul, and be absent from morning through the day from your sweet usual colloquy with painted forms, the which with their natural accents do not speak to you less clearly than the living persons round me speak to me. Thus we should both of us fail in our duty, I to the brides, you to the vicar of Christ. For these reasons, inasmuch as I am well assured of our steadfast friendship and firm affection, bound by knots of Christian kindness, I do not think it necessary to obtain the proof of your good-will in letters by writing on my side, but rather to await with well-prepared mind some substantial occasion for serving you. Meanwhile I address my prayers to that Lord of whom you spoke to me with so fervent and humble a heart when I left Rome, that when I return thither I may find you with His image renewed and enlivened by true faith in your soul, in like measure as you have painted it with perfect art in my Samaritan. Believe me to remain always yours and your Urbino's." This letter must have been written when Michelangelo was still working on the frescoes of the Cappella Paolina, and therefore before 1549. The check to his importunacy, given with genial tact by the Marchioness, might be taken, by those who believe their _liaison_ to have had a touch of passion in it, as an argument in favour of that view. The great age which Buonarroti had now reached renders this, however, improbable; while the general tenor of their correspondence is that of admiration for a great artist on the lady's side, and of attraction to a noble nature on the man's side, cemented by religious sentiment and common interests in serious topics. III All students of Michelangelo's biography are well acquainted with the Dialogues on Painting, composed by the Portuguese miniature artist, Francis of Holland. Written in the quaint style of the sixteenth century, which curiously blent actual circumstance and fact with the author's speculation, these essays present a vivid picture of Buonarroti's conferences with Vittoria Colonna and her friends. The dialogues are divided into four parts, three of which profess to give a detailed account of three several Sunday conversations in the Convent of S. Silvestro on Monte Cavallo. After describing the objects which brought him to Rome, Francis says: "Above all, Michelangelo inspired me with such esteem, that when I met him in the palace of the Pope or on the streets, I could not make my mind up to leave him until the stars forced us to retire." Indeed, it would seem from his frank admissions in another place that the Portuguese painter had become a little too attentive to the famous old man, and that Buonarroti "did all he could to shun his company, seeing that when they once came together, they could not separate." It happened one Sunday that Francis paid a visit to his friend Lattanzio Tolomei, who had gone abroad, leaving a message that he would be found in the Church of S. Silvestro, where he was hoping to hear a lecture by Brother Ambrose of Siena on the Epistles of S. Paul, in company with the Marchioness. Accordingly he repaired to this place, and was graciously received by the noble lady. She courteously remarked that he would probably enjoy a conversation with Michelangelo more than a sermon from Brother Ambrose, and after an interval of compliments a servant was sent to find him. It chanced that Buonarroti was walking with the man whom Francis of Holland calls "his old friend and colour-grinder," Urbino, in the direction of the Thermae. So the lackey, having the good chance to meet him, brought him at once to the convent. The Marchioness made him sit between her and Messer Tolomei, while Francis took up his position at a little distance. The conversation then began, but Vittoria Colonna had to use the tact for which she was celebrated before she could engage the wary old man on a serious treatment of his own art. He opened his discourse by defending painters against the common charge of being "eccentric in their habits, difficult to deal with, and unbearable; whereas, on the contrary, they are really most humane." Common people do not consider, he remarked, that really zealous artists are bound to abstain from the idle trivialities and current compliments of society, not because they are haughty or intolerant by nature, but because their art imperiously claims the whole of their energies. "When such a man shall have the same leisure as you enjoy, then I see no objection to your putting him to death if he does not observe your rules of etiquette and ceremony. You only seek his company and praise him in order to obtain honour through him for yourselves, nor do you really mind what sort of man he is, so long as kings and emperors converse with him. I dare affirm that any artist who tries to satisfy the better vulgar rather than men of his own craft, one who has nothing singular, eccentric, or at least reputed to be so, in his person, will never become a superior talent. For my part, I am bound to confess that even his Holiness sometimes annoys and wearies me by begging for too much of my company. I am most anxious to serve him, but, when there is nothing important going forward, I think I can do so better by studying at home than by dancing attendance through a whole day on my legs in his reception-rooms. He allows me to tell him so; and I may add that the serious occupations of my life have won for me such liberty of action that, in talking to the Pope, I often forget where I am, and place my hat upon my head. He does not eat me up on that account, but treats me with indulgence, knowing that it is precisely at such times that I am working hard to serve him. As for solitary habits, the world is right in condemning a man who, out of pure affectation or eccentricity, shuts himself up alone, loses his friends, and sets society against him. Those, however, who act in this way naturally, because their profession obliges them to lead a recluse life, or because their character rebels against feigned politenesses and conventional usage, ought in common justice to be tolerated. What claim by right have you on him? Why should you force him to take part in those vain pastimes, which his love for a quiet life induces him to shun? Do you not know that there are sciences which demand the whole of a man, without leaving the least portion of his spirit free for your distractions?" This apology for his own life, couched in a vindication of the artistic temperament, breathes an accent of sincerity, and paints Michelangelo as he really was, with his somewhat haughty sense of personal dignity. What he says about his absence of mind in the presence of great princes might be illustrated by a remark attributed to Clement VII. "When Buonarroti comes to see me, I always take a seat and bid him to be seated, feeling sure that he will do so without leave or license." The conversation passed by natural degrees to a consideration of the fine arts in general. In the course of this discussion, Michelangelo uttered several characteristic opinions, strongly maintaining the superiority of the Italian to the Flemish and German schools, and asserting his belief that, while all objects are worthy of imitation by the artist, the real touch stone of excellence lies in his power to represent the human form. His theory of the arts in their reciprocal relations and affinities throws interesting light upon the qualities of his own genius and his method in practice. "The science of design, or of line-drawing, if you like to use this term, is the source and very essence of painting, sculpture, architecture, and of every form of representation, as well too as of all the sciences. He who has made himself a master in this art possesses a great treasure. Sometimes, when I meditate upon these topics, it seems to me that I can discover but one art or science, which is design, and that all the works of the human brain and hand are either design itself or a branch of that art." This theme he develops at some length, showing how a complete mastery of drawing is necessary not only to the plastic arts of painting and sculpture, but also to the constructive and mechanical arts of architecture, fortification, gun-foundry, and so forth, applying the same principle to the minutest industries. With regard to the personal endowments of the artist, he maintained that "a lofty style, grave and decorous, was essential to great work. Few artists understand this, and endeavour to appropriate these qualities. Consequently we find many members of the confraternity who are only artists in name. The world encourages this confusion of ideas, since few are capable of distinguishing between a fellow who has nothing but his colour-box and brushes to make him a painter, and the really gifted natures who appear only at wide intervals." He illustrates the position that noble qualities in the artist are indispensable to nobility in the work of art, by a digression on religious painting and sculpture. "In order to represent in some degree the adored image of our Lord, it is not enough that a master should be great and able. I maintain that he must also be a man of good conduct and morals, if possible a saint, in order that the Holy Ghost may rain down inspiration on his understanding. Ecclesiastical and secular princes ought, therefore, to permit only the most illustrious among the artists of their realm to paint the benign sweetness of our Saviour, the purity of our Lady, and the virtues of the saints. It often happens that ill-executed images distract the minds of worshippers and ruin their devotion, unless it be firm and fervent. Those, on the contrary, which are executed in the high style I have described, excite the soul to contemplation and to tears, even among the least devout, by inspiring reverence and fear through the majesty of their aspect." This doctrine is indubitably sound. To our minds, nevertheless, it rings a little hollow on the lips of the great master who modelled the Christ of the Minerva and painted the Christ and Madonna of the Last Judgment. Yet we must remember that, at the exact period when these dialogues took place, Buonarroti, under the influence of his friendship with Vittoria Colonna, was devoting his best energies to the devout expression of the Passion of our Lord. It is deeply to be regretted that, out of the numerous designs which remain to us from this endeavour, all of them breathing the purest piety, no monumental work except the Pietà at Florence emerged for perpetuity. Many curious points, both of minute criticism and broad opinion, might still be gleaned from the dialogues set down by Francis of Holland. It must suffice here to resume what Michelangelo maintained about the artist's method. One of the interlocutors begged to be informed whether he thought that a master ought to aim at working slowly or quickly. "I will tell you plainly what I feel about this matter. It is both good and useful to be able to work with promptitude and address. We must regard it as a special gift from God to be able to do that in a few hours which other men can only perform in many days of labour. Consequently, artists who paint rapidly, without falling in quality below those who paint but slowly, deserve the highest commendation. Should this rapidity of execution, however, cause a man to transgress the limits of sound art, it would have been better to have proceeded with more tardiness and study. A good artist ought never to allow the impetuosity of his nature to overcome his sense of the main end of art, perfection. Therefore we cannot call slowness of execution a defect, nor yet the expenditure of much time and trouble, if this be employed with the view of attaining greater perfection. The one unpardonable fault is bad work. And here I would remind you of a thing essential to our art, which you will certainly not ignore, and to which I believe you attach the full importance it deserves. In every kind of plastic work we ought to strive with all our might at making what has cost time and labour look as though it had been produced with facility and swiftness. It sometimes happens, but rarely, that a portion of our work turns out excellent with little pains bestowed upon it. Most frequently, however, it is the expenditure of care and trouble which conceals our toil. Plutarch relates that a bad painter showed Apelles a picture, saying: 'This is from my hand; I have just made it in a moment.' The other replied: 'I should have recognised the fact without your telling me; and I marvel that you do not make a multitude of such things every day.'" Michelangelo is reported to have made a similar remark to Vasari when the latter took him to inspect some frescoes he had painted, observing that they had been dashed off quickly. We must be grateful to Francis of Holland for this picture of the Sunday-morning interviews at S. Silvestro. The place was cool and tranquil. The great lady received her guests with urbanity, and led the conversation with highbred courtesy and tact. Fra Ambrogio, having discoursed upon the spiritual doctrines of S. Paul's Epistles, was at liberty to turn an attentive ear to purely aesthetical speculations. The grave and elderly Lattanzio Tolomei added the weight of philosophy and literary culture to the dialogue. Michelangelo, expanding in the genial atmosphere, spoke frankly on the arts which he had mastered, not dictating _ex cathedra_ rules, but maintaining a note of modesty and common-sense and deference to the opinion of others. Francis engaged on equal terms in the discussion. His veneration for Buonarroti, and the eagerness with which he noted all the great man's utterances, did not prevent him from delivering lectures at a somewhat superfluous length. In short, we may fairly accept his account of these famous conferences as a truthful transcript from the refined and witty social gatherings of which Vittoria Colonna formed the centre. IV This friendship with Vittoria Colonna forms a very charming episode in the history of Michelangelo's career, and it was undoubtedly one of the consolations of his declining years. Yet too great stress has hitherto been laid on it by his biographers. Not content with exaggerating its importance in his life, they have misinterpreted its nature. The world seems unable to take interest in a man unless it can contrive to discover a love-affair in his career. The singular thing about Michelangelo is that, with the exception of Vittoria Colonna, no woman is known to have influenced his heart or head in any way. In his correspondence he never mentions women, unless they be aunts, cousins, grand-nieces, or servants. About his mother he is silent. We have no tradition regarding amours in youth or middle age; and only two words dropped by Condivi lead us to conjecture that he was not wholly insensible to the physical attractions of the female. Romancers and legend-makers have, therefore, forced Vittoria Colonna to play the rôle of Juliet in Michelangelo's life-drama. It has not occurred to these critics that there is something essentially disagreeable in the thought of an aged couple entertaining an amorous correspondence. I use these words deliberately, because poems which breathe obvious passion of no merely spiritual character have been assigned to the number he composed for Vittoria Colonna. This, as we shall see, is chiefly the fault of his first editor, who printed all the sonnets and madrigals as though they were addressed to one woman or another. It is also in part due to the impossibility of determining their exact date in the majority of instances. Verses, then, which were designed for several objects of his affection, male or female, have been indiscriminately referred to Vittoria Colonna, whereas we can only attribute a few poems with certainty to her series. This mythus of Michelangelo's passion for the Marchioness of Pescara has blossomed and brought forth fruit abundantly from a single and pathetic passage in Condivi. "In particular, he greatly loved the Marchioness of Pescara, of whose divine spirit he was enamoured, being in return dearly beloved by her. He still preserves many of her letters, breathing honourable and most tender affection, and such as were wont to issue from a heart like hers. He also wrote to her a great number of sonnets, full of wit and sweet longing. She frequently removed from Viterbo and other places, whither she had gone for solace or to pass the summer, and came to Rome with the sole object of seeing Michelangelo. He for his part, loved her so, that I remember to have heard him say that he regretted nothing except that when he went to visit her upon the moment of her passage from this life, he did not kiss her forehead or her face, as he did kiss her hand. Her death was the cause that oftentimes he dwelt astonied, thinking of it, even as a man bereft of sense." Michelangelo himself, writing immediately after Vittoria's death, speaks of her thus: "She felt the warmest affection for me, and I not less for her. Death has robbed me of a great friend." It is curious that he here uses the masculine gender: "un grande amico." He also composed two sonnets, which were in all probability inspired by the keen pain of this bereavement. To omit them here would be unjust to the memory of their friendship:-- _When my rude hammer to the stubborn stone Gives human shape, now that, now this, at will, Following his hand who wields and guides it still, It moves upon another's feet alone:_ The third illustrates in a singular manner that custom of sixteenth-century literature which Shakespeare followed in his sonnets, of weaving poetical images out of thoughts borrowed from law and business. It is also remarkable in this respect, that Michelangelo has here employed precisely the same conceit for Vittoria Colonna which he found serviceable when at an earlier date he wished to deplore the death of the Florentine, Cecchino dei Bracci. For both of them he says that Heaven bestowed upon the beloved object all its beauties, instead of scattering these broad-cast over the human race, which, had it done so, would have entailed the bankruptcy and death of all:-- _So that high heaven should have not to distrain From several that vast beauty ne'er yet shown, To one exalted dame alone The total sum was lent in her pure self:-- Heaven had made sorry gain, Recovering from the crowd its scattered pelf. Now in a puff of breath, Nay, in one second, God Hath ta'en her back through death, Back from the senseless folk and from our eyes. Yet earth's oblivious sod, Albeit her body dies, Will bury not her live words fair and holy. Ah, cruel mercy! Here thou showest solely How, had heaven lent us ugly what she took, And death the debt reclaimed, all men were broke_. Without disputing the fact that a very sincere emotion underlay these verses, it must be submitted that, in the words of Samuel Johnson about "Lycidas," "he who thus grieves will excite no sympathy; he who thus praises will confer no honour." This conviction will be enforced when we reflect that the thought upon which the madrigal above translated has been woven (1547) had been already used for Cecchino dei Bracci in 1544. It is clear that, in dealing with Michelangelo's poetical compositions, we have to accept a mass of conventional utterances, penetrated with a few firmly grasped Platonical ideas. It is only after long familiarity with his work that a man may venture to distinguish between the accents of the heart and the head-notes in the case of so great a master using an art he practised mainly as an amateur. I shall have to return to these considerations when I discuss the value of his poetry taken as a whole. The union of Michelangelo and Vittoria was beautiful and noble, based upon the sympathy of ardent and high-feeling natures. Nevertheless we must remember that when Michelangelo lost his old servant Urbino, his letters and the sonnet written upon that occasion express an even deeper passion of grief. Love is an all-embracing word, and may well be used to describe this exalted attachment, as also to qualify the great sculptor's affection for a faithful servant or for a charming friend. We ought not, however, to distort the truth of biography or to corrupt criticism, from a personal wish to make more out of his feeling than fact and probability warrant. This is what has been done by all who approached the study of Michelangelo's life and writings. Of late years, the determination to see Vittoria Colonna through every line written by him which bears the impress of strong emotion, and to suppress other aspects of his sensibility, has been so deliberate, that I am forced to embark upon a discussion which might otherwise have not been brought so prominently forward. For the understanding of his character, and for a proper estimate of his poetry, it has become indispensable to do so. V Michelangelo's best friend in Rome was a young nobleman called Tommaso Cavalieri. Speaking of his numerous allies and acquaintances, Vasari writes: "Immeasurably more than all the rest, he loved Tommaso dei Cavalieri, a Roman gentleman, for whom, as he was young and devoted to the arts, Michelangelo made many stupendous drawings of superb heads in black and red chalk, wishing him to learn the method of design. Moreover, he drew for him a Ganymede carried up to heaven by Jove's eagle, a Tityos with the vulture feeding on his heart, the fall of Phaeton with the sun's chariot into the river Po, and a Bacchanal of children; all of them things of the rarest quality, and drawings the like of which were never seen. Michelangelo made a cartoon portrait of Messer Tommaso, life-size, which was the only portrait that he ever drew, since he detested to imitate the living person, unless it was one of incomparable beauty." Several of Michelangelo's sonnets are addressed to Tommaso Cavalieri. Benedetto Varchi, in his commentary, introduces two of them with these words: "The first I shall present is one addressed to M. Tommaso Cavalieri, a young Roman of very noble birth, in whom I recognised, while I was sojourning at Rome, not only incomparable physical beauty, but so much elegance of manners, such excellent intelligence, and such graceful behaviour, that he well deserved, and still deserves, to win the more love the better he is known." Then Varchi recites the sonnet:-- Why should I seek to ease intense desire With still more tears and windy words of grief, When heaven, or late or soon, sends no relief To souls whom love hath robed around with fire? Why need my aching heart to death aspire, When all must die? Nay, death beyond belief Unto these eyes would be both sweet and brief, Since in my sum of woes all joys expire! Therefore, because I cannot shun the blow I rather seek, say who must rule my breast, Gliding between her gladness and her woe? If only chains and bands can make me blest, No marvel if alone and bare I go, An armèd KNIGHT'S captive and slave confessed. "The other shall be what follows, written perhaps for the same person, and worthy, in my opinion, not only of the ripest sage, but also of a poet not unexercised in writing verse:-- With your fair eyes a charming light I see, For which my own blind eyes would peer in vain; Stayed by your feet, the burden I sustain Which my lame feet find all too strong for me; Wingless upon your pinions forth I fly; Heavenward your sprit stirreth me to strain; E'en as you will, I blush and blanch again, Freeze in the sun, burn 'neath a frosty sky. Your will includes and is the lord of mine; Life to my thoughts within your heart is given; My words begin to breathe upon your breath: Like to the-moon am I, that cannot shine Alone; for, lo! our eyes see naught in heaven Save what the living sun illumineth." The frank and hearty feeling for a youth of singular distinction which is expressed in these sonnets, gave no offence to society during the period of the earlier Renaissance; but after the Tridentine Council social feeling altered upon this and similar topics. While morals remained what they had been, language and manners grew more nice and hypocritical. It happened thus that grievous wrong was done to the text of Michelangelo's poems, with the best intentions, by their first editor. Grotesque misconceptions, fostered by the same mistaken zeal, are still widely prevalent. When Michelangelo the younger arranged his grand-uncle's poems for the press, he was perplexed by the first of the sonnets quoted by Varchi. The last line, which runs in the Italian thus-- Resto prigion d'un Cavalier armato, has an obvious play of words upon Cavalieri's surname. This he altered into Resto prigion d'un cor di virtù armato. The reason was that, if it stood unaltered, "the ignorance of men would have occasion to murmur." "Varchi," he adds, "did wrong in printing it according to the text." "Remember well," he observes, "that this sonnet, as well as the preceding number and some others, are concerned, as is manifest, with a masculine love of the Platonic species." Michelangelo the younger's anxiety for his granduncle's memory induced him thus to corrupt the text of his poems. The same anxiety has led their latest editor to explain away the obvious sense of certain words. Signor Guasti approves of the first editor's pious fraud, on the ground that morality has higher claims than art; but he adds that the expedient was not necessary: "for these sonnets do not refer to masculine love, nor yet do any others. In the first (xxxi.) the lady is compared to an armed knight, because she carries the weapons of her sex and beauty; and while I think on it, an example occurs to my mind from Messer Cino in support of the argument. As regards the second (lxii.), those who read these pages of mine will possibly remember that Michelangelo, writing of the dead Vittoria Colonna, called her _amico;_ and on reflection, this sounds better than _amica,_ in the place where it occurs. Moreover, there are not wanting in these poems instances of the term signore, or lord, applied to the beloved lady; which is one of the many periphrastical expressions used by the Romance poets to indicate their mistress." It is true that Cino compares his lady in one sonnet to a knight who has carried off the prize of beauty in the lists of love and grace by her elegant dancing. But he never calls a lady by the name of _cavaliere._ It is also indubitable that the Tuscans occasionally addressed the female or male object of their adoration under the title of _signore,_ lord of my heart and soul. But such instances weigh nothing against the direct testimony of a contemporary like Varchi, into whose hands Michelangelo's poems came at the time of their composition, and who was well acquainted with the circumstances of their composition. There is, moreover, a fact of singular importance bearing on this question, to which Signor Guasti has not attached the value it deserves. In a letter belonging to the year 1549, Michelangelo thanks Luca Martini for a copy of Varchi's commentary on his sonnet, and begs him to express his affectionate regards and hearty thanks to that eminent scholar for the honour paid him. In a second letter addressed to G.F. Fattucci, under date October 1549, he conveys "the thanks of Messer Tomao de' Cavalieri to Varchi for a certain little book of his which has been printed, and in which he speaks very honourably of himself, and not less so of me." In neither of these letters does Michelangelo take exception to Varchi's interpretation of Sonnet xxxi. Indeed, the second proves that both he and Cavalieri were much pleased with it. Michelangelo even proceeds to inform Fattucci that Cavalieri "has given me a sonnet which I made for him in those same years, begging me to send it on as a proof and witness that he really is the man intended. This I will enclose in my present letter." Furthermore, we possess an insolent letter of Pietro Aretino, which makes us imagine that the "ignorance of the vulgar" had already begun to "murmur." After complaining bitterly that Michelangelo refused to send him any of his drawings, he goes on to remark that it would be better for the artist if he did so, "inasmuch as such an act of courtesy would quiet the insidious rumours which assert that only Gerards and Thomases can dispose of them." We have seen from Vasari that Michelangelo executed some famous designs for Tommaso Cavalieri. The same authority asserts that he presented "Gherardo Perini, a Florentine gentleman, and his very dear friend," with three splendid drawings in black chalk. Tommaso Cavalieri and Gherardo Perini, were, therefore, the "Gerards and Thomases" alluded to by Aretino. Michelangelo the younger's and Cesare Guasti's method of defending Buonarroti from a malevolence which was only too well justified by the vicious manners of the time, seems to me so really injurious to his character, that I feel bound to carry this investigation further. First of all, we ought to bear in mind what Buonarroti admitted concerning his own temperament. "You must know that I am, of all men who were ever born, the most inclined to love persons. Whenever I behold some one who possesses any talent or displays any dexterity of mind, who can do or say something more appropriately than the rest of the world, I am compelled to fall in love with him; and then I give myself up to him so entirely that I am no longer my own property, but wholly his." He mentions this as a reason for not going to dine with Luigi del Riccio in company with Donate Giannotti and Antonio Petrejo. "If I were to do so, as all of you are adorned with talents and agreeable graces, each of you would take from me a portion of myself, and so would the dancer, and so would the lute-player, if men with distinguished gifts in those arts were present. Each person would filch away a part of me, and instead of being refreshed and restored to health and gladness, as you said, I should be utterly bewildered and distraught, in such wise that for many days to come I should not know in what world I was moving." This passage serves to explain the extreme sensitiveness of the great artist to personal charm, grace, accomplishments, and throws light upon the self-abandonment with which he sometimes yielded to the attractions of delightful people. We possess a series of Michelangelo's letters addressed to or concerned with Tommaso Cavalieri, the tone of which is certainly extravagant. His biographer, Aurelio Gotti, moved by the same anxiety as Michelangelo the younger and Guasti, adopted the extraordinary theory that they were really directed to Vittoria Colonna, and were meant to be shown to her by the common friend of both, Cavalieri. "There is an epistle to this young man," he says, "so studied in its phrases, so devoid of all naturalness, that we cannot extract any rational sense from it without supposing that Cavalieri was himself a friend of the Marchioness, and that Michelangelo, while writing to him, intended rather to address his words to the Colonna." Of this letter, which bears the date of January 1, 1533, three drafts exist, proving the great pains taken by Michelangelo in its composition. "Without due consideration, Messer Tomao, my very dear lord, I was moved to write to your lordship, not by way of answer to any letter received from you, but being myself the first to make advances, as though I felt bound to cross a little stream with dry feet, or a ford made manifest by paucity of water. But now that I have left the shore, instead of the trifling river I expected, the ocean with its towering waves appears before me, so that, if it were possible, in order to avoid drowning, I would gladly retrace my steps to the dry land whence I started. Still, as I am here, I will e'en make of my heart a rock, and proceed farther; and if I shall not display the art of sailing on the sea of your powerful genius, that genius itself will excuse me, nor will be disdainful of my inferiority in parts, nor desire from me that which I do not possess, inasmuch as he who is unique in all things can have peers in none. Therefore your lordship, the light of our century without paragon upon this world, is unable to be satisfied with the productions of other men, having no match or equal to yourself. And if, peradventure, something of mine, such as I hope and promise to perform, give pleasure to your mind, I shall esteem it more fortunate than excellent; and should I be ever sure of pleasing your lordship, as is said, in any particular, I will devote the present time and all my future to your service; indeed, it will grieve me much that I cannot regain the past, in order to devote a longer space to you than the future only will allow, seeing I am now too old. I have no more to say. Read the heart, and not the letter, because 'the pen toils after man's good-will in vain.' "I have to make excuses for expressing in my first letter a marvellous astonishment at your rare genius; and thus I do so, having recognised the error I was in; for it is much the same to wonder at God's working miracles as to wonder at Rome producing divine men. Of this the universe confirms us in our faith." It is clear that Michelangelo alludes in this letter to the designs which he is known to have made for Cavalieri, and the last paragraph has no point except as an elaborate compliment addressed to a Roman gentleman. It would be quite out of place if applied to Vittoria Colonna. Gotti finds the language strained and unnatural. We cannot deny that it differs greatly from the simple diction of the writer's ordinary correspondence. But Michelangelo did sometimes seek to heighten his style, when he felt that the occasion demanded a special effort; and then he had recourse to the laboured images in vogue at that period, employing them with something of the ceremonious cumbrousness displayed in his poetry. The letters to Pietro Aretino, Niccolo Martelli, Vittoria Colonna, Francis I., Luca Martini, and Giorgio Vasari might be quoted as examples. As a postscript to this letter, in the two drafts which were finally rejected, the following enigmatical sentence is added:--"It would be permissible to give the name of the things a man presents, to him who receives them; but proper sense of what is fitting prevents it being done in this letter." Probably Michelangelo meant that he should have liked to call Cavalieri his friend, since he had already given him friendship. The next letter, July 28, 1533, begins thus:--"My dear Lord,--Had I not believed that I had made you certain of the very great, nay, measureless love I bear you, it would not have seemed strange to me nor have roused astonishment to observe the great uneasiness you show in your last letter, lest, through my not having written, I should have forgotten you. Still it is nothing new or marvellous when so many other things go counter, that this also should be topsy-turvy. For what your lordship says to me, I could say to yourself: nevertheless, you do this perhaps to try me, or to light a new and stronger flame, if that indeed were possible: but be it as it wills: I know well that, at this hour, I could as easily forget your name as the food by which I live; nay, it were easier to forget the food, which only nourishes my body miserably, than your name, which nourishes both body and soul, filling the one and the other with such sweetness that neither weariness nor fear of death is felt by me while memory preserves you to my mind. Think, if the eyes could also enjoy their portion, in what condition I should find myself." This second letter has also been extremely laboured; for we have three other turns given in its drafts to the image of food and memory. That these two documents were really addressed to Cavalieri, without any thought of Vittoria Colonna, is proved by three letters sent to Michelangelo by the young man in question. One is dated August 2, 1533, another September 2, and the third bears no date. The two which I have mentioned first belong to the summer of 1533; the third seems to be the earliest. It was clearly written on some occasion when both men were in Rome together, and at the very beginning of their friendship. I will translate them in their order. The first undated letter was sent to Michelangelo in Rome, in answer to some writing of the illustrious sculptor which we do not possess:-- "I have received from you a letter, which is the more acceptable because it was so wholly unexpected. I say unexpected, because I hold myself unworthy of such condescension in a man of your eminence. With regard to what Pierantonio spoke to you in my praise, and those things of mine which you have seen, and which you say have aroused in you no small affection for me, I answer that they were insufficient to impel a man of such transcendent genius, without a second, not to speak of a peer, upon this earth, to address a youth who was born but yesterday, and therefore is as ignorant as it is possible to be. At the same time I cannot call you a liar. I rather think then, nay, am certain, that the love you bear me is due to this, that you being a man most excellent in art, nay, art itself, are forced to love those who follow it and love it, among whom am I; and in this, according to my capacity, I yield to few. I promise you truly that you shall receive from me for your kindness affection equal, and perhaps greater, in exchange; for I never loved a man more than I do you, nor desired a friendship more than I do yours. About this, though my judgment may fail in other things, it is unerring; and you shall see the proof, except only that fortune is adverse to me in that now, when I might enjoy you, I am far from well. I hope, however, if she does not begin to trouble me again, that within a few days I shall be cured, and shall come to pay you my respects in person. Meanwhile I shall spend at least two hours a day in studying two of your drawings, which Pierantonio brought me: the more I look at them, the more they delight me; and I shall soothe my complaint by cherishing the hope which Pierantonio gave me, of letting me see other things of yours. In order not to be troublesome, I will write no more. Only I beg you remember, on occasion, to make use of me; and recommend myself in perpetuity to you.--Your most affectionate servant. "Thomao Cavaliere." The next letters were addressed to Michelangelo in Florence:--"Unique, my Lord,--I have received from you a letter, very acceptable, from which I gather that you are not a little saddened at my having written to you about forgetting. I answer that I did not write this for either of the following reasons: to wit, because you have not sent me anything, or in order to fan the flame of your affection. I only wrote to jest with you, as certainly I think I may do. Therefore, do not be saddened, for I am quite sure you will not be able to forget me. Regarding what you write to me about that young Nerli, he is much my friend, and having to leave Rome, he came to ask whether I needed anything from Florence. I said no, and he begged me to allow him to go in my name to pay you my respects, merely on account of his own desire to speak with you. I have nothing more to write, except that I beg you to return quickly. When you come you will deliver me from prison, because I wish to avoid bad companions; and having this desire, I cannot converse with any one but you. I recommend myself to you a thousand times.--Yours more than his own, "Thomao Cavaliere. "Rome, _August 2, 1533_." It appears from the third letter, also sent to Florence, that during the course of the month Michelangelo had despatched some of the drawings he made expressly for his friend:--"Unique, my Lord,--Some days ago I received a letter from you, which was very welcome, both because I learned from it that you were well, and also because I can now be sure that you will soon return. I was very sorry not to be able to answer at once. However, it consoles me to think that, when you know the cause, you will hold me excused. On the day your letter reached me, I was attacked with vomiting and such high fever that I was on the point of death; and certainly I should have died, if it (i.e., the letter) had not somewhat revived me. Since then, thank God, I have been always well. Messer Bartolommeo (Angelini) has now brought me a sonnet sent by you, which has made me feel it my duty to write. Some three days since I received my Phaëthon, which is exceedingly well done. The Pope, the Cardinal de' Medici, and every one, have seen it; I do not know what made them want to do so. The Cardinal expressed a wish to inspect all your drawings, and they pleased him so much that he said he should like to have the Tityos and Ganymede done in crystal. I could not manage to prevent him from using the Tityos, and it is now being executed by Maestro Giovanni. Hard I struggled to save the Ganymede. The other day I went, as you requested, to Fra Sebastiano. He sends a thousand messages, but only to pray you to come back.--Your affectionate, "Thomao Cavaliere. "Rome, _September 6_." All the drawings mentioned by Vasari as having been made for Cavalieri are alluded to here, except the Bacchanal of Children. Of the Phaëthon we have two splendid examples in existence, one at Windsor, the other in the collection of M. Emile Galichon. They differ considerably in details, but have the same almost mathematical exactitude of pyramidal composition. That belonging to M. Galichon must have been made in Rome, for it has this rough scrawl in Michelangelo's hand at the bottom, "Tomao, se questo scizzo non vi piace, ditelo a Urbino." He then promises to make another. Perhaps Cavalieri sent word back that he did not like something in the sketch--possibly the women writhing into trees--and that to this circumstance we owe the Windsor drawing, which is purer in style. There is a fine Tityos with the vulture at Windsor, so exquisitely finished and perfectly preserved that one can scarcely believe it passed through the hands of Maestro Giovanni. Windsor, too, possesses a very delicate Ganymede, which seems intended for an intaglio. The subject is repeated in an unfinished pen-design at the Uffizi, incorrectly attributed to Michelangelo, and is represented by several old engravings. The Infant Bacchanals again exist at Windsor, and fragmentary jottings upon the margin of other sketches intended for the same theme survive. VI A correspondence between Bartolommeo Angelini in Rome and Michelangelo in Florence during the summers of 1532 and 1533 throws some light upon the latter's movements, and also upon his friendship for Tommaso Cavalieri. The first letter of this series, written on the 21st of August 1532, shows that Michelangelo was then expected in Rome. "Fra Sebastiano says that you wish to dismount at your own house. Knowing then that there is nothing but the walls, I hunted up a small amount of furniture, which I have had sent thither, in order that you may be able to sleep and sit down and enjoy some other conveniences. For eating, you will be able to provide yourself to your own liking in the neighbourhood." From the next letter (September 18, 1532) it appears that Michelangelo was then in Rome. There ensues a gap in the correspondence, which is not resumed until July 12, 1533. It now appears that Buonarroti had recently left Rome at the close of another of his visits. Angelini immediately begins to speak of Tommaso Cavalieri. "I gave that soul you wrote of to M. Tommao, who sends you his very best regards, and begs me to communicate any letters I may receive from you to him. Your house is watched continually every night, and I often go to visit it by day. The hens and master cock are in fine feather, and the cats complain greatly over your absence, albeit they have plenty to eat." Angelini never writes now without mentioning Cavalieri. Since this name does not occur in the correspondence before the date of July 12, 1533, it is possible that Michelangelo made the acquaintance during his residence at Rome in the preceding winter. His letters to Angelini must have conveyed frequent expressions of anxiety concerning Cavalieri's affection; for the replies invariably contain some reassuring words (July 26): "Yours makes me understand how great is the love you bear him; and in truth, so far as I have seen, he does not love you less than you love him." Again (August 11, 1533): "I gave your letter to M. Thomao, who sends you his kindest remembrances, and shows the very strongest desire for your return, saying that when he is with you, then he is really happy, because he possesses all that he wishes for upon this world. So then, it seems to me that, while you are fretting to return, he is burning with desire for you to do so. Why do you not begin in earnest to make plans for leaving Florence? It would give peace to yourself and all of us, if you were here. I have seen your soul, which is in good health and under good guardianship. The body waits for your arrival." This mysterious reference to the soul, which Angelini gave, at Buonarroti's request, to young Cavalieri, and which he now describes as prospering, throws some light upon the passionate phrases of the following mutilated letter, addressed to Angelini by Michelangelo upon the 11th of October. The writer, alluding to Messer Tommao, says that, having given him his heart, he can hardly go on living in his absence: "And so, if I yearn day and night without intermission to be in Rome, it is only in order to return again to life, which I cannot enjoy without the soul." This conceit is carried on for some time, and the letter winds up with the following sentence: "My dear Bartolommeo, although you may think that I am joking with you, this is not the case. I am talking sober sense, for I have grown twenty years older and twenty pounds lighter since I have been here." This epistle, as we shall see in due course, was acknowledged. All Michelangelo's intimates in Rome became acquainted with the details of this friendship. Writing to Sebastiano from Florence in this year, he says: "I beg you, if you see Messer T. Cavalieri, to recommend me to him infinitely; and when you write, tell me something about him to keep him in my memory; for if I were to lose him from my mind, I believe that I should fall down dead straightway." In Sebastiano's letters there is one allusion to Cavalieri, who had come to visit him in the company of Bartolommeo Angelini, when he was ill. It is not necessary to follow all the references to Tommaso Cavalieri contained in Angelini's letters. They amount to little more than kind messages and warm wishes for Michelangelo's return. Soon, however, Michelangelo began to send poems, which Angelini acknowledges (September 6): "I have received the very welcome letter you wrote me, together with your graceful and beautiful sonnet, of which I kept a copy, and then sent it on to M. Thomao. He was delighted to possess it, being thereby assured that God has deigned to bestow upon him the friendship of a man endowed with so many noble gifts as you are." Again he writes (October 18): "Yours of the 12th is to hand, together with M. Thomao's letter and the most beautiful sonnets. I have kept copies, and sent them on to him for whom they were intended, because I know with what affection he regards all things that pertain to you. He promised to send an answer which shall be enclosed in this I now am writing. He is counting not the days merely, but the hours, till you return." In another letter, without date, Angelini says, "I gave your messages to M. Thomao, who replied that your presence would be dearer to him than your writing, and that if it seems to you a thousand years, to him it seems ten thousand, till you come. I received your gallant (galante) and beautiful sonnet; and though you said nothing about it, I saw at once for whom it was intended, and gave it to him. Like everything of yours, it delighted him. The tenor of the sonnet shows that love keeps you perpetually restless. I do not think this ought to be the effect of love, and so I send you one of my poor performances to prove the contrary opinion." We may perhaps assume that this sonnet was the famous No. xxxi., from the last line of which every one could perceive that Michelangelo meant it for Tommaso Cavalieri. VII It is significant that, while Michelangelo's affection for the young Roman was thus acquiring force, another friendship, which must have once been very dear to him, sprang up and then declined, but not apparently through his own fault or coldness. We hear of Febo di Poggio in the following autumn for the first and last time. Before proceeding to speak of him, I will wind up what has to be said about Tommaso Cavalieri. Not long after the date of the last letter quoted above, Michelangelo returned to Rome, and settled there for the rest of his life. He continued to the end of his days in close friendship with Cavalieri, who helped to nurse him during his last illness, who took charge of his effects after his death, and who carried on the architectural work he had begun at the Capitol. Their friendship seems to have been uninterrupted by any disagreement, except on one occasion when Michelangelo gave way to his suspicious irritability, quite at the close of his long life. This drew forth from Cavalieri the following manly and touching letter:-- "Very magnificent, my Lord,--I have noticed during several days past that you have some grievance--what, I do not know--against me. Yesterday I became certain of it when I went to your house. As I cannot imagine the cause, I have thought it best to write this, in order that, if you like, you may inform me. I am more than positive that I never offended you. But you lend easy credence to those whom perhaps you ought least to trust; and some one has possibly told you some lie, for fear I should one day reveal the many knaveries done under your name, the which do you little honour; and if you desire to know about them, you shall. Only I cannot, nor, if I could, should I wish to force myself--but I tell you frankly that if you do not want me for a friend, you can do as you like, but you cannot compel me not to be a friend to you. I shall always try to do you service; and only yesterday I came to show you a letter written by the Duke of Florence, and to lighten your burdens, as I have ever done until now. Be sure you have no better friend than me; but on this I will not dwell. Still, if you think otherwise, I hope that in a short time you will explain matters; and I know that you know I have always been your friend without the least interest of my own. Now I will say no more, lest I should seem to be excusing myself for something which does not exist, and which I am utterly unable to imagine. I pray and conjure you, by the love you bear to God, that you tell me what you have against me, in order that I may disabuse you. Not having more to write, I remain your servant, "Thomao De' Cavalieri. "From my house, November 15, 1561." It is clear from this letter, and from the relations which subsisted between Michelangelo and Cavalieri up to the day of his death, that the latter was a gentleman of good repute and honour, whose affection did credit to his friend. I am unable to see that anything but an injury to both is done by explaining away the obvious meaning of the letters and the sonnets I have quoted. The supposition that Michelangelo intended the Cavalieri letters to reach Vittoria Colonna through that friend's hands does not, indeed, deserve the complete refutation which I have given it. I am glad, however, to be able to adduce the opinion of a caustic Florentine scholar upon this topic, which agrees with my own, and which was formed without access to the original documents which I have been enabled to make use of. Fanfani says: "I have searched, but in vain, for documentary proofs of the passion which Michelangelo is supposed to have felt for Vittoria Colonna, and which she returned with ardour according to the assertion of some critics. My own belief, concurring with that of better judges than myself, is that we have here to deal with one of the many baseless stories told about him. Omitting the difficulties presented by his advanced age, it is wholly contrary to all we know about the Marchioness, and not a little damaging to her reputation for austerity, to suppose that this admirable matron, who, after the death of her husband, gave herself up to God, and abjured the commerce of the world, should, later in life, have carried on an intrigue, as the saying is, upon the sly, particularly when a third person is imposed on our credulity, acting the part of go-between and cloak in the transaction, as certain biographers of the great artist, and certain commentators of his poetry, are pleased to assert, with how much common-sense and what seriousness I will not ask." VIII The history of Luigi del Riccio's affection for a lad of Florence called Cecchino dei Bracci, since this is interwoven with Michelangelo's own biography and the criticism of his poems, may be adduced in support of the argument I am developing. Cecchino was a youth of singular promise and personal charm. His relative, the Florentine merchant, Luigi del Riccio, one of Buonarroti's most intimate friends and advisers, became devotedly attached to the boy. Michelangelo, after his return to Rome in 1534, shared this friend Luigi's admiration for Cecchino; and the close intimacy into which the two elder men were drawn, at a somewhat later period of Buonarroti's life, seems to have been cemented by their common interest in poetry and their common feeling for a charming personality. We have a letter of uncertain date, in which Michelangelo tells Del Riccio that he has sent him a madrigal, begging him, if he thinks fit, to commit the verses "to the fire--that is, to what consumes me." Then he asks him to resolve a certain problem which has occurred to his mind during the night, "for while I was saluting _our idol_ in a dream, it seemed to me that he laughed, and in the same instant threatened me; and not knowing which of these two moods I have to abide by, I beg you to find out from him; and on Sunday, when we meet again, you will inform me." Cecchino, who is probably alluded to in this letter, died at Rome on the 8th of January 1542, and was buried in the Church of Araceli. Luigi felt the blow acutely. Upon the 12th of January he wrote to his friend Donate Giannotti, then at Vicenza, in the following words:-- "Alas, my friend Donato! Our Cecchino is dead. All Rome weeps. Michelangelo is making for me the design of a decent sepulture in marble; and I pray you to write me the epitaph, and to send it to me with a consolatory letter, if time permits, for my grief has distraught me. Patience! I live with a thousand and a thousand deaths each hour. O God! How has Fortune changed her aspect!" Giannotti replied, enclosing three fine sonnets, the second of which, beginning-- _Messer Luigi mio, di noi che fia Che sian restati senza il nostro sole?_ seems to have taken Michelangelo's fancy. Many good pens in Italy poured forth laments on this occasion. We have verses written by Giovanni Aldobrandini, Carlo Gondi, Fra Paolo del Rosso, and Anton Francesco Grazzini, called Il Lasca. Not the least touching is Luigi's own threnody, which starts upon this note:-- _Idol mio, che la tua leggiadra spoglia Mi lasciasti anzi tempo._ Michelangelo, seeking to indulge his own grief and to soothe that of his friend Luigi, composed no fewer than forty-two epigrams of four lines each, in which he celebrated the beauty and rare personal sweetness of Cecchino in laboured philosophical conceits. They rank but low among his poems, having too much of scholastic trifling and too little of the accent of strong feeling in them. Certainly these pieces did not deserve the pains which Michelangelo the younger bestowed, when he altered the text of a selection from them so as to adapt their Platonic compliments to some female. Far superior is a sonnet written to Del Riccio upon the death of the youth, showing how recent had been Michelangelo's acquaintance with Cecchino, and containing an unfulfilled promise to carve his portrait:-- _Scarce had I seen for the first time his eyes, Which to your living eyes were life and light, When, closed at last in death's injurious night, He opened them on God in Paradise. I know it, and I weep--too late made wise: Yet was the fault not mine; for death's fell spite Robbed my desire of that supreme delight Which in your better memory never dies. Therefore, Luigi, if the task be mine To make unique Cecchino smile in stone For ever, now that earth hath made him dim, If the beloved within the lover shine, Since art without him cannot work alone, You must I carve to tell the world of him._ The strange blending of artificial conceits with spontaneous feeling in these poetical effusions, the deep interest taken in a mere lad like Cecchino by so many eminent personages, and the frank publicity given to a friendship based apparently upon the beauty of its object, strike us now as almost unintelligible. Yet we have the history of Shakespeare's Sonnets, and the letters addressed by Languet to young Sidney, in evidence that fashion at the end of the sixteenth century differed widely from that which prevails at the close of the nineteenth. IX Some further light may here be thrown upon Michelangelo's intimacy with young men by two fragments extracted independently from the Buonarroti Archives by Milanesi and Guasti. In the collection of the letters we find the following sorrowful epistle, written in December 1533, upon the eve of Michelangelo's departure from Florence. It is addressed to a certain Febo:-- "Febo,--Albeit you bear the greatest hatred toward my person--I know not why--I scarcely believe, because of the love I cherish for you, but probably through the words of others, to which you ought to give no credence, having proved me--yet I cannot do otherwise than write to you this letter. I am leaving Florence to-morrow, and am going to Pescia to meet the Cardinal di Cesis and Messer Baldassare. I shall journey with them to Pisa, and thence to Rome, and I shall never return again to Florence. I wish you to understand that, so long as I live, wherever I may be, I shall always remain at your service with loyalty and love, in a measure unequalled by any other friend whom you may have upon this world. "I pray God to open your eyes from some other quarter, in order that you may come to comprehend that he who desires your good more than his own welfare, is able to love, not to hate like an enemy." Milanesi prints no more of the manuscript in his edition of the Letters. But Guasti, conscientiously collecting fragments of Michelangelo's verses, gives six lines, which he found at the foot of the epistle:-- _Vo' sol del mie morir contento veggio: La terra piange, e'l ciel per me si muove; E vo' men pietà stringe ov' io sto peggio._ _O sol che scaldi il mondo in ogni dove, O Febo, o luce eterna de' mortali, Perchè a me sol ti scuri e non altrove? * * * * * Naught comforts you, I see, unless I die: Earth weeps, the heavens for me are moved to woe; You feel of grief the less, the more grieve I. O sun that warms the world where'er you go, O Febo, light eterne for mortal eyes! Why dark to me alone, elsewhere not so?_ These verses seem to have been written as part of a long Capitolo which Michelangelo himself, the elder, used indifferently in addressing Febo and his abstract "donna." Who Febo was, we do not know. But the sincere accent of the letter and the lyric cry of the rough lines leave us to imagine that he was some one for whom Michelangelo felt very tenderly in Florence. Milanesi prints this letter to Febo with the following title, "_A Febo (di Poggio)_." This proves that he at any rate knew it had been answered by some one signing "Febo di Poggio." The autograph, in an illiterate hand and badly spelt, is preserved among the Buonarroti Archives, and bears date January 14, 1534. Febo excuses himself for not having been able to call on Michelangelo the night before he left Florence, and professes to have come the next day and found him already gone. He adds that he is in want of money, both to buy clothes and to go to see the games upon the Monte. He prays for a gratuity, and winds up: "Vostro da figliuolo (yours like a son), Febo di Poggio." I will add a full translation here:-- "Magnificent M. Michelangelo, to be honoured as a father,--I came back yesterday from Pisa, whither I had gone to see my father. Immediately upon my arrival, that friend of yours at the bank put a letter from you into my hands, which I received with the greatest pleasure, having heard of your well-being. God be praised, I may say the same about myself. Afterwards I learned what you say about my being angry with you. You know well I could not be angry with you, since I regard you in the place of a father. Besides, your conduct toward me has not been of the sort to cause in me any such effect. That evening when you left Florence, in the morning I could not get away from M. Vincenzo, though I had the greatest desire to speak with you. Next morning I came to your house, and you were already gone, and great was my disappointment at your leaving Florence without my seeing you. "I am here in Florence; and when you left, you told me that if I wanted anything, I might ask it of that friend of yours; and now that M. Vincenzo is away, I am in want of money, both to clothe myself, and also to go to the Monte, to see those people fighting, for M. Vincenzo is there. Accordingly, I went to visit that friend at the bank, and he told me that he had no commission whatsoever from you; but that a messenger was starting to-night for Rome, and that an answer could come back within five days. So then, if you give him orders, he will not fail, I beseech you, then, to provide and assist me with any sum you think fit, and do not fail to answer. "I will not write more, except that with all my heart and power I recommend myself to you, praying God to keep you from harm.--Yours in the place of a son, "Febo Di Poggio. "Florence, _January 4, 154_." X In all the compositions I have quoted as illustrative of Michelangelo's relations with young men, there is a singular humility which gives umbrage to his editors. The one epistle to Gherardo Perini, cited above, contains the following phrases: "I do not feel myself of force enough to correspond to your kind letter;" "Your most faithful and poor friend." Yet there was nothing extraordinary in Cavalieri, Cecchino, Febo, or Perini, except their singularity of youth and grace, good parts and beauty. The vulgar are offended when an illustrious man pays homage to these qualities, forgetful of Shakespeare's self-abasement before Mr. W.H. and of Languet's prostration at the feet of Sidney. In the case of Michelangelo, we may find a solution of this problem, I think, in one of his sonnets. He says, writing a poem belonging very probably to the series which inspires Michelangelo the younger with alarm:-- _As one who will re-seek her home of light, Thy form immortal to this prison-house Descended, like an angel-piteous, To heal all hearts and make the whole world bright, 'Tis this that thralls my soul in love's delight, Not thy clear face of beauty glorious; For he who harbours virtue still will choose To love what neither years nor death can blight. So fares it ever with things high and rare Wrought in the sweat of nature; heaven above Showers on their birth the blessings of her prime: Nor hath God deigned to show Himself elsewhere More clearly than in human forms sublime, Which, since they image Him, alone I love._ It was not, then, to this or that young man, to this or that woman, that Michelangelo paid homage, but to the eternal beauty revealed in the mortal image of divinity before his eyes. The attitude of the mind, the quality of passion, implied in these poems, and conveyed more clumsily through the prose of the letters, may be difficult to comprehend. But until we have arrived at seizing them we shall fail to understand the psychology of natures like Michelangelo. No language of admiration is too strong, no self-humiliation too complete, for a soul which has recognised deity made manifest in one of its main attributes, beauty. In the sight of a philosopher, a poet, and an artist, what are kings, popes, people of importance, compared with a really perfect piece of God's handiwork? _From thy fair face I learn, O my loved lord, That which no mortal tongue can rightly say; The soul imprisoned in her house of clay, Holpen by thee, to God hath often soared. And though the vulgar, vain, malignant horde Attribute what their grosser wills obey, Yet shall this fervent homage that I pay, This love, this faith, pure joys for us afford. Lo, all the lovely things we find on earth, Resemble for the soul that rightly sees That source of bliss divine which gave us birth: Nor have we first-fruits or remembrances Of heaven elsewhere. Thus, loving loyally, I rise to God, and make death sweet by thee._ We know that, in some way or other, perhaps during those early years at Florence among the members of the Platonic Academy, Michelangelo absorbed the doctrines of the _Phoedrus_ and _Symposium_. His poems abound in references to the contrast between Uranian and Pandemic, celestial and vulgar, Eros. We have even one sonnet in which he distinctly states the Greek opinion that the love of women is unworthy of a soul bent upon high thoughts and virile actions. It reads like a verse transcript from the main argument of the _Symposium_:-- _Love is not always harsh and deadly sin, When love for boundless beauty makes us pine; The heart, by love left soft and infantine, Will let the shafts of God's grace enter in. Love wings and wakes the soul, stirs her to win Her flight aloft, nor e'er to earth decline; 'Tis the first step that leads her to the shrine Of Him who slakes the thirst that burns within._ _The love of that whereof I speak ascends: Woman is different far; the love of her But ill befits a heart manly and wise. The one love soars, the other earthward tends; The soul lights this, while that the senses stir; And still lust's arrow at base quarry flies._ The same exalted Platonism finds obscure but impassioned expression in this fragment of a sonnet (No. lxxix.):---- _For Love's fierce wound, and for the shafts that harm, True medicine 'twould have been to pierce my heart; But my soul's Lord owns only one strong charm, Which makes life grow where grows life's mortal smart. My Lord dealt death, when with his-powerful arm He bent Love's bow. Winged with that shaft, from Love An angel flew, cried, "Love, nay Burn! Who dies, Hath but Love's plumes whereby to soar above! Lo, I am He who from thine earliest years Toward, heaven-born Beauty raised thy faltering eyes. Beauty alone lifts live man to heaven's spheres."_ Feeling like this, Michelangelo would have been justly indignant with officious relatives and critics, who turned his _amici_ into _animi_, redirected his Cavalieri letters to the address of Vittoria Colonna, discovered Florence in Febo di Poggio, and ascribed all his emotional poems to some woman. There is no doubt that both the actions and the writings of contemporaries justified a considerable amount of scepticism regarding the purity of Platonic affections. The words and lives of many illustrious persons gave colour to what Segni stated in his History of Florence, and what Savonarola found it necessary to urge upon the people from his pulpit. But we have every reason to feel certain that, in a malicious age, surrounded by jealous rivals, with the fierce light of his transcendent glory beating round his throne, Buonarroti suffered from no scandalous reports, and maintained an untarnished character for sobriety of conduct and purity of morals. The general opinion regarding him may be gathered from Scipione Ammirati's History (under the year 1564). This annalist records the fact that "Buonarotti having lived for ninety years, there was never found through all that length of time, and with all that liberty to sin, any one who could with right and justice impute to him a stain or any ugliness of manners." How he appeared to one who lived and worked with him for a long period of intimacy, could not be better set forth than in the warm and ingenuous words of Condivi: "He has loved the beauty of the human body with particular devotion, as is natural with one who knows that beauty so completely; and has loved it in such wise that certain carnally minded men, who do not comprehend the love of beauty, except it be lascivious and indecorous, have been led thereby to think and to speak evil of him: just as though Alcibiades, that comeliest young man, had not been loved in all purity by Socrates, from whose side, when they reposed together, he was wont to say that he arose not otherwise than from the side of his own father. Oftentimes have I heard Michelangelo discoursing and expounding on the theme of love, and have afterwards gathered from those who were present upon these occasions that he spoke precisely as Plato wrote, and as we may read in Plato's works upon this subject. I, for myself, do not know what Plato says; but I know full well that, having so long and so intimately conversed with Michelangelo, I never once heard issue from that mouth words that were not of the truest honesty, and such as had virtue to extinguish in the heart of youth any disordered and uncurbed desire which might assail it. I am sure, too, that no vile thoughts were born in him, by this token, that he loved not only the beauty of human beings, but in general all fair things, as a beautiful horse, a beautiful dog, a beautiful piece of country, a beautiful plant, a beautiful mountain, a beautiful wood, and every site or thing in its kind fair and rare, admiring them with marvellous affection. This was his way; to choose what is beautiful from nature, as bees collect the honey from flowers, and use it for their purpose in their workings: which indeed was always the method of those masters who have acquired any fame in painting. That old Greek artist, when he wanted to depict a Venus, was not satisfied with the sight of one maiden only. On the contrary, he sought to study many; and culling from each the particular in which she was most perfect, to make use of these details in his Venus. Of a truth, he who imagines to arrive at any excellence without following this system (which is the source of a true theory in the arts), shoots very wide indeed of his mark." Condivi perhaps exaggerated the influence of lovely nature, horses, dogs, flowers, hills, woods, &c., on Michelangelo's genius. His work, as we know, is singularly deficient in motives drawn from any province but human beauty; and his poems and letters contain hardly a trace of sympathy with the external world. Yet, in the main contention, Condivi told the truth. Michelangelo's poems and letters, and the whole series of his works in fresco and marble, suggest no single detail which is sensuous, seductive, enfeebling to the moral principles. Their tone may be passionate; it is indeed often red-hot with a passion like that of Lucretius and Beethoven; but the genius of the man transports the mind to spiritual altitudes, where the lust of the eye and the longings of the flesh are left behind us in a lower region. Only a soul attuned to the same chord of intellectual rapture can breathe in that fiery atmosphere and feel the vibrations of its electricity. XI I have used Michelangelo's poems freely throughout this work as documents illustrative of his opinions and sentiments, and also in their bearing on the events of his life. I have made them reveal the man in his personal relations to Pope Julius II., to Vittoria Colonna, to Tommaso dei Cavalieri, to Luigi del Riccio, to Febo di Poggio. I have let them tell their own tale, when sorrow came upon him in the death of his father and Urbino, and when old age shook his lofty spirit with the thought of approaching death. I have appealed to them for lighter incidents: matters of courtesy, the completion of the Sistine vault, the statue of Night at S. Lorenzo, the subjection of Florence to the Medici, his heart-felt admiration for Dante's genius. Examples of his poetic work, so far as these can be applied to the explanation of his psychology, his theory of art, his sympathies, his feeling under several moods of passion, will consequently be found scattered up and down by volumes. Translation, indeed, is difficult to the writer, and unsatisfactory to the reader. But I have been at pains to direct an honest student to the original sources, so that he may, if he wishes, compare my versions with the text. Therefore I do not think it necessary to load this chapter with voluminous citations. Still, there remains something to be said about Michelangelo as poet, and about the place he occupies as poet in Italian literature. The value of Michelangelo's poetry is rather psychological than purely literary. He never claimed to be more than an amateur, writing to amuse himself. His style is obscure, crabbed, ungrammatical. Expression only finds a smooth and flowing outlet when the man's nature is profoundly stirred by some powerful emotion, as in the sonnets to Cavalieri, or the sonnets on the deaths of Vittoria Colonna and Urbino, or the sonnets on the thought of his own death. For the most part, it is clear that he found great difficulty in mastering his thoughts and images. This we discover from the innumerable variants of the same madrigal or sonnet which he made, and his habit of returning to them at intervals long after their composition. A good fourth of the Codex Vaticanus consists of repetitions and _rifacimenti_. He was also wont to submit what he wrote to the judgment of his friends, requesting them to alter and improve. He often had recourse to Luigi del Riccio's assistance in such matters. I may here adduce an inedited letter from two friends in Rome, Giovanni Francesco Bini and Giovanni Francesco Stella, who returned a poem they had handled in this manner: "We have done our best to alter some things in your sonnet, but not to set it all to rights, since there was not much wanting. Now that it is changed or put in order, according as the kindness of your nature wished, the result will be more due to your own judgment than to ours, since you have the true conception of the subject in your mind. We shall be greatly pleased if you find yourself as well served as we earnestly desire that you should command us." It was the custom of amateur poets to have recourse to literary craftsmen before they ventured to circulate their compositions. An amusing instance of this will be found in Professor Biagi's monograph upon Tullia d'Aragona, all of whose verses passed through the crucible of Benedetto Varchi's revision. The thoughts and images out of which Michelangelo's poetry is woven are characteristically abstract and arid. He borrows no illustrations from external nature. The beauty of the world and all that lives in it might have been non-existent so far as he was concerned. Nor do his octave stanzas in praise of rural life form an exception to this statement; for these are imitated from Poliziano, so far as they attempt pictures of the country, and their chief poetical feature is the masque of vices belonging to human nature in the city. His stock-in-trade consists of a few Platonic notions and a few Petrarchan antitheses. In the very large number of compositions which are devoted to love, this one idea predominates: that physical beauty is a direct beam sent from the eternal source of all reality, in order to elevate the lover's soul and lead him on the upward path toward heaven. Carnal passion he regards with the aversion of an ascetic. It is impossible to say for certain to whom these mystical love-poems were addressed. Whether a man or a woman is in the case (for both were probably the objects of his aesthetical admiration), the tone of feeling, the language, and the philosophy do not vary. He uses the same imagery, the same conceits, the same abstract ideas for both sexes, and adapts the leading motive which he had invented for a person of one sex to a person of the other when it suits his purpose. In our absolute incapacity to fix any amative connection upon Michelangelo, or to link his name with that of any contemporary beauty, we arrive at the conclusion, strange as this may be, that the greater part of his love-poetry is a scholastic exercise upon emotions transmuted into metaphysical and mystical conceptions. Only two pieces in the long series break this monotony by a touch of realism. They are divided by a period of more than thirty years. The first seems to date from an early epoch of his life:-- _What joy hath yon glad wreath of flowers that is Around her golden hair so deftly twined, Each blossom pressing forward from behind, As though to be the first her brows to kiss! The livelong day her dress hath perfect bliss, That now reveals her breast, now seems to bind: And that fair woven net of gold refined Rests on her cheek and throat in happiness! Yet still more blissful seems to me the band, Gilt at the tips, so sweetly doth it ring, And clasp the bosom that it serves to lace: Yea, and the belt, to such as understand, Bound round her waist, saith: Here I'd ever cling! What would my arms do in that girdle's place?_ The second can be ascribed with probability to the year 1534 or 1535. It is written upon the back of a rather singular letter addressed to him by a certain Pierantonio, when both men were in Rome together:-- _Kind to the world, but to itself unkind, A worm is born, that, dying noiselessly, Despoils itself to clothe fair limbs, and be In its true worth alone by death divined. Would I might die for my dear lord to find Raiment in my outworn mortality; That, changing like the snake, I might be free To cast the slough wherein I dwell confined! Nay, were it mine, that shaggy fleece that stays, Woven and wrought into a vestment fair, Around yon breast so beauteous in such bliss! All through the day thou'd have me! Would I were The shoes that bear that burden! when the ways Were wet with rain, thy feet I then should kiss!_ I have already alluded to the fact that we can trace two widely different styles of writing in Michelangelo's poetry. Some of his sonnets, like the two just quoted, and those we can refer with certainty to the Cavalieri series, together with occasional compositions upon the deaths of Cecchino and Urbino, seem to come straight from the heart, and their manuscripts offer few variants to the editor. Others, of a different quality, where he is dealing with Platonic subtleties or Petrarchan conceits, have been twisted into so many forms, and tortured by such frequent re-handlings, that it is difficult now to settle a final text. The Codex Vaticanus is peculiarly rich in examples of these compositions. Madrigal lvii. and Sonnet lx., for example, recur with wearisome reiteration. These laboured and scholastic exercises, unlike the more spontaneous utterances of his feelings, are worked up into different forms, and the same conceits are not seldom used for various persons and on divers occasions. One of the great difficulties under which a critic labours in discussing these personal poems is that their chronology cannot be ascertained in the majority of instances. Another is that we are continually hampered by the false traditions invented by Michelangelo the younger. Books like Lannan Rolland's "Michel-Ange et Vittoria Colonna" have no value whatsoever, because they are based upon that unlucky grand-nephew's deliberately corrupted text. Even Wadsworth's translations, fine as they are, have lost a large portion of their interest since the publication of the autographs by Cesare Guasti in 1863. It is certain that the younger Michelangelo meant well to his illustrious ancestor. He was anxious to give his rugged compositions the elegance and suavity of academical versification. He wished also to defend his character from the imputation of immorality. Therefore he rearranged the order of stanzas in the longer poems, pieced fragments together, changed whole lines, ideas, images, amplified and mutilated, altered phrases which seemed to him suspicious. Only one who has examined the manuscripts of the Buonarroti Archives knows what pains he bestowed upon this ungrateful and disastrous task. But the net result of his meddlesome benevolence is that now for nearly three centuries the greatest genius of the Italian Renaissance has worn a mask concealing the real nature of his emotion, and that a false legend concerning his relations to Vittoria Colonna has become inextricably interwoven with the story of his life. The extraordinary importance attached by Michelangelo in old age to the passions of his youth is almost sufficient to justify those psychological investigators who regard him as the subject of a nervous disorder. It does not seem to be accounted for by anything known to us regarding his stern and solitary life, his aloofness from the vulgar, and his self-dedication to study. In addition to the splendid devotional sonnets addressed to Vasari, which will appear in their proper place, I may corroborate these remarks by the translation of a set of three madrigals bearing on the topic. _Ah me, ah me! how have I been betrayed By my swift-flitting years, and by the glass, Which yet tells truth to those who firmly gaze! Thus happens it when one too long delays, As I have done, nor feels time fleet and, fade:-- One morn he finds himself grown old, alas! To gird my loins, repent, my path repass, Sound counsel take, I cannot, now death's near; Foe to myself, each tear, Each sigh, is idly to the light wind sent, For there's no loss to equal time ill-spent. Ah me, ah me! I wander telling o'er Past years, and yet in all I cannot view One day that might be rightly reckoned mine. Delusive hopes and vain desires entwine My soul that loves, weeps, burns, and sighs full sore. Too well I know and prove that this is true, Since of man's passions none to me are new. Far from the truth my steps have gone astray, In peril now I stay, For, lo! the brief span of my life is o'er. Yet, were it lengthened, I should love once more. Ah me! I wander tired, and know not whither: I fear to sight my goal, the years gone by Point it too plain; nor will closed eyes avail. Now Time hath changed and gnawed this mortal veil, Death and the soul in conflict strive together About my future fate that looms so nigh. Unless my judgment greatly goes awry, Which God in mercy grant, I can but see Eternal penalty Waiting my wasted will, my misused mind, And know not, Lord, where health and hope to find._ After reading these lamentations, it is well to remember that Michelangelo at times indulged a sense of humour. As examples of his lighter vein, we might allude to the sonnet on the Sistine and the capitolo in answer to Francesco Berni, written in the name of Fra Sebastiano. Sometimes his satire becomes malignant, as in the sonnet against the people of Pistoja, which breathes the spirit of Dantesque invective. Sometimes the fierceness of it is turned against himself, as in the capitolo upon old age and its infirmities. The grotesqueness of this lurid descant on senility and death is marked by something rather Teutonic than Italian, a "Danse Macabre" intensity of loathing; and it winds up with the bitter reflections, peculiar to him in his latest years, upon the vanity of art. "My much-prized art, on which I relied and which brought me fame, has now reduced me to this. I am poor and old, the slave of others. To the dogs I must go, unless I die quickly." A proper conclusion to this chapter may be borrowed from the peroration of Varchi's discourse upon the philosophical love-poetry of Michelangelo. This time he chooses for his text the second of those sonnets (No. lii.) which caused the poet's grand-nephew so much perplexity, inducing him to alter the word _amici_ in the last line into _animi_. It runs as follows:-- _I saw no mortal beauty with these eyes When perfect peace in thy fair eyes I found; But far within, where all is holy ground, My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies: For she was born with God in Paradise; Else should we still to transient love be bound; But, finding these so false, we pass beyond Unto the Love of loves that never dies. Nay, things that die cannot assuage the thirst Of souls undying; nor Eternity Serves Time, where all must fade that flourisheth _Sense is not love, but lawlessness accurst: This kills the soul; while our love lifts on high Our friends on earth--higher in heaven through death._ "From this sonnet," says Varchi, "I think that any man possessed of judgment will be able to discern to what extent this angel, or rather archangel, in addition to his three first and most noble professions of architecture, sculpture, and painting, wherein without dispute he not only eclipses all the moderns, but even surpasses the ancients, proves himself also excellent, nay singular, in poetry, and in the true art of loving; the which art is neither less fair nor less difficult, albeit it be more necessary and more profitable than the other four. Whereof no one ought to wonder: for this reason; that, over and above what is manifest to everybody, namely that nature, desirous of exhibiting her utmost power, chose to fashion a complete man, and (as the Latins say) one furnished in all proper parts; he, in addition to the gifts of nature, of such sort and so liberally scattered, added such study and a diligence so great that, even had he been by birth most rugged, he might through these means have become consummate in all virtue: and supposing he were born, I do not say in Florence and of a very noble family, in the time too of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who recognised, willed, knew, and had the power to elevate so vast a genius; but in Scythia, of any stock or stem you like, under some commonplace barbarian chief, a fellow not disdainful merely, but furiously hostile to all intellectual ability; still, in all circumstances, under any star, he would have been Michelangelo, that is to say, the unique painter, the singular sculptor, the most perfect architect, the most excellent poet, and a lover of the most divinest. For the which reasons I (it is now many years ago), holding his name not only in admiration, but also in veneration, before I knew that he was architect already, made a sonnet; with which (although it be as much below the supreme greatness of his worth as it is unworthy of your most refined and chastened ears) I mean to close this present conference; reserving the discussion on the arts (in obedience to our Consul's orders) for another lecture. _Illustrious sculptor, 'twas enough and more, Not with the chisel-and bruised bronze alone, But also with brush, colour, pencil, tone, To rival, nay, surpass that fame of yore. But now, transcending what those laurels bore Of pride and beauty for our age and zone. You climb of poetry the third high throne, Singing love's strife and-peace, love's sweet and sore. O wise, and dear to God, old man well born, Who in so many, so fair ways, make fair This world, how shall your dues be dully paid? Doomed by eternal charters to adorn Nature and art, yourself their mirror are, None, first before, nor second after, made."_ In the above translation of Varchi's peroration I have endeavoured to sustain those long-winded periods of which he was so perfect and professed a master. We must remember that he actually read this dissertation before the Florentine Academy on the second Sunday in Lent, in the year 1546, when Michelangelo was still alive and hearty. He afterwards sent it to the press; and the studied trumpet-tones of eulogy, conferring upon Michelangelo the quintuple crown of pre-eminence in painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and loving, sounded from Venice down to Naples. The style of the oration may strike us as _rococo_ now, but the accent of praise and appreciation is surely genuine. Varchi's enthusiastic comment on the sonnets xxx, xxxi, and lii, published to men of letters, taste, and learning in Florence and all Italy, is the strongest vindication of their innocence against editors and scholars who in various ways have attempted to disfigure or to misconstrue them. CHAPTER XIII I The correspondence which I used in the eleventh chapter, while describing Michelangelo's difficulties regarding the final contract with the Duke of Urbino, proves that he had not begun to paint the frescoes of the Cappella Paolina in October 1542. They were carried on with interruptions during the next seven years. These pictures, the last on which his talents were employed, are two large subjects: the Conversion of S. Paul, and the Martyrdom of S. Peter. They have suffered from smoke and other injuries of time even more than the frescoes of the Sistine, and can now be scarcely appreciated owing to discoloration. Nevertheless, at no period, even when fresh from the master's hand, can they have been typical of his style. It is true that contemporaries were not of this opinion. Condivi calls both of them "stupendous not only in the general exposition of the histories but also in the details of each figure." It is also true that the technical finish of these large compositions shows a perfect mastery of painting, and that the great designer has not lost his power of dealing at will with the human body. But the frigidity of old age had fallen on his feeling and imagination. The faces of his saints and angels here are more inexpressive than those of the Last Judgment. The type of form has become still more rigidly schematic. All those figures in violent attitudes have been invented in the artist's brain without reference to nature; and the activity of movement which he means to suggest, is frozen, petrified, suspended. The suppleness, the elasticity, the sympathy with which Michelangelo handled the nude, when he began to paint in the Sistine Chapel, have disappeared. We cannot refrain from regretting that seven years of his energetic old age should have been devoted to work so obviously indicative of decaying faculties. The Cappella Paolina ran a risk of destruction by fire during the course of his operations there. Michelangelo wrote to Del Riccio in 1545, reminding him that part of the roof had been consumed, and that it would be necessary to cover it in roughly at once, since the rain was damaging the frescoes and weakening the walls. When they were finished, Paul III. appointed an official guardian with a fixed salary, whose sole business it should be "to clean the frescoes well and keep them in a state of cleanliness, free from dust and other impurities, as also from the smoke of candles lighted in both chapels during divine service." This man had charge of the Sistine as well as the Pauline Chapel; but his office does not seem to have been continued after the death of the Farnese. The first guardian nominated was Buonarroti's favourite servant Urbino. Vasari, after describing these frescoes in some detail, but without his customary enthusiasm, goes on to observe: "Michelangelo attended only, as I have elsewhere said, to the perfection of art. There are no landscapes, nor trees, nor houses; nor again do we find in his work that variety of movement and prettiness which may be noticed in the pictures of other men. He always neglected such decoration, being unwilling to lower his lofty genius to these details." This is indeed true of the arid desert of the Pauline frescoes. Then he adds: "They were his last productions in painting. He was seventy-five years old when he carried them to completion; and, as he informed me, he did so with great effort and fatigue--painting, after a certain age, and especially fresco-painting, not being in truth fit work for old men." The first of two acute illnesses, which showed that Michelangelo's constitution was beginning to give way, happened in the summer of 1544. On this occasion Luigi del Riccio took him into his own apartments at the Casa Strozzi; and here he nursed him with such personal devotion that the old man afterwards regarded Del Riccio as the saviour of his life. We learn this from the following pathetic sonnet:-- _It happens that the sweet unfathomed sea Of seeming courtesy sometimes doth hide Offence to life and honour. This descried, I hold less dear the health restored to me. He who lends wings of hope, while secretly He spreads a traitorous snare by the wayside, Hath dulled the flame of love, and mortified Friendship where friendship burns most fervently. Keep then, my dear Luigi, clear and fare, That ancient love to which my life I owe, That neither wind nor storm its calm may mar. For wrath and pain our gratitude obscure; And if the truest truth of love I know, One pang outweighs a thousand pleasures far._ Ruberto Strozzi, who was then in France, wrote anxiously inquiring after his health. In reply, Michelangelo sent Strozzi a singular message by Luigi del Riccio, to the effect that "if the king of France restored Florence to liberty, he was ready to make his statue on horseback out of bronze at his own cost, and set it up in the Piazza." This throws some light upon a passage in a letter addressed subsequently to Lionardo Buonarroti, when the tyrannous law, termed "La Polverina," enacted against malcontents by the Duke Cosimo de' Medici, was disturbing the minds of Florentine citizens. Michelangelo then wrote as follows: "I am glad that you gave me news of the edict; because, if I have been careful up to this date in my conversation with exiles, I shall take more precautions for the future. As to my having been laid up with an illness in the house of the Strozzi, I do not hold that I was in their house, but in the apartment of Messer Luigi del Riccio, who was my intimate friend; and after the death of Bartolommeo Angelini, I found no one better able to transact my affairs, or more faithfully, than he did. When he died, I ceased to frequent the house, as all Rome can bear me witness; as they can also with regard to the general tenor of my life, inasmuch as I am always alone, go little around, and talk to no one, least of all to Florentines. When I am saluted on the open street, I cannot do less than respond with fair words and pass upon my way. Had I knowledge of the exiles, who they are, I would not reply to them in any manner. As I have said, I shall henceforward protect myself with diligence, the more that I have so much else to think about that I find it difficult to live." This letter of 1548, taken in connection with the circumstances of Michelangelo's illness in 1544, his exchange of messages with Ruberto degli Strozzi, his gift of the two Captives to that gentleman, and his presence in the house of the Strozzi during his recovery, shows the delicacy of the political situation at Florence under Cosimo's rule. Slight indications of a reactionary spirit in the aged artist exposed his family to peril. Living in Rome, Michelangelo risked nothing with the Florentine government. But "La Polverina" attacked the heirs of exiles in their property and persons. It was therefore of importance to establish his non-complicity in revolutionary intrigues. Luckily for himself and his nephew, he could make out a good case and defend his conduct. Though Buonarroti's sympathies and sentiments inclined him to prefer a republic in his native city, and though he threw his weight into that scale at the crisis of the siege, he did not forget his early obligations to the House of Medici. Clement VII. accepted his allegiance when the siege was over, and set him immediately to work at the tasks he wished him to perform. What is more, the Pope took pains and trouble to settle the differences between him and the Duke of Urbino. The man had been no conspirator. The architect and sculptor was coveted by every pope and prince in Italy. Still there remained a discord between his political instincts, however prudently and privately indulged, and his sense of personal loyalty to the family at whose board he sat in youth, and to whom he owed his advancement in life. Accordingly, we shall find that, though the Duke of Tuscany made advances to win him back to Florence, Michelangelo always preferred to live and die on neutral ground in Rome. Like the wise man that he was, he seems to have felt through these troublous times that his own duty, the service laid on him by God and nature, was to keep his force and mental faculties for art; obliging old patrons in all kindly offices, suppressing republican aspirations--in one word, "sticking to his last," and steering clear of shoals on which the main raft of his life might founder. From this digression, which was needful to explain his attitude toward Florence and part of his psychology, I return to the incidents of Michelangelo's illness at Rome in 1544. Lionardo, having news of his uncle's danger, came post-haste to Rome. This was his simple duty, as a loving relative. But the old man, rendered suspicious by previous transactions with his family, did not take the action in its proper light. We have a letter, indorsed by Lionardo in Rome as received upon the 11th of July, to this effect: "Lionardo, I have been ill; and you, at the instance of Ser Giovan Francesco (probably Fattucci), have come to make me dead, and to see what I have left. Is there not enough of mine at Florence to content you? You cannot deny that you are the image of your father, who turned me out of my own house in Florence. Know that I have made a will of such tenor that you need not trouble your head about what I possess at Rome. Go then with God, and do not present yourself before me; and do not write to me again, and act like the priest in the fable." The correspondence between uncle and nephew during the next months proves that this furious letter wrought no diminution of mutual regard and affection. Before the end of the year he must have recovered, for we find him writing to Del Riccio: "I am well again now, and hope to live yet some years, seeing that God has placed my health under the care of Maestro Baccio Rontini and the trebbian wine of the Ulivieri." This letter is referred to January 1545, and on the 9th of that month he dictated a letter to his friend Del Riccio, in which he tells Lionardo Buonarroti: "I do not feel well, and cannot write. Nevertheless I have recovered from my illness, and suffer no pain now." We have reason to think that Michelangelo fell gravely ill again toward the close of 1545. News came to Florence that he was dying; and Lionardo, not intimidated by his experience on the last occasion, set out to visit him. His _ricordo_ of the journey was as follows: "I note how on the 15th of January 1545 (Flor. style, _i.e._ 1546) I went to Rome by post to see Michelangelo, who was ill, and returned to-day, the 26th." It is not quite easy to separate the records of these two acute illnesses of Michelangelo, falling between the summer of 1544 and the early spring of 1546. Still, there is no doubt that they signalised his passage from robust old age into a period of physical decline. Much of life survived in the hero yet; he had still to mould S. Peter's after his own mind, and to invent the cupola. Intellectually he suffered no diminution, but he became subject to a chronic disease of the bladder, and adopted habits suited to decaying faculty. II We have seen that Michelangelo regarded Luigi del Riccio as his most trusty friend and adviser. The letters which he wrote to him during these years turn mainly upon business or poetical compositions. Some, however, throw light upon the private life of both men, and on the nature of their intimacy. I will select a few for special comment here. The following has no date; but it is interesting, because we may connect the feeling expressed in it with one of Michelangelo's familiar sonnets. "Dear Messer Luigi, since I know you are as great a master of ceremonies as I am unfit for that trade, I beg you to help me in a little matter. Monsignor di Todi (Federigo Cesi, afterwards Cardinal of S. Pancrazio) has made me a present, which Urbino will describe to you. I think you are a friend of his lordship: will you then thank him in my name, when you find a suitable occasion, and do so with those compliments which come easily to you, and to me are very hard? Make me too your debtor for some tartlet." The sonnet is No. ix of Signor Guasti's edition. I have translated it thus:-- _The sugar, candles, and the saddled mule, Together with your cask of malvoisie, So far exceed all my necessity That Michael and not I my debt must rule. In such a glassy calm the breezes fool My sinking sails, so that amid the sea My bark hath missed her way, and seems to be A wisp of straw whirled on a weltering pool. To yield thee gift for gift and grace for grace, For food and drink and carriage to and fro, For all my need in every time and place, O my dear lord, matched with the much I owe, All that I am were no real recompense: Paying a debt is not munificence._ In the chapter upon Michelangelo's poetry I dwelt at length upon Luigi del Riccio's passionate affection for his cousin, Cecchino dei Bracci. This youth died at the age of sixteen, on January 8, 1545. Michelangelo undertook to design "the modest sepulchre of marble" erected to his memory by Del Riccio in the church of Araceli. He also began to write sonnets, madrigals, and epitaphs, which were sent from day to day. One of his letters gives an explanation of the eighth epitaph: "Our dead friend speaks and says: if the heavens robbed all beauty from all other men on earth to make me only, as indeed they made me, beautiful; and if by the divine decree I must return at doomsday to the shape I bore in life, it follows that I cannot give back the beauty robbed from others and bestowed on me, but that I must remain for ever more beautiful than the rest, and they be ugly. This is just the opposite of the conceit you expressed to me yesterday; the one is a fable, the other is the truth." Some time in 1545 Luigi went to Lyons on a visit to Ruberto Strozzi and Giuliano de' Medici. This seems to have happened toward the end of the year; for we possess a letter indorsed by him, "sent to Lyons, and returned upon the 22nd of December." This document contains several interesting details. "All your friends are extremely grieved to hear about your illness, the more so that we cannot help you; especially Messer Donato (Giannotti) and myself. However, we hope that it may turn out to be no serious affair, God willing. In another letter I told you that, if you stayed away long, I meant to come to see you. This I repeat; for now that I have lost the Piacenza ferry, and cannot live at Rome without income, I would rather spend the little that I have in hostelries, than crawl about here, cramped up like a penniless cripple. So, if nothing happens, I have a mind to go to S. James of Compostella after Easter; and if you have not returned, I should like to travel through any place where I shall hear that you are staying. Urbino has spoken to Messer Aurelio, and will speak again. From what he tells me, I think that you will get the site you wanted for the tomb of Cecchino. It is nearly finished, and will turn out handsome." Michelangelo's project of going upon pilgrimage to Galicia shows that his health was then good. But we know that he soon afterwards had another serious illness; and the scheme was abandoned. This long and close friendship with Luigi comes to a sudden termination in one of those stormy outbursts of petulant rage which form a special feature of Michelangelo's psychology. Some angry words passed between them about an engraving, possibly of the Last Judgment, which Buonarroti wanted to destroy, while Del Riccio refused to obliterate the plate:-- "Messer Luigi,--You seem to think I shall reply according to your wishes, when the case is quite the contrary. You give me what I have refused, and refuse me what I begged. And it is not ignorance which makes you send it me through Ercole, when you are ashamed to give it me yourself. One who saved my life has certainly the power to disgrace me; but I do not know which is the heavier to bear, disgrace or death. Therefore I beg and entreat you, by the true friendship which exists between us, to spoil that print (_stampa_), and to burn the copies that are already printed off. And if you choose to buy and sell me, do not so to others. If you hack me into a thousand pieces, I will do the same, not indeed to yourself, but to what belongs to you. "Michelangelo Buonarroti. "Not painter, nor sculptor, nor architect, but what you will, but not a drunkard, as you said at your house." Unfortunately, this is the last of the Del Riccio's letters. It is very probable that the irascible artist speedily recovered his usual tone, and returned to amity with his old friend. But Del Riccio departed this life toward the close of this year, 1546. Before resuming the narrative of Michelangelo's art-work at this period, I must refer to the correspondence which passed between him and King Francis I. The King wrote an epistle in the spring of 1546, requesting some fine monument from the illustrious master's hand. Michelangelo replied upon the 26th of April, in language of simple and respectful dignity, fine, as coming from an aged artist to a monarch on the eve of death:-- "Sacred Majesty,--I know not which is greater, the favour, or the astonishment it stirs in me, that your Majesty should have deigned to write to a man of my sort, and still more to ask him for things of his which are all unworthy of the name of your Majesty. But be they what they may, I beg your Majesty to know that for a long while since I have desired to serve you; but not having had an opportunity, owing to your not being in Italy, I have been unable to do so. Now I am old, and have been occupied these many months with the affairs of Pope Paul. But if some space of time is still granted to me after these engagements, I will do my utmost to fulfil the desire which, as I have said above, has long inspired me: that is, to make for your Majesty one work in marble, one in bronze, and one in painting. And if death prevents my carrying out this wish, should it be possible to make statues or pictures in the other world, I shall not fail to do so there, where there is no more growing old. And I pray God that He grant your Majesty a long and a happy life." Francis died in 1547; and we do not know that any of Michelangelo's works passed directly into his hands, with the exception of the Leda, purchased through the agency of Luigi Alamanni, and the two Captives, presented by Ruberto Strozzi. III The absorbing tasks imposed upon Buonarroti's energies by Paul III., which are mentioned in this epistle to the French king, were not merely the frescoes of the Cappella Paolina, but also various architectural and engineering schemes of some importance. It is clear, I think, that at this period of his hale old age, Michelangelo preferred to use what still survived in him of vigour and creative genius for things requiring calculation, or the exercise of meditative fancy. The time had gone by when he could wield the brush and chisel with effective force. He was tired of expressing his sense of beauty and the deep thoughts of his brain in sculptured marble or on frescoed surfaces. He had exhausted the human form as a symbol of artistic utterance. But the extraordinary richness of his vein enabled him still to deal with abstract mathematical proportions in the art of building, and with rhythms in the art of writing. His best work, both as architect and poet, belongs to the period when he had lost power as sculptor and painter. This fact is psychologically interesting. Up to the age of seventy, he had been working in the plastic and the concrete. The language he had learned, and used with overwhelming mastery, was man: physical mankind, converted into spiritual vehicle by art. His grasp upon this region failed him now. Perhaps there was not the old sympathy with lovely shapes. Perhaps he knew that he had played on every gamut of that lyre. Emerging from the sphere of the sensuous, where ideas take plastic embodiment, he grappled in this final stage of his career with harmonical ratios and direct verbal expression, where ideas are disengaged from figurative form. The men and women, loved by him so long, so wonderfully wrought into imperishable shapes, "nurslings of immortality," recede. In their room arise, above the horizon of his intellect, the cupola of S. Peter's and a few imperishable poems, which will live as long as Italian claims a place among the languages. There is no comparison to be instituted between his actual achievements as a builder and a versifier. The whole tenor of his life made him more competent to deal with architecture than with literature. Nevertheless, it is significant that the versatile genius of the man was henceforth restricted to these two channels of expression, and that in both of them his last twenty years of existence produced bloom and fruit of unexpected rarity. After writing this paragraph, and before I engage in the narrative of what is certainly the final manifestation of Michelangelo's genius as a creative artist, I ought perhaps to pause, and to give some account of those survivals from his plastic impulse, which occupied the old man's energies for several years. They were entirely the outcome of religious feeling; and it is curious to notice that he never approached so nearly to true Christian sentiment as in the fragmentary designs which we may still abundantly collect from this late autumn of his artist's life. There are countless drawings for some great picture of the Crucifixion, which was never finished: exquisite in delicacy of touch, sublime in conception, dignified in breadth and grand repose of style. Condivi tells us that some of these were made for the Marchioness of Pescara. But Michelangelo must have gone on producing them long after her death. With these phantoms of stupendous works to be, the Museums of Europe abound. We cannot bring them together, or condense them into a single centralised conception. Their interest consists in their divergence and variety, showing the continuous poring of the master's mind upon a theme he could not definitely grasp. For those who love his work, and are in sympathy with his manner, these drawings, mostly in chalk, and very finely handled, have a supreme interest. They show him, in one sense, at his highest and his best, not only as a man of tender feeling, but also as a mighty draughtsman. Their incompleteness testifies to something pathetic--the humility of the imperious man before a theme he found to be beyond the reach of human faculty. The tone, the _Stimmung_, of these designs corresponds so exactly to the sonnets of the same late period, that I feel impelled at this point to make his poetry take up the tale. But, as I cannot bring the cloud of witnesses of all those drawings into this small book, so am I unwilling to load its pages with poems which may be found elsewhere. Those who care to learn the heart of Michelangelo, when he felt near to God and face to face with death, will easily find access to the originals. Concerning the Deposition from the Cross, which now stands behind the high altar of the Florentine Duomo, Condivi writes as follows: "At the present time he has in hand a work in marble, which he carries on for his pleasure, as being one who, teeming with conceptions, must needs give birth each day to some of them. It is a group of four figures larger than life. A Christ taken from the cross, sustained in death by his Mother, who is represented in an attitude of marvellous pathos, leaning up against the corpse with breast, with arms, and lifted knee. Nicodemus from above assists her, standing erect and firmly planted, propping the dead Christ with a sturdy effort; while one of the Maries, on the left side, though plunged in sorrow, does all she can to assist the afflicted Mother, failing under the attempt to raise her Son. It would be quite impossible to describe the beauty of style displayed in this group, or the sublime emotions expressed in those woe-stricken countenances. I am confident that the Pietà is one of his rarest and most difficult masterpieces; particularly because the figures are kept apart distinctly, nor does the drapery of the one intermingle with that of the others." This panegyric is by no means pitched too high. Justice has hardly been done in recent times to the noble conception, the intense feeling, and the broad manner of this Deposition. That may be due in part to the dull twilight in which the group is plunged, depriving all its lines of salience and relief. It is also true that in certain respects the composition is fairly open to adverse criticism. The torso of Christ overweighs the total scheme; and his legs are unnaturally attenuated. The kneeling woman on the left side is slender, and appears too small in proportion to the other figures; though, if she stood erect, it is probable that her height would be sufficient. The best way to study Michelangelo's last work in marble is to take the admirable photograph produced under artificial illumination by Alinari. No sympathetic mind will fail to feel that we are in immediate contact with the sculptor's very soul, at the close of his life, when all his thoughts were weaned from earthly beauty, and he cried-- Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest My soul, that turns to his great love on high, Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread. As a French critic has observed: "It is the most intimately personal and the most pathetic of his works. The idea of penitence exhales from it. The marble preaches the sufferings of the Passion; it makes us listen to an act of bitter contrition and an act of sorrowing love." Michelangelo is said to have designed the Pietà for his own monument. In the person of Nicodemus, it is he who sustains his dead Lord in the gloom of the sombre Duomo. His old sad face, surrounded by the heavy cowl, looks down for ever with a tenderness beyond expression, repeating mutely through the years how much of anguish and of blood divine the redemption of man's soul hath cost. The history of this great poem in marble, abandoned by its maker in some mood of deep dejection, is not without interest. We are told that the stone selected was a capital from one of the eight huge columns of the Temple of Peace. Besides being hard and difficult to handle, the material betrayed flaws in working. This circumstance annoyed the master; also, as he informed Vasari, Urbino kept continually urging him to finish it. One of his reasons for attacking the block had been to keep himself in health by exercise. Accordingly he hewed away with fury, and bit so deep into the marble that he injured one of the Madonna's elbows. When this happened, it was his invariable practice to abandon the piece he had begun upon, feeling that an incomplete performance was preferable to a lame conclusion. In his old age he suffered from sleeplessness; and it was his habit to rise from bed and work upon the Pietà, wearing a thick paper cap, in which he placed a lighted candle made of goat's tallow. This method of chiselling by the light of one candle must have complicated the technical difficulties of his labour. But what we may perhaps surmise to have been his final motive for the rejection of the work, was a sense of his inability, with diminished powers of execution, and a still more vivid sense of the importance of the motive, to accomplish what the brain conceived. The hand failed. The imagination of the subject grew more intimate and energetic. Losing patience then at last, he took a hammer and began to break the group up. Indeed, the right arm of the Mary shows a fracture. The left arm of the Christ is mutilated in several places. One of the nipples has been repaired, and the hand of the Madonna resting on the breast above it is cracked across. It would have been difficult to reduce the whole huge block to fragments; and when the work of destruction had advanced so far, Michelangelo's servant Antonio, the successor to Urbino, begged the remnants from his master. Tiberio Calcagni was a good friend of Buonarroti's at this time. He heard that Francesco Bandini, a Florentine settled in exile at Rome, earnestly desired some relic of the master's work. Accordingly, Calgagni, with Michelangelo's consent, bought the broken marble from Antonio for 200 crowns, pieced it together, and began to mend it. Fortunately, he does not seem to have elaborated the surface in any important particular; for both the finished and unfinished parts bear indubitable marks of Michelangelo's own handling. After the death of Calcagni and Bandini, the Pietà remained for some time in the garden of Antonio, Bandini's heir, at Montecavallo. It was transferred to Florence, and placed among the marbles used in erecting the new Medicean Chapel, until at last, in 1722, the Grand Duke Cosimo III. finally set it up behind the altar of the Duomo. Vasari adds that Michelangelo began another Pietà in marble on a much smaller scale. It is possible that this may have been the unfinished group of two figures (a dead Christ sustained by a bending man), of which there is a cast in the Accademia at Florence. In some respects the composition of this fragment bears a strong resemblance to the puzzling Deposition from the Cross in our National Gallery. The trailing languor of the dead Christ's limbs is almost identical in the marble and the painting. While speaking of these several Pietàs, I must not forget the medallion in high relief of the Madonna clasping her dead Son, which adorns the Albergo dei Poveri at Genoa. It is ascribed to Michelangelo, was early believed to be his, and is still accepted without hesitation by competent judges. In spite of its strongly marked Michelangelesque mannerism, both as regards feeling, facial type, and design, I cannot regard the bas-relief, in its present condition at least, as a genuine work, but rather as the production of some imitator, or the _rifacimento_ of a restorer. A similar impression may here be recorded regarding the noble portrait-bust in marble of Pope Paul III. at Naples. This too has been attributed to Michelangelo. But there is no external evidence to support the tradition, while the internal evidence from style and technical manipulation weighs strongly against it. The medallions introduced upon the heavily embroidered cope are not in his style. The treatment of the adolescent female form in particular indicates a different temperament. Were the ascription made to Benvenuto Cellini, we might have more easily accepted it. But Cellini would certainly have enlarged upon so important a piece of sculpture in his Memoirs. If then we are left to mere conjecture, it would be convenient to suggest Guglielmo della Porta, who executed the Farnese monument in S. Peter's. IV While still a Cardinal, Paul III. began to rebuild the old palace of the Farnesi on the Tiber shore. It closes one end of the great open space called the Campo di Fiore, and stands opposite to the Villa Farnesina, on the right bank of the river. Antonio da Sangallo was the architect employed upon this work, which advanced slowly until Alessandro Farnese's elevation to the Papacy. He then determined to push the building forward, and to complete it on a scale of magnificence befitting the supreme Pontiff. Sangallo had carried the walls up to the second story. The third remained to be accomplished, and the cornice had to be constructed. Paul was not satisfied with Sangallo's design, and referred it to Michelangelo for criticism --possibly in 1544. The result was a report, which we still possess, in which Buonarroti, basing his opinion on principles derived from Vitruvius, severely blames Sangallo's plan under six separate heads. He does not leave a single merit, as regards either harmony of proportion, or purity of style, or elegance of composition, or practical convenience, or decorative beauty, or distribution of parts. He calls the cornice barbarous, confused, bastard in style, discordant with the rest of the building, and so ill suited to the palace as, if carried out, to threaten the walls with destruction. This document has considerable interest, partly as illustrating Michelangelo's views on architecture in general, and displaying a pedantry of which he was never elsewhere guilty, partly as explaining the bitter hostility aroused against him in Sangallo and the whole tribe of that great architect's adherents. We do not, unfortunately, possess the design upon which the report was made. But, even granting that it must have been defective, Michelangelo, who professed that architecture was not his art, might, one thinks, have spared his rival such extremity of adverse criticism. It exposed him to the taunts of rivals and ill-wishers; justified them in calling him presumptuous, and gave them a plausible excuse when they accused him of jealousy. What made it worse was, that his own large building, the Laurentian Library, glaringly exhibits all the defects he discovered in Sangallo's cornice. I find it difficult to resist the impression that Michelangelo was responsible, to a large extent, for the ill-will of those artists whom Vasari calls "la setta Sangallesca." His life became embittered by their animosity, and his industry as Papal architect continued to be hampered for many years by their intrigues. But he alone was to blame at the beginning, not so much for expressing an honest opinion, as for doing so with insulting severity. That Michelangelo may have been right in his condemnation of Sangallo's cornice is of course possible. Paul himself was dissatisfied, and eventually threw that portion of the building open to competition. Perino del Vaga, Sebastiano del Piombo, and the young Giorgio Vasari are said to have furnished designs. Michelangelo did so also; and his plan was not only accepted, but eventually carried out. Nevertheless Sangallo, one of the most illustrious professional architects then alive, could not but have felt deeply wounded by the treatment he received. It was natural for his followers to exclaim that Buonarroti had contrived to oust their aged master, and to get a valuable commission into his own grasp, by the discourteous exercise of his commanding prestige in the world of art. In order to be just to Michelangelo, we must remember that he was always singularly modest in regard to his own performances, and severe in self-criticism. Neither in his letters nor in his poems does a single word of self-complacency escape his pen. He sincerely felt himself to be an unprofitable servant: that was part of his constitutional depression. We know, too, that he allowed strong temporary feelings to control his utterance. The cruel criticism of Sangallo may therefore have been quite devoid of malice; and if it was as well founded as the criticism of that builder's plan for S. Peter's, then Michelangelo stands acquitted. Sangallo's model exists; it is so large that you can walk inside it, and compare your own impressions with the following judgment:-- "It cannot be denied that Bramante's talent as an architect was equal to that of any one from the times of the ancients until now. He laid the first plan of S. Peter, not confused, but clear and simple, full of light and detached from surrounding buildings, so that it interfered with no part of the palace. It was considered a very fine design, and indeed any one can see now that it is so. All the architects who departed from Bramante's scheme, as Sangallo has done, have departed from the truth; and those who have unprejudiced eyes can observe this in his model. Sangallo's ring of chapels takes light from the interior as Bramante planned it; and not only this, but he has provided no other means of lighting, and there are so many hiding-places, above and below, all dark, which lend themselves to innumerable knaveries, that the church would become a secret den for harbouring bandits, false coiners, for debauching nuns, and doing all sorts of rascality; and when it was shut up at night, twenty-five men would be needed to search the building for rogues hidden there, and it would be difficult enough to find them. There is, besides, another inconvenience: the interior circle of buildings added to Bramante's plan would necessitate the destruction of the Paoline Chapel, the offices of the Piombo and the Ruota, and more besides. I do not think that even the Sistine would escape." After this Michelangelo adds that to remove the out-works and foundations begun upon Sangallo's plan would not cost 100,000 crowns, as the sect alleged, but only 16,000, The material would be infinitely useful, the foundations important for the building, and the whole fabric would profit in something like 200,000 crowns and 300 years of time. "This is my dispassionate opinion; and I say this in truth, for to gain a victory here would be my own incalculable loss." Michelangelo means that, at the time when he wrote the letter in question, it was still in doubt whether Sangallo's design should be carried out or his own adopted; and, as usual, he looked forward with dread to undertaking a colossal architectural task. V Returning to the Palazzo Farnese, it only remains to be said that Michelangelo lived to complete the edifice. His genius was responsible for the inharmonious window above the main entrance. According to Vasari, he not only finished the exterior from the second story upwards, but designed the whole of the central courtyard above the first story, "making it the finest thing of its sort in Europe." The interior, with the halls painted by Annibale Caracci, owed its disposition into chambers and galleries to his invention. The cornice has always been reckoned among his indubitable successes, combining as it does salience and audacity with a grand heroic air of grace. It has been criticised for disproportionate projection; and Michelangelo seems to have felt uneasy on this score, since he caused a wooden model of the right size to be made and placed upon the wall, in order to judge of its effect. Taken as a whole, the Palazzo Farnese remains the most splendid of the noble Roman houses, surpassing all the rest in pomp and pride, though falling short of Peruzzi's Palazzo Massimo in beauty. The catastrophe of 1527, when Rome was taken by assault on the side of the Borgo without effective resistance being possible, rendered the fortification of the city absolutely necessary. Paul III determined to secure a position of such vital importance to the Vatican by bastions. Accordingly he convened a diet of notables, including his architect-in-chief, Antonio da Sangallo. He also wished to profit by Michelangelo's experience, remembering the stout resistance offered to the Prince of Orange by his outworks at S. Miniato. Vasari tells an anecdote regarding this meeting which illustrates the mutual bad feeling of the two illustrious artists. "After much discussion, the opinion of Buonarroti was requested. He had conceived views widely differing on those of Sangallo and several others, and these he expressed frankly. Whereupon Sangallo told him that sculpture and painting were his trade, not fortification. He replied that about them he knew but little, whereas the anxious thought he had given to city defences, the time he had spent, and the experience he had practically gained in constructing them, made him superior in that art to Sangallo and all the masters of his family. He proceeded to point out before all present numerous errors in the works. Heated words passed on both sides, and the Pope had to reduce the men to silence. Before long he brought a plan for the fortification of the whole Borgo, which opened the eyes of those in power to the scheme which was finally adopted. Owing to changes he suggested, the great gate of Santo Spirito, designed by Sangallo and nearly finished, was left incomplete." It is not clear what changes were introduced into Sangallo's scheme. They certainly involved drawing the line of defence much closer to the city than he intended. This approved itself to Pier Luigi Farnese, then Duke of Castro, who presided over the meetings of the military committee. It was customary in carrying out the works of fortification to associate a practical engineer with the architect who provided designs; and one of these men, Gian Francesco Montemellino, a trusted servant of the Farnesi, strongly supported the alteration. That Michelangelo agreed with Montemellino, and felt that they could work together, appears from a letter addressed to the Castellano of S. Angelo. It seems to have been written soon after the dispute recorded by Vasari. In it he states, that although he differs in many respects from the persons who had hitherto controlled the works, yet he thinks it better not to abandon them altogether, but to correct them, alter the superintendence, and put Montemellino at the head of the direction. This would prevent the Pope from becoming disgusted with such frequent changes. "If affairs took the course he indicated, he was ready to offer his assistance, not in the capacity of colleague, but as a servant to command in all things." Nothing is here said openly about Sangallo, who remained architect-in-chief until his death. Still the covert wish expressed that the superintendence might be altered, shows a spirit of hostility against him; and a new plan for the lines must soon have been adopted. A despatch written to the Duke of Parma in September 1545 informs him that the old works were being abandoned, with the exception of the grand Doric gateway of S. Spirito. This is described at some length in another despatch of January 1546. Later on, in 1557, we find Michelangelo working as architect-in-chief with Jacopo Meleghino under his direction, but the fortifications were eventually carried through by a more competent engineer, one Jacopo Fusto Castriotto of Urbino. VI Antonio da Sangallo died on October 3, 1546, at Terni, while engaged in engineering works intended to drain the Lake Velino. Michelangelo immediately succeeded to the offices and employments he had held at Rome. Of these, the most important was the post of architect-in-chief at S. Peter's. Paul III. conferred it upon him for life by a brief dated January 1, 1547. He is there named "commissary, prefect, surveyor of the works, and architect, with full authority to change the model, form, and structure of the church at pleasure, and to dismiss and remove the working-men and foremen employed upon the same." The Pope intended to attach a special stipend to the onerous charge, but Michelangelo declined this honorarium, declaring that he meant to labour without recompense, for the love of God and the reverence he felt for the Prince of the Apostles. Although he might have had money for the asking, and sums were actually sent as presents by his Papal master, he persisted in this resolution, working steadily at S. Peter's without pay, until death gave him rest. Michelangelo's career as servant to a Pope began with the design of that tomb which led Julius II. to destroy the old S. Peter's. He was now entering, after forty-two years, upon the last stage of his long life. Before the end came, he gave final form to the main features of the great basilica, raising the dome which dominates the Roman landscape like a stationary cloud upon the sky-line. What had happened to the edifice in the interval between 1505 and 1547 must be briefly narrated, although it is not within the scope of this work to give a complete history of the building. Bramante's original design had been to construct the church in the form of a Greek cross, with four large semi-circular apses. The four angles made by the projecting arms of the cross were to be filled in with a complex but well-ordered scheme of shrines and chapels, so that externally the edifice would have presented the aspect of a square. The central piers, at the point of junction between the arms of the cross, supported a broad shallow dome, modelled upon that of the Pantheon. Similar domes of lesser dimensions crowned the out-buildings. He began by erecting the piers which were intended to support the central dome; but working hastily and without due regard to solid strength, Bramante made these piers too weak to sustain the ponderous mass they had to carry. How he would have rectified this error cannot be conjectured. Death cut his labours short in 1514, and only a small portion of his work remains embedded at the present day within the mightier masses raised beneath Buonarroti's cupola. Leo X. commissioned Raffaello da Urbino to continue his kinsman's work, and appointed Antonio da Sangallo to assist him in the month of January 1517. Whether it was judged impossible to carry out Bramante's project of the central dome, or for some other reason unknown to us, Raffaello altered the plan so essentially as to design a basilica upon the conventional ground-plan of such churches. He abandoned the Greek cross, and adopted the Latin form by adding an elongated nave. The central piers were left in their places; the three terminal apses of the choir and transepts were strengthened, simplified, reduced to commonplace. Bramante's ground-plan is lucid, luminous, and exquisitely ordered in its intricacy. The true creation of a builder-poet's brain, it illustrates Leo Battista Alberti's definition of the charm of architecture, _tutta quella musica_, that melody and music of a graceful edifice. We are able to understand what Michelangelo meant when he remarked that all subsequent designers, by departing from it, had gone wrong. Raffaello's plan, if carried out, would have been monotonous and tame inside and out. After the death of Raffaello in 1520, Baldassare Peruzzi was appointed to be Sangallo's colleague. This genial architect, in whose style all the graces were combined with dignity and strength, prepared a new design at Leo's request. Vasari, referring to this period of Peruzzi's life, says: "The Pope, thinking Bramante's scheme too large and not likely to be in keeping, obtained a new model from Baldassare; magnificent and truly full of fine invention, also so wisely constructed that certain portions have been adopted by subsequent builders." He reverted to Bramante's main conception of the Greek cross, but altered the details in so many important points, both by thickening the piers and walls, and also by complicating the internal disposition of the chapels, that the effect would have been quite different. The ground-plan, which is all I know of Peruzzi's project, has always seemed to me by far the most beautiful and interesting of those laid down for S. Peter's. It is richer, more imaginative and suggestive, than Bramante's. The style of Bramante, in spite of its serene simplicity, had something which might be described as shallow clearness. In comparison with Peruzzi's style, it is what Gluck's melody is to Mozart's. The course of public events prevented this scheme from being carried out. First came the pontificate of Adrian VI., so sluggish in art-industry; then the pontificate of Clement VII., so disastrous for Italy and Rome. Many years elapsed before art and literature recovered from the terror and the torpor of 1527. Peruzzi indeed returned to his office at S. Peter's in 1535, but his death followed in 1537, when Antonio da Sangallo remained master of the situation. Sangallo had the good sense to preserve many of Peruzzi's constructive features, especially in the apses of the choir and transepts; but he added a vast vestibule, which gave the church a length equal to that of Raffaello's plan. Externally, he designed a lofty central cupola and two flanking spires, curiously combining the Gothic spirit with Classical elements of style. In order to fill in the huge spaces of this edifice, he superimposed tiers of orders one above the other. Church, cupola, and spires are built up by a succession of Vitruvian temples, ascending from the ground into the air. The total impression produced by the mass, as we behold it now in the great wooden model at S. Peter's, is one of bewildering complexity. Of architectural repose it possesses little, except what belongs to a very original and vast conception on a colossal scale. The extent of the structure is frittered by its multiplicity of parts. Internally, as Michelangelo pointed out, the church would have been dark, inconvenient, and dangerous to public morals. VII Whatever we may think of Michelangelo's failings as an architect, there is no doubt that at this period of his life he aimed at something broad and heroic in style. He sought to attain grandeur by greatness in the masses and by economy of the constituent parts. His method of securing amplitude was exactly opposite to that of Sangallo, who relied upon the multiplication rather than the simplification of details. A kind of organic unity was what Michelangelo desired. For this reason, he employed in the construction of S. Peter's those stupendous orders which out-soar the columns of Baalbec, and those grandiose curves which make the cupola majestic. A letter written to the Cardinal Ridolfo Pio of Carpi contains this explanation of his principles. The last two sentences are highly significant:-- "Most Reverend Monsignor,--If a plan has divers parts, those which are of one type in respect to quality and quantity have to be decorated in the same way and the same fashion. The like is true of their counterparts. But when the plan changes form entirely, it is not only allowable, but necessary, to change the decorative appurtenances, as also with their counterparts. The intermediate parts are always free, left to their own bent. The nose, which stands in the middle of the forehead, is not bound to correspond with either of the eyes; but one hand must balance the other, and one eye be like its fellow. Therefore it may be assumed as certain that the members of an architectural structure follow the laws exemplified in the human body. He who has not been or is not a good master of the nude, and especially of anatomy, cannot understand the principles of architecture." It followed that Michelangelo's first object, when he became Papal architect-in-chief, was to introduce order into the anarchy of previous plans, and to return, so far as this was now possible, to Bramante's simpler scheme. He adopted the Greek cross, and substituted a stately portico for the long vestibule invented by Sangallo. It was not, however, in his nature, nor did the changed taste of the times permit him to reproduce Bramante's manner. So far as S. Peter's bears the mark of Michelangelo at all, it represents his own peculiar genius. "The Pope," says Vasari, "approved his model, which reduced the cathedral to smaller dimensions, but also to a more essential greatness. He discovered that four principal piers, erected by Bramante and left standing by Antonio da Sangallo, which had to bear the weight of the tribune, were feeble. These he fortified in part, constructing two winding staircases at the side, with gently sloping steps, up which beasts of burden ascend with building material, and one can ride on horseback to the level above the arches. He carried the first cornice, made of travertine, round the arches: a wonderful piece of work, full of grace, and very different from the others; nor could anything be better done in its kind. He began the two great apses of the transept; and whereas Bramante Raffaello, and Peruzzi had designed eight tabernacles toward the Campo Santo, which arrangement Sangallo adhered to, he reduced them to three, with three chapels inside. Suffice it to say that he began at once to work with diligence and accuracy at all points where the edifice required alteration; to the end that its main features might be fixed, and that no one might be able to change what he had planned." Vasari adds that this was the provision of a wise and prudent mind. So it was; but it did not prevent Michelangelo's successors from defeating his intentions in almost every detail, except the general effect of the cupola. This will appear in the sequel. Antonio da Sangallo had controlled the building of S. Peter's for nearly thirty years before Michelangelo succeeded to his office. During that long space of time he formed a body of architects and workmen who were attached to his person and interested in the execution of his plans. There is good reason to believe that in Sangallo's days, as earlier in Bramante's, much money of the Church had been misappropriated by a gang of fraudulent and mutually indulgent craftsmen. It was not to be expected that these people should tamely submit to the intruder who put their master's cherished model on the shelf, and set about, in his high-handed way, to refashion the whole building from the bottom to the top. During Sangallo's lifetime no love had been lost between him and Buonarroti, and after his death it is probable that the latter dealt severely with the creatures of his predecessor. The Pope had given him unlimited powers of appointing and dismissing subordinates, controlling operations, and regulating expenditure. He was a man who abhorred jobs and corruption. A letter written near the close of his life, when he was dealing only with persons nominated by himself, proves this. He addressed the Superintendents of the Fabric of S. Peter's as follows: "You know that I told Balduccio not to send his lime unless it were good. He has sent bad quality, and does not seem to think he will be forced to take it back; which proves that he is in collusion with the person who accepted it. This gives great encouragement to the men I have dismissed for similar transactions. One who accepts bad goods needed for the fabric, when I have forbidden them, is doing nothing else but making friends of people whom I have turned into enemies against myself. I believe there will be a new conspiracy. Promises, fees, presents, corrupt justice. Therefore I beg you from this time forward, by the authority I hold from the Pope, not to accept anything which is not suitable, even though it comes to you from heaven. I must not be made to appear, what I am not, partial in my dealings." This fiery despatch, indicating not only Michelangelo's probity, but also his attention to minute details at the advanced age of eighty-six, makes it evident that he must have been a stern overseer in the first years of his office, terrible to the "sect of Sangallo," who were bent, on their part, to discredit him. The sect began to plot and form conspiracies, feeling the violent old man's bit and bridle on their mouths, and seeing the firm seat he took upon the saddle. For some reason, which is not apparent, they had the Superintendents of the Fabric (a committee, including cardinals, appointed by the Pope) on their side. Probably these officials, accustomed to Sangallo and the previous course of things, disliked to be stirred up and sent about their business by the masterful new-comer. Michelangelo's support lay, as we shall see, in the four Popes who followed Paul III. They, with the doubtful exception of Marcellus II., accepted him on trust as a thoroughly honest servant, and the only artist capable of conducting the great work to its conclusion. In the last resort, when he was driven to bay, he offered to resign, and was invariably coaxed back by the final arbiter. The disinterested spirit in which he fulfilled his duties, accepting no pay while he gave his time and energy to their performance, stood him in good stead. Nothing speaks better for his perfect probity than that his enemies were unable to bring the slightest charge of peculation or of partiality against him. Michelangelo's conduct of affairs at S. Peter's reflects a splendid light upon the tenor of his life, and confutes those detractors who have accused him of avarice. The duel between Michelangelo and the sect opened in 1547. A letter written by a friend in Florence on the 14th of May proves that his antagonists had then good hopes of crushing him. Giovan Francesco Ughi begins by saying that he has been silent because he had nothing special to report. "But now Jacopo del Conte has come here with the wife of Nanni di Baccio Bigio, alleging that he has brought her because Nanni is so occupied at S. Peter's. Among other things, he says that Nanni means to make a model for the building which will knock yours to nothing. He declares that what you are about is mad and babyish. He means to fling it all down, since he has quite as much credit with the Pope as you have. You throw oceans of money away and work by night, so that nobody may see what you are doing. You follow in the footsteps of a Spaniard, having no knowledge of your own about the art of building, and he less than nothing. Nanni stays there in your despite: you did everything to get him removed; but the Pope keeps him, being convinced that nothing good can be done without him." After this Ughi goes on to relate how Michelangelo's enemies are spreading all kinds of reports against his honour and good fame, criticising the cornice of the Palazzo Farnese, and hoping that its weight will drag the walls down. At the end he adds, that although he knows one ought not to write about such matters, yet the man's "insolence and blackguardly shamelessness of speech" compel him to put his friend on his guard against such calumnies. After the receipt of this letter, Michelangelo sent it to one of the Superintendents of the Fabric, on whose sympathy he could reckon, with the following indorsement in his own handwriting: "Messer Bartolommeo (Ferrantino), please read this letter, and take thought who the two rascals are who, lying thus about what I did at the Palazzo Farnese, are now lying in the matter of the information they are laying before the deputies of S. Peter's. It comes upon me in return for the kindness I have shown them. But what else can one expect from a couple of the basest scoundrelly villains?" Nanni di Baccio Bigio had, as it seems, good friends at court in Rome. He was an open enemy of Michelangelo, who, nevertheless, found it difficult to shake him off. In the history of S. Peter's the man's name will frequently occur. Three years elapsed. Paul III. died, and Michelangelo wrote to his nephew Lionardo on the occasion: "It is true that I have suffered great sorrow, and not less loss, by the Pope's death. I received benefits from his Holiness, and hoped for more and better. God willed it so, and we must have patience. His passage from this life was beautiful, in full possession of his faculties up to the last word. God have mercy on his soul." The Cardinal Giovan Maria Ciocchi, of Monte San Savino, was elected to succeed Paul, and took the title of Julius III. This change of masters was duly noted by Michelangelo in a letter to his "dearest friend," Giovan Francesco Fattucci at Florence. It breathes so pleasant and comradely a spirit, that I will translate more than bears immediately on the present topic: "Dear friend, although we have not exchanged letters for many months past, still our long and excellent friendship has not been forgotten. I wish you well, as I have always done, and love you with all my heart, for your own sake, and for the numberless pleasant things in life you have afforded me. As regards old age, which weighs upon us both alike, I should be glad to know how yours affects you; mine, I must say, does not make me very happy. I beg you, then, to write me something about this. You know, doubtless, that we have a new Pope, and who he is. All Rome is delighted, God be thanked; and everybody expects the greatest good from his reign, especially for the poor, his generosity being so notorious." Michelangelo had good reason to rejoice over this event, for Julius III. felt a real attachment to his person, and thoroughly appreciated both his character and his genius. Nevertheless, the enemies he had in Rome now made a strong effort to dislodge Buonarroti from his official position at S. Peter's. It was probably about this time that the Superintendents of the Fabric drew up a memorial expressive of their grievances against him. We possess a document in Latin setting forth a statement of accounts in rough. "From the year 1540, when expenditures began to be made regularly and in order, from the very commencement as it were, up to the year 1547, when Michelangelo, at his own will and pleasure, undertook partly to build and partly to destroy, 162,624 ducats were expended. Since the latter date on to the present, during which time the deputies have served like the pipe at the organ, knowing nothing, nor what, nor how moneys were spent, but only at the orders of the said Michelangelo, such being the will of Paul III. of blessed memory, and also of the reigning Pontiff, 136,881 ducats have been paid out, as can be seen from our books. With regard to the edifice, what it is going to be, the deputies can make no statement, all things being hidden from them, as though they were outsiders. They have only been able to protest at several times, and do now again protest, for the easement of their conscience, that they do not like the ways used by Michelangelo, especially in what he keeps on pulling down. The demolition has been, and to-day is so great, that all who witness it are moved to an extremity of pity. Nevertheless, if his Holiness be satisfied, we, his deputies, shall have no reason to complain." It is clear that Michelangelo was carrying on with a high hand at S. Peter's. Although the date of this document is uncertain, I think it may be taken in connection with a general meeting called by Julius III., the incidents of which are recorded by Vasari. Michelangelo must have demonstrated his integrity, for he came out of the affair victorious, and obtained from the Pope a brief confirming him in his office of architect-in-chief, with even fuller powers than had been granted by Paul III. VIII Vasari at this epoch becomes one of our most reliable authorities regarding the life of Michelangelo. He corresponded and conversed with him continuously, and enjoyed the master's confidence. We may therefore accept the following narrative as accurate: "It was some little while before the beginning of 1551, when Vasari, on his return from Florence to Rome, found that the sect of Sangallo were plotting against Michelangelo; they induced the Pope to hold a meeting in S. Peter's, where all the overseers and workmen connected with the building should attend, and his Holiness should be persuaded by false insinuations that Michelangelo had spoiled the fabric. He had already walled in the apse of the King where the three chapels are, and carried out the three upper windows. But it was not known what he meant to do with the vault. They then, misled by their shallow judgment, made Cardinal Salviati the elder, and Marcello Cervini, who was afterwards Pope, believe that S. Peter's would be badly lighted. When all were assembled, the Pope told Michelangelo that the deputies were of opinion the apse would have but little light. He answered: 'I should like to hear these deputies speak.' The Cardinal Marcello rejoined: 'Here we are.' Michelangelo then remarked: 'My lord, above these three windows there will be other three in the vault, which is to be built of travertine.' 'You never told us anything about this,' said the Cardinal. Michelangelo responded: 'I am not, nor do I mean to be obliged to tell your lordship or anybody what I ought or wish to do. It is your business to provide money, and to see that it is not stolen. As regards the plans of the building, you have to leave those to me.' Then he turned to the Pope and said: 'Holy Father, behold what gains are mine! Unless the hardships I endure prove beneficial to my soul, I am losing time and labour.' The Pope, who loved him, laid his hands upon his shoulders and exclaimed: 'You are gaining both for soul and body, have no fear!' Michelangelo's spirited self-defence increased the Pope's love, and he ordered him to repair next day with Vasari to the Vigna Giulia, where they held long discourses upon art." It is here that Vasari relates how Julius III. was in the habit of seating Michelangelo by his side while they talked together. Julius then maintained the cause of Michelangelo against the deputies. It was during his pontificate that a piece of engineering work committed to Buonarroti's charge by Paul III. fell into the hands of Nanni di Baccio Bigio. The old bridge of Santa Maria had long shown signs of giving way, and materials had been collected for rebuilding it. Nanni's friends managed to transfer the execution of this work to him from Michelangelo. The man laid bad foundations, and Buonarroti riding over the new bridge one day with Vasari, cried out: "George, the bridge is quivering beneath us; let us spur on, before it gives way with us upon it." Eventually, the bridge did fall to pieces, at the time of a great inundation. Its ruins have long been known as the Ponte Rotto. On the death of Julius III. in 1555, Cardinal Cervini was made Pope, with the title of Marcellus II. This event revived the hopes of the sect, who once more began to machinate against Michelangelo. The Duke of Tuscany at this time was exceedingly anxious that he should take up his final abode at Florence; and Buonarroti, feeling he had now no strong support in Rome, seems to have entertained these proposals with alacrity. The death of Marcellus after a few weeks, and the election of Paul IV., who besought the great architect not to desert S. Peter's, made him change his mind. Several letters written to Vasari and the Grand Duke in this and the next two years show that his heart was set on finishing S. Peter's, however much he wished to please his friends and longed to end his days in peace at home. "I was set to work upon S. Peter's against my will, and I have served now eight years gratis, and with the utmost injury and discomfort to myself. Now that the fabric has been pushed forward and there is money to spend, and I am just upon the point of vaulting in the cupola, my departure from Rome would be the ruin of the edifice, and for me a great disgrace throughout all Christendom, and to my soul a grievous sin. Pray ask his lordship to give me leave of absence till S. Peter's has reached a point at which it cannot be altered in its main features. Should I leave Rome earlier, I should be the cause of a great ruin, a great disgrace, and a great sin." To the Duke he writes in 1557 that his special reasons for not wishing to abandon S. Peter's were, first, that the work would fall into the hands of thieves and rogues; secondly, that it might probably be suspended altogether; thirdly, that he owned property in Rome to the amount of several thousand crowns, which, if he left without permission, would be lost; fourthly, that he was suffering from several ailments. He also observed that the work had just reached its most critical stage (i.e., the erection of the cupola), and that to desert it at the present moment would be a great disgrace. The vaulting of the cupola had now indeed become the main preoccupation of Michelangelo's life. Early in 1557 a serious illness threatened his health, and several friends, including the Cardinal of Carpi, Donato Giannotti, Tommaso Cavalieri, Francesco Bandini, and Lottino, persuaded him that he ought to construct a large model, so that the execution of this most important feature of the edifice might not be impeded in the event of his death. It appears certain that up to this date no models of his on anything like a large intelligible scale had been provided for S. Peter's; and the only extant model attributable to Michelangelo's own period is that of the cupola. This may help to account for the fact that, while the cupola was finished much as he intended, the rest of his scheme suffered a thorough and injurious remodelling. He wrote to his nephew Lionardo on the 13th of February 1557 about the impossibility of meeting the Grand Duke's wishes and leaving Rome. "I told his Lordship that I was obliged to attend to S. Peter's until I could leave the work there at such a point that my plans would not be subsequently altered. This point has not been reached; and in addition, I am now obliged to construct a large wooden model for the cupola and lantern, in order that I may secure its being finished as it was meant to be. The whole of Rome, and especially the Cardinal of Carpi, puts great pressure on me to do this. Accordingly, I reckon that I shall have to remain here not less than a year; and so much time I beg the Duke to allow me for the love of Christ and S. Peter, so that I may not come home to Florence with a pricking conscience, but a mind easy about Rome." The model took about a year to make. It was executed by a French master named Jean. All this while Michelangelo's enemies, headed by Nanni di Baccio Bigio, continued to calumniate and backbite. In the end they poisoned the mind of his old friend the Cardinal of Carpi. We gather this from a haughty letter written on the 13th of February 1560: "Messer Francesco Bandini informed me yesterday that your most illustrious and reverend lordship told him that the building of S. Peter's could not possibly go on worse than it is doing. This has grieved me deeply, partly because you have not been informed of the truth, and also because I, as my duty is, desire more than all men living that it should proceed well. Unless I am much deceived, I think I can assure you that it could not possibly go on better than it now is doing. It may, however, happen that my own interests and old age expose me to self-deception, and consequently expose the fabric of S. Peter's to harm or injury against my will. I therefore intend to ask permission on the first occasion from his Holiness to resign my office. Or rather, to save time, I wish to request your most illustrious and reverend lordship by these present to relieve me of the annoyance to which I have been subject seventeen years, at the orders of the Popes, working without remuneration. It is easy enough to see what has been accomplished by my industry during this period. I conclude by repeating my request that you will accept my resignation. You could not confer on me a more distinguished favour." Giovanni Angelo Medici, of an obscure Milanese family, had succeeded to Paul IV. in 1559. Pius IV. felt a true admiration for Michelangelo. He confirmed the aged artist in his office by a brief which granted him the fullest authority in life, and strictly forbade any departure from his designs for S. Peter's after death. Notwithstanding this powerful support, Nanni di Baccio Bigio kept trying to eject him from his post. He wrote to the Grand Duke in 1562, arguing that Buonarroti was in his dotage, and begging Cosimo to use his influence to obtain the place for himself. In reply the Grand Duke told Nanni that he could not think of doing such a thing during Michelangelo's lifetime, but that after his death he would render what aid was in his power. An incident happened in 1563 which enabled Nanni to give his enemy some real annoyance. Michelangelo was now so old that he felt obliged to leave the personal superintendence of the operations at S. Peter's to a clerk of the works. The man employed at this time was a certain Cesare da Castel Durante, who was murdered in August under the following circumstances, communicated by Tiberio Calcagni to Lionardo Buonarroti on the 14th of that month: "I have only further to speak about the death of Cesare, clerk of the works, who was found by the cook of the Bishop of Forli with his wife. The man gave Cesare thirteen stabs with his poignard, and four to his wife. The old man (i.e., Michelangelo) is in much distress, seeing that he wished to give the post to that Pier Luigi, and has been unable to do so owing to the refusal of the deputies." This Pier Luigi, surnamed Gaeta, had been working since November 1561 as subordinate to Cesare; and we have a letter from Michelangelo to the deputies recommending him very warmly in that capacity. He was also the house-servant and personal attendant of the old master, running errands for him and transacting ordinary business, like Pietro Urbano and Stefano in former years. The deputies would not consent to nominate Pier Luigi as clerk of the works. They judged him to be too young, and were, moreover, persuaded that Michelangelo's men injured the work at S. Peter's. Accordingly they appointed Nanni di Baccio Bigio, and sent in a report, inspired by him, which severely blamed Buonarroti. Pius IV., after the receipt of this report, had an interview with Michelangelo, which ended in his sending his own relative, Gabrio Serbelloni, to inspect the works at S. Peter's. It was decided that Nanni had been calumniating the great old man. Accordingly he was dismissed with indignity. Immediately after the death of Michelangelo, however, Nanni renewed his applications to the Grand Duke. He claimed nothing less than the post of architect-in-chief. His petition was sent to Florence under cover of a despatch from the Duke's envoy, Averardo Serristori. The ambassador related the events of Michelangelo's death, and supported Nanni as "a worthy man, your vassal and true servant." IX Down to the last days of his life, Michelangelo was thus worried with the jealousies excited by his superintendence of the building at S. Peter's; and when he passed to the majority, he had not secured his heart's desire, to wit, that the fabric should be forced to retain the form he had designed for it. This was his own fault. Popes might issue briefs to the effect that his plans should be followed; but when it was discovered that, during his lifetime, he kept the builders in ignorance of his intentions, and that he left no working models fit for use, except in the case of the cupola, a free course was opened for every kind of innovation. So it came to pass that subsequent architects changed the essential features of his design by adding what might be called a nave, or, in other words, by substituting the Latin for the Greek cross in the ground-plan. He intended to front the mass of the edifice with a majestic colonnade, giving externally to one limb of the Greek cross a rectangular salience corresponding to its three semicircular apses. From this decastyle colonnade projected a tetrastyle portico, which introduced the people ascending from a flight of steps to a gigantic portal. The portal opened on the church, and all the glory of the dome was visible when they approached the sanctuary. Externally, according to his conception, the cupola dominated and crowned the edifice when viewed from a moderate or a greater distance. The cupola was the integral and vital feature of the structure. By producing one limb of the cross into a nave, destroying the colonnade and portico, and erecting a huge façade of _barocco_ design, his followers threw the interior effect of the cupola into a subordinate position, and externally crushed it out of view, except at a great distance. In like manner they dealt with every particular of his plan. As an old writer has remarked: "The cross which Michelangelo made Greek is now Latin; and if it be thus with the essential form, judge ye of the details!" It was not exactly their fault, but rather that of the master, who chose to work by drawings and small clay models, from which no accurate conception of his thought could be derived by lesser craftsmen. We cannot, therefore, regard S. Peter's in its present state as the creation of Buonarroti's genius. As a building, it is open to criticism at every point. In spite of its richness and overwhelming size, no architect of merit gives it approbation. It is vast without being really great, magnificent without touching the heart, proudly but not harmoniously ordered. The one redeeming feature in the structure is the cupola; and that is the one thing which Michelangelo bequeathed to the intelligence of his successors. The curve which it describes finds no phrase of language to express its grace. It is neither ellipse nor parabola nor section of the circle, but an inspiration of creative fancy. It outsoars in vital force, in elegance of form, the dome of the Pantheon and the dome of Brunelleschi, upon which it was actually modelled. As a French architect, adverse to Michelangelo, has remarked: "This portion is simple, noble, grand. It is an unparalleled idea, and the author of this marvellous cupola had the right to be proud of the thought which controlled his pencil when he traced it." An English critic, no less adverse to the Italian style, is forced to admit that architecture "has seldom produced a more magnificent object" than the cupola, "if its bad connection with the building is overlooked." He also adds that, internally, "the sublime concave" of this immense dome is the one redeeming feature of S. Peter's. Michelangelo's reputation, not only as an imaginative builder, but also as a practical engineer in architecture, depends in a very large measure upon the cupola of S. Peter's. It is, therefore, of great importance to ascertain exactly how far the dome in its present form belongs to his conception. Fortunately for his reputation, we still possess the wooden model constructed under his inspection by a man called Giovanni Franzese. It shows that subsequent architects, especially Giacomo della Porta, upon whom the task fell of raising the vaults and lantern from the point where Michelangelo left the building, that is, from the summit of the drum, departed in no essential particular from his design. Della Porta omitted one feature, however, of Michelangelo's plan, which would have added greatly to the dignity and elegance of the exterior. The model shows that the entablature of the drum broke into projections above each of the buttresses. Upon these projections or consoles Buonarroti intended to place statues of saints. He also connected their pedestals with the spring of the vault by a series of inverted curves sweeping upwards along the height of the shallow attic. The omission of these details not only weakened the support given to the arches of the dome, but it also lent a stilted effect to the cupola by abruptly separating the perpendicular lines of the drum and attic from the segment of the vaulting. This is an error which could even now be repaired, if any enterprising Pope undertook to complete the plan of the model. It may, indeed, be questioned whether the omission was not due to the difficulty of getting so many colossal statues adequately finished at a period when the fabric still remained imperfect in more essential parts. Vasari, who lived in close intimacy with Michelangelo, and undoubtedly was familiar with the model, gives a confused but very minute description of the building. It is clear from this that the dome was designed with two shells, both of which were to be made of carefully selected bricks, the space between them being applied to the purpose of an interior staircase. The dormer windows in the outer sheath not only broke the surface of the vault, but also served to light this passage to the lantern. Vasari's description squares with the model, now preserved in a chamber of the Vatican basilica, and also with the present fabric. It would not have been necessary to dwell at greater length upon the vaulting here but for difficulties which still surround the criticism of this salient feature of S. Peter's. Gotti published two plans of the cupola, which were made for him, he says, from accurate measurements of the model taken by Cavaliere Cesare Castelli, Lieut.-Col. of Engineers. The section drawing shows three shells instead of two, the innermost or lowest being flattened out like the vault of the Pantheon. Professor Josef Durm, in his essay upon the Domes of Florence and S. Peter's, gives a minute description of the model for the latter, and prints a carefully executed copperplate engraving of its section. It is clear from this work that at some time or other a third semi-spherical vault, corresponding to that of the Pantheon, had been contemplated. This would have been structurally of no value, and would have masked the two upper shells, which at present crown the edifice. The model shows that the dome itself was from the first intended to be composed of two solid vaults of masonry, in the space between which ran the staircase leading to the lantern. The lower and flatter shell, which appears also in the model, had no connection with the substantial portions of the edifice. It was an addition, perhaps an afterthought, designed possibly to serve as a ground for surface-decoration, or to provide an alternative scheme for the completion of the dome. Had Michelangelo really planned this innermost sheath, we could not credit him with the soaring sweep upwards of the mighty dome, its height and lightness, luminosity and space. The roof that met the eye internally would have been considerably lower and tamer, superfluous in the construction of the church, and bearing no right relation to the external curves of the vaulting. There would, moreover, have been a long dark funnel leading to the lantern. Heath Wilson would then have been justified in certain critical conclusions which may here be stated in his own words. "According to Michelangelo's idea, the cupola was formed of three vaults over each other. Apparently the inner one was intended to repeat the curves of the Pantheon, whilst the outer one was destined to give height and majesty to the building externally. The central vault, more pyramidal in form, was constructed to bear the weight of the lantern, and approached in form the dome of the Cathedral at Florence by Brunelleschi. Judging by the model, he meant the outer dome to be of wood, thus anticipating the construction of Sir Christopher Wren." Farther on, he adds that the architects who carried out the work "omitted entirely the inner lower vault, evidently to give height internally, and made the external cupola of brick as well as the internal; and, to prevent it expanding, had recourse to encircling chains of iron, which bind it at the weakest parts of the curve." These chains, it may be mentioned parenthetically, were strengthened by Poleni, after the lapse of some years, when the second of the two shells showed some signs of cracking. From Dr. Durm's minute description of the cupola, there seems to be no doubt about the existence of this third vault in Michelangelo's wooden model. He says that the two outer shells are carved out of one piece of wood, while the third or innermost is made of another piece, which has been inserted. The sunk or hollow compartments, which form the laquear of this depressed vault, differ considerably in shape and arrangement from those which were adopted when it was finally rejected. The question now remains, whether the semi-spherical shell was abandoned during Michelangelo's lifetime and with his approval. There is good reason to believe that this may have been the case: first, because the tambour, which he executed, differs from the model in the arching of its windows; secondly, because Fontana and other early writers on the cupola insist strongly on the fact that Michelangelo's own plans were strictly followed, although they never allude to the third or innermost vault. It is almost incredible that if Della Porta departed in so vital a point from Michelangelo's design, no notice should have been taken of the fact. On the other hand, the tradition that Della Porta improved the curve of the cupola by making the spring upward from the attic more abrupt, is due probably to the discrepancy between the internal aspects of the model and the dome itself. The actual truth is that the cupola in its curve and its dimensions corresponds accurately to the proportions of the double outer vaulting of the model. Taking, then, Vasari's statement in conjunction with the silence of Fontana, Poleni, and other early writers, and duly observing the care with which the proportions of the dome have been preserved, I think we may safely conclude that Michelangelo himself abandoned the third or semi-spherical vault, and that the cupola, as it exists, ought to be ascribed entirely to his conception. It is, in fact, the only portion of the basilica which remains as he designed it. CHAPTER XIV I There is great difficulty in dealing chronologically with the last twenty years of Michelangelo's life. This is due in some measure to the multiplicity of his engagements, but more to the tardy rate at which his work, now almost wholly architectural, advanced. I therefore judged it best to carry the history of his doings at S. Peter's down to the latest date; and I shall take the same course now with regard to the lesser schemes which occupied his mind between 1545 and 1564, reserving for the last the treatment of his private life during this period. A society of gentlemen and artists, to which Buonarroti belonged, conceived the plan of erecting buildings of suitable size and grandeur on the Campidoglio. This hill had always been dear to the Romans, as the central point of urban life since the foundation of their city, through the days of the Republic and the Empire, down to the latest Middle Ages. But it was distinguished only by its ancient name and fame. No splendid edifices and majestic squares reminded the spectator that here once stood the shrine of Jupiter Capitolinus, to which conquering generals rode in triumph with the spoils and captives of the habitable world behind their laurelled chariots. Paul III. approved of the design, and Michelangelo, who had received the citizenship of Rome on March 20, 1546, undertook to provide a scheme for its accomplishment. We are justified in believing that the disposition of the parts which now compose the Capitol is due to his conception: the long steep flight of steps leading up from the Piazza Araceli; the irregular open square, flanked on the left hand by the Museum of Sculpture, on the right by the Palazzo dei Conservatori, and closed at its farther end by the Palazzo del Senatore. He also placed the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus on its noble pedestal, and suggested the introduction of other antique specimens of sculpture into various portions of the architectural plan. The splendid double staircase leading to the entrance hall of the Palazzo del Senatore, and part of the Palazzo dei Conservatori, were completed during Michelangelo's lifetime. When Vasari wrote in 1568, the dead sculptor's friend, Tommaso dei Cavalieri, was proceeding with the work. There is every reason, therefore, to assume that the latter building, at any rate, fairly corresponds to his intention. Vignola and Giacomo della Porta, both of them excellent architects, carried out the scheme, which must have been nearly finished in the pontificate of Innocent X. (1644-1655). Like the cupola of S. Peter's, the Campidoglio has always been regarded as one of Michelangelo's most meritorious performances in architecture. His severe critic, M. Charles Garnier, says of the Capitol: "The general composition of the edifice is certainly worthy of Buonarroti's powerful conception. The balustrade which crowns the façade is indeed bad and vulgar; the great pilasters are very poor in invention, and the windows of the first story are extremely mediocre in style. Nevertheless, there is a great simplicity of lines in these palaces; and the porticoes of the ground-floor might be selected for the beauty of their leading motive. The opposition of the great pilasters to the little columns is an idea at once felicitous and original. The whole has a fine effect; and though I hold the proportions of the ground-floor too low in relation to the first story, I consider this façade of the Capitol not only one of Michelangelo's best works, but also one of the best specimens of the building of that period. Deduction must, of course, be made for heaviness and improprieties of taste, which are not rare." Next to these designs for the Capitol, the most important architectural work of Michelangelo's old age was the plan he made of a new church to be erected by the Florentines in Rome to the honour of their patron, S. Giovanni. We find him writing to his nephew on the 15th of July 1559: "The Florentines are minded to erect a great edifice--that is to say, their church; and all of them with one accord put pressure on me to attend to this. I have answered that I am living here by the Duke's permission for the fabric of S. Peter's, and that unless he gives me leave, they can get nothing from me." The consul and counsellors of the Florentine nation in Rome wrote upon this to the Duke, who entered with enthusiasm into their scheme, not only sending a favourable reply, but also communicating personally upon the subject with Buonarroti. Three of Michelangelo's letters on the subject to the Duke have been preserved. After giving a short history of the project, and alluding to the fact that Leo X. began the church, he says that the Florentines had appointed a building committee of five men, at whose request he made several designs. One of these they selected, and according to his own opinion it was the best. "This I will have copied and drawn out more clearly than I have been able to do it, on account of old age, and will send it to your Most Illustrious Lordship." The drawings were executed and carried to Florence by the hand of Tiberio Calcagni. Vasari, who has given a long account of this design, says that Calcagni not only drew the plans, but that he also completed a clay model of the whole church within the space of two days, from which the Florentines caused a larger wooden model to be constructed. Michelangelo must have been satisfied with his conception, for he told the building-committee that "if they carried it out, neither the Romans nor the Greeks ever erected so fine an edifice in any of their temples. Words the like of which neither before nor afterwards issued from his lips; for he was exceedingly modest." Vasari, who had good opportunities for studying the model, pronounced it to be "superior in beauty, richness and variety of invention to any temple which was ever seen." The building was begun, and 5000 crowns were spent upon it. Then money or will failed. The model and drawings perished. Nothing remains for certain to show what Michelangelo's intentions were. The present church of S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini in Strada Giulia is the work of Giacomo della Porta, with a façade by Alessandro Galilei. Of Tiberio Calcagni, the young Florentine sculptor and architect, who acted like a kind of secretary or clerk to Michelangelo, something may here be said. The correspondence of this artist with Lionardo Buonarroti shows him to have been what Vasari calls him, "of gentle manners and discreet behaviour." He felt both veneration and attachment for the aged master, and was one of the small group of intimate friends who cheered his last years. We have seen that Michelangelo consigned the shattered Pietà to his care; and Vasari tells us that he also wished him to complete the bust of Brutus, which had been begun, at Donato Giannotti's request, for the Cardinal Ridolfi. This bust is said to have been modelled from an ancient cornelian in the possession of a certain Giuliano Ceserino. Michelangelo not only blocked the marble out, but brought it nearly to completion, working the surface with very fine-toothed chisels. The sweetness of Tiberio Calcagni's nature is proved by the fact that he would not set his own hand to this masterpiece of sculpture. As in the case of the Pietà, he left Buonarroti's work untouched, where mere repairs were not required. Accordingly we still can trace the fine-toothed marks of the chisel alluded to by Vasari, hatched and cross-hatched with right and left handed strokes in the style peculiar to Michelangelo. The Brutus remains one of the finest specimens of his creative genius. It must have been conceived and executed in the plenitude of his vigour, probably at the time when Florence fell beneath the yoke of Alessandro de' Medici, or rather when his murderer Lorenzino gained the name of Brutus from the exiles (1539). Though Vasari may be right in saying that a Roman intaglio suggested the stamp of face and feature, yet we must regard this Brutus as an ideal portrait, intended to express the artist's conception of resolution and uncompromising energy in a patriot eager to sacrifice personal feelings and to dare the utmost for his country's welfare. Nothing can exceed the spirit with which a violent temperament, habitually repressed, but capable of leaping forth like sudden lightning, has been rendered. We must be grateful to Calcagni for leaving it in its suggestively unfinished state. II During these same years Michelangelo carried on a correspondence with Ammanati and Vasari about the completion of the Laurentian Library. His letters illustrate what I have more than once observed regarding his unpractical method of commencing great works, without more than the roughest sketches, intelligible to himself alone, and useless to an ordinary craftsman. The Florentine artists employed upon the fabric wanted very much to know how he meant to introduce the grand staircase into the vestibule. Michelangelo had forgotten all about it. "With regard to the staircase of the library, about which so much has been said to me, you may believe that if I could remember how I had arranged it, I should not need to be begged and prayed for information. There comes into my mind, as in a dream, the image of a certain staircase; but I do not think this can be the one I then designed, for it seems so stupid. However, I will describe it." Later on he sends a little clay model of a staircase, just enough to indicate his general conception, but not to determine details. He suggests that the work would look better if carried out in walnut. We have every reason to suppose that the present stone flight of steps is far from being representative of his idea. He was now too old to do more than furnish drawings when asked to design some monument. Accordingly, when Pius IV. resolved to erect a tomb in Milan Cathedral to the memory of his brother, Giangiacomo de' Medici, Marquis of Marignano, commonly called Il Medeghino, he requested Michelangelo to supply the bronze-sculptor Leone Leoni of Menaggio with a design. This must have been insufficient for the sculptor's purpose--a mere hand-sketch not drawn to scale. The monument, though imposing in general effect, is very defective in its details and proportions. The architectural scheme has not been comprehended by the sculptor, who enriched it with a great variety of figures, excellently wrought in bronze, and faintly suggesting Michelangelo's manner. The grotesque _barocco_ style of the Porta Pia, strong in its total outline, but whimsical and weak in decorative detail, may probably be ascribed to the same cause. It was sketched out by Michelangelo during the pontificate of Pius IV., and can hardly have been erected under his personal supervision. Vasari says: "He made three sketches, extravagant in style and most beautiful, of which the Pope selected the least costly; this was executed much to his credit, as may now be seen." To what extent he was responsible for the other sixteenth-century gates of Rome, including the Porta del Popolo, which is commonly ascribed to him, cannot be determined; though Vasari asserts that Michelangelo supplied the Pope with "many other models" for the restoration of the gates. Indeed it may be said of all his later work that we are dealing with uncertain material, the original idea emanating perhaps from Buonarroti's mind, but the execution having devolved upon journeymen. Pius IV. charged Michelangelo with another great undertaking, which was the restoration of the Baths of Diocletian in the form of a Christian church. Criticism is reduced to silence upon his work in this place, because S. Maria degli Angeli underwent a complete remodelling by the architect Vanvitelli in 1749. This man altered the ground-plan from the Latin to the Greek type, and adopted the decorative style in vogue at the beginning of the eighteenth century. All that appears certain is that Michelangelo had very considerable remains of the Roman building to make use of. We may also perhaps credit tradition, when it tells us that the vast Carthusian cloister belongs to him, and that the three great cypress-trees were planted by his hand. Henri the Second's death occurred in 1559; and his widow, Catherine de' Medici, resolved to erect an equestrian statue to his memory. She bethought her of the aged sculptor, who had been bred in the palace of her great-grandfather, who had served two Pontiffs of her family, and who had placed the mournful image of her father on the tomb at San Lorenzo. Accordingly she wrote a letter on the 14th of November in that year, informing Michelangelo of her intention, and begging him to supply at least a design upon which the best masters in the realm of France might work. The statue was destined for the courtyard of the royal château at Blois, and was to be in bronze. Ruberto degli Strozzi, the Queen's cousin, happened about this time to visit Rome. Michelangelo having agreed to furnish a sketch, it was decided between them that the execution should be assigned to Daniele da Volterra. After nearly a year's interval, Catherine wrote again, informing Michelangelo that she had deposited a sum of 6000 golden crowns at the bank of Gianbattista Gondi for the work, adding: "Consequently, since on my side nothing remains to be done, I entreat you by the affection you have always shown to my family, to our Florence, and lastly to art, that you will use all diligence and assiduity, so far as your years permit, in pushing forward this noble work, and making it a living likeness of my lord, as well as worthy of your own unrivalled genius. It is true that this will add nothing to the fame you now enjoy; yet it will at least augment your reputation for most acceptable and affectionate devotion toward myself and my ancestors, and prolong through centuries the memory of my lawful and sole love; for the which I shall be eager and liberal to reward you." It is probable that by this time (October 30, 1560) Michelangelo had forwarded his sketch to France, for the Queen criticised some details relating to the portrait of her husband. She may have remembered with what idealistic freedom the statues of the Dukes of Nemours and Urbino had been treated in the Medicean Sacristy. Anyhow, she sent a picture, and made her agent, Baccio del Bene, write a postscript to her letter, ordering Michelangelo to model the King's head without curls, and to adopt the rich modern style for his armour and the trappings of his charger. She particularly insisted upon the likeness being carefully brought out. Michelangelo died before the equestrian statue of Henri II. was finished. Cellini, in his Memoirs, relates that Daniele da Volterra worked slowly, and caused much annoyance to the Queen-mother of France. In 1562 her agent, Baccio del Bene, came to Florence on financial business with the Duke. He then proposed that Cellini should return to Paris and undertake the ornamental details of the tomb. The Duke would not consent, and Catherine de' Medici did not choose to quarrel with her cousin about an artist. So this arrangement, which might have secured the completion of the statue on a splendid scale, fell through. When Daniele died in 1566, only the horse was cast; and this part served finally for Biard's statue of Louis XIII. III The sculptor Leone Leoni, who was employed upon the statue of Giangiacomo de' Medici in Milan, wrote frequently to Michelangelo, showing by his letters that a warm friendship subsisted between them, which was also shared by Tommaso Cavalieri. In the year 1560, according to Vasari, Leoni modelled a profile portrait of the great master, which he afterwards cast in medal form. This is almost the most interesting, and it is probably the most genuine contemporary record which we possess regarding Michelangelo's appearance in the body. I may therefore take it as my basis for inquiring into the relative value of the many portraits said to have been modelled, painted, or sketched from the hero in his lifetime. So far as I am hitherto aware, no claim has been put in for the authenticity of any likeness, except Bonasoni's engraving, anterior to the date we have arrived at. While making this statement, I pass over the prostrate old man in the Victory, and the Nicodemus of the Florentine Pietà, both of which, with more or less reason, have been accepted as efforts after self-portraiture. After making due allowance for Vasari's too notorious inaccuracies, deliberate misstatements, and random jumpings at conclusions, we have the right to accept him here as a first-rate authority. He was living at this time in close intimacy with Buonarroti, enjoyed his confidence, plumed himself upon their friendship, and had no reason to distort truth, which must have been accessible to one in his position. He says, then: "At this time the Cavaliere Leoni made a very lively portrait of Michelangelo upon a medal, and to meet his wishes, modelled on the reverse a blind man led by a dog, with this legend round the rim: DOCEBO INIQUOS VIAS TUAS, ET IMPII AD TE CONVERTENTUR. It pleased Michelangelo so much that he gave him a wax model of a Hercules throttling Antaeus, by his own hand, together with some drawings. Of Michelangelo there exist no other portraits, except two in painting--one by Bugiardini, the other by Jacopo del Conte; and one in bronze, in full relief, made by Daniele da Volterra: these, and Leoni's medal, from which (in the plural) many copies have been made, and a great number of them have been seen by me in several parts of Italy and abroad." Leoni's medal, on the obverse, shows the old artist's head in profile, with strong lines of drapery rising to the neck and gathering around the shoulders. It carries this legend: MICHELANGELUS BUONARROTUS, FLO. R.A.E.T.S. ANN. 88, and is signed LEO. Leoni then assumed that Michelangelo was eighty-eight years of age when he cast the die. But if this was done in 1560, the age he had then attained was eighty-five. We possess a letter from Leoni in Milan to Buonarroti in Rome, dated March 14, 1561. In it he says: "I am sending to your lordship, by the favour of Lord Carlo Visconti, a great man in this city, and beloved by his Holiness, four medals of your portrait: two in silver, and two in bronze. I should have done so earlier but for my occupation with the monument (of Medeghino), and for the certainty I feel that you will excuse my tardiness, if not a sin of ingratitude in me. The one enclosed within the little box has been worked up to the finest polish. I beg you to accept and keep this for the love of me. With the other three you will do as you think best. I say this because ambition has prompted me to send copies into Spain and Flanders, as I have also done to Rome and other places. I call it ambition, forasmuch as I have gained an overplus of benefits by acquiring the good-will of your lordship, whom I esteem so highly. Have I not received in little less than three months two letters written to me by you, divine man; and couched not in terms fit for a servant of good heart and will, but for one beloved as a son? I pray you to go on loving me, and when occasion serves, to favour me; and to Signer Tomao dei Cavalieri say that I shall never be unmindful of him." It is clear, then, I think, that Leoni's model was made at Rome in 1560, cast at Milan, and sent early in the spring of 1561 to Michelangelo. The wide distribution of the medals, two of which exist still in silver, while several in bronze may be found in different collections, is accounted for by what Leoni says about his having given them away to various parts of Europe. We are bound to suppose that AET. 88 in the legend on the obverse is due to a misconception concerning Michelangelo's age. Old men are often ignorant or careless about the exact tale of years they have performed. There is reason to believe that Leoni's original model of the profile, the likeness he shaped from life, and which he afterwards used for the medallion, is extant and in excellent preservation. Mr. C. Drury E. Fortnum (to whose monographs upon Michelangelo's portraits, kindly communicated by himself, I am deeply indebted at this portion of my work), tells us how he came into possession of an exquisite cameo, in flesh-coloured wax upon a black oval ground. This fragile work of art is framed in gilt metal and glazed, carrying upon its back an Italian inscription, which may be translated: "Portrait of Michelangelo Buonarroti, taken from the life, by Leone Aretino, his friend." Comparing the relief in wax with the medal, we cannot doubt that both represent the same man; and only cavillers will raise the question whether both were fashioned by one hand. Such discrepancies as occur between them are just what we should expect in the work of a craftsman who sought first to obtain an accurate likeness of his subject, and then treated the same subject on the lines of numismatic art. The wax shows a lean and subtly moulded face--the face of a delicate old man, wiry and worn with years of deep experience. The hair on head and beard is singularly natural; one feels it to be characteristic of the person. Transferring this portrait to bronze necessitated a general broadening of the masses, with a coarsening of outline to obtain bold relief. Something of the purest truth has been sacrificed to plastic effect by thickening the shrunken throat; and this induced a corresponding enlargement of the occiput for balance. Writing with photographs of these two models before me, I feel convinced that in the wax we have a portrait from the life of the aged Buonarroti as Leoni knew him, and in the bronze a handling of that portrait as the craftsman felt his art of metal-work required its execution. There was a grand manner of medallion-portraiture in Italy, deriving from the times of Pisanello; and Leoni's bronze is worthy of that excellent tradition. He preserved the salient features of Buonarroti in old age. But having to send down to posterity a monumental record of the man, he added, insensibly or wilfully, both bulk and mass to the head he had so keenly studied. What confirms me in the opinion that Mr. Fornum's cameo is the most veracious portrait we possess of Michelangelo in old age, is that its fragility of structure, the tenuity of life vigorous but infinitely refined, reappears in the weak drawing made by Francesco d'Olanda of Buonarroti in hat and mantle. This is a comparatively poor and dreamy sketch. Yet it has an air of veracity; and what the Flemish painter seized in the divine man he so much admired, was a certain slender grace and dignity of person--exactly the quality which Mr. Fortnum's cameo possesses. Before leaving this interesting subject, I ought to add that the blind man on the reverse of Leoni's medal is clearly a rough and ready sketch of Michelangelo, not treated like a portrait, but with indications sufficient to connect the figure with the highly wrought profile on the obverse. Returning now to the passage cited from Vasari, we find that he reckons only two authentic portraits in painting of Michelangelo, one by Bugiardini, the other by Jacopo del Conte. He has neglected to mention two which are undoubtedly attempts to reproduce the features of the master by scholars he had formed. Probably Vasari overlooked them, because they did not exist as easel-pictures, but were introduced into great compositions as subordinate adjuncts. One of them is the head painted by Daniele da Volterra in his picture of the Assumption at the church of the Trinità de' Monti in Rome. It belongs to an apostle, draped in red, stretching arms aloft, close to a column, on the right hand of the painting as we look at it. This must be reckoned among the genuine likenesses of the great man by one who lived with him and knew him intimately. The other is a portrait placed by Marcello Venusti in the left-hand corner of his copy of the Last Judgment, executed, under Michelangelo's direction, for the Cardinal Farnese. It has value for the same reasons as those which make us dwell upon Daniele da Volterra's picture. Moreover, it connects itself with a series of easel-paintings. One of these, ascribed to Venusti, is preserved in the Museo Buonarroti at Florence; another at the Capitol in Rome. Several repetitions of this type exist: they look like studies taken by the pupil from his master, and reproduced to order when death closed the scene, making friends wish for mementoes of the genius who had passed away. The critique of such works will always remain obscure. What has become of the portrait of Del Conte mentioned by Vasari cannot now be ascertained. We have no external evidence to guide us. On the other hand, certain peculiarities about the portrait in the Uffizi, especially the exaggeration of one eye, lend some colouring to the belief that we here possess the picture ascribed by Vasari to Bugiardini. Michelangelo's type of face was well accentuated, and all the more or less contemporary portraits of him reproduce it. Time is wasted in the effort to assign to little men their special part in the creation of a prevalent tradition. It seems to me, therefore, the function of sane criticism not to be particular about the easel-pictures ascribed to Venusti, Del Conte, and Bugiardini. The case is different with a superb engraving by Giulio Bonasoni, a profile in a circle, dated 1546, and giving Buonarroti's age as seventy-two. This shows the man in fuller vigour than the portraits we have hitherto been dealing with. From other prints which bear the signature of Bonasoni, we see that he was interested in faithfully reproducing Michelangelo's work. What the relations between the two men were remains uncertain, but Bonasoni may have had opportunities of studying the master's person. At any rate, as a product of the burin, this profile is comparable for fidelity and veracity with Leoni's model, and is executed in the same medallion spirit. So far, then, as I have yet pursued the analysis of Michelangelo's portraits, I take Bonasoni's engraving to be decisive for Michelangelo's appearance at the age of seventy; Leoni's model as of equal or of greater value at the age of eighty; Venusti's and Da Volterra's paintings as of some importance for this later period; while I leave the attribution of minor easel-pictures to Del Conte or to Bugiardini open. It remains to speak of that "full relief in bronze made by Daniele da Volterra," which Vasari mentions among the four genuine portraits of Buonarroti. From the context we should gather that this head was executed during the lifetime of Michelangelo, and the conclusion is supported by the fact that only a few pages later on Vasari mentions two other busts modelled after his death. Describing the catafalque erected to his honour in S. Lorenzo, he says that the pyramid which crowned the structure exhibited within two ovals (one turned toward the chief door, and the other toward the high altar) "the head of Michelangelo in relief, taken from nature, and very excellently carried out by Santi Buglioni." The words _ritratta dal naturale_ do not, I think, necessarily imply that it was modelled from the life. Owing to the circumstances under which Michelangelo's obsequies were prepared, there was not time to finish it in bronze of stone; it may therefore have been one of those Florentine terra-cotta effigies which artists elaborated from a cast taken after death. That there existed such a cast is proved by what we know about the monument designed by Vasari in S. Croce. "One of the statues was assigned to Battista Lorenzi, an able sculptor, together with the head of Michelangelo." We learn from another source that this bust in marble "was taken from the mask cast after his death." The custom of taking plaster casts from the faces of the illustrious dead, in order to perpetuate their features, was so universal in Italy, that it could hardly have been omitted in the case of Michelangelo. The question now arises whether the bronze head ascribed by Vasari to Daniele da Volterra was executed during Michelangelo's lifetime or after his decease, and whether we possess it. There are eight heads of this species known to students of Michelangelo, which correspond so nicely in their measurements and general features as to force the conclusion that they were all derived from an original moulded by one masterly hand. Three of these heads are unmounted, namely, those at Milan, Oxford, and M. Piot's house in Paris. One, that of the Capitoline Museum, is fixed upon a bust of _bigio morato_ marble. The remaining four examples are executed throughout in bronze as busts, agreeing in the main as to the head, but differing in minor details of drapery. They exist respectively in the Museo Buonarroti, the Accademia, and the Bargello at Florence, and in the private collection of M. Cottier of Paris. It is clear, then, that we are dealing with bronze heads cast from a common mould, worked up afterwards according to the fancy of the artist. That this original head was the portrait ascribed to Daniele da Volterra will be conceded by all who care to trace the history of the bust; but whether he modelled it after Michelangelo's death cannot be decided. Professional critics are of the opinion that a mask was followed by the master; and this may have been the case. Michelangelo died upon the 17th of February 1564. His face was probably cast in the usual course of things, and copies may have been distributed among his friends in Rome and Florence. Lionardo Buonarroti showed at once a great anxiety to obtain his uncle's bust from Daniele da Volterra. Possibly he ordered it while resident in Rome, engaged in winding up Michelangelo's affairs. At any rate, Daniele wrote on June 11 to this effect: "As regards the portraits in metal, I have already completed a model in wax, and the work is going on as fast as circumstances permit; you may rely upon its being completed with due despatch and all the care I can bestow upon it." Nearly four months had elapsed since Michelangelo's decease, and this was quite enough time for the wax model to be made. The work of casting was begun, but Daniele's health at this time became so wretched that he found it impossible to work steadily at any of his undertakings. He sank slowly, and expired in the early spring of 1566. What happened to the bronze heads in the interval between June 1564 and April 1566 may be partly understood from Diomede Leoni's correspondence. This man, a native of San Quirico, was Daniele's scholar, and an intimate friend of the Buonarroti family. On the 9th of September 1564 he wrote to Lionardo: "Your two heads of that sainted man are coming to a good result, and I am sure you will be satisfied with them." It appears, then, that Lionardo had ordered two copies from Daniele. On the 21st of April 1565 Diomede writes again: "I delivered your messages to Messer Daniele, who replies that you are always in his mind, as also the two heads of your lamented uncle. They will soon be cast, as also will my copy, which I mean to keep by me for my honour." The casting must have taken place in the summer of 1565, for Diomede writes upon the 6th of October: "I will remind him (Daniele) of your two heads; and he will find mine well finished, which will make him wish to have yours chased without further delay." The three heads had then been cast; Diomede was polishing his up with the file; Daniele had not yet begun to do this for Lionardo's. We hear nothing more until the death of Daniele da Volterra. After this event occurred, Lionardo Buonarroti received a letter from Jacopo del Duca, a Sicilian bronze-caster of high merit, who had enjoyed Michelangelo's confidence and friendship. He was at present employed upon the metal-work for Buonarroti's monument in the Church of the SS. Apostoli in Rome, and on the 18th of April he sent important information respecting the two heads left by Daniele. "Messer Danielo had cast them, but they are in such a state as to require working over afresh with chisels and files. I am not sure, then, whether they will suit your purpose; but that is your affair. I, for my part, should have liked you to have the portrait from the hand of the lamented master himself, and not from any other. Your lordship must decide: appeal to some one who can inform you better than I do. I know that I am speaking from the love I bear you; and perhaps, if Danielo had been alive, he would have had them brought to proper finish. As for those men of his, I do not know what they will do." On the same day, a certain Michele Alberti wrote as follows: "Messer Jacopo, your gossip, has told me that your lordship wished to know in what condition are the heads of the late lamented Michelangelo. I inform you that they are cast, and will be chased within the space of a month, or rather more. So your lordship will be able to have them; and you may rest assured that you will be well and quickly served." Alberti, we may conjecture, was one of Daniele's men alluded to by Jacopo del Duca. It is probable that just at this time they were making several _replicas_ from their deceased master's model, in order to dispose of them at an advantage while Michelangelo's memory was still fresh. Lionardo grew more and more impatient. He appealed again to Diomede Leoni, who replied from San Quirico upon the 4th of June: "The two heads were in existence when I left Rome, but not finished up. I imagine you have given orders to have them delivered over to yourself. As for the work of chasing them, if you can wait till my return, we might intrust them to a man who succeeded very well with my own copy." Three years later, on September 17, 1569, Diomede wrote once again about his copy of Da Volterra's model: "I enjoy the continual contemplation of his effigy in bronze, which is now perfectly finished and set up in my garden, where you will see it, if good fortune favours me with a visit from you." The net result of this correspondence seems to be that certainly three bronze heads, and probably more, remained unfinished in Daniele da Volterra's workshop after his death, and that these were gradually cleaned and polished by different craftsmen, according to the pleasure of their purchasers. The strong resemblance of the eight bronze heads at present known to us, in combination with their different states of surface-finish, correspond entirely to this conclusion. Mr. Fortnum, in his classification, describes four as being not chased, one as "rudely and broadly chased," three as "more or less chased." Of these variants upon the model common to them all, we can only trace one with relative certainty. It is the bust at present in the Bargello Palace, whither it came from the Grand Ducal villa of Poggio Imperiale. By the marriage of the heiress of the ducal house of Della Rovere with a Duke of Tuscany, this work of art passed, with other art treasures, notably with a statuette of Michelangelo's Moses, into the possession of the Medici. A letter written in 1570 to the Duke of Urbino by Buonarroti's house-servant, Antonio del Franzese of Castel Durante, throws light upon the matter. He begins by saying that he is glad to hear the Duke will accept the little Moses, though the object is too slight in value to deserve his notice. Then he adds: "The head of which your Excellency spoke in the very kind letter addressed to me at your command is the true likeness of Michelangelo Buonarroti, my old master; and it is of bronze, designed by himself. I keep it here in Rome, and now present it to your Excellency." Antonio then, in all probability, obtained one of the Daniele da Volterra bronzes; for it is wholly incredible that what he writes about its having been made by Michelangelo should be the truth. Had Michelangelo really modelled his own portrait and cast it in bronze, we must have heard of this from other sources. Moreover, the Medicean bust of Michelangelo which is now placed in the Bargello, and which we believe to have come from Urbino, belongs indubitably to the series of portraits made from Daniele da Volterra's model. To sum up this question of Michelangelo's authentic portraits: I repeat that Bonasoni's engraving represents him at the age of seventy; Leoni's wax model and medallions at eighty; the eight bronze heads, derived from Daniele's model, at the epoch of his death. In painting, Marco Venusti and Daniele da Volterra helped to establish a traditional type by two episodical likenesses, the one worked into Venusti's copy of the Last Judgment (at Naples), the other into Volterra's original picture of the Assumption (at Trinità de' Monti, Rome). For the rest, the easel-pictures, which abound, can hardly now be distributed, by any sane method of criticism, between Bugiardini, Jacopo del Conte, and Venusti. They must be taken _en masse_, as contributions to the study of his personality; and, as I have already said, the oil-painting of the Uffizi may perhaps be ascribed with some show of probability to Bugiardini. IV Michelangelo's correspondence with his nephew Lionardo gives us ample details concerning his private life and interests in old age. It turns mainly upon the following topics: investment of money in land near Florence, the purchase of a mansion in the city, Lionardo's marriage, his own illnesses, the Duke's invitation, and the project of making a will, which was never carried out. Much as Michelangelo loved his nephew, he took frequent occasions of snubbing him. For instance, news reached Rome that the landed property of a certain Francesco Corboli was going to be sold. Michelangelo sent to Lionardo requesting him to make inquiries; and because the latter showed some alacrity in doing so, his uncle wrote him the following querulous epistle: "You have been very hasty in sending me information regarding the estates of the Corboli. I did not think you were yet in Florence. Are you afraid lest I should change my mind, as some one may perhaps have put it into your head? I tell you that I want to go slowly in this affair, because the money I must pay has been gained here with toil and trouble unintelligible to one who was born clothed and shod as you were. About your coming post-haste to Rome, I do not know that you came in such a hurry when I was a pauper and lacked bread. Enough for you to throw away the money that you did not earn. The fear of losing what you might inherit on my death impelled you. You say it was your duty to come, by reason of the love you bear me. The love of a woodworm! If you really loved me, you would have written now: 'Michelangelo, spend those 3000 ducats there upon yourself, for you have given us enough already: your life is dearer to us than your money.' You have all of you lived forty years upon me, and I have never had from you so much as one good word. 'Tis true that last year I scolded and rebuked you so that for very shame you sent me a load of trebbiano. I almost wish you hadn't! I do not write this because I am unwilling to buy. Indeed I have a mind to do so, in order to obtain an income for myself, now that I cannot work more. But I want to buy at leisure, so as not to purchase some annoyance. Therefore do not hurry." Lionardo was careless about his handwriting, and this annoyed the old man terribly. "Do not write to me again. Each time I get one of your letters, a fever takes me with the trouble I have in reading it. I do not know where you learned to write. I think that if you were writing to the greatest donkey in the world you would do it with more care. Therefore do not add to the annoyances I have, for I have already quite enough of them." He returns to the subject over and over again, and once declares that he has flung a letter of Lionardo's into the fire unread, and so is incapable of answering it. This did not prevent a brisk interchange of friendly communications between the uncle and nephew. Lionardo was now living in the Buonarroti house in Via Ghibellina. Michelangelo thought it advisable that he should remove into a more commodious mansion, and one not subject to inundations of the basement. He desired, however, not to go beyond the quarter of S. Croce, where the family had been for centuries established. The matter became urgent, for Lionardo wished to marry, and could not marry until he was provided with a residence. Eventually, after rejecting many plans and proffers of houses, they decided to enlarge and improve the original Buonarroti mansion in Via Ghibellina. This house continued to be their town-mansion until the year 1852, when it passed by testamentary devise to the city of Florence. It is now the Museo Buonarroti. Lionardo was at this time thirty, and was the sole hope of the family, since Michelangelo and his two surviving brothers had no expectation of offspring. His uncle kept reminding the young man that, if he did not marry and get children, the whole property of the Buonarroti would go to the Hospital or to S. Martino. This made his marriage imperative; and Michelangelo's letters between March 5, 1547, and May 16, 1553, when the desired event took place, are full of the subject. He gives his nephew excellent advice as to the choice of a wife. She ought to be ten years younger than himself, of noble birth, but not of a very rich or powerful family; Lionardo must not expect her to be too handsome, since he is no miracle of manly beauty; the great thing is to obtain a good, useful, and obedient helpmate, who will not try to get the upper hand in the house, and who will be grateful for an honourable settlement in life. The following passages may be selected, as specimens of Michelangelo's advice: "You ought not to look for a dower, but only to consider whether the girl is well brought up, healthy, of good character and noble blood. You are not yourself of such parts and person as to be worthy of the first beauty of Florence." "You have need of a wife who would stay with you, and whom you could command, and who would not want to live in grand style or to gad about every day to marriages and banquets. Where a court is, it is easy to become a woman of loose life; especially for one who has no relatives." Numerous young ladies were introduced by friends or matrimonial agents. Six years, however, elapsed before the suitable person presented herself in the shape of Cassandra, daughter of Donato Ridolfi. Meanwhile, in 1548, Michelangelo lost the elder of his surviving brothers. Giovan Simone died upon the 9th of January; and though he had given but little satisfaction in his lifetime, his death was felt acutely by the venerable artist. "I received news in your last of Giovan Simone's death. It has caused me the greatest sorrow; for though I am old, I had yet hoped to see him before he died, and before I died. God has willed it so. Patience! I should be glad to hear circumstantially what kind of end he made, and whether he confessed and communicated with all the sacraments of the Church. If he did so, and I am informed of it, I shall suffer less." A few days after the date of this letter, Michelangelo writes again, blaming Lionardo pretty severely for negligence in giving particulars of his uncle's death and affairs. Later on, it seems that he was satisfied regarding Giovan Simone's manner of departure from this world. A grudge remained against Lionardo because he had omitted to inform him about the property. "I heard the details from other persons before you sent them, which angered me exceedingly." V The year 1549 is marked by an exchange of civilities between Michelangelo and Benedetto Varchi. The learned man of letters and minute historiographer of Florence probably enjoyed our great sculptor's society in former years: recently they had been brought into closer relations at Rome. Varchi, who was interested in critical and academical problems, started the question whether sculpture or painting could justly claim a priority in the plastic arts. He conceived the very modern idea of collecting opinions from practical craftsmen, instituting, in fact, what would now be called a "Symposium" upon the subject. A good number of the answers to his query have been preserved, and among them is a letter from Michelangelo. It contains the following passage, which proves in how deep a sense Buonarroti was by temperament and predilection a sculptor: "My opinion is that all painting is the better the nearer it approaches to relief, and relief is the worse in proportion as it inclines to painting. And so I have been wont to think that sculpture is the lamp of painting, and that the difference between them might be likened to the difference between the sun and moon. Now that I have read your essay, in which you maintain that, philosophically speaking, things which fulfil the same purpose are essentially the same, I have altered my view. Therefore I say that, if greater judgment and difficulty, impediment and labour, in the handling of material do not constitute higher nobility, then painting and sculpture form one art. This being granted, it follows that no painter should underrate sculpture, and no sculptor should make light of painting. By sculpture I understand an art which operates by taking away superfluous material; by painting, one that attains its result by laying on. It is enough that both emanate from the same human intelligence, and consequently sculpture and painting ought to live in amity together, without these lengthy disputations. More time is wasted in talking about the problem than would go to the making of figures in both species. The man who wrote that painting was superior to sculpture, if he understood the other things he says no better, might be called a writer below the level of my maid-servant. There are infinite points not yet expressed which might be brought out regarding these arts; but, as I have said, they want too much time; and of time I have but little, being not only old, but almost numbered with the dead. Therefore, I pray you to have me excused. I recommend myself to you, and thank you to the best of my ability for the too great honour you have done me, which is more than I deserve." Varchi printed this letter in a volume which he published at Florence in 1549, and reissued through another firm in 1590. It contained the treatise alluded to above, and also a commentary upon one of Michelangelo's sonnets, "Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto." The book was duly sent to Michelangelo by the favour of a noble Florentine gentleman, Luca Martini. He responded to the present in a letter which deserves here to be recited. It is an eminent example of the urbanity observed by him in the interchange of these and similar courtesies:-- "I have received your letter, together with a little book containing a commentary on a sonnet of mine. The sonnet does indeed proceed from me, but the commentary comes from heaven. In truth it is a marvellous production; and I say this not on my own judgment only, but on that of able men, especially of Messer Donato Giannotti, who is never tired of reading it. He begs to be remembered to you. About the sonnet, I know very well what that is worth. Yet be it what it may, I cannot refrain from piquing myself a little on having been the cause of so beautiful and learned a commentary. The author of it, by his words and praises, shows clearly that he thinks me to be other than I am; so I beg you to express me to him in terms corresponding to so much love, affection, and courtesy. I entreat you to do this, because I feel myself inadequate, and one who has gained golden opinions ought not to tempt fortune; it is better to keep silence than to fall from that height. I am old, and death has robbed me of the thoughts of my youth. He who knows not what old age is, let him wait till it arrives: he cannot know beforehand. Remember me, as I said, to Varchi, with deep affection for his fine qualities, and as his servant wherever I may be." Three other letters belonging to the same year show how deeply Michelangelo was touched and gratified by the distinguished honour Varchi paid him. In an earlier chapter of this book I have already pointed out how this correspondence bears upon the question of his friendship with Tommaso dei Cavalieri, and also upon an untenable hypothesis advanced by recent Florentine students of his biography. The incident is notable in other ways because Buonarroti was now adopted as a poet by the Florentine Academy. With a width of sympathy rare in such bodies, they condoned the ruggedness of his style and the uncouthness of his versification in their admiration for the high quality of his meditative inspiration. To the triple crown of sculptor, painter, architect, he now added the laurels of the bard; and this public recognition of his genius as a writer gave him well-merited pleasure in his declining years. While gathering up these scattered fragments of Buonarroti's later life, I may here introduce a letter addressed to Benvenuto Cellini, which illustrates his glad acceptance of all good work in fellow-craftsmen:-- "My Benvenuto,--I have known you all these years as the greatest goldsmith of whom the world ever heard, and now I am to know you for a sculptor of the same quality. Messer Bindo Altoviti took me to see his portrait bust in bronze, and told me it was by your hand. I admired it much, but was sorry to see that it has been placed in a bad light. If it had a proper illumination, it would show itself to be the fine work it is." VI Lionardo Buonarroti was at last married to Cassandra, the daughter of Donato Ridolfi, upon the 16th of May 1553. One of the dearest wishes which had occupied his uncle's mind so long, came thus to its accomplishment. His letters are full of kindly thoughts for the young couple, and of prudent advice to the husband, who had not arranged all matters connected with the settlements to his own satisfaction. Michelangelo congratulated Lionardo heartily upon his happiness, and told him that he was minded to send the bride a handsome present, in token of his esteem. "I have not been able to do so yet, because Urbino was away. Now that he has returned, I shall give expression to my sentiments. They tell me that a fine pearl necklace of some value would be very proper. I have sent a goldsmith, Urbino's friend, in search of such an ornament, and hope to find it; but say nothing to her, and if you would like me to choose another article, please let me know." This letter winds up with a strange admonition: "Look to living, reflect and weigh things well; for the number of widows in the world is always larger than that of the widowers." Ultimately he decided upon two rings, one a diamond, the other a ruby. He tells Lionardo to have the stones valued in case he has been cheated, because he does not understand such things; and is glad to hear in due course that the jewels are genuine. After the proper interval, Cassandra expected her confinement, and Michelangelo corresponded with his nephew as to the child's name in case it was a boy. "I shall be very pleased if the name of Buonarroto does not die out of our family, it having lasted three hundred years with us." The child was born upon the 16th of May 1544, turned out a boy, and received the name of Buonarroto. Though Lionardo had seven other children, including Michelangelo the younger (born November 4, 1568), this Buonarroto alone continued the male line of the family. The old man in Rome remarked resignedly during his later years, when he heard the news of a baby born and dead, that "I am not surprised; there was never in our family more than one at a time to keep it going." Buonarroto was christened with some pomp, and Vasari wrote to Michelangelo describing the festivities. In the year 1554, Cosimo de' Medici had thrown his net round Siena. The Marquis of Marignano reduced the city first to extremities by famine, and finally to enslavement by capitulation. These facts account for the tone of Michelangelo's answer to Vasari's letter: "Yours has given me the greatest pleasure, because it assures me that you remember the poor old man; and more perhaps because you were present at the triumph you narrate, of seeing another Buonarroto reborn. I thank you heartily for the information. But I must say that I am displeased with so much pomp and show. Man ought not to laugh when the whole world weeps. So I think that Lionardo has not displayed great judgment, particularly in celebrating a nativity with all that joy and gladness which ought to be reserved for the decease of one who has lived well." There is what may be called an Elizabethan note--something like the lyrical interbreathings of our dramatists--in this blending of jubilation and sorrow, discontent and satisfaction, birth and death thoughts. We have seen that Vasari worked for a short time as pupil under Michelangelo, and that during the pontificate of Paul III. they were brought into frequent contact at Rome. With years their friendship deepened into intimacy, and after the date 1550 their correspondence forms one of our most important sources of information. Michelangelo's letters begin upon the 1st of August in that year. Vasari was then living and working for the Duke at Florence; but he had designed a chapel for S. Pietro a Montorio in Rome, where Julius III. wished to erect tombs to the memory of his ancestors; and the work had been allotted to Bartolommeo Ammanati under Michelangelo's direction. This business, otherwise of no importance in his biography, necessitated the writing of despatches, one of which is interesting, since it acknowledges the receipt of Vasari's celebrated book:-- "Referring to your three letters which I have received, my pen refuses to reply to such high compliments. I should indeed be happy if I were in some degree what you make me out to be, but I should not care for this except that then you would have a servant worth something. However, I am not surprised that you, who resuscitate the dead, should prolong the life of the living, or that you should steal the half-dead from death for an endless period." It seems that on this occasion he also sent Vasari the sonnet composed upon his Lives of the Painters. Though it cannot be called one of his poetical masterpieces, the personal interest attaching to the verses justifies their introduction here:-- _With pencil and with palette hitherto You made your art high Nature's paragon; Nay more, from Nature her own prize you won, Making what she made fair more fair to view_. _Now that your learned hand with labour new Of pen and ink a worthier work hath done, What erst you lacked, what still remained her own, The power of giving life, is gained for you_. _If men in any age with Nature vied In beauteous workmanship, they had to yield When to the fated end years brought their name_. _You, re-illuming memories that died, In spite of Time and Nature have revealed For them and for yourself eternal fame_. Vasari's official position at the ducal court of Florence brought him into frequent and personal relations with Cosimo de' Medici. The Duke had long been anxious to lure the most gifted of his subjects back to Florence; but Michelangelo, though he remained a loyal servant to the Medicean family, could not approve of Cosimo's despotic rule. Moreover, he was now engaged by every tie of honour, interest, and artistic ambition to superintend the fabric of S. Peter's. He showed great tact, through delicate negotiations carried on for many years, in avoiding the Duke's overtures without sacrificing his friendship. Wishing to found his family in Florence and to fund the earnings of his life there, he naturally assumed a courteous attitude. A letter written by the Bishop Tornabuoni to Giovanni Francesco Lottini in Rome shows that these overtures began as early as 1546. The prelate says the Duke is so anxious to regain "Michelangelo, the divine sculptor," that he promises "to make him a member of the forty-eight senators, and to give him any office he may ask for." The affair was dropped for some years, but in 1552 Cosimo renewed his attempts, and now began to employ Vasari and Cellini as ambassadors. Soon after finishing his Perseus, Benvenuto begged for leave to go to Rome; and before starting, he showed the Duke Michelangelo's friendly letter on the bust of Bindo Altoviti. "He read it with much kindly interest, and said to me: 'Benvenuto, if you write to him, and can persuade him to return to Florence, I will make him a member of the Forty-eight.' Accordingly I wrote a letter full of warmth, and offered in the Duke's name a hundred times more than my commission carried; but not wanting to make any mistake, I showed this to the Duke before I sealed it, saying to his most illustrious Excellency: 'Prince, perhaps I have made him too many promises.' He replied: 'Michel Agnolo deserves more than you have promised, and I will bestow on him still greater favours.' To this letter he sent no answer, and I could see that the Duke was much offended with him." While in Rome, Cellini went to visit Michelangelo, and renewed his offers in the Duke's name. What passed in that interview is so graphically told, introducing the rustic personality of Urbino on the stage, and giving a hint of Michelangelo's reasons for not returning in person to Florence, that the whole passage may be transcribed as opening a little window on the details of our hero's domestic life:-- "Then I went to visit Michel Agnolo Buonarroti, and repeated what I had written from Florence to him in the Duke's name. He replied that he was engaged upon the fabric of S. Peter's, and that this would prevent him from leaving Rome. I rejoined that, as he had decided on the model of that building, he could leave its execution to his man Urbino, who would carry out his orders to the letter. I added much about future favours, in the form of a message from the Duke. Upon this he looked me hard in the face, and said with a sarcastic smile: 'And you! to what extent are you satisfied with him?' Although I replied that I was extremely contented and was very well treated by his Excellency, he showed that he was acquainted with the greater part of my annoyances, and gave as his final answer that it would be difficult for him to leave Rome. To this I added that he could not do better than to return to his own land, which was governed by a prince renowned for justice, and the greatest lover of the arts and sciences who ever saw the light of this world. As I have remarked above, he had with him a servant of his who came from Urbino, and had lived many years in his employment, rather as valet and housekeeper than anything else; this indeed was obvious, because he had acquired no skill in the arts. Consequently, while I was pressing Michel Agnolo with arguments he could not answer, he turned round sharply to Urbino, as though to ask him his opinion. The fellow began to bawl out in his rustic way: 'I will never leave my master Michel Agnolo's side till I shall have flayed him or he shall have flayed me.' These stupid words forced me to laugh, and without saying farewell, I lowered my shoulders and retired." This was in 1552. The Duke was loth to take a refusal, and for the next eight years he continued to ply Michelangelo with invitations, writing letters by his own hand, employing his agents in Rome and Florence, and working through Vasari. The letters to Vasari during this period are full of the subject. Michelangelo remains firm in his intention to remain at Rome and not abandon S. Peter's. As years went on, infirmities increased, and the solicitations of the Duke became more and more irksome to the old man. His discomfort at last elicited what may be called a real cry of pain in a letter to his nephew:-- "As regards my condition, I am ill with all the troubles which are wont to afflict old men. The stone prevents me passing water. My loins and back are so stiff that I often cannot climb upstairs. What makes matters worse is that my mind is much worried with anxieties. If I leave the conveniences I have here for my health, I can hardly live three days. Yet I do not want to lose the favour of the Duke, nor should I like to fail in my work at S. Peter's, nor in my duty to myself. I pray God to help and counsel me; and if I were taken ill by some dangerous fever, I would send for you at once." Meanwhile, in spite of his resistance to the Duke's wishes, Michelangelo did not lose the favour of the Medicean family. The delicacy of behaviour by means of which he contrived to preserve and strengthen it, is indeed one of the strongest evidences of his sincerity, sagacity, and prudence. The Cardinal Giovanni, son of Cosimo, travelled to Rome in March 1560, in order to be invested with the purple by the Pope's hands. On this occasion Vasari, who rode in the young prince's train, wrote despatches to Florence which contain some interesting passages about Buonarroti. In one of them (March 29) he says: "My friend Michelangelo is so old that I do not hope to obtain much from him." Beside the reiterated overtures regarding a return to Florence, the Church of the Florentines was now in progress, and Cosimo also required Buonarroti's advice upon the decoration of the Great Hall in the Palazzo della Signoria. In a second letter (April 8) Vasari tells the Duke: "I reached Rome, and immediately after the most reverend and illustrious Medici had made his entrance and received the hat from our lord's hands, a ceremony which I wished to see with a view to the frescoes in the Palace, I went to visit my friend, the mighty Michelangelo. He had not expected me, and the tenderness of his reception was such as old men show when lost sons unexpectedly return to them. He fell upon my neck with a thousand kisses, weeping for joy. He was so glad to see me, and I him, that I have had no greater pleasure since I entered the service of your Excellency, albeit I enjoy so many through your kindness. We talked about the greatness and the wonders which our God in heaven has wrought for you, and he lamented that he could not serve you with his body, as he is ready to do with his talents at the least sign of your will. He also expressed his sorrow at being unable to wait upon the Cardinal, because he now can move about but little, and is grown so old that he gets small rest, and is so low in health I fear he will not last long, unless the goodness of God preserves him for the building of S. Peter's." After some further particulars, Vasari adds that he hopes "to spend Monday and Tuesday discussing the model of the Great Hall with Michelangelo, as well as the composition of the several frescoes. I have all that is necessary with me, and will do my utmost, while remaining in his company, to extract useful information and suggestions." We know from Vasari's Life of Michelangelo that the plans for decorating the Palace were settled to his own and the Duke's satisfaction during these colloquies at Rome. Later on in the year, Cosimo came in person to Rome, attended by the Duchess Eleonora. Michelangelo immediately waited on their Highnesses, and was received with special marks of courtesy by the Duke, who bade him to be seated at his side, and discoursed at length about his own designs for Florence and certain discoveries he had made in the method of working porphyry. These interviews, says Vasari, were repeated several times during Cosimo's sojourn in Rome; and when the Crown-Prince of Florence, Don Francesco, arrived, this young nobleman showed his high respect for the great man by conversing with him cap in hand. The project of bringing Buonarroti back to Florence was finally abandoned; but he had the satisfaction of feeling that, after the lapse of more than seventy years, his long connection with the House of Medici remained as firm and cordial as it had ever been. It was also consolatory to know that the relations established between himself and the reigning dynasty in Florence would prove of service to Lionardo, upon whom he now had concentrated the whole of his strong family affection. In estimating Michelangelo as man, independent of his eminence as artist, the most singular point which strikes us is this persistent preoccupation with the ancient house he desired so earnestly to rehabilitate. He treated Lionardo with the greatest brutality. Nothing that this nephew did, or did not do, was right. Yet Lionardo was the sole hope of the Buonarroti-Simoni stock. When he married and got children, the old man purred with satisfaction over him, but only as a breeder of the race; and he did all in his power to establish Lionardo in a secure position. VII Returning to the history of Michelangelo's domestic life, we have to relate two sad events which happened to him at the end of 1555. On the 28th of September he wrote to Lionardo: "The bad news about Gismondo afflicts me deeply. I am not without my own troubles of health, and have many annoyances besides. In addition to all this, Urbino has been ill in bed with me three months, and is so still, which causes me much trouble and anxiety." Gismondo, who had been declining all the summer, died upon the 13th of November. His brother in Rome was too much taken up with the mortal sickness of his old friend and servant Urbino to express great sorrow. "Your letter informs me of my brother Gismondo's death, which is the cause to me of serious grief. We must have patience; and inasmuch as he died sound of mind and with all the sacraments of the Church, let God be praised. I am in great affliction here. Urbino is still in bed, and very seriously ill. I do not know what will come of it. I feel this trouble as though he were my own son, because he has lived in my service twenty-five years, and has been very faithful. Being old, I have no time to form another servant to my purpose; and so I am sad exceedingly. If then, you know of some devout person, I beg you to have prayers offered up to God for his recovery." The next letter gives a short account of his death:-- "I inform you that yesterday, the 3rd of December, at four o'clock, Francesco called Urbino passed from this life, to my very great sorrow. He has left me sorely stricken and afflicted; nay, it would have been sweeter to have died with him, such is the love I bore him. Less than this love he did not deserve; for he had grown to be a worthy man, full of faith and loyalty. So, then, I feel as though his death had left me without life, and I cannot find heart's ease. I should be glad to see you, therefore; only I cannot think how you can leave Florence because of your wife." To Vasari he wrote still more passionately upon this occasion:-- "I cannot write well; yet, in answer to your letter, I will say a few words. You know that Urbino is dead. I owe the greatest thanks to God, at the same time that my own loss is heavy and my sorrow infinite. The grace He gave me is that, while Urbino kept me alive in life, his death taught me to die without displeasure, rather with a deep and real desire. I had him with me twenty-six years, and found him above measure faithful and sincere. Now that I had made him rich, and thought to keep him as the staff and rest of my old age, he has vanished from my sight; nor have I hope left but that of seeing him again in Paradise. God has given us good foundation for this hope in the exceedingly happy ending of his life. Even more than dying, it grieved him to leave me alive in this treacherous world, with so many troubles; and yet the better part of me is gone with him, nor is there left to me aught but infinite distress. I recommend myself to you, and beg you, if it be not irksome, to make my excuses to Messer Benvenuto (Cellini) for omitting to answer his letter. The trouble of soul I suffer in thought about these things prevents me from writing. Remember me to him, and take my best respects to yourself." How tenderly Michelangelo's thought dwelt upon Urbino appears from this sonnet, addressed in 1556 to Monsignor Lodovico Beccadelli:-- _God's grace, the cross, our troubles multiplied, Will make us meet in heaven, full well I know: Yet ere we yield, our breath on earth below, Why need a little solace be denied? Though seas and mountains and rough ways divide Our feet asunder, neither frost nor snow Can make the soul her ancient love; or ego; Nor chains nor bonds the wings of thought have tied. Borne by these wings, with thee I dwell for aye, And weep, and of my dead Urbino talk, Who, were he living, now perchance would be-- For so 'twas planned--thy guest as well as I. Warned by his death, another way I walk To meet him where he waits to live with me._ By his will, dated November 24, 1555, Urbino, whose real name was Francesco degli Amadori of Castel Durante, appointed his old friend and master one of his executors and the chief guardian of his widow and children. A certain Roso de Rosis and Pietro Filippo Vandini, both of Castel Durante, are named in the trust; and they managed the estate. Yet Michelangelo was evidently the principal authority. A voluminous correspondence preserved in the Buonarroti Archives proves this; for it consists of numerous letters addressed by Urbino's executors and family from Castel Durante and elsewhere to the old sculptor in Rome. Urbino had married a woman of fine character and high intelligence, named Cornelia Colonnelli. Two of her letters are printed by Gotti, and deserve to be studied for the power of their style and the elevation of their sentiments. He has not made use, however, of the other documents, all of which have some interest as giving a pretty complete view of a private family and its vexations, while they illustrate the conscientious fidelity with which Michelangelo discharged his duties as trustee. Urbino had a brother, also resident at Castel Durante, Raffaello's celebrated pupil in fresco-painting, Il Fattorino. This man and Vandini, together with Cornelia and her parents and her second husband, Giulio Brunelli, all wrote letters to Rome about the welfare of the children and the financial affairs of the estate. The coexecutor Roso de Rosis did not write; it appears from one of Cornelia's despatches that he took no active interest in the trust, while Brunelli even complains that he withheld moneys which were legally due to the heirs. One of Michelangelo's first duties was to take care that Cornelia got a proper man for her second husband. Her parents were eager to see her married, being themselves old, and not liking to leave a comparatively young widow alone in the world with so many children to look after. Their choice fell first upon a very undesirable person called Santagnolo, a young man of dissolute habits, ruined constitution, bad character, and no estate. She refused, with spirit, to sign the marriage contract; and a few months later wrote again to inform her guardian that a suitable match had been found in the person of Giulio Brunelli of Gubbio, a young doctor of laws, then resident at Castel Durante in the quality of podestà. Michelangelo's suspicions must have been aroused by the unworthy conduct of her parents in the matter of Santagnolo; for we infer that he at first refused to sanction this second match. Cornelia and the parents wrote once more, assuring him that Brunelli was an excellent man, and entreating him not to open his ears to malignant gossip. On the 15th of June Brunelli himself appears upon the scene, announcing his marriage with Cornelia, introducing himself in terms of becoming modesty to Michelangelo, and assuring him that Urbino's children have found a second father. He writes again upon the 29th of July, this time to announce the fact that Il Fattorino has spread about false rumours to the effect that Cornelia and himself intend to leave Castel Durante and desert the children. Their guardian must not credit such idle gossip, for they are both sincerely attached to the children, and intend to do the best they can for them. Family dissensions began to trouble their peace. In the course of the next few months Brunelli discovers that he cannot act with the Fattorino or with Vandini; Cornelia's dowry is not paid; Roso refuses to refund money due to the heirs; Michelangelo alone can decide what ought to be done for the estate and his wards. The Fattorino writes that Vandini has renounced the trust, and that all Brunelli's and his own entreaties cannot make him resume it. For himself, he is resolved not to bear the burden alone. He has his own shop to look after, and will not let himself be bothered. Unluckily, none of Michelangelo's answers have been preserved. We possess only one of his letters to Cornelia, which shows that she wished to place her son and his godson, Michelangelo, under his care at Rome. He replied that he did not feel himself in a position to accept the responsibility. "It would not do to send Michelangelo, seeing that I have nobody to manage the house and no female servants; the boy is still of tender age, and things might happen which would cause me the utmost annoyance. Moreover, the Duke of Florence has during the last month been making me the greatest offers, and putting strong pressure upon me to return home. I have begged for time to arrange my affairs here and leave S. Peter's in good order. So I expect to remain in Rome all the summer; and when I have settled my business, and yours with the Monte della Fede, I shall probably remove to Florence this winter and take up my abode there for good. I am old now, and have not the time to return to Rome. I will travel by way of Urbino; and if you like to give me Michelangelo, I will bring him to Florence, with more love than the sons of my nephew Lionardo, and will teach him all the things which I know that his father desired that he should learn." VIII The year 1556 was marked by an excursion which took Michelangelo into the mountain district of Spoleto. Paul IV.'s anti-Spanish policy had forced the Viceroy of Naples to make a formidable military demonstration. Accordingly the Duke of Alva, at the head of a powerful force, left Naples on the 1st of September and invaded the Campagna. The Romans dreaded a second siege and sack; not without reason, although the real intention of the expedition was to cow the fiery Pope into submission. It is impossible, when we remember Michelangelo's liability to panics, not to connect his autumn journey with a wish to escape from trouble in Rome. On the 31st of October he wrote to Lionardo that he had undertaken a pilgrimage to Loreto, but feeling tired, had stopped to rest at Spoleto. While he was there, a messenger arrived post-haste from Rome, commanding his immediate return. He is now once more at home there, and as well as the troublous circumstances of the times permit. Later on he told Vasari: "I have recently enjoyed a great pleasure, though purchased at the cost of great discomfort and expense, among the mountains of Spoleto, on a visit to those hermits. Consequently, I have come back less than half myself to Rome; for of a truth there is no peace to be found except among the woods." This is the only passage in the whole of Michelangelo's correspondence which betrays the least feeling for wild nature. We cannot pretend, even here, to detect an interest in landscape or a true appreciation of country life. Compared with Rome and the Duke of Alva, those hermitages of the hills among their chestnut groves seemed to him haunts of ancient peace. That is all; but when dealing with a man so sternly insensible to the charm of the external world, we have to be contented with a little. In connection with this brief sojourn at Spoleto I will introduce two letters written to Michelangelo by the Archbishop of Ragusa from his See. The first is dated March 28, 1557. and was sent to Spoleto, probably under the impression that Buonarroti had not yet returned to Rome. After lamenting the unsettled state of public affairs, the Archbishop adds: "Keep well in your bodily health; as for that of your soul, I am sure you cannot be ill, knowing what prudence and piety keep you in perpetual companionship." The second followed at the interval of a year, April 6, 1558. and gave a pathetic picture of the meek old prelate's discomfort in his Dalmatian bishopric. He calls Ragusa "this exceedingly ill-cultivated vineyard of mine. Oftentimes does the carnal man in me revolt and yearn for Italy, for relatives and friends; but the spirit keeps desire in check, and compels it to be satisfied with that which is the pleasure of our Lord." Though the biographical importance of these extracts is but slight, I am glad, while recording the outlines of Buonarroti's character, to cast a side-light on his amiable qualities, and to show how highly valued he was by persons of the purest life. IX There was nothing peculiarly severe about the infirmities of Michelangelo's old age. We first hear of the dysuria from which he suffered, in 1548. He writes to Lionardo thanking him for pears: "I duly received the little barrel of pears you sent me. There were eighty-six. Thirty-three of them I sent to the Pope, who praised them as fine, and who enjoyed them. I have lately been in great difficulty from dysuria. However, I am better now. And thus I write to you, chiefly lest some chatterbox should scribble a thousand lies to make you jump." In the spring of 1549 he says that the doctors believe he is suffering from calculus: "The pain is great, and prevents me from sleeping. They propose that I should try the mineral waters of Viterbo; but I cannot go before the beginning of May. For the rest, as concerns my bodily condition, I am much the same as I was at thirty. This mischief has crept upon me through the great hardships of my life and heedlessness." A few days later he writes that a certain water he is taking, whether mineral or medicine, has been making a beneficial change. The following letters are very cheerful, and at length he is able to write: "With regard to my disease, I am greatly improved in health, and have hope, much to the surprise of many; for people thought me a lost man, and so I believed. I have had a good doctor, but I put more faith in prayers than I do in medicines." His physician was a very famous man, Realdo Colombo. In the summer of the same year he tells Lionardo that he has been drinking for the last two months water from a fountain forty miles distant from Rome. "I have to lay in a stock of it, and to drink nothing else, and also to use it in cooking, and to observe rules of living to which I am not used." Although the immediate danger from the calculus passed away, Michelangelo grew feebler yearly. We have already seen how he wrote to Lionardo while Cosimo de' Medici was urging him to come to Florence in 1557. Passages in his correspondence with Lionardo like the following are frequent: "Writing is the greatest annoyance to my hand, my sight, my brains. So works old age!" "I go on enduring old age as well as I am able, with all the evils and discomforts it brings in its train; and I recommend myself to Him who can assist me." It was natural, after he had passed the ordinary term of life and was attacked with a disease so serious as the stone, that his thoughts should take a serious tone. Thus he writes to Lionardo: "This illness has made me think of setting the affairs of my soul and body more in order than I should have done. Accordingly, I have drawn up a rough sketch of a will, which I will send you by the next courier if I am able, and you can tell me what you think." The will provided that Gismondo and Lionardo Buonarroti should be his joint-heirs, without the power of dividing the property. This practically left Lionardo his sole heir after Gismondo's life-tenancy of a moiety. It does not, however, seem to have been executed, for Michelangelo died intestate. Probably, he judged it simplest to allow Lionardo to become his heir-general by the mere course of events. At the same time, he now displayed more than his usual munificence in charity. Lionardo was frequently instructed to seek out a poor and gentle family, who were living in decent distress, _poveri vergognosi_, as the Italians called such persons. Money was to be bestowed upon them with the utmost secrecy; and the way which Michelangelo proposed, was to dower a daughter or to pay for her entrance into a convent. It has been suggested that this method of seeking to benefit the deserving poor denoted a morbid tendency in Michelangelo's nature; but any one who is acquainted with Italian customs in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance must be aware that nothing was commoner than to dower poor girls or to establish them in nunneries by way of charity. Urbino, for example, by his will bound his executors to provide for the marriage of two honest girls with a dowry of twenty florins apiece within the space of four years from his death. The religious sonnets, which are certainly among the finest of Michelangelo's compositions, belong to this period. Writing to Vasari on the 10th of September 1554, he begins: "You will probably say that I am old and mad to think of writing sonnets; yet since many persons pretend that I am in my second childhood, I have thought it well to act accordingly." Then follows this magnificent piece of verse, in which the sincerest feelings of the pious heart are expressed with a sublime dignity:-- _Now hath my life across a stormy sea, Like a frail bark, reached that wide fort where all Are bidden, ere the final reckoning fall Of good and evil for eternity. Now know I well how that fond phantasy Which made my soul the worshipper and thrall Of earthly art is vain; how criminal Is that which all men seek unwillingly. Those amorous thoughts which were so lightly dressed, What are they when the double death is nigh? The one I know for sure, the other dread. Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest My soul, that turns to His great love on high, Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread._ A second sonnet, enclosed in a letter to Vasari, runs as follows:-- _The fables of the world have filched away The time I had for thinking upon God; His grace lies buried 'neath oblivion's sod, Whence springs an evil crop of sins alway._ _What makes another wise, leads me astray, Slow to discern the bad path I have trod: Hope fades, but still desire ascends that God May free me from self-love, my sure decay. Shorten half-way my road to heaven from earth! Dear Lord, I cannot even half-way rise Unless Thou help me on this pilgrimage. Teach me to hate the world so little worth, And, all the lovely things I clasp and prize, That endless life, ere death, may be my wage._ While still in his seventieth year, Michelangelo had educated himself to meditate upon the thought of death as a prophylactic against vain distractions and the passion of love. "I may remind you that a man who would fain return unto and enjoy his own self ought not to indulge so much in merrymakings and festivities, but to think on death. This thought is the only one which makes us know our proper selves, which holds us together in the bond of our own nature, which prevents us from being stolen away by kinsmen, friends, great men of genius, ambition, avarice, and those other sins and vices which filch the man from himself, keep him distraught and dispersed, without ever permitting him to return unto himself and reunite his scattered parts. Marvellous is the operation of this thought of death, which, albeit death, by his nature, destroys all things, preserves and supports those who think on death, and defends them from all human passions." He supports this position by reciting a madrigal he had composed, to show how the thought of death is the greatest foe to love:-- _Not death indeed, but the dread thought of death Saveth and severeth Me from the heartless fair who doth me slay: And should, perchance, some day_ _The fire consuming blaze o'er measure bright, I find for my sad plight No help but from death's form fixed in my heart; Since, where death reigneth, love must dwell apart._ In some way or another, then, Michelangelo used the thought of death as the mystagogue of his spirit into the temple of eternal things--[Greek: ta aidia], _die bleibenden Verhältnisse_--and as the means of maintaining self-control and self-coherence amid the ever-shifting illusions of human life. This explains why in his love-sonnets he rarely speaks of carnal beauty except as the manifestation of the divine idea, which will be clearer to the soul after death than in the body. When his life was drawing toward its close, Michelangelo's friends were not unnaturally anxious about his condition. Though he had a fairly good servant in Antonio del Franzese, and was surrounded by well-wishers like Tommaso Cavalieri, Daniele da Volterra, and Tiberio Calcagni, yet he led a very solitary life, and they felt he ought to be protected. Vasari tells us that he communicated privately with Averardo Serristori, the Duke's ambassador in Rome, recommending that some proper housekeeper should be appointed, and that due control should be instituted over the persons who frequented his house. It was very desirable, in case of a sudden accident, that his drawings and works of art should not be dispersed, but that what belonged to S. Peter's, to the Laurentian Library, and to the Sacristy should be duly assigned. Lionardo Buonarroti must have received similar advice from Rome, for a furious letter is extant, in which Michelangelo, impatient to the last of interference, literally rages at him:-- "I gather from your letter that you lend credence to certain envious and scoundrelly persons, who, since they cannot manage me or rob me, write you a lot of lies. They are a set of sharpers, and you are so silly as to believe what they say about my affairs, as though I were a baby. Get rid of them, the scandalous, envious, ill-lived rascals. As for my suffering the mismanagement you write about, I tell you that I could not be better off, or more faithfully served and attended to in all things. As for my being robbed, to which I think you allude, I assure you that I have people in my house whom I can trust and repose on. Therefore, look to your own life, and do not think about my affairs, because I know how to take care of myself if it is needful, and am not a baby. Keep well." This is the last letter to Lionardo. It is singular that Michelangelo's correspondence with his father, with Luigi del Riccio, with Tommaso dei Cavalieri, and with his nephew, all of whom he sincerely loved, should close upon a note of petulance and wrath. The fact is no doubt accidental. But it is strange. X We have frequently had occasion to notice the extreme pain caused to Michelangelo's friends by his unreasonable irritability and readiness to credit injurious reports about them. These defects of temper justified to some extent his reputation for savagery, and they must be reckoned among the most salient features of his personality. I shall therefore add three other instances of the same kind which fell under my observation while studying the inedited documents of the Buonarroti Archives. Giovanni Francesco Fattucci was, as we well know, his most intimate friend and trusted counsellor during long and difficult years, when the negotiations with the heirs of Pope Julius were being carried on; yet there exists one letter of unaffected sorrow from this excellent man, under date October 14, 1545, which shows that for some unaccountable reason Michelangelo had suddenly chosen to mistrust him. Fattucci begins by declaring that he is wholly guiltless of things which his friend too credulously believed upon the strength of gossip. He expresses the deepest grief at this unjust and suspicious treatment. The letter shows him to have been more hurt than resentful. Another document signed by Francesco Sangallo (the son of his old friend Giuliano), bearing no date, but obviously written when they were both in Florence, and therefore before the year 1535, carries the same burden of complaint. The details are sufficiently picturesque to warrant the translation of a passage. After expressing astonishment at Michelangelo's habit of avoiding his society, he proceeds: "And now, this morning, not thinking that I should annoy you, I came up and spoke to you, and you received me with a very surly countenance. That evening, too, when I met you on the threshold with Granacci, and you left me by the shop of Pietro Osaio, and the other forenoon at S. Spirito, and to-day, it struck me as extremely strange, especially in the presence of Piloto and so many others. I cannot help thinking that you must have some grudge against me; but I marvel that you do not open out your mind to me, because it may be something which is wholly false." The letter winds up with an earnest protest that he has always been a true and faithful friend. He begs to be allowed to come and clear the matter up in conversation, adding that he would rather lose the good-will of the whole world than Michelangelo's. The third letter is somewhat different in tone, and not so personally interesting. Still it illustrates the nervousness and apprehension under which Michelangelo's acquaintances continually lived. The painter commonly known as Rosso Fiorentino was on a visit to Rome, where he studied the Sistine frescoes. They do not appear to have altogether pleased him, and he uttered his opinion somewhat too freely in public. Now he pens a long elaborate epistle, full of adulation, to purge himself of having depreciated Michelangelo's works. People said that "when I reached Rome, and entered the chapel painted by your hand, I exclaimed that I was not going to adopt that manner." One of Buonarroti's pupils had been particularly offended. Rosso protests that he rather likes the man for his loyalty; but he wishes to remove any impression which Michelangelo may have received of his own irreverence or want of admiration. The one thing he is most solicitous about is not to lose the great man's good-will. It must be added, at the close of this investigation, that however hot and hasty Michelangelo may have been, and however readily he lent his ear to rumours, he contrived to renew the broken threads of friendship with the persons he had hurt by his irritability. CHAPTER XV I During the winter of 1563-64 Michelangelo's friends in Rome became extremely anxious about his health, and kept Lionardo Buonarroti from time to time informed of his proceedings. After New Year it was clear that he could not long maintain his former ways of life. Though within a few months of ninety, he persisted in going abroad in all weathers, and refused to surround himself with the comforts befitting a man of his eminence and venerable age. On the 14th of February he seems to have had a kind of seizure. Tiberio Calcagni, writing that day to Lionardo, gives expression to his grave anxiety: "Walking through Rome to-day, I heard from many persons that Messer Michelangelo was ill. Accordingly I went at once to visit him, and although it was raining I found him out of doors on foot. When I saw him, I said that I did not think it right and seemly for him to be going about in such weather 'What do you want?' he answered; 'I am ill, and cannot find rest anywhere.' The uncertainty of his speech, together with the look and colour of his face, made me feel extremely uneasy about his life. The end may not be just now, but I fear greatly that it cannot be far off." Michelangelo did not leave the house again, but spent the next four days partly reclining in an arm-chair, partly in bed. Upon the 15th following, Diomede Leoni wrote to Lionardo, enclosing a letter by the hand of Daniele da Volterra, which Michelangelo had signed. The old man felt his end approaching, and wished to see his nephew. "You will learn from the enclosure how ill he is, and that he wants you to come to Rome. He was taken ill yesterday. I therefore exhort you to come at once, but do so with sufficient prudence. The roads are bad now, and you are not used to travel by post. This being so, you would run some risk if you came post-haste. Taking your own time upon the way, you may feel at ease when you remember that Messer Tommaso dei Cavalieri, Messer Daniele, and I are here to render every possible assistance in your absence. Beside us, Antonio, the old and faithful servant of your uncle, will be helpful in any service that may be expected from him." Diomede reiterates his advice that Lionardo should run no risks by travelling too fast. "If the illness portends mischief, which God forbid, you could not with the utmost haste arrive in time.... I left him just now, a little after 8 P.M., in full possession of his faculties and quiet in his mind, but oppressed with a continued sleepiness. This has annoyed him so much that, between three and four this afternoon, he tried to go out riding, as his wont is every evening in good weather. The coldness of the weather and the weakness of his head and legs prevented him; so he returned to the fire-side, and settled down into an easy chair, which he greatly prefers to the bed." No improvement gave a ray of hope to Michelangelo's friends, and two days later, on the 17th, Tiberio Calcagni took up the correspondence with Lionardo: "This is to beg you to hasten your coming as much as possible, even though the weather be unfavourable. It is certain now that our dear Messer Michelangelo must leave us for good and all, and he ought to have the consolation of seeing you." Next day, on the 18th, Diomede Leoni wrote again: "He died without making a will, but in the attitude of a perfect Christian, this evening, about the Ave Maria. I was present, together with Messer Tommaso dei Cavalieri and Messer Daniele da Volterra, and we put everything in such order that you may rest with a tranquil mind. Yesterday Michelangelo sent for our friend Messer Daniele, and besought him to take up his abode in the house until such time as you arrive, and this he will do." It was at a little before five o'clock on the afternoon of February 18, 1564, that Michelangelo breathed his last. The physicians who attended him to the end were Federigo Donati, and Gherardo Fidelissimi, of Pistoja. It is reported by Vasari that, during his last moments, "he made his will in three sentences, committing his soul into the hands of God, his body to the earth, and his substance to his nearest relatives; enjoining upon these last, when their hour came, to think upon the sufferings of Jesus Christ." On the following day, February 19, Averardo Serristori, the Florentine envoy in Rome, sent a despatch to the Duke, informing him of Michelangelo's decease: "This morning, according to an arrangement I had made, the Governor sent to take an inventory of all the articles found in his house. These were few, and very few drawings. However, what was there they duly registered. The most important object was a box sealed with several seals, which the Governor ordered to be opened in the presence of Messer Tommaso dei Cavalieri and Maestro Daniele da Volterra, who had been sent for by Michelangelo before his death. Some seven or eight thousand crowns were found in it, which have now been deposited with the Ubaldini bankers. This was the command issued by the Governor, and those whom it concerns will have to go there to get the money. The people of the house will be examined as to whether anything has been carried away from it. This is not supposed to have been the case. As far as drawings are concerned, they say that he burned what he had by him before he died. What there is shall be handed over to his nephew when he comes, and this your Excellency can inform him." The objects of art discovered in Michelangelo's house were a blocked-out statue of S. Peter, an unfinished Christ with another figure, and a statuette of Christ with the cross, resembling the Cristo Risorto of S. Maria Sopra Minerva. Ten original drawings were also catalogued, one of which (a Pietà) belonged to Tommaso dei Cavalieri; another (an Epiphany) was given to the notary, while the rest came into the possession of Lionardo Buonarroti. The cash-box, which had been sealed by Tommaso dei Cavalieri and Diomede Leoni, was handed over to the Ubaldini, and from them it passed to Lionardo Buonarroti at the end of February. II Lionardo travelled by post to Rome, but did not arrive until three days after his uncle's death. He began at once to take measures for the transport of Michelangelo's remains to Florence, according to the wish of the old man, frequently expressed and solemnly repeated two days before his death. The corpse had been deposited in the Church of the SS. Apostoli, where the funeral was celebrated with becoming pomp by all the Florentines in Rome, and by artists of every degree. The Romans had come to regard Buonarroti as one of themselves, and, when the report went abroad that he had expressed a wish to be buried in Florence, they refused to believe it, and began to project a decent monument to his memory in the Church of the SS. Apostoli. In order to secure his object, Lionardo was obliged to steal the body away, and to despatch it under the guise of mercantile goods to the custom-house of Florence. Vasari wrote to him from that city upon the 10th of March, informing him that the packing-case had duly arrived, and had been left under seals until his, Lionardo's, arrival at the custom-house. About this time two plans were set on foot for erecting monuments to Michelangelo's memory. The scheme started by the Romans immediately after his death took its course, and the result is that tomb at the SS. Apostoli, which undoubtedly was meant to be a statue-portrait of the man. Vasari received from Lionardo Buonarroti commission to erect the tomb in S. Croce. The correspondence of the latter, both with Vasari and with Jacopo del Duca, who superintended the Roman monument, turns for some time upon these tombs. It is much to Vasari's credit that he wanted to place the Pietà which Michelangelo had broken, above the S. Croce sepulchre. He writes upon the subject in these words: "When I reflect that Michelangelo asserted, as is well known also to Daniele, Messer Tommaso dei Cavalieri, and many other of his friends, that he was making the Pietà of five figures, which he broke, to serve for his own tomb, I think that his heir ought to inquire how it came into the possession of Bandini. Besides, there is an old man in the group who represents the person of the sculptor. I entreat you, therefore, to take measures for regaining this Pietà, and I will make use of it in my design. Pierantonio Bandini is very courteous, and will probably consent. In this way you will gain several points. You will assign to your uncle's sepulchre the group he planned to place there, and you will be able to hand over the statues in Via Mozza to his Excellency, receiving in return enough money to complete the monument." Of the marbles in the Via Mozza at Florence, where Michelangelo's workshop stood, I have seen no catalogue, but they certainly comprised the Victory, probably also the Adonis and the Apollino. There had been some thought of adapting the Victory to the tomb in S. Croce. Vasari, however, doubted whether this group could be applied in any forcible sense allegorically to Buonarroti as man or as artist. Eventually, as we know, the very mediocre monument designed by Vasari, which still exists at S. Croce, was erected at Lionardo Buonarroti's expense, the Duke supplying a sufficiency of marble. III It ought here to be mentioned that, in the spring of 1563, Cosimo founded an Academy of Fine Arts, under the title of "Arte del Disegno." It embraced all the painters, architects, and sculptors of Florence in a kind of guild, with privileges, grades, honours, and officers. The Duke condescended to be the first president of this academy. Next to him, Michelangelo was elected unanimously by all the members as their uncontested principal and leader, "inasmuch as this city, and peradventure the whole world, hath not a master more excellent in the three arts." The first great work upon which the Duke hoped to employ the guild was the completion of the sacristy at S. Lorenzo. Vasari's letter to Michelangelo shows that up to this date none of the statues had been erected in their proper places, and that it was intended to add a great number of figures, as well as to adorn blank spaces in the walls with frescoes. All the best artists of the time, including Gian Bologna, Cellini, Bronzino, Tribolo, Montelupo, Ammanati, offered their willing assistance, "forasmuch as there is not one of us but hath learned in this sacristy, or rather in this our school, whatever excellence he possesses in the arts of design." We know already only too well that the scheme was never carried out, probably in part because Michelangelo's rapidly declining strength prevented him from furnishing these eager artists with the necessary working drawings. Cosimo's anxiety to gain possession of any sketches left in Rome after Buonarroti's death may be ascribed to this project for completing the works begun at S. Lorenzo. Well then, upon the news of Michelangelo's death, the academicians were summoned by their lieutenant, Don Vincenzo Borghini, to deliberate upon the best way of paying him honour, and celebrating his obsequies with befitting pomp. It was decided that all the leading artists should contribute something, each in his own line, to the erection of a splendid catafalque, and a sub-committee of four men was elected to superintend its execution. These were Angelo Bronzino and Vasari, Benvenuto Cellini and Ammanati, friends of the deceased, and men of highest mark in the two fields of painting and sculpture. The church selected for the ceremony was S. Lorenzo; the orator appointed was Benedetto Varchi. Borghini, in his capacity of lieutenant or official representative, obtained the Duke's assent to the plan, which was subsequently carried out, as we shall see in due course. Notwithstanding what Vasari wrote to Lionardo about his uncle's coffin having been left at the Dogana, it seems that it was removed upon the very day of its arrival, March II, to the Oratory of the Assunta, underneath the church of S. Pietro Maggiore. On the following day the painters, sculptors, and architects of the newly founded academy met together at this place, intending to transfer the body secretly to S. Croce. They only brought a single pall of velvet, embroidered with gold, and a crucifix, to place upon the bier. When night fell, the elder men lighted torches, while the younger crowded together, vying one with another for the privilege of carrying the coffin. Meantime the Florentines, suspecting that something unusual was going forward at S. Pietro, gathered round, and soon the news spread through the city that Michelangelo was being borne to S. Croce. A vast concourse of people in this way came unexpectedly together, following the artists through the streets, and doing pathetic honour to the memory of the illustrious dead. The spacious church of S. Croce was crowded in all its length and breadth, so that the pall-bearers had considerable difficulty in reaching the sacristy with their precious burden. In that place Don Vincenzo Borghini, who was lieutenant of the academy, ordered that the coffin should be opened. "He thought he should be doing what was pleasing to many of those present; and, as he afterwards admitted, he was personally anxious to behold in death one whom he had never seen in life, or at any rate so long ago as to have quite forgotten the occasion. All of us who stood by expected to find the corpse already defaced by the outrage of the sepulchre, inasmuch as twenty-five days had elapsed since Michelangelo's death, and twenty-one since his consignment to the coffin; but, to our great surprise, the dead man lay before us perfect in all his parts, and without the evil odours of the grave; indeed, one might have thought that he was resting in a sweet and very tranquil slumber. Not only did the features of his countenance bear exactly the same aspect as in life, except for some inevitable pallor, but none of his limbs were injured, or repulsive to the sight. The head and cheeks, to the touch, felt just as though he had breathed his last but a few hours since." As soon as the eagerness of the multitude calmed down a little, the bier was carried into the church again, and the coffin was deposited in a proper place behind the altar of the Cavalcanti. When the academicians decreed a catafalque for Michelangelo's solemn obsequies in S. Lorenzo, they did not aim so much at worldly splendour or gorgeous trappings as at an impressive monument, combining the several arts which he had practised in his lifetime. Being made of stucco, woodwork, plaster, and such perishable materials, it was unfortunately destined to decay. But Florence had always been liberal, nay, lavish, of her genius in triumphs, masques, magnificent street architecture, evoked to celebrate some ephemeral event. A worthier occasion would not occur again; and we have every reason to believe that the superb structure, which was finally exposed to view upon the 14th of July, displayed all that was left at Florence of the grand style in the arts of modelling and painting. They were decadent indeed; during the eighty-nine years of Buonarroti's life upon earth they had expanded, flourished, and flowered with infinite variety in rapid evolution. He lived to watch their decline; yet the sunset of that long day was still splendid to the eyes and senses. The four deputies appointed by the academy held frequent sittings before the plan was fixed, and the several parts had been assigned to individual craftsmen. Ill health prevented Cellini from attending, but he sent a letter to the lieutenant, which throws some interesting light upon the project in its earlier stages. A minute description of the monument was published soon after the event. Another may be read in the pages of Vasari. Varchi committed his oration to the press, and two other panegyrical discourses were issued, under the names of Leonardo Salviati and Giovan Maria Tarsia. Poems composed on the occasion were collected into one volume, and distributed by the Florentine firm of Sermatelli. To load these pages with the details of allegorical statues and pictures which have long passed out of existence, and to cite passages from funeral speeches, seems to me useless. It is enough to have directed the inquisitive to sources where their curiosity may be gratified. IV It would be impossible to take leave of Michelangelo without some general survey of his character and qualities. With this object in view I do not think I can do better than to follow what Condivi says at the close of his biography, omitting those passages which have been already used in the body of this book, and supplementing his summary with illustrative anecdotes from Vasari. Both of these men knew him intimately during the last years of his life; and if it is desirable to learn how a man strikes his contemporaries, we obtain from them a lively and veracious, though perhaps a slightly flattered, picture of the great master whom they studied with love and admiration from somewhat different points of view. This will introduce a critical examination of the analysis to which the psychology; of Michelangelo has recently been subjected. Condivi opens his peroration with the following paragraphs:-- "Now, to conclude this gossiping discourse of mine, I say that it is my opinion that in painting and sculpture nature bestowed all her riches with a full hand upon Michelangelo. I do not fear reproach or contradiction when I repeat that his statues are, as it were, inimitable. Nor do I think that I have suffered myself to exceed the bounds of truth while making this assertion. In the first place, he is the only artist who has handled both brush and mallet with equal excellence. Then we have no relics left of antique paintings to compare with his; and though many classical works in statuary survive, to whom among the ancients does he yield the palm in sculpture? In the judgment of experts and practical artists, he certainly yields to none; and were, we to consult the vulgar, who admire antiquity without criticism, through a kind of jealousy toward the talents and the industry of their own times, even here we shall find none who say the contrary; to such a height has this great man soared above the scope of envy. Raffaello of Urbino, though he chose to strive in rivalry with Michelangelo, was wont to say that he thanked God for having been born in his days, since he learned from him a manner very different from that which his father, who was a painter, and his master, Perugino, taught him. Then, too, what proof of his singular excellence could be wished for, more convincing and more valid, than the eagerness with which the sovereigns of the world contended for him? Beside four pontiffs, Julius, Leo, Clement, and Paul, the Grand Turk, father of the present Sultan, sent certain Franciscans with letters begging him to come and reside at his court. By orders on the bank of the Gondi at Florence, he provided that whatever sums were asked for should be disbursed to pay the expenses of his journey; and when he should have reached Cossa, a town near Ragusa, one of the greatest nobles of the realm was told off to conduct him in most honourable fashion to Constantinople. Francis of Valois, King of France, tried to get him by many devices, giving instructions that, whenever he chose to travel, 3000 crowns should be told out to him in Rome. The Signory of Venice sent Bruciolo to Rome with an invitation to their city, offering a pension of 600 crowns if he would settle there. They attached no conditions to this offer, only desiring that he should honour the republic with his presence, and stipulating that whatever he might do in their service should be paid as though he were not in receipt of a fixed income. These are not ordinary occurrences, or such as happen every day, but strange and out of common usage; nor are they wont to befall any but men of singular and transcendent ability, as was Homer, for whom many cities strove in rivalry, each desirous of acquiring him and making him its own. "The reigning Pope, Julius III., holds him in no less esteem than the princes I have mentioned. This sovereign, distinguished for rare taste and judgment, loves and promotes all arts and sciences, but is most particularly devoted to painting, sculpture, and architecture, as may be clearly seen in the buildings which his Holiness has erected in the Vatican and the Belvedere, and is now raising at his Villa Giulia (a monument worthy of a lofty and generous nature, as indeed his own is), where he has gathered together so many ancient and modern statues, such a variety of the finest pictures, precious columns, works in stucco, wall-painting, and every kind of decoration, of the which I must reserve a more extended account for some future occasion, since it deserves a particular study, and has not yet reached completion. This Pope has not used the services of Michelangelo for any active work, out of regard for his advanced age. He is fully alive to his greatness, and appreciates it, but refrains from adding burdens beyond those which Michelangelo himself desires; and this regard, in my opinion, confers more honour on him than any of the great under-takings which former pontiffs exacted from his genius. It is true that his Holiness almost always consults him on works of painting or of architecture he may have in progress, and very often sends the artists to confer with him at his own house. I regret, and his Holiness also regrets, that a certain natural shyness, or shall I say respect or reverence, which some folk call pride, prevents him from having recourse to the benevolence, goodness, and liberality of such a pontiff, and one so much his friend. For the Pope, as I first heard from the Most Rev. Monsignor of Forli, his Master of the Chamber, has often observed that, were this possible, he, would gladly give some of his own years and his own blood to add to Michelangelo's life, to the end that the world should not so soon be robbed of such a man. And this, when I had access to his Holiness, I heard with my own ears from his mouth. Moreover, if he happens to survive him, as seems reasonable in the course of nature, he has a mind to embalm him and keep him ever near to his own person, so that his body in death shall be as everlasting as his works. This he said to Michelangelo himself at the commencement of his reign, in the presence of many persons. I know not what could be more honourable to Michelangelo than such words, or a greater proof of the high account in which he is held by his Holiness. "So then Michelangelo, while he was yet a youth, devoted himself not only to sculpture and painting, but also to all those other arts which to them are allied or subservient, and this he did with such absorbing energy that for a time he almost entirely cut himself off from human society, conversing with but very few intimate friends. On this account some folk thought him proud, others eccentric and capricious, although he was tainted with none of these defects; but, as hath happened to many men of great abilities, the love of study and the perpetual practice of his art rendered him solitary, being so taken up with the pleasure and delight of these things that society not only afforded him no solace, but even caused him annoyance by diverting him from meditation, being (as the great Scipio used to say) never less alone than when he was alone. Nevertheless, he very willingly embraced the friendship of those whose learned and cultivated conversation could be of profit to his mind, and in whom some beams of genius shone forth: as, for example, the most reverend and illustrious Monsignor Pole, for his rare virtues and singular goodness; and likewise the most reverend, my patron, Cardinal Crispo, in whom he discovered, beside his many excellent qualities, a distinguished gift of acute judgment; he was also warmly attached to the Cardinal of S. Croce, a man of the utmost gravity and wisdom, whom I have often heard him name in the highest terms; and to the most reverend Maffei, whose goodness and learning he has always praised: indeed, he loves and honours all the dependants of the house of Farnese, owing to the lively memory he cherishes of Pope Paul, whom he invariably mentions with the deepest reverence as a good and holy old man; and in like manner the most reverend Patriarch of Jerusalem, sometime Bishop of Cesena, has lived for some time in close intimacy with him, finding peculiar pleasure in so open and generous a nature. He was also on most friendly terms with my very reverend patron the Cardinal Ridolfi, of blessed memory, that refuge of all men of parts and talent. There are several others whom I omit for fear of being prolix, as Monsignor Claudio Tolomei, Messer Lorenzo Ridolfi, Messer Donato Giannotti, Messer Lionardo Malespini, Lottino, Messer Tommaso dei Cavalieri, and other honoured gentlemen. Of late years he has become deeply attached to Annibale Caro, of whom he told me that it grieves him not to have come to know him earlier, seeing that he finds him much to his taste." "In like manner as he enjoyed the converse of learned men, so also did he take pleasure in the study of eminent writers, whether of prose or verse. Among these he particularly admired Dante, whose marvellous poems he hath almost all by heart. Nevertheless, the same might perhaps be said about his love for Petrarch. These poets he not only delighted in studying, but he also was wont to compose from time to time upon his own account. There are certain sonnets among those he wrote which give a very good notion of his great inventive power and judgment. Some of them have furnished Varchi with the subject of Discourses. It must be remembered, however, that he practised poetry for his amusement, and not as a profession, always depreciating his own talent, and appealing to his ignorance in these matters. Just in the same way he has perused the Holy Scriptures with great care and industry, studying not merely the Old Testament, but also the New, together with their commentators, as, for example, the writings of Savonarola, for whom he always retained a deep affection, since the accents of the preacher's living voice rang in his memory. "He has given away many of his works, the which, if he had chosen to sell them, would have brought him vast sums of money. A single instance of this generosity will suffice--namely, the two statues which he presented to his dearest friend, Messer Ruberto Strozzi. Nor was it only of his handiwork that he has been liberal. He opened his purse readily to poor men of talent in literature or art, as I can testify, having myself been the recipient of his bounty. He never showed an envious spirit toward the labours of other masters in the crafts he practised, and this was due rather to the goodness of his nature than to any sense of his own superiority. Indeed, he always praised all men of excellence without exception, even Raffaello of Urbino, between whom and himself there was of old time some rivalry in painting. I have only heard him say that Raffaello did not derive his mastery in that art so much from nature as from prolonged study. Nor is it true, as many persons assert to his discredit, that he has been unwilling to impart instruction. On the contrary, he did so readily, as I know by personal experience, for to me he unlocked all the secrets of the arts he had acquired. Ill-luck, however, willed that he should meet either with subjects ill adapted to such studies, or else with men of little perseverance, who, when they had been working a few months under his direction, began to think themselves past-masters. Moreover, although he was willing to teach, he did not like it to be known that he did so, caring more to do good than to seem to do it. I may add that he always attempted to communicate the arts to men of gentle birth, as did the ancients, and not to plebeians." V To this passage about Michelangelo's pupils we may add the following observation by Vasari: "He loved his workmen, and conversed with them on friendly terms. Among these I will mention Jacopo Sansovino, Rosso, Pontormo, Daniele da Volterra, and Giorgio Vasari. To the last of these men he showed unbounded kindness, and caused him to study architecture, with the view of employing his services in that art. He exchanged thoughts readily with him, and discoursed upon artistic topics. Those are in the wrong who assert that he refused to communicate his stores of knowledge. He always did so to his personal friends, and to all who sought his advice. It ought, however, to be mentioned that he was not lucky in the craftsmen who lived with him, since chance brought him into contact with people unfitted to profit by his example. Pietro Urbano of Pistoja was a man of talent but no industry. Antonio Mini had the will but not the brains, and hard wax takes a bad impression. Ascanio dalla Ripa Transone (_i.e._, Condivi) took great pains, but brought nothing to perfection either in finished work or in design. He laboured many years upon a picture for which Michelangelo supplied the drawing. At last the expectations based upon this effort vanished into smoke. I remember that Michelangelo felt pity for his trouble, and helped him with his own hand. Nothing, however, came of it. He often told me that if he had found a proper subject he should have liked, old as he was, to have recommended anatomy, and to have written on it for the use of his workmen. However, he distrusted his own powers of expressing what he wanted in writing, albeit his letters show that he could easily put forth his thoughts in a few brief words." About Michelangelo's kindness to his pupils and servants there is no doubt. We have only to remember his treatment of Pietro Urbano and Antonio Mini, Urbino and Condivi, Tiberio Calcagni and Antonio del Franzese. A curious letter from Michelangelo to Andrea Quarantesi, which I have quoted in another connection, shows that people were eager to get their sons placed under his charge. The inedited correspondence in the Buonarroti Archives abounds in instances illustrating the reputation he had gained for goodness. We have two grateful letters from a certain Pietro Bettino in Castel Durante speaking very warmly of Michelangelo's attention to his son Cesare. Two to the same effect from Amilcare Anguissola in Cremona acknowledge services rendered to his daughter Sofonisba, who was studying design in Rome. Pietro Urbano wrote twenty letters between the years 1517 and 1525, addressing him in terms like "carissimo quanto padre." After recovering from his illness at Pistoja, he expresses the hope that he will soon be back again at Florence (September 18, 1519): "Dearest to me like the most revered of fathers, I send you salutations, announcing that I am a little better, but not yet wholly cured of that flux; still I hope before many days are over to find myself at Florence." A certain Silvio Falcone, who had been in his service, and who had probably been sent away because of some misconduct, addressed a letter from Rome to him in Florence, which shows both penitence and warm affection. "I am and shall always be a good servant to you in every place where I may be. Do not remember my stupidity in those past concerns, which I know that, being a prudent man, you will not impute to malice. If you were to do so, this would cause me the greatest sorrow; for I desire nothing but to remain in your good grace, and if I had only this in the world, it would suffice me." He begs to be remembered to Pietro Urbano, and requests his pardon if he has offended him. Another set of letters, composed in the same tone by a man who signs himself Silvio di Giovanni da Cepparello, was written by a sculptor honourably mentioned in Vasari's Life of Andrea da Fiesole for his work at S. Lorenzo, in Genoa, and elsewhere. They show how highly the fame of having been in Michelangelo's employ was valued. He says that he is now working for Andrea Doria, Prince of Melfi, at Genoa. Still he should like to return, if this were possible, to his old master's service: "For if I lost all I had in the world, and found myself with you, I should think myself the first of men." A year later Silvio was still at work for Prince Doria and the Fieschi, but he again begs earnestly to be taken back by Michelangelo. "I feel what obligations I am under for all the kindness received from you in past times. When I remember the love you bore me while I was in your service, I do not know how I could repay it; and I tell you that only through having been in your service, wherever I may happen now to be, honour and courtesy are paid me; and that is wholly due to your excellent renown, and not to any merit of my own." The only letter from Ascanio Condivi extant in the Buonarroti Archives may here be translated in full, since its tone does honour both to master and servant:-- "Unique lord and my most to be observed patron,--I have already written you two letters, but almost think you cannot have received them, since I have heard no news of you. This I write merely to beg that you will remember to command me, and to make use not of me alone, but of all my household, since we are all your servants. Indeed, my most honoured and revered master, I entreat you deign to dispose of me and do with me as one is wont to do with the least of servants. You have the right to do so, since I owe more to you than to my own father, and I will prove my desire to repay your kindness by my deeds. I will now end this letter, in order not to be irksome, recommending myself humbly, and praying you to let me have the comfort of knowing that you are well: for a greater I could not receive. Farewell." It cannot be denied that Michelangelo sometimes treated his pupils and servants with the same irritability, suspicion, and waywardness of temper as he showed to his relatives and friends. It is only necessary to recall his indignation against Lapo and Lodovico at Bologna, Stefano at Florence, Sandro at Serravalle, all his female drudges, and the anonymous boy whom his father sent from Rome. That he was a man "gey ill to live with" seems indisputable. This may in part account for the fact that, unlike other great Italian masters, he formed no school. The _frescanti_ who came from Florence to assist him in the Sistine Chapel were dismissed with abruptness, perhaps even with brutality. Montelupo and Montorsoli, among sculptors, Marcello Venusti and Pontormo, Daniele da Volterra and Sebastiano del Piombo, among painters, felt his direct influence. But they did not stand in the same relation to him as Raffaello's pupils to their master. The work of Giulio Romano, Giovanni da Udine, Francesco Penni, Perino del Vaga, Primaticcio, at Rome, at Mantua, and elsewhere, is a genial continuation of Raffaello's spirit and manner after his decease. Nothing of the sort can be maintained about the statues and the paintings which display a study of the style of Michelangelo. And this holds good in like manner of his imitators in architecture. For worse rather than for better, he powerfully and permanently affected Italian art; but he did not create a body of intelligent craftsmen, capable of carrying on his inspiration, as Giulio Romano expanded the Loggie of the Vatican into the Palazzo del Te. I have already expressed my opinions regarding the specific quality of the Michelangelo tradition in a passage which I may perhaps be here permitted to resume:-- "Michelangelo formed no school in the strict sense of the word; yet his influence was not the less felt on that account, nor less powerful than Raffaello's. During his manhood a few painters endeavoured to add the charm of oil-colouring to his designs, and long before his death the seduction of his mighty mannerism began to exercise a fatal charm for all the schools of Italy. Painters incapable of fathoming his intention, unsympathetic to his rare type of intellect, and gifted with less than a tithe of his native force, set themselves to reproduce whatever may be justly censured in his works. To heighten and enlarge their style was reckoned a chief duty of aspiring craftsmen, and it was thought that recipes for attaining to this final perfection of the modern arts might be extracted without trouble from Michelangelo's masterpieces. Unluckily, in proportion as his fame increased, his peculiarities became with the advance of age more manneristic and defined, so that his imitators fixed precisely upon that which sober critics now regard as a deduction from his greatness. They failed to perceive that he owed his grandeur to his personality, and that the audacities which fascinated them became mere whimsical extravagances when severed from his _terribilità_ and sombre simplicity of impassioned thought. His power and his spirit were alike unique and incommunicable, while the admiration of his youthful worshippers betrayed them into imitating the externals of a style that was rapidly losing spontaneity. Therefore they fancied they were treading in his footsteps and using the grand manner when they covered church-roofs and canvases with sprawling figures in distorted attitudes. Instead of studying nature, they studied Michelangelo's cartoons, exaggerating by their unintelligent discipleship his willfulness and arbitrary choice of form. "Vasari's and Cellini's criticisms of a master they both honestly revered may suffice to illustrate the false method adopted by these mimics of Michelangelo's ideal. To charge him with faults proceeding from the weakness and blindness of the Decadence--the faults of men too blind to read his art aright, too weak to stand on their own feet without him--would be either stupid or malicious. If at the close of the sixteenth century the mannerists sought to startle and entrance the world by empty exhibitions of muscular anatomy misunderstood, and by a braggadocio display of meaningless effects--crowding their compositions with studies from the nude, and painting agitated groups without a discernible cause for agitation--the crime surely lay with the patrons who liked such decoration, and with the journeymen who provided it. Michelangelo himself always made his manner serve his thought. We may fail to appreciate his manner and may be incapable of comprehending his thought, but only insincere or conceited critics will venture to gauge the latter by what they feel to be displeasing in the former. What seems lawless in him follows the law of a profound and peculiar genius, with which, whether we like it or not, we must reckon. His imitators were devoid of thought, and too indifferent to question whether there was any law to be obeyed. Like the jackass in the fable, they assumed the dead lion's skin, and brayed beneath it, thinking they could roar." VI Continuing these scattered observations upon Michelangelo's character and habits, we may collect what Vasari records about his social intercourse with brother-artists. Being himself of a saturnine humour, he took great delight in the society of persons little better than buffoons. Writing the Life of Jacopo surnamed L'Indaco, a Florentine painter of some merit, Vasari observes: "He lived on very familiar terms of intimacy with Michelangelo; for that great artist, great above all who ever were, when he wished to refresh his mind, fatigued by studies and incessant labours of the body and the intellect, found no one more to his liking and more congenial to his humour than was Indaco." Nothing is recorded concerning their friendship, except that Buonarroti frequently invited Indaco to meals; and one day, growing tired of the man's incessant chatter, sent him out to buy figs, and then locked the house-door, so that he could not enter when he had discharged his errand. A boon-companion of the same type was Menighella, whom Vasari describes as "a mediocre and stupid painter of Valdarno, but extremely amusing." He used to frequent Michelangelo's house, "and he, who could with difficulty be induced to work for kings, would lay aside all other occupations in order to make drawings for this fellow." What Menighella wanted was some simple design or other of S. Rocco, S. Antonio, or S. Francesco, to be coloured for one of his peasant patrons. Vasari says that Michelangelo modelled a very beautiful Christ for this humble friend, from which Menighella made a cast, and repeated it in papier-mâché, selling these crucifixes through the country-side. What would not the world give for one of them, even though Michelangelo is said to have burst his sides with laughing at the man's stupidity! Another familiar of the same sort was a certain stone-cutter called Domenico Fancelli, and nicknamed Topolino. From a letter addressed to him by Buonarroti in 1523 it appears that he was regarded as a "very dear friend." According to Vasari, Topolino thought himself an able sculptor, but was in reality extremely feeble. He blocked out a marble Mercury, and begged the great master to pronounce a candid opinion on its merits. "You are a madman, Topolino," replied Michelangelo, "to attempt this art of statuary. Do you not see that your Mercury is too short by more than a third of a cubit from the knees to the feet? You have made him a dwarf, and spoiled the whole figure." "Oh, that is nothing! If there is no other fault, I can easily put that to rights. Leave the matter to me." Michelangelo laughed at the man's simplicity, and went upon his way. Then Topolino took a piece of marble, and cut off the legs of his Mercury below the knees. Next he fashioned a pair of buskins of the right height, and joined these on to the truncated limbs in such wise that the tops of the boots concealed the lines of juncture. When Buonarroti saw the finished statue, he remarked that fools were gifted with the instinct for rectifying errors by expedients which a wise man would not have hit upon. Another of Michelangelo's buffoon friends was a Florentine celebrity, Piloto, the goldsmith. We know that he took this man with him when he went to Venice in 1530; but Vasari tells no characteristic stories concerning their friendship. It may be remarked that Il Lasca describes Piloto as a "most entertaining and facetious fellow," assigning him the principal part in one of his indecent novels. The painter Giuliano Bugiardini ought to be added to the same list. Messer Ottaviano de' Medici begged him to make a portrait of Michelangelo, who gave him a sitting without hesitation, being extremely partial to the man's company. At the end of two hours Giuliano exclaimed: "Michelangelo, if you want to see yourself, stand up; I have caught the likeness." Michelangelo did as he was bidden, and when he had examined the portrait, he laughed and said: "What the devil have you been about? You have painted me with one of my eyes up in the temple." Giuliano stood some time comparing the drawing with his model's face, and then remarked: "I do not think so; but take your seat again, and I shall be able to judge better when I have you in the proper pose." Michelangelo, who knew well where the fault lay, and how little judgment belonged to his friend Bugiardini, resumed his seat, grinning. After some time of careful contemplation, Giuliano rose to his feet and cried: "It seems to me that I have drawn it right, and that the life compels me to do so." "So then," replied Buonarroti, "the defect is nature's, and see you spare neither the brush nor art." Both Sebastiano del Piombo and Giorgio Vasari were appreciated by Michelangelo for their lively parts and genial humour. The latter has told an anecdote which illustrates the old man's eccentricity. He was wont to wear a cardboard hat at night, into which he stuck a candle, and then worked by its light upon his statue of the Pietà. Vasari observing this habit, wished to do him a kindness by sending him 40 lbs. of candles made of goat's fat, knowing that they gutter less than ordinary dips of tallow. His servant carried them politely to the house two hours after nightfall, and presented them to Michelangelo. He refused, and said he did not want them. The man answered, "Sir, they have almost broken my arms carrying them all this long way from the bridge, nor will I take them home again. There is a heap of mud opposite your door, thick and firm enough to hold them upright. Here then will I set them all up, and light them." When Michelangelo heard this, he gave way: "Lay them down; I do not mean you to play pranks at my house-door." Varsari tells another anecdote about the Pietà. Pope Julius III. sent him late one evening to Michelangelo's house for some drawing. The old man came down with a lantern, and hearing what was wanted, told Urbino to look for the cartoon. Meanwhile, Vasari turned his attention to one of the legs of Christ, which Michelangelo had been trying to alter. In order to prevent his seeing, Michelangelo let the lamp fall, and they remained in darkness. He then called for a light, and stepped forth from the enclosure of planks behind which he worked. As he did so, he remarked, "I am so old that Death oftentimes plucks me by the cape to go with him, and one day this body of mine will fall like the lantern, and the light of life will be put out." Of death he used to say, that "if life gives us pleasure, we ought not to expect displeasure from death, seeing as it is made by the hand of the same master." Among stories relating to craftsmen, these are perhaps worth gleaning. While he was working on the termini for the tomb of Julius, he gave directions to a certain stone-cutter: "Remove such and such parts here to-day, smooth out in this place, and polish up in that." In the course of time, without being aware of it, the man found that he had produced a statue, and stared astonished at his own performance. Michelangelo asked, "What do you think of it?" "I think it very good," he answered, "and I owe you a deep debt of gratitude." "Why do you say that?" "Because you have caused me to discover in myself a talent which I did not know that I possessed."--A certain citizen, who wanted a mortar, went to a sculptor and asked him to make one. The fellow, suspecting some practical joke, pointed out Buonarroti's house, and said that if he wanted mortars, a man lived there whose trade it was to make them. The customer accordingly addressed himself to Michelangelo, who, in his turn suspecting a trick, asked who had sent him. When he knew the sculptor's name, he promised to carve the mortar, on the condition that it should be paid for at the sculptor's valuation. This was settled, and the mortar turned out a miracle of arabesques and masks and grotesque inventions, wonderfully wrought and polished. In due course of time the mortar was taken to the envious and suspicious sculptor, who stood dumbfounded before it, and told the customer that there was nothing left but to carry this masterpiece of carving back to him who fashioned it, and order a plain article for himself.--At Modena he inspected the terra-cotta groups by Antonio Begarelli, enthusiastically crying out, "If this clay could become marble, woe to antique statuary."--A Florentine citizen once saw him gazing at Donatello's statue of S. Mark upon the outer wall of Orsanmichele. On being asked what he thought of it, Michelangelo replied, "I never saw a figure which so thoroughly represents a man of probity; if S. Mark was really like that, we have every reason to believe everything which he has said." To the S. George in the same place he is reported to have given the word of command, "March!"--Some one showed him a set of medals by Alessandro Cesari, upon which he exclaimed, "The death hour of art has struck; nothing more perfect can be seen than these."--Before Titian's portrait of Duke Alfonso di Ferrara he observed that he had not thought art could perform so much, adding that Titian alone deserved the name of painter.--He was wont to call Cronaca's church of S. Francesco al Monte "his lovely peasant girl," and Ghiberti's doors in the Florentine Baptistery "the Gates of Paradise."--Somebody showed him a boy's drawings, and excused their imperfection by pleading that he had only just begun to study: "That is obvious," he answered. A similar reply is said to have been made to Vasari, when he excused his own frescoes in the Cancelleria at Rome by saying they had been painted in a few days.--An artist showed him a Pietà which he had finished: "Yes, it is indeed a _pietà_ (pitiful object) to see."--Ugo da Carpi signed one of his pictures with a legend declaring he had not used a brush on it: "It would have been better had he done so."--Sebastiano del Piombo was ordered to paint a friar in a chapel at S. Pietro a Montorio. Michelangelo observed, "He will spoil the chapel." Asked why, he answered, "When the friars have spoiled the world, which is so large, it surely is an easy thing for them to spoil such a tiny chapel."--A sculptor put together a number of figures imitated from the antique, and thought he had surpassed his models. Michelangelo remarked, "One who walks after another man, never goes in front of him; and one who is not able to do well by his own wit, will not be able to profit by the works of others."--A painter produced some notably poor picture, in which only an ox was vigorously drawn: "Every artist draws his own portrait best," said Michelangelo.--He went to see a statue which was in the sculptor's studio, waiting to be exposed before the public. The man bustled about altering the lights, in order to show his work off to the best advantage: "Do not take this trouble; what really matters will be the light of the piazza;" meaning that the people in the long-run decide what is good or bad in art.--Accused of want of spirit in his rivalry with Nanni di Baccio Bigio, he retorted, "Men who fight with folk of little worth win nothing."--A priest who was a friend of his said, "It is a pity that you never married, for you might have had many children, and would have left them all the profit and honour of your labours." Michelangelo answered, "I have only too much of a wife in this art of mine. She has always kept me struggling on. My children will be the works I leave behind me. Even though they are worth naught, yet I shall live awhile in them. Woe to Lorenzo Ghiberti if he had not made the gates of S. Giovanni! His children and grandchildren have sold and squandered the substance that he left. The gates are still in their places." VII This would be an appropriate place to estimate Michelangelo's professional gains in detail, to describe the properties he acquired in lands and houses, and to give an account of his total fortune. We are, however, not in the position to do this accurately. We only know the prices paid for a few of his minor works. He received, for instance, thirty ducats for the Sleeping Cupid, and 450 ducats for the Pietà of S. Peter's. He contracted with Cardinal Piccolomini to furnish fifteen statues for 500 ducats. In all of these cases the costs of marble, workmen, workshop, fell on him. He contracted with Florence to execute the David in two years, at a salary of six golden florins per month, together with a further sum when the work was finished. It appears that 400 florins in all (including salary) were finally adjudged to him. In these cases all incidental expenses had been paid by his employers. He contracted with the Operai del Duomo to make twelve statues in as many years, receiving two florins a month, and as much as the Operai thought fit to pay him when the whole was done. Here too he was relieved from incidental expenses. For the statue of Christ at S. Maria sopra Minerva he was paid 200 crowns. These are a few of the most trustworthy items we possess, and they are rendered very worthless by the impossibility of reducing ducats, florins, and crowns to current values. With regard to the bronze statue of Julius II. at Bologna, Michelangelo tells us that he received in advance 1000 ducats, and when he ended his work there remained only 4-1/2 ducats to the good. In this case, as in most of his great operations, he entered at the commencement into a contract with his patron, sending in an estimate of what he thought it would be worth his while to do the work for. The Italian is "pigliare a cottimo;" and in all of his dealings with successive Popes Michelangelo evidently preferred this method. It must have sometimes enabled the artist to make large profits; but the nature of the contract prevents his biographer from forming even a vague estimate of their amount. According to Condivi, he received 3000 ducats for the Sistine vault, working at his own costs. According to his own statement, several hundred ducats were owing at the end of the affair. It seems certain that Julius II. died in Michelangelo's debt, and that the various contracts for his tomb were a source of loss rather than of gain. Such large undertakings as the sacristy and library of S. Lorenzo were probably agreed for on the contract system. But although there exist plenty of memoranda recording Michelangelo's disbursements at various times for various portions of these works, we can strike no balance showing an approximate calculation of his profits. What renders the matter still more perplexing is, that very few of Michelangelo's contracts were fulfilled according to the original intention of the parties. For one reason or another they had to be altered and accommodated to circumstances. It is clear that, later on in life, he received money for drawings, for architectural work, and for models, the execution of which he bound himself to superintend. Cardinal Grimani wrote saying he would pay the artist's own price for a design he had requested. Vasari observes that the sketches he gave away were worth thousands of crowns. We know that he was offered a handsome salary for the superintendence of S. Peter's, which he magnanimously and piously declined to touch. But what we cannot arrive at is even a rough valuation of the sums he earned in these branches of employment. Again, we know that he was promised a yearly salary from Clement VII., and one more handsome from Paul III. But the former was paid irregularly, and half of the latter depended on the profits of a ferry, which eventually failed him altogether. In each of these cases, then, the same circumstances of vagueness and uncertainty throw doubt on all investigation, and render a conjectural estimate impossible. Moreover, there remain no documents to prove what he may have gained, directly or indirectly, from succeeding Pontiffs. That he felt the loss of Paul III., as a generous patron, is proved by a letter written on the occasion of his death; and Vasari hints that the Pope had been munificent in largesses bestowed upon him. But of these occasional presents and emoluments we have no accurate information; and we are unable to state what he derived from Pius IV., who was certainly one of his best friends and greatest admirers. At his death in Rome he left cash amounting to something under 9000 crowns. But, since he died intestate, we have no will to guide us as to the extent and nature of his whole estate. Nor, so far as I am aware, has the return of his property, which Lionardo Buonarroti may possibly have furnished to the state of Florence, been yet brought to light. That he inherited some landed property at Settignano from his father is certain; and he added several plots of ground to the paternal acres. He also is said to have bought a farm in Valdichiana (doubtful), and other pieces of land in Tuscany. He owned a house at Rome, a house and workshop in the Via Mozza at Florence, and he purchased the Casa Buonarroti in Via Ghibellina. But we have no means of determining the total value of these real assets. In these circumstances I feel unable to offer any probable opinion regarding the amount of Michelangelo's professional earnings, or the exact way in which they were acquired. That he died possessed of a considerable fortune, and that he was able during his lifetime to assist his family with large donations, cannot be disputed. But how he came to command so much money does not appear. His frugality, bordering upon penuriousness, impressed contemporaries. This, considering the length of his life, may account for not contemptible accumulations. VIII We have seen that Michelangelo's contemporaries found fault with several supposed frailties of his nature. These may be briefly catalogued under the following heads: A passionate violence of temper (_terribilità_), expressing itself in hasty acts and words; extreme suspiciousness and irritability; solitary habits, amounting to misanthropy or churlishness; eccentricity and melancholy bordering on madness; personal timidity and avarice; a want of generosity in imparting knowledge, and an undue partiality for handsome persons of his own sex. His biographers, Condivi and Vasari, thought these charges worthy of serious refutation, which proves that they were current. They had no difficulty in showing that his alleged misanthropy, melancholy, and madness were only signs of a studious nature absorbed in profound meditations. They easily refuted the charges of avarice and want of generosity in helping on young artists. But there remained a great deal in the popular conception which could not be dismissed, and which has recently been corroborated by the publication of his correspondence. The opinion that Michelangelo was a man of peculiar, and in some respects not altogether healthy nervous temperament, will force itself upon all those who have fairly weighed the evidence of the letters in connection with the events of his life. It has been developed in a somewhat exaggerated form, of late years, by several psychologists of the new school (Parlagreco and Lombroso in Italy, Nisbet in England), who attempt to prove that Michelangelo was the subject of neurotic disorder. The most important and serious essay in this direction is a little book of great interest and almost hypercritical acumen published recently at Naples. Signor Parlagreco lays great stress upon Michelangelo's insensibility to women, his "strange and contradictory feeling about feminine beauty." He seeks to show, what is indeed, I think, capable of demonstration, that the man's intense devotion to art and study, his solitary habits and constitutional melancholy, caused him to absorb the ordinary instincts and passions of a young man into his aesthetic temperament; and that when, in later life, he began to devote his attention to poetry, he treated love from the point of view of mystical philosophy. In support of this argument Parlagreco naturally insists upon the famous friendship with Vittoria Colonna, and quotes the Platonising poems commonly attributed to this emotion. He has omitted to mention, what certainly bears upon the point of Michelangelo's frigidity, that only one out of the five Buonarroti brothers, sons of Lodovico, married. Nor does he take into account the fact that Raffaello da Urbino, who was no less devoted and industrious in art and study, retained the liveliest sensibility to female charms. In other words, the critic appears to neglect that common-sense solution of the problem, which is found in a cold and physically sterile constitution as opposed to one of greater warmth and sensuous activity. Parlagreco attributes much value to what he calls the religious terrors and remorse of Michelangelo's old age; says that "his fancy became haunted with doubts and fears; every day discovering fresh sins in the past, inveighing against the very art which made him famous among men, and seeking to propitiate Paradise for his soul by acts of charity to dowerless maidens." The sonnets to Vasari and some others are quoted in support of this view. But the question remains, whether it is not exaggerated to regard pious aspirations, and a sense of human life's inadequacy at its close, as the signs of nervous malady. The following passage sums up Parlagreco's theory in a succession of pregnant sentences. "An accurate study, based upon his correspondence in connection with the events of the artist's life and the history of his works, has enabled me to detect in his character a persistent oscillation. Continual contradictions between great and generous ideas upon the one side, and puerile ideas upon the other; between the will and the word, thought and action; an excessive irritability and the highest degree of susceptibility; constant love for others, great activity in doing good, sudden sympathies, great outbursts of enthusiasm, great fears; at times an unconsciousness with respect to his own actions; a marvellous modesty in the field of art, an unreasonable vanity regarding external appearances:--these are the diverse manifestations of psychical energy in Buonarroti's life; all which makes me believe that the mighty artist was affected by a degree of neuropathy bordering closely upon hysterical disease." He proceeds to support this general view by several considerations, among which the most remarkable are Michelangelo's asseverations to friends: "You will say that I am old and mad to make sonnets, but if people assert that I am on the verge of dotage, I have wished to act up to my character:" "You will say that I am old and mad; but I answer that there is no better way of keeping sane and free from anxiety, than by being mad:" "As regards the madness they ascribe to me, it does harm to nobody but myself:" "I enjoyed last evening, because it drew me out of my melancholy and mad humour." Reviewing Parlagreco's argument in general, I think it may be justly remarked that if the qualities rehearsed above constitute hysterical neuropathy, then every testy, sensitive, impulsive, and benevolent person is neuropathically hysterical. In particular we may demur to the terms "puerile ideas," "unreasonable vanity regarding external appearances." It would be difficult to discover puerility in any of Buonarroti's utterances; and his only vanity was a certain pride in the supposed descent of his house from that of Canossa. The frequent allusions to melancholy and madness do not constitute a confession of these qualities. They express Michelangelo's irritation at being always twitted with unsociability and eccentricity. In the conversations recorded by Francesco d'Olanda he quietly and philosophically exculpates men of the artistic temperament from such charges, which were undoubtedly brought against him, and which the recluse manner of his life to some extent accounted for. It may be well here to resume the main points of the indictment brought against Michelangelo's sanity by the neo-psychologists. In the first place, he admired male more than female beauty, and preferred the society of men to that of women. But this peculiarity, in an age and climate which gave larger licence to immoderate passions, exposed him to no serious malignancy of rumour. Such predilections were not uncommon in Italy. They caused scandal when they degenerated into vice, and rarely failed in that case to obscure the good fame of persons subject to them. Yet Michelangelo, surrounded by jealous rivals, was only very lightly touched by the breath of calumny in his lifetime. Aretino's malicious insinuation and Condivi's cautious vindication do not suffice to sully his memory with any dark suspicion. He lived with an almost culpable penuriousness in what concerned his personal expenditure. But he was generous towards his family, bountiful to his dependants, and liberal in charity. He suffered from constitutional depression, preferred solitude to crowds, and could not brook the interference of fashionable idlers with his studious leisure. But, as he sensibly urged in self-defence, these eccentricities, so frequent with men of genius, ought to have been ascribed to the severe demands made upon an artist's faculties by the problems with which he was continually engaged; the planning of a Pope's mausoleum, the distribution of a score of histories and several hundreds of human figures on a chapel-vaulting, the raising of S. Peter's cupola in air: none of which tasks can be either lightly undertaken or carried out with ease. At worst, Michelangelo's melancholy might be ascribed to that _morbus eruditorum_ of which Burton speaks. It never assumed the form of hypochondria, hallucination, misogyny, or misanthropy. He was irritable, suspicious, and frequently unjust both to his friends and relatives on slight occasions. But his relatives gave him good reason to be fretful by their greediness, ingratitude, and stupidity; and when he lost his temper he recovered it with singular ease. It is also noticeable that these paroxysms of crossness on which so much stress has been laid, came upon him mostly when he was old, worn out with perpetual mental and physical fatigue, and troubled by a painful disease of the bladder. There is nothing in their nature, frequency, or violence to justify the hypothesis of more than a hyper-sensitive nervous temperament; and without a temperament of this sort how could an artist of Michelangelo's calibre and intensity perform his life-work? In old age he dwelt upon the thought of death, meditated in a repentant spirit on the errors of his younger years, indulged a pious spirit, and clung to the cross of Christ. But when a man has passed the period allotted for the average of his race, ought not these preoccupations to be reckoned to him rather as appropriate and meritorious? We must not forget that he was born and lived as a believing Christian, in an age of immorality indeed, but one which had not yet been penetrated with scientific conceptions and materialism. There is nothing hysterical or unduly ascetic in the religion of his closing years. It did not prevent him from taking the keenest interest in his family, devoting his mind to business and the purchase of property, carrying on the Herculean labour of building the mother-church of Latin Christendom. He was subject, all through his career, to sudden panics, and suffered from a constitutional dread of assassination. We can only explain his flight from Rome, his escape from Florence, the anxiety he expressed about his own and his family's relations to the Medici, by supposing that his nerves were sensitive upon this point. But, considering the times in which he lived, the nature of the men around him, the despotic temper of the Medicean princes, was there anything morbid in this timidity? A student of Cellini's Memoirs, of Florentine history, and of the dark stories in which the private annals of the age abound, will be forced to admit that imaginative men of acute nervous susceptibility, who loved a quiet life and wished to keep their mental forces unimpaired for art and thought, were justified in feeling an habitual sense of uneasiness in Italy of the Renaissance period. Michelangelo's timidity, real as it was, did not prevent him from being bold upon occasion, speaking the truth to popes and princes, and making his personality respected. He was even accused of being too "terrible," too little of a courtier and time-server. When the whole subject of Michelangelo's temperament has been calmly investigated, the truth seems to be that he did not possess a nervous temperament so evenly balanced as some phlegmatic men of average ability can boast of. But who could expect the creator of the Sistine, the sculptor of the Medicean tombs, the architect of the cupola, the writer of the sonnets, to be an absolutely normal individual? To identify genius with insanity is a pernicious paradox. To recognise that it cannot exist without some inequalities of nervous energy, some perturbations of nervous function, is reasonable. In other words, it is an axiom of physiology that the abnormal development of any organ or any faculty is balanced by some deficiency or abnormality elsewhere in the individual. This is only another way of saying that the man of genius is not a mediocre and ordinary personality: in other words, it is a truism, the statement of which appears superfluous. Rather ought we, in Michelangelo's case, to dwell upon the remarkable sobriety of his life, his sustained industry under very trying circumstances, his prolonged intellectual activity into extreme old age, the toughness of his constitution, and the elasticity of that nerve-fibre which continued to be sound and sane under the enormous and varied pressure put upon it over a period of seventy-five laborious years. If we dared attempt a synthesis or reconstitution of this unique man's personality, upon the data furnished by his poems, letters, and occasional utterances, all of which have been set forth in their proper places in this work, I think we must construct him as a being gifted, above all his other qualities and talents, with a burning sense of abstract beauty and an eager desire to express this through several forms of art--design, sculpture, fresco-painting, architecture, poetry. The second point forced in upon our mind is that the same man vibrated acutely to the political agitation of his troubled age, to mental influences of various kinds, and finally to a persistent nervous susceptibility, which made him exquisitely sensitive to human charm. This quality rendered him irritable in his dealings with his fellow-men, like an instrument of music, finely strung, and jangled on a slight occasion. In the third place we discover that, while accepting the mental influences and submitting to the personal attractions I have indicated, he strove, by indulging solitary tastes, to maintain his central energies intact for art--joining in no rebellious conspiracies against the powers that be, bending his neck in silence to the storm, avoiding pastimes and social diversions which might have called into activity the latent sensuousness of his nature. For the same reason, partly by predilection, and partly by a deliberate wish to curb his irritable tendencies, he lived as much alone as possible, and poorly. At the close of his career, when he condescended to unburden his mind in verse and friendly dialogue, it is clear that he had formed the habit of recurring to religion for tranquillity, and of combating dominant desire by dwelling on the thought of inevitable death. Platonic speculations upon the eternal value of beauty displayed in mortal creatures helped him always in his warfare with the flesh and roving inclination. Self-control seems to have been the main object of his conscious striving, not for its own sake, but as the condition necessary to his highest spiritual activity. Self-coherence, self-concentration, not for any mean or self-indulgent end, but for the best attainment of his intellectual ideal, was what he sought for by the seclusion and the renunciations of a lifetime. The total result of this singular attitude toward human life, which cannot be rightly described as either ascetic or mystical, but seems rather to have been based upon some self-preservative instinct, bidding him sacrifice lower and keener impulses to what he regarded as the higher and finer purpose of his being, is a certain clash and conflict of emotions, a certain sense of failure to attain the end proposed, which excuses, though I do not think it justifies, the psychologists, when they classify him among morbid subjects. Had he yielded at any period of his career to the ordinary customs of his easy-going age, he would have presented no problem to the scientific mind. After consuming the fuel of the passions, he might have subsided into common calm, or have blunted the edge of inspiration, or have finished in some phase of madness or ascetical repentance. Such are the common categories of extinct volcanic temperaments. But the essential point about Michelangelo is that he never burned out, and never lost his manly independence, in spite of numerous nervous disadvantages. That makes him the unparalleled personality he is, as now revealed to us by the impartial study of the documents at our disposal. IX It is the plain duty of criticism in this age to search and probe the characters of world-important individuals under as many aspects as possible, neglecting no analytical methods, shrinking from no tests, omitting no slight details or faint shadows that may help to round a picture. Yet, after all our labour, we are bound to confess that the man himself eludes our insight. "The abysmal deeps of personality" have never yet been sounded by mere human plummets. The most that microscope and scalpel can perform is to lay bare tissue and direct attention to peculiarities of structure. In the long-run we find that the current opinion formed by successive generations remains true in its grand outlines. That large collective portrait of the hero, slowly emerging from sympathies and censures, from judgments and panegyrics, seems dim indeed and visionary, when compared with some sharply indented description by a brilliant literary craftsman. It has the vagueness of a photograph produced by superimposing many negatives of the same face one upon the other. It lacks the pungent piquancy of an etching. Yet this is what we must abide by; for this is spiritually and generically veracious. At the end, then, a sound critic returns to think of Michelangelo, not as Parlagreco and Lombroso show him, nor even as the minute examination of letters and of poems proves him to have been, but as tradition and the total tenor of his life display him to our admiration. Incalculable, incomprehensible, incommensurable: yes, all souls, the least and greatest, attack them as we will, are that. But definite in solitary sublimity, like a supreme mountain seen from a vast distance, soaring over shadowy hills and misty plains into the clear ether of immortal fame. Viewed thus, he lives for ever as the type and symbol of a man, much-suffering, continually labouring, gifted with keen but rarely indulged passions, whose energies from boyhood to extreme old age were dedicated with unswerving purpose to the service of one master, plastic art. On his death-bed he may have felt, like Browning, in that sweetest of his poems, "other heights in other lives, God willing." But, for this earthly pilgrimage, he was contented to leave the ensample of a noble nature made perfect and completed in itself by addiction to one commanding impulse. We cannot cite another hero of the modern world who more fully and with greater intensity realised the main end of human life, which is self-effectuation, self-realisation, self-manifestation in one of the many lines of labour to which men may be called and chosen. Had we more of such individualities, the symphony of civilisation would be infinitely glorious; for nothing is more certain than that God and the world cannot be better served than by each specific self pushing forward to its own perfection, sacrificing the superfluous or hindering elements in its structure, regardless of side issues and collateral considerations. Michelangelo, then, as Carlyle might have put it, is the Hero as Artist. When we have admitted this, all dregs and sediments of the analytical alembic sink to the bottom, leaving a clear crystalline elixir of the spirit. About the quality of his genius opinions may, will, and ought to differ. It is so pronounced, so peculiar, so repulsive to one man, so attractive to another, that, like his own dread statue of Lorenzo de' Medici, "it fascinates and is intolerable." There are few, I take it, who can feel at home with him in all the length and breadth and dark depths of the regions that he traversed. The world of thoughts and forms in which he lived habitually is too arid, like an extinct planet, tenanted by mighty elemental beings with little human left to them but visionary Titan-shapes, too vast and void for common minds to dwell in pleasurably. The sweetness that emerges from his strength, the beauty which blooms rarely, strangely, in unhomely wise, upon the awful crowd of his conceptions, are only to be apprehended by some innate sympathy or by long incubation of the brooding intellect. It is probable, therefore, that the deathless artist through long centuries of glory will abide as solitary as the simple old man did in his poor house at Rome. But no one, not the dullest, not the weakest, not the laziest and lustfullest, not the most indifferent to ideas or the most tolerant of platitudes and paradoxes, can pass him by without being arrested, quickened, stung, purged, stirred to uneasy self-examination by so strange a personality expressed in prophecies of art so pungent. Each supreme artist whom God hath sent into the world with inspiration and a particle of the imperishable fire, is a law to himself, an universe, a revelation of the divine life under one of its innumerable attributes. We cannot therefore classify Michelangelo with any of his peers throughout the long procession of the ages. Of each and all of them it must be said in Ariosto's words, "Nature made him, and then broke the mould." Yet, if we seek Michelangelo's affinities, we find them in Lucretius and Beethoven, not in Sophocles and Mozart. He belongs to the genus of deep, violent, colossal, passionately striving natures; not, like Raffaello, to the smooth, serene, broad, exquisitely finished, calmly perfect tribe. To God be the praise, who bestows upon the human race artists thus differing in type and personal quality, each one of whom incarnates some specific portion of the spirit of past ages, perpetuating the traditions of man's soul, interpreting century to century by everlasting hieroglyphics, mute witnesses to history and splendid illustrations of her pages. 
16178	----	ESSAYS ON ART BY A. CLUTTON-BROCK METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON _First Published in 1919_ PREFACE These essays, reprinted from the _Times Literary Supplement_ with a few additions and corrections, are not all entirely or directly concerned with art; but even the last one--Waste or Creation?--does bear on the question, How are we to improve the art of our own time? After years of criticism I am more interested in this question than in any other that concerns the arts. Whistler said that we could not improve it; the best we could do for it was not to think about it. I have discussed that opinion, as also the contrary opinion of Tolstoy, and the truth that seems to me to lie between them. If these essays have any unity, it is given to them by my belief that art, like other human activities, is subject to the will of man. We cannot cause men of artistic genius to be born; but we can provide a public, namely, ourselves, for the artist, who will encourage him to be an artist, to do his best, not his worst. I believe that the quality of art in any age depends, not upon the presence or absence of individuals of genius, but upon the attitude of the public towards art. Because of the decline of all the arts, especially the arts of use, which began at the end of the eighteenth century and has continued up to our own time, we are more interested in art than any people of the past, with the interest of a sick man in health. To say that this interest must be futile or mischievous is to deny the will of man in one of the chief of human activities; but it often is denied by those who do not understand how it can be applied to art. We cannot make artists directly; no government office can determine their training; still less can any critic tell them how they ought to practise their art. But we can all aim at a state of society in which they will be encouraged to do their best, and at a state of mind in which we ourselves shall learn to know good from bad and to prefer the good. At present we have neither the state of society nor the state of mind; and we can attain to both not by connoisseurship, not by an anxiety to like the right thing or at least to buy it, but by learning the difference between good and bad workmanship and design in objects of use. Anyone can do that, and can resolve to pay a fair price for good workmanship and design; and only so will the arts of use, and all the arts, revive again. For where the public has no sense of design in the arts of use, it will have none in the "fine arts." To aim at connoisseurship when you do not know a good table or chair from a bad one is to attempt flying before you can walk. So, I think, professors of art at Oxford or Cambridge should be chosen, not so much for their knowledge of Greek sculpture, as for their success in furnishing their own houses. What can they know about Greek sculpture if their own drawing-rooms are hideous? I believe that the notorious fallibility of many experts is caused by the fact that they concern themselves with the fine arts before they have had any training in the arts of use. So, if we are to have a school of art at Oxford or Cambridge, it should put this question to every pupil: If you had to build and furnish a house of your own, how would you set about it? And it should train its pupils to give a rational answer to that question. So we might get a public knowing the difference between good and bad in objects of use, valuing the good, and ready to pay a fair price for it. At present we have no such public. A liberal education should teach the difference between good and bad in things of use, including buildings. Oxford and Cambridge profess to give a liberal education; but you have only to look at their modern buildings to see that their teachers themselves do not know a good building from a bad one. They, like all the rest of us, think that taste in art is an irrational mystery; they trust in the expert and usually in the wrong one, as the ignorant and superstitious trust in the wrong priest. For as religion is merely mischievous unless it is tested in matters of conduct, so taste is mere pedantry or frivolity unless it is tested on things of use. These have their sense or nonsense, their righteousness or unrighteousness, which anyone can learn to see for himself, and, until he has learned, he will be at the mercy of charlatans. I have written all these essays as a member of the public, as one who has to find a right attitude towards art so that the arts may flourish again. The critic is sure to be a charlatan or a prig, unless he is to himself not a pseudo-artist expounding the mysteries of art and telling artists how to practise them, but simply one of the public with a natural and human interest in art. But one of these essays is a defence of criticism, and I will not repeat it here. A. CLUTTON-BROCK _July_ 30, 1919 FARNCOMBE, SURREY CONTENTS "THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI" 1 LEONARDO DA VINCI 13 THE POMPADOUR IN ART 27 AN UNPOPULAR MASTER 37 A DEFENCE OF CRITICISM 48 THE ARTIST AND HIS AUDIENCE 58 WILFULNESS AND WISDOM 74 "THE MAGIC FLUTE" 86 PROCESS OR PERSON? 97 THE ARTIST AND THE TRADESMAN 110 PROFESSIONALISM IN ART 120 WASTE OR CREATION? 132 ESSAYS ON ART "The Adoration of the Magi" There is one beauty of nature and another of art, and many attempts have been made to explain the difference between them. Signor Croce's theory, now much in favour, is that nature provides only the raw material for art. The beginning of the artistic process is the perception of beauty in nature; but an artist does not see beauty as he sees a cow. It is his own mind that imposes on the chaos of nature an order, a relation, which is beauty. All men have the faculty, in some degree, of imposing this order; the artist only does it more completely than other men, and he owes his power of execution to that. He can make the beauty which he has perceived because he has perceived it clearly; and this perceiving is part of the making. The defect of this theory is that it ends by denying that very difference between the beauty of nature and the beauty of art which it sets out to explain. If the artist makes the beauty of nature in perceiving it, if it is produced by the action of his own mind upon the chaos of reality, then it is the very same beauty that appears in his art; and if, to us, the beauty of his art seems different from the beauty of nature, as we perceive it, it is only because we have not ourselves seen the beauty of nature as completely as he has, we have not reduced chaos so thoroughly to order. It is a difference not of kind, but of degree; for the artist himself there is no difference even of degree. What he makes he sees, and what he sees he makes. All beauty is artistic, and to speak of natural beauty is to make a false distinction. Yet it is a distinction that we remain constantly aware of. In spite of Signor Croce and all the subtlety and partial truth of his theory, we do not believe that we make beauty when we see it, or that the artist makes it when he sees it. Nor do we believe that that beauty which he makes is of the same nature as that which he has perceived in reality. Rather he, like us, values the beauty which he perceives in reality because he knows that he has not made it. It is something, independent of himself, to which his own mind makes answer: that answer is his art; it is the passionate value expressed in it which gives beauty to his art. If he knew that the beauty he perceives was a product of his own mind, he could not value it so; if he held Signor Croce's theory, he would cease to be an artist. And, in fact, those who act on his theory do cease to be artists. Nothing kills art so certainly as the effort to produce a beauty of the same kind as that which is perceived in nature. In the beauty of nature, as we perceive it, there is a perfection of workmanship which is perfection because there is no workmanship. Natural things are not made, but born; works of art are made. There is the essential difference between them and between their beauties. If a work of art tries to have the finish of a thing born, not made, if a piece of enamel apes the gloss of a butterfly's wing, it misses the peculiar beauty of art and is but an inadequate imitation of the beauty of nature. That beauty of the butterfly's wing, which the artist like all of us perceives, is of a different kind from any beauty he can make; and if he is an artist he knows it and does not try to make it. But all the arts, even those which are not themselves imitative, are always being perverted by the attempt to imitate the finish of nature. There is a vanity of craftsmanship in Louis Quinze furniture, in the later Chinese porcelain, in modern jewelry, no less than in Dutch painting, which is the death of art. All great works of art show an effort, a roughness, an inadequacy of craftsmanship, which is the essence of their beauty and distinguishes it from the beauty of nature. As soon as men cease to understand this and despise this effort and roughness and inadequacy, they demand from art the beauty of nature and get something which is mostly dead nature, not living art. We can best understand the difference between the two kinds of beauty if we consider how beauty steals into language, that art which we all practise more or less and in which it is difficult, if not impossible, to imitate the finish of natural beauty. There is no beauty whatever in sentences like "Trespassers will be prosecuted" or "Pass the mustard," because they say exactly and completely all that they have to say. There is beauty in sentences like "The bright day is done, And we are for the dark," or "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well," because in them, although they seem quite simple, the poet is trying to say a thousand times more than he can say. It is the effort to do something beyond the power of words that brings beauty into them. That is the very nature of the beauty of art, which distinguishes it from the beauty of nature; it is always produced by the effort to accomplish the impossible, and what the artist knows to be impossible. Whenever that effort ceases, whenever the artist sets himself a task that he can accomplish, a task of mere skill, then he ceases to be an artist, because he no longer experiences reality in the manner necessary to an artist. The great poet is aware of some excellence in reality so intensely that it is to him beauty; for all excellence when we are intensely aware of it is beauty to us. There is that truth in Croce's theory. Our perception of beauty does depend upon the intensity of our perception of excellence. But that intensity of perception remains perception, and does not make what it perceives. That the poet and every artist knows; and his art is not merely an extension of the process of perception, but an attempt to express his own value for that excellence which he has perceived as beauty. It is an answer to that beauty, a worship of it, and is itself beautiful because it makes no effort to compete with it. Thus in the beauty of art there is always value and wonder, always a reference to another beauty different in kind from itself; and we too, if we are to see the beauty of art, must share the same value and wonder. To enter that Kingdom of Heaven we must become little children as the artist himself does. Art is the expression of a certain attitude towards reality, an attitude of wonder and value, a recognition of something greater than man; and where that recognition is not, art dies. In a society valuing only itself, believing that it can make a heaven of itself out of its own skill and knowledge and wisdom, the difference between the beauty of nature and the beauty of art is no longer seen, and art loses all its own beauty. The surest sign of corruption and death in a society is where men and women see the best life as a life without wonder or effort or failure, where labour is hidden underground so that a few may seem to live in Paradise; where there is perfect finish of all things, human beings no less than their clothes and furniture and buildings and pictures; where the ideal is the lady so perfectly turned out that any activity whatever would mar her perfection. In such societies the artist becomes a slave. He too must produce work that does not seem to be work. He must express no wonder or value for patrons who would be ashamed to feel either. What he makes must seem to be born and not made, so that it may fit a world which pretends to be a born Paradise populated by cynical angels who own allegiance to no god. In such a world art means, beauty means, the concealment of effort, the pretence that it does not exist; and that pretence is the end of art and beauty in all things made by man. There is a close connexion between the idea of life expressed in Aristotle's ideal man and the later Greek sculpture. The aim of that sculpture, as of his ideal man, was proud and effortless perfection. Both dread the confession of failure above all things--and both are dull. In Aristotle's age art had started upon a long decline, which ended only when the pretence of perfection was killed, both in art and in life, by Christianity. Then the real beauty of art, the beauty of value and wonder, superseded the wearisome imitation of natural beauty; and it is only lately that we have learnt again to prefer the real beauty to the false. Men must free themselves from the contempt of effort and the desire to conceal it, they must be content with the perpetual, passionate failure of art, before they can see its beauty or demand that beauty from the artist. When they themselves become like little children, then they see that the greatest artists, in all their seeming triumphs, are like little children too. For in Michelangelo and Beethoven it is not the arrogant, the accomplished, the magnificent, that moves us. They are great men to us; but they achieved beauty because in their effort to achieve it they were little children to themselves. They impose awe on us, but it is their own awe that they impose. It is not their achievement that makes beauty, but their effort, always confessing its own failure; and in that confession is the beauty of art. That is why it moves and frees us; for it frees us from our pretence that we are what we would be, it carries us out of our own egotism into the wonder and value of the artist himself. Consider the beauty of a tune. Music itself is the best means which man has found for confessing that he cannot say what he would say; and it is more purely and rapturously beauty than any other form of art. A tune is the very silencing of speech, and in the greatest tunes there is always the hush of wonder: they seem to tell us to be silent and listen, not to what the musician has to say, but to what he cannot say. The very beauty of a tune is in its reference to something beyond all expression, and in its perfection it speaks of a perfection not its own. Pater said that all art tries to attain to the condition of music. That is true in a sense different from what he meant. Art is always most completely art when it makes music's confession of the ineffable; then it comes nearest to the beauty of music. But when it is no longer a forlorn hope, when it is able to say what it wishes to say with calm assurance, then it has ceased to be art and become a game of skill. Often the great artist is imperious, impatient, full of certainties; but his certainty is not of himself; and he is impatient of the failure to recognize, not himself, but what he recognizes. Michelangelo, Beethoven, Tintoret, would snap a critic's head off if he did not see what they were trying to do. They may seem sometimes to be arrogant in the mere display of power, yet their beauty lies in the sudden change from arrogance to humility. The arrogance itself bows down and worships; the very muscle and material force obey a spirit not their own. They are lion-tamers, and they themselves are the lions; out of the strong comes forth sweetness, and it is all the sweeter for the strength that is poured into it and subdued by it. What is the difference, as of different worlds, between Rubens at his best and Tintoret at his best? This: that Rubens always seems to be uplifted by his own power, whereas Tintoret has most power when he forgets it in wonder. When he bows down all his turbulence in worship, then he is most strong. Rubens, in the "Descent from the Cross," is still the supreme drawing-master; and painters flocking to him for lessons pay homage to him. But, in his "Crucifixion," it is Tintoret himself who pays homage, and we forget the master in the theme. We may say of Rubens's art, in a new sense, "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre." The greatest art is not magnificent, but it is war, desperate and without trappings, a war in which victory comes through the confession of defeat. Man, if he tries to be a god in his art, makes a fool of himself. He becomes like God, he makes beauty like God, when he is too much aware of God to be aware of himself. Then only does he not set himself too easy a task, for then he does not make his theme so that he may accomplish it; it is forced upon him by his awareness of God, by his wonder and value for an excellence not his own. So in all the beauty of art there is a humility not only of conception, but also of execution, which is mere failure and ugliness to those who expect to find in art the beauty and finish of nature, who expect it to be born, not made. They are always disappointed by the greatest works of art, by their inadequacy and strain and labour. They look for a proof of what man can do and find a confession of what he cannot do; but that confession, made sincerely and passionately, is beauty. There is also a serenity in the beauty of art, but it is the serenity of self-surrender, not of self-satisfaction, of the saint, not of the lady of fashion. And all the accomplishment of great art, its infinite superiority in mere skill over the work of the merely skilful, comes from the incessant effort of the artist to do more than he can. By that he is trained; by that his work is distinguished from the mere exclamation of wonder. He is not content to applaud; he must also worship, and make his offerings in his worship; and they are the best he can do. It was not only the shepherds who came to the birth of Christ; the wise men came also and brought their treasures with them. And the art of mankind is the offering of its wise men, it is the adoration of the Magi, who are one with the simplest in their worship-- Wise men, all ways of knowledge past, To the Shepherd's wonder come at last. But they do not lose their wisdom in their wonder. When it passes into wonder, when all the knowledge and skill and passion of mankind are poured into the acknowledgment of something greater than themselves, then that acknowledgment is art, and it has a beauty which may be envied by the natural beauty of God Himself. Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most famous men in history--as a man more famous than Michelangelo or Shakespeare or Mozart--because posterity has elected him the member for the Renaissance. Most great artists live in what they did, and by that we know them; but what Leonardo did gets much of its life from what he was, or rather from what he is to us. Of all great men he is the most representative; we cannot think of him as a mere individual, eating and drinking, living and competing, on equal terms with other men. We see him magnified by his own legend from the first, with people standing aside to watch and whisper as he passed through the streets of Florence or Milan. "There he goes to paint the Last Supper," they said to each other; and we think of it as already the most famous picture in the world before it was begun. Every one knew that he had the most famous picture in his brain, that he was born to paint it, to initiate the High Renaissance; from Giotto onwards all the painters had been preparing for that, Florence herself had been preparing for it. It makes no difference that for centuries it has been a shadow on the wall; it is still the most famous painting in the world because it is the masterpiece of Leonardo. There was a fate against the survival of his masterpieces, but he has survived them and they are remembered because of him. We accept him for himself, like the people of his own time, who, when he said he could perform impossibilities, believed him. To them he meant the new age which could do anything, and still to us he means the infinite capacities of man. He is the Adam awakened whom Michelangelo only painted; and, if he accomplished but little, we believe in him, as in mankind, for his promise. If he did not fulfil it, neither has mankind; but he believed that all things could be done and lived a great life in that faith. Another Florentine almost equals him in renown. Men watched and whispered when Dante passed through the streets of Florence; but Dante lives in his achievement, Leonardo in himself. Dante means to us an individual soul quivering through a system, a creed, inherited from the past. Leonardo is a spirit unstraitened; not consenting to any past nor rebelling against it, but newborn with a newborn universe around it, seeing it without memories or superstitions, without inherited fears or pieties, yet without impiety or irreverence. He is not an iconoclast, since for him there are no images to be broken; whatever he sees is not an image but itself, to be accepted or rejected by himself; what he would do he does without the help or hindrance of tradition. In art and in science he means the same thing, not a rebirth of any past, as the word Renaissance seems to imply, but freedom from all the past, life utterly in the present. He is concerned not with what has been thought, or said, or done, but with his own immediate relation to all things, with what he sees and feels and discovers. Authority is nothing to him, whether of Galen or of St. Thomas, of Greek or mediæval art. In science he looks at the fact, in art at the object; nor will he allow either to be hidden from him by the achievements of the dead. Giotto had struck the first blow for freedom when he allowed the theme to dictate the picture; Leonardo allowed the object to dictate the drawing. To him the fact itself is sacred, and man fulfils himself in his own immediate relation to fact. All those who react and rebel against the Renaissance have an easy case against its great representative. What did he do in thought compared with St. Thomas, or in art compared with the builders of Chartres or Bourges? He filled notebooks with sketches and conjectures; he modelled a statue that was never cast; he painted a fresco on a wall, and with a medium so unsuited to fresco that it was a ruin in a few years. Even in his own day there was a doubt about him; it is expressed in the young Michelangelo's sudden taunt that he could not cast the statue he had modelled. Michelangelo was one of those who see in life always the great task to be performed and who judge a man by his performance; to him Leonardo was a dilettante, a talker; he made monuments, but Leonardo remains his own monument, a prophecy of what man shall be when he comes into his kingdom. With him, we must confess, it is more promise than performance; he could paint "The Last Supper" because it means the future; he could never, in good faith, have painted "The Last Judgment," for that means a judgment on the past, and to him the past is nothing; to him man, in the future, is the judge, master, enjoyer of his own fate. Compared with his, Michelangelo's mind was still mediæval, his reproach the reproach of one who cares for doing more than for being, and certainly Michelangelo did a thousand times more; but from his own day to ours the world has not judged Leonardo by his achievement. As Johnson had his Boswell so he has had his legend; he means to us not books or pictures, but himself. In his own day kings bid for him as if he were a work of art; and he died magnificently in France, making nothing but foretelling a race of men not yet fulfilled. Before Francis Bacon, before Velasquez or Manet, he prophesied not merely the new artist or the new man of science, but the new man who is to free himself from his inheritance and to see, feel, think, and act in all things with the spontaneity of God. That is why he is a legendary hero to us, with a legend that is not in the past but in the future. For his prophecy is still far from fulfilment; and the very science that he initiated tells us how hard it is for man to free himself from his inheritance. It seems strange to us that Leonardo sang hymns to causation as if to God. In its will was his peace and his freedom. O marvellous necessity, thou with supreme reason constrainest all efforts to be the direct result of their causes, and by a supreme and irrevocable law every natural action obeys thee by the shortest possible process. Who would believe that so small a space could contain the images of all the universe? O mighty process, what talent can avail to penetrate a nature such as thine? What tongue will it be that can unfold so great a wonder? Verily none. This it is that guides the human discourse to the considering of divine things.[1] [Footnote 1: The sayings of Leonardo quoted in this article are taken from _Leonardo da Vinci's Notebooks_, by E. M'Curdy. (Duckworth, 1906.)] To Leonardo causation meant the escape from caprice; it meant a secure relation between man and all things, in which man would gain power by knowledge, in which every increase of knowledge would reveal to him more and more of the supreme reason. There was no chain for him in cause and effect, no unthinking of the will of man. Rather by knowledge man would discover his own will and know that it was the universal will. So man must never be afraid of knowledge. "The eye is the window of the soul." Like Whitman he tells us always to look with the eye, and so to confound the wisdom of ages. There is in every man's vision the power of relating himself now and directly to reality by knowledge; and in knowing other things he knows himself. By knowledge man changes what seemed to be a compulsion into a harmony; he gives up his own caprice for the universal will. That is the religion of Leonardo, in art as in science. For him the artist also must relate himself directly to the visible world, in which is the only inspiration; to accept any formula is to see with dead men's eyes. That has been said again and again by artists, but not with Leonardo's mystical and philosophical conviction. He knew that it is vain to study Nature unless she is to you a goddess or a god; you can learn nothing from reality unless you adore it, and in adoring it he found his freedom. How different is this doctrine from that with which, after centuries of scientific advance, we intimidate ourselves. We are threatened by a creed far more enslaving than that of the Middle Ages. If the Middle Ages turned to the past to learn what they were to think or to do, we turn to the past to learn what we are. They may have feared the new; but we say that there is no new, nothing but some combination or variation of the old. Causation is to us a chain that binds us to the past, but to Leonardo it was freedom; and so he prophesies a freedom that we may attain to not by denying facts or making myths, but by discovering what he hinted--that causation itself is not compulsion but will, and our will if, by knowledge, we make it ours. No one before him had been so much in love with reality, whatever it may be. He was called a sceptic, but it was only that he preferred reality itself to any tales about it; and his religion, his worship, was the search for the very fact. This, because he was both artist and man of science, he carried further than anyone else, pursuing it with all his faculties. In his drawings there is the beauty not of his character, but of the character of what he draws; he does not make a design, but finds it. That beauty proves him a Florentine--Dürer himself falls short of it--but it is the beauty of the thing itself, discovered and insisted upon with the passion of a lover. He draws animals, trees, flowers, as Correggio draws Antiope or Io; and it is only in his drawings now that he speaks clearly to us. The "Mona Lisa" is well enough, but another hand might have executed the painting of it. It owes its popular fame to the smile about which it is so easy to write finely; but in the drawings we see the experiencing passion of Leonardo himself, we see him feeling, as in the notebooks we see him thinking. There is the eagerness of discovery at which so often he stopped short, turning away from a task to further discovery, living always in the moment, taking no thought either for the morrow or for yesterday, unable to attend to any business, even the business of the artist, seeing life not as a struggle or a duty, but as an adventure of all the senses and all the faculties. He is, even with his pencil, the greatest talker in the world, but without egotism, talking always of what he sees, satisfying himself not with the common appetites and passions of men, but with his one supreme passion for reality. If Michelangelo thought him a dilettante, there must have been in his taunt some envy of Leonardo's freedom. Yet once at least Leonardo did achieve, and something we should never have expected from his drawings. "The Last Supper" is but a shadow on the wall, yet still we can see its greatness, which is the greatness of pure design, of Giotto, Masaccio, Piero della Francesa. Goethe and others have found all kinds of psychological subtleties in it, meanings in every gesture; but what we see now is only space, grandeur, a supreme moment expressed in the relation of all the forms. The pure music of the painting remains when the drama is almost obliterated; and it proves that Leonardo, when he chose, could withdraw himself from the delight of hand-to-mouth experience into a vision of his own, that he had the reserve and the creative power of the earlier masters and of that austere, laborious youth who taunted him. If it were not for "The Last Supper" we might doubt whether he could go further in art than the vivid sketch of "The Magi"; but "The Last Supper" tells us how great his passion for reality must have been, since it could distract him from the making of such masterpieces. That passion for reality itself made him cold to other passions. We know Michelangelo and Beethoven as men in some respects very like other men. They were anxious, fretful, full of affections and grievances, and much concerned with their relations. Leonardo is like Melchizedek, not only by the accident of birth, for he was a natural son, but by choice. He never married, he never had a home; there is no evidence that he was ever tied to any man or woman by his affections; yet it would be stupid to call him cold, for his one grand passion absorbed him. Monks suspected him, but in his heart he was celibate like the great monkish saints, celibate not by vows but by preoccupation. It is clear that from youth to age life had no cumulative power over him; as we should say in our prosaic language, he never settled down, for he let things happen to him and valued the very happening. He was always like a strange, wonderful creature from another planet, taking notes with unstaled delight but never losing his heart to any particular. Sex itself seems hardly to exist for him, or at least for his mind. Often the people in his drawings are of no sex. Rembrandt draws every one, Leonardo no one, as if he were his own relation. Women and youths were as much a subject of his impassioned curiosity as flowers, and no more. He is always the spectator, but a spectator who can exercise every faculty of the human mind and every passion in contemplation; he is the nearest that any man has ever come to Aristotle's Supreme Being. But we must not suppose that he went solemnly through life living up to his own story, that he was mysterious in manner or in any respect like a charlatan. Rather, he lived always in the moment and overcame mankind by his spontaneity. He had the charm of the real man of genius, not the reserve of the false one. The famous statement of what he could do, which he made to Ludovico Sforza, is not a mere boast but an expression of his eagerness to do it. These engines of war were splendid toys to him, and all his life he enjoyed making toys and seeing men wonder at them. His delight was to do things for the first time like a child, and then not to do them again. Again and again he cries out against authority and in favour of discovery. "Whoever in discussion adduces authority," he says, "uses not intellect but rather memory"; and, anticipating Milton, he observes that all our knowledge originates in opinions. Perhaps some one had rebuked him for having too many opinions. We can be sure that he chafed against dull, cautious, safe men who wished for results. He himself cared nothing for them; it was enough for him to know what might be done, without doing it. He was so sure of his insight that he did not care to put it to the test of action; that was for slower men, whether artists or men of science. His notebooks were enough for him. In spite of the notebooks and the sketches, we know less about the man Leonardo than about the man Shakespeare. Here and there he makes a remark with some personal conviction or experience in it. "Intellectual passion," he says, "drives out sensuality." In him it had driven out or sublimated all the sensual part of character. We cannot touch or see or hear him in anything he says or draws. The passion is there, but it is too much concerned with universals to be of like nature with our own passions. He seems to be speaking to himself as if he had forgotten the whole audience of mankind, but in what he says he ignores the personal part of himself; he is most passionate when most impersonal. "To the ambitious, whom neither the boon of life nor the beauty of the world suffices to content, it comes as a penance that life with them is squandered and that they possess neither the benefits nor the beauty of the world." That might be a platitude said by some one else; but we know that in it Leonardo expresses his faith. The boon of life, the beauty of the world, were enough for him without ambition, without even further affections. He left father and mother and wealth, and even achievement, to follow them; and he left all those not out of coldness, or fear, or idleness, but because his own passion drew him away. No cold man could have said, "Where there is most power of feeling, there of martyrs is the greatest martyr." It is difficult for us northerners to understand the intellectual passion of the South, to see even that it is passion; most difficult of all for us to see that in men like Leonardo the passion for beauty itself is intellectual. We, with our romanticism, our sense of exile, can never find that identity which he found between beauty and reality. "This benign nature so provides that all over the world you find something to imitate." To us imitation means prose, to him it meant poetry; science itself meant poetry, and illusion was the only ugliness. "Nature never breaks her own law." It is we who try to find freedom in lawlessness, which is ignorance, ugliness, illusion. "Falsehood is so utterly vile that, though it should praise the great works of God, it offends against His divinity." There is Leonardo's religion; and if still it is too cold for us, it is because we have not his pure spiritual fire in ourselves. The Pompadour in Art It is an important fact in the history of the arts for the last century or more that in England and America, if not elsewhere, the chief interest in all the arts, including literature, has been taken by women rather than by men. In the great ages of art it was not so. Women, so far as we can tell, had little to do with the art of Greece in the fifth century or with the art of the Middle Ages. There were female patrons of art at the Renaissance, but they were exceptions subject to the prevailing masculine taste. Art was and remained a proper interest of men up to the eighteenth century. Women first began to control it and to affect its character at the mistress-ridden Court of Louis XV. But in the nineteenth century men began to think they were too busy to concern themselves with the arts. Men of power, when they were not working, needed to take exercise and left it to their wives to patronize the arts. And so the notion grew that art was a feminine concern, and even artists were pets for women. The great man, especially in America, liked his wife to have every luxury. The exquisite life she led was itself a proof of his success; and she was for him a living work of art, able to live so because of the abundance of his strength. In her, that strength passed into ornament and became beautiful; she was a friendly, faithful Delilah to his Samson, a Delilah who did not shear his locks. And so he came to think of art itself as being in its nature feminine if not effeminate, as a luxury and ornament of life, as everything, in fact, except a means of expression for himself and other men. This female control of art began, as I have said, at the mistress-ridden Court of Louis XV, and it has unfortunately kept the stamp of its origin. At that Court art, to suit the tastes of the Pompadour and the Du Barri, became consciously frivolous, became almost a part of the toilet. The artist was the slave of the mistress, and seems to have enjoyed his chains. In this slavery he did produce something charming; he did invest that narrow and artificial Heaven of the Court with some of the infinite beauty and music of a real Heaven. But out of this refined harem art there has sprung a harem art of the whole world which has infested the homes even of perfectly respectable ladies ever since. All over Europe the ideals of applied art have remained the ideals of the Pompadour; and only by a stern and conscious effort have either women or men been able to escape from them. Everywhere there has spread a strange disease of romantic snobbery, the sufferers from which, in their efforts at æsthetic expression, always pretend to be what they are not. Excellent mothers of families, in their furniture and sometimes even in their clothes, pretend to be King's mistresses. Of course, if this pretence were put into words and so presented to their consciousness, they would be indignant. It has for them no connexion with conduct; it is purely æsthetic, but art means to them make-believe, the make-believe that they live an entirely frivolous life of pleasure provided for them by masculine power and devotion. Yet these ladies know that they have not the revenues of the Pompadour; they must have their art, their make-believe, as cheap as possible; and it has been one of the triumphs of modern industry to provide them with cheap imitations of the luxury of the Pompadour. Hence the machine-made frivolities of the most respectable homes, the hair-brushes with backs of stamped silver, the scent-bottles of imitation cut-glass, the draperies with printed rose-buds on them, the general artificial-floweriness and flimsiness and superfluity of naughtiness of our domestic art. It expresses a feminine romance to which the male indulgently consents, as if he were really the voluptuous monarch whose mistress the female, æsthetically, pretends to be. In this world of æsthetic make-believe our homes are not respectable; they would scorn to be so, for to the romantic female mind, when it occupies itself with art, the improper is the artistic. But this needs a more precise demonstration. We wonder at our modern passion for superfluous ornament. We shall understand it only if we discover its origin. The King's mistress liked everything about her to be ornamented, because it was a point of honour with her to advertise the King's devotion to her in the costliness of all her surroundings. He loved her so much that he had paid for all this ornamentation. She, like Cleopatra, was always proving the potency of her charms by melting pearls in vinegar. Like a prize ox, she was hung with the trophies of her physical pre-eminence. In all the art which we call Louis Quinze there is this advertisement of the labour spent upon it. It proclaims that a vast deal of trouble has been taken in the making of it, and we can see the artist utterly subdued to this trouble, utterly the slave of the mistress's exorbitant whims. This advertisement of labour spent, without the reality, has been the mark of all popular domestic art ever since. The beautiful is the ornamented--namely, that which looks as if it had taken a great deal of trouble to make. The trouble now is taken by machinery, and so, with the cost, is minimized; and what it produces is ugliness, an ugliness which could not be mistaken for beauty but for the notion that it does express a desirable state of being in those who possess it. And this desirable state is the state of the King's mistress, of a siren who can have whatever she desires because of the potency of her charms. How otherwise can we explain the passion for superfluous machine-made ornament which makes our respectable homes so hideous? The machine simulates a trouble that has not been taken, and so gives proof of a voluptuous infatuation that does not exist. The hardworking mother of a family buys out of her scanty allowance a scent-bottle that looks as if it had been laboriously cut for a King's mistress, whereas really it has been moulded by machinery to keep up the delusion, unconsciously cherished by her, that she lives in a world of irresistible and unscrupulous feminine charm. And her husband endures indulgently all this superfluous ugliness because he, too, believes that it is the function of art to make the drawing-room of the mother of a family look like the boudoir of a siren. Most of this make-believe remains unconscious. We are all so used to it that we do not see in it the expression of the dying harem instinct in women. Yet it persists, even where the harem instinct would be passionately repudiated. It persists often in the dress of the most defiant suffragette, in outbreaks of incongruous frivolity, forlorn tawdry roses that still whisper memories of the Pompadour and her triumphant guilty splendour. But besides all this unconscious feminine influence upon art, there is the influence of women who care consciously for art; and it also has an enervating effect on the artist. For the female patron of art, just because there are so few male patrons of it, is apt to take a motherly interest in the artist. To her he is a delightful wayward child rather than a real man occupied with real things, like her husband or her father or her brother: not one who can earn money for her and fight for her and protect her, but rather one who needs to be protected and humoured in a world which cares so little for art. To her, with all her passion for art, it is something in its nature irrational, and, like a child, delightful because irrational. It is an escape from reality rather than a part of it. And so she will believe whatever the artist tells her because he is an artist, not because he is a man of sense; and she encourages him to be more of an artist than a man of sense. She encourages him to be extravagantly æsthetic, and enjoys all his extravagance as a diversion from the sound masculinity of her own mankind. There is room in her prosperous, easy world for these diversions from business, just as there is room for charity or, perhaps, religion. The world can afford artists as it can afford pets; as it can afford beautiful, cultivated women. And that also is the view of her husband, if he is good-natured. But to him, just because art and artists are the proper concern of his wife, they are even less serious than they are to her. She may persuade herself that she takes them quite seriously, but he pretends to do so only out of politeness, and as he would pretend to take her clothes seriously. For him the type of the artist is still the pianist who gives locks of his over-abundant hair to ladies. Even if the artist is a painter and cuts his hair and dresses like a man, he still belongs to the feminine world and excites himself about matters that do not concern men. Men can afford him, and so they tolerate him; but he is one of the expenses they would cut down if it were necessary to cut down expenses. Well, it is necessary to cut down expenses now; and yet in ages much sterner and poorer than our own art was the concern of men, and they afforded it because it was not to them a mere feminine luxury. They afforded the towering churches of the Middle Ages because they expressed the religious passion of all mankind; and have we nothing to express except a dying harem instinct and the motherliness of kind women to a neglected class? We ought to be grateful to this motherliness, which has kept art alive in an age of ignorance; but we should see that it is only a _pis-aller_, and women should see this as well as men. The female attitude towards art has been itself the result of a wrong relation between women and men, a relation half-animal, half-romantic, and therefore not quite real. This relation, even while it has ceased to exist more and more in fact, has still continued to express itself æsthetically; and in art it has become a mere obsolete nuisance. One may care nothing for art and yet long to be rid of the meaningless frivolities of our domestic art. One may wish to clear them away as so much litter and trash; and this clearance is necessary so that we may purge our vision and see what is beautiful. We are almost rid of the manners of the King's mistress, and most women no longer try to appeal to men by their charming unreason. It is not merely that the appeal fails now; they themselves refuse to make it, out of self-respect. But they still remain irrational in their tastes; or at least they have not learned that all this æsthetic irrationality misrepresents them, that it is forced upon them by tradesmen, that it is as inexpressive as a sentimental music-hall song sung by a gramophone. But now that men have given women the vote, and so proved that they take them seriously at last, they have the right to speak plainly on this matter. The feminine influence upon art has been bad. Let us admit that it has been the result of a bad masculine influence upon women, that it has been supreme because men have become philistine; but the fact remains that it has been bad. Art must be taken seriously if it is to be worth anything. It must be the expression of what is serious and real in the human mind. But all this feminine art has expressed, and has tried to glorify, something false and worthless. Therefore it has been ugly, and we are all sick of its ugliness. We look to women, now that they are equalled with men by an act of legal justice, to deliver us from it. They disown the Pompadour in fact; let them disown her in art. An Unpopular Master Nicholas Poussin is one of the great painters of the world; yet it is easier to give reasons for disliking him than for liking him. After his death there was a war of pamphlets about him; the one side, led by Lebrun, holding him up as a model for all painters to come, the other side, under de Piles, calling him a mere pedant compared with Rubens. Here is a passage from a poem against Poussin:-- Il sçavoit manier la régle et le compas, Parloit de la lumière et ne l'entendoit pas; Il estoit de l'antique un assez bon copiste, Mais sans invention, et mauvais coloriste. Il ne pouvait marcher que sur le pas d'autruy: Le génie a manqué, c'est un malheur pour luy. Now this is just what the criticism of yesterday said about him, the criticism of the eighties and nineties, when it was supposed that Velasquez had discovered the art of seeing, and with it the art of painting. It sounds plausible, but not a word of it is true. And yet it remains difficult to show why it is not true, to distinguish between the genius of Poussin and the pedantry of his imitators, to convince people that he was not a bad colourist, and that he did not imitate the antique. This difficulty is connected with the age in which he happened to live. Nobody calls Mantegna a pedant nowadays; yet one might say against him most of the things that have been said against Poussin. But Mantegna lived in a century that we like, and Poussin in one that we dislike. The seventeenth century is for us a time of pictorial platitude; there was nothing then to discover about gesture or expression, and painters, even the best of them, used stock gestures and stock expressions without any of the eagerness of discovery. Now Poussin is, or appears to be, in many of his works a dramatic painter, and for us his drama is platitudinous. Take the "Plague of Ashdod," in the National Gallery. There are the gestures that we are already a little weary of in Raphael's cartoons. The figures express horror and fear with uplifted hands or contorted features; but their real business seems to be to make the picture. The drama is thrust upon us, and we cannot ignore it; yet we feel that it is no discovery for the artist, but something that he has learnt like a second-rate actor--that he has, in fact, a "bag of tricks" in common with all the Italian painters of his time, and that he is only pretending to be surprised by his subject. Now every age has its artistic platitudes; but these platitudes of dramatic expression are peculiarly wearisome to us because they have persisted in European painting up to the present day, and because most great painters in modern times have struggled in one way or another to escape from them. We associate them with mediocrity and insincerity; and we do not understand that for many of the better painters of the seventeenth century they were only a basis for discoveries of a different kind. Il Greco, for instance, is often as dramatically platitudinous as Guido Reni, but he also was making discoveries in design which happen to interest us now, so that we overlook his platitudes. He was trying to express his emotions not so much by gesture and the play of features as by a rhythm really independent of those, a rhythm carried through everything in the picture, to which all his platitudes are subject. And because this rhythm is new to us now we hardly notice the platitudes. Poussin was playing the same game, but his rhythm has been imitated by so many dull painters that we are tempted to think it as platitudinous as his drama, and that is where we are unjust to him. Poussin had a mind that was at once passionate and determined to be master of its passions. He would not suppress them, but he would express them with complete composure; and as Donne in poetry tried to attain to an intellectual mastery over his passions by means of conceits, so Poussin in painting tried to attain to the same mastery through the representation of an ideal world. Each was enthralled with his experience of real life; but each was dissatisfied with the haphazard, tyrannous nature of that experience, and especially with the divorce between passion and intellect, which in actual experience is so painful to the man who is both passionate and intelligent. So each, in his art, tried to make a new kind of experience, in which passion should be intelligent and intellect passionate. This, no doubt, is what every artist tries to do; but the effort was peculiarly fierce in Donne and Poussin because in them there was a more than common discord between passion and intelligence, because they were instantly critical both of what they desired and of their own process of desire. Donne, at the very height of passion, asked himself why he was passionate; and he could not express his passion without trying to justify it to his intelligence. So in his poetry he endeavoured to experience it again with simultaneous intellectual justification which in that poetry was a part of the experience itself. Poussin aims not so much at an intellectual justification of passion as at an expression of it in which there shall be also complete intellectual composure. He aims in his art at an experience in which the intellect shall be free from the bewilderment of the passions and the passions also free from the check of the intellect; and to this he attains by the representation of an ideal state in which the intellect can make all the forms through which the passion expresses itself. He is, in fact, nearer than most painters to the musician; but still he is a painter and appeals to us through the representation of objects that we can recognize by their likeness to what we have seen ourselves. His intellect desires to make its forms, not to have them imposed upon it by mere ocular experience, since ocular experience for him is full of the tyrannous bewilderment of actual passion. But at the same time those forms which his intellect makes must be recognized by their likeness to what men see in the world about them. So he found a link between his ideal forms and what men see in what is vaguely called the antique. But he did not go to the antique out of any artistic snobbery or because he distrusted his own natural taste. The antique was not for him an aristocratic world of art that he tried to enter in the hope of becoming himself an aristocrat. He showed that he was perfectly at ease in that world by the manner in which he painted its subjects. When, for instance, he paints Bacchanals, he is really much less overawed by the subject than Rubens would be. Rubens, who was a man of culture and an intellectual _parvenu_, tried desperately to combine his natural tastes with classical subjects. When he painted a Flemish cook as Venus he really tried to make her look like Venus; and the result is a Flemish cook pretending to be Venus, an incongruity that betrays a like incongruity in the artist's mind. Poussin's Venus, far less flesh and blood, does belong entirely to the world in which he imagines her--indeed, so intensely that, if we have lost interest in that world, she fails to interest us. The Venetians have done this much better, we think; and why, if Poussin was going to paint like Titian, did he not use Titian's colour? The answer is, Because his mood was very far from Titian's, because he makes a comment that Titian never makes upon his Venuses and Bacchanals. Rubens makes no comment at all: his attitude towards the classical is that of the wondering _parvenu_. Titian through the classical expresses the Renaissance liberation from scruple and fear. But Poussin gives us a mortal comment upon this immortal carelessness and delight. Whether his figures are tranquil or rapturous, there is in his colour an expression of something far from their felicity. Indeed, however voluptuous the forms may be, the colour is always ascetic. It is not that he seems to disapprove of those glorified pleasures of the senses, but that he cannot satisfy himself with his own conception of them, as Titian could. Titian represents a world in which all the mind consents to delight. His figures are not foolish, but they are like dancers or dreamers to the music of their own pleasure. He makes us hear that music to which his figures dance or dream; but, with Poussin, we do not hear it, we only see the figures subject to it as to some influence from which we are cut off; and that which cuts us off is the colour. Most painters, if they wished to paint a scene of voluptuous pleasure, would conceive it first in colour; for colour is the natural expression of all delights of the senses. But Poussin never allows the delight that he paints to affect his colour at all. That is always an expression of his own permanent mind, of a mind that could not dance or dream to the music of any pleasure possible in this world. For him the ideal world was not merely one of perpetual, intensified pleasure, but one in which all the activities of the mind should work like gratified senses and yet keep their own character, in which passion should be freed from its bewilderment and intellect from its questioning. That was what he tried to represent; and his colour was a comment, half-unconscious perhaps, upon its impossibility. For the everlasting conflict between colour and form does itself express that impossibility. Whatever he might represent, Poussin could not, for one moment, lose his interest in form or subordinate it to colour. His figures, whatever their raptures, must express his own intellectual mastery of them; and it was impossible to combine this with a colour that should express their raptures. But Poussin, knowing this impossibility, was not content with a compromise. He might have used a faintly agreeable colour that would not be incongruous with their raptures; but he chose rather to express his own exasperation in a colour that was violently incongruous with them, but which at the same time heightens his emphasis upon form. So, though there is an incongruity between the subject itself and the mood in which it is treated, there is none in the treatment. Poussin himself seems to look, and to make us look, at a mythological Paradise, with the searching, mournful gaze of a human spectator. This glory is forbidden to us not merely by our circumstances but by the nature of our own minds. It is, indeed, one of our own conceptions of Heaven, but inadequate like all the rest; and Poussin, by making the conception clear to us, reveals its inadequacy. He paints the subjects of the Renaissance like a man remembering his own youth, and sad, not because he has lost the pleasures of youth, but because he wasted himself upon them. Here are these deities, he seems to tell us, but there must be a secret in their felicity that we do not understand. The joy they seem to offer is below us, and he will not pretend to have caught it from them in his art. For that art is always sad, not with a particular grief nor with mere low spirits, but with the incongruity of the passions and the intellect; and this noble sadness is expressed by Poussin as no other painter has expressed it. He was himself a melancholy man to whom art was the one happiness of life; but he did not use his art to talk of his sorrows. He used it to create a world of clear and orderly design, and satisfied his intellect in the creation of it. In his art he could exercise the composure which actual experience disturbed; he could remake that reality so troubled by the conflict of sense, emotion, and understanding; but, even in remaking it, he added the comment that it was only his in art. And that is the reason why his art seems so impersonal to us, why there is the same cold passion in all his pictures, whether religious or mythological. In all of them he expresses a sharp dissatisfaction with the very nature of his actual experience. A painter like Rubens is entranced with his own actual vision of things; but Poussin tells us that he has never even seen anything as he wanted to see it. He is not a vague idealist dissatisfied with reality because of the weakness of his own senses or understanding. Rather he seems to cry, like Poe, of everything that he draws-- O God, can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? It is the very substance and matter of things that he tries to master; and that so intensely that he never sees them flushed or dimmed by any mood of his own. Nor does he allow the passions of his figures to affect his representation of them or of their surroundings. He is cold, himself, towards these passions, for to him they are only a part of the bewilderment of actual experience. But in making forms he escapes from that bewilderment and shows us matter utterly subject to mind. Yet in this triumph there is always implied the sadness that such a triumph is impossible in life, that the artist cannot be what he paints. The Renaissance had failed, and Poussin's art was a bitterly sincere announcement of its failure. A Defence of Criticism The only kind of critic taken seriously in England is the art critic; and he is taken seriously as an expert, that is to say, as one who will tell us not what he has found in a work of art, but who produced it. His very judgment is valued not on a matter of art at all, but on a matter of business. No one wants to know whether a certain picture is good or bad. The question is, Was it painted by Romney? It might well have been and yet be a very bad picture; but that is not the point. Experts are called to say that it is by Romney; and they are proved to be wrong. Thereupon Sir Thomas Jackson writes to the _Times_ and says that if people learned to think for themselves the profession of art critic would be at an end. The art critic, for him, is one who tells people what to think. And then he proceeds-- It is only for the public he writes; he is of no use to artists. I doubt whether any man in any branch of art could be found who would honestly say he had ever learned anything from the art critic, who, after all, is only an amateur. The criticism we value, and that which really helps, is that of our brother artists, often sharp and unsparing, but always salutary and useful. And if useless to the artist, art criticism is harmful to the public, who take their opinion from it at second hand. Were all art criticism made penal for ten years lovers of art would learn to think for themselves, and a truer appreciation of art than the commercial one would result, with the greatest benefit both to art and to artists. It is the artist and not the professional critic who should be the real instructor of the public taste. Here there seems to be an inconsistency; for if we are to think for ourselves we do not need to be instructed by artists any more than by critics. But Sir Thomas Jackson may mean that the artist is to instruct the public only through his works. Still, the question remains, How is the artist to be recognized? There is a riddle--When is an artist not an artist? and the answer is--Nine times out of ten. Certainly the opinions of artists about each other will not bring security to the public mind; and does Sir T. Jackson really believe that artists always value the criticism of brother artists? Does an Academician value the criticism of a Vorticist, or _vice versa_? The Academician, of course, would say that the Vorticist was not an artist--and _vice versa_. The artist values the opinion of the artist who agrees with him; and at present there is less agreement among artists than among critics. They condemn each other more than the critics condemn them. But these are minor points. What I am concerned with is Sir T. Jackson's notion of the function of criticism. For him, as for most Englishmen, the critic is one who tells people what to think; and the value of his criticism depends upon his reputation; we should pay no heed to art critics, because they are not artists. But the critic, whether of art or of anything else; is a writer; and he is to be judged not by his reputation either as artist or as critic, but by what he writes. Sir T. Jackson thinks that he is condemning the critic when he says that he writes only for the public. He might as well think that he condemned the artist if he said that he worked only for the public. Of course the critic writes for the public, as the painter paints for the public; and he writes as one of the public, not as an artist. Further, if he is a critic, he does not write to tell the public what to think any more than he writes to tell the painter how to paint. Just as the painter in his pictures expresses a general interest in the visible world, so the critic in his criticism expresses a general interest in art; and his justification, like that of the painter, consists in his power of expressing this interest. If he cannot express it well, it is useless to talk about his reputation either as artist or critic; one might as well excuse a bad picture of a garden by saying that the painter of it was a good gardener and therefore a good judge of gardens. It is a misfortune that the word critic should be derived from a Greek word meaning judge. A critic certainly does arrive at judgments; but the value of his criticism, if it has any, consists not in the judgment, but in the process by which it is arrived at. This fact is seldom understood in England, either by the public or by artists. The artist cares only about the judgment and complains that a mere amateur has no right to judge him. He would rather be judged by himself; and, being himself an artist, he must be a better judge. But the question to be asked about the critic is not whether he is an amateur as an artist, but whether he is an amateur as a critic; and that can be decided only by his criticism. The greatest artist might prove that he was an amateur in criticism; and he could not disprove it by appealing to his art. Sir Joshua Reynolds, for instance, thinks like an amateur in some of his discourses; and it is amateur thinking to defend him by saying that he does not paint like one. Certainly much of our criticism consists of mere judgments, and is therefore worthless as criticism. But much of our art consists also of mere judgments; it tells us nothing except that the artist admires this or that, or believes that the public admires it; and it also is worthless as art. But no critic therefore writes to the papers to say that, if only the public would learn to feel for themselves, the profession of artist would be at an end. We know that the business of an artist is not to tell the public what to feel about the visible world, or anything else, but to express his own interest in the visible world or whatever may be the subject-matter of his art. We do not condemn art because of its failures. Those who know anything at all about the nature of art know that it has value because it expresses the common interests of mankind better than most men can express them; and for this reason it has value for mankind and not merely for artists. For this reason, also, criticism has value for mankind and not merely for artists or for critics. But the value of it does not lie in the judgment of the critic any more than the value of art lies in the judgment, taste, preference of the artist. The value in both cases lies in power of expression; and by that art and criticism are to be judged. Needless to say, then, criticism is not to be judged by the help it gives to artists. One might as well suppose that philosophy was to be judged by the help it gives to the Deity. The philosopher does not tell the Deity how He ought to have made the universe; nor do we read philosophy for the sake of the judgments at which philosophers arrive. We do not want to know Kant's opinion because he is Kant; what interests us is the process by which he arrives at that opinion, and it is the process which convinces us that his opinion is right, if we are convinced. So it is, or should be, with criticism. It ought to provoke thought rather than to suppress it; and if it does not provoke thought it is worthless. But in the best criticism judgment is rather implied than expressed. For the proper subject-matter of criticism is the experience of works of art. The best critic is he who has experienced a work of art so intensely that his criticism is the spontaneous expression of his experience. He tells us what has happened to him, as the artist tells us what has happened to him; and we, as we read, do not judge either the criticism or the art criticized, but share the experience. The value of art lies in the fact that it communicates the experience and the experiencing power of one man to many. When we hear a symphony of Beethoven, we are for the moment Beethoven; and we ourselves are enriched for ever by the fact that we have for the moment been Beethoven. So the value of the best criticism lies in the fact that it communicates the experience and the experiencing power of the critic to his readers and so enriches their experiencing power. If he is futile, so is the artist. If we cannot read him without danger to our own independence of thought, neither can we look at a picture without danger to our own independence of vision. But believe in the fellowship of mankind, believe that one mind can pour into another and enrich it with its own treasures, and you will know that neither art nor criticism is futile. They stand or fall together, and the artist who condemns the critic condemns himself also. There remains the contention, half implied by Sir T. Jackson, that the critic's experience of art is of no value because he is not an artist. Now if it is of no value to himself because he is not an artist, then art is of no value to anyone except the artist, and the artist who practises the same kind of art; music is of value only to musicians, and painting to painters. It cannot be that mere technical training gives a man the mysterious power of experiencing works of art; for, as we all know, it does not make an artist. No artist will admit that anyone through technical training can become a member of the sacred brotherhood of those who understand the mystery of art. Therefore they had all better admit that there is no mystery about it, or, rather, a mystery for us all. Either art is of value to us all, and our own experience of it is of value to us; or art has no value whatever to anyone, but is the meaningless activity of a few oddities who would be better employed in agriculture. But if our own experience of art is of value to us, then it is possible for us to communicate that experience to others so that it may be of value to them; as it is possible for the painter to communicate to others his experience of the visible world. If he denies this, once again he denies himself. He shuts himself within the prison of his own arrogance, from which he can escape only by a want of logic. But, further, if our experience of art is of value to ourselves, and if it is possible for us to communicate that experience to others, it is also possible for us to arrive at conclusions about that experience which may be of value both to ourselves and to others. Hence scientific or philosophic criticism, which is based not, as some artists seem to think, upon a fraudulent pretence of the critic that he himself is an artist, but upon that experience of art which is, or may be, common to all men. The philosophic critic writes not as one who knows how to produce that which he criticizes better than he who has produced it, but as one who has experienced art; and his own experience is really the subject-matter of his criticism. If he _is_ a philosophic critic, he will know that his experience is itself necessarily imperfect. As some one has said: "We do not judge works of art; they judge us"; and the critic is to be judged by the manner in which he has experienced art, as the painter is to be judged by the manner in which he has experienced the visible world. All the imperfections of his experience will be betrayed in his criticism; where he is insensitive, there he will fail, both as artist and as philosopher; and of this fact he must be constantly aware. So if he gives himself the airs of a judge, if he relies on his own reputation to make or mar the reputation of a work of art, he ceases to be a critic and deserves all that artists in their haste have said about him. Still, it is a pity that artists, in their haste, should say these things; for when they do so they, too, become critics of the wrong sort, critics insensitive to criticism. They may think that they are upholding the cause of art; but they are upholding the cause of stupidity, that common enemy of art and of criticism. The Artist and his Audience According to Whistler art is not a social activity at all; according to Tolstoy it is nothing else. But art is clearly a social activity and something more; yet no one has yet reconciled the truth in Whistler's doctrine with the truth in Tolstoy's. Each leaves out an essential part of the truth, and they remain opposed in their mixture of error and truth. The main point of Whistler's "Ten o'clock" is that art is not a social activity. "Listen," he cries, "there never was an artistic period. There never was an art-loving nation. In the beginning man went forth each day--some to battle, some to the chase; others again to dig and to delve in the field--all that they might gain and live or lose and die. Until there was found among them one, differing from the rest, whose pursuits attracted him not, and so he stayed by the tents with the women, and traced strange devices with a burnt stick upon a gourd. This man, who took no joy in the ways of his brethren, who cared not for conquest and fretted in the field, this designer of quaint patterns, this deviser of the beautiful, who perceived in Nature about him curious curvings, as faces are seen in the fire--this dreamer apart was the first artist." Then, he says, the hunters and the workers drank from the artists' goblets, "taking no note the while of the craftsman's pride, and understanding not his glory in his work; drinking at the cup not from choice, not from a consciousness that it was beautiful, but because, forsooth, there was none other!" Luxury grew, and the great ages of art came. "Greece was in its splendour, and art reigned supreme--by force of fact, not by election. And the people questioned not, and had nothing to say in the matter." In fact art flourished because mankind did not notice it. But "there arose a new class, who discovered the cheap, and foresaw fortune in the manufacture of the sham." Then, according to Whistler, a strange thing happened. "The heroes filled from the jugs and drank from the bowls--with understanding.... And the people--this time--had much to say in the matter, and all were satisfied. And Birmingham and Manchester arose in their might, and art was relegated to the curiosity shop." Whistler does not explain why, if no one was aware of the existence of art except the artist, those who were not artists began to imitate it. If no one prized art, why should sham art have come into existence? According to him it was the sham that made men aware of the true; yet the sham could not exist until men were aware of the true. But the account he gives of the decadence of art is historically untrue as well as unintelligible. We know little of the primitive artist; but we have no proof that he was utterly different from other men, or that they did not enjoy his activities. If they had not enjoyed them they would probably have killed him. The primitive artist survived, no doubt, because he was an artist in his leisure; and all we know of more primitive art goes to prove that it was, and is, practised not by a special class but by the ordinary primitive man in his leisure. Peasant art is produced by peasants, not by lonely artists. Some, of course, have more gift for it than others, but all enjoy it, though they do not call it art. Whistler saw himself in every primitive artist; and seeing himself as a dreamer apart misunderstood by the common herd, he saw the primitive artist as one living in a primitive White House, and producing primitive nocturnes for his own amusement, unnoticed, happily, by primitive critics. But his view, though refuted both by history and by common sense, is still held by many artists and amateurs. They themselves make much of art, but do not see that their theory makes little of it, makes it a mere caprice of the human mind, like the collecting of postage stamps. If art has any value or importance for mankind, it is because it is a social activity. If no one but an artist can enjoy art, it seems to follow that no art can be completely enjoyed except by him who has produced it; for in relation to that art he alone is an artist. All other artists, even, are the public; and, according to Whistler, the public has nothing to do with art; it flourishes best when they are not aware of its existence. He is very contemptuous of taste. All judgment of art must be based on expert knowledge, for art, he says, "is based upon laws as rigid and defined as those of the known sciences." Yet whereas "no polished member of society is at all affected by admitting himself neither engineer, mathematician, nor astronomer, and therefore remains willingly discreet and taciturn upon these subjects, still he would be highly offended were he supposed to have no voice in what clearly to him is a matter of taste." So to Whistler art has no more to do with the life of the ordinary man than astronomy or mathematics. His mention of engineering is an unfortunate slip, for, although we are not engineers we all knew, when the Tay Bridge broke down and threw hundreds of passengers into the water, that it was not a good bridge. We are all concerned with engineering in spite of our ignorance of it, because we make use of its works. Whistler assumes that we make no use of works of art except as objects of use; and since pictures, poems, music are not objects of use, we can have no concern with them whatever--which is absurd. But here comes Tolstoy, who tells us that all works of art are merely objects of use and are to be judged therefore by the extent of their use. A work of art that few can enjoy fails as much as a railway that few can travel by. "Art," Tolstoy says, "is a human activity, consisting in this--that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them." So it is the essence of a work of art that it shall infect others with the feelings of the artist. Now certainly a work of art is a work of art to us only if it does so infect us, but Tolstoy is not content with that. The individual is not to judge the work of art by its infection of himself. He is to consider also the extent of its infection. "For a work to be esteemed good and to be approved of and diffused it will have to satisfy the demands, not of a few people living in identical and often unnatural conditions, but it will have to satisfy the demands of all those great masses of people who are situated in the natural conditions of laborious life." The two views are utterly irreconcilable. According to Whistler the public are not to judge art at all because they have no concern with it, and it flourishes most when they do not pretend to have any concern with it. According to Tolstoy the individual is to judge it, not by the effect it produces on him, but by the effect it produces on others, "on all those great masses of people who are situated in the natural conditions of laborious life." Now, if we find ourselves intimidated by one or other of these views, if we seem forced to accept one of them against our will, it is a relief and liberation from the tyranny of Whistler's or Tolstoy's logic to ask ourselves simply what does actually happen to us in our own experience and enjoyment of a work of art. The fact that we are able to enjoy and experience a work of art does liberate us at once from the tyranny of Whistler; for clearly, if we can experience and enjoy a work of art, we are concerned with it. It is vain for Whistler to tell us that we ought not to be, or that we do injury to art by our concern. The fact of our enjoyment and experience makes art for us a social activity; we know that our enjoyment of it is good; we know also that the artist likes us to enjoy it; and we do not believe that either the primitive artist or the primitive man was different from us in this respect. There is now, and always has been, some kind of social relation between the artist and the public; the only question is how far that relation is the essence of art. Tolstoy tells us that it is the essence of art, because the proper aim of art is to do good. This is implied in his doctrine that art can be good only if it is intelligible to most men. "The assertion that art may be good art and at the same time incomprehensible to a great number of people, is extremely unjust; and its consequences are ruinous to art itself." The word unjust implies the moral factor. I am not to enjoy a work of art if I know that others cannot enjoy it, because it is not fair that I should have a pleasure not shared by them. If I know that others cannot share it, I am to take no account of my own experience, but to condemn the work, however good it may seem to me. From this logic also I can liberate myself by concerning myself simply with my own experience. Again, if I experience and enjoy a work of art, I know that my experience of it is good; and, in my judgment of the work of art, I do not need to ask myself how many others enjoy it. I may wish them to enjoy it and try to make them do so, but that effort of mine is not æsthetic but moral. It does not affect my judgment of the work of art, but is a result of that judgment. And, as a matter of fact, if I am to experience a work of art at all, I cannot be asking myself how many others enjoy it. Judgments of art are not formed in that way and cannot be; they are, and must be, always formed out of our own experience of art. If art is to be art to us, we cannot think of it in terms of something else. There would be no public for art at all if we all agreed to judge it in terms of each other's enjoyment or understanding. Each individual of "the great masses of people who are situated in the natural conditions of laborious life" would also have to ask himself whether the rest of the masses were enjoying and understanding, before he could judge; indeed, he would not feel a right to enjoy until he knew that the rest were enjoying. That is to say, no individual would ever enjoy art at all. The fact is that art is produced by the individual artist and experienced by the individual man. Tolstoy says that it is experienced by mankind in the mass, and not as individuals; Whistler that it is not experienced at all, either by the mass or by the individual. Each is a heretic with some truth in his heresy; what is the true doctrine? It is clear that every artist desires an audience, not merely so that he may win pudding and praise from them, nor so that he may do them good; none of these aims will make him an artist; he can accomplish all of them without attempting to produce a work of art. It is also clear that his artistic success is not his success in winning an audience. Those "great masses of people who are situated in the natural conditions of laborious life" are a figment of Tolstoy's mind. No conditions are natural in the sense in which he uses the word; nor do any existing conditions make one man a better judge of art than another. There is no multitude of simple, normal, unspoilt men able and willing to enjoy any real art that is presented to them. The right experience of art comes with effort, like right thought and right action; and no Russian peasant has it because he works in the fields. Nor, on the other hand, are there any artists who are mere "sports" occupied with a queer game of their own self-expression which no one else can enjoy. There is a necessary relation between the work of art and its audience, even if no actual audience for it exists; and the fact that this relation must be, even when there is no audience in existence, is the paradox and problem of art. A work of art claims an audience, entreats it, is indeed made for it; but must have it on its own terms. Men are artists because they are men, because they have a faculty, at its height, which is shared by all men. In that Croce is right; and his doctrine that all men are artists in some degree, and that the very experience of art is itself an æsthetic activity, contains a truth of great value. But his æsthetic ignores, or seems to ignore, the fact that art is not merely, as he calls it, expression, but is also a means of address; in fact, that we do not express ourselves except when we address ourselves to others, even though we speak to no particular, or even existing, audience. Yet this fact is obvious; for all art gets its very form from the fact that it is a method of address. A story is a story because it is told, and told to some one not the teller. A picture is a picture because it is painted to be seen. It has all its artistic qualities because it is addressed to the eye. And music is music, and has the form which makes it music, because it is addressed to the ear. Without this intention of address there could be no form in art and no distinction between art and day-dreaming. Day-dreaming is not expression, is not art, because it is addressed to no one but is a purposeless activity of the mind. It becomes art only when there is the purpose of address in it. That purpose will give it form and turn it from day-dreaming into art. Even in an object of use which is also a work of art, the art is the effort of the maker to emphasize, that is, to point out, the beauty of that which he has made. It is this emphasis that turns building into architecture; and it implies that the building is made not merely for the builder's or for anyone else's use, but that its aim also is to address an audience, to speak to the eye as a picture speaks to it. Art is made for men as surely as boots are made for them. But not as Tolstoy thinks, for any particular class of men or even for the whole mass of existing mankind. The artist will not and cannot judge his work by its effects on any actual men, any more than we can or will judge it by its effects on anyone except ourselves. As we, in our experience of it, must be completely individual; so must he in his production of it. He is not a public servant, but a man speaking for himself, and with no thought of effects, to anyone who will hear. His audience consists only of those who will hear, of those individuals who can understand his individual expression which is also communication. In his art he seeks the individual who will hear. He has something to say; but he can say it only to others, not to himself; it is what it is because he says it to others. Yet he says it also for its own sake and not for theirs. The particular likes and dislikes, stupidities, limitations, demands, of individual men or classes are nothing to him. The condition of his art is this alone, that he does address it to an audience. So the relation between the artist and his audience is the most important fact of his art, even if he has no actual audience. It is his attitude towards the audience that makes him do his best or his worst, makes him a good artist or a bad one, that sets him free to express all he has to say or hampers him with inhibitions. His business is not to find an audience, but to find the right attitude towards one, the attitude which is that of the artist and not of the tradesman, or peacock, or philanthropist. And it is plain that in his effort to find this right attitude he may be helped or hindered much by his actual fellow-men. The artist is also a man and subject to all the temptations of men. Whistler, when he said that art happens, ignored this fact, ignored the whole social relation of mankind and the whole history of the arts; while Tolstoy ignored no less the mind of the artist, and the minds of all those who do actually experience art. To Whistler the artist is a _Chimæra bombinans in vacuo_; to Tolstoy he is a philanthropist. For Whistler the public has no function whatever in relation to art; for Tolstoy the artist himself has no function whatever except a moral one. In fact he denies the existence of the artist, as Whistler denies the existence of the public. Whistler's truth is that the public must not tell the artist what he is to do; Tolstoy's, that a public with a right relation to the artist will help the artist to have a right relation to the public. Artists are not "sports," but men; and men engaged in one of the most difficult of human activities. They are subject to æsthetic temptation and sin, as all men are subject to temptation and sin of all kinds. Their public may tempt them to think more of themselves than of what they have to express, either by perverse admiration or by ignorant contempt. An actual audience may be an obstruction between them and the ideal audience to which every artist should address himself. Every artist must desire that his ideal audience should exist, and may mistake an actual audience for it. In the ideal relation between an artist and his audience, it is the universal in him that speaks to the universal in them, and yet this universal finds an intensely personal expression. Art, which is personal expression, tells, not of what the artist wants, but of what he values. But if his ego is provoked by the ego in a particular audience, then he begins to tell of what he wants or of what they want. The audience may demand of him that he shall please them by indulging their particular vanities, appetites, sentimental desires, that he shall present life to them as they wish it to be; and if he yields to that demand it is because of the demands of his own particular ego. There is a transaction between him and that audience, in its essence commercial. His art is the particular supplying some kind of goods to the particular, not the universal pouring itself out to the universal. The function of the audience is not to demand but to receive. It should not allow its own expectations to hinder its receptiveness; to that extent Whistler is right. Art happens as the beauty of the universe happens; and it is the business of the audience to experience it, not to dictate how it shall happen. It has been said: It is not we who judge works of art; they judge us. The artist speaks and we listen; but still he speaks to us and by listening wisely we help him to speak his best, for man is a social being; and all life, in so far as it is what it wishes to be, is a fellowship. Never is it so completely a fellowship as in the relation between an artist and his audience. There Tolstoy is right, but the fellowship has to be achieved by both the artist and the audience. There is no body of simple peasants, any more than there are rich or cultured people, to whom he must address himself or whose demands he must satisfy. Art that tries to satisfy any particular demand is of use neither to the flesh nor to the spirit. It is neither meat nor music. But where all is well with it, the spirit in the artist speaks to the spirit in his audience. There is a common quality in both, with which he speaks and they listen; and where this common quality is found art thrives. Wilfulness and Wisdom There are people to whom the war was merely the running amuck of a criminal lunatic; and they get what pleasure they can from calling that lunatic all the names they can think of. To them the Germans are different in kind from all other peoples, utterly separated from the rest of us by their crimes. We could learn nothing from them except how to crush them; and, having done so, we shall need to learn nothing except how to keep them down. But such minds never learn anything from experience, because they believe that there is nothing to be learnt. They consume all their mental energy in anger and the expression of it; and in doing so they grow more and more like those with whom they are angry. Wisdom always goes contrary to what our passions tell us, especially when they take the form of righteous indignation. The creative power of the mind begins with refusal of all those tempting fierce delights which the passions offer to it. Wisdom must be cold before it can become warm; it must suppress the comforting heat of the flesh before it can kindle with the pure fire of the spirit. Above all, when we say that we are not as other men, as the Germans, for instance, it must insist that we are, and that we shall avoid the German crime only by recognizing our likeness to those who have committed it. The Germans have committed the great crime; but they have been born and nurtured in an atmosphere which made that crime possible; and we live in the same atmosphere. Their error, though they carried it to an extreme in theory and in practice with the native extravagance of their race, is the error of the whole Western world; and we shall not understand what it is unless we are aware of it in ourselves as well as in them. For it is a world-error and one against which men have been warned for ages; but in their pride they will not listen to the warning. Many of the old warnings, in the Gospels and elsewhere, sound like platitudes to us; we expect the clergyman to repeat them in church; but we should never think of applying them to this great, successful, progressive Western world of ours. If we are not happy; if we do not even see the way to happiness; if all our power merely helps us to destroy each other, or to make the rich more vulgarly rich and the poor more squalidly poor; if the great energy of Germany has hurried her to her own ruin; still we do not ask whether we may not have made some fundamental mistake about our own nature and the nature of the universe, and whether Germany has not merely made it more systematically and more philosophically than the rest of us. But the German, because he is systematic and philosophical, may reveal to us what that error is in us as well as in himself. We do not state it as if it were a splendid truth; we merely act upon it. He stated it for us with such histrionic and towering absurdity that we can laugh at his statement of it; but we must not laugh at him without learning to laugh at ourselves. All this talk about the iron will, about set teeth and ruthlessness, what does it mean except that the German chose to glorify openly and to carry to a logical extreme the peculiar error of the whole Western world--the belief that the highest function of man is to work his will upon people and things outside him, that he can change the world without changing himself? The Christian doctrine, preached so long in vain and now almost forgotten, is the opposite of this. It insists that man is by nature a passive, an experiencing creature, and that he can do nothing well in action unless he has first learned a right passivity. Only by that passivity can he enrich himself; and when he has enriched himself he will act rightly. Man has a will; but he must apply it at the right point, or it will seem to him merely a blind impulse. He must apply it to the manner in which he experiences things; he must free himself from his "will to live" or his "will to power," and see all men and things not as they are of material use to him, but with the object of loving whatever there is of beauty or virtue in them. His will, in fact, must be the will to love, which is the will to experience in a certain way; and out of that will to love right action will naturally ensue. Is this a platitude? If it is, it is flatly contradicted by the German doctrine of wilfulness. For the Germanic hero exercises his will always upon other men and things, not upon himself; and we all admire this Germanic hero, when he is not an obvious danger to us all, and when he is not made ridiculous by the German presentment of him. We all believe that the will is to be exercised first of all in action, that it is the function of the great man to change the world, not to change himself. To us the great man is one who does work a change upon the world, no matter what that change may be. He may change it only as an explosion changes things, and at the end he may be left among the ruins he has made; but still we admire him. We compare him to the forces of nature, we say that there is "something elemental" in him, even though he has been merely an elemental nuisance. We value force in itself, and do not ask what it can find to value in itself when it has exhausted itself upon the world. But out of this worship of wilfulness there comes, sooner or later, a profound scepticism and discouragement. For while these wilful heroes do produce some violent effect, it is not the effect they aimed at. Something happens; something has happened to Germany as the result of Bismarck's wilfulness; but it is not what he willed. The wilful hero is a cause in that he acts; but the effect is not what he designed, and so he seems to himself, and to the world, only a link in an unending chain of cause and effect; and as for his sense of will, it is nothing but the illusion that he is all cause and not at all effect. _Quem Deus vult perdere dementat prius._ That old tag puts a truth wrongly. God does not interfere to afflict the wilful man with madness, but he has never thrown himself open to the wisdom of God. His mind is like a machine that acts with increasing speed and fury because there is less and less material for it to act upon. One act leads to another in a blind chain of cause and effect; he does this merely because he has done that, and seems to be driven by fate on and on to his own ruin. So it was with Napoleon in his later years. He had lost the sense of any reality whatever except his own action; he saw the world as a passive object to be acted upon by himself. And that is how the Germans saw it two years ago. They could not understand that it was possible for the world to react against them. It was merely something that they were going to remake, to work their will upon. The war, at its beginning, was not to them a conflict between human beings; it was a process by which they would make of things what they willed. There was no reality except in themselves and their own will; for, in their worship of action, they had lost the sense of external reality, they had come to believe that there was nothing to learn from it except what a craftsman learns from his material by working in it. It is by making that he learns; and they thought that there was no learning except by making. But that is the mistake of the whole Western world, though we have none of us carried it so far as Germany. Other men are to us still men, they still have some reality to us; but we see external reality as a material for us to work in; we are to ourselves entirely active and not at all passive beings. Even among all the evil and sorrow of the war we still took a pride in the enormous power of our instruments of destruction, as if we were children playing with big, dangerous toys. But these toys are themselves the product of a society that must always be making and never thinking or feeling. They express the will for action that has ousted the will to experience; and all the changes which we work on the face of the earth express that will too. We could not live in the cities we have made for ourselves if we thought that we had anything to learn from the beauty of the earth. They are for us merely places in which we learn to act, in which no one could learn to think or feel. Passive experience is impossible in them and they do not consider the possibility of it. So they express in every building, in every object, in the very clothes of their inhabitants, an utter poverty of passive experience. In what we make we give out no stored riches of the mind; we make only so that we may act, never so that we may express ourselves; and we have little art because our making is entirely wilful. Our attempts at art are themselves entirely wilful. We will have art, we say; and so we plaster our utilities with the ornaments of the past, as if we could get the richness of experience secondhand from our ancestors. And in the same way we are always finding for our blind activities moral motives, those motives which are real only when they spring out of right experience. We rationalize all that we do, but the rationalizing is secondhand ornament to blind impulse; it is an attempt to persuade ourselves that our actions spring out of the experience which we lack. There is among us an incessant activity both of thought and of art; but much of it is entirely wilful. The thinker makes theories to justify what is done; he, too, sees all life in terms of action, he is the parasite of action. For a German professor the whole process of history was but a prelude to the wilfulness of Germany; he could not experience the past except in terms of what Germany willed to do; and the aim of his theorizing was to remove all scrupulous impediments to the action of Germany which she may have inherited from the past. Think so that you may be stronger to do what you wish to do; that is the modern notion of thought, and that is the reason why we throw up theories so easily; for thinking of this kind needs no experience, it needs merely an activity of the mind, the activity which collects facts and does with them what it will. And these theories are eagerly accepted so long as the impulse lasts which they justify. When that is spent they are forgotten, and new theories take their place to justify fresh impulses. And so it is with the incessant new movements in art. Art now is conceived entirely as action. The artist is as wilful as the Germanic hero; the will to make excludes in him the will to experience. The painter cannot look at the visible world without considering at once what kind of picture he will make of it. It is to him mere passive material for his artistic will, not an independent reality to enrich his mind so that it will give out its riches in the form of art. And as he is always willing to make pictures so he must will the kind of pictures he will make, as the Germans willed the kind of world they would make. But this willing of his is a kind of theorizing to justify his own action; and it changes incessantly because he never can be satisfied with his own poverty of experience. But still he will do anything rather than try to enrich that poverty. And that is the secret of all our restlessness, the restlessness that forced the Germans into the folly and crime of war. We are always dissatisfied with our poverty of experience; and we try to get rid of our dissatisfaction in more blind activity, throwing up new theories all the while as reasons why we should act. We fidget about the earth as if we were children, that could not read, left in a library; and, like them, we do mischief. And that is just what we are: children that have not learnt to read let loose upon the library of the universe; and all that we can do is to pull the books about and play games with them and scribble on their pages. Everywhere the earth is defaced with our meaningless scribbling, and we tell ourselves that it means something because we want to scribble. Or sometimes we tell ourselves that there is no meaning in anything, no more in the books than in our scribble. The only remedy is that we should learn to read; and for this we need above all things humility; not merely the personal humility of a man who knows that other men excel him, but a generic humility which acknowledges in the universe a greater wisdom, power, righteousness than his own. That is formally acknowledged by our religion, but it is not practically acknowledged in our way of life, in our conduct or our thought. We think and feel and behave as if we were the best and wisest creatures in the universe, as if it existed only for us to make use of it; and in so far as we learn from it at all, we learn only to make use of it. That is our idea of knowledge and wisdom; more and more it is our idea of science; and as for philosophy, we pay no heed to it because, in its nature, it is not concerned with making use of things. In every way we betray the fact that we cannot listen humbly, because we do not believe there is anything to listen to. For a few of the devout God spoke long ago, but He is not speaking now. "The kings of modern thought are dumb," said Matthew Arnold; but that is because everything outside the mind of man is dumb; all must be dumb to those who will not listen. If we assume that there, is no intelligence anywhere but in ourselves, we shall find none anywhere else. There will be no meaning for us in anything but our own actions; and they will become more and more meaningless to us as they become more and more wilful, until at last we shall be to ourselves like squirrels in a cage, or prisoners on a universal treadmill. Years ago the war must have seemed a meaningless treadmill to the Germans, but they cannot escape from its consequences; they have done and they must suffer. But will they learn from their sufferings, shall we all learn, that doing is not everything? Are we humbled enough to listen to the wisdom of the ages, which tells us that we can be wise only if we listen for a wisdom that is not ours? "The Magic Flute" When _The Magic Flute_ was produced by the already dying Mozart it had little success. At the first performance, it is said, when the applause was faint, the leader of the orchestra stole up to Mozart, who was conducting, and kissed his hand; and Mozart stroked him on the head. We may guess that the leader knew what the music meant and that Mozart knew that he knew. Neither could put it into words and it is not put into words in the libretto. But the libretto need not be an obstruction to the meaning of the music if only the audience will not ask themselves what the libretto means. After Mozart's death the opera was successful, no doubt because the audience had given up asking what the libretto meant and had learnt something of the meaning of the music. There are worse librettos--librettos which have some clear unmusical meaning of their own beyond which the audience cannot penetrate to the meaning of the music, if it has any. This libretto, apart from the music, is so nearly meaningless, it has so little coherence, that one can easily pass through it to the music. The author, Schickaneder, was Mozart's friend, and he had wit enough to understand the mood of Mozart. That mood does express itself in the plot and the incidents of the libretto, although in them it is empty of value or passion. Schickaneder, in fact, constructed a mere diagram to which Mozart gave life. The life is all in the music, but the diagram has its use, in that it supplies a shape, which we recognize, to the life of the music. The characters live in the music, but in the words they tell us something about themselves which enables us to understand their musical speech better. Papageno tells us that he is a bird-catcher and a child of nature. The words are labels, but through them we pass more quickly to an understanding of his song. Only we shall miss that understanding if we try to reach it through the words, if we look for the story of the opera in them. In the words the events of the opera have no connexion with each other. There is no reason why one should follow another. The logic of it is all in the music, for the music creates a world in which events happen naturally, in which one tune springs out of another, or conflicts with it, like the forces of nature or the thoughts and actions of man. This world is the universe as Mozart sees it; and the whole opera is an expression of his peculiar faith. It is therefore a religious work, though free from that meaningless and timid solemnity which we associate with religion. Mozart, in this world, was like an angel who could not but laugh, though without any malice, at all the bitter earnestness of mankind. Even the wicked were only absurd to him; they were naughty children whom, if one had the spell, one could enchant into goodness. And in _The Magic Flute_ the spell works. It works in the flute itself and in Papageno's lyre when the wicked negro Monostatos threatens him and Tamino with his ugly attendants. Papageno has only to play a beautiful childish tune on his lyre and the attendants all march backwards to an absurd goose-step in time with it. They are played off the stage; and the music convinces one that they must yield to it. So, we feel if we had had the music, we could have made the Prussians march their goose-step back to Potsdam; so we could play all solemn perversity off the stage of life. If we had the music--but there is solemn perversity in us too; by reason of which we can hardly listen to the music, much less play it, hardly listen to it or understand it even when Mozart makes it for us. For he had the secret of it; he was a philosopher who spoke in music and so simply that the world missed his wisdom and thought that he was just a beggar playing tunes in the street. A generation ago he was commonly said to be too tuney, as you might say that a flower was too flowery. People would no more consider him than they would consider the lilies of the field. They preferred Wagner in all his glory. Even now you can enjoy _The Magic Flute_ as a more than usually absurd musical comedy with easy, old-fashioned tunes. You can enjoy it anyway, if you are not solemn about it, as you can enjoy _Hamlet_ for a bloody melodrama. But, like _Hamlet_, it has depths and depths of meaning beyond our full comprehension. Papageno is a pantomime figure, but he is also one of the greatest figures in the drama of the world. He is everyman, like Hamlet, if only we had the wit to recognize ourselves in him. Or rather he is that element in us which we all like and despise in others, but which we will never for one moment confess to in ourselves--the coward, the boaster, the liar, but the child of nature. He, because he knows himself for all of these, can find his home in Sarostro's paradise. He does not want Sarostro's high wisdom; what he does want is a Papagena, an Eve, a child of nature like himself; and she is given to him. He has the wit to recognize his mate, almost a bird like himself, and to them Mozart gives their bird-duet, so that, when they sing it, we feel that we might all sing it together. It is not above our capacity of understanding or delight. The angel has learnt our earthly tongue, but transformed it so that he makes a heaven of the earth, a heaven that is not too high or difficult for us, a wild-wood heaven, half-absurd, in which we can laugh as well as sing, and in which the angels will laugh at us and with us, laugh our silly sorrows into joy. There is Mozart himself in Papageno, the faun domesticated and sweetened by centuries of Christian experience, yet still a faun and always ready to play a trick on human solemnity; and in this paradise which Mozart makes for us the faun has his place and a beauty not incongruous with it, like the imps and gargoyles of a Gothic church. At any moment the music will turn from sublimity into fun, and in a moment it can turn back to sublimity; and always the change seems natural. It is like a great cathedral with High Mass and children playing hide-and-seek behind the pillars; and the Mass would not be itself without the children. That is the mind of Mozart which people have called frivolous, just because in his heaven there is room for everything except the vulgar glory of Solomon and cruelty and stupidity and ugliness. There never was anything in art more profound or beautiful than Sarostro's initiation music, but it is not, like the solemnities of the half-serious, incongruous with the twitterings of Papageno. Mozart's religion is so real that it seems to be not religion, but merely beauty, as real saints seem to be not good, but merely charming. And there are people to whom his beauty does not seem to be art, because it is just beauty; they think that he had the trick of it and could turn it on as he chose; they prefer the creaking of effort and egotism. His gifts are so purely gifts and so lavish that they seem to be cheap; and _The Magic Flute_ is an absurdity which he wrote in a hurry to please the crowd. We can hardly expect to see a satisfying performance of it on the stage of to-day, but we must be grateful for any performance, for the life of the music is in it. One can see from it what _The Magic Flute_ might be. The music is so sung, so played that it does transfigure the peculiar theatrical hideousness of our time. Tamino and Panina may look like figures out of an Academy picture, as heroes and heroines of opera always do. They may wear clothes that belong to no world of reality or art, clothes that suggest the posed and dressed-up model. But the music mitigates even these, and it helps every one to act, or rather to forget what they have learnt about acting. It evidently brings happiness and concord to those who sing it, so that they seem to be taking part in a religious act rather than in an act of the theatre. One feels this most in the concerted music, when the same wind from paradise seems to be blowing through all the singers and they move to it like flowers, in spite of their absurd clothes. But what is needed for a satisfying performance is a world congruous to the eye as well as to the ear; and for this we need a break with all our theatrical conventions. Sarostro, for instance, lives among Egyptian scenery--very likely the architecture of his temple was Egyptian at the first performance--but, for all that, this Egyptian world does not suit the music, and to us it suggests the miracles of the Egyptian Hall. But there is one world which would perfectly suit the music, a world in which it could pass naturally from absurdity to beauty, and in which all the figures could be harmonious and yet distinct, and that is the Chinese world as we know it in Chinese art. For in that there is something fantastic yet spiritual, something comic but beautiful, a mixture of the childish and the sacred, which might say to the eye what Mozart's music says to the ear. Only in Chinese art could Papageno be a saint; only in that world, which ranges from the willow-pattern plate to the Rishi in his mystical ecstasy in the wilderness, could the soul of Mozart, with its laughter and its wisdom, be at home. That too is the world in which flowers and all animals are of equal import with mankind; it is the world of dragons in which the serpent of the first act would not seem to be made of pasteboard, and in which all the magic would not seem to be mere conjuring. In that world one might have beautiful landscapes and beautiful figures to suit them. There Sarostro would not be a stage magician, but a priest; from Papageno and the lovers to him would be only the change from Ming to Sung, which would seem no change at all. Chinese art, in fact, is the world of the magic flute, the world where silver bells hang on every flowering tree and the thickets are full of enchanted nightingales. It is the world of imps and monsters, and yet of impassioned contemplation, where the sage sits in a moonlit pavilion and smiles like a lover, and where the lovers smile like sages; where everything is to the eye what the music of Mozart is to the ear. In the Chinese world we could be rid of all the drawling erotics of the modern theatre, we could give up the orchid for the lotus and the heavy egotism of Europe for the self-forgetful gaiety of the East. It may be only an ideal world, empty of the horrors of reality, but it is one which the art of China makes real to us and with which we are familiar in that art; and there is a smiling wisdom in it, there is a gaiety which comes from conquest rather than refusal of reality, just like the gaiety and wisdom of Mozart's music. He knew sorrow well, but would not luxuriate in it; he took the beauty of the universe more seriously than himself. To him wickedness was a matter of imps and monsters rather than of villains, and of imps and monsters that could be exorcized by music. He was the Orpheus of the world who might tame the beast in all of us if we would listen to him, the wandering minstrel whom the world left to play out in the street. And yet his ultimate seriousness and the last secret of his beauty is pity, not for himself and his own little troubles, but for the whole bitter earnestness of mortal children. And in this pity he seems not to weep for us, still less for himself, but to tell us to dry our tears and be good, and listen to his magic flute. That is what he would have told the Prussians, after he had set them marching the goose-step backwards. Even they would not be the villains of a tragedy for him, but only beasts to be tamed with his music until they should be fit to sing their own bass part in the last chorus of reconciliation. And this pity of his sounds all through _The Magic Flute_ and gives to its beauty a thrill and a wonder far beyond what any fleshly passion can give. Sarostro is a priest, not a magician, because there is in him the lovely wisdom of pity, because he has a place in his paradise for Papageno, the child of nature, where he shall be made happy with his mate Papagena. There is a moment when Papageno is about to hang himself because there is no one to love him; he will hang himself in Sarostro's lonely paradise. But there is a sly laughter in the music which tells us that he will be interrupted with the rope round his neck. And so he is, and Papagena is given to him, and the paradise is no longer lonely; and the two sing their part in the chorus of reconciliation at the end. And we are sure that the Queen of Night, and the ugly negro and all his goose-stepping attendants, are not punished. They have been naughty for no reason that anyone can discover, just like Prussians and other human beings; and now the magic flute triumphs over their naughtiness, and the silver bells ring from every tree and the enchanted nightingales sing in all the thickets, and the sages and the lovers smile like children; and the laughter passes naturally into the divine beauty of Mozart's religion, which is solemn because laughter and pity are reconciled in it, not rejected as profane. Process or Person? Nearly all war pictures in the past have been merely pictures that happened to represent war. Paolo Uccello's battle scenes are but pretexts for his peculiar version of the visible world. They might as well be still life for all the effect the subject has had upon his treatment of it. Leonardo, in his lost battle picture, was no doubt dramatic, and expressed in it his infinite curiosity; he has left notes about the manner in which fighting men and horses ought to be represented, but he had this detached curiosity about all things. Michelangelo's battle picture, also lost, expressed his interest in the nude in violent action, like his picture of the "Last Judgment." Titian's "Battle of Cadore," which we know from the copy of a fragment of it, was a landscape with figures in violent action. Tintoret's battle scenes are parade pictures. Those of Rubens are like his hunting scenes or his Bacchanals, expressions of his own overweening energy. In none of these, except perhaps in Leonardo's, was there implied any criticism of war, or any sense that it is an abnormal activity of man. The men who take part in it are just men fighting; they are not men seen differently because they are fighting, or in any way robbed of their humanity because of their inhuman business. As for Meissonier, he paints a battle scene just as if he were a second-rate Dutchman painting a _genre_ picture; and most other modern military painters make merely a patriotic appeal. War to them also is a normal occupation; and they paint battle pictures as they might paint sporting pictures, because there is a public that likes them. In Mr. Nevinson's war pictures there is expressed a modern sense of war as an abnormal occupation; and this sense shows itself in the very method of the artist. He was something of a Cubist before the war; but in these pictures he has found a new reason for being one; for his cubist method does express, in the most direct way, his sense that in war man behaves like a machine or part of a machine, that war is a process in which man is not treated as a human being but as an item in a great instrument of destruction, in which he ceases to be a person and is lost in a process. The cubist method, with its repetition and sharp distinction of planes, expresses this sense of mechanical process better than any other way of representation. Perhaps it came into being to express the modern sense of process as the ultimate reality of all things, even of life and growth. This is the age of mechanism; and machines have affected even our view of the universe; we are overawed by our own knowledge and inventions. Samuel Butler imagined a future in which machines would come to life and make us their slaves; but it is not so much that machines have come to life as that we ourselves have lost the pride and sweetness of our humanity; not that the machines seem more and more like us, but that we seem more and more like the machines. Everywhere we see processes to which we are subject and of which our humanity is the result, though in the past we have harboured the delusion that our humanity was in some way independent of processes. Now that delusion is fading away from us; and it fades away most of all in war, where all humanity is evidently dominated by the struggle for life, and is but a part of it, as raindrops are part of a storm. It is this sense of tyrannous process that Mr. Nevinson expresses in his battle pictures, with, we suspect, a bitter feeling of resentment against it. His pictures look like a visible _reductio ad absurdum_ of it all. That is how men look, he seems to say, when they are fighting in modern war; and, being men, they ought not to look so. That, at least, is the effect the pictures produce on us. They are a bitter satire on all the modern power of man and the uses to which he has put it. He has allowed it to make him its slave and to set him to a business which has no purpose whatever, which is as blind as the process of the universe seems to one who has no faith. This struggle for life might just as well be called a struggle for death. It is, in fact, merely a struggle between two machines intent on wrecking each other; and part of the machines are the bodies of men, which behave as if there were no souls in them, as if there were not even life, but merely energy; so that they collide and destroy each other like masses of matter in space. Nothing can be said of them except that they obey certain laws; we call their obedience discipline, but it is only the discipline of things subject to a process. Now it is the sense of process, as the ultimate reality in the universe, which has produced war against the conscience of mankind, and even of many Germans. Conscience was powerless to prevent it because conscience had ceased to believe in its own power, had come to think of itself as a vain and inexplicable rebellion against the nature of things. This rebellion we call sentimentality, meaning thereby that it is really not even moral; for true morality would recognize the process to which the nature of man is subject, of which that nature is itself a part; and would cure man of his futile rebellions so that he should not suffer needlessly from them. It would cure man of pity, because it is through pity that he suffers. He is a machine, and, if he is a conscious machine, he should be conscious of the fact that he is one. Such is the belief that has been growing upon us for fifty years or more with many strange effects. It has not destroyed our sense of pity, but has confused and exasperated it. We pity and love still, but with desperation, not like Christians assured that these things are according to the order of the universe, but fearing that they are wilful exceptions to that order, costly luxuries that we indulge in at our own peril. We seem to ourselves lonely in our pity and love; the supreme process knows nothing of them; the God, who is love, does not exist. In the past wars have happened with the consent of mankind; but this war did not happen so. Even in Germany there was something hysterical in the praise of war, as if it were the worship of an idol both hated and feared. We must praise war, the German worshippers of force seem to say, so that we may survive. We must forgo the past hopes of man so that we may find something real to hope for. We must habituate ourselves to the universe as it is, and break ourselves and all mankind in to the bitter truth. They praised war as we used in England to praise industry. Labour, we believed, when all the labour of the poor had been made joyless by the industrial revolution, was the result of the curse laid upon man by God. Therefore, man must labour without joy and never dream of happy work. And so now the very worshippers of war believe that it is a curse laid upon man by the nature of things. They may not believe in the fall of man, but they do believe that he can never rise, since he is himself part of a process which is always war; and, if he tries to escape from it, he will become extinct. So they exhort us to consent to that process even with our conscience; the more completely we consent to it, the more we shall succeed in it. But all the while they are doing violence to our natures and to their own. They try to think like machines, like the slaves of a process; but thought itself is inconsistent with their effort; their very praises of the heroism of their victims are inconsistent with it. There is a gaping incongruity between the obsolete German romanticism and the new German atheism which exploited it, between their talk about Siegfried and their talk about the struggle for life. And there is the same incongruity between the cubist effort to see the visible world as a mechanical process and art itself. The cubist seems to force himself with a savage irony into this caricature of nature; we have emptied reality of its content in our thought and he will empty it of its content to our eyes; that is not how we really see things, but it is how we ought to see them if what we believe about the nature of things is true. This irony we find in Mr. Nevinson's pictures of the war, whether it be a despairing irony or the rebellion of an unshaken faith. He has emptied man of his content, just as the Prussian drill sergeant would empty him of his content for the purposes of war; and only a Prussian drill sergeant could consent to this version of man with any joy. That, perhaps, is how we shall all come to see everything if we continue for some centuries to believe that process and not person is the ultimate reality. Emptying ourselves of all our content in thought, we shall at last empty ourselves of all content in reality; we shall become what now we fear we are, and our very senses will be obedient to our unfaith. For unfaith is the belief in process; and faith is the belief in person. It is the belief in process that makes men sacrifice other men in thousands to some idol; it is the belief in person that makes them refuse to sacrifice anyone but themselves; and they are afraid when they sacrifice others, but confident when they sacrifice themselves. Ultimately process has no value and can have no value for us. It is merely what exists or what we believe to exist, and our effort to value it is only the obsequiousness of the slave to the power that he fears. All our values come from the sense of person as more real than process. We will not do wrong to a man because he is a man; if he is to us only part of a process, we cannot value him and we can do what we will to him without any sense of wrong. All the old cruelties and iniquities of the world arose out of a belief in process and a fear of it. It is not a modern scientific discovery, but the oldest and darkest superstition that has oppressed the mind of man. To all religious persecutors salvation was a process, like that struggle for life which is the modern form of the struggle for salvation to the superstitious. And because salvation was a process human beings were sacrificed to it. It did not matter how they were tortured, provided this abstract process was maintained. So it does not matter now how they are slaughtered, provided the abstract process of the struggle for life is maintained. To the German this war was part of a process, the historical process of the triumph of Germany, and it did not matter how many Germans were killed in furthering it. If they were all killed Germany would still have asserted her faithless faith in process and would have reduced it to a glorious absurdity. So, if we fought for anything beyond ourselves, we fought for the belief in person as against the belief in process. Indeed, it is the chief glory of England, among her many follies and crimes, that she has always believed in person rather than in process; and that is what we mean when we say that we refuse to sacrifice facts to theories. Men themselves are to us facts, and we distrust theories that empty them of content. If we act like brutes, we would rather do so because the brute has mastered us for the moment than because we believe that humanity is inconsistent with the process that dominates the world. We ourselves had rather be inconsistent than empty ourselves of all reality for the sake of a theory. And there is an intellectual as well as a moral basis to this inconsistency of ours. For if you believe that person, not process, is the ultimate reality, you must offer some defiance to the material facts of life. There is evidently a conflict between person and process; and in that conflict the process, which you perceive with your intelligence, will be less real to you than the person of whom you are aware with all your faculties. So you will trust in this union of all the faculties rather than in the exercise of the pure intelligence; for to you the pure intelligence will be part of the person and will share in the person's universal imperfection. In fact it will not be pure intelligence at all, but rather a faculty that may be obsequious to all the lower passions. Nothing will free you from them, except the respect for persons, except, in fact, loving your neighbour as yourself. There is no way to consistency but through that, and no way to the exercise of the pure intelligence. Never sacrifice a person to a process and you will never sacrifice a person to your own lower passions. But, if you believe in process rather than in person, you will see your passions as part of the process and glorify them when you think you are glorifying the nature of the universe. Cubism and all those new methods of art which subject facts to the tyranny of a process may be good satire, but they will never, I think, produce an independent beauty of their own. Like all satire, they are parasitic upon past art, negative and rebellious. They tell us what the universe may look like to us if we lose all faith in ourselves and each other; and, when they are the result of a desperate effort to see the universe so, they are unconscious satire. The complete, convinced cubist reduces his own method, his own beliefs, his own state of mind, to an absurdity. The more sincere he is, the more complete is the reduction. For he, rejecting all that has been the subject-matter of painting in the past, all the human values and the complexes of association which have invested the visible world with beauty for men, proves to us in his tortured diagrams that he has found nothing to take their place, He gives us a _Chimæra bombinans in vacuo_, that vacuum which the universe is to the human spirit when it denies itself. He tries to make art, having cut himself off from all the experience and belief that produce art. For art springs always out of a supreme value for the personal and is an expression of that value. It is an effort, no matter in what medium, to find the personal in all things, to see trees as men walking; and the new abstract methods in painting reverse this process, they empty all things, even men, of personality and subject them to a process invented by the artist, which expresses, if it expresses anything, his own loss of personal values and nothing else. The result may be ingenious, it may still have a kind of beauty remembered from the great design of past art; but it will lead nowhere, since it is cut off from the very experience, the passionate personal interest in people and things, which gave design to the great art of the past. It is at best satirical, at worst parasitic, using up all devices of design and turning from one to another in a restless ennui which of itself can give no enrichment. It may have its uses, since it insists upon the supreme importance of design and provides a new method for the expression of three dimensions; but this method will be barren unless those who practise it enrich it with their own observation and delight. Already some of them seem to be weary of the barrenness of pure abstraction; they see that any fool can hide his own commonplace in cubism as an ostrich hides its head in the sand; but we would rather have honest chocolate-box ladies than the kaleidoscopic but betraying chocolate-box fragments of the futurist. The Artist and the Tradesman The Exhibition of the Arts and Crafts at Burlington House was an acknowledgment of the fact that there are other arts besides those of painting, sculpture, and architecture, or rather perhaps that the arts subsidiary to architecture are arts and not merely commercial activities. Burlington House would protest, of course, that it is not a shop; but now at last objects are to be shown in it which the great mass of the public expects to see only in shops and expects to be produced merely to sell. We remember how Lord Grimthorpe called Morris a poetic upholsterer. He meant there was something incongruous in the combination of an upholsterer and a poet; he would have seen nothing incongruous in the combination of a poet and a painter, because he would have called a painter an artist; but an upholsterer was to him merely a tradesman, and tradesmen are not expected to write poetry. Their business is to sell things and to make objects for sale. In that respect he thought like the mass of the public now. For them the painter has some prestige, because he is supposed not to be a tradesman, not to paint his pictures merely so that he may sell them. He has to live by his art, of course, but he practises it also because he enjoys it; and, if he is an artist, he will not paint bad pictures merely because they are what the public wants. But it is the business of those who make furniture and such things to produce what the public wants. No one would blame them for producing what they do not like themselves, any more than one would blame a pill-maker for producing pills that he would not swallow himself. The pill-maker and the furniture-maker are both tradesmen producing objects in answer to a demand. They have no prestige and no conscience is expected of them. Now in Italy in the fifteenth century this distinction between the artist and the tradesman did not exist. The painter was a tradesman; he kept a shop and he had none of that peculiar prestige which he possesses now. But of the tradesman more was expected than is expected now; for instance, good workmanship and material were expected of him and also good design. He did not produce articles merely to sell, whether they were pictures or wedding-chests or jewelry or pots and pans. He made all these other things just as he made pictures, with some pleasure and conscience in his own work; and it was the best craftsman who became a painter or sculptor, merely because those were the most difficult crafts. Now it is the gentleman with artistic faculty who becomes a painter; the poor man, however much of that faculty he possesses, remains a workman without any artistic prestige and without any temptation to consider the quality of his work or to take any pleasure in it. This is a commonplace, no doubt; but it remains a fact, however often it may have been repeated, and a social fact with a constant evil effect upon all the arts. Because the painter is supposed to be an artist and nothing else and the craftsman a tradesman and nothing else, we do not expect the virtues of the craftsman from the painter nor the virtues of the artist from the craftsman. For us there is nothing but mystery in the work of the artist and no mystery at all in the work of the craftsman. The painter can be as silly as he likes, and we do not laugh at him, if we are persons of culture, because his art is a sacred mystery. But, as for the craftsman, there is nothing sacred about his work. It is sold in a shop and made to be sold; and all we expect of it is that it shall be in the fashion, which means that it shall be what the commercial traveller thinks he can sell. There are, of course, a few craftsman who are thought of as artists, and their work at once becomes a sacred mystery, like pictures. They too have a right to be as silly as they like; and some people will buy their work, however silly it may be, as they would buy pictures--that is to say, for the good of their souls and not because they like it. How are we to get rid of this distinction we have made between the artist and the tradesman? How are we to recover for the artist the virtues of the craftsman and for the craftsman the virtues of the artist? At present we get from neither what we really like. Art remains to us a painful mystery; most of us would define it, if we were honest, as that which human beings buy because they do not like it. While, as for objects of use, they are bought mainly because they are sold; they are forced upon us as a conjurer forces a card. We think we like them while they remain the fashion; but soon they are like women's clothes of two years ago, if they last long enough to be outmoded. It is vain for us to reproach either the artist or the tradesman. The fault is in ourselves; we have as a whole society yielded to the most subtle temptation of Satan. We have lost the power of knowing what we like--that is to say, the power of loving. We value nothing for itself, but everything for its associations. The man of culture buys a picture, not because he likes it, but because he thinks it is art; at most what he enjoys is not the picture itself but the thought that he is cultured enough to enjoy it. That thought comes between him and the picture, and makes it impossible for him to experience the picture at all. And so he is ready to accept anything that the painter chooses to give him, if only he believes the painter to be a real artist. This is bad for the painter, who has every temptation to become a charlatan, and to think of his art as a sacred mystery which no one can understand but himself and a few other painters of his own sect. But in this matter the man of culture is just like the vulgar herd, as he would call them. Their attitude to the arts of use is the same as his attitude to pictures. They do not buy furniture or china because they like them, but because the shopman persuades them that what they buy is the fashion. Or perhaps they recognize it themselves as the fashion and therefore instantly believe that they like it. In both cases the buyer is hypnotized; he has lost the faculty of finding out for himself what he really likes, and his mind, being empty of real affection, is open to the seven devils of suggestion. He cannot enjoy directly any beautiful thing, all he can enjoy is the belief that he is enjoying it; and he can harbour this belief about any nonsense or trash. It is a very curious disease that has become endemic in the whole of Europe. People impute it to machinery, but unjustly. There are objects made by machinery, such as motor-cars, which have real beauty of design; and people do genuinely and unconsciously enjoy this beauty, just because they never think of it as beauty. They like the look of a car because they can see that it is well made for its purpose. If only they would like the look of any object of use for the same reason, the arts of use would once again begin to flourish among us. But when once we ask ourselves whether any thing is beautiful, we become incapable of knowing our real feelings about it. Any tradesman or artist can persuade us that we think it beautiful when we do nothing of the kind. We are all like the crowd who admired the Emperor's clothes; and there is no child to tell us that the Emperor has no clothes on at all. We are not so with human beings; we cannot be persuaded that we like a man when really we dislike him; if we could, our whole society would soon dissolve in a moral anarchy. But with regard to the works of man, or that part of them which is supposed to aim at beauty, we are in a state of æsthetic anarchy, because there is a whole vast conspiracy, itself unconscious for the most part, to persuade us that we like what no human being out of a madhouse could like. So the real problem for us is to discover, not merely in pictures, but in all things that are supposed to have beauty, what we really do like. And we can best do that, perhaps, if we dismiss the notions of art and beauty for a time from our minds; not because art and beauty do not exist, but because our notions of them are wrong and misleading. The very words intimidate us, as people used to be intimidated by the jargon of pietistic religion, so that they would believe that a very unpleasant person was a saint. When once we look for beauty in anything, we look no longer for good design, good workmanship, or good material. It is because we do not look for beauty in motor-cars that we enjoy the excellence of their design, workmanship, and material, which is beauty, if only we knew it. Beauty, in fact, is a symptom of success in things made by man, not of success in selling, but of success in making. If an object made by man gives us pleasure in itself, then it has beauty; if we got pleasure only from the belief that in it we are enjoying what we ought to enjoy, then very likely it is as naked of beauty as the Emperor was of clothes. The great mass of people now have a belief that ornament is necessarily beauty, that, without it, nothing can be beautiful. But ornament is often only added ugliness, like a wen on a man's face. It is always added ugliness when it is machine-made, and when it is put on to hide cheapness of material and faults of design and workmanship. Unfortunately, it does hide these things from us; we accept ornament as a substitute for that beauty which can only come of good design, material, and workmanship; and we do not recognize these things when we see them, except in objects like motor-cars, which we prefer plain because we do unconsciously enjoy their real beauty. So, in the matter of ornament, we need to make a self-denying ordinance; not because ornament is necessarily bad--it is the natural expression of the artist's superfluous energy and delight--but because we ourselves cannot be trusted with ornament, as a drunkard cannot be trusted with strong drink. We must learn to see things plain before we can see them at all, or enjoy them for their own real qualities and not for what we think we see in them. A man whose taste is for bad poetry can only improve it by reading good, plain prose. He must become rational before he can enjoy the real beauties of literature. And so we need to become rational before we can enjoy art, whether in pictures or in objects of use. The unreason of our painting has the same cause as the unreason of our objects of use; and the cause is in us, not in the artist. We think of taste as something in its nature irrational. It is no more so than conscience is. Indeed, there is conscience in all good taste as in all the good workmanship that pleases it. But where the public has not this conscience, the artist will not possess it either. At best he will have only what he calls his artistic conscience--that is to say, a determination to follow his own whims rather than the taste of the public. But where the public knows what it likes, and the artist makes what he likes, there is more than a chance that both will like the same thing, as they have in the great ages of art. For a real liking must be a liking for something good. It is Satan who persuades us that we like what is bad by filling our mind with sham likings, which are always really the expression of our egotism disguised. Professionalism in Art Professionalism is a dull, ugly word; but it means dull, ugly things, a perversion of the higher activities of man, of art, literature, religion, philosophy; and a perversion to which we are all apt to be blind. We know that in these activities specialization is a condition of excellence. As Keats said to Shelley, in art it is necessary to serve both God and Mammon; and as Samuel Butler said, "That is not easy, but then nothing that is really worth doing ever is easy." The poet may be born, not made; but no man can start writing poetry as if it had never been written before. In every art there is a medium, and the poet, like all other artists, learns from the poets of the past how to use his medium. Often he does this unconsciously by reading them for delight. He first becomes a poet because he loves the poetry of others. And the painter becomes a painter because he loves the pictures of others. Each of them is apt to begin-- As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation. So the artist insists to himself upon the value of hard work. He is impatient of all the talk about inspiration; for he knows that, though nothing can be done without it, it comes only with command of the medium. And this command, like all craftsmanship, is traditional, handed down from one generation to another. Any kind of expression in this imperfect world is as difficult as virtue itself. For expression, like virtue, is a kind of transcendence. In it the natural man rises above his animal functions, above living so that he may continue to live; he triumphs over those animal functions which hold him down to the earth as incessantly as the attraction of gravity itself. But, like the airman, he can triumph only by material means, and by means gradually perfected in the practice of others. Yet there is always this difference, that in mechanics anyone can learn to make use of an invention; but in the higher activities, invention, if it becomes mechanical, destroys the activity itself, even in the original inventor. The medium is always a medium, not merely a material; and if it becomes merely a material to be manipulated, it ceases to be a medium. Now professionalism is the result of a false analogy between mechanical invention and the higher activities. It happens whenever the medium is regarded merely as material to be manipulated, when the artist thinks that he can learn to fly by mastering some other artist's machine, when his art is to him a matter of invention gradually perfected and necessarily progressing through the advance of knowledge and skill. One often finds this false analogy in books about the history of the arts, especially of painting and music. It is assumed, for instance, that Italian painting progressed mechanically from Giotto to Titian, that Titian had a greater power of expression than Giotto because he had command of a number of inventions in anatomy and perspective and the like that were unknown to Giotto. So we have histories of the development of the symphony, in which Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven are treated as if they were mechanical inventors each profiting by the discoveries of his predecessors. Beethoven was the greatest of the three because he had the luck to be born last, and Beethoven's earliest symphonies are necessarily better than Mozart's latest because they were composed later. But in such histories there always comes a point at which artists cease to profit by the inventions of their predecessors. After Michelangelo, perhaps after Beethoven, is the decadence. Then suddenly there is talk of inspiration, or the lack of it. Mere imitators appear, and the historian who reviles them does not see that they have only practised, and refuted, his theory of art. They also have had the luck to be born later; but it has been bad luck, not good, for them, because to them their art has been all a matter of mechanical invention, of professionalism. The worst of it is that the greatest artists are apt themselves to fall in love with their own inventions, not to see that they are mechanical inventions because they themselves have discovered them. Michelangelo in his "Last Judgment" is very professional; Titian was professional through all his middle age; Tintoret was professional whenever he was bored with his work, which happened often; Shakespeare, whenever he was lazy, which was not seldom. Beethoven, we now begin to see, could be very earnestly professional; and as for Milton--consider this end of the last speech of Manoah, in _Samson Agonistes_, where we expect a simple cadence:-- The virgins also shall on feastful days Visit his tomb with flowers, only bewailing His lot unfortunate in nuptial choice, From whence captivity and loss of eyes Milton was tempted into the jargon of these last two lines, which are like a bad translation of a Greek play, by professionalism. He was trying to make his poetry as much unlike ordinary speech as he could; he was for the moment a slave to a tradition, and none the less a slave because it was the tradition of his own past. Professionalism is a device for making expression easy; and it is one used by the greatest artists sometimes because their business is to be always expressing themselves, and even they have not always something to express. But expression is so difficult, even for those who have something to express, that they must be always practising it if they are ever to succeed in it. Wordsworth, for instance, was a professed enemy of professionalism in poetry; yet he, too, was for ever writing verses. It was a hobby with him as well as an art; and his professionalism was merely less accomplished than that of Milton or Spenser:-- Fair Ellen Irwin, when she sate Upon the Braes of Kirtle, Was lovely as a Grecian maid Adorned with wreaths of myrtle. Why adorned with wreaths of myrtle? Wordsworth himself tells us. His subject had already been treated in Scotch poems "in simple ballad strain," so, he says, "at the outset I threw out a classical image to prepare the reader for the style in which I meant to treat the story, and so to preclude all comparison." No one, whose object was just to tell the story, would compare Ellen with a Grecian maid and her wreaths of myrtle; but Wordsworth must do so to show us how he means to tell it, and, as he forgets to mention, so that he may rhyme with Kirtle. That is all professionalism, all a device for making expression easy, practised by a great poet because at the moment he had nothing to express. But art is always difficult and cannot be made easy by this means. We need not take a malicious pleasure in such lapses of the great poet; but it is well to know when Homer nods, even though he uses all his craft to pretend that he is wide awake. Criticism may have a negative as well as a positive value. It may set us on our guard against professionalism even in the greatest artists, and most of all in them. For it is they who begin professionalism and, with the mere momentum of their vitality, make it attractive. Because they are great men and really accomplished, they can say nothing with a grand air; and these grand nothings of theirs allure us just because they are nothings and make no demands upon our intelligence. That is art indeed, we cry: and we intoxicate ourselves with it because it is merely art. "The quality of mercy is not strained" is far more popular than Lear's speech, "No, no, no! Come, let's away to prison," because it is professional rhetoric; it is what Shakespeare could write at any moment, whereas the speech of Lear is what Lear said at one particular moment. The contrast between the two is the contrast well put in the epigram about Barry and Garrick in their renderings of King Lear:-- A king, aye, every inch a king, such Barry doth appear. But Garrick's quite another thing; he's every inch King Lear. We admire the great artist when he is every inch a king more than when he has lost his kingship in his passion. He no doubt knows the difference well enough. But he wishes to do everything well, he has a natural human delight in his own accomplishment; and a job to finish. Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Beethoven were not slaves to their own professionalism; no doubt they could laugh at it themselves. But there is always a danger that we shall be enslaved by it; and it is the business of criticism to free us from that slavery, to make us aware of this last infirmity of great artists. We are on our guard easily enough against a professionalism that is out of fashion. The Wagnerian of a generation ago could sneer at the professionalism of Mozart; but the professionalism of Wagner seemed to him to be inspiration made constant and certain by a new musical invention. We know now only too well, from Wagner's imitators, that he did not invent a new method of tapping inspiration; we ought to know that no one can do that. The more complete the method the more tiresome it becomes, even as practised by the inventor. Decadence in art is always caused by professionalism, which makes the technique of art too difficult, and so destroys the artist's energy and joy in his practice of it. Teachers of the arts are always inclined to insist on their difficulty and to set hard tasks to their pupils for the sake of their hardness; and often the pupil stays too long learning until he thinks that anything which is difficult to do must therefore be worth doing. This notion also overawes the general public so that they value what looks to them difficult; but in art that which seems difficult to us fails with us, we are aware of the difficulty, not of the art. The greater the work of art the easier it seems to us. We feel that we could have done it ourselves if only we had had the luck to hit upon that way of doing it; indeed, where our æsthetic experience of it is complete, we feel as if we were doing it ourselves; our minds jump with the artist's mind; we are for the moment the artist himself in his very act of creation. But we are always apt to undervalue this true and complete æsthetic experience, because it seems so easy and simple, and we mistake for it a painful sense of the artist's skill, of his professional accomplishment. So we demand of artists, that they shall impress us with their accomplishment; we have not had our money's worth unless we feel that we could not possibly do ourselves what they have done. No doubt, when the _Songs of Innocence_ were first published, anyone who did happen to read them thought them doggerel. Blake in a moment had freed himself from all the professionalism of the followers of Pope, and even now they make poetry seem an easy art to us, until we try to write songs of innocence ourselves:-- When the voices of children are heard on the green, And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast, And everything else is still. "Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down, And the dews of night arise; Come, come, leave off play, and let us away, Till the morning appears in the skies." We call it artless, with still a hint of depreciation in the word, or at least of wonder that we should be so moved by such simple means. It is a kind of cottage-poetry, and has that beauty which in a cottage moves us more than all the art of palaces. But we never learn the lesson of that beauty because it seems to us so easily won; and so our arts are always threatened by the decadence of professionalism. But poetry in England has been a living art so long because it has had the power of freeing itself from professionalism and choosing the better path with Mary and with Ruth. The value of the Romantic movement lay, not in its escape to the wonders of the past, but in its escape from professionalism and all its self-imposed and easy difficulties. For it is much easier to write professional verses in any style than to write songs of innocence; and that is why professionalism in all the arts tempts all kinds of artists. Anyone can achieve it who has the mind. It is a substitute for expression, as mere duty is a substitute for virtue. But, as a forbidding sense of duty makes virtue itself seem unattractive, so professionalism destroys men's natural delight in the arts. Like the artist himself, his public becomes anxious, perverse, exacting; afraid lest it shall admire the wrong thing, because it has lost the immediate sense of the right thing. Just as it expects art to be difficult, so it expects its own pleasure in art to be difficult; and thus we have attained to our present notion about art which is like the Puritan notion about virtue, that it is what no human being could possibly enjoy by nature. And if we do enjoy it, "like a meadow gale in spring," it cannot be good art. But in painting as in poetry, all the new movements of value are escapes from professionalism; and they begin by shocking the public because they seem to make the art too easy. Dickens was horrified by an early work of Millais; Ruskin was enraged by a nocturne of Whistler. He said it was cockney impudence because it lacked the professionalism he expected. Artists and critics alike are always binding burdens on the arts; and they are always angry with the artist who cuts the burden off his back. They think he is merely shirking difficulties. But the difficulty of expression is so much greater than the self-imposed difficulties of mere professionalism that any man who is afraid of difficulties will try to be a professional rather than an artist. In art there is always humility, in professionalism pride. And it is this pride that makes art more ugly and tiresome than any other work of man. Nothing is stranger in human nature than the tyranny of boredom it will endure in the pursuit of art; and the more bored men are, the more they are convinced of artistic salvation. Our museums are cumbered with monstrous monuments of past professionalism; our bookshelves groan with them. Always we are trying to like things because they seem to us very well done; never do we dare to say to ourselves: It may be well done, but it were better if it were not done at all; and the artist is still to us a dog walking on his hind legs, a performer whose merit lies in the unnatural difficulty of his performance. Waste or Creation? The William Morris Celebration was not so irrelevant to these times as it may seem. Morris was always foretelling a catastrophe to our society, and it has come. That commercial system of ours, which seems to so many part of the order of Nature, was to him as evil and unnatural as slavery. His quarrel with it was not political, but human; it was the quarrel not of the oppressed, for he was not the man to be oppressed in any society, but of the workman. He was sure that a society which encouraged bad work and discouraged good must in some way or other come to a bad end; and he would have seen in this war the end that he predicted. Whatever its result, there must be a change in the order of our society, whether it sinks through incessant wars, national and commercial, into barbarism or is shocked into an effort to attain to civilization. There were particular sayings of Morris's to which no one at the time paid much heed. They seemed mere grumblings against what must be. He was, for instance, always crying out against our waste of labour. If only all men did work that was worth doing-- Think what a change that would make in the world! I tell you I feel dazed at the thought of the immensity of the work which is undergone for the making of useless things. It would be an instructive day's work, for any one of us who is strong enough, to walk through two or three of the principal streets of London on a weekday, and take accurate note of everything in the shop windows which is embarrassing or superfluous to the daily life of a serious man. Nay, the most of these things no one, serious or unserious, wants at all; only a foolish habit makes even the lightest-minded of us suppose that he wants them; and to many people, even of those who buy them, they are obvious encumbrances to real work, thought, and pleasure. At the time most people said that this waste of labour was all a matter of demand and supply, and thought no more about it; some said that it was good for trade. Very few saw, with Morris, that demand for such things is something willed and something that ought not to be willed. But then it was generally believed that we could afford this waste of labour; and so it went on until, after a year or two of war, we found that we could not afford it. Then even the most ignorant and thoughtless learned, from facts, not from books, certain lessons of political economy. They learned that, in war-time at least, a nation that wastes its labour will be overcome by one that does not. At once the common will was set against the waste of labour; and, what would have seemed strangest of all forty years ago, the Government, with the consent of the people, set to work to stop the waste of labour, and did to a great extent succeed in stopping it. When people thought in terms of munitions, instead of in terms of general well-being, they saw that the waste of labour must be, and could be, stopped. They talked no longer about the laws of supply and demand, but about munitions. Those who had made trash must be set to make munitions, or to fight, or in some way to second the Army. Those who still were ready to waste labour on trash for themselves were no longer obeying the laws of supply and demand; they were diverting labour from its proper task; they were unpatriotic, they were helping the Germans. Money, in fact, had no longer the right to an absolute command over labour. A man, before he spent a sovereign, must ask himself whether he was spending it for the good of the nation; and if he did not ask himself that, the Government would ask it for him. So much the war taught us, for purposes of war. But Morris many years ago tried to teach it for purposes of peace. When he wrote those words which we have quoted, he was not talking politics but ordinary common sense. He was not even talking art, but rather economics; and he was talking it not to any vague abstraction called the community, but to each individual human being. At that time every one thought of economics as something which concerned society or the universe. It was, so to speak, a natural science; it observed phenomena as if they were in the heavens; and stated laws about them, laws not human but natural. Perhaps it was the greatest achievement of Morris in the way of thought that he saw economics, even more clearly than Ruskin, as a matter not of natural laws, but of conscience and duty. He did not talk about economics at all, but about the waste of labour, just as we talk about it now. The only difference is that he saw it to be one of the chief causes of poverty in time of peace, whereas we see it as a hindrance to victory in time of war. We have, for war purposes, acquired the conscience that he wished us to acquire for all purposes. The question is whether we shall keep it in peace. Upon that depends the question how soon we shall recover from the war. For there is no doubt that we shall not be able to afford our former waste of labour; and, if we persist in it, we shall be bankrupt as a society. It may be said that we shall not have the money, the power, to waste labour. But we shall certainly have some superfluous energy, more and more, it is to be hoped, as time goes on; and our future recovery will depend upon the use we make of this superfluous energy. We can waste it, as we wasted it before the war; or we can keep the conscience we have acquired in war and ask ourselves in peace, with every penny we spend, whether we are wasting labour. It is true that what may be waste to one will not be waste to another; but in that matter every one must obey his own conscience. The important thing is that every one should have a conscience and obey it. There will be plenty of people to tell us that no one can define waste of labour. No one can define sin; but each man has his own conscience on that point and lives well or ill as he obeys it or disobeys it. Besides, there are many things, all the trash that Morris speaks about in the shop windows, that every one knows to be waste. We need not trouble ourselves about the fact that art will seem waste to the philistine and not to the artist. We must allow for differences on that point as on most others. Some things that might have been waste to Samuel Smiles would have been to Morris a symptom of well-being. But he knew, and often said, that we cannot have the beauty which was to him a symptom of well-being unless we end the waste of labour on trash. Of luxury he said:-- By those who know of nothing better it has even been taken for art, the divine solace of human labour, the romance of each day's hard practice of the difficult art of living. But I say, art cannot live beside it nor self-respect in any class of life. Effeminacy and brutality are its companions on the right hand and the left. There is, we have all discovered now, only a certain amount of labour in the country, in the world. Even the most ignorant are aware at last that money does not create labour but only commands it, and may command it to do what will or will not benefit us all. We were, for the purposes of the war, much more of a fellowship than we had ever been before. We acknowledged a duty to each other, the duty of commanding labour to the common good. We asked with every sovereign we spent whether it would help or hinder us in the war. Morris would have us ask also whether it will help or hinder us in the advance towards a general happiness. And he put a further question, which in time of war unfortunately we could not put, a question not only about the work but about the workman. Are we, with our money, forcing him to work that is for him worth doing; are we, to use an old phrase, considering the good of his soul? Morris insisted on our duty to the workman more even than on our duty to society. He saw that where great masses of men do work that they know to be futile there must be a low standard of work and incessant discontent. The workman may not even know the cause of his discontent. He may think he is angry with the rich because they are rich; but the real source of his anger is the work that they set him to do with their riches. And no class war, no redistribution of wealth, will end that discontent if the same waste of labour continues. Double the wages of every workman in the country, and if he spends the increase on trash no one will be any better off in mind or body. There will still be poverty and still discontent, with the work if not with the wages. The problem for us, for every modern society now, is not so much to redistribute wealth; that at best can be only a means to an end; but to use our superfluous energy to the best purpose, no longer to waste it piecemeal. That problem we solved, to a great extent, in war. We have to solve it also in peace if the peace is to be worth having and is not to lead to further wars at home or abroad. The war itself has given us a great opportunity. It has opened our eyes, if only we do not shut them again. It has taught every one in the country the most important of all lessons in political economy which the books often seem to conceal. And, better still, it has taught us that in economics we can exercise our own wills, that they concern each individual man and woman as much as morals; that they are morals, and not abstract mathematics; that we have the same duty towards the country, towards mankind, that we have to our own families. The proverb, Waste not, want not, does not apply merely to each private income. We have accounts to settle not only with our bankers, but with the community. It will thrive or not according as we are thrifty or thriftless; and our thrift depends upon how we spend our income, not merely on how much we spend of it. For all that part of it which we do not spend on necessaries is the superfluous energy of mankind, and we determine how it shall be exercised; each individual determines that, not an abstraction called society. One may present the thrift of labour as a matter of duty to society. But Morris saw that it was more than that; and he lit it with the sunlight of the warmer virtues. It is not merely society that we have to consider, or the direction of its superfluous energy. It is also the happiness, the life, of actual men and women. We shall not cease to waste work until we think always of the worker behind it, until we see that it is our duty, if with our money we have command over him, to set him to work worth doing. Capital now is to most of those who own it a means of earning interest. We should think of it as creative, as the power which may make the wilderness blossom like the rose and change the slum into a home for men and women; and, better still, as the power that may train and set men to do work that will satisfy their souls, so that they shall work for the work's sake and not only for the wages. Until capital becomes so creative in the hands of those who own it there will always be a struggle for the possession of it; and to those who do possess it it will bring merely superfluities and not happiness. If it becomes creative, no one will mind much who possesses it. The class war will be ended by a league of classes, their aim not merely peace, but those things which make men resolve not to spoil peace with war. We shall be told that this is a dream, as we are always told that the ending of war is a dream. "So long as human nature is what it is there will always be war." Those who talk thus think of human nature as something not ourselves making for unrighteousness. It is not their own nature. They know that they themselves do not wish for war; but, looking at mankind in the mass and leaving themselves out of that mass, they see it governed by some force that is not really human nature, but merely nature "red in tooth and claw," a process become a malignant goddess, who forces mankind to act contrary to their own desires, contrary even to their own interests. She has taken the place for us of the old original sin; and the belief in her is far more primitive than the belief in original sin. She is in fact but a modern name for all the malignant idols that savages have worshipped with sacrifices of blood and tears that they did not wish to make. It is strange that, priding ourselves as we do on our modern scepticism which has taught us to disbelieve in the miracle of the Gadarene swine, we yet have not dared to affirm the plain fact that this nature, this human nature, does not exist. There is no force, no process, whether within us or outside us, that compels us to act contrary to our desires and our interests. There is nothing but fear; and fear can be conquered, as by individuals, so by the collective will of man. It is fear that produces war, the fear that other men are not like ourselves, that they are hostile animals governed utterly by the instinct of self-preservation. So it is fear that produces the class war and the belief that it must always continue. It is our own fears that cut us off from happiness by making us despair of it. The man who has capital sees it as a means of protecting himself and his children from poverty; it is to him a negative, defensive thing, at best the safeguard of a negative, defensive happiness. So others see it as something which he has and they have not, something they would like to snatch from him if they could. But if he saw capital as a creative thing, like the powers of the mind, like the genius of the artist, then it would be to him a means of positive happiness both for himself and for others. He would say to himself, not How can I protect myself with this against the tyranny of the struggle for life? not How can I invest this? but What can I do with this? He would see it as Michelangelo saw the marble when he looked for the shape within it. And then he would rise above the conception of mere duty as something we do against our own wills, or of virtue as a luxury of the spirit to which we escape in our little leisure from the struggle for life. Virtue, duty, would be for him life itself; in creation he would attain to that harmony of duty and pleasure which is happiness. If only we could see that the superfluous energy of mankind is something out of which to make the happiness of mankind we should find our own happiness in the making of it. There is still for us a gulf between doing good to others and the delight of the artist, the craftsman, in his work. The artist is one kind of man and the philanthropist another; the artist is a selfish person whom we like, and the philanthropist an unselfish person whom we do not like. What we need is to fuse them in our use of capital, in our exercise of the superfluous energy of mankind. There are single powerful capitalists who know this joy of creation, who are benevolent despots, and yet are suspect to the poor because of their great power. But it never enters the head of the smaller investor that he, too, might create instead of merely investing; that, instead of being a shareholder in a limited liability company, he might be one of a creative fellowship, not merely earning dividends but transforming cities, exalting things of use into things of beauty, giving to himself and to mankind work worth doing for its own sake, work in which all the obsolete conflicts of rich and poor could be forgotten in a commonwealth. That is the vision of peace which our sacrifices in the war may earn for us. We have learned sacrifice and the joy of it; but, so far, only so that we may overcome an enemy of our own kind. There remains to be overcome, by a sacrifice more joyful and with far greater rewards, this other old enemy not of our own kind, the enemy we call nature or human nature, the enemy that is so powerful merely because we dare not believe that she does not exist. PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LTD., EDINBURGH 
22564	----	GREAT ARTISTS _"Art manifests whatever is most exalted, and it manifests it to all!"_--TAINE GREAT ARTISTS RAPHAEL MURILLO RUBENS DURER BY JENNIE ELLIS KEYSOR _Author of "Sketches of American Authors"_ EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO COPYRIGHTED BY EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1899. [Illustration] A WORD TO THE TEACHER. The following brief sketches are presented in fear and in hope--in fear lest they prove in no wise adequate for so glorious a subject; in the hope that they may encourage not only the pupil, but the teacher, to study the lives and the works of the great artists and to make every possible effort to have copies of masterpieces ever before them to study and to love. The field of art study is a wonderful one from which to draw for language work. A double purpose is thus served. Interesting subjects are secured and pupils are given a start in acquiring a knowledge of the beautiful that fortifies them for the sorrows and cares of life; and, what is even better, prevents their own life from being commonplace. Would the teacher wish to study further, a list of valuable reference books is appended to each sketch, any one of which will greatly assist in acquiring a more extended knowledge of the subject. In the study of an artist, take care to have a liberal supply of reproductions of his pictures at hand. These may be photographs, half-tones, like the illustrations in this book, or engravings. Good work cannot be done without such pictures. Above all, work to cultivate a love for good pictures, not to fill young minds with uninspiring facts. J. E. K. [Illustration: SISTINE MADONNA. _Raphael._] RAPHAEL SANTI "THE PERFECT ARTIST, THE PERFECT MAN." We are about to study Raphael, the most generally praised, the most beautiful, and certainly the most loved of all the painters of the world. When all these delightful things can be truthfully said of one man, surely we may look forward with pleasure to a detailed study of his life and works. Often in examining the lives of great men we are compelled to pass over some events which, to say the least, are not creditable. Of Raphael this was not true. He was gifted with all admirable qualities, and so many-sided was his genius that, while we think of him first as a painter, we must not forget that he also carved statues, wrote poems, played musical instruments, and planned great buildings. So much was he endeared to his pupils that, after he grew to be famous, he never went on the streets unless he was followed by an admiring throng of these students, ever ready to do his bidding or to defend his art from any possible attack by malicious critics. He lived at a time when artists were fiercely jealous of each other, and yet wherever he went harmony, like a good angel, walked unseen beside him, making whatever assembly he entered the abode of peace and good-will. It is a beautiful thing that such a strong, lovable man should have had for his name that of the chief of the archangels, Raphael, a name beautiful of sound and ever suggestive of beauty and loveliness. There seemed to have been special preparation for the birth of this unique character. Not only were his parents of the ideal sort, loving the best things of life and thinking ever of how best to rear the little son that God had given them, but the very country into which he was born was fitted to still further develop his natural tenderness and sweetness of disposition. Webmo, the birthplace of Raphael, is a secluded mountain town on a cliff on the east slope of the Apennines directly east of Florence. It is in the division known as Umbria, a section noted for its gently broken landscape, such as in later years the artist loved to paint as background for his most beautiful Madonnas. Here the people were shut off from much of the excitement known to commercial towns. They were slower to take up new things than the people in the coast cities where men live by the exchange of goods and, incidentally, of customs. The inhabitants led simple, religious lives. We must remember, too, that hardly fifty miles away was the village of Assisi, where Saint Francis, the purest of men, had lived and labored and where, after his death, a double church had been built to his memory. To this day there is a spirit of reverence that inspires the visitor to this region. No wonder that, in Raphael's time when this spirit was fresh and strong, it gave a character of piety and sweetness to the works of all the painters of Umbria. From these two causes, the secluded position of the region and the influence of Saint Francis, arose what is called the Umbrian school of painting. All painters belonging to this school made pictures very beautiful and full of fine religious feeling. One April morning in 1483, to the home of Giovanni Santi, the painter, and his wife Magia, a dear little boy came, as millions of boys and girls have since come, to cheer and to bless. The father and mother were very proud of their little son, and feeling perhaps that a more than ordinary child had been given them, they gave him the name of Raphael, as one of good omen. If we were to visit, in Urbino, the house where Raphael was born, we would be shown a faded fresco of a Madonna and Child painted by Giovanni and said to be Magia and the child Raphael. From the earliest years the child was carefully tended. When he was only eight, the fond mother died and left the father to care for his boy alone. In due time a step-mother was brought home. She was a kind woman and loved and cared for the beautiful lad as if he were really her own child. Later when the father died, leaving the boy Raphael and his little half-sister, no one could have been more solicitous for the boy's rights than his step-mother. She and his uncle together managed his affairs most wisely. We have no record that, like Titian, the boy Raphael used the juice of flowers with which to paint pictures of his childish fancies, but we do know that very early he became greatly interested in his father's studio and went in regularly to assist. Now, it must be remembered that, at this time, when a boy, wishing to learn to paint, went to the studio of a master he did not at once begin to use colors, brushes, and canvas. Instead, he usually served a long apprenticeship, sweeping out the studio, cleaning the brushes, grinding colors, and performing other common duties. Raphael's assistance to his father must have been largely of this humble sort. We can imagine, however, that his fond father did not make his hours long, and that there were pleasant ramblings in the woods nearby, and that many a bunch of flowers was gathered for the mother at home. There were happy hours, too, when the father and his son read together great books of poetry in which tales of love and knightly encounters were interesting parts. And then, I am sure, there were other happy hours when, tuning their instruments together, they filled the time with music's sweetest discourse. [Illustration: RAPHAEL.] This was indeed a happy childhood, a fit beginning for an ideal life. Meanwhile the boy grew strong, and his beauty, too, increased. The dark hair lay lightly upon his shoulders, and a certain dreaminess in his eyes deepened,--he was about to feel a great sorrow, for the father, so devoted, so exemplary, died when his boy was but eleven years old. We cannot help wishing that he might have lived to see at least one great picture painted by his son. We can easily imagine his smile of joy "at the first stroke that surpassed what he could do." Just what to do with the boy on the death of his father was an important matter for the step-mother and uncle to decide. They showed wisdom by their decision. Now, the greatest of all the Umbrian painters, before Raphael, was a queer little miserly man named Perugino, who at that time had a studio in Perugia, an Umbrian town not far distant from Urbino. Although he was of mean appearance and ignoble character, he had an unmistakable power in painting mild-eyed Madonnas and spotless saints against delicate landscape back-grounds. People disliked the man, but they could not help seeing the beauty of his art, and so his studio was crowded. Hither was sent the boy Raphael and when Perugino noted the lad and some of his work, he said, "Let him be my pupil: he will soon become my master." As nearly as we can learn, he remained in this studio nine years, from 1495 to 1504. Perugino's style of painting greatly pleased Raphael. He was naturally teachable and this, with his admiration for Perugino's pictures, made his first work in the studio very much like his master's. Indeed it is almost impossible to tell some of his earliest pictures from those of his teacher. Let me tell you about one. It is called "_The Marriage of the Virgin_"; and you would have to go to the Brera gallery in Milan to see it. The legend runs thus: The beautiful Mary had many lovers all wishing to marry her. Now here was a difficulty indeed, and so the suitors were required to put by their rough staves for a night. The promise was that in the morning one would be in blossom, and its owner should have Mary for his wife. We can imagine that these lovers were anxious for day to dawn, and that all but one was sad indeed at the result. In the morning there were the rods, all save one, brown and rough and bare, but that one lay there alive with delicate buds and flowers, and all the air was full of fragrance. This was Joseph's, and he went away glad and brought his young bride. This first great picture of Raphael's represented this marriage taking place at the foot of the Temple steps. The disappointed lovers are present and, I am sorry to say, one of them is showing his anger by breaking his barren rod even while the marriage is taking place. The first and the last work of a great man are always interesting, and that is why I have told you so much about this picture. You will be still more interested in Raphael's last picture, "_The Transfiguration_." While in the studio he made many friends. With one he went to Siena to assist him in some fresco painting he had to do there. Of course you know that fresco is painting on wet plaster so that the colors dry in with the mortar. The conversation of the studio was often of art and artists, and so the beautiful city of Florence must often have been an engaging subject. Think of what Florence was at this time, and how an artist must have thrilled at its very name! Beautiful as a flower, with her marble palaces, her fine churches, her lily-like bell-tower! What a charm was added when within her walls Leonardo da Vinci was painting, Michael Angelo carving, Savonarola preaching. In the early years of Raphael's apprenticeship, the voice of the preacher had been silenced, but still, "with the ineffable left hand," Da Vinci painted, and still the marble chips dropped from Angelo's chisel as a _David_ grew to majesty beneath his touch. To Raphael, with his love of the beautiful, with his zeal to learn, Florence was the city of all others that he longed to see. At last his dream was to be realized. A noble woman of Urbino gave him a letter to the Governor of Florence, expressing the wish that the young artist might be allowed to see all the art treasures of the city. The first day of the year 1505 greeted Raphael in Florence, the art center of Italy. We can only guess at his joy in seeing the works here and in greeting his fellow artists. Angelo and Da Vinci had just finished their cartoons for the town hall, "_The Bathing Soldiers_," and "_The Battle of the Standard_," and they were on exhibition. All Florence was studying them, and of this throng we may be sure Raphael was an enthusiastic member. While here he painted several pictures. Among them was the "_Granduca Madonna_," the simplest of all his Madonnas--just a lovely young mother holding her babe. It is still in Florence, and to this day people look at it and say the Grand Duke, who would go nowhere without this gem of pictures, knew what was beautiful. [Illustration: RAPHAEL IN HIS STUDIO.] Raphael did not stay long in Florence at this time, but soon returned to Perugia. His next visit to Florence was of greater length. During these years, 1506 to 1508, he painted many of his best known pictures. In studying the works of Raphael you must never tire of the beautiful Madonna, for it is said that he painted a hundred of these, so much did he love the subject and so successful was he in representing the child Jesus and the lovely mother. Some of his finest Madonnas belong to this time. Let us look at a few of them. One, called "_The Madonna of the Goldfinch_," shows Mary seated with the Child Jesus at her knee and the young John presenting him with a finch, which he caresses gently. The Madonna has the drooping eyes, the exquisitely rounded face that always charm us, and the boys are real live children ready for a frolic. Another, called "_The Madonna of the Meadow_," represents the Virgin in the foreground of a gently broken landscape with the two children playing beside her. We must not forget, either, as belonging to this time, the very beautiful "_La Belle Jardiniere_," or the "_Madonna of the Garden_" which now hangs in the Louvre, the art gallery of Paris. Like all his great Madonnas, the Virgin and Children are of surpassing loveliness. It is finished in such a soft, melting style that to see it in its exquisite coloring, one could easily imagine it vanishing imperceptibly into the blaze of some splendid sunset. While we are talking of Raphael's color it may be interesting to call your attention to a very remarkable fact about his paintings. He lays the color on the canvas so thin that sometimes one can trace through it the lines of the drawing, and yet his color is so pure and beautiful that he is considered one of the greatest colorists of the world. The next time you see an oil painting, notice how thick or how thin the paint is laid on, and then think of what I have told you of Raphael's method of using color. [Illustration: LA BELLE JARDINIERE. _Raphael._] Now while Raphael was painting these drooping-eyed, mild-faced Madonnas and learning great lessons from the masters of Florence, a wonderful honor came to him. He was called to Rome by the Pope and given some of the apartments of the Vatican to decorate in any way he wished. The Pope at this time was Julius II. and he was a very interesting man. He was a warrior and had spent many years fighting to gain lands and cities for the Church. When peace returned he was still anxious to do honor to the Church and so, wherever he heard of a great architect, painter, or sculptor, he at once invited him to Rome to do beautiful work for the Church. Already he had set Michael Angelo to work on a grand tomb for him. Bramante, a relative of Raphael's, was working hard to make St. Peter's the most wonderful Church in all the world. Now the young Raphael was to beautify still further the buildings belonging to the church. Julius did not pretend to be an artist or a scholar, and yet by his patronage he greatly encouraged art and literature. The story is told that when Angelo was making a statue of the Pope for the town of Bologna, the artist asked Julius if he should place a book in the statue's extended left hand, and the Pope retorted, almost in anger, "What book? Rather a sword--I am no reader!" In earlier years Florence had been a glorious sight to our artist and now in 1508, standing in the "Eternal City," he was more awed than when first he beheld the city of the Arno. Here the court of Julius, gorgeous and powerful, together with the works of art, like St. Peter's, in process of construction, were but a part of the wonders to be seen. In addition, the remains of ancient Rome were scattered all about--here a row of columns, the only remains of a grand temple, there a broken statue of some god or goddess, long lost to sight, and all the earth about so filled with these treasures that one had only to dig to find some hidden work of art. The Roman people, too, were awake to the fact that they were not only living out a marvelous present, but that they were likewise, in their every day life, walking ever in the presence of a still more wonderful past. I wish, while you are thinking about this, that you would get a picture of the Roman Forum and notice its groups of columns, its triumphal arches, its ruined walls. You will then certainly appreciate more fully what Raphael felt as he went about this city of historic ruins. [Illustration: MADONNA OF THE FISH. _Raphael._] The Pope received the young artist cordially and at once gave him the vast commission of painting in fresco three large rooms, or _stanze_, of the Vatican. In addition, he was to decorate the gallery, or corridor, called the _loggia_, leading to these apartments from the stairway. With the painting of these walls Raphael and his pupils were more or less busy during the remainder of the artist's short life. A great many religious and historic subjects were used, besides some invented by Raphael himself, as when he represented _Poetry_ by Mount Parnassus inhabited by all the great poets past and present. In these rooms some of his best work is done. Every year thousands of people go to see these pictures and come away more than ever enraptured with Raphael and his work. In the loggia are the paintings known collectively as Raphael's Bible. Of the fifty-two pictures in the thirteen arcades of this corridor all but four represent Old Testament scenes. The others are taken from the New Testament. Although Raphael's pupils assisted largely in these frescoes they are very beautiful and will always rank high among the art works of the time. Raphael's works seem almost perfect even from the beginning, yet he was always studying to get the great points in the work of others and to perfect his own. Perhaps this is the best lesson we may learn from his intellectual life--the lesson of unending study and assimilation. He was greatly interested in the ruins of Rome and we know that he studied them deeply and carefully. This is very evident in the Madonnas of his Roman period. They have a strength and a power to make one think great thoughts that is not so marked in the pictures of his Florentine period. [Illustration: THE ARCHANGEL. Detail from _Madonna of the Fish_. _Raphael._] The "_Madonna of the Fish_" is one of the most beautiful of this time. It was painted originally for a chapel in Naples where the blind prayed for sight, and where, legend relates, they were often miraculously answered. The divine Mother, a little older than Raphael's virgins of earlier years, is seated on a throne with the ever beautiful child in her arms. The babe gives his attention to the surpassingly lovely angel, Raphael, who brings the young Tobias with his fish into the presence of the Virgin, of whom he would beg the healing of his father who is blind. On the other side he points to a passage in the book held by the venerable St. Jerome. This is doubtless the book of Tobit wherein the story of Tobias is related, and which Tobias translated. Whatever the real purpose of the artist was in introducing St. Jerome, a very beautiful result was attained in contrasting youth and age. Like a human being of note, this picture has had an eventful history. It was stolen from Naples and carried to Madrid and then, in the French wars, it was taken to Paris. It has since been restored to the Prado of Madrid, and there to-day we may feast our eyes on its almost unearthly loveliness. In it the divine painter showed that he knew the heart of a mother and the love of a son; that he appreciated the majesty of age and the heavenly beauty of the angels. Hardly less beautiful is the "_Madonna Foligno_," so named from the distant view of the town of Foligno seen under a rainbow in the central part of the picture. In the upper portion, surrounded by angel heads, is the Madonna holding out her child to us. Below is the scene already referred to, the portrait of the donor of the picture, some saints, and a beautiful boy angel. The latter is holding a tablet which is to be inscribed, for this is one of that large class of pictures in Italian Art called _votive_--that is, given to the church by an individual in return for some great deliverance. In this case the donor had escaped, as by a miracle, from a stroke of lightning. In this short sketch there is time to mention only a few of Raphael's great pictures, but I trust you will be so interested that you will look up about others that are passed over here. There are many very interesting books about Raphael in which you can find descriptions of all of his pictures. Among other paintings, Raphael made many fine portraits. An excellent likeness of Julius was so well done that, skillfully placed and lighted, it deceived some of the Pope's friends into thinking it the living Julius. The painting of portraits was not the only departure of our artist from his favorite Madonna or historic subjects. We find him also interested in mythology. Out of this interest grew his "_Galatea_," which he painted for a wealthy nobleman of his acquaintance. In this picture Galatea sails over the sea in her shell-boat drawn by dolphins. She gazes into heaven and seems unconscious of the nymphs sporting about her. [Illustration: GALATEA. _Raphael._] Speaking of Raphael's use of mythological subjects, though not quite in the order of time, we may here mention his frescos illustrating the story of Cupid and Psyche, painted on the walls and ceiling of the same nobleman's palace, the Chigi palace. The drawings for these pictures were made by Raphael, but most of the painting was done by his pupils. As we study these pictures of the joys and sorrows of this beautiful pair, we are interested, but we regret that our angel-painter was willing, even for a short time, to leave his own proper subjects, the religious. We feel like saying, "Let men who know not the depth of religious feeling, as did Raphael, paint for us the myth and the secular story, but let us save from any earthly touch our painter of sacred things." In 1513 the great Julius died, and Leo X., a member of the famous Medici family of Florence, succeeded to his place. Raphael was in the midst of his paintings in the Vatican, and for a time it was uncertain what the new Pope would think of continuing these expensive decorations. Though lacking the energy of Julius, Leo continued the warrior-pope's policy regarding art works. So Raphael went on unmolested in his work, with now and then a great commission added. During the life of Leo the power of the Church sunk to a low level, and yet the angel-painter of the Vatican pursued in peace the composition and painting of his lovely works. The "_St. Cecilia_" was a very important work painted about the time of Julius' death. It was painted for a wealthy woman of Bologna to adorn a chapel which she had built to St. Cecilia, the patroness of music. She had built this chapel because she thought she heard angels telling her to do it; in other words she had obeyed a vision. In the picture the saint stands in the centre of a group made up of St. John, St. Paul, St. Augustine, and Mary Magdalene. She holds carelessly in her hands an organ from which the reeds are slipping. What charms can even her favorite instrument have for her when streams of heaven's own music are reaching her from the angel choir above? Every line of face and figure shows her rapt attention to the celestial singers. The instruments of earthly music lie scattered carelessly about. While our attention is held most of all by the figure of St. Cecilia, the other persons represented interest us too, especially St. Paul, leaning on his naked sword. (See illustration.) His massive head and furrowed brow show man at his noblest occupation--_thinking_. In delightful contrast is the ever beautiful St. John, the embodiment of youth and love. [Illustration: ST. CECILIA. _Raphael._] When the picture was completed Raphael sent it to his old friend Francia, the artist of Bologna. It is related that Francia, on seeing the wonderful perfection of the picture, died of despair, feeling how poorly he could paint as compared with Raphael. Whether this story be true or not, it is certain that the people of Bologna were much excited over the arrival of the picture and gloried in possessing the vision of St. Cecilia. The picture is still to be seen in Bologna, where it retains its brilliant coloring, slightly mellowed by the passing years. The Sistine Chapel was the most beautiful apartment in the Vatican. Its walls were covered with choicest frescos. Its ceiling, done by the wonder-working hand of Michael Angelo, was a marvel. To add still more to the beauty of this Chapel, Leo ordered Raphael to draw cartoons for ten tapestries to be hung below the lowest tier of paintings. Now you know that cartoons are the large paper drawings made previous to frescos and tapestries to serve as patterns. Raphael selected ten subjects from the Acts of the Apostles. His designs were accepted and sent to Arras in Flanders where the most beautiful tapestries were manufactured. The cartoons were cut into strips that they might be more conveniently used. In 1518 the tapestries, woven of silk, wool, and gold, were finished and brought to Rome, where they were greatly admired. [Illustration: MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES. _Raphael._] In 1527, Rome was sacked by savage soldiers and many of her choicest things carried away. Among them were these tapestries. They were sold and then restolen by Jews, who thought to separate the gold by burning them. They tried this with one and found that the quantity of gold was so small that it was not worth the trouble, and so the others were spared and sold to a merchant of Genoa. They were finally recovered in a faded condition and are now in the Vatican. Meanwhile the cartoons were forgotten and three of them lost. The Flemish artist, Rubens, came across those remaining, however, and recommended Charles I. of England to purchase them for his palace at Whitehall. Later Cromwell bought them for the nation, and today we may see them pasted together and carefully mounted in South Kensington Museum, London. "_The Miraculous Draught of Fishes_," (see opposite page,) is one of the best known of the series. All are bold and strong in drawing, and several are very beautiful, as "_Paul and John at the Beautiful Gate_." One critic, in speaking of the cartoons, says they mark the climax of Raphael's art. We must not forget that all these years, while Raphael was making these wonderful cartoons and pictures, the work on the rooms of the Vatican was going steadily forward. He certainly was a busy man! Probably the best known of Raphael's Madonnas is "_The Madonna della Sedia_," so called because the mother sits in a chair. A delightful story is told of the painting of this picture. It runs something like this: Many years ago there lived in a quiet valley in Italy a hermit who was greatly loved by all the people round about, for he taught them and he helped them in sickness and in trouble. His hut was near a giant oak tree that sheltered him from the sun of summer and the biting winds of winter. In the constant waving of its branches, too, it seemed to converse with him, and so he said he had two intimate friends, one that could talk, and one that was mute. By the one that could talk he meant the vine-dresser's daughter who lived near by and who was very kind to him. By the mute one he meant this sheltering oak. Now, one winter a great storm arose, and when the hermit saw that his hut was unsafe, his mute friend seemed to beckon him to come up among the branches. Gathering a few crusts, he went up into the tree where, with hundreds of bird companions, his life was saved, though his hut was destroyed. Just as he thought he should die of hunger, Mary, the vine-dresser's daughter, came to see her old friend and took him to her home. Then the pious hermit, Benardo, prayed that his two friends might be glorified together in some way. [Illustration: MADONNA DELLA SEDIA. _Raphael._] Time wore on. The hermit died, the oak tree was cut down and converted into wine casks, and the lovely Mary married and was the mother of two boys. One day as she sat with her children, a young man passed by. His eyes were restless, and one might have known him for a poet or a painter in whose mind a celestial vision was floating. Suddenly he saw the young mother and her two children. The painter, for it was Raphael, now beheld his vision made flesh and blood. But he had only a pencil. On what could he draw the beautiful group? He seized the clean cover of a wine cask near by and drew upon it the lines to guide him in his painting. He went home and filled out his sketch in loveliest color, and ever since the world has been his debtor for giving it his heavenly vision. So the hermit's prayer was answered. His two friends were glorified together. Other honors, besides those coming from his paintings, were showered upon Raphael at this time. He was now rich, and the Cardinal Bibbiena offered him his niece Maria in marriage. It was considered a great thing in those times to be allied by marriage to a church dignitary, but Raphael had higher honors, and so, while he accepted the offer rather than offend the cardinal, he put off the wedding until Maria died. His heart was not in this contract because for years he had loved a humble but beautiful girl, Margherita, who was probably the model of some of his sweetest Madonnas. Speaking of the honors thrust upon Raphael, we must not forget that the Pope made him architect-in-chief of St. Peter's on the death of Bramante. He was also appointed to make drawings of the ancient city of Rome, in order that the digging for buried remains might be carried on more intelligently. In every Madonna we have described, we have had to use freely the words _lovely_, _great_, _beautiful_, but one there remains which, more than any other, merits all these titles and others in addition. It is the "_Sistine Madonna_" in the Dresden Gallery. It was the last picture painted wholly by Raphael's hand. It was painted originally as a banner for the monks of St. Sixtus at Piacenza, but it was used as an altar-piece. In 1754, the Elector of Saxony bought it for $40,000 and it was brought to Dresden with great pomp. People who know about pictures generally agree that this is the greatest picture in the world. [Illustration: ST. PAUL. Detail from _St. Cecilia_. _Raphael._] Let us see some of the things which it contains--no one can ever tell you all, for as the years increase and your lives are enlarged by joy and by sorrow, you will ever see more and more in this divine picture and feel more than you see. Two green curtains are drawn aside and there, floating on the clouds, is the Virgin full length, presenting the Holy Child to the world. It is far more than a mother and child, for one sees in the Madonna a look suggesting that she sees vaguely the darkness of Calvary and the glory of the resurrection. This is no ordinary child, either, that she holds, for He sees beyond this world into eternity and that His is no common destiny;--at least, one feels these things as we gaze at the lovely apparition on its background of clouds and innumerable angel heads. St. Sixtus on one side would know more of this mystery, while St. Barbara on the other is dazzled by the vision and turns aside her lovely face. Below are the two cherubs, the final touch of love, as it were, to this marvellous picture. It is said that the picture was completed at first without these cherubs and that they were afterwards added when Raphael found two little boys resting their arms on a balustrade, gazing intently up at his picture. This painting has a room to itself in the Dresden Gallery, where the most frivolous forget to chat and the thoughtful sit for hours in quiet meditation under its magic spell. One man says, "I could spend an hour every day for years looking at this picture and on the last day of the last year discover some new beauty and a new joy." There was now great division of opinion in Rome as to whether Angelo or Raphael were the greater painter. Cardinal de Medici ordered two pictures for the Cathedral of Narbonne, in France, one by Raphael and one by Sebastian Piombo, a favorite pupil of Angelo's. People knew that Angelo would never openly compete with Raphael, but they also felt sure that he would assist his pupil. The subject chosen by Raphael was "_The Transfiguration_." But suddenly, even before this latest commission was completed, that magic hand had been stopped by death. The picture, though finished by Raphael's pupils, is a great work. The ascending Lord is the point of greatest interest in the upper, or celestial part, while the father with his demoniac child, holds our attention in the lower, or terrestrial portion. At his funeral this unfinished picture hung above the dead painter, and his sorrowing friends must have felt, as Longfellow wrote of Hawthorne when he lay dead with an unfinished story on his bier,-- "Ah, who shall lift that wand of magic power, And the lost clew regain? The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower Unfinished must remain." [Illustration: TRANSFIGURATION. _Raphael._] Raphael died suddenly on his birthday in 1520, from a fever contracted while searching for remains among the ruins of Rome. He realized from the first that his sickness was fatal, and he immediately set about disposing of his property. His works of art he gave to his pupils, his palace to Cardinal Bibbiena, and his other property was distributed among his relatives, and to his sweetheart, Margherita. He was buried with honors in the Pantheon at Rome, beside Maria Bibbiena. For many years there was exhibited at St. Luke's Academy, in Rome, a so-called skull of Raphael. In 1833 some scholars declared that they did not believe this to be the skull of the artist. They urged the authorities to open the grave to prove their position. After five days of careful digging the coffin was reached and there lay the artist's skeleton complete. For many days it was exposed to view in a glass case. A cast was taken of the right hand and of the skull, and then, with splendid ceremonies, they buried the artist a second time. Mention has often been made of Raphael's personal beauty. Only thirty-seven when he died, his seraphic beauty was never marred by age. In his palace he lived the life of a prince, and when he walked abroad, he had a retinue of devoted followers. He had for friends princes and prelates, artists and poets, while the common people loved him for the fine spirit they knew him to be. Judged by the moral standard of his time, he was absolutely spotless. Seldom, in any man, have all good qualities joined with a versatile genius to the extent that they did in Raphael. No wonder that his friends caused to be inscribed on his tomb these words--"_This is that Raphael by whom Nature feared to be conquered while he lived, and to die when he died._" REFERENCES FOR RAPHAEL. Life of Raphael by Bell. Life of Raphael by Sweetster. Life of Raphael by Vasari. Schools and Masters of Painting by Radcliffe. History of Art by Luebke. History of Art by Mrs. Heaton. Great Artists by Mrs. Shedd. The Fine Arts by Symonds. Early Italian Painters by Mrs. Jameson. SUBJECTS FOR LANGUAGE WORK. 1. The Boy Raphael at Home. 2. My Favorite Madonna. 3. Stories of St. Francis of Assisi. 4. What I know of Fresco Painting. 5. Looking for Buried Treasures in Rome. 6. A Day in the Roman Forum. 7. A Day with the Boy Raphael. 8. The Legend of the _Madonna della Sedia_. 9. Raphael and His Friends. 10. Raphael the Student. [Illustration: COURT IN THE ALCAZAR.] MURILLO AND SPANISH ART "Velazquez is in art an eagle; Murillo is an angel. One admires Velazquez and adores Murillo. By his canvasses we know him as if he had lived among us. He was handsome, good and virtuous. Envy knew not where to attack him; around his crown of glory he bore a halo of love. He was born to paint the sky." --DE AMICIS. "Murillo could paint the sacred fervor of the devotee, or the ecstasy of the religious enthusiast, as well as the raggedness of the mendicant, or the abject suffering of Job." --CHARLES BLANC. [Illustration: MURILLO.] MURILLO AND SPANISH ART. Spain was not blessed as Italy was with one generation after another of artists so great that all the world knows them even at this distant day. Spain has only two unquestionably great painters that stand out as world-artists. They are Velazquez and Murillo. The former painted with unrivalled skill the world of noblemen among whom he lived. The other, not surrounded by courtiers, looked into his own pure, religious soul, and into the sky above, and gave us visions of heaven--its saints and its angels. It is impossible to study either of these men apart from the other, or apart from the art records of Spain. To understand either, we must know the land, teeming with rich and unique cities, we must have glimpses of its history, and we must know something of the rules laid down by the church to guide the painter in his work. The climate of Spain, except in the south, is rigorous. Elevated plains, rounded by snow-capped mountains, and swept during a large part of the year by chilling winds, are not adapted to inspire men to produce great works of art. On such a plain Madrid is situated, and chilly indeed are its nature pictures, even though they are over-arched by the bluest of skies and the most transparent of atmospheres! In Andalusia, however, things were different. Here were the olive, the orange, and the cypress, and here a sunny climate encouraged the houseless beggar no less than the aspiring artist. [Illustration: Velasquez de Silva.] In speaking of Spain as a home of painting, we must not forget, either, how very devoted the people were to their religion, for this, perhaps more than anything else, gave a peculiar character to the art of Spain. The doctrines of Luther, found no willing listeners in Spain. Indeed, the Spaniards clung all the closer to the Church when they knew that there were those who wished to change it, and so their paintings are full of sad-faced, suffering saints, and rejoicing, holy men and women who gave their lives to religion. In connection with this extreme religious zeal, the Church found it necessary to impose rules on the artists who would paint these holy personages. The Virgin, whom all profoundly reverenced, should, according to tradition, have fair hair and blue eyes. Her robes must be of pure white and azure blue, and under no circumstances should her feet be exposed. She should stand on the crescent moon with its horns pointing downward. Many other similar rules were at that time thought necessary, and they greatly limited the artists in their work, for however good a churchman a man may be, it is impossible for him to properly prescribe colors and forms for the artist, who, if he is any thing at all, is the _see-er_ of his age. We want such things as the artist sees them. We shall see how nearly Murillo got into trouble by breaking some of these prescribed rules. If we study the kings of Spain, Charles V. and the Philips, we shall see two things that greatly influenced the art of Spain. First, they were fond of art and spent great sums of money in buying fine paintings by Italian and Flemish masters. Both Titian and Rubens were favorites in Spain, and many of their pictures were painted expressly for Spanish monarchs. Then, these rulers were vain and had a great liking for having their portraits painted. This vanity extended to the Courtiers and even to the dwarfs, several of whom were usually connected with the court as a source of amusement. There are portraits of some of these diminutive creatures so skillfully painted that we cannot help wishing that more worthy subjects had been used. Thus the vanity of monarchs and their courtiers gave a direction to Spanish art which can be accounted for in no other way--their greatest artists are always great portrait painters. So we see that, while genius in artists is indispensable, yet is this same genius largely influenced by climate, by religious enthusiasm, and even by the whims of kings and queens. [Illustration: �SOP. _Velazquez._] Although Murillo stands out a superlatively great and beautiful artist, yet we must not forget that Velazquez, only eighteen years his senior, and like himself a native of Seville, lived during the greater part of Murillo's lifetime and divided honors with him. As has already been indicated, Velazquez's art was of a very different sort from Murillo's. He was born into a home of plenty, and very soon went to Madrid as court painter. We know how he gained renown for all time by the accuracy of the portraits he painted of various members of the court of Philip IV.--the king, the minister, Count Olivarez, the princes, the dwarfs, and the buffoons. We remember, too, how he thought that very ordinary personage, "_The Water-Carrier of Seville_," with his wrinkles, his joy, and his beggarly customers, a subject worth painting. Then we recall a goodly list of other commonplace subjects which he treated so truthfully that they will always stand among the great pictures of the world,--"_The Spinners_," where women labor in a dingy room, "_The Topers_," "_The Lances_," representing the great surrender of Breda, and the "_The Maids of Honor_." Nor can we forget his ideal portrait of "_�sop_," with his book under his arm. How well we know that book of fables! The rugged, good-natured face, homely as can be, holds us, as by a spell, and if we have not already done so, we read his book because we _must_, after looking into that dear old face. One of the loveliest things we remember of Velazquez was his kindness to Murillo when he came to Madrid, a poor art student. Although Velazquez was rich and his pictures in demand, he took a keen interest in the young Murillo, who should one day stand beside him--they two the greatest artists of Spain. By the duties of his office, he was obliged to take an active part in the festivities attending the marriage of Louis XIV. and the Infanta, Maria Theresa, in 1660. The fatigue and exposure caused his death. We are reasonable in presuming that thus was Spain robbed of ten years of a strong artist's life and work. Incomparable loss when we think of what his countrymen gained in watching a passing pageant. [Illustration: CATHEDRAL, SEVILLE, SHOWING THE GIRALDA TOWER.] Spain is a land of unique cities. Perhaps this is because in so many of them the works of Christianity were grafted on to works originally built or begun by the Moors. As we study the wonderful buildings of Spain, we cannot forget, however much we may abhor the religion of the Arabs, that they were marvellous builders and profound scholars. When the Spaniards sent them from their country, after they had lived there for seven hundred years, they lost their best citizens, and the most beautiful and highly cultivated part of Spain was henceforth to be comparatively desolate. On all the great section of Andalusia, the most southern part of Spain, the Moors left marks in buildings and in cultivation, that it will take centuries yet to sweep away. Of all the cities of this division, and it includes a goodly number of Spain's most important towns, Seville, "the pearl of cities," the birthplace of both Velazquez and Murillo, appeals most strongly to everyone. Many superlative adjectives rise to our lips as we think of its whiteness, of its sunny vineyard slopes, its orange and olive groves, its salubrious climate, and its ancient associations. We think of its wondrous cathedral, next in size to St. Peter's, of its storied bell-tower, the Giralda, of that fairy palace, the home of generations of Moorish kings, the Alcazar, of the Golden Tower by the river's edge, where Christian rulers stored their treasure. And then to our vision of Seville the beautiful, we add the silver Guadalquivir which divides, and yet encloses this dream city of Andalusia. If we are not interested in art, still must we be enthusiastic over Seville, for its bewitching little women with their lustrous eyes, their glossy dark hair, held by the ever present single rose. If it be entertainment we seek, then Seville will furnish us the national bull-fight in all its perfection. If the more refined delights of music attract us, still more is this our chosen city, for here is the scene of, Mozart's "_Don Juan_" and "_Figaro_," of Bizet's "_Carmen_," and many are the shops that claim to have belonged to the "_Barber of Seville_." It is most pleasing to our sense of appropriateness that out of this beautiful white city of Andalusia, should have come, at about the same time, the two greatest Spanish painters, the one to give us real scenes and people, the other to give us ideals of loftiest type. Here in the closing days of 1617, Murillo was born. His father and mother were poor people. The house they lived in had formerly belonged to a convent, and it was rented to them for a very small sum, on condition that they would keep up the repairs. Even this Murillo's father found to be a heavy burden. He was a mechanic and his income very small. [Illustration: THE GRAPE EATERS. _Murillo._] Our artist's full name was Bartolome Esteban Murillo. His last name seems to have come from his father's family, though it was even more common in those days to take the mother's name for a surname, as in the case of Velazquez. We know almost nothing of his early years except that he was left an orphan before he was eleven, under the guardianship of an uncle. Perhaps we should mention that Murillo early showed his inclination to make pictures by scribbling the margin of his school books with designs that in no wise illustrated the text therein. With this as a guide his guardian early apprenticed him to Juan del Castillo, another uncle, and an artist of some repute. Here he learned to mix colors, to clean brushes, and to draw with great accuracy. When Murillo was about twenty-two, Castillo removed to Cadiz, down the river from Seville, and the young artist was thrown wholly on his own resources. Life with him in those days was merely a struggle for existence. He took the method very generally taken by young artists. He painted for the _Feria_ or weekly market. Here all sorts of producers and hucksters gathered with their wares. We can imagine that men of this sort were not very particular about the art objects they purchased. They demanded two things--bright colors and striking figures. Murillo, in common with other struggling artists, turned out great numbers of these little bits of painted canvas. Some of them have been discovered in Spanish America, whither they were undoubtedly taken to assist in religious teaching. If there was hardship in this _painting for the feria_, as people slightingly spoke of such work, there were also immense advantages. As he painted he could observe the people who came to buy and the people who came to sell, and, mayhap, that other numerous class in Seville who neither buy nor sell, but beg instead. From this very observation of character must have come largely that skill which is so marked in his pictures of beggar boys, who, with a few coppers, or a melon, or some grapes, are kings of their surroundings. Then the demand for striking figures cultivated a broad style in the artist which added greatly to his later work. A fellow pupil of Murillo's had joined the army in Flanders. When he returned he told such wonderful stories of the country and its art works, that Murillo was more than ever inspired to go abroad to Rome or to Flanders. He at once set about earning a little money to assist him in the journey. Again he painted a great number of saints and bright landscapes on small squares of linen, and sold them to eager customers. Thus he provided himself with scant means for the journey. He placed his sister in the care of a relative, and then started off afoot across the Sierras to Madrid, without having told anyone of his intentions. His little stock of money was soon exhausted, and he arrived in Madrid exhausted and desperately lonesome. He at once searched out Velazquez, his townsman, who was then rich, and honored in the position of court painter to Philip IV. Velazquez received him kindly, and after some inquiry about mutual acquaintances, he talked of the young painter's plans for himself. Murillo spoke freely of his ambition to be a great painter, and of his desire to visit Rome and Flanders. Velazquez took the young painter to his own house, and procured for him the privilege of copying in the great galleries of the capitol and in the Escurial. He advised him to copy carefully the masterpieces in his own country. There were pictures by Titian, Van Dyck, and Rubens, and Murillo began the work of copying them at once. When Velazquez returned after long absence, he was surprised at the improvement in Murillo's work. He now advised the young painter to go to Rome, but he had been away from Seville for three years, and he longed to be again at home in his beautiful native city. During his absence he had learned much in art and in the ways of the world. He had met many distinguished artists and statesmen in Velazquez's home. [Illustration: FRUIT VENDERS. _Murillo._] The first three years after his return to Seville, he busied himself with a series of pictures for a small Franciscan convent near by. Although he did the work without pay, the monks were loath to give him the commission because he was an unknown artist. There were eleven in the series, scenes from the life of St. Francis. They were admirably done, and though the artist received no pay for them, they did him a greater service than money could have bought--they established his reputation, so that he no longer wanted for such work as he desired. Among his earliest and best known pictures are those charming studies of the beggar boys and flower girls of Seville. Several of the best of these are in the gallery at Munich where they are justly prized. Here are some of the names he gives these pictures, "_The Melon Eaters_," "_The Gamesters_," "_The Grape Eaters_," "_The Fruit Venders_," "_The Flower Girl_." They are true to life--the happiest, most interesting, and self-sufficient set of young beggars one could well imagine. Notice, too, the beauty of the faces, especially in "_The Fruit Venders_," reproduced in this sketch. There are other interesting things in this picture. With what eagerness the day's earnings are counted! There is a motherliness in the girl's face that makes us sure that she is at once mother and sister to the boy. What luscious grapes--what a back-ground, unkempt like themselves, but thoroughly in keeping with the rest of the picture! In his works of this sort what broad sympathy he shows! so broad, indeed, that they prove him as belonging to no particular nation, but to the world. From the painting of these scenes from real life, he passed gradually to the painting of things purely imaginary--to those visible only to his own mind. A dainty picture which belongs half and half to each of these classes of pictures, represents the Virgin a little girl, sweet and quaint as she must have been, standing by St. Anne's knee, apparently learning a lesson from the open book. Both figures are beautiful in themselves and, besides, they present the always interesting contrast of age and youth. This was one of the pictures that well-nigh brought trouble on Murillo from some zealous churchmen before referred to. They thought that the Virgin was gifted with learning from her birth and never had to be taught. They merely criticized the treatment of the subject, however. It was an innovation in church painting. [Illustration: THE MELON EATERS. _Murillo._] By this time Murillo was wealthy. He had numerous commissions and, in society, he mingled with the best in the land. He was now in a position to marry, which he did in 1648. There is a story told of Murillo's marriage which one likes to repeat. He was painting an altar-piece for the church in Pilas, a town near by; while he was working, wrapt in thoughts of his subject, a lovely woman came into the church to pray. From his canvas, the artist's eyes wandered to the worshipper. He was deeply impressed with her beauty and her devotion. Wanting just then an angel to complete his picture, he sketched the face and the form of the unsuspecting lady. By a pleasant coincidence he afterwards made her the angel of his home--his good wife. The painter doubtless proved the truth of Wordsworth's beautiful lines-- "I saw her upon nearer view A spirit yet a Woman too! * * * "A countenance in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet; A creature not too bright and good For human nature's daily food. * * * "A perfect woman nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a spirit still, and bright With something of angelic light." However this may be, we know that she is often painted as the Virgin in Murillo's great pictures. Her liquid eyes and dark hair inspired him to forget the rigid rules laid down regarding the Virgin's having blue eyes and fair hair or, at all events, to disregard them. We shall see the Mary in some of his loveliest pictures with the dark hair and eyes of his countrymen. Three children were born into Murillo's home, two boys and one girl. One boy for a time practised the art of his father, but he later became a clergyman. The other son came to America, while the daughter devoted herself to religion and entered a convent. After Murillo's marriage, his house was the gathering place for the most distinguished people of Seville. What a change was this from Murillo's early condition, when he toiled at the weekly markets for bread and shelter! His power in his work increased, so that every new picture was an additional pledge of his greatness. [Illustration: THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. _Murillo._] It was in middle life that Murillo began painting the subject that more than any other distinguished him. It was to glorify a beautiful idea, that Mary was as pure and spotless as her divine son. It is called the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and so much did it appeal to Murillo that he painted it over and over again. He has left us at least twenty different pictures embodying this doctrine. The one most familiar is perhaps the greatest. It is the one that now graces the gem-room of the Louvre. I so name this room, for in it, within a few feet of one another, are pictures by Raphael, Da Vinci, Correggio, Rembrandt, Veronese, in short, by the foremost masters of the world. Among all these the vision of Murillo takes an equal rank. To many, the idea which the picture represents is of secondary importance, save perhaps as giving a reason for the name it bears. But all can see the exquisite loveliness of this young woman in her blue mantle and her white robe, with her feet concealed by the voluminous folds of her drapery, and with the crescent moon, the symbol of all things earthly, in the midst of a throng of child-angels "hovering in the sunny air, reposing on clouds, or sporting among their silvery folds"--"the apotheosis of womanhood." It is as if an unseen hand had suddenly drawn aside an invisible curtain and we, the children of earth, were for a moment permitted to view the interior of heaven itself. In this vision of a poet, so masterfully painted, the lover of pictures rejoices. How did the Louvre come by this magnificent monument of Spanish art when so much that is glorious has been kept within the boundaries of Spain? We have but to turn to the wars of Napoleon and the campaigns in the Spanish peninsula, when the marshals of the mighty warrior swept everything before them. One of these, Marshal Soult, brought back, after his victorious invasion, pictures enough to enrich a Czar. One of these stolen treasures was the picture we are studying. In 1852, the French government bought it of him for more than $120,000. There is but one mitigating thought regarding this rapine of the French, and that is that many art treasures, heretofore virtually locked to the public, were opened to the world--were made easily accessible. From this fair vision of womanhood let us turn to another, fairer still, where a little child is the central figure, "_St. Anthony of Padua_." Although he did not repeat this subject so often as he did the Conception, yet he has left us several representations of this beautiful and much adored saint. [Illustration: HEAD OF VIRGIN, FROM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. _Murillo._] In the life of Raphael we saw how great an influence was exerted on art by St. Francis of Assisi. His most devoted follower was St. Anthony of Padua, from whose lips sweet words fell like drops of honey, and whose ready hands ever dispensed deeds of love. Any man whose life abounds in such acts must be devout. Such was the character of St. Anthony, and he added to this a vivid imagination. Many were the beautiful visions that rewarded and encouraged his deeds of mercy and kindness. One of the loveliest is the one Murillo caught from the depths of his own pure soul, and held long enough to transfer it to canvas to delight the people of his own day, and us of this later time who no longer see visions. It is still in the cathedral of Seville for which it was painted. It is merely called "_St. Anthony of Padua_." Never was a more soul-thrilling vision sent to man to illumine his earthly pathway. There is the kneeling saint with outstretched arms reaching forward to embrace the Christ child, who comes sliding down through the nebulous light from among a host of joyous angels. From the ecstatic look on St. Anthony's face we know that the Child of God has been drawn to earth by the prayerful love in the saint's heart. We feel certain that the open book on the table near by is none other than the best of all good books. The vision has come to Saint Anthony on the earth, for that is common daylight that streams in through the open door, and those are perishable lilies in the vase there by the open book. By the painting of this picture Murillo gained for himself the title of "The Painter of Heaven." The picture has always been highly prized, and even the hardships of war did not tempt the men of the Cathedral to accept the Duke of Wellington's offer to literally cover the canvas with gold to be given in exchange for the precious picture. The English general was obliged to keep his money, and in the cathedral still we may view Murillo's masterpiece. Treasures tempt thieves even when they are in the form of pictures. In 1874, the figure of the Christ Child was cut from this painting. It was brought to New York, where the thief, in trying to dispose of it, was caught. The figure was returned to Seville, and carefully inserted in the injured painting. It may not be out of place to stop here and notice the wonderful variety of holy children that Murillo has given us. His Madonnas invariably hold very beautiful children, not so heavenly, perhaps, as Raphael's in the Sistine Madonna, but nevertheless, children that charm us into loving them. From the holy babe, with all his lovely qualities, let us turn to that dear little boy of older growth, that Joseph and Mary hold so tenderly by either hand in the picture of the "_Holy Family_" in the National Gallery in London, or to those other boys, "_The Divine Shepherd_" and "_St John_." Better than all, however, are those beautiful children known as "_The Children of the Shell_," where the little Christ offers to his playfellow, John, the cooling draught from a conch shell they have picked up in their play. They are children drawn from the sky quite as much as the Jesus in the famous St. Anthony picture. Among his children there are little girls, too. We have already noticed the Virgin as a child, and there is that other, led by the guardian angel sure and safe along life's uncertain way. Even in our practical time we all have more or less faith in the guardian spirit that watches over every little child. If by some miracle these children could all come to life, what a joyous yet thoughtful assembly it would be! Difficult indeed would it be to select the one beyond all others precious. No more certain proof exists of Murillo's high appreciation of spiritual things, of the simplicity and purity of his own life and thought than this selfsame throng of little children that he has given us. [Illustration: ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA. _Murillo._] Murillo had always thought that a public academy of painting was very much needed in Seville. In his youth he had greatly felt the need of such an institution. Finally, in 1660, the year of Velazquez's death, several of the artists united with Murillo in starting an academy. It lived only as long as its founder and never produced a great artist. In 1671 our artist seemed in the very prime of his power. In that year he began the wonderful series of pictures for the Charity Hospital of Seville. It was an old institution of the city, but it had been neglected until it was almost in ruins. In Murillo's time a wealthy and pious citizen set about restoring it. For the beautifying of the restored hospital Murillo was commissioned to paint eleven works. They are among his very best. Two of them we must notice in particular, "_Moses Striking the Rock_" and "_Elizabeth of Hungary Tending the Sick_." In the first of these the artist shows himself in a new capacity, that of illustrator. Nothing could better express the thirst of that vast assembly in the wilderness than this picture. From a mighty, towering rock the coveted water gushes forth in a generous, crystal stream, by its very abundance making a pool beneath. All degrees of thirst are represented in man and beast, from that which is not pressing to that which, in its intensity, makes a mother seize the cup from the babe in her arms. In the "_St. Elizabeth_" we admire the composition of the work, but the subject rather repels than holds us. With the diadem of a queen upon her head, with the delicate hands of a gentlewoman, and from a costly basin St. Elizabeth bathes the scrofulous head of a beggar. Her ladies-in-waiting turn from the loathsome object of her care, while other patients await their turn. In the distance is the court feast that goes on joyously in the palace while Elizabeth, the mistress of the feast, serves the diseased beggars at the portal. I have said that we could not stop to notice more than two of this notable series. Yet, as I run my photographs over, I cannot refrain from the mention of one other, the noble and wonderfully beautiful "_Liberation of St. Peter_." It is simply a magnificent angel awakening Peter who languishes in prison. The suddenly aroused prisoner, the broken fetters, and above all, that glorious angel, extending a helping hand--his presence making a light in that dark cell--tell in no uncertain accents of the power of our beloved painter. [Illustration: MADONNA. _Murillo._] Thus might we go on from picture to picture, and from year to year, for the list ever strengthens as it lengthens. Two more, at least, should claim our attention before this sketch is closed. They are "_St. Thomas_ _giving Alms_" and "_The Madonna of the Napkin_." The St. Thomas is rightly the companion of that other great charity picture, "_St. Elizabeth_." The one represents the abnegation of self in woman's way--she gives service. The other represents man's way--he gives money. At the portal of the church stands the pale-faced, spiritual St. Thomas, dispensing his alms to beggars and cripples. In composition and drawing this is one of Murillo's greatest works. We are interested to know that it was his own favorite among his pictures. "_The Madonna of the Napkin_" is both beautiful and curious. While Murillo was painting a series of pictures for a Capuchin convent of Seville, the cook became very much attached to him. When his work was done and he was about to leave the convent, the cook begged a memento. But how could he paint even a small picture with no canvas at hand? The cook, bent on obtaining his wish, presented him with a table napkin and begged him to use that instead of canvas. With his usual good nature, the artist complied, and before evening he produced a beautiful Virgin holding the infant Christ. Though done thus hastily, this Madonna is one of his best in design and coloring. His other Madonnas we know well, the one holding a rosary, and the other marked by nothing but its own surpassing grace and beauty, and known simply as Murillo's Madonna. According to the subject he was painting, Murillo used three distinct styles of work, known as the _cold_, the _warm_, and the _aerial_. The first, in which the line or drawing is marked by strength, he used in his studies of peasant life. The second he used in his visions, while the third he reserved for his Conceptions--his heavenly effects. So fine a colorist was he, however, and so indispensable a part of his art did he consider the coloring that even the pictures classed as _cold_ are radiant with his lovely, mellow colors. [Illustration: VIRGIN OF THE MIRROR. _Murillo._] Through the greater part of Murillo's life he painted for his beautiful Seville. In 1680, however, he went to Cadiz to paint pictures for the Capuchins at that place. He began on the largest one of the number. It was to represent the marriage of St. Catherine, a favorite subject of the time. Events proved that this was to be his last picture, for, while trying to reach the upper part of it, he fell from the scaffolding, receiving injuries from which he died two years later. Gradually his physical power deserted him until he did not attempt to paint at all. Then he spent much of his time in religious thought. In the church of Santa Cruz near by his home, was a picture of the "_Descent from the Cross_" by Campana. Before this picture he spent many hours, so much did he admire it. One evening he remained later than usual. The Angelus had sounded, and the Sacristan wished to close the church. He asked the painter why he lingered so long. He responded, "I am waiting until those men have brought the body of our blessed Lord down the ladder." When Murillo died he was buried, according to his wish, immediately under this picture. He died in April, 1682. His funeral was of the sort that draws all classes--a beloved man and a profound genius had passed away. His grave was covered with a stone slab on which were carved but few words beside his name. The church was destroyed during the French wars, and the Plaza of Santa Cruz occupies its place. In later years a statue of bronze was erected in one of the squares of the city in honor of Murillo; there it stands, through all changes, the very master spirit of the city. If this sketch has implied anything, it has emphasized over and over again the sweet and lovable character of Murillo. His religious zeal was great, yet no one could ever justly write fanatic beside his name. There was too much love in his soul for that. His pictures are indisputable proof of the never-dying love that permeated his life. He left a great number of pictures, and his habit of not signing them made it easy to impose on unwary seekers after his paintings. Passing by all the work the authorship of which is uncertain, yet is there enough left to make us marvel at his productiveness. SUBJECTS FOR LANGUAGE WORK. 1. Seville, the City of Music. 2. A Day in Seville. 3. Some Stories of the Alcazar. 4. The Giralda--Its History and Its Architecture. 5. The Children of Murillo's Paintings. 6. Murillo and Velazquez. 7. Some Spanish Portraits. 8. My Favorite Picture by Murillo. 9. Some Visions Seen by Murillo. 10. The Escurial--Its History. REFERENCES FOR THE STUDY OF "MURILLO AND SPANISH ART." De Amicis Spain. Hoppin Murillo. Minor Murillo. Stirling Annals of Spanish Art. Stowe Velazquez. Washburn Early Spanish Masters. [Illustration] RUBENS [Illustration: PETER PAUL RUBENS] PETER PAUL RUBENS. 1577-1640. In our study of Raphael, we had a glimpse of the golden age of art in Italy. In our work on Murillo, we saw what Spain was able to produce in pictures when the whole of Europe seemed to be trying its hand at painting. Moving north, we are to see in this sketch what the little country now known as Belgium produced in the same lines. For this we need hardly take more than the one name, Peter Paul Rubens, for he represented very completely the art of Flanders or Belgium, as we call it to-day. If we love to read of happy, fortunate people, as I am sure we do, we shall be more than pleased in learning about Rubens. You know there is an old story, that by the side of every cradle stand a good and an evil fairy, who by their gifts make up the life of the little babe within. The good fairy gives him a wonderful blessing, perhaps it is the power to write poems or paint pictures. Then the bad fairy, ugly little sprite that he is, adds a portion of evil, perhaps it is envy that eats the soul like a canker. And so they alternate, the good and evil, until the sum of a human life is made up, and the child grows up to live out his years, marked by joy and sorrow as every life must be. As we look at the men and women about us we feel, often, that one or the other of these fairies must have slept while distributing their gifts and so lost a turn or two in casting in the good or ill upon the babe, so happy are some lives, so sorrowful are others. At Rubens' cradle the evil fairy must well nigh have forgotten his task, for the babe grew up one of the most fortunate of men. In order to understand as we should any great man, we must always study his country and his time. No man can be great enough not to be like the nation that produced him, or the time when he came into the world. For these reasons we love to study a man's time and country, and, indeed, find it quite necessary if we would understand him aright. It is impossible to think of Rubens without associating him with Flanders and with Antwerp, his home city. Here, then, is just a little about the history of this most interesting country: One of the richest possessions of Spain in the sixteenth century was known as the Netherlands. When the doctrines of Luther began to spread many of the Netherlanders accepted them. Philip II., the terrible and gloomy king of Spain, seized this opportunity to persecute them cruelly. Many of them resisted, and then Philip sent his unscrupulous agent, the Duke of Alva, to make the people submit. This he partially accomplished by the greatest cruelty. The northern provinces, which we know as Holland, declared their independence. The southern, of which Flanders was the most flourishing province, longed so for peace and the prosperity that accompanies it, that they submitted to Spain. The people then grew rich as weavers, merchants and traders. Splendid cities like Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp became the seats of commerce and their artists and workmen of all sorts were known throughout Europe for their thrift and the excellence of their workmanship. We recall how Raphael's cartoons were sent to Flanders to be copied in tapestry the finest in the world. [Illustration: RUBENS' MOTHER _Rubens_] Of all the cities dear to Flemish hearts Antwerp was, perhaps, the most beautiful and the most prosperous. It was situated on the river Scheldt about twenty miles from the sea. In the time of its greatness one might count almost at any time twenty-five hundred ships and boats riding at anchor in front of the city, and within her walls, two hundred thousand people lived in plenty. There were marble palaces, beautiful churches, a magnificent town hall (Hotel de Ville); and the houses of the humble showed by their cleanlines and comfortable surroundings that enjoyment of life was restricted to no one class. This matter of religious faith, however, was bound to come up again and bring, as it proved, ruin upon the city. A body of people who thought it wrong to have pictures and statues of saints, and of Mary and her Son, gathered together and for four days went from one Flemish town to another and destroyed everything of the sort to be found in the churches. Four hundred places of worship were desecrated, many of them within the city of Antwerp. Because of their zeal against the use of so-called _images_ they were called _Iconoclasts_. If formerly they had been punished for _thinking_ things against the established religion of the State, what now could be expected when they had _done_ such sacrilegious things? "Again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote; And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat." [Illustration: RUBENS AND HIS FIRST WIFE _Rubens_] Our imagination cannot picture things so terrible as were perpetrated upon the inhabitants of Antwerp for their part in the destruction of the "images." This terrible event is known in history as _The Spanish Fury_. Thousands of her people were killed, most of her palaces were burned, and the treasure of her wealthy citizens was stolen. Property was confiscated to the Spanish Government. Death and terror, theft and rapine reigned in the beautiful city of the Scheldt. When the dead were buried, the charred ruins of buildings removed, and the Spanish soldiery withdrawn, the mist-beclouded Netherland sun shone out on a dead city which even to-day bears marks of the Spaniard's fury. Grass grew in what had been its busiest streets, trade almost ceased, and thousands of weavers and other artisans went to England where they could pursue their vocations unmolested. Philip was apparently satisfied with the chastisement he had inflicted. He began to restore the confiscated property to its rightful owners, and to encourage the industry he had so cruelly destroyed. He even made Flanders an independent province under the Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabella. Although peace had returned and a degree of prosperity again prevailed, yet many other things were irretrievably gone, and the people lived every day in the sight of painful reminders of their former greatness. In art, too, these low country provinces had made much progress. There had been Hubert and Jan Van Eyck who had painted with minute skill devout pictures. They had, moreover, given to the world the process of painting in oils. This discovery, worked out with the extreme care natural to the Netherlanders, changed the whole character of painting, and made it possible to have such colorists as Titian, Raphael and Rubens. We must remember that the colors used in fresco painting were mixed with a sort of "size" and that they had none of the richness of oil colors. There had been other artists of note besides the Van Eycks. Hans Memling, with the spirit of a real poet, had painted his sweet visions, and to-day it is not for the opulent merchants who added fame and wealth to their city in their time, but for this poet-painter, Memling, that we venerate the ancient and stately city of Bruges. Quentin Matsys, the brawny blacksmith, who, for love of an artist's daughter, became a painter, comes to our minds as a name of no mean fame in the early records of Flemish painting. [Illustration: HELEN FOURMONT, RUBENS' SECOND WIFE, AND YOUNGEST SON _Rubens_] The guild system, where every class of artisans was organized for protection and for the production of good work, touched even the fine arts. No man could set up for a good painter who had not served his apprenticeship, and whose work was not satisfactory to experts. When Rubens was born he came as the heir of all that had been accomplished before him. He only carried on what his predecessors had begun, but he carried it on in a matchless way so that he was able to leave to succeeding painters not only all he had inherited, but a goodly legacy besides--the legacy of a pure life, a glowing, natural, vigorous art. It seems to me that right here is a lesson for us. May we not add our mite, tiny though it be, to the ever-growing volume of truth? I like this quotation in this connection, and I hope you may see its beauty too--"The vases of truth are passed on from hand to hand, and the golden dust must be gathered into them, grain by grain, from the infinite shore." Rubens' birth took place in 1577, the year following the Spanish Fury. When he was only seven, William the Silent, the saviour and protector of the northern provinces, was assassinated at the instance of Philip II. When he was eleven, the Spanish _Armada_, the proudest fleet that ever sailed the seas, sent to invade England and punish Queen Elizabeth, was scattered by wind and wave and dashed to pieces on alien rocks. The Reformation was well established in England and Holland, while France, led by Henry IV., was yet uncertain whether or not to accept the new doctrines. Such were some of the portentous events that marked the advent and early years of the greatest of Flemish painters. The family of Rubens' father had lived for years in Antwerp, but when Luther's doctrines were put forward Jan Rubens, the father of our artist, believed in them. For this reason he was compelled to flee from the city, and his property was confiscated. He went to the little village of Siegen, in western Germany, where his illustrious son was born on June 29th, 1577. His birth was on the day dedicated to the saints, Peter and Paul, and so his parents gave the child their names. After the residence of a year in this little town, the family removed to Cologne, where they lived for ten years, until the death of the father. Jan Rubens was a lawyer and a learned man, and he took pains that his sons should be thoroughly educated. In addition to his heretical views regarding religion he had grievously offended William the Silent and so was doubly exiled. His wife remained with him, and by her efforts kept him from prison, and added cheer to his life of exile. This was the admirable Marie Pypeling, the mother so revered by Rubens, and so deserving the respect of all who know of her. A portrait of her by her son is given in this sketch. To her he owed his handsome face, his strong physique, his shrewdness and his love of order. [Illustration: RUBENS' DAUGHTER _Rubens_] Immediately after the death of her husband, Marie Pypeling and her family, now consisting of two sons and a daughter, returned to Antwerp. Her property, which had been confiscated in those wild days at Antwerp, was restored to her in the general restitution with which Philip tried to compensate the citizens for their losses in the Spanish Fury. From this time Rubens was an adherent of the Catholic Church. The education of Peter Paul, which was so carefully begun by his father, was continued by his mother, in a Jesuit College at Antwerp. He was an apt student and soon attained the elements from which he became a very learned man. He knew seven languages, was interested and learned in science and politics. All through his life he devoted some part of each day, however busy he was with his painting, to general reading. This, perhaps more than his early studies, accounts for his elegant scholarship. His mother was quite determined that this son should be, like his father, a lawyer. His own tastes, however, and a power to use the brush early displayed, decided otherwise. It very soon became evident that he was to be a painter--good or bad--who could tell in those early days? In accordance with a custom of the time, he was placed as a page in the house of a nobleman of Antwerp. To the talented and restless boy this life was intolerable, and he soon induced his mother to allow him to enter the studio of Van der Haeght, a resident artist of some repute and a close follower of Italian Art. He was only thirteen at this time. Here he learned to draw skillfully and, through the influence of his teacher, he acquired a love of landscape art which never left him. From Van der Haeght and his mild but correct art, Rubens, feeling his weakness in figure work, went to the studio of the irascible and forcible painter Van Noort, about whom critics have delighted to tell stories of brutality. However true these may be, Rubens stayed with him four years and never ceased to speak in praise of his master's work. Here he became acquainted with Jordaens, who used often to paint the animals in Rubens' landscapes. From Van Noort's studio the restless Rubens went to study with Van Veen, who afterwards became court-painter. When the Archduke Albert and Isabella entered Antwerp in 1594, it was Van Veen who decorated the triumphal arches used on the occasion. We may judge that he did the work well, for he was shortly selected to serve the new rulers as court painter. Rubens' experience with Van Veen closed a ten years' apprenticeship in the studios of Antwerp, and now he determined to go to Italy, where he could study the masters at first hand. [Illustration: RUBENS' TWO SONS _Rubens_] As a sort of parting work and, perhaps, because he wished to impress more vividly on his mind those dear, strong features of his mother, he painted that portrait of her which we so much admire both for its subject and its art. This image of his mother was an effectual charm to carry with him in his travels--a charm to save him perhaps, from some of the stumbling places into which a handsome young man away from home might wander. In May of 1600, after making all needful preparation, our artist set out on his journey. It was natural that he should direct his steps first to Venice. Titian had but recently completed his productive life of nearly a century. His misty atmosphere, his intense interest in human life and, above all, his glowing color touched a kindred cord in Rubens' nature. Then there were Tintoretto and Veronese, almost as interesting to our painter. The Duke of Mantua, a most liberal and discerning patron of art, was in Venice when Rubens reached that city. One of the Duke's suite happened to be in the house with Rubens. He took notice of the painter's courtly bearing, his fine physique, and his ability to paint, and introduced him to the Duke. Never did our painter's handsome face and fine presence so quickly win a patron. He was at once attached to the Duke's court and began copying for him the masterpieces of Italy--the pictures of Titian, Correggio, Veronese, leading all others. He also studied carefully the work of Julio Romano, Raphael's famous pupil. He accompanied the Duke to Milan, where he copied Leonardo's great picture, "_The Last Supper_," besides doing some original work. The Duke had observed Rubens' courtly manner and his keen mind. He decided that the painter was just the person to send in charge of some presents to the King of Spain, whose favor he was anxious to gain. The gifts were made up of fine horses, beautiful pictures, rare jewels and vases. Early in 1603, the painter set out with his cavalcade, and after a stormy journey of about three months they reached the Court of Spain. He was cordially received and the gifts were delivered, although the pictures had been somewhat damaged by the rains which marked the last days of their trip. He was asked to paint several portraits of eminent personages of the court and he complied graciously. He returned to Italy after somewhat more than a year's absence. For some time he remained at Mantua to paint an altar-piece for the chapel where the Duke's mother was buried. [Illustration: HOLY FAMILY _Rubens_ (Pette Gallery, Florence)] Later he went to Rome where he studied carefully the works of Michael Angelo. In turn he visited all the great art cities of Italy except Naples. He stopped for some time at Florence, Bologna, and Genoa. At the last place he received so many orders for his work that he could not attend to them all. Everywhere he went the fame of "the Fleming," as he was called in Italy, had gone before him. In many of the cities he made lengthy sojourns, copying the masterpieces that pleased him, and painting originals highly prized to-day in the galleries of Italy. He had been in Italy eight years, when one day from over the Alps came a courier in hot haste bearing to Rubens the sad news that his mother lay at home very ill. Not even waiting for permission from his patron, the Duke, Rubens started north with a heavy heart, for he felt sure that he should never see his mother again. Although he rode with all haste, as he neared his home city of Antwerp, he received the sad tidings he had so much dreaded. Marie Pypeling had died nine days before he left Italy. As was the custom in his country, he secluded himself for four months in a convent attached to the church where his mother was buried. The profound sorrow for his mother, and the sudden change from the life he had so recently led made him melancholy. He longed for the skies, the pictures, and the society of Italy. When he came forth from his retirement, his countrymen could not bear the thought of their now illustrous artist returning to Italy. They wanted him among them to glorify with his splendid brush the now reviving city of the Scheldt. The rulers of the city, Albert and Isabella, made him court painter and gave him a good salary. He accepted the office on condition that he should not have to live at the court. It was with some regret that he gave up returning to Italy, but the natural ties that bound him to Antwerp were stronger. He hoped that he might yet one day visit Italy. This part of his life-plan, however, he never carried out. [Illustration: INFANT CHRIST, ST. JOHN AND ANGELS _Rubens_] He was now thirty-two years old, respected of all men not only for his power as a painter, but for his sterling worth as a man. He had studied carefully the best art that the world could show, and he had absorbed into his own characteristic style what was best for him--his style of painting was now definitely formed. His fame as a painter was established from the Mediterranean to the Zuyder Zee. He was overwhelmed with orders for his pictures, so that he had plenty of money at his command. He had the confidence of princes, and was attached to one of the richest courts of Europe. A crowd of anxious art students awaited the choice privilege of entering his studio when he should open one. It would seem that there was little left for this man to desire in earthly things. The two he lacked he speedily procured, a good wife and a happy home, both destined to live always on the canvasses of this most fortunate of painters. In 1610, he married the lovely and beautiful Isabella Brandt, the daughter of the Secretary of Antwerp. Happy indeed were the fifteen years of their life together, and often do we find the wife and their two boys painted by the gifted husband and father. We reproduce a picture of the two boys. He bought a house on Meir Square, one of the noted locations in Antwerp. He re-modelled it at great expense in the style of the Italians. In changing the house he took care that there should be a choice place to keep and display his already fine collection of pictures, statues, cameos, agates and jewels. For this purpose he made a circular room, lighted from above, covered by a dome somewhat similar to that of the Pantheon at Rome. This room connected the two main parts of the house and was, with its precious contents, a constant joy to Rubens and his friends. The master of this palace, for such it certainly was, lived a frugal and abstemious life, a most remarkable thing in an age of great extravagance in eating and drinking. Here is the record of one of his days in summer: At four o'clock he arose, and for a short time gave himself up to religious exercises. After a simple breakfast he began painting. While he painted he had some one read to him from some classical writer, and if his work was not too laborious, he received visitors and talked to them while he painted. He stopped work an hour before dinner and devoted himself to conversation or to examining some newly acquired treasure in his collection. At dinner he ate sparingly of the simplest things and drank little wine. In the afternoon he again began his work at his easel, which he continued until evening. After an hour or so on a spirited Andalusian horse, of which he was always passionately fond, and of which he always had one or more fine specimens in his stables, he spent the remainder of the evening conversing with friends. A varied assembly of visitors loitered in this hospitable home. There were scholars, politicians, old friends--perhaps former fellow-pupils in Antwerp studios. Occasionally the princess Isabella came among the others, and Albert himself felt honored to stand as god-father to Rubens' son. Surely the wicked fairy _did_ forget some of the evil he was to have mixed with this life! [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG WOMAN _Rubens_ (Hermitage, St. Petersburg)] It was in connection with the building of this house that the best known and perhaps the greatest work of Rubens was painted: "_The Descent from the Cross_," now in Antwerp Cathedral. It is said that in excavating for the foundation to some of the new parts of Rubens' house, the workmen unintentionally trespassed on some adjoining ground belonging to the gunsmiths' guild. In settlement for this Rubens was requested to paint a picture of St. Christopher, the Christ-Bearer, as they called him. Rubens complied with the request and painted what to us to-day would seem a very strange picture--a "triptych," that is a middle panel over which two narrow side panels, hinged to the middle one, could be closed. He interpreted the request of the guild rather strangely too--he thought it would please them to represent in the several spaces of the triptych all who had ever carried Christ in their arms. In the middle panel we have the men removing the dead Christ from the cross, with the three Marys below, one of whom, the Magdalen, is, perhaps, the most beautiful woman Rubens ever painted. The light is wonderful, coming, as it does, from the great white cloth in which they would wrap our Lord. The form of the dead Christ in its difficult position is a piece of masterly drawing. This panel is, of course, the principal part of the altar-piece. On one side of this was painted the Virgin visiting St. Anne, and on the other we have the aged St. Simeon presenting the Christ-Child in the temple. If we close these side panels over the middle one we find a space as large as the center panel. On this Rubens painted St. Christopher with the child and accompanied by a hermit carrying his lantern. Surely it was a good-natured artist and a glowing and generous soul who painted so much in response to a request for a St. Christopher! There were, however, trials for this fortunate man. There were those who were jealous of his fame and who said unkind things of him. In answer to their jealousies he only said, "Do well and you will make others envious; do better and you will master them." He was called away from the home he loved so well. In 1619, when the truce, under which Antwerp had regained somewhat of her former greatness, was about to expire, Rubens was sent to Spain to renew it. He had hardly returned to Antwerp before Marie de Medicis, the wife of Henry IV. of France--the Henry of Navarre, of historic fame--sent for the artist to adorn her palace of the Luxemburg in Paris. He was to paint twenty-one pictures for this purpose. They were to describe the life of the queen. We give one of the series. He accomplished this entire work in glowing allegorical fashion in which mythological and historical personages are sadly confused at times. If there was occasionally this confusion, there were also present the artist's strongest characteristics as a painter--rich color and vigorous human action. [Illustration: ELEVATION OF THE CROSS _Rubens_] While in Paris he became intimately acquainted with the Duke of Buckingham, the favorite of Charles I. of England. This nobleman visited Rubens at his home in Antwerp and he was so pleased with the artist's collection that he offered him ten thousand pounds sterling for it complete. Rubens hesitated, for in the collection there were nineteen pictures by Titian, thirteen by Veronese, three by Leonardo, and three by Raphael, besides many of his own best works. The artist, however, was always thrifty, and he felt sure he could soon gather another collection, so he accepted the offer. In 1626, his lovely wife died. He mourned her deeply, saying "she had none of the faults of her sex." To beguile his time he accepted another diplomatic mission to Spain. This time he was to secure a strong ally for Spain against the powerful Richelieu who then held France in his hand as it were. Incidentally he painted much while at Madrid. Among other work he copied the Titians which were likely to be taken out of the country at the marriage of the Infanta. At this time, too, he undoubtedly met Velazquez, the able and high-souled court painter of Philip IV. This was certainly one of the most notable meetings in the history of artists. [Illustration: DESCENT FROM THE CROSS _Rubens_] It was while at the court of Madrid at this time that Jean of Braganza, afterward King of Portugal, invited the artist to visit him at his hunting-lodge, and Rubens set out with several of his followers, as was usual with travellers of note in those days. Before he reached the lodge Jean, hearing of so many attendants, and dismayed at the expense of entertaining them, departed suddenly for Lisbon. He wrote Rubens a courteous letter telling him that _state business_ detained him and begged him to accept some money to defray the expenses so far incurred on the journey. Rubens replied in like courteous manner and returned the money, saying that they had brought twenty times the amount with which to pay their expenses. [Illustration: MARIE DE MEDICIS _Rubens_ (Museum, Madrid)] An interesting story is related of their return. Overtaken by dark night in the open country they took shelter in a monastery. The next morning Rubens, with an eye always quick to see rare and interesting things, scanned the place carefully looking for something which might interest him. He was about to give up the search as hopeless, when he discovered in a dark corner a grand picture. It represented in more than mortal fashion the beautiful things that a dead young man, painted in the foreground, had renounced. Rubens called the prior to him and begged to know the name of the artist of so masterly a work. The prior, an old, bowed man, refused saying, "He died to the world long ago. I cannot disclose his name." Then the artist said, "It is Peter Paul Rubens who begs to know." The prior started, for even in the remoteness of the isolated monastery the fame of that name had gone, and fell in a dead faint at the artist's feet. The attendants lifted the prior gently but he had ceased to live. Through the ashy pallor they saw the features of the young man in the picture yonder. They instinctively turned to look that they might more carefully compare the faces, and lo! like some cloud-vision, the picture had disappeared. Then they knew that the dead monk there had painted the canvas from the depth of his own experience. From Madrid, Rubens was sent to England in the interest of Spain. Here he was most kindly received by Charles I., who made him a knight and presented him with his own jeweled sword and a diamond ring. He also gave him a hat-band set with precious stones which was valued at two thousand pounds sterling. From London he went to Cambridge where the ancient university conferred on him its highest degree. In London he painted almost constantly. Among other commissions he was given that of decorating the dining room in Whitehall palace with nine pictures representing the life of James I. To make the person or events of this king's life attractive must have been an immense task even for so supreme a genius as Rubens. As he sat painting one day a courtier entered and exclaimed, "Ah, his Majesty's Ambassador occasionally amuses himself with painting." "On the contrary," responded Rubens who was always proud of his art, "the painter occasionally amuses himself by trying to be a courtier." The influence of Rubens' visit to London must be counted rather as artistic than political. It really was the beginning of that desire for collecting pictures and other things of the sort which has ever since distinguished the English nobility. On the Continent the price of pictures rose on account of England's demand. For Charles I., Rubens bought the entire collection of the Duke of Mantua which he knew so well. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD WITH ST. FRANCIS _Rubens_] Rubens was tired of the almost fruitless mission at various courts and was glad to give up the business of an ambassador and return to Antwerp and to the life of a private gentleman. We must not forget that all these years Rubens was painting a great number of pictures in his ripest style. There was hardly a class of subjects or size of canvas which he could not skillfully use, although he always maintained that he could do his best work on large surfaces. There were religious pictures of Madonnas and saints all crowded with numerous figures and filled with vigorous human action. There were portraits such as those of his wives, of Elizabeth of France, or "_The Girl with a Straw Hat_," which rank among the best of the world. There were wonderful animal pictures--hunting scenes, the excitement of which even to-day makes the cheek glow. There were historical scenes mingled with allegory. There were most beautiful children whose fat and agile bodies and whose laughing faces make us want to hug them. There were enchanting angels, and there were huge fauns and satyrs. There were placid landscapes where, it may be, the artist's soul, teeming with the life of all time, took its rest and recreation sporting with the nymphs of the woodland streams or with the frisky dryads of the trees. In 1630, at the age of fifty-three, he married his second wife, Helen Fourmont, only sixteen years old. Like his first wife she was very beautiful, as his numerous portraits indicate. Five children came to them and the felicity of his early years with Isabella Brandt continued with his second wife. The health of our painter gradually gave way. For many years he had suffered intensely from repeated attacks of gout. As he aged, these became more and more frequent and severe. Often the disease, working in his fingers, kept him from painting. "_The Death of St. Peter_" was painted for Cologne Cathedral in 1635. It seems as if in his last years his heart turned affectionately to the city of his boyhood home and he would thus commemorate it. Another picture belongs to these last years. It was a family picture which he called "_St. George_." It represented four generations of the painter's family and included both his first and his second wife. He himself figured as the Saint, clad in shining armor and triumphant over his late enemy, the deadly dragon. Rubens was too great to be conceited, but he stood at the end of a most successful life. If ever a man had conquered the dragon of disappointment, that lies crouching at the door of every life, Rubens had. He did well to represent himself as St. George. In both of these last pictures the painter shows at his very strongest. He died May 30th, 1640, and was buried in the church beside his mother and his first wife. All the city attended his funeral, for in three capacities they mourned their illustrious citizen--as an artist, as a diplomat and scholar, and as a man of noble character. Two years after his death the picture "_St. George_" was hung above his tomb where it is found to-day. He left great wealth which was largely represented by his collection of pictures and jewels. There were three hundred and nineteen paintings, all masterpieces. The collection sold for what would be in our money about half a million dollars. This is a large sum at any time but in Rubens' day it was well nigh fabulous. [Illustration: SATYRS _Rubens_] Rubens has left us more than fifteen hundred pictures bearing his name. That any man could leave so many can be accounted for only by reckoning many of them as largely executed by his pupils. He used to make small sketches in color and hand them over to his pupils for enlargement. He was always at hand to make corrections and, at the end, to give the finishing touches. He used to charge for his pictures according to the time he used in painting them, and he valued his time at fifty dollars a day. He shows none of the mystical visionary feeling of the Spaniards even in his religious pictures. He was too much in love with life for that, and so, sometimes, we are offended by stout Flemish Saints and Madonnas too healthy to accord with our notions of their abstemious lives. In his pictures there is spirited action, almost excess of life, and rich unfading color in which the reds largely prevail. His lights are fine but the deep, expressive shadows that made Rembrandt famous are entirely lacking. The softly flowing way in which the color leaves his brush is, perhaps, the most inimitable part of his art. On this account someone has said, who evidently has great reverence for both Velazquez and Rubens, that we will see another Velazquez before another Rubens. Considering the qualities of his art, the number of his pictures, his scholarship, his eminence as a diplomat and his pure and honorable life, we must place Rubens among the very greatest men who ever wielded a brush. QUOTATIONS ABOUT RUBENS. Rubens was _par excellence_ the painter of the group that included the heroes of the Dutch Republic; and, like many of his contemporaries, whilst excelling in his own line, he was, in other respects also, a great man, in a time of and among great men.--CHAS. W. KETT. I cannot sufficiently admire his personal appearance nor praise his uprightness, his virtue, his erudition and wonderful knowledge of antiquities, his skill and celerity of pencil, and the charm of his manner.--A CONTEMPORARY. His eye is the most marvellous prism that has ever been given us of the light and color of objects, of true and magnificent ideas.--EUGENE FROMENTIN. SUBJECTS FOR LANGUAGE WORK. 1. A Day in Rubens' Studio. 2. An Evening with Rubens. 3. Rubens at the Monastery. 4. A Day with Rubens in London. 5. Rubens as a Diplomat. 6. Antwerp, the Home City of Rubens. 7. Rubens and His Friends. 8. The Women Rubens Loved. 9. My Favorite Picture by Rubens. 10. The Masters of Rubens. [Illustration: DURER'S HOUSE, NUREMBERG] ALBRECHT DURER AND HIS CITY "Of a truth this man would have surpassed us all if he had had the master-pieces of art constantly before him." --RAPHAEL. "Hardly any master has scattered with so lavish a hand all that the soul has conceived of fervid feeling or pathos, all that thought has grasped of what is strong or sublime, all that the imagination has conceived of poetic wealth; in no one has the depth and power of the German genius been so gloriously revealed as in him." --LUBKE. "He was content to be a precious corner-stone in the edifice of German Art, the future grandeur of which he could only foresee." --RICHARD FORD HEATH. [Illustration: DURER] ALBRECHT DURER. 1471-1528. In our study of the great artists so far, we have found that each glorified some particular city and that, whatever other treasures that city may have had in the past, it is the recollections of its great artist that hallow it most deeply today. Thus, to think of Antwerp is to think instantly of Rubens. Leyden and Amsterdam as quickly recall to our minds the name of Rembrandt. Seville without Murillo would lose its chief charm, while Urbino _is_ Raphael and, without the revered name of the painter, would seldom draw the visitor to its secluded precincts. To the quaintest of European cities the name of Albrecht Durer instinctively carries us--to Nuremberg. "That ancient, free, imperial town, Forever fair and young." Were we to study Durer without first viewing his venerable city which he so deeply loved all his life that no promise of gain from gorgeous Venetian court or from wealthy Antwerp burgers could detain him long from home, we should leave untouched a delightful subject and one deeply inwoven in the life and thought of the artist. Were we to omit a brief consideration of his time and the way the German mind looked at things and naturally represented them in words and in pictures, we should come away from Durer impressed only with his great homely figures and faces and wondering why, in every list of the great artists of the world, Durer's name should stand so high. Having these things in mind, it will not then seem so far away to speak of Nuremberg and Luther before we rehearse the things which make up the life of Albrecht Durer. Nuremberg does not boast a very early date, for she began her existence just after the year one thousand when men, finding out surely that the end of the world was not come, took as it were a new lease of life. The thing she does boast is that her character as a mediæval town has been almost perfectly preserved up to the present day. There were many things which made Nuremberg an important city in early times. She was conveniently located for traders who shipped vast amounts of merchandise from Venice to the great trade centers in the Netherlands. For many years she was a favorite city of the Emperor and here were kept the crown jewels which were displayed with great pomp once a year. The country immediately about Nuremberg was sandy but carefully cultivated. There were also large banks of clay very useful to the citizens in the manufacture of pottery. Like the salt of Venice, it was a natural source of wealth to the citizens. Very early we find a paper mill here, and here, too, were set up some of the earliest printing presses. Perhaps the most interesting of the early wares of this enterprising city were the watches. The first made in the world were manufactured here and from their shape they were called "Nuremberg Eggs." We have a story that Charles V. had a watchmaker brought in a sedan chair all the way from Nuremberg that he might have his watch repaired. Here was manufactured the first gun-lock, and here was invented the valued metallic compound known as brass. From all these sources the citizens grew rich, but their wealth did not make them forget their city. A little more than fifty years before Durer's birth, the Emperor being very much in need of money, they bought their freedom. For this they paid what would be, in our money, about a million of dollars. It was a goodly price, but they gave it freely. Then they destroyed the house where their governor or Burgrave had lived and they were henceforth ruled by a council selected from their own number. The city lies on both sides of the river Pegnitz which divides it into two almost equal parts. The northern side is named from its great church, St. Sebald's, and the southern for that of St. Lawrence. Originally the city was enclosed by splendid ramparts. Three hundred and sixty-five towers broke the monotony of the extensive walls. Of these one hundred are still standing today. In days gone by, a moat thirty-five feet wide encircled the wall, but since peace has taken the place of war and security has come instead of hourly danger, the moat has been drained and thrifty kitchen gardens fill the space. [Illustration: SHRINE OF ST. SEBALD, NUREMBERG In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust, And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust.--_Longfellow_] Within the city are some of the most beautiful buildings both private and public. Here, too, sculpture, which the Germans cultivated before they did painting, has left rare monuments. Among these last we must notice the wonderful shrine of St. Sebald in the church of the same name. For thirteen years Peter Vischer and his five sons labored on this work. Long it was to toil and vexing were the questions which arose in the progress of the work; but the result was a master-piece which stands alone among the art works of the world. Nor can we forget the foamy ciborium of the Church of St Lawrence. For sixty-five feet this miracle of snowy marble rises in the air, growing more lacey at every step until, in its terminal portions, so delicate does it become that it seems like the very clouds in fleeciness. [Illustration: THE CIBORIUM (PYX) CHURCH OF ST. LAWRENCE] Church doorways are carved with beautiful and fantastic forms by men whose names were long ago forgotten. Common dwellings are adorned with picturesque dormer windows. Even the narrow crooked streets hold their share of beauty, for here are fountains so exquisite in their workmanship that their like is not to be found elsewhere. Here it is the Beautiful Fountain, gay with sculptures of heroes and saints, and there it is the Little Gooseman's Fountain where humor is added to beauty. Through all the years stands the little man with a goose under either arm, patiently receiving his daily drenching. Still two other fountains known to fame send up their crystal waters to greet the light. [Illustration] If we seek for more modern things we are also rewarded, for here in Durer Square stands Rauch's great statue of the artist, copied from Durer's portrait of himself in Vienna. We note the custom house, one of the oldest buildings, the town hall and the burg or castle, which for many years was the favorite residence of the Emperor. [Illustration: THE BEAUTIFUL FOUNTAIN IN NUREMBERG Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of art; Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart.--_Longfellow_] Here, too, are many fine old houses which used to belong to noblemen of the city. It is not these residences that we seek, however, if we are visiting Nuremberg. We ask rather for the house of Hans Sachs, the cobbler poet, of John Palm, the fearless patriot, who gave his life for the privilege of beating Napoleon, and above all we seek that quaint house where Durer lived and worked. In choosing these as objects of our special attention we feel like Charles I., who said, when he compelled a reluctant courtier to hold Durer's ladder, "Man can make a nobleman, but only God can make an artist." In our search for interesting things in old Nuremberg, we come suddenly upon a house bearing a tablet on which are these words, "Pilate's House." At first we are mystified, for was not Pilate's house in Jerusalem? But at once we recall that this is the house of the pious Jacob Ketzet who twice visited the Holy Land that he might measure exactly the distance from Pilate's house to Calvary. When he was satisfied with his measurements he returned to Nuremberg and commissioned the great sculptor, Adam Kraft, to carve "stations," as he called them, between his home and St. John's Cemetery to the northwest of the city. These "stations," which are merely stone pillars on which are carved in relief scenes from the sufferings of our Lord just before his death, are still standing, and if we go to Durer's grave, as I am sure we should wish to do, we shall pass them on our way. [Illustration: 1526 VIVENTIS POTVIT DVRERIVS ORA PHILIPPI MENTEM NON POTVIT PINGERE DOCTA MANVS AD MELANCTHON] The Nurembergers have long taken pride in the quaint appearance of their city, so that many of the newer houses are built in the old style with their gables to the street. As we note the patriotic spirit of the people and recount the beauties of the old city, we feel that Durer was warranted "in the deep love and affection that I have borne that venerable city, my fatherland," as he expressed it. [Illustration: ERASMUS] As to the time when Durer came into the world, it was truly a wonderful age in which to live! Less than twenty-five years after his birth, Columbus found a vast new world. People were already much agitated over the evil practices in the old established church. Durer knew and loved Luther and Melancthon but he was quite as much attached to the scholarly Erasmus, who wished not to break away from the old church, but merely to correct its abuses. In short Durer belonged to the Conservative class which found it possible to accept the food in the new doctrines and retain the pure from the old without revolution. Such were the citizens of Nuremberg and thus did the ancient city as easily accept the new doctrines as she did the morning sunshine pouring in at her storied windows. Thus, too, were preserved the ancient buildings and institutions, which, through the wisdom of her citizens, were not called upon to withstand sieges and other military attacks. Durer was above everything a true representative of the German people, and so we ought to take note of some of the qualities of the German mind. As Goethe, their greatest poet, says, one of their strongest characteristics is that of wishing to learn and to do rather than to enjoy. The Germans love truth and they do not stop short in their imaginings when they wish to drive it home. So in German art, the toiling man or woman is often accompanied by angels and demons, the equal of which were never pictured by any other people. The greatest extremes of beauty and ugliness have these people given in their art. In either extreme, however, thoughts on the deepest questions of human life are at the foundation. [Illustration: DOORWAY IN ST. SEBALD'S CHURCH, NUREMBERG And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone, By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.--_Longfellow_] On a summer's day in 1455, there wandered into the far-famed city of Nuremberg a young goldsmith from Hungary. The ramparts of the city with their towers and gateways, the splendid buildings enclosed, were like miracles to the youth. It was a fête day in celebration of the marriage of the son of a prominent citizen, Pirkheimer by name. Albrecht Durer, for that was the youth's name, long studied the gay throng, little thinking how in the future the name of his son and that of the bridegroom there would together be known to fame, the one as the greatest artist, the other as the most learned man of Nuremberg. The wandering youth was the father of our artist and the bridegroom was the father of Wilibald Pirkheimer, Durer's life long friend and companion. The young goldsmith loved the city at once and, encouraged by the business activity of the place, he made it his permanent abode. He found employment with Hieronymus Holper, and soon married his master's comely daughter, Barbara. They resided in a little house which was a sort of appendage to the great house of Pirkheimer. A few months after a much longed for son came to bless the Pirkheimers, a little boy was born in the goldsmith's house whom they named, for his father, Albrecht Durer. As the years went by, seventeen other children came to the Durer home. Three only of all these children grew to maturity. With such a family to support we can easily imagine that the father's life was a hard one. He was a pious and industrious man whom his illustrious son never tires of praising. In one place he says of him, "He had a great reputation with many who knew him, for he led an honorable Christian life, was a patient man, gentle, in peace with everyone and always thankful to God. He had no desire for worldly pleasures, was of few words, did not go into society and was a God-fearing man. Thus my dear father was most anxious to bring up his children to honor God. His highest wish was that his children should be pleasing to God and man; therefore he used to tell us every day that we should love God and be true to our neighbors." Durer sorrowed deeply when his father died in 1502. On his death-bed he commended the mother to her son. Durer was faithful to his trust and cared tenderly for his mother until her death, several years later. Never did boy or man more faithfully keep the command, "Honor thy father and mother," than did our artist. For many reasons Albrecht seemed to be his father's favorite child. We find him, in spite of numerous other cares, taking great pains with the boy's education. He taught him to read and write well and must have given him instruction in Latin. These were years when thirst for learning was abroad in the land. Free Latin schools were established to meet the needs. Durer's father was filled with this spirit and he communicated it to his son. [Illustration: DORMER WINDOW IN THE BISHOP'S HOUSE, NUREMBERG On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days, Sat the poet Melchoir singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise. --_Longfellow_] As was customary at the time, the son was trained to follow his father's trade and so he learned the goldsmith's art in his father's shop. It is said that in his tender years he engraved, on silver, events from Christ's passage to Calvary. Albrecht's drawing was superior to that usually done in a goldsmith's shop. In his free hours he drew to entertain his companions. After a while he began to feel that he might paint pictures instead of merely drawing designs for metal work. He loved the work and so had the courage to tell his father of his wish to become a painter. The elder Durer was patient with the boy, regretting only that he had lost so much time learning the goldsmith's trade. Albrecht, then only sixteen, was surely young enough to begin his life work! His father put him to study with Wolgemut, the foremost painter of the city, which is not high praise, for the art of painting was then new in the prosperous city of the Pegnitz. Wolgemut was, however, a good engraver on wood and so perhaps was able to direct the young apprentice in quite as valuable a line as painting. Here Durer remained for three years, until 1490. He was now but nineteen, full of hope and perhaps conscious, to a certain extent, that his was no ordinary skill of hand. He was now ready, according to the custom of his countrymen, for his "wanderschaft" or journeyman period, when he should complete his art education by going abroad to other towns to see their ways and thus improve his own method. For four years he traveled among neighboring towns. The evidence is strong that the last year was spent in Venice. We have little certain knowledge of where he spent these years but we feel quite sure that one of the places he visited was Colmar, where he became acquainted with the artist, Martin Schougauer. He was called home rather suddenly in 1494 by his father, who had arranged what he thought was an acceptable marriage for his son. A short time before Durer had sent his father a portrait of himself in which he figured as a remarkably handsome and well-dressed young man. It is supposed that the father sent for this portrait to help him along in his arrangements for the marriage of his son. However Albrecht may have felt about the matter of making his marriage merely a business affair, he never expressed himself, but was married shortly after his return to Nuremberg. [Illustration: ST. JOHN AND ST. PETER _Durer_] [Illustration: ST. MARK AND ST. PAUL _Durer_] Agnes Frey, the woman selected by Durer's father, was a handsome woman of good family with a small fortune of her own. She has come down to us with a most unenviable record as a scold who made life almost unendurable for her husband. It is now quite certain, however, that for all these years she has been grossly misrepresented, simply because her husband's friend Pirkheimer, for small reason, became offended with her. It seems that in his lifetime Durer, who had collected many curious and valuable things, had gathered together some remarkably fine stag-horns. One pair of these especially pleased Pirkheimer. The widow, without knowing Pirkheimer's desire for these, sold them for a small sum and thus brought upon herself the anger of her husband's choleric friend, who wrote a most unkind letter concerning her which has been quoted from that day to this to show how Albrecht Durer suffered in his home. The truth seems really to be that Agnes Durer was as sweet-tempered as the average woman, fond of her husband and a good housekeeper. The earlier works of Durer are largely wood-cuts, the art which more than any other was the artist's very own. The discussions of the times regarding religious matters made a demand for books even at great cost. It was a time when written and spoken words held people's attention, but when, in addition, the text was illustrated by strong pictures the power and reach of the books were increased ten-fold. A place thus seemed waiting for Albrecht Durer, the master wood-engraver. His first great series was the _Apocalypse_--pictures to illustrate the book of Revelations. Such a subject gave Durer ample scope for the use of his imagination. Then came the story of Christ's agony twice engraved in small and large size. These were followed by still another series illustrating the life of Mary. This series was especially popular, for it glorified family life--the family life of the Germans, so worthy, so respected. To be sure, Mary is represented as a German woman tending a dear German child. The kings who come to adore could be found any day on the streets of Nuremberg. The castles and churches that figure in the backgrounds are those of mediæval and renaissance Germany. But this was Durer's method of truth speaking and it appealed strongly to the people of his time as it must to us of to-day. In 1506, when the last series was not quite completed, Durer went to Venice, perhaps to look after the sale of some of his prints, but more likely because the artist wished to work in the sunshine and art atmosphere of the island city. While away he wrote regularly to his friend Pirkheimer. His letters are exceedingly interesting, as we learn from them much about the art society of the time. Durer was looked upon with favor by the Venetian government but most of the native artists were jealous of the foreigner and not friendly. They complained that his art was like nothing set down as "correct" or "classical" but still they admired it and copied it, too, on the sly. [Illustration: DURER IN VENICE _Theobald von Oer_] Gentile Bellini, the founder of the Venetian School, was then a very old man. He was fond of Durer and showed him many kindnesses, not the least of which was praising him to the Venetian nobles. There is a charming story told of Bellini's admiration of Durer's skill in painting hair: One day, after examining carefully the beard of one of the saints in a picture by Durer, he begged him to allow him to use the brush that had done such wonderful work. Durer gladly laid his brushes before Bellini and indicated the one he had used. The Venetian picked it up, made the attempt to use it but failed to produce anything unusual, whereupon Durer took the brush wet with Bellini's own color and painted a lock of woman's hair in so marvelous a way that the old artist declared he would not believe it had he not seen it done. The most important picture Durer painted while in Venice was the "_Madonna of the Rose Garlands_." It was painted for the artist's countrymen and is now in a monastery near Prague. Durer evidently valued it highly himself for he writes of it to Pirkheimer, "My panel would give a ducat for you to see it; it is good and beautiful in color. I have got much praise and little profit by it. I have silenced all the painters who said that I was good at engraving but could not manage color. Now everyone says that they have never seen better coloring." After little more than a year's sojourn in Venice, he returned to Nuremberg. He had been sorely tempted by an offer from the Venetian Council of a permanent pension if he would but remain in their city. But the ties of affection which bound him to his home city drew him back to Nuremberg, even though he had written while in Venice, "How cold I shall be after this sun! Here I am a gentleman," referring indirectly to the smaller place he would occupy at home. Although Durer studied and enjoyed the works of the Italian masters, there is hardly a trace of the influence of this study in his own works. His mind was too strongly bent in its own direction to be easily turned even by so powerful an influence as Venetian painting. We are grateful indeed for the steadfast purpose of Durer that kept his art pure German instead of diluting it with Italian style so little adapted to harmonize with German thought and method. [Illustration: PRAYING HANDS _Durer_] On Durer's return to Nuremberg he did some of his best work. He painted one of his greatest pictures at this time, "_All Saints_." It is crowded with richly dressed figures, while the air above is filled with an angelic host which no one can count. In the center is the Cross on which hangs our suffering Lord. Below, in one corner, is Durer's unmistakable signature, which in this case consists of a full length miniature of himself holding up a tablet on which is this inscription, "Albertus Durer of Nuremberg did it in 1511." After this follows the renowned monogram used by the artist in signing his works after 1496, the "D" enclosed in a large "A" something after this style. He then designed a very beautiful and elaborate frame for this picture to be carved from wood. It was adorned with figures in relief, beautiful vine traceries and architectural ornaments which showed our artist master of still another national art--wood-carving. [Illustration] It is interesting, too, to know that about this time Durer, finding painting not so lucrative as he had hoped, turned his attention to engraving on all sorts of hard materials, such as ivory and hone-stone. To this period belongs that tiny triumph of his art, the "_Degennoph_," or gold plate, which contains in a circle of little more than an inch in diameter the whole scene of the Crucifixion carefully represented. Through his indefatigable labors Durer's circumstances were now greatly improved and so he planned to publish his works, a matter of large expense. Instead of going to some large publishing house, as we to-day do, Durer had a press set up in his own house. We delight in illustrated books to-day, indeed we will hardly have a book without pictures. Imagine then the joy that must have been felt in this time of the scarcity of even printed books to have those that were illustrated. There was ready sale for all the books Durer could print. Some prints came into Raphael's hands. He wrote a friendly letter to the artist and sent him several of his own drawings. In return Durer sent his own portrait, life size, which Raphael greatly prized and at his death bequeathed to his favorite pupil, Julio Romano. Durer's prosperity continuing, he purchased the house now known to fame as "Albrecht Durer's House." It is still very much as it was in the artist's lifetime. Here one may study at his leisure the kitchen and living-room which seem as if Durer had just left them. The artist's reputation was now fully established. In 1509, he was made a member of the Council that governed the city and he was granted the important commission of painting two pictures for the relic chamber in Nuremberg. In this room, which was in a citizen's house, the crown jewels were kept on Easter night, the time of their annual exhibition to the public. _Sigismund_ and _Charlemagne_ were the subjects selected, the former probably because it was he who first gave to Nuremberg the custody of the precious jewels, and the latter because Charlemagne was a favorite hero with the Germans. The _Charlemagne_ is here reproduced. In wonderful jeweled coronation robes, with the coat of arms of France on one side and that of Germany on the other, he is a fine figure well suited to make us feel Durer's power as a painter. [Illustration: CHARLEMAGNE _Durer_] In 1512, there came to Nuremberg a royal visitor, no less a personage than the Emperor Maximilian. This was of greatest importance to Durer to whom two important commissions came as the result of this visit. The Emperor had no settled abode, so his travels were important, at least to himself. He was fond of dictating poems and descriptions of these travels. Durer was asked to make wood-cuts for a book of the Emperor's travels to consist of two parts, the one called _The Triumphal Arch_ and the other _The Triumphal Car_. The wood-cuts for the first were made on ninety-two separate blocks which, when put together, formed one immense cut ten and a half feet high by nine feet wide. For this Durer made all the designs which were cut by a skilled workman of the city, Hieronymus Andræ. It was while this work was going forward that the well-known saying, "A cat may look at a king," arose. The Emperor was often at the workshop watching the progress of the work and he was frequently entertained by the pet cats of the wood-cutter who would come in to be with their master. The designs for _The Triumphal Car_ were of the same general style. In these Durer was assisted by other engravers of the city. One expression of Durer's regarding the ornamentation of the car shows him skilled in the language of the courtier as well as in that of the citizen. He says, "It is adorned, not with gold and precious stones, which are the property of the good and bad alike, but with the virtues which only the really noble possess." The noted _Prayer Book of Maximilian_ was the other work done for the Emperor. Only three of these are in existence and of course they are almost priceless in value. The text was illustrated by Durer on the margin in pen and ink drawings in different colored inks. Sometimes the artist's fancy is expressed in twining vines and flying birds and butterflies, again it is the kneeling Psalmist listening in rapt attention to some heavenly harpist, or it may be that the crafty fox beguiles the unsuspecting fowls with music from a stolen flute. Thus through almost endless variety of subjects stray the artist's thought and hand. We have also a fine likeness of Maximilian drawn in strong free lines by Durer at this same time. Seeing how deft the artist was with his crayons, Maximilian took up some pieces which broke in his hand. When asked why it did not do so in the fingers of the artist, Durer made the well known reply, "Gracious Emperor, I would not have your majesty draw as well as myself. I have practised the art and it is my kingdom. Your majesty has other and more difficult work to do." [Illustration: HEAD OF AN OLD MAN _Durer_] For all this wonderful work Durer's compensation was little more than the remission of certain taxes by the Nuremberg Council and the promise of a small annual pension. Maximilian's death made it doubtful whether the pension would be paid. Durer in common with others sought out the new Emperor, Charles V., to have the favors granted by his predecessor confirmed. With this in view, in 1520, the artist with his wife and maid set out for the Netherlands. They were gone something more than a year and a half, during which time Durer kept a strict account of his expenses and of his experiences and impressions throughout the journey. Everywhere he was received with the most marked attention. He was invited to splendid feasts, and was the recipient of all sorts of gifts. In return he gave freely of his own precious works. He made his headquarters at Antwerp and here he witnessed the entry of the new monarch. The magnificence of the four hundred two-storied arches erected for the occasion impressed Durer deeply. Of the many and varied experiences of the Nuremberger, not the least interesting was his attempt to see a whale that had been cast ashore in Zealand. He made all haste to see this unusual sight and was nearly ship-wrecked in the attempt. The exposure, too, to which he was subjected gave rise to ills which eventually caused his death. After all his trouble he was disappointed at his journey's end for the whale had been washed away before he arrived. He finally accomplished the object for which he went to the Netherlands. His pension was confirmed and in addition he was named court painter. Ladened with all sorts of curious things which he had collected and with a generous supply of presents for his friends and their wives, he started home where he arrived in due time. There were but seven years of life left to our painter and these were burdened with broken health. To this period, however, belong some of his most wonderful and characteristic works. The very year of his return he engraved that marvellous "_Head of an Old Man_," now in Vienna. Never were the striking qualities of age more beautifully put together than in this head. [Illustration: MELANCHOLY _Durer_] With about the same time we associate "_The Praying Hands_," now also in Vienna. How an artist can make hands express the inmost wish of the soul as these do will always remain a mystery even to the most acute. We have the story that they were the clasped hands of Durer's boyhood friend who toiled for years to equal or rival his friend in their chosen work. When, in a test agreed upon, to Durer was given the prize, then Hans, for that was the friend's name, prayed fervently to be resigned to a second place. Durer caught sight of the clasped hands and drew them so well that wherever the name and fame of Albrecht goes there also must go the praying hands of his friend. Whether the story be true we cannot say, but in the hands we have a master work to love. At this time the new religious doctrine formed the subject of thought everywhere. There was the most minute searching for truth that the world has ever known. Durer, deeply moved by the thought of the time, put its very essence into his works. He was a philosopher and a student of men. He saw how the varied temperaments of men led them to think differently on the great questions of the time. Feeling this keenly, he set to work to represent these various temperaments in pictured forms, a most difficult thing to do as we can easily imagine. Perhaps his own diseased condition led him to select as the first of these "_Melancholy_," that great brooding shadow that hovers constantly above man, waiting only for the moment when discouragement comes to fall upon and destroy its victim. How does Durer represent this insidious and fatal enemy? A powerful winged woman sits in despair in the midst of the useless implements of the art of Science. The compass in her nerveless fingers can no longer measure, nor even time in his ceaseless flow explain, the mysteries which crowd upon this well-nigh distraught woman, who it seems must stand for human reason. The sun itself is darkened by the uncanny bat which possibly may stand for doubt and unbelief. Perhaps no one can explain accurately the meaning of this great engraving and therein lies the greatness, which allows each person to interpret it to please himself. In painting he attempted the same difficult subject of the temperaments, in his four apostles, St. Paul and Mark, St. John and Peter. He painted these without charge as a sort of memorial of himself in his native town. Two saints are painted on each panel. No figures in art are more beautiful than the leading one on each panel, the St. Paul on the one and the St. John on the other. If we interpret these as regards temperament, John is the type of the melancholy, Peter of the phlegmatic, Paul of the choleric and Mark of the sanguine. In 1526, Durer sent these pictures as a gift to the Council of Nuremberg. It was the artist's wish that they should always remain in the Council hall. Notwithstanding this, only copies are now to be seen in Nuremberg, while the originals are in Munich, carried there by the Elector of Bavaria, who paid a good price for them. [Illustration: THE KNIGHT, DEATH AND THE DEVIL _Durer_] One other of Durer's pictures should be spoken of, though it hardly belongs last in order of time. It is really the summing up of much that he had done from time to time all through his busy life time. This picture, called "_The Knight, Death and the Devil_," is an engraving on copper. The stern, intelligent men of the time, who were ready to face any danger in order to bear themselves according to their notions of right, are well represented in this splendid mounted knight. What though Death reminds him by the uplifted hourglass that his life is nearly ended? or that Satan himself stands ready to claim the Knight's soul? There is that in this grand horseman's face that tells of unflinching purpose and indomitable courage to carry it out against the odds of earth and the dark regions besides. One of our greatest art critics says of this work, "I believe I do not exaggerate when I particularize this point as the most important work which the fantastic spirit of German Art has produced." A reading of Fouqué's "Sintram" inspires us anew with the true spirit of Durer's great work. [Illustration: ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON _Durer_] The gift to his natal city was Durer's last work of note. The sickness that had been growing upon him, which was none other than consumption, gradually absorbed his energies and in April, 1528, he died. He was buried in St. John's Cemetery in the lot belonging to the Frey family. On the flat gravestone was let in a little bronze tablet on which was a simple inscription written by his friend Pirkheimer. A century and a half later Sandrart, the historian of German painters, visited the tomb, then in ruins. He caused it to be repaired and added another inscription which has been translated into English:-- "Rest here, thou Prince of Painters! thou who wast better than great, In many arts unequaled in the old time or the late. Earth thou didst paint and garnish, and now in thy new abode Thou paintest the holy things overhead in the city of God. And we, as our patron saint, look up to thee, ever will, And crown with laurel the dust here left with us still." Durer's character was one of the purest to be found on the honor-list of the world. He bore heavy burdens with patience and was true to his country and to himself in the most distracting of times. He was the father of popular illustration and the originator of illustrated books. He was as many-sided in his genius as Da Vinci and as prolific as Raphael, though along a different line. That he was architect, sculptor, painter, engraver, author and civil engineer proves the former point, while the fact that he left a great number of signed works satisfies us regarding the latter comparison. One who knew him wrote of him in these words,--"If there were in this man anything approaching to a fault it was simply the endless industry and self-criticism which he indulged in, often even to injustice." [Illustration: STATUE OF ALBRECHT DURER, NUREMBERG] In closing this sketch, nothing can so delightfully summarize the beauty of the old town of Nuremberg and the character of its great artist as a part of Longfellow's poem, _Nuremberg_:[A] In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands, Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg the ancient stands. Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song, Memories haunt thy pointed gables like the rooks that round them throng: Memories of the Middle Ages, when the Emperors, rough and bold, Had their dwelling in thy castle, time defying, centuries old; And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme, That their great imperial city stretched its hand thro' every clime. In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band, Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand; On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days, Sat the poet Melchoir singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise. Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of art; Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart; And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone, By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own. In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust, And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust; In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare, Like the foamy sheaf of fountains rising through the painted air. Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart Lived and labored Albrecht Durer, the Evangelist of Art; Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand, Like an emigrant he wandered seeking for the Better Land. _Emigravit_ is the inscription on the tomb-stone where he lies; Dead he is not, but departed--for the artist never dies. Fairer seems the ancient city and the sunshine seems more fair, That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air! [A] These stanzas are here reproduced by the courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the regular publishers of Longfellow's works. SUBJECTS FOR LANGUAGE WORK. 1. A Day in Ancient Nuremberg. 2. The Churches of Nuremberg. 3. With Durer at Antwerp. 4. Durer and His Friends. 5. Durer and His Wife. 6. Durer's Stay in Venice. 7. Maximilian and the Artist. 8. Stories about Durer. 9. The Art of Wood Engraving. 10. The Fountains of Nuremberg. 11. Some Stories about St. Sebald. SPECIAL REFERENCES FOR ALBRECHT DURER. "Life of Durer" by Heath. "Life of Durer" by Heaton. "Life of Durer" by Thansing. "Life of Durer" by Sweetser. "Art and Artists" by Clement. "Durer" by Gurnsey in _Harper's Magazine_, Vol. 40. +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Page 105 "cleanlines" might be a typographical error for | | "clean lines" or "cleanliness". | | | | Inconsistencies in the use of the words background(s)/ | | back-ground(s); masterpiece(s)/master-piece(s); and | | today/to-day have been retained as in the original book. | | | | | The following changes have been made to the original: | | Page 16 which he carresses gently changed to | | "caresses" | | Page 75 Mary in some of his lovliest pictures changed to | | "loveliest" | | Page 105 for their part in the distruction changed to | | "destruction" | | Page 144 dissapointment, that lies crouching changed to | | "disappointment" | | Page 187 whole scene of the Crucifiixon changed to | | "Crucifixion" | | Page 195 magnifience of the four hundred changed to | | "magnificence" | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ 
21198	----	ANECDOTES OF PAINTERS, ENGRAVERS Sculptors and Architects, AND CURIOSITIES OF ART. BY S. SPOONER, M.D., AUTHOR OF "A BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF THE FINE ARTS." IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. NEW YORK: R. WORTHINGTON, PUBLISHER, 770 Broadway. COPYRIGHT, S. SPOONER, 1853. Reëntered, G. B., 1880. CONTENTS. Titian--Sketch of his Life, 1 Titian's Manners, 5 Titian's Works, 6 Titian's Imitators, 7 Titian's Venus and Adonis, 8 Titian and the Emperor Charles V., 10 Titian and Philip II., 13 Titian's Last Supper and El Mudo, 14 Titian's Old Age, 15 Monument to Titian, 15 Horace Vernet, 16 The Colosseum, 29 Nineveh and its Remains, 34 Description of a Palace Exhumed at Nimroud, 37 Origin and Antiquity of the Arch, 41 Antiquities of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiæ, 43 Ancient Fresco and Mosaic Painting, 55 Mosaic of the Battle of Platæa, 55 The Aldobrandini Wedding, 56 The Portland Vase, 56 Ancient Pictures on Glass, 58 Henry Fuseli; his Birth, 59 Fuseli's early Love of Art, 59 Fuseli's Literary and Poetical Taste, 60 Fuseli, Lavater, and the Unjust Magistrate, 61 Fuseli's Travels and his Literary Distinction, 62 Fuseli's Arrival in London, 63 Fuseli's change from Literature to Painting, 63 Fuseli's Sojourn in Italy, 65 Fuseli's Nightmare, 66 Fuseli's OEdipus and his Daughters, 66 Fuseli and the Shakspeare Gallery, 67 Fuseli's "Hamlet's Ghost," 68 Fuseli's Titania, 69 Fuseli's Election as a Royal Academician, 70 Fuseli and Horace Walpole, 71 Fuseli and the Banker Coutts, 72 Fuseli and Professor Porson, 73 Fuseli's method of giving vent to his Passion, 73 Fuseli's Love for Terrific Subjects, 73 Fuseli's and Lawrence's Pictures from the "Tempest," 74 Fuseli's estimate of Reynolds' Abilities in Historical Painting, 75 Fuseli and Lawrence, 75 Fuseli as Keeper of the Royal Academy, 76 Fuseli's Jests and Oddities with the Students of the Academy, 77 Fuseli's Sarcasms on Northcote, 78 Fuseli's Sarcasms on various rival Artists, 79 Fuseli's Retorts, 80 Fuseli's Suggestion of an Emblem of Eternity, 82 Fuseli's Retort in Mr. Coutts' Banking House, 82 Fuseli's Sarcasms on Landscape and Portrait Painters, 83 Fuseli's Opinion of his own Attainment of Happiness, 84 Fuseli's Private Habits, 84 Fuseli's Wife's method of Curing his fits of Despondency, 85 Fuseli's Personal Appearance, his Sarcastic Disposition, and Quick Temper, 86 Fuseli's near Sight, 87 Fuseli's Popularity, 88 Fuseli's Artistic Merits, 88 Fuseli's Milton Gallery, the Character of his Works, and the Permanency of his Fame, 89 Salvator Rosa, 91 Salvator Rosa and Cav. Lanfranco, 91 Salvator Rosa at Rome and Florence, 92 Salvator Rosa's Return to Rome, 93 Salvator Rosa's Subjects, 93 Flagellation of Salvator Rosa, 95 Salvator Rosa and the Higgling Prince, 96 Salvator Rosa's Opinion of his own Works, 98 Salvator Rosa's Banditti, 98 Salvator Rosa and Massaniello, 100 Salvator Rosa and Cardinal Sforza, 100 Salvator Rosa's Manifesto Concerning his Satirical Picture, La Fortuna, 101 Salvator Rosa's Banishment from Rome, 102 Salvator Rosa's Wit, 103 Salvator Rosa's Reception at Florence, 103 Histrionic Powers of Salvator Rosa, 104 Salvator Rosa's Reception at the Palazzo Pitti, 105 Satires of Salvator Rosa, 105 Salvator Rosa's Harpsichord, 106 Rare Portrait by Salvator Rosa, 106 Salvator Rosa's Return to Rome, 109 Salvator Rosa's Love of Magnificence, 109 Salvator Rosa's Last Works, 111 Salvator Rosa's Desire to be Considered an Historical Painter, 112 Don Mario Ghigi, his Physician, and Salvator Rosa, 113 Death of Salvator Rosa, 115 Domenichino, 121 The Dulness of Domenichino in Youth, 121 Domenichino's Scourging of St. Andrew, 123 The Communion of St. Jerome, 124 Domenichino's Enemies at Rome, 125 Decision of Posterity on the Merits of Domenichino, 126 Proof of the Merits of Domenichino, 127 Domenichino's Caricatures, 127 Intrigues of the Neapolitan Triumvirate of Painters, 128 Giuseppe Ribera, called Il Spagnoletto--his early Poverty and Industry, 133 Ribera's Marriage, 134 Ribera's Rise to Eminence, 135 Ribera's Discovery of the Philosopher's Stone, 135 Ribera's Subjects, 136 Ribera's Disposition, 137 Singular Pictorial Illusions, 137 Raffaelle's Skill in Portraits, 138 Jacopo da Ponte, 139 Giovanni Rosa, 139 Cav. Giovanni Centarini, 139 Guercino's Power of Relief, 140 Bernazzano, 140 Invention of Oil Painting, 141 Foreshortening, 145 Method of Transferring Paintings from Walls and Panels to Canvass, 146 Works in Scagliola, 147 The Golden Age of Painting, 149 Golden Age of the Fine Arts in Ancient Rome, 152 Nero's Golden Palace, 155 Names of Ancient Architects Designated by Reptiles, 156 Triumphal Arches, 157 Statue of Pompey the Great, 159 Antique Sculptures in Rome, 159 Ancient Map of Rome, 160 Julian the Apostate, 160 The Tomb of Mausolus, 161 Mandrocles' Bridge Across the Bosphorus, 162 The Colossus of the Sun at Rhodes, 162 Statues and Paintings at Rhodes, 164 Sostratus' Light-House on the Isle of Pharos, 164 Dinocrates' Plan for Cutting Mount Athos into a Statue of Alexander the Great, 165 Pope's idea of Forming Mount Athos into a Statue of Alexander the Great, 166 Temple with an Iron Statue Suspended in the Air by Loadstone, 168 The Temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens, 168 The Parthenon at Athens, 170 The Elgin Marbles, 171 The first Odeon at Athens, 182 Perpetual Lamps, 182 The Skull of Raffaelle, 183 The Four Finest Pictures in Rome, 183 The Four Carlos of the 17th Century, 184 Pietro Galletti and the Bolognese Students, 184 Ætion's Picture of the Nuptials of Alexander and Roxana, 184 Ageladas, 185 The Porticos of Agaptos, 185 The Group of Niobe and her Children, 185 Statue of the Fighting Gladiator, 187 The Group of Laocoön in the Vatican, 187 Michael Angelo's Opinion of the Laocoön, 190 Discovery of the Laocoön, 190 Sir John Soane, 191 Soane's Liberality and Public Munificence, 192 The Belzoni Sarcophagus, 194 Tasso's "Gerusalemme Liberata," 195 George Morland, 197 Morland's Early Talent 198 Morland's Early Fame, 199 Morland's Mental and Moral Education under an Unnatural Parent, 200 Morland's Escape from the Thraldom of his Father, 201 Morland's Marriage and Temporary Reform, 202 Morland's Social Position, 203 An Unpleasant Dilemma, 204 Morland at the Isle of Wight, 205 A Novel Mode of Fulfilling Commissions, 206 Hassel's First Interview with Morland, 206 Morland's Drawings in the Isle of Wight, 207 Morland's Freaks, 208 A Joke on Morland, 208 Morland's Apprehension as a Spy, 209 Morland's "Sign of the Black Bull," 210 Morland and the Pawnbroker, 211 Morland's idea of a Baronetcy, 212 Morland's Artistic Merits,. 212 Charles Jervas, 213 Jervas the Instructor of Pope, 214 Jervas and Dr. Arbuthnot, 215 Jervas' Vanity, 215 Holbein and the Fly, 216 Holbein's Visit to England, 216 Henry VIII.'s Opinion of Holbein, 217 Holbein's Portrait of the Duchess Dowager of Milan, 218 Holbein's Flattery in Portraits--a Warning to Painters, 219 Holbein's Portrait of Cratzer, 219 Holbein's Portrait of Sir Thomas More and Family, 220 Sir John Vanbrugh and his Critics, 221 Anecdote of the English Painter, James Seymour, 223 Precocity of Luca Giordano, 224 Giordano's Enthusiasm, 225 Luca Fa Presto, 226 Giordano's Skill in Copying, 226 Giordano's Success at Naples, 227 Giordano, the Viceroy, and the Duke of Diano, 228 Giordano Invited to Florence, 229 Giordano and Carlo Dolci, 229 Giordano's Visit to Spain, 230 Giordano's Works in Spain, 231 Giordano at the Escurial, 232 Giordano's Habits in Spain, 233 Giordano's First Picture Painted in Spain, 233 Giordano a Favorite at Court, 234 Giordano's Return to Naples, 236 Giordano's Personal Appearance and Character, 237 Giordano's Riches, 238 Giordano's Wonderful Facility of Hand, 239 Giordano's Powers of Imitation, 240 Giordano's Fame and Reputation, 240 Remarkable Instance of Giordano's Rapidity of Execution, 242 Revival of Painting in Italy, 244 Giovanni Cimabue, 251 Cimabue's Passion for Art, 252 Cimabue's Famous Picture of the Virgin, 253 The Works of Cimabue, 255 Death of Cimabue, 256 Giotto, 257 Giotto's St. Francis Stigmata, 259 Giotto's Invitation to Rome, 260 Giotto's Living Model, 262 Giotto and the King of Naples, 264 Giotto and Dante, 266 Death of Giotto, 266 Buonamico Buffalmacco, 267 Buffalmacco and his Master, 267 Buffalmacco and the Nuns of the Convent of Faenza, 270 Buffalmacco and the Nun's Wine, 272 Buffalmacco, Bishop Guido and his Monkey, 273 Buffalmacco's Trick on the Bishop of Arezzo, 277 Origin of Label Painting, 278 Utility of Ancient Works, 280 Buffalmacco and the Countryman, 282 Buffalmacco and the People of Perugia, 283 Buffalmacco's Novel Method of Enforcing Payment, 285 Stefano Fiorentino, 286 Giottino, 286 Paolo Uccello, 287 Ucello's Enthusiasm, 288 Uccello and the Monks of San Miniato, 289 Uccello's Five Portraits, 290 Uccello's Incredulity of St. Thomas, 291 The Italian Schools of Painting, 292 Claude Joseph Vernet, 295 Vernet's Precocity, 295 Vernet's Enthusiasm, 296 Vernet at Rome 298 Vernet's "Alphabet of Tones," 299 Vernet and the Connoisseur, 301 Vernet's Works, 301 Vernet's Passion for Music, 306 Vernet's Opinion of his own Merits, 307 Curious Letter of Vernet, 308 Charles Vernet, 310 Anecdote of Charles Vernet, 311 M. de Lasson's Caricature, 311 Frank Hals and Vandyke, 312 ANECDOTES OF PAINTERS, ENGRAVERS, SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. TITIAN,--SKETCH OF HIS LIFE. The name of this illustrious painter was Tiziano Vecellio or Vecelli, and he is called by the Italians, Tiziano Vecellio da Cadore. He was descended of a noble family; born at the castle of Cadore in the Friuli in 1477, and died in 1576, according to Ridolfi; though Vasari and Sandrart place his birth in 1480. Lanzi says he died in 1576, aged 99 years. He early showed a passion for the art, which was carefully cultivated by his parents.--Lanzi says in a note, that it is pretty clearly ascertained that he received his first instruction from Antonio Rossi, a painter of Cadore; if so, it was at a very tender age, for when he was ten years old he was sent to Trevigi, and placed under Sebastiano Zuccati. He subsequently went to Venice, and studied successively under Gentile and Giovanni Bellini. Giorgione was his fellow-student under the last named master, with whom Titian made extraordinary progress, and attained such an exact imitation of his style that their works could scarcely be distinguished, which greatly excited the jealousy of Bellini. On the death of Giorgione, Titian rose rapidly into favor. He was soon afterwards invited to the court of Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara, for whom he painted his celebrated picture of Bacchus and Ariadne, and two other fabulous subjects, which still retain somewhat of the style of Giorgione. It was there that he became acquainted with Ariosto, whose portrait he painted, and in return the poet spread abroad his fame in the Orlando Furioso. In 1523, the Senate of Venice employed him to decorate the Hall of the Council Chamber, where he represented the famous Battle of Cadore, between the Venetians and the Imperialists--a grand performance, that greatly increased his reputation. This work was afterwards destroyed by fire, but the composition has been preserved by the burin of Fontana. His next performance was his celebrated picture of St. Pietro Martire, in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, at Venice, which is generally regarded as his master-piece in historical painting. This picture was carried to Paris by the French, and subsequently restored by the Allies. Notwithstanding the importance of these and other commissions, and the great reputation he had acquired, it is said, though with little probability of truth, that he received such a small remuneration for his works, that he was in actual indigence in 1530, when the praises bestowed upon him in the writings of his friend Pietro Aretino, recommended him to the notice of the Emperor Charles V., who had come to Bologna to be crowned by Pope Clement VII. Titian was invited thither, and painted the portrait of that monarch, and his principal attendants, for which he was liberally rewarded.--About this time, he was invited to the court of the Duke of Mantua, whose portrait he painted, and decorated a saloon in the palace with a series of the Twelve Cæsars, beneath which Giulio Romano afterwards painted a subject from the history of each. In 1543, Paul III. visited Ferrara, where Titian was then engaged, sat for his portrait and invited him to Rome, but previous engagements with the Duke of Urbino, obliged him to decline or defer the invitation. Having completed his undertakings for that prince, he went to Rome at the invitation of the Cardinal Farnese in 1548, where he was received with marks of great distinction. He was accommodated with apartments in the palace of the Belvidere, and painted the Pope, Paul III., a second time, whom he represented seated between the Cardinal Farnese and Prince Ottavio. He also painted his famous picture of Danaë, which caused Michael Angelo to lament that Titian had not studied the antique as accurately as he had nature, in which case his works would have been inimitable, by uniting the perfection of coloring with correctness of design. It is said that the Pope was so captivated with his works that he endeavored to retain him at Rome, and offered him as an inducement the lucrative office of the Leaden Seal, then vacant by the death of Frà Sebastiano del Piombo, but he declined on account of conscientious scruples. Titian had no sooner returned from Rome to Venice, than he received so pressing an invitation from his first protector, Charles V., to visit the court of Spain, that he could no longer refuse; and he accordingly set out for Madrid, where he arrived at the beginning of 1550, and was received with extraordinary honors. After a residence of three years at Madrid, he returned to Venice, whence he was shortly afterwards invited to Inspruck, where he painted the portrait of Ferdinand, king of the Romans, his queen and children, in one picture.--Though now advanced in years, his powers continued unabated, and this group was accounted one of his best productions. He afterwards returned to Venice, where he continued to exercise his pencil to the last year of his long life. TITIAN'S MANNERS. Most writers observe that Titian had four different manners, at as many different periods of his life: first that of Bellini, somewhat stiff and hard, in which he imitated nature, according to Lanzi, with a greater precision than even Albert Durer, so that "the hairs might be numbered, the skin of the hands, the very pores of the flesh, and the reflection of objects in the pupils seen:" second, an imitation of Giorgione, more bold and full of force; Lanzi says that some of his portraits executed at this time, cannot be distinguished from those of Giorgione: third, his own inimitable style, which he practiced from about his thirtieth year, and which was the result of experience, knowledge, and judgment, beautifully natural, and finished with exquisite care: and fourth, the pictures which he painted in his old age. Sandrart says that, "at first he labored his pictures highly, and gave them a polished beauty and lustre, so as to produce their effect full as well when they were examined closely, as when viewed at a distance; but afterwards, he so managed his penciling that their greatest force and beauty appeared at a more remote view, and they pleased less when they were beheld more nearly; so that many of those artists who studied to imitate him, being misled by appearances which they did not sufficiently consider, imagined that Titian executed his works with readiness and masterly rapidity; and concluded that they should imitate his manner most effectually by a freedom of hand and a bold pencil; whereas Titian in reality took abundance of pains to work up his pictures to so high a degree of perfection, and the freedom that appears in the handling was entirely effected by a skillful combination of labor and judgment, and a few bold, artful strokes of the pencil to conceal his labor." TITIAN'S WORKS. The works of Titian, though many of his greatest productions have been destroyed by terrible conflagrations at Venice and Madrid, are numerous, scattered throughout Europe, in all the royal collections, and the most celebrated public galleries, particularly at Venice, Rome, Bologna, Milan, Florence, Vienna, Dresden, Paris, London, and Madrid. The most numerous are portraits, Madonnas, Magdalens, Bacchanals, Venuses, and other mythological subjects, some of which are extremely voluptuous. Two of his grandest and most celebrated works are the Last Supper in the Escurial, and Christ crowned with Thorns at Milan. It is said that the works of Titian, to be appreciated, should be seen at Venice or Madrid, as many claimed to be genuine elsewhere are of very doubtful authenticity. He painted many of his best works for the Spanish court, first for the Emperor Charles V., and next for his successor, Philip II., who is known to have given him numerous commissions to decorate the Escurial and the royal palaces at Madrid. There are numerous duplicates of some of his works, considered genuine, some of which he is supposed to have made himself, and others to have been carefully copied by his pupils and retouched by himself; he frequently made some slight alterations in the backgrounds, to give them more of the look of originals; thus the original of his Christ and the Pharisees, or the Tribute Money, is now in the Dresden Gallery, yet Lanzi says there are numerous copies in Italy, one of which he saw at St. Saverio di Rimini, inscribed with his name, which is believed to be a duplicate rather than a copy. There are more than six hundred engravings from his pictures, including both copper-plates and wooden cuts. He is said to have engraved both on wood and copper himself, but Bartsch considers all the prints attributed to him as spurious, though a few of them are signed with his name, only eight of which he describes. TITIAN'S IMITATORS. Titian, the great head of the Venetian school, like Raffaelle, the head of the Roman, had a host of imitators and copyists, some of whom approached him so closely as to deceive the best judges; and many works attributed to him, even in the public galleries of Europe, were doubtless executed by them. TITIAN'S VENUS AND ADONIS. This chef-d'oeuvre of Titian, so celebrated in the history of art, represents Venus endeavoring to detain Adonis from the fatal chase. Titian is known to have made several repetitions of this charming composition, some of them slightly varied, and the copies are almost innumerable. The original is supposed to have been painted at Rome as a companion to the Danaë, for the Farnese family, about 1548, and is now in the royal gallery at Naples. The most famous of the original repetitions is that at Madrid, painted for King Philip II., when prince of Spain, and about the period of his marriage with Queen Mary of England. There is a fine duplicate of this picture in the English National Gallery, another in the Dulwich gallery, and two or three more in the private collections of England. Ottley thus describes this picture:-- "The figure of Venus, which is seen in a back view, receives the principal light, and is without drapery, save that a white veil, which hangs from her shoulder, spreads itself over the right knee. The chief parts of this figure are scarcely less excellent in respect of form than of coloring. The head possesses great beauty, and is replete with natural expression. The fair hair of the goddess, collected into a braid rolled up at the back of her head, is entwined by a string of pearls, which, from their whiteness, give value to the delicate carnation of her figure. She throws her arms, impassioned, around her lover, who, resting with his right hand upon his javelin, and holding with the left the traces which confine his dogs, looks upon her unmoved by her solicitations, and impatient to repair to the chase. Cupid, meantime, is seen sleeping at some distance off, under the shadow of a group of lofty trees, from one of which are suspended his bow and quiver; a truly poetic thought, by which, it is scarcely necessary to add, the painter intended to signify that the blandishments and caresses of beauty, unaided by love, may be exerted in vain. In the coloring, this picture unites the greatest possible richness and depth of tone, with that simplicity and sobriety of character which Sir Joshua Reynolds so strongly recommends in his lectures, as being the best adapted to the higher kinds of painting. The habit of the goddess, on which she sits, is of crimson velvet, a little inclining to purple, and ornamented with an edging of gold lace, which is, however, so subdued in tone as not to look gaudy, its lining being of a delicate straw color, touched here and there with a slight glazing of lake. The dress of Adonis, also, is crimson, but of a somewhat warmer hue. There is little or no blue in the sky, which is covered with clouds, and but a small proportion of it on the distant hills; the effect altogether appearing, to be the result of a very simple principle of arrangement in the coloring, namely, that of excluding almost all cold tints from the illuminated parts of the picture." TITIAN AND THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. One of the most pleasant things recorded in the life of Titian, is the long and intimate friendship that subsisted between him and the great and good Emperor Charles V., whose name is known in history as one of the wisest and best sovereigns of Europe. According to Vasari, Titian, when he was first recommended to the notice of the Emperor by Pietro Aretino, was in deep poverty, though his name was then known all over Italy. Charles, who appreciated, and knew how to assist genius without wounding its delicacy, employed Titian to paint his portrait, for which he munificently rewarded him. He afterwards invited him to Madrid in the most pressing and flattering terms, where he was received with extraordinary honors. He was appointed gentleman of the Emperor's bed-chamber, that he might be near his person; Charles also conferred upon him the order of St. Jago, and made him a Count Palatine of the empire. He did not grace the great artist with splendid titles and decorations only, but showed him more solid marks of his favor, by be stowing upon him life-rents in Naples and Milan of two hundred ducats each, besides a munificent compensation for each picture. These honors and favors were, doubtless, doubly gratifying to Titian, as coming from a prince who was not only a lover of the fine arts, but an excellent connoisseur. "The Emperor," says Palomino, "having learned drawing in his youth, examined pictures and prints with all the keenness of an artist; and he much astonished Æneas Vicus of Parma, by the searching scrutiny that he bestowed on a print of his own portrait, which that famous engraver had submitted to his eye." Stirling, in his Annals of Spanish Artists, says, that of no prince are recorded more sayings which show a refined taste and a quick eye. He told the Burghers of Antwerp that, "the light and soaring spire of their cathedral deserved to be put under a glass case." He called Florence "the Queen of the Arno, decked for a perpetual holiday." He regretted that he had given his consent for the conversion of the famous mosque of Abderahman at Cordova into a cathedral, when he saw what havoc had been made of the forest of fairy columns by the erection of the Christian choir. "Had I known," said he to the abashed improvers, "of what you were doing, you should have laid no finger on this ancient pile. You have built _a something_, such as is to be found anywhere, and you have destroyed a wonder of the world." The Emperor delighted to frequent the studio of Titian, on which occasions he treated him with extraordinary familiarity and condescension. The fine speeches which he lavished upon him, are as well known as his more substantial rewards. The painter one day happening to let fall his brush, the monarch picked it up, and presented it to the astonished artist, saying, "It becomes Cæsar to serve Titian." On another occasion, Cæsar requested Titian to retouch a picture which hung over the door of the chamber, and with the assistance of his courtiers moved up a table for the artist to stand upon, but finding the height insufficient, without more ado, he took hold of one corner, and calling on those gentlemen to assist, he hoisted Titian aloft with his own imperial hands, saying, "We must all of us bear up this great man to show that his art is empress of all others." The envy and displeasure with which men of pomp and ceremonies viewed these familiarities, that appeared to them as so many breaches in the divinity that hedged their king and themselves, only gave their master opportunities to do fresh honors to his favorite in these celebrated and cutting rebukes: "There are many princes, but there is only one Titian;" and again, when he placed Titian on his right hand, as he rode out on horseback, "I have many nobles, but I have only one Titian." Not less valued, perhaps, by the great painter, than his titles, orders, and pensions, was the delicate compliment the Emperor paid him when he declared that "no other hand should draw his portrait, since he had thrice received immortality from the pencil of Titian." Palomino, perhaps carried away by an artist's enthusiasm, asserts that "Charles regarded the acquisition of a picture by Titian with as much satisfaction as he did the conquest of a province." At all events, when the Emperor parted with all his provinces by abdicating his throne, he retained some of Titian's pictures. When he betook himself to gardening, watchmaking, and manifold masses at San Yuste, the sole luxury to be found in his simple apartments, with their hangings of sombre brown, was that master's St. Jerome, meditating in a cavern scooped in the cliffs of a green and pleasant valley--a fitting emblem of his own retreat. Before this appropriate picture, or the "Glory," which hung in the church of the convent, and which was removed in obedience to his will, with his body to the Escurial, he paid his orisons and schooled his mind to forgetfulness of the pomps and vanities of life. TITIAN AND PHILIP II. Titian was not less esteemed by Philip II., than by his father, Charles V. When Philip married Mary, Queen of England, he presented him his famous picture of Venus and Adonis, with the following letter of congratulation, which may be found in Ticozzi's Life of Titian: "_To Philip, King of England, greeting_: "Most sacred Majesty! I congratulate your Majesty on the kingdom which God has granted to you; and I accompany my congratulations with the picture of Venus and Adonis, which I hope will be looked upon by you with the favorable eye you are accustomed to cast upon the works of your servant "TITIAN." According to Palomino, Philip was sitting on his throne, in council, when the news arrived of the disastrous conflagration of the palace of the Prado, in which so many works by the greatest masters were destroyed. He earnestly demanded if the Titian Venus was among those saved, and on being informed it was, he exclaimed, "Then every other loss may be supported!" TITIAN'S LAST SUPPER AND EL MUDO. Palomino says that when Titian's famous painting of the Last Supper arrived at the Escurial, it was found too large to fit the panel in the refectory, where it was designed to hang. The king, Philip II., proposed to cut it to the proper size. El Mudo (the dumb painter), who was present, to prevent the mutilation of so capital a work, made earnest signs of intercession with the king, to be permitted to copy it, offering to do it in the space of six months. The king expressed some hesitation, on account of the length of time required for the work, and was proceeding to put his design in execution, when El Mudo repeated his supplications in behalf of his favorite master with more fervency than ever, offering to complete the copy in less time than he at first demanded, tendering at the same time his head as the punishment if he failed. The offer was not accepted, and execution was performed on Titian, accompanied with the most distressing attitudes and distortions of El Mudo. TITIAN'S OLD AGE. Titian continued to paint to the last year of his long life, and many writers, fond of the marvellous, assert that his faculties and his powers continued to the last. Vasari, who saw him in 1566 for the last time, said he "could no longer recognize Titian in Titian." Lanzi says, "There remains in the church of S. Salvatore, one of these pictures (executed towards the close of his life), of the Annunciation, which attracts the attention only from the name of the master. Yet when he was told by some one that it was not, or at least did not appear to have been executed by his hand, he was so much irritated that, in a fit of senile indignation, he seized his pencil and inscribed upon it, 'Tizianus fecit, fecit.' Still the most experienced judges are agreed that much may be learned, even from his latest works, in the same manner as the poets pronounce judgment upon the Odyssey, the product of old age, but still by Homer." MONUMENT TO TITIAN. A monument to Titian, from the studio of the brothers Zandomenghi, was erected in Venice in 1852; and the civil, ecclesiastical, and military authorities were present at the ceremony of inauguration. It represents Titian, surrounded by figures impersonating the Fine Arts; below are impersonations of the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. The basement is adorned with five bas-reliefs, representing as many celebrated paintings by the great artist. HORACE VERNET. Among all the artists of our day, is one standing almost alone, and singularly characterized in many respects. He is entirely wanting in that lofty religious character which fills with pureness and beauty the works of the early masters; he has not the great and impressive historical qualities of the school of Raffaelle, nor the daring sublimity of Michael Angelo; he has not the rich luxury of color that renders the works of the great Venetians so gorgeous, nor even that sort of striking reality which makes the subjects rendered by the Flemish masters incomparably life-like. Yet he is rich in qualities deeply attractive and interesting to the people, especially the French people, of our own day. He displays an astonishing capacity and rapidity of execution, an almost unparalleled accuracy of memory, a rare life and motion on the canvass, a vigorous comprehension of the military tactics of the time, a wonderful aptitude at rendering the camp and field potent subjects for the pencil, notwithstanding the regularity of movement, and the unpicturesque uniformity of costume demanded by the military science of our day. Before a battle-piece, of Horace Vernet (and only his battle-pieces are his masterpieces), the crowd stands breathless and horrified at the terrible and bloody aspect of war; while the military connoisseur admires the ability and skill of the feats of arms, so faithfully rendered that he forgets he is not looking at real soldiers in action. In the landscapes and objects of the foreground or background, there are not that charm of color and aërial depth and transparency in which the eye revels, yet there is a hard vigorous actuality which adds to the force and energy of the actors, and strengthens the idea of presence at the battle, without attracting or charming away the mind from the terrible inhumanities principally represented. No poetry, no romance, no graceful and gentle beauty; but the stern dark reality as it might be written in an official bulletin, or related in a vigorous, but cold and accurate, page of history. Such is the distinguishing talent of Horace Vernet--talent sufficient, however, to make his pictures the attractive centres of crowds at the Louvre Exhibitions, and to make himself the favorite of courts and one of the _illustrissimi_ of Europe. The Vernets have been a family of painters during four generations. The great-grandfather of Horace was a well-known artist at Avignon, a hundred and fifty years ago. His son and pupil, Claude Joseph Vernet, was the first marine painter of his time; and occupies, with his works alone, an entire apartment of the French Gallery at the Louvre, besides great numbers of sea-pieces and landscapes belonging to private galleries. He died in 1789, but his son and pupil, Antoine Charles Horace Vernet, who had already during two years sat by his side in the Royal Academy, continued the reputation of the family during the Consulate and Empire. He was particularly distinguished for cavalry-battles, hunting scenes, and other incidents in which the horse figured largely as actor. In some of these pictures the hand of the son already joined itself to that of the father, the figures being from the pencil of Horace; and before the death of the father, which took place in 1836, he had already seen the artistic reputation of the family increased and heightened by the fame of his son. Horace Vernet was born at the Louvre on the 30th June, 1789, the year of the death of his grandfather, who, as painter to the king, had occupied rooms at the Louvre, where his father also resided; so that Horace not only inherited his art from a race of artist-ancestors, but was born amid the _chef d' oeuvres_ of the entire race of painters. Of course, his whole childhood and youth were surrounded with objects of Art; and it was scarcely possible for him not to be impressed in the most lively manner by the unbroken artist-life in which he was necessarily brought up. It would appear that from his childhood he employed himself in daubing on walls, and drawing on scraps of paper all sorts of little soldiers. Like his father and grandfather, his principal lessons as a student were drawn from the paternal experience, and certainly no professor could more willingly and faithfully save him all the loss of time and patience occasioned by the long and often fruitless groping of the almost solitary Art-student. He was also thus saved from falling into the errors of the school of David. Certainly no great _penchant_ towards the antique is discoverable in his father's works; nor in his own do we find painted casts of Greek statues dressed in the uniforms of the nineteenth century. At twenty, it is true, he tried, but without success, the classic subject offered to competition at the Academy for the prize of visiting Rome. The study of the antique did not much delight him. On the contrary, he rather joined with the innovators, whose example was then undermining the over-classic influence of David's school, the most formidable and influential of whom, a youth about his own age, and a fellow-student in his father's atelier, was then painting a great picture, sadly decried at the time, but now considered one of the masterpieces of the French school in the Louvre--the "Raft of the Medusa." Gericault was his companion in the studio and in the field, at the easel and on horseback; and we might trace here one of the many instances of the influence which this powerful and original genius exercised on the young artists of his time, and which, had it not been arrested by his premature death in January, 1824, would have made Gericault more strikingly distinguished as one of the master-spirits in French Art, and the head of a school entirely the opposite to that of David. Horace's youth, however, did not pass entirely under the smiles of fortune. He had to struggle with those difficulties of narrow means with which a very large number of young artists are tolerably intimate. He had to weather the gales of poverty by stooping to all sorts of illustrative work, whose execution we fancy must have been often a severe trial to him. Any youth aiming at "high art," and feeling, though poor, too proud to bend in order to feed the taste, (grotesque and unrefined enough, it must be allowed,) of the good public, which artists somewhat naturally estimate rather contemptuously, might get a lesson of patience by looking over an endless series of the most variedly hideous costumes or caricatures of costume which Horace was glad to draw, for almost any pecuniary consideration. A series of amusingly _naive_ colored prints, illustrating the adventures of poor La Vallière with Louis XIV., would strengthen the lesson. These were succeeded by lithographs of an endless variety of subjects--the soldier's life in all its phases, the "horse and its rider" in all their costumes, snatches of romances, fables, caricatures, humorous pieces, men, beasts, and things. In short, young Horace tried his hand at any thing and every thing in the drawing line, at once earning a somewhat toughly-woven livelihood, and perfecting his talent with the pencil. In later years, the force and freedom of this talent were witnessed to by illustrations of a more important character in a magnificent edition of Voltaire's _Henriade_, published in 1825, and of the well known _Life of Napoleon_ by Laurent. Failing, as we have said, and perhaps fortunately for him, in the achievement of the great Prize of Rome, he turned to the line of Art for which he felt himself naturally endowed, the incidents of the camp and field. The "Taking of a Redoubt;" the "Dog of the Regiment;" the "Horse of the Trumpeter;" "Halt of French Soldiers;" the "Battle of Tolosa;" the "Barrier of Clichy, or Defense of Paris in 1814" (both of which last, exhibited in 1817, now hang in the gallery of the Luxembourg), the "Soldier-Laborer;" the "Soldier of Waterloo;" the "Last Cartridge;" the "Death of Poniatowski;" the "Defense of Saragossa," and many more, quickly followed each other, and kept up continually and increasingly the public admiration. The critics of the painted bas-relief school found much to say against, and little in favor of, the new talent that seemed to look them inimically in the face, or rather did not seem to regard them at all. But people in general, of simple enough taste in matter of folds of drapery or classic laws of composition or antique lines of beauty, saw before them with all the varied sentiments of admiration, terror, or dismay, the soldier mounting the breach at the cannon's mouth, or the general, covered with orders, cut short in the midst of his fame. Little of the romantic, little of poetical idealization, little of far-fetched _style_ was there on these canvasses, but the crowd recognized the soldier as they saw him daily, in the midst of the scenes which the bulletin of the army or the page of the historian had just narrated to them. They were content, they were full of admiration, they admired the pictures, they admired the artist; and, the spleen of critics notwithstanding, Horace Vernet was known as one of the favorite painters of the time. In 1819 appeared the "Massacre of the Mamelukes at Cairo," now in the Luxembourg. We do not know how the public accepted this production. We have no doubt, however, that they were charmed at the gaudy _éclat_ of the bloodthirsty tyrant, with his hookah and lion in the foreground, and dismayed at the base assassinations multiplied in the background. Nor do we doubt that the critics gave unfavorable judgments thereupon, and that most of those who loved Art seriously, said little about the picture. We would at all events express our own regret that the authorities do not find some better works than this and the "Battle of Tolosa," to represent in a public gallery the talent of the most famous battle-painter of France. The Battles of Jemmapes, Valmy, Hanau, and Montmirail, executed at this time, and hung till lately in the gallery of the Palais Royal (now, we fear, much, if not entirely, destroyed by the mob on the 24th February), were much more worthy of such a place. Whether it was by a considerate discernment that the mob attacked these, as the property of the ex-king, or by a mere goth-and-vandalism of revolution, we do not know; but certainly we would rather have delivered up to their wrath these others, the "property of the nation." The same hand would hardly seem to have executed both sets of paintings. It is not only the difference in size of the figures on the canvass, those of the Luxembourg being life-sized, and those of the Palais Royal only a few inches in length, but the whole style of the works is different. The first seem painted as if they had been designed merely to be reproduced in gay silks and worsteds at the Gobelins, where we have seen a copy of the "Massacre of the Mamelukes," in tapestry, which we would, for itself, have preferred to the original. But the latter four battles, notwithstanding the disadvantage of costume and arrangement necessarily imposed by the difference of time and country, produce far more satisfactory works of Art, and come much nearer to historical painting. They are painted without pretension, without exaggeration. The details are faithfully and carefully, though evidently rapidly, executed. The generals and personages in the front are speaking portraits; and the whole scene is full of that sort of life and action which impresses one at once as the very sort of action that must have taken place. Now it is a battery of artillery backed against a wood,--now it is a plain over which dense ranks of infantry march in succession to the front of the fire. Here it is a scene where in the full sunlight shows the whole details of the action; there it is night--and a night of cloud and storm, draws her sombre veil over the dead and wounded covering the field. A historian might find on these canvasses, far better than in stores of manuscript, wherewith to fill many a page of history with accurate and vivid details of these bloody days; or rather, many a page of history would not present so accurate and vivid a conception of what is a field of battle. In 1822, entry to the exhibition at the Louvre being refused to his works, Horace Vernet made an exhibition-room of his atelier, had a catalogue made out (for what with battles, hunts, landscapes, portraits, he had a numerous collection), and the public were admitted. In 1826 he was admitted a Member of the Institute, and in 1830 was appointed Director of the Academy at Rome, so that the young man who could not so far decline his antiques as to treat the classic subject of the Royal Academy, and thus gain the Academy at Rome, now went there as chief of the school, and as one of the most distinguished artists of his time. This residence for five years among the best works of the great masters of Italy naturally inspired him with ideas and desires which it had not been hitherto in his circumstances to gratify. And once installed in the Villa Medici, which he made to resound with the voices of joy and revelry, splendid fêtes and balls, he set himself to study the Italian school. A series of pictures somewhat new in subject and manner of treatment was the result of this change of circumstances and ideas. To the Paris Exhibition of 1831 he sent a "Judith and Holofernes," which is one of the least successful of his pictures in the Luxembourg, where it hangs still, with another sent two years after, "Raffaelle and Michael Angelo in the Vatican." This is perhaps the best of his works at the Luxembourg, all being inferior; but it has a certain dry gaudiness of color, and a want of seriousness of design, which render it unfit to be considered a master-work. One unquestionably preferable, the "Arresting of the Princes at the Palais Royal by order of Anne of Austria," found its way to the Palais Royal, so that in this, as in the other we have remarked, the king seemed to know how to choose better than the Art-authorities of the "Gallery of Living Painters." A number of other pictures testified to the activity of the artist's pencil at Rome:--"Combat of Brigands against the Pope's Riflemen," "Confession of the Dying Brigand," also at the Palais Royal, but also we fear destroyed by the popular vandalism of the 24th February; a "Chase in the Pontine Marshes," "Pope Leo XII. carried into St. Peter's." The favor of the public, however, still turned to the usual subject of Horace Vernet--the French soldier's life; finding which, on his return from Rome, he recurred to his original study. In 1836 he exhibited four new battle-pieces, "Friedland," "Wagram," "Jena," and "Fontenoy," in which were apparent all his usual excellencies. The occupation of the Algerine territory by the French troops afforded the artist an opportunity of exhibiting his powers in that department most suited to them. A whole gallery at Versailles was set apart for the battle-painter, called the _Constantine Gallery_, after the most important feat of arms yet performed by the French troops in Africa, the Taking of the town of Constantine. Some of the solitary and extraordinary, we might say accidental, military exploits in Europe of Louis Philippe's reign, are also commemorated there. The "Occupation of Ancona," the "Entry of the Army into Belgium," the "Attack of the Citadel of Antwerp," the "Fleet forcing the Tagus," show that nothing is forgotten of the Continental doings. The African feats are almost too many to enumerate. In a "Sortie of the Arab Garrison of Constantine," the Duke de Nemours is made to figure in person. Then we have the Troops of Assault receiving the Signal to leave the Trenches, and "The Scaling of the Breach." There are the "Occupation of the Defile of Teniah," "Combat of the Habrah, of the Sickak, of Samah, of Afzoum." In fine, there is the largest canvass in existence, it is said, the "Taking of the Smalah," that renowned occasion when the army was so _very near_ taking Abd-el-Kader; and the "Battle of Isly," which gained that splendid trophy, the parasol of command. Besides these great subjects there are decorations of military trophies and allegorical figures, which seem to have been painted by some pupil of Vernet. These battles were first of all exhibited to the admiration of Paris in the various salons after their execution, and were then sent off to decorate Versailles. There are also, in the _Gallery of French History_, at Versailles, several others of his, such as the "Battle of Bouvines;" "Charles X. reviewing the National Guard;" the "Marshal St. Cyr," and some others among those we have already named. In them the qualities of the artist are manifested more fully, we think, than in any others of his works. They are full of that energy, vivacity, and daguerreotypic verity which he so eminently displays. There is none of that pretension after "high Art" which has injured the effect of some of his pictures. The rapidity of their execution too in general was such, that the public had hardly finished reading the last news of the combats, when the artist, returned in many cases from witnessing the scenes, had placed them on the canvass, and offered them to popular gaze. Yet the canvasses are in many cases of great extent, and often, the figures of life-size. But the artist rarely employs the model, painting mostly from memory, a faculty most astonishingly developed in him. He generally also saves himself the trouble of preparing a smaller sketch to paint after, working out his subject at once in the definitive size. Of course with more serious and elevated subjects, worked out in a more serious and elevated spirit, such a system would not do. But for the style of subject and execution required by Horace Vernet's artistic organization, these careful preparations would not answer. They would only tend to diminish the sweeping passion of the fiery _melée_, and freeze the swift impulsive rush of the attack or flight. Vernet has several times attempted Biblical subjects, but they have never succeeded so well as to add anything to his fame as a battle-painter. "Judah and Tamar," "Agar dismissed by Abraham," "Rebecca at the Fountain," "Judith with the head of Holofernes," "The Good Samaritan," have rather served to illustrate Arab costume and manners, (which he makes out to be the same as, or very similar to, those of old Biblical times,) than to illustrate his own power in the higher range of Art. In the midst of painting all these, Horace Vernet has found time, which for him is the smallest requisite in painting, to produce an innumerable mass of pictures for private galleries, or at the command of various crowned heads; which, with many of those already mentioned, are well known all over Europe by engravings. "The Post of the Desert," "The Prayer in the Desert," "The Lion Hunt in the Desert," "Council of Arabs," "Episode of the Pest of Barcelona," "The Breach of Constantine," "Mazeppa," and a host of others, together with landscapes, portraits, &c., have served both to multiply his works in the galleries of every country in Europe, and to make him one of the most popular of living artists. THE COLOSSEUM. The Colosseum, or Coliseum, was commenced by Vespasian, and completed by Titus, (A. D. 79.) This enormous building occupied only three years in its erection. Cassiodorus affirms that this magnificent monument of folly cost as much as would have been required to build a capital city. We have the means of distinctly ascertaining its dimensions and its accommodations from the great mass of wall that still remains entire; and although the very clamps of iron and brass that held together the ponderous stones of this wonderful edifice were removed by Gothic plunderers, and succeeding generations have resorted to it as to a quarry for their temples and their palaces--yet the "enormous skeleton" still stands to show what prodigious works may be raised by the skill and perseverance of man, and how vain are the mightiest displays of his physical power when compared with those intellectual efforts which have extended the empire of virtue and of science. The Colosseum, which is of an oval form, occupies the space of nearly six acres. It may justly be said to have been the most imposing building, from its apparent magnitude, in the world; the Pyramids of Egypt can only be compared with it in the extent of their plan, as they each cover nearly the same surface. The greatest length, or major axis, is 620 feet; the greatest breadth, or minor axis, is 513 feet. The outer wall is 157 feet high in its whole extent. The exterior wall is divided into four stories, each ornamented with one of the orders of architecture. The cornice of the upper story is perforated for the purpose of inserting wooden masts, which passed also through the architrave and frieze, and descended to a row of corbels immediately above the upper range of windows, on which are holes to receive the masts. These masts were for the purpose of attaching cords to, for sustaining the awning which defended the spectators from the sun or rain. Two corridors ran all round the building, leading to staircases which ascended to the several stories; and the seats which descended towards the arena, supported throughout upon eighty arches, occupied so much of the space that the clear opening of the present inner wall next the arena is only 287 feet by 180 feet. Immediately above and around the arena was the podium, elevated about twelve or fifteen feet, on which were seated the emperor, senators, ambassadors of foreign nations, and other distinguished personages in that city of distinctions. From the podium to the top of the second story were seats of marble for the equestrian order; above the second story the seats appear to have been constructed of wood. In these various seats eighty thousand spectators might be arranged according to their respective ranks; and indeed it appears from inscriptions, as well as from expressions in Roman writers, that many of the places in this immense theatre were assigned to particular individuals, and that each might find his seat without confusion. On extraordinary occasions, 110,000 persons could crowd into it. Gibbon has given a splendid description, in his twelfth book, of the exhibitions in the Colosseum; but he acknowledges his obligations to Montaigne, who, says the historian, "gives a very just and lively view of Roman magnificence in these spectacles." Our readers will, we doubt not, be gratified by the quaint but most appropriate sketch of the old philosopher of France:-- "It was doubtless a fine thing to bring and plant within the theatre a great number of vast trees, with all their branches in their full verdure, representing a great shady forest, disposed in excellent order, and the first day to throw into it a thousand ostriches, a thousand stags, a thousand boars, and a thousand fallow deer, to be killed and disposed of by the people: the next day to cause an hundred great lions, an hundred leopards and three hundred bears to be killed in his presence: and for the third day, to make three hundred pair of fencers to fight it out to the last,--as the Emperor Probus did. It was also very fine to see those vast amphitheatres, all faced with marble without, curiously wrought with figures and statues, and the inside sparkling with rare decorations and enrichments; all the sides of this vast space filled and environed from the bottom to the top, with three or four score ranks of seats, all of marble also, and covered with cushions, where an hundred thousand men might sit placed at their ease; and the place below, where the plays were played, to make it by art first open and cleave into chinks, representing caves that vomited out the beasts designed for the spectacle; and then secondly, to be overflowed with a profound sea, full of sea-monsters, and loaded with ships of war, to represent a naval battle: and thirdly, to make it dry and even again for the combats of the gladiators; and for the fourth scene, to have it strewed with vermilion and storax, instead of sand, there to make a solemn feast for all that infinite number of people--the last act of only one day. "Sometimes they have made a high mountain advance itself, full of fruit-trees and other flourishing sorts of woods, sending down rivulets of water from the top, as from the mouth of a fountain: other whiles, a great ship was seen to come rolling in, which opened and divided itself; and after having disgorged from the hold four or five hundred beasts for fight, closed again, and vanished without help. At other times, from the floor of this place, they made spouts of perfumed water dart their streams upward, and so high as to besprinkle all that infinite multitude. To defend themselves from the injuries of the weather, they had that vast place one while covered over with purple curtains of needle-work, and by-and-by with silk of another color, which they could draw off or on in a moment, as they had a mind. The net-work also that was set before the people to defend them from the violence of these turned-out beasts, was also woven of gold." "If there be anything excusable in such excesses as these," continues Montaigne, "it is where the novelty and invention creates more wonder than expense." Fortunately for the real enjoyments of mankind, even under the sway of a Roman despot, "the novelty and invention" had very narrow limits when applied to matters so utterly unworthy and unintellectual as the cruel sports of the amphitheatre. Probus indeed, transplanted trees to the arena, so that it had the appearance of a verdant grove; and Severus introduced four hundred ferocious animals in one ship sailing in the little lake which the arena formed. But on ordinary occasions, profusion,--tasteless, haughty, and uninventive profusion,--the gorgeousness of brute power, the pomp of satiated luxury--these constituted the only claim to the popular admiration. If Titus exhibited five thousand wild beasts at the dedication of the amphitheatre, Trajan bestowed ten thousand on the people at the conclusion of the Dacian war. If the younger Gordian collected together bears, elks, zebras, ostriches, boars, and wild horses, he was an imitator only of the spectacles of Carus, in which the rarity of the animals was as much considered as their fierceness. NINEVEH AND ITS REMAINS. "For very many centuries, the hoary monuments of Egypt--its temples, its obelisks, and its tombs--have presented to the eye of the beholder strange forms of sculpture and of language; the import of which none could tell. The wild valleys of Sinai, too, exhibited upon their rocky sides the unknown writings of a former people; whose name and existence none could trace. Among the ruined halls of Persepolis, and on the rock-hewn tablets of the surrounding regions, long inscriptions in forgotten characters seemed to enrol the deeds and conquests of mighty sovereigns; but none could read the record. Thanks to the skill and persevering zeal of scholars of the 19th century, the key of these locked up treasures has been found; and the records have mostly been read. The monuments of Egypt, her paintings and her hieroglyphics, mute for so many ages, have at length spoken out; and now our knowledge of this ancient people is scarcely less accurate and extensive than our acquaintance with the classic lands of Greece and Rome. The unknown characters upon the rocks of Sinai have been deciphered, but the meagre contents still leave us in darkness as to their origin and purpose. The cuneiform or arrow-headed inscriptions of the Persian monuments and tablets, have yielded up their mysteries, unfolding historical data of high importance; thus illustrating and confirming the few and sometimes isolated facts preserved to us in the Scriptures and other ancient writings. Of all the works, in which the progress and results of these discoveries have been made known, not one has been reproduced or made generally accessible in this country. The scholar who would become acquainted with them, and make them his own, must still have recourse to the Old World. "The work of Mr. Layard brings before us still another step of progress. Here we have not to do, with the hoary ruins that have borne the brunt of centuries in the presence of the world, but with a resurrection of the monuments themselves. It is the disentombing of temple-palaces from the sepulchre of ages; the recovery of the metropolis of a powerful nation from the long night of oblivion. Nineveh, the great city 'of three days' journey,' that was 'laid waste, and there was none to bemoan her,' whose greatness sank when that of Rome had just begun to rise, now stands forth again to testify to her own splendor, and to the civilization, and power, and magnificence of the Assyrian Empire. This may be said, thus far, to be the crowning historical discovery of the nineteenth century. But the century as yet, is only half elapsed. "Nineveh was destroyed in the year 606 before Christ; less than 150 years after Rome was founded. Her latest monuments, therefore, date back not less than five-and-twenty centuries; while the foundation of her earliest is lost in an unknown antiquity. When the ten thousand Greeks marched over this plain in their celebrated retreat, (404 B.C.) they found in one part, a ruined city called Larissa; and in connection with it, Xenophon, their leader and historian, describes what is now the pyramid of Nimroud. But he heard not the name of Nineveh; it was already forgotten in its site; though it appears again in the later Greek and Roman writers. Even at that time, the widely extended walls and ramparts of Nineveh had perished, and mounds, covering magnificent palaces, alone remained at the extremities of the ancient city, or in its vicinity, much as at the present day. "Of the site of Nineveh, there is scarcely a further mention, beyond the brief notices by Benjamin of Tudela and Abulfeda, until Niebuhr saw it and described its mounds nearly a century ago. In 1820, Mr. Rich visited the spot; he obtained a few square sun-dried bricks with inscriptions, and some other slight remains; and we can all remember the profound impression made upon the public mind, even by these cursory memorials of Nineveh and Babylon." DESCRIPTION OF A PALACE EXHUMED AT NIMROUD. "During the winter, Mr. Longworth, and two other English travelers, visited me at Nimroud. As they were the only Europeans, (except Mr. Ross) who saw the palace when uncovered, it may be interesting to the reader to learn the impression which the ruins were calculated to make upon those who beheld them for the first time, and to whom the scene was consequently new. Mr. Longworth, in a letter, thus graphically describes his visit:-- "'I took the opportunity, whilst at Mosul, of visiting the excavations of Nimroud. But before I attempt to give a short account of them, I may as well say a few words as to the general impression which these wonderful remains made upon me, on my first visit to them. I should begin by stating, that they are all under ground. To get at them, Mr. Layard has excavated the earth to the depth of twelve to fifteen feet, where he has come to a building composed of slabs of marble. In this place, which forms the northwest angle of the mound, he has fallen upon the interior of a large palace, consisting of a labyrinth of halls, chambers, and galleries, the walls of which are covered with bas-reliefs and inscriptions in the cuneiform character, all in excellent preservation. The upper part of the walls, which was of brick, painted with flowers, &c, in the brightest colors, and the roofs, which were of wood, have fallen; but fragments of them are strewed about in every direction. The time of day when I first descended into these chambers happened to be towards evening; the shades of which, no doubt, added to the awe and mystery of the surrounding objects. It was of course with no little excitement that I suddenly found myself in the magnificent abode of the old Assyrian Kings; where, moreover, it needed not the slightest effort of imagination to conjure up visions of their long departed power and greatness. The walls themselves were covered with phantoms of the past; in the words of Byron,'Three thousand years their cloudy wings expand,' unfolding to view a vivid representation of those who conquered and possessed so large a portion of the earth we now inhabit. There they were, in the Oriental pomp of richly embroidered robes, and quaintly-artificial coiffure. There also were portrayed their deeds in peace and war, their audiences, battles, sieges, lion-hunts, &c. My mind was overpowered by the contemplation of so many strange objects; and some of them, the portly forms of kings and vizirs, were so life-like, and carved in such fine relief, that they might almost be imagined to be stepping from the walls to question the rash intruder on their privacy. Then mingled with them were other monstrous shapes--the old Assyrian deities, with human bodies, long drooping wings, and the heads and beaks of eagles; or, still faithfully guarding the portals of the deserted halls, the colossal forms of winged lions and bulls, with gigantic human faces. All these figures, the idols of a religion long since dead and buried like themselves, seemed in the twilight to be actually raising their desecrated heads from the sleep of centuries; certainly the feeling of awe which they inspired me with, must have been something akin to that experienced by their heathen votaries of old.'--_Layard's Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. I. p. 298. "The interior of the Assyrian palace must have been as magnificent as imposing. I have led the reader through its ruins, and he may judge of the impression its halls were calculated to make upon the stranger who, in the days of old, entered for the first time into the abode of the Assyrian Kings. He was ushered in through the portal guarded by the colossal lions or bulls of white alabaster. In the first hall he found himself surrounded by the sculptured records of the empire. Battles, sieges, triumphs, the exploits of the chase, the ceremonies of religion, were portrayed on the walls, sculptured in alabaster, and painted in gorgeous colors. Under each picture were engraved, in characters filled up with bright copper, inscriptions describing the scenes represented. Above the sculptures were painted other events--the king attended by his eunuchs and warriors, receiving his prisoners, entering into alliances with other monarchs, or performing some sacred duty. These representations were enclosed in colored borders, of elaborate and elegant design. The emblematic tree, winged bulls, and monstrous animals were conspicuous among the ornaments. "At the upper end of the hall was the colossal figure of the king in adoration before the supreme deity, or receiving from his eunuch the holy cup. He was attended by warriors bearing his arms, and by the priests or presiding divinities. His robes, and those of his followers, were adorned with groups of figures, animals, and flowers, all painted with brilliant colors. The stranger trod upon the alabaster slabs, each bearing an inscription, recording the titles, genealogy, and achievements of the great King.--Several door-ways, formed by gigantic winged lions or bulls, or by the figures of guardian deities, led into other apartments, which again opened into more distant halls. In each were new sculptures. On the walls of some were processions of colossal figures--armed men and eunuchs following the king, warriors laden with spoil, leading prisoners, or bearing presents and offerings to the gods. On the walls of others were portrayed the winged priests, or presiding divinities, standing before the sacred trees. "The ceilings above him were divided into square compartments, painted with flowers, or with the figures of animals. Some were inlaid with ivory, each compartment being surrounded by elegant borders and mouldings. The beams as well as the sides of the chambers, may have been gilded, or even plated, with gold and silver; and the rarest woods, in which the cedar was conspicuous, were used for the wood work. Square openings in the ceilings of the chambers admitted the light of day. A pleasing shadow was thrown over the sculptured walls, and gave a majestic expression to the human features of the colossal figures which guarded the entrances. Through these apertures was seen the bright blue of an eastern sky, enclosed in a frame on which were painted, in varied colors, the winged circle, in the midst of elegant ornaments, and the graceful forms of ideal animals. "These edifices, as it has been shown, were great national monuments, upon the walls of which were represented in sculpture, or inscribed in alphabetic characters, the chronicles of the empire. He who entered them might thus read the history, and learn the glory and triumphs of the nation. They served at the same time to bring continually to the remembrance of those who assembled within them on festive occasions, or for the celebration of religious ceremonies, the deeds of their ancestors, and the power and majesty of their gods."--_Layard's Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. II. p 262. ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ARCH. The origin of the Arch is very uncertain. It was unknown to the Egyptians, for their chambers were roofed with long flat stones, and sometimes the upper layers of stones form projections, so as to diminish the roof surface. It is also supposed that it was unknown to the Greeks, when they constructed their most beautiful temples, in the 5th, 4th, and 3d centuries B. C., as no structure answering to the true character of the Arch has been found in any of these works. Minutoli has given specimens of arches at Thebes; circular, and formed of four courses of bricks, and it is maintained that these belonged to a very ancient period, long before the Greek occupancy of that country. The Macedonians were a civilized people long before the rest of the Greeks, and were, in fact, their instructors; but the Greeks afterwards so far excelled them that they regarded them as barbarians. Some say that Etruria was the true birth-place of the Arch; it was doubtless from them that the Romans learned its use. Tarquinius Priscus conquered the Etrurians, and he it was who first introduced and employed the Arch in the construction of the cloacæ, or sewers of Rome. The _cloaca maxima_, or principal branch, received numerous other branches between the Capitoline, Palatine, and Quirinal hills. It is formed of three consecutive rows of large stones piled above each other without cement, and has stood nearly 2,500 years, surviving without injury the earthquakes and other convulsions that have thrown down temples, palaces, and churches of the superincumbent city. From the time of Tarquin, the Arch was in general use among the Romans in the construction of aqueducts, public edifices, bridges, &c. The Chinese understood the use of the Arch in the most remote times, and in such perfection as to enable them to bridge large streams with a single span. Mr. Layard has shown that the Ninevites knew its use at least 3000 years ago; he not only discovered a vaulted chamber, but that "arched gate-ways are continually represented in the bas-reliefs." Diodorus Siculus relates that the tunnel from the Euphrates at Babylon, ascribed to Semiramis, was vaulted. There are vaults under the site of the temple at Jerusalem, which are generally considered as ancient as that edifice, but some think them to have been of more recent construction, as they suppose the Jews were ignorant of the Arch; but it is evident that it was well known in the neighboring countries before the Jewish exile, and at least seven or eight centuries before the time of Herod. It seems highly probable, that the Arch was discovered by several nations in very remote times. ANTIQUITIES OF HERCULANEUM, POMPEII, AND STABIÆ. The city of Herculaneum, distant about 11,000 paces from Naples, was so completely buried by a stream of lava and a shower of ashes from the first known eruption of Vesuvius, during the reign of Titus, A. D. 79, that its site was unknown for many ages. The neighboring city of Pompeii, on the river Sarno, one of the most populous and flourishing towns on the coast, as well as Stabiæ, Oplontia, and Teglanum, experienced the same fate. Earlier excavations had already been forgotten, when three female figures, (now in the Dresden Gallery) were discovered while some workmen were digging a well for Prince Elbeuf at Portici, a village situated on the site of ancient Herculaneum. In 1738 the well was dug deeper, and the theatre of Herculaneum was first discovered. In 1750, Pompeii and Stabiæ were explored; the former place being covered with ashes rather than lava, was more easily examined. Here was discovered the extensive remains of an amphitheatre. In the cellar of a villa twenty-seven female skeletons were found with ornaments for the neck and arms; lying around, near the lower door of another villa, two skeletons were found, one of which held a key in one hand, and in the other a bag of coins and some cameos, and near them were several beautiful silver and bronze vessels. It is probable, however, that most of the inhabitants of this city had time to save themselves by flight, as comparatively few bodies have been found. The excavations since the discovery, have been continued by the government, up to the present time, with more or less interruptions. For the antiquary and the archæologist, antiquity seems here to revive and awaken the sensations which Schiller has so beautifully described in his poem of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The ancient streets and buildings are again thrown open, and in them we see, as it were, the domestic life of the ancient Romans. We had never before such an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the disposition of their houses, and of their utensils. Whole streets, with magnificent temples, theatres, and private mansions, have been disentombed. Multitudes of statues, bas-reliefs, and other sculptures have been found in these buried cities; also many fresco paintings, the most remarkable of which are Andromeda and Perseus, Diana and Endymion, the Education of Bacchus, the Battle of Platea, &c. In one splendid mansion were discovered several pictures, representing Polyphemus and Galatea, Hercules and the three Hesperdies, Cupid and a Bacchante, Mercury and Io, Perseus killing Medusa, and other subjects. There were also in the store rooms of the same house, evidently belonging to a very rich family, an abundance of provisions, laid in for the winter, consisting of dates, figs, prunes, various kinds of nuts, hams, pies, corn, oil, peas, lentils, &c. There were also in the same house, vases, articles of glass, bronze, and terra-cotta, several medallions in silver, on one of which was represented in relief, Apollo and Diana. A great treasure of ancient books or manuscripts, consisting of papyrus rolls, has also been discovered, which has excited the greatest curiosity of the learned, in the hope of regaining some of the lost works of ancient writers; but though some valuable literary remains of Grecian and Roman antiquity have been more or less completely restored, the greater part remain yet untouched, no effectual means having been discovered by which the manuscripts could be unrolled and deciphered, owing to their charred and decomposed state. The following vivid sketch of the present appearance of these devoted cities, is from the pen of an American traveler:-- "In the grounds of the Royal Palace at Portici, which are extensive, there is a small fortress, with its angles, its bastions, counter-scarps, and all the geometrical technicalities of Vauban, in miniature. It was erected by Charles III., for the instruction, or perhaps more correctly speaking, the amusement of his sons. The garden on the front of the palace next to the bay, is enchanting. Here, amidst statues, refreshing fountains, and the most luxurious foliage, the vine, the orange, the fig, in short, surrounded by all the poetry of life, one may while 'the sultry hours away,' till the senses, yielding to the voluptuous charm, unfit one for the sober realities of a busy world. "The towns of Portici and Resinia, which are in fact united, are very populous. The shops, at the season of my visit, Christmas, particularly those where eatables were sold, exhibited a very gay appearance; and gilt hams, gilt cheese, festoons of gilt sausages, intermixed with evergreens, and fringes of maccaroni, illuminated Virgin Marys, and gingerbread Holy Families, divided the attention of the stranger, with the motley crowds in all the gay variety of Neapolitan costume. At the depth of seventy or eighty feet beneath these crowded haunts of busy men, lies buried, in a solid mass of hard volcanic matter, the once splendid city of Herculaneum, which was overthrown in the first century of the Christian era, by a terrible eruption of Vesuvius. It was discovered about the commencement of the last century, by the digging of a well immediately over the theatre. For many years the excavations were carried on with spirit; and the forum, theatres, porticos, and splendid mansions, were successively exposed, and a great number of the finest bronzes, marble statues, busts, &c., which now delight the visitor to the Museum at Naples, were among the fruits of these labors. Unfortunately, the parts excavated, upon the removal of the objects of art discovered, were immediately filled up in lieu of pillars, or supports to the superincumbent mass being erected. As the work of disentombment had long since ceased, nothing remained to be seen but part of the theatre, the descent to which is by a staircase made for the purpose. By the light of a torch, carried by the _custode_, I saw the orchestra, proscenium, consular seats, as well as part of the corridors, all stripped, however, of the marbles and paintings which once adorned them. I was shewn the spot where the celebrated manuscripts were found. The reflection that this theatre had held its ten thousand spectators, and that it then lay, with the city of which it was an ornament, so horribly engulphed, gave rise to feelings in awful contrast to those excited by the elysium of Portici almost immediately above. About seven miles further along the base of the mountain, lies the long lost city of Pompeii. The road passes through, or rather over Torre del Greco, a town almost totally destroyed by the eruption in 1794. The whole surface of the country for some distance is laid waste by the river of lava, which flowed in a stream or body, of twenty feet in depth, destroyed in its course vineyards, cottages, and everything combustible, consumed and nearly overwhelmed the town, and at last poured into the sea, where as it cooled, it formed a rugged termination or promontory of considerable height. The surface of this mass presented a rocky and sterile aspect, strongly opposed to the exuberance of vegetation in the more fortunate neighborhood. Passing through Torre del Annunziata, a populous village, the street of which was literally lined with maccaroni hanging to dry, I soon reached Pompeii. Between these last mentioned places, I noticed at the corner of a road a few dwellings, upon the principal of which, an Inn, was inscribed in formidable looking letters, GIOACHINOPOLI. Puzzled at the moment, I inquired what this great word related to, when lo, I was told that I was now in the city of Gioachinopoli, so called in compliment to the reigning sovereign, Gioachino Murat, the termination being added in imitation of the emperor Constantine, who gave his name to the ancient Byzantium! "Although suffering a similar fate with the sister city Herculaneum, the manner of the destruction of Pompeii was essentially different, for while the former lies imbedded at a great depth in solid matter, like mortar or cement, the latter is merely covered with a stratum of volcanic ashes, the surface of which being partly decomposed by the atmosphere, affords a rich soil for the extensive vineyards which are spread over its surface. No scene on earth can vie in melancholy interest with that presented to the spectator on entering the streets of the disinterred city of Pompeii. On passing through a wooden enclosure, I suddenly found myself in a long and handsome street, bordered by rows of tombs, of various dimensions and designs, from the simple cippus or altar, bearing the touching appeal of _siste viator_, stop traveler, to the Patrician mausoleum with its long inscription. Many of these latter yet contain the urns in which the ashes of the dead were deposited. Several large semicircular stone seats mark where the ancient Pompeians had their evening chat, and no doubt debated upon the politics of the day. Approaching the massive walls, which are about thirty feet high and very thick, and entering by a handsome stone arch, called the Herculaneum gate, from the road leading to that city, I beheld a vista of houses or shops, and except that they were roofless, just as if they had been occupied but yesterday, although near eighteen centuries have passed away since the awful calamity which sealed the fate of their inhabitants. The facilities for excavation being great, both on account of the lightness of the material and the little depth of the mass, much of the city has been exposed to view. Street succeeds street in various directions, and porticos, theatres, temples, magazines, shops, and private mansions, all remain to attest the mixture of elegance and meanness of Pompeii; and we can, from an inspection, not only form a most correct idea of the customs and tastes of the ancient inhabitants, but are thereby the better enabled to judge of those of contemporary cities, and learn to qualify the accounts of many of the ancient writers themselves. "Pompeii is so perfectly unique in its kind, that I flatter myself a rather minute description of the state in which I saw it, will not be uninteresting. The streets, with the exception of the principal one, which is about thirty-three feet wide, are very narrow. They are paved with blocks of lava, and have raised side-walks for pedestrians, things very rare in modern Europe. At the corners of the streets are fountains, and also stepping-stones for crossing. The furrows worn by the carriage wheels are strongly marked, and are not more than forty-four inches apart, thus giving us the width of their vehicles. "The houses in general are built with small red bricks, or with volcanic matter from Vesuvius, and are only one or two stories high. The marble counters remain in many of the stores, and the numbers, names of the occupiers, and their occupations, still appear in red letters on the outside. The names of Julius, Marius, Lucius, and many others, only familiar to us through the medium of our classic studies, and fraught with heroic ideas, we here see associated with the retailing of oil, olives, bread, apothecaries' wares, and nearly all the various articles usually found in the trading part of Italian cities even at the present day. All the trades, followed in these various edifices, were likewise distinctly marked by the utensils found in them; but the greater part of these, as discovered, were removed for their better preservation to the great Museum at Naples; a measure perhaps indispensable, but which detracts in some degree from the local interest. We see, however, in the magazine of the oil merchant, his jars in perfect order, in the bakehouse are the hand mills in their original places, and of a description which exactly tallies with those alluded to in holy writ; the ovens scarcely want repairs; where a sculptor worked, there we find his marbles and his productions, in various states of forwardness, just as he left them. "The mansions of the higher classes are planned to suit the delicious climate in which they are situated, and are finished with great taste. They generally have an open court in the centre, in which is a fountain. The floors are of mosaic. The walls and ceilings are beautifully painted or stuccoed and statues, tripods, and other works of art, embellished the galleries and apartments. The kitchens do not appear to have been neglected by the artists who decorated the buildings, and although the painting is of a coarser description than in other parts of the edifices, the designs are in perfect keeping with the plan. Trussed fowls, hams, festoons of sausages, together with the representations of some of the more common culinary utensils, among which I noticed the gridiron, still adorn the walls. In some of the cellars skeletons were found, supposed to be those of the inmates who had taken refuge from the shower of ashes, and had there found their graves, while the bulk of their fellow citizens escaped. In one vault, the remains of sixteen human beings were discovered, and from the circumstance of some valuable rings and a quantity of money being found with the bones, it is concluded that the master of the house was among the sufferers. In this vault or cellar I saw a number of earthen jars, called Amphoræ, placed against the wall. These, which once held the purple juice, perhaps the produce of favorite vintages, were now filled to the brim with ashes. Many of the public edifices are large, and have been magnificent. The amphitheatre, which is oval, upon the plan of that at Verona, would contain above ten thousand spectators. This majestic edifice was disentombed by the French, to whose taste and activity, during their rule in Italy, particularly in the district of Naples, every lover of the arts stands indebted. I had the good fortune to be present at the clearing of a part of the arena of this colossal erection, and witnessed the disclosure of paintings which had not seen the light for above seventeen hundred years. They were executed in what is termed _fresco_, a process of coloring on wet plaster, but which, after it becomes hard, almost defies the effects of time. The subjects of those I allude to were nymphs, and the coloring of the draperies, in some instances, was as fresh as if just applied. "Not far distant from the amphitheatre are two semicircular theatres, one of which is supposed to have been appropriated to tragedy and the other to comedy. The first mentioned is large, and built of stone, or a substance called _tufo_, covered with marble. It had no roof. The Proscenium and Orchestra remain. The stage, or rather the place where it was, is of considerable width, but so very shallow that stage effect, as regards scenery, could not have been much studied, nor indeed did the dramas of the ancients require it. The comic theatre is small, and nearly perfect. It appears to have had a roof or covering. These two theatres are close together. Of the public edifices discovered, the Temple of Isis is one of the most interesting. It is of brick, but coated with a hard and polished stucco. The altars for sacrifice remain unmolested. A hollow pedestal or altar yet exists, from which oracles were once delivered to the credulous multitude, and we behold the secret stairs by which the priests descended to perform the office. In the chamber of this Temple, which may have been a refectory, were found some of the remains of eatables, which are now in the museum. I recollect noticing egg-shells, bread, with the maker's name or initials stamped thereon, bones, corn, and other articles, all burnt black, but perfect in form. The Temple of Hercules, as it is denominated, is a ruin, not one of its massive fragments being left upon another. It was of the Doric order of architecture, and is known to have suffered severely by an earthquake some years before the fatal eruption. Not far from this temple is an extensive court or forum, where the soldiers appear to have had their quarters. In what has evidently been a prison, is an iron frame, like the modern implements of punishment, the stocks, and in this frame the skeletons of some unfortunate culprits were found. On the walls of what are called the soldiers' quarters, from the helmets, shields, and pieces of armor which have been found there, are scrawled names and rude devices, just as we find on the walls of the buildings appropriated to the same purpose in the present day. At this point of the city, travelers who have entered at the other, usually make their exit. The scene possessed far too great an interest, however, in my eyes, to be hastily passed over, and on more than one visit, I lingered among the deserted thresholds, until the moon had thrown her chaste light upon this city of the dead. The feelings excited by a perambulation of Pompeii, especially at such an hour, are beyond the power of my pen to describe. To behold her streets once thronged with the busy crowd, to tread the forum where sages met and discoursed, to enter the theatres once filled with delighted thousands, and the temples whence incense arose, to visit the mansions of the opulent which had resounded with the shouts of revelry, and the humbler dwellings of the artisan, where he had plied his noisy trade, in the language of an elegant writer and philosopher, to behold all these, now tenantless, and silent as the grave, elevates the heart with a series of sublime meditations." ANCIENT FRESCO AND MOSAIC PAINTING. The ancients well understood the arts of painting both in fresco and mosaic, as is evinced by the discoveries made at Rome, but more especially at Pompeii. The most remarkable pictures discovered at Pompeii have been sawed from the walls, and deposited in the Royal Museums at Naples and Portici, for their preservation. Not only mosaic floors and pavements are numerous in the mansions of the wealthy at Pompeii, but some walls are decorated with pictures in mosaic. MOSAIC OF THE BATTLE OF PLATÆA. A grand mosaic, representing as some say the Battle of Platæa, and others, with more probability one of the victories of Alexander, is now in the Academy at Naples. It was discovered at Pompeii, and covered the whole side of the apartment where it was found. This great work is the admiration of connoisseurs and the learned, not only for its antiquity, but for the beauty of its execution. The most probable supposition is, that it is a copy of the celebrated Victory of Arbela, painted by Philoxenes, and described by Pliny as one of the most remarkable works of antiquity, with whose description the mosaic accords. THE ALDOBRANDINI WEDDING. This famous antique fresco was discovered in the time of Clement VIII., not far from the church of S. Maria Maggiore, in the place where were the gardens of Mæcenas. It was carried from thence into the villa of the princely house of the Aldobrandini; hence its name. It is very beautifully executed, and evidently intended to represent or celebrate a wedding. Winckelmann supposes it to be the wedding of Peleus and Thetis; the Count Bondi, that of Manlius and Julia. THE PORTLAND VASE. The most celebrated antique vase is that which, during more than two centuries, was the principal ornament of the Barberini Palace, and which is now known as the Portland Vase. It was found about the middle of the 16th century, enclosed in a marble sarcophagus within a sepulchral chamber under Monte del Grano, two miles and a half from Rome, supposed to have been the tomb of Alexander Severus, who died in the year 235. It is ornamented with white opaque figures in bas-relief, upon a dark blue transparent ground; the subject of which has not hitherto received a satisfactory elucidation, though it is supposed to represent the Eleusinian Mysteries; but the design, and more particularly the execution, are truly admirable. The whole of the blue ground, or at least the part below the handles, must have been originally covered with white enamel, out of which the figures have been sculptured in the style of a cameo, with most astonishing skill and labor. This beautiful Vase is sufficient to prove that the manufacture of glass was carried to a state of high perfection by the ancients. It was purchased by the Duchess of Portland for 1000 guineas, and presented to the British Museum in 1810. The subterranean ruins of Herculaneum afforded many specimens of the glass manufacture of the ancients: a great variety of phials and bottles were found, and these were chiefly of an elongate shape, composed of glass of unequal thickness, of a green color, and much heavier than common glass; of these the four large cinerary urns in the British Museum are very fine specimens. They are of an elegant round figure, with covers, and two double handles, the formation of which must convince persons capable of appreciating the difficulties which even the modern glass-maker would have in executing similar handles, that the ancients were well acquainted with the art of making round glass vessels; although their knowledge appears to have been extremely limited as respects the manufacture of square vessels, and more particularly of oval, octagonal, or pentagonal forms. Among a great number of lachrymatories and various other vessels in the British Museum, there is a small square bottle with a handle, the rudeness of which sufficiently bears out this opinion. ANCIENT PICTURES OF GLASS. A most singular art of forming pictures with colored glass seems to have been practiced by the ancients, which consisted in laying together fibres of glass of various colors, fitted to each other with the utmost exactness, so that a section across the fibres represented the object to be painted, and then cementing them into a homogeneous mass. In some specimens of this art which were discovered about the middle of the 18th century, the painting has on both sides a granular appearance, and seems to have been formed in the manner of mosaic work; but the pieces are so accurately united, that not even with the aid of a powerful magnifying glass can the junctures be discovered. One plate, described by Winckelmann, exhibits a Duck of various colors, the outlines of which are sharp and well-defined, the colors pure and vivid, and a brilliant effect is obtained by the artist having employed in some parts an opaque, and in others a transparent glass. The picture seems to be continued throughout the whole thickness of the specimen, as the reverse corresponds in the minutest points to the face; so that, were it to be cut transversely, the same picture of the Duck would be exhibited in every section. It is conjectured that this curious process was the first attempt of the ancients to preserve colors by fusing them into the internal part of glass, which was, however, but partially done, as the surfaces have not been preserved from the action of the atmosphere. HENRY FUSELI--HIS BIRTH. This eminent historical painter, and very extraordinary man, was born at Zurich, in Switzerland, in 1741, according to all accounts save his own; but he himself placed it in 1745, without adding the day or month. He always spoke of his age with reluctance. Once, when pressed about it, he peevishly exclaimed, "How should I know? I was born in February or March--it was some cursed cold month, as you may guess from my diminutive stature and crabbed disposition." He was the son of the painter, John Caspar Fuseli, and the second of eighteen children. FUSELI'S EARLY LOVE OF ART. During his school-boy days, as soon as released from his class, he was accustomed to withdraw to a secret place to enjoy unmolested the works of Michael Angelo, of whose prints his father had a fine collection. He loved when he grew old to talk of those days of his youth, of the enthusiasm with which he surveyed the works of his favorite masters, and the secret pleasure which he took in acquiring forbidden knowledge. With candles which he stole from the kitchen, and pencils which his pocket-money was hoarded to procure, he pursued his studies till late at night, and made many copies from Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, by which he became familiar thus early with the style and ruling character of the two greatest masters of the art. FUSELI'S LITERARY AND POETICAL TASTE. He early manifested strong powers of mind, and with a two-fold taste for literature and art, he was placed in Humanity College at Zurich, of which two distinguished men, Bodmer and Breitenger, were professors. Here he became the bosom companion of that amiable enthusiast, Lavater, studied English, and conceived such a love for the works of Shakspeare, that he translated Macbeth into German. The writings of Wieland and Klopstock influenced his youthful fancy, and from Shakspeare he extended his affection to the chief masters in English literature. His love of poetry was natural, not affected--he practiced at an early age the art which he admired through life, and some of his first attempts at composition were pieces in his native language, which made his name known in Zurich. FUSELI, LAVATER, AND THE UNJUST MAGISTRATE. In conjunction with his friend Lavater, Fuseli composed a pamphlet against a ruler in one of the bailiwicks, who had abused his powers, and perhaps personally insulted the two friends. The peasantry, it seems, conceiving themselves oppressed by their superior, complained and petitioned; the petitions were read by young Fuseli and his companion, who, stung with indignation at the tale of tyranny disclosed, expressed their feelings in a satire, which made a great stir in the city. Threats were publicly used against the authors, who were guessed at, but not known; upon which they distributed placards in every direction, offering to prove before a tribunal the accusations they had made. Nay, Fuseli actually appeared before the magistrates--named the offender boldly--arraigned him with great vehemence and eloquence, and was applauded by all and answered by none. Pamphlets and accusations were probably uncommon things in Zurich; in some other countries they would have dropped from the author's hands harmless or unheeded; but the united labors of Fuseli and Lavater drove the unjust magistrate into exile, and procured remuneration to those who had suffered. FUSELI'S TRAVELS, AND HIS LITERARY DISTINCTION. Fuseli early gained a reputation for scholarship, poetry, and painting. He possessed such extraordinary powers of memory, that when he read a book once, he thoroughly comprehended its contents; and he not only wrote in Latin and Greek, but spoke them with the fluency of his native tongue. He acquired such a perfect knowledge of the several modern languages of Europe, especially of the English, French, and Italian, that it was indifferent to him which he spoke or wrote, except that when he wished to express himself with most power, he said he preferred the German. After having obtained the degree of Master of Arts from the college at Zurich, Fuseli bade farewell to his father's house, and traveled in company with Lavater to Berlin, where he placed himself under the care of Sulzer, author of the "Lexicon of the Fine Arts." His talents and learning obtained him the friendship of several distinguished men, and his acquaintance with English poetry induced Professor Sulzer to select him as one well qualified for opening a communication between the literature of Germany and that of England. Sir Andrew Mitchell, British ambassador at the Prussian court, was consulted; and pleased with his lively genius, and his translations and drawings from Macbeth and Lear, he received Fuseli with much kindness, and advised him to visit Britain. Lavater, who till now had continued his companion, presented him at parting with a card, on which he had inscribed in German. "Do but the tenth part of what you can do." "Hang that up in your bed-head," said the physiognomist, "obey it--and fame and fortune will be the result." FUSELI'S ARRIVAL IN LONDON. Fuseli arrived in the capital of the British Empire early one morning, before the people were stirring. "When I stood in London," said he, "and considered that I did not know one soul in all this vast metropolis, I became suddenly impressed with a sense of forlornness, and burst into a flood of tears. An incident restored me. I had written a long letter to my father, giving him an account of my voyage, and expressing my filial affection--now not weakened by distance--and with this letter in my hand, I inquired of a rude fellow whom I met, the way to the Post Office. My foreign accent provoked him to laughter, and as I stood cursing him in good Shaksperian English, a gentleman kindly directed me to the object of my inquiry." FUSELI'S CHANGE FROM LITERATURE TO PAINTING. Fuseli's wit, learning, and talents gained him early admission to the company of wealthy and distinguished men. He devoted himself for a considerable time after his arrival in London to the daily toils of literature--translations, essays, and critiques. Among other works, he translated Winckelmann's book on Painting and Sculpture. One day Bonnycastle said to him, after dinner, "Fuseli, you can write well,--why don't you write something?" "Something!" exclaimed the other; "you always cry write--Fuseli write!--blastation! what shall I write?" "Write," said Armstrong, who was present, "write on the Voltaire and Rousseau _Row_--_there_ is a subject!" He said nothing, but went home and began to write. His enthusiastic temper spurred him on, so that he composed his essay with uncommon rapidity. He printed it forthwith; but the whole edition caught fire and was consumed! "It had," says one of his friends, "a short life and a bright ending." While busied with his translations and other literary labors, he had not forgotten his early attachment to Art. He found his way to the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and submitted several of his drawings to the President's examination, who looked at them for some time, and then said, "How long have you studied in Italy?" "I never studied in Italy--I studied at Zurich--I am a native of Switzerland--do you think I should study in Italy?--and, above all, is it worth while?" "Young man," said Reynolds, "were I the author of these drawings, and were offered ten thousand a year _not_ to practice as an artist, I would reject the proposal with contempt." This very favorable opinion from one who considered all he said, and was so remarkable for accuracy of judgment, decided the destiny of Fuseli; he forsook for ever the hard and thankless _trade_ of literature--refused a living in the church from some patron who had been struck with his talents--and addressed himself to painting with heart and hand. FUSELI'S SOJOURN IN ITALY. No sooner had Fuseli formed the resolution of devoting his talents to painting, in 1770, than he determined to visit Rome. He resided in Italy eight years, and studied with great assiduity the pictures in the numerous galleries, particularly the productions of Michael Angelo, whose fine and bold imagination, and the lofty grandeur of his works, were most congenial to his taste. It was a story which he loved to tell in after life, how he lay on his back day after day, and week after week, with upturned and wondering eyes, musing on the splendid ceiling of the Sistine chapel--on the unattainable grandeur of the great Florentine. During his residence abroad, he made notes and criticisms on everything he met with that was excellent, much of which he subsequently embodied in his lectures before the Royal Academy. His talents, acquirements, and his great conversational powers made his society courted; and he formed some valuable acquaintances at Rome, particularly among the English nobility and gentry, who flocked there for amusement, and who heralded his fame at home. He also sent some of his choice drawings, illustrating Shakspeare and Milton, to the annual exhibitions of the Royal Academy. In 1778, he left Italy and returned to England, passing through Switzerland and his native city. FUSELI'S "NIGHTMARE." Soon after his return to England, Fuseli painted his "Nightmare," which was exhibited in 1782. It was unquestionably the work of an original mind. "The extraordinary and peculiar genius which it displayed," says one of his biographers, "was universally felt, and perhaps no single picture ever made a greater impression in this country. A very fine mezzotinto engraving of it was scraped by Raphael Smith, and so popular did the print become, that, although Mr. Fuseli received only twenty guineas for the picture, the publisher made five hundred by his speculation." This was a subject suitable to the unbridled fancy of the painter, and perhaps to no other imagination has the Fiend which murders our sleep ever appeared in a more poetical shape. FUSELI'S "OEDIPUS AND HIS DAUGHTERS." This picture was a work of far higher order than his "Nightmare," although the latter caught the public fancy most. It is distinguished by singular power, full of feeling and terror. The desolate old man is seated on the ground, and his whole frame seems inspired with a presentiment of the coming vengeance of heaven. His daughters are clasping him wildly, and the sky seems mustering the thunder and fire in which the tragic bard has made him disappear. "Pray, sir, what is that old man afraid of?" said some one to Fuseli, when the picture was exhibited. "Afraid, sir," exclaimed the painter, "why, afraid of going to hell!" FUSELI AND THE SHAKSPEARE GALLERY. His rising fame, his poetic feeling, his great knowledge, and his greater confidence, now induced Fuseli to commence an undertaking worthy of the highest genius--the Shakspeare Gallery. An accidental conversation at the table of the nephew of Alderman Boydell, started, as it is said, the idea; and West, Romney, and Hayley shared with Fuseli in the honor. But to the mind of the latter, such a scheme had been long present; it dawned on his fancy in Rome, even as he lay on his back marveling in the Sistine, and he saw in imagination a long and shadowy succession of pictures. He figured to himself a magnificent temple, and filled it, as the illustrious artists of Italy did the Sistine, with pictures from his favorite poet. All was arranged according to character. In the panels and accessories were the figures of the chief heroes and heroines--on the extensive walls were delineated the changes of many-colored life, the ludicrous and the sad--the pathetic and the humorous--domestic happiness and heroic aspirations--while the dome which crowned the whole exhibited scenes of higher emotion--the joys of heaven--the agonies of hell--all that was supernatural and all that was terrible. This splendid piece of imagination was cut down to working dimensions by the practiced hands of Boydell, who supported the scheme anxiously and effectually. On receiving £500 Reynolds entered, though with reluctance, into an undertaking which consumed time and required much thought; but Fuseli had no rich commissions in the way--his heart was with the subject--in his own fancy he had already commenced the work, and the enthusiastic alderman found a more enthusiastic painter, who made no preliminary stipulations, but prepared his palette and began. FUSELI'S "HAMLET'S GHOST." This wonderful work, engraved for Boydell's Shakspeare Gallery, is esteemed among the best of Fuseli's works. It is, indeed, strangely wild and superhuman--if ever a Spirit visited earth, it must have appeared to Fuseli. The "majesty of buried Denmark" is no vulgar ghost such as scares the belated rustic, but a sad and majestic shape with the port of a god; to imagine this, required poetry, and in that our artist was never deficient. He had fine taste in matters of high import; he drew the boundary line between the terrible and the horrible, and he never passed it; the former he knew was allied to grandeur, the latter to deformity and disgust. An eminent metaphysician visited the gallery before the public exhibition; he saw the Hamlet's Ghost of Fuseli, and exclaimed, like Burns' rustic in Halloween, "Lord, preserve me!" He declared that it haunted him round the room. FUSELI'S "TITANIA." His Titania (also engraved in the Shakspeare Gallery), overflows with elvish fun and imaginative drollery. It professes to embody that portion of the first scene in the fourth act where the spell-blinded queen caresses Bottom the weaver, on whose shoulders Oberon's transforming wand has placed an ass' head. Titania, a gay and alluring being, attended by her troop of fairies, is endeavoring to seem as lovely as possible in the sight of her lover, who holds down his head and assumes the air of the most stupid of all creatures. One almost imagines that her ripe round lips are uttering the well-known words,-- "Come sit thee down upon this flowery bed, While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, And stick musk roses in thy sleek smooth head, And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy." The rout and revelry which the fancy of the painter has poured around this spell-bound pair, baffles all description. All is mirthful, tricksy, and fantastic. Sprites of all looks and all hues--of all "dimensions, shapes, and mettles,"--the dwarfish elf and the elegant fay--Cobweb commissioned to kill a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle, that Bottom might have the honey-bag--Pease-Blossom, who had the less agreeable employment of scratching the weaver's head--and that individual fairy who could find the hoard of the squirrel and carry away his nuts--with a score of equally merry companions are swarming everywhere and in full employment. Mustard-Seed, a fairy of dwarfish stature, stands on tiptoe in the hollow of Bottom's hand, endeavoring to reach his nose--his fingers almost touch, he is within a quarter of an inch of scratching, but it is evident he can do no more, and his new master is too much of an ass to raise him up. FUSELI'S ELECTION AS A ROYAL ACADEMICIAN. Fuseli was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1788, and early in 1790 became an Academician--honors won by talent without the slightest coöperation of intrigue. His election was nevertheless unpleasant to Reynolds, who desired to introduce Bonomi the architect. Fuseli, to soothe the President, waited on him beforehand, and said, "I wish to be elected an academician. I have been disappointed hitherto by the deceit of pretended friends--shall I offend you if I offer myself next election?" "Oh, no," said Sir Joshua with a kindly air, "no offence to me; but you cannot be elected this time--we must have an architect in." "Well, well," said Fuseli, who could not conceive how an architect could be a greater acquisition to the Academy than himself--"Well, well, you say that I shall not offend you by offering myself, so I must make a trial." The trial was successful. FUSELI AND HORACE WALPOLE. Concerning his picture of Theodore and Honorio, Fuseli used to say, "Look at it--it is connected with the first patron I ever had." He then proceeded to relate how Cipriani had undertaken to paint for Horace Walpole a scene from Boccaccio's Theodore and Honorio, familiar to all in the splendid translation of Dryden, and, after several attempts, finding the subject too heavy for his handling, he said to Walpole, "I cannot please myself with a sketch from this most imaginative of Gothic fictions; but I know one who can do the story justice--a man of great powers, of the name of Fuseli." "Let me see this painter of yours," said the other. Fuseli was sent for, and soon satisfied Walpole that his imagination was equal to the task, by painting a splendid picture. FUSELI AND THE BANKER COUTTS. While Fuseli was laboring on his celebrated "Milton Gallery," he was frequently embarrassed by pecuniary difficulties. From these he was relieved by a steadfast friend--Mr. Coutts--who aided him while in Rome, and forsook him not in any of his after difficulties. The grateful painter once waited on the banker, and said, "I have finished the best of all my works--the Lazar House--when shall I send it home?" "My friend," said Mr. Coutts, "for me to take this picture would be a fraud upon you and upon the world. I have no place in which it could be fitly seen. Sell it to some one who has a gallery--your kind offer of it is sufficient for me, and makes all matters straight between us." For a period of sixty years that worthy man was the unchangeable friend of the painter. The apprehensions which the latter entertained of poverty were frequently without cause, and Coutts has been known on such occasions to assume a serious look, and talk of scarcity of cash and of sufficient securities. Away flew Fuseli, muttering oaths and cursing all parsimonious men, and having found a friend, returned with him breathless, saying, "There! I stop your mouth with a security." The cheque for the sum required was given, the security refused, and the painter pulled his hat over his eyes, "To hide the tear that fain would fall"-- and went on his way. FUSELI AND PROF. PORSON. Fuseli once repeated half-a-dozen sonorous and well sounding lines in Greek, to Prof. Porson, and said,-- "With all your learning now, you cannot tell me who wrote that." The Professor, "much renowned in Greek," confessed his ignorance, and said, "I don't know him." "How the devil should you know him?" chuckled Fuseli, "I made them this moment." FUSELI'S METHOD OF GIVING VENT TO HIS PASSION. When thwarted in the Academy (which happened not unfrequently), his wrath aired itself in a polyglott. "It is a pleasant thing, and an advantageous," said the painter, on one of these occasions, "to be learned. I can speak Greek, Latin, French, English, German, Danish, Dutch, and Spanish, and so let my folly or my fury get vent through eight different avenues." FUSELI'S LOVE FOR TERRIFIC SUBJECTS. Fuseli knew not well how to begin with quiet beauty and serene grace: the hurrying measures, the crowding epithets, and startling imagery of the northern poetry suited his intoxicated fancy. His "Thor battering the Serpent" was such a favorite that he presented it to the Academy as his admission gift. Such was his love of terrific subjects, that he was known among his brethren by the name of _Painter in ordinary to the Devil_, and he smiled when some one officiously told him this, and said, "Aye! he has sat to me many times." Once, at Johnson the bookseller's table, one of the guests said, "Mr. Fuseli, I have purchased a picture of yours." "Have you, sir; what is the subject?" "Subject? really I don't know." "That's odd; you must be a strange fellow to buy a picture without knowing the subject." "I bought it, sir, that's enough--I don't know what the _devil_ it is." "Perhaps it is the devil," replied Fuseli, "I have often painted him." Upon this, one of the company, to arrest a conversation which was growing warm, said, "Fuseli, there is a member of your Academy who has strange looks--and he chooses as strange subjects as you do." "Sir," exclaimed the Professor, "he paints nothing but thieves and murderers, and when he wants a model, he looks in the glass." FUSELI'S AND LAWRENCE'S PICTURES FROM THE "TEMPEST." Cunningham says, "Fuseli had sketched a picture of Miranda and Prospero from the Tempest, and was considering of what dimensions he should make the finished painting, when he was told that Lawrence had sent in for exhibition a picture on the same subject, and with the same figures. His wrath knew no bounds. 'This comes,' he cried, 'of my blasted simplicity in showing my sketches--never mind--I'll teach the face-painter to meddle with my Prospero and Miranda.' He had no canvas prepared--he took a finished picture, and over the old performance dashed in hastily, in one laborious day, a wondrous scene from the Tempest--hung it in the exhibition right opposite that of Lawrence, and called it 'a sketch for a large picture.' Sir Thomas said little, but thought much--he never afterwards, I have heard, exhibited a poetic subject." FUSELI'S ESTIMATE OF REYNOLDS' ABILITIES IN HISTORICAL PAINTING. Fuseli mentions Reynolds in his Lectures, as a great portrait painter, and no more. One evening in company, Sir Thomas Lawrence was discoursing on what he called the "historic grandeur" of Sir Joshua, and contrasting him with Titian and Raffaelle. Fuseli kindled up--"Blastation! you will drive me mad--Reynolds and Raffaelle!--a dwarf and a giant!--why will you waste all your fine words?" He rose and left the room, muttering something about a tempest in a pint pot. Lawrence followed, soothed him, and brought him back. FUSELI AND LAWRENCE. "These two eminent men," says Cunningham, "loved one another. The Keeper had no wish to give permanent offence, and the President had as little desire to be on ill terms with one so bitter and so satirical. They were often together; and I have heard Sir Thomas say, that he never had a dispute with Fuseli save once--and that was concerning their pictures of Satan. Indeed, the Keeper, both with tongue and pen, took pleasure in pointing out the excellencies of his friend, nor was he blind to his defects. 'This young man,' thus he wrote in one of his early criticisms, 'would do well to look at nature again; his flesh is too glassy.' Lawrence showed his sense of his monitor's accuracy by following the advice." FUSELI AS KEEPER OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. Fuseli, on the whole, was liked as Keeper. It is true that he was often satirical and severe on the students--that he defaced their drawings by corrections which, compared to their weak and trembling lines, seemed traced with a tar-mop, and that he called them tailors and bakers, vowing that there was more genius in the _claw_ of one of Michael Angelo's eagles, than in all the _heads_ with which the Academy was swarming. The youths on whom fell this tempest of invective, smiled; and the Keeper pleased by submission, walked up to each easel, whispered a word of advice confidentially, and retired in peace to enjoy the company of his Homer, Michael Angelo, Dante, and Milton. The students were unquestionably his friends; those of the year 1807 presented him with a silver vase, designed by one whom he loved--Flaxman the sculptor; and he received it very graciously. Ten years after, he was presented with the diploma of the first class in the Academy of St. Luke at Rome. FUSELI'S JESTS AND ODDITIES WITH THE STUDENTS OF THE ACADEMY. The students found constant amusement from Fuseli's witty and characteristic retorts, and they were fond of repeating his jokes. He heard a violent altercation in the studio one day, and inquired the cause. "It is only those fellows, the students, sir," said one of the porters. "Fellows!" exclaimed Fuseli, "I would have you to know, sir, that those _fellows_ may one day become academicians." The noise increased--he opened the door, and burst in upon them, exclaiming, "You are a den of damned wild beasts." One of the offenders, Munro by name, bowed and said, "and Fuseli is our Keeper." He retired smiling, and muttering "the fellows are growing witty." Another time he saw a figure from which the students were making drawings lying broken to pieces. "Now who the devil has done this?" "Mr. Medland," said an officious probationer, "he jumped over the rail and broke it." He walked up to the offender--all listened for the storm. He calmly said, "Mr. Medland, you are fond of jumping--go to Sadler's Wells--it is the best academy in the world for improving agility." A student as he passed held up his drawing, and said confidently, "Here, sir--I finished it without using a crumb of bread." "All the worse for your drawing," replied Fuseli, "buy a two-penny loaf and rub it out." "What do you see, sir?" he said one day to a student, who, with his pencil in his hand and his drawing before him, was gazing into vacancy. "Nothing, sir," was the answer. "Nothing, young man," said the Keeper emphatically, "then I tell you that you ought to see _something_--you ought to see distinctly the true image of what you are trying to draw. I see the vision of all I paint--and I wish to heaven I could paint up to what I see." FUSELI'S SARCASMS ON NORTHCOTE. He loved especially to exercise his wit upon Northcote. He looked on his friend's painting of the Angel meeting Balaam and his Ass. "How do you like it?" said the painter. "Vastly, Northcote," returned Fuseli, "you are an angel at an ass--but an ass at an angel!" When Northcote exhibited his Judgment of Solomon, Fuseli looked at it with a sarcastic smirk on his face. "How do you like my picture?" inquired Northcote. "Much" was the answer--"the action suits the word--Solomon holds out his fingers like a pair of open scissors at the child, and says, 'Cut it.'--I like it much!" Northcote remembered this when Fuseli exhibited a picture representing Hercules drawing his arrow at Pluto. "How do you like my picture?" inquired Fuseli. "Much!" said Northcote--"it is clever, very clever, but he'll never hit him." "He shall hit him," exclaimed the other, "and that speedily." Away ran Fuseli with his brush, and as he labored to give the arrow the true direction, was heard to mutter "Hit him!--by Jupiter, but he shall hit him!" FUSELI'S' SARCASMS ON VARIOUS RIVAL ARTISTS. He rarely spared any one, and on Nollekens he was frequently merciless; he disliked him for his close and parsimonious nature, and rarely failed to hit him under the fifth rib. Once, at the table of Mr. Coutts the banker, Mrs. Coutts, dressed like Morgiana, came dancing in, presenting her dagger at every breast. As she confronted the sculptor, Fuseli called out, "Strike--strike--there's no fear; Nolly was never known to bleed!" When Blake, a man infinitely more wild in conception than Fuseli himself, showed him one of his strange productions, he said, "Now some one has told you this is very fine." "Yes," said Blake, "the Virgin Mary appeared to me and told me it was very fine; what can you say to that?" "Say!" exclaimed Fuseli, "why nothing--only her ladyship has not an immaculate taste." Fuseli had aided Northcote and Opie in obtaining admission to the Academy, and when he desired some station for himself, he naturally expected their assistance--they voted against him, and next morning went together to his house to offer an explanation. He saw them coming--he opened the door as they were scraping their shoes, and said, "Come in--come in--for the love of heaven come in, else you will ruin me entirely." "How so?" cried Opie "Marry, thus," replied the other, "my neighbors over the way will see you, and say, 'Fuseli's _done_,--for there's a bum bailiff,'" he looked at Opie, "'going to seize his person; and a little Jew broker,'" he looked at Northcote, "'going to take his furniture,--so come in I tell you--come in!'" FUSELI'S RETORTS. One day, during varnishing time in the exhibition, an eminent portrait painter was at work on the hand of one of his pictures; he turned to the Keeper, who was near him, and said, "Fuseli, Michael Angelo never painted such a hand." "No, by Pluto," retorted the other, "but you have, _many_!" He had an inherent dislike to Opie; and some one, to please Fuseli, said, in allusion to the low characters in the historical pictures of the Death of James I. of Scotland, and the Murder of David Rizzio, that Opie could paint nothing but vulgarity and dirt. "If he paints nothing but _dirt_," said Fuseli, "he paints it like an angel." One day, a painter who had been a student during the keepership of Wilton, called and said, "The students, sir, don't draw so well now as they did under Joe Wilton." "Very true," replied Fuseli, "anybody may draw here, let them draw ever so bad--_you_ may draw here, if you please!" During the exhibition of his Milton Gallery, a visitor accosted him, mistaking him for the keeper--"Those paintings, sir, are from Paradise Lost I hear, and Paradise Lost was written by Milton. I have never read the poem, but I shall do it now." "I would not advise you, sir," said the sarcastic artist, "you will find it an exceedingly tough job!" A person who desired to speak with the Keeper of the Academy, followed so close upon the porter whose business it was to introduce him, that he announced himself with, "I hope I don't intrude." "You do intrude," said Fuseli, in a surly tone. "Do I?" said the visitor; "then, sir, I will come to-morrow, if you please." "No, sir," replied he, "don't come to-morrow, for then you will intrude a second time: tell me your business now!" A man of some station in society, and who considered himself a powerful patron in art, said at a public dinner, where he was charmed with Fuseli's conversation, "If you ever come my way, Fuseli, I shall be happy to see you." The painter instantly caught the patronizing, self-important spirit of the invitation. "I thank you," retorted he, "but I never go your way--I never even go down your street, although I often pass by the end of it!" FUSELI'S SUGGESTION OF AN EMBLEM OF ETERNITY Looking upon a serpent with its tail in its mouth, carved upon an exhibited monument as an emblem of Eternity, and a very commonplace one, he said to the sculptor, "It won't do, I tell you; you must have something new." The _something new_ startled a man whose imagination was none of the brightest, and he said, "How shall I find something new?" "O, nothing so easy," said Fuseli, "I'll help you to it. When I went away to Rome I left two fat men cutting fat bacon in St. Martin's Lane; in ten years' time I returned, and found the two fat men cutting fat bacon still; twenty years more have passed, and there the two fat fellows cut the fat flitches the same as ever. Carve them! if they look not like an image of eternity, I wot not what does." FUSELI'S REPORT IN MR. COUTTS' BANKING HOUSE. During the exhibition of his Milton pictures, he called at the banking house of Mr. Coutts, saying he was going out of town for a few days, and wished to have some money in his pocket. "How much?" said one of the firm. "How much!" said Fuseli, "why, as much as twenty pounds; and as it is a large sum, and I don't wish to take your establishment by surprise, I have called to give you a day's notice of it!" "I thank you, sir," said the cashier, imitating Fuseli's own tone of irony, "we shall be ready for you--but as the town is thin and money scarce with us, you will oblige me greatly by giving us a few orders to see your Milton Gallery--it will keep cash in our drawers, and hinder your exhibition from being empty." Fuseli shook him heartily by the hand, and cried, "Blastation! you shall have the tickets with all my heart; I have had the opinion of the virtuosi, the dilettanti, the cognoscenti, and the nobles and gentry on my pictures, and I want now the opinion of the blackguards. I shall send you and your friends a score of tickets, and thank you too for taking them." FUSELI'S GENERAL SARCASMS ON LANDSCAPE AND PORTRAIT PAINTERS. During the delivery of one of his lectures, in which he calls landscape painters the topographers of art, Beechey admonished Turner with his elbow of the severity of the sarcasm; presently, when Fuseli described the patrons of portrait painting as men who would give a few guineas to have their own senseless heads painted, and then assume the air and use the language of patrons, Turner administered a similar hint to Beechey. When the lecture was over, Beechey walked up to Fuseli, and said, "How sharply you have been cutting up us poor laborers in portraiture!" "Not you, Sir William," exclaimed the professor, "I only spoke of the blasted fools who employ you!" FUSELI'S OPINION OF HIS OWN ATTAINMENT OF HAPPINESS. His life was not without disappointment, but for upwards of eighty years he was free from sickness. Up to this period, and even beyond it, his spirits seemed inexhaustible; he had enjoyed the world, and obtained no little distinction; nor was he insensible to the advantages which he had enjoyed. "I have been a happy man," he said, "for I have always been well, and always employed in doing what I liked"--a boast which few men of genius can make. When work with the pencil failed, he lifted the pen; and as he was ready and talented with both, he was never obliged to fill up time with jobs that he disliked. FUSELI'S PRIVATE HABITS. He was an early riser, and generally sat down to breakfast with a book on entomology in his hand. He ate and read, and read and ate--regarding no one, and speaking to no one. He was delicate and abstemious, and on gross feeders he often exercised the severity of his wit. Two meals a day were all he ventured on--he always avoided supper--the story of his having supped on raw pork-chops that he might dream his picture of the Nightmare, has no foundation. Indeed, the dreams he delighted to relate were of the noblest kind, and consisted of galleries of the fairest pictures and statues, in which were walking the poets and painters of old. Having finished breakfast and noted down some remarks on entomology, he went into his studio--painted till dinner time--dined hastily, if at home, and then resumed his labors, or else forgot himself over Homer, or Dante, or Shakspeare, or Milton, till midnight. FUSELI'S WIFE'S METHOD OF CURING HIS FITS OF DESPONDENCY. He was subject to fits of despondency, and during the continuance of such moods he sat with his beloved book on entomology upon his knee--touched now and then the breakfast cup with his lips, and seemed resolutely bent on being unhappy. In periods such as these it was difficult to rouse him, and even dangerous. Mrs. Fuseli on such occasions ventured to become his monitress. "I know him well," she said one morning to a friend who found him in one of his dark moods, "he will not come to himself till he is put into a passion--the storm then clears off, and the man looks out serene." "Oh no," said her visitor, "let him alone for a while--he will soon think rightly." He was spared till next morning--he came to the breakfast table in the same mood of mind. "Now I must try what I can do," said his wife to the same friend whom she had consulted the day before; she now began to reason with her husband, and soothe and persuade him; he answered only by a forbidding look and a shrug of the shoulder. She then boldly snatched away his book, and dauntlessly abode the storm. The storm was not long in coming--his own fiend rises up not more furiously from the side of Eve than did the painter. He glared on his friend and on his wife--uttered a deep imprecation--rushed up stairs and strode about his room in great agitation. In a little while his steps grew more regular--he soon opened the door, and descended to his labors all smiles and good humor. Fuseli's method of curing his wife's anger was not less original and characteristic. She was a spirited woman, and one day, when she had wrought herself into a towering passion, her sarcastic husband said, "Sophia, my love, why don't you swear? You don't know how much it would ease your mind." FUSELI'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE, HIS SARCASTIC DISPOSITION, AND QUICK TEMPER. Fuseli was of low stature--his frame slim, his forehead high, and his eyes piercing and brilliant. His look was proud, wrapt up in sarcastic--his movements were quick, and by an eager activity of manner he seemed desirous of occupying as much space as belonged to men of greater stature. His voice was loud and commanding--nor had he learned much of the art of winning his way by gentleness and persuasion--he was more anxious as to say pointed and stinging things, than solicitous about their accuracy; and he had much pleasure in mortifying his brethren of the easel with his wit, and over whelming them with his knowledge. He was too often morose and unamiable--habitually despising those who were not his friends, and not unapt to dislike even his best friends, if they retorted his wit, or defended themselves successfully against his satire. In dispute he was eager, fierce, unsparing, and often precipitated himself into angry discussions with the Council, which, however, always ended in peace and good humor--for he was as placable as passionate. On one occasion he flew into his own room in a storm of passion, and having cooled and come to himself, was desirous to return; the door was locked and the key gone; his fury overflowed all bounds. "Sam!" he shouted to the porter, "Sam Strowager, they have locked me in like a blasted wild beast--bring crowbars and break open the door." The porter--a sagacious old man, who knew the trim of the Keeper--whispered through the keyhole, "Feel in your pocket, sir, for the key!" He did so, and unlocking the door with a loud laugh exclaimed, "What a fool!--never mind--I'll to the Council, and soon show them they are greater asses than myself." FUSELI'S NEAR SIGHT. Fuseli was so near-sighted that he was obliged to retire from his easel to a distance and examine his labors by means of an opera-glass, then return and retouch, and retire again to look. His weakness of sight was well known, and one of the students, in revenge for some satirical strictures, placed a bench in his way, over which he nearly fell. "Bless my soul," said the Keeper, "I must put spectacles on my shins!" FUSELI'S POPULARITY. Notwithstanding his sarcastic temper, and various peculiarities, Fuseli was generally liked, and by none more than by the students who were so often made the objects of his satire. They were sensible that he was assiduous in instruction, that he was very learned and very skilful, and that he allowed no one else to take liberties with their conduct or their pursuits. He had a wonderful tact in singling out the most intellectual of the pupils; he was the first to notice Lawrence, and at the very outset of Wilkie, he predicted his future eminence. FUSELI'S ARTISTIC MERITS. The following critique from the pen of Allan Cunningham, gives a good idea of Fuseli's abilities as an artist. "His main wish was to startle and astonish. It was his ambition to be called Fuseli the daring and the imaginative, the illustrator of Milton and Shakspeare, the rival of Michael Angelo. His merits are of no common order. He was no timid or creeping adventurer in the region of art, but a man peculiarly bold and daring--who rejoiced only in the vast, the wild, and the wonderful, and loved to measure himself with any subject, whether in the heaven above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth. The domestic and humble realities of life he considered unworthy of his pencil, and employed it only on those high or terrible themes where imagination may put forth all her strength, and fancy scatter all her colors. He associated only with the demi-gods of verse, and roamed through Homer, and Dante, and Shakspeare, and Milton, in search of subjects worthy of his hand; he loved to grapple with whatever he thought too weighty for others; and assembling round him the dim shapes which imagination readily called forth, he sat brooding over the chaos, and tried to bring the whole into order and beauty. His coloring is like his design; original; it has a kind of supernatural hue, which harmonizes with many of his subjects--the spirits of the other world and the hags of hell are steeped in a kind of kindred color, which becomes their natural characters. His notion of color suited the wildest of his subjects; and the hue of Satan and the lustre of Hamlet's Ghost are part of the imagination of those supernatural shapes." FUSELI'S MILTON GALLERY, THE CHARACTER OF HIS WORKS, AND THE PERMANENCY OF HIS FAME. The magnificent plan of the "Milton Gallery" originated with Fuseli, was countenanced by Johnson the bookseller, and supported by the genius of Cowper, who undertook to prepare an edition of Milton, with translations of his Latin and Italian poems. The pictures were to have been engraved, and introduced as embellishments to the work.--The Gallery was commenced in 1791, and completed in 1800, containing forty-seven pictures. "Out of the seventy exhibited paintings," says Cunningham, on which he reposed his hopes of fame, not one can be called commonplace--they are all poetical in their nature, and as poetically treated. "Some twenty of these alarm, startle, and displease; twenty more may come within the limits of common comprehension; the third twenty are such as few men could produce, and deserve a place in the noblest collections; while the remaining ten are equal in conception to anything that genius has hitherto produced, and second only in their execution to the true and recognised masterpieces of art. It cannot be denied, however, that a certain air of extravagance and a desire to stretch and strain, are visible in most of his works. A common mind, having no sympathy with his soaring, perceives his defects at once, and ranks him with the wild and unsober--a poetic mind will not allow the want of serenity and composure to extinguish the splendor of the conception; but whilst it notes the blemish, will feel the grandeur of the work. The approbation of high minds fixes the degree of fame to which genius of all degrees is entitled, and the name of Fuseli is safe." SALVATOR ROSA. This celebrated painter was born at Renella, a small village near Naples, in 1615. There is so much fiction mingled with his early history, that it is impossible to arrive at the truth. It is certain, however, that he commenced the study of painting under his brother-in-law, Francesco Fracanzani, that he passed his early days in poverty, that he was compelled to support himself by his pencil, and that he exposed his juvenile performances for sale in the public markets, and often sold them to the dealers for the most paltry prices. SALVATOR ROSA AND CAV. LANFRANCO. To the honor of Cav. Lanfranco, it is related that while riding in his carriage one day along the streets of Naples, he observed one of Salvator's pictures exposed for sale in a shop window, and surprised at the uncommon genius which it displayed, he purchased the picture, and inquired the name of the young artist. The picture dealer, who had probably found Salvator's necessities quite profitable to himself, refused to communicate the desired information, whereupon Lanfranco directed his scholars to watch for his pictures, and seek him out. When he had found him, he generously relieved his wants, and encouraged him in the pursuit of his studies. After receiving some instructions from Aniello Falcone, an eminent painter of battle-pieces, he was admitted, through the influence of Lanfranco, into the academy of Giuseppe Ribera, called Il Spagnoletto, and remained there until the age of twenty, when he accompanied that master to Rome. SALVATOR ROSA AT ROME AND FLORENCE. The Cardinal Brancacci, having become acquainted with the merits of Salvator Rosa at Naples, took him under his protection, and conducted him to his bishopric of Viterbo, where he painted several historical works, and an altar-piece for the cathedral, representing the Incredulity of St. Thomas. On his return to Rome, the prince Gio. Carlo de' Medici employed him to execute several important works, and afterwards invited him to Florence. During a residence of nine years in that city, he greatly distinguished himself as a painter, and also as a satirical and dramatic poet; his Satires, composed in Florence, have passed through several editions. His wit, lively disposition, and unusual conversational powers, drew around him many choice spirits, and his house was the great centre of attraction for the connoisseurs and literati of Florence. He fitted up a private theatre, and was accustomed to perform the principal parts in his comedies, in which he displayed extraordinary talents. He painted many of his choicest pictures for the Grand Duke, who nobly rewarded him; also for the noble family of the Maffei, for their palace at Volterra. SALVATOR ROSA'S RETURN TO ROME. After Salvator Rosa's return to Rome from Florence, he demanded exorbitant prices for his works, and though his greatest talent lay in landscape painting, he affected to despise that branch, being ambitious of shining as an historical painter. He painted some altar-pieces and other subjects for the churches, the chief of which are four pictures in S. Maria di Monte Santo, representing Daniel in the Lions' Den, Tobit and the Angel, the Resurrection of Christ, and the Raising of Lazarus; the Martyrdom of St. Cosimo and St. Damiano, in the church of S. Giovanni. The brightest era of landscape painting is said with truth to have been in the time of Pope Urban VIII., when flourished Claude Lorraine, Gaspar Poussin, and Salvator Rosa. Of these, Salvator was the most distinguished, though certainly not the best; each was the head of a perfectly original school, which had many followers, and each observed nature on the side in which he felt impelled to imitate her. The first admired and represented nature in her sweetest appearance; the second, in her most gorgeous array; and the third in her most convulsed and terrific aspects. SALVATOR ROSA'S SUBJECTS. Salvator Rosa painted history, landscape, battle-pieces, and sea-ports; and of these he was most eminent in landscape. The scholar of Spagnoletto, he attached himself to the strong natural style and dark coloring of that master, which well accords with his subjects. In his landscapes, instead of selecting the cultured amenity which captivates in the views of Claude or Poussin, he made choice of the lonely haunts of wolves and robbers; instead of the delightful vistas of Tivoli and the Campagna, he adopted the savage scenery of the Alps, rocky precipices, caves with wild thickets and desert plains; his trees are shattered, or torn up by the roots, and in the atmosphere itself he seldom introduced a cheerful hue, except occasionally a solitary sunbeam. These gloomy regions are peopled with congenial inhabitants, ferocious banditti, assassins, and outlaws. In his marines, he followed the same taste; they represent the desolate and shelvy shores of Calabria, whose dreary aspect is sometimes heightened by terrific tempests, with all the horrors of shipwreck. His battles and attacks of cavalry also partake of the same principle of wild beauty; the fury of the combatants, and the fiery animation of the horses are depicted with a truth and effect that strikes the mind with horror. Notwithstanding the singularity and fierceness of his style, he captivates by the unbounded wildness of his fancy, and the picturesque solemnity of his scenes. Salvator Rosa wrought with wonderful facility, and could paint a well finished landscape and insert all the figures in one day; it is impossible to inspect one of his bold, rapid sketches, without being struck with the fertility of his invention, and the skill of hand that rivalled in execution the activity of his mind. He was also an excellent portrait painter. A portrait of himself is in the church degli Angeli, where his remains were interred, and he introduced his own portrait into several of his pictures, one of which is in the Chigi gallery, representing a wild scene with a poet in a sitting attitude, (with the features of Salvator); before him stands a satyr, allusive to his satiric style of poetry. During his life-time, his works were much sought after by princes and nobles, and they are now to be found in the choicest collections of Italy and of Europe. There is a landscape in the English National Gallery which cost 1800 guineas; a picture in the collection of Sir Mark Sykes brought the enormous sum of 2100 guineas. FLAGELLATION OF SALVATOR ROSA. It happened one day that Salvator Rosa, in his youth, on his way to mass, brought with him by mistake, his bundle of burned sticks, with which he used to draw, instead of his mother's brazen clasped missal; and in passing along the magnificent cloisters of the great church of the Certosa at Naples, sacred alike to religion and the arts, he applied them between the interstices of its Doric columns to the only unoccupied space on the pictured walls. History has not detailed what was the subject which occupied his attention on this occasion, but he was working away with all the ardor which his enthusiastic genius inspired, when unfortunately the Prior, issuing with his train from the choir, caught the hapless painter in the very act of scrawling on those sacred walls which required all the influence of the greatest masters to get leave to ornament. The sacrilegious temerity of the boy artist, called for instant and exemplary punishment. Unluckily too, for the little offender, this happened in Lent, the season in which the rules of the rigid Chartreuse oblige the prior and procurator to flagellate all the frati, or lay brothers of the convent. They were, therefore, armed for their wonted pious discipline, when the miserable Salvatoriello fell in their way; whether he was honored by the consecrated hand of the prior, or writhed under the scourge of the procurator, does not appear; but that he was chastised with great severity more than proportioned to his crime, is attested by one of the most scrupulous of his biographers, Pascoli, who, though he dwells lightly on the fact, as he does on others of more importance, confesses that he suffered severely from the monks' flagellation. SALVATOR ROSA AND THE HIGGLING PRINCE. A Roman prince, more notorious for his pretensions to _virtu_ than for his liberality to artists, sauntering one day in Salvator's gallery, in the Via Babbuina, paused before one of his landscapes, and after a long contemplation of its merits, exclaimed, "Salvator mio! I am strongly tempted to purchase this picture: tell me at once the lowest price."--"Two hundred scudi," replied Salvator, carelessly. "Two hundred scudi! Ohime! that is a price! but we'll talk of that another time." The illustrissimo took his leave; but bent upon having the picture, he shortly returned, and again inquired the lowest price. "Three hundred scudi!" was the sullen reply. "Carpo di bacco!" cried the astonished prince; "mi burla, vostra signoria; you are joking! I see I must e'en wait upon your better humor; and so addio, Signor Rosa." The next day brought back the prince to the painter's gallery; who, on entering, saluted Salvator with a jocose air, and added, "Well, Signor Amico, how goes the market to-day? Have prices risen or fallen?" "Four hundred scudi is the price to-day!" replied Salvator, with affected calmness; when suddenly giving way to his natural impetuosity, and no longer stifling his indignation, he burst forth: "The fact is, your excellency shall not now obtain this picture from me at any price; and yet so little do I value its merits, that I deem it worthy no better fate than this;" and snatching the panel on which it was painted from the wall, he flung it to the ground, and with his foot broke it into a hundred pieces. His excellency made an unceremonious retreat, and returned no more to the enraged painter's studio. SALVATOR ROSA'S OPINION OF HIS OWN WORKS. While a Roman nobleman was one day endeavoring to drive a hard bargain with Salvator Rosa, he coolly interrupted him, saying that, till the picture was finished, he himself did not know its value; "I never bargain, sir, with my pencil; for it knows not the value of its own labor before the work is finished. When the picture is done, I will let you know what it costs, and you may then take it or not as you please." SALVATOR ROSA'S BANDITTI. There is an etching by Salvator Rosa, which seems so plainly to tell the story of the wandering artist's captivity, that it merits a particular description. In the midst of wild, rocky scenery, appears a group of banditti, armed at all points, and with all sorts of arms; they are lying in careless attitudes, but with fierce countenances, around a youthful prisoner, who forms the foreground figure, and is seated on a rock, with his languid limbs hanging over the precipice, which may be supposed to yawn beneath. It is impossible to describe the despair depicted in this figure: it is marked in his position, in the drooping of his head, which his nerveless arms seem with difficulty to support, and the little that may be seen of his face, over which, from his recumbent attitude, his hair falls in luxuriant profusion. All is alike destitute of energy and of hope, which the beings grouped around the captive seem to have banished forever by some sentence recently pronounced; yet there is one who watches over the fate of the young victim: a woman stands immediately behind him, with her hand stretched out, while her fore finger, resting on his head, marks him as the subject of discourse which she addresses to the listening bandits. Her figure, which is erect is composed of those bold, straight lines, which in art and nature, constitute the grand. Even the fantastic cap or turban, from which her long dishevelled hair has escaped, has no curve of grace; and her drapery partakes of the same rigid forms. Her countenance is full of stern melancholy--the natural character of one whose feelings and habits are at variance; whose strong passions may have flung her out of the pale of society, but whose womanly sympathies still remain unchanged. She is artfully pleading for the life of the youth, by contemptuously noting his insignificance; but she commands while she soothes. She is evidently the mistress or the wife of the chief, in whoso absence an act of vulgar violence may be meditated. The youth's life is saved: for that cause rarely fails, to which a woman brings the omnipotence of her feelings. SALVATOR ROSA AND MASSANIELLO. It was during the residence of Salvator Rosa in Naples, that the memorable popular tumult under Massaniello took place; and our painter was persuaded by his former master, Aniello Falcone, to become one of an adventurous set of young men, principally painters, who had formed themselves into a band for the purpose of taking revenge on the Spaniards, and were called "La Compagna della Morte." The tragical fate of Massaniello, however, soon dispersed these heroes; and Rosa, fearing he might be compelled to take a similar part in that fatal scene, sought safety by flight, and took refuge in Rome. SALVATOR ROSA AND CARDINAL SFORZA. Salvator Rosa is said never to have suffered the rank or office of his auditors to interfere with the freedom of his expressions in his poetic recitations. Cardinal Sforza Pullavicini, one of the most generous patrons of the fine arts, and a rigid critic of his day, was curious to hear the improvisatore of the Via Babbuina, and sent an invitation requesting Salvator's company at his palace. Salvator frankly declared that two conditions were annexed to his accepting the honor of his Eminence's acquaintance; first, that the Cardinal should come to his house, as he never recited in any other; and second, that he should not object to any passage, the omission of which would detract from the original character of his work, or compromise his own sincerity. The Cardinal accepted the conditions. The next day all the literary coxcombs of Rome crowded to the levee of the hypercritical prelate to learn his opinion of the poet, whose style was without precedent. The Cardinal declared, with a justice which posterity has sanctioned, that "Salvator's poetry was full of splendid passages, but that, as a whole, it was unequal." SALVATOR ROSA'S MANIFESTO CONCERNING HIS SATIRICAL PICTURE LA FORTUNA. In Salvator Rosa's celebrated picture of La Fortuna, the nose of one powerful ecclesiastic, and the eye of another were detected in the brutish physiognomy of the swine treading upon pearls, and in an ass, scattering with his hoofs the laurel and myrtle which lay in his path; and in an old goat, reposing on roses, some there were, who even fancied they discovered the Infallible Lover of Donna Olympia, the Sultana, queen of the Quirinal! The cry of atheism and sedition--of contempt of established authorities--was thus raised under the influence of private pique and long-cherished envy: it soon found an echo in the painted walls where the conclave sat "in close divan," and it was handed about from mouth to mouth, till it reached the ears of the Inquisitor, within the dark recesses of his house of terror. A cloud was now gathering over the head of the devoted Salvator which it seemed no human power could avert. But ere the bolt fell, his fast and tried friend Don Maria Ghigi threw himself between his protégé and the horrible fate which awaited him, by forcing the sullen satirist to draw up an apology, or rather an explanation of his offensive picture. This explanation, bearing title of a "Manifesto," he obtained permission to present to those powerful and indignant persons in whose hands the fate of Salvator now lay; Rosa explained away all that was supposed to be personal in his picture, and proved that his hogs were not churchmen, his mules pretending pedants, his asses Roman nobles, and his birds and beasts of prey the reigning despots of Italy. His imprudence however, subsequently raised such a storm that he was obliged to quit Rome, when he fled to Florence. SALVATOR ROSA'S BANISHMENT FROM ROME. Salvator Rosa secretly deplored his banishment from Rome; and his impatience at being separated from Carlo Rossi and some other of his friends, was so great that he narrowly escaped losing his liberty to obtain an interview with them. About three years after his arrival in Florence, he took post-horses, and at midnight set off for Rome. Having reached the gardens of the "Vigna Navicella," and bribed the custode to lend them for a few hours, and otherwise to assist him, he dispatched a circular billet to eighteen of his friends, supplicating them to give him a rendezvous at the Navicella. Each believed that Salvator had fallen into some new difficulty, which had obliged him to fly from Florence, and all attended his summons. He received them at the head of a well furnished table, embraced them with tenderness, feasted them sumptuously, and then mounting his horse, returned to Florence before his Roman persecutors or Tuscan friends were aware of his adventure. SALVATOR ROSA'S WIT. Salvator Rosa exhibited a clever picture, the work of an amateur by profession a surgeon, which had been rejected by the academicians of St. Luke. The artists came in crowds to see it; and by those who were ignorant of the painter, it was highly praised. On being asked who had painted it by some one, Salvator replied, "It was performed by a person whom the great academicians of St. Luke thought fit to scorn, because his ordinary profession was that of a surgeon. But (continued he), I think they have not acted wisely; for if they had admitted him into their academy, they would have had the advantage of his services in setting the broken and distorted limbs that so frequently occur in their exhibitions." SALVATOR ROSA'S RECEPTION AT FLORENCE. The departure of Salvator Rosa from Rome was an escape: his arrival in Florence was a triumph. The Grand Duke and the princes of his house received him, not as an hireling, but as one whose genius placed him beyond the possibility of dependence. An annual income was assigned to him during his residence in Florence, in the service of the court, besides a stipulated price for each of his pictures: and he was left perfectly unconstrained and at liberty to paint for whom he pleased. HISTRIONIC POWERS OF SALVATOR ROSA. In 1647, Salvator Rosa received an invitation to repair to the court of Tuscany, of which he availed himself the more willingly, as by the machinations of his enemies, he was in great danger of being thrown into prison. At Florence he met with the most flattering reception, not only at the court and among the nobility, but among the literary men and eminent painters with which that city abounded. His residence soon became the rendezvous of all who were distinguished for their talents, and who afterwards formed themselves into an academy, to which they gave the title of "I. Percossi." Salvator, during the carnivals, frequently displayed his abilities as a comic actor, and with such success, that when he and a friend of his (a Bolognese merchant, who, though sixty years old, regularly left his business three months in the year, for the sole pleasure of performing with Rosa) played the parts of Dottore Graziano and Pascariello, the laughter and applause of their audience were so excessive as often to interrupt their performance for a length of time. SALVATOR ROSA'S RECEPTION AT THE PALAZZO PITTI. The character, in fact the manners and the talents of Salvator Rosa came out in strong relief, as opposed to the servile deportment and mere professional acquirements of the herd of artists of all nations then under the protection of the Medici. He was received at the Palazzo Pitti not only as a distinguished artist, but as a guest; and the Medici, at whose board Pulci (in the time of their Magnifico) had sung his Morgante Maggiore with the fervor of a rhapsodist, now received at their table another improvisatore, with equal courtesy and graciousness. The Tuscan nobility, in imitation of the court, and in the desire to possess Salvator's pictures, treated him with singular honor. SATIRES OF SALVATOR ROSA. The boldness and rapidity of Salvator Rosa's pencil, aided by the fertility of his highly poetical imagination, enabled him to paint an immense number of pictures while he was at Florence; but not finding sufficient leisure to follow his other pursuits, he retired to Volterra, after having resided at Florence nine years, respected and beloved by all who knew him. The three succeeding years were passed in the family of the Maffei, alternately at Volterra and their villa at Monte Ruffoli, in which time he completed his Satires, except the Sixth, "L'Invidia;" which was written after the publication of the others. He also painted several portraits for the Maffei, and among others one of himself, which was afterwards presented to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and placed in the Royal Gallery at Florence. SALVATOR ROSA'S HARPSICHORD. Salvator Rosa's confidence in his own powers was as frankly confessed as it was justified by success. Happening one day to be found by a friend in Florence, in the act of modulating on a very indifferent old harpsichord, he was asked how he could keep such an instrument in his house. "Why," said his friend, "it is not worth a scudo." "I will wager what you please," said Salvator, "that it shall be worth a thousand before you see it again." A bet was made, and Rosa immediately painted a landscape with figures on the lid, which was not only sold for a thousand scudi, but was esteemed a capital performance. On one end of the harpsichord he also painted a skull and music-books. Both these pictures were exhibited in the year 1823 at the British Institution. RARE PORTRAIT BY SALVATOR ROSA. While Salvator Rosa was on a visit to Florence, and refused all applications for his pictures he was accidentally taken in to paint what he so rarely condescended to do a portrait. There lived in Florence a good old dame of the name of Anna Gaetano, of some celebrity for keeping a notable inn, over the door of which was inscribed in large letters, "Al buon vino non bisogna fruscia" (good wine needs no bush). But it was not the good wines alone of Madonna Anna that drew to her house some of the most distinguished men of Florence, and made it particularly the resort of the Cavaliere Oltramontani--her humor was as racy as her wine; and many of the men of wit and pleasure about town were in the habit of lounging in the Sala Commune of Dame Gaetano, merely for the pleasure of drawing her out. Among these were Lorenzo Lippi and Salvator Rosa; and, although this Tuscan Dame Quickly was in her seventieth year, hideously ugly, and grotesquely dressed, yet she was so far from esteeming her age an "antidote to the tender passion," that she distinguished Salvator Rosa by a preference, which deemed itself not altogether hopeless of return. Emboldened by his familiarity and condescension, she had the vanity to solicit him to paint her portrait, "that she might," she said, "reach posterity by the hand of the greatest master of the age." Salvator at first received her proposition as a joke; but perpetually teased by her reiterated importunities, and provoked by her pertinacity, he at last exclaimed, "Well, Madonna, I have resolved to comply with your desire; but with this agreement, that, not to distract my mind during my work, I desire you will not move from your seat until I have finished the picture." Madonna, willing to submit to any penalty in order to obtain an honor which was to immortalize her charms, joyfully agreed to the proposition; and Salvator, sending for an easel and painting materials, drew her as she sat before him, to the life. The portrait was dashed off with the usual rapidity and spirit of the master, and was a chef d'oeuvre. But when at last the vain and impatient hostess was permitted to look upon it, she perceived that to a strong and inveterate likeness the painter had added a long beard; and that she figured on the canvas as an ancient male pilgrim--a character admirably suited to her furrowed face, weather-beaten complexion, strong lineaments, and grey hairs. Her mortified vanity vented itself in the most violent abuse of the ungallant painter, in rich Tuscan Billingsgate. Salvator, probably less annoyed by her animosity than disgusted by her preference, called upon some of her guests to judge between them. The artists saw only the merits of the picture, the laughers looked only to the joke. The value affixed to the exquisite portrait soon reconciled the vanity of the original through her interest. After the death of Madonna Anna, her portrait was sold by her heirs at an enormous price, and is said to be still in existence.--_Lady Morgan._ SALVATOR ROSA'S RETURN TO ROME. At the time of Salvator Rosa's return to Rome says Pascoli, he figured away as the _great painter_, opening his house to all his friends, who came from all parts to visit him, and among others, Antonio Abbati, who had resided for many years in Germany. This old acquaintance of the poor Salvatoriello of the Chiesa della Morte at Viterbo, was not a little amazed to find his patient and humble auditor of former times one of the most distinguished geniuses and hospitable Amphitryons of the day. Pascoli gives a curious picture of the prevailing pedantry of the times, by describing a discourse of Antonio Abbati's at Salvator's dinner-table, on the superior merits of the ancient painters over the moderns, in which he "bestowed all the tediousness" of his erudition on the company. Salvator answered him in his own style, and having overturned all his arguments in favor of antiquity with more learning than they had been supported, ended with an impromptu epigram, in his usual way, which brought the laugher's on his side. SALVATOR ROSA'S LOVE OF MAGNIFICENCE. Salvator Rosa was fond of splendor and ostentatious display. He courted admiration from whatever source it could be obtained, and even sought it by means to which the frivolous and the vain are supposed alone to resort. He is described, therefore, as returning to Rome, from which he had made so perilous and furtive an escape, in a showy and pompous equipage, with "servants in rich liveries, armed with silver hafted swords, and otherwise well accoutred." The beautiful Lucrezia, as "sua Governante," accompanied him, and the little Rosalvo gave no scandal in a society where the instructions of religion substitute license for legitimate indulgence. Immediately on his arrival in Rome, Salvator fixed upon one of the loveliest of her hills for his residence, and purchased a handsome house upon the Monte Pincio, on the Piazza della Trinità del Monte--"which," says Pascoli, "he furnished with noble and rich furniture, establishing himself on the great scale, and in a lordly manner." A site more favorable than the Pincio, for a man of Salvator's taste and genius, could scarcely be imagined, commanding at once within the scope of its vast prospect, picturesque views, and splendid monuments of the most important events in the history of man--the Capitol and the Campus Martius, the groves of the Quirinal and the cupola of St. Peter's, the ruined palaces of the Cæsars, and sumptuous villas of the sons of the reigning church. Such was then, as now, the range of unrivalled objects which the Pincio commanded; but the noble terrace smoothed over its acclivities, which recalled the memory of Aurelian and the feast of Belisarius, presented at that period a far different aspect from that which it now offers. Everything in this enchanting sight was then fresh and splendid; the halls of the Villa Medici, which at present only echo to the steps of a few French students or English travelers, were then the bustling and splendid residence of the old intriguing Cardinal Carlo de Medici, called the Cardinal of Tuscany, whose followers and faction were perpetually going to and fro, mingling their showy uniforms and liveries with the sober vestments of the neighboring monks of the convent della Trinità! The delicious groves and gardens of the Villa de Medici then covered more than two English miles, and amidst cypress shades and shrubberies, watered by clear springs, and reflected in translucent fountains, stood exposed to public gaze all that now form the most precious treasures of the Florentine Gallery--the Niobe, the Wrestlers, the Apollo, the Vase, and above all, the Venus of Venuses, which has derived its distinguishing appellation from these gardens, of which it was long the boast and ornament. SALVATOR ROSA'S LAST WORKS. The last performances of Salvator's pencil were a collection of portraits of obnoxious persons in Rome--in other words, a series of caricatures, by which he would have an opportunity of giving vent to his satirical genius; but whilst he was engaged on his own portrait, intending it as the concluding one of the series he was attacked with a dropsy, which in the course of a few months brought him to the grave. SALVATOR ROSA'S DESIRE TO BE CONSIDERED AN HISTORICAL PAINTER. Salvator Rosa's greatest talent lay in landscape painting, a branch which he affected to despise, as he was ambitious of being called an historical painter. Hence he called his wild scenes, with small figures merely accessory, historical paintings, and was offended if others called them landscapes. Pascoli relates that Prince Francisco Ximenes, soon after his arrival at Rome, in the midst of the honors paid him, found time to visit the studio of Salvator Rosa, who showed him into his gallery. The Prince frankly said, "I have come, Signor Rosa, for the purpose of seeing and purchasing some of those beautiful landscapes, whose subjects and manner have delighted me in many foreign collections."--"Be it known then, to your excellency," interrupted Salvator impetuously, "that I know nothing of _landscape_ painting. Something indeed I do know of painting figures and historical subjects, which I strive to exhibit to such eminent judges as yourself, in order that, _once for all_, I may banish from the public mind that _fantastic humor_ of supposing I am a landscape and not an historical painter." At another time, a very rich (_ricchissimo_) Cardinal called on Salvator to purchase some of his pictures As he walked up and down the gallery, he paused before the landscapes, but only glanced at the historical subjects, while Salvator muttered from time to time, "_sempre, sempre, paesi piccoli_," (always, always, some little landscape.) When, at length, the Cardinal carelessly glanced his eye over one of Salvator's great historical pictures, and asked the price, as a sort of introduction, the painter bellowed out, _un milione_; his Eminence, justly offended, made an unceremonious retreat without making his intended purchases, and returned no more. DON MARIO GHIGI, HIS PHYSICIAN, AND SALVATOR ROSA. (_From Lady Morgan's Life of Salvator Rosa._) The princes of the family of Ghigi had been among the first of the aristocratic virtuosi of Rome to acknowledge the merits of Salvator Rosa, as their ancestors had been to appreciate the genius of Raffaelle. Between the Prince Don Mario Ghigi, (whose brother Fabio was raised to the pontifical throne by the name of Alexander VII.) and Salvator, there seems to have existed a personal intimacy; and the prince's fondness for the painter's conversation was such, that during a long illness he induced Salvator to bring his easel to his bedside, and to work in his chamber at a small picture he was then painting for the prince. It happened, that while Rosa was sketching and chatting by the prince's couch, one of the most fashionable physicians in Rome entered the apartment. He appears to have been one of those professional coxcombs, whose pretensions, founded on unmerited vogue, throws ridicule on the gravest calling. After some trite remarks upon the art, the doctor, either to flatter Salvator, or in imitation of the physician of the Cardinal Colonna, who asked for one of Raffaelle's finest pictures as a fee for saving the Cardinal's life, requested Don Mario to give him a picture by Salvator as a remuneration for his attendance. The prince willingly agreed to the proposal; and the doctor, debating on the subject he should choose, turned to Salvator and begged that he would not lay pencil to canvas, until _he_, the Signor Dottore, should find leisure to dictate to him _il pensiero e concetto della sua pittura_, the idea and conceit of his picture! Salvator bowed a modest acquiescence, and went on with his sketch. The doctor having gone the round of professional questions with his wonted pomposity, rose to write his prescription; when, as he sat before the table with eyes upturned, and pen suspended over the paper, Salvator approached him on tiptoe, and drawing the pen gently through his fingers, with one of his old _Coviello_ gesticulations in his character of the mountebank, he said, "_fermati dottor mio!_ stop doctor, you must not lay pen to paper till I have leisure to dictate the idea and conceit of the prescription I may think proper for the malady of his Excellency." "_Diavalo!_" cried the amazed physician, "you dictate a prescription! why, _I_ am the prince's physician, and not _you!_" "And _I, Caro_," said Salvator, "am a painter, and not _you_. I leave it to the prince whether I could not prove myself a better physician than you a painter; and write a better prescription than you paint a picture." The prince, much amused, decided in favor of the painter; Salvator coolly resumed his pencil, and the medical _cognoscente_ permitted the idea of the picture to die away, _sul proprio letto_. DEATH OF SALVATOR ROSA. Salvator Rosa, in his last illness, demanded of the priests and others that surrounded him, what they required of him. They replied, "in the first instance to receive the sacrament as it is administered in Rome to the dying." "To receive the sacrament," says his confessor, Baldovini, "he showed no repugnance, but he vehemently and positively refused to allow the host, with all the solemn pomp of its procession, to be brought to his house, which he deemed unworthy of the divine presence." He objected to the ostentation of the ceremony, to its _éclat_, to the noise and bustle, smoke and heat it would create in the close sick chamber. He appears to have objected to more than it was discreet to object to in Rome: and all that his family and his confessor could extort from him on the subject was, that he would permit himself to be carried from his bed to the parish church, and there, with the humility of a contrite heart, would consent to receive the sacrament at the foot of the altar. As immediate death might have been the consequence of this act of indiscretion, his family, who were scarcely less interested for a life so precious, than for the soul which was the object of their pious apprehensions, gave up the point altogether; and on account of the vehemence with which Salvator spoke on the subject, and the agitation it had occasioned, they carefully avoided renewing a proposition which had rallied all his force of character and volition to their long abandoned post. The rejection of a ceremony which was deemed in Rome indispensably necessary to salvation, by one who was already stamped with the church's reprobation, soon spread; report exaggerated the circumstance into a positive expression of infidelity; and the gossip of the Roman ante-rooms was supplied for the time with a subject of discussion, in perfect harmony with their love for slander, bigotry, and idleness. "As I went forth from Salvator's door," relates the worthy Baldovini, "I met the _Canonico Scornio_, a man who has taken out a license to speak of all men as he pleases. 'And how goes it with Salvator?' demands this Canonico of me. 'Bad enough, I fear.'--Well, a few nights back, happening to be in the anteroom of a certain great prelate, I found myself in the centre of a circle of disputants, who were busily discussing whether the aforesaid Salvator would die a Schismatic, a Huguenot, a Calvinist, or a Lutheran?--'He will die, Signor Canonico,' I replied, 'when it pleases God, a better Catholic than any of those who now speak so slightingly of him!'--and so pursued my way." This _Canonico_, whose sneer at the undecided faith of Salvator roused all the bile of the tolerant and charitable Baldovini, was the near neighbor of Salvator, a frequenter of his hospitable house, and one of whom the credulous Salvator speaks in one of his letters as being "his neighbor, and an excellent gentleman." On the following day, as the Padre sat by the pillow of the suffering Rosa, he had the simplicity, in the garrulity of his heart, to repeat all these idle reports and malicious insinuations to the invalid: "But," says Baldovini, "as I spoke, Rosa only shrugged his shoulders." Early on the morning of the fifteenth of March, that month so delightful in Rome, the anxious and affectionate confessor, who seems to have been always at his post, ascended the Monte della Trinità, for the purpose of taking up his usual station by the bed's head of the fast declining Salvator. The young Agosto flew to meet him at the door, and with a countenance radiant with joy, informed him of the good news, that "his dear father had given evident symptoms of recovery, in consequence of the bursting of an inward ulcer." Baldovini followed the sanguine boy to Iris father's chamber; but, to all appearance Salvator was suffering great agony. "How goes it with thee, Rosa?" asked Baldovini kindly, as he approached him. "Bad, bad!" was the emphatic reply. While writhing with pain, the sufferer added after a moment:--"To judge by what I now endure, the hand of death grasps me sharply." In the restlessness of pain he then threw himself on the edge of the bed, and placed his head on the bosom of Lucrezia, who sat supporting and weeping over him. His afflicted son and friend took their station at the other side of the couch, and stood in mournful silence watching the issue of these sudden and frightful spasms. At that moment a celebrated Roman physician, the Doctor Catanni, entered the apartment. He felt the pulse of Salvator, and perceived that he was fast sinking. He communicated his approaching dissolution to those most interested in the melancholy intelligence, and it struck all present with unutterable grief. Baldovini, however, true to his sacred calling, even in the depth of his human affliction, instantly despatched the young Agosto to the neighboring Convent della Trinità, for the holy Viaticum. While life was still fluttering at the heart of Salvator, the officiating priest of the day arrived, bearing with him the holy apparatus of the last mysterious ceremony of the church. The shoulders of Salvator were laid bare, and anointed with the consecrated oil; some prayed fervently, others wept, and all even still hoped; but the taper which the Doctor Catanni held to the lips of Salvator while the Viaticum was administered, burned brightly and steadily! Life's last sigh had transpired, as religion performed her last rite. Between that luminous and soul-breathing form of genius, and the clod of the valley, there was now no difference; and the "end and object" of a man's brief existence was now accomplished in him who, while yet all young and ardent, had viewed the bitter perspective of humanity with a philosophic eye and pronounced even on the bosom of pleasure, "Nasci poena--Vita labor--Necesse mori." On the evening of the fifteenth of March, 1673, all that remained of the author of Regulus, of Catiline, and the Satires--the gay Formica, the witty Coviello--of the elegant composer, and greatest painter of his time and country--of Salvator Rosa! was conveyed to the tomb, in the church of Santa Maria degli Angioli alle Terme--that magnificent temple, unrivalled even at Rome in interest and grandeur, which now stands as it stood when it formed the Pinacotheca of the Thermæ of Dioclesian. There, accompanied by much funeral pomp, the body of Salvator lay in state; the head and face, according to the Italian custom, being exposed to view. All Rome poured into the vast circumference of the church, to take a last view of the painter of the Roman people--the "Nostro Signor Salvatore" of the Pantheon; and the popular feelings of regret and admiration were expressed with the usual bursts of audible emotions in which Italian sensibility on such occasions loves to indulge. Some few there were, who gathered closely and in silence round the bier of the great master of the Neapolitan school; and who, weeping the loss of the man, forgot for a moment even that genius which had already secured its own meed of immortality. These were Carlo Rossi, Francesco Baldovini, and Paolo Oliva, each of whom returned from the grave of the friend he loved, to record the high endowments and powerful talents of the painter he admired, and the poet he revered. Baldovini retired to his cell to write the Life of Salvator Rosa, and then to resign his own; Oliva to his monastery, to compose the epitaph which is still read on the tomb of his friend; and Carlo Rossi to select from his gallery such works of his beloved painter, as might best adorn the walls of that chapel, now exclusively consecrated to his memory. On the following night, the remains of Salvator Rosa were deposited, with all the awful forms of the Roman church, in a grave opened expressly in the beautiful vestibule of Santa Maria degli Angioli alle Terme. Never did the ashes of departed genius find a more appropriate resting place;--the Pinacotheca of the Thermæ of Dioclesian had once been the repository of all that the genius of antiquity had perfected in the arts; and in the vast interval of time which had since elapsed, it had suffered no change, save that impressed upon it by the mighty mind of Michael Angelo.--_Lady Morgan._ DOMENICHINO. This great artist is now universally esteemed the most distinguished disciple of the school of the Caracci, and the learned Count Algarotti prefers him even to the Caracci themselves. Poussin ranked him next after Raffaelle, and Passeri has expressed nearly the same opinion. He was born at Bologna in 1581, and received his first instruction from Denis Calvart, but having been treated with severity by that master, who had discovered him making a drawing after Annibale Caracci, contrary to his injunction, Domenichino prevailed upon his father to remove him from the school of Calvart, and place him in the Academy of the Caracci, where Guido and Albano were then students. THE DULLNESS OF DOMENICHINO IN YOUTH. The great talents of Domenichino did not develop themselves so early as in many other great painters. He was assiduous, thoughtful and circumspect; which his companions attributed to dullness, and they called him the Ox; but the intelligent Annibale Caracci, who observed his faculties with more attention, testified of his abilities by saying to his pupils, "this Ox will in time surpass you all, and be an honor to the art of painting." It was the practice in this celebrated school to offer prizes to the pupils for the best drawings, to excite them to emulation, and every pupil was obliged to hand in his drawing at certain periods. It was not long after Domenichino entered this school before one of these occasions took place, and while his fellow-students brought in their works with confidence, he timidly approached and presented his, which he would gladly have withheld. Lodovico Caracci, after having examined the whole, adjudged the prize to Domenichino. This triumph, instead of rendering him confident and presumptuous, only stimulated him to greater assiduity, and he pursued his studies with such patient and constant application, that he made such progress as to win the admiration of some of his cotemporaries, and to beget the hatred of others. He contracted a friendship with Albano, and on leaving the school of the Caracci, they visited together, Parma, Modena, and Reggio, to contemplate the works of Correggio and Parmiggiano. On their return to Bologna, Albano went to Rome, whither Domenichino soon followed him, and commenced his bright career. The student may learn a useful lesson from the untiring industry, patience, and humility of this great artist. Passeri attributes his grand achievements more to his amazing study than to his genius; and some have not hesitated to deny that he possessed any genius at all--an opinion which his works abundantly refute. Lanzi says, "From his acting as a continual censor of his own productions, he became among his fellow pupils the most exact and expressive designer, his colors most true to nature, and of the best _impasto_, the most universal master in the theory of his art, the sole painter amongst them all in whom Mengs found nothing to desire except a little more elegance. That he might devote his whole being to the art, he shunned all society, or if he occasionally sought it in the public theatres and markets, it was in order better to observe the play of nature's passions in the features of the people--those of joy, anger, grief, terror, and every affection of the mind, and commit it living to his tablets. Thus it was, exclaims Bellori, that he succeeded in delineating the soul, in coloring life, and raising those emotions in our breasts at which his works all aim; as if he waved the same wand which belonged to the poetical enchanters, Tasso and Ariosto." DOMENICHINO'S SCOURGING OF ST. ANDREW. Domenichino was employed by the Cardinal Borghese, to paint in competition with Guido, the celebrated frescos in the church of S. Gregorio at Rome. Both artists painted the same subject, but the former represented the _Scourging of St. Andrew_, and the latter _St. Andrew led away to the Gibbet_. Lanzi says it is commonly reported that an aged woman, accompanied by a little boy, was seen long wistfully engaged in viewing Domenichino's picture, showing it part by part to the boy, and next, turning to that of Guido, painted directly opposite, she gave it a cursory glance and passed on. Some assert that Annibale Caracci took occasion, from this circumstance, to give his preference to the former picture. It is also related that while Domenichino was painting one of the executioners, he actually threw himself into a passion, using high threatening words and actions, and that Annibale, surprising him at that moment, embraced him, exclaiming, "To-day, my Domenichino, thou art teaching me"--so novel, and at the same time so natural did it appear to him, that the artist, like the orator, should feel within himself all that he would represent to others. THE COMMUNION OF ST. JEROME. The chef-d'oeuvre of Domenichino is the dying St. Jerome receiving the last rites of his church, commonly called the Communion of St. Jerome, painted for the principal altar of St. Girolamo della Carita. This work has immortalized his name, and is universally allowed to be the finest picture Rome can boast after the Transfiguration of Raffaelle. It was taken to Paris by Napoleon, restored in 1815 by the Allies, and has since been copied in mosaic, to preserve so grand a work, the original having suffered greatly from the effects of time. Lanzi says, "One great attraction in the church paintings of Domenichino, consists in the glory of the angels, exquisitely beautiful in feature, full of lively action, and so introduced as to perform the most gracious offices in the piece, as the crowning of martyrs, the bearing of palms, the scattering of roses, weaving the mazy dance, and making sweet melodies." DOMENICHINO'S ENEMIES AT ROME. The reputation which Domenichino had justly acquired at Rome had excited the jealousy of some of his cotemporaries, and the applause bestowed upon his Communion of St. Jerome, only served to increase it. The Cav. Lanfranco in particular, one of his most inveterate enemies, asserted that the Communion of St. Jerome was little more than a copy of the same subject by Agostino Caracci, at the Certosa at Bologna, and he employed Perrier, one of his pupils, to make an etching from the picture by Agostino. But this stratagem, instead of confirming the plagiarism, discovered the calumny, as it proved that there was no more resemblance between the two works than must necessarily result in two artists treating the same subject, and that every essential part, and all that was admired was entirely his own. If it had been possible for modest merit to have repelled the shafts of slander, the work which he executed immediately afterwards in the church of S. Lodovico, representing the life of St. Cecilia, would have silenced the attacks of envy and malevolence; but they only tended to increase the alarm of his competitors, and excite them to redoubled injustice and malignity. Disgusted with these continued cabals, Domenichino quitted Rome, and returned to Bologna, where he resided several years in the quiet practice of his profession, and executed some of his most admired works, particularly the Martyrdom of St. Agnes for the church of that Saint, and the Madonna del Rosario, both of which were engraved by Gerard Audran, and taken to Paris and placed in the Louvre by order of Napoleon. The fame of Domenichino was now so well established that intrigue and malice could not suppress it, and Pope Gregory XV. invited him back to Rome, and appointed him principal painter, and architect to the pontifical palace. DECISION OF POSTERITY ON THE MERITS OF DOMENICHINO. "The public," says Lanzi, "is an equitable judge; but a good cause is not always sufficient without the advantage of many voices to sustain it. Domenichino, timid, retiring, and master of few pupils, was destitute of a party equal to his cause. He was constrained to yield to the crowd that trampled upon him, thus verifying the prediction of Monsignore Agucchi, that his merits would never be rightly appreciated during his life-time. The spirit of party having passed away, impartial posterity has rendered him justice; nor is there a royal gallery but confesses an ambition to possess his works. His figure pieces are in the highest esteem, and command enormous prices." PROOF OF THE MERITS OF DOMENICHINO. No better proof of the exalted merits of Domenichino can be desired, than the fact that upwards of fifty of his works have been engraved by the most renowned engravers, as Gerard Audran, Raffaelle Morghen, Sir Robert Strange, C. F. von Muller, and other illustrious artists; many of these also have been frequently repeated. DOMENICHINO'S CARICATURES. While Domenichino was in Naples, he was visited by his biographer Passeri, then a young man, who was engaged to assist in repairing the pictures in the Cardinal's chapel. "When he arrived at Frescati," says Passeri, "Domenichino received me with much courtesy, and hearing that I took a singular delight in the belles-lettres, it increased his kindness to me. I remember that I gazed on this man as though he were an angel. I remained there to the end of September, occupied in restoring the chapel of St. Sebastian, which had been ruined by the damp. Sometimes Domenichino would join us, singing delightfully to recreate himself. When night set in, we returned to our apartment; while he most frequently remained in his room, occupied in drawing, and permitting none to see him. Sometimes, however, to pass the time, he drew caricatures of us all, and of the inhabitants of the villa. When he succeeded to his perfect satisfaction, he was wont to indulge in immoderate fits of laughter; and we, who were in the adjoining room, would run in to know his reason, when he showed us his spirited sketches. He drew a caricature of me with a guitar, one of Carmini (the painter), and one of the Guarda Roba, who was lame of the gout; and of the Sub-guarda Roba, a most ridiculous figure--to prevent our being offended, he caricatured himself. These portraits are now preserved by Signor Giovanni Pietro Bellori." INTRIGUES OF THE NEAPOLITAN TRIUMVIRATE OF PAINTERS. The conspiracy of Bellisario Corenzio, Giuseppe Ribera, and Gio. Battista Caracciolo, called the Neapolitan Triumvirate of Painters, to monopolize to themselves all valuable commissions, and particularly the honor of decorating the chapel of St. Januarius, is one of the most curious passages in the history of art. The following is Lanzi's account of this disgraceful cabal: "The three masters whom I have just noticed in successive order, (Corenzio, Ribera, and Caracciolo) were the authors of the unceasing persecutions which many of the artists who had come to, or were invited to Naples, were for several years subjected to. Bellisario had established a supreme dominion, or rather a tyranny, over the Neapolitan painters, by calumny and insolence, as well as by his station. He monopolized all lucrative commissions to himself, and recommended, for the fulfilment of others, one or other of the numerous and inferior artists that were dependent on him. The Cav. Massimo Stanziozi, Santafede, and other artists of talent, if they did not defer to him, were careful not to offend him, as they knew him to be a man of a vindictive temper, treacherous, and capable of every violence, and who was known, through jealousy, to have administered poison to Luigi Roderigo, the most promising and the most amiable of his scholars. "Bellisario, in order to maintain himself in his assumed authority, endeavored to exclude all strangers who painted in fresco rather than in oil. Annibale Caracci arrived there in 1609, and was engaged to ornament the churches of Spirito Santo and Gesu Nuovo, for which, as a specimen of his style, he painted a small picture. The Greek and his adherents being required to give their opinion on this exquisite production, declared it to be tasteless, and decided that the painter of it did not possess talent for large compositions. This divine artist in consequence took his departure under a burning sun, for Rome, where he soon afterwards died. But the work in which strangers were the most opposed was the chapel of S. Gennaro, which a committee had assigned to the Cav. d'Arpino, as soon as he should finish painting the choir of the Certosa. Bellisorio, leaguing with Spagnoletto (like himself a fierce and ungovernable man) and with Caracciolo, who aspired to this commission, persecuted Cesari in such a manner, that before he had finished the choir he fled to Monte Cassino, and from thence returned to Rome. The work was then given to Guido, but after a short time two unknown persons assaulted the servant of that artist, and at the same time desired him to inform his master that he must prepare himself for death, or instantly quit Naples, with which latter mandate Guido immediately complied. Gessi, the scholar of Guido, was not however intimidated by this event, but applied for, and obtained the honorable commission, and came to Naples with two assistants, Gio. Batista Ruggieri and Lorenzo Menini. But these artists were scarcely arrived, when they were treacherously invited on board a galley, which immediately weighed anchor and carried them off, to the great dismay of their master, who although he made the most diligent inquiries both at Rome and Naples, could never procure any tidings of them. "Gessi in consequence also taking his departure, the committee lost all hope of succeeding in their task, and were in the act of yielding to the reigning cabal, assigning the fresco work to Corenzio and Caracciolo, and promising the pictures to Spagnoletto, when suddenly repenting of their resolution, they effaced all that was painted of the two frescos, and intrusted the decoration of the chapel entirely to Domenichino. It ought to be mentioned to the honor of these munificent persons, that they engaged to pay for every entire figure, 100 ducats, for each half-figure 50 ducats, and for each head 25 ducats. They took precautions also against any interruption to the artist, threatening the Viceroy's high displeasure if he were in any way molested. But this was only matter of derision to the junta. They began immediately to cry him down as a cold and insipid painter, and to discredit him with those, the most numerous class in every place, who see only with the eyes of others. They harassed him by calumnies, by anonymous letters, by displacing his pictures, by mixing injurious ingredients with his colors, and by the most insidious malice they procured some of his pictures to be sent by the viceroy to the court of Madrid; and these, when little more than sketched, were taken from his studio and carried to the court, where Spagnoletto ordered them to be retouched, and, without giving him time to finish them, hurried them to their destination. This malicious fraud of his rival, the complaints of the committee, who always met with some fresh obstacle to the completion of the work, and the suspicion of some evil design, at last determined Domenichino to depart secretly to Rome. As soon however as the news of his flight transpired, he was recalled, and fresh measures taken for his protection; when he resumed his labors, and decorated the walls and base of the cupola, and made considerable progress in the painting of his pictures. "But before he could finish his task he was interrupted by death, hastened either by poison, or by the many severe vexations he had experienced both from his relatives and his adversaries, and the weight of which was augmented by the arrival of his former enemy Lanfranco. This artist superceded Zampieri in the painting of the basin of the chapel; Spagnoletto, in one of his oil pictures; Stanzioni in another; and each of these artists, excited by emulation, rivaled, if he did not excel, Domenichino. Caracciolo was dead. Bellisario, from his great age, took no share in it, and was soon afterwards killed by a fall from a stage, which he had erected for the purpose of retouching some of his frescos. Nor did Spagnoletto experience a better fate; for, having seduced a young girl, and become insupportable even to himself from the general odium which he experienced, he embarked on board a ship; nor is it known whither he fled, or how he ended his life, if we may credit the Neapolitan writers. Palomino, however, states him to have died in Naples in 1656, aged sixty-seven, though he does not contradict the first part of our statement. Thus these ambitious men, who by violence or fraud had influenced and abused the generosity and taste of so many noble patrons, and to whose treachery and sanguinary vengeance so many professors of the art had fallen victims, ultimately reaped the merited fruit of their conduct in a violent death; and an impartial posterity, in assigning the palm of merit to Domenichino, inculcates the maxim, that it is a delusive hope to attempt to establish fame and fortune on the destruction of another's reputation." GIUSEPPE RIBERA, CALLED IL SPAGNOLETTO--HIS EARLY POVERTY AND INDUSTRY. José Ribera, a native of Valencia in Spain, studied for some time under Francisco Ribalta, and afterwards found his way to Italy. At the age of sixteen, he was living in Rome, in a very destitute condition; subsisting on crusts, clothed in rags, yet endeavoring with unswerving diligence to improve himself in art by copying the frescos on the façades of palaces, or at the shrines on the corners of the streets. His poverty and industry attracted the notice of a compassionate Cardinal, who happened to see him at work from his coach-window; and he provided the poor boy with clothes, and food, and lodging in his own palace. Ribera soon found, however, that to be clad in good raiment, and to fare plentifully every day, weakened his powers of application; he needed the spur of want to arouse him to exertion; and therefore, after a short trial of a life in clover, beneath the shelter of the purple, he returned to his poverty and his studies in the streets. The Cardinal was at first highly incensed at his departure, and when he next saw him, rated him soundly as an ungrateful little Spaniard; but being informed of his motives, and observing his diligence, his anger was turned to admiration. He renewed his offers of protection, which, however, Ribera thankfully declined. RIBERA'S MARRIAGE. Ribera's adventure with the Cardinal, and his abilities, soon distinguished him among the crowd of young artists in Rome. He became known by the name which still belongs to him, Il Spagnoletto, (the little Spaniard,) and as an imitator of Michael Angelo Caravaggio, the bold handling of whose works, and their powerful effects of light and shade, pleased his vigorous mind. Finding Rome overstocked with artists, he went to Naples, where he made the acquaintance of a rich picture-dealer. The latter was so much pleased with Ribera's genius, that be offered him his beautiful and well-dowered daughter in marriage. The Valencian, not less proud than poor, at first resented this proposal as an unseasonable pleasantry upon his forlorn condition; but at last finding that it was made in good faith, he took "the good the gods provided," and at once stepped from solitary indigence into the possession of a handsome wife, a comfortable home, a present field of profitable labor, and a prospect of future opulence. RIBERA'S RISE TO EMINENCE. Ease and prosperity now rather stimulated than relaxed his exertions. Choosing for his subject the Flaying of St. Bartholomew, he painted that horrible martyrdom with figures of life-size, so fearfully truthful to nature that when exposed to the public in the street, it immediately attracted a crowd of shuddering gazers. The place of exhibition being within view of the royal palace, the eccentric Viceroy, Don Pedro de Giron, Duke of Ossuna, who chanced to be taking the air on his balcony, inquired the cause of the unusual concourse, and ordered the picture and the artist to be brought into his presence. Being well pleased with both, he purchased the one for his own gallery, and appointed the other his court painter, with a monthly salary of sixty doubloons, and the superintendence of all decorations in the palace. RIBERA'S DISCOVERY OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE. Ribera seems to have been a man of considerable social talent, lively in conversation, and dealing in playful wit and amusing sarcasm. Dominici relates that two Spanish officers, visiting at his house one day, entered upon a serious discussion on the subject of alchemy. The host, finding their talk some what tedious, gravely informed them that he him self happened to be in possession of the philosopher's stone, and that they might, if they pleased, see his way of using it, the next morning at his studio. The military adepts were punctual to their appointment, and found their friend at work, not in a mysterious laboratory, but at his easel, on a half-length picture of St. Jerome. Entreating them to restrain their eagerness, he painted steadily on, finished his picture, sent it out by his servant, and received a small rouleau in return. This he broke open in the presence of his visitors, and throwing ten gold doubloons on the table, said, "Learn of me how gold is to be made; I do it by painting, you by serving his majesty--diligence in business is the only true alchemy." The officers departed somewhat crest-fallen, neither relishing the jest, nor likely to reap any benefit from it. RIBERA'S SUBJECTS. His subjects are generally austere, representing anchorets, prophets, apostles, &c., and frequently of the most revolting character, such as sanguinary executions, martyrdoms, horrid punishments, and lingering torments, which he represented with a startling fidelity that intimidates and shocks the beholder. His paintings are very numerous, and his drawings and etchings are highly esteemed by connoisseurs. RIBERA'S DISPOSITION. The talents of this great painter, seem to have been obscured by a cruel and revengeful disposition, partaking of the character of his works. He was one of the triumvirate of painters, who assassinated, persecuted, or drove every talented foreign painter from Naples, that they might monopolize the business. He was also a reckless libertine, and, according to Dominici, having seduced a beautiful girl, he was seized with such remorse for his many crimes, as to become insupportable to himself; and to escape the general odium which was heaped upon him, he fled from Naples on board a ship, and was never heard of more. This story however is doubtless colored, for, according to Palomino and several other writers, Ribera died at Naples in 1656. See page 132 of this volume. SINGULAR PICTORIAL ILLUSIONS. Over a certain fountain in Rome, there was a cornice so skilfully painted, that the birds were deceived, and trying to alight on it, frequently fell into the water beneath. Annibale Caracci painted some ornaments on a ceiling of the Farnese palace, which the Duke of Sessa, Spanish ambassador to the Pope, took for sculptures, and would not believe they were painted on a flat ground, until he had touched them with a lance. Agostino Caracci painted a horse, which deceived the living animal--a triumph so celebrated in Apelles. Juan Sanchez Cotan, painted at Granada a "Crucifixion," on the cross of which Palomino says birds often attempted to perch, and which at first sight the keen-eyed Cean Bermudez mistook for a piece of sculpture. The reputation of this painter stood so high, that Vincenzio Carducci traveled from Madrid to Granada on purpose to see him; and he is said to have recognized him among the white-robed fraternity of which he was a member, by observing in the expression of his countenance, a certain affinity to the spirit of his works. It is related of Murillo's picture of St. Anthony of Padua, that the birds, wandering up and down the aisles of the cathedral at Seville, have often attempted to perch upon a vase of white lilies painted on a table in the picture, and to peck at the flowers. The preëminent modern Zeuxis, however, was Pierre Mignard, whose portrait of the Marquise de Gouvernet was accosted by that lady's pet parrot, with an affectionate "_Baise moi, ma maitresse!_" RAFFAELLE'S SKILL IN PORTRAITS. Raffaelle was transcendant not only in history, but in portrait. His portraits have deceived even persons most intimately acquainted with the originals. Lanzi says he painted a picture of Leo X. so full of life, that the Cardinal Datary approached it with a bull and pen and ink, for the Pope's signature. A similar story is related of Titian. JACOPO DA PONTE. Count Algarotti relates, that Annibale Caracci was so deceived by a book painted upon a table by Jacopo da Ponte, that he stretched out his hand to take it up. Bassano was highly honored by Paul Veronese, who placed his son Carletto under him as a pupil, to receive his general instructions, "and more particularly in regard to that just disposition of lights reflected from one object to another, and in those happy counterpositions, owing to which the depicted objects seemed clothed with a profusion of light." GIOVANNI ROSA. Giovanni Rosa, a Fleming who flourished at Rome in the first part of the seventeenth century, was famous for his pictures of animals. "He painted hares so naturally as to deceive the dogs, which would rush at them furiously, thus renewing the wonderful story of Zeuxis and his Grapes, so much boasted of by Pliny." CAV. GIOVANNI CONTARINI. This artist was a close imitator of Titian. He was extremely accurate in his portraits, which he painted with force, sweetness, and strong likeness. He painted a portrait of Marco Dolce, and when the picture was sent home, his dogs began to fawn upon it, mistaking it for their master. GUERCINO'S POWER OF RELIEF. The style of Guercino displays a strong contrast of light and shadow, both exceedingly bold, yet mingled with great sweetness and harmony, and a powerful effect in relief, a branch of art so much admired by professors. "Hence," says Lanzi, "some foreigners bestowed upon him the title of the Magician of Italian painting, for in him were renewed those celebrated illusions of antiquity. He painted a basket of grapes so naturally that a ragged urchin stretched out his hand to steal some of the fruit. Often, in comparing the figures of Guido with those of Guercino, one would say that the former had been fed with roses, and the latter with flesh, as observed by one of the ancients." BERNAZZANO. Lanzi says, "In painting landscape, fruit, and flowers, Bernazzano succeeded so admirably as to produce the same wonderful effects that are told of Zeuxis and Apelles in Greece. These indeed Italian artists have frequently renewed, though with a less degree of applause. Having painted a strawberry-bed in a court yard, the pea-fowls were so deceived by the resemblance, that they pecked at the wall till they had destroyed the painting. He painted the landscape part of a picture of the Baptism of Christ, and on the ground drew some birds in the act of feeding. On its being placed in the open air, the birds were seen to fly towards the picture, to join their companions. This beautiful picture is one of the chief ornaments in the gallery of the distinguished family of the Trotti at Milan." INVENTION OF OIL PAINTING. There has been a world of discussion on this subject, but there can be no doubt that John van Eyck, called John of Bruges, and by the Italians, Giovanni da Bruggia, and Gio. Abeyk or Eyck, is entitled to the honor of the invention of Oil Painting as applied to pictures, though Mr. Raspe, the celebrated antiquary, in his treatise on the invention of Oil Painting, has satisfactorily proved that Oil Painting was practised in Italy as early as the 11th century, but only as a means of protecting metalic substances from rust. According to van Mander, the method of painting in Flanders previous to the time of the van Eycks, was with gums, or a preparation called egg-water, to which a kind of varnish was afterwards applied in finishing, which required a certain degree of heat to dry. John van Eyck having worked a long time on a picture and finished it with great care, placed it in the sun-shine to dry, when the board on which it was painted split and spoiled the work. His disappointment at seeing so much labor lost, urged him to attempt the discovery, by his knowledge of chemistry, of some process which would not in future expose him to such an unfortunate accident. In his researches, he discovered the use of linseed and nut oil, which he found most siccative. This is generally believed to have happened about 1410. There is however, a great deal of contradiction among writers as to the van Eycks, no two writers being found to agree. Some assert that John van Eyck introduced his invention both into Italy and Spain, while others declare that he never left his own country, which would seem to be true. Vasari, the first writer on Italian art, awards the invention to Giovanni da Bruggia, and gives an account of its first introduction into Italy by Antonello da Messina, as we shall presently see. But Dominici asserts that oil painting was known and practised at Naples by artists whose names had been forgotten long before the time of van Eyck. Many other Italian writers have engaged in the controversy, and cited many instances of pictures which they supposed to have been painted in oil at Milan, Pisa, Naples, and elsewhere, as early as the 13th, 12th, and even the 9th centuries. But to proceed with the brothers van Eyck, John and Hubert--they generally painted in concert till the death of Hubert, and executed many works in oil, which were held in the highest estimation at the time when they flourished. Their most important work was an altar-piece, with folding doors, painted for Jodocus Vyts, who placed it in the church of St. Bavon at Ghent. The principal picture in this curious production represents the Adoration of the Lamb as described by St. John in the Revelations. On one of the folding doors is represented Adam and Eve, and on the other, St. Cecilia. This extraordinary work contains over three hundred figures, and is finished with the greatest care and exactness. It was formerly in the Louvre, but it is now unfortunately divided into two parts, one of which is at Berlin, and the other at Ghent. Philip I. of Spain desired to purchase it, but finding that impracticable, he employed Michael Coxis to copy it, who spent two years in doing: it, for which he received 4,000 florins. The king placed this copy in the Escurial, and this probably gave rise to the story that John van Eyck visited Spain and introduced his discovery into that country. In the sacristy of the cathedral at Bruges is preserved with great veneration, a picture painted by John van Eyck, after the death of Hubert, representing the Virgin and Infant, with St. George, St. Donatius, and other saints. It is dated 1436. John died in 1441. According to Vasari, the fame of Masaccio drew Antonello da Messina to Rome; from thence he proceeded to Naples, where he saw some oil paintings by John van Eyck, which had been brought to Naples from Flanders, by some Neapolitan merchants, and presented or sold to Alphonso I., King of Naples. The novelty of the invention, and the beauty of the coloring inspired Antonello with so strong a desire to become possessed of the secret, that he went to Bruges, and so far ingratiated himself into the favor of van Eyck, then advanced in years, that he instructed him in the art. Antonello afterwards returned to Venice, where he secretly practised the art for some time, communicating it only to Domenico Veneziano, his favorite scholar. Veneziano settled at Florence, where his works were greatly admired both on account of their excellence and the novelty of the process. Here he unfortunately formed a connexion with Andrea del Castagno, an eminent Tuscan painter, who treacherously murdered Domenico, that he might become, as he supposed, the sole possessor of the secret. Castagno artfully concealed the atrocious deed till on his death-bed, when struck with remorse, he confessed the crime for which innocent persons had suffered. Vasari also says that Giovanni Bellini obtained the art surreptitiously from Messina, by disguising himself and sitting for his portrait, thus gaining an opportunity to observe his method of operating; but Lanzi has shown that Messina made the method public on receiving a pension from the Venetian Senate. Many writers have appeared, who deny the above statement of Vasari; but Lanzi, who carefully investigated the whole subject, finds no just reason to claim for his countrymen priority of the invention, or to doubt the correctness of Vasari's statement in the main. Those old paintings at Milan, Pisa, Naples, Vienna, and elsewhere, have been carefully examined and proved to have been painted in encaustic or distemper. This subject will be found fully discussed in Spooner's Dictionary of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors, and Architects, under the articles John and Hubert van Eyck, Antonello da Messina, Domenico Veneziano, Andrea del Castagno, and Roger of Bruges. FORESHORTENING. Foreshortening is the art of representing figures and objects as they appear to the eye, viewed in positions varying from the perpendicular. The meaning of the term is exemplified in the celebrated Ascension, in the Pietá dé Tárchini, at Naples, by Luca Giordano, in which the body of Christ is so much foreshortened, that the toes appear to touch the knees, and the knees the chin. This art is one of the most difficult in painting, and though absurdly claimed as a modern invention, was well known to the ancients. Pliny speaks expressly of its having been practised by Parrhasius and Pausias. Many writers erroneously attribute the invention to Correggio; but Lanzi says, "it was discovered and enlarged by Melozzo da Forli, improved by Andrea Mantegna and his school, and perfected by Correggio and others." About the year 1472, Melozzo painted his famous fresco of the Ascension in the great chapel of the Santi Apostoli at Rome. Vasari says of this work, "the figure of Christ is so admirably foreshortened, as to appear to pierce the vault; and in the same manner, the Angels are seen sweeping through the fields of air in different directions." This work was so highly esteemed that when the chapel was rebuilt in 1711, the painting was cut out of the ceiling with the greatest care, and placed in the Quirinal palace, where it is still preserved. METHOD OF TRANSFERRING PAINTINGS FROM WALLS AND PANELS TO CANVASS. According to Lanzi, Antonio Contri discovered a valuable process, by means of which he was enabled to transfer fresco paintings from walls to canvass, without the least injury to the work, and thus preserved many valuable paintings by the great masters, which obtained him wide celebrity and profitable employment. For this purpose, he spread upon a piece of canvass of the size of the painting to be transferred, a composition of glue or bitumen, and placed it upon the picture. When this was sufficiently dry, he beat the wall carefully with a mallet, cut the plaster around it, and applied to the canvass a wooden frame, well propped, to sustain it, and then, after a few days, cautiously removed the canvass, which brought the painting with it; and having extended it upon a smooth table he applied to the back of it another canvass prepared with a more adhesive composition than the former. After a few days, he examined the two pieces of canvass, detached the first by means of warm water, which left the whole painting upon the second as it was originally upon the wall. Contri was born at Ferrara about 1660, and died in 1732. Palmaroli, an Italian painter of the present century, rendered his name famous, and conferred a great benefit on art by his skill in transferring to canvass some of the frescos and other works of the great masters. In 1811 he transferred the famous fresco of the Descent from the Cross by Daniello da Volterra (erroneously said, as related above, to have been the first effort of the kind), which gained him immense reputation. He was employed to restore a great number of works at Rome, and in other places. He was invited to Germany, where, among other works, he transferred the Madonna di San Sisto, by Raffaelle, from the original panel, which was worm-eaten and decayed, and thus preserved one of the most famous works of that prince of painters. At the present time, this art is practised with success in various European cities, particularly in London and Paris. WORKS IN SCAGLIOLA. Guido Fassi, called del Conte, a native of Carpi, born in 1584, was the inventor of a valuable kind of work in imitation of marble, called by the Italians _Scagliola_ or _Mischia_, which was subsequently carried to great perfection, and is now largely employed in the imitation of works in marble. The stone called _selenite_ forms the principal ingredient. This is pulverized, mixed with colors and certain adhesive substances which gradually become as hard as stone, capable of receiving a high polish. Fassi made his first trials on cornices, and gave them the appearance of fine marble, and there remain two altar-pieces by him in the churches of Carpi. From him, the method rapidly spread over Italy, and many artists engaged in this then new art. Annibale Griffoni, a pupil of Fassi, applied the art to monuments. Giovanni Cavignani, also a pupil of Fassi, far surpassed his master, and executed an altar of St. Antonio, for the church of S. Niccolo, at Carpi, which is still pointed out as something extraordinary. It consists of two columns of porphyry adorned with a pallium, covered with lace, which last is an exact imitation of the covering of an altar, while it is ornamented in the margin with medals, bearing beautiful figures. In the Cathedral at Carpi, is a monument by one Ferrari, which so perfectly imitates marble that it cannot be distinguished from it, except by fracture. It has the look and touch of marble. Lanzi, from whom these facts are obtained, says that these artists ventured upon the composition of pictures, intended to represent engravings as well as oil paintings, and that there are several such works, representing even historical subjects, in the collections of Carpi. Lanzi considers this art of so much importance, that he thus concludes his article upon it: "After the practice of modeling had been brought to vie with sculpture, and after engraving upon wood had so well counterfeited works of design, we have to record this third invention, belonging to a State of no great dimensions. Such a fact is calculated to bring into higher estimation the geniuses who adorned it. There is nothing of which man is more ambitious, than of being called an inventor of new arts; nothing is more flattering to his intellect, or draws a broader line between him and the animals. Nothing was held in higher reverence by the ancients, and hence it is that Virgil, in his Elysian Fields, represented the band of inventors with their brows bound with white chaplets, equally distinct in merit as in rank, from the more vulgar shades around them." THE GOLDEN AGE OF PAINTING. "We have now arrived," says Lanzi, "at the most brilliant period of the Roman school, and of modern painting itself. We have seen the art carried to a high degree of perfection by Da Vinci and Buonarotti, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and it is remarkable that the same period embraces not only Rafaelle, but also Correggio, Giorgione, Titian, and the most celebrated Venetian painters; so that a man enjoying the common term of life might have seen the works of all these illustrious masters. The art in a few years thus reached a height to which it had never before attained, and which has never been rivalled, except in the attempt to imitate these early masters, or to unite in one style their various and divided excellencies. It seems an ordinary law of providence that individuals of consummate genius should be born and flourish at the same period, or at least at short intervals from each other, a circumstance of which Velleius Paterculus protested he could never discover the real cause. 'I observe,' he says, 'men of the same commanding genius making their appearance together, in the smallest possible space of time; as it happens in the case of animals of different kinds, which, confined in a close place, nevertheless, each selects its own class, and those of a kindred race separate themselves from the rest. A single age sufficed to illustrate Tragedy, in the persons of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides: ancient comedy under Cratinus, Aristophanes, and Eumolpides, and in like manner the new comedy under Menander, Diphilus, and Philemon. There appeared few philosophers of note after the days of Plato and Aristotle, and whoever has made himself acquainted with Isocrates and his school, is acquainted with the summit of Grecian eloquence.' The same remark applies to other countries. The great Roman writers are included under the single age of Octavius: Leo X. was the Augustus of modern Italy; the reign of Louis XIV. was the brilliant period of French letters; that of Charles II. of the English." This rule applies equally to the fine arts. _Hoc idem_, proceeds Velleius, _evenisse plastis, pictoribus, sculptoribus, quisquis temporum institerit notis reperiet, et eminentiam cujusque operis artissimis temporum claustris circumdatum_. Of this union of men of genius in the same age, _Causus_, he says, _quum sempre requiro, numquam invenio quas veras confidam_. It seems to him probable that when a man finds the first station in art occupied by another, he considers it as a post that has been rightfully seized on, and no longer aspires to the possession of it, but is humiliated, and contented to follow at a distance. But this solution does not satisfy my mind. It may indeed account to us why no other Michael Angelo, or Raffaelle, has ever appeared; but it does not satisfy me why these two, and the others before mentioned, should all have appeared in the same age. I am of opinion that the age is always influenced by certain principles, universally adopted both by professors of the art, and by amateurs; which principles happening at a particular period to be the most just and accurate of their kind, produce in that age some preëminent professors, and a number of good ones. These principles change through the instability of all human affairs, and the age partakes in the change. I may add that these happy periods never occur without the circumstance of a number of princes and influential individuals rivalling each other in the encouragement of works of taste; and amidst these there always arise persons of commanding genius, who give a bias and tone to art. The history of sculpture in Athens, where munificence and taste went hand in hand, favors my opinion, and it is confirmed by this golden period of Italian art. Nevertheless, I do not pretend to give a verdict on this important question, but leave the decision of it to a more competent tribunal. GOLDEN AGE OF THE FINE ARTS IN ANCIENT ROME. "The reign of Augustus was the golden age of science and the fine arts. Grecian architecture at that period was so encouraged at Rome, that Augustus could with reason boast of having left a city of marble where he had found one of brick. In the time of the Cæsars, fourteen magnificent aqueducts, supported by immense arches, conducted whole rivers to Rome, from a distance of many miles, and supplied 150 public fountains, 118 large public baths, besides the water necessary for those artificial seas in which naval combats were represented: 100,000 statues ornamented the public squares, the temples, the streets, and the houses; 90 colossal statues raised on pedestals; 48 obelisks of Egyptian granite, besides, adorned various parts of the city; nor was this stupendous magnificence confined to Rome, or even to Italy. All the provinces of the vast empire were embellished by Augustus and his successors, by the opulent nobles, by the tributary kings and the allies, with temples, circuses, theatres, palaces, aqueducts, amphitheatres, bridges, baths, and new cities. We have, unfortunately, but scanty memorials of the architects of those times; and, amidst the abundance of magnificent edifices, we search in vain for the names of those who erected them. However much the age of Augustus may be exalted, we cannot think it superior, or even equal to that of Alexander: the Romans were late in becoming acquainted with the arts; they cultivated them more from pride and ostentation than from feeling. Expensive collections were frequently made, without the possessors understanding their value; they knew only that such things were in reputation, and, to render themselves of consequence, purchased on the opinion of others. Of this, the Roman history gives frequent proofs. Domitian squandered seven millions in gilding the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus only, bringing from Athens a number of columns of Pentelic marble, extremely beautiful, and of good proportion, but which were recut and repolished, and thus deprived of their symmetry and grace. If the Romans did possess any taste for the fine arts, they left the exercise of it to the conquered--to Greece, who had no longer her Solon, Lycurgus, Themistocles, and Epaminondas, but was unarmed, depressed, and had become the slave of Rome. 'Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit.' How poor are such triumphs to those gained by the fine arts! The means by which Greece acquired and maintained such excellence, is worthy of an inquiry. It is generally allowed that climate and government have a powerful influence on the intellect. Greece was peculiarly favored in these two points; her atmosphere was serene and temperate, and being divided into a number of small, but independent states, a spirit of emulation was excited, which continually called forth some improvement in the liberal arts. The study of these formed a principal branch of education in the academies and schools, to which none but the free youth were admitted. To learning alone was the tribute of applause offered. At those solemn festivals to which all Greece resorted, whoever had the plurality of votes was crowned in the presence of the whole assembly, and his efforts afterwards rewarded with an immense sum of money; sometimes a million of crowns. Statues, with inscriptions, were also raised to those who had thus distinguished themselves, and their works, or whatever resembled them, for ever after bore their names; distinctions far more flattering than any pecuniary reward. Meticus gave his to a square which he built at Athens, and the appellation of Agaptos was applied to the porticos of the stadium. Zeuxis, when he painted Helen, collected a number of beautiful women, as studies for his subject: when completed, the Agrigentines, who had ordered it, were so delighted with this performance, that they requested him to accept of five of the ladies. Thebes, and other cities, fined those that presented a bad work, and looked on them ever afterwards with derision. The applause bestowed on the best efforts, was repeated by the orators, the poets, the philosophers, and historians; the Cow of Miron, the Venus of Apelles, and the Cupid of Praxiteles, have exercised every pen. By these means Greece brought the fine arts to perfection; by neglecting them, Rome failed to equal her; and, by pursuing the same course, every country may become as refined as Greece."--_Milizia._ NERO'S GOLDEN PALACE. According to Tacitus, Nero's famous golden palace was one of the most magnificent edifices ever built, and far surpassed all that was stupendous and beautiful in Italy. It was erected on the site of the great conflagration at Rome, which was attributed by many to the wickedness of the tyrant. His statue, 120 feet high, stood in the midst of a court, ornamented with porticos of three files of lofty columns, each full a mile long; the gardens were of vast extent, with vineyards, meadows, and woods, filled with every sort of domestic and wild animals; a pond was converted into a sea, surrounded by a sufficient number of edifices to form a city; pearls, gems, and the most precious materials were used everywhere, and especially gold, the profusion of which, within and without, and ever on the roofs, caused it to be called the Golden House; the essences and costly perfumes continually shed around, showed the extreme extravagance of the inhuman monster who seized on the wealth of the people to gratify his own desires. Among other curiosities was a dining-room, in which was represented the firmament, constantly revolving, imitative of the motion of the heavenly bodies; from it was showered down every sort of odoriferous waters. This great palace was completed by Otho, but did not long remain entire, as Vespasian restored to the people the lands of which Nero had unjustly deprived them, and erected in its place the mighty Colosseum, and the magnificent Temple of Peace. NAMES OF ANCIENT ARCHITECTS DESIGNATED BY REPTILES. According to Pliny, Saurus and Batrarchus, two Lacedemonian architects, erected conjointly at their own expense, certain temples at Rome, which were afterwards enclosed by Octavius. Not being allowed to inscribe their names, they carved on the pedestals of the columns a lizard and a frog, which indicated them--_Saurus_ signifying a lizard, and _Batrarchus_ a frog. Milizia says that in the church of S. Lorenzo there are two antique Ionic capitals with a lizard and a frog carved in the eyes of the volutes, which are probably those alluded to by Pliny, although the latter says _pedestal_. Modern painters and engravers have frequently adopted similar devices as a _rebus_, or enigmatical representation of their names. See Spooner's Dictionary of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors, and Architects; Key to Monograms and Ciphers, and the twenty-four plates. TRIUMPHAL ARCHES. Triumphal arches are monuments consisting of a grand portico or archway, erected at the entrance of a town, upon a bridge, or upon a public road, to the glory of some celebrated general, or in memory of some important event. The invention of these structures is attributed to the Romans. The earliest specimens are destitute of any magnificence. For a long time, they consisted merely of a plain arch, at the top of which was placed the trophies and statue of the triumpher. Subsequently the span was enlarged, the style enriched, and a profusion of all kinds of sculptures and ornaments heaped upon them. The triumphal arches varied greatly in point of construction, form, and decoration. The arch of Constantine at Rome is the best preserved of all the great antique arches; the Arch of Septimus Severus at the foot of the Capitoline hill, greatly resembles that of Constantine. The Arch of Titus is the most considerable at Rome. The Arch of Benvenuto, erected in honor of Trajan, is one of the most remarkable relics of antiquity, as well on account of its sculptures as its architecture. The Arch of Trajan at Ancona is also one of the most elegant works of the kind. The Arch of Rimini, erected in honor of Augustus, on the occasion of his repairing the Flaminian Way from that town to Rome, is the most ancient of all the antique arches, and from its size, one of the noblest existing. Many beautiful structures of this kind have been erected in modern times, but principally on the plan, and in imitation of some of the above mentioned. Ancient medals often bear signs of this species of architecture, and some of them represent arches that have ceased to exist for centuries. Triumphal arches seem to have been in use among the Chinese in very ancient times. Milizia says, "There is no country in the world in which those arches are so numerous as in China. They are found not only in the cities but on the mountains; and are erected in the public streets in honor of princes, generals, philosophers, and mandarins, who have benefitted the public, or signalized themselves by any great action; there are more than 1100 of these latter, 200 of which are of extraordinary size and beauty; there are also some in honor of females. The Chinese annals record 3636 men who have merited triumphal arches." Milizia also says, the friezes of the Chinese arches are of great height, and ornamented with sculpture. The highest arches are twenty-five feet, embellished with human figures, animals, flowers, and grotesque forms, in various attitudes, and in full relief. STATUE OF POMPEY THE GREAT. The large Statue of Pompey, formerly in the collection of the Cardinal Spada, is supposed to be the same as that, at the base of which "Great Cæsar fell." It was found on the very spot where the Senate was held on the fatal ides of March, while some workmen were engaged in making excavations, to erect a private house. The Statue is not only interesting from its antiquity and historical associations, but for a curious episode that followed its discovery. The trunk lay in the ground of the discoverer, but the head projected into that of his neighbor; this occasioned a dispute as to the right of possession. The matter was at length referred to the decision of Cardinal Spada, who, like the wise man of old, ordered the Statue to be decapitated, and division made according to _position_--the trunk to one claimant, and the head to the other. The object of the wily Cardinal was not so much justice, as to get possession of the Statue himself, which he afterwards did, at a tithe of what it would otherwise have cost him. The whole cost him only 500 crowns. OF ANTIQUE SCULPTURES IN ROME. In 1824, there were more than 10,600 pieces of ancient sculpture in Rome; (statues, busts, and relievos,) and upwards of 6300 ancient columns of marble. What multitudes of the latter have been sawed up for tables, and for wainscotting chapels, or mixed up with walls, and otherwise destroyed! And what multitudes may yet lie undiscovered underneath the many feet of earth and rubbish which buries ancient Rome! When we reflect on this, it may give us some faint idea of the vast magnificence of Rome in all its pristine splendor! ANCIENT MAP OF ROME. The Ichnography of Rome, in the fine collection of antiquities in the Palazzo Farnese, was found in the temple of Romulus and Remus, which is now dedicated to Sts. Cosmo and Damiano, who were also twin brothers. Though incomplete, it is one of the most useful remains of antiquity. The names of the particular buildings and palaces are marked upon it, as well as the outlines of the buildings themselves; and it is so large, that the Horrea Lolliana are a foot and a half long; and may serve as a scale to measure any other building or palace in it. It is published in Groevius's Thesaurus. JULIAN THE APOSTATE. The Emperor Julian commanded Alypius, a learned architect of Antioch, who held many important offices under that monarch, to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem, A. D. 363, with the avowed object of falsifying the prophecy of our Saviour with regard to that structure. While the workmen were engaged in making excavations for the foundation, balls of fire issued from the earth and destroyed them. This indication of divine wrath against the reprobate Jews and the Apostate Julian, compelled him to abandon his project. The story is affirmed by many Christian and classic authors. THE TOMB OF MAUSOLUS. When Mausolus, king of Caria, died about B. C. 353, his wife Artemisia, was so disconsolate, that she drank up his ashes, and resolved to erect in the city of Halicarnassus, one of the grandest and noblest monuments of antiquity, to celebrate the memory of a husband whom she tenderly loved. She therefore employed Bryaxis, Scopas, Timotheus, and Leocarus, four of the most renowned sculptors and architects of the golden age of Grecian art, to erect that famous mausoleum which was accounted one of the seven wonders of the world, and gave its name to all similar structures in succeeding ages. Its dimensions on the north and south sides were sixty-three feet, the east and west sides were a little shorter, and its extreme height was one hundred and forty feet. It was surrounded with thirty-six splendid marble columns. Byaxis executed the north side, Scopas the east, Timotheus the south, and Leocarus the west. Artemisia died before the work was completed; but the artists continued their work with unabated zeal, and they endeavored to rival each other in the beauty and magnificence with which they decorated this admirable work. A fifth sculptor, named Pythis, was added to them, who executed a noble four horse chariot of marble, which was placed on a pyramid crowning the summit of the mausoleum. MANDROCLES' BRIDGE ACROSS THE BOSPHORUS. Mandrocles, probably a Greek architect in the service of Darius, King of Persia, who flourished about B. C. 500, acquired a great name for the bridge which he constructed across the Thracian Bosphorus, or Straits of Constantinople, by order of that monarch. This bridge was formed of boats so ingeniously and firmly united that the innumerable army of Persia passed over it from Asia to Europe. To preserve the memory of so singular a work, Mandrocles represented in a picture, the Bosphorus, the bridge, the king of Persia seated on a throne, and the army that passed over it. This picture was preserved in the Temple of Juno at Samos, where Herodotus saw it, with this inscription:--"Mandrocles, after having constructed a bridge of boats over the Bosphorus, by order of the king Darius of Persia, dedicated this monument to Juno, which does honor to Samos, his country, and confers glory on the artificer." THE COLOSSUS OF THE SUN AT RHODES. This prodigious Statue, which, was accounted one of the seven wonders of the world, was planned, and probably executed by Chares, an ancient sculptor of Lindus, and a disciple of Lysippus. According to Strabo, the statue was of brass, and was seventy cubits, or one hundred feet high; and Chares was employed upon it twelve years. It was said to have been placed at the entrance of the harbor of Rhodes, with the feet upon two rocks, in such a manner, that the ships then used in commerce could pass in full sail between them. This colossus, after standing fifty-six years, was overthrown by an earthquake. An oracle had forbidden the inhabitants to restore it to its former position, and its fragments remained in the same position until A. D. 667, when Moaviah, a calif of the Saracens, who invaded Rhodes in that year, sold them to a Jewish merchant, who is said to have loaded nine hundred camels with them. Pliny says that Chares executed the statue in three years, and he relates several interesting particulars, as that few persons could embrace its thumb, and that the fingers were as long as an ordinary statue. Muratori reckons this one of the fables of antiquity. Though the accounts in ancient authors concerning this colossal statue of Apollo are somewhat contradictory, they all agree that there was such a statue, seventy or eighty cubits high, and so monstrous a fable could not have been imposed upon the world in that enlightened age. Some antiquarians have thought, with great justice, that the fine head of Apollo which is stamped upon the Rhodian medals, is a representation of that of the Colossus. STATUES AND PAINTINGS AT RHODES. Pliny says, (lib. xxxiv. cap. 7.) that Rhodes, in his time, "possessed more than 3000 statues, the greater part finely executed; also paintings and other works of art, of more value than those contained in the cities of Greece. There was the wonderful Colossus, executed by Chares of Lindus, the disciple of Lysippus." SOSTRATUS' LIGHT-HOUSE ON THE ISLE OF PHAROS. This celebrated work of antiquity was built by Sostratus, by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus. It was a species of tower, erected on a high promontory or rock, on the above mentioned island, then situated about a mile from Alexandria. It was 450 ft. high, divided into several stories, each decreasing in size; the ground story was hexagonal, the sides alternately concave and convex, each an eighth of a mile in length; the second and third stories were of the same form; the fourth was a square, flanked by four round towers; the fifth was circular. The whole edifice was of wrought stone; a magnificent staircase led to the top, where fires were lighted every night, visible from the distance of a hundred miles, to guide the coasting vessels. Sostratus is said to have engraved an inscription on stone, and covered it with a species of cement, upon which he sculptured the name of Ptolemy, calculating that the cement would decay, and bring to light his original inscription. Strabo says it read, _Sostratus, the friend of kings, made me_. Lucian reports differently, and more probably, thus, _Sostratus of Cnidus, the son of Dexiphanes, to the Gods the Saviors, for the safety of Mariners_. It is also said that Ptolemy left the inscription to the inclination of the architect; and that by the _Gods the Saviors_ were meant the reigning king and queen, with their successors, who were ambitious of the title of Soteros or Savior. DINOCRATES' PLAN FOR CUTTING MOUNT ATHOS INTO A STATUE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT. According to Vitruvius, this famous architect, having provided himself with recommendatory letters to the principal personages of Alexander's court, set out from his native country with the hope of gaining, through their means, the favor of the monarch. The courtiers made him promises which they neglected to perform, and framed various excuses to prevent his access to the sovereign; he therefore determined upon the following expedient:--Being of a gigantic and well proportioned stature, he stripped himself, anointed his body with oil, bound his head with poplar leaves, and throwing a lion's skin across his shoulders, with a club in his hand, presented himself to Alexander, in the place where he held his public audience. Alexander, astonished at his Herculean figure, desired him to approach, demanding, at the same time, his name:--"I am," said he, "a Macedonian architect, and am come to submit to you designs worthy of the fame you have acquired. I have modelled Mount Athos in the form of a giant, holding in his right hand a city, and his left a shell, from which are discharged into the sea all the rivers collected from the mountain." It was impossible to imagine a scheme more agreeable to Alexander, who asked seriously whether there would be sufficient country round this city to maintain its inhabitants. Dinocrates answered in the negative, and that it would be necessary to supply it by sea. Athos consequently remained a mountain; but Alexander was so pleased with the novelty of the idea, and the genius of Dinocrates, that he at once took him into his service. The design of Dinocrates may be found in Fischer's History of Architecture. According to Pliny, Dinocrates planned and built the city of Alexandria. POPE'S IDEA OF FORMING MOUNT ATHOS INTO A STATUE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT. "I cannot conceive," said Spence, the author of Polymetis, to Pope, "how Dinocrates could ever have carried his proposal of forming Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander the Great, into execution."--"For my part," replied Pope, "I have long since had an idea how that might be done; and if any body would make me a present of a Welch mountain, and pay the workmen, I would undertake to see it executed. I have quite formed it sometimes in my imagination: the figure must be on a reclining posture, because of the hollowing that would be necessary, and for the city's being in one hand. It should be a rude unequal hill, and might be helped with groves of trees for the eye brows, and a wood for the hair. The natural green turf should be left wherever it would be necessary to represent the ground he reclines on. It should be so contrived, that the true point of view should be at a considerable distance. When you were near it, it should still have the appearance of a rough mountain, but at the proper distance such a rising should be the leg, and such another an arm. It would be best if there were a river, or rather a lake, at the bottom of it, for the rivulet that came through his other hand, to tumble down the hill, and discharge itself into it." Diodorus Siculus, says that Semiramis had the mountain Bajitanus, in Media, cut into a statue of herself, seventeen stadii high, (about two miles) surrounded by one hundred others, probably representing the various members of her court. China, among other wonders, is said to have many mountains cut into the figures of men, animals, and birds. It is probable, however, that all these stories have originated in the imagination, from the real or fanciful resemblance of mountains, to various objects, which are found in every country, as "The Old Man of the Mountain," Mt. Washington, N. H., "St. Anthony's Nose," in the Highlands, "Camel's Rump," Green Mountains, "Giant of the Valley," on lake Champlain, &c. It is easy to imagine a mountain as a cloud, "almost in shape of a camel," "backed like a weasel," or "very like a whale." TEMPLE WITH AN IRON STATUE SUSPENDED IN THE AIR BY LOADSTONE. According to Pliny, Dinocrates built a temple at Alexandria, in honor of Arsinoe, sister and wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The whole interior was to have been incrusted with loadstone, in order that the statue of the princess, composed of iron, should be suspended in the centre, solely by magnetic influence. On the death of Ptolemy and of the architect, the idea was abandoned, and has never been executed elsewhere, though believed to be practicable. A similar fable was invented of the tomb of Mahomet. THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPIUS AT ATHENS. According to Vitruvius, Pisistratus, who flourished about B. C. 555, employed the four Grecian architects, Antistates, Antimachides, Calleschros, and Porinus, to erect this famous temple in the place of one built in the time of Deucalion, which the storms of a thousand years had destroyed. They proceeded so far with it that Pisistratus was enabled to dedicate it, but after his death the work ceased; and the completion of the temple, so magnificent and grand in its design that it impressed the beholder with wonder and awe, became the work of after ages. Perseus, king of Macedonia, and Antiochus Epiphanes, nearly four hundred years after Pisistratus, finished the grand nave, and placed the columns of the portico, Cossutius, a Roman, being the architect. It was considered, and with good reason, one of the four celebrated marble temples of Greece: the other three were that of Diana, at Ephesus; Apollo, at Miletus; and Ceres, at Eleusis. The Corinthian order prevailed in its design. In the siege that Sylla laid to Athens, this temple was greatly injured, but the allied kings afterwards restored it at their common expense, intending to dedicate it to the genius of Augustus. Livy says that among so many temples, this was the only one worthy of a god. Pausanias says the Emperor Adrian enclosed it with a wall, as was usual with the Grecian temples, of half a mile in circumference, which the cities of Greece adorned with statues erected to that monarch. The Athenians distinguished themselves by the elevation of a colossal statue behind the temple. This enclosure was also ornamented with a peristyle, one hundred rods in length, supported by superb marble Corinthian columns, and to this façade were three grand vestibules which led to the temple. Adrian dedicated it a second time. In the temple was placed a splendid statue of Jupiter Olympius, of gold and ivory; and the courtiers added four statues of the Emperor. This wonderful structure, which is said to have cost five millions of _scudi_, is now in ruins. Sixteen Corinthian columns are still standing, six feet four inches and some six feet six inches, in diameter. The length of the temple, according to Stuart, upon the upper step, was three hundred and fifty-four feet, and its breadth one hundred and seventy-one feet; the entire length of the walls of the peribolous is six hundred and eighty-eight feet, and the width four hundred and sixty-three feet. THE PARTHENON AT ATHENS. This celebrated temple was built by Ictinus and Callicrates, two Greek architects who flourished about B. C. 430. Ictinus was celebrated for the magnificent temples which he erected to the heathen gods. Among these were the famous Doric temple of Ceres and Proserpine at Eleusis, of which he built the outer cell, capable of accommodating thirty thousand persons; also the temple of Apollo, near Mount Cotylion, in Arcadia, which was considered one of the finest of antiquity, and was vaulted with stone. But his most important work was the famous Parthenon at Athens, erected within the citadel, by Ictinus and Callicrates, by order of Pericles. According to Vitruvius, the two artists exerted all their powers to make this temple worthy the goddess who presided over the arts. The plan was a rectangle, like most of the Greek and Roman; its length from east to west, was 227 feet 7 inches, and its width 101 feet 2 inches, as measured on the top step. It was peripteral, octastyle; that is, surrounded with a portico of columns, with eight to each façade. The height of the columns was 34 feet, and their diameter 6 feet. Within the outer portico was a second, also formed of isolated columns, but elevated two steps higher than the first; from thence the interior of the temple was entered, which contained the famous statue of Minerva in gold and ivory, by Phidias. This famous temple was built entirely of white marble, and from its elevated position, could be seen from an immense distance. On a nearer approach, it was admired for the elegance of its proportions, and the beauty of the bas-reliefs with which its exterior was decorated. It was preserved entire until 1677, when it was nearly destroyed by an explosion during the siege of Athens by Morosini. It was further dilapidated by the Turks, and afterwards by Lord Elgin, who removed all the bas-reliefs and other ornaments practicable, and transported them to London, where they now adorn the British Museum. King Otho has adopted measures to preserve the edifice from further mischief. THE ELGIN MARBLES. The following exceedingly interesting account of the removal of the sculptures from the Parthenon, is extracted from Hamilton's "Memorandum on the Subject of the Earl of Elgin's Pursuits in Greece." "In the year 1799, when Lord Elgin was appointed his majesty's ambassador extraordinary to the Ottoman Porte, he was in habits of frequent intercourse with Mr. Harrison, an architect of great eminence in the west of England, whom his lordship consulted on the benefits that might possibly be derived to the arts in this country, in case an opportunity could be found for studying minutely the architecture and sculpture of ancient Greece; whose opinion was, that although we might possess exact admeasurements of the public buildings in Athens, yet a young artist could never form to himself an adequate conception of their minute details, combinations, and general effects, without having before him some such sensible representation of them as might be conveyed by casts." On this suggestion Lord Elgin proposed to his majesty's government, that they should send out English artists of known eminence, capable of collecting this information in the most perfect manner; but the prospect appeared of too doubtful an issue for ministers to engage in the expense attending it. Lord Elgin then endeavored to engage some of these artists at his own charge; but the value of their time was far beyond his means. When, however, he reached Sicily, on the recommendation of Sir William Hamilton, he was so fortunate as to prevail on Don Tita Lusieri, one of the best general painters in Europe, of great knowledge in the arts, and of infinite taste, to undertake the execution of this plan; and Mr. Hamilton, who was then accompanying Lord Elgin to Constantinople, immediately went with Signor Lusieri to Rome, where, in consequence of the disturbed state of Italy, they were enabled to engage two of the most eminent _formatori_ or moulders, to make the _madreformi_ for the casts; Signor Balestra, a distinguished architect there, along with Ittar, a young man of promising talents, to undertake the architectural part of the plan; and one Theodore, a Calmouk, who during several years at Rome, had shown himself equal to the first masters in the design of the human figure. After much difficulty, Lord Elgin obtained permission from the Turkish government to establish these six artists at Athens, where they systematically prosecuted the business of their several departments during three years, under the general superintendence of Lusieri. Accordingly every monument, of which there are any remains in Athens, has been thus most carefully and minutely measured, and from the rough draughts of the architects (all of which are preserved), finished drawings have been made by them of the plans, elevations, and details of the most remarkable objects; in which the Calmouk has restored and inserted all the sculpture with exquisite taste and ability. He has besides made accurate drawings of all the bas-reliefs on the several temples, in the precise state of decay and mutilation in which they at present exist. Most of the bassi rilievi, and nearly all the characteristic features of architecture in the various monuments at Athens, have been moulded, and the moulds of them brought to London. Besides the architecture and sculpture at Athens, all similar remains which could be traced through several parts of Greece have been measured and delineated with the most scrupulous exactness, by the second architect Ittar. In the prosecution of this undertaking, the artists had the mortification of witnessing the very _willful devastation to which all the sculpture, and even the architecture, were daily exposed on the part of the Turks and travelers_: the former equally influenced by mischief and by avarice, the latter from an anxiety to become possessed, each according to his means, of some relic, however small, of buildings or statues which had formed the pride of Greece. The Ionic temple on the Ilyssus which, in Stuart's time, about the year 1759, was in tolerable preservation, had so entirely disappeared, that its foundation was no longer to be ascertained. Another temple near Olympia had shared a similar fate within the recollection of many. The temple of Minerva had been converted into a powder magazine, and was in great part shattered from a shell falling upon it during the bombardment of Athens by the Venetians, towards the end of the seventeenth century; and even this accident has not deterred the Turks from applying the beautiful temple of Neptune and Erectheus to the same use, whereby it is still constantly exposed to a similar fate. Many of the statues over the entrance of the temple of Minerva, which had been thrown down by the explosion, had been powdered to mortar, because they offered the whitest marble within reach; and parts of the modern fortification, and the miserable houses where this mortar had been so applied, are easily traced. In addition to these causes of degradation, the Turks will frequently climb up the ruined walls and amuse themselves in defacing any sculpture they can reach; or in breaking columns, statues, or other remains of antiquity, in the fond expectation of finding within them some hidden treasures. Under these circumstances, Lord Elgin felt himself irresistibly impelled to endeavor to preserve, by removal from Athens, any specimens of sculpture he could, without injury, rescue from such impending ruin. He had, besides, another inducement, and an example before him, in the conduct of the last French embassy sent to Turkey before the Revolution. French artists did then attempt to remove several of the sculptured ornaments from several edifices in the Acropolis, and particularly from the Parthenon. In lowering one of the Metopes the tackle failed, and it was dashed to pieces; one other object was conveyed to France, where it is held in the highest estimation, and where it occupies a conspicuous place in the gallery of the Louvre, and constituted national property during the French Revolution. The same agents were remaining at Athens during Lord Elgin's embassy, waiting only the return of French influence at the Porte to renew their operations. Actuated by these inducements, Lord Elgin made every exertion; and the sacrifices he has made have been attended with such entire success, that he has brought to England from the ruined temples at Athens, from the modern walls and fortifications, in which many fragments had been used as blocks for building, and from excavations from amongst the ruins, made on purpose, such a mass of Athenian sculpture, in statues, alti and bassi rilievi, capitals, cornices, friezes, and columns as, with the aid of a few of the casts, to present all the sculpture and architecture of any value to the artist or man of taste which can be traced at Athens. In proportion as Lord Elgin's plan advanced, and the means accumulated in his hands towards affording an accurate knowledge of the works of architecture and sculpture in Athens and in Greece, it became a subject of anxious inquiry with him, in what way the greatest degree of benefit could be derived to the arts from what he had been so fortunate as to procure. In regard to the works of the architects employed by him, he had naturally, from the beginning, looked forward to their being engraved; and accordingly all such plans, elevations, and details as to those persons appeared desirable for that object, were by them, and on the spot, extended with the greatest possible care for the purpose of publication. Besides these, all the working sketches and measurements offer ample materials for further drawings, if they should be required. It was Lord Elgin's wish that the whole of the drawings might be executed in the highest perfection of the art of engraving; and for this purpose a fund should be raised by subscription, exhibition, or otherwise; by aid of which these engravings might still be distributable, for the benefit of artists, at a rate of expense within the means of professional men. Great difficulty occurred in forming a plan for deriving the utmost advantage from the marbles and casts. Lord Elgin's first attempt was to have the statues and bassi rilievi restored; and in that view he went to Rome to consult and to employ Canova. The decision of that most eminent artist was conclusive. On examining the specimens produced to him, and making himself acquainted with the whole collection, and particularly with what came from the Parthenon, by means of the persons who had been carrying on Lord Elgin's operations at Athens, and who had returned with him to Rome, Canova declared, "That however greatly it was to be lamented that these statues should have suffered so much from time and barbarism, yet it was undeniable that they never had been retouched; that they were the work of the ablest artists the world had ever seen; executed under the most enlightened patron of the arts, and at a period when genius enjoyed the most liberal encouragement, and had attained the highest degree of perfection; and that they had been found worthy of forming the decoration of the most admired edifice ever erected in Greece. That he should have had the greatest delight, and derived the greatest benefit from the opportunity Lord Elgin offered him of having in his possession and contemplating these inestimable marbles." But (_his expression was_) "it would be sacrilege in him or any man to presume to touch them with his chisel." Since their arrival in this country they have been laid open to the inspection of the public; and the opinions and impressions, not only of artists, but of men of taste in general, have thus been formed and collected. From these the judgment pronounced by Canova has been universally sanctioned; and all idea of restoring the marbles deprecated. Meanwhile the most distinguished painters and sculptors have assiduously attended the Museum, and evinced the most enthusiastic admiration of the perfection to which these marbles now prove to them that Phidias had brought the art of sculpture, and which had hitherto only been known through the medium of ancient authors. They have attentively examined them, and they have ascertained that they were executed with the most scrupulous anatomical truth, not only in the human figure, but in the various animals to be found in this collection. They have been struck with the wonderful accuracy, and at the same time, the great effect of minute detail; and with the life and expression so distinctly produced in every variety of attitude and action. Those more advanced in years have testified great concern at not having had the advantage of studying these models; and many who have had the opportunity of forming a comparison (among these are the most eminent sculptors and painters in this metropolis), have publicly and unequivocally declared, that in the view of professional men, this collection is far more valuable than any other collection in existence. With such advantages as the possession of these unrivalled works of art afford, and with an enlightened and encouraging protection bestowed on genius and the arts, it may not be too sanguine to indulge a hope, that, prodigal as nature is in the perfections of the human figure in this country, animating as are the instances of patriotism, heroic actions, and private virtues deserving commemoration, sculpture may soon be raised in England to rival these, the ablest productions of the best times of Greece. The reader is referred to the synopsis of the British Museum, and to the Chevalier Visconti's Memoirs, before quoted, for complete and authentic catalogues of these marbles, but the following brief abstract is necessary to give a view of what they consist, to readers who may reside at a distance from the metropolis, or have not those works at hand. In that part of the collection which came from the eastern pediment of the Parthenon are several statues and fragments, consisting of two horses' heads in one block, and the head of one of the horses of Night, a statue of Hercules or Theseus, a group of two female figures, a female figure in quick motion, supposed to be Iris, and a group of two goddesses, one represented sitting, and the other half reclining on a rock. Among the statues and fragments from the western pediment are part of the chest and shoulders of the colossal figure in the centre, supposed to be Neptune, a fragment of the colossal figure of Minerva, a fragment of a head, supposed to belong to the preceding, a fragment of a statue of Victory, and a statue of a river god called Ilissus, and several fragments of statues from the pediments, the names or places of which are not positively ascertained, among which is one supposed to have been Latona, holding Apollo and Diana in her arms; another of the neck and arms of a figure rising out of the sea, called Hyperion, or the rising Sun; and a torso of a male figure with drapery thrown over one shoulder. The metopes represent the battles between the Centaurs and Lapithæ, at the nuptials of Pirithous. Each metope contains two figures, grouped in various attitudes; sometimes the Lapithæ, sometimes the Centaurs victorious. The figure of one of the Lapithæ, who is lying dead and trampled on by a Centaur, is one of the finest productions of the art, as well as the group adjoining to it of Hippodamia, the bride, carried off by the Centaur Eurytion; the furious style of whose galloping in order to secure his prize, and his shrinking from the spear that has been hurled after him, are expressed with prodigious animation. They are all in such high relief as to seem groups of statues; and they are in general finished with as much attention behind as before. They were originally continued round the entablature of the Parthenon, and formed ninety-two groups. The frieze which was carried along the outer walls of the cell offered a continuation of sculptures in low relief, and of the most exquisite beauty. It represented the whole of the solemn procession to the temple of Minerva during the Panathenaic festival; many of the figures are on horseback, others are about to mount, some are in chariots, others on foot, oxen and other victims are led to sacrifice, the nymphs called Canephoræ, Skiophoræ, &c., are carrying the sacred offering in baskets and vases; there are priests, magistrates, warriors, deities, &c., forming altogether a series of most interesting figures in great variety of costume, armor, and attitude. From the Opisthodomus of the Parthenon, Lord Elgin also procured some valuable inscriptions, written in the manner called Kionedon or columnar. The subjects of these monuments are public decrees of the people, accounts of the riches contained in the treasury, and delivered by the administrators to their successors in office, enumerations of the statues, the silver, gold, and precious stones, deposited in the temple, estimates for public works, &c. ODEON, OR ODEUM. The first Odeon, ([Greek: ôdeion], from [Greek: ôdê], a song), was built by Pericles at Athens. It was constructed on different principles from the theatre, being of an eliptical form, and roofed to preserve the harmony and increase the force of musical sounds. The building was devoted to poetical and musical contests and exhibitions. It was injured in the siege of Sylla, but was subsequently repaired by Ariobarzanes Philopator, king of Cappadocia. At a later period, two others were built at Athens by Pausanias and Herodes Atticus, and other Greek cities followed their example. The first Odeon at Rome was built in the time of the emperors; Domitian erected one, and Trajan another. The Romans likewise constructed them in several provincial cities, the ruins of one of which are still seen at Catanea, in Sicily. PERPETUAL LAMPS. According to Pausanias, Callimachus made a golden lamp for the Temple of Minerva at Athens, with a wick composed of asbestos, which burned day and night for a year without trimming or replenishing with oil. If this was true, the font of the lamp must have been large enough to have contained a year's supply of oil; for, though some profess that the economical inventions of the ancients have been forgotten, the least knowledge in chemistry proves that oil in burning must be consumed. The perpetual lamps, so much celebrated among the learned of former times, said to have been found burning after many centuries, on opening tombs, are nothing more than fables, arising perhaps from phosphorescent appearances, caused by decomposition in confined places, which vanished as soon as fresh air was admitted. Such phenomena have frequently been observed in opening sepulchres. THE SKULL OF RAFFAELLE. Is preserved as an object of great veneration in the Academy of St. Luke, which the students visit as if in the hope of being inspired with similar talents; and it is wonderful that, admiring him so much, modern painters should so little resemble him. Either they do not wish to imitate him, or do not know how to do so. Those who duly appreciate his merits have attempted it, and been successful. Mengs is an example of this observation. THE FOUR FINEST PICTURES IN ROME. The four most celebrated pictures in Rome, are _The Transfiguration_ by Raffaelle, _St. Jerome_ by Domenichino, _The Descent from the Cross_ by Daniele da Volterra, and _The Romualdo_ by Andrea Sacchi. THE FOUR CARLOS OF THE 17TH CENTURY. It is a singular fact that the four most distinguished painters of the 17th century were named Charles, viz.: le Brun, Cignani, Maratta, and Loti, or Loth. Hence they are frequently called by writers, especially the Italian, "The four Carlos of the 17th century." PIETRO GALLETTI AND THE BOLOGNESE STUDENTS. Crespi relates that Pietro Galletti, misled by a pleasing self-delusion that he was born a painter, made himself the butt and ridicule of all the artists of Bologna. When they extolled his works and called him the greatest painter in the world, he took their irony for truth, and strutted with greater self-complacency. On one occasion, the students assembled with great pomp and ceremony, and solemnly invested him with the degree of _Doctor of Painting_. ÆTION'S PICTURE OF THE NUPTIALS OF ALEXANDER AND ROXANA. Ætion gained so much applause by his picture, representing the nuptials of Alexander and Roxana, which he publicly exhibited at the Olympic Games, that Proxenidas, the president, rewarded him, by giving him his daughter in marriage. This picture was taken to Rome after the conquest of Greece, where it was seen by Lucian, who gives an accurate description of it, from which, it is said, Raffaelle sketched one of his finest compositions. AGELADAS. This famous sculptor was a native of Argos, and flourished about B. C. 500. He was celebrated for his works in bronze, the chief of which were a statue of Jupiter, in the citadel of Ithone, and one of Hercules, placed in the Temple at Melite, in Attica, after the great plague. Pausanias mentions several other works by him, which were highly esteemed. He was also celebrated as the instructor of Myron, Phidias, and Polycletus. THE PORTICOS OF AGAPTOS. According to Pausanias, Agaptos, a Grecian architect, invented the porticos around the square attached to the Greek stadii, or race courses of the Gymnasiums, which gained him so much reputation, that they were called the porticos of Agaptos, and were adopted in every stadium. THE GROUP OF NIOBE AND HER CHILDREN. Pliny says there was a doubt in his time, whether some statues representing the dying children of Niobe (_Niobæ liberos morientes_), in the Temple of Apollo Sosianus at Rome, were by Scopas or Praxiteles. The well known group of this subject in the Florentine gallery, is generally believed to be the identical work mentioned by Pliny. Whether it be an original production of one of these great artists, or as some critics have supposed, only a copy, it will ever be considered worthy of their genius, as one of the sweetest manifestations of that deep and intense feeling of beauty which the Grecian artists delighted to preserve in the midst of suffering. The admirable criticism of Schlegel (Lectures on the Drama, III), developes the internal harmony of the work. "In the group of Niobe, there is the most perfect expression of terror and pity. The upturned looks of the mother, and the mouth half open in supplication, seem to accuse the invisible wrath of Heaven. The daughter, clinging in the agonies of death to the bosom of her mother, in her infantile innocence, can have no other fear than for herself; the innate impulse of self-preservation was never represented in a manner more tender and affecting. Can there, on the other hand, be exhibited to the senses, a more beautiful image of self-devoting, heroic magnanimity than Niobe, as she bends her body forward, that, if possible, she may alone receive the destructive bolt? Pride and repugnance are melted down in the most ardent maternal love. The more than earthly dignity of the features are the less disfigured by pain, as from the quick repetition of the shocks, she appears, as in the fable, to have become insensible and motionless. Before this figure, twice transformed into stone, and yet so inimitably animated--before this line of demarkation of all human suffering, the most callous beholder is dissolved in tears." STATUE OF THE FIGHTING GLADIATOR. The famous antique statue of the Fighting Gladiator, which now adorns the Louvre, was executed by Agasias, a Greek sculptor of Ephesus, who flourished about B. C. 450. It was found among the ruins of a palace of the Roman Emperors at Capo d'Anzo, the ancient Antium, where also the Apollo Belvidere was discovered. THE GROUP OF LAOCOÖN IN THE VATICAN. As Laocoön, a priest of Neptune, (or according to some, of Apollo) was sacrificing a bull to Neptune, on the shore at Troy, after the pretended retreat of the Greeks, two enormous serpents appeared swimming from the island of Tenedos, and advanced towards the altar. The people fled; but Laocoön and his two sons fell victims to the monsters. The sons were first attacked, and then the father, who attempted to defend them, the serpents coiling themselves about him and his sons, while in his agony he endeavored to extricate them. They then hastened to the temple of Pallas, where, placing themselves at the foot of the goddess, they hid themselves under her shield. The people saw in this omen, Laocoön's punishment for his impiety in having pierced with his spear, the wooden horse which was consecrated to Minerva. Thus Virgil relates the story in the Æneid; others, as Hyginus, give different accounts, though agreeing in the main points. The fable is chiefly interesting to us, as having given rise to one of the finest and most celebrated works of antique sculpture, namely, the Laocoön, now in the Vatican. It was discovered in 1506 by some workmen, while employed in making excavations in a vineyard on the site of the Baths of Titus. Pope Julius II. bought it for an annual pension, and placed it in the Belvidere in the Vatican. It was taken to Paris by Napoleon, but was restored to its place in 1815. It is perfect in preservation, except that the right arm of Laocoön was wanting, which was restored by Baccio Bandinelli. This group is so perfect a work, so grand and so instructive for the student of the fine arts, that many writers of all nations have written on it. It represents three persons in agony, but in different attitudes of struggling or fear, according to their ages, and the mental anguish of the father. All connoisseurs declare the group perfect, the product of the most thorough knowledge of anatomy, of character, and of ideal perfection. According to Pliny, it was the common opinion in his time, that the group was made of one stone by three sculptors, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenadorus, all three natives of Rhodes, and the two last probably sons of the former. He says, "The Laocoön, which is in the palace of the Emperor Titus, is a work to be preferred to all others, either in painting or sculpture. Those great artists, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenadorus, Rhodians, executed the principal figure, the sons, and the wonderful folds of the serpents, out of one piece of marble." Doubts exist respecting the era of this work. Maffei places it in the 88th Olympiad, or the first year of the Peloponnesian War; Winckelmann, in the time of Lysippus and Alexander; and Lessing, in the time of the first Emperors. Some doubt whether this is the work mentioned by Pliny, because it has been discovered that the group was not executed out of one block of marble, as asserted by him. In the opinion of many judicious critics, however, it is considered an original group, and not a copy, for no copy would possess its perfections; and that it is certainly the one described by Pliny, because, after his time, no known sculptor was capable of executing such a perfect work; and had there been one, his fame would certainly have reached us. It was found in the place mentioned by Pliny, and the joinings are so accurate and artfully concealed, that they might easily escape his notice. There are several copies of this matchless production by modern sculptors, the most remarkable of which, are one in bronze by Sansovino, and another in marble by Baccio Bandinelli, which last is in the Medici gallery at Florence. It has also been frequently engraved; the best is the famous plate by Bervic, engraved for the Musée Francais, pronounced by connoisseurs, the finest representation of a marble group ever executed, proof impressions of which have been sold for 30 guineas each. MICHAEL ANGELO'S OPINION OF THE LAOCOÖN. It is said that Julius II. desired Angelo to restore the missing arm behind the Laocoön. He commenced it, but left it unfinished, "because," said he, "I found I could do nothing worthy of being joined to so admirable a work." What a testimony of the superiority of the best ancient sculptors over the moderns, for of all modern sculptors, Michael Angelo is universally allowed to be the best! DISCOVERY OF THE LAOCOÖN. There is a curious letter not generally known, but published by the Abate Fea, from Francesco da Sangallo, the sculptor, to Monsignore Spedalengo, in which the circumstances of the discovery of the Laocoön are thus alluded to. The letter is dated 1509. He says, "It being told to the Pope that some fine statues had been discovered in a vineyard near S. Maria Maggiore, he sent to desire my father, (Giuliano da Sangallo) to go and examine them. Michael Angelo Buonarotti being often at our house, father got him to go also; and so," continues Francesco, "I mounted behind my father, and we went. We descended to where the statues were. My father immediately exclaimed, 'This is the Laocoön spoken of by Pliny!' They made the workmen enlarge the aperture or excavation, so as to be able to draw them out, and then, having seen them, we returned to dinner." SIR JOHN SOANE. This eminent English architect, and munificent public benefactor, was the son of a poor bricklayer, and was born at Reading in 1753. He showed early indications of talent and a predilection for architecture; and, at the age of fifteen, his father placed him with Mr. George Dance (then considered one of the most accomplished of the English architects), probably in the capacity of a servant. At all events he was not regularly articled, but he soon attracted notice by his industry, activity, and talents. Mr. Donaldson says, "his sister was a servant in Mr. Dance's family, which proves that the strength of Soane's character enabled him to rise to so distinguished a rank merely by his own exertions." He afterwards studied under Holland, and in the Royal Academy, where he first attracted public notice by a design for a triumphal bridge, which drew the gold medal of that institution, and entitled him to go to Italy for three years on the pension of the Academy. During a residence of six years in Italy, he studied the remains of antiquity and the finest modern edifices with great assiduity, and made several original designs, which attracted considerable attention; among them were one for a British Senate House, and another for a Royal Palace. In 1780 he returned to England, and soon distinguished himself by several elegant palaces, which he was commissioned to erect for the nobility in different parts of the kingdom, the plans and elevations of which he published in a folio volume in 1788. In the same year, in a competition with nineteen other architects, he obtained the lucrative office of Surveyor and Architect to the Bank of England, which laid the foundation of the splendid fortune he afterwards acquired. Other advantageous appointments followed; that of Clerk of the Woods of St. James' Palace, in 1791; Architect of the Woods and Forests, in 1795; Professor of Architecture in the Royal Academy in 1806; and Surveyor of Chelsea Hospital in 1807. In addition to his public employments, he received many commissions for private buildings. He led a life of indefatigable industry in the practice of his profession till 1833, when he reached his eightieth year. He died in 1837. SOANE'S LIBERALITY AND PUBLIC MUNIFICENCE. Sir John Soane was a munificent patron of various public charities, and was even more liberal in his contributions for the advancement of art; he subscribed £1000 to the Duke of York's monument; a similar sum to the Royal British Institution; £750 to the Institute of British Architects; £250 to the Architectural Society, &c. He made a splendid collection of works of art, valued at upwards of £50,000 before his death, converted his house into a Museum, and left the whole to his country, which is now known as _Sir John Soane's Museum_--one of the most attractive institutions in London. He devoted the last four years of his life in classifying and arranging his Museum, which is distributed in twenty-four rooms, and consists of architectural models of ancient and modern edifices; a large collection of architectural drawings, designs, plans, and measurements, by many great architects; a library of the best works on art, particularly on Architecture; antique fragments of buildings, as columns, capitals, ornaments, and friezes in marble; also, models, casts, and copies of similar objects in other collections; fragments and relics of architecture in the middle ages; modern sculptures, especially by the best British sculptors; Greek and Roman antiquities, consisting of fragments of Greek and Roman sculpture antique busts, bronzes, and cinerary urns; Etruscan vases; Egyptian antiquities; busts of remarkable persons; a collection of 138 antique gems, cameos and intaglios, originally in the collection of M. Capece Latro, Archbishop of Tarentum, and 136 antique gems, principally from the Braschi collection; a complete set of Napoleon medals, selected by the Baron Denon for the Empress Josephine, and formerly in her possession, curiosities; rare books and illuminated manuscripts; a collection of about fifty oil paintings, many of them of great value, among which are the Rake's Progress, a series of eight pictures by Hogarth, and the Election, a series of four, by the same artist; and many articles of virtu too numerous to mention here, forming altogether a most rare, unique, and valuable collection. What a glorious monument did the poor bricklayer's son erect to his memory, which, while it blesses, will cause his countrymen to bless and venerate the donor, and make his name bright on the page of history! Some there are who regard posthumous fame a bubble, and present pomp substantial; but the one is godlike, the other sensual and vain. THE BELZONI SARCOPHAGUS. One of the most interesting and valuable relics in Sir John Soane's Museum, is the Belzoni Sarcophagus. It was discovered by Belzoni, the famous French traveler, in 1816, in a tomb in the valley of Beban el Malouk, near Gournon. He found it in the centre of a sepulchral chamber of extraordinary magnificence, and records the event with characteristic enthusiasm: "I may call this a fortunate day, one of the best, perhaps, of my life. I do not mean to say that fortune has made me rich, for I do not consider all rich men fortunate; but she has given me that satisfaction, that extreme pleasure which wealth cannot purchase--the pleasure of discovering what has long been sought in vain." It is constructed of one single piece of alabaster, so translucent that a lamp placed within it shines through, although it is more than two inches in thickness. It is nine feet four inches in length, three feet eight inches in width, and two feet eight inches in depth, and is covered with hieroglyphics outside and inside, which have not yet been satisfactorily interpreted, though they are supposed by some to refer to Osirei, the father of Rameses the Great. It was transported from Egypt to England at great expense, and offered to the Trustees of the British Museum for £2,000, which being refused, Sir John Soane immediately purchased it and exhibited it free, with just pride, to crowds of admiring visitors. When Belzoni discovered this remarkable relic of Egyptian royalty, the lid had been thrown off and broken into pieces, and its contents rifled; the sarcophagus itself is in perfect preservation. TASSO'S "GERUSALEMME LIBERATA." The original copy of "Gerusalemme Liberata," in the handwriting of Tasso, is in the Soane Museum. It was purchased by Sir John Soane, at the sale of the Earl of Guilford's Library, in 1829. This literary treasure, which cannot be contemplated without emotion, once belonged to Baruffaldi, one of the most eminent literary characters of modern Italy. Serassi describes it, and refers to the emendations made by the poet in the margin (Serassi's edit. Florence, 1724;) but expresses his _fear_ that it had been taken out of Italy. In allusion to this expression of Serassi, Lord Guilford has written on the fly-leaf of the MS., "I would not wish to hurt the honest pride of any Italian; but the works of a great genius are the property of all ages and all countries: and I hope it will be recorded to future ages, that England possesses the original MS. of one of the four greatest epic poems the world has produced, and, beyond all doubt, the only one of the four now existing." There is no date to this MS. The first printed edition of the Gerusalemme is dated 1580. There are other rare and valuable MSS. in this Museum, the most remarkable of which are a Commentary in Latin on the epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, by Cardinal Grimani. It is adorned with exquisite miniature illustrations, painted by Don Giulio Clovio, called the Michael Angelo of miniature painters. "The figures are about an inch in height," says Mrs. Jameson, "equaling in vigor, grandeur, and originality, the conceptions of Michael Angelo and of Raffaelle, who were his cotemporaries and admirers." Also, a missal of the fifteenth century, containing ninety-two miniatures by Lucas van Leyden and his scholars, executed in a truly Dutch style, just the reverse of those of Clovio, except in point of elaborate finishing. GEORGE MORLAND. The life of this extraordinary genius is full of interest, and his melancholy fall full of warning and instruction. He was the son of an indifferent painter, whose principal business was in cleaning and repairing, and dealing in ancient pictures. Morland showed an extraordinary talent for painting almost in his infancy, and before he was sixteen years old, his name was known far and wide by engravings from his pictures. His father, who seems to have been a man of a low and sordid disposition, had his son indented to him as an apprentice, for seven years, in order to secure his services as long as possible, and he constantly employed him in painting pictures and making drawings for sale; and these were frequently of a broad character, as such commanded the best prices, and found the most ready sale. Hence he acquired a wonderful facility of pencil, but wholly neglected academic study. His associates were the lowest of the low. On the expiration of his indenture, he left his father's house, and the remainder of his life is the history of genius degraded by intemperance and immorality, which alternately excites our admiration at his great talents, our regrets at the profligacy of his conduct, and our pity for his misfortunes. According to his biographer, Mr. George Dawe, who wrote an impartial and excellent life of Morland, he reached the full maturity of his powers, about 1790 when he was twenty-six years old; and from that time, they began and continued to decline till his death in 1804. Poor Morland was constantly surrounded by a set of harpies, who contrived to get him in their debt, and then compelled him to paint a picture for a guinea, which they readily sold for thirty or forty, and which now bring almost any sum asked for them. Many of his best works were painted in sponging houses to clear him from arrest. MORLAND'S EARLY TALENT. Morland's father having embarked in the business of picture dealing, had become bankrupt, and it is said that he endeavored to repair his broken fortunes by the talents of his son George, who, almost as soon as he escaped from the cradle, took to the pencil and crayon. Very many artists are recorded to have manifested an "early inclination for art," but the indications of early talent in others are nothing when compared with Morland's. "_At four, five, and six years of age_," says Cunningham, "_he made drawings worthy of ranking him among the common race of students_; the praise bestowed on these by the Society of Artists, to whom they were exhibited, and the money which collectors were willing to pay for the works of this new wonder, induced his father to urge him onward in his studies, and he made rapid progress." MORLAND'S EARLY FAME. The danger of overtasking either the mind or body in childhood, is well known; and there is every reason to believe that young Morland suffered both of these evils. His father stimulated him by praise and by indulgence at the table, and to ensure his continuance at his allotted tasks, shut him up in a garret, and excluded him from free air, which strengthens the body, and from education--that free air which nourishes the mind. His stated work for a time was making drawings from pictures and from plaster casts, which his father carried out and sold; but as he increased in skill, he chose his subjects from popular songs and ballads, such as "Young Roger came tapping at Dolly's window," "My name is Jack Hall," "I am a bold shoemaker, from Belfast Town I came," and other productions of the mendicant muse. The copies of pictures and casts were commonly sold for three half-crowns each; the original sketches--some of them a little free in posture, and not over delicately handled, were framed and disposed of for any sum from two to five guineas, according to the cleverness of the piece, or the generosity of the purchaser. Though far inferior to the productions of his manhood, they were much admired; engravers found it profitable to copy them, and before he was sixteen years old, his name had flown far and wide. MORLAND'S MENTAL AND MORAL EDUCATION, UNDER AN UNNATURAL PARENT. From ten years of age, young Morland appears to have led the life of a prisoner and a slave under the roof of his father, hearing in his seclusion the merry din of the schoolboys in the street, without hope of partaking in their sports. By-and-by he managed to obtain an hour's relaxation at the twilight, and then associated with such idle and profligate boys as chance threw in his way, and learned from them a love for coarse enjoyment, and the knowledge that it could not well be obtained without money. Oppression keeps the school of Cunning; young Morland resolved not only to share in the profits of his own talents, but also to snatch an hour or so of amusement, without consulting his father. When he made three drawings for his father, he made one secretly for himself, and giving a signal from his window, lowered it by a string to two or three knowing boys, who found a purchaser at a reduced price, and spent the money with the young artist. A common tap-room was an indifferent school of manners, whatever it might be for painting, and there this gifted lad was now often to be found late in the evening, carousing with hostlers and potboys, handing round the quart pot, and singing his song or cracking his joke. His father, having found out the contrivance by which he raised money for this kind of revelry adopted, in his own imagination, a wiser course. He resolved to make his studies as pleasant to him as he could; and as George was daily increasing in fame and his works in price, this could be done without any loss. He indulged his son, now some sixteen years old, with wine, pampered his appetite with richer food, and moreover allowed him a little pocket-money to spend among his companions, and purchase acquaintance with what the vulgar call life. He dressed him, too, in a style of ultra-dandyism, and exhibited him at his easel to his customers, attired in a green coat with very long skirts, and immense yellow buttons, buckskin breeches, and top boots with spurs. He permitted him too to sing wild songs, swear grossly, and talk about anything he liked with such freedom as makes anxious parents tremble. With all these indulgences the boy was not happy; he aspired but the more eagerly after full liberty and the unrestrained enjoyment of the profits of his pencil. MORLAND'S ESCAPE FROM THE THRALDOM OF HIS FATHER. Hassell and Smith give contradictory accounts of this important step in young Morland's life, which occurred when he was seventeen years old. The former, who knew him well, says that, "he was determined to make his escape from the rigid confinement which paternal authority had imposed upon him; and, wild as a young quadruped that had broken loose from his den, at length, though late, effectually accomplished his purpose." "Young George was of so unsettled a disposition," says Smith, "that his father, being fully aware of his extraordinary talents, was determined to force him to get his own living, and gave him a guinea, with something like the following observation: 'I am _determined_ to encourage your idleness no longer; there--take that guinea, and apply to your art and support yourself.' This Morland told me, and added, that from that moment he commenced and continued wholly on his own account." It would appear by Smith's relation, that our youth, instead of supporting his father, had all along been depending on his help; this, however, contradicts not only Hassell, but Fuseli also, who, in his edition of Pilkington's Dictionary, accuses the elder Morland of avariciously pocketing the whole profits of his son's productions. MORLAND'S MARRIAGE, AND TEMPORARY REFORM. After leaving his father, Morland plunged into a career of wildness and dissipation, amidst which, however, his extraordinary talents kept his name still rising. While residing at Kensall Green, he was frequently thrown in the company of Ward, the painter, whose example of moral steadiness was exhibited to him in vain. At length, however, he fell in love with Miss Ward, a young lady of beauty and modesty, and the sister of his friend. Succeeding in gaining her affections, he soon afterwards married her; and to make the family union stronger, Ward sued for the hand of Maria Morland, and in about a month after his sister's marriage, obtained it. In the joy of this double union, the brother artists took joint possession of a good house in High Street, Marylebone. Morland suspended for a time his habit of insobriety, discarded the social comrades of his laxer hours, and imagined himself reformed. But discord broke out between the sisters concerning the proper division of rule and authority in the house; and Morland, whose partner's claim perhaps was the weaker, took refuge in lodgings in Great Portland Street. His passion for late hours and low company, restrained through courtship and the honey-moon, now broke out with the violence of a stream which had been dammed, rather than dried up. It was in vain that his wife entreated and remonstrated--his old propensities prevailed, and the post-boy, the pawnbroker, and the pugilist, were summoned again to his side, no more to be separated. MORLAND'S SOCIAL POSITION. Morland's dissipated habits and worthless companions, produced the effect that might have been expected; and this talented painter, who might have mingled freely among nobles and princes, came strength to hold a position in society that is best illustrated by the following anecdote. Raphael Smith, the engraver, had employed him for years on works _from_ which he engraved, and _by_ which he made large sums of money. He called one day with Bannister the comedian to look at a picture which was upon the easel. Smith was satisfied with the artist's progress, and said, "I shall now proceed on my morning ride." "Stay a moment," said Morland, laying down his brush, "and I will go with you." "Morland," answered the other, in an emphatic tone, which could not be mistaken, "I have an appointment with a _gentleman_, who is waiting for me." Such a sarcasm might have cured any man who was not incurable; it made but a momentary impression upon the mind of our painter, who cursed the engraver, and returned to his palette. AN UNPLEASANT DILEMMA. Morland once received an invitation to Barnet, and was hastening thither with Hassell and another friend, when he was stopped at Whetstone turnpike by a lumber or jockey cart, driven by two persons, one of them a chimney-sweep, who were disputing with the toll-gatherer. Morland endeavored to pass, when one of the wayfarers cried, "What! Mr. Morland, won't you speak to a body!" The artist endeavored to elude further greeting, but this was not to be; the other bawled out so lustily, that Morland was obliged to recognize at last his companion and croney, Hooper, a tinman and pugilist. After a hearty shake of the hand, the boxer turned to his neighbor the chimney-sweep and said, "Why, Dick, don't you know this here gentleman? 'tis my friend Mr. Morland." The sooty charioteer smiling a recognition, forced his unwelcome hand upon his brother of the brush; they then both whipt their horses and departed. This rencontre mortified Morland very sensibly; he declared that he knew nothing of the chimney-sweep, and that he was forced upon him by the impertinence of Hooper: but the artist's habits made the story generally believed, and "Sweeps, your honor," was a joke which he was often obliged to hear. MORLAND AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT. Morland loved to visit this isle in his better days, and some of his best pictures are copied from scenes on that coast. A friend once found him at Freshwater-Gate, in a low public-house called The Cabin. Sailors, rustics, and fishermen, were seated round him in a kind of ring, the rooftree rung with laughter and song; and Morland, with manifest reluctance, left their company for the conversation of his friend. "George," sad his monitor, "you must have reasons for keeping such company." "Reasons, and good ones," said the artist, laughing; "see--where could I find such a picture of life as that, unless among the originals of The Cabin?" He held up his sketch-book and showed a correct delineation of the very scene in which he had so lately been the presiding spirit. One of his best pictures contains this fac-simile of the tap-room, with its guests and furniture. A NOVEL MODE OF FULFILLING COMMISSIONS. "It frequently happened," says one of Morland's biographers, "when a picture had been bespoke by one of his friends, who advanced some of the money to induce him to work, if the purchaser did not stand by to see it finished and carry it away with him, some other person, who was lurking within sight for that purpose, and knew the state of Morland's pocket, by the temptation of a few guineas laid upon the table, carried off the picture. Thus all were served in their turn; and though each exulted in the success of the trick when he was so lucky as to get a picture in this easy way, they all joined in exclaiming against Morland's want of honesty in not keeping his promises to them." HASSELL'S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH MORLAND. Hassell's introduction to Morland was decidedly in character. "As I was walking," he says, "towards Paddington on a summer morning, to inquire about the health of a relation, I saw a man posting on before me with a sucking-pig, which he carried in his arms like a child. The piteous squeaks of the little animal, and the singular mode of conveyance, drew spectators to door and window; the person however who carried it minded no one, but to every dog that barked--and there were not a few--he sat down the pig, and pitted him against the dog, and then followed the chase which was sure to ensue. In this manner he went through several streets in Mary-le-bone, and at last, stopping at the door of one of my friends, was instantly admitted. I also knocked and entered, but my surprise was great on finding this original sitting with the pig still under his arm, and still greater when I was introduced to Morland the painter." MORLAND'S DRAWINGS IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT. A person at whose house Morland resided when in the Isle of Wight, having set out for London, left an order with an acquaintance at Cowes to give the painter his own price for whatever works he might please to send. The pictures were accompanied by a regular solicitation for cash in proportion, or according to the nature of the subject. At length a small but very highly finished drawing arrived, and as the sum demanded seemed out of all proportion with the size of the work, the conscientious agent transmitted the piece to London and stated the price. The answer by post was, "Pay what is asked, and get as many others as you can at the same price." There is not one sketch in the collection thus made but what would now produce thrice its original cost. MORLAND'S FREAKS. One evening Hassell and his friends were returning to town from Hempstead, when Morland accosted them in the character of a mounted patrole, wearing the parish great-coat, girded with a broad black belt, and a pair of pistols depending. He hailed them with "horse patrole!" in his natural voice; they recognised him and laughed heartily, upon which he entreated them to stop at the Mother Red Cap, a well known public-house, till he joined them. He soon made his appearance in his proper dress, and gave way to mirth and good fellowship. On another occasion he paid a _parishioner_, who was drawn for constable, to be permitted to serve in his place, he billeted soldiers during the day, and presided in the constable's chair at night. A JOKE ON MORLAND. At another time, having promised to paint a picture for M. de Calonne, Morland seemed unwilling to begin, but was stimulated by the following stratagem. Opposite to his house in Paddington was the White Lion. Hassell directed two of his friends to breakfast there, and instructed them to look anxiously towards the artist's window, and occasionally walk up and down before the house. He then waited on Morland, who only brandished his brush at the canvas and refused to work. After waiting some time, Hassell went to the window and effected surprise at seeing two strangers gazing intently at the artist's house. Morland looked at them earnestly--declared they were bailiffs, who certainly wanted him--and ordered the door to be bolted. Hassell having secured him at home, showed him the money for his work, and so dealt with him that the picture, a landscape with six figures, one of his best productions, was completed in six hours. He then paid him, and relieved his apprehensions respecting the imaginary bailiffs--Morland laughed heartily. MORLAND'S APPREHENSION AS A SPY. While spending some time at Yarmouth, Morland was looked upon as a suspicious character, and was apprehended as a spy. After a sharp examination, the drawings he had made on the shores of the Isle of Wight were considered as confirmation of his guilt; he was therefore honored with an escort of soldiers and constables to Newport, and there confronted by a bench of justices. At his explanation, they shook their heads, laid a strict injunction upon him to paint and draw no more in that neighborhood, and dismissed him. This adventure he considered a kind of pleasant interruption; and indeed it seems ridiculous enough in the officials who apprehended him. MORLAND'S "SIGN OF THE BLACK BULL." On one occasion, Morland was on his way from Deal, and Williams, the engraver, was his companion. The extravagance of the preceding evening had fairly emptied their pockets; weary, hungry and thirsty, they arrived at a small ale-house by the way-side; they hesitated to enter. Morland wistfully reconnoitered the house, and at length accosted the landlord--"Upon my life, I scarcely knew it: is this the Black Bull?" "To be sure it is, master," said the landlord, "there's the sign."--"Ay! the board is there, I grant," replied our wayfarer, "but the Black Bull is vanished and gone. I will paint you a capital new one for a crown." The landlord consented, and placed a dinner and drink before this restorer of signs, to which the travelers did immediate justice. "Now, landlord," said Morland, "take your horse, and ride to Canterbury--it is but a little way--and buy me proper paint and a good brush." He went on his errand with a grudge, and returned with the speed of thought, for fear that his guests should depart in his absence. By the time that Morland had painted the Black Bull, the reckoning had risen to ten shillings, and the landlord reluctantly allowed them to go on their way; but not, it is said, without exacting a promise that the remainder of the money should be paid with the first opportunity. The painter, on his arrival it town, related this adventure in the Hole-in-the-Wall, Fleet Street. A person who overheard him, mounted his horse, rode into Kent, and succeeded in purchasing the Black Bull from the Kentish Boniface for ten guineas. MORLAND AND THE PAWNBROKER. Even when Morland had sunk to misery and recklessness, the spirit of industry did not forsake him, nor did his taste or his skill descend with his fortunes. One day's work would have purchased him a week's sustenance, yet he labored every day, and as skilfully and beautifully as ever. A water man was at one time his favorite companion, whom, by way of distinction, Morland called "My Dicky." Dicky once carried a picture to the pawnbroker's, wet from the easel, with the request for the advance of three guineas upon it. The pawnbroker paid the money; but in carrying it into the room his foot slipped, and the head and foreparts of a hog were obliterated. The money-changer returned the picture with a polite note, requesting the artist to restore the damaged part. "My Dicky!" exclaimed Morland, "an that's a good one! but never mind!" He reproduced the hog in a few minutes, and said, "There! go back and tell the pawnbroker to advance me five guineas more upon it; and if he won't, say I shall proceed against him; the price of the picture is thirty guineas." The demand was complied with. MORLAND'S IDEA OF A BARONETCY. Morland was well descended. In his earlier and better days, a solicitor informed him that he was heir to a baronet's title, and advised him to assert his claim. "Sir George Morland!" said the painter--"It _sounds_ well, but it won't do. Plain George Morland will always sell my pictures, and there is more honor in being a fine painter than in being a fine gentleman." MORLAND'S ARTISTIC MERIT. As an artist, Morland's claims are high and undisputed. He is original and alone; his style and conceptions are his own; his thoughts are ever at home, and always natural; he extracts pleasing subjects out of the most coarse and trivial scenes, and finds enough to charm the eye in the commonest occurrences. His subjects are usually from low life, such as hog-sties, farm-yards, landscapes with cattle and sheep, or fishermen with smugglers on the sea-coast. He seldom or ever produced a picture perfect in all its parts, but those parts adapted to his knowledge and taste were exquisitely beautiful. Knowing well his faults, he usually selected those subjects best suited to his talents. His knowledge of anatomy was extremely limited; he was totally unfitted for representing the human figure elegantly or correctly, and incapable of large compositions. He never paints above the most ordinary capacity, and gives an air of truth and reality to whatever he touches. He has taken a strong and lasting hold of the popular fancy: not by ministering to our vanity, but by telling plain and striking truths. He is the rustic painter for the people; his scenes are familiar to every eye, and his name is on every lip. Painting seemed as natural to him as language is to others, and by it he expressed his sentiments and his feelings, and opened his heart to the multitude. His gradual descent in society may be traced in the productions of his pencil; he could only paint well what he saw or remembered; and when he left the wild sea-shore and the green wood-side for the hedge ale-house and the Rules of the Bench, the character of his pictures shifted with the scene. Yet even then his wonderful skill of hand and sense of the picturesque never forsook him. His intimacy with low life only dictated his theme--the coarseness of the man and the folly of his company never touched the execution of his pieces. All is indeed homely--nay, mean--but native taste and elegance redeemed every detail. To a full command over every implement of his art, he united a facility of composition and a free readiness of hand perhaps quite unrivalled. CHARLES JERVAS. This artist was a pupil of Sir Godfrey Kneller, and met with plentiful employment in portrait painting. His abilities were very inferior, but, says Walpole, "Such was the badness of the age's taste, and the dearth of good masters, that Jervas sat at the head of his profession, although he was defective in drawing, coloring, composition, and likeness. In general, his pictures are a light flimsy kind of fan-painting as large as life. Yet I have seen a few of his works highly colored, and it is certain that his copies of Carlo Maratti, whom he most studied and imitated, were extremely just, and scarcely inferior to the originals." JERVAS THE INSTRUCTOR OF POPE. What will recommend the name of Jervas to inquisitive posterity, was his intimacy with Pope, whom he instructed to draw and paint. The poet has enshrined the feeble talents of the painter in "the lucid amber of his flowing lines." Spence informs us, that Pope was "the pupil of Jervas for the space of a year said a half," meaning that he was constantly so, for that period. Tillemans was engaged in painting a landscape for Lord Radnor, into which Pope by stealth inserted some strokes, which the prudent painter did not appear to observe; and of this circumstance Pope was not a little vain. In proof of his proficiency in the art of painting, Pope presented his friend Mr. Murray, with a head of Betterton the celebrated tragedian, which was afterwards at Caen Wood. During a long visit at Holm Lacy in Herefordshire, he amused his leisure by copying from Vandyck, in crayons, a head of Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, which was still preserved there many years afterwards, and is said to have possessed considerable merit. For an account of Pope's skill in painting fans, see vol. I. page 201 of this work. JERVAS AND DR. ARBUTHNOT. Jervas, who affected to be a Free-thinker, was one day talking very irreverently of the Bible. Dr. Arbuthnot maintained to him that he was not only a speculative, but a practical believer. Jervas denied it. Arbuthnot said that he would prove it: "You strictly observe the second commandment;" said the Doctor, "for in your pictures you 'make not the likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth'"! JERVAS' VANITY. His vanity and conceit knew no bounds. He copied a picture by Titian in the Royal collection, which he thought so vastly superior to the original, that on its completion he exclaimed with great complacency, "Poor little Tit, how he would stare!" Walpole says, "Jervas had ventured to look upon the fair Lady Bridgewater with more than a painter's eye; so entirely did that lovely form possess his imagination, that many a homely dame was delighted to find her picture resemble Lady Bridgewater. Yet neither his presumption nor his passion could extinguish his self-love." One day, as she was sitting to him, he ran over the beauties of her face with rapture--'but,' said he, "I cannot help telling your ladyship that you have not a handsome ear." "No!" returned the lady, "pray, Mr. Jervas, what is a handsome ear?" He turned his cap, and showed her his own. When Kneller heard that Jervas had sent up a carriage and four horses, he exclaimed, "Ah, mine Got! if his horses do not draw better than he does, he will never get to his journey's end!" HOLBEIN AND THE FLY. Before Holbein quitted Basile for England, he intimated that he should leave a specimen of the power of his abilities. Having a portrait in his house which he had just finished for one of his patrons, he painted a fly on the forehead, and sent it to the person for whom it was painted. The gentleman was struck with the beauty of the piece, and went eagerly to brush off the fly, when he found out the deceit. The story soon spread, and orders were immediately given to prevent the city being deprived of Holbein's talents; but he had already departed. HOLBEIN'S VISIT TO ENGLAND. Furnished with recommendatory letters from his friend Sir Thomas More, Holbein went to England, and was received into More's house, where he wrought for nearly three years, drawing the portraits of Sir Thomas, his relations and friends. The King, (Henry VIII.) visiting the Chancellor, saw some of these pictures, and expressed his satisfaction. Sir Thomas begged him to accept which ever he liked; but his Majesty inquired for the painter, who was accordingly introduced to him. Henry immediately took him into his own service and told the Chancellor that now he had got the artist, he did not want the pictures. An apartment in the palace was allotted to Holbein, with a salary of 200 florins besides the price of his pictures. HENRY VIII.'S OPINION OF HOLBEIN. The King retained Holbein in his service many years, during which time he painted the portrait of his Majesty many times, and probably those of all his queens, though no portrait of Catharine Parr is certainly known to be from his hand. An amusing and characteristic anecdote is related, showing the opinion the King entertained of this artist. One day, as Holbein was privately drawing some lady's picture for Henry, a great lord forced himself into the chamber, when the artist flew into a terrible passion, and forgetting everything else in his rage, ran at the peer and threw him down stairs! Upon a sober second thought, however, seeing the rashness of this act, Holbein bolted the door, escaped over the top of the house, and running directly to the King, besought pardon, without telling his offence. His majesty promised he would forgive him if he would tell the truth; but on finding out the offence, began to repent of his promise, and said he should not easily overlook such insults, and bade him wait in the apartment till he learned more of the matter. Immediately after, the lord arrived with his complaint, but diminishing the provocation. At first the monarch heard the story with temper, but soon broke out, reproaching the nobleman with his want of truth, and adding, "You have not to do with Holbein, but with me; I tell you, of seven peasants I can make seven lords; but of seven lords I cannot make one Holbein! Begone, and remember that if you ever attempt to revenge yourself, I shall look on any injury offered to the painter as done to myself." HOLBEIN'S PORTRAIT OF THE DUCHESS DOWAGER OF MILAN. After the death of Jane Seymour, Holbein was sent to Flanders by the King, to paint the portrait of the Duchess Dowager of Milan, widow of Francesco Sforza, whom Charles V. had recommended to Henry for a fourth wife, although the German Emperor subsequently changed his mind, and prevented the marriage. There is a letter among the Holbein MSS. from Sir Thomas Wyatt, congratulating his Majesty on his escape, as the Duchess' chastity was somewhat equivocal, but says Walpole, "If it was, I am apt to think, considering Henry's temper, that the Duchess had the greater escape!"--About the same time it is said that the Duchess herself, sent the King word, "That she had but one head; if she had two, one of them should be at his Majesty's service." HOLBEIN'S FLATTERY IN PORTRAITS--A WARNING TO PAINTERS. Holbein was dispatched by Cromwell, Henry's Minister, to paint the Lady Anne of Cleves, and by practising the common flattery of his profession, "he was," says Walpole, "the immediate cause of the destruction of that great subject, and of the disgrace which fell upon the princess herself. He drew so favorable a likeness that Henry was content to wed her; but when he found her so inferior to the miniature, the storm which should have really been directed at the painter, burst on the minister; and Cromwell lost his head, because Anne was _a Flanders mare_, and not a Venus, as Holbein had represented her." HOLBEIN'S PORTRAIT OF CRATZER. He painted the portrait of Nicholas Cratzer, astronomer to Henry VIII., which Walpole mentions as being in the Royal collection in France. This astronomer erected the dial at Corpus Christi, Oxford College, in 1550. After thirty years' residence in England, he had scarce learned to speak the language, and his Majesty asking him how that happened, he replied, "I beseech your highness to pardon me; what can a man learn in only thirty years?" The latter half of this memorable sentence may remind the reader of Sir Isaac Newton; and perhaps the study of astronomy does naturally produce such a feeling in the reflective mind. HOLBEIN'S PORTRAITS OF SIR THOMAS MORE AND FAMILY. Holbein painted the portraits of the Chancellor and family; and no less than six different pictures of this subject are attributed to his hand; but of these Walpole thinks only two to possess good evidences of originality. One of these was in Deloo's collection, and after his death was purchased by Mr. Roper, More's grandson. Another was in the Palazzo Delfino at Venice, where it was long on sale, the price first set being £1500; but the King of Poland purchased it about 1750, for near £400. The coloring of this work is beautiful beyond description, and the carnations have that bloom so peculiar to Holbein, who touched his works until not a touch remained discernible. Walpole says, "It was evidently designed for a small altar-piece to a chapel; in the middle on a throne sits the Virgin and child; on one side kneels an elderly gentleman with two sons, one of them a naked infant opposite kneeling are his wife and daughters." There is recorded a bon-mot of Sir Thomas on the birth of his son. He had three daughters, but his wife was impatient for a son: at last they had one, but not much above an idiot--"you have prayed so long for a boy," said the Chancellor, "that now we have got one who I believe will be a boy as long as he lives!" SIR JOHN VANBRUGH AND HIS CRITICS. This eminent English architect, who flourished about the commencement of the 18th century, had to contend with the wits of the age. They waged no war against him as a wit, for he was not inferior; but as an architect, he was the object of their keenest derision, particularly for his celebrated work of the stupendous palace of Blenheim, erected for the Duke of Marlborough in accordance with the vote of a grateful nation. Swift was a satirist, therefore no true critic; and his disparagement of Blenheim arose from party-feeling. Pope was more decisive, and by the harmony of his numbers contributed to lead and bias the public opinion, until a new light emanated from the criticism of Sir Joshua Reynolds; and this national palace is now to be considered, not on its architectural, but its picturesque merits. A criticism which caused so memorable a revolution in public taste, must be worthy of an extract. "I pretend to no skill in architecture--I judge now of the art merely as a painter. To speak then of Vanbrugh in the language of a painter, he had originality of invention, he understood light and shadow, and had great skill in composition. To support his principal object he produced his second and third groups of masses; he perfectly understood in _his_ art what is most difficult in _ours_, the conduct of the background, by which the design and invention is set off to the greatest advantage. What the background is in painting, is the real ground upon which the building is erected; and no architect took greater care that his works should not appear crude and hard; that is, it did not start abruptly out of the ground, without speculation or preparation. This is the tribute which a painter owes to an architect who composed like a painter." Besides this, the testimony of Knight, Price, and Gilpin, have contributed to remove the prejudices against Vanbrugh. Knight says in his "Principles of Taste," Sir John Vanbrugh is the only architect I know of, who has either planned or placed his houses according to the principles recommended; and in his two chief works, Blenheim and Castle Howard, it appears to have been strictly adhered to, at least in the placing of them, and both are certainly worthy of the best situations, which not only the respective places, but the island of Great Britain could afford. Vanbrugh also evinced great talent as a dramatic writer, and his masterly powers in comedy are so well evinced in the Relapse, the Provoked Wife, and other plays, that were it not for their strong libertine tendency which have properly banished them from the stage, and almost from the closet, he would have been regarded as a standard classic author in English dramatic literature. His private character seems to have been amiable, and his conduct tolerably correct. He died at his own house in Whitehall, in 1726. In his character of architect, Dr. Evans bestowed on him the following witty epitaph: "Lie heavy on him, earth, for he Laid many a heavy load on thee"! ANECDOTE OF THE ENGLISH PAINTER JAMES SEYMOUR. He was employed by the Duke of Somerset, commonly called "the Proud Duke," to paint the portraits of his horses at Petworth, who condescended to sit with Seymour (his namesake) at table. One day at dinner, the Duke filled his glass, and saying with a sneer, "_Cousin_ Seymour, your health," drank it off. "My Lord," said the artist, "I believe I _have_ the honor of being related to your grace." The proud peer rose from the table, and ordered his steward to dismiss the presumptuous painter, and employ an humbler brother of the brush. This was accordingly done; but when the new painter saw the spirited works of his predecessor, he shook his head, and retiring said, "No man in England can compete with James Seymour." The Duke now condescended to recall his discarded cousin. "My Lord," was the answer of Seymour, "I will now prove to the world that I am of your blood--_I won't come._" Upon receiving this laconic reply, the Duke sent his steward to demand a former loan of £100. Seymour briefly replied that "he would write to his Grace." He did so, but directed his letter, "Northumberland House, opposite the Trunkmaker's, Charing Cross." Enraged at this additional insult, the Duke threw the letter into the fire without opening it, and immediately ordered his steward to have him arrested. But Seymour, struck with an opportunity of evasion, carelessly observed that "it was hasty in his Grace to burn his letter, because it contained a bank note for £100, and that _therefore_, they were now quits." PRECOCITY OF LUCA GIORDANO. At the age of five years, the natural taste of Lucia Giordano for painting, led him to adopt the pencil as a plaything; at six he could draw the human figure with surprising correctness. The Cav. Stanzioni, passing by his father's shop, and seeing the child at work, stopped to see his performances, and is said to have predicted that "he would one day become the first painter of the age." Before he was eight years old he painted, unknown to his father, two cherubs in a fresco, entrusted to that artist, in an obscure part of the church of S. Maria Nuova--figures so graceful as to attract considerable attention. This fact coming to the knowledge of the Duke de Medina de las Torres, the Viceroy of Naples, he rewarded the precocious painter with some gold ducats, and recommended him to the instruction of Spagnoletto, then the most celebrated painter in Naples, who accordingly received him into his studio. There, says Palomino, he spent nine years in close application to study, and there, he probably enjoyed the advantage of seeing Velasquez, during that great artist's second visit to Naples. GIORDANO'S ENTHUSIASM. When Giordano was about seventeen years old, having learned from Ribera all he could teach him, he conceived a strong desire to prosecute his studies at Rome. To this step, his father, who was poor, and could perhaps ill afford to lose his earnings, refused to give his consent. Luca therefore embraced the earliest opportunity to abscond, and ran away on foot to the metropolis of art, where he applied himself with the greatest assiduity. He copied all the great frescos of Raffaelle in the Vatican several times; he next turned his rapid pencil against the works of Annibale Caracci in the Farnese palace. Meantime, his father divining the direction which the truant had taken, followed him to Rome, where, after a long search, he discovered him sketching in St. Peter's church. LUCA FA PRESTO. Giordano resided at Rome about three years with his father, who seems to have been a helpless creature, subsisting by the sale of his son's drawings; but Luca cared for nothing but his studies, satisfied with a piece of bread or a few maccaroni. When their purse was low, the old man would accompany him to the scene of his labors, and constantly urge him on, by repeating _Luca, fa presto_, (hurry Luca) which became a byword among the painters, and was fixed upon the young artist as a nickname, singularly appropriate to his wonderful celerity of execution. He afterwards traveled through Lombardy to Venice, still accompanied by his father, and having studied the works of Correggio, Titian, and other great masters, returned by way of Florence and Leghorn to Naples, where he soon after married the Donna Margarita Ardi, a woman of exquisite beauty, who served him as a model for his Virgins, Madonnas, Lucretias, and Venuses. GIORDANO'S SKILL IN COPYING. Luca Giordano could copy any master so accurately as to deceive the best judges. Among his patrons in his youth was one Gasparo Romero, who was in the habit of inflicting upon him a great deal of tedious and impertinent advice. For this he had his revenge by causing his father to send to that connoisseur as originals, some of his imitations of Titian, Tintoretto, and Bassano, and afterwards avowing the deception; but he managed the joke so pleasantly that Romero was rather pleased than offended at his skill and wit. GIORDANO'S SUCCESS AT NAPLES. In 1655, Giordano painted in competition with Giacomo Forelli, a large picture of St. Nicholas borne away by angels, for the church of S. Brigida, a work of such power and splendor, that it completely eclipsed his rival, and established his reputation at the early age of twenty-three. Two years after, he was employed by the Viceroy to paint several pictures for the church of S. Maria del Pianto, in competition with Andrea Vaccaro. The principal subjects which fell to Giordano, were the Crucifixion, and the Virgin and St. Januarius pleading with the Saviour for Naples, afflicted with pestilence; these he executed with great ability. He and Vaccaro having a dispute about placing the pictures, the matter was referred to the Viceroy, who gave the choice to Vaccaro as the senior artist; Giordano immediately yielded with so much grace and discretion, that he made a firm friend of his successful rival. His master, Ribera, being now dead, he soon stepped into the vacant place of that popular artist. The religious bodies of the kingdom, the dignitaries of the church, and princes and nobles, eagerly sought after his works. GIORDANO, THE VICEROY, AND THE DUKE OF DIANO. The honors heaped upon Giordano by the Marquess of Heliche, compelled him to neglect and offend other patrons. One of these personages, the Duke of Diano, being very anxious for the completion of his orders, at last, lost all patience, and collaring the artist, he threatened him with personal chastisement if he did not immediately fulfil his engagements. The Viceroy being informed of the insult, took up the painter's quarrel in right royal style. He invited the Duke, who affected connoisseurship, to pass judgment on a picture lately painted by Luca for the palace, in imitation of the style of Rubens. The unlucky noble fell into the trap, and pronounced it an undoubted work by the great Fleming. Seeming to assent to this criticism, the Viceroy replied that Giordano was painting a companion to the picture, a piece of information which Diano received with a sneer and a remark on the artist's uncivil treatment to persons of honor. Here Heliche hastily interposed, telling him that the work which he had praised was painted, not by Rubens, but by Giordano, and repeating the sentiment expressed by several crowned heads on like occasions, admonished him of the respect due to a man so highly endowed by his Maker. "And how dare you," cried he, in a loud tone, and seizing the Duke by the collar, as the latter had done to Giordano, "thus insult a man, who is besides, retained in my service? Know, for the future, that none shall play the brave here, so long as I bear rule in Naples!" "This scene," says Dominici, "passing in the presence of many of the courtiers, and some of these, witnesses of the insult offered to the painter, so mortified the pride of the provincial grandee, that he retired, covered with confusion, and falling into despondency, died soon after of a fever." GIORDANO INVITED TO FLORENCE. In 1679, Giordano was invited to Florence by the Grand Duke, Cosmo III., to decorate the chapel of S. Andrea Corsini in the Carmine. His works gave so much satisfaction to that prince, that he not only liberally rewarded him, but overwhelmed him with civilities, and presented him with a gold medal and chain, which he did him the honor to place about his neck with his own royal hands. GIORDANO AND CARLO DOLCI. While sojourning in that city, he became acquainted with Carlo Dolci, then advanced in years, who is said to have been so affected at seeing the rapid Neapolitan execute in a few hours what would have required him months to perform, in his own slow and laborious manner, that he fell into a profound melancholy, of which he soon after died: This circumstance Dominici assures us, Giordano long afterwards remembered with tears, on being shown at Naples "a picture painted by poor Carlino." GIORDANO'S VISIT TO SPAIN. The fame of Giordano had already reached Madrid, when Don Cristobal de Ontañon, a favorite courtier of Charles II., returning from Italy, full of admiration for Giordano and his works, so sounded his praises in the royal ear, that the King invited him to his court, paying the expense of his journey, and giving him a gratuity of 1500 ducats, and appointing him his principal painter, with a salary of 200 crowns a month. The painter embarked from Naples on board one of the royal galleys, accompanied by his son Nicolo, a nephew named Baldassare Valente, and two scholars, Aniello Rossi and Matteo Pacelli, attended by three servants. Landing at Barcelona, and resting there a few days, he proceeded to Madrid, where he arrived in May 1692. Six of the royal coaches were sent to meet him on the road, and conduct him to the house of his friend Ontañon. On the day of his arrival, by the desire of the King, he was carried to the Alcaza and presented to his Majesty. Charles received him with great kindness, inquired how he had borne the fatigues of his journey, and expressed his joy at finding him much younger in appearance than he had been taught to expect. The painter, with his usual courtly tact, replied, that the journey he had undertaken to enter the service of so great a monarch, had revived his youth, and that in the presence of his Majesty, he felt as if he were twenty again. "Then," said Charles smiling, "you are not too weary to pay a visit to my gallery," and led him through the noble halls of Philip II., rich with the finest pictures of Italy and Spain. It was probably on this occasion, that Giordano, passing before Velasquez's celebrated picture of the Infanta and her meniñas, bestowed on it the well known name of the _Theology of Painting_. The King, who paid the painter the extraordinary honor to embrace him when first presented, gave him a still greater mark of his favor at parting, by kissing him on the forehead, and presenting him with the golden key as gentleman of the royal bed-chamber. GIORDANO'S WORKS IN SPAIN. Luca Giordano resided in Spain ten years, and in that time he executed an incredible number of grand frescos, and other works for the royal palaces, churches, and convents, as well as many more for individuals, enough to have occupied an ordinary man a long life. In the short space of two years, he painted in fresco, the stupendous ceiling of the church, and the grand staircase of the Escurial; the latter, representing the Battle of St. Quintin, and the Capture of Montmorenci, is considered one of his finest works. His next productions were the great saloon in the Bueno Retiro; the sacristy of the great church at Toledo; the ceiling of the Royal Chapel at Madrid, and other important works. After the death of Charles II., he was employed in the same capacity by his successor, Philip V. These labors raised his reputation to the highest pitch; he was loaded with riches and favors, and Charles conferred upon him the honor of knighthood. GIORDANO AT THE ESCURIAL. Whilst Giordano was employed at the Escurial two Doctors of Theology were ordered to attend upon him, to answer his questions, and resolve any doubts that might arise as to the orthodox manner of treating his subjects. A courier was despatched every evening to Madrid, with a letter from the prior to the King, rendering an account of the artist's day's work; and within the present century, some of these letters were preserved at the Escurial. On one occasion he wrote thus, "Sire, your Giordano has painted this day about twelve figures, thrice as large as life. To these he has added the powers and dominations, with proper angels, cherubs, and seraphs, and clouds to support the same. The two Doctors of Divinity have not answers ready for all his questions, and their tongues are too slow too keep pace with the speed of his pencil." GIORDANO'S HABITS IN SPAIN. Giordano was temperate and frugal. He wrought incessantly, and to the scandal of the more devout, was found at his easel, even on days of religious festivals. His daily habit was to paint from eight in the morning, till noon, when he dined and rested two hours. At two he resumed his pencil, and wrought till five or six o'clock. He then took an airing in one of the royal carriages which was placed at his disposal. "If I am idle a single day," he used to say, "my pencils get the better of me; I must keep them in subjection by constant practice." The Spanish writers accuse him of avarice, and attribute his intense application to his ambition to acquire a large fortune; that he received large prices for his works, and never spent a maravedi except in the purchase of jewelry, of which he was very fond, and considered a good investment; thus he astonished Palomino by showing him a magnificent pearl necklace; but it should be recollected he was in the service of the King, and had a fixed salary, by no means large, which he was entitled to receive whether he wrought or played. He was doubtless better paid for his private commissions, which he could quickly despatch, than for his royal labors. GIORDANO'S FIRST PICTURES PAINTED AT MADRID. The first work Giordano executed in Spain was a fine imitation of a picture by Bassano, which happened under the following circumstances. The King, during his first interview with the painter, had remarked with regret, that a certain picture in the Alcaza, by that master, wanted a companion, Giordano secretly procured a frame and a piece of old Venetian canvas of the size of the other, and speedily produced a picture, having all the appearance of age and a fine match to the original, and hung it by its side. The King, in his next walk through the gallery, instantly noticed the change with surprise and satisfaction, and learning the story from his courtiers, he approached the artist, and laying his hand on his shoulder, saluted him with "Long life to Giordano." GIORDANO A FAVORITE AT COURT. No painter, not even Titian himself, was more caressed at court, than Giordano. Not only Charles II., but Philip V., delighted to do him honor, and treated him with extraordinary favor and familiarity. His brilliant success is said to have shortened the life of Claudio Coello, the ablest of his Castilian rivals. According to Dominici, that painter, jealous of Giordano, and desirous of impairing his credit at the court of Spain, challenged him to paint in competition with him in the presence of the King, a large composition fifteen palms high, representing the Archangel Michael vanquishing Satan. Giordano at once accepted the challenge, and in little more than three hours, produced a work which not only amazed and delighted the royal judge, but confounded poor Coello. "Look you, man," said the King to the discomfited Spaniard, and pointing to Luca Fa-presto, "there stands the best painter in Naples, Spain, and the whole world; verily, _he_ is a painter for a King." Both Charles and Queen Mariana of Neuberg, sat several times to Giordano for their portraits. They were never weary of visiting his studio, and took great pleasure in his lively conversation, and exhibitions of artistic skill. One day, the Queen questioned him curiously about the personal appearance of his wife, who she had learned was very beautiful. Giordano dashed off the portrait of his _Cara Sposa_, and cut short her interrogation by saying, "Here, Madame, is your Majesty's most humble servant herself," an effort of skill and memory, which struck the Queen as something so wonderful as to require a particular mark of her approbation,--she accordingly "sent to the Donna Margarita a string of pearls from the neck of her most gracious sovereign." Giordano would sometimes amuse the royal pair, by laying on his colors with his fingers and thumb, instead of brushes. In this manner, says Palomino, he executed a tolerable portrait of Don Francisco Filipin, a feat over which the monarch rejoiced with almost boyish transport. "It seemed to him as if he was carried back to that delightful night when he first saw his beautiful Maria Louisa dance a saraband at the ball of Don Pedro of Aragon. His satisfaction found vent in a mark of favor which not a little disconcerted the recipient. Removing the sculpel which the artist had permission to wear in the royal presence, he kissed him on the crown of the head, pronounced him a prodigy, and desired him to execute in the same digital style, a picture of St. Francis of Assisi for the Queen." Charles, on another occasion, complimented the artist, by saying, "If, as a King I am greater than Luca, Luca as a man wonderfully gifted by God, is greater than myself," a sentiment altogether novel for a powerful monarch of the 17th century. The Queen mother, Mariana of Austria, was equally an admirer of the fortunate artist. On occasion of his painting for her apartment a picture of the Nativity of our Lord, she presented him with a rich jewel and a diamond ring of great value, from her own imperial finger. It was thus, doubtless, that he obtained the rich jewels which astonished Palomino, and not by purchase. Charles II., dying in 1700, Giordano continued for a time in the service of his successor Philip V., who treated him with the same marked favor, and commissioned him to paint a series of pictures as a present to his grandfather, Louis XIV., of France. GIORDANO'S RETURN TO NAPLES. The war of succession, however, breaking out, Giordano was glad to seize the opportunity of re-returning to his family, on the occasion of the King's visit to Naples. He accompanied the court to Barcelona, in February, 1702, but as Philip delayed his embarkation, he asked and received permission to proceed by land. Parting through Genoa and Florence to Rome, he was received everywhere with distinction, and left some pictures in those cities. At Rome he had the honor to kiss the feet of Clement XI., and was permitted by special favor to enter the Papal apartments with his sword at his side, and his spectacles upon his nose. These condescensions he repaid with two large pictures, highly praised, representing the passage of the Red Sea, and Moses striking the Rock. On his arrival at Naples, he met with the most enthusiastic reception from his fellow-citizens, his renown in Spain having made him still more famous at home. Commissions poured into him, more than he could execute, and though rich, he does not seem to have relaxed his efforts or his habits of industry, but he did not long survive; he died of a putrid fever in January, 1705, in the 73d year of his age. GIORDANO'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER. In person, Luca Giordano was of the middle height, and well-proportioned. His complexion was dark, his countenance spare, and chiefly remarkable for the size of its nose, and an expression rather melancholy than joyous. He was, however, a man of ready wit and jovial humor; he was an accomplished courtier, understood the weak points of men that might be touched to advantage, and possessed manners so engaging, that he passed through life a social favorite. His school was always filled with scholars, and as a master he was kind and popular, although, according to Palomino, on one occasion he was so provoked that he broke a silver-mounted maul-stick over the head of one of his assistants. Greediness of gain seems to have been his besetting sin. He refused no commission that was offered to him, and he despatched them according to the prices he received, saying that "he had three sorts of pencils, made of gold, of silver, and of wood." Yet he frequently painted works gratuitously, as pious offerings to the altars of poor churches and convents. GIORDANO'S RICHES. Giordano died very rich, leaving 150,000 ducats invested in various ways; 20,000 ducats worth of jewels; many thousands in ready money, 1,300 pounds weight of gold and silver plate, and a fine house full of rich furniture. Out of this he founded an entailed estate for his eldest son, Lorenzo, and made liberal provisions for his widow, two younger sons and six daughters. His sons and sons-in-law enjoyed several posts conferred on them in the kingdom of Naples by the favor of Charles II. GIORDANO'S WONDERFUL FACILITY OF HAND. Giordano may be said to have been born with a pencil in his hand, and by constant practice, added to a natural quickness, he acquired that extraordinary facility of hand which, while in his subsequent career, it tended to corrupt art, materially aided his fame and success. He was also indefatigable in his application. Bellori says, "he made twelve different designs of the Loggia and paintings by Raffaelle in the Vatican; and twenty after the Battle of Constantine by Giulio Romano, besides many after Michael Angelo, Polidoro da Caravaggio, and others. The demand for his drawings and sketches was so great, that Luca, when obliged to take refreshments, did not retire from his work, but gaping like a young bird, gave notice to his father of the calls of nature, who, always on the watch, instantly supplied him with food, at the same time repeating, _Luca, fa presto_. The only principle which his father instilled into his mind was despatch." Probably no artist, not even Tintoretto, produced so many pictures as Giordano. Lanzi says, "his facility was not derived wholly from a rapidity of pencil, but was aided by the quickness of his imagination, which enabled him clearly to perceive, from the commencement of the work, the result he intended, without hesitating to consider the component parts, or doubling, proving, and selecting, like other painters." Hence Giordano was also called, _Il proteo della pittura_, and _Il Falmine della pittura_--the Proteus, and the Lightning of painting. As an instance of the latter, it is recorded that he painted a picture while his guests were waiting for dinner. GIORDANO'S POWERS OF IMITATION. Giordano had the rare talent of being able to imitate the manner of every master so successfully as frequently to deceive the best judges; he could do this also without looking at the originals, the result of a wonderful memory, which retained everything once seen. There are numerous instances of pictures painted by him in the style of Albert Durer, Bassano, Titian, and Rubens, which are valued in commerce at two or three times the price of pictures in his own style. In the church of S. Teresa at Naples, are two pictures by him in the style of Guido, and there is a Holy Family at Madrid, which Mengs says may be easily mistaken for a production of Raffaelle. Giordano also had several scholars, who imitated his own style with great precision. GIORDANO'S FAME AND REPUTATION. Perhaps no artist ever enjoyed a greater share of contemporary fame than Luca Giordano. Possessed of inexhaustible invention, and marvellous facility of hand, which enabled him to multiply his works to any required amount he had the good fortune to hit upon a style which pleased, though it still farther corrupted the declining taste of the age. He despatched a large picture in the presence of Cosmo III., Grand Duke of Florence, in so short a space of time as caused him to exclaim in wonder, "You are fit to be the painter of a sovereign prince." The same eulogium, under similar circumstances, was passed upon him by Charles II. A similar feat at Naples, had previously won the admiration and approbation of the Viceroy, the Marquess de Heliche, and laid the foundation of his fortune. It became _the fashion_, to admire everything that came from his prolific pencil, at Madrid, as well as at Naples. Everywhere, his works, good or bad, were received with applause. When it was related as a wonder that Giordano painted with his fingers, no Angelo was found to observe, "Why does not the blockhead use his brush." That Giordano was a man of genius, there can be no doubt, but had he executed only a tenth part of the multitude he did, his fame would have been handed down to posterity with much greater lustre. Cean Bermudez says of his works in Spain, "He left nothing that is absolutely bad, and nothing that is perfectly good." His compositions generally bear the marks of furious haste, and they are disfigured in many cases by incongruous associations of pagan mythology with sacred history, and of allegory with history, a blemish on the literature as well as the art of the age. Bermudez also accuses him of having corrupted and degraded Spanish art, by introducing a new and false style, which his great reputation and royal favoritism, brought into vogue. Still, he deserves praise for the great facility of his invention, the force and richness of his coloring, and a certain grandeur of conception and freedom of execution which belong only to a great master. The royal gallery at Madrid possesses no less than fifty-five of his pictures, selected from the multitude he left in the various royal palaces. There are also many in the churches. Lanzi says, "Naples abounds with the works of Giordano, both public and private. There is scarcely a church in this great city which does not boast some of his works." REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF GIORDANO'S RAPIDITY OF EXECUTION. Giordano, on his return to Naples from Florence, established himself in Ribera's fine house, opposite the Jesuit's church of S. Francesco Xavier. In 1685 he was commissioned by the Fathers to paint a large picture for one of the principal altars, and agreed that it should be completed by the approaching festival of the patron saint. Giordano, having other engagements on hand, put off the execution of the altar-piece so long, that the Jesuits began to be clamorous, and at length appealed to the Viceroy to exercise his authority. Determined to see for himself how matters stood, that great man paid an unexpected visit to Giordano's studio. The painter had barely time to escape by a back door to avoid his wrath, when the Marquess de Heliche entered, who perceiving that he had not touched the vast canvas with his brush, as suddenly retired, muttering imprecations and menaces. Luca's dashing pencil now stood him in good stead. He immediately sketched the outlines of his composition, and setting his disciples to prepare his palettes, he painted all that day and night with so much diligence that by the following afternoon, he was able to announce to the impatient Fathers the completion of the picture. The subject was the patron of the church, St. Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary, baptizing the people of Japan. He is represented standing on a lofty flight of steps; behind him, in the distance, is a party of zealous converts pulling down the images of their gods, and beneath in the foreground, kneels St. Francis Borgia in the attitude of prayer. The picture was executed with such boldness and freedom, and excellence of coloring, that at the proper distance it produced a grand and magnificent effect. It was immediately carried to the church, and placed over the destined altar, the day before the appointed festival, and the Viceroy whose anger had hardly cooled, invited to inspect it. Charmed with the beauty of the work, and amazed by the celerity of its execution, he exclaimed, "the painter of this picture must be either an angel or a demon." Giordano received his compliments, and made his own excuses with so much address, that the Marquess, forgetting all past offences engaged him to paint in the palace, and passed much of his time by his side, observing his progress, and enjoying his lively conversation. REVIVAL OF PAINTING IN ITALY. "Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture," says Cunningham, "are of the same high order of genius; but, as words provide at once shape and color to our thoughts, Poetry has ever led the way in the march of intellect: as material forms are ready made, and require but to be skillfully copied, Sculpture succeeded; and as lights and shadows demand science and experience to work them into shape, and endow them with sentiment, Painting was the last to rise into elegance and sublimity. In this order these high Arts rose in ancient Greece; and in the like order they rose in modern Italy; but none of them reached true excellence, till the light of knowledge dawned on the human mind, nor before civilization, following in the steps of barbarism, prepared the world for the reception of works of polished grace and tranquil grandeur. "From the swoon into which the Fine Arts were cast by the overthrow of the Roman Empire, they were long in waking: all that was learned or lofty was extinguished: of Painting, there remained but the memory, and of Sculpture, some broken stones, yet smothered in the ruins of temples and cities the rules which gave art its science were lost; the knowledge of colors was passed away, and that high spirit which filled Italy and Greece with shapes and sentiments allied to heaven, had expired. In their own good time, Painting and Sculpture arose from the ruins in which they had been overwhelmed, but their looks were altered; their air was saddened; their voice was low, though it was, as it had been in Greece, holy, and it called men to the contemplation of works of a rude grace, and a but dawning beauty. These 'sisters-twin' came at first with pale looks and trembling steps, and with none of the confidence which a certainty of pleasing bestows: they came too with few of the charms of the heathen about them: of the scientific unity of proportion, of the modest ease, the graceful simplicity, or the almost severe and always divine composure of Greece, they had little or none. But they came, nevertheless, with an original air and character all their own; they spoke of the presence of a loveliness and sentiment derived from a nobler source than pagan inspiration; they spoke of Jesus Christ and his sublime lessons of peace, and charity, and belief, with which he had preached down the altars and temples of the heathen, and rebuked their lying gods into eternal silence. "Though Sculpture and Painting arose early in Italy, and arose with the mantle of the Christian religion about them, it was centuries before they were able to put on their full lustre and beauty. For this, various causes may be assigned. 1. The nations, or rather wild hordes, who ruled where consuls and emperors once reigned, ruled but for a little while, or were continually employed in expeditions of bloodshed and war. 2. The armed feet of the barbarians had trodden into dust all of art that was elegant or beautiful:--they lighted their camp-fires with the verses of Euripides or Virgil; they covered their tents with the paintings of Protogenes and Apelles, and they repaired the breaches in the walls of a besieged city, with the statues of Phidias and Praxiteles;--the desires of these barbarians were all barbarous. 3. Painting and Sculpture had to begin their labors anew; all rules were lost; all examples, particularly of the former, destroyed: men unable, therefore, to drink at the fountains of Greece, did not think, for centuries, of striking the rock for themselves. 4. The Christian religion, for which Art first wrought, demanded sentiment rather than shape: it was a matter of mind which was wanted: the personal beauty of Jesus Christ is nowhere insisted upon in all the New Testament: the earliest artists, when they had impressed an air of holiness or serenity on their works, thought they had done enough; and it was only when the fears of looking like the heathen were overcome, and a sense of the exquisite beauty of Grecian sculpture prevailed, that the geometrical loveliness of the human form found its way into art. It may be added, that no modern people, save the Italians alone, seem to share fully in the high sense of the ideal and the poetic, visible in the works of Greece. "The first fruits of this new impulse were representations of Christ on the Cross; of his forerunner, St. John; of his Virgin Mother; and of his companions, the Apostles. Our Saviour had a meek and melancholy look; the hands of the Virgin are held up in prayer; something of the wildness of the wilderness was in the air of St. John, and the twelve Apostles were kneeling or preaching. They were all clothed from head to heel; the faces, the hands, and the feet, alone were bare; the sentiment of suffering or rejoicing holiness, alone was aimed at. The artists of the heathen religion wrought in a far different spirit; the forms which they called to their canvas, and endowed with life and beauty, were all, or mostly naked; they saw and felt the symmetry and exquisite harmony of the human body, and they represented it in such elegance, such true simplicity and sweetness, as to render their nude figures the rivals in modesty and innocence of the most carefully dressed. A sense of this excellence of form is expressed by many writers. 'If,' says Plato, 'you take a man as he is made by nature, and compare him with another who is the effect of art, the work of nature will always appear the less beautiful, because art is more accurate than nature.' Maximus Tyrus also says, that 'the image which is taken by a painter from several bodies, produces a beauty which it is impossible to find in any single natural body, approaching to the perfection of the fairest statues.' And Cicero informs us, that Zeuxis drew his wondrous picture of Helen from various models, all the most beautiful that could be found; for he could not find in one body all those perfections, which his idea of that princess required. "So far did the heathens carry their notions of ideal beauty, that they taxed Demetrius with being too natural, and Dionysius they reproached as but a painter of men. Lysippus himself upbraided the ordinary sculptors of his day, for making men such as they were in nature, and boasted of himself, that he made men as they ought to be. Phidias copied his statues of Jupiter and Pallas from forms in his own soul, or those which the muse of Homer supplied. Seneca seems to wonder, that, the sculptor having never beheld either Jove or Pallas, yet could conceive their divine images in his mind; and another eminent ancient says, that 'the fancy more instructs the painter than the imitation; for the last makes only the things which it sees, but the first makes also the things which it never sees.' Such were also, in the fulness of time and study, the ideas of the most distinguished moderns. Alberti tells us, that 'we ought not so much to love the likeness as the beauty, and to choose from the fairest bodies, severally, the fairest parts.' Da Vinci uses almost the same words, and desires the painter to form the idea for himself; and the incomparable Raphael thus writes to Castiglione concerning his Galatea: 'To paint a fair one, it is necessary for me to see many fair ones; but because there is so great a scarcity of lovely women, I am constrained to make use of one certain idea, which I have formed in my own fancy.' Guido Reni approaches still closer to the pure ideal of the great Christian School of Painting, when he wishes for the wings of an angel, to ascend to Paradise, and see, with his own eyes, the forms and faces of the blessed spirits, that he might put more of heaven into his pictures. "Of the heaven which the great artist wished to infuse into his works, there was but little in painting, when it rose to aid religion in Italy. The shape was uncooth, the coloring ungraceful, and there was but the faint dawn of that divine sentiment, which in time elevated Roman art to the same eminence as the Grecian. Yet all that Christianity demanded from Art, at first, was readily accomplished: fine forms, and delicate hues, were not required for centuries, by the successors of the Apostles; a Christ on the Cross; the Virgin lulling her divine Babe in her bosom; the Miracle of Lazarus; the Preaching on the Mount; the Conversion of St. Paul; and the Ascension--roughly sculptured or coarsely painted, perhaps by the unskilful hands of the Christian preachers themselves--were found sufficient to explain to a barbarous people some of the great ruling truths of Christianity. These, and such as these, were placed in churches, or borne about by gospel missionaries and were appealed to, when words failed to express the doctrines and mysteries which were required to be taught. Such appeals were no doubt frequent, in times when Greek and Latin ceased to be commonly spoken, and the present languages of Europe were shaping themselves, like fruit in the leaf, out of the barbarous dissonance of the wild tongues which then prevailed. These Christian preachers, with their emblems and their relics, were listened to by the Gothic subverters of the empire of art and elegance, with the more patience and complacency, since they desired not to share in their plunder or their conquests, and opened to them the way to a far nobler kingdom--a kingdom not of this earth. "Though abundance of figures of saints were carved, and innumerable Madonnas painted throughout Italy, in the earlier days of the Christian church, they were either literal transcripts of common life, or mechanical copies or imitations of works furnished from the great store looms of the Asiatic Greeks. There were thousands--nay, tens of thousands of men, who wrote themselves artists, while not one of them had enough of imagination and skill to lift art above the low estate in which the rule and square of mechanical imitation had placed it. Niccolo Pisano appears to have been the first who, at Pisa, took the right way in sculpture: his groups, still in existence, are sometimes too crowded; his figures badly designed, and the whole defective in sentiment; but he gave an impulse--communicated through the antique--to composition, not unperceived by his scholars, who saw with his eyes and wrought with his spirit. The school which he founded produced, soon after, the celebrated Ghiberti, whose gates of bronze, embellished with figures, for the church of San Giovanni, were pronounced by Michael Angelo worthy to be the gates of Paradise. While the sister art took these large strides towards fame, Painting lagged ruefully behind; she had no true models, and she had no true rules; but 'the time and the man' came at last, and this man was Giovanni Cimabue." GIOVANNI CIMABUE. This great painter is universally considered the restorer of modern painting. The Italians call him "the Father of modern Painting;" and other nations, "the Creator of the Italian or Epic style of Painting." He was born at Florence in 1240, of a noble family, and was skilled both in architecture and sculpture. The legends of his own land make him the pupil of Giunta; for the men of Florence are reluctant to believe that he was instructed in painting by those Greek artists who were called in to embellish their city with miracles and Madonnas. He soon conquered an education which consisted in reproducing, in exact shape and color, the works of other men: he desired to advance: he went to nature for his forms; he grouped them with a new skill; he bestowed ease on his draperies, and a higher expression on his heads. His talent did not reside in the neat, the graceful, and the lovely; his Madonnas have little beauty, and his angels are all of one make: he succeeded best in the heads of the old and the holy, and impressed on them, in spite of the barbarism of his times, a bold sublimity, which few have since surpassed. Critics object to the fierceness of his eyes, the want of delicacy in the noses of his figures, and the absence of perspective in his compositions; but they admit that his coloring is bright and vigorous, his conceptions grand and vast, and that he loved the daring and the splendid. Nevertheless, a touch of the mechanical Greek School, and a rudeness all his own, have been observed in the works of this great painter. His compositions were all of a scriptural or religious kind, such as the church required: kings were his visitors, and the people of Florence paid him honors almost divine. CIMABUE'S PASSION FOR ART. Cimabue gave early proof of an accurate judgment and a clear understanding, and his father designed to give him a liberal education, but instead of devoting himself to letters, says Vasari, "he consumed the whole day in drawing men, horses, houses, and other various fancies on his books and different papers--an occupation to which he felt himself impelled by nature; and this natural inclination was favored by fortune, for the governors of the city, had invited certain Greek painters to Florence, for the purpose of restoring the art of painting, which had not merely degenerated, but was altogether lost; those artists, among other works, began to paint the chapel of Gondi, situated next to the principal chapel in S. Maria Novella, where Giovanni was being educated, who often escaping from school, and having already made a commencement in the art he was so fond of, would stand watching these masters at their work the day through." Vasari goes on to say, that this passion at length induced his father, already persuaded that he had the genius to become a great painter, to place Giovanni under the instruction of these Greek artists. From this time, he labored incessantly day and night, and aided by his great natural powers, he soon surpassed his teachers. CIMABUE'S FAMOUS PICTURE OF THE VIRGIN. Cimabue had already distinguished himself by many works, executed in fresco and distemper for the churches at Florence, Pisa, and Assisi, when he painted his famous picture of the Holy Virgin for the church of S. Maria Novella in the former city. This picture was accounted such a wonderful performance by his fellow citizens, that they carried it from the house of Cimabue to the church in solemn procession, with sound of trumpets and every demonstration of joy. "It is further reported," says Vasari, "that whilst Cimabue was painting this picture in a garden near the gate of San Pietro, King Charles the elder, of Anjou, passed through Florence, and the authorities of the city, among other marks of respect, conducted him to see the picture of Cimabue." This picture, representing the Virgin and Infant Jesus surrounded by angels, larger than life, then so novel, was regarded as such a wonderful performance, that all the people of Florence flocked in crowds to admire it, making all possible demonstrations of delight. It still adorns the chapel of the Rucellai family in the church of S. Maria Novella for which it was painted. The heads of the Virgin, of the infant Jesus, and the angels, are all fine, but the hands are badly drawn; this defect, however, is common with the Quattrocentisti, or artists of the 14th century. The editors of the Florentine edition of Vasari, commenced in 1846, by an association of learned Italians, observe, "This picture, still in fair preservation, is in the chapel of the Rucellai family; and whoever will examine it carefully, comparing it, not only with works before the time of Cimabue, but also with those painted after him, by the Florentine masters, particularly Giotto, will perceive that the praises of Vasari are justified in every particular." THE WORKS OF CIMABUE. Some writers assert that the works of Cimabue possessed little merit when compared with those of later times; and that the extraordinary applause which he received flowed from an age ignorant of art. It should be recollected, however, that it is much easier to copy or follow, when the path has been marked out, than to invent or discover; and hence that the glorious productions of the "Prince of modern Painters," form no criterion by which to judge of the merits of those of the "Father of modern Painters." The former had "the accumulated wisdom of ages" before him, of which he availed himself freely; the latter had nothing worthy of note, but his own talents and the wild field of nature, from which he was the first of the moderns who drew in the spirit of inspiration. "Giotto," says Vasari, "did obscure the fame of Cimabue, as a great light diminishes the splendor of a lesser one; so that, although Cimabue may be considered the cause of the restoration of the art of painting, yet Giotto, his disciple, impelled by a laudable ambition, and well aided by heaven and nature, was the man, who, attaining to superior elevation of thought, threw open the gate of the true way, to those who afterwards exalted the art to that perfection and greatness which it displays in our own age; when accustomed, as men are, daily to see the prodigies and miracles, nay the _impossibilities_, now performed by artists, they have arrived at such a point, that they no longer marvel at anything accomplished by man, even though it be more divine than human. Fortunate, indeed, are artists who now labor, however meritoriously, if they do not incur censure instead of praise; nay, if they can even escape disgrace." It should be recollected that Vasari held this language in the days of Michael Angelo. All the great frescos of Cimabue, and most of his easel pictures, have perished. Besides the picture of the Virgin before mentioned, there is a St. Francis in the church of S. Croce, an excellent picture of St. Cecilia, in that of S. Stefano, and a Madonna in the convent of S. Paolino at Florence. There are also two paintings by Cimabue in the Louvre--the Virgin with angels, and the Virgin with the infant Jesus. Others are attributed to him, but their authenticity is very doubtful. DEATH OF CIMABUE. According to Vasari, Cimabue died in 1300, and was entombed in the church of S. Maria del Fiore at Florence. The following epitaph, composed by one of the Nini, was inscribed on his monument: "Credidit ut Cimabos picturæ castra tenere Sic tenuit, vivens, nunc tenet astra poli." It appears, however, from an authentic document, cited by Campi, that Cimabue was employed in 1302 in executing a mosaic picture of St. John, for the cathedral of Pisa; and as he left this figure unfinished, it is probable that he did not long survive that year. GIOTTO. This great artist, one of the fathers of modern painting, was born at Vespignano, a small town near Florence, in 1276. He was the son of a shepherd named Bondone, and while watching his father's flocks in the field, he showed a natural genius for art by constantly delineating the objects around him. A sheep which he had drawn upon a flat stone, after nature, attracted the attention of Cimabue, who persuaded his father, Bondone, to allow him to go to Florence, confident that he would be an ornament to the art. Giotto commenced by imitating his master, but he quickly surpassed him. A picture of the Annunciation, in the possession of the Fathers of Badia at Florence, is one of his earliest works, and manifests a grace and beauty superior to Cimabue, though the style is somewhat dry. In his works, symmetry became more chaste, design more pleasing, and coloring softer than before. Lanzi says that if Cimabue was the Michael Angelo of that age, Giotto was the Raffaelle. He was highly honored, and his works were in great demand. He was invited to Rome by Boniface VIII., and afterwards to Avignon by Clement V. The noble families of Verona, Milan, Ravenna, Urbino, and Bologna, were eager to possess his works. In 1316, according to Vasari, he returned from Avignon, and was employed at Padua, where he painted the chapel of the Nunziata all' Arena, divided all around into compartments, each of which represents some scriptural event. Lanzi says it is truly surprising to behold, not less on account of its high state of preservation beyond any other of his frescos, than for its graceful expression, and that air of grandeur which Giotto so well understood. About 1325 he was invited to Naples by King Robert, to paint the church of S. Chiara, which he decorated with subjects from the New Testament, and the Mysteries of the Apocalypse. These, like many of his works, have been destroyed; but there remains a Madonna, and several other pictures, in this church. Giotto's portraits were greatly admired, particularly for their air of truth and correct resemblance. Among other illustrious persons whom he painted, were the poet Dante, and Clement VIII. The portrait of the former was discovered in the chapel of the Podesta, now the Bargello, at Florence, which had for two centuries been covered with whitewash, and divided into cells for prisoners. The whitewash was removed by the painter Marini, at the instance of Signor Bezzi and others, and the portrait discovered in the "Gloria" described by Vasari. Giotto was also distinguished in the art of mosaic, particularly for the famous Death of the Virgin at Florence, greatly admired by Michael Angelo; also the celebrated Navicella, or Boat of St. Peter, in the portico of the Basilica of St. Peter's at Rome, which is now so mutilated and altered as to leave little of the original design. As an architect, Giotto attained considerable eminence, according to Milizia, and erected many important edifices, among which is the bell-tower of S. Maria del Fiore. The thickness of the walls is about ten feet; the height is two hundred and eighty feet. The cornice which supports the parapet is very bold and striking; the whole exterior is of Gothic design, inlaid with marble and mosaic, and the work may be considered one of the finest specimens of campanile in Italy. GIOTTO'S ST. FRANCIS STIGMATA In the church of S. Francesco at Pisa, is a picture by Giotto, representing St. Francis receiving the Stigmata,[A] which is in good preservation, and held in great veneration, not only for the sake of the master, but for the excellence of the work. Vasari says, "It represents St. Francis, standing on the frightful rocks of La Verna; and is finished with extraordinary care. It exhibits a landscape with many trees and precipices, which was a new thing in those times. In the attitude and expression of St. Francis, who is on his knees receiving the Stigmata, the most eager desire to obtain them is clearly manifest, as well as infinite love towards Jesus Christ, who, from heaven above, where he is seen surrounded by the seraphim, grants those stigmata to his servant, with looks of such lively affection, that it is not possible to conceive anything more perfect. Beneath this picture are three others, also from the life of St. Francis, and very beautiful." [Footnote A: Stigmata, signifies the five wounds of the Saviour impressed by himself on the persons of certain saints, male and female, in reward for their sanctity and devotion to the service.] GIOTTO'S INVITATION TO ROME. Boniface VIII., desirous of decorating St. Peter's church with some paintings, having heard of the extraordinary talents of Giotto, despatched one of his courtiers to Tuscany, to ascertain the truth, as to his merits, and to procure designs from other artists for his approbation and selection. Vasari says, "The messenger, when on his way to visit Giotto, and to enquire what other good masters there were in Florence, spoke first with many artists in Siena--then, having received designs from them, he proceeded to Florence, and repaired one morning to the workshop where Giotto was occupied with his labors. He declared the purpose of the Pope, and the manner in which that pontiff desired to avail himself of his assistance, and finally requested to have a drawing that he might send it to his holiness. Giotto, who was very courteous, took a sheet of paper and a pencil dipped in a red color; then resting his elbow on his side to form a sort of compass, with one turn of the hand, he drew a circle so perfect and exact that it was a marvel to behold. This done, he turned smiling to the courtier, saying, 'There is your drawing.' 'Am I to have nothing more than this?' enquired the latter, conceiving himself to be jested with. 'That is enough and to spare,' replied Giotto, 'send it with the rest, and you will see if it will not be recognized.' The messenger, unable to obtain anything more, went away very ill satisfied, and fearing that he had been fooled. Nevertheless, having despatched the other drawings to the Pope, with the names of those who had done them, he sent that of Giotto also, relating the mode in which he had made his circle, without moving his arm and without compass; from which the Pope, and such of the courtiers as were well versed in the subject, perceived how far Giotto surpassed all the other painters of his time. This incident becoming known, gave rise to the proverb still used in relation to people of dull wits, 'In sei più tondo che l'O di Giotto,' (round as Giotto's O,) the significance of which consists in the double meaning of the word _tondo_, which is used in the Tuscan for slowness of intellect, and slowness of comprehension, as well as for an exact circle. The proverb besides has an interest from the circumstance which gave it birth." Giotto was immediately invited to Rome by the Pope, who received him with distinction, and commissioned him to paint a large picture in the sacristy of St. Peter's, with five others in the church, representing subjects from the life of Christ, which gave so much satisfaction to the pontiff, that he commanded 600 gold ducats to be paid to the artist, "besides conferring on him so many favors," says Vasari, "that there was talk of them throughout Italy." GIOTTO'S LIVING MODEL. Giotto, about to paint a picture of the Crucifixion, induced a poor man to suffer himself to be bound to a cross, under the promise of being set at liberty in an hour, and handsomely rewarded for his pains. Instead of this, as soon as Giotto had made his victim secure, he seized a dagger, and, shocking to tell, stabbed him to the heart! He then set about painting the dying agonies of the victim to his foul treachery. When he had finished his picture, he carried it to the Pope; who was so well pleased with it, that he resolved to place it above the altar of his own chapel. Giotto observed, that, as his holiness liked the copy so well, he might perhaps like to see the original. The Pope, shocked at the impiety of the idea, uttered an exclamation of surprise. "I mean," added Giotto, "I will show you the person whom I employed as my model in this picture, but it must be on condition that your holiness will absolve me from all punishment for the use which I have made of him." The Pope promised Giotto the absolution for which he stipulated, and accompanied the artist to his workshop. On entering, Giotto drew aside a curtain which hung before the dead man, still stretched on the cross, and covered with blood. The barbarous exhibition struck the pontiff with horror; he told Giotto he could never give him absolution for so cruel a deed, and that he must expect to suffer the most exemplary punishment. Giotto, with seeming resignation, said that he had only one favor to ask, that his holiness would give him leave to finish the piece before he died. The request had too important an object to be denied; the Pope readily granted it; and, in the meantime, a guard was set over Giotto to prevent his escape. On the painting being replaced in the artist's hands, the first thing he did was to take a brush, and, dipping it into a thick varnish, he daubed the picture all over with it, and then announced that he had finished his task. His holiness was greatly incensed at this abuse of the indulgence he had given, and threatened Giotto that he should be put to the most cruel death, unless he painted another picture equal to the one which he had destroyed. "Of what avail is your threat," replied Giotto, "to a man whom you have doomed to death at any rate?" "But," replied his holiness, "I can revoke that doom." "Yes," continued Giotto, "but you cannot prevail on me to trust to your verbal promise a second time." "You shall have a pardon under my signet before you begin." On that, a conditional pardon was accordingly made out and given to Giotto, who, taking a wet sponge, in a few minutes wiped off the coating with which he had bedaubed the picture, and instead of a copy, restored the original in all its beauty to his holiness. Although this story is related by many writers, it is doubtless a gross libel on the fair fame of this great artist, originating with some witless wag, who thought nothing too horrible to impose upon the credulity of mankind. It is discredited by the best authors. A similar fable is related of Parrhasius. See the Olynthian Captive, vol. I. page 151 of this work. GIOTTO AND THE KING OF NAPLES. After Giotto's return to Florence, about 1325, Robert, King of Naples, wrote to his son Charles, King of Calabria, who was then in Florence, desiring that he would by all means send Giotto to him at Naples, to decorate the church and convent of Santa Clara, which he had just completed, and desired to have adorned with noble paintings. Giotto readily accepted this flattering invitation from so great and renowned a monarch, and immediately set out to do him service. He was received at Naples with every mark of distinction, and executed many subjects from the old and New Testaments in the different chapels of the building. It is said that the pictures from the Apocalypse, which he painted in one of the chapels, were the inventions of Dante; but Dante was then dead, and if Giotto derived any advantage from him, it must have been from previous discussions on the subject. These works gave the greatest satisfaction to the King, who munificently rewarded the artist, and treated him with great kindness and extraordinary familiarity. Vasari says that Giotto was greatly beloved by King Robert, who delighted to visit him in his painting room, to watch the progress of his work, to hear his remarks, and to hold conversation with him; for Giotto had a ready wit, and was always as ready to amuse the monarch with his lively conversation and witty replies as with his pencil. One day the King said to him, "Giotto, I will make you the first man in Naples," to which Giotto promptly replied, "I am already the first man in Naples; for this reason it is that I dwell at the Porta Reale." At another time the King, fearing that he would injure himself by overworking in the hot season, said to him, "Giotto, if I were in your place, now that it is so hot, I would give up painting for a time, and take my rest." "And so would I do, certainly," replied Giotto, "were I the King of Naples." One day the King to amuse himself, desired Giotto to _paint his kingdom_. The painter drew an ass carrying a packsaddle loaded with a crown and sceptre, while a similar saddle, also bearing the ensigns of royalty, lay at his feet; these last were all new, and the ass scented them, with an eager desire to change them for those he bore. "What does this signify, Giotto?" enquired the King. "Such is thy kingdom," replied Giotto, "and such thy subjects, who are every day desiring a new lord." GIOTTO AND DANTE. The children of Giotto were remarkably ill-favored. Dante, one day, quizzed him by asking, "Giotto, how is it that you, who make the children of others so beautiful, make your own so ugly?" "Ah, my dear friend," replied the painter, "mine were made in the dark." DEATH OF GIOTTO. "Giotto," says Vasari, "having passed his life in the production of so many admirable works, and proved himself a good Christian, as well as an excellent painter, resigned his soul to God in the year 1336, not only to the great regret of his fellow citizens, but of all who had known him, or even heard his name. He was honorably entombed, as his high deserts had well merited, having been beloved all his life, but more especially by the learned men of all professions." Dante and Petrarch were his warm admirers, and immortalized him in their verse. The commentator of Dante, who was cotemporary with Giotto, says, "Giotto was, and is, the most eminent of all the painters of Florence, and to this his works bear testimony in Rome, Naples, Avignon, Florence, Padua, and many other parts of the world." BUONAMICO BUFFALMACCO. The first worthy successor of Giotto in the Florentine school, was Buffalmacco, whose name has been immortalized by Boccaccio in his _Decameron_, as a man of most facetious character. He executed many works in fresco and distemper, but they have mostly perished. He chiefly excelled in Crucifixions and Ascensions. He was born, according to Vasari, in 1262, and died in 1340, aged 78; but Baldinucci says that he lived later than 1358. His name is mentioned in the old Book of the Company of Painters, under the date of 1351, (_Editors of the Florentine edition of Vasari_, 1846.). Buffalmacco was a merry wag, and a careless spendthrift, and died in the public hospital. BUFFALMACCO AND HIS MASTER. "Among the Three Hundred Stories of Franco Saccheti," says Vasari, "we find it related to begin with, what our artist did in his youth--that when Buffalmacco was studying with Andrea Tafi, his master had the habit of rising before daylight when the nights were long, compelling his scholars also to awake and proceed to their work. This provoked Buonamico, who did not approve of being aroused from his sweetest sleep. He accordingly bethought himself of finding some means by which Andrea might be prevented from rising so early, and soon found what he sought." Now it happened that Tafi was a very superstitious man, believing that demons and hobgoblins walked the earth at their pleasure. Buffalmacco, having caught about thirty large beetles, he fastened to the back of each, by means of small needles, a minute taper, which he lighted, and sent them one by one into his master's room, through a crack in the door, about the time he was accustomed to rise and summon him to his labors. Tafi seeing these strange lights wandering about his room, began to tremble with fright, and repeated his prayers and exorcisms, but finding they produced no effect on the apparitions, he covered his head with the bed clothes, and lay almost petrified with terror till daylight. When he rose he enquired of Buonamico, if "he had seen more than a thousand demons wandering about his room, as he had himself in the night?" Buonamico replied that he had seen nothing, and wondered he had not been called to work. "Call thee to work!" exclaimed the master, "I had other things to think of besides painting, and am resolved to stay in this house no longer;" and away he ran to consult the parish priest, who seems to have been as superstitious as the poor painter himself. When Tafi discoursed of this strange affair with Buonamico, the latter told him that he had been taught to believe that the demons were the greatest enemies of God, consequently they must be the most deadly adversaries of painters. "For," said he, "besides that we always make them most hideous, we think of nothing but painting saints, both men and women, on walls and pictures, which is much worse, since we thereby render men better and more devout to the great despite of the demons; and for all this, the devils being angry with us, and having more power by night than by day, they play these tricks upon us. I verily believe too, that they will get worse and worse, if this practice of rising to work in the night be not discontinued altogether." Buffalmacco then advised his master to make the experiment, and see whether the devils would disturb him if he did not work at night. Tafi followed this advice for a short time, and the demons ceased to disturb him; but forgetting his fright, he began to rise betimes, as before, and to call Buffalmacco to his work. The beetles then recommenced their wanderings, till Tafi was compelled by his fears and the earnest advice of the priest to desist altogether from that practice. "Nay," says Vasari, "the story becoming known through the city, produced such an effect that neither Tafi, nor any other painter dared for a long time to work at night." Another laughable story is related of Buffalmacco's ingenuity to rid himself of annoyance. Soon after he left Tafi, he took apartments adjoining those occupied by a man who was a penurious old simpleton, and compelled his wife to rise long before daylight to commence work at her spinning wheel. The old woman was often at her wheel, when Buonamico retired to bed from his revels. The buzz of the instrument put all sleep out of the question; so the painter resolved to put a stop to this annoyance. Having provided himself with a long tube, and removed a brick next to the chimney, he watched his opportunity, and blew salt into their soup till it was spoiled. He then succeeded in making them believe that it was the work of demons, and to desist from such early rising. Whenever the old woman touched her wheel before daylight, the soup was sure to be spoiled, but when she was allowed reasonable rest, it was fresh and savory. BUFFALMACCO AND THE NUNS OF THE CONVENT OF FAENZA. Soon after Buffalmacco left his master, he was employed by the nuns of Faenza to execute a picture for their convent. The subject was the slaughter of the Innocents. While the work was in progress, those ladies some times took a peep at the picture through the screen he had raised for its protection. "Now Buffalmacco," says Vasari, "was very eccentric and peculiar in his dress, as well as manner of living, and as he did not always wear the head-dress and mantle usual at the time, the nuns remarked to their intendant, that it did not please them to see him appear thus in his doublet; but the steward found means to pacify them, and they remained silent on the subject for some time. At length, however, seeing the painter always accoutred in like manner, and fancying that he must be some apprentice, who ought to be merely grinding colors, they sent a messenger to Buonamico from the abbess, to the effect, that they would like to see the master sometimes at the work, and not always himself. To this Buffalmacco, who was very pleasant in manner, replied, that as soon as the master came to the work he would let them know of his arrival; for he perceived clearly how the matter stood. Thereupon, he placed two stools, one on the other, with a water-jar on the top; on the neck of the jar he set a cap, which was supported by the handle; he then arranged a long mantle carefully around the whole, and securing a pencil within the mouth, on that side of the jar whence the water is poured, he departed. The nuns, returning to examine the work through the hole which they had made in the screen, saw the supposed master in full robes, when, believing him to be working with all his might, and that he would produce a very different kind of thing from any that his predecessor in the jacket could accomplish, they went away contented, and thought no more of the matter for some days. At length, they were desirous of seeing what fine things the master had done, and at the end of a fortnight (during which Buffalmacco had never set foot within the place), they went by night, when they concluded that he would not be there, to see his work. But they were all confused and ashamed, when one, bolder than the rest, approached near enough to discover the truth respecting this solemn master, who for fifteen days had been so busy doing nothing. They acknowledged, nevertheless, that they had got but what they merited--the work executed by the painter in the jacket being all that could be desired. The intendant was therefore commanded to recall Buonamico, who returned in great glee and with many a laugh, to his labor, having taught these good ladies the difference between a man and a water-jug, and shown them that they should not always judge the works of men by their vestments." BUFFALMACCO AND THE NUNS' WINE. Buffalmacco executed an historical painting for the nuns, which greatly pleased them, every part being excellent in their estimation, except the faces, which they thought too pale and wan. Buonamico, knowing that they kept the very best Vernaccia (a kind of delicious Tuscan wine, kept for the uses of the mass) to be found in Florence, told his fair patrons, that this defect could only be remedied by mixing the colors with good Vernaccia, but that when the cheeks were touched with colors thus tempered, they would become rosy and life-like enough. "The good ladies," says Vasari, "believing all he said, kept him supplied with the very best Vernaccia during all the time that his labors lasted, and he joyously swallowing this delicious nectar, found color enough on his palette to give his faces the fresh rosiness they so much desired." Bottari says, that Buonamico, on one occasion, was surprised by the nuns, while drinking the Vernaccia, when he instantly spirted what he had in his mouth on the picture, whereby they were fully satisfied; if they cut short his supply, his pictures looked pale and lifeless, but the Vernaccia always restored them to warmth and beauty. The nuns were so much pleased with his performances that they employed him a long time, and he decorated their whole church with his own hand, representing subjects from the life of Christ, all extremely well executed. BUFFALMACCO, BISHOP GUIDO, AND HIS MONKEY. "In the year 1302," says Vasari, "Buffalmacco was invited to Assisi, where, in the church of San Francesco, he painted in fresco the chapel of Santa Caterina, with stories taken from her life. These paintings are still preserved, and many figures in them are well worthy of praise. Having finished this chapel, Buonamico was passing through Arezzo, when he was detained by the Bishop Guido, who had heard that he was a cheerful companion, as well as a good painter, and who wished him to remain for a time in that city, to paint the chapel of the episcopal church, where the baptistery now is. Buonamico began the work, and had already completed the greater part of it, when a very curious circumstance occurred; and this, according to Franco Sacchetti, who relates it among his Three Hundred Stories, was as follows. The bishop had a large ape, of extraordinary cunning, the most sportive and mischievous creature in the world. This animal sometimes stood on the scaffold, watching Buonamico at his work, and giving a grave attention to every action: with his eyes constantly fixed on the painter, he observed him mingle his colors, handle the various flasks and tools, beat the eggs for his paintings in distemper--all that he did, in short; for nothing escaped the creature's observation. One Saturday evening, Buffalmacco left his work; and on the Sunday morning, the ape, although fastened to a great log of wood, which the bishop had commanded his servants to fix to his foot, that he might not leap about at his pleasure, contrived, in despite of the weight, which was considerable, to get on the scaffold where Buonamico was accustomed to work. Here he fell at once upon the vases which held the colors, mingled them all together, beat up whatever eggs he could find, and, plunging the pencils into this mixture, he daubed over every figure, and did not cease till he had repainted the whole work with his own hand. Having done that, he mixed all the remaining colors together, and getting down from the scaffold, he went his way. When Monday morning came, Buffalmacco returned to his work; and, finding his figures ruined, his vessels all heaped together, and every thing turned topsy-turvy, he stood amazed in sore confusion. Finally, having considered the matter within himself, he arrived at the conclusion that some Aretine, moved by jealousy, or other cause, had worked the mischief he beheld. Proceeding to the bishop, he related what had happened, and declared his suspicions, by all which that prelate was greatly disturbed; but, consoling Buonamico as best he could, he persuaded him to return to his labors, and repair the mischief. Bishop Guido, thinking him nevertheless likely to be right, his opinion being a very probable one, gave him six soldiers, who were ordered to remain concealed on the watch, with drawn weapons, during the master's absence, and were commanded to cut down any one, who might be caught in the act, without mercy. The figures were again completed in a certain time; and one day as the soldiers were on guard, they heard a strange kind of rolling sound in the church, and immediately after saw the ape clamber up to the scaffold and seize the pencils. In the twinkling of an eye, the new master had mingled his colors; and the soldiers saw him set to work on the saints of Buonamico. They then summoned the artist, and showing him the malefactor, they all stood watching the animal at his operations, being in danger of fainting with laughter, Buonamico more than all; for, though exceedingly disturbed by what had happened, he could not help laughing till the tears ran down his cheeks. At length he betook himself to the bishop, and said: 'My lord, you desire to have your chapel painted in one fashion, but your ape chooses to have it done in another.' Then, relating the story, he added: 'There was no need whatever for your lordship to send to foreign parts for a painter, since you had the master in your house; but perhaps he did not know exactly how to mix the colors; however, as he is now acquainted with the method, he can proceed without further help; I am no longer required here, since we have discovered his talents, and will ask no other reward for my labors, but your permission to return to Florence.' Hearing all this, the bishop, although heartily vexed, could not restrain his laughter; and the rather, as he remembered that he who was thus tricked by an ape, was himself the most incorrigible trickster in the world. However, when they had talked and laughed over this new occurrence to their hearts' content, the bishop persuaded Buonamico to remain; and the painter agreed to set himself to work for the third time, when the chapel was happily completed. But the ape, for his punishment, and in expiation of the crimes he had committed, was shut up in a strong wooden cage, and fastened on the platform where Buonamico worked; there he was kept till the whole was finished; and no imagination could conceive the leaps and flings of the creature thus enclosed in his cage, nor the contortions he made with his feet, hands, muzzle, and whole body, at the sight of others working, while he was not permitted to do anything." BUFFALMACCO'S TRICK ON THE BISHOP OF AREZZO. "When the works of the chapel before mentioned, were completed, the bishop ordered Buonamico--either for a jest, or for some other cause--to paint, on one of the walls of his palace, an eagle on the back of a lion, which the bird had killed. The crafty painter, having promised to do all that the bishop desired, caused a stout scaffolding and screen of wood-work to be made before the building, saying that he could not be seen to paint such a thing. Thus prepared, and shut up alone within his screen, Buonamico painted the direct contrary of what the bishop had required--a lion, namely, tearing an eagle to pieces; and, having painted the picture, he requested permission from the bishop to repair to Florence, for the purpose of seeking certain colors needful to his work. He then locked up the scaffold, and departed to Florence, resolving to return no more to the bishop. But the latter, after waiting some time, and finding that the painter did not reappear, caused the scaffolding to be taken down, and discovered that Buonamico had been making a jest of him. Furious at this affront, Guido condemned the artist to banishment for life from his dominions; which, when Buonamico learnt, he sent word to the bishop that he might do his worst, whereupon the bishop threatened him with fearful consequences. Yet considering afterwards that he had been tricked, only because he had intended to put an affront upon the painter, Bishop Guido forgave him, and even rewarded him liberally for his labors. Nay, Buffalmacco was again invited to Arezzo, no long time after, by the same prelate, who always treated him as a valued servant and familiar friend, confiding many works in the old cathedral to his care, all of which, unhappily, are now destroyed. Buonamico also painted the apsis of the principal chapel in the church of San Giustino in Arezzo." In the notes of the Roman and other earlier editions of Vasari, we are told that the lion being the insignia of Florence, and the eagle, that of Arezzo, the bishop designed to assert his own superiority over the former city, he being lord of Arezzo; but later commentators affirm, that Guido, being a furious Ghibelline, intended rather to offer an affront to the Guelfs, by exalting the eagle, which was the emblem of his party, over the lion, that of the Guelfs. ORIGIN OF LABEL PAINTING. Buffalmacco is generally considered the inventor of label painting, or the use of a label drawn from the mouth to represent it speaking; but it was practiced by Cimabue, and probably long before his time, in Italy. Pliny tells us that it was practiced by the early Greek painters. Vasari says that Buffalmacco was invited to Pisa, where he painted many pictures in the Abbey of St. Paul, on the banks of the Arno, which then belonged to the monks of Vallambrosa. He covered the entire surface of the church, from the roof to the floor, with histories from the Old Testament, beginning with the creation of man and continuing to the building of the Tower of Babel. In the church of St. Anastasia, he also painted certain stories from the life of that saint, "in which," says Vasari, "are very many beautiful costumes and head-dresses of women, painted with a charming grace of manner." Bruno de Giovanni, the friend and pupil of Buonamico, was associated with him in this work. He too, is celebrated by Boccaccio, as a man of joyous memory. When the stories on the façade were finished, Bruno painted in the same church, an altar-piece of St. Ursula, with her company of virgins. In one hand of the saint, he placed a standard bearing the arms of Pisa--a white cross on a field of red; the other is extended towards a woman, who, climbing between two rocks, has one foot in the sea, and stretches out both hands towards the saint, in the act of supplication. This female form represents Pisa. She bears a golden horn upon her head, and wears a mantle sprinkled over with circlets and eagles. Being hard pressed by the waves, she earnestly implores succor of the saint. While employed on this work, Bruno complained that his faces had not the life and expression which distinguished those of Buonamico, when the latter, in his playful manner, advised him to paint words proceeding from the mouth of the woman supplicating the saint, and in like manner those proceeding from the saint in reply. "This," said the wag, "will make your figures not only life-like, but even eloquently expressive." Bruno followed this advice; "And this method," says Vasari, "as it pleased Bruno and other dull people of that day, so does it equally satisfy certain simpletons of our own, who are well served by artists as commonplace as themselves. It must, in truth, be allowed to be an extraordinary thing that a practice thus originating in jest, and in no other way, should have passed into general use; insomuch that even a great part of the Campo Santo, decorated by much esteemed masters, is full of this absurdity." This picture is now in the Academy of the Fine Arts at Pisa. UTILITY OF ANCIENT WORKS. The works of Buffalmacco greatly pleased the good people of Pisa, who gave him abundant employment; yet he and his boon companion Bruno, merrily squandered all they had earned, and returned to Florence, as poor as when they left that city. Here they also found plenty of work. They decorated the church of S. Maria Novella with several productions which were much applauded, particularly the Martyrdom of St. Maurice and his companions, who were decapitated for their adherence to the faith of Christ. The picture was designed by Buonamico, and painted by Bruno, who had no great power of invention or design. It was painted for Guido Campere, then constable of Florence, whose portrait was introduced as St. Maurice.--The martyrs are led to execution by a troop of soldiers, armed in the ancient manner, and presenting a very fine spectacle. "This picture," says Vasari, "can scarcely be called a very fine one, but it is nevertheless worthy of consideration as well for the design and invention of Buffalmacco, as for the variety of vestments, helmets, and other armor used in those times; and from which I have myself derived great assistance in certain historical paintings, executed for our lord, the Duke Cosmo, wherein it was necessary to represent men armed in the ancient manner, with other accessories belonging to that period; and his illustrious excellency, as well as all else who have seen these works, have been greatly pleased with them; whence we may infer the valuable assistance to be obtained from the inventions and performances of the old master, and the mode in which great advantages may be derived from them, even though they may not be altogether perfect; for it is these artists who have opened the path to us, and led the way to all the wonders performed down to the present time, and still being performed even in these of our days." BUFFALMACCO AND THE COUNTRYMAN. While Buonamico was employed at Florence, a countryman came and engaged him to paint a picture of St. Christopher for his parish church; the contract was, that the figure should be twelve braccia in length,[B] and the price eight florins. But when the painter proceeded to look at the church for which the picture was ordered, he found it but nine braccia high, and the same in length; therefore, as he was unable to paint the saint in an upright position he represented him reclining, bent the legs at the knees, and turned them up against the opposite wall. When the work was completed, the countryman declared that he had been cheated, and refused to pay for it. The matter was then referred to the authorities, who decided that Buffalmacco had performed his contract, and ordered the stipulated payment to be made. [Footnote B: The braccio, (arm, cubit) is an Italian measure which varies in length, not only in different parts of Italy, but also according to the thing measured. In Parma, for example, the braccio for measuring silk is 23 inches, for woolens and cottons 25 and a fraction, while that for roads and buildings is 21 only. In Siena, the braccio for cloth is 14 inches, while in Florence it is 23, and in Milan it is 39 inches, English measure.] The writer of these pages, in his intercourse with artists, has met with incidents as comical as that just related of Buonamico. Some artists proceed to paint without having previously designed, or even sketched out their subject on the canvass. We know an artist, who painted a fancy portrait of a child, in a landscape, reclining on a bank beside a stream; but when he had executed the landscape, and the greater part of the figure, he found he had not room in his canvass to get the feet in; so he turned the legs up in such a manner, as to give the child the appearance of being in great danger of sliding into the water. We greatly offended the painter by advising him to drive a couple of stakes into the bank to prevent such a catastrophe. Another artist, engaged in painting a full-length portrait, found, when he had got his picture nearly finished, that his canvass was at least four inches too short. "What shall I do," said the painter to a friend, "I have not room for the feet." "Cover them up with green grass," was the reply. "But my background represents an interior." "Well, hay will do as well." "Confound your jokes; a barn is a fine place to be sure for fine carpets, fine furniture, and a fine gentleman. I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll place one foot on this stool, and hide the other beneath this chair." He did so, but the figure looked all body and no legs, and the sitter refused to take the portrait. BUFFALMACCO AND THE PEOPLE OF PERUGIA. The Perugians engaged Buonamico to decorate their market-place with a picture of the patron saint of the city. Having erected an enclosure of planks and matting, that he might not be disturbed in his labors, the painter commenced his operations. Ten days had scarcely elapsed before every one who passed by enquired with eager curiosity, "when the picture would be finished?" as though they thought such works could be cast in a mould. Buffalmacco, wearied and disgusted at their impatient outcries, resolved on a bit of revenge. Therefore, keeping the work still enclosed, he admitted the Perugians to examine it, and when they declared themselves satisfied and delighted with the performance, and wished to remove the planks and matting, Buonamico requested that they would permit them to remain two days longer as he wished to retouch certain parts when the painting was fully dry. This was agreed to; and Buonamico instantly mounting his scaffold, removed the great gilt diadem from the head of the saint, and replaced it with a coronet of gudgeons. This accomplished, he paid his host, and set off to Florence. Two days having past, and the Perugians not seeing the painter going about as they were accustomed to do, inquired of his host what had become of him, and learning that he had left the city, they hastened to remove the screen that concealed the picture, when they discovered their saint solemnly crowned with gudgeons. Their rage now knew no bounds, and they instantly despatched horsemen in pursuit of Buonamico,--but in vain--the painter having found shelter in Florence. They then set an artist of their own to remove the crown of fishes and replace the gilded diadem, consoling themselves for the affront, by hurling maledictions at the head of Buonamico and every other Florentine. BUFFALMACCO'S NOVEL METHOD OF ENFORCING PAYMENT. Buffalmacco painted a fresco at Calcinaia, representing the Virgin with the Child in her arms. But the man for whom it was executed, only made fair promises in place of payment. Buonamico was not a man to be trifled with or made a tool of; therefore, he repaired early one morning to Calcinaia, and turned the child in the arms of the Holy Virgin into a young bear. The change being soon discovered, caused the greatest scandal, and the poor countryman for whom it was painted, hastened to the painter, and implored him to remove the cub and replace the child as before, declaring himself ready to pay all demands. This Buonamico agreed to do on being paid for the first and second painting, which last was only in water colors, when with a wet sponge, he immediately restored the picture to its peristine beauty. The Editors of the Florentine edition of Vasari, (1846) say that "in a room of the priory of Calcinaia, are still to be seen the remains of a picture on the walls, representing the Madonna with the Child in her arms, and other saints, evidently a work of the 14th century; and a tradition preserved to this day, declares that painting to be the one alluded to by our author." STEFANO FIORENTINO. This old Florentine painter was born in 1301. He was the grandson and disciple of Giotto, whom, according to Vasari, he greatly excelled in every department of art. From his close imitations of nature, he was called by his fellow citizens, "Stefano the Ape," (ape of nature.) He was the first artist who attempted to show the naked under his draperies, which were loose, easy, and delicate. He established the rules of perspective, little known at that early period, on more scientific principles. He was the first who attempted the difficult task of foreshortening. He also succeeded better than any of his cotemporaries in giving expression to his heads, and a less Gothic turn to his figures. He acquired a high reputation, and executed many works, in fresco and distemper, for the churches and public edifices of Florence, Rome, and other cities, all of which have perished, according to Lanzi, except a picture of the Virgin and Infant Christ in the Campo Santo at Pisa. He died in 1350. GIOTTINO. Tommaso Stefano, called II Giottino, the son and scholar of Stefano Fiorentino, was born at Florence in 1324. According to Vasari, he adhered so closely to the style of Giotto, that the good people of Florence called him Giottino, and averred that the soul of his great ancestor had transmigrated and animated him. There are some frescoes by him, still preserved at Assissi, and a Dead Christ with the Virgin and St. John, in the church of S. Remigio at Florence, which so strongly partake of the manner of Giotto as to justify the name bestowed upon him by his fellow citizens. He died in the flower of his life at Florence in 1356. PAOLO UCCELLO. This old painter was born at Florence in 1349, and was a disciple of Antonio Veneziano. His name was Mazzocchi, but being very celebrated as a painter of animals, and especially so of birds, of which last he formed a large collection of the most curious, he was called Uccello (bird). He was one of the first painters who cultivated perspective. Before his time buildings had not a true point of perspective, and figures appeared sometimes as if falling or slipping off the canvass. He made this branch so much his hobby, that he neglected other essential parts of the art. To improve himself he studied geometry with Giovanni Manetti, a celebrated mathematician. He acquired great distinction in his time and some of his works still remain in the churches and convents of Florence. In the church of S. Maria Novella are several fresco histories from the Old Testament, which he selected for the purpose of introducing a multitude of his favorite objects, beasts and birds; among them, are Adam and Eve in Paradise, Noah entering the Ark, the Deluge, &c. He painted battles of lions, tigers, serpents, &c, with peasants flying in terror from the scene of combat. He also painted landscapes with figures, cattle and ruins, possessing so much truth and nature, that Lanzi says "he may be justly called the Bassano of his age." He was living in 1436. Vasari places his birth in 1396-7, and his death in 1479, but later writers have proved his dates to be altogether erroneous. UCCELLO'S ENTHUSIASM. "Paolo Uccello employed himself perpetually and without any intermission," says Vasari, "in the consideration of the most difficult questions connected with art, insomuch that he brought the method of preparing the plans and elevations of buildings, by the study of linear perspective, to perfection. From the ground plan to the cornice, and summit of the roof, he reduced all to strict rules, by the convergence of intersecting lines, which he diminished towards the centre, after having fixed the point of view higher or lower, as seemed good to him; he labored, in short, so earnestly in these difficult matters that he found means, and fixed rules, for making his figures really to seem standing on the plane whereon they were placed; not only showing how in order manifestly to draw back or retire, they must gradually be diminished, but also giving the precise manner and degree required for this, which had previously been done by chance, or effected at the discretion of the artist, as he best could. He also discovered the method of turning the arches and cross-vaulting of ceilings, taught how floors are to be foreshortened by the convergence of the beams; showed how the artist must proceed to represent the columns bending round the sharp corners of a building, so that when drawn in perspective, they efface the angle and cause it to seem level. To pore over all these matters, Paolo would remain alone, almost like a hermit, shut up in his house for weeks and months without suffering himself to be approached." UCCELLO AND THE MONKS OF SAN MINIATO. Uccello was employed to decorate one of the cloisters of the monastery of San Miniato, situated without the city of Florence, with subjects from the lives of the Holy Fathers. While he was engaged on these works, the monks gave him scarcely anything to eat but cheese, of which the painter soon became tired, and being shy and timid, he resolved to go no more to work in the cloister. The prior sent to enquire the cause of his absence, but when Paolo heard the monks asking for him, he would never be at home, and if he chanced to meet any of the brothers of that order in the street, he gave them a wide berth. This extraordinary conduct excited the curiosity of the monks to such a degree that one day, two of the brothers, more swift of foot than the rest, gave chase to Paolo, and having, cornered him, demanded why he did not come to finish the work according to his agreement, and wherefore he fled at the sight of one of their body. "Faith," replied the painter, "you have so murdered me, that I not only run away from you, but dare not stop near the house of any joiner, or even pass by one; and all this owing to the bad management of your abbot; for, what with his cheese-pies, and cheese-soup, he has made me swallow such a mountain of cheese, that I am all turned into cheese myself, and tremble lest the carpenters should seize me, to make their glue of me; of a certainty had I stayed any longer with you, I should be no more Paolo, but a huge lump of cheese." The monks, bursting with laughter, went their way, and told the story to their abbot, who at length prevailed on Uccello to return to his work on condition that he would order him no more dishes made of cheese. UCCELLO'S FIVE PORTRAITS. Uccello was a man of very eccentric character and peculiar habits; but he was a great lover of art, and applauded those who excelled in any of its branches. He painted the portraits of five distinguished men, in one oblong picture, that he might preserve their memory and features to posterity. He kept it in his own house, as a memorial of them, as long as he lived. In the time of Vasari, it was in the possession of Giuliano da Sangallo. At the present day, (Editor's Florentine edition of Vasari, 1846) all trace of this remarkable picture is lost. The first of these portraits was that of the painter Giotto, as one who had given new light and life to art; the second, Fillippo Brunelleschi, distinguished for architecture; the third, Donatello, eminent for sculpture; the fourth, Uccello himself, for perspective and animals; and the fifth was his friend Giovanni Manetti, for the mathematics. UCCELLO'S INCREDULITY OF ST. THOMAS. It is related, says Vasari, of this master, that being commissioned to paint a picture of St. Thomas seeking the wound in the side of Christ, above the door of the church dedicated to that saint, in the Mercato Vecchio, he declared that he would make known in that work, the extent of what he had acquired and was capable of producing. He accordingly bestowed upon it the utmost care and consideration, and erected an enclosure around the place that he might not be disturbed until it should be completed. One day, his friend Donatello met him, and asked him, "What kind of work is this of thine, that thou art shutting up so closely?" Paolo replied, "Thou shalt see it some day; let that suffice thee." Donatello would not press him, thinking that when the time came, he should, as usual, behold a miracle of art. It happened one morning, as he was in the Mercato Vecchio, buying fruit, he saw Paolo uncovering his picture, and saluting him courteously, the latter anxiously demanded what he thought of his work. Donatello having examined the painting very closely, turned to the painter with a disappointed look, and said, "Why, Paolo, thou art uncovering thy picture at the very moment when thou shouldst be shutting it up from the sight of all!" These words so grievously afflicted the painter, who at once perceived that he would be more likely to incur derision from his boasted master-piece, than the honor he had hoped for, that he hastened home and shut himself up, devoting himself to the study of perspective, which, says Vasari, kept him in poverty and depression till the day of his death. If this story be true, Uccello must have painted the picture referred to in his old age. THE ITALIAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. The fame and success of Cimabue and Giotto, brought forth painters in abundance, and created schools all over Italy. The church increasing in power and riches, called on the arts of painting and sculpture, to add to the beauty and magnificence of her sanctuaries; riches and honors were showered on men whose genius added a new ray of grace to the Madonna, or conferred a diviner air on St. Peter or St. Paul; and as much of the wealth of Christendom found its way to Rome, the successors of the apostles were enabled to distribute their patronage over all the schools of Italy. Lanzi reckons fourteen schools of painting in Italy, each of which is distinguished by some peculiar characteristics, as follows: 1, the Florentine school; 2, the Sienese school; 3, the Roman school; 4, the Neapolitan school; 5, the Venetian school; 6, the Mantuan school; 7, the Modenese school; 8, the school of Parma; 9, the school of Cremona; 10, the school of Milan; 11, the school of Bologna; 12, the school of Ferrara; 13, the school of Genoa; 14, the school of Piedmont. Of these, the Florentine, the Roman, and the Bolognese are celebrated for their epic grandeur of composition; that of Siena for its poetic taste; that of Naples for its fire; and that of Venice for the splendor of its coloring. Other writers make different divisions, according to style or country; thus, Correggio, being by birth a Lombard, and the originator of a new style, the name of the Lombard school has been conferred by many upon the followers of his maxims, the characteristics of which are contours drawn round and full, the countenances warm and smiling, the union of the colors clear and strong, and the foreshortenings frequent, with a particular attention to the chiaro-scuro. Others again, rank the artists of Milan, Mantua Parma, Modena, and Cremona, under the one head of the Lombard school; but Lanzi justly makes the distinctions before mentioned, because their manners are very different. Writers of other nations rank all these subdivisions under one head--the Italian school. Lanzi again divides these schools into epochs, as they rose from their infancy, to their greatest perfection, and again declined into mannerism, or servile imitation, or as eminent artists rose who formed an era in art. Thus writers speak of the schools of Lionardo da Vinci, of Michael Angelo, of Raffaelle, of Correggio, of Titian, of the Caracci, and of every artist who acquired a distinguished reputation, and had many followers. Several great artists formed such a marked era in their schools, that their names and those of their schools are often used synonymously by many writers; thus, when they speak of the Roman school, they mean that of Raffaelle; of the Florentine, that of Michael Angelo; of Parma or Lombardy, that of Correggio; of Bologna, that of the Caracci; but not so of the Venetian and Neapolitan schools, because the Venetian school produced several splendid colorists, and that of Naples as many, distinguished by other peculiarities. These distinctions should be borne in mind in order rightly to understand writers, especially foreigners, on Italian art. CLAUDE JOSEPH VERNET. Claude Joseph Vernet, the father of Carl Vernet, and the grandfather of Horace, was born at Avignon in 1714. He was the son of Antoine Vernet, an obscure painter, who foretold that he would one day render his family illustrious in art, and gave him every advantage that his limited means would permit. Such were the extraordinary talents he exhibited almost in his infancy, that his father regarded him as a prodigy, and dreaming of nothing but seeing him become the greatest historical painter of the age, he resolved to send him to Rome; and having, by great economy, saved a few louis d'or, he put them into Joseph's pocket, when he was about eighteen years of age, and sent him off with a wagoner, who undertook to conduct him to Marseilles. VERNET'S PRECOCITY. The wonderful stories told about the early exhibitions of genius in many celebrated painters are really true with respect to Joseph Vernet. In his infancy, he exhibited the most extraordinary passion for painting. He himself has related, that on his return from Italy, his mother gave him some drawings which he had executed at the age of five years, when he was rewarded by being allowed to use the pencils he had tried to purloin. Before he was fifteen, he painted frieze-panels, fire-screens, coach-panels, sedan chair-panels, and the like, whenever he could get a commission; he also gave proof of that facility of conceiving and executing, which was one of the characteristics of his genius. VERNET'S ENTHUSIASM. It has been before stated that Vernet's father intended him for an historical painter, but nature formed his genius to imitate her sweetest, as well as most terrible aspect. When he was on his way to Marseilles, he met with so many charming prospects, that he induced his companion to halt so often while he sketched them, that it took them a much longer time to reach that port than it would otherwise have done. When he first saw the sea from the high hill, called La Viste, near Marseilles, he stood wrapt in admiration. Before him stretched the blue waters of the Mediterranean as far as the eye could reach, while three islands, a few leagues from the shore, seemed to have been placed there on purpose to break the uniformity of the immense expanse of waters, and to gratify the eye; on his right rose a sloping town of country houses, intersected with trees, rising above one another on successive terraces; on his left was the little harbor of Mastigues; in front, innumerable vessels rocked to and fro in the harbor of Marseilles, while the horizon was terminated by the picturesque tower of Bouc, nearly lost, however, in the distance. This scene made a lasting impression on Vernet. Nature seemed not only to invite, but to woo him to paint marine subjects, and from that moment his vocation was decided on. Thus nature frequently instructs men of genius, and leads them on in the true path to excellence and renown. Like the Æolian harp, which waits for a breath of air to produce a sound, so they frequently wait or strive in vain, till nature strikes a sympathetic chord, that vibrates to the soul. Thus Joseph Vernet never thought of his forte till he first stood on La Viste; and after that, he was nothing but a painter of ships and harbors, and tranquil seas, till the day when lashed to the mast, he first beheld the wild sea in such rude commotion, as threatened to engulf the noble ship and all on board at every moment. Then his mind was elevated to the grandeur of the scene; and he recollected forever the minutest incident of the occasion. "It was on going from Marseilles to Rome," says one of his biographers, M. Pitra, "that Joseph Vernet, on seeing a tempest gathering, when they were off the Island of Sardinia, was seized, not with terror, but with admiration; in the midst of the general alarm, the painter seemed really to relish the peril; his only desire was to face the tempest, and to be, so to say, mixed up with it, in order that, some day or other, he might astonish and frighten others by the terrible effects he would learn to produce; his only fear was that he might lose the sight of a spectacle so new to him. He had himself lashed to the main mast, and while he was tossed about in every direction, saturated with seawater, and excited by this hand-to-hand struggle with his model, he painted the tempest, not on his canvass, but in his memory, which never forgot anything. He saw and remembered all--clouds, waves, and rock, hues and colors, with the motion of the boats and the rocking of the ship, and the accidental light which intersected a slate-colored sky that served as a ground to the whiteness of the sea-foam." But, according to D'Argenville and others, this event occurred in 1752, when he was on his way to Paris, at the invitation of Louis XV. Embarking at Leghorn in a small felucca, he sailed to Marseilles. A violent storm happened on the voyage, which greatly terrified some of the passengers, but Vernet, undaunted, and struck with the grandeur of the scene, requested the sailors to lash him to the mast head, and there he remained, absorbed in admiration, and endeavoring to transfer to his sketch-book, a correct picture of the sublime scene with which he was surrounded. His grandson, Horace Vernet, painted an excellent picture of this scene, which was exhibited in the Louvre in 1816, and attracted a great deal of attention. VERNET AT ROME. Vernet arrived at Rome in 1732, and became the scholar of Bernardino Fergioni, then a celebrated marine painter, but Lanzi says, "he was soon eclipsed by Joseph Vernet, who had taken up his abode at Rome." Entirely unknown in that metropolis of art, always swarming with artists, Vernet lived for several years in the greatest poverty, subsisting by the occasional sale of a drawing or picture at any price he could get. He even painted panels for coach builders, which were subsequently sawed out and sold as works of great value. Fiorillo relates that he painted a superb marine for a suit of coarse clothes, which brought 5000 francs at the sale of M. de Julienne. Finding large pictures less saleable, he painted small ones, which he sold for two sequins a-piece, till a Cardinal, one day gave him four louis d'or for a marine. Yet his ardor and enthusiasm were unabated; on the contrary, he studied with the greatest assiduity, striving to perfect himself in his art, and feeling confident that his talents would ultimately command a just reward. VERNET'S "ALPHABET OF TONES." It was the custom of Vernet to rise with the lark, and he often walked forth before dawn and spent the whole day in wandering about the surrounding country, to study the ever changing face of nature. He watched the various hues presented by the horizon at different hours of the day. He soon found that with all his powers of observation and pencil, great and impassioned as they were, he could not keep pace with the rapidly changing and evanescent hues of the morning and evening sky. He began to despair of ever being able to represent on canvass the moving harmony of those pictures which nature required so little time to execute in such perfection, and which so quickly passed away. At length, after long contemplating how he could best succeed in catching and transferring these furtive tints to his canvass, bethought himself of a contrivance which he called his Alphabet of tones, and which is described by Renou in his "Art de Peindre." The various characters of this alphabet are joined together, and correspond to an equal number of different tints; if Vernet saw the sun rise silvery and fresh, or set in the colors of crimson; or if he saw a storm approaching or disappearing, he opened his table and set down the gradations of the tones he admired, as quickly as he could write ten or twelve letters on a piece of paper. After having thus noted down in short hand, the beauties of the sky and the accidental effects of nature, he returned to his studio, and endeavored to make stationary on canvass the moving picture he had just been contemplating. Effects which had long disappeared were thus recomposed in all their charming harmony to delight the eye of every lover of painting. VERNET AND THE CONNOISSEUR. Vernet relates, that he was once employed to paint a landscape, with a cave, and St. Jerome in it; he accordingly painted the landscape, with St. Jerome at the entrance of the cave. When he delivered the picture, the purchaser, who understood nothing of perspective, said, "the landscape and the cave are well made, but St. Jerome is not _in_ the cave." "I understand you, Sir," replied Vernet, "I will alter it." He therefore took the painting, and made the shade darker, so that the saint seemed to sit farther in. The gentleman took the painting; but it again appeared to him that the saint was not in the cave. Vernet then wiped out the figure, and gave it to the gentleman, who seemed perfectly satisfied. Whenever he saw strangers to whom he shewed the picture, he said, "Here you see a picture by Vernet, with St. Jerome in the cave." "But we cannot see the saint," replied the visitors. "Excuse me, gentlemen," answered the possessor, "he is there; for _I_ have seen him standing at the entrance, and afterwards farther back; and am therefore quite sure that he is in it." VERNET'S WORKS. Far from confining himself within the narrow limits of one branch of his profession, Vernet determined to take as wide a range as possible. At Rome, he made the acquaintance of Lucatelli, Pannini, and Solimene. Like them, he studied the splendid ruins of the architecture of ancient Rome, and the noble landscapes of its environs, together with every interesting scene and object, especially the celebrated cascades of Tivoli. He paid particular attention to the proportions and attitudes of his figures, which were mostly those of fishermen and lazzaroni, as well as to the picturesque appearance of their costume. Such love of nature and of art, such assiduous study of nature at different hours of the day, of the phenomena of light, and such profound study of the numerous accessories essential to beauty and effect, made an excellent landscape painter of Vernet, though his fame rests chiefly on the unrivalled excellence of his marine subjects. Diderot remarks, that "though he was undoubtedly inferior to Claude Lorraine in producing bold and luminous effects, he was quite equal to that great painter in rendering the effects of vapor, and superior to him in the invention of scenes, in designing figures, and in the variety of his incidents." At a later period, Diderot compared his favorite painter to the Jupiter of Lucian, who, tired of listening to the lamentable cries of mankind, rose from table and exclaimed: 'Let it hail in Thrace!' and the trees were immediately stripped of their leaves, the heaviest cut to pieces, and the thatch of the houses scattered before the wind: then he said, "Let the plague fall on Asia!" and the doors of the houses were immediately closed, the streets were deserted, and men shunned one another; and again he exclaimed: 'Let a volcano appear here!' and the earth immediately shook, the buildings were thrown down, the animals were terrified, and the inhabitants fled into the surrounding country; and on his crying out: 'Let this place be visited with a death!' the old husbandman died of want at his door. Jupiter calls that governing the world, but he was wrong. Vernet calls it painting pictures, and he is right. It was with reference to the twenty-five paintings exhibited by Vernet, in 1765, that Diderot penned the foregoing lines, which formed the peroration to an eloquent and lengthy eulogium, such as it rarely falls to a painter to be the subject of. Among other things, the great critic there says: "There is hardly a single one of his compositions which any painter would have taken not less than two years to execute, however well he might have employed his time. What incredible effects of light do we not behold in them! What magnificent skies! what water! what ordonnance! what prodigious variety in the scenes! Here, we see a child borne off on the shoulders of his father, after having been saved from a watery grave; while there, lies a woman dead upon the beach, with her forlorn and widowed husband weeping at her side. The sea roars, the wind bowls, the thunder fills the air with its peals, and the pale and sombre glimmers of the lightning that shoots incessantly through the sky, illuminate and hide the scene in turn. It appears as if you heard the sides of the ship crack, so natural does it look with its broken masts and lacerated sails; the persons on deck are stretching their hands toward heaven, while others have thrown themselves into the sea. The latter are swept by the waves against the neighboring rocks, where their blood mingles with the white foam of the raging billows. Some, too, are floating on the surface of the sea, some are about to sink, and some are endeavoring to reach the shore, against which they will be inevitably dashed to pieces. The same variety of character, action, and expression is observable among the spectators, some of whom are turning aside with a shudder, some are doing their utmost to assist the drowning persons, while others remain motionless and are merely looking on. A few persons have made a fire beneath a rock, and are endeavoring to revive a woman, who is apparently expiring. But now turn your eyes, reader, towards another picture, and you will there see a calm, with all its charms. The waters, which are tranquil, smooth, and cheerful-looking, insensibly lose their transparency as they extend further from the sight, while their surface gradually assumes a lighter tint, as they roll from the shore to the horizon. The ships are motionless, and the sailors and passengers are whiling away the time in various amusements. If it is morning, what light vapors are seen rising all around! and how they have refreshed and vivified every object they have fallen on! If it is evening, what a golden tint do the tops of the mountains assume! How various, too, are the hues of the sky! And how gently do the clouds move along, as they cast the reflection of their different colors into the sea! Go, reader, into the country, lift your eyes up towards the azure vault of heaven, observe well the phenomena you then see there, and you will think that a large piece of the canvass lighted by the sun himself has been cut out and placed upon the easel of the artist: or form your hand into a tube, so that, by looking through it, you will only be able to see a limited space of the canvass painted by nature, and you will at once fancy that you are gazing on one of Vernet's pictures which has been taken from off his easel and placed in the sky. His nights, too, are as touching as his days are fine; while his ports are as fine as his imaginative pieces are piquant. He is equally wonderful, whether he employs his pencil to depict a subject of everyday life, or he abandons himself completely to his imagination; and he is equally incomprehensible, whether he employs the orb of day or the orb of night, natural or artificial lights, to light his pictures with: he is always bold, harmonious, and staid, like those great poets whose judgment balances all things so well, that they are never either exaggerated or cold. His fabrics, edifices, costumes, actions, men and animals are all true. When near, he astonishes you, and, at a distance, he astonishes you still more." VERNET'S PASSION FOR MUSIC Vernet, notwithstanding he loved to depict the sea in its most convulsed and terrible aspects, was a perfect gentleman of the French school, whose manners were most amiable and engaging. What he most loved after painting was music. He had formed at Rome, an intimate friendship with Pergolesi, the composer, who afterwards became so celebrated, and they lived almost continually together. Vernet placed a harpsichord in his studio for the express use of his friend, and while the painter, carried away by his imagination, put the waters of the mighty main into commotion, or suspended persons on the towering waves, the grave composer sought, with the tips of his fingers, for the rudiments of his immortal melodies. It was thus that the melancholy stanzas of that _chef d'oeuvre_ of sadness and sorrow, the _Stabat-Mater_, were composed for a little convent in which one of Pergolesi's sisters resided. It seems to one that while listening to this plaintive music, Vernet must have given a more mellow tint to his painting; and it was, perhaps, while under its influence, that he worked at his calms and moonlights, or, making a truce with the roaring billows of the sea, painted it tranquil and smooth, and represented on the shore nothing but motionless fishermen, sailors seated between the carriages of two cannons, and whiling away the time by relating their travels to one another, or else stretched on the grass in so quiescent a state, that the spectator himself becomes motionless while gazing on them. Pergolesi died in the arms of Joseph Vernet, who could never after hear the name of his friend pronounced, without being moved to tears. He religiously preserved the scraps of paper, on which he had seen the music of the _Stabat-Mater_ dotted down before his eyes, and brought them with him to France in 1752, at which period he was sent for by the Marquis de Marigny, after an absence of twenty years. Vernet's love for music procured Grétry a hearty welcome, when the young composer came to Paris. Vernet discovered his talent, and predicted his success. Some of Grétry's features, his delicate constitution, and, above all, several of his simple and expressive airs, reminded the painter of the immortal man to whom music owes so large a portion of its present importance; for it was Pergolesi who first introduced in Italy the custom of paying such strict attention to the sense of the words and to the choice of the accompaniments. VERNET'S OPINION OF HIS OWN MERITS. Though Vernet rose to great distinction, he was never fully appreciated till long after his decease. At the present day, he is placed in the first rank of marine painters, not only by his own countrymen, but by every other nation. He himself pronounced judgment on his own merits, the justness of which, posterity has sanctioned. The sentence deserves to be preserved, for it is great. Comparing himself to the great painters, his rivals, he says, "If you ask me whether I painted skies better than such and such an artist, I should answer 'no!' or figures better than any one else, I should also say 'no!' or trees and landscapes better than others, still I should answer 'no!' or fogs, water, and vapors better than others, my answer would ever be the same but though _inferior to each of them in one branch of the art, I surpass them in all the others_." CURIOUS LETTER OF VERNET. The Marquis de Marigny, like his sister, Madame de Pompadour, loved and protected the arts. It was mainly through his influence that Vernet was invited to Paris in 1752, and commissioned to paint the sea-ports of France. No one could have been found better fitted for the ungrateful task, which, though offering so few resources, required so much knowledge. Thus imprisoned in official programme, Vernet must have felt ill at ease, if we may judge from a letter which he wrote to the Marquis at a subsequent period, with respect to another order. Indeed, the truth of his remarks were verified in the very series just mentioned, which are not considered among his happiest productions. The following is the main part of the letter referred to, dated May 6th, 1765: "I am not accustomed to make sketches for my pictures. My general practice is to compose on the canvass of the picture I am about to execute, and to paint it immediately, while my imagination is still warm with conception; the size, too, of my canvas tells me at once what I have to do, and makes me compose accordingly. I am sure, if I made a sketch beforehand, that I should not only not put in it what might be in the picture, but that I should also throw into it all the fire I possess, and the larger picture would, in consequence, become cold. This would also be making a sort of copy, which it would annoy me to do. Thus, sir, after thoroughly weighing and examining everything, I think it best _that I should be left free to act as I like_. This is what I require from all those for whom I wish to do my best; and this is also what I beg your friend towards whom I am desirous of acting conscientiously, to let me do. He can tell me what size he wishes the picture to be, with the general subject of it, such as calm, tempest, sun-rise, sun-set, moon-light, landscape, marine-piece, etc., but nothing more. Experience has taught me that, when I am constrained by the least thing, I always succeed worse than generally. "If you wish to know the usual prices of my pictures, they are as follows:--For every one four feet wide, and two and a half, or three high, £60, for every one three feet wide, and of a proportionate height, £48; for every one two feet and a half wide £40; for every one two feet wide, £32; and for every one eighteen inches wide, £24, with larger or smaller ones as required; but it is as well to mention that I succeed much better with the large ones." CHARLES VERNET. Antoine Charles Horace Vernet was the son of Claude Joseph Vernet, and born at Bordeaux in 1758. He acquired distinction as a painter, and was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and of the order of St Michael. He chiefly excelled in battle and parade pieces of large dimensions; and he thus commemorated the battles of Rivoli, Marengo, Austerlitz, Wagram, the Departure of the Marshals, and other events of French history which occurred during his artistical career. More pleasing to many are his smaller pictures, mostly referring to battles and camps. He was uncommonly successful in depicting the horse, and there are numerous equestrian portraits by him, which are greatly admired. His studies from nature, and his hunting pieces, for vivacity, spirit, and boldness of conception, are only rivaled by those of his son Horace. Many of his works have been lithographed; the twenty-eight plates in folio, illustrating the Campaign of Bonaparte in Italy, are esteemed among his most successful efforts. He died in 1836. ANECDOTE OF CHARLES VERNET. A short time before his death, Charles Vernet, having some business to transact with one of the public functionaries, called at his office and sent in his card. The minister left him waiting two whole hours in the anteroom before he admitted him to his presence, when the business was quickly dispatched. Meeting Vernet at a soiree soon afterwards, the minister apologized for his _apparent_ neglect, which not appearing very satisfactory to the veteran painter, he mildly rebuked him by observing, "It is of no consequence, sir, but permit me to say that I think a little more respect should have been shown to the son of Joseph and the father of Horace Vernet." M. DE LASSON'S CARICATURE. A Norman priest, who lived in the middle of the seventeenth century, named the Abbé Malotru, was remarkably deformed in his figure, and ridiculous in his dress. One day, while he was performing mass, he observed a smile of contempt on the face of M. de Lasson, which irritated him so much that the moment the service was over, he instituted a process against him. Lasson possessed the talent of caricature drawing: he sketched a figure of the ill-made priest, accoutred, as he used to be, in half a dozen black caps over one another, nine waistcoats, and as many pair of breeches. When the court before whom he was cited urged him to produce his defense, he suddenly exhibited his Abbé Malotru, and the irresistible laughter which it occasioned insured his acquittal. FRANK HALS AND VANDYKE. In the early part of Frank Hals' life, to accommodate his countrymen, who were sparing both of their time and money, he painted portraits for a low price at one sitting in a single hour. Vandyke on his way to Rome, passing through the place, sat his hour as a stranger to the rapid portrait painter. Hals had seen some of the works of Vandyke, but was unacquainted with his person. When the picture was finished, Vandyke, assuming a silly manner, said it appeared to be easy work, and that he thought he could do it. Hals, thinking to have some fun, consented to sit an hour precisely by the clock, and not to rise or look at what he fully expected to find a laughable daub. Vandyke began his work; Hals looked like a sitter. At the close, the wag rose with all his risible muscles prepared for a hearty laugh; but when he saw the splendid sketch, he started, looked, and exclaimed, "You must be either Vandyke or the Devil!" 
23593	----	Library Edition THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN STONES OF VENICE VOLUME III GIOTTO LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE HARBOURS OF ENGLAND A JOY FOREVER NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NEW YORK CHICAGO THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN VOLUME X GIOTTO AND HIS WORKS LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE THE HARBORS OF ENGLAND POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART (A JOY FOREVER) LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING DELIVERED AT EDINBURGH IN NOVEMBER, 1853. CONTENTS. PAGE PREFACE v LECTURE I. ARCHITECTURE 1 LECTURE II. ARCHITECTURE 34 ADDENDA TO LECTURES I. AND II. 56 LECTURE III. TURNER AND HIS WORKS 75 LECTURE IV. PRE-RAPHAELITISM 100 ADDENDA TO LECTURE IV. 123 LIST OF PLATES. Facing Page PLATE I. Figs. 1. 3. and 5. Illustrative diagrams 3 " II. " 2. Windows in Oakham Castle 5 " III. " 4. and 6. Spray of ash-tree, and improvement of the same on Greek principles 10 " IV. " 7. Window in Dunblane Cathedral 15 " V. " 8. Mediæval turret 20 " VI. " 9. and 10. Lombardic towers 22 " VII. " 11. and 12. Spires at Coutances and Rouen 25 " VIII. " 13. and 14. Illustrative diagrams 39 " IX. " 15. Sculpture at Lyons 40 " X. " 16. Niche at Amiens 41 " XI. " 17. and 18. Tiger's head, and improvement of the same on Greek principles 44 " XII. " 19. Garret window in Hotel de Bourgtheroude 51 " XIII. " 20. and 21. Trees, as drawn in the 13th century 81 " XIV. " 22. Rocks, as drawn by the school of Leonardo da Vinci 83 " XV. " 23. Boughs of trees, after Titian 84 PREFACE. The following Lectures are printed, as far as possible, just as they were delivered. Here and there a sentence which seemed obscure has been mended, and the passages which had not been previously written, have been, of course imperfectly, supplied from memory. But I am well assured that nothing of any substantial importance which was said in the lecture-room, is either omitted, or altered in its signification; with the exception only of a few sentences struck out from the notice of the works of Turner, in consequence of the impossibility of engraving the drawings by which they were illustrated, except at a cost which would have too much raised the price of the volume. Some elucidatory remarks have, however, been added at the close of the second and fourth Lectures, which I hope may be of more use than the passages which I was obliged to omit. The drawings by which the Lectures on Architecture were illustrated have been carefully reduced, and well transferred to wood by Mr. Thurston Thompson. Those which were given in the course of the notices of schools of painting could not be so transferred, having been drawn in color; and I have therefore merely had a few lines, absolutely necessary to make the text intelligible, copied from engravings. I forgot, in preparing the second Lecture for the press, to quote a passage from Lord Lindsay's "Christian Art," illustrative of what is said in that lecture (§ 52), respecting the energy of the mediæval republics. This passage, describing the circumstances under which the Campanile of the Duomo of Florence was built, is interesting also as noticing the universality of talent which was required of architects; and which, as I have asserted in the Addenda (§ 60), always ought to be required of them. I do not, however, now regret the omission, as I cannot easily imagine a better preface to an essay on civil architecture than this simple statement. "In 1332, Giotto was chosen to erect it (the Campanile), on the ground, avowedly, of the _universality_ of his talents, with the appointment of Capo Maestro, or chief Architect (chief Master I should rather write), of the Cathedral and its dependencies, a yearly salary of one hundred gold florins, and the privilege of citizenship, under the special understanding that he was not to quit Florence. His designs being approved of, the republic passed a decree in the spring of 1334, that the Campanile should be built so as to exceed in magnificence, height, and excellence of workmanship whatever in that time had been achieved by the Greeks and Romans in the time of their utmost power and greatness. The first stone was laid, accordingly, with great pomp, on the 18th of July following, and the work prosecuted with vigor, and with such costliness and utter disregard of expense, that a citizen of Verona, looking on, exclaimed that the republic was taxing her strength too far, that the united resources of two great monarchs would be insufficient to complete it; a criticism which the Signoria resented by confining him for two months in prison, and afterwards conducting him through the public treasury, to teach him that the Florentines could build their whole city of marble, and not one poor steeple only, were they so inclined." I see that "The Builder," vol. xi. page 690, has been endeavoring to inspire the citizens of Leeds with some pride of this kind respecting their town-hall. The pride would be well, but I sincerely trust that the tower in question may not be built on the design there proposed. I am sorry to have to write a special criticism, but it must be remembered that the best works, by the best men living, are in this age abused without mercy by nameless critics; and it would be unjust to the public, if those who have given their names as guarantee for their sincerity never had the courage to enter a protest against the execution of designs which appear to them unworthy. DENMARK HILL, _16th April 1854_. LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING. LECTURE I. ARCHITECTURE. _Delivered November 1, 1853._ 1. I think myself peculiarly happy in being permitted to address the citizens of Edinburgh on the subject of architecture, for it is one which, they cannot but feel, interests them nearly. Of all the cities in the British Islands, Edinburgh is the one which presents most advantages for the display of a noble building; and which, on the other hand, sustains most injury in the erection of a commonplace or unworthy one. You are all proud of your city; surely you must feel it a duty in some sort to justify your pride; that is to say, to give yourselves a _right_ to be proud of it. That you were born under the shadow of its two fantastic mountains,--that you live where from your room windows you can trace the shores of its glittering Firth, are no rightful subjects of pride. You did not raise the mountains, nor shape the shores; and the historical houses of your Canongate, and the broad battlements of your castle, reflect honor upon you only through your ancestors. Before you boast of your city, before even you venture to call it _yours_, ought you not scrupulously to weigh the exact share you have had in adding to it or adorning it, to calculate seriously the influence upon its aspect which the work of your own hands has exercised? I do not say that, even when you regard your city in this scrupulous and testing spirit, you have not considerable ground for exultation. As far as I am acquainted with modern architecture, I am aware of no streets which, in simplicity and manliness of style, or general breadth and brightness of effect, equal those of the New Town of Edinburgh. But yet I am well persuaded that as you traverse those streets, your feelings of pleasure and pride in them are much complicated with those which are excited entirely by the surrounding scenery. As you walk up or down George Street, for instance, do you not look eagerly for every opening to the north and south, which lets in the luster of the Firth of Forth, or the rugged outline of the Castle Rock? Take away the sea-waves, and the dark basalt, and I fear you would find little to interest you in George Street by itself. Now I remember a city, more nobly placed even than your Edinburgh, which, instead of the valley that you have now filled by lines of railroad, has a broad and rushing river of blue water sweeping through the heart of it; which, for the dark and solitary rock that bears your castle, has an amphitheater of cliffs crested with cypresses and olive; which, for the two masses of Arthur's Seat and the ranges of the Pentlands, has a chain of blue mountains higher than the haughtiest peaks of your Highlands; and which, for your far-away Ben Ledi and Ben More, has the great central chain of the St. Gothard Alps: and yet, as you go out of the gates, and walk in the suburban streets of that city--I mean Verona--the eye never seeks to rest on that external scenery, however gorgeous; it does not look for the gaps between the houses, as you do here; it may for a few moments follow the broken line of the great Alpine battlements; but it is only where they form a background for other battlements, built by the hand of man. There is no necessity felt to dwell on the blue river or the burning hills. The heart and eye have enough to do in the streets of the city itself; they are contented there; nay, they sometimes turn from the natural scenery, as if too savage and solitary, to dwell with a deeper interest on the palace walls that cast their shade upon the streets, and the crowd of towers that rise out of that shadow into the depth of the sky. [Illustration: Plate I. (Fig. 1., Fig. 3., Fig. 5.)] 2. _That_ is a city to be proud of, indeed; and it is this kind of architectural dignity which you should aim at, in what you add to Edinburgh or rebuild in it. For remember, you must either help your scenery or destroy it; whatever you do has an effect of one kind or the other; it is never indifferent. But, above all, remember that it is chiefly by private, not by public, effort that your city must be adorned. It does not matter how many beautiful public buildings you possess, if they are not supported by, and in harmony with, the private houses of the town. Neither the mind nor the eye will accept a new college, or a new hospital, or a new institution, for a city. It is the Canongate, and the Princes Street, and the High Street that are Edinburgh. It is in your own private houses that the real majesty of Edinburgh must consist; and, what is more, it must be by your own personal interest that the style of the architecture which rises around you must be principally guided. Do not think that you can have good architecture merely by paying for it. It is not by subscribing liberally for a large building once in forty years that you can call up architects and inspiration. It is only by active and sympathetic attention to the domestic and every-day work which is done for each of you, that you can educate either yourselves to the feeling, or your builders to the doing, of what is truly great. 3. Well, but, you will answer, you cannot feel interested in architecture: you do not care about it, and _cannot_ care about it. I know you cannot. About such architecture as is built nowadays, no mortal ever did or could care. You do not feel interested in _hearing_ the same thing over and over again;--why do you suppose you can feel interested in _seeing_ the same thing over and over again, were that thing even the best and most beautiful in the world? Now, you all know the kind of window which you usually build in Edinburgh: here is an example of the head of one (_fig._ 1), a massy lintel of a single stone, laid across from side to side, with bold square-cut jambs--in fact, the simplest form it is possible to build. It is by no means a bad form; on the contrary, it is very manly and vigorous, and has a certain dignity in its utter refusal of ornament. But I cannot say it is entertaining. How many windows precisely of this form do you suppose there are in the New Town of Edinburgh? I have not counted them all through the town, but I counted them this morning along this very Queen Street, in which your Hall is; and on the one side of that street, there are of these windows, absolutely similar to this example, and altogether devoid of any relief by decoration, six hundred and seventy-eight.[1] And your decorations are just as monotonous as your simplicities. How many Corinthian and Doric columns do you think there are in your banks, and post-offices, institutions, and I know not what else, one exactly like another?--and yet you expect to be interested! Nay, but, you will answer me again, we see sunrises and sunsets, and violets and roses, over and over again, and we do not tire of _them_. What! did you ever see one sunrise like another? does not God vary His clouds for you every morning and every night? though, indeed, there is enough in the disappearing and appearing of the great orb above the rolling of the world, to interest all of us, one would think, for as many times as we shall see it; and yet the aspect of it is changed for us daily. You see violets and roses often, and are not tired of them. True! but you did not often see two roses alike, or, if you did, you took care not to put them beside each other in the same nosegay, for fear your nosegay should be uninteresting; and yet you think you can put 150,000 square windows side by side in the same streets, and still be interested by them. Why, if I were to say the same thing over and over again, for the single hour you are going to let me talk to you, would you listen to me? and yet you let your architects _do_ the same thing over and over again for three centuries, and expect to be interested by their architecture; with a farther disadvantage on the side of the builder, as compared with the speaker, that my wasted words would cost you but little, but his wasted stones have cost you no small part of your incomes. [Footnote 1: Including York Place, and Picardy Place, but not counting any window which has moldings.] [Illustration: PLATE II. (Fig. 2)] 4. "Well, but," you still think within yourselves, "it is not _right_ that architecture should be interesting. It is a very grand thing, this architecture, but essentially unentertaining. It is its duty to be dull, it is monotonous by law: it cannot be correct and yet amusing." Believe me, it is not so. All things that are worth doing in art, are interesting and attractive when they are done. There is no law of right which consecrates dullness. The proof of a thing's being right is, that it has power over the heart; that it excites us, wins us, or helps us. I do not say that it has influence over all, but it has over a large class, one kind of art being fit for one class, and another for another; and there is no goodness in art which is independent of the power of pleasing. Yet, do not mistake me; I do not mean that there is no such thing as neglect of the best art, or delight in the worst, just as many men neglect nature, and feed upon what is artificial and base; but I mean, that all good art has the _capacity of pleasing_, if people will attend to it; that there is no law against its pleasing; but, on the contrary, something wrong either in the spectator or the art, when it ceases to please. Now, therefore, if you feel that your present school of architecture is unattractive to you, I say there is something wrong, either in the architecture or in you; and I trust you will not think I mean to flatter you when I tell you, that the wrong is _not_ in you, but in the architecture. Look at this for a moment (_fig._ 2); it is a window actually existing--a window of an English domestic building[2]--a window built six hundred years ago. You will not tell me you have no pleasure in looking at this; or that you could not, by any possibility, become interested in the art which produced it; or that, if every window in your streets were of some such form, with perpetual change in their ornaments, you would pass up and down the street with as much indifference as now, when your windows are of _this_ form (_fig._ 1). Can you for an instant suppose that the architect was a greater or wiser man who built this, than he who built that? or that in the arrangement of these dull and monotonous stones there is more wit and sense than you can penetrate? Believe me, the wrong is not in you; you would all like the best things best, if you only saw them. What is wrong in you is your temper, not your taste; your patient and trustful temper, which lives in houses whose architecture it takes for granted, and subscribes to public edifices from which it derives no enjoyment. [Footnote 2: Oakham Castle. I have enlarged this illustration from Mr. Hudson Turner's admirable work on the domestic architecture of England.] 5. "Well, but what are we to do?" you will say to me; "we cannot make architects of ourselves." Pardon me, you can--and you ought. Architecture is an art for all men to learn, because all are concerned with it; and it is so simple, that there is no excuse for not being acquainted with its primary rules, any more than for ignorance of grammar or of spelling, which are both of them far more difficult sciences. Far less trouble than is necessary to learn how to play chess, or whist, or golf, tolerably,--far less than a school-boy takes to win the meanest prize of the passing year, would acquaint you with all the main principles of the construction of a Gothic cathedral, and I believe you would hardly find the study less amusing. But be that as it may, there are one or two broad principles which need only be stated to be understood and accepted; and those I mean to lay before you, with your permission, before you leave this room. 6. You must all, of course, have observed that the principal distinctions between existing styles of architecture depend on their methods of roofing any space, as a window or door for instance, or a space between pillars; that is to say, that the character of Greek architecture, and of all that is derived from it, depends on its roofing a space with a single stone laid from side to side; the character of Roman architecture, and of all derived from it, depends on its roofing spaces with round arches; and the character of Gothic architecture depends on its roofing spaces with pointed arches, or gables. I need not, of course, in any way follow out for you the mode in which the Greek system of architecture is derived from the horizontal lintel; but I ought perhaps to explain, that by Roman architecture I do not mean that spurious condition of temple form which was nothing more than a luscious imitation of the Greek; but I mean that architecture in which the Roman spirit truly manifested itself, the magnificent vaultings of the aqueduct and the bath, and the colossal heaping of the rough stones in the arches of the amphitheater; an architecture full of expression of gigantic power and strength of will, and from which are directly derived all our most impressive early buildings, called, as you know, by various antiquaries, Saxon, Norman, or Romanesque. Now the first point I wish to insist upon is, that the Greek system, considered merely as a piece of construction, is weak and barbarous compared with the two others. For instance, in the case of a large window or door, such as _fig._ 1, if you have at your disposal a single large and long stone you may indeed roof it in the Greek manner, as you have done here, with comparative security; but it is always expensive to obtain and to raise to their place stones of this large size, and in many places nearly impossible to obtain them at all: and if you have not such stones, and still insist upon roofing the space in the Greek way, that is to say, upon having a square window, you must do it by the miserably feeble adjustment of bricks, _fig._ 3.[3] You are well aware, of course, that this latter is the usual way in which such windows are now built in England; you are fortunate enough here in the north to be able to obtain single stones, and this circumstance alone gives a considerable degree of grandeur to your buildings. But in all cases, and however built, you cannot but see in a moment that this cross bar is weak and imperfect. It may be strong enough for all immediate intents and purposes, but it is not so strong as it might be: however well the house is built, it will still not stand so long as if it had been better constructed; and there is hardly a day passes but you may see some rent or flaw in bad buildings of this kind. You may see one whenever you choose, in one of your most costly, and most ugly buildings, the great church with the dome, at the end of George Street. I think I never saw a building with a principal entrance so utterly ghastly and oppressive; and it is as weak as it is ghastly. The huge horizontal lintel above the door is already split right through. But you are not aware of a thousandth part of the evil: the pieces of building that you _see_ are all carefully done; it is in the parts that are to be concealed by paint and plaster that the bad building of the day is thoroughly committed. The main mischief lies in the strange devices that are used to support the long horizontal cross beams of our larger apartments and shops, and the framework of unseen walls; girders and ties of cast iron, and props and wedges, and laths nailed and bolted together, on marvelously scientific principles; so scientific, that every now and then, when some tender reparation is undertaken by the unconscious householder, the whole house crashes into a heap of ruin, so total, that the jury which sits on the bodies of the inhabitants cannot tell what has been the matter with it, and returns a dim verdict of accidental death. [Footnote 3: Plate I. On this subject, see "The Builder," vol. xi. p. 709.] 7. Did you read the account of the proceedings at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham the other day? Some dozen of men crushed up among the splinters of the scaffolding in an instant, nobody knew why. All the engineers declare the scaffolding to have been erected on the best principles,--that the fall of it is as much a mystery as if it had fallen from heaven, and were all meteoric stones. The jury go to Sydenham and look at the heap of shattered bolts and girders, and come back as wise as they went. Accidental death! Yes, verily; the lives of all those dozen of men had been hanging for months at the mercy of a flaw in an inch or two of cast iron. Very accidental indeed! Not the less pitiable. I grant it not to be an easy thing to raise scaffolding to the height of the Crystal Palace without incurring some danger, but that is no reason why your houses should all be nothing but scaffolding. The common system of support of walls over shops is now nothing but permanent scaffolding; part of iron, part of wood, part of brick; in its skeleton state awful to behold; the weight of three or four stories of wall resting sometimes on two or three pillars of the size of gas pipes, sometimes on a single cross beam of wood, laid across from party wall to party wall in the Greek manner. I have a vivid recollection at this moment of a vast heap of splinters in the Borough Road, close to St. George's, Southwark, in the road between my own house and London. I had passed it the day before, a goodly shop front, and sufficient house above, with a few repairs undertaken in the shop before opening a new business. The master and mistress had found it dusty that afternoon, and went out to tea. When they came back in the evening, they found their whole house in the form of a heap of bricks blocking the roadway, with a party of men digging out their cook. But I do not insist on casualties like these, disgraceful to us as they are, for it is, of course, perfectly possible to build a perfectly secure house or a secure window in the Greek manner; but the simple fact is, that in order to obtain in the cross lintel the same amount of strength which you can obtain in a pointed arch, you must go to an immensely greater cost in stone or in labor. Stonehenge is strong enough, but it takes some trouble to build in the manner of Stonehenge: and Stonehenge itself is not so strong as an arch of the Colosseum. You could not raise a circle of four Stonehenges, one over the other, with safety; and as it is, more of the cross-stones are fallen upon the plain of Sarum than arches rent away, except by the hand of man, from the mighty circle of Rome. But I waste words;--your own common sense must show you in a moment that this is a weak form; and there is not at this instant a single street in London where some house could not be pointed out with a flaw running through its brickwork, and repairs rendered necessary in consequence, merely owing to the adoption of this bad form; and that our builders know so well, that in myriads of instances you find them actually throwing concealed arches above the horizontal lintels to take the weight off them; and the gabled decoration, at the top of some Palladian windows, is merely the ornamental form resulting from a bold device of the old Roman builders to effect the same purpose. 8. But there is a farther reason for our adopting the pointed arch than its being the strongest form; it is also the most beautiful form in which a window or door-head can be built. Not the most beautiful because it is the strongest; but most beautiful, because its form is one of those which, as we know by its frequent occurrence in the work of Nature around us, has been appointed by the Deity to be an everlasting source of pleasure to the human mind. [Illustration: PLATE III. (Fig. 4., Fig. 6.)] Gather a branch from any of the trees or flowers to which the earth owes its principal beauty. You will find that every one of its leaves is terminated, more or less, in the form of the pointed arch; and to that form owes its grace and character. I will take, for instance, a spray of the tree which so gracefully adorns your Scottish glens and crags--there is no lovelier in the world--the common ash. Here is a sketch of the clusters of leaves which form the extremity of one of its young shoots (_fig._ 4); and, by the way, it will furnish us with an interesting illustration of another error in modern architectural systems. You know how fond modern architects, like foolish modern politicians, are of their equalities, and similarities; how necessary they think it that each part of a building should be like every other part. Now Nature abhors equality, and similitude, just as much as foolish men love them. You will find that the ends of the shoots of the ash are composed of four[4] green stalks bearing leaves, springing in the form of a cross, if seen from above, as in _fig._ 5, Plate I., and at first you will suppose the four arms of the cross are equal. But look more closely, and you will find that two opposite arms or stalks have only five leaves each, and the other two have seven; or else, two have seven, and the other two nine; but always one pair of stalks has two leaves more than the other pair. Sometimes the tree gets a little puzzled, and forgets which is to be the longest stalk, and begins with a stem for seven leaves where it should have nine, and then recollects itself at the last minute, and puts on another leaf in a great hurry, and so produces a stalk with eight leaves; but all this care it takes merely to keep itself out of equalities; and all its grace and power of pleasing are owing to its doing so, together with the lovely curves in which its stalks, thus arranged, spring from the main bough. _Fig._ 5 is a plan of their arrangement merely, but _fig._ 4 is the way in which you are most likely to see them: and observe, they spring from the stalk _precisely as a Gothic vaulted roof springs_, each stalk representing a rib of the roof, and the leaves its crossing stones; and the beauty of each of those leaves is altogether owing to its terminating in the Gothic form, the pointed arch. Now do you think you would have liked your ash trees as well, if Nature had taught them Greek, and shown them how to grow according to the received Attic architectural rules of right? I will try you. Here is a cluster of ash leaves, which I have grown expressly for you on Greek principles (_fig._ 6, Plate III.) How do you like it? [Footnote 4: Sometimes of six; that is to say, they spring in pairs; only the two uppermost pairs, sometimes the three uppermost, spring so close together as to appear one cluster.] 9. Observe, I have played you no trick in this comparison. It is perfectly fair in all respects. I have merely substituted for the beautiful spring of the Gothic vaulting in the ash bough, a cross lintel; and then, in order to raise the leaves to the same height, I introduce vertical columns; and I make the leaves square-headed instead of pointed, and their lateral ribs at right angles with the central rib, instead of sloping from it. I have, indeed, only given you two boughs instead of four; because the perspective of the crossing ones could not have been given without confusing the figure; but I imagine you have quite enough of them as it is. "Nay, but," some of you instantly answer, "if we had been as long accustomed to square-leaved ash trees as we have been to sharp-leaved ash trees, we should like them just as well." Do not think it. Are you not much more accustomed to gray whinstone and brown sandstone than you are to rubies or emeralds? and yet will you tell me you think them as beautiful? Are you not more accustomed to the ordinary voices of men than to the perfect accents of sweet singing? yet do you not instantly declare the song to be loveliest? Examine well the channels of your admiration, and you will find that they are, in verity, as unchangeable as the channels of your heart's blood; that just as by the pressure of a bandage, or by unwholesome and perpetual action of some part of the body, that blood may be wasted or arrested, and in its stagnancy cease to nourish the frame, or in its disturbed flow affect it with incurable disease, so also admiration itself may, by the bandages of fashion, bound close over the eyes and the arteries of the soul, be arrested in its natural pulse and healthy flow; but that wherever the artificial pressure is removed, it will return into that bed which has been traced for it by the finger of God. 10. Consider this subject well, and you will find that custom has indeed no real influence upon our feelings of the beautiful, except in dulling and checking them; that is to say, it will and does, as we advance in years, deaden in some degree our enjoyment of all beauty, but it in no wise influences our determination of what is beautiful, and what is not. You see the broad blue sky every day over your heads; but you do not for that reason determine blue to be less or more beautiful than you did at first; you are unaccustomed to see stones as blue as the sapphire, but you do not for that reason think the sapphire less beautiful than other stones. The blue color is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of delight; and whether seen perpetually over your head, or crystallized once in a thousand years into a single and incomparable stone, your acknowledgment of its beauty is equally natural, simple, and instantaneous. Pardon me for engaging you in a metaphysical discussion; for it is necessary to the establishment of some of the greatest of all architectural principles that I should fully convince you of this great truth, and that I should quite do away with the various objections to it, which I suppose must arise in your minds. Of these there is one more which I must briefly meet. You know how much confusion has been introduced into the subject of criticism, by reference to the power of Association over the human heart; you know how often it has been said that custom must have something to do with our ideas of beauty, because it endears so many objects to the affections. But, once for all, observe that the powers of association and of beauty are two entirely distinct powers,--as distinct, for instance, as the forces of gravitation and electricity. These forces may act together, or may neutralize one another, but are not for that reason to be supposed the same force; and the charm of association will sometimes enhance, and sometimes entirely overpower, that of beauty; but you must not confound the two together. You love many things because you are accustomed to them, and are pained by many things because they are strange to you; but that does not make the accustomed sight more beautiful, or the strange one less so. The well-known object may be dearer to you, or you may have discovered charms in it which others cannot; but the charm was there before you discovered it, only needing time and love to perceive it. You love your friends and relations more than all the world beside, and may perceive beauties in their faces which others cannot perceive; but you feel that you would be ridiculous in allowing yourselves to think them the most beautiful persons in the world: you acknowledge that the real beauty of the human countenance depends on fixed laws of form and expression, and not on the affection you bear to it, or the degree in which you are familiarized with it: and so does the beauty of all other existences. 11. Now, therefore, I think that, without the risk of any farther serious objection occurring to you, I may state what I believe to be the truth,--that beauty has been appointed by the Deity to be one of the elements by which the human soul is continually sustained; it is therefore to be found more or less in all natural objects, but in order that we may not satiate ourselves with it, and weary of it, it is rarely granted to us in its utmost degrees. When we see it in those utmost degrees, we are attracted to it strongly, and remember it long, as in the case of singularly beautiful scenery or a beautiful countenance. On the other hand, absolute ugliness is admitted as rarely as perfect beauty; but degrees of it more or less distinct are associated with whatever has the nature of death and sin, just as beauty is associated with what has the nature of virtue and of life. 12. This being so, you see that when the relative beauty of any particular forms has to be examined, we may reason, from the forms of Nature around us, in this manner:--what Nature does generally, is sure to be more or less beautiful; what she does rarely, will either be _very_ beautiful, or absolutely ugly. And we may again easily determine, if we are not willing in such a case to trust our feelings, which of these is indeed the case, by this simple rule, that if the rare occurrence is the result of the complete fulfillment of a natural law, it will be beautiful; if of the violation of a natural law, it will be ugly. For instance, a sapphire is the result of the complete and perfect fulfillment of the laws of aggregation in the earth of alumina, and it is therefore beautiful; more beautiful than clay, or any other of the conditions of that earth. But a square leaf on any tree would be ugly, being a violation of the laws of growth in trees,[5] and we ought to feel it so. [Footnote 5: I am at present aware only of one tree, the tulip tree, which has an exceptional form, and which, I doubt not, every one will admit, loses much beauty in consequence. All other leaves, as far as I know, have the round or pointed arch in the form of the extremities of their foils.] 13. Now then, I proceed to argue in this manner from what we see in the woods and fields around us; that as they are evidently meant for our delight, and as we always feel them to be beautiful, we may assume that the forms into which their leaves are cast, are indeed types of beauty, not of extreme or perfect, but average beauty. And finding that they invariably terminate more or less in pointed arches, and are not square-headed, I assert the pointed arch to be one of the forms most fitted for perpetual contemplation by the human mind; that it is one of those which never weary, however often repeated; and that therefore, being both the strongest in structure, and a beautiful form (while the square head is both weak in structure, and an ugly form), we are unwise ever to build in any other. [Illustration: PLATE IV. (Fig. 7.)] 14. Here, however, I must anticipate another objection. It may be asked why we are to build only the tops of the windows pointed,--why not follow the leaves, and point them at the bottom also? For this simple reason, that, while in architecture you are continually called upon to do what may be _unnecessary_ for the sake of beauty, you are never called upon to do what is _inconvenient_ for the sake of beauty. You want the level window sill to lean upon, or to allow the window to open on a balcony: the eye and the common sense of the beholder require this necessity to be met before any laws of beauty are thought of. And besides this, there is in the sill no necessity for the pointed arch as a bearing form; on the contrary, it would give an idea of weak support for the sides of the window, and therefore is at once rejected. Only I beg of you particularly to observe that the level sill, although useful, and therefore admitted, does not therefore become beautiful; the eye does not like it so well as the top of the window, nor does the sculptor like to attract the eye to it; his richest moldings, traceries, and sculptures are all reserved for the top of the window; they are sparingly granted to its horizontal base. And farther, observe, that when neither the convenience of the sill, nor the support of the structure, are any more of moment, as in small windows and traceries, you instantly _have_ the point given to the bottom of the window. Do you recollect the west window of your own Dunblane Abbey? If you look in any common guide-book, you will find it pointed out as peculiarly beautiful,--it is acknowledged to be beautiful by the most careless observer. And why beautiful? Look at it (_fig._ 7). Simply because in its great contours it has the form of a forest leaf, and because in its decoration it has used nothing but forest leaves. The sharp and expressive molding which surrounds it is a very interesting example of one used to an enormous extent by the builders of the early English Gothic, usually in the form seen in _fig._ 2, Plate II., composed of clusters of four sharp leaves each, originally produced by sculpturing the sides of a four-sided pyramid, and afterwards brought more or less into a true image of leaves, but deriving all its beauty from the botanical form. In the present instance only two leaves are set in each cluster; and the architect has been determined that the naturalism should be perfect. For he was no common man who designed that cathedral of Dunblane. I know not anything so perfect in its simplicity, and so beautiful, as far as it reaches, in all the Gothic with which I am acquainted. And just in proportion to his power of mind, that man was content to work under Nature's teaching; and instead of putting a merely formal dogtooth, as everybody else did at the time, he went down to the woody bank of the sweet river beneath the rocks on which he was building, and he took up a few of the fallen leaves that lay by it, and he set them in his arch, side by side, forever. And, look--that he might show you he had done this,--he has made them all of different sizes, just as they lay; and that you might not by any chance miss noticing the variety, he has put a great broad one at the top, and then a little one turned the wrong way, next to it, so that you must be blind indeed if you do not understand his meaning. And the healthy change and playfulness of this just does in the stone-work what it does on the tree boughs, and is a perpetual refreshment and invigoration; so that, however long you gaze at this simple ornament--and none can be simpler, a village mason could carve it all round the window in a few hours--you are never weary of it, it seems always new. 15. It is true that oval windows of this form are comparatively rare in Gothic work, but, as you well know, circular or wheel windows are used constantly, and in most traceries the apertures are curved and pointed as much at the bottom as the top. So that I believe you will now allow me to proceed upon the assumption, that the pointed arch is indeed the best form into which the head either of door or window can be thrown, considered as a means of sustaining weight above it. How these pointed arches ought to be grouped and decorated, I shall endeavor to show you in my next lecture. Meantime I must beg of you to consider farther some of the general points connected with the structure of the roof. 16. I am sure that all of you must readily acknowledge the charm which is imparted to any landscape by the presence of cottages; and you must over and over again have paused at the wicket gate of some cottage garden, delighted by the simple beauty of the honeysuckle porch and latticed window. Has it ever occurred to you to ask the question, what effect the cottage would have upon your feelings if it had _no roof_? no visible roof, I mean;--if instead of the thatched slope, in which the little upper windows are buried deep, as in a nest of straw--or the rough shelter of its mountain shales--or warm coloring of russet tiles--there were nothing but a flat leaden top to it, making it look like a large packing-case with windows in it? I don't think the rarity of such a sight would make you feel it to be beautiful; on the contrary, if you think over the matter, you will find that you actually do owe, and ought to owe, a great part of your pleasure in all cottage scenery, and in all the inexhaustible imagery of literature which is founded upon it, to the conspicuousness of the cottage roof--to the subordination of the cottage itself to its covering, which leaves, in nine cases out of ten, really more roof than anything else. It is, indeed, not so much the whitewashed walls--nor the flowery garden--nor the rude fragments of stones set for steps at the door--nor any other picturesqueness of the building which interest you, so much as the gray bank of its heavy eaves, deep-cushioned with green moss and golden stone-crop. And there is a profound, yet evident, reason for this feeling. The very soul of the cottage--the essence and meaning of it--are in its roof; it is that, mainly, wherein consists its shelter; that, wherein it differs most completely from a cleft in rocks or bower in woods. It is in its thick impenetrable coverlet of close thatch that its whole heart and hospitality are concentrated. Consider the difference, in sound, of the expressions "beneath my roof" and "within my walls,"--consider whether you would be best sheltered, in a shed, with a stout roof sustained on corner posts, or in an inclosure of four walls without a roof at all,--and you will quickly see how important a part of the cottage the roof must always be to the mind as well as to the eye, and how, from seeing it, the greatest part of our pleasure must continually arise. 17. Now, do you suppose that which is so all-important in a cottage, can be of small importance in your own dwelling-house? Do you think that by any splendor of architecture--any height of stories--you can atone to the mind for the loss of the aspect of the roof? It is vain to say you take the roof for granted. You may as well say you take a man's kindness for granted, though he neither looks nor speaks kindly. You may know him to be kind in reality, but you will not like him so well as if he spoke and looked kindly also. And whatever external splendor you may give your houses, you will always feel there is something wanting, unless you see their roofs plainly. And this especially in the north. In southern architecture the roof is of far less importance; but here the soul of domestic building is in the largeness and conspicuousness of the protection against the ponderous snow and driving sleet. You may make the façade of the square pile, if the roof be not seen, as handsome as you please,--you may cover it with decoration,--but there will always be a heartlessness about it, which you will not know how to conquer; above all, a perpetual difficulty in finishing the wall at top, which will require all kinds of strange inventions in parapets and pinnacles for its decoration, and yet will never look right. Now, I need not tell you that, as it is desirable, for the sake of the effect upon the mind, that the roof should be visible, so the best and most natural form of roof in the north is that which will render it _most_ visible, namely, the steep gable: the best and most natural, I say, because this form not only throws off snow and rain most completely, and dries fastest, but obtains the greatest interior space within walls of a given height, removes the heat of the sun most effectually from the upper rooms, and affords most space for ventilation. 18. You have then, observed, two great principles, as far as northern architecture is concerned; first, that the pointed arch is to be the means by which the weight of the wall or roof is to be sustained; secondly, that the steep gable is the form most proper for the roof itself. And now observe this most interesting fact, that all the loveliest Gothic architecture in the world is based on the group of lines composed of the pointed arch and the gable. If you look at the beautiful apse of Amiens Cathedral--a work justly celebrated over all Europe--you will find it formed merely of a series of windows surmounted by pure gables of open work. If you look at the transept porches of Rouen, or at the great and celebrated porch of the Cathedral of Rheims, or that of Strasbourg, Bayeux, Amiens, or Peterborough, still you will see that these lovely compositions are nothing more than richly decorated forms of gable over pointed arch. But more than this, you must be all well aware how fond our best architectural artists are of the street effects of foreign cities; and even those now present who have not personally visited any of the continental towns must remember, I should think, some of the many interesting drawings by Mr. Prout, Mr. Nash, and other excellent draughtsmen, which have for many years adorned our exhibitions. Now, the principal charm of all those continental street effects is dependent on the houses having high-pitched gable roofs. In the Netherlands, and Northern France, where the material for building is brick or stone, the fronts of the stone gables are raised above the roofs, and you have magnificent and grotesque ranges of steps or curves decorated with various ornaments, succeeding one another in endless perspective along the streets of Antwerp, Ghent, or Brussels. In Picardy and Normandy, again, and many towns of Germany, where the material for building is principally wood, the roof is made to project over the gables, fringed with a beautifully carved cornice, and casting a broad shadow down the house front. This is principally seen at Abbeville, Rouen, Lisieux, and others of the older towns of France. But, in all cases, the effect of the whole street depends on the prominence of the gables; not only of the fronts towards the streets, but of the sides also, set with small garret or dormer windows, each of the most fantastic and beautiful form, and crowned with a little spire or pinnacle. Wherever there is a little winding stair, or projecting bow window, or any other irregularity of form, the steep ridges shoot into turrets and small spires, as in _fig._ 8,[6] each in its turn crowned by a fantastic ornament, covered with curiously shaped slates or shingles, or crested with long fringes of rich ironwork, so that, seen from above and from a distance, the intricate grouping of the roofs of a French city is no less interesting than its actual streets; and in the streets themselves, the masses of broad shadow which the roofs form against the sky, are a most important background to the bright and sculptured surfaces of the walls. [Footnote 6: This figure is copied from Prout.] 19. Finally, I need not remind you of the effect upon the northern mind which has always been produced by the heaven-pointing spire, nor of the theory which has been founded upon it of the general meaning of Gothic architecture as expressive of religious aspiration. In a few minutes, you may ascertain the exact value of that theory, and the degree in which it is true. [Illustration: PLATE V. (Fig. 8.)] The first tower of which we hear as built upon the earth, was certainly built in a species of aspiration; but I do not suppose that any one here will think it was a religious one. "Go to now. Let us build a tower whose top may reach unto heaven." From that day to this, whenever men have become skillful architects at all, there has been a tendency in them to build high; not in any religious feeling, but in mere exuberance of spirit and power--as they dance or sing--with a certain mingling of vanity--like the feeling in which a child builds a tower of cards; and, in nobler instances, with also a strong sense of, and delight in the majesty, height, and strength of the building itself, such as we have in that of a lofty tree or a peaked mountain. Add to this instinct the frequent necessity of points of elevation for watch-towers, or of points of offense, as in towers built on the ramparts of cities, and, finally, the need of elevations for the transmission of sound, as in the Turkish minaret and Christian belfry, and you have, I think, a sufficient explanation of the tower-building of the world in general. Look through your Bibles only, and collect the various expressions with reference to tower-building there, and you will have a very complete idea of the spirit in which it is for the most part undertaken. You begin with that of Babel; then you remember Gideon beating down the tower of Penuel, in order more completely to humble the pride of the men of the city; you remember the defense of the tower of Shechem against Abimelech, and the death of Abimelech by the casting of a stone from it by a woman's hand; you recollect the husbandman building a tower in his vineyard, and the beautiful expressions in Solomon's song,--"The tower of Lebanon, which looketh towards Damascus;" "I am a wall, and my breasts like towers;"--you recollect the Psalmist's expressions of love and delight, "Go ye round about Jerusalem; tell the towers thereof: mark ye well her bulwarks; consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following." You see in all these cases how completely the tower is a subject of human pride, or delight, or defense, not in any wise associated with religious sentiment; the towers of Jerusalem being named in the same sentence, not with her temple, but with her bulwarks and palaces. And thus, when the tower is in reality connected with a place of worship, it was generally done to add to its magnificence, but not to add to its religious expression. And over the whole of the world, you have various species of elevated buildings, the Egyptian pyramid, the Indian and Chinese pagoda, the Turkish minaret, and the Christian belfry,--all of them raised either to make a show from a distance, or to cry from, or swing bells in, or hang them round, or for some other very human reason. Thus, when the good people of Beauvais were building their cathedral, that of Amiens, then just completed, had excited the admiration of all France; and the people of Beauvais, in their jealousy and determination to beat the people of Amiens, set to work to build a tower to their own cathedral as high as they possibly could. They built it so high that it tumbled down, and they were never able to finish their cathedral at all--it stands a wreck to this day. But you will not, I should think, imagine this to have been done in heavenward aspiration. Mind, however, I don't blame the people of Beauvais, except for their bad building. I think their desire to beat the citizens of Amiens a most amiable weakness, and only wish I could see the citizens of Edinburgh and Glasgow inflamed with the same emulation, building Gothic towers[7] instead of manufactory chimneys. Only do not confound a feeling which, though healthy and right, may be nearly analogous to that in which you play a cricket-match, with any feeling allied to your hope of heaven. [Footnote 7: I did not, at the time of the delivery of these lectures, know how many Gothic towers the worthy Glaswegians _have_ lately built: that of St. Peter's, in particular, being a most meritorious effort.] 20. Such being the state of the case with respect to tower-building in general, let me follow for a few minutes the changes which occur in the towers of northern and southern architects. Many of us are familiar with the ordinary form of the Italian bell-tower or campanile. From the eighth century to the thirteenth there was little change in that form:[8] four-square, rising high and without tapering into the air, story above story, they stood like giants in the quiet fields beside the piles of the basilica or the Lombardic church, in this form (_fig._ 9), tiled at the top in a flat gable, with open arches below, and fewer and fewer arches on each inferior story, down to the bottom. It is worth while noting the difference in form between these and the towers built for military service. The latter were built as in _fig._ 10, projecting vigorously at the top over a series of brackets or machicolations, with very small windows, and no decoration below. Such towers as these were attached to every important palace in the cities of Italy, and stood in great circles--troops of towers--around their external walls: their ruins still frown along the crests of every promontory of the Apennines, and are seen from far away in the great Lombardic plain, from distances of half-a-day's journey, dark against the amber sky of the horizon. These are of course now built no more, the changed methods of modern warfare having cast them into entire disuse; but the belfry or campanile has had a very different influence on European architecture. Its form in the plains of Italy and South France being that just shown you, the moment we enter the valleys of the Alps, where there is snow to be sustained, we find its form of roof altered by the substitution of a steep gable for a flat one.[9] There are probably few in the room who have not been in some parts of South Switzerland, and who do not remember the beautiful effect of the gray mountain churches, many of them hardly changed since the tenth and eleventh centuries, whose pointed towers stand up through the green level of the vines, or crown the jutting rocks that border the valley. [Footnote 8: There is a good abstract of the forms of the Italian campanile, by Mr. Papworth, in the Journal of the Archæological Institute, March 1850.] [Footnote 9: The form establishes itself afterwards in the plains, in sympathy with other Gothic conditions, as in the campanile of St. Mark's at Venice.] [Illustration: PLATE VI. (Fig. 10., Fig. 9.)] 21. From this form to the true spire the change is slight, and consists in little more than various decoration; generally in putting small pinnacles at the angles, and piercing the central pyramid with traceried windows; sometimes, as at Fribourg and Burgos, throwing it into tracery altogether: but to do this is invariably the sign of a vicious style, as it takes away from the spire its character of a true roof, and turns it nearly into an ornamental excrescence. At Antwerp and Brussels, the celebrated towers (one, observe, ecclesiastical, being the tower of the cathedral, and the other secular), are formed by successions of diminishing towers, set one above the other, and each supported by buttresses thrown to the angles of the one beneath. At the English cathedrals of Lichfield and Salisbury, the spire is seen in great purity, only decorated by sculpture; but I am aware of no example so striking in its entire simplicity as that of the towers of the cathedral of Coutances in Normandy. There is a dispute between French and English antiquaries as to the date of the building, the English being unwilling to admit its complete priority to all their own Gothic. I have no doubt of this priority myself; and I hope that the time will soon come when men will cease to confound vanity with patriotism, and will think the honor of their nation more advanced by their own sincerity and courtesy, than by claims, however learnedly contested, to the invention of pinnacles and arches. I believe the French nation was, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the greatest in the world; and that the French not only invented Gothic architecture, but carried it to a perfection which no other nation has approached, then or since: but, however this may be, there can be no doubt that the towers of Coutances, if not the earliest, are among the very earliest, examples of the fully developed spire. I have drawn one of them carefully for you (_fig._ 11), and you will see immediately that they are literally domestic roofs, with garret windows, executed on a large scale, and in stone. Their only ornament is a kind of scaly mail, which is nothing more than the copying in stone of the common wooden shingles of the house-roof; and their security is provided for by strong gabled dormer windows, of massy masonry, which, though supported on detached shafts, have weight enough completely to balance the lateral thrusts of the spires. Nothing can surpass the boldness or the simplicity of the plan; and yet, in spite of this simplicity, the clear detaching of the shafts from the slope of the spire, and their great height, strengthened by rude cross-bars of stone, carried back to the wall behind, occasion so great a complexity and play of cast shadows, that I remember no architectural composition of which the aspect is so completely varied at different hours of the day.[10] But the main thing I wish you to observe is, the complete _domesticity_ of the work; the evident treatment of the church spire merely as a magnified house-roof; and the proof herein of the great truth of which I have been endeavoring to persuade you, that all good architecture rises out of good and simple domestic work; and that, therefore, before you attempt to build great churches and palaces, you must build good house doors and garret windows. [Footnote 10: The sketch was made about ten o'clock on a September morning.] [Illustration: PLATE VII. (Fig. 11., Fig. 12.)] 22. Nor is the spire the only ecclesiastical form deducible from domestic architecture. The spires of France and Germany are associated with other towers, even simpler and more straightforward in confession of their nature, in which, though the walls of the tower are covered with sculpture, there is an ordinary ridged gable roof on the top. The finest example I know of this kind of tower, is that on the north-west angle of Rouen Cathedral (_fig._ 12); but they occur in multitudes in the older towns of Germany; and the backgrounds of Albert Dürer are full of them, and owe to them a great part of their interest: all these great and magnificent masses of architecture being repeated on a smaller scale by the little turret roofs and pinnacles of every house in the town; and the whole system of them being expressive, not by any means of religious feeling,[11] but merely of joyfulness and exhilaration of spirit in the inhabitants of such cities, leading them to throw their roofs high into the sky, and therefore giving to the style of architecture with which these grotesque roofs are associated, a certain charm like that of cheerfulness in a human face; besides a power of interesting the beholder which is testified, not only by the artist in his constant search after such forms as the elements of his landscape, but by every phrase of our language and literature bearing on such topics. Have not these words, Pinnacle, Turret, Belfry, Spire, Tower, a pleasant sound in all your ears? I do not speak of your scenery, I do not ask you how much you feel that it owes to the gray battlements that frown through the woods of Craigmillar, to the pointed turrets that flank the front of Holyrood, or to the massy keeps of your Crichtoun and Borthwick and other border towers. But look merely through your poetry and romances; take away out of your border ballads the word _tower_ wherever it occurs, and the ideas connected with it, and what will become of the ballads? See how Sir Walter Scott cannot even get through a description of Highland scenery without help from the idea:-- "Each purple peak, each flinty _spire_, Was bathed in floods of living fire." Take away from Scott's romances the word and idea _turret_, and see how much you would lose. Suppose, for instance, when young Osbaldistone is leaving Osbaldistone Hall, instead of saying "The old clock struck two from a _turret_ adjoining my bedchamber," he had said, "The old clock struck two from the landing at the top of the stair," what would become of the passage? And can you really suppose that what has so much power over you in words has no power over you in reality? Do you think there is any group of words which would thus interest you, when the things expressed by them are uninteresting? [Footnote 11: Among the various modes in which the architects, against whose practice my writings are directed, have endeavored to oppose them, no charge has been made more frequently than that of their self-contradiction; the fact being, that there are few people in the world who are capable of seeing the two sides of any subject, or of conceiving how the statements of its opposite aspects can possibly be reconcilable. For instance, in a recent review, though for the most part both fair and intelligent, it is remarked, on this very subject of the domestic origin of the northern Gothic, that "Mr. Ruskin is evidently possessed by a fixed idea, that the Venetian architects were devout men, and that their devotion was expressed in their buildings; while he will not allow our own cathedrals to have been built by any but worldly men, who had no thoughts of heaven, but only vague ideas of keeping out of hell, by erecting costly places of worship." If this writer had compared the two passages with the care which such a subject necessarily demands, he would have found that I was not opposing Venetian to English piety; but that in the one case I was speaking of the spirit manifested in the entire architecture of the nation, and in the other of occasional efforts of superstition as distinguished from that spirit; and, farther, that in the one case, I was speaking of decorative features, which are ordinarily the results of feelings, in the other of structural features, which are ordinarily the results of necessity or convenience. Thus it is rational and just that we should attribute the decoration of the arches of St. Mark's with scriptural mosaics to a religious sentiment; but it would be a strange absurdity to regard as an effort of piety the invention of the form of the arch itself, of which one of the earliest and most perfect instances is in the Cloaca Maxima. And thus in the case of spires and towers, it is just to ascribe to the devotion of their designers that dignity which was bestowed upon forms derived from the simplest domestic buildings; but it is ridiculous to attribute any great refinement of religious feeling, or height of religious aspiration, to those who furnished the funds for the erection of the loveliest tower in North France, by paying for permission to eat butter in Lent.] 23. For instance, you know that, for an immense time back, all your public buildings have been built with a row of pillars supporting a triangular thing called a pediment. You see this form every day in your banks and clubhouses, and churches and chapels; you are told that it is the perfection of architectural beauty; and yet suppose Sir Walter Scott, instead of writing, "Each purple peak, each flinty spire," had written, "Each purple peak, each flinty 'pediment.'"[12] Would you have thought the poem improved? And if not, why would it be spoiled? Simply because the idea is no longer of any value to you; the thing spoken of is a nonentity. These pediments, and stylobates, and architraves never excited a single pleasurable feeling in you--never will, to the end of time. They are evermore dead, lifeless, and useless, in art as in poetry, and though you built as many of them as there are slates on your house-roofs, you will never care for them. They will only remain to later ages as monuments of the patience and pliability with which the people of the nineteenth century sacrificed their feelings to fashions, and their intellects to forms. But on the other hand, that strange and thrilling interest with which such words strike you as are in any wise connected with Gothic architecture--as for instance, Vault, Arch, Spire, Pinnacle, Battlement, Barbican, Porch, and myriads of such others, words everlastingly poetical and powerful whenever they occur,--is a most true and certain index that the things themselves are delightful to you, and will ever continue to be so. Believe me, you do indeed love these things, so far as you care about art at all, so far as you are not ashamed to confess what you feel about them. [Footnote 12: It has been objected to this comparison that the form of the pediment does not properly represent that of the rocks of the Trossachs. The objection is utterly futile, for there is not a single spire or pinnacle from one end of the Trossachs to the other. All their rocks are heavily rounded, and the introduction of the word "spire" is a piece of inaccuracy in description, ventured _merely for the sake of the Gothic image_. Farther: it has been said that if I had substituted the word "gable," it would have spoiled the line just as much as the word "pediment," though "gable" is a Gothic word. Of course it would; but why? Because "gable" is a term of vulgar domestic architecture, and therefore destructive of the tone of the heroic description; whereas "pediment" and "spire" are precisely correlative terms, being each the crowning feature in ecclesiastical edifices, and the comparison of their effects in the verse is therefore absolutely accurate, logical, and just.] 24. In your public capacities, as bank directors, and charity overseers, and administrators of this and that other undertaking or institution, you cannot express your feelings at all. You form committees to decide upon the style of the new building, and as you have never been in the habit of trusting to your own taste in such matters, you inquire who is the most celebrated, that is to say, the most employed, architect of the day. And you send for the great Mr. Blank, and the Great Blank sends you a plan of a great long marble box with half-a-dozen pillars at one end of it, and the same at the other; and you look at the Great Blank's great plan in a grave manner, and you dare say it will be very handsome; and you ask the Great Blank what sort of a blank check must be filled up before the great plan can be realized; and you subscribe in a generous "burst of confidence" whatever is wanted; and when it is all done, and the great white marble box is set up in your streets, you contemplate it, not knowing what to make of it exactly, but hoping it is all right; and then there is a dinner given to the Great Blank, and the morning papers say that the new and handsome building, erected by the great Mr. Blank, is one of Mr. Blank's happiest efforts, and reflects the greatest credit upon the intelligent inhabitants of the city of so-and-so; and the building keeps the rain out as well as another, and you remain in a placid state of impoverished satisfaction therewith; but as for having any real pleasure out of it, you never hoped for such a thing. If you really make up a party of pleasure, and get rid of the forms and fashion of public propriety for an hour or two, where do you go for it? Where do you go to eat strawberries and cream? To Roslin Chapel, I believe; not to the portico of the last-built institution. What do you see your children doing, obeying their own natural and true instincts? What are your daughters drawing upon their cardboard screens as soon as they can use a pencil? Not Parthenon fronts, I think, but the ruins of Melrose Abbey, or Linlithgow Palace, or Lochleven Castle, their own pure Scotch hearts leading them straight to the right things, in spite of all that they are told to the contrary. You perhaps call this romantic, and youthful, and foolish. I am pressed for time now, and I cannot ask you to consider the meaning of the word "Romance." I will do that, if you please, in next lecture, for it is a word of greater weight and authority than we commonly believe. In the meantime, I will endeavor, lastly, to show you, not the romantic, but the plain and practical conclusions which should follow from the facts I have laid before you. 25. I have endeavored briefly to point out to you the propriety and naturalness of the two great Gothic forms, the pointed arch and gable roof. I wish now to tell you in what way they ought to be introduced into modern domestic architecture. You will all admit that there is neither romance nor comfort in waiting at your own or at any one else's door on a windy and rainy day, till the servant comes from the end of the house to open it. You all know the critical nature of that opening--the drift of wind into the passage, the impossibility of putting down the umbrella at the proper moment without getting a cupful of water dropped down the back of your neck from the top of the door-way; and you know how little these inconveniences are abated by the common Greek portico at the top of the steps. You know how the east winds blow through those unlucky couples of pillars, which are all that your architects find consistent with due observance of the Doric order. Then, away with these absurdities; and the next house you build, insist upon having the pure old Gothic porch, walled in on both sides, with its pointed arch entrance and gable roof above. Under that, you can put down your umbrella at your leisure, and, if you will, stop a moment to talk with your friend as you give him the parting shake of the hand. And if now and then a wayfarer found a moment's rest on a stone seat on each side of it, I believe you would find the insides of your houses not one whit the less comfortable; and, if you answer me, that were such refuges built in the open streets, they would become mere nests of filthy vagrants, I reply that I do not despair of such a change in the administration of the poor laws of this country, as shall no longer leave any of our fellow creatures in a state in which they would pollute the steps of our houses by resting upon them for a night. But if not, the command to all of us is strict and straight, "When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to _thy house_."[13] Not to the work-house, observe, but to _thy_ house: and I say it would be better a thousandfold, that our doors should be beset by the poor day by day, than that it should be written of any one of us, "They reap every one his corn in the field, and they gather the vintage of the wicked. They cause the naked to lodge without shelter, that they have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock, for want of a shelter."[14] [Footnote 13: Isa. lviii. 7.] [Footnote 14: Job xxiv. 6-8.] 26. This, then, is the first use to which your pointed arches and gable roofs are to be put. The second is of more personal pleasurableness. You surely must all of you feel and admit the delightfulness of a bow window; I can hardly fancy a room can be perfect without one. Now you have nothing to do but to resolve that every one of your principal rooms shall have a bow window, either large or small. Sustain the projection of it on a bracket, crown it above with a little peaked roof, and give a massy piece of stone sculpture to the pointed arch in each of its casements, and you will have as inexhaustible a source of quaint richness in your street architecture, as of additional comfort and delight in the interiors of your rooms. 27. Thirdly, as respects windows which do not project. You will find that the proposal to build them with pointed arches is met by an objection on the part of your architects, that you cannot fit them with comfortable sashes. I beg leave to tell you that such an objection is utterly futile and ridiculous. I have lived for months in Gothic palaces, with pointed windows of the most complicated forms, fitted with modern sashes; and with the most perfect comfort. But granting that the objection were a true one--and I suppose it is true to just this extent, that it may cost some few shillings more per window in the first instance to set the fittings to a pointed arch than to a square one--there is not the smallest necessity for the _aperture_ of the window being of the pointed shape. Make the uppermost or bearing arch pointed only, and make the top of the window square, filling the interval with a stone shield, and you may have a perfect school of architecture, not only consistent with, but eminently conducive to, every comfort of your daily life. The window in Oakham Castle (_fig._ 2) is an example of such a form as actually employed in the thirteenth century; and I shall have to notice another in the course of next lecture. 28. Meanwhile, I have but one word to say, in conclusion. Whatever has been advanced in the course of this evening, has rested on the assumption that all architecture was to be of brick and stone; and may meet with some hesitation in its acceptance, on account of the probable use of iron, glass, and such other materials in our future edifices. I cannot now enter into any statement of the possible uses of iron or glass, but I will give you one reason, which I think will weigh strongly with most here, why it is not likely that they will ever become important elements in architectural effect. I know that I am speaking to a company of philosophers, but you are not philosophers of the kind who suppose that the Bible is a superannuated book; neither are you of those who think the Bible is dishonored by being referred to for judgment in small matters. The very divinity of the Book seems to me, on the contrary, to justify us in referring _every_ thing to it, with respect to which any conclusion can be gathered from its pages. Assuming then that the Bible is neither superannuated now, nor ever likely to be so, it will follow that the illustrations which the Bible employs are likely to be _clear and intelligible illustrations_ to the end of time. I do not mean that everything spoken of in the Bible histories must continue to endure for all time, but that the things which the Bible uses for illustration of eternal truths are likely to remain eternally intelligible illustrations. Now, I find that iron architecture is indeed spoken of in the Bible. You know how it is said to Jeremiah, "Behold, I have made thee this day a defensed city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls, against the whole land." But I do not find that iron building is ever alluded to as likely to become _familiar_ to the minds of men; but, on the contrary, that an architecture of carved stone is continually employed as a source of the most important illustrations. A simple instance must occur to all of you at once. The force of the image of the Corner Stone, as used throughout Scripture, would completely be lost, if the Christian and civilized world were ever extensively to employ any other material than earth and rock in their domestic buildings: I firmly believe that they never will; but that as the laws of beauty are more perfectly established, we shall be content still to build as our forefathers built, and still to receive the same great lessons which such building is calculated to convey; of which one is indeed never to be forgotten. Among the questions respecting towers which were laid before you to-night, one has been omitted: "What man is there of you intending to build a tower, that sitteth not down first and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?" I have pressed upon you, this evening, the building of domestic towers. You may think it right to dismiss the subject at once from your thoughts; but let us not do so, without considering, each of us, how far _that_ tower has been built, and how truly its cost has been counted. LECTURE II. ARCHITECTURE. _Delivered November 4, 1853._ 29. Before proceeding to the principal subject of this evening, I wish to anticipate one or two objections which may arise in your minds to what I must lay before you. It may perhaps have been felt by you last evening, that some things I proposed to you were either romantic or Utopian. Let us think for a few moments what romance and Utopianism mean. First, romance. In consequence of the many absurd fictions which long formed the elements of romance writing, the word romance is sometimes taken as synonymous with falsehood. Thus the French talk of _Des Romans_, and thus the English use the word Romancing. But in this sense we had much better use the word falsehood at once. It is far plainer and clearer. And if in this sense I put anything romantic before you, pray pay no attention to it, or to me. 30. In the second place. Because young people are particularly apt to indulge in reverie, and imaginative pleasures, and to neglect their plain and practical duties, the word romantic has come to signify weak, foolish, speculative, unpractical, unprincipled. In all these cases it would be much better to say weak, foolish, unpractical, unprincipled. The words are clearer. If in this sense, also, I put anything romantic before you, pray pay no attention to me. 31. But in the third and last place. The real and proper use of the word romantic is simply to characterize an improbable or unaccustomed degree of beauty, sublimity, or virtue. For instance, in matters of history, is not the Retreat of the Ten Thousand romantic? Is not the death of Leonidas? of the Horatii? On the other hand, you find nothing romantic, though much that is monstrous, in the excesses of Tiberius or Commodus. So again, the battle of Agincourt is romantic, and of Bannockburn, simply because there was an extraordinary display of human virtue in both these battles. But there is no romance in the battles of the last Italian campaign, in which mere feebleness and distrust were on one side, mere physical force on the other. And even in fiction, the opponents of virtue, in order to be romantic, must have sublimity mingled with their vice. It is not the knave, not the ruffian, that are romantic, but the giant and the dragon; and these, not because they are false, but because they are majestic. So again as to beauty. You feel that armor is romantic, because it is a beautiful dress, and you are not used to it. You do not feel there is anything romantic in the paint and shells of a Sandwich Islander, for these are not beautiful. 32. So, then, observe, this feeling which you are accustomed to despise--this secret and poetical enthusiasm in all your hearts, which, as practical men, you try to restrain--is indeed one of the holiest parts of your being. It is the instinctive delight in, and admiration for, sublimity, beauty, and virtue, unusually manifested. And so far from being a dangerous guide, it is the truest part of your being. It is even truer than your consciences. A man's conscience may be utterly perverted and led astray; but so long as the feelings of romance endure within us, they are unerring,--they are as true to what is right and lovely as the needle to the north; and all that you have to do is to add to the enthusiastic sentiment, the majestic judgment--to mingle prudence and foresight with imagination and admiration, and you have the perfect human soul. But the great evil of these days is that we try to destroy the romantic feeling, instead of bridling and directing it. Mark what Young says of the men of the world:-- "They, who think nought so strong of the romance, So rank knight-errant, as a real friend." And they are right. True friendship is romantic, to the men of the world--true affection is romantic--true religion is romantic; and if you were to ask me who of all powerful and popular writers in the cause of error had wrought most harm to their race, I should hesitate in reply whether to name Voltaire, or Byron, or the last most ingenious and most venomous of the degraded philosophers of Germany, or rather Cervantes, for he cast scorn upon the holiest principles of humanity--he, of all men, most helped forward the terrible change in the soldiers of Europe, from the spirit of Bayard to the spirit of Bonaparte,[15] helped to change loyalty into license, protection into plunder, truth into treachery, chivalry into selfishness; and, since his time, the purest impulses and the noblest purposes have perhaps been oftener stayed by the devil, under the name of Quixotism, than under any other base name or false allegation. [Footnote 15: I mean no scandal against the _present_ Emperor of the French, whose truth has, I believe, been as conspicuous in the late political negotiations, as his decision and prudence have been throughout the whole course of his government.] 33. Quixotism, or Utopianism; that is another of the devil's pet words. I believe the quiet admission which we are all of us so ready to make, that, because things have long been wrong, it is impossible they should ever be right, is one of the most fatal sources of misery and crime from which this world suffers. Whenever you hear a man dissuading you from attempting to do well, on the ground that perfection is "Utopian;" beware of that man. Cast the word out of your dictionary altogether. There is no need for it. Things are either possible or impossible--you can easily determine which, in any given state of human science. If the thing is impossible, you need not trouble yourselves about it; if possible, try for it. It is very Utopian to hope for the entire doing away with drunkenness and misery out of the Canongate; but the Utopianism is not our business--the _work_ is. It is Utopian to hope to give every child in this kingdom the knowledge of God from its youth; but the Utopianism is not our business--the _work_ is. 34. I have delayed you by the consideration of these two words, only in the fear that they might be inaccurately applied to the plans I am going to lay before you; for, though they were Utopian, and though they were romantic, they might be none the worse for that. But they are neither. Utopian they are not; for they are merely a proposal to do again what has been done for hundreds of years by people whose wealth and power were as nothing compared to ours;--and romantic they are not, in the sense of self-sacrificing or eminently virtuous, for they are merely the proposal to each of you that he should live in a handsomer house than he does at present, by substituting a cheap mode of ornamentation for a costly one. You perhaps fancied that architectural beauty was a very costly thing. Far from it. It is architectural ugliness that is costly. In the modern system of architecture, decoration is immoderately expensive, because it is both wrongly placed and wrongly finished. I say first, wrongly placed. Modern architects decorate the tops of their buildings. Mediæval ones decorated the bottom.[16] That makes all the difference between seeing the ornament and not seeing it. If you bought some pictures to decorate such a room as this, where would you put them? On a level with the eye, I suppose, or nearly so? Not on a level with the chandelier? If you were determined to put them up there, round the cornice, it would be better for you not to buy them at all. You would merely throw your money away. And the fact is, that your money _is_ being thrown away continually, by wholesale; and while you are dissuaded, on the ground of expense, from building beautiful windows and beautiful doors, you are continually made to pay for ornaments at the tops of your houses, which, for all the use they are of, might as well be in the moon. For instance, there is not, on the whole, a more studied piece of domestic architecture in Edinburgh than the street in which so many of your excellent physicians live--Rutland Street. I do not know if you have observed its architecture; but if you will look at it to-morrow, you will see that a heavy and close balustrade is put all along the eaves of the houses. Your physicians are not, I suppose, in the habit of taking academic and meditative walks on the roofs of their houses; and, if not, this balustrade is altogether useless,--nor merely useless, for you will find it runs directly in front of all the garret windows, thus interfering with their light, and blocking out their view of the street. All that the parapet is meant to do, is to give some finish to the façades, and the inhabitants have thus been made to pay a large sum for a piece of mere decoration. Whether it _does_ finish the façades satisfactorily, or whether the physicians resident in the street, or their patients, are in anywise edified by the succession of pear-shaped knobs of stone on their house-tops, I leave them to tell you; only do not fancy that the design, whatever its success, is an economical one. [Footnote 16: For farther confirmation of this statement see the Addenda at the end of this Lecture.] 35. But this is a very slight waste of money, compared to the constant habit of putting careful sculpture at the tops of houses. A temple of luxury has just been built in London for the Army and Navy Club. It cost £40,000, exclusive of purchase of ground. It has upon it an enormous quantity of sculpture, representing the gentlemen of the navy as little boys riding upon dolphins, and the gentlemen of the army--I couldn't see as what--nor can anybody; for all this sculpture is put up at the top of the house, where the gutter should be, under the cornice. I know that this was a Greek way of doing things. I can't help it; that does not make it a wise one. Greeks might be willing to pay for what they couldn't see, but Scotchmen and Englishmen shouldn't. 36. Not that the Greeks threw their work away as we do. As far as I know Greek buildings, their ornamentation, though often bad, is always bold enough and large enough to be visible in its place. It is not putting ornament _high_ that is wrong; but it is cutting it too fine to be seen, wherever it is. This is the great modern mistake: you are actually at twice the cost which would produce an impressive ornament, to produce a contemptible one; you increase the price of your buildings by one-half, in order to mince their decoration into invisibility. Walk through your streets, and try to make out the ornaments on the upper parts of your fine buildings--(there are none at the bottoms of them). Don't do it long, or you will all come home with inflamed eyes, but you will soon discover that you can see nothing but confusion in ornaments that have cost you ten or twelve shillings a foot. [Illustration: PLATE VIII. (Fig. 13., Fig. 14.)] 37. Now, the Gothic builders placed their decoration on a precisely contrary principle, and on the only rational principle. All their best and most delicate work they put on the foundation of the building, close to the spectator, and on the upper parts of the walls they put ornaments large, bold, and capable of being plainly seen at the necessary distance. A single example will enable you to understand this method of adaptation perfectly. The lower part of the façade of the cathedral of Lyons, built either late in the thirteenth or early in the fourteenth century, is decorated with a series of niches, filled by statues of considerable size, which are supported upon pedestals within about eight feet of the ground. In general, pedestals of this kind are supported on some projecting portion of the basement; but at Lyons, owing to other arrangements of the architecture into which I have no time to enter, they are merely projecting tablets, or flat-bottomed brackets of stone, projecting from the wall. Each bracket is about a foot and a half square, and is shaped thus (_fig._ 13), showing to the spectator, as he walks beneath, the flat bottom of each bracket, quite in the shade, but within a couple of feet of the eye, and lighted by the reflected light from the pavement. The whole of the surface of the wall round the great entrance is covered with bas-relief, as a matter of course; but the architect appears to have been jealous of the smallest space which was well within the range of sight; and the _bottom_ of every bracket is decorated also--nor that slightly, but decorated with no fewer than _six figures each, besides a flower border_, in a space, as I said, _not quite a foot and a half square_. The shape of the field to be decorated being a kind of quatre-foil, as shown in _fig._ 13, four small figures are placed, one in each foil, and two larger ones in the center. I had only time, in passing through the town, to make a drawing of one of the angles of these pedestals; that sketch I have enlarged, in order that you may have some idea of the character of the sculpture. Here is the enlargement of it (_fig._ 15). Now observe, this is _one_ of the angles of the bottom of a pedestal, not two feet broad, on the outside of a Gothic building; it contains only one of the four little figures which form those angles; and it shows you the head only of one of the larger figures in the center. Yet just observe how much design, how much wonderful composition, there is in this mere fragment of a building of the great times; a fragment, literally no larger than a school-boy could strike off in wantonness with a stick: and yet I cannot tell you how much care has been spent--not so much on the execution, for it does not take much trouble to execute well on so small a scale--but on the design, of this minute fragment. You see it is composed of a branch of wild roses, which switches round at the angle, embracing the minute figure of the bishop, and terminates in a spray reaching nearly to the head of the large figure. You will observe how beautifully that figure is thus _pointed to_ by the spray of rose, and how all the leaves around it in the same manner are subservient to the grace of its action. Look, if I hide one line, or one rosebud, how the whole is injured, and how much there is to study in the detail of it. Look at this little diamond crown, with a lock of the hair escaping from beneath it; and at the beautiful way in which the tiny leaf at _a_, is set in the angle to prevent its harshness; and having examined this well, consider what a treasure of thought there is in a cathedral front, a hundred feet wide, every inch of which is wrought with sculpture like this! And every front of our thirteenth century cathedrals is inwrought with sculpture of this quality! And yet you quietly allow yourselves to be told that the men who thus wrought were barbarians, and that your architects are wiser and better in covering your walls with sculpture of this kind (_fig._ 14, Plate VIII.) [Illustration: PLATE IX. (Fig. 15.)] [Illustration: PLATE X. (Fig. 16.)] 38. Walk round your Edinburgh buildings, and look at the height of your eye, what you will get from them. Nothing but square-cut stone--square-cut stone--a wilderness of square-cut stone forever and forever; so that your houses look like prisons, and truly are so; for the worst feature of Greek architecture is, indeed, not its costliness, but its tyranny. These square stones are not prisons of the body, but graves of the soul; for the very men who could do sculpture like this of Lyons for you are here! still here, in your despised workmen: the race has not degenerated, it is you who have bound them down, and buried them beneath your Greek stones. There would be a resurrection of them, as of renewed souls, if you would only lift the weight of these weary walls from off their hearts.[17] [Footnote 17: This subject is farther pursued in the Addenda at the end of this Lecture.] 39. But I am leaving the point immediately in question, which, you will remember, was the proper adaptation of ornament to its distance from the eye. I have given you one example of Gothic ornament, meant to be seen close; now let me give you one of Gothic ornament intended to be seen far off. Here (_fig._ 16) is a sketch of a niche at Amiens Cathedral, some fifty or sixty feet high on the façade, and seven or eight feet wide. Now observe, in the ornament close to the eye, you had _six figures_ and a whole wreath of roses in the space of _a foot and a half_ square; but in the ornament sixty feet from the eye, you have now only ten or twelve large _leaves_ in a space of _eight feet square_! and note also that now there is no attempt whatsoever at the refinement of line and finish of edge which there was in the other example. The sculptor knew that, at the height of this niche, people would not attend to the delicate lines, and that the broad shadows would catch the eye instead. He has therefore left, as you see, rude square edges to his niche, and carved his leaves as massively and broadly as possible: and yet, observe how dexterously he has given you a sense of delicacy and minuteness in the work, by mingling these small leaves among the large ones. I made this sketch from a photograph, and the spot in which these leaves occurred was obscure; I have, therefore, used those of the Oxalis acetosella, of which the quaint form is always interesting. 40. And you see by this example also what I meant just now by saying, that our own ornament was not only wrongly placed, but wrongly FINISHED. The very qualities which _fit_ this leaf-decoration for due effect upon the eye, are those which would _conduce to economy_ in its execution. A more expensive ornament would be less effective; and it is the very price we pay for finishing our decorations which spoils our architecture. And the curious thing is, that while you all appreciate, and that far too highly, what is called "the bold style" in painting, you cannot appreciate it in sculpture. You like a hurried, broad, dashing manner of execution in a water-color drawing, though that may be seen as near as you choose, and yet you refuse to admit the nobleness of a bold, simple, and dashing stroke of the chisel in work which is to be seen forty fathoms off. Be assured that "handling" is as great a thing in marble as in paint, and that the power of producing a masterly effect with few touches is as essential in an architect as in a draughtsman; though indeed that power is never perfectly attained except by those who possess the power of giving the highest finish when there is occasion. 41. But there is yet another and a weightier charge to be brought against our modern Pseudo-Greek ornamentation. It is, first, wrongly placed; secondly, wrongly finished; and, thirdly, utterly _without meaning_. Observe in these two Gothic ornaments, and in every other ornament that ever was carved in the great Gothic times, there is a definite aim at the representation of some natural object. In _fig._ 15 you have an exquisite group of rose-stems, with the flowers and buds; in _fig._ 16, various wild weeds, especially the Geranium pratense; in every case you have an approximation to a natural form, and an unceasing variety of suggestion. But how much of Nature have you in your Greek buildings? I will show you, taking for an example the best you have lately built; and, in doing so, I trust that nothing that I say will be thought to have any personal purpose, and that the architect of the building in question will forgive me; for it is just because it is a good example of the style that I think it more fair to use it for an example. If the building were a bad one of the kind, it would not be a fair instance; and I hope, therefore, that in speaking of the institution on the Mound, just in progress, I shall be understood as meaning rather a compliment to its architect than otherwise. It is not his fault that we force him to build in the Greek manner. 42. Now, according to the orthodox practice in modern architecture, the most delicate and minute pieces of sculpture on that building are at the very top of it, just under its gutter. You cannot see them in a dark day, and perhaps may never, to this hour, have noticed them at all. But there they are: sixty-six finished heads of lions, all exactly the same; and, therefore, I suppose, executed on some noble Greek type, too noble to allow any modest Modern to think of improving upon it. But whether executed on a Greek type or no, it is to be presumed that, as there are sixty-six of them alike, and on so important a building as that which is to contain your school of design, and which is the principal example of the Athenian style in modern Athens, there must be something especially admirable in them, and deserving your most attentive contemplation. In order, therefore, that you might have a fair opportunity of estimating their beauty, I was desirous of getting a sketch of a real lion's head to compare with them, and my friend Mr. Millais kindly offered to draw both the one and the other for me. You have not, however, at present, a lion in your zoological collection; and it being, as you are probably aware, the first principle of Pre-Raphaelitism, as well as essential to my object in the present instance, that no drawing should be made except from Nature itself, I was obliged to be content with a tiger's head, which, however, will answer my purpose just as well, in enabling you to compare a piece of true, faithful, and natural work with modern architectural sculpture. Here, in the first place, is Mr. Millais' drawing from the _living_ beast (_fig._ 17, frontispiece). I have not the least fear but that you will at once acknowledge its truth and feel its power. Prepare yourselves next for the Grecian sublimity of the _ideal_ beast, from the cornice of your schools of design. Behold it (_fig._ 18). 43. Now we call ourselves civilized and refined in matters of art, but I assure you it is seldom that, in the very basest and coarsest grotesques of the inferior Gothic workmen, anything so contemptible as this head can be ever found. _They_ only sink into such a failure accidentally, and in a single instance; and we, in our civilization, repeat this noble piece of work threescore and six times over, as not being able to invent anything else so good! Do not think Mr. Millais has caricatured it. It is drawn with the strictest fidelity; photograph one of the heads to-morrow, and you will find the photograph tell you the same tale. Neither imagine that this is an unusual example of modern work. Your banks and public offices are covered with ideal lions' heads in every direction, and you will find them all just as bad as this. And, farther, note that the admission of such barbarous types of sculpture is not _merely_ ridiculous; it is seriously harmful to your powers of perceiving truth or beauty of any kind or at any time. Imagine the effect on the minds of your children of having such representations of a lion's head as this thrust upon them perpetually; and consider what a different effect might be produced upon them if, instead of this barren and insipid absurdity, every boss on your buildings were, according to the workman's best ability, a faithful rendering of the form of some existing animal, so that all their walls were so many pages of natural history. And, finally, consider the difference, with respect to the mind of the workman himself, between being kept all his life carving, by sixties, and forties, and thirties, repetitions of one false and futile model,--and being sent, for every piece of work he had to execute, to make a stern and faithful study from some living creature of God. [Illustration: PLATE XI. (Fig. 17., Fig. 18.)] 44. And this last consideration enables me to press this subject on you on far higher grounds than I have done yet. I have hitherto appealed only to your national pride, or to your common sense; but surely I should treat a Scottish audience with indignity if I appealed not finally to something higher than either of them,--to their religious principles. You know how often it is difficult to be wisely charitable, to do good without multiplying the sources of evil. You know that to give alms is nothing unless you give thought also; and that therefore it is written, not "blessed is he that _feedeth_ the poor," but, "blessed is he that _considereth_ the poor." And you know that a little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money. 45. Now this charity of thought is not merely to be exercised towards the poor; it is to be exercised towards all men. There is assuredly no action of our social life, however unimportant, which, by kindly thought, may not be made to have a beneficial influence upon others; and it is impossible to spend the smallest sum of money, for any not absolutely necessary purpose, without a grave responsibility attaching to the manner of spending it. The object we ourselves covet may, indeed, be desirable and harmless, so far as we are concerned, but the providing us with it may, perhaps, be a very prejudicial occupation to some one else. And then it becomes instantly a moral question, whether we are to indulge ourselves or not. Whatever we wish to buy, we ought first to consider not only if the thing be fit for us, but if the manufacture of it be a wholesome and happy one; and if, on the whole, the sum we are going to spend will do as much good spent in this way as it would if spent in any other way. It may be said that we have not time to consider all this before we make a purchase. But no time could be spent in a more important duty; and God never imposes a duty without giving the time to do it. Let us, however, only acknowledge the principle;--once make up your mind to allow the consideration of the _effect_ of your purchases to regulate the _kind_ of your purchase, and you will soon easily find grounds enough to decide upon. The plea of ignorance will never take away our responsibilities. It is written, "If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it?" 46. I could press this on you at length, but I hasten to apply the principle to the subject of art. I will do so broadly at first, and then come to architecture. Enormous sums are spent annually by this country in what is called patronage of art, but in what is for the most part merely buying what strikes our fancies. True and judicious patronage there is indeed; many a work of art is bought by those who do not care for its possession, to assist the struggling artist, or relieve the unsuccessful one. But for the most part, I fear we are too much in the habit of buying simply what we like best, wholly irrespective of any good to be done, either to the artist or to the schools of the country. Now let us remember, that every farthing we spend on objects of art has influence over men's minds and spirits, far more than over their bodies. By the purchase of every print which hangs on your walls, of every cup out of which you drink, and every table off which you eat your bread, you are educating a mass of men in one way or another. You are either employing them healthily or unwholesomely; you are making them lead happy or unhappy lives; you are leading them to look at Nature, and to love her--to think, to feel, to enjoy,--or you are blinding them to Nature, and keeping them bound, like beasts of burden, in mechanical and monotonous employments. We shall all be asked one day, why we did not think more of this. 47. "Well, but," you will say, "how can we decide what we ought to buy, but by our likings? You would not have us buy what we don't like?" No, but I would have you thoroughly sure that there _is_ an absolute right and wrong in all art, and try to find out the right, and like that; and, secondly, sometimes to sacrifice a careless preference or fancy, to what you know is for the good of your fellow-creatures. For instance, when you spend a guinea upon an engraving, what have you done? You have paid a man for a certain number of hours to sit at a dirty table, in a dirty room, inhaling the fumes of nitric acid, stooping over a steel plate, on which, by the help of a magnifying glass, he is, one by one, laboriously cutting out certain notches and scratches, of which the effect is to be the copy of another man's work. You cannot suppose you have done a very charitable thing in this! On the other hand, whenever you buy a small water-color drawing, you have employed a man happily and healthily, working in a clean room (if he likes), or more probably still, out in the pure country and fresh air, thinking about something, and learning something every moment; not straining his eyesight, nor breaking his back, but working in ease and happiness. Therefore if you _can_ like a modest water-color better than an elaborate engraving, do. There may indeed be engravings which are worth the suffering it costs to produce them; but at all events, engravings of public dinners and laying of foundation-stones, and such things, might be dispensed with. The engraving ought to be a first-rate picture of a first-rate subject to be worth buying. 48. Farther, I know that many conscientious persons are desirous of encouraging art, but feel at the same time that their judgment is not certain enough to secure their choice of the best kind of art. To such persons I would now especially address myself, fully admitting the greatness of their difficulty. It is not an easy thing to acquire a knowledge of painting; and it is by no means a desirable thing to encourage bad painting. One bad painter makes another, and one bad painting will often spoil a great many healthy judgments. I could name popular painters now living, who have retarded the taste of their generation by twenty years. Unless, therefore, we are certain not merely that we like a painting, but that we are _right_ in liking it, we should never buy it. For there is one way of spending money which is perfectly safe, and in which we may be absolutely sure of doing good. I mean, by paying for simple sculpture of natural objects, chiefly flowers and animals. You are aware that the possibilities of error in sculpture are much less than in painting; it is altogether an easier and simpler art, invariably attaining perfection long before painting, in the progress of a national mind. It may indeed be corrupted by false taste, or thrown into erroneous forms; but for the most part, the feebleness of a sculptor is shown in imperfection and rudeness, rather than in definite error. He does not reach the fineness of the forms of Nature; but he approaches them truly up to a certain point, or, if not so, at all events an honest effort will continually improve him: so that if we set a simple natural form before him, and tell him to copy it, we are sure we have given him a wholesome and useful piece of education; but if we told him to paint it, he might, with all the honesty in the world, paint it wrongly and falsely, to the end of his days. 49. So much for the workman. But the workman is not the only person concerned. Observe farther, that when you buy a print, the enjoyment of it is confined to yourself and to your friends. But if you carve a piece of stone, and put it on the outside of your house, it will give pleasure to every person who passes along the street--to an innumerable multitude, instead of a few. Nay, but, you say, we ourselves shall not be benefited by the sculpture on the outsides of our houses. Yes, you will, and in an extraordinary degree; for, observe farther, that architecture differs from painting peculiarly in being an art of _accumulation_. The prints bought by your friends, and hung up in their houses, have no collateral effect with yours: they must be separately examined, and if ever they were hung side by side, they would rather injure than assist each other's effect. But the sculpture on your friend's house unites in effect with that on your own. The two houses form one grand mass--far grander than either separately; much more if a third be added--and a fourth; much more if the whole street--if the whole city--join in the solemn harmony of sculpture. Your separate possessions of pictures and prints are to you as if you sang pieces of music with your single voices in your own houses. But your architecture would be as if you all sang together in one mighty choir. In the separate picture, it is rare that there exists any very high source of sublime emotion; but the great concerted music of the streets of the city, when turret rises over turret, and casement frowns beyond casement, and tower succeeds to tower along the farthest ridges of the inhabited hills,--this is a sublimity of which you can at present form no conception; and capable, I believe, of exciting almost the deepest emotion that art can ever strike from the bosoms of men. And justly the deepest: for it is a law of God and of Nature, that your pleasures--as your virtues--shall be enhanced by mutual aid. As, by joining hand in hand, you can sustain each other best, so, hand in hand, you can delight each other best. And there is indeed a charm and sacredness in street architecture which must be wanting even to that of the temple: it is a little thing for men to unite in the forms of a religious service, but it is much for them to unite, like true brethren, in the arts and offices of their daily lives. 50. And now, I can conceive only of one objection as likely still to arise in your minds, which I must briefly meet. Your pictures, and other smaller works of art, you can carry with you, wherever you live; your house must be left behind. Indeed, I believe that the wandering habits which have now become almost necessary to our existence, lie more at the root of our bad architecture than any other character of modern times. We always look upon our houses as mere temporary lodgings. We are always hoping to get larger and finer ones, or are forced, in some way or other, to live where we do not choose, and in continual expectation of changing our place of abode. In the present state of society, this is in a great measure unavoidable; but let us remember it is an _evil_; and that so far as it _is_ avoidable, it becomes our duty to check the impulse. It is not for me to lead you at present into any consideration of a matter so closely touching your private interests and feelings; but it surely is a subject for serious thought, whether it might not be better for many of us, if, on attaining a certain position in life, we determined, with God's permission, to choose a home in which to live and die,--a home not to be increased by adding stone to stone and field to field, but which, being enough for all our wishes at that period, we should resolve to be satisfied with forever. Consider this; and also, whether we ought not to be more in the habit of seeking honor from our descendants than our ancestors; thinking it better to be nobly remembered than nobly born; and striving so to live, that our sons, and our sons' sons, for ages to come, might still lead their children reverently to the doors out of which we had been carried to the grave, saying, "Look: This was his house: This was his chamber." 51. I believe that you can bring forward no other serious objection to the principles for which I am pleading. They are so simple, and, it seems to me, so incontrovertible, that I trust you will not leave this room, without determining, as you have opportunity, to do something to advance this long-neglected art of domestic architecture. The reasons I have laid before you would have weight, even were I to ask you to go to some considerable expenditure beyond what you at present are accustomed to devote to such purposes; but nothing more would be needed than the diversion of expenditures, at present scattered and unconsidered, into a single and effective channel. Nay, the mere interest of the money which we are accustomed to keep dormant by us in the form of plate and jewelry, would alone be enough to sustain a school of magnificent architecture. And although, in highly wrought plate, and in finely designed jewelry, noble art may occasionally exist, yet in general both jewels and services of silver are matters of ostentation, much more than sources of intellectual pleasure. There are also many evils connected with them--they are a care to their possessors, a temptation to the dishonest, and a trouble and bitterness to the poor. So that I cannot but think that part of the wealth which now lies buried in these doubtful luxuries, might most wisely and kindly be thrown into a form which would give perpetual pleasure, not to its possessor only, but to thousands besides, and neither tempt the unprincipled, nor inflame the envious, nor mortify the poor; while, supposing that your own dignity was dear to you, this, you may rely upon it, would be more impressed upon others by the nobleness of your house-walls than by the glistening of your sideboards. [Illustration: PLATE XII. (Fig. 19.)] 52. And even supposing that some additional expenditure _were_ required for this purpose, are we indeed so much poorer than our ancestors, that we cannot now, in all the power of Britain, afford to do what was done by every small republic, by every independent city, in the Middle Ages, throughout France, Italy, and Germany? I am not aware of a vestige of domestic architecture, belonging to the great mediæval periods, which, according to its material and character, is not richly decorated. But look here (_fig._ 19), look to what an extent decoration _has_ been carried in the domestic edifices of a city, I suppose not much superior in importance, commercially speaking, to Manchester, Liverpool, or Birmingham--namely, Rouen, in Normandy. This is a _garret_ window, still existing there,--a garret window built by William de Bourgtheroude in the early part of the sixteenth century. I show it you, first, as a proof of what may be made of the features of domestic buildings we are apt to disdain; and secondly, as another example of a beautiful use of the pointed arch, filled by the solid shield of stone, and inclosing a square casement. It is indeed a peculiarly rich and beautiful instance, but it is a type of which many examples still exist in France, and of which many once existed in your own Scotland, of ruder work indeed, but admirable always in the effect upon the outline of the building.[18] [Footnote 18: One of the most beautiful instances I know of this kind of window is in the ancient house of the Maxwells, on the estate of Sir John Maxwell of Polloc. I had not seen it when I gave this lecture, or I should have preferred it, as an example, to that of Rouen, with reference to modern possibilities of imitation.] 53. I do not, however, hope that you will often be able to go as far as this in decoration; in fact I would rather recommend a simpler style to you, founded on earlier examples; but, if possible, aided by color, introduced in various kinds of naturally colored stones. I have observed that your Scottish lapidaries have admirable taste and skill in the disposition of the pebbles of your brooches and other ornaments of dress; and I have not the least doubt that the genius of your country would, if directed to this particular style of architecture, produce works as beautiful as they would be thoroughly national. The Gothic of Florence, which owes at least the half of its beauty to the art of inlaying, would furnish you with exquisite examples; its sculpture is indeed the most perfect which was ever produced by the Gothic schools; but, besides this rich sculpture, all its flat surfaces are inlaid with colored stones, much being done with a green serpentine, which forms the greater part of the coast of Genoa. You have, I believe, large beds of this rock in Scotland, and other stones besides, peculiarly Scottish, calculated to form as noble a school of color as ever existed.[19] [Footnote 19: A series of four examples of designs for windows was exhibited at this point of the lecture, but I have not engraved them, as they were hastily made for the purposes of momentary illustration, and are not such as I choose to publish or perpetuate.] 54. And, now, I have but two things more to say to you in conclusion. Most of the lecturers whom you allow to address you, lay before you views of the sciences they profess, which are either generally received, or incontrovertible. I come before you at a disadvantage; for I cannot conscientiously tell you anything about architecture but what is at variance with all commonly received views upon the subject. I come before you, professedly to speak of things forgotten or things disputed; and I lay before you, not accepted principles, but questions at issue. Of those questions you are to be the judges, and to you I appeal. You must not, when you leave this room, if you feel doubtful of the truth of what I have said, refer yourselves to some architect of established reputation, and ask him whether I am right or not. You might as well, had you lived in the sixteenth century, have asked a Roman Catholic archbishop his opinion of the first reformer. I deny his jurisdiction; I refuse his decision. I call upon you to be Bereans in architecture, as you are in religion, and to search into these things for yourselves. Remember that, however candid a man may be, it is too much to expect of him when his career in life has been successful, to turn suddenly on the highway, and to declare that all he has learned has been false, and all he has done, worthless; yet nothing less than such a declaration as this must be made by nearly every existing architect, before he admitted the truth of one word that I have said to you this evening. You must be prepared, therefore, to hear my opinions attacked with all the virulence of established interest, and all the pertinacity of confirmed prejudice; you will hear them made the subjects of every species of satire and invective; but one kind of opposition to them you will never hear; you will never hear them met by quiet, steady, rational argument; for that is the one way in which they _cannot_ be met. You will constantly hear me accused--you yourselves may be the first to accuse me--of presumption in speaking thus confidently against the established authority of ages. Presumption! Yes, if I had spoken on my own authority; but I have appealed to two incontrovertible and irrefragable witnesses--to the nature that is around you--to the reason that is within you. And if you are willing in this matter to take the voice of authority _against_ that of nature and of reason, take it in other things also. Take it in religion, as you do in architecture. It is not by a Scottish audience--not by the descendants of the Reformer and the Covenanter--that I expected to be met with a refusal to believe that the world might possibly have been wrong for _three_ hundred years, in their ways of carving stones and setting up of pillars, when they know that they were wrong for _twelve_ hundred years, in their marking how the roads divided, that led to Hell and Heaven. 55. You must expect at first that there will be difficulties and inconsistencies in carrying out the new style; but they will soon be conquered if you attempt not too much at once. Do not be afraid of incongruities--do not think of unities of effect. Introduce your Gothic line by line and stone by stone; never mind mixing it with your present architecture; your existing houses will be none the worse for having little bits of better work fitted to them; build a porch, or point a window, if you can do nothing else; and remember that it is the glory of Gothic architecture that it can do _anything_. Whatever you really and seriously want, Gothic will do for you; but it must be an _earnest_ want. It is its pride to accommodate itself to your needs; and the one general law under which it acts is simply this,--find out what will make you comfortable, build that in the strongest and boldest way, and then set your fancy free in the decoration of it. Don't do anything to imitate this cathedral or that, however beautiful. Do what is convenient; and if the form be a new one, so much the better; then set your mason's wits to work, to find out some new way of treating it. Only be steadily determined that, even if you cannot get the best Gothic, at least you will have no Greek; and in a few years' time--in less time than you could learn a new science or a new language thoroughly--the whole art of your native country will be reanimated. 56. And, now, lastly. When this shall be accomplished, do not think it will make little difference to you, and that you will be little the happier, or little the better for it. You have at present no conception, and can have none, how much you would enjoy a truly beautiful architecture; but I can give you a proof of it which none of you will be able to deny. You will all assuredly admit this principle,--that whatever temporal things are spoken of in the Bible as emblems of the highest spiritual blessings, must be _good things_ in themselves. You would allow that bread, for instance, would not have been used as an emblem of the word of life, unless it had been good, and necessary for man; nor water used as the emblem of sanctification, unless it also had been good and necessary for man. You will allow that oil, and honey, and balm are good, when David says, "Let the righteous reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil;" or, "How sweet are thy words unto my taste; yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth;" or, when Jeremiah cries out in his weeping, "Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there?" You would admit at once that the man who said there was no taste in the literal honey, and no healing in the literal balm, must be of distorted judgment, since God had used them as emblems of spiritual sweetness and healing. And how, then, will you evade the conclusion, that there must be joy, and comfort, and instruction in the literal beauty of architecture, when God, descending in His utmost love to the distressed Jerusalem, and addressing to her His most precious and solemn promises, speaks to her in such words as these: "Oh, thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted,"--What shall be done to her?--What brightest emblem of blessing will God set before her? "Behold, I will _lay thy stones with fair colors_, and thy foundations with sapphires; and I will make thy _windows of agates_, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones." Nor is this merely an emblem of spiritual blessing; for that blessing is added in the concluding words, "And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children." ADDENDA TO LECTURES I. AND II. 57. The delivery of the foregoing lectures excited, as it may be imagined, considerable indignation among the architects who happened to hear them, and elicited various attempts at reply. As it seemed to have been expected by the writers of these replies, that in two lectures, each of them lasting not much more than an hour, I should have been able completely to discuss the philosophy and history of the architecture of the world, besides meeting every objection, and reconciling every apparent contradiction, which might suggest itself to the minds of hearers with whom, probably, from first to last, I had not a single exactly correspondent idea relating to the matters under discussion, it seems unnecessary to notice any of them in particular. But as this volume may perhaps fall into the hands of readers who have not time to refer to the works in which my views have been expressed more at large, and as I shall now not be able to write or to say anything more about architecture for some time to come, it may be useful to state here, and explain in the shortest possible compass, the main gist of the propositions which I desire to maintain respecting that art; and also to note and answer, once for all, such arguments as are ordinarily used by the architects of the modern school to controvert these propositions. They may be reduced under six heads. 1. That Gothic or Romanesque construction is nobler than Greek construction. 2. That ornamentation is the principal part of architecture. 3. That ornamentation should be visible. 4. That ornamentation should be natural. 5. That ornamentation should be thoughtful. 6. And that therefore Gothic ornamentation is nobler than Greek ornamentation, and Gothic architecture the only architecture which should now be built. 58. Proposition 1st.--_Gothic or Romanesque construction is nobler than Greek construction._[20] That is to say, building an arch, vault, or dome, is a nobler and more ingenious work than laying a flat stone or beam over the space to be covered. It is, for instance, a nobler and more ingenious thing to build an arched bridge over a stream, than to lay two pine-trunks across from bank to bank; and, in like manner, it is a nobler and more ingenious thing to build an arch over a window, door, or room, than to lay a single flat stone over the same space. [Footnote 20: The constructive value of Gothic architecture is, however, far greater than that of Romanesque, as the pointed arch is not only susceptible of an infinite variety of forms and applications to the weight to be sustained, but it possesses, in the outline given to its masonry at its perfect periods, the means of self-sustainment to a far greater degree than the round arch. I pointed out, for, I believe, the first time, the meaning and constructive value of the Gothic cusp, in page 129 of the first volume of the "Stones of Venice." That statement was first denied, and then taken advantage of, by modern architects; and considering how often it has been alleged that I have no _practical_ knowledge of architecture, it cannot but be matter of some triumph to me, to find "The Builder," of the 21st January, 1854, describing as a new invention, the successful application to a church in Carlow of the principle which I laid down in the year 1851.] No architects have ever attempted seriously to controvert this proposition. Sometimes, however, they say that "of two ways of doing a thing, the best and most perfect is not always to be adopted, for there may be particular reasons for employing an inferior one." This I am perfectly ready to grant, only let them show their reasons in each particular case. Sometimes also they say, that there is a charm in the simple construction which is lost in the scientific one. This I am also perfectly ready to grant. There is a charm in Stonehenge which there is not in Amiens Cathedral, and a charm in an Alpine pine bridge which there is not in the Ponte della Trinità at Florence, and, in general, a charm in savageness which there is not in science. But do not let it be said, therefore, that savageness _is_ science. 59. Proposition 2d.--_Ornamentation is the principal part of architecture._ That is to say, the highest nobility of a building does not consist in its being well built, but in its being nobly sculptured or painted. This is always, and at the first hearing of it, very naturally, considered one of my most heretical propositions. It is also one of the most important I have to maintain; and it must be permitted me to explain it at some length. The first thing to be required of a building--not, observe, the _highest_ thing, but the first thing--is that it shall answer its purposes completely, permanently, and at the smallest expense. If it is a house, it should be just of the size convenient for its owner, containing exactly the kind and number of rooms that he wants, with exactly the number of windows he wants, put in the places that he wants. If it is a church, it should be just large enough for its congregation, and of such shape and disposition as shall make them comfortable in it and let them hear well in it. If it be a public office, it should be so disposed as is most convenient for the clerks in their daily avocations; and so on; all this being utterly irrespective of external appearance or æsthetic considerations of any kind, and all being done solidly, securely, and at the smallest necessary cost. The _sacrifice_ of any of these first requirements to external appearance is a futility and absurdity. Rooms must not be darkened to make the ranges of windows symmetrical. Useless wings must not be added on one side, to balance useful wings on the other, but the house built with one wing, if the owner has no need of two; and so on. 60. But observe, in doing all this, there is no High, or as it is commonly called, Fine Art, required at all. There may be much science, together with the lower form of art, or "handicraft," but there is as yet no _Fine Art_. House-building, on these terms, is no higher thing than ship-building. It indeed will generally be found that the edifice designed with this masculine reference to utility, will have a charm about it, otherwise unattainable, just as a ship, constructed with simple reference to its service against powers of wind and wave, turns out one of the loveliest things that human hands produce. Still, we do not, and properly do not, hold ship-building to be a fine art, nor preserve in our memories the names of immortal ship-builders; neither, so long as the mere utility and constructive merit of the building are regarded, is architecture to be held a fine art, or are the names of architects to be remembered immortally. For any one may at any time be taught to build the ship, or (thus far) the house, and there is nothing deserving of immortality in doing what any one may be taught to do. But when the house, or church, or other building is thus far designed, and the forms of its dead walls and dead roofs are up to this point determined, comes the divine part of the work--namely, to turn these dead walls into living ones. Only Deity, that is to say, those who are taught by Deity, can do that. And that is to be done by painting and sculpture, that is to say, by ornamentation. Ornamentation is therefore the principal part of architecture, considered as a subject of fine art. 61. Now observe. It will at once follow from this principle, that _a great architect must be a great sculptor or painter_. This is a universal law. No person who is not a great sculptor or painter _can_ be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a _builder_. The three greatest architects hitherto known in the world were Phidias, Giotto, and Michael Angelo; with all of whom, architecture was only their play, sculpture and painting their work. All great works of architecture in existence are either the work of single sculptors or painters, or of societies of sculptors and painters, acting collectively for a series of years. A Gothic cathedral is properly to be defined as a piece of the most magnificent associative sculpture, arranged on the noblest principles of building, for the service and delight of multitudes; and the proper definition of architecture, as distinguished from sculpture, is merely "the art of designing sculpture for a particular place, and placing it there on the best principles of building." Hence it clearly follows, that in modern days we have no _architects_. The term "architecture" is not so much as understood by us. I am very sorry to be compelled to the discourtesy of stating this fact, but a fact it is, and a fact which it is necessary to state strongly. Hence also it will follow, that the first thing necessary to the possession of a school of architecture is the formation of a school of able sculptors, and that till we have that, nothing we do can be called architecture at all. 62. This, then, being my second proposition, the so-called "architects" of the day, as the reader will imagine, are not willing to admit it, or to admit any statement which at all involves it; and every statement, tending in this direction, which I have hitherto made, has of course been met by eager opposition; opposition which perhaps would have been still more energetic, but that architects have not, I think, till lately, been quite aware of the lengths to which I was prepared to carry the principle. The arguments, or assertions, which they generally employ against this second proposition and its consequences, are the following: First. That the true nobility of architecture consists, not in decoration (or sculpture), but in the "disposition of masses," and that architecture is, in fact, the "art of proportion." 63. It is difficult to overstate the enormity of the ignorance which this popular statement implies. For the fact is, that _all_ art, and all nature, depend on the "disposition of masses." Painting, sculpture, music, and poetry depend all equally on the "proportion," whether of colors, stones, notes, or words. Proportion is a principle, not of architecture, but of existence. It is by the laws of proportion that stars shine, that mountains stand, and rivers flow. Man can hardly perform any act of his life, can hardly utter two words of innocent speech, or move his hand in accordance with those words, without involving some reference, whether taught or instinctive, to the laws of proportion. And in the fine arts, it is impossible to move a single step, or to execute the smallest and simplest piece of work, without involving all those laws of proportion in their full complexity. To arrange (by invention) the folds of a piece of drapery, or dispose the locks of hair on the head of a statue, requires as much sense and knowledge of the laws of proportion, as to dispose the masses of a cathedral. The one are indeed smaller than the other, but the relations between 1, 2, 4, and 8, are precisely the same as the relations between 6, 12, 24, and 48. So that the assertion that "architecture is _par excellence_ the art of proportion," could never be made except by persons who know nothing of art in general; and, in fact, never _is_ made except by those architects, who, not being artists, fancy that the one poor æsthetic principle of which they _are_ cognizant is the whole of art. They find that the "disposition of masses" is the only thing of importance in the art with which they are acquainted, and fancy therefore that it is peculiar to that art; whereas the fact is, that all great art _begins_ exactly where theirs _ends_, with the "disposition of masses." The assertion that Greek architecture, as opposed to Gothic architecture, is the "architecture of proportion," is another of the results of the same broad ignorance. First, it is a calumny of the old Greek style itself, which, like every other good architecture that ever existed, depends more on its grand figure sculpture, than on its proportions of parts; so that to copy the form of the Parthenon without its friezes and frontal statuary, is like copying the figure of a human being without its eyes and mouth; and, in the second place, so far as modern Pseudo-Greek work _does_ depend on its proportions more than Gothic work, it does so, not because it is better proportioned, but because it has nothing _but_ proportion to depend upon. Gesture is in like manner of more importance to a pantomime actor than to a tragedian, not because his gesture is more refined, but because he has no tongue. And the proportions of our common Greek work are important to it undoubtedly, but not because they are or even can be more subtile than Gothic proportion, but because that work has no sculpture, nor color, nor imagination, nor sacredness, nor any other quality whatsoever in it, but ratios of measures. And it is difficult to express with sufficient force the absurdity of the supposition that there is more room for refinements of proportion in the relations of seven or eight equal pillars, with the triangular end of a roof above them, than between the shafts, and buttresses, and porches, and pinnacles, and vaultings, and towers, and all other doubly and trebly multiplied magnificences of membership which form the framework of a Gothic temple. 64. Second reply.--It is often said, with some appearance of plausibility, that I dwell in all my writings on little things and contemptible details; and not on essential and large things. Now, in the first place, as soon as our architects become capable of doing and managing little and contemptible things, it will be time to talk about larger ones; at present I do not see that they can design so much as a niche or a bracket, and therefore they need not as yet think about anything larger. For although, as both just now, and always, I have said, there is as much science of arrangement needed in the designing of a small group of parts as of a large one, yet assuredly designing the larger one is _not the easier_ work of the two. For the eye and mind can embrace the smaller object more completely, and if the powers of conception are feeble, they get embarrassed by the inferior members which fall _within_ the divisions of the larger design.[21] So that, of course, the best way is to begin with the smaller features; for most assuredly, those who cannot design small things cannot design large ones; and yet, on the other hand, whoever can design small things _perfectly_, can design whatever he chooses. The man who, without copying, and by his own true and original power, can arrange a cluster of rose-leaves nobly, can design anything. He may fail from want of taste or feeling, but not from want of power. [Footnote 21: Thus, in speaking of Pugin's designs, I said, "Expect no cathedrals of him; but no one, at present, can design a better finial, though he will never design even a finial perfectly." But even this I said less with reference to powers of arrangement, than to materials of fancy; for many men have store enough to last them through a boss or a bracket, but not to last them through a church front.] And the real reason why architects are so eager in protesting against my close examination of details, is simply that they know they dare not meet me on that ground. Being, as I have said, in reality _not_ architects, but builders, they can indeed raise a large building, with copied ornaments, which, being huge and white, they hope the public may pronounce "handsome." But they cannot design a cluster of oak-leaves--no, nor a single human figure--no, nor so much as a beast, or a bird, or a bird's nest! Let them first learn to invent as much as will fill a quatre-foil, or point a pinnacle, and then it will be time enough to reason with them on the principles of the sublime. 65. But farther. The things that I have dwelt upon in examining buildings, though often their least parts, are always in reality their principal parts. That is the principal part of a building in which its mind is contained, and that, as I have just shown, is its sculpture--and painting. I do with a building as I do with a man, watch the eye and the lips: when they are bright and eloquent, the form of the body is of little consequence. Whatever other objections have been made to this second proposition, arise, as far as I remember, merely from a confusion of the idea of essentialness or primariness with the idea of nobleness. The essential thing in a building,--its _first_ virtue,--is that it be strongly built, and fit for its uses. The noblest thing in a building, and its _highest_ virtue, is that it be nobly sculptured or painted.[22] [Footnote 22: Of course I use the term painting as including every mode of applying color.] 66. One or two important corollaries yet remain to be stated. It has just been said that to sacrifice the convenience of a building to its external appearance is a futility and absurdity, and that convenience and stability are to be attained at the smallest cost. But when that convenience _has_ been attained, the adding the noble characters of life by painting and sculpture, is a work in which all possible cost may be wisely admitted. There is great difficulty in fully explaining the various bearings of this proposition, so as to do away with the chances of its being erroneously understood and applied. For although, in the first designing of the building, nothing is to be admitted but what is wanted, and no useless wings are to be added to balance useful ones, yet in its ultimate designing, when its sculpture and color become precious, it may be that actual room is wanted to display them, or richer symmetry wanted to deserve them; and in such cases even a useless wall may be built to bear the sculpture, as at San Michele of Lucca, or a useless portion added to complete the cadences, as at St. Mark's of Venice, or useless height admitted in order to increase the impressiveness, as in nearly every noble building in the world. But the right to do this is dependent upon the actual _purpose_ of the building becoming no longer one of utility merely; as the purpose of a cathedral is not so much to shelter the congregation as to awe them. In such cases even some sacrifice of convenience may occasionally be admitted, as in the case of certain forms of pillared churches. But for the most part, the great law is, convenience first, and then the noblest decoration possible; and this is peculiarly the case in domestic buildings, and such public ones as are constantly to be used for practical purposes. 67. Proposition 3d.--_Ornamentation should be visible._ The reader may imagine this to be an indisputable position; but, practically, it is one of the last which modern architects are likely to admit; for it involves much more than appears at first sight. To render ornamentation, with all its qualities, clearly and entirely visible in its appointed place on the building, requires a knowledge of effect and a power of design which few even of the best artists possess, and which modern architects, so far from possessing, do not so much as comprehend the existence of. But, without dwelling on this highest manner of rendering ornament "visible," I desire only at present to convince the reader thoroughly of the main fact asserted in the text, that while modern builders decorate the _tops_ of buildings, mediæval builders decorated the _bottom_. So singular is the ignorance yet prevailing of the first principles of Gothic architecture, that I saw this assertion marked with notes of interrogation in several of the reports of these Lectures; although, at Edinburgh, it was only necessary for those who doubted it to have walked to Holyrood Chapel, in order to convince themselves of the truth of it, so far as their own city was concerned; and although, most assuredly, the cathedrals of Europe have now been drawn often enough to establish the very simple fact that their best sculpture is in their porches, not in their steeples. However, as this great Gothic principle seems yet unacknowledged, let me state it here, once for all, namely, that the whole building is decorated, in all pure and fine examples, with the most exactly studied respect to the powers of the eye; the richest and most delicate sculpture being put on the walls of the porches, or on the façade of the building, just high enough above the ground to secure it from accidental (not from wanton[23]) injury. The decoration, as it rises, becomes _always_ bolder, and in the buildings of the greatest times, _generally_ simpler. Thus at San Zeno and the duomo of Verona, the only delicate decorations are on the porches and lower walls of the façades, the rest of the buildings being left comparatively plain; in the ducal palace of Venice the only very careful work is in the lowest capitals; and so also the richness of the work diminishes upwards in the transepts of Rouen, and façades of Bayeux, Rheims, Amiens, Abbeville,[24] Lyons, and Nôtre Dame of Paris. But in the middle and later Gothic the tendency is to produce an equal richness _of effect_ over the whole building, or even to increase the richness towards the top; but this is done so skillfully that no fine work is wasted; and when the spectator ascends to the higher points of the building, which he thought were of the most consummate delicacy, he finds them Herculean in strength and rough-hewn in style, the really delicate work being all put at the base. The general treatment of Romanesque work is to increase the _number_ of arches at the top, which at once enriches and lightens the mass, and to put the finest _sculpture_ of the arches at the bottom. In towers of all kinds and periods the _effective_ enrichment is towards the top, and most rightly, since their dignity is in their height; but they are never made the recipients of fine sculpture, with, as far as I know, the single exception of Giotto's campanile, which indeed has fine sculpture, _but it is at the bottom_. [Footnote 23: Nothing is more notable in good Gothic than the confidence of its builders in the respect of the people for their work. A great school of architecture cannot exist when this respect cannot be calculated upon, as it would be vain to put fine sculpture within the reach of a population whose only pleasure would be in defacing it.] [Footnote 24: The church to Abbeville is late flamboyant, but well deserves, for the exquisite beauty of its porches, to be named even with the great works of the thirteenth century.] The façade of Wells Cathedral seems to be an exception to the general rule, in having its principal decoration at the top; but it is on a scale of perfect power and effectiveness; while in the base modern Gothic of Milan Cathedral the statues are cut delicately everywhere, and the builders think it a merit that the visitor must climb to the roof before he can see them; and our modern Greek and Italian architecture reaches the utmost pitch of absurdity by placing its fine work _at the top only_. So that the general condition of the thing may be stated boldly, as in the text; the principal ornaments of Gothic buildings being in their porches, and of modern buildings, in their parapets. 68. Proposition 4th.--_Ornamentation should be natural_,--that is to say, should in some degree express or adopt the beauty of natural objects. This law, together with its ultimate reason, is expressed in the statement given in the "Stones of Venice," vol. i. p. 211: "All noble ornament is the expression of man's delight in God's work." Observe, it does not hence follow that it should be an exact imitation of, or endeavor in anywise to supersede, God's work. It may consist only in a partial adoption of, and compliance with, the usual forms of natural things, without at all going to the point of imitation; and it is possible that the point of imitation may be closely reached by ornaments, which nevertheless are entirely unfit for their place, and are the signs only of a degraded ambition and an ignorant dexterity. Bad decorators err as easily on the side of imitating nature, as of forgetting her; and the question of the exact degree in which imitation should be attempted under given circumstances, is one of the most subtle and difficult in the whole range of criticism. I have elsewhere examined it at some length, and have yet much to say about it; but here I can only state briefly that the modes in which ornamentation _ought_ to fall short of pure representation or imitation are in the main three, namely:-- A. Conventionalism by cause of color. B. Conventionalism by cause of inferiority. C. Conventionalism by cause of means. 69. A. Conventionalism by cause of color.--Abstract color is not an imitation of nature, but _is_ nature itself; that is to say, the pleasure taken in blue or red, as such, considered as hues merely, is the same, so long as the brilliancy of the hue is equal, whether it be produced by the chemistry of man, or the chemistry of flowers, or the chemistry of skies. We deal with color as with sound--so far ruling the power of the light, as we rule the power of the air, producing beauty not necessarily imitative, but sufficient in itself, so that, wherever color is introduced, ornamentation may cease to represent natural objects, and may consist in mere spots, or bands, or flamings, or any other condition of arrangement favorable to the color. 70. B. Conventionalism by cause of inferiority.--In general, ornamentation is set upon certain services, subjected to certain systems, and confined within certain limits; so that its forms require to be lowered or limited in accordance with the required relations. It cannot be allowed to assume the free outlines, or to rise to the perfection of imitation. Whole banks of flowers, for instance, cannot be carved on cathedral fronts, but only narrow moldings, having some of the characters of banks of flowers. Also, some ornaments require to be subdued in value, that they may not interfere with the effect of others; and all these necessary _inferiorities_ are attained by means of departing from natural forms--it being an established law of human admiration that what is most representative of nature shall, _cæteris paribus_, be most attractive. All the various kinds of ornamentation, consisting of spots, points, twisted bands, abstract curves, and other such, owe their peculiar character to this conventionalism "by cause of inferiority." 71. C. Conventionalism by cause of means.--In every branch of art, only so much imitation of nature is to be admitted as is consistent with the ease of the workman and the capacities of the material. Whatever shortcomings are appointed (for they are more than permitted, they are in such cases appointed, and meritorious) on account of the untractableness of the material, come under the head of "conventionalism by cause of means." These conventionalities, then, being duly understood and accepted, in modification of the general law, that law will be, that the glory of all ornamentation consists in the adoption or imitation of the beauties of natural objects, and that no work can be of high value which is not full of this beauty. To this fourth proposition, modern architects have not ventured to make any serious resistance. On the contrary, they seem to be, little by little, gliding into an obscure perception of the fact, that architecture, in most periods of the world, had sculpture upon it, and that the said sculpture generally did represent something intelligible. For instance, we find Mr. Huggins, of Liverpool, lately lecturing upon architecture "in its relations to nature and the intellect,"[25] and gravely informing his hearers, that "in the Middle Ages angels were human figures;" that "some of the richest ornaments of Solomon's temple were imitated from the palm and pomegranate," and that "the Greeks followed the example of the Egyptians in selecting their ornaments from the _plants_ of their own country." It is to be presumed that the lecturer has never been in the Elgin or Egyptian room of the British Museum, or it might have occurred to him that the Egyptians and Greeks sometimes also selected their ornaments from the _men_ of their own country. But we must not expect too much illumination at once; and as we are told that, in conclusion, Mr. Huggins glanced at "the error of architects in neglecting the fountain of wisdom thus open to them in nature," we may expect in due time large results from the discovery of a source of wisdom so unimagined. [Footnote 25: See "The Builder," for January 12, 1854.] 72. Proposition 5th.--_Ornamentation should be thoughtful._ That is to say, whenever you put a chisel or a pencil into a man's hand for the purpose of enabling him to produce beauty, you are to expect of him that he will think about what he is doing, and feel something about it, and that the expression of this thought or feeling will be the most noble quality in what he produces with his chisel or brush, inasmuch as the power of thinking and feeling is the most noble thing in the man. It will hence follow that as men do not commonly think the same thoughts twice, you are not to require of them that they shall do the same thing twice. You are to expect another and a different thought of them, as soon as one thought has been well expressed. 73. Hence, therefore, it follows also that all noble ornamentation is perpetually varied ornamentation, and that the moment you find ornamentation unchanging, you may know that it is of a degraded kind or degraded school. To this law, the only exceptions arise out of the uses of monotony, as a contrast to change. Many subordinate architectural moldings are severely alike in their various parts (though never unless they are thoroughly subordinate, for monotony is always deathful according to the degree of it), in order to set off change in others; and a certain monotony or similarity must be introduced among the most changeful ornaments in order to enhance and exhibit their own changes. The truth of this proposition is self-evident; for no art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change. To require of an artist that he should always reproduce the same picture, would be not one whit more base than to require of a carver that he should always reproduce the same sculpture. The principle is perfectly clear and altogether incontrovertible. Apply it to modern Greek architecture, and that architecture must cease to exist; for it depends absolutely on copyism. 74. The sixth proposition above stated, that _Gothic ornamentation is nobler than Greek ornamentation_, etc., is therefore sufficiently proved by the acceptance of this one principle, no less important than unassailable. Of all that I have to bring forward respecting architecture, this is the one I have most at heart; for on the acceptance of this depends the determination whether the workman shall be a living, progressive, and happy human being, or whether he shall be a mere machine, with its valves smoothed by heart's blood instead of oil,--the most pitiable form of slave. And it is with especial reference to the denial of this principle in modern and Renaissance architecture, that I speak of that architecture with a bitterness which appears to many readers extreme, while in reality, so far from exaggerating, I have not grasp enough of thought to embrace, the evils which have resulted among all the orders of European society from the introduction of the Renaissance schools of building, in turning away the eyes of the beholder from natural beauty, and reducing the workman to the level of a machine. In the Gothic times, writing, painting, carving, casting,--it mattered not what,--were all works done by thoughtful and happy men; and the illumination of the volume, and the carving and casting of wall and gate, employed, not thousands, but millions, of true and noble _artists_ over all Christian lands. Men in the same position are now left utterly without intellectual power or pursuit, and, being unhappy in their work, they rebel against it: hence one of the worst forms of Unchristian Socialism. So again, there being now no nature or variety in architecture, the multitude are not interested in it; therefore, for the present, they have lost their taste for art altogether, so that you can no longer trust sculpture within their reach. Consider the innumerable forms of evil involved in the temper and taste of the existing populace of London or Paris, as compared with the temper of the populace of Florence, when the quarter of Santa Maria Novella received its title of "Joyful Quarter," from the rejoicings of the multitude at getting a new picture into their church, better than the old ones;--all this difference being exclusively chargeable on the Renaissance architecture. And then, farther, if we remember, not only the revolutionary ravage of sacred architecture, but the immeasurably greater destruction effected by the Renaissance builders and their satellites, wherever they came, destruction so wide-spread that there is not a town in France or Italy but it has to deplore the deliberate overthrow of more than half its noblest monuments, in order to put up Greek porticoes or palaces in their stead; adding also all the blame of the ignorance of the meaner kind of men, operating in thousands of miserable abuses upon the frescoes, books, and pictures, as the architects' hammers did on the carved work, of the Middle Ages;[26] and, finally, if we examine the influence which the luxury, and, still more, the heathenism, joined with the essential dullness of these schools, have had on the upper class of society, it will ultimately be found that no expressions are energetic enough to describe, nor broad enough to embrace, the enormous moral evils which have risen from them. [Footnote 26: Nothing appears to me much more wonderful, than the remorseless way in which the educated ignorance, even of the present day, will sweep away an ancient monument, if its preservation be not absolutely consistent with immediate convenience or economy. Putting aside all antiquarian considerations, and all artistical ones, I wish that people would only consider the steps and the weight of the following very simple argument. You allow it is wrong to waste time, that is, your own time; but then it must be still more wrong to waste other people's; for you have some right to your own time, but none to theirs. Well, then, if it is thus wrong to waste the time of the living, it must be still more wrong to waste the time of the dead; for the living can redeem their time, the dead cannot. But you waste the best of the time of the dead when you destroy the works they have left you; for to those works they gave the best of their time, intending them for immortality.] 75. I omitted, in preparing the preceding lecture for the press, a passage referring to this subject, because it appeared to me, in its place, hardly explained by preceding statements. But I give it here unaltered, as being, in sober earnest, but too weak to characterize the tendencies of the "accursed" architecture of which it speaks. "Accursed, I call it, with deliberate purpose. It needed but the gathering up of a Babylonish garment to trouble Israel;--these marble garments of the ancient idols of the Gentiles, how many have _they_ troubled! Gathered out of their ruins by the second Babylon,--gathered by the Papal Church in the extremity of her sin;--raised up by her, not when she was sending forth her champions to preach in the highway, and pine in the desert, and perish in the fire, but in the very scarlet fruitage and fullness of her guilt, when her priests vested themselves not with purple only, but with blood, and bade the cups of their feasting foam not with wine only, but with hemlock;--raised by the hands of the Leos and the Borgias, raised first into that mighty temple where the seven hills slope to the Tiber, that marks by its massy dome the central spot, where Rome has reversed the words of Christ, and, as He vivified the stone to the apostleship, she petrifies the apostleship into the stumbling stone;--exalted there first as if to mark what work it had to do, it went forth to paralyze or to pollute, and wherever it came, the luster faded from the streets of our cities, the gray towers and glorious arches of our abbeys fell by the river sides, the love of nature was uprooted from the hearts of men, base luxuries and cruel formalisms were festered and frozen into them from their youth; and at last, where, from his fair Gothic chapel beside the Seine, the king St. Louis had gone forth, followed by his thousands in the cause of Christ, another king was dragged forth from the gates of his Renaissance palace,[27] to die, by the hands of the thousands of his people gathered in another crusade; or what shall that be called--whose sign was not the cross, but the guillotine?" [Footnote 27: The character of Renaissance architecture, and the spirit which dictated its adoption, may be remembered as having been centered and symbolized in the palace of Versailles; whose site was chosen by Louis the Fourteenth, in order that from thence he might _not_ see St. Denis, the burial-place of his family. The cost of the palace in twenty-seven years is stated in "The Builder," for March 18th, 1854, to have been £3,246,000 money of that period, equal to about seven millions now (£900,000 having been expended in the year 1686 alone). The building is thus notably illustrative of the two feelings which were stated in the "Stones of Venice," to be peculiarly characteristic of the Renaissance spirit, the Pride of State and Fear of Death. Compare the horror of Louis the Fourteenth at the sight of the tower of St. Denis, with the feeling which prompted the Scaligeri at Verona to set their tombs within fifteen feet of their palace walls.] 76. I have not space here to pursue the subject farther, nor shall I be able to write anything more respecting architecture for some time to come. But in the meanwhile, I would most earnestly desire to leave with the reader this one subject of thought--"_The Life of the Workman._" For it is singular, and far more than singular, that among all the writers who have attempted to examine the principles stated in the "Stones of Venice," not one[28] has as yet made a single comment on what was precisely and accurately the most important chapter in the whole book; namely, the description of the nature of Gothic architecture, as involving the liberty of the workman (vol. ii. ch. vi.). I had hoped that whatever might be the prejudices of modern architects, there would have been found some among them quicksighted enough to see the bearings of this principle, and generous enough to support it. There has hitherto stood forward not _one_. [Footnote 28: An article in _Fraser's Magazine_, which has appeared since these sheets were sent to press, forms a solitary exception.] But my purpose must at last be accomplished for all this. The laborer among the gravestones of our modern architecture must yet be raised up, and become a living soul. Before he can be thus raised, the whole system of Greek architecture, as practiced in the present day, must be annihilated; but it _will_ be annihilated, and that speedily. For truth and judgment are its declared opposites, and against these nothing ever finally prevailed, or shall prevail. LECTURE III. TURNER AND HIS WORKS. _Delivered November 15, 1853._ 77. My object this evening is not so much to give you any account of the works or the genius of the great painter whom we have so lately lost (which it would require rather a year than an hour to do), as to give you some idea of the position which his works hold with respect to the landscape of other periods, and of the general condition and prospects of the landscape art of the present day. I will not lose time in prefatory remarks, as I have little enough at any rate, but will enter abruptly on my subject. 78. You are all of you well aware that landscape seems hardly to have exercised any strong influence, as such, on any pagan nation or pagan artist. I have no time to enter into any details on this, of course, most intricate and difficult subject; but I will only ask you to observe, that wherever natural scenery is alluded to by the ancients, it is either agriculturally, with the kind of feeling that a good Scotch farmer has; sensually, in the enjoyment of sun or shade, cool winds or sweet scents; fearfully, in a mere vulgar dread of rocks and desolate places, as compared with the comfort of cities; or, finally, superstitiously, in the personification or deification of natural powers, generally with much degradation of their impressiveness, as in the paltry fables of Ulysses receiving the winds in bags from Æolus, and of the Cyclops hammering lightning sharp at the ends, on an anvil.[29] Of course, you will here and there find feeble evidences of a higher sensibility, chiefly, I think, in Plato, Æschylus, Aristophanes, and Virgil. Homer, though in the epithets he applies to landscape always thoroughly graphic, uses the same epithet for rocks, seas, and trees, from one end of his poem to the other, evidently without the smallest interest in anything of the kind; and in the mass of heathen writers, the absence of sensation on these subjects is singularly painful. For instance, in that, to my mind, most disgusting of all so-called poems, the Journey to Brundusium, you remember that Horace takes exactly as much interest in the scenery he is passing through as Sancho Panza would have done. [Footnote 29: Of course I do not mean by calling these fables "paltry," to dispute their neatness, ingenuity, or moral depth; but only their want of apprehension of the extent and awfulness of the phenomena introduced. So also, in denying Homer's interest in nature, I do not mean to deny his accuracy of observation, or his power of seizing on the main points of landscape, but I deny the power of landscape over his heart, unless when closely associated with, and altogether subordinate to, some human interest.] 79. You will find, on the other hand, that the language of the Bible is specifically distinguished from all other early literature, by its delight in natural imagery; and that the dealings of God with His people are calculated peculiarly to awaken this sensibility within them. Out of the monotonous valley of Egypt they are instantly taken into the midst of the mightiest mountain scenery in the peninsula of Arabia; and that scenery is associated in their minds with the immediate manifestation and presence of the Divine Power; so that mountains forever afterwards become invested with a peculiar sacredness in their minds: while their descendants being placed in what was then one of the loveliest districts upon the earth, full of glorious vegetation, bounded on one side by the sea, on the north by "that goodly mountain" Lebanon, on the south and east by deserts, whose barrenness enhanced by their contrast the sense of the perfection of beauty in their own land, they became, by these means, and by the touch of God's own hand upon their hearts, sensible to the appeal of natural scenery in a way in which no other people were at the time. And their literature is full of expressions, not only testifying a vivid sense of the power of nature over man, but showing that _sympathy with natural things themselves_, as if they had human souls, which is the especial characteristic of true love of the works of God. I intended to have insisted on this sympathy at greater length, but I found, only two or three days ago, much of what I had to say to you anticipated in a little book, unpretending, but full of interest, "The Lamp and the Lantern," by Dr. James Hamilton; and I will therefore only ask you to consider such expressions as that tender and glorious verse in Isaiah, speaking of the cedars on the mountains as rejoicing over the fall of the king of Assyria: "Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since _thou_ art gone down to the grave, no feller is come up against us." See what sympathy there is here, as if with the very hearts of the trees themselves. So also in the words of Christ, in His personification of the lilies: "They toil not, neither do they spin." Consider such expressions as, "The sea saw that, and fled. Jordan was driven back. The mountains skipped like rams; and the little hills like lambs." Try to find anything in profane writing like this; and note farther that the whole book of Job appears to have been chiefly written and placed in the inspired volume in order to show the value of natural history, and its power on the human heart. I cannot pass by it without pointing out the evidences of the beauty of the country that Job inhabited.[30] Observe, first, it was an arable country. "The oxen were plowing and the asses feeding beside them." It was a pastoral country: his substance, besides camels and asses, was 7,000 sheep. It was a mountain country, fed by streams descending from the high snows. "My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away; which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid: What time they wax warm they vanish: when it is hot they are consumed out of their place." Again: "If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean." Again: "Drought and heat consume the snow waters." It was a rocky country, with forests and verdure rooted in the rocks. "His branch shooteth forth in his garden; his roots are wrapped about the heap, and seeth the place of stones." Again: "Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field." It was a place visited, like the valleys of Switzerland, by convulsions and falls of mountains. "Surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place. The waters wear the stones; thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth." "He removeth the mountains and they know not: he overturneth them in his anger." "He putteth forth his hand upon the rock: he overturneth the mountains by the roots: he cutteth out rivers among the rocks." I have not time to go farther into this; but you see Job's country was one like your own, full of pleasant brooks and rivers, rushing among the rocks, and of all other sweet and noble elements of landscape. The magnificent allusions to natural scenery throughout the book are therefore calculated to touch the heart to the end of time. [Footnote 30: This passage, respecting the book of Job, was omitted in the delivery of the Lecture, for want of time.] 80. Then at the central point of Jewish prosperity, you have the first great naturalist the world ever saw, Solomon; not permitted, indeed, to anticipate, in writing, the discoveries of modern times, but so gifted as to show us that heavenly wisdom is manifested as much in the knowledge of the hyssop that springeth out of the wall as in political and philosophical speculation. The books of the Old Testament, as distinguished from all other early writings, are thus prepared for an everlasting influence over humanity; and, finally, Christ himself, setting the concluding example to the conduct and thoughts of men, spends nearly His whole life in the fields, the mountains, or the small country villages of Judea; and in the very closing scenes of His life, will not so much as sleep within the walls of Jerusalem, but rests at the little village of Bethphage, walking in the morning, and returning in the evening, through the peaceful avenues of the Mount of Olives, to and from His work of teaching in the temple. 81. It would thus naturally follow, both from the general tone and teaching of the Scriptures, and from the example of our Lord himself, that wherever Christianity was preached and accepted, there would be an immediate interest awakened in the works of God, as seen in the natural world: and, accordingly, this is the second universal and distinctive character of Christian art, as distinguished from all pagan work; the first being a peculiar spirituality in its conception of the human form, preferring holiness of expression and strength of character, to beauty of features or of body; and the second, as I say, its intense fondness for natural objects--animals, leaves, and flowers,--inducing an immediate transformation of the cold and lifeless pagan ornamentation into vivid imagery of nature. Of course this manifestation of feeling was at first checked by the circumstances under which the Christian religion was disseminated. The art of the first three centuries is entirely subordinate,--restrained partly by persecution, partly by a high spirituality, which cared much more about preaching than painting; and then when, under Constantine, Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire, myriads of persons gave the aid of their wealth and of their art to the new religion, who were Christians in nothing but the name, and who decorated a Christian temple just as they would have decorated a pagan one, merely because the new religion had become Imperial. Then, just as the new art was beginning to assume a distinctive form, down came the northern barbarians upon it; and all their superstitions had to be leavened with it, and all their hard hands and hearts softened by it, before their art could appear in anything like a characteristic form. The warfare in which Europe was perpetually plunged retarded this development for ages; but it steadily and gradually prevailed, working from the eighth to the eleventh century like a seed in the ground, showing little signs of life, but still, if carefully examined, changing essentially every day and every hour: at last, in the twelfth century the blade appears above the black earth; in the thirteenth, the plant is in full leaf. 82. I begin, then, with the thirteenth century, and must now make to you a general assertion, which, if you will note down and examine at your leisure, you will find true and useful, though I have not time at present to give you full demonstration of it. I say, then, that the art of the thirteenth century is the foundation of all art--nor merely the foundation, but the root of it; that is to say, succeeding art is not merely built upon it, but was all comprehended in it, and is developed out of it. Passing this great century, we find three successive branches developed from it, in each of the three following centuries. The fourteenth century is pre-eminently the age of _Thought_, the fifteenth the age of _Drawing_, and the sixteenth the age of _Painting_. 83. Observe, first, the fourteenth century is pre-eminently the age of thought. It begins with the first words of the poem of Dante; and all the great pictorial poems--the mighty series of works in which everything is done to relate, but nothing to imitate--belong to this century. I should only confuse you by giving you the names of marvelous artists, most of them little familiar to British ears, who adorned this century in Italy; but you will easily remember it as the age of Dante and Giotto--the age of _Thought_. The men of the succeeding century (the fifteenth) felt that they could not rival their predecessors in invention, but might excel them in execution. Original thoughts belonging to this century are comparatively rare; even Raphael and Michael Angelo themselves borrowed all their principal ideas and plans of pictures from their predecessors; but they executed them with a precision up to that time unseen. You must understand by the word "drawing," the perfect rendering of forms, whether in sculpture or painting; and then remember the fifteenth century as the age of Leonardo, Michael Angelo, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Raphael--pre-eminently the age of _Drawing_. [Illustration: PLATE XIII. (Fig. 20., Fig. 21.)] The sixteenth century produced the four greatest _Painters_, that is to say, managers of color, whom the world has seen; namely, Tintoret, Paul Veronese, Titian, and Correggio. I need not say more to justify my calling it the age of _Painting_. 84. This, then, being the state of things respecting art in general, let us next trace the career of landscape through these centuries. It was only towards the close of the thirteenth century that figure painting began to assume so perfect a condition as to require some elaborate suggestion of landscape background. Up to that time, if any natural object had to be represented, it was done in an entirely conventional way, as you see it upon Greek vases, or in a Chinese porcelain pattern; an independent tree or flower being set upon the white ground, or ground of any color, wherever there was a vacant space for it, without the smallest attempt to imitate the real colors and relations of the earth and sky about it. But at the close of the thirteenth century, Giotto, and in the course of the fourteenth, Orcagna, sought, for the first time, to give some resemblance to nature in their backgrounds, and introduced behind their figures pieces of true landscape, formal enough still, but complete in intention, having foregrounds and distances, sky and water, forests and mountains, carefully delineated, not exactly in their true color, but yet in color approximating to the truth. The system which they introduced (for though in many points enriched above the work of earlier ages, the Orcagna and Giotto landscape was a very complete piece of recipe) was observed for a long period by their pupils, and may be thus briefly described:--The sky is always pure blue, paler at the horizon, and with a few streaky white clouds in it, the ground is green even to the extreme distance, with brown rocks projecting from it; water is blue streaked with white. The trees are nearly always composed of clusters of their proper leaves relieved on a black or dark ground, thus (_fig._ 20).[31] And observe carefully, with respect to the complete drawing of the leaves on this tree, and the smallness of their number, the real distinction between noble conventionalism and false conventionalism. You will often hear modern architects defending their monstrous ornamentation on the ground that it is "conventional," and that architectural ornament ought to be conventionalized. Remember, when you hear this, that noble conventionalism is not an agreement between the artist and spectator that the one shall misrepresent nature sixty times over, and the other believe the misrepresentation sixty times over, but it is an agreement that certain means and limitations being prescribed, only that _kind of truth_ is to be expected which is consistent with those means. For instance, if Sir Joshua Reynolds had been talking to a friend about the character of a face, and there had been nothing in the room but a deal table and an inkbottle--and no pens--Sir Joshua would have dipped his finger in the ink, and painted a portrait on the table with his finger, and a noble portrait too; certainly not delicate in outline, nor representing any of the qualities of the face dependent on rich outline, but getting as much of the face as in that manner was attainable. That is noble conventionalism, and Egyptian work on granite, or illuminator's work in glass, is all conventional in the same sense, but not conventionally false. The two noblest and truest carved lions I have ever seen, are the two granite ones in the Egyptian room of the British Museum, and yet in them, the lions' manes and beards are represented by rings of solid rock, as smooth as a mirror! [Footnote 31: Having no memoranda of my own, taken from Giotto's landscape, I had this tree copied from an engraving; but I imagine the rude termination of the stems to be a misrepresentation. Fig. 21 is accurately copied from a MS., certainly executed between 1250 and 1270, and is more truly characteristic of the early manner.] 85. There are indeed one or two other conditions of noble conventionalism, notice more fully in the Addenda (§§ 68-71); but you will find that they always consist in _stopping short_ of nature, not in falsifying nature; and thus in Giotto's foliage, he _stops short_ of the quantity of leaves on the real tree, but he gives you the form of the leaves represented with perfect truth. His foreground also is nearly always occupied by flowers and herbage, carefully and individually painted from nature; while, although thus simple in plan, the arrangements of line in these landscapes of course show the influence of the master-mind, and sometimes, where the story requires it, we find the usual formulæ overleaped, and Giotto at Avignon painting the breakers of the sea on a steep shore with great care, while Orcagna, in his Triumph of Death, has painted a thicket of brambles mixed with teazles, in a manner worthy of the best days of landscape art. [Illustration: PLATE XIV. (Fig. 22.)] 86. Now from the landscape of these two men to the landscape of Raphael, Leonardo, and Perugino, the advance consists principally in two great steps: The first, that distant objects were more or less invested with a blue color,--the second, that trees were no longer painted with a black ground, but with a rich dark brown, or deep green. From Giotto's old age, to the youth of Raphael, the advance in, and knowledge of, landscape, consisted of no more than these two simple steps; but the _execution_ of landscape became infinitely more perfect and elaborate. All the flowers and leaves in the foreground were worked out with the same perfection as the features of the figures; in the middle distance the brown trees were most delicately defined against the sky; the blue mountains in the extreme distance were exquisitely thrown into aërial gradations, and the sky and clouds were perfect in transparency and softness. But still there is no real advance in knowledge of natural objects. The leaves and flowers are, indeed, admirably painted, and thrown into various intricate groupings, such as Giotto could not have attempted, but the rocks and water are still as conventional and imperfect as ever, except only in color: the forms of rock in Leonardo's celebrated "Vierge aux Rochers" are literally no better than those on a china plate. _Fig._ 22 shows a portion of them in mere outline, with one cluster of the leaves above, and the distant "ideal" mountains. On the whole, the most satisfactory work of the period is that which most resembles missal painting, that is to say, which is fullest of beautiful flowers and animals scattered among the landscape, in the old independent way, like the birds upon a screen. The landscape of Benozzo Gozzoli is exquisitely rich in incident of this kind. 87. The first man who entirely broke through the conventionality of his time, and painted pure landscape, was Masaccio, but he died too young to effect the revolution of which his genius was capable. It was left for other men to accomplish, namely, for Correggio and Titian. These two painters were the first who relieved the foregrounds of their landscape from the grotesque, quaint, and crowded formalism of the early painters; and gave a close approximation to the forms of nature in all things; retaining, however, thus much of the old system, that the distances were for the most part painted in deep ultramarine blue, the foregrounds in rich green and brown; there were no effects of sunshine and shadow, but a generally quiet glow over the whole scene; and the clouds, though now rolling in irregular masses, and sometimes richly involved among the hills, were never varied in conception, or studied from nature. There were no changes of weather in them, no rain clouds or fair-weather clouds, nothing but various shapes of the cumulus or cirrus, introduced for the sake of light on the deep blue sky. Tintoret and Bonifazio introduced more natural effects into this monotonous landscape: in their works we meet with showers of rain, with rainbows, sunsets, bright reflections in water, and so on; but still very subordinate, and carelessly worked out, so as not to justify us in considering their landscape as forming a class by itself. [Illustration: PLATE XV. (Fig. 23.)] 88. _Fig._ 23, which is a branch of a tree from the background of Titian's "St. Jerome," at Milan, compared with _fig._ 20, will give you a distinct idea of the kind of change which took place from the time of Giotto to that of Titian, and you will find that this whole range of landscape may be conveniently classed in three divisions, namely, _Giottesque_, _Leonardesque_, and _Titianesque_; the Giottesque embracing nearly all the work of the fourteenth, the Leonardesque that of the fifteenth, and the Titianesque that of the sixteenth century. Now you see there remained a fourth step to be taken,--the doing away with conventionalism altogether, so as to create the perfect art of landscape painting. The course of the mind of Europe was to do this; but at the very moment when it ought to have been done, the art of all civilized nations was paralyzed at once by the operation of the poisonous elements of infidelity and classical learning together, as I have endeavored to show elsewhere. In this paralysis, like a soldier shot as he is just gaining an eminence, the art of the seventeenth century struggled forward, and sank upon the spot it had been endeavoring to attain. The step which should have freed landscape from conventionalism was actually taken by Claude and Salvator Rosa, but taken in a state of palsy,--taken so as to lose far more than was gained. For up to this time, no painter ever had thought of drawing anything, pebble or blade of grass, or tree or mountain, but as well and distinctly as he could; and if he could not draw it completely, he drew it at least in a way which should thoroughly show his knowledge and feeling of it. For instance, you saw in the oak tree of the Giottesque period, that the main points of the tree, the true shape of leaf and acorn, were all there, perfectly and carefully articulated, and so they continued to be down to the time of Tintoret; both he and Titian working out the separate leaves of their foliage with the most exquisite botanical care. But now observe: as Christianity had brought this love of nature into Paganism, the return of Paganism in the shape of classical learning at once destroyed this love of nature; and at the moment when Claude and Salvator made the final effort to paint the _effects_ of nature faithfully, the _objects_ of nature had ceased to be regarded with affection; so that, while people were amused and interested by the new effects of sunsets over green seas, and of tempests bursting on rocky mountains, which were introduced by the rising school, they entirely ceased to require on the one side, or bestow on the other, that care and thought by which alone the beauty of nature can be understood. The older painting had resembled a careful and deeply studied diagram, illustrative of the most important facts; it was not to be understood or relished without application of serious thought; on the contrary, it developed and addressed the highest powers of mind belonging to the human race; while the Claude and Salvator painting was like a scene in a theater, viciously and falsely painted throughout, and presenting a deceptive appearance of truth to nature; understood, as far as it went, in a moment, but conveying no accurate knowledge of anything, and, in all its operations on the mind, unhealthy, hopeless, and profitless. 89. It was, however, received with avidity; for this main reason, that the architecture, domestic life, and manners of the period were gradually getting more and more artificial; as I showed you last evening, all natural beauty had ceased to be permitted in architectural decoration, while the habits of society led them more and more to live, if possible, in cities; and the dress, language, and manners of men in general were approximating to that horrible and lifeless condition in which you find them just before the outbreak of the French Revolution. Now, observe: exactly as hoops, and starch, and false hair, and all that in mind and heart these things typify and betray, as these, I say, gained upon men, there was a necessary reaction in favor of the _natural_. Men had never lived so utterly in defiance of the laws of nature before; but they could not do this without feeling a strange charm in that which they defied; and, accordingly, we find this reactionary sentiment expressing itself in a base school of what was called _pastoral_ poetry; that is to say, poetry written in praise of the country, by men who lived in coffee-houses and on the Mall. The essence of pastoral poetry is the sense of strange delightfulness in grass, which is occasionally felt by a man who has seldom set his foot on it; it is essentially the poetry of the cockney, and for the most part corresponds in its aim and rank, as compared with other literature, to the porcelain shepherds and shepherdesses on a chimney-piece as compared with great works of sculpture. 90. Of course all good poetry, descriptive of rural life, is essentially pastoral, or has the effect of the pastoral on the minds of men living in cities; but the class of poetry which I mean, and which you probably understand by the term pastoral, is that in which a farmer's girl is spoken of as a "nymph," and a farmer's boy as a "swain," and in which, throughout, a ridiculous and unnatural refinement is supposed to exist in rural life, merely because the poet himself has neither had the courage to endure its hardships, nor the wit to conceive its realities. If you examine the literature of the 17th and 18th centuries you will find that nearly all its expressions, having reference to the country, show something of this kind; either a foolish sentimentality, or a morbid fear, both of course coupled with the most curious ignorance. You will find all its descriptive expressions at once vague and monotonous. Brooks are always "purling;" birds always "warbling;" mountains always "lift their horrid peaks above the clouds;" vales always "are lost in the shadow of gloomy woods;" a few more distinct ideas about hay-making and curds and cream, acquired in the neighborhood of Richmond Bridge, serving to give an occasional appearance of freshness to the catalogue of the sublime and beautiful which descended from poet to poet; while a few true pieces of pastoral, like the "Vicar of Wakefield," and Walton's "Angler," relieved the general waste of dullness. Even in these better productions, nothing is more remarkable than the general conception of the country merely as a series of green fields, and the combined ignorance and dread of more sublime scenery; of which the mysteries and dangers were enhanced by the difficulties of traveling at the period. Thus in Walton's "Angler," you have a meeting of two friends, one a Derbyshire man, the other a lowland traveler, who is as much alarmed, and uses nearly as many expressions of astonishment, at having to go down a steep hill and ford a brook, as a traveler uses now at crossing the glacier of the Col du Géant. I am not sure whether the difficulties which, until late years, have lain in the way of peaceful and convenient traveling, ought not to have great weight assigned to them among the other causes of the temper of the period; but be that as it may, if you will examine the whole range of its literature--keeping this point in view--I am well persuaded that you will be struck most forcibly by the strange deadness to the higher sources of landscape sublimity which is mingled with the morbid pastoralism. The love of fresh air and green grass forced itself upon the animal natures of men; but that of the sublimer features of scenery had no place in minds whose chief powers had been repressed by the formalisms of the age. And although in the second-rate writers continually, and in the first-rate ones occasionally, you find an affectation of interest in mountains, clouds, and forests, yet whenever they write from their heart, you will find an utter absence of feeling respecting anything beyond gardens and grass. Examine, for instance, the novels of Smollett, Fielding, and Sterne, the comedies of Molière, and the writings of Johnson and Addison, and I do not think you will find a single expression of true delight in sublime nature in any one of them. Perhaps Sterne's "Sentimental Journey," in its total absence of sentiment on any subject but humanity, and its entire want of notice of anything at Geneva, which might not as well have been seen at Coxwold, is the most striking instance I could give you; and if you compare with this negation of feeling on one side, the interludes of Molière, in which shepherds and shepherdesses are introduced in court dress, you will have a very accurate conception of the general spirit of the age. 91. It was in such a state of society that the landscape of Claude, Gaspar Poussin, and Salvator Rosa attained its reputation. It is the complete expression on canvas of the spirit of the time. Claude embodies the foolish pastoralism, Salvator the ignorant terror, and Gaspar the dull and affected erudition. It was, however, altogether impossible that this state of things could long continue. The age which had buried itself in formalism grew weary at last of the restraint; and the approach of a new era was marked by the appearance, and the enthusiastic reception, of writers who took true delight in those wild scenes of nature which had so long been despised. 92. I think the first two writers in whom the symptoms of a change are strongly manifested are Mrs. Radcliffe and Rousseau; in both of whom the love of natural scenery, though mingled in the one case with what was merely dramatic, and in the other with much that was pitifully morbid or vicious, was still itself genuine, and intense, differing altogether in character from any sentiments previously traceable in literature. And then rapidly followed a group of writers, who expressed, in various ways, the more powerful or more pure feeling which had now become one of the strongest instincts of the age. Of these, the principal is your own Walter Scott. Many writers, indeed, describe nature more minutely and more profoundly; but none show in higher intensity the peculiar passion for what is majestic or lovely in _wild_ nature, to which I am now referring. The whole of the poem of the "Lady of the Lake" is written with almost a boyish enthusiasm for rocks, and lakes, and cataracts; the early novels show the same instinct in equal strength wherever he approaches Highland scenery; and the feeling is mingled, observe, with a most touching and affectionate appreciation of the Gothic architecture, in which alone he found the elements of natural beauty seized by art; so that, to this day, his descriptions of Melrose and Holy Island Cathedral, in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" and "Marmion," as well as of the ideal abbeys in the "Monastery" and "Antiquary," together with those of Caerlaverock and Lochleven Castles in "Guy Mannering" and "The Abbot," remain the staple possessions and text-books of all travelers, not so much for their beauty or accuracy, as for their _exactly expressing that degree of feeling with which most men in this century can sympathize_. Together with Scott appeared the group of poets--Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, and, finally, Tennyson--differing widely in moral principles and spiritual temper, but all agreeing more or less in this love for natural scenery. 93. Now, you will ask me--and you will ask me most reasonably--how this love of nature in modern days can be connected with Christianity, seeing it is as strong in the infidel Shelley as in the sacred Wordsworth. Yes, and it is found in far worse men than Shelley. Shelley was an honest unbeliever, and a man of warm affections; but this new love of nature is found in the most reckless and unprincipled of the French novelists--in Eugène Sue, in Dumas, in George Sand--and that intensely. How is this? Simply because the feeling is reactionary; and, in this phase of it, common to the diseased mind as well as to the healthy one. A man dying in the fever of intemperance will cry out for water, and that with a bitterer thirst than a man whose healthy frame naturally delights in the mountain spring more than in the wine cup. The water is not dishonored by that thirst of the diseased, nor is nature dishonored by the love of the unworthy. That love is, perhaps, the only saving element in their minds; and it still remains an indisputable truth that the love of nature is a characteristic of the Christian heart, just as the hunger for healthy food is characteristic of the healthy frame. In order to meet this new feeling for nature, there necessarily arose a new school of landscape painting. That school, like the literature to which it corresponded, had many weak and vicious elements mixed with its noble ones; it had its Mrs. Radcliffes and Rousseaus, as well as its Wordsworths; but, on the whole, the feeling with which Robson drew mountains, and Prout architecture, with which Fielding draws moors, and Stanfield sea--is altogether pure, true, and precious, as compared with that which suggested the landscape of the seventeenth century. 94. Now observe, how simple the whole subject becomes. You have, first, your great ancient landscape divided into its three periods--Giottesque, Leonardesque, Titianesque. Then you have a great gap, full of nonentities and abortions; a gulf of foolishness, into the bottom of which you may throw Claude and Salvator, neither of them deserving to give a name to anything. Call it "pastoral" landscape, "guarda e passa," and then you have, lastly, the pure, wholesome, simple, modern landscape. You want a name for that: I will give you one in a moment; for the whole character and power of that landscape is originally based on the work of one man. 95. Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Maiden Lane, London, about eighty years ago. The register of his birth was burned, and his age at his death could only be arrived at by conjecture. He was the son of a barber; and his father intended him, very properly, for his own profession. The bent of the boy was, however, soon manifested, as is always the case in children of extraordinary genius, too strongly to be resisted; and a sketch of a coat of arms on a silver salver, made while his father was shaving a customer, obtained for him, in reluctant compliance with the admiring customer's advice, the permission to follow art as a profession. He had, of course, the usual difficulties of young artists to encounter, and they were then far greater than they are now. But Turner differed from most men in this,--that he was always willing to take anything to do that came in his way. He did not shut himself up in a garret to produce unsalable works of "high art," and starve, or lose his senses. He hired himself out every evening to wash in skies in Indian ink, on other people's drawings, as many as he could, at half-a-crown a-night, getting his supper into the bargain. "What could I have done better?" he said afterwards: "it was first-rate practice." Then he took to illustrating guide-books and almanacs, and anything that wanted cheap frontispieces. The Oxford Almanack, published on a single sheet, with a copper-plate at the top of it, consisting of a "View"--you perhaps, some of you, know the kind of print characteristic of the last century, under which the word "View" is always printed in large letters, with a dedication, obsequious to the very dust, to the Grand Signior of the neighborhood. Well, this Almanack had always such a view of some Oxford College at the top of it, dedicated, I think, always to the head of the College; and it owed this, its principal decoration, to Turner for many years. I have myself two careful drawings of some old seals, made by him for a local book on the antiquities of Whalley Abbey. And there was hardly a gentleman's seat of any importance in England, towards the close of the last century, of which you will not find some rude engraving in the local publications of the time, inscribed with the simple name "W. Turner." 96. There was another great difference between Turner and other men. In doing these drawings for the commonest publications of the day, and for a remuneration altogether contemptible, he never did his work badly because he thought it beneath him, or because he was ill-paid. There does not exist such a thing as a slovenly drawing by Turner. With what people were willing to give him for his work he was content; but he considered that work in its relation to himself, not in its relation to the purchaser. He took a poor price, that he might _live_; but he made noble drawings, that he might _learn_. Of course some are slighter than others, and they vary in their materials; those executed with pencil and Indian ink being never finished to the degree of those which are executed in color. But he is _never_ careless. According to the time and means at his disposal, he always did his best. He never let a drawing leave his hands without having made a step in advance, and having done better in it than he had ever done before; and there is no important drawing of the period which is not executed with a _total_ disregard of time and price, and which was not, even then, worth four or five times what Turner received for it. Even without genius, a man who thus felt and thus labored was sure to do great things; though it is seldom that, without great genius, men either thus feel or thus labor. Turner was as far beyond all other men in intellect as in industry; and his advance in power and grasp of thought was as steady as the increasing light of sunrise. 97. His reputation was soon so far established that he was able to devote himself to more consistent study. He never appears literally to have _copied_ any picture; but whenever any master interested him, or was of so established a reputation that he thought it necessary to study him, he painted pictures of his own subjects in the style of that master, until he felt himself able to rival his excellencies, whatever they were. There are thus multitudes of pictures by Turner which are direct imitations of other masters; especially of Claude, Wilson, Loutherbourg, Gaspar Poussin, Vandevelde, Cuyp, and Rembrandt. It has been argued by Mr. Leslie that, because Turner thus in his early years imitated many of the old masters, therefore he must to the end of his life have considered them greater than himself. The _non sequitur_ is obvious. I trust there are few men so unhappy as never to have learned anything from their inferiors; and I fear there are few men so wise as never to have imitated anything but what was deserving of imitation. The young Turner, indeed, would have been more than mortal if, in a period utterly devoid of all healthy examples of landscape art, he had been able at once to see his way to the attainment of his ultimate ends; or if, seeing it, he had felt himself at once strong enough to defy the authority of every painter and connoisseur whose style had formed the taste of the public, or whose dicta directed their patronage. 98. But the period when he both felt and resolved to assert his own superiority was indicated with perfect clearness, by his publishing a series of engravings, which were nothing else than direct challenges to Claude--then the landscape painter supposed to be the greatest in the world--upon his own ground and his own terms. You are probably all aware that the studies made by Claude for his pictures, and kept by him under the name of the "Liber Veritatis," were for the most part made with pen and ink, washed over with a brown tint; and that these drawings have been carefully facsimiled and published in the form of mezzotint engravings, long supposed to be models of taste in landscape composition. In order to provoke comparison between Claude and himself, Turner published a series of engravings, called the "Liber Studiorum," executed in exactly the same manner as these drawings of Claude,--an etching representing what was done with the pen, while mezzotint stood for color. You see the notable publicity of this challenge. Had he confined himself to _pictures_ in his trial of skill with Claude, it would only have been in the gallery or the palace that the comparison could have been instituted; but now it is in the power of all who are interested in the matter to make it at their ease.[32] [Footnote 32: When this lecture was delivered, an enlarged copy of a portion of one of these studies by Claude was set beside a similarly magnified portion of one by Turner. It was impossible, without much increasing the cost of the publication, to prepare two mezzotint engravings with the care requisite for this purpose; and the portion of the Lecture relating to these examples is therefore omitted. It is, however, in the power of every reader to procure one or more plates of each series; and to judge for himself whether the conclusion of Turner's superiority, which is assumed in the next sentence of the text, be a just one or not.] * * * * * 99. Now, what Turner did in contest with Claude, he did with every other then-known master of landscape, each in his turn. He challenged, and vanquished, each in his own peculiar field, Vandevelde on the sea, Salvator among rocks, and Cuyp on Lowland rivers; and, having done this, set himself to paint the natural scenery of skies, mountains, and lakes, which, until his time, had never been so much as attempted. He thus, in the extent of his sphere, far surpassed even Titian and Leonardo, the great men of the earlier schools. In their foreground work neither Titian nor Leonardo _could_ be excelled; but Titian and Leonardo were throughly conventional in all _but_ their foregrounds. Turner was equally great in all the elements of landscape, and it is on him, and on his daring additions to the received schemes of landscape art, that all modern landscape has been founded. You will never meet any truly great living landscape painter who will not at once frankly confess his obligations to Turner, not, observe, as having copied him, but as having been led by Turner to look in nature for what he would otherwise either not have discerned, or discerning, not have dared to represent. 100. Turner, therefore, was the first man who presented us with the _type_ of perfect landscape art: and the richness of that art, with which you are at present surrounded, and which enables you to open your walls as it were into so many windows, through which you can see whatever has charmed you in the fairest scenery of your country, you will do well to remember as _Turneresque_. So then you have these five periods to recollect--you will have no difficulty, I trust, in doing so,--the periods of Giotto, Leonardo, Titian, pastoralism, and Turner. 101. But Turner's work is yet only begun. His greatness is, as yet, altogether denied by many; and to the full, felt by very few. But every day that he lies in his grave will bring some new acknowledgment of his power; and through those eyes, now filled with dust, generations yet unborn will learn to behold the light of nature. You have some ground to-night to accuse me of dogmatism. I can bring no proof before you of what I so boldly assert. But I would not have accepted your invitation to address you, unless I had felt that I had a right to be, in this matter, dogmatic. I did not come here to tell you of my beliefs or my conjectures; I came to tell you the truth which I have given fifteen years of my life to ascertain, that this man, this Turner, of whom you have known so little while he was living among you, will one day take his place beside Shakespeare and Verulam, in the annals of the light of England. Yes: beside Shakespeare and Verulam, a third star in that central constellation, round which, in the astronomy of intellect, all other stars make their circuit. By Shakespeare, humanity was unsealed to you; by Verulam the _principles_ of nature; and by Turner, her _aspect_. All these were sent to unlock one of the gates of light, and to unlock it for the first time. But of all the three, though not the greatest, Turner was the most unprecedented in his work. Bacon did what Aristotle had attempted; Shakespeare did perfectly what Æschylus did partially; but none before Turner had lifted the veil from the face of nature; the majesty of the hills and forests had received no interpretation, and the clouds passed unrecorded from the face of the heaven which they adorned, and of the earth to which they ministered. 102. And now let me tell you something of his personal character. You have heard him spoken of as ill-natured, and jealous of his brother artists. I will tell you how jealous he was. I knew him for ten years, and during that time had much familiar intercourse with him. I _never once_ heard him say an unkind thing of a brother artist, and _I never once heard him find a fault_ with another man's work. I could say this of _no other_ artist whom I have ever known. But I will add a piece of evidence on this matter of peculiar force. Probably many here have read a book which has been lately published, to my mind one of extreme interest and value, the life of the unhappy artist, Benjamin Haydon. Whatever may have been his faults, I believe no person can read his journal without coming to the conclusion that his heart was honest, and that he does not _willfully_ misrepresent any fact, or any person. Even supposing otherwise, the expression I am going to quote to you would have all the more force, because, as you know, Haydon passed his whole life in war with the Royal Academy, of which Turner was one of the most influential members. Yet in the midst of one of his most violent expressions of exultation at one of his victories over the Academy, he draws back suddenly with these words:--"But Turner behaved well, and did me justice." 103. I will give you however besides, two plain facts illustrative of Turner's "jealousy." You have, perhaps not many of you, heard of a painter of the name of Bird: I do not myself know his works, but Turner saw some merit in them: and when Bird first sent a picture to the Academy, for exhibition, Turner was on the hanging committee. Bird's picture had great merit; but no place for it could be found. Turner pleaded hard for it. No, the thing was impossible. Turner sat down and looked at Bird's picture a long time; then insisted that a place must be found for it. He was still met by the assertion of impracticability. He said no more, but took down one of his own pictures, sent it out of the Academy, and hung Bird's in its place. Match that, if you can, among the annals of hanging committees. But he could do nobler things than this. 104. When Turner's picture of Cologne was exhibited in the year 1826, it was hung between two portraits, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, of Lady Wallscourt and Lady Robert Manners. The sky of Turner's picture was exceedingly bright, and it had a most injurious effect on the color of the two portraits. Lawrence naturally felt mortified, and complained openly of the position of his pictures. You are aware that artists were at that time permitted to retouch their pictures on the walls of the Academy. On the morning of the opening of the exhibition, at the private view, a friend of Turner's who had seen the Cologne in all its splendor, led a group of expectant critics up to the picture. He started back from it in consternation. The golden sky had changed to a dun color. He ran up to Turner, who was in another part of the room. "Turner, _what_ have you been doing to your picture?" "Oh," muttered Turner, in a low voice, "poor Lawrence was so unhappy. It's only lamp-black. It'll all wash off after the exhibition!" He had actually passed a wash of lamp-black in water-color over the whole sky, and utterly spoiled his picture for the time, and so left it through the exhibition, lest it should hurt Lawrence's. You may easily find instances of self-sacrifice where men have strong motives, and where large benefits are to be conferred by the effort, or general admiration obtained by it; but of pure, unselfish, and perfect generosity, showing itself in a matter of minor interest, and when few could be aware of the sacrifice made, you will not easily find such another example as this. 105. Thus much for his jealousy of his brother-artists. You have also heard much of his niggardliness in money transactions. A great part of what you have heard is perfectly true, allowing for the exaggeration which always takes place in the accounts of an eccentric character. But there are other parts of Turner's conduct of which you have never heard; and which, if truly reported, would set his niggardliness in a very different light. Every person from whom Turner exacted a due shilling, proclaimed the exaction far and wide; but the persons to whom Turner gave hundreds of pounds were prevented, by their "delicacy," from reporting the kindness of their benefactor. I may, however, perhaps, be permitted to acquaint you with one circumstance of this nature, creditable alike to both parties concerned. At the death of a poor drawing master, Mr. Wells,[33] whom Turner had long known, he was deeply affected, and lent money to the widow until a large sum had accumulated. She was both honest and grateful, and after a long period was happy enough to be able to return to her benefactor the whole sum she had received from him. She waited on him with it; but Turner kept his hands in his pockets. "Keep it," he said, "and send your children to school, and to church." He said this in bitterness; he had himself been sent to neither. [Footnote 33: Not the Mr. Wells who taught drawing at Addiscombe. It appears that Turner knew two persons of the same name, and in the same profession. I am not permitted to name my authority for the anecdote; various egotistic "delicacies," even in this case, preventing useful truth from being clearly assured to the public.] 106. "Well, but," you will answer to me, "we have heard Turner all our lives stigmatized as brutal, and uncharitable, and selfish, and miserly. How are we to understand these opposing statements?" Easily. I have told you truly what Turner was. You have often heard what to most people he appeared to be. Imagine what it was for a man to live seventy years in this hard world, with the kindest heart, and the noblest intellect of his time, and never to meet with a single word or ray of sympathy, until he felt himself sinking into the grave. From the time he knew his true greatness all the world was turned against him: he held his own; but it could not be without roughness of bearing, and hardening of the temper, if not of the heart. No one understood him, no one trusted him, and every one cried out against him. Imagine, any of you, the effect upon your own minds, if every voice that you heard from the human beings around you were raised, year after year, through all your lives, only in condemnation of your efforts, and denial of your success. This may be borne, and borne easily, by men who have fixed religious principles, or supporting domestic ties. But Turner had no one to teach him in his youth, and no one to love him in his old age. Respect and affection, if they came at all, came unbelieved, or came too late. Naturally irritable, though kind--naturally suspicious, though generous--the gold gradually became dim, and the most fine gold changed, or, if not changed, overcast and clouded. The deep heart was still beating, but it was beneath a dark and melancholy mail, between whose joints, however, sometimes the slightest arrows found entrance, and power of giving pain. He received no consolation in his last years, nor in his death. Cut off in great part from all society--first, by labor, and at last by sickness--hunted to his grave by the malignities of small critics, and the jealousies of hopeless rivalry, he died in the house of a stranger--one companion of his life, and one only, staying with him to the last. The window of his death-chamber was turned towards the west, and the _sun_ shone upon his face in its setting, and rested there, as he expired. LECTURE IV. PRE-RAPHAELITISM. _Delivered November 18, 1853._ 107. The subject on which I would desire to engage your attention this evening, is the nature and probable result of a certain schism which took place a few years ago among our British artists. This schism, or rather the heresy which led to it, as you are probably aware, was introduced by a small number of very young men; and consists mainly in the assertion that the principles on which art has been taught for these three hundred years back are essentially wrong, and that the principles which ought to guide us are those which prevailed before the time of Raphael; in adopting which, therefore, as their guides, these young men, as a sort of bond of unity among themselves, took the unfortunate and somewhat ludicrous name of "Pre-Raphaelite Brethren." 108. You must also be aware that this heresy has been opposed with all the influence and all the bitterness of art and criticism; but that in spite of these the heresy has gained ground, and the pictures painted on these new principles have obtained a most extensive popularity. These circumstances are sufficiently singular, but their importance is greater even than their singularity; and your time will certainly not be wasted in devoting an hour to an inquiry into the true nature of this movement. I shall first, therefore, endeavor to state to you what the real difference is between the principles of art before and after Raphael's time, and then to ascertain, with you, how far these young men truly have understood the difference, and what may be hoped or feared from the effort they are making. 109. First, then, What is the real difference between the principles on which art has been pursued before and since Raphael? You must be aware, that the principal ground on which the Pre-Raphaelites have been attacked, is the charge that they wish to bring us back to a time of darkness and ignorance, when the principles of drawing, and of art in general, were comparatively unknown; and this attack, therefore, is entirely founded on the assumption that, although for some unaccountable reason we cannot at present produce artists altogether equal to Raphael, yet that we are on the whole in a state of greater illumination than, at all events, any artists who preceded Raphael; so that we consider ourselves entitled to look down upon them, and to say that, all things considered, they did some wonderful things for their time; but that, as for comparing the art of Giotto to that of Wilkie or Edwin Landseer, it would be perfectly ridiculous,--the one being a mere infant in his profession, and the others accomplished workmen. Now, that this progress has in some things taken place is perfectly true; but it is true also that this progress is by no means the main thing to be noticed respecting ancient and modern art; that there are other circumstances, connected with the change from one to the other, immeasurably more important, and which, until very lately, have been altogether lost sight of. 110. The fact is, that modern art is not so much distinguished from old art by greater skill, as by a radical change in temper. The art of this day is not merely a more _knowing_ art than that of the thirteenth century,--it is altogether another art. Between the two there is a great gulf, a distinction forever ineffaceable. The change from one to the other was not that of the child into the man, as we usually consider it; it was that of the chrysalis into the butterfly. There was an entire change in the habits, food, method of existence, and heart of the whole creature. That we know more than thirteenth century people is perfectly true; but that is not the essential difference between us and them. We are different kind of creatures from them,--as different as moths are different from caterpillars; and different in a certain broad and vast sense, which I shall try this evening to explain and prove to you;--different not merely in this or that result of minor circumstances,--not as you are different from people who never saw a locomotive engine, or a Highlander of this century from a Highlander of 1745;--different in a far broader and mightier sense than that; in a sense so great and clear, that we are enabled to separate all the Christian nations and tongues of the early time from those of the latter time, and speak of them in one group as the kingdoms of the Middle Ages. There is an infinite significance in that term, which I want you to dwell upon and work out; it is a term which we use in a dim consciousness of the truth, but without fully penetrating into that of which we are conscious. I want to deepen and make clear to you this consciousness that the world has had essentially a Trinity of ages--the Classical Age, the Middle Age, the Modern Age; each of these embracing races and individuals of apparently enormous separation in kind, but united in the spirit of their age,--the Classical Age having its Egyptians and Ninevites, Greeks and Romans,--the Middle Age having its Goths and Franks, Lombards and Italians,--the Modern Age having its French and English, Spaniards and Germans; but all these distinctions being in each case subordinate to the mightier and broader distinction, between _Classicalism_, _Mediævalism_, and _Modernism_. 111. Now our object to-night is indeed only to inquire into a matter of art; but we cannot do so properly until we consider this art in its relation to the inner spirit of the age in which it exists; and by doing so we shall not only arrive at the most just conclusions respecting our present subject, but we shall obtain the means of arriving at just conclusions respecting many other things. Now the division of time which the Pre-Raphaelites have adopted, in choosing Raphael as the man whose works mark the separation between Mediævalism and Modernism, is perfectly accurate. It has been accepted as such by all their opponents. You have, then, the three periods: Classicalism, extending to the fall of the Roman empire; Mediævalism, extending from that fall to the close of the fifteenth century; and Modernism thenceforward to our days. 112. And in examining into the spirit of these three epochs, observe, I don't mean to compare their bad men,--I don't mean to take Tiberius as a type of Classicalism, nor Ezzelin as a type of Mediævalism, nor Robespierre as a type of Modernism. Bad men are like each other in all epochs; and in the Roman, the Paduan, or the Parisian, sensuality and cruelty admit of little distinction in the manners of their manifestation. But among men comparatively virtuous, it is important to study the phases of character; and it is into these only that it is necessary for us to inquire. Consider therefore, first, the essential difference in character between three of the most devoted military heroes whom the three great epochs of the world have produced,--all three devoted to the service of their country,--all of them dying therein. I mean, Leonidas in the Classical period, St. Louis in the Mediæval period, and Lord Nelson in the Modern period. Leonidas had the most rigid sense of duty, and died with the most perfect faith in the gods of his country, fulfilling the accepted prophecy of his death. St. Louis had the most rigid sense of duty, and the most perfect faith in Christ. Nelson had the most rigid sense of duty, and---- You must supply my pause with your charity. Now you do not suppose that the main difference between Leonidas and Nelson lay in the modern inventions at the command of the one, as compared with the imperfect military instruments possessed by the other. They were not essentially different, in that the one fought with lances and the other with guns. But they were essentially different in the whole tone of their religious belief. 113. By this instance you may be partially prepared for the bold statement I am going to make to you, as to the change which constitutes Modernism. I said just now that it was like that of the worm to the butterfly. But the changes which God causes in His lower creatures are almost always from worse to better, while the changes which God allows man to make in himself are very often quite the other way; like Adam's new arrangement of his nature. And in saying that this last change was like that of a chrysalis, I meant only in the completeness of it, not in the tendency of it. Instead of from the worm to the butterfly, it is very possible it may have been from the butterfly to the worm. Have patience with me for a moment after I tell you what I believe it to have been, and give me a little time to justify my words. 114. I say that Classicalism began, wherever civilization began, with Pagan Faith. Mediævalism began, and continued, wherever civilization began and continued to _confess_ Christ. And, lastly, Modernism began and continues, wherever civilization began and continues to _deny_ Christ. You are startled, but give me a moment to explain. What, you would say to me, do you mean to tell us that _we_ deny Christ? we who are essentially modern in every one of our principles and feelings, and yet all of us professing believers in Christ, and we trust most of us true ones? I answer, So far as we are believers indeed, we are one with the faithful of all times,--one with the classical believer of Athens and Ephesus, and one with the mediæval believer of the banks of the Rhone and the valleys of the Monte Viso. But so far as, in various strange ways, some in great and some in small things, we deny this belief, in so far we are essentially infected with this spirit, which I call Modernism. 115. For observe, the change of which I speak has nothing whatever to do with the Reformation, or with any of its effects. It is a far broader thing than the Reformation. It is a change which has taken place, not only in reformed England, and reformed Scotland; but in unreformed France, in unreformed Italy, in unreformed Austria. I class honest Protestants and honest Roman Catholics for the present together, under the general term Christians: if you object to their being so classed together, I pray your pardon, but allow me to do so at present, for the sake of perspicuity, if for nothing else; and so classing them, I say that a change took place, about the time of Raphael, in the spirit of Roman Catholics and Protestants both; and that change consisted in the _denial_ of their religious belief, at least in the external and trivial affairs of life, and often in far more serious things. 116. For instance, hear this direction to an upholsterer of the early thirteenth century. Under the commands of the Sheriff of Wiltshire, he is thus ordered to make some alterations in a room for Henry the Third. He is to "wainscot the King's lower chamber, and to paint that wainscot of a green color, and to put a border to it, and to cause the heads of kings and queens to be painted on the borders; and to paint on the walls of the King's upper chamber the story of St. Margaret, Virgin, and the four Evangelists, and to paint the wainscot of the same chamber of a green color, spotted with gold."[34] [Footnote 34: Liberate Rolls, preserved in the Tower of London, and quoted by Mr. Turner in his History of the Domestic Architecture of England.] Again, the Sheriff of Wiltshire is ordered to "put two small glass windows in the chamber of Edward the King's son; and put a glass window in the chamber of our Queen at Clarendon; and in the same window cause to be painted a Mary with her Child, and at the feet of the said Mary, a queen with clasped hands." Again, the Sheriff of Southampton is ordered to "paint the tablet beside the King's bed, with the figures of the guards of the bed of Solomon, and to glaze with white glass the windows in the King's great Hall at Northampton, and cause the history of Lazarus and Dives to be painted in the same." 117. And so on; I need not multiply instances. You see that in all these cases, the furniture of the King's house is made to confess his Christianity. It may be imperfect and impure Christianity, but such as it might be, it was all that men had then to live and die by; and you see there was not a pane of glass in their windows, nor a pallet by their bedside that did not confess and proclaim it. Now, when you go home to your own rooms, supposing them to be richly decorated at all, examine what that decoration consists of. You will find Cupids, Graces, Floras, Dianas, Jupiters, Junos. But you will not find, except in the form of an engraving, bought principally for its artistic beauty, either Christ, or the Virgin, or Lazarus and Dives. And if a thousand years hence, any curious investigator were to dig up the ruins of Edinburgh, and not know your history, he would think you had all been born heathens. Now that, so far as it goes, is denying Christ; it is pure Modernism. "No," you will answer me, "you misunderstand and calumniate us. We do not, indeed, choose to have Dives and Lazarus on our windows; but that is not because we are moderns, but because we are Protestants, and do not like religious imagery." Pardon me: that is not the reason. Go into any fashionable lady's boudoir in Paris, and see if you will find Dives and Lazarus there. You will find, indeed, either that she has her private chapel, or that she has a crucifix in her dressing-room; but for the general decoration of the house, it is all composed of Apollos and Muses, just as it is here. 118. Again. What do you suppose was the substance of good education, the education of a knight, in the Middle Ages? What was taught to a boy as soon as he was able to learn anything? First, to keep under his body, and bring it into subjection and perfect strength; then to take Christ for his captain, to live as always in His presence, and finally, to do his _devoir_--mark the word--to all men. Now consider, first, the difference in their influence over the armies of France, between the ancient word "devoir," and modern word "gloire." And, again, ask yourselves what you expect your own children to be taught at your great schools and universities. Is it Christian history, or the histories of Pan and Silenus? Your present education, to all intents and purposes, denies Christ, and that is intensely and peculiarly Modernism. 119. Or, again, what do you suppose was the proclaimed and understood principle of all Christian _governments_ in the Middle Ages? I do not say it was a principle acted up to, or that the cunning and violence of wicked men had not too often their full sway then as now; but on what principles were that cunning and violence, so far as was possible, restrained? By the _confessed_ fear of God, and _confessed_ authority of His law. You will find that all treaties, laws, transactions whatsoever, in the Middle Ages, are based on a confession of Christianity as the leading rule of life; that a text of Scripture is held, in all public assemblies, strong enough to be set against an appearance of expediency; and although, in the end, the expediency might triumph, yet it was never without a distinct allowance of Christian principle, as an efficient element in the consultation. Whatever error might be committed, at least Christ was openly confessed. Now what is the custom of your British Parliament in these days? You know that nothing would excite greater manifestations of contempt and disgust than the slightest attempt to introduce the authority of Scripture in a political consultation. That is denying Christ. It is intensely and peculiarly Modernism. 120. It would be easy to go on showing you this same thing in many more instances; but my business to-night is to show you its full effect in one thing only, namely, in art, and I must come straightway to that, as I have little enough time. This, then, is the great and broad fact which distinguishes modern art from old art; that all ancient art was _religious_, and all modern art is _profane_. Once more, your patience for an instant. I say, all ancient art was religious; that is to say, religion was its first object; private luxury or pleasure its second. I say all modern art is profane; that is, private luxury or pleasure is its first object; religion its second. Now you all know, that anything which makes religion its second object, makes religion _no_ object. God will put up with a great many things in the human heart, but there is one thing He will _not_ put up with in it--a second place. He who offers God a second place, offers Him no place. And there is another mighty truth which you all know, that he who makes religion his first object, makes it his whole object; he has no other work in the world than God's work. Therefore I do not say that ancient art was _more_ religious than modern art. There is no question of degree in this matter. Ancient art was religious art; modern art is profane art; and between the two the distinction is as firm as between light and darkness. 121. Now, do not let what I say be encumbered in your minds with the objection, that you think art ought not to be brought into the service of religion. That is not the question at present--do not agitate it. The simple fact is, that old art _was_ brought into that service, and received therein a peculiar form; that modern art _is not_ brought into that service, and has received in consequence another form; that this is the great distinction between mediæval and modern art; and from that are clearly deducible all other essential differences between them. That is the point I wish to show you, and of that there can be no dispute. Whether or not Christianity be the purer for lacking the service of art, is disputable--and I do not mean now to begin the dispute; but that art is the _impurer_ for not being in the service of Christianity, is indisputable, and that is the main point I have now to do with. 122. Perhaps there are some of you here who would not allow that the religion of the thirteenth century was Christianity. Be it so; still is the statement true, which is all that is necessary for me now to prove, that art was great because it was devoted to such religion as then existed. Grant that Roman Catholicism was not Christianity--grant it, if you will, to be the same thing as old heathenism--and still I say to you, whatever it was, men lived and died by it, the ruling thought of all their thoughts; and just as classical art was greatest in building to its gods, so mediæval art was great in building to its gods, and modern art is not great, because it builds to _no_ God. You have, for instance, in your Edinburgh Library, a Bible of the thirteenth century, the Latin Bible, commonly known as the Vulgate. It contains the Old and New Testaments, complete, besides the books of Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, the books of Judith, Baruch, and Tobit. The whole is written in the most beautiful black-letter hand, and each book begins with an illuminated letter, containing three or four figures, illustrative of the book which it begins. Now, whether this were done in the service of true Christianity or not, the simple fact is, that here is a man's life-time taken up in writing and ornamenting a Bible, as the sole end of his art; and that doing this, either in a book or on a wall, was the common artist's life at the time; that the constant Bible reading and Bible thinking which this work involved, made a man serious and thoughtful, and a good workman, because he was always expressing those feelings which, whether right or wrong, were the groundwork of his whole being. Now, about the year 1500, this entire system was changed. Instead of the life of Christ, men had, for the most part, to paint the lives of Bacchus and Venus; and if you walk through any public gallery of pictures by the "great masters," as they are called, you will indeed find here and there what is called a Holy Family, painted for the sake of drawing pretty children, or a pretty woman; but for the most part you will find nothing but Floras, Pomonas, Satyrs, Graces, Bacchanals, and Banditti. Now, you will not declare--you cannot believe--that Angelico painting the life of Christ, Benozzo painting the life of Abraham, Ghirlandajo painting the life of the Virgin, Giotto painting the life of St. Francis, were worse employed, or likely to produce a less healthy art, than Titian painting the loves of Venus and Adonis, than Correggio painting the naked Antiope, than Salvator painting the slaughters of the thirty years' war? If you will not let me call the one kind of labor Christian, and the other unchristian, at least you will let me call the one moral, and the other immoral, and that is all I ask you to admit. 123. Now observe, hitherto I have been telling you what you may feel inclined to doubt or dispute; and I must leave you to consider the subject at your leisure. But henceforward I tell you plain facts, which admit neither of doubt nor dispute by any one who will take the pains to acquaint himself with their subject-matter. When the entire purpose of art was moral teaching, it naturally took truth for its first object, and beauty, and the pleasure resulting from beauty, only for its second. But when it lost all purpose of moral teaching, it as naturally took beauty for its first object, and truth for its second. That is to say, in all they did, the old artists endeavored, in one way or another, to express the real facts of the subject or event, this being their chief business: and the question they first asked themselves was always, how would this thing, or that, actually have occurred? what would this person, or that, have done under the circumstances? and then, having formed their conception, they work it out with only a secondary regard to grace or beauty, while a modern painter invariably thinks of the grace and beauty of his work first, and unites afterwards as much truth as he can with its conventional graces. I will give you a single strong instance to make my meaning plainer. In Orcagna's great fresco of the Triumph of Death, one of the incidents is that three kings,[35] when out hunting, are met by a spirit, which, desiring them to follow it, leads them to a churchyard, and points out to them, in open coffins, three bodies of kings such as themselves, in the last stages of corruption. Now a modern artist, representing this, would have endeavored dimly and faintly to suggest the appearance of the dead bodies, and would have made, or attempted to make, the countenances of the three kings variously and solemnly expressive of thought. This would be in his, or our, view, a poetical and tasteful treatment of the subject. But Orcagna disdains both poetry and taste; he wants the _facts_ only; he wishes to give the spectator the same lesson that the kings had; and therefore, instead of concealing the dead bodies, he paints them with the most fearful detail. And then, he does not consider what the three kings might most gracefully do. He considers only what they actually in all probability _would have done_. He makes them looking at the coffins with a startled stare, and one holding his nose. This is an extreme instance; but you are not to suppose it is because Orcagna had naturally a coarse or prosaic mind. Where he felt that thoughtfulness and beauty could properly be introduced, as in his circles of saints and prophets, no painter of the Middle Ages is so grand. I can give you no better proof of this, than the one fact that Michael Angelo borrowed from him openly--borrowed from him in the principal work which he ever executed, the Last Judgment, and borrowed from him the principal figure in that work. But it is just because Orcagna was so firmly and unscrupulously true, that he had the power of being so great when he chose. His arrow went straight to the mark. It was not that he did not love beauty, but he loved truth first. [Footnote 35: This incident is not of Orcagna's invention, it is variously represented in much earlier art. There is a curious and graphic drawing of it, _circa_ 1300, in the MS. Arundel 83, Brit. Mus., in which the three dead persons are walking, and are met by three queens, who severally utter the sentences, "Ich am aferd." "Lo, whet ich se?" "Me thinketh hit beth develes thre." To which the dead bodies answer-- "Ich wes wel fair." "Such scheltou be." "For Godes love, be wer by me." It is curious, that though the dresses of the living persons, and the "I was well fair" of the first dead speaker, seem to mark them distinctly to be women, some longer legends below are headed "primus _rex_ mortuus," etc.] 124. So it was with all the men of that time. No painters ever had more power of conceiving graceful form, or more profound devotion to the beautiful; but all these gifts and affections are kept sternly subordinate to their moral purpose; and, so far as their powers and knowledge went, they either painted from nature things as they were, or from imagination things as they must have been. I do not mean that they reached any imitative resemblance to nature. They had neither skill to do it, nor care to do it. Their art was conventional and imperfect, but they considered it only as a language wherein to convey the knowledge of certain facts; it was perfect enough for that; and though always reaching on to greater attainments, they never suffered their imperfections to disturb and check them in their immediate purposes. And this mode of treating all subjects was persisted in by the greatest men until the close of the fifteenth century. 125. Now so justly have the Pre-Raphaelites chosen their time and name, that the great change which clouds the career of mediæval art was affected, not only in Raphael's time, but by Raphael's own practice, and by his practice in _the very center of his available life_. You remember, doubtless, what high ground we have for placing the beginning of human intellectual strength at about the age of twelve years.[36] Assume, therefore, this period for the beginning of Raphael's strength. He died at thirty-seven. And in his twenty-fifth year, one half-year only past the precise center of his available life, he was sent for to Rome, to decorate the Vatican for Pope Julius II., and having until that time worked exclusively in the ancient and stern mediæval manner, he, in the first chamber which he decorated in that palace, wrote upon its walls the _Mene, Tekel, Upharsin_ of the Arts of Christianity. [Footnote 36: Luke ii. 42, 49.] And he wrote it thus: On one wall of that chamber he placed a picture of the World or Kingdom of _Theology_, presided over by _Christ_. And on the side wall of that same chamber he placed the World or Kingdom of _Poetry_, presided over by _Apollo_. And from that spot, and from that hour, the intellect and the art of Italy date their degradation. 126. Observe, however, the significance of this fact is not in the mere use of the figure of the heathen god to indicate the domain of poetry. Such a symbolical use had been made of the figures of heathen deities in the best times of Christian art. But it is in the fact, that being called to Rome especially to adorn the palace of the so-called head of the Church, and called as the chief representative of the Christian artists of his time, Raphael had neither religion nor originality enough to trace the spirit of poetry and the spirit of philosophy to the inspiration of the true God, as well as that of theology; but that, on the contrary, _he elevated the creations of fancy on the one wall, to the same rank as the objects of faith upon the other_; that in deliberate, balanced opposition to the Rock of the Mount Zion, he reared the rock of Parnassus, and the rock of the Acropolis; that, among the masters of poetry we find him enthroning Petrarch and Pindar, but not Isaiah nor David, and for lords over the domain of philosophy we find the masters of the school of Athens, but neither of those greater masters by the last of whom that school was rebuked,--those who received their wisdom from heaven itself, in the vision of Gibeon,[37] and the lightning of Damascus. [Footnote 37: 1 Kings iii. 5.] 127. The doom of the arts of Europe went forth from that chamber, and it was brought about in great part by the very excellencies of the man who had thus marked the commencement of decline. The perfection of execution and the beauty of feature which were attained in his works, and in those of his great contemporaries, rendered finish of execution and beauty of form the chief objects of all artists; and thenceforward execution was looked for rather than thought, and beauty rather than veracity. And as I told you, these are the two secondary causes of the decline of art; the first being the loss of moral purpose. Pray note them clearly. In mediæval art, thought is the first thing, execution the second; in modern art execution is the first thing, and thought the second. And again, in mediæval art, truth is first, beauty second; in modern art, beauty is first, truth second. The mediæval principles led _up_ to Raphael, and the modern principles lead _down_ from him. 128. Now, first, let me give you a familiar illustration of the difference with respect to execution. Suppose you have to teach two children drawing, one thoroughly clever and active-minded, the other dull and slow; and you put before them Jullien's chalk studies of heads--_études à deux crayons_--and desire them to be copied. The dull child will slowly do your bidding, blacken his paper and rub it white again, and patiently and painfully, in the course of three or four years, attain to the performance of a chalk head, not much worse than his original, but still of less value than the paper it is drawn upon. But the clever child will not, or will only by force, consent to this discipline. He finds other means of expressing himself with his pencil somehow or another; and presently you find his paper covered with sketches of his grandfather and grandmother, and uncles, and cousins--sketches of the room, and the house, and the cat, and the dog, and the country outside, and everything in the world he can set his eyes on; and he gets on, and even his child's work has a value in it--a truth which makes it worth keeping; no one knows how precious, perhaps, that portrait of his grandfather may be, if any one has but the sense to keep it till the time when the old man can be seen no more up the lawn, nor by the wood. That child is working in the Middle-Age spirit--the other in the modern spirit. 129. But there is something still more striking in the evils which have resulted from the modern regardlessness of truth. Consider, for instance, its effect on what is called historical painting. What do you at present _mean_ by historical painting? Now-a-days it means the endeavoring, by the power of imagination, to portray some historical event of past days. But in the Middle Ages, it meant representing the acts of _their own_ days; and that is the only historical painting worth a straw. Of all the wastes of time and sense which Modernism has invented--and they are many--none are so ridiculous as this endeavor to represent past history. What do you suppose our descendants will care for our imaginations of the events of former days? Suppose the Greeks, instead of representing their own warriors as they fought at Marathon, had left us nothing but their imaginations of Egyptian battles; and suppose the Italians, in like manner, instead of portraits of Can Grande and Dante, or of Leo the Tenth and Raphael, had left us nothing but imaginary portraits of Pericles and Miltiades? What fools we should have thought them! how bitterly we should have been provoked with their folly! And that is precisely what our descendants will feel towards us, so far as our grand historical and classical schools are concerned. What do we care, they will say, what those nineteenth century people fancied about Greek and Roman history! If they had left us a few plain and rational sculptures and pictures of their own battles, and their own men, in their every-day dress, we should have thanked them. "Well, but," you will say, "we _have_ left them portraits of our great men, and paintings of our great battles." Yes, you have indeed, and that is the only historical painting that you either have, or can have; but you don't _call_ that historical painting. You don't thank the men who do it; you look down upon them and dissuade them from it, and tell them they don't belong to the grand schools. And yet they are the only true historical painters, and the only men who will produce any effect on their own generation, or on any other. Wilkie was a historical painter, Chantrey a historical sculptor, because they painted, or carved, the veritable things and men they saw, not men and things as they believed they might have been, or should have been. But no one tells such men they are historical painters, and they are discontented with what they do; and poor Wilkie must needs travel to see the grand school, and imitate the grand school, and ruin himself. And you have had multitudes of other painters ruined, from the beginning, by that grand school. There was Etty, naturally as good a painter as ever lived, but no one told him what to paint, and he studied the antique, and the grand schools, and painted dances of nymphs in red and yellow shawls to the end of his days. Much good may they do you! He is gone to the grave, a lost mind. There was Flaxman, another naturally great man, with as true an eye for nature as Raphael,--he stumbles over the blocks of the antique statues--wanders in the dark valley of their ruins to the end of his days. He has left you a few outlines of muscular men straddling and frowning behind round shields. Much good may they do you! Another lost mind. And of those who are lost namelessly, who have not strength enough even to make themselves known, the poor pale students who lie buried forever in the abysses of the great schools, no account can be rendered; they are numberless. 130. And the wonderful thing is, that of all these men whom you now have come to call the great masters, there was _not one_ who confessedly did not paint his own present world, plainly and truly. Homer sang of what he saw; Phidias carved what he saw; Raphael painted the men of his own time in their own caps and mantles; and every man who has arisen to eminence in modern times has done so altogether by his working in their way, and doing the things he saw. How did Reynolds rise? Not by painting Greek women, but by painting the glorious little living Ladies this, and Ladies that, of his own time. How did Hogarth rise? Not by painting Athenian follies, but London follies. Who are the men who have made an impression upon you yourselves--upon your own age? I suppose the most popular painter of the day is Landseer. Do you suppose he studied dogs and eagles out of the Elgin Marbles? And yet in the very face of these plain, incontrovertible, all-visible facts, we go on from year to year with the base system of Academy teaching, in spite of which every one of these men has risen: I say _in spite_ of the entire method and aim of our art-teaching. It destroys the greater number of its pupils altogether; it hinders and paralyzes the greatest. There is not a living painter whose eminence is not in spite of everything he has been taught from his youth upwards, and who, whatever his eminence may be, has not suffered much injury in the course of his victory. For observe: this love of what is called ideality or beauty in preference to truth, operates not only in making us choose the past rather than the present for our subjects, but it makes us falsify the present when we do take it for our subject. I said just now that portrait-painters were historical painters;--so they are; but not good ones, because not faithful ones. The beginning and end of modern portraiture is adulation. The painters cannot live but by flattery; we should desert them if they spoke honestly. And therefore we can have no good portraiture; for in the striving after that which is _not_ in their model, they lose the inner and deeper nobleness which _is_ in their model. I saw not long ago, for the first time, the portrait of a man whom I knew well--a young man, but a religious man--and one who had suffered much from sickness. The whole dignity of his features and person depended upon the expression of serene, yet solemn, purpose sustaining a feeble frame; and the painter, by way of flattering him, strengthened him, and made him athletic in body, gay in countenance, idle in gesture; and the whole power and being of the man himself were lost. And this is still more the case with our public portraits. You have a portrait, for instance, of the Duke of Wellington at the end of the North Bridge--one of the thousand equestrian statues of Modernism--studied from the show-riders of the amphitheater, with their horses on their hind-legs in the saw-dust.[38] Do you suppose that was the way the Duke sat when your destinies depended on him? when the foam hung from the lips of his tired horse, and its wet limbs were dashed with the bloody slime of the battle-field, and he himself sat anxious in his quietness, grieved in his fearlessness, as he watched, scythe-stroke by scythe-stroke, the gathering in of the harvest of death? You would have done something had you thus left his image in the enduring iron, but nothing now. [Footnote 38: I intended this last sentence of course to apply to the thousand statues, not definitely to the one in immediate question, which, though tainted with the modern affectation, and the nearest example of it to which I could refer an Edinburgh audience, is the work of a most promising sculptor; and was indeed so far executed on the principles asserted in the text, that the Duke gave Mr. Steele a sitting on horse-back, in order that his mode of riding might be accurately represented. This, however, does not render the following remarks in the text nugatory, as it may easily be imagined that the action of the Duke, exhibiting his riding in his own grounds, would be different from his action, or inaction, when watching the course of a battle. I must also make a most definite exception in favor of Marochetti, who seems to me a thoroughly great sculptor; and whose statue of Coeur de Lion, though, according to the principle just stated, not to be considered a _historical_ work, is an _ideal_ work of the highest beauty and value. Its erection in front of Westminster Hall will tend more to educate the public eye and mind with respect to art, than anything we have done in London for centuries. * * * * * April 21st, 1854.--I stop the press in order to insert the following paragraph from to-day's _Times_:--"THE STATUE OF COEUR DE LION.--_Yesterday morning a number of workmen were engaged in pulling down the cast which was placed in New Palace Yard of the colossal equestrian statue of Richard Coeur de Lion. Sir C. Barry was, we believe, opposed to the cast remaining there any longer, and to the putting up of the statue itself on the same site, because it did not harmonize with the building. During the day the horse and figure were removed, and before night the pedestal was demolished and taken away._"] 131. But the time has at last come for all this to be put an end to; and nothing can well be more extraordinary than the way in which the men have risen who are to do it. Pupils in the same schools, receiving precisely the same instruction which for so long a time has paralyzed every one of our painters,--these boys agree in disliking to copy the antique statues set before them. They copy them as they are bid, and they copy them better than any one else; they carry off prize after prize, and yet they hate their work. At last they are admitted to study from the life; they find the life very different from the antique, and say so. Their teachers tell them the antique is the best, and they mustn't copy the life. They agree among themselves that they like the life, and that copy it they will. They do copy it faithfully, and their masters forthwith declare them to be lost men. Their fellow-students hiss them whenever they enter the room. They can't help it; they join hands and tacitly resist both the hissing and the instruction. Accidentally, a few prints of the works of Giotto, a few casts from those of Ghiberti, fall into their hands, and they see in these something they never saw before--something intensely and everlastingly true. They examine farther into the matter; they discover for themselves the greater part of what I have laid before you to-night; they form themselves into a body, and enter upon that crusade which has hitherto been victorious. And which will be absolutely and triumphantly victorious. The great mistake which has hitherto prevented the public mind from fully going with them must soon be corrected. That mistake was the supposition that, instead of wishing to recur to the _principles_ of the early ages, these men wished to bring back the _ignorance_ of the early ages. This notion, grounded first on some hardness in their earlier works, which resulted--as it must always result--from the downright and earnest effort to paint nature as in a looking-glass, was fostered partly by the jealousy of their beaten competitors, and partly by the pure, perverse, and hopeless ignorance of the whole body of art-critics, so called, connected with the press. No notion was ever more baseless or more ridiculous. It was asserted that the Pre-Raphaelites did not draw well, in the face of the fact, that the principal member of their body, from the time he entered the schools of the Academy, had literally encumbered himself with the medals given as prizes for drawing. It was asserted that they did not draw in perspective, by men who themselves knew no more of perspective than they did of astrology; it was asserted that they sinned against the appearances of nature, by men who had never drawn so much as a leaf or a blossom from nature in their lives. And, lastly, when all these calumnies or absurdities would tell no more, and it began to be forced upon men's unwilling belief that the style of the Pre-Raphaelites _was_ true and was according to nature, the last forgery invented respecting them is, that they copy photographs. You observe how completely this last piece of malice defeats all the rest. It admits they are true to nature, though only that it may deprive them of all merit in being so. But it may itself be at once refuted by the bold challenge to their opponents to produce a Pre-Raphaelite picture, or anything like one, by themselves copying a photograph. 132. Let me at once clear your minds from all these doubts, and at once contradict all these calumnies. Pre-Raphaelitism has but one principle, that of absolute, uncompromising truth in all that it does, obtained by working everything, down to the most minute detail, from nature, and from nature only.[39] Every Pre-Raphaelite landscape background is painted to the last touch, in the open air, from the thing itself. Every Pre-Raphaelite figure, however studied in expression, is a true portrait of some living person. Every minute accessory is painted in the same manner. And one of the chief reasons for the violent opposition with which the school has been attacked by other artists, is the enormous cost of care and labor which such a system demands from those who adopt it, in contradistinction to the present slovenly and imperfect style. [Footnote 39: Or, where imagination is necessarily trusted to, by always endeavoring to conceive a fact as it really was likely to have happened, rather than as it most prettily _might_ have happened. The various members of the school are not all equally severe in carrying out its principles, some of them trusting their memory or fancy very far; only all agreeing in the effort to make their memories so accurate as to seem like portraiture, and their fancy so probable as to seem like memory.] 133. This is the main Pre-Raphaelite principle. But the battle which its supporters have to fight is a hard one; and for that battle they have been fitted by a very peculiar character. You perceive that the principal resistance they have to make is to that spurious beauty, whose attractiveness had tempted men to forget, or to despise, the more noble quality of sincerity: and in order at once to put them beyond the power of temptation from this beauty, they are, as a body, characterized by a total absence of sensibility to the ordinary and popular forms of artistic gracefulness; while, to all that still lower kind of prettiness, which regulates the disposition of our scenes upon the stage, and which appears in our lower art, as in our annuals, our commonplace portraits, and statuary, the Pre-Raphaelites are not only dead, but they regard it with a contempt and aversion approaching to disgust. This character is absolutely necessary to them in the present time; but it, of course, occasionally renders their work comparatively unpleasing. As the school becomes less aggressive, and more authoritative--which it will do--they will enlist into their ranks men who will work, mainly, upon their principles, and yet embrace more of those characters which are generally attractive, and this great ground of offense will be removed. 134. Again: you observe that as landscape painters, their principles must, in great part, confine them to mere foreground work; and singularly enough, that they may not be tempted away from this work, they have been born with comparatively little enjoyment of those evanescent effects and distant sublimities which nothing but the memory can arrest, and nothing but a daring conventionalism portray. But for this work they are not now needed. Turner, the first and greatest of the Pre-Raphaelites, has done it already; he, though his capacity embraced everything, and though he would sometimes, in his foregrounds, paint the spots upon a dead trout, and the dyes upon a butterfly's wing, yet for the most part delighted to begin at that very point where the other branches of Pre-Raphaelitism become powerless. 135. Lastly. The habit of constantly carrying everything up to the utmost point of completion deadens the Pre-Raphaelites in general to the merits of men who, with an equal love of truth up to a certain point, yet express themselves habitually with speed and power, rather than with finish, and give abstracts of truth rather than total truth. Probably to the end of time artists will more or less be divided into these classes, and it will be impossible to make men like Millais understand the merits of men like Tintoret; but this is the more to be regretted because the Pre-Raphaelites have enormous powers of imagination, as well as of realization, and do not yet themselves know of how much they would be capable, if they sometimes worked on a larger scale, and with a less laborious finish. 136. With all their faults, their pictures are, since Turner's death, the best--incomparably the best--on the walls of the Royal Academy; and such works as Mr. Hunt's "Claudio and Isabella" have never been rivaled, in some respects never approached, at any other period of art. This I believe to be a most candid statement of all their faults and all their deficiencies; not such, you perceive, as are likely to arrest their progress. The "magna est veritas" was never more sure of accomplishment than by these men. Their adversaries have no chance with them. They will gradually unite their influence with whatever is true or powerful in the reactionary art of other countries; and on their works such a school will be founded as shall justify the third age of the world's civilization, and render it as great in creation as it has been in discovery. 137. And now let me remind you but of one thing more. As you examine into the career of historical painting, you will be more and more struck with the fact I have this evening stated to you,--that none was ever truly great but that which represented the living forms and daily deeds of the people among whom it arose;--that all precious historical work records, not the past, but the present. Remember, therefore, that it is not so much in _buying_ pictures, as in _being_ pictures, that you can encourage a noble school. The best patronage of art is not that which seeks for the pleasures of sentiment in a vague ideality, nor for beauty of form in a marble image; but that which educates your children into living heroes, and binds down the flights and the fondnesses of the heart into practical duty and faithful devotion. ADDENDA TO THE FOURTH LECTURE. 138. I could not enter, in a popular lecture, upon one intricate and difficult question, closely connected with the subject of Pre-Raphaelitism--namely, the relation of invention to observation; and composition to imitation. It is still less a question to be discussed in the compass of a note; and I must defer all careful examination of it to a future opportunity. Nevertheless, it is impossible to leave altogether unanswered the first objection which is now most commonly made to the Pre-Raphaelite work, namely, that the principle of it seems adverse to all exertion of imaginative power. Indeed, such an objection sounds strangely on the lips of a public who have been in the habit of purchasing, for hundreds of pounds, small squares of Dutch canvas, containing only servile imitations of the coarsest nature. It is strange that an imitation of a cow's head by Paul Potter, or of an old woman's by Ostade, or of a scene of tavern debauchery by Teniers, should be purchased and proclaimed for high art, while the rendering of the most noble expressions of human feeling in Hunt's "Isabella," or of the loveliest English landscape, haunted by sorrow, in Millais' "Ophelia," should be declared "puerile." But, strange though the utterance of it be, there is some weight in the objection. It is true that so long as the Pre-Raphaelites only paint from nature, however carefully selected and grouped, their pictures can never have the characters of the highest class of compositions. But, on the other hand, the shallow and conventional arrangements commonly called "compositions" by the artists of the present day, are infinitely farther from great art than the most patient work of the Pre-Raphaelites. That work is, even in its humblest form, a secure foundation, capable of infinite superstructure; a reality of true value, as far as it reaches, while the common artistical effects and groupings are a vain effort at superstructure without foundation--utter negation and fallacy from beginning to end. 139. But more than this, the very faithfulness of the Pre-Raphaelites arises from the redundance of their imaginative power. Not only can all the members of the school compose a thousand times better than the men who pretend to look down upon them, but I question whether even the greatest men of old times possessed more exhaustless invention than either Millais or Rossetti; and it is partly the very ease with which they invent which leads them to despise invention. Men who have no imagination, but have learned merely to produce a spurious resemblance of its results by the recipes of composition, are apt to value themselves mightily on their concoctive science; but the man whose mind a thousand living imaginations haunt, every hour, is apt to care too little for them; and to long for the perfect truth which he finds is not to be come at so easily. And though I may perhaps hesitatingly admit that it is possible to love this truth of reality too intensely, yet I have no hesitation in declaring that there is _no hope_ for those who despise it, and that the painter, whoever he be, who despises the pictures already produced by the Pre-Raphaelites, has himself no capacity of becoming a great painter of any kind. Paul Veronese and Tintoret themselves, without desiring to imitate the Pre-Raphaelite work, would have looked upon it with deep respect, as John Bellini looked on that of Albert Dürer; none but the ignorant could be unconscious of its truth, and none but the insincere regardless of it. 140. How far it is possible for men educated on the severest Pre-Raphaelite principles to advance from their present style into that of the great schools of composition, I do not care to inquire, for at this period such an advance is certainly not desirable. Of great compositions we have enough, and more than enough, and it would be well for the world if it were willing to take some care of those it has. Of pure and manly truth, of stern statement of the things done and seen around us daily, we have hitherto had nothing. And in art, as in all other things, besides the literature of which it speaks, that sentence of Carlyle is inevitably and irreversibly true:--"Day after day, looking at the high destinies which yet await literature, which literature will ere long address herself with more decisiveness than ever to fulfill, it grows clearer to us that the proper task of literature lies in the domain of BELIEF, within which, poetic fiction, as it is charitably named, will have to take a quite new figure, if allowed a settlement there. Whereby were it not reasonable to prophesy that this exceeding great multitude of novel writers and such like, must, in a new generation, gradually do one of two things, either retire into nurseries, and work for children, minors, and semifatuous persons of both sexes, or else, what were far better, sweep their novel fabric into the dust cart, and betake them, with such faculty as they have, _to understand and record what is true_, of which surely there is and forever will be a whole infinitude unknown to us, of infinite importance to us? Poetry will more and more come to be understood as nothing but higher knowledge, and the only genuine Romance for grown persons, Reality." 141. As I was copying this sentence, a pamphlet was put into my hand, written by a clergyman, denouncing "Woe, woe, woe! to exceedingly young men of stubborn instincts, calling themselves Pre-Raphaelites."[40] [Footnote 40: Art, its Constitution and Capacities, etc. By the Rev. Edward Young, M.A. The phrase "exceedingly young men of stubborn instincts," being twice quoted (carefully excluding the context) from my pamphlet on Pre-Raphaelitism.] I thank God that the Pre-Raphaelites _are_ young, and that strength is still with them, and life, with all the war of it, still in front of them. Yet Everett Millais is this year of the exact age at which Raphael painted the "Disputa," his greatest work; Rossetti and Hunt are both of them older still--nor is there one member of the body so young as Giotto, when he was chosen from among the painters of Italy to decorate the Vatican. But Italy, in her great period, knew her great men, and did not "despise their youth." It is reserved for England to insult the strength of her noblest children--to wither their warm enthusiasm early into the bitterness of patient battle, and leave to those whom she should have cherished and aided, no hope but in resolution, no refuge but in disdain. 142. Indeed it is woful, when the young usurp the place, or despise the wisdom, of the aged; and among the many dark signs of these times, the disobedience and insolence of youth are among the darkest. But with whom is the fault? Youth never yet lost its modesty where age had not lost its honor; nor did childhood ever refuse its reverence, except where age had forgotten correction. The cry, "Go up, thou bald head," will never be heard in the land which remembers the precept, "See that ye despise not one of these little ones;" and although indeed youth _may_ become despicable, when its eager hope is changed into presumption, and its progressive power into arrested pride, there is something more despicable still, in the old age which has learned neither judgment nor gentleness, which is weak without charity, and cold without discretion. * * * * * Transcriber's Note: While obvious printer's errors have been corrected, inconsistencies and unusual spelling were preserved as in the original. 
24726	----	None 
249	----	Photographs of 20,000 Year Old Cave Paintings by Monsieur Jean Clottes Presumed to be under copyright. We are not sure Mr. Clottes wants to keep a copyright on these, or whether he wants to put them in the Public Domain; in either case, we would prefer not to jeopardize his rights, and we thus are preparing this release as if it were copyrighted in 1995. The translation in the original message we received was: "All rights reserved" so we are presuming the copyright. "Tous droits reserves" in the original French message... which is also included in this package and in English. If you want to get permission to use these for more uses than a private one, we suggest you contact the Minstry of Culture. Here is the permission statement we received in both French and English, and we are VERY glad to have received it on such short notice, and did not want to disturb things further by asking an additional time for more details. Monsieur, Comme suite votre courrier ilectronique du 7 fivrier dernier, je vous informe que M. Jean Clottes, conseiller scientifique du sous-directeur de l'archiologie et auteur des quatre photographies et du texte sur la grotte ricemment dicouverte en Ardhche, a donni son autorisation pour l'utilisation de ses photographies dans le cadre du projet de CD-ROM Gutenberg. Merci de ne pas oublier de mentionner son nom sur les documents publiis. Sir, As per your email of February 7th, I informed Mr. Jean Clottes, Scientific Consul to the Deputy-Director of Archeology and author of the four photographs and the texts concerning the cave paintings discovered in Ardhche, to get his authorization for the utilization of his photographs by the staff of Project Gutenberg's CDROM. Please do not forget to mention his name in the documents you publish. Following are the English- and French-language descriptions. AN EXCEPTIONAL ARCHEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY A Paleolithical Embellished Cave found in France (Ardeche) An exceptional archeological discovery has been made public on January 17, 1995, by the Minister of Culture and French-Speaking language (Francophonie), Mr. Jacques TOUBON. Discovered during December 1994 at Vallon-Pont-d'Arc (Ardeche, France), the cave, composed of several spacious galleries and dens, is adorned with some 300 paleolithical paintings and engravings (dating 18,000 - 20,000 years before present time), which focus on a wide variety of animals including bears, owls, mammooths, rhinos and felines. The cave has also retained several vestiges of human activities: fireplaces (hearths), entailed flints and other clues which denote an evolution in tools and habits. Totally left intact and untouched by any human intrusion throughout the ages, the cave represents and exceptional source of studies for archeologists. In the wake of the artistical and archeological interest spawned by this thrilling discovery of national and international importance, the Director of Cultural Heritage has signed on January 13th the proceedings to classify the site. (I don't know if the translation makes sense: a "classified site" is a site which, due to its cultural importance, becomes an official patrimony of the nation.) This urgency measure, taking effect immediately, confers the cave for one year the same statute and privileges which the historical monuments benefit. In order to ensure the preservation and the security of the cave, the Prefect of Ardeche has also signed on January 13 a by-law prohibiting the access to the cavity. Paris, January the 18th, 1995 This is the original message we received in French. Decouverte d'une grotte ornee paleolithique a Vallon-Pont-d'Arc (Ardeche) Cliches : Ministere de la culture et de la francophonie - Direction du Patrimoine Jean Clottes. Tous droits reserves. Une decouverte archeologique d'une importance exceptionnelle vient d'intervenir dans les gorges de l'Ardeche, en limite du site naturel classe, en l'espece d'un vaste reseau souterrain orne d'un tres grand nombre de peintures et de gravures d'epoque paleolithique (vers 18000-20000 ans avant le present). La decouverte est intervenue sur le territoire de la commune de Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, le 25 decembre dernier, dans le cadre d'une prospection archeologique autorisee au titre des dispositions de la loi validee du 27 septembre 1941 portant reglementation de la recherche archeologique de France. Elle est le fait de M. Jean-Marie Chauvet, agent de surveillance titulaire au sein du Service regional de l'archeologie (D.R.A.C Rh�ne-Alpes) assiste de deux benevoles Mme Eliette Brunel-Deschamps et M. Christian Hillaire. Au terme d'une desobstruction manuelle conduite dans un boyau tres etroit marquant le fond d'une cavite mineure s'ouvrant dans les falaises du Cirque d'Estre, les inventeurs ont debouche par une cheminee dans un tres vaste reseau totalement vierge, richement concretionne et recelant de nombreux restes paleontologiques en place (os d'ours de cavernes- Ursus spelaeus- dans leur bauge d'hibernation). Les galeries, fortement dimensionnees (section de 5 x 4 metres en moyenne), joignent plusieurs vastes salles (jusqu'a 70 x 40 metres) et sont, de place en place, decorees de peintures et de gravures de figurations animalieres isolees ou organisees en panneaux comprenant plus de cinquante unites dont les dimensions varient de 0,50 m a 4 metres de long. Au total, environ 300 peintures a l'ocre rouge ou au noir ont ete actuellement observees et au moins autant de gravures. On remarque plusieurs cas de superposition, et, localement, des voiles concretionnes ou des griffades d'ours, l'ensemble de ces faits authentifiant (s'il en etait besoin) l'anciennete de ces decors. a chaque extremite du reseau visite on peut constater la presence d'acces anciens actuellement colmates par des eboulis et des depots argileux. L'ensemble des galeries parcourues cumule un lineaire de plusieurs centaines de metres au long duquel se developpe un bestiaire tres original et particulierement varie (chevaux, rhinoceros, lions, bisons, aurochs, ours, pantheres, mammouths, bouquetins, hiboux, etc...) accompagne de signes symboliques, de panneaux ponctues et de mains positives ou negatives. Au plan artistique, il se degage un ensemble absolument unique dans le Sud de la France, que son importance et son originalite placent au meme rang que l'ensemble figure de Lascaux meme s'il n'offre pas de veritable polychromie ni le meme dimensionnement des representations. Partout, les traits peints ou graves sont plus ou moins concretionnes. Les traits peints, vus dans leurs details, presentent l'aspect erode caracteristique des peintures anciennes, meme celles apparemment les mieux conservees. En outre, la grotte est vierge, avec des sols intacts et d'innombrables vestiges non touches. Dans une salle, un ensemble de gravures (cheval, mammouth, hibou) se trouve sur une retombee de voute a 5 ou 6 m du sol ; au-dessous, un vaste effondrement ancien explique ce qui s'est passe : une aspiration a provoque la formation de cet entonnoir et le sol sur lequel se trouvait l'artiste a alors disparu, de sorte que les gravures sont maintenant inaccessibles. Donc, l'authenticite est evidente. La zone a peintures rouges comprend plusieurs panneaux de points, auxquels s'ajoutent parfois des signes, y compris des signes complexes originaux. Les panneaux avec des animaux rouges sont divers : dans une petite galerie, un cerf, est suivi tout au fond, de trois ours des cavernes et d'un cheval. Ailleurs, un grand panneau comprend plusieurs ours, dont un a l'avant-train tachete, un felin lui aussi tachete sur le haut du corps, un bouquetin et deux mammouths. Sur une paroi se voient un enorme rhinoceros a la corne disproportionnee, trois autres rhinoceros, un mammouth, deux felins, quatre mains positives et deux ou trois negatives, un demi-cercles de points rouges, un grand bovine, un signe fait de deux demi-cercles accoles. En tout, outre les points et les signes, plusieurs mains negatives completes et les mains positives, une trentaine de representations animales rouges et deux petites tetes de chevaux jaunes ont deja ete denombres. L'ours domine suivi du mammouth, du cheval, du rhinoceros, du felin ; le cerf, le bouquetin, l'aurochs, les indetermines, n'etant representes qu'a un seul exemplaire chacun. Une centaine de figures noires a ete denombree : les rhinoceros dominent largement, suivis des felins puis des chevaux, les ours, des rennes, des bisons, des aurochs. On note la presence de mammouths, de cerfs megaceros, d'un bouquetin, de deux indetermines. Parmi les gravures, a noter 5 mammouths, 3 bouquetins, 2 rhinoceros, 2 chevaux, 1 aurochs, 1 hibou. La facture de ces representations est excellente. Les proportions des corps sont naturalistes. Il s'agit surtout de dessins au trait, encore que certains presentent des a-plats de peinture a l'interieur des tetes ou des corps et un rendu savant du modele. De nombreux details anatomiques sont precises, de sorte que les animaux sont le plus souvent determinables sans ambiguite quant a l'espece et meme quant au sexe (femelles bisons, par exemple). Les dessins noirs ont "un air de famille" : la composition des panneaux, la facture des animaux, la technique employee partout avec une egale maitrise feraient penser a une meme "main". On peut legitimement se demander s'il ne s'agirait pas, en tres grande partie, de l'oeuvre d'une seule personne, un grand maitre du trait. Les recherches futures le preciseront. Par le nombre et la diversite des oeuvres, par leur qualite esthetique et leur conservation, par leur originalite aussi (dominance d'especes rares ailleurs), par la preservation du contexte, cette grotte est unique et d'une importance mondiale. C'est l'un des plus grand chefs d'oeuvres de l'art prehistorique. Au plan paleontologique, la cavite recele egalement les restes d'une centaine d'ursides, soit en place dans leur loge d'hibernation, soit en position secondaire, que les os aient ete deplaces par le passage de l'Homme, ou que certains cranes aient ete redisposes par lui en des emplacements privilegies de la grotte (par exemple au centre d'une salle en rotonde, sur un bloc rocheux). Cette abondance de restes dans un milieu preserve de toute perturbation moderne confere un second caractere d'importance a la decouverte. Au plan archeologique, il convient de souligner le caractere unique d'un milieu clos exempt de toute intrusion et de tout remaniement. Outre les figurations, l'Homme a laisse dans la cavite de nombreux temoins de ses activites : foyers, silex tailles, traces de torches d'eclairage, amenagements de blocs rocheux, agencement de restes faunistiques et, surtout, de tres nombreuses empreintes de cheminement melees a celles des ours qui ont ete leurs contemporains dans les galeries. On remarque egalement des points d'extraction du sediment : confection de boulettes d'argile, recherche d'oxydes de fer et de manganese pour la confection des peintures. a ce jour, il parait que la grotte est le seul reseau orne totalement intact qui nous soit parvenu depuis le Paleolithique. Au plan de l'etude du milieu, la tres recente ouverture de la cavite permettra d'en etudier la climatologie interne. Il convient aussi de souligner la puissance des depots sedimentaires que la reprise d'erosion posterieure a l'occupation humaine a permis de mettre ponctuellement en evidence dans des puits de dissolution diriges vers le reseau perenne toujours actif a ce jour. La carbonatation des galeries est egalement intervenue apres le passage de l'Homme, scellant en de nombreux points des artefacts dans la calcite. Il existe la une occasion unique d'etude naturaliste visant a retracer l'evolution des milieux naturels durant le dernier glaciaire et l'Holocene. C'est la convergence de l'ensemble de ces caracteres, deja exceptionnels pour chacun d'entre eux, qui confere une importance absolue au reseau nouvellement decouvert. 
25268	----	None 
25326	----	None 
26473	----	[Transcriber's Note: The main text in this book is interspersed with numerous illustrations and accompanying text. In this e-book, the illustrations and accompanying text are set off from the main text by lines of asterisks. For the reader's convenience, where the original indicates that the main text is continued on another page (e.g., [CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE]), the page on which it is continued is marked with a page number, e.g., [PAGE 3].] SPECIAL EXHIBITION THE ARTS OF PERSIA & OTHER COUNTRIES OF ISLAM H. KEVORKIAN COLLECTION [Illustration] FROM THURSDAY, APRIL TWENTY-SECOND TO SATURDAY, MAY FIFTEENTH, INCLUSIVE ON THE ENTIRE THIRD FLOOR THE ANDERSON GALLERIES 489 PARK AVENUE AT FIFTY-NINTH STREET, NEW YORK 1926 THE ENTIRE THIRD FLOOR GALLERIES FROM THURSDAY, APRIL TWENTY-SECOND TO SATURDAY, MAY FIFTEENTH, INCLUSIVE [OPEN WEEK-DAYS, 9-6; SUNDAYS, 2-5 P.M.] * * * * * [Illustration: STUCCO BAS-RELIEF, PAINTED IN POLYCHROME. EXCAVATED AT RAY (RHAGES) ANTERIOR TO THE XIITH CENTURY] This exhibition has been arranged with a desire to meet the convenience of those who are interested in manifestations of the arts of different countries over which ISLAM held sway at one time or other in the past. An effort has been made to show under one roof representative examples of works produced at different epochs and stages of the civilizations referred to, so that they may be seen, and perhaps studied, with the minimum expenditure of time. Fine examples of many branches of the arts of these peoples are in permanent exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and the museums of great cities throughout the country. It is difficult to find adequate words to describe the enchanting atmosphere of the halls at the Metropolitan Museum where Near Eastern art is installed; and the same can truly be said of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia. These exhibitions must inevitably contribute to the enjoyment and education of countless visitors to these institutions, and will continue to do so in increasing degree to the enjoyment of generations to come. The present exhibition does not comprise a vast number of objects. Its claim to attention lies in the fact that it includes an important series of really first class works which are also of great historical importance. There will be on view as well some comparatively new types of objects of æsthetic and archæological interest, obtained as the result of recent excavations. The briefness of time available precluded the possibility of compiling a catalogue, as was at first intended. The present booklet is issued to explain the scope of the exhibition, and extend a cordial invitation to visit it. H.K. * * * * * [Illustration: MUHAMMAD (THE PROPHET) WITNESSES ALI (HIS SON-IN-LAW AND SUCCESSOR) DEFEAT AMR BEN ABDWAD] One of the eight illustrations for a XIIIth Century Persian Manuscript entitled, "HISTORY OF TABARI", compiled A.H. 310 (A.D. 922). The present copy is a subsequent one of the Persian version, translated by AL B'ALA'MI, A.H. 352. It is interesting to note that TABARI records in the book here referred to, that three messages were sent by MUHAMMAD to KHUSRAW PARNIZ, imparting the divine warnings. One of the messages, as recorded in an old Manuscript entitled NIHAYAT UL-IRAB, reads: "In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. From MUHAMMAD the Apostle of God to KHUSRAW son of HURMAZD. But to proceed. Verily I extol unto thee God, beside whom there is no other God. He it is who guarded me when I was an orphan, and made me rich when I was destitute, and guided me when I was straying in error. Only he who is bereft of understanding, and over whom calamity triumphs, rejects the message which I am sent to announce. O KHUSRAW, submit and thou shalt be safe, or else prepare to wage with God and with his Apostle a war which shall not find them helpless. Farewell." * * * * * [Illustration] The rise of ISLAM and its rapid advent to power, is perhaps the most surprising chapter of the history of mankind. The great empires, Persian and Byzantine, which were subjected to the urgent onslaught of this rising power may have been in an enfeebled condition as a result of excess of despotism and internal dissensions, as historians affirm; but that the element of the power must have been in the rationality of the principles contained in the teaching, there can be no doubt. "It was undoubtedly to ISLAM, that simple yet majestic creed of which no unprejudiced student can ignore the grandeur, that Arabs owed the splendid part which they were destined to play in the history of civilization. In judging of the Arabian Prophet, western critics are too often inclined to ignore the condition from which he raised his country, and to forget that many institutions which they condemn were not introduced but only tolerated by ISLAM. The early Muslims were very sensible of the immense amelioration in their life effected by MUHAMMAD'S teachings. What this same amelioration was is well shown in the following passage from the oldest extant biography of the Prophet," says Professor G. Browne in his memorable work on Persia,[1] and quotes IBN HISHAM (A.H. 213: A.D. 828) in support. [Footnote 1: "Literary History of Persia," by Edward G. Browne, M.A., M.B., Vol. I, page 186.] "During the first half of the seventh century," says DOZY in [CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE] * * * * * [Illustration: ACCESSION AT KUFA, A.D. 749, OF ABU'L-ABBAS ABDULLAH AS-SAFFAH FIRST CALIPH OF THE HOUSE OF ABBAS] One of eight illustrations for a XIIIth Century Manuscript entitled, "HISTORY OF TABARI", compiled A.H. 310 (A.D. 922). The present copy is a subsequent one of the Persian version, translated by AL B'ALA'MI, A.H. 352. "It was a dynasty abounding in good qualities, richly endowed with generous attributes, wherein the wares of science found a ready sale, the merchandise of culture was in great demand, the observances of religion were respected, charitable bequests flowed freely ... and the frontiers were bravely kept."--AL-FAKHRI (historian of fame of the XIIIth Century) on the ABBASID Dynasty. * * * * * [PAGE 3] his excellent work on ISLAM,[2] "everything followed its accustomed course in the Byzantine as in the Persian Empire. These two states continued always to dispute the possession of western Asia; they were, to all outward appearance, flourishing; the taxes which poured into the treasuries of their Kings reached considerable sums, and the magnificence, as well as the luxury of their capitals had become proverbial. But all this was but in appearance, for secret disease consumed both empires; they were burdened by a crushing despotism; on either hand the history of the dynasties formed a concatenation of horrors, that of the state a series of persecutions born of dissensions in religious matters. At this juncture it was that, all of a sudden, there emerged from deserts hardly known and appeared on the scene of the world a new people, hitherto divided into innumerable nomad tribes, who, for the most part, had been at war with one another, now for the first time united. It was this people, passionately attached to liberty, simple in their food and dress, noble and hospitable, gay and witty, but at the same time proud, irascible, and, once their passions were aroused, vindictive, irreconcilable and cruel, who overthrew in an instant the venerable but rotten empire of the Persians, snatched from the successors of Constantine their fairest provinces, trampled under their feet a Germanic kingdom but lately founded, and menaced the rest of Europe, while at the same time, at the other end of the world, its victorious armies penetrated to the Himalayas. Yet it was not like so many other conquering peoples, for it preached at the same time a new religion. In opposition to the dualism of the Persians and a degenerate Christianity, it announced a pure monotheism which was accepted by millions of men, and which, even in our own time, constitutes the religion of a tenth part of the human race." [Footnote 2: Translated into French by Victor Chauvin under the title of "Essai sur l'Histoire de l'Islamisme" (Leyden and Paris, 1879).] The teachings of MUHAMMAD were not of a nature to arouse [CONTINUED ON PAGE FIVE] * * * * * [Illustration: POLYCHROME ENAMELLED GLASS MOSQUE LAMP OF THE XIIITH CENTURY] Very few examples of this highly advanced art survive. They represent an extremely aristocratic manifestation of art and were executed by order of MAMELUKE CALIPHS of Egypt, and dedicated by them to their great Mosques, individually inscribed in magnificent calligraphy. * * * * * [PAGE 5] intolerance.[3] History does not record the practice of compulsory conversion in the scheme of conquest of early converts. "It is often supposed," says Professor BROWNE, "that the choice offered by the warriors of ISLAM was between the QUR'AN and the SWORD; this, however, is not the fact." There are innumerable evidences to the contrary which history records.[4] It appears that the exemplary behavior of the Arabs, under their newly acquired faith, was the main factor not only in the success of their scheme of conquest, but also in the impression which it made on the defeated in determining them to adopt the faith which produced such upright warriors. [Footnote 3: "Righteousness is not that ye turn your faces to the East and to the West, but righteousness is this: Whosoever believeth in God, and the last day, and the angels, and the book, and the prophets; and whoso, for the love of God, giveth of his wealth unto his kindred, and unto orphans, and the poor, and the traveller, and to those who crave alms, and for the release of the captives; and whoso observeth prayer and giveth in charity; and those who, when they have covenanted, fulfil their covenant; and who are patient in adversity and hardship, and in times of violence: these are the righteous and they that fear the Lord."--QUR'AN, SURA II.] [Footnote 4: The treaty concluded by HABIB B. MASLAMA with the people of DABIL in Armenia ran as follows: "In the name of God the merciful, the clement. This is a letter from HABIB B. MASLAMA to the people of DABIL, Christians, Magians, and Jews, such of them as are present and such of them as are absent. Verily I guarantee the safety of your lives, properties, churches, temples and city walls; ye are secure, and it is incumbent upon us faithfully to observe this treaty so long as you observe it and pay the poll-tax and the land-tax. God is witness, and he sufficeth as a witness."--QUR'AN, V. 104. Concerning the acceptance of the Poll-Tax from ZOROASTRIANS, as well as from Jews and Christians. A. VON KREMER'S "Kulturgeschichte d. Orients," Vol. I, page 59.] The tremendous political upheaval that the evolution of ISLAM brought in its train to the affairs of the world does not fall within the scope of this paper. A highly important fact, however, must not be lost sight of, that by consolidating and unifying the tottering states a new civilization was founded which knew how to turn to account the culture of the ancient states conquered. In this overwhelming transformation Persia came in, from the outset, to play the most conspicuous and important part. The [CONTINUED ON PAGE NINE] * * * * * [Illustration: ROYAL IVORY BOX, WITH METAL MOUNTING. HISPANO-ARABIAN ART, XIITH-XIIITH CENTURY DECORATED IN ENAMEL AND GOLD, DEPICTING INSIGNIA OF SUCCESSORS OF UMAYYAD CALIPHS OF SPAIN, AND QUR'ANIC ROSETTES AND KUFIC CALLIGRAPHY OF THE HIGHEST DISTINCTION] [Illustration: FAIENCE CYLINDRICAL VASE, WITH RELIEF AND LUSTRE DECORATION. FROM FOSTAT (ANCIENT CAIRO), DYNASTY OF FATIMID ANTI-CALIPHS (A.D. 974-1171)] [Illustration: AN EARLY SAFAWID PAINTING (CIRCA A.D. 1525) OF EXQUISITE RHYTHM, DEPTH AND DIGNITY] * * * * * [PAGE 9] artistic productions of the MUHAMMADAN world that have come down to us as living monuments, substantiate this statement without a shadow of doubt, which makes it unnecessary to resort to recorded history, although its pages abound with incontestable evidences.[5] [Footnote 5: "Thus it is by no means correct to imply that the two or three centuries immediately following the MUHAMMADAN conquest of Persia were a blank page in the intellectual life of its people. It is, on the contrary, a period of immense and unique interest, of fusion between the old and the new, of transformation of forms and transmigration of ideas, but in no wise of stagnation or death. Politically, it is true, Persia ceased for a while to enjoy a separate national existence, being merged in that great MUHAMMADAN EMPIRE which stretched from GIBRALTAR to the JAXARTES; but in the intellectual domain she soon began to assert the supremacy to which the ability and subtlety of her people entitled her. Even the forms of State organization were largely adapted from Persian models."--AL-FAKHRI (ed. AHLWARDT, page 101), on the organization of the DIWANS or Government offices. "In the finance department not only was the Persian system adopted, but the Persian language and notation continued to be used till the time of AL-HAJJAJ B. YUSUF (about A.D. 700)."--EDWARD G. BROWNE, "Literary History of Persia", Vol. I, page 204.] It would be difficult to offer an explanation for the underlying unity and integrity of character manifest in the artistic expression of the MUHAMMADAN countries, of vast geographical range, without a clear understanding of the vital force contained in the teachings of the Arabian Apostle, and the characteristics of his people, destined to carry those teachings from one end of the earth to the other. For this reason the foregoing brief survey has been ventured. There can be no doubt that the pivot around which the artistic activities of MUHAMMADAN countries revolved, was Persia.[6] She was to attain the function of the SUN, element of [CONTINUED ON PAGE SEVENTEEN] * * * * * ILLUSTRATIONS FOR TITLE-PAGES OF A SHAHNAMA (EPIC OF KINGS) of the XVth Century. Representing TIMUR-I-LANG (A.H. 736-807) attending a festival. The name and the full titles of TIMUR appear in excellent Thuluth lettering round the border of the rug upon which the monarch sits. This important Manuscript was presented by the Emperor of Russia to the Ambassador of Persia at St. Petersburg, A.D. 1829. The Ambassador's autograph inscription reads: "The SHAHNAMA graciously presented by H.M. the Emperor at my third visit--may it be omen of good fortune. MUHAMMAD ALI IBNI GHAFOURI Ambassador, 22nd of RAJAB, A.H. 1245." "TIMUR BEG was seated in a portal, in front of the entrance of a beautiful Palace; and he was sitting on the ground.... The lord was seated cross-legged, on silken embroidered carpets, amongst round pillows. He was dressed in a robe of silk, with white headdress on his head, on the top of which there was a spinel ruby, with pearls and precious stones round it. As soon as the ambassadors saw the lord, they made a reverential bow, placing the knee on the ground, and crossing the arms on the breast; then they went forward and made another and then a third, remaining with their knees on the ground. The lord ordered them to rise and come forward.... Three MIRZAS, or secretaries, ... came and took the ambassadors by the arms, and led them forward until they stood before the lord.... He asked after the King, saying, 'How is my son the King? is he in good health?' When the ambassadors had answered, TIMUR BEG turned to the knights who were seated around him, amongst whom were one of the sons of TOKTAMISH, the former Emperor of TARTARY, several chiefs of the blood of the late Emperor of SAMARQUAND, and others of the family of the lord himself, and said, 'Behold, here are the ambassadors sent by my son, the King of Spain, who is the greatest King of Franks, and lives at the end of the world. These Franks are truly great people, and I will give my benediction to the King of Spain, my son."--From the Diary of RUY GONZALEZ DI CLAVIJO, principal of the embassy despatched A.D. 1404 to the Court of SAMARQUAND by Henry III of Castile, Spain. CLAVIJO describes the beautiful gardens with their tiled palaces where banquets were given. The ambassador, who was invited, marvelled at the gorgeous tents, one of which "was so large and high that from a distance it looked like a castle, and it was a very wonderful thing to see, and possessed more beauty than it is possible to describe". It is interesting to notice that SHARAF-U-DIN mentions the presence of the Ambassadors, "for," he writes, "even the smallest of fish have their place in the sea". Truly a delightful touch!--History of Persia, by SIR PERCY SYKES, Vol. II, page 133. [Illustration: ILLUSTRATIONS FOR TITLE-PAGES OF A SHAHNAMA (EPIC OF KINGS) OF THE XVTH CENTURY] "On the extreme of the western side of the royal precincts opening on to the CHAHAR BAGH are a garden and building. The Garden was previously called "BAGH I BULBUL" (Garden of Nightingales).--LORD CURZON, History of Persia. "Night drawing on, all the pride of SPAHAUN was met in the CHAUR BAUG and grandees were airing themselves, prancing about with their numerous trains, striving to outdo each other in pomp and generosity."--DR. FRYER, recorded A.D. 1677. CHARDIN, who was at Ispahan at the time of SHAH SULEIMAN'S reign (1667-1694), records in his "VOYAGES", Vol. VIII, page 43: "When one walks in these places expressly made for the delights of love and when one passes through all these cabinets and niches, one's heart is melted to such an extent that to speak candidly, one always leaves with a very ill grace. The climate without doubt contributes much towards exciting this amorous disposition, but assuredly these places, although in some respects little more than cardboard castles, are nevertheless more smiling and agreeable than our most sumptuous palaces." LORD CURZON says (History of Persia, Vol. II, page 37) that "Even CHARDIN, enthusiastic but seldom sentimental, was inspired to an unwonted outburst by the charms of HASHT BAHISHT". [Illustration: VIEW OF CHAHAR BAGH (FOUR GARDENS) AND HASHT BAHISHT (PAVILION OF EIGHT PARADISES) AT ISPAHAN. CONSTRUCTED BY SHAH SULEIMAN SAFAWI ABOUT A.D. 1670. REPRODUCTION FROM "LA PERSE, LA CHALDEE ET LA SUSIANE" (1887) BY DIEULAFOY] PAIR OF DOORS FROM THE PAVILION OF CHAHAL SITUN (Hall of Forty Pillars) built by SHAH ABBAS the Great (A.D. 1588-1629). These are decorated with representations of scenes from the Royal Court of the great Shah, painted minutely by Court artists. "They transport us straight to the Court of the lordly ABBAS and his predecessors or successors on the throne.... We see the King engaged at some royal festivity enjoying the pleasure of the Bowl."--LORD CURZON, History of Persia, Vol. II, page 34. KER PORTER, who saw the Palace of Chahal Situn in its perfect condition, records: "The exhaustless profusion of its splendid materials reflected not merely their own golden lights on each other, but all the variegated colours of the Garden, so that the whole surface seemed formed of polished silver and mother of pearl set with precious stones." LORD CURZON, who visited it soon after its last repair in 1891, quotes KER PORTER and by way of contrast says: "The bulk of this superb decoration which still remains in the THRONE ROOM behind, to point bitter contrast, had on the walls of the LOGGIA been ruthlessly obliterated by the brush of the painter, who had left in its place pink wash; had I caught the Pagan, I would gladly have suffocated him in a barrel of his own paint."--History of Persia, Vol. II, page 33. [Illustration: PAIR OF DOORS FROM THE PAVILION OF CHAHAL SITUN (HALL OF FORTY PILLARS) BUILT BY SHAH ABBAS THE GREAT (A.D. 1588-1629)] [Illustration: RIZA ABBASI, FAVORED COURT ARTIST, PORTRAYS EUROPEANS AT THE COURT OF SHAH ABBAS THE GREAT (A.D. 1588-1629)] Detail of exquisitely painted woodwork from the Pavilion of CHAHAL SITUN (Hall of Forty Pillars), the Palace at Ispahan built by SHAH ABBAS. The young Shah, who was pleased with the leader of the party (Europeans), gave him royal gifts, Sir Anthony Sherley records (1598), including "forty horses all furnished, two with exceeding rich saddles, plated with gold, and set with rubies and turquoises." To these he added camels, tents, and a sum of money. * * * * * [PAGE 17] her old faith, source of sustaining energy; and continued to radiate into these planets of countries and races of the System, her all-stimulating cultural beams, the reflection of which is discernible in all artistic manifestations of those countries. In the field of literature, which is so little known in the western world, the influence is even greater than in the visual art with which we are concerned. MUHAMMADAN literature, be it Arabic, Turkish, or Persian, is PERSIAN in spirit and feeling.[7] [Footnote 6: "The ascendancy of the Persians over the Arabs, that is to say of the conquered over the victors, had already for a long while been in course of preparation; it became complete when the ABBASIDS, who owed their elevation to the Persians, ascended the throne (A.D. 749). The most distinguished personages at court were consequently Persians. The famous BARMECIDES were descended from a Persian noble who had been superintendent of the Fire Temple at BALKH. AFSHIN, the all-powerful favorite of the Caliph AL-MUTASIM, was a scion of the Princes of USRUSHNA in Transoxiana."--DOZY, "Histoire de l'Islamisme".] [Footnote 7: "With the rise of PERSIAN influence, there opened an era of culture, toleration, and scientific research. The practice of oral tradition was also giving place to recorded statement and historical narrative,--a change hastened by the scholarly tendencies introduced from the East."--SIR WILLIAM MUIR, on the rise of the Abbasid Dynasty.] The fusion of MUHAMMADAN doctrine with this Aryan (Persian) culture of old,[8] is an important event in the history of Art. For out of this fusion came forth into being a new phase of artistic expression completely different, in form and spirit, from its predecessors. Probably of equal importance is the fact that, although practised by divers races and subjected to many developments, fluctuations and variations, it has retained throughout the centuries its identical characteristics. What was the vital force that brought about this cultural evolution and unification? The answer appears to be RELIGION, as we shall see. [Footnote 8: "PERSIAN influence increased at the court of the CALIPHS, and reached its zenith under AL-HADI, HARUNU'R-RASHID, and AL-MAMUN. Most of the ministers of the last were PERSIANS or of PERSIAN extraction. In BAGHDAD, PERSIAN fashions continued to enjoy an increasing ascendancy. The old PERSIAN festivals of the NAWRUZ, MIHRGAN, and RAM were celebrated. PERSIAN raiment was the official court dress, and the tall, black, conical PERSIAN hats were already prescribed as official by the second ABBASID Caliph (in A.H. 153: A.D. 770). At the court the customs of the SASSANIAN Kings were imitated, and garments decorated with golden inscriptions were introduced, which it was the exclusive privilege of the ruler to bestow. A coin of the Caliph AL-MUTAWAKKIL shows us this Prince actually clothed in true PERSIAN fashions".--VON KREMER, Streitzuge, page 32.] The foundation of the MUHAMMADAN EMPIRE was RELIGION. It was to the Holy Standard that the nations bent [CONTINUED ON PAGE TWENTY-THREE] * * * * * _"Lips sweet as sugar on my pen bestow, And from my book let streams of odour flow."_ --J'AMI. ILLUSTRATED AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT The complete volume of "YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA", the popular poem by the famous mystic poet J'AMI, based on the Biblical story of JOSEPH and POTIPHAR'S WIFE. The scribe, MIR ALI SULTANI. The colophon reads: "Terminated by the sinner, humble MIR ALI SULTANI the penman, may God forgive his sins and shelter his faults. Terminated in the month of MOHARRAM AL HARAM in the year A.H. 944 (in letters) (A.D. 1537) in the glorious city of BUKHARA." The Dedication in the handwriting of the scribe, in ornate gold lettering, reads: "For his majesty, the AUGUST, the just, the possessor of virtues, the great KHAGAN GHAZI ABD-UL-AZIZ BAHADUR KHAN, may his domain last forever." The autograph of the Emperor SHAH JAHAN, the "GREAT MOGUL", on the magnificently decorated mount reads: "In the name of God compassionate and merciful this YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA treasured on the occasion of BLESSED ACCESSION." (A.D. 1627) In confirmation of the foregoing, it is of great interest that JAHANGIR makes special reference in his memoirs (Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri) to an incident, as of highest importance, that he was presented by ABD-AL-RAHIM KHAN, KHAN-I-KHANAN, with a superb copy of J'AMI'S poem YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA, transcribed by MIR ALI SULTANI, "Prince of Penmen", and that the gift was appraised at "a thousand Muhr". [Illustration: COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED AND ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT OF "YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA", BY THE FAMOUS MYSTIC POET J'AMI] ONE OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE MANUSCRIPT YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA ZALIKHA in old age, broken and in poverty, meets YUSUF in the market place in Egypt. _"Where is thy youth, and thy beauty, and pride?" "Gone, since I parted from thee," she replied. "Where is the light of thine eye?" said he. "Drowned in blood-tears for the loss of thee." "Why is that cypress tree bowed and bent?" "By absence from thee and my long lament." "Where is thy pearl, and thy silver and gold, And the diadem bright on thy head of old?"..._ --Quotation from YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA (J'AMI). Translation of R.T. GRIFFITH. [Illustration] [Illustration: CHISELLED SILVER BOWL, DECORATED IN FILIGREE AND POLYCHROME ENAMEL. PERSIAN WORK OF THE XVITH CENTURY, PROBABLY EXECUTED IN ASIA MINOR FOR A PRINCELY OTTOMAN PATRON] * * * * * [PAGE 23] and professed unqualified allegiance. A powerful political unity came into existence and continued for a period of SIX centuries uninterrupted. The nations of this united kingdom of ISLAM were thus merged into one unit, under the stimulus of one formal religion, freely transmigrating local ideas. Arts and culture were transformed, but the evolution thus caused by the Religion was essentially political in nature. "There is no God but GOD," said the APOSTLE OF ARABIA, but the poet reflected awhile, and his rejoinder was: "The Ways of God are as the number of SOULS OF MEN." The Prophet's religion was rational, its principles attainable; it secured for the poet social amelioration and physical comfort, but there was a voice from the depth of his soul that he could not silence. It was the voice of mystery; he was concerned with the problems of the "Wherefore, the Whence, and the Whither".... Was he not a Son of the land which PLOTINUS visited to learn mystery of the Orient of Old?[9] [Footnote 9: "Il prit un si grand goût pour la philosophie qu'il se proposa d'étudier celle qui était enseignée chez les Perses et celle qui prévalait chez les Indiens. Lorsque l'empéreur Gordien se prépara à faire son expédition contre les Perses, Plotin, alors âgé de trente-neuf ans, se mit à la suite de l'armée. Il avait passé dix années entières près d'Ammonius. Gordien ayant été tué en Mesopotamie, Plotin eût assez de peine à se sauver à Antioche."--PORPHYRY ON PLOTINUS: Translation of the Enneads of Plotinus (Bouillet; Paris, 1857).] We have to look therefore to the RELIGION, "The Ways" of whose God "are as the number of Souls of Men", to perceive the true nature of the evolution of the artistic expression of these people. Souls with irresistible cravings for Mysticism, poets, artists, philosophers and the like, discovered for the first time from MUHAMMAD'S formal teachings, which contained certain esoteric elements, that the senses, unreal and phenomenal, have yet an important mission to fulfill in the task which aims to escape from SELF (which is an illusion and the root of SIN, PAIN, and SORROW) and to attain the height where the eternal beauty, [CONTINUED ON PAGE TWENTY-SEVEN] * * * * * "PORTRAIT OF MEHDI ALI GULI KHAN, COMMANDER OF FORTRESS, BY RAMDAS"--A.D. 1630. A leaf from the National Portrait Album conceived by the Emperor AKBAR, and amplified and executed by JAHANGIR and SHAH JAHAN. The volume consists of portraits of the Royal Family of the GREAT MOGULS and their principal supporters. These historic personages are represented in the centre as single individuals, with their chief officials and retainers in the border around them. RAMDAS, a Hindu artist, was one of AKBAR'S artists who worked under JAHANGIR and SHAH JAHAN. His signed works include the following: BABURNAMA in the British Museum and South Kensington Museum. AKBARNAMA in South Kensington Museum. RAZMNAMA in the State Library, Jaipur, India. TIMURNAMA in the Oriental Public Library, Bankipur, India. [Illustration: "PORTRAIT OF MEHDI ALI GULI KHAN, COMMANDER OF FORTRESS, BY RAMDAS"--A.D. 1630] [Illustration: SILK FABRIC--A RARE EXAMPLE OF THE KIND PRODUCED BY THE ROYAL LOOMS AT ISPAHAN, WHICH FLOURISHED UNDER THE DIRECT PATRONAGE OF SHAH ABBAS THE GREAT (A.D. 1588-1629)] "Oct. 18th, 1666.--To Court. It being ye first time his Ma'ty (CHARLES II of England) put himself solemnly into Eastern fashion of vest, changeing doublet, stiff collar, bands and cloake, into a comley dress, after ye Persian mode. I had sometime before presented an invective against our so much affecting the French fashion, to his Majesty, in which I took occasion to describe the comelinesse and usefulness of the Persian clothing, in ye very same manner his Ma'ty now clad himself."--JOHN EVELYN (A.D. 1666), celebrated historian and diarist. * * * * * [PAGE 27] which is but ONE, reveals itself through countless phenomena which are but reflections of ONE. "The PHANTASMAL is the BRIDGE to the REAL," says the mystic, and the immortal lines of J'AMI read: _"Though in this world a hundred tasks thou tryest, 'Tis Love alone which from thyself will save thee. Even from earthly love thy face avert not, Since to the real it may serve to raise thee. Ere A, B, C, are rightly apprehended, How canst thou con the pages of the_ QUR'AN? _A sage (so heard I) unto whom a scholar Came craving counsel on the course before him, Said, 'If thy steps be strangers to love's pathways, Depart, learn Love, and then return before me, For, shouldst thou fear to drink wine from form's Flagon, Thou canst not drain the draughts of the Ideal. But yet beware, Be not by form belated, Strive rather with all speed the bridge to traverse. If to the bourn thou fain wouldst bear thy baggage, Upon the bridge let not thy footsteps linger."_[10] [Footnote 10: "Religious Systems of the World" (Swan Sonnenschein, 1892).] The unreality of things material, the illusion of Self and desires, the perception that all living things and apparent phenomena reflected but one all-embracing GOOD and BEAUTY, was the philosophy of Hindu and all Oriental mystics of old; but they attempted to destroy the self and desires (Source of Sin) uncompromisingly and unreasonably. It was a philosophy "cold" and "bloodless", as Professor BROWNE points out, in trenchant terms. The MUHAMMADAN mystic became conscious that the stream cannot be crossed without the aid of the BRIDGE constructed for this purpose. Here (as it seems to us) lies the KEYNOTE, the mainspring of inspiration of artistic expression, which (for the lack of better designation) might be termed MUHAMMADAN ART: A merging of physical and spiritual, of worldly magnificence and eternal bliss. [CONTINUED ON PAGE THIRTY-ONE] * * * * * THE PRINCES OF THE HOUSE OF TIMUR EMIR TIMUR (TIMUR-I-LANG) on the throne (A.D. 1335-1405) On the right of the throne: BABUR A.D. 1526-1530 HUMAYUN A.D. 1530-1556 AKBAR A.D. 1556-1605 JAHANGIR A.D. 1605-1627 SHAH JAHAN A.D. 1627-1658 On the left are three sons of SHAH JAHAN: DARA SHIKOH SHAH SHUJA AURENGZIB (who succeeded Shah Jahan) MUGHAL Painting from the Imperial Library of DELHI, A.D. 1640 [Illustration: THE PRINCES OF THE HOUSE OF TIMUR MUGHAL PAINTING FROM THE IMPERIAL LIBRARY OF DELHI, A.D. 1640] TALAR (HALL OF AUDIENCE) RUG From the looms of ISPAHAN or the adjoining city of JOSHAGAN. Made during the reign of SHAH SULEIMAN (A.D. 1667-1694), upon the model of CHAHAR BAGH Royal Garden at ISPAHAN, on the grounds of which the Royal Pavilion of HASHT BAHISHT (Eight Paradises) stands. The Rug measures 29 feet by 9 feet 5 inches. LORD CURZON in his History of Persia, Vol. II, page 38, gives the following description of the Garden of CHAHAR BAGH: "At the upper extremity a two storeyed PAVILION connected by a corridor with the SERAGLIO of the palace, so as to enable the ladies of the harem to gaze unobserved upon the merry scene below, looked out upon the centre of the avenue. Water conducted in stone channels ran down the centre, falling in cascades from terrace to terrace, and was occasionally collected in great square or octagonal basins where cross roads cut the avenues. On either side of the central channel was a row of chenars and a paved pathway for pedestrians, then occurred a succession of open parterres, usually planted or sown. Next on either side was a second row of chenars, between which and flanking walls was a raised causeway for horsemen. At intervals corresponding with the successive terraces and basins, arched doorways with recessed open chambers overhead conducted through these walls into the various royal or noble gardens that stretched on either side and were known as the gardens of the throne; nightingale, vines, mulberries, Dervishes, etc. Some of these pavilions were places of public resort and were used as coffee houses, where when the business of the day was over the good burghers of Ispahan assembled to sip that beverage and inhale their Kalians the while. At the bottom quays lined the banks of the river and were bordered with the mansions of the nobility." [Illustration] * * * * * [PAGE 31] A desire to reach to our higher instincts through the vehicle of our senses is apparent in all forms in which these masters sought to express themselves; we feel that, in their entrancing rhythmical compositions, in their incomparable poetry of flowing melodious words, in all their literature, in the inimitable colors and lyrical lines of all branches of representation of visual art. We feel the presence of an element prevailing throughout, and underlying every form of expression, an element which may be described in a word, "HUMAN". It is stated that the PERSIAN spirit and feeling were reflected in all forms of artistic expression of the MUHAMMADAN world. It is not, however, intended that other nations and countries over which ISLAM held sway, contributed nothing in the building of the influences of each were felt in varying degrees in the transmigration of ideas continued to take place between the nations, and the influences of each were felt in varying degrees in the transformation that resulted. In the fusion referred to, the influence of the PERSIAN culture was predominant, a fact so transparent, as to require (we may assume) no emphasis. It is not intended to deal here with particular aspects or divers branches of arts in which the genius of these artists found expression. In offering briefly these lines as to the general aspect of the Art of the MUHAMMADAN world, the intention is to offer an explanation to those who may not be familiar with its history. H. KEVORKIAN [Illustration] 
19164	----	[Transcriber's note: Transliteration of Greek words appears between + signs.] Library Edition THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN CROWN OF WILD OLIVE TIME AND TIDE QUEEN OF THE AIR LECTURES ON ART AND LANDSCAPE ARATRA PENTELICI NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NEW YORK CHICAGO *** LECTURES ON ART. DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN HILARY TERM, 1870. *** CONTENTS. LECTURE I. INAUGURAL 1 LECTURE II. THE RELATION OF ART TO RELIGION 24 LECTURE III. THE RELATION OF ART TO MORALS 46 LECTURE IV. THE RELATION OF ART TO USE 66 LECTURE V. LINE 86 LECTURE VI. LIGHT 102 LECTURE VII. COLOUR 123 PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1887. The following lectures were the most important piece of my literary work done with unabated power, best motive, and happiest concurrence of circumstance. They were written and delivered while my mother yet lived, and had vividest sympathy in all I was attempting;--while also my friends put unbroken trust in me, and the course of study I had followed seemed to fit me for the acceptance of noble tasks and graver responsibilities than those only of a curious traveler, or casual teacher. Men of the present world may smile at the sanguine utterances of the first four lectures: but it has not been wholly my own fault that they have remained unfulfilled; nor do I retract one word of hope for the success of other masters, nor a single promise made to the sincerity of the student's labor, on the lines here indicated. It would have been necessary to my success, that I should have accepted permanent residence in Oxford, and scattered none of my energy in other tasks. But I chose to spend half my time at Coniston Waterhead; and to use half my force in attempts to form a new social organization,--the St. George's Guild,--which made all my Oxford colleagues distrustful of me, and many of my Oxford hearers contemptuous. My mother's death in 1871, and that of a dear friend in 1875, took away the personal joy I had in anything I wrote or designed: and in 1876, feeling unable for Oxford duty, I obtained a year's leave of rest, and, by the kind and wise counsel of Prince Leopold, went to Venice, to reconsider the form into which I had cast her history in the abstract of it given in the "Stones of Venice." The more true and close view of that history, begun in "St. Mark's Rest," and the fresh architectural drawings made under the stimulus of it, led me forward into new fields of thought, inconsistent with the daily attendance needed by my Oxford classes; and in my discontent with the state I saw them in, and my inability to return to their guidance without abandonment of all my designs of Venetian and Italian history, began the series of vexations which ended in the very nearly mortal illness of 1878. Since, therefore, the period of my effective action in Oxford was only from 1870 to 1875, it can scarcely be matter of surprise or reproof that I could not in that time obtain general trust in a system of teaching which, though founded on that of Da Vinci and Reynolds, was at variance with the practice of all recent European academy schools; nor establish--on the unassisted resources of the Slade Professorship--the schools of Sculpture, Architecture, Metal-work, and manuscript Illumination, of which the design is confidently traced in the four inaugural lectures. In revising the book, I have indicated as in the last edition of the "Seven Lamps," passages which the student will find generally applicable, and in all their bearings useful, as distinguished from those regarding only their immediate subject. The relative importance of these broader statements, I again indicate by the use of capitals or italics; and if the reader will index the sentences he finds useful for his own work, in the blank pages left for that purpose at the close of the volume, he will certainly get more good of them than if they had been grouped for him according to the author's notion of their contents. SANDGATE, _10th January, 1888_. LECTURES ON ART LECTURE I INAUGURAL 1. The duty which is to-day laid on me, of introducing, among the elements of education appointed in this great University, one not only new, but such as to involve in its possible results some modification of the rest, is, as you well feel, so grave, that no man could undertake it without laying himself open to the imputation of a kind of insolence; and no man could undertake it rightly, without being in danger of having his hands shortened by dread of his task, and mistrust of himself. And it has chanced to me, of late, to be so little acquainted either with pride or hope, that I can scarcely recover so much as I now need, of the one for strength, and of the other for foresight, except by remembering that noble persons, and friends of the high temper that judges most clearly where it loves best, have desired that this trust should be given me: and by resting also in the conviction that the goodly tree whose roots, by God's help, we set in earth to-day, will not fail of its height because the planting of it is under poor auspices, or the first shoots of it enfeebled by ill gardening. 2. The munificence of the English gentleman to whom we owe the founding of this Professorship at once in our three great Universities, has accomplished the first great group of a series of changes now taking gradual effect in our system of public education, which, as you well know, are the sign of a vital change in the national mind, respecting both the principles on which that education should be conducted, and the ranks of society to which it should extend. For, whereas it was formerly thought that the discipline necessary to form the character of youth was best given in the study of abstract branches of literature and philosophy, it is now thought that the same, or a better, discipline may be given by informing men in early years of the things it will be of chief practical advantage to them afterwards to know; and by permitting to them the choice of any field of study which they may feel to be best adapted to their personal dispositions. I have always used what poor influence I possessed in advancing this change; nor can any one rejoice more than I in its practical results. But the completion--I will not venture to say, correction--of a system established by the highest wisdom of noble ancestors, cannot be too reverently undertaken: and it is necessary for the English people, who are sometimes violent in change in proportion to the reluctance with which they admit its necessity, to be now, oftener than at other times, reminded that the object of instruction here is not primarily attainment, but discipline; and that a youth is sent to our Universities, not (hitherto at least) to be apprenticed to a trade, nor even always to be advanced in a profession; but, always, to be made a gentleman and a scholar. 3. To be made these,--if there is in him the making of either. The populaces of civilised countries have lately been under a feverish impression that it is possible for all men to be both; and that having once become, by passing through certain mechanical processes of instruction, gentle and learned, they are sure to attain in the sequel the consummate beatitude of being rich. Rich, in the way and measure in which it is well for them to be so, they may, without doubt, _all_ become. There is indeed a land of Havilah open to them, of which the wonderful sentence is literally true--"The gold of _that_ land is good." But they must first understand, that education, in its deepest sense, is not the equaliser, but the discerner, of men;[1] and that, so far from being instruments for the collection of riches, the first lesson of wisdom is to disdain them, and of gentleness, to diffuse. [Footnote 1: The full meaning of this sentence, and of that which closes the paragraph, can only be understood by reference to my more developed statements on the subject of Education in "Modern Painters" and in "Time and Tide." The following fourth paragraph is the most pregnant summary of my political and social principles I have ever been able to give.] It is not therefore, as far as we can judge, yet possible for all men to be gentlemen and scholars. Even under the best training some will remain too selfish to refuse wealth, and some too dull to desire leisure. But many more might be so than are now; nay, perhaps all men in England might one day be so, if England truly desired her supremacy among the nations to be in kindness and in learning. To which good end, it will indeed contribute that we add some practice of the lower arts to our scheme of University education; but the thing which is vitally necessary is, that we should extend the spirit of University education to the practice of the lower arts. 4. And, above all, it is needful that we do this by redeeming them from their present pain of self-contempt, and by giving them _rest_. It has been too long boasted as the pride of England, that out of a vast multitude of men, confessed to be in evil case, it was possible for individuals, by strenuous effort, and rare good fortune, occasionally to emerge into the light, and look back with self-gratulatory scorn upon the occupations of their parents, and the circumstances of their infancy. Ought we not rather to aim at an ideal of national life, when, of the employments of Englishmen, though each shall be distinct, none shall be unhappy or ignoble; when mechanical operations, acknowledged to be debasing in their tendency,[2] shall be deputed to less fortunate and more covetous races; when advance from rank to rank, though possible to all men, may be rather shunned than desired by the best; and the chief object in the mind of every citizen may not be extrication from a condition admitted to be disgraceful, but fulfilment of a duty which shall be also a birthright? [Footnote 2: "+technai epirrêtoi+," compare page 81.] 5. And then, the training of all these distinct classes will not be by Universities of general knowledge, but by distinct schools of such knowledge as shall be most useful for every class: in which, first the principles of their special business may be perfectly taught, and whatever higher learning, and cultivation of the faculties for receiving and giving pleasure, may be properly joined with that labour, taught in connection with it. Thus, I do not despair of seeing a School of Agriculture, with its fully-endowed institutes of zoology, botany, and chemistry; and a School of Mercantile Seamanship, with its institutes of astronomy, meteorology, and natural history of the sea: and, to name only one of the finer, I do not say higher, arts, we shall, I hope, in a little time, have a perfect school of Metal-work, at the head of which will be, not the ironmasters, but the goldsmiths: and therein, I believe, that artists, being taught how to deal wisely with the most precious of metals, will take into due government the uses of all others. But I must not permit myself to fail in the estimate of my immediate duty, while I debate what that duty may hereafter become in the hands of others; and I will therefore now, so far as I am able, lay before you a brief general view of the existing state of the arts in England, and of the influence which her Universities, through these newly-founded lectureships, may, I hope, bring to bear upon it for good. 6. We have first to consider the impulse which has been given to the practice of all the arts by the extension of our commerce, and enlarged means of intercourse with foreign nations, by which we now become more familiarly acquainted with their works in past and in present times. The immediate result of these new opportunities, I regret to say, has been to make us more jealous of the genius of others, than conscious of the limitations of our own; and to make us rather desire to enlarge our wealth by the sale of art, than to elevate our enjoyments by its acquisition. Now, whatever efforts we make, with a true desire to produce, and possess, things that are intrinsically beautiful, have in them at least one of the essential elements of success. But efforts having origin only in the hope of enriching ourselves by the sale of our productions, are _assuredly_ condemned to dishonourable failure; not because, ultimately, a well-trained nation is forbidden to profit by the exercise of its peculiar art-skill; but because that peculiar art-skill can never be developed _with a view_ to profit. The right fulfilment of national power in art depends always on THE DIRECTION OF ITS AIM BY THE EXPERIENCE OF AGES. Self-knowledge is not less difficult, nor less necessary for the direction of its genius, to a people than to an individual; and it is neither to be acquired by the eagerness of unpractised pride, nor during the anxieties of improvident distress. No nation ever had, or will have, the power of suddenly developing, under the pressure of necessity, faculties it had neglected when it was at ease; nor of teaching itself in poverty, the skill to produce, what it has never, in opulence, had the sense to admire. 7. Connected also with some of the worst parts of our social system, but capable of being directed to better result than this commercial endeavour, we see lately a most powerful impulse given to the production of costly works of art, by the various causes which promote the sudden accumulation of wealth in the hands of private persons. We have thus a vast and new patronage, which, in its present agency, is injurious to our schools; but which is nevertheless in a great degree earnest and conscientious, and far from being influenced chiefly by motives of ostentation. Most of our rich men would be glad to promote the true interests of art in this country: and even those who buy for vanity, found their vanity on the possession of what they suppose to be best. It is therefore in a great measure the fault of artists themselves if they suffer from this partly unintelligent, but thoroughly well-intended, patronage. If they seek to attract it by eccentricity, to deceive it by superficial qualities, or take advantage of it by thoughtless and facile production, they necessarily degrade themselves and it together, and have no right to complain afterwards that it will not acknowledge better-grounded claims. But if every painter of real power would do only what he knew to be worthy of himself, and refuse to be involved in the contention for undeserved or accidental success, there is indeed, whatever may have been thought or said to the contrary, true instinct enough in the public mind to follow such firm guidance. It is one of the facts which the experience of thirty years enables me to assert without qualification, that a really good picture is ultimately always approved and bought, unless it is wilfully rendered offensive to the public by faults which the artist has been either too proud to abandon or too weak to correct. 8. The development of whatever is healthful and serviceable in the two modes of impulse which we have been considering, depends however, ultimately, on the direction taken by the true interest in art which has lately been aroused by the great and active genius of many of our living, or but lately lost, painters, sculptors, and architects. It may perhaps surprise, but I think it will please you to hear me, or (if you will forgive me, in my own Oxford, the presumption of fancying that some may recognise me by an old name) to hear the author of "Modern Painters" say, that his chief error in earlier days was not in over estimating, but in too slightly acknowledging the merit of living men. The great painter whose power, while he was yet among us, I was able to perceive, was the first to reprove me for my disregard of the skill of his fellow-artists; and, with this inauguration of the study of the art of all time,--a study which can only by true modesty end in wise admiration,--it is surely well that I connect the record of these words of his, spoken then too truly to myself, and true always more or less for all who are untrained in that toil,--"You don't know how difficult it is." You will not expect me, within the compass of this lecture, to give you any analysis of the many kinds of excellent art (in all the three great divisions) which the complex demands of modern life, and yet more varied instincts of modern genius, have developed for pleasure or service. It must be my endeavour, in conjunction with my colleagues in the other Universities, hereafter to enable you to appreciate these worthily; in the hope that also the members of the Royal Academy, and those of the Institute of British Architects, may be induced to assist, and guide, the efforts of the Universities, by organising such a system of art-education for their own students, as shall in future prevent the waste of genius in any mistaken endeavours; especially removing doubt as to the proper substance and use of materials; and requiring compliance with certain elementary principles of right, in every picture and design exhibited with their sanction. It is not indeed possible for talent so varied as that of English artists to be compelled into the formalities of a determined school; but it must certainly be the function of every academical body to see that their younger students are guarded from what must in every school be error; and that they are practised in the best methods of work hitherto known, before their ingenuity is directed to the invention of others. 9. I need scarcely refer, except for the sake of completeness in my statement, to one form of demand for art which is wholly unenlightened, and powerful only for evil;--namely, the demand of the classes occupied solely in the pursuit of pleasure, for objects and modes of art that can amuse indolence or excite passion. There is no need for any discussion of these requirements, or of their forms of influence, though they are very deadly at present in their operation on sculpture, and on jewellers' work. They cannot be checked by blame, nor guided by instruction; they are merely the necessary result of whatever defects exist in the temper and principles of a luxurious society; and it is only by moral changes, not by art-criticism, that their action can be modified. 10. Lastly, there is a continually increasing demand for popular art, multipliable by the printing-press, illustrative of daily events, of general literature, and of natural science. Admirable skill, and some of the best talent of modern times, are occupied in supplying this want; and there is no limit to the good which may be effected by rightly taking advantage of the powers we now possess of placing good and lovely art within the reach of the poorest classes. Much has been already accomplished; but great harm has been done also,--first, by forms of art definitely addressed to depraved tastes; and, secondly, in a more subtle way, by really beautiful and useful engravings which are yet not good enough to retain their influence on the public mind;--which weary it by redundant quantity of monotonous average excellence, and diminish or destroy its power of accurate attention to work of a higher order. Especially this is to be regretted in the effect produced on the schools of line engraving, which had reached in England an executive skill of a kind before unexampled, and which of late have lost much of their more sterling and legitimate methods. Still, I have seen plates produced quite recently, more beautiful, I think, in some qualities than anything ever before attained by the burin: and I have not the slightest fear that photography, or any other adverse or competitive operation, will in the least ultimately diminish,--I believe they will, on the contrary, stimulate and exalt--the grand old powers of the wood and the steel. 11. Such are, I think, briefly the present conditions of art with which we have to deal; and I conceive it to be the function of this Professorship, with respect to them, to establish both a practical and critical school of fine art for English gentlemen: practical, so that if they draw at all, they may draw rightly; and critical, so that being first directed to such works of existing art as will best reward their study, they may afterwards make their patronage of living artists delightful to themselves in their consciousness of its justice, and, to the utmost, beneficial to their country, by being given to the men who deserve it; in the early period of their lives, when they both need it most, and can be influenced by it to the best advantage. 12. And especially with reference to this function of patronage, I believe myself justified in taking into account future probabilities as to the character and range of art in England: and I shall endeavour at once to organise with you a system of study calculated to develop chiefly the knowledge of those branches in which the English schools have shown, and are likely to show, peculiar excellence. Now, in asking your sanction both for the nature of the general plans I wish to adopt, and for what I conceive to be necessary limitations of them, I wish you to be fully aware of my reasons for both: and I will therefore risk the burdening of your patience while I state the directions of effort in which I think English artists are liable to failure, and those also in which past experience has shown they are secure of success. 13. I referred, but now, to the effort we are making to improve the designs of our manufactures. Within certain limits I believe this improvement may indeed take effect: so that we may no more humour momentary fashions by ugly results of chance instead of design; and may produce both good tissues, of harmonious colours, and good forms and substance of pottery and glass. But we shall never excel in decorative design. Such design is usually produced by people of great natural powers of mind, who have no variety of subjects to employ themselves on, no oppressive anxieties, and are in circumstances either of natural scenery or of daily life, which cause pleasurable excitement. _We_ cannot design, because we have too much to think of, and we think of it too anxiously. It has long been observed how little real anxiety exists in the minds of the partly savage races which excel in decorative art; and we must not suppose that the temper of the Middle Ages was a troubled one, because every day brought its danger or its change. The very eventfulness of the life rendered it careless, as generally is still the case with soldiers and sailors. Now, when there are great powers of thought, and little to think of, all the waste energy and fancy are thrown into the manual work, and you have so much intellect as would direct the affairs of a large mercantile concern for a day, spent all at once, quite unconsciously, in drawing an ingenious spiral. Also, powers of doing fine ornamental work are only to be reached by a perpetual discipline of the hand as well as of the fancy; discipline as attentive and painful as that which a juggler has to put himself through, to overcome the more palpable difficulties of his profession. The execution of the best artists is always a splendid tour-de-force; and much that in painting is supposed to be dependent on material is indeed only a lovely and quite inimitable legerdemain. Now, when powers of fancy, stimulated by this triumphant precision of manual dexterity, descend uninterruptedly from generation to generation, you have at last, what is not so much a trained artist, as a new species of animal, with whose instinctive gifts you have no chance of contending. And thus all our imitations of other people's work are futile. We must learn first to make honest English wares, and afterwards to decorate them as may please the then approving Graces. 14. Secondly--and this is an incapacity of a graver kind, yet having its own good in it also--we shall never be successful in the highest fields of ideal or theological art. For there is one strange, but quite essential, character in us: ever since the Conquest, if not earlier:--a delight in the forms of burlesque which are connected in some degree with the foulness of evil. I think the most perfect type of a true English mind in its best possible temper, is that of Chaucer; and you will find that, while it is for the most part full of thoughts of beauty, pure and wild like that of an April morning, there are even in the midst of this, sometimes momentarily jesting passages which stoop to play with evil--while the power of listening to and enjoying the jesting of entirely gross persons, whatever the feeling may be which permits it, afterwards degenerates into forms of humour which render some of quite the greatest, wisest, and most moral of English writers now almost useless for our youth. And yet you will find that whenever Englishmen are wholly without this instinct, their genius is comparatively weak and restricted. 15. Now, the first necessity for the doing of any great work in ideal art, is the looking upon all foulness with horror, as a contemptible though dreadful enemy. You may easily understand what I mean, by comparing the feelings with which Dante regards any form of obscenity or of base jest, with the temper in which the same things are regarded by Shakespeare. And this strange earthly instinct of ours, coupled as it is, in our good men, with great simplicity and common sense, renders them shrewd and perfect observers and delineators of actual nature, low or high; but precludes them from that specialty of art which is properly called sublime. If ever we try anything in the manner of Michael Angelo or of Dante, we catch a fall, even in literature, as Milton in the battle of the angels, spoiled from Hesiod; while in art, every attempt in this style has hitherto been the sign either of the presumptuous egotism of persons who had never really learned to be workmen, or it has been connected with very tragic forms of the contemplation of death,--it has always been partly insane, and never once wholly successful. But we need not feel any discomfort in these limitations of our capacity. We can do much that others cannot, and more than we have ever yet ourselves completely done. Our first great gift is in the portraiture of living people--a power already so accomplished in both Reynolds and Gainsborough that nothing is left for future masters but to add the calm of perfect workmanship to their vigour and felicity of perception. And of what value a true school of portraiture may become in the future, when worthy men will desire only to be known, and others will not fear to know them, for what they truly were, we cannot from any past records of art influence yet conceive. But in my next address it will be partly my endeavour to show you how much more useful, because more humble, the labour of great masters might have been, had they been content to bear record of the souls that were dwelling with them on earth, instead of striving to give a deceptive glory to those they dreamed of in heaven. 16. Secondly, we have an intense power of invention and expression in domestic drama; (King Lear and Hamlet being essentially domestic in their strongest motives of interest). There is a tendency at this moment towards a noble development of our art in this direction, checked by many adverse conditions, which may be summed in one,--the insufficiency of generous civic or patriotic passion in the heart of the English people; a fault which makes its domestic affection selfish, contracted, and, therefore, frivolous. 17. Thirdly, in connection with our simplicity and good-humour, and partly with that very love of the grotesque which debases our ideal, we have a sympathy with the lower animals which is peculiarly our own; and which, though it has already found some exquisite expression in the works of Bewick and Landseer, is yet quite undeveloped. This sympathy, with the aid of our now authoritative science of physiology, and in association with our British love of adventure, will, I hope, enable us to give to the future inhabitants of the globe an almost perfect record of the present forms of animal life upon it, of which many are on the point of being extinguished. Lastly, but not as the least important of our special powers, I have to note our skill in landscape, of which I will presently speak more particularly. 18. Such I conceive to be the directions in which, principally, we have the power to excel; and you must at once see how the consideration of them must modify the advisable methods of our art study. For if our professional painters were likely to produce pieces of art loftily ideal in their character, it would be desirable to form the taste of the students here by setting before them only the purest examples of Greek, and the mightiest of Italian, art. But I do not think you will yet find a single instance of a school directed exclusively to these higher branches of study in England, which has strongly, or even definitely, made impression on its younger scholars. While, therefore, I shall endeavour to point out clearly the characters to be looked for and admired in the great masters of imaginative design, I shall make no special effort to stimulate the imitation of them; and above all things, I shall try to probe in you, and to prevent, the affectation into which it is easy to fall, even through modesty,--of either endeavouring to admire a grandeur with which we have no natural sympathy, or losing the pleasure we might take in the study of familiar things, by considering it a sign of refinement to look for what is of higher class, or rarer occurrence. 19. Again, if our artisans were likely to attain any distinguished skill in ornamental design, it would be incumbent upon me to make my class here accurately acquainted with the principles of earth and metal work, and to accustom them to take pleasure in conventional arrangements of colour and form. I hope, indeed, to do this, so far as to enable them to discern the real merit of many styles of art which are at present neglected; and, above all, to read the minds of semi-barbaric nations in the only language by which their feelings were capable of expression; and those members of my class whose temper inclines them to take pleasure in the interpretation of mythic symbols, will not probably be induced to quit the profound fields of investigation which early art, examined carefully, will open to them, and which belong to it alone: for this is a general law, that supposing the intellect of the workman the same, the more imitatively complete his art, the less he will mean by it; and the ruder the symbol, the deeper is its intention. Nevertheless, when I have once sufficiently pointed out the nature and value of this conventional work, and vindicated it from the contempt with which it is too generally regarded, I shall leave the student to his own pleasure in its pursuit; and even, so far as I may, discourage all admiration founded on quaintness or peculiarity of style; and repress any other modes of feeling which are likely to lead rather to fastidious collection of curiosities, than to the intelligent appreciation of work which, being executed in compliance with constant laws of right, cannot be singular, and must be distinguished only by excellence in what is always desirable. 20. While, therefore, in these and such other directions, I shall endeavour to put every adequate means of advance within reach of the members of my class, I shall use my own best energy to show them what is consummately beautiful and well done, by men who have passed through the symbolic or suggestive stage of design, and have enabled themselves to comply, by truth of representation, with the strictest or most eager demands of accurate science, and of disciplined passion. I shall therefore direct your observation, during the greater part of the time you may spare to me, to what is indisputably best, both in painting and sculpture; trusting that you will afterwards recognise the nascent and partial skill of former days both with greater interest and greater respect, when you know the full difficulty of what it attempted, and the complete range of what it foretold. 21. And with this view, I shall at once endeavour to do what has for many years been in my thoughts, and now, with the advice and assistance of the curators of the University Galleries, I do not doubt may be accomplished here in Oxford, just where it will be preëminently useful--namely, to arrange an educational series of examples of excellent art, standards to which you may at once refer on any questionable point, and by the study of which you may gradually attain an instinctive sense of right, which will afterwards be liable to no serious error. Such a collection may be formed, both more perfectly, and more easily, than would commonly be supposed. For the real utility of the series will depend on its restricted extent,--on the severe exclusion of all second-rate, superfluous, or even attractively varied examples,--and On the confining the students' attention to a few types of what is insuperably good. More progress in power of judgment may be made in a limited time by the examination of one work, than by the review of many; and a certain degree of vitality is given to the impressiveness of every characteristic, by its being exhibited in clear contrast, and without repetition. The greater number of the examples I shall choose will be only engravings or photographs: they shall be arranged so as to be easily accessible, and I will prepare a catalogue, pointing out my purpose in the selection of each. But in process of time, I have good hope that assistance will be given me by the English public in making the series here no less splendid than serviceable; and in placing minor collections, arranged on a similar principle, at the command also of the students in our public schools. 22. In the second place, I shall endeavour to prevail upon all the younger members of the University who wish to attend the art lectures, to give at least so much time to manual practice as may enable them to understand the nature and difficulty of executive skill. The time so spent will not be lost, even as regards their other studies at the University, for I will prepare the practical exercises in a double series, one illustrative of history, the other of natural science. And whether you are drawing a piece of Greek armour, or a hawk's beak, or a lion's paw, you will find that the mere necessity of using the hand compels attention to circumstances which would otherwise have escaped notice, and fastens them in the memory without farther effort. But were it even otherwise, and this practical training did really involve some sacrifice of your time, I do not fear but that it will be justified to you by its felt results: and I think that general public feeling is also tending to the admission that accomplished education must include, not only full command of expression by language, but command of true musical sound by the voice, and of true form by the hand. 23. While I myself hold this professorship, I shall direct you in these exercises very definitely to natural history, and to landscape; not only because in these two branches I am probably able to show you truths which might be despised by my successors: but because I think the vital and joyful study of natural history quite the principal element requiring introduction, not only into University, but into national, education, from highest to lowest; and I even will risk incurring your ridicule by confessing one of my fondest dreams, that I may succeed in making some of you English youths like better to look at a bird than to shoot it; and even desire to make wild creatures tame, instead of tame creatures wild. And for the study of landscape, it is, I think, now calculated to be of use in deeper, if not more important modes, than that of natural science, for reasons which I will ask you to let me state at some length. 24. Observe first;--no race of men which is entirely bred in wild country, far from cities, ever enjoys landscape. They may enjoy the beauty of animals, but scarcely even that: a true peasant cannot see the beauty of cattle; but only qualities expressive of their serviceableness. I waive discussion of this to-day; permit my assertion of it, under my confident guarantee of future proof. Landscape can only be enjoyed by cultivated persons; and it is only by music, literature, and painting, that cultivation can be given. Also, the faculties which are thus received are hereditary; so that the child of an educated race has an innate instinct for beauty, derived from arts practised hundreds of years before its birth. Now farther note this, one of the loveliest things in human nature. In the children of noble races, trained by surrounding art, and at the same time in the practice of great deeds, there is an intense delight in the landscape of their country as _memorial_; a sense not taught to them, nor teachable to any others; but, in them, innate; and the seal and reward of persistence in great national life;--the obedience and the peace of ages having extended gradually the glory of the revered ancestors also to the ancestral land; until the Motherhood of the dust, the mystery of the Demeter from whose bosom we came, and to whose bosom we return, surrounds and inspires, everywhere, the local awe of field and fountain; the sacredness of landmark that none may remove, and of wave that none may pollute; while records of proud days, and of dear persons, make every rock monumental with ghostly inscription, and every path lovely with noble desolateness. 25. Now, however checked by lightness of temperament, the instinctive love of landscape in us has this deep root, which, in your minds, I will pray you to disencumber from whatever may oppress or mortify it, and to strive to feel with all the strength of your youth that a nation is only worthy of the soil and the scenes that it has inherited, when, by all its acts and arts, it is making them more lovely for its children. And now, I trust, you will feel that it is not in mere yielding to my own fancies that I have chosen, for the first three subjects in your educational series, landscape scenes;--two in England, and one in France,--the association of these being not without purpose:--and for the fourth Albert Dürer's dream of the Spirit of Labour. And of the landscape subjects, I must tell you this much. The first is an engraving only; the original drawing by Turner was destroyed by fire twenty years ago. For which loss I wish you to be sorry, and to remember, in connection with this first example, that whatever remains to us of possession in the arts is, compared to what we might have had if we had cared for them, just what that engraving is to the lost drawing. You will find also that its subject has meaning in it which will not be harmful to you. The second example is a real drawing by Turner, in the same series, and very nearly of the same place; the two scenes are within a quarter of a mile of each other. It will show you the character of the work that was destroyed. It will show you, in process of time, much more; but chiefly, and this is my main reason for choosing both, it will be a permanent expression to you of what English landscape was once;--and must, if we are to remain a nation, be again. I think it farther right to tell you, for otherwise you might hardly pay regard enough to work apparently so simple, that by a chance which is not altogether displeasing to me, this drawing, which it has become, for these reasons, necessary for me to give you, is--not indeed the best I have, (I have several as good, though none better)--but, of all I have, the one I had least mind to part with. The third example is also a Turner drawing--a scene on the Loire--never engraved. It is an introduction to the series of the Loire, which you have already; it has in its present place a due concurrence with the expressional purpose of its companions; and though small, it is very precious, being a faultless, and, I believe, unsurpassable example of water-colour painting. Chiefly, however, remember the object of these three first examples is to give you an index to your truest feelings about European, and especially about your native landscape, as it is pensive and historical; and so far as you yourselves make any effort at its representation, to give you a motive for fidelity in handwork more animating than any connected with mere success in the art itself. 26. With respect to actual methods of practice, I will not incur the responsibility of determining them for you. We will take Lionardo's treatise on painting for our first text-book; and I think you need not fear being misled by me if I ask you to do only what Lionardo bids, or what will be necessary to enable you to do his bidding. But you need not possess the book, nor read it through. I will translate the pieces to the authority of which I shall appeal; and, in process of time, by analysis of this fragmentary treatise, show you some characters not usually understood of the simplicity as well as subtlety common to most great workmen of that age. Afterwards we will collect the instructions of other undisputed masters, till we have obtained a code of laws clearly resting on the consent of antiquity. While, however, I thus in some measure limit for the present the methods of your practice, I shall endeavour to make the courses of my University lectures as wide in their range as my knowledge will permit. The range so conceded will be narrow enough; but I believe that my proper function is not to acquaint you with the general history, but with the essential principles of art; and with its history only when it has been both great and good, or where some special excellence of it requires examination of the causes to which it must be ascribed. 27. But if either our work, or our enquiries, are to be indeed successful in their own field, they must be connected with others of a sterner character. Now listen to me, if I have in these past details lost or burdened your attention; for this is what I have chiefly to say to you. The art of any country is _the exponent of its social and political virtues_. I will show you that it is so in some detail, in the second of my subsequent course of lectures; meantime accept this as one of the things, and the most important of all things, I can positively declare to you. The art, or general productive and formative energy, of any country, is an exact exponent of its ethical life. You can have noble art only from noble persons, associated under laws fitted to their time and circumstances. And the best skill that any teacher of art could spend here in your help, would not end in enabling you even so much as rightly to draw the water-lilies in the Cherwell (and though it did, the work when done would not be worth the lilies themselves) unless both he and you were seeking, as I trust we shall together seek, in the laws which regulate the finest industries, the clue to the laws which regulate _all_ industries, and in better obedience to which we shall actually have henceforward to live: not merely in compliance with our own sense of what is right, but under the weight of quite literal necessity. For the trades by which the British people has believed it to be the highest of destinies to maintain itself, cannot now long remain undisputed in its hands; its unemployed poor are daily becoming more violently criminal; and a certain distress in the middle classes, arising, _partly from their vanity in living always up to their incomes, and partly from their folly in imagining that they can subsist in idleness upon usury_, will at last compel the sons and daughters of English families to acquaint themselves with the principles of providential economy; and to learn that food can only be got out of the ground, and competence only secured by frugality; and that although it is not possible for all to be occupied in the highest arts, nor for any, guiltlessly, to pass their days in a succession of pleasures, the most perfect mental culture possible to men is founded on their useful energies, and their best arts and brightest happiness are consistent, and consistent only, with their virtue. 28. This, I repeat, gentlemen, will soon become manifest to those among us, and there are yet many, who are honest-hearted. And the future fate of England depends upon the position they then take, and on their courage in maintaining it. There is a destiny now possible to us--the highest ever set before a nation to be accepted or refused. We are still undegenerate in race; a race mingled of the best northern blood. We are not yet dissolute in temper, but still have the firmness to govern, and the grace to obey. We have been taught a religion of pure mercy, which we must either now betray, or learn to defend by fulfilling. And we are rich in an inheritance of honour, bequeathed to us through a thousand years of noble history, which it should be our daily thirst to increase with splendid avarice, so that Englishmen, if it be a sin to covet honour, should be the most offending souls alive. Within the last few years we have had the laws of natural science opened to us with a rapidity which has been blinding by its brightness; and means of transit and communication given to us, which have made but one kingdom of the habitable globe. One kingdom;--but who is to be its king? Is there to be no king in it, think you, and every man to do that which is right in his own eyes? Or only kings of terror, and the obscene empires of Mammon and Belial? Or will you, youths of England, make your country again a royal throne of kings; a sceptred isle, for all the world a source of light, a centre of peace; mistress of Learning and of the Arts;--faithful guardian of great memories in the midst of irreverent and ephemeral visions;--faithful servant of time-tried principles, under temptation from fond experiments and licentious desires; and amidst the cruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, worshipped in her strange valour of goodwill towards men? 29. "Vexilla regis prodeunt." Yes, but of which king? There are the two oriflammes; which shall we plant on the farthest islands,--the one that floats in heavenly fire, or that hangs heavy with foul tissue of terrestrial gold? There is indeed a course of beneficent glory open to us, such as never was yet offered to any poor group of mortal souls. But it must be--it _is_ with us, now, "Reign or Die." And if it shall be said of this country, "Fece per viltate, il gran rifiuto;" that refusal of the crown will be, of all yet recorded in history, the shamefullest and most untimely. And this is what she must either do, or perish: she must found colonies as fast and as far as she is able, formed of her most energetic and worthiest men;--seizing every piece of fruitful waste ground she can set her foot on, and there teaching these her colonists that their chief virtue is to be fidelity to their country, and that their first aim is to be to advance the power of England by land and sea: and that, though they live on a distant plot of ground, they are no more to consider themselves therefore disfranchised from their native land, than the sailors of her fleets do, because they float on distant waves. So that literally, these colonies must be fastened fleets; and every man of them must be under authority of captains and officers, whose better command is to be over fields and streets instead of ships of the line; and England, in these her motionless navies (or, in the true and mightiest sense, motionless _churches_, ruled by pilots on the Galilean lake of all the world), is to "expect every man to do his duty;" recognising that duty is indeed possible no less in peace than war; and that if we can get men, for little pay, to cast themselves against cannon-mouths for love of England, we may find men also who will plough and sow for her, who will behave kindly and righteously for her, who will bring up their children to love her, and who will gladden themselves in the brightness of her glory, more than in all the light of tropic skies. But that they may be able to do this, she must make her own majesty stainless; she must give them thoughts of their home of which they can be proud. The England who is to be mistress of half the earth, cannot remain herself a heap of cinders, trampled by contending and miserable crowds; she must yet again become the England she was once, and in all beautiful ways,--more: so happy, so secluded, and so pure, that in her sky--polluted by no unholy clouds--she may be able to spell rightly of every star that heaven doth show; and in her fields, ordered and wide and fair, of every herb that sips the dew; and under the green avenues of her enchanted garden, a sacred Circe, true Daughter of the Sun, she must guide the human arts, and gather the divine knowledge, of distant nations, transformed from savageness to manhood, and redeemed from despairing into peace. 30. You think that an impossible ideal. Be it so; refuse to accept it if you will; but see that you form your own in its stead. All that I ask of you is to have a fixed purpose of some kind for your country and yourselves; no matter how restricted, so that it be fixed and unselfish. I know what stout hearts are in you, to answer acknowledged need: but it is the fatallest form of error in English youths to hide their hardihood till it fades for lack of sunshine, and to act in disdain of purpose, till all purpose is vain. It is not by deliberate, but by careless selfishness; not by compromise with evil, but by dull following of good, that the weight of national evil increases upon us daily. Break through at least this pretence of existence; determine what you will be, and what you would win. You will not decide wrongly if you will resolve to decide at all. Were even the choice between lawless pleasure and loyal suffering, you would not, I believe, choose basely. But your trial is not so sharp. It is between drifting in confused wreck among the castaways of Fortune, who condemns to assured ruin those who know not either how to resist her, or obey; between this, I say, and the taking of your appointed part in the heroism of Rest; the resolving to share in the victory which is to the weak rather than the strong; and the binding yourselves by that law, which, thought on through lingering night and labouring day, makes a man's life to be as a tree planted by the water-side, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season;-- "ET FOLIUM EJUS NON DEFLUET, ET OMNIA, QUÆCUNQUE FACIET, PROSPERABUNTUR." LECTURE II THE RELATION OF ART TO RELIGION 31. It was stated, and I trust partly with your acceptance, in my opening lecture, that the study on which we are about to enter cannot be rightly undertaken except in furtherance of the grave purposes of life with respect to which the rest of the scheme of your education here is designed. But you can scarcely have at once felt all that I intended in saying so;--you cannot but be still partly under the impression that the so-called fine arts are merely modes of graceful recreation, and a new resource for your times of rest. Let me ask you, forthwith, so far as you can trust me, to change your thoughts in this matter. All the great arts have for their object either the support or exaltation of human life,--usually both; and their dignity, and ultimately their very existence, depend on their being "+meta logou alêthous+," that is to say, apprehending, with right reason, the nature of the materials they work with, of the things they relate or represent, and of the faculties to which they are addressed. And farther, they form one united system from which it is impossible to remove any part without harm to the rest. They are founded first in mastery, by strength of _arm_, of the earth and sea, in agriculture and seamanship; then their inventive power begins, with the clay in the hand of the potter, whose art is the humblest but truest type of the forming of the human body and spirit; and in the carpenter's work, which probably was the early employment of the Founder of our religion. And until men have perfectly learned the laws of art in clay and wood, they can consummately know no others. Nor is it without the strange significance which you will find in what at first seems chance, in all noble histories, as soon as you can read them rightly,--that the statue of Athena Polias was of olive-wood, and that the Greek temple and Gothic spire are both merely the permanent representations of useful wooden structures. On these two first arts follow building in stone,--sculpture,--metal work,--and painting; every art being properly called "fine" which demands the exercise of the full faculties of heart and intellect. For though the fine arts are not necessarily imitative or representative, for their essence is in being +peri genesin+--occupied in the actual _production_ of beautiful form or colour,--still, the highest of them are appointed also to relate to us the utmost ascertainable truth respecting visible things and moral feelings: and this pursuit of _fact_ is the vital _element_ of the art power;--that in which alone it can develop itself to its utmost. And I will anticipate by an assertion which you will at present think too bold, but which I am willing that you should think so, in order that you may well remember it,--THE HIGHEST THING THAT ART CAN DO IS TO SET BEFORE YOU THE TRUE IMAGE OF THE PRESENCE OF A NOBLE HUMAN BEING. IT HAS NEVER DONE MORE THAN THIS, AND IT OUGHT NOT TO DO LESS. 32. The great arts--forming thus one perfect scheme of human skill, of which it is not right to call one division more honourable, though it may be more subtle, than another--have had, and can have, but three principal directions of purpose:--first, that of enforcing the religion of men; secondly, that of perfecting their ethical state; thirdly, that of doing them material service. 33. I do not doubt but that you are surprised at my saying the arts can in their second function only be directed to the perfecting of ethical state, it being our usual impression that they are often destructive of morality. But it is impossible to direct fine art to an immoral end, except by giving it characters unconnected with its fineness, or by addressing it to persons who cannot perceive it to be fine. Whosoever recognises it is exalted by it. On the other hand, it has been commonly thought that art was a most fitting means for the enforcement of religious doctrines and emotions; whereas there is, as I must presently try to show you, room for grave doubt whether it has not in this function hitherto done evil rather than good. 34. In this and the two next following lectures, I shall endeavour therefore to show you the grave relations of human art, in these three functions, to human life. I can do this but roughly, as you may well suppose--since each of these subjects would require for its right treatment years instead of hours. Only, remember, _I_ have already given years, not a few, to each of them; and what I try to tell _you_ now will be only so much as is absolutely necessary to set our work on a clear foundation. You may not, at present, see the necessity for _any_ foundation, and may think that I ought to put pencil and paper in your hands at once. On that point I must simply answer, "Trust me a little while," asking you however also to remember, that--irrespectively of any consideration of last or first--my true function here is not that of your master in painting, or sculpture, or pottery; but to show you what it is that makes any of these arts _fine_, or the contrary of _fine_: essentially _good_, or essentially _base_. You need not fear my not being practical enough for you; all the industry you choose to give me, I will take; but far the better part of what you may gain by such industry would be lost, if I did not first lead you to see what every form of art-industry intends, and why some of it is justly called right, and some wrong. 35. It would be well if you were to look over, with respect to this matter, the end of the second, and what interests you of the third, book of Plato's Republic; noting therein these two principal things, of which I have to speak in this and my next lecture: first, the power which Plato so frankly, and quite justly, attributes to art, of _falsifying_ our conceptions of Deity: which power he by fatal error partly implies may be used wisely for good, and that the feigning is only wrong when it is of evil, "+ean tis mê kalôs pseudêtai+;" and you may trace through all that follows the beginning of the change of Greek ideal art into a beautiful expediency, instead of what it was in the days of Pindar, the statement of what "could not be otherwise than so." But, in the second place, you will find in those books of the Polity, stated with far greater accuracy of expression than our English language admits, the essential relations of art to morality; the sum of these being given in one lovely sentence, which, considering that we have to-day grace done us by fair companionship,[3] you will pardon me for translating. "_Must it be then only with our poets that we insist they shall either create for us the image of a noble morality, or among us create none? or shall we not also keep guard over all other workers for the people, and forbid them to make what is ill-customed, and unrestrained, and ungentle, and without order or shape, either in likeness of living things, or in buildings, or in any other thing whatsoever that is made for the people? and shall we not rather seek for workers who_ CAN TRACK THE INNER NATURE OF ALL THAT MAY BE SWEETLY SCHEMED; _so that the young men, as living in a wholesome place, may be profited by everything that, in work fairly wrought, may touch them through hearing or sight--as if it were a breeze bringing health to them from places strong for life?_" [Footnote 3: There were, in fact, a great many more girls than University men at the lectures.] 36. And now--but one word, before we enter on our task, as to the way you must understand what I may endeavour to tell you. Let me beg you--now and always--not to think that I mean more than I say. In all probability, I mean just what I say, and only that. At all events I do fully mean _that_; and if there is anything reserved in my mind, it will be probably different from what you would guess. You are perfectly welcome to know all that I think, as soon as I have put before you all my grounds for thinking it; but by the time I have done so, you will be able to form an opinion of your own; and mine will then be of no consequence to you. 37. I use then to-day, as I shall in future use, the word "Religion" as signifying the feelings of love, reverence, or dread with which the human mind is affected by its conceptions of spiritual being; and you know well how necessary it is, both to the rightness of our own life, and to the understanding the lives of others, that we should always keep clearly distinguished our ideas of Religion, as thus defined, and of Morality, as the law of rightness in human conduct. For there are many religions, but there is only one morality. There are moral and immoral religions, which differ as much in precept as in emotion; but there is only one morality, WHICH HAS BEEN, IS, AND MUST BE FOR EVER, AN INSTINCT IN THE HEARTS OF ALL CIVILISED MEN, AS CERTAIN AND UNALTERABLE AS THEIR OUTWARD BODILY FORM, AND WHICH RECEIVES FROM RELIGION NEITHER LAW, NOR PLACE; BUT ONLY HOPE, AND FELICITY. 38. The pure forms or states of religion hitherto known, are those in which a healthy humanity, finding in itself many foibles and sins, has imagined, or been made conscious of, the existence of higher spiritual personality, liable to no such fault or stain; and has been assisted in effort, and consoled in pain, by reference to the will or sympathy of such purer spirits, whether imagined or real. I am compelled to use these painful latitudes of expression, because no analysis has hitherto sufficed to distinguish accurately, in historical narrative, the difference between impressions resulting from the imagination of the worshipper, and those made, if any, by the actually local and temporary presence of another spirit. For instance, take the vision, which of all others has been since made most frequently the subject of physical representation--the appearance to Ezekiel and St. John of the four living creatures, which throughout Christendom have been used to symbolise the Evangelists.[4] Supposing such interpretation just, one of those figures was either the mere symbol to St. John of himself, or it was the power which inspired him, manifesting itself in an independent form. Which of these it was, or whether neither of these, but a vision of other powers, or a dream, of which neither the prophet himself knew, nor can any other person yet know, the interpretation,--I suppose no modestly-minded and accurate thinker would now take upon himself to decide. Nor is it therefore anywise necessary for you to decide on that, or any other such question; but it is necessary that you should be bold enough to look every opposing question steadily in its face; and modest enough, having done so, to know when it is too hard for you. But above all things, see that you be modest in your thoughts, for of this one thing we may be absolutely sure, that all our thoughts are but degrees of darkness. And in these days you have to guard against the fatallest darkness of the two opposite Prides;--the Pride of Faith, which imagines that the nature of the Deity can be defined by its convictions; and the Pride of Science, which imagines that the energy of Deity can be explained by its analysis. [Footnote 4: Only the Gospels, "IV Evangelia," according to St. Jerome.] 39. Of these, the first, the Pride of Faith, is now, as it has been always, the most deadly, because the most complacent and subtle;--because it invests every evil passion of our nature with the aspect of an angel of light, and enables the self-love, which might otherwise have been put to wholesome shame, and the cruel carelessness of the ruin of our fellow-men, which might otherwise have been warmed into human love, or at least checked by human intelligence, to congeal themselves into the mortal intellectual disease of imagining that myriads of the inhabitants of the world for four thousand years have been left to wander and perish, many of them everlastingly, in order that, in fulness of time, divine truth might be preached sufficiently to ourselves: with this farther ineffable mischief for direct result, that multitudes of kindly-disposed, gentle, and submissive persons, who might else by their true patience have alloyed the hardness of the common crowd, and by their activity for good balanced its misdoing, are withdrawn from all such true services of man, that they may pass the best part of their lives in what they are told is the service of God; _namely, desiring what_ _they cannot obtain, lamenting what they cannot avoid, and reflecting on what they cannot understand_.[5] [Footnote 5: This concentrated definition of monastic life is of course to be understood only of its more enthusiastic forms.] 40. This, I repeat, is the deadliest, but for you, under existing circumstances, it is becoming daily, almost hourly, the least probable form of Pride. That which you have chiefly to guard against consists in the overvaluing of minute though correct discovery; the groundless denial of all that seems to you to have been groundlessly affirmed; and the interesting yourselves too curiously in the progress of some scientific minds, which in their judgment of the universe can be compared to nothing so accurately as to the woodworms in the panel of a picture by some great painter, if we may conceive them as tasting with discrimination of the wood, and with repugnance of the colour, and declaring that even this unlooked-for and undesirable combination is a normal result of the action of molecular Forces. 41. Now, I must very earnestly warn you, in the beginning of my work with you here, against allowing either of these forms of egotism to interfere with your judgment or practice of art. On the one hand, you must not allow the expression of your own favourite religious feelings by any particular form of art to modify your judgment of its absolute merit; nor allow the art itself to become an illegitimate means of deepening and confirming your convictions, by realising to your eyes what you dimly conceive with the brain; as if the greater clearness of the image were a stronger proof of its truth. On the other hand, you must not allow your scientific habit of trusting nothing but what you have ascertained, to prevent you from appreciating, or at least endeavouring to qualify yourselves to appreciate, the work of the highest faculty of the human mind,--its imagination,--when it is toiling in the presence of things that cannot be dealt with by any other power. 42. These are both vital conditions of your healthy progress. On the one hand, observe that you do not wilfully use the realistic power of art to convince yourselves of historical or theological statements which you cannot otherwise prove; and which you wish to prove:--on the other hand, that you do not check your imagination and conscience while seizing the truths of which they alone are cognizant, because you value too highly the scientific interest which attaches to the investigation of second causes. For instance, it may be quite possible to show the conditions in water and electricity which necessarily produce the craggy outline, the apparently self-contained silvery light, and the sulphurous blue shadow of a thunder-cloud, and which separate these from the depth of the golden peace in the dawn of a summer morning. Similarly, it may be possible to show the necessities of structure which groove the fangs and depress the brow of the asp, and which distinguish the character of its head from that of the face of a young girl. But it is the function of the rightly-trained imagination to recognise, in these, and such other relative aspects, the unity of teaching which impresses, alike on our senses and our conscience, the eternal difference between good and evil: and the rule, over the clouds of heaven and over the creatures in the earth, of the same Spirit which teaches to our own hearts the bitterness of death, and strength of love. 43. Now, therefore, approaching our subject in this balanced temper, which will neither resolve to see only what it would desire, nor expect to see only what it can explain, we shall find our enquiry into the relation of Art to Religion is distinctly threefold: first, we have to ask how far art may have been literally directed by spiritual powers; secondly, how far, if not inspired, it may have been exalted by them; lastly, how far, in any of its agencies, it has advanced the cause of the creeds it has been used to recommend. 44. First: What ground have we for thinking that art has ever been inspired as a message or revelation? What internal evidence is there in the work of great artists of their having been under the authoritative guidance of supernatural powers? It is true that the answer to so mysterious a question cannot rest alone upon internal evidence; but it is well that you should know what might, from that evidence alone, be concluded. And the more impartially you examine the phenomena of imagination, the more firmly you will be led to conclude that they are the result of the influence of the common and vital, but not, therefore, less Divine, spirit, of which some portion is given to all living creatures in such manner as may be adapted to their rank in creation; and that everything which men rightly accomplish is indeed done by Divine help, but under a consistent law which is never departed from. The strength of this spiritual life within us may be increased or lessened by our own conduct; it varies from time to time, as physical strength varies; it is summoned on different occasions by our will, and dejected by our distress, or our sin; but it is always _equally human_, and _equally Divine_. We are men, and not mere animals, because a special form of it is with us always; we are nobler and baser men, as it is with us more or less; but it is never given to us in any degree which can make us more than men. 45. Observe:--I give you this general statement doubtfully, and only as that towards which an impartial reasoner will, I think, be inclined by existing data. But I shall be able to show you, without any doubt, in the course of our studies, that the achievements of art which have been usually looked upon as the results of peculiar inspiration have been arrived at only through long courses of wisely directed labour, and under the influence of feelings which are common to all humanity. But of these feelings and powers which in different degrees are common to humanity, you are to note that there are three principal divisions: first, the instincts of construction or melody, which we share with lower animals, and which are in us as native as the instinct of the bee or nightingale; secondly, the faculty of vision, or of dreaming, whether in sleep or in conscious trance, or by voluntarily exerted fancy; and lastly, the power of rational inference and collection, of both the laws and forms of beauty. 46. Now the faculty of vision, being closely associated with the innermost spiritual nature, is the one which has by most reasoners been held for the peculiar channel of Divine teaching: and it is a fact that great part of purely didactic art has been the record, whether in language, or by linear representation, of actual vision involuntarily received at the moment, though cast on a mental retina blanched by the past course of faithful life. But it is also true that these visions, where most distinctly received, are always--I speak deliberately--_always_, the _sign of some mental limitation or derangement_; and that the persons who most clearly recognise their value, exaggeratedly estimate it, choosing what they find to be useful, and calling that "inspired," and disregarding what they perceive to be useless, though presented to the visionary by an equal authority. 47. Thus it is probable that no work of art has been more widely didactic than Albert Dürer's engraving, known as the "Knight and Death."[6] But that is only one of a series of works representing similarly vivid dreams, of which some are uninteresting, except for the manner of their representation, as the "St. Hubert," and others are unintelligible; some, frightful, and wholly unprofitable; so that we find the visionary faculty in that great painter, when accurately examined, to be a morbid influence, abasing his skill more frequently than encouraging it, and sacrificing the greater part of his energies upon vain subjects, two only being produced, in the course of a long life, which are of high didactic value, and both of these capable only of giving sad courage.[7] Whatever the value of these two, it bears more the aspect of a treasure obtained at great cost of suffering, than of a directly granted gift from heaven. [Footnote 6: Standard Series, No. 9.] [Footnote 7: The meaning of the "Knight and Death," even in this respect, has lately been questioned on good grounds.] 48. On the contrary, not only the highest, but the most consistent results have been attained in art by men in whom the faculty of vision, however strong, was subordinate to that of deliberative design, and tranquillised by a measured, continual, not feverish, but affectionate, observance of the quite unvisionary facts of the surrounding world. And so far as we can trace the connection of their powers with the moral character of their lives, we shall find that the best art is the work of good, but of not distinctively religious men, who, at least, are conscious of no inspiration, and often so unconscious of their superiority to others, that one of the greatest of them, Reynolds, deceived by his modesty, has asserted that "all things are possible to well-directed labour." 49. The second question, namely, how far art, if not inspired, has yet been ennobled by religion, I shall not touch upon to-day; for it both requires technical criticism, and would divert you too long from the main question of all,--How far religion has been helped by art? You will find that the operation of formative art--(I will not speak to-day of music)--the operation of formative art on religious creed is essentially twofold; the realisation, to the eyes, of imagined spiritual persons; and the limitation of their imagined presence to certain places. We will examine these two functions of it successively. 50. And first, consider accurately what the agency of art is, in realising, to the sight, our conceptions of spiritual persons. For instance. Assume that we believe that the Madonna is always present to hear and answer our prayers. Assume also that this is true. I think that persons in a perfectly honest, faithful, and humble temper, would in that case desire only to feel so much of the Divine presence as the spiritual Power herself chose to make felt; and, above all things, not to think they saw, or knew, anything except what might be truly perceived or known. But a mind imperfectly faithful, and impatient in its distress, or craving in its dulness for a more distinct and convincing sense of the Divinity, would endeavour to complete, or perhaps we should rather say to contract, its conception, into the definite figure of a woman wearing a blue or crimson dress, and having fair features, dark eyes, and gracefully arranged hair. Suppose, after forming such a conception, that we have the power to realise and preserve it, this image of a beautiful figure with a pleasant expression cannot but have the tendency of afterwards leading us to think of the Virgin as present, when she is not actually present; or as pleased with us, when she is not actually pleased; or if we resolutely prevent ourselves from such imagination, nevertheless the existence of the image beside us will often turn our thoughts towards subjects of religion, when otherwise they would have been differently occupied; and, in the midst of other occupations, will familiarise more or less, and even mechanically associate with common or faultful states of mind, the appearance of the supposed Divine person. 51. There are thus two distinct operations upon our mind: first, the art makes us believe what we would not otherwise have believed; and secondly, it makes us think of subjects we should not otherwise have thought of, intruding them amidst our ordinary thoughts in a confusing and familiar manner. We cannot with any certainty affirm the advantage or the harm of such accidental pieties, for their effect will be very different on different characters: but, without any question, the art, which makes us believe what we would not have otherwise believed, is misapplied, and in most instances very dangerously so. Our duty is to believe in the existence of Divine, or any other, persons, only upon rational proofs of their existence; and not because we have seen pictures of them.[8] [Footnote 8: I have expunged a sentence insisting farther on this point, having come to reverence more, as I grew older, every simple means of stimulating all religious belief and affection. It is the lower and realistic world which is fullest of false beliefs and vain loves.] 52. But now observe, it is here necessary to draw a distinction, so subtle that in dealing with facts it is continually impossible to mark it with precision, yet so vital, that not only your understanding of the power of art, but the working of your minds in matters of primal moment to you, depends on the effort you make to affirm this distinction strongly. The art which realises a creature of the imagination is only mischievous when that realisation is conceived to imply, or does practically induce a belief in, the real existence of the imagined personage, contrary to, or unjustified by the other evidence of its existence. But if the art only represents the personage on the understanding that its form is imaginary, then the effort at realisation is healthful and beneficial. For instance, the Greek design of Apollo crossing the sea to Delphi, which is one of the most interesting of Le Normant's series, so far as it is only an expression, under the symbol of a human form, of what may be rightly imagined respecting the solar power, is right and ennobling; but so far as it conveyed to the Greek the idea of there being a real Apollo, it was mischievous, whether there be, or be not, a real Apollo. If there is no real Apollo, then the art was mischievous because it deceived; but if there is a real Apollo, then it was still more mischievous,[9] for it not only began the degradation of the image of that true god into a decoration for niches, and a device for seals; but prevented any true witness being borne to his existence. For if the Greeks, instead of multiplying representations of what they imagined to be the figure of the god, had given us accurate drawings of the heroes and battles of Marathon and Salamis, and had simply told us in plain Greek what evidence they had of the power of Apollo, either through his oracles, his help or chastisement, or by immediate vision, they would have served their religion more truly than by all the vase-paintings and fine statues that ever were buried or adored. 53. Now in this particular instance, and in many other examples of fine Greek art, the two conditions of thought, symbolic and realistic, are mingled; and the art is helpful, as I will hereafter show you, in one function, and in the other so deadly, that I think no degradation of conception of Deity has ever been quite so base as that implied by the designs of Greek vases in the period of decline, say about 250 B. C. [Footnote 9: I am again doubtful, here. The most important part of the chapter is from § 60 to end.] But though among the Greeks it is thus nearly always difficult to say what is symbolic and what realistic, in the range of Christian art the distinction is clear. In that, a vast division of imaginative work is occupied in the symbolism of virtues, vices, or natural powers or passions; and in the representation of personages who, though nominally real, become in conception symbolic. In the greater part of this work there is no intention of implying the existence of the represented creature; Dürer's Melencolia and Giotto's Justice are accurately characteristic examples. Now all such art is wholly good and useful when it is the work of good men. 54. Again, there is another division of Christian work in which the persons represented, though nominally real, are treated as dramatis-personæ of a poem, and so presented confessedly as subjects of imagination. All this poetic art is also good when it is the work of good men. 55. There remains only therefore to be considered, as truly religious, the work which definitely implies and modifies the conception of the existence of a real person. There is hardly any great art which entirely belongs to this class; but Raphael's Madonna della Seggiola is as accurate a type of it as I can give you; Holbein's Madonna at Dresden, the Madonna di San Sisto, and the Madonna of Titian's Assumption, all belong mainly to this class, but are removed somewhat from it (as, I repeat, nearly all great art is) into the poetical one. It is only the bloody crucifixes and gilded virgins and other such lower forms of imagery (by which, to the honour of the English Church, it has been truly claimed for her, that "she has never appealed to the madness or dulness of her people,") which belong to the realistic class in strict limitation, and which properly constitute the type of it. There is indeed an important school of sculpture in Spain, directed to the same objects, but not demanding at present any special attention. And finally, there is the vigorous and most interesting realistic school of our own, in modern times, mainly known to the public by Holman Hunt's picture of the Light of the World, though, I believe, deriving its first origin from the genius of the painter to whom you owe also the revival of interest, first here in Oxford, and then universally, in the cycle of early English legend,--Dante Rossetti. 56. The effect of this realistic art on the religious mind of Europe varies in scope more than any other art power; for in its higher branches it touches the most sincere religious minds, affecting an earnest class of persons who cannot be reached by merely poetical design; while, in its lowest, it addresses itself not only to the most vulgar desires for religious excitement, but to the mere thirst for sensation of horror which characterises the uneducated orders of partially civilised countries; nor merely to the thirst for horror, but to the strange love of death, as such, which has sometimes in Catholic countries showed itself peculiarly by the endeavour to paint the images in the chapels of the Sepulchre so as to look deceptively like corpses. The same morbid instinct has also affected the minds of many among the more imaginative and powerful artists with a feverish gloom which distorts their finest work; and lastly--and this is the worst of all its effects--it has occupied the sensibility of Christian women, universally, in lamenting the sufferings of Christ, instead of preventing those of His people. 57. When any of you next go abroad, observe, and consider the meaning of, the sculptures and paintings, which of every rank in art, and in every chapel and cathedral, and by every mountain path, recall the hours, and represent the agonies, of the Passion of Christ: and try to form some estimate of the efforts that have been made by the four arts of eloquence, music, painting, and sculpture, since the twelfth century, to wring out of the hearts of women the last drops of pity that could be excited for this merely physical agony: for the art nearly always dwells on the physical wounds or exhaustion chiefly, and degrades, far more than it animates, the conception of pain. Then try to conceive the quantity of time, and of excited and thrilling emotion, which have been wasted by the tender and delicate women of Christendom during these last six hundred years, in thus picturing to themselves, under the influence of such imagery, the bodily pain, long since passed, of One Person:--which, so far as they indeed conceived it to be sustained by a Divine Nature, could not for that reason have been less endurable than the agonies of any simple human death by torture: and then try to estimate what might have been the better result, for the righteousness and felicity of mankind, if these same women had been taught the deep meaning of the last words that were ever spoken by their Master to those who had ministered to Him of their substance: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children." If they had but been taught to measure with their pitiful thoughts the tortures of battle-fields--the slowly consuming plagues of death in the starving children, and wasted age, of the innumerable desolate those battles left;--nay, in our own life of peace, the agony of unnurtured, untaught, unhelped creatures, awaking at the grave's edge to know how they should have lived; and the worse pain of those whose existence, not the ceasing of it, is death; those to whom the cradle was a curse, and for whom the words they cannot hear, "ashes to ashes," are all that they have ever received of benediction. These,--you who would fain have wept at His feet, or stood by His cross,--these you have always with you! Him, you have not always. 58. The wretched in death you have always with you. Yes, and the brave and good in life you have always;--these also needing help, though you supposed they had only to help others; these also claiming to be thought for, and remembered. And you will find, if you look into history with this clue, that one of quite the chief reasons for the continual misery of mankind is that they are always divided in their worship between angels or saints, who are out of their sight, and need no help, and proud and evil-minded men, who are too definitely in their sight, and ought not to have their help. And consider how the arts have thus followed the worship of the crowd. You have paintings of saints and angels, innumerable;--of petty courtiers, and contemptible or cruel kings, innumerable. Few, how few you have, (but these, observe, almost always by great painters) of the best men, or of their actions. But think for yourselves,--I have no time now to enter upon the mighty field, nor imagination enough to guide me beyond the threshold of it,--think, what history might have been to us now;--nay, what a different history that of all Europe might have become, if it had but been the object both of the people to discern, and of their arts to honour and bear record of, the great deeds of their worthiest men. And if, instead of living, as they have always hitherto done, in a hellish cloud of contention and revenge, lighted by fantastic dreams of cloudy sanctities, they had sought to reward and punish justly, wherever reward and punishment were due, but chiefly to reward; and at least rather to bear testimony to the human acts which deserved God's anger or His blessing, than only, in presumptuous imagination, to display the secrets of Judgment, or the beatitudes of Eternity. 59. Such I conceive generally, though indeed with good arising out of it, for every great evil brings some good in its backward eddies--such I conceive to have been the deadly function of art in its ministry to what, whether in heathen or Christian lands, and whether in the pageantry of words, or colours, or fair forms, is truly, and in the deep sense, to be called (idolatry)--the serving with the best of our hearts and minds, some dear or sad fantasy which we have made for ourselves, while we disobey the present call of the Master, who is not dead, and who is not now fainting under His cross, but requiring us to take up ours. 60. I pass to the second great function of religious art, the limitation of the idea of Divine presence to particular localities. It is of course impossible within my present limits to touch upon this power of art, as employed on the temples of the gods of various religions; we will examine that on future occasions. To-day, I want only to map out main ideas, and I can do this best by speaking exclusively of this localising influence as it affects our own faith. Observe first, that the localisation is almost entirely dependent upon human art. You must at least take a stone and set it up for a pillar, if you are to mark the place, so as to know it again, where a vision appeared. A persecuted people, needing to conceal their places of worship, may perform every religious ceremony first under one crag of the hill-side, and then under another, without invalidating the sacredness of the rites or sacraments thus administered. It is, therefore, we all acknowledge, inessential, that a particular spot should be surrounded with a ring of stones, or enclosed within walls of a certain style of architecture, and so set apart as the only place where such ceremonies may be properly performed; and it is thus less by any direct appeal to experience or to reason, but in consequence of the effect upon our senses produced by the architecture, that we receive the first strong impressions of what we afterwards contend for as absolute truth. I particularly wish you to notice how it is always by help of human art that such a result is attained, because, remember always, I am neither disputing nor asserting the truth of any theological doctrine;--that is not my province;--I am only questioning the expediency of enforcing that doctrine by the help of architecture. Put a rough stone for an altar under the hawthorn on a village green;--separate a portion of the green itself with an ordinary paling from the rest;--then consecrate, with whatever form you choose, the space of grass you have enclosed, and meet within the wooden fence as often as you desire to pray or preach; yet you will not easily fasten an impression in the minds of the villagers, that God inhabits the space of grass inside the fence, and does not extend His presence to the common beyond it: and that the daisies and violets on one side of the railing are holy,--on the other, profane. But, instead of a wooden fence, build a wall, pave the interior space; roof it over, so as to make it comparatively dark;--and you may persuade the villagers with ease that you have built a house which Deity inhabits, or that you have become, in the old French phrase, a "logeur du Bon Dieu." 61. And farther, though I have no desire to introduce any question as to the truth of what we thus architecturally teach, I would desire you most strictly to determine what is intended to be taught. Do not think I underrate--I am among the last men living who would underrate,--the importance of the sentiments connected with their church to the population of a pastoral village. I admit, in its fullest extent, the moral value of the scene, which is almost always one of perfect purity and peace; and of the sense of supernatural love and protection, which fills and surrounds the low aisles and homely porch. But the question I desire earnestly to leave with you is, whether all the earth ought not to be peaceful and pure, and the acknowledgment of the Divine protection, as universal as its reality? That in a mysterious way the presence of Deity is vouchsafed where it is sought, and withdrawn where it is forgotten, must of course be granted as the first postulate in the enquiry: but the point for our decision is just this, whether it ought always to be sought in one place only, and forgotten in every other. It may be replied, that since it is impossible to consecrate the entire space of the earth, it is better thus to secure a portion of it than none: but surely, if so, we ought to make some effort to enlarge the favoured ground, and even look forward to a time when in English villages there may be a God's acre tenanted by the living, not the dead; and when we shall rather look with aversion and fear to the remnant of ground that is set apart as profane, than with reverence to a narrow portion of it enclosed as holy. 62. But now, farther. Suppose it be admitted that by enclosing ground with walls, and performing certain ceremonies there habitually, some kind of sanctity is indeed secured within that space,--still the question remains open whether it be advisable for religious purposes to decorate the enclosure. For separation the mere walls would be enough. What is the purpose of your decoration? Let us take an instance--the most noble with which I am acquainted, the Cathedral of Chartres. You have there the most splendid coloured glass, and the richest sculpture, and the grandest proportions of building, united to produce a sensation of pleasure and awe. We profess that this is to honour the Deity; or, in other words, that it is pleasing to Him that we should delight our eyes with blue and golden colours, and solemnise our spirits by the sight of large stones laid one on another, and ingeniously carved. 63. I do not think it can be doubted that it _is_ pleasing to Him when we do this; for He has Himself prepared for us, nearly every morning and evening, windows painted with Divine art, in blue and gold and vermilion: windows lighted from within by the lustre of that heaven which we may assume, at least with more certainty than any consecrated ground, to be one of His dwelling-places. Again, in every mountain side, and cliff of rude sea shore, He has heaped stones one upon another of greater magnitude than those of Chartres Cathedral, and sculptured them with floral ornament,--surely not less sacred because living? 64. Must it not then be only because we love our own work better than His, that we respect the lucent glass, but not the lucent clouds; that we weave embroidered robes with ingenious fingers, and make bright the gilded vaults we have beautifully ordained--while yet we have not considered the heavens, the work of His fingers, nor the stars of the strange vault which He has ordained? And do we dream that by carving fonts and lifting pillars in His honour, who cuts the way of the rivers among the rocks, and at whose reproof the pillars of the earth are astonished, we shall obtain pardon for the dishonour done to the hills and streams by which He has appointed our dwelling-place;--for the infection of their sweet air with poison;--for the burning up of their tender grass and flowers with fire, and for spreading such a shame of mixed luxury and misery over our native land, as if we laboured only that, at least here in England, we might be able to give the lie to the song, whether of the Cherubim above, or Church beneath--"Holy, holy, Lord God of all creatures; Heaven--_and Earth_--are full of Thy glory"? 65. And how much more there is that I long to say to you; and how much, I hope, that you would like to answer to me, or to question me of! But I can say no more to-day. We are not, I trust, at the end of our talks or thoughts together; but, if it were so, and I never spoke to you more, this that I have said to you I should have been glad to have been permitted to say; and this, farther, which is the sum of it,--That we may have splendour of art again, and with that, we may truly praise and honour our Maker, and with that set forth the beauty and holiness of all that He has made: but only after we have striven with our whole hearts first to sanctify the temple of the body and spirit of every child that has no roof to cover its head from the cold, and no walls to guard its soul from corruption, in this our English land. One word more. What I have suggested hitherto, respecting the relations of Art to Religion, you must receive throughout as merely motive of thought; though you must have well seen that my own convictions were established finally on some of the points in question. But I must, in conclusion, tell you something that I _know_;--which, if you truly labour, you will one day know also; and which I trust some of you will believe, now. During the minutes in which you have been listening to me, I suppose that almost at every other sentence those whose habit of mind has been one of veneration for established forms and faiths, must have been in dread that I was about to say, or in pang of regret at my having said, what seemed to them an irreverent or reckless word touching vitally important things. So far from this being the fact, it is just because the feelings that I most desire to cultivate in your minds are those of reverence and admiration, that I am so earnest to prevent you from being moved to either by trivial or false semblances. _This_ is the thing which I KNOW--and which, if you labour faithfully, you shall know also,--that in Reverence is the chief joy and power of life;--Reverence, for what is pure and bright in your own youth; for what is true and tried in the age of others; for all that is gracious among the living,--great among the dead,--and marvellous, in the Powers that cannot die. LECTURE III THE RELATION OF ART TO MORALS 66. You probably recollect that, in the beginning of my last lecture, it was stated that fine art had, and could have, but three functions: the enforcing of the religious sentiments of men, the perfecting their ethical state, and the doing them material service. We have to-day to examine, the mode of its action in the second power--that of perfecting the morality, or ethical state, of men. Perfecting, observe--not producing. You must have the right moral state first, or you cannot have the art. But when the art is once obtained, its reflected action enhances and completes the moral state out of which it arose, and, above all, communicates the exultation to other minds which are already morally capable of the like. 67. For instance, take the art of singing, and the simplest perfect master of it (up to the limits of his nature) whom you can find;--a skylark. From him you may learn what it is to "sing for joy." You must get the moral state first, the pure gladness, then give it finished expression; and it is perfected in itself, and made communicable to other creatures capable of such joy. But it is incommunicable to those who are not prepared to receive it. Now, all right human song is, similarly, the finished expression, by art, of the joy or grief of noble persons, for right causes. And accurately in proportion to the rightness of the cause, and purity of the emotion, is the possibility of the fine art. A maiden may sing of her lost love, but a miser cannot sing of his lost money. And with absolute precision, from highest to lowest, _the fineness of the possible art is an index of the moral purity and majesty of the emotion it expresses_. You may test it practically at any instant. Question with yourselves respecting any feeling that has taken strong possession of your mind, "Could this be sung by a master, and sung nobly, with a true melody and art?" Then it is a right feeling. Could it not be sung at all, or only sung ludicrously? It is a base one. And that is so in all the arts; so that with mathematical precision, subject to no error or exception, the art of a nation, so far as it exists, is an exponent of its ethical state. 68. An exponent, observe, and exalting influence; but not the root or cause. You cannot paint or sing yourselves into being good men; you must be good men before you can either paint or sing, and then the colour and sound will complete in you all that is best. And this it was that I called upon you to hear, saying, "listen to me at least now," in the first lecture, namely, that no art-teaching could be of use to you, but would rather be harmful, unless it was grafted on something deeper than all art. For indeed not only with this, of which it is my function to show you the laws, but much more with the art of all men, which you came here chiefly to learn, that of language, the chief vices of education have arisen from the one great fallacy of supposing that noble language is a communicable trick of grammar and accent, instead of simply the careful expression of right thought. All the virtues of language are, in their roots, moral; it becomes accurate if the speaker desires to be true; clear, if he speaks with sympathy and a desire to be intelligible; powerful, if he has earnestness; pleasant, if he has sense of rhythm and order. There are no other virtues of language producible by art than these: but let me mark more deeply for an instant the significance of one of them. Language, I said, is only clear when it is sympathetic. You can, in truth, understand a man's word only by understanding his temper. Your own word is also as of an unknown tongue to him unless he understands yours. And it is this which makes the art of language, if any one is to be chosen separately from the rest, that which is fittest for the instrument of a gentleman's education. To teach the meaning of a word thoroughly, is to teach the nature of the spirit that coined it; the secret of language is the secret of sympathy, and its full charm is possible only to the gentle. And thus the principles of beautiful speech have all been fixed by sincere and kindly speech. On the laws which have been determined by sincerity, false speech, apparently beautiful, may afterwards be constructed; but all such utterance, whether in oration or poetry, is not only without permanent power, but it is destructive of the principles it has usurped. So long as no words are uttered but in faithfulness, so long the art of language goes on exalting itself; but the moment it is shaped and chiselled on external principles, it falls into frivolity, and perishes. And this truth would have been long ago manifest, had it not been that in periods of advanced academical science there is always a tendency to deny the sincerity of the first masters of language. Once learn to write gracefully in the manner of an ancient author, and we are apt to think that he also wrote in the manner of some one else. But no noble nor right style was ever yet founded but out of a sincere heart. No man is worth reading to form your style, who does not mean what he says; nor was any great style ever invented but by some man who meant what he said. Find out the beginner of a great manner of writing, and you have also found the declarer of some true facts or sincere passions: and your whole method of reading will thus be quickened, for, being sure that your author really meant what he said, you will be much more careful to ascertain what it is that he means. 69. And of yet greater importance is it deeply to know that every beauty possessed by the language of a nation is significant of the innermost laws of its being. Keep the temper of the people stern and manly; make their associations grave, courteous, and for worthy objects; occupy them in just deeds; and their tongue must needs be a grand one. Nor is it possible, therefore--observe the necessary reflected action--that any tongue should be a noble one, of which the words are not so many trumpet-calls to action. All great languages invariably utter great things, and command them; they cannot be mimicked but by obedience; the breath of them is inspiration because it is not only vocal, but vital; and you can only learn to speak as these men spoke, by becoming what these men were. 70. Now for direct confirmation of this, I want you to think over the relation of expression to character in two great masters of the absolute art of language, Virgil and Pope. You are perhaps surprised at the last name; and indeed you have in English much higher grasp and melody of language from more passionate minds, but you have nothing else, in its range, so perfect. I name, therefore, these two men, because they are the two most accomplished _Artists_, merely as such, whom I know in literature; and because I think you will be afterwards interested in investigating how the infinite grace in the words of the one, and the severity in those of the other, and the precision in those of both, arise wholly out of the moral elements of their minds:--out of the deep tenderness in Virgil which enabled him to write the stories of Nisus and Lausus; and the serene and just benevolence which placed Pope, in his theology, two centuries in advance of his time, and enabled him to sum the law of noble life in two lines which, so far as I know, are the most complete, the most concise, and the most lofty expression of moral temper existing in English words:-- _"Never elated, while one man's oppress'd;_ _Never dejected, while another's bless'd."_ I wish you also to remember these lines of Pope, and to make yourselves entirely masters of his system of ethics; because, putting Shakespeare aside as rather the world's than ours, I hold Pope to be the most perfect representative we have, since Chaucer, of the true English mind; and I think the Dunciad is the most absolutely chiselled and monumental work "exacted" in our country. You will find, as you study Pope, that he has expressed for you, in the strictest language and within the briefest limits, every law of art, of criticism, of economy, of policy, and, finally, of a benevolence, humble, rational, and resigned, contented with its allotted share of life, and trusting the problem of its salvation to Him in whose hand lies that of the universe. 71. And now I pass to the arts with which I have special concern, in which, though the facts are exactly the same, I shall have more difficulty in proving my assertion, because very few of us are as cognizant of the merit of painting as we are of that of language; and I can only show you whence that merit springs, after having thoroughly shown you in what it consists. But, in the meantime, I have simply to tell you, that the manual arts are as accurate exponents of ethical state, as other modes of expression; first, with absolute precision, of that of the workman; and then with precision, disguised by many distorting influences, of that of the nation to which it belongs. And, first, they are a perfect exponent of the mind of the workman: but, being so, remember, if the mind be great or complex, the art is not an easy book to read; for we must ourselves possess all the mental characters of which we are to read the signs. No man can read the evidence of labour who is not himself laborious, for he does not know what the work cost: nor can he read the evidence of true passion if he is not passionate; nor of gentleness if he is not gentle: and the most subtle signs of fault and weakness of character he can only judge by having had the same faults to fight with. I myself, for instance, know impatient work, and tired work, better than most critics, because I am myself always impatient, and often tired:--so also, the patient and indefatigable touch of a mighty master becomes more wonderful to me than to others. Yet, wonderful in no mean measure it will be to you all, when I make it manifest,--and as soon as we begin our real work, and you have learned what it is to draw a true line, I shall be able to make manifest to you,--and indisputably so,--that the day's work of a man like Mantegna or Paul Veronese consists of an unfaltering, uninterrupted succession of movements of the hand more precise than those of the finest fencer: the pencil leaving one point and arriving at another, not only with unerring precision at the extremity of the line, but with an unerring and yet varied course--sometimes over spaces a foot or more in extent--yet a course so determined everywhere, that either of these men could, and Veronese often does, draw a finished profile, or any other portion of the contour of the face, with one line, not afterwards changed. Try, first, to realise to yourselves the muscular precision of that action, and the intellectual strain of it; for the movement of a fencer is perfect in practised monotony; but the movement of the hand of a great painter is at every instant governed by a direct and new intention. Then imagine that muscular firmness and subtlety, and the instantaneously selective and ordinant energy of the brain, sustained all day long, not only without fatigue, but with a visible joy in the exertion, like that which an eagle seems to take in the wave of his wings; and this all life long, and through long life, not only without failure of power, but with visible increase of it, until the actually organic changes of old age. And then consider, so far as you know anything of physiology, what sort of an ethical state of body and mind that means! ethic through ages past! what fineness of race there must be to get it, what exquisite balance and symmetry of the vital powers! And then, finally, determine for yourselves whether a manhood like that is consistent with any viciousness of soul, with any mean anxiety, any gnawing lust, any wretchedness of spite or remorse, any consciousness of rebellion against law of God or man, or any actual, though unconscious violation of even the least law to which obedience is essential for the glory of life and the pleasing of its Giver. 72. It is, of course, true that many of the strong masters had deep faults of character, but their faults always show in their work. It is true that some could not govern their passions; if so, they died young, or they painted ill when old. But the greater part of our misapprehension in the whole matter is from our not having well known who the great painters were, and taking delight in the petty skill that was bred in the fumes of the taverns of the North, instead of theirs who breathed empyreal air, sons of the morning, under the woods of Assisi and the crags of Cadore. 73. It is true however also, as I have pointed out long ago, that the strong masters fall into two great divisions, one leading simple and natural lives, the other restrained in a Puritanism of the worship of beauty; and these two manners of life you may recognise in a moment by their work. Generally the naturalists are the strongest; but there are two of the Puritans, whose work if I can succeed in making clearly understandable to you during my three years here, it is all I need care to do. But of these two Puritans one I cannot name to you, and the other I at present will not. One I cannot, for no one knows his name, except the baptismal one, Bernard, or "dear little Bernard"--Bernardino, called from his birthplace, (Luino, on the Lago Maggiore,) Bernard of Luino. The other is a Venetian, of whom many of you probably have never heard, and of whom, through me, you shall not hear, until I have tried to get some picture by him over to England. 74. Observe then, this Puritanism in the worship of beauty, though sometimes weak, is always honourable and amiable, and the exact reverse of the false Puritanism, which consists in the dread or disdain of beauty. And in order to treat my subject rightly, I ought to proceed from the skill of art to the choice of its subject, and show you how the moral temper of the workman is shown by his seeking lovely forms and thoughts to express, as well as by the force of his hand in expression. But I need not now urge this part of the proof on you, because you are already, I believe, sufficiently conscious of the truth in this matter, and also I have already said enough of it in my writings; whereas I have not at all said enough of the infallibleness of fine technical work as a proof of every other good power. And indeed it was long before I myself understood the true meaning of the pride of the greatest men in their mere execution, shown for a permanent lesson to us, in the stories which, whether true or not, indicate with absolute accuracy the general conviction of great artists;--the stories of the contest of Apelles and Protogenes in a line only, (of which I can promise you, you shall know the meaning to some purpose in a little while),--the story of the circle of Giotto, and especially, which you may perhaps not have observed, the expression of Dürer in his inscription on the drawings sent him by Raphael. These figures, he says, "Raphael drew and sent to Albert Dürer in Nürnberg, to show him"--What? Not his invention, nor his beauty of expression, but "sein Hand zu weisen," "To show him his _hand_." And you will find, as you examine farther, that all inferior artists are continually trying to escape from the necessity of sound work, and either indulging themselves in their delights in subject, or pluming themselves on their noble motives for attempting what they cannot perform; (and observe, by the way, that a great deal of what is mistaken for conscientious motive is nothing but a very pestilent, because very subtle, condition of vanity); whereas the great men always understand at once that the first morality of a painter, as of everybody else, is to know his business; and so earnest are they in this, that many, whose lives you would think, by the results of their work, had been passed in strong emotion, have in reality subdued themselves, though capable of the very strongest passions, into a calm as absolute as that of a deeply sheltered mountain lake, which reflects every agitation of the clouds in the sky, and every change of the shadows on the hills, but is itself motionless. 75. Finally, you must remember that great obscurity has been brought upon the truth in this matter by the want of integrity and simplicity in our modern life. I mean integrity in the Latin sense, wholeness. Everything is broken up, and mingled in confusion, both in our habits and thoughts; besides being in great part imitative: so that you not only cannot tell what a man is, but sometimes you cannot tell whether he is, at all!--whether you have indeed to do with a spirit, or only with an echo. And thus the same inconsistencies appear now, between the work of artists of merit and their personal characters, as those which you find continually disappointing expectation in the lives of men of modern literary power; the same conditions of society having obscured or misdirected the best qualities of the imagination, both in our literature and art. Thus there is no serious question with any of us as to the personal character of Dante and Giotto, of Shakespeare and Holbein; but we pause timidly in the attempt to analyse the moral laws of the art skill in recent poets, novelists, and painters. 76. Let me assure you once for all, that as you grow older, if you enable yourselves to distinguish, by the truth of your own lives, what is true in those of other men, you will gradually perceive that all good has its origin in good, never in evil; that the fact of either literature or painting being truly fine of their kind, whatever their mistaken aim, or partial error, is proof of their noble origin: and that, if there is indeed sterling value in the thing done, it has come of a sterling worth in the soul that did it, however alloyed or defiled by conditions of sin which are sometimes more appalling or more strange than those which all may detect in their own hearts, because they are part of a personality altogether larger than ours, and as far beyond our judgment in its darkness as beyond our following in its light. And it is sufficient warning against what some might dread as the probable effect of such a conviction on your own minds, namely, that you might permit yourselves in the weaknesses which you imagined to be allied to genius, when they took the form of personal temptations;--it is surely, I say, sufficient warning against so mean a folly, to discern, as you may with little pains, that, of all human existences, the lives of men of that distorted and tainted nobility of intellect are probably the most miserable. 77. I pass to the second, and for us the more practically important question, What is the effect of noble art upon other men; what has it done for national morality in time past: and what effect is the extended knowledge or possession of it likely to have upon us now? And here we are at once met by the facts, which are as gloomy as indisputable, that, while many peasant populations, among whom scarcely the rudest practice of art has ever been attempted, have lived in comparative innocence, honour and happiness, the worst foulness and cruelty of savage tribes have been frequently associated with fine ingenuities of decorative design; also, that no people has ever attained the higher stages of art skill, except at a period of its civilisation which was sullied by frequent, violent and even monstrous crime; and, lastly, that the attaining of perfection in art power has been hitherto, in every nation, the accurate signal of the beginning of its ruin. 78. Respecting which phenomena, observe first, that although good never springs out of evil, it is developed to its highest by contention with evil. There are some groups of peasantry, in far-away nooks of Christian countries, who are nearly as innocent as lambs; but the morality which gives power to art is the morality of men, not of cattle. Secondly, the virtues of the inhabitants of many country districts are apparent, not real; their lives are indeed artless, but not innocent; and it is only the monotony of circumstances, and the absence of temptation, which prevent the exhibition of evil passions not less real because often dormant, nor less foul because shown only in petty faults, or inactive malignities. 79. But you will observe also that _absolute_ artlessness, to men in any kind of moral health, is impossible; they have always, at least, the art by which they live--agriculture or seamanship; and in these industries, skilfully practised, you will find the law of their moral training; while, whatever the adversity of circumstances, every rightly-minded peasantry, such as that of Sweden, Denmark, Bavaria, or Switzerland, has associated with its needful industry a quite studied school of pleasurable art in dress; and generally also in song, and simple domestic architecture. 80. Again, I need not repeat to you here what I endeavoured to explain in the first lecture in the book I called "The Two Paths," respecting the arts of savage races: but I may now note briefly that such arts are the result of an intellectual activity which has found no room to expand, and which the tyranny of nature or of man has condemned to disease through arrested growth. And where neither Christianity, nor any other religion conveying some moral help, has reached, the animal energy of such races necessarily flames into ghastly conditions of evil, and the grotesque or frightful forms assumed by their art are precisely indicative of their distorted moral nature. 81. But the truly great nations nearly always begin from a race possessing this imaginative power; and for some time their progress is very slow, and their state not one of innocence, but of feverish and faultful animal energy. This is gradually subdued and exalted into bright human life; the art instinct purifying itself with the rest of the nature, until social perfectness is nearly reached; and then comes the period when conscience and intellect are so highly developed, that new forms of error begin in the inability to fulfil the demands of the one, or to answer the doubts of the other. Then the wholeness of the people is lost; all kinds of hypocrisies and oppositions of science develop themselves; their faith is questioned on one side, and compromised with on the other; wealth commonly increases at the same period to a destructive extent; luxury follows; and the ruin of the nation is then certain: while the arts, all this time, are simply, as I said at first, the exponents of each phase of its moral state, and no more control it in its political career than the gleam of the firefly guides its oscillation. It is true that their most splendid results are usually obtained in the swiftness of the power which is hurrying to the precipice; but to lay the charge of the catastrophe to the art by which it is illumined, is to find a cause for the cataract in the hues of its iris. It is true that the colossal vices belonging to periods of great national wealth (for wealth, you will find, is the real root of all evil) can turn every good gift and skill of nature or of man to evil purpose. If, in such times, fair pictures have been misused, how much more fair realities? And if Miranda is immoral to Caliban, is that Miranda's fault? 82. And I could easily go on to trace for you what at the moment I speak, is signified, in our own national character, by the forms of art, and unhappily also by the forms of what is not art, but [Greek: atechnia], that exist among us. But the more important question is, What _will_ be signified by them; what is there in us now of worth and strength, which under our new and partly accidental impulse towards formative labour, may be by that expressed, and by that fortified? Would it not be well to know this? Nay, irrespective of all future work, is it not the first thing we should want to know, what stuff we are made of--how far we are +agathoi+ or +kakoi+--good, or good for nothing? We may all know that, each of ourselves, easily enough, if we like to put one grave question well home. 83. Supposing it were told any of you by a physician whose word you could not but trust, that you had not more than seven days to live. And suppose also that, by the manner of your education it had happened to you, as it has happened to many, never to have heard of any future state, or not to have credited what you heard; and therefore that you had to face this fact of the approach of death in its simplicity: fearing no punishment for any sin that you might have before committed, or in the coming days might determine to commit; and having similarly no hope of reward for past, or yet possible, virtue; nor even of any consciousness whatever to be left to you, after the seventh day had ended, either of the results of your acts to those whom you loved, or of the feelings of any survivors towards you. Then the manner in which you would spend the seven days is an exact measure of the morality of your nature. 84. I know that some of you, and I believe the greater number of you, would, in such a case, spend the granted days entirely as you ought. Neither in numbering the errors, or deploring the pleasures of the past; nor in grasping at vile good in the present, nor vainly lamenting the darkness of the future; but in an instant and earnest execution of whatever it might be possible for you to accomplish in the time, in setting your affairs in order, and in providing for the future comfort, and--so far as you might by any message or record of yourself,--for the consolation, of those whom you loved, and by whom you desired to be remembered, not for your good, but for theirs. How far you might fail through human weakness, in shame for the past, despair at the little that could in the remnant of life be accomplished, or the intolerable pain of broken affection, would depend wholly on the degree in which your nature had been depressed or fortified by the manner of your past life. But I think there are few of you who would not spend those last days better than all that had preceded them. 85. If you look accurately through the records of the lives that have been most useful to humanity, you will find that all that has been done best, has been done so;--that to the clearest intellects and highest souls,--to the true children of the Father, with whom a thousand years are as one day, their poor seventy years are but as seven days. The removal of the shadow of death from them to an uncertain, but always narrow, distance, never takes away from them their intuition of its approach; the extending to them of a few hours more or less of light abates not their acknowledgment of the infinitude that must remain to be known beyond their knowledge,--done beyond their deeds: the unprofitableness of their momentary service is wrought in a magnificent despair, and their very honour is bequeathed by them for the joy of others, as they lie down to their rest, regarding for themselves the voice of men no more. 86. The best things, I repeat to you, have been done thus, and therefore, sorrowfully. But the greatest part of the good work of the world is done either in pure and unvexed instinct of duty, "I have stubbed Thornaby waste," or else, and better, it is cheerful and helpful doing of what the hand finds to do, in surety that at evening time, whatsoever is right the Master will give. And that it be worthily done, depends wholly on that ultimate quantity of worth which you can measure, each in himself, by the test I have just given you. For that test, observe, will mark to you the precise force, first of your absolute courage, and then of the energy in you for the right ordering of things, and the kindly dealing with persons. You have cut away from these two instincts every selfish or common motive, and left nothing but the energies of Order and of Love. 87. Now, where those two roots are set, all the other powers and desires find right nourishment, and become to their own utmost, helpful to others and pleasurable to ourselves. And so far as those two springs of action are not in us, all other powers become corrupt or dead; even the love of truth, apart from these, hardens into an insolent and cold avarice of knowledge, which unused, is more vain than unused gold. 88. These, then, are the two essential instincts of humanity: the love of Order and the love of Kindness. By the love of order the moral energy is to deal with the earth, and to dress it, and keep it; and with all rebellious and dissolute forces in lower creatures, or in ourselves. By the love of doing kindness it is to deal rightly with all surrounding life. And then, grafted on these, we are to make every other passion perfect; so that they may every one have full strength and yet be absolutely under control. 89. Every one must be strong, every one perfect, every one obedient as a war horse. And it is among the most beautiful pieces of mysticism to which eternal truth is attached, that the chariot race, which Plato uses as an image of moral government, and which is indeed the most perfect type of it in any visible skill of men, should have been made by the Greeks the continual subject of their best poetry and best art. Nevertheless Plato's use of it is not altogether true. There is no black horse in the chariot of the soul. One of the driver's worst faults is in starving his horses; another, in not breaking them early enough; but they are all good. Take, for example, one usually thought of as wholly evil--that of Anger, leading to vengeance. I believe it to be quite one of the crowning wickednesses of this age that we have starved and chilled our faculty of indignation, and neither desire nor dare to punish crimes justly. We have taken up the benevolent idea, forsooth, that justice is to be preventive instead of vindictive; and we imagine that we are to punish, not in anger, but in expediency; not that we may give deserved pain to the person in fault, but that we may frighten other people from committing the same fault. The beautiful theory of this non-vindictive justice is, that having convicted a man of a crime worthy of death, we entirely pardon the criminal, restore him to his place in our affection and esteem, and then hang him, not as a malefactor, but as a scarecrow. That is the theory. And the practice is, that we send a child to prison for a month for stealing a handful of walnuts, for fear that other children should come to steal more of our walnuts. And we do not punish a swindler for ruining a thousand families, because we think swindling is a wholesome excitement to trade. 90. But all true justice is vindictive to vice, as it is rewarding to virtue. Only--and herein it is distinguished from personal revenge--it is vindictive of the wrong done;--not of the wrong done _to us_. It is the national expression of deliberate anger, as of deliberate gratitude; it is not exemplary, or even corrective, but essentially retributive; it is the absolute art of measured recompense, giving honour where honour is due, and shame where shame is due, and joy where joy is due, and pain where pain is due. It is neither educational, for men are to be educated by wholesome habit, not by rewards and punishments; nor is it preventive, for it is to be executed without regard to any consequences; but only for righteousness' sake, a righteous nation does judgment and justice. But in this, as in all other instances, the rightness of the secondary passion depends on its being grafted on those two primary instincts, the love of order and of kindness, so that indignation itself is against the wounding of love. Do you think the +mênis Achilêos+ came of a hard heart in Achilles, or the "Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas," of a hard heart in Anchises' son? 91. And now, if with this clue through the labyrinth of them, you remember the course of the arts of great nations, you will perceive that whatever has prospered, and become lovely, had its beginning--for no other was possible--in the love of order in material things associated with true +dikaiosunê+: and the desire of beauty in material things, which is associated with true affection, _charitas_, and with the innumerable conditions of gentleness expressed by the different uses of the words +charis+ and _gratia_. You will find that this love of beauty is an essential part of all healthy human nature, and though it can long co-exist with states of life in many other respects unvirtuous, it is itself wholly good;--the direct adversary of envy, avarice, mean worldly care, and especially of cruelty. It entirely perishes when these are wilfully indulged; and the men in whom it has been most strong have always been compassionate, and lovers of justice, and the earliest discerners and declarers of things conducive to the happiness of mankind. 92. Nearly every important truth respecting the love of beauty in its familiar relations to human life was mythically expressed by the Greeks in their various accounts of the parentage and offices of the Graces. But one fact, the most vital of all, they could not in its fulness perceive, namely, that the intensity of other perceptions of beauty is exactly commensurate with the imaginative purity of the passion of love, and with the singleness of its devotion. They were not fully conscious of, and could not therefore either mythically or philosophically express, the deep relation within themselves between their power of perceiving beauty, and the honour of domestic affection which found their sternest themes of tragedy in the infringement of its laws;--which made the rape of Helen the chief subject of their epic poetry, and which fastened their clearest symbolism of resurrection on the story of Alcestis. Unhappily, the subordinate position of their most revered women, and the partial corruption of feeling towards them by the presence of certain other singular states of inferior passion which it is as difficult as grievous to analyse, arrested the ethical as well as the formative progress of the Greek mind; and it was not until after an interval of nearly two thousand years of various error and pain, that, partly as the true reward of Christian warfare nobly sustained through centuries of trial, and partly as the visionary culmination of the faith which saw in a maiden's purity the link between God and her race, the highest and holiest strength of mortal love was reached; and, together with it, in the song of Dante, and the painting of Bernard of Luino and his fellows, the perception, and embodiment for ever of whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report;--that, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, men might think on those things. 93. You probably observed the expression I used a moment ago, the _imaginative_ purity of the passion of love. I have not yet spoken, nor is it possible for me to-day, to speak adequately, of the moral power of the imagination: but you may for yourselves enough discern its nature merely by comparing the dignity of the relations between the sexes, from their lowest level in moths or mollusca, through the higher creatures in whom they become a domestic influence and law, up to the love of pure men and women; and, finally, to the ideal love which animated chivalry. Throughout this vast ascent it is the gradual increase of the imaginative faculty which exalts and enlarges the authority of the passion, until, at its height, it is the bulwark of patience, the tutor of honour, and the perfectness of praise. 94. You will find farther, that as of love, so of all the other passions, the right government and exaltation begins in that of the Imagination, which is lord over them. For to _subdue_ the passions, which is thought so often to be the sum of duty respecting them, is possible enough to a proud dulness; but to _excite_ them rightly, and make them strong for good, is the work of the unselfish imagination. It is constantly said that human nature is heartless. Do not believe it. Human nature is kind and generous; but it is narrow and blind; and can only with difficulty conceive anything but what it immediately sees and feels. People would instantly care for others as well as themselves if only they could _imagine_ others as well as themselves. Let a child fall into the river before the roughest man's eyes;--he will usually do what he can to get it out, even at some risk to himself; and all the town will triumph in the saving of one little life. Let the same man be shown that hundreds of children are dying of fever for want of some sanitary measure which it will cost him trouble to urge, and he will make no effort; and probably all the town would resist him if he did. So, also, the lives of many deserving women are passed in a succession of petty anxieties about themselves, and gleaning of minute interests and mean pleasures in their immediate circle, because they are never taught to make any effort to look beyond it; or to know anything about the mighty world in which their lives are fading, like blades of bitter grass in fruitless fields. 95. I had intended to enlarge on this--and yet more on the kingdom which every man holds in his conceptive faculty, to be peopled with active thoughts and lovely presences, or left waste for the springing up of those dark desires and dreams of which it is written that "every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is evil continually." True, and a thousand times true it is, that, here at least, "greater is he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city." But this you can partly follow out for yourselves without help, partly we must leave it for future enquiry. I press to the conclusion which I wish to leave with you, that all you can rightly do, or honourably become, depends on the government of these two instincts of order and kindness, by this great Imaginative faculty, which gives you inheritance of the past, grasp of the present, authority over the future. Map out the spaces of your possible lives by its help; measure the range of their possible agency! On the walls and towers of this your fair city, there is not an ornament of which the first origin may not be traced back to the thoughts of men who died two thousand years ago. Whom will _you_ be governing by your thoughts, two thousand years hence? Think of it, and you will find that so far from art being immoral, little else except art is moral; that life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality: and for the words "good" and "wicked," used of men, you may almost substitute the words "Makers" and "Destroyers." Far the greater part of the seeming prosperity of the world is, so far as our present knowledge extends, vain: wholly useless for any kind of good, but having assigned to it a certain inevitable sequence of destruction and of sorrow. Its stress is only the stress of wandering storm; its beauty the hectic of plague: and what is called the history of mankind is too often the record of the whirlwind, and the map of the spreading of the leprosy. But underneath all that, or in narrow spaces of dominion in the midst of it, the work of every man, "qui non accepit in vanitatem animam suam," endures and prospers; a small remnant or green bud of it prevailing at last over evil. And though faint with sickness, and encumbered in ruin, the true workers redeem inch by inch the wilderness into garden ground; by the help of their joined hands the order of all things is surely sustained and vitally expanded, and although with strange vacillation, in the eyes of the watcher, the morning cometh, and also the night, there is no hour of human existence that does not draw on towards the perfect day. 96. And perfect the day shall be, when it is of all men understood that the beauty of Holiness must be in labour as well as in rest. Nay! _more_, if it may be, in labour; in our strength, rather than in our weakness; and in the choice of what we shall work for through the six days, and may know to be good at their evening time, than in the choice of what we pray for on the seventh, of reward or repose. With the multitude that keep holiday, we may perhaps sometimes vainly have gone up to the house of the Lord, and vainly there asked for what we fancied would be mercy; but for the few who labour as their Lord would have them, the mercy needs no seeking, and their wide home no hallowing. Surely goodness and mercy shall _follow_ them, _all_ the days of their life; and they shall dwell in the house of the Lord--FOR EVER. LECTURE IV THE RELATION OF ART TO USE 97. Our subject of enquiry to-day, you will remember, is the mode in which fine art is founded upon, or may contribute to, the practical requirements of human life. Its offices in this respect are mainly twofold: it gives Form to knowledge, and Grace to utility; that is to say, it makes permanently visible to us things which otherwise could neither be described by our science, nor retained by our memory; and it gives delightfulness and worth to the implements of daily use, and materials of dress, furniture and lodging. In the first of these offices it gives precision and charm to truth; in the second it gives precision and charm to service. For, the moment we make anything useful thoroughly, it is a law of nature that we shall be pleased with ourselves, and with the thing we have made; and become desirous therefore to adorn or complete it, in some dainty way, with finer art expressive of our pleasure. And the point I wish chiefly to bring before you to-day is this close and healthy connection of the fine arts with material use; but I must first try briefly to put in clear light the function of art in giving Form to truth. 98. Much that I have hitherto tried to teach has been disputed on the ground that I have attached too much importance to art as representing natural facts, and too little to it as a source of pleasure. And I wish, in the close of these four prefatory lectures, strongly to assert to you, and, so far as I can in the time, convince you, that the entire vitality of art depends upon its being either full of truth, or full of use; and that, however pleasant, wonderful or impressive it may be in itself, it must yet be of inferior kind, and tend to deeper inferiority, unless it has clearly one of these main objects,--either _to state a true thing_, or to _adorn a serviceable one_. It must never exist alone--never for itself; it exists rightly only when it is the means of knowledge, or the grace of agency for life. 99. Now, I pray you to observe--for though I have said this often before, I have never yet said it clearly enough--every good piece of art, to whichever of these ends it may be directed, involves first essentially the evidence of human skill and the formation of an actually beautiful thing by it. Skill, and beauty, always then; and, beyond these, the formative arts have always one or other of the two objects which I have just defined to you--truth, or serviceableness; and without these aims neither the skill nor their beauty will avail; only by these can either legitimately reign. All the graphic arts begin in keeping the outline of shadow that we have loved, and they end in giving to it the aspect of life; and all the architectural arts begin in the shaping of the cup and the platter, and they end in a glorified roof. Therefore, you see, in the graphic arts you have Skill, Beauty, and Likeness; and in the architectural arts, Skill, Beauty, and Use; and you _must_ have the three in each group, balanced and co-ordinate; and all the chief errors of art consist in losing or exaggerating one of these elements. 100. For instance, almost the whole system and hope of modern life are founded on the notion that you may substitute mechanism for skill, photograph for picture, cast-iron for sculpture. That is your main nineteenth-century faith, or infidelity. You think you can get everything by grinding--music, literature, and painting. You will find it grievously not so; you can get nothing but dust by mere grinding. Even to have the barley-meal out of it, you must have the barley first; and that comes by growth, not grinding. But essentially, we have lost our delight in Skill; in that majesty of it which I was trying to make clear to you in my last address, and which long ago I tried to express, under the head of ideas of power. The entire sense of that, we have lost, because we ourselves do not take pains enough to do right, and have no conception of what the right costs; so that all the joy and reverence we ought to feel in looking at a strong man's work have ceased in us. We keep them yet a little in looking at a honeycomb or a bird's-nest; we understand that these differ, by divinity of skill, from a lump of wax or a cluster of sticks. But a picture, which is a much more wonderful thing than a honeycomb or a bird's-nest,--have we not known people, and sensible people too, who expected to be taught to produce that, in six lessons? 101. Well, you must have the skill, you must have the beauty, which is the highest moral element; and then, lastly, you must have the verity or utility, which is not the moral, but the vital element; and this desire for verity and use is the one aim of the three that always leads in great schools, and in the minds of great masters, without any exception. They will permit themselves in awkwardness, they will permit themselves in ugliness; but they will never permit themselves in uselessness or in unveracity. 102. And farther, as their skill increases, and as their grace, so much more, their desire for truth. It is impossible to find the three motives in fairer balance and harmony than in our own Reynolds. He rejoices in showing you his skill; and those of you who succeed in learning what painter's work really is, will one day rejoice also, even to laughter--that highest laughter which springs of pure delight, in watching the fortitude and the fire of a hand which strikes forth its will upon the canvas as easily as the wind strikes it on the sea. He rejoices in all abstract beauty and rhythm and melody of design; he will never give you a colour that is not lovely, nor a shade that is unnecessary, nor a line that is ungraceful. But all his power and all his invention are held by him subordinate,--and the more obediently because of their nobleness,--to his true leading purpose of setting before you such likeness of the living presence of an English gentleman or an English lady, as shall be worthy of being looked upon for ever. 103. But farther, you remember, I hope--for I said it in a way that I thought would shock you a little, that you might remember it--my statement, that art had never done more than this, never more than given the likeness of a noble human being. Not only so, but it very seldom does so much as this; and the best pictures that exist of the great schools are all portraits, or groups of portraits, often of very simple and no wise noble persons. You may have much more brilliant and impressive qualities in imaginative pictures; you may have figures scattered like clouds, or garlanded like flowers; you may have light and shade, as of a tempest, and colour, as of the rainbow; but all that is child's play to the great men, though it is astonishment to us. Their real strength is tried to the utmost, and as far as I know, it is never elsewhere brought out so thoroughly, as in painting one man or woman, and the soul that was in them; nor that always the highest soul, but often only a thwarted one that was capable of height; or perhaps not even that, but faultful and poor, yet seen through, to the poor best of it, by the masterful sight. So that in order to put before you in your Standard series, the best art possible, I am obliged, even from the very strongest men, to take portraits, before I take the idealism. Nay, whatever is best in the great compositions themselves has depended on portraiture; and the study necessary to enable you to understand invention will also convince you that the mind of man never invented a greater thing than the form of man, animated by faithful life. Every attempt to refine or exalt such healthy humanity has weakened or caricatured it; or else consists only in giving it, to please our fancy, the wings of birds, or the eyes of antelopes. Whatever is truly great in either Greek or Christian art, is also restrictedly human; and even the raptures of the redeemed souls who enter, "celestemente ballando," the gate of Angelico's Paradise, were seen first in the terrestrial, yet most pure, mirth of Florentine maidens. 104. I am aware that this cannot but at present appear gravely questionable to those of my audience who are strictly cognisant of the phases of Greek art; for they know that the moment of its decline is accurately marked, by its turning from abstract form to portraiture. But the reason of this is simple. The progressive course of Greek art was in subduing monstrous conceptions to natural ones; it did this by general laws; it reached absolute truth of generic human form, and if this ethical force had remained, would have advanced into healthy portraiture. But at the moment of change the national life ended in Greece; and portraiture, there, meant insult to her religion, and flattery to her tyrants. And her skill perished, not because she became true in sight, but because she became vile at heart. 105. And now let us think of our own work, and ask how that may become, in its own poor measure, active in some verity of representation. We certainly cannot begin by drawing kings or queens; but we must try, even in our earliest work, if it is to prosper, to draw something that will convey true knowledge both to ourselves and others. And I think you will find greatest advantage in the endeavour to give more life and educational power to the simpler branches of natural science: for the great scientific men are all so eager in advance that they have no time to popularise their discoveries, and if we can glean after them a little, and make pictures of the things which science describes, we shall find the service a worthy one. Not only so, but we may even be helpful to science herself; for she has suffered by her proud severance from the arts; and having made too little effort to realise her discoveries to vulgar eyes, has herself lost true measure of what was chiefly precious in them. 106. Take Botany, for instance. Our scientific botanists are, I think, chiefly at present occupied in distinguishing species, which perfect methods of distinction will probably in the future show to be indistinct;--in inventing descriptive names of which a more advanced science and more fastidious scholarship will show some to be unnecessary, and others inadmissible;--and in microscopic investigations of structure, which through many alternate links of triumphant discovery that tissue is composed of vessels, and that vessels are composed of tissue, have not hitherto completely explained to us either the origin, the energy, or the course of the sap; and which however subtle or successful, bear to the real natural history of plants only the relation that anatomy and organic chemistry bear to the history of men. In the meantime, our artists are so generally convinced of the truth of the Darwinian theory that they do not always think it necessary to show any difference between the foliage of an elm and an oak; and the gift-books of Christmas have every page surrounded with laboriously engraved garlands of rose, shamrock, thistle, and forget-me-not, without its being thought proper by the draughtsman, or desirable by the public, even in the case of those uncommon flowers, to observe the real shape of the petals of any one of them. 107. Now what we especially need at present for educational purposes is to know, not the anatomy of plants, but their biography--how and where they live and die, their tempers, benevolences, malignities, distresses, and virtues. We want them drawn from their youth to their age, from bud to fruit. We ought to see the various forms of their diminished but hardy growth in cold climates, or poor soils; and their rank or wild luxuriance, when full-fed, and warmly nursed. And all this we ought to have drawn so accurately, that we might at once compare any given part of a plant with the same part of any other, drawn on the like conditions. Now, is not this a work which we may set about here in Oxford, with good hope and much pleasure? I think it is so important, that the first exercise in drawing I shall put before you will be an outline of a laurel leaf. You will find in the opening sentence of Lionardo's treatise, our present text-book, that you must not at first draw from nature, but from a good master's work, "per assuefarsi a buone membra," to accustom yourselves, that is, to entirely good representative organic forms. So your first exercise shall be the top of the laurel sceptre of Apollo, drawn by an Italian engraver of Lionardo's own time; then we will draw a laurel leaf itself; and little by little, I think we may both learn ourselves, and teach to many besides, somewhat more than we know yet, of the wild olives of Greece, and the wild roses of England. 108. Next, in Geology, which I will take leave to consider as an entirely separate science from the zoology of the past, which has lately usurped its name and interest. In geology itself we find the strength of many able men occupied in debating questions of which there are yet no data even for the clear statement; and in seizing advanced theoretical positions on the mere contingency of their being afterwards tenable; while, in the meantime, no simple person, taking a holiday in Cumberland, can get an intelligible section of Skiddaw, or a clear account of the origin of the Skiddaw slates; and while, though half the educated society of London travel every summer over the great plain of Switzerland, none know, or care to know, why that is a plain, and the Alps to the south of it are Alps; and whether or not the gravel of the one has anything to do with the rocks of the other. And though every palace in Europe owes part of its decoration to variegated marbles, and nearly every woman in Europe part of her decoration to pieces of jasper or chalcedony, I do not think any geologist could at this moment with authority tell us either how a piece of marble is stained, or what causes the streaks in a Scotch pebble. 109. Now, as soon as you have obtained the power of drawing, I do not say a mountain, but even a stone, accurately, every question of this kind will become to you at once attractive and definite; you will find that in the grain, the lustre, and the cleavage-lines of the smallest fragment of rock, there are recorded forces of every order and magnitude, from those which raise a continent by one volcanic effort, to those which at every instant are polishing the apparently complete crystal in its nest, and conducting the apparently motionless metal in its vein; and that only by the art of your own hand, and fidelity of sight which it develops, you can obtain true perception of these invincible and inimitable arts of the earth herself; while the comparatively slight effort necessary to obtain so much skill as may serviceably draw mountains in distant effect will be instantly rewarded by what is almost equivalent to a new sense of the conditions of their structure. 110. And, because it is well at once to know some direction in which our work may be definite, let me suggest to those of you who may intend passing their vacation in Switzerland, and who care about mountains, that if they will first qualify themselves to take angles of position and elevation with correctness, and to draw outlines with approximate fidelity, there are a series of problems of the highest interest to be worked out on the southern edge of the Swiss plain, in the study of the relations of its molasse beds to the rocks which are characteristically developed in the chain of the Stockhorn, Beatenberg, Pilate, Mythen above Schwytz, and High Sentis of Appenzell, the pursuit of which may lead them into many pleasant, as well as creditably dangerous, walks, and curious discoveries; and will be good for the discipline of their fingers in the pencilling of crag form. 111. I wish I could ask you to draw, instead of the Alps, the crests of Parnassus and Olympus, and the ravines of Delphi and of Tempe. I have not loved the arts of Greece as others have; yet I love them, and her, so much, that it is to me simply a standing marvel how scholars can endure for all these centuries, during which their chief education has been in the language and policy of Greece, to have only the names of her hills and rivers upon their lips, and never one line of conception of them in their mind's sight. Which of us knows what the valley of Sparta is like, or the great mountain vase of Arcadia? which of us, except in mere airy syllabling of names, knows aught of "sandy Ladon's lilied banks, or old Lycæus, or Cyllene hoar"? "You cannot travel in Greece?"--I know it; nor in Magna Græcia. But, gentlemen of England, you had better find out why you cannot, and put an end to that horror of European shame, before you hope to learn Greek art. 112. I scarcely know whether to place among the things useful to art, or to science, the systematic record, by drawing, of phenomena of the sky. But I am quite sure that your work cannot in any direction be more useful to yourselves, than in enabling you to perceive the quite unparalleled subtilties of colour and inorganic form, which occur on any ordinarily fine morning or evening horizon; and I will even confess to you another of my perhaps too sanguine expectations, that in some far distant time it may come to pass, that young Englishmen and Englishwomen may think the breath of the morning sky pleasanter than that of midnight, and its light prettier than that of candles. 113. Lastly, in Zoology. What the Greeks did for the horse, and what, as far as regards domestic and expressional character, Landseer has done for the dog and the deer, remains to be done by art for nearly all other animals of high organisation. There are few birds or beasts that have not a range of character which, if not equal to that of the horse or dog, is yet as interesting within narrower limits, and often in grotesqueness, intensity, or wild and timid pathos, more singular and mysterious. Whatever love of humour you have,--whatever sympathy with imperfect, but most subtle, feeling,--whatever perception of sublimity in conditions of fatal power, may here find fullest occupation: all these being joined, in the strong animal races, to a variable and fantastic beauty far beyond anything that merely formative art has yet conceived. I have placed in your Educational series a wing by Albert Dürer, which goes as far as art yet has reached in delineation of plumage; while for the simple action of the pinion it is impossible to go beyond what has been done already by Titian and Tintoret; but you cannot so much as once look at the rufflings of the plumes of a pelican pluming itself after it has been in the water, or carefully draw the contours of the wing either of a vulture or a common swift, or paint the rose and vermilion on that of a flamingo, without receiving almost a new conception of the meaning of form and colour in creation. 114. Lastly. Your work, in all directions I have hitherto indicated, may be as deliberate as you choose; there is no immediate fear of the extinction of many species of flowers or animals; and the Alps, and valley of Sparta, will wait your leisure, I fear too long. But the feudal and monastic buildings of Europe, and still more the streets of her ancient cities, are vanishing like dreams: and it is difficult to imagine the mingled envy and contempt with which future generations will look back to us, who still possessed such things, yet made no effort to preserve, and scarcely any to delineate them: for when used as material of landscape by the modern artist, they are nearly always superficially or flatteringly represented, without zeal enough to penetrate their character, or patience enough to render it in modest harmony. As for places of traditional interest, I do not know an entirely faithful drawing of any historical site, except one or two studies made by enthusiastic young painters in Palestine and Egypt: for which, thanks to them always: but we want work nearer home. 115. Now it is quite probable that some of you, who will not care to go through the labour necessary to draw flowers or animals, may yet have pleasure in attaining some moderately accurate skill of sketching architecture, and greater pleasure still in directing it usefully. Suppose, for instance, we were to take up the historical scenery in Carlyle's "Frederick." Too justly the historian accuses the genius of past art, in that, types of too many such elsewhere, the galleries of Berlin--"are made up, like other galleries, of goat-footed Pan, Europa's Bull, Romulus's She-Wolf, and the Correggiosity of Correggio, and contain, for instance, no portrait of Friedrich the Great,--no likeness at all, or next to none at all, of the noble series of Human Realities, or any part of them, who have sprung, not from the idle brains of dreaming _dilettanti_, but from the head of God Almighty, to make this poor authentic earth a little memorable for us, and to do a little work that may be eternal there." So Carlyle tells us--too truly! We cannot now draw Friedrich for him, but we can draw some of the old castles and cities that were the cradles of German life--Hohenzollern, Hapsburg, Marburg, and such others;--we may keep some authentic likeness of these for the future. Suppose we were to take up that first volume of "Friedrich," and put outlines to it: shall we begin by looking for Henry the Fowler's tomb--Carlyle himself asks if he has any--at Quedlinburgh, and so downwards, rescuing what we can? That would certainly be making our work of some true use. 116. But I have told you enough, it seems to me, at least to-day, of this function of art in recording fact; let me now finally, and with all distinctness possible to me, state to you its main business of all;--its service in the actual uses of daily life. You are surprised, perhaps, to hear me call this its main business. That is indeed so, however. The giving brightness to picture is much, but the giving brightness to life more. And remember, were it as patterns only, you cannot, without the realities, have the pictures. _You cannot have a landscape by Turner, without a country for him to paint; you cannot have a portrait by Titian, without a man to be portrayed._ I need not prove that to you, I suppose, in these short terms; but in the outcome I can get no soul to believe that the beginning of art _is in getting our country clean, and our people beautiful_. I have been ten years trying to get this very plain certainty--I do not say believed--but even thought of, as anything but a monstrous proposition. To get your country clean, and your people lovely;--I assure you that is a necessary work of art to begin with! There has indeed been art in countries where people lived in dirt to serve God, but never in countries where they lived in dirt to serve the devil. There has indeed been art where the people were not all lovely--where even their lips were thick--and their skins black, because the sun had looked upon them; but never in a country where the people were pale with miserable toil and deadly shade, and where the lips of youth, instead of being full with blood, were pinched by famine, or warped with poison. And now, therefore, note this well, the gist of all these long prefatory talks. I said that the two great moral instincts were those of Order and Kindness. Now, all the arts are founded on agriculture by the hand, and on the graces, and kindness of feeding, and dressing, and lodging your people. Greek art begins in the gardens of Alcinous--perfect order, leeks in beds, and fountains in pipes. And Christian art, as it arose out of chivalry, was only possible so far as chivalry compelled both kings and knights to care for the right personal training of their people; it perished utterly when those kings and knights became +dêmoboroi+, devourers of the people. And it will become possible again only, when, literally, the sword is beaten into the ploughshare, when your St. George of England shall justify his name, and Christian art shall be known as its Master was, in breaking of bread. 117. Now look at the working out of this broad principle in minor detail; observe how, from highest to lowest, health of art has first depended on reference to industrial use. There is first the need of cup and platter, especially of cup; for you can put your meat on the Harpies',[10] or on any other, tables; but you must have your cup to drink from. And to hold it conveniently, you must put a handle to it; and to fill it when it is empty you must have a large pitcher of some sort; and to carry the pitcher you may most advisably have two handles. Modify the forms of these needful possessions according to the various requirements of drinking largely and drinking delicately; of pouring easily out, or of keeping for years the perfume in; of storing in cellars, or bearing from fountains; of sacrificial libation, of Panathenaic treasure of oil, and sepulchral treasure of ashes,--and you have a resultant series of beautiful form and decoration, from the rude amphora of red earth up to Cellini's vases of gems and crystal, in which series, but especially in the more simple conditions of it, are developed the most beautiful lines and most perfect types of severe composition which have yet been attained by art. [Footnote 10: Virg., _Æn._, iii. 209 _seqq._] 118. But again, that you may fill your cup with pure water, you must go to the well or spring; you need a fence round the well; you need some tube or trough, or other means of confining the stream at the spring. For the conveyance of the current to any distance you must build either enclosed or open aqueduct; and in the hot square of the city where you set it free, you find it good for health and pleasantness to let it leap into a fountain. On these several needs you have a school of sculpture founded; in the decoration of the walls of wells in level countries, and of the sources of springs in mountainous ones, and chiefly of all, where the women of household or market meet at the city fountain. There is, however, a farther reason for the use of art here than in any other material service, so far as we may, by art, express our reverence or thankfulness. Whenever a nation is in its right mind, it always has a deep sense of divinity in the gift of rain from heaven, filling its heart with food and gladness; and all the more when that gift becomes gentle and perennial in the flowing of springs. It literally is not possible that any fruitful power of the Muses should be put forth upon a people which disdains their Helicon; still less is it possible that any Christian nation should grow up "tanquam lignum quod plantatum est secus decursus aquarum," which cannot recognise the lesson meant in their being told of the places where Rebekah was met;--where Rachel,--where Zipporah,--and she who was asked for water under Mount Grerizim by a Stranger, weary, who had nothing to draw with. 119. And truly, when our mountain springs are set apart in vale or craggy glen, or glade of wood green through the drought of summer, far from cities, then it is best to let them stay in their own happy peace; but if near towns, and liable therefore to be defiled by common usage, we could not use the loveliest art more worthily than by sheltering the spring and its first pools with precious marbles: nor ought anything to be esteemed more important, as a means of healthy education, than the care to keep the streams of it afterwards, to as great a distance as possible, pure, full of fish, and easily accessible to children. There used to be, thirty years ago, a little rivulet of the Wandel, about an inch deep, which ran over the carriage-road and under a foot-bridge just under the last chalk hill near Croydon. Alas! men came and went; and it did _not_ go on for ever. It has long since been bricked over by the parish authorities; but there was more education in that stream with its minnows than you could get out of a thousand pounds spent yearly in the parish schools, even though you were to spend every farthing of it in teaching the nature of oxygen and hydrogen, and the names, and rate per minute, of all the rivers in Asia and America. 120. Well, the gist of this matter lies here then. Suppose we want a school of pottery again in England, all we poor artists are ready to do the best we can, to show you how pretty a line may be that is twisted first to one side, and then to the other; and how a plain household-blue will make a pattern on white; and how ideal art may be got out of the spaniel's colours of black and tan. But I tell you beforehand, all that we can do will be utterly useless, unless you teach your peasant to say grace, not only before meat, but before drink; and having provided him with Greek cups and platters, provide him also with something that is not poisoned to put into them. 121. There cannot be any need that I should trace for you the conditions of art that are directly founded on serviceableness of dress, and of armour; but it is my duty to affirm to you, in the most positive manner, that after recovering, for the poor, wholesomeness of food, your next step towards founding schools of art in England must be in recovering, for the poor, decency and wholesomeness of dress; thoroughly good in substance, fitted for their daily work, becoming to their rank in life, and worn with order and dignity. And this order and dignity must be taught them by the women of the upper and middle classes, whose minds can be in nothing right, as long as they are so wrong in this matter as to endure the squalor of the poor, while they themselves dress gaily. And on the proper pride and comfort of both poor and rich in dress, must be founded the true arts of dress; carried on by masters of manufacture no less careful of the perfectness and beauty of their tissues, and of all that in substance and design can be bestowed upon them, than ever the armourers of Milan and Damascus were careful of their steel. 122. Then, in the third place, having recovered some wholesome habits of life as to food and dress, we must recover them as to lodging. I said just now that the best architecture was but a glorified roof. Think of it. The dome of the Vatican, the porches of Rheims or Chartres, the vaults and arches of their aisles, the canopy of the tomb, and the spire of the belfry, are all forms resulting from the mere requirement that a certain space shall be strongly covered from heat and rain. More than that--as I have tried all through "The Stories of Venice" to show,--the lovely forms of these were every one of them developed in civil and domestic building, and only after their invention, employed ecclesiastically on the grandest scale. I think you cannot but have noticed here in Oxford, as elsewhere, that our modern architects never seem to know what to do with their roofs. Be assured, until the roofs are right, nothing else will be; and there are just two ways of keeping them right. Never build them of iron, but only of wood or stone; and secondly, take care that in every town the little roofs are built before the large ones, and that everybody who wants one has got one. And we must try also to make everybody want one. That is to say, at some not very advanced period of life, men should desire to have a home, which they do not wish to quit any more, suited to their habits of life, and likely to be more and more suitable to them until their death. And men must desire to have these their dwelling-places built as strongly as possible, and furnished and decorated daintily, and set in pleasant places, in bright light, and good air, being able to choose for themselves that at least as well as swallows. And when the houses are grouped together in cities, men must have so much civic fellowship as to subject their architecture to a common law, and so much civic pride as to desire that the whole gathered group of human dwellings should be a lovely thing, not a frightful one, on the face of the earth. Not many weeks ago an English clergyman,[11] a master of this University, a man not given to sentiment, but of middle age, and great practical sense, told me, by accident, and wholly without reference to the subject now before us, that he never could enter London from his country parsonage but with closed eyes, lest the sight of the blocks of houses which the railroad intersected in the suburbs should unfit him, by the horror of it, for his day's work. [Footnote 11: Osborne Gordon.] 123. Now, it is not possible--and I repeat to you, only in more deliberate assertion, what I wrote just twenty-two years ago in the last chapter of the "Seven Lamps of Architecture"--it is not possible to have any right morality, happiness, or art, in any country where the cities are thus built, or thus, let me rather say, clotted and coagulated; spots of a dreadful mildew, spreading by patches and blotches over the country they consume. You must have lovely cities, crystallised, not coagulated, into form; limited in size, and not casting out the scum and scurf of them into an encircling eruption of shame, but girded each with its sacred pomoerium, and with garlands of gardens full of blossoming trees and softly guided streams. That is impossible, you say! it may be so. I have nothing to do with its possibility, but only with its indispensability. More than that must be possible, however, before you can have a school of art; namely, that you find places elsewhere than in England, or at least in otherwise unserviceable parts of England, for the establishment of manufactories needing the help of fire, that is to say, of all the +technai banausikai+ and +epirrêtoi+, of which it was long ago known to be the constant nature that "+ascholias malista echousi kai philôn kai poleôs sunepimeleisthai+," and to reduce such manufactures to their lowest limit, so that nothing may ever be made of iron that can as effectually be made of wood or stone; and nothing moved by steam that can be as effectually moved by natural forces. And observe, that for all mechanical effort required in social life and in cities, water power is infinitely more than enough; for anchored mills on the large rivers, and mills moved by sluices from reservoirs filled by the tide, will give you command of any quantity of constant motive power you need. Agriculture by the hand, then, and absolute refusal or banishment of unnecessary igneous force, are the first conditions of a school of art in any country. And until you do this, be it soon or late, things will continue in that triumphant state to which, for want of finer art, your mechanism has brought them;--that, though England is deafened with spinning wheels, her people have not clothes--though she is black with digging of fuel, they die of cold--and though she has sold her soul for gain, they die of hunger. Stay in that triumph, if you choose; but be assured of this, it is not one which the fine arts will ever share with you. 124. Now, I have given you my message, containing, as I know, offence enough, and itself, it may seem to many, unnecessary enough. But just in proportion to its apparent non-necessity, and to its certain offence, was its real need, and my real duty to speak it. The study of the fine arts could not be rightly associated with the grave work of English Universities, without due and clear protest against the misdirection of national energy, which for the present renders all good results of such study on a great scale, impossible. I can easily teach you, as any other moderately good draughtsman could, how to hold your pencils, and how to lay your colours; but it is little use my doing that, while the nation is spending millions of money in the destruction of all that pencil or colour has to represent, and in the promotion of false forms of art, which are only the costliest and the least enjoyable of follies. And therefore these are the things that I have first and last to tell you in this place;--that the fine arts are not to be learned by Locomotion, but by making the homes we live in lovely, and by staying in them;--that the fine arts are not to be learned by Competition, but by doing our quiet best in our own way;--that the fine arts are not to be learned by Exhibition, but by doing what is right, and making what is honest, whether it be exhibited or not;--and, for the sum of all, that men must paint and build neither for pride nor for money, but for love; for love of their art, for love of their neighbour, and whatever better love may be than these, founded on these. I know that I gave some pain, which I was most unwilling to give, in speaking of the possible abuses of religious art; but there can be no danger of any, so long as we remember that God inhabits cottages as well as churches, and ought to be well lodged there also. Begin with wooden floors; the tessellated ones will take care of themselves; begin with thatching roofs, and you shall end by splendidly vaulting them; begin by taking care that no old eyes fail over their Bibles, nor young ones over their needles, for want of rushlight, and then you may have whatever true good is to be got out of coloured glass or wax candles. And in thus putting the arts to universal use, you will find also their universal inspiration, their universal benediction. I told you there was no evidence of a _special_ Divineness in any application of them; that they were always equally human and equally Divine; and in closing this inaugural series of lectures, into which I have endeavoured to compress the principles that are to be the foundations of your future work, it is my last duty to say some positive words as to the Divinity of all art, when it is truly fair, or truly serviceable. 125. Every seventh day, if not oftener, the greater number of well-meaning persons in England thankfully receive from their teachers a benediction, couched in those terms:--"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you." Now I do not know precisely what sense is attached in the English public mind to those expressions. But what I have to tell you positively is that the three things do actually exist, and can be known if you care to know them, and possessed if you care to possess them; and that another thing exists, besides these, of which we already know too much. First, by simply obeying the orders of the Founder of your religion, all grace, graciousness, or beauty and favour of gentle life, will be given to you in mind and body, in work and in rest. The Grace of Christ exists, and can be had if you will. Secondly, as you know more and more of the created world, you will find that the true will of its Maker is that its creatures should be happy;--that He has made everything beautiful in its time and its place, and that it is chiefly by the fault of men, when they are allowed the liberty of thwarting His laws, that Creation groans or travails in pain. The Love of God exists, and you may see it, and live in it if you will. Lastly, a Spirit does actually exist which teaches the ant her path, the bird her building, and men, in an instinctive and marvellous way, whatever lovely arts and noble deeds are possible to them. Without it you can do no good thing. To the grief of it you can do many bad ones. In the possession of it is your peace and your power. And there is a fourth thing, of which we already know too much. There is an evil spirit whose dominion is in blindness and in cowardice, as the dominion of the Spirit of wisdom is in clear sight and in courage. And this blind and cowardly spirit is for ever telling you that evil things are pardonable, and you shall not die for them, and that good things are impossible, and you need not live for them; and that gospel of his is now the loudest that is preached in your Saxon tongue. You will find some day, to your cost, if you believe the first part of it, that it is not true; but you may never, if you believe the second part of it, find, to your gain, that also, untrue; and therefore I pray you with all earnestness to prove, and know within your hearts, that all things lovely and righteous are possible for those who believe in their possibility, and who determine that, for their part, they will make every day's work contribute to them. Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close:--then let every one of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others--some goodly strength or knowledge gained for yourselves; so, from day to day, and strength to strength, you shall build up indeed, by Art, by Thought, and by Just Will, an Ecclesia of England, of which it shall not be said, "See what manner of stones are here," but, "See what manner of men." LECTURE V LINE 126. You will, I doubt not, willingly permit me to begin your lessons in real practice of art in the words of the greatest of English painters: one also, than whom there is indeed no greater, among those of any nation, or any time,--our own gentle Reynolds. He says in his first discourse:--"The Directors" (of the Academy) "ought more particularly to watch over the genius of those students, who being more advanced, are arrived at that critical period of study, on the nice management of which their future turn of taste depends. At that age it is natural for them to be more captivated with what is brilliant, than with what is solid, and to prefer splendid negligence to painful and humiliating exactness." "A facility in composing, a lively and, what is called, a 'masterly' handling of the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed, captivating qualities to young minds, and become of course the objects of their ambition. They endeavour to imitate these dazzling excellences, which they will find no great labour in attaining. After much time spent in these frivolous pursuits, the difficulty will be to retreat; but it will then be too late; and there is scarce an instance of return to scrupulous labour, after the mind has been debauched and deceived by this fallacious mastery." 127. I read you these words, chiefly that Sir Joshua, who founded, as first President, the Academical schools of English painting, in these well-known discourses, may also begin, as he has truest right to do, our system of instruction in this University. But secondly, I read them that I may press on your attention these singular words, "painful and humiliating exactness." Singular, as expressing the first conditions of the study required from his pupils by the master, who, of all men except Velasquez, seems to have painted with the greatest ease. It is true that he asks this pain, this humiliation, only from youths who intend to follow the profession of artists. But if you wish yourselves to know anything of the practice of art, you must not suppose that because your study will be more desultory than that of Academy students, it may therefore be less accurate. The shorter the time you have to give, the more careful you should be to spend it profitably; and I would not wish you to devote one hour to the practice of drawing, unless you are resolved to be informed in it of all that in an hour can be taught. 128. I speak of the practice of _drawing_ only; though elementary study of modelling may perhaps some day be advisably connected with it; but I do not wish to disturb, or amuse, you with a formal statement of the manifold expectations I have formed respecting your future work. You will not, I am sure, imagine that I have begun without a plan, nor blame my reticence as to the parts of it which cannot yet be put into execution, and which there may occur reason afterwards to modify. My first task must unquestionably be to lay before you right and simple methods of drawing and colouring. I use the word "colouring" without reference to any particular vehicle of colour, for the laws of good painting are the same, whatever liquid is employed to dissolve the pigments. But the technical management of oil is more difficult than that of water-colour, and the impossibility of using it with safety among books or prints, and its unavailableness for note-book sketches and memoranda, are sufficient reasons for not introducing it in a course of practice intended chiefly for students of literature. On the contrary, in the exercises of artists, oil should be the vehicle of colour employed from the first. The extended practice of water-colour painting, as a separate skill, is in every way harmful to the arts: its pleasant slightness and plausible dexterity divert the genius of the painter from its proper aims, and withdraw the attention of the public from excellence of higher claim; nor ought any man, who has the consciousness of ability for good work, to be ignorant of, or indolent in employing, the methods of making its results permanent as long as the laws of Nature allow. It is surely a severe lesson to us in this matter, that the best works of Turner could not be shown to the public for six months without being destroyed,--and that his most ambitious ones for the most part perished, even before they could be shown. I will break through my law of reticence, however, so far as to tell you that I have hope of one day interesting you greatly (with the help of the Florentine masters), in the study of the arts of moulding and painting porcelain; and to induce some of you to use your future power of patronage in encouraging the various branches of this art, and turning the attention of the workmen of Italy from the vulgar tricks of minute and perishable mosaic to the exquisite subtilties of form and colour possible in the perfectly ductile, afterwards unalterable clay. And one of the ultimate results of such craftsmanship might be the production of pictures as brilliant as painted glass,--as delicate as the most subtle water-colours, and more permanent than the Pyramids. 129. And now to begin our own work. In order that we may know how rightly to learn to draw and to paint, it will be necessary, will it not, that we know first what we are to aim at doing;--what kind of representation of nature is best? I will tell you in the words of Lionardo. "That is the most praiseworthy painting which has most conformity with the thing represented," "quella pittura e piu laudabile, la quale ha piu conformita con la cosa mitata," (ch. 276). In plain terms, "the painting which is likest nature is the best." And you will find by referring to the preceding chapter, "come lo specchio e maestro de' pittori," how absolutely Lionardo means what he says. Let the living thing, (he tells us,) be reflected in a mirror, then put your picture beside the reflection, and match the one with the other. And indeed, the very best painting is unquestionably so like the mirrored truth, that all the world admits its excellence. Entirely first-rate work is so quiet and natural that there can be no dispute over it; you may not particularly admire it, but you will find no fault with it. Second-rate painting pleases one person much, and displeases another; but first-rate painting pleases all a little, and intensely pleases those who can recognise its unostentatious skill. 130. This, then, is what we have first got to do--to make our drawing look as like the thing we have to draw as we can. Now, all objects are seen by the eye as patches of colour of a certain shape, with gradations of colour within them. And, unless their colours be actually luminous, as those of the sun, or of fire, these patches of different hues are sufficiently imitable, except so far as they are seen stereoscopically. You will find Lionardo again and again insisting on the stereoscopic power of the double sight: but do not let that trouble you; you can only paint what you can see from one point of sight, but that is quite enough. So seen, then, all objects appear to the human eye simply as masses of colour of variable depth, texture, and outline. The outline of any object is the limit of its mass, as relieved against another mass. Take a crocus, and lay it on a green cloth. You will see it detach itself as a mere space of yellow from the green behind it, as it does from the grass. Hold it up against the window--you will see it detach itself as a dark space against the white or blue behind it. In either case its outline is the limit of the space of light or dark colour by which it expresses itself to your sight. That outline is therefore infinitely subtle--not even a line, but the place of a line, and that, also, made soft by texture. In the finest painting it is therefore slightly softened; but it is necessary to be able to draw it with absolute sharpness and precision. The art of doing this is to be obtained by drawing it as an actual line, which art is to be the subject of our immediate enquiry; but I must first lay the divisions of the entire subject completely before you. 131. I have said that all objects detach themselves as masses of colour. Usually, light and shade are thought of as separate from colour; but the fact is that all nature is seen as a mosaic composed of gradated portions of different colours, dark or light. There is no difference in the quality of these colours, except as affected by texture. You will constantly hear lights and shades spoken of as if these were different in their nature, and to be painted in different ways. But every light is a shadow compared to higher lights, till we reach the brightness of the sun; and every shadow is a light compared to lower shadows, till we reach the darkness of night. Every colour used in painting, except pure white and black, is therefore a light and shade at the same time. It is a light with reference to all below it, and a shade with reference to all above it. 132. The solid forms of an object, that is to say, the projections or recessions of its surface within the outline, are, for the most part, rendered visible by variations in the intensity or quantity of light falling on them. The study of the relations between the quantities of this light, irrespectively of its colour, is the second division of the regulated science of painting. 133. Finally, the qualities and relations of natural colours, the means of imitating them, and the laws by which they become separately beautiful, and in association harmonious, are the subjects of the third and final division of the painter's study. I shall endeavour at once to state to you what is most immediately desirable for you to know on each of these topics, in this and the two following lectures. 134. What we have to do, then, from beginning to end, is, I repeat once more, simply to draw spaces of their true shape, and to fill them with colours which shall match their colours; quite a simple thing in the definition of it, not quite so easy in the doing of it. But it is something to get this simple definition; and I wish you to notice that the terms of it are complete, though I do not introduce the term "light," or "shadow." Painters who have no eye for colour have greatly confused and falsified the practice of art by the theory that shadow is an absence of colour. Shadow is, on the contrary, necessary to the full presence of colour; for every colour is a diminished quantity or energy of light; and, practically, it follows from what I have just told you--(that every light in painting is a shadow to higher lights, and every shadow a light to lower shadows)--that also every _colour_ in painting must be a shadow to some brighter colour, and a light to some darker one--all the while being a positive colour itself. And the great splendour of the Venetian school arises from their having seen and held from the beginning this great fact--that shadow is as much colour as light, often much more. In Titian's fullest red the lights are pale rose-colour, passing into white--the shadows warm deep crimson. In Veronese's most splendid orange, the lights are pale, the shadows crocus colour; and so on. In nature, dark sides if seen by reflected lights, are almost always fuller or warmer in colour than the lights; and the practice of the Bolognese and Roman schools, in drawing their shadows always dark and cold, is false from the beginning, and renders perfect painting for ever impossible in those schools, and to all who follow them. 135. Every visible space, then, be it dark or light, is a space of colour of some kind, or of black or white. And you have to enclose it with a true outline, and to paint it with its true colour. But before considering how we are to draw this enclosing line, I must state to you something about the use of lines in general, by different schools. I said just now that there was no difference between the masses of colour of which all visible nature is composed, except in _texture_. Now textures are principally of three kinds:-- (1) Lustrous, as of water and glass. (2) Bloomy, or velvety, as of a rose-leaf or peach. (3) Linear, produced by filaments or threads as in feathers, fur, hair, and woven or reticulated tissues. All these three sources of pleasure to the eye in texture are united in the best ornamental work. A fine picture by Fra Angelico, or a fine illuminated page of missal, has large spaces of gold, partly burnished and lustrous, partly dead;--some of it chased and enriched with linear texture, and mingled with imposed or inlaid colours, soft in bloom like that of the rose-leaf. But many schools of art affect for the most part one kind of texture only, and a vast quantity of the art of all ages depends for great part of its power on texture produced by multitudinous lines. Thus, wood engraving, line engraving properly so called, and countless varieties of sculpture, metal work, and textile fabric, depend for great part of the effect, for the mystery, softness, and clearness of their colours, or shades, on modification of the surfaces by lines or threads. Even in advanced oil painting, the work often depends for some part of its effect on the texture of the canvas. 136. Again, the arts of etching and mezzotint engraving depend principally for their effect on the velvety, or bloomy texture of their darkness, and the best of all painting is the fresco work of great colourists, in which the colours are what is usually called dead; but they are anything but dead, they glow with the luminous bloom of life. The frescoes of Correggio, when not repainted, are supreme in this quality. 137. While, however, in all periods of art these different textures are thus used in various styles, and for various purposes, you will find that there is a broad historical division of schools, which will materially assist you in understanding them. The earliest art in most countries is linear, consisting of interwoven, or richly spiral and otherwise involved arrangements of sculptured or painted lines, on stone, wood, metal or clay. It is generally characteristic of savage life, and of feverish energy of imagination. I shall examine these schools with you hereafter, under the general head of the "Schools of Line."[12] [Footnote 12: See "Ariadne Florentina," § 5.] Secondly, even in the earliest periods, among powerful nations, this linear decoration is more or less filled with chequered or barred shade, and begins at once to represent animal or floral form, by filling its outlines with flat shadow, or with flat colour. And here we instantly find two great divisions of temper and thought. The Greeks look upon all colour first as light; they are, as compared with other races, insensitive to hue, exquisitely sensitive to phenomena of light. And their linear school passes into one of flat masses of light and darkness, represented in the main by four tints,--white, black, and two reds, one brick colour, more or less vivid, the other dark purple; these two standing mentally their favourite +porphyreos+ colour, in its light and dark powers. On the other hand, many of the Northern nations are at first entirely insensible to light and shade, but exquisitely sensitive to colour, and their linear decoration is filled with flat tints, infinitely varied, but with no expression of light and shade. Both these schools have a limited but absolute perfection of their own, and their peculiar successes can in no wise be imitated, except by the strictest observance of the same limitations. 138. You have then, Line for the earliest art, branching into-- (1) Greek, Line with Light. (2) Gothic, Line with Colour. Now, as art completes itself, each of these schools retain their separate characters, but they cease to depend on lines, and learn to represent masses instead, becoming more refined at the same time in all modes of perception and execution. And thus there arise the two vast mediæval schools; one of flat and infinitely varied colour, with exquisite character and sentiment added, in the forms represented; but little perception of shadow. The other, of light and shade, with exquisite drawing of solid form, and little perception of colour: sometimes as little of sentiment. Of these, the school of flat colour is the more vital one; it is always natural and simple, if not great;--and when it is great, it is very great. The school of light and shade associates itself with that of engraving; it is essentially an academical school, broadly dividing light from darkness, and begins by assuming that the light side of all objects shall be represented by white, and the extreme shadow by black. On this conventional principle it reaches a limited excellence of its own, in which the best existing types of engraving are executed, and ultimately, the most regular expressions of organic form in painting. Then, lastly,--the schools of colour advance steadily, till they adopt from those of light and shade whatever is compatible with their own power,--and then you have perfect art, represented centrally by that of the great Venetians. The schools of light and shade, on the other hand, are partly, in their academical formulas, too haughty, and partly, in their narrowness of imagination, too weak, to learn much from the schools of colour; and pass into a state of decadence, consisting partly in proud endeavours to give painting the qualities of sculpture, and partly in the pursuit of effects of light and shade, carried at last to extreme sensational subtlety by the Dutch school. In their fall, they drag the schools of colour down with them; and the recent history of art is one of confused effort to find lost roads, and resume allegiance to violated principles. 139. That, briefly, is the map of the great schools, easily remembered in this hexagonal form:-- 1. LINE Early schools. 2. 3. LINE AND LIGHT. LINE AND COLOUR. Greek clay. Gothic glass. 4. 5. MASS AND LIGHT. MASS AND COLOUR. (Represented by Lionardo, (Represented by Giorgione, and his schools.) and his schools.) 6. MASS, LIGHT, AND COLOUR. (Represented by Titian, and his schools.) And I wish you with your own eyes and fingers to trace, and in your own progress follow, the method of advance exemplified by these great schools. I wish you to begin by getting command of line, that is to say, by learning to draw a steady line, limiting with absolute correctness the form or space you intend it to limit; to proceed by getting command over flat tints, so that you may be able to fill the spaces you have enclosed, evenly, either with shade or colour according to the school you adopt; and finally to obtain the power of adding such fineness of gradation within the masses, as shall express their roundings, and their characters of texture. 140. Those who are familiar with the methods of existing schools must be aware that I thus nearly invert their practice of teaching. Students at present learn to draw details first, and to colour and mass them afterwards. I shall endeavour to teach you to arrange broad masses and colours first; and you shall put the details into them afterwards. I have several reasons for this audacity, of which you may justly require me to state the principal ones. The first is that, as I have shown you, this method I wish you to follow, is the natural one. All great artist nations _have_ actually learned to work in this way, and I believe it therefore the right, as the hitherto successful one. Secondly, you will find it less irksome than the reverse method, and more definite. When a beginner is set at once to draw details, and make finished studies in light and shade, no master can correct his innumerable errors, or rescue him out of his endless difficulties. But in the natural method, he can correct, if he will, his own errors. You will have positive lines to draw, presenting no more difficulty, except in requiring greater steadiness of hand, than the outlines of a map. They will be generally sweeping and simple, instead of being jagged into promontories and bays; but assuredly, they may be drawn rightly (with patience), and their rightness tested with mathematical accuracy. You have only to follow your own line with tracing paper, and apply it to your own copy. If they do not correspond, you are wrong, and you need no master to show you where. Again; in washing in a flat tone of colour or shade, you can always see yourself if it is flat, and kept well within the edges; and you can set a piece of your colour side by side with that of the copy; if it does not match, you are wrong; and, again, you need no one to tell you so, if your eye for colour is true. It happens, indeed, more frequently than would be supposed, that there is real want of power in the eye to distinguish colours; and this I even suspect to be a condition which has been sometimes attendant on high degrees of cerebral sensitiveness in other directions; but such want of faculty would be detected in your first two or three exercises by this simple method, while, otherwise, you might go on for years endeavouring to colour from nature in vain. Lastly, and this is a very weighty collateral reason, such a method enables me to show you many things, besides the art of drawing. Every exercise that I prepare for you will be either a portion of some important example of ancient art, or of some natural object. However rudely or unsuccessfully you may draw it, (though I anticipate from you neither want of care nor success,) you will nevertheless have learned what no words could have so forcibly or completely taught you, either respecting early art or organic structure; and I am thus certain that not a moment you spend attentively will be altogether wasted, and that, generally, you will be twice gainers by every effort. 141. There is, however, yet another point in which I think a change of existing methods will be advisable. You have here in Oxford one of the finest collections in Europe of drawings in pen, and chalk, by Michael Angelo and Raphael. Of the whole number, you cannot but have noticed that not one is weak or student-like--all are evidently master's work. You may look the galleries of Europe through, and so far as I know, or as it is possible to make with safety any so wide generalization, you will not find in them a childish or feeble drawing, by these, or by any other great master. And farther:--by the greatest men--by Titian, Velasquez, or Veronese--you will hardly find an authentic drawing, at all. For the fact is, that while we moderns have always learned, or tried to learn, to paint by drawing, the ancients learned to draw by painting--or by engraving, more difficult still. The brush was put into their hands when they were children, and they were forced to draw with that, until, if they used the pen or crayon, they used it either with the lightness of a brush or the decision of a graver. Michael Angelo uses his pen like a chisel; but all of them seem to use it only when they are in the height of their power, and then for rapid notation of thought or for study of models; but never as a practice helping them to paint. Probably exercises of the severest kind were gone through in minute drawing by the apprentices of the goldsmiths, of which we hear and know little, and which were entirely matters of course. To these, and to the exquisiteness of care and touch developed in working precious metals, may probably be attributed the final triumph of Italian sculpture. Michael Angelo, when a boy, is said to have copied engravings by Schöngauer and others, with his pen, in facsimile so true that he could pass his drawings as the originals. But I should only discourage you from all farther attempts in art, if I asked you to imitate any of these accomplished drawings of the gem-artificers. You have, fortunately, a most interesting collection of them already in your galleries, and may try your hands on them if you will. But I desire rather that you should attempt nothing except what can by determination be absolutely accomplished, and be known and felt by you to be accomplished when it is so. Now, therefore, I am going at once to comply with that popular instinct which, I hope, so far as you care for drawing at all, you are still boys enough to feel, the desire to paint. Paint you shall; but remember, I understand by painting what you will not find easy. Paint you shall; but daub or blot you shall not: and there will be even more care required, though care of a pleasanter kind, to follow the lines traced for you with the point of the brush than if they had been drawn with that of a crayon. But from the very beginning (though carrying on at the same time an incidental practice with crayon and lead pencil), you shall try to draw a line of absolute correctness with the point, not of pen or crayon, but of the brush, as Apelles did, and as all coloured lines are drawn on Greek vases. A line of absolute correctness, observe. I do not care how slowly you do it, or with how many alterations, junctions, or re-touchings; the one thing I ask of you is, that the line shall be right, and right by measurement, to the same minuteness which you would have to give in a Government chart to the map of a dangerous shoal. 142. This question of measurement is, as you are probably aware, one much vexed in art schools; but it is determined indisputably by the very first words written by Lionardo: "Il giovane deve prima imparare prospettiva, _per le misure d'ogni cosa_." Without absolute precision of measurement, it is certainly impossible for you to learn perspective rightly; and, as far as I can judge, impossible to learn anything else rightly. And in my past experience of teaching, I have found that such precision is of all things the most difficult to enforce on the pupils. It is easy to persuade to diligence, or provoke to enthusiasm; but I have found it hitherto impossible to humiliate one clever student into perfect accuracy. It is, therefore, necessary, in beginning a system of drawing for the University, that no opening should be left for failure in this essential matter. I hope you will trust the words of the most accomplished draughtsman of Italy, and the painter of the great sacred picture which, perhaps beyond all others, has influenced the mind of Europe, when he tells you that your first duty is "to learn perspective by the _measures_ of everything." For perspective, I will undertake that it shall be made, practically, quite easy to you; if you care to master the mathematics of it, they are carried as far as is necessary for you in my treatise written in 1859, of which copies shall be placed at your disposal in your working room. But the habit and dexterity of _measurement_ you must acquire at once, and that with engineer's accuracy. I hope that in our now gradually developing system of education, elementary architectural or military drawing will be required at all public schools; so that when youths come to the University, it may be no more necessary for them to pass through the preliminary exercises of perspective than of grammar: for the present, I will place in your series examples simple and severe enough for all necessary practice. 143. And while you are learning to measure, and to draw, and lay flat tints, with the brush, you must also get easy command of the pen; for that is not only the great instrument for the first sketching, but its right use is the foundation of the art of illumination. In nothing is fine art more directly founded on utility than in the close dependence of decorative illumination on good writing. Perfect illumination is only writing made lovely; the moment it passes into picture-making it has lost its dignity and function. For pictures, small or great, if beautiful, ought not to be painted on leaves of books, to be worn with service; and pictures, small or great, not beautiful, should be painted nowhere. But to make writing _itself_ beautiful,--to make the sweep of the pen lovely,--is the true art of illumination; and I particularly wish you to note this, because it happens continually that young girls who are incapable of tracing a single curve with steadiness, much more of delineating any ornamental or organic form with correctness, think that work, which would be intolerable in ordinary drawing, becomes tolerable when it is employed for the decoration of texts; and thus they render all healthy progress impossible, by protecting themselves in inefficiency under the shield of good motive. Whereas the right way of setting to work is to make themselves first mistresses of the art of writing beautifully; and then to apply that art in its proper degrees of development to whatever they desire permanently to write. And it is indeed a much more truly religious duty for girls to acquire a habit of deliberate, legible, and lovely penmanship in their daily use of the pen, than to illuminate any quantity of texts. Having done so, they may next discipline their hands into the control of lines of any length, and, finally, add the beauty of colour and form to the flowing of these perfect lines. But it is only after years of practice that they will be able to illuminate noble words rightly for the eyes, as it is only after years of practice that they can make them melodious rightly, with the voice. 144. I shall not attempt, in this lecture, to give you any account of the use of the pen as a drawing instrument. That use is connected in many ways with principles both of shading and of engraving, hereafter to be examined at length. But I may generally state to you that its best employment is in giving determination to the forms in drawings washed with neutral tint; and that, in this use of it, Holbein is quite without a rival. I have therefore placed many examples of his work among your copies. It is employed for rapid study by Raphael and other masters of delineation, who, in such cases, give with it also partial indications of shadow; but it is not a proper instrument for shading, when drawings are intended to be deliberate and complete, nor do the great masters so employ it. Its virtue is the power of producing a perfectly delicate, equal, and decisive line with great rapidity; and the temptation allied with that virtue is the licentious haste, and chance-swept, instead of strictly-commanded, curvature. In the hands of very great painters it obtains, like the etching needle, qualities of exquisite charm in this free use; but all attempts at imitation of these confused and suggestive sketches must be absolutely denied to yourselves while students. You may fancy you have produced something like them with little trouble; but, be assured, it is in reality as unlike them as nonsense is unlike sense; and that, if you persist in such work, you will not only prevent your own executive progress, but you will never understand in all your lives what good painting means. Whenever you take a pen in your hand, if you cannot count every line you lay with it, and say why you make it so long and no longer, and why you drew it in that direction and no other, your work is bad. The only man who can put his pen to full speed, and yet retain command over every separate line of it, is Dürer. He has done this in the illustrations of a missal preserved at Munich, which have been fairly facsimiled; and of these I have placed several in your copying series, with some of Turner's landscape etchings, and other examples of deliberate pen work, such as will advantage you in early study. The proper use of them you will find explained in the catalogue. 145. And, now, but one word more to-day. Do not impute to me the impertinence of setting before you what is new in this system of practice as being certainly the best method. No English artists are yet agreed entirely on early methods; and even Reynolds expresses with some hesitation his conviction of the expediency of learning to draw with the brush. But this method that I show you rests in all essential points on his authority, on Lionardo's, or on the evident as well as recorded practice of the most splendid Greek and Italian draughtsmen; and you may be assured it will lead you, however slowly, to great and certain skill. To what degree of skill, must depend greatly on yourselves; but I know that in practice of this kind you cannot spend an hour without definitely gaining, both in true knowledge of art, and in useful power of hand; and for what may appear in it too difficult, I must shelter or support myself, as in beginning, so in closing this first lecture on practice, by the words of Reynolds: "The impetuosity of youth is disgusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They must therefore be told again and again that labour is the only price of solid fame; and that, whatever their force of genius may be, there is no easy method of becoming a good painter." LECTURE VI LIGHT 146. The plan of the divisions of art-schools which I gave you in the last lecture is of course only a first germ of classification, on which we are to found farther and more defined statement; but for this very reason it is necessary that every term of it should be very clear in your minds. And especially I must explain, and ask you to note the sense in which I use the word "mass." Artists usually employ that word to express the spaces of light and darkness, or of colour, into which a picture is divided. But this habit of theirs arises partly from their always speaking of pictures in which the lights represent solid form. If they had instead been speaking of flat tints, as, for instance, of the gold and blue in this missal page, they would not have called them "masses," but "spaces" of colour. Now both for accuracy and convenience' sake, you will find it well to observe this distinction, and to call a simple flat tint a space of colour; and only the representation of solid or projecting form a mass. I use, however, the word "line" rather than "space" in the second and third heads of our general scheme, at p. 94, because you cannot limit a flat tint but by a line, or the locus of a line: whereas a gradated tint, expressive of mass, may be lost at its edges in another, without any fixed limit; and practically is so, in the works of the greatest masters. 147. You have thus, in your hexagonal scheme, the expression of the universal manner of advance in painting: Line first; then line enclosing flat spaces coloured or shaded; then the lines vanish, and the solid forms are seen within the spaces. That is the universal law of advance:--1, line; 2, flat space; 3, massed or solid space. But as you see, this advance may be made, and has been made, by two different roads; one advancing always through colour, the other through light and shade. And these two roads are taken by two entirely different kinds of men. The way by colour is taken by men of cheerful, natural, and entirely sane disposition in body and mind, much resembling, even at its strongest, the temper of well-brought-up children:--too happy to think deeply, yet with powers of imagination by which they can live other lives than their actual ones: make-believe lives, while yet they remain conscious all the while that they _are_ making believe--therefore entirely sane. They are also absolutely contented; they ask for no more light than is immediately around them, and cannot see anything like darkness, but only green and blue, in the earth and sea. 148. The way by light and shade is, on the contrary, taken by men of the highest powers of thought, and most earnest desire for truth; they long for light, and for knowledge of all that light can show. But seeking for light, they perceive also darkness; seeking for truth and substance, they find vanity. They look for form in the earth,--for dawn in the sky; and seeking these, they find formlessness in the earth, and night in the sky. Now remember, in these introductory lectures I am putting before you the roots of things, which are strange, and dark, and often, it may seem, unconnected with the branches. You may not at present think these metaphysical statements necessary; but as you go on, you will find that having hold of the clue to methods of work through their springs in human character, you may perceive unerringly where they lead, and what constitutes their wrongness and rightness; and when we have the main principles laid down, all others will develop themselves in due succession, and everything will become more clearly intelligible to you in the end, for having been apparently vague in the beginning. You know when one is laying the foundation of a house, it does not show directly where the rooms are to be. 149. You have then these two great divisions of human mind: one, content with the colours of things, whether they are dark or light; the other seeking light pure, as such, and dreading darkness as such. One, also, content with the coloured aspects and visionary shapes of things; the other seeking their form and substance. And, as I said, the school of knowledge, seeking light, perceives, and has to accept and deal with obscurity: and seeking form, it has to accept and deal with formlessness, or death. Farther, the school of colour in Europe, using the word Gothic in its broadest sense, is essentially Gothic _Christian_; and full of comfort and peace. Again, the school of light is essentially Greek, and full of sorrow. I cannot tell you which is right, or least wrong. I tell you only what I know--this vital distinction between them: the Gothic or colour school is always cheerful, the Greek always oppressed by the shadow of death; and the stronger its masters are, the closer that body of death grips them. The strongest whose work I can show you in recent periods is Holbein; next to him is Lionardo; and then Dürer: but of the three Holbein is the strongest, and with his help I will put the two schools in their full character before you in a moment. 150. Here is, first, the photograph of an entirely characteristic piece of the great colour school. It is by Cima of Conegliano, a mountaineer, like Luini, born under the Alps of Friuli. His Christian name was John Baptist: he is here painting his name-Saint; the whole picture full of peace, and intense faith and hope, and deep joy in light of sky, and fruit and flower and weed of earth. It was painted for the church of Our Lady of the Garden at Venice, La Madonna dell' Orto (properly Madonna of the _Kitchen_ Garden), and it is full of simple flowers, and has the wild strawberry of Cima's native mountains gleaming through the grass. Beside it I will put a piece of the strongest work of the school of light and shade--strongest because Holbein was a colourist also; but he belongs, nevertheless, essentially to the chiaroscuro school. You know that his name is connected, in ideal work, chiefly with his "Dance of Death." I will not show you any of the terror of that; only a photograph of his well-known "Dead Christ." It will at once show you how completely the Christian art of this school is oppressed by its veracity, and forced to see what is fearful, even in what it most trusts. You may think I am showing you contrasts merely to fit my theories. But there is Dürer's "Knight and Death," his greatest plate; and if I had Lionardo's "Medusa" here, which he painted when only a boy, you would have seen how he was held by the same chain. And you cannot but wonder why, this being the melancholy temper of the great Greek or naturalistic school, I should have called it the school of light. I call it so because it is through its intense love of light that the darkness becomes apparent to it, and through its intense love of truth and form that all mystery becomes attractive to it. And when, having learned these things, it is joined to the school of colour, you have the perfect, though always, as I will show you, pensive, art of Titian and his followers. 151. But remember, its first development, and all its final power, depend on Greek sorrow, and Greek religion. The school of light is founded in the Doric worship of Apollo, and the Ionic worship of Athena, as the spirits of life in the light, and of life in the air, opposed each to their own contrary deity of death--Apollo to the Python, Athena to the Gorgon--Apollo as life in light, to the earth spirit of corruption in darkness;--Athena, as life by motion, to the Gorgon spirit of death by pause, freezing or turning to stone: both of the great divinities taking their glory from the evil they have conquered; both of them, when angry, taking to men the form of the evil which is their opposite--Apollo slaying by poisoned arrow, by pestilence; Athena by cold, the black ægis on her breast. These are the definite and direct expressions of the Greek thoughts respecting death and life. But underlying both these, and far more mysterious, dreadful, and yet beautiful, there is the Greek conception of _spiritual_ darkness; of the anger of fate, whether foredoomed or avenging; the root and theme of all Greek tragedy; the anger of the Erinnyes, and Demeter Erinnys, compared to which the anger either of Apollo or Athena is temporary and partial:--and also, while Apollo or Athena only slay, the power of Demeter and the Eumenides is over the whole life; so that in the stories of Bellerophon, of Hippolytus, of Orestes, of Oedipus, you have an incomparably deeper shadow than any that was possible to the thought of later ages, when the hope of the Resurrection had become definite. And if you keep this in mind, you will find every name and legend of the oldest history become full of meaning to you. All the mythic accounts of Greek sculpture begin in the legends of the family of Tantalus. The main one is the making of the ivory shoulder of Pelops after Demeter has eaten the shoulder of flesh. With that you have Broteas, the brother of Pelops, carving the first statue of the mother of the gods; and you have his sister, Niobe, weeping herself to stone under the anger of the deities of light. Then Pelops himself, the dark-faced, gives name to the Peloponnesus, which you may therefore read as the "isle of darkness;" but its central city, Sparta, the "sown city," is connected with all the ideas of the earth as life-giving. And from her you have Helen, the representative of light in beauty, and the Fratres Helenæ--"lucida sidera;" and, on the other side of the hills, the brightness of Argos, with its correlative darkness over the Atreidæ, marked to you by Helios turning away his face from the feast of Thyestes. 152. Then join with these the Northern legends connected with the air. It does not matter whether you take Dorus as the son of Apollo or the son of Helen; he equally symbolises the power of light: while his brother, Æolus, through all his descendants, chiefly in Sisyphus, is confused or associated with the real god of the winds, and represents to you the power of the air. And then, as this conception enters into art, you have the myths of Dædalus, the flight of Icarus, and the story of Phrixus and Helle, giving you continual associations of the physical air and light, ending in the power of Athena over Corinth as well as over Athens. Now, once having the clue, you can work out the sequels for yourselves better than I can for you; and you will soon find even the earliest or slightest grotesques of Greek art become full of interest. For nothing is more wonderful than the depth of meaning which nations in their first days of thought, like children, can attach to the rudest symbols; and what to us is grotesque or ugly, like a little child's doll, can speak to them the loveliest things. I have brought you to-day a few more examples of early Greek vase painting, respecting which remember generally that its finest development is for the most part sepulchral. You have, in the first period, always energy in the figures, light in the sky or upon the figures;[13] in the second period, while the conception of the divine power remains the same, it is thought of as in repose, and the light is in the god, not in the sky; in the time of decline, the divine power is gradually disbelieved, and all form and light are lost together. With that period I wish you to have nothing to do. You shall not have a single example of it set before you, but shall rather learn to recognise afterwards what is base by its strangeness. These, which are to come early in the third group of your Standard series, will enough represent to you the elements of early and late conception in the Greek mind of the deities of light. [Footnote 13: See Note in the Catalogue on No. 201.] 153. First (S. 204), you have Apollo ascending from the sea; thought of as the physical sunrise: only a circle of light for his head; his chariot horses, seen foreshortened, black against the day-break, their feet not yet risen above the horizon. Underneath is the painting from the opposite side of the same vase: Athena as the morning breeze, and Hermes as the morning cloud, flying across the waves before the sunrise. At the distance I now hold them from you, it is scarcely possible for you to see that they are figures at all, so like are they to broken fragments of flying mist; and when you look close, you will see that as Apollo's face is invisible in the circle of light, Mercury's is invisible in the broken form of cloud: but I can tell you that it is conceived as reverted, looking back to Athena; the grotesque appearance of feature in the front is the outline of his hair. These two paintings are excessively rude, and of the archaic period; the deities being yet thought of chiefly as physical powers in violent agency. Underneath these two are Athena and Hermes, in the types attained about the time of Phidias; but, of course, rudely drawn on the vase, and still more rudely in this print from Le Normant and De Witte. For it is impossible (as you will soon find if you try for yourself) to give on a plane surface the grace of figures drawn on one of solid curvature, and adapted to all its curves: and among other minor differences, Athena's lance is in the original nearly twice as tall as herself, and has to be cut short to come into the print at all. Still, there is enough here to show you what I want you to see--the repose, and entirely realised personality, of the deities as conceived in the Phidian period. The relation of the two deities is, I believe, the same as in the painting above, though probably there is another added of more definite kind. But the physical meaning still remains--Athena unhelmeted, as the _gentle_ morning wind, commanding the cloud Hermes to slow flight. His petasus is slung at his back, meaning that the clouds are not yet opened or expanded in the sky. 154. Next (S. 205), you have Athena, again unhelmeted and crowned with leaves, walking between two nymphs, who are crowned also with leaves; and all the three hold flowers in their hands, and there is a fawn walking at Athena's feet. This is still Athena as the morning air, but upon the earth instead of in the sky, with the nymphs of the dew beside her; the flowers and leaves opening as they breathe upon them. Note the white gleam of light on the fawn's breast; and compare it with the next following examples:--(underneath this one is the contest of Athena and Poseidon, which does not bear on our present subject). Next (S. 206), Artemis as the moon of morning, walking low on the hills, and singing to her lyre; the fawn beside her, with the gleam of light and sunrise on its ear and breast. Those of you who are often out in the dawntime know that there is no moon so glorious as that gleaming crescent, though in its wane, ascending _before_ the sun. Underneath, Artemis, and Apollo, of Phidian time. Next (S. 207), Apollo walking on the earth, god of the morning, singing to his lyre; the fawn beside him, again with the gleam of light on its breast. And underneath, Apollo, crossing the sea to Delphi, of the Phidian time. 155. Now you cannot but be struck in these three examples with the similarity of action in Athena, Apollo, and Artemis, drawn as deities of the morning; and with the association in every case of the fawn with them. It has been said (I will not interrupt you with authorities) that the fawn belongs to Apollo and Diana because stags are sensitive to music; (are they?). But you see the fawn is here with Athena of the dew, though she has no lyre; and I have myself no doubt that in this particular relation to the gods of morning it always stands as the symbol of wavering and glancing motion on the ground, as well as of the light and shadow through the leaves, chequering the ground as the fawn is dappled. Similarly the spots on the nebris of Dionysus, thought of sometimes as stars (+apo tês tôn astrôn poikilias+, Diodorus, I. 11), as well as those of his panthers, and the cloudings of the tortoise-shell of Hermes, are all significant of this light of the sky broken by cloud-shadow. 156. You observe also that in all the three examples the fawn has light on its ears, and face, as well as its breast. In the earliest Greek drawings of animals, bars of white are used as one means of detaching the figures from the ground; ordinarily on the under side of them, marking the lighter colour of the hair in wild animals. But the placing of this bar of white, or the direction of the face in deities of light, (the faces and flesh of women being always represented as white,) may become expressive of the direction of the light, when that direction is important. Thus we are enabled at once to read the intention of this Greek symbol of the course of a day (in the centre-piece of S. 208, which gives you the types of Hermes). At the top you have an archaic representation of Hermes stealing Io from Argus. Argus is here the Night; his grotesque features monstrous; his hair overshadowing his shoulders; Hermes on tip-toe, stealing upon him and taking the cord which is fastened to the horn of Io out of his hand without his feeling it. Then, underneath, you have the course of an entire day. Apollo first, on the left, dark, entering his chariot, the sun not yet risen. In front of him Artemis, as the moon, ascending before him, playing on her lyre, and looking back to the sun. In the centre, behind the horses, Hermes, as the cumulus cloud at mid-day, wearing his petasus heightened to a cone, and holding a flower in his right hand; indicating the nourishment of the flowers by the rain from the heat cloud. Finally, on the right, Latona, going down as the evening, lighted from the right by the sun, now sunk; and with her feet reverted, signifying the reluctance of the departing day. Finally, underneath, you have Hermes of the Phidian period, as the floating cumulus cloud, almost shapeless (as you see him at this distance); with the tortoise-shell lyre in his hand, barred with black, and a fleece of white cloud, not level but _oblique_, under his feet. (Compare the "+dia tôn koilôn--plagiai+," and the relations of the "+aigidos êniochos Athana+," with the clouds as the moon's messengers, in Aristophanes; and note of Hermes generally, that you never find him flying as a Victory flies, but always, if moving fast at all, _clambering_ along, as it were, as a cloud gathers and heaps itself: the Gorgons stretch and stride in their flight, half kneeling, for the same reason, running or gliding shapelessly along in this stealthy way.) 157. And now take this last illustration, of a very different kind. Here is an effect of morning light by Turner (S. 301), on the rocks of Otley-hill, near Leeds, drawn long ago, when Apollo, and Artemis, and Athena, still sometimes were seen, and felt, even near Leeds. The original drawing is one of the great Farnley series, and entirely beautiful. I have shown, in the last volume of "Modern Painters," how well Turner knew the meaning of Greek legends:--he was not thinking of them, however, when he made this design; but, unintentionally, has given us the very effect of morning light we want: the glittering of the sunshine on dewy grass, half dark; and the narrow gleam of it on the sides and head of the stag and hind. 158. These few instances will be enough to show you how we may read in the early art of the Greeks their strong impressions of the power of light. You will find the subject entered into at somewhat greater length in my "Queen of the Air;" and if you will look at the beginning of the 7th book of Plato's "Polity," and read carefully the passages in the context respecting the sun and intellectual sight, you will see how intimately this physical love of light was connected with their philosophy, in its search, as blind and captive, for better knowledge. I shall not attempt to define for you to-day the more complex but much shallower forms which this love of light, and the philosophy that accompanies it, take in the mediæval mind; only remember that in future, when I briefly speak of the Greek school of art with reference to questions of delineation, I mean the entire range of the schools, from Homer's days to our own, which concern themselves with the representation of light, and the effects it produces on material form--beginning practically for us with these Greek vase paintings, and closing practically for us with Turner's sunset on the Temeraire; being throughout a school of captivity and sadness, but of intense power; and which in its technical method of shadow on material form, as well as in its essential temper, is centrally represented to you by Dürer's two great engravings of the "Melencolia" and the "Knight and Death." On the other hand, when I briefly speak to you of the Gothic school, with reference to delineation, I mean the entire and much more extensive range of schools extending from the earliest art in Central Asia and Egypt down to our own day in India and China:--schools which have been content to obtain beautiful harmonies of colour without any representation of light; and which have, many of them, rested in such imperfect expressions of form as could be so obtained; schools usually in some measure childish, or restricted in intellect, and similarly childish or restricted in their philosophies or faiths: but contented in the restriction; and in the more powerful races, capable of advance to nobler development than the Greek schools, though the consummate art of Europe has only been accomplished by the union of both. How that union was effected, I will endeavour to show you in my next lecture; to-day I shall take note only of the points bearing on our immediate practice. 159. A certain number of you, by faculty and natural disposition,--and all, so far as you are interested in modern art,--will necessarily have to put yourselves under the discipline of the Greek or chiaroscuro school, which is directed primarily to the attainment of the power of representing form by pure contrast of light and shade. I say, the "discipline" of the Greek school, both because, followed faithfully, it is indeed a severe one, and because to follow it at all is, for persons fond of colour, often a course of painful self-denial, from which young students are eager to escape. And yet, when the laws of both schools are rightly obeyed, the most perfect discipline is that of the colourists; for they see and draw _everything_, while the chiaroscurists must leave much indeterminate in mystery, or invisible in gloom: and there are therefore many licentious and vulgar forms of art connected with the chiaroscuro school, both in painting and etching, which have no parallel among the colourists. But both schools, rightly followed, require first of all absolute accuracy of delineation. _This_ you need not hope to escape. Whether you fill your spaces with colours, or with shadows, they must equally be of the true outline and in true gradations. I have been thirty years telling modern students of art this in vain. I mean to say it to you only once, for the statement is too important to be weakened by repetition. WITHOUT PERFECT DELINEATION OF FORM AND PERFECT GRADATION OF SPACE, NEITHER NOBLE COLOUR IS POSSIBLE, NOR NOBLE LIGHT. 160. It may make this more believable to you if I put beside each other a piece of detail from each school. I gave you the St. John of Cima da Conegliano for a type of the colour school. Here is my own study of the sprays of oak which rise against the sky of it in the distance, enlarged to about its real size (Edu. 12). I hope to draw it better for you at Venice; but this will show you with what perfect care the colourist has followed the outline of every leaf in the sky. Beside, I put a chiaroscurist drawing (at least, a photograph of one), Dürer's from nature, of the common wild wall-cabbage (Edu. 32). It is the most perfect piece of delineation by flat tint I have ever seen, in its mastery of the perspective of every leaf, and its attainment almost of the bloom of texture, merely by its exquisitely tender and decisive laying of the colour. These two examples ought, I think, to satisfy you as to the precision of outline of both schools, and the power of expression which may be obtained by flat tints laid within such outline. 161. Next, here are two examples of the gradated shading expressive of the forms within the outline, by two masters of the chiaroscuro school. The first (S. 12) shows you Lionardo's method of work, both with chalk and the silver point. The second (S. 302), Turner's work in mezzotint; both masters doing their best. Observe that this plate of Turner's, which he worked on so long that it was never published, is of a subject peculiarly depending on effects of mystery and concealment, the fall of the Reuss under the Devil's Bridge on the St. Gothard; (the _old_ bridge; you may still see it under the existing one, which was built since Turner's drawing was made). If ever outline could be dispensed with, you would think it might be so in this confusion of cloud, foam, and darkness. But here is Turner's own etching on the plate (Edu. 35 F), made under the mezzotint; and of all the studies of rock outline made by his hand, it is the most decisive and quietly complete. 162. Again; in the Lionardo sketches, many parts are lost in obscurity, or are left intentionally uncertain and mysterious, even in the light, and you might at first imagine some permission of escape had been here given you from the terrible law of delineation. But the slightest attempts to copy them will show you that the terminal lines are inimitably subtle, unaccusably true, and filled by gradations of shade so determined and measured that the addition of a grain of the lead or chalk as large as the filament of a moth's wing, would make an appreciable difference in them. This is grievous, you think, and hopeless? No, it is delightful and full of hope: delightful, to see what marvellous things can be done by men; and full of hope, if your hope is the right one, of being one day able to rejoice more in what others have done, than in what you can yourself do, and more in the strength that is for ever above you, than in that you can never attain. 163. But you can attain much, if you will work reverently and patiently, and hope for no success through ill-regulated effort. It is, however, most assuredly at this point of your study that the full strain on your patience will begin. The exercises in line-drawing and flat laying of colour are irksome; but they are definite, and within certain limits, sure to be successful if practised with moderate care. But the expression of form by shadow requires more subtle patience, and involves the necessity of frequent and mortifying failure, not to speak of the self-denial which I said was needful in persons fond of colour, to draw in mere light and shade. If, indeed, you were going to be artists, or could give any great length of time to study, it might be possible for you to learn wholly in the Venetian school, and to reach form through colour. But without the most intense application this is not possible; and practically, it will be necessary for you, as soon as you have gained the power of outlining accurately, and of laying flat colour, to learn to express solid form as shown by light and shade only. And there is this great advantage in doing so, that many forms are more or less disguised by colour, and that we can only represent them completely to others, or rapidly and easily record them for ourselves, by the use of shade alone. A single instance will show you what I mean. Perhaps there are few flowers of which the impression on the eye is more definitely of flat colour, than the scarlet geranium. But you would find, if you were to try to paint it,--first, that no pigment could approach the beauty of its scarlet; and secondly, that the brightness of the hue dazzled the eye, and prevented its following the real arrangement of the cluster of flowers. I have drawn for you here (at least this is a mezzotint from my drawing), a single cluster of the scarlet geranium, in mere light and shade (Edu. 32 B.), and I think you will feel that its domed form, and the flat lying of the petals one over the other, in the vaulted roof of it, can be seen better thus than if they had been painted scarlet. 164. Also this study will be useful to you, in showing how entirely effects of light depend on delineation, and gradation of spaces, and not on methods of shading. And this is the second great practical matter I want you to remember to-day. All effects of light and shade depend not on the method or execution of shadows, but on their rightness of place, form, and depth. There is indeed a loveliness of execution _added_ to the rightness, by the great masters, but you cannot obtain that unless you become one of them. Shadow cannot be laid thoroughly well, any more than lines can be drawn steadily, but by a long-practised hand, and the attempts to imitate the shading of fine draughtsmen, by dotting and hatching, are just as ridiculous as it would be to endeavour to imitate their instantaneous lines by a series of re-touchings. You will often indeed see in Lionardo's work, and in Michael Angelo's, shadow wrought laboriously to an extreme of fineness; but when you look into it, you will find that they have always been drawing more and more form within the space, and never finishing for the sake of added texture, but of added fact. And all those effects of transparency and reflected light, aimed at in common chalk drawings, are wholly spurious. For since, as I told you, all lights are shades compared to higher lights, and lights only as compared to lower ones, it follows that there can be no difference in their quality as such; but that light is opaque when it expresses substance, and transparent when it expresses space; and shade is also opaque when it expresses substance, and transparent when it expresses space. But it is not, even then, transparent in the common sense of that word; nor is its appearance to be obtained by dotting or cross hatching, but by touches so tender as to look like mist. And now we find the use of having Lionardo for our guide. He is supreme in all questions of execution, and in his 28th chapter, you will find that shadows are to be "dolce e sfumose," to be tender, and look as if they were exhaled, or breathed on the paper. Then, look at any of Michael Angelo's finished drawings, or of Correggio's sketches, and you will see that the true nurse of light is in art, as in nature, the cloud; a misty and tender darkness, made lovely by gradation. 165. And how absolutely independent it is of material or method of production, how absolutely dependent on rightness of place and depth,--there are now before you instances enough to prove. Here is Dürer's work in flat colour, represented by the photograph in its smoky brown; Turner's, in washed sepia, and in mezzotint; Lionardo's, in pencil and in chalk; on the screen in front of you a large study in charcoal. In every one of these drawings, the material of shadow is absolutely opaque. But photograph-stain, chalk, lead, ink, or charcoal,--every one of them, laid by the master's hand, becomes full of light by gradation only. Here is a moonlight (Edu. 31 B.), in which you would think the moon shone through every cloud; yet the clouds are mere single dashes of sepia, imitated by the brown stain of a photograph; similarly, in these plates from the Liber Studiorum the white paper becomes transparent or opaque, exactly as the master chooses. Here, on the granite rock of the St. Gothard (S. 302), in white paper made opaque, every light represents solid bosses of rock, or balls of foam. But in this study of twilight (S. 303), the same white paper (coarse old stuff it is, too!) is made as transparent as crystal, and every fragment of it represents clear and far away light in the sky of evening in Italy. From all which the practical conclusion for you is, that you are never to trouble yourselves with any questions as to the means of shade or light, but only with the right government of the means at your disposal. And it is a most grave error in the system of many of our public drawing-schools, that the students are permitted to spend weeks of labour in giving attractive appearance, by delicacy of texture, to chiaroscuro drawings in which every form is false, and every relation of depth, untrue. A most unhappy form of error; for it not only delays, and often wholly arrests, their advance in their own art; but it prevents what ought to take place correlatively with their executive practice, the formation of their taste by the accurate study of the models from which they draw. And I must so far anticipate what we shall discover when we come to the subject of sculpture, as to tell you the two main principles of good sculpture; first, that its masters think before all other matters of the right placing of masses; secondly, that they give life by flexure of surface, not by quantity of detail; for sculpture is indeed only light and shade drawing in stone. 166. Much that I have endeavoured to teach on this subject has been gravely misunderstood, by both young painters and sculptors, especially by the latter. Because I am always urging them to imitate organic forms, they think if they carve quantities of flowers and leaves, and copy them from the life, they have done all that is needed. But the difficulty is not to carve quantities of leaves. Anybody can do that. The difficulty is, never anywhere to have an _unnecessary_ leaf. Over the arch on the right, you see there is a cluster of seven, with their short stalks springing from a thick stem. Now, you could not turn one of those leaves a hair's-breadth out of its place, nor thicken one of their stems, nor alter the angle at which each slips over the next one, without spoiling the whole as much as you would a piece of melody by missing a note. That is disposition of masses. Again, in the group on the left, while the placing of every leaf is just as skilful, they are made more interesting yet by the lovely undulation of their surfaces, so that not one of them is in equal light with another. And that is so in all good sculpture, without exception. From the Elgin marbles down to the lightest tendril that curls round a capital in the thirteenth century, every piece of stone that has been touched by the hand of a master, becomes soft with under-life, not resembling nature merely in skin-texture, nor in fibres of leaf, or veins of flesh; but in the broad, tender, unspeakably subtle undulation of its organic form. 167. Returning then to the question of our own practice, I believe that all difficulties in method will vanish, if only you cultivate with care enough the habit of accurate observation, and if you think only of making your light and shade true, whether it be delicate or not. But there are three divisions or degrees of truth to be sought for, in light and shade, by three several modes of study, which I must ask you to distinguish carefully. I. When objects are lighted by the direct rays of the sun, or by direct light entering from a window, one side of them is of course in light, the other in shade, and the forms in the mass are exhibited systematically by the force of the rays falling on it; (those having most power of illumination which strike most vertically;) and note that there is, therefore, to every solid curvature of surface, a necessarily proportioned gradation of light, the gradation on a parabolic solid being different from the gradation on an elliptical or spherical one. Now, when your purpose is to represent and learn the anatomy, or otherwise characteristic forms, of any object, it is best to place it in this kind of direct light, and to draw it as it is seen when we look at it in a direction at right angles to that of the ray. This is the ordinary academical way of studying form. Lionardo seldom practises any other in his real work, though he directs many others in his treatise. 168. The great importance of anatomical knowledge to the painters of the sixteenth century rendered this method of study very frequent with them; it almost wholly regulated their schools of engraving, and has been the most frequent system of drawing in art-schools since (to the very inexpedient exclusion of others). When you study objects in this way,--and it will indeed be well to do so often, though not exclusively,--observe always one main principle. Divide the light from the darkness frankly at first: all over the subject let there be no doubt which is which. Separate them one from the other as they are separated in the moon, or on the world itself, in day and night. Then gradate your lights with the utmost subtilty possible to you; but let your shadows alone, until near the termination of the drawing: then put quickly into them what farther energy they need, thus gaining the reflected lights out of their original flat gloom; but generally not looking much for reflected lights. Nearly all young students (and too many advanced masters) exaggerate them. It is good to see a drawing come out of its ground like a vision of light only; the shadows lost, or disregarded in the vague of space. In vulgar chiaroscuro the shades are so full of reflection that they look as if some one had been walking round the object with a candle, and the student, by that help, peering into its crannies. 169. II. But, in the reality of nature, very few objects are seen in this accurately lateral manner, or lighted by unconfused direct rays. Some are all in shadow, some all in light, some near, and vigorously defined; others dim and faint in aerial distance. The study of these various effects and forces of light, which we may call aerial chiaroscuro, is a far more subtle one than that of the rays exhibiting organic form (which for distinction's sake we may call "formal" chiaroscuro), since the degrees of light from the sun itself to the blackness of night, are far beyond any literal imitation. In order to produce a mental impression of the facts, two distinct methods may be followed:--the first, to shade downwards from the lights, making everything darker in due proportion, until the scale of our power being ended, the mass of the picture is lost in shade. The second, to assume the points of extreme darkness for a basis, and to light everything above these in due proportion, till the mass of the picture is lost in light. 170. Thus, in Turner's sepia drawing "Isis" (Edu. 31), he begins with the extreme light in the sky, and shades down from that till he is forced to represent the near trees and pool as one mass of blackness. In his drawing of the Greta (S. 2), he begins with the dark brown shadow of the bank on the left, and illuminates up from that, till, in his distance, trees, hills, sky, and clouds, are all lost in broad light, so that you can hardly see the distinction between hills and sky. The second of these methods is in general the best for colour, though great painters unite both in their practice, according to the character of their subject. The first method is never pursued in colour but by inferior painters. It is, nevertheless, of great importance to make studies of chiaroscuro in this first manner for some time, as a preparation for colouring; and this for many reasons, which it would take too long to state now. I shall expect you to have confidence in me when I assure you of the necessity of this study, and ask you to make good use of the examples from the Liber Studiorum which I have placed in your Educational series. 171. III. Whether in formal or aerial chiaroscuro, it is optional with the student to make the local colour of objects a part of his shadow, or to consider the high lights of every colour as white. For instance, a chiaroscurist of Lionardo's school, drawing a leopard, would take no notice whatever of the spots, but only give the shadows which expressed the anatomy. And it is indeed necessary to be able to do this, and to make drawings of the forms of things as if they were sculptured, and had no colour. But in general, and more especially in the practice which is to guide you to colour, it is better to regard the local colour as part of the general dark and light to be imitated; and, as I told you at first, to consider all nature merely as a mosaic of different colours, to be imitated one by one in simplicity. But good artists vary their methods according to their subject and material. In general, Dürer takes little account of local colour; but in woodcuts of armorial bearings (one with peacock's feathers I shall get for you some day) takes great delight in it; while one of the chief merits of Bewick is the ease and vigour with which he uses his black and white for the colours of plumes. Also, every great artist looks for, and expresses, that character of his subject which is best to be rendered by the instrument in his hand, and the material he works on. Give Velasquez or Veronese a leopard to paint, the first thing they think of will be its spots; give it to Dürer to engrave, and he will set himself at the fur and whiskers; give it a Greek to carve, and he will only think of its jaws and limbs; each doing what is absolutely best with the means at his disposal. 172. The details of practice in these various methods I will endeavour to explain to you by distinct examples in your Educational series, as we proceed in our work; for the present, let me, in closing, recommend to you once more with great earnestness the patient endeavour to render the chiaroscuro of landscape in the manner of the Liber Studiorum; and this the rather, because you might easily suppose that the facility of obtaining photographs which render such effects, as it seems, with absolute truth and with unapproachable subtilty, superseded the necessity of study, and the use of sketching. Let me assure you, once for all, that photographs supersede no single quality nor use of fine art, and have so much in common with Nature, that they even share her temper of parsimony, and will themselves give you nothing valuable that you do not work for. They supersede no good art, for the definition of art is "human labour regulated by human design," and this design, or evidence of active intellect in choice and arrangement, is the essential part of the work; which so long as you cannot perceive, you perceive no art whatsoever; which when once you do perceive, you will perceive also to be replaceable by no mechanism. But, farther, photographs will give you nothing you do not work for. They are invaluable for record of some kinds of facts, and for giving transcripts of drawings by great masters; but neither in the photographed scene, nor photographed drawing, will you see any true good, more than in the things themselves, until you have given the appointed price in your own attention and toil. And when once you have paid this price, you will not care for photographs of landscape. They are not true, though they seem so. They are merely spoiled nature. If it is not human design you are looking for, there is more beauty in the next wayside bank than in all the sun-blackened paper you could collect in a lifetime. Go and look at the real landscape, and take care of it; do not think you can get the good of it in a black stain portable in a folio. But if you care for human thought and passion, then learn yourselves to watch the course and fall of the light by whose influence you live, and to share in the joy of human spirits in the heavenly gifts of sunbeam and shade. For I tell you truly, that to a quiet heart, and healthy brain, and industrious hand, there is more delight, and use, in the dappling of one wood-glade with flowers and sunshine, than to the restless, heartless, and idle could be brought by a panorama of a belt of the world, photographed round the equator. LECTURE VII COLOUR 173. To-day I must try to complete our elementary sketch of schools of art, by tracing the course of those which were distinguished by faculty of colour, and afterwards to deduce from the entire scheme advisable methods of immediate practice. You remember that, for the type of the early schools of colour, I chose their work in glass; as for that of the early schools of chiaroscuro, I chose their work in clay. I had two reasons for this. First, that the peculiar skill of colourists is seen most intelligibly in their work in glass or in enamel; secondly, that Nature herself produces all her loveliest colours in some kind of solid or liquid glass or crystal. The rainbow is painted on a shower of melted glass, and the colours of the opal are produced in vitreous flint mixed with water; the green and blue, and golden or amber brown of flowing water is in surface glassy, and in motion "splendidior vitro." And the loveliest colours ever granted to human sight--those of morning and evening clouds before or after rain--are produced on minute particles of finely-divided water, or perhaps sometimes ice. But more than this. If you examine with a lens some of the richest colours of flowers, as, for instance, those of the gentian and dianthus, you will find their texture is produced by a crystalline or sugary frost-work upon them. In the lychnis of the high Alps, the red and white have a kind of sugary bloom, as rich as it is delicate. It is indescribable; but if you can fancy very powdery and crystalline snow mixed with the softest cream, and then dashed with carmine, it may give you some idea of the look of it. There are no colours, either in the nacre of shells, or the plumes of birds and insects, which are so pure as those of clouds, opal, or flowers; but the _force_ of purple and blue in some butterflies, and the methods of clouding, and strength of burnished lustre, in plumage like the peacock's, give them more universal interest; in some birds, also, as in our own kingfisher, the colour nearly reaches a floral preciousness. The lustre in most, however, is metallic rather than vitreous; and the vitreous always gives the purest hue. Entirely common and vulgar compared with these, yet to be noticed as completing the crystalline or vitreous system, we have the colours of gems. The green of the emerald is the best of these; but at its best is as vulgar as house-painting beside the green of bird's plumage or of clear water. No diamond shows colour so pure as a dewdrop; the ruby is like the pink of an ill-dyed and half-washed-out print, compared to the dianthus; and the carbuncle is usually quite dead unless set with a foil, and even then is not prettier than the seed of a pomegranate. The opal is, however, an exception. When pure and uncut in its native rock, it presents the most lovely colours that can be seen in the world, except those of clouds. We have thus in nature, chiefly obtained by crystalline conditions, a series of groups of entirely delicious hues; and it is one of the best signs that the bodily system is in a healthy state when we can see these clearly in their most delicate tints, and enjoy them fully and simply, with the kind of enjoyment that children have in eating sweet things. 174. Now, the course of our main colour schools is briefly this:--First we have, returning to our hexagonal scheme, line; then _spaces_ filled with pure colour; and then _masses_ expressed or rounded with pure colour. And during these two stages the masters of colour delight in the purest tints, and endeavour as far as possible to rival those of opals and flowers. In saying "the purest tints," I do not mean the simplest types of red, blue, and yellow, but the most pure tints obtainable by their combinations. 175. You remember I told you, when the colourists painted masses or projecting spaces, they, aiming always at colour, perceived from the first and held to the last the fact that shadows, though of course darker than the lights with reference to which they _are_ shadows, are not therefore necessarily less vigorous colours, but perhaps more vigorous. Some of the most beautiful blues and purples in nature, for instance, are those of mountains in shadow against amber sky; and the darkness of the hollow in the centre of a wild rose is one glow of orange fire, owing to the quantity of its yellow stamens. Well, the Venetians always saw this, and all great colourists see it, and are thus separated from the non-colourists or schools of mere chiaroscuro, not by difference in style merely, but by being right while the others are wrong. It is an absolute fact that shadows are as much colours as lights are; and whoever represents them by merely the subdued or darkened tint of the light, represents them falsely. I particularly want you to observe that this is no matter of taste, but fact. If you are especially sober-minded, you may indeed choose sober colours where Venetians would have chosen gay ones; that is a matter of taste; you may think it proper for a hero to wear a dress without patterns on it, rather than an embroidered one; that is similarly a matter of taste: but, though you may also think it would be dignified for a hero's limbs to be all black, or brown, on the shaded side of them, yet, if you are using colour at all, you cannot so have him to your mind, except by falsehood; he never, under any circumstances, could be entirely black or brown on one side of him. 176. In this, then, the Venetians are separate from other schools by rightness, and they are so to their last days. Venetian painting is in this matter always right. But also, in their early days, the colourists are separated from other schools by their contentment with tranquil cheerfulness of light: by their never wanting to be dazzled. None of their lights are flashing or blinding; they are soft, winning, precious; lights of pearl, not of lime: only, you know, on this condition they cannot have sunshine: their day is the day of Paradise; they need no candle, neither light of the sun, in their cities; and everything is seen clear, as through crystal, far or near. This holds to the end of the fifteenth century. Then they begin to see that this, beautiful as it may be, is still a make-believe light; that we do not live in the inside of a pearl; but in an atmosphere through which a burning sun shines thwartedly, and over which a sorrowful night must far prevail. And then the chiaroscurists succeed in persuading them of the fact that there is a mystery in the day as in the night, and show them how constantly to see truly, is to see dimly. And also they teach them the brilliancy of light, and the degree in which it is raised from the darkness; and instead of their sweet and pearly peace, tempt them to look for the strength of flame and coruscation of lightning, and flash of sunshine on armour and on points of spears. 177. The noble painters take the lesson nobly, alike for gloom or flame. Titian with deliberate strength, Tintoret with stormy passion, read it, side by side. Titian deepens the hues of his Assumption, as of his Entombment, into a solemn twilight; Tintoret involves his earth in coils of volcanic cloud, and withdraws, through circle flaming above circle, the distant light of Paradise. Both of them, becoming naturalist and human, add the veracity of Holbein's intense portraiture to the glow and dignity they had themselves inherited from the Masters of Peace: at the same moment another, as strong as they, and in pure felicity of art-faculty, even greater than they, but trained in a lower school,--Velasquez,--produced the miracles of colour and shadow-painting, which made Reynolds say of him, "What we all do with labour, he does with ease;" and one more, Correggio, uniting the sensual element of the Greek schools with their gloom, and their light with their beauty, and all these with the Lombardic colour, became, as since I think it has been admitted without question, the captain of the painter's art as such. Other men have nobler or more numerous gifts, but as a painter, master of the art of laying colour so as to be lovely, Correggio is alone. 178. I said the noble men learned their lesson nobly. The base men also, and necessarily, learn it basely. The great men rise from colour to sunlight. The base ones fall from colour to candlelight. To-day, "non ragioniam di lor," but let us see what this great change which perfects the art of painting mainly consists in, and means. For though we are only at present speaking of technical matters, every one of them, I can scarcely too often repeat, is the outcome and sign of a mental character, and you can only understand the folds of the veil, by those of the form it veils. 179. The complete painters, we find, have brought dimness and mystery into their method of colouring. That means that the world all round them has resolved to dream, or to believe, no more; but to know, and to see. And instantly all knowledge and sight are given, no more as in the Gothic times, through a window of glass, brightly, but as through a telescope-glass, darkly. Your cathedral window shut you from the true sky, and illumined you with a vision; your telescope leads you to the sky, but darkens its light, and reveals nebula beyond nebula, far and farther, and to no conceivable farthest--unresolvable. That is what the mystery means. 180. Next, what does that Greek opposition of black and white mean? In the sweet crystalline time of colour, the painters, whether on glass or canvas, employed intricate patterns, in order to mingle hues beautifully with each other, and make one perfect melody of them all. But in the great naturalist school, they like their patterns to come in the Greek way, dashed dark on light,--gleaming light out of dark. That means also that the world round them has again returned to the Greek conviction, that all nature, especially human nature, is not entirely melodious nor luminous; but a barred and broken thing: that saints have their foibles, sinners their forces; that the most luminous virtue is often only a flash, and the blackest-looking fault is sometimes only a stain: and, without confusing in the least black with white, they can forgive, or even take delight in things that are like the [Greek: nebris], dappled. 181. You have then--first, mystery. Secondly, opposition of dark and light. Then, lastly, whatever truth of form the dark and light can show. That is to say, truth altogether, and resignation to it, and quiet resolve to make the best of it. And therefore portraiture of living men, women, and children,--no more of saints, cherubs, or demons. So here I have brought for your standards of perfect art, a little maiden of the Strozzi family, with her dog, by Titian; and a little princess of the house of Savoy, by Vandyke; and Charles the Fifth, by Titian; and a queen, by Velasquez; and an English girl in a brocaded gown, by Reynolds; and an English physician in his plain coat, and wig, by Reynolds: and if you do not like them, I cannot help myself, for I can find nothing better for you. 182. Better?--I must pause at the word. Nothing stronger, certainly, nor so strong. Nothing so wonderful, so inimitable, so keen in unprejudiced and unbiassed sight. Yet better, perhaps, the sight that was guided by a sacred will; the power that could be taught to weaker hands; the work that was faultless, though not inimitable, bright with felicity of heart, and consummate in a disciplined and companionable skill. You will find, when I can place in your hands the notes on Verona, which I read at the Royal Institution, that I have ventured to call the æra of painting represented by John Bellini, the time "of the Masters." Truly they deserved the name, who did nothing but what was lovely, and taught only what was right. These mightier, who succeeded them, crowned, but closed, the dynasties of art, and since their day, painting has never flourished more. 183. There were many reasons for this, without fault of theirs. They were exponents, in the first place, of the change in all men's minds from civil and religious to merely domestic passion; the love of their gods and their country had contracted itself now into that of their domestic circle, which was little more than the halo of themselves. You will see the reflection of this change in painting at once by comparing the two Madonnas (S. 37, John Bellini's, and Raphael's, called "della Seggiola"). Bellini's Madonna cares for all creatures through her child; Raphael's, for her child only. Again, the world round these painters had become sad and proud, instead of happy and humble;--its domestic peace was darkened by irreligion, its national action fevered by pride. And for sign of its Love, the Hymen, whose statue this fair English girl, according to Reynolds' thought, has to decorate (S. 43), is blind, and holds a coronet. Again, in the splendid power of realisation, which these greatest of artists had reached, there was the latent possibility of amusement by deception, and of excitement by sensualism. And Dutch trickeries of base resemblance, and French fancies of insidious beauty, soon occupied the eyes of the populace of Europe, too restless and wretched now to care for the sweet earth-berries and Madonna's ivy of Cima, and too ignoble to perceive Titian's colour, or Correggio's shade. 184. Enough sources of evil were here, in the temper and power of the consummate art. In its practical methods there was another, the fatallest of all. These great artists brought with them mystery, despondency, domesticity, sensuality: of all these, good came, as well as evil. One thing more they brought, of which nothing but evil ever comes, or can come--LIBERTY. By the discipline of five hundred years they had learned and inherited such power, that whereas all former painters could be right only by effort, they could be right with ease; and whereas all former painters could be right only under restraint, they could be right, free. Tintoret's touch, Luini's, Correggio's, Reynolds', and Velasquez's, are all as free as the air, and yet right. "How very fine!" said everybody. Unquestionably, very fine. Next, said everybody, "What a grand discovery! Here is the finest work ever done, and it is quite free. Let us all be free then, and what fine things shall we not do also!" With what results we too well know. Nevertheless, remember you are to delight in the freedom won by these mighty men through obedience, though you are not to covet it. Obey, and you also shall be free in time; but in these minor things, as well as in great, it is only right service which is perfect freedom. 185. This, broadly, is the history of the early and late colour-schools. The first of these I shall call generally, henceforward, the school of crystal; the other that of clay: potter's clay, or human, are too sorrowfully the same, as far as art is concerned. But remember, in practice, you cannot follow both these schools; you must distinctly adopt the principles of one or the other. I will put the means of following either within your reach; and according to your dispositions you will choose one or the other: all I have to guard you against is the mistake of thinking you can unite the two. If you want to paint (even in the most distant and feeble way) in the Greek School, the school of Lionardo, Correggio, and Turner, you cannot design coloured windows, nor Angelican paradises. If, on the other hand, you choose to live in the peace of paradise, you cannot share in the gloomy triumphs of the earth. 186. And, incidentally note, as a practical matter of immediate importance, that painted windows have nothing to do with chiaroscuro.[14] The virtue of glass is to be transparent everywhere. If you care to build a palace of jewels, painted glass is richer than all the treasures of Aladdin's lamp; but if you like pictures better than jewels, you must come into broad daylight to paint them. A picture in coloured glass is one of the most vulgar of barbarisms, and only fit to be ranked with the gauze transparencies and chemical illuminations of the sensational stage. [Footnote 14: There is noble chiaroscuro in the variations of their colour, but not as representative of solid form.] Also, put out of your minds at once all question about difficulty of getting colour; in glass we have all the colours that are wanted, only we do not know either how to choose, or how to connect them; and we are always trying to get them bright, when their real virtues are to be deep, mysterious, and subdued. We will have a thorough study of painted glass soon: mean while I merely give you a type of its perfect style, in two windows from Chalons-sur-Marne (S. 141). 187. But for my own part, with what poor gift and skill is in me, I belong wholly to the chiaroscurist school; and shall teach you therefore chiefly that which I am best able to teach: and the rather, that it is only in this school that you can follow out the study either of natural history or landscape. The form of a wild animal, or the wrath of a mountain torrent, would both be revolting (or in a certain sense invisible) to the calm fantasy of a painter in the schools of crystal. He must lay his lion asleep in St. Jerome's study beside his tame partridge and easy slippers; lead the appeased river by alternate azure promontories, and restrain its courtly little streamlets with margins of marble. But, on the other hand, your studies of mythology and literature may best be connected with these schools of purest and calmest imagination; and their discipline will be useful to you in yet another direction, and that a very important one. It will teach you to take delight in little things, and develop in you the joy which all men should feel in purity and order, not only in pictures but in reality. For, indeed, the best art of this school of fantasy may at last be in reality, and the chiaroscurists, true in ideal, may be less helpful in act. We cannot arrest sunsets nor carve mountains, but we may turn every English homestead, if we choose, into a picture by Cima or John Bellini, which shall be "no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed." 188. For the present, however, and yet for some little time during your progress, you will not have to choose your school. For both, as we have seen, begin in delineation, and both proceed by filling flat spaces with an even tint. And therefore this following will be the course of work for you, founded on all that we have seen. Having learned to measure, and draw a pen line with some steadiness (the geometrical exercises for this purpose being properly school, not University work), you shall have a series of studies from the plants which are of chief importance in the history of art; first from their real forms, and then from the conventional and heraldic expressions of them; then we will take examples of the filling of ornamental forms with flat colour in Egyptian, Greek, and Gothic design; and then we will advance to animal forms treated in the same severe way, and so to the patterns and colour designs on animals themselves. And when we are sure of our firmness of hand and accuracy of eye, we will go on into light and shade. 189. In process of time, this series of exercises will, I hope, be sufficiently complete and systematic to show its purpose at a glance. But during the present year, I shall content myself with placing a few examples of these different kinds of practice in your rooms for work, explaining in the catalogue the position they will ultimately occupy, and the technical points of process into which it is useless to enter in a general lecture. After a little time spent in copying these, your own predilections must determine your future course of study; only remember, whatever school you follow, it must be only to learn method, not to imitate result, and to acquaint yourself with the minds of other men, but not to adopt them as your own. Be assured that no good can come of our work but as it arises simply out of our own true natures, and the necessities of the time around us, though in many respects an evil one. We live in an age of base conceit and baser servility--an age whose intellect is chiefly formed by pillage, and occupied in desecration; one day mimicking, the next destroying, the works of all the noble persons who made its intellectual or art life possible to it:--an age without honest confidence enough in itself to carve a cherry-stone with an original fancy, but with insolence enough to abolish the solar system, if it were allowed to meddle with it.[15] In the midst of all this, you have to become lowly and strong; to recognise the powers of others and to fulfil your own. I shall try to bring before you every form of ancient art, that you may read and profit by it, not imitate it. You shall draw Egyptian kings dressed in colours like the rainbow, and Doric gods, and Runic monsters, and Gothic monks--not that you may draw like Egyptians or Norsemen, nor yield yourselves passively to be bound by the devotion, or inspired by the passion of the past, but that you may know truly what other men have felt during their poor span of life; and open your own hearts to what the heavens and earth may have to tell you in yours. [Footnote 15: Every day these bitter words become more sorrowfully true (September, 1887).] 190. In closing this first course of lectures, I have one word more to say respecting the possible consequence of the introduction of art among the studies of the University. What art may do for scholarship, I have no right to conjecture; but what scholarship may do for art, I may in all modesty tell you. Hitherto, great artists, though always gentlemen, have yet been too exclusively craftsmen. Art has been less thoughtful than we suppose; it has taught much, but erred much, also. Many of the greatest pictures are enigmas; others, beautiful toys; others, harmful and corrupting enchantments. In the loveliest, there is something weak; in the greatest, there is something guilty. And this, gentlemen, if you will, is the new thing that may come to pass,--that the scholars of England may resolve to teach also with the silent power of the arts; and that some among you may so learn and use them, that pictures may be painted which shall not be enigmas any more, but open teachings of what can no otherwise be so well shown;--which shall not be fevered or broken visions any more, but filled with the indwelling light of self-possessed imagination;--which shall not be stained or enfeebled any more by evil passion, but glorious with the strength and chastity of noble human love;--and which shall no more degrade or disguise the work of God in heaven, but testify of Him as here dwelling with men, and walking with them, not angry, in the garden of the earth. 
20237	----	ART IN ENGLAND Notes and Studies by DUTTON COOK. London Sampson Low, Son, and Arston Milton House, Ludgate Hill. 1869. Edinburgh: T. Constable, Printer to the Queen, and to the University. CONTENTS. PAGE EARLY ART-SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND 1 VERRIO AND LAGUERRE 15 A SCULPTOR'S LIFE IN THE LAST CENTURY 28 THE RISE OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY 55 WIDOW HOGARTH AND HER LODGER 104 ALLAN RAMSAY, JUNIOR 123 GEORGE ROMNEY 142 COSWAY, THE MINIATURE-PAINTER 175 THE STORY OF A SCENE-PAINTER 201 THE STORY OF AN ENGRAVER 230 SIR JOSHUA'S PUPIL 244 HOPPNER AND LAWRENCE 260 THE PUPIL OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE 295 TURNER AND RUSKIN 316 PREFACE. It will be readily understood that this little volume does not affect to set forth anything like a formal history of the rise and progress of Art in England. The fitting treatment of such a theme would need much more space--not to mention other requirements--than I have here at command. I have designed merely to submit in a manner that may, I trust, be acceptable to the general reader, and not wholly without value to the student, some few excerpts and chapters from the chronicles of the nation's Art, with biographical studies of certain of its artists. In this way I have felt myself bound so to select my materials as to avoid more travelling over familiar ground than seemed absolutely necessary. I have therefore assumed the reader's acquaintance with the lives and achievements of the great leaders of native Art--Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, for instance--and have forborne to occupy my pages with directly rehearsing their famous memoirs. It seemed to me desirable rather to call attention to the stories of artists who, though less renowned, less prominent in popular estimation, were yet of mark in their periods, and had distinct influence on the character and progress of Art in England. Many of these artists were contemporaries, however, and in dealing with their careers severally, it has hardly been possible to escape repetition of the mention of incidents pertaining to the times in which they conjointly 'flourished,'--to employ the favourite term of Biographical Dictionaries. I must ask the reader's pardon if he should find these repetitions intrusively frequent. But the papers herein contained have, for the most part, already appeared in print, when it was deemed advisable to make each as complete in itself as was practicable. They are now reproduced after revision, and, in some cases, considerable extension, but their original form cannot be wholly suppressed or vitally interfered with. I can only hope that what was a merit in their isolated state may not be accounted too grievous a defect now that they come to be congregated. Finally, I would suggest--referring with all due modesty to my own efforts in this direction--that the lives and labours of our Art worthies form wholesome as well as curious subjects for popular study. I do not desire to set up the artist--merely in right of his professing himself an artist--as peculiarly or romantically entitled to public regard. But a nation's Art is, in truth, an important matter. To its value and significance the community is more awake than was heretofore the case, and what was once but the topic of a clique has become of very general concern and interest. Sympathy with Art must necessarily with more or less force extend to the professors and practisers of Art. Surveying the past, one cannot but note that often patronage and public favour have been strangely perverted--now cruelly withheld, now recklessly bestowed. Here genius, or a measure of talent nearly amounting to genius, has languished neglected and suffering--here charlatanry has prospered triumphantly. Something of this kind may be happening now amongst us, or may occur again by and by. Acquaintance with the past history of native Art--its struggles, trials, troubles, and successes--will surely prove of worth in considering its present and future position and prospects. As some slight aid to the diffusion of information on the subject, these otherwise unpretending pages are respectfully submitted to the reader. D.C. EARLY ART SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND. Charles the First appears to have been the first English Sovereign who regarded art, not merely as an aid to the splendour of the throne, but for its own sake. As Walpole says, 'Queen Elizabeth was avaricious with pomp, James the First lavish with meanness.' To neither had the position of the painter been a matter of the slightest concern. But from Charles the First dates truly the dawn of a love of art in England, the proper valuing of the artist-mind, and the first introduction into the country of the greatest works of the continental masters. At the present day a complaint is constantly arising, that artists are found to be deficient in general education, while what may be called for distinction's sake the educated classes are singularly wanting in artistic knowledge. The Universities do not teach art;[1] the Art-schools do not teach anything else. As a result, speaking generally, the painters are without mental culture, the patrons are without art-acquirements. (This supposes the patrons to be of the upper classes; but of course at the present time a large share of art-patronage comes from the rich middle or manufacturing classes, whose uninformed tastes are even less likely to tend to the due appraisement and elevation of art.) Mr. Ruskin, giving evidence before the commissioners inquiring into the position of the Royal Academy (1863), says, 'The want of education on the part of the upper classes in art, has been very much at the bottom of the abuses which have crept into all systems of education connected with it. If the upper classes could only be interested in it by being led into it when young, a great improvement might be looked for;' and the witness goes on to urge the expediency of appointing professors of art at the Universities. Upon the question of infusing a lay-element into the Royal Academy by the addition of non-professional academicians, Mr. Ruskin takes occasion to observe:--'I think if you educate our upper classes to take more interest in art, which implies of course to know something about it, they might be most efficient members of the Academy; but if you leave them, as you leave them now, to the education which they get at Oxford and Cambridge, and give them the sort of scorn which all the teaching there tends to give of art and artists, the less they have to do with an Academy of Art the better.' [1] The Slade Professorship, recently instituted, is a step towards mending this matter, however. It is somewhat curious after this to consider an attempt made by King Charles the First, in the eleventh year of his reign, to supply these admitted deficiencies of University instruction: to found an Academy in which general and fine-art education should be combined. A committee, consisting of the Duke of Buckingham and others, had been appointed in the House of Lords for taking into consideration the state of the public schools, and their method of instruction. What progress was made by this committee is not known. One result of its labours, however, was probably the establishment of the _Musæum Minervæ_, under letters-patent from the king, at a house which Sir Francis Kynaston had purchased, in Covent Garden, and furnished as an Academy. This was appropriated for ever as a college for the education of nobles and gentlemen, to be governed by a regent and professors, chosen by 'balloting-box,' who were made a body corporate, permitted to use a common seal, and to possess goods and lands in mortmain. Kynaston, who styled himself _Corporis Armiger_, and who had printed in 1635 a translation into Latin verse of Chaucer's _Troilus and Cressida_, was nominated the first regent of the Academy, and published in 1636 its constitution and rules, addressed 'to the noble and generous well-wishers to vertuous actions and learning.' The Academy--'justified and approved by the wisdom of the King's most sacred Majesty and many of the lords of his Majesty's most honourable privy council,'--its constitution and discipline being ratified under the hands and seals of the Right Honourable the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and the two Lord Chief Justices--professed to be founded 'according to the laudable customs of other nations,' and for 'the bringing of virtue into action and the theory of liberal arts into more frequent practice.' Its aims were directed to the end that England might be as well furnished for the virtuous education and discipline of her own natives as any other nation of Europe; it being 'sufficiently known that the subjects of his Majesty's dominions have naturally as noble minds and as able bodies as any nation of the earth, and therefore deserve all accommodation for the advancing of them, either in speculation or action.' It was considered that a peculiar institution was required for teaching those 'most useful accomplishments of a gentleman'--the sciences of navigation, riding, fortification, architecture, painting, etc., which, if taught, were yet not practised in the universities or courts of law. Many of these sciences, it was admitted, were taught in London, 'in dispersed places;' but it was convenient to reduce and unite them in one certain place, and not to teach them perfunctorily and rather for gain than for any other respect--desirable, too, that youth should have, in a virtuous society, generous and fitting recreations as might divert them from too much frequenting places of expense and of greater inconvenience. The intention of the Academy was also to benefit gentlemen going abroad, by giving them language and instruction, with other ornaments of travel. 'There is no understanding man,' says the prospectus or advertisement of the institution, 'but may resent how many of our noblemen and young gentlemen travel into foreign countries before they have any language or knowledge to make profit of their time abroad, they not being any way able to get knowledge for want of language, nor language for want of time; since going over so young, their years of license commonly expire before they can obtain to sufficient ripeness of understanding; which no nation is known to do but the English: for what children of other nations come over to us before they are of able age and ripeness?' Another inconvenience arising from the want of the _Musæum Minervæ_ was stated to be the necessity many gentlemen were under of sending their sons beyond seas for their education, 'where, through change of climate and dyat, and for want of years of discretion, they become more subject to sickness and immature death.' It was required of gentlemen admitted into the _Musæum_ that they should pay fees of at least £5 each, and should bring a testimonial of their arms and gentry, and their coat armour, 'tricked on a table, to be conserved in the museum.' There was to be a _Liber Nobilium_ always kept, in which benefactors and their benefits were to be recorded, beginning with King Charles, 'our first and royal benefactor;' and it was provided that if any gentleman should have any natural experiment or secret, and should communicate it to the _Musæum_ and upon trial it should be found true and good, his name and experiment should be recorded in _Liber Nobilium_ for a perpetual honour to him. The regent was required to instruct personally, or to superintend instruction in 'heraldry, blazon of coates and armes, practical knowledge of deedes, and evidences, principles and processes of common law, knowledge of antiquities, coynes, medalls, husbandry,' etc. The Doctor of Philosophy and Physic was to read and profess physiology, anatomy, or any other parts of physic. The Professor of Astronomy was to teach astronomy, optics, navigation, and cosmography. Instruction in arithmetic, analytical algebra, geometry, fortification, and architecture, was to be given by the Professor of Geometry. A Professor of Music was to impart skill in singing, and music to play upon organ, lute, viol, etc. Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, and High Dutch were to be taught by the Professor of Languages. In addition, a Professor of Defence inculcated skill at all weapons and wrestling (but not pugilism apparently), and ample instruction was to be afforded in riding, dancing, and behaviour, painting, sculpture, and writing. A preparatory school was also to be annexed for the young gentlemen whose parents were desirous of having them brought up in the _Musæum_ from their first years. Finally, it was expressly provided that no degrees were to be given, and the Academy was not to be conceived in any way prejudicial 'to the Universities and Inns of Court, whose foundations have so long and so honourably been confirmed.' For no long time did the _Musæum Minervæ_ flourish. The King's troubles began; and in the storms of civil war the Academy for teaching the upper classes science and the fine arts, manners and accomplishments, fell to the ground and disappeared utterly. So bitter and inveterate was the feeling against the King, that, as Walpole says (and Walpole, be it remembered, cherished no reverence for Charles the First--quite otherwise--under a _facsimile_ of the warrant for the King's execution, he wrote 'Magna Charta,' and he often found pleasure in considering the monarch's fall), 'it seems to have become part of the religion of the time to war on the arts because they had been countenanced at Court.' So early as 1645, the Parliament had begun to sell the pictures at York House. On the 23d July in that year votes were passed ordering the sale, for the benefit of Ireland and the North, of all such pictures at York House 'as were without any superstition.' Pictures containing representations of the Second Person in the Trinity, or of the Virgin Mary, were judged to be superstitious, and ordered to be burned forthwith. Immediately after the King's death, votes were passed for the sale of all his pictures, statues, jewels, hangings, and goods. Cromwell, however, on his obtaining sole power, made some effort to stay the terrible sacrifice that was being made of the royal collections. There was thus an end of King Charles's _Musæum Minervæ_. Yet, if not absolutely founded on its ruins, at any rate in some measure following its example, we soon find record of the rise of a similar institution. One Sir Balthazar Gerbier, without Government aid or countenance, but acting entirely on his own responsibility, had opened an Academy 'on Bednall-green without Aldgate.' This was probably in the year 1649. Sir Balthazar Gerbier, architect and painter, 'excellent in either branch,' says a biographer, had led a somewhat curious life. In a pamphlet published in Paris, in 1646, addressed 'to all men that loves Truth,'--singularly rich, thanks to the French printers, in blunders, orthographic and grammatical,--Sir Balthazar gives some account of his family and himself. He was born about 1591, at Middelburg in Zeeland, the son of Anthoine Gerbier, a baron of Normandy, and Radegonde, daughter-in-law to the Lord of Blavet in Picardy. 'It pleaseth God,' writes Sir Balthazar, 'to suffer my parents to fly the bluddy persecutions in France, against those which the Roman Catholics call the Huguenots. My said parents left and lost all for that cause.' He came to England when about twenty-one, and entered the service of George Villiers, 'newly become favourite to King James, being immediately after Baron, Viscount, Earle, and afterwards created Marquis and Duke of Buckingham.' He accompanied Buckingham to Spain, and was employed in the famous treaty of marriage, though ostensibly acting only as a painter. While in Spain he executed a miniature portrait of the Infanta, which was sent over to King James. The Duchess of Buckingham wrote to her husband in Spain, 'I pray you, if you have any idle time, sit to Gerbier for your picture, that I may have it well done in time.' After the accession of Charles, it appears that Gerbier was employed in Flanders to negotiate privately a treaty with Spain, in which Rubens was commissioned to act on the part of the Infanta; the business ultimately bringing the great painter to England. In 1628, Gerbier was knighted at Hampton Court, and, according to his own account, was promised by King Charles the office of Surveyor-General of the works after the death of Inigo Jones. In 1637, he was employed at Brussels in some private state negotiation with the Duke of Orleans, the French King's brother, and in 1641 he obtained a bill of naturalization, and took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. According to Vertue, he was much hated and persecuted by the anti-monarchic party, for his loyalty and fidelity to the King and his son. At the sale of the royal collection he made purchases to the amount of £350. The suspension of all art-patronage during the Commonwealth, probably necessitated the establishment of his Academy at Bethnal Green, as a means of obtaining a livelihood. Painters did not flourish very much under the rule of the Puritans. A fly-sheet, undated, which may be found in the British Museum, sets forth the plan of Gerbier's Academy. He addresses himself 'to all Fathers of Noble Families and Lovers of Vertue,' desires public notice of his great labours and exertions, and informs the world that 'the chiefe Famous Forraigne Languages, Sciences, and Noble Exercises' are taught in his establishment. 'All Lovers of Vertue,' of what age soever, are received and instructed, and each of them may select such studies, exercises, and sciences as are most consonant to his genius. Public lectures are announced to be read gratis every Wednesday afternoon, in the summer at three, in the winter at two o'clock. A competent number of children of 'decayed families' are taught without fee. 'Lovers of Vertue' are stated to be thus freed from the dangers and inconveniences incident to travellers, who repair to foreign parts to improve themselves, and leave the honour of their education to strangers, running 'the hazzard of being shaken in the fundamental points of their religion, and their innate loyalty to their native country.' The nation is therefore exhorted to reflect seriously on Sir Balthazar's proffers; to embrace them vigorously and constantly to countenance and promote them, 'since that the languages declared to be taught in the Academy are:--Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, High Dutch, and Low Dutch, both Ancient and Modern Histories, jointly with the Constitutions and Governments of the most famous Empires and Dominions in the World, the true Natural and Experimental Philosophy, the Mathematicks, Arithmetic and the Keeping of Bookes of Accounts by Debitor and Creditor, all Excellent Handwriting, Geometry, Cosmography, Geography, Perspective, Architecture, Secret Motions of Scenes, Fortifications, the Besieging and Defending of Places, Fireworks, Marches of Armies, Ordering of Battailes, Fencing, Vaulting, Riding the Great Horse, Music, Playing on all sorts of Instruments, Dancing, Drawing, Painting, Limning, and Carving,' etc. Certainly Sir Balthazar's was a sufficient catalogue of arts, sciences, and accomplishments. The lectures 'composed for the good of the public' were afterwards printed, and to be obtained at Robert Ibbitson's house in Smithfield, near Hosier Lane. It may be noted that a lecture upon the art of well-speaking, brought upon the lecturer the derision of Butler, author of _Hudibras_. In the winter the Academy was moved from Bethnal Green to Whitefriars. Sir Balthazar issued advertisements as to his lectures. It is to be feared his good intentions were not always appreciated by the public of the day. In one of his advertisements we find him complaining bitterly of 'the extraordinary concourse of unruly people who robbed him, and treated with savage rudeness his extraordinary services.' Something of a visionary, too, was Sir Balthazar;--yet, with all his vanity as to his own merits--his coxcombry about his proceedings,--a sort of reformer and benefactor also in a small way. At one time we find him advertising that, besides lecturing gratis, he will lend from one shilling to six, gratis, 'to such as are in extreme need, and have not wherewithal to endeavour their subsistence, whereas week by week they may drive on some trade.' By-and-by, however, Sir Balthazar was probably more disposed to borrow than to lend. His Academy met with little support--with ridicule rather than encouragement; was indeed a total failure; and he left England for America. For some years nothing was heard of him. In 1660, however, we find him publishing at Rotterdam 'a sommary description, manifesting that greater profits are to be done in the hott than in the cold parts of America.' This contains an account of his journey with his family to settle at Surinam. But there, it seems, he was seized by the Dutch, treated with much violence (one of his children being killed), and brought to Holland. He attempted, but in vain, to obtain redress from the States for this strange treatment of him. He probably returned to England with Charles II., for he is said to have aided in designing the triumphal arches erected at the Restoration. Gerbier's name is attached to a long list of books and pamphlets. Some of these are of a controversial character; the author was a stout Huguenot, fond of denouncing the Pope; oftentimes alarmed at plots against himself on account of his religion, and now publishing a letter of remonstrance to his three daughters who, in opposition to his will, had entered a nunnery in Paris. Other works relate to architecture and fortifications, the languages, arts, and noble exercises taught in his Academy, or contain advice to travellers, or deal with political affairs. Mr. Pepys records in his diary, under date the 28th May 1663:--'At the Coffee House in Exchange Alley I bought a little book, _Counsell to Builders_, by Sir Balth. Gerbier. It is dedicated almost to all the men of any great condition in England, so that the dedications are more than the book itself; and both it and them,' the diarist adds somewhat severely, 'not worth a farthing!' Sir Balthazar died in 1667, at Hempsted-Marshall House, which he had himself designed, the seat of Lord Craven, and was buried in the chancel of the adjoining church. Portraits of Gerbier were painted by Dobson[2]--the picture was sold for £44 at the sale of Betterton the actor--and by Vandyke. The work by Vandyke also contained portraits of Gerbier's family, and was purchased in Holland by command of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and brought to Leicester House. [2] A portrait of Gerbier, Sir Charles Cotterel, and W. Dobson, painted by Dobson, the property of the Duke of Northumberland, was exhibited at South Kensington in 1868. For something like half-a-century after Sir Balthazar Gerbier's time we find no trace of another Art Academy in England. VERRIO AND LAGUERRE. Pope, denouncing the vanity of wealth and the crimes committed in the name of taste, visits Lord Timon's villa, and finds plenty of pegs on which to hang criticism--ample scope for satire. With depreciating eyes he surveys the house and grounds, their fittings and garniture, almost as though he were going to make a bid for them. 'He that blames would buy,' says the proverb. Then he passes to the out-buildings, taking notes like a broker in possession under a _fi. fa_. 'And now the chapel's silver bell you hear, That summons you to all the pride of prayer: Light quirks of music, broken and uneven, Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven. On painted ceiling you devoutly stare, Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre, On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie, And bring all paradise before the eye,' etc. Who was Verrio? Who was Laguerre? ANTONIO VERRIO was born in Lecce, a town in the Neapolitan province of Terra di Otranto, in the year 1639. Early in life he visited Venice to study the colouring of the Venetian masters. He returned a successful, not a meritorious painter. In 1660 he was at Naples, where he executed a large fresco work, 'Christ healing the Sick,' for the Jesuit College. This painting, we are told, was conspicuous for its brilliant colour and forcible effect. Subsequently the artist was in France, painting the high altar of the Carmelites at Toulouse. Dominici says that 'Verrio had such a love for travelling that he could not remain in his own country.' Charles II., desiring to revive the manufacture of tapestry at Mortlake, which had been stopped by the civil war, invited Verrio to England; but when he arrived the king changed his plans, and intrusted the painter with the decoration in fresco of Windsor Castle. Charles was induced to this by seeing a work of Verrio's at Lord Arlington's house at the end of St. James's Park, the site of Buckingham House. 'In possession of the Cartoons of Raphael,' Fuseli lectured, angrily, on the subject, years afterwards, 'and with the magnificence of Whitehall before his eyes, he suffered Verrio to contaminate the walls of his palaces.' But there was raging then a sort of epidemical belief in native deficiency and in the absolute necessity of importing art talent. In his first picture Verrio represented the king in a glorification of naval triumph. He decorated most of the ceilings of the palace, one whole side of St. George's Hall and the Chapel; but few of his works are now extant. Hans Jordaens' lively fancy and ready pencil induced his critics to affirm of him, 'that his figures seemed to flow from his hand upon the canvas as from a pot-ladle.' Certainly, from Verrio's fertility in apologue and allegory, and the rapidity of his execution, it might have been said that he spattered out his works with a mop. Nothing daunted him. He would have covered an acre of ceiling with an acre of apotheosis. As Walpole writes, 'His exuberant pencil was ready at pouring out gods, goddesses, kings, emperors, and triumphs over those public surfaces on which the eye never rests long enough to criticise, and where one should be sorry to place the works of a better master. I mean ceilings and staircases. The New Testament or the Roman History cost him nothing but ultramarine; that and marble columns and marble steps he never spared.' He shrunk from no absurdity or incongruity. His taste was even worse than his workmanship. He delighted to avenge any wrong he had received, or fancied he had received, by introducing his enemy, real or imaginary, in his pictures. Thus, on the ceiling of St. George's Hall, he painted Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, in the character of Faction dispersing libels; in another place, having a private quarrel with Mrs. Marriott, the housekeeper, he borrowed her face for one of his Furies. Painting for Lord Exeter, at Burleigh, in a representation of Bacchus bestriding a hogshead, he copied the head of a dean with whom he was at variance. It is more excusable, perhaps, that, when compelled by his patron to insert a Pope in a procession little flattering to his religion, he added the portrait of the Archbishop of Canterbury then living. In a picture of the 'Healing of the Sick,' he was guilty of the folly and impropriety of introducing among the spectators of the scene, portraits of himself, Sir Godfrey Kneller, and Mr. May, surveyor of the works, all adorned with the profuse periwigs of the period. But he could not transfer to his pictures a decorum and a common sense that had no place in his mind. Hence he loved to depict a garish and heterogeneous whirl of saints and sinners, pan-pipes, periwigs, cherubim, silk stockings, angels, small-swords, the naked and the clothed, goddesses, violoncellos, stars, and garters. A Latin inscription in honour of the painter and his paintings appeared over the tribune at the end of St. George's Hall:--'_Antonius Verrio Neapolitanus non ignobili stirpe natus, ad honorem Dei, Augustissimi Regis Caroli Secundi et Sancti Georgii, molem hanc felicissimâ manu decoravit_.' The king lavished kindness upon this pretentious and absurd Italian. He was appointed to the place of master-gardener, and lodgings in a house in St. James's Park, to be afterwards known as Carlton House, were set apart for his use. Here he was visited by Evelyn, who records that 'the famous Italian painter' was 'settled in His Majesty's garden at St. James's, which he had made a very delicious paradise.' The artist also dined with the author, and was regaled with 'China oranges off my own trees, as good, I think, as ever were eaten.' For works executed in Windsor Castle between the years 1676 and 1681, he received the sum of £6845, 8s. 4d. Vertue copied the account 'from a half-sheet of paper fairly writ in a hand of the time.' It particularizes the rooms decorated, and the cost. For the king's guard chamber, £300; for the king's presence chamber, £200; for the queen's drawing-room, £250; for the queen's bed-chamber, £100; and so on, until the enormous total is reached. Of his paintings in St. George's Hall Evelyn writes, 'Verrio's invention is admirable, his ordnance full and flowing, antique and heroical; his figures move; and if the walls hold (which is the only doubt, by reason of the salts, which in time and in this moist climate prejudice), his work will preserve his name to ages.' He employed many workmen under him, was of extravagant habits, and kept a great table. He considered himself as an art-monarch entitled to considerable state and magnificence. He was constant in his applications to the Crown for money to carry on his works. With the ordinary pertinacity of the dun, he joined a freedom which would have been remarkable, if the king's indulgence and good humour had not done so much to foster it. Once, at Hampton Court, having lately received an advance of a thousand pounds, he found the king so encircled by courtiers that he could not approach. He called out loudly and boldly-- 'Sire! I desire the favour of speaking to your Majesty.' 'Well, Verrio,' the king inquired, 'what is your request?' 'Money, sire! I am so short in cash that I am not able to pay my workmen, and your Majesty and I have learned by experience that pedlars and painters cannot give credit long.' The king laughed at this impudent speech, and reminded the painter that he had but lately received a thousand pounds. 'Yes, sire,' persisted Verrio, 'but that was soon paid away.' 'At that rate, you would spend more than I do to maintain my family.' 'True, sire,' answered the painter; 'but does your Majesty keep an open table as I do?' Verrio designed the large equestrian portrait of the king for the hall of Chelsea College, but it was finished by Cooke, and presented by Lord Ranelagh. On the accession of James II. he was again employed at Windsor in Wolsey's tomb-house, which it was intended should be used as a Roman Catholic chapel. He painted the king and several of his courtiers in the hospital of Christchurch, London, and he painted also at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. But soon there was an end of his friends and patrons, the Stuarts. James had fled; William of Orange was on the throne; a revolution had happened little favourable to Signor Verrio's religion or political principles. There is a commendable staunchness in his adherence to the ruined cause: in his abandoning his post of master-gardener, and his refusal to work for the man he regarded as a usurper; though there is something ludicrous in the notion of punishing King William by depriving him of Verrio's art. He did not object, however, to work for the nobility. For some years he was employed by Lord Exeter at Burleigh, and afterwards at Chatsworth. He was true to his old execrable style. He introduced his own portrait in a picture-history of Mars and Venus, and in the chapel at Chatsworth he produced a dreadful altar-piece representing the incredulity of St. Thomas. He painted also at Lowther Hall. For his paintings at Burleigh alone he was paid more money than Raphael or Michael Angelo received for all their works. Verrio was engaged on them for about twelve years, handsomely maintained the while, with an equipage at his disposal, and a salary of £1500 a year. Subsequently, on the persuasion of Lord Exeter, Verrio was induced to lend his aid to royalty once more, and he condescended to decorate the grand staircase at Hampton Court for King William. Walpole suggests that he accomplished this work as badly as he could, 'as if he had spoiled it out of principle.' But this is not credible. The painting was in the artist's usual manner, and neither better nor worse--and his best was bad enough, in all conscience. His usual faults of gaudy colour, bad drawing, and senseless composition were of course to be found; but then, these were equally apparent in all his other works. Later in life his sight began to fail him, and he received from Queen Anne a pension of £200 a year for his life. To the last royal favour was extended to him, and he was selected to superintend the decorations of Blenheim. But death intervened. The over-rated, overpaid, and most meretricious painter died at Hampton Court in 1707. There is evident error in Dominici's statement that the old man met his death from drowning on a visit to Languedoc. Walpole, summing up his merits and demerits, says, rather curiously, 'He was an excellent painter for the sort of subjects on which he was employed, without much invention and with less taste!' The father of LOUIS LAGUERRE was by birth a Catalan, and held the appointment of Keeper of the Royal Menagerie at Versailles. To his son, born at Paris in 1663, Louis XIV. stood godfather, bestowing on the child his distinguished Christian name. The young Laguerre received his education at a Jesuit College, with the view of entering the priesthood, but a confirmed impediment in his speech demonstrated his unfitness for such a calling. He began to evince considerable art-ability, and, on the recommendation of the fathers of the college, he eventually embraced the profession of painting. He then entered the Royal Academy of France, and studied for a short time under Charles Le Brun. In 1683 he came to England with one Picard, a painter of architecture. At this time Verrio was in the acme of his prosperity. He was producing allegorical ceilings and staircases by wholesale. He had a troop of workmen under him, obedient to his instructions, dabbing in superficial yards of pink flesh, and furlongs of blue clouds. Verrio was happy to secure forthwith so efficient an assistant as Laguerre, and soon found him plenty to do. In nearly every work of Verrio's after this date, it is probable that Laguerre had a hand. He seems to have been an amiable, kindly, simple-minded man, without much self-assertion or any strong opinions of his own. He was quite content to do as Verrio bid him, even imitating him and following him through his figurative mysteries, and floundering with him in the mire of graceless drawing and gaudy colour and ridiculous fable. He had at least as much talent as his master--probably even more. But he never sought to outshine or displace him. 'A modest, unintriguing man,' as Vertue calls him, he was quite satisfied with being second in command, no matter how ignorant and inefficient might be his captain. John Tijon, his father-in-law, a founder of iron balustrades, said of him, 'God has made him a painter, and there left him.' He worked under Verrio in St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and at Burleigh; he executed staircases at old Devonshire House, in Piccadilly, at Buckingham House, and at Petworth; assisted in the paintings at Marlborough House, St. James's Park; decorated the saloon at Blenheim; and in many of the apartments at Burleigh on the Hill 'the walls are covered with his Cæsars.' William of Orange gave the painter lodgings at Hampton Court, where it seems he painted the Labours of Hercules in _chiaro-oscuro_, and repaired Andrea Mantegna's pictures of the Triumphs of Julius Cæsar. The commissioners for rebuilding St. Paul's Cathedral unanimously chose Laguerre to decorate the cupola with frescoes. Subsequently this decision was abandoned in favour of Thornhill; but, as Walpole says, 'the preference was not ravished from Laguerre by superior merit.' Sir James Thornhill received payment for his paintings in the dome of St. Paul's at the rate of forty shillings the square yard. The world has still the opportunity of deciding upon the merits or demerits of those works. Vertue thinks that Sir James was indebted to Laguerre for his knowledge of historical painting on ceilings, etc. For decorating the staircase of the South Sea Company's House, Sir James received only twenty-five shillings per square yard. By speculating in the shares of the same Company, it may be stated that another artist, Sir Godfrey Kneller, lost £20,000. But prosperous Sir Godfrey could afford to lose; his fortune could sustain even such a shock as that; at his death he left an estate of £2000 per annum. He had intended that Thornhill should decorate the staircase of his seat at Wilton, but learning that Newton was sitting to Sir James, he grew angry. 'No portrait painter shall paint my house,' cried Sir Godfrey, and he gave the commission to Laguerre, who did his very best for his brother artist. On the union of England and Scotland, Laguerre received an order from Queen Anne to design a set of tapestries commemorative of the event, introducing portraits of her Majesty and her Ministers. He executed the requisite drawings; but it does not appear that the work was ever carried out. In 1711 he was a director of an academy of drawing instituted in London, under the presidency of Kneller. On the resignation of Kneller, there was a probability of Laguerre being elected in his place; but he was again defeated by his rival, Thornhill, probably as much from his own want of management and self-confidence, as from any other cause. He drew designs for engravers, and etched a Judgment of Midas. Round the room of a tavern in Drury Lane, where was held a club of _virtuosi_, he painted a Bacchanalian procession, and presented the house with his labours. He had many imitators; for there are followers of bad as well as of good examples. Among others, Riario, Johnson, Brown, besides Lanscroon, Scheffers, and Picard, who worked with him under Verrio. His son and pupil, John Laguerre, manifested considerable ability, and engraved a series of prints of 'Hob in the Well,'[3] which had a large popularity, though they were but indifferently executed. He was fond of the theatre, with a talent for music and singing; painted scenery and stage decorations. He even appeared upon the boards as a singer. [3] A favourite old ballad farce by Dogget, the comedian. Laguerre, in his age, feeble and dropsical, attended Drury Lane on the 20th April 1721, to witness his son's performance in a musical version of Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Island Princess;' but, before the curtain rose, the poor old man was seized with an apoplectic fit, and died the same night. He was buried in the Churchyard of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. The son subsequently quitted the stage, and resumed his first profession. He etched a plate, representing Falstaff, Pistol, and Doll Tearsheet, with other theatrical characters, in allusion to a quarrel between the players and patentees. He died in very indigent circumstances, in March 1748. Time and the white-washer's double-tie brush have combined to destroy most of the ceilings and staircases of Signor Verrio and Monsieur Laguerre. For their art, there was not worth enough in it to endow it with any lasting vitality. They are remembered more from Pope's lines, than on any other account--preserved in them, like uncomely curiosities in good spirits. To resort to the poet for verses applicable, though familiar:-- 'Pretty in amber to observe the forms Of hair, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms; The things we know are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there!' A SCULPTOR'S LIFE IN THE LAST CENTURY. Horace Walpole, in his _Anecdotes of Painting_, having deplored the low ebb to which the arts had sunk in Britain during the time of George the First, proceeds to consider the succeeding reign with greater complacency: accounting it, indeed, as a new and shining era. Under George the Second he found architecture revived 'in antique purity;' sculpture redeemed from reproach; the art of gardening, or, as he prefers to call it, 'the art of creating landscape,' pressed forward to perfection; engraving much elevated; and painting, if less perceptibly advanced, still (towards the close of the reign, at any rate) ransomed from insipidity by the genius of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The king himself, it was conceded, had 'little propensity to refined pleasure;' but his consort, Queen Caroline, was credited with a lively anxiety to reward merit and to encourage the exertions of the ingenious. This glowing picture of the period in its relation to the fine arts, contrasts somewhat violently with what we learn elsewhere concerning the poverty of Richard Wilson, the ill-requited labours of William Hogarth, the struggles and sufferings of James Barry, and generally, of the depressed condition of native professors of art during the eighteenth century. That the portrait-painter (the 'face-painter' as Hogarth delighted contemptuously to designate him) found sufficient occupation is likely enough; but, otherwise, the British artist had perforce to limit the aspirations of his genius to the decoration of ceilings and staircases, and to derive his chief emoluments from painting the sign-boards of the British tradesman: if not a very dignified still a remunerative employment; for in those days every London shop boasted its distinct emblem. Nevertheless it is certain that in George the Second's reign Fashion began to take up with Taste. Dilettanteism became the vogue. Objects of _virtù_ were now, for the first time, indispensable appendages of the houses of the aristocratic and the rich. A rage for 'collecting' possessed the town, and led to an expenditure as profuse as it was injudicious. Of the vast sums disbursed, however, but a small share came to the native artist. His works were passed over as beneath the notice of the _cognoscenti_. The 'quality' gave their verdict against modern art and in favour of the ancient masters. A race of old picture-brokers and jobbers in antiquities sprang into existence to supply the increasing demand for such chattels. The _London Magazine_ for 1737, in an article attributed to William Hogarth, inveighs bitterly against these speculators and their endeavours to depreciate every English work in order to enhance the value of their imported shiploads of Dead Christs, Holy Families and Madonnas: the sweepings of the continental art-markets. Auction-rooms were opened in all parts of London for the exhibition and sale of choice objects of every kind, and became the resort and rendezvous of all pretending to wealth and fashion. Agents were to be found at the chief foreign cities eagerly exhuming antiquities for transmission to England: certain of immediate sale and enormous profit there. The prevailing appetite seemed to grow by what it fed on. And then, of course, unscrupulous people took to manufacturing antiquities; and, so doing, drove a brisk and remarkably remunerative trade. The neglected British artist naturally made protests and wrote pamphlets more or less angry in tone, according to the state of his purse and his temper and the extent of his self-appreciation. The press of the period raised its voice: a less portentous and sonorous organ than it has since possessed. Even the players ventured to be satirical on the subject. It was early in 1752 that Mr. Foote's comedy of _Taste_ was brought upon the stage of Drury Lane Theatre, David Garrick both writing and speaking the prologue. Probably the satire soared rather above the heads of the audience. Foote admits as much in his preface to the published play: 'I was always apprehensive that the subject of the following piece was too abstracted and singular for the comprehension of a mixed assembly. Juno, Lucina, Jupiter Tonans, Phidias, Praxiteles, with the other gentlemen and ladies of antiquity, were, I daresay, utterly unknown to my very good friends of the gallery; nor, to speak the truth, do I believe they had many acquaintances in the other parts of the house.' Accordingly _Taste_, on its first production, was only repeated some four nights, and, though revived once or twice afterwards, never took rank as a stock piece. Yet, as Mr. John Forster says of it, Foote's play is legitimate satire, and also excellent comedy. There is little or no plot. Foote did not care for continuous story; he could generally secure the favour of the audience by the wit of his dialogue and a quick succession of lively incidents. In the first act Lady Pentweazle sits for her portrait in a broadly humorous scene. Puff is an impudent trader in sham antiquities and objects of _virtù_; Carmine, an artist constrained by poverty to aid and abet him in his nefarious proceedings; Brush is another confederate. In the second act a sale by auction is represented. Carmine appears as Canto the auctioneer; Puff figures as the Baron de Groningen, who is travelling to purchase pictures for the Elector of Bavaria. Lord Dupe, Bubble, Squander, and Novice, are fashionable patrons and collectors of art. The pictures to be submitted for sale are inspected. One of them is particularly admired; but is ultimately discovered to be 'a modern performance, the master alive, and an Englishman.' 'Oh, then,' says Lord Dupe, changing his tone, 'I would not give it house-room!' The antiquities are then brought forward. 'The first lot,' announces the auctioneer, 'consists of a hand without an arm, the first joint of the forefinger gone, supposed to be a limb of the Apollo Delphos. The second, half a foot, with the toes entire, of the Juno Lucina. The third, the Caduceus of the Mercurius Infernalis. The fourth, the half of the leg of the Infant Hercules. All indisputable antiques, and of the Memphian marble.' One critic objects to a swelling on the foot of Juno as a defect in its proportion; but the auctioneer informs him that the swelling is intended to represent a _corn_, and the defect is thereupon pronounced an absolute master-stroke. Presently the auctioneer proceeds: 'Bring forward the head from Herculaneum.... Now, gentlemen, here is a jewel.... The very mutilations of this piece are worth all the most perfect performances of modern artists. Now, gentlemen, here is a touchstone for your taste!' He is asked whether the head is intended to represent a man or a woman. 'The connoisseurs differ,' he answers. 'Some will have it to be the Jupiter Tonans of Phidias, and others the Venus of Paphos from Praxiteles; but I don't think it fierce enough for the first, nor handsome enough for the last.... Therefore I am inclined to join with Signor Julio de Pampedillo, who, in a treatise dedicated to the King of the Two Sicilies, calls it the Serapis of the Egyptians, and supposes it to have been fabricated about eleven hundred and three years before the Mosaic account of the creation.' A bystander inquires what has become of the nose of the bust? 'The nose? What care I for the nose?' cries an enthusiastic amateur. 'Why, sir, if it had a nose I wouldn't give sixpence for it! How the devil should we distinguish the works of the ancients if they were perfect? Why, I don't suppose but, barring the nose, ROUBILIAC could cut as good a head every whit.... A man must know d----d little of statuary that dislikes a bust for want of a nose!' It must be admitted that this is satire of a good trenchant sort. The reader will find plenty more of it if he will only turn to the comedy for himself. Our immediate purpose is with the sculptor for whose name Mr. Foote has found a place in his play. The rage for collecting antiquities was only equalled by the passion for 'restoring' them when collected. To disinter a torso _here_, and a head _there_, and then to make a sort of forced marriage of the fragments; to graft new feet upon old legs; to dovetail stray hands upon odd arms; to reset broken limbs, and patch and piece mutilations and deficiencies, constituted the delights and the triumphs of the amateurs. In accomplishing these exploits the services of foreign workmen were extensively employed; for, by a curious piece of reasoning, the foreign sculptor, no matter how limited his capacity, was held to be far more competent to restore antiquities than the English artist of whatever reputation. It was, doubtless, in consequence of this demand for foreign labour, and the liberal manner in which its exertions were recognised and requited, that Louis Francis Roubiliac found his way to this country. In his account of the sculptor, Walpole is singularly brief; supplies very meagre information; yet when he was compiling his Anecdotes the fame of Roubiliac was at its highest; he was freshly remembered on all sides, and the facts of his early life could have been collected, one would imagine, without much difficulty. He was born, from all accounts, at Lyons, about the close of the seventeenth century; was a pupil of Balthazar of Dresden, sculptor to the Elector of Saxony, and came to England in 1720. That he was without repute in his native land is evidenced by the fact that no mention of him appears in D'Argenville's _Lives of the most Eminent Sculptors of France_, published in 1787. Of his parentage nothing is known. He had apparently received a fair education; was found to possess a considerable acquaintance with the literature of his native land; more especially was conversant with the works of the best French poets, and himself produced original verse of a respectable quality. Yet, notwithstanding his long residence in England, he never mastered the English language so as to be able to use it freely; and in all the anecdotes extant of him he is represented as employing the broken dialect common to foreigners. For some years after his arrival in England his occupation would appear to have been little better than that of a journeyman sculptor, employed under various masters in botching antiquities. Mr. John Thomas Smith, in his _Life of Nollekens_, informs us that when Mr. Roubiliac had to mend an antique, he 'would mix Gloucester cheese with his plaster, adding the grounds of porter, and the yolk of an egg: which mixture when dry forms a very hard cement.' Walpole states that the artist had little business until Sir Edward Walpole (Sir Robert's second son: Horace was the third) recommended him to execute half the busts in Trinity College, Dublin; but the date of this act of patronage is not supplied. A story attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and set forth in his Life by Northcote, relates that Roubiliac first secured the patronage of Sir Edward Walpole by picking up and restoring a pocket-book he had dropped at Vauxhall, containing bank-notes and other papers of value. The artist declined to receive any reward for this service, although ultimately he was persuaded to accept the annual present of a fat buck, as a testimony of gratitude and regard; further, he became the object of Sir Edward's constant patronage. Horace Walpole says nothing of this story; but the brothers, it was well known, were not friends, seldom if ever met, and probably were not closely informed of each other's proceedings. In a letter written in 1745 to his friend George Montagu, Horace Walpole gives an amusing description of the patron of Roubiliac, and, incidentally, reveals the not very brotherly terms subsisting between himself and the knight: 'You propose making a visit to Englefield Green' [where Sir Edward lived], 'and ask me if I think it right? Extremely so. I have heard it is a very pretty place. You love a jaunt--have a pretty chaise, I believe, and I dare swear, very easy; in all probability you will have a fine evening; and added to all this, the gentleman' [Sir E.W.] 'you would go to see is very agreeable and good-humoured,... plays extremely well on the bass-viol, and has generally other people with him.... He is perfectly master of all the quarrels that have been fashionably on foot about Handel, and can give you a very perfect account of all the modern rival painters.... In short, I can think of no reason in the world against your going there but one: _do you know his youngest brother?_? If you happen to be so unlucky, I can't flatter you so far as to advise you to make him a visit: for there is nothing in the world the Baron of Englefield has such an aversion for as for his brother!' It was probably some years before this that Roubiliac had obtained employment from Mr. Jonathan Tyers, who in 1732 had become the proprietor of Vauxhall Gardens. The 'New Spring Gardens at Fox Hall' had in the previous century been a resort of Mr. Samuel Pepys, who has left on record his approval of the place. 'It is very pleasant and cheap going thither,' he writes in 1667, 'for a man may go to spend what he will or nothing, as all one. But to hear the nightingale and the birds, and here fiddles and there a harp, and here a Jew's-trump and here laughing, and there fine people walking, is mighty divertising.' Since the Pepys period, however, the gardens had fallen into disrepute; had indeed been closed during many seasons. Mr. Tyers took the place in hand, bent upon restoring its fame and fashion. He erected an orchestra, with an organ, engaged the best singers and musicians of the day, built alcoves for the company, and secured paintings by Messrs. Hayman and Hogarth for the further embellishment of the gardens. Then he discussed with his friend, Mr. Cheere, as to adding works of statuary. Mr. Cheere dealt largely in painted leaden figures, then much employed in 'the art of creating landscape.' He was 'the man at Hyde Park Corner' of whom Lord Ogleby in the comedy[4] makes mention when he says: 'Great improvements, indeed, Mr. Sterling! Wonderful improvements! The four Seasons in lead, the flying Mercury, and the basin with Neptune in the middle, are in the very extreme of fine taste. You have as many rich figures as the man at Hyde Park Corner!' Mr. Cheere advised Mr. Tyers to set up a statue of Handel. There was some difficulty about the expense. But Mr. Cheere introduced a clever artist, a Frenchman, content to work upon very moderate terms. This was, of course, Louis Francis Roubiliac; who accordingly produced his statue of Handel: greatly to the admiration of the _habitués_ of Vauxhall. It stood, in 1744, on the south side of the gardens, under an enclosed lofty arch, surmounted by a figure playing on the violoncello, attended by two boys; it was then screened from the weather by a curtain, which was drawn up when the visitors arrived. Mr. Tyers's plans were crowned with success. Fashion was enthusiastic on the subject of Vauxhall. Royalty patronized; the nobility protected and promoted; and the general public crowded Mr. Tyers's handsome pleasure-grounds. The ladies promenaded in their hoops, sacques, and caps, as they appeared in their own drawing-rooms: the beaux of the period were in attendance, with swords and powdered bag-wigs, their three-cornered hats under their arms. Read Walpole's account (in another letter to George Montagu) of his visit in 1750. He accompanied Lady Caroline Petersham and little Miss Ashe--or 'the Pollard Ashe,' as it pleases him to describe her. The ladies had just put on their last layer of rouge, 'and looked as handsome as crimson could make them.' They proceed in a barge, a boat of French horns attending, and little Miss Ashe singing. Parading some time up the river they at last debark at Vauxhall, and there pick up Lord Granby, 'arrived very drunk from Jenny's Whim'--a tavern at Chelsea frequented by his lordship and other gentlemen of fashion. Assembled in their supper-box, Lady Caroline, 'looking gloriously jolly and handsome,' minces seven chickens in a china dish (Lord Orford, Horace's brother, assisting), and stews them over a lamp, with three pats of butter and a flagon of water, stirring, and rattling, and laughing: the company expecting the dish to fly about their ears every minute. Then Betty, the famous fruit-woman from St. James's Street, is in attendance with hampers of strawberries and cherries, waits upon the guests, and afterwards sits down to her own supper at a side table. The company become, by-and-by, a little boisterous in their merriment, and attract the attention of the other visitors; there is soon quite a concourse round Lady Caroline's box, till Harry Vane fills a bumper and toasts the bystanders, and is proceeding to treat them with still greater freedom. 'It was three o'clock before we got home,' concludes Walpole. Such was a fashionable frolic at Vauxhall under Mr. Tyers's management: when Roubiliac's statue of Handel stood in the midst. [4] 'The Clandestine Marriage.' Vauxhall vanished some ten or a dozen years since. Its latter days were dreary, down-at-heel, and disreputable enough. The statue had departed long previously. 'It was conveyed to the house of Mr. Barrett, at Stockwell,' records Mr. J.T. Smith in 1829, 'and thence to the entrance-hall of the residence of his son, the Rev. Jonathan Tyers Barrett, D.D., of No. 14 Duke Street, Westminster.' Mr. Henry Phillips, in his _Musical and Personal Recollections_ (1864), regrets that when Roubiliac's Handel 'was brought to the hammer, and sold by Mr. Squibb on the 16th March 1832, for two hundred and five guineas, the Sacred Harmonic Society did not purchase it in place of its being bought by Mr. Brown, of University Street.' Nollekens used to value the statue at one thousand guineas. The plaster model became the property of Hudson, the preceptor of Reynolds, who possessed a collection of models at his house at Twickenham. Upon the death of Hudson and the sale of his collection, the model was bought for five pounds by the father of Mr. J.T. Smith, a pupil of Roubiliac's, and it then passed into the possession of Nollekens. When Nollekens's effects were sold, the plaster Handel was knocked down by Mr. Christie to Hamlet, the famous silversmith. Its further history has not been traced. The statue of Handel, the first original work that can, with any certainty, be ascribed to Roubiliac, may be regarded as a fair specimen of the artist's manner. He was of the school of Bernini. He followed the sculptors who infinitely prefer _unrest_ to _repose_ in art. He dearly enjoyed a _tour de force_ in stone. He liked to deal with marble as though it were the most plastic of materials: to twist it this way and that, and rumple and flutter it as though it were merely muslin. To have carved a wig in a gale of wind would have been a task particularly agreeable to this class of artists; they would have done their best to represent each particular hair standing on end. They adored minutiæ: a shoulder-knot of ribbons, the embroidery of a sword-belt, the stitches of a seam, the lace of a cravat, were achievements to be gloried in. And yet, with all this realism in detail, their works are unreal and artificial in general effect; as a glance at any statue by Roubiliac will sufficiently demonstrate. This arises possibly from the artist's fondness for attitude. He seems to have regarded posture-making as a peculiar attribute of genius. His figures are always in a constrained and over-studied pose: twisting about in the throes of giving birth to a great idea: filled with the divine _afflatus_, even to the bursting of their buttonholes and the snapping of their braces. His Handel is in a state of exceeding perturbation: his clothes in staring disorder, his hair floating in the breeze. The intention was to represent the composer in the act of raptured meditation upon music; but, as Allan Cunningham remarks, he looks much more like a man alarmed at an apparition. But then this exaggeration of demeanour was very much the artist's own manner in actual life. The Frenchman has always a sort of innate histrionic faculty: he is for ever, perhaps unconsciously, playing a part. So Roubiliac was himself incessantly acting and attitudinizing, much after the fashion of his statues. He seemed to hold that it was expedient, for the better preventing of mistakes about the matter, that genius should always in such way advertise itself; there was danger lest it should not be believed in if it left off making grimaces and striking attitudes. Perhaps from his own point of view, and in his own time, the artist was right. It was necessary then to do something to arrest the attention of a public apathetic on the subject of art-talent, unless, as Peter Pindar sang, the artist 'had been dead a hundred years.' Possibly, the only way for a man in those days to gain credit as a genius was by affecting eccentricity and unconventionality: taking heed that all his proceedings were as unlike other people's as possible. Thereupon the world argued: geniuses are not as we are; this person is not as we are; therefore he must be a genius. Q.E.D. Consequently, we find Roubiliac--a thin, olive-skinned Frenchman, with strongly-marked, arching eyebrows, mobile features, and small, sharp, dark eyes--liable at all times to fits of abstraction, attacks of inspiration. He will drop his knife and fork while at dinner, sink back in his chair, assume an ecstatic expression: the fit is on him; he must abandon his meal and hurry away at once to lock himself in his studio, and place upon record the superb idea which has so inconveniently visited him. His companions make allowances for him: men of genius are often thus. At other times he is absorbed in meditation upon his art: address him, and he makes no reply, fails to hear. While engaged upon his statue of Handel, he decides that the great musician must have possessed an ear of exceeding symmetry, and searches everywhere for a model. He scrutinizes the ears of all his acquaintances. Suddenly he pounces upon Miss Rich, the daughter of the Covent Garden manager. 'Miss Rich,' he cries, 'I must have your ear for my Handel!' In Westminster Abbey he permits himself to be 'discovered'--to use an appropriate theatrical term--lost in contemplation of the kneeling figure at the north-west corner of Sir Francis Vere's monument. His servant, having thrice delivered a message, without receiving a word in reply, finds his arm suddenly seized, and his master whispering mysteriously in his ear, while he points to the statue: 'Hush! hush! he vill speak presently!' At another time he invites a friend to occupy a spare bed at his house, gives him his candle, and bids him good-night. Presently the friend is heard crying aloud in great excitement and alarm; the bed is already occupied: the dead body of a negress is laid out upon it. 'I beg your pardon,' says the artist, 'I quite forgot poor Mary vas dere. Poor Mary! she die yesterday vid de small-pox. She was my housemaid for five, six years. Come along; I vill find you a bed somevhere else.' All this was but acting up to the idea Mr. Roubiliac had formed of the abstractedness and eccentricity of genius. Serene, sedate Flaxman, who adored the antique, who held that sculpture should be nothing if not calm and classical, was little likely to sympathize with Roubiliac, or to comprehend his close following of Bernini, or indeed to care at all for his productions. 'His thoughts are conceits; his compositions epigrams,' says Flaxman. And then he is astounded that Roubiliac, who, at the ripe age of fifty, accompanied by Hudson the painter, also arrived at a period of life somewhat advanced for study, visited Italy, should presume to return unmoved and unenlightened by what he had seen. 'He was absent from home three months, going and returning,' relates Flaxman, with an air of indignation; 'stayed three days in Rome, and laughed at the sublime remains of ancient sculpture!' Positively laughed! To Flaxman, who was certainly a bigot in regard to the beauties of the antique, if Roubiliac was something of a scoffer in that respect, this seemed flat blasphemy. Yet it was hardly to be expected that Roubiliac, at the height of a successful career, would admit his whole system of art to have been founded on error--would consent humbly to recommence his profession, and forthwith prostrate himself at the feet of ancient sculpture. His admiration for Bernini--whom of course Flaxman cordially detested--was genuine enough. The Italian's florid manner chimed in with his own French, gesticulating, mercurial notions of art. If excess of self-satisfaction prevented him from rendering due homage to the relics of the past--and possibly his early toils as a 'restorer' further tended to blind him to their value--he was careful to pay tribute to the merits of the artist he had selected for his prototype. Hazlitt mentions, on the authority of Northcote, that when Roubiliac, returned from Rome, went to look at his own works in Westminster Abbey, he cried out in his usual vehement way, 'By God! they look like tobacco-pipes compared to Bernini!' And he was not without honest admiration for the production of other artists more nearly of his own time. Whenever he visited the city he was careful to go round by the gates of Bethlehem Hospital, in Moorfields, over which stood Caius Gabriel Cibber's figures of Raving and Melancholy Madness: Colley Cibber's '_brazen_, brainless brothers,' as Pope called them, ignorant, possibly from their having become so begrimed with London smoke, that they were really carved in stone. Roubiliac highly esteemed these statues. Though in idea evidently borrowed from Michael Angelo, they were yet strictly realistic in treatment, and were reputed to be modelled from Oliver Cromwell's giant porter, at one time a patient in the Hospital. When Bethlehem was removed to St. George's Fields the surface of these figures was renovated by Bacon, the sculptor. They are now deposited in the South Kensington Museum. Indeed, what Flaxman intended as a reproach, may sound in modern ears much more like approval. 'He copied vulgar nature with zeal, and some of his figures seem alive.' Roubiliac constantly had recourse to the living forms about him; Flaxman preferred instead to turn to the antique. We hear of Roubiliac's fondness for modelling the arms of Thames watermen and the legs of chair-porters: in each case the particular employment inducing great muscular development of the limbs to be moulded. And this desire for independent study was really creditable to the artist. He sought to arrive at the correctness of the ancients by a pathway of his own: to check, by a distinct reckoning, an individual reference to nature, and, if need was, fearlessly to depart from, what they had registered as the result of their investigations. A more legitimate charge against him was that he was negligent in his choice of forms for imitation; undervalued refinement of idea; took altogether a somewhat mean view of nature, or adulterated it with too large an infusion of the dancing-master. Certainly he was fonder of _fritter_ than of breadth; and his draperies are often meagre in effect from the multiplicity of their folds, and his attempt at rendering _texture_ in marble. This may be noticed in his statue of Sir Isaac Newton, at Cambridge, where an excess of labour, seems expended on the silk mantle of the figure--all the small creases and plaitings of the light material being represented, and the surface highly polished, still further to increase the resemblance. This statue, however, was highly admired by Chantrey,[5] and to it, in his _Prelude_, Wordsworth has dedicated laudatory lines. [5] 'Chantrey esteemed highly the works of Roubiliac; he admired his busts; and thought the statue of Newton at Cambridge of the best character of portrait sculpture. The simplicity of the figure, united with the apparent intelligence and thought in the countenance, he considered as quite satisfactory; and although he generally disliked the imitation of any particular material in drapery, he was reconciled to the college dress of the philosopher. From its perfect arrangement, the imitation is so complete that the person who shows the statue at Cambridge always informs the visitor that it only requires to be black to render it a deception. He was inclined to tolerate anything that displayed ingenuity without violating possibility, yet he could never endure such extraneous and uninteresting matter as the shot, the barrel of powder, and the bent chamber of a piece of artillery in the monument to Lord Shannon, in Walton Church, which, with much to commend in the two figures, has a profusion of objects, and a grey marble background, representing a tent, altogether unnecessary and derogatory to the purity of sculpture. Still Roubiliac was rich in thought and reason, for, in his monument in Westminster Abbey, where he has represented Death as a skeleton, he felt that the thin and meagre bones would be as offensive as impracticable; therefore judiciously involved the greater part of the emblem in a shroud or drapery, adding thereby to his allegory and aiding his art. However hostile this style may be to the simplicity of sculpture, the ability of the artist in the conception and execution deserves high praise. The beadle of Worcester Cathedral informed a friend of Chantrey's, that when the sculptor was in that city he always went to see the monument to Bishop Hurd by Roubiliac, and remained a long time in intent observation of the work, for he thought the artist's power over the material surprising, though he disliked polishing the marble.'-_Recollections of Chantrey_, by George Jones, R.A. The cast taken by Roubiliac from the face of Newton is in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. There is no necessity for running through a list of Roubiliac's works. But his statue of Shakespeare is deserving of a passing notice. It of course fails to satisfy the students of the bard, who delight to pay equal homage to his philosophy as to his poetry. There is nothing of the sage about the work: it is wholly of the _stage_ indeed. It is replete with Roubiliac's established ecstatic super-elegant manner; with a strong tinge of theatricalism, possibly added by Garrick, for whose temple at Hampton the statue was undertaken; who attitudinized in aid, as he imagined, of the sculptor's labours, with a cry of 'Behold the swan of Avon!' and who, it must be said, at all times entertained a very 'footlight' view of the poet. The price paid for the work was three hundred guineas only. Roubiliac was to supply the best marble he could for the money. Unfortunately the block turned out to be much spotted and streaked; the head was especially disfigured with blue stains. 'What!' cried Garrick, 'was Shakespeare marked with mulberries?' It became necessary to sever the head from the shoulders and replace it with one of purer marble. The statue was completed in 1758. Under the terms of Garrick's will, it became, on the death of his widow, the property of the nation, and it now stands in the entrance-hall of the British Museum. After the purists and the exacting have said their worst against the statue, it will yet be found--from the spirit of its execution, its cleverness, and 'go,' to resort to a vulgarism--charming a very large class of uncritical examiners. As Lord Chesterfield said of Roubiliac, 'he was the only statuary of his day; all other artists were mere stone-cutters.' It is very desirable, in estimating his merits, to bear in mind that he stood alone; his rivals, Rysbrach and Scheemakers, he had completely outstripped; and, apart from his following of Bernini, he was clearly an artist of an original and creative kind. What is hard to forgive in him, however, and what indeed has much detracted from his reputation, is the fact that a long list of allegorical monstrosities was in some sort the result of his example. Charmed with certain of his works, and possessed just then by particular memories it deemed deserving of monumental celebration, the nation rushed recklessly to its stone-cutters. The terrible works which blemish and blister the walls of our cathedrals and churches were the consequences. Verrio and Laguerre had long set the fashion of disfiguring ceilings and staircases with their incomprehensible compositions. Roubiliac carved similar parabolic productions in marble and set them up in Westminster Abbey and elsewhere. In these, heathen divinities jostle Christian emblems; Paganism is seen abreast of true religion. In the aisle of a Gothic abbey, John, Duke of Argyle and Greenwich, warrior and orator, expires at the foot of a pyramid, on which History, weeping, writes his deeds, while Minerva (or Britannia) mourns at the side, and Eloquence above, tossing white arms in the air, deplores the loss she has sustained. Here we find Hercules placing the bust of Sir Peter Warren upon a pedestal, while Navigation prepares to crown it with a laurel wreath; a British flag forming the background and a horn of plenty emptying its contents beside an anchor and a cannon. In the monument to Marshal Wade, Time is endeavouring to destroy a pillar adorned with military trophies, which fame as zealously protects. The famous Nightingale memorial represents a husband shielding a dying wife from the attack of Death: a grinning skeleton levelling a javelin as he issues from the opening iron door of a tomb. The admirable execution of these works cannot blind the critic to the utter unfitness and folly of their conception. But Roubiliac's successors far outbid him in absurdity. To a number of people a precedent is always a point of departure--an example to be imitated with violent exaggeration. After our sculptor came a deluge of imbecility. We are then among stone-cutters who shrink from nothing; we are treated then to clouds that look like muffins--to waves that resemble pancakes. Apotheosis becomes preposterous; allegory goes fairly mad. Glancing at certain post-Roubiliac achievements, we long for an earthquake. Nicholas Read, the least competent of his pupils, upon the sculptor's death occupied his studio, advertised himself as successor to Mr. Roubiliac, and, strange to say, was largely employed: the execution of the monuments to Admiral Tyrrell and the Duchess of Northumberland, in Westminster Abbey, being intrusted to him. During his master's life the apprentice had boasted of the great deeds he would do when he had served his time. Roubiliac cried scornfully, in his broken English: 'Ven you do de monument, den de vorld vill see vot von d----d ting you vill make of it!' His words were justified by Read's monument to Admiral Tyrrell: possibly the most execrable work in stone in existence; which is saying a good deal. As Nollekens would often remark of it: 'Read's admiral going to heaven looks for all the world as though he were hanging from a gallows with a rope round his neck.' As Roubiliac's first work was a statue of Handel for Vauxhall Gardens, so his last was a statue of the same great composer for Westminster Abbey. He died on the 11th January 1762, and was buried in St. Martin's Churchyard, 'under the window of the Bell Bagnio.' His funeral was attended by the leading members of the Society of Artists, then meeting at the Academy in Peter's Court, St. Martin's Lane: the room they occupied, it may be noted, having been Roubiliac's first workshop. The artists following the funeral were:--Mr. (afterwards Sir Joshua) Reynolds, Moser, Hogarth, Tyler, Sandby, Hayman, Wilton, Bartolozzi, Cipriani, Payne, Chambers (afterwards Sir William), Serres, Ravenet, the elder Grignon, Meyer, and Hudson; and the dead master's three pupils, John Adkins, Nicholas Read, and Nathaniel Smith. Roubiliac died poor; indeed, seriously in debt. Yet he had married well, it would seem. An old newspaper, under date January 1752, records: 'Married Mr. Roubiliac, the statuary in St. Martin's Lane, to Miss Crossley of Deptford, worth £10,000.' No particulars of his married life have come down to us, however. It is probable that his wife predeceased him. The money was spent in any case. Perhaps she never possessed so much as the world gave her credit for. The sale of his effects, after payment of his funeral expenses, left only about one-and-sixpence in the pound to his creditors. Though constantly employed, the prices he received were small; and a thoroughly conscientious artist, he never spared time or labour upon the commissions he had undertaken. He was not, it is stated, extravagant in his habits; did not waste his means in the support of a pretentious establishment. On the contrary, his method of life was very modest: his tastes were simple enough. Society was not yet prepared to admit the professions to her _salons_; her somewhat costly caresses were reserved for the ingenious of a succeeding generation. Roubiliac was content to live that easy pleasant tavern life favoured by the men of letters and artists of the eighteenth century, and with which Johnson and Boswell have made us so intimately acquainted. A bottle of claret and a game of whist solaced his leisure hours; and these were not numerous: he was constantly to be found in his studio, late at night, hard at work long after his assistants had retired: a vivacious, honest, warm-hearted man, much and justly esteemed by his friends and contemporaries. He was a familiar acquaintance of Goldsmith, who in his Chinese letters speaks of him kindly as 'the little sculptor.' He was fond of music, and Goldsmith would play the flute to him. As Sir John Hawkins records, the sculptor once tricked the poet by pretending to set down the notes on paper as Goldsmith played them. Goldsmith looked over the paper afterwards with seeming great attention, said it was quite correct, and that if he had not seen him do it he never could have believed his friend capable of writing music after him. Roubiliac had jotted down notes at random. Neither had any real knowledge of music, and Goldsmith played entirely by ear. His intimate and fellow-sculptor--a painter also--Adrien Charpentier, executed a characteristic portrait of Roubiliac. He is represented at work upon a small-size model of his Shakespeare. He is touching the eye of the figure with his modelling tool, and the task, one of some delicacy and difficulty, adds to the animation of the operator. His head, where it is not covered by the fanciful loose head-dress affected by poets and artists of the period, is bald: possibly shaven, for the convenience of wig-wearing, after the custom of the time. His dress is disordered, his bosom bare, his wristbands loose. Had Roubiliac carved his own statue in stone, it would probably, in treatment, have closely followed Charpentier's picture. A portrait of Roubiliac, painted by himself, was sold for three-and-sixpence only at the sale of his effects. The prices, indeed, at this sale seem to have been desperately low. There were no antiquities or objects of _virtù_ brought to the hammer: and Mr. Canto was not the auctioneer! A copy by Reynolds of the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare, with seven other pictures, was knocked down for ten shillings only, the father of John Flaxman being the purchaser. Reynolds had painted the picture as a present to his friend, Mr. Roubiliac. It afterwards became the property of Mr. Edmond Malone. THE RISE OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. The famous artists of the Continent almost invariably organize schools of art, converting their studios into miniature academies, surrounding themselves with pupils and disciples who sit at their feet, listen to their teaching, assist them by painting for them the less important portions of their works, adopt their processes, and follow their styles of drawing and colouring. There is something to be said for the system. It is an advantage to the young student to be constantly brought into contact with a real master of the art; to have the opportunity of working under his supervision, and, on the other hand, of watching him at his labours, and of witnessing the birth, growth, and completion of his best pictures. The main objection to the plan is that it may develop merely imitative ability rather than stimulate genuine originality; that it inclines the student to follow too scrupulously a beaten track rather than strike out a fresh pathway for himself. He may reproduce the virtues of his exemplar's art, but he will certainly copy its vices as well. And then the difficult question arises: when is he to assert his independence? At what period in his career is he to cease leaning on his teacher, and to pursue his own devices unaided and alone? He may have tied his leading-strings so tightly about him that liberty of thought and action has become almost impossible to him, and the free use of his limbs, so to speak, has gone from him. It is quite true that the artist should be a student all his life; but then he should be a student of art generally, not of any one professor of art in particular, or he will be simply the pupil of a great master to the end of the chapter, never a great master himself. Objection to a system of instruction that may tend to perpetuate mannerism, to cramp originality, and fetter genius, has of late years led to considerable opposition to art-academies generally, whenever more is contemplated by them than the mere school-teaching of the pupil, and the affording him assistance at the outset of his professional life. Haydon was fond of declaring 'that academies all over Europe were signals of distress thrown out to stop the decay of art,' but that they had failed egregiously, and rather hastened the result they had intended to hinder. Fuseli asserted that 'all schools of painters, whether public or private, supported by patronage or individual contribution, were and are symptoms of art in distress, monuments of public dereliction and decay of taste.' He proceeded afterwards to defend such schools, however, as the asylum of the student, the theatre of his exercises, the repositories of the materials, the archives of art, whose principles their officers were bound to maintain, and for the preservation of which they were responsible to posterity, etc. Dr. Waagen was of opinion that the academic system gave an artificial elevation to mediocrity; that it deadened natural talent, and introduced into the freedom of art an unsalutary degree of authority and interference. The late Horace Vernet entertained similar views, recommending the suppression of the French Academy at Rome. M. Say (the Adam Smith of France) held that all Academies were in truth hostile to the fine arts; and a report of a committee of the English House of Commons (1836) went far in the same direction, venturing to predict the probability 'that the principle of free competition in art as in commerce would ultimately triumph over all artificial institutions,' and that 'governments might at some future period content themselves with holding out prizes or commissions to the different but co-equal societies of artists, and refuse the dangerous gift of pre-eminence to any.' In England the school of the individual great artist upon the continental plan seems to have had no counterpart. Favourite portrait-painters have, now and then, employed a staff of subordinates to paint the draperies, and fill in the backgrounds of their works, but the persons thus employed have been mechanicians rather than artists. Northcote was the pupil of Reynolds, and Harlowe was taught by Lawrence; but in neither case was there much attempt at maintaining a school of manner, as it would be understood out of England. The works of Northcote and Harlowe contain traces of the teaching of their preceptors little more than do the productions of their contemporaries, and they certainly bequeathed no distinct traditions of style to their successors. In England the foundation of a National Academy, or of an institution in any measure manifesting the characteristics of a National Academy, took place long subsequent to the rise of the foreign Academies. And the English Royal Academy, as at present constituted, cannot be said to occupy a position analogous to that of foreign academies. As was expressed in the Report of the Parliamentary Committee of 1836: 'It is not a public national institution like the French Academy, since it lives by exhibition and takes money at the door, yet it possesses many of the privileges of a public body without bearing the direct burthen of public responsibility.' Or, as was succinctly explained by Mr. Westmacott, himself an academician, before the commissioners appointed in 1863 to inquire into the position of the Royal Academy: 'When we wish not to be interfered with we are private, when we want anything of the public we are public;' and then he goes on to say: 'The Academy is distinctly a private institution, and, admitting it is not perfect, doing great public good all for nothing,' _i.e_., without charge. Mr. Westmacott was unconsciously pleading guilty to Haydon's accusation that 'the academicians constituted in truth a private society, which they always put forward when you wish to examine them, and they always proclaim themselves a public society when they want to benefit by any public vote.' For long years the sentiment had prevailed in England that art was no affair of the State, had no sort of interest for the governing power of the country, or indeed for the general public; and it was, of course, left to those persons to whom an Academy of Art was in any way a matter of necessity or importance, to found such an institution for themselves. Certainly the encouragement given to the painter during the first half of the eighteenth century was insignificant enough. He was viewed much as the astrologer or the alchemist; his proceedings, the world argued, were sufficiently foolish and futile, but still harmless; he was not particularly in anybody's way, and therefore it was not worth anybody's while to molest or displace him. But as for patronizing, or valuing, or rewarding him, turning upon him the light of the royal countenance, or cheering him with popular applause, those were quite other matters. King, and Court, and people had vastly different things to think about. He was just suffered, not succoured in any way. He must get on as well as he could, educating, improving, helping himself. As for aid from the State, that was absolutely out of the question. For the benefit of his brother artists and of himself, therefore, Sir Godfrey Kneller, who had lived in happier times, so far as art was concerned--for the Stuarts had some love for poetry and painting, though the Hanoverian sovereigns had not--instituted a private drawing Academy in London in the year 1711. Of this Academy, Vertue, who collected the materials for the 'Anecdotes of Painting,' which Walpole digested and published, was one of the first members, studying there some years; and it was probably of this institution that Hogarth wrote in 1760, describing it as founded by some gentlemen painters of the first rank, who, in imitation of the Academy of France, introduced certain forms and solemnities into their proceedings which were objectionable to several members, and led to divisions and jealousies in the general body. Finally, the president and his followers, finding themselves caricatured and opposed, locked out their opponents and closed the Academy. Sir James Thornhill, who had headed the most important of the parties into which the institution had become divided, and who held the appointment of historical painter to George I., then submitted to the Government of the day a plan for the foundation of a Royal Academy which should encourage and educate the young artists of England. He proposed that a suitable building, with apartments for resident professors, should be erected at the upper end of the King's Mews, Charing Cross. The cost of carrying out this plan was estimated at little more than three thousand pounds; but although Lord Treasurer Halifax gave his support, the Government negatived the proposition, and declined to find the necessary means. Sir James, not altogether daunted by his ill success, determined to do what he could on his own responsibility, and without aid from the Treasury. He opened a Drawing Academy, therefore, at his house in James Street, Covent Garden, on the east side, where, as a writer in 1804 describes the situation, 'the back offices and painting-room abutted upon Langford's (then Cock's) Auction Room in the Piazza,' and gave tickets to all who desired admission. It is to be feared that Sir James's generosity was somewhat abused. Certain it is that dissensions arose in his Academy as in Kneller's; that one Vandrebank headed an opposition party, and at length withdrew with his adherents to found a rival school. According to Hogarth, 'he converted an old meeting-house into an Academy, and introduced a female figure to make it more inviting to subscribers.' But this establishment did not last long, the subscriptions were not forthcoming, and the fittings and furniture of the school were seized for debt. Upon the death of Sir James, in 1734, his Academy was also closed. But a school had now become indispensably necessary to the artists of the day. After a time they forgot their differences, and again united. Hogarth had become possessed of his father-in-law Sir James Thornhill's furniture, which he was willing to lend to an association of artists founding a new school; a subscription was accordingly arranged, and a room 'large enough to admit of thirty or forty persons drawing after a naked figure,' was hired in the house of Mr. Hyde, a painter in Greyhound Court, Arundel Street, Strand. Hogarth, attributing the failure of preceding academies to an assumption of superior authority on the part of members whose subscriptions were of largest amount, proposed that all members should equally contribute to the maintenance of the establishment, and should possess equal rights of voting on all questions relative to its affairs. For many years this academy, which, in 1738, removed to more convenient premises[6] in Peter's Court, St. Martin's Lane, existed in a most satisfactory manner. To this school of Hogarth's, as we may fairly consider it, the majority of the English painters of the reign of George II. and the early part of George III., owed much of their art education. Perhaps the success of the school was due in great part to the discretion and good management of the artist who had been nominated its chief instructor: George Michael Moser, a gold and silver chaser, enameller and modeller, Swiss by birth. Something also it owed to its unpretentious yet practical and utilitarian character. The artists were bound together by mutual convenience; their school, conferring no degrees, aiming at no distinction, was of equal advantage to all. It was strictly a private institution, in no way attracting to itself public notice or asking for aid from the public purse. [6] Roubiliac's first workshop. In 1734 there had been founded in England the Dilettanti Society, composed of noblemen and gentlemen who had travelled abroad, and professed a taste for the fine arts. In 1749, this society found itself rich and influential enough to contemplate the establishment of an academy of art, and even took steps to obtain a site on the south side of Cavendish Square, and to purchase Portland stone for the erection there of a building adapted to the purpose, on the plan of the Temple at Pola. The society then put itself in correspondence with the School of Painters in St. Martin's Lane, asking for co-operation and assistance in the carrying out of the project. The painters, however, according to Sir Robert Strange's account of the transaction, held back: they objected to aid in the formation of an academy of art which was not to be under the absolute rule and government of artists. Thereupon the Dilettanti Society declined to find funds for the foundation of an institute over which, when completed, they were to possess no influence whatever, in the management of which they were to be absolutely without voice; and the negotiation was accordingly brought to an abrupt conclusion. (We may note here that, curiously enough, the Royal Commission of 1863 proposed, in some degree, a reversion to this abortive project, and recommended the introduction of a lay element into the governing body of the present Royal Academy.) The proposal of the Dilettanti Society, though rejected, seems yet, after the lapse of a few years, to have tempted the painters in St. Martin's Lane to enlarge the boundaries of their institution. In 1753 they fancied the time had come when, with the support of the general body of artists in England, an effort might be made to found a national academy. A circular was addressed to all the well-known artists by Francis Milner Newton, the secretary of the school in St. Martin's Lane, calling their attention to a scheme for establishing a public academy of painting, sculpture and architecture, for erecting a suitable building, receiving subscriptions, appointing professors, making regulations for the instruction of students, etc. The circular concluded by requesting attendance at a meeting to be held at the Turk's Head, in Gerard Street, Soho, when the election of thirteen painters, three sculptors, one chaser, two engravers, and two architects, in all twenty-one, for the purposes of the academy, would be proceeded with. But this scheme met with little support, and was abandoned. Its projectors, defeated and ridiculed--the subjects of several caricatures of the period--had to fall back again among their fellow-artists, probably with little advantage to the harmony of the general body. Yet the plan of an academy, though it had met with very inconsiderable encouragement, was not suffered to die out absolutely; somehow the thing took root, and even grew, in a measure, making no very great sign of vitality however. But it produced a pamphlet now and then--found unexpected advocates here and there, dragged on a sickly, invalid sort of existence. In 1755, a committee of artists resumed the idea, but this time they appeared to the sympathies of the general public, proposing to raise an academy as charitable institutions are established, by aid of popular benevolence, and to apply for a charter of incorporation from the Crown, the terms of the charter being formally drawn up, and even published. The prospectus made handsome mention of the pecuniary assistance which had been some time before proffered by the Dilettanti Society; whereupon the society renewed its promise of support, and re-opened negotiations with the committee of artists. But difficulties again arose. Sir Robert Strange, who attended the meetings of the parties, found on the part of the Dilettanti Society 'that generosity and benevolence which are peculiar to true greatness;' but on the side of the majority of the artists, he regretted to observe 'motives apparently limited to their own views and ambition to govern.' Again the negotiation was broken off, the project went to pieces, and now the hope of establishing a national academy in England seemed in its worst plight--hopeless--gone down to zero. In 1757, Hogarth, on the resignation of his brother-in-law, Mr. Thornhill, was appointed, in the sixtieth year of his age, painter to the king. Hogarth, it may be noted, had always opposed the attempt to found an academy. He supported the plan of an art-school, deeming such an institution of practical value to the painter. But he appears to have thought that an academy would only multiply portrait painters, of whom there was quite a sufficiency, would not create a demand for works of real art-value, or improve the taste of patrons in that respect. In 1758, Hogarth's idea of an art-school met with unexpected support in the opening of the Duke of Richmond's Gallery of Casts and Statues at Whitehall. Invitation to students was given by public advertisements. For a time Cipriani gave instruction in the gallery, and it is recorded that the result was a purer taste among British artists in the drawing of the human figure than they had previously displayed. And now help was to come to the plan of an academy from a most unexpected source, in a most accidental way. In the reign of George II., if little was done for art and artists, great interest was displayed in works of public benevolence. From that period dates the rise of very many national hospitals and charitable institutions of various kinds. Among others, the London Foundling Hospital, which was incorporated in 1739, and received especial favour and support from the legislature and the public. To the sympathy with the objects of this charity displayed by the artists, are attributable the first recognition of them by the nation as a community meriting regard and assistance; and ultimately the rise and progress of an Academy of Art in England. In 1740, when Handel came forward to aid the funds of the charity by the performance of his oratorios, Hogarth presented to the governors of the institution his famous portrait of Captain Coram, and designed an emblematical decoration to be placed over the chief entrance of the hospital, then in Hatton Garden. In 1745, the west wing of the present edifice in Guildford Street being completed, other artists followed Hogarth's example, and presented, or promised to present, to the hospital specimens of their art. In 1746, the grateful court of the charity elected its artist-benefactors--Hayman, Hudson, Allan Ramsay, Lambert (the scene-painter), Wilson, Moser, Pine, Hogarth, and Rysbrack (the sculptor), among them--to be governors, with leave to dine at the hospital, at their own expense, on the 5th of November in each year, to commemorate the landing of King William III., and 'to consider what further ornaments might be added to the building without expense to the charity.' For many years the artists availed themselves of this opportunity--met, dined, drank claret and punch, and discussed professional affairs to their hearts' content. The Foundling had become quite a pet charity with Parliament and people. It was assisted by donations from the Crown and grants from Government; while voluntary contributions from the public flowed liberally into its treasury. From 1756 to 1760 nearly 15,000 children were received into the asylum. The open, uninquiring system, still existing on the Continent, then prevailed. A basket hung at the gate, in which to deposit the child, on whose behalf the aid of the institution was to be invoked; a bell was then rung to give notice was forthwith received and provided for. The hospital to the officers of the establishment, and the foundling became the resort and rendezvous of all classes. The public seemed never to weary of watching over and visiting its _protégés_, and the donations of the artists which adorned the walls of the hospital, were greatly admired and talked about, and soon became of themselves a decided source of attraction. The nation began to appreciate the fact that it possessed some really excellent English painters, and the painters made the discovery that there existed a large public interested in them and in their doings, and prepared to give favour and support to an exhibition of works of art. In November 1759, a meeting was held at the Turk's Head, Gerard Street, Soho, which seems to have been a sort of house of call for artists, as well as for literary men,[7] when it was resolved that once in every year, at a place to be appointed by a committee, chosen annually, for carrying the design into execution, there should be held an exhibition of the performances of painters, sculptors, architects, engravers, chasers, seal-cutters, and medallists, the profits to be expended in charity--'towards the support of those artists whose age and infirmities, or other lawful hindrances, prevent them from being any longer candidates for fame;' the charge for admittance to be one shilling each person. A committee of sixteen was chosen, consisting of six painters, two sculptors, two architects, two engravers, one seal-cutter, one chaser, one medallist, and the secretary, to which office Mr. Francis William Newton had been appointed, to carry out the views of the meeting. [7] It was at the Turk's Head that were held the meetings of the famous LITERARY CLUB, founded by Reynolds. Johnson, Burke, Dr. Nugent, Beauclerk, Langton, Goldsmith, Mr. Chamier, and Sir John Hawkins were the other original members. Application was then made to the Society of Arts, which had been established five years previously by Mr. Shipley, of Northampton (brother of the bishop of St. Asaph), to permit the use of its rooms, then in the Strand, opposite Beaufort Buildings, for the purposes of the proposed exhibition. The Society gave its consent, deciding that the period of exhibition should be from the 21st of April to the 8th of May, and only objecting to the proposal that money should be taken at the doors for admission. This objection was removed by admitting the public gratis, and charging sixpence for the catalogue of the works of art on view. Sixty-nine artists sent works to the exhibition. The number of works exhibited was 130. The Society's rooms were crowded to inconvenience; the exhibition was a great success. There was a sale of 6582 catalogues; the proceeds enabling the committee to defray all expenses, to purchase £100 consols, and to retain a small balance in hand. No record was kept of the number of visitors to the exhibition; the purchase of catalogues was not obligatory, so the amount sold is hardly a clue to the number of visitors. Many doubtless dispensed with catalogues altogether, and many borrowed from their friends. But the results of the exhibition satisfied its warmest well-wishers. There was but one drawback to the general satisfaction. The Society of Arts conceived itself at liberty to exhibit among the other works the drawings of certain of its students, whose industry and merit had entitled them to gold medals and other rewards. The untutored public, misled by the talk about prizes, persisted in regarding these juvenile essays as the works judged by the _cognoscenti_ to be the most meritorious of the whole exhibition, and rendered them the homage of extraordinary attention and admiration accordingly. Mature professors of art had to endure the mortification of finding their best productions passed over by the unskilful multitude, and the highest praises awarded to mere beginners. The newspapers of the day--newspapers have never been very learned in art matters--fell into the same delusion, and in their notices of the exhibition, paid attention only to these most over-rated prize-holders. But, altogether, the artists had good cause to be satisfied. They had held the first exhibition of works of art in England, and the exhibition had thoroughly succeeded. They had opened up a new source of profit to themselves in the display of their productions. They had obtained from the general public recognition of themselves and their profession. The Crown might be negligent of them, the State might be apathetic as to affairs of art, aristocratic patrons might be led astray by the _ignis fatuus_ of love of the old masters, by the fashionable tastes for antiquities; but here was 'the million' on the side of its artist compatriots; the voice of the nation had declared itself in favour of the nation's art. Really there seemed at last to be hope, if not something more, for the English painter, and the long-looked-for English academy appeared fairly discernible on the horizon. The decided success of the exhibition in the Strand was yet attended by certain disadvantages. Ill-fortune would probably have closely united the artists; prosperity seems to have divided them--to have engendered among them jealousies and dissensions. The proceeds of the exhibition soon proved a source of encumbrance and difficulty to the exhibitors. Their original intention had been to apply their profits to the relief of distressed painters. But now among a certain party a strong feeling was manifested in favour of devoting the money to the advancement of art. Finally it was resolved that the matter should stand over until the funds should have accumulated to the amount of £500, and that a vote of the majority of artists should then decide the question. Further evidences of disorganization and want of definite aim were to come. While many artists desired to continue relations with the Society of Arts, others regarded the conditions imposed by that Society as vexatious and embarrassing. Particularly they objected to the introduction into their exhibition of the works of the Society's students. They represented further that the exhibition had been 'crowded and incommoded by the intrusion of persons whose stations and educations disqualified them for judging of statuary and painting, and who were made idle and tumultuous by the opportunity of attending a show;' and by way of remedy, proposed that in future the price of the catalogue should be one shilling, and that no person should be admitted without one, but that a catalogue once purchased should serve as a ticket of admission during the season. The Society of Arts, however, distinctly refused assent to these changes. The dispute quickened, waxed warm. Finally a large and distinguished section of the artists, comprising in its ranks the committee of sixteen who had managed the first exhibition, determined to sever their connexion with the Society of Arts, and to assert their independence. They accordingly engaged a room of an auctioneer in Spring Gardens for a display of their works during May 1761. The more timid party still clung to the friendly Society in the Strand, and there held a second exhibition. From the spring of 1761, therefore, there were two exhibitions of works of art in London. The exhibitors in Spring Gardens styled themselves the 'Society of Artists of Great Britain;' the old committee of sixteen being at the head of the affairs of the new society. The designs on their catalogue by Wale and Hogarth demonstrated their intention to devote their revenue to the relief of the distressed. Of the catalogue, rendered attractive by these embellishments, 13,000 copies were sold. No charge was made for admission; but the purchase of a catalogue was made imperative. The catalogue, however, was a ticket of admission for the season. The receipts of the exhibition of 1761 amounted to £650. At the other exhibition in the Strand, to which sixty-five artists contributed, the old system prevailed. Visitors were at liberty to purchase a catalogue or not, as they chose; but a check was placed upon the indiscriminate admission of all classes by requiring from visitors the production of tickets which had been distributed gratuitously by the exhibitors, and were readily obtainable. After defraying all expenses the exhibition produced upwards of £150, which sum was appropriated in benefactions--to the Middlesex Hospital £50, to the British Lying-in Hospital £50, to the Asylum for Female Orphans £50, the small balance remaining after these donations being distributed among distressed artists. In the following year the Strand exhibitors took the first practical measures for founding a provident society for the benefit of British artists by forming themselves into an organized body, with a constitution and rules for their proper government, and assuming the title of 'The Free Society of Artists, Associated for the Relief of the Distressed and Decayed Brethren, their Widows and Children.' The society was to be maintained by the sale of the catalogues of an annual exhibition, or by charging for admission to such exhibition, as a committee of management to be chosen every year should determine; such committee having also power to reject the works sent in that they might deem unworthy of exhibition, and to hang or dispose of accepted works 'without respect to persons.' Every artist who contributed works to the exhibition for five years in succession, intermission by reason of illness or absence from the country not being a disqualification, was to be a perpetual member of the society and entitled to share in its benefits and privileges. In 1763 the institution took legal shape, and was 'enrolled of record in His Majesty's Court of King's Bench,' fifty members signing the roll. Meanwhile the rival association had not been idle. It had increased the number of its committee from sixteen to twenty-four; this committee exercising absolute authority over the affairs of the society. Vacancies in its numbers were filled up by the remaining committee-men, without reference to the society, while it enjoined upon its members that its transactions should be kept a profound secret from the general body of the society. Already a love of rule seems to have gained upon this committee. Its members began to regard themselves in the light of academicians for life--as perpetual governors, rather than officers of the society, removable at its pleasure: an erroneous view of their position which led to much trouble in the sequel. Other changes had taken place--a charge of one shilling was made for admission to the exhibition of 1762, the catalogue being given gratis, and appended to the catalogue appeared an address written on behalf of the society by Dr. Johnson, explaining the objects of the exhibition, the reason for charging for admission to it, and a change that had been determined upon in regard to the appropriation of the society's revenues. 'The purpose of this exhibition,' declared the address, 'is not to enrich the artists, but to advance the art; the eminent are not flattered by preference, nor the obscure insulted with contempt. Whoever hopes to deserve public favour is here invited to display his merit.' When the terms of admission were low, it was stated, the rooms 'were thronged with such multitudes as made access dangerous, and frightened away those whose approbation was most desired.' A curious plan for appropriating the expected profits was then set forth. The works sent in for exhibition were to be reviewed by the committee of management, and a price secretly set on every work and registered by the secretary. At the close of the exhibition the works were to be sold by auction; if they sold for more than the price fixed by the committee, the artists were to receive the increased amount, but if they sold for less, then the deficiency was to be made up to the artists out of the profits of the exhibition. For the most part the pictures at the subsequent sale by auction did not realize the prices set upon them by the committee, and upwards of £120 had to be paid to the artists out of the exhibition funds. Upon the whole, the plan did not work very well. The society's attempt to come between buyer and seller satisfied neither party. After this one experiment, the scheme was abandoned. The society had, however, little reason to complain of want of public support. In 1762 the exhibition produced over £520, and in 1763, £560. In 1764, the receipts rose to £760. But the internal economy of the institution was in a less satisfactory state. Many members expressed discontent at the arbitrary power exercised by the committee--a permanent body, not always recruited from the best sources, for many of the most eminent artists declined to accept office, or were neglectful of their duties as committee-men, so that ultimately there seemed to be danger of the whole government of the society falling into the hands of the least competent, if the most active, of its members. And the society was much in want of a distinct legal status. After all, it was but a private sort of corporation most imperfectly constituted; it was growing rich without its property being regularly secured to it. Enrolment was not regarded as sufficiently answering this object, and it was proposed at a general meeting of the members that the Crown should be solicited to incorporate the society by charter. The committee, content with the existing state of things under which they exercised extreme authority, opposed these projects. However, the general body proved too strong for them; the charter was petitioned for and granted on the 26th of January 1765. In substance it followed the terms of the charter which had been proposed by the artists ten years before, when an attempt had been made to establish an academy 'on general benevolence.' It placed no limit to the number of the society's members, or 'Fellows,' as they were thenceforward to be called; the committee-men being designated 'Directors.' It gave the society arms, a crest, a constitution, power to hold land (not exceeding the yearly value of £1000), to sue and to be sued, etc.; and it authorized the society, every St. Luke's Day, to elect Directors to serve for the ensuing year. In other respects the charter was somewhat indefinite; but it was presumed that under the power to make bye-laws, all points in dispute might be finally dealt with and adjusted. The 'Fellows' were disposed to be conciliatory. They elected the late committee to be the first 'Directors,' under the charter. Everything seemed to promise well. Two hundred and eleven artists signed the roll of the society, promising to the utmost of their power to observe and conform to the statutes and orders, and to promote the honour and interest of the 'Society of Incorporated Artists of Great Britain.' But between the Fellows and the Directors there seems to have been but a hollow truce after all. They were bent upon different plans and objects. The Fellows entertained practical views enough. The only academy of art was still the very inadequate private school in St. Martin's Lane--a distinct institution, a common resort of artists, whether members of a society or not. The Fellows desired out of the funds of their society to found a public academy of a high class, that should be of real value to the profession. The Directors, among whom the architects Chambers and Payne were remarkably active, proposed, on the other hand, 'that the funds should be laid out in the decoration of some edifice adapted to the objects of the institution.' The Fellows declared that in this project the society, as a whole, had no interest; and at a general meeting in March 1767, they carried a resolution 'that it should be referred to the Directors to consider a proper, form for instituting a public academy, and to lay the same before the meeting in September next.' An attempt was then made on the part of the Directors to comply with the terms of this resolution, and yet to reserve the funds of the society for the future carrying out of their own pet scheme. Dalton, an artist of very inconsiderable fame, who held the appointment of librarian to the King, was treasurer to the Incorporated Society, and a leading member of its direction. He had, some time previously, attempted to establish a print warehouse in Pall Mall, but the speculation had signally failed; accordingly the speculator had been left with very expensive premises on his hands. He now conceived that his warehouse might readily be converted into a very respectable academy of arts, and he contrived to obtain the King's encouragement of the plan. Soon, at another general meeting, the Fellows were informed that the King intended to take the fine arts under his special protection, and to institute a public academy under royal patronage. At these good tidings opposition ceased. The resolution passed at the March meeting of the society was at once repealed. Universal satisfaction prevailed; there was great rejoicing among the Fellows at the brilliant prospects dawning upon art and artists. The words 'Royal Academy' were substituted for 'Print Warehouse' over the door of Mr. Dalton's house in Pall Mall. The subscribers to the school in St. Martin's Lane, on the representation of Mr. Moser that they would thenceforward have free access to the Royal Academy, that their school would be thus superseded, and that their furniture would consequently be of no further use to them, were prevailed upon to assign to him their anatomical figures, busts, statues, lamps, and other effects and fittings, which were forthwith removed to Pall Mall. But bitter disappointment was to follow all this hopefulness and satisfaction. It soon appeared that there was no money applicable to the support of the royal establishment. The King had given nothing. The Directors would consent to no outlay from the society's funds. The Royal Academy was to be self-supporting. The artists had in truth gained not at all--were in a somewhat worse position than before. They were required to pay an annual fee of one guinea to an academy in which their comfort and convenience were less studied than in the old school in St. Martin's Lane. For now the disturbing element of non-professional membership was permitted. Any person, not intending to study, was allowed entrance to the academy, on payment of an annual guinea. The discontent of the artists was extreme, and was vehemently expressed. Public interest in the society, however, had meanwhile in no way abated. The exhibition of 1767 produced over eleven hundred pounds. But the dissensions of the Directors and Fellows had become notorious--- arrested general attention, and attracted the comments and censures of the newspapers. The Fellows forthwith determined to effect a change in the composition of the directorate, whose oppression and mismanagement had been, as they judged, so fatal to the interests of the general body. It was proposed that a bye-law should be passed, rendering compulsory the retirement of eight out of the twenty-four Directors every year, and that the retiring Directors should be replaced by other members of the society. But this not unreasonable proposition was strenuously resisted by the Directors, who argued that by the terms of the charter exclusive authority to originate new laws was vested in them absolutely. It was at length determined between the contending parties that the question should be decided by a reference to the opinion of the Attorney-General. The Directors, after much procrastination, drew up and submitted their case. The Attorney-General (Mr. William de Grey, afterwards Lord Walsingham) was of opinion, in answer to the questions put to him, that under the charter the Directors were to make laws, and the general body to approve or reject the same, and that, therefore, the Directors were not bound to take into consideration a resolution of a general meeting in order to form it into a bye-law. But it was suggested that the Directors should consider how far it might be prudent to accept such a resolution, 'since the same majority that resolved might unite in electing Directors of the same opinion with themselves, especially in the case of resolutions that appeared to be reasonable and proper;' the Attorney-General being further of opinion that the proposed bye-law was not in any way inconsistent with the terms of the society's charter. Upon this opinion the Fellows acted. They submitted to the Directors the enactment of a bye-law rendering no more than sixteen of the existing Directors capable of being re-elected for the year ensuing. The Directors were obstinate: they declared that the proposed law would be an attack on the freedom of elections, a dangerous innovation, and an ungrateful return for all the exertions they had made on behalf of the society. At the general meeting following this, held on St. Luke's day, the 18th of October 1768, the struggle terminated: the Fellows, made less moderate by opposition, elected sixteen of their number to fill the places of sixteen old Directors, who were superseded and deposed. Mr. Joshua Kirby was appointed president in the room of Mr. Hayman, who had succeeded to that post on the death of Mr. Lambert in 1765; Mr. Newton and Mr. Dalton were removed from the offices of secretary and treasurer. On the 10th November the eight remaining of the old Directors declared that they could not act with their new colleagues, believing them bent upon measures repugnant to the charter and tending to the destruction of the society; and accordingly they placed their resignations in the hands of Mr. Kirby, the new president. They desired to be understood, however, as not objecting to all the new Directors. On the contrary, they professed to entertain the highest esteem for Mr. Kirby himself and 'some others,' who had been elected to their offices without taking part in any intrigue, and who, as being men of honour and ability in their professions, were extremely proper persons to fill the places they occupied. The conflict was thus brought to a close. The Fellows had delivered their society from the persistent misrule under which it had so long suffered. The price of this emancipation was, in the first place, the loss of all the twenty-four Directors. Further and more important results, however, were to be forthcoming. Meanwhile, brief mention must be made of the transactions of the smaller institution--the Free Society of Artists. Adherence to the Society of Arts, though it brought with it restriction as to charging for admission to the annual exhibitions, and made the sale of catalogues almost its only source of revenue, was yet maintained by the Free Society for four years. But, in 1765, the Free Society no longer availed itself of the premises of the Society of Arts. An independent exhibition was then opened at a large room, hired for the purpose, in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, being part of the warehouse of Mr. Moreing, an upholsterer; and the exhibition of the following year was also held in the same place. In 1767 and 1768 the Society exhibited in two large rooms at the bottom of the Haymarket, Pall Mall. The Society published from time to time statements of its progress. In one of these the growth of the Society, its utility, and purposes, are plainly set forth. Every member afflicted with illness and applying for relief had been assisted with donations of from three, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, up to one hundred guineas. The Society possessed funds applicable to the purposes of benevolence to the amount of £1200. With a continuance of public favour the Society trusted to be able in a few years, not only to provide for its distressed, but 'to found an academy, and to give premiums for the encouragement of every branch in the polite arts.' Up to 1768 one hundred members had signed the Society's roll. The story of the two societies has thus been brought down to 1768. From that year dates the rise of a third society--the Royal Academy of Arts: an institution which has long outlived its rivals, which has indeed fed upon and gained strength from their decay and decease, as at the outset it owed its existence to the success of their previous efforts, and which, in spite of constant opposition and bitterest attack, flourishes still, as though possessed of that longevity which is proverbially the attribute of the threatened. 'The Academy,' said Haydon, 'originated in the very basest intrigue.' Undoubtedly there was intrigue in connexion with its origin, but not necessarily of the 'very basest' character. Some allowance must be made for 'poor human nature.' The contest dividing the Incorporated Society had been a very keen one--had been distinguished by much angry feeling and acrimonious spirit. It was hardly to be supposed that the defeated party, the sixteen expelled Directors and the additional eight who retired in sympathy with the expulsion of their colleagues, would sit down patiently under their defeat: their disgrace as they considered it. They had declined to regard themselves as members of a fluctuating committee, although such was distinctly their legal position, removable at the will of the society. For eight years they had held the reins of power; the supposition that these were to be theirs for life had some excuse, and they argued that their displacement, if in accordance with the letter of the law, was yet contrary to its spirit. It was true a majority was against them; but they found fault with the composition of the majority. There had been, they declared, too indiscriminate an admission of Fellows. Inferior practitioners, troublesome, pragmatical, jealous, anxious for power, had availed themselves of the loose terms of the charter, to creep into the society, and conspire against the legitimate influence of the respectable members. This was the Directors' view of the case. What was now to be their course? Should they submit, serve where they had once ruled, sink into simple Fellows, and thus, as it were, grace the triumph of their foes? Perish the thought! They would found a rival society! It must not be understood that the Directors, as opposed to the Fellows, were wholly without friends in the society. Though outnumbered, they had yet a certain small following; while many held aloof from both parties, ill-pleased at the virulence with which their dissensions had been conducted. Reynolds in particular declined all interference in the contentions which were rending in twain the society. He had long withdrawn himself from the meetings of the Directors, declaring himself no friend to their proceedings, and when he discovered their intention 'to raise up a schism in the arts,' as Sir Robert Strange phrases it, and make a separate exhibition, he declared that he would exhibit with neither body. An exhibition of the works of the ex-Directors in competition with the exhibition of the Fellows would have been fair play enough--a perfectly legitimate and honourable proceeding. It would then have rested with the public to declare which exhibition displayed the greater amount of merit and was the more worthy of their encouragement and support. Further, the attempt on the part of the Directors to obtain the favour of the King for their undertaking was hardly to be blamed. But what was distinctly unjustifiable in their proceedings was their intriguing to secure a monopoly of this favour: to possess themselves exclusively of the royal patronage, to the detriment and ultimate ruin, not merely of the society their own connexion with which had been so violently severed, but of the unoffending and praiseworthy smaller institution--the Free Society. In this matter, however, it must be said, the ex-Directors were not alone to blame. Other patrons of art may exhibit themselves, if they please, as partisans, but a royal patron should not condescend to a position at once so inequitable and so undignified. To this derogation, however, George III., good-humouredly weak or pertinaciously obtuse, suffered himself to be brought. He became the patron of a clique, and even yielded himself as an instrument to be employed for the injury of that clique's antagonists. Whatever had been the faults of the other societies as against the founders of the Royal Academy--and it must be admitted that the Free Society was, perfectly blameless in that respect,--as against the Crown they had done nothing to merit royal displeasure, but, on the contrary, were entitled, with the other enlightened institutions of the country, to count upon the King's encouragement. Some such demon as, whispering in the ear of Visto, bade him 'Have a taste!' had been wheedling George in. The King proclaimed himself a patron of the arts, and then proceeded to assume the airs of a connoisseur. Certainly he did not distinguish himself much in that capacity; his pretensions were not backed by any real learning. He made woeful mistakes. For instance, he never appreciated Reynolds,[8] whose merits one would think were sufficiently patent--needed not a conjurer to perceive them--passing him over to appoint Allan Ramsay serjeant painter, when Hogarth dying vacated that honorary office. He preferred West's works, because they were smoother--and Dance's, because they were cheaper! [8] It has been alleged that the King objected to Reynolds on account of the painter's friendship for Burke and Fox. West was the King's pet painter. Dr. Drummond, Archbishop of York, had obtained for him, in February 1768, the honour of an audience. The artist took with him to the palace a picture, 'Agrippina landing with the Ashes of Germanicus,' which he had executed for the archbishop. The King greatly admired the work, and West forthwith received the royal command to paint 'The Departure of Regulus for Rome.' Later in the year a sketch of the picture was submitted to the King. At this time the newspapers were full of the dissensions of the Incorporated Society. Concerning these the King inquired of West. The artist--one of the eight Directors who had voluntarily quitted the Society after the ejection of their sixteen colleagues--related to the King the history of the Society's proceedings from the Directors' point of view. Whereupon the King stated 'that he would gladly patronize any association that might be found better calculated to improve the arts.' West returned from the palace full of this royal announcement. He at once put himself in communication with three ex-Directors of the Incorporated Society,--Cotes, a fashionable portrait-painter; Chambers, who had been instructor in architecture to the King when Prince of Wales; and Moser, the gold-chaser and enameller, who had taught the King drawing. These four artists formed themselves into a committee to arrange the plan of an academy. The King, it is stated, took great personal interest in the scheme, and even drew up several laws with his own hand. He expressed great anxiety that the design should be kept a profound secret, lest it should be converted into a vehicle of political influence. The artists did not object to this secrecy; they rather preferred that their plan should, as it were, open fire upon their foes unexpectedly, with the suddenness of a battery promptly unmasked. We now come to the well-known story of the arrival at Windsor Castle of Kirby, the President of the Incorporated Society, at a time when the King is inspecting West's completed picture of, 'Regulus.' Kirby joins in the general admiration of the work; he turns to West, and trusts that it is the artist's intention to exhibit the picture. West replies that the question of exhibition must rest with his Majesty, for whom the picture has been painted. 'Assuredly,' says the King, 'I shall be happy to let the work be shown to the public.' 'Then, Mr. West, you will send it to my exhibition,' adds the President of the Incorporated Society. 'No!' his Majesty interposes, 'it must go to _my_ exhibition--_to the Royal Academy_!' Mr. Kirby is thunderstruck,--the battery had been unmasked. Profoundly humiliated he at once retires from the royal presence, not to survive the shock very long, says the story. However, he lived to 1774. Mr. Kirby was a landscape painter of repute in his day. Author of a work on perspective, and the friend of Gainsborough, he had risen from quite humble life to a position of some eminence, entirely by his own exertions. It was admitted that he had attained the post of President of the Incorporated Society without intrigue on his part, and that both by reason of his professional skill and his private worth, he was entitled to the respect alike of the friends and foes of that institution. The King condescended to play an ignoble part when he took pains to mortify and distress so honest a gentleman. Rival artists might conspire against the Society from which they had seceded, and seek to mine its position; but his Majesty stooped very low when he lent his royal hand to the firing of the train. However, he had thrown himself heart and soul into the project for founding a new society--the Royal Academy. So that he reared that edifice, he seemed to care little how he might sully his fingers in the process. In this, as in some other occurrences in the course of his reign, he demonstrated sufficiently that he could on occasion be obstinate and fatuous, wanting both in discrimination and in dignity. After the scene at Windsor Castle, in which poor Mr. Kirby had been demolished, a meeting was held at the house of Wilton, the sculptor, of some thirty artists, including, of course, the twenty-four ex-Directors of the Incorporated Society, to hear Chambers, the architect, read the proposed academy's code of laws which had been prepared under the immediate inspection of the King, and to nominate the officers of the institution. Some uneasiness had been felt during the day as to whether Reynolds would or not join the academy. He had hitherto abstained from all part in the proceedings; but that he should be the first president had been decided by the King in consultation with the other conspirators. Penny, the portrait-painter, had visited Reynolds to sound him on the subject, but found him obdurate. West was then deputed to wait upon the greatest English painter, and to leave no means untried in the way of persuading him to join the new association. For a time Reynolds was cold and coy enough, but influenced at last by the allurement of probable knighthood, or the force of other arguments, he permitted himself to be carried in West's coach to the meeting at Wilton's. He was at once declared president; Chambers being appointed treasurer, Newton secretary, Moser keeper, Penny professor of painting, and Dr. William Hunter professor of anatomy. Reynolds, however, deferred his acceptance of the post of president until he had consulted his friends Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke upon the subject, and it was not until a fortnight after his election that he finally consented to fill the proposed office. The first formal meeting of the Royal Academy was held in Pall Mall on the 14th December 1768. Mr. Chambers read a report to the artists assembled, relating the steps that had been taken to found the Academy. No allusion was made in this report to the secret negotiations and consultations with the King; but it was set forth that on the previous 28th November, Messrs. Chambers, Cotes, Moser, and West had had the honour of presenting a memorial to the Crown, signed by twenty-two artists, soliciting the royal assistance and protection in establishing a new society for promoting the arts of design. The objects of the society were stated to be 'the establishing a well-regulated school or academy of design, for the use of students in the arts, and an annual exhibition, open to all artists of distinguished merit, where they may offer their performances to public inspection, and acquire that degree of reputation and encouragement which they shall be deemed to deserve.' 'We apprehend,' the memorialists had proceeded, 'that the profits arising from the last of these institutions will fully answer all the expenses of the first: we even flatter ourselves they will be more than necessary for that purpose, and that we shall be enabled annually to distribute somewhat in useful charities. Your Majesty's avowed patronage and protection is therefore all that we at present humbly sue for; but should we be disappointed in our expectations, and find that the profits of the society are insufficient to defray its expenses, we humbly hope that your Majesty will not deem that expense ill-applied which may be found necessary to support so useful an institution.' This memorial, so the report went on to state, the King had received very graciously: saying that he considered the culture of the arts as a national concern, and that the memorialists might depend upon his patronage and assistance in carrying their plan into execution; further, he desired that a fuller statement in writing of their intentions might be laid before him. Accordingly, Mr. Chambers had drawn up a sketch of his plan, and, having obtained its approval by as many artists as the shortness of time would allow, had submitted it to the King, who, on the 10th of December 1768, signified his approbation, ordered that the plan should be carried into execution, and with his own hand signed Mr. Chambers's plan--'the Instrument,' as it was then, and has ever since been called. Mr. Chambers then read the Instrument to the meeting, after which the artists present signed an obligation or declaration, promising to observe all the laws and regulations contained in the Instrument, and all future laws that might be made for the better government of the society, and to employ their utmost endeavours to promote the honour and interest of the establishment, so long as they should continue members thereof. The Academy thus obtained its constitution, and assumed such form of legal existence as it has ever possessed. The Instrument is simply a document on parchment, signed by the King, but unsealed and unattested. It recites that sundry eminent professors of painting, sculpture, and architecture had solicited the King's patronage and assistance in establishing a society for promoting the arts of design, and that the utility of the plan had been fully and clearly demonstrated. Therefore the King, being desirous of encouraging every useful undertaking, did thereby institute and establish the said Society under the name of the 'Royal Academy of Arts in London,' graciously declaring himself the patron, protector, and supporter thereof, and commanding it should be established under the forms and regulations thereinafter set forth, which had been humbly laid before his Majesty, and had received his royal assent and approbation. The rules declared that the Academy should consist of forty members only, who should be called Academicians; they were to be at the time of their admission painters, sculptors, or architects of reputation in their professions, of high moral character, not under twenty-five years of age, resident in Great Britain, and not members of any other society of artists established in London. Under this rule, it will be noted, that engravers could not aspire to the honours of the Academy. Sir Robert Strange regarded this as a direct affront to the members of his profession, and attributed it to his well-known attachment to the Incorporated Society and hostility to the designs of the ex-Directors of that body. The provision that members of other societies were to be disqualified from becoming members of the Academy, was of course aimed at the rival institutions, and undoubtedly a severe restriction upon the general body of artists. Of the forty members who were to constitute the Academy, the Instrument named thirty-six only; a circumstance which justified suspicion that the leaders in the enterprise had so small a following that they could not muster in sufficient force to complete the prescribed number of original members: or they may have purposely left vacancies to be supplied as artists of eminence were detached from the rival societies or otherwise became eligible. Among the thirty-six,[9] while many artists of fame appear, it must also be said that many very obscure persons figure, whose names, but for their registry upon the list of original Academicians, would probably never have been known to posterity in any way. Nearly a third of the number are foreigners. There are two ladies, Mesdames Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser, the first and last female Academicians. Then there are coach, and even sign-painters, a medallist, and an engraver--Bartolozzi, whose nomination was in direct contravention of the Academy's constitution and an additional injustice to Sir Robert Strange. The originators of the plan must surely have felt that they were marching through Coventry with rather a ragged regiment at their heels. The number of reputable names missing from their list was remarkable: Allan Ramsay, serjeant-painter to the King; Hudson, Reynolds's preceptor, and Romney, his rival; Scott, the marine painter; Pine, the portrait painter; and the engravers Strange, Grignon, and Woollett; beside such artists as Edward Edwards, Joseph Farington, Ozias Humphrey, John Mortimer, Robert Smirke, Francis Wheatleigh, and many others (members of the Incorporated Society for the most part), who, though ultimately connected with the Academy, had no share in its foundation. [9] The thirty-six members nominated by the Instrument were:--Joshua Reynolds, Benjamin West, Thomas Sandby (architect), Francis Cotes (portrait painter), John Baker (coach panel painter), Mason Chamberlin (portrait painter), John Gwyn (architect), Thomas Gainsborough, J. Baptist Cipriani (Italian), Jeremiah Meyer (German, miniature painter), Francis Milner Newton (portrait painter), Paul Sandby (water-colour painter and engraver), Francesco Bartolozzi (Italian, engraver), Charles Catton (coach panel painter), Nathaniel Hone (portrait painter), William Tyre (architect), Nathaniel Dance (portrait painter), Richard Wilson, G. Michael Moser (Swiss, gold-chaser and enameller), Samuel Wale (sign painter and book illustrator), Peter Toms (portrait and heraldic painter), Angelica Kauffman (Swiss), Richard Yeo (sculptor of medallions, engraver to the Mint), Mary Moser (Swiss, flower painter), William Chambers (architect), Joseph Wilton (sculptor), George Barrett (landscape painter), Edward Penny (portrait painter chiefly), Agostino Carlini (Italian, sculptor), Francis Hayman, Dominic Serres (French, landscape painter), John Richards (landscape painter), Francesco Zucarelli (Italian, landscape painter), George Dance (architect), William Hoare (historical and portrait painter, father of Prince Hoare), and Johan Zoffany (German, historical and portrait painter). The number of forty was not completed until 1772, when were added Edward Burch (gem sculptor and wax modeller), Richard Cosway (miniature painter), Joseph Nollekens (sculptor), and James Barry (historical painter). Seven of the original thirty-six Academicians do not appear on the roll of the Incorporated Society in 1766, viz., Baker, Cipriani, Toms, A. Kauffman, M. Moser, Penny, and Hoare. Having named the original members, the Instrument proceeded to lay down rules for the further government of the institution; to prescribe the manner of electing future members, a council, and president, a secretary and keeper (the treasurer was to be nominated by his Majesty, 'as the King is graciously pleased to pay all deficiencies'), the appointment of different professors, the establishment of schools, a library for the free use of students, and of an annual exhibition of works of art to be 'open to all artists of distinguished merit.' New laws and regulations were to be framed from time to time, but to have no force until 'ratified by the consent of the general assembly and the approbation of the King.' At the end of the Instrument the King wrote, 'I approve of this plan; let it be put in execution'--adding his signature. This Instrument, with the bye-laws and regulations made upon its authority, cannot be said to possess the characteristics or incidents of a charter, still less of an Act of Parliament, or indeed, to present any very formal or legal basis upon which to found a national society. The Commissioners of 1863, while they recommended the grant of a charter to define satisfactorily the position of the Academy, considered the Instrument as a solemn declaration by the original members of the main objects of their society, to which succeeding members had also practically become parties, and were of opinion that its legal effects would be so regarded in a court of law or equity. It did not appear, however, that the Academy itself was in favour of the objects of its institution being more clearly defined by means of a charter. In 1836, Haydon boldly accused the Academicians that they 'cunningly refused George IV.'s offer of a charter, fearing it would make them responsible "to Parliament and the nation."' The charge would seem to have some truth in it. Certainly the Academy has made no attempt to obtain a precise definition of its position in regard to the crown and the public. The Incorporated Society viewed with natural alarm the rise of a rival institution, favoured in so marked a manner by the patronage of the crown. Sir Robert Strange at once proposed the presentation of a petition, setting forth in plain terms the grievances that would be entailed upon the Society, and upon artists generally, by the illiberal constitution of the Academy and its apprehended monopoly of the royal protection. Sir Robert's proposition was, however, not accepted. A petition of a more cautious nature, from which everything likely to offend had been carefully eliminated, was presented to the King by Mr. Kirby, the president. His Majesty replied to the prayer of the petition, 'that the Society already possessed his Majesty's protection; that he did not mean to encourage one set of men more than another; that, having extended his favour to the Society incorporated by charter, he had also encouraged the new petitioners; that his intention was to patronize the arts; that the Society might rest assured his royal favour should be equally extended to both, and that he should visit the exhibitions as usual.' This reply was gracious enough: but it was not ingenuous. The King was not as good as his word. He _did_ mean 'to encourage one set of men more than another.' He visited the exhibition of the Incorporated Society in 1769 _for the last time_. In the same year he presented the funds of the Society with £100, _his last donation_. Meanwhile his visits to the Royal Academy were constant, his preference for that institution clearly manifested; between 1769 and 1780 he presented to its funds from his privy purse upwards of £5000. The Incorporated Society, shut out from studying in the Royal Academy, determined to open an art-school for themselves and their pupils. Application was made to the Academy for a return of the properties which Mr. Moser had carried away it was now alleged, under false pretences, from the St. Martin's Lane Academy. It was intimated that payment should be made for the chattels in question, or that they should be restored. The Royal Academy, however, took no steps in the matter. Tired of waiting, the Incorporated Society at last fitted up at great expense a new studio for themselves at premises in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, occupied in more modern times by the Cyder Cellars. Early in 1769 the Academy opened its art-schools in Pall Mall; Reynolds presiding, read his first discourse. One grave defect in the Academy's constitution was then in a measure remedied. The art of engraving was recognised: a law was passed, by which not more than six engravers could be admitted as 'associates of the Royal Academy.' In April the first exhibition was held. The number of works exhibited was 136. Among these were four portraits by Reynolds, seven by Cotes (some of them in crayons, in which he was supposed to excel), and three by Gainsborough. West sent two pictures--the 'Regulus,' of which mention has already been made--the firebrand work which brought about indirectly so much mischief and discussion--and a 'Venus lamenting the Death of Adonis.' There were also landscapes by Barrett, Gainsborough, Sandby, Serres, Wilson, and Zucarelli, and 'poetical and historical works by Cipriani, Bartolozzi, and Miss Kauffman. The exhibitors were fifty in number; Mr. Pye, in his 'Patronage of British Art,' divides them into, 'Members of the Royal Academy, 33; non-members, _having no interest in the revenue_, 17.' A glance at recent catalogues will demonstrate the changed proportion now existing between exhibiting members and exhibiting non-members, as compared with the first exhibition of the Royal Academy.[10] By this exhibition a clear profit of nearly £600 was realized. A sum of about £150 was expended in charity; the surplus was applied towards the general expenses of the Academy. These, however, so far exceeded the receipts as to necessitate a grant from the privy purse to the amount of £900. The King and Queen visited the Academy exhibition in May, accompanied by a guard of honour. From this incident arose the practice, still existing, of stationing sentries at the doors of the Academy during the exhibition. [10] 'In the year 1862 there were 1142 works exhibited; of these 146 were the works of academicians, leaving 996 for the non-academicians.'--_Sir Charles Eastlake's Examination before the Royal Academy Commission_, 1863. In addition to a charge of sixpence for the catalogue, visitors were required to pay one shilling for admission to the exhibition. In explanation of this charge, the following curious advertisement preceded the list of pictures: 'As the present exhibition is a part of the institution of an academy _supported by royal munificence_, the public may naturally expect the liberty of being admitted without any expense. The Academicians, therefore, think it necessary to declare that this was very much their desire, but they have not been able to suggest any other means than that of receiving money for admittance to prevent the rooms being filled by improper persons, to the entire exclusion of those for whom the exhibition is apparently intended.' This advertisement, which was repeated in the Academy catalogue of 1780, would seem at the first sight to suggest that the Academicians had failed to comprehend their exact position. Or had the King in his enthusiasm for their cause led them to believe that he intended to defray their expenses wholly from the privy purse without aid from the public? However this may be, it has long been understood that the amounts taken at the doors of the exhibition for admission, and the sales of catalogues, form the real support of the Academy. A gross income of at least £10,000 is thus produced, half of which amount, as clear profit, the Academy is enabled every year to add to its ever increasing store of wealth.[11] [11] Out of its accumulated riches the Academy has defrayed, the cost of its new Galleries in Burlington Gardens, first opened in 1869. Concerning the destinies of the rival institutions but brief mention must suffice. Their downfall dates from the rise of the Royal Academy. Still, they died lingering deaths. The Incorporated Society struggled gallantly though vainly against the superior advantages and the royal preference enjoyed by the Academy. In 1772, the Society built the large room, the Lyceum, in the Strand, at an outlay of £7500. But in a year or two the decrease in its revenues compelled it to part with the building at a sacrifice. In 1776, the Society held no exhibition. In 1777 and 1778 it exhibited at a room in Piccadilly, near Air Street. In 1779, it again did not exhibit. In 1780, it appeared once more at its old quarters in Spring Gardens. But its existence now was of a very intermittent kind. In 1781 and 1782 it made no sign. In 1783, and again in 1790, it held exhibitions at the Lyceum. In 1791, it made its farewell appearance in public at the rooms in Spring Gardens. In 1836, Mr. Robert Pollard, the last surviving member of the Society, being then 81, handed over its books, papers, letters, documents, and charter, to the Royal Academy. This was the formal surrender of the Incorporated Society; but in truth the struggle had been decided against it long and long before. The Free Society dragged on its existence, making feeble annual exhibitions until 1779 inclusive; but at that time it had long outlived public notice. In 1769, it had built a room next to Cumberland House, Pall Mall. But this, ill-fortune probably compelled it to surrender, as in 1775 its exhibition was held in St. Alban's Street. The provident, praiseworthy, modest aims of the Free Society ought to have saved it from ruin--ought to have excited public sympathy on its behalf. But this was not to be. The Royal Academy was left master of the field. In the success of the King's exhibition, the older institutions were forgotten and lost. WIDOW HOGARTH AND HER LODGER. On the 26th day of October 1764, died William Hogarth. Very ailing and feeble in body, but still with his heart up and his mind, as ever, alert and vigorous and full of life, he had moved on the day before from his pleasant snug cottage at Chiswick to his town house in Leicester Fields. He turned now and then in his bed uneasily, as he felt the venomous slanders of Wilkes and Churchill still wounding and stinging him like mosquito bites; else was the good little man at peace. 'I have invariably endeavoured to make those about me tolerably happy.' 'My greatest enemy cannot say I ever did an intentional injury.' So he wrote at the close of his life. And there was much love for him in the world--culminating in his own household. His servants all had been years and years in his service; he had painted their portraits and hung these on his walls; there is credit to both master and servants in the fact. After all, a man may, if he chooses, be a hero even to his valet-de-chambre. None could have dreamt the end was so near. It is not known that any doctor was attending him. He had read and answered a letter in the morning; fatigued with the effort, he had retired to bed. He was alone when the fatal attack came on: the 'suffusion of blood among the arteries of the heart.' Starting up, he rang the bell with a violence that broke it in pieces; they had not thought so much strength remained to him. He fell back fainting in the arms of Mary Lewis, his wife's niece; she had lived in his house all her life, and was his confidential assistant in publishing and selling his prints. She supported the poor creature for two hours, and he drew his last breath in her arms. Widow Hogarth wore her deep crape, be sure, with an aching void in her heart, and an acute sense of the painful wrench to her life caused by this bereavement. A fine stately, woman still, though she was now fifty-five. But six years back she had sat for Sigismunda: the dreadful mistake in historical art which poor Hogarth had vainly perpetrated in emulation of Correggio. Something of the beauty of the Jane Thornhill, who thirty years before had stolen away with her lover to be married at the little village church of Paddington, must have yet remained. The interment, as all the world knows, took place in Chiswick Churchyard; a quiet funeral, with more tears than ostrich-plumes, more sorrow than black silk. It was not for some six or seven years after, that the sculptured tomb was erected, and Garrick and Johnson calmly discussed the wording of the epitaph. It is 'no easy thing,' wrote the doctor. Time had something numbed their sense of loss when they sat down to exchange poetical criticism; though habit is overpowering, and it would have taken a good deal, at any time, to have disturbed Johnson from his wonted pose of reviewer; just as the dying sculptor in the story, receiving extreme unction from his priest, found time to complain of the mal-execution of the crucifix held to his lips. 'Pictured morals,' the doctor wrote, 'is a beautiful expression, but _learn_ and _mourn_ cannot stand for rhymes. _Art_ and _Nature_ have been seen together too often. In the first stanza is _feeling_, in the second _feel_. _If thou hast neither_ is quite prose, and prose of the familiar kind,' etc. etc. Hogarth dead and buried, the window shutters re-opened, and heaven's glad light once more permitted to stream into the rooms, the red eyes of the household a little cooled and staunched, came the widow's dreadful task of examining the property of the deceased, of picking up the fragments that remained. How to live? Survivors have often to make that painful inquiry. There was little money in the house. The painter's life had been hard-working enough; the labourer was willing, but the harvest was very scanty. Such a limited art public! such low prices! The six 'Mariage a la Mode' pictures had been sold for one hundred and twenty guineas, including Carlo Maratti frames that had cost the painter four guineas each. The eight 'Rake's Progress' pictures had fetched but twenty-two guineas each. The six 'Harlot's Progress,' fourteen guineas each. The 'Strolling Players' had gone for twenty-six guineas! O purblind connoisseurs! Dullard dillettanti! Still there was something for the widow; not her wedding portion--that seems to have long before melted away. Sir James Thornhill had been forgiving, kind, and generous after a time--two years--and opened to the runaway lovers his heart and his purse. But there was little to show for all that now. There hung on the walls various works by the dead hand. Portraits of the Miss Hogarths, the painter's sisters; they had kept a ready-made clothes shop at Little Britain gate. Portraits of the daughter of Mr. Rich, the comedian; of Sir James and Lady Thornhill; of the six servants; and his own likeness, with his bull-dog and palette; besides these there was the great effort, 'Bill Hogarth's "Sigismunda," not to be sold under £500;' so he had enjoined. Alas! who would give it? (At the sale after the widow's death it was knocked down to Alderman Boydell for fifty guineas!) Indeed, it would be very hard to sell all these. And she did not. She clung to the precious relics, till death relaxed her grasp, when the auctioneer's hammer made short work of the painter's remains, even to his maul-stick. But to live? There were seventy-two plates, with the copyright secured to her for twenty years by Act of Parliament. These were hers absolutely under her husband's will. Here at least was subsistence; indeed, the sale of prints from the plates produced, for sometime, a respectable income. And then, too, there was the gold ticket of admission to Vauxhall Gardens (for the admission of six persons, or 'one coach'), presented by the proprietor in his gratitude for the designs of the 'Four Parts of the Day' (copied by Hayman), and the two scenes of 'Evening,' and 'Night,' with representations of Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn. And the house at Chiswick was a possession of Hogarth's. It was not then choked up with buildings, but stood cosy and secluded in its well-stored garden of walnut, mulberry, and apple trees, with the head-stones to the poor fellow's pets--the bullfinch and dog Dick, who died the same year as his master; and a very old mulberry tree stricken by lightning, and only held together by the iron braces made by his directions, perhaps applied with his own hands. How full of memorials of the dead painter! Pen-and-ink sketches on the panels of the wainscoted room on the ground floor: and the painting-room over the stables, with its large window, probably one of _his_ improvements on first taking the house, looking on to the pleasant garden below. Doubtless the widow locked up the painting-room, and kept the key on the ring at her girdle. Years after, Sir Richard Phillips jotted down his memories of Chiswick--how he, a schoolboy then with his eyes just above the pew door, the bells in the old tower chiming for church, watched 'Widow Hogarth and her maiden relative, Richardson, walking up the aisle, draped in their silken sacks, their raised head-dresses, their black calashes, their lace ruffles, and their high crooked canes, preceded by their aged servant Samuel: who after he had wheeled his mistress to church in her Bath-chair, carried the prayer-books up the aisle, and opened and shut the pew.' State and dignity still remained to the widow; and there, up in the organ loft, was the quaint group of choristers Hogarth had so admirably sketched, headed by the Sexton Mortefee, grimacing dreadfully as he leads on his terrible band to discord. A square, ugly church enough, with the great Devonshire pew--a small parlour with the roof off--half blocking up the chancel: a thing to be forgiven _then_, for the lovely Duchess sat there, and the sight of her angel head was surely enough to give new zest to the congregation's prayers and praises. A church such as Hogarth often drew, with its 'three-decker' arrangement of desks: the clerk, the reader, and the preacher, rising one above the other, and, top of all, one of those old-fashioned massive, carved sounding-boards, which gave so queer a Jack-in-the-box aspect to the pulpit, and prompted dreamers in dreary sermons, heedless of George Herbert's counsel that if nothing else, the sermon 'preacheth patience,' to speculate on severing the iron rod that supported the board, letting it fall, and so, by one process shutting up, so to speak, both preacher and preaching. The house in Leicester Fields also remained: the house on the east side of the square, called the 'Golden Head,' with its sign cut by Hogarth himself from pieces of cork glued together, and gilded over. He often took his evening walk in the enclosure in his scarlet roquelaire and cocked hat, now and then, no doubt, casting admiring glances at his gaudy emblem. The Fields were only just merging into the Square. We learn that in 1745, the streets were so thinly built in the neighbourhood, that 'when the heads of the Scottish rebels were placed on Temple Bar, a man stood in Leicester Fields, with a telescope, to give persons a sight of them for a halfpenny a piece.' Just as _we_ are sometimes offered a view of Saturn's rings from Charing Cross! Hogarth's house now forms part of a French Hotel. The lean French cook staggering under the roast beef in the 'Gates of Calais' picture has been amply revenged. The fumes of French ragouts incessantly rise, on the site where the cruel caricature was drawn.[12] [12] The Sablonière Hotel, however, is now (1869) in course of demolition. It is hard to say when the widow's income first began to droop--when the demand for William Hogarth's prints slackened. They circulated largely, but their price was never high. The eight prints of the 'Rake's Progress' could be purchased at Mrs. Hogarth's house, in Leicester Fields, for one guinea; 'Lord Lovat,' 'Beer Street,' and 'Gin Lane,' for a shilling each only, and all the others could be obtained upon like easy terms. It cannot be told when the bill first appeared in Widow Hogarth's window--'Lodgings to Let.' But eight years after Hogarth's death there was certainly a lodger in the house in Leicester Fields--a lodger who could exclaim, 'I also am a painter!' Alexander Runciman was born in Edinburgh in 1736. His father an architect, of course the baby soon began to play with the parental pencils. _That_ is not remarkable--but he evidenced rather more ability than the average baby artist. At twelve he was out in the fields with paints and brushes, filling a sketch-book with crude representations of rocks, clouds, trees, and water. At fourteen he was a student under John Norris, whom it pleased the period to regard as an eminent landscape painter. He was the wildest enthusiast in the studio--and there are generally a good many wild enthusiasts in a studio. 'Other artists,' said one of his comrades, 'talked meat and drink, but Runciman talked landscape!' At nineteen he renounced further tutelage, and started on his own account as a landscape painter. He commenced to exhibit his works. Every one praised, but unfortunately no one purchased. The market seemed to be only for the show, not the sale of goods. The notion prevailed absolutely that art was an absurd luxury, which but very few could afford to indulge in. A middle-class man would have been considered very eccentric and extravagant, who in those days bought a picture, unless it happened to be his own portrait. There was some demand for portrait painting--_that_ paid--especially if you, the painter, were nearly at the head of your profession. Poor Wilson had given up portraiture, and soon found himself painting landscapes, and starving the while. So Runciman also discovered quickly enough--and with characteristic un-reason abandoned landscapes and took to historical art, which, being in much less request even than landscape painting, rather enhanced and quickened his chances of ruin. But somehow he struggled on. At thirty it occurred to him that he had never been to Rome, and that the fact had probably confined his powers and limited his prosperity. He packed up his things--an easy task--and, with a very small purse--that he should have had one at all was a marvel--set out for the south. He was soon, of course, on his knees, in the regular way, doing homage to Raphael and M. Angelo. There are always professional conventionalisms. It was as necessary then for the artist to be rapt and deliriously enthusiastic about his calling as for the lawyer to wear a wig and gown. At Rome he swore friendship with Fuseli. The Scot was the elder, but the Swiss the more learned. They had probably both quite made up their minds about art before they met, and what drew them together was very much the similarity of their opinions. Neither was liable to change of view, let who would be the teacher. Runciman no more took his style from Fuseli, than Fuseli from Runciman, and the unquestionable resemblance between their works was only the natural result of a similarity of idiosyncrasy. They both worked hard together, making painstaking copies of the great masters. 'Runciman I am sure you will like,' Fuseli wrote home, 'he is one of the best of us here.' No doubt Fuseli found him quite a kindred spirit--mad as himself about heroic art--given to like insane ecstasies--like pell-mell execution--like whirling, extravagant drawing--like wild ideas interpreted by a like wild hand, and in a like execrable nankeen and slate tone of colour. Runciman returned in 1771, and proceeding to Edinburgh, arrived just in time to receive the vacant situation of professor of painting to the academy established in Edinburgh College, in the year 1760. The salary was £120 a year. The artist accepted the appointment gleefully, and, had his knowledge and his taste been equal to his enthusiasm, few could have better fulfilled the duties of his office. Soon he began to dream of a series of colossal pictures that should make his name live for ever in the annals of art. The dream took form. There were but two or three men in Scotland who would even hear out the project. Fortunately he lighted on one of these. Sir James Clerk consented to the embellishment of his hall at Penicuik with a series of pictures illustrative of Ossian, by the hand of Runciman. Ossian was the rage--quotations from the blind bard of Morven were in every one's mouth. True, Dr. Samuel Johnson had denounced the whole thing as an imposition 'as gross as ever the world was troubled with.' Dr. Blair wrote in defence, 'Could any man, of modern age, have written such poems?' 'Why yes, sir,' was the answer--'Many men, many women, and many children.' Macpherson wrote offensively and violently to Dr. Samuel, who replied heartily enough--'I received your foolish and impudent letter ...I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian ...I thought your book an imposture. I think so still. Your rage I defy,' etc. etc. What was all this to Runciman? He had no learning--he cared nothing for antiquarianism. He took for granted that Ossian was authentic. Many north of the Tweed looked upon it merely as a national question. Macpherson was a Scotchman, therefore it was the duty of Scotchmen to side with him. His condemners were English, and were jealous, of course, and wrong no doubt. Runciman was hard at work at Penicuik, painting as for his life, while all this discussion was going on, and Macpherson and his friends were striving might and main to produce an ancient manuscript anything like the published poem, and so confute and silence Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, Garrick, and lastly Boswell, who did not even _pair_ with the doctor on the occasion, though the question _did affect_ Scotland. Runciman had sketched out and commenced his twelve great pictures. 1. Ossian singing to Malvina. 2. The valour of Oscar. 3. The Death of Oscar, etc. etc. Who reads Ossian now? Who cares about Agandecca, 'with red eyes of tears'--'with loose and raven locks?' 'Starno pierced her side with steel. She fell like a wreath of snow which slides from the rocks of Ronan.' Who knows anything now about Catholda, and Corban Cargloss, and Golchossa and Cairbar of the gloomy brow? For some time the poems held their own, retained their popularity; their partisans fought with their opponents for every inch of ground, even though discovery was mining them. And some fragments found their way in a fashion to the stage. But a little while ago there was living a ballet-master, who owed his baptismal name to parental success in the grand ballet of 'Oscar and Malvina, or the Cave of Fingal!' But this must have been produced years after Runciman. The poems had merit, and that floated them for a long time; but the leak of falsehood made its way--they sunk at last. And Macpherson? Well, if a poet will be an impostor, he must prepare to be remembered by posterity rather for his fraud than his poetry. He found time to paint some other subjects as well. An 'Ascension' on the ceiling over the altar of the Episcopal chapel in the Cowgate of Edinburgh--a wild and ungraceful work according to Cunningham, speaking of it from recollection, though Runciman thought very highly of it. And he had patrons and critics loud in their applause. In his picture of 'The Princess Nausicaa and her Nymphs surprised at the river side by Ulysses,' one connoisseur detected 'the fine drawing of Julio Romano,' another, 'the deep juicy lustre of Tintoret,' and a third 'a feeling and air altogether the painter's own;' which last is probable. In 1772 he exhibited some pictures in London. At all events, there was no bill in Widow Hogarth's window then, for the lodgings were let, and Alexander Runciman was the lodger. 'She let lodgings for subsistence:' so runs the story. The demand for William Hogarth's prints was still bringing in some income, however. Lord Charlemont wrote to Edmund Malons from Dublin, June 29th, 1781:--'That men of task should wish for good impressions of Hogarth's prints is not at all surprising, as I look upon him to have been in his way, and that too an original way, one of the first of geniuses. Neither am I much surprised at the rage you mention, as I am by experience well acquainted with the collector's madness. Excepting only the scarce portrait, my collection goes no further than those which Mrs. Hogarth has advertised, and even of them a few are wanting, which I wish you would procure for me, viz., _The Cock-Match_, _The Five Orders of Periwigs_, _The Medley_, _The Times_, _Wilkes_, and _The Bruiser_. As my impressions are remarkably good, having been selected for me by Hogarth himself, I should wish to have these the best that can be had; and if Mr. Stevens, who promised me his assistance, should happen to meet with any of these prints of which I am not possessed--I mean such compositions as do honour to the author, as for instance, _The Satire on the Methodists_, _The Masquerade_, etc.--I should be much obliged to him to purchase them for me..... I have no objection to suffering _The Lady's Last Slake_ to be engraved, but, on the contrary, should be happy to do anything which might contribute to add to the reputation of my deceased friend. But then it must be performed in such a manner as to do him honour; for otherwise I should by no means consent. One great difficulty would be to procure a person equal to the making a drawing from it, as the subject is a very difficult one. Hogarth had it for a year with an intention to engrave it, and even went so far as almost to finish the plate, which, as he told me himself, he broke into pieces upon finding that after many trials he could not bring the woman's head to answer his idea, or to resemble the picture.' The lady, let us note, is a portrait of Miss Hester Lynch Salusbury, afterwards Mrs. Thrale and Madame Piozzi. Later his Lordship wrote again:--'I have this moment received a letter from Mrs. Hogarth requesting that if _I should permit any one to make an engraving of 'The Lady's Last Stake,' I would give the preference to a young gentleman who lodged in her house, as by such preference she should be greatly benefited._ On this application I consider it necessary to immediately inform you, as the affection I bore towards her deceased husband, my high regard for his memory, and, indeed, common justice will most certainly prevent me from preferring any one else whatsoever to her in a matter of this nature. At the same time, I must add, that whoever shall make a drawing from my picture must do it in Dublin, as I cannot think of sending it to London. 'Will you, my dear Malone, be so kind in your morning walk as to call on this lady and read to her the above paragraph, as such communication will be the most satisfactory answer I can give to her letter? The same time you will be so kind as to mention the circumstances, and my resolution to the person in whose behalf the postscript in your letter was written. Perhaps matters may be settled amicably between him and Mrs. Hogarth, in which case I have no objection, provided the execution be such as not to disgrace the picture or its author, that the drawing be made in Dublin, and that Mrs. Hogarth be perfectly contented, and shall declare her satisfaction by a certificate in her own handwriting. I know your goodness will pardon all this trouble from,' etc. etc. These letters are extracted from Prior's _Life of Malone_. To the last letter, it is to be noted, Mr. Prior assigns the date of 1787,--surely a misprint for 1781. Etchings by Runciman are extant, and it is clear that Mrs. Hogarth had looked to his executing an engraving of 'The Lady's Last Stake,' possibly by way of settling an account owing to her for his lodgings. The plan fell through, however. It was perhaps not worth Mr. Runciman's while to journey to Dublin to engrave the picture. But twenty years after William Hogarth's death the copyrights had expired--the poor woman's income from this source was clean gone. She was then absolutely 'living by her lodgings;' and it was not until three years more 'that the King interposed with the Royal Academy, and obtained for her an annuity of forty pounds.' Poor Widow Hogarth! Yet she would not sell her William's pictures left in his house! Much of the untamed, unmanageable, heterodox nature of Runciman's art pertained to his life generally. Gay, free-thinking, prankish--with a tendency to late-houred habits that must have often scandalized his landlady--and a talent for conversation rare amongst artists, who, as a rule, express their thoughts better by their brushes than by word of mouth; kind-hearted, sociable, never behind in passing the bottle--no wonder he gathered round him a group of eminent men of his day, most of them with attributes much like his own, who did not flinch from strong outspeaking, who were not shocked by many things. Kames, Monboddo, Hume, and Robertson knocked at the late William Hogarth's door, and paid their respects to Widow Hogarth's lodger. Did _she_ ever stand before his easel and contemplate his works? Doubtless often enough when the painter was out firing off his smart cracker sayings, and making away with his port wine. And what did she think of his art? How different from William's! She could understand _him_ always. There was always nature on _his_ canvas, and meaning and common sense--there was always a story plainly, forcibly told. But Mr. Runciman's meanings were not so clear. What was all the smoke about, and the waving arms, and the distorted features, and the Bedlamite faces, and, oh! the long legs and the flying draperies? Surely draperies never did fly like that--at least William Hogarth never painted them so. And then--really this was too much--he, Alexander Runciman, under that roof had presumed to paint a 'Sigismunda weeping over the heart of Tancred,' with William's treatment of the same great subject actually in the house! To bed, Widow Hogarth, in a rage. Of course Runciman had _his_ opinion about Hogarth and his art, despising both, no doubt, and agreeing with Fuseli in deeming him a caricaturist merely, and his works 'the chronicle of scandal and the history book of the vulgar.' It was so much nobler to portray wild-contortions from Ossian, demoniac nightmares and lower region revelations, than to paint simply the life around they had but to stretch out a hand to grasp. Yet with all their talk, in the humbler merits of colour, expression, and handling, they were miles behind Hogarth. He has been so praised as a satirist, there is a chance of his technical merits as a painter being overlooked. One only of the 'Mariage à la Mode' pictures, for all that is really valuable in art, might be safely backed against all that was ever done by both Fuseli and Runciman put together. Yet they looked upon him as rather a bygone sort of creature--a barbarian blind to poetic art. Could William Hogarth have seen the works of Fuseli and Runciman, he would probably have had something to say about _them_! After a time, Runciman was again back at Penicuik. Perhaps his fervour about his subject had a little cooled, or the incessant discussions in regard to it had disturbed his faith. In fact the Ossian swindle was getting to be, in common phrase, a little blown upon. His health was failing him; his mode of life had never been very careful. He fell ill; he neglected himself. He worked on steadily, but with a palpable failure of heart in the business. He achieved his task. Yet the painting of the great ceiling, to effect which he had to lie on his back in an almost painful position, brought on an illness from which he never fairly recovered. Some time he lingered, growing very pale and wan, and his strength giving way until he could barely crawl about. On the 21st of October 1785, he fell down dead at the door of his lodgings in West Nicolson Street. Four years more of life to Widow Hogarth--still, as ever, true to her husband's memory and herself. Horace Walpole sought to buy forgiveness for his attack on the 'Sigismunda,'--he had called it a 'maudlin fallen virago'--by sending to the widow a copy of his 'Anecdotes;' but she took no heed of him or his gift. Four years more, and then another interment in the Chiswick sepulchre. The widow's earthly sorrows are at an end; and beneath the name of 'William Hogarth, Esq.,' they now engrave on the stone, 'Mistress Jane Hogarth, wife of William Hogarth, Esq. Obiit 13th of November 1789. Ætat. 80 years.' In 1856, on the restoration of the monument, which from the sinking of the earth threatened to fall in pieces, the grave was opened, and there were seen the 'little' coffin of the painter and the larger coffin of his widow. There too was seen, literally, 'the hand' Johnson wrote of in his projected epitaph:-- The hand of him here torpid lies, That drew the essential forms of grace; Here closed in death the attentive eyes, That saw the manners in the face. ALLAN RAMSAY, JUNIOR. Allan Ramsay, the author of the _Gentle Shepherd_,--'the best pastoral that had ever been written,' said Mr. Boswell, whose judgments upon poetry, however, are not final,--Allan Ramsay, the poet, father of Allan Ramsay, principal painter to King George the Third, claimed descent from the noble house of Dalhousie; he was the great-grandson of the laird of Cockpen. His claim was admitted by the contemporary earl, who ever took pride in recognising, as a relative, the 'restorer of Scottish national poetry.' Certainly the poetical branch of the family tree had been in some danger of being lost altogether--the clouds of obscurity had so gathered round it--the sunshine of good fortune had so ceased to play upon it. The laird's descendants appear to have been of the humblest class, dwelling in a poor hamlet on the banks of the Glengoner, a tributary of the Clyde among the hills between Clydesdale and Annandale. The father of the Gentle Shepherd is said to have been a workman in Lord Hopetoun's lead-mines, and the Gentle Shepherd himself, as a child, employed as a washer of ore. Early in the last century he was in Edinburgh, a barber's apprentice. In 1712 he married Christina Ross, daughter of a legal practitioner in that city. In 1729 he had published his comic pastoral, and was then in a bookseller's shop in the Luckenbooths. Here he used to amuse Gay, famous for his Newgate pastoral, with pointing out the chief characters and literati of the city as they met daily in the forenoon at the Cross, according to custom. Here Gay first read the _Gentle Shepherd_, and studied the Scottish dialect, so that, on his return to England, he was able to explain to Pope the peculiar merits of the poem. And the poets, Gay and Ramsay, spent much time and emptied many glasses together at a twopenny alehouse opposite Queensberry House, kept by one Janet Hall, called more frequently Janet Ha'. It was at Edinburgh that Allan Ramsay, junior, was born, the eldest of seven children, in the year 1713. Late in life he was fond of understating his age as people somehow _will_ do: 'I am old enough,' he said once, with the air of making a very frank avowal, 'I am old enough to have been a contemporary of Pope.' Which was not remarkable, considering that Pope did not die until 1744, when Mr. Ramsay must have been thirty-one. He had a natural talent for art. He began to sketch at twelve. But his father was poor, with a large family to support,--it was not possible to afford much of an education to the young artist. He had to develop his abilities as he best could. In 1736, the father wrote of him thus simply and tenderly: 'My son Allan has been pursuing his science since he was a dozen years auld: was with Mr. Hyffidg, in London, for some time about two years ago; has since been painting here like a Raphael; sets out for the seat of the Beast beyond the Alps within a month hence to be away two years. I am sweer' (_i.e._, loath) 'to part with him, but canna stem the 'current which flows from the advice of his patrons and his own inclinations.' This letter was addressed to one John Smybert, also a self-taught artist. He had commenced in Edinburgh as a house-painter, and, growing ambitious, found himself after a time in London, choosing between starvation and the decoration of grand coach-panels in Long Acre factories. In 1728 he settled in Boston, and shares with John Watson, another Scotchman, who had preceded him some years, the honour of founding painting as an art--from a European point of view--in the New World. Those who had hesitated in their patronage of the poet were not disinclined to aid the painter. It is much less difficult a matter to have one's portrait painted than to be able to appreciate a poem. Means were forthcoming to enable the art-student to quit Edinburgh in 1736 for Rome. He remained there during three years, receiving instruction from Francesco Solimena, called also l'Abate Ciccio, and one Imperiali, an artist of less fame. Of both it may be said, however, that they did little enough to stay the downfall of Italian art. On the return of Allan Ramsay, junior, to Scotland, we learn little more of him than that he painted portraits of Duncan Forbes, of his own sister, Miss Janet Ramsay, and Archibald, Duke of Argyle, in his robes as Lord of Session. Finally he removed to London. He was so fortunate as to find many valuable friends. The Earl of Bridgewater was an early patron, followed by Lord Bute, whose powerful position at court enabled him to introduce the painter to the heir-apparent of the crown, Frederick, Prince of Wales. Two portraits of His Royal Highness were commanded--full-length, and one remarkable for being in profile. Still greater fame accrued to him, however, from his portrait of Lord Bute, who was reputed to possess the handsomest leg in England. His lordship was conscious of his advantage, and, during the sitting to Ramsay for his whole-length portrait, engraved by Ryland, was careful to hold up his robes considerably above his right knee, so that his well-formed limbs should be thoroughly well exhibited; while, as though to direct the attention of the spectator, with the forefinger of his right hand he pointed down to his leg, and in this position remained for an hour. The painter availed himself to the full of the opportunity, and humoured the minister to the top of his bent. The picture was a genuine triumph. Reynolds, never popular at court, grew jealous of his rival's success, and alarmed lest it should lead to extraordinary advancement. When the Marquis of Rockingham was posed before Sir Joshua for the full-length picture, engraved by Fisher, the nobleman asked the painter if he had not given a strut to the left leg. 'My lord,' replied Sir Joshua with a smile, 'I wish to show a leg with Ramsay's Lord Bute.' The painter prospered steadily, and, of course, was well abused; for success is apt to bring with it envy and satire. Mr. William Hogarth, who objected strongly to competitors, sought to jest down the advancing Scotchman with a feeble pun about a Ram's eye! Hogarth was very much less clever when he had a pen in his hand than when he was wielding a brush or an etching needle. The Reverend Charles Churchill, very angry with North Britons generally, wrote sneering lines in the _Prophecy of Famine_:-- Thence came the Ramsays, men of worthy note, Of whom one paints as well as t'other wrote. By-and-by these two critics forgot Ramsay, however, they were so busy with each other, bandying abuse and interchanging mud. The court painter heeded little their comments. He was putting money in his purse. There were always sitters in his studio: he had as much work as he could do; while yet he found time for self-cultivation. He must have possessed an active restless mind. He was not content with being merely a clever, hard-working, money-making painter. Even at Rome he had studied other things beside art. As Mr. Fuseli states magniloquently, after his manner, 'he was smit with the love of classic lore, and desired to trace, on dubious vestiges, the haunts of ancient genius and learning.' He made himself a good Latin, French, and Italian scholar; indeed, he is said to have mastered most of the modern European languages, with the exception of Russian. His German he found of no slight service to him in the court of the Guelphs. Later in life he studied Greek, and acquitted himself as a commendable scholar. Artists, less accomplished, were inclined to charge him with being above his business, and more anxious to be accounted a person of taste and learning than to be valued as a painter. Just as Congreve disclaimed the character of a poet, declaring he had written plays but for pastime, and begged he might be considered merely as a gentleman. There was no one to say to Ramsay, however, as Voltaire--nothing, if not literary--said to Congreve, 'If you had been merely a gentleman, I should not have come to see you.' On the contrary, the world in general applauded Ramsay for qualities quite apart from professional merits. 'I love Ramsay,' said Samuel Johnson to his biographer. 'You will not find a man in whose conversation there is more instruction, more information, and more elegance than in Ramsay's.' Perhaps it may be noted that this remark of the Doctor's upon his friend follows curiously close upon his satisfactory comment upon an entertainment at the house of the painter. 'Well, sir, Ramsay gave us a splendid dinner!' 'What I admire in Ramsay,' says Mr. Boswell, 'is his continuing to be so young!' Johnson concedes: 'Why, yes, sir, it is to be admired. I value myself upon this, that there is nothing of the old man in my conversation. I am now sixty-eight, and I have no more of it than at twenty-eight.' And the good Doctor runs on rather garrulously, it must be owned, ending with--'I think myself a very polite man!' It was to Mr. Ramsay's house--No. 67 Harley Street--that Mr. Boswell sent a letter for his friend: 'My dear sir,--I am in great pain with an inflamed foot' (why not have said plainly 'the gout,' Mr. Boswell?) 'and obliged to keep my bed, so I am prevented from having the pleasure to dine at Mr. Ramsay's to-day, which is very hard, and my spirits are sadly sunk. Will you be so friendly as to come and sit an hour with me in the evening?' And it was from Ramsay's house the kind old man despatched his rather stiff reply: 'Mr. Johnson laments the absence of Mr. Boswell, and will come to him.' After dinner the Doctor goes round to the invalid, laid up in General Paoli's house in South Audley Street, and brings with him Sir Joshua Reynolds, whom it is pleasant to find is a frequent guest at his great rival's hospitable board. Ramsay prospers--his reputation increases--he is largely employed, not only in portraiture, but in decorating walls and ceilings. He has a staff of workmen under him. A second time he visits Rome, making a stay of some months; and journeys to Edinburgh, residing there long enough to establish, in 1754, 'The Select Society.' He grows wealthy too. Poor Allan Ramsay, senior, dies much in debt in 1757; the painter takes upon himself his father's liabilities, and pensions his unmarried sister, Janet Ramsay, who survived to 1804. He is possessed, it is said, of an independent fortune to the amount of £40,000; and this before the accession of King George the Third, and his extraordinary patronage of the painter. The office of painter to the crown was one of early date. In 1550 Antonio More was painter to Queen Mary. For his portrait of the Queen sent to Philip of Spain, he was rewarded with one hundred pounds, a gold chain, and a salary of one hundred pounds a quarter as court-painter to their Majesties. There is some obscurity about the appointments of painters to the king during the reign of George the Second. Jervas was succeeded by Kent, who died in 1748. Shackleton succeeded Kent. Yet it is probable that the king had more than one painter at the same time. For we find Hogarth, who is said to have succeeded his brother-in-law, John Thornhill,[13] the son of Sir James, appointed in 1757, while Mr. Shackleton did not die until 1767, when, as Mr. Cunningham relates the story of the London studios, he died of a broken heart on learning that Ramsay was appointed in his stead to be painter to George III. This was certainly about the date of Ramsay's appointment. And now there grew to be quite a rage for portraits by Ramsay--there was a run upon him as though he had been a sinking bank. He was compelled to call in the aid of all sorts of people, painting the heads only of his sitters with his own hand; and at last abandoning even much of that superior work to his favourite pupil, Philip Reinagle. So that in many of Ramsay's pictures there is probably but a very few strokes of Ramsay's brush. The names of certain of his assistants have been recorded. Mrs. Black, 'a lady of less talent than good taste.' Vandyck, a Dutchman, allied more in name than in talent with him of the days of Charles the First. Eikart, a German, clever at draperies. Roth, another German, who aided in the subordinate parts of the work. Vesperis, an Italian, who was employed occasionally to paint fruits and flowers. And Davie Martin, a Scotchman, a favourite draughtsman and helper, and conscientious servant. Mr. Reinagle probably furnished Mr. Cunningham with these particulars. It will be noted that the English artist's employment of foreign mercenaries was considerable. This must have been either from the fact of such assistance being procurable at a cheaper rate, or that the old notion still prevailed as to the necessity of looking abroad for art-talent. [13] Concerning the merits and career of John Thornhill, biography has been curiously silent. Ramsay succeeded at Court. He was made of more yielding materials than Reynolds; assumed more the airs of a courtier--humoured the king. Perhaps like Sir Pertinax he had a theory upon the successful results of 'booing and booing.' He never contradicted; always smiled acquiescence; listened complacently to the most absurd opinions upon art of his royal master. Reynolds was bent upon asserting the dignity of his profession. He did not stoop to conceal his appreciation of the fact that as a painter at any rate he was the sovereign's superior--he _would_ be, to use a popular phrase, 'cock on his own dunghill.' When the painter's friends spoke on the subject to Johnson, he said stoutly 'That the neglect could never prejudice him: but it would reflect _eternal disgrace_ on the king not to have employed Sir Joshua.' But Reynolds received only one royal commission: to paint the king and queen, whole-lengths, for the council-room of the Royal Academy, 'two of the finest portraits in the world,' as Northcote declared. The king, who was an early riser, sat at ten in the morning. The entry in Reynolds' pocket-book is 'Friday, May 21 (1779), at 10--the king.' The queen's name does not occur until December. The king, who was near-sighted, and looked close at a picture, always complained that Reynolds' paintings were rough and unfinished. But Reynolds heeded not. Be sure Ramsay and West were careful to paint smoothly enough after that. Northcote said that the balance of greatness preponderated on the side of the subject, and the king was annoyed at perceiving it; and disliked extremely the ease and independence of manner of Reynolds--always courteous, yet always unembarrassed--proceeding with his likenesses as though he were copying marble statues. 'Do not suppose,' adds his pupil, 'that he was ignorant of the value of royal favour. No. Reynolds had a thorough knowledge of the world; he would have gladly possessed it, but the price would have cost him too much.' The court-painter had soon enough to do, for the king had a habit of presenting portraits of himself and his queen to all his ambassadors and colonial governors. He sat, too, for his coronation portrait, as it was called, in Buckingham Palace. The bland, obsequious, well-informed Ramsay became a great favourite. He always gave way to the king--would have sacrificed his art to his advancement any day. And he was almost the only person about the Court, except the servants, who could speak German, and the queen was especially fond of chatting with him in her native language. Their Majesties soon gave over being dignified. Indeed, few persons were more prone to forget their grandeur, although they did not like anybody else to do so. With his own hands the king would help West to place his pictures in position on the easel. The queen--plain, snuff-taking, her face painted like a mask, and her eyes rolling like an automaton, as eyewitnesses have described her later in life--called on Mrs. Garrick one day at Hampton Court, and found the widow of the Roscius very busy peeling onions for pickling. 'The queen, however, would not suffer her to stir, but commanded a knife to be brought, observing that she would peel an onion with her, and actually sat down in the most condescending manner and peeled onions.' The king, interrupting his sittings to dine off his favourite boiled mutton and turnips, would make Ramsay bring easel and canvas into the dining-room, so that they might continue their conversation during the royal meal. When the king had finished, he would rise and say, 'Now, Ramsay, sit down in my place and take your dinner.' When he was engaged on his first portrait of the queen, it is recorded that all the crown jewels and the regalia were sent to him. The painter observed that jewels and gold of so great a value deserved a guard, and accordingly sentinels were posted day and night in front and rear of his house. His studio was composed of a set of rooms and haylofts in the mews at the back of Harley Street, all thrown into one long gallery. Peter Pindar, in his 'Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians for 1782,' writes:-- 'I've heard that Ramsay when he died, Left just nine rooms well stuffed with Queens and Kings, From whence all nations might have been supplied That longed for valuable things. Viceroys, ambassadors, and plenipos, Bought them to join their raree-shows In foreign parts; And show the progress of the British arts. Whether they purchased by the pound or yard, I cannot tell because I never heard: But this I know--his shop was like a fair, And dealt most largely in this ROYAL WARE. See what it is to gain a monarch's smile, And hast thou missed it, REYNOLDS, all this while? How stupid! Pray thee seek the courtiers' school, And learn to manufacture _oil of fool_.' According to Dr. Walcot, King George the Third sat to Mr. Dance in preference to Reynolds as a matter of economy. Dance charged fifty pounds for a picture. Sir Joshua's price was over a hundred. The king decided upon patronizing the painter whose charge was the lower. Pindar says:-- 'Thank God! that monarchs cannot taste control, And make each subject's poor submissive soul Admire the works that judgment oft cries fie on! Had things been so, poor REYNOLDS we had seen Painting a barber's pole, an ale-house queen, The Cat and Gridiron or the Old Red Lion; At Plympton, perhaps, for some grave Doctor Slop Painting the pots and bottles of the shop; Or in the drama to get meat to munch, His brush divine had pictured scenes for Punch; While WEST was whelping 'midst his paints Moses and Aaron, and all sorts of saints, Adams, and Eves, and snakes, and apples; And devils, for beautifying certain chapels; But REYNOLDS is no favourite, that's the matter, He has not learnt the noble art to flatter.' The doctor was never weary of launching his satirical shafts at the king. It has been suggested, however, that political considerations influenced the direction of the royal patronage. Reynolds was on terms of intimacy with Fox, Burke, and other prominent members of the Opposition. This, in the eyes of the king, was a grave offence, hardly to be pardoned, notwithstanding all the great merits of the offender in other respects. Ramsay kept an open house and a liberal table, but more it would seem for his friends' pleasure than his own; for though fond of delicate eating, and as great a consumer of tea as Doctor Johnson, he had little taste for stronger potations, and we are told that 'even the smell of a bottle of claret was too much for him.' The Doctor entertained different opinions: he spoke with contempt of claret,--'A man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk,' adding, 'Poor stuff! No, sir, claret is the liquor for boys: port for men: but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy!' Most toper sentiments! But Ramsay did not stint his guests. And these were constantly of a noble order. Lord Bute, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Bath, Lord Chesterfield, and the Duke of Richmond were often at the painter's table, discussing all sorts of political questions with him. Every man was a politician in those days; especially after dinner. But Ramsay was not content to be simply a talker upon the topics of the day--he became also a writer. Many clever papers by him upon history, politics, and criticism were published at various times, under the signature 'Investigator,' and were subsequently reprinted and collected into a volume. Upon the question which had agitated London for some months, as to the truth of the charge brought against the gipsy woman Mary Squire, of aiding in the abduction of the servant girl Elizabeth Canning, Ramsay wrote an ingenious pamphlet. The same subject had also employed the pen of no less a person than Henry Fielding. Ramsay corresponded with Voltaire and Rousseau, both of whom he visited. His letters, we are told, were elegant and witty. The painter to the king was a man of society. A third time he visits Rome, accompanied on this occasion by his son, afterwards to rise to distinction in the army. He employed himself, however, more as a savant than an artist--in examining and copying the Greek and Latin inscriptions in the Vatican. The President of the Roman Academy introduced the painter to the School of Art, and was rather pompous about the works of his students. Ramsay's national pride was piqued. 'I will show you,' he said, 'how we draw in England.' He wrote to his Scotch assistant, Davie Martin, to pack up some drawings and journey at once to Rome. On his arrival, Ramsay arranged his drawings, and then invited the President and his scholars to the exhibition. The king's painter was always fond of declaring that it was the proudest moment of his life, 'for,' he said, 'the Italians were confounded and overcome, and British skill triumphant!' Perhaps the Italian account of the transaction, could we obtain it, might not exactly tally with that of the king's painter. Soon Ramsay was again in England resuming his prosperous practice. Then occurred the accident which hindered all further pursuit of his art. Reading an account of a calamitous fire, he was so impressed with the idea of showing his household and pupils the proper mode of effecting their escape, in the event of such an accident befalling his own house, that he ascended with them to the top storey, and pushing a ladder through the loft door, mounted quickly, saying: 'Now I am safe--I can get to the roofs of the adjoining houses.' As he turned to descend he missed his step and fell, dislocating his right arm severely. At this time he was engaged upon the portrait of the king for the Excise-office. With extraordinary courage he managed to finish the picture, working most painfully, and supporting as he best could his right arm with his left. He declared it to be the finest portrait he had ever painted; and his friends echoed his opinion. But it was the last he was ever to put his hand to. His constitution yielded; his spirits left him; his shoulder gave him great pain; his nights were sleepless. The painter to King George III. was evidently sinking. Yet he lingered for some years--a shattered invalid. Again he visited Rome, leaving his pupil Reinagle to complete his long list of royal commissions. Reinagle's style was so admirably imitative of his master's, that it was difficult to distinguish one from the other. The pupil was instructed to complete fifty pairs of kings and queens at ten guineas each! The task seemed endless, and was six years in hand. Midway, wearied to death with the undertaking, Reinagle wrote to complain that the price was not sufficient. Ramsay trebled it; but the pupil was wont to confess afterwards that he looked back with a sort of horror at his labours in connexion with the royal portraits. The court-painter never recovered his lost health. He wrote from Italy to many of his friends--the first men of the day, both in France and England. Then came the home-sickness, which so often precedes dissolution. In the summer of 1784 he set out on his journey to England, hoping to reach it by short and easy stages. He reached Paris with difficulty: the fatigue brought on a low fever he had not the strength to support. He died on the 10th of August, at Dover, in the 71st year of his age. 'Poor Ramsay!' Johnson wrote touchingly to Reynolds. 'On which side soever I turn, mortality presents its formidable frown. I left three old friends at Lichfield when I was last there, and now I found them all dead. I no sooner lost sight of dear Allan than I am told that I shall see him no more! That we must all die, we all know. I wish I had sooner remembered it. Do not think me intrusive or importunate if I now call, dear sir, on you, to remember it!' A handsome, acute, accomplished gentleman, outstripping all the painters of his age in the extent of his learning and the variety of his knowledge--an artist of delicacy and taste, rather than of energy and vigour--pale in colour and placid in expression, yet always graceful and refined--there was a charm about Ramsay's works that his contemporaries thoroughly understood, though they could not always themselves achieve it. Northcote gave a close and clever criticism on the king's painter in this wise:--'Sir Joshua used to say that he was the most sensible among all the painters of his time; but he has left little to show it. His manner was dry and timid. He stopped short in the middle of his work because he knew exactly how much it wanted. Now and then we find hints and sketches, which show what he might have done if his hand had been equal to his conceptions. I have seen a picture of his of the queen soon after she was married--a profile, and slightly done: but it was a paragon of elegance. She had a fan in her hand. Lord, how she held that fan! It was weak in execution and ordinary in features--all I can say of it is, that it was the farthest possible removed from everything like vulgarity. A professor might despise it, but in the mental part I have never seen anything of Vandyke's equal to it. I could have looked at it for ever. I don't know where it is now: but I saw enough in it to convince me that Sir Joshua was right in what he said of Ramsay's great superiority. I should find it difficult to produce anything of Sir Joshua's that conveys an idea of more grace and delicacy. Reynolds would have finished it better; the other was afraid of spoiling what he had done, and so left it a mere outline. He was frightened before he was hurt.' This was high praise of the king's painter, coming as it did from his rival's pupil. GEORGE ROMNEY. 'A curious book might be written on the reputation of painters,' says Mr. Croker in a note to his edition of Boswell; 'Horace Walpole talked at one time of Ramsay as of equal fame with Reynolds; and Hayley dedicated his lyre (such as it was) to Romney. What is a picture of Ramsay or Romney now worth?'[14] [14] The remark has reference to certain odes by Cumberland in honour of Romney, and to Johnson's comment thereupon:--'Why, sir, they would have been thought as good as odes commonly are if Cumberland had not put his name to them; but a name immediately draws censure, unless it be a name that bears down everything before it. Nay, Cumberland has made his odes subsidiary to the fame of another man. They might have run well enough by themselves; but he has not only loaded them with a name--he has made them carry double.' That fortune is inconstant and that reputation is a bubble, it was hardly necessary for Mr. Croker to assure us. Unquestionably the fame of the painter, as of other people, undergoes vicissitudes: varies very much accordingly as it is appraised by contemporaries or posterity. But it may be open to doubt whether the editor of Boswell does not undervalue the artists specified in illustration of his proposition: more especially Romney. That any benefit has accrued to Romney's fame from the unsafe sort of embalmment it has received in the rhymes of such poetasters as Hayley and Cumberland cannot be contended. Even Pope's verse, though it has saved a name from oblivion, has failed to redeem it from contempt. The great poet condescended to sing the praises of Jervas, the pupil of Kneller; but the renown of the painter, Pope's praises notwithstanding, was fleeting enough. We read of Miss Reynolds marvelling at the complete disappearance of Jervas's pictures. 'My dear,' said Sir Joshua, in explanation, 'they are all up in the garrets now.' For just as humble guests resign their places, content with very inferior accommodation, when more distinguished visitors arrive upon the scene, so bad pictures yield to better works of art, and quit the walls of galleries and saloons to take refuge in servants' bedrooms, back attics, and stable lofts; suffering much neglect and contumely in comparison with their former high estate and fortune. If we may assume that Romney's pictures are now but lightly valued, it must be conceded that the time has been when they were very differently estimated. For in his day Romney was the admitted rival of Reynolds, whose pupil and biographer Northcote, an unwilling witness, admitting with reluctance anything to his preceptor's disadvantage, says, expressly:--'Certain it is that Sir Joshua was not much employed in portraits after Romney grew in fashion.' Reynolds, it cannot be doubted, was jealous of Romney, and spoke of him always rather acridly as 'the man in Cavendish Square;' just as Barry was at one time fond of designating Reynolds 'the man in Leicester Fields.' 'There are two factions in art,' said Lord Chancellor Thurlow; 'Romney and Reynolds divide the town; and I am of the Romney faction.' In his own day, indeed, the recognition of the artist was remarkable. Flaxman, the sculptor, maintained him to be 'the first of all our painters for poetic dignity of conception.' 'Between ourselves,' wrote Hayley to Romney's son, 'I think your father as much superior to Reynolds in _genius_ as he was inferior in _worldly wisdom_.' Upon his death three biographies of Romney were given to the world. Cumberland wrote a brief but able memoir. Hayley produced an elaborate life, embellished with engravings and epistles in verse. And the Reverend John Romney published an interesting, if not an impartial, account of his father's career. Yet these works have not prevented the painter's name from gradually losing its hold upon the public memory, nor his pictures from sinking far beneath the valuation originally set upon them. Accident, and the want of a permanent public gallery in which the best achievements of English painters may be stored and studied and admired by their countrymen, have contributed to these results. Upon the great occasions when English pictures have been assembled for exhibition, somehow Romney has been but inadequately represented. In the Fine Art Gallery of the Great Exhibition of 1862 there was but one portrait by Romney to thirty-four examples of Reynolds. In the finer and more complete collection at Manchester, in 1857, there were five Romneys to thirty-eight pictures by Reynolds. Altogether Sir Joshua's memory has been amply avenged for any neglect he endured in his lifetime by reason of the undue ascendancy of Romney. George Romney was born at Beckside, near Dalton, Lancashire, on the 15th December 1734, the son of John Romney, a carpenter and cabinet-maker, who, above his station in taste and knowledge, is alleged to have introduced into the county various improvements in agricultural engineering. Of his union with Ann Simpson, the daughter of a Cumberland yeoman, four sons were born:--William, who died on the eve of his departure to the West Indies, in the employ of a merchant there; James, who rose to the rank of a lieutenant-colonel in the service of the East India Company; Peter, who gave promise of considerable art-talent, but died in his thirty-fourth year; and George, the painter, under mention. Of a sedate and steady disposition, but somewhat dull and 'backward' at his books, George Romney, in his eleventh year, was taken from school, and, until he arrived at twenty-one, was employed in his father's workshop. The lad had manifested skill as a carver in wood; had constructed a violin for himself, and read with deep interest Da Vinci's _Treatise on Painting_, making copies of the engravings. His natural talent soon further developed itself. His father had a business acquaintance with one Mr. Alderman Redman, of Kendal, upholsterer. The Alderman's sister, a Mrs. Gardner, chanced to see some of young Romney's drawings, was struck with their cleverness, and encouraged him to persevere, and to make his first essay in portraiture by taking her likeness. The boy produced a drawing that was much extolled; further evidences of his enthusiasm for art were forthcoming; and eventually John Romney was induced to take his son to Kendal, and apprentice him to an itinerant painter named Christopher Steele, a showy gentleman, who had been in Paris, aped French manners, wore fantastic clothes, and was popularly known as _Count_ Steele--a sort of art-Dulcamara, in fact. Articles of apprenticeship were duly signed, sealed, and delivered between John Romney, cabinet-maker, and George his son, of the one part, and Christopher Steele, painter, of the other part. George Romney was bound for the term of four years, to serve his master faithfully and diligently, to obey his reasonable commands, and keep his secrets; John Romney was to provide his son with 'suitable and necessary clothes, both linen and woollen;' and Christopher Steele, in consideration of twenty-one pounds, covenanted to instruct his apprentice in the art or science of a painter, and to find him meat, drink, washing, and lodging during the said term. Steele was no great artist, though he had studied under Carlo Vanloo, of Paris. He troubled himself little enough as to his pupil's progress, employing him for the most part in grinding colours and in the drudgery of the studio. But George Romney made the best of his opportunities. And he was not unhappy. He had fallen in love with Mary Abbott, one of two sisters living with their widowed mother, in humble circumstances, at Kendal. But soon Steele was bent on quitting Kendal, had made up his mind to move to York, and directed his pupil to prepare to accompany him forthwith. The lovers, of course, were in despair at the thought of their approaching separation. In the end they secured their mutual fidelity by a hasty and private marriage. Reproved for his precipitancy and imprudence, Romney replied that his marriage would surely act as a spur to his application: 'My thoughts being now still and not obstructed by youthful follies, I can practise with more diligence and success than ever.' While at York he zealously devoted himself to his art. His wife, left at Kendal, assisted him with such small sums as she could spare, sending him half a guinea at a time, hidden under the seal of a letter; in return he forwarded to her his own portrait, his first work in oil. After staying nearly a year in York, Steele and his apprentice moved to Lancaster. Meeting with little encouragement there, Steele, always restless and embarrassed, determined to try his fortune in Ireland. The pupil was now very anxious to be quit of his preceptor; he longed to be practising on his own account. He had at different times lent Steele small sums of money, amounting altogether to ten pounds. He now proposed that both debt and articles of apprenticeship should be cancelled--that the release of the debtor should be the consideration for the freedom of the apprentice. Steele consented, and George Romney became his own master. His prices until he went to London were certainly not high: two guineas for a three-quarter portrait and six for a whole figure on a kit-cat canvas. The only way of making this poor tariff remunerative was by extreme rapidity of execution; and few men have ever painted so rapidly as Romney. But this rapid manner has its disadvantages. If habitually persisted in, it in time renders thorough finish impossible to the painter. An absolute necessity in Romney's early life, it became a distinct vice in his after works. To this were in part attributable the crowd of incomplete canvases the painter left behind him at his death, and the characteristic sketchiness traceable even in his most esteemed pictures. At York he disposed of twenty pictures by a lottery, which produced little more than forty pounds. Among these works was a scene from _Tristram Shandy_, upon which he had bestowed some pains; for at York Romney had attracted the notice of Laurence Sterne (whose portrait Steele had painted), and received at his hands marks of attention and friendship. Twenty-seven years old, Romney began to weary of provincial triumphs,--to long for the wider field of exertion and the more enlightened recognition he could only find in the capital. He had toiled early and late to acquire money and skill sufficient for a creditable appearance in town. A son and daughter had been born of his marriage, yet his domestic ties could not bind him to the north, while his ambition was prompting him so urgently to seek certain fame and fortune in the south. He managed to raise a sum of one hundred pounds. Taking fifty for his travelling expenses, he left the balance for the support of his wife and children, and without a single letter of recommendation or introduction, set forth to try his chances alone in London. He was soon obliged to send for twenty pounds more, of the fifty he had left with his wife. He started southward on the 14th of March 1762, in company with two other Kendal gentlemen, on horseback. He stayed a day at Manchester, where he met his old master Count Steele, who warmly greeted his pupil, and rode with the party next day as far as Stockport. After much alarm from highwaymen--for in those days country banks were not, and every traveller was his own purse-bearer--Mr. Romney and his friends arrived safely at the Castle Inn, London, on the 21st March. The painter remained at the inn for a fortnight, until he was able to settle down comfortably in lodgings, in Dove Court, Mansion House. He was soon hard at work upon 'The Death of Rizzio,' adorning his walls with pictures he had brought with him or sent for afterwards from Kendal, such as 'King Lear,' 'Elfrida,' 'The Death of Lefevre,' and a few portraits of friends. The Rizzio picture has been represented as 'a work of extraordinary merit, combining energetic action with strong expression.' Its fate was sad enough; attracting no notice, producing no profit, and at length becoming an incumbrance in the studio, the painter destroyed it with his own hands; or, more probably, cut it up and sold it piecemeal, for one of his biographers mentions having seen certain heads by Romney in which terror was strongly depicted, and which had evidently formed portions of some larger work. In the August following his arrival in town he quitted Dove Court for Bearbinder's Lane. Here he executed several portraits at three guineas each, and painted his 'Death of Wolfe,' to which was awarded a prize of fifty guineas by the Society of Arts. Out of this picture arose much controversy. Adverse critics objected that the work could not with propriety be regarded as an historical composition, because, in point of fact, no historian had yet recorded the event it pretended to represent; Wolfe's death, however glorious and memorable, was too recent to be within the legitimate scope of high art! Further, Mr. Romney's work was condemned as 'a mere coat and waistcoat picture,' and much fault was found with his accurate rendering of the regimentals of the officers and soldiers and the silk stockings of the general. A few years later Benjamin West was greatly praised for his treatment of the same subject; Reynolds, after much deliberation and the statement, in the first instance, of a directly contrary opinion, avowing that the young American's picture would occasion 'a complete revolution in art.' It had been the plan, theretofore, in pictures of historical events of whatever period, to portray the characters engaged in the garb (or no garb) of antiquity; but West had declined, in placing upon his canvas an event of the year 1759, to introduce the costume of classic times; altogether disregarding the dislike of the connoisseurs to cocked hats, cross-belts, laced-coats, and bayonets, and their demands for bows and arrows, helmets, bucklers, and nakedness. But, in truth, West was merely following in the footsteps of George Romney, who had already produced a 'Death of Wolfe' in the correct dress of the period. There were few to laud poor Romney, however. Even the decision which gave him the prize was reversed, and the premium ultimately awarded to Mortimer, who had exhibited at the same time a picture of 'Edward the Confessor seizing the Treasurer of his mother.' Romney was obliged to be content with a gratuity of twenty-five guineas. The painter's friends at once charged Reynolds with an active share in effecting this result; and indeed it seems clear that the reversal of the decision was due to his interference. They averred that he was anything but an impartial judge; that he was well aware the 'Death of Wolfe' was the work of a portrait painter; that he could not bear the thought of a rival near his throne, and had laid down the principle 'that it was impossible for two painters in the same department of the art to be long in friendship with each other.' He would not permit an obscure painter from the country to carry off a prize from a student of Mortimer's pretensions. With Mortimer he was on terms of friendship: his fellow-pupil under Hudson, and, above all, no portrait painter. What measure of truth there may have been in these allegations it is now difficult to decide. Thenceforward Reynolds and Romney were certainly enemies. Between the two painters, indeed, there never existed the slightest intercourse of any kind. The curious treatment he had received from the Society of Arts made much stir, however, and brought the young painter friends and patrons. Probably the next best thing to securing the friendship of the future President of the Academy was the reputation of having incurred his enmity. 'The Death of Wolfe' was purchased by Mr. Rowland Stephenson, the banker, who presented it to Governor Varelst, by whom it was placed in the Council-Chamber at Calcutta. Romney moved from the city to the Mews-gate, Charing Cross, probably to be nearer the exhibition in Spring Gardens, and the Artists' Academy in St. Martin's Lane. At this time, it may be noted, Dance and Mortimer were living in Covent Garden, while Hogarth and Reynolds had set up their easels in Leicester Fields. Romney now raised his prices for portraits to five guineas, and saved money sufficient to enable him to pay a long-dreamt-of visit to Paris. He was absent six weeks; and on his return took chambers in Gray's Inn, where he painted several portraits of Members of the legal profession, including Sir Joseph Yates, one of the judges of the Court of the King's Bench. In Gray's Inn, too, he painted his picture of the 'Death of King Edmund,' which, in 1765, obtained a prize of fifty guineas from the Society of Arts. For this work, however, he was unable to find a purchaser. In 1767 his circumstances had so far improved that he felt himself justified in moving to a house in Great Newport Street, within a few doors of Reynolds, where he remained until his visit to Italy, in 1773. Meanwhile his friends were loud in their laudation of the prodigy who, in historical works, they declared, promised to rival the great masters, and in portraiture threatened to wrest the palm from Reynolds himself. He now raised his prices again, charging twelve guineas for a three-quarter portrait, and found no lack of sitters at the increased rate. Whether or not he sought for academic honours is not clear; certain it is they were not conferred upon him: and he invariably chose to send his pictures to the rooms of the Chartered Society, in Spring Gardens, rather than to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy. Artists, in every way his inferiors, were welcomed to the ranks of 'the forty;' but to Romney never were granted even the poorer dignities of associateship. This neglect of him he always ascribed to the sinister influence of Reynolds and his followers, among whom, in this instance, must be numbered Fuseli, who was much given to sneering at Romney as 'a coat and waistcoat painter,' and who, in his edition of _Pilkington_, says, pertly, 'Romney was made for his times, and his times for him.' Allan Cunningham suggests, what is probably true, that Romney was a man likely to take a sort of morbid pleasure in his isolation, and in the odium which would necessarily devolve upon the Academy by its neglect of an artist of his eminence. His name has gone to swell the list of painters of mark who have ventured to defy the influence and opposition of the Academy, and have single-handed fought their way to success notwithstanding. In 1771, through the introduction of Cumberland, Mrs. Yates, the actress, sat to Romney for a picture of the 'Tragic Muse.' Of course, this work was completely eclipsed by Reynolds's 'Tragic Muse,' painted some thirteen years later. Notwithstanding the demerits of the President's picture, the plagiarism of the pose and draperies from Michael Angelo's Joel in the Capella Sistina, the incongruities of the theatrical state-chair in the clouds, the gold lace, plaited hair, imperial tiara and strings of pearls,--still the majestic beauty of his model, her classical features, broad brow, grand form and superb eyes, enabled him to surpass immeasurably the effort of his younger and less favoured rival. Mrs. Yates, though an accomplished actress, was far from possessing the personal gifts of the Kembles' sister. To Romney's studio Cumberland also brought Garrick, with some hope that the great actor might interest himself in favour of the painter. But Garrick was too closely allied with Sir Joshua; he was wilfully blinded to the merits of Romney. He criticised with most impertinent candour the works he found in the studio, pausing before a large family group of portraits and with an affected imitation of the attitude of the chief figure, saying, 'Upon my word, Mr. Romney, this is a very regular, well-ordered family; and this is a very bright-rubbed mahogany table, at which that motherly, good lady is sitting; and this worthy good gentleman in the scarlet waistcoat is doubtless a very excellent subject--to the state, I mean (if all these are his children)--but not for your art, Mr. Romney, if you mean to pursue it with that success which I hope will attend you!' His 'pasteboard Majesty of Drury Lane,' in truth, knew nothing of the painter's art; and from any other than Romney would have incurred, as he well merited, most unceremonious ejection from the studio. He was safe enough with Romney, however, as he probably well knew. The painter, deeply mortified, silently turned the family picture with its face to the wall. He was extremely sensitive: a curious diffidence mingled with his conviction of his own cleverness. He was readily disconcerted: at a laugh, a jest, a few words of satiric criticism, he lost faith in himself, interest in his works; the subject which had promised so much pleasure now seemed to him fruitful only in pain and disappointment; he would seek at once a new occupation, and add another to a growing pile of canvases which the ridicule and captiousness of others, and his own weakness and caprice, had combined to leave for ever incomplete. Perhaps it was by way of balm for the wound he had unwittingly inflicted, by bringing Garrick to the studio, that Cumberland published in the Public Advertiser his verses upon the painters of the day, with especial mention of Romney and his picture of 'Contemplation,' which work, the poet says in a note, 'the few who attended the unfashionable exhibition in Spring Gardens may possibly recollect.' Already the success of the Royal Academy was telling disastrously upon the 'Society of Artists of Great Britain' to which Romney had attached himself. In 1773, our painter, in his thirty-ninth year, and in receipt of an income of some twelve hundred pounds, derived solely from his profession, set sail for Italy, bearing with him letters of introduction from the Dukes of Gloucester and Richmond to the Pope, and accompanied by his close friend, Humphrey, the miniature-painter. His Holiness gave gracious permission to the artist to erect scaffolds in the Vatican, the better to make copies of the Raphaels which decorate the palace. Among the pictures executed during Romney's Italian tour was a portrait of the eccentric Wortley Montagu (Lady Mary's son), who had assumed the manners and attire of a Turk, and who, shortly after his sitting to the painter, died from a bone sticking in his throat. Another work which he brought back with him to England was a daring attempt to represent 'Providence brooding over chaos.' In later years, when Lord George Gordon and his mob were sacking the Roman Catholic chapels throughout London, and plundering the houses of all suspected of sympathy with the Latin Church, Romney became alarmed lest his picture should attract the attention of the rioters, and, regarded by them as an evidence of idolatrous devotion, lead to the destruction of his house and property. The canvas was at once removed out of sight. At the sale of his works, on the death of the painter, his son changed the name of the picture to 'Jupiter Pluvius,' under which more marketable guise it soon found a purchaser. On the 7th of June 1775, Romney arrived again in England: his return being celebrated by glowing strains from Cumberland's ready muse. As Gibbon said of the poetic praises of the painter's friends--'If they did not contribute much to his professional prosperity, they might be justly called an elegant advertisement of his merit.' Sitters of all ranks now crowded to his studio. If his absence from England had done nothing else for him, it had wonderfully enhanced his reputation. But persons of taste and quality were of opinion that his visit to Italy had wrought marvels. They pretended to see a striking improvement, not merely in the mechanical, but also in the mental part of his work; his conceptive powers were found to be strengthened and enriched, and his method of painting benefited beyond measure by his Italian studies; he was no longer cold, and harsh, and heavy; all was now warmth and light, tenderness and beauty. It was at this time that Reynolds began to speak of Romney as 'the man in Cavendish Square.' He had established himself in the spacious mansion which the death of Cotes, the Royal Academician, had left vacant, and which, it may be noted, after the expiry of Romney's tenancy, was occupied by Sir Martin Archer Shee. Not without considerable anxiety, however, did Romney enter upon possession of his new abode. He was seized with an irrepressible misgiving that he was embarking upon a career of far greater expense than his success had warranted, or than the emoluments of his profession would enable him to maintain. 'In his singular constitution,' his biographer Hayley here finds occasion to observe, 'there was so much nervous timidity united to great bodily strength and to enterprising and indefatigable ambition, that he used to tremble, when he walked every morning in his new habitation, with a painful apprehension of not finding business sufficient to support him. These fears were only early flutterings of that hypochondriacal disorder which preyed in secret on his comfort during many years, and which, though apparently subdued by the cheering exhortations of frendship and great professional prosperity, failed not to show itself more formidably when he was exhausted by labour in the decline of life.' His trepidation was quite groundless, however. He had no lack of patrons or employment; the Duke of Richmond gave him generous encouragement and support, sat for his own picture, in profile, and commissioned portraits of Admiral Keppel, Mr. Burke, the Honourable Mrs. Damer, Lord John Cavendish, Lord George Lennox, and others. The painter's income soon sprung up to between three and four thousand a year, produced by portraits only. In 1776 he was seriously ill from a violent cold caught by standing in the rain, amongst the crowd outside Drury Lane Theatre, waiting to witness Garrick's farewell performance. He was cured, however, by Sir Richard Jebb, the eminent physician, who prescribed a bottle of Madeira to his patient, and attended him from that time forward in every illness, but generously declined to accept a fee for his services. And the Mary Abbott whom George Romney had married years before and left behind at Kendal, with his son and daughter and thirty pounds, while he sought his fortune alone in London--the wife, his union with whom was to be as 'a spur to his application'--was she to be denied the sight of her husband's success, a share in his prosperity, a place in his house in Cavendish Square? It is hard to understand the utter unmanliness and heartlessness of Romney's conduct in this respect. There is no word of accusation against her--- no hint affecting her character--no question as to her being in any way unworthy of his love and trust, and of her rightful position by his side. His separation from her, in the first instance, was, under all the circumstances of the case, no doubt justifiable; and it is hardly possible to believe that his original withdrawal from Kendal was in pursuance of a plan of deliberate abandonment of his family. But for the protraction of this separation, after the first necessity for it had passed away, there would seem to be absolutely no excuse. His son, the Rev. John Romney, with a laudable desire to serve his father's memory, urges, as some faint apology for the painter's cruelty, that his affairs were at all times less prosperous than they seemed; that his brothers were a heavy burden upon him and drained him of his savings; that his professional journeys to Paris and Rome consumed all the money he could raise; and that thus a 'succession of untoward circumstances threw impediments in the way of good intent, till time and absence became impediments also.' In truth, Romney appears to have been always curiously timid and reticent; to have suffered from excessive moral cowardice. On his first arrival in London and association with the young painters of the day, he began to feel some shame at his early imprudence, and some alarm lest it should present any hindrance to his professional advancement. He had given 'hostages to fortune,' and dreaded the result. He was thus persistently silent on the subject; and, as time went on, it became more and more difficult for him to avow the marriage he had from the first made so much a matter of mystery. And then, too, the prosperous unions of other artists, his contemporaries, excited his jealousy and increased his apprehensions. He began to think it indispensable to the success of a painter that he should marry well. Nathaniel Dance had been united to Mrs. Drummer, known as 'the Yorkshire fortune,' with eighteen thousand a year. John Astley had secured the hand of Lady Duckenfield, with an income of almost equal value. Then, from his literary and poetic friends he was little likely to receive encouragement to act justly in such a matter. Laurence Sterne was no especially good exemplar of conjugal fidelity. Mr. Hayley and the rest indulged in extremely poetic views concerning the privileges and prerogatives of genius; were opposed to trammels and scruples of any kind in such respect; and poured round the painter dense showers of versified adulation, so infused with ideality and Platonism that the simple rules of right and wrong were quite washed away by the harmonious and transcendental torrent. Romney, weak, vain, selfish, suffered himself to be led down paths which, however flowery and pleasant, were yet mean and contemptible enough, and listening to the twanging of Hayley's lyre, turned a deaf ear to the pining of the poor woman fading away, alone and deserted in the north--the Mary Abbott whom he had vowed in his youth until death should them part to love, honour, and cherish. For some thirty years the husband and wife never set eyes upon each other--were absolutely separated. He had now as much work as he could possibly execute. He was often at his easel for thirteen hours a day, beginning at eight in the morning, lighting his lamp when the daylight had gone, and toiling on sometimes until midnight. He had five, and occasionally six, sitters a day. He generally completed a three-quarter portrait in three or four sittings, and could accomplish this easily, provided no hands were introduced into the picture. The sittings varied in duration from three-quarters of an hour to an hour and a half each. His only time now for ideal or historical art was in the interval between the departure and arrival of his sitters, or when they failed to keep their engagements with him; but he would regard such disappointments with pleasure, having always at hand a spare canvas upon which he could employ himself with some fancy subject. Of course, this close application was not without injurious effect upon him in the end. 'My health,' he wrote, at a later period of his life, 'is not at all constant. My nerves give way, and I have no time to go in quest of pleasure to prevent a decline of health. My hands are full, and I shall be forced to refuse new faces at last, to be enabled to finish the numbers I have in an unfinished state. I shall regret the necessity of forbearing to take new faces; there is a delight in novelty greater than in the profit gained by sending them home finished. But it must be done.' His annual retirement for a month's holiday to Hayley's house at Eartham was of little real service to his health. He was compelled the while to attitudinize incessantly as a genius. Hayley, in globose language, was always entreating his guest to moderate his intense spirit of application, conjuring him to rest from his excess of labour 'in the name of those immortal powers the Beautiful and the Sublime,' etc., while he was at the same time urging the painter to new and greater toils, teasing the jaded man with endless suggestions, bewildering him with a jabber of sham sentimentality and hazy æstheticism. 'Whenever Romney was my guest,' writes Hayley, 'I was glad to put aside my own immediate occupation for the pleasure of searching for and presenting to him a copious choice of such subjects as might happily exercise his powers.' Poor Romney was permitted no rest. Hayley was for ever in close attendance gratifying his own inordinate vanity at the painter's cost. He produced four representations of Serena, the heroine of Hayley's _Triumphs of Temper_. He painted a scene from the _Tempest_ for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, which project Romney always claimed to have originated, and Hayley was in the studio sitting for Prospero. At Hayley's house a small coterie of poetasters, male and female, assembled for purposes of mutual glorification in the most windbag sort of verse, and were glad to buy portraits and sketches from the painter with such small coin as sonnets and stanzas, and poetic epistles. Romney executes a likeness of Mrs. Hayley, and is rewarded with eighty-eight glowing lines by her husband, who calls to his aid Eolus, Orion, Boreas, Auster, Zephyr, Eurus, Famine, and Ceres for the better decoration of his verse. He paints a portrait of Miss Seward, and the lady's gratitude gushes forth in eulogy of ....the pleasures of the Hayleyan board, Where, as his pencil, Romney's soul sublime Glows with bold lines, original and strong, etc. 'Beloved and honoured Titiano!' she wrote, some years later; 'how that name recalls the happy, happy hours I passed with you at Eartham; when by the title 'Muse' you summoned me to the morning walk!' Amongst the drossy twaddle which passed current as poetry at Eartham, a sonnet in Romney's honour by a true poet--William Cowper--may be counted as pure gold. In the beginning of 1782 Emma Lyon, then known as Mrs. Hart, afterwards as Lady Hamilton, first sat to Mr. Romney. Painters and poets enough had already been busy celebrating her loveliness, the lady nothing loth. She took pleasure in the full display of her charms: holding probably that her beauty was not given her for herself alone, but that the whole world, if it listed, might at least look on it and adore. At one time indeed she was rumoured to have personated the Goddess of Health, when the 'celestial' Doctor Graham was giving his strange and indecorous lectures in Pall Mall; but that scandal has been contradicted. Certain it is, however, that her witcheries effectually subjugated Romney and Hayley. The painter went fairly mad about her; could not see her often enough; was restless and miserable out of her presence; reduced the number of his sitters, and admitted no visitors until noon, that he might have time sufficient to devote to the beautiful Emma and her portraits. This infatuation endured for years. 'At present,' he wrote to Hayley, in 1791, 'and the greatest part of the summer, I shall be engaged in painting pictures from the _divine lady_. I cannot give her any other epithet; for I think her superior to all womankind.' For a long time he seemed to be able only to paint Emma Lyon. His son enumerates some two dozen portraits, in which she appears as Circe, Iphigenia, St. Cecilia, Sensibility, a Bacchante, Alope, the Spinstress, Cassandra (for the Shakespeare Gallery), Calypso, a Pythoness, Joan of Arc, a Magdalen, etc.; some of these were left unfinished. But at one time the form and features of his beautiful model appeared upon the painter's canvas, let him try to paint what he would. The fair Emma had absolutely enthralled him. Absent from the object of his adoration, he was reduced to despair. He writes to Hayley, complaining that he has discovered an alteration in his Emma's conduct: 'a coldness and neglect seemed to have taken the place of her repeated declaration of regard.' Hayley sends up some verses for the painter to copy and sign, beginning 'Gracious Cassandra,' and asking pitifully, .... what cruel clouds have darkly chilled Thy favour that to me was vital fire? Oh, let it shine again: or worse than killed Thy soul-sunk artist feels his art expire! The poet seems to have been not less love-stricken. 'Her features,' he writes, 'like the language of Shakespeare, could exhibit all the feelings of nature and all the gradations of every passion with a most fascinating truth and felicity of expression.' Presently the lady has given her hand to Sir William Hamilton and set sail for Naples. She makes peace with the painter, however, before her departure; calls upon him, resumes her former kindness of manner, is as cordial with him as ever, and sits to him for a portrait he is to paint _as a present to her mother_. Poor Romney! In 1794 there were symptoms of decay in the painter's constitution; his mental infirmities increased. He became the victim of a sort of intellectual superfetation. He was perpetually planning labours of a magnitude which, from the first, rendered them hopelessly impracticable. His brain was morbidly active, while his hand grew tremulous and uncertain, and his sight dimmed. His manner became irritable, and more than ever timid and suspicious. He wrote to his son: 'I have made many grand designs; I have formed a system of original subjects, moral and my own, and I think one of the grandest that has been thought of; but nobody knows it. Hence, it is my view to wrap myself in retirement and pursue these plans, as I begin to feel I cannot bear trouble of any kind.' He quits his house in Cavendish Square and becomes the purchaser of a retreat at Holly Bush Hill, Hampstead, after abandoning a project he at one time entertained for the purchase of four acres near the Edgware Road, and covering them with a group of fantastic buildings of his own design. To the house at Hampstead he made many whimsical additions, however, erecting a large picture and sculpture-gallery, a wooden arcade or covered ride, a dining-room close to the kitchen, with a buttery hatch opening into it, so that he and his guests might enjoy beefsteaks 'hot and hot' upon the same plan as prevailed at the Beefsteak Club, then occupying a room in the Lyceum Theatre. The cost of these changes amounted to nearly three thousand pounds. With quite a childish eagerness he took possession of his new house before the walls were dry, and while the workmen were still completing the changes he had ordered. Still he had not room enough for his numberless art-treasures. His pictures were crammed and huddled away any and everywhere. Some were arranged along the wooden arcade, where, exposed to the open air, and to the alternate action of moisture and frost, they were almost entirely destroyed in the course of the winter, while some were deliberately stolen. The painter could do little work now: he could begin, but was unable to finish or even to resume his undertaking. His appetite for art seemed to fail him; he ceased to have faith in himself; he was preyed on by nervous dejection; weighed down with dark alarms and vague forebodings. Soon his head is swimming and his right hand numb with incipient paralysis. Hayley visits him for the last time in April 1799, and had 'the grief of perceiving that his increasing weakness of body and mind afforded only a gloomy prospect for the residue of his life.' He lays down his brush for ever. Suddenly, without a word to any one of his intentions, he takes the northern coach and arrives at Kendal. Fainting and exhausted, he is received with the utmost tenderness and affection by his wife. No word of reproach for the neglect and solitude to which he had doomed her for so many years escapes her lips. With unremitting solicitude, with religious earnestness, this loving, forgiving woman tends the sick-bed of the sinking man. His mind expires before his body; for months he remains hopelessly imbecile, free from suffering, but wholly unconscious; breathing his last at Kendal on the 15th of November 1802, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. The inconsistency manifest between Romney's wanton cruelty in his domestic character, and his reputation among his intimates and contemporaries for great kindliness of nature, generosity, and general worth, is remarkable enough. There are many men, however, who appear to the least advantage when seen by the light of their own fireside. Hayley says much of his friend's _extreme sensibility_:' his lips,' writes the poet, 'quivered with emotions of pity at the sight of distress or at the relation of a pathetic story.' Cumberland mentions that the painter was, 'by constitution, prone to tears.' Yet his charity was not for home wear; the distress he did not see troubled him very little. It is vain to seek for any sufficient apology for Romney's shameful treatment of his wife and children. If it were possible to forget this deep stain upon his character he would seem, in all other relations of life, to be entitled to esteem and commendation. For the poor and needy he was ready, not merely with his sensibility, but with his purse. To his friends he was ever faithful and liberal. After attaining professional eminence he was almost indifferent to the emoluments of his art, prizing money much less for its own sake than for the recognition of his position and abilities that it demonstrated; while to all young artists he was especially kind and indulgent. He was the first to encourage Flaxman, and to appreciate and applaud his works; was ever the cordial and loving friend of the sculptor, as their correspondence amply testifies. 'I always remember,' says Flaxman, 'Mr. Romney's notice of my boyish years and productions with gratitude; his original and striking conversation; his masterly, grand, and feeling compositions are continually before me; and I still feel the benefits of his acquaintance and recommendations.' Romney's historical pictures are very numerous; though comparatively few of them can be considered as completely finished works. According to Allan Cunningham's estimate, for one really finished there are five half done, and for five half done there are at least a dozen merely sketched out on the canvas. The painter was all impulse; very eager and impatient at the beginning, but soon wearied, and only by painful efforts and extraordinary labour ever arriving at the conclusion of his undertakings. There was a want of concentrative power about him; he was ever frittering away his undeniable abilities upon a number of hastily adopted projects, crudely conceived, and remorselessly abandoned when the temperature of his enthusiasm lowered, or any unlooked-for difficulties appeared in his path. How the erratic and desultory nature of his mind was fostered and aggravated by Hayley's mischievous efforts has already been shown. That the glowing eulogium pronounced by Flaxman upon his friend's productions will be endorsed by modern critics is hardly to be expected. Indeed, the characteristics upon which Flaxman especially dwells as worthy of the highest praise will be rather accounted as defects in the present day. The severe imitation of the antique; the artificial simplicity of composition; the bare background; the bas-relief style of treatment; the pseudo-purity which rejected natural feeling and action in favour of a conventionally ideal expression--these were precious gifts in Flaxman's eyes; to modern artists they will appear rather errors of judgment pertaining to a past school of art: false fashions which the present generation of painters have happily outgrown and abandoned. At the same time, however, it should not be forgotten that the majority of Romney's works of this class will bear comparison with the best productions of his contemporaries, and that some of them evince in a remarkable degree his grace of manner, skill in expression, and loftiness of aim. As a portrait painter Romney will be more prized and remembered, although it is not likely that any existing connoisseurs will be found to proclaim themselves with Lord Thurlow, of 'the Romney faction,' as opposed to the school of Reynolds. In contrasting the works of the rival painters, it is easy to see that however close a race for fame they seemed to be running in their own time, there exists in truth a wide distance between the president of the Academy and 'the man in Cavendish Square.' It is not only that Romney had not the variety of Reynolds; that he could not give to portrait painting the new life with which Reynolds had so happily invested it:--he did not hit character nearly so well; he could not endow his sitters with the air of repose, ease, and elegance peculiar to the Reynolds portraits; he failed to give interest to his backgrounds, generally too near and flat, and heavily painted; and he had not Sir Joshua's success in subduing the eccentricities of costume of the day, and bestowing a certain grace and beauty upon even the most exuberant capes, cuffs, ruffles, wigs, cravats, and frills, prevalent a century ago. There is an air of _fashion_ about many of Romney's portraits as opposed to the look of _nobility_, which is the especial attribute of Reynolds's pictures. In contemplating a Sir Joshua there will be found a propriety, an integrity about the work which effectually prevents all thought of the parts played by the tailor or the milliner at the toilet of the sitter. This is not always the case with Romney's portraits; pattern, and cut, and vogue do not fail to assert themselves. In colour Romney is very unequal; in his own day it was notoriously inferior to Reynolds's, though in spite of some instances of chalkiness and thinness, generally rich, pure, and lustrous. But the President's recourse to meretricious methods of obtaining beauty of tint has ruined the majority of his works, rendering their glories fleeting as photographs. Romney prudently adhered to a safer manner. Many of his pictures can even now be hardly less fresh and glowing in colour than when they first left his easel. His carnations and flesh tints are often singularly fine. His small portraits possess dignity, with force and manliness, however, rather than absolute ease or refinement. But his chief success was in his female heads. In quick and distinct appreciation of beauty he was not behind Reynolds; while, occasionally, he attained a certain poetic height of expression it would be difficult to parallel among Sir Joshua's works. The fluctuation in fame which Romney has suffered has, of course, fallen to the fate of many of his professional brethren. We read, for instance, that Sir Godfrey Kneller sometimes received in payment for a portrait a considerable sum in hard cash, with a couple of Rembrandt's thrown in by way of makeweight. Yet now a single specimen of Rembrandt exceeds in value a whole gallery of Knellers. And Rembrandt died insolvent, while Sir Godfrey amassed a fortune! No one will dispute the justice of the reversal of judgment which has taken place; the elevation of Rembrandt at the expense of Kneller. But it may be a question whether George Romney has not been unfairly abased, even though it may be agreed on all hands that Sir Joshua Reynolds has not been unduly exalted. Possibly, however, when a man rises or is lifted up to a high pitch of celebrity, it is inevitable that he should in some degree mount upon the prostrate and degraded reputations of his contemporaries. COSWAY, THE MINIATURE-PAINTER. Biographers seem often to choose between two weaknesses. They are fond of asserting that the hero of their narration comes in truth of a gentle stock, however the clouds of misfortune may for a time have veiled from general observation the glories of his family tree,--or, failing this, they take a sort of pride in dwelling upon and exaggerating the humbleness of his descent and condition. He is a somebody, or he is a nobody; a gentleman of distinguished origin or an utterly unknown creature with the vaguest views about his lineage: a waif of the wayside, a stray of the streets, his rise from obscurity to eminence being entirely attributable to his own intrinsic merits and exertions. To this last-mentioned method of biographical treatment has been subjected Richard Cosway, painter and Royal Academician of the last century: a man of fame in his day, though that fame may not have come down to us in a very good state of preservation. The fact that in his prime he was a man of fashion, a 'personage' in society, the companion of princes, and an artist of eminence, has given a sort of impetus to the fancy of tracing him back to a vastly inferior state of life. Writers dealing with the painter's story, and prepared to point to him presently as the occupant and ornament of a 'gilded saloon,' have found a preliminary pleasure in dilating upon his earlier and humbler position as an errand-boy in a drawing academy. The contrast was effective, picturesque--dramatic. Contemplate this scene of gloom and degradation; now turn to this other canvas, all sunshine and prosperity. Is not the comparison impressive? But then it ought to be true. This black and white view of the vicissitudes of Cosway's career is due, in the first instance, to Mr. J.T. Smith, engraver, antiquarian, and author of the _Life of Nollekens_ and other books. Mr. Shipley, from Northampton, brother of the Bishop of St. Asaph, and founder of the Society of Arts, had established a drawing school at No. 229 in the Strand. Cosway, when quite a lad, says Smith, obtained the notice of Shipley, and was engaged by him to attend in the studio and carry to and fro the tea and coffee with which the housekeeper of the establishment was permitted to provide the students at a cost of threepence per head. Nollekens and the father of Smith were among the students, and good-naturedly, the story goes on to say, gave the boy Richard Cosway instruction in drawing, and encouraged him to compete for the prizes he afterwards obtained from the Society of Arts. These particulars probably Smith obtained from his father or from Nollekens--if indeed they be not wholly due not so much to his own invention as to the confusion of names and misconception of incidents to which every one is liable who puts too great a strain upon his memory. Allan Cunningham, it may be observed, relates facts concerning Cosway's origin and youth which go far towards controverting the errand-boy episode in his life, as chronicled by Smith. Richard Cosway was born in 1740, at Tiverton, in Devonshire, a county singularly productive of famous artists, having given birth among others to Haydon, Northcote, and Reynolds. The father of Cosway was the master of the grammar-school at Tiverton: his uncle was for some time mayor; and the family, originally Flemish, and engaged in woollen manufactures, was possessed of considerable property in the town and neighbourhood. To the connexion of the Cosways with Flanders was ascribed their ownership of certain valuable works by Rubens, which first lit up a love of painting in the heart of young Cosway, and made him an idle schoolboy and an indefatigable artist. The master of Tiverton school was naturally indignant at the want of scholarly application of his son and pupil; was for birching him into better behaviour, forbidding him to ply his pencil at all under heavy penalties. The boy's uncle, the mayor, and a judicious friend and neighbour, one Mr. Oliver Peard, seem to have better appreciated the situation. They interposed on behalf of the young artist, and succeeded in obtaining for him permission to make drawings during such times as he could be spared from the grammar-school. But at last it appears to be agreed on all hands that the boy must close his books: he is wilful, and must have his way--become an artist: there is no hope whatever of his succeeding in any other line of life. He is to be humoured to the top of his bent. His passion is to be cured by indulging it. If he succeeds--well and good,--there is nothing more to be said. If he fails, his failure will sober him, his friends argue: render him docile and tractable, obedient to parental commands for the future. He was sent up to London, at thirteen, to study under Hudson, Reynolds's preceptor (and more remarkable on that account than on any other, though his merits as a portrait-painter are less contemptible than many suppose); all expenses were to be defrayed by the Mayor of Tiverton and kindly Mr. Oliver Peard. After a year under Hudson, young Cosway entered Shipley's Academy, already mentioned. Probably he was a somewhat puny, insignificant-looking lad, and was therefore made the butt and fag of the robuster students, compelled to attend upon them and obey their behests, even to performing menial offices, just as younger boys do in other academies--for might is right in the world of school--and thus Mr. Smith's errand-boy story may have originated. But it can be scarcely said to be substantiated by the further facts he proceeds to narrate: how that young Cosway in the course of a few years obtained no less than five premiums, some of five and one of ten guineas, from the Society of Arts: the first awarded when he was only fourteen years old, the last when he was under four-and twenty. The unskilled errand-boy could scarcely have received a prize instantly on his commencing to study. Quitting Shipley's, he became for a time a teacher at Parr's Drawing School, but was soon busily employed on his own account in supplying the jewellers' shops with miniature paintings on ivory; pretty heads and fancy subjects or mythological scenes to be framed with gold or set with diamonds; the beau of the day was incomplete without a costly snuff-box adorned with a lid, the prettiness of which, perhaps, somewhat surpassed its pudicity. Cosway seems to have been just the artist to supply a demand of this sort. He was industrious, fond of money,--but rather because it ministered to habits, which were inclined to be extravagant, than for any very sordid reasons--and was without high views as to his art. He did not mind debasing it a little, accommodating his friends the shopkeepers, and filling his own pockets. And his execution was very rapid and adroit; he could put just as much work into his subjects as would give them in uneducated eyes the effect of high finish, while in truth they occupied but little of his time, and provided him with most ample profits. But, if slight, they were certainly elegant; if not very pure in art, they were unquestionably pleasing to a large and important class. The demand for specimens of Mr. Cosway's ingenious taste became at last almost in excess of his powers of supply. First, by his snuff-box subjects, and afterwards by his portraits--on ivory or in red and black chalk--after the manner Bartolozzi had introduced--Cosway earned large sums. For many years he was reputed to have been in possession of a handsomer income than could be secured by the efforts of all his artist-brethren put together. But it must be said for him that he worked very hard. At the height of his fame he would sometimes boast as he sat down to dinner, that he had during the day despatched some twelve or fourteen sitters. He would often complete portraits at three sittings of half an hour each. But then his finish was of the slightest kind, and many of his miniatures can only be regarded, from a modern point of view, as tinted sketches, after allowance has been made for the perishable nature of the pigments he employed. He seems to have possessed a trick of enriching the colours of the eyes, lips, and cheeks of his sitters, by reducing every other hue in the picture to a cold blue-grey tone. By this system of violent contrast any hint of positive colour gained in warmth and brilliance to a remarkable degree. The miniature painter can hardly help improving and refining the subjects he deals with; for one reason, because the delicate nature of the material upon which he works, its exquisite surface and delicate texture, imparts a marked purity to all his tints. The coarsest complexion gains in lustre and smoothness when attempt is made to render it upon ivory; the dainty groundwork gleams through and gives beauty and clearness to the swarthiest hues. And then, in addition to this, Cosway had in full the portrait-painter's faculty of flattering his sitters. He could hardly fail to please them. He understood thoroughly how, while preserving a real resemblance, to catch the happiest expression; to subdue unattractive lines; to modify plain features; to conceal weaknesses; bringing out the really good points of a face; to light up dull eyes, and flush pale lips and cheeks. The faults of his portraits consist in their over-conscious graciousness; they smile and sparkle and are arch and winning to an excess that sometimes approaches inanity. And he was disposed, perhaps, to record the fashions of his time with too intense insistence. There was a rage then, as we know, for a piling up on the head of all sorts of finery: feathers, lace, ribbons, velvet hats, mob-caps, and strings of pearls. Cosway will hold back from us none of these adornments, rather he will force upon us a redundancy of them, and contemplating the aspects of the grandmothers and great-grandmothers of the present generation as they appear to us according to Cosway's art, we are led to the conclusion that the dear old ladies were in truth most killing coquettes, with quite an extravagant regard for the dictates of their fashion-books, and occupied by a passion for ogling their fellow-creatures to an extent that was decidedly reprehensible. But it must be allowed that Cosway suited his customers, and, moreover, in the main satisfied the art-demands of his period. However stern critics might censure, or rival painters scoff, his success was assured. And in artistic facility and accuracy of drawing, when he cared to be particular in that respect, he could hardly be said to be behind his contemporaries. His copies from the antique were both graceful and correct, owing to his frequent practice in the Duke of Richmond's gallery, and his outlines received the fervent admiration of Bartolozzi and Cipriani. He tried his hand now and then at the high historic order of art of Barry and Fuseli, but his ambition was probably limited to a less pretentious range,--'the little pleasing paradise of miniature,' as Allan Cunningham phrases it; he cared rather for the caresses of the world of fashion than the applause of the cognoscenti. In society he was a power; for could he not by means of his pencil bestow, as it were, a certificate of beauty upon whom he would? Have not many of his sitters acquired, thanks to him, a reputation for good looks which has survived even to our day, and which, but for his skilful flattery, they never could have possessed at all? So, in drawing-rooms and boudoirs he was fêted, and fondly greeted, and made much of, while plenty of money was slipped into his pocket, and so, according to one of his biographers, from the gold he gained and the gaiety of the company he kept, he rose from one of the dirtiest of boys to be one of the smartest of men. He was, indeed, coxcombical in his smartness. But then he lived in days when, among a large class, a love of fine clothes had risen to quite a passion. Patronized by the Prince of Wales, what could he do but imitate his patron--who was nothing if not 'dressy?' 'The Macaronis' were furnishing the sensation of the hour. A party of young gentlemen who had made the grand tour had formed themselves into a club, and from their always having upon their table a dish of macaroni--a comestible then but little known in England--they acquired the name of the Macaroni Club; at least their name has been generally thus accounted for. The Macaroni Club was to the last century what Crockford's was to this. 'It was composed,' says Walpole, 'of all the travelled young men who wear long curls and spying glasses.' In matters of fashion the Macaronis claimed absolute supremacy. They ruled the world of _ton_--especially interesting themselves in toilet matters. To wear a style of dress that had not been sanctioned by the Macaroni Club was to be scouted as an outer barbarian. For a time everything was '_à la Macaroni_.' It became the phrase of the hour--springing into existence as suddenly, possessing the town as wholly, and disappearing at last as completely as such phrases always do. Of course Cosway must be in the fashion,--must chime in with the universal humour. He dressed in the height of the Macaroni vogue. His small plain person was to be seen in all public places clothed in a mulberry silk coat profusely embroidered with scarlet strawberries, with sword and bag and a small three-cornered hat perched on the top of his powdered toupée. He assumed a mincing, affected air--a tone of excessive refinement and exquisite sensibility. He pretended to an absurd superiority over his fellows, and striving to conceal his real and more honest situation as a hard-working artist, posed himself incessantly as a creature of fashion. Of course in the end he disgusted his brother painters, while he did not really conciliate 'the quality.' The former scorned him, his fine clothes, splendid furniture, and black servants--the more satirical holding him up to ridicule in the shop windows, by laughable caricatures, such as 'The Macaroni Miniature Painter; or, Billy Dimple sitting for his picture:' the latter came to his feasts, drank his wines, won his money from him at hazard, stimulated his extravagance to the utmost, while they made mouths at him behind his back, and condemned in secret and among themselves the folly of his conduct. It must be said for the artist, however, that he toiled earnestly and successfully to make his professional earnings keep pace in some sort with his lavish private habits. Cipriani used to relate, that after whole nights had been wasted by Cosway in the most frivolous and worthless of pursuits, he was yet to be found at an early hour in his studio, sedulously toiling to redeem lost time and money, very penitent for the past, full of the best intentions for the future: all of course to be abandoned and forgotten when the evening came, the chandeliers were lighted, the cards strewed the table, and the world of society gathered round him in his drawing-room again. A less honest source of emolument than his own pencil provided, Cosway found in helping to supply the demand then existing for specimens of the old masters. The love of the connoisseurs for ancient art, even to its most suspicious examples, had survived the satire of Hogarth and the indignation of Barry. The patrons of the day were warmer friends to the picture-dealers than to the painters. Modern works of any pretence were at an alarming discount: the productions of the past were at high premium. Cosway skilfully contrived to reap profits in the double capacity of dealer and painter. He joined the ranks of those whom Barry, in a tone of bitter complaint, describes as 'artful men both at home and abroad [who] have not failed to avail themselves of this passion for ancient art ... for vending in the name of those great masters the old copies, imitations, and studies of all the obscure artists that have been working in Italy, France, and other places, for two hundred years past.' Cosway went into the market of doubtful old masters, and purchased largely; about many of his specimens there was probably no doubt whatever. These he repaired, re-touched, re-varnished, re-framed, and sold for good prices, as 'masterpieces of ancient art,' to such noble and gentle patrons as had galleries to fill, or walls to cover, and money to part with. This method of proceeding was doubtless profitable rather than honourable. Cosway's apologists--Hazlitt among them--say for him, that he was 'Fancy's child,' the dupe of his own deceptions, that he really believed in the genuineness, the pure originality of the old masters he had with his own hand worked upon, almost past identification. But self deception which is so decidedly a source of profit to the deceiver has, to say the least of it, a suspicious element about it. Cosway at first occupied a house in Orchard Street, Portman Square; but as his income improved, he moved to No. 4 Berkeley Street, opposite the Duke of Devonshire's wall, and at that time, according to Smith, he was attended by a negro servant remarkable for having published an octavo volume on the subject of slavery. It was in Berkeley Street that Cosway was first noticed by the Prince of Wales and his royal brothers, whose liberal patronage of the painter brought him into fashionable and general estimation. He was appointed painter in ordinary to the Prince; and in 1771 he was elected a Royal Academician. Cosway married Maria Hatfield, the daughter of an Englishman who had made a fortune by keeping an hotel at Leghorn. There is a tinge of tragedy about the lady's story. Four elder children had been secretly murdered by a half insane maid-servant, whose crime remained undiscovered until she was overheard threatening the life of the child Maria. Upon interrogation, the murderess confessed her guilt, and was condemned to imprisonment for life. Other children were subsequently born to the Hatfields. Charlotte, who lived to become the unhappy wife of Coombe, the author of Dr. Syntax, and a son, afterwards known as an artist of some promise. Maria Hatfield was educated in a convent, where she learnt music and drawing. Subsequently she studied painting at Rome, and there made the acquaintance of Battoni, Maron, Fuseli, Wright of Derby, and other artists. Upon her father's death she had resolved to return to the cloister; but her mother brought her on a visit to London, and a friendship she then formed with the popular Angelica Kauffman induced her finally to renounce all idea of a nun's life. Soon she became the wife of Richard Cosway. The marriage took place at St. George's, Hanover Square; Charles Townley, of Townley Marble celebrity, giving away the bride. She possessed beauty,--she was a fair Anglo-Italian with profuse golden hair--talent, and money. The year of her marriage she exhibited certain highly-admired miniatures at the Royal Academy. Her fame spread. The youth, the loveliness, the genius of Mrs. Cosway became town talk. Her husband's house was thronged with people of fashion who came to see, admire the lady artist, and purchase specimens of her art. But Cosway, probably from pride, though it might be from an acute perception of the greater advantages to be derived from reserve in such a matter, would not permit his wife to paint professionally. A favoured few might now and then become the possessors of some slight sketches by Mrs. Cosway; occasionally she might honour a lady of rank by painting her portrait; but Mrs. Cosway's ability, it was to be distinctly understood, was not placed at the service of the general public. Of course this exclusive system enhanced the market value of the lady's works considerably, and while the majority of people were lauding Mr. Cosway as a husband too fond and indulgent to permit his sweet wife to ruin her health by harassing work at her easel, a judicious minority were perhaps doing Mr. Cosway stricter justice in accounting him a very cunning practitioner indeed, in the way of making the most of Mrs. Cosway's talent. For this, it must be said, however, that as the times went, it did not really need such careful nursing; it was strong enough, or very nearly so, to run alone: it was of a highly respectable order. The lady possessed poetic feeling, with considerable artistic facility. Her sketches of scenes from Spenser, Shakespeare, Virgil, and Homer compare not unfavourably with the designs of many of her contemporaries. And her portraits were of real merit; one of the fair Duchess of Devonshire, painted as the Cynthia of Spenser, extorted unbounded admiration from the critics and connoisseurs of the period. From Berkeley Street Cosway removed to the south side of Pall Mall, occupying part of the large mansion originally erected by the Duke of Schomberg--that 'citizen of the world,' as Macaulay calls him, who was made a Duke, a Knight of the Garter, and Master of the Ordnance by William the Third, and falling by his master's side at the battle of the Boyne, was, according to Lord Macaulay, buried in Westminster Abbey; but, in truth, it would seem that his remains were deposited in the Cathedral of St. Patrick, Dublin, Dean Swift and the Chapter erecting there a monument to his memory, and the Dean writing _more suo_ a sarcastic epitaph[15] on the heirs who had neglected to do their duty by their great ancestor. Schomberg House--after the Duke's death divided into three separate houses, and still existing, though in a somewhat changed and mutilated form, part of it being now occupied by the War Office--has sheltered many artists of fame under its roof. Here Jervas painted--the pupil of Kneller, and the admired of Pope, whose deformity the painter in his portrait of the poet did his best to mend and conceal; here lived mad Jack Astley, who made so prosperous a marriage with the rich Lady Duckenfield; and Nathaniel Hone, the Royal Academician, retaining on the premises a negress model, famous for her exquisite symmetry of form; then Cosway--and, greatest of all, Thomas Gainsborough, dying in an upper room on the 2d of August 1778. In the spacious saloons of Schomberg House, Cosway thought he should find ample room and verge enough both for himself and his fashionable friends. [15] This epitaph may be read in Mr. Samuel Lucas's _Secularia; or, Surveys on the Mainstream of History_, p. 293. And room was becoming very necessary; for Mrs. Cosway's receptions were now the town rage--were crowded to inconvenience. They were marked by what was then a speciality; though it has since become a common enough characteristic of such assemblies. 'Lions' were to be met with there--literary, artistic, and otherwise. The last new poets, painters, players, were to be seen with their honours in their newest gloss; the latest discoverers, navigators, and travellers--freshly escaped from shipwreck or cannibals--the rising stars of the House of Commons--anybody and everybody of the least note, with the provision, possibly, that they should be 'elegant and ingenious,'--these thronged the charming Mrs. Cosway's drawing-rooms. The elect of society, for the first time on the same floor and under the same roof, met and shook hands, deriving a curious piquant sort of pleasure from the proceeding, with--_Bohemia_; the word must be used, though not an agreeable one, much misused and liable to be misinterpreted, and above all, though in the Cosway period it was altogether unknown and unheard of. Especially were to be noted among the guests the Whig adherents of the Prince of Wales, the politicians of the buff and blue school: little Cosway, busy in the midst of them, attempting a statesman-like attitude, sympathizing with revolution, and affecting to discover in the convulsions of the French nation the dawn of an empire of reason and taste, in which genius and virtue alone would be honoured. Possibly the painter expressed too unreservedly his views in these respects. A prince may be permitted to masquerade as a _prolétaire_; but for a bystander to talk red republicanism to a royal heir-apparent is rather doubtful taste, to say the least of it. By-and-by wild Prince Hal came to power, and shrunk from his old associates. The Regent abandoned his buff and blue friends, looked coldly upon his whilom political companions: withdrawing his favour from Cosway among the rest. The painter troubled himself little about the matter. He was too proud or too indifferent to make any effort to regain the royal patronage. If he had done little to merit its bestowal upon him in the first instance, certainly he had done nothing to deserve its withdrawal from him at last. A frequent guest at Mrs. Cosway's during the last ten years of his life was Horace Walpole, very pleased at receiving 'little Italian notes of invitation' from the winning lady. He relates to the Countess of Ossory, in 1786, his meeting 'la Chevalière d'Eon,' after many years' interval, at Mrs. Cosway's. He found 'la Chevalière' noisy and vulgar; 'in truth,' he writes, 'I believe she had dined a little _en dragon_. The night was hot, she had no muff or gloves, and her hands and arms seem not to have participated of the change of sexes, but are fitter to carry a chair than a fan.' At another time he admits: 'Curiosity carried me to a concert at Mrs. Cosway's--not to hear Rubinelli, who sang one song at the extravagant price of ten guineas, and whom, for as many shillings, I have heard sing half-a-dozen at the Opera House; no, but I was curious to see an English Earl [Cowper] who had passed thirty years at Florence, and who is more proud of a pinchbeck principality and a paltry order from Wirtemberg than he was of being a peer of Great Britain when Great Britain was something.' Elsewhere he speaks admiringly of Mrs. Cosway, and describes her reception as a Diet at which representatives of all the princes of Europe assemble. From Pall Mall Cosway moved to a larger mansion at the south-west corner of Stratford Place, Oxford Street. A carved stone lion stood on guard at the entrance--a fact which incited some wag to affix to the door the following lines, generally attributed to Peter Pindar:-- 'When a man to a fair for a show brings a lion, 'Tis usual a monkey the sign-post to tie on. But here the old custom reversed is seen, For the lion's without, and the monkey's within.' According to Smith, a certain ape-like look in Cosway's face in a measure justified the satire. Irritated by the attack, the painter moved once more--to No. 20 in the same street. Dr. Wolcot (Peter Pindar), who had been busy throwing mud and stones at the Royal Academicians, did not of course spare either Cosway or his wife. In the lines beginning-- 'Fie, Cosway! I'm ashamed to say, Thou own'st the title of R.A.' he recommends the painter to find some more honest calling, and bids Mrs. Cosway mend shirts and stockings, and mind her kitchen, rather than expose her daubs to the public. Then, as though repenting of his rudeness, he proceeds:-- 'Muse, in this criticism I fear Thou really hast been too severe: Cosway paints miniatures with decent spirit, And Mrs. Cosway boasts some trifling merit.' The furniture and fittings of Cosway's house in Stratford Place seem to have been of a most extravagant kind. He surrounded himself with suits of armour, Genoa velvet, mother-of-pearl, ebony and ivory, carving and gilding. His rooms were crowded with mosaic cabinets set with jasper, bloodstone, and lapis-lazuli, ormolu escritoires, buhl chiffoniers, Japanese screens, massive musical clocks, damask ottomans, with Persian carpets and Pompadour rugs on the floor, and costly tapestries on the walls; enamelled caskets set with onyxes, rubies, opals, and emeralds loaded the tables; the chimney-pieces, sculptured by Banks, were decked with bronzes, cut-glass, models in wax and terra-cotta, Nankin, Dresden, and Worcester china: altogether the place must have been quite a broker's paradise. Yet the painter was immensely proud of it; never seemed to weary of adding new curiosities to his overcrowded collection. The failing health of his wife compelled him at last to tear himself away from his splendid and beloved upholstery. He carried the ailing lady to Flanders and to Paris. During the tour his conduct was of the most lordly kind. He possessed, and highly prized, certain cartoons attributed to Julio Romano, having refused a liberal offer for them from Russia, because, as he explained, 'he would not sell works of elegance to barbarians.' Impressed with the size and emptiness of the Louvre Gallery, however, he now offered his cartoons to the French King as a gift. They were accepted, and four splendid specimens of Gobelin tapestry were bestowed upon the painter in token of royal recognition and gratitude. These tapestries Cosway, objecting to retain them, possibly lest they should seem to represent a price paid for his cartoons, forthwith presented to the Prince of Wales. It was the humour of the grand little man to oblige royalty, the while he was moved by a keen regard for his own dignity. While at Paris he painted, by desire of the Duchess of Devonshire, portraits of the Duchess of Orleans and family, and the Duchess of Polignac; yet, when applied to for portraits of the King or Queen, he declined the commission, stating that he had come abroad for the sake of his wife's health and his own amusement, and not with professional objects in view. For a season Mrs. Cosway seemed benefited by the change, and returned home; but a second attack of illness compelled her again to leave England, this time accompanied by her brother--a young artist whose skill in design had gained him the gold medal of the Royal Academy. Walpole writes to the Miss Berrys at Florence: 'I am glad Mrs. Cosway is with you.... but surely it is odd to drop her child and husband and country all in a breath!' The lady was absent three years, constantly expecting her husband to rejoin her; but he was prevented by various causes from quitting England. During her stay abroad her daughter died, an only child. It was some relief to the grieving mother to resume her art-labours, and she painted several large pictures for foreign churches. At Lyons she was persuaded by Cardinal Fesch to attempt the founding of a college for young ladies, but the war hindered her efforts, although she succeeded subsequently in carrying out a similar design at Lodi. To their one child the parents were tenderly attached, although Walpole, while he admits Mrs. Cosway's affliction to be genuine, goes on to say rather cruelly,--'the man Cosway does not seem to think that much of the loss belonged to him.' According to Smith, however, he was dotingly fond of his little girl; was for ever painting her picture; and in one portrait of her asleep, he introduced the figure of a guardian angel rocking the cradle. The body of the child was embalmed and preserved in a marble sarcophagus which stood in the drawing-room in Stratford Place. It was not until the return of Mrs. Cosway to England that the interment took place in Bunhill Row Burial Ground. Of Cosway and his wife, it is stated by the biographer of Mrs. Inchbald, who numbered them among her most intimate friends, that they were both 'mystics,' and 'could say almost as much of the unintelligible world as of this.' Hazlitt describes the painter as a Swedenborgian, a believer in animal magnetism--professing to possess the faculty of second sight, crediting whatever is incredible. Had he lived in these our days, he would probably have been a spiritualist, an electro-biologist, a table-turner. He was wont to proclaim his ability to converse with the dead or the distant, 'to talk with his lady at Mantua,' says Hazlitt, 'through some fine vehicle of sense, as we speak to a servant down-stairs through a conduit pipe.' Smith tells us that he had often heard Cosway relate quite seriously, and with an air of conviction that was unimpeachable, conversations he professed to have held with King Charles the First! Sometimes he would startle sober people by asserting that he had just come from interviews with Apelles and Praxiteles. Four years after Pitt's death, Cosway, at the dinner of the Royal Academy, professed to have been that morning visited by the deceased minister, who declared himself prodigiously hurt, that during his sojourn upon earth he had not given greater encouragement to the artist's talents. Another Academician, however, rather outdid this story. 'How can you talk such trash, Cosway?' he asked. 'You know all you have uttered to be lies; I can prove it. For this very morning, after Pitt had been with you he called upon me and said, "I know Cosway will mention my visit to him at your dinner to-day, but don't believe a word he says, for he'll tell you nothing but lies."' This unlooked-for counter-statement took Cosway by surprise, and left him without a reply. Walpole once said of him, happily, that 'he romanced with his usual veracity.' Hazlitt thought a 'mystic' character was common to artists, instancing Loutherbourg, Sharp, Varley, Blake, and others, 'who seemed to relieve the literalness of their professional studies by voluntary excursions into the regions of the preternatural, to pass their time between sleeping and waking, and whose ideas were like a stormy night with the clouds driven rapidly across, and the blue sky and stars gleaming between.' For Cosway's wonderful collection of articles of art, antiquarianism, and _vertû_, Hazlitt has only good-natured banter. Of what a strange jumble of apocryphal treasures the painter believed himself the possessor! And he was without the doubts and anxieties of ordinary collectors. They strive to believe and to cast aside all suspicion. But Cosway believed without the slightest effort; he was troubled by no hint of suspicion. His relics and curiosities were in his eyes absolutely and unquestionably genuine. His was the crucifix that Abelard prayed to; a lock of Eloisa's hair; the dagger with which Felton stabbed the Duke of Buckingham; the first finished sketch of the Jocunda; Titian's colossal outline of Peter Aretine; a mummy of an Egyptian king; a feather of a Phoenix; a piece of Noah's Ark, etc. 'Were the articles authentic?' asks Hazlitt; and he answers his own question--'What matter? Cosway's faith in them was true!' Credit is due to the painter for his indomitable good spirits and buoyancy of heart. His later years were passed in much pain. He had been twice stricken with paralysis, and the use of his right hand had gone from him. Though removed from want, his old extravagant habits had considerably impaired his fortune. He had long left Stratford Place for a humbler, cheaper house in the Edgeware Road. And he had somewhat outlived his reputation. He had to endure severe criticism upon his artistic merits: much calling in question of his position as a painter. Still he was always bright and gay and kindly. He would hold up the crippled, wasted hand that had painted lords and ladies--the kings and queens of society--for some sixty years, and smile with unabated good humour at the vanity of human wishes. So Hazlitt relates: going on to say of him--'His soul appeared to possess the life of a bird; and such was the jauntiness of his air and manner, that to see him sit to have his half boots laced on, you would fancy (by the help of a figure) that instead of a little withered old gentleman, it was Venus attired by the Graces.' His nature was generous and frank. He gave liberally and cheerfully to almost everybody who applied to him for money. The number of letters he received requesting pecuniary assistance was stated to be almost incredible. Of borrowers who never repaid what they borrowed of him, and of patrons in default, of whom he was too proud to make repeated claims for what was strictly his due, a long catalogue might have been made. He died suddenly at last of a third attack of paralysis, on the 4th day of July 1821. The seizure occurred as he was taking a carriage drive to Edgeware, and he expired without a groan in a few minutes. He had long been in doubt as to whether he should prefer to be buried in his native Devonshire or with his favourite Rubens at Antwerp. But struck with the orderly plan of a funeral in the vaults of a London Church, he had said, 'I prefer this to Antwerp or St. Paul's: bury me here.' He was interred accordingly at Marylebone New Church (the work of young Smirke, son of his brother academician), a select number of his professional and personal friends, and a long line of the carriages of his aristocratic patrons, following the funeral. Mrs. Cosway erected, on the north wall, under the gallery of the church, a monument by Westmacott, to her husband's memory. The following indifferent epitaph by the painter's brother-in-law, 'Syntax' Coombe, was inscribed upon the marble:-- 'Art weeps, Taste mourns, and Genius drops the tear O'er him so long they loved who slumbers here. While colours last, and Time allows to give The all-resembling grace, his name shall live.' After the death of her husband Mrs. Cosway quitted England, and took up her abode at her Ladies' College at Lodi, where she was much loved and respected. How long she survived seems uncertain. Some accounts relate that she died the same year as Cosway. But Allan Cunningham, writing in 1833, described her as still living. THE STORY OF A SCENE-PAINTER. When, in the middle of the seventeenth century, Sir William Davenant, manager of the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, discarded the 'traverses' and tapestries which had theretofore been accepted as sufficient for the purposes of stage illusion, and substituted regular scenes 'painted in perspective,' without doubt there were to be found many conservative old playgoers who lifted up their voices against the startling innovation, and prophesied the approaching downfall of the drama. If the grandsons present marvelled how elder generations could for so long have gone without such useful and necessary appliances, assuredly the grandsires were complaining that now things had come to a pretty pass indeed, when a parcel of beardless, empty-pated boys, not content with stage fittings such as had been esteemed good and sufficient by the late Mr. William Shakespeare and his great brother-dramatists, demanded foolish paintings and idle garniture, that diverted attention from the efforts of the players and the purpose of the playwrights, and had never been dreamt of, and would never have been tolerated in the good, and simple, and palmy days gone by. Unquestionably, the first 'painting in perspective' brought upon the boards was, in the judgment of many,[16] the thin end of a wedge, which, as it thickened, was certain to drive forth and destroy all that was intellectually and vitally precious in the drama, and to lead the way to a last scene of all in the eventful history of the stage, which should be 'second childishness and mere oblivion.' [16] 'I decidedly concur with Malone in the general conclusion that painted moveable scenery was unknown on our early stage; and it is a fortunate circumstance for the poetry of our old plays that it was so: the imagination of the auditor only was appealed to, and we owe to the absence of painted canvas many of the finest descriptive passages in Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and immediate followers. The introduction of scenery gives the date to the commencement of the decline of our dramatic poetry.'--_Annals of the Stage_, by J. Payne Collier, vol. iii. p. 366. But the scene-painter having set foot within the theatre was not to be expelled. The intruder soon won for himself a large popularity; held his ground against criticism and opposition. He was no mere journeyman dauber. From the first he had taken distinct rank as an artist. Lustrous names adorn the muster-roll of scene-painters. Inigo Jones planned machinery and painted scenes for the masques, written by Ben Jonson, for performance before Anne of Denmark and the Court of James the First. Evelyn lauds the 'very glorious scenes and perspectives, the work of Mr. Streeter,' serjeant-painter to King Charles the Second. In February 1664, the Diarist saw Dryden's _Indian Queen_ acted 'with rich scenes as the like had never been seen here, or haply, except rarely, elsewhere on a mercenary theatre.' Mr. Pepys--most devoted of playgoers--notes occasionally of particular plays, that 'the machines are fine and the paintings very pretty.' In October 1667, he records that he sat in the boxes for the first time in his life, and discovered that from that point of view 'the scenes do appear very fine indeed, and much better than in the pit,' to which part of the house he ordinarily resorted. The names of the artists who won Mr. Pepys' applause have not come down to us. But previously to 1679, one Robert Aggas, a painter of some fame, was producing scenes for the theatre in Dorset Gardens. Nicholas Thomas Dall, a Danish landscape-painter, settled in London in 1760, was engaged as scene-painter at Covent Garden Theatre, and was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1771. For the same theatre, John Richards, a Royal Academician, appointed secretary to the Academy in 1778, painted scenes for many years. Michael Angelo Rooker, pupil of Paul Sanby, and one of the first Associates of the Academy, was scene-painter at the Haymarket. Other names of note might be mentioned before the modern reputations of Roberts and Stanfield, Beverley and Callcott, Grieve and Telbin are approached; and especially over one intermediate name are we desirous of lingering a little. The story of the scene-painter of the last century, who was well known to his contemporaries as 'the ingenious Mr. DE LOUTHERBOURG,' presents incidents of singularity and interest that will probably be found to warrant our turning to it for purposes of inquest and comment. The biographers of Philip James de Loutherbourg are curiously disagreed as to the precise period of his birth. Five different writers have assigned five different dates to that occurrence: 1728, 1730, 1734, 1740, and 1741; and it has been suggested, by way of explanation of this diversity, that the painter's fondness for astrological studies may have induced him to vary occasionally the date of his birth, in order that he might indulge in a plurality of horoscopes, and in such way better the chance of his predictions being justified by the actual issue of events. He was born, at Strasbourg, the son of a miniature painter, who died at Paris in 1768. Intended by his father for the army, while his mother desired that he should become a minister of the Lutheran Church, he was educated at the College of Strasbourg in languages and mathematics. Subsequently he chose his own profession, studying under Tischbein the elder, then under Vanloo and Francesco Casanova; the latter, a painter of battle pieces after the style of Bourgognone. By his landscapes exhibited at the Louvre, De Loutherbourg acquired fame in Paris, and in 1763 was elected a member of the French Academy of Painting, being then eight years below the prescribed age for admission to that distinction, say the biographers who date his birth from 1740. Quitting France, he travelled in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, and in 1771 came to England, moved hitherward probably by the opinion then prevalent both at home and abroad, that (as Edwards puts it in his Anecdotes of Painting) 'some natural causes prevented the English from becoming masters either in painting or sculpture.' Shortly after his arrival in England he was engaged by Garrick to design and paint scenes and decorations for Drury Lane Theatre, at a salary of £500; a sum considerably larger than had been thitherto paid to any artist for such services. Of gorgeous scenery and gay dresses Garrick was as fond as any manager of our own day; he knew that these were never-failing allurements to the general public. Yet as a rule he confined his spectacle to the after-pieces; did not, after the modern fashion, illustrate and decorate what he regarded as the legitimate entertainments of the theatre. For new as for old plays, the stock scenery of the house generally sufficed, and some of the scenes employed were endowed with a remarkable longevity. Tate Wilkinson, writing in 1790, mentions a scene as then in use which he remembered so far back as the year 1747. 'It has wings and flat of Spanish figures at full length, and two folding doors in the middle. I never see those wings slide on but I feel as if seeing my old acquaintance unexpectedly.' Of the particular plays assisted by De Loutherbourg's brush, small account has come down to us. They were, no doubt, chiefly of a pantomimic and ephemeral kind. For the 'Christmas Tale,' produced at Drury Lane in 1773--the composition of which has been generally assigned to Garrick, though probably due to Charles Dibdin--De Loutherbourg certainly painted scenes, and the play enjoyed a considerable run, thanks rather to his merits than the author's. Some years later, in 1785, for the scenery of O'Keeffe's _Omai_, produced at Covent Garden Theatre, the painter furnished the designs, for which he was paid by the manager one thousand pounds, says Mr. J.T. Smith; one hundred pounds, says Mr. O'Keeffe; so stories differ! The scenery of _Omai_ was appropriate to the then newly discovered islands in the South Pacific, and the play concluded with a kind of apotheosis of Captain Cook. In the course of _Omai_, Wewitzer, the actor who played a chief warrior of the Sandwich Islands, delivered a grand harangue in _gibberish_, which of course, for all the audience knew to the contrary, was the proper language of the natives; a sham English translation of the speech being printed with the book of the songs. The harangue was received with enormous applause! As a scene-painter, De Loutherbourg was decidedly an innovator and reformer. He was the first to use set-scenes, and what are technically known as 'raking pieces.' Before his time the back scene was invariably one large 'flat' of strained canvas extending the whole breadth and height of the stage. He also invented transparent scenes, introducing representations of moonlight, sunshine, fire, volcanoes, etc., and effects of colour by means of silk screens of various hues, placed before the foot and side lights. He was the first to represent mists, by suspending gauzes between the scene and the audience. He made something of a mystery of the artifices he had recourse to, was careful to leave behind him at the theatre no paper or designs likely to reveal his plans, and declined to inform any one beforehand as to the nature of the illusions he desired to produce. He secretly held small cards in his hand which he now and then consulted to refresh his recollection, as his assistants carried out his instructions. After Garrick had quitted the stage (in 1776) and sold his share in the management of Drury Lane to Sheridan and his partners, it was proposed to De Loutherbourg to continue in his office of chief scene-painter, his salary being reduced one half. This illiberal scale of remuneration the artist indignantly declined, and forthwith left the theatre. He is said, however, by Parke in his _Musical Memoirs_, to have painted the scenes for the successful burletta of _The Camp_, produced by Sheridan, at Drury Lane, in 1778.[17] But he now devoted himself more exclusively to the production of easel-pictures. He had, in 1773, become a contributor to the Exhibition of the Royal Academy. In 1780 he was elected an Associate; in the following year he arrived at the full honours of academicianship. Peter Pindar, in his 'Lyrical Odes to the Royal Academicians for 1782,' finds a place for De Loutherbourg. Having denounced the unlikeness of Mason Chamberlin's portraits, he satirizes the style of art of the landscape painter:-- 'And Loutherbourg, when Heaven so wills, To make brass skies and golden hills, With marble bullocks in glass pastures grazing: Thy reputation too will rise, And people gaping with surprise, Cry "Monsieur Loutherbourg is most amazing!"' [17] Mr. Puff in the _Critic_, giving a specimen of 'the puff direct' in regard to a new play, says: 'As to the scenery, the miraculous powers of Mr. De Loutherbourg are universally acknowledged. In short, we are at a loss which to admire most, the unrivalled genius of the author, the great attention and liberality of the managers, the wonderful abilities of the painter, or the incredible exertions of all the performers.' And in another ode he derides the artist's pictures as 'tea-boards,' 'varnished waiters,' and avows that his rocks are 'paste-board,' while his trees resemble 'brass wigs,' and his fleecy flocks 'mops.' Probably the quiet of his studio oppressed our painter somewhat. The simple effects attainable in an easel-picture did not satisfy him. He missed the appliances of the stage: the coloured lights, the transparent scenes, the descending gauzes, and cleverly combined set-pieces. He would not go back to Drury Lane, however; as to that he was fully determined. He would not toil for ungrateful managers, or paint backgrounds merely to supplement and enrich the exertions of the actors. He decided upon providing London with a new entertainment; upon opening an exhibition that should be _all_ scene painting. Charles Dibdin, the famous sea song writer, who was also a dramatist, a composer of music, an actor, a scene painter, and a manager, had constructed in Exeter Change what he whimsically called 'The Patagonian Theatre:' in truth, a simple puppet-show, upon the plan of that contrived years before by Mr. Powell, under the Piazza, Covent Garden, and concerning which Steele had written humorously in the _Spectator_. Dibdin, assisted by one Hubert Stoppelaer, humorist and caricaturist, wrote miniature plays for the doll performers, recited their parts, composed the music, played the accompaniments upon a smooth-toned organ, and painted the scenes. The stage was about six feet wide and eight feet deep; the puppets some ten inches high; the little theatre was divided into pit, boxes, and gallery, and held altogether about two hundred persons. For half a century no exhibition of the kind had appeared in London. The puppet show was old enough to be a complete novelty to the audience of the day. For a time it thrived wonderfully; then managers and public seem both, by degrees, to have grown weary. Dibdin and his friend departed; the exhibition fell into the hands of incompetent persons; then closed its doors. The dolls, properties, scenery, and dresses were brought to the hammer by merciless creditors; and there was an end of the puppet-show. In 1782 De Loutherbourg took the theatre for the exhibition of his EIDOPHUSIKON. De Loutherbourg had professedly two objects in view: to display his skill as a scene-painter well versed in dioramic effects, and to demonstrate to the English people the beauties of their own country. He averred 'that no English landscape-painter needed foreign travel to collect grand prototypes for his study.' The lakes of Cumberland, the rugged scenery of North Wales, and the mountainous grandeur of Scotland, furnished, he said, inexhaustible occupation for the pencil. He opposed the prejudice then rife among artists and amateurs alike, that England afforded no subjects for the higher display of the painter's art. He confined the Eidophusikon for the most part to the exhibition of English landscapes under different conditions of light and shadow. A chief view exhibited was from the summit of One Tree Hill, Greenwich. There was cleverness evinced in the selection of this landscape. A large public are always prepared to be pleased when they are shown something with which they are well acquainted. Each spectator found himself, as it were, individually appealed to. Each had seen One Tree Hill, and could bring to bear upon the subject his own personal knowledge and observation, and so test and certify to the painter's skill. The view was a set-scene with a moveable sky at the back: a large canvas twenty times the surface of the stage, stretched on frames, and rising diagonally by means of a winding machine. De Loutherbourg excelled in his treatment of clouds; he secured in this way ample room and verge enough to display his knowledge and ingenuity. By regulating the action of his windlass he could control the movements of his clouds, allow them to rise slowly from the horizon and sail obliquely across the heavens, or drive them swiftly along, according to their supposed density and the power to be attributed to the wind. An arrangement of set-pieces cut in pasteboard represented the objects in the middle distance: the cupolas of Greenwich Hospital, the groups of trees in the park, the towns of Greenwich and Deptford, and the shipping in the Pool; due regard being had to size and colour, so that the laws of perspective in distance and atmosphere might not be outraged; the immediate foreground being constructed of cork broken into rugged and picturesque forms, and covered with minute mosses and lichens, 'producing,' says a critic of the period, 'a captivating effect amounting indeed to reality.' In his method of illuminating his handiworks, De Loutherbourg was especially adroit. He abandoned the unnatural system (introduced by Garrick on his return from the Continent in 1765) of lighting the stage by means of a flaming line of footlights, and ranged his lamps above the proscenium, out of sight of the audience. Before his lamps he placed slips of stained glass--yellow, red, green, blue, and purple; and by shifting these, or happily combining them, was enabled to tint his scenes so as to represent various hours of the day and different actions of light. His 'Storm at Sea with the loss of the _Halsewell_, East-Indiaman,' was regarded as the height of artistic mechanism. The ship was a perfect model, correctly rigged, and carrying only such sail as the situation demanded. The lightning quivered through the transparent canvas of the sky. The waves, carved in soft wood from models made in clay, coloured with great skill and highly varnished to reflect the lightning, rose and fell with irregular action, flinging the foam now here, now there, diminishing in size and fading in colour as they receded from the spectator. Then we read--'De Loutherbourg's genius was as prolific in imitations of nature to astonish the ear as to charm the sight. He introduced a new art: _the picturesque of sound_.' That is to say, he simulated thunder by shaking one of the lower corners of a large thin sheet of copper suspended by a chain; the distant firing of signals of distress he imitated by striking, suddenly, a large tambourine with a sponge affixed to a whalebone spring--- the reverberations of the sponge producing a curious echo, as from cloud to cloud, dying away in the distance. The rushing sound of the waves was effected by turning round and round an octagonal pasteboard box, fitted with shelves, and containing small shells, peas, and shot; while two discs of strained silk, suddenly pressed together, emitted a hollow, whistling sound, in imitation of loud gusts of wind. Cylinders loosely charged with seed and small shot, lifted now at one end, now at the other, so as to allow the contents to fall in a pattering stream, represented the noise of hail and rain. The moon was formed by a circular aperture cut in a tin box containing a powerful Argand lamp, which was placed at the back of the scene, and brought near or carried far from the canvas as the luminary was supposed to be shining brightly or to be veiled by clouds. These contrivances, from a modern point of view, may strike the reader as constituting quite the A B C of theatrical illusion. But then it must be remembered that they were, for the most part, distinctly the inventions of De Loutherbourg, and, upon their first introduction, were calculated to impress the public of his day very remarkably. For two seasons De Loutherbourg's Eidophusikon, exhibited at the Patagonian Theatre in Exeter Change, and afterwards at a house in Panton Square, was attended with singular success. Crowds flocked to the new entertainment; the artist world especially delighting in it. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was a frequent visitor, loudly extolled Mr. De. Loutherbourg's ingenuity; recommending him to the patronage of the most eminent men of the time, and counselling all art-students to attend the exhibition as a school of the wonderful effects of nature. Gainsborough's ready sympathies were completely enlisted. For a time, after his manner, he could talk of nothing else, think of nothing else; and he passed evening after evening at the exhibition. He even constructed a miniature Eidophusikon of his own--moved thereto by De Loutherbourg's success and the beauty of a collection of stained glass, the property of one Mr. Jarvis--and painted various landscapes upon glass and transparent surfaces, to be lighted by candles at the back, and viewed through a magnifying lens upon the peep-show principle. But at last the fickle public wearied of the Eidophusikon, as it had been wearied of Mr. Dibdin's puppets. The providers of amusement had, in those days, to be ever stirring in the production of novelties. The sight-seeing public was but a limited and exhaustible body then, little recruited by visitors from the provinces or travellers from the Continent. Long runs of plays or other entertainments--the rule with us--were then almost unknown. The Eidophusikon ceased to attract. The amount received at the doors was at last insufficient to defray the expenses of lighting the building. It became necessary to close the exhibition and provide a new entertainment. Soon the room in Exeter Change was crowded with visitors. Wild beasts were on view, and all London was gaping at them. Meanwhile De Loutherbourg prospered as an artist. His reputation grew; his pictures were in request; he was honoured with the steady patronage of King George III., and was personally an acknowledged favourite at court: a thoroughly successful man indeed. Then we come down to the year 1789, and find the artist of the Eidophusikon assuming a new character. He has become a physician--a seer--a fanatic--and, it must be said, a quack; a disciple of Mesmer, a friend of Cagliostro; practising animal magnetism, professing to cure all diseases, and indulging in vaticination and second sight. Towards the close of the eighteenth century, credulity and imposition shook hands heartily and held a great festival. Throughout civilized Europe a sort of carnival of empiricism prevailed. Quack was king. A spurious leaven of charlatanism was traceable in politics, in science, in religion--pervaded all things indeed. The world was mad to cheat or to be cheated. The mountebank enjoyed his saturnalia. Never had he exhibited his exploits before an audience so numerous and so sympathetic--so eager to be swindled, so liberal in rewarding the swindler. Gravely does Miss Hannah More address Mr. Horace Walpole, concerning what she terms the 'demoniacal mummery'--'the operation of fraud upon folly' which then occupied the country. 'In vain do we boast of the enlightened eighteenth century, and conceitedly talk as if human reason had not a manacle left about her, but that philosophy had broken down all the strongholds of prejudice, ignorance, and superstition; and yet, at this very time, Mesmer has got a hundred thousand pounds by animal magnetism in Paris, and Mainaduc is getting as much in London. There is a fortune-teller in Westminster who is making little less. Lavater's physiognomy books sell at fifteen guineas a set. The diving [divining?] rod is still considered as oracular in many places. Devils are cast out by seven ministers; and, to complete the disgraceful catalogue, slavery is vindicated in print and defended in the House of Peers! Poor human nature, when wilt thou come to years of discretion?' Mr. Walpole writes back (he has always a _proper_ tone for Miss More, reserving his levity and license for less staid correspondents):--'Alas! while Folly has a shilling left, there will be enthusiasts and quack doctors;' and he adds, airing his pet affectation--a hatred of royalty, a love for republicanism--'and there will be slaves while there are kings or sugar-planters.' Joseph Balsamo--more generally known by his pseudonym of Count Alexander De Cagliostro, expelled from France, after nine months' durance in the Bastille, on account of his complicity in the diamond necklace fraud and scandal--had taken refuge in England, bringing with him a long list of quackeries and impostures; among them, his art of making old women young again; his system of 'Egyptian freemasonry,' as he termed it, by virtue of which the ghosts of the departed could be beheld by their surviving friends; and the secrets and discoveries of the great Dr. Mesmer in the so-called science of animal magnetism. Walpole at once proclaims the man a rascal, and proposes to have him locked up for his mummeries and impositions. Miss More laments that people will talk of nothing else. 'Cagliostro and the cardinal's necklace,' she writes, 'spoil all conversation, and destroyed a very good evening at Mr. Pepys's last night' A discussion of such subjects was by no means compatible with Miss More's notion of a good evening. What could have induced simple-minded Mr. De Loutherbourg to put trust in this arch-juggler? Can it have been that from the painter's native Strasbourg had come to him unimpeachable accounts of Cagliostro's feats during his stay there, which had preceded his nefarious expedition to Paris? But the artist is ever excitable, receptive, impressible--the ready prey of the dealer in illusion and trickery. De Loutherbourg is soon at the feet of the quack Gamaliel; soon he is proclaiming himself an inspired physician, practising mesmerism. Cosway and his wife declared themselves clairvoyants. Other painters of the period were dreaming dreams and seeing visions. Nor was it only the artist world that took up with, and made much of, Count Cagliostro and his strange doings. Wiser people than Mr. De Loutherbourg were led astray by the mountebank, though they did not wander so far from the paths of reason and right, nor publish so glaringly the fact of their betrayal into error. Cagliostro was the rage of the hour. The disciples of Dr. Mesmer were without number. It was in ridicule of general rather than class credulity that Mrs. Inchbald wrote (or adapted) her comedy of _Animal Magnetism_, produced on the stage of Covent Garden in 1788. A curious fanatical pamphlet, by one Mary Pratt, of Portland Street, Marylebone, was published in 1789. It was entitled, _A List of Curses performed by Mr. and Mrs. de Loutherbourg, of Hammersmith Terrace, without Medicine: By a Lover of the Lamb of God_, and was dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury in very high-flown terms. Mr. De Loutherbourg was described as 'a gentleman of superior abilities, well known in the scientific and polite assemblies for his brilliancy of talents as a philosopher and painter,' who, with his wife, had been made proper recipients of the 'divine manuductions,' and gifted with power 'to diffuse healing to the afflicted; whether deaf, dumb, lame, halt, or blind.' The Archbishop was therefore entreated to compose a form of prayer to be used in all churches and chapels, that nothing might prevent the inestimable power of the De Loutherbourgs from having its free course, and to order public thanksgiving to be offered up for the same. In her preface, Mrs. Pratt stated that her pamphlet had been published without the consent of Mr. De Loutherbourg, and that he had reprimanded her on account of it, and enjoined her positively to suppress it; but that on mature reflection she had considered it more advisable to offend an individual rather than permit thousands of her fellow-creatures to remain strangers to the precious gifts of the painter. 'I judged by my own private feelings,' she writes, 'that had I any relative either deaf, dumb, blind, or lame, how thankful I should be to find a cure (_more especially gratis_); therefore I suffered the pamphlet to be sold, in hopes that by circulating these most solemn truths, many poor afflicted people might come and be healed.' The cures enumerated in Mrs. Pratt's list would be marvellous enough if the slightest credit could be attached to the lady's wild statements. De Loutherbourg's treatment of the patients who flocked to him was undoubtedly founded on the practice of Mesmer, though Horace Walpole appears to draw a distinction between the curative methods of the two doctors, when he writes to the Countess of Ossory in July 1789: 'Loutherbourg the painter is turned an inspired physician, and has three thousand patients. His sovereign panacea is barley water. I believe it is as efficacious as mesmerism. Baron Swedenborg's disciples multiply also. I am glad of it. The more religions and the more follies the better: they inveigle proselytes from one another.' In a subsequent letter he writes, in reference to a new religion advocated by Taylor the Platonist:--'He will have no success. Not because nonsense is not suited to making proselytes--witness the Methodists, Moravians, Baron Swedenborg, and Loutherbourg the painter--but it should not be learned nonsense, which only the literate think they understand after long study. Absurdity announced only to the ear and easily retained by the memory has other guess operation. Not that I have any objection to Mr. Taylor for making proselytes: the more religions the better. If we had but two in the island they would cut one another's throats for power. When there is plenty of beliefs the professors only gain customers here and there from rival shops, and make more controversies than converts.' This letter was also written to the Countess of Ossory. It was hardly in so free a vein on such a subject that the writer would have ventured to address Miss Hannah More; with whom Mr. Walpole was fond of corresponding about this period. In Mrs. Pratt's List we read of a lad named Thomas Robinson, suffering from the king's evil, and dismissed from St. Bartholomew's Hospital as incurable, brought before Mr. De Loutherbourg, who 'administered to him yesterday in the public healing-room, amidst a large concourse, among whom were some of the first families of distinction in the kingdom,' and wholly cured the sufferer. The two daughters born deaf and dumb of Mrs. Hook, Stable Yard, St. James's, waited upon Mrs. De Loutherbourg, 'who looked upon them with an eye of benignity and healed them.' 'I heard them both speak,' avers Mrs. Pratt, by way of settling the matter. Among other cures we find 'a man with a withered arm which was useless, cured in a few minutes by Mr. De Loutherbourg in the public healing-room at Hammersmith;' 'Mr. Williams, of Cranbourne Street, ill of a fever, had kept his bed ten weeks, was cured instantly;' 'a gentleman, confined with gout in his stomach, kept his bed, was cured instantly;' 'a green-grocer in Weymouth Street, Marylebone, next door to the Weavers' Arms, cured of lameness in both legs--went with crutches--is perfectly well;' 'a Miss W----, a public vocal performer, cured,--but had not goodness of heart enough to own the cure publicly;' 'a child cured of blindness, at Mr. Marsden's, cheesemonger, in the borough.' Other cases are set forth; but the reader will probably consider that specimens enough have been culled from Mrs. Pratt's pamphlet. That the proceedings of the De Loutherbourgs attracted extraordinary attention is very certain. Crowds surrounded the painter's house at Hammersmith, so that it was with difficulty he could go in or out. Particular days were set apart and advertised in the newspapers as 'healing days,' and a portion of the house was given up as a 'healing-room.' Patients were admitted to the presence of the artist-physician by tickets only, and to obtain possession of these, it is said that three thousand people were to be seen waiting at one time. Mrs. Pratt recounts 'with horror and detestation 'the wickedness of certain speculators in the crowd, who, having procured tickets gratis, unscrupulously sold them, at a profit ranging from two to five guineas, to buyers who were tired of waiting. De Loutherbourg complained bitterly that out of the thousands he professed to have cured, but few returned to thank him for the great benefits he had conferred upon them. He preferred to believe in the ingratitude of his patients rather than adopt the more obvious and reasonable course of questioning the perfect virtue of his curative powers, Mrs. Pratt, in concluding her pamphlet, entreats the magistracy or governors of the police to wait on Mr. De Loutherbourg and consult with him as to a proper mode of promoting his labours, and suggests that a 'Bethesda' should be forthwith built for the reception of the sick, and that officers should be appointed to preserve decorum, and to facilitate the efforts of Mr. and Mrs. De Loutherbourg, 'without so much crowding.' Finally she exhorts the world at large to contribute generously to the promotion of these beneficial objects. But even at the date of Mrs. Pratt's pamphlet the tide was turning--had turned. The nine days' wonder was over. The mania was dying of exhaustion. Incidentally, the lady relates that 'having suffered all the indignities and contumely that man could suffer,' the inspired physician had for a time retired from practice into the country. 'I have heard,' she continues, 'people curse him and threaten his life, instead of returning him thanks.' In truth, as the public credulity waned, the doctor's cures failed. His labours were of no avail; his prophecies were falsified. His patients rose against him; the duped grew desperate; the mob became exceeding wroth. The house in Hammersmith Terrace was attacked; stones were thrown, and windows smashed. Not much further mischief was done, however. De Loutherbourg and his wife prudently withdrew from public observation--quitted the kingdom. They were next heard of in company with their friend Count Cagliostro in Switzerland; Madame Cagliostro having accompanied them in their journey from England. But Count Cagliostro's career of jugglery and fraud was nearly over. On the night of the 27th December 1789, he was arrested in Rome, and shut up in the Castle of St. Angelo, whence he never emerged alive. In the curious and scarce _Life and Adventures of Joseph Balsamo, commonly called Count Cagliostro_, translated from the Italian, and published in London in 1791, copies are given of certain strange papers found in his possession, concerning which he was examined by the Inquisition during his imprisonment. In one of these documents there is unquestionable reference to De Loutherbourg, though the painter's name is not given at length, and appears surrounded by the jargon of Cagliostro's so-called system of Egyptian freemasonry, of which it is not possible to render any satisfactory interpretation. We extract from the paper the following:-- '_On the twentieth day of the eighth month_-- 'The Grand Master being employed in his operations, after the usual ceremonies, the Pupil, before seeing the angel, said, "I find myself in a dark room. '"I see a golden sword suspended over my head. '"I perceive Louth--g arrive. '"He opens his breast and shows a wound in his heart; he holds out a poniard to me." '_Grand Master_. "Is he employed in the service of the Grand Cophte?" '_Pupil_. "Yes." '_G. M_. "What else do you see?" '_P_. "I see a star. '"I see two. '"I see seven." '_G. M_. "Proceed." '_P_. "Louth--g has retired--the scene changes, I see seven angels," etc. etc. Cagliostro was ordered by the Inquisition to explain the meaning of this paper. He professed the profoundest ignorance as to its purport. There will probably be no great harm in concluding, therefore, that it did not possess meaning of any kind. But the reader is left to form his own opinion on the subject. Soon De Loutherbourg was found to be again in England. But he practised no more as an inspired physician; he now followed sedulously his legitimate profession. His eccentricities and escapades were overlooked; it seems to have been agreed that he had been more fool than knave--that he had imposed upon himself quite as much as upon other people. A highly esteemed painter, he was permitted to resume his place in society. In proof of the regard in which he was held, it may be noted that the guardians of the De Quinceys deemed it worth while to pay De Loutherbourg a premium of one thousand guineas, to receive as a pupil William, the elder brother of Thomas De Quincey, who had given promise of skill in drawing. The young fellow died, however, in his sixteenth year, about 1795, in the painter's house at Hammersmith. A more moderate sum had some years previously been demanded of Mr. Charles Bannister, the actor, for the art-education of his son John. For a payment of fifty pounds per annum for four years, it was agreed that John Bannister should be taught, boarded, and lodged. But the arrangement came to nothing. De Loutherbourg demanded the payment of the money in advance. He mistrusted the players. They had caricatured him on the stage as 'Mr. Lanternbug,' in General Bourgoyne's comedy, _The Maid of the Oaks_; and then his mocking artist brethren caught at the nickname, corrupting it, however, to 'Leatherbag.' Mr. Bannister was unable or unwilling to comply with the painter's requirements: so young John was sent to the school of the Royal Academy, which he soon deserted, and finally trod the boards, and charmed the town as an actor. Another pupil of De Loutherbourg, and a close imitator of his worst manner, who is yet worthy of public notice as the founder of the Dulwich Gallery, was Francis Bourgeois, knighted by the King of Poland. Edward Dayes, artist, critic, and biographer of artists, is said to have exclaimed eccentrically in reference to Sir Francis: 'Dietricy begat Casanova, Casanova begat De Loutherbourg, De Loutherbourg begat Franky Bourgeois, a dirty dog, who quarrelled with nature, and bedaubed her works!' By his pictures of 'Lord Howe's Victory on the 1st of June 1794,' and 'The Storming of Valenciennes,' De Loutherbourg acquired great popularity.[18] For Macklin's Bible (most luxurious of editions, in seven folio volumes, published in seventy parts at one guinea each!) he painted 'The Angel destroying the Assyrian Host,' and 'The Deluge;' the latter a particularly spirited and effective performance. Dayes, his contemporary, suggests, however, that he was made a historical painter by the printsellers, rather than by the sufficiency of his own genius in that respect. For the higher purposes of art, his composition was too defective, his drawing not masterly enough, and his execution too small and delicate. But Dayes greatly admired De Loutherbourg's 'Review of Warley Camp,' in the Royal Collection; especially praising the animals introduced, and the cool grey of the general effect; the painter as a rule being prone to a somewhat coppery tone of colour. [18] 'July 25th, 1798. Went with Geiseveiller to see the picture of the "Siege of Valenciennes" by Loutherbourg. He went to the scene of action accompanied by Gilray, a Scotchman, famous among the lovers of caricature; a man of talents, however, and uncommonly apt at sketching a hasty likeness. One of the merits of the picture is the portraits it contains, English and Austrian. The Duke of York is the principal figure as the supposed conqueror; and the Austrian general, who actually directed the siege, is placed in a group, where, far from attracting attention, he is but just seen. The picture has great merit; the difference of costume, English and Austrian, Hulan, etc., is picturesque. The horse drawing a cart in the foreground has that faulty affected energy of the French school, which too often disgraces the works of Loutherbourg. Another picture by the same artist, as a companion to this, is the victory of Lord Howe on the first of June; both were painted at the expense of Mechel, printseller at Basle, and of V. and R. Green, purposely for prints to be engraved from them. For the pictures they paid £500 each, besides the expenses of Gilray's journeys to Valenciennes, Portsmouth, etc'--_Diary of_ THOMAS HOLCROFT. In 1808, Turner, appointed Professor of Perspective to the Royal Academy, went to live at Hammersmith, in order, it has been suggested, to be near De Loutherbourg, of whose works he was known to be an admirer. That he should have aided in the art-training and forming of the greatest of landscape painters is a real tribute to the merits of De Loutherbourg. It is something to have been even the fuel that helped the fire of a great genius to burn the more brightly. The characteristics of the old scene-painter's art which attracted the attention of Turner, were doubtless the boldness and strength of his effects: his rolling clouds and tossing waters; his sudden juxta-positions of light and shade; his bright and transparent, if occasionally impure and unnatural, system of colour. He was of another and inferior school to Richard Wilson, Gainsborough, and Constable, who, differing widely in their points of view and in their methods of art, are yet linked together by a common love of the natural aspects of the objects they studied, and a preference for a tender and temperate over what may be called a hectic and passionate rendering of landscape. But succeeding or failing, De Loutherbourg certainly aimed at the reproduction of certain pictorial _tours de force_ which they would never have attempted. He was an innovator in the studio as on the stage. According to modern modes of thought he was not, of course, a conscientious worker. His landscapes were indeed begun, continued, and completed in his painting-room. A few crude pencil lines upon a card were enough for him to take home with him; for the rest he relied upon his memory or his invention. But in such wise was the general method of his time. Painters produced their representations of land and sea after close toil by their firesides. There was not much taking of canvases into the open air in the days of De Loutherbourg. Pursuing such a system, he became, necessarily, very mannered; and yet, with other and greater men, he helped to destroy a conventional manner in art. Rules had been laid down restricting the artist to an extent that threatened to oust nature altogether from painting. It had been decreed, for instance, that in every landscape should appear a first, second, and third light, and, at least, _one_ brown tree. Departure from such a principle was, according to Sir George Beaumont and others, flat heresy. De Loutherbourg avowed himself a heretic. And he ventured to object to the old-established, well-known classically-composed landscape, which was becoming an art nuisance. The thing has disappeared now, but the reader has probably a dim acquaintance with the classically-composed landscape. It was somewhat in this wise: in no particular country, a temple of ruins on the right hand was balanced by a trio of towering firs on the left. In the middle distance was raised another temple in a more tenantable state of repair, above a river crossed by a broken bridge, the ragged arches strongly reflected in the water; at the back, in the centre of the horizontal line (gracefully waved with lilac mountains), was the sun, rising or setting, it was never quite certain which; whilst little ill-drawn, inch-high figures straggled about in the foreground, and furnished a name to the picture: Æneas and Dido, Venus and Adonis, Cephalus and Aurora, Apollo and Daphne, etc. etc. De Loutherbourg's dashing sea-views and stormy landscapes, although they might savour a little of the lamp and the theatre, did service in hindering the further production of the 'classical compositions' of the last century. De Loutherbourg died on the 11th March, 1812, at the house in Hammersmith Terrace, which had been the scene of his exploits as an inspired physician. He was buried in Chiswick churchyard, near the grave of William Hogarth. THE STORY OF AN ENGRAVER. The father of John Keyse Sherwin was a hard-working man, living humbly enough at Eastdean, Sussex, earning his subsistence by cutting and shaping wooden bolts for shipbuilders. Up to his seventeenth year the son, born in 1751, helped the father in his labours. A fine, sturdy, well-grown lad, with abundant self-confidence, young Sherwin seems to have acquired, now one knows exactly how, an inclination for art. Shown one day, at the house of a rich employer, a miniature painting of some value, the youth stoutly asserts his conviction that, if provided with proper materials, he can produce a fair imitation of the work before him. Drawing-paper is given him, and a pencil is thrust into a hand that has grown so hard and horny with constant hewing of wood that it scarcely possesses sensitiveness sufficient to grasp and ply the slim little art-implement. The young fellow perseveres, however, and finally produces a tolerable copy of the picture. Much surprise and interest are excited by this achievement of the woodcutter's son. In Sherwin's days 'the patron' was a part which rich people were rather fond of playing. The fact of having discovered a new artist was in itself a sort of certificate of the discoverer's acumen and taste. If the patronized succeeded, the patron forthwith took high rank as a connoisseur; while on the other hand, if the efforts of the protégé resulted in failure, no great harm accrued to any one; a little money was spent to no purpose: that was all. The mania for patronizing was harmless enough; if based upon some vain glory, there was still a fair leaven of kindliness about it. In the present case, the patron had lighted upon a really clever fellow. Young Sherwin was well worth all the money and pains spent upon him by his first employer and friend, Mr. William Mitford, of the Treasury; and but for some inherent flaw in his moral constitution, would have done his patron and himself unquestionable credit. The young man was taken from wooden bolt-making, sent up to London, and placed under Bartolozzi, an accomplished and very thriving designer and engraver, who formed one of the original members of the Royal Academy on its institution in 1768. Bartolozzi found his pupil apt. He made, indeed, rapid progress, and about 1772 received the Academy gold medals for drawings of 'Coriolanus taking leave of his family,' and 'Venus soliciting Vulcan to make armour for her son.' From 1774 to 1780 his name is to be found in the catalogues of the Academy as an exhibitor of various drawings, original and copied, in red and black chalks, after the manner his master had rendered popular. Sherwin had proved himself a vigorous, dashing draughtsman, standing high in his preceptor's good opinion, higher still in his own, and surely gaining the applause of the town. Quitting Bartolozzi, he set up for himself, taking an expensive house in St. James's Street. He there commenced a desultory system of designing, painting, and engraving; doing less engraving than anything else, however. It was his most legitimate occupation, but it was laborious, took time, was not very highly remunerated, and he wanted to make money--as much and as quickly as possible. He had patrons in plenty, eager for his graceful, facile drawings, prepared to pay good prices for them; and the man himself became a favourite in society. He was handsome, ready, good-natured; well pleased to array his shapely person in smart raiment, disport himself in the drawing-rooms of the noble and rich, and add his name to the unprofitable list of fashion's votaries. He had fallen upon 'dressy' times. A handsome young Prince of Wales was preaching, by example, that costliness of attire was indispensable among gentlemen; and the woodcutter's son set up decidedly for being a gentleman. A record of his costume on one occasion, when he was engaged to dine at his friend Sir Brook Boothby's, has come down to us. A superfine scarlet lapelled coat, with gilt dollar-sized buttons; a profuse lace frill frothing over the top of his white satin, jasmin-sprigged waistcoat; small-clothes of the glossiest black satin, with Bristol diamond buckles; silk stockings, tinged with Scott's liquid-dye blue, and decorated with Devonshire clocks; long ruffles, falling over hands once so worn with rude labour; extravagant buckles covering his instep; and his hair piled up high in front, with three rows of side curls, pomatumed and powdered, and tied into a massive club at the back of his head. Be sure that Mr. Sherwin, thus adorned, presented an imposing aspect; while his morning dress was scarcely less striking. Scarlet and nankeen were the colours chiefly favoured for the spring costume of the exquisites of the period. To the taste of a man of fashion, Mr. Sherwin added an artist's discrimination. He was very difficult to please in regard to shades of colour. It is told of him that he had four scarlet coats made for him before his delicate perception in this respect could be altogether satisfied. He would have the right tone of scarlet, or none at all. 'Fortunately,' observes a critic personally acquainted with the fastidious gentleman, 'he had as many brothers as rejected coats.' And Sherwin was really kind-hearted and generous. There seems to have been no false pride about him. With all his success and prosperity, his airs of fashion and pretentiousness, he was not ashamed of his less fortunate relatives--his wood-cutting father and brothers. He befriended them as long as he was able; tried to lift them up to his own position; brought them up to town, and did what he could to make fine gentlemen of them. His efforts were not attended with much success, however. Possibly the world of fashion found that one member of the Sherwin family was quite as much as it wanted. Besides, by reason of his abilities, the artist had a right to notice and distinction; his relatives were without any such title. They were simple labouring people, much amazed at the luxury and splendour with which they found their kinsman surrounded. A story is told of their dining with the successful artist; when one of the younger lads, without waiting or asking for a spoon, thrusts his fingers into a dish of potatoes to help himself. The father of the family, however, was quick to perceive his son's offence against good manners, and corrected him in a loud whisper: 'Moosn't grabble yer han' 'moong the 'tators _here_!' At this time Sherwin was making about twelve hundred pounds a year. With industry he might have doubled that sum. But he was incorrigibly idle; was without rule or system. For one day that he worked he would waste three in sauntering about, calling on his friends, and in all sorts of frivolous pursuits. And then the dissipations of the evening were as so many heavy mortgages upon the labour of the morning. His expenditure was profuse. He gave away money liberally in charity; was especially fond of relieving the distressed widows and orphans of clergymen, observing that the children of a poor curate were more to be pitied than those of a London artist--since the latter generally had some qualification by which they could gain a livelihood. All this had been well enough if Mr. Sherwin had been a man of independent fortune, or had even pursued prudently his own profession. But, his plan of life considered, he had, in truth, no money to give away. His charity was only another form of prodigality, He was a gambler, too. Such money as he gained when he would condescend to work was quickly swept from him at the hazard-table. He was soon deeply in debt; his creditors growing more and more impatient and angry every day. As an artist, his rapidity and cleverness were remarkable. The late Mr. J.T. Smith, who was for some years keeper of the prints in the British Museum, was in early life a pupil of Sherwin's, and bore testimony to the singular ability of his master. He was ambidexterous. Occupied upon a large engraving, he would often commence a line with his right hand, then, tossing the graver into his left, would meet and finish the line at the other end of the plate with marvellous accuracy. He had great knowledge of the human form, and would sometimes begin a figure at the toe, draw upwards, and complete it at the top of the head in a curiously adroit manner. If he had but worked! Commissions poured in upon him, yet he left them unexecuted. He undertook contracts, yet could seldom be persuaded to execute them. Sometimes when the fit seized him, or when his need of ready money was very urgent, he would apply himself with extraordinary energy, commencing a plate one day, sitting up all night, and producing it finished at breakfast-time the next morning. But this industry was only occasional and accidental. Speedily he relapsed again into slothfulness and self-indulgence. People of note and fashion at one time thronged Mr. Sherwin's studio. It was his boast, that from five to five-and-twenty of the most beautiful women in London were to be seen every spring morning at his house. For one day he hit upon a notable device, which would probably have made his fortune if he had but given the thing fair play. He had made a drawing of the finding of Moses. No ordinary illustration of a scene from Biblical history, however. Mr. Sherwin did not depend upon merely the intrinsic merits of his design; for Pharaoh's daughter was a portrait of the Princess-Royal of England, and grouped round her were all the most distinguished ladies of the English court--the Duchess of Devonshire, the Duchess of Rutland, Lady Duncannon, Lady Jersey, Mrs. Townley Ward, and others--some fifteen in all. Even tiny Moses was said to be a portrait of some baby of distinction, born conveniently at the time. The picture was a great success. Popular taste had been cunningly measured and fitted. This ingenious interleaving of the Bible and the Peerage found a host of admirers. There were some malcontents, of course: ladies whose claims to be ranked among court beauties had been summarily passed over by the painter; for he has rather an invidious task before him who undertakes to decide who are the fifteen most beautiful of English women of quality. He is certain to make hundreds of enemies if he makes fifteen friends; and he cannot rely for certain upon doing even that much, for, as happened in the present instance, jealousies may spring up among the chosen fifteen. Mr. Sherwin was charged by certain of the ladies portrayed in the picture with partiality and favouritism. One beauty had been shown too prominently in the design, greatly to the prejudice of other beauties, who were unfairly restricted to the background. And why should one lady be displayed so advantageously--in a light so brilliant--while other ladies not less attractive, as they opined, were exhibited in so strangely subdued a way, with ugly shadows marring the lustre of their loveliness? And then why, was indignantly asked, why had the artist arranged the portraits so cruelly? Why was this charming fair one, whose graces were of an irregular pattern--whose nose has a heavenward inclination--who pretends to no strictness of beauty, according to absurd rules laid down in drawing-books--why is she brought into such fatal juxtaposition with this other severe and classical-looking and statuesque lady! To be merely a foil? Much obliged, Mr. Sherwin! The offended belle expressing angry and ironic gratitude sweeps from the painter's studio, gathering her rustling skirts together that they may not be soiled by the least contact with the canvases and plaster casts, and other art-paraphernalia and rubbish about the place. The picture was without real artistic value, though undoubtedly pretty and graceful. It was a mere acted charade of the 'Finding of Moses,' got up impromptu as it were; the ladies being in ball-room attire, with high powdered heads, strung with pearls and surmounted with feathers; their silken dresses trimmed with laces, and frills, and furbelows; their faces well whitened and rouged, according to the mode of the day. It was more like a plate from a fashion-book than a scene from Scripture history. True, some small attempt at imparting 'local colour' and air of truth to the thing was just discernible. There was an affectation of Orientalism about the background--a line of palm-trees and plenty of pyramids and temples, presumed to be Egyptian, their style of architecture being nondescript otherwise; but these only made the foreground figures appear more utterly preposterous. Still, the picture pleased the town. It was something to see in one group portraits of the prettiest women in the country. There was a great demand for copies of the engraving. And yet it was with difficulty the harebrained artist could be induced to complete the plate, and supply his patrons and subscribers with prints in return for their guineas. The thriftless, flighty fellow seemed to persist in misconceiving his situation, undervaluing his artist abilities; forgetting that but for these he would still have been peg-cutting in the Sussex woods. He _would_ regard himself as a gentleman of independent property, with whom art was simply a pastime--not at all an indispensable means of winning his sustenance. He seemed, indeed, to treat his talent as a sort of obstacle in his path, blamed the world for having made him an artist, and was fond of asserting that, for his own part, he should have preferred the army as a profession! He was a sort of Twelfth-Night King of Art. For a brief span his success seemed to be without limits. His house was daily besieged by beaux and belles of quality. 'Horses and grooms,' says Miss Hawkins in her Memoirs, 'were cooling before the door; carriages stopped the passage of the street; and the narrow staircase ill sufficed for the number that waited the cautious descent or the laborious ascent of others.' But, of course, this state of things did not last very long. Mr. Sherwin, by his indolence--and indolence in his situation was a sort of insolence--soon put himself out of fashion. Fortune showered her gifts at his feet, but he was too superb a gentleman to stoop and pick them up; so the goddess, wearying of conferring favours that were so ill-appreciated, turned away from him in quest of more reverential votaries. When the footmen of the quality had done with playing fantasias upon his doorknocker, the duns took their turn, and brought less pleasant music out of it. A troublesome time had the fashionable artist. He had to give all his attention now to the question how his creditors could be evaded. For he preferred evasion to payment. It never seems to have occurred to him that the last was as efficacious a mode of silencing a dun's complaint as keeping out of his way; while it was infinitely preferable to the creditor. But either he had not the money by him at the right moment, or he wanted it for some other purpose--to spend in punch, probably--for he was now devoting himself steadily to the consumption of that deleterious compound. He had become too idle now to work for more than the necessities of the moment--to supply himself with pocket-money sufficient for his immediate requirements. His argument was, that if he could only postpone payment, he was quite justified in postponing work. The main thing was to avoid, put off, and distance his duns. Curious stories are told of his efforts and exploits in this respect. An old engraver, one Roberts, purblind from incessant poring over copper-plates, after repeated calls, finds at last his mercurial debtor at home, and demands the settlement of his little bill for work done. Sherwin is very civil and obliging, promises to settle forthwith the account against him; then, taking base advantage of his creditor's defective vision, he makes good his escape, leaving Roberts confronting the lay-figure of the studio decked for the occasion with its proprietor's coat and wig. Imagine the indignation of the creditor upon the discovery of the imposture! Upon another occasion the artist, splendidly attired--for he is engaged to dine at Sir Brook Boothby's--is prisoned in his room, prevented from stirring forth by the fact that a German tailor, a determined creditor who will take no denial, who will listen to no more excuses, has sat down at the chamber door, to starve the debtor into surrender. Time passes; there is no exit from the house but through the studio, and there is posted the inexorable dun, who has already waited five hours, who will wait five more--fifty more, if need be--but he will see his debtor. And Mr. Sherwin has no money. What is he to do? Presently the siege is raised. Good-natured Lord Fitzwilliam enters, appreciates the situation, produces his pocket-book, and satisfies the tailor's demand. 'Here, Mr. Sherwin,' says his lordship to the relieved and grateful engraver, 'here is a present for you. Your tailor's receipt for making a fine gentleman!' And Mr. Sherwin is free at last to go to his dinner-party with what appetite he may. We have another glimpse of the artist--mad with drink, and up all night, alarming the neighbourhood by firing off pistols out of the window to testify his devotion to his patrons of the house of Cavendish, his joy that an heir had been born to the titles and honours of the dukedom of Devonshire--and then he falls, disappears. Invitations no longer come from Sir Brook Boothby and other grand friends; or, if they come, they don't find Mr. Sherwin at home. As long as he can he keeps his creditors at bay; then takes to flight--hides to escape arrest. He binds himself to work for a publisher who harbours and supports him. But it is too late; he cannot work now if he would. He is greatly changed, his constitution has yielded at last to his repeated and reckless attacks upon it. His sight is dim, and his hand is palsied. He has yielded all claim to be accounted an 'exquisite;' the fashions are nothing to him now; he is simply a broken-down, worn-out, prematurely old man. His courage has left him, his gay air of confidence has quite gone; he cannot look his misfortunes in the face; he shrinks from, shivers at, and, in his weakness and despair, exaggerates them wildly; they prey upon him, go near to driving him mad. Pursued and tracked to his publisher's house--or is it merely his fears that mislead him?--he quits his place of refuge, breaks cover, and flies he hardly knows whither. George Steevens, the editor of Shakespeare, wrote on the first October 1790 to a correspondent at Cambridge: 'I am assured that Sherwin the engraver died in extreme poverty at "The Hog in the Pound," an alehouse at the corner of Swallow Street; an example of great talents rendered useless by their possessor.' Miss Hawkins follows this narrative, and the artist's decease is announced in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of the same year. It is proper to state, however, that Mr. Smith, his pupil, has recorded a less melancholy account of Sherwin's death, which took place, he says, 'at the house of the late Mr. Robert Wilkinson, the printseller in Cornhill, who kindly attended him, afforded him every comfort, and paid respect to his remains, his body having been conveyed to Hampstead and buried in a respectable manner in the churchyard, near the east corner of the front entrance.' He was barely forty when he died. Prints from his engravings are still highly esteemed by collectors. If his talent was not of the very first class, it was still of too valuable a kind to be flung in the kennel--utterly degraded and wasted. SIR JOSHUA'S PUPIL. A young apprentice with very little heart in the study of his craft, after the manner of young apprentices, toiling in a watch and clock-maker's shop in the town of Devonport, heard one day the fame of great Sir Joshua's achievements in London sounding through the county--became conscious that the good folks of the shire took pride in the son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, Master of Plympton Grammar School. Why should not he, the apprentice, become as great, or nearly so, a credit to Devonport, his birthplace, as was Sir Joshua to Plympton, _his_ birthplace? Could one man only have art abilities and ambitions, and make for himself the opportunity to employ and gratify them? So the apprentice asked himself. And he must have been a clever fellow that apprentice! He soon convinced himself--that was easy: but he convinced his family; he convinced several of his townsmen--a more difficult task,--that the best thing they could do with him was to send him up to town to study under his countryman, Sir Joshua, and to become, like him, a great painter. He had his way at last. In his twenty-fifth year he was painting in the studio of Reynolds, living under his roof. After all, his dearest wishes gratified, perhaps the pupil was little better off. If cleverness, like fever, were contagious, it had been all very well. But the master was but an indifferent master. He could not, or would not, instruct. He was himself somewhat deficient in education--had few rules--only a marvellous love and perception of the beautiful, and an instinctive talent for its reproduction on his canvas. It was as certain as it was innate, but not to be expressed in words, or communicated or reasoned upon in any way. The deeds of genius are things done, as of course, for no why or wherefore, but simply because there is no help for it but to do them. So the pupils painted in the studio of their pseudo-preceptor for a certain number of years, copying his works; or, when sufficiently advanced, perhaps working at his backgrounds, brushing away at draperies, or such conventional fillings in of pictures, and then went their ways to do what they listed, and for the most part to be heard of no more in art chronicles. They had probably been of more use to the painter than he had been to them. Certainly our friend the clockmaker's apprentice was. For when there arose a cry of 'Who wrote Sir Joshua's discourses, if not Burke?' this pupil could give satisfactory evidence in reply. He had heard the great man, his master, walking up and down in the library, as in the intervals of writing, at one and two o'clock in the morning. A few hours later, and he had the results in his hands. He was employed to make a fair copy of the lecturer's rough manuscript for the reading to the public. He had noted Dr. Johnson's handwriting, for _he_ had revised the draft, sometimes altering to a wrong meaning, from his total ignorance of the subject and of art: but never a stroke of Burke's pen was there to be seen. The pupil, it must be said for him, never lost faith in his master. Vandyke, Reynolds, Titian--he deemed these the great triumvirate of portraiture. Comparing them, he would say, that Vandyke's portraits were like pictures, Sir Joshua's like the reflections in a looking-glass, and Titian's like the real people. And he was useful to the great painter in another way, for he sat for one of the children in the Count Ugolino picture (the one in profile with the hand to the face). While posed for this, he was introduced as a pupil of Sir Joshua's to Mr. Edmund Burke, and turned to look at that statesman. 'He is not only an artist, but has a head that would do for Titian to paint,' said Mr. Burke. He served, too, another celebrated man. With Ralph, Sir Joshua's servant, he went to the gallery of Covent Garden Theatre, to support Dr. Goldsmith's new comedy, _She Stoops to Conquer_, on the first night of its performance. While his friends are trooping to the theatre, the poor author is found sick and shivering with nervousness, wandering up and down the Mall in St. James's Park. He can hardly be induced to witness the production of his own play. Johnson's lusty laugh from the front row of a side box gives the signal to the worthy _claque_, who applaud to an almost dangerous extent, in their zeal for their friend, because there runs a rumour that Cumberland and Ossian Macpherson and Hugh Kelly are getting up a hiss in the pit. 'How did you like the play?' asked Goldsmith of the young painter, who had been clapping his hands until they ached, in the gallery by the side of good Mr. Ralph. 'I wouldn't presume to be a judge in such a matter,' the art-student answered. 'But did it make you laugh?' 'Oh, exceedingly.' 'That's all I require,' said Goldsmith, and sent him box tickets for the author's benefit night, that he might go and laugh again. Sir Joshua's pupil was James Northcote, a long-lived man, born at Devonport in 1746, and dying at his London house, in Argyll Place, Regent Street, in 1831. If he had a Titianesque look in his youth, he possessed it still more in his age. Brilliant eyes, deeply set; grand projecting nose; thin, compressed lips; a shrewd, cat-like, penetrating look; fine, high, bald forehead, yellow and polished, though he often hid this with a fantastic green velvet painting cap, and straggling bunches of quite white hair behind his ears. A little, meagre man, not more than five feet high, in a shabby, patched dressing-gown, almost as old as himself, leading a quiet, cold, penurious life. He never married. He had never even been in love. He had never had the time, or he had never had the passion necessary for such pursuits, or he was too deeply devoted to his profession. He was always, brush in hand, perched up on a temporary stage, painting earnestly, fiercely, 'with the inveterate diligence of a little devil stuccoing a mud wall!' cried flaming Mr. Fuseli. Haydon, with a letter of introduction from Prince Hoare, called upon Northcote. He was shown first into a dirty gallery, then up-stairs into a dirtier painting-room, and then, under a high window, with the light falling full on his bald grey head, stood a diminutive wizened figure in an old blue striped dressing-gown, his spectacles pushed up on his forehead. Looking keenly with his little shining eyes at his visitor, he opened the letter, read it, and with the broadest Devon dialect, said-- 'Zo you mayne tu bee a peinter, doo 'ee? What zort of peinter?' 'Historical painter, sir.' 'Heestoricaul peinter! Why, ye'll starve with a bundle of straw under yeer head.' Presently he read the note again. 'Mr. Hoare zays you're studying anatomy; that's no use--Sir Joshua didn't know it. Why should you want to know what he didn't?' 'But Michael Angelo did, sir.' 'Michael Angelo! what's he tu du here? You must peint portraits here!' Haydon was roused to opposition. 'But I won't!' '_Won't_,' screamed the little man, 'but you _must_! Your vather isn't a moneyed man, is he?' 'No, sir, but he has a good income, and will maintain me for three years.' 'Will hee? Hee'd better make 'ee mentein yeerzelf.' 'Do you think, sir, that I ought to be a pupil to anybody?' 'No,' said Northcote. 'Who's to teach 'ee here? It'll be throwing your vather's money away.' 'Mr. Opie, sir, says I ought to be.' 'Hee zays zo, does hee? ha, ha, ha, ha! he wants your vather's money.' He received many visitors in his studio. He was constantly at home, and liked to talk over his work, for he never paused on account of the callers. He never let go his palette even. He went to the door with a 'Gude God!' his favourite exclamation in his west country dialect, 'what, is it _you_? Come in:' and then climbed his way back to his canvas, asking and answering in his cool, self-possessed way, all about the news of the day. Yet he was violent and angry, and outspoken sometimes, was Sir Joshua's loyal pupil. 'Look at the feeling of Raphael!' said some one to him. 'Bah!' cried the little man. 'Look at Reynolds; he was all feeling! The ancients were _baysts_ in feeling, compared to him.' And again: 'I tell 'ee the King and Queen could not bear the presence of _he_. Do you think he was overawed by _they_? Gude God! He was poison to their sight. They felt ill at ease before such a being--they shrunk into themselves, overawed by his intellectual superiority. They inwardly prayed to God that a trap-door might open under the feet of the throne, by which they might escape--his presence was too terrible!' Certainly he was possessed by no extravagant notions of the divinity of blood-royal. 'What do you know,' he was asked, 'of the Prince of Wales, that he so often speaks of you?' 'Oh, he knows nothing of me, nor I of him--it's only his _bragging_!' the painter grandly replied. He could comprehend the idea of distinction of ranks little more than old Mr. Nollekens, who would persist in treating the royal princes quite as common acquaintances, taking them by the button-hole, forgetful altogether of the feuds of the king's family, and asking them _how their father did_? with an exclamation to the heir-apparent of, 'Ah! we shall never get such another when he's gone!' Though there was little enough veneration for the king in this, as Nollekens proved, when he measured the old monarch, sitting for his bust, from the lip to the forehead, as though he had been measuring a block of marble, and at last fairly stuck the compasses into his Majesty's nose. Even the king, who was not very quick at a joke, could not fail to see the humour of the situation, and laughed immensely. Modern taste prefers Northcote's portraits to his more pretentious works. The glories of Mr. Alderman Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery have pretty well passed away. However, Northcote's pictures were among the best of the collection. His 'Arthur and Hubert,' and the 'Murder of the Princes in the Tower,' and 'The Interment of the Bodies by torchlight,' were very forcible and dramatic works of art, and possessed more natural attractions than the pictures of many of his competitors. His pupilage with Sir Joshua prevented his falling into the washed leather and warm drab errors of tone that then distinguished the English school of historical painting. In the picture of the Burial of the Princes, Fuseli criticised-- 'You shouldn't have made that fellow holding up his hands to receive the bodies. You should have made him digging a hole for them. How awfully grand; with a pickaxe, digging, dump, dump, dump!' 'Yes,' Northcote answered; 'but how am I to paint the sound of dump, dump, dump?' The Boydell pictures were for a long time very popular, and the engravings of them enjoyed a large sale. Of course, Northcote despised Hogarth. Abuse of that painter seemed to be one of the duties of the British historical artist of that day. Yet he paid him homage; he painted a series of pictures, Hogarthian in subject, and proved to the satisfaction of everybody, one would think, the absolute superiority of Hogarth. Mr. Northcote's moral subjects, illustrative of vice and virtue, in the progress of two young women, are not to be mentioned in the same breath with the 'Mariage à la Mode.' Not merely were they deficient in expression--they were not equal in point of art-execution, though of course the more modern painter had planned to excel in both these qualities. But Northcote's portraits are really admirable--broad and vigorous--with much of Sir Joshua's charm of colour, if not his charm of manner exactly. For fifty years he lived in Argyll Place, passing the greatest part of that time in his studio--a small room not more than nine feet by twelve, crowded with the conventional articles of _vertu_ that were then considered to be the indispensable properties of a painter. His maiden sister--'Northcote in petticoats,' she was often called, she was so like him in face, figure, and manner--superintended his frugal household. Its economy was simple enough. The brother and sister were of one opinion. 'Half the world died of over-feeding,' they said. They went into an opposite extreme, and nearly starved themselves. When there was a cry in the land about scarcity of food, they did not heed the panic; they were accustomed to a minimum of sustenance, they could hardly be deprived of that. Fuseli, who sowed his satire broadcast, exclaimed one day: 'What! does Northcote keep a dog? What does he live upon? Why, he must eat his own fleas!' But the painter did not attempt to force his opinions upon others, so the kennel and the kitchen fared better than the parlour. The servants were indulgently treated, permitted to eat as they pleased, and die in their own fashion--of repletion or apoplexy, if it seemed good to them. If he was cold and callous and cynical to the rest of the world, he was ever good and kind to the pinched elderly lady his sister. By his will he gave directions that everything in his house should remain undisturbed, that there should be no sale of his property in her lifetime. He was counselled by considerate friends to have all his pictures sold immediately after his funeral while his name was fresh in the memory of the public; it was urged that his estate would benefit very much by the adoption of such a course. 'Gude God, no!' the old man would cry; 'I haven't patience with ye! Puir thing! d'ye think she'll not be sufficiently sad when my coffin be borne away, and she be left desolate! Tearing my pictures from the walls, and ransacking every nook and corner, and packing up and carting away what's dearer to her than household gods, and all for filthy lucre's sake! No; let her enjoy the few years that will be spared to her; when she walks about the house let her feel it all her own, such as it be, and nothing missing but her brother. I'd rather my bones were torn from my grave, and scattered to help repair the roads, than that a single thing should be displaced here to give her pain. Ye'll drive me mad!' One day there was a great crowd in Argyll Place. Not to see the painter, not even to see a royal carriage that had just drawn up at his door, nor a popular prince of the blood who occupied the carriage, but to catch a glimpse of one about whom the town was then quite mad--raving mad: a small good-looking schoolboy, a theatrical homunculus, the Infant Roscius, Master William Henry Betty. Of course rages and panics and manias seem to be very foolish things, contemplated by the cool grey light of the morning after. It seems rather incredible now, that crowds should have assembled round the theatre at one o'clock to see Master Betty play Barbarossa in the evening; that he should have played for twenty-eight nights at Drury Lane, and drawn £17,000 into the treasury of the theatre. He was simply a handsome boy of thirteen with a fine voice, deep for his age, and powerful but monotonous. Surely he was not very intellectual, though he did witch the town so marvellously. 'If they admire me so much, what would they say of Mr. Harley?' quoth the boy, simply. Mr. Harley being the head tragedian of the same strolling company--a large-calved, leather-lunged player, doubtless, who had awed provincial groundlings for many a long year. Yet the boy's performance of Douglas charmed John Home, the author of the tragedy. 'The first time I ever saw the part of Douglas played according to my ideas of the character!' he exclaimed, as he stood in the wings; but he was then seventy years of age. 'The little Apollo off the pedestal!' cried Humphreys, the artist. 'A beautiful effusion of natural sensibility,' said cold Northcote; 'and then that graceful play of the limbs in youth--what an advantage over every one else!' As the child grew, the charm vanished; the crowds that had applauded the boy fled from the man. Byron denounced him warmly. 'His figure is fat, his features flat, his voice unmanageable, his action ungraceful, and, as Diggory says (in the farce of _All the World's a Stage_), "I defy him to extort that d----d muffin face of his into madness!"' Happy Master Betty! Hapless _Mister_ Betty! Opie had painted the Infant as the shepherd so well known to nursery prodigies watching on the Grampian Hills the flocks of his father, 'a frugal swain, whose constant care,' etc. etc. His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, who was a patron of the stage--or the people on it, or some of them--brought the boy to Northcote, to be represented in a 'Vandyke costume retiring from the altar of Shakespeare,'--rather an unmeaning ceremonial. But the picture was a great success, and the engraving of it published and dedicated to the duke. He was then about forty--a hearty, bluff gentleman, supposed to be free and breezy in his manliness from his service at sea,--kindly and unaffected in manner, had not the slightest knowledge of art, but regarded Northcote as 'an honest, independent, little, old fellow,' seasoning that remark with an oath, after the quarter-deck manner of naval gentlemen of the period. The prince sat in the studio while the artist drew the Infant. Northcote was not a man to wear a better coat upon his back for all that his back was going to be turned upon royalty. He still wore the ragged, patched dressing-gown he always worked in. The painting of Master Betty was amusing at first, but it seemed, in the end, to be but a prolonged and tedious business to the not artistic looker-on. He must divert himself somehow. Certainly Northcote's appearance was comical. Suddenly the painter felt a twitching at his collar. He turned, frowned angrily, but said nothing. The prince persevered. Presently he touched lightly the painter's rough white locks. 'Mr. Northcote, pray how long do you devote to the duties of the toilet?' It was very rude of his Royal Highness, but then he was _so_ bored by the sitting. The little old painter turned round full upon him. 'I never allow any one to take personal liberties with me. You are the first that ever presumed to do so. I beg your Royal Highness to recollect that I am in my own house.' He spoke warmly, glanced haughtily, then worked at his canvas again. There was silence for some minutes. Quietly the duke opened the door and left the room. The painter took no notice. But the royal carriage had been sent away. It would not be required until five o'clock. It was not yet four; and it was raining! The duke returned to the studio. 'Mr. Northcote, it rains. Will you have the kindness to lend me an umbrella?' Calmly the painter rang the bell. 'Bring your mistress's umbrella.' Miss Northcote's umbrella was the only silk one in the house. The servant showed the prince down-stairs, and he left the house protected from the shower by Miss Northcote's umbrella. 'You have offended his Royal Highness,' said some one in the room. '_I_ am the offended party,' the painter answered with dignity. Next day he was alone in his studio when a visitor was announced. 'Mr. Northcote,' said the duke, entering, 'I return Miss Northcote's umbrella you were so kind as to lend me yesterday.' The painter bowed, receiving it from the royal hands. 'I have brought it myself, Mr. Northcote,' the duke continued, 'that I might have the opportunity of saying that I yesterday took a liberty which you properly resented. I am angry with myself. I hope you will forgive me, and think no more of it.' The painter bowed his acceptance of the apology. 'Gude God!' he exclaimed, afterwards telling the story, 'what could I say? He could see what I felt. I could have given my life for him! Such a prince is worthy to be a king!' More than a quarter of a century passed, and then the Duke of Clarence was the King of England--William the Fourth. The old painter was still living, at work as usual, though weak and bent enough now: but with his brain still active, his tongue still sharp, his eyes still very brilliant in his lined shrunken face. 'A poor creature,' he said of himself, 'perhaps amusing for half an hour or so, or curious to see like a little dried mummy in a museum.' He employed himself in the preparation of a number of illustrations to a book of fables published after his death. He collected prints of animals, and cut them out carefully; then he moved about such as he selected for his purpose on a sheet of plain paper, and, satisfying himself at last as to the composition of the picture, he fixed the figures in their places with paste, filled in backgrounds with touches of his pencil, and then handed the curious work to Mr. Harvey, the engraver, to be copied on wood and engraved. The success of the plan was certainly as remarkable as its eccentricity. He employed his pen as well as his pencil: contributed papers to the _Artist_, and published, in 1813, a life of Sir Joshua. A year before his death he produced a _Life of Titian_, the greater part of which, however, was probably written by his friend and constant companion Hazlitt. About the same time Hazlitt reprinted from the _Morning Chronicle_ his _Conversations with Northcote_, a work of much interest and value. He was in his small studio, brush in hand, very tranquil and happy, within two days of his death. It seemed as though he had been forgotten. 'If Providence were to leave me the liberty of choosing my heaven, I should be content to occupy my little painting-room with the continuance of the happiness I have experienced there, even for ever.' He spoke of his works without arrogance. 'Everything one can do falls short of Nature. I am always ready to beg pardon of my sitters after I have done, and to say I hope they'll excuse it. The more one knows of the art, and the better one can do, the less one is satisfied.' Sir Joshua's pupil--'Of all his pupils I am the only one who ever did anything at all'--died on the 13th July 1831, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. HOPPNER AND LAWRENCE. I. There have always been factions in art; and while the schools have battled separately, there has been no lack of single combats between individual painters. Pordenone painting his frescoes in the cloisters of St. Stefano at Venice with his sword drawn and his buckler at hand, prepared for the violence of Titian, is a sample of the masters who found it necessary to combine profession of the fine arts with the business of a bravo. Domenico Veniziano was brutally assaulted by Andrea del Castagno; Annibale Caracci, Cesari, and Guido were driven from Naples, and their lives threatened by Belisario, Spagnoletto, and Caracciolo. Agostino Beltrano, surpassed in painting by his own wife, Amelia di Rosa (the niece of an artist of eminence), murdered her in a fit of jealous rage; Michael Angelo was envious of the growing fame of Sebastiano del Piombo; Hudson[19] quarrelled with his pupil Reynolds, who in his turn was made uneasy by the progress of his rival Romney; and Hoppner, on his deathbed, writhed under the polite attentions of Sir Thomas Lawrence. 'In his visits,' said the poor sick man bitterly, 'there is more joy at my approaching death than true sympathy with my sorrows.' [19] A story to this effect has been generally credited; but in the _Life of Reynolds_ by Messrs. Leslie and Taylor, 1865, a different version is given of the relations subsisting between Sir Joshua and his preceptor, and the notion of the one regarding the other with any sort of animosity is rejected, if not altogether disproved. II. The mother of JOHN HOPPNER was one of the German attendants at the Royal Palace. He was born in London in the summer of 1759. George the Third took a strong personal interest in the bringing up and education of the child, whose sweet musical voice and correct ear soon won for him the post and white stole of a chorister in the royal chapel. Of course there were motives attributed in explanation of the king's kindness and benevolence, and the boy himself, it would appear, was not eager to contradict a slander which ascribed to him illustrious, if illicit, descent. The world chose to see confirmation of the rumours in this respect, in the favour subsequently extended to the young man by the Prince of Wales, who supported him actively against such formidable rivals as Lawrence, Owen, and Opie, and was the means of directing a stream of aristocratic patronage to his studio. He entered as a probationer the school of the Royal Academy--passing gradually through the various stages of studentship, and emerging at last a candidate for the highest prizes of the institution. He underwent few of the privations of the beginner--knew little of the trials and struggles of the ordinary student. Almost 'a royal road' was opened for him. So soon as he could draw and colour decently, patrons were ready for him. Mrs. Jordan sat--now as the Comic Muse--now as Hippolyte; a 'lady of quality' was depicted as a Bacchante. Then came portraits of the Duke and Duchess of York, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Clarence. He lived in Charles Street, close to Carlton House, and wrote himself 'Portrait painter to the Prince of Wales.' The king and queen were quite willing to favour their son's favourite, particularly as they believed, with many other people of the time, that the heir-apparent 'had a taste.' But soon obstacles came between them and the painter. They had never liked Reynolds. Hoppner, full of honest admiration of Sir Joshua, did not hesitate to sound his praises even in the unwilling eyes of royalty. The question, as he held, was one of art, not of kingly predilection. It was uncourtierlike, and the monarch was much displeased. He could not endure contradiction or opposition even in regard to matters of which he knew nothing whatever, such as art for instance. Then the giddy proceedings of the minor and rival court at Carlton House were desperately annoying to plain 'Farmer George;' and in a small way Hoppner had become celebrated in the Prince's circle: for the painter was gaily disposed, witty, and high-spirited. The Prince of Wales having thrown himself into the open arms of the Whigs, Mr. Hoppner must needs become a zealous politician, espousing the principles of the party opposed to the king. He could expect little from their most gracious majesties after that. He obtained nothing. Certainly he was imprudent. What had a painter to do with politics? He thus diminished gravely the area of his prospects. It became quite impossible for Tory noblemen and gentlemen of distinction to bestow patronage upon, sit for their pictures to, a Whig portrait-painter. Why, he might caricature them! And after painting all his Whig friends and associates, what was he to do? with a rival in the field by no means to be despised or held cheaply. III. In the last century it behoved everybody who desired to be accounted 'a personage,' or to be ranked amongst 'people of quality,' to quit London at a certain season of the year, and repair to the city of Bath, or 'the Bath,' as it was frequently called. Now a journey to Bath in those days was no trifling matter: it involved frequent stoppages by the way, and the inns and posting-houses upon the road became, necessarily, _very_ important, and oftentimes very profitable concerns. Miss Burney, the author of _Evelina_, records in her diary the particulars of her journey to Bath with Mrs. Thrale, in the year 1780. She stopped the first night at Maidenhead Bridge; slept at Speen Hill the second, and Devizes the third; arriving at Bath on the fourth day of her journey. The inn patronized by Miss Burney at Devizes was the Black Bear, of which one Thomas Lawrence was the landlord. It is in regard to this establishment we have to request that the reader will give us his attention for a few minutes. Mr. Lawrence had been by turns a solicitor, a poet, an artist, an actor, a supervisor of excise, a farmer, an innkeeper, and, of course, a bankrupt. Probably he might have retired from the Black Bear with a fortune, but that he had a numerous family of sixteen children to support, and that he was not particularly well qualified to succeed as an innkeeper. He seems to have set up for being 'a character,' and his neighbours were inclined to ridicule and censure him for giving himself airs. A bustling, active, good-humoured man, he was prone now and then to play the scholar and the fine gentleman, the while he lost sight of his more recognised position as a landlord. He wore a full-dress suit of black, starched ruffles, and a very grand periwig; was ceremonious and stately in his manners, affected an inordinate love of literature and an air of connoisseurship that contrasted rather strangely with his calling. Certainly there was not such another landlord to be seen upon the road between London and Bath; if, indeed, anywhere else. He was proud of his elocutionary powers, and in a full, sonorous voice he would read aloud select passages from Shakespeare and Milton to all such persons as evinced an inclination to listen to him--sometimes, indeed, to people who did not in the least wish to hear him. It is hardly to be wondered at that divers of the Black Bear's customers occasionally felt indignant and outraged when, travel-worn and hungry, eager for the bill of fare and supper, they were met by the landlord's proposal to expatiate for their benefit upon the beauties of the poets, or to recite for their entertainment certain most elegant extracts. It was food for the body they desiderated, not solace for the mind; and it was, perhaps, only natural that they should treat Mr. Lawrence's suggestions rather curtly. Not that the innkeeper was prompt to take offence. The man who rides a hobby-horse seldom heeds or perceives the criticism of bystanders upon the paces or proportions of his steed. Mr. Lawrence could obtain a hearing from other quarters. Once a week he visited Bath, and passed an evening in the green-room of the theatre there. The actors would listen to him, or pretend to do so; some of them would permit him to read their parts to them, and give them counsel as to the manner in which these should be rendered on the stage, purposing to revenge themselves afterwards, the rogues, by availing themselves of the comforts of the Black Bear, without calling for their accounts when they quitted that hostelry. But even a greater celebrity at Devizes than Mr. Lawrence was his son Thomas, born in 1769, youngest of the sixteen children. He seems to have been regarded on all hands as a sort of infant prodigy of great use in attracting visitors to the inn. He could stand on a chair and recite poetry, or he could wield his blacklead pencil and take the portrait of any one who would condescend to sit to him. 'A most lovely boy,' writes Miss Burney,--with long, luxuriant, girl-like tresses, that tumbled down and hid his face when he stooped to draw. 'He can take your likeness, or repeat you any speech in Milton's _Pandemonium_,' the proud father would cry, 'although he is only five years old.' And at this age he is stated to have produced a striking likeness of Mr. (afterwards Lord) Kenyon. At seven the portrait of the prodigy was taken, and engraved by Mr. Sherwin, the artist. At eight, it seems, his education was finished. His recitations--he had no doubt been carefully instructed by his father--were pronounced to be 'full of discrimination, feeling, and humour, set off by the various tones of a voice full, harmonious, and flexible.' Pretty well this, for such a mere baby as he was at the time! He recited on various occasions before Garrick, Foote, John Wilkes, Sheridan, Burke, Johnson, Churchill, and other famous people, resting for the night or to change horses at Devizes on their road to Bath. Old Lawrence lost no opportunity of talking to his customers, and of exhibiting his wonderful son. All are alleged to have been charmed with him. Mr. and Mrs. Garrick passing through the town, would retire to a summer-house in the garden of the Black Bear, and amuse themselves for some time with the recitations of the little fellow. 'Tommy has learned one or two new speeches since you were here, Mr. Garrick,' the father would exclaim, bringing forward his precocious boy. 'There was something about him,' says an authority, 'which excited the surprise of the most casual observer. He was a perfect man in miniature; his confidence and self-possession smacked of one-and-twenty.' Young Lawrence, however, was not able at this time to read at random any passages from the poets that might be selected for him. He had been instructed in particular speeches, and to these, as a rule, he was obliged to restrict his efforts. For a long time he had been wishing to learn 'Satan's Address to the Sun,' a favourite recitation of his father's; but old Lawrence had declined to intrust him with so important a subject. Nevertheless the boy had acquainted himself with the tone and manner appropriate to the piece, and announced that he was prepared to deliver it in imitation of the elder orator. A family in Devizes, known to the Lawrences, giving a party one evening, requested that the boy might be permitted to attend and entertain the company with his readings and recitations. Old Lawrence consented, on condition that the child was not asked to read other than the pieces with which he was acquainted, and cautioned his son by no means to attempt anything in which he was not perfect, and particularly to avoid the address of Satan. In the evening young Lawrence walked to the house with Shakespeare and Milton under his arm, and went through his performances amid general applause. He was then asked which was his favourite recitation in Milton? He replied that he preferred 'Satan's Address to the Sun,' but that his father would not permit him to repeat it. On this account, and to ascertain whether the child merely performed parrot-fashion, the company were especially anxious to hear the forbidden reading. Young Lawrence's dutiful scruples, however, were not overcome until all present had promised to intercede on his behalf and obtain for him his father's forgiveness. As he turned to the interdicted page a slip of paper fell from the book. A gentleman picked it up and read aloud--'Tom, mind you don't touch Satan.' It was some time before the astonished boy could be induced to proceed; yet he is said to have eventually dealt with the subject very creditably and discreetly. They were strange people these Lawrences, and the Black Bear must have been a curious kind of inn. Miss Burney was greatly surprised at hearing the sounds of singing and pianoforte-playing while she was beneath its roof. It was only the Miss Lawrences practising--but the inn-keepers' daughters of the last century were not generally possessed of such accomplishments. Then, still very wonderful for an inn, 'the house,' says Miss Burney, 'was full of books as well as paintings, drawings, and music, and all the family seem not only ingenious and industrious, but amiable; added to which they are strikingly handsome. I hope,' the lady concludes, 'we may return the same road, that we may see them again.' As Garrick said of him, young Lawrence's walk in life was at this time 'poised between the pencil and the stage.' To which did he incline? Would he be a player or a painter? It was hard to say. He had been taken to town on a visit to Mr. Hugh Boyd (who at one time was supposed to be one of the authors of 'Junius'), introduced to the great painters of the day, and most kindly received by them. Sir Joshua Reynolds had pronounced him 'the most promising genius he had ever met with.' Mr. Hoare had been so charmed with the boy's drawings, that he proposed to send him to Italy with his own son. On the other hand, he had been a frequent visitor in the green-room of the Bath Theatre. Placed upon the table there, the centre of a group of amused actors, he would recite 'Hamlet's Advice to the Players,' and other passages. On one of these occasions, Henderson the tragedian was present, and expressed warm approval of the child's efforts. Then, in return for the civilities and compliments he received, young Lawrence would beg that he might take the portraits of his friends among the company. We are told of his attempt to draw the face of Edwin, the comedian, who the while grimaced and distorted his features, constantly shifting the expression of his countenance, greatly to the bewilderment of the boy artist. Finally he stood silent and motionless, watching his model with a kind of despair, until it became necessary to explain the joke that had been practised. It should be said, however, that stories are current in relation to similar jokes played by humourists upon other artists. Old Lawrence had been compelled to abandon the Black Bear, and had retreated to Bath with his family. 'Bath,' we are informed, 'was at that time London devoid of its mixed society and vulgarity. It contained its selection of all that was noble, affluent, or distinguished in the metropolis; and amongst this circle our artist was now caressed.' It became a kind of fashion to sit to him for oval crayon likenesses at a guinea and a half apiece. Portraits from his pencil of Mrs. Siddons and Admiral Barrington were now engraved, the artist being as yet only thirteen years of age. His success as a portrait-painter seemed quite assured; he was making money rapidly, largely contributing to the support of his family. Yet he was not satisfied. He was greatly tempted to try his fortune on the stage. His view was, that he could earn more, and so could further assist his father by deserting the studio for the theatre. Possibly, too, the display and excitement and applause which pertain to the career of the successful player--and of course he thought he should succeed--were very alluring to the young gentleman. He was now little more than sixteen. He took counsel of a friendly actor, Mr. John Bernard,[20] and favoured him with a private recitation of the part of Jaffier in the tragedy of _Venice Preserved_. Mr. Bernard, it seems, was not much impressed by this performance; at least he did not detect sufficient dramatic ability in the young man to justify his proposed change of profession. The actor, however, did not openly express his opinion on the subject, but merely said he would bear the case in mind and speak to his manager, Mr. Palmer, in regard to it. Meanwhile he disclosed what had passed to old Lawrence. Acquainted by experience with the precariousness of an actor's fortunes, and appreciative also of the value of his son's talents as an artist, Lawrence entreated Bernard to exert all his influence in dissuading the young man from his design. It was determined at last to cure the stage-struck hero by means of a trick--to pre-arrange his failure, in fact. Palmer, the manager, entered into the plan. An appointment was made at Bernard's house, in order that young Lawrence might have a private interview with the manager. In an adjoining room were secreted his father and a party of friends. Bernard introduced the young man to Palmer, who presently desired a specimen of the aspirant's dramatic abilities, and took his seat at the end of the room in the character of auditor and judge. A scene from _Venice Preserved_ was selected, and young Lawrence commenced a recitation. For several lines he proceeded perfectly, but soon he became nervous, confused--he stammered, coughed, and at last stopped outright. Bernard had the book in his hand, but he would not prompt, he withheld all assistance. Young Lawrence began again, but his self-possession was gone--his failure was more decided and humiliating than before. At this juncture his father abruptly entered the room, crying out, 'You play Jaffier, Tom? Hang me if you're fit to appear as a supernumerary!'--or some such speech--and then young Lawrence found that his mortification had not been without witnesses. [20] The father of Mr. Bayle Bernard the dramatist. It was very trying to his vanity. He had to listen to remonstrances and appeals of all kinds. Palmer, the manager, assured him that he did not possess the advantages requisite for success on the stage. Bernard spoke with bitter truthfulness of the trials and sorrows of an actor's life. Other friends drew attention to the brilliant prospect open to the successful painter. Young Lawrence gave way at last. The theatre may thus have lost an agreeable player, but, thanks to the manoeuvre of old Lawrence, Bernard, and Palmer, a famous portrait-painter was secured to the world of art. IV. In 1785 he received a medal from the Society of Arts for his crayon drawing of 'Raphael's Transfiguration.' In 1787, being then seventeen, he exhibited seven pictures at the Royal Academy. He painted his own portrait, and wrote concerning it to his mother, 'To any but my own family I certainly should not say this; but, excepting Sir Joshua for the painting of the head, I would risk my reputation with any painter in London.' The picture was broadly painted, three-quarter size, with a Rembrandtish effect, as Sir Joshua detected when the canvas was shown to him. 'You have been looking at the old masters; take my advice and study nature.' He dismissed the young artist with marked kindness, however. In 1789, Martin Archer Shee described him as 'a genteel, handsome young man, effeminate in his manner;' adding, 'he is wonderfully laborious, and has the most uncommon patience and perseverance.' About this time he painted the Princess Amelia, and Miss Farren, the actress, afterwards Countess of Derby, 'in a white satin cloak and muff;' and full-length portraits of the King and Queen, to be taken out by Lord Macaulay as presents to the Emperor of China. In 1791 he was, at the express desire, it was said, of the King and Queen, after one defeat, admitted an associate of the Royal Academy by a suspension of the law prohibiting the admission of an associate under the age of twenty-four. He was opposed by many of the academicians, and bitterly attacked by Peter Pindar. Dr. Wolcot was especially angry at the alleged interference of royalty in the election. In his satiric poem _The Rights of Kings_, he expostulates ironically with certain academicians who ventured to oppose the nominee of the Court:-- 'How, sirs, on majesty's proud corns to tread! Messieurs ACADEMICIANS, when you're dead, Where can your impudences hope to go? 'Refuse a monarch's mighty orders! It smells of treason--on rebellion borders! 'S death, sirs! it was the Queen's fond wish as well, That _Master_ LAWRENCE should come in! Against a queen so gentle to rebel! This is another crying sin! * * * * * 'Behold, his majesty is in a passion, Tremble, ye rogues, and tremble all the nation! Suppose he takes it in his, royal head To strike your academic idol dead-- Knock down your house, dissolve you in his ire, And strip you of your boasted title--"SQUIRE."[21] * * * * * 'Go, sirs, with halters round your wretched necks, Which some contrition for your crime bespeaks, And much-offended majesty implore: Say, piteous, kneeling in the royal view, "Have pity on a sad abandoned crew, And we, great king, will sin no more; Forgive, dread sir, the crying sin, And _Mister_ LAWRENCE shall come in!"' [21] The diplomas of the Academicians constituted them ESQUIRES. In the last century this designation was conferred and employed by society with more scrupulousness than obtains at present. The academicians had, it seems, in the first instance, elected FRANCIS WHEATLEY, painter of rural and domestic subjects, in preference to Lawrence. There had been then sixteen votes for Wheatley, and but three for Lawrence. 'Yet opposition, fraught to royal wishes, Quite counter to a gracious king's commands, Behold the ACADEMICIANS, those strange fishes, For WHEATLEY lifted their unhallowed hands. So then, these fellows have not leave to crawl, To play the spaniel lick the foot and fawn.' Etc. etc. etc. In 1792, he attended the funeral of Sir Joshua in St. Paul's Cathedral, when Mr. Burke attempted to thank the members of the Academy for the respect shown to the remains of their president, but, overcome by his emotions, was unable to utter a word. In 1795, Mr. Lawrence was elected a full member of the Academy, having previously succeeded Sir Joshua as painter in ordinary to the King--Benjamin West being elected to the presidential chair. 'Sir Joshua,' writes Northcote in his _Life of Reynolds_, 'expected the appointment [of painter in ordinary] would be offered to him on the death of Ramsay, and expressed his disapprobation with regard to soliciting it; but he was informed that it was a necessary point of etiquette with which he complied, and seems to have pleased Johnson by so doing.' Burke, reforming the King's household expenses, had reduced the salary of King's painter from £200 to £50 per annum. But the office was nevertheless a valuable source of emolument, derived in great part from the number of State portraits of the sovereign, required, by usage, for the adornment of certain official residences, and the duty and profit of executing which devolved, as of right, on the painter in ordinary. Thus the mansion of every ambassador of the crown, in the capital of the foreign court to which he was accredited, exhibited in its reception rooms whole-length portraits of the King and Queen of England. And these works were not fixtures in the official residence, but were considered as gifts from the sovereign to the individual ambassador, and remained his property--his perquisites on the cessation of his diplomatic functions. Each new appointment among the _corps diplomatique_, therefore, brought grist to the mill of the painter in ordinary in the shape of a new commission for a royal whole-length, usually a _replica_ of a previous work, but to be charged and paid for according to the artist's usual scale of prices for original pictures. When Reynolds, late in his career, accepted the appointment, its pecuniary advantages were a matter of indifference to him, or he did not care to be for ever reduplicating or reproducing the 'counterfeit presentment' of the sovereign, and a fashion sprung up of compensating the ambassador with a fixed sum of money, the estimated market value of the royal portrait; his excellency not being in the least unwilling to accept the specie in lieu of the picture. But Lawrence did not find it expedient to follow Sir Joshua's example. He claimed a right to execute the portraits, however numerous, of the sovereign, let the diplomatists be ever so willing to take money instead. This claim was admitted, and he reaped large profits accordingly.[22] [22] See _Life of Sir M.A. Shee_, vol. i. p. 441. Add to his unquestionable art-abilities, that he was courtly in manner, an accomplished fencer and dancer, with a graceful figure and a handsome face; that he possessed an exquisitely modulated voice; and large, lustrous expressive eyes--the light in which seemed to be always kindling and brilliant. George the Fourth, indeed, pronounced him 'the most finished gentleman in my dominions.' And then, though he had abandoned all thought of the stage as a means of obtaining profit, there was nothing to prevent his distinguishing himself in back drawing-rooms as an unprofessional player. He was certified by no less a person than Sheridan to be 'the best amateur actor in the kingdom.' Lawrence had greatly distinguished himself in that respect at a theatrical _fête_ given by the Marquis of Abercorn in 1803. 'Shall I give you an account of it?' writes the painter to his sister. 'It was projected by a woman of great cleverness and beauty--Lady Caher.... It was determined to do it in a quiet way, and more as an odd experiment of the talents of the party than anything else; but this and that friend would be offended; and at last it swelled up to a perfect theatre (in a room), and a London audience. The Prince, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, Lord and Lady Melbourne, their sons, Lord and Lady Essex, Lord and Lady Amherst, with a long _et cetera_, and, amongst the rest, Sheridan, were present.' The plays performed were _The Wedding Day_, and _Who's the Dupe?_ Lawrence represented Lord Rakeland in the one, and Grainger in the other. The orchestra was behind the scenes. Lady Harriet Hamilton played the organ, Lady Maria the piano; Lady Catherine the tambourine, the Honourable Mr. Lamb the violoncello; other instrumentalists were hired--'a most perfect orchestra--with admirable scenery, and light as day.' 'The Prince then came in, and of course the orchestra struck up "God save the King." Then a little terrifying bell rang--the curtain drew up--and _The Wedding Day_ began. At first, I will own to you, Sheridan's face, the grave Duke of Devonshire, and two or three staunch critics, made me feel unpleasantly: for I opened the piece. However, this soon wore off; our set played extremely well--like persons of good sense without extravagance or buffoonery, and yet with sufficient spirit. Lady Caher, Mr. J. Madox, and G. Lamb were the most conspicuous--the first so beautiful that I felt love-making very easy. A splendid supper closed the business.' Lawrence seems to have fancied that the propriety of his joining in the theatricals might be questioned. Although his father and mother had both been dead some years, their admonitions in respect of his old love for the stage were still sounding in his ears. So he writes with an air of apology to his sister--his senior by some years--'You know me too well, dear Anne, to believe that I should be of such a scheme under any but very flattering circumstances; as it is, I was right to join in it. Lord Abercorn is an old Jermyn Street friend--a staunch and honourable one, and particularly kind to me in real services and very flattering distinctions. These all formed one strong reason for joining in the thing; and another secret one was, that whatever tends to heighten a character for general talent (when kept in prudent bounds) is of use to that particular direction of it which forms the pursuit of life. I have gained, then, and not lost by this (to you) singular step. I am not going to be a performer in other families. I stick to Lord Abercorn's: and for the rest I pursue my profession as quietly and more steadily than ever.' Certainly Lawrence seemed a likely man to achieve successes, both social and artistic. And he _did_ succeed unquestionably. Byron did not criticise leniently his contemporaries, but he records in his diary: 'The same evening (he is writing of the year 1814) I met Lawrence the painter, and heard one of Lord Grey's daughters play on the harp so modestly and ingenuously, that she looked music. I would rather have had my talk with Lawrence, who talked delightfully, and heard the girl, than have had all the fame of Moore and me put together. The only pleasure of fame is, that it paves the way to pleasure, and the more intellectual the better for the pleasure and us too.' V. It is clear that Mr. Hoppner, 'portrait-painter to the Prince of Wales,' had no mean opponent in Mr. Lawrence, 'portrait-painter in ordinary to His Majesty.' For a time the rivalry was continued in a spirit of much moderation. The painters were calm and forbearing, and scrupulously courteous to each other. Lawrence was too gentle and polite ever to breathe a word against his antagonist, if, indeed, he did not respect his talents too highly to disparage them. Perhaps he was conscious that victory would be his in the end; as Hoppner might also have a presentiment that he was to be defeated. He was of a quick temper; was a husband and a father; entirely dependent on his own exertions, though he could earn five thousand a year easily when fully employed. But certainly the innkeeper's son was stealing away his sitters: even his good friends the Whigs. He chafed under this. He began to speak out. He denounced Lawrence's prudent abstinence from all political feeling as downright hypocrisy. He thought it cowardice "to side with neither faction, and be ready and willing to paint the faces of both." And then he commenced to talk disrespectfully of his rival's art. He claimed for his own portraits greater purity of look and style. 'The ladies of Lawrence,' he said, 'show a gaudy dissoluteness of taste, and sometimes trespass on moral as well as professional chastity.' This was purposed to be a terrible blow to Lawrence. Of course there was plenty of repetition of the remark, and people laughed over it a good deal. But in the end it injured Hoppner rather than Lawrence. The world began to wonder how it was that the painter to the purest court in Europe should depict the demure and reputable ladies of St. James's with such glittering eyes and carmine lips--a _soupçon_ of wantonness in their glances, and a rather needless undraping of their beautiful shoulders; while the painter to the Prince was bestowing on the giddy angels of Carlton House a decency that was within a little of dull, a simplicity that was almost sombreness, a purity that was prudery! The beauties of George III.'s court were not displeased to be pictorially credited with a levity they did not dare to live up or down to; and the ladies of the Prince's court, too honest to assume a virtue they had not, now hastened to be represented by an artist who appeared so admirably to comprehend their allurements. Poor Mr. Hoppner was deserted by the Whig ladies; he had only now the Whig lords to paint: unless he took up with landscape art, for which he had decided talent, as many of the backgrounds to his pictures demonstrate. He grew peevish and irritable. He took to abusing the old masters, and cried out at the neglect of living men. Examining a modern work, he would say: 'Ay, it's a noble picture, but it has one damning defect--it's a thing of _to-day._ Prove it to be but two hundred years old, and from the brush of a famous man, and here's two thousand guineas for it.' Northcote tells of him: 'I once went with him to the hustings, to vote for Home Tooke, and when they asked me what I was, I said, "A painter." At this Hoppner was very mad all the way home, and said I should have called myself "a portrait-painter." I replied that the world had no time to trouble their heads about such distinctions.' Hoppner now produced but few pictures, and these met with small success. He looked thin and haggard, talked incoherently, gave way to bitter repinings and despondency. He resented and misinterpreted, as has been shown, Lawrence's inquiries as to his health. Certainly there is every appearance of feeling in Lawrence's letter, where he writes to a friend, 'You will be sorry to hear it. My most powerful competitor, he whom only to my friends I have acknowledged as my rival, is, I fear, sinking to the grave. I mean, of course, Hoppner. He was always afflicted with bilious and liver complaints (and to these must be greatly attributed the irritation of his mind), and now they have ended in a confirmed dropsy. But though I think he cannot recover, I do not wish that his last illness should be so reported by me. You will believe that I can sincerely feel the loss of a brother-artist from whose works I have often gained instruction, and who has gone by my side in the race these eighteen years.' Hoppner died on the 23d January 1810, in the fifty-first year of his age. To quote Lawrence's letters again: 'The death of Hoppner leaves me, it is true, without a rival, and this has been acknowledged to me by the ablest of my present competitors; but I already find one small misfortune attending it--namely, that I have no sharer in the watchful jealousy, I will not say hatred, that follows the situation.' A son of Hoppner's was consul at Venice, and a friend of Lord Byron's in 1819. 'Hoppner,' says Haydon, 'was a man of fine mind, great nobleness of heart, and an exquisite taste for music; but he had not strength for originality. He imitated Gainsborough for landscape, and Reynolds for portraits.' He held Northcote, Sir Joshua's pupil, however, in great aversion. 'I can fancy a man fond of his art who painted like Reynolds,' Hoppner would say; 'but how a man can be fond of art who paints like that fellow Northcote, Heaven only knows!' There was no love lost between them. 'As to that poor man-milliner of a painter Hoppner,' said Northcote, 'I hate him, sir, I ha-a-ate him!' According to Haydon, he was bilious from hard work at portraits and the harass of fashionable life. And his post of portrait-painter to the Prince had its trials. The Carlton House porter had been ordered to get the railings fresh painted. In his ignorance the man went to Hoppner to request his attention to the matter. Wasn't he the Prince's painter? Hoppner was furious! VI. The factions of Reynolds and Romney lived again in the rivalry of Hoppner and Lawrence. The painters appeared to be well matched. Hoppner had the advantage of a start of ten years, though this was nearly balanced by the very early age at which Lawrence obtained many of his successes. Hoppner was also a handsome man, of refined address and polished manner; he, too, possessed great conversational powers, while in the matter of wit and humour he was probably in advance of his antagonist. He was well read--'one of the best-informed painters of his time,' Mr. Cunningham informs us--frank, out-spoken, open-hearted, gay, and whimsical. He had all the qualifications for a social success, and was not without some of those 'Corinthian' characteristics which were indispensable to a man of fashion, from the Prince of Wales's point of view. With Edrige, the associate miniature-painter, and two other artists, he was once at a fair in the country where strong ale was abounding, and much fun, and drollery, and din. Hoppner turned to his friends. 'You have always seen me,'he said, 'in good company, and playing the courtier, and taken me, I daresay, for a deuced well-bred fellow, and genteel withal. All a mistake. I love low company, and am a bit of a ready-made blackguard.' He pulls up his collar, twitches his neckcloth, sets his hat awry, and with a mad humorous look in his eyes, is soon in the thickest of the crowd of rustic revellers. He jests, gambols, dances, soon to quarrel and fight. He roughly handles a brawny waggoner, a practised boxer, in a regular scientific set-to; gives his defeated antagonist half a guinea, rearranges his toilet, and retires with his friends amidst the cheers of the crowd. It is quite a Tom-and-Jerry scene. Gentlemen delighted to fight coal-heavers in those days. Somehow we always hear of the gentlemen being victorious; perhaps if the coal-heavers could tell the story, it would sometimes have a different _dénouement_. Unfortunately for Hoppner, he had to use his fingers, not his fists, against Lawrence--to paint him down, not fight him. He was a skilful artist, working with an eye to Sir Joshua's manner, and following him oftentimes into error, as well as into truth and beauty. Ridiculing the loose touches of Lawrence, he was frequently as faulty, without ever reaching the real fascination of his rival's style. He had not the Lawrence sense of expression and charm; he could not give to his heads the vivacity and flutter, the brilliance and witchery, of Sir Thomas's portraits. They both took up Reynolds's theory about it being 'a vulgar error to make things too like themselves,' as though it were a merit to paint untruthfully. And painting people of fashion, they had to paint--especially in their earlier days--strange fashions; and an extravagant, and fantastic, and meretricious air clings as a consequence to many of their pictures; for the Prince of Wales had then a grand head of hair (his own hair), which he delighted to pomatum, and powder, and frizzle; and, of course, the gentlemen of the day followed the mode; and then the folds and folds of white muslin that swathed the chins and necks of the sitters; and the coats, with fanciful collars and lapels; and the waistcoats, many-topped and many-hued, winding about in tortuous lines. It is not to be much marvelled at that such items of costume as 'Cumberland corsets,' 'Petersham trousers,' 'Brummel cravats,' 'Osbaldistone ties,' and 'Exquisite crops,' should be only sketchily rendered in paint. Of course, Mr. Opie, who affected thorough John Bullism in art, who laid on his pigments steadily with a trowel, and produced portraits of ladies like washerwomen, and gentlemen liking Wapping publicans--of course, unsentimental, unfashionable Mr. Opie denounced the degeneracy of his competitor's style. 'Lawrence makes coxcombs of his sitters, and they make a coxcomb of him.' Still 'the quality' flocked to the studios of Messrs. Hoppner and Lawrence, and the rival easels were long adorned with the most fashionable faces of the day. VII. For twenty years Lawrence reigned alone. After the final defeat of Napoleon, the artist was commissioned by the Regent to attend the congress of sovereigns at Aix-la-Chapelle, and produce portraits of the principal persons engaged in the great war. These European portraits--twenty-four in number--now decorate the Waterloo Hall at Windsor. In 1815 he was knighted by the Regent; in addition he was admitted to the Academy of St. Luke in Rome, and became in 1817 a member of the American Academy of the Fine Arts, an honour he repaid by painting and presenting to the Academy a portrait of their countryman Benjamin West. The Academies of Venice, Florence, Turin, and Vienna subsequently added his name to their roll of members, while, through the personal interposition of King Christian Frederick, he was presented with the diploma of the Academy of Denmark. He was nominated a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in France, George IV. giving him permission to wear the cross of the order. Charles X. further presented the painter with a grand French clock nearly two feet high, and a dessert service of Sèvres porcelain, which Sir Thomas bequeathed to the Royal Academy. From the Emperor of Russia he received a superb diamond ring of great value; from the King of Prussia a ring with his Majesty's initials, F.R., in diamonds. He also received splendid gifts from the foreign ministers assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle, and from the Archduchess Charles and Princess Metternich at Vienna; from the Pope a ring and a colosseum in mosaic with his Holiness's arms over the centre of the frame; from the Cardinal Gonsalvi, besides other presents, a gold watch, chain, and seals of intaglios, and many beautiful bon-bon boxes of valuable stones set in gold; gold snuff-boxes, etc.; a breakfast set of porcelain from the Dauphin in 1825, with magnificent casts and valuable engravings from Canova at Rome. Was ever painter so fêted and glorified! And then he had been, on the death of West, in 1820, elected to the presidentship of the Academy. 'Well, well,' said Fuseli, who growled at everything and everybody, but was yet a friend to Lawrence, 'since they _must_ have a face-painter to reign over them, let them take Lawrence; he can at least paint eyes!' In 1829, he exhibited eight portraits; but his health was beginning to decline. He died on the 7th June 1830. He had been painting on the previous day another portrait of George IV. in his coronation-dress. 'Are you not tired of those eternal robes? asked some one. 'No,' answered the painter; 'I always find variety in them--the pictures are alike in outline, never in detail. You would find the last the best.' In the night he was taken alarmingly ill. He was bled, and then seemed better; but the bandage slipped--he fell from his chair into the arms of his valet, Jean Duts, a Swiss. 'This is fainting,' said the valet, in alarm. 'No, Jean, my good fellow,' Sir Thomas Lawrence politely corrected him, 'it is dying.' And he breathed his last. VIII. The obsequies of the departed President were of an imposing kind. His remains were removed from his house in Russell Square to Somerset House. There the body was received by the Council and officers of the Academy, and deposited in the model-room, which was hung with black cloth and lighted with wax candles in silver sconces. At the head of the coffin was raised a large hatchment of the armorial bearings of the deceased; and the pall over the coffin bore escutcheons of his arms, wrought in silk. The members of the Council and the family having retired, the body lay in state--the old servant of the President watching through the night the remains of his master. The body was interred in St. Paul's Cathedral, in the 'Painters' Corner' of the south crypt, near the coffins of the former Presidents, Reynolds and West. The Earl of Aberdeen, Earl Gower, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Dover, Sir George Murray, the Right Honourable J.W. Croker, Mr. Hart Davis, and Earl Clanwilliam were pall-bearers. Etty, who followed with the other academicians, writes: 'Since the days of Nelson there has not been so marked a funeral. The only fine day we have had for a long time was _that_ day. When the melancholy pageant had entered the great western door, and was half way up the body of the church, the solemn sound of the organ and the anthem swelled on the ear, and vibrated to every heart. It was deeply touching.... The organ echoed through the aisles. The sinking sun shed his parting beams through the west window--and we left him alone. Hail, and farewell!' The produce of the sale by auction of his collection of art works and treasures, etc., was between fifteen and sixteen thousand pounds. The estate of the dead man was only just equal to the demands upon it, however. His popularity ought to have brought him wealth, but, strange to say, he was always embarrassed. Yet he did not gamble, was never dissipated, never viciously extravagant; but he kept no accounts, was prodigal in kindness to his brother-artists, and in responding to the many appeals to his charity. Perhaps, too, he rather affected an aristocratic indifference to money. He spent much time in gratuitous drawing and painting for presents to his friends. It is probable that his death was hastened by his incessant work, to meet the demands made upon him for money. Washington Irving saw him a few days before his death, and relates that 'he seemed uneasy and restless, his eyes were wandering, he was as pale as marble, the stamp of death seemed on him. He told me he felt ill, but he wished to bear himself up.' In one of his letters the painter wrote: 'I am chained to the oar, but painting was never less inviting to me--business never more oppressive to me than at this moment.' Still he could play his courtier part in society, and was always graceful and winning. Haydon, who never loved a portrait-painter much, yet says of Lawrence, that he was 'amiable, kind, generous, and forgiving.' Further on he adds: 'He had smiled so often and so long, that at last his smile had the appearance of being set in enamel.' But then, Mr. Haydon prided himself on his coarseness, defiance, and hatred of conventionality, deeming these fitting attributes of the high artist. It is only as a portrait-painter that Sir Thomas can now be esteemed; and, as a portrait-painter, his reputation has much declined of late years. His drawing was often very incorrect, and his execution slovenly. His colour was hectic and gaudy; and in composition he possessed little skill. He was a master of expression, however. His heads are wonderfully animated, and he invested his sitters with an air of high life peculiar to himself. Conscious and a little affected they might be, but certainly, through his art, they proclaimed themselves people of quality and distinction. His attempts in another line of art were few and not successful. His 'Homer reciting his Poems' was chiefly remarkable for its resemblance to Mr. Westall's manner, and for containing a well-drawn figure of Jackson the pugilist. Of his 'Satan calling up the Legions,' Anthony Pasquin cruelly wrote, that 'it conveyed an idea of a mad German sugar-baker dancing naked in a conflagration of his own treacle.' Over an attempt at a Prospero and Miranda, he subsequently painted on the same canvas a portrait of Kemble as Rolla. And was he a male coquette? 'No,' answers a lady --and it is a question that requires a lady's answer--'he had no plan of conquest.... But it cannot be too strongly stated that his manners were likely to mislead without his intending it. He could not write a common answer to a dinner invitation without its assuming the tone of a _billet-doux_. The very commonest conversation was held in that soft low whisper, and with that tone of deference and interest which are so unusual, and so calculated to please. I am myself persuaded that he never intentionally gave pain.' Perhaps he was not capable of very deep feeling, and liked to test the effects of his fine eyes. He wooed the two daughters of Mrs. Siddons, never being quite clear in his own mind which he really loved. He tired of the one and was dismissed by the other, or so rumour told the story; however, his friendly relations with the family do not appear to have ceased. One of the sisters died. 'From the day of her death to that of his own,' writes a biographer, 'he wore mourning, and always used black sealing-wax. Uncontrollable fits of melancholy came over him, and he mentioned not her name but to his most confidential friend, and then always with tenderness and respect.' It would have been more desirable, perhaps, that he should have exhibited a little more feeling during the lifetime of the lady; but perhaps marriage was not in the programme of Hoppner's courtly rival, of the painter 'that began where Reynolds left off,' as the sinking Sir Joshua is reported to have declared of him, rather too flatteringly. IX. Haydon notes in his diary, under date 25th May 1832, 'I passed Lawrence's house (Russell Square). Nothing could be more melancholy or desolate. I knocked, and was shown in. The passages were dusty; the paper torn; the parlours dark; the painting-room, where so much beauty had once glittered, forlorn; and the whole appearance desolate and wretched--the very plate on the door green with mildew. 'I went into the parlour, which used to be instinct with life; "Poor Sir Thomas; always in trouble," said the woman who had the care of the house, "always something to worrit him." I saw his bed-room--small --only a little bed--the mark of it was against the wall. Close to his bed-room was an immense room (where was carried on his manufactory of draperies, etc.), divided, yet open over the partitions. It must have been five or six small rooms turned into one large workshop. Here his assistants worked. His painting-room was a large back drawing-room; his show-room a large front one. He occupied a parlour and a bed-room; all the rest of the house was turned to business. Any one would think that people of fashion would visit from remembrance the house where they had spent so many happy hours. Not they. They shun a disagreeable sensation. They have no feeling--no poetry. It is shocking. It is dirty!' Bitter Mr. Haydon. Perhaps it was not that he loved Lawrence more, but that he loved his patrons less. For the people of fashion who were caring so little about the dead Lawrence, cared not at all for the living Haydon. THE PUPIL OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. In St. James's Street, London, on the 10th June 1787, was born George Henry Harlow. His father, an East India merchant for a time Resident at Canton, had been dead about four months. The widowed mother, only twenty-seven, and of remarkable personal attractions, was fortunately left with an ample dower. Mourning her husband, she devoted herself to her children--five very young girls and the new-born son. Perhaps it was not unnatural that to the youngest child, born under such circumstances--the only boy--the largest share of her maternal affection and solicitude should be given. He was first placed at the classical school of Dr. Barrow in Soho Square, then under the tuition of Dr. Roy in Burlington Street; for some time he was at Westminster. In after-life, in boastful moments, he was pleased to speak grandly of his classical attainments; of these, however, he could never adduce any notable evidence. It is probable that he was at no time a very eager student; he had tastes and ambitions not compatible with school-learning, and an over-indulgent mother was little likely to rebuke his want of application, or to desire that her darling's attention should be fixed upon his books in too earnest a manner. Certainly before he was sixteen he had left school, and even then he had devoted much of his time to other than scholastic pursuits. He was a smart, clever boy, with a lively taste for art, a constant visitor at the picture-galleries, already able to ply his pencil to some purpose; yet bent, perhaps, upon acquiring the manner and the trick of others rather than of arriving at a method of his own by a hard study of nature. He almost preferred a painted to a real human being--a picture landscape to a view from a hill-top. He was satisfied that things should come to him filtered through the canvases of his predecessors--content to see with their eyes. He was apt to think painting was little higher than legerdemain, was a conjurer's feat to be detected by constantly watching the performer, was a secret that he might be told by others or might discover for himself by examining their works: not a science open under certain conditions to all who will take the trouble to learn. These were not very noble nor very healthy opinions to entertain upon the subject; but at least at the foundation of them was a certain fondness for art, and there was without doubt promise in the performances of the young man. Of this Mrs. Harlow was speedily satisfied, and the friends she consulted confirmed her opinion. It was determined that he should enter the studio of a painter. Not much care was exercised in the selection of a preceptor. A Dutch artist, named Henry De Cort, had settled in London; he produced landscapes of a formal, artificial pattern--compositions in which Italian palaces and waterfalls and ruins appeared prominently, formal in colour, neat in finish, the animals and figures being added to the pictures by other Dutchmen. There was rather a rage at one time for Italian landscape seen through a Dutch medium: a fashion in favour of which there is little to be said. It was not a very good school in which to place George Henry Harlow. De Cort was pretentious and conceited--worse, he was dull. The student loved art, but he could not fancy such a professor as De Cort. He began to feel that he could learn nothing from such a master--that he was, indeed, wasting his time. He quitted De Cort, and entered the studio of Mr. Drummond, A.R.A. He applied himself assiduously, 'with an ardour from which even amusements could not seduce him,' says a biographer. For, alas! young Mr. Harlow was becoming as noted for his love of pleasure as for his love of his profession. He remained a year with Mr. Drummond, and then commenced to sigh for a change. There is a story that the beautiful Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire interested herself in the studies of the young man, and that owing to her influence and interposition he was admitted into the studio of Sir Thomas Lawrence in Greek Street. Another account has it that Mr. Harlow and his mother visited the various painters with the view of selecting one with whom the student would be content to remain until his period of pupilage was at an end, and that he himself finally selected Sir Thomas Lawrence. A premium of one hundred guineas was paid. For this sum the student was to have free access to his master's house 'at nine o'clock in the morning, with leave to copy his pictures till four o'clock in the afternoon, but was to receive no instruction of any kind.' It was supposed, apparently, that the example of Sir Thomas was instruction enough. But it is possible that Lawrence, while, with his innumerable engagements, he was unable to bestow much time upon a pupil, was also, like Sir Joshua, unable to communicate art instruction. He knew very little of rules, he was little imbued with academic prescriptions, he painted rather from an instinctive love of beauty and from a purely natural quickness in observing expression. Harlow might have said of Lawrence as Northcote said of Reynolds: 'I learnt nothing from him while I was with him.' Though it seems hard to say that a student could be long in the studio of either master and benefit in no way. The friends of the late Mr. Harlow were greatly distressed that his son should follow the unprofitable business of the Fine Arts. They hastened to rescue him from ruin, as they believed. They offered him a writership in India. He declined their assistance. 'I care not for riches,' he said; 'give me fame and glory!' They could not comprehend an ambition so absurd; they thought the young man out of his senses, and left him accordingly. They were even angry with their friend's son that he would not permit them to tear him from the profession of his choice. Harlow was excitable, impulsive, enthusiastic. He was well acquainted with his own ability; indeed he was inclined to set almost too high a value upon it. He could bear no restraint. If Lawrence had attempted to impart instruction to him, he would probably have resisted it with all his might; he was ill at ease under even the semblance of pupilage; he declined to recognise his own inferiority; he was angry with the position he occupied in the studio of Sir Thomas. It would seem to have been difficult to quarrel with one who was always so courtier-like in manner, so gentle and _suave_ and forbearing as was Lawrence. But it is possible these very characteristics were matters of offence to Harlow. He could not give credit for ability to a man who was so calm and elegant and placid amidst all the entrancements of his profession. He thought a great painter should gesticulate more, should sacrifice the gentlemanly to the eccentric as _he_ did, should be feverish and frothy and unconventional and absurd as _he_ was. And then he possessed a quick mimetic talent. He had soon acquired great part of Lawrence's manner. People are always prone to think themselves equal to those they can imitate, and he was far ahead of all the other young gentlemen who entered the studio; indeed it may be said that no one has ever approached more closely to the peculiar style and character of Lawrence's art than his pupil Harlow. The master admitted this himself--if not in words, at least in conduct. He employed Harlow upon his portraits, to paint replicas, and even to prepare in dead colours the originals. Of course the painting of backgrounds and accessories was the customary occupation of the pupils. For eighteen months Harlow remained in the studio of Sir Thomas. A portrait had been painted of Mrs. Angerstein. In this Lawrence had introduced a Newfoundland dog, so skilfully represented as to excite the warmest admiration. Harlow, perhaps, had had a share in the painting of this dog, and he loudly claimed credit for it. He is said even to have intruded himself upon the Angerstein family, and to have represented to them how greatly the success of the picture was due to his exertions. Of course this conduct on the part of a pupil amounted to flat mutiny. Sir Thomas informed of it, sought out his pupil, and said to him: 'You must leave my house immediately. The animal you claim is among the best things _I_ ever painted. Of course you have no need of further instruction from me.' Harlow withdrew abruptly. In a day or two afterwards he was heard of, living magnificently, at the Queen's Head, a small roadside inn on the left hand as you leave Epsom for Ashstead. When the host approached with the reckoning, it was found that the painter was without the means of liquidating it. It was agreed that the account should be paid by his executing a new sign-board. He painted both sides: on one a full-face view of Queen Charlotte, a dashing caricature of Sir Thomas's manner; on the other a back view of the Queen's head, as though she were looking into the sign-board, while underneath was inscribed 'T.L., Greek Street, Soho.' Sir Thomas, informed of this eccentric proceeding, said to Harlow:-- 'I have seen your additional act of perfidy at Epsom, and if you were not a scoundrel I would kick you from one end of the street to the other.' 'There is some privilege in being a scoundrel, then,' answers the pupil, 'for the street is very long.' So we read of the quarrel of Lawrence and Harlow, one of those stories so easy to relate and so difficult to disprove. But there are incoherencies about it. The portrait of Mrs. Angerstein was exhibited at the Royal Academy in the year 1800, some years before Harlow had become a pupil of Lawrence's. The speech about the kicking is a very unlikely one to have proceeded from Lawrence, while it is still more unlikely that Harlow would have received it so quietly. Had such language passed between them it is hardly possible they could have been on the footing of anything like friendship afterwards, yet we find Lawrence assisting Harlow in his picture of the Kemble family in quite an intimate way. Certainly there was a quarrel, and Harlow quitted Sir Thomas. A living writer says, in reference to the sign-board story:-- 'I remember to have seen it as early as 1815. Some twenty years after, missing this peculiar sign from the suspensory iron (where a written board had been substituted), I made inquiry at the inn as to the fate of Harlow's Queen's Head, but could not learn anything of its whereabouts.' It is not probable that Lawrence was disposed to condemn this more severely, than as one of those artistic freaks which clever caricaturing students are every day indulging in. Thenceforth Harlow determined to set up as a painter on his own account. He would be a student no longer. He refused to avail himself of the advantages offered by the Academy--he would not draw there--would not enrol himself as a student. He would toil no more in the studios of others--he was now a full-blown artist himself. So he argued. 'Naturally vain.' writes J.T. Smith, one of his biographers, 'he became ridiculously foppish, and by dressing to the extreme of fashion was often the laughing-stock of his brother artists, particularly when he wished to pass for a man of high rank, whose costume he mimicked; and that folly he would often venture upon without an income sufficient to pay one of his many tailors' bills.' He seemed bent upon exaggerating even the extravagances of fashion. There is a story of his having been seen with such enormously long spurs that he was obliged to walk down stairs backwards to save himself from falling headlong. He had a craving for notoriety. If the public would not notice his works, at least they should notice _him_. Somehow he would be singled out from the crowd. People should ask who he was, no matter whether censure or applause was to follow the inquiry. So he dressed with wild magnificence and swaggered along the streets and laughed loudly and talked with an audacious freedom that was often the cause of his expulsion from respectable company. A glass or two of wine seemed quite to turn his brain; he was alert then for any frivolity, and he was not always content with so restricted a libation, when the consequences were even more to be deplored. He now offered himself as a candidate for Academic honours. He was not a likely man to succeed, yet he did all he could to conciliate the more influential Academicians, and certainly he had merits that entitled him fairly to look for the distinction. He painted a portrait of Northcote, said to be the best that had ever been taken of the veteran artist, and the number of portraits of him was very great. He also painted Stothard and Nollekens, and the well-known and admirable portrait of Fuseli. With this he took extraordinary pains, had numerous sittings, and was two whole days engaged upon the right hand only--a long time according to the art-opinion of his day, when it was the fashion to finish a portrait in a very dashing style of execution, after one sitting, and in a few hours' time. Mr. Leslie allowed Harlow's portrait of Fuseli to be the best. 'But,' he said, 'it would have required a Reynolds to do justice to the fine intelligence of his head. His keen eye of the most transparent blue I shall never forget.' But the Academy would not think favourably of Harlow. In later days Northcote sturdily declaimed: 'The Academy is not an institution for the suppression of Vice but for the encouragement of the Fine Arts. The dragging morality into everything in season and out of season, is only giving a handle to hypocrisy, and turning virtue into a byword for impertinence.' There was only one Academician who could be found to give a vote for Harlow. This was, of course, Fuseli. He was accused of it, and vindicated himself--'I voted for the talent, not for the man!' He was seeking to estimate the fitness of the claimant for art-honours, by means of perhaps the fairest criterion. The Academy tested on a different plan. It was hard to say that Harlow's moral character rendered him unfit to associate with the painters of his day; yet such was the effect of the decision of the Academy. Of course he was cruelly mortified, deeply incensed; of course he swore in his wrath that he would wreak a terrible vengeance upon his enemies. But what could he do? He could privately abuse the academicians corporately and severally wherever he went; and publicly he would paint them down. He would demonstrate their imbecility and his own greatness by his works. He took to large historical paintings--'Bolingbroke's Entry into London' and 'The Quarrel between Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex.' Unfortunately the merits of these achievements were not sufficient to carry dismay into the hearts of his oppressors. And what was even worse, no purchaser came for these ambitious works. He was driven to portrait painting again. He was dexterous in delineating character, was rapid in execution, had a respectable appreciation of colour. His first exhibited portrait was one of his mother; she lived to see him, in a great measure, successful, and died when he was twenty-two years old. A deep affection seems to have subsisted between the mother and the son. He was greatly moved at her death, and always mentioned her name with tenderness. He had soon no lack of sitters. He was recognised as being, in a certain style of portraiture, second to Lawrence only. And he next achieved a considerable success in a higher order of art. His 'Arthur and Hubert' was highly applauded by the public. It was painted for Mr. Leader, at the price of one hundred guineas. The patron, however, was less pleased with the vigour and glow of colour of the work than were the critics, and was not sorry to exchange the picture for portraits of his children. This was sufficiently galling to the painter's pride, but he was not rich enough to resent such conduct. He could not afford to close all dealing with his patron, as he would greatly have preferred to do. The next picture--and the one by which of all his works he is the most popularly known--was that combination of historical art and portraiture known as the 'Trial of Queen Katherine.' The work was commissioned by Mr. Welsh the professor of music. It was commenced during the progress of the artist's portrait of Fuseli, who, examining the first drawing of the picture, said:--'I do not disapprove of the general arrangement of your work, and I see you will give it a powerful effect of light and shade. But you have here a composition of more than twenty figures, or, I should rather say, parts of figures, because you have not shown one leg or foot, which makes it very defective. If you do not know how to draw feet and legs, I will show you.' And with a crayon he made drawings on the wainscot of the room. However inclined Harlow may have been to neglect counsel, given in rather an imperious tone, he did not hesitate to profit by Fuseli's comments, and accordingly he re-arranged the grouping in the foreground of his picture. On a subsequent visit Fuseli remarked the change: 'So far you have done well,' he said, 'but now you have not introduced a back-figure to throw the eye of the spectator into the picture.' And he then proceeded to point out by what means this might be managed. Accordingly, we learn, Harlow introduced the two boys who are taking up the cushion; the one with his back turned is altogether due to Fuseli, and is, no doubt, the best drawn figure in the whole picture. Fuseli was afterwards desirous that the drawing of the arms of the principal object--Queen Katherine--should be amended, but this it seems was not accomplished. 'After having witnessed many ineffectual attempts of the painter to accomplish this, I remarked, "It is a pity that you never attended the antique academy."' It was only Fuseli who would have presumed to address such an observation to Harlow; while it was only from Fuseli that it would have been received with even the commonest patience. The Kemble family are represented in this picture; and it is probable that the painter was more anxious for the correctness of their portraits, and an accurate representation of the scene, as it was enacted at Covent Garden Theatre, than for any of the higher characteristics of historical art. Mrs. Siddons is the _Katherine_; John Kemble is _Wolsey_; Charles Kemble, _Cromwell_; while Stephen Kemble, who was reputed to be fat enough to appear as _Falstaff_, 'without stuffing,' here represents the _King_. These are all admirable portraits of a strikingly handsome family, firmly and grandly painted, and full of expression. Perhaps the best of all is Mrs. Siddons', and the next Charles Kemble's. The whole picture is a highly commendable work of art, and enjoyed during many years an extraordinary popularity. It was with John Kemble, however, that the artist had his greatest difficulty, and it was here that Sir Thomas Lawrence rendered assistance to Harlow. Kemble steadily refused to sit, and great was the distress of the painter. At last Sir Thomas advised his pupil to go to the front row of the pit of the theatre (there were no stalls in those days, it should be remembered), four or five times successively, and sketch the great actor's countenance, and thus make out such a likeness as he could introduce into the painting. This expedient was adopted, and not only was a very good likeness secured, but the artist was successful in obtaining the expression of the _Cardinal_ at the exact point of his surprise and anger at the defiance of the _Queen_. Had Mr. Kemble sat for his portrait, Harlow would probably have experienced the difficulty Northcote complained of:-- 'When Kemble sat to me for _Richard III_., meeting the children, he lent me no assistance whatever in the expression I wished to give, but remained quite immoveable, as if he were sitting for an ordinary portrait. As Boaden said, this was his way. He never put himself to any exertion except in his professional character. If any one wanted to know his idea of a part, or of a particular passage, his reply always was, "You must come and see me do it."' Harlow had much of that talent for painting eyes which was so lauded in the case of his master Lawrence. A critic has described the eyes in certain of Lawrence's portraits as 'starting from their spheres.' The opinion is rather more extravagant than complimentary, or true. There is a winning sparkle about them which may occasionally be carried to excess, but, as a rule, they are singularly life-like. Sir Joshua had laid it down as a fixed principle that, to create the beautiful, the eyes ought always to be in mezzotint. To this rule Sir Thomas did not adhere very rigorously, and indeed, by a departure from it, frequently arrived at the effect he contemplated. Ambitious at one time of exhibiting his learning, Harlow thought proper to express surprise at a scholar like Fuseli permitting the engravers to place translations under his classical subjects. 'Educated at Westminster school,' he said, rather affectedly, 'I should prefer to see the quotations given in the original language;' and he was rash enough to instance the print from the death of OEdipus, as a case in point. The unfortunate part of this was, that, on the plate in question, the passage was really engraved in Greek characters under the mezzotint. Fuseli heard of this criticism: 'I will soon bring his knowledge to the test,' he said. On the next occasion of his sitting to Harlow he wrote with chalk in large letters, on the wainscot, a passage from Sophocles: 'Read that,' he said to Harlow. It soon became evident that Mr. Harlow was quite unable to do this. Fuseli thought the occasion a worthy one for administering a rebuke. 'That is the Greek quotation inscribed under the OEdipus, which you believed to be absent from the plate, and a word of which you are unable to read. You are a good portrait-painter; in some ways you stand unrivalled. Don't then pretend to be what you are not, and, probably, from your avocations, never can be,--a scholar.' Mr. Fuseli was inclined to be censorious, but possibly his severity was, in a great measure, deserved in the case of poor, vain, pretentious Harlow. In June 1818, in his thirty-first year, Harlow set out for Italy, bent on study and self-improvement. An interesting and characteristic account of his life in Rome is contained in his letter dated the 23d November, addressed to Mr. Tomkisson, the pianoforte-maker of Dean Street, Soho, who was in several ways connected with artists, and interested in art. 'The major part of my labours are now at an end, having since my arrival made an entire copy of the Transfiguration; the next was a composition of my own, of fifteen figures which created no small sensation here. Canova requested to have the picture at his house for a few days, which was accordingly sent, and, on the 10th November, upwards of five hundred persons saw it; it was then removed to the academy of St. Luke's, and publicly exhibited. They unanimously elected me an Academician, and I have received the diploma. There are many things which have made this election very honourable to me, of which you shall hear in England. You must understand that there are two degrees in our academy--one of merit, the other of honour; mine is of merit, being one of the body of the academy. The same night of my election the King of Naples received his honorary degree (being then in Rome on a visit to the Pope) in common with all the other sovereigns of Europe, and I am happy to find the Duke of Wellington is one also. West, Fuseli, Lawrence, Flaxman, and myself, are the _only_ British artists belonging to St. Luke's as academicians. This institution is upwards of three hundred years standing. Raffaelle, the Caracci, Poussin, Guido, Titian, and every great master that we esteem, were members. I had the high gratification to see my name enrolled in the list of these illustrious characters. Now, my dear friend, as this fortunate affair has taken place, I should wish it added to the print of Katherine's Trial: you will perhaps have the kindness to call on Mr. Cribb, the publisher, in Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, and have it worded thus: _Member of the Academy of St. Luke's at Rome_.' (This, of course, was by way of reproach to the Royal Academy of Great Britain.) 'I mention this as it is a grand plate, and indeed ought to be added. I expect to be in England by Christmas-Day or near it. I shall have an immensity to talk over. I was much pleased with Naples; stayed ten days; went over to Portici; Herculaneum and Pompeii, and ascended Mount Vesuvius: this was a spectacle--the most awful and grand that I had ever witnessed--the fire bursting every two minutes, and the noise with it like thunder: red-hot ashes came tumbling down continually where I stood sketching, many of which I brought away, and different pieces of the old lava which I hope to show you. The eruption took place a week or two after I left. But Pompeii exhibits now the most extraordinary remains of antiquity in the world; a whole city laid open to view; the habitations are unroofed, but, in other respects, are quite perfect. The house of Sallust, the Roman historian, was particularly gratifying to me, unaltered in every respect, except the furniture (which I believe is now in Portici), the same as it was eighteen hundred and fifty years ago when inhabited by him. There are many shops; in one the amphoræ which held the wine are curious, and marks of the cups they used upon the slabs are distinctly seen: a milkshop with the sign of a goat is perfectly preserved with the vessels, and also several other shops in the same perfect state. Rome has been a scene of the utmost gaiety lately, during the stay of the King of Naples. I was at three splendid balls given at the different palaces. We were obliged to appear in court-dresses, and the cardinals added very much to the richness and grandeur of the party. The ladies looked peculiarly striking, but they did not wear hoops as in the English court. We had French and English dances, etc., and the fireworks surpassed all my expectations. Upon the whole, the entertainments were very novel and very delightful. I am to be presented to the Pope either on the 2d or 3d of next month. Cardinal Gonsalvi will let me know when the day is fixed, and I leave Rome directly after; perhaps the next day--a day that I most sincerely dread--for I have become so attached to the place and the people that I expect a great struggle with myself. I should be the most ungrateful of human beings if I did not acknowledge the endless favours they have bestowed on me. It is the place of all others for an artist, as he is sure to be highly appreciated if he has any talent; and I shall speak of the country to the end of my days with the most fervent admiration. The Transfiguration, I think, will make a stare in England!' It was of this same copy of the Transfiguration that Canova had spoken so applaudingly: 'This, sir, seems rather the work of eighteen weeks than of eighteen days.' He gave a picture of 'The Presentation of the Cardinal's Hat to Wolsey in Westminster Abbey' to the Academy of St. Luke's at Rome, and his own portrait to the Academy of Florence, in acknowledgment of having been elected a member. He embarked for England in January 1819. Lord Burghersh, the English ambassador at Florence, had paid him marked attentions. Lord Liverpool gave instructions that the painter's packages should be passed at the Custom House. He established himself in a house, No. 83 Dean Street, Soho. Everything seemed to promise to him a happy and prosperous future, when suddenly he sickened with the disease, known popularly as the mumps. He died on the 4th February 1819, and was buried under the altar of St. James's Church, Piccadilly. In the churchyard had been buried, a year or two previously, an artist of less merit,--James Gillray, the caricaturist. It is not possible to lay great stress upon the early failings of Harlow; errors, after all, rather of manners than of morals. Had he lived, it is likely that a successful career would have almost effaced the recollection of these, while it would certainly have contradicted them as evidences of character. As Lawrence said of his dead pupil, generously yet truthfully, 'he was the most promising of all our painters.' There was the material for a great artist in Harlow. He died too young for his fame, and for his art. A proof engraving of one of his best works (a portrait of Northcote) was brought to Lawrence to touch upon:-- 'Harlow had faults,' he said, 'but we must not remember the faults of one who so greatly improved himself in his art. It shall never be said that the finest work from so great a man went into the world without such assistance as I can give.' TURNER AND RUSKIN. The difficulty the vulgar have experienced in comprehending that kings and queens, and generally persons high in authority, are simply men and women after all--their ordinary appearance, dress, manners, and habits not greatly different from those of the rest of mankind--has been a frequent subject of remark and ridicule. Years back, at the American theatres, spectators in the pit were often gravely asking each other, whether the sovereign of England was really accustomed to appear in the London streets, wearing a similar wonderful costume to that in which Mr. Lucius Junius Booth was then strutting and ranting as Richard the Third; the fact of the Drury Lane copies of the dresses worn at the coronation of George IV. having been taken to the other side of the Atlantic, and _The Coronation_ performed at most of the chief cities, supplying, perhaps, an apology for the reasoning which prompted the inquiry. But the popular notion, that a monarch habitually walks about carrying on his head a jewelled crown of enormous value and weight, finds a reflection in higher stages of culture and intelligence. An analogous delusion is traceable amongst people occupying very reputable rounds upon the social ladder. A state of confusion between a man and his office, or his works, is by no means confined to those whom it is the fashion to designate as 'the masses.' Are we not continually meeting ladies and gentlemen, of otherwise commendable intellectual endowments, bent upon bewildering themselves with the notion, that the sentimental novelist is necessarily a creature of sentiment--that the comic actor, out of his part and off his stage, is still laughable and amusing--that the writer of poetry, as a consequence, lives poetry, and the career of the painter is inevitably picturesque? How mistaken is this kind of opinion we have hardly need to point out. How prosaic may be a poet's life our readers will probably not care to question. And if any doubt haloed the artist with an unreal interest and charm, the biography of the late Mr. Turner[23] will pretty well disperse anything of the kind. A statement of the plain facts of the matter clears away all mirage of fancy and romance, and,--as in cruelly restored pictures, the beautiful glazing well scoured off,--we come then to the mere raw paint, and coarse canvas, unattractiveness, even ugliness. [23] In 1861 was published _The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A._, founded on letters and papers furnished by his friends and Fellow Academicians; by Walter Thornbury. In a more recent work, _Haunted London_ (1865), Mr. Thornbury has himself passed judgment upon his _Life of Turner_, pronouncing it to be 'a careless book, but still containing much curious, authentic, and original anecdote.' In truth, the sunshine pictures of Turner were evolved from a life as dingy and uncomely as could well be. It is difficult to conceive any correspondence, any _rapport_ between workmanship so exquisite, and a workman in every way so unattractive, so little estimable. But just as from the small dusky insect in the hedges at night proceeds a phosphorescent flame of great power and beauty--just as from a miserable-looking, coarse, common flint are emitted sparks of superb brilliance,--so from the hands of this strange, sordid, shambling man came art-achievements almost without precedent in the history of painting. Joseph Mallord William Turner was born on the 23d April (St. George's day) 1775, in a house (recently pulled down and reconstructed) opposite what used to be called the Cider Cellars in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. Through a narrow arched passage, closed by an iron gate, was formerly obtained, by a narrow door on the left-hand side, access to the small but respectable shop of William Turner, barber, the father of the painter. The trade could hardly have been an unprosperous one in those days of perukes and powder and pomatumed edifices of hair, and when, moreover, 'the Garden' was a not unfashionable locality. The new-born was baptized on the 14th May following, in the parish church of St. Paul's, where also, it may be said, his father had been married (by license) to Mary Marshall, also of the same parish, on the 29th August 1773. The registers recording these important events are still extant. The barber's position was plebeian, though there are no indications of its having been one of poverty. He came originally from Devonshire. Inquiry as to the descent of the artist's mother is balked by the widely differing stories that present themselves. From one account we learn that she was a native of Islington; from another that she came of a good Nottinghamshire family living at Shelford Manor-house, while yet we learn in another direction that her brother was a butcher at Brentford. We are involved in doubt at last as to whether, after all, her name was not _Mallord_ rather than Marshall, and hence the second Christian name of her son, which else there seems no way of accounting for. All this is obscure enough. Certainly, in the latter part of her life, the poor woman was insane and in confinement. Turner was uncommunicative upon most subjects; but in regard to his mother and her family he preserved a reticence of unusual severity. Mr. Ruskin has amused himself with a fanciful contrast between the boyhood of Giorgione at Venice, and of Turner in Covent Garden. There is no reason to believe that any disadvantage accrued to Turner from his somewhat uncheerful birthplace. It is hardly the Venetians who are the most alive to the beauties of Venice. But Mr. Ruskin is fond of mounting a richly-caparisoned charger of the imagination, and caracoling round a crotchety circus; and his feats in this respect are so elegantly and admirably fantastic, that we almost forbear to smile, out of deference to so perfect a non-perception of humour, when we find him tracing the painter back to _Covent Garden Market_ in all his paintings. Mr. Ruskin detects in the corners of Turner's foregrounds 'always a succulent cluster or two of green-grocery!' The artist's _Hesperides_ gleam with Covent Garden oranges; in his _Shipwrecks_ chests of them are flung upon the waters; and in his _St. Gothard_ a litter of stones reflects Covent Garden wreck after the market! What wonder Mr. Turner was tempted to exclaim now and then about his arch-critic--'He knows a great deal more about my pictures than I do. He puts things into my head, and points out meanings in them that I never intended.' A silver salver, engraved with heraldic devices, seen at the house of Mr. Tomkisson, the famous piano-forte-maker, is said to have first inspired the boy Turner with a love for art. He commenced to imitate the drawing of a certain rampant lion that especially took his fancy. Very soon after this the father announced that his son William was going to be a painter. The reader will note that the early ambitions of the boy were at once humoured. There would seem to have been no attempt usual with poor parents anxious for the commercial success of a child, to thrust the boy into a trade or employment which, though distasteful, would have been profitable to him. Old Mr. Turner probably knew little enough of art, and could have had but a poor opinion, in a pecuniary sense, of the profession to which his son was desirous of attaching himself. But no obstacles were thrown in his path; he was soon placed with Mr. Thomas Malton, a perspective draughtsman, who kept a school in Longacre, and was the son of the author of a practical book on _Geometry and Perspective_. Certainly his poverty and low birth in no way hindered the painter; had he been born to rank and wealth, he could only have had his will: and he had it without these. The little education he ever received was obtained at a school at Brentford; but he could never write or spell correctly. It is probable that his passion for art absorbed his every thought. Not that he succeeded with his perspective studies, however, for Mr. Malton brought the boy back to his father as a pupil quite beyond all hope. Yet the real talent of the young painter was already developing itself. Some of his drawings exhibited in the Maiden Lane shop found purchasers among his father's customers. An engraver employed him to colour prints. Two or three architects engaged him to fill in skies and backgrounds to their plans. Soon he had entered the office of Mr. Hardwick, the architect, who regularly employed him. It is curious to learn that, later in life, Turner, pointing admiringly to a green mezzotinto of a Vandevelde--a large vessel bearing up against the waves--would exclaim, '_That_ made me a painter!' Yet he stood before the work of one of those 'Van-somethings and Back-somethings,' who, Mr. Ruskin tells us, have 'more especially and malignantly libelled the sea.' 'I feel utterly hopeless in addressing the admirers of these men, because I do not know what it is in their works which is supposed to be like nature.' It seems that Turner was more catholic in his tastes than his panegyrist. In 1789, following the advice of Mr. Hardwick, Turner became a student of the Royal Academy. In the same year Reynolds ceased to paint, owing to the failure of his sight. That Turner, who had been admitted to the President's studio to copy portraits, was present when the great painter laid aside his brush with the solemn words, 'I know all things on earth must come to an end, and now I am come to mine,' is one of those suppositions in which biographers are prone to indulge, but which few readers will be found to credit. In these days Turner's drawing was in advance of his colour: an order of things which was afterwards reversed. In 1790 he first exhibited at Somerset House: the picture being 'Lambeth Palace.' From that time, down to 1850 inclusive, hardly a season being missed, Turner's name appears in the catalogues of the Academy. In all, two hundred and fifty-seven pictures by Turner were hung on the walls of the Academy exhibitions, while nearly twenty more were to be seen at the British Institution. He relinquished all idea of becoming a portrait-painter about the time of the death of Reynolds. His own portrait in the National Gallery was painted when he was seventeen. It is executed with skill, although without any charm of colour. It represents a young man of large heavy features, but of a not unattractive appearance altogether. Upon a story of a love affair in the painter's early life, we are inclined to lay no great stress. There is no evidence that it affected his after-life, or that any excuse can be found in it for the faults of his character. Speaking of his own love of money, he would sometimes say apologetically, 'Dad never praised me for anything but saving a halfpenny.' A disappointment in love is more likely to make a man a profligate than a miser; if it affects him at all seriously, it will more likely produce a reckless waste than a sordid passion for money-making. The painter was prospering. He taught in schools, first charging five shillings a lesson, then raising his terms to ten shillings, next charging a guinea. What system of painting did he teach, this suspicious jealous man, who always worked with locked doors--who would never permit another even to see him draw--who seemed to hold (but it was a then prevalent belief with his profession) that art was producible by some occult process--was a mystery and a secret, like a conjurer's trick? He founded his style very much on that of his friend and contemporary Girtin, the water-colour painter. Both delighted in a golden yellowness of tone which it is probable Girtin had originated. Turner's regard and reverence for him and his works seem to have been very great. He always spoke kindly of him as 'poor Tom!' Of one of his drawings in the British Museum, Turner said, 'I never in my whole life could make a drawing like that; I would at any time have given one of my little fingers to have made such a one.' At another time he said, 'If Tom Girtin had lived, I should have starved!' Girtin died in 1802; in the same year Turner was made a Royal Academician; he had been two years before admitted to the honours of Associateship. The influence of Girtin upon English art has hardly been sufficiently recognised. Mr. Ruskin has had too little to say on behalf of one to whom it is evident that Turner owed very much. Turner's rapid advance in his profession may be traced in his frequent change of residence. In 1796 he had quitted his father's house in Hand Court, to occupy rooms at No. 26 Maiden Lane. In 1800 he was at No. 64 Harley Street. The following year he had moved to No. 75 Norton Street. In 1804 he was back again in Harley Street. In 1808 he was Professor of Perspective, of Harley Street, and of West End, Upper Mall, Hammersmith. He moved to Queen Anne Street in 1812, and that continued to be his address in the Academy catalogues up to the time of his death. But from the year 1814 to 1826 he was also the tenant of a house at Twickenham, which he first called 'Solus,' and afterwards 'Sandycombe' Lodge. He died in December 1851, at a small house near Cremorne Gardens, Chelsea. This he first tenanted probably about the year 1845. A few continental visits, and tours in England, Scotland, and Wales, all undertaken apparently with professional objects,--incessant squabblings with his engravers, the most wearisome haggling with picture-dealers, genuine hard work, and the production of very perfect specimens of landscape art, and the outlines of Turner's life seem to be fairly sketched. His passion for his profession was intense, yet with it was the keenest love of its emoluments. His industry was beyond all praise, his energy indefatigable; he seemed to live perpetually before his easel, or with his sketch-book in his hands, and yet he had a broker's view as to the worth of everything he did; he appraised his every pencil-stroke, with the full determination of having his price for it. There is hardly a story of his ever giving away a drawing. A lady, in whose house he was residing, playfully asked him to make a sketch of her favourite spaniel. 'My dear madam,' said the painter, astounded and indignant, 'you don't know what you ask!' He once gave three sketches to aid an amateur artist, and most intimate friend and patron, who had brought his painting into an embarrassed condition; the sketches showed him the way out of his difficulty. Undoubtedly this action was very kind; but in the end the miser prevailed over the gentleman. Turner growlingly asked for his sketches back again! The details of his life are not agreeable, and not of much more interest than the outlines. Mr. Ruskin fixes the following as the main characteristics of Turner--_uprightness, generosity, tenderness of heart_ (extreme), _sensuality, obstinacy_ (extreme), _irritability, infidelity_.' By the light of all these 'Seven Lamps,' few people will have seen Turner besides Mr. Ruskin. Of the last four characteristics the painter will be generally found guilty; the first three remain as yet, at best, not proven. We are not tempted, just now, to account highly the uprightness of a man who could, and did, defraud the public by the sale of 'sham proofs' of the engravings of his pictures--of the generosity which made provision for his own memorial in stone in St. Paul's, yet left without bread his surviving 'housekeepers' and natural children--of the tenderness of heart which permitted that his father, moved from the shop, should play a servant's part in the gallery in Queen Anne Street, straining canvases, varnishing pictures, and showing in visitors, with a suspicion that he cooked the dinner even if he did not take the shillings at the door. 'Look'ee here,' said the poor old man, who, it is right to state, saw no humiliation in acting lackey to his prosperous son, 'I have found out a way at last of coming up cheap from Twickenham, to open my son's gallery. I found out the inn where the market-gardeners baited their horses; I made friends with one on 'em, and now, for a glass of gin a day, he brings me up in his cart on the top of the vegetables!' As a set-off to all this, we have now and then a spasmodic act of kindness: he rebukes Wilkie for talking about the fine effect of the snow falling while poor Lawrence's coffin was being lowered into the grave in the crypt of St. Paul's: he drives away the boys who injure his blackbirds: he sometimes gives half-a-crown when others would only offer a penny: and there is a story (very vague indeed) of his once lending £20,000 without security. But these are but the halfpennyworth of bread compared to the vast quantity of sack. The matter seems fairly summed up in the story of the man who said, 'Turner is not ungenerous; _he once paid the toll over Waterloo Bridge for me_!' Mr. Ruskin charges Turner's faults upon his contemporaries and the public who failed to appreciate his genius. But is this for a moment sustainable? _Was_ he unappreciated? His rise could hardly have been more rapid. He was a Royal Academician when he was twenty-seven. His merits were recognised almost immediately upon his becoming an exhibitor. Anthony Pasquin (Williams), who did not speak well of every one, loudly commends Turner's genius, and judgment, and originality, in 1797.[24] He was quite early a favourite with the public and the critics. His prices were always high. Mr. Ruskin has declared in his _Economy of Art_, that more than one hundred pounds should never be given for a water-colour drawing, nor more than five hundred for an oil-painting. But the sums Turner received were greatly in excess of these limits. For the 'Rise and Fall of Carthage' he was offered £5000. There is no evidence of his complaining of want of recognition by the public. He was dissatisfied, it is true, at the time of Shee's death, that he had not been made President; but this, as he well knew, was a matter that rested entirely with the Academy. 'What has the Academy done for me?' he would ask petulantly; 'they knighted Calcott, why don't they knight me?' This involved no charge against his critics. He was passed over for the same reason that Paley was neglected; because, as the courtly phrase went, he was not a 'producible man.' In fine, though he began with nothing, a barber's son in Hand Court, Maiden Lane, he died worth £140,000, and was buried in St. Paul's! This hardly looks like want of appreciation. [24] It may be noted, however, that in 'The Georgian Era' (1834) occurs the following passage:--'Some have gone the length of saying that in marine views Turner has wrested the palm from all competitors; but with this, few, surely, will agree who have seen the sea pieces of Powell, an artist who, though but recently deceased, has had no biographer to commemorate his poverty or his genius.' The works of Powell, however admirable, are not likely now to be preferred to Turner's. 'The Georgian Era' is not a work of much repute. It has been the fashion to talk as though Mr. Ruskin had _discovered_ Turner. Nothing can be further from the fact. Turner had been an exhibitor for more than fifty years when Mr. Ruskin commenced to write about his pictures. He had reached the _Rock Limpet_ stage of his career. He could then produce little beyond frantic whirls of colour, and there was a not unnatural tendency to smile at these achievements in the galleries, and the Hanging Committee were often puzzled to know whether they had or not hung the pictures upside down. All that Mr. Ruskin could do, and he did it superbly, was to bring people to think less of what Turner then was, and more of what he had been. It is all very well to denounce severely those who smiled at, or the critics who said they could not comprehend, the later Turners. It is presumable that pictures are sent to exhibitions to be applauded or condemned, as the world may judge. Mr. Thackeray may be rated for his confession, in a magazine article of the day, that he did not understand the _Rock Limpet_, though he added a kindly longing 'for the old day, before Mr. Turner had lighted on the "Fallacies," and could see like other people.'[25] But was Mr. Ruskin in any better plight? Was _he_ any nearer the painter's meaning? Hear his own story:-- 'He (Turner) tried hard one day, for a quarter of an hour, to make me guess what he was doing in the picture of "Napoleon" before it had been exhibited, giving me hint after hint in a rough way. But I could not guess, and he wouldn't tell me!' It is hard after this to censure so amiable a jester as the late Mr. a'Beckett, for burlesquing the strange picture called 'Hurrah for the whaler _Erebus_--another fish!' in the words proposed to be substituted--'Hallo, there--the oil and vinegar--another lobster salad!'[26] [25] 'What can I say of the Napoleon of Mr. Turner? called (with frightful satire) "The Exile and the _Rock Limpet_." He stands in the midst of a scarlet tornado looking at least forty feet high. "Ah!" says the mysterious poet from whom Mr. Turner loves to quote-- "Ah! thy tent-formed shell is like The soldier's nightly bivouac, alone Amidst a sea of blood....... ......_but you can join your comrades!_" FALLACIES OF HOPE. 'These remarkable lines entirely explain the meaning of the picture; another piece is described by lines from the same poem, in a metre more regular-- "The midnight torch gleamed o'er the steamer's side, And _merit's corse_ was yielded to the tide." (This was the burial of Wilkie at sea: now in the National Gallery.) 'When the pictures are re-hung, as sometimes I believe is the case, it might, perhaps, be as well to turn these upside down and see how they would look _then_. The Campo Santo of Venice, when examined closely, is scarcely less mysterious; at a little distance, however, it is a most brilliant, airy, and beautiful picture. O for the old days before Mr. Turner had lighted on "The Fallacies" and could see like other people!'--_An Exhibition Gossip_, by Michael Angelo Titmarsh, _Ainsworth's Magazine_,1843. [26] _The Almanack of the Month_, 1846--in which see also a comical drawing, by Mr. Richard Doyle, of 'Turner painting one of his pictures,' and the accompanying letterpress:--'Considerable discussion has arisen as to the mode in which Turner goes to work to paint his pictures. Some think he mixes a few colours on his canvas instead of on his palette, and sends the result to be exhibited. Another ingenious theory is that he puts a canvas in a sort of pillory, and pelts it with eggs and other missiles, when appending to the mess some outrageous title, he has it hung in a good position at the Academy. Our own idea is, that he chooses four or five good places in which he hangs up some regularly framed squares of blank canvas; a day or so before the opening of the Exhibition, we believe he goes down to the Academy with a quantity of colours and a nine pound brush, with which he dabs away for a few minutes, and his work is finished,' etc. etc. 'Cut off in great part,' says Mr. Ruskin, 'from all society, first by labour and last by sickness, hunted to his grave by the malignities of small critics and the jealousies of hopeless rivalry, he died in the house of a stranger.' As Mr. Leslie, his fellow-academician, remarks upon this passage truly enough, 'This was Turner's own fault. No death-bed could be more surrounded by attentive friends than his might have been, had he chosen to let his friends know where he lived.' But he seldom answered letters; his place of residence was a profound mystery to all; and he was living under an assumed name. To the Chelsea street-boys he was known as 'Puggy Booth,' and by his neighbours he was deemed to be an old admiral in reduced circumstances. His house in Queen Anne Street was closed, terribly out of repair--black with dirt. After much knocking at the door it was opened, if at all, by an old woman, her face half-concealed, owing to some cancerous disfigurement; she had kept the visitor waiting while she assumed a large apron--hung always behind the door on a peg, handy for the purpose,--which hid the grimy and tattered state of her dress. The drawing-room was tenanted by half-a-dozen Manx cats. In the other rooms, rats and mice made havoc with hoarded drawings and engravings. Many of the pictures in the gallery were warped and cracked, and mildewed by neglect and damp. At Sandycombe Lodge, a few of the academicians, including Mr. Mulready, had once been regaled with tea; and Mr. Pye, the engraver, had been treated to cheese and porter; but of the hospitalities of Queen Anne Street there are no records. Rogers, poet and satirist, expressed his wonder at a beautiful table adorning the painter's parlour. 'But how much more wonderful it would be,' he went on, 'to see any of his friends sitting round it!' And there is the story of the visitor who praised the wine of which he had had two glasses, a year intervening between them. 'It ought to be good,' said Turner; 'it's the _same bottle_ you tasted before!' True or false, and their accuracy has been much questioned, that such stories could be repeated at all, says quite enough for the kind of life led by the painter at his gallery. And what claims upon society had the man who chose to conduct himself towards it after this manner? Yet it is curious to note that Turner was in many ways fitted to be socially successful. He had very considerable humour, and highly appreciated the jests of others, even when they were directed against himself. He sat for a long time shaking with laughter, on a high seat at the Academy, one varnishing day, when Mulready had said 'that his cows were like the dough pigs, with currant eyes, in the bakers' shops.' He was gay and playful at times, and shone in careless conversation. Personally he was not less liked than as a painter he was respected by his fellow-academicians; and yet, from some mental warp, he closed his doors against the world, shunned his friends, preferred to live miserably and obscurely, hoarding his money, and treasuring his works. It is difficult to believe that he was not afflicted, late in life, with some morbid affection of mind that amounted almost to insanity, not alleviated by a manner of life that was far from regular, and habits that were anything but temperate. The more he avoided refined society, the more he found pleasure in dissipation of the lowest kind. 'Melancholy' Burton derived relief and amusement listening to the ribaldry of the bargemen. Turner found these and other solaces, it would seem, in his occasional mysterious absences from home, and indecorous sojournings at Wapping and elsewhere. It is with a sense of relief we turn from the contemplation of the imperfect man to consider the nearly perfect artist. The meanness, the squalor, the degradation of his _morale_ and life are not discernible in his works. The affluence of beauty of some of these is indeed marvellous. But this fallen man had extraordinary gifts as a painter, and these he heightened and intensified by labour and industry the most ceaseless. It would be difficult to conceive any one endowed with a keener sensibility to colour, or with a more devotional love for its glories; it would be equally hard to estimate the enhancement of the worth of English art effected by the colour of Turner. It should be remembered that he appeared at a time when coldness of tone was almost a fashion in painting. The chilliness of the shadows of Lawrence and his followers was remarkable. Turner raised the chord of colour a whole octave, if it is permissible to say so, illustrating one art by the terms of another. Mr. Ruskin ascribes to him the discovery of the _scarlet shadow_. It was in truth less a new discovery than the re-awakening of an old one. The early masters were well aware of the value of warmth in this respect. Wilkie comments in his journal on the great picture of Correggio: 'And here I observe _hot shadows_ prevail, _not cold_, as some of us would have it. This he has to a fault, making parts of his figures look like red chalk drawings, but the sunny and dazzling effect of the whole may be attributed to this artifice.'[27] If we look for a prevalent tone in Turner's pictures--though a prevalent tone is always a vice in a painter, nature being without bias in the question of hue--we shall find it to be _yellow_, which he himself declared to be his favourite colour, and which occasioned those jokes about the 'mustard-pot' as a source of inspiration, to which art-students were at one time addicted. But, indeed, Turner's sense of all colour was very limitless. A Mrs. Austin once said to him, 'I find, Mr. Turner, that, in copying one of your works, touches of blue, red, and yellow appear all through the work.' He answered: 'Well, don't you see that yourself in nature, because, if you don't, Heaven help you!' Mr. Ruskin writes: 'Other painters had rendered the golden tones and blue tones of the sky; Titian especially the latter in perfection. But none had dared to paint--none seem to have seen--the scarlet and purple.' In representing the glare of sunlight, Turner surpassed even Claude. Cuyp hardly attempted this feat, his suns generally gleaming through a mist; though Turner standing before a splendid example of Cuyp, exclaimed: 'I would give a thousand pounds to have painted that' In atmospheric perspective he was perfect; but in linear faulty and ill grounded, although he had held the appointment of Professor of Perspective at the Academy for some years. The drawbacks to his pictures consist in their frequent sacrifice of truth to effect. From this cause he constantly failed to satisfy critics who were well acquainted with the scenes and subjects he attempted to represent. A tar said of his _Battle of Trafalgar_ at Greenwich: 'What a Trafalgar! it's a d----d deal more like a brick-field!' while Sir Thomas Hardy used to call it a 'street scene,' as the ships had more the effect of houses than men-of-war. Of the wreck of the _Minotaur_, Admiral Bowles complained 'that no ship or boat could live in such a sea.' [27] In a letter to Phillips he adds, 'No one knew the value of this treatment better than Turner.' To Turner's credit must be placed many acts of consideration for, and kindness towards, his brother artists. He has been known to displace one of his own pictures to make room for the work of a promising beginner. His love for art is the real redeeming point in his history. He was devoted to the Academy, which had recognised his genius at an early date, and was wholly conservative in his opinion upon all academic questions. Yet his zeal did not blind him. Haydon, whose life had been a gallant though almost fruitless struggle against the despotic exclusiveness of the Academy, drew back, we are told, in the midst of his exultation at a brief victory gained over his opponents, and said calmly: 'But Turner behaved well, and did me justice.' Turner's biographer, with a scrupulousness that looks a little like timidity, has abstained steadily from all demur to the _dicta_ of Mr. Ruskin. Mr. Thornbury's volumes represent rather elaborations than contradictions of the Ruskin opinions, just as what are known as 'variations' in music are rather amplifications of, than departures from, the original theme. But we are by no means sure that Mr. Thornbury has strengthened the case in the painter's favour. We believe that, at the bar, the junior counsel has been sometimes found to injure the effect of his chief's advocacy, by entering into and disclosing matters of detail which had been purposely left untouched by him. Something of the same sort has happened in the present instance. Mr. Ruskin bade us worship his hero, classically screened in a cloud. Mr. Thornbury unveils the idol, and the too apparent deformity disclosed renders adoration no longer possible. Mr. Ruskin's five volumes of _Modern Painters_ will therefore probably still be considered to comprise the true 'Turneriad.' A more imposing monument to Turner's memory than is afforded by this book, with all its defects, can hardly be. For something like a quarter of a century Mr. Ruskin employed himself in examining and lauding the achievements of Turner. He did not complete his self-imposed task until the great painter had been dead some ten years. It is really curious to go back to the beginning of this remarkable work. In 1843 appeared the first volume of '_Modern Painters: their Superiority in the Art of Landscape Painting to all the Ancient Masters_. By a Graduate of Oxford.' A further volume was issued three years afterwards, to accompany an extended and amended edition of the first. A ten years' pause, and third and fourth portions were given to the world. Then came 1860, and the final volume. Not, as the author avowed, that his subject was concluded, for 'he had been led by it into fields of infinite inquiry, where it was only possible to break off with such imperfect results as may at any given moment have been attained.' He stopped because he must stop at some time or other. The future art-writings of Mr. Ruskin will no longer bear the collective title of _Modern Painters_. Perhaps that is all that the 'finis' at the end of the fifth volume really amounts to. In his fifth volume, Mr. Ruskin has narrated the history of the birth and growth of his book. He has ascribed to himself from his earliest years, 'the gift of taking pleasure in landscape.' This, he says, 'I assuredly possess in a greater degree than most men, it having been the ruling passion of my life, and the reason for the choice of its field of labour.' Certain articles in a review condemnatory of the pictures of Turner offended keenly so ardent an admirer of the king of landscape painters. Mr. Ruskin addressed a letter to the editor of the review, 'reprobating the matter and style of those critiques, and pointing out their dangerous tendency;' for 'he knew it to be demonstrable that Turner was right and true, and that his critics were wrong, false, and base.' The letter grew to be a book; the defence expanded into an attack. What began as a few comments upon a particular branch of painting ended in being the most elaborate English dissertation upon art, in its widest and weightiest significance. The title originally selected for the book was _Turner and the Ancients_; and it was not then proposed to refer in it to any other modern painter than Turner. But the design enlarged,--'The title was changed, and notes on other living painters inserted in the first volume, in deference to the advice of friends; probably wise, for unless the change had been made, the book might never have been read at all.' So writes the author in his last pages; and returning to his first love, it is hard to say whether from fickleness or from constancy he adds, 'So far as I am concerned, I regretted the change then, and regret it still.' To this book, then, commenced almost without a plan, time subsequently gave form and pattern. At a certain period of his labour Mr. Ruskin paused to map out the future of his work, to define the limits of his undertaking. But in examining the concluding volume it will be seen that the waywardness of the beginning characterizes also the end. Time has taken away its gift; the scheme has fallen through; the book ends; but the design it had gathered to itself as it advanced, which had budded out from it unexpectedly as it were, remains in a large measure uncompleted. Over the boundaries he had himself imposed, his eloquent diffuseness long since surged: the book doubled its promised length; and now the author stays his hand, turns from his toil, and leaves unfinished and shapeless the long-expected 'section on the sea,' holding out but vague promise of his ever being able to accomplish, even in a separate work, his intentions in regard to that portion of his project. It is almost of necessity that there should be deviation from the original planned economy of a work occupying more than a score of years; but Mr. Ruskin is more than ordinarily susceptible to vicissitude. It is part of his idiosyncrasy to start impulsively with an ill-digested project, and to run off the lines of his argument upon the slightest provocation and at the earliest opportunity. So that in his case time and his own temper have combined to exaggerate the vibration of his book. His manner of progression is very much what Mr. Assheton Smith's huntsman used to denominate 'zedding.' He cannot proceed straightforwardly. He must wander from the direct track; as a consequence, he is betrayed into all sorts of _culs de sac_, wrong turnings, and roundabout roads; and in the end, although much ground is gone over, very little advance is made. He is as the bee which does not make its final burglarious headlong plunge into the calyx until after a protracted course of circuitous buzzing and much prefatory waste of time: and this with all the insect's credit for industry. So over-perverse a traveller, so ultra-dilatory a bee as the author of _Modern Painters, must_ shorten his journey, _must_ leave much honey unfilched. He is as the army which commences in orderly retreat and ends in rabble-like riot and demoralization, gaining a place of safety at last, with the sacrifice of much baggage and treasure. So, as has been said, Mr. Ruskin flings away altogether a large division of his idea. In one place he writes,-- 'I find it convenient in this volume, and I wish I had thought of the expedient before, whenever I get into a difficulty to leave the reader to work it out;' and in another we are stopped by such a half-indolent half-arrogant, 'No Thoroughfare' as this. He has been discoursing on the leaf,--then follows an inquiry into the conditions of the stem. Then he tells us:-- 'I intended to have given a figure to show the results of the pressure of the weight of all the leafage on a great lateral bough in modifying its curves, the strength of timber being greatest where the leverage of the mass tells most. _But I find nobody ever reads things which it takes any trouble to understand, so that it is no use to write them._' In a higher tone he had once announced the aim and principle of his book, claiming for it a difference from most books, and 'a chance of being in some respects better for the difference, in that it had not been written either for fame, or for money, or for conscience' sake, but of necessity.' 'I saw an injustice done and tried to remedy it. I heard a falsehood taught and was compelled to deny it. Nothing else was possible to me.' In that good time there was no question as to whether people would or would not take the trouble to understand. They were taught what the teacher deemed to be true, and the risk was on their own heads if they neglected the teaching. It was of use to write then, intelligibly or unintelligibly, truly and wholly; but this was before Mr. Ruskin had strayed very much from his road, or broken off, breathless and worn out, from a journey, doubled by aberrations, rendered wearisome by the most wilful wandering, and stopped at last,--not perfected. In extenuation of the delay in the completion of the work, the author pleads his many employments during five years:--his book on the _Elements of Drawing_; his addresses at Manchester, and his examination, 'with more attention than they deserved,' of some of the theories of political economy referred to in those addresses; the Manchester Exhibition, 'chiefly in its magnificent Reynolds' constellation;' a visit to Scotland, to look at Dunblane and Jedburgh, and other favourite sites of Turner's; and the arrangement of the Turner drawings, the property of the nation, for the trustees of the National Gallery. To this last task Mr. Ruskin set himself with characteristic enthusiasm. In the lower room of the National Gallery, when he began his work, there were 'upwards of nineteen thousand pieces of paper drawn upon by Turner in one way or other,'--many on both sides, some with four, five, or six subjects on each side,--'some in chalk, which the touch of the finger would sweep away, others in ink rotted into holes, others eaten away by damp and mildew, and falling into dust at the edges, in cases and bags of fragile decay, others worm-eaten, some mouse-eaten, many torn halfway through, numbers doubled (quadrupled I should say) into four, being Turner's favourite mode of packing for travelling; nearly all rudely flattened out from the bundles in which Turner had finally rolled them up and squeezed them into his drawers in Queen Anne Street' In the edges of these flattened bundles lay the 'dust of thirty years' accumulation, black, dense, and sooty.' With two assistants, Mr. Ruskin was at work, all the autumn and winter of 1857, 'every day all day long, and often far into the night.' Then, by way of resting himself, Mr. Ruskin proceeded to hunt down Turner subjects along the course of the Rhine on the north of Switzerland. He crossed Lombardy afterwards, and found, unexpectedly, some good Paul Veroneses at Turin. He had been troubled by many questions respecting the 'real motives of Venetian work,' which he had planned to work out in the Louvre; but 'seeing that Turin was a good place wherein to keep out of people's way,' he settled there instead. 'With much consternation, but more delight,' he discovered that he 'had never got to the roots of the moral power of the Venetians;' that for this a stern course of study was required of him. The book was given up for the year. 'The winter was spent mainly in trying to get at the mind of Titian.' The issue necessitated his going in the spring to Berlin, 'to see,' as he tells us, 'Titian's portrait of Lavinia there, and to Dresden to see the Tribute Money, the elder Lavinia, and girl in white with the flag-fan. Another portrait at Dresden, of a lady in a dress of rose and gold, by me unheard of before, and one of an admiral at Munich, had like to have kept me in Germany all the summer.' How expositive is all this of the unstable fashion of Mr. Ruskin's temper and writings! It is not to be marvelled at that the term 'Ruskinism' should be evolved from a system of opinions so impassioned and earnest, so thorough and deep-rooted, and, at the time at which they were first broached, so singular and courageous, as those of the author of _Modern Painters_. When Mr. Ruskin took up his pen, the 'old masters' were the religion, and the creed, and the idols, of the connoisseurs. It was of landscape he was particularly writing, but his fiery condemnation in one sentence of such names as 'Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator Rosa, Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, Hobbima, Teniers (in his landscapes), Paul Potter, Canaletti, and the various Van-Somethings and Back-Somethings, more especially and malignantly those who had libelled the sea,' carried dismay into the hearts of collectors, and he was denounced as guilty of an art sacrilege scarcely more marvellous for its impiety than its daring. His opinions, however, have passed through a burning fiery furnace of criticism, and have survived the ordeal. Earnestness is half success; and the truth that was the substratum of that earnestness has accomplished the rest. 'Ruskinism,' in its least invective and censorious form, has a host of followers and disciples. Take as its text the noble view of it contained in the following words descriptive of the book:--'It declares the perfectness and eternal beauty of the works of God, and tests all works of man by concurrence with or subjection to that.' Time, that has given and changed the plan, has also been at work with certain of the judgments of the book. (It is with the fifth volume we are especially dealing,--for this may fairly be regarded as the 'summing up' of the divers opinions scattered through the earlier portions of the work.) The author of a book long in hand becomes himself the president of a court of appeal, in which his own earlier sentences are to be reversed or confirmed. It is one of the results of the heat and passion of first opinions that they seem to be harshly and cruelly framed when the time comes to tone down and qualify them; and the question arises, was it indispensable to be so savage,--was it absolutely necessary that what seemed to be the sword of justice should be wielded so angrily and without the slightest tempering of mercy? Still is there worth in the author's apology, 'that the oscillations of temper and progressions of discovery ought not to diminish the reader's confidence in the book;' 'that unless important changes are occurring in his opinions continually all his life long, not one of those opinions can be on any questionable subject true; all true opinions are living, and show their life by being capable of nourishment, therefore of change. But their change is that of a tree, not of a cloud.' So, then, come repentance and recantation. Mr. Ruskin's 'boy veneration for Rubens's physical art power,' and the 'strong expression of admiration for him, which to his great regret occur in the first volume,' are now solemnly withdrawn. Rubens is now only a 'healthy, worthy, kind-hearted, courtly-phrased animal.' But the fault lies as much at the door of the time, as at that of the man. The Reformation had come and gone. The reformers had cast out the errors, and rent in twain the fallacies of the Roman Catholic Church. Then came a standing still; a paralysis of religion. The Evangelicals despised the arts; effete and insincere Roman Catholicism had lost its hold on men. The painters sunk into rationalism; they became men of the world, 'with no belief in spiritual existence, no interests or affections beyond the grave.' They painted religious subjects, of course; these were duly supplied as per order, especially martyrdom; they liked the vigorous cruelty of them, and painted atrocities with gusto, deeming they were illustrating religion; and they painted 'virgins in blue,' and 'St. Johns in red,' as many as were wanted,--but all utterly cold, and soul-less, and irreverential. 'Happily,' remarks Mr. Ruskin, 'there is just this difference between the men of this modern period and the Florentines or Venetians, that whereas the latter never exert themselves fully except on a sacred subject, the Flemish and Dutch masters are always languid unless they are profane. Leonardo is only to be seen in the 'Cena'; Titian only in the 'Assumption'; but Rubens only in the 'Battle of the Amazons'; and Vandyck only at court; and he adds, his indignation mounting as he proceeds, 'absolutely now at last we find ourselves without sight of God in all the world!' In another place Mr. Ruskin's old enemy, Salvator, receives more lenient treatment than of yore. True, he still regards him as a lost spirit, rendering Michelet's, 'Ce damné Salvator' tenderly as 'that condemned Salvator.' But Mr. Ruskin now perceives in him the 'last traces of spiritual life in the art of Europe, the last man to whom the thought of a spiritual existence presented itself as a conceivable reality. All succeeding men, however powerful,--Rembrandt, Rubens, Vandyck, Reynolds,--would have mocked at the idea of a spirit. They were men of the world, they are never in earnest, and they are never appalled. But Salvator was capable of pensiveness, of faith, and of fear.' 'He would have acknowledged religion had he seen any that was true, anything rather than that baseness which he did see.' 'If there is no other religion than this of popes and cardinals, let us to the robber's ambush and the dragon's den.' 'A little early sympathy, a word of true guidance, perhaps had saved him. What says he of himself? "Despiser of wealth and of death." Two grand scorns; but, oh! condemned Salvator, the question is not for man what he can scorn, but what he can love!' Again further on,--'In Salvator you have an awakened conscience and some spiritual power contending with evil, but conquered by it and brought into captivity to it.' Generally there is in this last volume a disposition to judge of the painter's art merits, especially in relation to his faculty of imitation, with more kindness and respect than in the earlier volumes. This tendency to greater calmness and generosity of view in the case of Salvator (not to recite evidences of similar nature in other cases) is a sign of healthful mental progression. Opinions taken up in the first instance, possibly as much from impulse as conviction, grown from floating speculations into recognised realities, require to be defended less strenuously than in the early doubtful phase of their being, and still less need for their support virulent onslaughts upon antagonistic views. It is no longer necessary to degrade _some_ painters utterly for the proper exaltation of some _others_; or it may be better to say, to deify _one_ by the damnification of the whole balance of the fraternity. There have been victims enough on the shrine of Turner, and his manes are now appeased and his wrongs avenged. What need of further holocausts? So Mr. Ruskin loosens his grip and half sheaths his knife, and becomes more merciful and pitiful, though yet unable to do full justice to those who oppose him: for it is one of his marked peculiarities that he is unable to shift his point of view. He judges always by his own modern _ex post facto_ standard; he cannot see with Salvator's eyes, or with the eyes of his contemporaries, and determine how fully he met the requirements of his age and time, how honestly he won the applause of the men about him. Mr. Ruskin asks two questions only--'Are these works accurate renderings of nature, as I by education and study now know nature to be?' and next, 'Are these high art in its purest, and most ideal, and most godly form?' By such Procrustean measurements he adjusts his decisions, and so misses the swarthy romance, the dramatic coarse fire of Salvator, and fails to appreciate the vigorous, affluent, gorgeous majesty of Rubens, before whose luxurious pageant canvas it always seems that, of right, pompous coronation music should be played, and multitudes huzza and banners wave. Perhaps some such feelings as these Mr. Ruskin himself at one time experienced, until, shocked by what he deemed the excessive mundaneness, the intense unspirituality of the great Fleming,--he revolted to the thoughtful, attenuated poetry of Angelico and the early Italian painters, to be in time again driven by the too intense asceticism and archaic debility of this school, to the robust excellence and the more real and material, though pure and refined, beauty of the Venetians. With them he has now found his golden mean. To turn more particularly to the contents of Mr. Ruskin's concluding volume, and their invariable bearing upon Turner. The first half is divided into considerations of 'Leaf' and 'Cloud Beauty,' respectively: 'The leaf between earth and man, as the cloud is between man and heaven.' Many fanciful headings are given to the chapters on these subjects. In the 'Earth Veil' Mr. Ruskin discourses in very delicate poetry, of trees and flowers, which form on the surface of the earth a veil of vegetation; 'of strange intermediate being; which breathes, but has no voice; moves, but cannot leave its appointed place; passes through life without consciousness; to death without bitterness; wears the beauty of youth without its passion, and declines to the weakness of age without its regret' Passing on, then, to the 'orders of the leaf,' he arranges plants in two classes,--the TENTED PLANTS, which live on the ground, as lilies, or crawl on the rocks, as lichen and mosses, leading ever an arab life, and so passing away and perishing; and the BUILDING PLANTS, which soar above the earth in the 'architectural edifices we call trees.' And the builders are again curiously subdivided. There are the 'builders with the shield,' with their leaves, shield-shaped, raised above, and sheltering their buds as they rise. Gentle, and pleasant, and conciliatory builders are these, living in pleasant places, and providing food and shelter for man. And there are also the 'builders with the sword,' with sharp-pointed leaves stuck fearlessly out sword fashion, the bud growing amid the points, dwelling in savage places, and of little aid to man, none in the way of food. (They are called 'pines,' we may explain, vernacularly.) Mr. Ruskin then goes on to the 'Bud,' and is at some pains to explain its gradual development and the scheme of its growth. 'Leaves' he explains to be 'broadly divisible into mainsails and studding-sails.' Many diagrams are given explanatory of the leaf system, its form and manner and charm, and the 'laws of deflection, of succession, of resilience,' all fanciful theories arising from the subject, are in turn laid down. In our progress to 'tree-structure,' we come to 'leaf aspects.' Then perhaps the object of this elaborate teaching transpires, and Mr. Ruskin speaks of the 'Pre-Raphaelites who, some years back, began to lead our wondering artists back into the eternal paths of all great art, and showed that whatever men drew at all ought to be drawn accurately and knowingly, not blunderingly nor by guess (leaves of trees among other things),' proceeding to the following curious dictum,--'If you can paint one leaf you can paint the world.' The Pre-Raphaelite laws 'lay stern on the strength of Apelles and Zeuxis, put Titian to thoughtful trouble, are unrelaxed yet, and unrelaxable for ever. Paint a leaf indeed!--the above-named Titian has done it. Corregio, moreover, and Giorgione and Leonardo, very nearly, trying hard. Holbein three or four times, in precious pieces, highest wrought. Raphael, it may be, in one or two crowns of Muse or Sibyl. If any one else in later times, we have to consider.' There is no endeavour to show how or why accurate drawing of the leaf leads to general accuracy in drawing; no analogy is attempted, for instance, between the human and vegetable anatomies. Perhaps this is as well; only it will strike even the most casual and unprofessional reader that a student may be able by practice to become a very apt draughtsman of the leaf skeleton, and yet be a feeble renderer of the human. Mr. Ruskin argues, unsoundly enough, from effects; the great Italian designers of the figure all drew leaves thoroughly well. Among the Dutch painters the leaf painting degenerates in proportion to the diminishing power in the figure; therefore, who can draw the leaf can draw the figure. Next comes sharp criticism of the Dutch leaf-treatment generally, and elaborate demonstration, by the aid of many plates, of the infinite superiority of Turner, closing with what sounds a strange admission after such teachings and such arguments:--'Remember always that Turner's greatness and rightness in all these points successively depend on no scientific knowledge. _He was entirely ignorant of all the laws we have been developing._ He had merely accustomed himself to see impartially, intensely, and fearlessly.' The fact is that Mr. Ruskin is disposed to lay far too heavy a stress on the mere mechanical accuracy of the draughtsman, to think too much of his hand, too little of his head. He has been surrounded by a number of supple admirers and unquestioning students, who, placing their whole time and labour at his disposal, have rather pampered, by such ultra-allegiance, his inclination to be dogmatic on these points. 'Study this for half an hour,' he says of one illustration; 'Look here for a good five minutes,' of another; 'or, better still, get pen and paper and draw it yourself: take care you make it as nearly as you can quite right,' and so on. There is something almost ludicrous, only Mr. Ruskin has little perception of the humorous, about the strained care, the exaggeration of painstakings, bestowed on some of the drawings. Instance plate 58, drawn by one of his pupils at the Working Man's College (a joiner by trade), 'an unprejudiced person,' states Mr. Ruskin, always _posing_ himself as addressing a suspicious and jealous audience, who would rise against him and turn him off the judgment seat, by fair means or foul, if they dared, or could. The student was set to work in the spring, the subject being a lilac branch of its real size as it grew, _before it budded_. It will tell how long this rather simple lesson occupied the student, that 'before he could get it quite right, _the buds came out and interrupted him_.' Yet Mr. Ruskin makes strong objection to the word 'niggling.' 'I should be glad if it were entirely banished from service and record. The only essential question about drawing is whether it be right or wrong; that it be small or large, swift or slow, is a matter of convenience only.' He reserves to himself, however, the right to apply the 'ugly word' to Hobbima. 'A single dusty roll of Turner's brush is more truly expressive of the infinitude of foliage than the _niggling_ of Hobbima could have rendered his canvas if he had worked on it till doomsday.' 'No man before (Turner) painted a distant tree rightly, or a full-leaved branch rightly.' Chapters on the 'branch,' the 'stem,' the 'leaf monuments,' the 'leaf shadows,' and 'leaves motionless,' conclude the first division of the book. They are all in elaboration of his 'leaf-beauty' theory, and are rich in exquisite fancy and admirable writing, but it cannot be that they should be detailed or examined here. As a specimen of feeling and poetry, here are a few lines from many on the lichen:--'As in one sense the humblest, in another they are the most honoured, of the earth's children: unfading as motionless, the worm frets them not, and the autumn wastes not. Strong in lowliness, they neither blanch in heat nor pine in frost. To them, slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is intrusted the weaving of the dark eternal tapestries of the hills; to them slow, iris-eyed, the tender framing of their endless imagery. Sharing the stillness of the unimpassioned rock, they share also its endurance; and while the winds of departing spring scatter the white hawthorn blossom like drifted snow, and summer dims on the parched meadow the drooping of its cowslip gold, far above among the mountains, the silver lichen-spots rest star-like on the stone, and the gathering orange stain upon the edge of yonder western peak reflects the sunsets of a thousand years.' In treating of the second portion of the first half of the book, 'Cloud Beauty,' briefness is now indispensable. And first of 'Cloud Balancings.' Why is the soft, level, floating, white mist so heavy? Why so light 'the colossal pyramids, huge and grim, with outlines as of rocks, and strength to bear the beating of the high sun full on their fiery flanks?' What are clouds? Water in some fine form or other. But water is heavier than air,--cannot float on it. May, then, clouds be formed of minute hollow globules of water swimming in the air, balloon-like? These and a hundred other questions; and what is the use of asking them? 'I enjoy them,' says our author; 'perhaps the reader may--I think he ought, and not love less the clouds of morning or the summer rain because they come to him with hard questions, with only a syllable or two of answer illuminated here and there on the heavenly scroll.' And Mr. Ruskin takes credit to himself for not being 'dogmatic' on the subject of clouds. Then of 'Cloud Flocks,'--upper clouds, detached, bird-like, with flame-like curves, tender, various, pointing, inquiring. And why do they assume these forms? Not driven by eddies of wind, they move along, unhurried, compressed in a phalanx, fifty thousand separate groups in half of a morning sky, all obedient to one rule of harmonious progress. And so of 'Cloud Perspective,' cleverly set forth and illustrated, but appealing perhaps too exclusively to the art-student for transfer here, and of 'Cloud Colours.' Is it well to watch them like Turner? or to neglect them with Claude, Salvator, Ruysdael, Wouvermans, never to look nor portray? Then of the 'Cloud Chariot,' or cumulus,--not to be drawn, not to be explained; even Turner attempted not that. Mountain-like, electric, brilliant beyond power of colour, endless in variety of form, transitory as a dream; and estimates of weight and movement, and of a chariot cloud which soared 20,000 feet from behind Berne Cathedral! Next of the 'Angel of the Sea,' the author's epithet for rain. 'Is English wet weather one of the things which we would desire to see art give perpetuity to?' Assuredly, answers Mr. Ruskin; and under five heads he ranges the climates into which the globe is divided with respect to their fitness for art. See the result:-- Wood lands Shrewd intellect No art. Sand lands High intellect Religious art. Vine lands Highest intellect Perfect art. Field lands High intellect Material art. Moss lands Shrewd intellect No art. The table is worthy of study. The second half of the volume treats of 'Ideas of Relation.' It deals with Art in its relation to God and man, and with its work in the help of human beings and the service of their Creator, and inquires into 'the various powers, conditions, and aims of mind involved in the conception or creation of pictures, in the choice of subject, and the mode and order of its history; the choice of forms, and the modes of their arrangement.' Very forcible and significant are the reflections upon invention, the 'greatest and rarest of all the qualities of art;' and on 'Composition.' If one part be taken away, all the rest are helpless and valueless; yet true composition is inexplicable--to be felt, not reasoned upon. 'A poet or creator is, therefore, a person who puts things together; not as a watchmaker, steel; or a shoemaker, leather: but who puts life into them.' In the chapter entitled the 'Task of the Least,' the author argues, adroitly enough, 'that the _minutest_ portion of a great composition is helpful to the whole,' and examples from Turner's compositions furnish good evidence in this respect. Under the titles of the 'Lance of Pallas,' and the 'Wings of the Lion,' the Greek and Venetian art inspirations are descanted upon. These are chapters of great interest to the student. Mr. Ruskin finds the Venetian mind perfect in its belief, its width, and its judgment. Yet it passed away. Not desiring the religion, but the delight only of its art, in proportion to the greatness of the power of the Venetians was the shame of their fall. Chapters follow on representative painters--Durer and Salvator, Claude and Poussin, with comments on the 'faithless' and 'degraded' system of classical landscape--Rubens and Cuyp. The next discourse is on 'Vulgarity.' A striking exemplification of it Mr. Ruskin finds in the expression of the butcher's dog in Landseer's 'Low Life,' and Cruikshank's Noah Claypole in the plates to _Oliver Twist_. He counts 'among the reckless losses of the right service of intellectual power with which the century must be charged, the employing to no higher purpose than the illustration of _Jack Sheppard_'and the "Irish Rebellion," the great, grave (using the words deliberately and with large meaning), and singular genius of Cruikshank,' though the works selected are hardly fair specimens of the artist's general illustrative labours, and the 'Irish Rebellion' is surely worthy of art record and rendering. The most fatal form of vulgarity is described as dulness of heart and dulness of bodily sense, general stupidity being its material manifestation. 'One of the forms of death,' suggests Mr. Ruskin's 'keen-minded friend,' Mr. Brett, the painter--a vague enough definition--but it pleases Mr. Ruskin, though he amends it, and settles at last on the term 'earthful selfishness,' as embracing all the most fatal and essential forms of mental vulgarity. Hastening to an end, it can only now be simply stated that chapters on Wouvermans and Angelico succeed. Then the 'two boyhoods,' an interesting and highly-wrought comparison of the early lives of Turner and Giorgione, and of the different circumstances under which their art-minds severally dawned and developed. The remainder of the book is almost wholly devoted in glowing strains, like the pompous glory of the crowning movement of a Beethoven symphony, to loving yet deferential homage to Turner. His works and life are traced out and lingered over, not with biographical exactness, but with some effort to make them explicable of the character of the great painter. 'Much of his mind and heart I do not know--perhaps never shall know; but this much I do, and if there is anything in the previous course of this work to warrant trust in me of any kind, let me be trusted when I tell you that Turner had a heart as intensely kind and as nobly true as ever God gave to one of his creatures.' And in a tone replete with the most solemn and impassioned poetry and feeling, the author brings his great work to an end. Emphatically a great work--a noble jewel in the crown of art literature, resplendent enough to have its flaws dwelt upon and some imperfections and shortcoming in its setting pointed out, and yet to lose little in estimation after the utmost has been said and done in these respects. EDINBURGH: T. CONSTABLE, PRINTER TO THE QUEEN, AND TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
14400	----	MANUAL OF EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt. _FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS AND TRAVELLERS_. BY G. MASPERO, D.C.L. OXON. MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE; PROFESSOR AT THE COLLÈGE DE FRANCE; EX-DIRECTOR GENERAL OF EGYPTIAN MUSEUMS. _TRANSLATED BY_ AMELIA B. EDWARDS. _NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED BY THE AUTHOR_. With Three Hundred and Nine Illustrations. 1895. PREFACE TO THE FOURTH AND REVISED EDITION. Notwithstanding the fact that Egyptology is now recognised as a science, an exact and communicable knowledge of whose existence and scope it behoves all modern culture to take cognisance, this work of M. Maspero still remains the Handbook of Egyptian Archaeology. But Egyptology is as yet in its infancy; whatever their age, Egyptologists will long die young. Every year, almost every month, fresh material for the study is found, fresh light is thrown upon it by the progress of excavation, exploration, and research. Hence it follows that, in the course of a few years, the standard text-books require considerable addition and modification if they are to be of the greatest value to students, who must always start from the foremost vantage-ground. The increasing demand for the _Egyptian Archaeology_ by English and American tourists, as well as students, decided the English publishers to issue a new edition in as light and portable a form as possible. This edition is carefully corrected, and contains the enlarged letterpress and many fresh illustrations necessary for incorporating within the book adequate accounts of the main archaeological results of recent Egyptian excavations. M. Maspero has himself revised the work, indicated all the numerous additions, and qualified the expression of any views which he has seen reason to modify in the course of his researches during the past eight years. By the headings of the pages, the descriptive titles of the illustrations, and a minute revision of the index, much has been done to facilitate the use of the volume as a book of reference. In that capacity it will be needed by the student long after he first makes acquaintance with its instructive and abundant illustrations and its luminous condensation of the archaeological facts and conclusions which have been elucidated by Egyptology through the devotion of many an arduous lifetime during the present century, and, not least, by the unremitting labours of M. Maspero. _April, 1895_. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. To put this book into English, and thus to hand it on to thousands who might not otherwise have enjoyed it, has been to me a very congenial and interesting task. It would be difficult, I imagine, to point to any work of its scope and character which is better calculated to give lasting delight to all classes of readers. For the skilled archaeologist, its pages contain not only new facts, but new views and new interpretations; while to those who know little, or perhaps nothing, of the subjects under discussion, it will open a fresh and fascinating field of study. It is not enough to say that a handbook of Egyptian Archaeology was much needed, and that Professor Maspero has given us exactly what we required. He has done much more than this. He has given us a picturesque, vivacious, and highly original volume, as delightful as if it were not learned, and as instructive as if it were dull. As regards the practical side of Archaeology, it ought to be unnecessary to point out that its usefulness is strictly parallel with the usefulness of public museums. To collect and exhibit objects of ancient art and industry is worse than idle if we do not also endeavour to disseminate some knowledge of the history of those arts and industries, and of the processes employed by the artists and craftsmen of the past. Archaeology, no less than love, "adds a precious seeing to the eye"; and without that gain of mental sight, the treasures of our public collections are regarded by the general visitor as mere "curiosities"--flat and stale for the most part, and wholly unprofitable. I am much indebted to Mr. W.M. Flinders Petrie, author of _The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_, for kindly translating the section on "Pyramids," which is entirely from his pen. I have also to thank him for many valuable notes on subjects dealt with in the first three chapters. To avoid confusion, I have numbered these notes, and placed them at the end of the volume. My acknowledgments are likewise due to Professor Maspero for the care with which he has read the proof-sheets of this version of his work. In departing from his system of orthography (and that of Mr. Petrie) I have been solely guided by the necessities of English readers. I foresee that _Egyptian Archaeology_ will henceforth be the inseparable companion of all English-speaking travellers who visit the Valley of the Nile; hence I have for the most part adopted the spelling of Egyptian proper names as given by the author of "Murray's Handbook for Egypt." Touching my own share in the present volume, I will only say that I have tried to present Professor Maspero's inimitable French in the form of readable English, rather than in a strictly word-for-word translation; and that with the hope of still further extending the usefulness of the book, I have added some foot-note references. AMELIA B. EDWARDS. WESTBURY-ON-TRYM, _August_, 1887. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. ARCHITECTURE--CIVIL AND MILITARY. § 1. HOUSES:--Bricks and Brickmaking--Foundations--Materials--Towns-- Plans--Decoration § 2. FORTRESSES:--Walls--Plans--Migdols, etc. § 3. PUBLIC WORKS:--Roads--Bridges--Storehouses--Canals--Lake Moeris-- Dams--Reservoirs--Quarries CHAPTER II. RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE. § 1. MATERIALS; PRINCIPLES OF CONSTRUCTION:--Materials of Temples-- Foundations of Temples--Sizes of Blocks--Mortars--Mode of hoisting Blocks--Defective Masonry--Walls--Pavements--Vaultings--Supports-- Pillars and Columns--Capitals--Campaniform Capitals--Lotus-bud Capitals--Hathor-headed Capitals § 2. TEMPLES:--Temples of the Sphinx--Temples of Elephantine--Temple at El Kab--Temple of Khonsû--Arrangement of Temples--Levels--Crypts-- Temple of Karnak--Temple of Luxor--Philae--The Speos, or Rock-cut Temple--Speos of Horemheb--Rock-cut Temples of Abû Simbel--Temple of Deir el Baharî--Temple of Abydos--Sphinxes--Crio-sphinxes § 3. DECORATION:--Principles of Decoration--The Temple a Symbolic Representation of the World--Decoration of Parts nearest the Ground-- Dadoes--Bases of Columns--Decoration of Ceilings--Decoration of Architraves--Decoration of Wall-surfaces--Magic Virtues of Decoration --Decoration of Pylons--Statues--Obelisks--Libation-tables--Altars-- Shrines--Sacred Boats--Moving Statues of Deities CHAPTER III. TOMBS. § 1. MASTABAS:--Construction of the Mastaba--The Door of the Living, and the Door of the Dead--The Chapel--Wall Decorations--The Double and his Needs--The _Serdab_--Ka Statues--The Sepulchral Chamber § 2. PYRAMIDS:--Plan of the Pyramid comprises three leading features of the Mastaba--Materials of Pyramids--Orientation--Pyramid of Khûfû-- Pyramids of Khafra and Menkara--Step Pyramid of Sakkarah--Pyramid of Ûnas--Decoration of Pyramid of Ûnas--Group of Dashûr--Pyramid of Medum § 3. TOMBS OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE; THE ROCK-CUT TOMBS:--Pyramid-mastabas of Abydos--Pyramid-mastabas of Drah Abû'l Neggah--Rock-cut Tombs of Beni Hasan and Syene--Rock-cut Tombs of Siût--Wall-decoration of Theban Catacombs--Tombs of the Kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty at Thebes--Valley of the Tombs of the Kings--Royal Catacombs--Tomb of Seti I.--Wall-decorations of Royal Catacombs--Funerary Furniture of Catacombs--Ûshabtiû--Amulets--Common Graves of the Poor CHAPTER IV. PAINTING AND SCULPTURE. § 1. DRAWING AND COMPOSITION:--Supposed Canon of Proportion--Drawing Materials--Sketches--Illustrations to the _Book of the Dead_-- Conventional Treatment of Animal and Human Figures--Naturalistic Treatment--Composition--Grouping--Wall-paintings of Tombs--A Funerary Feast--A Domestic Scene--Military Subjects--Perspective--Parallel between a Wall-painting in a Tomb at Sakkarah and the Mosaic of Palestrina § 2. TECHNICAL PROCESSES:--The Preparation of Surfaces--Outline-- Sculptors' Tools--Iron and Bronze Tools--Impurity of Iron--Methods of Instruction in Sculpture--Models--Methods of cutting Various Stones-- Polish--Painted Sculptures--Pigments--Conventional Scale of Colour-- Relation of Painting to Sculpture in Ancient Egypt § 3. SCULPTURE:--The Great Sphinx--Art of the Memphite School--Wood- panels of Hesi--Funerary Statues--The Portrait-statue and the Double --_Chefs d'oeuvre_ of the Memphite School--The Cross-legged Scribe--Diorite Statue of Khafra--Rahotep and Nefert--The Sheikh el Beled--The Kneeling Scribe--The Dwarf Nemhotep--Royal Statues of the Twelfth Dynasty--Hyksos Sphinxes of Tanis--Theban School of the Eighteenth Dynasty--Colossi of Amenhotep III.--New School of Tel el Amarna--Its Superior Grace and Truth--Works of Horemheb--School of the Nineteenth Dynasty--Colossi of Rameses II.--Decadence of Art begins with Merenptah--Ethiopian Renaissance--Saïte Renaissance--The Attitudes of Statues--Saïte Innovations--Greek Influence upon Egyptian Art--The Ptolemaic and Roman Periods--The School of Meroë--Extinction of Egyptian Art CHAPTER V. THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS. § 1. STONE, CLAY, AND GLASS:--Precious Stones--Lapidary Art--Beads and Amulets--Scarabaei--Statuettes--Libation Tables--Perfume Vases--Kohl- pots--Pottery--Clay--Glazes--Red and Painted Wares--Ûshabtiû--Funerary Cones--Painted Vases--"Canopic" Vases--Clay Sarcophagi--Glass--Its Chemical Constituents--Clear Glass--Coloured Glass--Imitations of Precious Stones in Glass--Glass Mosaics--Miniature Objects in Coloured Glass--Glass Amulets--Coloured Glass Vases--Enamels--The Theban Blue-- The Enamels of Tell el Amarna--Enamelled Ûshabtiû of Amen Ptahmes-- Enamelled Tiles of the Step Pyramid at Sakkarah--Enamelled Tiles of Tell el Yahûdeh § 2. WOOD, IVORY, LEATHER; TEXTILE FABRICS:--Bone and Ivory--Elephant Tusks--Dyed Ivory--Egyptian Woods--Wooden Statuettes--Statuette of Hori--Statuette of Naï--Wooden Toilet Ornaments--Perfume and Unguent Spoons--Furniture--Chests and Coffers--Mummy-cases--Wooden Effigies on Mummy Cases--Huge Outer Cases of Ahmesnefertari and Aahhotep--Funerary Furniture--Beds--Canopies--Sledges--Chairs--Stools--Thrones-- Textiles--Methods of Weaving--Leather--Breast-bands of Mummies-- Patchwork Canopy in Coloured Leather of Princess Isiemkheb-- Embroideries--Muslins--Celebrated Textiles of Alexandria § 3. METALS:--Iron--Lead--Bronze--Constituents of Egyptian Bronze-- Domestic Utensils in Bronze--Mirrors--Scissors--Bronze Statuettes-- The Stroganoff Bronze--The Posno Bronzes--The Lion of Apries--Gilding --Gold-plating--Gold-leaf--Statues and Statuettes of Precious Metals --The Silver and Golden Cups of General Tahûti--The Silver Vases of Thmûis--Silver Plate--Goldsmith's Work--Richness of Patterns-- Jewellery--Funerary Jewellery--Rings--Seal-rings--Chains--The Jewels of Queen Aahhotep--The Ring of Rameses II.--The Ear-rings of Rameses IX.--The Bracelet of Prince Psar--Conclusion NOTES INDEX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FIGURE 1. Brickmaking, tomb of Rekhmara, Eighteenth Dynasty 2. House with vaulted floors, Medinet Habû 3. Plan of the town of Kahûn, Twelfth Dynasty 4. Plan of house, Medinet Habû, Twentieth Dynasty 5. Plan of house, Medinet Habû, Twentieth Dynasty 6. Façade of house of Second Theban Period 7. Plan of house of Second Theban Period 8. Restoration of hall in Twelfth Dynasty house, Kahûn 9. Box representing a house 10. Wall-painting in Twelfth Dynasty house, Kahûn 11. View of mansion, tomb of Anna, Eighteenth Dynasty 12. Porch of mansion of Second Theban Period 13. Porch of mansion of Second Theban Period 14. Plan of Theban house and grounds, Eighteenth Dynasty 15. A perspective view of same 16. Part of palace of Aï, El Amarna tomb, Eighteenth Dynasty 17. Perspective view of part of palace of Aï 18. Frontage of house, Second Theban Period 19. Frontage of house, Second Theban Period 20. Central pavilion of house, Second Theban Period 21. Ceiling decoration from house at Medinet Habû, Twentieth Dynasty 22. Ceiling decoration, Twelfth Dynasty style 23. Ceiling decoration, tomb of Aimadûa, Twentieth Dynasty 24. Door of house, Sixth Dynasty tomb 25. Façade of Fourth Dynasty house, sarcophagus of Khûfû Poskhû 26. Plan of second fortress at Abydos, Eleventh or Twelfth Dynasty 27. Walls of same fortress, restored 28. Façade of fort, tomb at Beni Hasan, Twelfth Dynasty 29. Plan of main gate, second fortress of Abydos 30. Plan of S.E. gate of same 31. Plan of gate, fortress of Kom el Ahmar 32. Plan of walled city at El Kab 33. Plan of walled city at Kom Ombo 34. Plan of fortress of Kûmmeh 35. Plan of fortress of Semneh 36. Section of platform of same 37. Syrian fort, elevation 38. Town walls of Dapûr 39. City of Kaclesh, Ramesseum 40. Plan of pavilion of Medinet Habû, Twentieth Dynasty 41. Elevation of same 42. Canal and bridge of Zarû, Karnak, Nineteenth Dynasty 43. Cellar with amphorae 44. Granary 45. Plan of Store City of Pithom, Nineteenth Dynasty 46. Store-chambers of the Ramesseum 47. Dike at Wady Gerraweh 48. Section of same dike 49. Quarries of Silsilis 50. Draught of Hathor capital, quarry of Gebel Abûfeydeh 51. Transport of blocks, stela of Ahmes, Tûrrah, Eighteenth Dynasty 52. Masonry in temple of Seti I., Abydos 53. Temple wall with cornice 54. Niche and doorway in temple of Seti I., Abydos 55. Pavement in same temple 56. "Corbelled" vault in same temple 57. Hathor pillar in temple of Abû Simbel, Nineteenth Dynasty 58. Pillar of Amenhotep III., Karnak 59. Sixteen-sided pillars, Karnak 60. Fluted pillar, Kalabsheh 61. Polygonal Hathor-headed pillar, El Kab 62. Column with square die, Contra Esneh 63. Column with campaniform capital, Ramesseum 64. Inverted campaniform capital, Karnak 65. Palm capital, Bubastis 66. Compound capital 67. Ornate capitals, Ptolemaic 68. Lotus-bud column, Beni Hasan, Twelfth Dynasty 69. Lotus-bud column, processional hall of Thothmes HI., Karnak 70. Column in aisle of Hypostyle Hall, Karnak 71. Hathor-head capital, Ptolemaic 72. Campaniform and Hathor-headed capital, Philae 73. Section of Hypostyle Hall, Karnak 74. Plan of the temple of the Sphinx 75. South temple of Elephantine 76. Plan of temple of Amenhotep III., El Kab 77. Plan of temple of Hathor, Deir el Medineh 78. Plan of temple of Khonsû, Karnak 79. Pylon with masts, wall-scene, temple of Khonsû, Karnak 80. Ramesseum, restored 81. Plan of sanctuary at Denderah 82. Pronaos, temple of Edfû 83. Plan of same temple 84. Plan of temple of Karnak in reign of Amenhotep III 85. Plan of Hypostyle Hall, Karnak 86. Plan of great temple, Luxor 87. Plan of buildings on island of Philae 88. Plan of Speos, Kalaat Addah 89. Plan of Speos, Gebel Silsileh 90. Plan of Great Speos, Abû Simbel 91. Plan of Speos of Hathor, Abû Simbel 92. Plan of upper portion of temple of Deir el Baharî 93. Plan of temple of Seti I., Abydos 94. Crio-sphinx from temple of Wady Es Sabûah 95. Couchant ram, from Avenue of Sphinxes, Karnak 96-101. Decorative designs from Denderah 102. Decorative group of Nile gods 103. Dado decoration, hall of Thothmes III., Karnak 104. Ceiling decoration, tomb of Bakenrenf, Twenty-sixth Dynasty 105. Zodiacal circle of Denderah 106. Frieze of uraei and cartouches 107. Wall-scene from temple of Denderah 108. Obelisk of Heliopolis, Twelfth Dynasty 109. Obelisk of Begig, Twelfth Dynasty 110. "Table of offerings" from Karnak 111. Limestone altar from Menshîyeh 112. Wooden naos, in Turin Museum 113. A mastaba 114. False door in mastaba 115. Plan of forecourt, mastaba of Kaäpir 116. Plan of forecourt, mastaba of Neferhotep 117. Door in mastaba façade 118. Portico and door of mastaba 119. Plan of chapel, mastaba of Khabiûsokari 120. Plan of chapel, mastaba of Ti 121. Plan of chapel, mastaba of Shepsesptah 122. Plan of chapel, mastaba of Affi 123. Plan of chapel, mastaba of Thenti 124. Plan of chapel, mastaba of Red Scribe 125. Plan of chapel, mastaba of Ptahhotep 126. Stela in mastaba of Merrûka 127. Wall-scene from mastaba of Ptahhotep 128. Wall-scene from mastaba of Ûrkhûû 129. Wall-scene from mastaba of Ptahhotep 130. Plan of serdab in mastaba at Gizeh 131. Plan of serdab and chapel in mastaba of Rahotep 132. Plan of serdab and chapel in mastaba of Thenti 133. Section of mastaba showing shaft and vault, at Gizeh 134. Section of mastaba, at Sakkarah 135. Wall-scene from mastaba of Nenka 136. Section of Great Pyramid 137. The Step Pyramid of Sakkarah 138. Plan and section of pyramid of Ûnas 139. Portcullis and passage, pyramid of Ûnas 140. Section of pyramid of Ûnas 141. Mastabat el Faraûn 142. Pyramid of Medûm 143. Section of passage and vault in pyramid of Medûm 144. Section of "vaulted" brick pyramid, Abydos, Eleventh Dynasty 145. Section of "vaulted" tomb, Abydos 146. Plan of tomb, Abydos 147. Theban tomb with pyramidion, wall-scene, tomb at Sheikh Abd el Gûrneh 148. Similar tomb 149. Section of Apis tomb, Eighteenth Dynasty 150. Tombs in cliff opposite Asûan 151. Façade of rock-cut tomb of Khnûmhotep, Beni Hasan, Twelfth Dynasty 152. Façade of rock-cut tomb, Asûan 153. Plan of tomb of Khnûmhotep, Beni Hasan, Twelfth Dynasty 154. Plan of unfinished tomb, Beni Hasan, Twelfth Dynasty 155. Wall-scene, tomb of Manna, Nineteenth Dynasty 156. Plan of tomb of Rameses IV. 157. Plan of tomb of Rameses IV., from Turin papyrus 158. Plan of tomb of Seti I. 159. Fields of Aalû, wall-scene, tomb of Rameses III. 160. Pestle and mortar for grinding colours 161. Comic sketch on ostrakon 162. Vignette from _Book of the Dead_, Saïte period 163. Vignette from _Book of the Dead_, papyrus of Hûnefer 164-5. Wall-scenes, tomb of Khnûmhotep, Beni Hasan 166. Wall-scene, tomb, Eighteenth Dynasty 167. Wall-scene, tomb of Horemheb 168. Wall-scene, Theban tomb, Ramesside period 169. Wall-scene, tomb of Horemheb 170. Wall-scene, Ramesseum 171. Wall-scene, Medinet Habû 172. Wall-scene, Ramesseum 173. Wall-scene, Ramesseum 174. Wall-scene, tomb of Rekhmara 175. Wall-scene, tomb of Rekhmara 176. Wall-scene, mastaba of Ptahhotep 177. Palestrina mosaic 178. Sculptor's sketch, Ancient Empire tomb 179. Sculptor's sketch, Ancient Empire tomb 180. Sculptor's correction, Medinet Habû, Twentieth Dynasty 181. Bow drill 182. Sculptor's trial-piece, Eighteenth Dynasty 183. The Great Sphinx of Gizeh 184. Wooden panel, mastaba of Hesî 185. Cross-legged scribe, in the Louvre, Ancient Empire 186. Cross-legged scribe, at Gizeh, Ancient Empire 187. King Khafra 188. The "Sheikh el Beled" (Raemka), Ancient Empire 189. Rahotep, Ancient Empire 190. Nefert, wife of Rahotep, Ancient Empire 191. Head of the "Sheikh el Beled," Ancient Empire 192. Wife of the "Sheikh el Beled," Ancient Empire 193. The kneeling scribe, at Gizeh. Ancient Empire 194. A bread-maker, Ancient Empire 195. The dwarf Nemhotep, Ancient Empire 196. One of the Tanis sphinxes, Hyksos period 197. Bas-relief head of Seti I. 198. Amen and Horemheb 199. Head of a queen, Eighteenth Dynasty 200. Head of Horemheb 201. Colossal statue of Rameses 11. 202. Queen Ameniritis. 203. Thûeris, Saïte period 204. Hathor cow, Saïte period 205. Pedishashi, Saïte period 206. Head of a scribe, Saïte period 207. Colossus of Alexander II. 208. Hor, Graeco-Egyptian 209. Group from Naga, Ethiopian School 210. _Ta_ amulet 211. Frog amulet 212. _Ûat_ amulet 213. _Ûta_ amulet 214. A scarab 215-7. Perfume vases, alabaster 218. Perfume vase, alabaster 219. Vase for antimony powder 220. Turin vases, pottery 221-3. Decorated vases, pottery 224. Glass-blowers, wall-scene, Twelfth Dynasty 225-6. Parti-cloured glass vases 227. Parti-coloured glass vase 228. Glass goblets of Nesikhonsû 229. Hippopotamus in blue glaze 230-1. Theban glazed ware 232. Cup, glazed ware 233. Interior decoration of bowl, Eighteenth Dynasty 234. Lenticular vase, glazed ware, Saïte period 235. Tiled chamber in Step Pyramid of Sakkarah 236. Tile from same 237. Tile, Tell el Yahûdeh, Twentieth Dynasty 238. Tile, Tell el Yahûdeh, Twentieth Dynasty 239. Inlaid tiles, Tell el Yahûdeh, Twentieth Dynasty 240-1. Relief tiles, Tell el Yahûdeh, Twentieth Dynasty 242. Spoon 243. Wooden statuette of officer, Eighteenth Dynasty 244. Wooden statuette of priest, Eighteenth Dynasty 245. Wooden statuette of Naï 246-54. Wooden perfume and unguent spoons 255. Fire-sticks, bow, and unfinished drill-stock, Twelfth Dynasty 256. Dolls, Twelfth Dynasty 257. Tops, tip-cat, and toy boat, Twelfth Dynasty 258-60. Chests 261. Construction of a mummy-case, wall-scene, Eighteenth Dynasty 262. Mask of Twenty-first Dynasty coffin of Rameses II 263. Mummy-case of Queen Ahmesnefertari 264. Panel portrait from the Fayûm, Graeco-Roman 265. Carved and painted mummy-canopy 266. Canopied mummy-couch, Graeco-Roman 267. Mummy-sledge and canopy 268. Inlaid chair, Eleventh Dynasty 269. Inlaid stool, Eleventh Dynasty 270. Throne-chair, wall-scene, Twentieth Dynasty 271. Women weaving, wall-scene, Twelfth Dynasty 272. Man weaving carpet or hangings, wall-scene, Twelfth Dynasty 273. Cut leather work, Twenty-first Dynasty 274-5. Barks with cut leather-work sails, Twentieth Dynasty 276-7. Bronze jug 278. Unguent vase, or spoon (lamp for suspension?) 279. Bronze statuette of Takûshet 280. Bronze statuette of Horus 281. Bronze statuette of Mosû 282. Bronze lion from Horbeit, Saïte period 283. Gold-worker, wall-scene 284. Golden cup of General Tahûti, Eighteenth Dynasty 285. Silver vase of Thmûis 286. Silver vase of Thmûis 287. Piece of plate, wall-scene, Twentieth Dynasty 288-95. Plate, wall-scenes, Eighteenth Dynasty 296. Signet-ring, with bezel 297. Gold _cloisonné_ pectoral, Dahshur, Twelfth Dynasty 298. Mirror of Queen Aahhotep, Eighteenth Dynasty 299-300. Bracelets of same 301. Diadem of same 302. Gold _Ûsekh_ of same 303. Gold pectoral of same 304-5. Poignards found with mummy of Queen Aahhotep 306. Battle-axe found with same 307. Model funerary bark found with same 308. Ring of Rameses II 309. Bracelet of Prince Psar EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY. CHAPTER I. _ARCHITECTURE--CIVIL AND MILITARY_. Archaeologists, when visiting Egypt, have so concentrated their attention upon temples and tombs, that not one has devoted himself to a careful examination of the existing remains of private dwellings and military buildings. Few countries, nevertheless, have preserved so many relics of their ancient civil architecture. Setting aside towns of Roman or Byzantine date, such as are found almost intact at Koft (Coptos), at Kom Ombo, and at El Agandiyeh, one-half at least of ancient Thebes still exists on the east and south of Karnak. The site of Memphis is covered with mounds, some of which are from fifty to sixty feet in height, each containing a core of houses in good preservation. At Kahûn, the ruins and remains of a whole provincial Twelfth Dynasty town have been laid bare; at Tell el Mask-hûtah, the granaries of Pithom are yet standing; at Sãn (Tanis) and Tell Basta (Bubastis), the Ptolemaic and Saïtic cities contain quarters of which plans might be made (Note 1), and in many localities which escape the traveller's notice, there may be seen ruins of private dwellings which date back to the age of the Ramessides, or to a still earlier period. As regards fortresses, there are two in the town of Abydos alone, one of which is at least contemporary with the Sixth Dynasty; while the ramparts of El Kab, of Kom el Ahmar, of El Hibeh, and of Dakkeh, as well as part of the fortifications of Thebes, are still standing, and await the architect who shall deign to make them an object of serious study. * * * * * 1.--PRIVATE DWELLINGS. The soil of Egypt, periodically washed by the inundation, is a black, compact, homogeneous clay, which becomes of stony hardness when dry. From immemorial time, the fellahin have used it for the construction of their houses. The hut of the poorest peasant is a mere rudely-shaped mass of this clay. A rectangular space, some eight or ten feet in width, by perhaps sixteen or eighteen feet in length, is enclosed in a wickerwork of palm- branches, coated on both sides with a layer of mud. As this coating cracks in the drying the fissures are filled in, and more coats of mud are daubed on until the walls attain a thickness of from four inches to a foot. Finally, the whole is roofed over with palm-branches and straw, the top being covered in with a thin layer of beaten earth. The height varies. In most huts, the ceiling is so low that to rise suddenly is dangerous both to one's head and to the structure, while in others the roof is six or seven feet from the floor. Windows, of course, there are none. Sometimes a hole is left in the middle of the roof to let the smoke out; but this is a refinement undreamed of by many. [Illustration: Fig. 1.--Brickmaking, from Eighteenth Dynasty tomb-painting, Tomb of Rekhmara.] At the first glance, it is not always easy to distinguish between these huts of wattle and daub and those built with crude bricks. The ordinary Egyptian brick is a mere oblong block of mud mixed with chopped straw and a little sand, and dried in the sun. At a spot where they are about to build, one man is told off to break up the ground; others carry the clods, and pile them in a heap, while others again mix them with water, knead the clay with their feet, and reduce it to a homogeneous paste. This paste, when sufficiently worked (Note 2), is pressed by the head workman in moulds made of hard wood, while an assistant carries away the bricks as fast as they are shaped, and lays them out in rows at a little distance apart, to dry in the sun (fig. I). A careful brickmaker will leave them thus for half a day, or even for a whole day, after which the bricks are piled in stacks in such wise that the air can circulate freely among them; and so they remain for a week or two before they are used. More frequently, however, they are exposed for only a few hours to the heat of the sun, and the building is begun while they are yet damp. The mud, however, is so tenacious that, notwithstanding this carelessness, they are not readily put out of shape. The outer faces of the bricks become disintegrated by the action of the weather, but those in the inner part of the wall remain intact, and are still separable. A good modern workman will easily mould a thousand bricks a day, and after a week's practice he may turn out 1,200, 1,500, or even 1,800. The ancient workmen, whose appliances in no wise differed from those of the present day, produced equally satisfactory results. The dimensions they generally adopted were 8.7 x 4.3 x 5.5 inches for ordinary bricks, or 15.0 x 7.1 x 5.5 for a larger size (Note 3), though both larger and smaller are often met with in the ruins. Bricks issued from the royal workshops were sometimes stamped with the cartouches of the reigning monarch; while those made in private factories bore on the side a trade mark in red ochre, a squeeze of the moulder's fingers, or the stamp of the maker. By far the greater number have, however, no distinctive mark. Burnt bricks were not often used before the Roman period (Note 4), nor tiles, either flat or curved. Glazed bricks appear to have been the fashion in the Delta. The finest specimen that I have seen, namely, one in the Gizeh Museum, is inscribed in black ink with the cartouches of Rameses III. The glaze of this brick is green, but other fragments are coloured blue, red, yellow, or white. The nature of the soil does not allow of deep foundations. It consists of a thin bed of made earth, which, except in large towns, never reaches any degree of thickness; below this comes a very dense humus, permeated by slender veins of sand; and below this again--at the level of infiltration-- comes a bed of mud, more or less soft, according to the season. The native builders of the present day are content to remove only the made earth, and lay their foundations on the primeval soil; or, if that lies too deep, they stop at a yard or so below the surface. The old Egyptians did likewise; and I have never seen any ancient house of which the foundations were more than four feet deep. Even this is exceptional, the depth in most cases being not more than two feet. They very often did not trouble themselves to cut trenches at all; they merely levelled the space intended to be covered, and, having probably watered it to settle the soil, they at once laid the bricks upon the surface. When the house was finished, the scraps of mortar, the broken bricks, and all the accumulated refuse of the work, made a bed of eight inches or a foot in depth, and the base of the wall thus buried served instead of a foundation. When the new house rose on the ruins of an older one decayed by time or ruined by accident, the builders did not even take the trouble to raze the old walls to the ground. Levelling the surface of the ruins, they-built upon them at a level a few feet higher than before: thus each town stands upon one or several artificial mounds, the tops of which may occasionally rise to a height of from sixty to eighty feet above the surrounding country. The Greek historians attributed these artificial mounds to the wisdom of the kings, and especially to Sesostris, who, as they supposed, wished to raise the towns above the inundation. Some modern writers have even described the process, which they explain thus:--A cellular framework of brick walls, like a huge chess-board, formed the substructure, the cells being next filled in with earth, and the houses built upon this immense platform (Note 5). [Illustration: Fig. 2.--Ancient house with vaulted floors, against the northern wall of the great temple of Medinet Habù] [Illustration: Fig. 3.--Plan of three-quarters of the town of Hat-Hotep- Ûsertesen (Kahûn), built for the accommodation of the officials and workmen employed in connection with the pyramid of Ûsertesen II. at Illahûn. The workmen's quarters are principally on the west, and separated from the eastern part of the town by a thick wall. At the south-west corner, outside the town, stood the pyramid temple, and in front of it the porter's lodge. Reproduced from Plate XIV. of _Illahûn, Kahun, and Gurob_, W.M.F. Petrie.] But where I have excavated, especially at Thebes, I have never found anything answering to this conception. The intersecting walls which one finds beneath the later houses are nothing but the ruins of older dwellings, which in turn rest on others still older. The slightness of the foundations did not prevent the builders from boldly running up quite lofty structures. In the ruins of Memphis, I have observed walls still standing from thirty to forty feet in height. The builders took no precaution beyond enlarging the base of the wall, and vaulting the floors (fig. 2).[1] The thickness of an ordinary wall was about sixteen inches for a low house; but for one of several storeys, it was increased to three or four feet. Large beams, embedded here and there in the brickwork or masonry, bound the whole together, and strengthened the structure. The ground floor was also frequently built with dressed stones, while the upper parts were of brick. The limestone of the neighbouring hills was the stone commonly used for such purposes. The fragments of sandstone, granite, and alabaster, which are often found mixed in with it, are generally from some ruined temple; the ancient Egyptians having pulled their neglected monuments to pieces quite as unscrupulously as do their modern successors. The houses of an ancient Egyptian town were clustered round its temple, and the temple stood in a rectangular enclosure to which access was obtained through monumental gateways in the surrounding brick wall. The gods dwelt in fortified mansions, or at any rate in redoubts to which the people of the place might fly for safety in the event of any sudden attack upon their town. Such towns as were built all at once by prince or king were fairly regular in plan, having wide paved streets at right angles to each other, and the buildings in line. The older cities, whose growth had been determined by the chances and changes of centuries, were characterised by no such regularity. Their houses stood in a maze of blind alleys, and narrow, dark, and straggling streets, with here and there the branch of a canal, almost dried up during the greater part of the year, and a muddy pond where the cattle drank and women came for water. Somewhere in each town was an open space shaded by sycamores or acacias, and hither on market days came the peas-ants of the district two or three times in the month. There were also waste places where rubbish and refuse was thrown, to be quarrelled over by vultures, hawks, and dogs. [Illustration: Fig. 4.--Plan of house, Medinet Habû] [Illustration: Fig. 5.--Plan of house, Medinet Habû.] [Illustration: Fig. 6.--Façade of a house toward the street, second Theban period.] [Illustration: Fig. 7.--Plan of central court of house, second Theban period.] [Illustration: Fig. 8.--Restoration of the hall in a Twelfth Dynasty house. In the middle of the floor is a tank surrounded by a covered colonnade. Reproduced from Plate XVI. of _Illahûn, Kahun, and Gurob_, W.M.F. Petrie.] [Illustration: Fig. 9.--Box representing a house (British Museum).] The lower classes lived in mere huts which, though built of bricks, were no better than those of the present fellahin. At Karnak, in the Pharaonic town; at Kom Ombo, in the Roman town; and at Medinet Habû, in the Coptic town, the houses in the poorer quarters have seldom more than twelve or sixteen feet of frontage. They consist of a ground floor, with sometimes one or two living-rooms above. The middle-class folk, as shopkeepers, sub- officials, and foremen, were better housed. Their houses were brick-built and rather small, yet contained some half-dozen rooms communicating by means of doorways, which were usually arched over, and having vaulted roofs in some cases, and in others flat ones. Some few of the houses were two or three storeys high, and many were separated from the street by a narrow court, beyond which the rooms were ranged on either side of a long passage (fig. 4). More frequently, the court was surrounded on three sides by chambers (fig. 5); and yet oftener the house fronted close upon the street. In the latter case the façade consisted of a high wall, whitewashed or painted, and surmounted by a cornice. Even in better houses the only ornamentation of their outer walls consisted in angular grooving, the grooves being surmounted by representations of two lotus flowers, each pair with the upper parts of the stalks in contact (see figs. 24, 25). The door was the only opening, save perhaps a few small windows pierced at irregular intervals (fig. 6). Even in unpretentious houses, the door was often made of stone. The doorposts projected slightly beyond the surface of the wall, and the lintel supported a painted or sculptured cornice. Having crossed the threshold, one passed successively through two dimly-lighted entrance chambers, the second of which opened into the central court (fig. 7). The best rooms in the houses of wealthier citizens were sometimes lighted through a square opening in the centre of a ceiling supported on wooden columns. In the Twelfth Dynasty town of Kahûn the shafts of these columns rested upon round stone bases; they were octagonal, and about ten inches in diameter (fig. 8). Notwithstanding the prevalence of enteric disease and ophthalmia, the family crowded together into one or two rooms during the winter, and slept out on the roof under the shelter of mosquito nets in summer. On the roof also the women gossiped and cooked. The ground floor included both store-rooms, barns, and stables. Private granaries were generally in pairs (see fig. 11), brick-built in the same long conical shape as the state granaries, and carefully plastered with mud inside and out. Neither did the people of a house forget to find or to make hiding places in the walls or floors of their home, where they could secrete their household treasures--such as nuggets of gold and silver, precious stones, and jewellery for men and women--from thieves and tax-collectors alike. Wherever the upper floors still remain standing, they reproduce the ground- floor plan with scarcely any differences. These upper rooms were reached by an outside staircase, steep and narrow, and divided at short intervals by small square landings. The rooms were oblong, and were lighted only from the doorway; when it was decided to open windows on the street, they were mere air-holes near the ceiling, pierced without regularity or symmetry, fitted with a lattice of wooden cross bars, and secured by wooden shutters. The floors were bricked or paved, or consisted still more frequently of merely a layer of rammed earth. The rooms were not left undecorated; the mud-plaster of the walls, generally in its native grey, although whitewashed in some cases, was painted with red or yellow, and ornamented with drawings of interior and exterior views of a house, and of household vessels and eatables (fig. 10). The roof was flat, and made probably, as at the present day, of closely laid rows of palm-branches covered with a coating of mud thick enough to withstand the effects of rain. Sometimes it was surmounted by only one or two of the usual Egyptian ventilators; but generally there was a small washhouse on the roof (fig. 9), and a little chamber for the slaves or guards to sleep in. The household fire was made in a hollow of the earthen floor, usually to one side of the room, and the smoke escaped through a hole in the ceiling; branches of trees, charcoal, and dried cakes of ass or cow dung were used for fuel. [Illustration: Fig. 10.--Wall-painting in a Twelfth Dynasty house. Below is a view of the outside, and above a view of the inside of a dwelling. Reproduced from Plate XVI. of _Illahûn, Kahun, and Gurob_, W.M.F. Petrie.] [Illustration: Fig. 11.--View of mansion from the tomb of Anna, Eighteenth Dynasty.] The mansions of the rich and great covered a large space of ground. They most frequently stood in the midst of a garden, or of an enclosed court planted with trees; and, like the commoner houses, they turned a blank front to the street, consisting of bare walls, battlemented like those of a fortress (fig. 11). Thus, home-life was strictly secluded, and the pleasure of seeing was sacrificed for the advantages of not being seen. The door was approached by a flight of two or three steps, or by a porch supported on columns (fig. 12) and adorned with statues (fig. 13), which gave it a monumental appearance, and indicated the social importance of the family. [Illustration: WALL-PAINTINGS, EL AMARNA. Fig. 12.--Porch of mansion, second Theban period, Fig. 13.--Porch of mansion, second Theban period.] Sometimes this was preceded by a pylon-gateway, such as usually heralded the approach to a temple. Inside the enclosure it was like a small town, divided into quarters by irregular walls. The dwelling-house stood at the farther end; the granaries, stabling, and open spaces being distributed in different parts of the grounds, according to some system to which we as yet possess no clue. These arrangements, however, were infinitely varied. If I would convey some idea of the residence of an Egyptian noble,--a residence half palace, half villa,--I cannot do better than reproduce two out of the many pictorial plans which have come down to us among the tomb-paintings of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The first (figs. 14, 15) represent a Theban house. The enclosure is square, and surrounded by an embattled wall. The main gate opens upon a road bordered with trees, which runs beside a canal, or perhaps an arm of the Nile. Low stone walls divide the garden into symmetrical compartments, like those which are seen to this day in the great gardens of Ekhmîm or Girgeh. [Illustration: Fig. 14.--Plan of a Theban house with garden, from Eighteenth Dynasty tomb-painting.] In the centre is a large trellis supported on four rows of slender pillars. Four small ponds, two to the right and two to the left, are stocked with ducks and geese. Two nurseries, two summer-houses, and various avenues of sycamores, date-palms, and dôm-palms fill up the intermediate space; while at the end, facing the entrance, stands a small three-storied house surmounted by a painted cornice. [Illustration: Fig. 15.--Perspective view of the Theban house, from Eighteenth Dynasty tomb-painting.] [Illustration: Fig. 16.--Part of the palace of Aï, from tomb-painting, Eighteenth Dynasty, El Amarna.] The second plan is copied from one of the rock-cut tombs of Tell el Amarna (figs. 16, 17). Here we see a house situate at the end of the gardens of the great lord Aï, son-in-law of the Pharaoh Khûenaten, and himself afterwards king of Egypt. An oblong stone tank with sloping sides, and two descending flights of steps, faces the entrance. The building is rectangular, the width being somewhat greater than the depth. A large doorway opens in the middle of the front, and gives access to a court planted with trees and flanked by store-houses fully stocked with provisions. Two small courts, placed symmetrically in the two farthest corners, contain the staircases which lead up to the roof terrace. This first building, however, is but the frame which surrounds the owner's dwelling. The two frontages are each adorned with a pillared portico and a pylon. Passing the outer door, we enter a sort of long central passage, divided by two walls pierced with doorways, so as to form three successive courts. The inside court is bordered by chambers; the two others open to right and left upon two smaller courts, whence flights of steps lead up to the terraced roof. This central building is called the _Akhonûti_, or private dwelling of kings or nobles, to which only the family and intimate friends had access. The number of storeys and the arrangement of the façade varied according to the taste of the owner. The frontage was generally a straight wall. Sometimes it was divided into three parts, with the middle division projecting, in which case the two wings were ornamented with a colonnade to each storey (fig. 18), or surmounted by an open gallery (fig. 19). The central pavilion sometimes presents the appearance of a tower, which dominates the rest of the building (fig. 20). The façade is often decorated with slender colonnettes of painted wood, which bear no weight, and merely serve to lighten the somewhat severe aspect of the exterior. Of the internal arrangements, we know but little. As in the middle-class houses, the sleeping rooms were probably small and dark; but, on the other hand, the reception rooms must have been nearly as large as those still in use in the Arab houses of modern Egypt. [Illustration: Fig. 17.--Perspective view of the Palace of AT, Eighteenth Dynasty, El Amarna.] [Illustration: Fig. 18.--Frontage of house, second Theban period.] [Illustration: Fig. 19.--Frontage of house, second Theban period.] [Illustration: Fig. 20.--Central pavilion of house, in form of tower, second Theban period.] The decoration of walls and ceilings in no wise resembled such scenes or designs as we find in the tombs. The panels were whitewashed or colour- washed, and bordered with a polychrome band. The ceilings were usually left white; sometimes, however they were decorated with geometrical patterns, which repeated the leading motives employed in the sepulchral wall- paintings. Thus we find examples of meanders interspersed with rosettes (fig. 21), parti-coloured squares (fig. 22), ox-heads seen frontwise, scrolls, and flights of geese (fig. 23). [Illustration: Fig. 21.--Ceiling pattern from behind, Medinet Habû, Twentieth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 22.--Ceiling pattern similar to one at El Bersheh, Twelfth Dynasty.] I have touched chiefly upon houses of the second Theban period,[2] this being in fact the time of which we have most examples. The house-shaped lamps which are found in such large numbers in the Fayûm date only from Roman times; but the Egyptians of that period continued to build according to the rules which were in force under the Pharaohs of the Twelfth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties. As regards the domestic architecture of the ancient kingdom, the evidences are few and obscure. Nevertheless, the stelae, tombs, and coffins of that period often furnish designs which show us the style of the doorways (fig. 24), and one Fourth Dynasty sarcophagus, that of Khûfû Poskhû, is carved in the likeness of a house (fig. 25). [1] Many of the rooms at Kahun had vaulted ceilings. [2] Seventeenth to Twentieth Dynasties. 2.--FORTRESSES. Most of the towns, and even most of the larger villages, of ancient Egypt were walled. This was an almost necessary consequence of the geographical characteristics and the political constitution of the country. The mouths of the defiles which led into the desert needed to be closed against the Bedawîn; while the great feudal nobles fortified their houses, their towns, and the villages upon their domains which commanded either the mountain passes or the narrow parts of the river, against their king or their neighbours. [Illustration: Fig. 23.--Ceiling pattern from tomb of Aimadûa, Twentieth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 24.--Door of a house of the Ancient Empire, from the wall of a tomb of the Sixth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 25.--Façade of a Fourth Dynasty house, from the sarcophagus of Khûfû Poskhû.] The oldest fortresses are those of Abydos, El Kab, and Semneh. Abydos contained a sanctuary dedicated to Osiris, and was situate at the entrance to one of the roads leading to the Oasis. As the renown of the temple attracted pilgrims, so the position of the city caused it to be frequented by merchants; hence the prosperity which it derived from the influx of both classes of strangers exposed the city to incursions of the Libyan tribes. At Abydos there yet remain two almost perfect strongholds. The older forms, as it were, the core of that tumulus called by the Arabs "Kom es Sultan," or "the Mound of the King." The interior of this building has been excavated to a point some ten or twelve feet above the ground level, but the walls outside have not yet been cleared from the surrounding sand and rubbish. In its present condition, it forms a parallelogram of crude brickwork measuring 410 feet from north to south, and 223 feet from east to west. The main axis of the structure extends, therefore, from north to south. The principal gateway opens in the western wall, not far from the northwest corner: but there would appear to have been two smaller gates, one in the south front, and one in the east. The walls, which now stand from twenty-four to thirty-six feet high, have lost somewhat of their original height. They are about six feet thick at the top. They were not built all together in uniform layers, but in huge vertical panels, easily distinguished by the arrangement of the brickwork. In one division the bedding of the bricks is strictly horizontal; in the next it is slightly concave, and forms a very flat reversed arch, of which the extrados rests upon the ground. The alternation of these two methods is regularly repeated. The object of this arrangement is obscure; but it is said that buildings thus constructed are especially fitted to resist earthquake shocks. However this may be, the fortress is extremely ancient, for in the Fifth Dynasty, the nobles of Abydos took possession of the interior, and, ultimately, so piled it up with their graves as to deprive it of all strategic value. A second stronghold, erected a few hundred yards further to the south-east, replaced that of Kom es Sultan about the time of the Twelfth Dynasty, and narrowly escaped the fate of the first, under the rule of the Ramessides. Nothing, in fact, but the sudden decline of the city, saved the second from being similarly choked and buried. [Illustration: Fig. 26.--Plan of second fortress at Abydos, Eleventh or Twelfth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 27.--Walls of second fort at Abydos, restored.] [Illustration: Fig. 28.--Façade of fort, from wall-scene, Beni Hasan, Twelfth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 29.--Plan of main gate, second fortress of Abydos.] [Illustration: Fig. 30.--Plan of south-east gate, second fortress of Abydos.] [Illustration: Fig. 31.--Plan of gate, fortress of Kom el Ahmar.] The early Egyptians possessed no engines calculated to make an impression on very massive walls. They knew of but three ways of forcing a stronghold; namely, scaling the walls, sapping them, or bursting open the gates. The plan adopted by their engineers in building the second fort is admirably well calculated to resist each of these modes of attack (fig. 26). The outer walls are long and straight, without towers or projections of any kind; they measure 430 feet in length from north to south, by 255 feet in width. The foundations rest on the sand, and do not go down more than a foot. The wall (fig. 27) is of crude brick, in horizontal courses. It has a slight batter; is solid, without slits or loopholes; and is decorated outside with long vertical grooves or panels, like those depicted on the stelae of the ancient empire. In its present state, it rises to a height of some thirty-six feet above the plain; when perfect, it would scarcely have exceeded forty feet, which height would amply suffice to protect the garrison from all danger of scaling by portable ladders. The thickness of the wall is about twenty feet at the base, and sixteen feet above. The top is destroyed, but the bas-reliefs and mural paintings (fig. 28) show that it must have been crowned with a continuous cornice, boldly projecting, furnished with a slight low parapet, and surmounted by battlements, which were generally rounded, but sometimes, though rarely, squared. The walk round the top of the ramparts, though diminished by the parapet, was still twelve or fifteen feet wide. It ran uninterruptedly along the four sides, and was reached by narrow staircases formed in the thickness of the walls, but now destroyed. There was no ditch, but in order to protect the base of the main wall from sappers, they erected, about ten feet in advance of it, a battlemented covering wall, some sixteen feet in height. These precautions sufficed against sap and scaling; but the gates remained as open gaps in the circuit. It was upon these weak points that besiegers and besieged alike concentrated their efforts. The fortress of Abydos had two gates, the main one being situate at the east end of the north front (fig. 29). A narrow cutting (A), closed by a massive wooden door, marked the place in the covering wall. Behind it was a small _place d'armes_ (B), cut partly in the thickness of the wall, and leading to a second gate (C) as narrow as the first. When, notwithstanding the showers of missiles poured upon them from the top of the walls, not only in front, but also from both sides, the attacking party had succeeded in carrying this second door, they were not yet in the heart of the place. They would still have to traverse an oblong court (D), closely hemmed in between the outer walls and the cross walls, which last stood at right angles to the first. Finally, they must force a last postern (E), which was purposely placed in the most awkward corner. The leading principle in the construction of fortress-gates was always the same, but the details varied according to the taste of the engineer. At the south-east gate of the fort of Abydos (fig. 30) the _place d'armes_ between the two walls is abolished, and the court is constructed entirely in the thickness of the main wall; while at Kom el Ahmar, opposite El Kab (fig. 31), the block of brickwork in the midst of which the gate is cut projects boldly in front. The posterns opening at various points facilitated the movements of the garrison, and enabled them to multiply their sorties. [Illustration: Fig. 32.--Plan of the walled city at El Kab.] The same system of fortification which was in use for isolated fortresses was also employed for the protection of towns. At Heliopollis, at Sãn, at Sais, at Thebes, everywhere in short, we find long straight walls forming plain squares or parallelograms, without towers or bastions, ditches or outworks. The thickness of the walls, which varied from thirty to eighty feet, made such precautions needless. The gates, or at all events the principal ones, had jambs and lintels of stone, decorated with scenes and inscriptions; as, for instance, that of Ombos, which Champollion beheld yet _in situ_, and which dated from the reign of Thothmes III. The oldest and best preserved walled city in Egypt, namely, El Kab, belongs probably to the ancient empire (fig. 32). The Nile washed part of it away some years ago; but at the beginning of the present century it formed an irregular quadrilateral enclosure, measuring some 2,100 feet in length, by about a quarter less in breadth. The south front is constructed on the same principles as the wall at Kom es Sultan, the bricks being bedded in alternate horizontal and concave sections. Along the north and west fronts they are laid in undulating layers from end to end. The thickness is thirty-eight feet, and the average height thirty feet; and spacious ramps lead up to the walk upon the walls. The gates are placed irregularly, one in each side to north, east, and west, but none in the south face; they are, however, in too ruinous a state to admit of any plan being taken of them. The enclosure contained a considerable population, whose dwellings were unequally distributed, the greater part being concentrated towards the north and west, where excavations have disclosed the remains of a large number of houses. The temples were grouped together in a square enclosure, concentric with the outer wall; and this second enclosure served for a keep, where the garrison could hold out long after the rest of the town had fallen into the hands of the enemy. [Illustration: Fig. 33.--Plan of walled city at Kom Ombo.] [Illustration: Fig. 34.--Plan of fortress of Kùmmeh.] [Illustration: Fig. 35.--Plan of fortress of Semneh.] [Illustration: Fig. 36.--Section of the platform at A B, of the preceding plan.] The rectangular plan, though excellent in a plain, was not always available in a hilly country. When the spot to be fortified was situate upon a height, the Egyptian engineers knew perfectly well how to adapt their lines of defence to the nature of the site. At Kom Ombo (fig. 33) the walls exactly followed the outline of the isolated mound on which the town was perched, and presented towards the east a front bristling with irregular projections, the style of which roughly resembles our modern bastions. At Kûmmeh and Semneh, in Nubia, where the Nile rushes over the rocks of the second cataract, the engineering arrangements are very ingenious, and display much real skill. Ûsertesen III. had fixed on this pass as the frontier of Egypt, and the fortresses which he there constructed were intended to bar the water-way against the vessels of the neighbouring negro tribes. At Kûmmeh, on the right bank, the position was naturally strong (fig. 34). Upon a rocky height surrounded by precipices was planned an irregular square measuring about 200 feet each way. Two elongated bastions, one on the north-east and the other on the south-east, guarded respectively the path leading to the gate, and the course of the river. The covering wall stood thirteen feet high, and closely followed the line of the main wall, except at the north and south corners, where it formed two bastion-like projections. At Semneh, on the opposite bank, the site was less favourable. The east side was protected by a belt of cliffs going sheer down to the water's edge; but the three other sides were well- nigh open (fig. 35). A straight wall, about fifty feet in height, carried along the cliffs on the side next the river; but the walls looking towards the plain rose to eighty feet, and bristled with bastion-like projections (A.B.) jutting out for a distance of fifty feet from the curtain wall, measuring thirty feet thick at the base and thirteen feet at the top, and irregularly spaced, according to the requirements of the defence. These spurs, which are not battlemented, served in place of towers. They added to the strength of the walls, protected the walk round the top, and enabled the besieged to direct a flank attack against the enemy if any attempt were made upon the wall of circuit. The intervals between these spurs are accurately calculated as to distance, in order that the archers should be able to sweep the intervening ground with their arrows. Curtains and salients are alike built of crude brick, with beams bedded horizontally in the mass. The outer face is in two parts, the lower division being nearly vertical, and the upper one inclined at an angle of about seventy degrees, which made scaling very difficult, if not impossible. The whole of the ground enclosed by the wall of circuit was filled in to nearly the level of the ramparts (fig. 36). Externally, the covering wall of stone was separated from the body of the fortress by a dry ditch, some 100 to 130 feet in width. This wall closely followed the main outline, and rose to a height which varied according to the situation from six to ten feet above the level of the plain. On the northward side it was cut by the winding road, which led down into the plain. These arrangements, skilful as they were, did not prevent the fall of the place. A large breach in the southward face, between the two salients nearest to the river, marks the point of attack selected by the enemy. [Illustration: Fig. 37.--Syrian fort.] [Illustration: Fig. 38.--The town-walls of Dapür.] [Illustration: Fig. 39.--City of Kadesh, Ramesseum.] [Illustration: Fig. 40.--Plan of the pavilion of Medinet Habu.] [Illustration: Fig. 41.--Elevation of pavilion, Medinet Habû.] New methods of fortification were revealed to the Egyptians in the course of the great Asiatic wars undertaken by the Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The nomadic tribes of Syria erected small forts in which they took refuge when threatened with invasion (fig. 37). The Canaanite and Hittite cities, as Ascalon, Dapur, and Merom, were surrounded by strong walls, generally built of stone and flanked with towers (fig. 38). Those which stood in the open country, as, for instance, Qodshû (Kadesh), were enclosed by a double moat (fig. 39). Having proved the efficacy of these new types of defensive architecture in the course of their campaigns, the Pharaohs reproduced them in the valley of the Nile. From the beginning of the Nineteenth Dynasty, the eastern frontier of the Delta (always the weakest) was protected by a line of forts constructed after the Canaanite model. The Egyptians, moreover, not content with appropriating the thing, appropriated also the name, and called these frontier towers by the Semitic name of _Magdilû_ or Migdols. For these purposes, or at all events for cities which were exposed to the incursions of the Asiatic tribes, brick was not deemed to be sufficiently strong; hence the walls of Heliopolis, and even those of Memphis, were faced with stone. Of these new fortresses no ruins remain; and but for a royal caprice which happens to have left us a model Migdol in that most unlikely place, the necropolis of Thebes, we should now be constrained to attempt a restoration of their probable appearance from the representations in certain mural tableaux. When, however, Rameses III. erected his memorial temple[3] (figs. 40 and 41), he desired, in remembrance of his Syrian victories, to give it an outwardly military aspect. Along the eastward front of the enclosure there accordingly runs a battlemented covering wall of stone, averaging some thirteen feet in height. The gate, protected by a large quadrangular bastion, opened in the middle of this wall. It was three feet four inches in width, and was flanked by two small oblong guard-houses, the flat roofs of which stood about three feet higher than the ramparts. Passing this gate, we stand face to face with a real Migdol. Two blocks of building enclose a succession of court-yards, which narrow as they recede, and are connected at the lower end by a kind of gate-house, consisting of one massive gateway surmounted by two storeys of chambers. The eastward faces of the towers rise above an inclined basement, which slopes to a height of from fifteen to sixteen feet from the ground. This answered two purposes. It increased the strength of the wall at the part exposed to sappers; it also caused the rebound of projectiles thrown from above, and so helped to keep assailants at a distance. The whole height is about seventy-two feet, and the width of each tower is thirty-two feet. The buildings situate at the back, to right and left of the gate, were destroyed in ancient times. The details of the decoration are partly religious, partly triumphal, as befits the character of the structure. It is unlikely, however, that actual fortresses were adorned with brackets and bas-relief sculptures, such as we here see on either side of the fore-court. Such as it is, the so-called "pavilion" of Medinet Habu offers an unique example of the high degree of perfection to which the victorious Pharaohs of this period had carried their military architecture. Material evidence fails us almost entirely, after the reign of Rameses III. Towards the close of the eleventh century B.C., the high-priests of Amen repaired the walls of Thebes, of Gebeleyn, and of El Hibeh opposite Feshn. The territorial subdivision of the country, which took place under the successors of Sheshonk, compelled the provincial princes to multiply their strongholds. The campaign of Piankhi on the banks of the Nile is a series of successful sieges. Nothing, however, leads us to suppose that the art of fortification had at that time made any distinct progress; and when the Greek rulers succeeded the native Pharaohs, they most probably found it at much the same stage as it was left by the engineers of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties. [3] At Medinet Habû. 3.--PUBLIC WORKS. A permanent network of roads would be useless in a country like Egypt. The Nile here is the natural highway for purposes of commerce, and the pathways which intersect the fields suffice for foot-passengers, for cattle, and for the transport of goods from village to village. Ferry-boats for crossing the river, fords wherever the canals were shallow enough, and embanked dams thrown up here and there where the water was too deep for fordings, completed the system of internal communication. Bridges were rare. Up to the present time, we know of but one in the whole territory of ancient Egypt; and whether that one was long or short, built of stone or of wood, supported on arches or boldly flung across the stream from bank to bank, we cannot even conjecture. This bridge, close under the very walls of Zarû,[4] crossed the canal which separated the eastern frontier of Egypt from the desert regions of Arabia Petraea. A fortified enclosure protected this canal on the Asiatic side, as shown in the accompanying illustration (fig. 42). The maintenance of public highways, which figures as so costly an item in the expenses of modern nations, played, therefore, but a very small part in the annual disbursements of the Pharaohs, who had only to provide for the due execution of three great branches of government works,--namely, storage, irrigation, mining and quarrying. [Illustration: Fig. 42.--Canal and bridge, Zarû, Karnak.] [Illustration: Fig. 43.--Cellar, with amphorae.] [Illustration: Fig. 44.--Granary.] The taxation of ancient Egypt was levied in kind, and government servants were paid after the same system. To workmen, there were monthly distributions of corn, oil, and wine, wherewith to support their families; while from end to end of the social scale, each functionary, in exchange for his labour, received cattle, stuffs, manufactured goods, and certain quantities of copper or precious metals. Thus it became necessary that the treasury officials should have the command of vast storehouses for the safe keeping of the various goods collected under the head of taxation. These were classified and stored in separate quarters, each storehouse being surrounded by walls and guarded by vigilant keepers. There was enormous stabling for cattle; there were cellars where the amphorae were piled in regular layers (fig. 43), or hung in rows upon the walls, each with the date written on the side of the jar; there were oven-shaped granaries where the corn was poured in through a trap at the top (fig. 44), and taken out through a trap at the bottom. At Thûkû, identified with Pithom by M. Naville,[5] the store-chambers (A) are rectangular and of different dimensions (fig. 45), originally divided by floors, and having no communication with each other. Here the corn had to be not only put in but taken out through the aperture at the top. At the Ramesseum, Thebes, thousands of ostraka and jar-stoppers found upon the spot prove that the brick-built remains at the back of the temple were the cellars of the local deity. The ruins consist of a series of vaulted chambers, originally surmounted by a platform or terrace (fig. 46). At Philae, Ombos, Daphnae,[6] and most of the frontier towns of the Delta, there were magazines of this description, and many more will doubtless be discovered when made the object of serious exploration. [Illustration: Fig. 45.--Plan of Pithom.] [Illustration: Fig. 46.--Store-chambers of the Ramesseum.] [Illustration: Fig. 47.--Dike at Wady Gerraweh.] The irrigation system of Egypt is but little changed since the olden time. Some new canals have been cut, and yet more have been silted up through the negligence of those in power; but the general scheme, and the methods employed, continue much the same, and demand but little engineering skill. Wherever I have investigated the remains of ancient canals, I have been unable to detect any traces of masonry at the weak points, or at the mouths, of these cuttings. They are mere excavated ditches, from twenty to sixty or seventy feet in width. The earth flung out during the work was thrown to right and left, forming irregular embankments from seven to fourteen feet in height. The course of the ancient canals was generally straight: but that rule was not strictly observed, and enormous curves were often described in order to avoid even slight irregularities of surface. Dikes thrown up from the foot of the cliffs to the banks of the Nile divided the plain at intervals into a series of artificial basins, where the overflow formed back-waters at the time of inundation. These dikes are generally earth-works, though they are sometimes constructed of baked brick, as in the province of Girgeh. Very rarely are they built of hewn stone, like that great dike of Kosheish which was constructed by Mena in primaeval times, in order to divert the course of the Nile from the spot on which he founded Memphis.[7] The network of canals began near Silsilis and extended to the sea-board, without ever losing touch of the river, save at one spot near Beni Sûef, where it throws out a branch in the direction of the Fayûm. Here, through a narrow and sinuous gorge, deepened probably by the hand of man, it passes the rocky barrier which divides that low- lying province from the valley of the Nile, and thence expands into a fanlike ramification of innumerable channels. Having thus irrigated the district, the waters flow out again; those nearest the Nile returning by the same way that they flowed in, while the rest form a series of lakes, the largest of which is known as the Birket el Kûrûn. If we are to believe Herodotus, the work was not so simply done. A king, named Moeris, desired to create a reservoir in the Fayûm which should neutralise the evil effects of insufficient or superabundant inundations. This reservoir was named, after him, Lake Moeris. If the supply fell below the average, then the stored waters were let loose, and Lower Egypt and the Western Delta were flooded to the needful height. If next year the inundation came down in too great force, Lake Moeris received and stored the surplus till such time as the waters began to subside. Two pyramids, each surmounted by a sitting colossus, one representing the king and the other his queen, were erected in the midst of the lake. Such is the tale told by Herodotus, and it is a tale which has considerably embarrassed our modern engineers and topographers. How, in fact, was it possible to find in the Fayûm a site which could have contained a basin measuring at least ninety miles in circumference? Linant supposed "Lake Moeris" to have extended over the whole of the low-lying land which skirts the Libyan cliffs between Illahûn and Medinet el Fayûm; but recent explorations have proved that the dikes by which this pretended reservoir was bounded are modern works, erected probably within the last two hundred years. Major Brown has lately shown that the nucleus of "Lake Moeris" was the Birket el Kûrûn.[8] This was known to the Egyptians as _Miri, Mi-ûri,_ the Great Lake, whence the Greeks derived their _Moiris_ a name extended also to the inundation of the Fayûm. If Herodotus did actually visit this province, it was probably in summer, at the time of the high Nile, when the whole district presents the appearance of an inland sea. What he took for the shores of this lake were the embankments which divided it into basins and acted as highways between the various towns. His narrative, repeated by the classic authors, has been accepted by the moderns; and Egypt, neither accepting nor rejecting it, was gratified long after date with the reputation of a gigantic work which would in truth have been the glory of her civil engineers, if it had ever existed. I do not believe that "Lake Moeris" ever did exist. The only works of the kind which the Egyptians undertook were much less pretentious. These consist of stone-built dams erected at the mouths of many of those lateral ravines, or wadys, which lead down from the mountain ranges into the valley of the Nile. One of the most important among them was pointed out, in 1885, by Dr. Schweinfurth, at a distance of about six miles and a half from the Baths of Helwan, at the mouth of the Wady Gerraweh (fig. 47). It answered two purposes, firstly, as a means of storing the water of the inundation for the use of the workmen in the neighbouring quarries; and, secondly, as a barrier to break the force of the torrents which rush down from the desert after the heavy rains of springtime and winter. The ravine measures about 240 feet in width, the sides being on an average from 40 to 50 feet in height. The dam, which is 143 feet in thickness, consists of three layers of material; at the bottom, a bed of clay and rubble; next, a piled mass of limestone blocks (A); lastly, a wall of cut stone built in retreating stages, like an enormous flight of steps (B). Thirty-two of the original thirty-five stages are yet _in situ_, and about one-fourth part of the dam remains piled up against the sides of the ravine to right and left; but the middle part has been swept away by the force of the torrent (fig. 48). A similar dike transformed the end of Wady Genneh into a little lake which supplied the Sinaitic miners with water. Most of the localities from which the Egyptians derived their metals and choicest materials in hard stone, were difficult of access, and would have been useless had roads not been made, and works of this kind carried out, so as to make life somewhat less insupportable there. [Illustration: Fig. 48.--Section of dike at Wady Gerraweh.] In order to reach the diorite and grey granite quarries of the Hammamat Valley, the Pharaohs caused a series of rock-cut cisterns to be constructed along the line of route. Some few insignificant springs, skilfully conducted into these reservoirs, made it possible to plant workmen's villages in the neighbourhood of the quarries, and also near the emerald mines on the borders of the Red Sea. Hundreds of hired labourers, slaves, and condemned criminals here led a wretched existence under the rule of some eight or ten overseers, and the brutal surveillance of a company of Libyan or negro mercenary troops. The least political disturbance in Egypt, an unsuccessful campaign, or any untoward incident of a troubled reign, sufficed to break up the precarious stability of these remote establishments. The Bedawîn at once attacked the colony; the workmen deserted; the guards, weary of exile, hastened back to the valley of the Nile, and all was at a standstill. The choicest materials, as diorite, basalt, black granite, porphyry, and red and yellow breccia, which are only found in the desert, were rarely used for architectural purposes. In order to procure them, it was necessary to organise regular expeditions of soldiers and workmen; therefore they were reserved for sarcophagi and important works of art. Those quarries which supplied building materials for temples and funerary monuments, such as limestone, sandstone, alabaster, and red granite, were all found in the Nile valley, and were, therefore, easy of access. When the vein which it was intended to work traversed the lower strata of the rock, the miners excavated chambers and passages, which were often prolonged to a considerable distance. Square pillars, left standing at intervals, supported the superincumbent mass, while tablets sculptured in the most conspicuous places commemorated the kings and engineers who began or continued the work. Several exhausted or abandoned quarries have been transformed into votive chapels; as, for instance, the Speos Artemidos, which was consecrated by Hatshepsut, Thothmes III. and Seti I. to the local goddess Pakhet.[9] [Illustration: Fig. 49.--Quarries of Silsilis.] [Illustration: Fig. 50.--Draught of Hathor capital in quarry of Gebel Abûfeydeh.] The most important limestone quarries are at Tûrah and Massarah, nearly opposite Memphis. This stone lends itself admirably to the most delicate touches of the chisel, hardens when exposed to the air, and acquires a creamy tone most restful to the eye. Hence it was much in request by architects and sculptors. The most extensive sandstone formations are at Silsilis (fig. 49). Here the cliffs were quarried from above, and under the open sky. Clean cut and absolutely vertical, they rise to a height of from forty to fifty feet, sometimes presenting a smooth surface from top to bottom, and sometimes cut in stages accessible by means of steps scarcely large enough for one man at a time. The walls of these cuttings are covered with parallel striae, sometimes horizontal, sometimes slanting to the left, and sometimes to the right, so forming lines of serried chevrons framed, as it were, between grooves an inch, or an inch and a half, in width, by nine or ten feet in length. These are the scars left upon the surface by the tools of the ancient workmen, and they show the method employed in detaching the blocks. The size was outlined in red ink, and this outline sometimes indicated the form which the stone was to take in the projected building. The members of the French Commission, when they visited the quarries of Gebel Abûfeydeh, copied the diagrams and squared designs of several capitals, one being of the campaniform pattern, and others prepared for the Hathor-head pattern (fig. 50).[10] The outline made, the vertical faces of the block were divided by means of a long iron chisel, which was driven in perpendicularly or obliquely by heavy blows of the mallet. In order to detach the horizontal faces, they made use of wooden or bronze wedges, inserted the way of the natural strata of the stone. Very frequently the stone was roughly blocked out before being actually extracted from the bed. Thus at Syene (Asûan) we see a couchant obelisk of granite, the under side of which is one with the rock itself; and at Tehneh there are drums of columns but half disengaged. The transport of quarried stone was effected in various ways. At Syene, at Silsilis, at Gebel Sheikh Herideh, and at Gebel Abûfeydeh, the quarries are literally washed by the waters of the Nile, so that the stone was lowered at once into the barges. At Kasr es Saîd,[11] at Tûrah, and other localities situate at some distance from the river, canals dug expressly for the purpose conveyed the transport boats to the foot of the cliffs. When water transit was out of the question, the stone was placed on sledges drawn by oxen (fig. 51), or dragged to its destination by gangs of labourers, and by the help of rollers. [Illustration: Fig. 51.--Bas-relief from one of the stelae of Ahmes, at Tûrrah, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [4] The bas-relief sculpture from which the illustration, fig. 42, is taken (outer wall of Hypostyle Hall, Karnak, north end) represents Seti I. returning in triumph from one of his Syrian campaigns. He is met at Zarû by the great officers of his court, who bring bouquets of lotus- blossoms in their hands. Pithom and other frontier forts are depicted in this tableau, and Pithom is apparently not very far from Zarû. Zarû, Zalu, is the Selle of the Roman Itineraries.--A.B.E. [5] See _The Store City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus,_ by Ed. Naville, with 13 Plates and 2 Maps; published by the Egypt Exploration Fund. First edition 1885, second edition 1885. Trübner & Co., London. --A.B.E. [6] For an account of the explorations at Daphnae (the "Tahpanhes" of the Bible, the _Tell Defenneh_ of the present day) see Mr. Petrie's memoir, entitled _Tanis, Part II, (including Nebesheh, Gemayemi, Defenneh, etc.)_, published by the Egypt Exploration Fund.--A.B.E. [7] The remains of this gigantic work may yet be seen about two hours' distance to the southward of Medûm. See Herodotus, book II.; chap. 99.--A.B.E. [8] See _The Fayûm and Lake Moeris_. Major R.H. Brown, R.E. [9] Officially, this temple is attributed to Thothmes III., and the dedicatory inscription dates from the first year of his reign; but the work was really that of his aunt and predecessor, Queen Hatshepsût. [10] See also an exact reduction of this design, to scale, in Mr. Petrie's work _A Season in Egypt_, 1887, Plate XXV. [11] Chenoboscion.--A.B.E. CHAPTER II. _RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE_. In the civil and military architecture of Ancient Egypt brick played the principal part; but in the religious architecture of the nation it occupied a very secondary position. The Pharaohs were ambitious of building eternal dwellings for their deities, and stone was the only material which seemed sufficiently durable to withstand the ravages of time and man. I.--MATERIALS AND PRINCIPLES OF CONSTRUCTION. It is an error to suppose that the Egyptians employed only large blocks for building purposes. The size of their materials varied very considerably according to the uses for which they were destined. Architraves, drums of columns, lintel-stones, and door-jambs were sometimes of great size. The longest architraves known--those, namely, which bridge the nave of the hypostyle hall of Karnak--have a mean length of 30 feet. They each contain 40 cubic yards, and weigh about 65 tons. Ordinarily, however, the blocks are not much larger than those now used in Europe. They measure, that is to say, about 2-1/2 to 4 feet in height, from 3 to 8 feet in length, and from 2 to 6 feet in thickness. Some temples are built of only one kind of stone; but more frequently materials of different kinds are put together in unequal proportions. Thus the main part of the temples of Abydos consists of very fine limestone; but in the temple of Seti I., the columns, architraves, jambs, and lintels,-- all parts, in short, where it might be feared that the limestone would not offer sufficient resistance,--the architect has had recourse to sandstone; while in that of Rameses II., sandstone, granite, and alabaster were used. At Karnak, Luxor, Tanis, and Memphis, similar combinations may be seen. At the Ramesseum, and in some of the Nubian temples, the columns stand on massive supports of crude brick. The stones were dressed more or less carefully, according to the positions they were to occupy. When the walls were of medium thickness, as in most partition walls, they are well wrought on all sides. When the wall was thick, the core blocks were roughed out as nearly cubic as might be, and piled together without much care, the hollows being filled up with smaller flakes, pebbles, or mortar. Casing stones were carefully wrought on the faces, and the joints dressed for two-thirds or three-quarters of the length, the rest being merely picked with a point (Note 6). The largest blocks were reserved for the lower parts of the building; and this precaution was the more necessary because the architects of Pharaonic times sank the foundations of their temples no deeper than those of their houses. At Karnak, they are not carried lower than from 7 to 10 feet; at Luxor, on the side anciently washed by the river, three courses of masonry, each measuring about 2-1/2 feet in depth, form a great platform on which the walls rest; while at the Ramesseum, the brickwork bed on which the colonnade stands does not seem to be more than 10 feet deep. These are but slight depths for the foundations of such great buildings, but the experience of ages proves that they are sufficient. The hard and compact humus of which the soil of the Nile valley is composed, contracts every year after the subsidence of the inundation, and thus becomes almost incompressible. As the building progressed, the weight of the superincumbent masonry gradually became greater, till the maximum of pressure was attained, and a solid basis secured. Wherever I have bared the foundations of the walls, I can testify that they have not shifted. [Illustration: Fig. 52.--Masonry in temple of Seti I. at Abydos.] The system of construction in force among the ancient Egyptians resembles in many respects that of the Greeks. The stones are often placed together with dry joints, and without the employment of any binding contrivance, the masons relying on the mere weight of the materials to keep them in place. Sometimes they are held together by metal cramps, or sometimes--as in the temple of Seti I., at Abydos--by dovetails of sycamore wood bearing the cartouche of the founder. Most commonly, they are united by a mortar-joint, more or less thick. All the mortars of which I have collected samples are thus far of three kinds: the first is white, and easily reduced to an impalpable powder, being of lime only; the others are grey, and rough to the touch, being mixtures of lime and sand; while some are of a reddish colour, owing to the pounded brick powder with which they are mixed. A judicious use of these various methods enabled the Egyptians to rival the Greeks in their treatment of regular courses, equal blocks, and upright joints in alternate bond. If they did not always work equally well, their shortcomings must be charged to the imperfect mechanical means at their disposal. The enclosure walls, partitions, and secondary façades were upright; and they raised the materials by means of a rude kind of crane planted on the top. The pylon walls and the principal façades (and sometimes even the secondary façades) were sloped at an angle which varied according to the taste of the architect. In order to build these, they formed inclined planes, the slopes of which were lengthened as the structure rose in height. These two methods were equally perilous; for, however carefully the blocks might be protected while being raised, they were constantly in danger of losing their edges or corners, or of being fractured before they reached the top (Note 7). Thus it was almost always necessary to re-work them; and the object being to sacrifice as little as possible of the stone, the workmen often left them of most abnormal shapes (fig. 52). They would level off one of the side faces, and then the joint, instead of being vertical, leaned askew. If the block had neither height nor length to spare, they made up the loss by means of a supplementary slip. Sometimes even they left a projection which fitted into a corresponding hollow in the next upper or lower course. Being first of all expedients designed to remedy accidents, these methods degenerated into habitually careless ways of working. The masons who had inadvertently hoisted too large a block, no longer troubled themselves to lower it back again, but worked it into the building in one or other of the ways before mentioned. The architect neglected to duly supervise the dressing and placing of the blocks. He allowed the courses to vary, and the vertical joints, two or three deep, to come one over the other. The rough work done, the masons dressed down the stone, reworked the joints, and overlaid the whole with a coat of cement or stucco, coloured to match the material, which concealed the faults of the real work. The walls rarely end with a sharp edge. Bordered with a torus, around which a sculptured riband is entwined, they are crowned by the _cavetto_ cornice surmounted by a flat band (fig. 53); or, as at Semneh, by a square cornice; or, as at Medinet Habu, by a line of battlements. Thus framed in, the walls looked like enormous panels, each panel complete in itself, without projections and almost without openings. Windows, always rare in Egyptian architecture, are mere ventilators when introduced into the walls of temples, being intended to light the staircases, as in the second pylon of Horemheb at Karnak, or else to support decorative woodwork on festival days. The doorways project but slightly from the body of the buildings (fig. 54), except where the lintel is over-shadowed by a projecting cornice. Real windows occur only in the pavilion of Medinet Habu; but that building was constructed on the model of a fortress, and must rank as an exception among religious monuments. [Illustration: Fig. 53.--Temple wall with cornice.] [Illustration: Fig. 54.--Niche and doorway in temple of Seti I. at Abydos.] [Illustration: Fig. 55.--Pavement of the portico of Osiris in the temple of Seti I. at Abydos.] The ground-level of the courts and halls was flagged with rectangular paving stones, well enough fitted, except in the intercolumniations, where the architects, hopeless of harmonising the lines of the pavement with the curved bases of the columns, have filled in the space with small pieces, set without order or method (fig. 55). Contrary to their practice when house building, they have scarcely ever employed the vault or arch in temple architecture. We nowhere meet with it, except at Deir el Baharî, and in the seven parallel sanctuaries of Abydos. Even in these instances, the arch is produced by "corbelling"; that is to say, the curve is formed by three or four superimposed horizontal courses of stone, chiselled out to the form required (fig. 56). The ordinary roofing consists of flat paving slabs. When the space between the walls was not too wide, these slabs bridged it over at a single stretch; otherwise the roof had to be supported at intervals, and the wider the space the more these supports needed to be multiplied. The supports were connected by immense stone architraves, on which the roofing slabs rested. [Illustration: Fig. 56.--"Corbelled" arch, temple of Seti I. at Abydos.] The supports are of two types,--the pillar and the column. Some are cut from single blocks. Thus, the monolithic pillars of the temple of the sphinx (Note 8), the oldest hitherto found, measure 16 feet in height by 4- 1/2 feet in width. Monolithic columns of red granite are also found among the ruins of Alexandria, Bubastis,[12] and Memphis, which date from the reigns of Horemheb and Rameses II., and measure some 20 to 26 feet in height. But columns and pillars are commonly built in courses, which are often unequal and irregular, like those of the walls which surround them. The great columns of Luxor are not even solid, two-thirds of the diameter being filled up with yellow cement, which has lost its strength, and crumbles between the fingers. The capital of the column of Taharka at Karnak contains three courses, each about 48 inches high. The last and most projecting course is made up of twenty-six convergent stones, which are held in place by merely the weight of the abacus. The same carelessness which we have already noted in the workmanship of the walls is found in the workmanship of the columns. [Illustration: Fig. 57.--Hathor pillar, Abû Simbel.] [Illustration: Fig. 58.--Pillar of Amenhotep III., Karnak.] The quadrangular pillar, with parallel or slightly inclined sides, and generally without either base or capital, frequently occurs in tombs of the ancient empire. It reappears later at Medinet Habû, in the temple of Thothmes III., and again at Karnak, in what is known as the processional hall. The sides of these square pillars are often covered with painted scenes, while the front faces were more decoratively treated, being sculptured with lotus or papyrus stems in high relief, as on the pillar- stelae of Karnak, or adorned with a head of Hathor crowned with the sistrum, as in the small speos of Abû Simbel (fig. 57), or sculptured with a full-length standing figure of Osiris, as in the second court of Medinet Habû; or, as at Denderah and Gebel Barkal, with the figure of the god Bes. At Karnak, in an edifice which was probably erected by Horemheb with building material taken from the ruins of a sanctuary of Amenhotep II. and III., the pillar is capped by a cornice, separated from the architrave by a thin abacus (fig. 58). By cutting away its four edges, the square pillar becomes an octagonal prism, and further, by cutting off the eight new edges, it becomes a sixteen-sided prism. Some pillars in the tombs of Asûan and Beni Hasan, and in the processional hall at Karnak (fig. 59), as well as in the chapels of Deir el Baharî, are of this type. Besides the forms thus regularly evolved, there are others of irregular derivation, with six, twelve, fifteen, or twenty sides, or verging almost upon a perfect circle. The portico pillars of the temple of Osiris at Abydos come last in the series; the drum is curved, but not round, the curve being interrupted at both extremities of the same diameter by a flat stripe. More frequently the sides are slightly channelled; and sometimes, as at Kalabsheh, the flutings are divided into four groups of five each by four vertical flat stripes (fig. 60). The polygonal pillar has always a large, shallow plinth, in the form of a rounded disc. At El Kab it bears the head of Hathor, sculptured in relief upon the front (fig. 61); but almost everywhere else it is crowned with a simple square abacus, which joins it to the architrave. Thus treated, it bears a certain family likeness to the Doric column; and one understands how Jomard and Champollion, in the first ardour of discovery, were tempted to give it the scarcely justifiable name of "proto-Doric." [Illustration: Fig. 59.--Sixteen-sided pillars, Karnak.] The column does not rest immediately upon the soil. It is always furnished with a base like that of the polygonal pillar, sometimes square with the ground, and sometimes slightly rounded. This base is either plain, or ornamented only with a line of hieroglyphs. The principal forms fall into three types: (1) the column with campaniform, or lotus-flower capital; (2) the column with lotus-bud capital; (3) the column with Hathor-head capital. [Illustration: Fig. 60.--Fluted pillar, Kalabsheh.] [Illustration: Fig. 61.--Polygonal Hathor-headed pillar, El Kab.] I. _Columns with Campaniform Capitals_.--The shaft is generally plain, or merely engraved with inscriptions or bas-reliefs. Sometimes, however, as at Medamot, it is formed of six large and six small colonnettes in alternation. In Pharaonic times, it is bulbous, being curved inward at the base, and ornamented with triangles one within another, imitating the large leaves which sheathe the sprouting plant. The curve is so regulated that the diameter at the base and the top shall be about equal. In the Ptolemaic period, the bulb often disappears, owing probably to Greek influences. The columns which surround the first court at Edfû rise straight from their plinths. The shaft always tapers towards the top. It is finished by three or five flat bands, one above the other. At Medamot, where the shaft is clustered, the architect has doubtless thought that one tie at the top appeared insufficient to hold in a dozen colonnettes; he has therefore marked two other rings of bands at regular intervals. The campaniform capital is decorated from the spring of the curve with a row of leaves, like those which sheathe the base. Between these are figured shoots of lotus and papyrus in flower and bud. The height of the capital, and the extent of its projection beyond the line of the shaft, varied with the taste of the architect. At Luxor, the campaniform capitals are eleven and a half feet in diameter at the neck, eighteen feet in diameter at the top, and eleven and a half feet in height. At Karnak, in the hypostyle hall, the height of the capital is twelve and a quarter feet, and the greatest diameter twenty-one feet. A square die surmounts the whole. This die is almost hidden by the curve of the capital, though occasionally, as at Denderah, it is higher, and bears on each face a figure of the god Bes (fig. 62). [Illustration: Fig. 62.--Column with square die, Contra Esneh.] [Illustration: Fig. 63.--Column with campaniform capital, Ramesseum.] The column with campaniform capital is mostly employed in the middle avenue of hypostyle halls, as at Karnak, the Ramesseum, and Luxor (fig. 63); but it was not restricted to this position, for we also find it in porticoes, as at Medinet Habû, Edfû, and Philae. The processional hall[13] of Thothmes III., at Karnak, contains one most curious variety (fig. 64); the flower is inverted like a bell, and the shaft is turned upside down, the smaller end being sunk in the plinth, while the larger is fitted to the wide part of the overturned bell. This ungraceful innovation achieved no success, and is found nowhere else. Other novelties were happier, especially those which enabled the artist to introduce decorative elements taken from the flora of the country. In the earlier examples at Soleb, Sesebeh, Bubastis, and Memphis, we find a crown of palm branches springing from the band, their heads being curved beneath the weight of the abacus (fig. 65). Later on, as we approach the Ptolemaic period, the date and the half-unfolded lotus were added to the palm-branches (fig. 66). [Illustration: Fig. 64.--Inverted campaniform capital, Karnak.] [Illustration: Fig. 65.--Palm capital, Bubastis.] [Illustration: Fig. 66.--Compound capital.] Under the Ptolemies and the Caesars the capital became a complete basket of flowers and leaves, ranged row above row, and painted in the brightest colours (fig. 67.) At Edfû, Ombos, and Philae one would fancy that the designer had vowed never to repeat the same pattern in the same portico. [Illustration: Fig. 67.--Ornate capitals, Ptolemaic.] [Illustration: Fig. 68.--Lotus-bud column, Beni Hasan.] [Illustration: Fig. 69.--Lotus-bud column, processional hall, Thothmes III., Karnak.] [Illustration: Fig. 70.--Column in the aisles of the hypostyle hall at Karnak.] II. _Columns with Lotus-bud Capitals_.--Originally these may perhaps have represented a bunch of lotus plants, the buds being bound together at the neck to form the capital. The columns of Beni Hasan consist of four rounded stems (fig. 68). Those of the Labyrinth, of the processional hall of Thothmes III., and of Medamot, consist of eight stems, each presenting a sharp edge on the outer side (fig. 69). The bottom of the column is bulbous, and set round with triangular leaves. The top is surrounded by three or five bands. A moulding composed of groups of three vertical stripes hangs like a fringe from the lowest band in the space between every two stems. So varied a surface does not admit of hieroglyphic decoration; therefore the projections were by degrees suppressed, and the whole shaft was made smooth. In the hypostyle hall at Gûrneh, the shaft is divided in three parts, the middle one being smooth and covered with sculptures, while the upper and lower divisions are formed of clustered stems. In the temple of Khonsû, in the aisles of the hypostyle hall of Karnak, and in the portico of Medinet Habû, the shaft is quite smooth, the fringe alone being retained below the top bands, while a slight ridge between each of the three bands recalls the original stems (fig. 70). The capital underwent a like process of degradation. At Beni Hasan, it is finely clustered throughout its height. In the processional hall of Thothmes III., at Luxor, and at Medamot, a circle of small pointed leaves and channellings around the base lessens the effect, and reduces it to a mere grooved and truncated cone. In the hypostyle hall of Karnak, at Abydos, at the Ramesseum, and at Medinet Habû, various other ornaments, as triangular leaves, hieroglyphic inscriptions, or bands of cartouches flanked by uraei, fill the space thus unfortunately obtained. Neither is the abacus hidden as in the campaniform capital, but stands out boldly, and displays the cartouche of the royal founder. [Illustration: Fig. 71.--Hathor-head capital, Ptolemaic.] III. _Columns with Hathor-head Capitals_.--We find examples of the Hathor- headed column dating from ancient times, as at Deir el Baharî; but this order is best known in buildings of the Ptolemaic period, as at Contra Latopolis, Philae, and Denderah. The shaft and the base present no special characteristics. They resemble those of the campaniform columns. The capital is in two divisions. Below we have a square block, bearing on each face a woman's head in high relief and crowned with a naos. The woman has the ears of a heifer. Her hair, confined over the brow by three vertical bands, falls behind the ears, and hangs long on the shoulders. Each head supports a fluted cornice, on which stands a naos framed between two volutes, and crowned by a slender abacus (fig. 71). Thus each column has for its capital four heads of Hathor. Seen from a distance, it at once recalls the form of the sistrum, so frequently represented in the bas- reliefs as held in the hands of queens and goddesses. It is in fact a sistrum, in which the regular proportions of the parts are disregarded. The handle is gigantic, while the upper part of the instrument is unduly reduced. This notion so pleased the Egyptian fancy that architects did not hesitate to combine the sistrum design with elements borrowed from other orders. The four heads of Hathor placed above a campaniform capital, furnished Nectenebo with a composite type for his pavilion at Philae (fig. 72). I cannot say that the compound is very satisfactory, but the column is in reality less ugly than it appears in engravings. [Illustration: Fig. 72.--Campaniform and Hathor-headed capital, Philae.] [Illustration: Fig. 73.--Section of the hypostyle hall at Karnak to show the arrangement of the two varieties: campaniform and lotus-bud columns.] Shafts of columns were regulated by no fixed rules of proportion or arrangement. The architect might, if he chose, make use of equal heights with very different diameters, and, regardless of any considerations apart from those of general harmony, might design the various parts according to whatever scale best suited him. The dimensions of the capital had no invariable connection with those of the shaft, nor was the height of the shaft dependent on the diameter of the column. At Karnak, the campaniform columns of the hypostyle hall measure 10 feet high in the capital, and 55 feet high in the shaft, with a lower diameter of 11 feet 8 inches. At Luxor, the capital measures 11-1/2 feet, the shaft 49 feet, and the diameter at the spring of the base 11-1/4 feet. At the Ramesseum, the shaft and capital measure 35 feet, and the spring diameter is 6-1/2 feet. The lotus-bud or clustered column gives similar results. At Karnak, in the aisles of the hypostyle hall, the capital is 10 feet high, the shaft 33 feet, and the base diameter 6-3/4 feet. At the Ramesseum, the capital is 5- 1/2 feet high, the shaft 24-1/2 feet, and the base diameter 5 feet 10 inches. We find the same irregularity as to architraves. Their height is determined only by the taste of the architect or the necessities of the building. So also with the spacing of columns. Not only does the inter- columnar space vary considerably between temple and temple, or chamber and chamber, but sometimes--as in the first court at Medinet Habû--they vary in the same portico. We have thus far treated separately of each type; but when various types were associated in a single building, no fixed relative proportions were observed. In the hypostyle hall at Karnak, the campaniform columns support the nave, while the lotus-bud variety is relegated to the aisles (fig. 73). There are halls in the temple of Khonsû where the lotus- bud column is the loftiest, and others where the campaniform dominates the rest. In what remains of the Medamot structure, campaniform and lotus-bud columns are of equal height. Egypt had no definite orders like those of Greece, but tried every combination to which the elements of the column could be made to lend themselves; hence, we can never determine the dimensions of an Egyptian column from those of one of its parts. [12] For an account of the excavations at Bubastis, see Eighth and Tenth Memoirs of the Egypt Exploration Fund, by M.E. Naville. [13] French "Promenoir"; this is perhaps best expressed by "Processional Hall," in accordance with the description of its purpose on p. 67. --A.B.E. 2. THE TEMPLE. [Illustration: Fig. 74.--Plan of temple of the Sphinx.] Most of the famous sanctuaries--Denderah, Edfû, Abydos--were founded before Men a by the _Servants of Hor_.[14] Becoming dilapidated or ruined in the course of ages, they have been restored, rebuilt, remodelled, one after the other, till nothing remains of the primitive design to show us what the first Egyptian architecture was like. The funerary temples built by the kings of the Fourth Dynasty have left some traces.[15] That of the second pyramid of Gizeh was so far preserved at the beginning of the last century, that Maillet saw four large pillars standing. It is now almost entirely destroyed; but this loss has been more than compensated by the discovery, in 1853, of a temple situate about fifty yards to the southward of the sphinx (fig. 74). The façade is still hidden by the sand, and the inside is but partly uncovered. The core masonry is of fine Tûrah limestone. The casing, pillars, architraves, and roof were constructed with immense blocks of alabaster or red granite (Note 9). The plan is most simple: In the middle (A) is a great hall in shape of the letter T, adorned with sixteen square pillars 16 feet in height; at the north-west corner of this hall is a narrow passage on an inclined plane (B), by which the building is now entered;[16] at the south-west corner is a recess (C) which contains six niches, in pairs one over the other. A long gallery opening at each end into a square chamber, now filled with rubbish (E), completes the plan. Without any main door, without windows, and entered through a passage too long to admit the light of day, the building can only have received light and air through slanting air-slits in the roofing, of which traces are yet visible on the tops of the walls (_e, e_) on each side of the main hall (Note 10). Inscriptions, bas-reliefs, paintings, such as we are accustomed to find everywhere in Egypt, are all wanting; and yet these bare walls produce as great an impression upon the spectator as the most richly decorated temples of Thebes. Not only grandeur but sublimity has been achieved in the mere juxtaposition of blocks of granite and alabaster, by means of purity of line and exactness of proportion. Some few scattered ruins in Nubia, the Fayûm, and Sinai, do not suffice to prove whether the temples of the Twelfth Dynasty merited the praises lavished on them in contemporary inscriptions or not. Those of the Theban kings, of the Ptolemies, and of the Caesars which are yet standing are in some cases nearly perfect, while almost all are easy of restoration to those who conscientiously study them upon the spot. At first sight, they seem to present an infinite variety as to arrangement; but on a closer view they are found to conform to a single type. We will begin with the sanctuary. This is a low, small, obscure, rectangular chamber, inaccessible to all save Pharaoh and the priests. As a rule it contained neither statue nor emblem, but only the sacred bark, or a tabernacle of painted wood placed upon a pedestal. A niche in the wall, or an isolated shrine formed of a single block of stone, received on certain days the statue, or inanimate symbol of the local god, or the living animal, or the image of the animal, sacred to that god. A temple must necessarily contain this one chamber; and if it contained but this one chamber, it would be no less a temple than the most complex buildings. Very rarely, however, especially in large towns, was the service of the gods thus limited to the strictly necessary. Around the sanctuary, or "divine house," was grouped a series of chambers in which sacrificial and ceremonial objects were stored, as flowers, perfumes, stuffs, and precious vessels. In advance of this block of buildings were next built one or more halls supported on columns; and in advance of these came a courtyard, where the priests and devotees assembled. This courtyard was surrounded by a colonnade to which the public had access, and was entered through a gateway flanked by two towers, in front of which were placed statues, or obelisks; the whole being surrounded by an enclosure wall of brickwork, and approached through an avenue of sphinxes. Every Pharaoh was free to erect a hall still more sumptuous in front of those which his predecessors had built; and what he did, others might do after him. Thus, successive series of chambers and courts, of pylons and porticoes, were added reign after reign to the original nucleus; and--vanity or piety prompting the work--the temple continued to increase in every direction, till space or means had failed. [Illustration: Fig. 75.--South Temple of Amenhotep III. at Elephantine.] [Illustration: Fig. 76.--Plan of temple of Amenhotep III., at El Kab.] The most simple temples were sometimes the most beautiful. This was the case as regards the sanctuaries erected by Amenhotep III. in the island of Elephantine, which were figured by the members of the French expedition at the end of the last century, and destroyed by the Turkish governor of Asûan in 1822. The best preserved, namely, the south temple (fig. 75), consisted of but a single chamber of sandstone, 14 feet high, 31 feet wide, and 39 feet long. The walls, which were straight, and crowned with the usual cornice, rested on a platform of masonry some 8 feet above the ground. This platform was surrounded by a parapet wall, breast high. All around the temple ran a colonnade, the sides each consisting of seven square pillars, without capital or base, and the two façades, front and back, being supported by two columns with the lotus-bud capital. Both pillars and columns rose direct from the parapet; except on the east front, where a flight of ten or twelve steps, enclosed between two walls of the same height as the platform, led up to the _cella_. The two columns at the head of the steps were wider apart than those of the opposite face, and through the space thus opened was seen a richly-decorated door. A second door opened at the other end, beneath the portico. Later, in Roman times, this feature was utilised in altering the building. The inter-columnar space at the end was filled up, and thus was obtained a second hall, rough and bare, but useful for the purposes of the temple service. These Elephantine sanctuaries bring to mind the peripteral temples of the Greeks, and this resemblance to one of the most familiar forms of classical architecture explains perhaps the boundless admiration with which they were regarded by the French savants. Those of Mesheikh, of El Kab, and of Sharonah are somewhat more elaborate. The building at El Kab is in three divisions (fig. 76); first, a hall of four columns (A); next, a chamber (B) supported by four Hathor-headed pillars; and in the end wall, opposite the door, a niche (C), approached by four steps. Of these small oratories the most complete model now remaining belongs to the Ptolemaic period; namely, the temple of Hathor at Deir el Medineh (fig. 77). Its length is just double its breadth. The walls are built with a batter inclining inwards,[17] and are externally bare, save at the door, which is framed in a projecting border covered with finely-sculptured scenes. The interior is in three parts: A portico (B), supported by two lotus flower columns; a pronaos (C), reached by a flight of four steps, and separated from the portico by a wall which connects the two lotus flower columns with two Hathor-headed pilasters _in antis_; lastly, the sanctuary (D), flanked by two small chambers (E, E), which are lighted by square openings cut in the ceiling. The ascent to the terrace is by way of a staircase, very ingeniously placed in the south corner of the portico, and furnished with a beautiful open window (F). This is merely a temple in miniature; but the parts, though small, are so well proportioned that it would be impossible to conceive anything more delicate or graceful. [Illustration: Fig. 77.--Plan of temple of Hathor, Deir el Medineh.] [Illustration: Fig. 78.--Plan of temple of Khonsû, Karnak.] [Illustration: Fig. 79.--Pylon, with masts, from a bas-relief in the temple of Khonsû at Karnak.] [Illustration: Fig. 80.--The Ramesseum restored, to show the rising of the ground.] [Illustration: Fig. 81.--Crypts in the thickness of the walls, round the sanctuary at Denderah.] [Illustration: Fig. 82.--The pronaos of Edfû, as seen from the top of the eastern pylon.] We cannot say as much for the temple which the Pharaohs of the Twentieth Dynasty erected to the south of Karnak, in honour of the god Khonsû (fig. 78); but if the style is not irreproachable, the plan is nevertheless so clear, that one is tempted to accept it as the type of an Egyptian temple, in preference to others more elegant or majestic. On analysis, it resolves itself into two parts separated by a thick wall (A, A). In the centre of the lesser division is the Holy of Holies (B), open at both ends and isolated from the rest of the building by a surrounding passage (C) 10 feet in width. To the right and left of this sanctuary are small dark chambers (D, D), and behind it is a hall of four columns (E), from which open seven other chambers (F, F). Such was the house of the god, having no communication with the adjoining parts, except by two doors (G) in the southern wall (A, A). These opened into a wide and shallow hypostyle hall (H), divided into nave and aisles. The nave is supported by four lotus- flower columns, 23 feet in height; the aisles each contain two lotus-bud columns 18 feet high. The roof of the nave is, therefore, 5 feet higher than that of the sides. This elevation was made use of for lighting purposes, the clerestory being fitted with stone gratings, which admitted the daylight. The court (I) was square, and surrounded by a double colonnade entered by way of four side-gates and a great central gateway flanked by two quadrangular towers with sloping fronts. This pylon (K) measures 105 feet in length, 33 feet in width, and 60 feet in height. It contains no chambers, but only a narrow staircase, which leads to the top of the gate, and thence up to the towers. Four long grooves in the façade, reaching to a third of its height, correspond to four quadrangular openings cut through. the whole thickness of the masonry. Here were fixed four great wooden masts, formed of joined beams and held in place by a wooden framework fixed in the four openings above mentioned. From these masts floated long streamers of various colours (fig. 79). Such was the temple of Khonsû, and such, in their main features, were the majority of the greater temples of Theban and Ptolemaic times, as Luxor, the Ramesseum, Medinet Habû, Edfû, and Denderah. Though for the most part half in ruins, they affect one with a strange and disquieting sense of oppression. As mystery was a favourite attribute of the Egyptian gods, even so the plan of their temples is in such wise devised as to lead gradually from the full sunshine of the outer world to the obscurity of their retreats. At the entrance we find large open spaces, where air and light stream freely in. The hypostyle hall is pervaded by a sober twilight; the sanctuary is more than half lost in a vague darkness; and at the end of the building, in the farthest of the chambers, night all but reigns completely. The effect of distance which was produced by this gradual diminution of light, was still further heightened by various structural artifices. The parts, for instance, are not on the same level. The ground rises from the entrance (fig. 80), and there are always a few steps to mount in passing from one part to another. In the temple of Khonsû the difference of level is not more than 5-1/4 feet, but it is combined with a lowering of the roof, which in most cases is very strongly marked. From the pylon to the wall at the farther end, the height decreases continuously. The peristyle is loftier than the hypostyle hall, and the hypostyle hall is loftier than the sanctuary. The last hall of columns and the farthest chamber are lower and lower still. The architects of Ptolemaic times changed certain details of arrangement. They erected chapels and oratories on the terraced roofs, and reserved space for the construction of secret passages and crypts in the thickness of the walls, wherein to hide the treasure of the god (fig. 81). They, however, introduced only two important modifications of the original plan. The sanctuary was formerly entered by two opposite doors; they left but one. Also the colonnade, which was originally continued round the upper end of the court, or, where there was no court, along the façade of the temple, became now the pronaos, so forming an additional chamber. The columns of the outer row are retained, but built into a wall reaching to about half their height. This connecting wall is surmounted by a cornice, which thus forms a screen, and so prevented the outer throng from seeing what took place within (fig. 82). The pronaos is supported by two, three, or even four rows of columns, according to the size of the edifice. For the rest, it is useful to compare the plan of the temple of Edfû (fig. 83) with that of the temple of Khonsû, observing how little they differ the one from the other. [Illustration: Fig. 83.--Plan of temple, Edfû.] [Illustration: Fig. 84.--Plan of the temple of Karnak in the reign of Amenhotep III.] [Illustration: Fig. 85.--Plan of Hypostyle Hall, Karnak.] [Illustration: Fig. 86.--Plan of great temple, Luxor.] [Illustration: Fig. 87.--Plan of the Isle of Philae.] Thus designed, the building sufficed for all the needs of worship. If enlargement was needed, the sanctuary and surrounding chambers were generally left untouched, and only the ceremonial parts of the building, as the hypostyle halls, the courts, or pylons, were attacked. The procedure of the Egyptians under these circumstances is best illustrated by the history of the great temple of Karnak. Founded by Ûsertesen I., probably on the site of a still earlier temple, it was but a small building, constructed of limestone and sandstone, with granite doorways. The inside was decorated with sixteen-sided pillars. The second and third Amenemhats added some work to it, and the princes of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties adorned it with statues and tables of offerings. It was still unaltered when, in the eighteenth century B.C., Thothmes I., enriched with booty of war, resolved to enlarge it. In advance of what already stood there, he erected two chambers, preceded by a court and flanked by two isolated chapels. In advance of these again, he erected three successive pylons, one behind the other. The whole presented the appearance of a vast rectangle placed crosswise at the end of another rectangle. Thothmes II. and Hatshepsût[18] covered the walls erected by their father with bas-relief sculptures, but added no more buildings. Hatshepsût, however, in order to bring in her obelisks between the pylons of Thothmes I., opened a breach in the south wall, and overthrew sixteen of the columns which stood in that spot. Thothmes III., probably finding certain parts of the structure unworthy of the god, rebuilt the first pylon, and also the double sanctuary, which he renewed in the red granite of Syene. To the eastward, he rebuilt some old chambers, the most important among them being the processional hall, used for the starting-point and halting-place of ceremonial processions, and these he surrounded with a stone wall. He also made the lake whereon the sacred boats were launched on festival days; and, with a sharp change of axis, he built two pylons facing towards the south, thus violating the true relative proportion which had till then subsisted between the body and the front of the general mass of the building. The outer enclosure was now too large for the earlier pylons, and did not properly accord with the later ones. Amenhotep III. corrected this defect. He erected a sixth and yet more massive pylon, which was, therefore, better suited for the façade. As it now stood (fig. 84), the temple surpassed even the boldest architectural enterprises hitherto attempted; but the Pharaohs of the Nineteenth Dynasty succeeded in achieving still more. They added only a hypostyle hall (fig. 85) and a pylon; but the hypostyle hall measured 170 feet in length by 329 feet in breadth. Down the centre they carried a main avenue of twelve columns, with lotus-flower capitals, being the loftiest ever erected in the interior of a building; while in the aisles, ranged in seven rows on either side, they planted 122 columns with lotus-bud capitals. The roof of the great nave rose to a height of 75 feet above the level of the ground, and the pylon stood some fifty feet higher still. During a whole century, three kings laboured to perfect this hypostyle hall. Rameses I. conceived the idea; Seti I. finished the bulk of the work, and Rameses II. wrought nearly the whole of the decoration. The Pharaohs of the next following dynasties vied with each other for such blank spaces as might be found, wherein to engrave their names upon the columns, and so to share the glory of the three founders; but farther they did not venture. Left thus, however, the monument was still incomplete. It still needed one last pylon and a colonnaded court. Nearly three centuries elapsed before the task was again taken in hand. At last the Bubastite kings decided to begin the colonnades, but their work was as feeble as their, resources were limited. Taharkah, the Ethiopian, imagined for a moment that he was capable of rivalling the great Theban Pharaohs, and planned a hypostyle hall even larger than the first; but he made a false start. The columns of the great nave, which were all that he had time to erect, were placed too wide apart to admit of being roofed over; so they never supported anything, but remained as memorials of his failure. Finally, the Ptolemies, faithful to the traditions of the native monarchy, threw themselves into the work; but their labours were interrupted by revolts at Thebes, and the earthquake of the year 27 B.C. destroyed part of the temple, so that the pylon remained for ever unfinished. The history of Karnak is identical with that of all the great Egyptian temples. When closely studied, the reason why they are for the most part so irregular becomes evident. The general plan is practically the same, and the progress of the building was carried forward in the same way; but the architects could not always foresee the future importance of their work, and the site was not always favourable to the development of the building. At Luxor (fig. 86), the progress went on methodically enough under Amenhotep III. and Seti I., but when Rameses II. desired to add to the work of his predecessors, a bend in the river compelled him to turn eastwards. His pylon is not parallel to that of Amenhotep III., and his colonnades make a distinct angle with the general axis of the earlier work. At Philae (fig. 87) the deviation is still greater. Not only is the larger pylon out of alignment with the smaller, but the two colonnades are not parallel with each other. Neither are they attached to the pylon with a due regard to symmetry. This arises neither from negligence nor wilfulness, as is popularly supposed. The first plan was as regular as the most symmetrically-minded designer could wish; but it became necessary to adapt it to the requirements of the site, and the architects were thenceforth chiefly concerned to make the best of the irregularities to which they were condemned by the configuration of the ground. Such difficulties were, in fact, a frequent source of inspiration; and Philae shows with what skill the Egyptians extracted every element of beauty and picturesqueness from enforced disorder. [Illustration: Fig. 88.--Plan of Speos, Kalaat Addah, Nubia.] [Illustration: Fig, 89.--Plan of Speos, Gebel Silsileh.] [Illustration: Fig. 90.--Plan of the Great Speos, Abû Simbel.] [Illustration: Fig. 91.--Speos of Hathor, Abû Simbel.] [Illustration: Fig. 92.--Plan of the upper portion of the temple of Deir el Baharî, showing the state of the excavations, the Speos of Hathor (A); the rock-cut sanctuary (B); the rock-cut funerary chapel of Thothmes I. (C); the Speos of Anubis (D); and the excavated niches of the northern colonnade. Reproduced from Plate III. of the _Archaeological Report of the Egypt Exploration Fund_ for 1893-4.] [Illustration: Fig. 93.--Plan of temple of Seti I., at Abydos.] The idea of the rock-cut temple must have occurred to the Egyptians at an early period. They carved the houses of the dead in the mountain side; why, therefore, should they not in like manner carve the houses of the gods? Yet the earliest known Speos-sanctuaries date from only the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty. They are generally found in those parts of the valley where the cultivable land is narrowest, as near Beni Hasan, at Gebel Silsileh, and in Nubia. All varieties of the constructed temple are found in the rock-cut temple, though more or less modified by local conditions. The Speos Artemidos is approached by a pillared portico, but contains only a square chamber with a niche at the end for the statue of the goddess Pakhet. At Kalaat Addah (fig. 88), a flat narrow façade (A) faces the river, and is reached by a steep flight of steps; next comes a hypostyle hall (B), flanked by two dark chambers (C), and lastly a sanctuary in two storeys, one above the other (D). The chapel of Horemheb (fig. 89), at Gebel Silsileh, is formed of a gallery parallel to the river (A), supported by four massive pillars left in the rock. From this gallery, the sanctuary chamber opens at right angles. At Abû Simbel, the two temples are excavated entirely in the cliff. The front of the great speos (fig. 90) imitates a sloping pylon crowned with a cornice, and guarded as usual by four seated colossi flanked by smaller statues. These colossi are sixty-six feet high. The doorway passed, there comes a first hall measuring 130 feet in length by 60 feet in width, which corresponds to the usual peristyle. Eight Osiride statues backed by as many square pillars, seem to bear the mountain on their heads. Beyond this come (1) a hypostyle hall; (2) a transverse gallery, isolating the sanctuary, and (3) the sanctuary itself, between two smaller chambers. Eight crypts, sunk at a somewhat lower level than that of the main excavation, are unequally distributed to right and left of the peristyle. The whole excavation measures 180 feet from the doorway to the end of the sanctuary. The small speos of Hathor, about a hundred paces to the northward, is of smaller dimensions. The façade is adorned with six standing colossi, four representing Rameses II., and two his wife, Nefertari. The peristyle and the crypts are lacking (fig. 91), and the small chambers are placed at either end of the transverse passage, instead of being parallel with the sanctuary. The hypostyle hall, however, is supported by six Hathor-headed pillars. Where space permitted, the rock- cut temple was but partly excavated in the cliff, the forepart being constructed outside with blocks cut and dressed, and becoming half grotto, half building. In the hemi-speos at Derr, the peristyle is external to the cliff; at Beit el Wally, the pylon and court are built; at Gerf Husein and Wady Sabûah, pylon, court, and hypostyle hall are all outside the mountain, The most celebrated and original hemi-speos is that built by Queen Hatshepsût, at Deir el Baharî, in the Theban necropolis (fig. 92),[19] The sanctuary and chapels which, as usual, accompany it, were cut about 100 ft. above the level of the valley. In order to arrive at that height, slopes were made and terraces laid out according to a plan which was not understood until the site was thoroughly excavated. Between the hemi-speos and the isolated temple, the Egyptians created yet another variety, namely, the built temple backed by, but not carried into, the cliff. The temple of the sphinx at Gizeh, and the temple of Seti I. at Abydos, may be cited as two good examples. I have already described the former; the area of the latter (fig. 93) was cleared in a narrow and shallow belt of sand, which here divides the plain from the desert. It was sunk up to the roof, the tops of the walls but just showing above the level of the ground. The staircase which led up to the terraced roof led also to the top of the hill. The front, which stood completely out, seemed in nowise extraordinary. It was approached by two pylons, two courts, and a shallow portico supported on square pillars. The unusual part of the building only began beyond this point. First, there were two hypostyle halls instead of one. These are separated by a wall with seven doorways. There is no nave, and the sanctuary opens direct from the second hall. This, as usual, consists of an oblong chamber with a door at each end; but the rooms by which it is usually surrounded are here placed side by side in a line, two to the right and four to the left; further, they are covered by "corbelled" vaults, and are lighted only from the doors. Behind the sanctuary are further novelties. Another hypostyle hall (K) abuts on the end wall, and its dependencies are unequally distributed to right and left. As if this were not enough, the architect also constructed, to the left of the main building, a court, five chambers of columns, various passages and dark chambers--in short, an entire wing branching off at right angles to the axis of the temple proper, with no counterbalancing structures on the other side. These irregularities become intelligible when the site is examined. The cliff is shallow at this part, and the smaller hypostyle hall is backed by only a thin partition of rock. If the usual plan had been followed, it would have been necessary to cut the cliff entirely away, and the structure would have forfeited its special characteristic--that of a temple backed by a cliff--as desired by the founder. The architect, therefore, distributed in width those portions of the edifice which he could not carry out in length; and he even threw out a wing. Some years later, when Rameses II. constructed a monument to his own memory, about a hundred yards to the northward of the older building, he was careful not to follow in his father's footsteps. Built on the top of an elevation, his temple had sufficient space for development, and the conventional plan was followed in all its strictness. [Illustration: Fig. 94.--Crio-sphinx from Wady Es Sabûah.] [Illustration: Fig. 95.--Couchant ram, with statuette of royal founder, restored from the Avenue of Sphinxes at Karnak.] Most temples, even the smallest, should be surrounded by a square enclosure or temenos.[20] At Medinet Habu, this enclosure wall is of sandstone--low, and embattled. The innovation is due to a whim of Rameses III., who, in giving to his monument the outward appearance of a fortress, sought to commemorate his Syrian victories. Elsewhere, the doorways are of stone, and the walls are built in irregular courses of crude bricks. The great enclosure wall was not, as frequently stated, intended to isolate the temple and screen the priestly ceremonies from eyes profane. It marked the limits of the divine dwelling, and served, when needful, to resist the attacks of enemies whose cupidity might be excited by the accumulated riches of the sanctuary. As at Karnak, avenues of sphinxes and series of pylons led up to the various gates, and formed triumphal approaches. The rest of the ground was in part occupied by stables, cellarage, granaries, and private houses. Just as in Europe during the Middle Ages the population crowded most densely round about the churches and abbeys, so in Egypt they swarmed around the temples, profiting by that security which the terror of his name and the solidity of his ramparts ensured to the local deity. A clear space was at first reserved round the pylons and the walls; but in course of time the houses encroached upon this ground, and were even built up against the boundary wall. Destroyed and rebuilt century after century upon the self-same spot, the _débris_ of these surrounding dwellings so raised the level of the soil, that the temples ended for the most part by being gradually buried in a hollow formed by the artificial elevation of the surrounding city. Herodotus noticed this at Bubastis, and on examination it is seen to have been the same in many other localities. At Ombos, at Edfû, at Denderah, the whole city nestled inside the precincts of the divine dwelling. At El Kab, where the temple temenos formed a separate enclosure within the boundary of the city walls, it served as a sort of donjon, or keep, in which the garrison could seek a last refuge. At Memphis and at Thebes, there were as many keeps as there were great temples, and these sacred fortresses, each at first standing alone in the midst of houses, were, from the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty, connected each with each by avenues of sphinxes. These were commonly andro-sphinxes, combining the head of a man and the body of a lion; but we also find crio-sphinxes, which united a ram's head with a lion's body (fig. 94). Elsewhere, in places where the local worship admitted of such substitution, a couchant ram, holding a statuette of the royal founder between his bent forelegs, takes the place of the conventional sphinx (fig. 95). The avenue leading from Luxor to Karnak was composed of these diverse elements. It was one mile and a quarter in length, and there were many bends in it; but this fact affords no fresh proof of Egyptian "symmetrophobia." The enclosures of the two temples were not oriented alike, and the avenues which started squarely from the fronts of each could never have met had they not deviated from their first course. Finally, it may be said that the inhabitants of Thebes saw about as much of their temples as we see at the present day. The sanctuary and its immediate surroundings were closed against them; but they had access to the façades, the courts, and even the hypostyle halls, and might admire the masterpieces of their architects as freely as we admire them now. [14] _Hor-shesû_, "followers," or "servants of Horus," are mentioned in the Turin papyrus as the predecessors of Mena, and are referred to in monumental inscriptions as representing the pre-historic people of Egypt. It is to the Hor-shesû that Professors Maspero and Mariette attribute the making of the Great Sphinx.--A.B.E. [15] For a full description of the oldest funerary chapel known, that of King Sneferû, see W.M.F. Petrie's _Medum_. [16] Conf. Mr. Petrie's plan of this temple in _Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_, Plate VI.--A.B.E. [17] That is to say, the wall is vertical on the inside; but is built much thicker at the bottom than at the top, so that on the outside it presents a sloping surface, retiring with the height of the wall.--A.B.E. [18] "Hatshepsût," more commonly known as "Hatasû;" the new reading is, however, more correct. Professor Maspero thinks that it was pronounced "Hatshopsitû."--A.B.E. [19] For full illustrated account of the complete excavation of this temple, see the _Deir el Baharî_ publications of the Egypt Exploration Fund. [20] Temenos, _i.e._, the enclosure wall of the Temple, within which all was holy ground.--A.B.E. 3.--DECORATION. [Illustration: Figs. 96 to 101.--DECORATIVE DESIGNS, FROM DENDERAH.] [Illustration: Fig. 96.] [Illustration: Fig. 97.] [Illustration: Fig. 98.] [Illustration: Fig. 99.] [Illustration: Fig. 100.] [Illustration: Fig. 101.] [Illustration: Fig. 102.--Two Nile-gods, bearing lotus flowers and libation vases.] [Illustration: Fig. 103.--Dado decoration, hall of Thothmes III., Karnak.] [Illustration: Fig. 104.--Ceiling decoration, from tomb of Bakenrenf (Bocchoris), Sakkarah, Twenty-sixth Dynasty.] Ancient tradition affirmed that the earliest Egyptian temples contained neither sculptured images, inscriptions, nor symbols; and in point of fact, the Temple of the Sphinx is bare. But this is a unique example. The fragments of architraves and masonry bearing the name of Khafra, which were used for building material in the northern pyramid of Lisht, show that this primitive simplicity had already been abandoned by the time of the Fourth Dynasty. During the Theban period, all smooth surfaces, all pylons, wall- faces, and shafts of columns, were covered with figure-groups and inscriptions. Under the Ptolemies and the Caesars, figures and hieroglyphs became so crowded that the stone on which they are sculptured seems to be lost under the masses of ornament with which it is charged. We recognise at a glance that these scenes are not placed at random. They follow in sequence, are interlinked, and form as it were a great mystic book in which the official relations between gods and men, as well as between men and gods, are clearly set forth for such as are skilled to read them. The temple was built in the likeness of the world, as the world was known to the Egyptians. The earth, as they believed, was a flat and shallow plane, longer than its width. The sky, according to some, extended overhead like an immense iron ceiling, and according to others, like a huge shallow vault. As it could not remain suspended in space without some support, they imagined it to be held in place by four immense props or pillars. The floor of the temple naturally represented the earth. The columns, and if needful the four corners of the chambers, stood for the pillars. The roof, vaulted at Abydos, flat elsewhere, corresponded exactly with the Egyptian idea of the sky. Each of these parts was, therefore, decorated in consonance with its meaning. Those next to the ground were clothed with vegetation. The bases of the columns were surrounded by leaves, and the lower parts of the walls were adorned with long stems of lotus or papyrus (fig. 96), in the midst of which animals were occasionally depicted. Bouquets of water-plants emerging from the water (fig. 97), enlivened the bottom of the wall-space in certain chambers. Elsewhere, we find full-blown flowers interspersed with buds (fig. 98), or tied together with cords (fig. 99); or those emblematic plants which symbolise the union of Upper and Lower Egypt under the rule of a single Pharaoh (fig. 100); or birds with human hands and arms, perched in an attitude of adoration on the sign which represents a solemn festival; or kneeling prisoners tied to the stake in couples, each couple consisting of an Asiatic and a negro (fig. 101). Male and female Niles (fig. 102), laden with flowers and fruits, either kneel, or advance in majestic procession, along the ground level. These are the nomes, lakes, and districts of Egypt, bringing offerings of their products to the god. In one instance, at Karnak, Thothmes III. caused the fruits, flowers, and animals indigenous to the foreign lands which he had conquered, to be sculptured on the lower courses of his walls (fig. 103). The ceilings were painted blue, and sprinkled with five-pointed stars painted yellow, occasionally interspersed with the cartouches of the royal founder. The monotony of this Egyptian heaven was also relieved by long bands of hieroglyphic inscriptions. The vultures of Nekheb and Ûati, the goddesses of the south and north, crowned and armed with divine emblems (fig. 104), hovered above the nave of the hypostyle halls, and on the under side of the lintels of the great doors, above the head of the king as he passed through on his way to the sanctuary. At the Ramesseum, at Edfû, at Philae, at Denderah, at Ombos, at Esneh, the depths of the firmament seemed to open to the eyes of the faithful, revealing the dwellers therein. There the celestial ocean poured forth its floods navigated by the sun and moon with their attendant escort of planets, constellations, and decani; and there also the genii of the months and days marched in long procession. In the Ptolemaic age, zodiacs fashioned after Greek models were sculptured side by side with astronomical tables of purely native origin (fig. 105). The decoration of the architraves which supported the massive roofing slabs was entirely independent of that of the ceiling itself. On these were wrought nothing save boldly cut inscriptions, in which the beauty of the temple, the names of the builder-kings who had erected it, and the glory of the gods to whom it was consecrated, are emphatically celebrated. Finally, the decoration of the lowest part of the walls and of the ceiling was restricted to a small number of subjects, which were always similar: the most important and varied scenes being suspended, as it were, between earth and heaven, on the sides of the chambers and the pylons. [Illustration: Fig. 105.--Zodiacal circle of Denderah.] These scenes illustrate the official relations which subsisted between Egypt and the gods. The people had no right of direct intercourse with the deities. They needed a mediator, who, partaking of both human and divine nature, was qualified to communicate with both. The king alone, Son of the Sun, was of sufficiently high descent to contemplate the god in his temple, to serve him, and to speak with him face to face. Sacrifices could be offered only by him, or through him, and in his name. Even the customary offerings to the dead were supposed to pass through his hands, and the family availed themselves of his name in the formula _sûten ta hotep_ to forward them to the other world. The king is seen, therefore, in all parts of the temple, standing, seated, kneeling, slaying the victim, presenting the parts, pouring out the wine, the milk, and the oil, and burning the incense. All humankind acts through him, and through him performs its duty towards the gods. When the ceremonies to be performed required the assistance of many persons, then alone did mortal subordinates (consisting, as much as possible, of his own family) appear by his side. The queen, standing behind him like Isis behind Osiris, uplifts her hand to protect him, shakes the sistrum, beats the tambourine to dispel evil spirits, or holds the libation vase or bouquet. The eldest son carries the net or lassoes the bull, and recites the prayer while his father successively presents to the god each object prescribed by the ritual. A priest may occasionally act as substitute for the prince, but other men perform only the most menial offices. They are slaughterers or servants, or they bear the boat or canopy of the god. The god, for his part, is not always alone. He has his wife and his son by his side; next after them the gods of the neighbouring homes, and, in a general way, all the gods of Egypt. From the moment that the temple is regarded as representing the world, it must, like the world, contain all gods, both great and small. They are most frequently ranged behind the principal god, seated or standing; and with him they share in the homage paid by the king. Sometimes, however, they take an active part in the ceremonies. The spirits of On and Khonû[21] kneel before the sun, and proclaim his praise. Hor, Set, or Thoth conducts Pharaoh into the presence of his father Amen Ra, or performs the functions elsewhere assigned to the prince or the priest. They help him to overthrow the victim or to snare birds for the sacrifice; and in order to wash away his impurities, they pour upon his head the waters of youth and life. The position and functions of these co-operating gods were strictly defined in the theology. The sun, travelling from east to west, divided the universe into two worlds, the world of the north and the world of the south. The temple, like the universe, was double, and an imaginary line passing through the axis of the sanctuary divided it into two temples--the temple of the south on the right hand, and the temple of the north on the left. The gods and their various manifestations were divided between these two temples, according as they belonged to the northern or southern hemisphere. This fiction of duality was carried yet further. Each chamber was divided, in imitation of the temple, into two halves, the right half belonging to the south, and the left half to the north. The royal homage, to be complete, must be rendered in the temples of the south and of the north, and to the gods of the south and of the north, and with the products of the south and of the north. Each sculptured tableau must, therefore, be repeated at least twice in each temple--on a right wall and on a left wall. Amen, on the right, receives the corn, the wine, the liquids of the south; while on the left he receives the corn, the wine, and the liquids of the north. As with Amen, so with Maut, Khonsû, Mentû, and many other gods. Want of space frequently frustrated the due execution of this scheme, and we often meet with a tableau in which the products of north and south together are placed before an Amen who represents both Amen of the south and Amen of the north. These departures from decorative usage are, however, exceptional, and the dual symmetry is always observed where space permits. [Illustration: Fig. 106.--Frieze of uraei and cartouches.] In Pharaonic times, the tableaux were not over-crowded. The wall-surface intended to be covered was marked off below by a line carried just above the ground level decoration, and was bounded above by the usual cornice, or by a frieze. This frieze might be composed of uraei, or of bunches of lotus; or of royal cartouches (fig. 106) supported on either side by divine symbols; or of emblems borrowed from the local cult (by heads of Hathor, for instance, in a temple dedicated to Hathor); or of a horizontal line of dedicatory inscription engraved in large and deeply-cut hieroglyphs. The wall space thus framed in contained sometimes a single scene and sometimes two scenes, one above the other. The wall must be very lofty, if this number is exceeded. Figures and inscriptions were widely spaced, and the scenes succeeded one another with scarcely a break. The spectator had to discover for himself where they began or ended. The head of the king was always studied from the life, and the faces of the gods reproduced the royal portrait as closely as possible. As Pharaoh was the son of the gods, the surest way to obtain portraits of the gods was to model their faces after the face of the king. The secondary figures were no less carefully wrought; but when these were very numerous, they were arranged on two or three levels, the total height of which never exceeded that of the principal personages. The offerings, the sceptres, the jewels, the vestments, the head-dresses, and all the accessories were treated with a genuine feeling for elegance and truth. The colours, moreover, were so combined as to produce in each tableau the effect of one general and prevailing tone; so that in many temples there were chambers which can be justly distinguished as the Blue Hall, the Red Hall, or the Golden Hall. So much for the classical period of decoration. [Illustration: Fig. 107.--Wall of a chamber at Denderah, to show the arrangement of the tableaux.] As we come down to later times, these tableaux are multiplied, and under the Greeks and Romans they become so numerous that the smallest wall contained not less than four (fig. 107), five, six, or even eight registers. The principal figures are, as it were, compressed, so as to occupy less room, and all the intermediate space is crowded with thousands of tiny hieroglyphs. The gods and kings are no longer portraits of the reigning sovereign, but mere conventional types without vigour or life. As for the secondary figures and accessories, the sculptor's only care is to crowd in as many as possible. This was not due to a defect of taste, and to the prevalence of a religious idea which decided but enforced these changes. The object of decoration was not merely the delight of the eye. Applied to a piece of furniture, a coffin, a house, a temple, decoration possessed a certain magic property, of which the power and nature were determined by each being or action represented, by each word inscribed or spoken, at the moment of consecration. Every subject was, therefore, an amulet as well as an ornament. So long as it endured, it ensured to the god the continuance of homage rendered, or sacrifices offered, by the king. To the king, whether living or dead, it confirmed the favours granted to him by the god in recompense for his piety. It also preserved from destruction the very wall upon which it was depicted. At the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty, it was thought that two or three such amulets sufficed to compass the desired effect; but at a later period it was believed that their number could not be too freely multiplied, and the walls were covered with as many as the surface would contain. An average chamber of Edfû or Denderah yields more material for study than the hypostyle hall of Karnak; and the chapel of Antoninus Pius at Philae, had it been finished, would have contained more scenes than the sanctuary of Luxor and the passages by which it is surrounded. Observing the variety of subjects treated on the walls of any one temple, one might at first be tempted to think that the decoration does not form a connected whole, and that, although many series of scenes must undoubtedly contain the development of an historic idea or a religious dogma, yet that others are merely strung together without any necessary link. At Luxor, and again at the Ramesseum, each face of the pylon is a battle-field on which may be studied, almost day for day, the campaign of Rameses II. against the Kheta, which took place in the fifth year of his reign. There we see the Egyptian camp attacked by night; the king's bodyguard surprised during the march; the defeat of the enemy; their flight; the garrison of Kadesh sallying forth to the relief of the vanquished; and the disasters which befell the prince of the Kheta and his generals. Elsewhere, it is not the war which is represented, but the human sacrifices which anciently celebrated the close of each campaign. The king is seen in the act of seizing his prostrate prisoners by the hair of their heads, and uplifting his mace as if about to shatter their heads at a single blow. At Karnak, along the whole length of the outer wall, Seti I. pursues the Bedawîn of Sinai. At Medinet Habû Rameses III. destroys the fleet of the peoples of the great sea, or receives the cut-off hands of the Libyans, which his soldiers bring to him as trophies. In the next scene, all is peace; and we behold Pharaoh pouring out a libation of perfumed water to his father Amen. It would seem as if no link could be established between these subjects, and yet the one is the necessary consequence of the others. If the god had not granted victory to the king, the king in his turn would not have performed these ceremonies in the temple. The sculptor has recorded the events in their order:--first the victory, then the sacrifice. The favour of the god precedes the thank-offering of the king. Thus, on closer examination, we find this multitude of episodes forming the several links of one continuous chain, while every scene, including such as seem at first sight to be wholly unexplained, represents one stage in the development of a single action which begins at the door, is carried through the various halls, and penetrates to the farthest recesses of the sanctuary. The king enters the temple. In the courts, he is everywhere confronted by reminiscences of his victories; and here the god comes forth to greet him, hidden in his shrine and surrounded by priests. The rites prescribed for these occasions are graven on the walls of the hypostyle hall in which they were performed. These being over, king and god together take their way to the sanctuary. At the door which leads from the public hall to the mysterious part of the temple, the escort halts. The king crosses the threshold alone, and is welcomed by the gods. He then performs in due order all the sacred ceremonies enjoined by usage. His merits increase by virtue of his prayers; his senses become exalted; he rises to the level of the divine type. Finally he enters the sanctuary, where the god reveals himself unwitnessed, and speaks to him face to face. The sculptures faithfully reproduce the order of this mystic presentation:--the welcoming reception on the part of the god; the acts and offerings of the king; the vestments which he puts on and off in succession; the various crowns which he places on his head. The prayers which he recites and the favours which are conferred upon him are also recorded upon the walls in order of time and place. The king, and the few who accompany him, have their backs towards the entrance and their faces towards the door of the sanctuary. The gods, on the contrary, or at least such as do not make part of the procession, face the entrance, and have their backs turned towards the sanctuary. If during the ceremony the royal memory failed, the king needed but to raise his eyes to the wall, whereon his duties were mapped out for him. [Illustration: Fig. 108.--Obelisk of Ûsertesen I., of Heliopolis.] Nor was this all. Each part of the temple had its accessory decoration and its furniture. The outer faces of the pylons were ornamented, not only with the masts and streamers before mentioned, but with statues and obelisks. The statues, four or six in number, were of limestone, granite, or sandstone. They invariably represented the royal founder, and were sometimes of prodigious size. The two Memnons seated at the entrance of the temple of Amenhotep III., at Thebes, measured about fifty feet in height. The colossal Rameses II. of the Ramesseum measured fifty-seven feet, and that of Tanis at least seventy feet. The greater number, however, did not exceed twenty feet. They mounted guard before the temple, facing outwards, as if confronting an approaching enemy. The obelisks of Karnak are mostly hidden amid the central courts; and those of Queen Hatshepsut were imbedded for seventeen feet of their height in masses of masonry which concealed their bases. These are accidental circumstances, and easy of explanation. Each of the pylons before which they are stationed had in its turn been the entrance to the temple, and was thrown into the rear by the works of succeeding Pharaohs. The true place of all obelisks was in front of the colossi, on each side of the main entrance.[22] They are always in pairs, but often of unequal height. Some have professed to see in them the emblem of Amen, the Generator; or a finger of the god; or a ray of the sun. In sober truth, they are a more shapely form of the standing stone, or menhir, which is raised by semi-civilised peoples in commemoration of their gods or their dead. Small obelisks, about three feet in height, are found in tombs as early as the Fourth Dynasty. They are placed to right and left of the stela; that is to say, on either side of the door which leads to the dwelling of the dead. Erected before the pylon-gates of temples, they are made of granite, and their dimensions are considerable. The obelisk of Heliopolis (fig. 108) measures sixty-eight feet in the shaft, and the obelisks of Luxor stand seventy-seven and seventy-five and a half feet high, respectively. The loftiest known is the obelisk of Queen Hatshepsût at Karnak, which rises to a height of 109 feet. To convey such masses, and to place them in equilibrium, was a sufficiently difficult task, and one is at a loss to understand how the Egyptians succeeded in erecting them with no other appliances than ropes and sacks of sand. Queen Hatshepsût boasts that her obelisks were quarried, shaped, transported, and erected in seven months; and we have no reason to doubt the truth of her statement.[23] [Illustration: Fig. 109.--Obelisk of Ûsertesen I., Begig, Fayûm.] Obelisks were almost always square, with the faces slightly convex, and a slight slope from top to bottom. The pedestal was formed of a single square block adorned with inscriptions, or with cynocephali in high relief, adoring the sun. The point was cut as a pyramidion, and sometimes covered with bronze or gilt copper. Scenes of offerings to Ra Harmakhis, Hor, Tûm, or Amen are engraved on the sides of the pyramidion and on the upper part of the prism. The four upright faces are generally decorated with only vertical lines of inscription in praise of the king (Note 11). Such is the usual type of obelisk; but we here and there meet with exceptions. That of Begig in the Fayûm (fig. 109) is in shape a rectangular oblong, with a blunt top. A groove upon it shows that it was surmounted by some emblem in metal, perhaps a hawk, like the obelisk represented on a funerary stela in the Gizeh Museum. This form, which like the first is a survival of the menhir, was in vogue till the last days of Egyptian art. It is even found at Axûm, in the middle of Ethiopia, dating from about the fourth century of our era, at a time when in Egypt the ancient obelisks were being carried out of the country, and none dreamed of erecting new ones. Such was the accessory decoration of the pylon. The inner courts and hypostyle halls of the temple contained more colossi. Some, placed with their backs against the outer sides of pillars or walls, were half engaged in the masonry, and built up in courses. At Luxor under the peristyle, and at Karnak between each column of the great nave, were also placed statues of Pharaoh; but these were statues of Pharaoh the victor, clad in his robe of state. The right of consecrating a statue in the temple was above all a royal prerogative; yet the king sometimes permitted private persons to dedicate their statues by the side of his own. This was, however, a special favour, and such monuments always bear an inscription stating that it is "by the king's grace" that they occupy that position. Rarely as this privilege was granted, it resulted in a vast accumulation of votive statues, so that in the course of centuries the courts of some temples became crowded with them. At Karnak, the sanctuary enclosure was furnished outside with a kind of broad bench, breast high, like a long base. Upon this the statues were placed, with their backs to the wall. Attached to each was an oblong block of stone, with a projecting spout on one side; these are known as "tables of offerings" (fig. 110). The upper face is more or less hollowed, and is often sculptured with bas-relief representations of loaves, joints of beef, libation vases, and other objects usually presented to the dead or to the gods. Those of King Ameni Entef Amenemhat, at Gizeh, are blocks of red granite more than three feet in length, the top of which is hollowed out in regular rows of cup-holes, each cup-hole being reserved for one particular offering. There was, in fact, an established form of worship provided for statues, and these tables were really altars upon which were deposited sacrificial offerings of meat, cakes, fruits, vegetables, and the like. [Illustration: Fig. 110.--Table of offerings, Karnak.] [Illustration: Fig. 111.--Limestone altar.] [Illustration: Fig.112.--Naos of wood in the Museum at Turin.] The sanctuary and the surrounding chambers contained the objects used in the ceremonial of worship. The bases of altars varied in shape, some being square and massive, others polygonal or cylindrical. Some of these last are in form not unlike a small cannon, which is the name given to them by the Arabs. The most ancient are those of the Fifth Dynasty; the most beautiful is one dedicated by Seti I., now in the Gizeh Museum. The only perfect specimen of an altar known to me was discovered at Menshîyeh in 1884 (fig. 111). It is of white limestone, hard and polished like marble. It stands upon a pedestal in the form of a long cone, having no other ornament than a torus about half an inch below the top. Upon this pedestal, in a hollow specially prepared for its reception, stands a large hemispherical basin. The shrines are little chapels of wood or stone (fig. 112), in which the spirit of the deity was supposed at all times to dwell, and which, on ceremonial occasions, contained his image. The sacred barks were built after the model of the Bari, or boat, in which the sun performed his daily course. The shrine was placed amidship of the boat, and covered with a veil, or curtain, to conceal its contents from all spectators. The crew were also represented, each god being at his post of duty, the pilot at the helm, the look-out at the prow, the king upon his knees before the door of the shrine. We have not as yet discovered any of the statues employed in the ceremonial, but we know what they were like, what part they played, and of what materials they were made. They were animated, and in addition to their bodies of stone, metal, or wood, they had each a soul magically derived from the soul of the divinity which they represented. They spoke, moved, acted--not metaphorically, but actually. The later Ramessides ventured upon no enterprises without consulting them. They stated their difficulties, and the god replied to each question by a movement of the head. According to the Stela of Bakhtan,[24] a statue of Khonsû places its hands four times on the nape of the neck of another statue, so transmitting the power of expelling demons. It was after a conversation with the statue of Amen in the dusk of the sanctuary, that Queen Hatshepsût despatched her squadron to the shores of the Land of Incense.[25] Theoretically, the divine soul of the image was understood to be the only miracle worker; practically, its speech and motion were the results of a pious fraud. Interminable avenues of sphinxes, gigantic obelisks, massive pylons, halls of a hundred columns, mysterious chambers of perpetual night--in a word, the whole Egyptian temple and its dependencies--were built by way of a hiding-place for a performing puppet, of which the wires were worked by a priest. [21] That is, the spirits of the North, represented by On (Heliopolis), and of the South (Khonû).--A.B.E. [22] At Tanis there seems to have been a close succession of obelisks and statues along the main avenue leading to the Temple, without the usual corresponding pylons. These were ranged in pairs; _i.e._, a pair of obelisks, a pair of statues; a pair of obelisks, a pair of shrines; and then a third pair of obelisks. See _Tanis_, Part I., by W.M.F. Petrie, published by the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1884.--A.B.E. [23] This fact is recorded in the hieroglyphic inscription upon the obelisks.--A.B.E. [24] This celebrated tablet, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, has been frequently translated, and is the subject of a valuable treatise by the late Vicomte de Rougé. It was considered authentic till Dr. Erman, in an admirable paper contributed to the _Zeitschrift,_ 1883, showed it to have been a forgery concocted by the priests of Khonsû during the period of the Persian rule in Egypt, or in early Ptolemaic times. (See Maspero's _Hist. Ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient_, chap, vi., pp. 287, 288. Fourth Edition.)--A.B.E. [25] The Land of Incense, called also in the inscriptions "The Land of Pûnt," was the country from which the Egyptians imported spices, precious woods, gums, etc. It is supposed to represent the southern coasts of the Red Sea, on either side the Bab el Mandeb. Queen Hatshepsût's famous expedition is represented in a series of coloured bas-relief sculptures on the walls of her great temple at Deir el Baharî, reproduced in Dr. Dümichen's work, _The Fleet of an Egyptian Queen_, and in Mariette's _Deîr el Baharî_. For a full account of this temple, its decoration, and the expedition of Hatshepsût, see the _Deir el Baharî_ publications of the Egypt Exploration Fund. CHAPTER III. _TOMBS_. The Egyptians regarded man as composed of various different entities, each having its separate life and functions. First, there was the body; then the _Ka_ or double, which was a less solid duplicate of the corporeal form--a coloured but ethereal projection of the individual, reproducing him feature for feature. The double of a child was as a child; the double of a woman was as a woman; the double of a man was as a man. After the double (_Ka_) came the Soul (_Bi_ or _Ba_), which was popularly represented as a human- headed bird; after the Soul came the "_Khû_," or "the Luminous," a spark from the divine fire. None of these elements were in their own natures imperishable. Left to themselves, they would hasten to dissolution, and the man would thus die a second time; that is to say, he would be annihilated. The piety of the survivors found means, however, to avert this catastrophe. By the process of embalmment, they could for ages suspend the decomposition of the body; while by means of prayer and offerings, they saved the Double, the Soul, and the "Luminous" from the second death, and secured to them all that was necessary for the prolongation of their existence. The Double never left the place where the mummy reposed: but the Soul and the "_Khû_" went forth to follow the gods. They, however, kept perpetually returning, like travellers who come home after an absence. The tomb was therefore a dwelling-house, the "Eternal House" of the dead, compared with which the houses of the living were but wayside inns; and these Eternal Houses were built after a plan which exactly corresponded to the Egyptian idea of the after-life. The Eternal House must always include the private rooms of the Soul, which were closed on the day of burial, and which no living being could enter without being guilty of sacrilege. It must also contain the reception rooms of the Double, where priests and friends brought their wishes or their offerings; the two being connected by a passage of more or less length. The arrangement of these three parts[26] varied according to the period, the place, the nature of the ground, and the caprice of each person. The rooms accessible to the living were frequently built above ground, and formed a separate edifice. Sometimes they were excavated in the mountain side, as well as the tomb itself. Sometimes, again, the vault where the mummy lay hidden, and the passages leading to that vault, were in one place, while the place of prayer and offering stood far off in the plain. But whatever variety there may be found as to detail and arrangement, the principle is always the same. The tomb is a dwelling, and it is constructed in such wise as may best promote the well-being, and ensure the preservation, of the dead. [26] These three parts are (l) the chapel, (2) the passage, or shaft, (3) the sepulchral vault. If the latter was below the level of the chapel, as in the time of the Ancient Empire, the communication was by a sloping or vertical shaft.--A.B.E. I.--Mastabas. The most ancient monumental tombs are found in the necropolis of Memphis, between Abû Roash and Dahshûr, and in that of Medûm;[27] they belong to the mastaba type (Note 12). The mastaba (fig. 113) is a quadrangular building, which from a distance might be taken for a truncated pyramid. Many mastabas are from 30 to 40-feet in height, 150 feet in length, and 80 feet in width; while others do not exceed 10 feet in height or 15 feet in length. The faces are symmetrically inclined and generally smooth, though sometimes the courses retreat like steps. The materials employed are stone or brick. The stone is limestone, cut in blocks about two and a half feet long, two feet high, and twenty inches thick. Three sorts of limestone were employed: for the best tombs, the fine white limestone of Tûrah, or the compact siliceous limestone of Sakkarah; for ordinary tombs, the marly limestone of the Libyan hills. This last, impregnated with salt and veined with crystalline gypsum, is a friable material, and unsuited for ornamentation. The bricks are of two kinds, both being merely sun-dried. The most ancient kind, which ceased to be used about the time of the Sixth Dynasty, is small (8.7 X 4.3 X 5.5 inches), yellowish, and made of nothing but sand, mixed with a little clay and grit. [Illustration: Fig. 113.--A Mastaba.] The later kind is of mud mixed with straw, black, compact, carefully moulded, and of a fair size (15.0 X 7.1 X 5.5 inches). The style of the internal construction differs according to the material employed by the architect. In nine cases out of ten, the stone mastabas are but outwardly regular in construction. The core is of roughly quarried rubble, mixed with rubbish and limestone fragments hastily bedded in layers of mud, or piled up without any kind of mortar. The brick mastabas are nearly always of homogeneous construction. The facing bricks are carefully mortared, and the joints inside are filled up with sand. That the mastaba should be canonically oriented, the four faces set to the four cardinal points, and the longer axis laid from north and south, was indispensable; but, practically, the masons took no special care about finding the true north, and the orientation of these structures is seldom exact. At Gizeh, the mastabas are distributed according to a symmetrical plan, and ranged in regular streets. At Sakkarah, at Abûsîr, and at Dahshûr, they are scattered irregularly over the surface of the plateau, crowded in some places, and wide apart in others. The Mussulman cemetery at Siût perpetuates the like arrangement, and enables us to this day to realise the aspect of the Memphite necropolis towards the close of the ancient empire. [Illustration: Fig. 114.--False door in mastaba, from Mariette's _Les Mastabahs_.] [Illustration: Fig. 115.--Plan of forecourt of mastaba of Kaâpir.] A flat, unpaved platform, formed by the top course of the core (Note 13), covers the top of the mass of the mastaba. This platform is scattered over with terracotta vases, nearly buried in the loose rubbish. These lie thickly over the hollow interior, but are more sparsely deposited elsewhere. The walls are bare. The doors face to the eastward side. They occasionally face towards the north or south side, but never towards the west. In theory, there should be two doors, one for the dead, the other for the living. In practice, the entrance for the dead was a mere niche, high and narrow, cut in the eastward face, near the north-east corner. At the back of this niche are marked vertical lines, framing in a closed space. Even this imitation of a door was sometimes omitted, and the soul was left to manage as best it might. The door of the living was made more or less important, according to the greater or less development of the chamber to which it led. The chamber and door are in some cases represented by only a shallow recess decorated with a stela and a table of offerings (fig. 114). This is sometimes protected by a wall which projects from the façade, thus forming a kind of forecourt open to the north. The forecourt is square in the tomb of Kaâpir (fig. 114), and irregular in that of Neferhotep at Sakkarah (fig. 116). When the plan includes one or more chambers, the door sometimes opens in the middle of a small architectural façade (fig. 117), or under a little portico supported by two square pillars without either base or abacus (fig. 118). The doorway is very simple, the two jambs being ornamented with bas-reliefs representing the deceased, and surmounted by a cylindrical drum engraved with his name and titles. In the tomb of Pohûnika at Sakkarah the jambs are two pilasters, each crowned with two lotus flowers; but this example is, so far, unique. [Illustration: Fig. 116.--Plan of forecourt, mastaba of Neferhotep.] [Illustration: Fig. 117.--Door in façade of mastaba.] [Illustration: Fig. 118.--Portico and door, from Mariette's _Les Mastabahs_.] [Illustration: Fig. 119.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Khabiûsokari, Fourth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 120.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Ti, Fifth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 121.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Shepsesptah, Fourth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 122.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Affi, Sakkarah, Fourth Dynasty.] The chapel was usually small, and lost in the mass of the building (fig. 119), but no precise rule determined its size. In the tomb of Ti there is first a portico (A), then a square ante-chamber with pillars (B), then a passage (C) with a small room (D) on the right, leading to the last chamber (E) (fig. 120). There was room enough in this tomb for many persons, and, in point of fact, the wife of Ti reposed by the side of her husband. When the monument belonged to only one person, the structure was less complicated. A short and narrow passage led to an oblong chamber upon which it opened at right angles, so that the place is in shape of a T (fig. 121). The end wall is generally smooth; but sometimes it is recessed just opposite the entrance passage, and then the plan forms a cross, of which the head is longer or shorter (fig. 122). This was the ordinary arrangement, but the architect was free to reject it, if he so pleased. Here, a chapel consists of two parallel lobbies connected by a cross passage (fig. 123). Elsewhere, the chamber opens from a corner of the passage (fig. 124). Again, in the tomb of Ptahhotep, the site was hemmed in by older buildings, and was not large enough. The builders therefore joined the new mastaba to the older one in such wise as to give them one entrance in common, and thus the chapel of the one is enlarged by absorbing the whole of the space occupied by the other (fig. 125). [Illustration: Fig. 123.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Thenti II., Fourth Dynasty, Sakkarah.] [Illustration: Fig. 124.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of the _Red Scribe_, Fourth Dynasty, Sakkarah.] The chapel was the reception room of the Double. It was there that the relations, friends, and priests celebrated the funerary sacrifices on the days prescribed by law; that is to say, "at the feasts of the commencement of the seasons; at the feast of Thoth on the first day of the year; at the feast of Ûaga; at the great feast of Sothis; on the day of the procession of the god Min; at the feast of shew-bread; at the feasts of the months and the half months, and the days of the week." Offerings were placed in the principal room, at the foot of the west wall, at the exact spot leading to the entrance of the "eternal home" of the dead. Unlike the _Kiblah_ of the mosques, or Mussulman oratories, this point is not always oriented towards the same quarter of the compass, though often found to the west. In the earliest times it was indicated by a real door, low and narrow, framed and decorated like the door of an ordinary house, but not pierced through. An inscription graven upon the lintel in large readable characters, commemorated the name and rank of the owner. His portrait, either sitting or standing, was carved upon the jambs; and a scene, sculptured or painted on the space above the door, represented him seated before a small round table, stretching out his hand towards the repast placed upon it. A flat slab, or offering table, built into the floor between the two uprights of the doorway, received the votive meats and drinks. [Illustration: Fig. 125.--Plan of chapel in mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth Dynasty, Sakkarah.] [Illustration: Fig. 126.--Stela in tomb of Merrûka (Fifth Dynasty, Abûsir): a false doorway containing the statue of the deceased.] The general appearance of the recess is that of a somewhat narrow doorway. As a rule it was empty, but occasionally it contained a portrait statue of the dead standing with one foot forward as though about to cross the gloomy threshold of his tomb, descend the few steps before him, advance into his reception room or chapel, and pass out into the sunlight (fig. 126). As a matter of fact, the stela symbolised the door leading to the private apartments of the dead, a door closed and sealed to the living. It was inscribed on door-posts and lintels, and its inscription was no mere epitaph for the information of future generations; all the details which it gave as to the name, rank, functions, and family of the deceased were intended to secure the continuity of his individuality and civil status in the life beyond death. A further and essential object of its inscriptions was to provide him with food and drink by means of prayers or magic formulae constraining one of the gods of the dead--Osiris or Anubis--to act as intermediary between him and his survivors and to set apart for his use some portion of the provisions offered for his sake in sacrifice to one or other of these deities. By this agency the _Kas_ or Doubles of these provisions were supposed to be sent on into the next world to gladden and satisfy the human _Ka_ indicated to the divine intermediary. Offerings of real provisions were not indispensable to this end; any chance visitor in times to come who should simply repeat the formula of the stela aloud would thereby secure the immediate enjoyment of all the good things enumerated to the unknown dead whom he evoked. [Illustration: Fig. 127.--Wall scene of funerary offerings, from mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 128.--Wall-painting, funeral voyage; mastaba of Urkhuû, Gizeh, Fourth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 129.--Wall-scene from mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth Dynasty.] The living having taken their departure, the Double was supposed to come out of his house and feed. In principle, this ceremony was bound to be renewed year by year, till the end of time; but the Egyptians ere long discovered that this could not be. After two or three generations, the dead of former days were neglected for the benefit of those more recently departed. Even when a pious foundation was established, with a revenue payable for the expenses of the funerary repasts and of the priests whose duty it was to prepare them, the evil hour of oblivion was put off for only a little longer. Sooner or later, there came a time when the Double was reduced to seek his food among the town refuse, and amid the ignoble and corrupt filth which lay rejected on the ground. Then, in order that the offerings consecrated on the day of burial might for ever preserve their virtues, the survivors conceived the idea of drawing and describing them on the walls of the chapel (fig. 127). The painted or sculptured reproduction of persons and things ensured the reality of those persons and things for the benefit of the one on whose account they were executed. Thus the Double saw himself depicted upon the walls in the act of eating and drinking, and he ate and drank. This notion once accepted, the theologians and artists carried it out to the fullest extent. Not content with offering mere pictured provisions, they added thereto the semblance of the domains which produced them, together with the counterfeit presentment of the herds, workmen, and slaves belonging to the same. Was a supply of meat required to last for eternity? It was enough, no doubt, to represent the several parts of an ox or a gazelle--the shoulder, the leg, the ribs, the breast, the heart, the liver, the head, properly prepared for the spit; but it was equally easy to retrace the whole history of the animal--its birth, its life in the pasture-lands, its slaughter, the cutting up of the carcass, and the presentation of the joints. So also as regarded the cakes and bread-offerings, there was no reason why the whole process of tillage, harvesting, corn-threshing, storage, and dough-kneading should not be rehearsed. Clothing, ornaments, and furniture served in like manner as a pretext for the introduction of spinners, weavers, goldsmiths, and cabinet- makers. The master is of superhuman proportions, and towers above his people and his cattle. Some prophetic tableaux show him in his funeral bark, speeding before the wind with all sail set, having started on his way to the next world the very day that he takes possession of his new abode (fig. 128). Elsewhere, we see him as actively superintending his imaginary vassals as formerly he superintended his vassals of flesh and blood (fig. 129). Varied and irregular as they may appear, these scenes are not placed at random upon the walls. They all converge towards that semblance of a door which was supposed to communicate with the interior of the tomb. Those nearest to the door represent the sacrifice and the offering; the earlier stages of preparation and preliminary work being depicted in retrograde order as that door is left farther and farther behind. At the door itself, the figure of the master seems to await his visitors and bid them welcome. [Illustration: Fig. 130. Plan of serdab in mastaba at Gizeh, Fourth Dynasty.] The details are of infinite variety. The inscriptions run to a less or greater length according to the caprice of the scribe; the false door loses its architectural character, and is frequently replaced by a mere stela engraved with the name and rank of the master; yet, whether large or small, whether richly decorated or not decorated at all, the chapel is always the dining-room--or, rather, the larder--to which the dead man has access when he feels hungry. [Illustration: Fig. 131.--Plan of serdab and chapel in mastaba of Rahotep at Sakkarah, Fourth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 132.--Plan of serdab and chapel in mastaba of Thenti I. at Sakkarah, Fourth Dynasty.] On the other side of the wall was constructed a hiding-place in the form of either a high and narrow cell, or a passage without outlet. To this hiding- place archaeologists have given the Arab name of "_serdab_." Most mastabas contain but one; others contain three or four (fig. 130). These _serdabs_ communicated neither with each other nor with the chapel; and are, as it were, buried in the masonry (fig. 131). If connected at all with the outer world, it is by means of an aperture in the wall about as high up as a man's head (fig. 132), and so small that the hand can with difficulty pass through it. To this orifice came the priests, with murmured prayers and perfumes of incense. Within lurked the Double, ready to profit by these memorial rites, or to accept them through the medium of his statues. As when he lived upon earth, the man needed a body in which to exist. His corpse, disfigured by the process of embalmment, bore but a distant resemblance to its former self. The mummy, again, was destructible, and might easily be burned, dismembered, scattered to the winds. Once it had disappeared, what was to become of the Double? The portrait statues walled up inside the _serdab_ became, when consecrated, the stone, or wooden, bodies of the defunct. The pious care of his relatives multiplied these bodies, and consequently multiplied the supports of the Double. A single body represented a single chance of existence for the Double; twenty bodies represented twenty such chances. For the same reason, statues also of his wife, his children, and his servants were placed with the statues of the deceased, the servants being modelled in the act of performing their domestic duties, such as grinding corn, kneading dough, and applying a coat of pitch to the inside surfaces of wine-jars. As for the figures which were merely painted on the walls of the chapel, they detached themselves, and assumed material bodies inside the _serdab_. Notwithstanding these precautions, all possible means were taken to guard the remains of the fleshly body from natural decay and the depredations of the spoiler. In the tomb of Ti, an inclined passage, starting from the middle of the first hall, leads from the upper world to the sepulchral vault; but this is almost a solitary exception. Generally, the vault is reached by way of a vertical shaft constructed in the centre of the platform (fig. 133), or, more rarely, in a corner of the chapel. The depth of this shaft varies from 10 to 100 feet. It is carried down through the masonry: it pierces the rock; and at the bottom, a low passage, in which it is not possible to walk upright, leads in a southward direction to the vault. There sleeps the mummy in a massive sarcophagus of limestone, red granite, or basalt. Sometimes, though rarely, the sarcophagus bears the name and titles of the deceased. Still more rarely, it is decorated with ornamental sculpture. Some examples are known which reproduce the architectural decoration of an Egyptian house, with its doors and windows.[28] The furniture of the vault is of the simplest character,--some alabaster perfume vases; a few cups into which the priest had poured drops of the various libation liquids offered to the dead; some large red pottery jars for water; a head-rest of wood or alabaster; a scribe's votive palette. Having laid the mummy in the sarcophagus and cemented the lid, the workmen strewed the floor of the vault with the quarters of oxen and gazelles which had just been sacrificed. They next carefully walled up the entrance into the passage, and filled the shaft to the top with a mixture of sand, earth, and stone chips. Being profusely watered, this mass solidified, and became an almost impenetrable body of concrete. The corpse, left to itself, received no visits now, save from the Soul, which from time to time quitted the celestial regions wherein it voyaged with the gods, and came down to re- unite itself with the body. The sepulchral vault was the abode of the Soul, as the funerary chapel was the abode of the Double. [Illustration: Fig. 133.--Section showing shaft and vault of mastaba at Gizeh, Fourth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 134.--Section of mastaba, Sakkarah, Sixth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 135.--Wall painting of funerary offerings, from mastaba of Nenka, Sakkarah, Sixth Dynasty.] Up to the time of the Sixth Dynasty, the walls of the vault are left bare. Once only did Mariette find a vault containing half-effaced inscriptions from _The Book of the Dead_. In 1881, I however discovered some tombs at Sakkarah, in which the vault is decorated in preference to the chapel. These tombs are built with large bricks, a niche and a stela sufficing for the reception of sacrificial offerings. In place of the shaft, they contain a small rectangular court, in the western corner of which was placed the sarcophagus. Over the sarcophagus was erected a limestone chamber just as long and as wide as the sarcophagus itself, and about three and a half feet high. This was roofed in with flat slabs. At the end, or in the wall to the right, was a niche, which answered the purpose of a _serdab_; and above the flat roof was next constructed an arch of about one foot and a half radius, the space above the arch being filled in with horizontal courses of brickwork up to the level of the platform. The chamber occupies about two- thirds of the cavity, and looks like an oven with the mouth open. Sometimes the stone walls rest on the lid of the sarcophagus, the chamber having evidently been built after the interment had taken place (fig. 134). Generally speaking, however, these walls rest on brick supports, so that the sarcophagus may be opened or closed when required. The decoration, which is sometimes painted, sometimes sculptured, is always the same. Each wall was a house stocked with the objects depicted or catalogued upon its surface, and each was, therefore, carefully provided with a fictitious door, through which the Double had access to his goods. On the left wall he found a pile of provisions (fig. 135)[29] and a table of offerings; on the end wall a store of household utensils, as well as a supply of linen and perfumes, the name and quantity of each being duly registered. These paintings more briefly sum up the scenes depicted in the chapels of ordinary mastabas. Transferred from their original position to the walls of an underground cellar, they were the more surely guaranteed against such possible destruction as might befall them in chambers open to all comers; while upon their preservation depended the length of time during which the dead man would retain possession of the property which they represented. [27] For an account of the necropolis of Medûm, see W.M.F. Petrie's _Medum_. [28] The sarcophagus of Menkara, unfortunately lost at sea when on its way to England, was of this type. See illustration No. 19, Chapter III., in Sir E. Wilson's _Egypt of the Past_.--A.B.E. [29] This wall scene is from the tomb of Nenka, near Sakkarah. For a coloured facsimile on a large scale, see Professor Maspero's article entitled "Trois Années de Fouilles," in _Mémoires de la Mission Archéologique Française du Caire_, Pl. 2. 1884.--A.B.E. 2.--THE PYRAMIDS. [For the following translation of this section of Professor Maspero's book I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. W.M. Flinders Petrie, whose work on _The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_, published with the assistance of a grant from the Royal Society in 1883, constitutes our standard authority on the construction of these Pyramids.--A.B.E.] The royal tombs have the form of pyramids with a square base, and are the equivalent in stone or brick of the tumulus of heaped earth which was piled over the body of the warrior chief in prehistoric times (Note 14). The same ideas prevailed as to the souls of kings as about those of private men; the plan of the pyramid consists, therefore, of three parts, like the mastaba, --the chapel, the passage, and the sepulchral vault. The chapel is always separate. At Sakkarah no trace of it has been found; it was probably, as later on at Thebes, in a quarter nearer to the town. At Medûm, Gizeh, Abûsîr, and Dahshûr, these temples stood at the east or north fronts of the pyramids. They were true temples, with chambers, courts, and passages. The fragments of bas-reliefs hitherto found show scenes of sacrifice, and prove that the decoration was the same as in the public halls of the mastabas. The pyramid, properly speaking, contained only the passages and sepulchral vault. The oldest of which the texts show the existence, north of Abydos, is that of Sneferû; the latest belong to the princes of the Twelfth Dynasty. The construction of these monuments was, therefore, a continuous work, lasting for thirteen or fourteen centuries, under government direction. Granite, alabaster, and basalt for the sarcophagus and some details were the only materials of which the use and the quantity was not regulated in advance, and which had to be brought from a distance. To obtain them, each king sent one of the great men of his court on a mission to the quarries of Upper Egypt; and the quickness with which the blocks were brought back was a strong claim upon the sovereign's favour. The other material was not so costly. If mainly brick, the bricks were moulded on the spot with earth taken from the foot of the hill. If of stone, the nearest parts of the plateau provided the common marly limestone in abundance (Note 15). The fine limestone of Tûrah was usually reserved for the chambers and the casing, and this might be had without even sending specially for it to the opposite side of the Nile; for at Memphis there were stores always full, upon which they continually drew for public buildings, and, therefore, also for the royal tombs. The blocks being taken from these stores, and borne by boats to close below the hill, were raised to their required places along gently sloping causeways. The internal arrangement of the pyramids, the lengths of the passages and their heights, were very variable; the pyramid of Khûfû (Cheops) rose to 475 feet above the ground, the smallest was not 30 feet high. The difficulty of imagining now what motives determined the Pharaohs to choose such different proportions has led some to think that the mass built was in direct proportion to the time occupied in building; that is to say, to the length of each reign. Thus it was supposed that the king would begin by hastily erecting a pyramid large enough to contain the essential parts of a tomb; and then, year by year, would add fresh layers around the first core, until the time when his death for ever arrested the growth of the monument. But the facts do not justify this hypothesis. The smallest of the pyramids of Sakkarah is that of Ûnas, who reigned thirty years; while the two imposing pyramids of Gizeh were raised by Khûfû and Khafra (Chephren), who governed Egypt, the one for twenty-four, and the other for twenty-three years. Merenra, who died very young, had a pyramid as large as that of Pepi II., whose reign lasted more than ninety years (Note 16). The plan of each pyramid was laid down, once for all, by the architect, according to the instructions which he had received, and the resources placed at his disposal. He then followed it out to the end of the work, without increasing or reducing the scale (Note 17). [Illustration: Fig. 136.--Section of the Great Pyramid.[30]] The pyramids were supposed to have their four faces to the four cardinal points, like the mastabas; but, either from bad management or neglect, the greater part are not oriented exactly, and many vary distinctly from the true north (Note 18). Without speaking of the ruins of Abû Roash or Zowyet el Aryan, which have not been studied closely enough, they naturally form six groups, distributed from north to south on the border of the Libyan plateau, from Gizeh to the Fayûm, by Abûsîr, Sakkarah, Dahshûr, and Lisht. The Gizeh group contains nine, including those of Khûfû, Khafra, and Menkara, which were anciently reckoned among the wonders of the world. The ground on which the pyramid of Khûfû stands was very irregular at the time of construction. A small rocky height which rose above the surface was roughly cut (fig. 136) and enclosed in the masonry, the rest being smoothed and covered with large slabs, some of which still remain (Note 19). The pyramid itself was 481 feet high and 755 feet wide, dimensions which the injuries of time have reduced to 454 feet and 750 feet respectively. It preserved, until the Arab conquest, a casing of stones of different colours (Note 20), so skilfully joined as to appear like one block from base to summit. The casing work was begun from the top, and the cap placed on first, the steps being covered one after the other, until they reached the bottom (Note 21). In the inside all was arranged so as to hide the exact place of the sarcophagus, and to baffle any spoilers whom chance or perseverance had led aright. The first point was to discover the entrance under the casing, which masked it. It was nearly in the middle of the north face (fig. 136), but at the level of the eighteenth course, at about forty- five feet from the ground. When the block which closed it was displaced, an inclined passage, 41.2 inches wide and 47.6 inches high, was revealed, the lower part of which was cut in the rock. This descended for 317 feet, passed through an unfinished chamber, and ended sixty feet farther in a blind passage. This would be a first disappointment to the spoilers. If, however, they were not discouraged, but examined the passage with care, they would find in the roof, sixty-two feet distant from the door, a block of granite (Note 22) among the surrounding limestone. It was so hard that the seekers, after having vainly tried to break or remove it, took the course of forcing a way through the softer stone around (Note 23). This obstacle past, they came into an ascending passage which joins the first at an angle of 120° (Note 24), and is divided into two branches. One branch runs horizontally into the centre of the pyramid, and ends in a limestone chamber with pointed roof, which is called, without any good reason, "The Queen's Chamber." The other, continuing upward, changes its form and appearance. It becomes a gallery 148 feet long and 28 feet high, built of Mokattam stone, so polished and finely wrought that it is difficult to put a "needle or even a hair" into the joints (Note 25). The lower courses are vertical; the seven others "corbel" forwards, until at the roof they are only twenty-one inches apart. A fresh obstacle arose at the end of this gallery. The passage which led to the chamber of the sarcophagus was closed by a slab of granite (Note 26); farther on was a small vestibule divided in equal spaces by four portcullises of granite (Note 27), which would need to be broken. The royal sepulchre is a granite chamber with a flat roof, nineteen feet high, thirty-four feet long, and seventeen feet wide. Here are neither figures nor inscriptions; nothing but a granite sarcophagus, lidless and mutilated. Such were the precautions taken against invaders; and the result showed that they were effectual, for the pyramid guarded its deposit during more than four thousand years (Note 28). But the very weight of the materials was a more serious danger. To prevent the sepulchral chamber from being crushed by the three hundred feet of stone which stood over it, five low hollow spaces, one over the other, were left above it. The last is sheltered by a pointed roof, formed of two enormous slabs (Note 29) leaning one against the other. Thanks to this device, the central pressure was thrown almost entirely on the side faces, and the chamber was preserved. None of the stones which cover it have been crushed; none have yielded a fraction since the day when the workmen cemented them into their places (Note 30). [Illustration: Fig. 137.--The Step Pyramid of Sakkarah.] The pyramids of Khafra and Menkara were built on a different plan inside to that of Khûfû. Khafra's had two entrances, both to the north, one from the platform before the pyramid, the other fifty feet above the ground. Menkara's still preserves the remains of its casing of red granite (Note 31). The entrance passage descends at an angle of twenty-six degrees, and soon runs into the rock. The first chamber is decorated with panels sculptured in the stone, and was closed at the further end by three portcullises of granite. The second chamber appears to be unfinished, but this was a trap to deceive the spoilers. A passage cut in the floor, and carefully hidden, gave access to a lower chamber. There lay the mummy in a sarcophagus of sculptured basalt. The sarcophagus was still perfect at the beginning of this century. Removed thence by Colonel Howard Vyse, it foundered on the Spanish coast with the ship which was bearing it to England. [Illustration: Fig. 138.--Plan and Section of the Pyramid of Ûnas.] [Illustration: Fig. 139.--Portcullis and passage, pyramid of Ûnas.] The same variety of arrangement prevails in the groups of Abûsîr, and in one part of the Sakkarah group. The great pyramid of Sakkarah is not oriented with exactness. The north face is turned 4° 21' E. of the true north. It is not a perfect square, but is elongated from east to west, the sides being 395 and 351 feet. It is 196 feet high, and is formed of six great steps with inclined faces, each retreating about seven feet; the step nearest the ground is thirty-seven and a half feet high, and the top one is twenty-nine feet high (fig. 137). It is built entirely of limestone, quarried from the neighbouring hills. The blocks are small and badly cut, and the courses are concave, according to a plan applied both to quays and to fortresses. On examining the breaches in the masonry, it is seen that the outer face of each step is coated with two layers, each of which has its regular casing (Note 32). The mass is solid, the chambers being cut in the rock below the pyramid. It has four entrances, the main one being in the north; and the passages form a perfect labyrinth, which it is perilous to enter. Porticoes with columns, galleries, and chambers, all end in a kind of pit, in the bottom of which a hiding place was contrived, doubtless intended to contain the most precious objects of the funeral furniture. The pyramids which surround this extraordinary monument have been nearly all built on one plan, and only differ in their proportions. The door (fig. 138, A) opens close below the first course, about the middle of the north face, and the passage (B) descends by a gentle slope between two walls of limestone. It is plugged up all along by large blocks (Note 33), which needed to be broken up before the first chamber could be entered (C). Beyond this chamber, it is carried for some way through the limestone rock; then it passes between walls, ceiling and floor of polished syenite; after which the limestone re-appears, and the passage opens into the vestibule (E). The part built of granite is interrupted thrice, at intervals of two to two and a half feet, by three enormous portcullises of granite (D). Above each of these a hollow is left, in which the portcullis stone could be held up by props, and thus leave a free passage (fig. 139). The mummy once placed inside, the workmen, as they left, removed the supports, and the portcullises fell into place, cutting off all communication with the outside. The vestibule was flanked on the east by a flat-roofed _serdab_ (F) divided into three niches, and encumbered with chips of stone swept hastily in by the workmen when they cleared the chambers to receive the mummy. The pyramid of Ûnas has all three niches preserved; but in the pyramids of Teti and of Merenra, the separating walls have been neatly cut away in ancient times, without leaving any trace but a line of attachment, and a whiter colour in the stone where it had been originally covered. The sarcophagus chamber (G) extends west of the vestibule; the sarcophagus was placed there along the west wall, feet to the south, head to the north. The roof over the two main chambers was pointed (fig. 140). It was formed of large beams of limestone, joined at the upper ends, and supported below upon a low bench (1) which surrounded the chamber outside (Note 34). The first beams were covered by two others, and these by two more; and the six together (J) thoroughly protected the vestibule of the vault. [Illustration: Fig. 140.--Section of the Pyramid of Ûnas.] The pyramids of Gizeh belonged to the Pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty, and those of Abûsir to the Pharaohs of the Fifth. The five pyramids of Sakkarah, of which the plan is uniform, belonged to Ûnas and to the first four kings of the Sixth Dynasty, Teti, Pepi I., Merenra, and Pepi II., and are contemporary with the mastabas with painted vaults which I have mentioned above (p. 129). It is, therefore, no matter of surprise to find them inscribed and decorated. The ceilings are covered with stars, to represent the night-sky. The rest of the decoration is very simple. In the pyramid of Ûnas, which is the most ornamented, the decoration occupies only the end wall of the sepulchral chamber; the part against the sarcophagus was lined with alabaster, and engraved to represent great monumental doors, through which the deceased was supposed to enter his storerooms of provisions. The figures of men and of animals, the scenes of daily life, the details of the sacrifice, are not here represented, and, moreover, would not be in keeping; they belong to those places where the Double lived his public life, and where visitors actually performed the rites of offering; the passages and the vault in which the soul alone was free to wander needed no ornamentation except that which related to the life of the soul. The texts are of two kinds. One kind--of which there are the fewest-- refer to the nourishment of the Double, and are literal transcriptions of the formulae by which the priests ensured the transmission of each object to the other world; this was a last resource for him, in case the real sacrifices should be discontinued, or the magic scenes upon the chapel walls be destroyed. The greater part of the inscriptions were of a different kind. They referred to the soul, and were intended to preserve it from the dangers which awaited it, in heaven and on earth. They revealed to it the sovereign incantations which protected it against the bites of serpents and venomous animals, the passwords which enabled it to enter into the company of the good gods, and the exorcisms which counteracted the influence of the evil gods. The destiny of the Double was to continue to lead the shadow of its terrestrial life, and fulfil it in the chapel; the destiny of the Soul was to follow the sun across the sky, and it, therefore, needed the instructions which it read on the walls of the vault. It was by their virtue that the absorption of the dead into Osiris became complete, and that they enjoyed hereafter all the immunity of the divine state. Above, in the chapel, they were men, and acted as men; here they were gods, and acted as gods. [Illustration: Fig. 141.--Mastabat el Faraûn.] [Illustration: Fig. 142.--Pyramid of Medûm.] The enormous rectangular mass which the Arabs call _Mastabat el Faraûn_, "the seat of Pharaoh" (fig. 141), stands beside the pyramid of Pepi II. Some have thought it to be an unfinished pyramid, some a tomb surmounted by an obelisk; in reality it is a pyramid which was left unfinished by its builder, King Ati of the Sixth Dynasty. Recent excavations have, on the other hand, shown that the brick pyramids of Dahshûr probably belonged to the Twelfth Dynasty. The stone pyramids of that group, which may be older, furnish a curious variation from the usual type. One of these stone pyramids has the lower half inclined at 54° 41', while the upper part changes sharply to 42° 59'; it might be called a mastaba (Note 35) crowned by a gigantic attic. At Lisht, where the two pyramids now standing are of the same period (one of them was erected by Ûsertesen I.), the structure is again changed. The sloping passage ends in a vertical shaft, at the bottom of which open chambers now filled by the infiltration of the Nile. The pyramids of Illahûn and Hawara, which contained the remains of Ûsertesen II. and Amenemhat III., are of the same type as those at Lisht. Their rooms are now filled with water. The pyramid of Medûm is empty, having been violated before the Ramesside age. It consists of three square towers (Note 36) with sides slightly sloping, placed in retreating stages one over the other (fig. 142). The entrance is on the north, at about 53 feet above the sand. After 60 feet, the passage goes into the rock; at 174 feet it runs level; at 40 feet farther it stops, and turns perpendicularly towards the surface, opening in the floor of a vault twenty-one feet higher (fig. 143). A set of beams and ropes still in place above the opening show that the spoilers drew the sarcophagus out of the chamber in ancient times. Its small chapel, built against the eastern slope of the pyramid, with courtyard containing a low flat altar between two standing stelae nearly 14 feet high, was found intact. The walls of the chapel were uninscribed, and bare; but the _graffiti_ found there prove that the place was much visited during the times of the Eighteenth Dynasty by scribes, who recorded their admiration of the beauty of the monument, and believed that King Sneferû had raised it for himself and for his queen Meresankhû. [Illustration: Fig. 143.--Section of passage and vault in pyramid of Medûm.] The custom of building pyramids did not end with the Twelfth Dynasty; there are later pyramids at Manfalût, at Hekalli to the south of Abydos, and at Mohammeriyeh to the south of Esneh. Until the Roman period, the semi- barbarous sovereigns of Ethiopia held it as a point of honour to give the pyramidal form to their tombs. The oldest, those of Nûrri, where the Pharaohs of Napata sleep, recall by their style the pyramids of Sakkarah; the latest, those of Meroë, present fresh characteristics. They are higher than they are wide, are built of small blocks, and are sometimes decorated at the angles with rounded borderings. The east face has a false window, surmounted by a cornice, and is flanked by a chapel, which is preceded by a pylon. These pyramids are not all dumb. As in ordinary tombs, the walls contain scenes borrowed from the "Ritual of Burial," or showing the vicissitudes of the life beyond the grave. [30] This section is reproduced, by permission of Mr. W.M.F. Petrie, from Plate VII. of his "_Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_." The vertical shaft sunk by Perring is shown going down from the floor of the subterranean unfinished chamber. The lettering along the base of the pyramid, though not bearing upon the work of Professor Maspero, has been preserved for the convenience of readers who may wish to consult Mr. Petrie's work for more minute details and measurements. This lettering refers to that part of Mr. Petrie's argument which disproves the "accretion theory" of previous writers (see "_Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_" chap, xviii., p. 165).--A.B.E. 3.--THE TOMBS OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE. _Excavated Tombs_. Two subsequent systems replaced the mastaba throughout Egypt. The first preserved the chapel constructed above ground, and combined the pyramid with the mastaba; the second excavated the whole tomb in the rock, including the chapel. [Illustration: Fig. 144.--Section of "vaulted" brick pyramid, Abydos.] [Illustration: Fig. 145.--Section of "vaulted" tomb, Abydos.] [Illustration: Fig. 146.--Plan of tomb, at Abydos.] [Illustration: Fig. 147.--Theban tomb, with pyramidion, from scene in a tomb at Sheikh Abd el Gûrneh.] [Illustration: Fig. 148.--Theban tomb with pyramidion, from wall-painting.] The necropolis quarter of Abydos, in which were interred the earlier generations of the Theban Empire, furnishes the most ancient examples of the first system. The tombs are built of large, black, unbaked bricks, made without any mixture of straw or grit. The lower part is a mastaba with a square or oblong rectangular base, the greatest length of the latter being sometimes forty or fifty feet. The walls are perpendicular, and are seldom high enough for a man to stand upright inside the tomb. On this kind of pedestal was erected a pointed pyramid of from 12 to 30 feet in height, covered externally with a smooth coat of clay painted white. The defective nature of the rock below forbade the excavation of the sepulchral chamber; there was no resource, therefore, except to hide it in the brickwork. An oven-shaped chamber with "corbel" vault was constructed in the centre (fig. 144); but more frequently the sepulchral chamber is found to be half above ground in the mastaba and half sunk in the foundations, the vaulted space above being left only to relieve the weight (fig. 145). In many cases there was no external chapel; the stela, placed in the basement, or set in the outer face, alone marking the place of offering. In other instances a square vestibule was constructed in front of the tomb where the relations assembled (fig. 146). Occasionally a breast-high enclosure wall surrounded the monument, and defined the boundaries of the ground belonging to the tomb. This mixed form was much employed in Theban cemeteries from the beginning of the Middle Empire. Many kings and nobles of the Eleventh Dynasty were buried at Drah Abû'l Neggeh, in tombs like those of Abydos (fig. 147). The relative proportion of mastaba and pyramid became modified during the succeeding centuries. The mastaba--often a mere insignificant substructure--gradually returned to its original height, while the pyramid as gradually decreased, and ended by being only an unimportant pyramidion (fig. 148). All the monuments of this type which ornamented the Theban necropolis during the Ramesside period have perished, but contemporary tomb-paintings show many varieties, and the chapel of an Apis which died during the reign of Amenhotep III. still remains to show that this fashion extended as far as Memphis. Of the pyramidion, scarcely any traces remain; but the mastaba is intact. It is a square mass of limestone, raised on a base, supported by four columns at the corners, and surmounted by an overhanging cornice; a flight of five steps leads up to the inner chamber (fig. 149). [Illustration: Fig. 149.--Section of Apis tomb, _tempo_ Amenhotep III.] The earliest examples of the second kind are those found at Gizeh among the mastabas of the Fourth Dynasty, and these are neither large nor much ornamented. They begin to be carefully wrought about the time of the Sixth Dynasty, and in certain distant places, as at Bersheh, Sheîkh Saîd, Kasr es Saîd, Asûan, and Negadeh. The rock-cut tomb did not, however, attain its full development until the times of the last Memphite kings and the early kings of the Theban line. In these rock-cut tombs we find all the various parts of the mastaba. The designer selected a prominent vein of limestone, high enough in the cliff side to risk nothing from the gradual rising of the soil, and yet low enough for the funeral procession to reach it without difficulty. The feudal lords of Minieh slept at Beni Hasan; those of Khmûnû at Bersheh; those of Siût and Elephantine at Siût and in the cliff opposite Asûan (fig. 150). Sometimes, as at Siût, Bersheh, and Thebes, the tombs are excavated at various levels; sometimes, as at Beni Hasan, they follow the line of the stratum, and are ranged in nearly horizontal terraces.[31] A flight of steps, rudely constructed in rough-hewn stones, leads up from the plain to the entrance of the tomb. At Beni Hasan and Thebes, these steps are either destroyed or buried in sand; but recent excavations have brought to light a well-preserved example leading up to a tomb at Asûan.[32] [Illustration: Fig. 150.--Tombs in cliff opposite Asûan.] [Illustration: Fig. 151.--Façade of tomb of Khnûmhotep, at Beni Hasan, Twelfth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 152.--Façade of tomb, Asûan.] The funeral procession, having slowly scaled the cliff-side, halted for a moment at the entrance to the chapel. The plan was not necessarily uniform throughout any one group of tombs. Several of the Beni Hasan tombs have porticoes, the pillars, bases, and entablatures being all cut in the rock; those of Ameni and Khnûmhotep have porticoes supported on two polygonal columns (fig. 151). At Asûan (fig. 152), the doorway forms a high and narrow recess cut in the rock wall, but is divided, at about one-third of its height, by a rectangular lintel, thus making a smaller doorway in the doorway itself. At Siût, the tomb of Hapizefa was entered by a true porch about twenty-four feet in height, with a "vaulted" roof elegantly sculptured and painted. More frequently the side of the mountain was merely cut away, and the stone dressed over a more or less extent of surface, according to the intended dimensions of the tomb. This method ensured the twofold advantage of clearing a little platform closed in on three sides in front of the tomb, and also of forming an upright façade which could be decorated or left plain, according to the taste of the proprietor. The door, sunk in the middle of this façade, has sometimes no framework; sometimes, however, it has two jambs and a lintel, all slightly projecting. The inscriptions, when any occur, are very simple, consisting of one or two horizontal lines above, and one or two vertical lines down each side, with the addition perhaps of a sitting or standing figure. These inscriptions contain a prayer, as well as the name, titles, and parentage of the deceased. The chapel generally consists of a single chamber, either square or oblong, with a flat or a slightly vaulted ceiling. Light is admitted only through the doorway. Sometimes a few pillars, left standing in the rock at the time of excavation, give this chamber the aspect of a little hypostyle hall. Four such pillars decorate the chapels of Ameni and Khnûmhotep at Beni Hasan (fig. 153). Other chapels there contain six or eight, and are very irregular in plan. One tomb, unfinished, was in the first instance a simple oblong hall, with a barrel roof and six columns. Later on, it was enlarged on the right side, the new part forming a kind of flat-roofed portico supported on four columns (fig. 154). [Illustration: Fig. 153.--Plan of tomb of Khnûmhotep, at Beni Hasan.] [Illustration: Fig. 154.--Plan of unfinished tomb, Beni Hasan.] [Illustration: Fig. 155.--Funeral processions and ceremonies from wall- painting in tomb of Manna, Thebes, Nineteenth Dynasty.] To form a _serdab_ in the solid rock was almost impossible; while on the other hand, movable statues, if left in a room accessible to all comers, would be exposed to theft or mutilation. The _serdab_, therefore, was transformed, and combined with the stela of the ancient mastabas. The false door of the olden time became a niche cut in the end wall, almost always facing the entrance. Statues of the deceased and his wife, carved in the solid rock, were there enthroned. The walls were decorated with scenes of offerings, and the entire decoration of the tomb converged towards the niche, as that of the mastaba converged towards the stela. The series of tableaux is, on the whole, much the same as of old, though with certain noteworthy additions. The funeral procession, and the scene where the deceased enters into possession of his tomb, both merely indicated in the mastaba, are displayed in full upon the walls of the Theban sepulchre. The mournful _cortège_ is there, with the hired mourners, the troops of friends, the bearers of offerings, the boats for crossing the river, and the catafalque drawn by oxen. It arrives at the door of the tomb. The mummy, placed upright upon his feet, receives the farewell of his family; and the last ceremonies, which are to initiate him into the life beyond the grave, are duly represented (fig. 155). The sacrifices, with all the preliminary processes, as tillage, seed-growing, harvesting, stock- breeding, and the practice of various kinds of handicraft, are either sculptured or painted, as before. Many details, however, which are absent from tombs of the earlier dynasties are here given, while others which are invariably met with in the neighbourhood of the pyramids are lacking. Twenty centuries work many changes in the usages of daily life, even in conservative Egypt. We look almost in vain for herds of gazelles upon the walls of the Theban tombs, for the reason that these animals, in Ramesside times, had ceased to be bred in a state of domestication. The horse, on the other hand, had been imported into the valley of the Nile, and is depicted pawing the ground where formerly the gazelle was seen cropping the pasturage. The trades are also more numerous and complicated; the workmen's tools are more elaborate; the actions of the deceased are more varied and personal. In former times, when first the rules of tomb decoration were formulated, the notion of future retribution either did not exist, or was but dimly conceived. The deeds which he had done here on earth in no wise influenced the fate which awaited the man after death. Whether good or bad, from the moment when the funeral rites were performed and the necessary prayers recited, he was rich and happy. In order to establish his identity, it was enough to record his name, his title, and his parentage; his past was taken for granted. But when once a belief in rewards and punishments to come had taken possession of men's minds, they bethought them of the advisability of giving to each dead man the benefit of his individual merits. To the official register of his social status, they now therefore added a brief biographical notice. At first, this consisted of only a few words; but towards the time of the Sixth Dynasty (as where Ûna recounts his public services under four kings), these few words developed into pages of contemporary history. With the beginning of the New Empire, tableaux and inscriptions combine to immortalise the deeds of the owner of the tomb. Khnûmhotep of Beni Hasan records in full the origin and greatness of his ancestors. Khetî displays upon his walls all the incidents of a military life--parades, war-dances, sieges, and sanguinary battle scenes. In this respect, as in all others, the Eighteenth Dynasty perpetuated the tradition of preceding ages. Aï, in his fine tomb at Tell el Amarna, recounts the episode of his marriage with the daughter of Khûenaten. Neferhotep of Thebes, having received from Horemheb the decoration of the Golden Collar, complacently reproduces every little incident of his investiture, the words spoken by the king, as also the year and the day when this crowning reward was conferred upon him. Another, having conducted a survey, is seen attended by his subordinates with their measuring chains; elsewhere he superintends a census of the population, just as Ti formerly superintended the numbering of his cattle. The stela partakes of these new characteristics in wall-decoration. In addition to the usual prayers, it now proclaims the praises of the deceased, and gives a summary of his life. This is too seldom followed by a list of his honours with their dates. When space permitted, the vault was excavated immediately below the chapel. The shaft was sometimes sunk in a corner of one of the chambers, and sometimes outside, in front of the door of the tomb. In the great cemeteries, as for instance at Thebes and Memphis, the superposition of these three parts--the chapel, the shaft, and the vault--was not always possible. If the shaft were carried to its accustomed depth, there was sometimes the risk of breaking into tombs excavated at a lower level. This danger was met either by driving a long passage into the rock, and then sinking the shaft at the farther end, or by substituting a slightly sloping or horizontal disposition of the parts for the old vertical arrangement of the mastaba model. The passage in this case opens from the centre of the end wall, its average length being from 20 to 130 feet. The sepulchral vault is always small and plain, as well as the passage. Under the Theban dynasties, as under the Memphite kings, the Soul dispensed with decorations; but whenever the walls of the vault are decorated, the figures and inscriptions are found to relate chiefly to the life of the Soul, and very slightly to the life of the Double. In the tomb of Horhotep, which is of the time of the Ûsertesens, and in similar rock-cut sepulchres, the walls (except on the side of the door) are divided into two registers. The upper row belongs to the Double, and contains, besides the table of offerings, pictured representations of the same objects which are seen in certain mastabas of the Sixth Dynasty; namely, stuffs, jewels, arms, and perfumes, all needful to Horhotep for the purpose of imparting eternal youth to his limbs. The lower register belonged to both the Soul and the Double, and is inscribed with extracts from a variety of liturgical writings, such as _The Book of the Dead_, the _Ritual of Embalmment_, and the _Funeral Ritual_, all of which were possessed of magic properties which protected the Soul and supported the Double. The stone sarcophagus, and even the coffin, are also covered with closely-written inscriptions. Precisely as the stela epitomised the whole chapel, so did the sarcophagus and coffin epitomise the sepulchral chamber, thus forming, as it were, a vault within a vault. Texts, tableaux, all thereon depicted, treat of the life of the Soul, and of its salvation in the world to come. At Thebes, as at Memphis, the royal tombs are those which it is most necessary to study, in order to estimate the high degree of perfection to which the decoration of passages and sepulchral chambers was now carried. The most ancient were situated either in the plain or on the southern slopes of the western mountain; and of these, no remains are extant. The mummies of Amenhotep I., and Thothmes III., of Sekenenra, and Aahhotep have survived the dwellings of solid stone designed for their protection. Towards the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty, however, all the best places were taken up, and some unoccupied site in which to establish a new royal cemetery had to be sought. At first they went to a considerable distance, namely, to the end of the valley (known as the Western Valley), which opens from near Drah Abû'l Neggeh. Amenhotep III., Aï, and perhaps others, were there buried. Somewhat later, they preferred to draw nearer to the city of the living. Behind the cliff which forms the northern boundary of the plain of Thebes, there lay a kind of rocky hollow closed in on every side, and accessible from the outer world by only a few perilous paths. It divides into two branches, which cross almost at right angles. One branch turns to the south-east, while the other, which again divides into secondary branches, turns to the south-west. Westward rises a mountain which recalls upon a gigantic scale the outline of the great step-pyramid of Sakkarah (fig. 137). The Egyptian engineers of the time observed that this hollow was separated from the ravine of Amenhotep III. by a mere barrier some 500 cubits in thickness. In this there was nothing to dismay such practised miners. They therefore cut a trench some fifty or sixty cubits deep through the solid rock, at the end of which a narrow passage opens like a gateway into the hidden valley beyond. Was it in the time of Horemheb, or during the reign of Rameses I., that this gigantic work was accomplished? Rameses I. is, at all events, the earliest king whose tomb has as yet been found in this spot. His son, Seti I., then his grandson, Rameses II., came hither to rest beside him. The Ramesside Pharaohs followed one after the other. Herhor may perhaps have been the last of the series. These crowded catacombs caused the place to be called "The Valley of the Tombs of the Kings,"--a name which it retains to this day. These tombs are not complete. Each had its chapel; but those chapels stood far away in the plain, at Gûrneh, at the Ramesseum, at Medinet Habû; and they have already been described. The Theban rock, like the Memphite pyramid, contained only the passages and the sepulchral chamber. During the daytime, the pure Soul was in no serious danger; but in the evening, when the eternal waters which flow along the vaulted heavens fall in vast cascades adown the west and are engulfed in the bowels of the earth, the Soul follows the bark of the Sun and its escort of luminary gods into a lower world bristling with ambuscades and perils. For twelve hours, the divine squadron defiles through long and gloomy corridors, where numerous genii, some hostile, some friendly, now struggle to bar the way, and now aid it in surmounting the difficulties of the journey. Great doors, each guarded by a gigantic serpent, were stationed at intervals, and led to an immense hall full of flame and fire, peopled by hideous monsters and executioners whose office it was to torture the damned. Then came more dark and narrow passages, more blind gropings in the gloom, more strife with malevolent genii, and again the joyful welcoming of the propitious gods. At midnight began the upward journey towards the eastern regions of the world; and in the morning, having reached the confines of the Land of Darkness, the sun emerged from the east to light another day. The tombs of the kings were constructed upon the model of the world of night. They had their passages, their doors, their vaulted halls, which plunged down into the depths of the mountain. Their positions in the valley were determined by no consideration of dynasty or succession. [Illustration: Fig. 156.--Plan of tomb of Rameses IV.] [Illustration: Fig. 157.--Plan of tomb of Rameses IV., from Turin papyrus.] [Illustration: Fig. 158.--Plan of tomb of Seti I.] Each king attacked the rock at any point where he might hope to find a suitable bed of stone; and this was done with so little regard for his predecessors, that the workmen were sometimes obliged to change the direction of the excavation in order not to invade a neighbouring catacomb. The designer's plan was a mere sketch, to be modified when necessary, and which was by no means intended to be strictly carried out. Hence the plan and measurement of the actual tomb of Rameses IV. (fig. 156) differ in the outline of the sides and in the general arrangement from the plan of that same tomb which is preserved on a papyrus in the Turin Museum (fig. 153). Nothing, however, could be more simple than the ordinary distribution of the parts. A square door, very sparingly ornamented, opened upon a passage leading to a chamber of more or less extent. From the further end of this chamber opened a second passage leading to a second chamber, and thence sometimes to more chambers, the last of which contained the sarcophagus. In some tombs, the whole excavation is carried down a gently inclined plane, broken perhaps by only one or two low steps between the entrance and the end. In others, the various parts follow each other at lower and lower levels. In the catacomb of Seti I. (fig. 158) a long and narrow flight of stairs and a sloping corridor (A) lead to a little antechamber and two halls (B) supported on pillars. A second staircase (C) leads through a second antechamber to another pillared hall (D), which was the hiding-place of the sarcophagus. The tomb did not end here. A third staircase (E) opening from the end of the principal hall was in progress, and would no doubt have led to more halls and chambers, had not the work been stopped by the death of the king.[33] If we go from catacomb to catacomb, we do not find many variations from this plan. The entrance passage in the tomb of Rameses III. is flanked by eight small lateral chambers. In almost every other instance, the lesser or greater length of the passages, and the degree of finish given to the wall paintings, constitute the only differences between one tomb and another. The smallest of these catacombs comes to an end at fifty-three feet from the entrance; that of Seti I., which is the longest, descends to a distance of 470 feet, and there remains unfinished. The same devices to which the pyramid builders had recourse, in order to mislead the spoiler, were adopted by the engineers of the Theban catacombs. False shafts were sunk which led to nothing, and walls sculptured and painted were built across the passages. When the burial was over, the entrance was filled up with blocks of rock, and the natural slope of the mountain side was restored as skilfully as might be. [Illustration: Fig. 159.--Wall-painting of the Fields of Aalû, tomb of Rameses III.] The most complete type of this class of catacomb is that left to us by Seti I.; figures and hieroglyphs alike are models of pure design and elegant execution. The tomb of Rameses III. already points to decadence. It is for the most part roughly painted. Yellow is freely laid on, and the raw tones of the reds and blues are suggestive of the early daubs of our childhood. Mediocrity ere long reigned supreme, the outlines becoming more feeble, the colour more and more glaring, till the latest tombs are but caricatures of those of Seti I. and Rameses III. The decoration is always the same, and is based on the same principles as the decoration of the pyramids. At Thebes as at Memphis, the intention was to secure to the Double the free enjoyment of his new abode, and to usher the Soul into the company of the gods of the solar cycle and the Osirian cycle, as well as to guide it through the labyrinth of the infernal regions. But the Theban priests exercised their ingenuity to bring before the eyes of the deceased all that which the Memphites consigned to his memory by means of writing, thus enabling him to see what he had formerly been obliged to read upon the walls of his tomb. Where the texts of the pyramid of Ûnas relate how Ûnas, being identified with the sun, navigates the celestial waters or enters the Fields of Aalû, the pictured walls of the tomb of Seti I. show Seti sailing in the solar bark, while a side chamber in the tomb of Rameses III. shows Rameses III. in the Fields of Aalû (fig. 159). Where the walls of the pyramid of Ûnas give the prayers recited over the mummy to open his mouth, to restore the use of his limbs, to clothe, to perfume, to feed him, the walls of Seti's catacomb contain representations of the actual mummy, of the Ka statues which are the supports of his Double, and of the priests who open their mouths, who clothe them, perfume them, and offer them the various meats and drinks of the funeral feast. The ceilings of the pyramid chambers were sprinkled over with stars to resemble the face of the heavens; but there was nothing to instruct the Soul as to the names of those heavenly bodies. On the ceilings of some of the Theban catacombs, we not only find the constellations depicted, each with its personified image, but astronomical tables giving the aspect of the heavens fortnight by fortnight throughout the months of the Egyptian year, so that the Soul had but to lift its eyes and see in what part of the firmament its course lay night after night. Taken as a series, these tableaux form an illustrated narrative of the travels of the sun and the Soul throughout the twenty-four hours of the day and night. Each hour is represented, as also the domain of each hour with its circumscribed boundary, the door of which is guarded by a huge serpent. These serpents have their various names, as "Fire-Face," "Flaming Eye," "Evil Eye," etc. The fate of Souls was decided in the third hour of the day. They were weighed by the god Thoth, who consigned them to their future abode according to the verdict of the scales. The sinful Soul was handed over to the cynocephalous-ape assessors of the infernal tribunal, who hunted and scourged it, after first changing it into a sow, or some other impure animal. The righteous Soul, on the contrary, passed in the fifth hour into the company of his fellows, whose task it was to cultivate the Fields of Aalû and reap the corn of the celestial harvest, after which they took their pleasure under the guardianship of the good genii. After the fifth hour, the heavenly ocean became a vast battlefield. The gods of light pursued, captured, and bound the serpent Apapi, and at the twelfth hour they strangled him. But this triumph was not of long duration. Scarcely had the sun achieved this victory when his bark was borne by the tide into the realm of the night hours, and from that moment he was assailed, like Virgil and Dante at the Gates of Hell, by frightful sounds and clamourings. Each circle had its voice, not to be confounded with the voices of other circles. Here the sound was as an immense humming of wasps; yonder it was as the lamentations of women for their husbands, and the howling of she-beasts for their mates; elsewhere it was as the rolling of the thunder. The sarcophagus, as well as the walls, was covered with these scenes of joyous or sinister import. It was generally of red or black granite. As it was put in hand last of all, it frequently happened that the sculptors had not time to finish it. When finished, however, the scenes and texts with which it was covered contained an epitome of the whole catacomb.[34] Thus, lying in his sarcophagus, the dead man found his future destinies depicted thereon, and learned to understand the blessedness of the gods. The tombs of private persons were not often so elaborately decorated. Two tombs of the period of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty--that of Petamenoph at Thebes and that of Bakenrenf at Memphis--compete in this respect, however, with the royal catacombs. Their walls are not only sculptured with the text (more or less complete) of _The Book of the Dead_, but also with long extracts from _The Book of the Opening of the Mouth_ and the religious formulae found in the pyramids. As every part of the tomb had its special decoration, so also it had its special furniture. Of the chapel furniture few traces have been preserved. The table of offerings, which was of stone, is generally all that remains. The objects placed in the _serdab_, in the passages, and in the sepulchral chamber, have suffered less from the ravages of time and the hand of man. During the Ancient Empire, the funerary portrait statues were always immured in the _serdab_. The sepulchral vault contained, besides the sarcophagus, head-rests of limestone or alabaster; geese carved in stone; sometimes (though rarely) a scribe's palette; generally some terra-cotta vases of various shapes: and lastly a store of food-cereals, and the bones of the victims sacrificed on the day of burial. Under the Theban Dynasties, the household goods of the dead were richer and more numerous. The Ka statues of his servants and family, which in former times were placed in the _serdab_ with those of the master, were now consigned to the vault, and made on a smaller scale. On the other hand, many objects which used to be merely depicted on the walls were now represented by models, or by actual specimens. Thus we find miniature funeral boats, with crew, mummy, mourners, and friends complete; imitation bread-offerings of baked clay, erroneously called "funerary cones," stamped with the name of the deceased; bunches of grapes in glazed ware; and limestone moulds wherewith the deceased was supposed to make pottery models of oxen, birds, and fish, which should answer the purpose of fish, flesh, and fowl. Toilet and kitchen utensils, arms, and instruments of music abound. These are mostly broken--piously slain, in order that their souls should go hence to wait upon the soul of the dead man in the next world. Little statuettes in stone, wood, and enamel--blue, green, and white--are placed by hundreds, and even by thousands, with these piles of furniture, arms, and provisions. Properly speaking, they are reduced _serdab_-statues, destined, like their larger predecessors, to serve as bodies for the Double, and (by a later conception) for the Soul. They were at first represented clothed like the individual whose name they bore. As time went on, their importance dwindled, and their duties were limited to merely answering for their master when called by Thoth to the _corvée_, and acting as his substitutes when he was summoned by the gods to work in the Fields of Aalû. Thenceforth they were called "Respondents" (_Ûshabtiû_), and were represented with agricultural implements in their hands. No longer clothed as the man was clothed when living, they were made in the semblance of a mummified corpse, with only the face and hands unbandaged. The so-called "canopic vases," with lids fashioned like heads of hawks, cynocephali, jackals, and men, were reserved from the time of the Eleventh Dynasty for the viscera, which were extracted from the body by the embalmers. As for the mummy, it continued, as time went on, to be more and more enwrapped in _cartonnage_, and more liberally provided with papyri and amulets; each amulet forming an essential part of its magic armour, and serving to protect its limbs and soul from destruction. Theoretically, every Egyptian was entitled to an eternal dwelling constructed after the plan which I have here described with its successive modifications; but the poorer folk were fain to do without those things which were the necessities of the wealthier dead. They were buried wherever it was cheapest--in old tombs which had been ransacked and abandoned; in the natural clefts of the rock; or in common pits. At Thebes, in the time of the Ramessides, great trenches dug in the sand awaited their remains. The funeral rites once performed, the grave-diggers cast a thin covering of sand over the day's mummies, sometimes in lots of two or three, and sometimes in piles which they did not even take the trouble to lay in regular layers. Some were protected only by their bandages; others were wrapped about with palm-branches, lashed in the fashion of a game-basket. Those most cared for lie in boxes of rough-hewn wood, neither painted nor inscribed. Many are huddled into old coffins which have not even been altered to suit the size of the new occupant, or into a composite contrivance made of the fragments of three or four broken mummy-cases. As to funerary furniture, it was out of the question for such poor souls as these. A pair of sandals of painted cardboard or plaited reeds; a staff for walking along the heavenly highways; a ring of enamelled ware; a bracelet or necklace of little blue beads; a tiny image of Ptah, of Osiris, of Anubis, of Hathor, or of Bast; a few mystic eyes or scarabs; and, above all, a twist or two of cord round the arm, the neck, the leg, or the body, intended to preserve the corpse from magical influences,--are the only possessions of the pauper dead. [31] For a full account of the Twelfth Dynasty tombs at Beni Hasan and El Bersheh see the first memoirs of the _Archaeological Survey of the Egypt Exploration Fund_. [32] The steps are shown in fig. 150. They were discovered by General Sir F. Grenfell in 1885. Noting the remains of two parallel walls running up from the water's edge to a part of the cliff which had evidently been escarped and presented a vertical face, General Grenfell caused the sand to be cleared, thus disclosing the entrances to several rock- cut tombs dating from the Sixth and Twelfth Dynasties, as well as two flights of steps on either side of an inclined plane leading from the Nile bank to the door of one of the tombs. The distance between the two walls is ten feet. The steps are eighteen inches deep, and 250 in number. The steps were for the haulers, the mummies and sarcophagi being dragged up the inclined plane. (See p. 209.)--A.B.E. [33] M. Léfébure has lately produced a superb and elaborate volume on this tomb, with the whole of the texts and the wall decorations faithfully reproduced: _Mémoires publiés par les Membres de la Mission du Caire_, Vol. II., fasc. I.--A.B.E. [34] We have in this country two very fine specimens of inscribed sarcophagi; namely, that of Seti I., of beautiful alabaster, in the Soane collection (xixth Dyn.), and that of Queen Ankhnesraneferab (xxvith Dyn.) in the British Museum.--A.B.E. CHAPTER IV. _PAINTING AND SCULPTURE_. The statues and bas-reliefs which decorated the temples and tombs of Ancient Egypt were for the most part painted. Coloured stones, such as granite, basalt, diorite, serpentine, and alabaster, sometimes escaped this law of polychrome; but in the case of sandstone, limestone, or wood it was rigorously enforced. If sometimes we meet with uncoloured monuments in these materials, we may be sure that the paint has been accidentally rubbed off, or that the work is unfinished. The sculptor and the painter were therefore inseparably allied. The first had no sooner finished his share of the task than the other took it up; and the same artist was often as skilful a master of the brush as of the chisel. I.--DRAWING AND COMPOSITION. Of the system upon which drawing was taught by the Egyptian masters, we know nothing. They had learned from experience to determine the general proportions of the body, and the invariable relations of the various parts one with another; but they never troubled themselves to tabulate those proportions, or to reduce them to a system. Nothing in what remains to us of their works justifies the belief that they ever possessed a canon based upon the length of the human finger or foot. Theirs was a teaching of routine, and not of theory. Models executed by the master were copied over and over again by his pupils, till they could reproduce them with absolute exactness. That they also studied from the life is shown by the facility with which they seized a likeness, or rendered the characteristics and movements of different kinds of animals. They made their first attempts upon slabs of limestone, on drawing boards covered with a coat of red or white stucco, or on the backs of old manuscripts of no value. New papyrus was too dear to be spoiled by the scrawls of tyros. Having neither pencil nor stylus, they made use of the reed, the end of which, when steeped in water, opened out into small fibres, and made a more or less fine brush according to the size of the stem. The palette was of thin wood, in shape a rectangular oblong, with a groove in which to lay the brush at the lower end. At the upper end were two or more cup-like hollows, each fitted with a cake of ink; black and red being the colours most in use. A tiny pestle and mortar for colour-grinding (fig. 160), and a cup of water in which to clip and wash the brush, completed the apparatus of the student. Palette in hand, he squatted cross-legged before his copy, and, without any kind of support for his wrist, endeavoured to reproduce the outline in black. The master looked over his work when done, and corrected the errors in red ink. [Illustration: Fig. 160.--Pestle and mortar for grinding colours.] [Illustration: Fig. 161.--Comic sketch on ostrakon in New York Museum.] [Illustration: Fig. 162.--Vignette from _The Book of the Dead_, Saïte period] [Illustration: Fig. 163.--Vignette from _The Book of the Dead_, from the papyrus of Hûnefer.] The few designs which have come down to us are drawn on pieces of limestone, and are for the most part in sufficiently bad preservation. The British Museum possesses two or three subjects in red outline, which may perhaps have been used as copies by the decorators of some Theban tomb about the time of the Twentieth Dynasty. A fragment in the Museum of Gizeh contains studies of ducks or geese in black ink; and at Turin may be seen a sketch of a half-nude female figure bending backwards, as about to turn a somersault. The lines are flowing, the movement is graceful, the modelling delicate. The draughtsman was not hampered then as now, by the rigidity of the instrument between his fingers. The reed brush attacked the surface perpendicularly; broadened, diminished, or prolonged the line at will; and stopped or turned with the utmost readiness. So supple a medium was admirably adapted to the rapid rendering of the humorous or ludicrous episodes of daily life. The Egyptians, naturally laughter-loving and satirical, were caricaturists from an early period. One of the Turin papyri chronicles the courtship of a shaven priest and a songstress of Amen in a series of spirited vignettes; while on the back of the same sheet are sketched various serio-comic scenes, in which animals parody the pursuits of civilised man. An ass, a lion, a crocodile, and an ape are represented in the act of giving a vocal and instrumental concert; a lion and a gazelle play at draughts; the Pharaoh of all the rats, in a chariot drawn by dogs, gallops to the assault of a fortress garrisoned by cats; a cat of fashion, with a flower on her head, has come to blows with a goose, and the hapless fowl, powerless in so unequal a contest, topples over with terror. Cats, by the way, were the favourite animals of Egyptian caricaturists. An ostrakon in the New York Museum depicts a cat of rank _en grande toilette_, seated in an easy chair, and a miserable Tom, with piteous mien and tail between his legs, serving her with refreshments (fig. 161). Our catalogue of comic sketches is brief; but the abundance of pen-drawings with which certain religious works were illustrated compensates for our poverty in secular subjects. These works are _The Book of the Dead_ and _The Book of Knowing That which is in Hades_, which were reproduced by hundreds, according to standard copies preserved in the temples, or handed down through families whose hereditary profession it was to conduct the services for the dead. When making these illustrations, the artist had no occasion to draw upon his imagination. He had but to imitate the copy as skilfully as he could. Of _The Book of Knowing That which is in Hades_ we have no examples earlier than the time of the Twentieth Dynasty, and these are poor enough in point of workmanship, the figures being little better than dot-and-line forms, badly proportioned and hastily scrawled. The extant specimens of _The Book of the Dead_ are so numerous that a history of the art of miniature painting in ancient Egypt might be compiled from this source alone. The earliest date from the Eighteenth Dynasty, the more recent being contemporary with the first Caesars. The oldest copies are for the most part remarkably fine in execution. Each chapter has its vignette representing a god in human or animal form, a sacred emblem, or the deceased in adoration before a divinity. These little subjects are sometimes ranged horizontally at the top of the text, which is written in vertical columns (fig. 162); sometimes, like the illuminated capitals in our mediaeval manuscripts, they are scattered throughout the pages. At certain points, large subjects fill the space from top to bottom of the papyrus. The burial scene comes at the beginning; the judgment of the soul about the middle; and the arrival of the deceased in the Fields of Aalû at the end of the work. In these, the artist seized the opportunity to display his skill, and show what he could do. We here see the mummy of Hûnefer placed upright before his stela and his tomb (fig. 163). The women of his family bewail him; the men and the priest present offerings. The papyri of the princes and princesses of the family of Pinotem in the Museum of Gizeh show that the best traditions of the art were yet in force at Thebes in the time of the Twenty-first Dynasty. Under the succeeding dynasties, that art fell into rapid decadence, and during some centuries the drawings continue to be coarse and valueless. The collapse of the Persian rule produced a period of Renaissance. Tombs of the Greek time have yielded papyri with vignettes carefully executed in a dry and minute style which offers a singular contrast to the breadth and boldness of the Pharaonic ages. The broad-tipped reed-pen was thrown aside for the pen with a fine point, and the scribes vied with each other as to which should trace the most attenuated lines. The details with which they overloaded their figures, the elaboration of the beard and the hair, and the folds of the garments, are sometimes so minute that it is scarcely possible to distinguish them without a magnifying glass. Precious as these documents are, they give a very insufficient idea of the ability and technical methods of the artists of ancient Egypt. It is to the walls of their temples and tombs that we must turn, if we desire to study their principles of composition. [Illustration: Figs. 164 and 165.--Scenes from the tomb of Khnûmhotep at Beni Hasan, Twelfth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 166.--From a tomb-painting in the British Museum, Eighteenth Dynasty.] Their conventional system differed materially from our own. Man or beast, the subject was never anything but a profile relieved against a flat background. Their object, therefore, was to select forms which presented a characteristic outline capable of being reproduced in pure line upon a plane surface. As regarded animal life, the problem was in no wise complicated. The profile of the back and body, the head and neck, carried in undulating lines parallel with the ground, were outlined at one sweep of the pencil. The legs also are well detached from the body. The animals themselves are lifelike, each with the gait and action and flexion of the limbs peculiar to its species. The slow and measured tread of the ox; the short step, the meditative ear, the ironical mouth of the ass; the abrupt little trot of the goat, the spring of the hunting greyhound, are all rendered with invariable success of outline and expression. Turning from domestic animals to wild beasts, the perfection of treatment is the same. The calm strength of the lion in repose, the stealthy and sleepy tread of the leopard, the grimace of the ape, the slender grace of the gazelle and the antelope, have never been better expressed than in Egypt. But it was not so easy to project man--the whole man--upon a plane surface without some departure from nature. A man cannot be satisfactorily reproduced by means of mere lines, and a profile outline necessarily excludes too much of his person. The form of the forehead and the nose, the curvature of the lips, the cut of the ear, disappear when the head is drawn full face; but, on the other hand, it is necessary that the bust should be presented full face, in order to give the full development of the shoulders, and that the two arms may be visible to right and left of the body. The contours of the trunk are best modelled in a three-quarters view, whereas the legs show to most advantage when seen sidewise. The Egyptians did not hesitate to combine these contradictory points of view in one single figure. The head is almost always given in profile, but is provided with a full-face eye and placed upon a full-face bust. The full-face bust adorns a trunk seen from a three-quarters point of view, and this trunk is supported upon legs depicted in profile. Very seldom do we meet with figures treated according to our own rules of perspective. Most of the minor personages represented in the tomb of Khnûmhotep seem, however, to have made an effort to emancipate themselves from the law of malformation. Their bodies are given in profile, as well as their heads and legs; but they thrust forward first one shoulder and then the other, in order to show both arms (fig. 164), and the effect is not happy. Yet, if we examine the treatment of the farm servant who is cramming a goose, and, above all, the figure of the standing man who throws his weight upon the neck of a gazelle to make it kneel down (fig. 165), we shall see that the action of the arms and hips is correctly rendered, that the form of the back is quite right, and that the prominence of the chest--thrown forward in proportion as the shoulders and arms are thrown back--is drawn without any exaggeration. The wrestlers of the Beni Hasan tombs, the dancers and servants of the Theban catacombs, attack, struggle, posture, and go about their work with perfect naturalness and ease (fig. 166). These, however, are exceptions. Tradition, as a rule, was stronger than nature, and to the end of the chapter, the Egyptian masters continued to deform the human figure. Their men and women are actual monsters from the point of view of the anatomist; and yet, after all, they are neither so ugly nor so ridiculous as might be supposed by those who have seen only the wretched copies so often made by our modern artists. The wrong parts are joined to the right parts with so much skill that they seem to have grown there. The natural lines and the fictitious lines follow and complement each other so ingeniously, that the former appear to give rise of necessity to the latter. The conventionalities of Egyptian art once accepted, we cannot sufficiently admire the technical skill displayed by the draughtsman. His line was pure, firm, boldly begun, and as boldly prolonged. Ten or twelve strokes of the brush sufficed to outline a figure the size of life. The whole head, from the nape of the neck to the rise of the throat above the collar-bone, was executed at one sweep. Two long undulating lines gave the external contour of the body from the armpits to the ends of the feet. Two more determined the outlines of the legs, and two the arms. The details of costume and ornaments, at first but summarily indicated, were afterwards taken up one by one, and minutely finished. We may almost count the locks of the hair, the plaits of the linen, the inlayings of the girdles and bracelets. This mixture of artless science and intentional awkwardness, of rapid execution and patient finish, excludes neither elegance of form, nor grace of attitude, nor truth of movement. These personages are of strange aspect, but they live; and to those who will take the trouble to look at them without prejudice, their very strangeness has a charm about it which is often lacking to works more recent in date and more strictly true to nature. [Illustration: Fig. 167.--Funerary repast, tomb of Horemheb, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 168.--From a wall-painting, Thebes, Ramesside period.] We admit, then, that the Egyptians could draw. Were they, as it has been ofttimes asserted, ignorant of the art of composition? We will take a scene at hazard from a Theban tomb--that scene which represents the funerary repast offered to Prince Horemheb by the members of his family (fig. 167). The subject is half ideal, half real. The dead man, and those belonging to him who are no longer of this world, are depicted in the society of the living. They are present, yet aloof. They assist at the banquet, but they do not actually take part in it. Horemheb sits on a folding stool to the left of the spectator. He dandles on his knee a little princess, daughter of Amenhotep III., whose foster-father he was, and who died before him. His mother, Sûit, sits at his right hand a little way behind, enthroned in a large chair. She holds his arm with her left hand, and with the right she offers him a lotus blossom and bud. A tiny gazelle which was probably buried with her, like the pet gazelle discovered beside Queen Isiemkheb in the hiding-place at Deir el Baharî, is tied to one of the legs of the chair. This ghostly group is of heroic size, the rule being that gods are bigger than men, kings bigger than their subjects, and the dead bigger than the living. Horemheb, his mother, and the women standing before them, occupy the front level, or foreground. The relations and friends are ranged in line facing their deceased ancestors, and appear to be talking one with another. The feast has begun. The jars of wine and beer, placed in rows upon wooden stands, are already unsealed. Two young slaves rub the hands and necks of the living guests with perfumes taken from an alabaster vase. Two women dressed in robes of ceremony present offerings to the group of dead, consisting of vases filled with flowers, perfumes, and grain. These they place in turn upon a square table. Three others dance, sing, and play upon the lute, by way of accompaniment to those acts of homage. In the picture, as in fact, the tomb is the place of entertainment. There is no other background to the scene than the wall covered with hieroglyphs, along which the guests were seated during the ceremony. Elsewhere, the scene of action, if in the open country, is distinctly indicated by trees and tufts of grass; by red sand, if in the desert; and by a maze of reeds and lotus plants, if in the marshes. A lady of quality comes in from a walk (fig. 168). One of her daughters, being athirst, takes a long draught from a "gûllah"; two little naked children with shaven heads, a boy and a girl, who ran to meet their mother at the gate, are made happy with toys brought home and handed to them by a servant. A trellised enclosure covered with vines, and trees laden with fruit, are shown above; yonder, therefore, is the garden, but the lady and her daughters have passed through it without stopping, and are now indoors. The front of the house is half put in and half left out, so that we may observe what is going on inside. We accordingly see three attendants hastening to serve their mistresses with refreshments. The picture is not badly composed, and it would need but little alteration if transferred to a modern canvas. The same old awkwardness, or rather the same old obstinate custom, which compelled the Egyptian artist to put a profile head upon a full-face bust, has, however, prevented him from placing his middle distance and background behind his foreground. He has, therefore, been reduced to adopt certain more or less ingenious contrivances, in order to make up for an almost complete absence of perspective. [Illustration: Fig. 169.--From wall-scene in tomb of Horemheb.] [Illustration: Fig. 170.--From wall-scene, Ramesseum.] [Illustration: Fig. 171.--Archers, as represented on walls of Medinet Habû.] Again, when a number of persons engaged in the simultaneous performance of any given act were represented on the same level, they were isolated as much as possible, so that each man's profile might not cover that of his neighbour. When this was not done, they were arranged to overlap each other, and this, despite the fact that all stood on the one level; so that they have actually but two dimensions and no thickness. A herdsman walking in the midst of his oxen plants his feet upon precisely the same ground- line as the beast which interposes between his body and the spectator. The most distant soldier of a company which advances in good marching order to the sound of the trumpet, has his head and feet on exactly the same level; as the head and feet of the foremost among his comrades (fig. 169). When a squadron of chariots defiles before Pharaoh, one would declare that their wheels all ran in the self-same ruts, were it not that the body of the first chariot partly hides the horse by which the second chariot is drawn (fig. 170). In these examples the people and objects are, either accidentally or naturally, placed so near together, that the anomaly does not strike one as too glaring. In taking these liberties, the Egyptian artist but anticipated a contrivance adopted by the Greek sculptor of a later age. Elsewhere, the Egyptian has occasionally approached nearer to truth of treatment. The archers of Rameses III. at Medinet Habû make an effort, which is almost successful, to present themselves in perspective. The row of helmets slopes downwards, and the row of bows slopes upwards, with praiseworthy regularity; but the men's feet are all on the same level, and do not, therefore, follow the direction of the other lines (fig. 171). This mode of representation is not uncommon during the Theban period. It was generally adopted when men or animals, ranged in line, had to be shown in the act of doing the same thing; but it was subject to the grave drawback (or what was in Egyptian eyes the grave drawback) of showing the body of the first man only, and of almost entirely hiding the rest of the figures. When, therefore, it was found impossible to range all upon the same level without hiding some of their number, the artist frequently broke his masses up into groups, and placed one above the other on the same vertical plane. Their height in no wise depends on the place they occupy in the perspective of the tableau, but only upon the number of rows required by the artist to carry out his idea. If two rows of figures are sufficient, he divides his space horizontally into equal parts; if he requires three rows, he divides it into three parts; and so on. When, however, it is a question of mere accessories, they are made out upon a smaller scale. Secondary scenes are generally separated by a horizontal line, but this line is not indispensable. When masses of figures formed in regular order had to be shown, the vertical planes lapped over, so to speak, according to the caprice of the limner. At the battle of Kadesh, the files of Egyptian infantry rise man above man, waist high, from top to bottom of the phalanx (fig. 172); while those of the Kheta, or Hittite battalions, show but one head above another (fig. 173). [Illustration: Fig. 172.--Phalanx of Egyptian infantry, Ramesseum.] [Illustration: Fig. 173.--Hittite battalion, Ramesseum.] It was not only in their treatment of men and animals that the Egyptians allowed themselves this latitude. Houses, trees, land and water, were as freely misrepresented. An oblong rectangle placed upright, or on its side, and covered with regular zigzags, represents a canal. Lest one should be in doubt as to its meaning, fishes and crocodiles are put in, to show that it is water, and nothing but water. Boats are seen floating upright upon this edgewise surface; the flocks ford it where it is shallow; and the angler with his line marks the spot where the water ends and the bank begins. Sometimes the rectangle is seen suspended like a framed picture, at about half way of the height of several palm trees (fig. 174); whereby we are given to understand a tank bordered on both sides by trees. Sometimes, again, as in the tomb of Rekhmara, the trees are laid down in rows round the four sides of a square pond, while a profile boat conveying a dead man in his shrine, hauled by slaves also shown in profile, floats on the vertical surface of the water (fig. 175). The Theban catacombs of the Ramesside period supply abundant examples of contrivances of this kind; and, having noted them, we end by not knowing which most to wonder at--the obstinacy of the Egyptians in not seeking to discover the natural laws of perspective, or the inexhaustible wealth of resource which enabled them to invent so many false relations between the various parts of their subjects. [Illustration: Fig. 174.--Pond and palm-trees, from wall painting in tomb of Rekhmara, Eighteenth Dynasty.] When employed upon a very large scale, their methods of composition shock the eye less than when applied to small subjects. We instinctively feel that even the ablest artist must sometimes have played fast and loose with the laws of perspective, if tasked to cover the enormous surfaces of Egyptian pylons. [Illustration: Fig. 175.--Scene from tomb of Rekhmara, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 176.--Scene from Mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 177.--Palestrina mosaic.] Hence the unities of the subject are never strictly observed in these enormous bas-reliefs. The main object being to perpetuate the memory of a victorious Pharaoh, that Pharaoh necessarily plays the leading part; but instead of selecting from among his striking deeds some one leading episode pre-eminently calculated to illustrate his greatness, the Egyptian artist delighted to present the successive incidents of his campaigns at a single _coup d'oeil_. Thus treated, the pylons of Luxor and the Ramesseum show a Syrian night attack upon the Egyptian camp; a seizure of spies sent by the prince of the Kheta for the express purpose of being caught and giving false intelligence of his movements; the king's household troops surprised and broken by the Khetan chariots; the battle of Kadesh and its various incidents, so furnishing us, as it were, with a series of illustrated despatches of the Syrian campaign undertaken by Rameses II. in the fifth year of his reign. After this fashion precisely did the painters of the earliest Italian schools depict within the one field, and in one uninterrupted sequence, the several episodes of a single narrative. The scenes are irregularly dispersed over the surface of the wall, without any marked lines of separation, and, as with the bas-reliefs upon the column of Trajan, one is often in danger of dividing the groups in the wrong place, and of confusing the characters. This method is reserved almost exclusively for official art. In the interior decoration of temples and tombs, the various parts of the one subject are distributed in rows ranged one above the other, from the ground line to the cornice. Thus another difficulty is added to the number of those which prevent us from understanding the style and intention of Egyptian design. We often imagine that we are looking at a series of isolated scenes, when in fact we have before our eyes the _disjecta membra_ of a single composition. Take, for example, one wall-side of the tomb of Ptahhotep at Sakkarah (fig. 176). If we would discover the link which divides these separate scenes, we shall do well to compare this wall-subject with the mosaic at Palestrina (fig. 177), a monument of Graeco-Roman time which represents almost the same scenes, grouped, however, after a style more familiar to our ways of seeing and thinking. The Nile occupies the immediate foreground of the picture, and extends as far as the foot of the mountains in the distance. Towns rise from the water's edge; and not only towns, but obelisks, farm-houses, and towers of Graeco-Italian style, more like the buildings depicted in Pompeian landscapes than the monuments of the Pharaohs. Of these buildings, only the large temple in the middle distance to the right of the picture, with its pylon gateway and its four Osirian colossi, recalls the general arrangement of Egyptian architecture. To the left, a party of sportsmen in a large boat are seen in the act of harpooning the hippopotamus and crocodile. To the right, a group of legionaries, drawn up in front of a temple and preceded by a priest, salute a passing galley. Towards the middle of the foreground, in the shade of an arched trellis thrown across a small branch of the Nile, some half-clad men and women are singing and carousing. Little papyrus skiffs, each rowed by a single boatman, and other vessels fill the vacant spaces of the composition. Behind the buildings we see the commencement of the desert. The water forms large pools at the base of overhanging hills, and various animals, real or imaginary, are pursued by shaven-headed hunters in the upper part of the picture. Now, precisely after the manner of the Roman mosaicist, the old Egyptian artist placed himself, as it were, on the Nile, and reproduced all that lay between his own standpoint and the horizon. In the wall-painting (fig. 176) the river flows along the line next the floor, boats come and go, and boatmen fall to blows with punting poles and gaffs. In the division next above, we see the river bank and the adjoining flats, where a party of slaves, hidden in the long grasses, trap and catch birds. Higher still, boat-making, rope-making, and fish-curing are going on. Finally, in the highest register of all, next the ceiling, are depicted the barren hills and undulating plains of the desert, where greyhounds chase the gazelle, and hunters trammel big game with the lasso. Each longitudinal section corresponds, in fact, with a plane of the landscape; but the artist, instead of placing his planes in perspective, has treated them separately, and placed them one above the other. We find the same disposition of the parts in all Egyptian tomb paintings. Scenes of inundation and civil life are ranged along the base of the wall, mountain subjects and hunting scenes being invariably placed high up. Sometimes, interposed between these two extremes, the artist has introduced subjects dealing with the pursuits of the herdsman, the field labourer, and the craftsman. Elsewhere, he suppresses these intermediary episodes, and passes abruptly from the watery to the sandy region. Thus, the mosaic of Palestrina and the tomb-paintings of Pharaonic Egypt reproduce the same group of subjects, treated after the conventional styles and methods of two different schools of art. Like the mosaic, the wall scenes of the tomb formed, not a series of independent scenes, but an ordinary composition, the unity of which is readily recognised by such as are skilled to read the art-language of the period. 2.--TECHNICAL PROCESSES. [Illustration: Fig. 178.--Sculptor's sketch from Ancient Empire tomb.] [Illustration: Fig. 179.--Sculptor's sketch from Ancient Empire tomb.] The preparation of the surface about to be decorated demanded much time and care. Seeing how imperfect were the methods of construction, and how impossible it was for the architect to ensure a perfectly level surface for the facing stones of his temple-walls and pylons, the decorator had perforce to accommodate himself to a surface slightly rounded in some places and slightly hollowed in others. Even the blocks of which it was formed were scarcely homogeneous in texture. The limestone strata in which the Theban catacombs were excavated were almost always interspersed with flint nodules, fossils, and petrified shells. These faults were variously remedied according as the decoration was to be sculptured or painted. If painted, the wall was first roughly levelled, and then overlaid with a coat of black clay and chopped straw, similar to the mixture used for brick- making. If sculptured, then the artist had to arrange his subject so as to avoid the inequalities of the stone as much as possible. When these occurred in the midst of the figure subjects, and if they did not offer too stubborn a resistance to the chisel, they were simply worked over; otherwise the piece was cut out and a new piece fitted in, or the hole was filled up with white cement. This mending process was no trifling matter. We could point to tomb-chambers where every wall is thus inlaid to the extent of one quarter of its surface. The preliminary work being done, the whole was covered with a thin coat of fine plaster mixed with white of egg, which hid the mud-wash or the piecing, and prepared a level and polished surface for the pencil of the artist. In chambers, or parts of chambers, which have been left unfinished, and even in the quarries, we constantly find sketches of intended bas-reliefs, outlined in red or black ink. The copy was generally executed upon a small scale, then squared off, and transferred to the wall by the pupils and assistants of the master. As in certain scenes carefully copied by Prisse from the walls of Theban tombs, the subject is occasionally indicated by only two or three rapid strokes of the reed (fig. 178). Elsewhere, the outline is fully made out, and the figures only await the arrival of the sculptor. Some designers took pains to determine the position of the shoulders, and the centre of gravity of the bodies, by vertical and horizontal lines, upon which, by means of a dot, they noted the height of the knee, the hips, and other parts (fig. 179). Others again, more self-reliant, attacked their subject at once, and drew in the figures without the aid of guiding points. Such were the artists who decorated the catacomb of Seti I., and the southern walls of the temple of Abydos. Their outlines are so firm, and their facility is so surprising, that they have been suspected of stencilling; but no one who has closely examined their figures, or who has taken the trouble to measure them with a compass, can maintain that opinion. The forms of some are slighter than the forms of others; while in some the contours of the chest are more accentuated, and the legs farther apart, than in others. The master had little to correct in the work of these subordinates. Here and there he made a head more erect, accentuated or modified the outline of a knee, or improved some detail of arrangement. In one instance, however, at Kom Ombo, on the ceiling of a Graeco-Roman portico, some of the divinities had been falsely oriented, their feet being placed where their arms should have been. The master consequently outlined them afresh, and on the same squared surface, without effacing the first drawing. Here, at all events, the mistake was discovered in time. At Karnak, on the north wall of the hypostyle hall, and again at Medinet Habu, the faults of the original design were not noticed till the sculptor had finished his part of the work. The figures of Seti I. and Rameses III. were thrown too far back, and threatened to overbalance themselves; so they were smoothed over with cement and cut anew. Now, the cement has flaked off, and the work of the first chisel is exposed to view. Seti I. and Rameses III. have each two profiles, the one very lightly marked, the other boldly cut into the surface of the stone (fig. 180). [Illustration: Fig. 180.--Sculptor's correction, Medinet Habû, Rameses III.] [Illustration: Fig. 181.--Bow drill.] The sculptors of ancient Egypt were not so well equipped as those of our own day. A kneeling scribe in limestone at the Gizeh Museum has been carved with the chisel, the grooves left by the tool being visible on his skin. A statue in grey serpentine, in the same collection, bears traces of the use of two different tools, the body being spotted all over with point-marks, and the unfinished head being blocked out splinter by splinter with a small hammer. Similar observations, and the study of the monuments, show that the drill (fig. 181), the toothed-chisel, and the gouge were also employed. There have been endless discussions as to whether these tools were of iron or of bronze. Iron, it is argued, was deemed impure. No one could make use of it, even for the basest needs of daily life, without incurring a taint prejudicial to the soul both in this world and the next. But the impurity of any given object never sufficed to prevent the employment of it when required. Pigs also were impure; yet the Egyptians bred them. They bred them, indeed, so abundantly in certain districts, that our worthy Herodotus tells us how the swine were turned into the fields after seed-sowing, in order that they might tread in the grain. So also iron, like many other things in Egypt, was pure or impure according to circumstances. If some traditions held it up to odium as an evil thing, and stigmatised it as the "bones of Typhon," other traditions equally venerable affirmed that it was the very substance of the canopy of heaven. So authoritative was this view, that iron was currently known as "_Ba-en-pet_," or the celestial metal.[35] The only fragment of metal found in the great pyramid is a piece of plate- iron;[36] and if ancient iron objects are nowadays of exceptional rarity as compared with ancient bronze objects, it is because iron differs from bronze, inasmuch as it is not protected from destruction by its oxide. Rust speedily devours it, and it needs a rare combination of favourable circumstances to preserve it intact. If, however, it is quite certain that the Egyptians were acquainted with, and made use of, iron, it is no less certain that they were wholly unacquainted with steel. This being the case, one asks how they can possibly have dealt at will upon the hardest rocks, even upon such as we ourselves hesitate to attack, namely, diorite, basalt, and the granite of Syene. The manufacturers of antiquities who sculpture granite for the benefit of tourists, have found a simple solution of this problem. They work with some twenty common iron chisels at hand, which after a very few turns are good for nothing. When one is blunted, they take up another, and so on till the stock is exhausted. Then they go to the forge, and put their tools into working order again. The process is neither so long nor so difficult as might be supposed. In the Gizeh Museum is a life-size head, produced from a block of black and red granite in less than a fortnight by one of the best forgers in Luxor. I have no doubt that the ancient Egyptians worked in precisely the same way, and mastered the hardest stones by the use of iron. Practice soon taught them methods by which their labour might be lightened, and their tools made to yield results as delicate and subtle as those which we achieve with our own. As soon as the learner knew how to manage the point and the mallet, his master set him to copy a series of graduated models representing an animal in various stages of completion, or a part of the human body, or the whole human body, from the first rough sketch to the finished design (fig. 182). Every year, these models are found in sufficient number to establish examples of progressive series. Apart from isolated specimens which are picked up everywhere, the Gizeh collection contains a set of fifteen from Sakkarah, forty-one from Tanis, and a dozen from Thebes and Medinet Habû. They were intended partly for the study of bas-reliefs, partly for the study of sculpture proper; and they reveal the method in use for both.[37] [Illustration: Fig. 182.--Sculptor's trial-piece, Eighteenth Dynasty.] The Egyptians treated bas-relief in three ways: either as a simple engraving executed by means of incised lines; or by cutting away the surface of the stone round the figure, and so causing it to stand out in relief upon the wall; or by sinking the design below the wall-surface and cutting it in relief at the bottom of the hollow. The first method has the advantage of being expeditious, and the disadvantage of not being sufficiently decorative. Rameses III. made use of it in certain parts of his temple at Medinet Habû; but, as a rule, it was preferred for stelae and small monuments. The last-named method lessened not only the danger of damage to the work, but the labour of the workman. It evaded the dressing down of the background, which was a distinct economy of time, and it left no projecting work on the surface of the walls, the design being thus sheltered from accidental blows. The intermediate process was, however, generally adopted, and appears to have been taught in the schools by preference. The models were little rectangular tablets, squared off in order that the scholar might enlarge or reduce the scale of his subject without departing from the traditional proportions. Some of these models are wrought on both sides; but the greater number are sculptured on one side only. Sometimes the design represents a bull; sometimes the head of a cynocephalous ape, of a ram, of a lion, of a divinity. Occasionally, we find the subject in duplicate, side by side, being roughly blocked out to the left, and highly finished to the right. In no instance does the relief exceed a quarter of an inch, and it is generally even less. Not but that the Egyptians sometimes cut boldly into the stone. At Medinet Habû and Karnak--on the higher parts of these temples, where the work is in granite or sandstone, and exposed to full daylight--the bas-relief decoration projects full 6-3/8 inches above the surface. Had it been lower, the tableaux would have been, as it were, absorbed by the flood of light poured upon them, and to the eye of the spectator would have presented only a confused network of lines. The models designed for the study of the round are even more instructive than the rest. Some which have come down to us are plaster casts of familiar subjects. The head, the arms, the legs, the trunk, each part of the body, in short, was separately cast. If a complete figure were wanted, the _disjecta membra_ were put together, and the result was a statue of a man, or of a woman, kneeling, standing, seated, squatting, the arms extended or falling passively by the sides. This curious collection was discovered at Tanis, and dates probably from Ptolemaic times.[38] Models of the Pharaonic ages are in soft limestone, and nearly all represent portraits of reigning sovereigns. These are best described as cubes measuring about ten inches each way. The work was begun by covering one face of a cube with a network of lines crossing each other at right angles; these regulated the relative position of the features. Then the opposite side was attacked, the distances being taken from the scale on the reverse face. A mere oval was designed on this first block; a projection in the middle and a depression to right and left, vaguely indicating the whereabouts of nose and eyes. The forms become more definite as we pass from cube to cube, and the face emerges by degrees. The limit of the contours is marked off by parallel lines cut vertically from top to bottom. The angles were next cut away and smoothed down, so as to bring out the forms. Gradually the features become disengaged from the block, the eye looks out, the nose gains refinement, the mouth is developed. When the last cube is reached, there remains nothing to finish save the details of the head-dress and the basilisk on the brow. No scholar's model in basalt has yet been found;[39] but the Egyptians, like our monumental masons, always kept a stock of half-finished statues in hard stone, which could be turned out complete in a few hours. The hands, feet, and bust needed only a few last touches; but the heads were merely blocked out, and the clothing left in the rough. Half a day's work then sufficed to transform the face into a portrait of the purchaser, and to give the last new fashion to the kilt. The discovery of some two or three statues of this kind has shown us as much of the process as a series of teacher's models might have done. Volcanic rocks could not be cut with the continuity and regularity of limestone. The point only could make any impression upon these obdurate materials. When, by force of time and patience, the work had thus been finished to the degree required, there would often remain some little irregularities of surface, due, for example, to the presence of nodules and heterogeneous substances, which the sculptor had not ventured to attack, for fear of splintering away part of the surrounding surface. In order to remove these irregularities, another tool was employed; namely, a stone cut in the form of an axe. Applying the sharp edge of this instrument to the projecting nodule, the artist struck it with a round stone in place of a mallet. A succession of carefully calculated blows with these rude tools pulverised the obtrusive knob, which disappeared in dust. All minor defects being corrected, the monument still looked dull and unfinished. It was necessary to polish it, in order to efface the scars of point and mallet. This was a most delicate operation, one slip of the hand, or a moment's forgetfulness, being enough to ruin the labour of many weeks. The dexterity of the Egyptian craftsman was, however, so great that accidents rarely happened. The Sebekemsaf of Gizeh, the colossal Rameses II. of Luxor, challenge the closest examination. The play of light upon the surface may at first prevent the eye from apprehending the fineness of the work; but, seen under favourable circumstances, the details of knee and chest, of shoulder and face, prove to be no less subtly rendered in granite than in limestone. Excess of polish has no more spoiled the statues of Ancient Egypt than it spoiled those of the sculptors of the Italian Renaissance. A sandstone or limestone statue would have been deemed imperfect if left to show the colour of the stone in which it was cut, and was painted from head to foot. In bas-relief, the background was left untouched and only the figures were coloured. The Egyptians had more pigments at their disposal than is commonly supposed. The more ancient painters' palettes--and we have some which date from the Fifth Dynasty--have compartments for yellow, red, blue, brown, white, black, and green.[40] Others, of the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty, provide for three varieties of yellow, three of brown, two of red, two of blue, and two of green; making in all some fourteen or sixteen different tints. Black was obtained by calcining the bones of animals. The other substances employed in painting were indigenous to the country. The white is made of gypsum, mixed with albumen or honey; the yellows are ochre, or sulphuret of arsenic, the orpiment of our modern artists; the reds are ochre, cinnabar, or vermilion; the blues are pulverised lapis-lazuli, or silicate of copper. If the substance was rare or costly, a substitute drawn from the products of native industry was found. Lapis-lazuli, for instance, was replaced by blue frit made with an admixture of silicate of copper, and this was reduced to an impalpable powder. The painters kept their colours in tiny bags, and, as required, mixed them with water containing a little gum tragacanth. They laid them on by means of a reed, or a more or less fine hair brush. When well prepared, these pigments are remarkably solid, and have changed but little during the lapse of ages. The reds have darkened, the greens have faded, the blues have turned somewhat green or grey; but this is only on the surface. If that surface is scraped off, the colour underneath is brilliant and unchanged. Before the Theban period, no precautions were taken to protect the painter's work from the action of air and light. About the time of the Twentieth Dynasty, however, it became customary to coat painted surfaces with a transparent varnish which was soluble in water, and which was probably made from the gum of some kind of acacia. It was not always used in the same manner. Some painters varnished the whole surface, while others merely glazed the ornaments and accessories, without touching the flesh-tints or the clothing. This varnish has cracked from the effects of age, or has become so dark as to spoil the work it was intended to preserve. Doubtless, the Egyptians discovered the bad effects produced by it, as we no longer meet with it after the close of the Twentieth Dynasty. Egyptian painters laid on broad, flat, uniform washes of colour; they did not paint in our sense of the term; they illuminated. Just as in drawing they reduced everything to lines, and almost wholly suppressed the internal modelling, so in adding colour they still further simplified their subject by merging all varieties of tone, and all play of light and shadow, in one uniform tint. Egyptian painting is never quite true, and never quite false. Without pretending to the faithful imitation of nature, it approaches nature as nearly as it may; sometimes understating, sometimes exaggerating, sometimes substituting ideal or conventional renderings for strict realities. Water, for instance, is always represented by a flat tint of blue, or by blue covered with zigzag lines in black. The buff and bluish hues of the vulture are translated into bright red and vivid blue. The flesh-tints of men are of a dark reddish brown, and the flesh-tints of women are pale yellow. The colours conventionally assigned to each animate and inanimate object were taught in the schools, and their use handed on unchanged from generation to generation. Now and then it happened that a painter more daring than his contemporaries ventured to break with tradition. In the Sixth Dynasty tombs at Deir el Gebrawî, there are instances where the flesh tint of the women is that conventionally devoted to the depiction of men. At Sakkarah, under the Fifth Dynasty, and at Abû Simbel, under the Nineteenth Dynasty, we find men with skins as yellow as those of the women; while in the tombs of Thebes and Abydos, about the time of Thothmes IV. and Horemheb, there occur figures with flesh-tints of rose- colour.[41] It must not, however, be supposed that the effect produced by this artificial system was grating or discordant. Even in works of small size, such as illuminated MSS. of _The Book of the Dead_, or the decoration of mummy-cases and funerary coffers, there is both sweetness and harmony of colour. The most brilliant hues are boldly placed side by side, yet with full knowledge of the relations subsisting between these hues, and of the phenomena which must necessarily result from such relations. They neither jar together, nor war with each other, nor extinguish each other. On the contrary, each maintains its own value, and all, by mere juxtaposition, give rise to the half-tones which harmonise them. Turning from small things to large ones, from the page of papyrus, or the panel of sycamore wood, to the walls of tombs and temples, we find the skilful employment of flat tints equally soothing and agreeable to the eye. Each wall is treated as a whole, the harmony of colour being carried out from bottom to top throughout the various superimposed stages into which the surface was divided. Sometimes the colours are distributed according to a scale of rhythm, or symmetry, balancing and counterbalancing each other. Sometimes one special tint predominates, thus determining the general tone and subordinating every other hue. The vividness of the final effect is always calculated according to the quality and quantity of light by which the picture is destined to be seen. In very dark halls the force of colour is carried as far as it will go, because it would not otherwise have been visible by the flickering light of lamps and torches. On outer wall- surfaces and on pylon-fronts, it was as vivid as in the darkest depths of excavated catacombs; and this because, no matter how extreme it might be, the sun would subdue its splendour. But in half-lighted places, such as the porticoes of temples and the ante-chambers of tombs, colour is so dealt with as to be soft and discreet. In a word, painting was in Egypt the mere humble servant of architecture and sculpture. We must not dream of comparing it with our own, or even with that of the Greeks; but if we take it simply for what it is, accepting it in the secondary place assigned to it, we cannot fail to recognise its unusual merits. Egyptian painting excelled in the sense of monumental decoration, and if we ever revert to the fashion of colouring the _façades_ of our houses and our public edifices, we shall lose nothing by studying Egyptian methods or reproducing Egyptian processes. [35] The late T. Deveria ingeniously conjectured that "Ba-en-pet" (iron of heaven) might mean the ferruginous substance of meteoric stones. See _Mélanges d'Archéologie Egyptienne et Assyrienne_, vol. i.-- A.B.E. [36] The traces of tools upon the masonry show the use of bronze and jewel-points.--A.B.E. [37] Many such trial-pieces were found by Petrie in the ruins of a sculptor's house at Tell el Amarna. [38] A similar collection was found by Mr. F. Ll. Griffith at Tell Gemayemi, in 1886, during his excavations for the Egypt Exploration Fund. See Mr. Petrie's _Tanis_. Part II., Egypt Exploration Fund.--A.B.E. [39] Mr. Loftie's collection contains, however, an interesting piece of trial-work consisting of the head of a Ptolemaic queen in red granite.--A.B.E. [40] For pigments used at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, see Petrie's _Medum_. [41] The rose-coloured, or rather crimson, flesh-tints are also to be seen at El Kab, and in the famous speos at Beit el Wally, both _tempo_ Nineteenth Dynasty.--A.B.E. 3.--WORKS OF SCULPTURE. [Illustration: Fig. 183.--The Great Sphinx of Gizeh.] To this day, the most ancient statue known is a colossus--namely, the Great Sphinx of Gizeh. It was already in existence in the time of Khûfû (Cheops), and perhaps we should not be far wrong if we ventured to ascribe it to the generations before Mena, called in the priestly chronicles "the Servants of Horus." Hewn in the living rock at the extreme verge of the Libyan plateau, it seems, as the representative of Horus, to uprear its head in order to be the first to catch sight of his father, Ra, the rising sun, across the valley (fig. 183). For centuries the sands have buried it to the chin, yet without protecting it from ruin. Its battered body preserves but the general form of a lion's body. The paws and breast, restored by the Ptolemies and the Caesars, retain but a part of the stone facing with which they were then clothed in order to mask the ravages of time. The lower part of the head-dress has fallen, and the diminished neck looks too slender to sustain the enormous weight of the head. The nose and beard have been broken off by fanatics, and the red hue which formerly enlivened the features is almost wholly effaced. And yet, notwithstanding its fallen fortunes, the monster preserves an expression of sovereign strength and greatness. The eyes gaze out afar with a look of intense and profound thoughtfulness; the mouth still wears a smile; the whole countenance is informed with power and repose. The art which conceived and carved this prodigious statue was a finished art; an art which had attained self- mastery, and was sure of its effects. How many centuries had it taken to arrive at this degree of maturity and perfection? In certain pieces belonging to various museums, such as the statues of Sepa and his wife at the Louvre, and the bas-reliefs of the tomb of Khabiûsokarî at Gizeh, critics have mistakenly recognised the faltering first efforts of an unskilled people. The stiffness of attitude and gesture, the exaggerated squareness of the shoulders, the line of green paint under the eyes,--in a word, all those characteristics which are quoted as signs of extreme antiquity, are found in certain monuments of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. The contemporary sculptors of any given period were not all equally skilful. If some were capable of doing good work, the greater number were mere craftsmen; and we must be careful not to ascribe awkward manipulation, or lack of teaching, to the timidity of archaism. The works of the primitive dynasties yet sleep undiscovered beneath seventy feet of sand at the foot of the Sphinx; those of the historic dynasties are daily exhumed from the depths of the neighbouring tombs. These have not yielded Egyptian art as a whole; but they have familiarised us with one of its schools--the school of Memphis. The Delta, Hermopolis, Abydos, the environs of Thebes and Asûan[42], do not appear upon the stage earlier than towards the Sixth Dynasty; and even so, we know them through but a small number of sepulchres long since violated and despoiled. The loss is probably not very great. Memphis was the capital; and thither the presence of the Pharaohs must have attracted all the talent of the vassal principalities. Judging from the results of our excavations in the Memphite necropolis alone, it is possible to determine the characteristics of both sculpture and painting in the time of Seneferû and his successors with as much exactness as if we were already in possession of all the monuments which the valley of the Nile yet holds in reserve for future explorers. [Illustration: Fig. 184.--Panel from tomb of Hesi.] The lesser folk of the art-world excelled in the manipulation of brush and chisel, and that their skill was of a high order is testified by the thousands of tableaux they have left behind them. The relief is low; the colour sober; the composition learned. Architecture, trees, vegetation, irregularities of ground, are summarily indicated, and are introduced only when necessary to the due interpretation of the scene represented. Men and animals, on the other hand, are rendered with a wealth of detail, a truth of character, and sometimes a force of treatment, to which the later schools of Egyptian art rarely attained. Six wooden panels from the tomb of Hesi in the Gizeh Museum represent perhaps the finest known specimens of this branch of art. Mariette ascribed them to the Third Dynasty, and he may perhaps have been right; though for my own part I incline to date them from the Fifth Dynasty. In these panels there is nothing that can be called a "subject." Hesi either sits or stands (fig. 184), and has four or five columns of hieroglyphs above his head; but the firmness of line, the subtlety of modelling, the ease of execution, are unequalled. Never has wood been cut with a more delicate chisel or a firmer hand. The variety of attitude and gesture which we so much admire in the Egyptian bas-relief is lacking to the statues. A mourner weeping, a woman bruising corn for bread, a baker rolling dough, are subjects as rare in the round as they are common in bas-relief. In sculpture, the figure is generally represented either standing with the feet side by side and quite still, or with one leg advanced in the act of walking; or seated upon a chair or a cube; or kneeling; or, still more frequently, sitting on the ground cross- legged, as the fellahin are wont to sit to this day. This intentional monotony of style would be inexplicable if we were ignorant of the purpose for which such statues were intended. They represent the dead man for whom the tomb was made, his family, his servants, his slaves, and his kinsfolk. The master is always shown sitting or standing, and he could not consistently be seen in any other attitude. The tomb is, in fact, the house in which he rests after the labours of life, as once he used to rest in his earthly home; and the scenes depicted upon the walls represent the work which he was officially credited with performing. Here he superintends the preliminary operations necessary to raise the food by which he is to be nourished in the form of funerary offerings; namely, seed-sowing, harvesting, stock-breeding, fishing, hunting, and the like. In short, "he superintends all the labour which is done for the eternal dwelling." When thus engaged, he is always standing upright, his head uplifted, his hands pendent, or holding the staff and baton of command. Elsewhere, the diverse offerings are brought to him one by one, and then he sits in a chair of state. These are his two attitudes, whether as a bas-relief subject or a statue. Standing, he receives the homage of his vassals; sitting, he partakes of the family repast. The people of his household comport themselves before him as becomes their business and station. His wife either stands beside him, sits on the same chair or on a second chair by his side, or squats beside his feet as during his lifetime. His son, if a child at the time when the statue was ordered, is represented in the garb of infancy; or with the bearing and equipment proper to his position, if a man. The slaves bruise the corn, the cellarers tar the wine jars, the hired mourners weep and tear their hair. His little social world followed the Egyptian to his tomb, the duties of his attendants being prescribed for them after death, just as they had been prescribed for them during life. And the kind of influence which the religious conception of the soul exercised over the art of the sculptor did not end here. From the moment that the statue is regarded as the support of the Double, it becomes a condition of primary importance that the statue shall reproduce, at least in the abstract, the proportions and distinctive peculiarities of the corporeal body; and this in order that the Double shall more easily adapt himself to his new body of stone or wood.[43] The head is therefore always a faithful portrait; but the body, on the contrary, is, as it were, a medium kind of body, representing the original at his highest development, and consequently able to exert the fulness of his physical powers when admitted to the society of the gods. Hence men are always sculptured in the prime of life, and women with the delicate proportions of early womanhood. This conventional idea was never departed from, unless in cases of very marked deformity. The statue of a dwarf reproduced all the ugly peculiarities of the dwarf's own body; and it was important that it should so reproduce them. If a statue of the ordinary type had been placed in the tomb of the dead man, his "Ka," accustomed during life to the deformity of his limbs, would not be able to adapt itself to an upright and shapely figure, and would therefore be deprived of the conditions necessary to his future well-being. The artist was free to vary the details and arrange the accessories according to his fancy; but without missing the point of his work, he could not change the attitude, or depart from the general style of the conventional portrait statue. This persistent monotony of pose and subject produces a depressing effect upon the spectator,--an effect which is augmented by the obtrusive character given to the supports. These statues are mostly backed by a kind of rectangular pediment, which is either squared off just at the base of the skull, or carried up in a point and lost in the head-dress, or rounded at the top and showing above the head of the figure. The arms are seldom separated from the body, but are generally in one piece with the sides and hips. The whole length of the leg which is placed in advance of the other is very often connected with the pediment by a band of stone. It has been conjectured that this course was imposed upon the sculptor by reason of the imperfection of his tools, and the consequent danger of fracturing the statue when cutting away the superfluous material--an explanation which may be correct as regards the earliest schools, but which does not hold good for the time of the Fourth Dynasty. We could point to more than one piece of sculpture of that period, even in granite, in which all the limbs are free, having been cut away by means of either the chisel or the drill. If pediment supports were persisted in to the end, their use must have been due, not to helplessness, but to routine, or to an exaggerated respect for ancient method. [Illustration: Fig. 185.--The Cross-legged Scribe at the Louvre, Old Empire.] Most museums are poor in statues of the Memphite school; France and Egypt possess, however, some twenty specimens which suffice to ensure it an honourable place in the history of art. At the Louvre we have the "Cross- legged Scribe,"[44] and the statues of Skemka and Pahûrnefer; at Gizeh there are the "Sheikh el Beled"[45] and his wife, Khafra[46], Ranefer, the Prince and General Rahotep, and his wife, Nefert, a "Kneeling Scribe," and a "Cross-legged Scribe." The original of the "Cross-legged Scribe" of the Louvre was not a handsome man (fig. 185), but the vigour and fidelity of his portrait amply compensate for the absence of ideal beauty. His legs are crossed and laid flat to the ground in one of those attitudes common among Orientals, yet all but impossible to Europeans. The bust is upright, and well balanced upon the hips. The head is uplifted. The right hand holds the reed pen, which pauses in its place on the open papyrus scroll. Thus, for six thousand years he has waited for his master to go on with the long- interrupted dictation. The face is square-cut, and the strongly-marked features indicate a man in the prime of life. The mouth, wide and thin- lipped, rises slightly towards the corners, which are lost in the projecting muscles by which it is framed in. The cheeks are bony and lank; the ears are thick and heavy, and stand out well from the head; the thick, coarse hair is cut close above the brow. The eyes, which are large and well open, owe their lifelike vivacity to an ingenious contrivance of the ancient artist. The orbit has been cut out from the stone, the hollow being filled with an eye composed of enamel, white and black. The edges of the eyelids are of bronze, and a small silver nail inserted behind the iris receives and reflects the light in such wise as to imitate the light of life. The contours of the flesh are somewhat full and wanting in firmness, as would be the case in middle life, if the man's occupation debarred him from active exercise. The forms of the arm and back are in good relief; the hands are hard and bony, with fingers of somewhat unusual length; and the knees are sculptured with a minute attention to anatomical details. The whole body is, as it were, informed by the expression of the face, and is dominated by the attentive suspense which breathes in every feature. The muscles of the arm, of the bust, and of the shoulder are caught in half repose, and are ready to return at once to work. This careful observance of the professional attitude, or the characteristic gesture, is equally marked in the Gizeh Cross-legged Scribe, and in all the Ancient Empire statues which I have had an opportunity of studying. The Cross-legged Scribe of Gizeh (fig. 186) was discovered by M. de Morgan at Sakkarah in the beginning of 1893. This statue exhibits a no less surprising vigour and certainty of intention and execution on the part of the sculptor than does its fellow of the Louvre, while representing a younger man of full, firm, and supple figure. [Illustration: Fig. 186.--The Cross-legged Scribe of Gizeh, from Sakkarah.] Khafra is a king (fig. 187). He sits squarely upon his chair of state, his hands upon his knees, his chest thrown forward, his head erect, his gaze confident. Had the emblems of his rank been destroyed, and the inscription effaced which tells his name, his bearing alone would have revealed the Pharaoh. Every trait is characteristic of the man who from childhood upwards has known himself to be invested with sovereign authority. Ranefer belonged to one of the great feudal families of his time. He stands upright, his arms down, his left leg forward, in the attitude of a prince inspecting a march-past of his vassals. The countenance is haughty, the attitude bold; but Ranefer does not impress us with the almost superhuman calm and decision of Khafra. [Illustration: Fig. 187.--King Khafra, Fourth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 188.--Sheikh el Beled, Old Empire.] [Illustration: Fig. 189.--Rahotep, Ancient Empire.] General Rahotep[47] (fig. 189), despite his title and his high military rank, looks as if he were of inferior birth. Stalwart and square-cut, he has somewhat of the rustic in his physiognomy. Nefert, on the contrary (fig. 190), was a princess of the blood royal; and her whole person is, as it were, informed with a certain air of resolution and command, which the sculptor has expressed very happily. She wears a close-fitting garment, opening to a point in front. The shoulders, bosom, and bodily contours are modelled under the drapery with a grace and reserve which it is impossible to praise too highly. Her face, round and plump, is framed in masses of fine black hair, confined by a richly-ornamented bandeau. This wedded pair are in limestone, painted; the husband being coloured of a reddish brown hue, and the wife of a tawny buff. [Illustration: Fig. 190.--Nefert, wife of Rahotep, Ancient Empire.] [Illustration: Fig. 191.--Head of the Sheikh el Beled.] [Illustration: Fig. 192.--Wife of the Sheikh el Beled, Old Empire.] [Illustration: Fig. 193.--The Kneeling Scribe, Old Empire.] [Illustration: Fig. 194.--A Bread-maker, Old Empire.] Turning to the "Sheikh el Beled" (figs. 188, 191), we descend several degrees in the social scale. Raemka was a "superintendent of works," which probably means that he was an overseer of corvée labour at the time of building the great pyramids. He belonged to the middle class; and his whole person expresses vulgar contentment and self-satisfaction. We seem to see him in the act of watching his workmen, his staff of acacia wood in his hand. The feet of the statue had perished, but have been restored. The body is stout and heavy, and the neck thick. The head (fig. 191), despite its vulgarity, does not lack energy. The eyes are inserted, like those of the "Cross-legged Scribe." By a curious coincidence, the statue, which was found at Sakkarah, happened to be strikingly like the local Sheikh el Beled, or head-man, of the village. Always quick to seize upon the amusing side of an incident, the Arab diggers at once called it the "Sheikh el Beled," and it has retained the name ever since. The statue of his wife, interred beside his own, is unfortunately mutilated. It is a mere trunk, without legs or arms (fig. 192); yet enough remains to show that the figure represented a good type of the Egyptian middle-class matron, commonplace in appearance and somewhat acid of temper. The "Kneeling Scribe" of the Gizeh collection (fig. 193) belongs to the lowest middle-class rank, such as it is at the present day. Had he not been dead more than six thousand years, I could protest that I had not long ago met him face to face, in one of the little towns of Upper Egypt. He has just brought a roll of papyrus, or a tablet covered with writing, for his master's approval. Kneeling in the prescribed attitude of an inferior, his hands crossed, his shoulders rounded, his head slightly bent forward, he waits till the great man shall have read it through. Of what is he thinking? A scribe might feel some not unreasonable apprehensions, when summoned thus into the presence of his superior. The stick played a prominent part in official life, and an error of addition, a fault in orthography, or an order misunderstood, would be enough to bring down a shower of blows. The sculptor has, with inimitable skill, seized that expression of resigned uncertainty and passive gentleness which is the result of a whole life of servitude. There is a smile upon his lips, but it is the smile of etiquette, in which there is no gladness. The nose and cheeks are puckered up in harmony with the forced grimace upon the mouth. His large eyes (again in enamel) have the fixed look of one who waits vacantly, without making any effort to concentrate his sight or his thoughts upon a definite object. The face lacks both intelligence and vivacity; but his work, after all, called for no special nimbleness of wit. Khafra is in diorite; Raemka and his wife are carved in wood; the other statues named are of limestone; yet, whatever the material employed, the play of the chisel is alike free, subtle, and delicate. The head of the scribe and the bas-relief portrait of Pharaoh Menkaûhor, in the Louvre, the dwarf Nemhotep (fig. 195), and the slaves who prepare food- offerings at Gizeh, are in no wise inferior to the "Cross-legged Scribe" or the "Sheikh el Beled." The baker kneading his dough (fig. 194) is thoroughly in his work. His half-stooping attitude, and the way in which he leans upon the kneading-trough, are admirably natural. The dwarf has a big, elongated head, balanced by two enormous ears (fig. 195). He has a foolish face, an ill-shapen mouth, and narrow slits of eyes, inclining upwards to the temples. The bust is well developed, but the trunk is out of proportion with the rest of his person. The artist has done his best to disguise the lower limbs under a fine white tunic; but one feels that it is too long for the little man's arms and legs. [Illustration: Fig. 195.--The dwarf Nemhotep, Old Empire.] [Illustration: Fig. 196.--One of the Tanis Sphinxes.] The thighs could have existed only in a rudimentary form, and Nemhotep, standing as best he can upon his misshapen feet, seems to be off his balance, and ready to fall forward upon his face. It would be difficult to find another work of art in which the characteristics of dwarfdom are more cleverly reproduced. The sculpture of the first Theban empire is in close connection with that of Memphis. Methods, materials, design, composition, all are borrowed from the elder school; the only new departure being in the proportions assigned to the human figure. From the time of the Eleventh Dynasty, the legs become longer and slighter, the hips smaller, the body and the neck more slender. Works of this period are not to be compared with the best productions of the earlier centuries. The wall-paintings of Siût, of Bersheh, of Beni Hasan, and of Asûan, are not equal to those in the mastabas of Sakkarah and Gizeh; nor are the most carefully-executed contemporary statues worthy to take a place beside the "Sheikh el Beled" or the "Cross-legged Scribe." Portrait statues of private persons, especially those found at Thebes, are, so far as I have seen, decidedly bad, the execution being rude and the expression vulgar. The royal statues of this period, which are nearly all in black or grey granite, have been for the most part usurped by kings of later date. Ûsertesen III., whose head and feet are in the Louvre, was appropriated by Amenhotep III., as the sphinx of the Louvre and the colossi of Gizeh were appropriated by Rameses II. Many museums possess specimens of supposed Ramesside Pharaohs which, upon more careful inspection, we are compelled to ascribe to the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Dynasty. Those of undisputed identity, such as the Sebekhotep III. of the Louvre, the Mermashiû of Tanis, the Sebekemsaf of Gizeh, and the colossi of the Isle of Argo, though very skilfully executed, are wanting in originality and vigour. One would say, indeed, that the sculptors had purposely endeavoured to turn them all out after the one smiling and commonplace pattern. Great is the contrast when we turn from these giant dolls to the black granite sphinxes discovered by Mariette at Tanis in 1861, and by him ascribed to the Hyksos period. Here energy, at all events, is not lacking. Wiry and compact, the lion body is shorter than in sphinxes of the usual type. The head, instead of wearing the customary "klaft," or head-gear of folded linen, is clothed with an ample mane, which also surrounds the face. The eyes are small; the nose is aquiline and depressed at the tip; the cheekbones are prominent; the lower lip slightly protrudes. The general effect of the face is, in short, so unlike the types we are accustomed to find in Egypt, that it has been accepted in proof of an Asiatic origin (fig. 196). These sphinxes are unquestionably anterior to the Eighteenth Dynasty, because one of the kings of Avaris, named Apepi, has cut his name upon the shoulder of each. Arguing from this fact, it was, however, too hastily concluded that they are works of the time of that prince. On a closer examination, we see that they had already been dedicated to some Pharaoh of a yet earlier period, and that Apepi had merely usurped them; and M. Golenischeff has shown that they were made for Amenemhat III., of the Twelfth Dynasty, and with his features. Those so-called Hyksos monuments may be the products of a local school, the origin of which may have been independent, and its traditions quite different from the traditions of the Memphite workshops. But except at Abydos, El Kab, Asûan, and some two or three other places, the provincial art of ancient Egypt is so little known to us that I dare not lay too much stress upon this hypothesis. Whatever the origin of the Tanite School, it continued to exist long after the expulsion of the Hyksos invaders, since one of its best examples, a group representing the Nile of the North and the Nile of the South, bearing trays laden with flowers and fish, was consecrated by Pisebkhanû of the Twenty-first Dynasty. [Illustration: Fig. 197.--Bas-relief head of Seti I.] [Illustration: Fig. 198.--The god Amen, and Horemheb.] [Illustration: Fig. 199.--Head of a Queen, Eighteenth Dynasty.] The first three dynasties of the New Empire[48] have bequeathed us more monuments than all the others put together. Painted bas-reliefs, statues of kings and private persons, colossi, sphinxes, may be counted by hundreds between the mouths of the Nile and the fourth cataract. The old sacerdotal cities, Memphis, Thebes, Abydos, are naturally the richest; but so great was the impetus given to art, that even remote provincial towns, such as Abû Simbel, Redesîyeh, and Mesheikh, have their _chefs-d'oeuvre_, like the great cities. The official portraits of Amenhotep I. at Turin, of Thothmes I. and Thothmes III. at the British Museum, at Karnak, at Turin, and at Gizeh, are conceived in the style of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynasties, and are deficient in originality; but the bas-reliefs in temples and tombs show a marked advance upon those of the earlier ages. The modelling is finer; the figures are more numerous and better grouped; the relief is higher; the effects of perspective are more carefully worked out. The wall- subjects of Deir el Baharî, the tableaux in the tombs of Hûi, of Rekhmara, of Anna, of Khamha, and of twenty more at Thebes, are surprisingly rich, brilliant, and varied. Awakening to a sense of the picturesque, artists introduced into their compositions all those details of architecture, of uneven ground, of foreign plants, and the like, which formerly they neglected, or barely indicated. The taste for the colossal, which had fallen somewhat into abeyance since the time of the Great Sphinx, came once again to the surface, and was developed anew. Amenhotep III. was not content with statues of twenty-five or thirty feet in height, such as were in favour among his ancestors. Those which he erected in advance of his memorial chapel on the left bank of the Nile in Western Thebes, one of which is the Vocal Memnon of the classic writers, sit fifty feet high. Each was carved from a single block of sandstone, and they are as elaborately finished as though they were of ordinary size. The avenues of sphinxes which this Pharaoh marshalled before the temples of Luxor and Karnak do not come to an end at fifty or a hundred yards from the gateway, but are prolonged for great distances. In one avenue, they have the human head upon the lion's body; in another, they are fashioned in the semblance of kneeling rams. Khûenaten, the revolutionary successor of Amenhotep III., far from discouraging this movement, did what he could to promote it. Never, perhaps, were Egyptian sculptors more unrestricted than by him at Tell el Amarna. Military reviews, chariot-driving, popular festivals, state receptions, the distribution of honours and rewards by the king in person, representations of palaces, villas, and gardens, were among the subjects which they were permitted to treat; and these subjects differed in so many respects from traditional routine that they could give free play to their fancy and to their natural genius. The spirit and gusto with which they took advantage of their opportunities would scarcely be believed by one who had not seen their works at Tell el Amarna. Some of their bas-reliefs are designed in almost correct perspective; and in all, the life and stir of large crowds are rendered with irreproachable truth. The political and religious reaction which followed this reign arrested the evolution of art, and condemned sculptors and painters to return to the observance of traditional rules. Their personal influence and their teaching continued, however, to make themselves felt under Horemheb, under Seti I., and even under Rameses II. If, during more than a century, Egyptian art remained free, graceful, and refined, that improvement was due to the school of Tell el Amarna. In no instance perhaps did it produce work more perfect than the bas-reliefs of the temple of Abydos, or those of the tomb of Seti I. The head of the conqueror (fig. 197), always studied _con amore_, is a marvel of reserved and sensitive grace. Rameses II. charging the enemy at Abû Simbel is as fine as the portraits of Seti I., though in another style. The action of the arm which brandishes the lance is somewhat angular, but the expression of strength and triumph which animates the whole person of the warrior king, and the despairing resignation of the vanquished, compensate for this one defect. The group of Horemheb and the god Amen (fig. 198), in the Museum of Turin, is a little dry in treatment. The faces of both god and king lack expression, and their bodies are heavy and ill-balanced. The fine colossi in red granite which Horemheb placed against the uprights of the inner door of his first pylon at Karnak, the bas-reliefs on the walls of his speos at Silsilis, his own portrait and that of one of the ladies of his family now in the museum of Gizeh, are, so to say, spotless and faultless. The queen's face (fig. 199) is animated and intelligent; the eyes are large and prominent; the mouth is wide, but well shaped. This head is carved in hard limestone of a creamy tint which seems to soften the somewhat satirical expression of her eyes and smile. The king (fig. 200) is in black granite; and the sombre hue of the stone at once produces a mournful impression upon the spectator. His youthful face is pervaded by an air of melancholy, such as we rarely see depicted in portraits of Pharaohs of the great period. The nose is straight and delicate, the eyes are long, the lips are large, full, somewhat contracted at the corners, and strongly defined at the edges. The chin is overweighted by the traditional false beard. Every detail is treated with as much skill as if the sculptor were dealing with a soft stone instead of with a material which resisted the chisel. Such, indeed, is the mastery of the execution, that one forgets the difficulties of the task in the excellence of the results. [Illustration: Fig. 200.--Head of Horemheb.] [Illustration: Fig. 201.--Colossal statue of Rameses II., Luxor.] It is unfortunate that Egyptian artists never signed their works; for the sculptor of this portrait of Horemheb deserves to be remembered. Like the Eighteenth Dynasty, the Nineteenth Dynasty delighted in colossi. Those of Rameses II. at Luxor measured from eighteen to twenty feet in height (fig. 201); the colossal Rameses of the Ramesseum sat sixty feet high; and that of Tanis about seventy.[49] The colossi of Abû Simbel, without being of quite such formidable proportions, face the river in imposing array. To say that the decline of Egyptian art began with Rameses II. is a commonplace of contemporary criticism; yet nothing is less true than an axiom of this kind. Many statues and bas-reliefs executed during his reign are no doubt inconceivably rude and ugly; but these are chiefly found in provincial towns where the schools were indifferent, and where the artists had no fine examples before them. At Thebes, at Memphis, at Abydos, at Tanis, in those towns of the Delta where the court habitually resided, and even at Abû Simbel and Beit el Wally, the sculptors of Rameses II. yield nothing in point of excellence to those of Seti I. and Horemheb. The decadence did not begin till after the reign of Merenptah. When civil war and foreign invasion brought Egypt to the brink of destruction, the arts, like all else, suffered and rapidly declined. It is sad to follow their downward progress under the later Ramessides, whether in the wall-subjects of the royal tombs, or in the bas-reliefs of the temple of Khonsû, or on the columns of the hypostyle hall at Karnak. Wood carving maintained its level during a somewhat longer period. The admirable statuettes of priests and children at Turin date from the Twentieth Dynasty. The advent of Sheshonk and the internecine strife of the provinces at length completed the ruin of Thebes, and the school which had produced so many masterpieces perished miserably. [Illustration Fig. 202.--Queen Ameniritis.] [Illustration: Fig. 203.--The goddess Thûeris. Saïte work.] The Renaissance did not dawn till near the end of the Ethiopian Dynasty, some three hundred years later. The over-praised statue of Queen Ameniritis[50] (fig. 202) already manifests some noteworthy qualities. The limbs, somewhat long and fragile, are delicately treated; but the head is heavy, being over-weighted by the wig peculiar to goddesses. Psammetichus I., when his victories had established him upon the throne, busied himself in the restoration of the temples. Under his auspices, the valley of the Nile became one vast studio of painting and sculpture. The art of engraving hieroglyphs attained a high degree of excellence, fine statues and bas- reliefs were everywhere multiplied, and a new school arose. A marvellous command of material, a profound knowledge of detail, and a certain elegance tempered by severity, are the leading characteristics of this new school. The Memphites preferred limestone; the Thebans selected red or grey granite; but the Saïtes especially attacked basalt, breccia, and serpentine, and with these fine-grained and almost homogeneous substances, they achieved extraordinary results. They seem to have sought difficulties for the mere pleasure of triumphing over them; and we have proof of the way in which artists of real merit bestowed years and years on the chasing of sarcophagus lids and the carving of statues in blocks of the hardest material. The Thûeris, and the four monuments from the tomb of Psammetichus[51] in the Gizeh Museum, are the most remarkable objects hitherto discovered in this class of work. Thûeris[52] (fig. 203) was the especial protectress of maternity, and presided over childbirth. Her portrait was discovered by some native sebakh diggers[53] in the midst of the mounds of the ancient city of Thebes. She was found standing upright in a little chapel of white limestone which had been dedicated to her by one Pibesa, a priest, in the name of Queen Nitocris, daughter of Psammetichus I. This charming hippopotamus, whose figure is perhaps more plump than graceful, is a fine example of difficulties overcome; but I do not know that she has any other merit. The group belonging to Psammetichus has at all events some artistic value. It consists of four pieces of green basalt; namely, a table of offerings, a statue of Osiris, a statue of Nephthys, and a Hathor-cow supporting a statuette of the deceased (fig. 204). All four are somewhat flaccid, somewhat artificial; but the faces of the divinities and the deceased are not wanting in sweetness; the action of the cow is good; and the little figure under her protection falls naturally into its place. Certain other pieces, less known than these, are however far superior. The Saïte style is easy of recognition. It lacks the breadth and learning of the first Memphite school; it also lacks the grand, and sometimes rude, manner of the great Theban school. The proportions of the human body are reduced and elongated, and the limbs lose in vigour what they gain in elegance. A noteworthy change in the choice of attitudes will also be remarked. Orientals find repose in postures which would be inexpressibly fatiguing to ourselves. For hours together they will kneel; or sit tailor-wise, with the legs crossed and laid down flat to the ground; or squat, sitting upon their heels, with no other support than is afforded by that part of the sole of the foot which rests upon the ground; or they will sit upon the floor with their legs close together, and their arms crossed upon their knees. These four attitudes were customary among the people from the time of the ancient empire. [Illustration: Fig. 204.--Hathor-cow in green basalt. Saïte work.] This we know from the bas-reliefs. But the Memphite sculptors, deeming the two last ungraceful, excluded them from the domain of art, and rarely, if ever, reproduced them. The "Cross-legged Scribe" of the Louvre and the "Kneeling Scribe" of Gizeh show with what success they could employ the two first. The third was neglected (doubtless for the same reason) by the Theban sculptors. The fourth began to be currently adopted about the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty. [Illustration: Fig. 205.--Squatting statue of Pedishashi. Saïte work.] It may be that this position was not in fashion among the moneyed classes, which alone could afford to order statues; or it may be that the artists themselves objected to an attitude which caused their sitters to look like square parcels with a human head on the top. The sculptors of the Saïte period did not inherit that repugnance. They have at all events combined the action of the limbs in such wise as may least offend the eye, and the position almost ceases to be ungraceful. The heads also are modelled to such perfection that they make up for many shortcomings. That of Pedishashi (fig. 205) has an expression of youth and intelligent gentleness such as we seldom meet with from an Egyptian hand. Other heads, on the contrary, are remarkable for their almost brutal frankness of treatment. In the small head of a scribe (fig. 206), lately purchased for the Louvre, and in another belonging to Prince Ibrahim at Cairo, the wrinkled brow, the crow's-feet at the corners of the eyes, the hard lines about the mouth, and the knobs upon the skull, are brought out with scrupulous fidelity. The Saïte school was, in fact, divided into two parties. One sought inspiration in the past, and, by a return to the methods of the old Memphite school, endeavoured to put fresh life into the effeminate style of the day. This it accomplished, and so successfully, that its works are sometimes mistaken for the best productions of the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties. The other, without too openly departing from established tradition, preferred to study from the life, and thus drew nearer to nature than in any previous age. This school would, perhaps, have prevailed, had Egyptian art not been directed into a new channel by the Macedonian conquest, and by centuries of intercourse with the Greeks. [Illustration: Fig. 206.--Head of a scribe. Saïte work.] [Illustration: Fig. 207.--Colossus of Alexander II.] The new departure was of slow development. Sculptors began by clothing the successors of Alexander in Egyptian garb and transforming them into Pharaohs, just as they had in olden time transformed the Hyksos and the Persians. Works dating from the reigns of the first Ptolemies scarcely differ from those of the best Saïte period, and it is only here and there that we detect traces of Greek influence. Thus, the colossus of Alexander II., at Gizeh (fig. 207), wears a flowing head-dress, from beneath which his crisp curls have found their way. Soon, however, the sight of Greek masterpieces led the Egyptians of Alexandria, of Memphis, and of the cities of the Delta to modify their artistic methods. Then arose a mixed school, which combined certain elements of the national art with certain other elements borrowed from Hellenic art. The Alexandrian Isis of the Gizeh Museum is clad as the Isis of Pharaonic times; but she has lost the old slender shape and straitened bearing. A mutilated effigy of a Prince of Siût, also at Gizeh, would almost pass for an indifferent Greek statue. [Illustration: Fig. 208.--Statue of Hor, Graeco-Egyptian.] [Illustration: Fig. 209.--Group from Naga.] The most forcible work of this hybrid class which has come down to us is the portrait-statue of one Hor (fig. 208), discovered in 1881 at the foot of Kom ed Damas, the site of the tomb of Alexander. The head is good, though in a somewhat dry style. The long, pinched nose, the close-set eyes, the small mouth with drawn-in corners, the square chin,--every feature, in short, contributes to give a hard and obstinate character to the face. The hair is closely cropped, yet not so closely as to prevent it from dividing naturally into thick, short curls. The body, clothed in the chlamys, is awkwardly shapen, and too narrow for the head. One arm hangs pendent; the other is brought round to the front; the feet are lost. All these monuments are the results of few excavations; and I do not doubt that the soil of Alexandria would yield many such, if it could be methodically explored. The school which produced them continued to draw nearer and nearer to the schools of Greece, and the stiff manner, which it never wholly lost, was scarcely regarded as a defect at an epoch when certain sculptors in the service of Rome especially affected the archaic style. I should not be surprised if those statues of priests and priestesses wearing divine insignia, with which Hadrian adorned the Egyptian rooms of his villa at Tibur, might not be attributed to the artists of this hybrid school. In those parts which were remote from the Delta, native art, being left to its own resources, languished, and slowly perished. Nor was this because Greek models, or even Greek artists, were lacking. In the Thebaid, in the Fayûm, at Syene, I have both discovered and purchased statuettes and statues of Hellenic style, and of correct and careful execution. One of these, from Coptos, is apparently a miniature replica of a Venus analogous to the Venus of Milo. But the provincial sculptors were too dull, or too ignorant, to take such advantage of these models as was taken by their Alexandrian brethren. When they sought to render the Greek suppleness of figure and fulness of limb, they only succeeded in missing the rigid but learned precision of their former masters. In place of the fine, delicate, low relief of the old school, they adopted a relief which, though very prominent, was soft, round, and feebly modelled. The eyes of their personages have a foolish leer; the nostrils slant upwards; the corners of the mouth, the chin, and indeed all the features, are drawn up as if converging towards a central point, which is stationed in the middle of the ear. Two schools, each independent of the other, have bequeathed their works to us. The least known flourished in Ethiopia, at the court of the half-civilised kings who resided at Meroë. A group brought from Naga in 1882, and now in the Gizeh collection, shows the work of this school during the first century of our era (fig. 209). A god and a queen, standing side by side, are roughly cut in a block of grey granite. The work is coarse and heavy, but not without energy. Isolated and lost in the midst of savage tribes, the school which produced it sank rapidly into barbarism, and expired towards the end of the age of the Antonines. The Egyptian school, sheltered by the power of Rome, survived a little longer. As sagacious as the Ptolemies, the Caesars knew that by flattering the religious prejudices of their Egyptian subjects they consolidated their own rule in the valley of the Nile. At an enormous cost, they restored and rebuilt the temples of the national gods, working after the old plans and in the old spirit of Pharaonic times. The great earthquake of B.C. 22 had destroyed Thebes, which now became a mere place of pilgrimage, whither devotees repaired to listen to the voice of Memnon at the rising of Aurora. But at Denderah and Ombos, Tiberius and Claudius finished the decoration of the great temples. Caligula worked at Coptos, and the Antonines enriched Esneh and Philae. The gangs of workmen employed in their names were still competent to cut thousands of bas-reliefs according to the rules of the olden time. Their work was feeble, ungraceful, absurd, inspired solely by routine; yet it was founded on antique tradition--tradition enfeebled and degenerate, but still alive. The troubles which convulsed the third century of our era, the incursions of barbarians, the progress and triumph of Christianity, caused the suspension of the latest works and the dispersion of the last craftsmen. With them died all that yet survived of the national art.[54] [42] The classic Syene, from all time the southernmost portion of Egypt proper. The Sixth Dynasty is called the Elephantine, from the island immediately facing Syene which was the traditional seat of the Dynasty, and on which the temples stood. The tombs of Elephantine were discovered by General Sir F. Grenfell, K.C.B., in 1885, in the neighbouring cliffs of the Libyan Desert: see foot-note p. 149.-- A.B.E. [43] For an explanation of the nature of the Double, see Chapter III., pp. 111-112, 121 _et seq._ [44] Known as the "Scribe accroupi," literally the "Squatting Scribe"; but in English, squatting, as applied to Egyptian art, is taken to mean the attitude of sitting with the knees nearly touching the chin. --A.B.E. [45] "The Sheikh of the Village." This statue was best known in England as the "Wooden Man of Bûlak."--A.B.E. [46] The Greek Chephren. [47] I venture to think that the heads of Rahotep and Nefert, engraved from a brilliant photograph in _A Thousand Miles up the Nile_, give a truer and more spirited idea of the originals than the present illustrations,--A.B.E. [48] That is, the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties. --A.B.E. [49] According to the measurements given by Mr. Petrie, who discovered the remains of the Tanite colossus, it must have stood ninety feet high without, and one hundred and twenty feet high with, its pedestal. See _Tanis_, Part I., by W.M.F. Petrie, published by the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1885.--A.B.E. [50] Ameniritis, daughter of an Ethiopian king named Kashta, was the sister and successor of her brother Shabaka, and wife of Piankhi II., Twenty- fifth Dynasty. The statue is in alabaster.--A.B.E. [51] A Memphite scribe of the Thirtieth Dynasty.--A.B.E. [52] In Egyptian _Ta-ûrt_, or "the Great;" also called _Apet_. This goddess is always represented as a hippopotamus walking. She carries in each hand the emblem of protection, called "_Sa_." The statuette of the illustration is in green serpentine.--A.B.E. [53] _Sebakh_, signifying "salt," or "saltpetre," is the general term for that saline dust which accumulates wherever there are mounds of brick or limestone ruins. This dust is much valued as a manure, or "top-dressing," and is so constantly dug out and carried away by the natives, that the mounds of ancient towns and villages are rapidly undergoing destruction in all parts of Egypt.--A.B.E. [54] For an example of Graeco-Egyptian portrait painting, _tempo_ Hadrian, see p. 291. CHAPTER V. _THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS._ I have treated briefly of the Noble Arts; it remains to say something of the Industrial Arts. All classes of society in Egypt were, from an early period, imbued with the love of luxury, and with a taste for the beautiful. Living or dead, the Egyptian desired to have jewels and costly amulets upon his person, and to be surrounded by choice furniture and elegant utensils. The objects of his daily use must be distinguished, if not by richness of material, at least by grace of form; and in order to satisfy his requirements, the clay, the stone, the metals, the woods, and other products of distant lands were laid under contribution. I.--STONE, CLAY, AND GLASS. [Illustration: Fig. 210.--The _Ta_, or girdle-buckle of Isis.] [Illustration: Fig. 211.--Frog amulet.] [Illustration: Fig. 212.--The _Ûat_, or lotus-column amulet.] [Illustration: Fig. 213.--An _Ûta_, or sacred eye.] [Illustration: Fig. 214.--A scarabaeus.] It is impossible to pass through a gallery of Egyptian antiquities without being surprised by the prodigious number of small objects in _pietra dura_ which have survived till the present time. As yet we have found neither the diamond, the ruby, nor the sapphire; but with these exceptions, the domain of the lapidary was almost as extensive as at the present day. That domain included the amethyst, the emerald, the garnet, the aquamarine, the chrysoprase, the innumerable varieties of agate and jasper, lapis lazuli, felspar, obsidian; also various rocks, such as granite, serpentine, and porphyry; certain fossils, as yellow amber and some kinds of turquoise; organic remains, as coral, mother-of-pearl, and pearls; metallic ores and carbonates, such as hematite and malachite, and the calaite, or Oriental turquoise. These substances were for the most part cut in the shape of round, square, oval, spindle-shaped, pear-shaped, or lozenge-shaped beads. Strung and arranged row above row, these beads were made into necklaces, and are picked up by myriads in the sands of the great cemeteries at Memphis, Erment, Ekhmîm, and Abydos. The perfection with which many are cut, the deftness with which they are pierced, and the beauty of the polish, do honour to the craftsmen who made them. But their skill did not end here. With the point, saw, drill, and grindstone, they fashioned these materials into an infinity of shapes--hearts, human fingers, serpents, animals, images of divinities. All these were amulets; and they were probably less valued for the charm of the workmanship than for the supernatural virtues which they were supposed to possess. The girdle-buckle in carnelian (fig. 210) symbolised the blood of Isis, and washed away the sins of the wearer. The frog (fig. 211) was emblematic of renewed birth. The little lotus-flower column in green felspar (fig. 212) typified the divine gift of eternal youth. The "Ûat," or sacred eye (fig. 213), tied to the wrist or the arm by a slender string, protected against the evil eye, against words spoken in envy or anger, and against the bites of serpents. Commerce dispersed these objects throughout all parts of the ancient world, and many of them, especially those which represented the sacred beetle, were imitated abroad by the Phoenicians and Syrians, and by the craftsmen of Greece, Asia Minor, Etruria, and Sardinia. This insect was called _kheper_ in Egyptian, and its name was supposed to be derived from the root _khepra_, "to become." By an obvious play upon words, the beetle was made the emblem of terrestrial life, and of the successive "becomings" or developments of man in the life to come. The scarabaeus amulet (fig. 214) is therefore a symbol of duration, present or future; and to wear one was to provide against annihilation. A thousand mystic meanings were evolved from this first idea, each in some subtle sense connected with one or other of the daily acts or usages of life, so that scarabaei were multiplied _ad infinitum_. They are found in all materials and sizes; some having hawks' heads, some with rams' heads, some with heads of men or bulls. Some are wrought or inscribed on the underside; others are left flat and plain underneath; and others again but vaguely recall the form of the insect, and are called scarabaeoids. These amulets are pierced longwise, the hole being large enough to admit the passage of a fine wire of bronze or silver, or of a thread, for suspension. The larger sort were regarded as images of the heart. These, having outspread wings attached, were fastened to the breast of the mummy, and are inscribed on the underside with a prayer adjuring the heart not to bear witness against the deceased at the day of judgment. In order to be still more efficacious, some scenes of adoration were occasionally added to the formula: _e.g._, the disc of the moon adorned by two apes upon the shoulder; two squatting figures of Amen upon the wing- sheaths; on the flat reverse, a representation of the boat of the Sun; and below the boat, Osiris mummified, squatting between Isis and Nephthys, who overshadow him with their wings. The small scarabs, having begun as phylacteries, ended by becoming mere ornaments without any kind of religious meaning, just as crosses are now worn without thought of significance by the women of our own day. They were set as rings, as necklace pendants, as earrings, and as bracelets. The underside is often plain, but is more commonly ornamented with incised designs which involve no kind of modelling. Relief-cutting, properly so called (as in cameo- cutting), was unknown to Egyptian lapidaries before the Greek period. Scarabaei and the subjects engraved on them have not as yet been fully classified and catalogued.[55] The subjects consist of simple combinations of lines; of scrolls; of interlacings without any precise signification; of symbols to which the owner attached a mysterious meaning, unknown to everyone but himself; of the names and titles of individuals; of royal ovals, which are historically interesting; of good wishes; of pious ejaculations; and of magic formulae. The earliest examples known date from the Fourth Dynasty, and are small and fine. Sometimes Sixth Dynasty scarabs are of obsidian and crystal, and early Middle Kingdom scarabs of amethyst, emerald, and even garnet. From the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty scarabs may be counted by millions, and the execution is more or less fine according to the hardness of the stone. This holds good for amulets of all kinds. The hippopotamus-heads, the hearts, the _Ba_ birds (p. 111), which one picks up at Taûd, to the south of Thebes, are barely roughed out, the amethyst and green felspar of which they are made having presented an almost unconquerable resistance to the point, saw, drill, and wheel. The belt-buckles, angles, and head-rests in red jasper, carnelian, and hematite, are, on the contrary, finished to the minutest details, notwithstanding that carnelian and red jasper are even harder than green felspar. Lapis lazuli is insufficiently homogeneous, almost as hard as felspar, and seems as if it were incapable of being finely worked. Yet the Egyptians have used it for images of certain goddesses--Isis, Nephthys, Neith, Sekhet,--which are marvels of delicate cutting. The modelling of the forms is carried out as boldly as if the material were more trustworthy, and the features lose none of their excellence if examined under a magnifying glass. For the most part, however, a different treatment was adopted. Instead of lavishing high finish upon the relief, it was obtained in a more summary way, the details of individual parts being sacrificed to the general effect. Those features of the face which project, and those which retire, are strongly accentuated. The thickness of the neck, the swell of the breast and shoulder, the slenderness of the waist, the fulness of the hips, are all exaggerated. The feet and hands are also slightly enlarged. This treatment is based upon a system, the results being boldly and yet judiciously calculated. When the object has to be sculptured in miniature, a mathematical reduction of the model is not so happy in its effect as might be supposed. The head loses character; the neck looks too weak; the bust is reduced to a cylinder with a slightly uneven surface; the feet do not look strong enough to support the weight of the body; the principal lines are not sufficiently distinct from the secondary lines. By suppressing most of the accessory forms and developing those most essential to the expression, the Egyptians steered clear of the danger of producing insignificant statuettes. The eye instinctively tones down whatever is too forcible, and supplies what is lacking. Thanks to these subtle devices of the ancient craftsman, a tiny statuette of this or that divinity measuring scarcely an inch and a quarter in height, has almost the breadth and dignity of a colossus. The earthly goods of the gods and of the dead were mostly in solid stone. I have elsewhere described the little funerary obelisks, the altar bases, the statues, and the tables of offerings found in tombs of the ancient empire. These tables were made of alabaster and limestone during the Pyramid period, of granite or red sandstone under the Theban kings, and of basalt or serpentine from the time of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. But the fashions were not canonical, all stones being found at all periods. Some offering- tables are mere flat discs, or discs very slightly hollowed. Others are rectangular, and are sculptured in relief with a service of loaves, vases, fruits, and quarters of beef and gazelle. In one instance--the offering- table of Sitû--the libations, instead of running off, fell into a square basin which is marked off in divisions, showing the height of the Nile at the different seasons of the year in the reservoirs of Memphis; namely, twenty-five cubits in summer during the inundation, twenty-three in autumn and early winter, and twenty-two at the close of winter and in spring-time. In these various patterns there was little beauty; yet one offering-table, found at Sakkarah, is a real work of art. It is of alabaster. Two lions, standing side by side, support a sloping, rectangular tablet, whence the libation ran off by a small channel into a vase placed between the tails of the lions. The alabaster geese found at Lisht are not without artistic merit. They are cut length-wise down the middle, and hollowed out, in the fashion of a box. Those which I have seen elsewhere, and, generally speaking, all simulacra of offerings, as loaves, cakes, heads of oxen or gazelles, bunches of black grapes, and the like, in carved and painted limestone, are of doubtful taste and clumsy execution. They are not very common, and I have met with them only in tombs of the Fifth and Twelfth Dynasties. "Canopic" vases, on the contrary, were always carefully wrought. They were generally made in two kinds of stone, limestone and alabaster; but the heads which surmounted them were often of painted wood. The canopic vases of Pepi I. are of alabaster; and those of a king buried in the southernmost pyramid at Lisht are also of alabaster, as are the human heads upon the lids. One, indeed, is of such fine execution that I can only compare it with that of the statue of Khafra. The most ancient funerary statuettes yet found--those, namely, of the Eleventh Dynasty--are of alabaster, like the canopic vases; but from the time of the Thirteenth Dynasty, they were cut in compact limestone. The workmanship is very unequal in quality. Some are real _chefs-d'oeuvre_, and reproduce the physiognomy of the deceased as faithfully as a portrait statue. Lastly, there are the perfume vases, which complete the list of objects found in temples and tombs. The names of these vases are far from being satisfactorily established, and most of the special designations furnished in the texts remain as yet without equivalents in our language. The greater number were of alabaster, turned and polished. Some are heavy, and ugly (fig. 215), while others are distinguished by an elegance and diversity of form which do honour to the inventive talent of the craftsmen. Many are spindle-shaped and pointed at the end (fig. 216), or round in the body, narrow in the neck, and flat at the bottom (fig. 217). [Illustration: Fig. 215.--Perfume vase, alabaster.] [Illustration: Fig. 216.--Perfume vase, alabaster.] [Illustration: Fig. 217.--Perfume vase, alabaster.] They are unornamented, except perhaps by two lotus-bud handles, or two lions' heads, or perhaps a little female head just at the rise of the neck (fig. 218). The smallest of these vases were not intended for liquids, but for pomades, medicinal ointments, and salves made with honey. Some of the more important series comprise large-bodied flasks, with an upright cylindrical neck and a flat cover (fig. 219). In these, the Egyptians kept the antimony powder with which they darkened their eyes and eyebrows. The Kohl-pot was a universal toilet requisite; perhaps the only one commonly used by all classes of society. When designing it, the craftsman gave free play to his fancy, borrowing forms of men, plants, and animals for its adornment. Now it appears in the guise of a full-blown lotus; now it is a hedgehog; a hawk; a monkey clasping a column to his breast, or climbing up the side of a jar; a grotesque figure of the god Bes; a kneeling woman, whose scooped-out body contained the powder; a young girl carrying a wine- jar. Once started upon this path, the imagination of the artists knew no limits. As for materials, everything was made to serve in turn--granite, diorite, breccia, red jade, alabaster, and soft limestone, which lent itself more readily to caprices of form; finally, a still more plastic and facile substance--clay, painted and glazed. [Ilustration: Fig. 218.--Perfume vase, alabaster.] [Illustration: Fig. 219.--Vase for antimony powder.] It was not for want of material that the art of modelling and baking clays failed to be as fully developed in Egypt as in Greece, The valley of the Nile is rich in a fine and ductile potter's clay, with which the happiest results might have been achieved, had the native craftsman taken the trouble to prepare it with due care. Metals and hard stone were, however, always preferred for objects of luxury; the potter was fain, therefore, to be content with supplying only the commonest needs of household and daily life. He was wont to take whatever clay happened to be nearest to the place where he was working, and this clay was habitually badly washed, badly kneaded, and fashioned with the finger upon a primitive wheel worked by the hand. The firing was equally careless. Some pieces were barely heated at all, and melted it they came into contact with water, while others were as hard as tiles. All tombs of the ancient empire contain vases of a red or yellow ware, often mixed, like the clay of bricks, with finely-chopped straw or weeds. These are mostly large solid jars with oval bodies, short necks, and wide mouths, but having neither foot nor handles. With them are also found pipkins and pots, in which to store the dead man's provisions; bowls more or less shallow; and flat plates, such as are still used by the fellahin. The poorer folk sometimes buried miniature table and kitchen services with their dead, as being less costly than full-sized vessels. The surface is seldom glazed, seldom smooth and lustrous; but is ordinarily covered with a coat of whitish, unbaked paint, which scales off at a touch. Upon this surface there is neither incised design, nor ornament in relief, nor any kind of inscription, but merely some four or five parallel lines in red, black, or yellow, round the neck. [Illustration: Fig. 220.] [Illustration: Fig. 221.] [Illustration: Fig. 222.] [Illustration: Fig. 223.] The pottery of the earliest Theban dynasties which I have collected at El Khozam and Gebeleyn is more carefully wrought than the pottery of the Memphite period. It may be classified under two heads. The first comprises plain, smooth-bodied vases, black below and dark red above. On examining this ware where broken, we see that the colour was mixed with the clay during the kneading, and that the two zones were separately prepared, roughly joined, and then uniformly glazed. The second class comprises vases of various and sometimes eccentric forms, moulded of red or tawny clay. Some are large cylinders closed at one end; others are flat; others oblong and boat-shaped; others, like cruets, joined together two and two, yet with no channel of communication[56] (fig. 220). The ornamentation is carried over the whole surface, and generally consists of straight parallel lines, cross lines, zigzags, dotted lines, or small crosses and lines in geometrical combination; all these patterns being in white when the ground is red, or in reddish brown when the ground is yellow or whitish. Now and then we find figures of men and animals interspersed among the geometrical combinations. The drawing is rude, almost childish; and it is difficult to tell whether the subjects represent herds of antelopes or scenes of gazelle-hunting. The craftsmen who produced these rude attempts were nevertheless contemporary with the artists who decorated the rock-cut tombs at Beni Hasan. As regards the period of Egypt's great military conquests, the Theban tombs of that age have supplied objects enough to stock a museum of pottery; but unfortunately the types are very uninteresting. To begin with, we find hand-made sepulchral statuettes modelled in summary fashion from an oblong lump of clay. A pinch of the craftsman's fingers brought out the nose; two tiny knobs and two little stumps, separately modelled and stuck on, represented the eyes and arms. The better sort of figures were pressed in moulds of baked clay, of which several specimens have been found. They were generally moulded in one piece; then lightly touched up; then baked; and lastly, on coming out of the oven, were painted red, yellow, or white, and inscribed with the pen. Some are of very good style, and almost equal those made in limestone. The _ûshabtiû_ of the scribe Hori, and those of the priest Horûta (Saïte) found at Hawara, show what the Egyptians could have achieved in this branch of the art if they had cared to cultivate it. Funerary cones were objects purely devotional, and the most consummate art could have done nothing to make them elegant. A funerary cone consists of a long, conical mass of clay, stamped at the larger end with a few rows of hieroglyphs stating the name, parentage, and titles of the deceased, the whole surface being coated with a whitish wash. These are simulacra of votive cakes intended for the eternal nourishment of the Double. Many of the vases buried in tombs of this period are painted to imitate alabaster, granite, basalt, bronze, and even gold; and were cheap substitutes for those vases made in precious materials which wealthy mourners were wont to lavish on their dead. Among those especially intended to contain water or flowers, some are covered with designs drawn in red and black (fig. 221), such as concentric lines and circles (fig. 222), meanders, religious emblems (fig. 223), cross-lines resembling network, festoons of flowers and buds, and long leafy stems carried downward from the neck to the body of the vase, and upward from the body of the vase to the neck. Those in the tomb of Sennetmû were decorated on one side with a large necklace, or collar, like the collars found upon mummies, painted in very bright colours to simulate natural flowers or enamels. Canopic vases in baked clay, though rarely met with under the Eighteenth Dynasty, became more and more common as the prosperity of Thebes declined. The heads upon the lids are for the most part prettily turned, especially the human heads.[57] Modelled with the hand, scooped out to diminish the weight, and then slowly baked, each was finally painted with the colours especially pertaining to the genius whose head was represented. Towards the time of the Twentieth Dynasty, it became customary to enclose the bodies of sacred animals in vases of this type. Those found near Ekhmîm contain jackals and hawks; those of Sakkarah are devoted to serpents, eggs, and mummified rats; those of Abydos hold the sacred ibis. These last are by far the finest. On the body of the vase, the protecting goddess Khûit is depicted with outspread wings, while Horus and Thoth are seen presenting the bandage and the unguent vase; the whole subject being painted in blue and red upon a white ground. From the time of the Greek domination, the national poverty being always on the increase, baked clay was much used for coffins as well as for canopic vases. In the Isthmus of Suez, at Ahnas el Medineh, in the Fayûm, at Asûan, and in Nubia, we find whole cemeteries in which the sarcophagi are made of baked clay. Some are like oblong boxes rounded at each end, with a saddle-back lid. Some are in human form, but barbarous in style, the heads being surmounted by a pudding-shaped imitation of the ancient Egyptian head-dress, and the features indicated by two or three strokes of the modelling tool or the thumb. Two little lumps of clay stuck awkwardly upon the breast indicate the coffin of a woman. Even in these last days of Egyptian civilisation, it was only the coarsest objects which were left of the natural hue of the baked clay. As of old, the surfaces were, as a rule, overlaid with a coat of colour, or with a richly gilded glaze. [Illustration: Fig. 224.--Glass-blowers from Twelfth Dynasty tomb.] [Illustration: Fig. 225.--Parti-coloured glass vase, inscribed Thothmes III.] [Illustration: Fig. 226.--Parti-coloured glass vase.] [Illustration: Fig. 227.--Parti-coloured glass vase.] [Illustration: Fig. 228.--Parti-coloured glass goblets of Nesikhonsû.] Glass was known to the Egyptians from the remotest period, and glass- blowing is represented in tombs which date from some thousands of years before our era (fig. 224). The craftsman, seated before the furnace, takes up a small quantity of the fused substance upon the end of his cane and blows it circumspectly, taking care to keep it in contact with the flame, so that it may not harden during the operation. Chemical analysis shows the constituent parts of Egyptian glass to have been nearly identical with our own; but it contains, besides silex, lime, alumina, and soda, a relatively large proportion of extraneous substances, as copper, oxide of iron, and oxide of manganese, which they apparently knew not how to eliminate. Hence Egyptian glass is scarcely ever colourless, but inclines to an uncertain shade of yellow or green. Some ill-made pieces are so utterly decomposed that they flake away, or fall to iridescent dust, at the lightest touch. Others have suffered little from time or damp, but are streaky and full of bubbles. A few are, however, perfectly homogenous and limpid. Colourless glass was not esteemed by the Egyptians as it is by ourselves; whether opaque or transparent, they preferred it coloured. The dyes were obtained by mixing metallic oxides with the ordinary ingredients; that is to say, copper and cobalt for the blues, copperas for the greens, manganese for the violets and browns, iron for the yellows, and lead or tin for the whites. One variety of red contains 30 per cent of bronze, and becomes coated with verdegris if exposed to damp. All this chemistry was empirical, and acquired by instinct. Finding the necessary elements at hand, or being supplied with them from a distance, they made use of them at hazard, and without being too certain of obtaining the effects they sought. Many of their most harmonious combinations were due to accident, and they could not reproduce them at will. The masses which they obtained by these unscientific means were nevertheless of very considerable dimensions. The classic authors tell of stelae, sarcophagi, and columns made in one piece. Ordinarily, however, glass was used only for small objects, and, above all, for counterfeiting precious stones. However cheaply they may have been sold in the Egyptian market, these small objects were not accessible to all the world. The glass-workers imitated the emerald, jasper, lapis lazuli, and carnelian to such perfection that even now we are sometimes embarrassed to distinguish the real stones from the false. The glass was pressed into moulds made of stone or limestone cut to the forms required, as beads, discs, rings, pendants, rods, and plaques covered with figures of men and animals, gods and goddesses. Eyes and eyebrows for the faces of statues in stone or bronze were likewise made of glass, as also bracelets. Glass was inserted into the hollows of incised hieroglyphs, and hieroglyphs were also cut out in glass. In this manner, whole inscriptions were composed, and let into wood, stone, or metal. The two mummy-cases which enclosed the body of Netemt, mother of the Pharaoh Herhor Seamen, are decorated in this style. Except the headdress of the effigy and some minor details, these cases are gilded all over; the texts and the principal part of the ornamentation being formed of glass enamels, which stand out in brilliant contrast with the dead gold ground. Many Fayûm mummies were coated with plaster or stucco, the texts and religious designs, which are generally painted, being formed of glass enamels incrusted upon the surface of the plaster. Some of the largest subjects are made of pieces of glass joined together and retouched with the chisel, in imitation of bas-relief. Thus the face, hands, and feet of the goddess Ma are done in turquoise blue, her headdress in dark blue, her feather in alternate stripes of blue and yellow, and her raiment in deep red. Upon a wooden shrine recently discovered in the neighbourhood of Daphnae,[58] and upon a fragment of mummy-case in the Museum of Turin, the hieroglyphic forms of many-coloured glass are inlaid upon the sombre ground of the wood, the general effect being inconceivably rich and brilliant. Glass filigrees, engraved glass, cut glass, soldered glass, glass imitations of wood, of straw, and of string, were all known to the Egyptians of old. I have under my hand at this present moment a square rod formed of innumerable threads of coloured glass fused into one solid body, which gives the royal oval of one of the Amenemhats at the part where it is cut through. The design is carried through the whole length of the rod, and wherever that rod may be cut, the royal oval reappears.[59] One glass case in the Gizeh Museum is entirely stocked with small objects in coloured glass. Here we see an ape on all fours, smelling some large fruit which lies upon the ground; yonder, a woman's head, front face, upon a white or green ground surrounded by a red border. Most of the plaques represent only rosettes, stars, and single flowers or posies. One of the smallest represents a black-and-white Apis walking, the work being so delicate that it loses none of its effect under the magnifying glass. The greater number of these objects date from, and after, the first Saïte dynasty; but excavations in Thebes and Tell el Amarna have proved that the manufacture of coloured glass prevailed in Egypt earlier than the tenth century before our era. At Kûrnet Murraee and Sheikh Abd el Gûrneh, there have been found, not only amulets for the use of the dead, such as colonnettes, hearts, mystic eyes, hippopotami walking erect, and ducks in pairs, done in parti-coloured pastes, blue, red, and yellow, but also vases of a type which we have been accustomed to regard as of Phoenician and Cypriote manufacture.[60] Here, for example, is a little aenochoe, of a light blue semi-opaque glass (fig. 225); the inscription in the name of Thothmes III., the ovals on the neck, and the palm-fronds on the body of the vase being in yellow. Here again is a lenticular phial, three and a quarter inches in height (fig. 226), the ground colour of a deep ocean blue, admirably pure and intense, upon which a fern-leaf pattern in yellow stands out both boldly and delicately. A yellow thread runs round the rim, and two little handles of light green are attached to the neck. A miniature amphora of the same height (fig. 227) is of a dark, semi-transparent olive green. A zone of blue and yellow zigzags, bounded above and below by yellow bands, encircles the body of the vase at the part of its largest circumference. The handles are pale green, and the thread round the lip is pale blue. Princess Nesikhonsû had beside her, in the vault at Deir el Baharî, some glass goblets of similar work. Seven were in whole colours, light green and blue; four were of black glass spotted with white; one only was decorated with many-coloured fronds arranged in two rows (fig. 228). The national glass works were therefore in full operation during the time of the great Theban dynasties. Huge piles of scoriae mixed with slag yet mark the spot where their furnaces were stationed at Tell el Amarna, the Ramesseum, at El Kab, and at the Tell of Eshmûneyn. [Illustration: Fig. 229.--Hippopotamus in blue glaze.] [Illustration: Fig. 230.--Glazed ware from Thebes.] [Illustration: Fig. 231.--Glazed ware from Thebes.] The Egyptians also enamelled stone. One half at least of the scarabaei, cylinders, and amulets contained in our museums are of limestone or schist, covered with a coloured glaze. Doubtless the common clay seemed to them inappropriate to this kind of decoration, for they substituted in its place various sorts of earth--some white and sandy; another sort brown and fine, which they obtained by the pulverisation of a particular kind of limestone found in the neighbourhood of Keneh, Luxor, and Asûan; and a third sort, reddish in tone, and mixed with powdered sandstone and brick-dust. These various substances are known by the equally inexact names of Egyptian porcelain and Egyptian faïence. The oldest specimens, which are hardly glazed at all, are coated with an excessively thin slip. This vitreous matter has, however, generally settled into the hollows of the hieroglyphs or figures, where its lustre stands out in strong contrast with the dead surface of the surrounding parts. The colour most frequently in use under the ancient dynasties was green; but yellow, red, brown, violet, and blue were not disdained.[61] Blue predominated in the Theban factories from the earliest beginning of the Middle Empire. This blue was brilliant, yet tender, in imitation of turquoise or lapis lazuli. The Gizeh Museum formerly contained three hippopotamuses of this shade, discovered in the tomb of an Entef[62] at Drah Abû'l Neggeh[63] One was lying down, the two others were standing in the marshes, their bodies being covered by the potter with pen-and-ink sketches of reeds and lotus plants, amid which hover birds and butterflies (fig. 229). This was his naïve way of depicting the animal amid his natural surroundings. The blue is splendid, and we must overleap twenty centuries before we again find so pure a colour among the funerary statuettes of Deir el Baharî. Green reappears under the Saïte dynasties, but paler than that of more ancient times, and it prevailed in the north of Egypt, at Memphis, Bubastis, and Sais, without entirely banishing the blue. The other colours before mentioned were in current use for not more than four or five centuries; that is to say, from the time of Ahmes I. to the time of the Ramessides. It was then, and only then, that _ûshabtiû_ of white or red glaze, rosettes and lotus flowers in yellow, red, and violet, and parti-coloured kohl-pots abounded. The potters of the time of Amenhotep III. affected greys and violets. The olive-shaped amulets which are inscribed with the names of this Pharaoh and the princesses of his family are decorated with pale blue hieroglyphs upon a delicate mauve ground. The vase of Queen Tii in the Gizeh collection is of grey and blue, with ornaments in two colours round the neck. The fabrication of many- coloured enamels seems to have attained its greatest development under Khûenaten; at all events, it was at Tell el Amarna that I found the brightest and most delicately fashioned specimens, such as yellow, green, and violet rings, blue and white fleurettes, fish, lutes, figs, and bunches of grapes.[64] One little statuette of Horus has a red face and a blue body; a ring bezel bears the name of a king in violet upon a ground of light blue. However restricted the space, the various colours are laid in with so sure a hand that they never run one into the other, but stand out separately and vividly. A vase to contain antimony powder, chased and mounted on a pierced stand, is glazed with reddish brown (fig. 230). Another, in the shape of a mitred hawk, is blue picked out with black spots. It belonged of old to Ahmes I. A third, hollowed out of the body of an energetic little hedgehog, is of a changeable green (fig. 231). A Pharaoh's head in dead blue wears a _klaft_[65] with dark-blue stripes. [Illustration: Fig. 232.] Fine as these pieces are, the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of the series is a statuette of one Ptahmes, first Prophet of Amen, now in the Gizeh Museum. The hieroglyphic inscriptions as well as the details of the mummy bandages are chased in relief upon a white ground of admirable smoothness afterwards filled in with enamel. The face and hands are of turquoise blue; the head- dress is yellow, with violet stripes; the hieroglyphic characters of the inscription, and the vulture with outspread wings upon the breast of the figure, are also violet. The whole is delicate, brilliant, and harmonious; not a flaw mars the purity of the contours or the clearness of the lines. [Illustration: Fig. 233.--Interior decoration of cup, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 234.--Lenticular vase, glazed ware, Saïte.] [Illustration: Fig. 235.--Chamber decorated with tiles in step pyramid of Sakkarah.] Glazed pottery was common from the earliest times. Cups with a foot (fig. 232), blue bowls, rounded at the bottom and decorated in black ink with mystic eyes, lotus flowers, fishes (fig. 233), and palm-leaves, date, as a rule, from the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, or Twentieth Dynasties. Lenticular ampullae coated with a greenish glaze, flanked by two crouching monkeys for handles, decorated along the edge with pearl or egg-shaped ornaments, and round the body with elaborate collars (fig. 234), belong almost without exception to the reigns of Apries and Amasis.[66] Sistrum handles, saucers, drinking-cups in the form of a half-blown lotus, plates, dishes--in short, all vessels in common use--were required to be not only easy to keep clean, but pleasant to look upon. Did they carry their taste for enamelled ware so far as to cover the walls of their houses with glazed tiles? Upon this point we can pronounce neither affirmatively nor negatively; the few examples of this kind of decoration which we possess being all from royal buildings. Upon a yellow brick, we have the family name and _Ka_ name of Pepi I.; upon a green brick, the name of Rameses III.; upon certain red and white fragments, the names of Seti I. and Sheshonk. [Illustration: Fig. 236.--Tile from step pyramid of Sakkarah.] Up to the beginning of the present century, one of the chambers in the step pyramid at Sakkarah yet retained its mural decoration of glazed ware (fig. 235). For three-fourths of the wall-surface it was covered with green tiles, oblong in shape, flat at the back, and slightly convex on the face (fig. 236). A square tenon, pierced through with a hole large enough to receive a wooden rod, served to fix them together in horizontal pyramid of rows.[67] The three rows which frame in the doorway are inscribed with the titles of an unclassed Pharaoh belonging to one of the first Memphite dynasties. The hieroglyphs are relieved in blue, red, green, and yellow, upon a tawny ground. Twenty centuries later, Rameses III. originated a new style at Tell el Yahûdeh. This time the question of ornamentation concerned, not a single chamber, but a whole temple. The mass of the building was of limestone and alabaster; but the pictorial subjects, instead of being sculptured according to custom, were of a kind of mosaic made with almost equal parts of stone tesserae and glazed ware. [Illustration: Fig. 237.--Tile inlay, Tell el Yahûdeh.] [Illustration: Fig. 238.--Tile inlay, Tell el Yahûdeh.] [Illustration: Fig. 239.--Inlaid tiles, Tell el Yahûdeh.] The most frequent item in the scheme of decoration was a roundel moulded of a sandy frit coated with blue or grey slip, upon which is a cream-coloured rosette (fig. 237). Some of these rosettes are framed in geometrical designs (fig. 238) or spider-web patterns; some represent open flowers. The central boss is in relief; the petals and tracery are encrusted in the mass. These roundels, which are of various diameters ranging from three- eighths of an inch to four inches, were fixed to the walls by means of a very fine cement. They were used to form many different designs, as scrolls, foliage, and parallel fillets, such as may be seen on the foot of an altar and the base of a column preserved in the Gizeh Museum. The royal ovals were mostly in one piece; so also were the figures. The details, either incised or modelled upon the clay before firing, were afterwards painted with such colours as might be suitable. The lotus flowers and leaves which were carried along the bottom of the walls or the length of the cornices, were, on the contrary, made up of independent pieces; each colour being a separate morsel cut to fit exactly into the pieces by which it was surrounded (fig. 239). This temple was rifled at the beginning of the present century, and some figures of prisoners brought thence have been in the Louvre collection ever since the time of Champollion. All that remained of the building and its decoration was demolished a few years ago by certain dealers in antiquities, and the _débris_ are now dispersed in all directions. Mariette, though with great difficulty, recovered some of the more important fragments, such as the name of Rameses III., which dates the building; some borderings of lotus flowers and birds with human hands (fig. 240); and some heads of Asiatics and negro prisoners (fig. 241).[68] The destruction of this monument is the more grievous because the Egyptians cannot have constructed many after the same type. Glazed bricks, painted tiles, and enamelled mosaics are readily injured; and in the judgment of a people enamoured of stability and eternity, that would be the gravest of radical defects. [Illustration: Fig. 240.--Relief tile, Tell el Yahûdeh.] [Illustration: Fig. 241.--Relief tile, Tell el Yahûdeh.] [55] Works on scarabaei are the Palin collection, published in 1828; Mr. Loftie's charming _Essay of Scarabs_, which is in fact a catalogue of his own specimens, admirably illustrated from drawings by Mr. W.M.F. Petrie; and Mr. Petrie's _Historical Scarabs_, published 1889.--A.B.E. [56] These twin vases are still made at Asûan. I bought a small specimen there in 1874.--A.B.E. [57] The sepulchral vases commonly called "canopic" were four in number, and contained the embalmed viscera of the mummy. The lids of these vases were fashioned to represent the heads of the four genii of Amenti, Hapi, Tûatmûtf, Kebhsennef, and Amset; i.e. the Ape-head, the Jackal-head, the Hawk-head, and the human head.--A.B.E. [58] The remains of this shrine, together with many hundreds of beautiful glass hieroglyphs, figures, emblems, etc., for inlaying, besides moulds and other items of the glassworker's stock, were discovered by Mr. F. Ll. Griffith at Tell Gemayemi, about equidistant from the mounds of Tanis and Daphnae (Sân and Defenneh) in March 1886. For a fuller account see Mr. Griffith's report, "_The Antiquities of Tell el Yahudîyeh," in Seventh Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund_. --A.B.E. [59] Some of these beautiful rods were also found at Tell Gemayemi by Mr. F. Ll. Griffith, and in such sound condition that it was possible to cut them in thin slices, for distribution among various museums.-- A.B.E. [60] That is, of the kind known as the "false murrhine."--A.B.E. [61] The yellows and browns are frequently altered greens.--A.B.E. [62] One of the Eleventh Dynasty kings. [63] There is a fine specimen at the Louvre, and another in the museum at Leydeu.--A.B.E. [64] For an account of every stage and detail in the glass and glaze manufactures of Tell el Amarna, see W.M.F. Petrie's _Tell el Amarna_. [65] _Klaft, i.e._, a headdress of folded linen. The beautiful little head here referred to is in the Gizeh Museum, and is a portrait of the Pharaoh Necho.--A.B.E. [66] _Apries_, in Egyptian "Uahabra," the biblical "Hophra;" _Amasis_, Ahmes II.; both of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty.--A.B.E. [67] Some specimens of these tiles may be seen in the Egyptian department at the British Museum.--A.B.E. 2.--WOOD, IVORY, LEATHER, AND TEXTILE FABRICS. [Illustration: Fig. 242.--Spoon.] Objects in ivory, bone, and horn are among the rarities of our museums; but we must not for this reason conclude that the Egyptians did not make ample use of those substances. Horn is perishable, and is eagerly devoured by certain insects, which rapidly destroy it. Bone and ivory soon deteriorate and become friable. The elephant was known to the Egyptians from the remotest period. They may, perhaps, have found it inhabiting the Thebaid when first they established themselves in that part of the Nile Valley, for as early as the Fifth Dynasty we find the pictured form of the elephant in use as the hieroglyphic name of the island of Elephantine. Ivory in tusks and half tusks was imported into Egypt from the regions of the Upper Nile. It was sometimes dyed green or red, but was more generally left of its natural colour. It was largely employed by cabinet makers for inlaying furniture, as chairs, bedsteads, and coffers. Combs, dice, hair-pins, toilette ornaments, delicately wrought spoons (fig. 242), Kohl bottles hollowed out of a miniature column surmounted by a capital, incense-burners in the shape of a hand supporting a bronze cup in which the perfumes were burned, and boomerangs engraved with figures of gods and fantastic animals, were also made of ivory. Some of these objects are works of fine art; as for instance at Gizeh, a poignard-handle in the form of a lion; the plaques in bas-relief which adorn the draught-box of one Tûaï, who lived towards the end of the Seventeenth Dynasty; a Fifth Dynasty figure, unfortunately mutilated, which yet retains traces of rose colour; and a miniature statue of Abi, who died at the time of the Thirteenth Dynasty. This little personage, perched on the top of a lotus-flower column, looks straight before him with a majestic air which contrasts somewhat comically with the size and prominence of his ears. The modelling of the figure is broad and spirited, and will bear comparison with good Italian ivories of the Renaissance period. [Illustration: Fig. 243.--Wooden statuette of officer, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 244.--Wooden statuette of priest, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 245.--Wooden statuette of the Lady Naï.] Egypt produces few trees, and of these few the greater number are useless to the sculptor. The two which most abound--namely, the date palm and the dôm palm--are of too coarse a fibre for carving, and are too unequal in texture. Some varieties of the sycamore and acacia are the only trees of which the grain is sufficiently fine and manageable to be wrought with the chisel. Wood was, nevertheless, a favourite material for cheap and rapid work. It was even employed at times for subjects of importance, such as Ka statues; and the Wooden Man of Gizeh shows with what boldness and amplitude of style it could be treated. But the blocks and beams which the Egyptians had at command were seldom large enough for a statue. The Wooden Man himself, though but half life-size, consists of a number of pieces held together by square pegs. Hence, wood-carvers were wont to treat their subjects upon such a scale as admitted of their being cut in one block, and the statues of olden time became statuettes under the Theban dynasties. Art lost nothing by the reduction, and more than one of these little figures is comparable to the finest works of the ancient empire. The best, perhaps, is at the Turin Museum, and dates from the Twentieth Dynasty. It represents a young girl whose only garment is a slender girdle. She is of that indefinite age when the undeveloped form is almost as much like that of a boy as of a girl. The expression of the head is gentle, yet saucy. It is, in fact, across thirty centuries of time, a portrait of one of those graceful little maidens of Elephantine, who, without immodesty or embarrassment, walk unclothed in sight of strangers. Three little wooden men in the Gizeh Museum are probably contemporaries of the Turin figure. They wear full dress, as, indeed, they should, for one was a king's favourite named Hori, and surnamed Ra. They are walking with calm and measured tread, the bust thrown forward, and the head high. The expression upon their faces is knowing, and somewhat sly. An officer who has retired on half-pay at the Louvre (fig. 243) wears an undress uniform of the time of Amenhotep III.; that is to say, a small wig, a close-fitting vest with short sleeves, and a kilt drawn tightly over the hips, reaching scarcely half-way down the thigh, and trimmed in front with a piece of puffing plaited longwise. His companion is a priest (fig. 244), who wears his hair in rows of little curls one above the other, and is clad in a long petticoat falling below the calf of the leg and spreading out in front in a kind of plaited apron. He holds a sacred standard consisting of a stout staff surmounted by a ram's head crowned with the solar disc. Both officer and priest are painted red brown, with the exception of the hair, which is black; the cornea of the eyes, which is white; and the standard, which is yellow. Curiously enough, the little lady Naï, who inhabits the same glass case, is also painted reddish brown, instead of buff, which was the canonical colour for women (fig. 245). She is taken in a close-fitting garment trimmed down the front with a band of white embroidery. Round her neck she wears a necklace consisting of a triple row of gold pendants. Two golden bracelets adorn her wrists, and on her head she carries a wig with long curls. The right arm hangs by her side, the hand holding some object now lost, which was probably a mirror. The left arm is raised, and with the left hand she presses a lotus lily to her breast. The body is easy and well formed, the figure indicates youth, the face is open, smiling, pleasant, and somewhat plebeian. To modify the unwieldy mass of the headdress was beyond the skill of the artist, but the bust is delicately and elegantly modelled, the clinging garment gives discreet emphasis to the shape, and the action of the hand which holds the flower is rendered with grace and naturalness. All these are portraits, and as the sitters were not persons of august rank, we may conclude that they did not employ the most fashionable artists. They, doubtless, had recourse to more unpretending craftsmen; but that such craftsmen were thus highly trained in knowledge of form and accuracy of execution, shows how strongly even the artisan was influenced by the great school of sculpture which then flourished at Thebes. This influence becomes even more apparent when we study the knick-knacks of the toilet table, and such small objects as, properly speaking, come under the head of furniture. To pass in review the hundred and one little articles of female ornament or luxury to which the fancy of the designer gave all kinds of ingenious and novel forms, would be no light task. The handles of mirrors, for instance, generally represented a stem of lotus or papyrus surmounted by a full-blown flower, from the midst of which rose a disk of polished metal. For this design is sometimes substituted the figure of a young girl, either nude, or clad in a close-fitting garment, who holds the mirror on her head. The tops of hair-pins were carved in the semblance of a coiled serpent, or of the head of a jackal, a dog, or a hawk. The pin- cushion in which they are placed is a hedgehog or a tortoise, with holes pierced in a formal pattern upon the back. The head-rests, which served for pillows, were decorated with bas-reliefs of subjects derived from the myths of Bes and Sekhet, the grimacing features of the former deity being carved on the ends or on the base. But it is in the carving of perfume-spoons and kohl-bottles that the inventive skill of the craftsman is most brilliantly displayed. [Illustration: Fig. 246.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fig. 247.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fib. 248.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fig. 249.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fig. 250.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fig. 251.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fig. 252.--Spoon.] [Illustration: Fig. 253.--Spoon.] Not to soil their fingers the Egyptians made use of spoons for essences, pomades, and the variously-coloured preparations with which both men and women stained their cheeks, lips, eyelids, nails, and palms. The designer generally borrowed his subjects from the fauna or flora of the Nile valley. A little case at Gizeh is carved in the shape of a couchant calf, the body being hollowed out, and the head and back forming a removable lid. A spoon in the same collection represents a dog running away with an enormous fish in his mouth (fig. 246), the body of the fish forming the bowl of the spoon. Another shows a cartouche springing from a full-blown lotus; another, a lotus fruit laid upon a bouquet of flowers (fig. 247); and here is a simple triangular bowl, the handle decorated with a stem and two buds (fig. 248). The most elaborate specimens combine these subjects with the human figure. A young girl, clad in a mere girdle, is represented in the act of swimming (fig. 249). Her head is well lifted above the water, and her outstretched arms support a duck, the body of which is hollowed out, while the wings, being movable, serve as a cover. We have also a young girl in the Louvre collection, but she stands in a maze of lotus plants (fig. 250), and is in the act of gathering a bud. A bunch of stems, from which emerge two full-blown blossoms, unites the handle to the bowl of the spoon, which is in reverse position, the larger end being turned outwards and the point inwards. Elsewhere, a young girl (fig. 251) playing upon a long- necked lute as she trips along, is framed in by two flowering stems. Sometimes the fair musician is standing upright in a tiny skiff (fig. 252); and sometimes a girl bearing offerings is substituted for the lute player. Another example represents a slave toiling under the weight of an enormous sack. The age and physiognomy of each of these personages is clearly indicated. The lotus gatherer is of good birth, as may be seen by her carefully plaited hair and tunic. The Theban ladies wore long robes; but this damsel has gathered up her skirts that she may thread her way among the reeds without wetting her garments. The two musicians and the swimming girl belong, on the contrary, to an inferior, or servile, class. Two of them wear only a girdle, and the third has a short garment negligently fastened. The bearer of offerings (fig. 253) wears the long pendent tresses distinctive of childhood, and is one of those slender, growing girls of the fellahîn class whom one sees in such numbers on the banks of the Nile. Her lack of clothing is, however, no evidence of want of birth, for not even the children of nobility were wont to put on the garments of their sex before the period of adolescence. Lastly, the slave (fig. 254), with his thick lips, his high shoulders, his flat nose, his heavy, animal jaw, his low brow, and his bare, conical head, is evidently a caricature of some foreign prisoner. The dogged sullenness with which he trudges under his burden is admirably caught, while the angularities of the body, the type of the head, and the general arrangement of the parts, remind one of the terra-cotta grotesques of Asia Minor. In these subjects, all the minor details, the fruits, the flowers, the various kinds of birds, are rendered with much truth and cleverness. Of the three ducks which are tied by the feet and slung over the arms of the girl bearing offerings, two are resigned to their fate, and hang swinging with open eyes and outstretched necks; but the third flaps her wings and lifts her head protestingly. The two small water-fowl perched upon the lotus flowers listen placidly to the lute-player's music, their beaks resting on their crops. They have learned by experience not to put themselves out of the way for a song, and they know that there is nothing to fear from a young girl, unless she is armed. They are put to flight in the bas-reliefs by the mere sight of a bow and arrows, just as a company of rooks is put to flight nowadays by the sight of a gun. The Egyptians were especially familiar with the ways of animals and birds, and reproduced them with marvellous exactness. The habit of minutely observing minor facts became instinctive, and it informed their most trifling works with that air of reality which strikes us so forcibly at the present day. [Illustration: Fig. 254.--Spoon.] Household furniture was no more abundant in ancient Egypt than it is in the Egypt of to-day. In the time of the Twelfth Dynasty an ordinary house contained no bedsteads, but low frameworks like the Nubian _angareb_; or mats rolled up by day on which the owners lay down at night in their clothes, pillowing their heads on earthenware, stone, or wooden head-rests. There were also two or three simple stone seats, some wooden chairs or stools with carved legs, chests and boxes of various sizes for clothes and tools, and a few common vessels of pottery or bronze. For making fire there were fire-sticks, and the bow-drill for using them (figs. 255 and 181); children's toys were even then found in great variety though of somewhat quaint construction. There were dolls with wigs and movable limbs, made in stone, pottery, and wood (fig. 256); figures of men, and animals, and terra-cotta boats, balls of wood and stuffed leather, whip-tops, and tip- cats (fig. 257). [Illustration: Fig. 255.--Fire-sticks, bow, and unfinished drill-stock, Twelfth Dynasty; _Illahûn, Kahun, and Gurob,_ W.M.F. Petrie, Plate VII., p. 11.] [Illustration: Fig. 256.--Remains of two Twelfth Dynasty dolls; _Kahun, Gurob and Hawara,_ W.M.F. Petrie, Plate VIII. p. 30.] [Illustration: Fig. 257.--Tops, tip-cat, and a terra-cotta toy boat, Twelfth Dynasty; _Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara,_ W.M.F. Petrie, Plates VIII., IX., p. 30.] [Illustration: Fig. 258.--Chest] [Illustration: Fig. 259.--Chest.] [Illustration: Fig. 260.--Chest.] The art of the cabinet-maker was nevertheless carried to a high degree of perfection, from the time of the ancient dynasties. Planks were dressed down with the adze, mortised, glued, joined together by means of pegs cut in hard wood, or acacia thorns (never by metal nails), polished, and finally covered with paintings. Chests generally stand upon four straight legs, and are occasionally thus raised to some height from the ground. The lid is flat, or rounded according to a special curvature (fig. 258) much in favour among the Egyptians of all periods. Sometimes, though rarely, it is gable-shaped, like our house-roofs (fig. 259). Generally speaking, the lid lifts off bodily; but it often turns upon a peg inserted in one of the uprights. Sometimes, also, it turns upon wooden pivots (fig. 260). The panels, which are large and admirably suited for decorative art, are enriched with paintings, or inlaid with ivory, silver, precious woods, or enamelled plaques. It may be that we are scarcely in a position justly to appraise the skill of Egyptian cabinet-makers, or the variety of designs produced at various periods. Nearly all the furniture which has come down to our day has been found in tombs, and, being destined for burial in the sepulchre, may either be of a character exclusively destined for the use of the mummy, or possibly a cheap imitation of a more precious class of goods. The mummy was, in fact, the cabinet-maker's best customer. In other lands, man took but a few objects with him into the next world; but the defunct Egyptian required nothing short of a complete outfit. The mummy-case alone was an actual monument, in the construction of which a whole squad of workmen was employed (fig. 261). The styles of mummy-cases varied from period to period. Under the Memphite and first Theban empires, we find only rectangular chests in sycamore wood, flat at top and bottom, and made of many pieces joined together by wooden pins. The pattern is not elegant, but the decoration is very curious. The lid has no cornice. Outside, it is inscribed down the middle with a long column of hieroglyphs, sometimes merely written in ink, sometimes laid on in colour, sometimes carved in hollowed-out signs filled in with some kind of bluish paste. The inscription records only the name and titles of the deceased, accompanied now and then by a short form of prayer in his favour. The inside is covered with a thick coat of stucco or whitewash. [Illustration: Fig. 261.--Construction of a mummy-case, wall scene, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 262.--Mask of Twenty-first Dynasty coffin of Rameses II.] [Illustration: Fig. 263.--Mummy-case of Queen Ahmesnefertari.] Upon this surface, the seventeenth chapter of _The Book of the Dead _was generally written in red and black inks, and in fine cursive hieroglyphs. The body of the chest is made with three horizontal planks for the bottom, and eight vertical planks, placed two and two, for the four sides. The outside is sometimes decorated with long strips of various colours ending in interlaced lotus-leaves, such as are seen on stone sarcophagi. More frequently, it is ornamented on the left side with two wide-open eyes and two monumental doors, and on the right with three doors exactly like those seen in contemporary catacombs. The sarcophagus is in truth the house of the deceased; and, being his house, its four walls were bound to contain an epitome of the prayers and _tableaux_ which covered the walls of his tomb. The necessary formulae and pictured scenes were, therefore, reproduced inside, nearly in the same order in which they appear in the mastabas. Each side is divided in three registers, each register containing a dedication in the name of the deceased, or representations of objects belonging to him, or such texts from the Ritual as need to be repeated for his benefit. Skilfully composed, and painted upon a background made to imitate some precious wood, the whole forms a boldly-designed and harmoniously-coloured picture. The cabinet-maker's share of the work was the lightest, and the long boxes in which the dead of the earliest period were buried made no great demand upon his skill. This, however, was not the case when in later times the sarcophagus came to be fashioned in the likeness of the human body. Of this style we have two leading types. In the most ancient, the mummy serves as the model for his case. His outstretched feet and legs are in one. The form of the knee, the swell of the calf, the contours of the thigh and the trunk, are summarily indicated, and are, as it were, vaguely modelled under the wood. The head, apparently the only living part of this inert body, is wrought out in the round. The dead man is in this wise imprisoned in a kind of statue of himself; and this statue is so well balanced that it can stand on its feet if required, as upon a pedestal. In the other type of sarcophagus, the deceased lies at full length upon his tomb, and his figure, sculptured in the round, serves as the lid of his mummy-case. On his head is seen the ponderous wig of the period. A white linen vest and a long petticoat cover his chest and legs. His feet are shod with elegant sandals. His arms lie straight along his sides, or are folded upon his breast, the hands grasping various emblems, as the _Ankh_, the girdle-buckle, the _Tat_;[69] or, as in the case of the wife of Sennetmû at Gizeh, a garland of ivy. This mummiform type of sarcophagus is rarely met with under the Memphite dynasties, though that of Menkara, the Mycerinus of the Greeks, affords a memorable example. Under the Eleventh Dynasty, the mummy-case is frequently but a hollowed tree-trunk, roughly sculptured outside, with a head at one end and feet at the other. The face is daubed with bright colours, yellow, red, and green; the wig and headdress are striped with black and blue, and an elaborate collar is depicted on the breast. The rest of the case is either covered with the long, gilded wings of Isis and Nephthys, or with a uniform tint of white or yellow, and sparsely decorated with symbolic figures, or columns of hieroglyphs painted blue and black. Among the sarcophagi belonging to kings of the Seventeenth Dynasty which I recovered from Deir el Baharî, the most highly finished belonged to this type, and were only remarkable for the really extraordinary skill with which the craftsman had reproduced the features of the deceased sovereigns. The mask of Ahmes I., that of Amenhotep I., and that of Thothmes II., are masterpieces in their way. The mask of Rameses II. shows no sign of paint, except a black line which accentuates the form of the eye. The face is doubtless modelled in the likeness of the Pharaoh Herhor, who restored the funerary outfit of his puissant ancestor, and it will almost bear comparison with the best works of contemporary sculpture (fig. 262). Two mummy-cases found in the same place--namely, those of Queen Ahmesnefertari and her daughter, Aahhotep II.--are of gigantic size, and measure more than ten and a half feet in height (fig. 263). Standing upright, they might almost be taken for two of the caryatid statues from the first court at Medinet Habû, though on a smaller scale. The bodies are represented as bandaged, and but vaguely indicate the contours of the human form. The shoulders and bust of each are covered with a kind of network in relief, every mesh standing out in blue upon a yellow ground. The hands emerge from this mantle, are crossed upon the breast, and grasp the _Ankh_, or Tau-cross, symbolic of eternal life. The heads are portraits. The faces are round, the eyes large, the expression mild and characterless. Each is crowned with the flat-topped cap and lofty plumes of Amen or Maut. We cannot but wonder for what reason these huge receptacles were made. The two queens were small of stature, and their mummies--which were well-nigh lost in the cases--had to be packed round with an immense quantity of rags, to prevent them from shifting, and becoming injured. Apart from their abnormal size, these cases are characterised by the same simplicity which distinguishes other mummy-cases of royal or private persons of the same period. Towards the middle of the Nineteenth Dynasty, the fashion changed. The single mummy-case, soberly decorated, was superseded by two, three, and even four cases, fitting the one into the other, and covered with paintings and inscriptions. Sometimes the outer receptacle is a sarcophagus with convex lid and square ears, upon which the deceased is pictured over and over again upon a white ground, in adoration before the gods of the Osirian cycle. When, however, it is shaped in human form, it retains somewhat of the old simplicity. The face is painted; a collar is represented on the chest, a band of hieroglyphs extends down the whole length of the body to the feet, and the rest is in one uniform tone of black, brown, or dark yellow. The inner cases were extravagantly rich, the hands and faces being red, rose-coloured, or gilded; the jewellery painted, or sometimes imitated by means of small morsels of enamel encrusted in the wood-work; the surfaces frequently covered with many-coloured scenes and legends, and the whole heightened by means of the yellow varnish already mentioned. The lavish ornamentation of this period is in striking contrast with the sobriety of earlier times; but in order to grasp the reason of this change, one must go to Thebes, and visit the actual sepulchres of the dead. The kings and private persons of the great conquering dynasties[70] devoted their energies, and all the means at their disposal, to the excavation of catacombs. The walls of those catacombs were covered with sculptures and paintings. The sarcophagus was cut in one enormous block of granite or alabaster, and admirably wrought. It was therefore of little moment if the wooden coffin in which the mummy reposed were very simply decorated. But the Egyptians of the decadence, and their rulers, had not the wealth of Egypt and the spoils of neighbouring countries at command. They were poor; and the slenderness of their resources debarred them from great undertakings. They for the most part gave up the preparation of magnificent tombs, and employed such wealth as remained to them in the fabrication of fine mummy-cases carved in sycamore wood. The beauty of their coffins, therefore, but affords an additional proof of their weakness and poverty. When for a few centuries the Saïte princes had succeeded in re-establishing the prosperity of the country, stone sarcophagi came once more into requisition, and the wooden coffin reverted to somewhat of the simplicity of the great period. But this Renaissance was not destined to last. The Macedonian conquest brought back the same revolution in funerary fashions which followed the fall of the Ramessides, and double and triple mummy cases, over-painted and over-gilded, were again in demand. If the craftsmen of Graeco-Roman time who attired the dead of Ekhmîm for their last resting places were less skilful than those of earlier date, their bad taste was, at all events, not surpassed by the Theban coffin-makers who lived and worked under the latest princes of the royal line of Rameses. [Illustration: Fig. 264.--Panel portrait from the Graeco-Roman Cemetery at Hawara, now in the National Gallery, London. (_Hawara, Biahmu, and Arsinoe_, W.M.F. Petrie, Plate X., page 10.)] A series of Graeco-Roman examples from the Fayûm exhibit the stages by which portraiture in the flat there replaced the modelled mask, until towards the middle of the second century A.D. it became customary to bandage over the face of the mummy a panel-portrait of the dead, as he was in life (fig. 264). The remainder of the funerary outfit supplied the cabinet-maker with as much work as the coffin-maker. Boxes of various shapes and sizes were required for the wardrobe of the mummy, for his viscera, and for his funerary statuettes. He must also have tables for his meals; stools, chairs, a bed to lie upon, a boat and sledge to convey him to the tomb, and sometimes even a war-chariot and a carriage in which to take the air.[71] The boxes for canopic vases, funerary statuettes, and libation-vases, are divided in several compartments. A couchant jackal is sometimes placed on the top, and serves for a handle by which to take off the lid. Each box was provided with its own little sledge, upon which it was drawn in the funeral procession on the day of burial. Beds are not very uncommon. Many are identical in structure with the Nubian _angarebs_, and consist merely of some coarse fabric, or of interlaced strips of leather, stretched on a plain wooden frame. Few exceed fifty-six inches in length; the sleeper, therefore, could never lie outstretched, but must perforce assume a doubled-up position. The frame is generally horizontal, but sometimes it slopes slightly downwards from the head to the foot. It was often raised to a considerable height above the level of the floor, and a stool, or a little portable set of steps, was used in mounting it. These details were known to us by the wall-paintings only until I myself discovered two perfect specimens in 1884 and 1885; one at Thebes, in a tomb of the Thirteenth Dynasty, and the other at Ekhmîm, in the Graeco-Roman necropolis. In the former, two accommodating lions have elongated their bodies to form the framework, their heads doing duty for the head of the bed, and their tails being curled up under the feet of the sleeper. [Illustration: Fig. 265.--Carved and painted mummy canopy.] [Illustration: Fig. 266.--Canopied mummy-couch, Graeco-Roman.] [Illustration: Fig. 267.--Mummy-sledge and canopy.] [Illustration: Fig. 268.--Inlaid-chair, Eleventh Dynasty.] The bed is surmounted by a kind of canopy, under which the mummy lay in state. Rhind had already found a similar canopy, which is now in the Museum of Edinburgh[72] (fig. 265). In shape it is a temple, the rounded roof being supported by elegant colonnettes of painted wood. A doorway guarded by serpents is supposed to give access to the miniature edifice. Three winged discs, each larger than the one below it, adorn three superimposed cornices above the door, the whole frontage being surmounted by a row of erect uraei, crowned with the solar disc. The canopy belonging to the Thirteenth Dynasty bed is much more simple, being a mere balustrade in cut and painted wood, in imitation of the water-plant pattern with which temple walls were decorated; the whole is crowned with an ordinary cornice. In the bed of Graeco-Roman date (fig. 266), carved and painted figures of the goddess Ma, sitting with her feather on her knee, are substituted for the customary balustrades. Isis and Nephthys stand with their winged arms outstretched at the head and foot. The roof is open, save for a row of vultures hovering above the mummy, which is wept over by two kneeling statuettes of Isis and Nephthys, one at each end. The sledges upon which mummies were dragged to the sepulchre were also furnished with canopies, but in a totally different style. The sledge canopy is a panelled shrine, like those which I discovered in 1886, in the tomb of Sennetmû at Kûrnet Murraee. If light was admitted, it came through a square opening, showing the head of the mummy within. Wilkinson gives an illustration of a sledge canopy of this kind, from the wall paintings of a Theban tomb (fig. 267). The panels were always made to slide. As soon as the mummy was laid upon his sledge, the panels were closed, the corniced roof placed over all, and the whole closed in. With regard to chairs, many of those in the Louvre and the British Museum were made about the time of the Eleventh Dynasty. These are not the least beautiful specimens which have come down to us, one in particular (fig. 268) having preserved an extraordinary brilliancy of colour. The framework, formerly fitted with a seat of strong netting, was originally supported on four legs with lions' feet. The back is ornamented with two lotus flowers, and with a row of lozenges inlaid in ivory and ebony upon a red ground. Stools of similar workmanship (fig. 269), and folding stools, the feet of which are in the form of a goose's head, may be seen in all museums. Pharaohs and persons of high rank affected more elaborate designs. Their seats were sometimes raised very high, the arms being carved to resemble running lions, and the lower supports being prisoners of war, bound back to back (fig. 270). A foot-board in front served as a step to mount by, and as a foot-stool for the sitter. Up to the present time, we have found no specimens of this kind of seat.[73] [Illustration: Fig. 269.--Inlaid stool, Eleventh Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 270.--Royal throne-chair, wall-painting Rameses III.] [Illustration: Fig. 271.--Women weaving. From wall-scene in tomb of Khnûmhotep, Beni Hasan, Twelfth Dynasty.] We learn from the tomb paintings that netted or cane-bottomed chairs were covered with stuffed seats and richly worked cushions. These cushions and stuffed seats have perished, but it is to be concluded that they were covered with tapestry. Tapestry was undoubtedly known to the Egyptians, and a bas-relief subject at Beni Hasan (fig. 271)[74] shows the process of weaving. The frame, which is of the simplest structure, resembles that now in use among the weavers of Ekhmîm. It is horizontal, and is formed of two slender cylinders, or rather of two rods, about fifty-four inches apart, each held in place by two large pegs driven into the ground about three feet distant from each other. The warps of the chain were strongly fastened, then rolled round the top cylinder till they were stretched sufficiently tight. Mill sticks placed at certain distances facilitated the insertion of the needles which carried the thread. As in the Gobelins factory, the work was begun from the bottom. The texture was regulated and equalised by means of a coarse comb, and was rolled upon the lower cylinder as it increased in length. Hangings and carpets were woven in this manner; some with figures, others with geometrical designs, zigzags, and chequers (fig. 272). A careful examination of the monuments has, however, convinced me that most of the subjects hitherto supposed to represent examples of tapestry represent, in fact, examples of cut and painted leather. The leather-worker's craft flourished in ancient Egypt. Few museums are without a pair of leather sandals, or a specimen of mummy braces with ends of stamped leather bearing the effigy of a god, a Pharaoh, a hieroglyphic legend, a rosette, or perhaps all combined. These little relics are not older than the time of the priest-kings, or the earlier Bubastites. It is to the same period that we must attribute the great cut-leather canopy in the Gizeh Museum. The catafalque upon which the mummy was laid when transported from the mortuary establishment to the tomb, was frequently adorned with a covering made of stuff or soft leather. Sometimes the sidepieces hung down, and sometimes they were drawn aside with bands, like curtains, and showed the coffin. [Illustration: Fig. 272.--Man weaving hangings, or carpet. From Beni Hasan, Twelfth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 273.--Border pattern of cut leather canopy of Isiemkheb, Twenty-first Dynasty.] The canopy of Deir el Baharî was made for the Princess Isiemkheb, daughter of the High Priest Masahirti, wife of the High Priest Menkheperra, and mother of the High Priest Pinotem III. The centrepiece, in shape an oblong square, is divided into three bands of sky-blue leather, now faded to pearl-grey. The two side-pieces are sprinkled with yellow stars. Upon the middle piece are rows of vultures, whose outspread wings protect the mummy. Four other pieces covered with red and green chequers are attached to the ends and sides. The longer pieces which hung over the sides are united to the centre-piece by an ornamental bordering. On the right, scarabaei with extended wings alternate with the cartouches of King Pinotem II., and are surmounted by a lance-head frieze. On the left side, the pattern is more complicated (fig. 273). In the centre we see a bunch of lotus lilies flanked by royal cartouches. Next come two antelopes, each kneeling upon a basket; then two bouquets of papyrus; then two more scarabaei, similar to those upon the other border. The lance-head frieze finishes it above, as on the opposite side. The technical process is very curious. The hieroglyphs and figures were cut out from large pieces of leather; then, under the open spaces thus left, were sewn thongs of leather of whatever colour was required for those ornaments or hieroglyphs. Finally, in order to hide the patchwork effect presented at the back, the whole was lined with long strips of white, or light yellow, leather. Despite the difficulties of treatment which this work presented, the result is most remarkable.[75] The outlines of the gazelles, scarabaei, and flowers are as clean-cut and as elegant as if drawn with the pen upon a wall-surface or a page of papyrus. The choice of subjects is happy, and the colours employed are both lively and harmonious. [Illustration: Fig. 274.--Bark with cut leather sail; wall-painting tomb of Rameses III.] The craftsmen who designed and executed the canopy of Isiemkheb had profited by a long experience of this system of decoration, and of the kind of patterns suitable to the material. For my own part, I have not the slightest doubt that the cushions of chairs and royal couches, and the sails of funeral and sacred boats used for the transport of mummies and divine images, were most frequently made in leather-work. The chequer- patterned sail represented in one of the boat subjects painted on the wall of a chamber in the tomb of Rameses III. (fig. 274), might be mistaken for one of the side pieces of the canopy at Gizeh. The vultures and fantastic birds depicted upon the sails of another boat (fig. 275) are neither more strange nor more difficult to make in cut leather than the vultures and gazelles of Isiemkheb. [Illustration: Fig. 275.--Bark with cut leather sail; wall-painting tomb of Rameses III.] We have it upon the authority of ancient writers that the Egyptians of olden time embroidered as skilfully as those of the Middle Ages. The surcoats given by Amasis, one to the Lacedaemonians, and the other to the temple of Athena at Lindos, were of linen embroidered with figures of animals in gold thread and purple, each thread consisting of three hundred and sixty-five distinct filaments. To go back to a still earlier period, the monumental tableaux show portraits of the Pharaohs wearing garments with borders, either woven or embroidered, or done in _appliqué_ work. The most simple patterns consist of one or more stripes of brilliant colour parallel with the edge of the material. Elsewhere we see palm patterns, or rows of discs and points, leaf-patterns, meanders, and even, here and there, figures of men, gods, or animals, worked most probably with the needle. None of the textile materials yet found upon royal mummies are thus decorated; we are therefore unable to pronounce upon the quality of this work, or the method employed in its production. Once only, upon the body of one of the Deir el Baharî princesses, did I find a royal cartouche embroidered in pale rose-colour. The Egyptians of the best periods seem to have attached special value to plain stuffs, and especially to white ones. These they wove with marvellous skill, and upon looms in every respect identical with those used in tapestry work. Those portions of the winding sheet of Thothmes III. which enfolded the royal hands and arms, are as fine as the finest India muslin, and as fairly merit the name of "woven air" as the gauzes of the island of Cos. This, of course, is a mere question of manufacture, apart from the domain of art. Embroideries and tapestries were not commonly used in Egypt till about the end of the Persian period, or the beginning of the period of Greek rule. Alexandria became partly peopled by Phoenician, Syrian, and Jewish colonists, who brought with them the methods of manufacture peculiar to their own countries, and founded workshops which soon developed into flourishing establishments. It is to the Alexandrians that Pliny ascribes the invention of weaving with several warps, thus producing the stuff called brocades (_polymita_); and in the time of the first Caesars, it was a recognised fact that "the needle of Babylon was henceforth surpassed by the comb of the Nile." The Alexandrian tapestries were not made after exclusively geometrical designs, like the products of the old Egyptian looms; but, according to the testimony of the ancients, were enriched with figures of animals, and even of men. Of the masterpieces which adorned the palaces of the Ptolemies no specimens remain. Many fragments which may be attributed to the later Roman time have, however, been found in Egypt, such as the piece with the boy and goose described by Wilkinson, and a piece representing marine divinities bought by myself at Coptos.[76] The numerous embroidered winding sheets with woven borders which have recently been discovered near Ekhmîm, and in the Fayûm, are nearly all from Coptic tombs, and are more nearly akin to Byzantine art than to the art of Egypt. [68] We have a considerable number of specimens of these borderings, cartouches, and painted tiles representing foreign prisoners, in the British Museum; but the finest examples of the latter are in the Ambras Collection, Vienna. For a highly interesting and scholarly description of the remains found at Tell el Yahûdeh in 1870, see Professor Hayter Lewis's paper in vol. iii. of the _Transactions_ of the Biblical Archaeological Society.--A.B.E. [69] The _Tat_ amulet was the emblem of stability.--A.B.E. [70] That is, the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties. [71] There is a fine specimen of one of these sledges in the Leyden Museum, and the Florentine Museum contains a celebrated Egyptian war-chariot in fine preservation.--A.B.E. [72] See the coloured frontispiece to _Thebes; its Tombs and their Tenants_, by A.H. Rhind. 1862.--A.B.E. [73] Since the publication of this work in the original French, a very splendid specimen of a royal Egyptian chair of state, the property of Jesse Haworth, Esq., was placed on view at the Manchester Jubilee Exhibition. It is made of dark wood, apparently rosewood; the legs being shaped like bull's legs, having silver hoofs, and a solid gold cobra snake twining round each leg. The arm-pieces are of lightwood with cobra snakes carved upon the flat in low relief, each snake covered with hundreds of small silver annulets, to represent the markings of the reptile. This chair, dated by a fragment of a royal cartouche, belonged to Queen Hatshepsût, of the Eighteenth Dynasty. It is now in the British Museum.--A.B.E. [74] In this cut, as well as in the next, the loom is represented as if upright; but it is supposed to be extended on the ground.--A.B.E. [75] For a chromolithographic reproduction of this work as a whole, with drawings of the separate parts, facsimiles of the inscriptions, etc., see _The Funeral Tent of an Egyptian Queen_, by H. Villiers Stuart.--A.B.E. [76] An unusually fine specimen of carpet, or tapestry work from Ekhmîm, representing Cupids rowing in papyrus skiffs, landscapes, etc., has recently been presented to the British Museum by the Rev. G.J. Chester. The tapestry found at Ekhmîm is, however, mostly of the Christian period, and this specimen probably dates from about A.D. 700 or A.D. 600.--A.B.E. 3.--METALS. The Egyptians classified metals under two heads--namely, the noble metals, as gold, electrum, and silver; and the base metals, as copper, iron, lead, and, at a later period, tin. The two lists are divided by the mention of certain kinds of precious stones, such as lapis lazuli and malachite. Iron was reserved for weapons of war, and tools, in use for hard substances, such as sculptors' and masons' chisels, axe and adze heads, knife-blades, and saws. Lead was comparatively useless, but was sometimes used for inlaying temple-doors, coffers, and furniture. Also small statuettes of gods were occasionally made in this metal, especially those of Osiris and Anubis. Copper was too yielding to be available for objects in current use; bronze, therefore, was the favourite metal of the Egyptians. Though often affirmed, it is not true that they succeeded in tempering bronze so that it became as hard as iron or steel; but by varying the constituents and their relative proportions, they were able to give it a variety of very different qualities. Most of the objects hitherto analysed have yielded precisely the same quantities of copper and tin commonly used by the bronze founders of the present day. Those analysed by Vauquelin in 1825 contained 84 per cent. of copper 14 per cent. of tin, and 1 per cent. of iron and other substances. A chisel brought from Egypt by Sir Gardner Wilkinson contained only from 5 to 9 per cent. of tin, 1 per cent. of iron, and 94 of copper. Certain fragments of statuettes and mirrors more recently subjected to analysis have yielded a notable quantity of gold and silver, thus corresponding with the bronzes of Corinth. Other specimens resemble brass, both in their colour and substance. Many of the best Egyptian bronzes offer a surprising resistance to damp, and oxidise with difficulty. While yet hot from the mould, they were rubbed with some kind of resinous varnish which filled up the pores and deposited an unalterable patina upon the surface. Each kind of bronze had its special use. The ordinary bronze was employed for weapons and common amulets; the brazen alloys served for household utensils; the bronzes mixed with gold and silver were destined only for mirrors, costly weapons, and statuettes of value. In none of the tomb-paintings which I have seen is there any representation of bronze-founding or bronze-working; but this omission is easily supplemented by the objects themselves. Tools, arms, rings, and cheap vases were sometimes forged, and sometimes cast whole in moulds of hard clay or stone. Works of art were cast in one or several pieces according to circumstances; the parts were then united, soldered, and retouched with the burin. The method most frequently employed was to prepare a core of mixed clay and charcoal, or sand, which roughly reproduced the modelling of the mould into which it was introduced. The layer of metal between this core and the mould was often so thin that it would have yielded to any moderate pressure, had they not taken the precaution to consolidate it by having the core for a support. [Illustration: Fig. 276.--Bronze jug.] [Illustration: Fig. 277.--Same jug seen from above.] Domestic utensils and small household instruments were mostly made in bronze. Such objects are exhibited by thousands in our museums, and frequently figure in bas-reliefs and mural paintings. Art and trade were not incompatible in Egypt; and even the coppersmith sought to give elegance of form, and to add ornaments in a good style, to the humblest of his works. The saucepan in which the cook of Rameses III. concocted his masterpieces is supported on lions' feet. Here is a hot-water jug which looks as if it were precisely like its modern successors (fig. 276); but on a closer examination we shall find that the handle is a full-blown lotus, the petals, which are bent over at an angle to the stalk, resting against the edge of the neck (fig. 277). The handles of knives and spoons are almost always in the form of a duck's or goose's neck, slightly curved. The bowl is sometimes fashioned like an animal--as, for instance, a gazelle ready bound for the sacrifice (fig. 278). On the hilt of a sabre we find a little crouching jackal; and the larger limb of a pair of scissors in the Gizeh Museum is made in the likeness of an Asiatic captive, his arms tied behind his back. A lotus leaf forms the disk of a mirror, and its stem is the handle. One perfume box is a fish, another is a bird, another is a grotesque deity. The lustration vases, or _situlae_, carried by priests and priestesses for the purpose of sprinkling either the faithful, or the ground traversed by religious processions, merit the special consideration of connoisseurs. They are ovoid or pointed at the bottom, and decorated with subjects either chased or in relief. These sometimes represent deities, each in a separate frame, and sometimes scenes of worship. The work is generally very minute. [Illustration: Fig. 278.--Spoon (or lamp?).] [Illustration: Fig. 279.--Bronze statuette of the Lady Takûshet.] [Illustration: Fig. 280.--Bronze statuette of Horus.] [Illustration: Fig. 281.--Bronze statuette of one Mosû.] Bronze came into use for statuary purposes from a very early period; but time unfortunately has preserved none of those idols which peopled the temples of the ancient empire. Whatsoever may be said to the contrary, we possess no bronze statuettes of any period anterior to the expulsion of the Hyksos. Some Theban figures date quite certainly from the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties. The chased lion's head found with the jewels of Queen Aahhotep, the Harpocrates of Gizeh inscribed with the names of Kames and Ahmes I., and several statuettes of Amen, said to have been discovered at Medinet Habû and Sheikh Abd el Gûrneh, are of that period. Our most important bronzes belong, however, to the Twenty-second Dynasty, or, later still, to the time of the Saïte Pharaohs. Many are not older than the first Ptolemies. A fragment found in the ruins of Tanis and now in the possession of Count Stroganoff, formed part of a votive statue dedicated by King Pisebkhanû. It was originally two-thirds the size of life, and is the largest specimen known. A portrait statuette of the Lady Takûshet, given to the Museum of Athens by M. Demetrio, the four statuettes from the Posno collection now at the Louvre, and the kneeling genius of Gizeh, are all from the site of Bubastis, and date probably from the years which immediately preceded the accession of Psammetichus I. The Lady Takûshet is standing, the left foot advanced, the right arm hanging down, the left raised and brought close to the body (fig. 279). She wears a short robe embroidered with religious subjects, and has bracelets on her arms and wrists. Upon her head she has a wig with flat curls, row above row. The details both of her robe and jewels are engraved in incised lines upon the surface of the bronze, and inlaid with silver threads. The face is evidently a portrait, and represents a woman of mature age. The form, according to the traditions of Egyptian art, is that of a younger woman, slender, firm, and supple. The copper in this bronze is largely intermixed with gold, thus producing a chastened lustre which is admirably suited to the richness of the embroidered garment. The kneeling genius of Gizeh is as rude and repellent as the Lady Takûshet is delicate and harmonious. He has a hawk's head, and he worships the sun, as is the duty of the Heliopolitan genii. His right arm is uplifted, his left is pressed to his breast. The style of the whole is dry, and the granulated surface of the skin adds to the hard effect of the figure. The action, however, is energetic and correct, and the bird's head is adjusted with surprising skill to the man's neck and shoulders. The same qualities and the same faults distinguish the Horus of the Posno collection (fig. 280). Standing, he uplifted a libation vase; now lost, and poured the contents upon a king who once stood face to face with him. This roughness of treatment is less apparent in the other three Posno figures; above all in that which bears the name of Mosû engraved over the place of the heart (fig. 281). Like the Horus, this Mosû stands upright, his left foot advanced, and his left arm pendent. His right hand is raised, as grasping the wand of office. The trunk is naked, and round his loins he wears a striped cloth with a squared end falling in front. His head is clad in a short wig covered with short curls piled one above the other. The ear is round and large. The eyes are well opened, and were originally of silver; but have been stolen by some Arab. The features have a remarkable expression of pride and dignity. After these, what can be said for the thousands of statuettes of Osiris, of Isis, of Nephthys, of Horus, of Nefertûm, which have been found in the sands and ruins of Sakkarah, Bubastis, and other cities of the Delta? Many are, without doubt, charming objects for glass-cases, and are to be admired for perfection of casting and delicacy of execution; but the greater number are mere articles of commerce, made upon the same pattern, and perhaps in the self- same moulds, century after century, for the delight of devotees and pilgrims. They are rounded, vulgar, destitute of originality, and have no more distinction than the thousands of coloured statuettes of saints and Virgins which stock the shelves of our modern dealers in pious wares. An exception must, however, be made in favour of the images of animals, such as rams, sphinxes, and lions, which to the last retained a more pronounced stamp of individuality. The Egyptians had a special predilection for the feline race. They have represented the lion in every attitude--giving chase to the antelope; springing upon the hunter; wounded, and turning to bite his wound; couchant, and disdainfully calm--and no people have depicted him with a more thorough knowledge of his habits, or with so intense a vitality. Several gods and goddesses, as Shû, Anhûr, Bast, Sekhet, Tefnût, have the form of the lion or of the cat; and inasmuch as the worship of these deities was more popular in the Delta than elsewhere, so there never passes a year when from amid the ruins of Bubastis, Tanis, Mendes, or some less famous city, there is not dug up a store of little figures of lions and lionesses, or of men and women with lions' heads, or cats' heads. The cats of Bubastis and the lions of Tell es Seba crowd our museums. The lions of Horbeit may be reckoned among the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of Egyptian statuary. Upon one of the largest among them is inscribed the name of Apries (fig. 282); but if even this evidence were lacking, the style of the piece would compel us to attribute it to the Saïte period. It formed part of the ornamentation of a temple or naos door; and the other side was either built into a wall or imbedded in a piece of wood. The lion is caught in a trap, or, perhaps, lying down in an oblong cage, with only his head and fore feet outside. The lines of the body are simple and full of power; the expression of the face is calm and strong. In breadth and majesty he almost equals the fine limestone lions of Amenhotep III. [Illustration: Fig. 282.--Bronze lion from Horbeit, Saïte.] [Illustration: Fig. 283.--Gold worker.] The idea of inlaying gold and other precious metals upon the surface of bronze, stone, or wood was already ancient in Egypt in the time of Khûfû. The gold is often amalgamated with pure silver. When amalgamated to the extent of 20 per cent, it changes its name, and is called electrum (_asimû_). This electrum is of a fine light-yellow colour. It pales as the proportion of silver becomes larger, and at 60 per cent. it is nearly white. The silver came chiefly from Asia, in rings, sheets, and bricks of standard weight. The gold and electrum came partly from Syria in bricks and rings; and partly from the Soudan in nuggets and gold-dust. The processes of refining and alloying are figured on certain monuments of the early dynasties. In a bas-relief at Sakkarah, we see the weighed gold entrusted to the craftsman for working; in another example (at Beni Hasan) the washing and melting down of the ore is represented; and again at Thebes, the goldsmith is depicted seated in front of his crucible, holding the blow-pipe to his lips with the left hand, and grasping his pincers with the right, thus fanning the flame and at the same time making ready to seize the ingot (fig. 283). The Egyptians struck neither coins nor medals. With these exceptions, they made the same use of the precious metals as we do ourselves. We gild the crosses and cupolas of our churches; they covered the doors of their temples, the lower part of their wall-surfaces, certain bas-reliefs, pyramidions of obelisks, and even whole obelisks, with plates of gold. The obelisks of Queen Hatshepsût at Karnak were coated with electrum. "They were visible from both banks of the Nile, and when the sun rose between them as he came up from the heavenly horizon, they flooded the two Egypts with their dazzling rays."[77] These plates of metal were forged with hammer and anvil. For smaller objects, they made use of little pellets beaten flat between two pieces of parchment. In the Museum of the Louvre we have a gilder's book, and the gold-leaf which it contains is as thin as the gold-leaf used by the German goldsmiths of the past century. Gold was applied to bronze surfaces by means of an ammoniacal solvent. If the object to be gilt were a wooden statuette, the workman began by sticking a piece of fine linen all over the surface, or by covering it with a very thin coat of plaster; upon this he laid his gold or silver leaf. It was thus that wooden statuettes of Thoth, Horus, and Nefertûm were gilded, from the time of Khûfû. The temple of Isis, the "Lady of the Pyramid," contained a dozen such images; and this temple was not one of the largest in the Memphite necropolis. There would seem to have been hundreds of gilded statues in the Theban temples, at all events in the time of the victorious dynasties of the new empire; and as regards wealth, the Ptolemaic sanctuaries were in no wise inferior to those of the Theban period. Bronze and gilded wood were not always good enough for the gods of Egypt. They exacted pure gold, and their worshippers gave them as much of it as possible. Entire statues of the precious metals were dedicated by the kings of the ancient and middle empires; and the Pharaohs of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties, who drew at will upon the treasures of Asia, transcended all that had been done by their predecessors. Even in times of decadence, the feudal lords kept up the traditions of the past, and, like Prince Mentûemhat, replaced the images of gold and silver which had been carried off from Karnak by the generals of Sardanapalus at the time of the Assyrian invasions. The quantity of metal thus consecrated to the service of the gods must have been considerable, If many figures were less than an inch in height, many others measured three cubits, or more. Some were of gold, some of silver; others were part gold and part silver. There were even some which combined gold with sculptured ivory, ebony, and precious stones, thus closely resembling the chryselephantine statues of the Greeks. Aided by the bas-relief subjects of Karnak, Medinet Habû, and Denderah, as well as by the statues in wood and limestone which have come down to our day, we can tell exactly what they were like. However the material might vary, the style was always the same. Nothing is more perishable than works of this description. They are foredoomed to destruction by the mere value of the materials in which they are made. What civil war and foreign invasion had spared, and what had chanced to escape the rapacity of Roman princes and governors, fell a prey to Christian iconoclasm. A few tiny statuettes buried as amulets upon the bodies of mummies, a few domestic divinities buried in the ruins of private houses, a few ex-votos forgotten, perchance, in some dark corner of a fallen sanctuary, have escaped till the present day. The Ptah and Amen of Queen Aahhotep, another golden Amen also at Gizeh, and the silver vulture found in 1885 at Medinet Habû, are the only pieces of this kind which can be attributed with certainty to the great period of Egyptian art. The remainder are of Saïte or Ptolemaic work, and are remarkable only for the perfection with which they are wrought. The gold and silver vessels used in the service of the temples, and in the houses of private persons, shared the fate of the statues. At the beginning of the present century, the Louvre acquired some flat-bottomed cups which Thothmes III. presented as the reward of valour to one of his generals named Tahûti. The silver cup is much mutilated, but the golden cup is intact and elegantly designed (fig. 284). The upright sides are adorned with a hieroglyphic legend. A central rosette is engraved at the bottom. Six fish are represented in the act of swimming round the rosette; and these again are surrounded by a border of lotus-bells united by a curved line. The five vases of Thmûis, in the Gizeh Museum, are of silver. They formed part of the treasure of the temple, and had been buried in a hiding- place, where they remained till our own day. We have no indication of their probable age; but whether they belong to the Greek or the Theban period, the workmanship is purely Egyptian. Of one vessel, only the cover is left, the handle being formed of two flowers upon one stem. The others are perfect, and are decorated in _repoussé_ work with lotus-lilies in bud and blossom (fig. 285). [Illustration: Fig. 284.--Golden cup of General Tahûti, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 285.--Silver vase of Thmûis.] The form is simple and elegant, the ornamentation sober and delicate; the relief low. One is, however, surrounded by a row of ovoid bosses (fig. 286), which project in high relief, and somewhat alter the shape of the body of the vase. These are interesting specimens; but they are so few in number that, were it not for the wall-paintings, we should have but a very imperfect idea of the skill of the Egyptian goldsmiths. [Illustration: Fig. 286.--Silver vase of Thmûis.] [Illustration: Fig. 287.--Ornamental basket in precious metal. From wall- painting, Twentieth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 288.--Crater of precious metal, borne by slaves. Wall- painting, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 289.--Hydria of precious metal. Wall-painting, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 290.--Enamelled cruet. Wall-painting, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 291.--Enamelled cruet. Wall-painting, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 292.--Gold centre-piece of Amenhotep III. Wall- painting, Eighteenth Dynasty.] The Pharaohs had not our commercial resources, and could not circulate the gold and silver tribute-offerings of conquered nations in the form of coin. When the gods had received their share of the booty, there was no alternative but to melt the rest down into ingots, fashion it into personal ornaments, or convert it into gold and silver plate. What was true of the kings held good also for their subjects. For the space of at least six or eight centuries, dating from the time of Ahmes I., the taste for plate was carried to excess. Every good house was not only stocked with all that was needful for the service of the table, such as cups, goblets, plates, ewers, and ornamental baskets chased with figures of fantastic animals (fig. 287); but also with large ornamental vases which were dressed with flowers, and displayed to visitors on gala days. Some of these vases were of extraordinary richness. Here, for instance, is a crater, the handles modelled as two papyrus buds, and the foot as a full-blown papyrus. Two Asiatic slaves in sumptuous garments are represented in the act of upheaving it with all their strength (fig. 288). Here, again, is a kind of hydria with a lid in the form of an inverted lotus flanked by the heads of two gazelles (fig. 289). The heads and necks of two horses, bridled and fully caparisoned, stand back to back on either side of the foot of the vase. The body is divided into a series of horizontal zones, the middle zone being in the likeness of a marshland, with an antelope coursing at full speed among the reeds. Two enamelled cruets (fig. 290) have elaborately wrought lids, one fashioned as the head of a plumed eagle, and the other as the head of the god Bes flanked by two vipers (fig. 291). But foremost among them all is a golden centrepiece offered by a viceroy of Ethiopia to Amenhotep III. The design reproduces one of the most popular subjects connected with the foreign conquests of Egypt (fig. 292). Men and apes are seen gathering fruits in a forest of dôm palms. Two natives, each with a single feather on his head and a striped kilt about his loins, lead tame giraffes with halters. Others, apparently of the same nationality, kneel with upraised hands, as if begging for quarter. Two negro prisoners lying face downwards upon the ground, lift their heads with difficulty. A large vase with a short foot and a lofty cone-shaped cover stands amid the trees.[78] The craftsmen who made this piece evidently valued elegance and beauty less than richness. They cared little for the heavy effect and bad taste of the whole, provided only that they were praised for their skill, and for the quantity of metal which they had succeeded in using. Other vases of the same type, pictured in a scene of presentations to Rameses II. in the great temple of Abû Simbel, vary the subject by showing buffaloes running in and out among the trees, in place of led giraffes. These were costly playthings wrought in gold, such as the Byzantine emperors of the ninth century accumulated in their palace of Magnaura, and which they exhibited on state occasions in order to impress foreigners with a profound sense of their riches and power. When a victorious Pharaoh returned from a distant campaign, the vessels of gold and silver which formed part of his booty figured in the triumphal procession, together with his train of foreign captives. Vases in daily use were of slighter make and less encumbered with inconvenient ornaments. The two leopards which serve as handles to a crater of the time of Thothmes III. (fig. 293) are not well proportioned, neither do they combine agreeably with the curves of the vase; but the accompanying cup (fig. 294), and a cruet belonging to the same service (fig. 295), are very happily conceived, and have much purity of form. These vessels of engraved and _repoussé_ gold and silver, some representing hunting scenes and incidents of battle, were imitated by Phoenician craftsmen, and, being exported to Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, carried Egyptian patterns and subjects into distant lands. The passion for precious metals was pushed to such extremes under the reigns of the Ramessides that it was no longer enough to use them only at table. [Illustration: Fig. 293.--Crater of precious metal. Wall-painting, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 294.--Cup of precious metal. Wall-painting, Eighteenth Dynasty.] [Illustration: Fig. 295.--Cruet of precious metal. Wall-painting, Eighteenth Dynasty.] Rameses II. and Rameses III. had thrones of gold--not merely of wood plated with gold, but made of the solid metal and set with precious stones. These things were too valuable to escape destruction, and were the first to disappear. Their artistic value, however, by no means equalled their intrinsic value, and the loss is not one for which we need be inconsolable. [Illustration: Fig. 296.--Bezel signet-ring.] [Illustration: Fig. 297.--Gold _cloisonné_ pectoral bearing cartouche of Ûsertesen III. From Dahshûr, found 1894, and now in the Gizeh Museum.] Orientals, men and women alike, are great lovers of jewellery. The Egyptians were no exception to this rule. Not satisfied to adorn themselves when living with a profusion of trinkets, they loaded the arms, the fingers, the neck, the ears, the brow, and the ankles of their dead with more or less costly ornaments. The quantity thus buried in tombs was so considerable that even now, after thirty centuries of active search, we find from time to time mummies which are, so to say, cuirassed in gold. Much of this funerary jewellery was made merely for show on the day of the funeral, and betrays its purpose by the slightness of the workmanship. The favourite jewels of the deceased person were, nevertheless, frequently buried with him, and the style and finish of these leave nothing to be desired. Chains and rings have come down to us in large numbers, as indeed might be expected. The ring, in fact, was not a simple ornament, but an actual necessary. Official documents were not signed, but sealed; and the seal was good in law. Every Egyptian, therefore, had his seal, which he kept about his person, ready for use if required. The poor man's seal was a simple copper or silver ring; the ring of the rich man was a more or less elaborate jewel covered with chasing and relief work. The bezel was movable, and turned upon a pivot. It was frequently set with some kind of stone engraved with the owner's emblem or device; as, for example, a scorpion (fig. 296), a lion, a hawk, or a cynocephalous ape. As in the eyes of her husband his ring was the one essential ornament, so was her necklace in the estimation of the Egyptian lady. I have seen a chain in silver which measured sixty-three inches in length. Others, on the contrary, do not exceed two, or two and a half inches. They are of all sizes and patterns, some consisting of two or three twists, some of large links, some of small links, some massive and heavy, others as light and flexible as the finest Venetian filigree. The humblest peasant girl, as well as the lady of highest rank, might have her necklet; and the woman must be poor indeed whose little store comprised no other ornament. No mere catalogue of bracelets, diadems, collarettes, or insignia of nobility could give an idea of the number and variety of jewels known to us by pictured representations or existing specimens. Pectorals of gold _cloisonné_ work inlaid with vitreous paste or precious stones, and which bear the cartouches of Amenemhat II., Ûsertesen II., and Ûsertesen III. (fig. 297), exhibit a marvellous precision of taste, lightness of touch, and dexterity of fine workmanship. So fresh and delicate are they we forget that the royal ladies to whom they belonged have been dead, and their bodies stiffened and disfigured into mummies, for nearly five thousand years. At Berlin may be seen the _parure_ of an Ethiopian Candace; at the Louvre we have the jewels of Prince Psar; at Gizeh are preserved the ornaments of Queen Aahhotep. Aahhotep was the wife of Kames, a king of the Seventeenth Dynasty, and she was probably the mother of Ahmes I., first king of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Her mummy had been stolen by one of the robber bands which infested the Theban necropolis towards the close of the Twentieth Dynasty. They buried the royal corpse till such time as they might have leisure to despoil it in safety; and they were most likely seized and executed before they could carry that pretty little project into effect. The secret of their hiding- place perished with them, till discovered in 1860 by some Arab diggers. Most of the objects which this queen took with her into the next world were exclusively women's gear; as a fan-handle plated with gold, a bronze-gilt mirror mounted upon an ebony handle enriched with a lotus in chased gold (fig. 298). Her bracelets are of various types. Some are anklets and armlets, and consist merely of plain gold rings, both solid and hollow, bordered with plaited chainwork in imitation of filigree. Others are for wearing on the wrist, like the bracelets of modern ladies, and are made of small beads in gold, lapis lazuli, carnelian, and green felspar. These are strung on gold wire in a chequer pattern, each square divided diagonally in halves of different colours. Two gold plates, very lightly engraved with the cartouches of Ahmes I., are connected by means of a gold pin, and form the fastening. A fine bracelet in the form of two semicircles joined by a hinge (fig. 299), also bears the name of Ahmes I. The make of this jewel reminds us of _cloisonné_ enamels. Ahmes kneels in the presence of the god Seb and his acolytes, the genii of Sop and Khonû. [Illustration: Fig. 298.--Mirror of Queen Aahhotep.] [Illustration: Fig. 299.--Bracelet of Queen Aahhotep, bearing cartouche of King Ahmes I.] [Illustration: Fig. 300.--Bracelet of Queen Aahhotep.] [Illustration: Fig. 301.--Diadem of Queen Aahhotep.] [Illustration: Fig. 302.--Gold "Ûsekh" of Queen Aahhotep.] [Illustration: Fig. 303.--Pectoral of Queen Aahhotep, bearing cartouche of King Ahmes I.] [Illustration: Fig. 304.--Poignard of Queen Aahhotep, bearing cartouche of King Ahmes.] [Illustration: Fig. 305.--Poignard of Queen Aahhotep, bearing cartouche of King Ahmes.] [Illustration: Fig. 306.--Funerary battle-axe of Queen Aahhotep, bearing cartouche of King Ahmes I.] [Illustration: Fig. 307.--Funerary bark of Queen Aahhotep.] [Illustration: Fig. 308.--Ring of Rameses II.] [Illustration: Fig. 309.--Bracelet of Prince Psar.] The figures and hieroglyphs are cut out in solid gold, delicately engraved with the burin, and stand in relief upon a ground-surface filled in with pieces of blue paste and lapis lazuli artistically cut. A bracelet of more complicated workmanship, though of inferior execution, was found on the wrist of the queen (fig. 300). It is of massive gold, and consists of three parallel bands set with turquoises. On the front a vulture is represented with outspread wings, the feathers composed of green enamel, lapis lazuli, and carnelian, set in "cloisons" of gold. The hair of the mummy was drawn through a massive gold diadem, scarcely as large as a bracelet. The name of Ahmes is incrusted in blue paste upon an oblong plaque in the centre, flanked at each side by two little sphinxes which seem as if in the act of keeping watch over the inscription (fig. 301). Round her neck was a large flexible gold chain, finished at each end by a goose's head reversed. These heads could be linked one in the other, when the chain needed to be fastened. The scarabaeus pendant to this chain is incrusted upon the shoulder and wing-sheaths with blue glass paste rayed with gold, the legs and body being in massive gold. The royal _parure_ was completed by a large collar of the kind known as the _Ûsekh_ (fig. 302). It is finished at each end with a golden hawk's head inlaid with blue enamel, and consists of rows of scrolls, four-petalled fleurettes, hawks, vultures, winged uraei, crouching jackals, and figures of antelopes pursued by tigers. The whole of these ornaments are of gold _repoussé_ work, and they were sewn upon the royal winding sheet by means of a small ring soldered to the back of each. Upon the breast, below this collar, hung a square jewel of the kind known as "pectoral ornaments" (fig. 303). The general form is that of a naos, or shrine. Ahmes stands upright in a papyrus-bark, between Amen and Ra, who pour the water of purification upon his head and body. Two hawks hover to right and left of the king, above the heads of the gods. The figures are outlined in _cloisons_ of gold, and these were filled in with little plaques of precious stones and enamel, many of which have fallen out. The effect of this piece is somewhat heavy, and if considered apart from the rest of the _parure_, its purpose might seem somewhat obscure. In order to form a correct judgment, we have, however, to remember in what fashion the women of ancient Egypt were clad. They wore a kind of smock of semi- transparent material, which came very little higher than the waist. The chest and bosom, neck and shoulders, were bare; and the one garment was kept in place by only a slender pair of braces. The rich clothed these uncovered parts with jewellery. The Ûsekh collar half hid the shoulders and chest. The pectoral masked the hollow between the breasts. Sometimes even the breasts were covered with two golden cups, either painted or enamelled. Besides the jewels found upon the mummy of Queen Aahhotep, a number of arms and amulets were heaped inside her coffin; namely, three massive gold flies hanging from a slender chain; nine small hatchets, three of gold and six of silver; a golden lion's head of very minute workmanship; a wooden sceptre set in gold spirals; two anklets; and two poignards. One of these poignards (fig. 304) has a golden sheath and a wooden hilt inlaid with triangular mosaics of carnelian, lapis lazuli, felspar, and gold. Four female heads in gold _repoussé_ form the pommel; and a bull's head reversed covers the junction of blade and hilt. The edges of the blade are of massive gold; the centre of black bronze damascened with gold. On one side is the solar cartouche of Ahmes, below which a lion pursues a bull, the remaining space being filled in with four grasshoppers in a row. On the other side we have the family name of Ahmes and a series of full-blown flowers issuing one from another and diminishing towards the point. A poignard found at Mycenae by Dr. Schliemann is similarly decorated; the Phoenicians, who were industrious copyists of Egyptian models, probably introduced this pattern into Greece. The second poignard is of a make not uncommon to this day in Persia and India (fig. 305). The blade is of yellowish bronze fixed into a disk-shaped hilt of silver. When wielded, this lenticular[79] disk fits to the hollow of the hand, the blade coming between the first and second fingers. Of what use, it may be asked, were all these weapons to a woman-- and a dead woman? To this we may reply that the other world was peopled with foes--Typhonian genii, serpents, gigantic scorpions, tortoises, monsters of every description--against which it was incessantly needful to do battle. The poignards placed inside the coffin for the self-defence of the soul were useful only for fighting at close quarters; certain weapons of a projectile kind were therefore added, such as bows and arrows, boomerangs made in hard wood, and a battle-axe. The handle of this axe is fashioned of cedar-wood covered with sheet gold (fig. 306). The legend of Ahmes is inlaid thereon in characters of lapis lazuli, carnelian, turquoise, and green felspar. The blade is fixed in a cleft of the wood, and held in place by a plait-work of gold wire. It is of black bronze, formerly gilt. On one side, it is ornamented with lotus flowers upon a gold ground; on the other, Ahmes is represented in the act of slaying a barbarian, whom he grasps by the hair of the head. Beneath this group, Mentû, the Egyptian war-god, is symbolised by a griffin with the head of an eagle. In addition to all these objects, there were two small boats, one in gold and one in silver, emblematic of the bark in which the mummy must cross the river to her last home, and of that other bark in which she would ultimately navigate the waters of the West, in company with the immortal gods. When found, the silver boat rested upon a wooden truck with four bronze wheels; but as it was in a very dilapidated state, it has been dismounted and replaced by the golden boat (fig. 307). The hull is long and slight, the prow and stem are elevated, and terminate in gracefully-curved papyrus blossoms. Two little platforms surrounded by balustrades on a panelled ground are at the prow and on the poop, like quarter-decks. The pilot stands upon the one, and the steersman before the other, with a large oar in his hand. This oar takes the place of the modern helm. Twelve boatmen in solid silver are rowing under the orders of these two officers; Kames himself being seated in the centre, hatchet and sceptre in hand. Such were some of the objects buried with one single mummy; and I have even now enumerated only the most remarkable among them. The technical processes throughout are irreproachable, and the correct taste of the craftsman is in no wise inferior to his dexterity of hand. Having arrived at the perfection displayed in the _parure_ of Aahhotep, the goldsmith's art did not long maintain so high a level. The fashions changed, and jewellery became heavier in design. The ring of Rameses II., with his horses standing upon the bezel (fig. 308), and the bracelet of Prince Psar, with his griffins and lotus flowers in _cloisonné_ enamel (fig. 309), both in the Louvre, are less happily conceived than the bracelets of Ahmes. The craftsmen who made these ornaments were doubtless as skilful as the craftsmen of the time of Queen Aahhotep, but they had less taste and less invention. Rameses II. was condemned either to forego the pleasure of wearing his ring, or to see his little horses damaged and broken off by the least accident. Already noticeable in the time of the Nineteenth Dynasty, this decadence becomes more marked as we approach the Christian era. The earrings of Rameses IX. in the Gizeh Museum are an ungraceful assemblage of filigree disks, short chains, and pendent uraei, such as no human ear could have carried without being torn, or pulled out of shape. They were attached to each side of the wig upon the head of the mummy. The bracelets of the High Priest Pinotem III., found upon his mummy, are mere round rings of gold incrusted with pieces of coloured glass and carnelian, like those still made by the Soudanese blacks. The Greek invasion began by modifying the style of Egyptian gold-work, and ended by gradually substituting Greek types for native types. The jewels of an Ethiopian queen, purchased from Ferlini by the Berlin Museum, contained not only some ornaments which might readily have been attributed to Pharaonic times, but others of a mixed style in which Hellenic influences are distinctly traceable. The treasure discovered at Zagazig in 1878, at Keneh in 1881, and at Damanhûr in 1882, consisted of objects having nothing whatever in common with Egyptian traditions. They comprise hairpins supporting statuettes of Venus, zone-buckles, agraffes for fastening the peplum, rings and bracelets set with cameos, and caskets ornamented at the four corners with little Ionic columns. The old patterns, however, were still in request in remote provincial places, and village goldsmiths adhered "indifferent well" to the antique traditions of their craft. Their city brethren had meanwhile no skill to do aught but make clumsy copies of Greek and Roman originals. In this rapid sketch of the industrial arts there are many lacunae. When referring to examples, I have perforce limited myself to such as are contained in the best-known collections. How many more might not be discovered if one had leisure to visit provincial museums, and trace what the hazard of sales may have dispersed through private collections! The variety of small monuments due to the industry of ancient Egypt is infinite, and a methodical study of those monuments has yet to be made. It is a task which promises many surprises to whomsoever shall undertake it. [77] From the inscription upon the obelisk of Hatshepsût which is still erect at Karnak. For a translation in full see _Records of the Past_, vol. xii., p. 131, _et seqq._--A.B.E. [78] Mr. Petrie suggests that this curious central object may be a royal umbrella with flaps of ox-hide and tiger-skin.--A.B.E. [79] That is, lentil-shaped, or a double convex.--A.B.E. NOTES TO FIRST ENGLISH EDITION. _For the following notes, to which reference numbers will be found in the text, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. W.M. Flinders Petrie, author of_ "The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh" (Field & Tuer), "Tanis" (_Egypt Exploration Fund_), "Naukratis" (_Egypt Exploration Fund), etc., etc._ A.B.E. (1) More striking than these are the towns of Tell Atrib, Kom Baglieh, Kom Abû Billû, and Tell Nebesheh, the houses of which may be traced without any special excavations. (2) There is much skill needed in mixing the mud and sand in such proportions as to dry properly; when rightly adjusted there is no cracking in drying, and the grains of sand prevent the mud from being washed away in the rains. (3) In the Delta, at least, the sizes of bricks from the Twenty-first Dynasty down to Arab times decrease very regularly; under the Twenty-first Dynasty they are about 18 x 9 x 5 inches; early in the Twenty-sixth, 16-1/2 x 8-1/4 x 5; later 15 x 7-1/2; in early Ptolemaic times, 14 x 7; in Roman times, 12 x 6, in Byzantine times, 10 x 5; and Arab bricks are 8 x 4, and continue so very generally to our times. The thickness is always least certain, as it depends on the amount placed in the mould, but the length and breadth may in most cases be accepted as a very useful chronological scale. (4) They are found of Ramesside age at Nebesheh and Defenneh; even there they are rare, and these are the only cases I have yet seen in Egypt earlier than about the third century A.D. (5) This system was sometimes used to raise a fort above the plain, as at Defenneh; or the chambers formed store-rooms, as at the fort at Naukratis. (6) In the fine early work at Gizeh they sawed the paving blocks of basalt, and then ground only just the edges flat, while all the inside of the joint was picked rough to hold the mortar. (7) A usual plan in early times was to dress the joint faces of the block in the quarry, leaving its outer face with a rough excess of a few inches; the excess still remains on the granite casing of the pyramid of Menkara, and the result of dressing it away may be seen in the corners of the granite temple at Gizeh. (8) Otherwise called the Granite Temple of Gizeh, or Temple of Khafra, as its connection with the Sphinx is much disputed, while it is in direct communication with the temple of the pyramid of Khafra, by a causeway in line with the entrance passage. (9) The casing of the open air court on the top of it was of fine limestone; only a few blocks of this remain. For full plan and measurements see _Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_. (10) One of the air slits, or ventilators, remains complete, opening to the upper court, from the top of the niche chamber. (11) Below these lines, there is often a scene of offering at the bottom of the Obelisk. (12) _Mastaba_ is the Arabic name for a bench or platform, and was applied by the natives to such tombs on account of the resemblance in shape. (13) In the few cases where the top remains perfect at Gizeh, the side ends in a parabolic curve which turns over into the top surface without any cornice or moulding; the tops of walls in the courts of mastabas are similar. (14) Another view is that they are derived from the cumulative mastabas, such as the so-called step pyramid of Sakkarah. (15) In the later pyramids; but the Gizeh pyramids are entirely built of Tûrah limestone. (16) Still more conclusive is the fact that in the greatest of the pyramids the passages are such that it would have been impossible to build it by successive coats of enlargement. (17) In only one case (that of Menkara) has a pyramid been clearly enlarged, and that was done at one step and not by many stages. (18) The earliest--at Gizeh--are very accurate. (19) These slabs of pavement do not extend beneath the pyramid, but only around it. (20) Only fragments of the finest limestone casing have been found; the variety of colour was probably due to weathering. (21) This would be impossible with the exquisitely fine joints of the masonry; a temporary staging of stone built up over part of the finished face would easily allow of raising the stones. (22) There is no evidence that the facing block which covered the granite plugs was of granite; it was more probably of limestone. (23) The entrance to the upper passages was never forced from the entrance passage, but was accidentally found by the Arabs, after they had forced a long tunnel in the masonry, being in ignorance of the real entrance, which was probably concealed by a hinging block of stone. (24) Or rather it rose at an angle of 23-1/2°, like the descent of the entrance passage, thus making angles of 47° and 133° with it. (25) This gallery has obtained a great reputation for the fineness of its joints, perhaps because they are coarse enough to be easily seen; but some joints of the entrance passage, and the joints in the queen's chamber, are hardly visible with the closest inspection. (26) The only signs of portcullises are those in the vestibule or antechamber. (27) No traces of three of the portcullises remain, if they ever existed, and the other never could reach the floor or interrupt the passage, so its use is enigmatical. (28) There is some evidence that the pyramid was opened in the early days, perhaps before the middle kingdom. (29) Two rows of beams which rest on the side wall as corbels or cantilevers, only touching at the top, without necessarily any thrust. Such at least is the case in the queen's chamber, and in the pyramid of Pepi, where such a roof is used. (30) The end walls have sunk throughout a considerable amount, and the side walls have separated; thus all the beams of the upper chambers have been dragged, and every beam of the roof of the chamber is broken through. This is probably the result of earthquakes. (31) This only covered the lower sixteen courses; the larger part above it was of limestone. (32) Similar finished faces may be seen as far in as near the middle of the mass. This is not a true pyramid in form, but a cumulative mastaba, the faces of which are at the mastaba angle (75°), and the successive enlargements of which are shown by numerous finished facings now within the masonry. The step form is the result of carrying upwards the mastaba form, at the same time that it was enlarged outwards. (33) Not in all cases apparently, for the hieroglyphs on the passage of Pepi's pyramid are not injured, as they would be if plugs had been withdrawn. (34) Pepi's roof is formed by a row of large beams which rested independently on the side walls as corbels or cantilevers (see Note 29). (35) The mastaba angle is 75°, and the pyramid angle 50° to 55°. (36) Its present appearance is an accident of its demolition; it was originally, like the "step-pyramid" of Sakkarah, a cumulative mastaba, as is shown by the remains of the lower steps still in the mounds at its base, and by the mediaeval description of it. INDEX Aahhotep, 157, 323-30. Aahhotep II., 288-9. Aalû, fields of, 163-4, 167. Abacus, 52-4, 58, 61, 116. Abi, 273. Abû Roash, 113, 134. Abû Simbel (see TEMPLES, etc.). Abûsîr, 114, 131, 134, 138, 140. Abydos (see FORTRESSES, TEMPLES, TOMBS, etc.). Acacia, 203, 274. Adze, of iron, 283, 304. Affi (see TOMB). Agate, 247. Ahmes I., 267, 307, 317, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329. Ahmes II., 269 and note. (see AMASIS). Ahmesnefertari, 288-9. Ahnas el Medineh, 259. Aï, 15, 155, 158. Aimadûa (see TOMB). Akhonûti, 16. Alabaster, 6, 42, 47, 65, 128, 141, 166, 169, 180, 252, 253-4. Albumen, 203. Alexander, his tomb, 242. Alexander II., colossus of, 241. Alexandria, 52, 241, 243, 303. Alumina, 260. Amasis, 269 and note, 302 (see AHMES II.). Amber, 247. Ambras Collection, in Vienna, 272 (note). Amen (see GODS). Amen Ra (see GODS). Amenemhat II., 76, 322. Amenemhat III., 76, 143, 228 (see MOERIS). Amenhotep I., 157, 229, 287. Amenhotep II., 53. Amenhotep III., 67, 69, 76, 77, 80, 103, 147, 158, 179, 226, 229, 230, 266, 275, 312, 318. (see MEMNON). Ameni (see TOMB). Ameni Entef Amenemhat, 107. Ameniritis, 235 and note. Amethyst, 246, 250. Amphorae 35, 36, 127, 264. Ampullae, 269. Amset, genius, 258 (note). Amulets, materials and forms of, 100, 167, 246-50, 259, 265, 286. Ancient Empire,-- art of (see BAS-RELIEF, SCULPTURE, and STATUE). domestic architecture of, 19. fortress of, 27. tombs of (see MASTABAS and PYRAMIDS). Andro-sphinx, 89, 228-9. Angareb, or Nubian bed, 281, 292. Anhûr (see GODS). Ankh, 286, 288. Ankhnesraneferab, sarcophagus of, 165 (note). Anklets, 321. Anna (see TOMB). Antelopes, 176, 299, 326. Antimony, 254, 267 (see KOHL). Antonines, 244, 245. Antoninus Pius, his chapel at Philae, 100. Anubis (see GODS). Anvil, 313. Apapi, the serpent, 164. Ape, 171, 176, 199, 254, 269, 322. Apepi, King of Avaris, 228. Apet (see GODDESSES, TAÛRT, THÛERIS). Apis (see GODS). Apries, 269 and note, 311 (see HOPHRA and UAHABRA). Aquamarine, the, 246. Arabs,-- their destructive conquest, 134. their name for table of offerings, 107. Archers, 29, 184. Architecture,-- military, 24-34. of private dwellings, 1-20. of public works, 34-45. temples, 46-110. tombs, 111-168. (see MASTABAS, PYRAMIDS, etc.). Architraves, 46, 52, 53, 54, 63, 65, 93. Argo, colossi of, 227. Arms, 157, 166. battle-axe, 329. boomerangs, 273, 329. bows and arrows, 184, 329. bronze, 305. lance, 232. poignards, 273, 327-8. Arsenic, sulphuret of, orpiment, 203. Ascalon, 31. Asia, 91, 312. Asia Minor, 248, 280, 320. Asimû (see ELECTRUM). Ass, in drawings, 171, 175. Assyria, invasion of Egypt by, 314. Astronomical tables, 92-4, 164. Asûan, 45, 53, 67, 148-50, 209 and note, 226, 228, 256 (note), 259, 265. (see SYENE and TOMBS). Athena, 302. Athens, bronze of the Lady Takûshet at, 308. Ati, pyramid of, 142. Avaris, 228. Avenue of Sphinxes, 67. at Karnak, 87, 88-9, 230. Axe,-- battle, 327, 329. iron, 304. stone, 201. Axûm, obelisk at, 106. Ba, or Bi, the soul, 111, 112. abode of the, 128. abode of the, its decoration, 142, 156-7, 162-5. following the sun at night, 159. statuettes to serve as body for, 167. transmigration of, 164. Bab el Mandeb, 109 (note). Ba-en-pet, 196 and note. (see IRON). Bakenrenf (see TOMB). Bakhtan, stela of, 109 and note. Bari, or boat of the Sun, 108. Barks, sacred and funerary, 66, 77, 95, 108, 159, 164, 166, 249, 301, 329-30. Basalt, 42, 127, 169, 196, 236, 237, 252. Basilisk, 201 (see URAEUS.) Bas-relief,-- Abû Simbel, 229. Egyptian forms of, 197-9. gems, 249. gilded, 313. ivory, 273. models for study of, 197. New Empire, 228-9. painting of, 205-6. preparation of walls for, 192-3. Roman period, 245. sketches for, 193-5. speos of Horemheb, 232. Tell el Amarna, 231. Temple of Abydos, 232. Tomb of Seti I., 232. (See PAINTING, SCULPTURE, and WALL-SCENES.) Bast (see GODDESSES). Bastions, 28, 29, 32. Battlements, 14, 24, 25, 32, 50. Beads, 168, 247, 261, 324. Beams, 6, 30. of stone, 140. Beard,-- false, of statue of Horemheb, 233. of sphinx, 208. Bedawîn, 20, 42, 101. Beds, 281, 292. funerary, 292-4. Beer, at funerary feast, 180. Beetles (see SCARABAEI). Begig, obelisk of, 105. Beit el Wally (see TEMPLES and HEMI-SPEOS). Beni Hasan (see TOMBS). Beni Sûef, 38. Berlin Museum, parure of jewels at, 322. Bersheh (see TOMBS). Bes (see GODS). Bezel, of rings, 321-2, 331. Bi (see BA). Bird, human-handed, 91. Birket el Kûrûn, lake of, 38, 39. Blocks, building,-- dressing, 47, Notes 6 and 7. in pyramids, 132, Note 15, 139, Note 33. raising, 49. sizes, 49. working, 49, Note 7. Boats, toy, 282. transport by, 45, 132. (See BARKS.) Bonding, 48-9. Bone, work in, 272-3. Book of Knowing that which is in Hades, 172. Book of Ritual of Burial, 157. Book of Ritual of Embalmment, 157. Book of the Dead, 129, 157, 165, 172-5, 205, 284-5. Book of the Opening of the Mouth, 165. Bowls, of blue glazed pottery, 268. Bracelets, 249, 276, 308, 324-5, 331, 332. Braces, 298, 327. Bread,-- making of, depicted in tombs, etc., 124, 127, 224. offerings of, 166. Breccia, 42, 236, 254. Bricks,-- baked, 4. for pyramids, 132. glazed, 4, 270, Note 4. in civil and military architecture, 46. making of, 3-4, Notes 2 and 3. of mud and straw, 3, 114. sun-dried, 3, 21, 113-14, 145. without straw, 113, 145. Brickwork,-- civil and military architecture, 46. dikes, 38. domestic architecture, 3,5-6. enclosure walls of temples, 67, 87. foundations, 48. mastabas, 113, 114. panels, 22. pyramid-mastabas, 145-6. undulating courses, 22, 27. Bridge of Zarû, 35. Bridges, rarity of, 35. British Museum, 171, 270 (note), 272 (note), 295, 303. Brocade (polymita), 303. Bronze, 105, 195, 196, 248, 260, 261, 304 _et seq._, 328. Bronzes, 307-12. Brush, hair, 203. reed, 170, 171. Bubastis, 1, 52, 58, 88, 266, 308, 310 (see TELL BASTA). Bubastites (see DYNASTY XXII.). "Bûlak, Wooden Man of," 214 (note). (see RAEMKA and SHEIKH EL BELED). Bull, 199. (see GODS, APIS). Burin, 305, 325. Cabinet-making, 124. 273. 282 _et seq._ Caesars (see ROMAN PERIOD). Calaite, 247. Caligula, 245. Cameos, 332. Canaanites, 31. Canal of Zarû, 35. Canals, 37, 45. Canopic vases, 167, 252-3, 258-9, 292. Canopy, funerary, 293-5, 299-301. Capitals (see COLUMNS and PILLARS). Caricatures, 171-2. Carnelian, 247, 250, 324, 325, 328. Cartonnage, 167. Cartouches, 4, 48, 61, 250, 262, 271, 278, 299, 302, 322, 323, 324, 326, 328, 329. Caryatid statues, 288. Casing stones, 47, 65, Notes 7 and 9, 132, Note 15, 134, Note 20, 138, Note 32. Cat, 171, 172, 311. Cattle, 13, 25, 155. Cedar wood, 329. Ceiling decoration, 18-9, 92, 94, 141, 163-4. Cella, 58. Cellars, 35, 36. Cement, 52, 192, 194. Census, 155. Ceremonies, religious, performed by king, 95-7, 101-3. Chains, 155, 325-6. measuring, 155. Chairs, 179, 281, 295-6. Champollion, 26, 55, 271. Chapel,-- furniture of, 166. of mastabas, 116 _et pas._ of pyramids, 131 _et pas._, 144. painting and sculpture in, 121 _et seq._, 141-2. reception room of Ka, 118 _et seq._ (See ABÛSÎR, ABYDOS, AMENHOTEP, AMENI, APIS, DAHSHÛR, GIZEH, GÛRNEH, KHNÛMHOTEP, MEDINET HABÛ, MEROË, RAMESSEUM, THÛERIS.) Chariots, 183, 292. Chenoboscion, 45 (note). (see KASR ES SAÎD). Cheops (see KHÛFÛ). Chephren (see KHAFRA). Chester, the Rev. G.J., 303 (note). Chests, 281, 283. Chisels, 45, 195, 214, 304. Chlamys, 242. Chrysoprase, 246. Cinnabar, 203. Cisterns, 41. Claudius, 245. Clay, potter's, of Nile valley, 254-5. (see BRICKS, POTTERY). Clerestory, 71. Coffins, 157, 259 (see MUMMY-CASES and SARCOPHAGI). Coins and medals, no Egyptian, 313. Collar, Order of the Golden, 155. Colonnade, 17, 48, 67-8, 75, 79. Colossi, 83, 103, 106, 202, 226-30, 232, 241. Columns, monolithic, and built in courses, 52. campaniform, 56-9. Hathor-headed, 61-2. lotus-bud, 59-61. types of, 55. Concrete, 128. Cones, funerary, 166, 257. Contra Esneh, 57. Contra Latopolis, 61. (see EL KAB). Copper, 35, 105, 203, 304, 305, 321. Coptic embroidery, 303 and note. Coptos (Koft), 1, 243, 245, 303. Coral, 247. "Corbelling," 51, 52. Corn, 36-7, 97. Cornice, 9, 15, 24, 50, 53, 61, 148. Cos, 302. Courtyard,-- of houses, 9, 16. of temples, 67, 144. Covering walls, 25, 29, 30, 32. Cramps, metal, 48. Crane, machine, 49, Crio-sphinx, 88, 89. Crocodile, 171, 189. Cruets, 318, 320. Crypts, of temples, 75, 84. Crystals, 250. Cups,-- of glazed pottery, 268. of gold and silver, 316-17. Curtain wall, 30. Curve, favourite ancient Egyptian, 283. Cylinders, of enamelled stone, 265. Cynocephali, 164, 167, 199, 322. Cyprus, supposed glass of, 263. Dahshûr, 113, 114, 131, 134, 142, 323. Dakkeh, 2. Damanhûr, 332. Dams,-- embanked, 38. of stone, 40-1. Dancers, 177, 178. Daphnae, 36 and note (see TAHPANHES and TELL DEFENNEH). Dapûr, 30, 31. Date palms, 15, 274. Decani, 93. Decoration, subjects of, 11, 12, 18-20, 21-2. geometrical, 19, 256, 258, 295, 298. (See COLUMNS, PAINTING, SCULPTURE.) Deir el Baharî, 51, 53, 61, 83, 85 and note, 109 (note), 180, 229, 264, 266, 287, 299, 302. Deir el Gebrawî (see TOMBS). Deirel Medineh (see TEMPLES). Delta, the, 4, 31, 37, 209, 235, 241, 243, 310, 311. Denderah (see TEMPLES). Derr, 84. Deveria, T., 196 (note). Dice, of ivory, 273. Die, of column, 57. Dike,-- of Kosheish, 38. Wady Garraweh, 40. Wady Genneh, 41. Diorite, 42, 169, 196, 224, 254. Disc, winged, 294. Dolls, 282. Dôm palms, 15, 274, 318. Door, 9, 25, 68, 104, 135, 150, 151, 160, 285. false, for KA, 115, 119-21, 125, 130, 141. Door-jambs, 26, 46, 47, 116, 119, 151. Double, the (see KA). Dovetails, 48. Drah Abû'l Neggeh, 147, 158, 266. Draught-box, 273. Drawing, 169-70. conventional system of, 175-9. teaching of, 169-70. want of perspective in, 182-91. (See PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.) Dress, 219, 274-6, 327. articles of,-- braces, 298, 327. girdle, 178, 274, 278. head-dress, 241, 276, 286. kilt, 201, 275. klaft, 227, 267. petticoat, 276, 286. robe, embroidered, 308. sandals, 168, 286, 298. surcoat, 302. tunic, 225, 279. vest, 275, 286. wig, 236, 275, 286, 308, 310. Drill, 195, 247, 250, 282. Duality, 96-7. Ducks, 15, 20, 306. Dümichen, 109 (note). Dwarf, statue of, 224-6. Dynasty III. (Memphite),-- possible wood panels of, 210. Dynasty IV. (Memphite),-- decoration, 89-90. funerary temples, 64 and note, 66. mastabas of, 117, 118, 124, 125, 126, 128. obelisks, 104. pigments, 202 (note). pyramids, 134-7, 140. sarcophagus, 19, 20, 21. scarabaei, 250. statuary, 214. Dynasty V. (Memphite),-- Abydos, 22. elephants, 273. flesh tints, 204. ivory statuette, 273. mastabas, 117, 119, 120, 122. models of offerings, 252. monuments, 208-9. painters' palettes, 202. panels, carved wood, 210. pyramids, 139-40. tables of offerings, 107. Dynasty VI. (Elephantine),-- in Abydos, Asûan, the Delta, Hermopolis, Thebes, 209 and note. bricks, 113. flesh tints, 204. fortress, 2. mastabas, 157. pyramids, 140, 142. scarabaei, 250. tomb-paintings, 21. tombs, 128, 129, 130, 149 (note), 155, 204, 209 (note). Dynasty XI. (Theban),-- blue glaze, 265-6. canopic vases, 167. chairs, 295. fortress, 23. funerary statuettes, 253. mummy-cases, 286. statuary, 226. tombs, 147. Dynasty XII. (Theban),-- blue glaze, 266. fortress, 23, 28. houses, 7, 8, 12, 281-2. jewellery 322, 323 (see KAHÛN). Karnak, 76. models of offerings, 252. pyramids 132, 142, 143. statuary, 228, 229. temples, 66. tombs 149 (note), 156 (see BENI HASAN). Dynasty XIII. (Theban),-- funerary couch, 293-4. Karnak, 76. statuary, 226-7, 229, 273-4. statuettes, 233, 273. Dynasty XIV. (Xoïte),-- Karnak, 76. statuary, 226-7. Dynasty XVII. (Theban),-- draught-box, 273. jewellery, 323 _et seq_. sarcophagi, 287. Dynasty XVIII. (Theban),-- in Abydos, 22. blue glaze, 268. Book of the Dead, 173. bronzes, 307. canopic vases, 258. chair, 296-7 (note). colossi, 229-30. domestic architecture, 14 _et seq_. gold and silver plate, 316, 318, 319, 320. gold and silver statues, 314-15. jewellery, 323 _et seq_. Karnak, 76-7. in Memphis, 88. mummy-cases, 288-9. painters' palettes, 202. scarabaei, 250. sculpture, 229-31. Speos-sanctuaries, 82, 83, 85. stelae, 45. in Thebes, 88-9. tomb-paintings, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17. tombs, 155 _et seq_. wars, 31. Dynasty XIX. (Theban),-- blue glaze of, 268. bronzes, 307. colossi, 234. domestic architecture, 19. flesh tints, 205. fortifications, 31, 34. gold and silver plate, 317, 321. gold and silver statues, 314. jewellery, 331. Karnak, 78. mummy-cases, 289. tombs, 158 _et pas_. Dynasty XX. (Theban),-- blue glaze, 268. canopic vases, 258. domestic architecture, 19. fortresses 33 (see MEDINET HABÛ). gold and silver plate, 317. jewellery, 332. leather-work, 300, 301. sketches, 171. stela of Bakhtan, 109 (note). temple of Khonsû, 70-2. tiles (Tell el Yahûdeh), 270-2. tomb-paintings, 20. tomb-robberies, 323. tombs, 158 _et pas_.. varnish, 203-4. wood-carving, 235, 274. Dynasty XXI. (Priest-kings),-- papyri, 174. sculpture, 228. tomb 158 (tomb of Herhor). Dynasty XXII. (Bubastite),-- bronzes, 307. leather-work, 299, 300. Karnak, 79. Dynasty XXV. (Ethiopian),-- art, 235. Karnak, 79. Dynasty XXVI. (Saïte),-- ampullae, 268, 269. bronzes, 307, 311-12. glass, 263. gold statuettes, 315. Renaissance, 235 _et seq._ sculpture, 236 _et seq._ table of offerings, 252. tombs, 165. Dynasty XXXI. (Persian),-- tapestry, 303. Earrings, 331, 332. Earthquake,-- building to resist, 22. of B.C. 27, at Karnak, 79. of B.C. 22, at Thebes, 244. Ebony, 295, 323. Edfû (see TEMPLES). Edinburgh Museum, funerary canopy in, 293-4. Eggs, 259. Egypt Exploration Fund,-- at Bersheh, 148 (note). at Bubastis, 52 (note). at Daphnae, 36 (note). at Deir el Baharî, 83, 85. at Pithom, 36 (note). at Tanis, 104 (note). at Tell Gemayemi, 200 (note), 262 (note). Ekhmîm, 14, 247, 259, 291, 293, 297, 303 and note. El Agandiyeh, 1. El Hibeh, 2, 33. at Beni Hasan, 148 (note). El Kab, 2, 20, 26, 27, 54, 69, 88, 228, 265 (see CONTRA LATOPOLIS). El Khozam, 256. Electrum, 304, 312, 313. Elephant, 273. Elephantine, 148, 209 (note), 273, 275. (see TEMPLES). Embroidery, 276, 302, 303, 308. Emerald, 41, 246, 250. Enamel, 265-72. in jewellery, 289, 322, 325, 327. Erman, on Stela of Bakhtan, 109 (note). Erment, 247. Esneh, 92, 144, 245. Ethiopia, 106, 318. Ethiopian Dynasty (see DYNASTY XXV.). Etruria, imitated scarabs of, 248. Eye,-- as amulet, 247-8. in decoration, 268. on sarcophagi, 285. sacred, 168. (See ÛTA). Eyes of statues, 261, 310. Fan, 323. Fayûm, the, 19, 38, 39, 66, 105, 134, 243, 259, 261, 304. Feast,-- funerary, 118, 123, 125, 166. funerary of Horemheb, 179-80. Feasts, 118. Felspar, 247, 250, 324, 328, 329. Ferry, 34. Feshn, 33. Figs, 267. Fires, 2, 12. Fire-sticks, 282. Fish,-- in decoration, 268, 278, 316. in enamel, 267. offerings of, 228. Florence Museum, Egyptian war-chariot in, 292 (note). Flowers (see LOTUS),-- in temples, 67. offerings of, 180, 228. Fords, 34. Fortresses, 20-34. of Abydos, 20-6. of El Kab, 20, 27. of Kom el Ahmar, 25, 26. of Kûmmeh, 28-9. of Semneh, 28-30. Foundations, 47, 48. Frieze, 97. Frog, as amulet, 247. Frontier, 28, 31, 36-7. Furnaces, glass, 259, 260. Furniture, 281-4. ancient Egyptian love of beautiful, 246. funerary, 128, 166-8, 251 _et seq._, 292 _et seq._ funerary, of poor, 167-8, 255. Galleries,-- in houses, 17. Garden, of private house, 13, 14, 15. Garnet, 246. scarabaei of, 250. Gazelle, 123, 128, 153, 171, 176, 180, 252. Gebel Abûfeydeh, 44, 45. Gebel Barkal (see TEMPLES). Gebel Sheikh Herideh, 45. Gebel Silsileh (see TEMPLES). Gebeleyn, 33, 256. Geese, 15, 19, 166, 171, 177, 296, 306. Genii, 159, 164, 258 (note). of On, Sop, and Khonû, 96, 324. Gerf Husein, 85. Girgeh, 14, 38. Gizeh (see PYRAMIDS, TEMPLES, TOMBS). Gizeh, Museum, 4, 106, 107, 171, 174, 195, 214, 216-26, 227, 229, 232-3, 237, 239, 241, 242, 244, 262, 265, 267, 268, 271, 273, 274, 275, 278, 286, 298, 301, 306, 307, 308, 309, 315, 316, 323-30, 331. Glass, 259-65. factories, at El Kab, the Ramesseum, Tell el Amarna, Tell Eshmûneyn, 265. factory at Tell Gemayemi, 262 (note). Glazed stone and ware, 165-72 (see POTTERY). Goat, 176. Gods,-- Amen, 33, 97, 101, 104, 105, 109, 171, 231, 232, 249, 268, 289, 307, 315, 327. Amen Ra, 96. Anhûr, 311. Anubis, 168, 304. Apis, 147, 263. Bes, 53, 57, 254, 277, 318. Harpocrates, 307. Hor (Horus), 96, 105. Horus (Hor), 64, 96, 105, 207, 259, 267, 309-10, 314. Khonsû, 60, 64, 70, 72, 74, 75, 97, 109 and note, 235. Mentû, 97, 329. Min, 118. Nefertûm, 310, 314. Osiris, 20, 53, 54, 95, 142, 168, 189, 237, 249, 304. Ptah, 168, 315. Ra, 208, 327. Ra Harmakhis, 105. Seb, 324. Set (Typhon), 96, 196. Shû, 311. Thoth, 96, 118, 167, 259, 314. Tûm, 105. Goddesses,-- Apet, 237 (note). Bast, 168, 311. Hathor, 53, 54, 55, 61, 62, 69, 70, 82, 83, 97, 168, 237. Isis, 95, 241, 247, 249, 250, 287, 294, 310, 314. Khûit, 259. Ma, 262, 294. Maut, 97, 289. Neith, 250. Nekheb, 92. Nephthys, 237, 249, 250, 287, 294, 310. Pakhet, 42, 82. Sekhet, 250, 277, 311. Sothis, 118. Taûrt, 237 (note). Tefnût, 311. Thûeris, 237. Ûati, 92. Gold, 11, 304, 312-21. Goldsmith, 313. Golenischeff, 228. Gouge, 195. Granaries, 1, 10, 36. Granite, 6, 47, 66, 76, 103, 132, 136, 137, 169,196, 197, 199, 214, 247, 254, 290. black, 42, 165, 233. grey, 41, 236, 244. red, 42, 52, 65, 77, 107, 127, 165, 232, 236. Grapes, models, 166, 267. Greeks,-- Egyptian fortification in time of, 34. Egyptian patterns among, 320. their imitation scarabs, 248. their influence on astronomical tables, 93. their influence on columns, 56. their influence on jewellery, 332. their influence on sculpture, 241-4. their peripteral temples, 69. their similar system of building construction, 48. their theory of mounds, 5. (See PTOLEMAIC PERIOD.) Grenfell, Major-General Sir F., 149 (note), and 209 (note). Greyhound, in drawings, 176. Griffith, F. Ll., 200 (note), 262 (note). Grindstone, 247. Gum tragacanth, 203. Gûrneh, 60. Gypsum, 203. Hadrian, 243, 245 (note). Hairpins, 277. Hammamat, valley of, 41. Hammer, 195, 313. Hapi, genius, 258 (note). Hapizefa (see TOMB). Harpocrates (see GODS). Hatasû (see HATSHEPSÛT). Hathor (see GODDESSES). Hatshepsût (Hatasû), 42, 77, 85, 104, 105, 109 and note, 296 (note), 313 and note. Hawara, 257, 291. Hawk, 254, 259, 267, 322, 326. Haworth, Mr. Jesse, 296 (note). Headrest, 128, 166, 277. Hedgehog, 254, 267. Hekalli, 144. Heliopolis, 26, 32, 103, 104, 309. Helwân, dam at baths of, 40. Hematite, 247, 250. Hemi-speos,-- Beit el Wally, 84, 205 (note), 235. Deir el Baharî, 83, 85. Derr, 84. Gerf Husein, 85. Wady Sabûah, 85. Herhor, 158, 261, 288. Hermopolis, 209. Herodotus, 38, 39-40, 88, 195. Hesî, 210. Hieroglyphs, 55, 60, 180, 236, 257, 261-2 and note, 268, 270, 284, 285, 289, 300, 316, 325. Hippopotamus, 189, 236. Hittites, 31, 185. (see KHETA). Honey, 203, 254. Hophra, the biblical, 269. Hor Horus (see GODS). Hor, portrait statue of one, 242. Horbeit, 311, 312. Horemheb, 50, 52, 53, 82, 155, 158, 179-80, 205, 231, 232, 233. Horhotep (see TOMB). Hori Ra, wooden statuette of, 275. Hori, scribe, ûshabtiû of, 257. Horn, objects in, 272. Horse, date of introduction of, 153-4. Horshesû, 64 and note. 207. Horus (see GODS). Horûta, 257. Houses, 1-20. Hûi (see TOMB). Hûnefer, his papyrus, 173-4. Huts, 20, 8. Hyksos sphinxes (see PERIOD). Hypostyle hall, 72, 74, 76, 89, 92, 102, 106. Abû Simbel, 84. Abydos, 60, 85-6. Gûrneh, 60. Kalaat Addah, 82. Karnak, 34 (note), 46, 57, 60, 62-3,76, 78, 79, 100. temple of Khonsû, 71. Medinet Habû, 60. Ramesseum, 57, 60. Ibis, 259. Ibrahim, Prince, 240. Illahûn, 39, 143. Incense, 95, 126, 273. Ink, black, 4, 170, 193, 285. red, 44, 170, 171, 193, 285. Inscriptions, absence of in Temple of Sphinx, 66. obelisk, 313 and note. pyramid of Ûnas, 163. sarcophagi, 127, 157, 165. tombs, 141-2, 151, 155-6. (See HIEROGLYPHS). Iron, 195-7, 304. Irrigation, 35, 37-41. Isiemkheb, 180, 299-300. Isis (see GODDESSES). Italy, Egyptian patterns in, 320. Ivory, 272, 273-4, 283. Jade, 254. Jasper, 247, 250. Jewellery, 249, 321-33. Jews, 303. Jomard, 55. Kaâpir (see TOMB). Kadesh (Qodshû), 31, 101, 185, 187. Kahûn, Twelfth Dynasty Town, 1, 6 (note), 7, 282. Kalaat Addah (see TEMPLES). Kalabsheh (see TEMPLES). Kames, 323, 330. Ka, or Double, 111, 112, 118, 130, 141-2, 156-7, 162, 163, 165-7, 212-14, 257. Ka-name of Pepi I, 270. Karnak (see TEMPLES). Kashta, 235 (note). Kasr es Saîd (see CHENOBOSCION). Kebhsennef, 258 (note). Keneh, 265, 332. Khabiûsokari (see TOMB). Khafra (Chephren), 89, 133, 137, 134, 214, 217-18, 224, 253. Khamha (see TOMB). Kheper, or Khepra (see SCARABAEI). Kheta, 101, 185, 187-8. Khetî (see TOMB). Khmûnû, 148. Khnûmhotep (see TOMB). Khonsû (see GODS). Khonû, 96, 324. Khû, the, 111, 112. Khûenaten (Amenhotep IV.), 15, 155, 230. Khûfû (Cheops), 133, 134-7, 206, 312, 314. Khûfû Poskhû, 20, 22. Khûit (see GODDESSES). Klaft, 227, 306. Knives, 304, 306. Koft, I (see COPTOS). Kohl (antimony, collyrium), 254, 266, 273. Kom ed Damas, 242. Kom el Ahmar, 2, 25, 26. Kom es Sultan, 21, 23, 27. Kom Ombo (see OMBOS and TEMPLES). Kosheish, 38. Kûmmeh, 28. Kûrnet Murraee, 263, 294. Labyrinth, the, 59. Lake Moeris, 38-40. Lakes, sacred, 77. Lamp, 19, 307 (?). Lapis-lazuli, 203, 247, 250, 304, 324, 325, 328, 329. Lasso, 95. Lattice, 11. Lead, 304. Leather, 292, 298-301. Léfébure, M, 161. Leopard, 176. Lewis, Prof. Hayter, 272 (note). Leyden Museum, 266 (note), 292 (note). Libations (see OFFERINGS). Libyan cliffs and plateau, 39, 113, 207, 209 (note). Libyans, 21, 207, 209 (note). Limestone, 42, 47, 65, 76, 107, 113, 127, 132, 135, 138, 139, 140, 147, 148, 166, 169, 192, 195, 200, 224, 232, 236, 252, 253, 254, 265, 312. Linant, M, 39. Lindos, 302. Linen, 130, 286, 302, 314. Lintels, 9, 26, 46, 47, 150, 151. Lion, 171, 176, 199, 293, 295, 322. Lisht, 89, 134, 252. Loftie, the Rev. W.J., 201 (note). 249 (note). Looms, 297, 298. Lotus, 34 (note), 57, 58, 60-61, 62, 64, 116, 180, 247, 254, 266, 268, 269, 271, 273, 277, 278, 279, 281, 299, 316. Louvre Museum, 208, 214, 215, 224, 226, 227, 239, 240, 266 (note), 271, 275, 278, 295, 308, 313, 316, 322, 331. Luxor (see TEMPLES). Ma (see GODDESSES). Magdilû, (see MIGDOLS). Magnaura, 320. Maillet, M., 64. Malachite, 247, 304. Mallet, 45, 197, 202. Manfalût, 144. Manna (see TOMB). Mariette, 64 (note), 129, 210, 227, 271. Masahirti, 299. Masonry, 48, 49. Massarah, 43. Mastabas, 113-31, Notes 12-14. (see TOMB and TOMBS). Masts, 72, 103. Maut (see GODDESSES). Mechanical appliances,-- crane, 49. pivots, 283. rollers, 45. wedges, 45. Medamot (see TEMPLES). Medinet el Fayûm, 39. Medinet Habû (see TEMPLES). Medûm, 38 (note), 131, 143, 144, 202 (note). Memnon, 103, 230, 245. (see AMENHOTEP III.). Memphis, 1, 6, 32, 38, 43, 47, 52, 58, 88, 113, 132, 147, 156, 157, 162, 165, 209, 226, 228, 235, 241, 252. Mena, 38, 64, 206. Mendes, 311. Menkara (Mycerinus), 128 (note), 134, 137, 286 (Notes 7, 17, 31). Menkaûhor, 224. Menkheperra, 299. Menshîyeh, 107. Mentû (see GODS). Mentûemhat, 314. Merenptah, 235. Merenra, 133, 140. Meresankhû, 144. Mermashiû, 227. Meroë, 144, 244. Merom, 31. Merrûka, stela of, 120. Mesheikh, 69, 229. Metals, ancient Egyptian classification of, 304. Migdols, 31-3 (see MAGDILÛ). Milk, offerings of, 95. Min (Khem) (see GODS). Minieh, 148. Mining, 35, 41. Mirrors, 277, 306, 323, 324. Moats of Canaanite cities, 31. Moeris, 38-9 (see AMENEMHAT III.). Moeris, Lake, 38-40. Mohammeriyeh, 144. Mokattam, 136. Mortar, 48, 114. Mosû, 310. Mounds, 1, 5-6. Mummies,-- animals and eggs, 259. beds and canopies for, 292-5. boats for transport of, 301. burial of, 112, 127-8, 153, 154, 167-8, 173. "eternal house" of, 112. furniture for, 284, 292 _et seq._ (see FURNITURE). jewellery for, 321. (see JEWELLERY). models of, 166. panoply of, 167 (see AMULETS). sledges for, 292. Mummy,-- Aahhotep, 157, 323. Amenhotep I., 157. Menkara, 137. Pinotem III., 332. Sekenenra, 157. Thothmes III., 157. Mummy-cases, 259, 261-2, 284-92. Murrhine, false, 263 (note) Musical instruments, 166. lute, 180, 267, 279. sistrum, 95. tambourine, 95. trumpet, 182. Mycerinus, 286 (see MENKARA). Naga, group from, 244. Naï, 276. Naos, 61, 108, 312, 326. (see SHRINE). Napata, 144. Naville, M., 36 and note, 52 (note). Necho, 267 and note. Necklace, 249, 276, 322, 325. (see ÛSEKH). Nectenebo, 62. Neferhotep (see TOMB). Nefert, 219-20. Nefertari, 84. Nefertûm (see GODS). Negadeh (see TOMBS). Negroes, 41, 91. Neith (see GODDESSES). Nekheb (see GODDESSES). Nemhotep, dwarf, 225. Nenka (see TOMB). Nephthys (see GODDESSES). Nesikhonsû, 264. Net, 95. Netemt, 261. New York Museum, 172. Niche of tombs, origin of, 152 (see DOOR, SERDAB, and STELA). Nile, 34, 38, 39, 45, 48, 252, 254, 273. Niles, the (deities), 91, 92, 228. Nitocris, daughter of Psammetichus I., 237. Nomes, represented, 91-2. Nubia, 28, 47, 66, 82, 259. Nûrri (see PYRAMIDS). Oasis, the, 20. Obelisk, 45, 67, 103-6, 313. Axûm, 106. Begig, 105. Fourth Dynasty, 104. Hatshepsût, 104, 106, 313 and note. Heliopolis, 104. Luxor, 104. Tanis, 104. Obsidian, 247, 250. Ocean, celestial, 93. Ochre, 203. OEnochoe, glass, 263. Offerings,-- corn, 97. milk, 95. oil, 95. wine, 95, 97. (See FEAST, LIBATIONS, TABLES OF OFFERINGS.) Oil, 95. Ombos, 26, 36, 58, 88, 92, 245, (see KOM OMBO and TEMPLES). On, genius of, 96. Osiris (see GODS). Ostraka, 36. Ostrakon, caricature, 172. Oxen, 123, 128, 153, 175, 182. Pahûrnefer, 214. Painting, 192-3, 202-6, 292-3. (see DRAWING, PERSPECTIVE, WALL-SCENES). Pakhet (see GODDESSES). Palestrina, mosaic, 189-92. Palette,-- painter's, 202. scribe's, 128, 166, 170. Palm capital, 58. Palms, for roofing, 2, 11 (see DATE and DÔM PALMS). Papyri, 64 (note), 160, 167, 170, 171, 172-5, 205. (see BOOK). Papyrus, 57, 190, 327. Pavilion,-- of private house, 17. of Medinet Habû, 32. of Nectenebo, Philae, 62. Pearl, mother-of-, 247. Pearls, 247. Pectoral, 322, 323, 326, 327. Pedishashi, 239, 240. Pegs, 283. Pen, 175, 215. Pepi I., 140, 253, 270. Pepi II., 133, 140, 142. Perfumes, 67, 128, 157, 180. Period,-- Hyksos, 227-8, 307. Persian, 174, 303. Ptolemaic, 56, 58, 61, 66, 69-70, 72, 79, 90, 93, 98, 175, 208, 241-3, 249, 290, 303, 315, 332. Roman, 58, 66, 90, 98, 173, 208, 243-5. Theban, second, 19 and note. Peristyle, 67, 74, 83, 84, 106 (see PROCESSIONAL HALL). Perspective, 177-92. Pestle and mortar, 170. Petamenoph (see TOMB). Petrie, W.M.F., 7, 10, 12, 45, 64-5, 104, 113, 131, 197, 200, 202, 249, 267, 282, 291, 334 _et seq._ Pharaoh, 66, 67, 95-7, 98, 101-3. Philae (see TEMPLES). Phoenicians, 248, 263, 303, 320. Piankhi I., 34. Piankhi II., 235 (note). Pibesa, 237. Pigments, 202-3. Pillars, 52, 53-5, 65, 68, 116, 149, 151. Pincushion, 277. Pinotem II., 299. Pinotem III., 299, 332. Pisebkhanû, 228. Pithom, i, 36 and note. Plate, 315-20 (see GOLD and SILVER). Pliny, 303. Pohûnika (see TOMB). Poignards, 327, 328. Point, 47 (note), 6, 195, 197, 201, 247, 250. Polymita, 303. Ponds, 8, 15, 186. Porch, 13 (see PORTICO). Porphyry, 42, 247. Portcullis, in pyramids, 136, Notes 26, 27, 137, 139. Portico, 13, 16, 51, 54, 57, 60, 67, 116, 149, 150, 152, 206. Portrait, panel-painting, 291-2. (see BAS-RELIEF, MUMMY-CASES, and STATUES). Posno collection, 308. Pottery, 166,254-9. (see GLAZED WARE and VASES). Priests (see PHARAOH and others). Prisse, M., 193. Processional Hall (promenoir), 53, 58 and note, 60, 77 (see PERISTYLE). Pronaos, 70, 74-5. Psammetichus I., 236. Psammetichus, scribe, 237 and note. Psar, 322, 331. Ptah (see GODS). Ptahhotep (see TOMB). Ptahmes, 208. Pûnt, Land of, 109 and note. Pylons, 13, 16, 49, 50, 67, 77, 78, 79, 80, 85, 87, 100-1, 186-8, 189, 232. Pyramid of,-- Amenemhat III. (Hawara), 143. Ati, 142. Khafra (Second Pyramid of Gizeh), 133, 134, 137. Khûfû (Great Pyramid of Gizeh), 133, 134-7. Menkara (Third Pyramid of Gizeh), 134, 137. Merenra, 133, 140. Pepi I., 140. Pepi II., 133, 140, 142. Sakkarah, Step, or Great, 138-9, Note 32. Sneferû (Medûm), 132,143-4. Teti, 140. Ûnas, 133, 138, 139-40. Ûsertesen I., 143. Ûsertesen II. (Illahûn), 143. Pyramidion, 105, 147. Pyramid-mastaba tombs, 145-8, Pyramids, 131-45, and Notes, pp, 334-7. Abûsîr, 131, 134, 138, 140. Abydos (Hekalli), 144. Dahshûr, 131, 134, 142. Esneh (Mohammeriyeh), 144. Ethiopia (Meroë, Napata, Nûrri), 144. Fayûm (Hawara and Illahûn), 134, 143. Gizeh, 131, 133-7, 140. Lisht, 134, 142. Manfalût, 144. Sakkarah, 133, 134, 137, 138-42. Qodshû, 31. (see KADESÛ). Quarries, 35, 41-5, 132. Ra (see GODS). Ra Harmakhis (see GODS). Raemka, 220 (see SHEIKH EL BELED). Rahotep, 214, 219. Ram, 88, 89, 199. Rameses I., 78, 158. Rameses II. (Sesostris), 47, 52, 78, 80, 84, 86, 101, 103, 158, 188, 202, 226, 231, 232, 234, 235, 287-8, 321, 331. Rameses III., 4, 32-3, 87, 101, 184, 194, 195, 270, 272, 301, 306, 321. Rameses IV., 160. Rameses IX., 331. Ramesseum, the, 36, 37, 47, 57, 60, 62, 72, 92, 100, 103, 159, 187, 234, 265. Ramessides, the, 1, 23, 109, 153, 168, 235, 266, 290, 320. Ramparts, 24, 30, 33, 87. Ranefer, 214, 218. Rats, 171, 259. Red Sea, emerald mines, 41. Redesîyeh, 229. Reed brush, 171. Reeds, 180, 266. Rekhmara (see TOMB). Renaissance, 175, 235-40, 290. Repoussé work (see GOLD, JEWELLERY, SILVER). Reservoir, 38-41, 252 (see DAMS, DIKES, IRRIGATION). Rhind, A.H., 293 and note. Rings, 267, 305, 321-2, 331. Roads, 30, 34, 35, 41. Rock-cut temples and tombs (see SPEOS and TOMBS). Roofs, 2, 9, 10, 11, 32, 51, 90. Rougé, M. le Vicomte de, 109 (note). _Sa_, amulet, 237 (note). Sabûah, Wady (see TEMPLES). Sacrifices, 95, 97. (see FEAST and OFFERINGS). Sails of leather-work, 301. Sais, 26, 266. Sakkarah, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 126, 129, 130 (note), 133, 134, 137, 138, 140, 144, 158, 189, 197, 204, 217, 221, 226, 252, 259, 269, 270, 310, 313. (see PYRAMIDS and TOMBS). Sân, 1, 26. (see TANIS). Sanctuaries (see SPEOS and TEMPLES). Sanctuary, the essential part of a temple, 66-7. Sandals, 168, 286, 298. Sandstone, 6, 43, 47, 67, 76, 87, 103, 169, 199, 202, 230, 252. Sapping, 23, 25. Sarcophagi, 42, 127, 129, 132, 137, 140, 157, 160. (see MUMMY-CASES). Sarcophagus of,-- Aahhotep II., 288-9. Ahmes I., 287. Ahmesnefertari, 288-9. Amenhotep I., 287. Khûfû, 136. Khûfû Poskhû, 20, 22. Menkara, 128 (note), 137. Rameses II., 287, 288. Seti I., 161, 165 (note). Thothmes II., 287. (See MUMMY-CASES.) Sardanapalus, 314. Sardinia, 248. Saucepan of Rameses III., 306. Saw, 247, 250. Scaling, as a mode of attack, 23, 25. Scarabaei, 248-50. funerary, 168, 265, 325-6. Scarabaeoids, 248. Schist, 265. Schliemann, Dr., 328. Schweinfurth, Dr., 40. Scissors, of bronze, 306. Scorpion, 322, 329. Scribe,-- cross-legged, 214-17. kneeling, 214, 222-3, 239. Sculpture,-- absence of, in chapel of Pyramid of Medûm, 144. absence of, in Temple of Sphinx, 66. Greek influence on, 240-3. Hyksos, school of, 227-8. mastabas, 119 _et seq._, 130. Memphite school of, 209-25. methods of, 200-2. New Empire school of, 228, 235. provincial schools of, 228. pylons, 186-8. pyramids, 137. Renaissance school of, 235-40. Theban (first) school of, 226. XIII. and XIV. dynasties, 226-7. (See BAS-RELIEF and STATUES.) Seals, 321-2. Seb (see GODS). Sebâkh diggers, 237 and note. Sebekemsaf, 202, 227. Sebekhotep III., 227. Sekenenra, 157. Sekhet (see GODDESSES). Selle (see ZARÛ). Semneh, 20, 28-9, 50. Sennetmû, mummy-case of wife of, 286. (see TOMB). Sepa, 208. Serdab, 126-7, 129, 139, 152, 166, 167. Serpentine, 169, 195, 236, 247, 252. Serpents, 141, 159, 164, 259, 329. (see APAPI). Sesebeh (see TEMPLES). Sesostris, 5. (see RAMESES II.). Set (see GODS). Seti I., King, 34 (note), 42, 47, 48, 49, 51, 78, 85, 101, 107, 158, 161, 162, 163, 195, 231, 232, 235, 270. Shabaka, 235 (note). Sharonah (see TEMPLES). Sheikh Abd el Gûrneh,-- bronzes from, 307. enamels from, 263. Sheikh el Beled, statue of, 214 and note, 220-1, 224, 226 (see RAEMKA). Sheikh Saîd, 148. Sheshonk, 33, 235, 270. Shrines, 66, 108 (see NAOS). Shû (see GODS). Silsilis, 38, 43-5, 232. Silver,-- bark of, 329-30. chain of, 322. eyes of, 310. hatchets of, 327. nuggets of, 11. poignard hilt of, 328. repoussé work of, 316-17. rings of, 321. sources of, 312. statues of, 314-15. vases and vessels of, 316 _et seq._ wire of, 248. Sinai, 41, 66, 101. Sistrum, 53, 61, 95, 260. Sitû, 252. Situlae, bronze, 307. Siût, 114, 148, 226, 242. Skemka, 214. Sky, Egyptian idea of, 90. Sledges,-- for transport of stone, 45. funerary, 292, 294. Sneferu, 132, 144, 209. Soane collection, 165 (note). Soil of Egypt, 2, 4, 48. Soleb (see TEMPLES). Sop, genius, 324. Sothis, feast of, 118. Soudan, gold from, 313. Soul, the (see BA). Speos, the, 42, 81-5. Abû Simbel, 53, 82-4. Kalaat Addah, 81, 82. Silsilis, 82, 232. (See HEMI-SPEOS.) Speos Artemidos (see TEMPLES). Sphinx, the, 64 (note), 65, 206-8. Sphinxes, 325. andro-, 89, 230. avenues of, 67, 88-9, 230. crio-, 88, 89. Hyksos, 227-8. New Empire, 229. Spinners, 124. Spoons, 273, 278-81, 306. Stabling, 13, 35, 87. Staircase,-- fortress, 24. house, 11, 16. temple, 70, 71, 85. temple pylons, 50. Statue of,-- Alexandrian Isis, 241. portrait of Amenhotep I., 229. baker, 224. cross-legged scribe of Gizeh, 217. cross-legged scribe of the Louvre, 214-15. Hor, 242. Horemheb, 232-3. Khafra, 214, 217-18, 253. kneeling scribe, 214, 223. Mermashiû, 227. Nefert, 219-20. Nemhotep (dwarf), 225-6. Pahûrnefer, 214. Prince of Siût, 241-2. a queen, 232. Rahotep, 219. Sebekemsaf, 202, 227. Sebekhotep III., 227. Sheikh el Beled (Raemka), 214, 220-1, 224. Sheikh el Beled's wife, 221-2. Skemka, 214. Thothmes I., 229. Thothmes II., 229. Statues,-- in houses, 13. in temples, 106, 108-10. Ka, 126-7, 152, 163, 166, 211-14. Statuette of,-- Amen, gold, 315. a girl, 274-5. Hori Ra, wood, 275. Horus, bronze, 309-10. Horus, enamelled, 267. kneeling genius, bronze, 309. Mosû, bronze, 310. Naï, wood, 276. officer, wood, 275-6. priest, wood, 275, 276. Ptah, gold, 315. Ptahmes, enamelled, 268. Takûshet, bronze, 308-9. Statuettes,-- alabaster, 253. bronze, 307-10. clay, 257. Deir el Baharî, 266. gilt, 314. gold, 314-15. ivory, 273-4. limestone, 253. period XVIII. and XIX. dynasties, 307. XXII dynasty, 307. XXVI dynasty, 307. wood, Ptolemaic, 307. (See ÛSHABTIÛ.) Stela, of Bakhtan, 109 and note. of Merrûka, 120. Stelae, 24, 104. of mastabas, 115, 120-1, 125. pyramid-mastabas, 146. rock-cut tombs, 152, 157. Step Pyramid (see PYRAMIDS). Stone, 46. dikes, 38. grating, 71. (See ALABASTER, etc.) Storage, 16, 35, 36, 87, 132. Stroganoff, Count, 308. Stuart, Villiers, 300 (note). Stucco, 50, 170, 261, 284, 314. Sûit, mother of Horemheb, 179. Swine,-- alleged impurity of, 195-6. transmigration into, 164. Sycamores, 8, 15. wood of, 205, 274, 284, 290. Syene, 45, 77, 196, 209 (note), 243. (see ASÛAN). Syenite, 139. Syria, 31, 34 (note), 87, 187, 248, 303, 312. _Ta_, amulet, 247, 286. Tabernacle, 66. Tables of offerings, 106-7, 115, 119, 130, 157, 166, 237, 251-2. Taharka, 52, 79. Tahpanhes, 36 (note). (see TELL DEFENNEH and DAPHNAE). Tahûti, general, 316. Takûshet, 308-9. Tambourine, 95. Tanis, 1, 47, 103, 104 (note), 197, 200 (note), 227, 228, 234, 235, 307, 311. (see SÃN and TEMPLES). Tanks, of houses, 16. Tapestry, 296-8, 303 and note. Tat, amulet, 286 and note. Tau-cross (see ANKH). Taûd, 250. Taûrt (see APET and THÛERIS). Taxation, system of, 35. Tefnût (see GODDESSES). Tehneh, 45. Tell Basta, I (see BUBASTIS). Tell Defenneh, 36 (note), (see TAPHANHES and DAPHNAE). Tell el Amarna, 13, 155, 197 (note), 231-3, 263. Tell el Maskûtah, I (see PITHOM and THÛKÛ). Tell el Yahûdeh, tiles of, 270-2. Tell es Seba, 311. Tell Eshmûneyn, 265. Tell Gemayemi, 200, 262 (note). Temenos, 87-9. Temples, 46-110. Abû Simbel, 53, 82-4, 319. Abydos, 20, 47, 49, 51, 60, 64, 85-6, 90, 194, 232. Beit el Wally, 84, 205 (note), 235. Bubastis, 52 and note, 58, 88. Coptos, 245. Deir el Baharî, 51, 53, 61, 83, 85 and note, 229. Deir el Medineh, 69-70. Derr, 84. Denderah, 53, 57, 61, 72, 73, 88, 91, 92, 94, 100, 245. Edfû, 56, 57, 58, 64, 72, 74, 75, 88, 92, 100. El Kab, 56, 69, 88. Elephantine, 67-9. Esneh, 92, 245. Gebel Barkal, 53. Gebel Silsileh, 81, 82, 232. Gerf Husein, 85. Gizeh, 64-6, 85. Gûrneh, 60, 159. Kalaat Addah, 81, 82. Kalabsheh, 54, 56. Karnak, 1, 34, 35, 46, 47, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63-4, 70-2, 76-9, 87, 88, 89, 92, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106, 107, 194, 229, 230, 232, 235, 313, 314, 315. Luxor, 47, 52, 57, 60, 62, 72, 79, 80, 89, 100, 104, 106, 187, 202, 230, 234. Medamot, 56, 59, 60, 64. Medinet Habû, 32-3, 50, 53, 60, 63, 72, 87, 101, 159, 184, 194, 199, 288, 315. Mesheikh, 69. Nubia, 47, 82. Ombos, 26, 58, 88, 92-3, 245. Philae, 58-9, 62, 80-1, 92, 100, 245. Semneh, 50. Sesebeh, 58. Sharonah, 69. Soleb, 58. Tanis, 47, 104 (note). Wady Sabûah, 85, 88. * * * * * Amenhotep II, 53. Amenhotep III, 53, 67-8. Antoninus Pius, 100. Caesars, 66. Dynasty IV, 64. Dynasty XII, 66. Hatshepsût (see DEIR EL BAHARÎ and SPEOS ARTEMIDOS). Horemheb (see GEBEL SILSILEH). Khonsû, at Karnak, 60, 70-2, 74, 235. Ptolemies, 66. Rameses III. (see MEDINET HABÛ). Seti I, 42. (See CHAPEL, HEMI-SPEOS, SANCTUARY, SPEOS.) Terraces, 16, 36, 74. Terra-cotta, vases of, 114, 166. Teti, King, pyramid of, 140. Textiles, 67, 296-8, 302-4. Alexandrian, 303. brocaded, 303. Ekhmîm, 303-4 and note. Roman, 303. Thebaid, the, 243, 273. Thebes, 1, 2, 6, 26, 32, 33, 36, 66, 79, 85, 88, 89, 103, 131, 147, 148, 153, 154, 155, 157-65, 168, 174, 177, 186, 193, 197, 205, 209, 226, 229, 235, 237, 244, 250, 277, 290, 293, 313. (See KARNAK, LUXOR.) Thmûis, silver vases of, 316-17. Thoth (see GODS). Thothmes I, 76-7, 229. Thothmes II, 77, 287. Thothmes III, 26, 42, 53, 58-9, 60, 77, 92, 157, 229, 263, 302, 326, 320. Thothmes IV, 205. Thûeris (see GODDESSES, APET, and TAÛRT). Thûkû, 36 and note. (see PITHOM and TELL EL MASKHÛTAH). Ti (see TOMB). Tiberius, at Denderah and Ombos, 245. Tibur, Egyptian rooms in Hadrian's villa at, 243. Tii, Oueen, vase of, 267. Tiles,-- for mural decoration, 269-72. in pyramid of Sakkarah, 270. of Tell el Yahûdeh, 270-2. Tipcat, 282. Tin, 304. Toilet, articles of, 166, 259, 266-7, 273, 277, 281, 306. Tomb of,--- Affi, 117. Aï, 16, 17, 155, 158. Aimadûa, 20. Amenhotep III, 158. Ameni, 149, 151. Anna, 12, 229. Bakenrenf, 165. an Entef, 265-6. Hapizefa, 150. Hesî, 210. Horemheb, 179-80, 183. Horhotep, 156-7. Hûi, 229, Kaäpir, 115, Khabiûsokari, 117, 208. Khamha, 229. Khetî, 155. Khnûmhotep, 149, 150, 151, 152, 155, 177, 297. Manna, 154. Merrûka, 120. Neferhotep, 115, 116, 155. Nenka, 130 and note. Petamenoph, 165. Pohûnika, 116. Ptahhotep, 118, 119, 122, 124, 188. Rahotep, 126. Rameses I., 158. Rameses II., 158. Rameses III., 161-3, 301. Rameses IV., 160. Red Scribe, 118. Rekhmara, 3, 186, 187, 229. Seti I., 158, 161-3, 232. Sennetmû, 258, 294. Shepsesptah, 117. Thenti, 118, 126. Ti, 116, 117, 127, 155. Ûna, 155. Ûrkhûû, 124. (See PYRAMID.) Tombs, 111-68. Egyptian idea of, 111-12. mastaba-pyramids, 145-8. mastabas, 113-31. pyramids, 131-45. rock-cut tombs, 146-68. * * * * * Abydos, 22, 145-7. Ahnas el Medineh, 259. Asûan, 53, 148, 149, 150, 259. Beni Hasan, 24, 53, 148 and note, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 155, 177, 256-7. Bersheh, 148 and note. Coptic period, 303-4. Deir el Gebrawî, 204. El Amarna, 13, 15, 16, 17. Fayûm, 259, 291-2, 303-4. Gizeh, 148. Greek period, 175. Kasr es Saîd, 148. Kûrnet Murraee, 294. Negadeh, 148. Sheikh Saîd, 148. Siût, 148, 150. Tools, etc.,-- adze, 283, 304. anvil, 313. axe, 201, 304. burin, 305, 325. chains, measuring, 155. chisel, 45, 214, 304. drill, 195, 214, 247, 250, 282. gouge, 195. grindstone, 247. hammer, 195, 313. knives, 304, 306. mallet, 45, 197, 202. pegs, 283. point, 47, 195 (note), 197, 201, 202, 247, 250. saw, 247, 250, 304. wedges, 45. wheel, 250 (see WHEEL, POTTER'S). Tops, 284. Torus, 50. Towns, 1-2, Note 1, 7-8, 87-8. Coptic, 8. Pharaonic, 1, 7, 8. Ptolemaic, 1. Roman, 8. Saïtic, 1. Twelfth Dynasty, 1, 7. walled, 20, 26. Toys, 182, 282. Trees, 274. Trellis, 182, 189. Tûaï, 273. Tûatmûtf, genius, 258 (note). Tûm (see GODS). Turin Museum, 160, 171, 229, 231, 232, 235, 262, 274, 275. Turquoise, 247, 325, 329. Typhon (Set) (see GODS). Ûaga, feast of, 118. Ûahabra, 269 (note). (see APRIES and HOPHRA). Ûati (see GODDESSES). Ûna (see TOMB). Ûnas, 133, 138, 139, 163. Uraeus (basilisk), 61, 201, 294. Ûsekh, 326-7. Ûsertesen I, 76, 143. Ûsertesen II., 7, 143, 322. Ûsertesen III., 28, 226, 322, 323. Ûshabtiû, 167, 253, 257, 266. _Ûta_, amulet, 247-8. Varnish, 203-4, 305. Vases,--- Ancient Empire, 255, 256. bronze, 305. canopic, 167, 252-3, 258, 292. decoration of, 256, 257, 258, 259. libation, 292, 310. silver and gold, 316-20. situlae, 307. terra-cotta, 114, 166. toilet, 253-4. (See BRONZE, GLASS, GLAZED WARE, GOLD, POTTERY, SILVER.) Vaulting, 6 and note, 36, 51, 145, 146, 150, 151. Vauquelin, M., 304. Venus, 243. Vermilion, 203. Vienna Museum, 272. Vulture, 92, 299, 301, 315, 325. Vyse, Col. Howard., 137 Wady Gerraweh, 40. Genneh, 41. Sabûah (see HEMI-SPEOS). Wages, 35. Wall-scenes, 3, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 24, 30, 31, 35, 36, 91, 92, 97, 99, 120, 122, 124, 130, 152-6, 162-5, 177, 178, 179- 92, 193, 194, 195, 260, 284, 295, 296, 297, 298, 300, 301, 313, 318, 319, 320. (see BAS-RELIEF and PAINTING). Washhouse, 12. Weavers, 124, 297-8. Wheel, potter's, 255. Wig, 236, 275, 276, 286, 308, 310, 332. Wilkinson, Sir Gardner, 295, 303, 305. Wilson, Sir E., 128 (note). Windows, 9, 11, 50, 65, 70, 144. Wine, 35, 36, 97, 180. Wood, 25, 50, 66, 169, 205, 210-11, 214 and note, 224, 235, 274-7. (see CABINET-MAKING, MUMMY-CASES, STATUETTES, STATUES). Zagazig, 332. Zarû (Selle), 34 and note. Zodiacal circle of Denderah, 93, 94. Zowyet el Aryan, 134. 
18383	----	ANECDOTES OF PAINTERS, ENGRAVERS Sculptors and Architects, AND CURIOSITIES OF ART. BY S. SPOONER, M. D., AUTHOR OF "A BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF THE FINE ARTS." IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. NEW YORK: R. WORTHINGTON, PUBLISHER, 770 Broadway. COPYRIGHT, S. SPOONER, 1853. Reëntered, G. B., 1880. CONTENTS. Egyptian Art, 1 Ancient Thebes, 2 The Temple of Carnac, 5 Temple of Luxor, 5 The Statues of Memnon, 6 Heliopolis, 7 Memphis, 8 Lake Moeris, 9 The Colossal Sphinx, 10 The Labyrinth of Egypt, 11 The Catacombs of Egypt, 12 The Pyramids of Egypt, 19 Perilous Ascent of the Pyramid of Cephren, 27 Egyptian Obelisks, 30 Removal of an Obelisk by Fontana, 33 Removal of an Obelisk from Thebes to Paris, 40 Carburi's Base for the Equestrian Statue of Peter the Great, 42 Comparative Skill of the Ancients and Moderns in Mechanics, 45 The Britannia Tubular Railway Bridge, 46 The Tubes, 47 Construction of the Tubes, 49 Floating the Tubes, 50 Raising the Tubes, 52 Glory of Ancient Rome, 57 The Capitol, 59 Modern Rome, 60 The Foundation of Venice, 72 Theodoric the Great, and his Love of the Fine Arts, 73 Archimedes, 77 The Trials of Genius--Filippo Brunelleschi, 80 Brunelleschi's Enthusiasm, 122 Brunelleschi and Donatello, 123 Donatello, 125 Donatello and the Merchant, 126 Donatello and his Kinsmen, 127 Death of Donatello, 128 Donatello and Michael Angelo Compared, 128 Sofonisba Anguisciola's Early Distinction, 129 Sofonisba's Visit to Rome, 130 Sofonisba's Marriages, 131 Sofonisba's Residence at Genoa, and her Intercourse with Vandyck, 132 Carriera Rosalba, 133 Rosalba's Modesty, 133 Rosalba's Knowledge of Tempers, 133 Elizabeth Sirani, 134 Death of Elizabeth Sirani, 135 Rachel Ruysch, 135 Sir Anthony Vandyck, 136 Vandyck's Visit to Italy, 138 Vandyck's Return to Antwerp, 139 Vandyck's Visit to England, 141 William van de Velde the Elder, 143 Van de Velde and Charles II., 144 William van de Velde the Younger, 145 The Younger van de Velde's Works, 146 Nicholas Poussin, 148 Poussin's first Celebrity, 149 Poussin's first Visit to Rome, 150 Poussin's Distress at Rome, 151 Poussin's Success at Rome, 152 Poussin's Invitation to Paris, 153 Poussin's Return to Rome, 154 Sir Joshua Reynolds' Critique on Poussin, 156 Poussin's Views of his Art, 157 Poussin's Works, 158 Marino and Poussin, 159 Poussin Romanized, 160 Poussin's Habits of Study, 161 Poussin's Old Age, 162 Poussin's Last Work and Death, 163 Poussin's Ideas of Painting, 164 Poussin and the Nobleman, 165 Poussin and Mengs, 165 Poussin and Domenichino, 166 Poussin and Salvator Rosa, 166 Poussin, Angelo, and Raffaelle Compared, 168 Rembrandt, 170 Rembrandt's Works, 173 Rembrandt as an Engraver, 174 Anecdote of Schwarts, 175 Jacques Callot, 176 Callot's Patriotism, 177 Ingenuity of Artists, 178 A Hint to Jewelers, 179 Curious Paintings, 180 The Oldest Oil Painting Extant, 181 Curious Representations of the Harpies, 181 Adrian Brower, 182 Brower, the Duke d'Aremberg, and Rubens, 183 Death of Brower, 184 Brower's Works, 185 Rosa da Tivoli, 185 Rosa da Tivoli's Works, 186 Rosa da Tivoli's Facility of Execution, 186 Rosa da Tivoli's Habits, 187 Luca Cambiaso's Facility in Painting, 187 Cambiaso's Works in Spain, 188 Cambiaso's Artistic Merits, 190 Rarity of Female Portraits in Spain, 191 Murillo's Pictures in Spanish America, 192 Murillo's "Virgin of the Napkin," 193 Anecdote of an Altar-Piece by Murillo, 194 Murillo and his slave Gomez, 195 An Artist's Love of Romance, 195 Estéban March's Strange Method of Study, 198 March's Adventure of the Fish, fried in Linseed Oil, 199 A Painter's Rebuke, 200 A Painter's Retort Courteous, 201 Ardemans and Bocanegra--A Trial of Skill, 201 A Painter's Artifice to "Keep up Appearances," 202 A Good Natured Criticism, 203 Alonso Cano and the Intendant of the Bishop of Malaga, 203 Cano's Love of Sculpture, 204 Castillo's Sarcasm on Alfaro, 204 Torres' Imitations of Caravaggio, 205 Pantoja and the Eagle, 205 The Painter Methodius and the King of Bulgaria, 206 John C. Vermeyen and Charles V., 206 Blas de Prado and the Emperor of Morocco, 207 Don Juan Carreño, 208 Carreño's Copy of Titian's St. Margaret, 208 Carreño's Abstraction of Mind, 209 Anecdote of Cespedes' Last Supper, 209 Zuccaro's Compliment to Cespedes, 210 Dona Barbara Maria de Hueva, 210 The Miraculous Picture of the Virgin, 211 The Chair of St. Peter, 213 The Sagro Catino, or Emerald Dish, 215 The "Painter of Florence," 217 Legend of the Painter-Friar, the Devil, and the Virgin, 220 Gerard Douw, 222 Douw's Style, 224 Douw's Method of Painting, 225 Douw's Works, 226 Albert Durer, 228 Durer's Works as a Painter, 229 Durer's Works as an Engraver, 231 Durer's Fame and Death, 233 Durer's Habits and Literary Works, 234 Ludolph Backhuysen, 235 John Baptist Weenix the Elder, 236 Weenix's Facility of Hand, 236 John Baptist Weenix the Younger, 237 Jan Steen, 238 Jan Steen's Works, 238 Kugler's Critique on the Works of Jan Steen, 240 Frolics of Mieris and Jan Steen, 241 Sir Anthony More, 242 Sir Anthony More and Philip II., 243 More's Success and Works, 243 Perilous Adventure of a Painter, 245 Anecdote of John de Mabuse, 246 Capugnano and Lionello Spada, 247 Michael Angelo Caravaggio--His Quarrelsome Disposition, 248 Jacopo Amiconi, 249 Painting the Dead, 250 Taddeo Zuccaro, 250 Zuccaro's Resentment, 251 Royal Criticism, 252 Pietro da Cortona, 253 "Know Thyself," 254 Benvenuto Cellini, 255 Fracanzani and Salvator Rosa, 256 Pope Urban VIII. and Bernini, 256 Emulation and Rivalry in the Fine Arts, 257 The Nótte of Correggio, 259 The Dresden Gallery, 262 Painting among the Egyptians, 263 Painting among the Greeks, 265 Numismatics, 269 Restoring Ancient Edifices, 274 Napoleon's Love of Art, 274 Napoleon's Works at Paris, 276 The Napoleon Medals, 281 The Elephant Fountain, 286 Interesting Drawing, 287 Sévre China, 288 Dismantling of the Louvre, 289 Removal of the Venetian Horses from Paris, 296 Removal of the Statue of Napoleon from the Place Vendôme, 301 The Musée Français and the Musée Royal, 302 Boydell's Shakspeare Gallery, 305 Brief Sketch of a Plan for an American National Gallery of Art, 307 ANECDOTES OF PAINTERS, ENGRAVERS, SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. EGYPTIAN ART. Champollion, the famous explorer of Egyptian antiquities, holds the following language at the end of his fifteenth letter, dated at Thebes. "It is evident to me, as it must be to all who have thoroughly examined Egypt or have an accurate knowledge of the Egyptian monuments existing in Europe, that the arts commenced in Greece by a servile imitation of the arts in Egypt, much more advanced than is vulgarly believed, at the period when the Egyptian colonies came in contact with the savage inhabitants of Attica or the Peloponnesus. Without Egypt, Greece would probably never have become the classical land of the fine arts. Such is my entire belief on this great problem. I write these lines almost in the presence of bas-reliefs which the Egyptians executed, with the most elegant delicacy of workmanship, seventeen hundred years before the Christian era. What were the Greeks then doing?" The sculptures of the monument of El Asaffif are ascertained to be more than three thousand five hundred years old. ANCIENT THEBES. Thebes, an ancient city and capital of Egypt, and the oldest city in the world, was situated in Upper Egypt, on both sides of the Nile, about two hundred and sixty miles south of Cairo. Thebes is "the city of a hundred gates," the theme and admiration of ancient poets and historians, and the wonder of travelers--"that venerable city," in the language of Dr. Pocoke, "the date of whose destruction is older than the foundation of other cities, and the extent of whose ruins, and the immensity of whose colossal fragments still offer so many astonishing objects, that one is riveted to the spot, unable to decide whither to direct the step, or fix the attention." These ruins extend about eight miles along the Nile, from each bank to the sides of the enclosing mountains, and describe a circuit of twenty-seven miles. The most remarkable objects on the eastern side are the temples of Carnac and Luxor; and on the western side are the Memnonium or palace of Memnon, two colossal statues, the sepulchres of the kings, and the temple of Medinet Abu. The glory of Thebes belongs to a period prior to the commencement of authentic history. It is recorded only in the dim lights of poetry and tradition, which might be suspected of fable, did not such mighty witnesses remain to attest their truth. Strabo and Diodorus Siculus described Thebes under the name of _Diospolis_ (the city of God), and gave such magnificent descriptions of its monuments as caused the fidelity of those writers to be called in question, till the observations of modern travelers proved their accounts to have fallen short of the reality. At the time of the Persian invasion under Cambyses, Memphis had supplanted Thebes; and the Ptolemys afterwards removed the seat of empire to Alexandria. At present, its site presents only a few scattered villages, consisting of miserable cottages built in the courts of the temples. The ancient structures, however, remain in a state of wonderful preservation. Almost the whole extent of eight miles along the river is covered with magnificent portals, obelisks decorated with most beautiful sculptures, forests of columns, and long avenues of sphynxes and colossal statues. The most remarkable monuments, the ruins of which remain, are the temples of Carnac, Luxor, the Memnonium or temple of Memnon, and the temple of Medinet Abu. The tomb of Osymandyas, the temple of Iris, the Labyrinth, and the Catacombs lie on the western side of the Nile. In the interior of the mountains which rise behind these monuments, are found objects less imposing and magnificent indeed, but not less interesting--the tombs of the kings of Thebes. Several of these were opened by Belzoni, and were found in great preservation, with mummies in the sarcophagi, as well as dispersed through the chambers. Such was ancient Thebes--a city so populous that, according to ancient writers, in times of war 10,000 soldiers issued from each of her hundred gates, forming an army of 1,000,000 men. That these magnificent ruins are the remains of "the city of an hundred gates,"--"the earliest capital in the world," cannot be doubted. According to the measurements made by the French, their distance from the sea on the north, is 680,000 metres (850 miles), and from Elephantine on the south, 180,000 metres (225 miles)--corresponding exactly with the 6,800 and 1,800 stadia of Herodotus. The circumference of the ruins is about 15,000 metres (17½ miles), agreeing with the 140 stadia given by Diodorus as the circumference of Thebes. The origin of the name of this celebrated city, as well as the date of its foundation, is unknown. According to Champollion, who deciphered many of the inscriptions on these ruins, the Egyptian name was _Thbaki-antepi-Amoun_ (City of the Most High), of which the _No-Ammon_ of the Hebrews and _Diospolis_ of the Greeks are mere translations; _Thebæ_, of the Greeks is also perhaps derived from the Egyptian _Thbaki_ (the city). THE TEMPLE OF CARNAC. The largest of the temples of Thebes, and of any in Egypt, is that of Carnac, on the site of the ancient Diospolis. Diodorus describes it as thirteen stadia, or about a mile and a half in circumference, which nearly agrees with the admeasurements of Denon. It has twelve principal entrances; and the body of the temple, which is preceded by a large court, consists of a prodigious hall or portico, the roof of which is supported by one hundred and thirty-four columns, some twenty-six, and others thirty feet in circumference; four beautiful obelisks then mark the entrance to the shrine, which consists of three apartments, built entirely of granite. TEMPLE OF LUXOR. The temple of Luxor is about one and a fourth mile above that of Carnac, and though it is of smaller dimensions it is in a superior style of architecture, and in more complete preservation. The entrance is thought to surpass everything else that Egypt presents. In front are the two finest obelisks in the world, formed of rose-colored granite, and rising, as Denon supposes, after allowing for the portion buried in the ground, to the height of one hundred feet. But the objects which most attract attention, are the sculptures which cover the east wing of the northern front. They represent on a grand scale, a victory gained by one of the ancient kings of Egypt over their Asiatic enemies, consisting of multitudes of figures, horses, and chariots, executed in the best style of Egyptian art; the number of human figures introduced exceeds fifteen hundred, five hundred of which are on foot, and the rest in chariots. THE STATUES OF MEMNON. There were many colossal statues of Memnon in Egypt, but the most remarkable were the two in the Memnonium or palace of Memnon, at Thebes. The largest is of rose-colored granite, and stood in the centre of the principal court; its height was sixty-four feet, and its remains are scattered forty feet around it. Rigaud, one of the French savans, says, "the excavations are still visible where the wedges were placed which divided the monument when it was thrown down by Cambyses." The trunk is broke off at the waist, and the upper part lies prostrate on the back; it measures six feet ten inches over the front of the head, and sixty-two feet round the shoulders. At the entrance of the gate which leads from the second court to the palace, is the famous colossal sounding statue, which, according to Herodotus, Strabo, and Pausanias, uttered a joyful sound when the sun rose, and a mournful one when it set. It is also related that it shed tears, and gave out oracular responses in seven verses, and that these sounds were heard till the fourth century after Christ. These phenomena, attested by many ancient and modern writers, are variously accounted for by the learned, as priestcraft, peculiar construction, escape of rarified air, &c. This statue is in excellent preservation. The head is of rose-colored granite, and the rest of a kind of black stone. Two other colossal statues, about fifty feet high, are seated on the plain. HELIOPOLIS. The name of Heliopolis, or City of the Sun, was given by the Greeks to the Egyptian _City of On_. It was situated a little to the north of Memphis, was one of the largest cities of Egypt during the reign of the Pharaohs, and so adorned with statues as to be esteemed one of the first sacred cities in the kingdom. The temple dedicated to Re, was a magnificent building, having in front an avenue of sphynxes, celebrated in history, and adorned with several obelisks, raised by Sethosis Rameses, B.C. 1900. By means of lakes and canals, the town, though built on an artificial eminence, communicated with the Nile, and during the flourishing ages of the Egyptian monarchy, the priests and scholars acquired and taught the elements of learning within the precincts of its temples. At the time of Strabo who visited this town about A. D. 45, the apartments were still shown in which, four centuries before, Eudoxus and Plato had labored to learn the philosophy of Egypt. Here Joseph and Mary are said to have rested with our Saviour. A miserable village, called _Metarea_, now stands on the site of this once magnificent city. Near the village is the _Pillar of On_, a famous obelisk, supposed to be the oldest monument of the kind existing. Its height is 67½ feet, and its breadth at the base 6 feet. It is one single shaft of reddish granite (Sienite), and hieroglyphical characters are rudely sculptured upon it. MEMPHIS. The very situation of this famous ancient city of Egypt had long been a subject of learned dispute, till it was accurately ascertained by the French expedition to Egypt. Numerous heaps of rubbish, of blocks of granite covered with hieroglyphics and sculptures, of colossal fragments, scattered over a space three or four leagues in circumference, marks its site, a few miles south of Metarea or Heliopolis, at a village called Moniet-Rahinet. According to Herodotus, the foundation of Memphis was ascribed to Menes, the first king of Egypt. It was a large, rich, and splendid city, and the second capital of Egypt. Among its buildings were several magnificent temples, as those of Phtha, Osiris, Serapis, etc.; its palaces were also remarkable. In Strabo's time, it was next to Alexandria in size and population. Edrisi, who visited Memphis in the 12th century, thus describes its remains then existing: "Notwithstanding the vast extent of this city, the remote period at which it was built, the attempts made by various nations to destroy it and to obliterate every trace of it, by removing the materials of which it was constructed, combined with the decay of 4,000 years, there are yet in it works so wonderful as to confound the reflecting, and such as the most eloquent could not adequately describe." Among the works specified by him, are a monolithic temple of granite, thirteen and a half feet high, twelve long, and seven broad, entirely covered, within and without, with inscriptions; and colossal statues of great beauty, one of which was forty-five feet high, carved out of a single block of red granite. These ruins then extended about nine miles in every direction. LAKE MOERIS. This famous lake, according to Herodotus, with whose account Diodorus Siculus and Mela agree, was entirely an artificial excavation, made by king Moeris, to carry off the overflowing waters of the Nile, and reserve them for the purposes of irrigation. It was, in the time of Herodotus, 3,600 stadia or 450 miles in circumference, and 300 feet deep, with innumerable canals and reservoirs. Denon, Belzoni, and other modern travelers, describe it at the present time as a natural basin, thirty or forty miles long, and six broad. The works, therefore, which Herodotus attributes to King Moeris, must have been the mounds, dams, canals, and sluices which rendered it subservient to the purposes of irrigation. These, also, would give it the appearance of being entirely the product of human industry. THE COLOSSAL SPHINX. The Egyptian Sphinx is represented by a human head on the body of a lion; it is always in a recumbent position with the fore paws stretched forward, and a head dress resembling an old-fashioned wig. The features are like those of the ancient Egyptians, as represented on their monuments. The colossal Sphinx, near the group of pyramids at Jizeh, which lay half buried in the sand, was uncovered and measured by Caviglia. It is about 150 feet long, and 63 feet high. The body is made out of a single stone; but the paws, which are thrown out about fifty feet in front, are constructed of masonry. The Sphinx of Sais, formed of a block of red granite, twenty-two feet long, is now in the Egyptian Museum in the Louvre. There has been much speculation among the learned, concerning the signification of these figures. Winckelmann observes that they have the head of a female, and the body of a male, which has led to the conjecture that they are intended as emblems of the generative powers of nature, which the old mythologies are accustomed to indicate by the mystical union of the two sexes in one individual; they were doubtless of a sacred character, as they guarded the entrance of temples, and often formed long avenues leading up to them. THE LABYRINTH OF EGYPT A labyrinth, with the ancients, was a building containing a great number of chambers and galleries, running into one another in such a manner as to make it very difficult to find the way through the edifice. The most famous was the Egyptian labyrinth, situated in Central Egypt, above Lake Moeris, not far from Crocodilopolis, in the country now called _Fejoom_. Herodotus, who visited and examined this edifice with great attention, affirms that it far surpassed everything he had conceived of it. It is very uncertain when, by whom, and for what purpose it was built, though in all probability it was for a royal sepulchre. The building, half above and half below the ground, was one of the finest in the world, and is said to have contained 3,000 apartments. The arrangements of the work and the distribution of the parts were remarkable. It was divided into sixteen principal regions, each containing a number of spacious buildings, which taken together, might be defined an assemblage of palaces. There were also as many temples as there were gods in Egypt, the number of which was prodigious, besides various other sacred edifices, and four lofty pyramids at the angles of the walls. The entrance was by vast halls, followed by saloons, which conducted to grand porticos, the ascent to which was by a flight of ninety steps. The interior was decorated with columns of porphyry and colossal statues of Egyptian gods. The whole was surrounded by a wall, but the passages were so intricate that no stranger could find the way without a guide. The substructions of this famous labyrinth still exist, and Milizia says, "as they were not arched, it is wonderful that they should have been so long preserved, with so many stupendous edifices above them." The Cretan labyrinth was built by Dædalus on the model of the Egyptian, but it was only a hundredth part the size; yet, according to Diodorus Siculus, it was a spacious and magnificent edifice, divided into a great number of apartments, and surrounded entirely by a wall. What would the ancients say, could they see our modern imitations of their labyrinths? THE CATACOMBS OF EGYPT. There are numerous catacombs in Egypt, the principal of which are at Alexandria; at Sakkara, near Cairo; at Siut, near the ancient Lycopolis or City of the Wolf; at Gebel Silsilis, on the banks of the Nile between Etfu and Ombos, the site of one of the principal quarries of ancient Egypt; and at Thebes. Many of these are of vast extent, and were doubtless formed by quarrying the rocks and mountains for building materials. They consist of grottos, galleries, and chambers, penetrating often to a considerable distance, the superincumbent mass being supported by huge pillars of rock; or the galleries running parallel, with masses of solid rock intervening for supports. Many of these chambers and grottos contained multitudes of mummies, probably the bodies of the less wealthy; many were evidently private family tombs of wealthy individuals, some of which are of great magnificence, adorned with sculptures, paintings, and hieroglyphics. The Arabs for centuries have been plundering these abodes of the dead, and great numbers of the mummies have been destroyed for fuel, and for the linen, rosin, and asphaltum they contain, which is sold to advantage at Cairo. An immense number of them have been found in the plain of Sakkara, near Memphis, consisting not only of human bodies, but of various sacred animals, as bulls, crocodiles, apes, ibises, fish, &c.; hence it is called _The Plain of the Mummies_. Numerous caves or grottos, with contents of the same kind, are found in the two mountainous ridges which run nearly parallel with the Nile, from Cairo to Syene. Many of these tombs and mummies are two or three thousand years old, and some of them perhaps older. Among all the wonderful subterranean monuments of Egypt, the Catacombs of Thebes are the most extraordinary and magnificent. These consist of the Necropolis, or city of the dead, on the west bank of the Nile (which was the common burial-place of the people), and the Tombs of the Kings. The latter lie to the northwest of the city, at some distance in the Desert. Having passed the Necropolis, the traveler enters a narrow and rugged valley, flanked with perpendicular rocks, and ascending a narrow, steep passage about ten feet high, which seems to have been broken down through the rock, the ancient passage being from the Memnonium under the hills, he comes to a kind of amphitheatre about 100 yards wide, which is called Bab-il-Meluke--that is, the gate or court of the kings--being the sepulchres of the kings of Thebes. In this court there are signs of about eighteen excavations; but only nine can be entered. The hills on each side are high, steep rocks, and the whole plain is covered with rough stones that seem to have rolled down from them. The grottos present externally no other ornaments than a door in a simple square frame, with an oval in the centre of the upper part, on which are inscribed the hieroglyphical figures of a beetle, a man with a hawk's head, and beyond the circle two figures on their knees, in the act of adoration. Having passed the first gate, long arched galleries are discovered, about twelve feet wide and twenty feet high, cased with stucco, sculptured and painted; the vaults, of an elegant elliptical figure, are covered with innumerable hieroglyphics, disposed with so much taste, that notwithstanding the singular grotesqueness of the forms, and the total absence of demi-tint or aërial perspective, the ceilings make an agreeable whole, a rich and harmonious association of colors. Four of five of these galleries, one within the other, generally lead to a spacious room, containing the sarcophagus of the king, composed of a single block of granite, about twelve feet long by eight in breadth, ornamented with hieroglyphics, both within and without; they are square at one end, and rounded at the other, like the splendid sarcophagus deposited in the British Museum, and supposed by Dr. Clarke to have contained the body of Alexander. They are covered with a lid of the same material, and of enormous thickness, shutting with a groove; but neither this precaution, nor these vast blocks of stone, brought from such a distance with immense labor, have been able to preserve the relics of the sovereigns from the attempts of avarice; all these tombs have been violated. The figure of the king appears to have been sculptured and painted at full length on the lid of each sarcophagus. The paintings found in these sepulchres are among the most curious and interesting remains of Egyptian art; and they are in wonderful preservation, the colors being as fresh as when first executed. Some of these figures were copied by Bruce; and Denon, a member of the French Commission sent by Napoleon to examine the antiquities of Egypt, has published a most valuable collection which have all the appearance of spirited and characteristic resemblances. "I discovered," says he, "some little chambers, on the walls of which were represented all kinds of arms, such as panoplies, coats of mail, tigers' skins, bows, arrows, quivers, pikes, javelins, sabres, helmets, and whips: in another was a collection of household utensils, such as caskets, chests of drawers, chairs, sofas, and beds, all of exquisite forms, and such as might well grace the apartments of modern luxury. As these were probably accurate representations of the objects themselves, it is almost a proof that the ancient Egyptians employed for their furniture Indian wood, carved and gilt, which they covered with embroidery. Besides these, were represented various smaller articles, as vases, coffee-pots, ewers with their basins, a tea-pot and basket. Another chamber was consecrated to agriculture, in which were represented all its various instruments--a sledge similar to those in use at present, a man sowing grain by the side of a canal, from the borders of which the inundation is beginning to retire, a field of corn reaped with a sickle, and fields of rice with men watching them. In a fourth chamber was a figure clothed in white, playing on a richly ornamented harp, with eleven strings." Denon observed everything with the eye of an artist. Speaking of the Necropolis, which consists of numerous double galleries of grottos, excavated in the solid rock for nearly a mile and a half square, he observes, "I was convinced by the magnificence both of the paintings and sculptures, that I was among the tombs of great men and heros. The sculpture in all is incomparably more labored and higher finished than any I had seen in the temples; and I stood in astonishment at the high perfection of the art, and its singular destiny to be devoted to places of such silence and obscurity. In working these galleries, beds of a very fine calcareous clay have occasionally been crossed, and here the lines of the hieroglyphics have been cut with a firmness of touch and a precision, of which marble offers but few examples. The figures have elegance and correctness of contour, of which I never thought Egyptian sculpture susceptible. Here, too, I could judge of the style of this people in subjects which had neither hieroglyphic, nor historical, nor scientific; for there were representations of small scenes taken from nature, in which the stiff profile outlines, so common with Egyptian artists, were exchanged for supple and natural attitudes; groups of persons were given in perspective, and cut in deeper relief than I should have supposed anything but metal could have been worked." The Sepulchres of the Kings of Thebes are mentioned by Diodorus Siculus as wonderful works, and such as could never be exceeded by anything afterwards executed in this kind. He says that forty-seven of them were mentioned in their history; that only seventeen of them remained to the time of Ptolemy Lagus; adding that most of them were destroyed in his time. Strabo says, that above the Memnonium, the precise locality of Denon's description, were the sepulchres of the kings of Thebes, in grottos cut out of the rock, being about forty in number, wonderfully executed and worthy to be seen. In these, he says, were obelisks with inscriptions on them, setting forth the riches, power, and empire of these kings, as far as Scythia, Bactria, India, and Ionia, their great revenues, and their immense armies, consisting of one million of men. In Egypt, the honors paid to the dead partook of the nature of a religious homage. By the process of embalming, they endeavored to preserve the body from the common laws of nature; and they provided those magnificent and durable habitations for the dead--sublime monuments of human folly--which have not preserved but buried the memory of their founders. By a singular fatality, the well-adapted punishment of pride, the extraordinary precautions by which it seemed in a manner to triumph over death, have only led to a more humiliating disappointment. The splendor of the tomb has but attracted the violence of rapine; the sarcophagus has been violated; and while other bodies have quietly returned to their native dust in the bosom of their mother earth, the Egyptian, converted into a mummy, has been preserved only to the insults of curiosity, or avarice, or barbarism. THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT. The pyramids of Egypt, especially the two largest of the group of Jizeh or Gize, are the most stupendous masses of buildings in stone that human labor has ever been known to accomplish, and have been the wonder of ancient and modern times.--The number of the Egyptian pyramids, large and small, is very considerable; they are situated on the west bank of the Nile, and extend in an irregular line, and in groups at some distance from each other, from the neighborhood of Jizeh, in 30° N. Latitude, as far as sixty or seventy miles south of that place. The pyramids of Jizeh are nearly opposite Cairo. They stand on a plateau or terrace of limestone, which is a projection of the Lybian mountain-chain. The surface of the terrace is barren and irregular, and is covered with sand and small fragments of rock; its height, at the base of the great pyramid, is one hundred and sixty four feet above the ordinary level of the Nile, from which it is distant about five miles. There are in this group three large pyramids, and several small ones. Herodotus, who was born B.C. 484, visited these pyramids. He was informed by the priests of Memphis, that the great pyramid was built by Cheops, king of Egypt, about B.C. 900, and that one hundred thousand workmen were employed twenty years in building it, and that the body of Cheops was placed in a room beneath the bottom, surrounded by a vault, to which the waters of the Nile were conveyed through a subterranean tunnel. A chamber has been discovered under the centre of the pyramid, but it is about fifty-six feet above the low-water mark of the Nile. The second pyramid, Herodotus says, was built by Cephren or Cephrenes, the brother and successor of Cheops, and the third by Mycerinus, the son of Cheops. Herodotus also says that the two largest pyramids are wholly covered with white marble; Diodorus and Pliny, that they are built of this costly material. The account of Herodotus is confirmed by present appearances. Denon, who accompanied the French expedition to Egypt, was commissioned by Buonaparte to examine the great pyramid of Jizeh; three hundred persons were appointed to this duty. They approached the borders of the desert in boats, to within half a league of the pyramid, by means of the canals from the Nile. Denon says, "the first impression made on me by the sight of the pyramids, did not equal my expectations, for I had no object with which to compare them; but on approaching them, and seeing men at their base, their gigantic size became evident." When Savary first visited these pyramids, he left Jizeh at one o'clock in the morning, and soon reached them. The full moon illuminated their summits, and they appeared to him "like rough, craggy peaks piercing the clouds." Herodotus gives 800 feet as the height of the great pyramid, and says this is likewise the length of its base, on each side; Strabo makes it 625, and Diodorus 600. Modern measurements agree most nearly with the latter. The pyramid of Cheops consists of a series of platforms, each of which is smaller than the one on which it rests, and consequently presents the appearance of steps which diminish in length from the bottom to the top. There are 203 of these steps, and the height of them decreases, but not regularly, the greatest height being about four feet eight inches, and the least about one foot eight inches. The horizontal lines of the platforms are perfectly straight, the stones are cut and fitted to each other with the greatest accuracy, and joined with a cement of lime, with little or no sand in it. It has been ascertained that a bed has been cut in the solid rock, eight inches deep, to receive the lowest external course of stones. The vertical height, measured from this base in the rock to the top of the highest platform now remaining, is 456 feet. This last platform is thirty two feet eight inches square, and if to this were added what is necessary to complete the pyramid, the total height would be 479 feet. Each side of the base, measured round the stones let into the rock, is 763 feet 5 inches, and the perimeter of the base is about 3,053 feet. The measurements of travelers differ somewhat, but the above are very nearly correct. The area of the base is 64,753 square yards, or about 13-1/3 acres. The surface of each face, not including the base, is 25,493 square yards; and that of the four faces is consequently 101,972 square yards, or more than 21 acres. The solid contents of the pyramid, without making deductions for the small interior chambers, is 3,394,307 cubic yards. Reckoning the total height at 479 feet, the pyramid would be 15 feet higher than St. Peter's at Rome, and 119 higher than St. Paul's, London. The entrance to the great pyramid is on the north face, 47½ feet above the base, and on the level of the fifteenth step from the foundation. The entrance is easily reached by the mass of rubbish which has fallen or been thrown down from the top. The passage to which this opening leads is 3 feet 7½ inches square, with a downward inclination of about 26°. It is lined with slabs of limestone, accurately joined together. This passage leads to another, which has an ascending inclination of 27°. The descending passage is 73 feet long, to the place where it meets the ascending one, which is 109 feet long; at the top of this is a platform, where is the opening of a well or shaft, which goes down into the body of the pyramid, and the commencement of a horizontal gallery 127 feet long which leads to the Queen's chamber, an apartment 17 feet long, 14 wide, and 12 high. Another gallery, 132 feet long, 26½ high, and 7 wide, commences also at this platform, and is continued in the same line as the former ascending passage, till it reaches a landing place, from which a short passage leads to a small chamber or vestibule, whence another short passage leads to the King's chamber, which as well as the vestibule and intermediate passage, is lined with large blocks of granite, well worked. The king's chamber is 34½ feet long, 17 wide, and 19¾ high. The roof is formed of nine slabs of granite, reaching from side to side; the slabs are therefore more than 17 feet long by 3 feet 9½ inches wide. This chamber contains a sarcophagus of red granite; the cover is gone, having probably been broken and carried away. The sarcophagus is 7 feet 6½ inches long, 3 feet 3 inches wide, 3 feet 8½ inches high on the outside, the bottom being 7½ inches thick. There are no hieroglyphics upon it. Several other chambers have been discovered above the king's chamber, but as they are not more than three or four feet high, they were probably intended to lessen and break the weight of the mass above, which would otherwise fall on the King's chamber. In 1816, Captain Caviglia discovered that the entrance passage did not terminate at the bottom of the ascending passage, but was continued downwards in the same inclined plane of 26°, 200 feet further, and by a short horizontal passage, opened on what appeared to be the bottom of the well. The passage, however, continued in the same direction 23 feet farther; then became narrower, and was continued horizontally 28 feet more, where it opened into a large chamber cut out of the rock below and under the centre of the pyramid. This chamber is about 26 by 27 feet. Another passage leads from this chamber 55 feet, where it appears to terminate abruptly. The well, which appeared to Mr. Davidson and Capt. Caviglia to descend no lower than where it was intersected by the descending passage, its depth there being 155 feet, was afterwards cleared out by the French to the depth of near 208 feet, of which 145 feet are in the solid rock; so that the base of the pyramid being 164 feet above the low water level of the Nile, the present bottom of the well is 19 feet above the Nile; but the actual bottom does not appear to have been reached. The temperature within the body of the pyramid was found to be 81° 5', Farenheit, and in the well it was still higher. Herodotus was informed that the chambers cut in the solid rock, were made before the building of the pyramid was commenced. It is evident it was intended that the pyramid should not be entered after the body or bodies were deposited in it, as blocks of granite were fixed in the entrances to the principal passages, in such a manner as not only to close them, but to conceal them.--There are evidences, however, that this pyramid was entered both by the Roman and Arab conquerors of Egypt. The materials of all the pyramids are limestone, and, according to Herodotus, were brought from the mountains near Cairo, where there are ancient quarries of vast extent; but Belzoni is of opinion that a part of them, for the second pyramid at least, was procured immediately on the spot; others think that the greatest part of the materials came from the west side of the Nile. The granite which forms the roofing of the chambers, etc., was brought down the Nile from Syene. The stones of which it is built, rarely exceed 9 feet in length, and 6½ in breadth; the thickness has already been stated. The ascent to the great pyramid, though not without difficulty and danger, is frequently accomplished, even by females. The pyramid of Cephren, the second in size, according to Belzoni, has the following dimensions: Side of the base, 684 feet. Vertical height, 456 " Perpendicular, bisecting the face of the pyramid, 568 " Coating from the top, to where it ends, 140 " Belzoni, after great exertion, succeeded in opening the second pyramid, and after traversing passages similar to those already described in the great pyramid, reached the main chamber, which is cut in the solid rock, and is 46 feet 3 inches long, 16 feet 3 inches wide, and 23 feet 6 inches high. The covering is made of blocks of limestone, which meet in an angular point, forming a roof, of the same slope as the pyramid. The chamber contained a sarcophagus, formed of granite, 8 feet long, 3 feet 6 inches wide, and 2 feet 3 inches deep, on the inside. There were no hieroglyphics on it. Some bones were found in it, which were sent to London, and proved to be those of a bull or an ox. From an Arabic inscription on the wall of the chamber, it appears that some of the Arab rulers of Egypt had entered the pyramid, and closed it again. Belzoni also discovered another chamber in this pyramid. The pyramid of Mycernius, the third in size of the Jizeh group, is about 330 feet square at the base, and 174 feet high. This pyramid has never been opened. There are some large pyramids at Sakkârah, one of which is next in dimensions to the pyramid of Cheops, each side of the base being 656 feet, and the height 339 feet. At Dashour there are also some large pyramids, one of which has a base of 700 feet on each side, and a perpendicular height of 343 feet; and it has 154 steps or platforms. Another pyramid, almost as large at the base as the preceding, is remarkable. It rises to the height of 184 feet at an angle of 70°, when the plane of the side is changed, to one of less inclination, which completes the pyramid. At Thebes, there are some small pyramids of sun dried bricks. Herodotus says, "About the middle of Lake Moeris, there are two pyramids, each rising about 300 feet above the water. The part that is under the water is just the same height." It is probable that these pyramids were built on an island in the lake, and that Herodotus was misinformed as to the depth of the water. There are numerous pyramids in Nubia--eighty or more--but they are generally small. The object of the Egyptians in building these pyramids, is not known. Some writers maintain that they were as memorials, pillars, or altars consecrated to the sun; others, that they served as a kind of gnomon for astronomical observations; that they were built to gratify the vanity and tyranny of kings, or for the celebration of religious mysteries; according to Diderot, for the transmission and preservation of historical information; and to others, for sepulchres for the kings,--which last was the common opinion of the ancients. Some suppose that they were intended as places for secret meetings, magazines for corn, or lighthouses; but their structure, and great distance from the sea, are sufficient refutations of these absurd hypotheses. PERILOUS ASCENT OF THE PYRAMID OF CEPHREN. The upper part of this pyramid is still covered with the original polished coating of marble, to the distance of 140 feet from the top towards the base, which makes the ascent extremely difficult and dangerous. Mr. Wilde, in his "Narrative of a Voyage to Madeira, Teneriffe, and along the shore of the Mediterranean," published in 1840, made the ascent to the top, and thus describes the adventure: "I engaged two Arabs to conduct me to the summit of the pyramid--one an old man, and the other about forty, both of a mould, which for combination of strength and agility, I never saw surpassed. We soon turned to the north, and finally reached the outer casing on the west side. All this was very laborious to be sure, though not very dangerous; but here was an obstacle that I knew not how the Arabs themselves could surmount, much less how I could possibly master--for above our heads jutted out, like an eave or coping, the lower stones of the coating, which still remain and retain a smooth, polished surface. As considerable precaution was necessary, the men made me take off my hat, coat, and shoes at this place; the younger then placed his raised and extended hands against the projecting edge of the lower stone, which reached above his chin; and the elder, taking me up in his arms as I would a child, placed my feet on the other's shoulders, and my body flat on the smooth surface of the stone. In this position, we formed an angle with each other; and here I remained for upwards of two minutes, till the older man went round, and by some other means, contrived to get over the projection, when, creeping along the line of junction of the casing, he took my hands, drew me up to where he was above me, and then letting down his girdle, assisted to mount up the younger, but less daring and less active of the two. We then proceeded much as follows. One of them got on the shoulders of the other, and so gained the joining of the stone above. The upper man then helped me in a similar action, while the lower pushed me up by the feet. Having gained this row, we had after to creep to some distance along the joining, to where another opportunity of ascending was offered. In this way we proceeded to the summit; and some idea may be formed of my feelings, when it is recollected that all of these stones of such a span are highly polished, are set on an angle of little less than 45°, and that the places we had to grip with our hands and feet were often not more than two inches wide, and their height above the ground more than 400 feet. A single slip of the foot, and we all three must have been dashed to atoms long before we reached the bottom. (This actually happened to an English traveler in 1850.) On gaining the top, my guides gave vent to sundry demonstrations of satisfaction, clapping me on the back, patting me on the head, and kissing my hands. From this I began to suspect that something wonderful had been achieved; and some idea of my perilous situation broke upon me, when I saw some of my friends beneath, waving their handkerchiefs and looking up with astonishment, as we sat perched upon the top, which is not more than six feet square. The apex stone is off, and it now consists of four outer slabs, and one in the centre, which is raised up on the end and leans to the eastward. I do not think human hands could have raised it from its bed, on account of its size, and the confined space they would have to work in. I am inclined to think the top was struck by lightning, and the position of the stone thus altered by it. The three of us had just room to sit upon the place. The descent, as might be expected, was much more dangerous, though not so difficult. The guides tied a long sash under my arms, and so let me slide down from course to course of these coverings of stones, which are of a yellowish limestone, somewhat different from the material of which the steps are composed, and totally distinct from the rock at the base, or the coating of the passages." EGYPTIAN OBELISKS. Obelisks belong to the oldest and most simple monuments of Egyptian architecture, and are high four-sided pillars, diminishing as they ascend, and terminating in a small pyramid. Herodotus speaks of them, and Pliny gives a particular account of them. The latter mentions king Mesphres, or Mestres, of Thebes, as the first builder of obelisks, but does not give the time; nor is this king noticed either by Herodotus or Diodorus. It is probable that these monuments were first built before the time of Moses, at least two centuries before the Trojan war. There are still several obelisks in Egypt; there is one erect, and another fallen at Alexandria, between the new city and the light-house; one at Matarea, among the ruins of old Heliopolis; one in the territory of Fayoum, near ancient Arsinoë; eight or ten among the ruins of Thebes; the two finest at Luxor, at the entrance of the temple, &c. These obelisks, exclusively of the pedestals, are mostly from 50 to 100 feet high, and of a red polished granite (sienite); a few of the later ones are of white marble and other kinds of stone. At their base, they commonly occupy a space of from 4½ to 12 feet square, and often more. Some are adorned on all sides, and some on fewer, with hieroglyphics cut in them, sometimes to the depth of two inches, divided into little squares and sections, and filled with paint: sometimes they are striped with various colors. Some are entirely plain and without hieroglyphics. The foot of the obelisk stands upon a quadrangular base, commonly two or three feet broader than the obelisk, with a socket, in which it rests. They were commonly hewn out of a single stone, in the quarries of Upper Egypt, and brought on canals, fed by the Nile, to the place of their erection. The Romans carried many of them from Egypt to Rome, Arles, and Constantinople, most of which were afterwards overturned, but have been put together and replaced in modern times. Augustus, for instance, had two large obelisks brought from Heliopolis to Rome, one of which he placed in the Campus Martius. The other stood upon the Spina, in the Circus Maximus, and is said to have been the same which king Semneserteus (according to Pliny) erected. At the sack of Rome by the barbarians, it was thrown down, and remained, broken in three pieces, amidst the rubbish, until, in 1589, Sixtus V. had it restored by the architect Domenico Fontana, and placed near the church Madonna del Popolo. Under Caligula, another large obelisk was brought from Heliopolis to Rome, and placed in the Circus Vaticanus. It has stood, since 1586, before St. Peter's church: it is without hieroglyphics; and, with the cross and pedestal, measures 126 feet in height. It is the only one in Rome which has remained entire. Its weight is estimated at 10,000 cwt. Claudius had two obelisks brought from Egypt, which stood before the entrance of the Mausoleum of Augustus, and one of which was restored in 1567, and placed near the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Caracalla also procured an Egyptian obelisk for his circus, and for the Appian Way. The largest obelisk (probably erected by Rameses) was placed by Constantius II., in the Circus Maximus at Rome. In the fifth century, it was thrown down by the barbarians, and lay in pieces upon the ground, until Sixtus V., in 1588, had it raised upon the square, before St. John's church of the Lateran, thence called the _Lateran obelisk_. It is beautifully adorned with sculpture; its weight is 13,000 cwt.; its height, exclusive of the pedestal, 140 feet; with the pedestal, 179 feet. Several others have been erected by succeeding popes. REMOVAL OF AN OBELISK BY FONTANA. The following curious account of the removal of the obelisk in the Circus Vaticanus to the centre of St. Peter's square, by Domenico Fontana, is extracted from Milizia's life of that famous architect. It shows plainly that the Egyptians must have attained great skill and perfection in mechanics and engineering, to have been able to quarry out obelisks at least a third larger, and convey them often several hundred miles, to the places where they erected them. "Sixtus V. was now desirous of raising in the centre of the square of St. Peter's the only obelisk which remained standing, but partly interred, near the wall of the Sacristy, where was formerly the Circus of Nero. Other pontiffs had had the same wish, but the difficulty of the enterprise had prevented the execution. "This obelisk, or pyramid, is of red granite, called by the ancient Romans, Marmor Thebanum (Theban marble), on account of having been worked near Thebes, in Egypt, whence it was transported to Rome in the time of Cæsar. Of the immense number in Rome, this is the only one remaining entire; it is without hieroglyphics, 84 feet high, 8 feet 6 inches wide at the base, and 5 feet 6 inches at the top. One cubic foot of this granite weighs about 160 pounds; so that the whole weight of the obelisk must be somewhat less than 759,000 lbs. Of the manner in which the Egyptians and Romans moved these enormous masses we have no idea, and so many centuries having elapsed since such a thing had been done, this proposition of Sixtus V. was considered so novel, that a general assembly was called of all the mathematicians, engineers, and learned men from various parts of Europe; and, in a congress held by the pope, more than 500 persons presented themselves, bringing with them their inventions; some with drawings, some with models, others with writings or arguments. "The greater number were for removing it by means of an iron carriage and thirty-two levers. Others invented a half wheel, on which the obelisk was to be raised by degrees. Some proposed screws, and others thought of carrying it upon slings. "Bartolomeo Ammanati, a Florentine architect and sculptor, sent expressly by the grand duke, presented himself before the pope, without either models or designs, and requested a year to consider it; for this he was most severely reprimanded by the pontiff. Fontana exhibited his wooden model, with a leaden pyramid, which, by means of a windlass and crane, was raised and lowered with the greatest facility; he explained the nature of these machines and movements, and gave a practical proof of their capability by raising a small pyramid in the mausoleum of Augustus, which was in a ruinous condition. After many disputes, Fontana's invention was approved; but, as he had not yet acquired a name of sufficient importance, the execution of it was committed to two architects of renown, Giacomo della Porta and Bartolomeo Ammanati.--These immediately commenced a scaffold in the centre of the square where the obelisk was to stand. "Fontana being justly displeased that his own discovery should not be entrusted to his execution, went to the pope, and respectfully represented to him, that no one could so properly execute a design as the inventor. Sixtus was persuaded, and committed the entire direction of it to him. The architect then commenced his work with the utmost celerity. He dug a square hole of 44 feet, in the piazza, 24 feet deep, and finding the soil watery and chalky, he made it firm by strong and massive piles. At the same time he had ropes made, three inches in diameter, 1500 feet long, an immense quantity of cords, large iron rods to strengthen the obelisk, and other pieces of iron for the cases of the cranes, pins, circles, pivots, and instruments of every kind. The iron to secure the obelisk alone amounted to 40,000 lbs., and was made in the manufactories of Rome, Ronciglione, and Subbiaco. The beams, taken from the woods of Nettuno, were of such a prodigious size, that each was drawn by seven pair of buffalos. From Terracina, elm was brought, for the caseing, and Holm oak for the shafts of windlass; and to prevent the ground from giving way, it being soft and marshy, in consequence of the great weight, he made a bed with two layers of timber, crossing each other in a contrary direction. On this foundation he placed the castle or carriage, which had eight columns: each of these columns was composed of so many thick planks, that they measured 13 feet in circumference. These were united together by thick cords, without screws, in order to be done and undone with greater quickness. The height of the beams was required to be 90 feet; and not any being of that length, they were placed one on the other, and united by iron bands. These columns were strengthened by forty-eight braces, and tied together on all sides. The obelisk was entirely covered with double mats, to prevent its being injured; it was then surrounded by planks, over which were placed large rods of iron, and these embracing the thick part underneath, came directly over the four faces of the mass, which thus became totally encircled with these coverings. The whole pyramid thus weighed one million and a half pounds. Fontana calculated that every windlass, with good ropes and cranes, would be able to move 20,000 lbs. weight; and consequently forty would move 800,000, and he gained the rest by five levers of thick beams 52 feet long. "So novel an apparatus excited the curiosity of all Rome, and of foreigners also, who came from distant countries to see what effect would be produced by this mass of beams, mingled with ropes, windlasses, levers, and pulleys. In order to prevent confusion, Sixtus V. issued one of his mandates, that on the day of its being worked, no one, except the workmen, should enter the enclosure, on pain of death, and that no one should make the least noise, nor even speak loud. Accordingly, on the 30th of April, 1586, the first to enter the barrier was the chief justice and his officers, and the executioner to plant the gibbet, not merely as a matter of ceremony. Fontana went to receive the benediction of the pope, who, after having bestowed it, told him to be cautious of what he did, for a failure would certainly cost him his head. On this occasion, Sixtus felt the difference between his regard for his own glory, and his affection for the architect. Fontana, in terror, secretly placed horses at every gate, ready to convey him from the papal anger, in case of an accident. At the dawn of day, two masses of the Holy Ghost were celebrated; all the artificers made their communion, and received the papal benediction, and before the rising of the sun all entered the barrier. The concourse of spectators was such, that the tops of the houses were covered, and the streets crowded. The nobility and prelates were at the barriers, between the Swiss guards and the cavalry: all were fixed and attentive to the proceedings; and, terrified at the sight of the inexorable gibbet, every one was silent. "The architect gave an order that, at the sound of the trumpet, each should begin working, and at that of the bell, placed in the castle of wood, each should desist; there were more than 900 workmen, and 75 horses. The trumpet sounded, and in an instant, men, horses, windlasses, cranes, and levers were all in motion. The ground trembled, the castle cracked, all the planks bent from the enormous weight, and the pyramid, which inclined a foot towards the choir of St. Peter, was raised perpendicularly. The commencement having prospered so well, the bell sounded a rest. In twelve more movements the pyramid was raised almost two feet from the ground, in such a situation that it could be placed on the rollers, and it remained firmly fixed by means of wedges of iron and wood. At this happy event the castle of St. Angelo discharged all its artillery, and a universal joy pervaded the whole city. "Fontana was now convinced that the ropes were better than iron bands, these being most broken or distorted, or expanded by the weight. On the 7th of May the pyramid was placed on the sledge--a more difficult and tedious operation than that of raising it, it being necessary to convey it over the piazza to the situation intended for it, which was 115 rods from where it then stood. The level of the piazza being about 30 feet lower, it was necessary to throw up an earthen embankment from one place to the other, well secured by piles, &c. This being done, on the 13th of June, by means of four windlasses, the pyramid was removed with the greatest facility on the rollers, to the place of its destination. The pope deferred its erection to the next autumn, lest the summer heats should injure the workmen and spectators. "In the meantime the pedestal, which was interred 30 feet, was removed: it was composed of two parts, the ogee and basement being of the same mass, and the plinth of white marble. All the preparations were made for this last operation on the 10th of September, with the same solemnities; 140 horses and 800 men were employed. The pope selected this day for the solemn entrance of the duke of Luxembourg, ambassador of ceremony from Henry III. of France, and caused the procession to enter by the Porta Angelica, instead of the Porta del Popolo. When this nobleman crossed the Piazza of St. Peter's, he stopped to observe the concourse of workmen in the midst of a forest of machines, and saw, admiring, Rome rising again by the hand of Sixtus V. In fifty-two movements the pyramid was raised, and at the setting of the sun it was placed firm upon its pedestal. The castle disappeared, and the artificers, intoxicated with joy, carried Fontana on their shoulders in triumph to his own house, amidst the sound of drums and trumpets, and the plaudits of an immense crowd. "In placing it upright on the pedestal, Fontana considered the method adopted by the ancients as the least difficult; which was to rest one end on two globes, then draw the point round, raising it at the same time, afterwards letting it fall perpendicularly on the pedestal. It is conjectured that this was the practice adopted by the ancients, because two dies alone were always covered with lead for a foot or more, and were moreover crushed at the extremities. Sixtus V. placed a cross 7 feet high at the top of the obelisk, which was carried in procession, and which made the whole height 132 feet. "For this undertaking, Fontana was created a knight of the Golden Spur, and a Roman nobleman; he had a pension of 2000 crowns, transferable to his heirs, ten knighthoods, 5000 crowns of gold in ready money, and every description of material used in the work, which was valued at more than 20,000 crowns. Two bronze medals of him were struck; and the following inscription was placed on the base of the pyramid by order of the pope:--" Dominicvs Fontana, Ex. Pago. Agri. Novocomensis. Transtvlit. Et. Erexit. REMOVAL OF AN OBELISK FROM THEBES TO PARIS. In 1833, the French removed the smallest of the two obelisks which stood before the propylon of the temple of Luxor to Paris, and elevated it in the Place de la Concorde. The shaft is 76 feet high, and eight feet wide on the broadest side of the base; the pedestal is 10 feet square by 16 feet high. Permission for the removal of both the obelisks having been granted to the French government by the Viceroy of Egypt, a vessel constructed for the purpose was sent out in March, 1831, under M. Lebas, an eminent engineer, to whom the undertaking was confided, it being previously determined to bring away only one, and M. Lebas found it sufficiently difficult to bring away the smallest of the two. After three months' labor with 800 men, the obelisk was removed on an inclined plane into the vessel, through a hole made in the end for the purpose. It arrived safely up the Seine to Paris, Dec. 23d, 1833. An inclined plane of solid masonry was then constructed, leading from the river up to a platform, also of rough masonry, level with the top of the pedestal. The obelisk, having been placed on a kind of timber car or sledge, was drawn up by means of ropes and capstans. One edge of the base having been brought to its place on the pedestal, it was raised to a perpendicular position by ropes and pulleys attached to the heads of ten masts, five on each side. When all was ready, the obelisk was elevated to its place under the direction of M. Lebas, in three hours, without the least accident, Oct. 25th, 1836. It is said that Lebas had provided himself with loaded pistols, in the firm determination to blow out his brains in case of an accident! In 1820, the Viceroy of Egypt presented to the English government the monolith lying on the ground at Alexandria, one of the two obelisks called Cleopatra's Needles; the other is still standing. The project of removing it to London and erecting it in Waterloo Square, was entertained for some time by the English government, but seems to have been long abandoned; recently, however, an expedition is being fitted out for the purpose. CARBURI'S BASE FOR THE EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF PETER THE GREAT. Milizia gives the following interesting account of the removal of the immense mass of granite, which forms the pedestal or base of the equestrian statue of Peter the Great, from the bogs of the Neva to St. Petersburg, a distance of about fourteen miles. He also cites it as an instance of extraordinary ingenuity and skill in mechanics. It is, however, a much easier task to move a ponderous mass of rough, unhewn rock, than a brittle obelisk, an hundred feet or so in length, requiring the greatest care to preserve it from injury. It is also worthy of mention, that in widening streets in New York, it is no uncommon thing to see a three-story brick house set back ten or fifteen feet, and even moved across the street, and raised an extra story into the bargain--the story being added to the _bottom_ instead of the _top_ of the building. Thus the large free stone and brick school-house in the First Ward, an edifice of four lofty stories, 50 by 70 feet, and basement walls 2½ feet thick, has been raised six feet, to make it correspond with the new grade in the lower part of Greenwich-street. It is also no uncommon thing to see a ship of a thousand tons, with her cargo on board, raised out of the water at the Hydraulic Dock, to stop a leak, or make some unexpected but necessary repairs. "In 1769, the Count Marino Carburi, of Cephalonia, moved a mass of granite, weighing three million pounds, to St. Petersburg, to serve as a base for the equestrian statue of Peter the Great, to be erected in the square of that city, after the design of M. Falconet, who discarded the common mode of placing an equestrian statue on a pedestal, where, properly speaking, it never could be; and suggested a rock, on which the hero was to have the appearance of galloping, but suddenly be arrested at the sight of an enormous serpent, which, with other obstacles, he overcomes for the happiness of the Muscovites. None but a Catherine II., who so gloriously accomplished all the great ideas of that hero, could have brought to perfection this extraordinary one of the artist. An immense mass was accidentally found buried 15 feet in a bog, four miles and a half from the river Neva and fourteen from St. Petersburg. It was also casually that Carburi was at the city to undertake the removal of it. Nature alone sometimes forms a mechanic, as she does a sovereign, a general, a painter, a philosopher. The expense of this removal was only 70,000 rubles and the materials left after the operation were worth two-thirds of that sum. The obstacles surmounted do honor to the human understanding. The rock was 37 feet long, 22 high, and 21 broad, in the form of a parallelopipedon. It was cleft by a blast, the middle part taken away, and in the cavity was constructed a forge for the wants of the journey. Carburi did not use cylindrical rollers for his undertaking, these causing an attrition sufficient to break the strongest cables. Instead of rollers he used balls composed of brass, tin, and calamina, which rolled with their burden under a species of boat 180 feet long, and 66 wide. This extraordinary spectacle was witnessed by the whole court, and by Prince Henry of Prussia, a branch from the great Frederick. Two drums at the top sounded the march; forty stone-cutters were continually at work on the mass during the journey, to give it the proposed form--a singularly ingenious idea. The forge was always at work: a number of other men were also in attendance to keep the balls at proper distances, of which there were thirty, of the diameter of five inches. The mountain was moved by four windlasses, and sometimes by two; each required thirty-two men: it was raised and lowered by screws, to remove the balls and put them on the other side. When the road was even, the machine moved 60 feet in the hour. The mechanic, although continually ill from the dampness of the air, was still indefatigable in regulating the arrangements; and in six weeks the whole arrived at the river. It was embarked, and safely landed. Carburi then placed the mass in the square of St. Peter's, to the honor of Peter, Falconet, Carburi, and of Catherine, who may always, from her actions, be classed among illustrious men. It is to be observed, that in this operation the moss and straw that was placed underneath the rock, became by compression so compact, that it almost equalled in hardness the ball of a musket. Similar mechanical operations of the ancients have been wonderfully exaggerated by their poets." COMPARATIVE SKILL OF THE ANCIENTS AND MODERNS IN MECHANICS. Many persons suppose, and maintain, that the grandeur of the monuments of the ancients, and the great size of the stones they employed for building purposes, prove that they understood mechanics better than the moderns. The least knowledge in mechanics, however, will show this opinion to be erroneous. The moderns possess powers which were unknown to the ancients, as the screw, and the hydraulic press, the power of which last is only limited by the strength of the machinery. The works of the ancients show that they expended a vast deal of power and labor to gratify the pride and ambition of kings; but the moderns can do all these things much easier, and in far less time, whenever they deem it proper. There was nothing in ancient times to be compared with that daring, ingenious, and stupendous monument of engineering skill--the Britannia Tubular Bridge, across the Menai straits--projected, designed, and built by Robert Stephenson, the famous English engineer. He had previously built a similar but smaller structure--the Conway Tubular Bridge. THE BRITANNIA TUBULAR RAILWAY BRIDGE. Had this stupendous fabric existed in ancient times, it would have been regarded as the _first_ of the seven wonders of the world. Greater and more expensive structures have been raised, but none displaying more science, skill, and ingenuity, and none requiring such tremendous mechanical power to execute. The Britannia Tubular Bridge was built to conduct the Chester and Holyhead Railway across the Menai Straits, to the island of Anglesea, in the Irish Sea. The difficulties which the engineer had to overcome, were greatly augmented by the peculiar form and situation of the straits. Sir Francis Head says, "The point of the straits which it was desired to cross, although broader than that about a mile distant; preoccupied by Mr. Telford's suspension bridge--was of course one of the narrowest that could be selected, in consequence of which the ebbing and flowing torrent rushes through it with such violence, that, except where there is back water, it is often impossible for a small boat to pull against it; besides which, the gusts of wind which come over the tops, down the ravines, and round the sides of the neighboring mountains, are so sudden, and occasionally so violent, that it is as dangerous to sail as it is difficult to row; in short, the wind and the water, sometimes playfully and sometimes angrily, seem to vie with each other--like some of Shakspeare's fairies--in exhibiting before the stranger the utmost variety of fantastic changes which it is in the power of each to assume." The Menai Straits are about twelve miles long, through which, imprisoned between the precipitous shores, the waters of the Irish Sea and St. George's Channel are not only everlastingly vibrating, backwards and forwards, but at the same time and from the same causes, are progressively rising and falling 20 to 25 feet, with each successive tide, which, varying its period of high water, every day forms altogether an endless succession of aqueous changes. THE TUBES. The tubes forming the viaducts, rest upon two abutments and three piers, called respectively the Anglesea abutment and pier, the Carnarvon abutment and pier, and the Britannia or central pier, built upon the Britannia rock in the middle of the straits, which gives name to the bridge. The Anglesea abutment is 143 feet 6 inches high, 55 feet wide, and 175 feet long to the end of the wings, which terminate in pedestals, supporting colossal lions on either side, 25 feet 6 inches in length, 12 feet 6 inches high, and 8 feet broad, carved out of a single block of Anglesea marble. The space between the Anglesea abutment and pier is 230 feet. This pier is 196 feet high, 55 feet wide, and 32 feet long. The Carnarvon abutment and pier are of the same dimensions as those above described, on the opposite shore. The Britannia pier is 240 feet high, 55 feet wide, and 45 feet long. This pier is 460 feet clear of each of the two side piers. The bottom of the tubes are 124 feet above low water mark, so that large ships can pass under them, under full sail. There are two tubes, to accommodate a double track (one would have done in this country, but in England they do nothing by halves), and each is 1513 feet long. The total length of the bridge is 1841 feet. These tubes are not round or oval, but nearly square at the termini; the bridge being constructed on the principle of the arch. A section of one of the tubes at the Britannia pier is in the form of a parallelogram, where it is 30 feet high, gradually diminishing towards each end to 20 feet. The tubes are riveted together into continuous hollow beams; they are of the uniform width of 14 feet 8 inches throughout; they are constructed entirely of iron, and weigh about 12,000 tons, each tube containing 5000 tons of wrought iron, and about 1000 tons of cast iron. The tubes were constructed each in four sections; the sections extending from the abutments to their corresponding piers, each 250 feet long, were built _in situ_, on immense scaffolding, made of heavy timbers for the purpose, even with the railway; but the middle sections, each 470 feet long, were built on piers on the Carnarvonshire shore, then floated into the stream, and elevated to their position; each of these sections weighed 1800 tons. CONSTRUCTION OF THE TUBES. The sides, bottom, and top of these gigantic tubes are formed of oblong wrought iron plates, varying in length, width, and thickness, according to circumstances, but of amazing size and weight. They are so arranged as to obtain the greatest possible strength, the whole being riveted together in the strongest manner. In addition to the 1600 tons of wrought iron in each of the four large pieces, an additional 200 tons was used to form lifting frames, and cast iron beams for the purpose of attaching the tube to those huge chains by which they were elevated. The construction of the tubes is thus described in the London Illustrated News, from which this account is derived: "In order to carry out this vast work (the construction of the tubes), eighty houses have been erected for the accommodation of the workmen, which, being whitewashed, have a peculiarly neat and picturesque appearance; among them are seen butcher's, grocer's, and tobacconist's shops, supplying the wants of a numerous population. A day school, Sunday school, and meeting-house also conspicuously figure. Workshops, steam-engines, store-houses, offices, and other buildings meet the eye at every turn; one is led to conclude that a considerable time has elapsed since the works were commenced, yet it is little more than two years ago. A stranger, on coming to the ground, is struck with wonder when for the first time he obtains a near view of the vast piles of masonry towering majestically above all the surrounding objects--strong as the pillars of Hercules, and apparently as endurable--his eyes wander instinctively to the ponderous tubes, those masterpieces of engineering constructiveness and mathematical adjustment; he shrinks into himself as he gazes, and is astonished when he thinks that the whole is the developed idea of one man, and carried out, too, in the face of difficulties which few would have dared to encounter." FLOATING OF THE TUBES. The tubes were floated to the places whence they were elevated to their positions on eight huge pontoons, fitted with valves and pumps to exhaust the water from them, when all was ready to float the prodigious iron beams. These pontoons or boxes were each 90 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 15 feet deep. The pontoons having been placed under one of the tubes (sections), the floating was easily effected, and the operation is thus described by the "Assistant Engineer." "The operation of floating the tubes (the four sections, and one only at a time), will be commenced by closing the valves in the pontoons at low water; as the tide rises, the pontoons will begin to float, and shortly afterwards to bear the weight of the tube, which will at last be raised by them entirely off its temporary supporting piers; about an hour and a half before high water, the current running about four miles an hour, it will be dragged out into the middle of the stream, by powerful capstans and hawsers, reaching from the pontoons at each end, to the opposite shore. In order to guide it into its place with the greatest possible certainty, three large hawsers will be laid down the stream, one end of two of them being made fast to the towers (piers) between which the tube is intended to rest, and the other to strong fixed points on the two shores, near to and opposite the further end of the tube platforms; in their course, they will pass over and rest upon the pontoons, being taken through 'cable-stoppers' which are contrivances for embracing and gripping the hawser extended across the stream, and thereby retarding, or if necessary entirely destroying, the speed induced by the current." RAISING THE TUBES The tubes of the Britannia bridge were raised by means of three hydraulic presses of the most prodigious size, strength, weight, and power; two of which were placed in the Britannia pier, above the points where the tubes rest, and the other alternately on the Anglesea and Carnarvon piers. In order that all who read these pages may understand this curious operation, it is necessary to describe the principle of the hydraulic press. If a tube be screwed into a cask or vessel filled with water, and then water poured into the tube, the pressure on the bottom and sides of the vessel will not be the contents of the vessel and tube, but that of a column of water equal to the length of the tube and the depth of the vessel. This law of pressure in fluids is rendered very striking in the experiment of bursting a strong cask by the action of a few ounces of water. This law, so extraordinary and startling of belief to those who do not understand the reasoning upon which it is founded, has been called the _Hydrostatic paradox_, though there is nothing in reality more paradoxical in it, than that one pound at the long end of a lever, should balance ten pounds at the short end. This principle has been applied to the construction of the Hydrostatic or Hydraulic press, whose power is only limited by the strength of the materials of which it is made. Thus, with a hydraulic press no larger than a common tea-pot, a bar of iron may be cut as easily as a slip of pasteboard. The exertion of a single man, with a short lever, will produce a pressure of 1500 atmospheres, or 22,500 pounds on every square inch of surface inside the cylinder. By means of hydraulic presses, ships of a thousand tons burthen, with cargo on board, are lifted out of the water for repairs, and the heaviest bodies raised and moved, without any other expense of human labor beyond the management of the engine. The tubes on the Anglesea side were raised first. The presses in the Britannia tower were each capable of raising a weight of 1250 tons; that in the Anglesea tower, larger than the others, 1800 tons, or the whole weight of the tube. These presses were worked by two steam engines of 40 horse power each, which forced the water into the cylinders, through a tube half an inch in diameter. These steam engines were placed in the Britannia and Anglesea piers. The press in the Anglesea pier is thus described, the others being constructed in the same manner. The hydraulic press stands on massive beams of wrought iron plates constructed on the principle of the arch, placed in the tower above the points where the tubes rest. The press consists of a huge cylinder, 9 feet 2 inches in length, 3 feet 6 inches outside diameter, and the ram 1 foot 8 inches in diameter, making the sides and bottom of the cylinder 11 inches thick; it was calculated that it would resist a pressure of 8000 or 9000 pounds to the square inch. The ram or piston was attached to an exceedingly thick and heavy beam of cast iron, called the cross-head, strengthened with bars of wrought iron. To the cross-head were attached the huge chains that descended to the tubes far below, to which they were secured, so that, as the ram was forced up 6 feet at each stroke, the tube was raised the same distance. "The power of the press is exerted on the tube by aid of chains, the links of which are 6 feet in length, bolted together in sets of eight or nine links alternately.--The ram raises the cross-head 6 feet at each stroke, and with it the tube, when that height is attained, a lower set of chains on the beams grip the next set of links, and thus prevent them from slipping down, whilst the clamps on the cross-heads are unscrewed, the upper links taken off, and the ram and cross-head lowered to take another stroke." To guard against all chances of injury to the tubes in case of accident to the machinery, a contrivance was adopted by which the tubes were followed up with wedges. The importance of this precaution was fully proved on the very first attempt to raise the tube on the Anglesea side, when the huge cylinder broke, almost at the commencement of the operations. The following is the engineer's interesting report of the accident: "On Friday last (August 17, 1849), at a quarter to twelve o'clock, we commenced lifting the tube at the Anglesea end, intending to raise it six feet, and afterwards to have raised the opposite end the same height. "The tube rose steadily to the height of two feet six inches, being closely followed up by inch wooden boards packed beneath it, when suddenly, and without any warning, the bottom of the hydraulic press gave way, separating completely from the body of the press. "The ram, cross-head, and chains descended violently on the press, with a tremendous noise, the tube sinking down upon the wooden packing beneath it. The bottom of the press, weighing nearly two tons and a half, fell on the top of the tube, a depth of eighty feet. "A sailor, named Owen Parry, was ascending a rope ladder at the time, from the top of the tube into the tower; the broken piece of press in its descent struck the ladder and shook him off; he fell on to the tube, a height of fifty feet, receiving a contusion of the skull, and other injuries, of so serious a nature that he died the same evening. He was not engaged in the raising, and had only chosen to cross the tube, as being the nearest road from one tower to the other. An inquest was held on the following day, and a verdict of accidental death returned. No one actually engaged in the operation was injured, although Mr. Edwin Clark, who was superintending the operation, on the top of the cross-head, and his brother, Mr. L. Clark, who was standing beneath it, had both a very narrow escape. "The tube is not at all injured, but some portions of the cast iron lifting frames are broken, and require repairing; some weeks must elapse before a new cylinder is made, and the operation continued." Sir Francis Head, when he saw one of the tubes raised, and in its place, observed, "It seemed surprising to us that by any arrangement of materials, it could possibly be made strong enough to support even itself,--much less heavily laden trains of passengers and goods, flying through it, and actually passing each other in the air at railway speed. And the more we called reason and reflection to our assistance, the more incomprehensible did the mystery practically appear; for the plate iron of which the aërial gallery is composed is literally _not so thick_ as the lid, sides, and bottom which, by heartless contract, are _required_ for an elm coffin 6½ feet long, 2¼ wide, and 2 deep, of strength merely sufficient to carry the corpse of an emaciated pauper from the workhouse to his grave! The covering of this iron passage, 1841 feet in length, is literally not thicker than the hide of an elephant; lastly, it is scarcely thicker than the bark of the good old English oak,--and if this noble sovereign, notwithstanding 'the heart' and interior substance of which it boasts, is, even in the well-protected park in which it has been born and bred, often prostrated by the storm, how difficult is it to conceive that an attenuated aërial hollow beam, no thicker than its mere rind, should, by human science, be constructed strong enough to withstand, besides the weights rushing through it, the natural gales and artificial squalls of wind to which, throughout its entire length, and at its fearful height, it is permanently to be exposed." Notwithstanding these "incomprehensible" speculations, the tubes are abundantly strong to sustain the pressure of the heaviest trains, even were they to stand still in the middle of the bridge. It is calculated that each tube, in its weakest part, would sustain a pressure of four or five thousand tons, "support a line of battle ship, with all her munitions and stores on board," and "bear a line of locomotives covering the entire bridge." The bridge was completed, and the first train passed through it March 5th, 1850. The total cost of this gigantic structure was only £601,865. GLORY OF ANCIENT ROME. Ancient Rome was built upon seven hills, which are now scarcely discoverable on account of the vast quantities of rubbish with which the valleys are filled. Pliny estimates the circumference of the city in his time at 13,000 paces (which nearly agrees with modern measurements), and the population at 3,000,000. Rome was filled with magnificent public edifices, temples, theatres, amphitheatres, circuses, naumachiæ, porticos, basilicæ, baths, gardens, triumphal arches, columns, sewers, aqueducts, sepulchres, public and private palaces, etc. In the time of the Cæsars, fourteen magnificent aqueducts, supported by immense arches, conducted whole rivers into Rome, from a distance of many miles, and supplied one hundred and fifty public fountains, one hundred and eighteen large public baths, the artificial seas in which naval combats were represented in the Colosseum, and the golden palace of Nero, besides the water necessary to supply the daily use of the inhabitants. One hundred thousand marble and bronze statues ornamented the public squares, the temples, the streets, and the houses of the nobility: ninety colossal statues raised on pedestals; and forty-eight Egyptian obelisks of red granite, some of the largest size, also adorned the city. Such was ancient Rome, "the Eternal City." Although visited for more than a thousand years by various calamities, she is still the most majestic of cities; the charm of beauty, dignity, and grandeur still lingers around the ruins of ancient, as well as the splendid structures of modern Rome, and brilliant recollections of every age are connected with the monuments which the passing traveler meets at every step. THE CAPITOL. The Capitol or Citadel of ancient Rome stood on the Capitoline hill, the smallest of the seven hills of Rome, called the _Saturnine_ and _Tarpeian rock_. It was begun B.C. 614, by Tarquinius Priscus, but was not completed till after the expulsion of the kings. After being thrice destroyed by fire and civil commotion, it was rebuilt by Domitian, who instituted there the Capitoline games. Dionysius says the temple, with the exterior palaces, was 200 feet long, and 185 broad. The whole building consisted of three temples, which were dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and separated from one another by walls. In the wide portico, triumphal banquets were given to the people. The statue of Jupiter, in the Capitol, represented the god sitting on a throne of ivory and gold, and consisted in the earliest times of clay painted red; under Trajan, it was formed of gold. The roof of the temple was made of bronze; it was gilded by Q. Catulus. The doors were of the same metal. Splendor and expense were profusely lavished upon the whole edifice. The gilding alone cost 12,000 talents (about $12,000,000), for which reason the Romans called it the _Golden Capitol_. On the pediment stood a chariot drawn by four horses, at first of clay, and afterwards of brass gilded. The temple itself contained an immense quantity of the most magnificent presents. The most important state papers, and particularly the Sibylline books were preserved in it. A few pillars and some ruins are all that now remain of the magnificent temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Its site is mostly occupied by the church of the Franciscans, and partly by the modern capitol called the _Campidoglio_, which was erected after the design of Michael Angelo, consisting of three buildings. From the summit of the middle one, the spectator has a splendid view of one of the most remarkable regions in the world--the Campagna, up to the mountains. For a description of the Colosseum, see vol ii, page 29, of this work. MODERN ROME. Modern Rome is about thirteen miles in circuit, and is divided by the Tiber into two parts. In 1830, Rome contained 144,542 inhabitants, 35,900 houses, 346 churches, 30 monasteries, and upwards of 120 palaces. The view of the majestic ruins; the solemn grandeur of the churches and palaces; the recollections of the past; the religious customs; the magic and almost melancholy tranquillity which pervades the city; the enjoyment of the endless treasures of art--all conspire to raise the mind of the traveler to a high state of excitement. The churches, palaces, villas, squares, streets, fountains, aqueducts, antiquities, ruins--in short, everything proclaims the ancient majesty and the present greatness of Rome. Almost every church, palace, and villa is a treasury of art. Among the churches, St. Peter's is the most conspicuous, and is, perhaps, the most beautiful building in the world. Bramante began it; Sangallo and Peruzzi succeeded him; but Michael Angelo, who erected its immense dome, which is four hundred and fifty feet high to the top of the cross, designed the greatest part. Many other architects were often employed upon it; Maderno finished the front and the two towers. The erection of this edifice, from 1506 to 1614, cost 45,000,000 Roman crowns. Before we arrive at this grand temple, the eye is attracted by the beautiful square in front of it, surrounded by a magnificent colonnade by Bernini, and ornamented by an Egyptian obelisk, together with two splendid fountains. Upon entering the vestibule, Giotto's mosaic, la Navicella, is seen. Under the portico, opposite the great door, is Bernini's great bas relief representing Christ commanding Peter to feed his sheep; and at the ends of the portico are the equestrian statues of Constantine by Bernini, and of Charlemagne by Cornachini. The union of these masterpieces has an indescribable effect. The harmony and proportion which prevail in the interior of this august temple are such, that, immense as it is, the eye distinguishes all the parts without confusion or difficulty. When each object is minutely examined, we are astonished at its magnitude, so much more considerable than appears at first sight. The immense canopy of the high altar, supported by four bronze pillars of 120 feet in height, particularly attracts the attention. The dome is the boldest work of modern architecture. The cross thereon is 450 feet above the pavement. The lantern affords the most beautiful prospect of the city and the surrounding country. The splendid mosaics, tombs, paintings, frescos, works in marble, gilded bronze and stucco, the new sacristy--a beautiful piece of architecture, but not in unison with the rest--deserve separate consideration. The two most beautiful churches in Rome next to St. Peter's are the St. John's of the Lateran, and the Santa Maria Maggiore. The former, built by Constantine the Great, is the parochial church of the pope; it therefore takes precedence of all others, and is called _Omnium urbis el orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput_ (the head and mother of all churches of the city and the world). In it is celebrated the coronation of the popes. It contains several pillars of granite, _verde antico_, and gilt bronze; the twelve apostles by Rusconi and Legros; and the beautiful chapel of Corsini, which is unequalled in its proportions, built by Alexander Galilei. The altar-piece is a mosaic from a painting by Guido, and the beautiful porphyry sarcophagus, which is under the statue of Clement XII., was found in the Pantheon, and is supposed to have contained the ashes of M. Agrippa. The nave of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore is supported by forty Ionic pillars of Grecian marble, which were taken from a temple of Juno Lucina: the ceiling was gilded with the first gold brought from Peru. We are here struck with admiration at the mosaics; the high altar, consisting of an antique porphyry sarcophagus; the chapel of Sixtus V., built from the designs of Fontana, and richly ornamented; the chapel of Paul V., adorned with marble and precious stones; the chapel of Sforza, by Michael Angelo; and the sepulchres of Guglielmo della Porta and Algardi. In the square before the front is a Corinthian column, which is considered a masterpiece of its kind. The largest church in Rome next to St. Peter's was the Basilica di San Paolo fuori delle Mura, on the road to Ostia, burnt a few years since. The church of S. Lorenzo, without the city, possesses some rare monuments of antiquity. The church of San Pietro in Vincola contains the celebrated statue of Moses, by Michael Angelo. The church of St. Agnes, in the place Navona, begun by Rainaldi and completed by Borromini, is one of the most highly ornamented, particularly with modern sculpture. Here is the admirable relief of Algardi, representing St. Agnes deprived of her clothes, and covered only with her hair. The Basilica of St. Sebastian, before the Porta Capena, contains the statue of the dying saint, by Giorgetti, a pupil of Algardi, and the master of Bernini. Under these churches are the catacombs, which formerly served as places of burial. In the church of St. Agnes, before the Porta Pia, among many other beautiful columns are four of porphyry, belonging to the high altar, and considered the most beautiful in Rome. In a small chapel is a bust of the Savior by Michael Angelo--a masterpiece. In the church of St. Augustine, there is a picture by Raphael representing the prophet Isaiah, and an Ascension by Lanfranco. The monastery has a rich library, called the Angelica, and increased by the library of cardinal Passionei. The following churches also deserve to be mentioned, on account of their architecture and works of art; the churches of St. Ignatius, St. Cecilia, S. Andrea della Valle, S. Andrea del Noviziato, the Pantheon (also called la Rotonda), in which Raffaelle, Annibale Caracci, Mengs, etc., are interred. All the 364 churches of Rome contain monuments of art or antiquity. Among the palaces, the principal is the Vatican, an immense pile, in which the most valuable monuments of antiquity, and the works of the greatest modern masters are preserved. Here are the museum Pio-Clementinum, established by Clement XIV., and enlarged by Pius VI., and the celebrated library of the Vatican. The treasures carried away by the French have been restored. Among the paintings of this palace, the most beautiful are Raffaelle's frescos in the _stanze_ and _loggie_. The principal oil paintings are in the _appartamento_ Borgia, which also contains the Transfiguration, by Raphael. In the Sistine chapel is the Last Judgment by Michael Angelo. The popes have chosen the palace of Monte Cavallo, or the Quirinal palace, with its extensive and beautiful gardens, for their usual residence, on account of its healthy air and fine prospect. The Lateran palace, which Sixtus V. had rebuilt by Fontana, was changed, in 1693, into an alms-house. Besides these, the following are celebrated: the palace della Cancellario, the palace de' Conservatori, the palace of St. Mark, the buildings of the Academy, etc. Among the private palaces, the Barberini is the largest; it was built by Bernini, in a beautiful style. Here are the Magdalen of Guido, one of the finest works of Caravaggio, the Paintings of the great hall, a masterpiece of Pietro da Cortona, and other valuable paintings. Of works of sculpture, the Sleeping Fawn, now in Munich, was formerly here; the masterly group representing Atalanta and Meleager, a Juno, a sick Satyr by Bernini, the bust of Cardinal Barberini by the same artist, and the busts of Marius, Sylla, and Scipio Africanus, are in this palace. The library is calculated to contain 60,000 printed books, and 9000 manuscripts; a cabinet of medals, bronzes, and precious stones, is also connected with the library. The Borghese palace, erected by Bramante, is extensive, and in a beautiful style; the colonnade of the court is splendid. This palace contains a large collection of paintings, rare works of sculpture, valuable tables, and utensils of rich workmanship, of red porphyry, alabaster, and other materials. The upper hall is unrivalled; the great landscapes of Vernet, with which it is adorned, are so true to nature, that, upon entering, one imagines himself transported into real scenes. The palace Albani, the situation of which is remarkably fine, possesses a valuable library, a great number of paintings, and a collection of designs by Caracci, Polidoro, Lanfranco, Spagnoletto, Cignani, and others. The palace Altieri, one of the largest in Rome, is in a simple style of architecture, and contains rare manuscripts, medals, paintings, etc., and valuable furniture. In the palace Colonna there is a rich collection of paintings by the first masters; all the rooms are decorated with them, and particularly the gallery, which is one of the finest in Europe. In the gardens are the ruins of the baths of Constantine and those of the temple of Sol. The Aldobrandini palace contains the proudest monument of ancient painting--the Aldobrandine Wedding, a fresco purchased by Pius VII., in 1818, in which the design is admirable. The great Farnese palace, begun from the designs of Sangallo, and completed under the direction of Michael Angelo, is celebrated both for its beauty and its treasures of art. The Caracci and Domenichino have immortalized themselves by their frescos in its gallery. The Farnese Hercules, the masterly Flora, and the urn of Cæcilia Metella, formerly adorned the court; and in the palace itself was the beautiful group of the Farnese bull. But when the king of Naples inherited the Farnese estate, these statues, with other works of art, were carried to Naples, where they now adorn the palace degli Studi. Not far off is the palace Corsini, where queen Christina lived and died in 1689. It contains a valuable library and gallery. The palace Giustiniani also had a gallery adorned with numerous valuable statues and works of sculpture; its principal ornaments were the celebrated statue of Minerva, the finest of that goddess now known, and the bas-relief of Amalthæa suckling Jupiter. These treasures were nominally bought by Napoleon, and are now in Paris. The paintings are chiefly in the possession of the king of Prussia. In the palace Spada is the statue of Pompey, at the foot of which Cæsar fell under the daggers of his murderers. We have yet to mention the palace Costaguti, on account of its fine frescos; Chigi, for its beautiful architecture, its paintings and library; Mattei, for its numerous statues, reliefs, and ancient inscriptions; the palace of Pamfili, built by Borromini, for its splendid paintings and internal magnificence; that of Pamfili in the square of Navona, with a library and gallery; Rospigliosi, upon the Quirinal hill, etc. Among the palaces of Rome, which bear the name of _villas_, is the Villa Medici, on the Pincian mount, on which were formerly situated the splendid gardens of Lucullus: it once contained a vast number of masterpieces of every kind; but the grand dukes Leopold and Ferdinand have removed the finest works (among them, the group of Niobe, by Scopas) to Florence. This palace, however, is yet worthy of being visited. Under the portico of the Villa Negroni are the two fine statues of Sylla and Marius, seated on the _sella curulis_. In the extensive garden, which is three miles in circuit, some beautiful fresco paintings have been found in the ruins of some of the houses. The Villa Mattei, on the Coelian mount, contains a splendid collection of statues. The Villa Ludovisi, on the Pincian mount, not far from the ruins of the circus and the gardens of Sallust, is one and a half miles in circuit, and contains valuable monuments of art, particularly the Aurora of Guercino, an ancient group of the senator Papirius and his mother (or rather of Phædra and Hippolytus), another of Arria and Pætus, and Bernini's rape of Proserpine. The Villa Borghese, near Rome, has a fine but an unhealthy situation. The greatest part of the city, and the environs as far as Frascati and Tivoli, are visible from it. It has a garden, with a park three miles in circuit. This palace was ornamented in its interior, and furnished with so much richness and elegance, that it might have been considered the first edifice in Rome, next to the capitol, particularly for its fine collection of statues. The most remarkable among them were the Fighting Gladiator; Silenus and a Faun; Seneca, in black marble, or rather a slave at the baths; Camillus; the Hermaphrodite; the Centaur and Cupid; two Fauns, playing on the flute; Ceres; an Egyptian; a statue of the younger Nero; the busts of Lucius Verus, Alexander, Faustina and Verus; various relievos, among which was one representing Curtius; an urn, on which was represented the festival of Bacchus; another supported by the Graces; two horns of plenty, etc. The greatest part of these has not been restored from Paris. The exterior is ornamented with ancient reliefs. The Villa Pamfili, before the Porta di San Pancrazio, also called Belrespiro, has an agreeable situation, and is seven miles in circumference. The architecture is by Algardi, but has been censured by connoisseurs. In the interior there are some fine specimens of sculpture. Full descriptions of this and of the Villa Borghese have been published. The Villa Albani, upon an eminence which commands Tivoli and the Sabina, is an edifice of taste and splendor. The cardinal Alexander Albani expended immense sums upon it, and, during the space of fifty years, collected a splendid cabinet. The ceiling of the gallery was painted by Mengs, and is a model of elegance. The Villa Lante and the Villa Corsini deserve to be mentioned on account of their fine prospects. The Villa Doria (formerly Algiati), in which Raffaelle lived, contains three fresco paintings of this great master. The Villa Farnese contains the remains of the palace of the Roman emperors. The capitol contains so many and such magnificent objects of every description, that it is impossible to enumerate them here. We must be satisfied with mentioning the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, before the palace; the Captive Kings, in the court; the _columna rostrata_; and within, the colossal statue of Pyrrhus; the tomb of Severus; the Centaurs, of basalt; the beautiful alabaster pillars; the masterpiece in mosaic, which once belonged to cardinal Furietti, representing three doves on the edge of a vessel filled with water, which is described by Pliny. The fountains are among the principal ornaments of the squares in Rome. The fountain in the Piazza Navona, the most splendid of them all, has been particularly admired; it is surmounted by an obelisk, and ornamented by four colossal statues, which represent the four principal rivers in the world. The fountain of Paul V., near the church di San Pietro in Montorio, is in bad taste, but furnishes such a body of water, that several mills are carried by it. The fountain di Termini is adorned with three reliefs, representing Moses striking water from the rock, and with a colossal statue of that prophet, and two Egyptian lions in basalt. The splendid fountain of Trevi supplies the best water, which it receives through an ancient aqueduct. Among the streets, the Strada Felice and the Strada Pia, which cross each other, are the most remarkable; among the bridges, that of St. Angelo (formerly Pons Ælius), 300 feet in length; and among the gates the Porta del Popolo (formerly Porta Flaminia). Of ancient monuments, the following yet remain: the Pantheon, the Coliseum, the column of Trajan, that of Antonine, the amphitheatre of Vespasian; the mausoleum of Augustus, the mausoleum of Adrian (now the fortress of St. Angelo); the triumphal arches of Severus, Titus, Constantine, Janus, Nero, and Drusus; the ruins of the temple of Jupiter Stator, of Jupiter Tonans, of Concordia, of Pax, of Antoninus and Faustina, of the sun and moon, of Romulus, of Romulus and Remus, of Pallas, of Fortuna Virilis, of Fortuna Muliebris, of Virtue, of Bacchus, of Vesta, of Minerva Medica, and of Venus and Cupid; the remains of the baths of Dioclesian, of Caracalla and Titus, etc.; the ruins of the theatre of Pompey, near the Curia Pompeii, where Cæsar was murdered, and those of the theatre of Marcellus; the ruins of the old forum (now called Campo Vaccino); the remains of the old bridges; the circus Maximus; the circus of Caracalla; the house of Cicero; the Curia Hostilia; the trophies of Marius; the portico of Philip and Octavius; the country house and tower of Mæcenas; the Claudian aqueduct; the monuments of the family of Aruns, of the Scipios, of Metella (called Capo di Bove); the prison of Jugurtha (Carcero Mamertino), in which St. Peter was imprisoned; the monument of Caius Cestius, which is entirely uninjured, in form of a pyramid, near which the Protestants are buried; the Cloaca Maxima, built by Tarquin, etc. Besides the obelisk near the Porta del Popolo, that raised in the pontificate of Pius VI., on mount Cavallo, is deserving of notice. The principal collections of literature and the arts have already been noticed; but the Museo Kircheliano deserves to be particularly mentioned; there are, besides, many private collections and monastic libraries, which contain many valuable works. Such treasures, especially in the arts, make Rome the great school of painters, statuaries, and architects, and a place of pilgrimage to all lovers of the arts; and there are here innumerable _studios_ of painters and sculptors. Roman art seems to have received a new impulse. The academy of San Luca was established solely for the art of painting. There are also many literary institutions in the city. THE FOUNDATION OF VENICE. It is recorded in the archives of Padua, says Milizia, that when Rhadagasius entered Italy, and the cruelties exercised by the Visigoths obliged the people to seek refuge in various places, an architect of Candia, named Eutinopus, was the first to retire to the fens of the Adriatic, where he built a house, which remained the only one there for several years. At length, when Alaric continued to desolate the country, others sought an asylum in the same marshes, and built twenty-four houses, which formed the germ of Venice. The security of the place now induced people to settle there rapidly, and Venice soon sprung up a city and gradually rose to be mistress of the seas. The Venetian historians inform us that the house of Eutinopus, during a dreadful conflagration, was miraculously saved by a shower of rain, at the prayer of the architect, who made a vow to convert it into a church; he did this, and dedicated it to St. James, the magistrates and inhabitants contributing to build and ornament the edifice. The church is still standing, in the quarter of the Rialto, which is universally considered the oldest part of Venice. THEODORIC THE GREAT, AND HIS LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, and afterwards also king of Italy, was born at Amali, near Vienna, in 455, and died in 526. Though a Goth, he was so far from delighting in the destruction of public monuments, and works of art, that he issued edicts for their preservation at Rome and throughout Italy, and assigned revenues for the repair of the public edifices, for which purpose he employed the most skillful and learned architects, particularly Aloïsius, Boëtius, and Symmachus. According to Cassiodorus (lib. ii. Varior. Epist. xxxix.), Theodoric said: "It is glorious to preserve the works of antiquity; and it is our duty to restore the most useful and the most beautiful." Symmachus had the direction of the buildings constructed or rebuilt at Rome. The king thus wrote to him: "You have constructed fine edifices; you have, moreover, disposed of them with so much wisdom that they equal those of antiquity, and serve as examples to the moderns; and all you show us is a perfect image of the excellence of your mind, because it is not possible to build correctly without good sense and a well cultivated understanding." In his directions to the Prefect of Rome, on the architecture of the public edifices, Theodoric thus wrote: "The beauty of the Roman buildings requires a skillful overseer, in order that such a wonderful forest of edifices should be preserved with constant care, and the new ones properly constructed, both internally and externally. Therefore we direct our generosity not only to the preservation of ancient things, but to the investing the new ones with the glories of antiquity. Be it known, therefore, to your illustrious person, that for this end an architect of the Roman walls is appointed. And because the study of the arts requires assistance, we desire that he may have every reasonable accommodation that his predecessors have enjoyed. He will certainly see things superior to what he has read of, and more beautiful than he could ever have imagined. The statues still feel their renowned authors, and appear to live: he will observe expressed in the bronze, the veins, the muscles swollen by exertion, the nerves gradually stretched, and the figure expressing those feelings which act on a living subject. "It is said that the first artists in Italy were the Etruscans, and thus posterity has given to them, as well as to Rome, almost the power of creating man. How wonderful are the horses, so full of spirit, with their fiery nostrils, their sparkling eyes, their easy and graceful limbs;--they would move, if not of metal. And what shall we say of those lofty, slender, and finely fluted columns, which appear a part of the sublime structure they support? That appears wax, which is hard and elegant metal; the joints in the marble being like natural veins. The beauty of art is to deceive the eye. Ancient historians acquaint us with only seven wonders in the world: the Temple of Diana, at Ephesus; the magnificent sepulchre of the king Mausolus, from whence is derived the word mausoleum; the bronze Colossus of the Sun, in Rhodes; the statue of Jupiter Olympius, of gold and ivory, formed by the masterly hand of Phidias, the first of architects; the palace of Cyrus, King of Media, built by Memnon of stones united by gold; the walls of Babylon, constructed by Semiramis of brick, pitch, and iron; the pyramids of Egypt, the shadows of which do not extend beyond the space of their construction. But who can any longer consider these as wonders, after having seen so many in Rome? Those were famous because they preceded us; it is natural that the new productions of the then barbarous ages should be renowned. It may truly be said that all Rome is wonderful. We have therefore selected a man clever in the arts, who, in seeing so many ingenious things of antiquity, instead of remaining merely enchanted with them, has set himself to work to investigate the reason, study their books, and instruct himself, that he may become as learned as those in the place of whom he is to consider himself appointed." Milizia says of Theodoric, "Is this the language of a Gothic barbarian, the destroyer of good taste? Pericles, Alexander, Adrian, or one of the Medici could not have reasoned better." And again, "Can these Goths be the inventors of that architecture vulgarly called Gothic? and are these the barbarians said to have been the destroyers of the beautiful monuments of antiquity? Ecclesiastical history gives to the good Christians and the jealous ecclesiastics the honor of having dismantled temples, and disfigured statues in Italy, Greece, Asia, and Egypt. * * * It is clear that the Goths were not the authors of that architecture called Gothic. The Goths and barbarians who overran Italy had not any characteristic architecture, good or bad. They brought with them neither architects, painters, nor poets. They were all soldiers, and when fixed in Italy employed Italian artists; but as in that country, good taste was much on the decline, it now became more debased, notwithstanding the efforts made by the Goths to revive it." ARCHIMEDES. This wonderful genius was of royal descent, and born at Syracuse about B.C. 287. He was a relative of king Hiero, who held him in the highest esteem and favor, though he does not appear to have held any public office, preferring to devote himself entirely to science. Such was his enthusiasm, that he appears at times to have been so completely absorbed in contemplation and calculations, as to be totally unconscious of what was passing around him. We cannot fully estimate his services to mathematics, for want of an acquaintance with the previous state of science; still we know that he enriched it with discoveries of the highest importance, upon which the moderns have founded their admeasurements of curvilinear surfaces and solids. Euclid, in his elements, considers only the relations of some of these magnitudes to each other, but does not compare them with surfaces and solids bounded by straight lines. Archimedes developed the proportions necessary for effecting this comparison, in his treatises on the sphere and cylinder, the spheroid and conoid, and in his work on the measure of the circle. He rose to still more abstruse considerations in his treatise on the spiral. Archimedes is also the only one of the ancients who has left us anything satisfactory on the theory of mechanics and hydrostatics. He first taught the principle "that a body immersed in a fluid, loses as much in weight, as the weight of an equal volume of the fluid." He discovered this while bathing, which is said to have caused him so much joy that he ran home from the bath undressed, exclaiming, "I have found it; I have found it!" By means of this principle, he determined how much alloy a goldsmith had added to a crown which king Hiero had ordered of pure gold. Archimedes had a profound knowledge of mechanics, and in a moment of enthusiasm, with which the extraordinary performances of his machines had inspired him, he exclaimed that he "could move the earth with ease, by means of his machines placed on a fixed point near it." He was the inventor of the compound pulley, and probably of the endless screw which bears his name. He invented many surprising engines and machines. Some suppose that he visited Egypt, and raised the sites of the towns and villages of Egypt, and begun those mounds of earth by means of which communication was kept up from town to town, during the inundations of the Nile. When Marcellus, the Roman consul, besieged Syracuse, he devoted all his talents to the defense of his native country. He constructed machines which suddenly raised up in the air the ships of the enemy in the bay before the city, and then let them fall with such violence into the water that they sunk; he also set them on fire with his burning glasses. Polybius, Livy, and Plutarch speak in detail, with wonder and admiration, of the machines with which he repelled the attacks of the Romans. When the town was taken and given up to pillage, the Roman general gave strict orders to his soldiers not to hurt Archimedes, and even offered a reward to him who should bring him alive and safe to his presence. All these precautions proved useless, for the philosopher was so deeply engaged at the time in solving a problem, that he was even ignorant that the enemy were in possession of the city, and when a soldier entered his apartment, and commanded him to follow him, he exclaimed, according to some, "Disturb not my circle!" and to others, he begged the soldier not to "kill him till he had solved his problem"; but the rough warrior, ignorant of the august person before him, little heeded his request, and struck him down. This happened B.C. 212, so that Archimedes, at his death, must have been about 75 years old. Marcellus raised a monument over him, and placed upon it a cylinder and a sphere, thereby to immortalize his discovery of their mutual relations, on which he set a particular value; but it remained long neglected and unknown, till Cicero, during his questorship of Sicily, found it near one of the gates of Syracuse, and had it repaired. The story of his burning glasses had always appeared fabulous to some of the moderns, till the experiments of Buffon demonstrated its truth and practicability. These celebrated glasses are supposed to have been reflectors made of metal, and capable of producing their effect at the distance of a bow-shot. THE TRIALS OF GENIUS. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. This eminent architect was one of those illustrious men, who, having conceived and matured a grand design, proceed, cool, calm, and indefatigable, to put it in execution, undismayed by obstacles that seem insuperable, by poverty, want, and what is worse, the jeers of men whose capacities are too limited to comprehend their sublime conceptions. The world is apt to term such men enthusiasts, madmen, or fools, till their glorious achievements stamp them almost divinely inspired. Brunelleschi was nobly descended on his mother's side, she being a member of the Spini family, which, according to Bottari, became extinct towards the middle of the last century. His ancestors on his father's side were also learned and distinguished men--his father was a notary, his grandfather "a very learned man," and his great-grandfather "a famous physician in those times." Filippo's father, though poor, educated him for the legal or medical profession; but such was his passion for art and mechanics, that his father, greatly against his will, was compelled to allow him to follow the bent of his genius: he accordingly placed him, at a proper age, in the Guild of the Goldsmiths, that he might acquire the art of design. Filippo soon became a proficient in the setting of precious stones, which he did much better than any old artists in the vocation. He also wrought in niello, and executed several figures which were highly commended, particularly two figures of Prophets, for an altar in the Cathedral of Pistoja. Filippo next turned his attention to sculpture, and executed works in basso-relievo, which showed an extraordinary genius. Subsequently, having made the acquaintance of several learned men, he began to turn his attention to the computation of the divisions of time, the adjustment of weights, the movement of wheels, etc. He next bent his thoughts to the study of perspective, to which, before his time, so little attention was paid by artists, that the figures often appeared to be slipping off the canvas, and the buildings had not a true point of view. He was one of the first who revived the Greek practice of rendering the precepts of geometry subservient to the painter; for this purpose, he studied with the famous geometrician Toscanelli, who was also the instructor, friend, and counsellor of Columbus. Filippo pursued his investigations until he brought perspective to great perfection; he was the first who discovered a perfectly correct method of taking the ground plan and sections of buildings, by means of intersecting lines--"a truly ingenious thing," says Vasari, "and of great utility to the arts of design." Filippo freely communicated his discoveries to his brother artists. He was imitated in mosaic by Benedetto da Macano, and in painting by Masaccio, who were his pupils. Vasari says Brunelleschi was a man of such exalted genius, that "we may truly declare him to have been given to us by Heaven, for the purpose of imparting a new spirit to architecture, which for hundreds of years had been lost; for the men of those times had badly expended great treasures in the erection of buildings without order, constructed in a most wretched manner, after deplorable designs, with fantastic inventions, labored graces, and worse decorations. But it then pleased Heaven, the earth having been for so many years destitute of any distinguished mind and divine genius, that Filippo Brunelleschi should leave to the world, the most noble, vast, and beautiful edifice that had ever been constructed in modern times, or even in those of the ancients; giving proof that the talent of the Tuscan artists, although lost for a time, was not extinguished. He was, moreover, adorned by the most excellent qualities, among which was that of kindliness, insomuch that there never was a man of more benign and amicable disposition; in judgment he was calm and dispassionate, and laid aside all thought of his own interest and even that of his friends, whenever he perceived the merits and talents of others to demand that he should do so. He knew himself, instructed many from the stores of his genius, and was ever ready to succor his neighbor in all his necessities; he declared himself the confirmed enemy of all vice, and the friend of those who labored in the cause of virtue. Never did he spend his moments vainly, but, although constantly occupied in his own works, in assisting those of others, or administering to their necessities, he had yet always time to bestow on his friends, for whom his aid was ever ready." In the meantime, Brunelleschi had studied architecture, and made such progress that he had already conceived two grand projects--the one was the revival of the good manner of ancient architecture, which was then extinct, and the other was to discover a method for constructing the cupola of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore, in Florence, the difficulties of which were so great that, after the death of Arnolfo di Lapi, no architect had been found of sufficient courage and capacity to attempt the vaulting of that cupola.[1] If he could accomplish one or both of these designs, he believed that he would not only immortalize his own name, but confer a lasting benefit on mankind. Filippo, having resolved to devote himself entirely to architecture in future, set out for Rome in company with his friend Donatello, without imparting his purpose to any one. Here his mind became so absorbed that he labored incessantly, scarcely allowing himself the rest which nature required. He examined, measured, and made careful drawings of all the edifices, ruins, arches, and vaults of antiquity; to these he devoted perpetual study, and if by chance he found fragments of capitals, columns, cornices, or basements of buildings, partly buried in the earth, he set laborers at work to lay them open to view. One day, Filippo and Donatello found an earthen vase full of ancient coins, which caused a report to be spread about Rome that the artists were _treasure-seekers_, and this name they often heard, as they passed along the streets, negligently clothed, the people believing them to be men who studied geomancy, for the discovery of treasures. Donatello soon returned to Florence, but Filippo pursued his studies with unremitting diligence. Having exhausted his means, although he lived in the most frugal manner, he contrived to supply his wants, says Milizia, by pawning his jewels, but Vasari with greater probability, by setting precious stones for the goldsmiths, who were his friends. "Nor did he rest," says Vasari, "until he had drawn every description of fabric--temples, round, square, or octagon; basilicas, aqueducts, baths, arches, the Colosseum, amphitheatres, and every church built of bricks, of which he examined all the modes of binding and clamping, as well as the turning of the vaults and arches; he took note, likewise, of all the methods used for uniting the stones, as well as of the means used for securing the equilibrium and close conjunction of all the parts; and having found that in all the larger stones there was a hole, formed exactly in the centre of each on the under side, he discovered that this was for the insertion of the iron instrument with which the stones are drawn up, and which is called by us the mason's clamps (_la ulivella_), an invention, the use of which he restored, and ever afterwards put in practice. The different orders were next divided by his cares, each order, the Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian being placed apart; and such was the effect of his zeal in that study, that he became capable of entirely reconstructing the city in his imagination, and of beholding Rome as she had been before she was ruined. But in the year 1407 the air of the place caused Filippo some slight indisposition, when he was advised by his friends to try change of air. He consequently returned to Florence, where many buildings had suffered by his absence, and for these he made many drawings and gave numerous counsels on his return. "In the same year an assemblage of architects and engineers was gathered in Florence, by the Superintendents of the works of Santa Maria del Fiore, and by the Syndics of the Guild of wool-workers, to consult on the means by which the cupola might be raised. Among these appeared Filippo, who gave it as his opinion that the edifice above the roof must be constructed, not after the design of Arnolfo, but that a frieze, fifteen braccia high, must be erected, with a large window in each of its sides: since not only would this take the weight off the piers of the tribune, but would also permit the cupola itself to be more easily raised." The obstacles appeared so insuperable to the Superintendents and the Syndics, that they delayed the execution of the cupola for several years. In the meantime, Filippo secretly made models and designs for his cupola, which perpetually occupied his thoughts. He boldly asserted that the project was not only practicable, but that it could be done with much less difficulty and at less expense than was believed. At length, his boldness, genius, and powerful arguments, brought many of the citizens to his opinion, though he refused to show his models, because he knew the powerful opposition and influences he would have to encounter, and the almost certain loss of the honor of building the cupola, which he coveted above everything else. Vasari thus continues his admirable history: "But one morning the fancy took him, hearing that there was some talk of providing engineers for the construction of the cupola, of returning to Rome, thinking that he would have more reputation and be more sought for from abroad, than if he remained in Florence. When Filippo had returned to Rome accordingly, the acuteness of his genius and his readiness of resource were taken into consideration, when it was remembered that in his discourses he had showed a confidence and courage that had not been found in any of the other architects, who stood confounded, together with the builders, having lost all power of proceeding; for they were convinced that no method of constructing the cupola would ever be found, nor any beams that would make a scaffold strong enough to support the framework and weight of so vast an edifice. The Superintendents were therefore resolved to have an end of the matter, and wrote to Filippo in Rome, entreating him to repair to Florence, when he, who desired nothing better, returned very readily. The wardens of Santa Maria del Fiore and the syndics of the Guild of Woolworkers, having assembled on his arrival, set before him all the difficulties, from the greatest to the smallest, which had been made by the masters, who were present, together with himself, at the audience: whereupon Filippo replied in these words--'Gentlemen Superintendents, there is no doubt that great undertakings always present difficulties in their execution; and if none ever did so before, this of yours does it to an extent of which you are not perhaps even yet fully aware, for I do not know that even the ancients ever raised so enormous a vault as this will be. I, who have many times reflected on the scaffoldings required, both within and without, and on the method to be pursued for working securely at this erection, have never been able to come to a decision; and I am confounded, no less by the breadth than the height of the edifice. Now, if the cupola could be arched in a circular form, we might pursue the method adopted by the Romans in erecting the Pantheon of Rome; that is, the Rotunda. But here we must follow the eight sides of the building, dove-tailing, and, so to speak, enchaining the stones, which will be a very difficult thing. Yet, remembering that this is a temple consecrated to God and the Virgin, I confidently trust, that for a work executed to their honor, they will not fail to infuse knowledge where it is now wanting, and will bestow strength, wisdom, and genius on him who shall be the author of such a project. But how can I help you in the matter, seeing that the work is not mine? I tell you plainly, that if it belonged to me, my courage and power would beyond all doubt suffice to discover means whereby the work might be effected without so many difficulties; but as yet I have not reflected on the matter to any extent, and you would have me tell you by what method it is to be accomplished. But even if your worships should determine that the cupola shall be raised, you will be compelled not only to make trial of me, who do not consider myself capable of being the sole adviser in so important a matter, but also to expend money, and to command that within a year, and on a fixed day, many architects shall assemble in Florence; not Tuscans and Italians only, but Germans, French, and of every other nation: to them it is that such an undertaking should be proposed, to the end that having discussed the matter and decided among so many masters, the work may be commenced and entrusted to him who shall give the best evidence of capacity, or shall display the best method and judgment for the execution of so great a charge. I am not able to offer you other counsel, or to propose a better arrangement than this.' "The proposal and plan of Filippo pleased the Syndics and Wardens of the works, but they would have liked that he should meanwhile prepare a model, on which they might have decided. But he showed himself to have no such intention, and taking leave of them, declared that he was solicited by letters to return to Rome. The syndics then perceiving that their request and those of the wardens did not suffice to detain him, caused several of his friends to entreat his stay; but Filippo not yielding to these prayers, the wardens, one morning, ordered him a present of money; this was on the 26th of May, 1417, and the sum is to be seen among the expenses of Filippo, in the books of the works. All this was done to render him favorable to their wishes; but, firm to his resolution, he departed nevertheless from Florence and returned to Rome, where he continued the unremitting study of the same subject, making various arrangements and preparing himself for the completion of that work, being convinced, as was the truth, that no other than himself could conduct such an undertaking to its conclusion. Nor had Filippo advised the syndics to call new architects for any other reason, than was furnished by his desire that those masters should be the witnesses of his own superior genius: he by no means expected that they could or would receive the commission for vaulting that tribune, or would undertake the charge, which he believed to be altogether too difficult for them. Much time was meanwhile consumed, before the architects, whom the syndics had caused to be summoned from afar, could arrive from their different countries. Orders had been given to the Florentine merchants resident in France, Germany, England, and Spain, who were authorized to spend large sums of money for the purpose of sending them, and were commanded to obtain from the sovereigns of each realm the most experienced and distinguished masters of the respective countries. "In the year 1420, all these foreign masters were at length assembled in Florence, with those of Tuscany, and all the best Florentine artists in design. Filippo likewise then returned from Rome. They all assembled, therefore, in the hall of the wardens of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Syndics and Superintendents, together with a select number of the most capable and ingenious citizens being present, to the end that having heard the opinion of each on the subject, they might at length decide on the method to be adopted for vaulting the tribune. Being called into the audience, the opinions of all were heard one after another, and each architect declared the method which he had thought of adopting. And a fine thing it was to hear the strange and various notions then propounded on that matter: for one said that columns must be raised from the ground up, and that on these they must turn the arches, whereon the woodwork for supporting the weight must rest. Others affirmed that the vault should be turned in cysteolite or sponge-stone (spugna), thereby to diminish the weight; and several of the masters agreed in the opinion that a column must be erected in the centre, and the cupola raised in the form of a pavilion, like that of San Giovanni in Florence. Nay, there were not wanting those who maintained that it would be a good plan to fill the space with earth, among which small coins (quatrini) should be mingled, that when the cupola should be raised, they might then give permission that whoever should desire the soil might go and fetch it, when the people would immediately carry it away without expense. Filippo alone declared that the cupola might be erected without so great a mass of woodwork, without a column in the centre, and without the mound of earth; at a much lighter expense than would be caused by so many arches, and very easily, without any framework whatever. "Hearing this, the syndics, who were listening in the expectation of hearing some fine method, felt convinced that Filippo had talked like a mere simpleton, as did the superintendents, and all the other citizens; they derided him therefore, laughing at him, and turning away; they bade him discourse of something else, for that this was the talk of a fool or madman, as he was. Therefore Filippo, thinking he had cause of offence, replied, 'But consider, gentlemen, that it is not possible to raise the cupola in any other manner than this of mine, and although you laugh at me, yet you will be obliged to admit (if you do not mean to be obstinate), that it neither must nor can be done in any other manner; and if it be erected after the method that I propose, it must be turned in the manner of the pointed arch, and must be double--the one vaulting within, the other without, in such sort that a passage should be formed between the two. At the angles of the eight walls, the building must be strengthened by the dove-tailing of the stones, and in like manner the walls themselves must be girt around by strong beams of oak. We must also provide for the lights, the staircases, and the conduits by which the rain-water may be carried off. And none of you have remembered that we must prepare supports within, for the execution of the mosaics, with many other difficult arrangements; but I, who see the cupola raised, I have reflected on all these things, and I know that there is no other mode of accomplishing them, than that of which I have spoken.' Becoming heated as he proceeded, the more Filippo sought to make his views clear to his hearers, that they might comprehend and agree with him, the more he awakened their doubts, and the less they confided in him, so that, instead of giving him their faith, they held him to be a fool and a babbler. Whereupon, being more than once dismissed, and finally refusing to go, they caused him to be carried forcibly from the audience by the servants of the place, considering him to be altogether mad. This contemptuous treatment caused Filippo at a later period to say, that he dared not at that time pass through any part of the city, lest some one should say, 'See, where goes that fool!' The syndics and others forming the assembly remained confounded, first, by the difficult methods proposed by the other masters, and next by that of Filippo, which appeared to them stark nonsense. He appeared to them to render the enterprise impossible by his two propositions--first, by that of making the cupola double, whereby the great weight to be sustained would be rendered altogether unmanageable, and next by the proposal of building without a framework. Filippo, on the other hand, who had spent so many years in close study to prepare himself for this work, knew not to what course to betake himself, and was many times on the point of leaving Florence. Still, if he desired to conquer, it was necessary to arm himself with patience, and he had seen enough to know that the heads of the city seldom remained long fixed to one resolution. He might easily have shown them a small model which he had secretly made, but he would not do so, knowing the imperfect intelligence of the syndics, the envy of the artists, and the instability of the citizens, who favored now one and now another, as each chanced to please them. And I do not wonder at this, because every one in Florence professes to know as much of these matters, as do the most experienced masters, although there are very few who really understand them; a truth which we may be permitted to affirm without offence to those who are well informed on the subject. What Filippo therefore could not effect before the tribunal, he began to attempt with individuals, and talking apart now with a syndic, now with a warden, and again with different citizens, showing moreover certain parts of his design; he thus brought them at length to resolve on confiding the conduct of this work, either to him or to one of the foreign architects. Hereupon, the syndics, the wardens, and the citizens, selected to be judges in the matter, having regained courage, gathered together once again, and the architects disputed respecting the matter before them; but all were put down and vanquished on sufficient grounds by Filippo, and here it is said that the dispute of the egg arose, in the manner following. The other architects desired that Filippo should explain his purpose minutely, and show his model, as they had shown theirs. This he would not do, but proposed to all the masters, foreigners and compatriots, that he who could make an egg stand upright on a piece of smooth marble, should be appointed to build the cupola, since in doing that, his genius would be made manifest. They took an egg accordingly, and all those masters did their best to make it stand upright, but none discovered the method of doing so. Wherefore, Filippo, being told that he might make it stand himself, took it daintily into his hand, gave the end of it a blow on the plane of the marble, and made it stand upright.[2] Beholding this, the artists loudly protested, exclaiming that they could all have done the same; but Filippo replied, laughing, that they might also know how to construct the cupola, if they had seen the model and design. It was thus at length resolved that Filippo should receive the charge of conducting the work, but was told that he must furnish the syndics and wardens with more exact information. "He returned, therefore, to his house, and stated his whole purpose on a sheet of paper, as clearly as he could possibly express it, when it was given to the tribunal in the following terms:--'The difficulties of this erection being well considered, magnificent signors and wardens, I find that it cannot by any means be constructed in a perfect circle, since the extent of the upper part, where the lantern has to be placed, would be so vast, that when a weight was laid thereon, it would soon give way. Now it appears to me that those architects who do not aim at giving perpetual duration to their fabrics, cannot have any regard for the durability of the memorial, nor do they even know what they are doing. I have therefore determined to turn the inner part of this vault in angles, according to the form of the walls, adopting the proportions and manner of the pointed arch, this being a form which displays a rapid tendency to ascend, and when loaded with the lantern, each part will help to give stability to the other. The thickness of the vault at the base must be three braccia and three-quarters; it must then rise in the form of a pyramid, decreasing from without up to the point where it closes, and where the lantern has to be placed, and at this junction the thickness must be one braccia and a quarter. A second vault shall then be constructed outside the first, to preserve the latter from the rain, and this must be two braccia and a half thick at the base, also diminishing proportionally in the form of a pyramid, in such a manner that the parts shall have their junction at the commencement of the lantern, as did the other, and at the highest point it must have two-thirds of the thickness of the base. There must be a buttress at each angle, which will be eight in all, and between the angles, in the face of each wall, there shall be two, sixteen in all; and these sixteen buttresses on the inner and outer side of each wall must each have the breadth of four braccia at the base. These two vaults, built in the form of a pyramid, shall rise together in equal proportion to the height of the round window closed by the lantern. There will thus be constructed twenty-four buttresses with the said vaults built around, and six strong high arches of a hard stone (macigno), well clamped and bound with iron fastenings, which must be covered with tin, and over these stones shall be cramping irons, by which the vaults shall be bound to the buttresses. The masonry must be solid, and must leave no vacant space up to the height of five braccia and a quarter; the buttresses being then continued, the arches will be separated. The first and second courses from the base must be strengthened everywhere by long plates of _macigno_ laid crosswise, in such sort that both vaults of the cupola shall rest on these stones. Throughout the whole height, at every ninth braccia there shall be small arches constructed in the vaults between the buttresses, with strong cramps of oak, whereby the buttresses by which the inner vault is supported will be bound and strengthened; these fastenings of oak shall then be covered with plates of iron, on account of the staircases. The buttresses are all to be built of _macigno_, or other hard stone, and the walls of the cupola are, in like manner, to be all of solid stone bound to the buttresses to the height of twenty-four braccia, and thence upward they shall be constructed of brick or of spongite (spugne), as shall be determined on by the masters who build it, they using that which they consider lightest. On the outside, a passage or gallery shall be made above the windows, which below shall form a terrace, with an open parapet or balustrade two braccia high, after the manner of those of the lower tribunes, and forming two galleries, one over the other, placed on a richly decorated cornice, the upper gallery being covered. The rain-water shall be carried off the cupola by means of a marble channel, one third of an ell broad, the water being discharged at an outlet to be constructed of hard stone (pietra forte), beneath the channel. Eight ribs of marble shall be formed on the angles of the external surface of the cupola, of such thickness as may be requisite; these shall rise to the height of one braccia above the cupola, with cornices projecting in the manner of a roof, two braccia broad, that the summit may be complete, and sufficiently furnished with eaves and channels on every side; and these must have the form of the pyramid, from their base, or point of junction, to their extremity. Thus the cupola shall be constructed after the method described above, and without framework, to the height of thirty braccia, and from that height upwards, it may be continued after such manner as shall be determined on by the masters who may have to build it, since practice teaches us by what methods to proceed.' "When Filippo had written the above, he repaired in the morning to the tribunal, and gave his paper to the syndics and wardens, who took the whole of it into their consideration; and, although they were not able to understand it all, yet seeing the confidence of Filippo, and finding that the other architects gave no evidence of having better ground to proceed on,--he moreover showing a manifest security, by constantly repeating the same things in such a manner that he had all the appearance of having vaulted ten cupolas:--the Syndics, seeing all this, retired apart, and finally resolved to give him the work; they would have liked to see some example of the manner in which he meant to turn this vault without framework, but to all the rest they gave their approbation. And fortune was favorable to this desire: Bartolomeo Barbadori having determined to build a chapel in Santa Felicita, and having spoken concerning it with Filippo, the latter had commenced the work, and caused the chapel, which is on the right of the entrance, where is also the holy water vase (likewise by the hand of Filippo), to be vaulted without any framework. At the same time he constructed another, in like manner, for Stiatta Ridolfi, in the church of Santo Jacopo sopr' Arno; that, namely, beside the chapel of the High Altar; and these works obtained him more credit than was given to his words. The consuls and wardens feeling at length assured, by the writing he had given them, and by the works which they had seen, entrusted the cupola to his care, and he was made principal master of the works by a majority of votes. They would nevertheless not commission him to proceed beyond the height of twelve braccia, telling him that they desired to see how the work would succeed, but that if it proceeded as successfully as he expected, they would not fail to give him the appointment for the remainder. The sight of so much obstinacy and distrust in the syndics and wardens was so surprising to Filippo, that if he had not known himself to be the only person capable of conducting the work, he would not have laid a hand upon it; but desiring, as he did, to secure the glory of its completion, he accepted the terms, and pledged himself to conduct the undertaking perfectly to the end. The writing Filippo had given was copied into a book wherein the purveyor kept the accounts of the works in wood and marble, together with the obligation into which Filippo had entered as above said. An allowance was then made to him, conformably with what had at other times been given to other masters of the works. "When the commission given to Filippo became known to the artists and citizens, some thought well of it, and others ill, as always is the case with a matter which calls forth the opinions of the populace, the thoughtless, and the envious. Whilst the preparation of materials for beginning to build was making, a party was formed among the artists and citizens; and these men proceeding to the syndics and wardens, declared that the matter had been concluded too hastily, and that such a work ought not to be executed according to the opinion of one man only; they added, that if the syndics and wardens had been destitute of distinguished men, instead of being furnished with such in abundance, they would have been excusable, but that what was now done was not likely to redound to the honor of the citizens, seeing, that if any accident should happen, they would incur blame, as persons who had conferred too great a charge on one man, without considering the losses and disgrace that might result to the public. All this considered, it would be well to give Filippo a colleague, who might restrain his impetuosity (furore). "Lorenzo Ghiberti had at that time attained to high credit by the evidence of his genius, which he had given in the doors of San Giovanni; and that he was much beloved by certain persons who were very powerful in the government was now proved with sufficient clearness, since, perceiving the glory of Filippo to increase so greatly, they labored in such a manner with the syndics and wardens, under the pretext of care and anxiety for the building, that Ghiberti was united with Filippo in the work. The bitter vexation of Filippo, the despair into which he fell, when he heard what the wardens had done, may be understood by the fact that he was on the point of flying from Florence; and had it not been that Donato and Luca della Robbia comforted and encouraged him, he would have gone out of his senses. A truly wicked and cruel rage is that of those men, who, blinded by envy, endanger the honors and noble works of others in the base strife of ambition: it was not the fault of these men that Filippo did not break in pieces the models, set fire to the designs, and in one half hour destroy all the labors so long endured, and ruin the hopes of so many years. The wardens excused themselves at first to Filippo, encouraging him to proceed, reminding him that the inventor and author of so noble a fabric was still himself, and no other; but they, nevertheless, gave Lorenzo a stipend equal to that of Filippo. The work was then continued with but little pleasure on the part of Filippo, who knew that he must endure all the labors connected therewith, and would then have to divide the honor and fame equally with Lorenzo. Taking courage, nevertheless, from the thought that he should find a method of preventing the latter from remaining very long attached to that undertaking, he continued to proceed after the manner laid down in the writing given to the wardens. Meanwhile the thought occurred to the mind of Filippo of constructing a complete model, which, as yet, had never been done. This he commenced forthwith, causing the parts to be made by a certain Bartolomeo, a joiner, who dwelt near his studio. In this model (the measurements of which were in strict accordance with those of the building itself, the difference being of size only), all the difficult parts of the structure were shown as they were to be when completed; as, for example, staircases lighted and dark, with every other kind of light, with the buttresses and other inventions for giving strength to the building, the doors, and even a portion of the gallery. Lorenzo, having heard of this model, desired to see it, but Filippo refusing, he became angry, and made preparations for constructing a model of his own, that he might not appear to be receiving his salary for nothing, but that he also might seem to count for something in the matter. For these models Filippo received fifty lire and fifteen soldi, as we find by an order in the book of Migliore di Tommaso, under date of the 3d October, 1419, while Lorenzo was paid three hundred lire for the labor and cost of his model, a difference occasioned by the partiality and favor shown to him, rather than merited by any utility or benefit secured to the building by the model which he had constructed. "This vexatious state of things continued beneath the eyes of Filippo until the year 1426,[3] the friends of Lorenzo calling him the inventor of the work, equally with Filippo, and this caused so violent a commotion in the mind of the latter, that he lived in the utmost disquietude. Various improvements and new inventions were, besides, presenting themselves to his thoughts, and he resolved to rid himself of his colleague at all hazards, knowing of how little use he was to the work. Filippo had already raised the walls of the cupola to the height of twelve braccia in both vaults, but the works, whether in wood or stone, that were to give strength to the fabric, had still to be executed, and as this was a matter of difficulty, he determined to speak with Lorenzo respecting it, that he might ascertain whether the latter had taken it into consideration. But Lorenzo was so far from having thought of this exigency, and so entirely unprepared for it, that he replied by declaring that he would refer that to Filippo as the inventor. The answer of Lorenzo pleased Filippo, who thought he here saw the means of removing his colleague from the works, and of making it manifest that he did not possess that degree of knowledge in the matter that was attributed to him by his friends, and implied in the favor which had placed him in the situation he held. All the builders were now engaged in the work, and waited only for directions, to commence the part above the twelve braccia, to raise the vaults, and render all secure. The closing in of the cupola towards the top having commenced, it was necessary to provide the scaffolding, that the masons and laborers might work without danger, seeing that the height was such as to make the most steady head turn giddy, and the firmest spirit shrink, merely to look down from it. The masons and other masters were therefore waiting in expectation of directions as to the manner in which the chains were to be applied, and the scaffoldings erected; but, finding there was nothing determined on either by Lorenzo or Filippo, there arose a murmur among the masons and other builders, at not seeing the work pursued with the solicitude previously shown; and as the workmen were poor persons who lived by the labor of their hands, and who now believed that neither one nor the other of the architects had courage enough to proceed further with the undertaking, they went about the building employing themselves as best they could in looking over and furbishing up all that had been already executed. "But one morning, Filippo did not appear at the works: he tied up his head, went to bed complaining bitterly, and causing plates and towels to be heated with great haste and anxiety, pretending that he had an attack of pleurisy. The builders who stood waiting directions to proceed with their work, on hearing this, demanded orders of Lorenzo for what they were to do; but he replied that the arrangement of the work belonged to Filippo, and that they must wait for him. 'How?' said one of them, 'do you not know what his intentions are?' 'Yes,' replied Lorenzo, 'but I would not do anything without him.'" This he said by way of excusing himself; for as he had not seen the model of Filippo, and had never asked him what method he meant to pursue, that he might not appear ignorant, so he now felt completely out of his depth, being thus referred to his own judgment, and the more so as he knew that he was employed in that undertaking against the will of Filippo. The illness of the latter having already lasted more than two days, the purveyor of the works, with many of the master-builders, went to see him, and repeatedly asked him to tell them what they should do; but he constantly replied, 'You have Lorenzo, let him begin to do something for once.' Nor could they obtain from him any other reply. When this became known, it caused much discussion: great blame was thrown upon the undertaking, and many adverse judgments were uttered. Some said that Filippo had taken to his bed from grief, at finding that he had not power to accomplish the erection of the Cupola, and that he was now repenting of having meddled with the matter; but his friends defended him, declaring that his vexation might arise from the wrong he had suffered in having Lorenzo given to him as a colleague, but that his disorder was pleurisy, brought on by his excessive labors for the work. In the midst of all this tumult of tongues, the building was suspended, and almost all the operations of the masons and stone-cutters came to a stand. These men murmured against Lorenzo, and said, 'He is good enough at drawing the salary, but when it comes to directing the manner in which we are to proceed, he does nothing; if Filippo were not here, or if he should remain long disabled, what can Lorenzo do? and if Filippo be ill, is that his fault?' The wardens, perceiving the discredit that accrued to them from this state of things, resolved to make Filippo a visit, and having reached his house, they first condoled with him on his illness, told him into what disorder the building had fallen, and described the troubles which this malady had brought on them. Whereupon Filippo, speaking with much heat, partly to keep up the feint of illness, but also in part from his interest in the work, exclaimed, 'What! is not Lorenzo there? why does not he do something? I cannot but wonder at your complaints.' To this the wardens replied, 'He will not do anything without you.' Whereunto Filippo made answer, 'But I could do it well enough without him.' This acute and doubly significant reply sufficed to the wardens, and they departed, having convinced themselves that Filippo was sick of the desire to work alone; they therefore sent certain of his friends to draw him from his bed, with the intention of removing Lorenzo from the work. Filippo then returned to the building, but seeing the power that Lorenzo possessed by means of the favor he enjoyed, and that he desired to receive the salary without taking any share whatever in the labor, he bethought himself of another method for disgracing him, and making it publicly and fully evident that he had very little knowledge of the matter in hand. He consequently made the following discourse to the wardens (Operai) Lorenzo being present:--'Signori Operai, if the time we have to live were as well secured to us as is the certainty that we may very quickly die, there is no doubt whatever that many works would be completed, which are now commenced and left imperfect. The malady with which I have had the misfortune to be attacked, might have deprived me of life, and put a stop to this work; wherefore, lest I should again fall sick, or Lorenzo either, which God forbid, I have considered that it would be better for each to execute his own portion of the work: as your worships have divided the salary, let us also divide the labor, to the end that each, being incited to show what he knows and is capable of performing, may proceed with confidence, to his own honor and benefit, as well as to that of the republic. Now there are two difficult operations which must at this time be put into course of execution--the one is the erection of scaffoldings for enabling the builders to work in safety, and which must be prepared both for the inside and outside of the fabric, where they will be required to sustain the weight of the men, the stones and the mortar, with space also for the crane to draw up the different materials, and for other machines and tools of various kinds. The other difficulty is the chain-work, which has to be constructed upon the twelve braccia already erected, this being requisite to bind and secure the eight sides of the cupola, and which must surround the fabric, enchaining the whole, in such a manner that the weight which has hereafter to be laid on it shall press equally on all sides, the parts mutually supporting each other, so that no part of the edifice shall be too heavily pressed on or overweighed, but that all shall rest firmly on its own basis. Let Lorenzo then take one of these works, whichever he may think he can most easily execute; I will take the other, and answer for bringing it to a successful issue, that we may lose no more time.' Lorenzo having heard this, was compelled, for the sake of his honor, to accept one or other of these undertakings; and although he did it very unwillingly, he resolved to take the chain work, thinking that he might rely on the counsels of the builders, and remembering also that there was a chain-work of stone in the vaulting of San Giovanni di Fiorenza, from which he might take a part, if not the whole, of the arrangement. One took the scaffolds in hand accordingly, and the other the chain-work, so that both were put in progress. The scaffolds of Filippo were constructed with so much ingenuity and judgment, that in this matter the very contrary of what many had before expected was seen to have happened, since the builders worked thereon with as much security as they would have done on the ground beneath, drawing up all the requisite weights and standing themselves in perfect safety. The models of these scaffolds were deposited in the hall of the wardens. Lorenzo executed the chain-work on one of the eight walls with the utmost difficulty, and when it was finished the wardens caused Filippo to look at it. He said nothing to them, but with some of his friends he held discourse on the subject, declaring that the building required a very different work of ligature and security to that one, laid in a manner altogether unlike the method there adopted; for that this would not suffice to support the weight which was to be laid on it, the pressure not being of sufficient strength and firmness. He added that the sums paid to Lorenzo, with the chain-work which he had caused to be constructed, were so much labor, time, and money thrown away. The remarks of Filippo became known, and he was called upon to show the manner that ought to be adopted for the construction of such a chain-work; wherefore, having already prepared his designs and models, he exhibited them immediately, and they were no sooner examined by the wardens and other masters, than they perceived the error into which they had fallen by favoring Lorenzo. For this they now resolved to make amends; and desiring to prove that they were capable of distinguishing merit, they made Filippo chief and superintendent of the whole fabric for life, commanding that nothing should be done in the work but as he should direct. As a further mark of approbation, they presented him moreover with a hundred florins, ordered by the syndics and wardens, under date of August 13, 1423, through Lorenzo Paoli, notary of the administration of the works, and signed by Gherardo di Messer Filippo Corsini: they also voted him an allowance of one hundred florins for life. Whereupon, having taken measures for the future progress of the fabric, Filippo conducted the works with so much solicitude and such minute attention, that there was not a stone placed in the building which he had not examined. Lorenzo on the other hand, finding himself vanquished and in a manner disgraced, was nevertheless so powerfully assisted and favored by his friends, that he continued to receive his salary, under the pretext that he could not be dismissed until the expiration of three years from that time.[4] "Drawings and models were meanwhile continually prepared by Filippo for the most minute portions of the building, for the stages or scaffolds for the workmen, and for the machines used in raising the materials. There were nevertheless several malicious persons, friends of Lorenzo, who did not cease to torment him by daily bringing forward models in rivalry of those constructed by him, insomuch that one was made by Maestro Antonio da Verzelli, and other masters who were favored and brought into notice--now by one citizen and now by another, their fickleness and mutability betraying the insufficiency of their knowledge and the weakness of their judgment, since having perfection within their reach, they perpetually brought forward the imperfect and useless. "The chain-work was now completed around all the eight sides, and the builders, animated by success, worked vigorously; but being pressed more than usual by Filippo, and having received certain reprimands concerning the masonry and in relation to other matters of daily occurrence, discontents began to prevail. Moved by this circumstance and by their envy, the chiefs among them drew together and got up a faction, declaring that the work was a laborious and perilous undertaking, and that they would not proceed with the vaulting of the cupola, but on condition of receiving large payments, although their wages had already been increased and were much higher than was usual: by these means they hoped to injure Filippo and increase their own gains. This circumstance displeased the wardens greatly, as it did Filippo also; but the latter, having reflected on the matter, took his resolution, and one Saturday evening he dismissed them all. The men seeing themselves thus sent about their business, and not knowing how the affair would turn, were very sullen; but on the following Monday Filippo set ten Lombards to work at the building, and by remaining constantly present with them, and saying, 'do this here' and 'do that there,' he taught them so much in one day that they were able to continue the work during many weeks. The masons, seeing themselves thus disgraced as well as deprived of their employment, and knowing that they would find no work equally profitable, sent messengers to Filippo, declaring that they would willingly return, and recommending themselves to his consideration. Filippo kept them for several days in suspense, and seemed not inclined to admit them again; they were afterwards reinstated, but with lower wages than they had received at first: thus where they had thought to make gain they suffered loss, and by seeking to revenge themselves on Filippo, they brought injury and shame on their own heads. "The tongues of the envious were now silenced, and when the building was seen to proceed so happily, the genius of Filippo obtained its due consideration; and, by all who judged dispassionately, he was already held to have shown a boldness which has, perhaps, never before been displayed in their works, by any architect, ancient or modern. This opinion was confirmed by the fact that Filippo now brought out his model, in which all might see the extraordinary amount of thought bestowed on every detail of the building. The varied invention displayed in the staircases, in the provision of lights, both within and without, so that none might strike or injure themselves in the darkness, were all made manifest, with the careful consideration evinced by the different supports of iron which were placed to assist the footsteps wherever the ascent was steep. In addition to all this, Filippo had even thought of the irons for fixing scaffolds within the cupola, if ever they should be required for the execution of mosaics or pictures; he had selected the least dangerous positions for the places of the conduits, to be afterwards constructed for carrying off the rain water, had shown where these were to be covered and where uncovered; and had moreover contrived different outlets and apertures, whereby the force of the winds should be diminished, to the end that neither vapors nor the vibrations of the earth, should have power to do injury to the building: all which proved the extent to which he had profited by his studies, during the many years of his residence in Rome. When in addition to these things, the superintendents considered how much he had accomplished in the shaping, fixing, uniting, and securing the stones of this immense pile, they were almost awe-struck on perceiving that the mind of one man had been capable of all that Filippo had now proved himself able to perform. His powers and facilities continually increased, and that to such an extent, that there was no operation, however difficult and complex, which he did not render easy and simple; of this he gave proof in one instance among others, by the employment of wheels and counterpoises to raise heavy weights, so that one ox could draw more than six pairs could have moved by the ordinary methods. The building had now reached such a height, that when a man had once arrived at the summit, it was a very great labor to descend to the ground, and the workmen lost much time in going to their meals, and to drink; arrangements were therefore made by Filippo, for opening wine-shops and eating-houses in the cupola; where the required food being sold, none were compelled to leave their labor until the evening, which was a relief and convenience to the men, as well as a very important advantage to the work. Perceiving the building to proceed rapidly, and finding all his undertakings happily successful, the zeal and confidence of Filippo increased, and he labored perpetually; he went himself to the ovens where the bricks were made, examined the clay, proved the quality of the working, and when they were baked he would select and set them apart, with his own hands. In like manner, while the stones were under the hands of the stone-cutters, he would look narrowly to see that they were hard and free from clefts; he supplied the stone-cutters with models in wood or wax, or hastily cut on the spot from turnips, to direct them in the shaping and junction of the different masses; he did the same for the men who prepared the iron work; Filippo likewise invented hook hinges, with the mode of fixing them to the door-posts, and greatly facilitated the practice of architecture, which was certainly brought by his labors to a perfection that it would else perhaps never have attained among the Tuscans. "In the year 1423, when the utmost rejoicing and festivity was prevailing in Florence, Filippo was chosen one of the _Signori_ for the district of San Giovanni, for the months of May and June; Lapo Niccolini being chosen Gonfalonier for the district of Santa Croce: and if Filippo be found registered in the Priorista as 'di Ser Brunellesce Lippi,' this need not occasion surprise, since they called him so after his grandfather, Lippo, instead of 'di Lapi,' as they ought to have done. And this practice is seen to prevail in the Priorista, with respect to many others, as is well known to all who have examined it, or who are acquainted with the custom of those times. Filippo performed his functions carefully in that office; and in others connected with the magistracy of the city, to which he was subsequently appointed, he constantly acquitted himself with the most judicious consideration. "The two vaults of the cupola were now approaching their close, at the circular window where the lantern was to begin, and there now remained to Filippo, who had made various models in wood and clay, both of the one and the other, in Rome and Florence, to decide finally as to which of these he would put in execution, wherefore he resolved to complete the gallery, and accordingly made different plans for it, which remained in the hall of wardens after his death, but which by the neglect of those officials have since been lost. But it was not until our own days that even a fragment was executed on a part of one of the eight sides (to the end that the building might be completed); but as it was not in accordance with the plan of Filippo, it was removed by the advice of Michael Angelo Buonarotti, and was not again attempted. "Filippo also constructed a model for the lantern, with his own hand; it had eight sides, the proportions were in harmony with those of the cupola, and for the invention as well as variety and decoration, it was certainly very beautiful. He did not omit the staircase for ascending to the ball, which was an admirable thing; but as he had closed the entrance with a morsel of wood fixed at the lower part, no one but himself knew its position. Filippo was now highly renowned, but notwithstanding this, and although he had already overcome the envy and abated the arrogance of so many opponents, he could not yet escape the vexation of finding that all the masters of Florence, when his model had been seen, were setting themselves to make others in various manners; nay, there was even a lady of the Gaddi family, who ventured to place her knowledge in competition with that of Filippo. The latter, meanwhile, could not refrain from laughing at the presumption of these people, and when he was told by certain of his friends that he ought not to show his model to any artist lest they should learn from it, he replied that there was but one true model, and that the others were good for nothing. Some of the other masters had used parts of Filippo's model for their own, which, when the latter perceived, he remarked, 'The next model made by this personage will be mine altogether.' The work of Filippo was very highly praised, with the exception, that, not perceiving the staircase by which the ball was to be attained, the model was considered defective on that point. The superintendents determined, nevertheless, to give him the commission for the work, but on condition that he should show the staircase;[5] whereupon Filippo, removing the morsel of wood which he had placed at the foot of the stair, showed it constructed as it is now seen, within one of the piers, and presenting the form of a hollow reed or blow-pipe, having a recess or groove on one side, with bars of bronze, by means of which the summit was gradually attained. Filippo was now at an age which rendered it impossible that he should live to see the lantern completed; he therefore left directions, by his will, that it should be built after the model here described, and according to the rules which he had laid down in writing, affirming that the fabric would otherwise be in danger of falling, since, being constructed with the pointed arch, it required to be rendered secure by means of the pressure of the weight to be thus added. But, though Filippo could not complete the edifice before his death, he raised the lantern to the height of several braccia, causing almost all the marbles required for the completion of the building to be carefully prepared and brought to the place. At the sight of these huge masses as they arrived, the people stood amazed, marvelling that it should be possible for Filippo to propose the laying of such a weight on the cupola. It was, indeed, the opinion of many intelligent men that it could not possibly support that weight. It appeared to them to be a piece of good fortune that he had conducted it so far, and they considered the loading it so heavy to be a tempting of Providence. Filippo constantly laughed at these fears, and having prepared all the machines and instruments required for the construction of the edifice, he ceased not to employ all his time in taking thought for its future requirements, providing and preparing all the minutiæ, even to guarding against the danger of the marbles being chipped as they were drawn up: to which intent the arches of the tabernacles were built within defences of woodwork; and for all beside the master gave models and written directions, as we have said. "How beautiful this building is, it will itself bear testimony. With respect to the height, from the level ground to the commencement of the lantern, there are one hundred and fifty-four braccia;[6] the body of the lanthorn is thirty-six braccia high; the copper ball four braccia; the cross eight braccia; in all two hundred and two braccia. And it may be confidently affirmed that the ancients never carried their buildings to so vast a height, nor committed themselves to so great a risk as to dare a competition with the heavens, which this structure verily appears to do, seeing that it rears itself to such an elevation that the hills around Florence do not appear to equal it. And of a truth it might seem that the heavens were envious of its height, since their lightnings perpetually strike it. While this work was in progress, Filippo constructed many other fabrics." BRUNELLESCHI'S ENTHUSIASM. One morning, as Brunelleschi was amusing himself on the Piazza di Santa Maria del Fiore, in company with Donatello and other artists, the conversation happened to turn on ancient sculpture. Donatello related that when he was returning from Rome, he had taken the road of Orvieto, to see the remarkable façade of the Cathedral of that city--a highly celebrated work, executed by various masters, and considered in those days a very remarkable production. He added that as he was passing through Cortona, he had seen in the capitular church of that city a most beautiful antique marble vase, adorned with sculpture--a rare thing at that time, as most of the beautiful works of antiquity have since been brought to light. As Donatello proceeded to describe the manner in which the artist had treated this work, the delicacy, beauty, and perfection of the workmanship, Filippo became inflamed with such an ardent desire to see it, that he set off immediately, on foot, to Cortona, dressed as he was in his mantle, hood, and wooden shoes, without communicating his purpose to any one. Finding that Donatello had not been too lavish of his praise, he drew the vase, returned to Florence, and surprised his friends with the accurate drawing he had made, before they knew of his departure, they believing that he must be occupied with his inventions. This urn, or funeral vase, according to the Florentine editors of Vasari, is still in the Cathedral of Cortona. The sculptures represent the Battle of the Centaurs and Lapithæ, or as some say, a Warlike Expedition of Bacchus. The design and workmanship are exquisite. It was found in a field without the city, and almost close to the Cathedral. BRUNELLESCHI AND DONATELLO. "Among other works," says Vasari, "Donato received an order for a crucifix in wood, for the church of Santa Croce at Florence, on which he bestowed extraordinary labor. When the work was completed, believing himself to have produced an admirable thing, he showed it to Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, his most intimate friend, desiring to have his opinion of it. Filippo, who had expected from the words of Donato, to see a much finer production, smiled somewhat as he regarded it, and Donato seeing this, entreated him by the friendship existing between them, to say what he thought of it. Whereupon Filippo, who was exceedingly frank, replied that Donatello appeared to him to have placed a clown on the cross, and not a figure resembling that of Jesus Christ, whose person was delicately beautiful, and in all parts the most perfect form of man that had ever been born. Donato hearing himself censured where he had expected praise, and more hurt than he was perhaps willing to admit, replied, 'If it were as easy to execute a work as to judge it, my figure would appear to thee to be Christ and not a boor; but take wood, and try to make one thyself.' Filippo, without saying anything more, returned home, and set to work on a crucifix, wherein he labored to surpass Donato, that he might not be condemned by his own judgment; but he suffered no one to know what he was doing. At the end of some months, the work was completed to the height of perfection, and this done, Filippo one morning invited Donato to dine with him, and the latter accepted the invitation. Thereupon, as they were proceeding together towards the house of Filippo, they passed by the Mercato Vecchio, where the latter purchased various articles, and giving them to Donato, said, 'Do thou go forward with these things to the house, and wait for me there; I'll be after thee in a moment.' Donato, therefore, having entered the house, had no sooner done so than he saw the crucifix, which Filippo had placed in a suitable light. Stopping short to examine the work, he found it so perfectly executed, that feeling himself conquered, full of astonishment, and, as it were startled out of himself, he dropped the hands which were holding up his apron, wherein he had placed the purchases, when the whole fell to the ground, eggs, cheese, and other things, all broken to pieces and mingled together. But Donato, not recovering from his astonishment, remained still gazing in amazement and like one out of his wits when Filippo arrived, and inquired, laughing, 'What hast thou been about, Donato? and what dost thou mean us to have for dinner, since thou hast overturned everything?' 'I, for my part,' replied Donato, 'have had my share of dinner for to-day; if thou must needs have thine, take it. But enough said: to thee it has been given to represent Christ; to me, boors only.'" This crucifix now adorns the altar of the chapel of the Gondi. DONATELLO. This old Florentine sculptor was born in 1383. He was the first of the moderns who forsook the stiff and gothic manner, and endeavored to restore to sculpture the grace and beauty of the antique. He executed a multitude of works in wood, marble and bronze, consisting of images, statues, busts, basso-relievos, monuments, equestrian statues, etc. which gained him great reputation, and some of which are much esteemed at the present day. He was much patronized by Cosmo de' Medici, and his son Pietro. Among Donatello's principal works, are three statues, each three braccia and a half high, (Vasari erroneously says four, and each five braccia high), for the façade of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore, which faces the Campanile. They represent St. John; David, called Lo Zuccone (so called, because bald-headed); and Solomon, or as some say, the prophet Jeremiah. The Zuccone is considered the most extraordinary and the most beautiful work ever produced by Donatello, who, while working on it, was so delighted with his success, that he frequently exclaimed, "Speak then! why wilt thou not speak?" Whenever he wished to affirm a thing in a manner that should preclude all doubt, he would say, "By the faith I place in my Zuccone." DONATELLO AND THE MERCHANT. A rich Genoese merchant commissioned Donatello to execute his bust in bronze, of life size. When the work was completed, it was pronounced a capital performance, and Cosmo de' Medici, who was the friend of both parties, caused it to be placed in the upper court of the palace, between the battlements which overlook the street, that it might be seen by the citizens. When the merchant, unacquainted with the value of such works, came to pay for it, the price demanded appeared to him so exorbitant that he refused to take it, whereupon the mutter was referred to Cosmo. When the latter sought to settle the difference, he found the offer of the merchant to be very far from the just demand of Donatello, and turning towards him, observed that he offered too small compensation. The merchant replied that Donatello could have made it in a month, and would thus be gaining half a florin a day (about one dollar). Donatello, disgusted and stung with rage, told the merchant that he had found means in the hundredth part of an hour to destroy the whole labor and cures of a year, and knocked the bust out of the window, which was dashed to pieces on the pavement below, observing, at the same time, that "it was evident he was better versed in bargaining for horse-beans than in purchasing statues." The merchant now ashamed of his conduct, and regretting what had happened, offered him double his price if he would reconstruct the bust,--but Donatello, though poor, flatly refused to do it on any terms, even at the request of Cosmo himself. DONATELLO AND HIS KINSMAN. When Donatello was very sick, certain of his kinsfolk, who were well to do in the world, but had not visited him in many years, went to condole with him in his last illness. Before they left, they told him it was his duty to leave to them a small farm which he had in the territories of Prato, and this they begged very earnestly, though it was small and produced a very small income. Donatello, perceiving the motive of their visit, thus rebuked them: "I cannot content you in this matter, kinsmen, because I resolve--and it appears to me just and proper--to leave the farm to the poor husbandman who has always tilled it, and who has bestowed great labor on it; not to you, who without ever having done anything for it, or for me, but only thought of obtaining it, now come with this visit of yours, desiring that I should leave it to you. Go! and the Lord be with you." DEATH OF DONATELLO. Donatello died on the 13th of December, 1466. He was buried with great pomp and solemnity in the church of San Lorenzo, near the tomb of Cosmo, as he himself had commanded (for he had purchased the right), "to the end," as he said, "that his body might be near him when dead, as his spirit had ever been near him when in life." Bottari observes that another reason for his choice of San Lorenzo, may have been that many of his works were in that church. DONATELLO AND MICHAEL ANGELO COMPARED. "I will not omit to mention," says Vasari, "that the most learned and very reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, of whom we have before spoken in relation to other matters, has collected into a large book, innumerable drawings of distinguished painters and sculptors, ancient as well as modern, and among these are two drawings on two leaves opposite to each other, one of which is by Donato, and the other by Michael Angelo Buonarroti. On these he has with much judgment inscribed the two Greek mottos which follow; on the drawing of Donato, "[Greek: Ê Donatos Bonarrotixei]," and on that of Michael Angelo, "[Greek: Ê Bonarrotos Donatixei]," which in Latin ran thus: _Aut Donatus Bonarrotom exprimit et refert, aut Bonarrotus Donatum_; and in our language they mean, 'Either the spirit of Donato worked in Buonarroti, or that of Buonarroti first acted in Donato.'" SOFONISBA ANGUISCIOLA'S EARLY DISTINCTION. This noble lady of Cremona (born about 1530), was one of six sisters, all amiable, and much distinguished in arts and letters. She displayed a taste for drawing at a very early age, and soon became the best pupil in the school of Antonio Campi. One of her early sketches, of a boy caught with his hand in the claw of a lobster, with a little girl laughing at his plight, was in possession of Vasari, and by him esteemed worthy of a place in a volume which he had filled with drawings by the most famous masters of that great age. Portraiture was her chief study; and Vasari commends a picture which he saw at her father's house, of three of the sisters, and an ancient housekeeper of the family playing at chess, as a work "painted with so much skill and care, that the figures wanted only voice to appear alive." He also praises a portrait which she painted of herself, and presented to Pope Julius III., who died in 1555, which shows that she must have attracted the notice of princes while yet in her girlhood. At Milan, whither she accompanied her father, she painted the portrait of the Duke of Sessa, the Viceroy, who rewarded her with four pieces of brocade and various rich gifts. SOFONISBA'S VISIT TO SPAIN. Her name having become famous in Italy, in 1559, the King of Spain ordered the Duke of Alba, who was then at Rome, to invite her to the court of Madrid. She arrived there in the same year, and was received with great distinction, and lodged in the palace. Her first work was the portrait of the king, who was so much pleased with the performance that he rewarded her with a diamond worth 1500 ducats, and settled upon her a pension of 200 ducats. Her next sitters were the young queen Elizabeth of Valois, known in Spain as Isabel of the Peace, then in the bloom of bridal beauty, and the unhappy boy, Don Carlos. By the desire of Pope Pius IV., she made a second portrait of the Queen, sent to his Holiness with a dutiful letter, which Vasari has preserved, as well as the gracious reply of the pontiff, who assures her that her painting shall be placed among his most precious treasures. Sofonisba held the post of lady-in-waiting to the queen, and was for some time governess to her daughter, the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia,--an appointment which proves that she must have resided in Spain for some time after 1566, the year of that princess' birth. SOFONISBA'S MARRIAGES. Her royal patrons at last married their fair artist, now arrived to a mature age, to Don Fabrizio de Moncada, a noble Sicilian, giving her a dowry of 12,000 ducats and a pension of 1,000, besides many rich presents in tapestries and jewels. The newly wedded pair retired to Palermo, where the husband died some years after. Sofonisba was then invited back to the court of Madrid, but excused herself on account of her desire to see Cremona and her kindred once more. Embarking for this purpose on board of a Genoese galley, she was entertained with such gallant courtesy by the captain, Orazio Lomellini, one of the merchant princes of the "city of Palaces," that she fell in love with him, and, according to Soprani, offered him her hand in marriage, which he accepted. On hearing of her second nuptials, their Catholic Majesties added 400 crowns to her pension. SOFONISBA'S RESIDENCE AT GENOA, AND HER INTERCOURSE WITH VANDYCK. After her second marriage, Sofonisba continued to pursue the art at Genoa, where her house became the resort of all the polished and intellectual society of the Republic. The Empress of Germany paid her a visit on her way to Spain, and accepted a little picture,--one of the most finished and beautiful of her works. She was also visited by her former charge, the Infanta, then the wife of the Archduke Albert, and with him co-sovereign of Flanders. That princess spent many hours in conversing with her of by-gone days and family affairs; she also sat for her portrait, and presented Sofonisba with a gold chain enriched with jewels, as a memorial of their friendship. Thus courted in the society of Genoa, and caressed by royalty, this eminent paintress lived to the extreme age of ninety-three years. A medal was struck in her honor at Bologna; artists listened reverentially to her opinions; and poets sang her praises. Though deprived of sight in her latter years, she retained to the last her other faculties, her love of art, and her relish for the society of its professors. Vandyck was frequently her guest during his residence at Genoa, in 1621; and he used to say of her that he had learned more of the practical principles of the art from a blind woman, than by studying all the works of the best Italian masters. CARRIERA ROSALBA. This celebrated Italian paintress was born at Chiozza, near Venice, in 1675. She acquired an immense reputation, and was invited to several of the courts of Europe. Few artists have equalled Rosalba in crayon painting. ROSALBA'S MODESTY. Notwithstanding she received so many flattering marks of distinction from crowned heads, Rosalba's native modesty never deserted her, and she seemed to esteem her works less than did many of her admirers, because she was sensible how far she fell short of her idea of perfection. "Everything I do," said she, "seems good enough to me just after I have done it, and perhaps for a few hours afterwards, but then I begin to discover my imperfections!" Thus it is with true merit; those who are superficial or pretending can never find out, or never will acknowledge their own faults. ROSALBA'S KNOWLEDGE OF TEMPERS. Rosalba used to say, "I have so long been accustomed to study features, and the expression of the mind by them, that I know people's tempers by their faces." She frequently surprised her friends by the accuracy of character which she read in the faces of persons who were entire strangers to her. ELIZABETH SIRANI. Elizabeth Sirani was born at Bologna in 1638. She early exhibited the most extraordinary talent for painting, which was perfectly cultivated by her father, Gio. Andrea Sirani, an excellent disciple and imitator of Guido. She attached herself to an imitation of the best style of Guido, which unites great relief with the most captivating amenity. Her first public work appeared in 1655, when she was seventeen years of age. It is almost incredible that in a short life of not more than twenty-six or twenty-seven years, she could have executed the long list of works enumerated by Malvasia, copied from a register kept by herself, amounting to upwards of one hundred and fifty pictures and portraits; and our astonishment is increased, when we are told by the same author, that many of them are pictures and altar-pieces of large size, and finished with a care that excludes all appearance of negligence and haste. There are quite a number of her works in the churches of Bologna. Lanzi also speaks of her in terms of high commendation, and says, that "in her smaller works, painted by commission, she still improved herself, as may be seen by her numerous pictures of Madonnas, Magdalens, saints, and the infant Saviour, found in the Zampieri, Zambeccari, and Caprara palaces at Bologna, and in the Corsini and Bolognetti collections at Rome." She received many commissions from many of the sovereigns and most distinguished persons of Europe. She had two sisters, Anna and Barbara, whom, according to Crespi, she instructed in the art, and who possessed considerable talent. Her fame was so great, that after her death not only the works of her sisters, but many of those of her father, were attributed to her. Lanzi says, "She is nearly the sole individual of the family whose name occurs in collections out of Bologna." She also executed some spirited etchings mostly from her own designs. DEATH OF ELIZABETH SIRANI. This accomplished, amiable, and talented lady was cut off in the flower of her life, August 29th, 1665, by poison, administered by one of her own maids, instigated, as is supposed, by some jealous young artists. Her melancholy death was bewailed with demonstrations of public sorrow, and her remains were interred with great pomp and solemnity in the church of S. Domenico, in the same vault where reposed the ashes of Guido. RACHEL RUYSCH. This celebrated paintress of fruit and flowers was born at Amsterdam in 1664. She was the daughter of Frederick Ruisch or Ruysch, the celebrated professor of anatomy. She early showed an extraordinary taste for depicting fruit and flowers, and attained to such perfection in her art, that some have not hesitated to equal and even prefer her works to those of John van Huysum. She grouped her flowers in the most tasteful and picturesque manner, and depicted them with a grace and brilliancy that rivalled nature. Descamps says that "in her pictures of fruit and flowers, she surpassed nature herself." The extraordinary talents of this lady recommended her to the patronage of the Elector Palatine--a great admirer of her pictures--for whom she executed some of her choicest works, and received for them a munificent reward. Though she exercised her talents to an advanced age, her works are exceedingly rare, so great was the labor bestowed upon them. She spent seven years in painting two pictures, a fruit and a flower piece, which she presented to one of her daughters as a marriage portion. She married Jurian Pool, an eminent portrait painter, by whom she had ten children; she is frequently called by his name, though she always signed her pictures with her maiden name. Smith, in his Catalogue raisonné, vols. vi. and ix., gives a description of only about thirty pieces by her--a proof of their extreme rarity. They now command very high prices when offered for sale, which rarely happens. She died in 1760, aged 86 years. SIR ANTHONY VANDYCK. This eminent Flemish painter was born at Antwerp in 1599. His father early gave him instruction in drawing; he was also instructed by his mother, who painted landscapes, and was very skillful in embroidery. He studied afterwards under Henry van Balen, and made rapid progress in the art; but attracted by the fame of Rubens, he entered the school of that master, and showed so much ability as to be soon entrusted with the execution of some of his instructor's designs. Some writers, among whom D'Argenville was the first, assert that Rubens became jealous of Vandyck's growing excellence, and therefore advised him to devote himself to portrait painting; assigning the following anecdote as the cause of his jealousy. During the short absences of Rubens from his house, for the purpose of recreation, his disciples frequently obtained access to his studio, by means of bribing an old servant who kept the keys; and on one of these occasions, while they were all eagerly pressing forward to view the great picture of the Descent from the Cross (although later investigations concerning dates seem to indicate that it was some other picture), Diepenbeck accidentally fell against the canvas, effacing the face of the Virgin, and the Magdalen's arm, which had just been finished, and were not yet dry. Fearful of expulsion from the school, the terrified pupils chose Vandyck to restore the work, and he completed it the same day with such success that Rubens did not at first perceive the change, and afterwards concluded not to alter it. Walpole entertains a different and more rational view respecting Rubens' supposed jealousy: he thinks that Vandyck felt the hopelessness of surpassing his master in historical painting, and therefore resolved to devote himself to portrait. One authority states that the above mentioned incident only increased Rubens' esteem for his pupil, in perfect accordance with the distinguished character for generosity and liberality, which that great master so often evinced, and which forms very strong presumptive evidence against so base an accusation. Besides, his advice to Vandyck to visit Italy--where his own powers had been, as his pupil's would be, greatly strengthened--may be considered as sufficient to refute it entirely. They appear to have parted on the best terms; Vandyck presented Rubens with an Ecce Homo, Christ in the Garden, and a portrait of Helen Forman, Rubens' second wife; he was presented in return, by Rubens, with one of his finest horses. VANDYCK'S VISIT TO ITALY. At the age of twenty, Vandyck set out for Italy, but delayed some time at Brussels, fascinated by the charms of a peasant girl of Saveltheim, named Anna van Ophem, who persuaded him to paint two pictures for the church of her native place--a St. Martin on horseback, painted from himself and the horse given him by Rubens; and a Holy Family, for which the girl and her parents were the models. On arriving in Italy, he spent some time at Venice, studying with great attention the works of Titian; after which he visited Genoa, and painted many excellent portraits for the nobility, as well as several pictures for the churches and private collections, which gained him great applause. From Genoa he went to Rome, where he was also much employed, and lived in great style. His portrait of Cardinal Bentivoglio, painted about this time, is one of his masterpieces, and in every respect an admirable picture; it is now in the Palazzo Pitti, at Florence, hanging near Raffaelle's celebrated portrait of Leo X. Vandyck was known at Rome as the _Pittore Cavalieresco_; his countrymen there being men of low and intemperate habits, he avoided their society, and was thenceforward so greatly annoyed by their criticisms and revilings, that he was obliged to leave Rome about 1625, and return to Genoa, where he met with a flattering reception, and plentiful encouragement. Invited to Palermo, he visited that city, and painted the portraits of Prince Philibert of Savoy, the Viceroy of Sicily, and several distinguished persons, among whom was the celebrated paintress Sofonisba Anguisciola, then in her 92d year; but the plague breaking out, he returned to Genoa, and thence to his own country. VANDYCK'S RETURN TO ANTWERP. On his return to Antwerp, whither his reputation had preceded him, Vandyck was speedily employed by various religious societies, and his picture of St. Augustine for the church of the Augustines in that city, established his reputation among the first painters of his time. He painted other historical pictures, for the principal public edifices at Antwerp, Brussels, Mechlin, and Ghent; but acquired greater fame by his portraits, particularly his well known series of the eminent artists of his time, which were engraved by Vorstermans, Pontius, Bolswert, and others. His brilliant reputation at length roused the jealousy of his cotemporaries, many of whom were indefatigable in their intrigues to calumniate his works. In addition to these annoyances, the conduct of the canons of the Collegiate church of Courtray, for whom he painted an admirable picture of the Elevation of the Cross, proved too much for his endurance. After he had exerted all his powers to produce a masterpiece of art, the canons, upon viewing the picture, pronounced it a contemptible performance, and the artist a miserable dauber; and Vandyck could hardly obtain payment for his work. When the picture had received high commendation from good judges, they became sensible of their error, and requested him to execute two more works; but the indignant artist refused the commission. Disgusted with such treatment, Vandyck readily accepted an invitation to visit the Hague, from Frederick, Prince of Orange, whose portrait he painted, and those of his family, the principal personages of his court, and the foreign ambassadors. VANDYCK'S VISIT TO ENGLAND. Hearing of the great encouragement extended to the arts by Charles I., he determined to visit England in 1629. While there, he lodged with his friend and countryman, George Geldorp the painter, and expected to be presented to the king; but his hopes not being realized, he visited Paris; and meeting no better success there, be returned to his own country, with the intention of remaining there during the rest of his life. Charles, however, having seen a portrait by Vandyck, of the musician, Fic. Laniere, director of the music of the king's chapel, requested Sir Kenelm Digby to invite him to return to England. Accordingly, in 1631, he arrived a second time at London, and was received by the king in a flattering manner. He was lodged at Blackfriars, among the King's artists, where his majesty frequently went to sit for his portrait, as well as to enjoy the society of the painter. The honor of knighthood was conferred upon him in 1632, and the following year he was appointed painter to the king, with an annuity of £200. Prosperity now flowed in upon the Fleming in abundance, and although he operated with the greatest industry and facility, painting single portraits in one day, he could hardly fulfill all his commissions. Naturally fond of display, he kept a splendid establishment, and his sumptuous table was frequented by persons of the highest distinction. He often detained his sitters to dinner, where he had an opportunity to observe more of their peculiar characteristics, and retouched their pictures in the afternoon. Notwithstanding his distinguished success, he does not appear to have been satisfied with eminence in portrait painting; and not long after his marriage with Maria Ruthven, granddaughter of Lord Gowrie, he went to Antwerp with his lady, on a visit to his family and friends, and thence proceeded to Paris. The fame which Rubens had acquired by his celebrated performances at the Luxembourg, rendered Vandyck desirous to execute the decorations at the Louvre; but on arriving at the French capital, he found the commission disposed of to Nicholas Poussin. He soon returned to England, and being still desirous of executing some great work, proposed to the king through Sir Kenelm Digby, to decorate the walls of the Banqueting House (of which the ceiling was already adorned by Rubens), with the History and Progress of the Order of the Garter. The sum demanded was £8000, and while the king was treating with him for a less amount, the project was terminated by the death of Vandyck, December 9th, 1641, aged 42 years. He was buried with extraordinary honors in St. Paul's cathedral. His high living had brought on the gout during his latter years, and luxury had considerably reduced his fortune, which he endeavored to repair by the study of alchemy. He left property amounting to about £20,000. In his private character, Vandyck was universally esteemed for the urbanity of his manners, and his generous patronage to all who excelled in any science or art, many of whose portraits he painted gratuitously. WILLIAM VAN DE VELDE, THE ELDER. This eminent Dutch marine painter was born at Leyden, in 1610. He drew everything after nature, and was one of the most correct, spirited, and admirable designers of marine subjects. He made an incredible number of drawings on paper, heightened with India ink, all of them sketched from nature with uncommon elegance and fidelity. His talents recommended him to the notice of the States of Holland, and Descamps says they furnished him with a small vessel to accompany their fleets, that he might design the different manoeuvres and engagements; that he was present in various sea-fights, in which he fearlessly exposed himself to the most imminent danger, while making his sketches; he was present at the severe battle between the English and Dutch fleets, under the command of the Duke of York and Admiral Opdam, in which the ship of the latter, with five hundred men, was blown up, and in the still more memorable engagement in the following year, between the English under the Duke of Albemarle, and the Dutch Admiral de Ruyter, which lasted three days. It is said that during these engagements he sailed alternately between the fleets, so as to represent minutely every movement of the ships, and the most, material circumstances of the actions with incredible exactness and truth. So intent was he upon his drawing, that he constantly exposed himself to the greatest danger, without the least apparent anxiety. He wrote over the ships their names and those of their commanders; and under his own frail craft _V. Velde's Gallijodt_, or _Myn Gallijodt_. VAN DE VELDE AND CHARLES II. After having executed many capital pictures for the States of Holland, Van de Velde was invited to England by Charles II., who had become acquainted with his talents during his residence in Holland. He arrived in London about 1675, well advanced in years, and the king settled upon him a pension of £100 per annum until his death, in 1693, as appears from this inscription on his tomb-stone in St. James' church: "Mr. William van de Velde, senior, late painter of sea-fights to their Majesties, King Charles II. and King James, died in 1693." He was accompanied by his son, who was also taken into the service of the king, as appears from an order of the privy seal, as follows: "Charles the Second, by the grace of God, &c., to our dear Cousin, Prince Rupert, and the rest of our commissioners for executing the place of Lord High Admiral of England, greeting. Whereas, we have thought fit to allow the salary of £100 per annum unto William van de Velde the Elder, for taking and making draughts of sea-fights; and the like salary of £100 per annum unto William van de Velde the younger, for putting the said draughts in color for our particular use; our will and pleasure is, and we do hereby authorize and require you to issue your orders for the present and the future establishment of said salaries to the aforesaid William van de Velde the Elder and William van de Velde the Younger, to be paid unto them, or either of them, during our pleasure, and for so doing, these our letters shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge. Given under our privy-seal, at our palace of Westminster, the 20th day of February, in the 26th year of our reign." Many of the large pictures of sea-fights in England, and doubtless in Holland, bearing the signature _W. van de Velde_, and generally attributed to the son, were executed by him from the designs of his father. Such are the series of twelve naval engagements and sea-ports in the palace at Hampton Court, though signed like the best works of the younger van de Velde; they are dated 1676 and 1682. WILLIAM VAN DE VELDE THE YOUNGER. This eminent artist was the son of the preceding, and born at Amsterdam in 1633. He had already acquired a distinguished reputation in his native country for his admirable cabinet pictures of marine subjects, when he accompanied his father to England, where his talents not only recommended him to the patronage of the king, but to the principal nobility and personages of his court, for whom he executed many of his most beautiful works. "The palm," says Lord Orford, "is not less disputed with Raffaelle for history, than with Van de Velde for sea-pieces." He died in 1707. THE YOUNGER VAN DE VELDE'S WORKS. Like his father, the younger Van de Velde designed everything from nature, and his compositions are distinguished by a more elegant and tasteful arrangement of his objects, than is to be found in the productions of any other painter of marines. His vessels are designed with the greatest accuracy, and from the improvements which had been made in ship-building, they are of a more graceful and pleasing form than those of his predecessors; the cordage and rigging are finished with a delicacy, and at the same time with a freedom almost without example; his small figures are drawn with remarkable correctness, and touched with the greatest spirit. In his calms the sky is sunny, and brilliant, and every object is reflected in the glassy smoothness of the water, with a luminous transparency peculiar to himself. In his fresh breezes and squalls, the swell and curl of the waves is delineated with a truth and fidelity which could only be derived from the most attentive and accurate study of nature; in his storms, tempests, and hurricanes, the tremendous conflict of the elements and the horrors of shipwreck are represented with a truthfulness that strikes the beholder with terror. The works of the younger Van de Velde are very numerous, and the greater part of them are in England, where Houbraken says they were so highly esteemed that they were eagerly sought after in Holland, and purchased at high prices to transport to London; so that they are rarely to be met with in his native country. Smith, in his Catalogue raisonné, vol. vi. and Supplement, describes about three hundred and thirty pictures by him, the value of which has increased amazingly, as may be seen by a few examples. The two marines now in the Earl of Ellesmere's collection, one a View of the Entrance to the Texel, sold in 1766 for £80, now valued at £1,000; the other sold in 1765 for £84, now valued at £500. A Sea-View, formerly in the collection of Sir Robert Peel, sold in 1772 for only £31; brought in 1828, £300. The Departure of Charles II. from Holland in 1660, sold in 1781 for £82; it brought recently, at public sale, £800. A View off the Coast of Holland sold in 1816 for £144; it brought, in Sir Simon Clarke's sale in 1840, £1,029. A View on the Sea-Shore, 16 inches by 12, sold in 1726 for £9, and in 1835 for £108. The picture known as _Le Coup de Canon_, sold in 1786 for £52, in 1790 for only £36, but in 1844 it brought 1,380 guineas. The drawings, and especially the sketches and studies of the younger Van de Velde are very numerous, and prove the indefatigable pains he took in designing his vessels, their appurtenances, and the ordonnance of his compositions. His sketches are executed in black lead only; his more finished drawings with the pencil or pen, and shaded with India ink. He executed these with wonderful facility; it is recorded that he was so rapid in his sketching, that he frequently filled a quire of paper in an evening. Stanley says that during the years 1778 and 1780, about 8,000 of his drawings were sold in London at public auction. Some of his choicest drawings in India ink brought, at the sale of M. Goll de Frankenstein at Amsterdam, in 1833, and at that of the late Baron Verstolk de Soelen, in the same city in 1847, prices varying from £27 up to £144 each. He inherited his father's drawings, and all these seem now to be attributed to him. NICHOLAS POUSSIN. This distinguished French painter was born at Andely, in Normandy, in 1594. He was descended from a noble family, originally of Soissons, whose fortunes had been ruined in the disastrous civil wars in the time of Charles IX. and Henry III. His father, Jean Poussin, after serving in the army of Henry IV., settled on a small paternal inheritance at Andely, where he cultivated a taste for literature and the sciences, and instructed his son in the same. Young Poussin had already distinguished himself for the solidity of his judgment, and his progress in letters, when a natural fondness for drawing, developed by an acquaintance he had formed with Quintin Varin, an artist of some eminence, induced him to solict the permission of his father to adopt painting as a profession. POUSSIN'S FIRST CELEBRITY. In 1612, at the age of eighteen, Poussin went to Paris in search of improvement, where he devoted himself to studying the best works to which he could gain access (for the fine arts were then at a low ebb in France) with the greatest assiduity. In 1620, according to Felibien, the Jesuits celebrated the canonization of the founder of their order, Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Xavier, on which occasion they determined to display a series of pictures by the first artists in Paris, representing the miracles performed by their patron saints. Of these, Poussin painted six in distemper, in an incredibly short space of time, and when the exhibition came off, although he had been obliged to neglect detail, his pictures excited the greatest admiration on account of the grandeur of conception, and the elegance of design displayed in them. They obtained the preference over all the others, and brought Poussin immediately into notice. POUSSIN'S FIRST VISIT TO ROME. While Poussin resided at Paris, his talents, and the endowments of his mind procured him the esteem of several men of letters and distinction, among whom was the Cav. Marino, the celebrated Italian poet, who happened then to be in Paris. Marino strongly urged him to accompany him to Rome, an invitation which Poussin would gladly have accepted, had he not then been engaged in some commissions of importance, which having completed, he set out for Rome in 1624, where he was warmly received by his friend Marino, who introduced him to the Cardinal Barberini. He however derived little advantage from this favorable notice at the time, as the Cardinal soon after left Rome on his legation to France and Spain, and the Cav. Marino died about the same time. Poussin now found himself a stranger, friendless and unknown in the Eternal City, in very embarrassed circumstances; but he consoled himself with the thought that his wants were few, that he was in the very place where he had long sighed to be, surrounded by the glorious works of ancient and modern art, and that he should have abundant leisure to study. Therefore, though he could scarcely supply his necessities by the disposal of his works, and was often compelled to sell them for the most paltry prices, his courage did not fail him, but rather stimulated him to the greatest assiduity to perfect himself in the art. He lodged in the same house with Francis du Quesnoy, called Il Fiammingo, the state of whose finances at that time were not more flourishing than his own, and he lived in habits of intimacy and strict friendship with that eminent sculptor, with whom he explored, studied, and modeled the most celebrated antique statues and bas-reliefs, particularly the Meleager in the Vatican, from which he derived his rules of proportion. At first he copied several of the works of Titian, and improved his style of coloring, but he afterwards contemplated the works of Raffaelle with an enthusiasm bordering on adoration. The admirable expression and purity of the works of Domenichino, rendered them particularly interesting to him, and he used to regard his Communion of St. Jerome as the second picture at Rome, the Transfiguration by Raffaelle being the first. POUSSIN'S DISTRESS AT ROME. While Poussin was thus pursuing his studies at Rome, he was left by the death of his friend Marino, in a state of extreme distress, and was obliged to dispose of his paintings at the most paltry prices, to procure the necessaries of life. Filibien says that he sold the two fine battle-pieces which were afterwards in the collection of the Duke de Noailles for seven crowns each, and a picture of a Prophet for eight livres. His celebrated picture of "the Ark of God among the Philistines" brought him but sixty crowns; the original purchaser sold it not long afterwards to the Duc de Richelieu for one thousand crowns! POUSSIN'S SUCCESS AT ROME. A brighter day now dawned upon Poussin. What had happened to him, which would have been regarded by most young artists as the greatest misfortune and sunk them in despondency and ruin, proved of the greatest advantage to him. The Cardinal Barberini having returned to Rome, gave him some commissions, which he executed in such an admirable manner as at once established his reputation among those of the greatest artists of the age. The first work he executed for his patron was his celebrated picture of the Death of Germanicus, which Lanzi pronounces one of his finest productions. He next painted the Taking of Jerusalem by Titus. These works gave the Cardinal so much satisfaction that he procured for him the commission to paint a large picture of the Martyrdom of St. Erasmus, for St. Peter's, now in the pontifical palace at Monte Cavallo. These works procured him the friendship and patronage of the Cav. del Pozzo, for whom he painted his first set of pictures, representing the Seven Sacraments, now in the collection of the Duke of Rutland. He afterwards painted another set of the same, with some variations, for M. de Chantelou, formerly in the Orleans collection, now in that of the Marquis of Stafford. POUSSIN'S INVITATION TO PARIS. In 1639, Poussin was invited to Paris by Louis XIII., who honored him on this occasion with the following autograph letter, which was an extraordinary and unusual homage to art: "DEAR AND WELL BELOVED, "Some of our especial servants having made a report to us of the reputation which you have acquired, and the rank which you hold among the best and most famous painters of Italy; and we being desirous, in imitation of our predecessors, to contribute, as much as lies in us, to the ornament and decoration of our royal houses, by fixing around us those who excel in the arts, and whose attainments in them have attracted notice in the places where those arts are most cherished, do therefore write you this letter, to acquaint you that we have chosen and appointed you to be one of our painters in ordinary, and that, henceforward, we will employ you in that capacity. To this effect our intention is, that on the receipt of this present, you shall dispose yourself to come hither, where the services you perform shall meet with as much consideration as do your merits and your works, in the place where you now reside. By our order, given to M. de Noyers, you will learn more particularly the favor we have determined to shew you. We will add nothing to this present, but to pray God to have you in his holy keeping. "Given at Fontainebleau, Jan. 15, 1639." Poussin accepted the invitation with great reluctance, at the earnest solicitation of his friends. On his arrival at Paris he was received with marked distinction, appointed principal painter to the king, with a pension, and accommodated with apartments in the Tuileries. He was commissioned to paint an altar-piece for the chapel of St. Germain en Laie, where he produced his admirable work of the Last Supper, and was engaged to decorate the Gallery of the Louvre with the Labors of Hercules. He had already prepared the designs and some of the cartoons for these works, when he was assailed by the machinations of Simon Vouet and his adherents; and even the landscape painter Fouquieres, jealous of his fame, presumed to criticise his works and detract from their merit. POUSSIN'S RETURN TO ROME. Poussin, naturally of a peaceful turn of mind, fond of retirement and the society of a few select literary friends, was disgusted with the ostentation of the court and the cabals by which he was surrounded; he secretly sighed for the quiet felicity he had left at Rome, and resolved to return thither without delay. For this purpose, he solicited and obtained leave of the king to visit Italy and settle his affairs, and fetch his wife; but when he had once crossed the Alps, no inducement could prevail on him to revisit his native country, or even to leave Rome. During a period of twenty-three years after his return to Rome from Paris, he lived a quiet, unostentatious life, and executed a great number of pictures, which decorate the principal cabinets of Europe, and will ever be regarded as among their most valuable ornaments. He confined himself mostly to works of the large easel size, which were eagerly sought after, and usually disposed of as soon as they were executed. He never made any words about the price of his pictures, but asked a modest and moderate price, which he always marked upon the back of his canvas, and which was invariably paid. Many of his works were sent to Paris, where they were valued next to the productions of Raffaelle. He was plain and unassuming in his manners, very frugal in his living, yet so liberal and generous that at his death he left an estate of only 60,000 livres--about $12,000. Felibien relates an anecdote which pleasingly illustrates his simple and unostentatious mode of life. The Cardinal Mancini was accustomed to visit his studio frequently, and on one occasion, having staid later than usual, Poussin lighted him to the door, at which the prelate observed, "I pity you, Monsieur Poussin, that you have not one servant." "And I," replied the painter, "pity your Excellency much more, that you are obliged to keep so many." SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS' CRITIQUE ON POUSSIN. "The favorite subjects of Poussin were ancient fables; and no painter was ever better qualified to paint such subjects, not only from his being eminently skilled in the knowledge of the ceremonies, customs, and habits of the ancients, but from his being so well acquainted with the different characters which those who invented them gave to their allegorical figures. Though Rubens has shown great fancy in his Satyrs, Silenuses, and Fauns, yet they are not that distinct, separate class of beings which is carefully exhibited by the ancients, and by Poussin. Certainly, when such subjects of antiquity are represented, nothing should remind us of modern times. The mind is thrown back into antiquity, and nothing ought to be introduced that may tend to awaken it from the illusion. "Poussin seemed to think that the style and the language in which such stories are told is not the worse for preserving some relish of the old way of painting, which seemed to give a general uniformity to the whole, so that the mind was thrown back into antiquity, not only by the subject, but also by the execution. "If Poussin, in imitation of the ancients, represents Apollo driving his Chariot out of the sea, by way of representing the sun rising, if he personifies lakes and rivers, it is noways offensive in him, but seems perfectly of a piece with the general air of the picture. On the contrary, if the figures which people his pictures had a modern air and countenance, if they appeared like our countrymen, if the draperies were like cloth or silk of our manufacture, if the landscape had the appearance of a modern one, how ridiculous would Apollo appear instead of the sun, and an old Man or a Nymph with an urn to represent a river or lake?" He also says, in another place, that "it may be doubted whether any alteration of what is considered defective in his works, would not destroy the effect of the whole." POUSSIN'S VIEWS OF HIS ART. Poussin, in his directions to artists who came to study at Rome, used to say that "the remains of antiquity afforded him instruction that he could not expect from masters;" and in one of his letters to M. de Chantelou, he observes that "he had applied to painting the theory which the Greeks had introduced into their music--the Dorian for the grave and the serious; the Phrygian for the vehement and the passionate; the Lydian for the soft and the tender; and the Ionian for the riotous festivity of his bacchanalians." He was accustomed to say "that a particular attention to coloring was an obstacle to the student in his progress to the great end and design of the art; and that he who attaches himself to this principal end, will acquire by practice a reasonably good method of coloring." He well knew that splendor of coloring and brilliancy of tints would ill accord with the solidity and simplicity of effect so essential to heroic subjects, and that the sublime and majestic would be degraded by a union with the florid and the gay. The elevation of his mind is conspicuous in all his works. He was attentive to vary his style and the tone of his color, distinguishing them by a finer and more delicate touch, a tint more cheerful or austere, a site more cultivated or wild, according to the character of his subject and the impression he designed to make; so that we are not less impressed with the beauty and grandeur of his scenery, than with the varied, appropriate, and dignified characteristics which distinguish his works. POUSSIN'S WORKS. In Smith's Catalogue raisonné may be found a descriptive account of upwards of three hundred and fifty of the works of this great artist, in many instances tracing the history from the time they were painted, the names of the present possessors, and the principal artists by whom they have been engraved, together with many interesting particulars of the life of the painter. There are eight of his pictures in the English National Gallery, fourteen in the Dulwich Gallery, and many in the possession of the nobility of England. The prices paid for those in the National Gallery vary from 150 to 1000 guineas. MARINO AND POUSSIN. Marino was born at Naples. Some political disturbances, in which he and his family had taken part, obliged him to quit that kingdom, and he took refuge successively in several of the petty courts of Italy. His talent for satire involved him in various literary disputes, as well as some political quarrels, and he never resided long in one place, until Mary of Medicis invited him to the court of France, where he passed much of his life, and where he wrote most of his poems, which, though licentious both in matter and style, contain numerous beauties, and are full of classical imagery. Marino gave Poussin an apartment in his house at Rome, and as his own health was at that time extremely deranged, he loved to have Poussin by the side of his couch, where he drew or painted, while Marino read aloud to him from some Latin or Italian author, or from his own poems, which Poussin illustrated by beautiful drawings, most of which it is to be feared are lost; although it is believed that there is still existing in the Massimi library, a copy of the Adonis in Marino's hand-writing, with Poussin's drawings interleaved. To this kind of study which he pursued with Marino, may perhaps be attributed Poussin's predilection for compositions wherein nymphs, and fairies, and bacchanals are the subjects--compositions in which he greatly excelled. POUSSIN ROMANIZED. While the court of France was at variance with the Holy See, considerable acrimony existed among his Holiness's troops against all Frenchmen; consequently, wherever they met them in Rome, they instantly attacked them with sticks and stones, and sometimes with even more formidable weapons. It happened one day that Poussin and three or four of his countrymen, returning from a drawing excursion, met at the Quattro Fontane near Monte Cavallo, a company of soldiers, who seeing them dressed in the French costume, instantly attacked them. They all fled but Poussin, who was surrounded, and received a cut from a sabre between the first and second finger. Passeri, who relates the anecdote, says that the sword turned, otherwise "a great misfortune must have happened both to him and to painting." Not daunted, however, he fought under the shelter of his portfolio, throwing stones as he retreated, till being recognized by some Romans who took his part, he effected his escape to his lodgings. From that day he put on the Roman dress, adopted the Roman way of living, and became so much a Roman, that he considered the city as his true home. POUSSIN'S HABITS OF STUDY. Poussin not only studied every vestige of antiquity at Rome and in its environs, with the greatest assiduity while young, but he followed this practice through life. It was his delight to spend every hour he could spare at the different villas in the neighborhood of Rome, where, besides the most beautiful remains of antiquity, he enjoyed the unrivalled landscape which surrounds that city, so much dignified by the noble works of ancient days, that every hill is classical, the very trees have a poetic air, and everything combines to excite in the soul a kind of dreaming rapture from which it would not be awakened, and which those who have not felt it can scarcely understand. He restored the antique temples, and made plans and accurate drawings of the fragments of ancient Rome; and there are few of his pictures, where the subject admits of it, in which we may not trace the buildings, both of the ancient and the modern city. In the beautiful landscape of the death of Eurydice, the bridge and castle of St. Angelo, and the tower, commonly called that of Nero, form the middle ground of the picture. The castle of St. Angelo appears again in one of his pictures of the Exposing of Moses; and the pyramid of Caius Cestius, the Pantheon, the ruins of the Forum, and the walls of Rome, may be recognised in the Finding of Moses, and several others of his remarkable pictures. "I have often admired," said Vigneul de Marville, who knew him at a late period of his life, "the love he had for his art. Old as he was, I frequently saw him among the ruins of ancient Rome, out in the Campagna, or along the banks of the Tyber, sketching a scene which had pleased him; and I often met him with his handkerchief full of stones, moss, or flowers, which he carried home, that he might copy them exactly from nature. One day I asked him, how he had attained to such a degree of perfection as to have gained so high a rank among the great painters of Italy? He answered, '_I have neglected nothing!_'" POUSSIN'S OLD AGE. The genius of Poussin seems to have gained vigor with age. Nearly his last works, which were begun in 1660, and sent to Paris 1664, were the four pictures, allegorical of the seasons, which he painted for the Duc de Richelieu. He chose the terrestrial paradise, in all the freshness of creation, to designate spring. The beautiful story of Boaz and Ruth formed the subject of summer. Autumn was aptly pictured, in the two Israelites bearing the bunch of grapes from the Promised Land. But the masterpiece was Winter, represented in the Deluge. This picture has been, perhaps, the most praised of all Poussin's works. A narrow space, and a very few persons have sufficed him for this powerful representation of that great catastrophe. The sun's disc is darkened with clouds; the lightning shoots in forked flashes through the air: nothing but the roofs of the highest houses are visible above the distant water upon which the ark floats, on a level with the highest mountains. Nearer, where the waters, pent in by rocks, form a cataract, a boat is forced down the fall, and the wretches who had sought safety in it are perishing: but the most pathetic incident is brought close to the spectator. A mother in a boat is holding up her infant to its father, who, though upon a high rock, is evidently not out of reach of the water, and is only protracting life a very little. POUSSIN'S LAST WORK AND DEATH. The long and honorable race of Poussin was now nearly run. Early in the following year, 1665, he was slightly affected by palsy, and the only picture of figures that he painted afterwards was the Samaritan Woman at the Well, which he sent to M. de Chantelou, with a note, in which he says, "This is my last work; I have already one foot in the grave." Shortly afterwards he wrote the following letter to M. Felibien: "I could not answer the letter which your brother, M. le Prieur de St. Clementin, forwarded to me, a few days after his arrival in this city, sooner, my usual infirmities being increased by a very troublesome cold, which continues and annoys me very much. I must now thank you not only for your remembrance, but for the kindness you have done me, by not reminding the prince of the wish he once expressed to possess some of my works. It is too late for him to be well served; I am become too infirm, and the palsy hinders me in working, so that I have given up the pencil for some time, and think only of preparing for death, which I feel bodily upon me. It is all over with me." He expired shortly afterwards, aged 71 years. POUSSIN'S IDEAS OF PAINTING. "Painting is an imitation by means of lines and colors, on some superfices, of everything that can be seen under the sun; its end is to please. _Principles that every man capable of reasoning may learn:_--There can be nothing represented, Without light, Without form, Without color, Without distance, Without an instrument, or medium. _Things which are not to be learned, and which make an essential part of painting._ First, the subject must be noble. It should have received no quality from the mere workmen; and to allow scope to the painter to display his powers, he should choose it capable of receiving the most excellent form. He must begin by composition, then ornament, propriety, beauty, grace, vivacity, probability, and judgment, in each and all. These last belong solely to the painter, and cannot be taught. The nine are the golden bough of Virgil, which no man can find or gather, if his fate do not lead him to it." POUSSIN AND THE NOBLEMAN. A person of rank who dabbled in painting for his amusement, having one day shown Poussin one of his performances, and asked his opinion of its merits, the latter replied, "You only want a little poverty, sir, to make a good painter." POUSSIN AND MENGS. The admirers of Mengs, jealous of Poussin's title of "the Painter of Philosophers," conferred on him the antithetical one of "the Philosopher of Painters." Though it cannot be denied that Mengs' writings and his pictures are learned, yet few artists have encountered such a storm of criticism. POUSSIN AND DOMENICHINO. Next to correctness of drawing and dignity of conception, Poussin valued expression in painting. He ranked Domenichino next to Raffaelle for this quality, and not long after his arrival at Rome, he set about copying the Flagellation of St. Andrew, painted by that master in the church of S. Gregorio, in competition with Guido, whose Martyrdom of that Saint is on the opposite side of the same church. Poussin found all the students in Rome busily copying the Guido, which, though a most beautiful work, lacks the energy and expression which distinguish the Flagellation; but he was too sure of his object to be led away by the crowd. According to Felibien, Domenichino, who then resided at Rome, in a very delicate state of health, having heard that a young Frenchman was making a careful study of his picture, caused himself to be conveyed in his chair to the church, where he conversed some time with Poussin, without making himself known; charmed with his talents and highly cultivated mind, he invited him to his house, and from that time Poussin enjoyed his friendship and profited by his advice, till that illustrious painter went to Naples, to paint the chapel of St. Januarius. POUSSIN AND SALVATOR ROSA. Among the strolling parties of monks and friars, cardinals and prelates, Roman princesses and English peers, Spanish grandees and French cavaliers which crowded the _Pincio_, towards the latter end of the seventeenth century, there appeared two groups, which may have recalled those of the Portico or the Academy, and which never failed to interest and fix the attention of the beholders. The leader of one of these singular parties was the venerable Niccolo Poussin! The air of antiquity which breathed over all his works seemed to have infected even his person and his features; and his cold, sedate, and passionless countenance, his measured pace and sober deportment, spoke that phlegmatic temperament and regulated feeling, which had led him to study monuments rather than men, and to declare that the result of all his experience was "to teach him to live well with all persons." Soberly clad, and sagely accompanied by some learned antiquary or pious churchman, and by a few of his deferential disciples, he gave out his trite axioms in measured phrase and emphatic accent, lectured rather than conversed, and appeared like one of the peripatetic teachers of the last days of Athenian pedantry and pretension. In striking contrast to these academic figures, which looked like their own "grandsires cut in alabaster," appeared, unremittingly, on the Pincio, after sun-set, a group of a different stamp and character, led on by one who, in his flashing eye, mobile brow, and rapid movement, all fire, feeling, and perception--was the very personification of genius itself. This group consisted of Salvator Rosa, gallantly if not splendidly habited, and a motley gathering of the learned and witty, the gay and the grave, who surrounded him. He was constantly accompanied in these walks on the Pincio by the most eminent virtuosi, poets, musicians, and cavaliers in Rome; all anxious to draw him out on a variety of subjects, when air, exercise, the desire of pleasing, and the consciousness of success, had wound him up to his highest pitch of excitement; while many who could not appreciate, and some who did not approve, were still anxious to be seen in his train, merely that they might have to boast "_nos quoque_." From the Pincio, Salvator Rosa was generally accompanied home by the most distinguished persons, both for talent and rank; and while the frugal Poussin was lighting out some reverend prelate or antiquarian with one sorry taper, Salvator, the prodigal Salvator, was passing the evening in his elegant gallery, in the midst of princes, nobles, and men of wit and science, where he made new claims on their admiration, both as an artist and as an _improvisatore_; for till within a few years of his death he continued to recite his own poetry, and sing his own compositions to the harpsichord or lute. POUSSIN, ANGELO, AND RAFFAELLE COMPARED. Poussin is, in the strict sense of the word, an historical painter. Michael Angelo is too intent on the sublime, too much occupied with the effect of the whole, to tell a common history. His conceptions are epic, and his persons, and his colors, have as little to do with ordinary life, as the violent action of his actors have resemblance to the usually indolent state of ordinary men. Raffaelle's figures interest so much in themselves, that they make us forget that they are only part of a history. We follow them eagerly, as we do the personages of a drama; we grieve, we hope, we despair, we rejoice with them. Poussin's figures, on the contrary, tell their story; we feel not the intimate acquaintance with themselves, that we do with the creations of Raffaelle. His Cicero would thunder in the forum and dissipate a conspiracy, and we should take leave of him with respect at the end of the scene; but with Raffaelle's we should feel in haste to quit the tumult, and retire with him to his Tusculum, and learn to love the virtues, and almost to cherish the weaknesses of such a man. Poussin has shown that grace and expression may be independent of what is commonly called beauty. His women have none of that soft, easy, and attractive air, which many other painters have found the secret of imparting, not only to their Venuses and Graces, but to their Madonnas and Saints. His beauties are austere and dignified. Minerva and the Muses appear to have been his models, rather than the inhabitants of Mount Cithæron. Hence subjects of action are more suited to him than those of repose.--_Graham's Life of Poussin_. REMBRANDT. Paul Rembrandt van Rhyn, one of the most eminent painters and engravers of the Dutch school, was the son of a miller, and was born in 1606, at a small village on the banks of the Rhine, between Leyderdorp and Leyden, whence he was called Rembrandt van Rhyn, though his family name was Gerretz. It is said that his father, being in easy circumstances, intended him for one of the learned professions, but was induced by Rembrandt's passion for the art to allow him to follow his inclination. He entered the school of J. van Zwaanenberg at Amsterdam, where he continued three years, and made such surprising progress as astonished his instructor. Having learned from Zwaanenberg all he was capable of imparting, he next studied about six months with Peter Lastmann, and afterwards for a short time with Jacob Pinas, from whom it is said he acquired that taste for strong contrasts of light and shadow, for which his works are so remarkable. He was, however, more indebted for his best improvement to the vivacity of his own genius, and an attentive study of nature, than to any information he derived from his instructors. On returning home, he fitted up an attic room, with a skylight, in his father's mill, for a studio, where he probably pursued his labors for several years, as he did not remove to Amsterdam till 1630. Here he studied the grotesque figure of the Dutch boor, or the rotund contour of the bar-maid of an ale house, with as much precision as the great artists of Italy have imitated the Apollo Belvidere, or the Medicean Venus. He was exceedingly ignorant, and it is said that he could scarcely read. He was of a wayward and eccentric disposition, and sought for recreation among the lowest orders of the people, in the amusements of the ale-house, contracting habits which continued through life; even when in prosperous circumstances, he manifested no disposition to associate with more refined and intellectual society. It will readily be perceived that his habits, disposition, and studies could not conduct him to the noble conceptions of Raffaelle, but rather to an exact imitation of the lowest order of nature, with which he delighted to be surrounded. The life of Rembrandt is much involved in fable, and in order to form a just estimate of his powers, it is necessary to take these things into consideration. It is said by some writers, that, had he studied the antique, he would have reached the very perfection of the art, but Nieuwenhuys, in his review of the Lives and Works of the most eminent painters of the Dutch and Flemish schools, in Smith's Catalogue raisonné, vol xii. and supplement, says that he was by no means deficient on that point. "For it is known that he purchased, at a high price, casts from the antique marbles, paintings, drawings, and engravings by the most excellent Italian masters, to assist him in his studies, and which are mentioned in the inventory of his goods when seized for debt." He then goes on to give a list of the works so seized. Be this as it may he certainly never derived any advantage from them. He had collected a great variety of old armor, sabres, flags, and fantastical vestments, ironically terming them his antiques, and frequently introducing them into his pictures. Rembrandt had already brought both the arts of painting and engraving to very great perfection (in his own way), when a slight incident led him to fame and fortune. He was induced by a friend to take one of his choicest pictures to a picture-dealer at the Hague, who, being charmed with the performance, instantly gave him a hundred florins for it, and treated him with great respect. This occurrence served to convince the public of his merit, and contributed to make the artist sensible of his own abilities. In 1630 he went to Amsterdam, where he married a handsome peasant girl (frequently copied in his works), and settled there for life. His paintings were soon in extraordinary demand, and his fame spread far and wide; pupils flocked to his studio, and he received for the instruction of each a hundred florins a year. He was so excessively avaricious that he soon abandoned his former careful and finished style, for a rapid execution; also frequently retouched the pictures of his best pupils, and sold them as his own. His deceits in dating several of his etchings at Venice, to make them more saleable, led some of his biographers to believe that he visited Italy, and resided at Venice in 1635 and 1636; but it has been satisfactorily proved that he never left Holland, though he constantly threatened to do so, in order to increase the sale of his works. As early as 1628, he applied himself zealously to etching, and soon acquired great perfection in the art. His etchings were esteemed as highly as his paintings, and he had recourse to several artifices to raise their price and increase their sales. For example, he sold impressions from the unfinished plates, then finished them, and after having used them, made some slight alterations, and thus sold the same works three or four times; producing what connoisseurs term _variations_ in prints. By these practices, and his parsimonious manner of living, Rembrandt amassed a large fortune. REMBRANDT'S WORKS. His works are numerous, and are dispersed in various public and private collections of Europe; and when they are offered for sale they command enormous prices. There are eight of his pictures in the English National Gallery; one of these, the Woman taken in Adultery, formerly in the Orleans collection, sold for £5000. In Smith's Catalogue raisonné is a description of six hundred and forty pictures by him, the public and private galleries and collections in which they were located at the time of the publication of the work, together with a copious list of his drawings and etchings, and much other interesting information. He left many studies, sketches, and drawings, executed in a charming style, which are now scarce and valuable. REMBRANDT AS AN ENGRAVER. Rembrandt holds a distinguished rank among the engravers of his country; he established a more important epoch in this art than any other master. He was indebted entirely to his own genius for the invention of a process which has thrown an indescribable charm over his plates. They are partly etched, frequently much assisted by the dry point, and occasionally, though rarely, finished with the graver; evincing the most extraordinary facility of hand, and displaying the most consummate knowledge of light and shadow. His free and playful point sports in picturesque disorder, producing the most surprising and enchanting effects, as if by accident; yet an examination will show that his motions are always regulated by a profound knowledge of the principles of light and shadow. His most admirable productions in both arts are his portraits, which are executed with unexampled expression and skill. For a full description of his prints, the reader is referred to Bartsch's Peintre Graveur. His prints are very numerous, yet they command very high prices. The largest collection of his prints known, was made by M. de Burgy at the Hague, who died in 1755. This collection contained 665 prints with their variations, namely, 257 portraits, 161 histories, 155 figures, and 85 landscapes. There are no less than 27 portraits of Rembrandt by himself. ANECDOTE OF SCHWARTS. Sandrart relates the following anecdote of Christopher Schwarts, a famous German painter, which, if true, redounds more to his ingenuity than to his credit. Having been engaged to paint the ceiling of the Town Hall at Munich by the day, his love of dissipation induced him to neglect his work, so that the magistrates and overseers of the work were frequently obliged to hunt him out at the cabaret. As he could no longer drink in quiet, he stuffed an image of himself, left the legs hanging down between the staging where he was accustomed to work, and sent one of his boon companions to move the image a little two or three times a day, and to take it away at noon and night. By means of this deception, he drank without the least disturbance a whole fortnight together, the inn-keeper being privy to the plot. The officers came in twice a day to look after him, and seeing the well known stockings and shoes which he was accustomed to wear, suspected nothing wrong, and went their way, greatly extolling their own convert, as the most industrious and conscientious painter in the world. JACQUES CALLOT. This eminent French engraver was born at Nancy, in Lorraine, in 1593. He was the son of Jean Callot, a gentleman of noble family, who intended him for a very different profession, and endeavored to restrain his natural passion for art; but when he was twelve years old, he left his home without money or resources, joined a company of wandering Bohemians, and found his way to Florence, where some officer of the court, discovering his inclination for drawing, placed him under Cantagallina. After passing some time at Florence, he went to Rome, where he was recognized by some friends of his family, who persuaded him to return to his parents. Meeting with continual opposition, he again absconded, but was followed by his brother to Turin, and taken back to Nancy. His parents, at length finding his love of art too firmly implanted to be eradicated, concluded to allow him to follow the bent of his genius, and they sent him to Rome in the suite of the Envoy from the Duke of Lorraine to the Pope. Here he studied with the greatest assiduity, and soon distinguished himself as a very skillful engraver. From Rome he went to Florence, where his talents recommended him to the patronage of the Grand Duke Cosmo II., on whose death he returned to Nancy, where he was liberally patronized by Henry, Duke of Lorraine. When misfortune overtook that prince, he went to Paris, whither his reputation had preceded him, where he was employed by Louis XIII. to engrave the successes of the French arms, particularly the siege of the Isle de Ré, in sixteen sheets; the siege of Rochelle, do.; and the siege of Breda, in eight sheets. His prints are very numerous, and are highly esteemed; Heineken gives a full list of his prints, amounting to over fifteen hundred! The fertility of his invention and the facility of his hand were wonderful; yet his prints are accurately designed. He frequently made several drawings for the same plate before he was satisfied. Watelet says that he saw four different drawings by him for the celebrated Temptation of St. Anthony. His drawings are also greatly admired and highly prized. CALLOT'S PATRIOTISM. When Cardinal Richelieu desired Callot to design and engrave a set of plates descriptive of the siege and fall of his native town, he promptly refused; and when the Cardinal peremptorily insisted that he should do it, he replied, "My Lord, if you continue to urge me, I will cut off the thumb of my right hand before your face, for I never will consent to perpetuate the calamity and disgrace of my sovereign and protector." INGENUITY OF ARTISTS. Pliny asserts that an ingenious artist wrote the whole of the Iliad on so small a piece of parchment that it might be enclosed within the compass of a nut-shell. Cicero also records the same thing. This doubtless might be done on a strip of thin parchment, and rolling it compactly. Heylin, in his life of Charles I., says that in Queen Elizabeth's time, a person wrote the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Pater Noster, the Queen's name, and the date, within the compass of a penny, which he presented to her Majesty, together with a pair of spectacles of such an artificial make, that by their help she plainly discerned every letter. One Francis Almonus wrote the Creed, and the first fourteen verses of the Gospel of St. John, on a piece of parchment no larger than a penny. In the library of St. John's College, Oxford, is a picture of Charles I. done with a pen, the lines of which contain all the psalms, written in a legible hand. "At Halston, in Shropshire, the seat of the Myttons, is preserved a carving much resembling that mentioned by Walpole in his Anecdotes of Painting, vol. ii., p. 42. It is the portrait of Charles I., full-faced, cut on a peach-stone; above, is a crown; his face, and clothes which are of a Vandyck dress are painted; on the reverse is an eagle transfixed with an arrow, and round it is this motto: _I feathered this arrow._ The whole is most admirably executed, and is set in gold, with a crystal on each side. It probably was the work of Nicholas Bryot, a great graver of the mint in the time of Charles I."--_Pennant's Wales._ In the Royal Museum at Copenhagen is a common cherry-stone, on the surface of which are cut two hundred and twenty heads! A HINT TO JEWELERS. "When the haughty and able Pope Innocent III. caused Cardinal Langton to be elected Archbishop of Canterbury in despite of King John, and compelled him to submit, to appease the latter and to admonish him, his Holiness presented him with four golden rings, set with precious stones, at the same time taking care to inform him of the many mysteries implied in them. His Holiness begged of him (King John)," says Hume, "to consider seriously the _form_ of the rings, their _number_, their _matter_, and their _color_. Their _form_, he said, shadowed out eternity, which had neither beginning nor end; and he ought thence to learn his duty of aspiring from earthly objects to heavenly, from things temporal to things eternal. The _number_, from being a square, denoted steadiness of mind, not to be subverted either by adversity or prosperity, fixed forever on the firm base of the four cardinal virtues. _Gold_, which is the matter, being the most precious of the metals, signified wisdom, which is the most precious of all the accomplishments, and justly preferred by Solomon to riches, power, and all exterior attainments. The _blue color_ of the sapphire represented Faith; the _verdure_ of the emerald, Hope; the _redness_ of the ruby, Charity; and the _splendor_ of the topaz, good works." Jewelers, who usually deal so little in sentiment in their works, may learn from this ingenious allegory the advantage of calling up the wonder-working aid of fancy, in forming their combinations of precious things. CURIOUS PAINTINGS. In the Cathedral at Worms, over the altar, is a very old painting, in which the Virgin is represented throwing the infant Jesus into the hopper of a mill; while from the other side he issues, changed into wafers or little morsels of bread, which the priests are administering to the people. Mathison, in his letters, thus describes a picture in a church at Constance, called the Conception of the Holy Virgin. "An old man lies on a cloud, whence he darts a vast beam, which passes through a dove hovering just below; at the end of the beam appears a large transparent egg, in which egg is seen a child in swaddling clothes, with a glory round it; Mary sits leaning in an arm-chair and opens her mouth to receive the egg!" Which are the most profane--these pictures, or the Venus Anadyomene of Apelles, the Venus of Titian, and the Leda of Correggio? THE OLDEST OIL PAINTING EXTANT. "The oldest oil painting now in existence, is believed to be one of the Madonna and infant Jesus in her arms, with an Eastern style of countenance. It is marked DCCCLXXXVI. (886). This singular and valuable painting formed part of the treasures of art in the old palace of the Florentine Republic, and was purchased by the Director Bencivenni from a broker in the street, for a few livres." The above is found quoted in many books, in proof that oil painting was known long before the time of the Van Eycks; but all these old _supposed_ oil paintings have been proved by chemical analysis to have been painted in distemper. See vol. ii., p. 141, of this work. CURIOUS REPRESENTATIONS OF THE HARPIES. Homer represents the Harpies as the rapacious goddesses of the storms, residing near the Erinnyes, or the Ocean, before the jaws of hell. If any person was so long absent from home that it was not known what had become of him, and he was supposed to be dead, it was commonly said, "The Harpies have carried him off." Hesiod represents them as young virgins of great beauty. The later poets and artists vied with each other in depicting them under the most hideous forms; they commonly represented them as winged monsters, having the face of a woman and the body of a vulture, with their feet and fingers armed with sharp claws. Spanheim, in his work, gives three representations of the harpies, taken from ancient coins and works of art; they have female heads, with the bodies and claws of birds of prey; the first has a coarse female face, the second a beautiful feminine head, and two breasts, and the third a visage ornamented with wreaths and a head-dress. There are various other representations of them, one of the most remarkable of which is a monster with a human head and the body of a vampire bat. ADRIAN BROWER. This extraordinary painter was born at Haerlem, in 1608. His parents were extremely poor, and his mother sold to the peasants bonnets and handkerchiefs, which the young Adrian painted with flowers and birds. These attempts were noticed by Francis Hals, a distinguished painter of Haerlem, who offered to take the young artist into his school--which proposal was gladly accepted. Hals, on discovering his superior genius, separated him from all his companions, and locked him up in a garret, that he might profit by his talents. The pictures of Brower sold readily at high prices, but the avaricious Hals treated him with increased severity, lest he should become acquainted with the value of his talents, and leave him. This cruelty excited the pity of Adrian van Ostade, then a pupil of Hals; and he found an opportunity of advising Brower to make his escape, which the latter effected, and fled to Amsterdam. Soon after arriving in that city, he painted a picture of Boors Fighting, which he gave to the landlord of the inn where he lodged, and requested him to sell it. The host soon returned with one hundred ducats, which he had received for the work. The artist was amazed at such a result of his labors, but instead of exerting his wonderful talents, he plunged into a course of dissipation. This natural propensity to alternate work and indulgence marked his whole life, and involved him in many extraordinary adventures. BROWER, THE DUKE D'AREMBERG, AND RUBENS. When the States-General were at war with Spain, Brower started on a visit to Antwerp, whither his reputation had already proceeded him. Omitting to provide himself with a passport, he was arrested as a spy, and confined in the citadel, where the Duke d'Aremberg was imprisoned. That nobleman lived in friendship with Rubens, who often visited him in his confinement; and the Duke, having observed the genius of Brower, desired Rubens to bring a palette and pencils, which he gave to Brower, and the latter soon produced a representation of Soldiers playing at Cards, which he designed from a group he had seen from his prison window. The Duke showed the picture to Rubens, who immediately exclaimed that it was by the celebrated Brower, whose pictures he often admired; and he offered the Duke six hundred guilders for the work, but the latter refused to part with it, and presented the artist with a much larger sum. Rubens lost no time in procuring his liberty, which he did by becoming his surety, took him into his own house, and treated him with the greatest kindness. DEATH OF BROWER. Brower did not continue long in the hospitable mansion of Rubens, whose refined and elegant manners, love of literature, and domestic happiness were less congenial to this erratic genius than the revels of his pot-companions. Brower soon became weary of his situation, and returned to his vicious habits, to which he soon fell a victim in 1640, at the early age of 32 years. He died in the public hospital at Antwerp, and was buried in an obscure manner; but when Rubens knew it, he had the body reinterred, with funeral pomp, in the church of the Carmelites; and he intended also to have erected a superb monument to his memory, had he lived to see it executed; though Sandrart says there was a magnificent one over his tomb, with an epitaph to perpetuate his honor. BROWER'S WORKS. The subjects of Brower were of the lowest order, representing the frolics of his pot companions; but his expression is so lively and characteristic, his coloring so transparent and brilliant, and the passions and movements of his figures are so admirably expressed, that his works have justly elicited the applause of the world. They are highly valued, and in consequence of his irregular life, are exceedingly scarce. Brower also etched a few plates in a very spirited style. ROSA DA TIVOLI. The name of this artist was Philip Roos, and he was born at Frankfort in 1655. He early showed a passion for painting, and exhibited such extraordinary talents that the Landgrave of Hesse took him under his protection, and sent him to Italy with a pension sufficient for his support. To facilitate his studies, he established himself at Tivoli (whence his name), where he kept a kind of menagerie, and on account of the number and variety of the animals, his house was called _Noah's Ark_. ROSA DA TIVOLI'S WORKS. Rosa da Tivoli's pictures usually represent pastoral subjects, with herdsmen and cattle, or shepherds with sheep and goats, which he frequently painted as large as life. He designed everything from nature, not only his animals, but the sites of his landscapes, ruins, buildings, rocks, precipices, rivers, etc. His groups are composed with great judgment and taste, and his landscapes, backgrounds, skies, and distances are treated in a masterly style. His cattle and animals, in particular, are designed with wonderful truth and spirit; his coloring is full of force, his lights and shadows are distributed with judgment and his touch is remarkably firm and spirited. ROSA DA TIVOLI'S FACILITY OF EXECUTION. Rosa da Tivoli acquired a wonderful facility in design and execution, for which reason he was named _Mercurius_ by the Bentvogel Society. A remarkable instance of his powers is recorded by C. le Blond, then a student at Rome. "It happened one day," says he, "that several young artists and myself were occupied in designing from the bassi-relievi of the Arch of Titus, when Roos passing by, was particularly struck with some picturesque object which caught his attention, and he requested one of the students to accommodate him with a crayon and paper. What was our surprise, when in half an hour he produced an admirable drawing, finished with accuracy and spirit." It is also related that the Imperial Ambassador, Count Martinez, laid a wager with a Swedish general that Roos would paint a picture of three-quarters' size, while they were playing a game at cards; and in less than half an hour the picture was well finished, though it consisted of a landscape, a shepherd, and several sheep and goats. ROSA DA TIVOLI'S HABITS. Rosa da Tivoli unfortunately fell into extravagant and dissipated habits, which frequently caused him great inconvenience. From his facility, he multiplied his pictures to such an extent as greatly to depreciate their value. It is related that he would sit down, when pressed for money, dispatch a large picture in a few hours, and send it directly to be sold at any price. His servant, possessing more discretion than his master, usually paid him the highest price offered by the dealers, and kept the pictures himself, till he could dispose of them to more advantage. LUCA CAMBIASO'S FACILITY IN PAINTING. The most remarkable quality of this distinguished Genoese painter was his rapidity of operation. He began to paint when ten years old, under the eye of his father, Giovanni Cambiaso, who evinced good taste in setting him to copy some works by the correct and noble Mantegna. His progress was so rapid that at the age of seventeen he was entrusted to decorate some façades and chambers of the Doria palace at Genoa, where he displayed his rash facility of hand by painting the story of Niobe on a space of wall fifty palms long and of proportionate height, without cartoons or any drawing larger than his first hasty sketch on a single sheet of paper! While he was engaged on this work, there came one morning some Florentine artists to look at it. Seeing a lad enter soon after, and commence painting with prodigious fury, they called out to him to desist; but his mode of handling the brushes and colors, which they had imagined it was his business merely to clean or pound, soon convinced them that this daring youngster was no other than Luca himself; whereupon they crossed themselves, and declared he would one day eclipse Michael Angelo. CAMBIASO'S WORKS IN SPAIN. After attaining a high reputation in Italy, Cambiaso was invited to Madrid by Philip II. of Spain. He executed there a great number of works, among which the most important was the vault of the choir of the Escurial church, where he painted in fresco the "Glory of the Blessed in Heaven." Instead of allowing the artist to paint from his own conceptions, the king listened to the counsels of the monks, who "recommended that the heavenly host should be drawn up in due theological order." A design "more pious than picturesque" being at last agreed upon, the painter fell to work with his wonted fury, and so speedily covered vast spaces with a multitude of figures, that the king, according to the expressive Italian phrase, "remained stupid," not being able to believe that the master, with only one assistant, could have accomplished so much. Philip often visited Cambiaso while at work, and one day remarking that the head of St. Anne among the blessed was too youthful, the painter replied by seizing his pencil, and with four strokes so seamed the face with wrinkles, and so entirely altered its air, that the royal critic once more "remained stupid," hardly knowing whether he had judged amiss, or the change had been effected by magic. By means of thus painting at full speed, frequently without sketches, and sometimes with both hands at once, Cambiaso clothed the vault with its immense fresco in about fifteen months. The coloring is still fresh, and many of the forms are fine and the figures noble; but the composition cannot be called pleasing. The failure must be mainly attributed to the unlucky meddling of the friars, who have marshalled "The helmed Cherubim, And sworded Seraphim," with exact military precision, ranged the celestial choir in rows like the fiddlers of a sublunary orchestra, and accommodated the congregation of the righteous with long benches, like those of a Methodist meeting-house! However, the king was so well pleased with the work, that he rewarded Cambiaso with 12,000 ducats. CAMBIASO'S ARTISTIC MERITS. In the earlier part of his career, the impetuosity of his genius led him astray; he usually painted his pictures in oil or fresco without preparing either drawing or cartoon; and his first style was gigantic and unnatural. Subsequently, however, he checked this impetuosity, and it was in the middle of his life that he produced his best works. His fertility of invention was wonderful; his genius grappled with and conquered the most arduous difficulties of the art, and he shows his powers in foreshortening in the most daring variety. He was rapid and bold in design, yet was selected by Boschini as a model of correctness; hence his drawings, though numerous, are highly esteemed. His Rape of the Sabines, in the Palazzo Imperiali at Terralba, near Genoa, has been highly extolled. It is a large work full of life and motion, passionate ravishers and reluctant damsels, fine horses and glimpses of noble architecture, with several episodes heightening the effect of the main story. Mengs declared he had seen nothing out of Rome that so vividly reminded him of the chambers of the Vatican. RARITY OF FEMALE PORTRAITS IN SPAIN. Very few female portraits are found in the Spanish collections. Their painters were seldom brought in professional contact with the beauty of high-born women--the finest touchstone of professional skill--and their great portrait painters lived in an age of jealous husbands, who cared not to set off to public admiration the charms of their spouses. Velasquez came to reside at court about the same time that Madrid was visited by Sir Kenelm Digby, who had like to have been slain the first night of his arrival, for merely looking at a lady. Returning with two friends from supper at Lord Bristol's, the adventurous knight relates in his Private Memoirs, how they came beneath a balcony where a love-lorn fair one stood touching her lute, and how they loitered awhile to admire her beauty, and listen to her "soul-ravishing harmony." Their delightful contemplations, however, were soon arrested by a sudden attack from several armed men, who precipitated themselves upon the three Britons. Their swords were instantly drawn, and a fierce combat ensued; but the valiant Digby slew the leader of the band, and finally succeeded in escaping with his companions. Of the sixty-two works by Velasquez in the Royal Gallery at Madrid, there are only four female portraits; and of these, two represent children, another an ancient matron, and a fourth his own wife! The Duke of Abuquerque, who at the door of his own palace waylaid and horsewhipped Philip IV., and his minister Olivarez, feigning ignorance of their persons, as the monarch came to pay a nocturnal visit to the Duchess, was not very likely to call in the court painter to take her Grace's portrait. Ladies lived for the most part in a sort of Oriental seclusion, amongst duennas, waiting-women, and dwarfs; and going abroad only to mass, or to take the air in curtained carriages on the Prado. In such a state of things, the rarity of female portraits in the Spanish collections was a natural consequence. MURILLO'S PICTURES IN SPANISH AMERICA. It is related that this great Spanish painter visited America in early life, and painted there many works; but the later Spanish historians have shown that he never quitted his native country; and the circumstance of his pictures being found in America, is best accounted for by the following narrative. After acquiring considerable knowledge of the art under Juan del Castillo at Seville, he determined to travel for improvement; but how to raise the necessary funds was a matter of difficulty, for his parents had died leaving little behind them, and his genius had not yet recommended him to the good offices of any wealthy or powerful patron. But Murillo was not to be balked of his cherished desires. Buying a large quantity of canvas, he divided it into squares of various sizes, which he primed and prepared with his own hands for the pencil, and then converted into pictures of the more popular saints, landscapes, and flower-pieces. These he sold to the American traders for exportation, and thus obtained a sum of money sufficient for his purpose. MURILLO'S "VIRGIN OF THE NAPKIN." The small picture which once adorned the tabernacle of the Capuchin high altar at Seville, is interesting on account of its legend, as well as its extraordinary artistic merits. Murillo, whilst employed at the convent, had formed a friendship with a lay brother, the cook of the fraternity, who attended to his wants and waited on him with peculiar assiduity. At the conclusion of his labors, this Capuchin of the kitchen begged for some trifling memorial of his pencil. The painter was quite willing to comply, but said that he had exhausted his stock of canvas. "Never mind," said the ready cook, "take this napkin," offering him that which he had used at dinner. The good-natured artist accordingly went to work, and before evening he had converted the piece of coarse linen into a picture compared to which cloth of gold or the finest tissue of the East would be accounted worthless. The Virgin has a face in which thought is happily blended with maidenly innocence; and the divine infant, with his deep earnest eyes, leans forward in her arms, struggling as it were almost out of the frame, as if to welcome the carpenter Joseph home from his daily toil. The picture is colored with a brilliancy which Murillo never excelled, glowing with a golden light, as if the sun were always shining on the canvas. This admirable work is now in the Museum of Seville. ANECDOTE OF AN ALTAR-PIECE BY MURILLO. One of Murillo's pictures, in the possession of a society of friars in Flanders, was bought by an Englishman for a considerable sum, and the purchaser affixed his signature and seal to the back of the canvas, at the desire of the venders. In due time it followed him to England, and became the pride of his collection. Several years afterwards, however, while passing through Belgium, the purchaser turned aside to visit his friends the monks, when he was greatly surprised to find the beautiful work which he had supposed was in his own possession, smiling in all its original brightness on the very same wall where he had been first smitten by its charms! The truth was, that the monks always kept under the canvas an excellent copy, which they sold in the manner above related, as often as they could find a purchaser. MURILLO AND HIS SLAVE GOMEZ. Sebastian Gomez, the mulatto slave of Murillo, is said to have become enamored of art while performing the menial offices of his master's studio. Like Erigonus, the color grinder of Nealces, or like Pareja, the mulatto of Velasquez, he devoted his leisure to the secret study of the principles of drawing, and in time acquired a skill with the brush rivalled by few of the regular scholars of Murillo. There is a tradition at Seville, that he took the opportunity one day, when the painting room was empty, of giving the first proof of his abilities, by finishing the head of a Virgin, that stood ready sketched on his master's easel. Pleased with the beauty of this unexpected interpolation, Murillo, when he discovered the author of it, immediately promoted Gomez to the use of those colors which it had hitherto been his task to grind. "I am indeed fortunate, Sebastian," said the good-natured artist, "for I have not only created pictures, but a painter." AN ARTIST'S LOVE ROMANCE. Francisco Vieira, an eminent Portuguese painter, was still a child when he became enamored of Doña Ignez Elena de Lima, the daughter of noble parents, who lived on friendly terms with his own and permitted the intercourse of their children. The thread of their loves was broken for a while by the departure of the young wooer to Rome, in the suite of the Marquis of Abrantes. There he applied himself diligently to the study of painting, under Trevisani, and carried off the first prize in the Academy of St. Luke. On returning to Portugal, although only in his 16th year, he was immediately appointed by King John V. to paint a large picture of the Mystery of the Eucharist, to be used at the approaching feast of Corpus Christi; and he also painted the king's portrait. An absence of seven years had not affected Vieira's constancy, and he took the first opportunity of flying once more to Ignez. He was kindly received by the Lima family, at their villa on the beautiful shores of the Tagus, and was permitted to reside there for a while, painting the scenery, and wooing his not unwilling mistress. When the maiden's heart was fairly won, the parents at length interfered, and the lovers found the old adage verified, that "the course of true love never did run smooth." Vieira was ignominiously turned out of doors, and the fair Ignez was shut up in the convent of St. Anna, and compelled to take the veil. The afflicted lover immediately laid his cause before the king, but received an unfavorable answer. Nothing daunted, he then went to Rome, and succeeded in obtaining from the Pope a commission to the Patriarch of Lisbon, empowering him to inquire into the facts of the case; and that prelate's report being favorable, the lover was made happy with a bull annulling the religious vows of the nun, and authorizing their marriage. It is uncertain how long this affair remained undecided; but a Portuguese Jesuit having warned Vieira that at home he ran the risk of being punished by confiscation of his property, for obtaining a bull without the consent of the civil power, he prolonged his residence at Rome to six years, that the affair might have time to be forgotten at Lisbon. During this period he continued to exercise his pencil with so much success that he was elected a member of the Academy of St. Luke. After such a probation, the energy and perseverance of the lover is almost unparalleled. He finally ventured to return to his native Tagus, and accomplished the object of his life. Disguising himself as a bricklayer, he skulked about the convent where Ignez lay immured, mingling with the workmen employed there, till he found means to open a communication with her and concert a plan of escape. He then furnished her with male attire, and at last successfully carried her off on horseback (though not without a severe wound from the brother of his bride), to another bishopric, where they were married in virtue of the Pope's bull. After residing for some time in Spain and Italy, however, Vieira was commanded to return to Portugal, and appointed painter to the king. Being the best artist in that kingdom, his talents soon obliterated the remembrance of his somewhat irregular marriage, and during forty years he painted with great reputation and success for the royal palaces at Nafra and elsewhere, for the convents, and the collections of the nobility. It will doubtless be pleasing to the fair readers of these anecdotes, that all this long course of outward prosperity was sweetened by the affection of his constant wife. ESTEBAN MARCH'S STRANGE METHOD OF STUDY. Estéban March, a distinguished Spanish painter of the 17th century, was eccentric in character and violent in temperament. Battles being his favorite subjects, his studio was hung round with pikes, cutlasses, javelins, and other implements of war, which he used in a very peculiar and boisterous manner. As the mild and saintly Joanes was wont to prepare himself for his daily task by prayer and fasting, so his riotous countryman used to excite his imagination to the proper creative pitch by beating a drum, or blowing a trumpet, and then valiantly assaulting the walls of his chamber with sword and buckler, laying about him, like another Don Quixote, with a blind energy that told severely on the plaster and furniture, and drove his terrified scholars or assistants to seek safety in flight. Having thus lashed himself into sufficient frenzy, he performed miracles, according to Palomino, in the field of battle-pieces, throwing off many bold and spirited pictures of Pharaoh and his host struggling in the angry waters, or mailed Christians quelling the turbaned armies of the Crescent. Few will withhold from him the praise of Bermudez, for brilliancy of coloring, and for the skill with which the dust, smoke, and dense atmosphere of the combat are depicted. MARCH'S ADVENTURE OF THE FISH FRIED IN LINSEED OIL. Palomino says that March had gone out one day, leaving neither meat nor money in the house, and was absent till past midnight, when he returned with a few fish, which he insisted on having instantly dressed for supper. His wife said there was no oil; and Juan Conchillos, one of his pupils, being ordered to get some, objected that all the shops were shut up. "Then take linseed oil," cried the impetuous March, "for, _por Dios_, I will have these fish presently fried." The mess was therefore served with this unwonted sauce, but was no sooner tasted than it began to act as a vigorous emetic upon the whole party, "for indeed," gravely writes Palomino, "linseed oil, at all times of a villainous flavor, when hot is the very devil." Without more ado, the master of the feast threw fish and frying-pan out of the window; and Conchillos, knowing his humor, flung the earthen chafing-dish and charcoal after them. March was delighted with this sally, and embracing the youth, he lifted him from the floor, putting him in bodily fear, as he after wards told Palomino, that he was about to follow the coal and viands into the street. As for the poor weary wife, she thought of her crockery, and remarking in a matter of-fact way, "What shall we have for supper now?" went to bed; whither her husband, pleased with the frolic of spoiling his meal and breaking the dishes, seems to have followed her in a more complacent mood than common. A PAINTER'S REBUKE. José Antonilez, a Spanish painter, studied under Francisco Rizi at Madrid. When the latter was occupied in preparing some new scenery for the theatre at Buon Retiro, Antonilez spoke of him as a painter of foot-cloths--an expression which was soon communicated to his master. Rizi immediately administered a wholesome practical rebuke, by commanding the attendance of Antinolez on his Majesty's service, and ordering him to execute a piece of painting in distemper. The unlucky wag, being quite ignorant of the mode of performing the work, and too proud to confess it, worked for a whole day, at the end of which he had merely spoiled a large piece of canvas. "So, sir," said Rizi, quietly, "you see painting foot-cloths is not so easy after all;" and turning to his servant, added, "here, boy, take this canvas and carry it to the cistern to be washed." A PAINTER'S RETORT COURTEOUS. Jean Ranc, an eminent French portrait painter, was sometimes annoyed by impertinent and vexatious criticism. Having exhausted all his talent upon a particular portrait, the friends of the sitter refused to be pleased, although the sitter himself appears to have been well satisfied. In concert with the latter, Ranc concerted a plan for a practical retort. After privately painting a copy of the picture, he cut the head out of the canvas, and placed it in such a position that the original could supply the opening with his own veritable face, undetected. After all was ready, the cavilers were invited to view the performance, but they were no better pleased. Falling completely into the snare, the would-be critics were going on to condemn the likeness, when the relaxing features and hearty laughter of the supposed portrait, speedily and sufficiently avenged the painter of their fastidiousness. ARDEMANS AND BOCANEGRA--A TRIAL OF SKILL. These Spanish painters contended in 1689 for the office of Master of the Works in the Cathedral of Granada. Bocanegra was excessively vain and overbearing, and boasted his superiority to all the artists of his time; but Ardemans, though a stranger in Granada, was not to be daunted, and a trial of skill, "a duel with pencils," was accordingly arranged between them, which was, that each should paint the other's portrait. Ardemans, who was then hardly twenty-five years of age, first entered the lists, and without drawing any outline on the canvas, produced an excellent likeness of his adversary in less than an hour. Bocanegra, quite daunted by this feat, and discouraged by the applause accorded to his rival by the numerous spectators, put off his own exhibition till another day, and in the end utterly failed in his attempt to transfer the features of his rival to canvas. His defeat, and the jeers of his former admirers, so overwhelmed him with mortification, that he died shortly after. A PAINTER'S ARTIFICE TO "KEEP UP APPEARANCES." The Spanish painter Antonio Pereda married Doña Maria de Bustamente, a woman of some rank, and greater pretension, who would associate only with people of high fashion, and insisted on having a duenna in constant waiting in her antechamber, like a lady of quality. Pereda was not rich enough to maintain such an attendant; he therefore compromised matters by painting on a screen an old lady sitting at her needle, with spectacles on her nose, and so truthfully executed that visitors were wont to salute her as they passed, taking her for a real duenna, too deaf or too discreet to notice their entrance! A GOOD-NATURED CRITICISM. Bartolomeo Carducci, who was employed in the service of the Spanish court for many years, was expressing one day his admiration of a newly finished picture by a brother artist, when one of his own scholars drew his attention to a badly executed foot. "I did not observe it," replied he, "it is so concealed by the difficult excellence of this bosom and these hands"--a piece of kindly criticism that deserves to be recorded. ALONSO CANO AND THE INTENDANT OF THE BISHOP OF MALAGA. The Bishop of Malaga, being engaged in improving his Cathedral church, invited Cano to that city, for the purpose of designing a new tabernacle for the high altar, and new stalls for the choir. He had finished his plans, very much to the prelate's satisfaction, when he was privately informed that the Intendant of the works proposed to allow him but a very trifling remuneration. "These drawings," said Cano, "are either to be given away, or to fetch 2,000 ducats;" and packing them up, he mounted his mule, and took the road to Granada. The niggardly Intendant, learning the cause of his departure, became alarmed, and sent a messenger after him post-haste, offering him his own price for the plans! CANO'S LOVE OF SCULPTURE. Skillful as Cano was with the pencil, he loved the chisel above all his other artistic implements. He was so fond of sculpture that, when wearied with painting, he would take his tools, and block out a piece of carving. A disciple one day remarking that to lay down a pencil and take up a mallet, was a strange method of repose, he replied, "Blockhead! don't you see that to create form and relief on a flat surface, is a greater labor than to fashion one shape into another?" CASTILLO'S SARCASM ON ALFARO. Juan de Alfaro first studied under Antonio del Castillo at Seville, and subsequently in the school of Velasquez at Madrid. After his return to Seville, he was wont to plume himself upon the knowledge of art which he had acquired in the school of that great painter; and he also signed all his pictures in a conspicuous manner, "_Alfaro, pinxit_." This was too much for Castillo, and he accordingly inscribed his Baptism of St. Francis, executed for the Capuchin convent, where his juvenile rival was likewise employed, "_Non pinxit Alfaro_." Years after, Palomino became sufficiently intimate with Alfaro, to ask him what he thought of Castillo's sarcastic inscription. "I think," replied the unabashed object of the jest, "that it was a great honor for me, who was then a beardless boy, to be treated as a rival by so able an artist." TORRES' IMITATIONS OF CARAVAGGIO. Matias de Torres, a Spanish painter, affected the style of Caravaggio. His compositions were half veiled in thick impenetrable shadows, which concealed the design, and sometimes left the subject a mystery. Francisco de Solis was standing before one of them, in the church of Victory at Madrid, representing a scene from the life of St. Diego, and was asked to explain the subject depicted. "It represents," said the witty painter, "_San Brazo_," St. Arm, nothing being distinguished but the arm of a mendicant in the background. PANTOJA AND THE EAGLE. Palomino relates that a superb eagle, of the bearded kind, having been captured in the royal chase, near the Prado, the king (Philip III.) gave orders to Pantoja to paint its likeness, which he did with such truthfulness that the royal bird, on seeing it, mistook it for a real eagle, and attacked the picture with such impetuosity that he tore it in pieces with his beak and talons before they could secure him. The indignant bird was then tied more carefully, and the portrait painted over again. THE PAINTER METHODIUS AND THE KING OF BULGARIA. Pacheco relates a remarkable effect produced by a picture from the pencil of Methodius, who resided at Constantinople about 854. He was invited to Nicopolis by Bogoris, king of the Bulgarians, to decorate a banqueting-hall in his palace. That prince left the choice of his subject to the artist, limiting him to those of a tragic or terrible character. The sister of Bogoris, during a long captivity at Constantinople, had become a convert to the Greek church, and greatly desired that her brother should renounce paganism; therefore it was probably at her instance, in this case, that Methodius painted the Last Judgment. He succeeded in depicting the glories of the blessed and the pains of the damned in such a fearful manner, that the heathen king was induced in his terror to send for a Bishop, and signify his willingness to unite with the Greek church; and the whole Bulgarian nation soon followed his example. JOHN C. VERMEYEN AND CHARLES V. This Dutch painter was invited to Spain by Charles V., and accompanied that monarch on his expedition to Tunis, of which he preserved some scenes that were afterwards transferred to Brussels tapestries. He followed the court for many years, and exercised his art with honor and profit, in portrait, landscape, and sacred subjects. The palace of the Prado was adorned with a number of his works, particularly eight pictures representing the Imperial progresses in Germany, and Views of Madrid, Valladolid, Naples, and London; all of which perished in the fire of 1608. Vermeyen was an especial favorite of Charles V., who ordered his bust to be executed in marble, "for the sake of the gravity and nobleness of his countenance." He was very remarkable for his long beard, which gained him the surname of _El Barbudo_ or _Barbalonga_. In fact, so very lengthy was this beard, that Descamps says the Emperor in his playful moods used to amuse himself by treading on it, as it trailed on the ground! BLAS DE PRADO AND THE EMPEROR OF MOROCCO. In 1593 the Emperor of Morocco applied to Philip II. for the loan of a painter, to which the latter made answer that they had in Spain two sorts of painters--the ordinary and the excellent--and desired to know which his infidel brother preferred. "Kings should always have the best," replied the Moor; and so Philip sent him Blas de Prado to Fez. There he painted various works for the palace, and a portrait of the monarch's daughter, to the great satisfaction of her father. After keeping the artist several years in his service, the emperor finally sent him away, with many rich gifts; and he returned to Castile with considerable wealth. The Academy of San Ferdinando possesses a fine work by him, representing the Virgin and Infant seated in the clouds. DON JUAN CARRENO This Spanish painter was a favorite with King Charles II. He was painting his Majesty's portrait one day in the presence of the Queen mother, when the royal sitter asked him to which of the knightly orders he belonged. "To none," replied the artist, "but the order of your Majesty's servants." "Why is this?" said Charles. The Admiral of Castile, who was standing by, replied that he should have a cross immediately; and on leaving the royal presence, he sent Carreño a rich badge of Santiago, assuring him that what the king had said entitled him to wear it. Palomino says, however, that the artist's modesty prevented him from accepting the proffered honor. His royal master continued to treat him with unabated regard, and would allow no artist to paint him without Carreño's permission. CARRENO'S COPY OF TITIAN'S ST. MARGARET. Palomino was one day in company with Carreño at the house of Don Pedro de Arce, when a discussion arose about the merits of a certain copy of Titian's St. Margaret, which hung in the room After all present had voted it execrable, Carreño quietly remarked, "It at least has the merit of showing that no man need despair of improving in art, for I painted it myself when I was a beginner." CARRENO'S ABSTRACTION OF MIND. Being at his easel one morning with two friends, one of them, for a jest, drank the cup of chocolate which stood untasted by his side. The maid-servant removing the cup, Carreño remonstrated, saying that he had not breakfasted, and on being shown that the contents were gone, appealed to the visitors. Being gravely assured by them that he had actually emptied the cup with his own lips, he replied, like Newton, "Well really, I was so busy that I had entirely forgotten it." ANECDOTE OF CESPEDES' LAST SUPPER. The Cathedral of Cordova still possesses his famous Supper, but in so faded and ruinous a condition that it is impossible to judge fairly of its merits. Palomino extols the dignity and beauty of the Saviour's head, and the masterly discrimination of character displayed in those of the apostles. Of the jars and vases standing in the foreground, it is related that while the picture was on the easel, these accessories attracted, by their exquisite finish, the attention of some visitors, to the exclusion of the higher parts of the composition, to the great disgust of the artist. "Andres!" cried he, somewhat testily, to his servant, "rub out these things, since after all my care and study, and amongst so many heads, figures, hands, and expressions, people choose to see nothing but these impertinences;" and much persuasion and entreaty were needed to save the devoted pipkins from destruction. ZUCCARO'S COMPLIMENT TO CESPEDES. The reputation which the Spanish painter Cespedes enjoyed among his cotemporaries, is proved by an anecdote of Federigo Zuccaro. On being requested to paint a picture of St. Margaret for the Cathedral of Cordova, he for some time refused to comply, asking, "Where is Cespedes, that you send to Italy for pictures?" DONA BARBARA MARIA DE HUEVA. Doña Barbara Maria de Hueva was born at Madrid in 1733. Before she had reached her twentieth year, according to Bermudez, she had acquired so much skill in painting, that at the first meeting of the Academy of St. Ferdinand in 1752, on the exhibition of some of her sketches, she was immediately elected an honorary academician, and received the first diploma issued under the royal charter. "This proud distinction," said the president, "is conferred in the hope that the fair artist may be encouraged to rival the fame of those ladies already illustrious in art." How far this hope was realized, Bermudez has omitted to inform us. THE MIRACULOUS PICTURE OF THE VIRGIN. The eminent American sculptor Greenough, who has recently (1853) departed this life, wrote several years ago a very interesting account of a wonderful picture at Florence, from which the following is extracted: "When you enter the church of Santissima Annunziata, at Florence, your attention is drawn at once to a sort of miniature temple on the left hand. It is of white marble; but the glare and flash of crimson hangings and silver lamps scarcely allow your eye the quiet necessary to appreciate either form or material. A picture hangs there. It is the _Miraculous Annunciation_. The artist who was employed to paint it, had finished all except the head of the Virgin Mary, and fell asleep before the easel while the work was in that condition. On awakening, he beheld the picture finished; and the short time which had elapsed, and his own position relative to the canvas, made it clear (so says the tradition) that a divine hand had completed a task which, to say the least, a mortal could only attempt with despair. "Less than this has made many pictures in Italy the objects of attentions which our Puritan fathers condemned as idolatrous. The miraculous 'Annunziata' became, accordingly, the divinity of a splendid shrine. The fame of her interposition spread far and wide, and her tabernacle was filled with the costly offerings of the devout, the showy tributes of the zealous. The prince gave of his abundance, nor was the widow's mite refused; and to this day the reputation of this shrine stands untouched among all papal devotees. "The Santissima Annunziata is always veiled, unless her interposition is urgently demanded by the apprehension of famine, plague, cholera, or some other public calamity. During my own residence at Florence, I have never known the miraculous picture to be uncovered during a drought, without the desired result immediately following. In cases of long continued rains, its intervention has been equally happy. I have heard several persons, rather inclined to skepticism as to the miraculous qualities of the picture, hint that the _barometer_ was consulted on these occasions; else, say they, why was not the picture uncovered before the mischief had gone so far? What an idea is suggested by the bare hint! "I stood on the pavement of the church, with an old man who had himself been educated as a priest. He had a talent for drawing, and became a painter. As a practical painter, he was mediocre; but he was learned in everything relating to art. He gradually sank from history to portrait, from portrait to miniature, from miniature to restoration; and had the grim satisfaction, in his old age, of mending what in his best days he never could make--good pictures. When I knew him, he was one of the conservators of the Royal Gallery. He led me before the shrine, and whispered, with much veneration, the story I have related of its origin. When I had gazed long at the picture, I turned to speak to him, but he had left the church. As I walked through the vestibule, however, I saw him standing near one of the pillars that adorn the façade. He was evidently waiting for me. Me-thinks I see him now, with his face of seventy and his dress of twenty-five, his bright black wig, his velvet waistcoat, and glittering gold chain--his snuff-box in his hand, and a latent twinkle in his black eyes. 'What is really remarkable in that miraculous picture,' said he, taking me by the button, and forcing me to bend till his mouth and my ear were exactly on a line--'What is really remarkable about it is, that the angel who painted that Virgin, so completely adopted the style of that epoch! Same angular, incorrect outline! Same opaque shadows! eh? eh?' He took a pinch, and wishing me a good appetite, turned up the Via S. Sebastiano." THE CHAIR OF ST. PETER. "La Festra di Cattreda, or commemoration of the placing of the chair of St. Peter, on the 18th of January, is one of the most striking ceremonies, at Rome, which follow Christmas and precede the holy week. At the extremity of the great nave of St. Peter's, behind the high altar, and mounted upon a tribune designed or ornamented by Michael Angelo, stands a sort of throne, composed of precious materials, and supported by four gigantic figures. A glory of seraphim, with groups of angels, shed a brilliant light upon its splendors. This throne enshrines the real, plain, worm-eaten wooden chair, on which St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, is said to have pontificated; more precious than all the bronze, gold, and gems with which it is hidden, not only from impious, but holy eyes, and which once only, in the flight of ages, was profaned by mortal inspection. "The sacrilegious curiosity of the French, however, broke through all obstacles to their seeing the chair of St. Peter. They actually removed its superb casket, and discovered the relic. Upon its mouldering and dusty surface were traced carvings, which bore the appearance of letters. The chair was quickly brought into a better light, the dust and cobwebs removed, and the inscription (for an inscription it was), faithfully copied. The writing is in Arabic characters, and is the well known confession of Mahometan faith--'There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet.' It is supposed that this chair had been, among the spoils of the Crusaders, offered to the church at a time when a taste for antiquarian lore, and the deciphering of inscriptions, were not yet in fashion. The story has been since hushed up, the chair replaced, and none but the unhallowed remember the fact, and none but the audacious repeat it. Yet such there are, even at Rome!"--_Ireland's Anecdotes of Napoleon._ THE SAGRO CATINO, OR EMERALD DISH. "The church of St. Lorenzo, at Genoa, is celebrated for containing a most sacred relic, the 'Sagro Catino,' a dish of one entire and perfect _emerald_, said to be that on which our Saviour ate his last supper. Such a dish in the house of a Jewish publican was a miracle in itself. Mr. Eustace says, he looked for this dish, but found that the French, 'whose delight is brutal violence, as it is that of the lion or the tiger,' had carried it away. And so indeed they did. But that was nothing. The carrying off relics--the robbing of Peter to pay Paul, and spoliating one church to enrich another--was an old trick of legitimate conquerors in all ages; for this very '_dish_' had been carried away by the royal crusaders, when they took _Cesarea_ in Palestine, under _Guillaume Embriaco_, in the twelfth century. In the division of spoils, this emerald fell to the share of the _Genoese Crusaders_, into whose holy vocation some of their old trading propensities evidently entered; and they deemed the vulgar value, the profane price, of this treasure, so high, that on an emergency, they pledged it for nine thousand five hundred livres. Redeemed and replaced, it was guarded by the _knights of honor_ called _Clavigeri_; and only escaped once a year! Millions knelt before it, and the penalty on the bold but zealous hand that touched it with a diamond, was a thousand golden ducats." The French seized this relic, as the crusaders had done in the twelfth century; but instead of conveying it from the church of San Lorenzo to the abbey of St. Denis (_selon les règles_), they most sacrilegiously sent it to a _laboratory_. Instead of submitting it, with a traditional story, to a _council of Trent_, they handed it over to the _institute of Paris_; and chemists, geologists, and philosophers, were called on to decide the fate of that relic which bishops, priests and deacons had pronounced to be too sacred for human investigation, or even for human touch. _The result of the scientific investigation was, that the emerald dish was a piece of green glass!_ When England made the King of Sardinia a present of the dukedom of one of the oldest republics in Europe, and restitutions were making "_de part et d'autre_;" _Victor Emmanuel_ insisted upon having his emerald dish; not for the purpose of putting it in a cabinet of curiosities, as they had done at Paris, to serve as a curious monument of the remote epoch in which the art of making colored glass was known--(of its great antiquity there is no doubt)--but of restoring it to its shrine at San Lorenzo--to its guard of knights servitors--to the homage, offerings, and bigotry of the people! with a republished assurance that this is the invaluable _emerald dish_, the '_Sagro Catino_,' which _Queen Sheba_ offered, with other gems, to King Solomon (who deposited it, where all gems should be, in his church), and which afterwards was reserved for a higher destiny than even that assigned to it in the gorgeous temple of Jerusalem. The story of the analysis by the institute of Paris is hushed up, and those who would revive it would be branded with the odium of blasphemy and sedition; none now remember such things, but those who are the determined enemies of social order, or as the Genoese Royal Journal would call them, '_the radicals of the age_.'--_Italy, by Lady Morning_. "THE PAINTER OF FLORENCE." There is an old painting in the church of the Holy Virgin at Florence, representing the Virgin with the infant Jesus in her arms, trampling the dragon under her feet, about which is the following curious legend, thus humorously described by Southey, in the Annals of the Fine Arts: There once was a Painter in Catholic days, Like Job who eschewed all evil, Still on his Madonnas the curious may gaze With applause and amazement; but chiefly his praise And delight was in painting the devil. They were angels compared to the devils he drew, Who besieged poor St. Anthony's cell, Such burning hot eyes, such a _d----mnable_ hue, You could even smell brimstone, their breath was so blue He painted his devils so well. And now had the artist a picture begun, 'Twas over the Virgin's church door; She stood on the dragon embracing her son, Many devils already the artist had done, But this must outdo all before. The old dragon's imps as they fled through the air, At seeing it paused on the wing, For he had a likeness so just to a hair, That they came as Apollyon himself had been there, To pay their respects to their king. Every child on beholding it, shivered with dread, And screamed, as he turned away quick; Not an old woman saw it, but raising her head, Dropp'd a bead, made a cross on her wrinkles, and said, "God help me from ugly old Nick!" What the Painter so earnestly thought on by day, He sometimes would dream of by night; But once he was started as sleeping he lay, 'Twas no fancy, no dream--he could plainly survey That the devil himself was in sight. "You rascally dauber," old Beelzebub cries, "Take heed how you wrong me, again! Though your caricatures for myself I despise, Make me handsomer now in the multitude's eyes, Or see if I threaten in vain." Now the painter was bold and religious beside, And on faith he had certain reliance, So earnestly he all his countenance eyed, And thanked him for sitting with Catholic pride, And sturdily bid him defiance. Betimes in the morning, the Painter arose, He is ready as soon as 'tis light; Every look, every line, every feature he knows, 'Twas fresh to his eye, to his labor he goes, And he has the wicked old one quite. Happy man, he is sure the resemblance can't fail, The tip of his nose is red hot, There's his grin and his fangs, his skin cover'd with scales And that--the identical curl of the tail, Not a mark--not a claw is forgot. He looks and retouches again with delight; 'Tis a portrait complete to his mind! He touches again, and again feeds his sight, He looks around for applause, and he sees with affright, The original standing behind. "Fool! idiot!" old Beelzebub grinned as he spoke, And stamp'd on the scaffold in ire; The painter grew pale, for he knew it no joke, 'Twas a terrible height, and the scaffolding broke; And the devil could wish it no higher. "Help! help me, O Mary," he cried in alarm, As the scaffold sank under his feet, From the canvas the Virgin extended her arm, She caught the good painter, she saved him from harm, There were thousands who saw in the street. The old dragon fled when the wonder he spied, And curs'd his own fruitless endeavor: While the Painter called after, his rage to deride, Shook his palette and brushes in triumph, and cried, "Now I'll paint thee more ugly than ever!" LEGEND OF THE PAINTER-FRIAR, THE DEVIL AND THE VIRGIN. Don José de Valdivielso, one of the chaplains of the gay Cardinal Infant Ferdinand of Austria, relates the following legend in his paper on the Tax on Pictures, appended to Carducho's Dialogos de la Pintura. A certain young friar was famous amongst his order, for his skill in painting; and he took peculiar delight in drawing the Virgin and the Devil. To heighten the divine beauty of the one, and to devise new and extravagant forms of ugliness for the other, were the chief recreations for his leisure hours. Vexed at last by the variety and vigor of his sketches, Beelzebub, to be revenged, assumed the form of a lovely maiden, and crossed under this guise the path of the friar, who being of an amorous disposition, fell at once into the trap. The seeming damsel smiled on her shaven wooer, but though nothing loth to be won, would not surrender her charms at a less price than certain reliquaries and jewels in the convent treasury--a price which the friar in an evil hour consented to pay. He admitted her at midnight within the convent walls, and leading her to the sacristy, took from its antique cabinet the things for which she had asked. Then came the moment of vengeance. Passing in their return through the moonlit cloister as the friar stole along, embracing the booty with one arm, and his false Duessa with the other, the demon-lady suddenly cried out "Thieves!" with diabolical energy, and instantly vanished. The snoring monks rushed disordered from their cells and detected their unlucky brother making off with their plate. Excuse being impossible, they tied the culprit to a column, and leaving him till matins, when his punishment was to be determined, went back to their slumbers. When all was quiet, the Devil reappeared, but this time in his most hideous shape. Half dead with cold and terror, the discomfited caricaturist stood shivering at his column, while his tormentor made unmercifully merry with him; twitting him with his amorous overtures, mocking his stammered prayers, and irreverently suggesting an appeal for aid to the beauty he so loved to delineate. The penitent wretch at last took the advice thus jeeringly given--when lo! the Virgin descended, radiant in heavenly loveliness, loosened his cords, and bade him bind the Evil One to the column in his place--an order which he obeyed through her strength, with no less alacrity than astonishment. She further ordered him to appear among the other monks at table, and charged herself with the task of restoring the stolen plate to its place. Thus the tables were suddenly turned. The friar presented himself among his brethren in the morning, to their no small astonishment, and voted with much contrition for his own condemnation--a sentence which was reversed when they came to examine the contents of the sacristy, and found everything correct. As to the Devil, who remained fast bound to the pillar, he was soundly flogged, and so fell into the pit which he had digged for another. His dupe, on the other hand, gathered new strength from his fall, and became not only a wiser and a better man, but also an abler artist; for the experience of that terrible night had supplied all that was wanting to complete the ideal of his favorite subjects. Thenceforth, he followed no more after enticing damsels, but remained in his cloister, painting the Madonna more serenely beautiful, and the Arch Enemy more curiously appalling than ever. GERARD DOUW. This extraordinary artist was born at Leyden, in 1613. He was the son of a glazier, and early exhibited a passion for the fine arts, which his father encouraged. He received his first instruction in drawing from Dolendo, the engraver. He was afterwards placed with Peter Kowenhoorn, to learn the trade of a glass-stainer or painter; but disliking this business, he became the pupil of Rembrandt when only fifteen years of age, in whose school be continued three years. From Rembrandt he learned the true principles of coloring, to which he added a delicacy of pencilling, and a patience in working up his pictures to the highest degree of neatness and finish, superior to any other master. He was more pleased with the earlier and more finished works of Rembrandt, than with his later productions, executed with more boldness and freedom of pencilling; he therefore conceived the project of combining the rich and glowing colors of that master with the polish and suavity of extreme finishing, and he adopted the method of uniting the powerful tunes and the magical light and shadow of his instructor with a minuteness and precision of pencilling that so nearly approached nature as to become perfect illusion. But though his manner appears so totally different from that of Rembrandt, yet it was to him he owed that excellence of coloring which enabled him to triumph over all the artists of his time. His pictures are usually of small size, with figures so exquisitely touched, and with a coloring so harmonious, transparent, and delicate, as to excite the astonishment and admiration of the beholder. Although his pictures are wrought up beyond the works of any other artist, there is still discoverable a spirited and characteristic touch that evinces the hand of a consummate master, and a breadth of light and shadow which is only to be found in the works of the greatest masters of the art of chiaro-scuro. The fame acquired by Douw is a crowning proof that excellence is not confined to any particular style or manner, and had he attempted to arrive at distinction by a bolder and less finished pencil, it is highly probable that his fame would not have been so great. It has been truly said that there are no positive rules by which genius must be bounded to arrive at excellence. Every intermediate style, from the grand and daring handling of Michael Angelo to the laborious and patient finishing of Douw, may conduct the painter to distinction, provided he adapts his manner to the character of the subjects he treats. DOUW'S STYLE. Douw designed everything from nature, and with such exactness that each object appears as perfect as nature herself. He was incontestibly the most wonderful in his finishing of all the Flemish masters, although the number of artists of that school who have excelled in this particular style are quite large. The pictures he first painted were portraits, and he wrought by the aid of a concave mirror, and sometimes by looking at the object through a frame of many squares of small silk thread. He spent so much time in these works that, notwithstanding they were extremely admired, his sitters became disgusted, and he was obliged to abandon portrait painting entirely, and devote his attention to fancy subjects, in the execution of which he could devote as much time as he pleased. This will not appear surprising, when Sandrart informs us that, on one occasion, in company with Peter de Laer, he visited Douw, and found him at work on a picture, which they could not forbear admiring for its extraordinary neatness, and on taking particular notice of a broom, and expressing their surprise that he could devote so much time in finishing so minute an object, Douw informed them that he should work on it three days more before he should think it complete. The same author also says that in a family picture of Mrs. Spiering, that lady sat five days for the finishing of one of her hands, supporting it on the arm of a chair. DOUW'S METHOD OF PAINTING. His mind was naturally turned to precision and exactness, and it is evident that he would have shown this quality in any other profession, had he practiced another. Methodical and regular in all his habits, he prepared and ground his own colors, and made his own brushes of a peculiar shape, and he kept them locked up in a case made for the purpose, that they might be free from soil. He permitted no one to enter his studio, save a very few friends, and when he entered himself, he went as softly as he could tread, so as not to raise the dust, and after taking his seat, waited some time till the air was settled before he opened his box and went to work; scarcely a breath of air was allowed to ventilate his painting-room. DOUW'S WORKS. Everything that came from his pencil was precious, even in his life-time. Houbraken says that his great patron, Mr. Spiering the banker, allowed him one thousand guilders a year, and paid besides whatever sum he pleased to ask for his pictures, some of which he purchased for their weight in silver; but Sandrart informs us, with more probability, that the thousand guilders were paid to Douw by Spiering on condition that the artist should give him the choice of all the pictures he painted. The following description of one of Gerhard's most capital pictures, for a long time in the possession of the family of Van Hoek, at Amsterdam, will serve to give a good idea of his method of treating his subjects. The picture is much larger than his usual size, being three feet long by two feet six inches wide, inside the frame. The room is divided into two apartments by a curtain of curiously wrought tapestry. In one apartment sits a woman giving suck to her child; at her side is a cradle, and a table covered with tapestry, on which is placed a gilt lamp which lights the room. In the second apartment is a surgeon performing an operation upon a countryman, and by his side stands a woman holding some utensils. The folding doors on one side shows a study, and a man making a pen by candle light; and on the other, a school, with boys writing, and sitting at different tables. The whole is lighted in an agreeable and surprising manner; every object is expressed with beauty and astonishing force. Nor does the subject appear too crowded, for it was one of his peculiar talents to show, in a small compass, more than other painters could do in a much larger space. His pictures are generally confined to a few figures, and sometimes to a single one, and when he attempted larger compositions, he was generally less successful. The works of this artist are not numerous, from the immense labor and time he bestowed upon a single one; and from this circumstance, and the estimation in which they are held by the curious collectors, they have ever commanded enormous prices. They were always particularly admired in France, in the days of Napoleon, there were no less than seventeen of his pictures gathered into the Louvre, most of which were, after his downfall, restored to their original proprietors, among which was the famous Dropsical Woman, from the collection of the King of Sardinia. At Turin, are several pictures by Douw, the most famous of which is the one just named--the Dropsical Woman, attended by her physician, who is examining an urinal. This picture is wonderfully true to nature, and each particular hair and pore of the skin is represented. In the gallery at Florence is one of his pictures, representing an interior by candle-light, with a mountebank, surrounded by a number of clowns, which is exquisitely finished. The great fame of Gerhard Douw, and the eager desire for his works, have given rise to numerous counterfeits. We may safely say that there is not an original picture by this artist in the United States. Douw died, very rich, in 1674. ALBERT DURER. This extraordinary artist was born at Nuremberg in 1471. His father was a skillful goldsmith, from Hungary, and taught his son the first rudiments of design, intending him for his own profession; but his early and decided inclination for the arts and sciences induced him to permit young Durer to follow the bent of his genius. He received his first instruction in painting and engraving from Martin Hapse. When he had reached the age of fourteen, it was his father's intention to have placed him under the instruction of Martin Schoen, of Colmar, the most distinguished artist of his time in Germany, but the death of the latter happening about that time, he became a pupil of Michael Wolgemut, in 1486, the first artist then in Nuremberg, with whom he studied diligently four years. He also cultivated the study of perspective, the mathematics, and architecture, in all of which he acquired a profound knowledge. Having finished his studies, he commenced his travels in 1490, and spent four years in traveling through Germany, the Netherlands, and the adjacent counties and provinces. On his return to Nuremberg, in 1494, he ventured to exhibit his works to the public, which immediately attracted great attention. His first work was a piece of the Three Graces, represented by as many female figures, with a globe over their heads. He soon after executed one of his masterpieces, a drawing of Orpheus. About this time, to please his father, as it is said, he married the daughter of Hans Fritz, a celebrated mechanic, who proved a fierce Xantippe, and embittered, and some say shortened his life. In 1506, he went to Venice to improve himself, where his abilities excited envy and admiration. Here he painted the Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew for the church of S. Marco, which was afterwards purchased by the Emperor Rodolphus, and removed to Prague. He also went to Bologna, and returned home in 1507. This journey to Italy had no effect whatever upon his style, though doubtless he obtained much information that was valuable to him, for at this period commenced the proper era of his greatness. DURER'S WORKS AS A PAINTER. Though Durer was most famous as an engraver, yet he executed many large paintings, which occupy a distinguished place in the royal collections of Germany, and other European countries. In the imperial collection at Munich are some of the most celebrated, as Adam and Eve, the Adoration of the Magi, the Crucifixion--a grand composition--the Crowning of the Virgin, the Battle between Alexander and Darius, and many other great works. Durer painted the Wise Men's Offering, two pictures of the Passion of Christ, and an Assumption of the Virgin, for a monastery of Frankfort, which proved a source of income to the monks, from the presents they received for exhibiting them. The people of Nuremberg still preserve, in the Town Hall, his portraits of Charlemagne and some Emperors of the House of Austria, with the Twelve Apostles, whose drapery is remarkable for being modern German, instead of Oriental. He sent his own portrait to Raffaelle, painted on canvas, without any coloring or touch of the pencil, only heightened with shades and white, yet exhibiting such strength and elegance that the great artist to whom it was presented expressed the greatest surprise at the sight of it. This piece, after the death of Raffaelle, fell into the possession of Giulio Romano, who placed it among the curiosities of the palace of Mantua. Besides the pictures already mentioned, there is by him an Ecce Homo at Venice, his own portrait, and two pictures representing St. James and St. Philip, and an Adam and Eve in the Florentine Gallery. There are also some of his works in the Louvre, and in the royal collections in England. As a painter, it has been observed of Durer that he studied nature only in her unadorned state, without attending to those graces which study and art might have afforded him; but his imagination was lively, his composition grand, and his pencil delicate. He finished his works with exact neatness, and he was particularly excellent in his Madonnas, though he encumbered them with heavy draperies. He surpassed all the painters of his own country, yet he did not avoid their defects--such as dryness and formality of outline, the want of a just degradation of the tints, an expression without agreeableness, and draperies broad in the folds, but stiff in the forms. He was no observer of the propriety of costume, and paid so little attention to it that he appears to have preferred to drape his saints and heroes of antiquity in the costume of his own time and country. Fuseli observes that "the coloring of Durer went beyond his age, and in his easel pictures it as far excelled the oil color of Raffaelle in juice, and breadth, and handling, as Raffaelle excelled him in every other quality." DURER'S WORKS AS AN ENGRAVER. Durer derived most of his fame from his engravings, and he is allowed to have surpassed every artist of his time in this branch of art. Born in the infancy of the art, he carried engraving to a perfection that has hardly been surpassed. When we consider that, without any models worthy of imitation, he brought engraving to such great perfection, we are astonished at his genius, and his own resources. Although engraving has had the advantage and experience of more than three centuries, it would perhaps be difficult to select a specimen of executive excellence surpassing his print of St. Jerome, engraved in 1514. He had a perfect command of the graver, and his works are executed with remarkable neatness and clearness of stroke; if we do not find in his plates that boldness and freedom desirable in large historical works, we find in them everything that can be wished in works more minute and finished, as were his. To him is attributed the invention of etching; and if he was not the inventor, he was the first who excelled in the art. He also invented the method of printing wood-cuts in chiaro-scuro, or with two blocks. His great mathematical knowledge enabled him to form a regular system of rules for drawing and painting with geometrical precision. He had the power of catching the exact expression of the features, and of delineating all the passions. Although he was well acquainted with the anatomy of the human figure, and occasionally designed it correctly, his contours are neither graceful nor pleasing, and his prints are never entirely divested of the stiff and formal taste that prevailed at the time, both in his figures and drapery. Such was his reputation, both at home and abroad, that Marc' Antonio Raimondi counterfeited his Passion of Christ, and the Life of the Virgin at Venice, and sold them for the genuine works of Durer. The latter, hearing of the fraud, was so exasperated that he set out for Venice, where he complained to the government of the wrong that had been done him by the plagiarist, but he could obtain no other satisfaction than a decree prohibiting Raimondi from affixing Durer's monogram or signatures to these copies in future. Vasari says that when the prints of Durer were first brought into Italy, they incited the painters there to elevate themselves in that branch of art, and to make his works their models. DURER'S FAME AND DEATH. The fame of Durer spread far and wide in his life-time. The Emperor Maximillian I. had a great esteem for him, and appointed him his court painter, with a liberal pension, and conferred on him letters of nobility; Charles V., his successor, confirmed him in his office, bestowing upon him at the same time the painter's coat of arms, viz., three escutcheons, argent, in a deep azure field. Ferdinand, King of Hungary, also bestowed upon him marked favors and liberality. Durer was in favor with high and low. All the artists and learned men of his time honored and loved him, and his early death in 1528 was universally lamented. DURER'S HABITS AND LITERARY WORKS. Durer always lived in a frugal manner, without the least ostentation for the distinguished favors heaped upon him. He applied himself to his profession with the most constant and untiring industry, which, together with his great knowledge, great facility of mechanical execution, and a remarkable talent for imitation, enabled him to rise to such distinction, and to exert so powerful an influence on German art for a great length of time. He was the first artist in Germany who practiced and taught the rules of perspective, and of the proportions of the human figure, according to mathematical principles. His treatise on proportions is said to have resulted from his studies of his picture of Adam and Eve. His principal works are _De Symmetria partium in rectis formis humanorum corporum_, printed at Nuremberg in 1532; and _De Verieitate Figurarum, et flexuris partium, et Gestibus Imaginum_; 1534. These works were written in German, and after Durer's death translated into Latin. The figures illustrating the subjects were executed by Durer, on wood, in an admirable manner. Durer had also much merit as a miscellaneous writer, and labored to purify and elevate the German language, in which he was assisted by his friend, W. Pirkheimer. His works were published in a collected form at Arnheim, in 1603, folio, in Latin and in French. J. J. Roth wrote a life of Durer, published at Leipsic in 1791. LUDOLPH BACKHUYSEN. This eminent painter was born in 1631. His father intended him for the mercantile profession, but nature for a marine painter. His passion for art induced him to neglect his employer's business, with whom his father had placed him, and to spend his time in drawing, and in frequenting the studios of the painters at Amsterdam. His fondness for shipping led him frequently to the port of the city, where he made admirable drawings of the vessels with a pen, which were much sought after by the collectors, and were purchased at liberal prices. Several of his drawings were sold at 100 florins each. This success induced him to paint marine subjects. His first essays were successful, and his pictures universally admired. While painting, he would not admit his most intimate friends to his studio, lest his fancy might be disturbed. He hired fishermen to take him out to sea in the most tremendous gales, and on landing, he would run impatiently to his palette to secure the grand impressions of the views he had just witnessed. He has represented that element in its most terrible agitation, with a fidelity that intimidates the beholder. His pictures on these subjects have raised his reputation even higher than that of W. van de Velde; although the works of the later, which represent the sea at rest, or in light breezes, are much superior, and indeed inimitable. His pictures are distinguished for their admirable perspective, correct drawing, neatness and freedom of touch, and remarkable facility of execution. For the burgomasters of Amsterdam, he painted a large picture with a multitude of vessels, and a view of the city in the distance; for which they gave him 1,300 guilders, and a handsome present. This picture was presented to the King of France, who placed it in the Louvre. The King of Prussia visited Backhuysen, and the Czar Peter took delight in seeing him paint, and often endeavored to make drawings after vessels which the artist had designed. JOHN BAPTIST WEENIX, THE ELDER. This eminent Dutch painter was born at Amsterdam in 1621. He possessed extraordinary and varied talents. He painted history, portraits, landscapes, sea-ports, animals, and dead game, in all which branches he showed uncommon ability; but his greatest excellence lay in painting Italian sea-ports, of a large size, enriched with noble edifices, and decorated with figures representing embarkations and all the activity of commercial industry. In these subjects he has scarcely been surpassed except by his pupil, Nicholas Berghem. WEENIX'S FACILITY OF HAND. Houbraken relates several instances of his remarkable facility of hand. He frequently painted a large landscape and inserted all the figures in a single day--feats so much admired in Salvator Rosa, and Gaspar Ponssin. On one occasion he commenced and finished three portraits, on canvass, of three-quarters size, with heads as large as life, from sun-rise to sun-set, on a summer's day. Lanzi warns all artists, especially the youthful aspirant, not to imitate such expedition, as they value their reputation. JOHN BAPTIST WEENIX, THE YOUNGER. Was the son of the preceding, and born at Amsterdam in 1644. Possessing less varied talent than his father; he was unrivaled in painting all sorts of animals, huntings, dead games, birds, flowers, and fruit. He was appointed Court painter to the Elector Palatine, with a liberal pension, and decorated his palace at Bernsberg with many of his choicest works. He painted in one gallery a series of pictures representing the Hunting of the Stag; and in another the Chase of the Wild Boar, which gained him the greatest applause. There are many of his best works in the Dusseldorf Gallery. He painted all kinds of birds and fowls in an inimitable manner; the soft down of the duck, the glossy plumage of the pigeon, the splendor of the peacock, the magnificent spread of an inanimate swan producing a flood of light, and serving as a contrast to all the objects around it, are so attractive that it is impossible to contemplate one of his pictures of these subjects without feeling admiration and delight at the painter's skill in rivaling nature. JAN STEEN. The life of this extraordinary artist, if we are to believe his biographers, is soon told. He was born at Leyden in 1636. He early exhibited a passion for art, which his father, a wealthy brewer of that city, endeavored to restrain, and afterwards apprehending that he could not procure a comfortable subsistence by the exercise of his pencil, established him in his own business at Delft, where, instead of attending to his affairs, he gave himself up to dissipation, and soon squandered his means and ruined his establishment; his indulgent parent, after repeated attempts to reclaim him, was compelled to abandon him to his fate. He opened a tavern, which proved more calamitous than the former undertaking. He gave himself up entirely to reveling and intoxication, wrought only when his necessities compelled him, and sold his pictures to satisfy his immediate wants, and often for the most paltry prices to escape arrest. JAN STEEN'S WORKS. The pictures of Jan Steen usually represent merry-makings, and the frolics and festivities of the ale-house, which he treated with a characteristic expression of humorous drollery, that compensated for the vulgarity of his subjects. He sometimes painted interiors, domestic assemblies, conversations, mountebanks, etc., which he generally accompanied with some facetious trait of wit or humor, admirably rendered. Some of his works of this description are little inferior to the charming productions of Gabriel Metzu. His compositions are ingenious and interesting, his design is correct and spirited, his coloring chaste and clear, and his pencil free and decided. He also had a good knowledge of the chiaro-scuro, which enabled him to give his figures a fine relief. His works are invariably finished with care and diligence, and do not betray any haste or infirmity of hand or head. It is evident that, from some untoward circumstance, his works were not appreciated in his day, but after his death they rose amazingly in value, and have continued to increase ever since,--a true test of a master's merit--till now they are scarcely to be found except in royal and noble collections and the public galleries of Europe. His pictures were, for a long time, scarcely known out of Holland, but now they are deservedly placed in the choicest collections. His works are very numerous, sufficient to have continually occupied the life time of not only a sober and industrious artist, but one possessing great facility of hand. Smith, in his Catalogue raisonné, vol. iv. and Supplement, gives a descriptive account of upwards of 300 genuine pictures by Steen, many of them compositions of numerous figures, and almost all of them executed with the greatest care. It cannot be believed that a man living in a state of continued dissipation and inebriety, could find time to produce so many admirable works, displaying, as they do, a deep study of human nature, and a great discrimination of character, or that the hand of a habitual drunkard could operate with such beauty and precision. Nor is it probable that a mind besotted by drink, and debased by low intercourse, could moralize so admirably as he has done on the evil consequences of intemperance and the indulgence of evil passions. KUGLER'S CRITIQUE ON THE WORKS OF JAN STEEN. Dr Kügler, a judicious critic, thus sums up his character as an artist: "The works of Jan Steen imply a free and cheerful view of common life, and he treats it with a careless humor, such as seems to deal with all its daily occurrences, high and low, as a laughable masquerade and a mere scene of perverse absurdity. His treatment of the subjects differed essentially from that adopted by other artists. Frequently, indeed, they are the same jolly drinking parties, or the meetings of boors; but in other masters the object is, for the most part, to depict a certain situation, either quiet or animated, whilst in Jan Steen is generally to be found action more or less developed, together with all the reciprocal relations and interests between the characters which spring from it. This is accompanied by great variety and force of individual expression, such as evinces the sharpest observation. He is almost the only artist in the Netherlands who has thus, with true genius, brought into full play all these elements of comedy. His technical execution suits his design; it is carefully finished, and notwithstanding the closest attention to minute details, it is as firm and correct as it is light and free." FROLICS OF MIERIS AND JAN STEEN. Sandrart says that Mieris had a real friendship for Jan Steen, and delighted in his company, though he was by no means fond of drinking as freely as Jan was accustomed to do every evening at the tavern. Notwithstanding this, he often passed whole nights with his friend in a joyous manner, and frequently returned very late to his lodging. One evening, when it was very dark and almost midnight, as Mieris strolled home from the tavern, he unluckily fell into the common sewer, which had been opened for the purpose of cleansing, and the workmen had left unguarded. There he must have perished, had not a cobbler and his wife, who worked in a neighboring stall, heard his cries and instantly ran to his relief. Having extricated Mieris, they took all possible care of him, and procured the best refreshment in their power. The next morning Mieris, having thanked his preservers, took his leave, but particularly remarked the house, that he might know it another time. The poor people were totally ignorant of the person whom they had relieved, but Mieris had too grateful a heart to forget his benefactors, and having painted a picture in his best manner, he brought it to the cobbler and his wife, telling them it was a present from the person whose life they had contributed to save, and desired them to carry it to his friend Cornelius Plaats, who would give them the full value for it. The woman, unacquainted with the real worth of the present, concluded she might receive a moderate gratuity for the picture, but her astonishment was inexpressible, when she received the sum of eight hundred florins. SIR ANTHONY MORE. This eminent painter was born at Utrecht, in 1519. In 1552, he accompanied the Cardinal Granville to Spain, who recommended him to the patronage of the Emperor Charles V., whose portrait he painted, and that of Prince Philip, which gave so much satisfaction to the monarch, that he sent him to Portugal, to paint the portraits of King John III., Catherine of Austria his Queen, and sister to Charles, and that of their daughter, the Princess Donna Maria, then contracted to Philip; he also painted the portrait of Donna Catalina, Charles' younger sister; all of which gave entire satisfaction, and the artist was munificently rewarded, and the honor of knighthood conferred on him. The Emperor next despatched More to England to take the portrait of the princess Mary previous to her marriage with Philip of Spain. On this occasion, he is said to have employed all the flattering aids of his art, and so captivated the courtiers of Spain, with the charms of Mary's person, that he was employed by Cardinal Granville and several of the grandees to make copies of it for them. He accompanied Philip to England, where he remained till the death of Queen Mary, who highly honored him, presented him a gold chain, and allowed him a pension of £100 a year. The Emperor Charles V. having abdicated in favor of his son Philip II., the latter returned to Spain, and made More his court-painter, where his talents procured him great respect and abundant employment. SIR ANTHONY MORE AND PHILIP II. Philip II. was accustomed to honor More by frequent visits to his studio, on which occasions he treated him with extraordinary familiarity. One day, in a moment of condescension and admiration, the monarch jocosely slapped More on the shoulder which compliment the painter, in an unguarded moment, playfully returned by smearing his hand with a little carmine from his brush. The King withdrew his hand and surveyed it for a moment, seriously; the courtiers were petrified with horror and amazement; the hand to which ladies knelt before they had the honor to kiss it, had never before been so dishonored since the foundation of the monarchy; at that moment the fate of More was balanced on a hair; he saw his rashness, fell on his knees, kissed the King's feet, and humbly begged pardon for the offence. Philip smiled, and pardoned him, and all seemed to be well again; but the person of the King was too sacred in those days, and the act too daring to escape the notice of the Inquisition, from whose bigotry and vengeance the King himself could not have shielded him. Happily for More, one of Philip's ministers advised him of his danger, and without loss of time he set out for Brussels, upon the feigned pretence of pressing engagements, nor could Philip ever induce him to return to his court. MORE'S SUCCESS AND WORKS. More was employed by most of the princes of Europe, who liberally rewarded him, and at every court his paintings were beheld with admiration and applause, but at none more than at those of Spain and England. He acquired an ample fortune. When he was in Portugal, the nobility of that country, in token of their esteem, presented him, in the name of their order, a gold chain valued at a thousand ducats. He closely imitated nature. He designed and painted in a bold, masculine style, with a rich tone of coloring; he showed a good knowledge of the chiaro-scuro, and he finished his pictures with neatness and care; his style is said to resemble that of Hans Holbein, though not possessing his delicacy and clearness; and there is something dry and hard in his manner. His talents were not confined to portraits; he painted several historical subjects in Spain for the Royal Collection, which were highly applauded, but which were unfortunately destroyed in the conflagration of the palace of the Prado. While he resided in Spain, he copied some portraits of illustrious women, in a style said to approach Titian. His own portrait, painted by himself, charmingly colored, and full of life and nature, is in the Florentine Gallery. His best work was a picture of the Circumcision, intended for the Cathedral at Antwerp, but he did not live to finish it, and died there in 1575. PERILOUS ADVENTURE OF A PAINTER. John Griffier, a Dutch painter of celebrity, went to London in 1667, where he met with great encouragement. While there he painted many views on the Thames, and in order to observe nature more attentively, he bought a yacht, embarked his family, and spent his whole time on the river. After several years he sailed for Holland in his frail craft but was wrecked in the Texel, where, after eight days of suffering, he and his family barely escaped with their lives, having lost all his paintings, and the fruits of his industry. This mishap cured him of his passion for the sea. ANECDOTE OF JOHN DE MABUSE. An amusing anecdote is related of this eminent painter. He was inordinately given to dissipation, and spent all his money, as fast as he earned it, in carousing with his boon companions. He was for a long time in the service of the Marquess de Veren, for whom he executed some of his most capital works. It happened on one occasion that the Emperor Charles V. made a visit to the Marquess, who made magnificent preparations for his reception, and among other things ordered all his household to be dressed in white damask. When the tailor came to measure Mabuse, he desired to have the damask, under the pretence of inventing a singular habit. He sold it immediately, spent the money, and then painted a paper suit, so like damask that it was not distinguished as he walked in procession between a philosopher and a poet, other pensioners of the Marquess; but the joke was too good to be kept, so his friends betrayed him to the Marquess, who, instead of being displeased was highly diverted, and asked the Emperor which of the three suits he liked best. The Emperor pointed to that of Mabuse, as excelling in whiteness and beauty of the flowers; and when he was told of the painter's stratagem, he would not believe it, till he had examined it with his own hands. CAPUGNANO AND LIONELLO SPADA. Lanzi relates the following amusing anecdote of Giovanni da Capugnano, an artist of little merit, but whose assurance enabled him to attract considerable attention in his day. "Misled by a pleasing self-delusion, he believed himself born to become a painter; like that ancient personage, mentioned by Horace, who imagined himself the owner of all the vessels that arrived in the Athenian port. His chief talent lay in making crucifixes, to fill up the angles, and in giving a varnish to the balustrades. Next, he attempted landscape in water-colors, in which were exhibited the most strange proportions; of houses less than the men; these last smaller than his sheep; and the sheep again than his birds. Extolled, however, in his own district, he determined to leave his native mountains, and figure on a wider theatre at Bologna; there he opened his house, and requested the Caracci, the only artists he believed to be more learned than himself, to furnish him with a pupil, whom he intended to polish in his studio. Lionello Spada, an admirable wit, accepted this invitation; he went and copied designs, affecting the utmost obsequiousness towards his master. At length, conceiving it time to put an end to the jest, he left behind him a most exquisite painting of Lucretia, and over the entrance of the chamber some fine satirical octaves, in apparent praise, but real ridicule of Capugnano. His worthy master only accused Lionello of ingratitude, for having acquired from him in so short a space the art of painting so beautifully from his designs; but the Caracci at last acquainted him with the joke, which acted as a complete antidote to his folly." MICHAEL ANGELO DA CARAVAGGIO--HIS QUARRELSOME DISPOSITION. Caravaggio possessed a very irascible and roving disposition. At the height of his popularity at Rome, he got into a quarrel with one of his own young friends, in a tennis-court, and struck him dead with a racket, having been severely wounded himself in the affray. He fled to Naples, where he executed some of his finest pictures, but he soon got weary of his residence there, and went to Malta. Here his superb picture of the Grand Master obtained for him the Cross of Malta, a rich gold chain, placed on his neck by the Grand Master's own hands, and two slaves to attend him. All these honors did not prevent the new knight from falling back into old habits. "_Il suo torbido ingegno_," says Bellori, plunged him into new difficulties; he fought and wounded a noble cavalier, was thrown into prison, from which he escaped almost by a miracle, and fled to Syracuse, where he obtained the favor of the Syracusans by painting a splendid picture of the Santa Morte, for the church of S. Lucia. In apprehension of being taken by the Knights of Malta, he soon fled to Messina, thence to Palermo, and returned to Naples, where hopes were held out to him of the Pope's pardon. Here he got into a quarrel with some military men in a public house, was wounded, and took refuge on board a felucca, about to sail for Rome. Stopping at a small port on the way, he was arrested by a Spanish guard, by mistake, for another person; when released, he found the felucca gone, and in it all his property. Traversing the burning shore, under an almost vertical sun, he was seized with a brain fever, and continued to wander through the Pontine Marshes till he arrived at Porto Ercoli, when he expired, aged forty years. JACOPO AMICONI. Giacomo Amiconi, a Venetian painter, went to England, in 1729, where he was first employed by Lord Tankerville to paint the staircase of his palace in St. James' Square. He there represented the stories of Achilles, Telemachus and Tiresias, which gained him great applause. When he was to be paid, he produced his bills of the workmen for scaffolding, materials, &c., amounting to £90, and asked no more, saying that he was content with the opportunity of showing what he could do. The peer, however, gave him £200 more. This brought him into notice, and he was much employed by the nobility to decorate their houses. PAINTING THE DEAD. Giovanni Baptista Gaulli, called Baciccio, one of the most eminent Genoese painters, was no less celebrated for portraits than for history. Pascoli says he painted no less than seven different Pontiffs, besides many illustrious personages. Possessing great colloquial powers, he engaged his sitters in the most animated conversation, and thus transferred their features to his canvas, so full of life and expression, that they looked as though they were about to speak to the beholder. He also had a remarkable talent of painting the dead, so as to obtain an exact resemblance of deceased persons whom he had never seen. For this purpose, he drew a face at random, afterwards altering it in every feature, by the advice and under the inspection of those who had known the original, till he had improved it to a striking likeness. TADDEO ZUCCARO. This eminent painter was born at San Angiolo, in the Duchy of Urbino, in 1529. At a very early age he evinced a passion for art and a precocious genius. After having received instruction from his father, a painter of little note, his extraordinary enthusiasm induced him, at fourteen years of age, to go to Rome, without a penny in his pocket, where he passed the day in designing, from the works of Raffaelle. Such was his poverty, that he was compelled to sleep under the loggie of the Chigi palace; he contrived to get money enough barely to supply the wants of nature, by grinding colors for the shops. Undaunted by difficulties that would have driven a less devoted lover of the art from the field, he pursued his studies with undiminished ardor, till his talents and industry attracted the notice of Daniello da Por, an artist then in repute, who generously relieved his wants and gave him instruction. From that time he made rapid progress, and soon acquired a distinguished reputation, but he died at Rome in 1566, in the prime of life. ZUCCARO'S RESENTMENT. Federigo Zuccaro, the brother of Taddeo, was employed by Pope Gregory XIII. in the Pauline chapel. While proceeding with his work, however, he fell out with some of the Pope's officers; and conceiving himself treated with indignity, he painted an allegorical picture of Calumny, introducing the portraits of all those individuals who had offended him, decorated with asses' ears. This he caused to be exhibited publicly over the gate of St. Luke's church, on the festival day of that Saint. His enemies, upon this, made such complaints that he was forced to fly from Rome, and passing into France, he visited Flanders and England. As soon as the pontiff was appeased, he returned to Rome, and completed his work in the Pauline chapel, fortunate in not losing his head as the price of such a daring exploit. ROYAL CRITICISM. Federigo Zuccaro was invited to Madrid by Philip II. to execute some frescos in the lower cloister of the Escurial, which, failing to give satisfaction to his royal patron, were subsequently effaced, and their place supplied by Pellegrino Tibaldi; the king nevertheless munificently rewarded him. One day, as he was displaying a picture of the Nativity, which he had painted for the great altar of the Escurial, for the inspection of the monarch, he said, "Sire, you now behold all that art can execute; beyond this which I have done, the powers of painting cannot go." The king was silent for some time; his countenance betrayed neither approbation nor contempt; at last, preserving the same indifference, he quietly asked the painter what _those things_ were in the basket of one of the shepherds in the act of running? He replied they were eggs. "It is well then, that he did not break them," said the king, as he turned on his way--a just rebuke for such fulsome self-adulation. PIETRO DA CORTONA. The name of this illustrious painter and architect was Berrettini, and he was born at Cortona, near Florence, in 1596. At the age of fourteen he went to Rome, where he studied the works of Raffaelle and Caravaggio with the greatest assiduity. It is said that at first he betrayed but little talent for painting, but his genius burst forth suddenly, to the astonishment of those companions who had laughed at his incapacity; this doubtless was owing to his previous thorough course of study. While yet young, he painted two pictures for the Cardinal Sacchetti, representing the Rape of the Sabines, and a Battle of Alexander, which gained him so much celebrity that Pope Urban VIII. commissioned him to paint a chapel in the church of S. Bibiena, where Ciampelli was employed. The latter at first regarded with contempt the audacity of so young a man's daring to attempt so important a public work, but Cortona had no sooner commenced than Ciampelli's disgust changed to admiration of his abilities. His success in this performance gained him the celebrated work of the ceiling of the grand saloon in the Barberini palace, which is considered one of the greatest productions of the kind ever executed. Cortona was invited to Florence by the Grand Duke Ferdinand II., to paint the saloon and four apartments in the Pitti palace, where he represented the Clemency of Alexander to the family of Darius, the Firmness of Porsena, the Continence of Cyrus, the History of Massanissa, and other subjects. While thus employed, the Duke, one day, having expressed his admiration of a weeping child which he had just painted, Cortona with a single stroke of his pencil made it appear laughing, and with another restored it to its former state; "Prince," said he, "you see how easily children laugh and cry." Disgusted with the intrigues of some artists jealous of his reputation, he left Florence abruptly, without completing his works, and the Grand Duke could never persuade him to return. On his return to Rome, he abounded with commissions, and Pope Alexander VII. honored him with the order of the Golden Spur. Cortona was also distinguished as an architect. He made a design for the Palace of the Louvre, which was so highly approved by Louis XIV. that he sent him his picture richly set in jewels. Cortona was a laborious artist, and though tormented with the gout, and in affluent circumstances, he continued to paint till his death, in 1699. "KNOW THYSELF." Mario Ballassi, a Florentine painter born in 1604, studied successively under Ligozzi, Roselli, and Passignano; he assisted the latter in the works he executed at Rome for Pope Urban XIII. His chief talent lay in copying the works of the great masters, which he did to admiration. Don Taddeo Barberini employed him to copy the Transfiguration of Raffaelle, for the Church of the Conception, in which he imitated the touch and expression of the original in so excellent a manner as to excite the surprise of the best judges at Rome. At the recommendation of the Cardinal Piccolomini, he was introduced to the Emperor Ferdinand III., who received him in an honorable manner. Elated with his success, he vainly imagined that if he could imitate the old masters, he could also equal them in an original style of his own. He signally failed in the attempt, which brought him into as much contempt as his former works had gained him approbation. BENVENUTO CELLINI. This eminent sculptor and famous medalist was in high favor with Clement VII., who took him into his service. During the time of the Spanish invasion, Cellini asked the Pope for absolution for certain homicides which "he believed himself to have committed in the service of the church." The Pope absolved him, and, to save time, he added an absolution in _prospectu_, "for all the homicides thereafter which the said Benvenuto might commit in the same service." On another occasion, Cellini got into a broil, and committed a homicide that was not in the service of the church. The friends of the deceased insisted upon condign punishment, and presumed to make some mention to the Pope about "the laws;" upon which the successor of St. Peter, knowing that it was easier to hang than to replace such a man, assumed a high tone, and told the complainants that "men who were masters of their art should not be subject to the laws." FRACANZANI AND SALVATOR ROSA. The first accents of the "thrilling melody of sweet renown" which ever vibrated to the heart of Salvator Rosa, came to his ear from the kind-hearted Fracanzani, his sister's husband, and a painter of merit. When Salvator returned home from his sketching tours among the mountains, Fracanzani would examine his drawings, and when he saw anything good, he would smilingly pat him on the head and exclaim, "Fruscia, fruscia, Salvatoriello--che va buono" (_Go on, go on, Salvator--this is good_). These simple plaudits were recalled to his memory with pleasure, in after years, when his fame rung among the polished circles at Rome and Florence. POPE URBAN VIII. AND BERNINI. When the Cardinal Barberini, who had been the warm friend, patron, and protector of Bernini, was elevated to the pontificate, the latter went to offer his congratulations to his benefactor. The Pope received him in the most gracious manner, uttering these memorable words, "E gran fortuna la vostra, Bernini, di vedere Papa, il Card. Maffeo Barberini; ma assai maggiore è la nostra, che il Cav. Bernini viva nel nostro pontificato;" (_It is a great piece of fortune for you, Bernini, to behold the Cardinal Maffeo Barberini Pope; but how much greater is ours, that the Cav. Bernini lives in our pontificate;_) and he immediately charged him with the execution of those great works which have immortalized both their names. Among the great works which he executed in this pontificate are the Baldachin, or great altar of St. Peter's, in bronze and gilt, under the centre of the great dome; the four colossal statues which fill the niches under the pedatives; the pulpit and canopy of St. Peter's; the Campanile; and the Barberini palace. For these services, the Pope gave Bernini 10,000 crowns, besides his monthly salary of 300, which he increased, and extended his favors to his brothers--"a grand piece of fortune," truly. EMULATION AND RIVALRY IN THE FINE ARTS. Emulation carries with it neither envy nor unfair rivalry, but inspires a man to surpass all others by superiority alone. Such was the emulation and rivalry between Zeuxis and Parrhasius, which contributed to the improvement of both; and similar thereto was that which inspired the master-minds of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle; of Titian and Pordenone; of Albert Durer and Lucas van Leyden; of Agostino and Annibale Caracci; and we may add, in our own country, of Thomas Cole and Durand. The emulation between the Caracci, though it tended to the improvement of both, was more unfortunate in its result, as it finally engendered such a bitter rivalry as to drive Agostino from the field, and it is said by some that both the Caracci declined when their competition ceased. The confraternity of the Chartreuse at Bologna proposed to the artists of Italy to paint a picture for them in competition, and to send designs for selection. The Caracci were among the competitors, and the design of Agostino was preferred before all others; this, according to several authors, first gave rise to the jealousy between the two brothers. The picture which Agostino painted was his celebrated Communion of St. Jerome which Napoleon placed in the Louvre, but is now in the gallery at Bologna. It is esteemed the masterpiece of the artist. It represents the venerable saint, carried to the church of Bethlehem on his approaching dissolution, where he receives the last sacrament of the Roman Church, the Viaticum, in the midst of his disciples, while a monk writes down his pious exhortations. Soon after the completion of this sublime picture, the two brothers commenced the celebrated Farnese Gallery in conjunction; but the jealous feelings which existed between them caused continual dissentions, and the turbulent disposition of Annibale compelled Agostino to abandon him and quit Rome. Agostino, who according to all authorities was the best tempered of the two, from that time gave himself up almost entirely to engraving. Annibale, though he has the honor of having executed the immortal works in the Farnese Gallery, yet owed much there, as elsewhere, to the acquirements and poetical genius of Agostino. In the composition of such mythological subjects the unlettered Annibale was totally inadequate. See vol. i., page 71 of this work. THE NOTTE OF CORREGGIO. This wonderful picture is one of the most singular and beautiful works of that great master. Adopting an idea till then unknown to painters, he has created a new principle of light and shade; and in the limited space of nine feet by six, has expanded a breadth and depth of perspective which defies description. The subject he has chosen, is the adoration of the shepherds, who, after hearing the glad tidings of joy and salvation, proclaimed by the heavenly host, hasten to hail the new-born King and Saviour. On so unpromising a subject as the birth of a child, in so mean a place as a stable, the painter has, however, thrown the air of divinity itself. The principal light emanates from the body of the infant, and illuminates the surrounding objects; but a secondary light is borrowed from a group of angels above, which, while it aids the general effect, is yet itself irradiated by the glory breaking from the child, and allegorizing the expression of scripture, that Christ is the true light of the world. Nor is the art, with which the figures are represented less admirable than the management of the light. The face of the child is skillfully hidden, by its oblique position, from the conviction that the features of a new-born infant are ill-adapted to please the eye; but that of the Virgin is warmly irradiated, and yet so disposed, that in bending with maternal fondness over her offspring, it exhibits exquisite beauty, without the harshness of deep shadows. The light strikes boldly on the lower part of her face, and is lost in a fainter glow on the eyes, while the forehead is thrown into shade. The figures of Joseph and the shepherds are traced with the same skillful pencil; and the glow which illuminates the piece is heightened to the imagination, by the attitude of a shepherdess, bringing an offering of doves, who shades her eyes with her hand, as if unable to sustain the brightness of incarnate divinity. The glimmering of the rising dawn, which shews the figures in the background, contributes to augment the splendor of the principal glory. "The beauty, grace, and finish of the piece," says Mengs, "are admirable, and every part is executed in a peculiar and appropriate style." Opie, in his lectures, speaking of this work, justly observes, "In the Nótte, where the light diffused over the piece emanates from the child, he has embodied a thought at once beautiful, picturesque, and sublime; an idea which has been seized upon with such avidity, and produced so many imitations that no one is accused of plagiarism. The real author is forgotten, and the public accustomed to consider this incident as naturally a part of the subject, have long ceased to inquire, when, or by whom, it was invented." The history of this picture is curious, though involved in much obscurity. It is generally stated that while Correggio was engaged upon the grand cupola at Parma, he generally passed the colder season, when he could not work in fresco, in his native place. Passing through Reggio in one of his journeys, he received a commission from Alberto Pratonero for an altar-piece of the Nativity, which produced one of his finest pictures, now called La Nótte. The indefatigable Tiraboschi discovered the original contract for the work, which is dated October 14th, 1522, and fixes the price at two hundred and eight _livre di moneta Vecchia_, or forty-seven and a half gold ducats (about $104). It was painted for the Pratoneri chapel in the church of S. Prospero at Reggio, but it was not fixed in its destined place till 1530. It is said that it was removed surreptitiously by order of Francesco I., the reigning Duke of Modena, who substituted a copy. The same story, however, is related of Correggio's Ancona, painted for the church of the Conventuals at Correggio. (See vol. ii., page 257, of this work.) At all events, the elector of Saxony subsequently purchased this gem, with other valuable pictures, from the Ducal Gallery at Mantua, and it now forms one of the principal ornaments of the Dresden Gallery. THE DRESDEN GALLERY. The Gallery of Dresden is well known to most amateurs from the engravings which have been made of many of its most capital pictures. In the works of Correggio it stands preëminent above all others; and although some of these have suffered by injudicious cleaning, still they are by Correggio. In the works of Titian, Raffaelle, Lionardo da Vinci, Parmiggiano, Andrea del Sarto, the Caracci, Guido, &c., it holds also a high place; while it is rich in the works of the Flemish and Dutch masters. Of the works of Reubens there are, 30; of Vandyck, 18; of Rembrandt, 15; of Paul Potter, 3; of David Teniers, jun., 24; of Philip Wouvermans, 52; of Adrian Ostade, 6; of Gerard Douw, 16; of Francis Mieris, 14; of Gabriel Metzu, 6; of Berghem, 9; of Adrian van de Velde, 5; of Ruysdael, 13; and others by the Dutch masters. Tho entire collection contains 1010 Flemish and Dutch pictures, and 350 pictures of the Italian schools, the principal part of which, particularly the pictures of Correggio, etc., belonged formerly to the Mantua collection, and were purchased by the Elector Augustus III., afterwards King of Poland. PAINTING AMONG THE EGYPTIANS. The antiquity of painting, as well as of sculpture, among the Egyptians, is sunk in fable. Yet it is certain that they made little or no progress in either art. Plato, who flourished about 400 B.C., says that the art of painting had been practiced by the Egyptians upwards of ten thousand years, and that there were existing in that country paintings of that high antiquity, which were neither inferior to, nor very different from, those executed by the Egyptian artists in his own time. Before the French expedition to Egypt, a great deal had been written on the subject of Egyptian art, without eliciting anything satisfactory. Norden, Pococke, Bruce, and other modern travelers, speak of extraordinary paintings found on the walls of the temples and in the tombs at Thebes, Denderah, and other places in Upper Egypt; and Winckelmann justly regrets that those curious remains had not been visited by artists or persons skilled in works of art, "by whose testimony we might have been correctly informed of their character, style, and manoeuvre." The man at last came, and Denon, in his _Voyage dans le Basse et Haute Egypt_, has set the matter at rest. He has given a curious and interesting account of the paintings at Thebes, which he reports to be as fresh in color as when they were first executed. The design is in general stiff and incorrect; and whatever attitude is given to the figure, the head is always in profile. The colors are entire, without blending or degradation, as in playing cards, and the whole exhibits the art in a very rude state. They exhibit little or no knowledge of anatomy. The colors they used were confined to four--blue, red, yellow, and green; and of these, the blue and red predominate. The perfect preservation of the Egyptian paintings for so many ages is to be attributed to the dryness of a climate where it never rains. The Egyptian painters and sculptors designed their figures in a style peculiarly stiff and formal, with the legs invariably closed, except in some instances in the tombs of the Kings at Thebes, and their arms stuck to their sides, as if they had consulted no other models than their bandaged mummies. The reasons why the Egyptians never made any progress in art till the time of the Greco-Egyptian kings, were their manners and customs, which prohibited any innovations, and compelled every one to follow the beaten track of his cast, without the least deviation from established rules, thus chaining down genius, and the stimulus of emulation, honor, renown and reward. When Egypt passed under the dominion of the Ptolemys, she made rapid progress in art, and produced some excellent painters, sculptors, and architects, though doubtless they were mostly of Greek origin. It is related of Ptolemy Philopator, that he sent a hundred architects to rebuild Rhodes, when it was destroyed by an earthquake. See vol. iii., page 1, of this work. PAINTING AMONG THE GREEKS. The origin of Painting in Greece was unknown to Pliny, to whom we are chiefly indebted for the few fragments of the biography of Greek artists; he could only obtain his information from Greek writers, of whom he complains that they have not been very attentive to their accustomed accuracy. It is certain, however, that the arts were practiced in Egypt and in the East, many ages before they were known in Greece, and it is the common opinion that they were introduced into that country from Egypt and Asia, through the channel of the Phoenecian traders. It has been a matter of admiration that the Greeks, in the course of three or four centuries, should have attained such perfection in every species of art that ennobles the human mind, as oratory, poetry, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture. Two things explain the cause--freedom of action, and certainty of reward. This is exemplified in the whole history of the arts and sciences. The ancient eastern nations, among whom the freedom of thought and action was forbidden, and every man obliged to follow the trade of his caste, never made any progress; nor will the moderns progress in those countries till caste is done away, and every man allowed to follow the inclinations of his genius. The Greeks were favored with a climate the most congenial for the perfect development of the mental and physical powers, and beauty of form. Every man was at liberty freely to follow his favorite pursuits. They rewarded all who excelled in anything that was useful or beautiful, and that with a lavish hand. The prices they paid their great artists were truly astonishing; in comparison to which, the prices paid to the greatest artists of modern times are small. Nor was this so great an incentive as the admiration and the caresses they received. The man of genius was sure of immortality and wealth. Their academic groves and their games were the admiration and resort of all the surrounding countries. They decreed statues to their great men who deserved well of their country. To other powerful incentives, the Greek artists had the advantage of the best models before them, in their gymnastic exercises and public games, where the youth contended for the prize quite naked. The Greeks esteemed natural qualities so highly that they decreed the first rewards to those who distinguished themselves in feats of agility and strength. Statues were often raised to wrestlers. Not only the first youth of Greece, but the sons of kings and princes sought renown in the public games and gymnastic exercises. Chrysippus and Cleanthus distinguished themselves in these games before they were known as philosophers. Plato appeared as a wrestler both at the Isthmian and Pythian games; and Pythagoras carried off the prize at Elis. The passion which inspired them was glory--the ambition of having statues erected to their memory, in the most sacred place in Greece, to be admired by the whole people. Although it is universally admitted that the Greeks carried sculpture and architecture to such a state of perfection that they have never been equalled by the moderns, except in imitating them, yet there is a great contrariety of opinion among the most eminent modern writers as to their success in painting; some, full of admiration for the works of antiquity which have descended to us, have not hesitated to declare that the Greeks must have been equally successful in painting, while others, professing that we possess colors, vehicles, and science (as the knowledge of foreshortening, perspective, and of the chiaro-scuro) unknown to them, have as roundly asserted that they were far inferior to the moderns in this branch, and that their pictures, could we now see them in all their beauty, would excite our contempt. Much of this boasted modern knowledge is, however, entirely gratuitous; the Greeks certainly well understood foreshortening and perspective, as we have abundance of evidence in their works, to say nothing of these being expressly mentioned by Pliny, and that it is impossible to execute any work of excellence without them. This erroneous opinion has sprung from the ignorance and imperfections of _the old fathers_ of Italian art in these particulars, and the discoveries and perfections of those more modern. If the moderns possess any advantages over the ancients, it is that chemistry has invented some beautiful colors unknown to them, the invention of oil painting, and that illusion which results from a perfect acquaintance with the principles of the chiaro-scuro; but even here the mineral colors--the most valuable and permanent--were well known to them; and if they had not oil colors, they had a method of _encaustic painting_ not positively known to us, which might have answered as good a purpose--nor are we sure they did not practice the chiaro-scuro. Besides, the most renowned modern masters were more celebrated in fresco than in oil painting, and the ancients well understood painting in fresco. In this, as in most other disputes, it may reasonably be presumed, that a just estimation of both will be found between the extremes. In comparing the paintings of the moderns with those of the ancients, it may be fairly inferred that the latter surpassed the former in expression, in purity of design, in attitude of the figures, and in ideal beauty. The moderns have doubtless surpassed the ancients in the arrangement of their groups, in perspective, foreshortening and chiaro-scuro--and in coloring. For a further disquisition on this subject, see Vol. I. p. 22, of this work, article Apelles. NUMISMATICS. Numismatics is the science which has for its object the study of coins and medals, especially those struck by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The word is derived from the Greek [Greek: nomisma], or the Latin _numus_, _coin or medal_. Numismatics is now regarded as indispensable to archæology, and to a thorough acquaintance of the fine arts; it is also of great assistance in philology and the explanation of the ancient classics; it appears to have been entirely unknown to the ancients, but since the middle of the sixteenth century, it has occupied the attention of many learned men. The name of _coins_ is given to pieces of metal, on which the public authority has impressed different marks to indicate their weight and value, to make them a convenient medium of exchange. By the word _medals_, when used in reference to modern times, is understood pieces of metal similar to coins but not intended as a medium of exchange, but struck and distributed to commemorate some important event, or in memory of some distinguished personage. The name of medals, however, is also given to all pieces of money which have remained from ancient times. The term _medallion_ is given to medals of a very large size, many of them being several inches in diameter. The parts of a coin or medal are the two sides; first, the _obverse_ side, face or head, which contains the portrait of the person at whose command or in whose honor it was struck, or other figures relating to him: this portrait consists either of the head alone, or the bust, half length, or full figure; second, the _reverse_ contains mythological, allegorical, or historical figures. The words around the border form the _legend_, and those in the middle the _inscription_. The lower part of the coin, which is separated by a line from the figures or the inscription, is the _basis_ or _exergue_, and contains subsidiary matter, as the date, the place where the piece was struck, etc. Numismatics has the same divisions as history.--Ancient Numismatics extends to the extinction of the empire of the West; the Numismatics of the middle ages commences with Charlemagne; and modern Numismatics with the revival of learning. Medals indicate the names of provinces and cities, determine their position, and present pictures of many celebrated places. They fix the period of events, frequently determine their character, and enable us to trace the series of kings. They also enable us to learn the different metallurgical processes, the different alloys, the modes of gilding and plating practiced by the ancients, the metals which they used, their weight and measures, their different modes of reckoning, the names and titles of the various kings and magistrates, and also their portraits, their different divinities, with their attributes and titles, the utensils and ceremonies of their worship, the costume of their priests--in fine, everything which relates to their usages, civil, military, and religious. Medals also acquaint us with the history of art. They contain representations of several celebrated works of antiquity which have been lost, the value of which may be estimated from the ancient medals of those still existing, as the Farnese Hercules, Niobe and her Children, the Venus of Gnidos, etc. Like gems and statues, they enable us to trace the epochs of different styles of art, to ascertain its progress among the most civilized nations, and its condition among the rude. The ancient medals were struck or cast; some were first cast and then struck. The first coins of Rome and other cities of Italy must have been cast, as the hammer could not have produced so bold a relief. The copper coins of Egypt were cast. The right of coining money has always been one of the privileges which rulers have confined to themselves. The free cities have inscribed only their names on their coins. The cities subject to kings sometimes obtained permission to strike money in their own name, but were most frequently required to add the name or image of the king to whom they were subject. The medals of the Parthians and the Phoenecians offer many examples of this sort. Rome, under the republic, allowed no individual the right to coin money; no magistrate could put his name thereon, though this honor was sometimes allowed, as a special favor, by a decree of the Senate. We can count as numismatic countries only those into which the Greeks and Romans carried the use of money; though some of the oriental nations used gold and silver as a medium of exchange, before their time it was by weight. The people in the northern part of Europe had no money. The coins preserved from antiquity are estimated to be more numerous than those we possess from the middle ages, in the proportion of a hundred to one! Millin thinks that the number of extant ancient medals amounts to 70,000! What a fund of the most curious and authentic information do they contain, and what a multitude of errors have been corrected by their means! There are valuable cabinets of medals in all the principal cities of Europe; that of Paris is by far the richest; Pillerin alone added to it 33,000 ancient coins and medals. The coins of the kings of Macedon are the most ancient of any yet discovered having portraits; and Alexander I., who commenced his reign about B.C. 500, is the earliest monarch whose medals have yet been found. Then succeed the sovereigns who reigned in Sicily, Caria, Cyprus, Heraclea, and Pontus. Afterwards comes the series of kings of Egypt, Syria, the Cimmerian Bosphorus, Thrace, Parthia, Armenia, Damascus, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Pergamos, Galatia, Cilicia, Sparta Pæonia, Epirus, Illyricum, Gaul, and the Alps. This series reaches from the time of Alexander the Great to the Christian Era, comprising a period of about 330 years. A perfect and distinct series is formed by the Roman emperors, from the time of Julius Cæsar to the destruction of the empire, and even still later. The Grecian medals claim that place in a cabinet, from their antiquity, which their workmanship might ensure them, independently of that advantageous consideration. It is observed by Pinkerton, that an immense number of the medals of cities, which, from their character, we might judge to be of the highest antiquity, have a surprising strength, beauty, and relief in their impressions. About the time of Alexander the Great, this art appears to have attained its highest perfection. The coins of Alexander and his father exceed in beauty all that were ever executed, if we except those of Sicily, Magna Grecia, and the ancient ones of Asia Minor. Sicilian medals are famous for workmanship, even from the time of Gelo. The coins of the Syrian kings, successors to Alexander, almost equal his own in beauty; but adequate judges confine their high praises of the Greek mint to those coins struck before the subjection of Greece to the Roman empire. The Roman coins, considered as medals in a cabinet, may be divided into two great classes--the consular and the imperial; both are numerous and valuable. In the cabinet of the Grand Duke of Tuscany is a set of twelve medals of Antonius Pius, each with one of the signs of the Zodiac on the reverse, and part of another set, eight in number with as many of the labors of Hercules. RESTORING ANCIENT EDIFICES. As in comparative anatomy it is easy, from a single bone, to designate and describe the animal to which it belonged, so in architecture it is easy to restore, by a few fragments, any ancient building. In consequence of the known simplicity and regularity of most antique edifices, the task of restoration, by means of drawings and models, is much less difficult than might be supposed. The ground work, or some sufficient parts of it, commonly extant, shows the length and breadth of the building, with the positions of the walls, doors and columns. A single column, or part of a column, whether standing or fallen, with a fragment of the entablature, furnishes data from which the remainder of the colonnade and the height of the edifice can be made out. A single stone from the cornice of the pediment, is sufficient to give the angle of inclination, and consequently the height of the roof. In this way the structure of many beautiful edifices has been accurately determined, when in so ruinous a state as scarcely to have left one stone upon another. NAPOLEON'S LOVE OF ART. Napoleon was not only a true lover of art, but an excellent connoisseur. He did more to elevate the arts and sciences in France than all the monarchs together who had preceded him. It was a part of his policy to honor and reward every man of genius, no matter what his origin, and thus to develop the intellect of his country. He foresaw the advantage of making Paris the great centre of art; therefore he did not hesitate to transport from the countries he conquered, the most renowned and valuable works of ancient and modern times. "Paris is Rome; Paris is now the great centre of art," said he to Canova in 1810, when that great sculptor visited Paris at his command, and whom he endeavored to persuade to permanently remain in his service. West, after his return to England from Paris, where he had had several interviews with Bonaparte, expressed his admiration of the man in such warm terms as offended the officials of the government, and caused such opposition, that he deemed it proper to resign the President's chair in the Royal Academy. The truth is, it was not the conqueror, as the English pretended, but his exalted ideas of the arts, and of their value to a country, which captivated West, whose peaceful tenets led him to abhor war and devastation. Napoleon's enlightened policy is also seen in those stupendous works published by the French government, as the _Description de l'Egypte, ou Recueil des Observationes et des Recherches pendant l'Expedition de l'Armée Français_, 25 vols. in elephant folio. This work corresponds in grandeur of its proportions to the edifices and monuments which it describes. Everything that zeal in the cause of science, combined with the most extensive knowledge, had been able to collect in a land abounding in monuments of every kind, and in the rarest curiosities, is described and illustrated in this work by a committee of savans appointed for the purpose. It contains more than 900 engravings, and 3000 illustrative sketches. The Musée Français, and the Musée Royal, containing 522 plates, after the gems of the world, are not less grand and magnificent, and far more valuable contributions to art. These will be described in a subsequent page. Such was Napoleon; deprive him of every other glory, his love of art, and what he did for its promotion, and the adornment of his country, would immortalize his name. Napoleon delighted to spend some of his leisure moments in contemplating the master pieces of art which he had gathered in the Louvre, and that he might go there when he pleased, without parade, he had a private gallery constructed leading to that edifice from the Tuilleries. (See Spooner's Dictionary of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors, and Architects, articles West, David, Denon, Canova, etc., and vol i., page 8, of this work.) NAPOLEON'S WORKS AT PARIS. "The emperor was, most indisputably, the monarch who contributed in the greatest degree to the embellishment of Paris. How many establishments originated under his reign! nevertheless, on beholding them, the observer has but a faint idea of all he achieved; since every principal city of the empire witnessed alike the effects of his munificence and grandeur of mind; the streets were widened, roads constructed and canals cut; even the smallest towns experienced improvements, the result of that expanded genius which was daily manifested. I shall, therefore, content myself by placing before the reader a mere sketch of the works achieved at Paris; for were it requisite to give a catalogue of all the monuments erected during his reign, throughout the French empire, a series of volumes would be required to commemorate those multifarious labors."--_Ireland_. _Palaces._ The Louvre was completely restored, which a succession of French monarchs had not been able to accomplish. The Palace of the Luxembourg equally embellished throughout, as well in the interior as the exterior, and its gardens replanted. The Exchange founded. The Palace of the University reconstructed, as well as the Gallery uniting the Palace of the Tuilleries to that of the Louvre. _Fountains._ The situation of the Fountain of the Innocents changed, and the whole reërected; that of Saint Sulpicius; of the Four Nations; of Desaix in the Place Dauphine; of Gros-Caillon; of the Quay de L'Ecole; of the Bridge of Saint Eustatius; of the Rue Ceusder; of the Rue Popincourt; of the Chateau D'Eau; of the Square of the Chatelet; of the Place Notre Dame; of the Temple; and of the Elephant, in the Place of the Bastille. _Acqueducts._ The subterranean acqueducts were constructed, which convey the water of the Canal de L'Ourcq throughout the different quarters of Paris, from whence a vast number of small fountains distribute them in every direction, to refresh the streets during the summer season, and to cleanse them in the winter; these same channels being also formed to receive the waters which flow from the gutters in the streets. _Markets._ That of the Innocents, the largest in Paris; the Jacobins, where formerly stood the monastery of that name, and during the heat of the revolution, the club so called; the Valley for the sale of Poultry; the Market of Saint Joseph; the Halle for the sale of Wines; the Market of Saint Martin; that of Saint Germain, and of Saint Jacques-la-Boucherie. _Slaughter Houses._ Those of the Deux Moulins; of the Invalids; of Popincourt; of Miromeuil, and of Les Martyrs. As the killing of animals, for the consumption of Paris, within the confines of the city, was deemed not only unwholesome, but very disgusting, these buildings were erected by order of Napoleon, and have proved of the greatest utility. The edifices are very spacious, containing all the requisites for the purpose intended, and being also placed in different directions and without the barriers of the city, the eyes of the inhabitants are no longer disgusted by beholding those torrents of blood which formerly inundated the streets, and which, in the summer season, produced an effluvia not only disgusting to the smell, but highly detrimental to the health of the population of the city. _Watering Places for Animals._ That of the School of Medicine, a superb marble structure, together with the Abreuvoir of the Rue L'Egout, Saint Germain. _Public Granary, or Halle du Blé._ Necessity gave rise to the noble plan of this stupendous fabric, the idea of which was taken from the people of antiquity. _Boulevard._ That called Bourdon was formed, occupying the environs of the spot where the Bastille stood. _Bridges._ Those of the Arts; of the City; of Austerlitz; and of Jena. _Triumphal Arches._ The Carousel; the Etoile; and the Arch of Louis XIV., restored. _Quays._ Those of Napoleon; of Flowers; of Morland; and of Caténat. _The Column of Austerlitz._ Situated in the centre of the Place Vendôme, formed of the brass produced from the cannon which were taken from the Austrians during the memorable campaign of 1805. _Place de Victoires._ In the middle of this square was erected a colossal bronze statue of the gallant General Desaix, who nobly fell at the battle of Marengo, when leading to the charge a body of cavalry, which decided the fate of that desperate conflict; this tribute, however, to the memory of the brave, was removed by order of the Bourbons, on their first restoration. _Squares._ In the middle of the Place Royale a fine basin has been constructed, from whence plays a magnificent piece of water; the Squares of the Apport de Paris; of the Rotunda; and of Rivoli. _The Pantheon._ The pillars supporting the vast dome of this lofty pile, which had long threatened the overthrow of the structure were replaced, and the tottering foundations rendered perfect and solid. _The Hotel Dieu._ The whole façade of this immense Hospital was reconstructed. _The Canal de L'Ourcq._ This grand undertaking was rendered navigable, and the basin, sluices, &c. completely finished. THE NAPOLEON MEDALS. Of the numerous means employed to commemorate the achievements of Napoleon, the public buildings and monuments of France bear ample witness. Indeed, Bonaparte's name and fame are so engrafted with the arts and literature of France, that it would be impossible for the government to erase the estimation in which he is held by the French people. _A series of medals in bronze_, nearly one hundred and thirty in number, struck at different epochs of his career, exist, each in celebration of the prowess of the French army, or of some great act of his government: a victory, a successful expedition, the conquest of a nation, the establishment of a new state, the elevation of some of his family, or his own personal aggrandizement. The medal commemorative of the _battle of Marengo_ bears, on one side, a large bunch of keys, environed by two laurel branches; and, on the reverse, Bonaparte, as a winged genius, standing on a dismounted cannon to which four horses are attached upon the summit of Mount St. Bernard, urges their rapid speed, with a laurel branch in one hand, whilst he directs the reins with the other. That on the _peace of Luneville_ is two inches and a quarter in diameter, with the head of the first consul in uncommonly bold relief; the device, as mentioned in another place, is the sun arising in splendor upon that part of the globe which represents France, and which is overshadowed by laurels, whilst a cloud descends and obscures Great Britain. The commencement of hostilities by England, after the _peace of Amiens_, is designated by the English leopard tearing a scroll, with the inscription, _Le Traité d'Amiens Rompu par l'Angleterre en Mai de l'An_ 1803; on the reverse, a winged female figure in breathless haste forcing on a horse at full speed, and holding a laurel crown, inscribed, _L'Hanovre occupé var l'Armée Francaise en Juin de l'An_ 1803; and beneath, _Frappée avec l'Argent des Mines d'Hanovre, l'An 4 de Bonaparte_. His medal, on assuming the purple, has his portrait, _Napoleon Empereur_, by Andrieu, who executed nearly all the portraits on his medals; on the reverse, he is in his imperial robes, elevated by two figures, one armed, inscribed, _Le Senat et le Peuple_. The _battle of Austerlitz_ has, on the reverse, simply a thunderbolt, with a small figure of Napoleon, enrobed and enthroned on the upper end of the shaft of the thunder. In 1804, he struck a medal with a Herculean figure on the reverse, confining the head of the English leopard between his knees, whilst preparing a cord to strangle him, inscribed _En l'An XII. 2000 barques sont construites_;--this was in condemnation of the invasion and conquest of England. The reverse of the medal on the _battle of Jena_ represents Napoleon on an eagle in the clouds, as warring with giants on the earth, whom he blasts with thunderbolts. The medal on the _Confederation of the Rhine_ has, for its reverse, numerous warriors in ancient armor, swearing with their right hands on an altar, formed of an immense fasces, with the imperial eagle projecting from it. Not the least characteristic of the series is a medal, with the usual head _Napoleon Emp. et Roi_, on the exergue, with this remarkable reverse, a throne, with the imperial robes over the back and across the sceptre, which is in the chair; before the throne is a table, with several crowns, differing in shape and dignity, and some sceptres with them lying upon it; three crowns are on the ground, one broken and two upside down; an eagle with a fasces hovers in the air; the inscription is, _Souverainetés donnés_ M.DCCCVI. The reverses of the last four in succession, struck during the reign of Napoleon, are, 1. The _Wolga_, rising with astonishment from his bed at the sight of the French eagle; 2. A representation of _la Bataille de la Moskowa, 7 Septembre, 1812_; 3. _A view of Moscow_, with the French flag flying on the Kremlin, and an ensign of the French eagle, bearing the letter N. loftily elevated above its towers and minarets, dated 14th September, 1812; 4. A figure in the air, directing a furious storm against an armed warrior resembling Napoleon, who, unable to resist the attack, is sternly looking back, whilst compelled to fly before it--a dead horse, cannon dismounted, and a wagon full of troops standing still, perishing in fields of snow; the inscription is, _Retraite de l'Armée, Novembre, 1812_. The workmanship of the preceding medals are admirable, but most of them are surpassed in that respect by some to which we can do little more than allude. A finely executed medal, two inches and five-eights in diameter, represents Napoleon enthroned in his full imperial costume, holding a laurel wreath; on the reverse is a head of _Minerva_, surrounded by laurel and various trophies of the fine arts, with this inscription--_Ecole Francaise des Beaux Arts à Rome, rétablie et augmentée par Napoleon en 1803_. The reverses--of the Cathedral at Paris--a warrior sheathing his sword (on the battle of Jena)--and Bonaparte holding up the King of Rome, and presenting him to the people--are amongst the most highly finished and most inestimable specimens of art. Unquestionably the _worst_ in the collection is the consular medal, which, on that account, deserves description; it is, in size, about a half crown piece, on the exergue, over a small head of Bonaparte, is inscribed _Bonaparte premier consul_; beneath it, _Cambacères second consul, le Brun troisième consul de la république Francaise_; on the reverse, _Le peuple Francais à défenseurs, cette première pierre de la colonne nationale, posée par Lucien Bonaparte, ministre de l'interieur, 25 Messidore, An 8, 14 Juillet, 1800_.--One other medal only appears with the name of Lucien Bonaparte; it is that struck in honor of Marshal Turenne, upon the _Translation du corps de Turenne au Temple de Mars par les ordres du premier Consul Bonaparte_; and is of a large size, bearing the head of Turenne, with, beneath it, _Sa gloire appartient au peuple Francais_. Several are in honor of General Desaix, whose memory Napoleon held in great esteem. Those on his marriage with Marie Louise bear her head beside his own; and a small one on that occasion has for its reverse, a Cupid carrying with difficulty a thunderbolt. Those on the birth of their child bear the same heads on the exergue, with the head of an infant, on the reverse, inscribed, _Napoleon François Joseph Charles, Rio de Rome, XX. Mars M.DCCCXI.--Ireland_. THE ELEPHANT FOUNTAIN. When Napoleon had decided that a stupendous fountain should occupy the centre of the area where the celebrated state prison of the Bastille stood, the several artists, employed by the government, were ordered to prepare designs for the undertaking, and numerous drawings were in consequence sent in for the emperor's inspection. On the day appointed, he proceeded to examine these specimens, not one of which, however, proved at all commensurate with the vast idea he had in contemplation; wherefore, after pacing the chamber a few minutes, Napoleon suddenly halted, exclaiming: "Plant me a colossal elephant there, and let the water spout from his extended trunk!" All the artists stood astonished at this bold idea, the propriety and grandeur of which immediately flashed conviction upon their minds, and the only wonder of each was, that no such thought should have presented itself to his own imagination: the simple fact is, _there was but one Napoleon present_!--_Communicated to Ireland by David._ This fountain was modeled in Plaster of Paris on the spot. It is seventy-two feet in height; the _jet d'eau_ is through the nostrils of his trunk; the reservoir in the tower on his back; and one of his legs contains the staircase for ascending to the large room in the inside of his belly. The elephant was to have been executed in bronze, with tusks of silver, surrounded by lions of bronze, which were to spout water from one cistern to another. INTERESTING DRAWINGS. On the sailing of the French expedition for Egypt, from Malta, under the orders of Bonaparte, the fleet was intentionally dispersed in order to arrive without being noticed; they had no sooner, however, left Malta, than they learned that Nelson had penetrated their design, and was in pursuit of them. Expecting every hour to be come up with, and being too weak to risk a combat, it was the resolution of Bonaparte and the rest of the illustrious persons on board the _Orient_ to blow her up, rather than be taken prisoners; but, that the memory of those who perished might be preserved, and their features known by posterity, Bonaparte caused the portraits of eighteen to be taken on two sheets of paper, which were to be rolled up, put in bottles, and committed to the waves: the names of the persons are,-- _First Drawing._ Desaix, Berthier, Kleber, Dalomieu, Berthollet, Bonaparte, Caffarelli, Brueys, Monge. _Second Drawing._ Rampon, Junot, Regnier, Desgenettes, Larrey, Murat, Lasnes, Belliard, Snulkanski. The portraits were executed in medallions, with India ink; they were carefully preserved by the famous surgeon, Baron Larrey; and they adorned his study at Paris till his death. SEVRES CHINA. On the river at Sévres, near Paris, a manufactory is carried on, which produces the beautiful porcelain, commonly called Sévres, china. It is equal to all that has been said of it, and after declining, as every other great national establishment did, during the revolution, flourished greatly under the peculiar patronage of the emperor Napoleon. He made presents hence to those sovereigns of Europe with whom he was in alliance. Napoleon had two vases made of this china, which, even at this day, form the principal ornament of the gallery at St. Cloud. These were made at Sévres, and are valued at 100,000 francs each. The clay made use of was brought at a great expense from a distant part of France, and affords an instance of how much the value of raw material may be increased by the ingenuity of a skillful artist. DISMANTLING OF THE LOUVRE. In Scott's Paris Revisited (A. D. 1815), we have the following interesting particulars of the removal of the celebrated pictures and statues from this famous emporium of the fine arts. "Every day new arrivals of strangers poured into Paris, all anxious to gain a view of the Louvre, before its collection was broken up; it was the first point to which all the British directed their steps every morning, in eager curiosity to know whether the business of removal had commenced. The towns and principalities, that had been plundered, were making sedulous exertions to influence the councils of the allies to determine on a general restoration; and several of the great powers leaned decidedly towards such a decision. "Before actual force was employed, representations were repeated to the French government, but the ministers of the king of France would neither promise due satisfaction, nor uphold a strenuous opposition. They showed a sulky disregard of every application. A deputation from the Netherlands formally claimed the Dutch and Flemish pictures taken during the revolutionary wars from those countries; and this demand was conveyed through the Duke of Wellington, as commander-in-chief of the Dutch and Belgian armies. About the same time, also, Austria determined that her Italian and German towns, which had been despoiled, should have their property replaced, and Canova, the anxious representative of Rome, after many fruitless appeals to Talleyrand, received assurances that he, too, should be furnished with an armed force sufficient to protect him in taking back to that venerable city, what lost its highest value in its removal from thence. "Contradicting reports continued to prevail among the crowds of strangers and natives as to the intentions of the allies, but on Saturday, the 23d of September, all doubt was removed. On going up to the door of the Louvre, I found a guard of one hundred and fifty British riflemen drawn up outside. I asked one of the soldiers what they were there for? 'Why, they tell me, sir, that they mean to take away the pictures,' was his reply. I walked in amongst the statues below, and on going to the great staircase, I saw the English guard hastily trampling up its magnificent ascent: a crowd of astonished French followed in the rear, and, from above, many of the visitors in the gallery of pictures were attempting to force their way past the ascending soldiers, catching an alarm from their sudden entrance. The alarm, however, was unfounded; but the spectacle that presented itself was very impressive. A British officer dropped his men in files along this magnificent gallery, until they extended, two and two, at small distances, from its entrance to its extremity. All the spectators were breathless, in eagerness to know what was to be done, but the soldiers stopped as machines, having no care beyond obedience to their orders. "The work of removal now commenced in good earnest: porters with barrows, and ladders, and tackles of ropes made their appearance. The collection of the Louvre might from that moment be considered as broken up for ever. The sublimity of its orderly aspect vanished: it took now the melancholy, confused, desolate air of a large auction room, after a day's sale. Before this, the visitors had walked down its profound length with a sense of respect on their minds, influencing them to preserve silence and decorum, as they contemplated the majestic pictures; but decency and quiet were dispelled when the signal was given for the breaking up of the establishment. It seemed as if a nation had become ruined through improvidence, and was selling off. "The guarding of the Louvre was committed by turns to the British and Austrians, while this process lasted. The Prussians said that they had done their own business for themselves, and would not now incur odium for others. The workmen being incommoded by the crowds that now rushed to the Louvre, as the news spread of the destruction of its great collection, a military order came that no visitors should be admitted without permission from the foreign commandant of Paris. This direction was pretty much adhered to by the sentinels as far as the exclusion of the French, but the words _Je suis Anglais_, were always sufficient to gain leave to pass from the Austrians: our own countrymen were rather more strict, but, in general, foreigners could, with but little difficulty, procure admission. The Parisians stood in crowds around the door, looking wistfully within it, as it occasionally opened to admit Germans, English, Russians, &c., into a palace of their capital from which they were excluded. I was frequently asked by French gentlemen, standing with ladies on their arms, and kept back from the door by the guards, to take them into their own Louvre, under my protection as an unknown foreigner! It was impossible not to feel for them in these remarkable circumstances of mortification and humiliation; and the agitation of the French public was now evidently excessive. Every Frenchman looked a walking volcano, ready to spit forth fire. Groups of the common people collected in the space before the Louvre, and a spokesman was generally seen, exercising the most violent gesticulations, sufficiently indicative of rage, and listened to by the others, with lively signs of sympathy with his passion. As the packages came out, they crowded round them, giving vent to torrents of _pestes_, _diables_, _sacres_, and other worse interjections. "Wherever an Englishman went, in Paris, at this time, whether into a shop or a company, he was assailed with the exclamation, _'Ah! vos compatriotes!'_ and the ladies had always some wonderful story to tell him, of an embarrassment or mortification that had happened to _his_ duke; of the evil designs of the Prince Regent, or the dreadful revenge that was preparing against the injuries of France. The great gallery of the Louvre presented every fresh day a more and more forlorn aspect; but to the reflecting mind, it combined a number of interesting points of view. The gallery now seemed to be the abode of all the foreigners in the French capital:--we collected there, as a matter of course, every morning--but it was easy to distinguish the last comers from the rest. They entered the Louvre with steps of eager haste, and looks of anxious inquiry; they seemed to have scarcely stopped by the way--and to have made directly for the pictures on the instant of their reaching Paris. The first view of the stripped walls made their countenances sink under the disappointment, as to the great object of their journey. Crowds collected round the _Transfiguration_--that picture which, according to the French account, _destiny_ had always intended for the French nation: it was every one's wish to see it taken down, for the fame which this great work of Raffaelle had acquired, and its notoriety in the general knowledge, caused its departure to be regarded as the consummation of the destruction of the picture gallery of the Louvre. It was taken away among the last. "Students of all nations fixed themselves round the principal pictures, anxious to complete their copies before the workmen came to remove the originals. Many young French girls were seen among these, perched upon small scaffolds, and calmly pursuing their labors in the midst of the throng and bustle. When the French gallery was thoroughly cleared of the property of other nations, I reckoned the number of pictures which then remained to it, and found that the total left to the French nation, of the fifteen hundred pictures which constituted their magnificent collection, was _two hundred and seventy-four_! The Italian division comprehended about eighty-five specimens; these were now dwindled to _twelve_: in this small number, however, there are some very exquisite pictures by Raffaelle, and other great masters. Their Titians are much reduced, but they keep the Entombment, as belonging to the King of France's old collection, which is one of the finest by that artist. A melancholy air of utter ruin mantled over the walls of this superb gallery: the floor was covered with empty frames: a Frenchman, in the midst of his sorrow, had his joke, in saying, 'Well, we should not have left to _them_ even these!' In walking down this exhausted place, I observed a person, wearing the insignia of the legion of honor, suddenly stop short, and heard him exclaim, '_Ah, my God--and the Paul Potter, too!_' This referred to the famous painting of a bull by that master, which is the largest of his pictures, and is very highly valued. It belonged to the Netherlands, and has been returned to them. It was said that the emperor Alexander offered fifteen thousand pounds for it. "The removal of the statues was later in commencing, and took up more time; they were still packing these up when I quitted Paris. I saw the Venus, the Apollo, and the Laocoön removed: these may be deemed the presiding deities of the collection. The solemn antique look of these halls fled forever, when the workmen came in with their straw and Plaster of Paris, to pack up. The French could not, for some time, allow themselves to believe that their enemies would dare to deprive them of these sacred works; it appeared to them impossible that they should be separated from France--from _la France_--the country of the Louvre and the Institute; it seemed a contingency beyond the limits of human reverses. But it happened, nevertheless: they were all removed. One afternoon, before quitting the place, I accidentally stopped longer than usual, to gaze on the Venus, and I never saw so clearly her superiority over the Apollo, the impositions of whose style, even more than the great beauties with which they are mingled, have gained for it an inordinate and indiscriminating admiration. On this day, very few, if any of the statues had been taken away--and many said that France would retain them, although she was losing the pictures. On the following morning I returned, and the pedestal on which the Venus had stood for so many years, the pride of Paris, and the delight of every observer, was vacant! It seemed as if a soul had taken its flight from a body." REMOVAL OF THE VENETIAN HORSES FROM PARIS. "The removal of the well known horses taken from the church of St. Mark in Venice, was a bitter mortification to the people of Paris. These had been peculiarly the objects of popular pride and admiration. Being exposed to the public view, in one of the most frequented situations of Paris, this was esteemed the noblest trophy belonging to the capital; and there was not a Parisian vender of a pail-full of water who did not look like a hero when the Venetian horses were spoken of. "'Have you heard what has been determined about the horses?' was every foreigner's question. 'Oh! they cannot mean to take the horses away,' was every Frenchman's answer. On the morning of Thursday, the 26th of September, 1815, however it was whispered that they had been at work all night in loosening them from their fastening. It was soon confirmed that this was true--and the French then had nothing left for it, but to vow, that if the allies were to attempt to touch them in the _daylight_, Paris would rise at once, exterminate its enemies, and rescue its honor. On Friday morning I walked through the square; it was clear that some considerable change had taken place; the forms of the horses appeared finer than I had ever before witnessed. When looking to discover what had been done, a private of the British staff corps came up, 'You see, sir, we took away the harness last night,' said he. 'You have made a great improvement by so doing,' I replied; 'but are the British employed on this work?' The man said that the Austrians had requested the assistance of our staff corps, for it included better workmen than any they had in their service. I heard that an angry French mob had given some trouble to the people employed on the Thursday night, but that a body of Parisian gendarmerie had dispersed the assemblage. The Frenchmen continued their sneers against the allies for working in the dark: fear and shame were the causes assigned. 'If you take them at all, why not take them in the face of day? But you are too wise to drag upon yourselves the irresistible popular fury, which such a sight would excite against you!' "On the night of Friday, the order of proceeding was entirely changed. It had been found proper to call out a strong guard of Austrians, horse and foot. The mob had been charged by the cavalry, and it was said that several had their limbs broken. I expected to find the place on Saturday morning quiet and open as usual; but when I reached its entrance, what an impressive scene presented itself! The delicate plan--for such in truth it was--of working by night, was now over. The Austrians had wished to spare the feelings of the king the pain of seeing his capital dismantled before his palace windows, where he passed in his carriage when he went out for his daily exercise. But the acute feelings of the people rendered severer measures necessary. My companion and myself were stopped from entering the place by Austrian dragoons: a large mob of Frenchmen were collected here, standing on tip-toe to catch the arch in the distance, on the top of which the ominous sight of numbers of workmen, busy about the horses, was plainly to be distinguished. We advanced again to the soldiers: some of the French, by whom we were surrounded, said, 'Whoever you are, you will not be allowed to pass.' I confess I was for retiring--for the whole assemblage, citizens and soldiers, seemed to wear an angry and alarming aspect. But my companion was eager for admittance. He was put back again by an Austrian hussar:--'_What, not the English!_' he exclaimed in his own language. The mob laughed loudly, when they heard the foreign soldier so addressed; but the triumph was ours; way was instantly made for us--and an officer on duty, close by, touched his helmet as we passed. "The king and princes had left the Tuilleries, to be out of the view of so mortifying a business The court of the palace, which used to be gay with young _gardes du corps_ and equipages, was now silent, deserted, and shut up. Not a soul moved in it. The top of the arch was filled with people, and the horses, though as yet all there, might be seen to begin to move. The carriages that were to take them away were in waiting below, and a tackle of ropes was already affixed to one. The small door leading to the top was protected by a strong guard: every one was striving to obtain permission to gratify his curiosity, by visiting the horses for the last time that they could be visited in this situation. Permission, however, could necessarily be granted but to few. I was of the fortunate number. In a minute I had climbed the narrow dark stair, ascended a small ladder, and was out on the top, with the most picturesque view before me that can be imagined. An English lady asked me to assist her into Napoleon's car of victory: his own statue was to have been placed in it, _when he came back a conqueror from his Russian expedition!_ I followed the lady and her husband into the car, and we found a Prussian officer there before us. He looked at us, and, with a good humored smile, said, 'The emperor kept the English out of France, but the English have now got where he could not! '_Ah, pauvre, Napoleon!_' "The cry of the French now was, that it was abominable, execrable, to insult the king in his palace--to insult him in the face of his own subjects by removing the horses in the face of day! I adjourned with a friend to dine at a _restaurateur's_, near the garden of the Tuilleries, after witnessing what I have described. Between seven and eight in the evening we heard the rolling of wheels, the clatter of cavalry, and the tramp of infantry. A number of British were in the room; they all rose and rushed to the door without hats, and carrying in their haste their white table napkins in their hands. The horses were going past in military procession, lying on their sides, in separate cars. First came cavalry, then infantry, then a car; then more cavalry, more infantry, then another car; and so on till all four passed. The drums were beating, and the standards went waving by. This was the only appearance of parade that attended any of the removals. Three Frenchmen, seeing the group of English, came up to us, and began a conversation. They appealed to us if this was not shameful. A gentleman observed, that the horses were only going back to the place from whence the French had taken them: if there was a right in power for France, there must also be one for other states but the better way to consider these events was as terminating the times of robbery and discord. Two of them seemed much inclined to come instantly round to our opinion: but one was much more consistent. He appeared an officer, and was advanced beyond the middle age of life. He kept silence for a moment; and then, with strong emphasis, said--'You have left me nothing for my children but hatred against England; this shall be my legacy to them.'"--_Scott._ REMOVAL OF THE STATUE OF NAPOLEON FROM THE PLACE VENDOME. "What will posterity think of the madness of the French government and the exasperation of public feeling in a nation like the French, so uniformly proud of military glory, when very shortly after the first arrival of their new monarch, Louis XVIII., an order was issued for leveling with the dust that proud monument of their victories, the famous column and statue of Napoleon in the Place Vendôme cast from those cannon which their frequent victories over the Austrians had placed at their disposal? The ropes attached to the neck of the colossal brazen figure of the Emperor, wherewith the pillar was crowned, extended to the very iron gratings of the Tuillerie gardens; thousands essayed to move it, but all attempts were vain--the statue singly defied their malice; upon which a second expedient was resorted to, and the carriage horses, etc., from the royal stables were impressed into this service, and affixed to the ropes, thus uniting their powerful force to that of the _bipeds_: but even this proved abortive; the statue and column braved the united shocks of man and beast, and both remained immoveable." The statue was afterwards quietly dislodged from its station by the regular labors of the experienced artisan. It was not replaced till after the Revolution in 1830.--_Ireland._ THE MUSEE FRANCAIS AND THE MUSEE ROYAL. When the Allies entered Paris in 1815, they found in the gallery of the Louvre about two thousand works of art--the gems of the world in painting and antique sculpture--mostly the spoils of war, deposited there by the Emperor Napoleon. The selection of these works was entrusted to a commission, at the head of whom was the Baron Denon, who accompanied the Emperor in all his expeditions for this purpose. The Louvre, at this time, was the acknowledged emporium of the fine arts. The grand determination of Napoleon to place France highest in art among the nations, did not rest here. The design of combining in one single series, five hundred and twenty-two line engravings from the finest paintings and antique statues in the world, was a conception worthy of his genius and foresight, and by its execution he conferred a lasting favor not only on the artistic, but the civilized world, for the originals were subsequently restored by the Allies to their rightful owners and only about three hundred and fifty pieces remained of that splendid collection. "These works" (the Musée Français, and the Musée Royal), says a distinguished connoisseur, "are unquestionably the greatest production of modern times. They exhibit a series of exquisite engravings by the most distinguished artists, of such a magnificent collection of painting and of sculpture as can never be again united." These works were intended as a great treasury of art, from which not only artists, but the whole world might derive instruction and profit. To secure the utmost perfection in every department, no expense was spared. The drawings for the engravers to engrave from, were executed by the most distinguished artists, in order to ensure that every peculiarity, perfection, and _imperfection_ in the originals should be exactly copied, and these are pointed out in the accompanying criticisms. These drawings alone cost the French government 400,000 francs. The engravings were executed by the most distinguished engravers of Europe, without regard to country, among whom it is sufficient to mention Raffaelle Morghen, the Chevalier von Müller, and his son C. F. von Müller, Bervic, Richomme, Rosaspina, Bartolozzi, Gandolfi, Schiavonetti, the elder and younger Laurent, Massard, Girardet, Lignon, Chatillon, Audouin, Forster, Claessens, etc. Stanley says that proof impressions of Bervic's masterpiece, the Laocoön, have been sold in London for thirty guineas each. There are many prints in these works not less celebrated, and which are regarded by connoisseurs as masterpieces of the art. Nor was this all. Napoleon summoned Visconti, the famous antiquary, archæologist, and connoisseur, from Rome to Paris, to assist in getting up the admirable descriptions and criticisms, particularly of the ancient statues. This department was confided to Visconti, Guizot, Clarac, and the elder Duchesne. The supervision of the engraving and publishing department was entrusted to the Messrs. Robilliard, Peronville, and Laurent. These works were published in numbers of four plates, atlas folio, at the price of 96 francs each for the proofs before the letter, and 48 francs for the prints. The first number of the Musée Français was issued in 1803, and the last in 1811; but the Musée Royal, which was intended to supply the deficiencies of the Musée Français, was not completed till 1819; nevertheless, it was Napoleon's work, though consummated in the reign of Louis XVIII. The Musée Français was originally published in five volumes, and contains, besides the descriptions and criticisms on the plates, admirable essays--1st. on the History of Painting, from its origin in ancient times down to the time of Cimabue; 2d. on the History of Painting in the German, Dutch, Flemish, and French schools; 3d. on the History of Engraving; 4th. on the History of Ancient Sculpture. The Musée Royal was published in two volumes. A second edition of the Musée Français was published by the Messrs. Galignani, in four volumes, with an English and French letter-press, but both greatly abridged. The letter-press of the Musée Royal has never been rendered into English. The plates were sold by the French government in 1836, since which time a small edition has been printed from both works. BOYDELL'S SHAKSPEARE GALLERY. About the year 1785, Alderman J. Boydell, of London, conceived the project of establishing a 'Shakspeare Gallery,' upon a scale of grandeur and magnificence which should be in accordance with the fame of the poet, and, at the same time, reflect honor upon the state of the arts in Great Britain and throughout the world. Mr. Boydell was at this time a man of great wealth and influence, and a patron of the fine arts, being an engraver himself, and having accumulated his fortune mostly by dealings in works of that character. He advertised for designs from artists throughout Great Britain, and paid a guinea for every one submitted, whether accepted or not; and for every one accepted by the committee, a prize of one hundred guineas. The committee for selecting these designs was composed of five eminent artists, Boydell himself being the president. The first painters of the age were then employed to paint these pictures, among whom were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Benjamin West, Fusell, Romney, Northcote, Smirke, Sir William Beechy, and Opie. Allan Cunningham, in his 'Lives of Eminent British Artists,' mentions that Sir Joshua Reynolds was at first opposed to Boydell's project, as impracticable on such an immense scale, and Boydell, to gain his approbation and assistance, privately sent him a letter enclosing a £1000 Bank of England note, and requesting him to paint two pictures at his own price. What sum was paid by Boydell for these pictures was never known. A magnificent building was erected in Pall Mall to exhibit this immense collection, called the Shakspeare Gallery, which was for a long time the pride of London. The first engravers of England were employed to transfer these gems to copper, and such artists as Sharp, Bartolozzi, Earlom, Thew, Simon, Middiman, Watson, Fyttler, Wilson, and many others, exerted their talents for years in this great work. In some instances, the labor of more than five years was expended on a single plate, and proof impressions were taken for subscribers at almost every stage of the work. At length in 1803, after nearly twenty years, the work was completed. The price fixed (which was never reduced) was two guineas each for the first three hundred impressions, and the subscription list was then filled up at one guinea each, or one hundred guineas a set of one hundred plates. Besides these subscriptions, large donations were made by many of the noblemen of England, to encourage the undertaking, and to enable Boydell to meet his enormous outlay. The cost of the whole work, from the commencement, is said to have been about one million pounds sterling; and although the projector was a wealthy man when he commenced it, he died soon after its completion, a bankrupt to the amount, it is said, of £250,000. After these plates were issued, Boydell petitioned Parliament to allow him to dispose of his gallery of paintings by a lottery. The petition was granted, and the whole collection was thus disposed of. One of the finest of these pictures, King Lear, by Sir Benjamin West, is now in the Boston Athenæum. One fact in relation to these plates gives great value to them. "All the principal historical characters are genuine portraits of the persons represented in the play; every picture gallery and old castle in England was ransacked to furnish these portraits." BRIEF SKETCH OF A PLAN FOR AN AMERICAN NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART. Public Galleries of Art are now regarded by the most enlightened men, and the wisest legislators, as of incalculable benefit to every civilized country. (See vol. i., page 6, of this work.) They communicate to the mind, through the eye, "the accumulated wisdom of ages," relative to every form of beauty, in the most rapid and captivating manner. If such institutions are important in Europe, abounding in works of art, how much more so in our country, separated as it is by the broad Atlantic from the artistic world, which few comparatively can ever visit: many of our young artists, for the want of such an institution, are obliged to grope their way in the dark, and to spend months and years to find out a few simple principles of art. A distinguished professor, high in public estimation, has declared that the formation of such an institution in this country, however important and desirable it may be, is almost hopeless. He founds his opinion on the difficulty of obtaining the authenticated works of the great masters, and the enormous prices they now command in Europe. The writer ventures to declare it as his long cherished opinion that a United States National Gallery is entirely practicable, as far as all useful purposes are concerned; and at a tithe of the cost of such institutions in Europe. In the present state of the Fine Arts in our country, we should not attempt to emulate European magnificence, but utility. The "course of empire is westward," and in the course of time, as wealth and taste increases, sale will be sought here, as now in England, for many works of the highest art. It is also to be hoped that some public benefactors will rise to our assistance. After the foundation of the institution, it may be extended according to the taste and wants of the country; professorships may be added, and the rarest works purchased. When the country can and will afford it, no price should be regarded too great for a perfect masterpiece of art, as a model in a national collection. To begin, the Gallery should contain, 1st. A complete library of all standard works on Art, historical and illustrative, in every language. 2d. A collection of the masterpieces of engraving; these should be mounted on linen, numbered, bound, described and criticised. 3d. A complete collection of casts of medals and antique gems, where the originals cannot be obtained. There are about 70,000 antique medals of high importance to art. (See Numismatics, vol. iii., p. 269, of this work.) These casts could easily be obtained through our diplomatic agents; they should be taken in Plaster of Paris or Sulphur, double--i.e., the reverse and obverse,--classified, catalogued, described, and arranged in cases covered with plate glass, for their preservation. 4th. A collection of plaster casts of all the best works of sculpture, particularly of the antique. Correct casts of the Elgin marbles are sold by the British Museum at a very reasonable price, and in this case would doubtless be presented to the institution. 5th. A collection of Paintings. This is the most difficult part of the project, yet practicable. Masterpieces of the art only should be admitted, but historical authenticity disregarded. The works of the great masters have been so closely imitated, that there are no certain marks of authenticity, where the history of the picture cannot be traced. (See Spooner's Dictionary of Painters, etc., Introduction, and Table of Imitators.) Half the pictures in foreign collections cannot be authenticated, and many of those which are, are not the best productions of the master, nor worthy of the places they occupy. (See Mrs. Jameson's Hand-Book to the Public Galleries in and near London; also the Catalogues of the various Public Galleries of Europe.) Therefore, instead of paying 5,000 or 10,000 guineas for an authenticated piece by a certain master, as is sometimes done in Europe, competent and _true_ men should be appointed to select capital works, executed in the style of the great masters. Many such can be had in this country as well as in Europe, at moderate prices. 6th. The Institution should be located in New York, as the most convenient place, and as the great centre of commerce, where artists could most readily dispose of their works. For this favor, the city would doubtless donate the ground, and her citizens make liberal contributions. The edifice should be built fire-proof, and three stories high--the upper with a skylight, for the gallery of paintings. Such an institution need not be very expensive; yet it would afford the elements for the instruction and accomplishment of the painter, the engraver, the sculptor, the architect, the connoisseur, the archæologist, and the public at large; it would be the means of awakening and developing the sleeping genius of many men, to the honor, glory, and advantage of their country, which, without it, must sleep on forever. See vol. ii., pp. 149 and 155, and vol. iii., p. 265 of this work. INDEX. Advantages of the Cultivation of the Fine Arts to a Country, i, 6; Sir M. A. Shoe's Opinion, i, 6; Sir George Beaumont's, i, 7; West's, i, 8; Taylor's, i, 9; see also, i, 69; Reynolds' Opinion, i, 204; Napoleon's, iii, 274. Ætion, his picture of the Nuptials of Alexander and Roxana, ii, 184. Agaptos, Porticos of, ii, 185. Ageladus, his works, ii, 185. Aldobrandini Wedding, Fresco of, ii, 55. Allston, Washington, i, 60; his Prayer answered, i, 61; his success in London, i, 62; his Death, i, 62; Vanderlyn's letter--his Reflections on his Death, i, 63. American Patronage at Home and Abroad, i, 66; Weir, Greenough, and Cooper's testimony, i, 67; Cooper's Letter, i, 68. Amiconi, Jacopo, iii, 249. Angelo, Michael, his Early Passion for Art, i, 47; his Mask of a Satyr, i, 48; his Sleeping Cupid, i, 48; Angela and Julius II, i, 50; St. Peter's Church, i, 50; Angelo and Lorenzo the Magnificent, i, 52; his Cartoon of Pisa, i, 53; his Last Judgment, i, 54; his Coloring, i, 56; his Grace, i, 57; his Oil Paintings, i, 58; his Prophets and Julius II, i, 58; his Bon-Mots, i, 59; Angelo and Raffaelle, i, 70-72. Anguisciola, Sofonisba, iii, 129; her Early Distinction, iii, 129; her Invitation to Spain iii, 130; her Marriages, iii, 131; her Residence at Genoa, her Honors, and her Intercourse with Vandyck, iii, 132. Antique Sculptures in Rome, ii, 159. Antiquities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, ii, 43. Antiquity of the Fine Arts, i, 12. Aparicio, Canova, and Thorwaldsen, i, 236. Apelles, i, 18; his Works, i, 18; his Industry, i, 19; his Portraits of Philip and Alexander, i, 19; his Venus Anadyomene, i, 20; Apelles and the Cobbler, i, 23; his Foaming Charger, i, 24; his Freedom with Alexander, i, 25; Apelles and Protogenes, i, 25; the celebrated Contest of Lines, i, 26; his Generosity to Protogenes, i, 28. Apelles of Ephesus, i, 93; his Treatment by Ptolomy Philopator, i, 94; his Revenge in his famous Picture of Calumny, i, 94; Lucian's description of it, i, 94; Raffaelle's Drawing of it, i, 95; Proof that there were two Painters named Apelles, i, 95. Apollo Belvidere--West's Criticism, i, 41. Apollo, Colossal Etruscan, i, 90. Apollo Sauroctonos, i, 155. Apollodorus the Painter, i, 162; his Works and Style, i, 163. Apollodorus the Architect, i, 163; his Worke, i, 164; Trajan's Column, i, 164; Apollodorus and Adrian, i, 165; his Wicked Death, i, 165. Aqueducts of Ancient Rome, ii 152. Arch, Origin and Antiquity of the, ii. 41. Arches, Triumphal, ii, 157. Archimedes, iii, 77; his Genius, Discoveries, and Inventions, iii, 77; his Wonderful Machines, iii, 78; his Death and Monument, iii, 79; Story of his Burning Glasses proved true, iii, 79. Ardemans and Bocanegra--a Trial of Skill, iii, 201. Art, Egyptian, iii, 1-42, and iii, 263. Art, Grecian, derived from the Egyptian--Champollion's Opinion, iii, 1; Origin of, iii, 265. Athenians, Ingratitude of, to Artists, i, 159. Backhuysen, Ludolph, Sketch of his Life and Works, iii, 235. Banks, Thomas--his Ambition, i, 2; his Character, i, 295; his Genius, i, 297; his Kindness to Young Sculptors, i, 298; his Personal Appearance and Habits, i, 299; Flaxman's Tribute, i, 300. Barry, James--his Enthusiasm, i, 2; his Poverty, Death, and Monument, i, 3; Johnson's Opinion of his Genius, i, 3. Bassano, Jacopo--singular instance of his Skill, ii, 139. Beaumont, Sir George--his Opinion of the Importance of the Fine Arts, i, 7; his Enthusiasm and munificent gift to the English National Gallery, i, 7. Beauty, Ideal, as Conceived and Practiced by the Greatest Masters, ii, 247. Belzoni--his Travels in Egypt, iii, 25. The Belzoni Sarcophagus, ii, 194. Bernazzano, the Zeuxis of Italy, ii, 140. Bernini, the Cav., i, 101; his Precocity, i, 101; his Bust of Charles I. and his Prediction, i, 101; Bernini and Louis XIV., i, 102; his Triumphal Visit to Paris, i, 102; the Medal struck in his Honor, i, 103; his Works, i, 103; his Restoration of the Verospi Hercules, i, 104; Lanzi's Critique, i, 103; his Love of Splendor and his Riches, i, 104; Bernini and Urban VIII., iii, 256. Blake, William--his Enthusiasm, Eccentricity, and Poverty, i, 3; his melancholy yet triumphant Death, 1, 4. Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, iii, 305. Bridge, Trajan's, across the Danube, i, 164. Bridge, Mandrocles', across the Bosphorus, ii, 162. Bridge, the Britannia Railway Tubular, iii 46; the Tubes, iii, 47; the Piers, iii, 48; Construction of the Tubes, iii, 49; Floating the Tubes, iii, 50; Raising the Tubes, iii, 52; the prodigious Hydraulic Presses used, iii, 53; Bursting of one, iii, 55; Sir Francis Head's Description, iii, 56; Cost of the Structure, iii, 57. Brower, Adrian, iii, 182; his Escape from a Cruel Master, iii, 183; Brower, the Duke d'Aremberg, and Rubens, iii, 184; his Death, iii, 184; his Works, iii, 185. Brunelleschi, Filippo--remarkable instance of the Trials and Triumphs of Genius, iii, 80; his Inquiring Mind, Industry, and Discoveries, iii, 81; his Genius, iii, 82; his Ambition, iii, 83; his first Visit to Rome and Assiduity, iii, 84; Assembly of Architects to consult on the best means of raising the Cupola of the Cathedral of Florence, iii, 85; his Return to Rome, iii, 86; his Invitation back to Florence, iii, 87; his Discourse, iii, 87; his Return to Rome, iii, 89; grand Assemblage of Architects from all parts of Europe, iii, 90; their Opinions and ridiculous Projects to raise the Cupola, iii, 91; Filippo's Opposition and Discourse, iii, 92; taken for a Madman, and driven out of the Assembly, iii, 93; his Discourse, iii, 94; his Arguments, and his Proposal that he who could make an Egg stand on one end should build the Cupola, iii, 94; his Plan submitted, iii, 96; its Adoption, iii, 99; Opposition encountered, iii, 101; Lorenzo Ghiberti associated with him, iii, 101; his Vexation and Despair, iii, 102; Commencement of the Work, iii, 103; Lorenzo's incapacity for such a Work, iii, 104; Filippo's Scheme to get rid of him, iii, 105; Lorenzo disgraced, iii, 109; Filippo appointed Sole Architect, iii, 111; his Industry, the wonderful Resources of his Mind, and his triumphant Success, iii, 112; Filippo chosen Magistrate of the City, iii, 116; Jealousies he still encountered, iii, 118; his Arrest, Mortifying Affront, and Triumph, iii, 118; Grandeur and Magnificence of his Cupola, iii, 120; his Enthusiasm, iii, 122; Brunelleschi and Donatello, iii, 123. Buffalmacco, the successor of Giotto, ii, 267; his comical Tricks to enjoy his sweetest Sleep, ii, 268; his Employment by the Nuns of Faenza, ii, 270; his Use of their best wine, ii, 272; his Employment by Bishop Guido, ii, 273; Comical Pranks of the Bishop's Monkey, ii, 274; his Trick on the Bishop, ii, 277; Origin of Libel Painting, ii, 278; Utility of ancient paintings, ii, 280; his Commission from the Countryman, and its curious execution, ii, 282; his Commission from the Perugians, ii, 283; their Impertinence requited, ii, 284; his Novel Mode of enforcing Payment, ii, 285. Callot, Jacques, iii, 176; his uncontrollable Passion for Art, iii, 176; his Patriotism, iii, 177. Callimachus--his invention of the Corinthian Capital, i, 152. Cambiaso, Luca--his Precocity and remarkable Facility of Hand, iii, 187; his Invitation to Spain, iii, 188; Luca and Philip II., iii, 189; his Artistic Merits, iii, 190; Boschini and Mengs' Opinions, iii, 190. Campaspe and Apelles, i, 21. Campus Martius, i, 91. Cano, Alonso, i, 230; his Liberality, i, 231; his Eccentricities, i, 231; his Hatred of the Jews, i, 232; his Ruling Passion strong in Death, i, 234; Cano and the Intendant of the Bishop of Malaga, iii, 203; his love of Sculpture, iii, 204. Canova--his Visit to his Native Place in his old age, i, 32. Capitol, ancient, of Rome, iii, 59. Capugnano and Lionello Spada, iii, 247. Caracci, the School of, ii, 122. Caracci, Annibale--his Letter to Lodovico, and his Opinion of the Works of Correggio, i, 253; instance of his Skill, ii, 137; his Jealousy of Agostino, iii, 258. Carburi, Count--his Skill in Engineering, iii, 42. Caracciolo, Gio. Battista--his Intrigues, ii, 128. Carducci, Bartolomeo--his kind Criticism, iii, 203. Carlos, the Four, of the 17th Century, ii, 184. Caravaggio, Michael Angelo da--his Quarrelsome Disposition and his Death, iii, 248. Carreño, Don Juan, and Charles II, iii, 208; his Copy of Titian's St. Margaret, iii, 208; his Abstraction of Mind, iii, 209. Castagno, Andrea del, his Treachery and Death, ii, 144. Castillo's Sarcasm on Alfaro, iii, 204. Catacombs of Egypt, iii, 12. Catino, the Sagro, or Emerald Dish, iii, 215. Cellini, Benvenute, iii, 255; Cellini and Urban VIII; his absolution for sins committed in the service of the Church, iii, 255. Cespedes, Pablo--his Last Supper, iii, 209; Zuccaro's Compliment to Cespedes, iii, 210. Chair of St. Peter, iii, 213. Church, St Peter's, iii, 61 Churches of Rome, iii, 60. Cimabue, Giovanni--Sketch of his Life, ii, 251; his Style, ii, 252; his Passion for Art, ii, 252; his famous picture of the Virgin, ii, 253; remarkable instance of homage to Art, ii, 254; his Works, ii, 255; his Death, ii, 256; his Care of Giotto, ii, 257. Cloaca Maxima at Rome, ii, 42. Coello, Claudio, his challenge to Giordano, ii, 234. Column, Trajan's, i, 164. Column of Austerlitz, iii, 280. Colosseum, description of, ii, 29; Montaigne's quaint account of its Spectacles, ii, 31. Colossus of the Sun at Rhodes, ii, 162. "Columbus and the Egg," story of, derived by him from Brunelleschi, iii, 95. Contarini, Cav. Giovanni--his skill in Portraits, ii, 139. Contri, Antonio--his method of transferring frescos from walls to canvass, ii, 146; see also Palmarolis, ii, 147. Cooper, J. Fennimore--his Encouragement of Greenough, i, 66; his Letter to Induce his Countrymen to Patronize their own Artists, i, 67. Corenzio, Belisario--his Intrigues, ii, 128. Corinthian Capital, invention of, i, 152. Correggio--Sketch of his Life, i, 243; his Cupola of the Church of St. John at Parma, i, 244; his grand Cupola of the Cathedral, i, 246; his Fate Exaggerated, i, 249; Lanzi's Opinion, i, 251; his Marriage and Children, i, 252; Caracci's Opinion of Correggio, and his Letter, i, 258; his Enthusiasm, i, 255; his Grace, i, 255; Correggio and the Monks, i, 256; his Kindness--his Muleteer, i, 256; Duke of Wellington's Correggio, i, 257; Correggio's Ancona, i, 257; Portraits of Correggio, i, 258; did Correggio ever visit Rome? i, 259; Singular History of Correggio's Adoration of the Shepherds, i, 261; of his Education of Cupid, i, 262; of a Magdalen, i, 264; of a Charity, i, 265; the celebrated Nótte of Correggio, iii, 259. Cortona, Pietro--Sketch of his Life, iii, 253; Anecdotes of, iii, 254. David, Jacques Louis, i, 176; his Politics and Love of Liberty, i, 176; David and Napoleon, i, 177; his Banishment to Brussels, i, 177; his famous picture of the Coronation of Napoleon, i, 178; David and Canova, i, 179; Napoleon's Compliments to David, i, 180; the King of Wurtemberg's, i, 181; List of Portraits it contained, i, 182; its Barbarous Destruction by the Bourbons, i, 184; David and the Duke of Wellington at Brussels, i, 184; David and the Cardinal Caprara, i, 185; Talma and David in his Banishment, 1, 186. Denon, the Baron--his description of the Necropolis of Thebes, iii, 16, his Employment by Napoleon, iii, 802. Digby, Sir Kenelm--his Love Adventure in Spain, iii, 199. Dinocrates--his Proposal to cut Mount Athos into a Statue of Alexander the Great, ii, 165; Pope's Idea of its Practicability, ii, 166; Dinocrates' Temple with an Iron Statue suspended in the air by Loadstone, ii, 168. Domenichino, ii, 121; his Dullness in his Youth, ii, 121; Caracci's prediction of his rise to Eminence, ii, 122; Lanzi and Mengs' Testimony of his Genius and Merits, ii, 123; his Scourging of St. Andrew, ii, 123; his Communion of St. Jerome, ii, 124; his Enemies at Rome, ii, 125; Lanzi's Account of the Decision of Posterity on his Merits, ii, 126; his Caricatures, ii, 128; Intrigues of the Neapolitan Triumvirate of Painters, ii, 128; Lanzi's Account of this disgraceful Cabal, ii, 129; his Works in the Chapel of St Januarius, and the Prices he received, ii, 131; his Death, ii, 132. Donatello, iii, 125; Donatello and the Merchant, iii, 126; Donatello and his unworthy Kinsmen, iii, 127; his Death, iii, 128; Donatello and Michael Angelo Compared, iii, 128; Donatello and Brunelleschi, iii, 123; Donatello and Uccello, ii, 292. Douw, Gerard, iii, 222; his Style, iii, 224; his Method of Painting, iii, 225; his Works, iii, 226; his Dropsical Woman, iii, 227. Dramatic Scenery at Rome, i, 93. Durer, Albert, iii, 228; his unfortunate Marriage, iii, 229; his Works as a Painter, iii, 229; his Works as an Engraver, iii, 231; his Fame and Death, iii, 233; his Habits, iii, 234; his Literary Works, iii, 234. Egyptian Art, iii, 1, and iii, 263. Electioneering Pictures at Rome, i, 91. Emulation and Rivalry of Advantage to Artists, iii, 257. Engraving, Invention of Copper-Plate, i, 287. Era, Brightest, of Grecian Art, i, 11, and ii, 154. Era, Brightest, of Roman Art, ii, 152. Era, Brightest, of Italian Art, ii, 149. Eyck, John van--his Invention of Oil Painting, ii, 141. Fabius Maximus--his Estimation of Art, i, 145. Fanaticism, Religious, destructive to Art, i, 105; its Effects in England, i, 105. Figure, the Nude, i, 109; Barry's Opinion, i, 109; Schlegel's, i, 110. Fine Arts, Golden Age of, in Greece, i, 11. Fine Arts, Golden Age of, in Rome, ii, 152 Fine Arts, Golden Age of, In Italy, ii, 149. Finiguerra, Maso--his Invention of Copper-Plate Engraving, i, 287. Fiorentino, Stefano, one of the Fathers of Painting, ii, 286. Foreshortening, ii, 145; its Invention, ii, 145. Fontana, Domenico, iii, 33; his Removal of an Obelisk at Rome, iii, 34; Dangers he Encountered, iii, 37; Honors bestowed on him for his Success, iii, 40. Force of Habit, i, 202. Fornarina, La Bella, i, 75. Fountain, the Elephant, iii, 286. "Four Carlos of the 17th Century," ii, 184. "Four Finest Pictures at Rome," ii, 183 Frescos, Ancient, ii, 55; the Aldobrandini Wedding, ii, 56. Fuseli, Henry--his Birth, ii, 59; his Early Passion for Art, ii, 59; his Literary and Poetical Taste, ii, 60; Fuseli, Lavater, and the Unjust Magistrate, ii, 61; his Travels and Literary Distinction, ii, 62; his Arrival in London, ii, 63; his Change from Literature to Painting, ii, 63; his Visit to Italy, ii, 65; his "Nightmare," ii, 66; his OEdipus and his Daughters, ii, 66; Fuseli and the Shakspeare Gallery, ii, 67; his Hamlet's Ghost, ii, 69; his Titania, ii, 69; his Election as a Royal Academician, ii, 70; Fuseli and Walpole, ii, 71; Fuseli and Coutts, ii, 72; Fuseli and Prof. Porson, ii, 72; his Method of giving Vent to his Passion, ii, 73; his Love of Terrific Subjects, ii, 73; his Revenge on Lawrence, ii, 74; his Estimate of Reynolds as an Historical Painter, ii, 75; his Friendship for Lawrence, ii, 75; Fuseli as Keeper of the Royal Academy, ii, 76; his Jests and Oddities with the Students, ii, 77; his Sarcasms on Northcote, ii, 78; on various Artists, ii, 79; his Retorts, ii, 80; his Retort in Mr. Coutts' Banking-House, ii, 82; his Sarcasm on Landscape and Portrait Painters, ii, 83; his own Attainment of Happiness, ii, 84; his Habits, ii, 84; his Wife's Novel Method of Curing his Fits of Despondency, ii, 85; his Personal Appearance, Sarcastic Disposition, and Quick Temper, ii, 86; his Near Sight, ii, 87; his Popularity, ii, 88; his Artistic Merits, ii, 88; his Milton Gallery, etc., ii, 89. Fulton, Robert, as a Painter, i, 122; his Love of Art, i, 123; his Exalted Mind, i, 123; his Account of his first Steamboat Voyage to Albany, and his Predictions, i, 124. Gallery, English National, i, 107. Gallery, Dresden, iii, 262. Gallery of the Louvre, iii, 289 and 302. Gallery, United States National--Suggestions for One, iii, 307. Galleries, Prices of, i, 112. Galletti, Pietro, and the Bolognese Students, ii, 184. Garland Twiner, i, 148. Gaulli, Gio. Battista--his Excellence in Portraiture, iii, 250; his curious method of Painting the Dead, iii, 250. Genius, Trials of, i, 1, and iii, 80. Ghiberti, Lorenzo--his famous Doors of San Giovanni, i, 60, and iii, 101; as an Architect, iii, 102. Giordano, Luca--his Wonderful Precocity, ii, 224; his Enthusiasm, ii, 225; Origin of his Nickname of _Luca-fa Presto_, ii, 226; his Skill in copying and Imitating, ii, 226; his Success at Naples, ii, 227; Giordano, the Viceroy, and the Duke of Diano, ii, 228; his Invitation to Florence--Giordano and Carlo Dolci, ii, 229; his Invitation to the Court of Spain, ii, 230; his Flattering Reception, ii, 230; his Works in Spain, ii, 231; in the Escurial, ii, 232; his Habits, iii 233; his first Picture at Madrid, ii, 233; a great Favorite at Court, ii, 234; Coello's Challenge, ii, 234; Anecdotes, ii, 234; Painting with his Fingers, ii, 235; Rich Presents he Received, ii, 236; his Return to Naples, ii, 236; his Reception at Genoa, Florence, Rome and Naples, ii, 237; his Personal Appearance and Character, ii, 237; his Popularity, Love of Gain, and "Three Sorts of Pencils," ii, 238; his Riches, ii, 238; his Wonderful Facility of Hand, ii, 239; his Fame and Reputation, ii, 240; his Genius and merits, ii, 241; his Tricks for Notoriety, his False Style and its Injurious Effects on Art at the Time, ii, 241; Remarkable Instance of his Rapidity of Execution in his altar-piece of St. Francis Xavier, ii, 242. Giotto--Sketch of his Life, ii, 257; his Early Passion for Art, ii, 257; his Works, ii, 258; as an Architect, ii, 259; his St. Francis Stigmata, ii, 259; his Invitation to Rome, ii, 260; "Round as Giotto's O," ii, 261; Story of his Living Model, ii, 262; Giotto and the King of Naples, ii, 264; his Bon Mots, ii, 265; Giotto and Dante, ii, 266; Death of Giotto ii 266. Giottino, ii, 286. Gladiator, Statue of the Dying, i, 144. Gladiator, Statue of the Fighting, ii, 187. Glass, Ancient, ii, 57; Ancient Pictures of, ii, 58. Golden Age of Art in Greece, i, 11, and ii, 154. Golden Age of Art in Rome, ii, 152. Golden Age of Art in Italy, ii, 149. Goldsmith, Dr., and Reynolds, i, 199; his "Deserted Village," i, 200; his Retaliation, i, 200. Gomez, the Slave of Murillo, iii, 195. Grecian Art derived from the Egyptians, iii, 1. Greenough, Horatio--his Chanting Cherubs, i, 67; Commission for his Statue of Washington for the Capitol, i, 68; his Modesty, i, 69; his account of the Miraculous Picture of the Virgin at Florence, iii, 211. Griffier, John--his Perilous Adventure, iii, 245. Group of Niobe and her Children, ii, 185. Group of Laocoön and his Sons, ii, 187. Guercino--his Power of Relief, ii, 140. Hals, Frank, and Vandyck, ii, 312. Hanneman--his picture of Peace, i, 310. Harpies, Curious Representations of, iii, 181. Heliopolis, iii, 7. Herculaneum--its Destruction--Antiquities and Works of Art discovered, ii, 43. Hogarth--Value of his Works, i, 6; his Genius, i, 166; his Apprenticeship, i, 167; his Revenge, i, 168; his Method of Sketching an Incident, i, 168; his Marriage, i, 168; his Successful Expedient to get Payment, i, 169; his Picture of the Red Sea, i, 170; his Courtesy, i, 171; his Absence of Mind, i, 171; his March to Finchley, i, 172; his unfortunate Dedication to the King, i, 172; his Strange Manner of Selling his Pictures, i, 172; Paltry Prices he received, i, 174; his last Work, "the Tail-Piece," i, 175; his Death, i, 176. Holbein, Hans, ii, 216; his Portrait with the Fly, ii, 216; his Visit to England, ii, 216; Holbein and Henry VIII., ii, 217; his Adventure with the Nobleman, ii, 217; the King's Rebuke and Protection, ii, 218; his Portrait of the Duchess of Milan, ii, 218; his Dangerous Flattery, ii, 219; his Portrait of Cratzer, ii, 219; his Portraits of Sir Thomas More and his Family, ii, 220; Bon-Mot of Sir Thomas, ii, 221. Illusions in Painting, i, 228; Singular Pictorial, ii, 137. Industry necessary to Success in Art--Reynold's Opinion, i, 201; Durer's, iii, 228 and 234; Michael Angelo's, i, 60; Apelles', i, 19; Da Vinci's, i, 275, 280, and 282; Vernet's, ii, 297 and 299; Rubens', i, 80 and 82; Raffaelle's, i, 71; Poussin's, iii, 150 and 161; Gierdano's, ii, 226 and 233; Brunelleschi's, iii, 81 and 84. Infelicities of Artists, i, 1-6. Ingenuity of Artists, iii, 178. Inquisition, Evil Influence of the, on Spanish Art, i, 211; and Torreggiano, i, 2; and Sir Anthony Moore, iii, 243. Jarvis, John Wesley, i, 113; his Eccentricity, and Lore of Jesting, Mimicking, and Story-Telling, i, 113; his Ludicrous Readings from Shakspeare, i, 115; Dr. Francis' Account of him, i, 116; the "Biggest Lie," i, 118; Jarvis and Bishop Moore, i, 119; and Commodore Perry, i, 119; and the Philosopher, i, 120; and Dr. Mitchell, i, 120; his Habits, i, 121; Jarvis and Sully, i, 122; his Fondness for Notoriety, i, 122. Jervas, Charles, ii, 213; Jervas and Pope, ii, 214; and Dr. Arbuthnot, ii, 215; his Vanity, ii, 215; Kneller's Sarcasm, ii, 216. Jewelers, a hint to, iii, 179. Johnson, Dr.--his Friendship for Reynolds, i, 196; his Apology for Portrait Painting, i, 197; his Portrait, i, 198; his Death, i, 199. Julian the Apostate--his Attempt to rebuild Jerusalem, ii, 160. Jupiter--see Temples and Statues. Kirk, Thomas--his Genius, Misfortune, and untimely Death, i, 5. Kneller, Sir Godfrey--his Arrival in England, and great Success, i, 96; Kneller's Portrait of Charles II., i, 99; Kneller and James II., i, 97; his Compliment to Louis XIV., i, 97; his Wit and Bon-Mots, i, 98; his Knowledge of Physiognomy, i, 99; Kneller as a Justice of the Peace, i, 99; his Decisions regulated by Equity rather than Law, i, 99; Kneller and Clostermans, i, 100. La Bella Fornarina, i, 75. Labyrinth of Egypt, iii, 11. Lake Moeris, iii, 9. Lamps, Perpetual, ii, 182. Laocoön, Group of the, ii, 187; Pliny's Account of, ii, 189; Michael Angelo's Opinion, ii, 190; Sangallo's Account of its Discovery, ii, 190. Lanfranco, the Cav., ii, 91; his Hostility to Domenichino, ii, 125. Lasson, M. de--his Caricature, ii, 311. Layard--his Nineveh and its Remains, ii, 34. Lebas, M.--his Removal of an Obelisk from Thebes to Paris, iii, 40. Louvre, Gallery of the, iii, 302; Dismantling of, iii, 289. Love makes a Painter, i, 112, i, 148, i, 235, and iii, 195. Love of Art among the Romans, i, 146. Luca-fa-Presto, ii, 226. Mabuse, John de, Anecdote of, iii, 246. Mandrocles' Bridge across the Bosphorus, ii, 162. March, Estéban--his Strange Method of Study, iii, 198; his Adventure of the Fish fried in Linseed Oil, iii, 199. Marbles, very curious Imitations of, ii, 147. Marbles, the Elgin, ii, 171. Matsys, Quintin, i, 112; his Love and Monument, i, 113. Masters, the Old, i, 111. Mausolus, Tomb of, ii, 161. Mechanics, Comparative Skill of the Ancients and Moderns in, iii, 45. Medals, 70,000 Ancients, iii, 272. Medals of Napoleon, iii, 281. Memphis, iii, 8. Messina, Antonella da, ii, 143. Methodius and the King of Bulgaria, iii, 206. Mieris and Jan Steen, Frolics of, iii, 241. Mignard Pierre--his Skill in imitating other Masters, i, 186; amusing instance of, i, 187; his Skill in Portraits, ii, 138. Modesty, an Overplus of, dangerous to Success, i, 307. Moeris, Lake of, iii, 9. More, Sir Anthony, iii, 242; his Visit to Spain and great Success, iii, 242; his Visit to England and flattering Reception, iii, 243; More and Philip II., iii, 244; his fortunate Escape, iii, 244; his Success and Works, iii, 244. Morland, George--Sketch of his Life, ii. 197; his wonderful Precocity, ii, 198; his early Fame, ii, 199; his Mental and Moral Culture under an Unnatural Parent, ii, 260; his Escape from his Thraldom, ii, 201; his Marriage and Temporary Reform, ii, 202; his Social Position, ii, 203; his unpleasant Encounter, ii, 204; his Stay in the Isle of Wight, ii, 205; his Novel Mode of fulfilling commissions, ii, 206; Morland and the Pig, ii, 206; his Pictures in the Isle of Wight, ii, 207; his Freaks, ii, 208; his Dread of Bailiffs, ii, 208; his Apprehension as a Spy, ii, 209; his Sign of the "Black Bull," ii, 210; Morland and the Pawnbroker, ii, 211; his Idea of a Baronetcy, ii, 212; his Artistic Merits, ii, 212. Mosaics, i, 15; ancient, ii, 55; of the Battle of Platea, ii, 55. Mudo, El, and Titian's Last Supper, ii, 14. Murillo, i. 236; his Visit to Madrid and Velasquez, i, 236; his Return to Seville, i, 237; Murillo and Iriarte, i, 238; his Death, i, 238; his Style, i, 239; his Works, i, 240; Soult's Murillos, i, 240 and 242; Castillo's Tribute, i, 242; his "Virgin of the Napkin," iii, 193; his pictures in Spanish America, iii, 192; Anecdote of an Altar-Piece in Flanders, iii, 194; his Slave Gomez, iii, 195. Musée Francais and Musée Royal, iii, 302. Names of Architects designated by Reptiles, ii, 156. Napoleon--his Love of Art, iii, 274; his Enlightened Policy to Encourage Art, iii, 275; his Works at Paris, iii, 276; The Napoleon Medals, iii, 281; the Elephant Fountain, iii, 286; Interesting Drawing, iii, 287; Sévres China, iii, 288; Dismantling of the Louvre, iii, 289; Removal of the Venetian Horses, iii, 296; Removal of the Statue of Napoleon from the Column of Austerlitz, iii, 301. Needles, Cleopatra's, iii, 42. Niello, Works in, i, 286. Nineveh and its Remains, ii, 34; Description of the Royal Palace exhumed at Nimroud, ii, 37; Layard's description of its interior, ii,39. Niobe and her Children, Group of, ii, 185; Schlegel's Criticism, ii, 186. Nollekens, Joseph, i, 301; his Visit to Rome, i, 301; Nollekens and Garrick, i, 302; his Talents in Bust Sculpture, i, 303; his Bust of Johnson, i, 304; his Liberality and Kindness to Chantrey, i, 304; Nollekens and the Widow, i, 305; his odd Compliments, i, 306. Norgate, Edward--his Visit to Italy, Mishaps, and travelling Home on foot, i, 308. Northcote, James, and Fuseli, ii, 78. Numismatics, iii, 269; Value of the Science to Archæology, Philology, the Fine Arts, etc., iii, 270; 70,000 Ancient Medals, iii, 272. Obelisks, Egyptian, iii, 30; Number of, at Rome, ii, 152; Removal of one by Fontana, iii, 33; Removal of one from Thebes to Paris, iii, 40; Cleopatra's Needles, iii, 42. Odeon, the first at Athens, ii, 182. Olynthian Captive, Story of, i, 151. Origin of Label Painting, ii, 278. Pacheco--his Opinions on Art as restricted by the Inquisition, i, 212. Pareda, Antonio--his Artifice to Keep up Appearances, iii, 202. Pareja, Juan de, the Slave of Velasquez, i, 228; his Love of Painting and his Success, i, 229; his Gratitude to his Master, i, 229. Painter, perilous adventure of a, iii, 245 Painter of Florence, Curious Legend of the, iii, 217 Painter-Friar, the Devil, and the Virgin, iii, 220. Painting among the Egyptians, iii, 1 and 263. Painting among the Greeks, i, 22, 27, and iii, 265. Painting among the Romans, i, 88, and ii, 152. Painting, Revival of, in Italy, ii, 244. Painting, Italian Schools of, ii, 292. Painting, Golden Age of, in Italy, ii, 149; Lanzi's Philosophy of, ii, 150; Milizia's, ii, 154. Painting--different Schools Compared, i, 110. Painting, Effects of, on the Mind, i, 147. Painting from Nature, i, 18. Painting, Oil, Invention of, ii, 141. Painting, oldest Oil, extant, iii, 181. Painting, Portrait, Johnson's Apology for, i, 197. Painting, Origin of Label, ii, 278. Paintings transferred from Walls and Panels to Canvas, ii, 146. Paintings, Curious, iii, 180. Paintings, Evanescent, i, 106. Palace, Nero's Golden, ii, 155. Palaces of Rome, iii, 65. Palmaroli--his Method of transferring Paintings from Walls and Panels to Canvas, ii, 147. Pantoja and the Eagle, iii, 205. Parrhasius, i, 150; his Demos and other Works, i, 150; the Olynthian Captive, i, 151; his Vanity, i, 152. Parthenon at Athens, ii, 170; its Dilapidation, by the Venetians, Turks, and Lord Elgin, ii, 171. Pausias, i, 148; his Works and the Garland Twiner, i, 148. Perpetual Lamps, ii, 182. Pharos, Light-house of, ii, 164. Phidias, i, 157; his Statue of Minerva, i, 158, and ii, 171; Phidias and Alcamenes, i, 159; Ingratitude of the Athenians, i, 159; his Olympian Jupiter, i, 17, and i, 160; his Model for the Olympian Jupiter, i, 161. Picture of Ialysus and his Dog, Protogenes, i, 149, and i, 281. Picture of Calumny, Apelles', i, 94. Picture of the Virgin, the Miraculous, iii, 211. Pictures, first brought to Rome, i, 88. Pictures of Glass, Ancient, ii, 58. Pictures, Four finest at Rome, ii, 183. Pillar of On, iii, 8. Poecile at Athens, i, 13. Pompeii--its Destruction; Antiquities and Works of Art discovered, ii, 43; Vivid Sketch of its present Appearance, etc., by an American Traveler, ii, 46. Pope as a Painter--his Fame, i, 201; his Proficiency in the Art, ii, 214; his Idea of the Practicability of Dinocrates' Plan of cutting Mount Athos into a Statue of Alexander the Great, ii, 166. Portici, the Site of Herculaneum, ii, 44 and 46. Portraits, Female, Rarity of, in Spain, iii, 191. Poussin, Nicholas--his Noble Descent, iii, 148; his First Celebrity, iii, 149; his first Visit to Rome, iii, 150; his Enthusiasm and Assiduity, iii, 150; his Distress, and the Paltry Prices he received for his Works, iii, 151; his Ultimate Appreciation and Success, iii, 152; his Invitation back to Paris, iii, 153; the King's Autograph Letter on the Occasion, iii, 153; Intrigues, his Disgust, and Secret Return to Rome, iii, 154; his Modesty, unostentatious Mode of Living, and his Generosity, iii, 155; Poussin and Cardinal Mancini, iii, 155; Reynolds' Critique, iii, 156; Poussin and Marino, iii, 159; Poussin Romanized, iii, 160; his Habits of Study, iii, 161; his Old Age, iii, 162; his Master-Piece, iii, 163; his last Work and Death, iii, 163; his Letter to M. Felibien, iii, 164; his Ideas of Painting, iii, 164; Poussin and the Nobleman, iii, 165; and Mengs, iii, 165; and Domenichino, iii, 166; and Salvator Rosa, iii, 166; his Dignity, iii, 167; Poussin, Angelo, and Raffaelle compared, iii, 168. Prado, Blas de, and the Emperor of Morocco, iii, 207. Praxiteles, i, 155; his Works--the Venus of Cnidus and the Apollo Sauroctonos, i, 155; Praxiteles and Phryne, i, 156; the King of Bithynia, and the Venus of Cnidus, i, 157. Press, Hydraulic, explained, iii 52; its Tremendous Power and Use, iii, 53. Proctor, his Genius and Works, i, 4; his Misfortunes and melancholy Death, i, 5. Protogenes, i, 149; his Works, and his famous picture of Ialysus and his Dog, i, 149; Protogenes and Demetrius Poliorcetes, i, 28, and i, 149; and Apelles, i, 25. Pyramids of Egypt, iii, 19. Pyramid of Cephren, Perilous Ascent of, iii, 27. Raffaelle, i, 70; his ambition, i, 70; Raffaelle and Michael Angelo, i, 71; his Transfiguration, i, 72; his Death, i, 74; his Character, i, 74; his Mistress, i, 75; his Genius, i, 76; his Model for his Female Saints, i, 76; his Oil Paintings, i, 77; his Portraits of Julius II., i, 78; his different Manners, i, 78; his Skill in Portraits, ii, 138; Skull of Raffaelle in the Academy of St Luke, ii, 183. Ranc, Jean--his Retort, iii, 201. Rebuke, a Painter's just, iii, 200. Retort Courteous, a Painter's, iii, 201. Rembrandt--Sketch of his Life, iii, 170; his Studio and Models, iii, 171; his great Success, iii, 172; his Deceits to sell and increase the Price of his Works, iii, 173; his numerous Works, iii, 173; his extraordinary Merits as an Engraver, iii, 174. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, i, 188; his pleasing Manners, Fortune, and Collection of Works of Art, i, 189; his new Style and its Success, i, 189; his Prices, i, 191; his Method with his Sitters, i, 192; his Removal to Leicester Square, i, 192; his showy Coach, i, 193; his Table and Guests, i, 194; the Founding of the Royal Academy, and his election as President, i, 194; Reynolds and Dr. Johnson, i, 195; Johnson's Friendship for Reynolds, and his Apology for Portrait Painting, i, 196 and 197; the Literary Club, i, 198; Johnson's Portrait, i, 198; Johnson's Death, i, 199; Reynolds and Dr. Goldsmith, i, 199; the "Deserted Village," i, 200; "Retaliation," i, 200; Pope's Fan i, 201; Reynolds' first Attempts in Art, i, 202; Force of Habit, i, 202; Paying the Piper, i, 203; his Modesty and his Generosity, i, 203; his Love of Art, i, 204; his Critique on Rubens, i, 205; Reynolds and Haydn, i, 206; his Skill in Compliment, i, 207; his Excellent Advice, i, 208; Reynolds as Mayor of Plympton and his two Portraits, i, 208; his Kindness of Heart, i, 209; Burke's Eulogy, i, 209; his Experiments and Use of Old Paintings, i, 210; his Method of Working, i, 193; Rubens' Last Supper, i, 206. Rhodes, Statues and Paintings at, ii, 164. Ribalta Francisco--his Love Romance and his Success, i, 235. Ribera, Giuseppe, (Spagnoletto,) his Early Enthusiasm, Poverty, and Industry at Rome, ii, 133; his Return to Naples and Marriage, ii, 134; his Rise to Eminence, ii, 135; his Discovery of the Philosopher's Stone, ii, 135; his Favorite Subjects, ii. 136; his Disposition, ii, 137; his Intrigues, ii, 138; Lanzi's Account of his Death, ii, 132. Riley, John, i, 307; his Diffidence and Merits, i, 308. Rizi, Francisco--his Rebuke to Antonilez, iii, 200. Romans, Fondness of, for Works of Art, i, 88; for Etruscan Sculpture, i, 90. Rome, Ancient, Glory of, ii, 152, and iii, 57 and 71; first Pictures brought to Rome, i, 88; Electioneering pictures at Rome, i, 91; Dramatic Scenery at Rome, i, 93; Ancient Map of Rome, ii, 160; 100,000 Statues at Rome, ii, 152. Rome, Modem--its Churches, Palaces, Villas, and Treasures of Art, iii, 60. Rosa, Salvator, ii, 91; Cav. Lanfranco's Generosity, ii, 91; Rosa at Rome and Florence, ii, 92; his Return to Rome, ii, 93; brightest Era of Landscape Painting, ii, 93; his Subjects, ii, 93; his wonderful Facility of Execution, ii, 94; his Flagellation by the Monks, ii, 95; Rosa and the higgling Prince, ii, 96; his Opinion of his own Works, ii, 98; his Banditti, ii, 98; Rosa and Massaniello, ii, 100; and Cardinal Sforza, ii, 100; his Manifesto, ii, 101; his Banishment from Rome, ii, 102; his Secret Visit to Rome, ii, 102; his Wit, ii, 103; his Reception at Florence, ii, 103; his Histrionic Powers, ii, 104; his Reception at the Pitti Palace, ii, 105; his Satires, ii, 92 and 105; his Harpsichord, ii, 106; Rare Portrait, ii, 106; his Return to Rome, ii, 109; his Love of Show and Magnificence, ii, 109; his Last Works, ii, 111; his over-weening Desire to be considered a Historical Painter, ii, 112; Ghigi, his Physician and Rosa, ii, 113; Lady Morgan's Account of his Death-Bed, ii, 115; Rosa and Poussin iii, 166; Rosa and Fracanzani, iii, 256. Rosada Tivoli, iii, 185; his Works, iii, 186; his wonderful Rapidity of Hand, iii, 186; a Wager won, iii, 187; his Habits and Improvidence, iii, 187. Rosa, Giovanni--a modern Zeuxis, ii, 139. Rosalba, Carriera, iii, 133; her Modesty, and Knowledge of Tempers, iii, 133. Rubens, Peter Paul, i, 79; his Visit to Italy, i, 80; his Reception by the Duke of Mantua, i, 80; his Enthusiasm, i, 80; his Embassy to Spain, i, 81; his Return to Antwerp, i, 81; his Marriage, House, and rich collection of Works of Art, i, 81; his Habits, Extraordinary Memory and Acquirements, i, 82; his Detractors, i, 82; his Magnanimity, i, 83; the Gallery of the Luxembourg, i, 83; Rubens sent Ambassador to the Courts of Spain and England, i, 83; his Reception and Works at Madrid, i, 84; his Reception and Works in England, i, 84; his Delicacy, Address, and the Honors conferred on him on the occasion, i, 85; his Death, i, 85; his Numerous Works, i, 86; his Method of Working, i, 206. Ruysch, Rachel--her Life and Works, iii, 135. Scagliola or Mischia, Works in, ii, 147. Schwarts, amusing Anecdote of, iii, 175. Sculpture, Invention of, i, 153; Etruscan, i, 90; Egyptian, iii, 1; Grecian, i, 154 and 157. Sculptures, Antique, at Rome, ii, 159. Seymour, Anecdotes of, and the Proud Duke, ii, 223. Shakspeare Gallery, iii, 305. Sirani, Elizabeth--her Life and Works, iii, 134; her melancholy Death, iii, 135. Soane, Sir John, ii, 191; his Success and Works, ii, 192; his Liberality and Public Munificence, ii, 192; his Museum, ii, 193 ; the Belzoni Sarcophagus, ii, 194; Tasso's MS. of Gerusalemme Liberata, ii, 195; other rare MSS., Antiquities, Works of Art, etc., ii, 195. Sostratus, his Light-House on the Isle of Pharos, ii, 164. Spagnoletto--See Ribera. Spain, Melancholy State of the Fine Arts in, i, 217; Rarity of Female Portraits in, iii, 191. Spanish Art, Evil Effects of the Inquisition on, i, 211. Sphinx, the Colossal, iii, 10. Stabiæ--its Destruction, ii, 43. Statue of the Apollo Belvidere, i, 41; of the Apollo Sauroctonos, i, 155; of the Apollo, Colossal Etruscan, i, 90. Statue of the Venus de Medici, i, 147. Statue of the Venus of Cnidus, i, 156 Statue of the Venus Victrix, i, 147. Statue of Minerva, Phidia's, i, 158, and ii, 171. Statue of the Olympian Jupiter, Phidias', i, 160 Statue of the Fighting Gladiator, ii, 187. Statue of the Dying Gladiator, i, 144. Statue of Pompey the Great, ii, 159. Statue of Semiramis, cut out of a Mountain, ii, 167. Statue of Napoleon on the Column of Austerlitz, iii, 301. Statue, Equestrian, of Peter the Great, iii, 42. Statues, the Greek, i, 109. Statues, Sounding, iii, 6. Statues of Memnon, iii, 6. Stratagem, an Architect's, i, 309. Stratagem, Hogarth's, i, 169. Steen, Jan, iii, 238; his Works, iii, 238; Kugler's Critique on, iii, 240; Frolics of Steen and Mieris, iii, 241. Stephenson, Robert, and the Britannia Bridge, iii, 46. Stuart, Charles Gilbert, i, 124; his Visit to Scotland and Return before the Mast, i, 125; his Visit to London, i, 125; his Skill in Music, and its Use in Time of Need, i, 126; his Introduction to West, i, 126; his Portrait of West, i, 126; his Scholarship, i, 131; his Rule of half prepayment, i, 131; his Powers of Perception i, 132; Allston's Eulogium, i, 133; his great Conversational Powers, i, 133; his Success in Europe, i, 136; in Ireland, i, 136; his Return to America, i, 137; Stuart and Washington, i, 137; his Last Picture, i, 142; Stuart, his Boy and his Dog, i, 142; his Mark, i, 142. Tasso's MS. of "Gerusalemme Liberata," ii, 195. Temple of Diana at Ephesus, i, 144. Temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens, ii, 168. Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, ii, 153, and iii, 59. Temple of Minerva at Athens, ii, 170. Temple of Carnac, iii, 5. Temple of Luxor, iii, 5. Titian--Sketch of his Life, ii, 1; his famous picture of St. Peter the Martyr, ii, 2; his Refusal of the Office of the Leaden Seal, ii, 4; his different Manners, ii, 5; his Works, ii, 6; his Imitators, ii, 7; his Venus, ii, 8; Ottley's Description of it, ii, 8; Titian and the Emperor Charles V., ii. 10; extraordinary Friendship of Charles for Titian, his Favors and Remarkable Sayings, ii, 11; Charles' rebukes to his jealous Nobles, ii, 12; Titian and Philip II., ii, 13; his Letter of Congratulation to Philip, ii, 13; Philip and the Titian Venus, ii, 14; Titian's Last Supper and El Mudo, ii, 14; his Old Age, ii, 15; Monument to Titian, ii, 15. Thebes, Ancient, iii, 2. Theodoric the Great--his Love of Art, iii, 73. Torregiano--his Visit to Spain, and his Group of the Virgin and Child, i, 1; his Horrid Treatment and Death, i, 2. Torres--Sarcasm on his Imitations of Caravaggio, iii, 205. Transfiguration of Raffaelle, i, 72. Tristan, Luis, i, 229; Tristan and Velasquez, i, 229; Tristan and El Greco, i, 230. "Triumvirate of Historical Painters," i, 244. "Triumvirate of Landscape Painters," ii, 93. Triumvirate of Neapolitan Painters, Intrigues of, ii, 128. Uccello, Paolo, one of the Fathers of Painting, ii, 287; his Enthusiasm, ii, 288; Uccello and the Monks of San Miniato, ii, 289; his remarkable Picture of the most distinguished Artists of his Time, ii, 290; his Incredulity of St. Thomas, ii, 291; Uccello and Donatello, ii, 292. Utility of Ancient Works, ii, 280. Vanbrugh, Sir John, and his Severe Critics, ii, 221; Reynolds' celebrated Criticism in his favor, ii, 221. Vase, the Portland, ii, 56. Vandyck, Sir Anthony--his Conduct in the School of Rubens, iii, 136; his Visit to Italy, iii, 138; his Return to Antwerp, iii, 139; his Success and the Jealousy of Artists, iii, 140; his celebrated Picture of the Elevation of the Cross, and the Canons of Courtray, iii, 140; his Visit to England, iii, 141; his Success and Honors, iii, 141; his Death and Character, iii, 142; Remarkable Instance of his Rapidity of Execution, ii, 312. Velasquez, Don Diego, i, 226; Velasquez and Rubens compared by Mrs. Jameson, i, 226; Velasquez and Philip IV--the favors and extraordinary Honors conferred on him, i, 227; his Skill in Portraits, i, 227; his Portrait of Innocent X, i, 228; his Generosity to his Slave, i, 228. Velde, William van de, the Elder, iii, 143; his Intrepidity in Painting Naval Engagements, iii, 143; his Invitation to England and his Works, iii, 143; Van de Velde and Charles II., iii, 145. Velde, William van de, the Younger, iii, 145; his Admirable Works, iii, 146; Present Value of his Works, iii, 147; his numerous Drawings, and their Estimation and Value, iii, 148. Veneziano, Domenico, ii, 144; his treacherous Death, ii, 144. Venice, Foundation of, iii, 72. Venetian Horses, the famous, Removal of from Paris, iii, 296. Venus Anadyomene, i, 2. Venus of Cnidus, i, 155. Venus de Medici, i, 147. Venus Victrix, i, 147. Venus, Titian's, ii, 8. Vermeyen, John C., and the Emperor Charles V., iii, 206; his singular Dress and long Beard, iii, 207. Vernet, Claude Joseph, ii, 295; his Passion for Art, and his Precocity, ii, 295; his Enthusiasm, ii, 296; his Sketching the Tempest, lashed to the Mast, ii, 297; his Arrival at Rome, ii, 298; his Industry and Poverty, ii, 299; his "Alphabet of Tones," ii, 299; Vernet and the Connoisseur, ii, 301; his Success and Works, ii, 301; Diderot's Eulogy, ii, 303; his Passion for Music, ii, 306; his Opinion of his own Artistic Merits, ii, 307; Characteristic Letter to the Marquis de Marigny, ii, 309; his Prices, ii, 310. Vernet, Charles, ii, 310; his Works, ii, 310; his rebuke to a Minister of State, ii, 311. Vernet, Horace--his Life, Style, and Works, ii, 16-28. Vieira, Francisco--his Love Romance, iii, 195; his Success, iii, 198. Vinci, Lionardo da, i, 266; Precocity of his Genius, i, 266; his first remarkable Picture, i, 267; the extraordinary Versatility of his Talents, i, 268; his Works at Milan, i, 268; his famous Battle of the Standard, i, 270; Vinci and Leo X., i, 271; Vinci and Francis I., i, 271; his Death, i, 272; his Learning, i, 272; his Writings, i, 273; his Sketch Books, i, 275; his Last Supper, i, 276; Copies of his Last Supper, i, 278; his Discrimination, i, 279; his Idea of Perfection in Art, i, 280; Vinci and the Prior, i, 282; his Drawings of the Heads in the Last Supper, i, 284; Francis I. and the Last Supper, i, 284; Authenticated Works of Da Vinci, i, 285. Weenix, John Baptist the Elder, iii, 236; his wonderful Facility of Hand, iii, 236. Weenix, the Younger, iii, 237. Weesop, Anecdote of, i, 310. West, Benjamin--his Opinion of the Value of the Fine Arts to a Country, i, 8; Anecdotes of West, i, 28; his Ancestry, i, 28; his Birth, i, 29; his First Remarkable Feat, i, 30; his doings with the Indians, i, 30; his Cat's-Tail's Pencils, i, 30; his First Picture, i, 31; his First Visit to Philadelphia, i, 32; his Ambition, i, 33; his First Patrons, i, 34; his Education, i, 35; his Dedication to Art, i, 36; his Early Prices, i, 38; his Arrival at Rome, i, 39; his Reception at Rome, i, 40; his Criticism on the Apollo Belvidere, i, 41; his Early Friends, i, 41; his Course of Study, i, 42; a Remarkable Prophecy, i, 43; West in London--his Fondness for Skating, i, 44; his Death of Wolfe, i, 45; his Defense for Innovation before the King, i, 46; Stuart's Anecdotes of West, i, 127-131. Wilson, Richard--his Poverty and Want of Appreciation, i, 6; Present Value of his Works, i, 6. Winde William--his successful Stratagem, i, 399. Wissing, William--Freedom of the Times in England in the reign of Charles II., i, 309. Wolf, the Bronze, "the Thunder-Stricken Nurse of Rome", i, 90. Wonders, the Seven, of the World, iii, 75. Wren, Sir Christopher, i, 290; his Self-Command, i, 290; his Restraints in designing his Edifices, i, 292; the great Fire in London, i, 293; St. Paul's Cathedral, i, 294; his Death, i, 295; Wren and Charles II., i, 295. Zuccaro, Taddeo, iii, 250; his Poverty, Enthusiasm, and Works, iii, 251. Zuccaro, Federigo--his Resentment, iii, 251; Royal Criticism on his Self-Adulation, iii, 252. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Arnolfo had proposed to raise the cupola immediately above the first cornice, from the model of the church in the chapel of the Spaniards, where the cupola is extremely small. Arnolfo was followed by Giotto in 1331. To Giotto succeeded Taddeo Gaddi, after whom, first Andrea Orgagna, next Lorenzo di Filippo, and lastly Brunelleschi were architects of the Cathedral.] [Footnote 2: The story of Columbus and the Egg is familiar to every one. The jest undoubtedly originated with Brunelleschi, as it is attested by many of the Italian writers; it happened in 1420, fourteen years before Columbus was born. Toscanelli was a great admirer of Brunelleschi, whose knowledge of the Scriptures and powers of argument were so great, that he could successfully dispute in public assemblies, or in private with the most learned theologians, so that Toscanelli was accustomed to say that "to hear Filippo in argument, one might fancy one's self listening to a second Paul." So capital a retort could hardly have failed to reach Columbus, through his instructor, nor would he have hesitated to use it against his antagonists under similar circumstances. Brunelleschi was born in 1377 and died in 1444; Columbus in 1436, and died in 1506.] [Footnote 3: Vasari means that Lorenzo continued to receive his salary till 1426, although Filippo had been appointed sole master of the works in 1423, as he himself relates in the sequel.] [Footnote 4: How different was the treatment Ghiberti received from Brunelleschi, when the artists presented their models for one of the bronze doors of the Baptistery of San Giovanni at Florence. The designs of Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, and Donatello, were considered the three best; but the two latter, considering that Ghiberti was fairly entitled to the prize, withdrew their claims in his favor, and persuaded the syndics to adjudge the work to him. Brunelleschi was requested to undertake the work in concert with Ghiberti, but he would not consent to this, desiring to be first in some other art or undertaking than equal, or perhaps secondary, in another. "Now, this was in truth," says Vasari, "the sincere rectitude of friendship; it was talent without envy, and uprightness of judgment in a decision respecting themselves, by which these artists were more highly honored than they could have been by conducting the work to the utmost summit of perfection. Happy spirits! who, while aiding each other took pleasure in commending the labors of their competitors. How unhappy, on the contrary, are the artists of our day, laboring to injure each other, yet still unsatisfied, they burst with envy, while seeking to wound others."] [Footnote 5: This distrust seems astonishing, after what Brunelleschi had accomplished, but it shows the opposition and enmity he had to encounter. In 1434, he received a mortifying affront from the Guild of Builders. Finding that he carried on the building without thinking to pay the annual tax due from every artist who exercised his calling, they caused him to be apprehended and thrown into prison. As soon as this outrage was known to the wardens, they instantly assembled with indignation, and issued a solemn decree, commanding that Filippo should be liberated, and that the Consuls of the Guild should be imprisoned, which was accordingly done. Baldinucci discovered and printed the authentic document containing the decree, which is dated August 20, 1434.] [Footnote 6: Masselli says that the Tuscan braccio, is the ancient Roman foot doubled for greater convenience, and is equal to one foot nine inches and six lines, Paris measure. The editors of the Florentine edition of Vasari, 1846-9, remark that the measure of the whole edifice as given by Vasari, differs from that given by Fantozzi; the latter gives 196 braccia as its total height. Milizia says, "Brunelleschi completed his undertaking, which surpassed in height any work of the ancients. The lantern alone remained imperfect; but he left a model for it, and always recommended, even in his last moments, that it should be built of heavy marble, because the cupola being raised on four arches, it would have a tendency to spring upwards if not pressed with a heavy weight. The three mathematicians who have written on the cupola of St. Peter's, have clearly demonstrated a truth differing from the opinion of Brunelleschi, viz., that the small cupola increases, in a great degree, the lateral pressure. The whole height of the structure from the ground to the top, is 385 feet; that is, to the lantern 293 feet, the latter being 68 feet 6 inches; the ball 8 feet; the cross 15 feet 6 inches. * * * "The plan of the dome is octangular; each side in the interior is 57 feet, and the clear width between the sides, not measuring into the angles, is 137 feet; the walls are 16 feet 9 inches thick; the whole length of the church is 500 feet. The nave has four pointed arches on each side, on piers, separating it from the side aisles. The transept and choir have no side aisles, but are portions of an octagon, attached to the base of the dome, giving the whole plan the figure of a cross. The edifice has a Gothic character, and is incrusted in marble and mosaic work." * * * According to Fontani, this cupola exceeds that of the Vatican, both in height and circumference by four braccia; and although supported by eight ribs only, which renders it much lighter than that of the Vatican, which has sixteen flanking buttresses, it is nevertheless more solid and firm. Thus it has never required to be supported by circling hoops of iron, nor has it demanded the labors of the many engineers and architects who have printed volumes upon the subject. The construction of this cupola is remarkable in these particulars--that it is octangular, that it is double, and built entirely on the walls, unsupported by piers, and that there are no apparent counterforts.] 
26860	----	LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT PAINTERS SCULPTORS & ARCHITECTS BY GIORGIO VASARI: VOLUME III. FILARETE AND SIMONE TO MANTEGNA 1912 NEWLY TRANSLATED BY GASTON Du C. DE VERE. WITH FIVE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS: IN TEN VOLUMES [Illustration: 1511-1574] PHILIP LEE WARNER, PUBLISHER TO THE MEDICI SOCIETY, LIMITED 7 GRAFTON ST. LONDON, W. 1912-14 CONTENTS OF VOLUME III PAGE ANTONIO FILARETE AND SIMONE 1 GIULIANO DA MAIANO 9 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA [PIERO BORGHESE] 15 FRA GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE [FRA ANGELICO] 25 LEON BATISTA ALBERTI 41 LAZZARO VASARI 49 ANTONELLO DA MESSINA 57 ALESSO BALDOVINETTI 65 VELLANO DA PADOVA 71 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI 77 PAOLO ROMANO, MAESTRO MINO [MINO DEL REGNO _OR_ MINO DEL REAME], AND CHIMENTI CAMICIA 89 ANDREA DAL CASTAGNO OF MUGELLO [ANDREA DEGL' IMPICCATI] AND DOMENICO VINIZIANO [DOMENICO DA VENEZIA] 95 GENTILE DA FABRIANO AND VITTORE PISANELLO OF VERONA 107 PESELLO AND FRANCESCO PESELLI [PESELLINO _OR_ FRANCESCO DI PESELLO] 115 BENOZZO GOZZOLI 119 FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO AND LORENZO VECCHIETTO 127 GALASSO FERRARESE [GALASSO GALASSI] 133 ANTONIO ROSSELLINO [ROSSELLINO DAL PROCONSOLO] AND BERNARDO HIS BROTHER 137 DESIDERIO DA SETTIGNANO 145 MINO DA FIESOLE [MINO DI GIOVANNI] 151 LORENZO COSTA 159 ERCOLE FERRARESE [ERCOLE DA FERRARA] 165 JACOPO, GIOVANNI, AND GENTILE BELLINI 171 COSIMO ROSSELLI 185 CECCA 191 DON BARTOLOMMEO DELLA GATTA, ABBOT OF S. CLEMENTE 201 GHERARDO 211 DOMENICO GHIRLANDAJO 217 ANTONIO AND PIERO POLLAIUOLO 235 SANDRO BOTTICELLI [ALESSANDRO FILIPEPI _OR_ SANDRO DI BOTTICELLO] 245 BENEDETTO DA MAIANO 255 ANDREA VERROCCHIO 265 ANDREA MANTEGNA 277 INDEX OF NAMES 287 ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME III PLATES IN COLOUR FACING PAGE VINCENZIO DI ZOPPA (FOPPA) Madonna and Child Settignano: Berenson Collection 6 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and Battista Sforza, his Wife Florence: Uffizi, 1300 18 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA The Baptism in Jordan London: N. G., 665 22 FRA GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE (FRA ANGELICO) The Annunciation Cortona: Gesù Gallery 34 ANTONELLO DA MESSINA Portrait of a Young Man Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 18 62 ANTONELLO DA MESSINA The Crucifixion London: N. G., 1166 64 ALESSO BALDOVINETTI Madonna and Child in a Landscape Paris: Louvre, 1300B 68 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI The Annunciation London: N. G., 666 80 ANDREA DAL CASTAGNO Dante Florence: S. Apollonia 102 GENTILE DA FABRIANO Detail from The Adoration of the Magi: Madonna and Child, with Three Kings Florence: Accademia, 165 110 VITTORE PISANELLO The Vision of S. Eustace London: N. G., 1436 112 FRANCESCO PESELLI (PESELLINO) Madonna Enthroned, with Saints and Angels Empoli: Gallery 118 BENOZZO GOZZOLI Madonna and Child Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 60B 122 FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO S. Dorothy London: N. G., 1682 128 JACOPO BELLINI Madonna and Child Florence: Uffizi, 1562 174 GIOVANNI BELLINI The Doge Leonardo Loredano London: N. G., 189 174 GIOVANNI BELLINI Fortuna Venice: Accademia, 595 178 GIOVANNI BELLINI The Dead Christ Milan: Poldi Pezzoli, 624 178 GENTILE BELLINI S. Dominic London: N. G., 1440 182 DOMENICO GHIRLANDAJO The Vision of S. Fina San Gimignano 224 ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO David Victor Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 73A 240 SANDRO BOTTICELLI Pallas and the Centaur Florence: Pitti Palace 248 SANDRO BOTTICELLI Giovanna Tornabuoni and the Graces Paris: Louvre, 1297 248 SANDRO BOTTICELLI Madonna of the Pomegranate Florence: Uffizi, 1289 252 ANDREA MANTEGNA Madonna of the Rocks Florence: Uffizi, 1025 280 PLATES IN MONOCHROME FACING PAGE ANTONIO FILARETE Bronze Doors Rome: S. Peter's 4 SIMONE Tomb of Pope Martin V Rome: S. Giovanni in Laterano 8 BENEDETTO DA MAIANO S. Sebastian Florence: Oratorio della Misericordia 14 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA The Resurrection Borgo S. Sepolcro 20 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA The Vision of Constantine Arezzo: S. Francesco 24 FRA GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE (FRA ANGELICO) The Transfiguration Florence: S. Marco 30 FRA GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE (FRA ANGELICO) S. Stephen Preaching Rome: The Vatican, Chapel of Nicholas V 32 LEON BATISTA ALBERTI Facade of S. Andrea Mantua 46 ALESSO BALDOVINETTI The Annunciation Florence: Uffizi, 56 66 GRAFFIONE The Trinity Florence: S. Spirito 70 VELLANO DA PADOVA Jonah Cast into the Sea Padua: S. Antonio 74 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI The Virgin Adoring Florence: Accademia, 79 82 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI Madonna and Child Florence: Pitti, 343 86 ANDREA DAL CASTAGNO The Last Supper Florence: S. Apollonia 98 DOMENICO VINIZIANO Madonna and Child London: N. G., 1215 104 VITTORE PISANELLO Medals: N. Piccinino and Sigismondo Malatesta London: British Museum 114 BENOZZO GOZZOLI Detail: Procession of the Magi Florence: Palazzo Riccardi 120 BENOZZO GOZZOLI The Death of S. Augustine San Gimignano: S. Agostino 124 LORENZO VECCHIETTO The Risen Christ Siena: S. Maria della Scala 130 COSMÈ (COSIMO TURA) The Madonna Enthroned Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 86 136 ANTONIO ROSSELLINO Tomb of Cardinal Jacopo of Portugal Florence: S. Miniato 142 BERNARDO ROSSELLINO Tomb of Leonardo Bruni Florence: S. Croce 144 DESIDERIO DA SETTIGNANO Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini Florence: S. Croce 148 MINO DA FIESOLE Tomb of Margrave Hugo Florence: La Badia 154 LORENZO COSTA The Coronation of the Virgin Bologna: S. Giovanni in Monte 162 ERCOLE FERRARESE The Israelites Gathering Manna London: N. G., 1217 168 GENTILE BELLINI The Miracle of the True Cross Venice: Accademia, 568 176 GIOVANNI BELLINI Madonna and Saints Venice: S. Francesco della Vigna 180 COSIMO ROSSELLI Detail: Christ Healing the Leper Rome: Sistine Chapel 190 DOMENICO GHIRLANDAJO The Death of S. Francis Florence: S. Trinita 222 DOMENICO GHIRLANDAJO The Birth of S. John the Baptist Florence: S. Maria Novella 226 BASTIANO MAINARDI The Madonna giving the Girdle to S. Thomas Florence: S. Croce 232 PIERO POLLAIUOLO SS. Eustace, James, and Vincent Florence: Uffizi, 1301 238 ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO The Martyrdom of S. Sebastian London: N. G., 292 242 ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO Tomb of Pope Sixtus IV Rome: S. Peter's 242 SANDRO BOTTICELLI The Adoration of the Magi Florence: Uffizi, 1286 250 SANDRO BOTTICELLI The Calumny of Apelles Florence: Uffizi, 1182 254 BENEDETTO DA MAIANO Pulpit Florence: S. Croce 258 ANDREA VERROCCHIO David Florence: Bargello 266 ANDREA VERROCCHIO Detail: Corner and Foot of the Medici Sarcophagus Florence: S. Lorenzo 270 ANDREA VERROCCHIO Statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni Venice: Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo 272 ANDREA MANTEGNA The Martyrdom of S. James Padua: Eremitani 278 ANDREA MANTEGNA Madonna and Angels Milan: Brera, 198 282 ANDREA MANTEGNA Judith with the Head of Holofernes Dublin: N. G. 286 ANTONIO FILARETE AND SIMONE LIVES OF ANTONIO FILARETE AND SIMONE SCULPTORS OF FLORENCE If Pope Eugenius IV, when he resolved to make the bronze door for S. Pietro in Rome, had used diligence in seeking for men of excellence to execute that work (and he would easily have been able to find them at that time, when Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, Donatello, and other rare craftsmen were alive), it would not have been carried out in the deplorable manner which it reveals to us in our own day. But perchance the same thing happened to him that is very often wont to happen to the greater number of Princes, who either have no understanding of such works or take very little delight in them. Now, if they were to consider how important it is to show preference to men of excellence in public works, by reason of the fame that comes from these, it is certain that neither they nor their ministers would be so negligent; for the reason that he who encumbers himself with poor and inept craftsmen ensures but a short life to his works or his fame, not to mention that injury is done to the public interest and to the age in which he was born, for it is firmly believed by all who come after, that, if there had been better masters to be found in that age, the Prince would have availed himself rather of them than of the inept and vulgar. Now, after being created Pontiff in the year 1431, Pope Eugenius IV, hearing that the Florentines were having the doors of S. Giovanni made by Lorenzo Ghiberti, conceived a wish to try to make one of the doors of S. Pietro in like manner in bronze. But since he had no knowledge of such works, he entrusted the matter to his ministers, with whom Antonio Filarete, then a youth, and Simone, the brother of Donatello, both sculptors of Florence, had so much interest, that the work was allotted to them. Putting their hands to this, therefore, they toiled for twelve years to complete it; and although Pope Eugenius fled from Rome and was much harassed by reason of the Councils, yet those who had charge of S. Pietro contrived to prevent that work from being abandoned. Filarete, then, wrought that door in low-relief, making a simple division, with two upright figures in each part--namely, the Saviour and the Madonna above, and S. Peter and S. Paul below; and at the foot of S. Peter is that Pope on his knees, portrayed from life. Beneath each figure, likewise, there is a little scene from the life of the Saint that is above; below S. Peter, his crucifixion, and below S. Paul, his beheading; and beneath the Saviour and the Madonna, also, some events from their lives. At the foot of the inner side of the said door, to amuse himself, Antonio made a little scene in bronze, wherein he portrayed himself and Simone and their disciples going with an ass laden with good cheer to take their pleasure in a vineyard. But since they were not always at work on the said door during the whole of those twelve years, they also made in S. Pietro some marble tombs for Popes and Cardinals, which were thrown to the ground in the building of the new church. [Illustration: BRONZE DOORS (_After =Antonio Filarete=. Rome: S. Peter's_) _Alinari_] After these works, Antonio was summoned to Milan by Duke Francesco Sforza, then Gonfalonier of Holy Church (who had seen his works in Rome), to the end that there might be made with his design, as it afterwards was, the Albergo de' poveri di Dio,[1] which is a hospital that serves for sick men and women, and for the innocent children born out of wedlock. The division for the men in this place is in the form of a cross, and extends 160 braccia in all directions; and that of the women is the same. The width is 16 braccia, and within the four square sides that enclose the crosses of each of these two divisions there are four courtyards surrounded by porticoes, loggie, and rooms for the use of the director, the officials, the servants, and the nurses of the hospital, all very commodious and useful. On one side there is a channel with water continually running for the service of the hospital and for grinding corn, with no small benefit and convenience for that place, as all may imagine. Between the two divisions of the hospital there is a cloister, 80 braccia in extent in one direction and 160 in the other, in the middle of which is the church, so contrived as to serve for both divisions. In a word, this place is so well built and designed, that I do not believe that there is its like in Europe. According to the account of Filarete himself, the first stone of this building was laid with a solemn procession of the whole of the clergy of Milan, in the presence of Duke Francesco Sforza, the Lady Bianca Maria, and all their children, with the Marquis of Mantua, the Ambassador of King Alfonso of Arragon, and many other lords. On the first stone which was laid in the foundations, as well as on the medals, were these words: FRANCISCUS SFORTIA DUX IV, QUI AMISSUM PER PRÆCESSORUM OBITUM URBIS IMPERIUM RECUPERAVIT, HOC MUNUS CHRISTI PAUPERIBUS DEDIT FUNDAVITQUE MCCCCLVII, DIE XII APRIL. These scenes were afterwards depicted on the portico by Maestro Vincenzio di Zoppa, a Lombard, since no better master could be found in those parts. A work by the same Antonio, likewise, was the principal church of Bergamo, which he built with no less diligence and judgment than he had shown in the above-named hospital. And because he also took delight in writing, the while that these works of his were in progress he wrote a book divided into three parts. In the first he treats of the measurements of all edifices, and of all that is necessary for the purpose of building. In the second he speaks of the methods of building, and of the manner wherein a most beautiful and most convenient city might be laid out. In the third he invents new forms of buildings, mingling the ancient with the modern. The whole work is divided into twenty-four books, illustrated throughout by drawings from his own hand; but, although there is something of the good to be found in it, it is nevertheless mostly ridiculous, and perhaps the most stupid book that was ever written. It was dedicated by him in the year 1464 to the Magnificent Piero di Cosimo de' Medici, and it is now in the collection of the most Illustrious Lord Duke Cosimo. And in truth, since he put himself to so great pains, the book might be commended in some sort, if he had at least made some records of the masters of his day and of their works; but as there are few to be found therein, and those few are scattered throughout the book without method and in the least suitable places, he has toiled only to beggar himself, as the saying goes, and to be thought a man of little judgment for meddling with something that he did not understand. But I have said quite enough about Filarete, and it is now time to turn to Simone, the brother of Donato. This man, after the work of the door, made the bronze tomb of Pope Martin. He likewise made some castings that were sent to France, of many of which the fate is not known. For the Church of the Ermini, in the Canto alla Macine in Florence, he wrought a life-size Crucifix for carrying in processions, and to render it the lighter he made it of cork. In S. Felicita he made a terra-cotta figure of S. Mary Magdalene in Penitence, three braccia and a half in height and beautifully proportioned, and revealing the muscles in such a manner as to show that he had a very good knowledge of anatomy. He also wrought a marble tombstone for the Company of the Nunziata in the Church of the Servi, inlaying it with a figure in grey and white marble in the manner of a painting (which was much extolled), like the work already mentioned as having been done by the Sienese Duccio in the Duomo of Siena. At Prato he made the bronze grille for the Chapel of the Girdle. At Forlì, over the door of the Canon's house, he wrought a Madonna with two angels in low-relief; and he adorned the Chapel of the Trinità in S. Francesco with work in half-relief for Messer Giovanni da Riolo. In the Church of S. Francesco at Rimini, for Sigismondo Malatesti, he built the Chapel of S. Sigismondo, wherein there are many elephants, the device of that lord, carved in marble. To Messer Bartolommeo Scamisci, Canon of the Pieve of Arezzo, he sent a Madonna with the Child in her arms, made of terra-cotta, with certain angels in half-relief, very well executed; which Madonna is now in the said Pieve, set up against a column. For the baptismal font of the Vescovado of Arezzo, likewise, he wrought, in some scenes in low-relief, a Christ being baptized by S. John. In the Church of the Nunziata in Florence he made a marble tomb for Messer Orlando de' Medici. Finally, at the age of fifty-five, he rendered up his spirit to God who had given it to him. Nor was it long before Filarete, having returned to Rome, died at the age of sixty-nine, and was buried in the Minerva, where he had caused Giovanni Foccora, a painter of no small repute, to make a portrait of Pope Eugenius, while he was staying in Rome in the service of that Pontiff. The portrait of Antonio, by his own hand, is at the beginning of his book, where he gives instructions for building. His disciples were Varrone and Niccolò, both Florentines, who made the marble statue for Pope Pius II near Pontemolle, at the time when he brought the head of S. Andrew to Rome. By order of the same Pope they restored Tigoli almost from the foundations; and in S. Pietro they made the ornament of marble that is above the columns of the chapel wherein the said head of S. Andrew is preserved. Near that chapel is the tomb of the said Pope Pius, made by Pasquino da Montepulciano, a disciple of Filarete, and Bernardo Ciuffagni. This Bernardo wrought a tomb of marble for Gismondo Malatesti in S. Francesco at Rimini, making his portrait there from nature; and he also executed some works, so it is said, in Lucca and in Mantua. [Illustration: VINCENZIO DI ZOPPA (FOPPA): MADONNA AND CHILD (_Settignano: Berenson Collection. Panel_)] [Illustration: TOMB OF POPE MARTIN V (_After the bronze relief by =Simone=. Rome: S. Giovanni in Laterano_) _Anderson_] FOOTNOTE: [1] Literally, Hospice for God's poor. GIULIANO DA MAIANO LIFE OF GIULIANO DA MAIANO SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT No small error do those fathers of families make who do not allow the minds of their children to run the natural course in their childhood, and do not suffer them to follow the calling that is most in accordance with their taste; for to try to turn them to something for which they have no inclination is manifestly to prevent them from ever being excellent in anything, because we almost always find that those who labour at something that they do not like make little progress in any occupation whatsoever. On the other hand, those who follow the instinct of nature generally become excellent and famous in the arts that they pursue; as was seen clearly in Giuliano da Maiano. The father of this man, after living a long time on the hill of Fiesole, in the part called Maiano, working at the trade of stone-cutter, finally betook himself to Florence, where he opened a shop for the sale of dressed stone, keeping it furnished with the sort of work that is apt very often to be called for without warning by those who are erecting some building. Living in Florence, then, there was born to him a son, Giuliano, whom his father, growing convinced in the course of time that he had a good intelligence, proposed to make into a notary, for it appeared to him that his own occupation of stone-cutting was too laborious and too unprofitable an exercise. But this did not come to pass, because, although Giuliano went to a grammar-school for a little, his thoughts were never there, and in consequence he made no progress; nay, he played truant very often, and showed that he had his mind wholly set on sculpture, although at first he applied himself to the calling of joiner and also gave attention to drawing. It is said that in company with Giusto and Minore, masters of tarsia,[2] he wrought the seats of the Sacristy of the Nunziata, and likewise those of the choir that is beside the chapel, and many things in the Badia of Florence and in S. Marco; and that, having acquired a name through these works, he was summoned to Pisa, in the Duomo of which he wrought the seat that is beside the high-altar, in which the priest, the deacon, and the sub-deacon sit when Mass is being sung; making in tarsia on the back of this seat, with tinted and shaded woods, the three prophets that are seen therein. In this work he availed himself of Guido del Servellino and Maestro Domenico di Mariotto, joiners of Pisa, to whom he taught the art so well that they afterwards wrought the greater part of that choir both with carvings and with tarsia-work; which choir has been finished in our own day, with a manner no little better, by Batista del Cervelliera of Pisa, a man truly ingenious and fanciful. But to return to Giuliano; he made the presses of the Sacristy of S. Maria del Fiore, which were held at that time to be admirable examples of tarsia and inlaid-work. Now, while Giuliano thus continued to devote himself to tarsia, to sculpture, and to architecture, Filippo di Ser Brunellesco died; whereupon, being chosen by the Wardens of Works to succeed him, he made the borders, incrusted with black and white marble, which are round the circular windows below the vault of the cupola; and at the corners he placed the marble pilasters on which Baccio d'Agnolo afterwards laid the architrave, frieze, and cornice, as will be told below. It is true that, as it appears from some designs by his hand that are in our book, he wished to make another arrangement of frieze, cornice, and gallery, with pediments on each of the eight sides of the cupola; but he had not time to put this into execution, for, being carried away by an excess of work from one day to another, he died. Before this happened, however, he went to Naples and designed the architecture of the magnificent Palace at Poggio Reale for King Alfonso, with the beautiful fountains and conduits that are in the courtyard. In the city, likewise, he made designs for many fountains, some for the houses of noblemen and some for public squares, with beautiful and fanciful inventions; and he had the said Palace of Poggio Reale all wrought with paintings by Piero del Donzello and his brother Polito. Working in sculpture, likewise, for the said King Alfonso, then Duke of Calabria, he wrought scenes in low-relief over a door (both within and without) in the great hall of the Castle of Naples; and he made a marble gate for the castle after the Corinthian Order, with an infinite number of figures, giving to that work the form of a triumphal arch, on which stories from the life of that King and some of his victories are carved in marble. Giuliano also wrought the decorations of the Porta Capovana, making therein many varied and beautiful trophies; wherefore he well deserved that great love should be felt for him by that King, who, rewarding him liberally for his labours, enriched his descendants. Giuliano had taught to his nephew Benedetto the arts of tarsia and architecture, and something about working in marble; and Benedetto was living in Florence, devoting himself to working at tarsia, because this brought him greater gains than the other arts did. Now Giuliano was summoned to Rome by Messer Antonio Rosello of Arezzo, Secretary to Pope Paul II, to enter the service of that Pontiff. Having gone thither, he designed the loggie of travertine in the first court of the Palace of S. Pietro, with three ranges of columns, of which the first is on the lowest floor, where there are now the Signet Office and other offices; the second is above this, where the Datary and other prelates live; and the third and last is where those rooms are that look out on the court of S. Pietro, which he adorned with gilded ceilings and other ornaments. From his design, likewise, were made the marble loggie from which the Pope gives his benediction--a very great work, as may still be seen to-day. But the most stupendous and marvellous work that he made was the palace that he built for that Pope, together with the Church of S. Marco in Rome, for which there was used an infinite quantity of travertine blocks, said to have been excavated from certain vineyards near the Arch of Constantine, where they served as buttresses for the foundations of that part of the Colosseum which is now in ruins, perchance because of the weakening of that edifice. Giuliano was sent by the same Pontiff to the Madonna of Loreto, where he rebuilt the foundations and greatly enlarged the body of the church, which had formerly been small and built over piers in rustic-work. He did not go higher than the string-course that was there already; but he summoned his nephew Benedetto to that place, and he, as will be told, afterwards raised the cupola. Being then forced to return to Naples in order to finish the works that he had begun, Giuliano received a commission from King Alfonso for a gate near the castle, which was to include more than eighty figures, which Benedetto had to execute in Florence; but the whole remained unfinished by reason of the death of that King. There are still some relics of these figures in the Misericordia in Florence, and there were others in our own day in the Canto alla Macine; but I do not know where these are now to be found. Before the death of the King, however, Giuliano died in Naples at the age of seventy, and was greatly honoured with rich obsequies; for the King had fifty men clothed in mourning, who accompanied Giuliano to the grave, and then he gave orders that a marble tomb should be made for him. The continuation of his work was left to Polito, who completed the conduits for the waters of Poggio Reale. Benedetto, devoting himself afterwards to sculpture, surpassed his uncle Giuliano in excellence, as will be told; and in his youth he was the rival of a sculptor named Modanino da Modena, who worked in terra-cotta, and who wrought for the said Alfonso a Pietà with an infinite number of figures in the round, made of terra-cotta and coloured, which were executed with very great vivacity, and were placed by the King in the Church of Monte Oliveto, a very highly honoured monastery in the city of Naples. In this work the said King is portrayed on his knees, and he appears truly more than alive; wherefore Modanino was remunerated by him with very great rewards. But when the King died, as it has been said, Polito and Benedetto returned to Florence; where, no long time after, Polito followed Giuliano into eternity. The sculptures and pictures of these men date about the year of our salvation 1447. [Illustration: S. SEBASTIAN (_After the marble by =Benedetto da Maiano=. Florence: Oratorio della Misericordia_) _Alinari_] FOOTNOTE: [2] Inlaying with various kinds of coloured wood. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA LIFE OF PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA [_PIERO BORGHESE_] PAINTER OF BORGO A SAN SEPOLCRO Truly unhappy are those who, labouring at their studies in order to benefit others and to make their own name famous, are hindered by infirmity and sometimes by death from carrying to perfection the works that they have begun. And it happens very often that, leaving them all but finished or in a fair way to completion, they are falsely claimed by the presumption of those who seek to conceal their asses' skin under the honourable spoils of the lion. And although time, who is called the father of truth, sooner or later makes manifest the real state of things, it is none the less true that for a certain space of time the true craftsman is robbed of the honour that is due to his labours; as happened to Piero della Francesca of Borgo a San Sepolcro. He, having been held a rare master of the difficulties of drawing regular bodies, as well as of arithmetic and geometry, was yet not able--being overtaken in his old age by the infirmity of blindness, and finally by the close of his life--to bring to light his noble labours and the many books written by him, which are still preserved in the Borgo, his native place. The very man who should have striven with all his might to increase the glory and fame of Piero, from whom he had learnt all that he knew, was impious and malignant enough to seek to blot out the name of his teacher, and to usurp for himself the honour that was due to the other, publishing under his own name, Fra Luca dal Borgo, all the labours of that good old man, who, besides the sciences named above, was excellent in painting. Piero was born in Borgo a San Sepolcro, which is now a city, although it was not one then; and he was called Della Francesca after the name of his mother, because she had been left pregnant with him at the death of her husband, his father, and because it was she who had brought him up and assisted him to attain to the rank that his good-fortune held out to him. Piero applied himself in his youth to mathematics, and although it was settled when he was fifteen years of age that he was to be a painter, he never abandoned this study; nay, he made marvellous progress therein, as well as in painting. He was employed by Guidobaldo Feltro the elder, Duke of Urbino, for whom he made many very beautiful pictures with little figures, which have been for the most part ruined on the many occasions when that state has been harassed by wars. Nevertheless, there were preserved there some of his writings on geometry and perspective, in which sciences he was not inferior to any man of his own time, or perchance even to any man of any other time; as is demonstrated by all his works, which are full of perspectives, and particularly by a vase drawn in squares and sides, in such a manner that the base and the mouth can be seen from the front, from behind, and from the sides; which is certainly a marvellous thing, for he drew the smallest details therein with great subtlety, and foreshortened the curves of all the circles with much grace. Having thus acquired credit and fame at that Court, he resolved to make himself known in other places; wherefore he went to Pesaro and Ancona, whence, in the very thick of his work, he was summoned by Duke Borso to Ferrara, where he painted many apartments in his palace, which were afterwards destroyed by Duke Ercole the elder in the renovation of the palace, insomuch that there is nothing by the hand of Piero left in that city, save a chapel wrought in fresco in S. Agostino; and even that has been injured by damp. Afterwards, being summoned to Rome, he painted two scenes for Pope Nicholas V in the upper rooms of his palace, in competition with Bramante da Milano; but these also were thrown to the ground by Pope Julius II--to the end that Raffaello da Urbino might paint there the Imprisonment of S. Peter and the Miracle of the Corporale of Bolsena--together with certain others that had been painted by Bramantino, an excellent painter in his day. [Illustration: PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA: BATTISTA SFORZA, WIFE OF FEDERIGO DA MONTEFELTRO (_Florence: Uffizi, 1300. Panel_)] Now, seeing that I cannot write the life of this man, nor particularize his works, because they have been ruined, I will not grudge the labour of making some record of him, for it seems an apt occasion. In the said works that were thrown to the ground, so I have heard tell, he had made some heads from nature, so beautiful and so well executed that speech alone was wanting to give them life. Of these heads not a few have come to light, because Raffaello da Urbino had them copied in order that he might have the likenesses of the subjects, who were all people of importance; for among them were Niccolò Fortebraccio, Charles VII, King of France, Antonio Colonna, Prince of Salerno, Francesco Carmignuola, Giovanni Vitellesco, Cardinal Bessarione, Francesco Spinola, and Battista da Canneto. All these portraits were given to Giovio by Giulio Romano, disciple and heir of Raffaello da Urbino, and they were placed by Giovio in his museum at Como. Over the door of S. Sepolcro in Milan I have seen a Dead Christ wrought in foreshortening by the hand of the same man, in which, although the whole picture is not more than one braccio in height, there is an effect of infinite length, executed with facility and with judgment. By his hand, also, are some apartments and loggie in the house of the Marchesino Ostanesia in the same city, wherein there are many pictures wrought by him that show mastery and very great power in the foreshortening of the figures. And without the Porta Vercellina, near the Castle, in certain stables now ruined and destroyed, he painted some grooms currying horses, among which there was one so lifelike and so well wrought, that another horse, thinking it a real one, lashed out at it repeatedly with its hooves. [Illustration: PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA: FEDERIGO DA MONTEFELTRO, DUKE OF URBINO (_Florence: Uffizi, 1300. Panel_)] But to return to Piero della Francesca; his work in Rome finished, he returned to the Borgo, where his mother had just died; and on the inner side of the central door of the Pieve he painted two saints in fresco, which are held to be very beautiful. In the Convent of the Friars of S. Augustine he painted the panel of the high-altar, which was a thing much extolled; and he wrought in fresco a Madonna della Misericordia for a company, or rather, as they call it, a confraternity; with a Resurrection of Christ in the Palazzo de' Conservadori, which is held the best of all the works that are in the said city, and the best that he ever made. In company with Domenico da Vinezia, he painted the beginning of a work on the vaulting of the Sacristy of S. Maria at Loreto; but they left it unfinished from fear of plague, and it was afterwards completed by Luca da Cortona,[3] a disciple of Piero, as will be told in the proper place. Going from Loreto to Arezzo, Piero painted for Luigi Bacci, a citizen of Arezzo, the Chapel of the High-altar of S. Francesco, belonging to that family, the vaulting of which had been already begun by Lorenzo di Bicci. In this work there are Stories of the Cross, from that wherein the sons of Adam are burying him and placing under his tongue the seed of the tree from which there came the wood for the said Cross, down to the Exaltation of the Cross itself performed by the Emperor Heraclius, who, walking barefoot and carrying it on his shoulder, is entering with it into Jerusalem. Here there are many beautiful conceptions and attitudes worthy to be extolled; such as, for example, the garments of the women of the Queen of Sheba, executed in a sweet and novel manner; many most lifelike portraits from nature of ancient persons; a row of Corinthian columns, divinely well proportioned; and a peasant who, leaning with his hands on his spade, stands listening to the words of S. Helena--while the three Crosses are being disinterred--with so great attention, that it would not be possible to improve it. Very well wrought, also, is the dead body that is restored to life at the touch of the Cross, together with the joy of S. Helena and the marvelling of the bystanders, who are kneeling in adoration. But above every other consideration, whether of imagination or of art, is his painting of Night, with an angel in foreshortening who is flying with his head downwards, bringing the sign of victory to Constantine, who is sleeping in a pavilion, guarded by a chamberlain and some men-at-arms who are seen dimly through the darkness of the night; and with his own light the angel illuminates the pavilion, the men-at-arms, and all the surroundings. This is done with very great thought, for Piero gives us to know in this darkness how important it is to copy things as they are and to ever take them from the true model; which he did so well that he enabled the moderns to attain, by following him, to that supreme perfection wherein art is seen in our own time. In this same story he represented most successfully in a battle fear, animosity, dexterity, vehemence, and all the other emotions that can be imagined in men who are fighting, and likewise all the incidents of battle, together with an almost incredible carnage, what with the wounded, the fallen, and the dead. In these Piero counterfeited in fresco the glittering of their arms, for which he deserves no less praise than he does for the flight and submersion of Maxentius painted on the other wall, wherein he made a group of horses in foreshortening, so marvellously executed that they can be truly called too beautiful and too excellent for those times. In the same story he made a man, half nude and half clothed in the dress of a Saracen, riding a lean horse, which reveals a very great mastery of anatomy, a science little known in his age. For this work, therefore, he well deserved to be richly rewarded by Luigi Bacci, whom he portrayed there in the scene of the beheading of a King, together with Carlo and others of his brothers and many Aretines who were then distinguished in letters; and to be loved and revered ever afterwards, as he was, in that city, which he had made so illustrious with his works. [Illustration: THE RESURRECTION (_After the fresco by =Piero della Francesca=. Borgo San Sepolchro_) _Alinari_] In the Vescovado of the same city, also, he made a S. Mary Magdalene in fresco beside the door of the sacristy; and for the Company of the Nunziata he painted the banner that is carried in processions. At the head of a cloister at S. Maria delle Grazie, without that district, he painted S. Donatus in his robes, seated in a chair drawn in perspective, together with certain boys; and in a niche high up on a wall of S. Bernardo, for the Monks of Monte Oliveto, he made a S. Vincent, which is much esteemed by craftsmen. In a chapel at Sargiano, a seat of the Frati Zoccolanti di S. Francesco, without Arezzo, he painted a very beautiful Christ praying by night in the Garden. In Perugia, also, he wrought many works that are still to be seen in that city; as, for example, a panel in distemper in the Church of the Nuns of S. Anthony of Padua, containing a Madonna with the Child in her lap, S. Francis, S. Elizabeth, S. John the Baptist, and S. Anthony of Padua. Above these is a most beautiful Annunciation, with an Angel that seems truly to have come out of Heaven; and, what is more, a row of columns diminishing in perspective, which is indeed beautiful. In the predella there are scenes with little figures, representing S. Anthony restoring a boy to life; S. Elizabeth saving a child that has fallen into a well; and S. Francis receiving the Stigmata. In S. Ciriaco at Ancona, on the altar of S. Giuseppe, he painted a most beautiful scene of the Marriage of Our Lady. Piero, as it has been said, was a very zealous student of art, and gave no little attention to perspective; and he had a very good knowledge of Euclid, insomuch that he understood all the best curves drawn in regular bodies better than any other geometrician, and the clearest elucidations of these matters that we have are from his hand. Now Maestro Luca dal Borgo, a friar of S. Francis, who wrote about the regular geometrical bodies, was his pupil; and when Piero, after having written many books, grew old and finally died, the said Maestro Luca, claiming the authorship of these books, had them printed as his own, for they had fallen into his hands after the death of Piero. Piero was much given to making models in clay, on which he spread wet draperies with an infinity of folds, in order to make use of them for drawing. A disciple of Piero was Lorentino d'Angelo of Arezzo, who made many pictures in Arezzo, imitating his manner, and completed those that Piero, overtaken by death, left unfinished. Near the S. Donatus that Piero wrought in the Madonna delle Grazie, Lorentino painted in fresco some stories of S. Donatus, with very many works in many other places both in that city and in the district, partly because he would never stay idle, and partly to assist his family, which was then very poor. In the said Church of the Grazie the same man painted a scene wherein Pope Sixtus IV, between the Cardinal of Mantua and Cardinal Piccolomini (who was afterwards Pope Pius III), is granting an indulgence to that place; in which scene Lorentino portrayed from the life, on their knees, Tommaso Marzi, Piero Traditi, Donato Rosselli, and Giuliano Nardi, all citizens of Arezzo and Wardens of Works for that building. In the hall of the Palazzo de' Priori, moreover, he portrayed from the life Cardinal Galeotto da Pietramala, Bishop Guglielmino degli Ubertini, and Messer Angelo Albergotti, Doctor of Laws; and he made many other works, which are scattered throughout that city. [Illustration: PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA: THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN (_London: National Gallery, 665. Panel_)] It is said that once, when the Carnival was close at hand, the children of Lorentino kept beseeching him to kill a pig, as it is the custom to do in that district; and that, since he had not the means to buy one, they would say, "What will you do about buying a pig, father, if you have no money?" To which Lorentino would answer, "Some Saint will help us." But when he had said this many times and the season was passing by without any pig appearing, they had lost hope, when at length there arrived a peasant from the Pieve a Quarto, who wished to have a S. Martin painted in fulfilment of a vow, but had no means of paying for the picture save a pig, which was worth five lire. This man, coming to Lorentino, told him that he wished to have the S. Martin painted, but that he had no means of payment save the pig. Whereupon they came to an agreement, and Lorentino painted him the Saint, while the peasant brought him the pig; and so the Saint provided the pig for the poor children of this painter. Another disciple of Piero was Pietro da Castel della Pieve,[4] who painted an arch above S. Agostino, and a S. Urban for the Nuns of S. Caterina in Arezzo, which has been thrown to the ground in rebuilding the church. His pupil, likewise, was Luca Signorelli of Cortona, who did him more honour than all the others. Piero Borghese, whose pictures date about the year 1458, became blind through an attack of catarrh at the age of sixty, and lived thus up to the eighty-sixth year of his life. He left very great possessions in the Borgo, with some houses that he had built himself, which were burnt and destroyed in the strife of factions in the year 1536. He was honourably buried by his fellow-citizens in the principal church, which formerly belonged to the Order of Camaldoli, and is now the Vescovado. Piero's books are for the most part in the library of Frederick II, Duke of Urbino, and they are such that they have deservedly acquired for him the name of the best geometrician of his time. [Illustration: THE VISION OF CONSTANTINE (_After the fresco by =Piero della Francesca=. Arezzo: S. Francesco_) _Alinari_] FOOTNOTES: [3] Luca Signorelli. [4] Pietro Perugino. FRA GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE FRA GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE [_FRA ANGELICO_] PAINTER OF THE ORDER OF PREACHING FRIARS Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole, who was known in the world as Guido, was no less excellent as painter and illuminator than he was upright as churchman, and for both one and the other of these reasons he deserves that most honourable record should be made of him. This man, although he could have lived in the world with the greatest comfort, and could have gained whatever he wished, besides what he possessed, by means of those arts, of which he had a very good knowledge even in his youth, yet resolved, for his own peace and satisfaction, being by nature serious and upright, and above all in order to save his soul, to take the vows of the Order of Preaching Friars; for the reason that, although it is possible to serve God in all walks of life, nevertheless it appears to some men that they can gain salvation in monasteries better than in the world. Now in proportion as this plan succeeds happily for good men, so, on the contrary, it has a truly miserable and unhappy issue for a man who takes the vows with some other end in view. There are some choral books illuminated by the hand of Fra Giovanni in his Convent of S. Marco in Florence, so beautiful that words are not able to describe them; and similar to these are some others that he left in S. Domenico da Fiesole, wrought with incredible diligence. It is true, indeed, that in making these he was assisted by an elder brother, who was likewise an illuminator and well practised in painting. One of the first works in painting wrought by this good father was a panel in the Certosa of Florence, which was placed in the principal chapel (belonging to Cardinal Acciaiuoli); in which panel is a Madonna with the Child in her arms, and with certain very beautiful angels at her feet, sounding instruments and singing; at the sides are S. Laurence, S. Mary Magdalene, S. Zanobi, and S. Benedict; and in the predella are little stories of these Saints, wrought in little figures with infinite diligence. In the cross of the said chapel are two other panels by the hand of the same man; one containing the Coronation of Our Lady, and the other a Madonna with two saints, wrought with most beautiful ultramarine blues. Afterwards, in the tramezzo[5] of S. Maria Novella, beside the door opposite to the choir, he painted in fresco S. Dominic, S. Catherine of Siena, and S. Peter Martyr; and some little scenes in the Chapel of the Coronation of Our Lady in the said tramezzo. On canvas, fixed to the doors that closed the old organ, he painted an Annunciation, which is now in the convent, opposite to the door of the lower dormitory, between one cloister and the other. This father was so greatly beloved for his merits by Cosimo de' Medici, that, after completing the construction of the Church and Convent of S. Marco, he caused him to paint the whole Passion of Jesus Christ on a wall in the chapter-house; and on one side all the Saints who have been heads and founders of religious bodies, mourning and weeping at the foot of the Cross, and on the other side S. Mark the Evangelist beside the Mother of the Son of God, who has swooned at the sight of the Saviour of the world Crucified, while round her are the Maries, all grieving and supporting her, with S. Cosimo and S. Damiano. It is said that in the figure of S. Cosimo Fra Giovanni portrayed from the life Nanni d' Antonio di Banco, a sculptor and his friend. Below this work, in a frieze above the panelling, he made a tree with S. Dominic at the foot of it, and, in certain medallions encircled by the branches, all the Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, Saints, and Masters of Theology whom his Order of Preaching Friars had produced up to that time. In this work he made many portraits from nature, being assisted by the friars, who sent for them to various places; and they were the following: S. Dominic in the middle, grasping the branches of the tree; Pope Innocent V, a Frenchman; the Blessed Ugone, first Cardinal of that Order; the Blessed Paolo, Florentine and Patriarch; S. Antonino, Archbishop of Florence; the Blessed Giordano, a German, and the second General of that Order; the Blessed Niccolò; the Blessed Remigio, a Florentine; and the martyr Boninsegno, a Florentine; all these are on the right hand. On the left are Benedict II[6] of Treviso; Giandomenico, a Florentine Cardinal; Pietro da Palude, Patriarch of Jerusalem; Alberto Magno, a German; the Blessed Raimondo di Catalonia, third General of the Order; the Blessed Chiaro, a Florentine, and Provincial of Rome; S. Vincenzio di Valenza; and the Blessed Bernardo, a Florentine. All these heads are truly gracious and very beautiful. Then, over certain lunettes in the first cloister, he made many very beautiful figures in fresco, and a Crucifix with S. Dominic at the foot, which is much extolled; and in the dormitory, besides many other things throughout the cells and on the surface of the walls, he painted a story from the New Testament, of a beauty beyond the power of words to describe. Particularly beautiful and marvellous is the panel of the high-altar of that church; for, besides the fact that the Madonna rouses all who see her to devotion by her simplicity, and that the Saints that surround her are like her in this, the predella, in which there are stories of the martyrdom of S. Cosimo, S. Damiano, and others, is so well painted, that one cannot imagine it possible ever to see a work executed with greater diligence, or little figures more delicate or better conceived than these are. In S. Domenico da Fiesole, likewise, he painted the panel of the high-altar, which has been retouched by other masters and injured, perchance because it appeared to be spoiling. But the predella and the Ciborium of the Sacrament have remained in better preservation; and the innumerable little figures that are to be seen there, in a Celestial Glory, are so beautiful, that they appear truly to belong to Paradise, nor can any man who approaches them ever have his fill of gazing on them. In a chapel of the same church is a panel by his hand, containing the Annunciation of Our Lady by the Angel Gabriel, with features in profile, so devout, so delicate, and so well executed, that they appear truly to have been made rather in Paradise than by the hand of man; and in the landscape at the back are Adam and Eve, because of whom the Redeemer was born from the Virgin. In the predella, also, there are some very beautiful little scenes. But superior to all the other works that Fra Giovanni made, and the one wherein he surpassed himself and gave supreme proof of his talent and of his knowledge of art, was a panel that is beside the door of the same church, on the left hand as one enters, wherein Jesus Christ is crowning Our Lady in the midst of a choir of angels and among an infinite multitude of saints, both male and female, so many in number, so well wrought, and with such variety in the attitudes and in the expressions of the heads, that incredible pleasure and sweetness are felt in gazing at them; nay, one is persuaded that those blessed spirits cannot look otherwise in Heaven, or, to speak more exactly, could not if they had bodies; for not only are all these saints, both male and female, full of life and sweet and delicate in expression, but the whole colouring of that work appears to be by the hand of a saint or an angel like themselves; wherefore it was with very good reason that this excellent monk was ever called Fra Giovanni Angelico. Moreover, the stories of the Madonna and of S. Dominic in the predella are divine in their own kind; and I, for one, can declare with truth that I never see this work without thinking it something new, and that I never leave it sated. In the Chapel of the Nunziata in Florence which Piero di Cosimo de' Medici caused to be built, he painted the doors of the press (in which the silver is kept) with little figures executed with much diligence. This father painted so many pictures, now to be found in the houses of Florentine citizens, "that I sometimes stand marvelling how one single man could execute so much work to such perfection, even in the space of many years. The Very Reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, Director of the Hospital of the Innocenti, has a very beautiful little Madonna by the hand of this father; and Bartolommeo Gondi, as devoted a lover of these arts as any gentleman that one could think of, has a large picture, a small one, and a Crucifix, all by the same hand. The pictures that are in the arch over the door of S. Domenico are also by the same man; and in the Sacristy of S. Trinita there is a panel containing a Deposition from the Cross, into which he put so great diligence, that it can be numbered among the best works that he ever made. In S. Francesco, without the Porta a S. Miniato, there is an Annunciation; and in S. Maria Novella, besides the works already named, he painted with little scenes the Paschal candle and some Reliquaries which are placed on the altar in the most solemn ceremonies. [Illustration: THE TRANSFIGURATION (_After the fresco by =Fra Giovanni da Fiesole= [Fra Angelico]. Florence: S. Marco_) _Anderson_] Over a door of the cloister of the Badia in the same city he painted a S. Benedict, who is making a sign enjoining silence. For the Linen-manufacturers he painted a panel that is in the Office of their Guild; and in Cortona he painted a little arch over the door of the church of his Order, and likewise the panel of the high-altar. At Orvieto, on a part of the vaulting of the Chapel of the Madonna in the Duomo, he began certain prophets, which were finished afterwards by Luca da Cortona. For the Company of the Temple in Florence he painted a Dead Christ on a panel; and in the Church of the Monks of the Angeli he made a Paradise and a Hell with little figures, wherein he showed fine judgment by making the blessed very beautiful and full of jubilation and celestial gladness, and the damned all ready for the pains of Hell, in various most woeful attitudes, and bearing the stamp of their sins and unworthiness on their faces. The blessed are seen entering the gate of Paradise in celestial dance, and the damned are being dragged by demons to the eternal pains of Hell. This work is in the aforesaid church, on the right hand as one goes towards the high-altar, where the priest sits when Mass is sung. For the Nuns of S. Piero Martire--who now live in the Monastery of S. Felice in Piazza, which used to belong to the Order of Camaldoli--he painted a panel with Our Lady, S. John the Baptist, S. Dominic, S. Thomas, and S. Peter Martyr, and a number of little figures. And in the tramezzo[7] of S. Maria Nuova there may also be seen a panel by his hand. These many labours having made the name of Fra Giovanni illustrious throughout all Italy, Pope Nicholas V sent for him and caused him to adorn that chapel of his Palace in Rome wherein the Pope hears Mass with a Deposition from the Cross and some very beautiful stories of S. Laurence, and also to illuminate some books, which are most beautiful. In the Minerva he painted the panel of the high-altar, and an Annunciation that is now set up against a wall beside the principal chapel. He also painted for the said Pope in the Palace the Chapel of the Sacrament, which was afterwards destroyed by Paul III in the making of a staircase through it. In that work, which was an excellent example of his manner, he had wrought in fresco some scenes from the life of Jesus Christ, and he had made therein many portraits from life of distinguished persons of those times, which would probably now be lost if Giovio had not caused the following among them to be preserved for his museum--namely, Pope Nicholas V; the Emperor Frederick, who came to Italy at that time; Frate Antonino, who was afterwards Archbishop of Florence; Biondo da Forlì; and Ferrante of Arragon. Now Fra Giovanni appeared to the Pope to be, as indeed he was, a person of most holy life, peaceful and modest; and, since the Archbishopric of Florence was at that time vacant, the Pope had judged him worthy of that rank; but the said friar, hearing this, implored His Holiness to find another man, for the reason that he did not feel himself fitted for ruling others, whereas his Order contained a brother most learned and well able to govern, a Godfearing man and a friend of the poor, on whom that dignity would be conferred much more fittingly than on himself. The Pope, hearing this and remembering that what he said was true, granted him the favour willingly; and thus the Archbishopric of Florence was given to Frate Antonino of the Order of Preaching Friars, a man truly very famous both for sanctity and for learning, and of such a character, in short, that he was deservedly canonized in our own day by Adrian VI. [Illustration: S. STEPHEN PREACHING (_After the fresco by =Fra Giovanni da Fiesole= [Fra Angelico] Rome: The Vatican, Chapel of Nicholas V_) _Anderson_] Great excellence was that of Fra Giovanni, and a thing truly very rare, to resign a dignity and honour and charge so important, offered to himself by a Supreme Pontiff, in favour of the man whom he, with his singleness of eye and sincerity of heart, judged to be much more worthy of it than himself. Let the churchmen of our own times learn from this holy man not to take upon themselves charges that they cannot worthily carry out, and to yield them to those who are most worthy of them. Would to God, to return to Fra Giovanni (and may this be said without offence to the upright among them), that all churchmen would spend their time as did this truly angelic father, seeing that he spent every minute of his life in the service of God and in benefiting both the world and his neighbour. And what can or ought to be desired more than to gain the kingdom of Heaven by living a life of holiness, and to win eternal fame in the world by labouring virtuously? And in truth a talent so extraordinary and so supreme as that of Fra Giovanni could not and should not descend on any save a man of most holy life, for the reason that those who work at religious and holy subjects should be religious and holy men; for it is seen, when such works are executed by persons of little faith who have little esteem for religion, that they often arouse in men's minds evil appetites and licentious desires; whence there comes blame for the evil in their works, with praise for the art and ability that they show. Now I would not have any man deceive himself by considering the rude and inept as holy, and the beautiful and excellent as licentious; as some do, who, seeing figures of women or of youths adorned with loveliness and beauty beyond the ordinary, straightway censure them and judge them licentious, not perceiving that they are very wrong to condemn the good judgment of the painter, who holds the Saints, both male and female, who are celestial, to be as much more beautiful than mortal man as Heaven is superior to earthly beauty and to the works of human hands; and, what is worse, they reveal the unsoundness and corruption of their own minds by drawing evil and impure desires out of works from which, if they were lovers of purity, as they seek by their misguided zeal to prove themselves to be, they would gain a desire to attain to Heaven and to make themselves acceptable to the Creator of all things, in whom, as most perfect and most beautiful, all perfection and beauty have their source. What would such men do if they found themselves, or rather, what are we to believe that they do when they actually find themselves, in places containing living beauty, accompanied by licentious ways, honey-sweet words, movements full of grace, and eyes that ravish all but the stoutest of hearts, if the very image of beauty, nay, its mere shadow, moves them so profoundly? However, I would not have any believe that I approve of those figures that are painted in churches in a state of almost complete nudity, for in these cases it is seen that the painter has not shown the consideration that was due to the place; because, even although a man has to show how much he knows, he should proceed with due regard for circumstances and pay respect to persons, times, and places. Fra Giovanni was a man of great simplicity, and most holy in his ways; and his goodness may be perceived from this, that, Pope Nicholas V wishing one morning to entertain him at table, he had scruples of conscience about eating meat without leave from his Prior, forgetting about the authority of the Pontiff. He shunned the affairs of the world; and, living a pure and holy life, he was as much the friend of the poor as I believe his soul to be now the friend of Heaven. He was continually labouring at his painting, and he would never paint anything save Saints. He might have been rich, but to this he gave no thought; nay, he used to say that true riches consist only in being content with little. He might have ruled many, but he would not, saying that it was less fatiguing and less misleading to obey others. He had the option of obtaining dignities both among the friars and in the world, but he despised them, declaring that he sought no other dignity save that of seeking to avoid Hell and draw near to Paradise. And what dignity, in truth, can be compared to that which all churchmen, nay, all men, should seek, and which is to be found only in God and in a life of virtue? He was most kindly and temperate; and he lived chastely and withdrew himself from the snares of the world, being wont very often to say that he who pursued such an art had need of quiet and of a life free from cares, and that he whose work is connected with Christ must ever live with Christ. He was never seen in anger among his fellow-friars, which is a very notable thing, and almost impossible, it seems to me, to believe; and it was his custom to admonish his friends with a simple smile. With incredible sweetness, if any sought for works from him, he would say that they had only to gain the consent of the Prior, and that then he would not fail them. In short, this never to be sufficiently extolled father was most humble and modest in all his works and his discourse, and facile and devout in his pictures; and the Saints that he painted have more the air and likeness of Saints than those of any other man. It was his custom never to retouch or improve any of his pictures, but to leave them ever in the state to which he had first brought them; believing, so he used to say, that this was the will of God. Some say that Fra Giovanni would never have taken his brushes in his hand without first offering a prayer. He never painted a Crucifix without the tears streaming down his cheeks; wherefore in the countenances and attitudes of his figures one can recognize the goodness, nobility, and sincerity of his mind towards the Christian religion. [Illustration: FRA GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE (FRA ANGELICO): THE ANNUNCIATION (_Cortona: Gesù Gallery. Panel_)] He died in 1455 at the age of sixty-eight, and left disciples in Benozzo, a Florentine, who ever imitated his manner, and Zanobi Strozzi, who painted pictures and panels throughout all Florence for the houses of citizens, and particularly a panel that is now in the tramezzo[8] of S. Maria Novella, beside that by Fra Giovanni, and one in S. Benedetto, a monastery of the Monks of Camaldoli without the Porta a Pinti, now in ruins. The latter panel is at present in the little Church of S. Michele in the Monastery of the Angeli, before one enters the principal church, set up against the wall on the right as one approaches the altar. There is also a panel in the Chapel of the Nasi in S. Lucia, and another in S. Romeo; and in the guardaroba of the Duke there is the portrait of Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, with that of Bartolommeo Valori, in one and the same picture by the hand of the same man. Another disciple of Fra Giovanni was Gentile da Fabriano, as was also Domenico di Michelino, who painted the panel for the altar of S. Zanobi in S. Apollinare at Florence, and many other pictures. Fra Giovanni was buried by his fellow-friars in the Minerva in Rome, near the lateral door beside the sacristy, in a round tomb of marble, with himself, portrayed from nature, lying thereon. The following epitaph may be read, carved in the marble: NON MIHI SIT LAUDI, QUOD ERAM VELUT ALTER APELLES, SED QUOD LUCRA TUIS OMNIA, CHRISTE, DABAM; ALTERA NAM TERRIS OPERA EXTANT, ALTERA C[OE]LO. URBS ME JOANNEM FLOS TULIT ETRURIÆ. In S. Maria del Fiore are two very large books illuminated divinely well by the hand of Fra Giovanni, which are held in great veneration and richly adorned, nor are they ever seen save on days of the highest solemnity. A celebrated and famous illuminator at the same time as Fra Giovanni was one Attavante, a Florentine, of whom I know no other name. This man, among many other works, illuminated a Silius Italicus, which is now in S. Giovanni e Polo in Venice; of which work I will not withhold certain particulars, both because they are worthy of the attention of craftsmen, and because, to my knowledge, no other work by this master is to be found; nor should I know even of this one, had it not been for the affection borne to these noble arts by the Very Reverend Maestro Cosimo Bartoli, a gentleman of Florence, who gave me information about it, to the end that the talent of Attavante might not remain, as it were, buried out of sight. In the said book, then, the figure of Silius has on the head a helmet with a crest of gold and a chaplet of laurel; he is wearing a blue cuirass picked out with gold in the ancient manner, while he is holding a book in his right hand, and the left he has on a short sword. Over the cuirass he has a red chlamys, fastened in front with a knot, and fringed with gold, which hangs down from his shoulders. The inside of this chlamys is seen to be of changing colours and embroidered with gold. His buskins are yellow, and he is standing on his right foot in a niche. The next figure in this work represents Scipio Africanus. He is wearing a yellow cuirass, and his sword-belt and sleeves, which are blue in colour, are all embroidered with gold. On his head he has a helmet with two little wings and a fish by way of crest. The young man's countenance is fair and very beautiful; and he is raising his right arm proudly, holding in that hand a naked sword, while in the left hand he has the scabbard, which is red and embroidered with gold. The hose are green in colour and plain; and the chlamys, which is blue, has a red lining with a fringe of gold all round, and it is fastened at the throat, leaving the front quite open, and falling behind with beautiful grace. This young man, who stands in a niche of mixed green and grey marble, with blue buskins embroidered with gold, is looking with indescribable fierceness at Hannibal, who faces him on the opposite page of the book. This figure of Hannibal is that of a man about thirty-six years of age; he is frowning, with two furrows in his brow expressive of impatience and anger, and he, too, is looking fixedly at Scipio. On his head he has a yellow helmet, with a green and yellow dragon for crest and a serpent for chaplet. He is standing on his left foot and raising his right arm, with which he holds the shaft of an ancient javelin, or rather, of a little partisan. His cuirass is blue, his sword-belt partly blue and partly yellow, his sleeves of changing blue and red, and his buskins yellow. His chlamys, of changing red and yellow, is fastened on the right shoulder and lined with green; and, holding his left hand on his sword, he is standing in a niche of varicoloured marbles, yellow, white, and changing. On another page is Pope Nicholas V, portrayed from the life, with a mantle of changing purple and red and all embroidered with gold. He is without a beard and in full profile, and he is looking towards the beginning of the book, which is opposite to him; and he is pointing to it with his right hand, as though in a marvel. The niche is green, white, and red. Then in the border there are certain little half-length figures in an ornament composed of ovals and circles, and other things of that kind, together with an infinite number of little birds and children, so well wrought that nothing more could be desired. Close to this, in like manner, are Hanno the Carthaginian, Hasdrubal, Laelius, Massinissa, C. Salinator, Nero, Sempronius, M. Marcellus, Q. Fabius, the other Scipio, and Vibius. At the end of the book there is seen a Mars in an antique chariot drawn by two reddish horses. On his head he has a helmet of red and gold, with two little wings; on his left arm he has an antique shield, which he holds before him, and in his right hand a naked sword. He is standing on his left foot only, holding the other in the air. He has a cuirass in the antique manner, all red and gold, as are his hose and his buskins. His chlamys is blue without, and within all green and embroidered with gold. The chariot is covered with red cloth embroidered with gold, with a border of ermine all round; and it stands in a verdant and flowery champaign country, surrounded by cliffs and rocks; while landscapes and cities are seen in the distance, with a sky of a most marvellous blue. On the opposite page is a young Neptune, whose clothing is in the shape of a long shirt, embroidered all round with the colour formed from terretta verde. The flesh-colour is very pale. In his right hand he is holding a little trident, and with his left he is raising his dress. He is standing with both feet on the chariot, which has a covering of red, embroidered with gold and fringed all round with sable. This chariot has four wheels, like that of Mars, but it is drawn by four dolphins, and accompanied by three sea-nymphs, two boys, and a great number of fishes, all wrought with a water-colour similar to the terretta, and very beautiful in expression. After these is seen Carthage in despair, in the form of a woman standing upright with dishevelled hair. Her upper garment is green, and it is open from the waist downwards, being lined with red cloth embroidered in gold; and through this opening there may be seen another garment, delicate and of changing purple and white colour. The sleeves are red and gold, with certain puffs and floating folds made by the upper garment, and she is stretching out her left hand towards Rome, who is opposite to her, as though saying, "What is thy wish? I have my answer ready;" and in her right hand she holds a naked sword, with an air of frenzy. Her buskins are blue, and she is standing on a rock in the middle of the sea, surrounded by a very beautiful sky. Rome is a maiden as beautiful as it is possible for man to imagine, with dishevelled hair and certain tresses wrought with infinite grace. Her clothing is pure red, with only an embroidered border at the foot; the lining of her robe is yellow, and the garment beneath, which is seen through the opening, is of changing purple and white. Her buskins are green; in her right hand she has a sceptre, in her left a globe; and she, too, is standing on a rock, in the midst of a sky that could not be more beautiful than it is. Now, although I have striven to the best of my power to show with what great art these figures were wrought by Attavante, let no one believe that I have said more than a very small part of what might be said about their beauty, seeing that, considering the time, there are no better examples of illumination to be seen, nor any work wrought with more invention, judgment, and design; and the colours, above all, could not be more beautiful or laid in their places more delicately, so perfect is their grace. FOOTNOTES: [5] See note on p. 57, Vol. I. [6] This seems to be a mistake for Benedict XI. [7] See note on p. 57, Vol. I. [8] See note on p. 57, Vol. I. LEON BATISTA ALBERTI LIFE OF LEON BATISTA ALBERTI ARCHITECT OF FLORENCE Very great is the advantage bestowed by learning, without exception, on all those craftsmen who take delight in it, but particularly on sculptors, painters, and architects, for it opens up the way to invention in all the works that are made; not to mention that a man cannot have a perfect judgment, be his natural gifts what they may, if he is deprived of the complemental advantage of being assisted by learning. For who does not know that it is necessary, in choosing sites for buildings, to show enlightenment in the avoidance of danger from pestiferous winds, insalubrious air, and the smells and vapours of impure and unwholesome waters? Who is ignorant that a man must be able, in whatever work he is seeking to carry out, to reject or adopt everything for himself after mature consideration, without having to depend on help from another man's theory? For theory, when separated from practice, is generally of very little use; but when the two chance to come together, there is nothing that is more helpful to our life, both because art becomes much richer and more perfect by the aid of science, and because the counsels and the writings of learned craftsmen have in themselves greater efficacy and greater credit than the words or works of those who know nothing but mere practice, whether they do it well or ill. And that all this is true is seen manifestly in Leon Batista Alberti, who, having studied the Latin tongue, and having given attention to architecture, to perspective, and to painting, left behind him books written in such a manner, that, since not one of our modern craftsmen has been able to expound these matters in writing, although very many of them in his own country have excelled him in working, it is generally believed--such is the influence of his writings over the pens and speech of the learned--that he was superior to all those who were actually superior to him in work. Wherefore, with regard to name and fame, it is seen from experience that writings have greater power and longer life than anything else; for books go everywhere with ease, and everywhere they command belief, if only they be truthful and not full of lies. It is no marvel, then, if the famous Leon Batista is known more for his writings than for the work of his hands. This man, born in Florence of the most noble family of the Alberti, of which we have spoken in another place, devoted himself not only to studying geography and the proportions of antiquities, but also to writing, to which he was much inclined, much more than to working. He was excellent in arithmetic and geometry, and he wrote ten books on architecture in the Latin tongue, which were published by him in 1481, and may now be read in a translation in the Florentine tongue made by the Reverend Maestro Cosimo Bartoli, Provost of S. Giovanni in Florence. He wrote three books on painting, now translated into the Tuscan tongue by Messer Lodovico Domenichi; he composed a treatise on traction and on the rules for measuring heights, as well as the books on the "Vita Civile," and some erotic works in prose and verse; and he was the first who tried to reduce Italian verse to the measure of the Latin, as is seen in the following epistle by his pen: Questa per estrema miserabile pistola mando A te, che spregi miseramente noi. Arriving at Rome in the time of Nicholas V, who had turned the whole of Rome upside down with his manner of building, Leon Batista, through the agency of Biondo da Forlì, who was much his friend, became intimate with that Pope, who had previously carried out all his building after the advice of Bernardo Rossellino, a sculptor and architect of Florence, as will be told in the Life of his brother Antonio. This man, having put his hand to restoring the Pope's Palace and to certain works in S. Maria Maggiore, thenceforward, according to the will of the Pope, ever sought the advice of Leon Batista. Wherefore, using one of them as adviser and the other as executor, the Pope carried out many useful and praiseworthy works, such as the restoring of the conduit of the Acqua Vergine, which was in ruins; and there was made the fountain on the Piazza de' Trevi, with those marble ornaments that are seen there, on which are the arms of that Pontiff and of the Roman people. Afterwards, having gone to Signor Sigismondo Malatesti of Rimini, he made for him the model of the Church of S. Francesco, and in particular that of the façade, which was made of marble; and likewise the side facing towards the south, which was built with very great arches and with tombs for the illustrious men of that city. In short, he brought that building to such a form that in point of solidity it is one of the most famous temples in Italy. Within it are six most beautiful chapels, one of which, dedicated to S. Jerome, is very ornate; and in it are preserved many relics brought from Jerusalem. In the same chapel are the tombs of the said Signor Sigismondo and of his wife, constructed very richly of marble in the year 1450; on one there is the portrait of Sigismondo himself, and in another part of the work there is that of Leon Batista. After this, in the year 1457, when the very useful method of printing books was discovered by Johann Gutenberg the German, Leon Batista, working on similar lines, discovered a way of tracing natural perspectives and of effecting the diminution of figures by means of an instrument, and likewise the method of enlarging small things and reproducing them on a greater scale; all ingenious inventions, useful to art and very beautiful. In Leon Batista's time Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai wished to build the principal façade of S. Maria Novella entirely of marble at his own expense, and he spoke of this to Leon Batista, who was very much his friend; and having received from him not only counsel, but the actual model, Giovanni resolved to have the work executed at all costs, in order to leave it behind him as a memorial of himself. A beginning having been made, therefore, it was finished in the year 1477, to the great satisfaction of all the city, which was pleased with the whole work, but particularly with the door, from which it is seen that Leon Batista took more than ordinary pains. For Cosimo Rucellai, likewise, he made the design for the palace which that man built in the street which is called La Vigna, and that for the loggia which is opposite to it. In the latter, having turned his arches over columns close together, both in the front and at the ends, since he wished to adhere to this plan and not to make one single arch, he had a certain space left over on each side; wherefore he was forced to make certain projections at the inner corners. And then, when he wished to turn the arch of the inner vaulting, having seen that he could not give it the shape of a half-circle, which would have been flat and awkward, he resolved to turn certain small arches at the corners from one projection to another; and this lack of judgment in design gives us to know clearly that practice is necessary as well as science, for the judgment can never become perfect unless science attains to experience by actual work. It is said that the same man made the design for the house and garden of these Rucellai in the Via della Scala. This house is built with much judgment and very commodious, for, besides many other conveniences, it has two loggie, one facing south and the other west, both very beautiful, and made without arches on the columns, which is the true and proper method that the ancients used, for the reason that the architraves which are placed on the capitals of the columns lie level, whereas a four-sided thing like a curving arch cannot rest on a round column without the corners jutting out over space. The good method, therefore, demands that architraves should rest on columns, and that, when arches are to be turned, pilasters and not columns should be made. For the same Rucellai Leon Batista made a chapel in the same manner in S. Pancrazio, which rests on great architraves placed on two columns and two pilasters, piercing the wall of the church below; which is a difficult thing, but safe; wherefore this work is one of the best that this architect ever made. In the middle of this chapel is a tomb of marble, wrought very well in the form of a rather long oval, and similar, as may be read on it, to the Sepulchre of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. [Illustration: FAÇADE OF S. ANDREA (_After =Leon Batista Alberti=. Mantua_) _Alinari_] About the same time Lodovico Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, wished to build the tribune and the principal chapel in the Nunziata, the Church of the Servi in Florence, after the design and model of Leon Batista; and pulling down a square chapel, old, not very large, and painted in the ancient manner, which stood at the head of the church, he built the said tribune in the bizarre and difficult form of a round temple surrounded by nine chapels, all curving in a round arch, and each within in the shape of a niche. Now, since the arches of the said chapels rest on the pilasters in front, the result is that the stone dressings of the arches, inclining towards the wall, tend to draw ever backwards in order to meet the said wall, which turns in the opposite direction according to the shape of the tribune; wherefore, when the said arches of the chapels are looked at from the side, it appears that they are falling backwards, and that they are clumsy, as indeed they are, although the proportions are correct, and the difficulties of the method must be remembered. Truly it would have been better if Leon Batista had avoided this method, for, although there is some credit for the difficulty of its execution, it is clumsy both in great things and in small, and it cannot have a good result. And that this is true of great things is proved by the great arch in front, which forms the entrance to the said tribune; for, although it is very beautiful on the outer side, on the inner side, where it has to follow the curve of the chapel, which is round, it appears to be falling backwards and to be extremely clumsy. This Leon Batista would perhaps not have done, if, in addition to science and theory, he had possessed practical experience in working; for another man would have avoided this difficulty, and would have rather aimed at grace and greater beauty for the edifice. The whole work is otherwise in itself very beautiful, bizarre, and difficult; and nothing save great courage could have enabled Leon Batista to vault that tribune in those times in the manner that he did. Being then summoned by the same Marquis Lodovico to Mantua, Leon Batista made for him the models of the Church of S. Andrea and of some other works; and on the road leading from Mantua to Padua there may be seen certain temples built after his manner. Many of the designs and models of Leon Batista were carried into execution by Salvestro Fancelli, a passing good architect and sculptor of Florence, who, according to the desire of the said Leon Batista, executed with judgment and extraordinary diligence all the works that he undertook in Florence. For those in Mantua he employed one Luca, a Florentine, who, living ever afterwards in that city and dying there, left his name--so Filarete tells us--to the family of the Luchi, which is still there to-day. It was no small good-fortune for him to have friends who understood him and were able and willing to serve him, because architects cannot be always standing over their work, and it is of the greatest use to them to have a faithful and loving assistant; and if any man ever knew it, I know it very well by long experience. In painting Leon Batista did not do great or very beautiful works, for the few by his hand that are to be seen do not show much perfection; nor is this to be wondered at, seeing that he devoted himself more to his studies than to draughtsmanship. Yet he could express his conceptions well enough in drawing, as may be seen from some sketches by his hand that are in our book, in which there are drawn the Bridge of S. Angelo and the covering that was made for it with his design in the form of a loggia, for protection from the sun in summer and from the rain and wind in winter. This work he was commissioned to execute by Pope Nicholas V, who had intended to carry out many similar works throughout the whole of Rome; but death intervened to hinder him. There is a work of Leon Batista's in a little Chapel of Our Lady on the abutment of the Ponte alla Carraja in Florence--namely, an altar-predella, containing three little scenes with some perspectives, which he was much more able to describe with the pen than to paint with the brush. In the house of the Palla Rucellai family, also in Florence, there is a portrait of himself made with a mirror; and a panel with rather large figures in chiaroscuro. He also made a picture of Venice in perspective, with S. Marco, but the figures therein were executed by other masters; and this is one of the best examples of his painting that there are to be seen. Leon Batista was a person of most honest and laudable ways, the friend of men of talent, and very open and courteous to all; and he lived honourably and like a gentleman--which he was--through the whole course of his life. Finally, having reached a mature enough age, he passed content and tranquil to a better life, leaving a most honourable name behind him. LAZZARO VASARI LIFE OF LAZZARO VASARI PAINTER OF AREZZO Truly great is the pleasure of those who find one of their ancestors and of their own family to have been distinguished and famous in some profession, whether that of arms, or of letters, or of painting, or any other noble calling whatsoever; and those men who find some honourable mention of one of their forefathers in history, if they gain nothing else thereby, have an incitement to virtue and a bridle to restrain them from doing anything unworthy of a family which has produced illustrious and very famous men. How great is this pleasure, as I said at the beginning, I have experienced for myself in finding that one among my ancestors, Lazzaro Vasari, was famous as a painter in his day not only in his native place, but throughout all Tuscany; and that certainly not without reason, as I could clearly prove, if it were permissible for me to speak as freely of him as I have spoken of others. But, since I was born of his blood, it might be readily believed that I had exceeded all due bounds in praising him; wherefore, leaving on one side the merits of the man himself and of the family, I will simply tell what I cannot and should not under any circumstances withhold, if I would not fall short of the truth, on which all history hangs. Lazzaro Vasari, then, a painter of Arezzo, was very much the friend of Piero della Francesca of Borgo a San Sepolcro, and ever held intercourse with him while Piero was working, as it has been said, in Arezzo. And, as it often comes to pass, this friendship brought him nothing but advantage, for the reason that, whereas Lazzaro had formerly devoted himself only to making little figures for certain works according to the custom of those times, he was persuaded by Piero della Francesca to set himself to do bigger things. His first work in fresco was a S. Vincent in S. Domenico at Arezzo, in the second chapel on the left as one enters the church; and at his feet he painted himself and his young son Giorgio kneeling, clothed in honourable costumes of those times, and recommending themselves to the Saint, because the boy had inadvertently cut his face with a knife. Although there is no inscription on this work, yet certain memories of old men belonging to our house and the fact that it contains the Vasari arms, enable us to attribute it to him without a doubt. Of this there must certainly have been some record in that convent, but their papers and everything else have been destroyed many times by soldiers, and I do not marvel at the lack of records. The manner of Lazzaro was so similar to that of Piero Borghese, that very little difference could be seen between one and the other. Now it was very much the custom at that time to paint various things, such as the quarterings of arms, on the caparisons of horses, according to the rank of those who bore them; and in this work Lazzaro was an excellent master, and the rather as it was his province to make very graceful little figures, which were very well suited to such caparisons. Lazzaro wrought for Niccolò Piccino and for his soldiers and captains many things full of stories and arms, which were held in great price, with so much profit for himself, that the gains that he drew from this work enabled him to recall to Arezzo many of his brothers, who were living at Cortona and working at the manufacture of earthenware vases. He also brought into his house his nephew, Luca Signorelli of Cortona, his sister's son, whom he placed, by reason of his good intelligence, with Piero Borghese, to the end that he might learn the art of painting; which he contrived to do very well, as will be told in the proper place. Lazzaro, then, devoting himself continually to the study of art, became every day more excellent, as is shown by some very good drawings by his hand that are in our book. And because he took much pleasure in depicting certain natural effects full of emotions, in which he expressed very well weeping, laughing, crying, fear, trembling, and the like, his pictures are mostly full of such inventions; as may be seen in a little chapel painted in fresco by his hand in S. Gimignano at Arezzo, wherein there is a Crucifix, with the Madonna, S. John, and the Magdalene at the foot of the Cross, in various attitudes, and weeping so naturally, that they acquired credit and fame for him among his fellow-citizens. For the Company of S. Antonio, in the same city, he painted a cloth banner that is borne in processions, on which he wrought Jesus Christ at the Column, naked and bound and so lifelike, that He appears to be trembling, and, with His shoulders all drawn together, to be enduring with incredible humility and patience the blows that two Jews are giving Him. One of these, firmly planted on his feet, is plying his scourge with both his hands, turning his back towards Christ in an attitude full of cruelty. The other is seen in profile, raising himself on tip-toe; and grasping the scourge with his hands, and gnashing his teeth, he is wielding it with so great rage that words are powerless to express it. Both these men Lazzaro painted with their garments torn, the better to reveal the nude, contenting himself with covering after a fashion their private and less honourable parts. This work painted on cloth has lasted all these years--which truly makes me marvel--right up to our own day; and by reason of its beauty and excellence the men of that Company caused a copy to be made of it by the French Prior,[9] as we will relate in the proper place. At Perugia, also, Lazzaro wrought some stories of the Madonna, with a Crucifix, in a chapel beside the Sacristy of the Church of the Servi. In the Pieve of Montepulciano he executed a predella with little figures, and at Castiglione Aretino he painted a panel in distemper in S. Francesco; together with many other works, which, for the sake of brevity, I refrain from describing, more particularly many chests that are in the houses of citizens, which he painted with little figures. In the Palace of the Guelphs in Florence, among the ancient arms, there may be seen some caparisons wrought very well by him. He also painted a banner for the Company of S. Sebastiano, containing the said Saint at the column, with certain angels crowning him; but it is now spoilt and all eaten away by time. In Lazzaro's time there was one who made glass windows in Arezzo, Fabiano Sassoli, a young Aretine of great excellence in that profession, as is proved by those of his works that are in the Vescovado, the Abbey, the Pieve, and other places in that city; but he knew little of design, and he was very far from reaching the excellence of those that Parri Spinelli made. Wherefore he determined that, even as he knew well how to fire, to put together, and to mount the glass, so he would make some work that should also be passing good with regard to the painting; and he caused Lazzaro to execute for him two cartoons of his own invention, in order to make two windows for the Madonna delle Grazie. Having obtained these from Lazzaro, who was his friend and a courteous craftsman, he made the said windows, which turned out so beautiful and so well wrought that there are not many to which they have to give precedence. In one there is a very beautiful Madonna; and in the other, which is by far the better of the two, there is the Resurrection of Christ, with an armed man in foreshortening in front of the Sepulchre; and it is a marvel, considering the small size of the window and consequently of the picture, how those figures can appear so large in so small a space. Many other things could I tell of Lazzaro, who was a very good draughtsman, as may be seen from certain drawings in our book; but I think it best for me to pass them by. Lazzaro was a pleasant person and very witty in his speech; and although he was much given to pleasure, nevertheless he never strayed from the path of right living. His life lasted seventy-two years, and he left a son called Giorgio, who occupied himself continually with the ancient Aretine vases of terra-cotta; and at the time when Messer Gentile of Urbino, Bishop of Arezzo, was dwelling in that city, Giorgio rediscovered the method of giving red and black colours to terra-cotta vases, such as those that the ancient Aretines made up to the time of King Porsena. Being a most industrious person, he made large vases with the potter's wheel, one braccio and a half in height, which are still to be seen in his house. Men say that while searching for vases in a place where he thought that the ancients had worked, he found three arches of their ancient furnaces three braccia below the surface in a field of clay near the bridge at Calciarella, a place called by that name; and round these he found some of the mixture for making the vases, and many broken ones, with four that were whole. These last were given by Giorgio, through the mediation of the Bishop, to the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici on his visiting Arezzo; wherefore they were the source and origin of his entering into the service of that most exalted family, in which he remained ever afterwards. Giorgio worked very well in relief, as may be seen from some heads by his hand that are in his house. He had five sons, who all followed the same calling; two of them, Lazzaro and Bernardo, were good craftsmen, of whom the latter died very young in Rome; and in truth, by reason of his intelligence, which is known to have been dexterous and ready, if death had not snatched him so prematurely from his house, he would have brought honour to his native place. The elder Lazzaro died in 1452, and his son, Giorgio, died in 1484 at the age of sixty-eight; and both were buried in the Pieve of Arezzo at the foot of their own Chapel of S. Giorgio, where the following verses were set up after a time in praise of Lazzaro: ARETII EXULTET TELLUS CLARISSIMA; NAMQUE EST REBUS IN ANGUSTIS, IN TENUIQUE LABOR. VIX OPERUM ISTIUS PARTES COGNOSCERE POSSIS: MYRMECIDES TACEAT; CALLICRATES SILEAT. Finally, the last Giorgio Vasari, writer of this history, in gratitude for the benefits for which he has to thank in great measure the excellence of his ancestors, having received the principal chapel of the said Pieve as a gift from his fellow-citizens and from the Wardens of Works and Canons, as was told in the Life of Pietro Laurati, and having brought it to the condition that has been described, has made a new tomb in the middle of the choir, which is behind the altar; and in this he has laid the bones of the said Lazzaro the elder and Giorgio the elder, having removed them from their former resting-place, and likewise those of all the other members of the said family, both male and female; and thus he has made a new burial-place for all the descendants of the house of Vasari. In like manner, the body of his mother (who died in Florence in the year 1557), after having remained for some years in S. Croce, has been deposited by him in the said tomb, according to her own desire, together with Antonio, her husband and his father, who died of plague at the end of the year 1527. In the predella that is below the panel of the said altar there are portraits from nature, made by the said Giorgio, of Lazzaro, of the elder Giorgio, his grandfather, of his father Antonio, and of his mother Monna Maddalena de' Tacci. And let this be the end of the Life of Lazzaro Vasari, painter of Arezzo. FOOTNOTE: [9] Guglielmo da Marcilla. ANTONELLO DA MESSINA LIFE OF ANTONELLO DA MESSINA PAINTER When I consider within my own mind the various qualities of the benefits and advantages that have been conferred on the art of painting by many masters who have followed the second manner, I cannot do otherwise than call them, by reason of their efforts, truly industrious and excellent, because they sought above all to bring painting to a better condition, without thinking of discomfort, expense, or any particular interest of their own. They continued, then, to employ no other method of colouring save that of distemper for panels and for canvases, which method had been introduced by Cimabue in the year 1250, when he was working with those Greeks, and had been afterwards followed by Giotto and by the others of whom we have spoken up to the present; and they were still adhering to the same manner of working, although the craftsmen recognized clearly that pictures in distemper were wanting in a certain softness and liveliness, which, if they could be obtained, would be likely to give more grace to their designs, loveliness to their colouring, and greater facility in blending the colours together; for they had ever been wont to hatch their works merely with the point of the brush. But although many had made investigations and sought for something of the sort, yet no one had found any good method, either by the use of liquid varnish or by the mixture of other kinds of colours with the distemper. Among many who made trial of these and other similar expedients, but all in vain, were Alesso Baldovinetti, Pesello, and many others, not one of whom succeeded in giving to his works the beauty and excellence that he had imagined. And even if they had found what they were seeking, they still lacked the method of making their figures on panel adhere as well as those painted on walls, and also that of making them so that they could be washed without destroying the colours, and would endure any shock in handling. These matters a great number of craftsmen had discussed many times in common, but without result. This same desire was felt by many lofty minds that were devoted to painting beyond the bounds of Italy--namely, by all the painters of France, Spain, Germany, and other countries. Now, while matters stood thus, it came to pass that, while working in Flanders, Johann[10] of Bruges, a painter much esteemed in those parts by reason of the great mastery that he had acquired in his profession, set himself to make trial of various sorts of colours, and, as one who took delight in alchemy, to prepare many kinds of oil for making varnishes and other things dear to men of inventive brain, such as he was. Now, on one occasion, having taken very great pains with the painting of a panel, and having brought it to completion with much diligence, he gave it the varnish and put it to dry in the sun, as is the custom. But, either because the heat was too violent, or perchance because the wood was badly joined together or not seasoned well enough, the said panel opened out at the joinings in a ruinous fashion. Whereupon Johann, seeing the harm that the heat of the sun had done to it, determined to bring it about that the sun should never again do such great damage to his works. And so, being disgusted no less with his varnish than with working in distemper, he began to look for a method of making a varnish that should dry in the shade, without putting his pictures in the sun. Wherefore, after he had made many experiments with substances both pure and mixed together, he found at length that linseed oil and oil of nuts dried more readily than all the others that he had tried. These, then, boiled together with other mixtures of his, gave him the varnish that he--nay, all the painters in the world--had long desired. Afterwards, having made experiments with many other substances, he saw that mixing the colours with those oils gave them a very solid consistency, not only securing the work, when dried, from all danger from water, but also making the colour so brilliant as to give it lustre by itself without varnish; and what appeared most marvellous to him was this, that it could be blended infinitely better than distemper. Rejoicing greatly over such a discovery, as was only reasonable, Johann made a beginning with many works and filled all those parts with them, with incredible pleasure for others and very great profit for himself; and, assisted by experience from day to day, he kept on ever making greater and better works. No long time passed before the fame of his invention, spreading not only throughout Flanders but through Italy and many other parts of the world, awakened in all craftsmen a very great desire to know by what method he gave so great a perfection to his works. These craftsmen, seeing his works and not knowing what means he employed, were forced to extol him and to give him immortal praise, and at the same time to envy him with a blameless envy, the rather as he refused for some time to allow himself to be seen at work by anyone, or to reveal his secret to any man. At length, however, having grown old, he imparted it to Roger of Bruges, his pupil, who passed it on to his disciple Ausse[11] and to the others whom we have mentioned in speaking of colouring in oil with regard to painting. But with all this, although merchants did a great business in his pictures and sent them all over the world to Princes and other great persons, to their own great profit, yet the knowledge did not spread beyond Flanders; and although these pictures had a very pungent odour, given to them by the mixture of colours and oils, particularly when they were new, so that it seemed possible for the secret to be found out, yet for many years it was not discovered. But certain Florentines, who traded between Flanders and Naples, sent to King Alfonso I of Naples a panel with many figures painted in oil by Johann, which became very dear to that King both for the beauty of the figures and for the novel invention shown in the colouring; and all the painters in that kingdom flocked together to see it, and it was consummately extolled by all. Now there was one Antonello da Messina, a person of good and lively intelligence, of great sagacity, and skilled in his profession, who, having studied design for many years in Rome, had first retired to Palermo, where he had worked for many years, and finally to his native place, Messina, where he had confirmed by his works the good opinion that his countrymen had of his excellent ability in painting. This man, then, going once on some business of his own from Sicily to Naples, heard that the said King Alfonso had received from Flanders the aforesaid panel by the hand of Johann of Bruges, painted in oil in such a manner that it could be washed, would endure any shock, and was in every way perfect. Thereupon, having contrived to obtain a view of it, he was so strongly impressed by the liveliness of the colours and by the beauty and harmony of that painting, that he put on one side all other business and every thought and went off to Flanders. Having arrived in Bruges, he became very intimate with the said Johann, making him presents of many drawings in the Italian manner and other things, insomuch that the latter, moved by this and by the respect shown by Antonello, and being now old, was content that he should see his method of colouring in oil; wherefore Antonello did not depart from that place until he had gained a thorough knowledge of that way of colouring, which he desired so greatly to know. And no long time after, Johann having died, Antonello returned from Flanders in order to revisit his native country and to communicate to all Italy a secret so useful, beautiful, and advantageous. Then, having stayed a few months in Messina, he went to Venice, where, being a man much given to pleasure and very licentious, he resolved to take up his abode and finish his life, having found there a mode of living exactly suited to his taste. And so, putting himself to work, he made there many pictures in oil according to the rules that he had learned in Flanders; these are scattered throughout the houses of noblemen in that city, where they were held in great esteem by reason of the novelty of the work. He made many others, also, which were sent to various places. Finally, having acquired fame and great repute there, he was commissioned to paint a panel that was destined for S. Cassiano, a parish church in that city. This panel was wrought by Antonio with all his knowledge and with no sparing of time; and when finished, by reason of the novelty of the colouring and the beauty of the figures, which he had made with good design, it was much commended and held in very great price. And afterwards, when men heard of the new secret that he had brought from Flanders to that city, he was ever loved and cherished by the magnificent noblemen of Venice throughout the whole course of his life. [Illustration: ANTONELLO DA MESSINA: PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN (_Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 18. Panel_)] Among the painters who were then in repute in Venice, a certain Maestro Domenico was held very excellent. This man, on the arrival of Antonello in Venice, received him with such great lovingness and courtesy, that he could not have shown more to a very dear and cherished friend. For this reason Antonello, who would not be beaten in courtesy by Maestro Domenico, after a few months taught him the secret and method of colouring in oil. Nothing could have been dearer to Domenico than this extraordinary courtesy and friendliness; and well might he hold it dear, since it caused him, as he had foreseen, to be greatly honoured ever afterwards in his native city. Grossly deceived, in truth, are those who think that, while they grudge to others even those things that cost them nothing, they should be served by all for the sake of their sweet smile, as the saying goes. The courtesies of Maestro Domenico Viniziano wrested from the hands of Antonello that which he had won for himself with so much fatigue and labour, and which he would probably have refused to hand over to any other even for a large sum of money. But since, with regard to Maestro Domenico, we will mention in due time all that he wrought in Florence, and who were the men with whom he generously shared the secret that he had received as a courteous gift from another, let us pass to Antonello. After the panel for S. Cassiano, he made many pictures and portraits for various Venetian noblemen. Messer Bernardo Vecchietti, the Florentine, has a painting by his hand of S. Francis and S. Dominic, both in the one picture, and very beautiful. Then, after receiving a commission from the Signoria to paint certain scenes in their Palace (which they had refused to give to Francesco di Monsignore of Verona, although he had been greatly favoured by the Duke of Mantua), he fell sick of a pleurisy and died at the age of forty-nine, without having set a hand to the work. He was greatly honoured in his obsequies by the craftsmen, by reason of the gift bestowed by him on art in the form of the new manner of colouring, as the following epitaph testifies: D. O. M. ANTONIUS PICTOR, PRÆCIPUUM MESSANÆ SUÆ ET SICILIÆ TOTIUS ORNAMENTUM, HAC HUMO CONTEGITUR. NON SOLUM SUIS PICTURIS, IN QUIBUS SINGULARE ARTIFICIUM ET VENUSTAS FUIT, SED ET QUOD COLORIBUS OLEO MISCENDIS SPLENDOREM ET PERPETUITATEM PRIMUS ITALICÆ PICTURÆ CONTULIT, SUMMO SEMPER ARTIFICIUM STUDIO CELEBRATUS. The death of Antonello was a great grief to his many friends, and particularly to the sculptor Andrea Riccio, who wrought the nude marble statues of Adam and Eve, held to be very beautiful, which are seen in the courtyard of the Palace of the Signoria in Venice. Such was the end of Antonello, to whom our craftsmen should certainly feel no less indebted for having brought the method of colouring in oil into Italy than they should to Johann of Bruges for having discovered it in Flanders. Both of them benefited and enriched the art; for it is by means of this invention that craftsmen have since become so excellent, that they have been able to make their figures all but alive. Their services should be all the more valued, inasmuch as there is no writer to be found who attributes this manner of colouring to the ancients; and if it could be known for certain that it did not exist among them, this age would surpass all the excellence of the ancients by virtue of this perfection. Since, however, even as nothing is said that has not been said before, so perchance nothing is done that has not been done before, I will let this pass without saying more; and praising consummately those who, in addition to draughtsmanship, are ever adding something to art, I will proceed to write of others. [Illustration: ANTONELLO DA MESSINA: THE CRUCIFIXION (_London: National Gallery, 1166. Panel_)] FOOTNOTES: [10] Jan van Eyck. [11] It is reasonable to suppose that this stands for Hans (Memling). ALESSO BALDOVINETTI [Illustration: THE ANNUNCIATION (_After the panel by =Alesso Baldovinetti=. Florence: Uffizi, 56_) _Anderson_] LIFE OF ALESSO BALDOVINETTI PAINTER OF FLORENCE So great an attraction has the noble art of painting, that many eminent men have deserted the callings in which they might have become very rich, and, drawn by their inclination against the wishes of their parents, have followed the promptings of their nature and devoted themselves to painting, to sculpture, or to some similar pursuit. And, to tell the truth, if a man estimates riches at their true worth and no higher, and regards excellence as the end of all his actions, he acquires treasures very different from silver and gold; not to mention that he is never afraid of those things that rob us in a moment of those earthly riches, which are foolishly esteemed by men at more than their true value. Recognizing this, Alesso Baldovinetti, drawn by a natural inclination, abandoned commerce--in which his relatives had ever occupied themselves, insomuch that by practising it honourably they had acquired riches and lived like noble citizens--and devoted himself to painting, in which he showed a peculiar ability to counterfeit very well the objects of nature, as may be seen in the pictures by his hand. This man, while still very young, and almost against the wish of his father, who would have liked him to give his attention to commerce, devoted himself to drawing; and in a short time he made so much progress therein, that his father was content to allow him to follow the inclination of his nature. The first work that Alesso executed in fresco was in S. Maria Nuova, on the front wall of the Chapel of S. Gilio, which was much extolled at that time, because, among other things, it contained a S. Egidio that was held to be a very beautiful figure. In like manner, he painted in S. Trinita the chapel in fresco and the chief panel in distemper, for Messer Gherardo and Messer Bongianni Gianfigliazzi, most honourable and wealthy gentlemen of Florence. In this chapel Alesso painted some scenes from the Old Testament, which he first sketched in fresco and then finished on the dry, tempering his colours with yolk of egg mingled with a liquid varnish prepared over a fire. This vehicle, he thought, would preserve the paintings from damp; but it was so strong that where it was laid on too thickly the work has peeled off in many places; and thus, whereas he thought he had found a rare and very beautiful secret, he was deceived in his hopes. He drew many portraits from nature, and in the scene of the Queen of Sheba going to hear the wisdom of Solomon, which he painted in the aforesaid chapel, he portrayed the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici, father of Pope Leo X, and Lorenzo della Volpaia, a most excellent maker of clocks and a very fine astrologer, who was the man who made for the said Lorenzo de' Medici the very beautiful clock that the Lord Duke Cosimo now has in his Palace; in which clock all the wheels of the planets are perpetually moving, which is a rare thing, and the first that was ever made in this manner. In the scene opposite to that one Alesso portrayed Luigi Guicciardini the elder, Luca Pitti, Diotisalvi Neroni, and Giuliano de' Medici, father of Pope Clement VII; and beside the stone pilaster he painted Gherardo Gianfigliazzi the elder, the Chevalier Messer Bongianni, who is wearing a blue robe, with a chain round his neck, and Jacopo and Giovanni, both of the same family. Near these are Filippo Strozzi the elder and the astrologer Messer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli. On the vaulting are four patriarchs, and on the panel is the Trinity, with S. Giovanni Gualberto kneeling, and another Saint. All these portraits are very easily recognized from their similarity to those that are seen in other works, particularly in the houses of their descendants, whether in gesso or in painting. Alesso gave much time to this work, because he was very patient and liked to execute his works at his ease and convenience. [Illustration: ALESSO BALDOVINETTI: MADONNA AND CHILD IN A LANDSCAPE (_Paris: Louvre, 1300B. Panel_)] He drew very well, as may be seen from a mule drawn from nature in our book, wherein the curves of the hair over the whole body are done with much patience and with beautiful grace. Alesso was very diligent in his works, and he strove to be an imitator of all the minute details that Mother Nature creates. He had a manner somewhat dry and harsh, particularly in draperies. He took much delight in making landscapes, copying them from the life of nature exactly as they are; wherefore there are seen in his pictures streams, bridges, rocks, herbs, fruits, roads, fields, cities, castles, sand, and an infinity of other things of the kind. In the Nunziata at Florence, in the court, exactly behind the wall where the Annunciation itself is painted, he painted a scene in fresco, retouched on the dry, in which there is a Nativity of Christ, wrought with so great labour and diligence that one could count the stalks and knots of the straw in a hut that is there; and he also counterfeited there the ruin of a house with the stones mouldering, all eaten away and consumed by rain and frost, and a thick ivy root that covers a part of the wall, wherein it is to be observed that with great patience he made the outer side of the leaves of one shade of green, and the under side of another, as Nature does, neither more nor less; and, in addition to the shepherds, he made a serpent, or rather, a grass-snake, crawling up a wall, which is most life-like. It is said that Alesso took great pains to discover the true method of making mosaic, but that he never succeeded in anything that he wanted to do, until at length he came across a German who was going to Rome to obtain some indulgences. This man he took into his house, and he gained from him a complete knowledge of the method and the rules for executing mosaic, insomuch that afterwards, having set himself boldly to work, he made some angels holding the head of Christ over the bronze doors of S. Giovanni, in the arches on the inner side. His good method of working becoming known by reason of this work, he was commissioned by the Consuls of the Guild of Merchants to clean and renovate all the vaulting of that church, which had been wrought, as has been said, by Andrea Tafi; for it had been spoilt in many places, and was in need of being renewed and restored. This he did with love and diligence, availing himself for that purpose of a wooden staging made for him by Cecca, who was the best architect of that age. Alesso taught the craft of mosaic to Domenico Ghirlandajo, who portrayed him afterwards near himself in the Chapel of the Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, in the scene where Joachim is driven from the Temple, in the form of a clean-shaven old man with a red cap on his head. Alesso lived eighty years, and when he began to draw near to old age, as one who wished to be able to attend with a quiet mind to the studies of his profession, he retired into the Hospital of S. Paolo, as many men are wont to do. And perhaps to the end that he might be received more willingly and better treated (or it may have been by chance), he had a great chest carried into his rooms in the said hospital, giving out that it contained a good sum of money. Wherefore the Director and the other officials of the hospital, believing this to be true, and knowing that he had bequeathed to the hospital all that might be found after his death, showed him all the attention in the world. But on the death of Alesso, there was nothing found in it save drawings, portraits on paper, and a little book that explained the preparation of the stones and stucco for mosaic and the method of using them. Nor was it any marvel, so men said, that no money was found there, because he was so open-handed that he had nothing that did not belong as much to his friends as to himself. A disciple of Alesso was the Florentine Graffione, who wrought in fresco, over the door of the Innocenti, that figure of God the Father and those angels that are still there. It is said that the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici, conversing one day with Graffione, who was an original, said to him, "I wish to have all the ribs of the inner cupola adorned with mosaic and stucco-work;" and that Graffione replied, "You have not the masters." To which Lorenzo answered, "We have enough money to make some." Graffione instantly retorted, "Ah, Lorenzo, 'tis not the money that makes the masters, but the masters that make the money." This man was a bizarre and fantastic person. In his house he would never eat off any table-cloth save his own cartoons, and he slept in no other bed than a chest filled with straw, without sheets. But to return to Alesso; he took leave of his art and of his life in 1448, and he was honourably buried by his relatives and fellow-citizens. [Illustration: THE TRINITY (_After the panel by =Graffione=. Florence: S. Spirito_) _Alinari_] VELLANO DA PADOVA LIFE OF VELLANO DA PADOVA SCULPTOR So great is the effect of counterfeiting anything with love and diligence, that very often, when the manner of any master of these our arts has been well imitated by those who take delight in his works, the imitation resembles the thing imitated so closely, that no difference is discerned save by those who have a sharpness of eye beyond the ordinary; and it rarely comes to pass that a loving disciple fails to learn, at least in great measure, the manner of his master. Vellano da Padova strove with so great diligence to counterfeit the manner and the method of Donato in sculpture, particularly in bronze, that in his native city of Padua he was left the heir to the excellence of the Florentine Donatello; and to this witness is borne by his works in the Santo, which nearly every man that has not a complete knowledge of the matter attributes to Donato, so that every day many are deceived, if they are not informed of the truth. This man, then, fired by the great praise that he heard given to Donato, the sculptor of Florence, who was then working in Padua, and by a desire for those profits that come into the hands of good craftsmen through the excellence of their works, placed himself under Donato in order to learn sculpture, and devoted himself to it in such a manner, that, with the aid of so great a master, he finally achieved his purpose; wherefore, before Donatello had finished his works and departed from Padua, Vellano had made such great progress in the art that great expectations were already entertained about him, and he inspired such confidence in his master as to induce him (and that rightly) to leave to his pupil all the equipment, designs, and models for the scenes in bronze that were to be made round the choir of the Santo in that city. This was the reason why, when Donato departed, as has been said, the commission for the whole of that work was publicly given to Vellano in his native city, to his very great honour. Whereupon he made all the scenes in bronze that are on the outer side of the choir of the Santo, wherein, among others, there is the scene of Samson embracing the column and destroying the temple of the Philistines, in which one sees the fragments of the ruined building duly falling, and the death of so many people, not to mention a great diversity of attitudes among them as they die, some through the ruins, and some through fear; and all this Vellano represented marvellously. In the same place are certain works in wax and the models for these scenes, and likewise some bronze candelabra wrought by the same man with much judgment and invention. From what we see, this craftsman appears to have had a very great desire to attain to the standard of Donatello; but he did not succeed, for he aimed too high in a most difficult art. Vellano also took delight in architecture, and was more than passing good in that profession; wherefore, having gone to Rome in the year 1464, at the time of Pope Paul the Venetian, for which Pontiff Giuliano da Maiano was architect in the building of the Vatican, he too was employed in many things; and by his hand, among other works that he made, are the arms of that Pontiff which are seen there with his name beside them. He also wrought many of the ornaments of the Palace of S. Marco for the same Pope, whose head, by the hand of Vellano, is at the top of the staircase. For that building the same man designed a stupendous courtyard, with a commodious and elegant flight of steps, but the death of the Pontiff intervened to hinder the completion of the whole. The while that he stayed in Rome, Vellano made many small things in marble and in bronze for the said Pope and for others, but I have not been able to find them. In Perugia the same master made a bronze statue larger than life, in which he portrayed the said Pope from nature, seated in his pontifical robes; and at the foot of this he placed his name and the year when it was made. This figure is in a niche of several kinds of stone, wrought with much diligence, without the door of S. Lorenzo, which is the Duomo of that city. The same man made many medals, some of which are still to be seen, particularly that of the aforesaid Pope, and those of Antonio Rosello of Arezzo and Batista Platina, both Secretaries to that Pontiff. [Illustration: JONAH CAST INTO THE SEA (_After the bronze relief by =Vellano da Padova=. Padua: S. Antonio_) _Anderson_] Having returned after these works to Padua with a very good name, Vellano was held in esteem not only in his native city, but in all Lombardy and in the March of Treviso, both because up to that time there had been no craftsmen of excellence in those parts, and because he had very great skill in the founding of metals. Afterwards, when Vellano was already old, the Signoria of Venice determined to have an equestrian statue of Bartolommeo da Bergamo made in bronze; and they allotted the horse to Andrea del Verrocchio of Florence, and the figure to Vellano. On hearing this, Andrea, who thought that the whole work should fall to him, knowing himself to be, as indeed he was, a better master than Vellano, flew into such a rage that he broke up and destroyed the whole model of the horse that he had already finished, and went off to Florence. But after a time, being recalled by the Signoria, who gave him the whole work to do, he returned once more to finish it; at which Vellano felt so much displeasure that he departed from Venice, without saying a word or expressing his resentment in any manner, and returned to Padua, where he afterwards lived in honour for the rest of his life, contenting himself with the works that he had made and with being loved and honoured, as he ever was, in his native place. He died at the age of ninety-two, and was buried in the Santo with that distinction which his excellence, having honoured both himself and his country, had deserved. His portrait was sent to me from Padua by certain friends of mine, who had it, so they told me, from the very learned and very reverend Cardinal Bembo, whose love of our arts was no less remarkable than his supremacy over all other men of our age in all the rarest qualities and gifts both of mind and body. FRA FILIPPO LIPPI LIFE OF FRA FILIPPO LIPPI PAINTER OF FLORENCE Fra Filippo di Tommaso Lippi, a Carmelite, was born in Florence in a street called Ardiglione, below the Canto alla Cuculia and behind the Convent of the Carmelites. By the death of his father Tommaso he was left a poor little orphan at the age of two, with no one to take care of him, for his mother had also died not long after giving him birth. He was left, therefore, in the charge of one Mona Lapaccia, his aunt, sister of his father, who brought him up with very great inconvenience to herself; and when he was eight years of age and she could no longer support him, she made him a friar in the aforesaid Convent of the Carmine. Living there, in proportion as he showed himself dexterous and ingenious in the use of his hands, so was he dull and incapable of making any progress in the learning of letters, so that he would never apply his intelligence to them or regard them as anything save his enemies. This boy, who was called by his secular name of Filippo, was kept with others in the noviciate under the discipline of the schoolmaster, in order to see what he could do; but in place of studying he would never do anything save deface his own books and those of the others with caricatures. Whereupon the Prior resolved to give him every opportunity and convenience for learning to paint. There was then in the Carmine a chapel that had been newly painted by Masaccio, which, being very beautiful, pleased Fra Filippo so greatly that he would haunt it every day for his recreation; and continually practising there in company with many young men, who were ever drawing in it, he surpassed the others by a great measure in dexterity and knowledge, insomuch that it was held certain that in time he would do something marvellous. Nay, not merely in his maturity, but even in his early childhood, he executed so many works worthy of praise that it was a miracle. It was no long time before he wrought in terra-verde in the cloister, close to the Consecration painted by Masaccio, a Pope confirming the Rule of the Carmelites; and he painted pictures in fresco on various walls in many parts of the church, particularly a S. John the Baptist with some scenes from his life. And thus, making progress every day, he had learnt the manner of Masaccio very well, so that he made his works so similar to those of the other that many said that the spirit of Masaccio had entered into the body of Fra Filippo. On a pilaster in the church, close to the organ, he made a figure of S. Marziale which brought him infinite fame, for it could bear comparison with the works that Masaccio had painted. Wherefore, hearing himself so greatly praised by the voices of all, at the age of seventeen he boldly threw off his monastic habit. Now, chancing to be in the March of Ancona, he was disporting himself one day with some of his friends in a little boat on the sea, when they were all captured together by the Moorish galleys that were scouring those parts, and taken to Barbary, where each of them was put in chains and held as a slave; and thus he remained in great misery for eighteen months. But one day, seeing that he was thrown much into contact with his master, there came to him the opportunity and the whim to make a portrait of him; whereupon, taking a piece of dead coal from the fire, with this he portrayed him at full length on a white wall in his Moorish costume. When this was reported by the other slaves to the master (for it appeared a miracle to them all, since drawing and painting were not known in these parts), it brought about his liberation from the chains in which he had been held for so long. Truly glorious was it for this art to have caused one to whom the power of condemnation and punishment was granted by law, to do the very opposite--nay, in place of inflicting pains and death, to consent to show friendliness and grant liberty! After having wrought some works in colour for his master, he was brought safely to Naples, where he painted for King Alfonso, then Duke of Calabria, a panel in distemper for the Chapel of the Castle, where the guard-room now is. [Illustration: FRA FILIPPO LIPPI: THE ANNUNCIATION (_London: National Gallery, 666. Panel_)] After this there came upon him a desire to return to Florence, where he remained for some months. There he wrought a very beautiful panel for the high-altar of the Nuns of S. Ambrogio, which made him very dear to Cosimo de' Medici, who became very much his friend for this reason. He also painted a panel for the Chapter-house of S. Croce, and another that was placed in the chapel of the house of the Medici, on which he painted the Nativity of Christ. For the wife of the said Cosimo, likewise, he painted a panel with the same Nativity of Christ and with S. John the Baptist, which was to be placed in the Hermitage of Camaldoli, in one of the hermits' cells, dedicated to S. John the Baptist, which she had caused to be built in proof of her devotion. And he painted some little scenes that were sent by Cosimo as a gift to Pope Eugenius IV, the Venetian; wherefore Fra Filippo acquired great favour with that Pope by reason of this work. It is said that he was so amorous, that, if he saw any women who pleased him, and if they were to be won, he would give all his possessions to win them; and if he could in no way do this, he would paint their portraits and cool the flame of his love by reasoning with himself. So much a slave was he to this appetite, that when he was in this humour he gave little or no attention to the works that he had undertaken; wherefore on one occasion Cosimo de' Medici, having commissioned him to paint a picture, shut him up in his own house, in order that he might not go out and waste his time; but after staying there for two whole days, being driven forth by his amorous--nay, beastly--passion, one night he cut some ropes out of his bed-sheets with a pair of scissors and let himself down from a window, and then abandoned himself for many days to his pleasures. Thereupon, since he could not be found, Cosimo sent out to look for him, and finally brought him back to his labour; and thenceforward Cosimo gave him liberty to go out when he pleased, repenting greatly that he had previously shut him up, when he thought of his madness and of the danger that he might run. For this reason he strove to keep a hold on him for the future by kindnesses; and so he was served by Filippo with greater readiness, and was wont to say that the virtues of rare minds were celestial beings, and not slavish hacks. For the Church of S. Maria Primerana, on the Piazza of Fiesole, he painted a panel containing the Annunciation of Our Lady by the Angel, which shows very great diligence, and there is such beauty in the figure of the Angel that it appears truly a celestial thing. For the Nuns of the Murate he painted two panels: one, containing an Annunciation, is placed on the high-altar; and the other is on an altar in the same church, and contains stories of S. Benedict and S. Bernard. In the Palace of the Signoria he painted an Annunciation on a panel, which is over a door; and over another door in the said Palace he also painted a S. Bernard. For the Sacristy of S. Spirito in Florence he executed a panel with the Madonna surrounded by angels, and with saints on either side--a rare work, which has ever been held in the greatest veneration by the masters of these our arts. In the Chapel of the Wardens of Works in S. Lorenzo he wrought a panel with another Annunciation; with one for the Della Stufa Chapel, which he did not finish. For a chapel in S. Apostolo, in the same city, he painted a panel with some figures round a Madonna. In Arezzo, by order of Messer Carlo Marsuppini, he painted the panel of the Chapel of S. Bernardo for the Monks of Monte Oliveto, depicting therein the Coronation of Our Lady, surrounded by many saints; which picture has remained so fresh, that it appears to have been made by the hand of Fra Filippo at the present day. It was then that he was told by the aforesaid Messer Carlo to give attention to the painting of the hands, seeing that his works were much criticized in this respect; wherefore from that day onwards, in painting hands, Fra Filippo covered the greater part of them with draperies or with some other contrivance, in order to avoid the aforesaid criticism. In this work he portrayed the said Messer Carlo from the life. [Illustration: THE VIRGIN ADORING (_After the panel by =Fra Filippo Lippi=. Florence: Accademia, 79_) _Anderson_] For the Nuns of Annalena in Florence he painted a Manger on a panel; and some of his pictures are still to be seen in Padua. He sent two little scenes with small figures, painted by his hand, to Cardinal Barbo in Rome; these were very excellently wrought, and executed with great diligence. Truly marvellous was the grace with which he painted, and very perfect the harmony that he gave to his works, for which he has been ever esteemed by craftsmen and honoured by our modern masters with consummate praise; nay, so long as the voracity of time allows his many excellent labours to live, he will be held in veneration by every age. In Prato, near Florence, where he had some relatives, he stayed for many months, executing many works throughout that whole district in company with Fra Diamante, a friar of the Carmine, who had been his comrade in the noviciate. After this, having been commissioned by the Nuns of S. Margherita to paint the panel of their high-altar, he was working at this when there came before his eyes a daughter of Francesco Buti, a citizen of Florence, who was living there as a ward or as a novice. Having set eyes on Lucrezia (for this was the name of the girl), who was very beautiful and graceful, Fra Filippo contrived to persuade the nuns to allow him to make a portrait of her for a figure of Our Lady in the work that he was doing for them. With this opportunity he became even more enamoured of her, and then wrought upon her so mightily, what with one thing and another, that he stole her away from the nuns and took her off on the very day when she was going to see the Girdle of Our Lady, an honoured relic of that township, being exposed to view. Whereupon the nuns were greatly disgraced by such an event, and her father, Francesco, who never smiled again, made every effort to recover her; but she, either through fear or for some other reason, refused to come back--nay, she insisted on staying with Filippo, to whom she bore a male child, who was also called Filippo, and who became, like his father, a very excellent and famous painter. In S. Domenico, in the aforesaid Prato, there are two of his panels; and in the tramezzo[12] of the Church of S. Francesco there is a Madonna, in the removing of which from the place where it was at first, it was cut out from the wall on which it was painted, in order not to spoil it, and bound round with wood, and then transported to that wall of the church where it is still to be seen to-day. In a courtyard of the Ceppo of Francesco di Marco, over a well, there is a little panel by the hand of the same man, containing the portrait of the said Francesco di Marco, the creator and founder of that holy place. In the Pieve of the said township, on a little panel over the side-door as one ascends the steps, he painted the Death of S. Bernard, by the touch of whose bier many cripples are being restored to health. In this picture are friars bewailing the death of their master, and it is a marvellous thing to see the beautiful expression of the sadness of lamentation in the heads, counterfeited with great art and resemblance to nature. Here there are draperies in the form of friars' gowns with most beautiful folds, which deserve infinite praise for their good design, colouring, and composition; not to mention the grace and proportion that are seen in the said work, which was executed with the greatest delicacy by the hand of Fra Filippo. The Wardens of Works for the said Pieve, in order to have some memorial of him, commissioned him to paint the Chapel of the High-Altar in that place; and he gave great proof of his worth in that work, which, besides its general excellence and masterliness, contains most admirable draperies and heads. He made the figures therein larger than life, thus introducing to our modern craftsmen the method of giving grandeur to the manner of our own day. There are certain figures with garments little used in those times, whereby he began to incite the minds of men to depart from that simplicity which should be called rather old-fashioned than ancient. In the same work are the stories of S. Stephen (the titular Saint of the said Pieve), distributed over the wall on the right hand--namely, the Disputation, the Stoning, and the Death of that Protomartyr, in whose face, as he disputes with the Jews, Filippo depicted so much zeal and so much fervour, that it is a difficult thing to imagine it, and much more to express it; and in the faces and the various attitudes of the Jews he revealed their hatred, disdain, and anger at seeing themselves overcome by him. Even more clearly did he make manifest the brutality and rage of those who are slaying him with stones, which they have grasped, some large, some small, with a horrible gnashing of teeth, and with gestures wholly cruel and enraged. None the less, amid so terrible an onslaught, S. Stephen, raising his countenance with great calmness to Heaven, is seen making supplication to the Eternal Father with the warmest love and fervour for the very men who are slaying him. All these conceptions are truly very beautiful, and serve to show to others how great is the value of invention and of knowing how to express emotions in pictures; and this he remembered so well, that in those who are burying S. Stephen he made gestures so dolorous, and some faces so afflicted and broken with weeping, that it is scarcely possible to look at them without being moved. On the other side he painted the Birth of S. John the Baptist, the Preaching, the Baptism, the Feast of Herod, and the Beheading of the Saint. Here, in his countenance as he is preaching, there is seen the Divine Spirit; with various emotions in the multitude that is listening, joy and sorrow both in the women and in the men, who are all hanging intently on the teaching of S. John. In the Baptism are seen beauty and goodness; and, in the Feast of Herod, the majesty of the banquet, the dexterity of Herodias, the astonishment of the company, and their immeasurable grief when the severed head is presented in the charger. Round the banqueting-table are seen innumerable figures with very beautiful attitudes, and with good execution both in the draperies and in the expressions of the faces. Among these, with a mirror, he portrayed himself dressed in the black habit of a prelate; and he made a portrait of his disciple Fra Diamante among those who are bewailing S. Stephen. This work is in truth the most excellent of all his paintings, both for the reasons mentioned above, and because he made the figures somewhat larger than life, which encouraged those who came after him to give grandeur to their manner. So greatly was he esteemed for his excellent gifts, that many circumstances in his life that were worthy of blame were passed over in consideration of the eminence of his great talents. In this work he portrayed Messer Carlo, the natural son of Cosimo de' Medici, who was then Provost of that church, which received great benefactions from him and from his house. In the year 1463, when he had finished this work, he painted a panel in distemper, containing a very beautiful Annunciation, for the Church of S. Jacopo in Pistoia, by order of Messer Jacopo Bellucci, of whom he made therein a most vivid portrait from the life. In the house of Pulidoro Bracciolini there is a picture by his hand of the Birth of Our Lady; and in the Hall of the Tribunal of Eight in Florence he painted in distemper a Madonna with the Child in her arms, on a lunette. In the house of Lodovico Capponi there is another picture with a very beautiful Madonna; and in the hands of Bernardo Vecchietti, a gentleman of Florence and a man of a culture and excellence beyond my power of expression, there is a little picture by the hand of the same man, containing a very beautiful S. Augustine engaged in his studies. Even better is a S. Jerome in Penitence, of the same size, in the guardaroba of Duke Cosimo; for if Fra Filippo was a rare master in all his pictures, he surpassed himself in the small ones, to which he gave such grace and beauty that nothing could be better, as may be seen in the predelle of all the panels that he painted. In short, he was such that none surpassed him in his own times, and few in our own; and Michelagnolo has not only always extolled him, but has imitated him in many things. For the Church of S. Domenico Vecchio in Perugia, also, he painted a panel that was afterwards placed on the high-altar, containing a Madonna, S. Peter, S. Paul, S. Louis, and S. Anthony the Abbot. Messer Alessandro degli Alessandri, a Chevalier of that day and a friend of Filippo, caused him to paint a panel for the church of his villa at Vincigliata on the hill of Fiesole, containing a S. Laurence and other Saints, among whom he portrayed Alessandro and two sons of his. Fra Filippo was much the friend of gay spirits, and he ever lived a joyous life. He taught the art of painting to Fra Diamante, who executed many pictures in the Carmine at Prato; and he did himself great credit by the close imitation of his master's manner, for he attained to the greatest perfection. Sandro Botticelli, Pesello, and Jacopo del Sellaio of Florence worked with Fra Filippo in their youth (the last-named painted two panels in S. Friano, and one wrought in distemper in the Carmine), with a great number of other masters, to whom he ever taught the art with great friendliness. He lived honourably by his labours, spending extraordinary sums on the pleasures of love, in which he continued to take delight right up to the end of his life. He was requested by the Commune of Spoleto, through the mediation of Cosimo de' Medici, to paint the chapel in their principal church (dedicated to Our Lady), which he brought very nearly to completion, working in company with Fra Diamante, when death intervened to prevent him from finishing it. Some say, indeed, that in consequence of his great inclination for his blissful amours some relations of the lady that he loved had him poisoned. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD (_After the panel (tondo) by =Fra Filippo Lippi=. Florence: Pitti, 343_) _Anderson_] Fra Filippo finished the course of his life in 1438, at the age of fifty-seven, and left a will entrusting to Fra Diamante his son Filippo, a little boy of ten years of age, who learnt the art of painting from his guardian. Fra Diamante returned with him to Florence, carrying away three hundred ducats, which remained to be received from the Commune of Spoleto for the work done; with these he bought some property for himself, giving but a little share to the boy. Filippo was placed with Sandro Botticelli, who was then held a very good master; and the old man was buried in a tomb of red and white marble, which the people of Spoleto caused to be erected in the church that he had been painting. His death grieved many friends, particularly Cosimo de' Medici, as well as Pope Eugenius, who offered in his life-time to give him a dispensation, so that he might make Lucrezia, the daughter of Francesco Buti, his legitimate wife; but this he refused to do, wishing to have complete liberty for himself and his appetites. While Sixtus IV was alive, Lorenzo de' Medici became ambassador to the Florentines, and made the journey to Spoleto, in order to demand from that community the body of Fra Filippo, to the end that it might be laid in S. Maria del Fiore in Florence; but their answer to him was that they were lacking in ornaments, and above all in distinguished men, for which reason they demanded Filippo from him as a favour in order to honour themselves, adding that since there was a vast number of famous men in Florence, nay, almost a superfluity, he should consent to do without this one; and more than this he could not obtain. It is true, indeed, that afterwards, having determined to do honour to him in the best way that he could, he sent his son Filippino to Rome to paint a chapel for the Cardinal of Naples; and Filippino, passing through Spoleto, caused a tomb of marble to be erected for him at the commission of Lorenzo, beneath the organ and over the sacristy, on which he spent one hundred ducats of gold, which were paid by Nofri Tornabuoni, master of the bank of the Medici; and Lorenzo also caused Messer Angelo Poliziano to write the following epigram, which is carved on the said tomb in antique lettering: CONDITUS HIC EGO SUM PICTURÆ FAMA PHILIPPUS; NULLI IGNOTA MEÆ EST GRATIA MIRA MANUS. ARTIFICES POTUI DIGITIS ANIMARE COLORES, SPERATAQUE ANIMOS FALLERE VOCE DIU. IPSA MEIS STUPUIT NATURA EXPRESSA FIGURIS, MEQUE SUIS FASSA EST ARTIBUS ESSE PAREM. MARMOREO TUMULO MEDICES LAURENTIUS HIC ME CONDIDIT; ANTE HUMILI PULVERE TECTUS ERAM. Fra Filippo was a very good draughtsman, as may be seen in our book of drawings by the most famous painters, particularly in some wherein the panel of S. Spirito is drawn, with others showing the chapel in Prato. FOOTNOTES: [12] See note on p. 57, Vol. I. PAOLO ROMANO, MAESTRO MINO, AND CHIMENTI CAMICIA LIVES OF PAOLO ROMANO AND MAESTRO MINO, SCULPTORS [_MINO DEL REGNO, OR MINO DEL REAME_] AND CHIMENTI CAMICIA, ARCHITECT We have now to speak of Paolo Romano and Mino del Regno, who were contemporaries and of the same profession, but very different in character and in knowledge of art, for Paolo was modest and quite able, and Mino much less able, but so presumptuous and arrogant, that he was not only overbearing in his actions, but also with his speech exalted his own works beyond all due measure. When Pope Pius II gave a commission for a figure to the Roman sculptor Paolo, Mino tormented and persecuted him out of envy so greatly, that Paolo, who was a good and most modest man, was forced to show resentment. Whereupon Mino, falling into a rage with Paolo, offered to bet a thousand ducats that he would make a figure better than Paolo's; and this he said with the greatest presumption and effrontery, knowing the nature of Paolo, who disliked any annoyance, and believing that he would not accept such a challenge. But Paolo accepted the invitation, and Mino, half repentant, bet a hundred ducats merely to save his honour The figures finished, the victory was given to Paolo as a rare and excellent master, which he was; and Mino was scorned as the sort of craftsman whose words were worth more than his works. By the hand of Mino are certain works in marble at Naples, and a tomb at Monte Cassino, a seat of the Black Friars in the kingdom of Naples; the S. Peter and the S. Paul that are at the foot of the steps of S. Pietro in Rome, and the tomb of Pope Paul II in S. Pietro. The figure that Paolo made in competition with Mino was the S. Paul that is to be seen on a marble base at the head of the Ponte S. Angelo, which stood unnoticed for a long time in front of the Chapel of Sixtus IV. It afterwards came to pass that one day Pope Clement VII observed this figure, which pleased him greatly, for he was a man of knowledge and judgment in such matters; wherefore he determined to have a S. Peter made of the same size, and also, after removing two little chapels of marble, dedicated to those Apostles, which stood at the head of the Ponte S. Angelo and obstructed the view of the Castle, to put these two statues in their place. It may be read in the work of Antonio Filarete that Paolo was not only a sculptor but also an able goldsmith, and that he wrought part of the twelve Apostles in silver which stood, before the sack of Rome, over the altar of the Papal Chapel. Part of the work of these statues was done by Niccolò della Guardia and Pietro Paolo da Todi, disciples of Paolo, who were afterwards passing good masters in sculpture, as is seen from the tombs of Pope Pius II and Pope Pius III, on which the said Pontiffs are portrayed from nature. By the hand of the same men are medals of three Emperors and other great persons. The said Paolo made a statue of an armed man on horseback, which is now on the ground in S. Pietro, near the Chapel of S. Andrea. A pupil of Paolo was the Roman Gian Cristoforo, who was an able sculptor; and there are certain works by his hand in S. Maria Trastevere and in other places. Chimenti Camicia, of whose origin nothing is known save that he was a Florentine, was employed in the service of the King of Hungary, for whom he made palaces, gardens, fountains, churches, fortresses, and many other buildings of importance, with ornaments, carvings, decorated ceilings, and other things of the kind, which were executed with much diligence by Baccio Cellini. After these works, drawn by love for his country, Chimenti returned to Florence, whence he sent to Baccio (who remained there), as presents for the King, certain pictures by the hand of Berto Linaiuolo, which were held very beautiful in Hungary and much extolled by that King. This Berto (of whom I will not refrain from making this record as well), after having painted many pictures in a beautiful manner, which are in the houses of many citizens, died at the very height of his powers, cutting short the great expectations that had been formed of him. But to return to Chimenti; he had not been long in Florence when he returned to Hungary, where he continued to serve the King; but while he was journeying on the Danube in order to give designs for mills, in consequence of fatigue he was seized by a sickness, which carried him off in a few days to the other life. The works of these masters date about the year 1470. About the same time, during the pontificate of Pope Sixtus IV, there lived in Rome one Baccio Pintelli, a Florentine, who was rewarded for the great skill that he had in architecture by being employed by that Pope in all his building enterprises. With his design, then, were built the Church and Convent of S. Maria del Popolo, and certain highly ornate chapels therein, particularly that of Domenico della Rovere, Cardinal of San Clemente and nephew of that Pope. The same Pontiff erected a palace in Borgo Vecchio after the design of Baccio, which was then held to be a very beautiful and well-planned edifice. The same master built the Great Library under the apartments of Niccola, and that chapel in the Palace that is called the Sistine, which is adorned with beautiful paintings. He also rebuilt the structure of the new Hospital of S. Spirito in Sassia (which was burnt down almost to the foundations in the year 1471), adding to it a very long loggia and all the useful conveniences that could be desired. Within the hospital, along its whole length, he caused scenes to be painted from the life of Pope Sixtus, from his birth up to the completion of that building--nay, up to the end of his life. He also made the bridge that is called the Ponte Sisto, from the name of that Pontiff; this was held to be an excellent work, because Baccio built it with such stout piers and with the weight so well distributed, that it is very strong and very well founded. In the year of the Jubilee of 1475, likewise, he built many new little churches throughout Rome, which are recognized by the arms of Pope Sixtus--in particular, S. Apostolo, S. Pietro in Vincula, and S. Sisto. For Cardinal Guglielmo, Bishop of Ostia, he made the model of his church, with that of the façade and of the steps, in the manner wherein they are seen to-day. Many declare that the design of the Church of S. Pietro a Montorio in Rome was by the hand of Baccio, but I cannot say with truth that I have found this to be so. This church was built at the expense of the King of Portugal, almost at the same time that the Spanish nation had the Church of S. Jacopo erected in Rome. The talent of Baccio was so highly esteemed by that Pontiff, that he would never have done anything in the way of building without his counsel; wherefore, in the year 1480, hearing that the Church and Convent of S. Francesco at Assisi were threatening to fall, he sent Baccio thither; and he, making a very stout counterfort on the side of the plain, rendered that marvellous fabric perfectly secure. On one buttress he placed a statue of that Pontiff, who, not many years before, had caused to be made in that same convent many apartments, in the form of chambers and halls, which are known not only by their magnificence but also by the arms of the said Pope that are seen in them. In the courtyard there is one coat of arms much larger than the others, with some Latin verses in praise of Pope Sixtus IV, who gave many proofs that he held that holy place in great veneration. ANDREA DAL CASTAGNO OF MUGELLO AND DOMENICO VINIZIANO LIVES OF ANDREA DAL CASTAGNO OF MUGELLO AND DOMENICO VINIZIANO [_ANDREA DEGL' IMPICCATI AND DOMENICO DA VENEZIA_] PAINTERS How reprehensible is the vice of envy, which should never exist in anyone, when found in a man of excellence, and how wicked and horrible a thing it is to seek under the guise of a feigned friendship to extinguish not only the fame and glory of another but his very life, I truly believe it to be impossible to express with words, for the wickedness of the act overcomes all power and force of speech, however eloquent. For this reason, without enlarging further on this subject, I will only say that in such men there dwells a spirit not merely inhuman and savage but wholly cruel and devilish, and so far removed from any sort of virtue that they are no longer men or even animals, and do not deserve to live. For even as emulation and rivalry, when men seek by honest endeavour to vanquish and surpass those greater than themselves in order to acquire glory and honour, are things worthy to be praised and to be held in esteem as necessary and useful to the world, so, on the contrary, the wickedness of envy deserves a proportionately greater meed of blame and vituperation, when, being unable to endure the honour and esteem of others, it sets to work to deprive of life those whom it cannot despoil of glory; as did that miserable Andrea dal Castagno, who was truly great and excellent in painting and design, but even more notable for the rancour and envy that he bore towards other painters, insomuch that with the blackness of his crime he concealed and obscured the splendour of his talents. This man, having been born at a small village called Castagno in Mugello, in the territory of Florence, took that name as his own surname when he came to live in Florence, which came about in the following manner. Having been left without a father in his earliest childhood, he was adopted by an uncle, who employed him for many years in watching his herds, since he saw him to be very ready and alert, and so masterful, that he could look after not only his cattle but the pastures and everything else that touched his own interest. Now, while he was following this calling, it came to pass one day that he chanced to seek shelter from the rain in a place wherein one of those local painters, who work for small prices, was painting a shrine for a peasant. Whereupon Andrea, who had never seen anything of the kind before, was seized by a sudden marvel and began to look most intently at the work and to study its manner; and there came to him on the spot a very great desire and so violent a love for that art, that without losing time he began to scratch drawings of animals and figures on walls and stones with pieces of charcoal or with the point of his knife, in so masterly a manner that it caused no small marvel to all who saw them. The fame of this new study of Andrea's then began to spread among the peasants; whereupon, as his good-fortune would have it, the matter coming to the ears of a Florentine gentleman named Bernardetto de' Medici, whose possessions were in that district, he expressed a wish to know the boy; and finally, having seen him and having heard him discourse with great readiness, he asked him whether he would like to learn the art of painting. Andrea answered that nothing could happen to him that would be more welcome or more pleasing than this, and Bernardetto took the boy with him to Florence, to the end that he might become perfect in that art, and set him to work with one of those masters who were then esteemed the best. [Illustration: THE LAST SUPPER (_After the fresco by =Andrea dal Castagno=. Florence: S. Apollonia_) _Alinari_] Thereupon Andrea, following the art of painting and devoting himself heart and soul to its studies, displayed very great intelligence in the difficulties of that art, above all in draughtsmanship. But he was not so successful in the colouring of his works, which he made somewhat crude and harsh, thus impairing to a great extent their excellence and grace, and depriving them, above all, of a certain quality of loveliness, which is not found in his colouring. He showed very great boldness in the movements of his figures and much vehemence in the heads both of men and of women, making them grave in aspect and excellent in draughtsmanship. There are works coloured in fresco, painted by his hand in his early youth, in the cloister of S. Miniato al Monte as one descends from the church to go into the convent, including a story of S. Miniato and S. Cresci leaving their father and mother. In S. Benedetto, a most beautiful monastery without the Porta a Pinti, both in a cloister and in the church, there were many pictures by the hand of Andrea, of which there is no need to make mention, since they were thrown to the ground in the siege of Florence. Within the city, in the first cloister of the Monastery of the Monks of the Angeli, opposite to the principal door, he painted the Crucifix that is still there to-day, with the Madonna, S. John, S. Benedict, and S. Romualdo; and at the head of the cloister, which is above the garden, he made another like it, only varying the heads and a few other details. In S. Trinita, beside the Chapel of Maestro Luca, he painted a S. Andrew. In a hall at Legnaia he painted many illustrious men for Pandolfo Pandolfini; and a standard to be borne in processions, which is held very beautiful, for the Company of the Evangelist. In certain chapels of the Church of the Servi in the said city he wrought three flat niches in fresco. In one of these, that of S. Giuliano, there are scenes from the life of that Saint, with a good number of figures, and a dog in foreshortening that was much extolled. Above this, in the chapel dedicated to S. Girolamo, he painted that Saint shaven and wasted away, with good design and great diligence. Over this he painted a Trinity, with a Crucifix so well foreshortened that Andrea deserves to be greatly extolled for it, seeing that he executed the foreshortenings with a much better and more modern manner than the others before him had shown; but this picture, having been afterwards covered with a panel by the family of the Montaguti, can no longer be seen. In the third, which is beside the one below the organ, and which was erected by Messer Orlando de' Medici, he painted Lazarus, Martha, and the Magdalene. For the Nuns of S. Giuliano, over their door, he made a Crucifix in fresco, with a Madonna, a S. Dominic, a S. Julian, and a S. John; which picture, one of the best that Andrea ever made, is universally praised by all craftsmen. In the Chapel of the Cavalcanti in S. Croce he painted a S. John the Baptist and a S. Francis, which are held to be very good figures. But what caused all the craftsmen to marvel was a very beautiful picture in fresco that he made at the head of the new cloister of the said convent, opposite to the door, of Christ being scourged at the Column, wherein he painted a loggia with columns in perspective, and groined vaulting with diminishing lines, and walls inlaid in a pattern of mandorle, with so much art and so much diligence, that he showed that he had no less knowledge of the difficulties of perspective than he had of design in painting. In the same scene there are beautiful and most animated attitudes in those who are scourging Christ, showing hatred and rage in their faces as clearly as Jesus Christ is showing patience and humility. In the body of Christ, which is bound tightly with ropes to the Column, it appears that Andrea tried to demonstrate the suffering of the flesh, while the Divinity concealed in that body maintains a certain noble splendour, which seems to be moving Pilate, who is seated among his councillors, to seek to find some means of liberating Him. In short, this picture is such that, if the little care that has been taken of it had not allowed it to be scratched and spoilt by children and simpletons, who have scratched all the heads and the arms and almost the entire persons of the Jews, as though they would thus take vengeance on them for the wrongs of Our Lord, it would certainly be the most beautiful of all the works of Andrea. And if Nature had given grace of colouring to this craftsman, even as she gave him invention and design, he would have been held truly marvellous. In S. Maria del Fiore he painted the image of Niccolò da Tolentino on horseback; and while he was working at this a boy who was passing shook his ladder, whereupon he flew into such a rage, like the brutal man that he was, that he jumped down and ran after him as far as the Canto de' Pazzi. In the cemetery of S. Maria Nuova, also, below the Ossa, he painted a S. Andrew, which gave so much satisfaction that he was afterwards commissioned to paint the Last Supper of Christ with His Apostles in the refectory, where the nurses and other attendants have their meals. Having acquired favour through this work with the house of Portinari and with the Director of the hospital, he was appointed to paint a part of the principal chapel, of which another part was allotted to Alesso Baldovinetti, and the third to the then greatly celebrated painter Domenico da Venezia, who had been summoned to Florence by reason of the new method that he knew of painting in oil. Now, while each of them applied himself to his part of the work, Andrea was very envious of Domenico, because, while knowing himself to be superior to the other in design, he was much displeased that the Venetian, although a foreigner, should be welcomed and entertained by the citizens; wherefore anger and disdain moved him so strongly, that he began to think whether he could not in one way or another remove him from his path. Andrea was no less crafty in dissimulation than he was excellent in painting, being cheerful of countenance at his pleasure, ready of speech, fiery in spirit, and as resolute in every bodily action as he was in mind; he felt towards others as he did towards Domenico, and, if he saw some error in the works of other craftsmen, he was wont to mark it secretly with his nail. And in his youth, when his works were criticized in any respect, he would give the critics to know by means of blows and insults that he was ever able and willing to take revenge in one way or another for any affront. But let us say something of Domenico, before we come to the work of the said chapel. Before coming to Florence, Domenico had painted some pictures with much grace in the Sacristy of S. Maria at Loreto, in company with Piero della Francesca; which pictures, besides what he had wrought in other places (such as an apartment in the house of the Baglioni in Perugia, which is now in ruins), had made his fame known in Florence. Being summoned to that city, before doing anything else, he painted a Madonna in the midst of some saints, in fresco, in a shrine on the Canto de' Carnesecchi, at the corner of two streets, of which one leads to the new Piazza di S. Maria Novella and the other to the old. This work, being approved and greatly extolled by the citizens and by the craftsmen of those times, caused even greater disdain and envy to blaze up in the accursed mind of Andrea against poor Domenico; wherefore Andrea, having determined to effect by deceit and treachery what he could not carry out openly without manifest peril to himself, pretended to be very much the friend of Domenico, who, being a good and affectionate fellow, fond of singing and devoted to playing on the lute, received him as a friend very willingly, thinking Andrea to be a clever and amusing person. And so, continuing this friendship, so true on one side and so false on the other, they would come together every night to make merry and to serenade their mistresses; and this gave great delight to Domenico, who, loving Andrea sincerely, taught him the method of colouring in oil, which as yet was not known in Tuscany. Andrea, then (to take events in their due order), working on his wall in the Chapel of S. Maria Nuova, painted an Annunciation, which is held very beautiful, for in that work he painted the Angel in the air, which had never been done up to that time. But a much more beautiful work is held to be that wherein he made the Madonna ascending the steps of the Temple, on which he depicted many beggars, and one among them hitting another on the head with a pitcher; and not only that figure but all the others are wondrously beautiful, for he wrought them with much care and love, out of rivalry with Domenico. There is seen, also, in the middle of a square, an octagonal temple drawn in perspective, standing by itself and full of pilasters and niches, with the façade very richly adorned with figures painted to look like marble. Round the square are various very beautiful buildings; and on one side of these there falls the shadow of the temple, caused by the light of the sun--a beautiful conception, carried out with great ingenuity and art. Maestro Domenico, on his part, painting in oil, represented Joachim visiting his consort S. Anna, and below this the Birth of Our Lady, wherein he depicted a very ornate chamber, and a boy beating very gracefully with a hammer on the door of the said chamber. Beneath this he painted the Marriage of the Virgin, with a good number of portraits from the life, among which are those of Messer Bernardetto de' Medici, Constable of the Florentines, wearing a large red barret-cap; Bernardo Guadagni, who was Gonfalonier; Folco Portinari, and others of that family. He also painted a dwarf breaking a staff, very life-like, and some women wearing garments customary in those times, lovely and graceful beyond belief. But this work remained unfinished, for reasons that will be told below. [Illustration: ANDREA DAL CASTAGNO: DANTE _(Florence: S. Apollonia. Fresco)_] Meanwhile Andrea had painted in oil on his wall the Death of Our Lady, in which, both by reason of his rivalry with Domenico and in order to make himself known for the able master that he truly was, he wrought in foreshortening, with incredible diligence, a bier containing the dead Virgin, which appears to be three braccia in length, although it is not more than one and a half. Round her are the Apostles, wrought in such a manner, that, although there is seen in their faces their joy at seeing their Madonna borne to Heaven by Jesus Christ, there is also seen in them their bitter sorrow at being left on earth without her. Among the Apostles are some angels holding burning lights, with beautiful expressions in their faces, and so well executed that it is seen that he was as well able to manage oil-colours as his rival Domenico. In these pictures Andrea made portraits from life of Messer Rinaldo degli Albizzi, Puccio Pucci, and Falganaccio, who brought about the liberation of Cosimo de' Medici, together with Federigo Malevolti, who held the keys of the Alberghetto. In like manner he portrayed Messer Bernardo di Domenico della Volta, Director of that hospital, who is kneeling and appears to be alive; and in a medallion at the beginning of the work he painted himself with the face of Judas Iscariot, whom he resembled both in appearance and in deed. Now Andrea, having carried this work very nearly to completion, being blinded by envy of the praises that he heard given to the talent of Domenico, determined to remove him from his path; and after having thought of many expedients, he put one of them into execution in the following manner. One summer evening, according to his custom, Domenico took his lute and went forth from S. Maria Nuova, leaving Andrea in his room drawing, for he had refused to accept the invitation to take his recreation with Domenico, under the pretext of having to do certain drawings of importance. Domenico therefore went to take his pleasure by himself, and Andrea set himself to wait for him in hiding behind a street corner; and when Domenico, on his way home, came up to him, he crushed his lute and his stomach at one and the same time with certain pieces of lead, and then, thinking that he had not yet finished him off, beat him grievously on the head with the same weapons; and finally, leaving him on the ground, he returned to his room in S. Maria Nuova, where he put the door ajar and sat down to his drawing in the manner that he had been left by Domenico. Meanwhile an uproar had arisen, and the servants, hearing of the matter, ran to call Andrea and to give the bad news to the murderer and traitor himself, who, running to where the others were standing round Domenico, was not to be consoled, and kept crying out: "Alas, my brother! Alas, my brother!" Finally Domenico expired in his arms; nor could it be discovered, for all the diligence that was used, who had murdered him; and if Andrea had not revealed the truth in confession on his death-bed, it would not be known now. In S. Miniato fra le Torri in Florence Andrea painted a panel containing the Assumption of Our Lady, with two figures; and in a shrine in the Nave a Lanchetta, without the Porta alla Croce, he painted a Madonna. In the house of the Carducci, now belonging to the Pandolfini, the same man depicted certain famous men, some from imagination and some portrayed from life, among whom are Filippo Spano degli Scolari, Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, and others. At Scarperia in Mugello, over the door of the Vicar's Palace, he painted a very beautiful nude figure of Charity, which has since been ruined. In the year 1478, when Giuliano de' Medici was killed and his brother Lorenzo wounded in S. Maria del Fiore by the family of the Pazzi and their adherents and fellow-conspirators, it was ordained by the Signoria that all those who had shared in the plot should be painted as traitors on the wall of the Palace of the Podestà. This work was offered to Andrea, and he, as a servant and debtor of the house of Medici, accepted it very willingly, and, taking it in hand, executed it so beautifully that it was a miracle. It would not be possible to express how much art and judgment were to be seen in those figures, which were for the most part portraits from life, and which were hung up by the feet in strange attitudes, all varied and very beautiful. This work, which pleased the whole city and particularly all who had understanding in the art of painting, brought it about that from that time onwards he was called no longer Andrea dal Castagno but Andrea degl' Impiccati.[13] [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD (_After the fresco by =Domenico Viniziano=. London: National Gallery, 1215_) _Mansell_] Andrea lived in honourable style, and since he spent his money freely, particularly on dress and on maintaining a fine household, he left little property when he passed to the other life at the age of seventy-one. But since the crime that he had committed against Domenico, who loved him so, became known a short time after his death, it was with shameful obsequies that he was buried in S. Maria Nuova, where, at the age of fifty-six, the unhappy Domenico had also been buried. The work begun by the latter in S. Maria Nuova remained unfinished, nor did he ever complete it, as he had done the panel of the high-altar in S. Lucia de' Bardi, wherein he executed with much diligence a Madonna with the Child in her arms, S. John the Baptist, S. Nicholas, S. Francis, and S. Lucia; which panel he had brought to perfect completion a little before he was murdered. Disciples of Andrea were Jacopo del Corso, who was a passing good master, Pisanello, Marchino, Piero del Pollaiuolo, and Giovanni da Rovezzano. FOOTNOTES: [13] _I.e._, hung up. GENTILE DA FABRIANO AND VITTORE PISANELLO OF VERONA LIVES OF GENTILE DA FABRIANO AND VITTORE PISANELLO OF VERONA[14] PAINTERS Very great is the advantage enjoyed by one who follows in the steps of a predecessor who has gained honour and fame by means of some rare talent, for the reason that, if only he follows to some extent the path prepared by his master, he seldom fails to arrive without much fatigue at an honourable goal; whereas, if he had to reach it by himself, he would have need of a much longer time and far greater labours. The truth of this could be seen, ready for the finger to point to, as the saying is, among many other examples, in that of Pisano, or rather, Pisanello, a painter of Verona, who, having spent many years in Florence with Andrea dal Castagno, and having finished his works after his death, acquired so much credit by means of Andrea's name, that Pope Martin V, coming to Florence, took him in his train to Rome, where he caused him to paint some scenes in fresco in S. Giovanni Laterano, which are very lovely and beautiful beyond belief, because he used therein a great abundance of a sort of ultramarine blue given to him by the said Pope, which was so beautiful in colour that it has never yet been equalled. In competition with Pisanello, below the aforesaid scenes, certain others were painted by Gentile da Fabriano; of which Platina makes mention in his Life of Pope Martin, saying that when that Pontiff had caused the pavement, the ceiling, and the roof of S. Giovanni Laterano to be reconstructed, Gentile da Fabriano painted many pictures there, and, among other figures between the windows, in terretta and in chiaroscuro, certain prophets, which are held to be the best paintings in the whole of that work. The same Gentile executed an infinite number of works in the March, particularly in Agobbio, where some of them are still to be seen, and likewise throughout the whole state of Urbino. He worked in S. Giovanni at Siena; and in the Sacristy of S. Trinita in Florence he painted the Story of the Magi on a panel, wherein he portrayed himself from the life. In S. Niccolò, near the Porta a S. Miniato, for the family of the Quaratesi, he painted the panel of the high-altar, which appears to me without a doubt the best of all the works that I have seen by his hand, for, not to mention the Madonna surrounded by many saints, all well wrought, the predella of the said panel, full of scenes with little figures from the life of S. Nicholas, could not be more beautiful or executed better than it is. In S. Maria Nuova in Rome, in a little arch over the tomb of the Florentine Cardinal Adimari, Archbishop of Pisa, which is beside that of Pope Gregory IX, he painted the Madonna with the Child in her arms, between S. Benedict and S. Joseph. This work was held in esteem by the divine Michelagnolo, who was wont to say, speaking of Gentile, that his hand in painting was similar to his name. The same master executed a very beautiful panel in S. Domenico in Perugia; and in S. Agostino at Bari he painted a Crucifix outlined in the wood, with three very beautiful half-length figures, which are over the door of the choir. But to return to Vittore Pisano; the account that has been given of him above was written by us, with nothing more, when this our book was printed for the first time, because we had not then received that information and knowledge of the works of this excellent craftsman which we have since gained from notices supplied by that very reverend and most learned Father, Fra Marco de' Medici of Verona, of the Order of Preaching Friars, and from the narrative of Biondo da Forlì, where he speaks of Verona in his "Italia Illustrata." Vittore was equal in excellence to any painter of his age; and to this, not to speak of the works enumerated above, most ample testimony is borne by many others that are seen in his most noble native city of Verona, although many are almost eaten away by time. And because he took particular delight in depicting animals, he painted in the Chapel of the Pellegrini family, in the Church of S. Anastasia at Verona, a S. Eustace caressing a dog spotted with white and tan, which, with its feet raised and leaning against the leg of the said Saint, is turning its head backwards as though it had heard some noise; and it is making this movement with so great vivacity, that a live dog could not do it better. Beneath this figure there is seen painted the name of Pisano, who used to call himself sometimes Pisano, and sometimes Pisanello, as may be seen from the pictures and the medals by his hand. After the said figure of S. Eustace, which is truly very beautiful and one of the best that this craftsman ever wrought, he painted the whole outer wall of the same chapel; and on the other side he made a S. George clad in white armour made of silver, as was the custom in that age not only with him but with all the other painters. This S. George, wishing to replace his sword in the scabbard after slaying the Dragon, is raising his right hand, which holds the sword, the point of which is already in the scabbard, and is lowering the left hand, to the end that the increased distance may make it easier for him to sheathe the sword, which is long; and this he is doing with so much grace and with so beautiful a manner, that nothing better could be seen. Michele San Michele of Verona, architect to the most illustrious Signoria of Venice, and a man with a very wide knowledge of these fine arts, was often seen during his life contemplating these works of Vittore in a marvel, and then heard to say that there was little to be seen that was better than the S. Eustace, the dog, and the S. George described above. Over the arch of the said chapel is painted the scene when S. George, having slain the Dragon, is liberating the King's daughter, who is seen near the Saint, clad in a long dress after the custom of those times. Marvellous, likewise, in this part of the work, is the figure of the same S. George, who, armed as above, and about to remount his horse, is standing with his face and person turned towards the spectator, and is seen, with one foot in the stirrup and his left hand on the saddle, almost in the act of leaping on to the horse, which has its hindquarters towards the spectator, so that the whole animal, being foreshortened, is seen very well, although in a small space. In a word, it is impossible to contemplate without infinite marvel--nay, amazement--a work executed with such extraordinary design, grace, and judgment. [Illustration: GENTILE DA FABRIANO: MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH THREE KINGS (DETAIL FROM THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI) (_Florence: Accademia, 165. Panel_)] The same Pisano painted a picture in S. Fermo Maggiore at Verona (a church of the Conventual Friars of S. Francis), in the Chapel of the Brenzoni, on the left as one enters by the principal door of the said church, over the tomb of the Resurrection of Our Lord, wrought in sculpture and very beautiful for those times; he painted, I say, as an ornament for that work, the Virgin receiving the Annunciation from the Angel, which two figures, picked out with gold according to the use of those times, are very beautiful, as are certain very well drawn buildings, as well as some little animals and birds scattered throughout the work, which are as natural and lifelike as it is possible to imagine. The same Vittore cast in medallions innumerable portraits of Princes and other persons of his time, from which there have since been made many portraits in painting. And Monsignor Giovio, speaking of Vittore Pisano in an Italian letter written to the Lord Duke Cosimo, which may be read in print together with many others, says the following words: "This man was also very excellent in the work of low-relief, which is esteemed very difficult among craftsmen, because it is the mean between the flat surface of painting and the roundness of statuary. For this reason there are seen many highly esteemed medals of great Princes by his hand, made in a large form, and in the same proportions as that reverse of the horse clad in armour that Guidi has sent me. Of these I have that of the great King Alfonso with his hair long, with a captain's helmet on the reverse; that of Pope Martin, with the arms of the house of Colonna as the reverse; that of the Sultan Mahomet (who took Constantinople), showing him on horseback in Turkish dress, with a scourge in his hand; Sigismondo Malatesta, with Madonna Isotta of Rimini on the reverse; and that of Niccolò Piccinino, wearing a large oblong cap on his head, with the said reverse sent to me by Guidi, which I am returning. Besides these, I have also a very beautiful medal of John Palæologus, Emperor of Constantinople, with that bizarre Greek cap which the Emperors used to wear. This was made by Pisano in Florence, at the time of the Council of Eugenius, at which the aforesaid Emperor was present; and it has on the reverse the Cross of Christ, sustained by two hands--namely, the Latin and the Greek." [Illustration: VITTORE PISANELLO: THE VISION OF S. EUSTACE (_London: National Gallery, 1436. Panel_)] So far Giovio, and still further, Vittore also made medals with portraits of Filippo de' Medici, Archbishop of Pisa, Braccio da Montone, Giovan Galeazzo Visconti, Carlo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, Giovan Caracciolo, Grand Seneschal of Naples, Borso and Ercole D'Este, and many other nobles and men distinguished in arms and in letters. By reason of his fame and reputation in that art, this master gained the honour of being celebrated by very great men and rare writers; for, besides what Biondo wrote of him, as has been said, he was much extolled in a Latin poem by the elder Guerino, his compatriot and a very great scholar and writer of those times; of which poem, called, from the surname of its subject, "Il Pisano del Guerino," honourable mention is made by Biondo. He was also celebrated by the elder Strozzi, Tito Vespasiano, father of the other Strozzi, both of whom were very rare poets in the Latin tongue. The father honoured the memory of Vittore Pisano with a very beautiful epigram, which is in print with the others. Such are the fruits that are borne by a worthy life. Some say that when he was learning art in Florence in his youth, he painted in the old Church of the Temple, which stood where the old Citadel now is, the stories of that pilgrim who was going to S. Jacopo di Galizia, when the daughter of his host put a silver cup into his wallet, to the end that he might be punished as a robber; but he was rescued by S. Jacopo, who brought him back home in safety. In this Pisano gave promise of becoming, as he did, an excellent painter. Finally, having come to a good old age, he passed to a better life. And Gentile, after making many works in Città di Castello, became palsied, and was reduced to such a state that he could no longer do anything good; and at length, wasted away by old age, and having lived eighty years, he died. The portrait of Pisano I have not been able to find in any place whatsoever. Both these painters drew very well, as may be seen in our book. [Illustration: MEDALS OF SIGISMONDO PANDOLFO MALATESTA AND NICCOLÒ PICCININO (_After =Vittore Pisanello=. London: British Museum_)] FOOTNOTES: [14] It has recently been shown that Pisanello's name was not Vittore but Antonio; see article by G. F. Hill, on p. 288, vol. xiii. of the _Burlington Magazine_. In the translation, however, Vittore, the name given by Vasari, will be kept. PESELLO AND FRANCESCO PESELLI LIVES OF PESELLO AND FRANCESCO PESELLI [_PESELLINO, OR FRANCESCO DI PESELLO_] PAINTERS OF FLORENCE It is rarely wont to happen that the disciples of the best masters, if they observe their precepts, fail to become very excellent, or, if they do not actually surpass them, at least to equal them and to make themselves in every way like them. For the burning zeal of imitation, with assiduity in studying, has power to make them equal the talent of those who show them the true method of working; wherefore the disciples become such that they afterwards compete with their masters, and even find it easy to outstrip them, because it is always but little labour to add to what has been discovered by others. That this is true is proved by Francesco di Pesello, who imitated the manner of Fra Filippo so well that he would have surpassed him by a long way, if death had not cut him off so prematurely. It is also known that Pesello imitated the manner of Andrea dal Castagno; and he took so much pleasure in counterfeiting animals, of which he kept some of all sorts alive in his house, and made them so lifelike and vivacious, that there was no one in his time who equalled him in this branch of his profession. He worked up to the age of thirty under the discipline of Andrea, learning from him, and became a very good master. Wherefore, having given good proof of his knowledge, he was commissioned by the Signoria of Florence to paint a panel in distemper of the Magi bringing offerings to Christ, which was placed half-way up the staircase of their Palace, and acquired great fame for Pesello, above all because he had made certain portraits therein, including that of Donato Acciaiuoli. In S. Croce, also, in the Chapel of the Cavalcanti, below the Annunciation of Donato, he painted a predella with little figures, containing stories of S. Nicholas. In the house of the Medici he adorned some panelling very beautifully with animals, and certain coffers with little scenes of jousts on horseback. And in the same house there are seen to this day certain canvases by his hand, representing lions pressing against a grating, which appear absolutely alive; and he made others on the outside, together with one fighting with a serpent; and on another canvas he painted an ox, a fox, and other animals, very animated and vivacious. In the Chapel of the Alessandri, in S. Piero Maggiore, he made four little scenes with little figures of S. Peter, of S. Paul, of S. Zanobi restoring to life the son of the widow, and of S. Benedict. In S. Maria Maggiore in the same city of Florence, in the Chapel of the Orlandini, he made a Madonna and two other very beautiful figures. For the children of the Company of S. Giorgio he painted a Crucifix, S. Jerome, and S. Francis; and he made an Annunciation on a panel in the Church of S. Giorgio. In the Church of S. Jacopo at Pistoia he painted a Trinity, S. Zeno, and S. James; and throughout the houses of citizens in Florence there are many pictures, both round and square, by the hand of the same man. Pesello was a temperate and gentle person; and whenever it was in his power to assist his friends, he would do it very lovingly and willingly. He married young, and had a son named Francesco, known as Pesellino, who became a painter, following very closely in the steps of Fra Filippo. From what is known of this man, it is clear that if he had lived longer he would have done much more than he did, for he was a zealous student of his art, and would draw all day and night without ceasing. In the Chapel of the Noviciate in S. Croce, below the panel by Fra Filippo, there is still seen a most marvellous predella with little figures, which appear to be by the hand of Fra Filippo. He made many little pictures with small figures throughout Florence, where, having acquired a great name, he died at the age of thirty-one; to the great grief of Pesello, who followed him after no long time, at the age of seventy-seven. [Illustration: PESELLINO: MADONNA ENTHRONED WITH SAINTS AND ANGELS (_Empoli: Gallery. Panel_)] BENOZZO GOZZOLI [Illustration: THE PROCESSION OF THE MAGI (_Detail, after the fresco by =Benozzo Gozzoli=. Florence: Palazzo Riccardi_) _Anderson_] LIFE OF BENOZZO GOZZOLI[15] PAINTER OF FLORENCE He who pursues the path of excellence in his labours, although it is, as men say, both stony and full of thorns, finds himself finally at the end of the ascent on a broad plain, with all the blessings that he has desired. And as he looks downwards and sees the difficult and perilous way that he has come, he thanks God for having brought him out safely, and with the greatest contentment he blesses those labours that he has just been finding so burdensome. And so, recompensed for his past sufferings by the gladness of the happy present, he labours without fatigue, in order to demonstrate to all who see him how heat, cold, sweat, hunger, thirst, and all the other discomforts that are endured in the acquiring of excellence, deliver men from poverty, and bring them to that secure and tranquil state in which, with so much contentment, Benozzo Gozzoli enjoyed repose from his labours. This man was a disciple of Fra Giovanni Angelico, by whom he was loved with good reason; and by all who knew him he was held to be a practised master, very rich in invention, and very productive in the painting of animals, perspectives, landscapes, and ornaments. He wrought so many works in his day that he showed that he cared little for other delights; and although, in comparison with many who surpassed him in design, he was not very excellent, yet in this great mass of work he surpassed all the painters of his age, for in such a multitude of pictures he succeeded in making some that were good. In his youth he painted a panel for the altar of the Company of S. Marco in Florence, and, in S. Friano, a picture of the passing of S. Jerome, which has been spoilt in restoring the façade of the church along the street. In the Chapel of the Palace of the Medici he painted the Story of the Magi in fresco. In the Araceli at Rome, in the Chapel of the Cesarini, he painted the stories of S. Anthony of Padua, wherein he made portraits from life of Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini and Antonio Colonna. In the Conti Tower, likewise, over a door under which one passes, he made in fresco a Madonna with many saints; and in a chapel in S. Maria Maggiore, on the right hand as one enters the church by the principal door, he painted many figures in fresco, which are passing good. After returning from Rome to Florence, Benozzo went to Pisa, where he worked in the cemetery called the Campo Santo, which is beside the Duomo, covering the surface of a wall that runs the whole length of the building with stories from the Old Testament, wherein he showed very great invention. And this may be said to be a truly tremendous work, seeing that it contains all the stories of the Creation of the world from one day to another. After this come Noah's Ark and the inundation of the Flood, represented with very beautiful composition and an abundance of figures. Then there follow the building of the proud Tower of Nimrod, the burning of Sodom and the other neighbouring cities, and the stories of Abraham, wherein there are some very beautiful effects to be observed, for the reason that, although Benozzo was not remarkable for the drawing of figures, yet he showed his art effectually in the Sacrifice of Isaac, for there he painted an ass foreshortened in such a manner that it seems to turn to either side, which is held something very beautiful. After this comes the Birth of Moses, together with all those signs and prodigies that were seen, up to the time when he led his people out of Egypt and fed them for so many years in the desert. To these he added all the stories of the Hebrews up to the time of David and his son Solomon; and in this work Benozzo displayed a spirit truly more than bold, for, whereas so great an enterprise might very well have daunted a legion of painters, he alone wrought the whole and brought it to perfection. Wherefore, having thus acquired very great fame, he won the honour of having the following epigram placed in the middle of the work: [Illustration: BENOZZO BOZZOLI: MADONNA AND CHILD (_Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 60B. Panel_)] QUID SPECTAS VOLUCRES, PISCES, ET MONSTRA FERARUM, ET VIRIDES SILVAS ÆTHEREASQUE DOMOS, ET PUEROS, JUVENES, MATRES, CANOSQUE PARENTES, QUEIS SEMPER VIVUM SPIRAT IN ORE DECUS? NON HÆC TAM VARIIS FINXIT SIMULACRA FIGURIS NATURA, INGENIO F[OE]TIBUS APTA SUO: EST OPUS ARTIFICIS: PINXIT VIVA ORA BENOXUS; O SUPERI, VIVOS FUNDITE IN ORA SONOS. Throughout this whole work there are scattered innumerable portraits from the life; but, since we have not knowledge of them all, I will mention only those that I have recognized as important, and those that I know by means of some record. In the scene of the Queen of Sheba going to visit Solomon there is the portrait of Marsilio Ficino among certain prelates, with those of Argiropolo, a very learned Greek, and of Batista Platina, whom he had previously portrayed in Rome; while he himself is on horseback, in the form of an old man shaven and wearing a black cap, in the fold of which there is a white paper, perchance as a sign, or because he intended to write his own name thereon. In the same city of Pisa, for the Nuns of S. Benedetto a Ripa d'Arno, he painted all the stories of the life of that Saint; and in the building of the Company of the Florentines, which then stood where the Monastery of S. Vito now is, he wrought the panel and many other pictures. In the Duomo, behind the chair of the Archbishop, he painted a S. Thomas Aquinas on a little panel in distemper, with an infinite number of learned men disputing over his works, among whom there is a portrait of Pope Sixtus IV, together with a number of Cardinals and many Chiefs and Generals of various Orders. This is the best and most highly finished work that Benozzo ever made. In S. Caterina, a seat of the Preaching Friars in the same city, he executed two panels in distemper, which are known very well by the manner; and he also painted another in the Church of S. Niccola, with two in S. Croce without Pisa. In his youth, Benozzo also painted the altar of S. Bastiano in the Pieve of San Gimignano, opposite to the principal chapel; and in the Hall of the Council there are some figures, partly by his hand, and partly old works restored by him. For the Monks of Monte Oliveto, in the same territory, he painted a Crucifix and other pictures; but the best work that he made in that place was in the principal chapel of S. Agostino, where he painted stories of S. Augustine in fresco, from his conversion to his death; of the whole of which work I have the design by his hand in my book, together with many drawings of the aforesaid scenes in the Campo Santo of Pisa. In Volterra, likewise, he executed certain works, of which there is no need to make mention. Now, while Benozzo was working in Rome, there was another painter there called Melozzo, who came from Forlì; and many who know no more than this, having found the name of Melozzo written and having compared the dates, have believed that Melozzo stands for Benozzo; but they are mistaken, for the said painter was one who lived at the same time and was a very zealous student of the problems of art, devoting particular diligence and study to the making of foreshortenings, as may be seen in S. Apostolo at Rome, in the tribune of the high-altar, where, in a frieze drawn in perspective, as an ornament for that work, there are some figures picking grapes, with a cask, which show no little of the good. But this is seen more clearly in the Ascension of Jesus Christ, in the midst of a choir of angels who are leading him up to Heaven, wherein the figure of Christ is so well foreshortened that it seems to be piercing the ceiling, and the same is true of the angels, who are circling with various movements through the spacious sky. The Apostles, likewise, who are on the earth below, are so well foreshortened in their various attitudes that the work brought him much praise, as it still does, from the craftsmen, who have learnt much from his labours. He was also a great master of perspective, as is demonstrated by the buildings painted in this work, which he executed at the commission of Cardinal Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, by whom he was richly rewarded. [Illustration: THE DEATH OF S. AUGUSTINE (_After the fresco by =Benozzo Gozzoli=. San Gimigano: S. Agostino_) Brogi] But to return to Benozzo; wasted away at last by length of years and by his labours, he went to his true rest, in the city of Pisa, at the age of seventy-eight, while dwelling in a little house that he had bought in Carraia di San Francesco during his long sojourn there. This house he left at his death to his daughter; and, mourned by the whole city, he was honourably buried in the Campo Santo, with the following epitaph, which is still to be read there: HIC TUMULUS EST BENOTII FLORENTINI, QUI PROXIME HAS PINXIT HISTORIAS. HUNC SIBI PISANOR. DONAVIT HUMANITAS, MCCCCLXXVIII. Benozzo ever lived the well-ordered life of a true Christian, spending all his years in honourable labour. For this and for his good manner and qualities he was long looked upon with favour in that city. The disciples whom he left behind him were Zanobi Macchiavelli, a Florentine, and others of whom there is no need to make further record. FOOTNOTES: [15] In the heading to the Life Vasari calls him simply Benozzo. FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO AND LORENZO VECCHIETTO [Illustration: FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO: S. DOROTHY (_London: National Gallery_, 1682. _Panel_)] LIVES OF FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT OF SIENA AND LORENZO VECCHIETTO SCULPTOR AND PAINTER OF SIENA Francesco di Giorgio of Siena, who was an excellent sculptor and architect, made the two bronze angels that are on the high-altar of the Duomo in that city. These were truly very beautiful pieces of casting, and he finished them afterwards by himself with the greatest diligence that it is possible to imagine. This he could do very conveniently, for he was endowed with good means as well as with a rare intelligence; wherefore he would work when he felt inclined, not through greed of gain, but for his own pleasure and in order to leave some honourable memorial behind him. He also gave attention to painting and executed some pictures, but these did not equal his sculptures. He had very good judgment in architecture, and proved that he had a very good knowledge of that profession; and to this ample testimony is borne by the palace that he built for Duke Federigo Feltro at Urbino, which is commodiously arranged and beautifully planned, while the bizarre staircases are well conceived and more pleasing than any others that had been made up to his time. The halls are large and magnificent, and the apartments are conveniently distributed and handsome beyond belief. In a word, the whole of that palace is as beautiful and as well built as any other that has been erected down to our own day. Francesco was a very able engineer, particularly in connection with military engines, as he showed in a frieze that he painted with his own hand in the said palace at Urbino, which is all full of rare things of that kind for the purposes of war. He also filled some books with designs of such instruments; and the Lord Duke Cosimo de' Medici has the best of these among his greatest treasures. The same man was so zealous a student of the warlike machines and instruments of the ancients, and spent so much time in investigating the plans of the ancient amphitheatres and other things of that kind, that he was thereby prevented from giving equal attention to sculpture; but these studies brought him and still bring him no less honour than sculpture could have gained for him. For all these reasons he was so dear to the said Duke Federigo, whose portrait he made both on medals and in painting, that when he returned to his native city of Siena he found his honours were equal to his profits. For Pope Pius II he made all the designs and models of the Palace and Vescovado of Pienza, the native place of the said Pope, which was raised by him to the position of a city, and called Pienza after himself, in place of its former name of Corsignano. These buildings were as magnificent and handsome as they could be for that place; and he did the same for the general form and the fortifications of the said city, together with the palace and loggia built for the same Pontiff. Wherefore he ever lived in honour, and was rewarded with the supreme magistracy of the Signoria in his native city; but finally, having reached the age of forty-seven, he died. His works date about 1480. He left behind him his companion and very dear friend, Jacopo Cozzerello, who devoted himself to sculpture and architecture, making some figures of wood in Siena, and a work of architecture without the Porta a Tufi--namely, S. Maria Maddalena, which remained unfinished by reason of his death. To him we are also indebted for the portrait of the aforesaid Francesco, which he made with his own hand; to which Francesco much gratitude is due for his having facilitated the art of architecture, and for his having rendered to it greater services than any other man had done from the time of Filippo di Ser Brunellesco to his own. [Illustration: THE RISEN CHRIST (_After the bronze by =Lorenzo Vecchietto=. Siena: S. Maria della Scala_) _Alinari_] A Sienese and also a much extolled sculptor was Lorenzo, the son of Piero Vecchietti who, having first been a highly esteemed goldsmith, finally devoted himself to sculpture and to casting in bronze; which arts he studied so zealously that he became excellent in them, and was commissioned to make a tabernacle in bronze for the high-altar of the Duomo in his native city of Siena, together with the marble ornaments that are still seen therein. This casting, which is admirable, acquired very great fame and repute for him by reason of the proportion and grace that it shows in all its parts; and whosoever observes this work well can see that the design is good, and that the craftsman was a man of judgment and of practised ability. For the Chapel of the Painters of Siena, in the great Hospital of the Scala, the same man made a beautiful metal casting of a nude Christ, of the size of life and holding the Cross in His hand; which work was finished with a love and diligence worthy of the beautiful success of the casting. In the pilgrim's hall in the same place there is a scene painted in colours by Lorenzo. Over the door of S. Giovanni he painted an arch with figures wrought in fresco; and in like manner, since the baptismal font was not finished, he wrought for it certain little figures in bronze, besides finishing, also in bronze, a scene formerly begun by Donatello. In this place two scenes in bronze had been already wrought by Jacopo della Fonte, whose manner Lorenzo ever imitated as closely as he was able. This Lorenzo brought the said baptismal font to perfect completion, adding to it some bronze figures, formerly cast by Donato but entirely finished by himself, which are held to be very beautiful. For the Loggia of the Ufficiali[16] in Banchi Lorenzo made two life-size figures in marble of S. Peter and S. Paul, wrought with consummate grace and executed with fine mastery. He disposed the works that he made in such a manner that he deserves as much praise for them after death as he did when alive. He was a melancholic and solitary person, ever lost in contemplation; which was perchance the reason that he did not live longer, for he passed to the other life at the age of fifty-eight. His works date about the year 1482. FOOTNOTES: [16] The officials of the Mercanzia. GALASSO FERRARESE LIFE OF GALASSO FERRARESE[17] [_GALASSO GALASSI_] PAINTER When strangers come to do work in a city in which there are no craftsmen of excellence, there is always some man whose intelligence is afterwards stirred to strive to learn that same art, and to bring it about that from that time onwards there should be no need for strangers to come and embellish his city and carry away her wealth, which he now labours to deserve by his own ability, seeking to acquire for himself those riches that seemed to him too splendid to be given to foreigners. This was made clearly manifest by Galasso Ferrarese, who, seeing Piero dal Borgo a San Sepolcro rewarded by the Duke of Ferrara for the works that he executed, and also honourably received in Ferrara, was incited so strongly by such an example, after Piero's departure, to devote himself to painting, that he acquired the name of a good and excellent master in Ferrara. Besides this, he was held in all the greater favour in that place for having gone to Venice and there learnt the method of painting in oil, which he brought to his native place, for he afterwards made an infinity of figures in that manner, which are scattered about in many churches throughout Ferrara. Next, having gone to Bologna, whither he was summoned by certain Dominican friars, he painted in oil a chapel in S. Domenico; and so his fame increased, together with his credit. After this he painted many pictures in fresco in S. Maria del Monte, a seat of the Black Friars without Bologna, beyond the Porta di S. Mammolo; and the whole church of the Casa di Mezzo, on the same road, was likewise painted by his hand with works in fresco, in which he depicted the stories of the Old Testament. His life was ever most praiseworthy, and he showed himself very courteous and agreeable; which arose from his being used to live and dwell more out of his native place than in it. It is true, indeed, that through his being somewhat irregular in his way of living, his life did not last long; for he left it at the age of about fifty, to go to that life which has no end. After his death he was honoured by a friend with the following epitaph: GALASSUS FERRARIENSIS. SUM TANTO STUDIO NATURAM IMITATUS ET ARTE DUM PINGO RERUM QUÆ CREAT ILLA PARENS; HÆC UT SÆPE QUIDEM NON PICTA PUTAVERIT A ME, A SE CREDIDERIT SED GENERATA MAGIS. In these same times lived Cosmè, also of Ferrara. Works by his hand that are to be seen are a chapel in S. Domenico in the said city, and two folding-doors that close the organ in the Duomo. This man was better as a draughtsman than as a painter; indeed, from what I have been able to gather, he does not seem to have painted much. [Illustration: THE MADONNA ENTHRONED (_After the tempera panel by =Cosmè= [Cosimo Tura]. Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 86_) _Hanfstaengl_] FOOTNOTES: [17] This Life appears only in Vasari's first edition. ANTONIO AND BERNARDO ROSSELLINO LIVES OF ANTONIO ROSSELLINO, SCULPTOR OF FLORENCE [_ROSSELLINO DAL PROCONSOLO_] AND BERNARDO, HIS BROTHER It has ever been a truly laudable and virtuous thing to be modest and to be adorned with that gentleness and those rare qualities that are easily recognized in the honourable actions of the sculptor Antonio Rossellino, who put so much grace into his art that he was esteemed by all who knew him as something much more than man, and adored almost as a saint, for those supreme virtues that were united to his talent. Antonio was called Rossellino dal Proconsolo, because he ever had his shop in a part of Florence called by that name. He showed such sweetness and delicacy in his works, with a finish and a refinement so perfect, that his manner may be rightly called the true one and truly modern. For the Palace of the Medici he made the marble fountain that is in the second court; in which fountain are certain children opening the mouths of dolphins that pour out water; and the whole is finished with consummate grace and with a most diligent manner. In the Church of S. Croce, near the holy-water basin, he made a tomb for Francesco Nori, with a Madonna in low-relief above it; and another Madonna in the house of the Tornabuoni, together with many other things sent to various foreign parts, such as a tomb of marble for Lyons in France. At S. Miniato al Monte, a monastery of White Friars without the walls of Florence, he was commissioned to make the tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal, which was executed by him so marvellously and with such great diligence and art, that no craftsman can ever expect to be able to see any work likely to surpass it in any respect whatsoever with regard to finish or grace. And in truth, if one examines it, it appears not merely difficult but impossible for it to have been executed so well; for certain angels in the work reveal such grace, beauty, and art in their expressions and their draperies, that they appear not merely made of marble but absolutely alive. One of these is holding the crown of chastity of that Cardinal, who is said to have died celibate; the other bears the palm of victory, which he had won from the world. Among the many most masterly things that are there, one is an arch of grey-stone supporting a looped-back curtain of marble, which is so highly-finished that, what with the white of the marble and the grey of the stone, it appears more like real cloth than like marble. On the sarcophagus are some truly very beautiful boys and the dead man himself, with a Madonna, very well wrought, in a medallion. The sarcophagus has the shape of that one made of porphyry which is in the Piazza della Ritonda in Rome. This tomb of the Cardinal was erected in 1459; and its form, with the architecture of the chapel, gave so much satisfaction to the Duke of Malfi, nephew of Pope Pius II, that he had another made in Naples by the hand of the same master for his wife, similar to the other in every respect save in the figure of the dead. For this, moreover, Antonio made a panel containing the Nativity of Christ and the Manger, with a choir of angels over the hut, dancing and singing with open mouths, in such a manner, that he truly seems to have given them all possible movement and expression short of breath itself, and that with so much grace and so high a finish, that iron tools and man's intelligence could effect nothing more in marble. Wherefore his works have been much esteemed by Michelagnolo and by all the rest of the supremely excellent craftsmen. In the Pieve of Empoli he made a S. Sebastian of marble, which is held to be a very beautiful work; and of this we have a drawing by his hand in our book, together with others of all the architecture and the figures in the said chapel in S. Miniato al Monte, and likewise his own portrait. Antonio finally died in Florence at the age of forty-six, leaving a brother called Bernardo, an architect and sculptor, who made a marble tomb in S. Croce for Messer Lionardo Bruni of Arezzo, who wrote the History of Florence and was a very learned man as all the world knows. This Bernardo was much esteemed for his knowledge of architecture by Pope Nicholas V, who loved him dearly and made use of him in very many works that he carried out in his pontificate, of which he would have executed even more if death had not intervened to hinder the works that he had in mind. He caused him, therefore, according to the account of Giannozzo Manetti, to reconstruct the Piazza of Fabriano, in the year when he spent some months there by reason of the plague; and whereas it was narrow and badly designed, he enlarged it and brought it to a good shape, surrounding it with a row of shops, which were useful, very commodious, and very beautiful. After this he restored and founded anew the Church of S. Francesco in the same district, which was going to ruin. At Gualdo he rebuilt the Church of S. Benedetto; almost anew, it may be said, for he added to it good and beautiful buildings. At Assisi he made new and stout foundations and a new roof for the Church of S. Francesco, which was ruined in certain parts and threatened to go to ruin in certain others. At Civitavecchia he built many beautiful and magnificent edifices. At Cività Castellana he rebuilt more than a third part of the walls in a good form. At Narni he rebuilt the fortress, enlarging it with good and beautiful walls. At Orvieto he made a great fortress with a most beautiful palace--a work of great cost and no less magnificence. At Spoleto, likewise, he enlarged and strengthened the fortress, making within it dwellings so beautiful, so commodious, and so well conceived, that nothing better could be seen. He restored the baths of Viterbo at great expense and in a truly royal spirit, making certain dwellings there that would have been worthy not merely of the invalids who went to bathe there every day, but of the greatest of Princes. All these works were executed by the said Pontiff without the city of Rome, from the designs of Bernardo. In Rome he restored, and in many places renewed, the walls of the city, which were for the greater part in ruins; adding to them certain towers, and enclosing within these some new fortifications that he built without the Castle of S. Angelo, with many apartments and decorations that he made within. The said Pontiff also had a project in his mind, of which he brought the greater part nearly to completion, of restoring or rebuilding, according as it might be necessary, the forty Churches of the Stations formerly instituted by the Saint, Pope Gregory I, who received the surname of Great. Thus he restored S. Maria Trastevere, S. Prassedia, S. Teodoro, S. Pietro in Vincula, and many other minor churches. But it was with much greater zeal, adornment, and diligence that he did this for six of the seven greater and principal churches--namely, S. Giovanni Laterano, S. Maria Maggiore, S. Stefano in Celio Monte, S. Apostolo, S. Paolo, and S. Lorenzo extra muros. I say nothing of S. Pietro, for of this he made an undertaking by itself. The same Pope was minded to make the whole of the Vatican into a separate city, in the form of a fortress; and for this he was designing three roads that should lead to S. Pietro, situated, I believe, where the Borgo Vecchio and the Borgo Nuovo now are; and on both sides of these roads he meant to build loggie, with very commodious shops, keeping the nobler and richer trades separate from the humbler, and grouping each in a street by itself. He had already built the Great Round Tower, which is still called the Torrione di Niccola. Over these shops and loggie were to be erected magnificent and commodious houses, built in a very beautiful and very practical style of architecture, and designed in such a manner as to be sheltered and protected from all the pestiferous winds of Rome, and freed from all the inconveniences of water and garbage likely to generate unhealthy exhalations. All this the said Pontiff would have finished if he had been granted a little longer life, for he had a great and resolute spirit, and an understanding so profound, that he gave as much guidance and direction to the craftsmen as they gave to him. When this is so, and when the patron has knowledge of his own and capacity enough to take an immediate resolution, great enterprises can be easily brought to completion; whereas an irresolute and incapable man, wavering between yes and no in a sea of conflicting designs and opinions, very often lets time slip past unprofitably without doing anything. But of this design of Nicholas there is no need to say any more, since it was not carried into effect. [Illustration: TOMB OF CARDINAL JACOPO OF PORTUGAL (_After =Antonio Rossellino=. Florence: S. Miniato_) _Brogi_] Besides this, he wished to build the Papal Palace with so much magnificence and grandeur, and with so many conveniences and such loveliness, that it might be in all respects the greatest and most beautiful edifice in Christendom; and he intended that it should not only serve for the person of the Supreme Pontiff, the Chief of all Christians, and for the sacred college of Cardinals, who, being his counsellors and assistants, had always to be about him, but also that it should provide accommodation for the transaction of all the business, resolutions, and judicial affairs of the Court; so that the grouping together of all the offices and courts would have produced great magnificence, and, if such a word may be used in such a context, an effect of incredible pomp. What is infinitely more, it was meant for the reception of all Emperors, Kings, Dukes, and other Christian Princes who might, either on affairs of their own or out of devotion, visit that most holy apostolic seat. It is incredible, but he proposed to make there a theatre for the crowning of the Pontiffs, with gardens, loggie, aqueducts, fountains, chapels, libraries, and a most beautiful building set apart for the Conclave. In short, this edifice--I know not whether I should call it palace, or castle, or city--would have been the most superb work that had ever been made, so far as is known, from the Creation of the world to our own day. What great glory it would have been for the Holy Roman Church to see the Supreme Pontiff, her Chief, gather together, as into the most famous and most holy of monasteries, all those ministers of God who dwell in the city of Rome, to live there, as it were in a new earthly Paradise, a celestial, angelic, and most holy life, giving an example to all Christendom, and awakening the minds of the infidels to the true worship of God and of the Blessed Jesus Christ! But this great work remained unfinished--nay, scarcely begun--by reason of the death of that Pontiff; and the little that was carried out is known by his arms, or the device that he used as his arms, namely, two keys crossed on a field of red. The fifth of the five works that the same Pope intended to execute was the Church of S. Pietro, which he had proposed to make so vast, so rich, and so ornate, that it is better to be silent than to attempt to speak of it, because I could not describe even the least part of it, and the rather as the model was afterwards destroyed, and others have been made by other architects. If any man wishes to gain a full knowledge of the grand conception of Pope Nicholas V in this matter, let him read what Giannozzo Manetti, a noble and learned citizen of Florence, has written with the most minute detail in the Life of the said Pontiff, who availed himself in all the aforesaid designs, as has been said, as well as in his others, of the intelligence and great industry of Bernardo Rossellino. Antonio, brother of Bernardo (to return at length to the point whence, with so fair an occasion, I digressed), wrought his sculptures about the year 1490; and since the more men's works display diligence and difficulties the more they are admired, and these two characteristics are particularly noticeable in Antonio's works, he deserves fame and honour as a most illustrious example from which modern sculptors have been able to learn how those statues should be made that are to secure the greatest praise and fame by reason of their difficulties. For after Donatello he did most towards adding a certain finish and refinement to the art of sculpture, seeking to give such depth and roundness to his figures that they appear wholly round and finished, a quality which had not been seen to such perfection in sculpture up to that time; and since he first introduced it, in the ages after his and in our own it appears a marvel. [Illustration: TOMB OF LEONARDO BRUNI (_After =Bernardo Rossellino=. Florence: S. Croce_) _Brogi_] DESIDERIO DA SETTIGNANO LIFE OF DESIDERIO DA SETTIGNANO SCULPTOR Very great is the obligation that is owed to Heaven and to Nature by those who bring their works to birth without effort and with a certain grace which others cannot give to their creations, either by study or by imitation. It is a truly celestial gift, which pours down on these works in such a manner, that they ever have about them a loveliness and a charm which attract not only those who are versed in that calling, but also many others who do not belong to the profession. And this springs from facility in the production of the good, which presents no crudeness or harshness to the eye, such as is often shown by works wrought with labour and difficulty; and this grace and simplicity, which give universal pleasure and are recognized by all, are seen in all the works made by Desiderio. Of this man, some say that he came from Settignano, a place two miles distant from Florence, while certain others hold him to be a Florentine; but this matters nothing, the distance between the one place and the other being so small. He was an imitator of the manner of Donato, although he had a natural gift of imparting very great grace and loveliness to his heads; and in the expressions of his women and children there is seen a delicate, sweet, and charming manner, produced as much by nature, which had inclined him to this, as by the zeal with which he had practised his intelligence in the art. In his youth he wrought the base of Donato's David, which is in the Duke's Palace in Florence, making on it in marble certain very beautiful harpies, and some vine-tendrils in bronze, very graceful and well conceived. On the façade of the house of the Gianfigliazzi he made a large and very beautiful coat of arms, with a lion; besides other works in stone, which are in the same city. For the Chapel of the Brancacci in the Carmine he made an angel of wood; and he finished with marble the Chapel of the Sacrament in S. Lorenzo, carrying it to complete perfection with much diligence. There was in it a child of marble in the round, which was removed and is now set up on the altar at the festivals of the Nativity of Christ, as an admirable work; and in place of this Baccio da Montelupo made another, also of marble, which stands permanently over the Tabernacle of the Sacrament. In S. Maria Novella he made a marble tomb for the Blessed Villana, with certain graceful little angels, and portrayed her there from nature in such a manner that she appears not dead but asleep; and for the Nuns of the Murate he wrought a little Madonna with a lovely and graceful manner, in a tabernacle standing on a column; insomuch that both these works are very highly esteemed and very greatly prized. In S. Pietro Maggiore, also, he made the Tabernacle of the Sacrament in marble with his usual diligence; and although there are no figures in this work, yet it shows a beautiful manner and infinite grace, like his other works. And he portrayed from the life, likewise in marble, the head of Marietta degli Strozzi, who was so beautiful that the work turned out very excellent. In S. Croce he made a tomb for Messer Carlo Marsuppini of Arezzo, which not only amazed the craftsmen and the people of understanding who saw it at that time, but still fills with marvel all who see it at the present day; for on the sarcophagus he wrought some foliage, which, although somewhat stiff and dry, was held--since but few antiquities had been discovered up to that time--to be something very beautiful. Among other parts of the said work are seen certain wings, acting as ornaments for a shell at the foot of the sarcophagus, which seem to be made not of marble but of feathers--difficult things to imitate in marble, seeing that the chisel is not able to counterfeit hair and feathers. There is a large shell of marble, more real than if it were an actual shell. There are also some children and some angels, executed with a beautiful and lively manner; and consummate excellence and art are likewise seen in the figure of the dead, portrayed from nature on the sarcophagus, and in a Madonna in low-relief on a medallion, wrought after the manner of Donato with judgment and most admirable grace; as are many other works that he made in low-relief on marble, some of which are in the guardaroba of the Lord Duke Cosimo, and in particular a medallion with the head of Our Lord Jesus Christ and with that of John the Baptist as a boy. At the foot of the tomb of the said Messer Carlo he laid a large stone in memory of Messer Giorgio, a famous Doctor, and Secretary to the Signoria of Florence, with a very beautiful portrait in low-relief of Messer Giorgio, clad in his Doctor's robes according to the use of those times. [Illustration: TOMB OF CARLO MARSUPPINI (_After =Desiderio da Settignano=. Florence: S. Croce_) _Alinari_] If death had not snatched so prematurely from the world a spirit which worked so nobly, he would have done so much later on by means of experience and study, that he would have outstripped in art all those whom he had surpassed in grace. Death cut the thread of his life at the age of twenty-eight, which caused great grief to those who were looking forward to seeing so great an intellect attain to perfection in old age; and they were left in the deepest dismay at such a loss. He was followed by his relatives and by many friends to the Church of the Servi; and a vast number of epigrams and sonnets continued for a long time to be placed on his tomb, of which I have contented myself with including only the following: COME VIDE NATURA DAR DESIDERIO AI FREDDI MARMI VITA, E POTER LA SCULTURA AGGUAGLIAR SUA BELLEZZA ALMA E INFINITA, SI FERMÒ SBIGOTTITA E DISSE; OMAI SARÀ MIA GLORIA OSCURA. E PIENA D'ALTO SDEGNO TRONCÒ LA VITA A COSÌ BELL' INGEGNO. MA IN VAN; CHE SE COSTUI DIÈ VITA ETERNA AI MARMI, E I MARMI A LUI. The sculptures of Desiderio date about 1485. He left unfinished a figure of S. Mary Magdalene in Penitence, which was afterwards completed by Benedetto da Maiano, and is now in S. Trinita in Florence, on the right hand as one enters the church; and the beauty of this figure is beyond the power of words to express. In our book are certain very beautiful pen-drawings by Desiderio; and his portrait was obtained from some of his relatives in Settignano. MINO DA FIESOLE LIFE OF MINO DA FIESOLE [_MINO DI GIOVANNI_] SCULPTOR When our craftsmen seek to do no more in the works that they execute than to imitate the manner of their masters, or that of some other man of excellence whose method of working pleases them, either in the attitudes of the figures, or in the expressions of the heads, or in the folds of the draperies, and when they study these things only, they may with time and diligence come to make them exactly the same, but they cannot by these means alone attain to perfection in their art, seeing that it is clearly evident that one who ever walks behind rarely comes to the front, since the imitation of nature becomes fixed in the manner of a craftsman who has developed that manner out of long practice. For imitation is a definite art of copying what you represent exactly after the model of the most beautiful things of nature, which you must take pure and free from the manner of your master or that of others, who also reduce to a manner the things that they take from nature. And although it may appear that the imitations made by excellent craftsmen are natural objects, or absolutely similar, it is not possible with all the diligence in the world to make them so similar that they shall be like nature herself, or even, by selecting the best, to compose a body so perfect as to make art excel nature. Now, if this is so, it follows that only objects taken from nature can make pictures and sculptures perfect, and that if a man studies closely only the manner of other craftsmen, and not bodies and objects of nature, it is inevitable that he should make works inferior both to nature and to those of the man whose manner he adopts. Wherefore it has been seen in the case of many of our craftsmen, who have refused to study anything save the works of their masters, leaving nature on one side, that they have failed to gain any real knowledge of them or to surpass their masters, but have done very great injury to their own powers; whereas, if they had studied the manner of their masters and the objects of nature together, they would have produced much greater fruits in their works than they did. This is seen in the works of the sculptor Mino da Fiesole, who, having an intelligence capable of achieving whatsoever he wished, was so captivated by the manner of his master Desiderio da Settignano, by reason of the beautiful grace that he gave to the heads of women, children, and every other kind of figure, which appeared to Mino's judgment to be superior to nature, that he practised and studied it alone, abandoning natural objects and thinking them useless; wherefore he had more grace than solid grounding in his art. It was on the hill of Fiesole, a very ancient city near Florence, that there was born the sculptor Mino di Giovanni, who, having been apprenticed to the craft of stone-cutting under Desiderio da Settignano, a young man excellent in sculpture, showed so much inclination to his master's art, that, while he was labouring at the hewing of stones, he learnt to copy in clay the works that Desiderio had made in marble; and this he did so well that his master, seeing that he was likely to make progress in that art, brought him forward and set him to work on his own figures in marble, in which he sought with very great attention to reproduce the model before him. Nor did he continue long at this before he became passing skilful in that calling; at which Desiderio was greatly pleased, and still more pleased was Mino by the loving-kindness of his master, seeing that Desiderio was ever ready to teach him how to avoid the errors that can be committed in that art. Now, while he was on the way to becoming excellent in his profession, his ill luck would have it that Desiderio should pass to a better life, and this loss was a very great blow to Mino, who departed from Florence, almost in despair, and went to Rome. There, assisting masters who were then executing works in marble, such as tombs of Cardinals, which were placed in S. Pietro, although they have since been thrown to the ground in the building of the new church, he became known as a very experienced and capable master; and he was commissioned by Cardinal Guglielmo Destovilla, who was pleased with his manner, to make the marble altar where lies the body of S. Jerome, in the Church of S. Maria Maggiore, together with scenes in low-relief from his life, which he executed to perfection, with a portrait of that Cardinal. [Illustration: TOMB OF MARGRAVE HUGO (_After =Mino da Fiesole=. Florence: Badia_) _Alinari_] Afterwards, when Pope Paul II, the Venetian, was erecting his Palace of S. Marco, Mino was employed thereon in making certain coats of arms. After the death of that Pope, Mino was commissioned to make his tomb, which he delivered finished and erected in S. Pietro in the space of two years. This tomb was then held to be the richest, both in ornaments and in figures, that had ever been made for any Pontiff; but it was thrown to the ground by Bramante in the demolition of S. Pietro, and remained there buried among the rubbish for some years, until 1547, when certain Venetians had it rebuilt in the old S. Pietro, against a wall near the Chapel of Pope Innocent. And although some believe that this tomb is by the hand of Mino del Reame, yet, notwithstanding that these two masters lived almost at the same time, it is without doubt by the hand of Mino da Fiesole. It is true, indeed, that the said Mino del Reame made some little figures on the base, which can be recognized; if in truth his name was Mino, and not, as some maintain, Dino. But to return to our craftsman; having acquired a good name in Rome by the said tomb, by the sarcophagus that he made for the Minerva, on which he placed a marble statue of Francesco Tornabuoni from nature, which is held very beautiful, and by other works, it was not long before he returned to Fiesole with a good sum of money saved, and took a wife. And no long time after this, working for the Nuns of the Murate, he made a marble tabernacle in half-relief to contain the Sacrament, which was brought to perfection by him with all the diligence in his power. This he had not yet fixed into its place, when the Nuns of S. Ambrogio--who desired to have an ornament made, similar in design but richer in adornment, to contain that most holy relic, the Miracle of the Sacrament--hearing of the ability of Mino, commissioned him to execute that work, which he finished with so great diligence that those nuns, being satisfied with him, gave him all that he asked as the price of the work. And a little after this he undertook, at the instance of Messer Dietisalvi Neroni, to make a little panel with figures of Our Lady with the Child in her arms, and S. Laurence on one side and S. Leonard on the other, in half-relief, which was intended for the priests or chapter of S. Lorenzo; but it has remained in the Sacristy of the Badia of Florence. For those monks he made a marble medallion containing a Madonna in relief with the Child in her arms, which they placed over the principal door of entrance into the church; and since it gave great satisfaction to all, he received a commission for a tomb for the Magnificent Chevalier, Messer Bernardo de' Giugni, who, having been an honourable man of high repute, rightly received this memorial from his brothers. On this tomb, besides the sarcophagus and the portrait from nature of the dead man, Mino executed a figure of Justice, which resembles the manner of Desiderio closely, save only that its draperies are a little too full of detail in the carving. This work induced the Abbot and Monks of the Badia of Florence, in which place the said tomb was erected, to entrust Mino with the making of one for Count Ugo, son of the Marquis Uberto of Magdeburg, who bequeathed great wealth and many privileges to that abbey. And so, desiring to honour him as much as they could, they caused Mino to make a tomb of Carrara marble, which was the most beautiful work that Mino ever made; for in it there are some boys, upholding the arms of that Count, who are standing in very spirited attitudes, with a childish grace; and besides the figure of the dead Count, with his likeness, which he made on the sarcophagus, in the middle of the wall above the bier there is a figure of Charity, with certain children, wrought with much diligence and very well in harmony with the whole. The same is seen in a Madonna with the Child in her arms, in a lunette, which Mino made as much like the manner of Desiderio as he could; and if he had assisted his methods of work by studying from the life, there is no doubt that he would have made very great progress in his art. This tomb, with all its expenses, cost 1,600 lire, and he finished it in 1481, thereby acquiring much honour, and obtaining a commission to make a tomb for Lionardo Salutati, Bishop of Fiesole, in the Vescovado of that place, in a chapel near the principal chapel, on the right hand as one goes up; on which tomb he portrayed him in his episcopal robes, as lifelike as possible. For the same Bishop he made a head of Christ in marble, life-size and very well wrought, which was left among other bequests to the Hospital of the Innocenti; and at the present day the Very Reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, Prior of that hospital, holds it among his most precious examples of these arts, in which he takes a delight beyond my power to express in words. In the Pieve of Prato Mino made a pulpit entirely of marble, in which there are stories of Our Lady, executed with much diligence and put together so well, that the work appears all of one piece. This pulpit stands over one corner of the choir, almost in the middle of the church, above certain ornaments made under the direction of the same Mino. He also made portraits of Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici and his wife, marvellously lifelike and true to nature. These two heads stood for many years over two doors in Piero's apartment in the house of the Medici, each in a lunette; afterwards they were removed, with the portraits of many other illustrious men of that house, to the guardaroba of the Lord Duke Cosimo. Mino also made a Madonna in marble, which is now in the Audience Chamber of the Guild of the Masters in Wood and Stone; and to Perugia, for Messer Baglione Ribi, he sent a marble panel, which was placed in the Chapel of the Sacrament in S. Pietro, the work being in the form of a tabernacle, with S. John on one side and S. Jerome on the other--good figures in half-relief. The Tabernacle of the Sacrament in the Duomo of Volterra is likewise by his hand, with the two angels standing one on either side of it, so well and so diligently executed that this work is deservedly praised by all craftsmen. Finally, attempting one day to move certain stones, and not having the needful assistance at hand, Mino fatigued himself so greatly that he was seized by pleurisy and died of it; and he was honourably buried by his friends and relatives in the Canon's house at Fiesole in the year 1486. The portrait of Mino is in our book of drawings, but I do not know by whose hand; it was given to me together with some drawings made with blacklead by Mino himself, which have no little beauty. LORENZO COSTA LIFE OF LORENZO COSTA PAINTER OF FERRARA Although men have ever practised the arts of design more in Tuscany than in any other province of Italy, and perhaps of Europe, yet it is none the less true that in every age there has arisen in the other provinces some genius who has proved himself rare and excellent in the same professions, as has been shown up to the present in many of the Lives, and will be demonstrated even more in those that are to follow. It is true, indeed, that where there are no studies, and where men are not disposed by custom to learn, they are not able to advance so rapidly or to become so excellent as they do in those places where craftsmen are for ever practising and studying in competition. But as soon as one or two make a beginning, it seems always to come to pass that many others--such is the force of excellence--strive to follow them, with honour both for themselves and for their countries. Lorenzo Costa of Ferrara, being inclined by nature to the art of painting, and hearing that Fra Filippo, Benozzo, and others were celebrated and highly esteemed in Tuscany, betook himself to Florence in order to see their works; and on his arrival, finding that their manner pleased him greatly, he stayed there many months, striving to imitate them to the best of his power, particularly in drawing from nature. In this he succeeded so happily, that, after returning to his own country, although his manner was a little dry and hard, he made many praiseworthy works there; as may be seen from the choir of the Church of S. Domenico in Ferrara, wrought entirely by his hand, from which it is evident that he used great diligence in his art and put much labour into his works. In the guardaroba of the Lord Duke of Ferrara there are seen portraits from life in many pictures by his hand, which are very well wrought and very lifelike. In the houses of noblemen, likewise, there are works by his hand which are held in great veneration. In the Church of S. Domenico at Ravenna, in the Chapel of S. Sebastiano, he painted the panel in oil and certain scenes in fresco, which were much extolled. Being next summoned to Bologna, he painted a panel in the Chapel of the Mariscotti in S. Petronio, representing S. Sebastian bound to the column and pierced with arrows, with many other figures, which was the best work in distemper that had been made up to that time in that city. By his hand, also, was the panel of S. Jerome in the Chapel of the Castelli, and likewise that of S. Vincent, wrought in like manner in distemper, which is in the Chapel of the Griffoni; the predella of this he caused to be painted by a pupil of his, who acquitted himself much better than the master did in the panel, as will be told in the proper place. In the same city, and in the same church, Lorenzo painted a panel for the Chapel of the Rossi, with Our Lady, S. James, S. George, S. Sebastian, and S. Jerome; which work is better and sweeter in manner than any other that he ever made. Afterwards, having entered the service of Signor Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, Lorenzo painted many scenes for him, partly in gouache and partly in oil, in an apartment in the Palace of S. Sebastiano. In one is the Marchioness Isabella, portrayed from life, accompanied by many ladies who are singing various parts and making a sweet harmony. In another is the Goddess Latona, who is transforming certain peasants into frogs, according to the fable. In the third is the Marquis Francesco, led by Hercules along the path of virtue upon the summit of a mountain consecrated to Eternity. In another picture the same Marquis is seen triumphant on a pedestal, with a staff in his hand; and round him are many nobles and retainers with standards in their hands, all rejoicing and full of jubilation at his greatness, among whom there is an infinite number of portraits from the life. And in the great hall, where the triumphal processions by the hand of Mantegna now are, he painted two pictures, one at each end. In the first, which is in gouache, are many naked figures lighting fires and making sacrifices to Hercules; and in this is a portrait from life of the Marquis, with his three sons, Federigo, Ercole, and Ferrante, who afterwards became very great and very illustrious lords; and there are likewise some portraits of great ladies. In the other, which was painted in oil many years after the first, and which was one of the last works that Lorenzo executed, is the Marquis Federigo, grown to man's estate, with a staff in his hand, as General of Holy Church under Leo X; and round him are many lords portrayed by Costa from the life. [Illustration: THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN (_After the panel by =Lorenzo Costa=. Bologna: S. Giovanni in Monte_) _Alinari_] In Bologna, in the Palace of Messer Giovanni Bentivogli, the same man painted certain rooms in competition with many other masters; but of these, since they were thrown to the ground in the destruction of that palace, no further mention will be made. But I will not forbear to say that, of the works that he executed for the Bentivogli, only one remained standing--namely, the chapel that he painted for Messer Giovanni in S. Jacopo, wherein he wrought two scenes of triumphal processions, which are held very beautiful, with many portraits. In the year 1497, also, for Jacopo Chedini, he painted a panel for a chapel in S. Giovanni in Monte, in which he wished to be buried after death; in this he made a Madonna, S. John the Evangelist, S. Augustine, and other saints. On a panel in S. Francesco he painted a Nativity, S. James, and S. Anthony of Padua. In S. Pietro he made a most beautiful beginning in a chapel for Domenico Garganelli, a gentleman of Bologna; but, whatever may have been the reason, after making some figures on the ceiling, he left it unfinished, nay, scarcely begun. In Mantua, besides the works that he executed there for the Marquis, of which we have spoken above, he painted a Madonna on a panel for S. Silvestro; and on one side, S. Sylvester recommending the people of that city to her, and, on the other, S. Sebastian, S. Paul, S. Elizabeth, and S. Jerome. It is reported that the said panel was placed in that church after the death of Costa, who, having finished his life in Mantua, in which city his descendants have lived ever since, wished to have a burial-place in that church both for himself and for his successors. The same man made many other pictures, of which nothing more will be said, for it is enough to have recorded the best. His portrait I received in Mantua from Fermo Ghisoni, an excellent painter, who assured me that it was by the hand of Costa, who was a passing good draughtsman, as may be seen from a pen-drawing on parchment in our book, wherein is the Judgment of Solomon, with a S. Jerome in chiaroscuro, which are both very well wrought. Disciples of Lorenzo were Ercole da Ferrara, his compatriot, whose Life will be written below, and Lodovico Malino, likewise of Ferrara, by whom there are many works in his native city and in other places; but the best that he made was a panel which is in the Church of S. Francesco in Bologna, in a chapel near the principal door, representing Jesus Christ at the age of twelve disputing with the Doctors in the Temple. The elder Dosso of Ferrara, of whose works mention will be made in the proper place, also learnt his first principles from Costa. And this is as much as I have been able to gather about the life and works of Lorenzo Costa of Ferrara. ERCOLE FERRARESE LIFE OF ERCOLE FERRARESE [_ERCOLE DA FERRARA_] PAINTER Although, long before Lorenzo Costa died, his disciple Ercole Ferrarese was in very good repute and was invited to work in many places, he would never abandon his master (a thing which is rarely wont to happen), and was content to work with him for meagre gains and praise, rather than labour by himself for greater profit and credit. For this gratitude, in view of its rarity among the men of to-day, all the more praise is due to Ercole, who, knowing himself to be indebted to Lorenzo, put aside all thought of his own interest in favour of his master's wishes, and was like a brother or a son to him up to the end of his life. Ercole, then, who was a better draughtsman than Costa, painted, below the panel executed by Lorenzo in the Chapel of S. Vincenzio in S. Petronio, certain scenes in distemper with little figures, so well and with so beautiful and good a manner, that it is scarcely possible to see anything better, or to imagine the labour and diligence that Ercole put into the work: and thus the predella is a much better painting than the panel. Both were wrought at one and the same time during the life of Costa. After his master's death, Ercole was employed by Domenico Garganelli to finish that chapel in S. Petronio which Lorenzo, as has been said above, had begun, completing only a small part. Ercole, to whom the said Domenico was giving four ducats a month for this, with his own expenses and those of a boy, and all the colours that were to be used for the painting, set himself to work and finished the whole in such a manner, that he surpassed his master by a long way both in drawing and colouring as well as in invention. In the first part, or rather, wall, is the Crucifixion of Christ, wrought with much judgment: for besides the Christ, who is seen there already dead, he represented very well the tumult of the Jews who have come to see the Messiah on the Cross, among whom there is a marvellous variety of heads, whereby it is seen that Ercole sought with very great pains to make them so different one from another that they should not resemble each other in any respect. There are also some figures bursting into tears of sorrow, which demonstrate clearly enough how much he sought to imitate reality. There is the swooning of the Madonna, which is most moving; but much more so are the Maries, who are facing her, for they are seen full of compassion and with an aspect so heavy with sorrow, that it is almost impossible to imagine it, at seeing that which mankind holds most dear dead before their eyes, and themselves in danger of losing the second. Among other notable things in this work is Longinus on horseback, riding a lean beast, which is foreshortened and in very strong relief; and in him we see the impiety that made him pierce the side of Christ, and the penitence and conversion that followed from his enlightenment. He gave strange attitudes, likewise, to the figures of certain soldiers who are playing for the raiment of Christ, with bizarre expressions of countenance and fanciful garments. Well wrought, too, with beautiful invention, are the Thieves on the Cross. And since Ercole took much delight in making foreshortenings, which, if well conceived, are very beautiful, he made in that work a soldier on a horse, which, rearing its fore-legs on high, stands out in such a manner that it appears to be in relief; and as the wind is bending a banner that the soldier holds in his hand, he is making a most beautiful effort to hold it up. He also made a S. John, flying away wrapped in a sheet. In like manner, the soldiers that are in this work are very well wrought, with more natural and appropriate movements than had been seen in any other figures up to that time; and all these attitudes and gestures, which could scarcely be better done, show that Ercole had a very great intelligence and took great pains with his art. On the wall opposite to this one the same man painted the Passing of Our Lady, who is surrounded by the Apostles in very beautiful attitudes, among whom are six figures portrayed so well from life, that those who knew them declare that these are most vivid likenesses. In the same work he also made his own portrait, and that of Domenico Garganelli, the owner of the chapel, who, when it was finished, moved by the love that he bore to Ercole and by the praises that he heard given to the work, bestowed upon him a thousand lire in Bolognese currency. It is said that Ercole spent twelve years in labouring at this work; seven in executing it in fresco, and five in retouching it on the dry. It is true, indeed, that during this time he painted some other works; and in particular, so far as is known, the predella of the high-altar of S. Giovanni in Monte, in which he wrought three scenes of the Passion of Christ. [Illustration: THE ISRAELITES GATHERING MANNA (_After the panel by =Ercole Ferrarese=. London: National Gallery, 1217_) _Mansell_] Ercole was eccentric in character, particularly in his custom of refusing to let any man, whether painter or not, see him at work; wherefore he was greatly hated in Bologna by the painters of that city, who have ever borne an envious hatred to the strangers who have been summoned to work there; nay, they sometimes show the same among themselves out of rivalry with each other, although this may be said to be the particular vice of the professors of these our arts in every place. Certain Bolognese painters, then, having come to an agreement one day with a carpenter, shut themselves up by his help in the church, close to the chapel where Ercole was working; and when night came, breaking into it by force, they did not content themselves with seeing the work, which should have sufficed them, but carried off all his cartoons, sketches, and designs, and every other thing of value that was there. At this Ercole fell into such disdain that when the work was finished he departed from Bologna, without stopping another day there, taking with him Duca Tagliapietra, a sculptor of much renown, who carved the very beautiful foliage in marble which is in the parapet in front of the chapel wherein Ercole painted the said work, and who afterwards made all the stone windows of the Ducal Palace at Ferrara, which are most beautiful. Ercole, therefore, weary at length of living away from home, remained ever after in company with this man in Ferrara, and made many works in that city. Ercole had an extraordinary love of wine, and his frequent drunkenness did much to shorten his life, which he had enjoyed without any accident up to the age of forty, when he was smitten one day by apoplexy, which made an end of him in a short time. He left a pupil, the painter Guido Bolognese, who, in 1491, as may be seen from the place where he put his name, under the portico of S. Pietro at Bologna, painted a Crucifixion in fresco, with the Maries, the Thieves, horses, and other passing good figures. And desiring very greatly to become esteemed in that city, as his master had been, he studied so zealously and subjected himself to so many hardships that he died at the age of thirty-five. If Guido had set himself to learn his art in his childhood, and not, as he did, at the age of eighteen, he would not only have equalled his master without difficulty, but would even have surpassed him by a great measure. In our book there are drawings by the hands of Ercole and Guido, very well wrought, and executed with grace and in a good manner. JACOPO, GIOVANNI, AND GENTILE BELLINI LIVES OF JACOPO, GIOVANNI, AND GENTILE BELLINI PAINTERS OF VENICE Enterprises that are founded on excellence, although their beginnings often appear humble and mean, keep climbing higher step by step, nor do they ever halt or take rest until they have reached the supreme heights of glory: as could be clearly seen from the poor and humble beginning of the house of the Bellini, and from the rank to which it afterwards rose by means of painting. Jacopo Bellini, a painter of Venice, having been a disciple of Gentile da Fabriano, worked in competition with that Domenico who taught the method of colouring in oil to Andrea dal Castagno; but, although he laboured greatly to become excellent in that art, he did not acquire fame therein until after the departure of Domenico from Venice. Then, finding himself in that city without any competitor to equal him, he kept growing in credit and fame, and became so excellent that he was the greatest and most renowned man in his profession. And to the end that the name which he had acquired in painting might not only be maintained in his house and for his descendants, but might grow greater, there were born to him two sons of good and beautiful intelligence, strongly inclined to the art: one was Giovanni, and the other Gentile, to whom he gave that name in tender memory of Gentile da Fabriano, who had been his master and like a loving father to him. Now, when the said two sons had grown to a certain age, Jacopo himself with all diligence taught them the rudiments of drawing; but no long time passed before both one and the other surpassed his father by a great measure, whereat he rejoiced greatly, ever encouraging them and showing them that he desired them to do as the Tuscans did, who gloried among themselves in making efforts to outstrip each other, according as one after another took up the art: even so should Giovanni vanquish himself, and Gentile should vanquish them both, and so on in succession. The first works that brought fame to Jacopo were the portraits of Giorgio Cornaro and of Caterina, Queen of Cyprus; a panel which he sent to Verona, containing the Passion of Christ, with many figures, among which he portrayed himself from the life; and a picture of the Story of the Cross, which is said to be in the Scuola of S. Giovanni Evangelista. All these works and many others were painted by Jacopo with the aid of his sons; and the last-named picture was painted on canvas, as it has been almost always the custom to do in that city, where they rarely paint, as is done elsewhere, on panels of the wood of that tree that is called by many oppio[18] and by some gattice.[19] This wood, which grows mostly beside rivers or other waters, is very soft, and admirable for painting on, for it holds very firmly when joined together with carpenters' glue. But in Venice they make no panels, and, if they do make a few, they use no other wood than that of the fir, of which that city has a great abundance by reason of the River Adige, which brings a very great quantity of it from Germany, not to mention that no small amount comes from Sclavonia. It is much the custom in Venice, then, to paint on canvas, either because it does not split and does not grow worm-eaten, or because it enables pictures to be made of any size that is desired, or because, as was said elsewhere, they can be sent easily and conveniently wherever they are wanted, with very little expense and labour. Be the reason what it may, Jacopo and Gentile, as was said above, made their first works on canvas. [Illustration: JACOPO BELLINI: THE MADONNA AND CHILD (_Florence: Uffizi, 1562. Panel_)] To the last-named Story of the Cross Gentile afterwards added by himself seven other pictures, or rather, eight, in which he painted the miracle of the Cross of Christ, which the said Scuola preserves as a relic; which miracle was as follows. The said Cross was thrown, I know not by what chance, from the Ponte della Paglía into the Canal, and, by reason of the reverence that many bore to the piece of the Cross of Christ that it contained, they threw themselves into the water to recover it; but it was the will of God that no one should be worthy to succeed in grasping it save the Prior of that Scuola. Gentile, therefore, representing this story, drew in perspective, along the Grand Canal, many houses, the Ponte della Paglía, the Piazza di S. Marco, and a long procession of men and women walking behind the clergy; also many who have leapt into the water, others in the act of leaping, many half immersed, and others in other very beautiful actions and attitudes; and finally he painted the said Prior recovering the Cross. Truly great were the labour and diligence of Gentile in this work, considering the infinite number of people, the many portraits from life, the diminution of the figures in the distance, and particularly the portraits of almost all the men who then belonged to that Scuola, or rather, Confraternity. Last comes the picture of the replacing of the said Cross, wrought with many beautiful conceptions. All these scenes, painted on the aforesaid canvases, acquired a very great name for Gentile. [Illustration: GIOVANNI BELLINI: THE DOGE LEONARDO LOREDANO (_London: National Gallery, 189. Panel_)] Afterwards, Jacopo withdrew to work entirely by himself, as did his two sons, each of them devoting himself to his own studies in the art. Of Jacopo I will make no further mention, seeing that his works were nothing out of the ordinary in comparison with those of his sons, and because he died not long after his sons withdrew themselves from him; and I judge it much better to speak at some length only of Giovanni and Gentile. I will not, indeed, forbear to say that although these brothers retired to live each by himself, nevertheless they had so much respect for each other, and both had such reverence for their father, that each, extolling the other, ever held himself inferior in merit; and thus they sought modestly to surpass one another no less in goodness and courtesy than in the excellence of their art. The first works of Giovanni were some portraits from the life, which gave much satisfaction, and particularly that of Doge Loredano--although some say that this was a portrait of Giovanni Mozzenigo, brother of that Piero who was Doge many years before Loredano. Giovanni then painted a panel for the altar of S. Caterina da Siena in the Church of S. Giovanni, in which picture--a rather large one--he painted Our Lady seated, with the Child in her arms, and S. Dominic, S. Jerome, S. Catherine, S. Ursula, and two other Virgins; and at the feet of the Madonna he made three boys standing, who are singing from a book--a very beautiful group. Above this he made the inner part of a vault in a building, which is very beautiful. This work was one of the best that had been made in Venice up to that time. For the altar of S. Giobbe in the Church of that Saint, the same man painted a panel with good design and most beautiful colouring, in the middle of which he made the Madonna with the Child in her arms, seated on a throne slightly raised from the ground, with nude figures of S. Job and S. Sebastian, beside whom are S. Dominic, S. Francis, S. John, and S. Augustine; and below are three boys, sounding instruments with much grace. This picture was not only praised then, when it was seen as new, but it has likewise been extolled ever afterwards as a very beautiful work. Certain noblemen, moved by the great praises won by these works, began to suggest that it would be a fine thing, in view of the presence of such rare masters, to have the Hall of the Great Council adorned with stories, in which there should be depicted the glories and the magnificence of their marvellous city--her great deeds, her exploits in war, her enterprises, and other things of that kind, worthy to be perpetuated by painting in the memory of those who should come after--to the end that there might be added, to the profit and pleasure drawn from the reading of history, entertainment both for the eye and for the intellect, from seeing the images of so many illustrious lords wrought by the most skilful hands, and the glorious works of so many noblemen right worthy of eternal memory and fame. And so Giovanni and Gentile, who kept on making progress from day to day, received the commission for this work by order of those who governed the city, who commanded them to make a beginning as soon as possible. But it must be remarked that Antonio Viniziano had made a beginning long before with the painting of the same Hall, as was said in his Life, and had already finished a large scene, when he was forced by the envy of certain malignant spirits to depart and to leave that most honourable enterprise without carrying it on further. [Illustration: THE MIRACLE OF THE TRUE CROSS (_After the panel by =Gentile Bellini=. Venice: Accademia, 568_) _Anderson_] Now Gentile, either because he had more experience and greater skill in painting on canvas than in fresco, or for some other reason, whatever it may have been, contrived without difficulty to obtain leave to execute that work not in fresco but on canvas. And thus, setting to work, in the first scene he made the Pope presenting a wax candle to the Doge, that he might bear it in the solemn processions which were to take place; in which picture Gentile painted the whole exterior of S. Marco, and made the said Pope standing in his pontifical robes, with many prelates behind him, and the Doge likewise standing, accompanied by many Senators. In another part he represented the Emperor Barbarossa; first, when he is receiving the Venetian envoys in friendly fashion, and then, when he is preparing for war, in great disdain; in which scene are very beautiful perspectives, with innumerable portraits from the life, executed with very good grace and amid a vast number of figures. In the following scene he painted the Pope exhorting the Doge and the Signori of Venice to equip thirty galleys at their common expense, to go out to battle against Frederick Barbarossa. This Pope is seated in his rochet on the pontifical chair, with the Doge beside him and many Senators at his feet. In this part, also, Gentile painted the Piazza and the façade of S. Marco, and the sea, but in another manner, with so great a multitude of men that it is truly a marvel. Then in another part the same Pope, standing in his pontifical robes, is giving his benediction to the Doge, who appears to be setting out for the fray, armed, and with many soldiers at his back; behind the Doge are seen innumerable noblemen in a long procession, and in the same part are the Palace and S. Marco, drawn in perspective. This is one of the best works that there are to be seen by the hand of Gentile, although there appears to be more invention in that other which represents a naval battle, because it contains an infinite number of galleys fighting together and an incredible multitude of men, and because, in short, he showed clearly therein that he had no less knowledge of naval warfare than of his own art of painting. And indeed, all that Gentile executed in this work--the crowd of galleys engaged in battle; the soldiers fighting; the boats duly diminishing in perspective; the finely ordered combat; the soldiers furiously striving, defending, and striking; the wounded dying in various manners; the cleaving of the water by the galleys; the confusion of the waves; and all the kinds of naval armament--all this vast diversity of subjects, I say, cannot but serve to prove the great spirit, art, invention, and judgment of Gentile, each detail being most excellently wrought in itself, as well as the composition of the whole. In another scene he made the Doge returning with the victory so much desired, and the Pope receiving him with open arms, and giving him a ring of gold wherewith to espouse the sea, as his successors have done and still do every year, as a sign of the true and perpetual dominion that they deservedly hold over it. In this part there is Otto, son of Frederick Barbarossa, portrayed from the life, and kneeling before the Pope; and as behind the Doge there are many armed soldiers, so behind the Pope there are many Cardinals and noblemen. In this scene only the poops of the galleys appear; and on the Admiral's galley is seated a Victory painted to look like gold, with a crown on her head and a sceptre in her hand. The scenes that were to occupy the other parts of the Hall were entrusted to Giovanni, the brother of Gentile; but since the order of the stories that he painted there is connected with those executed in great part, but not finished, by Vivarino, it is necessary to say something of the latter. That part of the Hall which was not done by Gentile was given partly to Giovanni and partly to the said Vivarino, to the end that rivalry might induce each man to do his best. Vivarino, then, putting his hand to the part that belonged to him, painted, beside the last scene of Gentile, the aforesaid Otto offering to the Pope and to the Venetians to go to conclude peace between them and his father Frederick; and, having obtained this, he is dismissed on oath and goes his way. In this first part, besides other things, which are all worthy of consideration, Vivarino painted an open temple in beautiful perspective, with steps and many figures. Before the Pope, who is seated and surrounded by many Senators, is the said Otto on his knees, binding himself by an oath. Beside this scene, he painted the arrival of Otto before his father, who is receiving him gladly; with buildings wrought most beautifully in perspective, Barbarossa on his throne, and his son kneeling and taking his hand, accompanied by many Venetian noblemen, who are portrayed from the life so finely that it is clear that he imitated nature very well. Poor Vivarino would have completed the remainder of his part with great honour to himself, but, having died, as it pleased God, from exhaustion and through being of a weakly habit of body, he carried it no further--nay, even what he had done was not wholly finished, and it was necessary for Giovanni Bellini to retouch it in certain places. [Illustration: GIOVANNI BELLINI: LA FORTUNA (_Venice: Accademia, 595. Panel_)] [Illustration: GIOVANNI BELLINI: THE DEAD CHRIST (_Milan: Poldi Pezzoli, 624. Panel_)] Meanwhile, Giovanni had also made a beginning with four scenes, which follow in due order those mentioned above. In the first he painted the said Pope in S. Marco--which church he portrayed exactly as it stood--presenting his foot to Frederick Barbarossa to kiss; but this first picture of Giovanni's, whatever may have been the reason, was rendered much more lifelike and incomparably better by the most excellent Tiziano. However, continuing his scenes, Giovanni made in the next the Pope saying Mass in S. Marco, and afterwards, between the said Emperor and the Doge, granting plenary and perpetual indulgence to all who should visit the said Church of S. Marco at certain times, particularly at that of the Ascension of Our Lord. There he depicted the interior of that church, with the said Pope in his pontifical robes at the head of the steps that issue from the choir, surrounded by many Cardinals and noblemen--a vast group, which makes this a crowded, rich, and beautiful scene. In the one below this the Pope is seen in his rochet, presenting a canopy to the Doge, after having given another to the Emperor and keeping two for himself. In the last that Giovanni painted are seen Pope Alexander, the Emperor, and the Doge arriving in Rome, without the gates of which the Pope is presented by the clergy and by the people of Rome with eight standards of various colours and eight silver trumpets, which he gives to the Doge, that he and his successors may have them for insignia. Here Giovanni painted Rome in somewhat distant perspective, a great number of horses, and an infinity of foot-soldiers, with many banners and other signs of rejoicing on the Castle of S. Angelo. And since these works of Giovanni, which are truly very beautiful, gave infinite satisfaction, arrangements were just being made to give him the commission to paint all the rest of that Hall, when, being now old, he died. Up to the present we have spoken of nothing save the Hall, in order not to interrupt the sequence of the scenes; but now we must turn back a little and say that there are many other works to be seen by the hand of the same man. One is a panel which is now on the high-altar of S. Domenico in Pesaro. In the Church of S. Zaccheria in Venice, in the Chapel of S. Girolamo, there is a panel of Our Lady and many saints, executed with great diligence, with a building painted with much judgment; and in the same city, in the Sacristy of the Friars Minor, called the "Cà Grande," there is another by the same man's hand, wrought with beautiful design and a good manner. There is likewise one in S. Michele di Murano, a monastery of Monks of Camaldoli; and in the old Church of S. Francesco della Vigna, a seat of the Frati del Zoccolo, there was a picture of a Dead Christ, so beautiful that it was highly extolled before Louis XI, King of France, whereupon he demanded it from its owners with great insistence, so that they were forced, although very unwillingly, to gratify his wish. In its place there was put another with the name of the same Giovanni, but not so beautiful or so well executed as the first; and some believe that this substitute was wrought for the most part by Girolamo Moretto, a pupil of Giovanni. The Confraternity of S. Girolamo also possesses a work with little figures by the same Bellini, which is much extolled. And in the house of Messer Giorgio Cornaro there is a picture, likewise very beautiful, containing Christ, Cleophas, and Luke. In the aforesaid Hall he also painted, though not at the same time, a scene of the Venetians summoning forth from the Monastery of the Carità a Pope--I know not which--who, having fled to Venice, had secretly served for a long time as cook to the monks of that monastery; in which scene there are many portraits from the life, and other very beautiful figures. [Illustration: MADONNA AND SAINTS (_After the panel by =Giovanni Bellini=. Venice: S. Francesco della Vigna_) _Anderson_] No long time after, certain portraits were taken to Turkey by an ambassador as presents for the Grand Turk, which caused such astonishment and marvel to that Emperor, that, although pictures are forbidden among that people by the Mahometan law, nevertheless he accepted them with great good-will, praising the art and the craftsman without ceasing; and what is more, he demanded that the master of the work should be sent to him. Whereupon the Senate, considering that Giovanni had reached an age when he could ill endure hardships, not to mention that they did not wish to deprive their own city of so great a man, particularly because he was then engaged on the aforesaid Hall of the Great Council, determined to send his brother Gentile, believing that he would do as well as Giovanni. Therefore, having caused Gentile to make his preparations, they brought him safely in their own galleys to Constantinople, where, after being presented by the Commissioner of the Signoria to Mahomet, he was received very willingly and treated with much favour as something new, above all after he had given that Prince a most lovely picture, which he greatly admired, being wellnigh unable to believe that a mortal man had within himself so much divinity, so to speak, as to be able to represent the objects of nature so vividly. Gentile had been there no long time when he portrayed the Emperor Mahomet from the life so well, that it was held a miracle. That Emperor, after having seen many specimens of his art, asked Gentile whether he had the courage to paint his own portrait; and Gentile, having answered "Yes," did not allow many days to pass before he had made his own portrait with a mirror, with such resemblance that it appeared alive. This he brought to the Sultan, who marvelled so greatly thereat, that he could not but think that he had some divine spirit within him; and if it had not been that the exercise of this art, as has been said, is forbidden by law among the Turks, that Emperor would never have allowed Gentile to go. But either in fear of murmurings, or for some other reason, one day he summoned him to his presence, and after first causing him to be thanked for the courtesy that he had shown, and then praising him in marvellous fashion as a man of the greatest excellence, he bade him demand whatever favour he wished, for it would be granted to him without fail. Gentile, like the modest and upright man that he was, asked for nothing save a letter of recommendation to the most Serene Senate and the most Illustrious Signoria of Venice, his native city. This was written in the warmest possible terms, and afterwards he was dismissed with honourable gifts and with the dignity of Chevalier. Among other things given to him at parting by that Sovereign, in addition to many privileges, there was placed round his neck a chain wrought in the Turkish manner, equal in weight to 250 gold crowns, which is still in the hands of his heirs in Venice. Departing from Constantinople, Gentile returned after a most prosperous voyage to Venice, where he was received with gladness by his brother Giovanni and by almost the whole city, all men rejoicing at the honours paid to his talent by Mahomet. Afterwards, on going to make his reverence to the Doge and the Signoria, he was received very warmly, and commended for having given great satisfaction to that Emperor according to their desire. And to the end that he might see in what great account they held the letters in which that Prince had recommended him, they decreed him a provision of 200 crowns a year, which was paid to him for the rest of his life. Gentile made but few works after his return; finally, having almost reached the age of eighty, and having executed the aforesaid works and many others, he passed to the other life, and was given honourable burial by his brother Giovanni in S. Giovanni e Paolo, in the year 1501. Giovanni, thus bereft of Gentile, whom he had ever loved most tenderly, went on doing a little work, although he was old, to pass the time. And having devoted himself to making portraits from the life, he introduced into Venice the fashion that everyone of a certain rank should have his portrait painted either by him or by some other master; wherefore in all the houses of Venice there are many portraits, and in many gentlemen's houses one may see their fathers and grandfathers, up to the fourth generation, and in some of the more noble they go still farther back--a fashion which has ever been truly worthy of the greatest praise, and existed even among the ancients. Who does not feel infinite pleasure and contentment, to say nothing of the honour and adornment that they confer, at seeing the images of his ancestors, particularly if they have been famous and illustrious for their part in governing their republics, for noble deeds performed in peace or in war, or for learning or any other notable and distinguished talent? And to what other end, as has been said in another place, did the ancients set up images of their great men in public places, with honourable inscriptions, than to kindle in the minds of their successors a love of excellence and of glory? [Illustration: GENTILE BELLINI: S. DOMINIC (_London: National Gallery, 1440. Canvas_)] For Messer Pietro Bembo, then, before he went to live with Pope Leo X, Giovanni made a portrait of the lady that he loved, so lifelike that, even as Simone Sanese had been celebrated in the past by the Florentine Petrarca, so was Giovanni deservedly celebrated in his verses by this Venetian, as in the following sonnet: O imagine mia celeste e pura, where, at the beginning of the second quatrain, he says, Credo che'l mio Bellin con la figura, with what follows. And what greater reward can our craftsmen desire for their labours than that of being celebrated by the pens of illustrious poets, as that most excellent Tiziano has been by the very learned Messer Giovanni della Casa, in that sonnet which begins-- Ben veggio, Tiziano, in forme nuove, and in that other-- Son queste, Amor, le vaghe treccie bionde. Was not the same Bellini numbered among the best painters of his age by the most famous Ariosto, at the beginning of the thirty-third canto of the "_Orlando Furioso_"? But to return to the works of Giovanni--that is, to his principal works, for it would take too long to try to make mention of all the pictures and portraits that are in the houses of gentlemen in Venice and in other parts of that country. In Rimini, for Signor Sigismondo Malatesti, he made a large picture containing a Pietà, supported by two little boys, which is now in S. Francesco in that city. And among other portraits he made one of Bartolommeo da Liviano, Captain of the Venetians. Giovanni had many disciples, for he was ever most willing to teach anyone. Among them, now sixty years ago, was Jacopo da Montagna, who imitated his manner closely, in so far as is shown by his works, which are to be seen in Padua and in Venice. But the man who imitated him most faithfully and did him the greatest honour was Rondinello da Ravenna, of whom Giovanni availed himself much in all his works. This master painted a panel in S. Domenico at Ravenna, and another in the Duomo, which is held a very beautiful example of that manner. But the work that surpassed all his others was that which he made in the Church of S. Giovanni Battista, a seat of the Carmelite Friars, in the same city; in which picture, besides Our Lady, he made a very beautiful head in a figure of S. Alberto, a friar of that Order, and the whole figure is much extolled. A pupil of Giovanni's, also, although he gained but little thereby, was Benedetto Coda of Ferrara, who dwelt in Rimini, where he made many pictures, leaving behind him a son named Bartolommeo, who did the same. It is said that Giorgione Castelfranco also pursued his first studies of art under Giovanni, and likewise many others, both from the territory of Treviso and from Lombardy, of whom there is no need to make record. Finally, having lived ninety years, Giovanni passed from this life, overcome by old age, leaving an eternal memorial of his name in the works that he had made both in his native city of Venice and abroad; and he was honourably buried in the same church and in the same tomb in which he had laid his brother Gentile to rest. Nor were there wanting in Venice men who sought to honour him when dead with sonnets and epigrams, even as he, when alive, had honoured both himself and his country. About the same time that these Bellini were alive, or a little before, many pictures were painted in Venice by Giacomo Marzone, who, among other things, painted one in the Chapel of the Assumption in S. Lena--namely, the Virgin with a palm, S. Benedict, S. Helen, and S. John; but in the old manner, with the figures on tip-toe, as was the custom of those painters who lived in the time of Bartolommeo da Bergamo. FOOTNOTES: [18] Poplar. [19] White poplar. COSIMO ROSSELLI LIFE OF COSIMO ROSSELLI PAINTER OF FLORENCE Many men take an unholy delight in covering others with ridicule and scorn--a delight which generally turns to their own confusion, as it came to pass in the case of Cosimo Rosselli, who threw back on their own heads the ridicule of those who sought to vilify his labours. This Cosimo, although he was not one of the rarest or most excellent painters of his time, nevertheless made works that were passing good. In his youth he painted a panel in the Church of S. Ambrogio in Florence, which is on the right hand as one enters the church; and three figures over an arch for the Nuns of S. Jacopo delle Murate. In the Church of the Servi, also in Florence, he painted the panel of the Chapel of S. Barbara; and in the first court, before one enters into the church, he wrought in fresco the story of the Blessed Filippo taking the Habit of Our Lady. For the Monks of Cestello he painted the panel of their high-altar, with another in a chapel in the same church; and likewise that one which is in a little church above the Bernardino, beside the entrance to Cestello. He painted a standard for the children of the Company of the said Bernardino, and likewise that of the Company of S. Giorgio, on which there is an Annunciation. For the aforesaid Nuns of S. Ambrogio he painted the Chapel of the Miracle of the Sacrament, which is a passing good work, and is held the best of his in Florence; in this he counterfeited a procession on the piazza of that church, with the Bishop bearing the Tabernacle of the said Miracle, accompanied by the clergy and by an infinity of citizens and women in costumes of those times. Here, among many others, is a portrait from life of Pico della Mirandola, so excellently wrought that it appears not a portrait but a living man. In the Church of S. Martino in Lucca, by the entrance into the church through the lesser door of the principal façade, on the right hand, he painted a scene of Nicodemus making the statue of the Holy Cross, and then that statue being brought by sea in a boat and by land to Lucca. In this work are many portraits, and in particular that of Paolo Guinigi, which he copied from one done in clay by Jacopo della Fonte when the latter made the tomb of Paolo's wife. In S. Marco at Florence, in the Chapel of the Cloth Weavers, he painted a panel with the Holy Cross in the middle, and, at the sides, S. Mark, S. John the Evangelist, S. Antonino, Archbishop of Florence, and other figures. Being afterwards summoned, with the other painters, to execute the work that Pope Sixtus IV had undertaken in the Chapel of the Palace, he laboured there in company with Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandajo, the Abbot of S. Clemente, Luca da Cortona, and Pietro Perugino, and painted three scenes with his own hand, wherein he depicted the Submersion of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, the Preaching of Christ to the people on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, and the Last Supper of the Apostles with the Saviour. In this last scene he made an octagonal table drawn in perspective, with the ceiling above it likewise octagonal, the eight angles of which he foreshortened so well as to show that he had as good a knowledge of this art as any of the others. It is said that the Pope had offered a prize, which was to be given to the man who, in the judgment of the Pontiff himself, should turn out to have done the best work in these pictures. The scenes finished, therefore, His Holiness went to see them; and each of the painters had done his utmost to merit the said prize and honour. Cosimo, feeling himself weak in invention and draughtsmanship, had sought to conceal his shortcomings by covering his work with the finest ultramarine blues and other lively colours, and had illuminated his scenes with a plentiful amount of gold, so that there was no tree, or plant, or drapery, or cloud, that was not thus illuminated; for he was convinced that the Pope, like a man who knew little of that art, must therefore give him the prize of victory. When the day arrived on which the works of all were to be unveiled, that of Cosimo was seen with the rest, and was scorned and ridiculed with much laughter and jeering by all the other craftsmen, who all mocked him instead of having compassion on him. But the scorners turned out to be the scorned, for, as Cosimo had foreseen, those colours at the first glance so dazzled the eyes of the Pope, who had little knowledge of such things, although he took no little delight in them, that he judged the work of Cosimo to be much better than that of the others. And so, causing the prize to be given to him, he bade all the others cover their pictures with the best blues that could be found, and to pick them out with gold, to the end that they might be similar to those of Cosimo in colouring and in richness. Whereupon the poor painters, in despair at having to satisfy the small intelligence of the Holy Father, set themselves to spoil all the good work that they had done; and Cosimo laughed at the men who had just been laughing at his methods. Afterwards, returning to Florence with some money, he set himself to work as usual, living much at his ease, and having as his companion that Piero, his disciple, who was ever called Piero di Cosimo, and who assisted him in his labours in the Sistine Chapel at Rome, and painted there, besides other things, a landscape in the picture of the Preaching of Christ, which landscape is held to be the best thing there. Andrea di Cosimo also worked with him, occupying himself much with grotesques. Finally, having reached the age of sixty-eight, Cosimo died in the year 1484, wasted away by a long infirmity; and he was buried in S. Croce by the Company of Bernardino. Cosimo took so much delight in alchemy that he wasted therein all that he possessed, as all do who meddle with it, insomuch that it swallowed up all his means and finally reduced him from easy circumstances to the greatest poverty. He was a very good draughtsman, as may be seen in our book, not only from the drawing of the aforesaid story of the Preaching which he painted in the Sistine Chapel, but also from many others made with the style and in chiaroscuro. And in the said book we have his portrait by the hand of Agnolo di Donnino, a painter who was much his friend. This Agnolo showed great diligence in his works, as may be seen, not to mention his drawings, in the loggia of the Hospital of Bonifazio, where, upon the corbel of a vault, there is a Trinity in fresco by his hand; and beside the door of the said hospital, where the foundlings now live, there are certain beggars painted by the same man, with the Director receiving them, all very well wrought, and likewise certain women. This man spent his life labouring and wasting all his time over drawings, without putting them into execution; and at length he died as poor as he could well be. But to return to Cosimo; he left only one son, who was a builder and a passing good architect. [Illustration: CHRIST HEALING THE LEPER (_Detail from the fresco by =Cosimo Rosselli=. Rome: Sistine Chapel_) _Anderson_] CECCA CECCA ENGINEER OF FLORENCE If necessity had not forced men to exercise their ingenuity for their own advantage and convenience, architecture would not have become so excellent and so marvellous in the minds and in the works of those who have practised it in order to acquire profit and fame, gaining that great honour which is paid to them every day by all who have knowledge of the good. It was necessity that first gave rise to buildings; necessity that created ornaments for them; necessity that led to the various Orders, the statues, the gardens, the baths, and all those other sumptuous adjuncts which all desire but few possess; and it was necessity that excited rivalry and competition in the minds of men with regard not only to buildings, but also to their accessories. For this reason craftsmen have been forced to display industry in inventing appliances for traction, and in making engines of war, waterworks, and all those devices and contrivances which, under the name of mechanical and architectural inventions, confer beauty and convenience on the world, discomfiting their enemies and assisting their friends. And whenever a man has been able to make such things better than his fellows, he has not only raised himself beyond all the anxieties of want, but has also been consummately extolled and prized by all other men. This was the case in the time of our fathers with the Florentine Cecca, into whose hands there came many highly honourable works in his day; and in these he acquitted himself so well, toiling in the service of his country with economy and with great satisfaction to his fellow-citizens, that his ingenious and industrious labours have made him famous and illustrious among the number of distinguished and renowned craftsmen. It is said that in his youth Cecca was a very good carpenter, and that he had concentrated all his powers on seeking to solve the difficulties connected with engines, and how to make machines for assaulting walls in war--scaling-ladders for climbing into cities, battering-rams for breaching fortifications, defences for protecting soldiers in the attack, and everything that could injure his enemies and assist his friends--wherefore, being a person of the greatest utility to his country, he well deserved the permanent provision that the Signoria of Florence gave him. For this reason, when there was no war going on, he would go through the whole territory inspecting the fortresses and the walls of cities and townships, and, if any were weak, he would provide them with designs for ramparts and everything else that was wanting. It is said that the Clouds which were borne in procession throughout Florence on the festival of S. John--things truly most ingenious and beautiful--were invented by Cecca, who was much employed in such matters at that time, when the city was greatly given to holding festivals. In truth, although such festivals and representations have now fallen almost entirely out of use, they were very beautiful spectacles, and they were celebrated not only by the Companies, or rather, Confraternities, but also in the private houses of gentlemen, who were wont to form certain associations and societies, and to meet together at certain times to make merry; and among them there were ever many courtly craftsmen, who, besides being fanciful and amusing, served to make the preparations for such festivals. Among others, four most solemn public spectacles took place almost every year, one for each quarter of the city, with the exception of that of S. Giovanni, for the festival of which a most solemn procession was held, as will be told. The quarter of S. Maria Novella kept the feast of S. Ignazio; S. Croce, that of S. Bartholomew, called S. Baccio; S. Spirito, that of the Holy Spirit; and the Carmine, those of the Ascension of Our Lord and of the Assumption of Our Lady. This festival of the Ascension--for of the others of importance an account has been or will be given--was very beautiful, seeing that Christ was uplifted on a cloud covered with angels from a Mount very well made of wood, and was borne upwards to a Heaven, leaving the Apostles on the Mount; and the whole was so well contrived that it was a marvel, above all because the said Heaven was somewhat larger than that of S. Felice in Piazza, although the machinery was almost the same. And since the said Church of the Carmine, where this representation used to take place, is no little broader and higher than that of S. Felice, in addition to the part that supported Christ another Heaven was sometimes erected, according as it was thought advisable, over the chief tribune, wherein were certain great wheels made in the shape of reels, which, from the centres to the edges, moved in most beautiful order ten circles standing for the ten Heavens, which were all full of little lights representing the stars, contained in little copper lamps hanging on pivots, so that when the wheels revolved they remained upright, in the manner of certain lanterns that are now universally used by all. From this Heaven, which was truly a very beautiful thing, there issued two stout ropes fastened to the staging or tramezzo[20] which is in the said church, and over which the representation took place. To these ropes were attached, by each end of a so-called brace-fastening, two little bronze pulleys which supported an iron upright fixed into a level platform, on which stood two angels fastened by their girdles. These angels were kept upright by a counterpoise of lead which they had under their feet, and by another that was under the platform on which they stood; and this also served to make them balanced one with another. The whole was covered with a quantity of cotton-wool, very well arranged in the form of a cloud, which was full of cherubim and seraphim, and similar kinds of angels, varied in colour and very well contrived. These angels, when a little rope was unwound from the Heaven above, came down the two larger ropes on to the said tramezzo, where the representation took place, and announced to Christ that He was to ascend into Heaven, and performed their other functions. And since the iron to which they were bound by the girdle was fixed to the platform on which they stood, in such a way that they could turn round and round, they could make obeisance and turn about both when they had come forth and when they were returning, according as was necessary; wherefore in reascending they turned towards the Heaven, and were then drawn up again as they had come down. These machines and inventions are said to have been Cecca's, for, although Filippo Brunelleschi had made similar things long before, many additions were made to them with great judgment by Cecca; and it was from these that the thought came to the same man to make those Clouds which were borne in procession through the city every year on S. John's Eve, and the other beautiful things that were made. And this was his charge, because, as it has been said, he was a servant of the public. Now with this occasion it will not be out of place to describe some of the features of the said festival and procession, to the end that some memory of them may descend to posterity, seeing that they have now for the most part fallen into disuse. First, then, the Piazza di S. Giovanni was all covered over with blue cloth, on which were sewn many large lilies of yellow cloth; and in the middle, on certain circles also of cloth, and ten braccia in diameter, were the arms of the People and Commune of Florence, with those of the Captain of the Guelph party and others; and all around, from the borders of the said canopy, which covered the whole piazza, vast as it is, there hung great banners also of cloth, painted with various devices, with the arms of magisterial bodies and guilds, and with many lions, which form one of the emblems of the city. This canopy, or rather, awning, made thus, was about twenty braccia off the ground, and was supported by very strong ropes fastened to a number of irons, which are still to be seen round the Church of S. Giovanni, on the façade of S. Maria del Fiore, and on the houses that surround the said piazza on every side. Between one rope and another ran cords that likewise supported the awning, which was so well strengthened throughout, particularly at the edges, with ropes, cords, linings, double widths of cloth, and hems of sacking, that it is impossible to imagine anything better. What is more, everything was arranged so well and with such great diligence, that although the awning was often swelled out and shaken by the wind, which is always very powerful in that place, as everyone knows, yet it was never disturbed or damaged in any way whatever. This awning was made of five pieces, to the end that it might be easier to handle, but, when set into place, they were all joined and fastened and sewn together in such a manner that it appeared like one whole. Three pieces covered the piazza and the space that is between S. Giovanni and S. Maria del Fiore; and in the middle piece, in a straight line between the principal doors, were the aforesaid circles containing the arms of the Commune. And the remaining two pieces covered the sides--one towards the Misericordia, and the other towards the Canon's house and the Office of Works of S. Giovanni. The Clouds, which were made of various kinds and with diverse inventions by the Companies, were generally fashioned in the following manner. A square framework was made of planks, about two braccia in height, with four stout legs at the corners, contrived after the manner of the trestles of a table, and fastened together with cross-pieces. On this framework two panels were laid crosswise, each one braccio wide, with a hole in the middle half a braccio in diameter, in which was fixed a high pole, whereon there was placed a mandorla all covered with cotton-wool, cherubim, lights, and other ornaments, and within this, on a horizontal bar of iron, there sat or stood, according as might be desired, a person representing that Saint whom the particular Company principally honoured as their peculiar patron and protector--to be exact, a Christ, or a Madonna, or a S. John, or some other--and the draperies of this figure covered the iron bar in such a manner that it could not be seen. Round the same pole, lower down, below the mandorla, there radiated four or five iron bars in the manner of the branches of a tree, and at the end of each, attached likewise with irons, stood a little boy dressed like an angel. These boys could move round and round at pleasure on the iron brackets on which their feet rested, for the brackets hung on hinges. And with similar branches there were sometimes made two or three tiers of angels or of saints, according to the nature of the subjects to be represented. The whole of this structure, with the pole and the iron bars (which sometimes represented a lily, sometimes a tree, and often a cloud or some other similar thing), was covered with cotton-wool, and, as has been said, with cherubim, seraphim, golden stars, and other suchlike ornaments. Within were porters or peasants, who carried it on their shoulders, placing themselves round the wooden base that we have called the framework, in which, below the places where the weight rested on their shoulders, were fixed cushions of leather stuffed with down, or cotton-wool, or some other soft and yielding material. All the machinery, steps, and other things were covered, as has been said above, with cotton-wool, which made a beautiful effect; and all these contrivances were called Clouds. Behind them came troops of men on horseback and foot-soldiers of various sorts, according to the nature of the story to be represented, even as in our own day they go behind the cars or other things that are used in place of the said Clouds. Of the form of the latter I have some designs in my book of drawings, very well done by the hand of Cecca, which are truly ingenious and full of beautiful conceptions. It was from the plans of the same man that those saints were made that went or were carried in processions, either dead or tortured in various ways, for some appeared to be transfixed by a lance or a sword, others had a dagger in the throat, and others had other suchlike weapons in their bodies. With regard to this, it is very well known to-day that it is done with a sword, lance, or dagger broken in half, the pieces of which are held firmly opposite to one another on either side by iron rings, after taking away the proportionate amount that has to appear to be fixed in the person of the sufferer; wherefore I will say no more about them, save that they seem for the most part to have been invented by Cecca. The giants, likewise, that went about in the said festival, were made in the following manner. Certain men who were very skilful at walking on stilts, or, as they are called in other parts, on wooden legs, had some made five or six braccia high, and, having dressed and decked them with great masks and other ornaments in the way of draperies, and imitations of armour, so that they seemed to have the members and heads of giants, they mounted them and walked dexterously along, appearing truly to be giants. In front of them, however, they had a man who carried a pike, on which the giant leant with one hand, but in such a fashion that the pike appeared to be his own weapon, whether mace, lance, or a great bell-clapper, such as Morgante is said by the poets of romance to have been wont to carry. And even as there were giants, so there were also giantesses, which produced a truly beautiful and marvellous effect. Different from these, again, were the little phantoms, for these walked on similar stilts five or six braccia high, without anything save their own proper form, in such a manner that they appeared to be true spirits. They likewise had a man in front of them with a pike to assist them; but it is stated that some actually walked very well at so great a height without leaning on anything whatsoever, and I am sure that he who knows what Florentine brains are will in no way marvel at this. For, not to mention that native of Montughi (near Florence) who has surpassed all the masters that ever lived at climbing and dancing on the rope, whoever knew a man called Ruvidino, who died less than ten years ago, remembers that climbing to any height on a rope or cord, leaping from the walls of Florence to the earth, and walking on stilts much higher than those described above, were as easy to him as it is for an ordinary man to walk on the level. Wherefore it is no marvel if the men of those times, who practised suchlike exercises for money or for other reasons, did what has been related above, and even greater things. I will not speak of certain waxen candles which used to be painted with various fanciful devices, but so rudely that they have given their name to vulgar painters, insomuch that bad pictures are called "candle puppets"; for it is not worth the trouble. I will only say that at the time of Cecca they fell for the most part into disuse, and that in their place were made the cars that are still used to-day, in the form of triumphal chariots. The first of these was the car[21] of the Mint, which was brought to that perfection which is still seen every year when it is sent out for the said festival by the Masters and Lords of the Mint, with a S. John on the highest part and with many other angels and saints around and below him, all represented by living persons. Not long ago it was determined that one should be made for every borough that gave an offering of wax, and ten were made, in order to do magnificent honour to that festival; but the plan was carried no further, by reason of events that supervened no long time after. That first car of the Mint, then, was made under the direction of Cecca by Domenico, Marco, and Giuliano del Tasso, who were among the best master-carpenters, both in squared-work and in carving, who were then working in Florence; and in this car, among other things, no small praise is due to the wheels below it, which are pivoted, in order that the structure may be able to turn sharp corners, and may be managed in such a manner as to shake it as little as possible, particularly for the sake of those who stand fastened upon it. The same man made a structure for the cleaning and restoration of the mosaics in the tribune of S. Giovanni, which could be turned, raised, lowered, and advanced at pleasure, and that with such ease that two men could handle it; which invention gave Cecca very great repute. When the Florentine army was besieging Piancaldoli, Cecca ingeniously contrived to enable the soldiers to enter it by means of mines, without striking a blow. Afterwards, continuing to follow the same army to certain other strongholds, his evil fortune would have it that he should be killed while attempting to measure certain heights at a difficult point; for when he had put his head out beyond the wall in order to let a plumb-line down, a priest who was with the enemy (who feared the genius of Cecca more than the might of the whole camp) discharged a catapult at him and fixed a great dart in his head, insomuch that the poor fellow died on the spot. The fate and the loss of Cecca caused great grief to the whole army and to his fellow-citizens; but since there was no remedy, they sent him back in a coffin to Florence, where his sisters gave him honourable burial in S. Piero Scheraggio; and below his portrait in marble there was placed the following epitaph: FABRUM MAGISTER CICCA, NATUS OPPIDIS VEL OBSIDENDIS VEL TUENDIS, HIC JACET. VIXIT ANN. XXXXI, MENS. IV, DIES XIV. OBIIT PRO PATRIA TELO ICTUS. PIÆ SORORES MONUMENTUM FECERUNT MCCCCXCIX. FOOTNOTES: [20] See note on p. 57, Vol. I. [21] The word in the Italian text is not "carro" but "cero," which is obviously an error. DON BARTOLOMMEO DELLA GATTA DON BARTOLOMMEO DELLA GATTA, ABBOT OF S. CLEMENTE ILLUMINATOR AND PAINTER Rarely does it happen that a man of good character and exemplary life fails to be provided by Heaven with the best of friends and with honourable dwellings, or to be held in veneration when alive by reason of the goodness of his ways, and very greatly regretted when dead by all who knew him, as was Don Bartolommeo della Gatta, Abbot of S. Clemente in Arezzo, who was excellent in diverse pursuits and most praiseworthy in all his actions. This man, who was a monk of the Angeli in Florence, a seat of the Order of Camaldoli, was in his youth--perchance for the reasons mentioned above in the Life of Don Lorenzo--a very rare illuminator, and a very able master of design. Of this we have proof in the books that he illuminated for the Monks of SS. Fiore e Lucilla in the Abbey of Arezzo, particularly a missal that was presented to Pope Sixtus, in which, on the first page of the Secret Prayers, there was a very beautiful Passion of Christ. Those are likewise by his hand which are in S. Martino, the Duomo of Lucca. A little while after these works the said Abbey of S. Clemente in Arezzo was presented to this father by Mariotto Maldoli of Arezzo, General of the Order of Camaldoli, who belonged to the same family from which sprang that Maldolo who gave the site and lands of Camaldoli, then called Campo di Maldolo, to S. Romualdo, the founder of that Order. Don Bartolommeo, in gratitude for that benefice, afterwards executed many works for that General and for his Order. After this there came the plague of 1468, by reason of which the Abbot, like many others, stayed indoors without going about much, and devoted himself to painting large figures; and seeing that he was succeeding as well as he could desire, he began to execute certain works. The first was a S. Rocco that he painted on a panel for the Rectors of the Confraternity of Arezzo, which is now in the Audience Chamber where they assemble. This figure is recommending the people of Arezzo to Our Lady, and in this picture he portrayed the Piazza of the said city and the holy house of that Confraternity, with certain grave-diggers who are returning from burying the dead. He also painted another S. Rocco for the Church of S. Pietro, likewise on a panel, wherein he portrayed the city of Arezzo exactly as it stood at that time, when it was very different from what it is to-day. And he made another, which was much better than the two mentioned above, on a panel which is in the Chapel of the Lippi in the Church of the Pieve of Arezzo; and this S. Rocco is a rare and beautiful figure, almost the best that he ever made, and the head and hands are as beautiful and natural as they could be. In the same city of Arezzo, in S. Pietro, a seat of the Servite Friars, he painted an Angel Raphael on a panel; and in the same place he made a portrait of the Blessed Jacopo Filippo of Piacenza. Afterwards, being summoned to Rome, he painted a scene in the Chapel of Pope Sixtus, in company with Luca da Cortona and Pietro Perugino. On returning to Arezzo, he painted a S. Jerome in Penitence in the Chapel of the Gozzari in the Vescovado; and this figure, lean and shaven, with the eyes fixed most intently on the Crucifix, and beating his breast, shows very clearly how greatly the passions of love can disturb the chastity even of a body so grievously wasted away. In this work he made an enormous crag, with certain cliffs of rock, among the fissures of which he painted some stories of that Saint, with very graceful little figures. After this, in a chapel in S. Agostino, for the Nuns of the Third Order, as they are called, he wrought in fresco a Coronation of Our Lady, which is very well done and much extolled; and below this, in another chapel, a large panel with an Assumption and certain angels beautifully robed in delicate draperies. This panel, for a work made in distemper, is much extolled, and in truth it was wrought with good design and executed with extraordinary diligence. In the lunette that is over the door of the Church of S. Donato, in the Fortress of Arezzo, the same man painted in fresco a Madonna with the Child in her arms, S. Donatus, and S. Giovanni Gualberto, all very beautiful figures. In the Abbey of S. Fiore in the said city, beside the principal door of entrance into the church, there is a chapel painted by his hand, wherein are S. Benedict and other saints, wrought with much grace, good handling, and sweetness. For Gentile of Urbino, Bishop of Arezzo, who was much his friend, and with whom he almost always lived, he painted a Dead Christ in a chapel in the Palace of the Vescovado; and in a loggia he portrayed the Bishop himself, his vicar, and Ser Matteo Francini, his court-notary, who is reading a Bull to him; and there he also made his own portrait and those of certain canons of that city. For the same Bishop he designed a loggia which issues from the Palace and leads to the Vescovado, on the same level with both. In the centre of this the Bishop had intended to make a place of burial for himself in the form of a chapel, in which he wished to be interred after his death; and he had carried it well on, when he was overtaken by death, and it remained unfinished, for, although he left orders that it should be completed by his successor, nothing more was done, as generally happens with works of this sort which are left by a man to be finished after his death. For the said Bishop the Abbot painted a large and beautiful chapel in the Duomo Vecchio, but, as it had only a short life, there is no need to say more about it. Besides this, he made works in various places throughout the whole city, such as three figures in the Carmine, and the Chapel of the Nuns of S. Orsina. At Castiglione Aretino, for the Chapel of the High-Altar in the Pieve of S. Giuliano, he painted a panel in distemper, containing a very beautiful Madonna, S. Julian, and S. Michelagnolo--figures very well wrought and executed, particularly S. Julian, who, with his eyes fixed on the Christ lying in the arms of the Madonna, appears to be much afflicted at having killed his father and mother. In a chapel a little below this, likewise, is a little door painted by his hand (which formerly belonged to an old organ), wherein there is a S. Michael, which is held to be a marvellous thing, with a child in swaddling-clothes, which appears alive, in the arms of a woman. For the Nuns of the Murate at Arezzo he painted the Chapel of the High-Altar, a work which is truly much extolled. At Monte San Savino he painted a shrine opposite to the Palace of Cardinal di Monte, which was held very beautiful. And at Borgo San Sepolcro, where there is now the Vescovado, he decorated a chapel, which brought him very great praise and profit. Don Clemente was a man of very versatile intelligence, and, besides being a great musician, he made organs of lead with his own hand. In S. Domenico he made one of cardboard, which has ever remained sweet and good; and in S. Clemente there was another, also by his hand, which was placed on high, with the keyboard below on the level of the choir--truly with very beautiful judgment, since, the place being such that the monks were few, he wished that the organist should sing as well as play. And since this Abbot loved his Order, like a true minister and not a squanderer of the things of God, he enriched that place greatly with buildings and pictures, particularly by rebuilding the principal chapel of his church and painting the whole of it; and in two niches, one on either side of it, he painted a S. Rocco and a S. Bartholomew, which were ruined together with the church. But to return to the Abbot, who was a good and worthy churchman. He left a disciple in painting named Maestro Lappoli, an Aretine, who was an able and practised painter, as is shown by the works from his hand which are in S. Agostino, in the Chapel of S. Sebastiano, where there is that Saint wrought in relief by the same man, with figures round him, in painting, of S. Biagio, S. Rocco, S. Anthony of Padua, and S. Bernardino; while on the arch of the chapel is an Annunciation, and on the vaulting are the four Evangelists, wrought in fresco with a high finish. By the hand of the same man, in another chapel on the left hand as one enters the said church by the side-door, is a Nativity in fresco, with the Madonna receiving the Annunciation from the Angel, in the figure of which Angel he portrayed Giuliano Bacci, then a young man of very beautiful aspect. Over the said door, on the outer side, he made an Annunciation, with S. Peter on one side and S. Paul on the other, portraying in the face of the Madonna the mother of Messer Pietro Aretino, a very famous poet. In S. Francesco, for the Chapel of S. Bernardino, he painted a panel with that Saint, who appears alive, and so beautiful that this is the best figure that he ever made. In the Chapel of the Pietramaleschi in the Vescovado he painted a very beautiful S. Ignazio on a panel in distemper; and in the Pieve, at the entrance of the upper door which opens on the piazza, a S. Andrew and a S. Sebastian. For the Company of the Trinità, by order of Buoninsegna Buoninsegni of Arezzo, he made a work with beautiful invention, which can be numbered among the best that he ever executed, and this was a Crucifix over an altar, with a S. Martin on one side and a S. Rocco on the other, and two figures kneeling at the foot, one in the form of a poor man, lean, emaciated, and wretchedly clothed, from whom there issued certain rays that shone straight on the wounds of the Saviour, while the Saint gazed on him most intently; and the other in the form of a rich man, clothed in purple and fine linen, and all ruddy and cheerful in countenance, whose rays, as he was adoring Christ, although they were issuing from his heart, like those of the poor man, appeared not to shine directly on the wounds of the Crucified Christ, but to stray and spread over certain plains and fields full of grain, green crops, cattle, gardens, and other suchlike things, while some diverged over the sea towards certain boats laden with merchandise; and others, finally, shone on certain money-changers' tables. All these things were wrought by Matteo with judgment, great mastery, and much diligence; but they were thrown to the ground no long time after in the making of a chapel. Beneath the pulpit of the Pieve the same man made a Christ with the Cross for Messer Leonardo Albergotti. A disciple of the Abbot of S. Clemente, likewise, was a Servite friar of Arezzo, who painted in colours the façade of the house of the Belichini in Arezzo, and two chapels in fresco, one beside the other, in S. Pietro. Another disciple of Don Bartolommeo was Domenico Pecori of Arezzo, who made three figures in distemper on a panel at Sargiano, and painted a very beautiful banner in oil, to be carried in processions, for the Company of S. Maria Maddalena. For Messer Presentino Bisdomini, in the Chapel of S. Andrea in the Pieve, he made a picture of S. Apollonia, similar to that mentioned above; and he finished many works left incomplete by his master, such as the panel of S. Sebastian and S. Fabiano with the Madonna, in S. Pietro, for the family of the Benucci. In the Church of S. Antonio he painted the panel of the high-altar, wherein is a very devout Madonna, with some saints; and since the said Madonna is adoring the Child, whom she has in her lap, he made it appear that a little angel, kneeling behind her, is supporting Our Lord on a cushion, the Madonna not being able to uphold Him because she has her hands clasped in the act of adoration. In the Church of S. Giustino, for Messer Antonio Roselli, he painted a chapel with the Magi in fresco; and for the Company of the Madonna, in the Pieve, he painted a very large panel containing a Madonna in the sky, with the people of Arezzo beneath, in which he made many portraits from the life. In this last work he was helped by a Spanish painter, who painted very well in oil and therein gave assistance to Domenico, who had not as much skill in painting in oil as he had in distemper. With the help of the same man he executed a panel for the Company of the Trinità, containing the Circumcision of Our Lord, which was held a very good work, and a "Noli Me Tangere" in fresco in the garden of S. Fiore. Finally, he painted a panel with many figures in the Vescovado, for Messer Donato Marinelli, Primicere. This work, which then brought him and still continues to bring him very great honour, shows good invention, good design, and strong relief; and in making it, being now very old, he called in the aid of a Sienese painter, Capanna, a passing good master, who painted so many walls in chiaroscuro and so many panels in Siena, and who, if he had lived longer, would have done himself much credit in his art, in so far as one may judge from the little that he executed. Domenico wrought for the Confraternity of Arezzo a baldacchino painted in oil, a rich and costly work, which was lent not many years ago for the holding of a representation in S. Francesco at the festival of S. John and S. Paul, to adorn a Paradise near the roof of the church. A fire breaking out in consequence of the great quantity of lights, this work was burnt, together with the man who was representing God the Father, who, being fastened, could not escape, as the angels did, and many church-hangings were destroyed, while great harm came to the spectators, who, terrified by the fire, struggled furiously to fly from the church, everyone seeking to be the first, so that about eighty were trampled down in the press, which was something very pitiful. This baldacchino was afterwards reconstructed with greater richness, and painted by Giorgio Vasari. Domenico then devoted himself to the making of glass windows, and there were three by his hand in the Vescovado, which were ruined by the artillery in the wars. Another pupil of the same master was the painter Angelo di Lorentino, who was a man of passing good ability. He painted the arch over the door of S. Domenico, and if he had received assistance he would have become a very good master. The Abbot died at the age of eighty-three, leaving unfinished the Temple of the Madonna delle Lacrime, for which he had made a model; it was afterwards completed by various masters. He deserves praise, then, as illuminator, architect, painter, and musician. He was given burial by his monks in his Abbey of S. Clemente, and his works have ever been so highly esteemed in the said city that the following verses may be read over his tomb: PINGEBAT DOCTE ZEUSIS, CONDEBAT ET AEDES NICON, PAN CAPRIPES, FISTULA PRIMA TUA EST. NON TAMEN EX VOBIS MECUM CERTAVERIT ULLUS; QUÆ TRES FECISTIS, UNICUS HÆC FACIO. He died in 1461, having added to the art of illumination that beauty which is seen in all his works, as some drawings by his hand can bear witness which are in our book. His method of working was afterwards imitated by Girolamo Padovano in some books that he illuminated for S. Maria Nuova in Florence; by Gherardo, a Florentine illuminator; (and by Attavante,[22]) who was also called Vante, of whom we have spoken in another place, particularly with regard to those of his works which are in Venice; with respect to which I included word for word a note sent to me by certain gentlemen of Venice, contenting myself, in order to recompense them for the great pains that they had taken to discover all that is to be read there, with relating the whole as they wrote it, since I had no personal knowledge of these works on which to form a judgment of my own. FOOTNOTES: [22] The words in brackets have been added to correct an obvious omission in the text. The account of Attavante is to be found at the end of the Life of Fra Giovanni Angelico. GHERARDO GHERARDO ILLUMINATOR OF FLORENCE It is certain that among all the enduring works that are made in colours there is none that resists the assault of wind and water better than mosaic. And well was this known in his day to the elder Lorenzo de' Medici of Florence, who, like a man of spirit given to investigating the memorials of the ancients, sought to bring back into use what had been hidden for many years, and, since he took great delight in pictures and sculptures, could not fail to take delight also in mosaic. Wherefore, seeing that Gherardo, an illuminator of that time and a man of inquiring brain, was investigating the difficulties of that calling, he showed him great favour, as one who ever assisted those in whom he saw some germ of spirit and intellect. Placing him, therefore, in the company of Domenico del Ghirlandajo, he obtained for him from the Wardens of Works of S. Maria del Fiore a commission for decorating the chapels of the transepts, beginning with that of the Sacrament, wherein lies the body of S. Zanobi. Whereupon Gherardo, growing ever in keenness of intelligence, would have executed most marvellous works in company with Domenico, if death had not intervened, as may be judged from the beginning of that chapel, which remained unfinished. Gherardo, in addition to his mosaics, was a most delicate illuminator, and he also made large figures on walls. Without the Porta alla Croce there is a shrine in fresco by his hand, and there is another in Florence, much extolled, at the head of the Via Larga. On the façade of the Church of S. Gilio at S. Maria Nuova, beneath the stories painted by Lorenzo di Bicci, wherein is the consecration of that church by Pope Martin V, Gherardo depicted the same Pope conferring the monk's habit and many privileges on the Director of the Hospital. In this scene there were far fewer figures than it appeared to require, because it was cut in half by a shrine containing a Madonna, which has been removed recently by Don Isidoro Montaguto, the present Director of that place, in the reconstructing of a principal door for the building; and Francesco Brini, a young painter of Florence, has been commissioned to paint the rest of the scene. But to return to Gherardo; it would scarcely have been possible for even a well-practised master to accomplish without great fatigue and diligence what he did in that work, which is wrought most excellently in fresco. For the church of the same hospital Gherardo illuminated an infinite number of books, with some for S. Maria del Fiore in Florence, and certain others for Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary. These last, on the death of the said King, together with some by the hand of Vante and of other masters who worked for that King in Florence, were purchased and taken over by the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici, who placed them among those so greatly celebrated which were being collected for the formation of the library afterwards built by Pope Clement VII, which is now being thrown open to the public by order of Duke Cosimo. Having thus developed, as has been related, from a master of illumination into a painter, in addition to the said works, he made some great figures in a large cartoon for the Evangelists that he had to make in mosaic in the Chapel of S. Zanobi. But before the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici had obtained for him the commission for the said chapel, wishing to show that he understood the art of mosaic, and that he could work without a companion, he made a life-size head of S. Zanobi, which remained in S. Maria del Fiore, and on days of the highest solemnity it is set up on the altar of the said Saint, or in some other place, as a rare thing. The while that Gherardo was labouring at these things, there were brought to Florence certain prints in the German manner wrought by Martin and by Albrecht Dürer; whereupon, being much pleased with that sort of engraving, he set himself to work with the graver and copied some of those plates very well, as may be seen from certain examples that are in our book, together with some drawings by the same man's hand. Gherardo painted many pictures which were sent abroad, one of which is in the Chapel of S. Caterina da Siena in the Church of S. Domenico at Bologna, containing a very good painting of S. Catherine. And in S. Marco at Florence, over the table of Pardons, he painted a lunette full of very graceful figures. But the more he satisfied others the less did he satisfy himself in any of his works, with the exception of mosaic, in which sort of painting he was rather the rival than the companion of Domenico Ghirlandajo; and if he had lived longer he would have become most excellent in that art, for he was very willing to take pains with it, and he had discovered the greater part of its best secrets. Some declare that Attavante, otherwise Vante, an illuminator of Florence, of whom we have spoken above in more than one place, was a disciple of Gherardo, as was Stefano, likewise a Florentine illuminator; but I hold it as certain, considering that both lived at the same time, that Attavante was rather the friend, companion, and contemporary of Gherardo than his disciple. Gherardo died well advanced in years, leaving everything that he used in his art to his disciple Stefano, who, devoting himself no long time after to architecture, abandoned the art of illuminating, and handed over all his appliances in connection with that profession to the elder Boccardino, who illuminated the greater part of the books that are in the Badia of Florence. Gherardo died at the age of sixty-three, and his works date about the year of our salvation 1470. DOMENICO GHIRLANDAJO DOMENICO GHIRLANDAJO PAINTER OF FLORENCE Domenico di Tommaso del Ghirlandajo, who, from his talent and from the greatness and the vast number of his works, may be called one of the most important and most excellent masters of his age, was made by nature to be a painter; and for this reason, in spite of the opposition of those who had charge of him (which often nips the finest fruits of our intellects in the bud by occupying them with work for which they are not suited, and by diverting them from that to which nature inclines them), he followed his natural instinct, secured very great honour for himself and profit for his art and for his kindred, and became the great delight of his age. He was apprenticed by his father to his own art of goldsmith, in which Tommaso was a master more than passing good, for it was he who made the greater part of the silver votive offerings that were formerly preserved in the press of the Nunziata, and the silver lamps of the chapel, which were all destroyed in the siege of the city in the year 1529. Tommaso was the first who invented and put into execution those ornaments worn on the head by the girls of Florence, which are called ghirlande;[23] whence he gained the name of Ghirlandajo, not only because he was their first inventor, but also because he made an infinite number of them, of a beauty so rare that none appeared to please save such as came out of his shop. Being thus apprenticed to the goldsmith's art, but taking no pleasure therein, he was ever occupied in drawing. Endowed by nature with a perfect spirit and with an admirable and judicious taste in painting, although he was a goldsmith in his boyhood, yet, by devoting himself ever to design, he became so quick, so ready, and so facile, that many say that while he was working as a goldsmith he would draw a portrait of all who passed the shop, producing a likeness in a second; and of this we still have proof in an infinite number of portraits in his works, which show a most lifelike resemblance. His first pictures were in the Chapel of the Vespucci in Ognissanti, where there is a Dead Christ with some saints, and a Misericordia over an arch, in which is the portrait of Amerigo Vespucci, who made the voyages to the Indies; and in the refectory of that place he painted a Last Supper in fresco. In S. Croce, on the right hand of the entrance into the church, he painted the Story of S. Paulino; wherefore, having acquired very great fame and coming into much credit, he painted a chapel in S. Trinita for Francesco Sassetti, with stories of S. Francis. This work was admirably executed by him, and wrought with grace, lovingness, and a high finish; and he counterfeited and portrayed therein the Ponte a S. Trinita, with the Palace of the Spini. On the first wall he depicted the story of S. Francis appearing in the air and restoring the child to life; and here, in those women who see him being restored to life--after their sorrow for his death as they bear him to the grave--there are seen gladness and marvel at his resurrection. He also counterfeited the friars issuing from the church behind the Cross, together with some grave-diggers, to bury him, all wrought very naturally; and there are likewise other figures marvelling at that event which give no little pleasure to the eye, among which are portraits of Maso degli Albizzi, Messer Agnolo Acciaiuoli, and Messer Palla Strozzi, eminent citizens often cited in the history of the city. On another wall he painted S. Francis, in the presence of the vicar, renouncing his inheritance from his father, Pietro Bernardone, and assuming the habit of sackcloth, which he is girding round him with the cord. On the middle wall he is shown going to Rome and having his Rule confirmed by Pope Honorius, and presenting roses in January to that Pontiff. In this scene he depicted the Hall of the Consistory, with Cardinals seated around, and certain steps ascending to it, furnishing the flight of steps with a balustrade, and painting there some half-length figures portrayed from the life, among which is the portrait of the elder Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent; and there he also painted S. Francis receiving the Stigmata. In the last he made the Saint dead, with his friars mourning for him, among whom is one friar kissing his hands--an effect that could not be rendered better in painting; not to mention that a Bishop in full robes, with spectacles on his nose, is chanting the prayers for the dead so vividly, that only the lack of sound shows him to be painted. In one of two pictures that are on either side of the panel he portrayed Francesco Sassetti on his knees, and in the other his wife, Monna Nera, with their children (but these last are in the aforesaid scene of the child being restored to life), and with certain beautiful maidens of the same family, whose names I have not been able to discover, all in the costumes and fashions of that age, which gives no little pleasure. Besides this, he made four Sibyls on the vaulting, and an ornament above the arch on the front wall without the chapel, containing the scene of the Tiburtine Sibyl making the Emperor Octavian adore Christ, which is executed in a masterly manner for a work in fresco, with much vivacity and loveliness in the colours. To this work he added a panel wrought in distemper, also by his hand, containing a Nativity of Christ that should amaze any person of understanding, wherein he portrayed himself and made certain heads of shepherds, which are held to be something divine. Of this Sibyl and of other parts of this work there are some very beautiful drawings in our book, made in chiaroscuro, and in particular the view in perspective of the Ponte a S. Trinita. For the Frati Ingesuati he painted a panel for their high-altar, with certain Saints kneeling--namely, S. Giusto, Bishop of Volterra, who was the titular Saint of that church; S. Zanobi, Bishop of Florence; an Angel Raphael; a S. Michael, clad in most beautiful armour; and other saints. For this work Domenico truly deserves praise, for he was the first who began to counterfeit with colours certain trimmings and ornaments of gold, which had not been done up to that time; and he swept away in great measure those borders of gilding that were made with mordant or with bole, which were more suitable for church-hangings than for the work of good masters. More beautiful than all the other figures is the Madonna, who has the Child in her arms and four little angels round her. This panel, which is wrought as well as any work in distemper could be, was then placed in the church of those friars without the Porta a Pinti; but since that building, as will be told elsewhere, was destroyed, it is now in the Church of S. Giovannino, within the Porta S. Piero Gattolini, where there is the Convent of the aforesaid Ingesuati. In the Church of Cestello he painted a panel--afterwards finished by his brothers David and Benedetto--containing the Visitation of Our Lady, with certain most charming and beautiful heads of women. In the Church of the Innocenti he painted the Story of the Magi on a panel in distemper, which is much extolled. In this are heads most beautiful in expression and varied in features, both young and old; and in the head of Our Lady, in particular, are seen all the dignity, beauty, and grace that art can give to the Mother of the Son of God. On the tramezzo[24] of the Church of S. Marco there is another panel, with a Last Supper in the guest-room, both executed with diligence; and in the house of Giovanni Tornabuoni there is a round picture with the Story of the Magi, wrought with diligence. In the Little Hospital, for the elder Lorenzo de' Medici, he painted the story of Vulcan, in which many nude figures are at work with hammers making thunderbolts for Jove. And in the Church of Ognissanti in Florence, in competition with Sandro di Botticello, he painted a S. Jerome in fresco (which is now beside the door that leads to the choir), surrounding him with an infinite number of instruments and books, such as are used by the learned. The friars having occasion to remove the choir from the place where it stood, this picture, together with that of Sandro di Botticello, has been bound round with irons and transported without injury into the middle of the church, at the very time when these Lives are being printed for the second time. He also painted the arch over the door of S. Maria Ughi, and a little shrine for the Guild of Linen-Manufacturers, and likewise a very beautiful S. George, slaying the Dragon, in the same Church of Ognissanti. And in truth he had a very good knowledge of the method of painting on walls, which he did with very great facility, although he was scrupulously careful in the composition of his works. [Illustration: THE DEATH OF S. FRANCIS (_After the fresco by =Domenico Ghirlandajo=. Florence: S. Trinita_) _Alinari_] Being then summoned to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV to paint his chapel, in company with other masters, he painted there Christ calling Peter and Andrew from their nets, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the greater part of which has since been spoilt in consequence of being over the door, on which it became necessary to replace an architrave that had fallen down. There was living in Rome at this same time Francesco Tornabuoni, a rich and honoured merchant, much the friend of Domenico. This man, whose wife had died in childbirth, as is told in the Life of Andrea Verrocchio, desiring to honour her as became their noble station, had caused a tomb to be made for her in the Minerva; and he also wished Domenico to paint the whole wall against which this tomb stood, and likewise to make for it a little panel in distemper. On that wall, therefore, he painted four stories--two of S. John the Baptist and two of the Madonna--which brought him truly great praise at that time. And Francesco took so much pleasure in his dealings with Domenico, that, when the latter returned to Florence rich in honour and in gains, Francesco recommended him by letters to his relative Giovanni, telling him how well the painter had served him in that work, and how well satisfied the Pope had been with his pictures. Hearing this, Giovanni began to contemplate employing him on some magnificent work, such as would honour his own memory and bring fame and profit to Domenico. Now it chanced that the principal chapel of S. Maria Novella (a convent of Preaching Friars), formerly painted by Andrea Orcagna, was injured in many parts by rain in consequence of the roof of the vaulting being badly covered. For this reason many citizens had wished to restore it, or rather, to have it painted anew; but the owners, who belonged to the family of the Ricci, had never consented to this, being unable to bear so great an expense themselves, and unwilling to allow others to do so, lest they should lose the rights of ownership and the distinction of the arms handed down to them by their ancestors. Giovanni, then, being desirous that Domenico should make him his memorial there, set to work in this matter, trying various ways; and finally he promised the Ricci to bear the whole expense himself, to give them some sort of recompense, and to have their arms placed in the most conspicuous and honourable place in that chapel. And so they came to an agreement, making a contract in the form of a very precise instrument according to the terms described above. Giovanni allotted this work to Domenico, with the same subjects as were painted there before; and they agreed that the price should be 1,200 gold ducats of full weight, with 200 more in the event of the work giving satisfaction to Giovanni. Thereupon Domenico put his hand to the work and laboured without ceasing for four years until he had finished it--which was in 1485--to the very great satisfaction and contentment of Giovanni, who, while admitting that he had been well served, and confessing ingenuously that Domenico had earned the additional 200 ducats, said that he would be pleased if he would be satisfied with the original price. And Domenico, who esteemed glory and honour much more than riches, immediately let him off all the rest, declaring that he set much greater store on having given him satisfaction than on the matter of complete payment. Giovanni afterwards caused two large coats of arms to be made of stone--one for the Tornaquinci and the other for the Tornabuoni--and placed on the pilasters without the chapel, and in the arch he placed other arms belonging to that family, which is divided into various names and various arms--namely, in addition to the two already mentioned, those of the Ghiachinotti, Popoleschi, Marabottini, and Cardinali. And afterwards, when Domenico painted the altar-panel, he caused to be placed in the gilt ornament, under an arch, as a finishing touch to that panel, a very beautiful Tabernacle of the Sacrament, on the frontal of which he made a little shield a quarter of a braccio in length, containing the arms of the said owners--that is, the Ricci. And a fine jest it was at the opening of the chapel, for these Ricci looked for their arms with much ado, and finally, not being able to find them, went off to the Tribunal of Eight, contract in hand. Whereupon the Tornabuoni showed that these arms had been placed in the most conspicuous and most honourable part of the work; and although the others exclaimed that they were invisible, they were told that they were in the wrong, and that they must be content, since the Tornabuoni had caused them to be placed in so honourable a position as the neighbourhood of the most Holy Sacrament. And so it was decided by that tribunal that they should be left untouched, as they may be seen to-day. Now, if this should appear to anyone to be outside the scope of the Life that I have to write, let him not be vexed, for it all flowed naturally from the tip of my pen. And it should serve, if for nothing else, at least to show how easily poverty falls a prey to riches, and how riches, if accompanied by discretion, achieve without censure anything that a man desires. [Illustration: DOMENICO GHIRLANDAJO: THE VISION OF S. FINA (_San Gimignano. Fresco_)] But to return to the beautiful works of Domenico; in that chapel, first of all, are the four Evangelists on the vaulting, larger than life; and, on the window-wall, stories of S. Dominic, S. Peter Martyr, S. John going into the Desert, the Madonna receiving the Annunciation from the Angel, and many patron saints of Florence on their knees above the window; while at the foot, on the right hand, is a portrait from life of Giovanni Tornabuoni, with one of his wife on the left, which are both said to be very lifelike. On the right-hand wall are seven scenes--six below, in compartments as large as the wall allows, and the last above, twice as broad as any of the others and bounded by the arch of the vaulting; and on the left-hand wall are also seven scenes from the life of S. John the Baptist. The first on the right-hand wall is the Expulsion of Joachim from the Temple, wherein patience is depicted in his countenance, with that contempt and hatred in the faces of the others which the Jews felt for those who came to the Temple without having children. In this scene, in the part near the window, are four men portrayed from life, one of whom, old, shaven, and wearing a red cap, is Alesso Baldovinetti, Domenico's master in painting and in mosaic. Another, bareheaded, who is holding one hand on his side and is wearing a red mantle, with a blue garment below, is Domenico himself, the master of the work, who portrayed himself in a mirror. The one who has long black locks and thick lips is Bastiano da San Gimignano, his disciple and brother-in-law; and the last, who has his back turned, with a little cap on his head, is the painter David Ghirlandajo, his brother. All these are said, by those who knew them, to be truly vivid and lifelike portraits. In the second scene is the Nativity of Our Lady, executed with great diligence, and, among other notable things that he painted therein, there is in the building (drawn in perspective) a window that gives light to the room, which deceives all who see it. Besides this, while S. Anna is in bed, and certain ladies are visiting her, he painted some women washing the Madonna with great care--one is getting ready the water, another is preparing the swaddling-clothes, a third is busy with some service, a fourth with another, and, while each is attending to her own duty, another woman is holding the little child in her arms and making her laugh by smiling at her, with a womanly grace truly worthy of such a work; besides many other expressions that are in each figure. In the third, which is above the first, is the Madonna ascending the steps of the Temple, with a building which recedes from the eye correctly enough, in addition to a nude figure that brought him praise at that time, when few were to be seen, although it had not that complete perfection which is shown by those painted in our own day, for those masters were not as excellent as ours. Next to this is the Marriage of Our Lady, wherein he represented the unbridled rage of those who are breaking their rods because they do not blossom like that of Joseph; and this scene has an abundance of figures in an appropriate building. In the fifth are seen the Magi arriving in Bethlehem with a great number of men, horses, and dromedaries, and a variety of other things--a scene truly well composed. Next to this is the sixth, showing the impious cruelty practised by Herod against the Innocents, wherein there is seen a most beautiful combat between women and soldiers, with horses that are striking and driving them about; and in truth this is the best of all the stories that are to be seen by his hand, for it is executed with judgment, intelligence, and great art. There may be seen therein the impious resolution of those who, at the command of Herod, without regard for the mothers, are slaying those poor infants, among which is one, still clinging to the breast, that is dying from wounds received in its throat, so that it is sucking, not to say drinking, as much blood as milk from that breast--an effect truly natural, and, being wrought in such a manner as it is, able to kindle a spark of pity in the coldest heart. There is also a soldier who has seized a child by force, and while he runs off with it, pressing it against his breast to kill it, the mother is seen hanging from his hair in the utmost fury, and forcing him to bend his back in the form of an arch, so that three very beautiful effects are shown among them--one in the death of the child, which is seen expiring; the second in the impious rage of the soldier, who, feeling himself drawn backwards so strangely, is shown in the act of avenging himself on the child; and the third is that the mother, seeing the death of her babe, is seeking with fury, grief, and disdain to prevent the villain from going off scathless; and the whole is truly more the work of a philosopher admirable in judgment than of a painter. There are many other emotions depicted, which will demonstrate to him who studies them that this man was without doubt an excellent master in his time. Above this, in the seventh scene, which embraces the space of two, and is bounded by the arch of the vaulting, are the Death and the Assumption of Our Lady, with an infinite number of angels, and innumerable figures, landscapes, and other ornaments, of which he used to paint an abundance in his facile and practised manner. [Illustration: THE BIRTH OF S. JOHN THE BAPTIST (_After the fresco by =Domenico Ghirlandajo=. Florence: S. Maria Novella_) _Anderson_] On the other wall are stories of S. John, and in the first is Zacharias sacrificing in the Temple, when the Angel appears to him and makes him dumb for his unbelief. In this scene, showing how sacrifices in temples are ever attended by a throng of the most distinguished men, and wishing to make it as honourable as he was able, he portrayed a good number of the Florentine citizens who then governed that State, particularly all those of the house of Tornabuoni, both young and old. Besides this, in order to show that his age was rich in every sort of talent, above all in learning, he made a group of four half-length figures conversing together at the foot of the scene, representing the most learned men then to be found in Florence. The first of these, who is wearing the dress of a Canon, is Messer Marsilio Ficino; the second, in a red mantle, with a black band round his neck, is Cristofano Landino; the figure turning towards him is Demetrius the Greek; and he who is standing between them, with one hand slightly raised, is Messer Angelo Poliziano; and all are very lifelike and vivacious. In the second scene, next to this, there follows the Visitation of Our Lady to S. Elizabeth, with a company of many women dressed in costumes of those times, among whom is a portrait of Ginevra de' Benci, then a most beautiful maiden. In the third, above the first, is the birth of S. John, wherein there is a very beautiful scene, for while S. Elizabeth is lying in bed, and certain neighbours come to see her, and the nurse is seated suckling the infant, one woman is joyfully demanding it from her, that she may show to the others what an unexampled feat the mistress of the house has performed in her old age. Finally, there is a woman, who is very beautiful, bringing fruits and flasks from the country, according to the Florentine custom. In the fourth scene, next to this, is Zacharias, still dumb, marvelling--but with undaunted heart--that this child should have been born to him; and while they keep asking him about the name, he is writing on his knee, with his eyes fixed on his son, whom a woman who has knelt down before him is holding reverently in her arms, and he is tracing with his pen on the paper, "John shall be his name," to the no little marvel of many other figures, who appear to be in doubt whether the thing be true or not. There follows in the fifth his preaching to the multitude, in which scene there is shown that attention which the populace ever gives when hearing new things, particularly in the heads of the Scribes, who, while listening to John, appear from a certain expression of countenance to be deriding his law, and even to hate it; and there are seen many men and women, variously attired, both standing and seated. In the sixth S. John is seen baptizing Christ, in whose reverent expression Domenico showed very clearly the faith that should be placed in such a Sacrament. And since this did not fail to achieve a very great effect, he depicted many already naked and barefooted, waiting to be baptized, and revealing faith and willingness carved in their faces; and one among them, who is taking off his shoe, personifies readiness itself. In the last, which is in the arch next to the vaulting, are the sumptuous Feast of Herod and the Dance of Herodias, with an infinite number of servants performing various services in that scene; not to mention the grandeur of an edifice drawn in perspective, which proves the talent of Domenico no less clearly than do the other pictures. The panel, which stands by itself, he executed in distemper, as he did the other figures in the six pictures. Besides the Madonna, who is seated in the sky with the Child in her arms, and the other saints who are round her, there are S. Laurence and S. Stephen, who are absolutely alive, with S. Vincent and S. Peter Martyr, who lack nothing save speech. It is true that a part of this panel remained unfinished in consequence of his death; but he had carried it so far on that there was nothing left to complete save certain figures on the back, where there is the Resurrection of Christ, with three figures in the other pictures, and the whole was afterwards finished by Benedetto and David Ghirlandajo, his brothers. This chapel was held to be a very beautiful work, grand, ornate, and lovely, through the vivacity of the colours, through the masterly finish in their application on the walls, and because very little retouching was done on the dry, not to mention the invention and the composition of the subjects. And in truth Domenico deserves the greatest praise on all accounts, particularly for the liveliness of the heads, which, being portrayed from nature, present to every eye most lifelike effigies of many distinguished persons. For the same Giovanni Tornabuoni, at his Villa of Casso Maccherelli, which stands on the River Terzolle at no great distance from the city, he painted a chapel which has since been half destroyed through being too near to the river; but the paintings, although they have been uncovered for many years, continually washed by rain and scorched by the sun, have remained so fresh that one might think they had been covered--so great is the value of working in fresco, when the work is done with care and judgment and not retouched on the dry. He also made many figures of Florentine Saints, with most beautiful adornments, in that hall of the Palace of the Signoria which contains the marvellous clock of Lorenzo della Volpaia. And so great was his love of working and of giving satisfaction to all, that he commanded his lads to accept any work that might be brought to his shop, even hoops for women's baskets, saying that if they would not do them he would paint them himself, to the end that none might leave the shop unsatisfied. But when household cares fell upon him he was troubled, and he therefore laid the charge of all expenditure on his brother David, saying to him, "Leave me to work, and do thou provide, for now that I have begun to understand the methods of this art, it grieves me that they will not commission me to paint the whole circuit of the walls of the city of Florence with stories"; thus revealing a spirit absolutely invincible and resolute in every action. For S. Martino in Lucca he painted S. Peter and S. Paul on a panel. In the Abbey of Settimo, without Florence, he painted the wall of the principal chapel in fresco, with two panels in distemper in the tramezzo[25] of the church. In Florence, also, he executed many pictures, round, square, and of other kinds, which can only be seen in the houses of individual citizens. In Pisa he painted the recess behind the high-altar of the Duomo, and he worked in many parts of that city, painting, for example, on the front wall of the Office of Works, a scene of King Charles, portrayed from life, making supplication for Pisa; and two panels in distemper, that of the high-altar and another, for the Frati Gesuati in S. Girolamo. In that place there is also a picture of S. Rocco and S. Sebastian by the hand of the same man, which was given by one or other of the Medici to those fathers, who have therefore added to it the arms of Pope Leo X. He is said to have been so accurate in draughtsmanship, that, when making drawings of the antiquities of Rome, such as arches, baths, columns, colossea, obelisks, amphitheatres, and aqueducts, he would work with the eye alone, without rule, compasses, or measurements; and after he had made them, on being measured, they were found absolutely correct, as if he had used measurements. He drew the Colosseum by the eye, placing at the foot of it a figure standing upright, from the proportions of which the whole edifice could be measured; this was tried by some masters after his death, and found quite correct. Over a door of the cemetery of S. Maria Nuova he painted a S. Michael in fresco, clad in armour which reflects the light most beautifully--a thing seldom done before his day. At the Abbey of Passignano, a seat of the Monks of Vallombrosa, he wrought certain works in company with his brother David and Bastiano da San Gimignano. Here the two others, finding themselves poorly fed by the monks before the arrival of Domenico, complained to the Abbot, praying him to have them better served, since it was not right that they should be treated like bricklayers' labourers. This the Abbot promised to do, saying in excuse that it was due more to the ignorance of the monks who looked after strangers than to malice. Domenico arrived, but everything continued just the same; whereupon David, seeking out the Abbot once again, declared with due apologies that he was not doing this for his own sake but on account of the merits and talents of his brother. But the Abbot, like the ignorant man that he was, made no other answer. That evening, then, when they had sat down to supper, up came the stranger's steward with a board covered with bowls and messes only fit for a hangman, exactly the same as before. Thereupon David, flying into a rage, upset the soup over the friar, and, seizing the loaf that was on the table, fell upon him with it and belaboured him in such a manner that he was carried away to his cell more dead than alive. The Abbot, who was already in bed, got up and ran to the noise, believing that the monastery was tumbling down; and finding the friar in a sorry plight, he began to upbraid David. Enraged by this, David bade him be gone out of his sight, saying that the talent of Domenico was worth more than all the pigs of Abbots like him that had ever lived in that monastery. Whereupon the Abbot, seeing himself in the wrong, did his utmost from that time onwards to treat them like the important men that they were. This work finished, Domenico returned to Florence, where he painted a panel for Signor di Carpi, sending another to Rimini for Signor Carlo Malatesta, who had it placed in his chapel in S. Domenico. The latter panel was in distemper, with three very beautiful figures, and with little scenes below; and behind were figures painted to look like bronze, with very great design and art. Besides these, he painted two panels for the Abbey of S. Giusto, a seat of the Order of Camaldoli, without Volterra; these panels, which are wondrously beautiful, he executed at the order of the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici, for the reason that the abbey was then held "in commendam" by his son Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, who was afterwards Pope Leo. This abbey was restored not many years ago by the Very Reverend Messer Giovan Batista Bava of Volterra, who likewise held it "in commendam," to the said Congregation of Camaldoli. Being then summoned to Siena through the agency of the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici, Domenico undertook to adorn the façade of the Duomo with mosaics, Lorenzo acting as surety for him in this work to the extent of 20,000 ducats. And he began the work with much confidence and a better manner, but, being overtaken by death, he left it unfinished; even as, by reason of the death of the aforesaid Magnificent Lorenzo, there remained unfinished at Florence the Chapel of S. Zanobi, on which Domenico had begun to work in mosaic in company with the illuminator Gherardo. By the hand of Domenico is a very beautiful Annunciation in mosaic that is to be seen over that side-door of S. Maria del Fiore which leads to the Servi; and nothing better than this has yet been seen among the works of our modern masters of mosaic. Domenico used to say that painting was mere drawing, and that the true painting for eternity was mosaic. A pupil of his, who lived with him in order to learn, was Bastiano Mainardi da San Gimignano, who became a very able master of his manner in fresco; wherefore he went with Domenico to San Gimignano, where they painted in company the Chapel of S. Fina, which is a beautiful work. Now the faithful and willing service of Bastiano, who acquitted himself very well, induced Domenico to judge him worthy to have a sister of his own for wife; and so their friendship was changed into relationship--a proof of liberality worthy of a loving master, who was pleased to reward the proficiency that his disciple had acquired by labouring at his art. Domenico caused the said Bastiano to paint a Madonna ascending into Heaven in the Chapel of the Baroncelli and Bandini in S. Croce (although he made the cartoon himself), with S. Thomas below receiving the Girdle--a beautiful work in fresco. In Siena, in an apartment of the Palace of the Spannocchi, Domenico and Bastiano together painted many scenes in distemper, with little figures; and in Pisa, in addition to the aforesaid recess in the Duomo, they filled the whole arch of that chapel with angels, besides painting the folding doors that close the organ, and beginning to overlay the ceiling with gold. Afterwards, just when Domenico was about to put his hand to some very great works both in Pisa and in Siena, he fell sick of a most grievous putrid fever, which cut short his life in five days. As he lay ill, the Tornabuoni sent him a hundred ducats of gold as a gift, proving their regard and particular friendship for Domenico in return for his unceasing labours in the service of Giovanni and of his house. Domenico lived forty-four years, and he was buried with beautiful obsequies in S. Maria Novella by his brothers David and Benedetto and his son Ridolfo, amid much weeping and sorrowful regrets. The loss of so great a man was a great grief to his friends; and many excellent foreign painters, hearing that he was dead, wrote to his relatives lamenting his most untimely death. The disciples that he left were David and Benedetto Ghirlandajo, Bastiano Mainardi da San Gimignano, the Florentine Michelagnolo Buonarroti, Francesco Granaccio, Niccolò Cieco, Jacopo del Tedesco, Jacopo dell' Indaco, Baldino Baldinelli, and other masters, all Florentines. He died in 1495. [Illustration: THE MADONNA GIVING THE GIRDLE TO S. THOMAS (_After the panel by =Bastiano Mainardi=. Florence: S. Croce_) _Brogi_] Domenico enriched the art of painting by working in mosaic with a manner more modern than was shown by any of the innumerable Tuscans who essayed it, as is proved by the works that he wrought, few though they may be. Wherefore he has deserved to be held in honour and esteem for such rich and undying benefits to art, and to be celebrated with extraordinary praises after his death. FOOTNOTES: [23] Garlands. [24] See note on p. 57, Vol. I. [25] See note on p. 57, Vol. I. ANTONIO AND PIERO POLLAIUOLO LIVES OF ANTONIO AND PIERO POLLAIUOLO PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS OF FLORENCE Many men begin in a humble spirit with unimportant works, who, gaining courage from proficiency, grow also in power and ability, in such a manner that they aspire to greater undertakings and almost reach Heaven with their beautiful thoughts. Raised by fortune, they very often chance upon some liberal Prince, who, finding himself well served by them, is forced to remunerate their labours so richly that their descendants derive great benefits and advantages from them. Wherefore such men walk through this life to the end with so much glory, that they leave marvellous memorials of themselves to the world, as did Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo, who were greatly esteemed in their day for the rare acquirements that they had made with their industry and labour. These men were born in the city of Florence, one no long time after the other, from a father of humble station and no great wealth, who, recognizing by many signs the good and acute intelligence of his sons, but not having the means to educate them in letters, apprenticed Antonio to the goldsmith's art under Bartoluccio Ghiberti, a very excellent master in that calling at that time; and Piero he placed under Andrea dal Castagno, who was then the best painter in Florence, to learn painting. Antonio, then, being pushed on by Bartoluccio, not only learnt to set jewels and to fire enamels on silver, but was also held the best master of the tools of that art. Wherefore Lorenzo Ghiberti, who was then working on the doors of S. Giovanni, having observed the manner of Antonio, called him into that work in company with many other young men, and set him to labour on one of the festoons which he then had in hand. On this Antonio made a quail which is still in existence, so beautiful and so perfect that it lacks nothing but the power of flight. Antonio, therefore, had not spent many weeks over this work before he was known as the best, both in design and in patient execution, of all those who were working there, and as more gifted and more diligent than any other. Whereupon, growing ever both in ability and in fame, he left Bartoluccio and Lorenzo, and opened a fine and magnificent goldsmith's shop for himself in the Mercato Nuovo in that city. And for many years he followed that art, never ceasing to make new designs, and executing in relief wax candles and other things of fancy, which in a short time caused him to be held--as he was--the first master of his calling. There lived at the same time another goldsmith called Maso Finiguerra, who had an extraordinary fame, and deservedly, since there had never been seen any master of engraving and of niello who could make so great a number of figures as he could, whether in a small or in a large space; as is still proved by certain paxes in the Church of S. Giovanni in Florence, wrought by him with most minutely elaborated stories from the Passion of Christ. This man drew very well and in abundance, and in our book are many of his drawings of figures, both draped and nude, and scenes done in water-colour. In competition with him Antonio executed certain scenes, in which he equalled him in diligence and surpassed him in design; wherefore the Consuls of the Guild of Merchants, seeing the excellence of Antonio, and remembering that there were certain scenes in silver to be wrought for the altar of S. Giovanni, such as it had ever been the custom for various masters to make at different times, determined among themselves that Antonio also should make some. This came to pass; and his works turned out so excellent, that they are recognized as the best among them all. These were the Feast of Herod and the Dance of Herodias; but more beautiful than anything else was the S. John that is in the middle of the altar, a work wrought wholly with the chasing-tool, and much extolled. For this reason he was commissioned by the said Consuls to make the candelabra of silver, each three braccia in height, and the Cross in proportion; which work he brought to such perfection, with such an abundance of carving, that it has ever been esteemed a marvellous thing both by foreigners and by his countrymen. [Illustration: SS. EUSTACE, JAMES, AND VINCENT (_After the panel by =Piero Pollaiuolo=. Florence: Uffizi, 1301_) _Alinari_] In this calling he took infinite pains, both with the works that he executed in gold and with those in enamel and silver. Among these are some very beautiful paxes in S. Giovanni, coloured by the action of fire, which are such that they could be scarcely improved with the brush; and some of his marvellous enamels may be seen in other churches in Florence, Rome, and other parts of Italy. He taught this art to the Florentine Mazzingo and to Giuliano del Facchino, both passing good masters, and to Giovanni Turini of Siena, who surpassed these his companions considerably in that profession, in which, from Antonio di Salvi--who made many good works, such as a large silver Cross for the Badia of Florence, and other things--to our own day, there has been nothing done than can be held in particular account. But of his works and of those of the Pollaiuoli many have been destroyed and melted down to meet the necessities of the city in times of war. For this reason, recognizing that this art gave no long life to the labours of its craftsmen, and desiring to gain a more lasting memory, Antonio resolved to pursue it no longer. And so, his brother Piero being a painter, he associated himself with him in order to learn the methods of handling and using colours; but it appeared to him an art so different from the goldsmith's, that, if he had not been so hasty in resolving to abandon his own art entirely, it might well have been that he would never have brought himself to turn to the other. However, spurred by fear of shame rather than by hope of profit, in a few months he acquired a practical knowledge of colouring and became an excellent master. He associated himself entirely with Piero, and they made many pictures in company; among others, since they took great delight in colour, a panel in oil in S. Miniato al Monte without Florence, for the Cardinal of Portugal. On this panel, which was placed on the altar of his chapel, they painted S. James the Apostle, S. Eustace, and S. Vincent, which have been much extolled. Piero, in particular, painted certain prophets on the wall in oil (a method that he had learnt from Andrea dal Castagno), in the corners of the angles below the architrave, where the lunettes of the arches run; and in one of the lunettes he painted the Virgin receiving the Annunciation, with three figures. For the Capitani di Parte he painted a Madonna with the Child in her arms in a lunette, with a frieze of seraphim all round, also wrought in oil. They also painted in oil, on canvas, on a pilaster of S. Michele in Orto, an Angel Raphael with Tobias; and they made certain Virtues in the Mercatanzia of Florence, in the very place where that Tribunal holds its sittings. In the Proconsulate Antonio made portraits from life of Messer Poggio, Secretary to the Signoria of Florence, who continued the History of Florence after Messer Leonardo d'Arezzo, and of Messer Giannozzo Manetti, a man of no small learning and repute, in the same place where other masters some time before had made portraits of Zanobi da Strada, a poet of Florence, Donato Acciaiuoli, and others. In the Chapel of the Pucci, in S. Sebastiano de' Servi, he painted the panel of the altar, which is a rare and excellent work, containing marvellous horses, nudes, and very beautiful figures in foreshortening, and S. Sebastian himself portrayed from life--namely, from Gino di Lodovico Capponi. This work received greater praise than any other that Antonio ever made, since, seeking to imitate nature to the utmost of his power, he showed in one of the archers, who is resting his cross-bow against his chest and bending down to the ground in order to load it, all the force that a man of strong arm can exert in loading that weapon, for we see his veins and muscles swelling, and the man himself holding his breath in order to gain more strength. Nor is this the only figure wrought with careful consideration, for all the others in their various attitudes also demonstrate clearly enough the thought and the intelligence that he put into this work, which was certainly appreciated by Antonio Pucci, who gave him 300 crowns for it, declaring that he was barely paying him for the colours. It was finished in the year 1475. [Illustration: ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO: DAVID VICTOR (_Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 73A. Panel_)] Gaining courage from this, therefore, he painted at S. Miniato fra le Torri, without the Gate, a S. Cristopher ten braccia in height, a very beautiful work executed in a modern manner, the figure being better proportioned than any other of that size that had been made up to that time. He then made a Crucifix with S. Antonino, on canvas, which was placed in the chapel of that Saint in S. Marco. In the Palace of the Signoria of Florence, at the Porta della Catena, he made a S. John the Baptist; and in the house of the Medici he painted for the elder Lorenzo three figures of Hercules in three pictures, each five braccia in height. The first of these, which is slaying Antaeus, is a very beautiful figure, in which the strength of Hercules as he crushes the other is seen most vividly, for the muscles and nerves of that figure are all strained in the struggle to destroy Antaeus. The head of Hercules shows the gnashing of the teeth so well in harmony with the other parts, that even the toes of his feet are raised in the effort. Nor did he take less pains with Antaeus, who, crushed in the arms of Hercules, is seen sinking and losing all his strength, and giving up his breath through his open mouth. The second Hercules, who is slaying the Lion, has the left knee pressed against its chest, and, setting his teeth and extending his arms, and grasping the Lion's jaws with both his hands, he is opening them and rending them asunder by main force, although the beast is tearing his arms grievously with its claws in self-defence. The third picture, wherein Hercules is slaying the Hydra, is something truly marvellous, particularly the serpent, which he made so lively and so natural in colouring that nothing could be made more life-like. In that beast are seen venom, fire, ferocity, rage, and such vivacity, that he deserves to be celebrated and to be closely imitated in this by all good craftsmen. For the Company of S. Angelo in Arezzo he executed an oil-painting on cloth, with a Crucifix on one side, and on the other S. Michael in combat with the Dragon, as beautiful as any work that there is to be seen by his hand; for the figure of S. Michael, who is bravely confronting the Dragon, setting his teeth and knitting his brows, truly seems to have descended from Heaven in order to effect the vengeance of God against the pride of Lucifer, and it is indeed a marvellous work. He had a more modern grasp of the nude than the masters before his day, and he dissected many bodies in order to study their anatomy. He was the first to demonstrate the method of searching out the muscles, in order that they might have their due form and place in his figures, and he engraved on copper a battle of nude figures all girt round with a chain; and after this one he made other engravings, with much better workmanship than had been shown by the other masters who had lived before him. For these reasons, then, he became famous among craftsmen, and after the death of Pope Sixtus IV he was summoned by his successor, Pope Innocent, to Rome, where he made a tomb of metal for the said Innocent, wherein he portrayed him from nature, seated in the attitude of giving the Benediction; and this was placed in S. Pietro. That of the said Pope Sixtus, which was finished at very great cost, was placed in the chapel that is called by the name of that Pontiff. It stands quite by itself, with very rich adornments, and on it there lies an excellent figure of the Pope; and the tomb of Innocent stands in S. Pietro, beside the chapel that contains the Lance of Christ. It is said that the same man designed the Palace of the Belvedere for the said Pope Innocent, although, since he had little experience of building, it was erected by others. Finally, after becoming rich, these two brothers died almost at the same time in 1498, and were buried by their relatives in S. Pietro in Vincula; and in memory of them, beside the middle door, on the left as one enters into the church, there were placed two medallions of marble with their portraits and with the following epitaph: ANTONIUS PULLARIUS PATRIA FLORENTINUS, PICTOR INSIGNIS, QUI DUORUM PONTIF. XISTI ET INNOCENTII ÆREA MONIMENTA MIRO OPIFIC. EXPRESSIT, RE FAMIL. COMPOSITA EX TEST. HIC SE CUM PETRO FRATRE CONDI VOLUIT. VIX. AN. LXXII. OBIIT ANNO SAL. MIID. The same man made a very beautiful battle of nude figures in low-relief and of metal, which went to Spain; of this every craftsman in Florence has a plaster cast. And after his death there were found the design and model that he had made at the command of Lodovico Sforza for the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, of which design there are two forms in our book; in one the Duke has Verona beneath him, and in the other he is on a pedestal covered with battle pieces, in full armour, and forcing his horse to leap on a man in armour. But the reason why he did not put these designs into execution I have not yet been able to discover. The same man made some very beautiful medals; among others, one representing the conspiracy of the Pazzi, containing on one side the heads of Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici, and on the reverse the choir of S. Maria del Fiore, with the whole event exactly as it happened. He also made the medals of certain Pontiffs, and many other things that are known to craftsmen. [Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF S. SEBASTIAN (_After the panel by =Antonio Pollaiuolo=. London: National Gallery, 292_) _Mansell_] [Illustration: TOMB OF POPE SIXTUS IV (_After =Antonio Pollaiuolo=. Rome: S. Peter's_) _Anderson_] Antonio was seventy-two years of age when he died, and Piero sixty-five. The former left many disciples, among whom was Andrea Sansovino. Antonio had a most fortunate life in his day, finding rich Pontiffs, and his own city at the height of its greatness and delighting in talent, wherefore he was much esteemed; whereas, if he had chanced to live in an unfavourable age, he would not have produced such fruits as he did, since troublous times are deadly enemies to the sciences in which men labour and take delight. For S. Giovanni in Florence, after the design of this man, there were made two dalmatics, a chasuble, and a cope, of double brocade, all woven in one piece without a single seam; and for these, as borders and ornaments, there were embroidered the stories of the life of S. John, with most delicate workmanship and art, by Paolo da Verona, a divine master of that profession and rare in intelligence beyond all others, who executed the figures no less well with the needle than Antonio would have done them with his brush; wherefore we owe no small obligation to the one for his design and to the other for his patience in embroidering it. This work took twenty-six years to complete; but of these embroideries, which, being made with the close stitch, are not only more durable but also seem like a real painting done with the brush, the good method is now all but lost, since we now use a more open stitch, which is less durable and less lovely to the eye. SANDRO BOTTICELLI LIFE OF SANDRO BOTTICELLI [_ALESSANDRO FILIPEPI OR SANDRO DI BOTTICELLO_] PAINTER OF FLORENCE At the same time with the elder Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, which was truly a golden age for men of intellect, there also flourished one Alessandro, called Sandro after our custom, and surnamed Di Botticello for a reason that we shall see below. This man was the son of Mariano Filipepi, a citizen of Florence, who brought him up with care, and had him instructed in all those things that are usually taught to children before they are old enough to be apprenticed to some calling. But although he found it easy to learn whatever he wished, nevertheless he was ever restless, nor was he contented with any form of learning, whether reading, writing, or arithmetic, insomuch that his father, weary of the vagaries of his son's brain, in despair apprenticed him as a goldsmith with a boon-companion of his own, called Botticello, no mean master of that art in his day. Now in that age there was a very close connection--nay, almost a constant intercourse--between the goldsmiths and the painters; wherefore Sandro, who was a ready fellow and had devoted himself wholly to design, became enamoured of painting, and determined to devote himself to that. For this reason he spoke out his mind freely to his father, who, recognizing the inclination of his brain, took him to Fra Filippo of the Carmine, a most excellent painter of that time, with whom he placed him to learn the art, according to Sandro's own desire. Thereupon, devoting himself heart and soul to that art, Sandro followed and imitated his master so well that Fra Filippo, growing to love him, taught him very thoroughly, so that he soon rose to such a rank as none would have expected for him. While still quite young, he painted a figure of Fortitude in the Mercatanzia of Florence, among the pictures of Virtues that were wrought by Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo. For the Chapel of the Bardi in S. Spirito at Florence he painted a panel, wrought with diligence and brought to a fine completion, which contains certain olive-trees and palms executed with consummate lovingness. He painted a panel for the Convertite Nuns, and another for those of S. Barnaba. In the tramezzo[26] of the Ognissanti, by the door that leads into the choir, he painted for the Vespucci a S. Augustine in fresco, with which he took very great pains, seeking to surpass all the painters of his time, and particularly Domenico Ghirlandajo, who had made a S. Jerome on the other side; and this work won very great praise, for in the head of that Saint he depicted the profound meditation and acute subtlety that are found in men of wisdom who are ever concentrated on the investigation of the highest and most difficult matters. This picture, as was said in the Life of Ghirlandajo, has this year (1564) been removed safe and sound from its original position. Having thus come into credit and reputation, he was commissioned by the Guild of Porta Santa Maria to paint in S. Marco a panel with the Coronation of Our Lady and a choir of angels, which he designed and executed very well. He made many works in the house of the Medici for the elder Lorenzo, particularly a Pallas on a device of great branches, which spouted forth fire: this he painted of the size of life, as he did a S. Sebastian. In S. Maria Maggiore in Florence, beside the Chapel of the Panciatichi, there is a very beautiful Pietà with little figures. For various houses throughout the city he painted round pictures, and many female nudes, of which there are still two at Castello, a villa of Duke Cosimo's; one representing the birth of Venus, with those Winds and Zephyrs that bring her to the earth, with the Cupids; and likewise another Venus, whom the Graces are covering with flowers, as a symbol of spring; and all this he is seen to have expressed very gracefully. Round an apartment of the house of Giovanni Vespucci, now belonging to Piero Salviati, in the Via de' Servi, he made many pictures which were enclosed by frames of walnut-wood, by way of ornament and panelling, with many most lively and beautiful figures. In the house of the Pucci, likewise, he painted with little figures Boccaccio's tale of Nastagio degli Onesti in four square pictures of most charming and beautiful workmanship, and the Epiphany in a round picture. For a chapel in the Monastery of Cestello he painted an Annunciation on a panel. Near the side-door of S. Pietro Maggiore, for Matteo Palmieri, he painted a panel with an infinite number of figures--namely, the Assumption of Our Lady, with the zones of Heaven as they are represented, and the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, the Evangelists, the Martyrs, the Confessors, the Doctors, the Virgins, and the Hierarchies; all from the design given to him by Matteo, who was a learned and able man. This work he painted with mastery and consummate diligence; and at the foot is a portrait of Matteo on his knees, with that of his wife. But for all that the work is most beautiful, and should have silenced envy, nevertheless there were certain malignant slanderers who, not being able to do it any other damage, said that both Matteo and Sandro had committed therein the grievous sin of heresy. As to whether this be true or false, I cannot be expected to judge; it is enough that the figures painted therein by Sandro are truly worthy of praise, by reason of the pains that he took in drawing the zones of Heaven and in the distribution of figures, angels, foreshortenings, and views, all varied in diverse ways, the whole being executed with good design. [Illustration: SANDRO BOTTICELLI: PALLAS AND THE CENTAUR (_Florence: Pitti Palace, Panel_)] [Illustration: SANDRO BOTTICELLI: GIOVANNA TORNABUONI AND THE GRACES (_Paris: Louvre, 1297. Fresco_)] At this time Sandro was commissioned to paint a little panel with figures three-quarters of a braccio in length, which was placed between two doors in the principal façade of S. Maria Novella, on the left as one enters the church by the door in the centre. It contains the Adoration of the Magi, and wonderful feeling is seen in the first old man, who, kissing the foot of Our Lord, and melting with tenderness, shows very clearly that he has achieved the end of his long journey. The figure of this King is an actual portrait of the elder Cosimo de' Medici, the most lifelike and most natural that is to be found of him in our own day. The second, who is Giuliano de' Medici, father of Pope Clement VII, is seen devoutly doing reverence to the Child with a most intent expression, and presenting Him with his offering. The third, also on his knees, appears to be adoring Him and giving Him thanks, while confessing that He is the true Messiah; this is Giovanni, son of Cosimo. It is not possible to describe the beauty that Sandro depicted in the heads that are therein seen, which are drawn in various attitudes, some in full face, some in profile, some in three-quarter face, others bending down, and others, again, in various manners; with different expressions for the young and the old, and with all the bizarre effects that reveal to us the perfection of his skill; and he distinguished the Courts of the three Kings one from another, insomuch that one can see which are the retainers of each. This is truly a most admirable work, and executed so beautifully, whether in colouring, drawing, or composition, that every craftsman at the present day stands in a marvel thereat. And at that time it brought him such great fame, both in Florence and abroad, that Pope Sixtus IV, having accomplished the building of the chapel of his palace in Rome, and wishing to have it painted, ordained that he should be made head of that work; whereupon he painted therein with his own hand the following scenes--namely, the Temptation of Christ by the Devil, Moses slaying the Egyptian, Moses receiving drink from the daughters of Jethro the Midianite, and likewise fire descending from Heaven on the sacrifice of the sons of Aaron, with certain Sanctified Popes in the niches above the scenes. Having therefore acquired still greater fame and reputation among the great number of competitors who worked with him, both Florentines and men of other cities, he received from the Pope a good sum of money, the whole of which he consumed and squandered in a moment during his residence in Rome, where he lived in haphazard fashion, as was his wont. Having at the same time finished and unveiled the part that had been assigned to him, he returned immediately to Florence, where, being a man of inquiring mind, he made a commentary on part of Dante, illustrated the Inferno, and printed it; on which he wasted much of his time, bringing infinite disorder into his life by neglecting his work. He also printed many of the drawings that he had made, but in a bad manner, for the engraving was poorly done. The best of these that is to be seen by his hand is the Triumph of the Faith effected by Fra Girolamo Savonarola of Ferrara, of whose sect he was so ardent a partisan that he was thereby induced to desert his painting, and, having no income to live on, fell into very great distress. For this reason, persisting in his attachment to that party, and becoming a Piagnone[27] (as the members of the sect were then called), he abandoned his work; wherefore he ended in his old age by finding himself so poor, that, if Lorenzo de' Medici, for whom, besides many other things, he had done some work at the little hospital in the district of Volterra, had not succoured him the while that he lived, as did afterwards his friends and many excellent men who loved him for his talent, he would have almost died of hunger. [Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI (_After the panel by =Sandro Botticelli=. Florence: Uffizi, 1286_) _M. S._] In S. Francesco, without the Porta a San Miniato, there is a Madonna in a round picture by the hand of Sandro, with some angels of the size of life, which was held a very beautiful work. Sandro was a man of very pleasant humour, often playing tricks on his disciples and his friends; wherefore it is related that once, when a pupil of his who was called Biagio had made a round picture exactly like the one mentioned above, in order to sell it, Sandro sold it for six florins of gold to a citizen; then, finding Biagio, he said to him, "At last I have sold this thy picture; so this evening it must be hung on high, where it will be seen better, and in the morning thou must go to the house of the citizen who has bought it, and bring him here, that he may see it in a good light in its proper place; and then he will pay thee the money." "O, my master," said Biagio, "how well you have done." Then, going into the shop, he hung the picture at a good height, and went off. Meanwhile Sandro and Jacopo, who was another of his disciples, made eight caps of paper, like those worn by citizens, and fixed them with white wax on the heads of the eight angels that surrounded the Madonna in the said picture. Now, in the morning, up comes Biagio with his citizen, who had bought the picture and was in the secret. They entered the shop, and Biagio, looking up, saw his Madonna seated, not among his angels, but among the Signoria of Florence, with all those caps. Thereupon he was just about to begin to make an outcry and to excuse himself to the man who had bought it, when, seeing that the other, instead of complaining, was actually praising the picture, he kept silent himself. Finally, going with the citizen to his house, Biagio received his payment of six florins, the price for which his master had sold the picture; and then, returning to the shop just as Sandro and Jacopo had removed the paper caps, he saw his angels as true angels, and not as citizens in their caps. All in a maze, and not knowing what to say, he turned at last to Sandro and said: "Master, I know not whether I am dreaming, or whether this is true. When I came here before, these angels had red caps on their heads, and now they have not; what does it mean?" "Thou art out of thy wits, Biagio," said Sandro; "this money has turned thy head. If it were so, thinkest thou that the citizen would have bought the picture?" "It is true," replied Biagio, "that he said nothing to me about it, but for all that it seemed to me strange." Finally, all the other lads gathered round him and wrought on him to believe that it had been a fit of giddiness. Another time a cloth-weaver came to live in a house next to Sandro's, and erected no less than eight looms, which, when at work, not only deafened poor Sandro with the noise of the treadles and the movement of the frames, but shook his whole house, the walls of which were no stronger than they should be, so that what with the one thing and the other he could not work or even stay at home. Time after time he besought his neighbour to put an end to this annoyance, but the other said that he both would and could do what he pleased in his own house; whereupon Sandro, in disdain, balanced on the top of his own wall, which was higher than his neighbour's and not very strong, an enormous stone, more than enough to fill a wagon, which threatened to fall at the slightest shaking of the wall and to shatter the roof, ceilings, webs, and looms of his neighbour, who, terrified by this danger, ran to Sandro, but was answered in his very own words--namely, that he both could and would do whatever he pleased in his own house. Nor could he get any other answer out of him, so that he was forced to come to a reasonable agreement and to be a good neighbour to Sandro. [Illustration: SANDRO BOTTICELLI: THE MADONNA OF THE POMEGRANATE (_Florence: Uffizi, 1289. Panel_)] It is also related that Sandro, for a jest, accused a friend of his own of heresy before his vicar, and the friend, on appearing, asked who the accuser was and what the accusation; and having been told that it was Sandro, who had charged him with holding the opinion of the Epicureans, and believing that the soul dies with the body, he insisted on being confronted with the accuser before the judge. Sandro therefore appeared, and the other said: "It is true that I hold this opinion with regard to this man's soul, for he is an animal. Nay, does it not seem to you that he is the heretic, since without a scrap of learning, and scarcely knowing how to read, he plays the commentator to Dante and takes his name in vain?" It is also said that he had a surpassing love for all whom he saw to be zealous students of art; and that he earned much, but wasted everything through negligence and lack of management. Finally, having grown old and useless, and being forced to walk with crutches, without which he could not stand upright, he died, infirm and decrepit, at the age of seventy-eight, and was buried in Ognissanti at Florence in the year 1515. In the guardaroba of the Lord Duke Cosimo there are two very beautiful heads of women in profile by his hand, one of which is said to be the mistress of Giuliano de' Medici, brother of Lorenzo, and the other Madonna Lucrezia de' Tornabuoni, wife of the said Lorenzo. In the same place, likewise by the hand of Sandro, is a Bacchus who is raising a cask with both his hands, and putting it to his mouth--a very graceful figure. And in the Duomo of Pisa he began an Assumption, with a choir of angels, in the Chapel of the Impagliata; but afterwards, being displeased with it, he left it unfinished. In S. Francesco at Montevarchi he painted the panel of the high-altar; and in the Pieve of Empoli, on the same side as the S. Sebastian of Rossellino, he made two angels. He was among the first to discover the method of decorating standards and other sorts of hangings with the so-called inlaid work, to the end that the colours might not fade and might show the tint of the cloth on either side. By his hand, and made thus, is the baldacchino of Orsanmichele, covered with beautiful and varied figures of Our Lady; which proves how much better such a method preserves the cloth than does the use of mordants, which eat it away and make its life but short, although, being less costly, mordants are now used more than anything else. Sandro's drawings were extraordinarily good, and so many, that for some time after his death all the craftsmen strove to obtain some of them; and we have some in our book, made with great mastery and judgment. His scenes abounded with figures, as may be seen from the embroidered border of the Cross that the Friars of S. Maria Novella carry in processions, all made from his design. Great was the praise, then, that Sandro deserved for all the pictures that he chose to make with diligence and love, as he did the aforesaid panel of the Magi in S. Maria Novella, which is marvellous. Very beautiful, too, is a little round picture by his hand that is seen in the apartment of the Prior of the Angeli in Florence, in which the figures are small but very graceful and wrought with beautiful consideration. Of the same size as the aforesaid panel of the Magi, and by the same man's hand, is a picture in the possession of Messer Fabio Segni, a gentlemen of Florence, in which there is painted the Calumny of Apelles, as beautiful as any picture could be. Under this panel, which Sandro himself presented to Antonio Segni, who was much his friend, there may now be read the following verses, written by the said Messer Fabio: INDICIO QUEMQUAM NE FALSO LÆDERE TENTENT TERRARUM REGES, PARVA TABELLA MONET. HUIC SIMILEM ÆGYPTI REGI DONAVIT APELLES; REX FUIT ET DIGNUS MUNERE, MUNUS EO. [Illustration: THE CALUMNY OF APELLES (_After the panel by =Sandro Botticelli=. Florence: Uffizi, 1182_) _M. S._] FOOTNOTES: [26] See note on p. 57, Vol. 1. [27] Mourner, or Weeper. BENEDETTO DA MAIANO LIFE OF BENEDETTO DA MAIANO SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT Benedetto da Maiano, a sculptor of Florence, who was in his earliest years a wood-carver, was held the most able master of all who were then handling the tools of that profession; and he was particularly excellent as a craftsman in that form of work which, as has been said elsewhere, was introduced at the time of Filippo Brunelleschi and Paolo Uccello--namely, the inlaying of pieces of wood tinted with various colours, in order to make views in perspective, foliage, and many other diverse things of fancy. In this craft, then, Benedetto da Maiano was in his youth the best master that there was to be found, as is clearly demonstrated by many works of his that are to be seen in various parts of Florence, particularly by all the presses in the Sacristy of S. Maria del Fiore, the greater part of which he finished after the death of his uncle Giuliano; these are full of figures executed in inlaid work, foliage, and other devices, all wrought with great expense and craftsmanship. Having gained a very great name through the novelty of this art, he made many works, which were sent to diverse places and to various Princes; and among others King Alfonso of Naples had the furniture for a study, made under the direction of Giuliano, uncle of Benedetto, who was serving that King as architect. Benedetto himself went to join him there; but, being displeased with the position, he returned to Florence, where, no long time after, he made for Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, who had many Florentines in his Court and took delight in all rare works, a pair of coffers inlaid in wood with difficult and most beautiful craftsmanship. He then determined, being invited with great favour by that King, to consent to go thither at all costs; and so, having packed up his coffers and embarked with them on board ship, he set off for Hungary. There, after doing obeisance to that King, by whom he was received most graciously, he sent for the said coffers and had them unpacked in the presence of the monarch, who was very eager to see them; whereupon he saw that the damp from the water and the exhalations from the sea had so softened the glue, that, on the opening of the waxed cloths, almost all the pieces which had been attached to the coffers fell to the ground. Whether Benedetto, therefore, in the presence of so many nobles, stood in dumb amazement, everyone may judge for himself. However, putting the work together as well as he was able, he contrived to leave the King well enough satisfied; but in spite of this he took an aversion to that craft and could no longer endure it, through the shame that it had brought upon him. And so, casting off all timidity, he devoted himself to sculpture, in which art he had already worked at Loreto while living with his uncle Giuliano, making a lavatory with certain angels of marble for the sacristy. Labouring at this art, before he left Hungary he gave that King to know that if he had been put to shame at the beginning, the fault had lain with that craft, which was a mean one, and not with his intellect, which was rare and exalted. Having therefore made in those parts certain works both in clay and in marble, which gave great pleasure to that King, he returned to Florence; and he had no sooner arrived there than he was commissioned by the Signori to make the marble ornament for the door of their Audience Chamber. For this he made some boys supporting with their arms certain festoons, all very beautiful; but the most beautiful part of the work was the figure in the middle, two braccia in height, of a young S. John, which is held to be a thing of rare excellence. And to the end that the whole work might be by his own hand, he made by himself the wood-work that closes the said door, and executed a figure with inlaid woods on either part of it, that is, Dante on one and Petrarca on the other; which two figures are enough to show to any man who may have seen no other work of that kind by the hand of Benedetto, how rare and excellent a master he was of that craft. This Audience Chamber has been painted in our own day by Francesco Salviati at the command of the Lord Duke Cosimo, as will be told in the proper place. [Illustration: PULPIT IN S. CROCE, FLORENCE (_After =Benedetto da Maiano=. Florence_) _Alinari_] In S. Maria Novella at Florence, where Filippino painted the chapel, Benedetto afterwards made a tomb of black marble, with a Madonna and certain angels in a medallion, with much diligence, for the elder Filippo Strozzi, whose portrait, which he made there in marble, is now in the Strozzi Palace. The same Benedetto was commissioned by the elder Lorenzo de' Medici to make in S. Maria del Fiore a portrait of the Florentine painter Giotto, which he placed over the epitaph, of which enough has been said above in the Life of Giotto himself. This piece of marble sculpture is held to be passing good. Having afterwards gone to Naples by reason of the death of his uncle Giuliano, whose heir he was, Benedetto, besides certain works that he executed for that King, made a marble panel for the Count of Terranuova in the Monastery of the Monks of Monte Oliveto, containing an Annunciation with certain saints, and surrounded by very beautiful boys, who are supporting some festoons; and in the predella of the said work he made many low-reliefs in a good manner. In Faenza he made a very beautiful tomb of marble for the body of S. Savino, and on this he wrought six scenes in low-relief from the life of that Saint, with much invention and design both in the buildings and in the figures; insomuch that both from this work and from others by his hand he was recognized as a man excellent in sculpture. Wherefore, before he left Romagna, he was commissioned to make a portrait of Galeotto Malatesta. He also made one, I know not whether before this or after, of Henry VII, King of England, after a drawing on paper that he had received from some Florentine merchants. The studies for these two portraits, together with many other things, were found in his house after his death. Having finally returned to Florence, he made in S. Croce, for Pietro Mellini, a citizen of Florence and a very rich merchant at that time, the marble pulpit that is seen there, which is held to be a very rare thing and more beautiful than any other that has ever been executed in that manner, since the marble figures that are to be seen therein, in the stories of S. Francis, are wrought with so great excellence and diligence that nothing more could be looked for in marble. For with great art Benedetto carved there trees, rocks, houses, views in perspective, and certain things in marvellously bold relief; not to mention a projection on the ground below the said pulpit, which serves as a tombstone, wrought with so much design that it is not possible to praise it enough. It is said that in making this work he had some difficulty with the Wardens of Works of S. Croce, because, while he wished to erect the said pulpit against a column that sustains some of the arches which support the roof, and to perforate that column in order to accommodate the steps and the entrance to the pulpit, they would not consent, fearing lest it might be so weakened by the hollow required for the steps as to collapse under the weight above, with great damage to a part of that church. But Mellini having guaranteed that the work would be finished without any injury to the church, they finally consented. Having, therefore, bound the outer side of the column with bands of bronze (the part, namely, from the pulpit downwards, which is covered with hard stone), Benedetto made within it the steps for ascending to the pulpit, and in proportion as he hollowed it out within, so did he strengthen the outer side with the said hard stone, in the manner that is still to be seen. And he brought this work to perfection to the amazement of all who see it, showing in each part and in the whole together the utmost excellence that could be desired in such a work. Many declare that the elder Filippo Strozzi, when intending to build his palace, sought the advice of Benedetto, who made him a model, according to which it was begun, although it was afterwards carried on and finished by Cronaca on the death of Benedetto. The latter, having acquired enough to live upon, would do no more works in marble after those described above, save that he finished in S. Trinita the S. Mary Magdalene begun by Desiderio da Settignano, and made the Crucifix that is over the altar of S. Maria del Fiore, with certain others like it. As for architecture, although he put his hand to but few works, yet in these he showed no less judgment than in sculpture; particularly in three ceilings which were made at very great expense, under his guidance and direction, in the Palace of the Signoria at Florence. The first of these was the ceiling of the hall that is now called the Sala de' Dugento, over which it was proposed to make, not a similar hall, but two apartments, that is, a hall and an audience chamber, so that it was necessary to make a wall, and no light one either, containing a marble door of reasonable thickness; wherefore, for the execution of such a work, there was need of intelligence and judgment no less than those possessed by Benedetto. Benedetto, then, in order not to diminish the said hall and yet divide the space above into two, went to work in the following manner. On a beam one braccio in thickness, and as long as the whole breadth of the hall, he laid another consisting of two pieces, in such a manner that it projected with its thickness to the height of two-thirds of a braccio. At the ends, these two beams, bound and secured together very firmly, gave a height of two braccia at the edge of the wall on each side; and the said two ends were grooved with a claw-shaped cut, in such a way that there could be laid upon them an arch of half a braccio in thickness, made of two layers of bricks, with its flanks resting on the principal walls. These two beams, then, were dove-tailed together with tenon and mortise, and so firmly bound and united with good bands of iron, that out of two there was made one single beam. Besides this, having made the said arch, and wishing that these timbers of the ceiling should have nothing more to sustain than the wall under the arch, and that the arch itself should sustain the rest, he also attached to this arch two great supports of iron, which, being firmly bolted to the said beams below, upheld and still uphold them; while, even if they were not to suffice by themselves, the arch would be able--by means of the said supports which encircle the beams, one on one side of the marble door and one on the other--to support a weight much greater than that of the partition wall, which is made of bricks and half a braccio in thickness. What is more, he had the bricks in the said wall laid on edge and in the manner of an arch, so that the pressure came against the solid part, at the corners, and the whole was thus more stable. In this manner, by means of the good judgment of Benedetto, the said Sala de' Dugento remained as large as before, and over the same space, with a partition wall between, were made the hall that is called the Sala dell' Orivolo[28] and the Audience Chamber wherein is the Triumph of Camillus, painted by the hand of Salviati. The soffit of this ceiling was richly wrought and carved by Marco del Tasso and his brothers, Domenico and Giuliano, who likewise executed that of the Sala dell' Orivolo and that of the Audience Chamber. And since the said marble door had been made double by Benedetto, on the arch of the inner door--we have already spoken of the outer one--he wrought a seated figure of Justice in marble, with the globe of the world in one hand and a sword in the other; and round the arch run the following words: DILIGITE JUSTITIAM QUI JUDICATIS TERRAM. The whole of this work was executed with marvellous diligence and art. For the Church of the Madonna delle Grazie, which is a little distance without the city of Arezzo, the same man made a portico with a flight of steps in front of the door. In making the portico he placed the arches on the columns, and right round alongside the roof he made an architrave, frieze, and great cornice; and in the latter, by way of drip, he placed a garland of rosettes carved in grey-stone, which jut out to the extent of one braccio and a third, insomuch that between the projection of the front of the cyma above to the dentils and ovoli below the drip there is a space of two braccia and a half, which, with the half braccio added by the tiles, makes a projecting roof all round of three braccia in width, beautiful, rich, useful, and ingenious. In this work there is a contrivance worthy to be well considered by craftsmen, for, wishing to give this roof all that projection without modillions or corbels to support it, he made the slabs, on which the rosettes are carved, so large that only the half of their length projected, and the other half was built into the solid wall; wherefore, being thus counterpoised, they were able to support the rest and all that was laid upon them, as they have done up to the present day, without any danger to that building. And since he did not wish this roof to appear to be made, as it was, of pieces, he surrounded it all, piece by piece, with a moulding made of sections well dove-tailed and let into one another, which served as a ground to the garland of rosettes; and this united the whole work together in such a manner that all who see it judge it to be of one piece. In the same place he had a flat ceiling made of gilded rosettes, which is much extolled. Now Benedetto had bought a farm without Prato, on the road from the Porta Fiorentina in the direction of Florence, and no more than half a mile from that place. On the main road, beside the gate, he built a most beautiful little chapel, with a niche wherein he placed a Madonna with the Child in her arms, so well wrought in terra-cotta, that even as it is, with no other colour, it is as beautiful as if it were of marble. So are two angels that are above by way of ornament, each with a candelabrum in his hand. On the predella of the altar there is a Pietà with Our Lady and S. John, made of marble and very beautiful. At his death he left in his house many things begun both in clay and in marble. Benedetto was a very good draughtsman, as may be seen in certain drawings in our book. Finally he died in 1498, at the age of fifty-four, and was honourably buried in S. Lorenzo; and he left directions that all his property, after the death of certain of his relatives, should go to the Company of the Bigallo. While Benedetto in his youth was working as a joiner and at the inlaying of wood, he had among his rivals Baccio Cellini, piper to the Signoria of Florence, who made many very beautiful inlaid works in ivory, and among others an octagon of figures in ivory, outlined in black and marvellously beautiful, which is in the guardaroba of the Duke. In like manner, Girolamo della Cecca, a pupil of Baccio and likewise piper to the Signoria, also executed many inlaid works at that same time. A contemporary of these was David Pistoiese, who made a S. John the Evangelist of inlaid work at the entrance to the choir of S. Giovanni Evangelista in Pistoia--a work more notable for great diligence in execution than for any great design. There was also Geri Aretino, who wrought the choir and the pulpit of S. Agostino at Arezzo with figures and views in perspective, likewise of inlaid wood. This Geri was a very fanciful man, and he made with wooden pipes an organ most perfect in sweetness and softness, which is still at the present day over the door of the Sacristy of the Vescovado at Arezzo, with its original goodness as sound as ever--a work worthy of marvel, and first put into execution by him. But not one of these men, nor any other, was as excellent by a great measure as was Benedetto; wherefore he deserves to be ever numbered with praise among the best craftsmen of his professions. FOOTNOTES: [28] _I.e._, clock. ANDREA VERROCCHIO [Illustration: DAVID (_After the bronze by =Andrea Verrocchio=. Florence: Bargello_) _Anderson_] LIFE OF ANDREA VERROCCHIO PAINTER, SCULPTOR, AND ARCHITECT OF FLORENCE Andrea del Verrocchio, a Florentine, was in his day a goldsmith, a master of perspective, a sculptor, a wood-carver, a painter, and a musician; but in the arts of sculpture and painting, to tell the truth, he had a manner somewhat hard and crude, as one who acquired it rather by infinite study than by the facility of a natural gift. Even if he had been as poor in this facility as he was rich in the study and diligence that exalted him, he would have been most excellent in those arts, which, for their highest perfection, require a union of study and natural power. If either of these is wanting, a man rarely attains to the first rank; but study will do a great deal, and thus Andrea, who had it in greater abundance than any other craftsman whatsoever, is counted among the rare and excellent masters of our arts. In his youth he applied himself to the sciences, particularly to geometry. Among many other things that he made while working at the goldsmith's art were certain buttons for copes, which are in S. Maria del Fiore at Florence; and he also made larger works, particularly a cup, full of animals, foliage, and other bizarre fancies, which is known to all goldsmiths, and casts are taken of it; and likewise another, on which there is a very beautiful dance of little children. Having given a proof of his powers in these two works, he was commissioned by the Guild of Merchants to make two scenes in silver for the ends of the altar of S. Giovanni, from which, when put into execution, he acquired very great praise and fame. There were wanting at this time in Rome some of those large figures of the Apostles which generally stood on the altar of the Chapel of the Pope, as well as certain other works in silver that had been destroyed; wherefore Pope Sixtus sent for Andrea and with great favour commissioned him to do all that was necessary in this matter, and he brought the whole to perfection with much diligence and judgment. Meanwhile, perceiving that the many antique statues and other things that were being found in Rome were held in very great esteem, insomuch that the famous bronze horse was set up by the Pope at S. Giovanni Laterano, and that even the fragments--not to speak of complete works--which were being discovered every day, were prized, Andrea determined to devote himself to sculpture. And so, completely abandoning the goldsmith's art, he set himself to cast some little figures in bronze, which were greatly extolled. Thereupon, growing in courage, he began to work in marble. Now in those days the wife of Francesco Tornabuoni had died in childbirth, and her husband, who had loved her much, and wished to honour her in death to the utmost of his power, entrusted the making of a tomb for her to Andrea, who carved on a slab over a sarcophagus of marble the lady herself, her delivery, and her passing to the other life; and beside this he made three figures of Virtues, which were held very beautiful, for the first work that he had executed in marble; and this tomb was set up in the Minerva. Having then returned to Florence with money, fame, and honour, he was commissioned to make a David of bronze, two braccia and a half in height, which, when finished, was placed in the Palace, with great credit to himself, at the head of the staircase, where the Catena was. The while that he was executing the said statue, he also made that Madonna of marble which is over the tomb of Messer Lionardo Bruni of Arezzo in S. Croce; this he wrought, when still quite young, for Bernardo Rossellino, architect and sculptor, who executed the whole of that work in marble, as has been said. The same Andrea made a half-length Madonna in half-relief, with the Child in her arms, in a marble panel, which was formerly in the house of the Medici, and is now placed, as a very beautiful thing, over a door in the apartment of the Duchess of Florence. He also made two heads of metal, likewise in half-relief; one of Alexander the Great, in profile, and the other a fanciful portrait of Darius; each being a separate work by itself, with variety in the crests, armour, and everything else. Both these heads were sent to Hungary by the elder Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, to King Matthias Corvinus, together with many other things, as will be told in the proper place. Having acquired the name of an excellent master by means of these works, above all through many works in metal, in which he took much delight, he made a tomb of bronze in S. Lorenzo, wholly in the round, for Giovanni and Pietro di Cosimo de' Medici, with a sarcophagus of porphyry supported by four corner-pieces of bronze, with twisted foliage very well wrought and finished with the greatest diligence. This tomb stands between the Chapel of the Sacrament and the Sacristy, and no work could be better done, whether wrought in bronze or cast; above all since at the same time he showed therein his talent in architecture, for he placed the said tomb within the embrasure of a window which is about five braccia in breadth and ten in height, and set it on a base that divides the said Chapel of the Sacrament from the old Sacristy. And over the sarcophagus, to fill up the embrasure right up to the vaulting, he made a grating of bronze ropes in a pattern of mandorle, most natural, and adorned in certain places with festoons and other beautiful things of fancy, all remarkable and executed with much mastery, judgment, and invention. Now Donatello had made for the Tribunal of Six of the Mercanzia that marble shrine which is now opposite to S. Michael, in the Oratory of Orsanmichele, and for this there was to have been made a S. Thomas in bronze, feeling for the wound in the side of Christ; but at that time nothing more was done, for some of the men who had the charge of this wished to have it made by Donatello, and others favoured Lorenzo Ghiberti. Matters stood thus as long as Donatello and Ghiberti were alive; but finally the said two statues were entrusted to Andrea, who, having made the models and moulds, cast them; and they came out so solid, complete, and well made, that it was a most beautiful casting. Thereupon, setting himself to polish and finish them, he brought them to that perfection which is seen at the present day, which could not be greater than it is, for in S. Thomas we see incredulity and a too great anxiety to assure himself of the truth, and at the same time the love that makes him lay his hand in a most beautiful manner on the side of Christ; and in Christ Himself, who is raising one arm and opening His raiment with a most spontaneous gesture, and dispelling the doubts of His incredulous disciple, there are all the grace and divinity, so to speak, that art can give to any figure. Andrea clothed both these figures in most beautiful and well-arranged draperies, which give us to know that he understood that art no less than did Donato, Lorenzo, and the others who had lived before him; wherefore this work well deserved to be set up in a shrine made by Donatello, and to be ever afterwards held in the greatest price and esteem. Now the fame of Andrea could not go further or grow greater in that profession, and he, as a man who was not content with being excellent in one thing only, but desired to become the same in others as well by means of study, turned his mind to painting, and so made the cartoons for a battle of nude figures, very well drawn with the pen, to be afterwards painted in colours on a wall. He also made the cartoons for some historical pictures, and afterwards began to put them into execution in colours; but for some reason, whatever it may have been, they remained unfinished. There are some drawings by his hand in our book, made with much patience and very great judgment, among which are certain heads of women, beautiful in expression and in the adornment of the hair, which Leonardo da Vinci was ever imitating for their beauty. In our book, also, are two horses with the due measures and protractors for reproducing them on a larger scale from a smaller, so that there may be no errors in their proportions; and there is in my possession a horse's head of terra-cotta in relief, copied from the antique, which is a rare work. The Very Reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini has some of his drawings in his book, of which we have spoken above; among others, a design for a tomb made by him in Venice for a Doge, a scene of the Adoration of Christ by the Magi, and the head of a woman painted on paper with the utmost delicacy. He also made for Lorenzo de' Medici, for the fountain of his Villa at Careggi, a boy of bronze squeezing a fish, which the Lord Duke Cosimo has caused to be placed, as may be seen at the present day, on the fountain that is in the courtyard of his Palace; which boy is truly marvellous. [Illustration: CORNER AND FOOT OF THE MEDICI SARCOPHAGUS (_Detail, after =Andrea Verrocchio=. Florence: S. Lorenzo_) _Alinari_] Afterwards, the building of the Cupola of S. Maria del Fiore having been finished, it was resolved, after much discussion, that there should be made the copper ball which, according to the instructions left by Filippo Brunelleschi, was to be placed on the summit of that edifice. Whereupon the task was given to Andrea, who made the ball four braccia high, and, placing it on a knob, secured it in such a manner that afterwards the cross could be safely erected upon it; and the whole work, when finished, was put into position with very great rejoicing and delight among the people. Truly great were the ingenuity and diligence that had to be used in making it, to the end that it might be possible, as it is, to enter it from below, and also in securing it with good fastenings, lest the winds might do it damage. Andrea was never at rest, but was ever labouring at some work either in painting or in sculpture; and sometimes he would change from one to another, in order to avoid growing weary of working always at the same thing, as many do. Wherefore, although he did not put the aforesaid cartoons into execution, yet he did paint certain pictures; among others, a panel for the Nuns of S. Domenico in Florence, wherein it appeared to him that he had acquitted himself very well; whence, no long time after, he painted another in S. Salvi for the Monks of Vallombrosa, containing the Baptism of Christ by S. John. In this work he was assisted by Leonardo da Vinci, his disciple, then quite young, who painted therein an angel with his own hand, which was much better than the other parts of the work; and for that reason Andrea resolved never again to touch a brush, since Leonardo, young as he was, had acquitted himself in that art much better than he had done. Now Cosimo de' Medici, having received many antiquities from Rome, had caused to be set up within the door of his garden, or rather, courtyard, which opens on the Via de' Ginori, a very beautiful Marsyas of white marble, bound to a tree-trunk and ready to be flayed; and his grandson Lorenzo, into whose hands there had come the torso and head of another Marsyas, made of red stone, very ancient, and much more beautiful than the first, wished to set it beside the other, but could not, because it was so imperfect. Thereupon he gave it to Andrea to be restored and completed, and he made the legs, thighs, and arms that were lacking in this figure out of pieces of red marble, so well that Lorenzo was highly satisfied and had it placed opposite to the other, on the other side of the door. This ancient torso, made to represent a flayed Marsyas, was wrought with such care and judgment that certain delicate white veins, which were in the red stone, were carved by the craftsman exactly in the right places, so as to appear to be little nerves, such as are seen in real bodies when they have been flayed; which must have given to that work, when it had its original finish, a most life-like appearance. The Venetians, meanwhile, wishing to honour the great valour of Bartolommeo da Bergamo, thanks to whom they had gained many victories, in order to encourage others, and having heard the fame of Andrea, summoned him to Venice, where he was commissioned to make an equestrian statue of that captain in bronze, to be placed on the Piazza di SS. Giovanni e Polo. Andrea, then, having made the model of the horse, had already begun to get it ready for casting in bronze, when, thanks to the favour of certain gentlemen, it was determined that Vellano da Padova should make the figure and Andrea the horse. Having heard this, Andrea broke the legs and head of his model and returned in great disdain to Florence, without saying a word. The Signoria, receiving news of this, gave him to understand that he should never be bold enough to return to Venice, for they would cut his head off; to which he wrote in answer that he would take good care not to, because, once they had cut a man's head off, it was not in their power to put it on again, and certainly not one like his own, whereas he could have replaced the head that he had knocked off his horse with one even more beautiful. After this answer, which did not displease those Signori, his payment was doubled and he was persuaded to return to Venice, where he restored his first model and cast it in bronze; but even then he did not finish it entirely, for he caught a chill by overheating himself during the casting, and died in that city within a few days; leaving unfinished not only that work (although there was only a little polishing to be done), which was set up in the place for which it was destined, but also another which he was making in Pistoia, that is, the tomb of Cardinal Forteguerra, with the three Theological Virtues, and a God the Father above; which work was afterwards finished by Lorenzetto, a sculptor of Florence. [Illustration: STATUE OF BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI (_After the bronze by =Andrea Verrocchio=. Venice: Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo_) _Anderson_] Andrea was fifty-six years of age when he died. His death caused infinite grief to his friends and to his disciples, who were not few; above all to the sculptor Nanni Grosso, a most eccentric person both in his art and in his life. This man, it is said, would not have worked outside his shop, particularly for monks or friars, if he had not had free access to the door of the vault, or rather, wine-cellar, so that he might go and drink whenever he pleased, without having to ask leave. It is also told of him that once, having returned from S. Maria Nuova completely cured of some sickness, I know not what, he was visited by his friends, who asked him how it went with him. "Ill," he answered. "But thou art cured," they replied. "That is why it goes ill with me," said he, "for I would dearly love a little fever, so that I might lie there in the hospital, well attended and at my ease." As he lay dying, again in the hospital, there was placed before him a wooden Crucifix, very rude and clumsily wrought; whereupon he prayed them to take it out of his sight and to bring him one by the hand of Donato, declaring that if they did not take it away he would die in misery, so greatly did he detest badly wrought works in his own art. Disciples of the same Andrea were Pietro Perugino and Leonardo da Vinci, of whom we will speak in the proper place, and Francesco di Simone of Florence, who made a tomb of marble in the Church of S. Domenico in Bologna, with many little figures, which appear from the manner to be by the hand of Andrea, for Messer Alessandro Tartaglia, a doctor of Imola, and another in S. Pancrazio at Florence, facing the sacristy and one of the chapels of the church, for the Chevalier Messer Pietro Minerbetti. Another pupil of Andrea was Agnolo di Polo, who worked with great mastery in clay, filling the city with works by his hand; and if he had deigned to apply himself properly to his art, he would have made very beautiful things. But the one whom he loved more than all the others was Lorenzo di Credi, who brought his remains from Venice and laid them in the Church of S. Ambrogio, in the tomb of Ser Michele di Cione, on the stone of which there are carved the following words: SER MICHÆLIS DE CIONIS, ET SUORUM. And beside them: HIC OSSA JACENT ANDREÆ VERROCHII, QUI OBIIT VENETIIS, MCCCCLXXXVIII. Andrea took much delight in casting in a kind of plaster which would set hard--that is, the kind that is made of a soft stone which is quarried in the districts of Volterra and of Siena and in many other parts of Italy. This stone, when burnt in the fire, and then pounded and mixed with tepid water, becomes so soft that men can make whatever they please with it; but afterwards it solidifies and becomes so hard, that it can be used for moulds for casting whole figures. Andrea, then, was wont to cast in moulds of this material such natural objects as hands, feet, knees, legs, arms, and torsi, in order to have them before him and imitate them with greater convenience. Afterwards, in his time, men began to cast the heads of those who died--a cheap method; wherefore there are seen in every house in Florence, over the chimney-pieces, doors, windows, and cornices, infinite numbers of such portraits, so well made and so natural that they appear alive. And from that time up to the present the said custom has been continued, and it still continues, with great convenience to ourselves, for it has given us portraits of many who have been included in the stories in the Palace of Duke Cosimo. And for this we should certainly acknowledge a very great obligation to the talent of Andrea, who was one of the first to begin to bring the custom into use. From this men came to make more perfect images, not only in Florence, but in all the places in which there is devoutness, and to which people flock to offer votive images, or, as they are called, "miracoli," in return for some favour received. For whereas they were previously made small and of silver, or only in the form of little panels, or rather of wax, and very clumsy, in the time of Andrea they began to be made in a much better manner, since Andrea, having a very strait friendship with Orsino, a Florentine worker in wax, who had no little judgment in that art, began to show him how he could become excellent therein. Now the due occasion arrived in the form of the death of Giuliano de' Medici and the danger incurred by his brother Lorenzo, who was wounded in S. Maria del Fiore, when it was ordained by the friends and relatives of Lorenzo that images of him should be set up in many places, to render thanks to God for his deliverance. Wherefore Orsino, among others that he made, executed three life-size figures of wax with the aid and direction of Andrea, making the skeleton within of wood, after the method described elsewhere, interwoven with split reeds, which were then covered with waxed cloths folded and arranged so beautifully that nothing better or more true to nature could be seen. Then he made the heads, hands, and feet with wax of greater thickness, but hollow within, portrayed from life, and painted in oils with all the ornaments of hair and everything else that was necessary, so lifelike and so well wrought that they seemed no mere images of wax, but actual living men, as may be seen in each of the said three, one of which is in the Church of the Nuns of Chiarito in the Via di S. Gallo, opposite to the Crucifix that works miracles. This figure is clothed exactly as Lorenzo was, when, with his wounded throat bandaged, he showed himself at the window of his house before the eyes of the people, who had flocked thither to see whether he were alive, as they hoped, or to avenge him if he were dead. The second figure of the same man is in the lucco, the gown peculiar to the citizens of Florence; and it stands in the Servite Church of the Nunziata, over the lesser door, which is beside the counter where candles are sold. The third was sent to S. Maria degli Angeli at Assisi, and set up before the Madonna of that place, where the same Lorenzo de' Medici, as has been already related, caused the road to be paved with bricks all the way from S. Maria to that gate of Assisi which leads to S. Francesco, besides restoring the fountains that his grandfather Cosimo had caused to be made in that place. But to return to the images of wax: all those in the said Servite Church are by the hand of Orsino, which have a large O in the base as a mark, with an R within it and a cross above; and they are all so beautiful that there are few since his day who have equalled him. This art, although it has remained alive up to our own time, is nevertheless rather on the decline than otherwise, either because men's devoutness has diminished, or for some other reason, whatever it may be. And to return to Verrocchio; besides the aforesaid works, he made Crucifixes of wood, with certain things of clay, in which he was excellent, as may be seen from the models for the scenes that he executed for the altar of S. Giovanni, from certain very beautiful boys, and from a head of S. Jerome, which is held to be marvellous. By the hand of the same man is the boy on the clock of the Mercato Nuovo, who has his arms working free, in such a manner that he can raise them to strike the hours with a hammer that he holds in his hands; which was held in those times to be something very beautiful and fanciful. And let this be the end of the Life of that most excellent sculptor, Andrea Verrocchio. There lived in the time of Andrea one Benedetto Buglioni, who received the secret of glazed terra-cotta work from a woman related to the house of Andrea della Robbia; wherefore he made many works in that manner both in Florence and abroad, particularly a Christ rising from the dead, with certain angels, which, for a work in glazed terra-cotta, is beautiful enough, in the Church of the Servi, near the Chapel of S. Barbara. He made a Dead Christ in a chapel in S. Pancrazio, and the lunette that is seen over the principal door of the Church of S. Pietro Maggiore. From Benedetto the secret descended to Santi Buglioni, the only man who now knows how to work at this sort of sculpture. ANDREA MANTEGNA [Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF S. JAMES (_After the fresco by =Andrea Mantegna=. Padua: Eremitani_) _Anderson_] LIFE OF ANDREA MANTEGNA PAINTER OF MANTUA How great is the effect of reward on talent is known to him who labours valiantly and receives a certain measure of recompense, for he feels neither discomfort, nor hardship, nor fatigue, when he expects honour and reward for them; nay, what is more, they render his talent every day more renowned and illustrious. It is true, indeed, that there is not always found one to recognize, esteem, and remunerate it as that of Andrea Mantegna was recognized. This man was born from very humble stock in the district of Mantua; and, although as a boy he was occupied in grazing herds, he was so greatly exalted by destiny and by his merit that he attained to the honourable rank of Chevalier, as will be told in the proper place. When almost full grown he was taken to the city, where he applied himself to painting under Jacopo Squarcione, a painter of Padua, who--as it is written in a Latin letter from Messer Girolamo Campagnola to Messer Leonico Timeo, a Greek philosopher, wherein he gives him information about certain old painters who served the family of Carrara, Lords of Padua--took him into his house, and a little time afterwards, having recognized the beauty of his intelligence, adopted him as his son. Now this Squarcione knew that he himself was not the most able painter in the world; wherefore, to the end that Andrea might learn more than he himself knew, he made him practise much on casts taken from ancient statues and on pictures painted upon canvas which he caused to be brought from diverse places, particularly from Tuscany and from Rome. By these and other methods, therefore, Andrea learnt not a little in his youth; and the competition of Marco Zoppo of Bologna, Darlo da Treviso, and Niccolò Pizzolo of Padua, disciples of his master and adoptive father, was of no small assistance to him, and a stimulus to his studies. Now after Andrea, who was then no more than seventeen years of age, had painted the panel of the high-altar of S. Sofia in Padua, which appears wrought by a mature and well-practised master, and not by a youth, Squarcione was commissioned to paint the Chapel of S. Cristofano, which is in the Church of the Eremite Friars of S. Agostino in Padua; and he gave the work to the said Niccolò Pizzolo and to Andrea. Niccolò made therein a God the Father seated in Majesty between the Doctors of the Church, and these paintings were afterwards held to be in no way inferior to those that Andrea executed there. And in truth, if Niccolò, whose works were few, but all good, had taken as much delight in painting as he did in arms, he would have become excellent, and might perchance have lived much longer than he did; for he was ever under arms and had many enemies, and one day, when returning from work, he was attacked and slain by treachery. Niccolò left no other works that I know of, save another God the Father in the Chapel of Urbano Perfetto.[29] [Illustration: ANDREA MANTEGNA: THE MADONNA OF THE ROCKS (_Florence: Uffizi, 1025. Panel_)] Andrea, thus left alone in the said chapel, painted the four Evangelists, which were held very beautiful. By reason of this and other works Andrea began to be watched with great expectation, and with hopes that he would attain to that success to which he actually did attain; wherefore Jacopo Bellini, the Venetian painter, father of Gentile and Giovanni, and rival of Squarcione, contrived to get him to marry his daughter, the sister of Gentile. Hearing this, Squarcione fell into such disdain against Andrea that they were enemies ever afterwards; and in proportion as Squarcione had formerly been ever praising the works of Andrea, so from that day onward did he ever decry them in public. Above all did he censure without reserve the pictures that Andrea had made in the said Chapel of S. Cristofano, saying that they were worthless, because in making them he had imitated the ancient works in marble, from which it is not possible to learn painting perfectly, for the reason that stone is ever from its very essence hard, and never has that tender softness that is found in flesh and in things of nature, which are pliant and move in various ways; adding that Andrea would have made those figures much better, and that they would have been more perfect, if he had given them the colour of marble and not such a quantity of colours, because his pictures resembled not living figures but ancient statues of marble or other suchlike things. This censure piqued the mind of Andrea; but, on the other hand, it was of great service to him, for, recognizing that Squarcione was in great measure speaking the truth, he set himself to portray living people, and made so much progress in this art, that, in a scene which still remained to be painted in the said chapel, he showed that he could wrest the good from living and natural objects no less than from those wrought by art. But for all this Andrea was ever of the opinion that the good ancient statues were more perfect and had greater beauty in their various parts than is shown by nature, since, as he judged and seemed to see from those statues, the excellent masters of old had wrested from living people all the perfection of nature, which rarely assembles and unites all possible beauty into one single body, so that it is necessary to take one part from one body and another part from another. In addition to this, it appeared to him that the statues were more complete and more thorough in the muscles, veins, nerves, and other particulars, which nature, covering their sharpness somewhat with the tenderness and softness of flesh, sometimes makes less evident, save perchance in the body of an old man or in one greatly emaciated; but such bodies, for other reasons, are avoided by craftsmen. And that he was greatly enamoured of this opinion is recognized from his works, in which, in truth, the manner is seen to be somewhat hard and sometimes suggesting stone rather than living flesh. Be this as it may, in this last scene, which gave infinite satisfaction, Andrea portrayed Squarcione in an ugly and corpulent figure, lance and sword in hand. In the same work he portrayed the Florentine Noferi, son of Messer Palla Strozzi, Messer Girolamo della Valle, a most excellent physician, Messer Bonifazio Fuzimeliga, Doctor of Laws, Niccolò, goldsmith to Pope Innocent VIII, and Baldassarre da Leccio, all very much his friends, whom he represented clad in white armour, burnished and resplendent, as real armour is, and truly with a beautiful manner. He also portrayed there the Chevalier Messer Bonramino, and a certain Bishop of Hungary, a man wholly witless, who would wander about Rome all day, and then at night would lie down to sleep like a beast in a stable; and he made a portrait of Marsilio Pazzo in the person of the executioner who is cutting off the head of S. James, together with one of himself. This work, in short, by reason of its excellence, brought him a very great name. The while that he was working on this chapel, he also painted a panel, which was placed on the altar of S. Luca in S. Justina, and afterwards he wrought in fresco the arch that is over the door of S. Antonino, on which he wrote his name. In Verona he painted a panel for the altar of S. Cristofano and S. Antonio, and he made some figures at the corner of the Piazza della Paglía. In S. Maria in Organo, for the Monks of Monte Oliveto, he painted the panel of the high-altar, which is most beautiful, and likewise that of S. Zeno. And among other things that he wrought while living in Verona and sent to various places, one, which came into the hands of an Abbot of the Abbey of Fiesole, his friend and relative, was a picture containing a half-length Madonna with the Child in her arms, and certain heads of angels singing, wrought with admirable grace; which picture, now to be seen in the library of that place, has been held from that time to our own to be a rare thing. Now, the while that he lived in Mantua, he had laboured much in the service of the Marquis Lodovico Gonzaga, and that lord, who always showed no little esteem and favour towards the talent of Andrea, caused him to paint a little panel for the Chapel of the Castle of Mantua; in which panel there are scenes with figures not very large but most beautiful. In the same place are many figures foreshortened from below upwards, which are greatly extolled, for although his treatment of the draperies was somewhat hard and precise, and his manner rather dry, yet everything there is seen to have been wrought with much art and diligence. For the same Marquis, in a hall of the Palace of S. Sebastiano in Mantua, he painted the Triumph of Cæsar, which is the best thing that he ever executed. In this work we see, grouped with most beautiful design in the triumph, the ornate and lovely car, the man who is vituperating the triumphant Cæsar, and the relatives, the perfumes, the incense, the sacrifices, the priests, the bulls crowned for the sacrifice, the prisoners, the booty won by the soldiers, the ranks of the squadrons, the elephants, the spoils, the victories, the cities and fortresses counterfeited in various cars, with an infinity of trophies borne on spears, and a variety of helmets and body-armour, head-dresses, and ornaments and vases innumerable; and in the multitude of spectators is a woman holding the hand of a boy, who, having pierced his foot with a thorn, is showing it, weeping, to his mother, in a graceful and very lifelike manner. Andrea, as I may have pointed out elsewhere, had a good and beautiful idea in this scene, for, having set the plane on which the figures stood higher than the level of the eye, he placed the feet of the foremost on the outer edge and outline of that plane, making the others recede inwards little by little, so that their feet and legs were lost to sight in the proportion required by the point of view; and so, too, with the spoils, vases, and other instruments and ornaments, of which he showed only the lower part, concealing the upper, as was required by the rules of perspective; which same consideration was also observed with much diligence by Andrea degli Impiccati[30] in the Last Supper, which is in the Refectory of S. Maria Nuova. Wherefore it is seen that in that age these able masters set about investigating with much subtlety, and imitating with great labour, the true properties of natural objects. And this whole work, to put it briefly, is as beautiful and as well wrought as it could be; so that if the Marquis loved Andrea before, he loved and honoured him much more ever afterwards. [Illustration: MADONNA AND ANGELS (_After the panel by =Andrea Mantegna=. Milan: Brera, 198_) _Alinari_] What is more, he became so famous thereby that Pope Innocent VIII, hearing of his excellence in painting and of the other good qualities wherewith he was so marvellously endowed, sent for him, even as he was sending for many others, to the end that he might adorn with his pictures the walls of the Belvedere, the building of which had just been finished. Having gone to Rome, then, greatly favoured and recommended by the Marquis, who made him a Chevalier in order to honour him the more, he was received lovingly by that Pontiff and straightway commissioned to paint a little chapel that is in the said place. This he executed with diligence and love, and with such minuteness that the vaulting and the walls appear rather illuminated than painted; and the largest figures that are therein, which he painted in fresco like the others, are over the altar, representing the Baptism of Christ by S. John, with many people around, who are showing by taking off their clothes that they wish to be baptized. Among these is one who, seeking to draw off a stocking that has stuck to his leg through sweat, has crossed that leg over the other and is drawing the stocking off inside out, with such great effort and difficulty, that both are seen clearly in his face; which bizarre fancy caused marvel to all who saw it in those times. It is said that this Pope, by reason of his many affairs, did not pay Mantegna as often as he would have liked, and that therefore, while painting certain Virtues in terretta in that work, he made a figure of Discretion among the rest, whereupon the Pope, having gone one day to see the work, asked Andrea what figure that was; to which Andrea answered that it was Discretion; and the Pope added: "If thou wouldst have her suitably accompanied, put Patience beside her." The painter understood what the meaning of the Holy Father was, and he never said another word. The work finished, the Pope sent him back to the Duke with much favour and honourable rewards. The while that Andrea was working in Rome, he painted, besides the said chapel, a little picture of the Madonna with the Child sleeping in her arms; and within certain caverns in the landscape, which is a mountain, he made some stone-cutters quarrying stone for various purposes, all wrought with such delicacy and such great patience, that it does not seem possible for such good work to be done with the thin point of a brush. This picture is now in the possession of the most Illustrious Lord, Don Francesco Medici, Prince of Florence, who holds it among his dearest treasures. In our book is a drawing by the hand of Andrea on a half-sheet of royal folio, finished in chiaroscuro, wherein is a Judith who is putting the head of Holofernes into the wallet of her Moorish slave-girl; which chiaroscuro is executed in a manner no longer used, for he left the paper white to serve for the light in place of white lead, and that so delicately that the separate hairs and other minute details are seen therein, no less than if they had been wrought with much diligence by the brush; wherefore in a certain sense this may be called rather a work in colour than a drawing. The same man, like Pollaiuolo, delighted in engraving on copper; and, among other things, he made engravings of his own Triumphs, which were then held in great account, since nothing better had been seen. One of the last works that he executed was a panel-picture for S. Maria della Vittoria, a church built after the direction and design of Andrea by the Marquis Francesco, in memory of the victory that he gained on the River Taro, when he was General of the Venetian forces against the French. In this panel, which was wrought in distemper and placed on the high-altar, there is painted the Madonna with the Child seated on a pedestal; and below are S. Michelagnolo, S. Anna, and Joachim, who are presenting the Marquis--who is portrayed from life so well that he appears alive--to the Madonna, who is offering him her hand. Which picture, even as it gave and still continues to give universal pleasure, also satisfied the Marquis so well that he rewarded most liberally the talent and labour of Andrea, who, having been remunerated by Princes for all his works, was able to maintain his rank of Chevalier most honourably up to the end of his life. Andrea had competitors in Lorenzo da Lendinara--who was held in Padua to be an excellent painter, and who also wrought some things in terra-cotta for the Church of S. Antonio--and in certain others of no great worth. He was ever the friend of Dario da Treviso and Marco Zoppo of Bologna, since he had been brought up with them under the discipline of Squarcione. For the Friars Minor of Padua this Marco painted a loggia which serves as their chapter-house; and at Pesaro he painted a panel that is now in the new Church of S. Giovanni Evangelista; besides portraying in a picture Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, at the time when he was Captain of the Florentines. A friend of Mantegna's, likewise, was Stefano, a painter of Ferrara, whose works were few but passing good; and by his hand is the adornment of the sarcophagus of S. Anthony to be seen in Padua, with the Virgin Mary, that is called the Vergine del Pilastro. But to return to Andrea himself; he built a very beautiful house in Mantua for his own use, which he adorned with paintings and enjoyed while he lived. Finally he died in 1517, at the age of sixty-six, and was buried with honourable obsequies in S. Andrea; and on his tomb, over which stands his portrait in bronze, there was placed the following epitaph: ESSE PAREM HUNC NORIS, SI NON PRÆPONIS, APELLI; ÆNEA MANTINEÆ QUI SIMULACRA VIDES. Andrea was so kindly and praiseworthy in all his actions, that his memory will ever live, not only in his own country, but in the whole world; wherefore he well deserved, no less for the sweetness of his ways than for his excellence in painting, to be celebrated by Ariosto at the beginning of his thirty-third canto, where he numbers him among the most illustrious painters of his time, saying: Leonardo, Andrea Mantegna, Gian Bellino. This master showed painters a much better method of foreshortening figures from below upwards, which was truly a difficult and ingenious invention; and he also took delight, as has been said, in engraving figures on copper for printing, a method of truly rare value, by means of which the world has been able to see not only the Bacchanalia, the Battle of Marine Monsters, the Deposition from the Cross, the Burial of Christ, and His Resurrection, with Longinus and S. Andrew, works by Mantegna himself, but also the manners of all the craftsmen who have ever lived. [Illustration: JUDITH WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES (_After the painting by =Andrea Mantegna=. Dublin: National Gallery_) _Mansell_] FOOTNOTES: [29] This seems to be a printer's or copyist's error for Prefetto. [30] Andrea dal Castagno. INDEX OF NAMES OF THE CRAFTSMEN MENTIONED IN VOLUME III Abbot of S. Clemente (Don Bartolommeo della Gatta), _Life_, 203-209. 188 Agnolo, Baccio d', 12 Agnolo di Donnino, 189, 190 Agnolo di Lorenzo (Angelo di Lorentino), 209 Agnolo di Polo, 273, 274 Alberti, Leon Batista, _Life_, 43-48 Albrecht Dürer, 214 Alessandro Filipepi (Sandro Botticelli, or Sandro di Botticello), _Life_, 247-254. 86, 87, 188, 222, 247-254 Alesso Baldovinetti, _Life_, 67-70. 59, 67-70, 101, 225 Andrea Contucci (Andrea Sansovino, or Andrea dal Monte Sansovino), 243 Andrea dal Castagno (Andrea degli' Impiccati), _Life_, 97-105. 109, 117, 173, 237, 239, 283 Andrea della Robbia, 276 Andrea di Cione Orcagna, 223 Andrea di Cosimo, 189 Andrea Mantegna, _Life_, 279-286. 162 Andrea Riccio, 64 Andrea Sansovino (Andrea Contucci, or Andrea dal Monte Sansovino), 243 Andrea Tafi, 69 Andrea Verrocchio, _Life_, 267-276. 75, 223 Angelico, Fra (Fra Giovanni da Fiesole), _Life_, 27-39. 121 Angelo, Lorentino d'. 22, 23 Angelo di Lorentino (Agnolo di Lorenzo), 209 Antonello da Messina, _Life_, 59-64 Antonio di Salvi, 239 Antonio Filarete, _Life_, 3-7. 47, 92 Antonio (or Vittore) Pisanello, _Life_, 109-113. 105 Antonio Pollaiuolo, _Life_, 237-243. 248, 285 Antonio Rossellino (Rossellino dal Proconsolo), _Life_, 139-144. 44, 253 Antonio Viniziano, 176 Apelles, 36, 254, 286 Aretino, Geri, 263, 264 Attavante (or Vante), 36-39, 209, 214, 215 Ausse (Hans Memling), 61 Baccio Cellini, 92, 263 Baccio d' Agnolo, 12 Baccio da Montelupo, 148 Baccio Pintelli, 93-94 Baldinelli, Baldino, 233 Baldovinetti, Alesso, _Life_, 67-70. 59, 67-70, 101, 225 Banco, Nanni d' Antonio di, 28 Bartolommeo Coda, 184 Bartolommeo della Gatta, Don (Abbot of S. Clemente), _Life_, 203-209. 188 Bartoluccio Ghiberti, 237, 238 Bastiano Mainardi (Bastiano da San Gimignano), 225, 230-233 Batista del Cervelliera, 12 Bellini, Gentile, _Life_, 173-184. 280 Bellini, Giovanni, _Life_, 173-184. 280, 286 Bellini, Jacopo, _Life_, 173-175. 280 Benedetto Buglioni, 276 Benedetto Coda, 184 Benedetto da Maiano, _Life_, 257-264. 13, 14, 149. 257-264 Benedetto Ghirlandajo, 222, 229, 233 Benozzo Gozzoli, _Life_, 121-125. 35, 161 Bernardo Ciuffagni, 7 Bernardo Rossellino, _Life_, 139-144. 44, 268 Bernardo Vasari, 55 Berto Linaiuolo, 92 Biagio (pupil of Botticelli), 251, 252 Bicci, Lorenzo di, 20, 213 Boccardino, the elder, 215 Bolognese, Guido, 170 Borghese, Piero (Piero della Francesca, or Piero dal Borgo a San Sepolcro), _Life_, 17-23. 51, 52, 101, 135 Botticelli, Sandro (Sandro di Botticello, or Alessandro Filipepi), _Life_, 247-254. 86, 87, 188, 222, 247-254 Botticello, 247 Bramante da Milano, 18 Bramante da Urbino, 155 Bramantino, 18, 19 Brini, Francesco, 214 Bruges, Johann of (Jan van Eyck), 60-62, 64 Bruges, Roger of (Roger van der Weyden), 61 Brunelleschi, Filippo (Filippo di Ser Brunellesco), 3, 12, 130, 196, 257, 271 Buglioni, Benedetto, 276 Buglioni, Santi, 276 Buonarroti, Michelagnolo, 86, 110, 140, 233 Cadore, Tiziano da (Tiziano Vecelli), 179, 183 Callicrates, 55 Camicia, Chimenti, _Life_, 92-93 Campagnola, Girolamo, 279 Capanna (of Siena), 208 Castagno, Andrea dal (Andrea degl' Impiccati), _Life_, 97-105. 109, 117, 173, 237, 239, 283 Castel della Pieve, Pietro da (Pietro Perugino, or Pietro Vannucci), 23, 188, 204, 273 Castelfranco, Giorgione da, 184 Cecca, _Life_, 193-200. 69 Cecca, Girolamo della, 263 Cellini, Baccio, 92, 263 Cervelliera, Batista del, 12 Chimenti Camicia, _Life_, 92-93 Cieco, Niccolò, 233 Cimabue, Giovanni, 59 Ciuffagni, Bernardo, 7 Coda, Bartolommeo, 184 Coda, Benedetto, 184 Contucci, Andrea (Andrea Sansovino, or Andrea dal Monte Sansovino), 243 Corso, Jacopo del, 105 Cortona, Luca da (Luca Signorelli), 20, 23, 31, 52, 188, 204 Cosimo, Andrea di, 189 Cosimo, Piero di, 189 Cosimo Rosselli, _Life_, 187-190 Cosmè, 136 Costa, Lorenzo, _Life_, 161-164. 167 Cozzerello, Jacopo, 130 Credi, Lorenzo di, 274 Cronaca, Il, 260 Dario da Treviso, 280, 285 David Ghirlandajo, 222, 225, 229-231, 233 David Pistoiese, 263 Desiderio da Settignano, _Life_, 147-149. 154, 156, 260 Diamante, Fra, 83, 85-87 Domenico del Tasso, 200, 262 Domenico di Mariotto, 12 Domenico di Michelino, 35 Domenico Ghirlandajo, _Life_, 219-233. 69, 70, 188, 213, 215, 219-233, 248 Domenico Pecori, 207-209 Domenico Viniziano (Domenico da Venezia), _Life_, 97-105. 19, 63, 97-105, 173 Don Bartolommeo della Gatta (Abbot of S. Clemente), _Life_, 203-209. 188 Don Lorenzo Monaco, 203 Donato (Donatello), 3, 6, 73, 74, 117, 131, 144, 147, 148, 269, 270, 273 Donnino, Agnolo di, 189, 190 Donzello, Piero del, 13 Donzello, Polito del, 13, 14 Dosso, the elder (Dosso Dossi), 164 Duca Tagliapietra, 169 Duccio, 6 Dürer, Albrecht, 214 Ercole Ferrarese (Ercole da Ferrara), Life, 167-170. 164 Eyck, Jan van (Johann of Bruges), 60-62, 64 Fabiano Sassoli, 54 Fabriano, Gentile da, _Life_, 109-113. 35, 173 Facchino, Giuliano del, 239 Fancelli, Luca, 47 Fancelli, Salvestro, 47 Fermo Ghisoni, 164 Ferrara, Ercole da (Ercole Ferrarese), _Life_, 167-170. 164 Ferrara, Stefano da, 285, 286 Ferrarese, Ercole (Ercole da Ferrara), _Life_, 167-170. 164 Ferrarese, Galasso (Galasse Galassi), _Life_ 135-136 Fiesole, Fra Giovanni da (Fra Angelico), _Life_, 27-39. 121 Fiesole, Mino da (Mino di Giovanni), _Life_, 153-157 Filarete, Antonio, _Life_, 3-7. 47, 92 Filipepi, Alessandro (Sandro Botticelli, or Sandro di Botticello), _Life_, 247-254. 86, 87, 188, 222, 247-254 Filippino Lippi (Filippo Lippi), 83, 87, 259 Filippo Brunelleschi (Filippo di Ser Brunellesco), 3, 12, 130, 196, 257, 271 Filippo Lippi (Filippino Lippi), 83, 87, 259 Filippo Lippi, Fra, _Life_, 79-88. 117, 118, 161, 247 Finiguerra, Maso, 238 Foccora, Giovanni, 7 Fonte, Jacopo della (Jacopo della Quercia), 131, 188 Forlì, Melozzo da, 124 Fra Angelico (Fra Giovanni da Fiesole), _Life_, 27-39. 121 Fra Diamante, 83, 85-87 Fra Filippo Lippi, _Life_, 79-88. 117, 118, 161, 247 Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (Fra Angelico), _Life_, 27-39. 121 Francesca, Piero della (Piero Borghese, or Piero dal Borgo a San Sepolcro), _Life_, 17-23. 51, 52, 101, 135 Francesco Brini, 214 Francesco di Giorgio, _Life_, 129-131 Francesco di Monsignore, 63 Francesco di Simone, 273 Francesco Granacci (Il Granaccio), 233 Francesco Peselli (Francesco di Pesello, or Pesellino), _Life_, 117-118. 86 Francesco Salviati, 258, 262 Galasso Ferrarese (Galasso Galassi), _Life_, 135-136 Gatta, Don Bartolommeo della (Abbot of S. Clemente), _Life_, 203-209. 188 Gentile Bellini, _Life_, 173-184. 280 Gentile da Fabriano, _Life_, 109-113. 35, 173 Geri Aretino, 263, 264 Gherardo, _Life_, 213-215. 209, 232 Ghiberti, Bartoluccio, 237, 238 Ghiberti, Lorenzo (Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti, or Lorenzo di Bartoluccio Ghiberti), 3, 237, 238, 269, 270 Ghirlandajo, Benedetto, 222, 229, 233 Ghirlandajo, David, 222, 225, 229-231, 233 Ghirlandajo, Domenico, _Life_, 219-233. 69, 70, 188, 213, 215, 219-233, 248 Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo, 233 Ghirlandajo, Tommaso, 219 Ghisoni, Fermo, 164 Giacomo Marzone, 184 Gian Cristoforo, 92 Giorgio, Francesco di, _Life_, 129-131 Giorgio Vasari, see Vasari (Giorgio) Giorgio Vasari (son of Lazzaro Vasari, the elder), 52, 54-56 Giorgione da Castelfranco, 184 Giotto, 59, 259 Giovanni, Mino di (Mino da Fiesole), _Life_, 153-157 Giovanni Bellini, _Life_, 173-184. 280, 286 Giovanni Cimabue, 59 Giovanni da Rovezzano, 105 Giovanni Foccora, 7 Giovanni Turini, 239 Girolamo Campagnola, 279 Girolamo della Cecca, 263 Girolamo Moretto (or Mocetto), 180 Girolamo Padovano, 209 Giuliano da Maiano, _Life_, 11-14. 74, 257-259 Giuliano del Facchino, 239 Giuliano del Tasso, 200, 262 Giulio Romano, 19 Giusto, 11 Gozzoli, Benozzo, _Life_, 121-125. 35, 161 Graffione, 70 Granacci, Francesco (Il Granaccio), 233 Grosso, Nanni, 273 Guardia, Niccolò della, 92 Guglielmo da Marcilla (Guillaume de Marcillac, or the French Prior), 53 Guido Bolognese, 170 Guido del Servellino, 12 Hans Memling (Ausse), 61 Il Cronaca, 260 Il Granaccio (Francesco Granacci), 233 Impiccati, Andrea degl' (Andrea dal Castagno), _Life_, 97-105. 109, 117, 173, 237, 239, 283 Indaco, Jacopo dell', 233 Jacopo (pupil of Botticelli), 251, 252 Jacopo Bellini, _Life_, 173-175. 280 Jacopo Cozzerello, 130 Jacopo da Montagna, 183 Jacopo del Corso, 105 Jacopo del Sellaio, 86 Jacopo del Tedesco, 233 Jacopo della Quercia (Jacopo della Fonte), 131, 188 Jacopo dell' Indaco, 233 Jacopo Squarcione, 279-281, 285 Johann of Bruges (Jan van Eyck), 60-62, 64 Lappoli, Matteo, 206, 207 Laurati, Pietro (Pietro Lorenzetti), 55 Lazzaro Vasari (the elder), _Life_, 51-56 Lazzaro Vasari (the younger), 55 Lendinara, Lorenzo da, 285 Leon Batista Alberti, _Life_, 43-48 Leonardo da Vinci, 270, 271, 273, 286 Linaiuolo, Berto, 92 Lippi, Filippo (Filippino Lippi), 83, 87, 259 Lippi, Fra Filippo, _Life_, 79-88. 117, 118, 161, 247 Lodovico Malino (Lodovico Mazzolini), 164 Lorentino, Angelo di (Agnolo di Lorenzo), 209 Lorentino d'Angelo, 22, 23 Lorenzetti, Pietro (Pietro Laurati), 55 Lorenzetto, 273 Lorenzo, Agnolo di (Angelo di Lorentino), 209 Lorenzo Costa, _Life_, 161-164. 167 Lorenzo da Lendinara, 285 Lorenzo di Bicci, 20, 213 Lorenzo di Credi, 274 Lorenzo Ghiberti (Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti, or Lorenzo di Bartoluccio Ghiberti), 3, 237, 238, 269, 270 Lorenzo Monaco, Don, 203 Lorenzo Vecchietto, _Life_, 129-131 Luca Fancelli, 47 Luca Signorelli (Luca da Cortona), 20, 23, 31, 52, 188, 204 Luigi Vivarino, 178, 179 Macchiavelli, Zanobi, 125 Maestro Mino (Mino del Regno, or Mino del Reame). _Life_, 91-92. 155 Maiano, Benedetto da, _Life_, 257-264. 13, 14, 149, 257-264 Maiano, Giuliano da, _Life_, 11-14. 74, 257-259 Mainardi, Bastiano (Bastiano da San Gimignano), 225, 230-233 Malino, Lodovico (Lodovico Mazzolini), 164 Mantegna, Andrea, _Life_, 279-286. 162 Marchino, 105 Marcilla, Guglielmo da (Guillaume de Marcillac, or the French Prior), 53 Marco del Tasso, 200, 262 Marco Zoppo, 279, 280, 285 Mariotto, Domenico di, 12 Martin Schongauer, 214 Martini, Simone (Simone Sanese or Memmi), 183 Marzone, Giacomo, 184 Masaccio, 79, 80 Maso Finiguerra, 238 Matteo Lappoli, 206, 207 Mazzingo, 239 Mazzolini, Lodovico (Lodovico Malino), 164 Melozzo da Forlì, 124 Memling, Hans (Ausse), 61 Memmi, Simone (Simone Sanese or Martini), 183 Messina, Antonello da, _Life_, 59-64 Michelagnolo Buonarroti, 86, 110, 140, 233 Michele San Michele, 111 Michelino, Domenico di, 35 Milano, Bramante da, 18 Mino, Maestro (Mino del Regno, or Mino del Reame), _Life_, 91-92. 155 Mino da Fiesole (Mino di Giovanni), _Life_, 153-157 Minore, 11 Modanino da Modena, 14 Monaco, Don Lorenzo, 203 Monsignore, Francesco di, 63 Montagna, Jacopo da, 183 Montelupo, Baccio da, 148 Montepulciano, Pasquino da, 7 Moretto (or Mocetto), Girolamo, 180 Myrmecides, 55 Nanni d' Antonio di Banco, 28 Nanni Grosso, 273 Niccolò (goldsmith to Pope Innocent VIII), 281 Niccolò (of Florence), 7 Niccolò Cieco, 233 Niccolò della Guardia, 92 Niccolò Pizzolo, 280 Nicon, 209 Orcagna, Andrea di Cione, 223 Orsino, 275, 276 Padova, Vellano da, _Life_, 73-75. 272 Padovano, Girolamo, 209 Paolo da Verona, 243 Paolo Romano, _Life_, 91-92 Paolo Uccello, 257 Parri Spinelli, 54 Pasquino da Montepulciano, 7 Pecori, Domenico, 207-209 Perugino, Pietro (Pietro Vannucci, or Pietro da Castel della Pieve), 23, 188, 204, 273 Pesellino (Francesco Peselli, or Francesco di Pesello), _Life_, 117-118. 86 Pesello, _Life_, 117-118. 59 Piero del Donzello, 13 Piero della Francesca (Piero Borghese, or Piero dal Borgo a San Sepolcro), _Life_, 17-23. 51, 52, 101, 135 Piero di Cosimo, 189 Piero Pollaiuolo, _Life_, 237-243. 105, 248 Pietro Laurati (Pietro Lorenzetti), 55 Pietro Paolo da Todi, 92 Pietro Perugino (Pietro Vannucci, or Pietro da Castel della Pieve), 23, 188, 204, 273 Pintelli, Baccio, 93-94 Pisanello, Vittore (or Antonio), _Life_, 109-113. 105 Pistoiese, David, 263 Pizzolo, Niccolò, 280 Polito del Donzello, 13, 14 Pollaiuolo, Antonio, _Life_, 237-243. 248, 285 Pollaiuolo, Piero, _Life_, 237-243. 105, 248 Polo, Agnolo di, 273, 274 Proconsolo, Rossellino dal (Antonio Rossellino), _Life_, 139-144. 44, 253 Quercia, Jacopo della (Jacopo della Fonte), 131, 188 Raffaello Sanzio (Raffaello da Urbino), 18, 19 Ravenna, Rondinello da, 183, 184 Regno, Mino del (Maestro Mino, or Mino del Reame), _Life_, 91-92. 155 Riccio, Andrea, 64 Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, 233 Robbia, Andrea della, 276 Roger of Bruges (Roger van der Weyden), 61 Romano, Giulio, 19 Romano, Paolo, _Life_, 91-92 Rondinello da Ravenna, 183, 184 Rosselli, Cosimo, _Life_, 187-190 Rossellino, Antonio (Rossellino dal Proconsolo), _Life_, 139-144. 44, 253 Rossellino, Bernardo, _Life_, 139-144. 44, 268 Rovezzano, Giovanni da, 105 Salvestro Fancelli, 47 Salvi, Antonio di, 239 Salviati, Francesco, 258, 262 S. Clemente, Abbot of (Don Bartolommeo della Gatta), _Life_, 203-209. 188 San Gimignano, Bastiano da (Bastiano Mainardi), 225, 230-233 Sandro Botticelli (Sandro di Botticello, or Alessandro Filipepi), _Life_, 247-254. 86, 87, 188, 222, 247-254 Sanese, Simone (Simone Martini or Memmi), 183 Sansovino, Andrea (Andrea Contucci, or Andrea dal Monte Sansovino), 243 Santi Buglioni, 276 Sanzio, Raffaello (Raffaello da Urbino), 18, 19 Sassoli, Fabiano, 54 Schongauer, Martin, 214 Sellaio, Jacopo del, 86 Servellino, Guido del, 12 Settignano, Desiderio da, _Life_, 147-149. 154, 156, 260 Signorelli, Luca (Luca da Cortona), 20, 23, 31, 52, 188, 204 Simone (brother of Donatello), _Life_, 3-7 Simone, Francesco di, 273 Simone Sanese (Simone Martini or Memmi), 183 Spinelli, Parri, 54 Squarcione, Jacopo, 279-281, 285 Stefano (of Florence), 215 Stefano da Ferrara, 285, 286 Strozzi, Zanobi, 35 Tafi, Andrea, 69 Tagliapietra, Duca, 169 Tasso, Domenico del, 200, 262 Tasso, Giuliano del, 200, 262 Tasso, Marco del, 200, 262 Tedesco, Jacopo del, 233 Tiziano Vecelli (Tiziano da Cadore), 179, 183 Todi, Pietro Paolo da, 92 Tommaso Ghirlandajo, 219 Treviso, Dario da, 280, 285 Turini, Giovanni, 239 Uccello, Paolo, 257 Urbino, Bramante da, 155 Urbino, Raffaello da (Raffaello Sanzio), 18, 19 Vannucci, Pietro (Pietro Perugino, or Pietro da Castel della Pieve), 23, 188, 204, 273 Vante (or Attavante), 36-39, 209, 214, 215 Varrone (of Florence), 7 Vasari, Bernardo, 55 Vasari, Giorgio-- as art-collector, 12, 48, 52, 54, 68, 88, 113, 124, 140, 149, 157, 164, 170, 189, 198, 209, 214, 221, 238, 242, 254, 263, 270, 284 as author, 5, 6, 14, 18, 19, 30, 33, 34, 36, 39, 48, 51-56, 59, 64, 74, 75, 91-93, 97, 110, 112, 113, 123, 136, 142-144, 149, 157, 163, 164, 174, 175, 178-180, 198, 199, 209, 215, 221, 225, 242, 249, 259, 262, 273, 280, 283 as painter, 56, 209 as architect, 55 Vasari, Giorgio (son of Lazzaro Vasari, the elder), 52, 54-56 Vasari, Lazzaro (the elder), _Life_, 51-56 Vasari, Lazzaro (the younger), 55 Vecchietto, Lorenzo, _Life_, 129-131 Vecelli, Tiziano (Tiziano da Cadore), 179, 183 Vellano da Padova, _Life_, 73-75. 272 Venezia, Domenico da (Domenico Viniziano), _Life_, 97-105. 19, 63, 97-105, 173 Verona, Paolo da, 243 Verrocchio, Andrea, _Life_, 267-276. 75, 223 Vincenzio di Zoppa, 5 Vinci, Leonardo da, 270, 271, 273, 286 Viniziano, Antonio, 176 Viniziano, Domenico (Domenico da Venezia), _Life_, 97-105. 19, 63, 97-105, 173 Vittore (or Antonio) Pisanello, _Life_, 109-113. 105 Vivarino, Luigi, 178, 179 Weyden, Roger van der (Roger of Bruges), 61 Zanobi Macchiavelli, 125 Zanobi Strozzi, 35 Zeuxis, 209 Zoppa, Vincenzio di, 5 Zoppo, Marco, 279, 280, 285 END OF VOL. III. PRINTED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF CHAS. T. JACOBI OF THE CHISWICK PRESS, LONDON. THE COLOURED REPRODUCTIONS ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY HENRY STONE AND SON, LTD., BANBURY 
12047	----	LEGENDS OF THE MADONNA, AS REPRESENTED IN THE FINE ARTS. BY MRS. JAMESON. CORRECTED AND ENLARGED EDITION. BOSTON: HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. The Riverside Press, Cambridge. 1881. NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS. Some months since Mrs. Jameson kindly consented to prepare for this Edition of her writings the series of _Sacred and Legendary Art_, but dying before she had time to fulfil her promise, the arrangement has been intrusted to other hands. The text of the whole series will be an exact reprint of the last English Edition. TICKNOR & FIELDS. BOSTON, Oct. 1st, 1860. CONTENTS. PREFACE INTRODUCTION-- Origin of the Worship of the Madonna. Earliest artistic Representations. Origin of the Group of the Virgin and Child in the Fifth Century. The First Council at Ephesus. The Iconoclasts. First Appearance of the Effigy of the Virgin on Coins. Period of Charlemagne. Period of the Crusades. Revival of Art in the Thirteenth Century. The Fourteenth Century. Influence of Dante. The Fifteenth Century. The Council of Constance and the Hussite Wars. The Sixteenth Century. The Luxury of Church Pictures. The Influence of Classical Literature on the Representations of the Virgin. The Seventeenth Century. Theological Art. Spanish Art. Influence of Jesuitism on Art. Authorities followed by Painters in the earliest Times. Legend of St. Luke. Character of the Virgin Mary as drawn in the Gospels. Early Descriptions of her Person; how far attended to by the Painters. Poetical Extracts descriptive of the Virgin Mary. SYMBOLS AND ATTRIBUTES OF THE VIRGIN. Proper Costume and Colours. DEVOTIONAL SUBJECTS AND HISTORICAL SUBJECTS. Altar-pieces. The Life of the Virgin Mary as treated in a Series. The Seven Joys and Seven Sorrows as a Series. Titles of the Virgin, as expressed in Pictures and Effigies. Churches dedicated to her. Conclusion. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES DEVOTIONAL SUBJECTS. PART I. THE VIRGIN WITHOUT THE CHILD. LA VERGINE GLORIOSA. Earliest Figures. The Mosaics. The Virgin of San Venanzio. The Virgin of Spoleto. The Enthroned Virgin without the Child, as type of heavenly Wisdom. Various Examples. L'INCORONATA, the Type of the Church triumphant. The Virgin crowned by her Son. Examples from the old Mosaics. Examples of the Coronation of the Virgin from various Painters. The VIRGIN OF MERCY, as she is represented in the Last Judgment. The Virgin, as Dispenser of Mercy on Earth. Various Examples. The MATER DOLOROSA seated and standing, with the Seven Swords. The _Stabat Mater_, the Ideal Pietà. The Votive Pieta by Guido. OUR LADY OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION Origin of the Subject. History of the Theological Dispute. The First Papal Decree touching the Immaculate Conception. The Bull of Paul V. The Popularity of the Subject in Spain. Pictures by Guido, by Roelas, Velasquez, Murillo. The Predestination of the Virgin. Curious Picture by Cotignola. PART II. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD ENTHRONED. _Virgo Deipara_. The Virgin in her Maternal Character. Origin of the Group of the Mother and Child. Nestorian Controversy. The Enthroned Virgin in the old Mosaics. In early Italian Art The Virgin standing as _Regina Coeli_. _La Madre Pia_ enthroned. _Mater Sapientiæ_ with the Book. The Virgin and Child enthroned with attendant Figures; with Angels; with Prophets; with Apostles. With Saints: John the Baptist; St. Anna; St. Joachim; St. Joseph. With Martyrs and Patron Saints. _Various Examples of Arrangement_. With the Fathers of the Church; with St. Jerome and St. Catherine; with the Marriage of St. Catherine. The Virgin and Child between St. Catherine and St. Barbara; with Mary Magdalene; with St. Lucia. The Virgin and Child between St. George and St. Nicholas; with St. Christopher; with St. Leonard. The Virgin of Charity. The Madonnas of Florence; of Siena; of Venice and Lombardy. How attended. The Virgin attended by the Monastic Saints. Examples from various Painters. Votive Madonnas. For Mercies accorded; for Victory; for Deliverance from Pestilence; against Flood and Fire. Family Votive Madonnas, Examples. The Madonna of the Bentivoglio Family. The Madonna of the Sforza Family. The Madonna of the Moyer Family, The Madonna di Foligno. German Votive Madonna at Rouen. Madonna of Réné, Duke of Anjou; of the Pesaro Family at Venice. Half-length Enthroned Madonnas; first introduced by the Venetians. Various Examples. The MATER AMABILIS, Early Greek Examples. The infinite Variety given to this Subject. Virgin and Child with St. John. He takes the Cross The MADRE PIA; the Virgin adores her Son. Pastoral Madonnas of the Venetian School. Conclusion of the Devotional Subjects. HISTORICAL SUBJECTS. PART I. THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN FROM HER BIRTH TO HER MARRIAGE WITH JOSEPH. THE LEGEND OF JOACHIM AND ANNA. Joachim rejected from the Temple. Joachim herding his Sheep on the Mountain. The Altercation between Anna and her Maid Judith. The Meeting at the Golden Gate. THE NATIVITY OF THE VIRGIN. The Importance and Beauty of the Subject. How treated. THE PRESENTATION OF THE VIRGIN. A Subject of great Importance. General Arrangement and Treatment. Various Examples from celebrated Painters. The Virgin in the Temple. THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN. The Legend as followed by the Painters. Various Examples of the Marriage of the Virgin, as treated by Perugino, Raphael, and others. PART II. THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MARY FROM THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE RETURN FROM EGYPT. THE ANNUNCIATION, Its Beauty as a Subject. Treated as a Mystery and as an Event. As a Mystery; not earlier than the Eleventh Century. Its proper Place in architectural Decoration. On Altar-pieces. As an Allegory. The Annunciation as expressing the Incarnation. Ideally treated with Saints and Votaries. Examples by Simone Memmi, Fra Bartolomeo, Angelico, and others. The Annunciation as an Event. The appropriate Circumstances. The Time, the Locality, the Accessories. The Descent of the Angel; proper Costume; with the Lily, the Palm, the Olive. Proper Attitude and Occupation of Mary; Expression and Deportment. The Dove. Mistakes. Examples from various Painters. THE VISITATION. Character of Elizabeth. The Locality and Circumstances. Proper Accessories. Examples from various Painters. THE DREAM OF JOSEPH. He entreats Forgiveness of Mary. THE NATIVITY. The Prophecy of the Sibyl. _La Madonna del Parto_. The Nativity as a Mystery; with poetical Accessories; with Saints and Votaries. The Nativity as an Event. The Time; the Places; the proper Accessories and Circumstances; the angelic Choristers; Signification of the Ox and the Ass. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI; they are supposed to have been Kings. Prophecy of Balaam. The Appearance of the Star. The Legend of the three Kings of Cologne. Proper Accessories. Examples from various Painters. The Land Surveyors, by Giorgione. THE PURIFICATION OF THE VIRGIN. The Prophecy of Simeon. Greek Legend of the _Nunc Dimittis_. Various Examples. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. The Massacre of the Innocents. The Preparation for the Journey. The Circumstances. The Legend of the Robbers; of the Palm. THE REPOSE OF THE HOLY FAMILY. The Subject often mistaken. Proper Treatment of the Group. The Repose at Matarea. The Ministry of Angels. THE LEGEND OF THE GYPSY. THE RETURN FROM EGYPT. PART III. THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN FROM THE SOJOURN IN EGYPT TO THE CRUCIFIXION OF OUR LORD. THE HOLY FAMILY. Proper Treatment of the Domestic Group as distinguished from the Devotional. The simplest Form that of the Mother and Child. The Child fed from his Mother's Bosom. The Infant sleeps. Holy Family of three Figures; with the little St. John; with St. Joseph; with St. Anna. Holy Family of four Figures; with St. Elizabeth and others. The Holy Family of Five and Six Figures. The Family of the Virgin grouped together. Examples of Holy Family as treated by various Artists. The Carpenter's Shop. The Infant Christ learning to read. THE DISPUTE IN THE TEMPLE. The Virgin seeks her Son. THE DEATH OF JOSEPH. THE MARRIAGE AT CANA. Proper Treatment of the Virgin in this Subject; as treated by Luini and by Paul Veronese. The Virgin attends on the Ministry of Christ. Mystical Treatment by Fra Angelico. LO SPASIMO. Christ takes leave of his Mother. Women who are introduced into Scenes of the Passion of our Lord. The Procession to Calvary, _Lo Spasimo di Sicilia_. THE CRUCIFIXION. Proper Treatment of the Virgin in this Subject. The impropriety of placing her upon the ground. Her Fortitude. Christ recommends his Mother to St. John. THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. Proper Place and Action of the Virgin in this Subject. THE DEPOSITION. Proper Treatment of this Form of the _Mater Dolorosa_. Persons introduced. Various Examples. THE ENTOMBMENT. Treated as an historical Scene. As one of the Sorrows of the Rosary; attended by Saints. The _Mater Dolorosa_ attended by St. Peter. Attended by St. John and Mary Magdalene. PART IV. THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MARY FROM THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD TO THE ASSUMPTION. THE APPARITION OF CHRIST TO HIS MOTHER. Beauty and Sentiment of the old Legend; how represented by the Artists. THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD. The proper Place of the Virgin Mary. THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST; Mary being one of the principal persons. THE APOSTLES TAKE LEAVE OF THE VIRGIN. THE DEATH AND ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN. The old Greek Legend. The Angel announces to Mary her approaching Death. The Death of the Virgin, an ancient and important Subject. As treated in the Greek School; in early German Art; in Italian Art. Various Examples. The Apostles carry the Body of the Virgin to the Tomb. The Entombment. THE ASSUMPTION. Distinction between the Assumption of the Body and the Assumption of the Soul of the Virgin. The Assumption as a Mystery; as an Event. LA MADONNA BELLA CINTOLA. The Legend of the Girdle; as painted in the Cathedral at Prato. Examples of the Assumption as represented by various Artists. THE CORONATION as distinguished from the _Incoronata_; how treated as an historical Subject. Conclusion. NOTE. The decease of Mrs. Jameson, the accomplished woman and popular writer, at an advanced period of life, took place in March, 1860, after a brief illness. But the frame had long been worn out by past years of anxiety, and the fatigues of laborious literary occupation conscientiously undertaken and carried out. Having entered certain fields of research and enterprise, perhaps at first accidentally, Mrs. Jameson could not satisfy herself by anything less than the utmost that minute collection and progressive study could do to sustain her popularity. Distant and exhausting journeys, diligent examination of far-scattered examples of Art, voluminous and various reading, became seemingly more and more necessary to her; and at the very time of life when rest and slackened effort would have been natural,--not merely because her labours were in aid of others, but to satisfy her own high sense of what is demanded by Art and Literature,--did her hand and brain work more and more perseveringly and thoughtfully, till at last she sank under her weariness; and passed away. The father of Miss Murphy was a miniature-painter of repute, attached, we believe, to the household of the Princess Charlotte. His daughter Anna was naturally taught by him the principles of his own art; but she had instincts for all,--taste for music,--a feeling for poetry,--and a delicate appreciation of the drama. These gifts--in her youth rarer in combination than they are now (when the connection of the arts is becoming understood, and the love of all increasingly diffused)--were, during part of Mrs. Jameson's life, turned to the service of education.--It was not till after her marriage, that a foreign tour led her into authorship, by the publication of "The Diary of an Ennuyée," somewhere about the year 1826.--It was impossible to avoid detecting in that record the presence of taste, thought, and feeling, brought in an original fashion to bear on Art, Society, Morals.--The reception of the book was decisive.--It was followed, at intervals, by "The Loves of the Poets," "Memoirs of Italian Painters," "The Lives of Female Sovereigns," "Characteristics of Women" (a series of Shakspeare studies; possibly its writer's most popular book). After this, the Germanism so prevalent five-and-twenty years ago, and now somewhat gone by, possessed itself of the authoress, and she published her reminiscences of Munich, the imitative art of which was new, and esteemed as almost a revelation. To the list of Mrs. Jameson's books may be added her translation of the easy, if not vigorous Dramas by the Princess Amelia of Saxony, and her "Winter Studies and Summer Rambles"--recollections of a visit to Canada. This included the account of her strange and solitary canoe voyage, and her residence among a tribe of Indians. From this time forward, social questions--especially those concerning the position of women in life and action--engrossed a large share of Mrs. Jameson's attention; and she wrote on them occasionally, always in a large and enlightened spirit, rarely without touches of delicacy and sentiment.--Even when we are unable to accept all Mrs. Jameson's conclusions, or to join her in the hero or heroine worship of this or the other favourite example, we have seldom a complaint to make of the manner of the authoress. It was always earnest, eloquent, and poetical. Besides a volume or two of collected essays, thoughts, notes on books, and on subjects of Art, we have left to mention the elaborate volumes on "Sacred and Legendary Art," as the greatest literary labour of a busy life. Mrs. Jameson was putting the last finish to the concluding portion of her work, when she was bidden to cease forever. There is little more to be told,--save that, in the course of her indefatigable literary career, Mrs. Jameson drew round herself a large circle of steady friends--these among the highest illustrators of Literature and Art in France, Germany, and Italy; and that, latterly, a pension from Government was added to her slender earnings. These, it may be said without indelicacy, were liberally apportioned to the aid of others,--Mrs. Jameson being, for herself, simple, self-relying, and self-denying;--holding that high view of the duties belonging to pursuits of imagination which rendered meanness, or servility, or dishonourable dealing, or license glossed over with some convenient name, impossible to her.--She was a faithful friend, a devoted relative, a gracefully-cultivated, and honest literary worker, whose mind was set on "the best and honourablest things." * * * * * Some months since Mrs. Jameson kindly consented to prepare for this edition of her writings the "Legends of the Madonna," "Sacred and Legendary Art," and "Legends of the Monastic Orders;" but, dying before she had time to fulfil her promise, the arrangement has been intrusted to other hands. The text of this whole series will be an exact reprint of the last English Edition. * * * * * The portrait annexed to this volume is from a photograph taken in London only a short time before Mrs. Jameson's death. BOSTON, September, 1860. AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. In presenting to my friends and to the public this Series of the Sacred and Legendary Art, few preparatory words will be required. If in the former volumes I felt diffident of my own powers to do any justice to my subject, I have yet been encouraged by the sympathy and approbation of those who nave kindly accepted of what has been done, and yet more kindly excused deficiencies, errors, and oversights, which the wide range of subjects rendered almost unavoidable. With far more of doubt and diffidence, yet not less trust in the benevolence and candour of my critics, do I present this volume to the public. I hope it will be distinctly understood, that the general plan of the work is merely artistic; that it really aims at nothing more than to render the various subjects intelligible. For this reason it has been thought advisable to set aside, in a great measure, individual preferences, and all predilections for particular schools and particular periods of Art,--to take, in short, the widest possible range as regards examples,--and then to leave the reader, when thus guided to the meaning of what he sees, to select, compare, admire, according to his own discrimination, taste, and requirements. The great difficulty has been to keep within reasonable limits. Though the subject has a unity not found in the other volumes, it is really boundless as regards variety and complexity. I may have been superficial from mere superabundance of materials; sometimes mistaken as to facts and dates; the tastes, the feelings, and the faith of my readers may not always go along with me; but if attention and interest have been exited--if the sphere of enjoyment in works of Art have been enlarged and enlightened, I have done all I ever wished--all I ever hoped, to do. With regard to a point of infinitely greater importance, I may be allowed to plead,--that it has been impossible to treat of the representations of the Blessed Virgin without touching on doctrines such as constitute the principal differences between the creeds of Christendom. I have had to ascend most perilous heights, to dive into terribly obscure depths. Not for worlds would I be guilty of a scoffing allusion to any belief or any object held sacred by sincere and earnest hearts; but neither has it been possible for me to write in a tone of acquiescence, where I altogether differ in feeling and opinion. On this point I shall need, and feel sure that I shall obtain, the generous construction of readers of all persuasions. INTRODUCTION I. ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE EFFIGIES OF THE MADONNA. Through all the most beautiful and precious productions of human genius and human skill which the middle ages and the _renaissance_ have bequeathed to us, we trace, more or less developed, more or less apparent, present in shape before us, or suggested through inevitable associations, one prevailing idea: it is that of an impersonation in the feminine character of beneficence, purity, and power, standing between an offended Deity and poor, sinning, suffering humanity, and clothed in the visible form of Mary, the Mother of our Lord. To the Roman Catholics this idea remains an indisputable religious truth of the highest import. Those of a different creed may think fit to dispose of the whole subject of the Madonna either as a form of superstition or a form of Art. But merely as a form of Art, we cannot in these days confine ourselves to empty conventional criticism. We are obliged to look further and deeper; and in this department of Legendary Art, as in the others, we must take the higher ground, perilous though it be. We must seek to comprehend the dominant idea lying behind and beyond the mere representation. For, after all, some consideration is due to facts which we must necessarily accept, whether we deal with antiquarian theology or artistic criticism; namely, that the worship of the Madonna did prevail through all the Christian and civilized world for nearly a thousand years; that, in spite of errors, exaggerations, abuses, this worship did comprehend certain great elemental truths interwoven with our human nature, and to be evolved perhaps with our future destinies. Therefore did it work itself into the life and soul of man; therefore has it been worked _out_ in the manifestations of his genius; and therefore the multiform imagery in which it has been clothed, from the rudest imitations of life, to the most exquisite creations of mind, may be resolved, as a whole, into one subject, and become one great monument in the history of progressive thought and faith, as well as in the history of progressive art. Of the pictures in our galleries, public or private,--of the architectural adornments of those majestic edifices which sprung up in the middle ages (where they have not been despoiled or desecrated by a zeal as fervent as that which reared them), the largest and most beautiful portion have reference to the Madonna,--her character, her person, her history. It was a theme which never tired her votaries,--whether, as in the hands of great and sincere artists, it became one of the noblest and loveliest, or, as in the hands of superficial, unbelieving, time-serving artists, one of the most degraded. All that human genius, inspired by faith, could achieve of best, all that fanaticism, sensualism, atheism, could perpetrate of worst, do we find in the cycle of those representations which have been dedicated to the glory of the Virgin. And indeed the ethics of the Madonna worship, as evolved in art, might be not unaptly likened to the ethics of human love: so long as the object of sense remained in subjection to the moral idea--so long as the appeal was to the best of our faculties and affections--so long was the image grand or refined, and the influences to be ranked with those which have helped to humanize and civilize our race; but so soon as the object became a mere idol, then worship and worshippers, art and artists, were together degraded. It is not my intention to enter here on that disputed point, the origin of the worship of the Madonna. Our present theme lies within prescribed limits,--wide enough, however, to embrace an immense field of thought: it seeks to trace the progressive influence of that worship on the fine arts for a thousand years or more, and to interpret the forms in which it has been clothed. That the veneration paid to Mary in the early Church was a very natural feeling in those who advocated the divinity of her Son, would be granted, I suppose, by all but the most bigoted reformers; that it led to unwise and wild extremes, confounding the creature with the Creator, would be admitted, I suppose, by all but the most bigoted Roman Catholics. How it extended from the East over the nations of the West, how it grew and spread, may be read in ecclesiastical histories. Everywhere it seems to have found in the human heart some deep sympathy--deeper far than mere theological doctrine could reach--ready to accept it; and in every land the ground prepared for it in some already dominant idea of a mother-Goddess, chaste, beautiful, and benign. As, in the oldest Hebrew rites and Pagan superstitions, men traced the promise of a coming Messiah,--as the deliverers and kings of the Old Testament, and even the demigods of heathendom, became accepted types of the person of Christ,--so the Eve of the Mosaic history, the Astarte of the Assyrians-- "The mooned Ashtaroth, queen and mother both,"-- the Isis nursing Horus of the Egyptians, the Demeter and the Aphrodite of the Greeks, the Scythian Freya, have been considered by some writers as types of a divine maternity, foreshadowing the Virgin-mother of Christ. Others will have it that these scattered, dim, mistaken--often gross and perverted--ideas which were afterwards gathered into the pure, dignified, tender image of the Madonna, were but as the voice of a mighty prophecy, sounded through all the generations of men, even from the beginning of time, of the coming moral regeneration, and complete and harmonious development of the whole human race, by the establishment, on a higher basis, of what has been called the "feminine element" in society. And let me at least speak for myself. In the perpetual iteration of that beautiful image of THE WOMAN highly blessed--_there_, where others saw only pictures or statues, I have seen this great hope standing like a spirit beside the visible form; in the fervent worship once universally given to that gracious presence, I have beheld an acknowledgment of a higher as well as gentler power than that of the strong hand and the might that makes the right,--and in every earnest votary one who, as he knelt, was in this sense pious beyond the reach of his own thought, and "devout beyond the meaning of his will." It is curious to observe, as the worship of the Virgin-mother expanded and gathered to itself the relics of many an ancient faith, how the new and the old elements, some of them apparently the most heterogeneous, became amalgamated, and were combined into the early forms of art;--how the Madonna, when she assumed the characteristics of the great Diana of Ephesus, at once the type of Fertility, and the Goddess of Chastity, became, as the impersonation of motherhood, all beauty, bounty and graciousness; and at the same time, by virtue of her perpetual virginity, the patroness of single and ascetic life--the example and the excuse for many of the wildest of the early monkish theories. With Christianity, new ideas of the moral and religious responsibility of woman entered the world; and while these ideas were yet struggling with the Hebrew and classical prejudices concerning the whole sex, they seem to have produced some curious perplexity in the minds of the greatest doctors of the faith. Christ, as they assure us, was born of a woman only, and had no earthly father, that neither sex might despair; "for had he been born a man (which was necessary), yet not born of woman, the women might have despaired of themselves, recollecting the first offence, the first man having been deceived by a woman. Therefore we are to suppose that, for the exaltation of the male sex, Christ appeared on earth as a man; and, for the consolation of womankind, he was born of a woman only; as if it had been said, 'From henceforth no creature shall be base before God, unless perverted by depravity.'" (Augustine, Opera Supt. 238, Serm. 63.) Such is the reasoning of St. Augustine, who, I must observe, had an especial veneration for his mother Monica; and it is perhaps for her sake that he seems here desirous to prove that through the Virgin Mary all womankind were henceforth elevated in the scale of being. And this was the idea entertained of her subsequently: "Ennobler of thy nature!" says Dante apostrophizing her, as if her perfections had ennobled not merely her own sex, but the whole human race.[1] [Footnote 1: "Tu se' colei che l'umana natura Nobilitasti."] But also with Christianity came the want of a new type of womanly perfection, combining all the attributes of the ancient female divinities with others altogether new. Christ, as the model-man, united the virtues of the two sexes, till the idea that there are essentially masculine and feminine virtues intruded itself on the higher Christian conception, and seems to have necessitated the female type. The first historical mention of a direct worship paid to the Virgin Mary, occurs in a passage in the works of St. Epiphanius, who died in 403. In enumerating the heresies (eighty-four in number) which had sprung up in the early Church, he mentions a sect of women, who had emigrated from Thrace into Arabia, with whom it was customary to offer cakes of meal and honey to the Virgin Mary, as if she had been a divinity, transferring to her, in fact, the worship paid to Ceres. The very first instance which occurs in written history of an invocation to Mary, is in the life of St. Justina, as related by Gregory Nazianzen. Justina calls on the Virgin-mother to protect her against the seducer and sorcerer, Cyprian; and does not call in vain. (Sacred and Legendary Art.) These passages, however, do not prove that previously to the fourth century there had been no worship or invocation of the Virgin, but rather the contrary. However this may be, it is to the same period--the fourth century--we refer the most ancient representations of the Virgin in art. The earliest figures extant are those on the Christian sarcophagi; but neither in the early sculpture nor in the mosaics of St. Maria Maggiore do we find any figure of the Virgin standing alone; she forms part of a group of the Nativity or the Adoration of the Magi. There is no attempt at individuality or portraiture. St. Augustine says expressly, that there existed in his time no _authentic_ portrait of the Virgin; but it is inferred from his account that, authentic or not, such pictures did then exist, since there were already disputes concerning their authenticity. There were at this period received symbols of the person and character of Christ, as the lamb, the vine, the fish, &c., but not, as far as I can learn, any such accepted symbols of the Virgin Mary. Further, it is the opinion of the learned in ecclesiastical antiquities that, previous to the first Council of Ephesus, it was the custom to represent the figure of the Virgin alone without the Child; but that none of these original effigies remain to us, only supposed copies of a later date.[1] And this is all I have been able to discover relative to her in connection with the sacred imagery of the first four centuries of our era. [Footnote 1: Vide "_Memorie dell' Immagine di M.V. dell' Imprunela_." Florence, 1714.] * * * * * The condemnation of Nestorius by the Council of Ephesus, in the year 431, forms a most important epoch in the history of religious art. I have given further on a sketch of this celebrated schism, and its immediate and progressive results. It may be thus summed up here. The Nestorians maintained, that in Christ the two natures of God and man remained separate, and that Mary, his human mother, was parent of the man, but not of the God; consequently the title which, during the previous century, had been popularly applied to her, "Theotokos" (Mother of God), was improper and profane. The party opposed to Nestorius, the Monophysite, maintained that in Christ the divine and human were blended in one incarnate nature, and that consequently Mary was indeed the Mother of God. By the decree of the first Council of Ephesus, Nestorius and his party were condemned as heretics; and henceforth the representation of that beautiful group, since popularly known as the "Madonna and Child," became the expression of the orthodox faith. Every one who wished to prove his hatred of the arch-heretic exhibited the image of the maternal Virgin holding in her arms the Infant Godhead, either in his house as a picture, or embroidered on his garments, or on his furniture, on his personal ornaments--in short, wherever it could be introduced. It is worth remarking, that Cyril, who was so influential in fixing the orthodox group, had passed the greater part of his life in Egypt, and must nave been familiar with the Egyptian type of Isis nursing Horus. Nor, as I conceive, is there any irreverence in supposing that a time-honoured intelligible symbol should be chosen to embody and formalize a creed. For it must be remembered that the group of the Mother and Child was not at first a representation, but merely a theological symbol set up in the orthodox churches, and adopted by the orthodox Christians. It is just after the Council of Ephesus that history first makes mention of a supposed authentic portrait of the Virgin Mary. The Empress Eudocia, when travelling in the Holy Land, sent home such a picture of the Virgin holding the Child to her sister-in-law Pulcheria, who placed it in a church at Constantinople. It was at that time regarded, as of very high antiquity, and supposed to have been painted from the life. It is certain that a picture, traditionally said to be the same which Eudocia had sent to Pulcheria, did exist at Constantinople, and was so much venerated by the people as to be regarded as a sort of palladium, and borne in a superb litter or car in the midst of the imperial host, when the emperor led the army in person. The fate of this relic is not certainly known. It is said to have been taken by the Turks in 1453, and dragged through the mire; but others deny this as utterly derogatory to the majesty of the Queen of Heaven, who never would have suffered such an indignity to have been put on her sacred image. According to the Venetian legend, it was this identical effigy which was taken by the blind old Dandolo, when he besieged and took Constantinople in 1204, and brought in triumph to Venice, where it has ever since been preserved in the church of St. Mark, and held in _somma venerazione_. No mention is made of St. Luke in the earliest account of this picture, though like all the antique effigies of uncertain origin, it was in after times attributed to him. The history of the next three hundred years testifies to the triumph of orthodoxy, the extension and popularity of the worship of the Virgin, and the consequent multiplication of her image in every form and material, through the whole of Christendom. Then followed the schism of the Iconoclasts, which distracted the Church for more than one hundred years, under Leo III., the Isaurian, and his immediate successors. Such were the extravagances of superstition to which the image-worship had led the excitable Orientals, that, if Leo had been a wise and temperate reformer, he might have done much good in checking its excesses; but he was himself an ignorant, merciless barbarian. The persecution by which he sought to exterminate the sacred pictures of the Madonna, and the cruelties exercised on her unhappy votaries, produced a general destruction of the most curious and precious remains of antique art. In other respects, the immediate result was naturally enough a reaction, which not only reinstated pictures in the veneration of the people, but greatly increased their influence over the imagination; for it is at this time that we first hear of a miraculous picture. Among those who most strongly defended the use of sacred images in the churches, was St. John Damascene, one of the great lights of the Oriental Church. According to the Greek legend, he was condemned to lose his right hand, which was accordingly cut off; but he, full of faith, prostrating himself before a picture of the Virgin, stretched out the bleeding stump, and with it touched her lips, and immediately a new hand sprung forth "like a branch from a tree." Hence, among the Greek effigies of the Virgin, there is one peculiarly commemorative of this miracle, styled "the Virgin with three hands." (Didron, Manuel, p. 462.) In the west of Europe, where the abuses of the image-worship had never yet reached the wild superstition of the Oriental Christians, the fury of the Iconoclasts excited horror and consternation. The temperate and eloquent apology for sacred pictures, addressed by Gregory II. to the Emperor Leo, had the effect of mitigating the persecution in Italy, where the work of destruction could not be carried out to the same extent as in the Byzantine provinces. Hence it is in Italy only that any important remains of sacred art anterior to the Iconoclast dynasty have been preserved.[1] [Footnote 1: It appears, from one of these letters from Gregory II, that it was the custom at that time (725) to employ religious pictures as a means of instruction in the schools. He says, that if Lee were to enter a school in Italy, and to say that he prohibited pictures, the children would infallibly throw their hornbooks (_Ta volexxe del alfabeto_) at his head.--v. _Bosio_, p. 567.] The second Council of Nice, under the Empress Irene in 787, condemned the Iconoclasts, and restored the use of the sacred pictures in the churches. Nevertheless, the controversy still raged till after the death of Theophilus, the last and the most cruel of the Iconoclasts, in 842. His widow Theodora achieved the final triumph of the orthodox party, and restored the Virgin to her throne. We must observe, however, that only pictures were allowed; all sculptured imagery was still prohibited, and has never since been allowed in the Greek Church, except in very low relief. The flatter the surface, the more orthodox. It is, I think, about 886, that we first find the effigy of the Virgin on the coins of the Greek empire. On a gold coin of Leo VI., the Philosopher, she stands veiled, and draped, with a noble head, no glory, and the arms outspread, just as she appears in the old mosaics. On a coin of Romanus the Younger, she crowns the emperor, having herself the nimbus; she is draped and veiled. On a coin of Nicephorus Phocus (who had great pretensions to piety), the Virgin stands, presenting a cross to the emperor, with the inscription, "Theotokos, be propitious." On a gold coin of John Zimisces, 975, we first find the Virgin and Child,--the symbol merely: she holds against her bosom a circular glory, within which is the head of the Infant Christ. In the successive reigns of the next two centuries, she almost constantly appears as crowning the emperor. Returning to the West, we find that in the succeeding period, from Charlemagne to the first crusade, the popular devotion to the Virgin, and the multiplication of sacred pictures, continued steadily to increase; yet in the tenth and eleventh centuries art was at its lowest ebb. At this time, the subjects relative to the Virgin were principally the Madonna and Child, represented according to the Greek form; and those scenes from the Gospel in which she is introduced, as the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the Worship of the Magi. Towards the end of the tenth century the custom of adding the angelic salutation, the "_Ave Maria_," to the Lord's prayer, was first introduced; and by the end of the following century, it had been adopted in the offices of the Church. This was, at first, intended as a perpetual reminder of the mystery of the Incarnation, as announced by the angel. It must have had the effect of keeping the idea of Mary as united with that of her Son, and as the instrument of the Incarnation, continually in the minds of the people. The pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and the crusades in the eleventh and the twelfth centuries, had a most striking effect on religious art, though this effect was not fully evolved till a century later. More particularly did this returning wave of Oriental influences modify the representations of the Virgin. Fragments of the apocryphal gospels and legends of Palestine and Egypt were now introduced, worked up into ballads, stories, and dramas, and gradually incorporated with the teaching of the Church. A great variety of subjects derived from the Greek artists, and from particular localities and traditions of the East, became naturalized in Western Europe, Among these were the legends of Joachim and Anna; and the death, the assumption, and the coronation of the Virgin. Then came the thirteenth century, an era notable in the history of mind, more especially notable in the history of art. The seed scattered hither and thither, during the stormy and warlike period of the crusades, now sprung up and flourished, bearing diverse fruit. A more contemplative enthusiasm, a superstition tinged with a morbid melancholy, fermented into life and form. In that general "fit of _compunction_," which we are told seized all Italy at this time, the passionate devotion for the benign Madonna mingled the poetry of pity with that of pain; and assuredly this state of feeling, with its mental and moral requirements, must have assisted in emancipating art from the rigid formalism of the degenerate Greek school. Men's hearts, throbbing with a more feeling, more pensive life, demanded something more _like_ life,--and produced it. It is curious to trace in the Madonnas of contemporary, but far distant and unconnected schools of painting, the simultaneous dawning of a sympathetic sentiment--for the first time something in the faces of the divine beings responsive to the feeling of the worshippers. It was this, perhaps, which caused the enthusiasm excited by Cimabue's great Madonna, and made the people shout and dance for joy when it was uncovered before them. Compared with the spectral rigidity, the hard monotony, of the conventional Byzantines, the more animated eyes, the little touch of sweetness in the still, mild face, must have been like a smile out of heaven. As we trace the same softer influence in the earliest Siena and Cologne pictures of about the same period, we may fairly regard it as an impress of the spirit of the time, rather than that of an individual mind. In the succeeding century these elements of poetic art, expanded and animated by an awakened observation of nature, and a sympathy with her external manifestations, were most especially directed by the increasing influence of the worship of the Virgin, a worship at once religious and chivalrous. The title of "Our Lady"[1] came first into general use in the days of chivalry, for she was the lady "of all hearts," whose colours all were proud to wear. Never had her votaries so abounded. Hundreds upon hundreds had enrolled themselves in brotherhoods, vowed to her especial service;[2] or devoted to acts of charity, to be performed in her name.[3] Already the great religious communities, which at this time comprehended all the enthusiasm, learning, and influence of the Church, had placed themselves solemnly and especially under her protection. The Cistercians wore white in honour of her purity; the Servi wore black in respect to her sorrows; the Franciscans had enrolled themselves as champions of the Immaculate Conception; and the Dominicans introduced the rosary. All these richly endowed communities vied with each other in multiplying churches, chapels, and pictures, in honour of their patroness, and expressive of her several attributes. The devout painter, kneeling before his easel, addressed himself to the task of portraying those heavenly lineaments which had visited him perhaps in dreams. Many of the professed monks and friars became themselves accomplished artists.[4] [Footnote 1: _Fr._ Notre Dame. _Ital._ La Madonna. _Ger._ Unser liebe Frau.] [Footnote 2: As the Serviti, who were called in France, _les esclaves de Marie_.] [Footnote 3: As the order of "Our Lady of Mercy," for the deliverance of captives.--_Vide_ Legends of the Monastic Orders.] [Footnote 4: A very curious and startling example of the theological character of the Virgin in the thirteenth century is figured in Miss Twining's work, "_The Symbols of early Christian Art_;" certainly the most complete and useful book of the kind which I know of. Here the Madonna and Child are seated side by side with the Trinity; the Holy Spirit resting on her crowned head.] At this time, Jacopo di Voragine compiled the "Golden Legend," a collection of sacred stories, some already current, some new, or in a new form. This famous book added many themes to those already admitted, and became the authority and storehouse for the early painters in their groups and dramatic compositions. The increasing enthusiasm for the Virgin naturally caused an increasing demand for the subjects taken from her personal history, and led, consequently, to a more exact study of those natural objects and effects which were required as accessories, to greater skill in grouping the figures, and to a higher development of historic art. But of all the influences on Italian art in that wonderful fourteenth century, Dante was the greatest. He was the intimate friend of Giotto. Through the communion of mind, not less than through his writings, he infused into religious art that mingled theology, poetry, and mysticism, which ruled in the Giottesque school during the following century, and went hand in hand with the development of the power and practice of imitation. Now, the theology of Dante was the theology of his age. His ideas respecting the Virgin Mary were precisely those to which the writings of St. Bernard, St. Bonaventura, and St. Thomas Aquinas had already lent all the persuasive power of eloquence, and the Church all the weight of her authority. Dante rendered these doctrines into poetry, and Giotto and his followers rendered them into form. In the Paradise of Dante, the glorification of Mary, as the "Mystic Rose" (_Roxa Mystica_) and Queen of Heaven,--with the attendant angels, circle within circle, floating round her in adoration, and singing the Regina Coeli, and saints and patriarchs stretching forth their hands towards her,--is all a splendid, but still indefinite vision of dazzling light crossed by shadowy forms. The painters of the fourteenth century, in translating these glories into a definite shape, had to deal with imperfect knowledge and imperfect means; they failed in the power to realize either their own or the poet's conception; and yet--thanks to the divine poet!--that early conception of some of the most beautiful of the Madonna subjects--for instance, the _Coronation_ and the _Sposalizio_--has never, as a religious and poetical conception, been surpassed by later artists, in spite of all the appliances of colour, and mastery of light and shade, and marvellous efficiency of hand since attained. Every reader of Dante will remember the sublime hymn towards the close of the Paradiso:-- "Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio! Umile ed alta più che creatura, Terrains fisso d'eterno consiglio; Tu se' colei che l'umana natura Nobilitasti si, che 'l suo fattore Non disdegno di farsi sua fattura; Nel ventre tuo si raccese l'amore Per lo cui caldo nell' eterna pace Cosi è germinato questo fiore; Qui se' a noi meridiana face Di caritade, e giuso intra mortali Se' di speranza fontana vivace: Donna, se' tanto grande e tanto vali, Che qual vuol grazia e a te non ricorre Sua disianza vuol volar senz' ali; La tua benignita noa pur soccorre A chi dimanda, ma molte fiate Liberamente al dimandar precorre; In te misericordia, in te pietate, In te magnificenza, in te s' aduna Quantunque in creatura è di bontate!" To render the splendour, the terseness, the harmony, of this magnificent hymn seems impossible. Cary's translation has, however, the merit of fidelity to the sense:-- "Oh, Virgin-Mother, daughter of thy Son! Created beings all in lowliness Surpassing, as in height above them all; Term by the eternal counsel preordain'd; Ennobler of thy nature, so advanc'd In thee, that its great Maker did not scorn To make himself his own creation; For in thy womb, rekindling, shone the love Reveal'd, whose genial influence makes now This flower to germin in eternal peace: Here thou, to us, of charity and love Art as the noon-day torch; and art beneath, To mortal men, of hope a living spring. So mighty art thou, Lady, and so great, That he who grace desireth, and comes not To thee for aidance, fain would have desire Fly without wings. Not only him who asks, Thy bounty succours; but doth freely oft Forerun the asking. Whatsoe'er may be Of excellence in creature, pity mild, Relenting mercy, large munificence, Are all combin'd in thee!" It is interesting to turn to the corresponding stanzas in Chaucer. The invocation to the Virgin with which he commences the story of St. Cecilia is rendered almost word for word from Dante:-- "Thou Maid and Mother, daughter of thy Son! Thou wel of mercy, sinful soules cure!" The last stanza of the invocation is his own, and as characteristic of the practical Chaucer, as it would have been contrary to the genius of Dante:-- "And for that faith is dead withouten workis, So for to worken give me wit and grace! That I be quit from thence that most dark is; O thou that art so fair and full of grace, Be thou mine advocate in that high place, There, as withouten end is sung Hozanne, Thou Christes mother, daughter dear of Anne!" Still more beautiful and more his own is the invocation in the "Prioress's Tale." I give the stanzas as modernized by Wordsworth:-- "O Mother Maid! O Maid and Mother free! O bush unburnt, burning in Moses' sight! That down didst ravish from the Deity, Through humbleness, the Spirit that that did alight Upon thy heart, whence, through that glory's might Conceived was the Father's sapience, Help me to tell it in thy reverence! "Lady, thy goodness, thy magnificence, Thy virtue, and thy great humility, Surpass all science and all utterance; For sometimes, Lady! ere men pray to thee, Thou go'st before in thy benignity, The light to us vouchsafing of thy prayer, To be our guide unto thy Son so dear. "My knowledge is so weak, O blissful Queen, To tell abroad thy mighty worthiness, That I the weight of it may not sustain; But as a child of twelve months old, or less, That laboureth his language to express, Even so fare I; and therefore, I thee pray, Guide thou my song, which I of thee shall say." And again, we may turn to Petrarch's hymn to the Virgin, wherein he prays to be delivered from his love and everlasting regrets for Laura:-- "Vergine bella, che di sol vestita, Coronata di stelle, al sommo Sole Piacesti sì, che'n te sua luce ascose. "Vergine pura, d'ogni parte intera, Del tuo parto gentil figliuola e madre! "Vergine sola al mondo senza esempio, Che 'l ciel di tue bellezze innamorasti." The fancy of the theologians of the middle ages played rather dangerously, as it appears to me, for the uninitiated and uninstructed, with the perplexity of these divine relationships. It is impossible not to feel that in their admiration for the divine beauty of Mary, in borrowing the amatory language and luxuriant allegories of the Canticles, which represent her as an object of delight to the Supreme Being, theologians, poets, and artists had wrought themselves up to a wild pitch of enthusiasm. In such passages as those I have quoted above, and in the grand old Church hymns, we find the best commentary and interpretation of the sacred pictures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Yet during the thirteenth century there was a purity in the spirit of the worship which at once inspired and regulated the forms in which it was manifested. The Annunciations and Nativities were still distinguished by a chaste and sacred simplicity. The features of the Madonna herself, even where they were not what we call beautiful, had yet a touch of that divine and contemplative grace which the theologians and the poets had associated with the queenly, maternal, and bridal character of Mary. Thus the impulses given in the early part of the fourteenth century continued in progressive development through the fifteenth; the spiritual for some time in advance of the material influences; the moral idea emanating as it were _from_ the soul, and the influences of external nature flowing _into_ it; the comprehensive power of fancy using more and more the apprehensive power of imitation, and both working together till their "blended might" achieved its full fruition in the works of Raphael. * * * * * Early in the fifteenth century, the Council of Constance (A.D. 1414), and the condemnation of Huss, gave a new impulse to the worship of the Virgin. The Hussite wars, and the sacrilegious indignity with which her sacred images had been treated in the north, filled her orthodox votaries of the south, of Europe with a consternation and horror like that excited by the Iconoclasts of the eighth century, and were followed by a similar reaction. The Church was called upon to assert more strongly than ever its orthodox veneration for her, and, as a natural consequence, votive pictures multiplied, the works of the excelling artists of the fifteenth century testify to the zeal of the votaries, and the kindred spirit in which the painters worked. Gerson, a celebrated French priest, and chancellor of the university of Paris, distinguished himself in the Council of Constance by the eloquence with which he pleaded for the Immaculate Conception, and the enthusiasm with which he preached in favour of instituting a festival in honour of this mystery, as well as another in honour of Joseph, the husband of the Virgin. In both he was unsuccessful during his lifetime; but for both eventually his writings prepared the way. He also composed a Latin poem of three thousand lines in praise of Joseph, which was among the first works published after the invention of printing. Together with St. Joseph, the parents of the Virgin, St. Anna more particularly, became objects, of popular veneration, and all were at length exalted to the rank of patron saints, by having festivals instituted in their honour. It is towards the end of the fifteenth century, or rather a little later, that we first meet with that charming domestic group, called the "Holy Family," afterwards so popular, so widely diffused, and treated with such an infinite variety. * * * * * Towards the end of this century sprung up a new influence,--the revival of classical learning, a passionate enthusiasm for the poetry and mythology of the Greeks, and a taste for the remains of antique art. This influence on the representations of the Virgin, as far as it was merely external, was good. An added dignity and grace, a more free and correct drawing, a truer feeling for harmony of proportion and all that constitutes elegance, were gradually infused into the forms and attitudes. But dangerous became the craving for mere beauty,--dangerous the study of the classical and heathen literature. This was the commencement of that thoroughly pagan taste which in the following century demoralized Christian art. There was now an attempt at varying the arrangement of the sacred groups which led to irreverence, or at best to a sort of superficial mannered grandeur; and from this period we date the first introduction of the portrait Virgins. An early, and most scandalous example remains to us in one of the frescoes in the Vatican, which represents Giulia Farnese in the character of the Madonna, and Pope Alexander VI. (the infamous Borgia) kneeling at her feet in the character of a votary. Under the influence of the Medici the churches of Florence were filled with pictures of the Virgin, in which the only thing aimed at was an alluring and even meretricious beauty. Savonarola thundered from his pulpit in the garden of San Marco against these impieties. He exclaimed against the profaneness of those who represented the meek mother of Christ in gorgeous apparel, with head unveiled, and under the features of women too well and publicly known. He emphatically declared that if the painters knew as well as he did the influence of such pictures in perverting simple minds, they would hold their own works in horror and detestation. Savonarola yielded to none in orthodox reverence for the Madonna; but he desired that she should be represented in an orthodox manner. He perished at the stake, but not till after he had made a bonfire in the Piazza at Florence of the offensive effigies; he perished--persecuted to death by the Borgia family. But his influence on the greatest Florentine artists of his time is apparent in the Virgins of Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, and Fra Bartolomeo, all of whom had been his friends, admirers, and disciples: and all, differing from each other, were alike in this, that, whether it be the dignified severity of Botticelli, or the chaste simplicity of Lorenzo di Credi, or the noble tenderness of Fra Bartolomeo, we feel that each of them had aimed to portray worthily the sacred character of the Mother of the Redeemer. And to these, as I think, we might add Raphael himself, who visited Florence but a short time after the horrible execution of Savonarola, and must have learned through his friend Bartolomeo to mourn the fate and revere the memory of that remarkable man, whom he placed afterwards in the grand fresco of the "Theologia," among the doctors and teachers of the Church. (Rome, Vatican.) Of the numerous Virgins painted by Raphael in after times, not one is supposed to have been a portrait: he says himself, in a letter to Count Castiglione, that he painted from an idea in his own mind, "mi servo d' una certa idea che mi viene in mente;" while in the contemporary works of Andrea del Sarto, we have the features of his handsome but vulgar wife in every Madonna he painted.[1] [Footnote 1: The tendency to portraiture, in early Florentine and German art, is observable from an early period. The historical sacred subjects of Masaccio, Ghirlandajo, and Van Eyck, are crowded with portraits of living personages. Their introduction into devotional subjects, in the character of sacred persons, is far less excusable.] In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the constellation of living genius in every department of art, the riches of the Church, the luxurious habits and classical studies of the churchmen, the decline of religious conviction, and the ascendency of religious controversy, had combined to multiply church pictures, particularly those of a large and decorative character. But, instead of the reign of faith, we had now the reign of taste. There was an absolute passion for picturesque grouping; and, as the assembled figures were to be as varied as possible in action and attitude, the artistic treatment, in order to prevent the lines of form and the colours of the draperies from interfering with each other, required great skill and profound study: some of these scenic groups have become, in the hands of great painters, such as Titian, Paul Veronese, and Annibale Caracci, so magnificent, that we are inclined to forgive their splendid errors. The influence of Sanazzaro, and of his famous Latin poem on the Nativity ("_De Partu Virginis_"), on the artists of the middle of the sixteenth century, and on the choice and treatment of the subjects pertaining to the Madonna, can hardly be calculated; it was like that of Dante in the fourteenth century, but in its nature and result how different! The grand materialism of Michael Angelo is supposed to have been allied to the genius of Dante; but would Dante have acknowledged the group of the Holy Family in the Florentine Gallery, to my feeling, one of the most profane and offensive of the so-called _religious_ pictures, in conception and execution, which ever proceeded from the mind or hand of a great painter? No doubt some of the sculptural Virgins of Michael Angelo are magnificent and stately in attitude and expression, but too austere and mannered as religious conceptions: nor can we wonder if the predilection for the treatment of mere form led his followers and imitators into every species of exaggeration and affectation. In the middle of the sixteenth century, the same artist who painted a Leda, or a Psyche, or a Venus one day, painted for the same patron a Virgin of Mercy, or a "Mater Purissima" on the morrow. _Here_, the votary told his beads, and recited his Aves, before the blessed Mother of the Redeemer; _there_, she was invoked in the purest Latin by titles which the classical mythology had far otherwise consecrated. I know nothing more disgusting in art than the long-limbed, studied, inflated Madonnas, looking grand with all their might, of this period; luckily they have fallen into such disrepute that we seldom see them. The "Madonna dell' lungo Collo" of Parmigiano might be cited as a favourable example of this mistaken and wholly artificial grace. (Florence, Pitti Pal.) But in the midst of these paganized and degenerate influences, the reform in the discipline of the Roman Catholic Church was preparing a revolution in religious art. The Council of Trent had severely denounced the impropriety of certain pictures admitted into churches: at the same time, in the conflict of creed which now divided Christendom, the agencies of art could not safely be neglected by that Church which had used them with such signal success. Spiritual art was indeed no more. It was dead: it could never be revived without a return to those modes of thought and belief which had at first inspired it. Instead of religious art, appeared what I must call _theological_ art. Among the events of this age, which had great influence on the worship and the representations of the Madonna, I must place the battle of Lepanto, in 1571, in which the combined fleets of Christendom, led by Don Juan of Austria, achieved a memorable victory over the Turks. This victory was attributed by Pope Pius V. to the especial interposition of the Blessed Virgin. A new invocation was now added to her Litany, under the title of _Auxilium Christianorum_; a new festival, that of the Rosary, was now added to those already held in her honour; and all the artistic genius which existed in Italy, and all the piety of orthodox Christendom, were now laid under contribution to incase in marble sculpture, to enrich with countless offerings, that miraculous house, which the angels had borne over land and sea, and set down at Loretto; and that miraculous, bejewelled, and brocaded Madonna, enshrined within it. * * * * * In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Caracci school gave a new impetus to religious, or rather, as it has been styled in contradistinction, sacerdotal or theological art. If these great painters had been remarkable merely for the application of new artistic methods, for the success with which they combined the aims of various schools-- "Di Michel Angiol la terribil via E 'l vero natural di Tiziano," the study of the antique with the observation of real life,--their works undoubtedly would never have taken such a hold on the minds of their contemporaries, nor kept it so long. Everything to live must have an infusion of truth within it, and this "patchwork ideal," as it has been well styled, was held together by such a principle. The founders of the Caracci school, and their immediate followers, felt the influences of the time, and worked them out. They were devout believers in their Church, and most sincere worshippers of the Madonna. Guido, in particular, was so distinguished by his passionate enthusiasm for her, that he was supposed to have been favoured by a particular vision, which enabled him more worthily to represent her divine beauty. It is curious that, hand in hand with this development of taste and feeling in the appreciation of natural sentiment and beauty, and this tendency to realism, we find the associations of a peculiar and specific sanctity remaining with the old Byzantine type. This arose from the fact, always to be borne in mind, that the most ancient artistic figure of the Madonna was a purely theological symbol; apparently the moral type was too nearly allied to the human and the real to satisfy faith. It is the ugly, dark-coloured, ancient Greek Madonnas, such as this, which had all along the credit of being miraculous; and "to this day," says Kugler, "the Neapolitan lemonade-seller will allow no other than a formal Greek Madonna, with olive-green complexion and veiled head, to be set up in his booth." It is the same in Russia. Such pictures, in which there is no attempt at representation, real or ideal, and which merely have a sort of imaginary sanctity and power, are not so much idols as they are mere _Fetishes_. The most lovely Madonna by Raphael or Titian would not have the same effect. Guido, who himself painted lovely Virgins, went every Saturday to pray before the little black _Madonna della Guardia_, and, as we are assured, held this old Eastern relic in devout veneration. In the pictures of the Madonna, produced by the most eminent painters of the seventeenth century, is embodied the theology of the time. The Virgin Mary is not, like the Madonna di San Sisto, "a single projection of the artist's mind," but, as far as he could put his studies together, she is "a compound of every creature's best," sometimes majestic, sometimes graceful, often full of sentiment, elegance, and refinement, but wanting wholly in the spiritual element. If the Madonna did really sit to Guido in person, (see Malvasia, "Felsina Pittrice,") we fancy she must have revealed her loveliness, but veiled her divinity. Without doubt the finest Madonnas of the seventeenth century are those produced by the Spanish school; not because they more realize our spiritual conception of the Virgin--quite the contrary: for here the expression of life through sensation and emotion prevails over abstract mind, grandeur, and grace;--but because the intensely human and sympathetic character given to the Madonna appeals most strongly to our human nature. The appeal is to the faith through the feelings, rather than through the imagination. Morales and Ribera excelled in the Mater Dolorosa; and who has surpassed Murilio in the tender exultation of maternity?[1] There is a freshness and a depth of feeling in the best Madonnas of the late Spanish school, which puts to shame the mannerism of the Italians, and the naturalism of the Flemish painters of the same period: and this because the Spaniards were intense and enthusiastic believers, not mere thinkers, in art as in religion. [Footnote 1: See in the Handbook to the Private Galleries of Art some remarks on the tendencies of the Spanish School, p, 172.] As in the sixth century, the favourite dogma of the time (the union of the divine and human nature in Christ, and the dignity of Mary as parent of both) had been embodied in the group of the Virgin and Child, so now, in the seventeenth, the doctrine of the eternal sanctification and predestination of Mary was, after a long controversy, triumphant, and took form in the "Immaculate Conception;" that beautiful subject in which Guido and Murilio excelled, and which became the darling theme of the later schools of art. It is worthy of remark, that while in the sixth century, and for a thousand years afterwards, the Virgin, in all devotional subjects, was associated in some visible manner with her divine Son, in this she appears without the Infant in her arms. The maternal character is set aside, and she stands alone, absolute in herself, and complete in her own perfections. This is a very significant characteristic of the prevalent theology of the time. I forbear to say much of the productions of a school of art which sprung up simultaneously with that of the Caracci, and in the end overpowered its higher aspirations. The _Naturalisti_, as they were called, imitated nature without selection, and produced some charming painters. But their religious pictures are almost all intolerable, and their Madonnas are almost all portraits. Rubens and Albano painted their wives; Allori and Vandyck their mistresses; Domenichino his daughter. Salvator Rosa, in his Satires, exclaims against this general profaneness in terms not less strong than those of Savonarola in his Sermons; but the corruption was by this time beyond the reach of cure; the sin could neither be preached nor chided away. Striking effects of light and shade, peculiar attitudes, scenic groups, the perpetual and dramatic introduction of legendary scenes and personages, of visions and miracles of the Madonna vouchsafed to her votaries, characterize the productions of the seventeenth century. As "they who are whole need not a physician, but they who are sick," so in proportion to the decline of faith were the excitements to faith, or rather to credulity: just in proportion as men were less inclined to believe were the wonders multiplied which they were called on to believe. I have not spoken of the influence of Jesuitism on art. This Order kept alive that devotion for the Madonna which their great founder Loyola had so ardently professed when he chose for the "Lady" of his thoughts, "no princess, no duchess, but one far greater, more peerless." The learning of the Jesuits supplied some themes not hitherto in use, principally of a fanciful and allegorical kind, and never had the meek Mary been so decked out with earthly ornament as in their church pictures. If the sanctification of simplicity, gentleness, maternal love, and heroic fortitude, were calculated to elevate the popular mind, the sanctification of mere glitter and ornament, embroidered robes, and jewelled crowns, must have tended to degrade it. It is surely an unworthy and a foolish excuse that, in thus desecrating with the vainest and most vulgar finery the beautiful ideal of the Virgin, an appeal was made to the awe and admiration of vulgar and ignorant minds; for this is precisely what, in all religious imagery, should be avoided. As, however, this sacrilegious millinery does not come within the province of the fine arts, I may pass it over here. Among the Jesuit prints of the seventeenth century, I remember one which represents the Virgin and Child in the centre, and around are the most famous heretics of all ages, lying prostrate, or hanging by the neck. Julian the Apostate; Leo the Isaurian; his son, Constantine Capronymus; Arius; Nestorius; Manicheus; Luther; Calvin:--very characteristic of the age of controversy which had succeeded to the age of faith, when, instead of solemn saints and grateful votaries, we have dead or dying heretics surrounding the Mother of Mercy! * * * * * After this rapid sketch of the influences which modified in a general way the pictures of the Madonna, we may array before us, and learn to compare, the types which distinguished in a more particular manner the separate schools, caught from some more local or individual impulses. Thus we have the stern, awful quietude of the old Mosaics; the hard lifelessness of the degenerate Greek; the pensive sentiment of the Siena, and stately elegance of the Florentine Madonnas; the intellectual Milanese, with their large foreheads and thoughtful eyes; the tender, refined mysticism of the Umbrian; the sumptuous loveliness of the Venetian; the quaint, characteristic simplicity of the early German, so stamped with their nationality, that I never looked round me in a room full of German girls without thinking of Albert Durer's Virgins; the intense life-like feeling of the Spanish; the prosaic, portrait-like nature of the Flemish schools, and so on. But here an obvious question suggests itself. In the midst of all this diversity, these ever-changing influences, was there no characteristic type universally accepted, suggested by common religious associations, if not defined by ecclesiastical authority, to which the artist was bound to conform? How is it that the impersonation of the Virgin fluctuated, not only with the fluctuating tendencies of successive ages, but even with the caprices of the individual artist? This leads us back to reconsider the sources from which the artist drew his inspiration. The legend which represents St. Luke the Evangelist as a painter appears to be of Eastern origin, and quite unknown in Western Europe before the first crusade. It crept in then, and was accepted with many other oriental superstitions and traditions. It may have originated in the real existence of a Greek painter named Luca--a saint, too, he may have been; for the Greeks have a whole calendar of canonized artists,--painters, poets, and musicians; and this Greek San Luca may have been a painter of those Madonnas imported from the ateliers of Mount Athos into the West by merchants and pilgrims; and the West, which knew but of one St. Luke, may have easily confounded the painter and the evangelist. But we must also remember, that St. Luke the Evangelist was early regarded as the great authority with respect to the few Scripture particulars relating to the character and life of Mary; so that, in the figurative sense, he may be said to have _painted_ that portrait of her which has been since received as the perfect type of womanhood:--1. Her noble, trustful humility, when she receives the salutation of the angel (Luke i. 38); the complete and feminine surrender of her whole being to the higher, holier will--"Be it unto me according to thy word." 2. Then, the decision and prudence of character, shown in her visit to Elizabeth, her older relative; her journey in haste over the hills to consult with her cousin, which journey it is otherwise difficult to accord with the oriental customs of the time, unless Mary, young as she was, had possessed unusual promptitude and energy of disposition. (Luke i. 39, 40.) 3. The proof of her intellectual power in the beautiful hymn she has left us, "_My soul doth magnify the Lord._" (Luke i. 46.) The commentators are not agreed as to whether this effusion was poured forth by immediate inspiration, or composed and written down, because the same words, "and Mary said," may be interpreted in either sense; but we can no more doubt her being the authoress, than we can doubt of any other particulars recorded in the same Gospel: it proves that she must have been, for her time and country, most rarely gifted in mind, and deeply read in the Scriptures. 4. She was of a contemplative, reflecting, rather silent disposition. "She kept all these sayings, and pondered them in her heart." (Luke ii. 51.) She made no boast of that wondrous and most blessed destiny to which she was called; she thought upon it in silence. It is inferred that as many of these sayings and events could be known to herself alone, St. Luke the Evangelist could have learned them only from her own lips. 5. Next her truly maternal devotion to her divine Son, whom she attended humbly through his whole ministry;[1] 6. and lastly, the sublime fortitude and faith with which she followed her Son to the death scene, stood beside the cross till all was finished, and then went home, and _lived_ (Luke xxiii.); for she was to be to us an example of all that a woman could endure, as well as all that a woman could be and act out in her earthly life. (John xix. 25.) Such was the character of Mary; such the _portrait_ really _painted_ by St. Luke; and, as it seems to me, these scattered, artless, unintentional notices of conduct and character converge into the most perfect moral type of the intellectual, tender, simple, and heroic woman that ever was placed before us for our edification and example. [Footnote 1: Milton places in the mouth of our Saviour an allusion to the influence of his Mother in early life:-- "These growing thoughts my mother soon perceiving By words at times cast forth, duly rejoiced, And said to me apart, 'High are thy thoughts, O Son; but nourish them, and let them soar To what height sacred virtue and true worth Can raise them, though above example high.'"] But in the Church traditions and enactments, another character was, from the fifth century, assigned to her, out of which grew the theological type, very beautiful and exalted, but absorbing to a great degree the scriptural and moral type, and substituting for the merely human attributes others borrowed from her relation to the great scheme of redemption; for it was contended that, as the mother of _the Divine_, she could not be herself less than divine; consequently above the angels, and first of all created beings. According to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, her tender woman's wisdom became supernatural gifts; the beautiful humility was changed into a knowledge of her own predestined glory; and, being raised bodily into immortality, and placed beside her Son, in all "the sacred splendour of beneficence," she came to be regarded as our intercessor before that divine Son, who could refuse nothing to his mother. The relative position of the Mother and Son being spiritual and indestructible was continued in heaven; and thus step by step the woman was transmuted into the divinity. But, like her Son, Mary had walked in human form upon earth, and in form must have resembled her Son; for, as it is argued, Christ had no earthly father, therefore could only have derived his human lineaments from his mother. All the old legends assume that the resemblance between the Son and the Mother must have been perfect. Dante alludes to this belief: "Riguarda ormai nella faccia ch' a Christo Piu s' assomiglia." "Now raise thy view Unto the visage most resembling Christ." The accepted type of the head of Christ was to be taken as a model in its mild, intellectual majesty, for that of the Virgin-mother, as far as difference of sex would allow. In the ecclesiastical history of Nicephorus Gallixtus, he has inserted a description of the person of Mary, which he declares to have been given by Epiphanius, who lived in the fourth century, and by him derived from a more ancient source. It must be confessed, that the type of person here assigned to the Virgin is more energetic for a woman than that which has been assigned to our Saviour as a man. "She was of middle stature; her face oval; her eyes brilliant, and of an olive tint; her eyebrows arched and black; her hair was of a pale brown; her complexion fair as wheat. She spoke little, but she spoke freely and affably; she was not troubled in her speech, but grave, courteous, tranquil. Her dress was without ornament, and in her deportment was nothing lax or feeble." To this ancient description of her person and manners, we are to add the scriptural and popular portrait of her mind; the gentleness, the purity, the intellect, power, and fortitude; the gifts of the poetess and prophetess; the humility in which she exceeded all womankind. Lastly, we are to engraft on these personal and moral qualities, the theological attributes which the Church, from early times, had assigned to her, the supernatural endowments which lifted her above angels and men:--all these were to be combined into one glorious type of perfection. Where shall we seek this highest, holiest impersonation! Where has it been attained, or even approached? Not, certainly, in the mere woman, nor yet in the mere idol; not in those lovely creations which awaken a sympathetic throb of tenderness; nor in those stern, motionless types,--which embody a dogma; not in the classic features of marble goddesses, borrowed as models; nor in the painted images which stare upon us from tawdry altars in flaxen wigs and embroidered petticoats. But where? Of course we each form to ourselves some notion of what we require; and these requirements will be as diverse as our natures and our habits of thought. For myself, I have seen my own ideal once, and only once, attained: _there_, where Raphael--inspired if ever painter was inspired--projected on the space before him that wonderful creation which we style the _Madonna di San Sisto_ (Dresden Gal.); for there she stands--the transfigured woman, at once completely human and completely divine, an abstraction of power, purity, and love, poised on the empurpled air, and requiring no other support; looking out, with her melancholy, loving mouth, her slightly dilated, sibylline eyes, quite through the universe, to the end and consummation of all things;--sad, as if she beheld afar off the visionary sword that was to reach her heart through HIM, now resting as enthroned on that heart; yet already exalted through the homage of the redeemed generations who were to salute her as Blessed. Six times have I visited the city made glorious by the possession of this treasure, and as often, when again at a distance, with recollections disturbed by feeble copies and prints, I have begun to think, "Is it so indeed? is she indeed so divine? or does not rather the imagination encircle her with a halo of religion and poetry, and lend a grace which is not really there?" and as often, when returned, I have stood before it and confessed that there is more in that form and face than I had ever yet conceived. I cannot here talk the language of critics, and speak of this picture merely as a picture, for to me it was a revelation. In the same gallery is the lovely Madonna of the Meyer family: inexpressibly touching and perfect in its way, but conveying only one of the attributes of Mary, her benign pity; while the Madonna di San Sisto is an abstract of _all_.[1] [Footnote 1: Expression is the great and characteristic excellence of Raphael more especially in his Madonnas. It is precisely this which all copies and engravings render at best most imperfectly; and in point of expression the most successful engraving of the Madonna di San Sisto is certainly that of Steinla.] * * * * * The poets are ever the best commentators on the painters. I have already given from the great "singers of high poems" in the fourteenth century _their_ exposition of the theological type of the Madonna. Now, in some striking passages of our modern poets, we may find a most beautiful commentary on what I have termed the _moral_ type. The first is from Wordsworth, and may be recited before the Madonna di San Sisto:-- "Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost With the least shade of thought to sin allied! Woman! above all women glorified; Out tainted nature's solitary boast; Purer than foam on central ocean tost; Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn With fancied roses, than the unblemish'd moon Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast, Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some I ween, Not unforgiven, the suppliant knee might bend, As to a visible Power, in which did blend All that was mix'd and reconcil'd in thee, Of mother's love with maiden purity, Of high with low, celestial with terrene." The next, from Shelley, reads like a hymn in honour of the Immaculate Conception:-- Seraph of Heaven! too gentle to be human, Veiling beneath that radiant form of woman All that is insupportable in thee Of light, and love, and immortality! Sweet Benediction in the eternal curse! Veil'd Glory of this lampless Universe! Thou Moon beyond the clouds! Thou living Form Among the Dead! Thou Star above the storm! Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror! Thou Harmony of Nature's art! Thou Mirror In whom, as in the splendour of the Sun, All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on!" "See where she stands! a mortal shape endued With love, and life, and light, and deity; The motion which may change but cannot die, An image of some bright eternity; A shadow of some golden dream; a splendour Leaving the third sphere pilotless." I do not know whether intentionally or not, but we have here assembled some of the favourite symbols of the Virgin--the moon, the star, the "_terribilis ut castrorum acies_" (Cant. vi. 10), and the mirror. The third is a passage from Robert Browning, which appears to me to sum up the moral ideal:-- "There is a vision in the heart of each, Of justice, mercy, wisdom, tenderness To wrong and pain, and knowledge of their cure; And these embodied in a woman's form That best transmits them pure as first received From God above her to mankind below!" II. SYMBOLS AND ATTRIBUTES OF THE VIRGIN. That which the genius of the greatest of painters only once expressed, we must not look to find in his predecessors, who saw only partial glimpses of the union of the divine and human in the feminine form; still less in his degenerate successors, who never beheld it at all. The difficulty of fully expressing this complex ideal, and the allegorical spirit of the time, first suggested the expedient of placing round the figure of the glorified Virgin certain accessory symbols, which should assist the artist to express, and the observer to comprehend, what seemed beyond the power of art to portray;--a language of metaphor then understood, and which we also must understand if we would seize the complete theological idea intended to be conveyed. I shall begin with those symbols which are borrowed from the Litanies of the Virgin, and from certain texts of the Canticles, in all ages of the Church applied to her; symbols which, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, frequently accompany those representations which set forth her Glorification or Predestination; and, in the seventeenth, are introduced into the "Immaculate Conception." 1. The Sun and the Moon.--"Electa ut Sol, pulchra ut Luna," is one of the texts of the Canticles applied to Mary; and also in a passage of the Revelation, "_A woman clothed with the sun, having the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars._" Hence the radiance of the sun above her head, and the crescent moon beneath her feet. From inevitable association the crescent moon suggests the idea of her perpetual chastity; but in this sense it would be a pagan rather than a Christian attribute. 2. The STAR.--This attribute, often embroidered in front of the veil of the Virgin or on the right shoulder of her blue mantle, has become almost as a badge from which several well-known pictures derive their title, "La Madonna della Stella." It is in the first place an attribute alluding to the most beautiful and expressive of her many titles:--"_Stella Maris_" Star of the Sea,[1] which is one interpretation of her Jewish name, _Miriam_: but she is also "_Stella Jacobi_," the Star of Jacob; "_Stella Matutina_," the Morning Star; "_Stella non Erratica_," the Fixed Star. When, instead of the single star on her veil or mantle, she has the crown of twelve stars, the allusion is to the text of the Apocalypse already quoted, and the number of stars is in allusion to the number of the Apostles.[2] [Footnote 1: "Ave Maris Stella Dei Mater alma!" &c.] [Footnote 2: "In capite inquit ejus corona stellarum duodecim; quidni coronent sidera quam sol vestit?"--_St. Bernard_.] 3. The LILY.--"_I am the rose of Sharon, and lily of the valleys._" (Cant. ii. 1, 2.) As the general emblem of purity, the lily is introduced into the Annunciation, where it ought to be without stamens: and in the enthroned Madonnas it is frequently placed in the hands of attendant angels, more particularly in the Florentine Madonnas; the lily, as the emblem of their patroness, being chosen by the citizens as the _device_ of the city. For the same reason it became that of the French monarchy. Thorns are sometimes interlaced with the lily, to express the "_Lilium inter Spinas_." (Cant. ii. 2.) 4. The ROSE.--She is the rose of Sharon, as well as the lily of the valley; and as an emblem of love and beauty, the rose is especially dedicated to her. The plantation or garden of roses[1] is often introduced; sometimes it forms the background of the picture. There is a most beautiful example in a Madonna by Cesare di Sesto (Milan, Brera); and another, "the Madonna of the Rose Bush," by Martin Schoen. (Cathedral, Colmar.) [Footnote 1: Quasi plantatio rosæ in Jericho.] 5. The ENCLOSED GARDEN (_Hortus conclusus_) is an image borrowed, like many others, from the Song of Solomon. (Cant. iv. 12.) I have seen this enclosed garden very significantly placed in the background of the Annunciation, and in pictures of the Immaculate Conception. Sometimes the enclosure is formed of a treillage or hedge of roses, as in a beautiful Virgin by Francia.[1] Sometimes it is merely formed of stakes or palisades, as In some of the prints by Albert Durer. [Footnote 1: Munich Gal.; another by Antonio da Negroponte in the San Francesco della Vigna at Venice, is also an instance of this significant background.] The WELL always full; the FOUNTAIN forever sealed; the TOWER of David; the TEMPLE of Solomon; the CITY of David (_Civitas sancti_), (Cant iv. 4. 12, 15); all these are attributes borrowed from the Canticles, and are introduced into pictures and stained glass. 6. The PORTA CLAITSA, the Closed Gate, is another metaphor, taken from the prophecy of Ezekiel (xliv. 4). 7. The CEDAR of Lebanon (_Cedrus exaliata_, "exalted as a cedar in Lebanon"), because of its height, its incorruptible substance, its perfume, and the healing virtues attributed to it in the East, expresses the greatness, the beauty, the goodness of Mary. The victorious PALM, the Plantain "far spreading," and the Cypress pointing to heaven, are also emblems of the Virgin. The OLIVE, as a sign of peace, hope, and abundance, is also a fitting emblem of the graces of Mary.[1] [Footnote 1: Quasi oliva speciosa in campis.] 8. The Stem of Jesse (Isa. xi. 1), figured as a green branch entwined with flowers, is also very significant. 9. The MIRROR (_Specula sine macula_) is a metaphor borrowed from the Book of Wisdom (vii, 25). We meet with it in some of the late pictures of the Immaculate Conception. 10. The SEALED BOOK is also a symbol often placed in the hands of the Virgin in a mystical Annunciation, and sufficiently significant. The allusion is to the text, "In that book were all my members written;" and also to the text in Isaiah (xxix. 11, 12), in which he describes the vision of the book that was sealed, and could be read neither by the learned nor the unlearned. 11. "The Bush which burned and was not consumed," is introduced, with a mystical significance, into an Annunciation by Titian. * * * * * Besides these symbols, which have a mystic and sacred significance, and are applicable to the Virgin only, certain attributes and accessories are introduced into pictures of the Madonna and Child, which are capable of a more general interpretation. 1. The GLOBE, as the emblem of sovereignty, was very early placed in the hand of the divine Child. When the globe is under the feet of the Madonna and encircled by a serpent, as in some later pictures, it figures our Redemption; her triumph over a fallen world--fallen through sin. 2. The SERPENT is the general emblem of Sin or Satan; but under the feet of the Virgin it has a peculiar significance. She has generally her foot on the head of the reptile. "SHE shall bruise thy head," as it is interpreted in the Roman Catholic Church.[1] [Footnote 1: _Ipsa_ conteret caput tuum.] 3. The APPLE, which of all the attributes is the most common, signifies the fall of man, which made Redemption necessary. It is sometimes placed in the hands of the Child; but when in the hand of the Mother, she is then designated as the second Eve.[1] [Footnote 1: Mors per Evam: vita per Mariam.] 4. The POMEGRANATE, with the seeds displayed, was the ancient emblem of hope, and more particularly of religious hope. It is often placed in the hands of the Child, who sometimes presents it to his Mother. Other fruits and flowers, always beautiful accessories, are frequently introduced according to the taste of the artist. But fruits in a general sense signified "the fruits of the Spirit--joy, peace, love;" and flowers were consecrated to the Virgin: hence we yet see them placed before her as offerings. 5. EARS OF WHEAT in the hand of the Infant (as in a lovely little Madonna by Ludovico Caracci)[1] figured the bread in the Eucharist, and GRAPES the wine. [Footnote 1: Lansdowne Collection. There was another exactly similar in the collection of Mr. Rogers.] 6. The BOOK.--In the hand of the Infant Christ, the book is the Gospel in a general sense, or it is the Book of Wisdom. In the hand of the Madonna, it may have one of two meanings. When open, or when she has her finger between the leaves, or when the Child is turning over the pages, then it is the Book of Wisdom, and is always supposed to be open at the seventh chapter. When the book is clasped or sealed, it is a mystical symbol of the Virgin herself, as I have already explained. 7. The DOVE, as the received emblem of the Holy Spirit, is properly placed above, as hovering over the Virgin. There is an exception to this rule in a very interesting picture in the Louvre, where the Holy Dove (with the _nimbus_) is placed at the feet of the Child.[1] This is so unusual, and so contrary to all the received proprieties of religious art, that I think the _nimbus_ may have been added afterwards. [Footnote 1: The Virgin has the air of a gipsy. (Louvre, 515.)] The seven doves round the head of the Virgin signify the seven gifts of the Spirit. These characterize her as personified Wisdom--the Mater Sapientiæ. Doves placed near Mary when she is reading, or at work in the temple, are expressive of her gentleness and tenderness. 8. BIRDS.--The bird in the Egyptian hieroglyphics signified the soul of man. In the very ancient pictures there can be no doubt, I think, that the bird in the hand of Christ figured the soul, or the spiritual as opposed to the material. But, in the later pictures, the original meaning being lost, birds became mere ornamental accessories, or playthings. Sometimes it is a parrot from the East, sometimes a partridge (the partridge is frequent in the Venetian pictures): sometimes a goldfinch, as in Raphael's Madonna _del Cardellino_. In a Madonna by Guercino, the Mother holds a bird perched on her hand, and the Child, with a most _naïve_ infantine expression, shrinks back from it.[1] In a picture by Baroccio, he holds it up before a cat (Nat. Gal. 29), so completely were the original symbolism and all the religious proprieties of art at this time set aside. [Footnote 1: It was in the collection of Mr. Rogers.] Other animals are occasionally introduced. Extremely offensive are the apes when admitted into devotional pictures. We have associations with the animal as a mockery of the human, which render it a very disagreeable accessory. It appears that, in the sixteenth century, it became the fashion to keep apes as pets, and every reader of Vasari will remember the frequent mention of these animals as pets and favourites of the artists. Thus only can I account for the introduction of the ape, particularly in the Ferrarese pictures. Bassano's dog, Baroccio's cat, are often introduced. In a famous picture by Titian, "La Vierge au Lapin," we have the rabbit. (Louvre.) The introduction of these and other animals marks the decline of religious art. Certain women of the Old Testament are regarded as especial types of the Virgin. EVE. Mary is regarded as the second Eve, because, through her, came the promised Redemption. She bruised the head of the Serpent. The Tree of Life, the Fall, or Eve holding the Apple, are constantly introduced allusively in the Madonna pictures, as ornaments of her throne, or on the predella of an altar-piece, representing the Annunciation, the Nativity, or the Coronation. RACHEL figures as the ideal of contemplative life. RUTH, as the ancestress of David. ABISHAG, as "the Virgin who was brought to the King." (I Kings i. 1.) BATHSHEBA, because she sat upon a throne on the right hand of her Son. JUDITH and ESTHER, as having redeemed their people, and brought deliverance to Israel. It is because of their typical character, as emblems of the Virgin, that these Jewish heroines so often figure in the religious pictures.[1] [Footnote 1: The artistic treatment of these characters as types of the Virgin, will be found in the fourth series of "Legendary Art."] In his "Paradiso" (c. xxxii.), Dante represents Eve, Rachel, Sara, Ruth, Judith, as seated at the feet of the Virgin Mary, beneath her throne in heaven; and next to Rachel, by a refinement of spiritual and poetical gallantry, he has placed his Beatrice. In the beautiful frescoes of the church of St. Apollinaris at Remagen, these Hebrew women stand together in a group below the throne of the Virgin. Of the Prophets and the Sibyls who attend on Christ in his character of the Messiah or Redeemer, I shall have much to say, when describing the artistic treatment of the history and character of Our Lord. Those of the prophets who are supposed to refer more particularly to the Incarnation, properly attend on the Virgin and Child; but in the ancient altar-pieces, they are not placed within the same frame, nor are they grouped immediately round her throne, but form the outer accessories, or are treated separately as symbolical. First, MOSES, because he beheld the burning bush, "which burned and was not consumed." He is generally in the act of removing his sandals. AARON, because his rod blossomed miraculously. GIDEON, on whose fleece descended the dew of heaven, while all was dry around. DANIEL, who beheld the stone which was cut out without hands, and became a great mountain, filling the earth. (ch. ii. 45.) DAVID, as prophet and ancestor. "Listen, O daughter, and incline thine ear." ISAIAH, "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son." EZEKIEL, "This gate shall be shut." (ch. xliv. 2.) Certain of these personages, Moses, Aaron, Gideon, Daniel, Ezekiel, are not merely accessories and attendant figures, but in a manner attributes, as expressing the character of the Virgin. Thus in many instances, we find the prophetical personages altogether omitted, and we have simply the attribute figuring the prophecy itself, the burning bush, the rod, the dewy fleece, &c. The Sibyls are sometimes introduced alternately with the Prophets. In general, if there be only two, they are the Tiburtina, who showed the vision to Augustus, and the Cumean Sibyl who foretold the birth of our Saviour. The Sibyls were much the fashion in the classic times of the sixteenth century; Michael Angelo and Raphael have left us consummate examples. But I must repeat that the full consideration of the Prophets and Sibyls as accessories belongs to another department of sacred art, and they will find their place there. The Evangelists frequently, and sometimes one or more of the Twelve Apostles, appear as accessories which assist the theological conception. When other figures are introduced, they are generally either the protecting saints of the country or locality, or the saints of the Religious Order to whom the edifice belongs: or, where the picture or window is an _ex-voto_, we find the patron saints of the confraternity, or of the donor or votary who has dedicated it. Angels seated at the feet of the Madonna and playing on musical instruments, are most lovely and appropriate accessories, for the choral angels are always around her in heaven, and on earth she is the especial patroness of music and minstrelsy.[1] Her delegate Cecilia patronized _sacred_ music; but _all_ music and musicians, all minstrels, and all who plied the "gaye science," were under the protection of Mary. When the angels are singing from their music books, and others are accompanying them with lutes and viols, the song is not always supposed to be the same. In a Nativity they sing the "Gloria in excelsis Deo;" in a Coronation, the "Regina Coeli;" in an enthroned Madonna with votaries, the "Salve Regina, Mater Misericordiæ!" in a pastoral Madonna and Child it may be the "Alma Mater Redemptoris." [Footnote 1: The picture by Lo Spagna, lately added to our National Gallery, is a beautiful example.] * * * * * In all the most ancient devotional effigies (those in the catacombs and the old mosaics), the Virgin appears as a majestic woman of mature age. In those subjects taken from her history which precede her return from Egypt, and in the Holy Families, she should appear as a young maiden from fifteen to seventeen years old. In the subjects taken from her history which follow the baptism of our Lord, she should appear as a matron between forty and fifty, but still of a sweet and gracious aspect. When Michael Angelo was reproached with representing his Mater Dolorosa much too young, he replied that the perfect virtue and serenity of the character of Mary would have preserved her beauty and youthful appearance long beyond the usual period.[1] [Footnote 1: The group in St. Peter's, Rome.] Because some of the Greek pictures and carved images had become black through extreme age, it was argued by certain devout writers, that the Virgin herself must have been of a very dark complexion; and in favour of this idea they quoted this text from the Canticles, "I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem." But others say that her complexion had become black only during her sojourn in Egypt. At all events, though the blackness of these antique images was supposed to enhance their sanctity, it has never been imitated in the fine arts, and it is quite contrary to the description of Nicephorus, which is the most ancient authority, and that which is followed in the Greek school. The proper dress of the Virgin is a close red tunic, with long sleeves;[1] and over this a blue robe or mantle. In the early pictures, the colours are pale and delicate. Her head ought to be veiled. The fathers of the primeval Church, particularly Tertullian, attach great importance to the decent veil worn by Christian maidens; and in all the early pictures the Virgin is veiled. The enthroned Virgin, unveiled, with long tresses falling down on either side, was an innovation introduced about the end of the fifteenth century; commencing, I think, with the Milanese, and thence adopted in the German schools and those of Northern Italy. The German Madonnas of Albert Durer's time have often magnificent and luxuriant hair, curling in ringlets, or descending to the waist in rich waves, and always fair. Dark-haired Madonnas appear first in the Spanish and later Italian schools. [Footnote 1: In a famous Pietà by Raphael, engraved by Marc Antonio, the Virgin, standing by the dead form of her Son, has the right arm apparently bare; in the repetition of the subject it is clothed with a full sleeve, the impropriety being corrected. The first is, however, the most perfect and most precious as a work of art.--_Bartsch_, xiv. 34, 35.] In the historical pictures, her dress is very simple; but in those devotional figures which represent her as queen of heaven, she wears a splendid crown, sometimes of jewels interwoven with lilies and roses. The crown is often the sovereign crown of the country in which the picture is placed: thus, in the Papal States, she often wears the triple tiara: in Austria, the imperial diadem. Her blue tunic is richly embroidered with gold and gems, or lined with ermine, or stuff of various colours, in accordance with a text of Scripture: "The King's daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the King in a vesture of needlework." (Ps. xlv. 13.) In the Immaculate Conception, and in the Assumption, her tunic should be plain white, or white spangled with golden stars. In the subjects relating to the Passion, and after the Crucifixion, the dress of the Virgin should be violet or gray. These proprieties, however, are not always attended to. In the early pictures which represent her as nursing the divine Infant (the subject called the _Vergine Lattante_), the utmost care is taken to veil the bust as much as possible. In the Spanish school the most vigilant censorship was exercised over all sacred pictures, and, with regard to the figures of the Virgin, the utmost decorum was required. "What," says Pacheco, "can be more foreign to the respect which we owe to our Lady the Virgin, than to paint her sitting down with one of her knees placed over the other, and often with her sacred feet uncovered and naked? Let thanks be given to the Holy Inquisition, which commands that this liberty should be corrected." For this reason, perhaps, we seldom see the feet of the Virgin in Spanish pictures.[1] Carducho speaks more particularly on the impropriety of painting the Virgin unshod, "since it is manifest that, our Lady was in the habit of wearing shoes, as is proved by the much venerated relic of one of them from her divine feet at Burgos." [Footnote 1: Or in any of the old pictures till the seventeenth century "Tandis que Dieu est toujours montré pieds nus, lui qui est descendu à terre et a pris notre humanité, Marie au contraire est constamment représentée les pieds perdus dans les plis trainants, nombreux et légers de sa robe virginale; elle, qui est elevée au dessus de la terre et rapprochée de Dieu par sa pureté. Dieu montre par ses pieds nus qu'il a pris le corps de l'homme; Marie fait comprendre en les cachant qu'elle participe de la spiritualité de Dieu."] The Child in her arms is always, in the Greek and early pictures, clothed in a little tunic, generally white. In the fifteenth century he first appears partly, and then wholly, undraped. Joseph, as the earthly _sposo_, wears the saffron-coloured mantle over a gray tunic. In the later schools of art these significant colours are often varied, and sometimes wholly dispensed with. III. DEVOTIONAL AND HISTORICAL REPRESENTATIONS. In this volume, as in the former ones, I have adhered to the distinction between the devotional and the historical representations. I class as devotional, all those which express a dogma merely; all the enthroned Madonnas, alone or surrounded by significant accessories or attendant saints; all the Mystical Coronations and Immaculate Conceptions; all the Holy Families with saints, and those completely ideal and votive groups, in which the appeal is made to the faith and piety of the observer. I shall give the characteristic details, in particular instances, further on. The altar-pieces in a Roman Catholic church are always either strictly devotional objects, or it may be, historical subjects (such as the Nativity) treated in a devotional sense. They are sometimes in several pieces or compartments. A Diptych is an altar-piece composed of two divisions or leaves which are united by hinges, and close like a book. Portable altar-pieces of a small size are generally in this form; and among the most valuable and curious remains of early religious art are the Greek and Byzantine Diptychs, sometimes painted, sometimes carved in ivory[1]. A Triptych is an altar-piece in three parts; the two outer divisions or wings often closing as shutters over the central compartment. [Footnote 1: Among the "Casts from Ancient Ivory Carvings", published by the Arundel Society, will be found some interesting and illustrative examples, particularly Class III. Diptych _b_, Class VII Diptych _c_ and Triptych _f_, Class IX. Triptych _k_.] On the outside of the shutters or doors the Annunciation was generally painted, as the mystery which opened the gates of salvation; occasionally, also, the portraits of the votaries or donors. Complete examples of devotional representation occur in the complex and elaborate altar-pieces and windows of stained glass, which often comprehend a very significant scheme of theology.[1]. I give here plans of two of these old altar-pieces, which will assist the reader in elucidating the meaning of others. [Footnote 1: Still more important examples occur in the porches and exterior decoration of the old cathedrals, French and English which have escaped mutilation. These will be found explained at length in the Fourth Series of Sacred and Legendary Art.] The first is the altar-piece in the Rinuccini Chapel in the church of the Santa Croco of Florence. It is necessary to premise that the chapel was founded in honour of the Virgin and Mary Magdalene; while the church is dedicated to the Holy Cross, and belongs to the Franciscans. [Illustration: Altar-piece] The compartments are separated by wood-work most richly carved and gilt in the Gothic style, with twisted columns, pinnacles, and scrolls. The subjects are thus distributed. A. The Virgin and Child enthroned. She has the sun on her breast, the moon under her feet, the twelve stars over her head, and is attended by angels bearing the attributes of the cardinal virtues. B. St. John the Baptist. C. St. Francis. D. St. John Evangelist. E. Mary Magdalene. 1. The Crucifixion, with the Virgin and St. John. 2, 3, 4, 5. The four Evangelists with their books: half length. 6, 7. St. Peter and St. Paul: half length. 8, 9, 10, 11. St. Thomas, St. Philip, St. James, and St. Andrew: half length. PP. The Predella. 12. The Nativity and Adoration of Magi. 13. St. Francis receives the Stigmata. 14. Baptism of Christ. 15. The Vision of St. John in Patmos. 16. Mary Magdalene borne up by angels. Between the altar-piece and the predella runs the inscription in Gothic letters, AVE DELICISSIMIS VIRGO MARIA, SUCCURRE NOBIS MATER PIA. MCCCLXXVIII. The second example is sketched from an altar-piece painted for the suppressed convent of Santa Chiara, at Venice. It is six feet high, and eight feet wide, and the ornamental caning in which the subjects are enclosed particularly splendid and elaborate. [Illustration: Altar-piece] A. The Coronation of the Virgin, treated as a religious mystery, with choral angels. B. The Nativity of our Lord. C. The Baptism. D. The Last Supper. E. The Betrayal of Christ. F. The Procession to Calvary, in which the Virgin is rudely pushed aside by the soldiers. G. The Crucifixion, as an event: John sustains the Virgin at the foot of the cross. H. The Resurrection and the _Noli me tangere_. I. Ascension. 1. Half-figure of Christ, with the hand extended in benediction; in the other hand the Gospel. 2. David. 3. Isaiah. 4, 5, 6, 7. The four Evangelists standing. 8. 9, 11, 12. Scenes from the Life of St. Francis and St. Clara. 10. The Descent of the Holy Ghost. 13. The Last Judgment. It is to be regretted that so many of these altar-pieces have been broken up, and the detached parts sold as separate pictures: so that we may find one compartment of an altar in a church at Rome, and another hanging in a drawing-room in London; the upper part at Ghent, the lower half at Paris; one wing at Berlin, another at Florence. But where they exist as a whole, how solemn, significant, and instructive the arrangement! It may be read as we read a poem. Compare these with the groups round the enthroned Virgin in the later altar-pieces, where the saints elbow each other in attitudes, where mortal men sit with unseemly familiarity close to personages recognized as divine. As I have remarked further on, it is one of the most interesting speculations connected with the study of art, to trace this decline from reverence to irreverence, from the most rigid formula to the most fantastic caprice. The gradual disappearance of the personages of the Old Testament, the increasing importance given to the family of the Blessed Virgin, the multiplication of legendary subjects, and all the variety of adventitious, unmeaning, or merely ornamental accessories, strike us just in proportion as a learned theology replaced the unreflecting, undoubting piety of an earlier age. * * * * * The historical subjects comprise the events from the Life of the Virgin, when treated in a dramatic form; and all those groups which exhibit her in her merely domestic relations, occupied by cares for her divine Child, and surrounded by her parents and kindred, subjects which assume a pastoral and poetical rather than an historical form. All these may be divided into Scriptural and Legendary representations. The Scriptural scenes in which the Virgin Mary is a chief or important personage, are the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Purification, the Adoration of the Magi, the Flight into Egypt, the Marriage at Cana, the Procession to Calvary, the Crucifixion (as related by St. John), and the Descent of the Holy Ghost. The Traditional and Legendary scenes are those taken from the apocryphal Scriptures, some of which have existed from the third century. The Legend of Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Virgin, with the account of her early life, and her Marriage with Joseph, down to the Massacre of the Innocents, are taken from the Gospel of Mary and the Protevangelion. The scenes of the Flight into Egypt, the Repose on the Journey, and the Sojourn of the Holy Family at Hieropolis or Matarea, are taken from the Gospel of Infancy. The various scenes attending the Death and Assumption of the Virgin are derived from a Greek legendary poem, once attributed to St. John the Evangelist, but the work, as it is supposed, of a certain Greek, named Meliton, who lived in the ninth century, and who has merely dressed up in a more fanciful form ancient traditions of the Church. Many of these historical scenes have been treated in a devotional style, expressing not the action, but the event, taken in the light of a religious mystery; a distinction which I have fully explained in the following pages, where I have given in detail the legends on which these scenes are founded, and the religious significance conveyed by the treatment. A complete series of the History of the Virgin begins with the rejection of her father Joachim from the temple, and ends with the assumption and coronation, including most of the events in the History of our Lord (as for example, the series painted by Giotto, in the chapel of the Arena, at Padua); but there are many instances in which certain important evens relating to the Virgin only, as the principal person, are treated as a devotional series; and such are generally found in the chapels and oratories especially dedicated to her. A beautiful instance is that of the Death of the Virgin, treated in a succession of scenes, as an event apart, and painted by Taddeo Barrolo, in the Chapel of the Palazzo Publico, at Siena. This small chapel was dedicated to the Virgin soon after the terrible plague of 1848 had ceased, as it was believed, by her intercession; so that this municipal chapel was at once an expression of thanksgiving, and a memorial of death, of suffering, of bereavement, and of hope in the resurrection. The frescoes cover one wall of the chapel, and are arranged in four scenes. 1. Mary is reclining in her last sickness, and around her are the Apostles, who, according to the beautiful legend, were _miraculously_ assembled to witness her departure. To express this, one of them is floating in as if borne on the air. St. John kneels at her feet, and she takes, with an expression exquisitely tender and maternal, his two hands in hers. This action is peculiar to the Siena school.[1] [Footnote 1: On each side of the principal door of the Cathedral at Siena, which is dedicated to "Beata Virgine Assunta," and just within the entrance, is a magnificent pilaster, of white marble, completely covered from the base to the capital with the most luxuriant carving, arabesques, foliage, &c., in an admirable and finished style. On the bases of these two pilasters are subjects from the Life of the Virgin, three on each side, and arranged, each subject on one side having its pendant on the other. 1. The meeting of Joachim and Anna. 2. The Nativity of Mary. 3. Her sickness and last farewell to the Apostles; bending towards St. John, she takes his hands in hers with the same tender expression as in the fresco by Taddeo Bartola. 4. She lies dead on her couch. 5. The Assumption. 6. The Coronation. The figures are about a foot in height, delicately carved, full of that sentiment which is especially Sienese, and treated with a truly sculptural simplicity.] 2. She lies extended on her couch, surrounded by the weeping Apostles, and Christ behind receives the parting soul,--the usual representation, but treated with the utmost sentiment. 3. She is borne to the grave by the Apostles; in the background, the walls of the city of Jerusalem. Here the Greek legend of St. Michael protecting her remains from the sacrilegious Jew is omitted, and a peculiar sentiment of solemnity pervades the whole scene. 4. The resurrection of the Virgin, when she rises from the tomb sustained by hovering angels, and is received by Christ. When I first saw these beautiful frescoes, in 1847, they were in a very ruined state; they have since been restored in a very good style, and with a reverent attention to the details and expression. In general, however, the cycle commences either with the legend of Joachim and Anna, or with the Nativity of the Virgin, and ends with the assumption and coronation. A most interesting early example is the series painted in fresco by Taddeo Gaddi, in the Baroncelli Chapel at Florence. The subjects are arranged on two walls. The first on the right hand, and the second, opposite to us as we enter. 1. Joachim is rejected from the Temple. 2. He is consoled by the Angel. 3. The meeting of Joachim and Anna. 4. The Birth of the Virgin. 5. The Presentation of the Virgin. She is here a child of about five years old; and having ascended five steps (of the fifteen) she turns as if to bid farewell to her parents and companions, who stand below; while on the summit the High Priest, Anna the prophetess, and the maidens of the Temple come forward to receive her. 6. The Marriage to Joseph, and the rage and disappointment of the other suitors. The second wall is divided by a large window of the richest stained glass, on each side of which the subjects are arranged. 7. The Annunciation. This is peculiar. Mary, not throned or standing, but seated on the ground, with her hands clasped, and an expression beautiful for devotion and humility, looks upwards to the descending angel. 8. The Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth. 9. The Annunciation to the Shepherds. 10. The Nativity. 11. The Wise Men behold the Star in the Form of a Child. 12. They approach to Worship. Under the window is the altar, no longer used as such; and behind it a small but beautiful triptych of the Coronation of the Virgin, by Giotto, containing at least a hundred heads of saints, angels, &c.; and on the wall opposite is the large fresco of the Assumption, by Mainardi, in which St. Thomas receives the girdle, the other Apostles being omitted. This is of much later date, being painted about 1495. The series of five subjects in the Rinuccini Chapel (in the sacristy of the same church) has been generally attributed to Taddeo Gaddi, but I agree with those who gave it to a different painter of the same period. The subjects are thus arranged:--1. The Rejection of Joachim, which fills the whole arch at the top, and is rather peculiarly treated. On the right of the altar advances a company of grave-looking Elders, each with his offering. On the left, a procession of the matrons and widows "who had been fruitful in Israel," each with her lamb. In the centre, Joachim, with his lamb in his arms and an affrighted look, is hurrying down the steps. 2. The Lamentation of Joachim on the Mountain, and the Meeting of Joachim and Anna. 3. The Birth of the Virgin. 4. The Presentation in the Temple. 5. The Sposalizio of the Virgin, with which the series concludes; every event referring to her divine Son, even the Annunciation, being omitted. On comparing these frescoes with those in the neighbouring chapel of the Baroncelli, the difference in _feeling_ will be immediately felt; but they are very _naïve_ and elegant. About a hundred years later than these two examples we have the celebrated series painted by Ghirlandajo, in the choir of S. Maria Novella at Florence. There are three walls. On the principal wall, facing us as we enter, is the window; and around it the Annunciation (as a mystery), then the principal saints of the Order to whom the church belongs,--St. Dominic and St. Peter Martyr, and the protecting saints of Florence. On the left hand (i.e. the right as we face the high altar) is the History of the Virgin; on the opposite side, the History of St. John the Baptist. The various cycles relating to St. John as patron of Florence will be fully treated in the last volume of Legendary Art; at present I shall confine myself to the beautiful set of subjects which relate the history of the Virgin, and which the engravings of Lasinio (see the "Ancient Florentine Masters") have rendered well known to the lovers of art. They cover the whole wall and are thus arranged, beginning from the lowest on the left hand. 1. Joachim is driven from the Temple. 2. The Birth of the Virgin. 3. The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple. 4. The Marriage of Joseph and Mary. 5. The Adoration of the Magi (this is very much ruined). 6. The Massacre of the Innocents. (This also is much ruined.) Vasari says it was the finest of all. It is very unusual to make this terrible and pathetic scene part of the life of the Virgin. 7. In the highest and largest compartment, the Death and Assumption of the Virgin. Nearly contemporary with this fine series is that by Pinturicchio in the Church of S. Maria del Popolo, at Rome (in the third chapel on the right). It is comprised in five lunettes round the ceiling, beginning with the Birth of the Virgin, and is remarkable for its elegance. About forty years after this series was completed the people of Siena, who had always bees remarkable for their devotion to the Virgin, dedicated to Her honour the beautiful little chapel called the Oratory of San Bernardino (v. Legends of the Monastic Orders), near the church of San Francesco, and belonging to the same Order, the Franciscans. This chapel is an exact parallelogram and the frescoes which cover the four walls are thus arranged above the wainscot, which rises about eight feet from the ground. 1. Opposite the door as we enter, the Birth of the Virgin. The usual visitor to St. Anna is here a grand female figure, in voluminous drapery. The delight and exultation of those who minister to the new-born infant are expressed with the most graceful _naïveté_. This beautiful composition should be compared with those of Ghirlandajo and Andrea del Sarto in the Annunziata at Florence;[1] it yields to neither as a conception and is wholly different. It is the work of a Sienese painter little known--Girolamo del Pacchio. [Footnote 1: This series, painted by Andrea and his scholars and companions, Franciabigio and Pontormo, is very remarkable as a work of art, but presents nothing new in regard to the choice and treatment of the subjects.] 2. The Presentation in the Temple, by G.A. Razzi. The principal scene is placed in the background, and the little Madonna, as she ascends the steps, is received by the High Priest and Anna the prophetess. Her father and mother and groups of spectators fill the foreground; here, too, is a very noble female figure on the right; but the whole composition is mannered, and wants repose and religious feeling. 3. The Sposalizio, by Beccafumi. The ceremony takes place after the manner of the Jews, outside the Temple. In a mannered, artificial style. 4, 5. On one side of the altar, the Angel Gabriel floating in--very majestic and angelic; on the other side the Virgin Annunziata, with that attitude and expression so characteristic of the Siena School, as if shrinking from the apparition. These also are by Girolamo del Pacchio, and extremely fine. 6. The enthroned Virgin and Child, by Beccafumi. The Virgin is very fine and majestic; around her throne stand and kneel the guardian saints of Siena and the Franciscan Order; St. Francis, St. Antony of Padua, St. Bernardino, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Ansano, St. John B., St. Louis. (St. Catherine, as patroness of Siena, takes here the place usually given to St. Clara in the Franciscan pictures.) 7. The Visitation. Very fine and rather peculiar; for here Elizabeth bends over Mary as welcoming her, while the other inclines her head as accepting hospitality. By Razzi. 8. The Death of the Virgin. Fourteen figures, among which are four females lamenting, and St. John bearing the palm. The attitude and expression of Mary, composed in death, are very fine; and Christ, instead of standing, as usual, by the couch, with her parting soul in his arms, comes rushing down from above with arms outspread to receive it. 9. The Assumption. Mary, attired all in white, rises majestically. The tomb is seen beneath, out of which grow two tall lilies amid white roses; the Apostles surround it, and St. Thomas receives the girdle. This is one of the finest works of Razzi, and one of the purest in point of sentiment. 10. The Coronation, covering the whole wall which faces the altar, is by Razzi; it is very peculiar and characteristic. The Virgin, all in white, and extremely fine, bending gracefully, receives her crown; the other figures have that vulgarity of expression which belonged to the artist, and is often so oddly mingled with the sentiment and grandeur of his school and time. On the right of the principal group stands St. John B.; on the left, Adam and Eve; and behind the Virgin, her mother, St. Anna, which is quite peculiar, and the only instance I can remember. * * * * * It appears therefore that the Life of the Virgin Mary, whether treated as a devotional or historical series, forms a kind of pictured drama in successive scenes; sometimes comprising only six or eight of the principal events of her individual life, as her birth, dedication, marriage, death, and assumption: sometimes extending to forty or fifty subjects, and combining her history with that of her divine Son. I may now direct the attention of the reader to a few other instances remarkable for their beauty and celebrity. Giotto, 1320. In the chapel at Padua styled _la Capella dell' Arena_. One of the finest and most complete examples extant, combining the Life of the Virgin with that of her Son. This series is of the highest value, a number of scenes and situations suggested by the Scriptures being here either expressed for the first time, or in a form unknown in the Greek school.[1] [Footnote 1: _Vide_ Kugler's Handbook, p. 129. He observes, that "the introduction of the maid-servant spinning, in the story of St. Anna, oversteps the limits of the higher ecclesiastical style." For an explanation I must refer to the story as I have given it at p 249. See, for the distribution of the subjects in this chapel, Lord Lindsay's "Christian Art," vol. ii. A set of the subjects has since been published by the Arundel Society.] Angiolo Gaddi, 1380. The series in the cathedral at Prato. These comprise the history of the Holy Girdle. Andrea Orcagna, 1373. The beautiful series of bas-reliefs on the shrine in Or-San-Michele, at Florence. Nicolò da Modena, 1450. Perhaps the earliest engraved example: very remarkable for the elegance of the _motifs_ and the imperfect execution, engraving on copper being then a new art. Albert Durer. The beautiful and well-known set of twenty-five wood-cuts, published in 1510. A perfect example of the German treatment. Bernardino Luini, 1515. A series of frescoes of the highest beauty, painted for the monastery Della Pace. Unhappily we have only the fragments which are preserved in the Brera. The series of bas-reliefs on the outer shrine of the Casa di Loretto, by Sansovino, and others of the greatest sculptors of the beginning of the sixteenth century. The series of bas-reliefs round the choir at Milan: seventeen subjects. * * * * * We often find the Seven Joys and the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin treated as a series. The Seven Joys are, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple, Christ found by his Mother, the Assumption and Coronation. The Seven Sorrows are, the Prophecy of Simeon, the Flight into Egypt, Christ lost by his Mother, the Betrayal of Christ, the Crucifixion (with St. John and the Virgin only present), the Deposition from the Cross, the Ascension when the Virgin is left on earth. The Seven Joys and Sorrows are frequently found in altar-pieces and religions prints, arranged in separate compartments, round the Madonna in the centre. Or they are combined in various groups into one large composition, as in a famous picture by Hans Hemling, wonderful for the poetry, expression, and finished execution.[1] [Footnote 1: Altogether, on a careful consideration of this picture, I do not consider the title by which it is generally known as appropriate. It contains man groups which would not enter into the mystic joys or sorrows; for instance, the Massacre of the Innocents, Christ at Emmaus, the _Noli me tangere_, and others.] Another cycle of subjects consists of the fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary. The five Joyful Mysteries, are the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Purification, and Christ found in the Temple. The five Dolorous or Sorrowful Mysteries are, our Lord in the Garden of Olives, the Flagellation, Christ crowned with Thorns, the Procession to Calvary, the Crucifixion. The five Glorious Mysteries are, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption, the Coronation. A series of subjects thus arranged cannot be called strictly historical, but partakes of the mystical and devotional character. The purpose being to excite devout meditation, requires a particular sentiment, frequently distinguished from the merely dramatic and historical treatment in being accompanied by saints, votaries, and circumstances purely ideal; as where the Wise Men bring their offerings, while St. Luke sits in a corner painting the portrait of the Virgin, and St. Dominick kneels in adoration of the Mystery (Mabuse, Munich Gal.);--and in a hundred other examples. IV. TITLES OF THE VIRGIN MARY. Of the various titles given to the Virgin Mary, and thence to certain effigies and pictures of her, some appear to me very touching, as expressive of the wants, the aspirations, the infirmities and sorrows, which are common to poor suffering humanity, or of those divine attributes from which they hoped to find aid and consolation. Thus we have-- Santa Maria "del buon Consilio." Our Lady of good Counsel. S.M. "del Soccorso." Our Lady of Succour. Our Lady of the Forsaken. S.M. "del buon Core." Our Lady of good Heart. S.M. "della Grazia." Our Lady of Grace. S.M. "di Misericordia." Our Lady of Mercy. S.M. "Auxilium Afflictorum." Help of the Afflicted. S.M. "Refugium Peccatorum." Refuge of Sinners. S.M. "del Pianto," "del Dolore." Our Lady of Lamentation, or Sorrow. S.M. "Consolatrice," "della Consolazione," or "del Conforte." Our Lady of Consolation. S.M. "della Speranza." Our Lady of Hope. Under these and similar titles she is invoked by the afflicted, and often represented with her ample robe outspread and upheld by angels, with votaries and suppliants congregated beneath its folds. In Spain, _Nuestra Señora de la Merced_ is the patroness of the Order of Mercy; and in this character she often holds in her hand small tablets bearing the badge of the Order. (Legends of the Monastic Orders, 2d edit.) S.M. "della Liberta," or "Liberatrice," Our Lady of Liberty; and S.M. "della Catena," Our Lady of Fetters. In this character she is invoked by prisoners and captives. S.M. "del Parto," Our Lady of Good Delivery, invoked by women in travail.[1] [Footnote 1: Dante alludes to her in this character:-- "E per ventura udi 'Dolce Maria!' Dinanzi a noi chiamar cosi nel pianto Come fa donna che 'n partorir sia."--_Purg._ c. 20.] S.M. "del Popolo." Our Lady of the People. S.M. "della Vittoria." Our Lady of Victory. S.M. "della Pace." Our Lady of Peace. S.M. "della Sapienza," Our Lady of Wisdom; and S.M. "della Perseveranza," Our Lady of Perseverance. (Sometimes placed in colleges, with a book in her hand, as patroness of students.) S.M. "della Salute." Our Lady of Health or Salvation. Under this title pictures and churches have been dedicated after the cessation of a plague, or any other public calamity.[1] [Footnote 1: There is also somewhere in France a chapel dedicated to _Notre Dame de la Haine_.] Other titles are derived from particular circumstances and accessories, as-- S.M. "del Presepio," Our Lady of the Cradle; generally a Nativity, or when she is adoring her Child. S.M. "della Scodella"--with the cup or porringer, where she is taking water from a fountain; generally a Riposo. S.M. "dell' Libro," where she holds the Book of Wisdom. S.M. "della Cintola," Our Lady of the Girdle, where she is either giving the Girdle to St. Thomas, or where the Child holds it in his hand. S.M. "della Lettera." Our Lady of the Letter. This is the title given to Our Lady as protectress of the city of Messina. According to the Sicilian legend, she honoured the people of Messina by writing a letter to them, dated from Jerusalem, "in the year of her Son, 42." In the effigies of the "Madonna della Lettera," she holds this letter in her hand. S.M. "della Rosa." Our Lady of the Rose. A title given to several pictures, in which the rose, which is consecrated to her, is placed either in her hand, or in that of the Child. S.M. "della Stella." Our Lady of the Star. She wears the star as one of her attributes embroidered on her mantle. S.M. "del Fiore." Our Lady of the Flower. She has this title especially as protectress of Florence. S.M. "della Spina." She holds in her hand the crown of thorns, and under this title is the protectress of Pisa. S.M. "del Rosario." Our Lady of the Rosary, with the mystic string of beads. I do not remember any instance of the Rosary placed in the hand of the Virgin or the Child till after the battle of Lepanto (1571), and the institution of the Festival of the Rosary, as an act of thanksgiving. After this time pictures of the Madonna "del Rosario" abound, and may generally be found in the Dominican churches. There is a famous example by Guido in the Bologna Gallery, and a very beautiful one by Murillo in the Dulwich Gallery. S.M. "del Carmine." Our Lady of Mount Carmel. She is protectress of the Order of the Carmelites, and is often represented holding in her hand small tablets, on which is the effigy of herself with the Child. S.M. "de Belem." Our Lady of Bethlehem. Under this title she is the patroness of the Jeronymites, principally in Spain and Portugal. S.M. "della Neve." Our Lady of the Snow. In Spain, S. Maria la Blanca. To this legend of the snow the magnificent church of S.M. Maggiore at Rome is said to owe its origin. A certain Roman patrician, whose name was John (Giovanni Patricie), being childless, prayed of the Virgin to direct him how best to bestow his worldly wealth. She appeared to him in a dream on the night of the fifth of August, 352, and commanded him to build a church in her honour, on a spot where snow would be found the next morning. The same vision having appeared to his wife and the reigning pope, Liberius, they repaired in procession the next morning to the summit of Mount Esquiline, where, notwithstanding the heat of the weather, a large patch of ground was miraculously covered with snow, and on it Liberius traced out with his crosier the plan of the church. This story has been often represented in art, and is easily recognized; but it is curious that the two most beautiful pictures consecrated to the honour of the Madonna della Neve are Spanish and not Roman, and were painted by Murillo about the time that Philip IV. of Spain sent rich offerings to the church of S.M. Maggiore, thus giving a kind of popularity to the legend. The picture represents the patrician John and his wife asleep, and the Vision of the Virgin (one of the loveliest ever painted by Murillo) breaking upon them in splendour through the darkness of the night; while in the dim distance is seen the Esquiline (or what is meant for it) covered with snow. In the second picture, John and his wife are kneeling before the pope, "a grand old ecclesiastic, like one of Titian's pontiffs." These pictures, after being carried off by the French from the little church of S.M. la Blanca at Seville, are now in the royal gallery at Madrid. S. Maria "di Loretto." Our Lady of Loretto. The origin of this title is the famous legend of the Santa Casa, the house at Nazareth, which was the birthplace of the Virgin, and the scene of the Annunciation. During the incursions of the Saracens, the Santa Casa being threatened with profanation, if not destruction, was taken up by the angels and conveyed over land and sea till it was set down on the coast of Dalmatia; but not being safe there, the angels again took it up, and, bearing it over the Adriatic, set it down in a grove near Loretto. But certain wicked brigands having disturbed its sacred quietude by strife and murder, the house again changed its place, and was at length set down on the spot where it now stands. The date of this miracle is placed in 1295. The Madonna di Loretto is usually represented as seated with the divine Child on the roof of a house, which is sustained at the corners by four angels, and thus borne over sea and land. From the celebrity of Loretto as a place of pilgrimage this representation became popular, and is often found in chapels dedicated to our Lady of Loretto. Another effigy of our Lady of Loretto is merely a copy of a very old Greek "Virgin and Child," which is enshrined in the Santa Casa. S.M. "del Pillar," Our Lady of the Pillar, is protectress of Saragossa. According to the Legend, she descended from heaven standing on an alabaster pillar, and thus appeared to St. James (Santiago) when he was preaching the gospel in Spain. The miraculous pillar is preserved in the cathedral of Saragossa, and the legend appears frequently in Spanish art. Also in a very interior picture by Nicolo Poussin, now in the Louvre. * * * * * Some celebrated pictures are individually distinguished by titles derived from some particular object in the composition, as Raphael's _Madonna de Impannata_, so called from the window in the back ground being partly shaded with a piece of linen (in the Pitti Pal., Florence); Correggio's _Vierge au Panier_, so called from the work-basket which stands beside her (in our Nat Gal.); Murillo's _Virgen de la Servilleta_, the Virgin of the Napkin, in allusion to the dinner napkin on which it was painted.[1] Others are denominated from certain localities, as the _Madonna di Foligno_ (now in the Vatican); others from the names of families to whom they have belonged, as _La Madonna della Famiglia Staffa_, at Perugia. [Footnote 1: There is a beautiful engraving in Stirling's "Annals of the Artists of Spain."] * * * * * Those visions and miracles with which the Virgin Mary favoured many of the saints, as St. Luke (who was her secretary and painter), St. Catherine, St. Francis, St. Herman, and others, have already been related in the former volumes, and need not be repeated here. With regard to the churches dedicated to the Virgin, I shall not attempt to enumerate even the most remarkable, as almost every town in Christian Europe contains one or more bearing her name. The most ancient of which tradition speaks, was a chapel beyond the Tiber, at Rome, which is said to have been founded in 217, on the site where S. Maria _in Trastevere_ now stands. But there are one or two which carry their pretensions much higher; for the cathedral at Toledo and the cathedral at Chartres both claim the honour of having been dedicated to the Virgin while she was yet alive.[1] [Footnote 1: In England we have 2,120 churches dedicated in her honour; and one of the largest and most important of the London parishes bears her name--"St. Marie-la-bonne"] * * * * * Brief and inadequate as are these introductory notices, they will, I hope, facilitate the comprehension of the critical details into which it has been necessary to enter in the following pages, and lend some new interest to the subjects described. I have heard the artistic treatment of the Madonna styled a monotonous theme; and to those who see only the perpetual iteration of the same groups on the walls of churches and galleries, varied as they may suppose only by the fancy of the painter, it may seem so. But beyond the visible forms, there lies much that is suggestive to a thinking mind--to the lover of Art a higher significance, a deeper beauty, a more various interest, than could at first be imagined. In fact, the greatest mistakes in point of _taste_ arise in general from not knowing what we ought to demand of the artist, not only in regard to the subject expressed, but with reference to the times in which he lived, and his own individuality. An axiom which I have heard confidently set forth, that a picture is worth nothing unless "he who runs may read," has inundated the world with frivolous and pedantic criticism. A picture or any other work of Art, is worth nothing except in so far as it has emanated from mind, and is addressed to mind. It should, indeed, be _read_ like a book. Pictures, as it has been well said, are the books of the unlettered, but then we must at least understand the language in which they are written. And further,--if, in the old times, it was a species of idolatry to regard these beautiful representations as endued with a specific sanctity and power; so, in these days, it is a sort of atheism to look upon them reckless of their significance, regardless of the influences through which they were produced, without acknowledgment of the mind which called them into being, without reference to the intention of the artist in his own creation. * * * * * SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES TO THE SECOND EDITION. I. In the first edition of this work, only a passing allusion was made to those female effigies, by some styled "_la donna orante_" (the Praying Woman) and by others supposed to represent Mary the Mother of our Lord, of which so many examples exist in the Catacombs and in the sculptured groups on the ancient Christian sarcophagi. I know it has long been a disputed, or at least an unsettled and doubtful point, as to whether certain female figures existing on the earliest Christian monuments were or were not intended to represent the Virgin Mary. The Protestants, on the one hand, as if still inspired by that superstition against superstition which led to the violent and vulgar destruction of so many beautiful works of art, and the Catholics on the other, jealous to maintain the authenticity of these figures as a testimony to the ancient worship of the Virgin, both appear to me to have taken an exaggerated and prejudiced view of a subject which ought to be considered dispassionately on purely antiquarian and critical grounds. Having had the opportunity, during a late residence in Italy, of reconsidering and comparing a great number of these antique representations, and having heard the opinions of antiquarians, theologians, and artists, who had given their attention to the subject, and who occasionally differed from each other as to the weight of evidence, I have arrived at the conviction, that some of these effigies represent the Virgin Mary, and others do not. I confess I do not believe in any authentic representation of the Virgin holding the Divine Child older than the sixth century, except when introduced into the groups of the Nativity and the Worship of the Magi. Previous to the Nestorian controversy, these maternal effigies, as objects of devotion, were, I still believe, unknown, but I cannot understand why there should exist among Protestants, so strong a disposition to discredit every representation of Mary the Mother of our Lord to which a high antiquity had been assigned by the Roman Catholics. We know that as early as the second century, not only symbolical figures of our Lord, but figures of certain personages of holy life, as St. Peter and St. Paul, Agnes the Roman, and Euphemia the Greek, martyr, did certainly exist. The critical and historical testimony I have given elsewhere. (Sacred and Legendary Art.) Why therefore should there not have existed effigies of the Mother of Christ, of the "Woman highly blessed," the subject of so many prophecies, and naturally the object of a tender and just veneration among the early Christians? It seams to me that nothing could be more likely, and that such representations ought to have a deep interest for all Christians, no matter of what denomination--for _all_, in truth, who believe that the Saviour of the world had a good Mother, His only earthly parent, who brought Him forth, nurtured and loved Him. That it should be considered a point of faith with Protestants to treat such memorials with incredulity and even derision, appears to me most inconsistent and unaccountable, though I confess that between these simple primitive memorials and the sumptuous tasteless column and image recently erected at Rome there is a very wide margin of disputable ground, of which I shall say no more in this place. But to return to the antique conception of the "Donna orante" or so-called Virgin Mother, I will mention here only the moat remarkable examples; for to enter fully into the subject would occupy a volume in itself. There is a figure often met with in the Catacombs and on the sarcophagi of a majestic woman standing with outspread arms (the ancient attitude of prayer), or holding a book or scroll in her hand. When this figure stands alone and unaccompanied by any attribute, I think the signification doubtful: but in the Catacomb of St. Ciriaco there is a painted figure of a woman, with arms outspread and sustained on each aide by figures, evidently St. Peter and St. Paul; on the sarcophagi the same figure frequently occurs; and there are other examples certainly not later than the third and fourth century. That these represent Mary the Mother of Christ I have not the least doubt; I think it has been fully demonstrated that no other Christian woman could have been so represented, considering the manners and habits of the Christian community at that period. Then the attitude and type are precisely similar to those of the ancient Byzantine Madonnas and the Italian mosaics of Eastern workmanship, proving, as I think, that there existed a common traditional original for this figure, the idea of which has been preserved and transmitted in these early copies. Further:--there exist in the Roman museums many fragments of ancient glass found in the Christian tombs, on which are rudely pictured in colours figures exactly similar, and having the name MARIA inscribed above them. On one of these fragments I found the same female figure between two male figures, with the names inscribed over them, MARIA. PETRVS. PAVLVS., generally in the rudest and most imperfect style, as if issuing from some coarse manufacture; but showing that they have had a common origin with those far superior figures in the Catacombs and on the sarcophagi, while the inscribed names leave no doubt as to the significance. On the other hand, there are similar fragments of coarse glass found in the Catacombs--either lamps or small vases, bearing the same female in the attitude of prayer, and superscribed in rude letters, DULCIS ANIMA PIE ZESES VIVAS. (ZESES instead of JESUS.) Such may, possibly, represent, not the Virgin Mary, but the Christian matron or martyr buried in the tomb; at least, I consider them as doubtful. The Cavaliere Rossi, whose celebrity as an antiquarian is not merely Italian, but European, and whose impartiality can hardly be doubted, told me that a Christian sarcophagus had lately been discovered at Saint-Maxime, in the south of France, on which there is the same group of the female figure praying, and over it the name MARIA. I ought to add, that on one of these sarcophagi, bearing the oft repeated subject of the good Shepherd feeding His sheep, I found, as the companion group, a female figure in the act of feeding birds which are fluttering to her feet. It is not doubted that the good Shepherd is the symbol of the beneficent Christ; whether the female figure represent the Virgin-mother, or is to be regarded merely as a general symbol of female beneficence, placed on a par with that of Christ (in His human character), I will not pretend to decide. It is equally touching and beautiful in either significance. Three examples of these figures occur to me. The first is from a Christian sarcophagus of early date, and in a good style of art, probably of the third century--it is a noble figure, in the attitude of prayer, and separated from the other groups by a palm-tree on each side--at her feet is a bird (perhaps a dove, the ancient symbol of the released soul), and scrolls which represent the gospel. I regard this figure as doubtful; it may possibly be the effigy of a Christian matron, who was interred in the sarcophagus. The second example is also from a sarcophagus. It is a figure holding a scroll of the gospel, and standing between St. Peter and St. Paul; on each side (in the original) there are groups expressing the beneficent miracles of our Lord. This figure, I believe, represents the Virgin Mary. In the third example, the conspicuous female figure is combined with the series of groups on each side. She stands with hands outspread, in the attitude of prayer, between the two apostles, who seem to sustain her arms. On one side is the miracle of the water changed into wine; on the other side, Christ healing the woman who touched His garment; both of perpetual recurrence in these sculptures. Of these groups of the miracles and actions of Christ on the early Christian sarcophagi, I shall give a full account in the "History of our Lord, as illustrated in the fine arts;" at present I confine myself to the female figure which takes this conspicuous place, while other female figures are prostrate, or of a diminutive size, to express their humility or inferiority; and I have no doubt that thus situated it is intended to represent the woman who was highly honoured as well as highly blessed--the Mother of our Saviour. I have come therefore to the conclusion, that while many of these figures have a certain significance, others are uncertain. Where the figure is isolated, or placed within a frame or border, like the memorial busts and effigies on the Pagan sarcophagi, I think it may be regarded as probably commemorating the Christian martyr or matron entombed in the sarcophagus; but when there is no division, where the figure forms part of a continuous series of groups, expressing the character and miracles of Christ, I believe that it represents His mother. II. The BORGHESE CHAPEL, in the church, of St. Maria Maggiore at Rome, was dedicated to the honour of the Virgin Mary by Paul V. (Borghese), in 1611--the same Pope who in 1615 promulgated the famous Bull relative to the Immaculate Conception. The scheme of decoration in this gorgeous chapel is very remarkable, as testifying to the development which the theological idea of the Virgin, as the Sposa or personified Church, had attained at this period, and because it is not, as in other examples, either historical or devotional, but purely doctrinal. As we enter, the profusion of ornament, the splendour of colour, marbles, gilding, from the pavement under our feet to the summit of the lofty dome, are really dazzling. First, and elevated above all, we have the "Madonna della Concezione," Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, in a glory of light, sustained and surrounded by angels, having the crescent under her feet, according to the approved treatment. Beneath, round the dome, we read in conspicuous letters the text from the Revelations:--SIGNUM. MAGNUM. APPARAVlT. IN COELO. MULIER. AMICTA. SOLE. ET. LUNA. SUB. PEDIBUS. EJUS. ET. IN CAPITE. EJUS, CORONA. STELLARUM. DUODECIM. (Rev. xii. 1.) Lower down is a second inscription, expressing the dedication. MARIÆ. CHRISTI. MATRI. SEMPER. VIRGINI. PAULUS. QUINTUS.P.M. The decorations beneath the cornice consist of eighteen large frescoes, and six statues in marble, above life size. Beginning with the frescoes, we have the subjects arranged in the following order:-- 1. The four great prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, in their usual place in the four pendentives of the dome. (v. The Introduction.) 2. Two large frescoes. In the first, the Vision of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus,[1] and Heretics bitten by Serpents. In the second, St. John Damascene and St. Ildefonso miraculously rewarded for defending the Majesty of the Virgin. (Sacred and Legendary Art.) [Footnote 1: St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Pontus in the third century, was favoured by a vision of the Trinity, which enabled him to confute and utterly subdue the Sabellian heretics--the Unitarians of his time.] 3. A large fresco, representing the four Doctors of the Church who had especially written in honour of the Virgin: viz. Ireneus and Cyprian, Ignatius and Theophilus, grouped two and two. 4. St. Luke, who painted the Virgin, and whose gospel contains the best account of her. 5. As spiritual conquerors in the name of the Virgin, St. Dominic and St. Francis, each attended by two companions of his Order. 6. As military conquerors in the name of the Virgin, the Emperor Heraclius, and Narses, the general against the Arians. 7. A group of three female figures, representing the three famous saintly princesses who in marriage preserved their virginity, Pulcheria, Edeltruda (our famous queen Ethelreda), and Cunegunda. (For the legends of Cunegunda and Ethelreda, see Legends of the Monastic Orders.) 8. A group of three learned Bishops, who had especially defended the immaculate purity of the Virgin, St. Cyril, St. Anselm, and St. Denis (?). 9. The miserable ends of those who were opposed to the honour of the Virgin. 1. The death of Julian the Apostate, very oddly represented; he lies on an altar, transfixed by an arrow, as a victim; St. Mercurius in the air. (For this legend see Sacred and Legendary Art.) 2. The death of Leo IV., who destroyed the effigies of the Virgin. 3. The death of Constantine IV., also a famous iconoclast. The statues which are placed in niches are-- 1, 2. St. Joseph, as the nominal husband, and St. John the Evangelist, as the nominal son of the Virgin; the latter, also, as prophet and poet, with reference to the passage in the Revelation, c. xii. 1. 3, 4. Aaron, as priestly ancestor (because his wand blossomed), and David, as kingly ancestor of the Virgin. 5, 6. St. Dionysius the Areopagite, who was present at the death of the Virgin, and St. Bernard, who composed the famous "Salve Regina" in her honour. Such is this grand systematic scheme of decoration, which, to those who regard it cursorily, is merely a sumptuous confusion of colours and forms, or at best, "a fine example of the Guido school and Bernino." It is altogether a very complete and magnificent specimen of the prevalent style of art, and a very comprehensive and suggestive expression of the prevalent tendency of thought, in the Roman Catholic Church from the beginning of the seventeenth century. In no description of this chapel have I ever seen the names and subjects accurately given: the style of art belongs to the _decadence_, and the taste being worse than, questionable, the pervading _doctrinal_ idea has been neglected, or never understood. III. Those pictures which represent the Virgin Mary kneeling before the celestial throne, while the PADRE ETERNO or the MESSIAH extends his hand or his sceptre towards her, are generally misunderstood. They do not represent, the Assumption, nor yet the reception of Mary in Heaven, as is usually supposed; but the election or predestination of Mary as the immaculate vehicle or tabernacle of human redemption--the earthly parent of the divine Saviour. I have described such a picture by Dosso Dossi, and another by Cottignola. A third example may be cited in a yet more beautiful and celebrated picture by Francia, now in the Church at San Frediano at Lucca. Above, in the glory of Heaven, the Virgin kneels before the throne of the Creator; she is clad in regal attire of purple and crimson and gold; and she bends her fair crowned head, and folds her hands upon her bosom with an expression of meek yet dignified resignation--"_Behold the handmaid of the Lord!_"--accepting, as woman, that highest glory, as mother, that extremest grief, to which the Divine will, as spoken by the prophets of old, had called her. Below, on the earth and to the right hand, stand David and Solomon, as prophets and kingly ancestors: on the left hand, St. Augustine and St. Anselm in their episcopal robes. (I have mentioned, with regard to the office in honour of the Immaculate Conception, that the idea is said to have originated in England. I should also have added, that Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, was its strenuous advocate.) Each of these personages holds a scroll. On that of David the reference is to the 4th and 5th verses of Psalm xxvii.--"_In the secret of his tabernacle he shall hide me_." On that of Solomon is the text from his Song, ch. iv. 7. On that of St. Augustine, a quotation, I presume, from his works, but difficult to make out; it seems to be, "_In coelo qualis est Pater, talis est Films; qualis est Filius, talis est Mater_." On that of St. Anselm the same inscription which is on the picture of Cottignola quoted before, "_non puto vere esse_." &c., which is, I suppose, taken from his works. In the centre, St. Anthony of Padua kneels beside the sepulchre full of lilies and roses; showing the picture to have been painted for, or under the influence of, the Franciscan Order; and, like other pictures of the same class, "an attempt to express in a visible form the idea or promise of the redemption of the human race, as existing in the Sovereign Eternal Mind before the beginning of the world." This altar-piece has no date, but appears to have been painted about the same time as the picture in our National Gallery (No. 179.), which came from the same church. As a work of art it is most wonderfully beautiful. The editors of the last excellent edition of Vasari speak of it with just enthusiasm as "_Opera veramente stupenda in ogni parte_!" The predella beneath, painted in chiaro-oscuro, is also of exquisite beauty; and let us hope that we shall never see it separated from the great subject, like a page or a paragraph torn out of a book by ignorant and childish collectors. IV. Although the Nativity of the Virgin Mary is one of the great festivals of the Roman Catholic Church, I have seldom seen it treated as a separate subject and an altar-piece. There is, however, a very remarkable example in the Belle Arti at Siena. It is a triptych enclosed in a framework elaborately carved and gilt, in the Gothic style. In the centre compartment, St. Anna lies on a rich couch covered with crimson drapery; a graceful female presents an embroidered napkin, others enter, bringing refreshments, as usual. In front, three attendants minister to the Infant: one of them is in an attitude of admiration; on the right, Joachim seated, with white hair and beard, receives the congratulations of a young man who seems to envy his paternity. In the compartment on the right stand St. James Major and St. Catherine; on the left, St. Bartholomew and St. Elizabeth of Hungary (?). This picture is in the hard primitive style of the fourteenth century, by an unknown painter, who must have lived, before Giovanni di Paolo, but vividly coloured, exquisitely finished, and full of sentiment and dramatic feeling. DEVOTIONAL SUBJECTS. PART I. THE VIRGIN WITHOUT THE CHILD. 1. LA VERGINE GLORIOSA. 2. L'INCORONATA. 3. LA MADONNA DI MISERICORDIA. 4. LA MADRE DOLOROSA. 5. LA CONCEZIONE. THE VIRGIN MARY. _Lat._ 1. Virgo Gloriosa. 2. Virgo Sponsa Dei. 3. Virgo Potens 4. Virgo Veneranda. 5. Virgo Prædicanda. 6. Virgo Clemens. 7. Virgo Sapientissima. 8. Sancta Virgo Virginum. _Ital._ La Vergine Gloriosa. La Gran Vergine delle Vergini. _Fr._ La Grande Vierge. There are representations of the Virgin, and among them some of the earliest in existence, which place her before us as an object of religious veneration, but in which the predominant idea is not that of her maternity. No doubt it was as the mother of the Saviour Christ that she was originally venerated; but in the most ancient monuments of the Christian faith, the sarcophagi, the rude paintings in the catacombs, and the mosaics executed before the seventh century, she appears simply as a veiled female figure, not in any respect characterized. She stands, in a subordinate position, on one side of Christ; St. Peter or St. John the Baptist on the other. When the worship of the Virgin came to us from the East, with it came the Greek type--and for ages we had no other--the Greek classical type, with something of the Oriental or Egyptian character. When thus she stands before us without her Son, and the apostles or saints on each side taking the subordinate position, then we are to regard her not only as the mother of Christ, but as the second Eve, the mother of all suffering humanity; THE WOMAN of the primeval prophecy whose issue was to bruise the head of the Serpent; the Virgin predestined from the beginning of the world who was to bring forth the Redeemer of the world; the mystical Spouse of the Canticles; the glorified Bride of a celestial Bridegroom; the received Type of the Church of Christ, afflicted on earth, triumphant and crowned in heaven; the most glorious, most pure, most pious, most clement, most sacred Queen and Mother, Virgin of Virgins. The form under which we find this grand and mysterious idea of glorified womanhood originally embodied, is wonderfully majestic and simple. A female figure of colossal dimensions, far exceeding in proportion all the attendant personages and accessories, stands immediately beneath some figure or emblem representing almighty power: either it is the omnipotent hand stretched out above her, holding the crown of immortality; or it is the mystic dove which hovers over her; or it is the half-form of Christ, in the act of benediction. She stands with arms raised and extended wide, the ancient attitude of prayer; or with hands merely stretched forth, expressing admiration, humility, and devout love. She is attired in an ample tunic of blue or white, with a white veil over her head, thrown a little back, and displaying an oval face with regular features, mild, dignified--sometimes, in the figures of the ruder ages, rather stern and melancholy, from the inability of the artist to express beauty; but when least beautiful, and most formal and motionless, always retaining something of the original conception, and often expressibly striking and majestic. The earliest figure of this character to which I can refer is the mosaic in the oratory of San Venanzio, in the Lateran, the work of Greek artists under the popes John IV. and Theodorus, both Greeks by birth, and who presided over the Church from 640 to 649. In the vault of the tribune, over the altar, we have first, at the summit, a figure of Christ half-length, with his hand extended in benediction; on each side, a worshipping angel; below, in the centre, the figure of the Virgin according to the ancient type, standing with extended arms, in a violet or rather dark-blue tunic and white veil, with a small cross pendant on her bosom. On her right hand stands St. Paul, on her left St. Peter; beyond St. Peter and St. Paul, St. John the Baptist holding a cross, and St. John the Evangelist holding a book; and beyond these again, St. Domino and St. Venantius, two martyred saints, who perished in Dalmatia, and whose relics were brought out of that country by the founder of the chapel, John IV., himself a Dalmatian by birth. At the extremities of this group, or rather line of figures, stand the two popes, John IV. and Theodorus, under whom the chapel was founded and dedicated. Although this ancient mosaic has been many times restored, the original composition remains. Similar, but of later date, is the effigy of the Virgin over the altar of the archiepiscopal chapel at Ravenna. This mosaic, with others of Greek work, was brought from the old tribune of the cathedral, when it was altered and repaired, and the ancient decorations removed or destroyed. Another instance, also, at Ravenna, is the basso-relievo in Greek marble, and evidently of Greek workmanship, which is said to have existed from the earliest ages, in the church of S. Maria-in-Porto-Fuori, and is now preserved in the S. Maria-in-Porto, where I saw it in 1847. It is probably as old as the sixth or seventh century. In St. Mark's at Venice, in the grand old basilica at Torcello, in San Donate at Murano, at Monreale, near Palermo, and in most of the old churches in the East of Europe, we find similar figures, either Byzantine in origin, or in imitation of the Byzantine style. But about the middle of the thirteenth century, and contemporary with Cimabue, we find the first indication of a departure, even in the mosaics, from the lifeless, formal type of Byzantine art. The earliest example of a more animated treatment is, perhaps, the figure in the apsis of St. John Lateran. (Rome.) In the centre is an immense cross, emblem of salvation; the four rivers of Paradise (the four Gospels) flow from its base; and the faithful, figured by the hart and the sheep, drink from these streams. Below the cross is represented, of a small size, the New Jerusalem guarded by an archangel. On the right stands the Virgin, of colossal dimensions. She places one hand on the head of a diminutive kneeling figure, Pope Nicholas IV.,[1] by whom the mosaic was dedicated about 1290; the other hand, stretched forth, seems to recommend the votary to the mercy of Christ. [Footnote 1: For a minute reduction of the whole composition, see Kugler's Handbook, p. 113.] Full-length effigies of the Virgin seated on a throne, or glorified as queen of heaven, or queen of angels, without her divine Infant in her arms, are exceedingly rare in every age; now and then to be met with in the early pictures and illuminations, but never, that I know of, in the later schools of art. A signal example is the fine enthroned Madonna in the Campo Santo, who receives St. Ranieri when presented by St. Peter and St. Paul. On the Dalmatica (or Deacon's robe) preserved in the sacristy of St. Peter's at Rome (which Lord Lindsay well describes as a perfect example of the highest style of Byzantine art) (Christian Art, i. 136), the embroidery on the front represents Christ in a golden circle or glory, robed in white, with the youthful and beardless face, his eyes looking into yours. He sits on the rainbow; his left hand holds an open book, inscribed, "Come, ye blessed of my Father!" while the right is raised in benediction. The Virgin stands on the right entirely _within_ the glory; "she is sweet in feature and graceful in attitude, in her long white robe." The Baptist stands on the left _outside_ the glory. In pictures representing the glory of heaven, Paradise, or the Last Judgment, we have this idea constantly repeated--of the Virgin on the right hand of her Son, but not on the same throne with him, unless it be a "Coronation," which is a subject apart. In the great altar-piece of the brothers Van Eyck, the upper part contains three compartments;[1] in the centre is Christ, wearing the triple tiara, and carrying the globe, as King, as Priest, as Judge--on each side, as usual, but in separate compartments, the Virgin and St. John the Baptist. The Virgin, a noble queenly figure, full of serene dignity and grace, is seated on a throne, and wears a superb crown, formed of lilies, roses, and gems, over her long fair hair. She is reading intently in a book--The Book of Wisdom. She is here the _Sponsa Dei_, and the _Virgo Sapientissima_, the most wise Virgin. This is the only example I can recollect of the Virgin seated on the right hand of her Son in glory, and _holding a book_. In every other instance she is standing or seated with her hands joined or crossed over her bosom, and her eyes turned towards him. [Footnote 1: It is well known that the different parts of this great work have been dispersed. The three compartments mentioned here are at Berlin.] Among innumerable examples, I will cite only one, perhaps the most celebrated of all, and familiar, it may be presumed, to most of my readers, though perhaps they may not have regarded it with reference to the character and position given to the Virgin. It is one of the four great frescoes of the Camera della Segnatura, in the Vatican, exhibiting the four highest objects of mental culture--Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, and Jurisprudence. In the first of these, commonly, but erroneously, called _La Disputa dell' Sacramento_, Raphael has combined into one great scene the whole system of theology, as set forth by the Catholic Church; it is a sort of concordance between heaven and earth--between the celestial and terrestrial witnesses of the truth. The central group above shows us the Redeemer of the world, seated with extended arms, having on the right the Virgin in her usual place, and on the left, also in his accustomed place, St. John the Baptist; both seated, and nearly on a level with Christ. The Baptist is here in his character of the Precursor "sent to bear witness to the light, that through him all men might believe." (John i. 7.) The Virgin is exhibited, not merely as the Mother, the Sposa, the Church, but as HEAVENLY WISDOM, for in this character the Catholic Church has applied to her the magnificent passage in Proverbs: "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." "Then I was by Him as one brought up with Him, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing alway before Him." (Prov. viii, 12-36, and Eccles. xxiv. 15, 16.) Nothing can be more beautiful than the serene grace and the mingled majesty and humility in the figure of the Virgin, and in her countenance, as she looks up adoring to the Fountain of _all_ light, _all_ wisdom, and _all_ goodness. Above the principal group, is the emblematical image of the FATHER; below is the holy Dove, in the act of descending to the earth.[1] [Footnote 1: For a detailed description of this fresco, see Passavant's Raphael, i. 140, and Kugler's Handbook, 2d edit., where a minute and beautiful reduction of the whole composition will give and idea of the general design.] The Virgin alone, separate from her Son, standing or enthroned before us, simply as the _Virgine Dea_ or _Regina Coeli_, is rarely met with in modern art, either in sculpture or painting. I will give, however, one signal example. In an altar-piece painted by Cosimo Rosselli, for the Serviti at Florence, she stands alone, and in a majestic attitude, on a raised pedestal. She holds a book, and looks upward, to the Holy Dove, hovering over her head; she is here again the _Virgo Sapientiæ_. (Fl. Gal.) On one side is St. John the Evangelist and St. Antonino of Florence (see Legends of the Monastic Orders); on the other, St. Peter and St. Philip Benozzi; in front kneel St. Margaret and St. Catherine: all appear to contemplate with rapturous devotion the vision of the Madonna. The heads and attitudes in this picture have that character of elegance which distinguished the Florentine school at this period, without any of those extravagances and peculiarities into which Piero often fell; for the man had evidently a touch of madness, and was as eccentric in his works as in his life and conversation. The order of the Serviti, for whom he painted this picture, was instituted in honour of the Virgin, and for her particular service, which will account for the unusual treatment. * * * * * The numerous--often most beautiful--heads and half-length figures which represent the Virgin alone, looking up with a devout or tender expression, or with the head declined, and the hands joined in prayer, or crossed over the bosom with virginal humility and modesty, belong to this class of representations. In the ancient heads, most of which are imitations of the old Greek effigies ascribed to St. Luke, there is often great simplicity and beauty. When she wears the crown over her veil, or bears a sceptre in her hand, she figures as the queen of heaven (_Regina Coeli_). When such effigies are attended by adoring angels, she is the queen of angels (_Regina Angelorum_). When she is weeping or holding the crown of thorns, she is Our Lady of Sorrow, the _Mater Dolorosa_. When she is merely veiled, with folded hands, and in her features all the beauty, maiden purity, and sweetness which the artist could render, she is simply the Blessed Virgin, the Madonna, the _Santa Maria Vergine_. Such heads are very rare in the earlier schools of art, which seldom represented the Virgin without her Child, but became favourite studies of the later painters, and were multiplied and varied to infinitude from the beginning of the seventeenth century. From these every trace of the mystical and solemn conception of antiquity gradually disappeared; till, for the majestic ideal of womanhood, we have merely inane prettiness, or rustic, or even meretricious grace, the borrowed charms of some earthly model. L'INCORONATA. The Coronation of the Virgin. _Lat._ Coronatio Beatæ Mariæ Virginis. _Ital._ Maria coronata dal divin suo Figlio. _Fr._ Le Couronnement de la Sainte Vierge. _Ger._ Die Krönung Mariä. The usual type of the Church triumphant is the CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN properly so called, Christ in the act of crowning his Mother; one of the most popular, significant, and beautiful subjects in the whole range of mediæval art. When in a series of subjects from the life of the Virgin, so often met with in religious prints and in the Roman Catholic churches, we find her death and her assumption followed by her coronation; when the bier or sarcophagus and the twelve apostles appear below, while heaven opens upon us above; then the representation assumes a kind of dramatic character: it is the last and most glorious event of her history. The Mother, dying on earth, is received into glory by her Son who had gone before her, and who thus celebrates the consummation of his victory and hers. But when the scene is treated apart as a single subject; when, instead of the apostles gazing up to heaven, or looking with amazement into the tomb from which she had risen, we find the lower part of the composition occupied by votaries, patron saints, or choral angels; then the subject must be regarded as absolutely devotional and typical. It is not a scene or an action; it is a great mystery. It is consecrated to the honour of the Virgin as a type of the spiritual Church. The Espoused is received into glory and crowned with the crown of everlasting life, exalted above angels, spirits, and men. In this sense we must understand the subject when we find it in ecclesiastical sculpture, over the doors of places of worship, in the decorative carving of church utensils, in stained glass. In many of the Italian churches there is a chapel especially dedicated to the Virgin in this character, called _la Capella dell' Incoronata_; and both in Germany and Italy it is a frequent subject as an altar-piece. In all the most ancient examples, it is Christ only who places the crown on the head of his Mother, seated on the same throne, and placed at his right hand. Sometimes we have the two figures only; sometimes the _Padre Eterno_ looks down, and the Holy Spirit in the form of the dove hovers above or between them. In some later examples the Virgin is seated between the Father and the Son, both in human form: they place the crown on her head each holding it with one hand, the Holy Spirit hovering above. In other representations the Virgin _kneels_ at the feet of Christ; and he places the crown on her head, while two or more rejoicing and adoring angels make heavenly music, or all Paradise opens to the view; and there are examples where not only the choir of attendant angels, but a vast assembly of patriarchs, saints, martyrs, fathers of the Church--the whole company of the blessed spirits--assist at this great ceremony. I will now give some celebrated examples of the various styles of treatment. There is a group in mosaic, which I believe to be singular in its kind, where the Virgin is enthroned, with Christ. She is seated at his right hand, at the same elevation, and altogether as his equal. His right arm embraces her, and his hand rests on her shoulder. She wears a gorgeous crown, which her Son has placed on her brow Christ has only the cruciform nimbus; in his left hand is an open book, on which is inscribed, "_Veni, Electa mea_" &c. "Come, my chosen one, and I will place thee upon my throne." The Virgin holds a tablet, on which are the words "His right hand should be under my head, and his left hand should embrace me." (Cant. viii. 3.) The omnipotent Hand is stretched forth in benediction above. Here the Virgin is the type of the Church triumphant and glorified, having overcome the world; and the solemn significance of the whole representation is to be found in the Book of Revelations: "To him that overcometh will I grant _to sit with me in my throne_, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne." (Rev. iii. 21.) This mosaic, in which, be it observed, the Virgin is enthroned with Christ, and _embraced_, not crowned, by him, is, I believe, unique either as a picture or a church decoration. It is not older than the twelfth century, is very ill executed, but is curious from the peculiarity of the treatment. (Rome. S. Maria in Trastevere.) * * * * * In the mosaic in the tribune of S. Maria-Maggiore at Rome, perhaps the earliest example extant of the Coronation, properly so called, the subject is treated with a grand and solemn simplicity. Christ and the Virgin, colossal figures, are seated on the same regal throne within a circular glory. The background is blue studded with golden stars. He places the crown on her head with his right hand; in the left he holds an open book, with the usual text, "_Veni, Electa mea, et ponam te in thronum meum_," &c. She bends slightly forward, and her hands are lifted in adoration. Above and around the circular glory the emblematical vine twines in arabesque form; among the branches and leaves sit peacocks and other birds; the peacock being the old emblem of immortality, as birds in general are emblems of spirituality. On each side of the glory are nine adoring angels, representing the nine choirs of the heavenly hierarchy; beyond these on the right stand St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Francis; on the left, St. John the Baptist, St. John the Evangelist, and St. Antony of Padua; all these figures being very small in proportion to those of Christ and the Virgin. Smaller still, and quite diminutive in comparison, are the kneeling figures of Pope Nicholas IV. and Cardinal Giacomo Colonna, under whose auspices the mosaic was executed by Jacopo della Turrita, a Franciscan friar, about 1288. In front flows the river Jordan, symbol of baptism and regeneration; on its shore stands the hart, the emblem of religions aspiration. Underneath the central group is the inscription,-- MARIA VIRGO ASSUMPTA AD ETHERIUM THALAMUM IN QUO REX REGUM STELLATO SEDET SOLIO. The whole of this vast and poetical composition is admirably executed, and it is the more curious as being, perhaps, one of the earliest examples of the glorification of St. Francis and St. Antony of Padua (Monastic Orders), who were canonized about thirty or forty years before. The mosaic, by Gaddo Gaddi (Florence, A.D. 1330), over the great door in the cathedral at Florence, is somewhat different. Christ, while placing the crown on the head of his Mother with his _left_ hand, blesses her with his right hand, and he appears to have laid aside his own crown, which lies near him. The attitude of the Virgin is also peculiar.[1] [Footnote 1: In the same cathedral (which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary) the circular window of the choir opposite to the mosaic exhibits the Coronation. The design, by Donatello, is eminently fine and classical.] In a small altar-piece by Giotto (Florence, S. Croce), Christ and the Virgin are seated together on a throne. He places the jewelled crown on her head with _both_ hands, while she bends forward with her hands crossed in her lap, and the softest expression in her beautiful face, as if she as meekly resigned herself to this honour, as heretofore to the angelic salutation which pronounced her "Blessed:" angels kneel before the throne with censers and offerings. In another, by Giotto, Christ wearing a coronet of gems is seated on a throne: the Virgin _kneels_ before him with hands joined: twenty angels with musical instruments attend around. In a "Coronation," by Piero Laurati, the figures of Christ and the Virgin, seated together, resemble in sentiment and expression those of Giotto. The angels are arranged in a glory around, and the treatment is wholly typical. One of the most beautiful and celebrated of the pictures of Angelico da Fiesole is the "Coronation" now in the Louvre; formerly it stood over the high altar of the Church of St. Dominick at Fiesole, where Angelico had been nurtured, and made his profession as monk. The composition is conceived as a grand regal ceremony, but the beings who figure in it are touched with a truly celestial grace. The Redeemer, crowned himself, and wearing the ermine mantle of an earthly monarch, is seated on a magnificent throne, under a Gothic canopy, to which there is an ascent of nine steps. He holds the crown, which he is in the act of placing, with both hands, on the head of the Virgin, who kneels before him, with features of the softest and most delicate beauty, and an expression of divine humility. Her face, seen in profile, is partly shaded by a long transparent veil, flowing over her ample robe of a delicate crimson, beneath which is a blue tunic. On each side a choir of lovely angels, clothed from head to foot in spangled tunics of azure and rose-colour, with shining wings, make celestial music, while they gaze with looks of joy and adoration towards the principal group. Lower down on the right of the throne are eighteen, and on the left twenty-two, of the principal patriarchs, apostles, saints, and martyrs, among whom the worthies of Angelico's own community, St. Dominick and St. Peter Martyr, are of course conspicuous. At the foot of the throne kneel on one side St. Augustine, St. Benedict, St. Charlemagne, the royal saint; St. Nicholas; and St. Thomas Aquinas holding a pen (the great literary saint of the Dominican order, and author of the Office of the Virgin); on the left we have a group of virgins, St. Agnes, St. Catherine with her wheel, St. Catherine of Siena, her habit spangled with stars; St. Cecilia crowned with her roses, and Mary Magdalene, with her long golden hair.[1] Beneath this great composition runs a border or predella, in seven compartments, containing in the centre a Pietà, and on each side three small subjects from the history of St. Dominick, to whom the church, whence it was taken, is dedicated. The spiritual beauty of the heads, the delicate tints of the colouring, an ineffable charm of mingled brightness and repose shed over the whole, give to this lovely picture an effect like that of a church hymn, sung at some high festival by voices tuned in harmony--"blest voices, uttering joy!" [Footnote 1: See "Legends of the Monastic Orders," and "Sacred and Legendary Art," for an account of all these personages.] In strong contrast with the graceful Italian conception, is the German "Coronation," now in the Wallerstein collection. (Kensington Pal.) It is supposed to have been painted for Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, either by Hans Hemling, or a painter not inferior to him. Here the Virgin is crowned by the Trinity. She kneels, with an air of majestic humility, and hands meekly folded on her bosom, attired in simple blue drapery, before a semicircular throne, on which are seated the Father and the Son, between them, with outspread wings, touching their mouths, the Holy Dove. The Father a venerable figure, wears the triple tiara, and holds the sceptre; Christ, with an expression of suffering, holds in his left hand a crystal cross; and they sustain between them a crown which they are about to place on the head of the Virgin. Their golden throne is adorned with gems, and over it is a glory of seraphim, with hair, faces, and plumage, all of a glowing red. The lower part of this picture and the compartments on each side are filled with a vast assemblage of saints, and martyrs, and holy confessors: conspicuous among them we find the saints most popular in Flanders and Burgundy--St. Adrian, St. George, St. Sebastian, St. Maurice, clad in coats of mail and crowned with laurel, with other kingly and warlike personages; St. Philip, the patron of Philip the Good; St. Andrew, in whose honour he instituted the order of the Golden Fleece: and a figure in a blue mantle with a ducal crown, one of the three kings of Cologne, is supposed to represent Duke Philip himself. It is, impossible by any description to do justice to this wonderful picture, as remarkable for its elaborate workmanship, the mysticism of the conception, the quaint elegance of the details, and portrait-like reality of the faces, as that of Angelico for its spiritual, tender, imaginative grace. There is a "Coronation" by Vivarini (Acad. Venice), which may be said to comprise in itself a whole system of theology. It is one vast composition, not divided by compartments. In the centre is a magnificent carved throne sustained by six pillars, which stand on a lofty richly ornamented pedestal. On the throne are seated Christ and the Virgin; he is crowned, and places with both hands a crown on her head. Between them hovers the celestial Dove, and above them is seen the Heavenly Father in likeness of "the Ancient of Days," who paternally lays a hand on the shoulder of each. Around his head and over the throne, are the nine choirs of angels, in separate groups. First and nearest, hover the glowing seraphim and cherubim, winged, but otherwise formless. Above these, the Thrones, holding the globe of sovereignty; to the right, the Dominations, Virtues, and Powers; to the left, the Princedoms, Archangels, and Angels. Below these, on each side of the throne, the prophets and patriarchs of the Old Testament, holding each a scroll. Below these the apostles on twelve thrones, six on each side, each holding the Gospel. Below these, on each side, the saints and martyrs. Below these, again, the virgins and holy women. Under the throne, in the space formed by the pillars, is seen a group of beautiful children (not angels), representing, I think, the martyred Innocents. They bear the instruments of Christ's passion--the cross, nails, spear, crown of thorns, &c. On the step below the pedestal, and immediately in front, are seated the Evangelists and doctors of the Church; on the right St. Matthew and St. Luke, and behind them St. Ambrose and St. Augustine; on the left St. Mark and St. John, and behind them St. Jerome and St. Gregory. (See "Sacred and Legendary Art") Every part of this curious picture is painted with the utmost care and delicacy: the children are exquisite, and the heads, of which there are at least seventy without counting the angels, are finished like miniatures. This simple, and altogether typical representation of the Virgin crowned by the Trinity in human form, is in a French carving of the fifteenth century, and though ill drawn, there is considerable naïveté in the treatment. The Eternal Father wears, as is usual, the triple tiara, the Son has the cross and the crown of thorns, and the Holy Ghost is distinguished by the dove on his hand. All three sustain the crown over the head of the kneeling Virgin, whose train is supported by two angels. In a bas-relief over a door of the cathedral at Treves, the subject is very simply treated; both Christ and the Virgin are standing, which is unusual, and behind each is an angel, also standing and holding a crown. Where not more than five or six saints are introduced as attendants and accessories, they are usually the patron saints of the locality or community, which may be readily distinguished. Thus, 1. In a "Coronation" by Sandro Botticelli, we find below, St. John the Evangelist, St. Augustine, St. John Gualberto, St. Bernardo Cardinale. It was painted for the Vallombrosian monks. (Fl. Gal.) 2. In a very fine example by Ghirlandajo, St. Dominick and St. Peter Martyr are conspicuous: painted, of course, for the Dominicans. (Paris, Louvre.) 3. In another, by Pinturicchio, St. Francis is a principal figure, with St. Bonaventura and St. Louis of Toulouse; painted for the Franciscans, or at least for a Franciscan pope, Sixtus IV. (Rome, Vatican.) 4. In another, by Guido, the treatment differs from the early style. The coronation above is small and seen as a vision; the saints below, St. Bernard and St. Catherine, are life-size. It was painted for a community of Bernardines, the monks of Monte Oliveto. (Bologna, Gal.) 5. In a beautiful little altar-piece by Lorenzo di Credi[1], the Virgin is kneeling above, while Christ, seated, places the crown on her head. A glory of red seraphim surround the two figures. Below are the famous patron saints of Central Italy, St. Nicholas of Bari and St. Julian of Rimini, St. Barbara and St. Christina. The St. Francis and St. Antony, in the predella, show it to have been painted for a Franciscan church or chapel, probably for the same church at Cestello for which Lorenzo painted the St. Julian and St. Nicholas now in the Louvre. [Footnote 1: Once in the collection of Mr. Rogers; _v_. "Sacred and Legendary Art."] The "Coronation of the Virgin" by Annibale Carracci is in a spirit altogether different, magnificently studied.[1] On high, upon a lofty throne which extends across the whole picture from side to side, the Virgin, a noble majestic creature, in the true Carracci style, is seated in the midst as the principal figure, her hands folded on her bosom. On the right hand sits the Father, on the left the Son; they hold a heavenly crown surmounted by stars above her head. The locality is the Empyreum. The audience consists of angels only, who circle within circle, filling the whole space, and melting into an abyss of light, chant hymns of rejoicing and touch celestial instruments of music. This picture shows how deeply Annibale Carracci had studied Correggio, in the magical chiaro-oscuro, and the lofty but somewhat mannered grace of the figures. [Footnote 1: This was also in the collection of Mr. Rogers.] One of the latest examples I can point to is also one of the most simple and grand in conception. (Madrid Gal.) It is that by Velasquez, the finest perhaps of the very few devotional subjects painted by him. We have here the three figures only, as large as life, filling the region of glory, without angels, witnesses, or accessories of any kind, except the small cherubim beneath; and the symmetrical treatment gives to the whole a sort of sublime effect. But the heads have the air of portraits: Christ has a dark, earnest, altogether Spanish physiognomy; the Virgin has dark hair; and the _Padre Eterno_, with a long beard, has a bald head,--a gross fault in taste and propriety; because, though the loose beard and flowing white hair may serve to typify the "Ancient of Days," baldness expresses not merely age, but the infirmity of age. Rubens, also, painted a "Coronation" with all his own lavish magnificence of style for the Jesuits at Brussels. After the time of Velasquez and Rubens, the "Immaculate Conception" superseded the "Coronation." * * * * * To enter further into the endless variations of this charming and complex subject would lead us through all the schools of art from Giotto to Guido. I have said enough to render it intelligible and interesting, and must content myself with one or two closing _memoranda_. 1. The dress of the Virgin in a "Coronation" is generally splendid, too like the coronation robes of an earthly queen,--it is a "raiment of needlework,"--"a vesture of gold wrought about with divers colours"--generally blue, crimson, and white, adorned with gold, gems, and even ermine. In the "Coronation" by Filippo Lippi, at Spoleto, she wears a white robe embroidered with golden suns. In a beautiful little "Coronation" in the Wallerstein collection (Kensington Pal.) she wears a white robe embroidered with suns and moons, the former red with golden rays, the latter blue with coloured rays,--perhaps in allusion to the text so often applied in reference to her, "a woman clothed with the _sun_," &c. (Rev. xii. 1, or Cant. vi. 10.) 2. In the set of cartoons for the tapestries of the Sistine Chapel (Kugler's Handbook, ii. 394), as originally prepared by Raphael, we have the foundation, the heaven-bestowed powers, the trials and sufferings of the early Church, exhibited in the calling of St. Peter, the conversion of St. Paul, the acts and miracles of the apostles, the martyrdom of St. Stephen; and the series closed with the Coronation of the Virgin, placed over the altar, as typical of the final triumph of the Church, the completion and fulfilment of all the promises made to man, set forth in the exaltation and union of the mortal with the immortal, when the human Mother and her divine Son are reunited and seated on the same throne. Raphael placed on one side of the celestial group, St. John the Baptist, representing sanctification through the rite of baptism; and on the other, St. Jerome, the general symbol of sanctification through faith and repentance. The cartoon of this grand symbolical composition, in which all the figures were colossal, is unhappily lost; the tapestry is missing from the Vatican collection; two old engravings, however, exist, from which some idea may be formed of the original group. (Passavant's Rafael, ii. 258.) 3. It will be interesting to remember that the earliest existing impression taken from an engraved metal plate, is a "Coronation of the Virgin." Maso Finiguerra, a skilful goldsmith and worker in niello, living at Florence in 1434, was employed to execute a pix (the small casket in which the consecrated wafer of the sacrament is deposited), and he decorated it with a representation of the Coronation in presence of saints and angels, in all about thirty figures, minutely and exquisitely engraved on the silver face. Whether Finiguerra was the first worker in niello to whom it occurred to fill up the lines cut in the silver with a black fluid, and then by laying on it a piece of damp paper, and forcibly rubbing it, take off the fac-simile of his design and try its effect before the final process,--this we can not ascertain; we only know that the impression of his "Coronation" is the earliest specimen known to exist, and gave rise to the practice of cutting designs on plates of copper (instead of silver), for the purpose of multiplying impressions of them. The pix finished by Maso in 1452 is now in the Florence Gallery in the "Salle des Bronzes." The invaluable print, first of its species, exists in the National Library at Paris. There is a very exact fac-simile of it in Otley's "History of Engraving," Christ and the Virgin are here seated together on a lofty architectural throne: her hands are crossed on her bosom, and she bends her meek veiled head to receive the crown, which her Son, who wears a triple tiara, places on her brow. The saints most conspicuous are St. John the Baptist, patron of Florence and of the church for which the pix was executed, and a female saint, I believe St. Reparata, both standing; kneeling in front are St. Cosmo and St. Damian, the patrons of the Medici family, then paramount at Florence. (Sacred and Legendary Art.) 4. In an illuminated "Office of the Virgin," I found a version of this subject which must be rare, and probably confined to miniatures. Christ is seated on a throne and the Virgin kneels before him; he bends forwards, and tenderly takes her clasped hands in both his own. An empty throne is at the right hand of Christ, over which hovers an angel bearing a crown. This is the moment which _precedes_ the Coronation, as the group already described in the S. Maria-in-Trastevere exhibits the moment which _follows_ the Coronation. 5. Finally, we must bear in mind that those effigies in which the Madonna is holding her Child, while angels place a crown upon her head, do not represent THE CORONATION properly so called, but merely the Virgin honoured as Mother of Christ and Queen of Heaven (_Mater Christi, Regina Coeli_); and that those representations of the Coronation which conclude a series of the life of the Virgin, and surmount her death-bed or her tomb, are historical and dramatic rather than devotional and typical. Of this historical treatment there are beautiful examples from Cimabue down to Raphael, which will be noticed hereafter in their proper place. THE VIRGIN OF MERCY. Our Lady of Succour. _Ital._ La Madonna di Misericordia. _Fr._ Nôtre Dame de Miséricorde. _Ger._ Maria Mutter des Erbarmens. _Sp._ Nuestra Señora de Grazia. When once the Virgin had been exalted and glorified in the celestial paradise, the next and the most natural result was, that she should be regarded as being in heaven the most powerful of intercessors, and on earth a most benign and ever-present protectress. In the mediæval idea of Christ, there was often something stern; the Lamb of God who died for the sins of the world, is also the inexorable Judge of the quick and the dead. When he shows his wounds, it is as if a vindictive feeling was supposed to exist; as if he were called upon to remember in judgment the agonies and the degradation to which he had been exposed below for the sake of wicked ungrateful men. In a Greek "Day of Judgment," cited by Didron, Moses holds up a scroll, on which is written, "Behold Him whom ye crucified," while the Jews are dragged into everlasting fire. Everywhere is the sentiment of vengeance; Christ himself is less a judge than an avenger. Not so the Virgin; she is represented as all mercy, sympathy, and benignity. In some of the old pictures of the Day of Judgment, she is seated by the side of Christ, on an equality with him, and often in an attitude of deprecation, as if adjuring him, to relent: or her eyes are turned on the redeemed souls, and she looks away from the condemned as if unable to endure the sight of their doom. In other pictures she is lower than Christ, but always on his right hand, and generally seated; while St. John the Baptist, who is usually placed opposite to her on the left of Christ, invariably stands or kneels. Instead of the Baptist, it is sometimes, but rarely, John the Evangelist, who is the pendant of the Virgin. In the Greek representations of the Last Judgment, a river of fire flows from under the throne of Christ to devour and burn up the wicked.[1] In western art the idea is less formidable,--Christ is not at once judge and executioner; but the sentiment is always sufficiently terrible; "the angels and all the powers of heaven tremble before him." In the midst of these terrors, the Virgin, whether kneeling, or seated, or standing, always appears as a gentle mediator, a, supplicant for mercy. In the "Day of Judgment," as represented in the "Hortus Deliciarum," [2] we read inscribed under her figure the words "_Maria, Filio suo pro Ecclesia supplicat_." In a very fine picture by Martin Schoen (Schleissheim Gal.), it is the Father, who, with a sword and three javelins in his hand, sits as the avenging judge; near him Christ; while the Virgin stands in the foreground, looking up to her Son with an expression of tender supplication, and interceding, as it appears, for the sinners kneeling round her, and whose imploring looks are directed to _her_. In the well-known fresco by Andrea Ortagna (Pisa, Campo Santo), Christ and the Virgin sit throned above, each in a separate aureole, but equally glorified. Christ, pointing with one hand to the wound in his side, raises the other in a threatening attitude, and his attention is directed to the wicked, whom he hurls into perdition. The Virgin, with one hand pressed to her bosom, looks to him with an air of supplication. Both figures are regally attired, and wear radiant crowns; and the twelve apostles attend them, seated on each side. [Footnote 1: Didron, "Iconographie Chrétienne;" and in the mosaic of the Last Judgment, executed by Byzantine artists, in the cathedral at Torcello.] [Footnote 2: A celebrated illuminated MS. (date about 1159 to 1175), preserved in the Library at Strasburg.] * * * * * In the centre group of Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment," we have the same leading _motif_, but treated in a very different feeling. Christ stands before us in figure and mien like a half-naked athlete; his left hand rejects, his right hand threatens, and his whole attitude is as utterly devoid of dignity as of grace. I have often wondered as I have looked at this grand and celebrated work, what could be Michael Angelo's idea of Christ. He who was so good, so religious, so pure-minded, and so high-minded, was deficient in humility and sympathy; if his morals escaped, his imagination was corrupted by the profane and pagan influences of his time. His conception of Christ is here most unchristian, and his conception of the Virgin is not much better. She is grand in form, but the expression is too passive. She looks down and seems to shrink; but the significance of the attitude,--the hand pressed to the maternal bosom,--given to her by the old painters, is lost. In a "Last Judgment" by Rubens, painted for the Jesuits of Brussels (Brussels; Musée), the Virgin extends her robe over the world, as if to shield mankind from the wrath of her Son; pointing, at the same time, significantly to her bosom, whence He derived his earthly life. The daring bad taste, and the dramatic power of this representation, are characteristic alike of the painter, the time, and the community for which the picture was painted. * * * * * More beautiful and more acceptable to our feelings are those graceful representations of the Virgin as dispenser of mercy on earth; as protectress and patroness either of all Christendom, or of some particular locality, country, or community. In such pictures she stands with outstretched arms, crowned with a diadem, or in some instances simply veiled, her ample robe, extended on each side, is held up by angels, while under its protecting folds are gathered worshippers and votaries of all ranks and ages--men, women, children,--kings, nobles, ecclesiastics,--the poor, the lame, the sick. Or if the picture be less universal in its significance, dedicated perhaps by some religious order or charitable brotherhood, we see beneath her robe an assemblage of monks and nuns, or a troop of young orphans or redeemed prisoners. Such a representation is styled a _Misericordia_. In a picture by Fra Filippo Lippi (Berlin Gal.), the Madonna of Mercy extends her protecting mantle over thirty-five kneeling figures, the faces like portraits, none elevated or beautiful, but the whole picture as an example of the subject most striking. A very beautiful and singular representation of the Virgin of Mercy without the Child, I found in the collection of Herr v. Quandt, of Dresden. She stands with hands folded over her bosom, and wrapped in ample white drapery, without ornament of any kind; over her head, a veil of transparent gauze of a brown colour, such as, from various portraits of the time, appears to have been then a fashion. The expression of the face is tender and contemplative, almost sad; and the whole figure, which is life-size, is inexpressibly refined and dignified. The following inscription is on the dark background to the right of the Virgin:-- IMAGO BEATÆ MARIÆ VIRGINIS QUÆ MENS. AUGUST. MDXXXIII. APPARUIT MIRACULOR. OPERATIONE CONCURSU POP. CELEBERRIM. This beautiful picture was brought from Brescia to Vienna by a picture-dealer, and purchased by Herr v. Quandt. It was painted by Moretto of Brescia, of whom Lanzi truly says that his sacred subjects express _la compunzione, la pietà, la carità istessa_; and this picture is an instance. But by whom dedicated, for what especial mercy, or in what church, I could not ascertain.[1] [Footnote 1: I possess a charming drawing of the head by Fraulein Louise Seidler of Weimar, whose feeling for early religious art is shown in her own works, as well as in the beautiful copies she has made of others.] * * * * * It is seldom that the Madonna di Misericordia appears without the Child in her arms; her maternity is supposed to be one element in her sympathy with suffering humanity. I will add, however, to the examples already given, one very celebrated instance. The picture entitled the "Misericordia di Lucca" is famous in the history of art. (Lucca. S. Romano.) It is the most important work of Fra Bartolomeo, and is dated 1515, two years before his death. The Virgin, a grand and beautiful figure, stands alone on a raised platform, with her arms extended, and looking up to heaven. The ample folds of her robe are held open by two angels. Beneath and round her feet are various groups in attitudes of supplication, who look up to her, as she looks up to heaven. On one side the donor of the picture is presented by St. Dominick. Above, in a glory, is the figure of Christ surrounded by angels, and seeming to bend towards his mother. The expression in the heads, the dignified beneficence of the Virgin, the dramatic feeling in the groups, particularly the women and children, justify the fame of this picture as one of the greatest of the productions of mind.[1] [Footnote 1: According to the account in Murray's "Handbook," this picture was dedicated by the noble family of Montecanini, and represents the Virgin interceding for the Lucchesi during the wars with Florence. But I confess I am doubtful of this interpretation, and rather think it refers to the pestilence, which, about 1512, desolated the whole of the north of Italy. Wilkie, who saw this picture in 1825, speaks of the workmanship with the enthusiasm of a workman.] * * * * * There is yet another version of this subject, which deserves notice from the fantastic grace of the conception. As in early Christian Art, our Saviour was frequently portrayed as the Good Shepherd, so, among the later Spanish fancies, we find his Mother represented as the Divine Shepherdess. In a picture painted by Alonzo Miguel de Tobar (Madrid Gal. 226), about the beginning of the eighteenth century, we find the Virgin Mary seated under a tree, in guise of an Arcadian pastorella, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, encircled by a glory, a crook in her hand, while she feeds her flock with the mystical roses. The beauty of expression in the head of the Virgin is such as almost to redeem the quaintness of the religious conceit; the whole picture is described as worthy of Murillo. It was painted for a Franciscan church at Madrid, and the idea became so popular, that we find it multiplied and varied in French and German prints of the last century; the original picture remains unequalled for its pensive poetical grace; but it must be allowed that the idea, which at first view strikes from its singularity, is worse than questionable in point of taste, and will hardly bear repetition. There are some ex-voto pictures of the Madonna of Mercy, which record individual acts of gratitude. One, for instance, by Nicolò Alunno (Rome, Pal. Colonna), in which the Virgin, a benign and dignified creature, stretches forth her sceptre from above, and rebukes the ugly fiend of Sin, about to seize a boy. The mother kneels on one side, with eyes uplifted, in faith and trembling supplication. The same idea I have seen repeated in a picture by Lanfranco. * * * * * The innumerable votive pictures which represent the Madonna di Misericordia with the Child in her arms, I shall notice hereafter. They are in Catholic countries the usual ornaments of charitable Institutions and convents of the Order of Mercy; and have, as I cannot but think, a very touching significance. THE MATER DOLOROSA. _Ital._ La Madre di Dolore. L' Addolorata. _Fr._ Nôtre Dame da Pitié. La Vierge de Douleur. _Sp_. Nuestra Señora de Dolores _Ger._ Die Schmerzhafte Mutter. One of the most important of these devotional subjects proper to the Madonna is the "Mourning Mother," the _Mater Dolorosa_, in which her character is that of the mother of the crucified Redeemer; the mother of the atoning Sacrifice; the queen of martyrs; the woman whose bosom was pierced with a sharp sword; through whose sorrow the world was saved, whose anguish was our joy, and to whom the Roman Catholic Christians address their prayers as consoler of the afflicted, because she had herself tasted of the bitterest of all earthly sorrow, the pang of the agonized mother for the loss of her child. In this character we have three distinct representations of the Madonna. MATER DOLOROSA. In the first she appears alone, a seated or standing figure, often the head or half length only; the hands clasped, the head bowed in sorrow, tears streaming from the heavy eyes, and the whole expression intensely mournful. The features are properly those of a woman in middle age; but in later times the sentiment of beauty predominated over that of the mother's agony; and I have seen the sublime Mater Dolorosa transformed into a merely beautiful and youthful maiden, with such an air of sentimental grief as might serve for the loss of a sparrow. Not so with the older heads; even those of the Carracci and the Spanish school have often a wonderful depth of feeling. It is common in such representations to represent the Virgin with a sword in her bosom, and even with _seven_ swords in allusion to the _seven_ sorrows. This very material and palpable version of the allegorical prophecy (Luke ii, 35) has been found extremely effective as an appeal to the popular feelings, so that there are few Roman Catholic churches without such a painful and literal interpretation of the text. It occurs perpetually in prints, and there is a fine example after Vandyck; sometimes the swords are placed round her head; but there is no instance of such a figure from the best period of religious art, and it must be considered as anything but artistic: in this case, the more materialized and the more matter of fact, the more _unreal_. * * * * * STABAT MATER. A second representation of the _Madre di Dolore_ is that figure of the Virgin which, from the very earliest times, was placed on the right of the Crucifix, St. John the Evangelist being invariably on the left. I am speaking here of the _crucifix_ as a wholly ideal and mystical emblem of our faith in a crucified Saviour; not of the _crucifixion_ as an event, in which the Virgin is an actor and spectator, and is usually fainting in the arms of her attendants. In the ideal subject she is merely an ideal figure, at once the mother of Christ, and the personified Church. This, I think, is evident from those very ancient carvings, and examples in stained glass, in which the Virgin, as the Church, stands on one side of the cross, trampling on a female figure which personifies Judaism or the synagogue. Even when the allegory is less palpable, we feel that the treatment is wholly religious and poetical. The usual attitude of the _Mater Dolorosa_ by the crucifix is that of intense but resigned sorrow; the hands clasped, the head declined and shaded by a veil, the figure closely wrapped in a dark blue or violet mantle. In some instances a more generally religious and ideal cast is given to the figure; she stands with outspread arms, and looking up; not weeping, but in her still beautiful face a mingled expression of faith and anguish. This is the true conception of the sublime hymn, "Stabat Mater Dolorosa Juxta crucem lachrymosa Dum pendebat filius." LA PIETÀ. The third, and it is the most important and most beautiful of all as far as the Virgin is concerned, is the group called the PIETÀ, which, when strictly devotional, consists only of the Virgin with her dead Son in her arms, or on her lap, or lying at her feet; in some instances with lamenting angels, but no other personages. This group has been varied in a thousand ways; no doubt the two most perfect conceptions are those of Michael Angelo and Raphael; the first excelling in sublimity, the latter in pathos. The celebrated marble group by Michael Angelo stands in the Vatican in a chapel to the right as we enter. The Virgin is seated; the dead Saviour lies across the knees of his mother; she looks down on him in mingled sorrow and resignation, but the majestic resignation predominates. The composition of Raphael exists only as a print; but the flimsy paper, consecrated through its unspeakable beauty, is likely to be as lasting as the marble. It represents the Virgin, standing with outstretched arms, and looking up with an appealing agonized expression towards heaven; before her, on the earth, lies extended the form of the Saviour. In tenderness, dignity, simplicity, and tragic pathos, nothing can exceed this production; the head of the Virgin in particular is regarded as a masterpiece, so far exceeding in delicacy of execution every other work of Marc Antonio, that some have thought that Raphael himself took the burin from his hand, and touched himself that face of quiet woe. Another example of wonderful beauty is the Pietà by Francia, in our National Gallery. The form of Christ lies extended before his mother; a lamenting angel sustains the head, another is at the feet: the Virgin, with eyes red and heavy with weeping, looks out of the picture. There needs no visible sword in her bosom to tell what anguish has pierced that maternal heart. There is another Pietà, by Michael Angelo, quite a different conception. The Virgin sits at the foot of the cross; before her, and half-sustained by her knees, lies the form of the dead Saviour, seen in front; his arms are held up by two angels (unwinged, as is usual with Michael Angelo). The Virgin looks up to heaven with an appealing expression; and in one engraving of this composition the cross is inscribed with the words, "Tu non pensi quanta sangue costa." There is no painting by Michael Angelo himself, but many copies and engravings of the drawing. A beautiful small copy, by Marcello Venusti, is in the Queen's Gallery. There is yet another version of the Pietà, quite mystical and devotional in its significance,--but, to my feeling, more painful and material than poetical. It is variously treated; for example:--1. The dead Redeemer is seen half-length within the tomb; his hands are extended to show his wounds; his eyes are closed, his head declined, his bleeding brow encircled by thorns. On one side is the Virgin, on the other St. John the Evangelist, in attitudes of profound grief and commiseration. 2. The dead form, half emerging from the tomb, is sustained in the arms of the Mater Dolorosa. St. John the Evangelist on the other side. There are sometimes angels. The Pietà thus conceived as a purely religious and ideal impersonation of the atoning Sacrifice, is commonly placed over the altar of the sacrament, and in many altar-pieces it forms the centre of the predella, just in front where the mass is celebrated, or on the door of the tabernacle, where the Host is deposited. When, with the Mater Dolorosa and St. John, Mary Magdalene is introduced with her dishevelled hair, the group ceases to be properly a Pietà, and becomes a representation rather than a symbol. * * * * * There are also examples of a yet more complex but still perfectly ideal and devotional treatment, in which the Mourning Mother is attended by saints. A most celebrated instance of this treatment is the Pietà by Guido. (Bologna Gal.) In the upper part of the composition, the figure of the dead Redeemer lies extended on a white shroud; behind him stands the Virgin-mother, with her eyes raised to heaven, and sad appealing face, touched with so divine a sorrow--so much of dignity in the midst of infinite anguish, that I know nothing finer in its way. Her hands are resignedly folded in each other, not raised, not clasped, but languidly drooping. An angel stands at the feet of Christ looking on with a tender adoring commiseration; another, at his head, turns away weeping. A kind of curtain divides this group from the lower part of the picture, where, assembled on a platform, stand or kneel the guardian saints of Bologna: in the centre, the benevolent St. Charles Borromeo, who just about that time had been canonized and added to the list of the patrons of Bologna by a decree of the senate; on the right, St. Dominick and St. Petronius; on the left, St. Proculus and St. Francis. These sainted personages look up as if adjuring the Virgin, even by her own deep anguish, to intercede for the city; she is here at once our Lady of Pity, of Succour, and of Sorrow. This wonderful picture was dedicated, as an act of penance and piety, by the magistrates of Bologna, in 1616, and placed in their chapel in the church of the "Mendicanti," otherwise S. Maria-della-Pietà. It hung there for two centuries, for the consolation of the afflicted; it is now placed in the Academy of Bologna for the admiration of connoisseurs. OUR LADY OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. _Ital._ La Madonna Purissima. _Lat._ Regina sine labe originali concepta. _Spa._ Nuestra Señora sin peccado concepida. La Concepcion. _Fr._ La Conception de la Vierge Marie. _Ger._ Das Geheimniss der unbefleckten Empfängniss Mariä. Dec. 8. The last and the latest subject in which the Virgin appears alone without the Child, is that entitled the "Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin;" and sometimes merely "THE CONCEPTION." There is no instance of its treatment in the earlier schools of art; but as one of the most popular subjects of the Italian and Spanish painters of the seventeenth century, and one very frequently misunderstood, it is necessary to go into the history of its origin. In the early ages of Christianity, it was usual to celebrate, as festivals of the Church, the Conception of Jesus Christ, and the Conception of his kinsman and precursor John the Baptist; the latter as miraculous, the former as being at once divine and miraculous. In the eleventh century it was proposed to celebrate the Conception of the Virgin Mother of the Redeemer. From the time that the heresy of Nestorius had been condemned, and that the dignity of the Virgin as mother of the _Divinity_ had become a point of doctrine, it was not enough to advocate her excelling virtue and stainless purity as a mere human being. It was contended, that having been predestined from the beginning as the Woman, through whom the divine nature was made manifest on earth, she must be presumed to be exempt from all sin, even from that original taint inherited from Adam. Through the first Eve, we had all died; through the second Eve, we had all been "made alive." It was argued that God had never suffered his earthly temple to be profaned; had even promulgated in person severe ordinances to preserve its sanctuary inviolate. How much more to him was that temple, that _tabernacle_ built by no human hands, in which he had condescended to dwell. Nothing was impossible to God; it lay, therefore, in his power to cause his Mother to come absolutely pure and immaculate into the world: being in his power, could any earnest worshipper of the Virgin doubt for a moment that for one so favoured it would not be done? Such was the reasoning of our forefathers; and the premises granted, who shall call it illogical or irreverent? For three or four centuries, from the seventh to the eleventh, these ideas had been gaining ground. St. Ildefonso of Seville distinguished himself by his writings on this subject; and how the Virgin recompensed his zeal, Murillo has shown us, and I have related in the life of that saint. (Legends of the Monastic Orders.) But the first mention of a festival, or solemn celebration of the Mystery of the Immaculate Conception, may be traced to an English monk of the eleventh century, whose name is not recorded, (v. Baillet, vol. xii.) When, however, it was proposed to give the papal sanction to this doctrine as an article of belief, and to institute a church office for the purpose of celebrating the Conception of Mary, there arose strong opposition. What is singular, St. Bernard, so celebrated for his enthusiastic devotion to the Virgin, was most strenuous and eloquent in his disapprobation. He pronounced no judgment against those who received the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, he rather leaned towards it; but he opposed the institution of the festival as an innovation not countenanced by the early fathers of the Church. After the death of St. Bernard, for about a hundred years, the dispute slept; but the doctrine gained ground. The thirteenth century, so remarkable for the manifestation of religious enthusiasm in all its forms, beheld the revival of this celebrated controversy. A certain Franciscan friar, Duns Scotus (John Scott of Dunse), entered the lists as champion for the Virgin. He was opposed by the Dominicans and their celebrated polemic Thomas Aquinas, who, like St. Bernard, was known for his enthusiastic reverence for the Virgin; but, like him, and on the same grounds, objected to the introduction of new forms. Thus the theological schools were divided. During the next two hundred years the belief became more and more general, the doctrine more and more popular; still the Church, while it tolerated both, refused to ratify either. All this time we find no particular representation of the favourite dogma in art, for until ratified by the authority of the Church, it could not properly enter into ecclesiastical decoration. We find, however, that the growing belief in the pure Conception and miraculous sanctification of the Virgin multiplied the representations of her coronation and glorification, as the only permitted expression of the popular enthusiasm on this point. For the powerful Order of the Franciscans, who were at this time and for a century afterwards the most ardent champions of the Immaculate Conception, were painted most of the pictures of the Coronation produced during the fourteenth century. The first papal decree touching the "Immaculate Conception" as an article of faith, was promulgated in the reign of Sixtus IV., who had been a Franciscan friar, and he took the earliest opportunity of giving the solemn sanction of the Church to what had ever been the favourite dogma of his Order; but the celebration of the festival, never actually forbidden, had by this time become so usual, that the papal ordinance merely sanctioned without however rendering it obligatory. An office was composed for the festival, and in 1496 the Sorbonne declared in favour of it Still it remained a point of dispute; still there were dissentient voices, principally among the Dominican theologians; and from 1500 to 1600 we find this controversy occupying the pens of the ecclesiastics, and exciting the interest and the imagination of the people. In Spain the "Immaculate Conception of the Virgin," owing perhaps to the popularity and power of the Franciscans in that country, had long been "the darling dogma of the Spanish Church." Villegas, in the "Flos Sanctorum," while admitting the modern origin of the opinion, and the silence of the Church, contended that, had this great fact been made manifest earlier and in less enlightened times, it might possibly have led to the error of worshipping the Virgin as an actual goddess. (Stirling's Artists of Spain, p. 905.) To those who are conversant with Spanish theology and art, it may seem that the distinction drawn in theory is not very definite or perceptible in practice. At length, in July, 1615, Paul V. formally instituted the office commemorating the Immaculate Conception, and in 1617 issued a bull forbidding any one to teach or preach a contrary opinion. "On the publication of this bull, Seville flew into a frenzy of religious joy." The archbishop performed a solemn service in the Cathedral. Cannon roared, and bull fights, tournaments, and banquets celebrated this triumph of the votaries of the Virgin. Spain and its dependencies were solemnly placed under the protection of the "Immaculate Conception," thus personifying an abstract idea; and to this day, a Spaniard salutes his neighbour with the angelic "Ave Maria purissima!" and he responds "Sin peccado concepida!"[1] [Footnote 1: In our own days we have seen this curious controversy revived. One of the latest, if not the last, writer on the subject was Cardinal Lambruschini; and the last papal ordinance was promulgated by Pio Mono, and dated from Gaeta, 1849.] * * * * * I cannot find the date of the earliest picture of the Immaculate Conception; but the first writer on the art who makes allusion to the subject, and lays down specific rules from ecclesiastical authority for its proper treatment, is the Spaniard Pacheco, who must have been about forty years of age when the bull was published at Seville in 1618. It is soon after this time that we first hear of pictures of the Immaculate Conception. Pacheco subsequently became a familiar of the Inquisition, and wielded the authority of the holy office as inspector of sacred pictures; and in his "Arte de la Pintura," published in 1649, he laid down those rules for the representation which had been generally, though not always, exactly followed. It is evident that the idea is taken from the woman in the Apocalypse, "clothed with the sun, having the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars." The Virgin is to be portrayed in the first spring and bloom of youth as a maiden of about twelve or thirteen years of age; with "grave sweet eyes;" her hair golden; her features "with all the beauty painting can express;" her hands are to be folded on her bosom or joined in prayer. The sun is to be expressed by a flood of light around her. The moon under her feet is to have the horns pointing downwards, because illuminated from above, and the twelve stars are to form a crown over her head. The robe must be of spotless white; the mantle or scarf blue. Round her are to hover cherubim bearing roses, palms, and lilies; the head of the bruised and vanquished dragon is to be under her feet. She ought to have the cord of St. Francis as a girdle, because in this guise she appeared to Beatriz de Silva, a noble Franciscan nun, who was favoured by a celestial vision of the Madonna in her beatitude. Perhaps the good services of the Franciscans as champions of the Immaculate Conception procured them the honour of being thus commemorated. All these accessories are not absolutely and rigidly required; and Murillo, who is entitled _par excellence_ the painter of the Conception, sometimes departed from the letter of the law without being considered as less orthodox. With him the crescent moon, is sometimes the full moon, or when a crescent the horns point upwards instead of downwards. He usually omits the starry crown, and, in spite of his predilection for the Capuchin Order, the cord of St. Francis is in most instances dispensed with. He is exact with regard to the colours of the drapery, but not always in the colour of the hair. On the other hand, the beauty and expression of the face and attitude, the mingled loveliness, dignity, and purity, are given with exquisite feeling; and we are never, as in his other representations of the Madonna, reminded of commonplace homely, often peasant, portraiture; here all is spotless grace, ethereal delicacy, benignity, refinement, repose,--the very apotheosis of womanhood. I must go back to observe, that previous to the promulgation of the famous bull of Pope Paul V., the popular ideas concerning the Immaculate Conception had left their impress on art. Before the subject had taken an express and authorized form, we find pictures which, if they do not represent it, relate to it, I remember two which cannot be otherwise interpreted, and there are probably others. The first Is a curious picture of the early Florentine School. (Berlin Gal.) In the centre is original sin, represented by Eve and the Serpent; on the right stand St. Ambrose, St. Hilarius, St. Anselm, and St. Bernard; on the left St. Cyril, Origen, St. Augustine, and St. Cyprian; and below are inscribed passages from the writings of these fathers relating to the immaculate Conception of the Virgin: all of them had given to her in their works the title of Immaculate, most pure; but they differed as to the period of her sanctification, as to whether it was in the moment of conception or at the moment of birth. The other picture is in the Dresden Gallery, and one of the finest productions of that extraordinary Ferrarese painter Dosso Dossi. In the lower part of the picture are the four Latin Fathers, turning over their great books, or in deep meditation; behind them, the Franciscan Bernardino of Siena. Above, in a glory of light, the Virgin, clothed, not in spotless white, but a richly embroidered regal mantle, "wrought about with divers colours," kneels at the feet of the Almighty, who extends his hand in benediction. I find no account in the catalogue whence this picture was taken, but it was evidently painted for the Franciscans. * * * * * In 1617, when the Bull of Paul V. was formally expedited, Guido was attached to the papal court in quality of painter and an especial favourite with his Holiness. Among the earliest accredited pictures of the Immaculate Conception, are four of his finest works. 1. The cupola of the private chapel of the Quirinal represents the Almighty meditating the great miracle of the Immaculate Conception, and near him, within the same glory of light, is the Virgin in her white tunic, and in an attitude of adoration. This was painted about 1610 or 1611, when Pope Paul V. was meditating the promulgation of his famous ordinance. 2. The great picture, also painted for Paul V., represents the doctors of the Church arguing and consulting their great books for the authorities on the subject of the Conception.[1] Above, the Virgin is seated in glory, arrayed in spotless white, her hands crossed over her bosom, and her eyes turned towards the celestial fountain of light. Below are six doctors, consulting their books; they are not well characterized, being merely so many ideal heads in a mannered style; but I believe they represent the four Latin Fathers, with St. John Damascene and St. Ildefonso, who were especial defenders of the doctrine. [Footnote 1: Petersburg Imp. Gal. There is a fine engraving.] 3. The next in point of date was painted for the Infanta of Spain, which I believe to be the same now in the possession of Lord Ellesmere. The figure of the Virgin, crowned with the twelve stars, and relieved from a background of golden light, is standing on a crescent sustained by three cherubs beneath; she seems to float between heaven and earth; on either side is a seraph, with hands folded and looks upraised in adoration. The whole painted in his silvery tone, with such an extreme delicacy and transparency of effect, that it might be styled "a vision of the Immaculate Conception." 4. The fourth was painted for the chapel of the Immaculate Conception, in the church of San Biagio, at Forli, and is there still. * * * * * Just as the Italian schools of painting were on the decline, the Spanish school of art arose in all its glory, and the "Conception" became, from the popularity of the dogma, not merely an ecclesiastical, but a popular subject. Not only every church, but almost every private house, contained the effigy either painted or carved, or both, of our Lady "_sin peccado concepida_;" and when the academy of painting was founded at Seville, in 1660, every candidate for admission had to declare his orthodox belief in _the most pure Conception of our Lady_. The finest Spanish "Conception" before the time of Murillo, is by Roelas, who died in 1625; it is in the academy at Seville, and is mentioned by Mr. Ford as "equal to Guido."[1] [Footnote 1: Handbook of Spain. A very fine picture of this subject, by Roelas, was sold out of the Soult Collection.] One of the most beautiful and characteristic, as well as earliest, examples of this subject I have seen, is a picture in the Esterhazy Gallery at Vienna. The Virgin is in the first bloom of girlhood; she looks not more than nine or ten years old, with dark hair, Spanish features, and a charming expression of childlike simplicity and devotion. She stands amid clouds, with her hands joined, and the proper white and blue drapery: there are no accessories. This picture is attributed to an obscure painter, Lazaro Tavarone, of whom I can learn nothing more than that he was employed in the Escurial about 1590. The beautiful small "Conception" by Velasquez, in the possession of Mr. Frere, is a departure from the rules laid down by Pacheco in regard to costume; therefore, as I presume, painted before he entered the studio of the artist-inquisitor, whose son-in-law he became before he was three and twenty. Here the Virgin is arrayed in a pale violet robe, with a dark blue mantle. Her hands are joined, and she looks down. The solemnity and depth of expression in the sweet girlish face is very striking; the more so, that it is not a beautiful face, and has the air of a portrait. Her long hair flows over her shoulders. The figure is relieved against a bright sun, with fleecy clouds around; and the twelve stars are over her head. She stands on the round moon, of which the upper half is illumined. Below, on earth, and through the deep shadow, are seen several of the emblems of the Virgin--the fountain, the temple, the olive, the cypress, and the garden enclosed in a treillage of roses.[1] This picture is very remarkable; it is in the earliest manner of Velasquez, painted in the bold free style of his first master, Herrara, whose school he quitted when he was about seventeen or eighteen, just at the period when the Pope's ordinance was proclaimed at Seville. [Footnote 1: v. Introduction: "The Symbols and Attributes of the Virgin."] * * * * * Of twenty-five pictures of this subject, painted by Murillo, there are not two exactly alike; and they are of all sizes, from the colossal figure called the "Great Conception of Seville," to the exquisite miniature representation in the possession of Lord Overston, not more than fifteen inches in height. Lord Lansdowne has also a beautiful small "Conception," very simply treated. In those which have dark hair, Murillo is said to have taken his daughter Francisca as a model. The number of attendant angels varies from one or two, to thirty. They bear the palm, the olive, the rose, the lily, the mirror; sometimes a sceptre and crown. I remember but few instances in which he has introduced the dragon-fiend, an omission which Pacheco is willing to forgive; "for," as he observes, "no man ever painted the devil with good-will." In the Louvre picture (No. 1124), the Virgin is adored by three ecclesiastics. In another example, quoted by Mr. Stirling (Artists of Spain, p. 839), a friar is seen writing at her feet: this figure probably represents her champion, the friar Duns Scotus. There is at Hampton Court a picture, by Spagnoletto, of this same Duns Scotus writing his defence of the Immaculate Conception. Spagnoletto was painting at Naples, when, in 1618, "the Viceroy solemnly swore, in presence of the assembled multitude, to defend with his life the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception;" and this picture, curious and striking in its way, was painted about the same time. * * * * * In Italy, the decline of Art in the seventeenth century is nowhere more apparent, nor more offensive, than in this subject. A finished example of the most execrable taste is the mosaic in St. Peter's, after Pietro Bianchi. There exists, somewhere, a picture of the Conception, by Le Brun, in which the Virgin has no other drapery than a thin, transparent gauze, and has the air of a Venus Meretrix. In some old French prints, the Virgin is surrounded by a number of angels, defending her with shield and buckler against demons who are taking aim at her with fiery arrows. Such, and even worse, vagaries and perversities, are to be found in the innumerable pictures of this favourite subject, which inundated the churches between 1640 and 1720. Of these I shall say no more. The pictures of Guido and Murillo, and the carved figures of Alonzo Cano, Montanez, and Hernandez, may be regarded as authorized effigies of "Our Lady of the most pure Conception;" in other words, as embodying, in the most attractive, decorous, and intelligible form, an abstract theological dogma, which is in itself one of the most curious, and, in its results, one of the most important of the religions phenomena connected with the artistic representations of the Virgin.[1] [Footnote 1: We often find on pictures and prints of the Immaculate Conception, certain scriptural texts which the theologians of the Roman Church have applied to the Blessed Virgin; for instance, from Ps. xliv. _Omnis gloria ejus filiæ regis ab intus_--"The king's daughter is all glorious within;" or from the Canticles, iv. 7, _Tota pulchra es amica mea, et macula non est in te_,--"Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee." I have also seen the texts, Ps. xxii. 10, and Prov. viii. 22, 28, xxxi. 29, thus applied, as well as other passages from the very poetical office of the Virgin _In Festo Immaculatæ Conceptionis_.] We must be careful to discriminate between the Conception, so styled by ecclesiastical authority, and that singular and mystical representation which is sometimes called the "Predestination of Mary," and sometimes the "Litanies of the Virgin." Collectors and writers on art must bear in mind, that the former, as a subject, dates only from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the latter from the beginning of the sixteenth. Although, as representations, so very similar, yet the intention and meaning are different. In the Conception it is the sinless Virgin in her personal character, who is held up to reverence, as the purest, wisest, holiest, of created beings. The earlier theme involves a yet more recondite signification. It is, undoubtedly, to be regarded as an attempt on the part of the artist to express, in a visible form, the idea or promise of the redemption of the human race, as existing in the Sovereign Mind before the beginning of things. They do not personify this idea under the image of Christ,--for they conceived that, as the second person of the Trinity, he could not be his own instrument,--but by the image of Mary surrounded by those attributes which were afterwards introduced into the pictures of the Conception: or setting her foot, as second Eve, on the head of the prostrate serpent. Not seldom, in a series of subjects from the Old Testament, the _pendant_ to Eve holding the apple is Mary crushing the head of the fiend; and thus the "bane and antidote are both before us." This is the proper interpretation of those effigies, so prevalent in every form of art during the sixteenth century, and which are often, but erroneously, styled the Immaculate Conception. The numerous heads of the Virgin which proceeded from the later schools of Italy and Spain, wherein she appears neither veiled nor crowned, but very young, and with flowing hair and white vesture, are intended to embody the popular idea of the _Madonna purissima_, of "the Virgin most pure, conceived without sin," in an abridged form. There is one by Murillo, in the collection of Mr. Holford; and another by Guido, which will give an idea of the treatment. Before quitting the subject of the Immaculate Conception. I must refer to a very curious picture[1] called an Assumption, but certainly painted at least one hundred years before the Immaculate Conception was authorized as a Church subject. [Footnote 1: Once in the collection of Mr. Solly, and now in the possession of Mr. Bromley of Wootten.] From the year 1496, when Sixtus IV. promulgated his Bull, and the Sorbonne put forth their famous decree,--at a time when there was less of faith and religious feeling in Italy than ever before,--this abstract dogma became a sort of watchword with theological disputants; not ecclesiastics only, the literati and the reigning powers took an interest in the controversy, and were arrayed on one side or the other. The Borgias, for instance, were opposed to it. Just at this period, the singular picture I allude to was painted by Girolamo da Cotignola. It is mentioned by Lanzi, but his account of it is not quite correct. Above, in glory, is seen the _Padre Eterno_, surrounded by cherubim bearing a scroll, on which is inscribed, "_Non enim pro te sed pro omnibus hec lex constitutura est._"[1] Lower down the Virgin stands on clouds, with hands joined, and attired in a white tunic embroidered with gold, a blue mantle lined with red, and, which is quite singular and unorthodox, _black shoes_. Below, on the earth, and to the right, stands a bishop without a glory, holding a scroll, on which is inscribed, "_Non puto verè esse amatorem Virginis qui respuit celebrare Festum suæ Conceptionis_;" on the left is St. Jerome. In the centre are three kneeling figures: on one side St. Catherine (or perhaps Caterina Sforza in the character of St. Catherine, for the head looks like a portrait); on the other an elderly woman, Ginevra Tiepolo, widow of Giovanni Sforza, last prince of Pesaro; [2] between them the little Costanzo Sforza, looking up with a charming devout expression. [3] Underneath is Inscribed, "JUNIPERA SFOSTIA PATRIA A MARITO RECEPTA. EXVOTO MCCCCCXII." Giovanni Sforza had been dispossessed of his dominions by the Borgias, after his divorce from Lucrezia, and died in 1501. The Borgias ceased to reign in 1512; and Ginevra, apparently restored to her country, dedicated this picture, at once a memorial of her gratitude and of her faith. It remained over the high-altar of the Church of the Serviti, at Pesaro, till acquired by Mr. Solly, from whom it was purchased by Mr. Bromley. [4] [Footnote 1: From the Office of the Blessed Virgin.] [Footnote 2: This Giovanni was the first husband of Lucrezia Borgia.] [Footnote 3: Lanzi calls this child Costanzo II., prince of Pesaro. Very interesting memoirs of all the personages here referred to may be found in Mr. Dennistoun's "Dukes of Urbino."] [Footnote 4: Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola, was a painter of the Francia school, whose works date from about 1508 to 1550. Those of his pictures which I have seen are of very unequal merit, and, with much feeling and expression in the heads, are often mannered and fantastic as compositions. This agrees with what Vasari says, that his excellence lay in portraiture, for which reason he was summoned, after the battle of Ravenna, to paint the portrait of Caston de Foix, as he lay dead. (See Vasari, _Vita di Bagnacavallo_; and in the English trans., vol. iii. 331.) The picture above described, which has a sort of historical interest, is perhaps the same mentioned in Murray's Handbook (Central Italy, p. 110.) as an _enthroned_ Madonna, dated 1513, and as being in 1843 in its original place over the altar in the Serviti at Pesaro; if so, it is there no longer.] DEVOTIONAL SUBJECTS. PART II. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD. 1. LA VERGINE MADRE DI DIO. 2. LA MA DRE AMABILE. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD ENTHRONED. _Lat._ Sancta Dei Genitrix. Virgo Deipara. _Ital._ La Santissima Vergine, Madre di Dio. _Fr._ La Sainte Vierge, Mère de Dieu. _Ger._ Die Heilige Mutter Gottes. The Virgin in her maternal character opens upon us so wide a field of illustration, that I scarce know where to begin or how to find my way, amid the crowd of associations which press upon me. A mother holding her child in her arms is no very complex subject; but like a very simple air constructed on a few expressive notes, which, when harmonized, is susceptible of a thousand modulations, and variations, and accompaniments, while the original _motif_ never loses its power to speak to the heart; so it is with the MADONNA AND CHILD;--a subject so consecrated by its antiquity, so hallowed by its profound significance, so endeared by its associations with the softest and deepest of our human sympathies, that the mind has never wearied of its repetition, nor the eye become satiated with its beauty. Those who refuse to give it the honour due to a religious representation, yet regard it with a tender half-unwilling homage; and when the glorified type of what is purest, loftiest, holiest in womanhood, stands before us, arrayed in all the majesty and beauty that accomplished Art, inspired by faith and love, could lend her, and bearing her divine Son, rather enthroned than sustained on her maternal bosom, "we look, and the heart is in heaven!" and it is difficult, very difficult, to refrain from an _Ora pro Nobis_. But before we attempt to classify these lovely and popular effigies, in all their infinite variety, from the enthroned grandeur of the Queen of Heaven, the SANCTA DEI GENITRIX, down to the peasant mother, swaddling or suckling her infant; or to interpret the innumerable shades of significance conveyed by the attendant accessories, we must endeavour to trace the representation itself to its origin. This is difficult. There exists no proof, I believe, that the effigies of the Virgin with the infant Christ in her arms, which existed before the end of the fifth century, were placed before Christian worshippers as objects of veneration. They appear to have been merely groups representing a particular incident of the New Testament, namely, the adoration of the Magi; for I find no other in which the mother is seated with the infant Christ, and this is an historical subject of which we shall have to speak hereafter. From the beginning of the fourth century, that is, from the time of Constantine and the condemnation of Arius, the popular reverence for the Virgin, the Mother of Christ, had been gaining ground; and at the same time the introduction of images and pictures into the places of worship and into the houses of Christians, as ornaments on glass vessels and even embroidered on garments and curtains, became more and more diffused, (v. Neander's Church History.) The earliest effigies of the Virgin and Child may be traced to Alexandria, and to Egyptian influences; and it is as easily conceivable that the time-consecrated Egyptian myth of Isis and Horus may have suggested the original type, the outward form and the arrangement of the maternal group, as that the classical Greek types of the Orpheus and Apollo should have furnished the early symbols of the Redeemer as the Good Shepherd; a fact which does not rest upon supposition, but of which the proofs remain to us in the antique Christian sculptures and the paintings in the catacombs. The most ancient Greek figures of the Virgin and Child have perished; but, as far as I can learn, there is no evidence that these effigies were recognized by the Church as sacred before the beginning of the sixth century. It was the Nestorian schism which first gave to the group of the Mother bearing her divine Son that religious importance and significance which it has ever since retained in Catholic countries. The divinity of Christ and his miraculous conception, once established as articles of belief, naturally imparted to Mary, his mother, a dignity beyond that of other mothers her Son was God; therefore the title of MOTHER OF GOD was assigned to her. When or by whom first brought into use, does not appear; but about the year 400 it became a popular designation. Nestorias, patriarch of Constantinople in 428, had begun by persecuting the Arians; but while he insisted that in Jesus were combined two persons and two natures, he insisted that the Virgin Mary was the mother of Christ considered as _man_, but not the mother of Christ considered as _God_; and that, consequently, all those who gave her the title of _Dei Genitrix_, _Deipara_,[1] were in error. There were many who adopted these opinions, but by a large portion of the Church they were repudiated with horror, as utterly subverting the doctrine of the mystery of the Incarnation. Cyril of Alexandria opposed Nestorius and his followers, and defended with zealous enthusiasm the claims of the Virgin to all the reverence and worship due to her; for, as he argued, the two natures being one and indivisible from the moment of the miraculous conception, it followed that Mary did indeed bring forth God,--was, in fact, the mother of God; and, all who took away from her this dignity and title were in error, and to be condemned as heretics. [Footnote 1: The inscription on the Greek and Byzantine pictures is actually [Greek: MAeR ThU] ([Greek: Mhaetaer Theos]).] I hope I shall not be considered irreverent in thus plainly and simply stating the grounds of this celebrated schism, with reference to its influence on Art; an influence incalculable, not only at the time, but ever since that time; of which the manifold results, traced from century to century down to the present hour, would remain quite unintelligible, unless we clearly understood the origin and the issue of the controversy. Cyril, who was as enthusiastic and indomitable as Nestorius, and had the advantage of taking the positive against the negative side of the question, anathematized the doctrines of his opponent, in a synod held at Alexandria in 430, to which Pope Celestine II gave the sanction of his authority. The emperor Theodosius II then called a general council at Ephesus in 431, before which Nestorius refused to appear, and was deposed from his dignity of patriarch by the suffrages of 200 bishops. But this did not put an end to the controversy; the streets of Ephesus were disturbed by the brawls and the pavement of the cathedral was literally stained with the blood of the contending parties Theodosius arrested both the patriarchs; but after the lapse of only a few days, Cyril triumphed over his adversary: with him triumphed the cause of the Virgin. Nestorius was deposed and exiled; his writings condemned to the flames; but still the opinions he had advocated were adopted by numbers, who were regarded as heretics by those who called themselves "the Catholic Church." The long continuance of this controversy, the obstinacy of the Nestorians, the passionate zeal of those who held the opposite doctrines, and their ultimate triumph when the Western Churches of Rome and Carthage declared in their favour, all tended to multiply and disseminate far and wide throughout Christendom those images of the Virgin which exhibited her as Mother of the Godhead. At length the ecclesiastical authorities, headed by Pope Gregory the Great, stamped them as orthodox: and as the cross had been the primeval symbol which distinguished the Christian from the Pagan, so the image of the Virgin Mother with her Child now became the symbol which distinguished the Catholic Christian from the Nestorian Dissenter. Thus it appears that if the first religious representations of the Virgin and Child were not a consequence of the Nestorian schism, yet the consecration of such effigies as the visible form of a theological dogma to the purposes of worship and ecclesiastical decoration must date from the Council of Ephesus in 431; and their popularity and general diffusion throughout the western Churches, from the pontificate of Gregory in the beginning of the seventh century. In the most ancient of these effigies which remain, we have clearly only a symbol; a half figure, veiled, with hands outspread, and the half figure of a child placed against her bosom, without any sentiment, without even the action of sustaining him. Such was the formal but quite intelligible sign; but it soon became more, it became a representation. As it was in the East that the cause of the Virgin first triumphed, we might naturally expect to find the earliest examples in the old Greek churches; but these must have perished in the furious onslaught made by the Iconoclasts on all the sacred images. The controversy between the image-worshippers and the image-breakers, which distracted the East for more than a century (that is, from 726 to 840), did not, however, extend to the west of Europe. We find the primeval Byzantine type, or at least the exact reproduction of it, in the most ancient western churches, and preserved to us in the mosaics of Rome, Ravenna, and Capua. These remains are nearly all of the same date, much later than the single figures of Christ as Redeemer, and belonging unfortunately to a lower period and style of art. The true significance of the representation is not, however, left doubtful; for all the earliest traditions and inscriptions are in this agreed, that such effigies were intended as a confession of faith; an acknowledgment of the dignity of the Virgin Mary, as the "SANCTA DEI GENITRIX;" as a visible refutation of "the infamous, iniquitous, and sacrilegious doctrines of Nestorius the Heresiarch."[1] [Footnote 1: _Mostrando quod ipsa Deipara esset contra impiam Nestorii Heresium quam talem esse iste Heresiareo negabat_ Vide Ciampini, and Munter's "Sinnbilder."] * * * * * As these ancient mosaic figures of the Virgin, enthroned with her infant Son, were the precursors and models of all that was afterwards conceived and executed in art, we must examine them in detail before proceeding further. The mosaic of the cathedral of Capua represents in the highest place the half figure of Christ in the act of benediction. In one of the spandrels, to the right, is the prophet Isaiah, bearing a scroll, on which is inscribed, _Ecce Dominus in fortitudine veniet, et brachium ejus dominibatur_,--"The Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him." (Isaiah, ch. xl. v. 10.) On the left stands Jeremiah, also with a scroll and the words, _Fortissime, magne, et patens Dominus exercituum nomen tibi_,--"The great, the mighty God, the Lord of hosts is his name." (Jeremiah, ch. xxxii. v. 18.) In the centre of the vault beneath, the Virgin is seated on a rich throne, a footstool under her feet; she wears a crown over her veil. Christ, seated on her knee, and clothed, holds a cross in his left hand; the right is raised is benediction. On one side of the throne stand St. Peter and St. Stephen; on the other St. Paul and St. Agatha, to whom the church is dedicated. The Greek monogram of the Virgin is inscribed below the throne. The next in date which remains visible, is the group in the apsis of S. Maria-della-Navicella (Rome), executed about 820, in the time of Paschal I, a pontiff who was very remarkable for the zeal with which he rebuilt and adorned the then half-ruined churches of Rome. The Virgin, of colossal size, is seated on a throne; her robe and veil are blue; the infant Christ, in a gold-coloured vest, is seated in her lap, and raises his hand to bless the worshippers. On each side of the Virgin is a group of adoring angels; at her feet kneels the diminutive figure of Pope Paschal. In the Santa Maria-Nova (called also, "Santa Francesca," Rome), the Virgin is seated on a throne wearing a rich crown, as queen of heaven. The infant Christ stands upon her knee; she has one hand on her bosom and sustains him with the other. On the façade of the portico of the S. Maria-in-Trastevere at Rome, the Virgin is enthroned, and crowned, and giving her breast to the Child. This mosaic is of later date than that in the apsis, but is one of the oldest examples of a representation which was evidently directed against the heretical doubts of the Nestorians: "How," said they, pleading before the council of Ephesus, "can we call him God who is only two or three months old; or suppose the Logos to have been _suckled_ and to increase in wisdom?" The Virgin in the act of suckling her Child, is a _motif_ often since repeated when the original significance was forgotten. In the chapel of San Zeno (Rome), the Virgin is enthroned; the Child is seated on her knee. He holds a scroll, on which are the words _Ego sum lux mundi_, "I am the light of the world;" the right hand is raised in benediction. Above is the monogram [Greek: M-R ThU], MARIA MATER DEI. In the mosaics, from the eighth to the eleventh century, we find Art at a very low ebb. The background is flat gold, not a blue heaves with its golden stars, as in the early mosaics of the fifth and sixth centuries. The figures are ill-proportioned; the faces consist of lines without any attempt at form or expression. The draperies, however, have a certain amplitude; "and the character of a few accessories, for example, the crown on the Virgin's heads instead of the invariable Byzantine veil, betrays," says Kugler, "a northern and probably a Frankish influence." The attendant saints, generally St. Peter and St. Paul, stand, stiff and upright on each side. But with all their faults, these grand, formal, significant groups--or rather not groups, for there was as yet no attempt either at grouping or variety of action, for that would have been considered irreverent--but these rows of figures, were the models of the early Italian painters and mosaic-workers in their large architectural mosaics and altar-pieces set up in the churches during the revival of Art, from the period of Cimabue and Andrea Tafi down to the latter half of the thirteenth century: all partook of this lifeless, motionless character, and were, at the same time, touched with the same solemn religious feeling. And long afterwards, when the arrangement became less formal and conventional, their influence may still be traced in those noble enthroned Madonnas, which represent the Virgin as queen of heaven and of angels, either alone, or with attendant saints, and martyrs, and venerable confessors waiting round her state. The general disposition of the two figures varies but little in the earliest examples which exist for us in painting, and which are, in fact, very much alike. The Madonna seated on a throne, wearing a red tunic and a blue mantle, part of which is drawn as a veil over her head, holds the infant Christ, clothed in a red or blue tunic. She looks straight out of the picture with her head a little declined to one side. Christ has the right hand raised in benediction, and the other extended. Such were the simple, majestic, and decorous effigies, the legitimate successors of the old architectural mosaics, and usually placed over the high altar of a church or chapel. The earliest examples which have been preserved are for that reason celebrated in the history of Art. The first is the enthroned Virgin of Guido da Siena, who preceded Cimabue by twenty or thirty years. In this picture, the Byzantine conception and style of execution are adhered to, yet with a softened sentiment, a touch of more natural, life-like feeling, particularly in the head of the Child. The expression in the face of the Virgin struck me as very gentle and attractive; but it has been, I am afraid, retouched, so that we cannot be quite sure that we have the original features. Fortunately Guido has placed a date on his work, MCCXXI., and also inscribed on it a distich, which shows that he felt, with some consciousness and self-complacency, his superiority to his Byzantine models;-- "Me Guido de Senis diebus depinxit amoenis Quem Christus lenis nullis velit angere poenis."[1] Next we may refer to the two colossal Madonnas by Cimabue, preserved at Florence. The first, which was painted for the Vallombrosian monks of the S. Trinità, is now in the gallery of the academy. It has all the stiffness and coldness of the Byzantine manner. There are three adoring angels on each side, disposed one above another, and four prophets are placed below in separate niches, half figures, holding in their hands their prophetic scrolls, as in the old mosaic at Capua, already described. The second is preserved in the Ruccellai chapel, in the S. Maria Novella, in its original place. In spite of its colossal size, and formal attitude, and severe style, the face of this Madonna is very striking, and has been well described as "sweet and unearthly, reminding you of a sibyl." The infant Christ is also very fine. There are three angels on each side, who seem to sustain the carved chair or throne on which the Madonna is seated; and the prophets, instead, of being below, are painted in small circular medallions down each side of the frame. The throne and the background are covered with gold. Vasari gives a very graphic and animated account of the estimation in which this picture was held when first executed. Its colossal dimensions, though familiar in the great mosaics, were hitherto unknown in painting; and not less astonishing appeared the deviation, though slight, from ugliness and lifelessness into grace and nature. "And thus," he says, "it happened that this work was an object of so much admiration to the people of that day, they having never seen anything better, that it was carried in solemn procession, with the sound of trumpets and other festal demonstrations, from the house of Cimabue to the church, he himself being highly rewarded and honoured for it. It is further reported, and may be read in certain records of old painters, that, whilst Cimabue was painting this picture, in a garden near the gate of San Pietro, King Charles the Elder, of Anjou, passed through Florence, and the authorities of the city, among other marks of respect, conducted him to see the picture of Cimabue. When this work was thus shown to the King it had not before been seen by any one; wherefore all the men and women of Florence hastened in crowds to admire it, making all possible demonstrations of delight. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood, rejoicing in this occurrence, ever afterwards called that place _Borgo Allegri_; and this name it has ever since retained, although in process of time it became enclosed within the walls of the city." [Footnote 1: The meaning, for it is not easy to translate literally, is "_Me, hath painted, in pleasant days, Guido of Siena, Upon whose soul may Christ deign to have mercy!_"] * * * * * In the strictly devotional representations of the Virgin and Child, she is invariably seated, till the end of the thirteenth century: and for the next hundred years the innovation of a standing figure was confined to sculpture. An early example is the beautiful statue by Niccolà Pisano, in the Capella della Spina at Pisa; and others will be found in Cicognara'a work (Storia della Scultura Moderna). The Gothic cathedrals, of the thirteenth century, also exhibit some most graceful examples of the Madonna in sculpture, standing on a pedestal, crowned or veiled, sustaining on her left arm the divine Child, while in her right she holds a sceptre or perhaps a flower. Such crowned or sceptred effigies of the Virgin were placed on the central pillar which usually divided the great door of a church into two equal parts; in reference to the text, "I am the DOOR; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." In Roman Catholic countries we find such effigies set up at the corners of streets, over the doors of houses, and the gates of gardens, sometimes rude and coarse, sometimes exceedingly graceful, according to the period of art and skill of the local artist. Here the Virgin appears in her character of Protectress--our Lady of Grace, or our Lady of Succour. * * * * * In pictures, we rarely find the Virgin standing, before the end of the fourteenth century. An almost singular example is to be found in an old Greek Madonna, venerated as miraculous, in the Cathedral of Orvieto, under the title of _La Madonna di San Brizio_, and to which is attributed a fabulous antiquity. I may be mistaken, but my impression, on seeing it, was, that it could not be older than the end of the thirteenth century. The crowns worn by the Virgin and Christ are even more modern, and out of character with the rest of the painting. In Italy the pupils of Giotto first began to represent the Virgin standing on a raised dais. There is an example by Puccio Capanna, engraved in d'Agincourt's work; but such figures are very uncommon. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they occur more frequently in the northern than in the Italian schools. In the simple enthroned Madonna, variations of attitude and sentiment were gradually introduced. The Virgin, instead of supporting her Son with both hands, embraces him with one hand, and with the other points to him; or raises her right hand to bless the worshipper. Then the Child caresses his mother,--a charming and natural idea, but a deviation from the solemnity of the purely religious significance; better imagined, however, to convey the relation between the mother and child, than the Virgin suckling her infant, to which I have already alluded in its early religious, or rather controversial meaning. It is not often that the enthroned Virgin is thus occupied. Mr. Rogers had in his collection an exquisite example where the Virgin, seated in state on a magnificent throne under a Gothic canopy and crowned as queen of heaven, offers her breast to the divine Infant Then the Mother adores her Child. This is properly the _Madre Pia_ afterwards so beautifully varied. He lies extended on her knee, and she looks down upon him with hands folded in prayer: or she places her hand under his foot, an attitude which originally implied her acknowledgment of his sovereignty and superiority, but was continued as a natural _motif_ when the figurative and religious meaning was no longer considered. Sometimes the Child looks up in his mother's face with his finger on his lip, expressing the _Verbum sum_, "I am the Word." Sometimes the Child, bending forwards from his mother's knee, looks down benignly on the worshippers, who are _supposed_ to be kneeling at the foot of the altar. Sometimes, but very rarely he sleeps; never in the earliest examples; for to exhibit the young Redeemer asleep, where he is an object of worship, was then a species of solecism. When the enthroned Virgin is represented holding a book, or reading, while the infant Christ, perhaps, lays his hand upon it--a variation in the first simple treatment not earlier than the end of the fourteenth century, and very significant--she is then the _Virgo Sapientissima_, the most Wise Virgin; or the Mother of Wisdom, _Mater Sapientiæ_; and the book she holds is the Book of Wisdom.[1] This is the proper interpretation, where the Virgin is seated on her throne. In a most beautiful picture by Granacci (Berlin Gal.), she is thus enthroned, and reading intently; while John the Baptist and St. Michael stand on each side. [Footnote 1: L'Abbé Crosnier, "Iconographie Chrétienne;" but the book as an attribute had another meaning, for which, see the Introduction.] * * * * * With regard to costume, the colours in which the enthroned Virgin-Mother was arrayed scarcely ever varied from the established rule: her tunic was to be red, her mantle blue; red, the colour of love, and religious aspiration; blue, the colour of constancy and heavenly purity. In the pictures of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and down to the early part of the fifteenth, these colours are of a soft and delicate tint,--rose and pale azure; but afterwards, when powerful effects of colour became a study, we have the intense crimson, and the dark blue verging on purple. Sometimes the blue mantle is brought over her head, sometimes she wears a white veil, in other instances the queenly crown. Sometimes (but very rarely when she is throned as the _Regina Coeli_) she has no covering or ornament on her head; and her fair hair parted on her brow, flows down on either side in long luxuriant tresses. In the Venetian and German pictures, she is often most gorgeously arrayed; her crown studded with jewels, her robe covered with embroidery, or bordered with gold and pearls. The ornamental parts of her dress and throne were sometimes, to increase the magnificence of the effect, raised in relief and gilt. To the early German painters, we might too often apply the sarcasm of Apelles, who said of his rival, that, "not being able to make Venus _beautiful_ he had made her _fine_;" but some of the Venetian Madonnas are lovely as well as splendid. Gold was often used, and in great profusion, in some of the Lombard pictures even of a late date; for instance, by Carlo Crivelli: before the middle of the sixteenth century, this was considered barbaric. The best Italian painters gave the Virgin ample, well disposed drapery, but dispensed with ornament. The star embroidered on her shoulder, so often retained when all other ornament was banished, expresses her title "Stella Maris." I have seen some old pictures, in which she wears a ring on the third finger. This expresses her dignity as the _Sposa_ as well as the Mother. With regard to the divine Infant, he is, in the early pictures, invariably draped, and it is not till the beginning of the fifteenth century that we find him first partially and then wholly undraped. In the old representations, he wears a long tunic with full sleeves, fastened with a girdle. It is sometimes of gold stuff embroidered, sometimes white, crimson, or blue. This almost regal robe was afterwards exchanged for a little semi-transparent shirt without sleeves. In pictures of the throned Madonna painted expressly for nunneries, the Child is, I believe, always clothed, or the Mother partly infolds him in her own drapery. In the Umbrian pictures of the fifteenth century, the Infant often wears a coral necklace, then and now worn by children in that district, as a charm against the evil eye. In the Venetian pictures he has sometimes a coronal of pearls. In the carved and painted images set up in churches, he wears, like his mother, a rich crown over a curled wig, and is hung round with jewels; but such images must be considered as out of the pale of legitimate art. * * * * * Of the various objects placed in the hand of the Child as emblems I have already spoken, and of their sacred significance as such,--the globe, the book, the bird, the flower, &c. In the works of the ignorant secular artists of later times, these symbols of power, or divinity, or wisdom, became mere playthings; and when they had become familiar, and required by custom, and the old sacred associations utterly forgotten, we find them most profanely applied and misused. To give one example:--the bird was originally placed in the hand of Christ as the emblem of the soul, or of the spiritual as opposed to the earthly nature; in a picture by Baroccio, he holds it up before a cat, to be frightened and tormented.[1] But to proceed. [Footnote 1: In the "History of Our Lord, as illustrated in the Fine Arts," the devotional and characteristic effigies of the infant Christ, and the accompanying attributes, will be treated at length.] The throne on which the Virgin is seated, is, in very early pictures, merely an embroidered cushion on a sort of stool, or a carved Gothic chair, such as we see in the thrones and stalls of cathedrals. It is afterwards converted into a rich architectural throne, most elaborately adorned, according to the taste and skill of the artist. Sometimes, as in the early Venetian pictures, it is hung with garlands of fruits and flowers, most fancifully disposed. Sometimes the arabesque ornaments are raised in relief and gilt. Sometimes the throne is curiously painted to imitate various marbles, and adorned with medallions and bas-reliefs from those subjects of the Old Testament which have a reference to the character of the Virgin and the mission of her divine Child; the commonest of all being the Fall, which rendered a Redeemer necessary. Moses striking the rock (the waters of life)--the elevation of the brazen serpent--the gathering of the manna--or Moses holding the broken tablets of the old law,--all types of redemption, are often thus introduced as ornaments. In the sixteenth century, when the purely religious sentiment had declined, and a classical and profane taste had infected every department of art and literature, we find the throne of the Virgin adorned with classical ornaments and bas-reliefs from the antique remains; as, for instance, the hunt of Theseus and Hippolyta. We must then suppose her throned on the ruins of paganism, an idea suggested by the old legends, which represent the temples and statues of the heathen gods as falling into ruin on the approach of the Virgin and her Child; and a more picturesque application of this idea afterwards became common in other subjects. In Garofalo's picture the throne is adorned with Sphinxes--_à l'antique_. Andrea del Sarto has placed harpies at the corner of the pedestal of the throne, in his famous Madonna di San Francesco (Florence Gal.),--a gross fault in that otherwise grand and faultless picture; one of those desecrations of a religious theme which Andrea, as devoid of religious feeling as he was weak and dishonest, was in the habit of committing. But whatever the material or style of the throne, whether simple or gorgeous, it is supposed to be a heavenly throne. It is not of the earth, nor on the earth; and at first it was alone and unapproachable. The Virgin-mother, thus seated in her majesty, apart from all human beings, and in communion only with the Infant Godhead on her knee, or the living worshippers who come to lay down their cares and sorrows at the foot of her throne and breathe a devout "Salve Regina!"--is, through its very simplicity and concentrated interest, a sublime conception. The effect of these figures, in their divine quietude and loveliness, can never be appreciated when hung in a gallery or room with other pictures, for admiration, or criticism, or comparison. I remember well suddenly discovering such a Madonna, in a retired chapel in S. Francesco della Vigna at Venice,--a picture I had never heard of, by a painter then quite unknown to me, Fra Antonio da Negroponte, a Franciscan friar who lived in the fifteenth century. The calm dignity of the attitude, the sweetness, the adoring love in the face of the queenly mother as with folded hands she looked down on the divine Infant reclining on her knee, so struck upon my heart, that I remained for minutes quite motionless. In this picture, nothing can exceed the gorgeous splendor of the Virgin's throne and apparel: she wears a jewelled crown; the Child a coronal of pearls; while the background is composed entirely of the mystical roses twined in a sort of _treillage_. I remember, too, a picture by Carlo Crivelli, in which the Virgin is seated on a throne, adorned, in the artist's usual style, with rich festoons of fruit and flowers. She is most sumptuously crowned and apparelled; and the beautiful Child on her knee, grasping her hand as if to support himself, with the most _naïve_ and graceful action bends forward and looks dawn benignly on the worshippers _supposed_ to be kneeling below. When human personages were admitted within the same compartment, the throne was generally raised by several steps, or placed on a lofty pedestal, and till the middle of the fifteenth century it was always in the centre of the composition fronting the spectator. It was a Venetian innovation to place the throne at one side of the picture, and show the Virgin in profile or in the act of turning round. This more scenic disposition became afterwards, in the passion for variety and effect, too palpably artificial, and at length forced and theatrical. The Italians distinguish between the _Madonna in Trono_ and the _Madonna in Gloria_. When human beings, however sainted and exalted were admitted within the margin of the picture, the divine dignity of the Virgin as _Madre di Dio_, was often expressed by elevating her wholly above the earth, and placing her "in regions mild of calm and serene air," with the crescent or the rainbow under her feet. This is styled a "Madonna in Gloria." It is, in fact, a return to the antique conception of the enthroned Redeemer, seated on a rainbow, sustained by the "curled clouds," and encircled by a glory of cherubim. The aureole of light, within which the glorified Madonna and her Child when in a standing position are often placed, is of an oblong form, called from its shape the _mandorla_, "the almond;"[1] but in general she is seated above in a sort of ethereal exaltation, while the attendant saints stand on the earth below. This beautiful arrangement, though often very sublimely treated, has not the simple austere dignity of the throne of state, and when the Virgin and Child, as in the works of the late Spanish and Flemish painters, are formed out of earth's most coarse and commonplace materials, the aërial throne of floating fantastic clouds suggests a disagreeable discord, a fear lest the occupants of heaven should fall on the heads of their worshippers below. Not so the Virgins of the old Italians; for they look so divinely ethereal that they seem uplifted by their own spirituality: not even the air-borne clouds are needed to sustain them. They have no touch of earth or earth's material beyond the human form; their proper place is the seventh heaven; and there they repose, a presence and a power--a personification of infinite mercy sublimated by innocence and purity; and thence they look down on their worshippers and attendants, while these gaze upwards "with looks commercing with the skies." [Footnote 1: Or the "Vescica Pisces," by Lord Lindsay and others.] * * * * * And now of these angelic and sainted accessories, however placed, we must speak at length; for much of the sentiment and majesty of the Madonna effigies depend on the proper treatment of the attendant figures, and on the meaning they convey to the observer. * * * * * The Virgin is entitled, by authority of the Church, queen of angels, of prophets, of apostles, of martyrs, of virgins, and of confessors; and from among these her attendants are selected. ANGELS were first admitted, waiting Immediately round her chair of state. A signal instance is the group of the enthroned Madonna, attended by the four archangels, as we find it in the very ancient mosaic in Sant-Apollinare-Novo, at Ravenna. As the belief in the superior power and sanctity of the Blessed Virgin grew and spread, the angels no longer attended her as princes of the heavenly host, guardians, or councillors; they became, in the early pictures, adoring angels, sustaining her throne on each side, or holding up the embroidered curtain which forms the background. In the Madonna by Cimabue, which, if it be not the earliest after the revival of art, was one of the first in which the Byzantine manner was softened and Italianized, we have six grand, solemn-looking angels, three on each side of the throne, arranged perpendicularly one above another. The Virgin herself is of colossal proportions, far exceeding them in size, and looking out of her frame, "large as a goddess of the antique world." In the other Madonna in the gallery of the academy, we have the same arrangement of the angels. Giotto diversified this arrangement. He placed the angels kneeling at the foot of the throne, making music, and waiting on their divine Mistress as her celestial choristers,--a service the more fitting because she was not only queen of angels, but patroness of music and minstrelsy, in which character she has St. Cecilia as her deputy and delegate. This accompaniment of the choral angels was one of the earliest of the accessories, and continued down to the latest times. They are most particularly lovely in the pictures of the fifteenth century. They kneel and strike their golden lutes, or stand and sound their silver clarions, or sit like beautiful winged children on the steps of the throne, and pipe and sing as if their spirits were overflowing with harmony as well as love and adoration.[1] In a curious picture of the enthroned Madonna and Child (Berlin Gal.), by Gentil Fabriano, a tree rises on each side of the throne, on which little red seraphim are perched like birds, singing and playing on musical instruments. In later times, they play and sing for the solace of the divine Infant, not merely adoring, but ministering: but these angels ministrant belong to another class of pictures. Adoration, not service, was required by the divine Child and his mother, when they were represented simply in their divine character, and placed far beyond earthly wants and earthly associations. [Footnote 1: As in the picture by Lo Spagna in our National Gallery, No. 282.] There are examples where the angels in attendance bear, not harps or lutes, but the attributes of the Cardinal Virtues, as in an altar-piece by Taddeo Gaddi at Florence. (Santa Croce, Rinuccini Chapel.) The patriarchs, prophets, and sibyls, all the personages, in fact, who lived under the old law, when forming, in a picture or altar-piece, part, of the _cortège_ of the throned Virgin, as types, or prophets, or harbingers of the Incarnation, are on the _outside_ of that sacred compartment wherein she is seated with her Child. This was the case with _all_ the human personages down to the end of the thirteenth century; and after that time, I find the characters of the Old Testament still excluded from the groups immediately round her throne. Their place was elsewhere allotted, at a more respectful distance. The only exceptions I can remember, are King David and the patriarch Job; and these only in late pictures, where David does not appear as prophet, but as the ancestor of the Redeemer; and Job, only at Venice, where he is a patron saint. The four evangelists and the twelve apostles are, in their collective character in relation to the Virgin, treated like the prophets, and placed around the altar-piece. Where we find one or more of the evangelists introduced into the group of attendant "Sanctities" on each side of her throne, it is not in their character of evangelists, but rather as patron saints. Thus St. Mark appears constantly in the Venetian pictures; but it is as the patron and protector of Venice. St. John the Evangelist, a favourite attendant on the Virgin, is near her in virtue of his peculiar relation to her and to Christ; and he is also a popular patron saint. St. Luke and St. Matthew, unless they be patrons of the particular locality, or of the votary who presents the picture, never appear. It is the same with the apostles in their collective character as such; we find them constantly, as statues, ranged on each side of the Virgin, or as separate figures. Thus they stand over the screen of St. Mark's, at Venice, and also on the carved frames of the altar-pieces; but either from their number, or some other cause, they are seldom grouped round the enthroned Virgin. * * * * * It is ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST who, next to the angels, seems to have been the first admitted to a propinquity with the divine persons. In Greek art, he is himself an angel, a messenger, and often represented with wings. He was especially venerated in the Greek Church in his character of precursor of the Redeemer, and, as such, almost indispensable in every sacred group; and it is, perhaps, to the early influence of Greek art on the selection and arrangement of the accessory personages, that we owe the preëminence of John the Baptist. One of the most graceful, and appropriate, and familiar of all the accessory figures grouped with the Virgin and Child, is that of the young St. John (called in Italian _San Giovannino_, and in Spanish _San Juanito_.) When first introduced, we find him taking the place of the singing or piping angels in front of the throne. He generally stands, "clad in his raiment of camel's hair, having a girdle round his loins," and in his hand a reed cross, round which is bound a scroll with the words "_Ecce Agnus Dei_" ("Behold the Lamb of God"), while with his finger he points up to the enthroned group above him, expressing the text from St. Luke (c. ii.), "And thou, CHILD shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest," as in Francia's picture in our National Gallery. Sometimes he bears a lamb in his arms, the _Ecce Agnus Dei_ in form instead of words. The introduction of the young St. John becomes more and more usual from the beginning of the sixteenth century. In later pictures, a touch of the dramatic is thrown into the arrangement: instead of being at the foot of the throne, he is placed beside it; as where the Virgin is throned on a lofty pedestal, and she lays one hand on the head of the little St. John, while with the other she strains her Child to her bosom; or where the infant Christ and St. John, standing at her knee, embrace each other--a graceful incident in a Holy Family, but in the enthroned Madonna it impairs the religious conception; it places St. John too much on a level with the Saviour, who is here in that divine character to which St. John bore witness, but which he did not share. It is very unusual to see John the Baptist in his childish character glorified in heaven among the celestial beings: I remember but one instance, in a beautiful picture by Bonifazio. (Acad. Venice.) The Virgin is seated in glory, with her Infant on her knee, and encircled by cherubim; on one side an angel approaches with a basket of flowers on his head, and she is in act to take these flowers and scatter them on the saints below,--a new and graceful _motif_: on the other side sits John the Baptist as a boy about twelve years of age. The attendant saints below are St. Peter, St. Andrew, St. Thomas holding the girdle,[1] St. Francis, and St. Clara, all looking up with ecstatic devotion, except St. Clara, who looks down with a charming modesty. [Footnote 1: St. Thomas is called in the catalogue, James, king of Arragon.] * * * * * In early pictures, ST. ANNA, the mother of the Virgin, is very seldom introduced, because in such sublime and mystical representations of the _Vergine Dea_, whatever connected her with realities, or with her earthly genealogy, is suppressed. But from the middle of the fifteenth century, St. Anna became, from the current legends of the history of the Virgin, an important saint, and when introduced into the devotional groups, which, however, is seldom, it seems to have embarrassed the painters how to dispose of her. She could not well be placed below her daughter; she could not be placed above her. It is a curious proof of the predominance of the feminine element throughout these representations, that while ST. JOACHIM the father and ST. JOSEPH the husband of the Virgin, are either omitted altogether, or are admitted only in a subordinate and inferior position, St. Anna, when she does appear, is on an equality with her daughter. There is a beautiful example, and apt for illustration, in the picture by Francia, in our National Gallery, where St. Anna and the Virgin are seated together on the same throne, and the former presents the apple to her divine Grandson. I remember, too, a most graceful instance where St. Anna stands behind and a little above the throne, with her hands placed affectionately on the shoulders of the Virgin, and raises her eyes to heaven as if in thanksgiving to God, who through her had brought salvation into the world. Where the Virgin is seated on the knees of St. Anna, it is a still later innovation. There is such a group in a picture in the Louvre, after a famous cartoon by Leonardo da Vinci, which, in spite of its celebrity, has always appeared to me very fantastic and irreverent in treatment. There is also a fine print by Carraglio, in which the Virgin and Child are sustained on the knees of St. Anna: under her feet lies the dragon. St. Roch and St. Sebastian on each side, and the dead dragon, show that this is a votive subject, an expression of thanksgiving after the cessation of a plague. The Germans, who were fond of this group, imparted, even to the most religious treatment, a domestic sentiment. The earliest instance I can point to of the enthroned Virgin attended by both her parents, is by Vivarini (Acad. Venice): St. Anna is on the right of the throne; St. Joachim, in the act of reverently removing his cap, stands on the left; more in front is a group of Franciscan saints. The introduction of St. Anna into a Holy Family, as part of the domestic group, is very appropriate and graceful; but this of course admits, and indeed requires, a wholly different sentiment. The same remark applies to St. Joseph, who, in the earlier representations of the enthroned Virgin, is carefully excluded; he appears, I think, first in the Venetian pictures. There is an example in a splendid composition by Paul Veronese. (Acad. Venice.) The Virgin, on a lofty throne, holds the Child; both look down on the worshippers; St. Joseph is partly seen behind leaning on his crutch. Round the throne stand St. John the Baptist, St. Justina, as patroness of Venice, and St. George; St. Jerome is on the other side in deep meditation. A magnificent picture, quite sumptuous in colour and arrangement, and yet so solemn and so calm![1] [Footnote 1: There is another example by Paul Veronese, similar in character and treatment, in which St. John and St. Joseph are on the throne with the Virgin and child, and St. Catherine and St. Antony below.] The composition by Michael Angelo, styled a "Holy Family," is, though singular in treatment, certainly devotional in character, and an enthroned Virgin. She is seated in the centre, on a raised architectural seat, holding a book; the infant Christ slumbers,--books can teach him nothing, and to make him reading is unorthodox. In the background on one side, St. Joseph leans over a balustrade, as if in devout contemplation; a young St. John the Baptist leans on the other side. The grand, mannered, symmetrical treatment is very remarkable and characteristic. There are many engravings of this celebrated composition. In one of them, the book held by the Virgin bears on one side the text in Latin, "_Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb._" On the opposite page, "_Blessed be God, who has regarded the low estate of his hand-maiden. For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed._" While the young St. John is admitted into' such close companionship with the enthroned Madonna, his mother Elizabeth, so commonly and beautifully introduced into the Holy Families, is almost uniformly excluded. Next in order, as accessory figures, appear some one or two or more of the martyrs, confessors, and virgin patronesses, with their respective attributes, either placed in separate niches and compartments on each side, or, when admitted within the sacred precincts where sits the Queenly Virgin Mother and her divine Son, standing, in the manner of councillors and officers of state on solemn occasions, round an earthly sovereign, all reverently calm and still; till gradually this solemn formality, this isolation of the principal characters, gave way to some sentiment which placed them in nearer relation to each other, and to the divine personages. Occasional variations of attitude and action were introduced--at first, a rare innovation; ere long, a custom, a fashion. For instance;--the doctors turn over the leaves of their great books as if seeking for the written testimonies to the truth of the mysterious Incarnation made visible in the persons of the Mother and Child; the confessors contemplate the radiant group with rapture, and seem ready to burst forth in hymns of praise; the martyrs kneel in adoration; the virgins gracefully offer their victorious palms: and thus the painters of the best periods of art contrived to animate their sacred groups without rendering them too dramatic and too secular. Such, then, was the general arrangement of that religious subject which is technically styled "The Madonna enthroned and attended by Saints." The selection and the relative position of these angelic and saintly accessories were not, as I have already observed, matters of mere taste or caprice; and an attentive observation of the choice and disposition of the attendant figures will often throw light on the original significance of such pictures, and the circumstances under which they wore painted. Shall I attempt a rapid classification and interpretation of these infinitely varied groups? It is a theme which might well occupy volumes rather than pages, and which requires far more antiquarian learning and historical research than I can pretend to; still by giving the result of my own observations in some few instances, it may be possible so to excite the attention and fancy of the reader, as to lead him further on the same path than I have myself been able to venture. * * * * * We can trace, in a large class of these pictures, a general religious significance, common to all periods, all localities, all circumstances; while in another class, the interest is not only particular and local, but sometimes even personal. To the first class belongs the antique and beautiful group of the Virgin and Child, enthroned between the two great archangels, St. Michael and St. Gabriel. It is probably the most ancient of these combinations: we find it in the earliest Greek art, in the carved ivory diptychs of the eighth and ninth centuries, in the old Greco-Italian pictures, in the ecclesiastical sculpture and stained glass of from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. In the most ancient examples, the two angels are seen standing on each side of the Madonna, not worshipping, but with their sceptres and attributes, as princes of the heavenly host, attending on her who is queen of angels; St. Gabriel as the angel of birth and life, St. Michael as the angel of Death, that is, in the Christian sense, of deliverance and immortality. There is an instance of this antique treatment in a small Greek picture in the Wallerstein collection. (Now at Kensington Palace.) In later pictures, St. Gabriel seldom appears except as the _Angela Annunziatore_; but St. Michael very frequently. Sometimes, as conqueror over sin and representative of the Church militant, he stands with his foot on the dragon with a triumphant air; or, kneeling, he presents to the infant Christ the scales of eternal justice, as in a famous picture by Leonardo da Vinci. It is not only because of his popularity as a patron saint, and of the number of churches dedicated to him, that he is so frequently introduced into the Madonna pictures; according to the legend, he was by Divine appointment the guardian of the Virgin and her Son while they sojourned on earth. The angel Raphael leading Tobias always expresses protection, and especially protection to the young. Tobias with his fish was an early type of baptism. There are many beautiful examples. In Raphael's "Madonna dell' Pesce" (Madrid Gal.) he is introduced as the patron saint of the painter, but not without a reference to more sacred meaning, that of the guardian spirit of all humanity. The warlike figure of St. Michael, and the benign St. Raphael, are thus represented as celestial guardians in the beautiful picture by Perugino now in our National Gallery. (No. 288.) There are instances of the three archangels all standing together below the glorified Virgin: St. Michael in the centre with his foot on the prostrate fiend; St. Gabriel on the right presents his lily; and, on the left, the protecting angel presents his human charge, and points up to the source of salvation. (In an engraving after Giulio Romano.) * * * * * The Virgin between St. Peter and St. Paul is also an extremely ancient and significant group. It appears in the old mosaics. As chiefs of the apostles and joint founders of the Church, St. Peter and St. Paul are prominent figures in many groups and combinations, particularly in the altar-pieces of the Roman churches, and those painted for the Benedictine communities. The Virgin, when supported on each side by St. Peter and St. Paul, must be understood to represent the personified Church between her two great founders and defenders; and this relation is expressed, in a very poetical manner, when St. Peter, kneeling, receives the allegorical keys from the hand of the infant Saviour. There are some curious and beautiful instances of this combination of a significant action with the utmost solemnity of treatment; for example, in that very extraordinary Franciscan altar-piece, by Carlo Crivelli, lately purchased by Lord Ward, where St. Peter, having deposited his papal tiara at the foot of the throne, kneeling receives the great symbolical keys. And again, in a fine picture by Andrea Meldula, where the Virgin and Child are enthroned, and the infant Christ delivers the keys to Peter, who stands, but with a most reverential air; on the other side of the throne is St. Paul with his book and the sword held upright. There are also two attendant angels. On the border of the mantle of the Virgin is inscribed "_Ave Maria gratia plena_."[1] [Footnote 1: In the collection of Mr. Bromley, of Wootton. This picture is otherwise remarkable as the only authenticated work of a very rare painter. It bears his signature, and the style indicates the end of the fifteenth century as the probable date.] I do not recollect any instance in which the four evangelists as such, or the twelve apostles in their collective character, wait round the throne of the Virgin and Child, though one or more of the evangelists and one or more of the apostles perpetually occur. The Virgin between St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, is also a very significant and beautiful combination, and one very frequently met with. Though both these saints were as children contemporary with the child Christ, and so represented in the Holy Families, in these solemn ideal groups they are always men. The first St. John expresses regeneration by the rite of baptism the second St. John, distinguished as _Theologus_, "the Divine," stands with his sacramental cup, expressing regeneration by faith. The former was the precursor of the Saviour, the first who proclaimed him to the world as such; the latter beheld the vision in Patmos, of the Woman in travail pursued by the dragon, which is interpreted in reference to the Virgin and her Child. The group thus brought into relation is full of meaning, and, from the variety and contrast of character, full of poetical and artistic capabilities. St. John the Baptist is usually a man about thirty, with wild shaggy hair and meagre form, so draped that his vest of camel's hair is always visible; he holds his reed cross. St. John the Evangelist is generally the young and graceful disciple; but in some instances he is the venerable seer of Patmos, "Whose beard descending sweeps his aged breast." There is an example in one of the finest pictures by Perugino. The Virgin is throned above, and surrounded by a glory of seraphim, with many-coloured wings. The Child stands on her knee. In the landscape below are St. Michael, St. Catherine, St. Apollonia, and. St. John the Evangelist as the aged prophet with white flowing beard. (Bologna Acad.) * * * * * The Fathers of the Church, as interpreters and defenders of the mystery of the Incarnation, are very significantly placed near the throne of the Virgin and Child. In Western art, the Latin doctors, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory, have of course the preëminence. (v Sacred and Legend. Art.) The effect produced by these aged, venerable, bearded dignitaries, with their gorgeous robes and mitres and flowing beards, in contrast with the soft simplicity of the divine Mother and her Infant, is, in the hands of really great artists, wonderfully fine. There is a splendid example, by Vivarini (Venice Acad.); the old doctors stand two on each side of the throne, where, under a canopy upborne by angels, sits the Virgin, sumptuously crowned and attired, and looking most serene and goddess-like; while the divine Child, standing on her knee, extends his little hand in the act of benediction. Of this picture I have already given a very detailed description. (Sacred and Legend. Art.) Another example, a grand picture by Moretto, now in the Museum at Frankfort, I have also described. There is here a touch of the dramatic sentiment;--the Virgin is tenderly caressing her Child, while two of the old doctors, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, stand reverently on each side of her lofty throne; St. Gregory sits on the step below, reading, and St. Jerome bends over and points to a page in his book. The Virgin is not sufficiently dignified; she has too much the air of a portrait; and the action of the Child is, also, though tender, rather unsuited to the significance of the rest of the group; but the picture is, on the whole, magnificent. There is another fine example of the four doctors attending on the Virgin, in the Milan Gallery.[1] [Footnote 1: In a native picture of the Milanese School, dedicated by Ludovico Sforza _Il Moro_.] Sometimes not four, but two only of these Fathers, appear in combination with other figures, and the choice would depend on the locality and other circumstances. But, on the whole, we rarely find a group of personages assembled round the throne of the Virgin which does not include one or more of these venerable pillars of the Church. St. Ambrose appears most frequently in the Milanese pictures: St. Augustine and St. Jerome, as patriarchs of monastic orders, are very popular: St. Gregory, I think, is more seldom met with than the others. * * * * * The Virgin, with St. Jerome and St. Catherine, the patron saints of theological learning, is a frequent group in all monasteries, but particularly in the churches and houses of the Jeronimites. A beautiful example is the Madonna, by Francia. (Borghese Palace. Rome.) St. Jerome, with Mary Magdalene, also a frequent combination, expresses theological learning in union with religious penitence and humility. Correggio's famous picture is an example, where St. Jerome on one side presents his works in defence of the Church, and his translation of the Scriptures; while, on the other, Mary Magdalene, bending down devoutly, kisses the feet of the infant Christ. (Parma.) Of all the attendants on the Virgin and Child, the most popular is, perhaps, St. Catherine; and the "Marriage of St. Catherine," as a religious mystery, is made to combine with the most solemn and formal arrangement of the other attendant figures. The enthroned Virgin presides over the mystical rite. This was, for intelligible reasons, a favourite subject in nunneries.[1] [Footnote 1: For a detailed account of the legendary marriage of St. Catherine and examples of treatment, see Sacred and Legendary Art.] In a picture by Garofalo, the Child, bending from his mother's knee, places a golden crown on the head of St. Catherine as _Sposa_; on each side stand St. Agnes and St. Jerome. In a picture by Carlo Maratti, the nuptials take place in heaven, the Virgin and Child being throned in clouds. If the kneeling _Sposa_ be St. Catherine of Siena, the nun, and not St. Catherine of Alexandria, or if the two are introduced, then we may be sure that the picture was painted for a nunnery of the Dominican order.[1] [Footnote 1: See Legends of the Monastic Orders. A fine example of this group "the Spozulizio of St. Catherine of Siena," has lately been added to our National Gallery; (Lorenzo di San Severino, No. 249.)] The great Madonna _in Trono_ by the Dominican Fra Bartolomeo, wherein the queenly St. Catherine of Alexandria witnesses the mystical marriage of her sister saint, the nun of Siena, will occur to every one who has been at Florence; and there is a smaller picture by the same painter in the Louvre;--a different version of the same subject. I must content myself with merely referring to these well-known pictures which have been often engraved, and dwell more in detail on another, not so well known, and, to my feeling, as preëminently beautiful and poetical, but in the early Flemish, not the Italian style--a poem in a language less smooth and sonorous, but still a _poem_. This is the altar-piece painted by Hemmelinck for the charitable sisterhood of St. John's Hospital at Bruges. The Virgin is seated under a porch, and her throne decorated with rich tapestry; two graceful angels hold a crown over her head. On the right, St. Catherine, superbly arrayed as a princess, kneels at her side, and the beautiful infant Christ bends forward and places the bridal ring on her finger. Behind her a charming angel, playing on the organ, celebrates the espousals with hymns of joy; beyond him stands St. John the Baptist with his lamb. On the left of the Virgin kneels St. Barbara, reading intently; behind her an angel with a book; beyond him stands St. John the Evangelist, youthful, mild, and pensive. Through the arcades of the porch is seen a landscape background, with incidents picturesquely treated from the lives of the Baptist and the Evangelist. Such is the central composition. The two wings represent--on one side, the beheading of St. John the Baptist; on the other, St. John the Evangelist, in Patmos, and the vision of the Apocalypse. In this great work there is a unity and harmony of design which blends the whole into an impressive poem. The object was to do honour to the patrons of the hospital, the two St. Johns, and, at the same time, to express the piety of the Charitable Sisters, who, like St. Catherine (the type of contemplative studious piety), were consecrated and espoused to Christ, and, like St. Barbara (the type of active piety), were dedicated to good works. It is a tradition, that Hemmelinck painted this altar-piece as a votive offering in gratitude to the good Sisters, who had taken him in and nursed him when dangerously wounded: and surely if this tradition be true, never was charity more magnificently recompensed. In a very beautiful picture by Ambrogio Borgognone (Dresden, collection of M. Grahl) the Virgin is seated on a splendid throne; on the right kneels St. Catherine of Alexandria, on the left St. Catherine of Siena: the Virgin holds a hand of each, which she presents to the divine Child seated on her knee, and to each he presents a ring. * * * * * The Virgin and Child between St. Catherine and St. Barbara is one of the most popular, as well as one of the most beautiful and expressive, of these combinations; signifying active and contemplative life, or the two powers between which the social state was divided in the middle ages, namely, the ecclesiastical and the military, learning and arms (Sacred and Legend. Art); St. Catherine being the patron of the first, and St. Barbara of the last. When the original significance had ceased to be understood or appreciated, the group continued to be a favourite one, particularly in Germany; and examples are infinite. The Virgin between St. Mary Magdalene and St. Barbara, the former as the type of penance, humility, and meditative piety, the latter as the type of fortitude and courage, is also very common. When between St. Mary Magdalene and St. Catherine, the idea suggested is learning, with penitence and humility; this is a most popular group. So is St. Lucia with one of these or both: St. Lucia with her _lamp_ or her _eyes_, is always expressive of _light_, the light of divine wisdom. * * * * * The Virgin between St. Nicholas and St. George is a very expressive group; the former as the patron saint of merchants, tradesmen, and seamen, the popular saint of the bourgeoisie; the latter as the patron of soldiers, the chosen saint of the aristocracy. These two saints with St. Catherine are pre-eminent in the Venetian pictures; for all three, in addition to their poetical significance, were venerated as especial protectors of Venice. * * * * * St. George and St. Christopher both stand by the throne of the Virgin of Succour as protectors and deliverers in danger. The attribute of St. Christopher is the little Christ on his shoulder; and there are instances in which Christ appears on the lap of his mother, and also on the shoulder of the attendant St. Christopher. This blunder, if it may be so called, has been avoided, very cleverly I should think in his own opinion, by a painter who makes St. Christopher kneel, while the Virgin places the little Christ on his shoulders; a _concetto_ quite inadmissible in a really religious group. * * * * * In pictures dedicated by charitable communities, we often find St. Nicholas and St. Leonard as the patron saints of prisoners and captives. Wherever St. Leonard appears he expresses deliverance from captivity. St. Omobuono, St. Martin, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Roch, or other beneficent saints, waiting round the Virgin with kneeling beggars, or the blind, the lame, the sick, at their feet, always expressed the Virgin as the mother of mercy, the _Consolatrix afflictorum_. Such pictures were commonly found in hospitals, and the chapels and churches of the Order of Mercy, and other charitable institutions. The examples are numerous. I remember one, a striking picture, by Bartolomeo Montagna, where the Virgin and Child are enthroned in the centre as usual. On her right the good St. Omobuono, dressed as a burgher, in a red gown and fur cap, gives alms to a poor beggar; on the left, St. Francis presents a celebrated friar of his Order, Bernardino da Feltri, the first founder of a _mont-de-piété_, who kneels, holding the emblem of his institution, a little green mountain with a cross at the top. * * * * * Besides these saints, who have a _general_ religious character and significance, we have the national and local saints, whose presence very often marks the country or school of art which produced the picture. A genuine Florentine Madonna is distinguished by a certain elegance and stateliness, and well becomes her throne. As patroness of Florence, in her own right, the Virgin bears the title of Santa Maria del Fiore, and in this character she holds a flower, generally a rose, or is in the act of presenting it to the Child. She is often attended by St. John the Baptist, as patron of Florence; but he is everywhere a saint of such power and importance as an attendant on the divine personages, that his appearance in a picture does not stamp it as Florentine. St. Cosmo and St. Damian are Florentine, as the protectors of the Medici family; but as patrons of the healing art, they have a significance which renders them common in the Venetian and other pictures. It may, however, be determined, that if St. John the Baptist, St. Cosmo and St. Damian, with St. Laurence (the patron of Lorenzo the Magnificent), appear together in attendance on the Virgin, that picture is of the Florentine school. The presence of St. Zenobio, or of St. Antonino, the patron archbishops of Florence, will set the matter at rest, for these are exclusively Florentine. In a picture by Giotto, angels attend on the Virgin bearing vases of lilies in their hands. (Lilies are at once the emblem of the Virgin and the _device_ of Florence.) On each side kneel St. John the Baptist and St. Zenobio.[1] [Footnote 1: We now possess in our National Gallery a very interesting example of a Florentine enthroned Madonna, attended by St. John the Baptist and St. Zenobio as patrons of Florence.] A Siena Madonna would naturally be attended by St. Bernardino and St. Catherine of Siena; if they seldom appear together, it is because they belong to different religious orders. In the Venetian pictures we find a crowd of guardian saints; first among them, St. Mark, then St. Catherine, St. George, St. Nicholas, and St. Justina: wherever these appear together, that picture is surely from the Venetian school. All through Lombardy and Piedmont, St. Ambrose of Milan and St. Maurice of Savoy are favourite attendants on the Virgin. * * * * * In Spanish and Flemish art, the usual attendants on the queenly Madonna are monks and nuns, which brings us to the consideration of a large and interesting class of pictures, those dedicated by the various religious orders. When we remember that the institution of some of the most influential of these communities was coeval with the revival of art; that for three or four centuries, art in all its forms had no more powerful or more munificent patrons; that they counted among their various brotherhoods some of the greatest artists the world has seen; we can easily imagine how the beatified members of these orders have become so conspicuous as attendants on the celestial personages. To those who are accustomed to read the significance of a work of art, a single glance is often sufficient to decide for what order it has been executed. St. Paul is a favourite saint of the Benedictine communities; and there are few great pictures painted for them in which he does not appear. When in companionship with St. Benedict, either in the original black habit or the white habit of the reformed orders, with St. Scholastica bearing her dove, with St. Bernard, St. Romualdo, or other worthies of this venerable community, the interpretation is easy. Here are some examples by Domenico Puligo. The Virgin not seated, but standing on a lofty pedestal, looks down on her worshippers; the Child in her arms extends the right hand in benediction; with his left he points to himself, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." Around are six saints, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John the Baptist as protector of Florence, St. Matthew, St. Catherine; and St. Bernard, in his ample white habit, with his keen intellectual face, is about to write in a great book, and looking up to the Virgin for inspiration. The picture was originally painted for the Cistercians.[1] [Footnote 1: It is now in the S. Maria-Maddalena de' Pazzi at Florence. Engraved in the "Etruria Pittrice," xxxv.] The Virgin and Child enthroned between St. Augustine and his mother St. Monica, as in a fine picture by Florigerio (Venice Acad.), would show the picture to be painted for one of the numerous branches of the Augustine Order. St. Antony the abbot is a favourite saint in pictures painted for the Augustine hermits. In the "Madonna del Baldachino" of Raphael, the beardless saint who stands in a white habit on one side of the throne is usually styled St. Bruno; an evident mistake. It is not a Carthusian, but a Cistercian monk, and I think St. Bernard, the general patron of monastic learning. The other attendant saints are St. Peter, St. James, and St. Augustine. The picture was originally painted for the church of San Spirito at Florence, belonging to the Augustines. But St. Augustine is also the patriarch of the Franciscans and Dominicans, and frequently takes an influential place in their pictures, as the companion either of St. Francis or of St. Dominick, as in a picture by Fra Angelico. (Florence Gal.) Among the votive Madonnas of the mendicant orders, I will mention a few conspicuous for beauty and interest, which will serve as a key to others. 1. The Virgin and Child enthroned between Antony of Padua and St. Clara of Assisi, as in a small elegant picture by Pellegrino, must have been dedicated in a church of the Franciscans. (Sutherland Gal.) 2. The Virgin blesses St. Francis, who looks up adoring: behind him St. Antony of Padua; on the other side, John the Baptist as a man, and St. Catherine. A celebrated but not an agreeable picture, painted by Correggio for the Franciscan church at Parma. (Dresden Gal.) 3. The Virgin is seated in glory; on one side St. Francis, on the other St. Antony of Padua, both placed in heaven, and almost on an equality with the celestial personages. Around are seven female figures, representing the seven cardinal virtues, bearing their respective attributes. Below are seen the worthies of the Franciscan Order; to the right of the Virgin, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Louis of France, St. Bonaventura; to the left, St. Ives of Bretagne, St. Eleazar, and St. Louis of Toulouse.[1] Painted for the Franciscans by Morone and Paolo Cavazzolo of Verona. This is a picture of wonderful beauty, and quite poetical in the sentiment and arrangement, and the mingling of the celestial, the allegorical, and the real personages, with a certain solemnity and gracefulness quite indescribable. The virtues, for instance, are not so much allegorical persons as spiritual appearances, and the whole of the ripper part of the picture is like a vision. [Footnote 1: For these Franciscan saints, v. Legends of the Monastic Orders.] 4. The Virgin, standing on the tree of Site, holds the Infant: rays of glory proceed from them on every side. St. Francis, kneeling at the foot of the tree, looks up in an ecstasy of devotion, while a snake with a wounded and bleeding head is crawling away. This strange picture, painted for the Franciscans, by Carducho, about 1625, is a representation of an abstract dogma (redemption from original sin), in the most real, most animated form--all over life, earthly breathing life--and made me start back: in the mingling of mysticism and materialism, it is quite Spanish.[1] [Footnote 1: Esterhazy Gal., Vienna. Mr. Stirling tells us that the Franciscan friars of Valladolid possessed two pictures of the Virgin by Mateo de Cerezo "in one of which she was represented sitting in a cherry-tree and adored by St. Francis. This unusual throne may perhaps have been introduced by Cerezo as a symbol of his own devout feelings, his patronymic being the Castilian word for cherry-tree."--_Stirling's Artists of Spain_, p. 1033. There are, however, many prints and pictures of the Virgin and Child seated in a tree. It was one of the fantastic conceptions of an unhealthy period of religion and art.] 5. The Virgin and Child enthroned. On the right of the Virgin, St. John the Baptist and St. Zenobio, the two protectors of Florence. The latter wears his episcopal cope richly embroidered with figures. On the left stand St. Peter and St. Dominick, protectors of the company for whom the picture was painted. In front kneel St. Jerome and St. Francis. This picture was originally placed in San Marco, a church belonging to the Dominicans.[1] [Footnote 1: I saw and admired this fine and valuable picture in the Rinuccini Palace at Florence in 1847; it was purchased for our National Gallery in 1855.] 6. When the Virgin or the Child holds the Rosary, it is then a _Madonna del Rosario_, and painted for the Dominicans. The Madonna by Murillo, in the Dulwich Gallery, is an example. There is an instance in which the Madonna and Child enthroned are distributing rosaries to the worshippers, and attended by St. Dominick and St. Peter Martyr, the two great saints of the Order. (Caravaggio, Belvedere Gal., Vienna.) * * * * * 7. Very important in pictures is the Madonna as more particularly the patroness of the Carmelites, under her well-known title of "Our Lady of Mount Carmel," or _La Madonna del Carmine_. The members of this Order received from Pope Honorius III. the privilege of styling themselves the "Family of the Blessed Virgin," and their churches are all dedicated to her under the title of _S. Maria del Carmine_. She is generally represented holding the infant Christ, with her robe outspread, and beneath its folds the Carmelite brethren and their chief saints.[1] There is an example in a picture by Pordenone which once belonged to Canova. (Acad. Venice.) The Madonna del Carmine is also portrayed as distributing to her votaries small tablets on which is a picture of herself. [Footnote 1: v. Legends of the Monastic Orders, "The Carmelites".] 8. The Virgin, as patroness of the Order of Mercy, also distributes tablets, but they bear the badge of the Order, and this distinguishes "Our Lady of Mercy," so popular in Spanish, art, from "Our Lady of Mount Carmel." (v. Monastic Orders.) A large class of these Madonna pictures are votive offerings for public or private mercies. They present some most interesting varieties of character and arrangement. A votive Mater Misericordiæ, with the Child, in her arms, is often standing with her wide ample robe extended, and held up on each side by angels. Kneeling at her feet are the votaries who have consecrated the picture, generally some community or brotherhood instituted for charitable purposes, who, as they kneel, present the objects of their charity--widows, orphans, prisoners, or the sick and infirm. The Child, in her arms, bends forward, with the hand raised in benediction. I have already spoken of the Mater Misericordiæ _without_ the Child. The sentiment is yet more beautiful and complete where the Mother of Mercy holds the infant Redeemer, the representative and pledge of God's infinite mercy, in her arms. There is a "Virgin of Mercy," by Salvator Rosa, which is singular and rather poetical in the conception. She is seated in heavenly glory; the infant Christ, on her knee, bends benignly forward. Tutelary angels are represented as pleading for mercy, with eager outstretched arms; other angels, lower down, are liberating the souls of repentant sinners from torment. The expression in some of the heads, the contrast between the angelic pitying spirits and the anxious haggard features of the "_Anime del Purgatorio_" are very fine and animated. Here the Virgin is the "Refuge of Sinners," _Refugium Peccatorum_. Such pictures are commonly met with in chapels dedicated to services for the dead. * * * * * Another class of votive pictures are especial acts of thanksgiving:--1st. For victory, as _La Madonna della Vittoria, Notre Dame des Victoires._ The Virgin, on her throne, is then attended by one or more of the warrior saints, together with the patron or patroness of the victors. She is then our Lady of Victory. A very perfect example of these victorious Madonnas exists in a celebrated picture by Andrea Mantegna. The Virgin is seated on a lofty throne, embowered by garlands of fruit, leaves, and flowers, and branches of coral, fancifully disposed as a sort of canopy over her head. The Child stands on her knee, and raises his hand in the act of benediction. On the right of the Virgin appear the warlike saints, St. Michael and St. Maurice; they recommend to her protection the Marquis of Mantua, Giovan Francesco Gonzaga, who kneels in complete armour.[1] On the left stand St. Andrew and St. Longinus, the guardian saints of Mantua; on the step of the throne, the young St. John the Baptist, patron of the Marquis; and more in front, a female figure, seen half-length, which some have supposed to be St. Elizabeth, the mother of the Baptist, and others, with more reason, the wife of the Marquis, the accomplished Isabella d'Este.[2] This picture was dedicated in celebration of the victory gained by Gonzaga over the French, near Fornone, in 1495.[3] There is something exceedingly grand, and, at the same time, exceedingly fantastic and poetical, in the whole arrangement; and besides its beauty and historical importance, it is the most important work of Andrea Mantegna. Gonzaga, who is the hero of the picture, was a poet as well as a soldier. Isabella d'Este shines conspicuously, both for virtue and talent, in the history of the revival of art during the fifteenth century. She was one of the first who collected gems, antiques, pictures, and made them available for the study and improvement of the learned. Altogether, the picture is most interesting in every point of view. It was carried off by the French from Milan in 1797; and considering the occasion on which it was painted, they must have had a special pleasure in placing it in their Louvre, where it still remains. [Footnote 1: "Qui rend grâces du _prétendu_ succès obtenu sur Charles VIII. à la bataille de Fornone," as the French catalogue expresses it.] [Footnote 2: Both, however, may be right; for St. Elizabeth was the patron saint of the Marchesana: the head has quite the air of a portrait, and may be Isabella in likeness of a saint.] [Footnote 3: "Si les soldats avaient mieux secondé la bravoure de leur chef, l'armie de Charles VIII. était perdue sans ressource--Ils se disperserent pour piller et laissèrent aux Français le temps de continuer leur route."] There is a very curious and much more ancient Madonna of this class preserved at Siena, and styled the "Madonna del Voto." The Sienese being at war with Florence, placed their city under the protection of the Virgin, and made a solemn vow that, if victorious, they would make over their whole territory to her as a perpetual possession, and hold it from her as her loyal vassals. After the victory of Arbia, which placed Florence itself for a time in such imminent danger, a picture was dedicated by Siena to the Virgin _della Vittoria_. She is enthroned and crowned, and the infant Christ, standing on her knee, holds in his hand the deed of gift. * * * * * 2dly. For deliverance from plague and pestilence, those scourges of the middle ages. In such pictures the Virgin is generally attended by St. Sebastian, with St. Roch or St. George; sometimes, also, by St. Cosmo and St. Damian, all of them protectors and healers in time of sickness and calamity. These intercessors are often accompanied by the patrons of the church or locality. There is a remarkable picture of this class by Matteo di Giovanni (Siena Acad.), in which the Virgin and Child are throned between St. Sebastian and St. George, while St. Cosmo and St. Damian, dressed as physicians, and holding their palms, kneel before the throne. In a very famous picture by Titian. (Rome, Vatican), the Virgin and Child are seated in heavenly glory. She has a smiling and gracious expression, and the Child holds a garland, while angels scatter flowers. Below stand St. Sebastian, St. _Nicholas_, St. Catherine, St. Peter, and St. _Francis_. The picture was an offering to the Virgin, after the cessation of a pestilence at Venice, and consecrated in a church of the _Franciscans_ dedicated to St. _Nicholas_.[1] [Footnote 1: San Nicolo de' Frari, since destroyed, and the picture has been transferred to the Vatican.] Another celebrated votive picture against pestilence is Correggio's "Madonna di San Sebastiano." (Dresden Gal.) She is seated in heavenly glory, with little angels, not so much adoring as sporting and hovering round her; below are St. Sebastian and St. Roch, the latter asleep. (There would be an impropriety in exhibiting St. Roch sleeping but for the reference to the legend, that, while he slept, an angel healed him, which lends the circumstance a kind of poetical beauty.) St. Sebastian, bound, looks up on the other side. The introduction of St. Geminiano, the patron of Modena, shows the picture to have been painted for that city, which had been desolated by pestilence in 1512. The date of the picture is 1515. We may then take it for granted, that wherever the Virgin and Child appear attended by St. Sebastian and St. Roch, the picture has been a votive offering against the plague; and there is something touching in the number of such memorials which exist in the Italian churches. (v. Sacred and Legendary Art.) The brotherhoods instituted in most of the towns of Italy and Germany, for attending the sick and plague-stricken in times of public calamity, were placed under the protection of the Virgin of Mercy, St. Sebastian, and St. Roch; and many of these pictures were dedicated by such communities, or by the municipal authorities of the city or locality. There is a memorable example in a picture by Guido, painted, by command of the Senate of Bologna, after the cessation of the plague, which desolated the city in 1830. (Acad. Bologna.) The benign Virgin, with her Child, is seated in the skies: the rainbow, symbol of peace and reconciliation, is under her feet. The infant Christ, lovely and gracious, raises his right hand in the act of blessing; in the other he holds a branch of olive: angels scatter flowers around. Below stand the guardian saints, the "_Santi Protettori_" of Bologna;--St. Petronius, St. Francis, St. Dominick; the warrior-martyrs, St. Proculus and St. Florian, in complete armour; with St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier. Below these is seen, as if through a dark cloud and diminished, the city of Bologna, where the dead are borne away in carts and on biers. The upper part of this famous picture is most charming for the gracious beauty of the expression, the freshness and delicacy of the colour. The lower part is less happy, though the head of St. Francis, which is the portrait of Guido's intimate friend and executor, Saulo Guidotti, can hardly be exceeded for intense and life-like truth. The other figures are deficient in expression and the execution hurried, so that on the whole it is inferior to the votive Pietà already described. Guido, it is said, had no time to prepare a canvas or cartoons, and painted the whole on a piece of white silk. It was carried in grand procession, and solemnly dedicated by the Senate, whence it obtained the title by which it is celebrated in the history of art, "Il Pallione del Voto." 3dly. Against inundations, flood, and fire, St. George is the great protector. This saint and St. Barbara, who is patroness against thunder and tempest, express deliverance from such calamities, when in companionship. The "Madonna di San Giorgio" of Correggio (Dresden Gal.) is a votive altar-piece dedicated on the occasion of a great inundation of the river Secchia. She is seated on her throne, and the Child looks down on the worshippers and votaries. St. George stands in front victorious, his foot on the head of the dragon. The introduction of St. Geminiano tells us that the picture was painted for the city of Modena; the presence of St. John the Baptist and St. Peter Martyr show that it was dedicated by the Dominicans, in their church of St. John. (See Legends of the Monastic Orders.) * * * * * Not less interesting are those votive Madonnas dedicated by the piety of families and individuals. In the family altar-pieces, the votary is often presented on one side by his patron saint, and his wife by her patron on the other. Not seldom a troop of hopeful sons attend the father, and a train of gentle, demure-looking daughters kneel behind the mother. Such memorials of domestic affection and grateful piety are often very charming; they are pieces of family biography:[1] we have celebrated examples both in German and Italian art. [Footnote 1: Several are engraved, as illustrations, in Litta's great History of the Italian Families.] 1. The "Madonna della Famiglia Bentivoglio" was painted by Lorenzo Costa, for Giovanni II., lord or tyrant of Bologna from 1462 to 1506, The history of this Giovanni is mixed up in an interesting manner with the revival of art and letters; he was a great patron of both, and among the painters in his service were Francesco Francia and Lorenzo Costa. The latter painted for him his family chapel in the church of San Giacomo at Bologna; and, while the Bentivogli have long since been chased from their native territory, their family altar still remains untouched, unviolated. The Virgin, as usual, is seated on a lofty throne bearing her divine Child; she is veiled, no hair seen, and simply draped; she bends forward with mild benignity. To the right of the throne kneels Giovanni with his four sons; on the left his wife, attended by six daughters: all are portraits, admirable studies for character and costume. Behind the daughters, the head of an old woman is just visible,--according to tradition the old nurse of the family. 2. Another most interesting family Madonna is that of Ludovico Sforza il Moro, painted for the church of Sant' Ambrogio at Milan.[1] The Virgin sits enthroned, richly dressed, with long fair hair hanging down, and no veil or ornament; two angels hold a crown over her head. The Child lies extended on her knee. Round her throne are the four fathers, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine. In front of the throne kneels Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan, in a rich dress and unarmed; Ambrose, as protector of Milan, lays his hand upon his shoulder. At his side kneels a boy about five years old. Opposite to him is the duchess, Beatrice d'Este, also kneeling; and near her a little baby in swaddling clothes, holding up its tiny hands in supplication, kneels on a cushion. The age of the children shows the picture to have been painted about 1496. The fate of Ludovico il Moro is well known: perhaps the blessed Virgin deemed a traitor and an assassin unworthy of her protection. He died in the frightful prison of Loches after twelve years of captivity; and both his sons, Maximilian and Francesco, were unfortunate. With them the family of Sforza and the independence of Milan were extinguished together in 1535. [Footnote 1: By an unknown painter of the school of Lionardo, and now in the gallery, of the Brera.] 3. Another celebrated and most precious picture of this class is the Virgin of the Meyer family, painted by Holbein for the burgomaster Jacob Meyer of Basle.[1] According to a family tradition, the youngest son of the burgomaster was sick even to death, and, through the merciful intercession of the Virgin, was restored to his parents, who, in gratitude, dedicated this offering. She stands on a pedestal in a richly ornamented niche; over her long fair hair, which falls down her shoulders to her waist, she wears a superb crown; and her robe of a dark greenish blue is confined by a crimson girdle. In purity, dignity, humility, and intellectual grace, this exquisite Madonna has never been surpassed; not even by Raphael; the face, once seen, haunts the memory. The Child in her arms is generally supposed to be the infant Christ. I have fancied, as I look on the picture, that it may be the poor sick child recommended to her mercy, for the face is very pathetic, the limbs not merely delicate but attenuated, while, on comparing it with the robust child who stands below, the resemblance and the contrast are both striking. To the right of the Virgin kneels the burgomaster Meyer with two of his sons, one of whom holds the little brother who is restored to health, and seems to present him to the people. On the left kneel four females--the mother, the grandmother, and two daughters. All these are portraits, touched with that homely, vigorous truth, and finished with that consummate delicacy, which characterized Holbein in his happiest efforts; and, with their earnest but rather ugly and earthly faces, contrasting with the divinely compassionate and refined being who looks down on them with an air so human, so maternal, and yet so unearthly. [Footnote 1: Dresden Gal. The engraving by Steinle is justly celebrated.] * * * * * Sometimes it is a single votary who kneels before the Madonna. In the old times he expressed his humility by placing himself in a corner and making himself so diminutive as to be scarce visible afterwards, the head of the votary or donor is seen life-size, with hands joined in prayer, just above the margin at the foot of the throne; care being taken to remove him from all juxtaposition with the attendant saints. But, as the religious feeling in art declined, the living votaries are mingled with the spiritual patrons--the "human mortals" with the "human immortals,"--with a disregard to time and place, which, if it be not so lowly in spirit, can be rendered by a great artist strikingly poetical and significant. 1. The renowned "Madonna di Foligno," one of Raphael's masterpieces, is a votive picture of this class. It was dedicated by Sigismund Conti of Foligno; private secretary to Pope Julius II., and a distinguished man in other respects, a writer and a patron of learning. It appears that Sigismund having been in great danger from a meteor or thunderbolt, vowed an offering to the blessed Virgin, to whom he attributed his safety, and in fulfilment of his vow consecrated this precious picture. In the upper part of the composition sits the Virgin in heavenly glory; by her side the infant Christ, partly sustained by his mother's veil, which is drawn round his body: both look down benignly on the votary Sigismund Conti, who, kneeling below, gazes up with an expression of the most intense gratitude and devotion. It is a portrait from the life, and certainly one of the finest and most life-like that exists in painting. Behind him stands St. Jerome, who, placing his hand upon the head of the votary, seems to present him to his celestial protectress. On the opposite side John the Baptist, the meagre wild-looking prophet of the desert, points upward to the Redeemer. More in front kneels St. Francis, who, while he looks up to heaven with trusting and imploring love, extends his right hand towards the worshippers, supposed to be assembled in the church, recommending them also to the protecting grace of the Virgin. In the centre of the picture, dividing these two groups, stands a lovely angel-boy holding in his hand a tablet, one of the most charming figures of this kind Raphael ever painted; the head, looking up, has that sublime, yet perfectly childish grace, which strikes us in those awful angel-boys in the "Madonna di San Sisto." The background is a landscape, in which appears the city of Foligno at a distance; it is overshadowed by a storm-cloud, and a meteor is seen falling; but above these bends a rainbow, pledge of peace and safety. The whole picture glows throughout with life and beauty, hallowed by that profound religious sentiment which suggested the offering, and which the sympathetic artist seems to have caught from the grateful donor. It was dedicated in the church of the Ara-Coeli at Rome, which belongs to the Franciscans; hence St. Francis is one of the principal figures. When I was asked, at Rome, why St. Jerome had been introduced into the picture, I thought it might be thus accounted for:--The patron saint of the donor, St. Sigismund, was a king and a warrior, and Conti might possibly think that it did not accord with his profession, as an humble ecclesiastic, to introduce him here. The most celebrated convent of the Jeronimites in Italy is that of St. Sigismund near Cremona, placed under the special protection of St. Jerome, who is also in a general sense the patron of all ecclesiastics; hence, perhaps, he figures here as the protector of Sigismund Conti. The picture was painted, and placed over the high altar of the Ara-Coeli in 1511, when Raphael was in his twenty-eighth year. Conti died in 1512, and in 1565 his grandniece, Suora Anna Conti, obtained permission to remove it to her convent at Foligno, whence it was carried off by the French in 1792. Since the restoration of the works of art in Italy, in 1815, it has been placed among the treasures of the Vatican. * * * * * 2. Another perfect specimen of a votive picture of this kind, in a very different style, I saw in the museum at Rouen, attributed there to Van Eyck. It is, probably, a fine work by a later master of the school, perhaps Hemmelinck. In the centre, the Virgin is enthroned; the Child, seated on her knee, holds a bunch of grapes, symbol of the eucharist. On the right of the Virgin is St. Apollonia; then two lovely angels in white raiment, with lutes in their hands; and then a female head, seen looking from behind, evidently a family portrait. More in front, St. Agnes, splendidly dressed in green and sable, her lamb at her feet, turns with a questioning air to St. Catherine, who, in queenly garb of crimson and ermine seems to consult her book. Behind her another member of the family, a man with a very fine face; and more in front St. Dorothea, with a charming expression of modesty, looks down on her basket of roses. On the left of the Virgin is St. Agatha; then two angels in white with viols; then St. Cecilia; and near her a female head, another family portrait; next St. Barbara wearing a beautiful head-dress, in front of which is worked her tower, framed like an ornamental jewel in gold and pearls; she has a missal in her lap. St. Lucia next appears; then another female portrait. All the heads are about one fourth of the size of life. I stood in admiration before this picture--such miraculous finish in all the details, such life, such spirit, such delicacy in the heads and hands, such brilliant colour in the draperies! Of its history I could learn nothing, nor what family had thus introduced themselves into celestial companionship. The portraits seemed to me to represent a father, a mother, and two daughters. * * * * * I must mention some other instances of votive Madonnas, interesting either from their beauty or their singularity. 3. Réné, Duke of Anjou, and King of Sicily and Jerusalem, the father of our Amazonian queen, Margaret of Anjou, dedicated, in the church of the Carmelites, at Aix, the capital of his dominions, a votive picture, which is still to be seen there. It is not only a monument of his piety, but of his skill; for, according to the tradition of the country, he painted it himself. The good King Réné was no contemptible artist; but though he may have suggested the subject, the hand of a practised and accomplished painter is too apparent for us to suppose it his own work. This altar-piece in a triptychon, and when the doors are closed it measures twelve feet in height, and seven feet in width. On the outside of the doors is the Annunciation: to the left, the angel standing on a pedestal, under a Gothic canopy; to the right, the Virgin standing with her book, under a similar canopy: both graceful figures. On opening the doors, the central compartment exhibits the Virgin and her Child enthroned in a burning bush; the bush which burned with fire, and was not consumed, being a favourite type of the immaculate purity of the Virgin. Lower down, in front, Moses appears surrounded by his flocks, and at the command of an angel is about to take off his sandals. The angel is most richly dressed, and on the clasp of his mantle is painted in miniature Adam and Eve tempted by the serpent. Underneath this compartment, is the inscription, "_Rubum quem viderat Moyses, incombustum, conservatam agnovimus tuam laudabilem Virginitatem, Sancta Dei Genitrix[1]_." On the door to the right of the Virgin kneels King Réné himself before an altar, on which lies an open book and his kingly crown. He is dressed in a robe trimmed with ermine, and wears a black velvet cap. Behind him, Mary Magdalene (the patroness of Provence), St. Antony, and St. Maurice. On the other door, Jeanne de Laval, the second wife of Réné, kneels before an open book; she is young and beautiful, and richly attired; and behind her stand St. John (her patron saint), St. Catherine (very noble and elegant), and St. Nicholas. I saw this curious and interesting picture in 1846. It is very well preserved, and painted with great finish and delicacy in the manner of the early Flemish school. [Footnote 1: For the relation of Moses to the Virgin (as attribute) v. the Introduction.] 4. In a beautiful little picture by Van Eyck (Louvre, No. 162. Ecole Allemande), the Virgin is seated on a throne, holding in her arms the infant Christ, who has a globe in his left hand, and extends the right in the act of benediction. The Virgin is attired as a queen, in a magnificent robe falling in ample folds around her, and trimmed with jewels; an angel, hovering with outspread wings, holds a crown over her head. On the left of the picture, a votary, in the dress of a Flemish burgomaster, kneels before a Prie-Dieu, on which is an open book, and with clasped hands adores the Mother and her Child. The locality represents a gallery or portico paved with marble, and sustained by pillars in a fantastic Moorish style. The whole picture is quite exquisite for the delicacy of colour and execution. In the catalogue of the Louvre, this picture, is entitled "St. Joseph adoring the Infant Christ,"--an obvious mistake, if we consider the style of the treatment and the customs of the time. 5. All who have visited the church of the Frari at Venice will remember--for once seen, they never can forget--the ex-voto altar-piece which adorns the chapel of the Pesaro family. The beautiful Virgin is seated on a lofty throne to the right of the picture, and presses to her bosom the _Dio Bambinetto_, who turns from her to bless the votary presented by St. Peter. The saint stands on the steps of the throne, one hand on a book; and behind him kneels one of the Pesaro family, who was at once bishop of Paphos and commander of the Pope's galleys: he approaches to consecrate to the Madonna the standards taken from the Turks, which are borne by St. George, as patron of Venice. On the other side appear St. Francis and St. Antony of Padua, as patrons of the church in which the picture is dedicated. Lower down, kneeling on one side of the throne, is a group of various members of the Pesaro family, three of whom are habited in crimson robes, as _Cavalieri di San Marco_; the other, a youth about fifteen, looks out of the picture, astonishingly _alive_, and yet sufficiently idealized to harmonize with the rest. This picture is very remarkable for several reasons. It is a piece of family history, curiously illustrative of the manners of the time. The Pesaro here commemorated was an ecclesiastic, but appointed by Alexander VI. to command the galleys with which he joined the Venetian forces against the Turks in 1503. It is for this reason that St. Peter--as representative here of the Roman pontiff--introduces him to the Madonna, while St. George, as patron of Venice, attends him. The picture is a monument of the victory gained by Pesaro, and the gratitude and pride of his family. It is also one of the finest works of Titian; one of the earliest instances in which a really grand religious composition assumes almost a dramatic and scenic form, yet retains a certain dignity and symmetry worthy of its solemn destination.[1] [Footnote 1: We find in the catalogue of pictures which belonged to our Charles I. one which represented "a pope preferring a general of his navy to St. Peter." It is Pope Alexander VI. presenting this very Pesaro to St. Peter; that is, in plain unpictorial prose, giving him the appointment of admiral of the galleys of the Roman states. This interesting picture, after many vicissitudes, is now in the Museum at Antwerp. (See the _Handbook to the Royal Galleries_, p. 201.)] 6. I will give one more instance. There is in our National Gallery a Venetian picture which is striking from its peculiar and characteristic treatment. On one side, the Virgin with her Infant is seated on a throne; a cavalier, wearing armour and a turban, who looks as if he had just returned from the eastern wars, prostrates himself before her: in the background, a page (said to be the portrait of the painter) holds the horse of the votary. The figures are life-size, or nearly so, as well as I can remember, and the sentimental dramatic treatment is quite Venetian. It is supposed to represent a certain Duccio Constanzo of Treviso, and was once attributed to Giorgione: it is certainly of the school of Bellini. (Nat. Gal. Catalogue, 234.) * * * * * As these enthroned and votive Virgins multiplied, as it became more and more a fashion to dedicate them as offerings in churches, want of space, and perhaps, also, regard to expense, suggested the idea of representing the figures half-length. The Venetians, from early time the best face painters in the world, appear to have been the first to cut off the lower part of the figure, leaving the arrangement otherwise much the same. The Virgin is still a queenly and majestic creature, sitting there to be adored. A curtain or part of a carved chair represents her throne. The attendant saints are placed to the right and to the left; or sometimes the throne occupies one side of the picture, and the saints are ranged on the other. From the shape and diminished size of these votive pictures the personages, seen half-length, are necessarily placed very near to each other, and the heads nearly on a level with that of the Virgin, who is generally seen to the knees, while the Child is always full-length. In such compositions we miss the grandeur of the entire forms, and the consequent diversity of character and attitude; but sometimes the beauty and individuality of the heads atone for all other deficiencies. * * * * * In the earlier Venetian examples, those of Gian Bellini particularly, there is a solemn quiet elevation which renders them little inferior, in religious sentiment, to the most majestic of the enthroned and enskied Madonnas. * * * * * There is a sacred group by Bellini, in the possession of Sir Charles Eastlake, which has always appeared to me a very perfect specimen of this class of pictures. It is also the earliest I know of. The Virgin, pensive, sedate, and sweet, like all Bellini's Virgins, is seated in the centre, and seen in front. The Child, on her knee, blesses with his right hand, and the Virgin places hers on the head of a votary, who just appears above the edge of the picture, with hands joined in prayer; he is a fine young man with an elevated and elegant profile. On the right are St. John the Baptist pointing to the Saviour, and St. Catherine; on the left, St. George with his banner, and St. Peter holding his book. A similar picture, with Mary Magdalene and St. Jerome on the right, St. Peter and St. Martha on the left, is in the Leuchtenberg Gallery at Munich. Another of exquisite beauty is in the Venice Academy, in which the lovely St. Catherine wears a crown of myrtle. Once introduced, these half-length enthroned Madonnas became very common, spreading from the Venetian states through the north of Italy; and we find innumerable examples from the best schools of art in Italy and Germany, from the middle of the fifteenth to the middle of the sixteenth century. I shall particularize a few of these, which will be sufficient to guide the attention of the observer; and we must carefully discriminate between the sentiment proper to these half-length enthroned Madonnas, and the pastoral or domestic sacred groups and Holy Families, of which I shall have to treat hereafter. Raphael's well-known Madonna _della Seggiola_ and Madonna _della Candelabra_, are both enthroned Virgins in the grand style, though seen half-length. In fact, the air of the head ought, in the higher schools of art, at once to distinguish a Madonna, _in trono_, even where only the head is visible. * * * * * In a Milanese picture, the Virgin and Child appear between St. Laurence and St. John. The mannered and somewhat affected treatment is contrasted with the quiet, solemn simplicity of a group by Francia, where the Virgin and Child appear as objects of worship between St. Dominick and St. Barbara. The Child, standing or seated on a table or balustrade in front, enabled the painter to vary the attitude, to take the infant Christ out of the arms of the Mother, and to render his figure more prominent. It was a favourite arrangement with the Venetians; and there is an instance in a pretty picture in our National Gallery, attributed to Perugino. Sometimes, even where the throne and the attendant saints and angels show the group to be wholly devotional and exalted, we find the sentiment varied by a touch of the dramatic,--by the introduction of an action; but it must be one of a wholly religious significance, suggestive of a religious feeling, or the subject ceases to be properly _devotional_ in character. There is a picture by Botticelli, before which, in walking up the corridor of the Florence Gallery, I used, day after day, to make an involuntary pause of admiration. The Virgin, seated in a chair of state, but seen only to the knees, sustains her divine Son with one arm; four angels are in attendance, one of whom presents an inkhorn, another holds before her an open book, and she is in the act of writing the Magnificat, "My soul doth magnify the Lord!" The head of the figure behind the Virgin is the portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici when a boy. There is absolutely no beauty of feature, either in the Madonna, or the Child, or the angels, yet every face is full of dignity and character. In a beautiful picture by Titian (Bel. Gal., Vienna. Louvre, No. 458), the Virgin is enthroned on the left, and on the right appear St. George and St. Laurence as listening, while St. Jerome reads from his great book. A small copy of this picture is at Windsor. * * * * * The old German and Flemish painters, in treating the enthroned Madonna, sometimes introduced accessories which no painter of the early Italian school would have descended to; and which tinge with a homely sentiment their most exalted conceptions. Thus, I have seen a German Madonna seated on a superb throne, and most elaborately and gorgeously arrayed, pressing her Child to her bosom with a truly maternal air; while beside her, on a table, is a honeycomb, some butter, a dish of fruit, and a glass of water. (Bel. Gal., Vienna.) It is possible that in this case, as in the Virgin suckling her Child, there may be a religious allusion:--"_Butter and honey shall he eat_," &c. THE MATER AMABILIS. _Ital._ La Madonna col Bambino. La Madonna col celeste suo figlio. _Fr._ La Vierge et l'enfant Jesus. _Ger._ Maria mit dem Kind. There is yet another treatment of the Madonna and Child, in which the Virgin no longer retains the lofty goddess-like exaltation given to her in the old time. She is brought nearer to our sympathies. She is not seated in a chair of state with the accompaniments of earthly power; she is not enthroned on clouds, nor glorified and star-crowned in heaven; she is no longer so exclusively the VERGINE DEA, nor the VIRGO DEI GENITRIX; but she is still the ALMA MATER REDEMPTORIS, the young, and lovely, and most pure mother of a divine Christ. She is not sustained in mid-air by angels; she dwells lowly on earth; but the angels leave their celestial home to wait upon her. Such effigies, when conceived in a strictly ideal and devotional sense, I shall designate as the MATER AMABILIS. The first and simplest form of this beautiful and familiar subject, we find in those innumerable half-length figures of the Madonna, holding her Child in her arms, painted chiefly for oratories, private or way-side chapels, and for the studies, libraries, and retired chambers of the devout, as an excitement to religious feeling, and a memorial of the mystery of the Incarnation, where large or grander subjects, or more expensive pictures, would be misplaced. Though unimportant in comparison with the comprehensive and magnificent church altar-pieces already described, there is no class of pictures so popular and so attractive, none on which the character of the time and the painter is stamped more clearly and intelligibly, than on these simple representations. The Virgin is not here the dispenser of mercy; she is simply the mother of the Redeemer. She is occupied only by her divine Son. She caresses him, or she gazes on him fondly. She presents him to the worshipper. She holds him forth with a pensive joy as the predestined offering. If the profound religious sentiment of the early masters was afterwards obliterated by the unbelief and conventionalism of later art, still this favourite subject could not be so wholly profaned by degrading sentiments and associations, as the mere portrait heads of the Virgin alone. No matter what the model for the Madonna, might have been,--a wife, a mistress, a _contadina_ of Frascati, a Venetian _Zitella_, a _Madchen_ of Nuremberg, a buxom Flemish _Frau_,--for the Child was there; the baby innocence in her arms consecrated her into that "holiest thing alive," a mother. The theme, however inadequately treated as regarded its religious significance, was sanctified in itself beyond the reach of a profane thought. Miserable beyond the reach of hope, dark below despair, that moral atmosphere which the presence of sinless unconscious infancy cannot for a moment purify or hallow! Among the most ancient and most venerable of the effigies of the Madonna, we find the old Greek pictures of the _Mater Amabilis_, if that epithet can be properly applied to the dark-coloured, sad-visaged Madonnas generally attributed to St. Luke, or transcripts of those said to be painted by him, which exist in so many churches, and are, or were, supposed by the people to possess a peculiar sanctity. These are almost all of oriental origin, or painted to imitate the pictures brought from the East in the tenth or twelfth century. There are a few striking and genuine examples of these ancient Greek Madonnas in the Florentine Gallery, and, nearer at hand, in the Wallerstein collection at Kensington Palace. They much resemble each other in the general treatment. The infinite variety which painters have given to this most simple _motif_, the Mother and the Child only, without accessories or accompaniments of any kind, exceeds all possibility of classification, either as to attitude or sentiment. Here Raphael shone supreme: the simplicity, the tenderness, the halo of purity and virginal dignity, which he threw round the _Mater Amabilis_ have, never been surpassed--in his best pictures, never equalled. The "Madonna del Gran-Duca," where the Virgin holds the Child seated on her arm; the "Madonna Tempi," where she so fondly presses her check to his,--are perhaps the most remarkable for simplicity. The Madonna of the Bridgewater Gallery, where the Infant lies on her knees, and the Mother and Son look into each other's eyes; the little "Madonna Conestabile," where she holds the book, and the infant Christ, with a serious yet perfectly childish grace, bends to turn over the leaf,--are the most remarkable for sentiment. Other Madonnas by Raphael, containing three or more figures, do not belong to this class of pictures. They are not strictly devotional, but are properly Holy Families, groups and scenes from the domestic life of the Virgin. With regard, to other painters before or since his time, the examples of the _Mater Amabilis_ so abound la public and private galleries, and have been so multiplied in prints, that comparison is within the reach of every observer. I will content myself with noticing a few of the most remarkable for beauty or characteristic treatment. Two painters, who eminently excelled in simplicity and purity of sentiment, are Gian Bellini of Venice, and Bernardino Luini of Milan. Squarcione, though often fantastic, has painted one or two of these Madonnas, remarkable for simplicity and dignity, as also his pupil Mantegna; though in both the style of execution is somewhat hard and cold. In the one by Fra Bartolomeo, there is such a depth of maternal tenderness in the expression and attitude, we wonder where the good monk found his model. In his own heart? in his dreams? A _Mater Amabilis_ by one of the Caracci or by Vandyck is generally more elegant and dignified than tender. The Madonna, for instance, by Annibal, has something of the majestic sentiment of an enthroned Madonna. Murillo excelled in this subject; although most of his Virgins have a portrait air of common life, they are redeemed by the expression. In one of these, the Child, looking out of the picture with extended arms and eyes full of divinity, seems about to spring forth to fulfil his mission. In another he folds his little hands, and looks up to Heaven, as if devoting himself to his appointed suffering, while the Mother looks down upon him with a tender resignation. (Leuchtenberg Gal.) In a noble Madonna by Vandyck (Bridgewater Gal.), it is she herself who devotes him to do his Father's will; and I still remember a picture of this class, by Carlo Cignani (Belvedere Gal., Vienna), which made me start, with the intense expression: the Mother presses to her the Child, who holds a cross in his baby hand; she looks up to heaven with an appealing look of love and anguish,--almost of reproach. Guido did not excel so much in children, as in the Virgin alone. Poussin, Carlo Dolce, Sasso Ferrato, and, in general, all the painters of the seventeenth century, give us pretty women and pretty children. We may pass them over. A second version of the Mater Amabilis, representing the Virgin and Child full-length, but without accessories, has been also very beautifully treated. She is usually seated in a landscape, and frequently within the mystical enclosure (_Hortus clausus_), which is sometimes in the German pictures a mere palisade of stakes or boughs. Andrea Mantegna, though a fantastic painter, had generally some meaning in his fancies. There is a fine picture of his in which the Virgin and Child are seated in a landscape, and in the background is a stone-quarry, where a number of figures are seen busily at work; perhaps hewing the stone to build the new temple of which our Saviour was the corner-stone. (Florence Gal.) In a group by Cristofano Allori, the Child places a wreath of flowers on the brow of his Mother, holding in his other hand his own crown of thorns: one of the _fancies_ of the later schools of art. The introduction of the little St. John into the group of the Virgin and Child lends it a charming significance and variety, and is very popular; we must, however, discriminate between the familiarity of the domestic subject and the purely religious treatment. When the Giovannino adores with folded hands, as acknowledging in Christ a superior power, or kisses his feet humbly, or points to him exulting, then it is evident that we have the two Children in their spiritual character, the Child, Priest and King, and the Child, Prophet. In a picture by Lionardo da Vinci (Coll. of the Earl of Suffolk), the Madonna, serious and beautiful, without either crown or veil, and adorned only by her long fair hair, is seated on a rock. On one side, the little Christ, supported in the arms of an angel, raises his hand in benediction; on the other side, the young St. John, presented by the Virgin, kneels in adoration. Where the Children are merely embracing each other, or sporting at the feet of the Virgin, or playing with the cross, or with a bird, or with the lamb, or with flowers, we might call the treatment domestic or poetical; but where St. John is taking the cross from the hand of Christ, it is clear, from the perpetual repetition of the theme, that it is intended to express a religious allegory. It is the mission of St. John as Baptist and Prophet. He receives the symbol of faith ere he goes forth to preach and to convert, or as it has been interpreted, he, in the sense used by our Lord, "takes up the cross of our Lord." The first is, I think, the meaning when the cross is enwreathed with the _Ecce Agnus Dei_; the latter, when it is a simple cross. In Raphael's "Madonna della Famiglia Alva," (now in the Imp. Gal., St. Petersburg), and in his Madonna of the Vienna Gallery, Christ gives the cross to St. John. In a picture of the Lionardo school in the Louvre we have the same action; and again in a graceful group by Guido, which, in the engraving, bears this inscription, "_Qui non accipit crucem suam non est me dignus_." (Matt. x. 38.) This, of course, fixes the signification. Another, and, as I think, a wholly fanciful interpretation, has been given to this favourite group by Treck and by Monckton Milnes. The Children contend for the cross. The little St. John begs to have it. "Give me the cross, I pray you, dearest Jesus. O if you knew how much I wish to have it, You would not hold it in your hand so tightly. Something has told me, something in my breast here, Which I am sure is true, that if you keep it, If you will let no other take it from you, Terrible things I cannot bear to think of Must fall upon you. Show me that you love me: Am I not here to be your little servant, Follow your steps, and wait upon your wishes?" But Christ refuses to yield the terrible plaything, and claims his privilege to be the elder "in the heritage of pain." In a picture by Carlo Maratti, I think this action is evident--Christ takes the cross, and St. John yields it with reluctance. A beautiful version of the Mater Amabilis is the MADRE PIA, where the Virgin in her divine Infant acknowledges and adores the Godhead. We must be careful to distinguish this subject from the Nativity, for it is common, in the scene of the birth of the Saviour at Bethlehem, to represent the Virgin adoring her new-born Child. The presence of Joseph--the ruined shed or manger--the ox and ass,--these express the _event_. But in the MADRE PIA properly so called, the locality, and the accessories, if any, are purely ideal and poetical, and have no reference to time or place. The early Florentines, particularly Lorenzo di Credi, excelled in this charming subject. There is a picture by Filippino Lippi, which appears to me eminently beautiful and poetical. Here the mystical garden is formed of a balustrade, beyond which is seen a hedge all in a blush with roses. The Virgin kneels in the midst, and adores her Infant, who has his finger on his lip (_Verbum sum!_); an angel scatters rose-leaves over him, while the little St. John also kneels, and four angels, in attitudes of adoration, complete the group. But a more perfect example is the Madonna by Francia in the Munich Gallery, where the divine Infant lies on the flowery turf; and the mother, standing before him and looking down on him, seems on the point of sinking on her knees in a transport of tenderness and devotion. This, to my feeling, is one of the most perfect pictures in the world; it leaves nothing to be desired. With all the simplicity of the treatment it is strictly devotional. The Mother and her Child are placed within the mystical garden enclosed in a treillage of roses, alone with each other, and apart from all earthly associations, all earthly communion. The beautiful altar-piece by Perugino in our National Gallery is properly a Madre Pia; the child seated on a cushion is sustained by an angel, the mother kneels before him. The famous Correggio in the Florentine Gallery is also a Madre Pia. It is very tender, sweet, and maternal. The Child lying on part of his mother's blue mantle, so arranged that while she kneels and bends over him, she cannot change her attitude without disturbing him, is a _concetto_ admired by critics in sentiment and Art; but it appears to me very inferior and commonplace in comparison to the Francia at Munich. In a group by Botticelli, angels sustain the Infant, while the mother, seated, with folded hands, adores him: and in a favourite composition by Guido he sleeps. And, lastly, we have the Mater Amabilis in a more complex, and picturesque, though still devotional, form. The Virgin, seen at full length, reclines on a verdant bank, or is seated under a tree. She is not alone with her Child. Holy personages, admitted to a communion with her, attend around her, rather sympathizing than adoring. The love of varied nature, the love of life under all its aspects, became mingled with the religious conception. Instead of carefully avoiding whatever may remind us of her earthly relationship, the members of her family always form a part of her _cortège_. This pastoral and dramatic treatment began with the Venetian and Paduan schools, and extended to the early German schools, which were allied to them in feeling, though contrasted with them in form and execution. The perpetual introduction of St. Joseph, St. Elizabeth, and other relatives of the Virgin (always avoided in a Madonna dell Trono), would compose what is called a Holy Family, but that the presence of sainted personages whose existence and history belong to a wholly different era--St. Catherine, St. George, St. Francis, or St. Dominick--takes the composition out of the merely domestic and historical, and lifts it at once into the ideal and devotional line of art. Such a group cannot well be styled a _Sacra Famiglia_; it is a _Sacra Conversazione_ treated in the pastoral and lyrical rather than the lofty epic style. In this subject the Venetians, who first introduced it, excel all other painters. There is no example by Raphael. The German and Flemish painters who adopted this treatment were often coarse and familiar; the later Italians became flippant and fantastic. The Venetians alone knew how to combine the truest feeling for nature with a sort of Elysian grace. I shall give a few examples. 1. In a picture by Titian (Dresden Gal.), the Virgin is seated on a green bank enamelled with flowers. She is simply dressed like a _contadina_, in a crimson tunic, and a white veil half shading her fair hair. She holds in her arms her lovely Infant, who raises his little hand in benediction. St. Catherine kneels before him on one side; on the other, St. Barbara. St. John the Baptist, not as a child, and the contemporary of our Saviour, but in likeness of an Arcadian shepherd, kneels with his cross and his lamb--the _Ecce Agnus Dei_, expressed, not in words, but in form. St. George stands by as a guardian warrior. And St. Joseph, leaning on his stick behind, contemplates the group with an air of dignified complacency. 2. There is another instance also from Titian. In a most luxuriant landscape thick with embowering trees, and the mountains of Cadore in the background, the Virgin is seated on a verdant bank; St. Catherine has thrown herself on her knees, and stretches out her arms to the divine Child in an ecstasy of adoration, in which there is nothing unseemly or familiar. At a distance St. John the Baptist approaches with his Lamb. 3. In another very similar group, the action of St. Catherine is rather too familiar,--it is that of an eider sister or a nurse: the young St. John kneels in worship. 4. Wonderfully fine is a picture of this class by Palma, now in the Dresden Gallery. The noble, serious, sumptuous loveliness of the Virgin; the exquisite Child, so thoughtful, yet so infantine; the manly beauty of the St. John; the charming humility of the St. Catherine as she presents her palm, form one of the most perfect groups in the world. Childhood, motherhood, maidenhood, manhood, were never, I think, combined in so sweet a spirit of humanity.[1] [Footnote 1: When I was at Dresden, in 1860, I found Steinle, so celebrated for his engravings of the Madonna di San Sisto and the Holbein Madonna, employed on this picture; and, as far as his art could go, transferring to his copper all the fervour and the _morbidezza_ of the original.] 5. In another picture by Palma, in the same gallery, we have the same picturesque arrangement of the Virgin and Child, while the _little_ St. John adores with folded hands, and St. Catherine sits by in tender contemplation. This Arcadian sentiment is carried as far as could well be allowed in a picture by Titian (Louvre, 459), known as the _Vierge au Lapin_. The Virgin holds a white rabbit, towards which the infant Christ, in the arms of St. Catherine, eagerly stretches his hand. In a picture by Paris Bordone it is carried, I think, too far. The Virgin reclines under a tree with a book in her hand; opposite to her sits St. Joseph holding an apple; between them, St. John the Baptist, as a bearded man, holds in his arms the infant Christ, who caressingly puts one arm round his neck, and with the other clings to the rough hairy raiment of his friend. * * * * * It will be observed, that in these Venetian examples St. Catherine, the beloved protectress of Venice, is seldom omitted. She is not here the learned princess who confounded tyrants and converted philosophers, but a bright-haired, full-formed Venetian maiden, glowing with love and life, yet touched with a serious grace, inexpressibly charming. St. Dorothea is also a favourite saint in these sacred pastorals. There is an instance in which she is seated by the Virgin with her basket of fruits and flowers; and St. Jerome, no longer beating his breast in penance, but in likeness of a fond old grandfather, stretches out his arms to the Child. Much finer is a picture now in the possession of Sir Charles Eastlake. The lovely Virgin is seated under a tree: on one side appears the angel Raphael, presenting Tobit; on the other, St. Dorothea, kneeling, holds up her basket of celestial fruit, gathered for her in paradise.[1] [Footnote 1: See Sacred and legendary Art, for the beautiful Legend of St. Dorothea] When St. Ursula, with her standard, appears in these Venetian pastorals, we may suppose the picture to have been painted for the famous brotherhood (_Scuola di Sant' Orsola_) which bears her name. Thus, in a charming picture by Palma, she appears before the Virgin, accompanied by St. Mark a protector of Venice. (Vienna, Belvedere Gal.) Ex-voto pictures in this style are very interesting, and the votary, without any striking impropriety, makes one of the Arcadian group. Very appropriate, too, is the marriage of St. Catherine, often treated in this poetical style. In a picture by Titian, the family of the Virgin attend the mystical rite, and St. Anna places the hand of St. Catherine in that of the Child. In a group by Signorelli, Christ appears as if teaching St. Catherine; he dictates, and she, the patroness of "divine philosophy," writes down his words. When the later painters in their great altar-pieces imitated this idyllic treatment, the graceful Venetian conception became in their hands heavy, mannered, tasteless,--and sometimes worse. The monastic saints or mitred dignitaries, introduced into familiar and irreverent communion with the sacred and ideal personages, in spite of the grand scenery, strike us as at once prosaic and fantastic "we marvel how they got there." Parmigiano, when he fled from the sack of Rome in 1527, painted at Bologna, for the nuns of Santa Margherita, an altar-piece which has been greatly celebrated. The Madonna, holding her Child, is seated in a landscape under a tree, and turns her head to the Bishop St. Petronius, protector of Bologna. St. Margaret, kneeling and attended by her great dragon, places one hand, with a free and easy air, on the knee of the Virgin, and with the other seems to be about to chuck the infant Christ under the chin. In a large picture by Giacomo Francia, the Virgin, walking in a flowery meadow with the infant Christ and St. John, and attended by St. Agnes and Mary Magdalene, meets St. Francis and St. Dominick, also, apparently, taking a walk. (Berlin Gal. No. 281.) And again;--the Madonna and St. Elizabeth meet with their children in a landscape, while St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Benedict stand behind in attitudes of attention and admiration. Now, such pictures may be excellently well painted, greatly praised by connoisseurs, and held in "_somma venerazione_," but they are offensive as regards the religious feeling, and, are, in point of taste, mannered, fantastic, and secular. * * * * * Here we must end our discourse concerning the Virgin and Child as a devotional subject. Very easily and delightfully to the writer, perhaps not painfully to the reader, we might have gone on to the end of the volume; but my object was not to exhaust the subject, to point out every interesting variety of treatment, but to lead the lover of art, wandering through a church or gallery, to new sources of pleasure; to show him what infinite shades of feeling and character may still be traced in a subject which, with all its beauty and attractiveness, might seem to have lost its significant interest, and become trite from endless repetition; to lead the mind to some perception of the intention of the artist in his work,--under what aspect he had himself contemplated and placed before the worshipper the image of the mother of Christ,--whether crowned and enthroned as the sovereign lady of Christendom; or exalted as the glorious empress of heaven and all the spiritual world; or bending benignly over us, the impersonation of sympathizing womanhood, the emblem of relenting love, the solace of suffering humanity, the maid and mother, dear and undefiled-- "Created beings all in lowliness Surpassing, as in height above them all." It is time to change the scene,--to contemplate the Virgin, as she has been exhibited to us in the relations of earthly life, as the mere woman, acting and suffering, loving, living, dying, fulfilling the highest destinies in the humblest state, in the meekest spirit. So we begin her history as the ancient artists have placed it before us, with that mingled _naïveté_ and reverence, that vivid dramatic power, which only faith, and love, and genius united, could impart. HISTORICAL SUBJECTS PART I. THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MARY FROM HER BIRTH TO HER MARRIAGE WITH JOSEPH. 1. THE LEGEND OF JOACHIM AND ANNA. 2. THE NATIVITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 3. THE DEDICATION IN THE TEMPLE. 4. THE MARRIAGE WITH JOSEPH. THE LEGEND OF JOACHIM AND ANNA. _Ital._ La Leggenda di Sant' Anna Madre della Gloriosa Vergine Maria, e di San Gioacchino. Of the sources whence are derived the popular legends of the life of the Virgin Mary, which, mixed up with the few notices in Scripture, formed one continuous narrative, authorized by the priesthood, and accepted and believed in by the people, I have spoken at length in the Introduction. We have now to consider more particularly the scenes and characters associated with her history; to show how the artists of the Middle Ages, under the guidance and by the authority of the Church, treated in detail these favourite themes in ecclesiastical decoration. In early art, that is, up to the end of the fifteenth century, Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Virgin, never appear except in the series of subjects from her life. In the devotional groups and altar-pieces, they are omitted. St. Bernard, the great theological authority of those times, objects to the invocation of any saints who had lived before the birth of Christ, consequently to their introduction into ecclesiastical edifices in any other light than as historical personages. Hence, perhaps, there were scruples relative to the representations of St. Anna, which, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, placed the artists under certain restrictions. Under the name of Anna, the Church has honoured, from remote times, the memory of the mother of the Virgin. The Hebrew name, signifying _Grace_, or _the Gracious_, and all the traditions concerning her, came to us from the East, where she was so early venerated as a saint, that a church was dedicated to her by the Emperor Justinian, in 550. Several other churches were subsequently dedicated to her in Constantinople during the sixth and seventh centuries, and her remains are said to have been deposited there in 710. In the West, she first became known in the reign of Charlemagne; and the Greek apocryphal gospels, or at least stories and extracts from them, began to be circulated about the same period. From these are derived the historic scenes and legendary subjects relating to Joachim and Anna which appear in early art. It was about 1500, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, that the increasing veneration for the Virgin Mary gave to her parents, more especially to St. Anna, increased celebrity as patron saints; and they became, thenceforward, more frequent characters in the sacred groups. The feast of St. Anna was already general and popular throughout Europe long before it was rendered obligatory in 1584.[1] The growing enthusiasm for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception gave, of course, additional splendour and importance to her character. Still, it is only in later times that we find the effigy of St. Anna separated from that of the Virgin. There is a curious picture by Cesi (Bologna Gal.), in which St. Anna kneels before a vision of her daughter before she is born--the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception. A fine model of a bearded man was now sometimes converted into a St. Joachim reading or meditating, instead of a St. Peter or a St. Jerome, as heretofore. In the Munich Gallery are two fine ancient-looking figures of St. Joachim the father, and St. Joseph the husband, of the Virgin, standing together; but all these as separate representations, are very uncommon; and, of those which exhibit St. Anna devotionally, as enthroned with the Virgin and Child, I have already spoken. Like St. Elizabeth, she should be an elderly, but not a _very_ old woman. Joachim, in such pictures, never appears but as an attendant saint, and then very rarely; always very old, and sometimes in the dress of a priest, which however, is a mistake on the part of the artist. [Footnote 1: In England we have twenty-eight churches dedicated in the name of St. Anna.] * * * * * A complete series of the history of the Blessed Virgin, as imaged forth by the early artists, always begins with the legend of Joachim and Anna, which is thus related. "There was a man of Nazareth, whose name was Joachim, and he had for his wife a woman of Bethlehem, whose name was Anna, and both were of the royal race of David. Their lives were pure and righteous, and they served the Lord with singleness of heart. And being rich, they divided their substance into three portions, one for the service of the temple, one for the poor and the strangers, and the third for their household. On a certain feast day, Joachim brought double offerings to the Lord according to his custom, for he said, 'Out of my superfluity will I give for the whole people, that I may find favour in the sight of the Lord, and forgiveness for my sins.' And when the children of Israel brought their gifts, Joachim also brought his; but the high priest Issachar stood over against him and opposed him, saying, 'It is not lawful for thee to bring thine offering, seeing that thou hast not begot issue in Israel.' And Joachim was exceeding sorrowful, and went down to his house; and he searched through all the registers of the twelve tribes to discover if he alone had been childless in Israel. And he found that all the righteous men, and the patriarchs who had lived before him, had been the fathers of sons and daughters. And he called to mind his father Abraham, to whom in his old age had been granted a son, even Isaac. "And Joachim was more and more sorrowful; and he would not be seen by his wife, but avoided her, and went away into the pastures where were the shepherds and the sheep-cotes. And he built himself a hut, and fasted forty days and forty nights; for he said 'Until the Lord God look upon me mercifully, prayer shall be my meat and my drink.' "But his wife Anna remained lonely in her house, and mourned with a twofold sorrow, for her widowhood and for her barrenness. "Then drew near the last day of the feast of the Lord; and Judith her handmaid said to Anna, 'How long wilt thou thus afflict thy soul? Behold the feast of the Lord is come, and it is not lawful for thee thus to mourn. Take this silken fillet, which was bestowed on me by one of high degree whom I formerly served, and bind it round thy head, for it is not fit that I who am thy handmaid should wear it, but it is fitting for thee, whose brow is as the brow of a crowned queen.' And Anna replied, 'Begone! such things are not for me, for the Lord hath humbled me. As for this fillet, some wicked person hath given it to thee; and art thou come to make me a partaker in thy sin?' And Judith her maid answered, 'What evil shall I wish thee since thou wilt not hearken to my voice? for worse I cannot wish thee than that with which the Lord hath afflicted thee, seeing that he hath shut up thy womb, that thou shouldst not be a mother in Israel.' "And Anna hearing these words was sorely troubled. And she laid aside her mourning garments, and she adorned her head, and put on her bridal attire; and at the ninth hour she went forth into her garden, and sat down under a laurel tree and prayed earnestly. And looking up to heaven, she saw within the laurel bush a sparrow's nest; and mourning within herself she said, 'Alas! and woe is me! who hath begotten me? who hath brought me forth? that I should be accursed in the sight of Israel, and scorned and shamed before my people, and cast out of the temple of the Lord! Woe is me! to what shall I be likened? I cannot be likened to the fowls of heaven, for the fowls of heaven are fruitful in thy sight, O Lord! Woe is me! to what shall I be likened? Not to the unreasoning beasts of the earth, for they are fruitful in thy sight, O Lord! Woe is me! to what shall I be likened? Not to these waters, for they are fruitful in thy sight, O Lord! Woe is me! to what shall I be likened? Not unto the earth, for the earth bringeth forth her fruit in due season, and praiseth thee, O Lord!' "And behold an angel of the Lord stood by her and said, 'Anna, thy prayer is heard, thou shalt bring forth, and thy child shall be blessed throughout the whole world.' And Anna said, 'As the Lord liveth, whatever I shall bring forth, be it a man-child or a maid, I will present it an offering to the Lord.' And behold another angel came and said to her, 'See, thy husband Joachim is coming with his shepherds;' for an angel had spoken to him also, and had comforted him with promises. And Anna went forth to meet her husband, and Joachim came from the pasture with his herds, and they met at the golden gate; and Anna ran and embraced her husband, and hung upon his neck, saying, 'Now know I that the Lord hath blessed me. I who was a widow am no longer a widow; I who was barren shall become a joyful mother.' "And they returned home together. "And when her time was come, Anna brought forth a daughter; and she said, 'This day my soul magnifieth the Lord.' And she laid herself down in her bed; and she called, the name of her child Mary, which in the Hebrew is Miriam." * * * * * With the scenes of this beautiful pastoral begins the life of the Virgin. 1. We have first Joachim rejected from the temple. He stands on the steps before the altar holding a lamb; and the high priest opposite to him, with arm upraised, appears to refuse his offering. Such is the usual _motif_; but the incident has been variously treated--in the earlier and ruder examples, with a ludicrous want of dignity; for Joachim is almost tumbling down the steps of the temple to avoid the box on the ear which Issachar the priest is in the act of bestowing in a most energetic fashion. On the other hand, the group by Taddeo Gaddi (Florence, Baroncelli Chapel, S. Croce), though so early in date, has not since been excelled either in the grace or the dramatic significance of the treatment. Joachim turns away, with his lamb in his arms, repulsed, but gently, by the priest. To the right are three personages who bring offerings, one of whom, prostrate on his knees, yet looks up at Joachim with a sneering expression--a fine representation of the pharisaical piety of one of the elect, rejoicing in the humiliation of a brother. On the other side are three persons who appear to be commenting on the scene. In the more elaborate composition by Ghirlandajo (Florence, S. Maria Novella), there is a grand view into the interior of the temple, with arches richly sculptured. Joachim is thrust forth by one of the attendants, while in the background the high priest accepts the offering of a more favoured votary. On each side are groups looking on, who express the contempt and hatred they feel for one, who, not having children, presumes to approach the altar. All these, according to the custom of Ghirlandajo, are portraits of distinguished persons. The first figure on the right represents the painter Baldovinetti; next to him, with his hand on his side, Ghirlandajo himself; the third, with long black hair, is Bastiano Mainardi, who painted the Assumption in the Baroncelli Chapel, in the Santa Croce; and the fourth, turning his back, is David Ghirlandajo. These real personages are so managed, that, while they are not themselves actors, they do not interfere with the main action, but rather embellish and illustrate it, like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. Every single figure in this fine fresco is a study for manly character, dignified attitude, and easy grand drapery. In the same scene by Albert Durer,[1] the high priest, standing behind a table, rejects the offering of the lamb, and his attendant pushes away the doves. Joachim makes a gesture of despair, and several persons who bring offerings look at him with disdain or with sympathy. [Footnote 1: In the set of wood-cuts of the Life of the Virgin.] The same scene by Luini (Milan, Brera) is conceived with much pathetic as well as dramatic effect. But as I have said enough to reader the subject easily recognized, we proceed. * * * * * 2. "Joachim herding his sheep on the mountain, and surrounded by his shepherds, receives the message of the angel." This subject may so nearly resemble the Annunciation to the Shepherds in St. Luke's Gospel, that we must be careful to distinguish them, as, indeed, the best of the old painters have done with great taste and feeling. Is the fresco by Taddeo Gaddi (in the Baroncelli Chapel), Joachim is seated on a rocky mountain, at the base of which his sheep are feeding, and turns round to listen to the voice of the angel. In the fresco by Giotto in the Arena at Padua, the treatment is nearly the same.[1] In the series by Luini, a stream runs down the centre of the picture: on one side is Joachim listening to the angel, on the other, Anna is walking in her garden. This incident is omitted by Ghirlandajo. In Albert Durer's composition, Joachim is seen in the foreground kneeling, and looking up at an angel, who holds out in both hands a sort of parchment roll looking like a diploma with seals appended, and which we may suppose to contain the message from on high (if it be not rather the emblem of the _sealed book_, so often introduced, particularly by the German masters). A companion of Joachim also looks up with amazement, and farther in the distance are sheep and shepherds. [Footnote 1: The subject will be found in the set of wood-cuts published by the Arundel Society.] The Annunciation to St. Anna may be easily mistaken for the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary;--we must therefore be careful to discriminate, by an attention to the accessories. Didron observes that in Western art the annunciation to St. Anna usually takes place in a chamber. In the East it takes place in a garden, because there "_on vit feu dans les maisons et beaucoup en plein air_;" but, according to the legend, the locality ought to be a garden, and under a laurel tree, which is not always attended to. 3. The altercation between St. Anna and her maid Judith I have never met with but once, in the series by Luini, where the disconsolate figure and expression of St. Anna are given with infinite grace and sentiment. (Milan, Brera.) * * * * * 4. "The meeting of Joachim and Anna before the golden gate." This is one of the most important subjects. It has been treated by the very early artists with much _naïveté_, and in the later examples with infinite beauty and sentiment; and, which is curious, it has been idealized into a devotional subject, and treated apart. The action is in itself extremely simple. The husband and wife affectionately and joyfully embrace each other. In the background is seen a gate, richly ornamented. Groups of spectators and attendants are sometimes, not always, introduced. In the composition of Albert Durer nothing can be more homely, hearty, and conjugal. A burly fat man, who looks on with a sort of wondering amusement in his face, appears to be a true and animated transcript from nature, as true as Ghirlandajo's attendant figures--but how different! what a contrast between the Florentine citizen and the German burgher! In the simpler composition by Taddeo Gaddi, St. Anna is attended by three women, among whom the maid Judith is conspicuous, and behind Joachim is one of his shepherds[1]. [Footnote 1: In two compartments of a small altar-piece (which probably represented in the centre the Nativity of the Virgin), I found on one side the story of St. Joachim, on the other the story of St. Anna.--_Collection of Lord Northwick, No. 513, in his Catalogue_.] The Franciscans, those enthusiastic defenders of the Immaculate Conception, were the authors of a fantastic idea, that the birth of the Virgin was not only _immaculate_, but altogether _miraculous_, and that she owed her being to the joyful kiss which Joachim gave his wife when they met at the gate. Of course the Church gave no countenance to this strange poetical fiction, but it certainly modified some of the representations; for example, there is a picture by Vittore Carpaccio, wherein St. Joachim and Anna tenderly embrace. On one side stands St. Louis of Toulouse as bishop; on the other St. Ursula with her standard, whose presence turns the incident into a religious mystery. In another picture, painted by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, we have a still more singular and altogether mystical treatment. In the centre St. Joachim and St. Anna embrace; behind St. Joachim stands St. Joseph with his lily wand and a book; behind St. Anna, the Virgin Mary (thus represented as existing before she was born[1]), and beyond her St. Laurence; in the corner is seen the head of the votary, a Servite monk; above all, the Padre Eterno holds an open book with the _Alpha_ and _Omega_. This singular picture was dedicated and placed over the high altar of the Conception in the church of the Servi, who, under the title of _Serviti di Maria_, were dedicated to the especial service of the Virgin Mary. (v. Legends of the Monastic Orders.) [Footnote 1: Prov. viii 22, 23. These texts are applied to the Madonna.] THE NATIVITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. _Ital._ La Nascità della B. Vergine. _Fr._ La Naissance de la S. Vierge. _Ger._ Die Geburt Maria. This is, of course, a very important subject. It is sometimes treated apart as a separate scene; and a series of pictures dedicated to the honour of the Virgin, and comprising only a few of the most eventful scenes in her history, generally begins with her Nativity. The primitive treatment is Greek, and, though varied in the details and the sentiment, it has never deviated much from the original _motif_. St. Anna reclines on a couch covered with drapery, and a pillow under her head; two handmaids sustain her; a third fans her, or presents refreshments; more in front a group of women are busied about the new-born child. It has been the custom, I know not on what authority, to introduce neighbours and friends, who come to congratulate the parents. The whole scene thus treated is sure to come home to the bosom of the observer. The most important event in the life of a woman, her most common and yet most awful experience, is here so treated as to be at once ennobled by its significance and endeared by its thoroughly domestic character. I will give some examples. 1. The first is by an unknown master of the Greco-Italian school, and referred by d'Agincourt to the thirteenth century, but it is evidently later, and quite in the style of the Gaddi. 2. There is both dignity and simplicity in the fresco by Taddeo Gaddi. (Florence, Baroncelli Chapel.) St. Anna is sitting up in bed; an attendant pours water over her hands. In front, two women are affectionately occupied with the child a lovely infant with a glory round its head. Three other attendants are at the foot of the bed. 3. We have next in date, the elegant composition by Ghirlandajo. As Joachim and Anna were "exceedingly rich," he has surrounded them with all the luxuries of life. The scene is a chamber richly decorated; a frieze of angelic boys ornaments the alcove; St. Anna lies on a couch. Vasari says "certain women are ministering to her." but in Lasinio's engraving they are not to be found. In front a female attendant pours water into a vase; two others seated hold the infant. A noble lady, habited in the elegant Florentine costume of the fifteenth century, enters with four others--all portraits, and, as is usual with Ghirlandajo, looking on without taking any part in the action. The lady in front is traditionally said to be Ginevra Benci, celebrated for her beauty. 4. The composition by Albert Durer[1] gives us an exact transcript of antique German life, quite wonderful for the homely truth of the delineation, but equally without the simplicity of a scriptural or the dignity of an historical scene. In an old-fashioned German chamber lies St. Anna in an old-fashioned canopied bedstead. Two women bring her a soup and something to drink, while the midwife, tired with her exertions, leans her head on the bedside and has sank to sleep. A crowd of women fill up the foreground, one of whom attends to the new-born child: others, who appear to have watched through the night, as we may suppose from the nearly extinguished candles, are intent on good cheer; they congratulate each other; they eat, drink, and repose themselves. It would be merely a scene of German _commérage_, full of nature and reality, if an angel hovering above, and swinging a censer, did not remind us of the sacred importance of the incident represented. [Footnote 1: In the set of wood-cuts of the "Life of the Virgin Mary."] 5. In the strongest possible contrast to the homely but animated conception of Albert Durer, is the grand fresco by Andrea del Sarto, in the church of the Nunziata at Florence. The incidents are nearly the same: we have St. Anna reclining in her bed and attended by her women; the nurses waiting on the lovely new-born child; the visitors who enter to congratulate; but all, down to the handmaidens who bring refreshments, are noble and dignified, and draped in that magnificent taste which distinguished Andrea, Angels scatter flowers from above and, which is very uncommon, Joachim is seen, after the anxious night reposing on a couch. Nothing in fresco can exceed the harmony and brilliancy of the colouring, and the softness of the execution. It appeared to me a masterpiece as a picture. Like Ghirlandajo, Andrea has introduced portraits; and in the Florentine lady who stands in the foreground we recognize the features of his worthless wife Lucrezia, the original model of so many of his female figures that the ignoble beauty of her face has become quite familiar. THE PRESENTATION OF THE VIRGIN. _Ital._ La Presentazione, ove nostra Signora piccioletta sale i gradi del Tempio. _Ger._ Joachim und Anna weihen ihre Tochter Maria im Tempel. Die Vorstellung der Jungfrau im Tempel. Nov. 21. In the interval between the birth of Mary and her consecration in the temple, there is no incident which I can remember as being important or popular as a subject of art. It is recorded with what tenderness her mother Anna watched over her, "how she made of her bedchamber a holy place, allowing nothing that was common or unclean to enter in;" and called to her "certain daughters of Israel, pure and gentle," whom she appointed to attend on her. In some of the early miniature illustrations of the Offices of the Virgin, St. Anna thus ministers to her child; for instance, in a beautiful Greek MS. in the Vatican, she is tenderly putting her into a little bed or cradle and covering her up. (It is engraved in d'Agincourt.) It is not said anywhere that St. Anna instructed her daughter. It has even been regarded as unorthodox to suppose that the Virgin, enriched from her birth, and before her birth, with all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, required instruction from any one. Nevertheless, the subject of the "Education of the Virgin" has been often represented in later times. There is a beautiful example by Murillo; while Anna teaches her child to read, angels hover over them with wreaths of roses. (Madrid Gal.) Another by Rubens, in which, as it is said, he represented his young wife, Helena Forman. (Musée, Antwerp.) There is also a picture in which St. Anna ministers to her daughter, and is intent on braiding and adorning her long golden hair, while the angels look on with devout admiration. (Vienna, Lichtenstein Gal.) In all these examples Mary is represented as a girl of ten or twelve years old. Now, as the legend expressly relates that she was three years old when she became an inmate of the temple, such representations must be considered as incorrect. * * * * * The narrative thus proceeds:-- "And when the child was _three years old_, Joachim said, 'Let us invite the daughters of Israel, and they shall take each a taper or a lamp, and attend on her, that the child may not turn back from the temple of the Lord.' And being come to the temple, they placed her on the first step, and she ascended alone all the steps to the altar: and the high priest received her there, kissed her, and blessed her, saying, 'Mary, the Lord hath magnified thy name to all generations, and in thee shall be made known the redemption of the children of Israel.' And being placed before the altar, she danced with her feet, so that all the house of Israel rejoiced with her, and loved her. Then her parents returned home, blessing God because the maiden had not turned back from the temple." * * * * * Such is the incident, which, in artistic representation, is sometimes styled the "Dedication," but more generally "THE PRESENTATION OF THE VIRGIN." It is a subject of great importance, not only as a principal incident in a series of the Life of the Virgin, but because this consecration of Mary to the service of the temple being taken in a general sense, it has often been given in a separate form, particularly for the nunneries. Hence it has happened that we find "The Presentation of the Virgin" among some of the most precious examples of ancient and modern art. The _motif_ does not vary. The child Mary, sometimes in a blue, but oftener in a white vesture, with long golden hair, ascends the steps which lead to the porch of the temple, which steps are always fifteen in number. She ought to be an infant of three years of age; but in many pictures she is represented older, veiled, and with a taper in her hand instead of a lamp, like a young nun; but this is a fault. The "fifteen steps" rest on a passage in Josephus, who says, "between the wall which separated the men from the women, and the great porch of the temple, were fifteen steps;" and these are the steps which Mary is supposed to ascend. 1. It is sometimes treated with great simplicity; for instance, in the bas-relief by Andrea Orcagna, there are only three principal figures--the Virgin in the centre (too old, however), and Joachim and Anna stand on each side. (Florence, Or San Michele.) 2. In the fresco by Taddeo Gaddi we have the same artless grace, the same dramatic grouping, and the same faults of drawing and perspective as in the other compartments of the series. (Florence, Baroncelli Chapel.) 3. The scene is represented by Ghirlandajo with his usual luxury of accessories and accompaniments. (Florence, S. Maria Novella.) The locality is the court of the temple; on the right a magnificent porch; the Virgin, a young girl of about nine or ten years old, is seen ascending the steps with a book in her hand; the priest stretches out his arms to receive her; behind him is another priest; and "the young virgins who were to be her companions" are advancing joyously to receive her. (Adducentur Regi Virgines post eam. Ps. xlv.) At the foot of the steps are St. Anna and St. Joachim, and farther off a group of women and spectators, who watch the event in attitudes of thanksgiving and joyful sympathy. Two venerable, grand-looking Jews, and two beautiful boys fill the foreground; and the figure of the pilgrim resting on the steps is memorable in art as one of the earliest examples of an undraped figure, accurately and gracefully drawn. The whole composition is full of life and character, and that sort of _elegance_ peculiar to Ghirlandajo. 4. In the composition of Albert Durer we see the entrance of the temple on the left, and the child Mary with flowing hair ascending the steps; behind her stand her parents and other personages, and in front are venders of provisions, doves, &c., which are brought as offerings. 5. The scene, as given by Carpaccio, appears to me exceedingly graceful. The perfectly childish figure of Mary with her light flowing tresses, the grace with which she kneels on the steps, and the disposition of the attendant figures, are all beautifully conceived. Conspicuous in front is a page holding a unicorn, the ancient emblem of chastity, and often introduced significantly into pictures of the Virgin. (Venice Academy.) 6. But the most celebrated example is the Presentation by Titian, in the academy at Venice, originally painted for the church of the brotherhood of charity (_Scuola della Carità_), and still to be seen there--the Carità being now the academy of art. In the general arrangement, Titian seems to have been indebted to Carpaccio; but all that is simple and poetical in the latter becomes in Titian's version sumptuous and dramatic. Here Mary does not kneel, but, holding up her light-blue drapery, ascends the steps with childish grace and alacrity. The number of portrait-heads adds to the value and interest of the picture. Titian himself is looking up, and near him stands his friend, Andrea de' Franceschi, grand-chancellor of Venice,[1] robed as a _Cavaliero di San Marco_. In the fine bearded head of the priest, who stands behind the high-priest, we may recognize, I think, the likeness of Cardinal Bembo. In the foreground, instead of the poetical symbol of the unicorn, we have an old woman selling eggs and fowls, as in Albert Durer's print, which must have been well known to Titian. Albert Durer published his Life of the Virgin in 1520, and Titian painted his picture about 1550. (Venice Academy.) [Footnote 1: "_Amorevolissime del Pittare_," says Ridolfi. It is the same person whom Titian introduced, with himself, in the picture at Windsor; there, by a truly unpardonable mistake, called "Titian and Aretino."] * * * * * From the life of the Virgin in the temple, we have several beautiful pictures. As she was to be placed before women as an example of every virtue, so she was skilled in all feminine accomplishments; she was as studious, as learned, as wise, as she was industrious, chaste, and temperate. She is seen surrounded by her young companions, the maidens who were brought up in the temple with her, in a picture by Agnolo Gaddi. (Florence, Carmine.) She is instructing her companions, in a charming picture by Luini: here she appears as a girl of seven or eight years old, seated on a sort of throne, dressed in a simple light-blue tunic, with long golden hair; while the children around her look up and listen with devout faces. (Milan, Brera.) * * * * * Some other scenes of her early life, which, in the Protevangelion, are placed after her marriage with Joseph, in pictures usually precede it. Thus, she is chosen by lot to spin the fine purple for the temple, to weave and embroider it. Didron mentions a fine antique tapestry at Rheims, in which Mary is seated at her embroidery, while two unicorns crouching on each side look up in her face. * * * * * I remember a fine drawing, in which the Virgin is seated at a large tapestry frame. Behind her are two maidens, one of whom is reading; the other, holding a distaff, lays her hand on the shoulder of the Virgin, as if about to speak. The scene represents the interior of the temple with rich architecture. (Vienna, Col. of Archduke Charles.) In a small but very pretty picture by Guido, the Virgin, as a young girl, sits embroidering a _yellow_ robe. (Lord Ellesmere's Gal.) She is attended by four angels, one of whom draws aside a curtain It is also related that among the companions of Mary in the temple was Anna the prophetess; and that this aged and holy woman, knowing by inspiration of the Holy Spirit the peculiar grace vouchsafed to Mary, and her high destiny, beheld her with equal love and veneration; and, notwithstanding the disparity of age, they become true and dear friends. In an old illumination, the Virgin is seated spinning, with an angel by her side. (Office of the Virgin, 1408. Oxford, Bodleian.) * * * * * It is recorded that the angels daily ministered to her, and fed her with celestial food. Hence in some early specimens of art an angel brings her a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water,--the _bread of life_ and the _water of life_ from Paradise. In this subject, as we find it carved on the stalls of the cathedral of Amiens, Mary holds a book, and several books are ranged on a shelf in the background: there is, besides, a clock, such as was in use in the fifteenth century, to indicate the studious and regular life led by Mary in the temple. * * * * * St. Evode, patriarch of Antioch, and St. Germanus, assert as an indubitable tradition of the Greek Church, that Mary had the privilege--never granted to one of her sex before or since--of entering the Holy of Holies, and praying before the ark of the covenant. Hence, in some of the scenes from her early life, the ark is placed in the background. We must also bear in mind that the ark was one of the received types of her who bore the Logos within her bosom. * * * * * In her fourteenth year, Mary was informed by the high priest that it was proper that she should be married; but she modestly replied that her parents had dedicated her to the service of the Lord, and that, therefore, she could not comply. But the high-priest, who had received a revelation from an angel concerning the destiny of Mary, informed her thereof, and she with all humility submitted herself to the divine will. This scene between Mary and the high-priest has been painted by Luini, and it is the only example with which I am acquainted. Pictures of the Virgin in her girlhood, reading intently the Book of Wisdom, while angels watch over her, are often of great beauty. THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN _Ital._ Il Sposalizio. _Fr._ Le Mariage de la Vierge. _Ger._ Die Trauung Mariä. Jan. 23. This, as an artistic subject, is of great consequence, from the beauty and celebrity of some of the representations, which, however, are unintelligible without the accompanying legends. And it is worth remarking, that while the incident is avoided in early Greek art, it became very popular with the Italian and German painters from the fourteenth century. In the East, the prevalence of the monastic spirit, from the fourth century, had brought marriage into disrepute; by many of the ascetic writers of the West it was considered almost in the light of a necessary evil. This idea, that the primal and most sacred ordinance of God and nature was incompatible with the sanctity and purity acceptable to God, was the origin of the singular legends of the Marriage of the Virgin. One sees very clearly that, if possible, it would have been denied that Mary had ever been married at all; but, as the testimony of the Gospel was too direct and absolute to be set aside, it became necessary, in the narrative, to give to this distasteful marriage the most recondite motives, and in art, to surround it with the most poetical and even miraculous accessories. But before we enter on the treatment of the subject, it is necessary to say a few words on the character of Joseph, wonderfully selected to be the husband and guardian of the consecrated mother of Christ, and foster-father of the Redeemer; and so often introduced into all the pictures which refer to the childhood of our Lord. From the Gospels we learn nothing of him but that he was of the tribe of Judah and the lineage of David; that he was a _just_ man; that he followed the trade of a carpenter, and dwelt in the little city of Nazareth. We infer from his conduct towards Mary, that he was a mild, and tender, and pure-hearted, as well as an upright man. Of his age and personal appearance nothing is said. These are the points on which the Church has not decided, and on which artists, left to their own devices, and led by various opinions, have differed considerably. The very early painters deemed it right to represent Joseph as very old, almost decrepit with age, and supported by a crutch. According to some of the monkish authorities, he was a widower, and eighty-four years old when he was espoused to Mary. On the other hand, it was argued, that such a marriage would have been quite contrary to the custom of the Jews; and that to defend Mary, and to provide for her celestial Offspring, it was necessary that her husband should be a man of mature age, but still strong and robust, and able to work at his trade; and thus, with more propriety and better taste, the later painters have represented him. In the best Italian and Spanish pictures of the Holy Family, he is a man of about forty or fifty, with a mild, benevolent countenance, brown hair, and a short, curled beard: the crutch, or stick, however, is seldom omitted; it became a conventional attribute. In the German pictures, Joseph is not only old, but appears almost in a state of dotage, like a lean, wrinkled mendicant, with a bald head, a white beard, a feeble frame, and a sleepy or stupid countenance. Then, again, the later Italian painters have erred as much on the other side; for I have seen pictures in which St. Joseph is not only a young man not more than thirty, but bears a strong resemblance to the received heads of our Saviour. It is in the sixteenth century that we first find Joseph advanced to the dignity of a saint in his own right; and in the seventeenth he became very popular, especially in Spain, where St. Theresa had chosen him for her patron saint, and had placed her powerful order of the reformed Carmelites under his protection. Hence the number of pictures of that time, which represent Joseph, as the foster-father of Christ, carrying the Infant on his arm and caressing him, while in the other hand he bears a lily, to express the sanctity and purity of his relations with the Virgin. * * * * * The legend of "the Marriage of Joseph and Mary" is thus given in the Protevangelion and the History of Joseph the Carpenter:-- "When Mary was fourteen years old, the priest Zacharias (or Abiathar, as he is elsewhere called) inquired of the Lord concerning her, what was right to be done; and an angel came to him and said, 'Go forth, and call together all the widowers among the people, and let each bring his rod (or wand) in his hand, and he to whom the Lord shall show a sign, let him be the husband of Mary. And Zacharias did as the angel commanded, and made proclamation accordingly. And Joseph the carpenter, a righteous man, throwing down his axe, and taking his staff in his hand, ran out with the rest. When he appeared before the priest, and presented his rod, lo! a dove issued out of it--a dove dazzling white as the snow,--and after settling on his head, flew towards heaven. Then the high priest said to him, 'Thou art the person chosen to take the Virgin of the Lord, and to keep her for him.' And Joseph was at first afraid, and drew back, but afterwards he took her home to his house, and said to her, 'Behold, I have taken thee from the temple of the Lord, and now I will leave thee in my house, for I must go and follow my trade of building. I will return to thee, and meanwhile the Lord be with thee and watch over thee.' So Joseph left her, and Mary remained in her house." There is nothing said of any marriage ceremony, some have even affirmed that Mary was only betrothed to Joseph, but for conclusive reasons it remains an article of faith that she was married to him. I must mention here an old tradition cited by St. Jerome, and which has been used as a text by the painters. The various suitors who aspired to the honour of marrying the consecrated "Virgin of the Lord," among whom was the son of the high-priest, deposited their wands in the temple over night,[1] and next morning the rod of Joseph was found, like the rod of Aaron, to have budded forth into leaves and flowers. The other suitors thereupon broke their wands in rage and despair; and one among them, a youth of noble lineage, whose name was Agabus, fled to Mount Carmel, and became an anchorite, that is to say, a Carmelite friar. [Footnote 1: The suitors kneeling with their wands before the altar in the Temple, is one of the series by Giotto in the Arena at Padua.] According to the Abbé Orsini, who gives a long description of the espousals of Mary and Joseph, they returned after the marriage ceremony to Nazareth, and dwelt in the house of St. Anna. * * * * * Now, with regard to the representations, we find that many of the early painters, and particularly the Italians, have carefully attended to the fact, that, among the Jews, marriage was a civil contract, not a religious rite. The ceremony takes place in the open air, in a garden, or in a landscape, or in front of the temple. Mary, as a meek and beautiful maiden of about fifteen, attended by a train of virgins, stands on the right; Joseph, behind whom are seen the disappointed suitors, is on the left. The priest joins their hands, or Joseph is in the act of placing the ring on the finger of the bride. This is the traditional arrangement from Giotto down to Raphael. In the series by Giotto, in the Arena at Padua, we have three scenes from the marriage legend. 1. St. Joseph and the other suitors present their wands to the high-priest. 2. They kneel before the altar, on which their wands are deposited, waiting for the promised miracle. 3. The marriage ceremony. It takes place before an altar, in the _interior_ of the temple. The Virgin, a most graceful figure, but rather too old, stands attended by her maidens; St. Joseph holds his wand with the flower and the holy Dove resting on it: one of the disappointed suitors is about to strike him; another breaks his wand against his knee. Taddeo Gaddi, Angelico, Ghirlandajo, Perugino, all followed this traditional conception of the subject, except that they omit the altar, and place the locality in the open air, or under a portico. Among the relics venerated in the Cathedral of Perugia, is the nuptial ring of the blessed Virgin; and for the altar of the sacrament there, Perugino painted the appropriate subject of the Marriage of the Virgin.[1] Here the ceremony takes place under the portico of the temple, and Joseph of course puts the ring on her finger. It is a beautiful composition, which has been imitated more or less by the painters of the Perugino school, and often repeated in the general arrangement. [Footnote 1: It was carried off from the church by the French, sold in France, and is now to be seen in the Musée at Caen.] But in this subject, Raphael, while yet a youth, excelled his master and all who had gone before him. Every one knows the famous "SPOSALIZIO of the Brera."[1] It was painted by Raphael in his twenty-first year, for the church of S. Francesco, in Città di Castello; and though he has closely followed the conception of his master, it is modified by that ethereal grace which even then distinguished him. Here Mary and Joseph stand in front of the temple, the high-priest joins their hands, and Joseph places the ring on the finger of the bride; he is a man of about thirty, and holds his wand, which has blossomed into a lily, but there is no Dove upon it. Behind Mary is a group of the virgins of the temple; behind Joseph the group of disappointed suitors; one of whom, in the act of breaking his wand against his knee, a singularly graceful figure, seen more in front and richly dressed, is perhaps the despairing youth mentioned in the legend.[2] With something of the formality of the elder schools, the figures are noble and dignified; the countenances of the principal personages have a characteristic refinement and beauty, and a soft, tender, enthusiastic melancholy, which lends a peculiar and appropriate charm to the subject. In fact, the whole scene is here idealized; It is like a lyric poem, (Kugler's Handbook, 2d edit.) [Footnote 1: At Milan. The fine engraving by Longhi is well known.] [Footnote 2: In the series by Giotto at Padua, we have the youth breaking his wand across his knee.] In Ghirlandajo's composition (Florence, S. Maria Novella), Joseph is an old man with a bald head; the architecture is splendid; the accessory figures, as is usual with Ghirlandajo, are numerous and full of grace. In the background are musicians playing on the pipe and tabor, an incident which I do not recollect to have seen in other pictures. The Sposalizio by Girolamo da Cotignola (Bologna Gal.), painted for the church of St. Joseph, is treated quite in a mystical style. Mary and Joseph stand before an altar, on the steps of which are seated, on one side a prophet, on the other a sibyl. * * * * * By the German painters the scene is represented with a characteristic homely neglect of all historic propriety. The temple is a Gothic church; the altar has a Gothic altar-piece; Joseph looks like an old burgher arrayed in furs and an embroidered gown; and the Virgin is richly dressed in the costume of the fifteenth century. The suitors are often knights and cavaliers with spurs and tight hose. * * * * * It is not said anywhere that St. Anna and St. Joachim were present at the marriage of their daughter; hence they are supposed to have been dead before it took place. This has not prevented some of the old German artists from introducing them, because, according to their ideas of domestic propriety, they _ought_ to have been present. * * * * * I observe that the later painters who treated the subject, Rubens and Poussin for instance, omit the disappointed suitors. * * * * * After the marriage, or betrothal, Joseph conducts his wife to his house. The group of the returning procession has been beautifully treated in Giotto's series at Padua;[1] still more beautifully by Luigi in the fragment of fresco now in the Brera at Milan. Here Joseph and Mary walk together hand in hand. He looks at her, just touching her fingers with an air of tender veneration; she looks down, serenely modest. Thus they return together to their humble home; and with this scene closes the first part of the life of the Virgin Mary. [Footnote 1: Cappella dell' Arena, engraved for the Arundel Society.] HISTORICAL SUBJECTS PART II THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MARY FROM THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE RETURN FROM EGYPT. 1. THE ANNUNCIATION. 2. THE SALUTATION OF ELIZABETH. 3. THE JOUBNEY TO BETHLEHEM. 4. THE NATIVITY. 6. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS. 6. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. 7. THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE. 8. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 9. THE RIPOSO. 10. THE RETURN FROM EGYPT. THE ANNUNCIATION. _Ital._ L' Annunciazione. La B. Vergine Annunziata. _Fr._ L'Annonciation. La Salutation Angélique. _Ger._ Die Verkündi gung. Der Englische Gruss. March 25. The second part of the life of the Virgin Mary begins with the Annunciation and ends with the Crucifixion, comprising all those scriptural incidents which connect her history with that of her divine Son. But to the scenes narrated in the Gospels the painters did not confine themselves. Not only were the simple scripture histories coloured throughout by the predominant and enthusiastic veneration paid to the Virgin--till the life of Christ was absolutely merged in that of His mother, and its various incidents became "the seven joys and the seven sorrows of Mary,"--but we find the artistic representations of her life curiously embroidered and variegated by the introduction of traditional and apocryphal circumstances, in most cases sanctioned by the Church authorities of the time. However doubtful or repulsive some of these scenes and incidents, we cannot call them absolutely unmeaning or absurd; on the contrary, what was _supposed_ grew up very naturally, in the vivid and excited imaginations of the people, out of what was _recorded_; nor did they distinguish accurately between what they were allowed and what they were commanded to believe. Neither can it be denied that the traditional incidents--those at least which we find artistically treated--are often singularly beautiful, poetical, and instructive. In the hands of the great religions artists, who worked in their vocation with faith and simplicity, objects and scenes the most familiar and commonplace became sanctified and glorified by association with what we deem most holy and most venerable. In the hands of the later painters the result was just the reverse--what was most spiritual, most hallowed, most elevated, became secularized, materialized, and shockingly degraded. No subject has been more profoundly felt and more beautifully handled by the old painters, nor more vilely mishandled by the moderns, than the ANNUNCIATION, of all the scenes in the life of Mary the most important and the most commonly met with. Considered merely as an artistic subject, it is surely eminently beautiful: it places before us the two most graceful forms which the hand of man was ever called on to delineate;--the winged spirit fresh from paradise; the woman not less pure, and even more highly blessed--the chosen vessel of redemption, and the personification of all female loveliness, all female excellence, all wisdom, and all purity. * * * * * We find the Annunciation, like many other scriptural incidents, treated in two ways--as a mystery, and as an event. Taken in the former sense, it became the expressive symbol of a momentous article of faith, _The Incarnation of the Deity_. Taken in the latter sense, it represented the announcement of salvation to mankind, through the direct interposition of miraculous power. In one sense or the other, it enters into every scheme of ecclesiastical decoration; but chiefly it is set before us as a great and awful mystery, of which the two figures of Gabriel, the angel-messenger, and Mary the "highly-favoured," placed in relation to each other, became the universally accepted symbol, rather than the representation. THE ANNUNCIATION AS A MYSTERY. Considering the importance given to the Annunciation in its mystical sense, it is strange that we do not find it among the very ancient symbolical subjects adopted in the first ages of Christian art. It does not appear on the sarcophagi, nor in the early Greek carvings and diptychs, nor in the early mosaics--except once, and then as a part of the history of Christ, not as a symbol; nor can we trace the mystical treatment of this subject higher than the eleventh century, when it first appears in the Gothic sculpture and stained glass. In the thirteenth, and thenceforward, the Annunciation appears before us, as the expression in form of a theological dogma, everywhere conspicuous. It became a primal element in every combination of sacred representations; the corner-stone, as it were, of every architectural system of religious decoration. It formed a part of every altar-piece, either in sculpture or painting. Sometimes the Virgin stands on one side of the altar, the angel on the other, carved in marble or alabaster, or of wood richly painted and gilt; or even, as I have seen in some instances, of solid silver. Not seldom, we find the two figures placed in niches against the pillars, or on pedestals at the entrance of the choir. It was not necessary, when thus symbolically treated, to place the two figures in proximity to signify their relation to each other; they are often divided by the whole breadth of the chancel. Whatever the subject of the altar-piece--whether the Nativity, or the Enthroned Madonna, or the Coronation, or the Crucifixion, or the Last Supper,--the Annunciation almost invariably formed part of the decoration, inserted either into the spandrels of the arches above, or in the predella below; or, which is very common, painted or carved on the doors of a tabernacle or triptychon. If the figures are full-length, a certain symmetry being required, they are either both standing or both kneeling; it is only in later times that the Virgin sits, and the angel kneels. When disposed in circles or semicircles, they are often merely busts, or half-length figures, separated perhaps by a framework of tracery, or set on each side of the principal subject, whatever that may be. Hence it is that we so often find in galleries and collections, pictures of the Annunciation in two separate parts, the angel in one frame, the Virgin in another; and perhaps the two pictures, thus disunited, may have found their way into different countries and different collections,--the Virgin being in Italy and the angel in England. Sometimes the Annunciation--still as a mystical subject--forms an altar-piece of itself. In many Roman Catholic churches there is a chapel or an altar dedicated expressly to the mystery of the Annunciation, the subject forming of course the principal decoration. At Florence there is a church--one of the most splendid and interesting of its many beautiful edifices--dedicated to the Annunciation, or rather to the Virgin in her especial character and dignity, as the Instrument of the Incarnation, and thence styled the church _della Santissima Nunziata_. The fine mosaic of the Annunciation by Ghirlandajo is placed over the principal entrance. Of this church, and of the order of the Servi, to whom it belongs, I have already spoken at length. Here, in the first chapel on the left, as we enter, is to be found the miraculous picture of the Annunciation, formerly held in such veneration, not merely by all Florence, but all Christendom:--found, but not seen--for it is still concealed from profane eyes, and exhibited to the devout only on great occasions. The name of the painter is disputed; but, according to tradition, it is the work of a certain Bartolomeo; who, while he sat meditating on the various excellences and perfections of our Lady, and most especially on her divine beauty, and thinking, with humility, how inadequate were his own powers to represent her worthily, fell asleep; and on awaking, found the head of the Virgin had been wondrously completed, either by the hand of an angel, or by that of St. Luke, who had descended from heaven on purpose. Though this curious relic has been frequently restored, no one has presumed to touch the features of the Virgin, which are, I am told--for I have never been blessed with a sight of the original picture--marvellously sweet and beautiful. It is concealed by a veil, on which is painted a fine head of the Redeemer, by Andrea del Sarto; and forty-two lamps of silver burn continually round it. There is a copy in the Pitti Palace, by Carlo Dolce. It is evident that the Annunciation, as a mystery, admits of a style of treatment which would not be allowable in the representation of an event. In the former case, the artist is emancipated from all considerations of locality or circumstance. Whether the background be of gold, or of blue, or star-bespangled sky,--a mere curtain, or a temple of gorgeous architecture; whether the accessories be the most simple or the most elaborate, the most real or the most ideal; all this is of little moment, and might be left to the imagination of the artist, or might be modified according to the conditions imposed by the purpose of the representation and the material employed, so long as the chief object is fulfilled--the significant expression of an abstract dogma, appealing to the faith, not to the senses or the understanding, of the observer. To this class, then, belong all those church images and pictures of the Annunciation, either confined to the two personages, with just sufficient of attitude and expression to place them in relation to each other, or with such accompaniments as served to carry out the mystical idea, still keeping it as far as possible removed from the region of earthly possibilities. In the fifteenth century--that age of mysticism--we find the Annunciation, not merely treated as an abstract religious emblem, but as a sort of divine allegory or poem, which in old French and Flemish art is clothed in the quaintest, the most curious forms. I recollect going into a church at Breslau, and finding over one of the altars a most elaborate carving in wood of the Annunciation. Mary is seated within a Gothic porch of open tracery work; a unicorn takes refuge in her bosom: outside, a kneeling angel winds a hunting horn; three or four dogs are crouching near him. I looked and wondered. At first I could make nothing of this singular allegory; but afterwards found the explanation, in a learned French work on the "Stalles d'Amiens." I give the original passage, for it will assist the reader to the comprehension of many curious works of art; but I do not venture to translate it. "On sait qu'an XVI siècle, le mystère de l'Incarnation étoit souvent représenté par une allegorie ainsi conçue: Une licorne se réfugiant au sein d'une vierge pure, quatre lévriers la pressant d'une course rapide, un veneur ailé sonnant de la trompette. La science de la zoologie mystique du temps aide à en trouver l'explication; le fabuleux animal dont l'unique corne ne blessait que pour purger de tout venin l'endroit du corps qu'elle avoit touché, figuroit Jésus Christ, médecin et sauveur des âmes; on donnait aux lévriers agiles les noms de Misericordia, Veritas, Justitia, Pax, les quatre raisons qui ont pressé le Verbe éternel de sortir de son repos mais comme c'étoit par la Vierge Marie qu'il avoit voulu descendre parmi les hommes et se mettre en leur puissance, on croyoit ne pouvoir mieux faire que de choisir dans la fable, le fait d'une pucelle pouvant seule servir de piége à la licorne, en l'attirant par le charme et le parfum de son sein virginal qu'elle lui présentoit; enfin l'ange Gabriel concourant au mystère étoit bien reconnoissable sous les traits du venenr ailé lançant les lévriers et embouchant la trompette." * * * * * It appears that this was an accepted religious allegory, as familiar in the sixteenth century as those of Spenser's "Fairy Queen" or the "Pilgrim's Progress" are to us. I have since found it frequently reproduced in the old French and German prints: there is a specimen in the British Museum; and there is a picture similarly treated in the Musée at Amiens. I have never seen it in an Italian picture or print; unless a print after Guido, wherein a beautiful maiden is seated under a tree, and a unicorn has sought refuge in her lap, be intended to convey the same far-fetched allegory. Very common, however, in Italian art, is a less fantastic, but still wholly poetical version of the Annunciation, representing, in fact, not the Annunciation, but the Incarnation. Thus, in a picture by Giovanni Sanzio (the father of Raphael) (Brera, Milan), Mary stands under a splendid portico; she appears as if just risen from her seat her hands are meekly folded over her bosom; her head declined. The angel kneels outside the portico, holding forth his lily; while above, in the heavens, the Padre Eterno sends forth the Redeemer, who, in form of the infant Christ bearing his cross, floats downwards towards the earth, preceded by the mystic Dove. This manner of representing the Incarnation is strongly disapproved of by the Abbé Méry (v. Théologie des Peintres), as not only an error, but a heresy: yet it was frequently repeated in the sixteenth century. The Annunciation is also a mystery when certain emblems are introduced conveying a certain signification; as when Mary is seated on a throne, wearing a radiant crown of mingled gems and flowers, and receives the message of the angel with all the majesty that could be expressed by the painter; or is seated, in a garden enclosed by a hedge of roses (the _Hortus clausus_ or _conclusus_ of the Canticles); or where the angel holds in his hands the sealed book, as in the famous altar-piece at Cologne. In a picture by Simone Memmi, the Virgin seated on a Gothic throne receives, as the higher and superior being, yet with a shrinking timidity, the salutation of the angel, who comes as the messenger of peace, olive-crowned, and bearing a branch of olive in his hand. (Florence Gal.) This poetical version is very characteristic of the early Siena school, in which we often find a certain fanciful and original way of treating well known subjects. Taddeo Bartoli, another Sienese, and Martin Schoen, the most poetical of the early Germans, also adopted the olive-symbol; and we find it also in the tabernacle of King Réné, already described. The treatment is clearly devotional and ideal where attendant saints and votaries stand or kneel around, contemplating with devout gratitude or ecstatic wonder the divine mystery. Thus, in a remarkable and most beautiful picture by Fra Bartolomeo, the Virgin is seated on her throne; the angel descends from on high bearing his lily: around the throne attend St. John the Baptist and St. Francis, St. Jerome, St. Paul, and St. Margaret. (Bologna Gal.) Again, in a very beautiful picture by Francia, Mary stands in the midst of an open landscape; her hands, folded over each other, press to her bosom a book closed and clasped: St. Jerome stands on the right, John the Baptist on the left; both look up with a devout expression to the angel descending from above. In both these examples Mary is very nobly and expressively represented as the chosen and predestined vehicle of human redemption. It is not here the Annunciation, but the "_Sacratissima Annunziata_" we see before us. In a curious picture by Francesco da Cotignola, Mary stands on a sculptured pedestal, in the midst of an architectural decoration of many-coloured marbles, most elaborately painted: through an opening is seen a distant landscape, and the blue sky; on her right stands St. John the Baptist, pointing upwards; on her left St. Francis, adoring; the votary kneels in front. (Berlin Gal.) Votive pictures of the Annunciation were frequently expressive offerings from those who desired, or those who had received, the blessing of an heir; and this I take to be an instance. In the following example, the picture is votive in another sense, and altogether poetical. The Virgin Mary receives the message of the angel, as usual; but before her, at a little distance, kneels the Cardinal Torrecremata, who presents three young girls, also kneeling, to one of whom the Virgin gives a purse of money. This curious and beautiful picture becomes intelligible, when we find that it was painted for a charitable community, instituted by Torrecremata, for educating and endowing poor orphan girls, and styled the "_Confraternità dell' Annunziatà_."[1] [Footnote 1: Benozzo Gozzoli, in S. Maria sopra Minerva, Rome.] In the charming Annunciation by Angelico, the scene is in the cloister of his own convent of St. Mark. A Dominican (St. Peter Martyr) stands in the background with hands folded in prayer. I might add many beautiful examples from Fra Bartolomeo, and in sculpture from Benedetto Maiano, Luca della Robbia, and others, but have said enough to enable the observer to judge of the intention of the artist. The Annunciation by Sansovino among the bas-reliefs, which cover the chapel at Loretto is of great elegance. I must, however, notice one more picture. Of six Annunciations painted by Rubens, five represent the event; the sixth is one of his magnificent and most palpable allegories, all glowing with life and reality. Here Mary kneels on the summit of a flight of steps; a dove, encompassed by cherubim, hovers over her head. Before her kneels the celestial messenger; behind him Moses and Aaron, with David and other patriarchal ancestors of Christ. In the clouds above is seen the heavenly Father; on his right are two female figures, Peace and Reconciliation; on his left, angels bear the ark of the covenant. In the lower part of the picture, stand Isaiah and Jeremiah, with four sibyls:--thus connecting the prophecies of the Old Testament, and the promises made to the Gentile nations through the sibyls, with the fulfilment of both in the message from on high. THE ANNUNCIATION AS AN EVENT. Had the Annunciation to Mary been merely mentioned as an awful and incomprehensible vision, it would have been better to have adhered to the mystical style of treatment, or left it alone altogether; but the Scripture history, by giving the whole narration as a simple fact, a real event, left it free for representation as such; and, as such, the fancy of the artist was to be controlled and limited only by the words of Scripture as commonly understood and interpreted, and by those proprieties of time, place, and circumstance, which would be required in the representation of any other historical incident or action. When all the accompaniments show that nothing more was in the mind of the artist than the aim to exhibit an incident in the life of the Virgin, or an introduction to that of our Lord, the representation is no longer mystical and devotional, but historical. The story was to be told with all the fidelity, or at least all the likelihood, that was possible; and it is clear that, in this case, the subject admitted, and even required, a more dramatic treatment, with such accessories and accompaniments as might bring the scene within the sphere of the actual. In this sense it is not to be mistaken. Although the action is of itself so very simple, and the actors confined to two persons, it is astonishing to note the infinite variations of which this favourite theme has been found susceptible. Whether all these be equally appropriate and laudable, is quite another question; and in how far the painters have truly interpreted the Scriptural narration, is now to be considered. And first, with regard to the time, which is not especially mentioned. It was presumed by the Fathers and early commentators on Scripture, that the Annunciation must have taken place in early spring-time, at eventide, soon after sunset, the hour since consecrated as the "Ave Maria," as the bell which announces it is called the "Angelus;"[1] but other authorities say that it was rather at midnight, because the nativity of our Lord took place at the corresponding hour in the following December. This we find exactly attended to by many of the old painters, and indicated either by the moon and stars in the sky, or by a taper or a lamp burning near. [Footnote 1: So Lord Byron:-- "Ave Maria! blessed be the hour! The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft, While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer"] * * * * * With regard to the locality, we are told by St. Luke that the angel Gabriel was sent from God, and that "he came _in_ to Mary" (Luke i. 28), which seems to express that she was _within_ her house. In describing the actual scene of the interview between the angel and Mary, the legendary story of the Virgin adheres very closely to the scriptural text. But it also relates, that Mary went forth at evening to draw water from the fountain; that she heard a voice which said, "Hail thou that art full of grace!" and thereupon being troubled, she looked to the right and to the left, and seeing no one, returned to her _house_, and sat down to her work, (Protevangelion, ix. 7.) Had any exact attention been paid to oriental customs, Mary might have been working or reading or meditating on the roof of her house; but this has not suggested itself in any instance that I can remember. We have, as the scene of the interview, an interior which is sometimes like an oratory, sometimes a portico with open arcades; but more generally a bedroom. The poverty of Joseph and Mary, and their humble condition in life, are sometimes attended to, but not always; for, according to one tradition, the house at Nazareth was that which Mary had inherited from her parents, Joachim and Anna, who were people of substance. Hence, the painters had an excuse for making the chamber richly furnished, the portico sustained by marble pillars, or decorated with sculpture. In the German and Flemish pictures, the artist, true to the national characteristic of _naïve_ and literal illustration, gives us a German or a Gothic chamber, with a lattice window of small panes of glass, and a couch with pillows, or a comfortable four-post bedstead, furnished with draperies, thus imparting to the whole scene an air of the most vivid homely reality. As for the accessories, the most usual, almost indispensable, is the pot of lilies, the symbolical _Fleur de Marie_, which I have already explained at length. There is also a basket containing needle work and implements of female industry, as scissors, &c.; not merely to express Mary's habitual industry, but because it is related that when she returned to her house, "she took the purple linen, and sat down to work it." The work-basket is therefore seldom omitted. Sometimes a distaff lies at her feet, as in Raphael's Annunciation. In old German pictures we have often a spinning-wheel. To these emblems of industry is often added a basket, or a dish, containing fruit; and near it a pitcher of water to express the temperance of the blessed Virgin. There is grace and meaning in the introduction of birds, always emblems of the spiritual. Titian places a tame partridge at the feet of Mary, which expresses her tenderness; but the introduction of a cat, as in Barroccio's picture, is insufferable. * * * * * The archangel Gabriel, "one of those who stand continually in the presence of God," having received his mission, descends to earth. In the very earliest representation of the Annunciation, as an event (Mosaic, S. Maria Maggiore), we have this descent of the winged spirit from on high; and I have seen other instances. There is a small and beautiful sketch by Garofalo (Alton Towers), in which, from amidst a flood of light, and a choir of celestial spirits, such as Milton describes as adoring the "divine sacrifice" proclaimed for sinful man (Par. Lost, b. iii.), the archangel spreads his lucid wings, and seems just about to take his flight to Nazareth. He was accompanied, says the Italian legend, by a train of lower angels, anxious to behold and reverence their Queen; these remained, however, at the door, or "before the gate," while Gabriel entered. The old German masters are fond of representing him as entering by a door in the background, while the serene Virgin, seated in front, seems aware of his presence without seeing him. In some of the old pictures, he comes in flying from above, or he is upborne by an effulgent cloud, and surrounded by a glory which lights the whole picture,--a really _celestial_ messenger, as in a fresco by Spinello Aretino. In others, he comes gliding in, "smooth sliding without step;" sometimes he enters like a heavenly ambassador, and little angels hold up his train. In a picture by Tintoretto, he comes rushing in as upon a whirlwind, followed by a legion of lesser angels; while on the outside of the building, Joseph the carpenter is seen quietly at his work. (Venice, School of S. Rocco.) But, whether walking or flying, Gabriel bears, of course, the conventional angelic form, that of the human creature, winged, beautiful, and radiant with eternal youth, yet with a grave and serious mien, in the later pictures, the drapery given to the angel is offensively scanty; his sandals, and bare arms, and fluttering robe, too much _à l'antique_; he comes in the attitude of a flying Mercury, or a dancer in a ballet. But in the early Italian pictures his dress is arranged with a kind of solemn propriety: it is that of an acolyte, white and full, and falling in large folds over his arms, and in general concealing his feet. In the German pictures, he often wears the priestly robe, richly embroidered, and clasped in front by a jewel. His ambrosial curls fall over this cope in "hyacinthine flow." The wings are essential, and never omitted. They are white, or many-coloured, eyed like the peacock's train, or bedropped with gold. He usually bears the lily in his hand, but not always. Sometimes it is the sceptre, the ancient attribute of a herald; and this has a scroll around it, with the words, "Ave Maria gratia plena!" The sceptre or wand is, occasionally surmounted by a cross. In general, the palm is given to the angel who announces the death of Mary. In one or two instances only I have seen the palm given to the angel Gabriel, as in a predella by Angelico; for which, however, the painter had the authority of Dante, or Dante some authority earlier still. He says of Gabriel, "That he bore the _palm_ Down unto Mary when the Son of God Vouchsafed to clothe him in terrestrial weeds." The olive-bough has a mystical sense wherever adopted: it is the symbol of _peace_ on earth. Often the angel bears neither lily, nor sceptre, nor palm, nor olive. His hands are folded on his bosom; or, with one hand stretched forth, and the other pointing upwards, he declares his mission from on high. In the old Greek pictures, and in the most ancient Italian examples, the angel stands; as in the picture by Cimabue, wherein the Greek model is very exactly followed. According to the Roman Catholic belief, Mary is Queen of heaven, and of angels--the superior being; consequently, there is propriety in making the angel deliver his message kneeling: but even according to the Protestant belief the attitude would not be unbecoming, for the angel, having uttered his salutation, might well prostrate himself as witness of the transcending miracle, and beneath the overshadowing presence of the Holy Spirit. Now, as to the attitude and occupation of Mary at the moment the angel entered, authorities are not agreed. It is usual to exhibit her as kneeling in prayer, or reading with a large book open on a desk before her. St. Bernard says that she was studying the book of the prophet Isaiah, and as she recited the verse, "Behold, a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a son," she thought within her heart, in her great humility, "How blessed the woman of whom these words are written! Would I might be but her handmaid to serve her, and allowed, to kiss her feet!"--when, in the same instant, the wondrous vision burst upon her, and the holy prophecy was realized in herself. (Il perfetto Legendario.) I think it is a manifest fault to disturb the sublime tenor of the scene by representing Mary as starting up in alarm; for, in the first place, she was accustomed, as we have seen, to the perpetual ministry of angels, who daily and hourly attended on her. It is, indeed, said that Mary was troubled; but it was not the presence, but the "saying" of the angel which troubled her--it was the question "how this should be?" (Luke i. 29.) The attitude, therefore, which some painters have given to her, as if she had started from her seat, not only in terror, but in indignation, is altogether misplaced. A signal instance is the statue of the Virgin by Mocchi in the choir of the cathedral at Orvieto, so grand in itself, and yet so offensive as a devotional figure. Misplaced is also, I think, the sort of timid shrinking surprise which is the expression in some pictures. The moment is much too awful, the expectance much too sublime, for any such human, girlish emotions. If the painter intend to express the moment in which the angel appears and utters the salutation, "Hail!" then Mary may be standing, and her looks directed towards him, as in a fine majestic Annunciation of Andrea del Sarto. Standing was the antique attitude of prayer; so that if we suppose her to have been interrupted in her devotions, the attitude is still appropriate. But if that moment be chosen in which she expressed her submission to the divine will, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord! let it be unto me according to thy word!" then she might surely kneel with bowed bead, and folded hands, and "downcast eyes beneath th' almighty Dove." No attitude could be too humble to express that response; and Dante has given us, as the most perfect illustration of the virtue of humility, the sentiment and attitude of Mary when submitting herself to the divine will. (Purg. x., Cary's Trans.) "The angel (who came down to earth With tidings of the peace to many years Wept for in vain, that op'd the heavenly gates From their long interdict) before us seem'd In a sweet act so sculptur'd to the life, He look'd no silent image. One had sworn He had said 'Hail!' for SHE was imag'd there, By whom the key did open to God's love; And in her act as sensibly imprest That word, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord,' As figure seal'd on wax." And very beautifully has Flaxman transferred the sculpture "divinely wrought upon the rock of marble white" to earthly form. * * * * * The presence of the Holy Spirit in the historical Annunciations is to be accounted for by the words of St. Luke, and the visible form of the Dove is conventional and authorized. In many pictures, the celestial Dove enters by the open casement. Sometimes it seems to brood immediately over the head of the Virgin; sometimes it hovers towards her bosom. As for the perpetual introduction of the emblem of the Padre Eterno, seen above the sky, under the usual half-figure of a kingly ancient man, surrounded by a glory of cherubim, and sending forth upon a beam of light the immaculate Dove, there is nothing to be said but the usual excuse for the mediæval artists, that certainly there was no _conscious_ irreverence. The old painters, great as they were in art, lived in ignorant but zealous times--in times when faith was so fixed, so much a part of the life and soul, that it was not easily shocked or shaken; as it was not founded in knowledge or reason, so nothing that startled the reason could impair it. Religion, which now speaks to us through words, then spoke to the people through visible forms universally accepted; and, in the fine arts, we accept such forms according to the feeling which _then_ existed in men's minds, and which, in its sincerity, demands our respect, though now we might not, could not, tolerate the repetition. We must also remember that it was not in the ages of ignorance and faith that we find the grossest materialism in art. It was in the learned, half-pagan sixteenth and the polished seventeenth century, that this materialized theology became most offensive. Of all the artists who have sinned in the Annunciation--and they are many--Nicolò Poussin is perhaps the worst. Yet he was a good, a pious man, as well as a learned and accomplished painter. All through the history of the art, the French show themselves as the most signal violators of good taste, and what they have invented a word for--_bienséance_. They are worse than the old Germans; worse than the modern Spaniards--and that is saying much. In Raphael's Annunciation, Mary is seated in a reclining attitude, leaning against the side of her couch, and holding a book. The angel, whose attitude expresses a graceful _empressement_, kneels at some distance, holding the lily. * * * * * Michael Angelo gives us a most majestic Virgin standing on the steps of a prie-Dieu, and turning with hands upraised towards the angel, who appears to have entered by the open door; his figure is most clumsy and material, and his attitude unmeaning and ungraceful. It is, I think, the only instance in which Michael Angelo has given wings to an angelic being: for here they could not be dispensed with. In a beautiful Annunciation by Johan Van Eyck (Munich Gal., Cabinet iii. 35), the Virgin kneels at a desk with a book before her. She has long fair hair, and a noble intellectual brow. Gabriel, holding his sceptre, stands in the door-way. The Dove enters by the lattice. A bed is in the background, and in front a pot of lilies. In another Annunciation by Van Eyck, painted on the Ghent altar-piece, we have the mystic, not the historical, representation, and a very beautiful effect is produced by clothing both the angel and Mary in robes of pure white. (Berlin Gal., 520, 521.) In an engraving after Rembrandt, the Virgin kneels by a fountain, and the angel kneels on the opposite side. This seems to express the legendary scene. These few observations on the general arrangement of the theme, whether mystical or historical, will, I hope, assist the observer in discriminating for himself. I must not venture further, for we have a wide range of subjects before us. THE VISITATION. _Ital._ La Visitazione di Maria. _Fr._ La Visitation de la Vierge _Ger._ Die Heimsuchung Mariä. July 2. After the Annunciation of the angel, the Scripture goes on to relate how "Mary arose and went up into the hill country with haste, to the house of her cousin Elizabeth, and saluted her." This meeting of the two kinswomen is the subject styled in art the "Visitation," and sometimes the "Salutation of Elizabeth." It is of considerable importance, in a series of the life of the Virgin, as an event; and also, when taken separately in its religious significance, as being the first recognition of the character of the Messiah. "Whence is this to me," exclaims Elizabeth, "that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Luke i. 43); and as she spoke this through the influence of the Holy Spirit, and not through knowledge, she is considered in the light of a prophetess. Of Elizabeth I must premise a few words, because in many representations relating to the life of the Virgin, and particularly in those domestic groups, the Holy Families properly so called, she is a personage of great importance, and we ought to be able, by some preconceived idea of her bearing and character, to test the propriety of that impersonation usually adopted by the artists. We must remember that she was much older than her cousin, a woman "well stricken in years;" but it is a, great mistake to represent her as old, as wrinkled and decrepit, as some painters have done. We are told that she was righteous before the Lord, "walking in all his commandments blameless:" the manner in which she received the visit of Mary, acknowledging with a glad humility the higher destinies of her young relative, show her to have been free from all envy and jealousy. Therefore all pictures of Elizabeth should exhibit her as an elderly, but not an aged matron; a dignified, mild, and gracious creature; one selected to high honour by the Searcher of hearts, who, looking down on hers, had beheld it pure from any secret taint of selfishness, even as her conduct had been blameless before man.[1] [Footnote 1: For a full account of the legends relating to Elizabeth, the mother of the Baptist, see the fourth series of Sacred and Legendary Art.] * * * * * Such a woman as we believe Mary to have been must have loved and honoured such a woman as Elizabeth. Wherefore, having heard that Elizabeth had been exalted to a miraculous motherhood, she made haste to visit her, not to ask her advice,--for being graced with all good gifts of the Holy Spirit, and herself the mother of Wisdom, she could not need advice,--but to sympathize with her cousin and reveal what had happened to herself. Thus then they met, "these two mothers of two great princes, of whom one was pronounced the greatest born of woman, and the other was his Lord:" happiest and most exalted of all womankind before or since, "needs must they have discoursed like seraphim and the most ecstasied order of Intelligences!" Such was the blessed encounter represented in the Visitation. * * * * * The number of the figures, the locality and circumstances, vary greatly. Sometimes we have only the two women, without accessories of any kind, and nothing interferes with the high solemnity of that moment in which Elizabeth confesses the mother of her Lord. The better to express this willing homage, this momentous prophecy, she is often kneeling. Other figures are frequently introduced, because it could not be supposed that Mary made the journey from Nazareth to the dwelling of Zacharias near Jerusalem, a distance of fifty miles, alone. Whether her husband Joseph accompanied her, is doubtful; and while many artists have introduced him, others have omitted him altogether. According to the ancient Greek formula laid down for the religious painters, Mary is accompanied by a servant or a boy, who carries a stick across his shoulder, and a basket slung to it. The old Italians who followed the Byzantine models seldom omit this attendant, but in some instances (as in the magnificent composition of Michael Angelo, in the possession of Mr. Bromley, of Wootten) a handmaid bearing a basket on her head is substituted for the boy. In many instances Joseph, attired as a traveller, appears behind the Virgin, and Zacharias, in his priestly turban and costume, behind Elizabeth. The locality is often an open porch or a garden in front of a house; and this garden of Zacharias is celebrated in Eastern tradition. It is related that the blessed Virgin, during her residence with her cousin Elizabeth, frequently recreated herself by walking in the garden of Zacharias, while she meditated on the strange and lofty destiny to which she was appointed; and farther, that happening one day to touch a certain flower, which grew there, with her most blessed hand, from being inodorous before, it became from that moment deliciously fragrant. The garden therefore was a fit place for the meeting. * * * * * 1. The earliest representation of the Visitation to which I can refer is a rude but not ungraceful drawing, in the Catacombs at Rome, of two women embracing. It is not of very high antiquity, perhaps the seventh or eighth century, but there can be so doubt about the subject. (Cemetery of Julius, v. Bosio, Roma sotterana.) 2. Cimabue has followed the Greek formula, and his simple group appears to me to have great feeling and simplicity. 3. More modern instances, from the date of the revival of art, abound in every form. Almost every painter who has treated subjects from the life of the Virgin has treated the Visitation. In the composition by Raphael (Madrid Gal.) there are the two figures only; and I should object to this otherwise perfect picture, the bashful conscious look of the Virgin Mary. The heads are, however, eminently beautiful and dignified. In the far background is seen the Baptism of Christ--very happily and significantly introduced, not merely as expressing the name of the votary who dedicated the picture, _Giovan-Battista_ Branconio, but also as expressing the relation between the two unborn Children--the Christ and his Prophet. 4. The group by Sebastian del Piombo is singularly grand, showing in every part the influence of Michael Angelo, but richly coloured in Sebastian's best manner. The figures are seen only to the knees. In the background, Zacharias is seen hurrying down some steps to receive the Virgin.[1] [Footnote 1: Louvre, 1224. There is, in the Louvre, another Visitation of singular and characteristic beauty by D. Ghirlandajo.] 5. The group by Pinturicchio, with the attendant angels, is remarkable for its poetic grace; and that by Lucas v. Leyden is equally remarkable for affectionate sentiment. 6. Still more beautiful, and more dramatic and varied, is another composition by Pinturicchio in the Sala Borgia. (Vatican, Rome.) The Virgin and St. Elizabeth, in the centre, take each other's hands. Behind the Virgin is St. Joseph, a maiden with a basket on her head, and other attendants. Behind St. Elizabeth, we have a view into the interior of her house, through arcades richly sculptured; and within, Zacharias is reading, and the handmaids of Elizabeth, are spinning and sewing. This elegant fresco was painted for Alexander VI. 7. There is a fine picture of this subject, by Andrea Sabattini of Salerno, the history of which is rather curious. "It was painted at the request of the Sanseverini, princes of Salerno, to be presented to a nunnery, in which one of that noble family had taken the veil. Under the form of the blessed Virgin, Andrea represented the last princess of Salerno, who was of the family of Villa Marina; under that of St. Joseph, the prince her husband; an old servant of the family figures as St. Elizabeth; and in the features of Zacharias we recognize those of Bernardo Tasso, the father of Torquato Tasso, and then secretary to the prince of Salerno. After remaining for many years over the high altar of the church, it was removed through the scruples of one of the Neapolitan archbishops, who was scandalized by the impropriety of placing the portraits of well-known personages in such a situation." The picture, once removed from its place, disappeared, and by some means found its way to the Louvre. Andrea, who was one of the most distinguished of the scholars of Raphael, died in 1545.[1] [Footnote 1: This picture is thus described in the old catalogues of the Louvre (No. 1207); but is not to be found in that of Villot.] 8. The composition by Rubens has all that scenic effect and dramatic movement which was characteristic of the painter. The meeting takes place on a flight of steps leading to the house of Zacharias. The Virgin wears a hat, as one just arrived from a journey; Joseph and Zacharias greet each other; a maiden with a basket on her head follows; and in the foreground a man unloads the ass. I will mention two other example, each perfect in its way, in two most opposite styles of treatment. 9. The first is the simple majestic composition of Albertinelli. (Florence Gal.) The two women, standing alone under a richly sculptured arch, and relieved against the bright azure sky, embrace each other. There are no accessories. Mary is attired in dark-blue drapery, and Elizabeth wears an ample robe of a saffron or rather amber colour. The mingled grandeur, power, and grace, and depth of expression in these two figures, are quite extraordinary; they look like what they are, and worthy to be mothers of the greatest of kings and the greatest of prophets. Albertinelli has here emulated his friend Bartolomeo--his friend, whom he so loved, that when, after the horrible execution of Savonarola, Bartolomeo, broken-hearted, threw himself into the convent of St. Mark, Albertinelli became almost distracted and desperate. He would certainly, says Vasari, have gone into the same convent, but for the hatred be bore the monks, "of whom he was always saying the most injurious things." Through some hidden influence of intense sympathy, Albertinelli, though in point of character the very antipodes of his friend, often painted so like him, that his pictures--and this noble picture more particularly--might be mistaken for the work of the Frate. * * * * * 10. We will now turn to a conception altogether different, and equally a masterpiece; it is the small but exquisitely finished composition by Rembrandt. (Grosvenor Gal.) The scene is the garden in front of the house of Zacharias; Elizabeth is descending the steps in haste to receive and embrace with outstretched arms the Virgin Mary, who appears to have just alighted from her journey. The aged Zacharias, supported by a youth, is seen following Elizabeth to welcome their guest. Behind Mary stands a black female attendant, in the act of removing a mantle from her shoulders; in the background a servant, or (as I think) Joseph, holds the ass on which Mary has journeyed; a peacock with a gem-like train, and a hen with a brood of chickens (the latter the emblem of maternity), are in the foreground. Though the representation thus conceived appears like a scene of every-day life, nothing can be more poetical than the treatment, more intensely true and noble than the expression of the diminutive figures, more masterly and finished than the execution, more magical and lustrous than the effect of the whole. The work of Albertinelli, in its large and solemn beauty and religious significance, is worthy of being placed over an altar, on which we might offer up the work of Rembrandt as men offer incense, gems, and gold. As the Visitation is not easily mistaken, I have said enough of it here; and we pass to the next subject,--The Dream of Joseph. * * * * * Although the feast of the Visitation is fixed for the 2d of July, it was, and is, a received opinion, that Mary began her journey to the hill country but a short time, even a few days, after the Annunciation of the angel. It was the sixth month with Elizabeth, and Mary sojourned with her three months. Hence it is supposed, by many commentators, that Mary must have been present at the birth of John the Baptist. It may seem surprising that the early painters should not have made use of this supposition. I am not aware that there exists among the numerous representations of the birth of St. John, any instance of the Virgin being introduced; it should seem that the lofty ideas entertained of the Mater Dei rendered it impossible to place her in a scene where she would necessarily take a subordinate position: this I think sufficiently accounts for her absence.[1] Mary then returned to her own dwelling at Nazareth; and when Joseph (who in these legendary stories is constantly represented as a house-carpenter and builder, and travelling about to exercise his trade in various places) also came back to his home, and beheld his wife, the suspicion entered his mind that she was about to become a mother, and very naturally his mind was troubled "with sorrow and insecure apprehensions; but being a just man, that is, according to the Scriptures and other wise writers, a good, a charitable man, he would not openly disgrace her, for he found it more agreeable to justice to treat an offending person with the easiest sentence, than to render her desperate, and without remedy, and provoked by the suffering of the worst of what she could fear. No obligation to justice can force a man to be cruel; pity, and forbearance, and long-suffering, and fair interpretation, and excusing our brother" (and our sister), "and taking things in the best sense, and passing the gentlest sentence, are as certainly our duty, and owing to every person who _does_ offend and _can_ repent, as calling men to account can be owing to the law." (v. Bishop Taylor's Life of Christ.) Thus says the good Bishop Taylor, praising Joseph, that he was too truly just to call furiously for justice, and that, waiving the killing letter of the law, he was "minded to dismiss his wife privily;" and in this he emulated the mercy of his divine foster-Son, who did not cruelly condemn the woman whom he knew to be guilty, but dismissed her "to repent and sin no more." But while Joseph was pondering thus in his heart, the angel of the Lord, the prince of angels, even Gabriel, appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife!" and he awoke and obeyed that divine voice. [Footnote 1: There is, however, in the Liverpool Museum, a very exquisite miniature of the birth of St. John the Baptist, in which the female figure standing near represents, I think, the Virgin Mary. It was cut out of a choral book of the Siena school.] This first vision of the angel is not in works of art easily distinguished from the second vision but there is a charming fresco by Luini, which can bear no other interpretation. Joseph is seated by the carpenter's bench, and leans his head on his hand slumbering. (Milan, Brera.) An angel stands by him pointing to Mary who is seen at a window above, busied with needlework. On waking from this vision, Joseph, says the legend, "entreated forgiveness of Mary for having wronged her even in thought." This is a subject quite unknown, I believe, before the fifteenth century, and not commonly met with since, but there are some instances. On one of the carved stalls of the Cathedral of Amiens it is very poetically treated. (Stalles d'Amiens, p. 205.) Mary is seated on a throne under a magnificent canopy; Joseph, kneeling before her and presented by two angels, pleads for pardon. She extends one hand to him; in the other is the volume of the Holy Scriptures. There is a similar version of the text in sculpture over one of the doors of Notre-Dame at Paris. There is also a picture by Alessandro Tiarini (Le repentir de Saint Joseph, Louvre, 416), and reckoned by Malvasia, his finest work, wherein Joseph kneels before the Virgin, who stands with a dignified air, and, while she raises him with one hand, points with the other up to heaven. Behind is seen the angel Gabriel with his finger on his lip, as commanding silence, and two other angels. The figures are life-size, the execution and colour very fine; the whole conception in the grand but mannered style of the Guido school. THE NATIVITY. _Ital._ Il Presepio. Il Nascimento del Nostro Signore. _Fr._ La Nativité. _Ger._ Die Geburt Christi. Dec. 25. The birth of our Saviour is related with characteristic simplicity and brevity in the Gospels; but in the early Christian traditions this great event is preceded and accompanied by several circumstances which have assumed a certain importance and interest in the artistic representations. According to an ancient legend, the Emperor Augustus Cæsar repaired to the sibyl Tiburtina, to inquire whether he should consent to allow himself to be worshipped with divine honours, which the Senate had decreed to him. The sibyl, after some days of meditation, took the Emperor apart, and showed him an altar; and above the altar, in the opening heavens, and in a glory of light, he beheld a beautiful Virgin holding an Infant in her arms, and at the same time a voice was heard saying, "This is the altar of the Son of the living God;" whereupon Augustus caused an altar to be erected on the Capitoline Hill, with this inscription, _Ara primogeniti Dei_; and on the same spot, in later times, was built the church called the _Ara-Coeli_, well known, with its flight of one hundred and twenty-four marble steps, to all who have visited Rome. Of the sibyls, generally, in their relation to sacred art, I have already spoken.[1] This particular prophecy of the Tiburtine sibyl to Augustus rests on some very antique traditions, pagan as well as Christian. It is supposed to have suggested the "Pollio" of Virgil, which suggested the "Messiah" of Pope. It is mentioned by writers of the third and fourth centuries, and our own divines have not wholly rejected it, for Bishop Taylor mentions the sibyl's prophecy among "the great and glorious accidents happening about the birth of Jesus." (Life of Jesus Christ, sec. 4.) [Footnote 1: Introduction. The personal character and history of the Sibyls will be treated in detail in the fourth series of Sacred and Legendary Art.] A very rude but curious bas-relief preserved in the church of the Ara-Coeli is perhaps the oldest representation extant. The Church legend assigns to it a fabulous antiquity; but it must be older than the twelfth century, as it is alluded to by writers of that period. Here the Emperor Augustus kneels before the Madonna and Child and at his side is the sibyl, Tiburtina, pointing upwards. Since the revival of art, the incident has been frequently treated. It was painted by Cavallini, about 1340, on the vault of the choir of the Ara-Coeli. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it became a favourite subject. It admitted of those classical forms, and that mingling of the heathen and the Christian in style and costume, which were calculated to please the churchmen and artists of the time, and the examples are innumerable. The most celebrated, I believe, is the fresco by Baldassare Peruzzi, in which the figure of the sibyl is certainly very majestic, but the rest of the group utterly vulgar and commonplace. (Siena, Fonte Giusta.) Less famous, but on the whole preferable in point of taste, is the group by Garofalo, in the palace of the Quirinal; and there is another by Titian, in which the scene is laid in a fine landscape after his manner. Vasari mentions a cartoon of this subject, painted by Rosso for Francis I., "among the best things Rosso ever produced," and introducing the King and Queen of France, their guards, and a concourse of people, as spectators of the scene. In some instances the locality is a temple, with an altar, before which kneels the Emperor, having laid upon it his sceptre and laurel crown: the sibyl points to the vision seen through a window above. I think it is so represented in a large picture at Hampton Court, by Pietro da Cortona. * * * * * The sibylline prophecy is supposed to have occurred a short tune before the Nativity, about the same period when the decree went forth "that all the world should be taxed." Joseph, therefore, arose and saddled his ass, and set his wife upon it, and went up from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The way was long, and steep, and weary; "and when Joseph looked back, he saw the face of Mary that it was sorrowful, as of one in pain; but when he looked back again, she smiled. And when they, were come to Bethlehem, there was no room for them in the inn, because of the great concourse of people. And Mary said to Joseph, "Take me down for I suffer." (Protevangelion.) The journey to Bethlehem, and the grief and perplexity of Joseph, have been often represented. 1. There exists a very ancient Greek carving in ivory, wherein Mary is seated on the ass, with an expression of suffering, and Joseph tenderly sustains her; she has one arm round his neck, leaning on him: an angel leads the ass, lighting the way with a torch. It is supposed that this curious relic formed part of the ornaments of the ivory throne of the Exarch of Ravenna, and that it is at least as old as the sixth century.[1] 2. There is an instance more dramatic in an engraving after a master of the seventeenth century. Mary, seated on the ass, and holding the bridle, raises her eyes to heaven with an expression of resignation; Joseph, cap in hand, humbly expostulates with the master of the inn, who points towards the stable; the innkeeper's wife looks up at the Virgin with a strong expression of pity and sympathy. 3. I remember another print of the same subject, where, in the background, angels are seen preparing the cradle in a cave. [Footnote 1: It is engraved in Gori's "Thesaurus," and described in Münter's "Sinnbilder."] I may as well add that the Virgin, in this character of mysterious, and religious, and most pure maternity, is venerated under the title of _La Madonna del Parto_.[1] [Footnote 1: Every one who has visited Naples will remember the church on the Mergellina, dedicated to the _Madonna del Parto_, where lies, beneath his pagan tomb, the poet Sannazzaro. Mr. Hallam, in a beautiful passage of his "History of the Literature of Europe," has pointed out the influence of the genius of Tasso on the whole school of Bolognese painters of that time. Not less striking was the influence of Sannazzaro and his famous poem on the Nativity (_De Partû Virginis_), on the contemporary productions of Italian art, and more particularly as regards the subject under consideration: I can trace it through all the schools of art, from Milan to Naples, during the latter half of the sixteenth century. Of Sannazzaro's poem, Mr. Hallam says, that "it would be difficult to find its equal for purity, elegance, and harmony of versification." It is not the less true, that even its greatest merits as a Latin poem exercised the most perverse influence on the religious art of that period. It was, indeed, only _one_ of the many influences which may be said to have demoralized the artists of the sixteenth century, but it was one of the greatest.] The Nativity of our Saviour, like the Annunciation, has been treated in two ways, as a mystery and as an event, and we must be careful to discriminate between them. THE NATIVITY AS A MYSTERY. In the first sense the artist has intended simply to express the advent of the Divinity on earth in the form of an Infant, and the _motif_ is clearly taken from a text in the Office of the Virgin, _Virgo quem genuit, adoravit._ In the beautiful words of Jeremy Taylor, "She blessed him, she worshipped him, and she thanked him that he would be born of her;" as, indeed, many a young mother has done before and since, when she has hung in adoration over the cradle of her first-born child;--but _here_ the child was to be a descended God; and nothing, as it seems to me, can be more graceful and more profoundly suggestive than the manner in which some of the early Italian artists have expressed this idea. When, in such pictures, the locality is marked by the poor stable, or the rough rocky cave, it becomes "a temple full of religion, full of glory, where angels are the ministers, the holy Virgin the worshipper, and Christ the Deity." Very few accessories are admitted, merely such as serve to denote that the subject is "a Nativity," properly so called, and not the "Madre Pia," as already described. The divine Infant lies in the centre of the picture, sometimes on a white napkin, sometimes with no other bed than the flowery turf; sometimes his head rests on a wheat-sheaf, always here interpreted as "the bread of life." He places his finger on his lip, which expresses the _Verbum sum_ (or, _Vere Verbum hoc est abbreviatum_), "I am the word," or "I am the bread of life" (_Ego sum panis ille vitæ._ John vi. 48), and fixes his eyes on the heavens above, where the angels are singing the _Gloria in excelsis._ In one instance, I remember, an angel holds up the cross before him; in another, he grasps it in his hand; or it is a nail, or the crown of thorns, anticipative of his earthly destiny. The Virgin kneels on one side; St. Joseph, when introduced, kneels on the other; and frequently angels unite with them in the act of adoration, or sustain the new-born Child. In this poetical version of the subject, Lorenzo di Credi, Perugino, Francia, and Bellini, excelled all others[1]. Lorenzo, in particular, became quite renowned for the manner in which he treated it, and a number of beautiful compositions from his hand exist in the Florentine and other galleries. [Footnote 1: There are also most charming examples in sculpture by Luca della Robbia, Donatello, and other masters of the Florentine school.] There are instances in which attendant saints and votaries are introduced as beholding and adoring this great mystery. 1. For instance, in a picture by Cima, Tobit and the angel are introduced on one side, and St. Helena and St. Catherine on the other. 2. In a picture by Francia (Bologna Gal.), the Infant, reclining upon a white napkin, is adored by the kneeling Virgin, by St. Augustine, and by two angels also kneeling. The votary, Antonio Galeazzo Bentivoglio, for whom the picture was painted, kneels in the habit of a pilgrim.[1] He had lately returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Bethlehem, thus poetically expressed in the scene of the Nativity, and the picture was dedicated as an act of thanksgiving as well as of faith. St. Joseph and St. Francis stand on one side; on the other is a shepherd crowned with laurel. Francia, according to tradition, painted his own portrait as St. Francis; and his friend the poet, Girolamo Casio de' Medici, as the shepherd. 3. In a large and famous Nativity by Giulio Romano (Louvre, 293), which once belonged to our Charles I., St. John the Evangelist, and St. Longinus (who pierced our Saviour's side with his lance), are standing on each side as two witnesses to the divinity of Christ;--here strangely enough placed on a par: but we are reminded that Longinus had lately been inaugurated as patron of Mantua, (v. Sacred and Legendary Art.) [Footnote 1: "An excellent likeness," says Vasari. It is engraved as such in Litta's Memorials of the Bentivogli. Girolamo Casio received the laurel crown from the hand of Clement VII. in 1523. A beautiful votive Madonna, dedicated by Girolamo Casio and his son Giacomo, and painted by Beltraffio, is in the Louvre.] In a triptych by Hans Hemling (Berlin Gal.) we have in the centre the Child, adored, as usual, by the Virgin mother and attending angels, the votary also kneeling: in the compartment on the right, we find the manifestation of the Redeemer to the _west_ exhibited in the prophecy of the sibyl to Augustus; on the left, the manifestation of the Redeemer to the _east_ is expressed by the journey of the Magi, and the miraculous star--"we have seen his star _in the east_." But of all these ideal Nativities, the most striking is one by Sandro Botticelli, which is indeed a comprehensive poem, a kind of hymn on the Nativity, and might be set to music. In the centre is a shed, beneath which the Virgin, kneeling, adores the Child, who has his finger on his lip. Joseph is seen a little behind, as if in meditation. On the right hand, the angel presents three figures (probably the shepherds) crowned with olive; on the left is a similar group. On the roof of the shed, three angels, with olive-branches in their hands, sing the _Gloria in excelsis_. Above these are twelve angels dancing or floating round in a circle, holding olive-branches between them. In the foreground, in the margin of the picture, three figures rising out of the flames of purgatory are received and embraced by angels. With all its quaint fantastic grace and dryness of execution, the whole conception is full of meaning, religious as well as poetical. The introduction of the olive, and the redeemed, souls, may express "peace on earth, good will towards men;" or the olive may likewise refer to that period of universal peace in which the _Prince of Peace_ was born into the world.[1] [Footnote 1: This singular picture, formerly in the Ottley collection, was, when I saw it, in the possession of Mr. Fuller Maitland, of Stensted Park.] I must mention one more instance for its extreme beauty. In a picture by Lorenzo di Credi (Florence, Pal. Pitti) the Infant Christ lies on the ground on a part of the veil of the Virgin, and holds in his hand a bird. In the background, the miraculous star sheds on the earth a perpendicular blaze of light, and farther off are the shepherds. On the other side, St. Jerome, introduced, perhaps, because he made his abode at Bethlehem, is seated beside his lion. THE NATIVITY AS AN EVENT. We now come to the Nativity historically treated, in which time, place, and circumstance, have to be considered as in any other actual event. The time was the depth of winter, at midnight; the place a poor stable. According to some authorities, this stable was the interior of a cavern, still shown at Bethlehem as the scene of the Nativity, in front of which was a ruined house, once inhabited by Jesse, the father of David, and near the spot where David pastured his sheep: but the house was now a shed partly thatched, and open at that bitter mason to all the winds of heaven. Here it was that the Blessed Virgin "brought forth her first-born Son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger." We find in the early Greek representations, and in the early Italian painters who imitated the Byzantine models, that in the arrangement a certain pattern was followed: the locality is a sort of cave--literally a hole in a rock; the Virgin Mother reclines on a couch; near her lies the new-born Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes. In one very ancient example (a miniature of the ninth century in a Greek Menologium), an attendant is washing the Child. But from the fourteenth century we find this treatment discontinued. It gave just offence. The greatest theologians insisted that the birth of the Infant Christ was as pure and miraculous as his conception; and it was considered little less than heretical to portray Mary reclining on a couch as one exhausted by the pangs of childbirth (Isaiah lxvi. 7), or to exhibit assistants as washing the heavenly Infant. "To her alone," says St. Bernard, "did not the punishment of Eve extend." "Not in sorrow," says Bishop Taylor, "not in pain, but in the posture and guise of worshippers (that is, kneeling), and in the midst of glorious thoughts and speculations, did Mary bring her Son into the world." We must seek for the accessories and circumstances usually introduced by the painters in the old legendary traditions then accepted and believed. (Protevangelion, xiv.) Thus one legend relates that Joseph went to seek a midwife, and met a woman coming down from the mountains, with whom he returned to the stable. But when they entered it was filled with light greater than the sun at noonday; and as the light decreased and they were able to open their eyes, they beheld Mary sitting there with her Infant at her bosom. And the Hebrew woman being amazed said, "Can this be true?" and Mary answered, "It is true; as there is no child like unto my son, so there is no woman like unto his mother." * * * * * These circumstances we find in some of the early representations, more or less modified by the taste of the artist. I have seen, for instance, an old German print, in which the Virgin "in the posture and guise of worshippers," kneels before her Child as usual; while the background exhibits a hilly country, and Joseph with a lantern in his hand is helping a woman over a stile. Sometimes there are two women, and then the second is always Mary Salome, who, according to a passage in the same popular authority, visited the mother in her hour of travail. The angelic choristers in the sky, or upon the roof of the stable, sing the _Gloria in excelsis Deo_; they are never, I believe, omitted, and in early pictures are always three in number; but in later pictures, the mystic _three_ become a chorus of musicians Joseph is generally sitting by, leaning on his staff in profound meditation, or asleep as one overcome by fatigue; or with a taper or a lantern in his hand, to express the night-time. Among the accessories, the ox and the ass are indispensable. The introduction of these animals rests on an antique tradition mentioned by St. Jerome, and also on two texts of prophecy: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib" (Isaiah i. 3); and Habakkuk iii. 4, is rendered, in the Vulgate, "He shall lie down between the ox and the ass." From the sixth century, which is the supposed date of the earliest extant, to the sixteenth century, there was never any representation of the Nativity without these two animals; thus in the old carol so often quoted-- "Agnovit bos et asinus Quod Puer erat Dominus!" In some of the earliest pictures the animals kneel, "confessing the Lord." (Isaiah xliii. 20.) In some instances they stare into the manger with a most _naïve_ expression of amazement at what they find there. One of the old Latin hymns, _De Nativitate Domini_, describes them, in that wintry night, as warming the new-born Infant with their breath; and they have always been interpreted as symbols, the ox as emblem of the Jews, the ass of the Gentiles. I wonder if it has ever occurred to those who have studied the inner life and meaning of these old representations,--owed to them, perhaps, homilies of wisdom, as well as visions of poetry,--that the introduction of the ox and the ass, those symbols of animal servitude and inferiority, might be otherwise translated;--that their pathetic dumb recognition of the Saviour of the world might be interpreted as extending to them also a participation in his mission of love and mercy;--that since to the lower creatures it was not denied to be present at that great manifestation, they are thus brought nearer to the sympathies of our humanity, as we are, thereby, lifted to a nearer communion with the universal spirit of love;--but this is "considering too deeply," perhaps, for the occasion. Return we to our pictures. Certainly we are not in danger of being led into any profound or fanciful speculations by the ignorant painters of the later schools of art. In their "Nativities," the ox and ass are not, indeed, omitted; they must be present by religious and prescriptive usage; but they are to be made picturesque, as if they were in the stable by right, and as if it were only a stable, not a temple hallowed to a diviner significance. The ass, instead of looking devoutly into the cradle, stretches out his lazy length in the foreground; the ox winks his eyes with a more than bovine stupidity. In some of the old German pictures, while the Hebrew ox is quietly chewing the cud, the Gentile ass "lifts up his voice" and brays with open mouth, as if in triumph. One version of this subject, by Agnolo Gaddi, is conceived with much simplicity and originality. The Virgin and Joseph are seen together within a rude and otherwise solitary building. She points expressively to the manger where lies the divine Infant, while Joseph leans on his staff and appears lost in thought. Correggio has been much admired for representing in his famous Nativity the whole picture as lighted by the glory which proceeds from the divine Infant, as if the idea had been new and original. ("_La Notte_," Dresden Gal.) It occurs frequently before and since his time, and is founded on the legendary story quoted above, which describes the cave or stable filled with a dazzling and supernatural light. * * * * * It is not often we find the Nativity represented as an historical event without the presence of the shepherds; nor is the supernatural announcement to the shepherds often treated as a separate subject: it generally forms part of the background of the Nativity; but there are some striking examples. In a print by Rembrandt, he has emulated, in picturesque and poetical treatment, his famous Vision of Jacob, in the Dulwich Gallery. The angel (always supposed to be Gabriel) appears in a burst of radiance through the black wintry midnight, surrounded by a multitude of the heavenly host. The shepherds fall prostrate, as men amazed and "sore afraid;" the cattle flee different ways in terror (Luke ii. 9.) I do not say that this is the most elevated way of expressing the scene; but, as an example of characteristic style, it is perfect. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS. _Ital._ L' Adorazione del Pastori. _Fr._ L'Adoration des Bergers. _Ger._ Die Anbetung der Hirten. The story thus proceeds:--When the angels were gone away into heaven, the shepherds came with haste, "and found Mary, and Joseph, and the young Child lying in a manger." Being come, they present their pastoral offerings--a lamb, or doves, or fruits (but these, considering the season, are misplaced); they take off their hats with reverence, and worship in rustic fashion. In Raphael's composition, the shepherds, as we might expect from him, look as if they had lived in Arcadia. In some of the later Italian pictures, they pipe and sing. It is the well-known custom in Italy for the shepherds of the Campagna, and of Calabria, to pipe before the Madonna and Child at Christmas time; and these _Piffereri_, with their sheepskin jackets, ragged hats, bagpipes, and tabors, were evidently the models reproduced in some of the finest pictures of the Bolognese school; for instance, in the famous Nativity by Annibale Caracci, where a picturesque figure in the corner is blowing into the bagpipes with might and main. In the Venetian pictures of the Nativity, the shepherds are accompanied by their women, their sheep, and even their dogs. According to an old legend, Simon and Jude, afterwards apostles, were among these shepherds. When the angels scatter flowers, as in compositions by Raphael and Ludovico Caracci, we must suppose that they were not gathered on earth, but in heaven. The Infant is sometimes asleep:--so Milton sings-- "But see the Virgin blest Hath laid her Babe to rest!" In a drawing by Raphael, the Child slumbers, and Joseph raises the coverlid, to show him to a shepherd. We have the same idea in several other instances. In a graceful composition by Titian, it is the Virgin Mother who raises the veil from the face of the sleeping Child. * * * * * From the number of figures and accessories, the Nativity thus treated as an historical subject becomes capable of almost endless variety; but as it is one not to be mistaken, and has a universal meaning and interest, I may now leave it to the fancy and discrimination of the observer. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. _Ital._ L' Adorazione de' Magi. L' Epifania. _Fr._ L'Adoration des Rois Mages. _Ger._ Die Anbetung der Weisen aus dem Morgenland. Die heiligen drei Könige. Jan. 6. This, the most extraordinary incident in the early life of our Saviour, rests on the authority of one evangelist only. It is related by St. Matthew so briefly, as to present many historical and philosophical difficulties. I must give some idea of the manner in which these difficulties were elucidated by the early commentators, and of the notions which prevailed in the middle ages relative to the country of the Three Kings, before it will be possible to understand or to appreciate the subject as it has been set before us in every style of art, in every form, in every material, from the third century to the present time. In the first place, who were these Magi, or these kings, as they are sometimes styled? "To suppose," says the antique legend, "that they were called Magi because they were addicted to magic, or exercised unholy or forbidden arts, would be, heaven save us! a rank heresy." No! Magi, in the Persian tongue, signifies "wise men." They were, in their own country, kings or princes, as it is averred by all the ancient fathers; and we are not to be offended at the assertion, that they were at once princes and _wise_ men,--"Car à l'usage de ce temps-là les princes et les rois etoient très sages!"[1] [Footnote 1: Quoted literally from the legend in the old French version of the _Flos Sanctorum_.] They came from the eastern country, but from what country is not said; whether from the land of the Arabians, or the Chaldeans, or the Persians, or the Parthians. It is written in the Book of Numbers, that when Balaam, the son of Beor, was called upon to curse the children of Israel, he, by divine inspiration, uttered a blessing instead of a curse. And he took up this parable, and said, "I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel." And the people of that country, though they were Gentiles, kept this prophecy as a tradition among them, and waited with faith and hope for its fulfilment. When, therefore, their princes and wise men beheld a star different in its appearance and movement from those which they had been accustomed to study (for they were great astronomers), they at once knew its import, and hastened to follow its guidance. According to an ancient commentary on St. Matthew, this star, on its first appearance, had the form of a radiant child bearing a sceptre or cross. In a fresco by Taddeo Gaddi, it is thus figured; and this is the only instance I can remember. But to proceed with our story. When the eastern sages beheld this wondrous and long-expected star, they rejoiced greatly; and they arose, and taking leave of their lands and their vassals, their relations and their friends, set forth on their long and perilous journey across vast deserts and mountains, and broad rivers, the star going before them, and arrived at length at Jerusalem, with a great and splendid train of attendants. Being come there, they asked at once, "Where is he who is born king of the Jews?" On hearing this question, King Herod was troubled, and all the city with him; and he inquired of the chief priests where Christ should be born. And they said to him, "in Bethlehem of Judea." Then Herod privately called the wise men, and desired they would go to Bethlehem, and search for the young child (he was careful not to call him _King_), saying, "When ye have found him, bring me word, that I may come and worship him also." So the Magi departed, and the star which they had seen in the east went before them, until it stood over the place where the young child was--he who was born King of kings. They had travelled many a long and weary mile; "and what had they come for to see?" Instead of a sumptuous palace, a mean and lowly dwelling; in place of a monarch surrounded by his guards and ministers and all the terrors of his state, an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid upon his mother's knee, between the ox and the ass. They had come, perhaps, from some far-distant savage land, or from some nation calling itself civilized, where innocence had never been accounted sacred, where society had as yet taken no heed of the defenceless woman, no care for the helpless child; where the one was enslaved, and the other perverted: and here, under the form of womanhood and childhood, they were called upon to worship the promise of that brighter future, when peace should inherit the earth, and righteousness prevail over deceit, and gentleness with wisdom reign for ever and ever! How must they have been amazed! How must they have wondered in their souls at such a revelation!--yet such was the faith of these wise men and excellent kings, that they at once prostrated themselves, confessing in the glorious Innocent who smiled upon them from his mother's knee, a greater than themselves--the image of a truer divinity than they had ever yet acknowledged. And having bowed themselves down--first, as was most fit, offering _themselves_,--they made offering of their treasure, as it had been written in ancient times, "The kings of Tarshish and the isles shall bring presents, and the kings of Sheba shall offer gifts." And what were these gifts? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh; by which symbolical oblation they protested a threefold faith;--by gold, that he was king; by incense, that he was God; by myrrh, that he was man, and doomed to death. In return for their gifts, the Saviour bestowed upon them others of more matchless price. For their gold he gave them charity and spiritual riches; for their incense, perfect faith; and for their myrrh, perfect truth and meekness: and the Virgin, his mother, also bestowed on them a precious gift and memorial, namely, one of those linen bands in which she had wrapped the Saviour, for which they thanked her with great humility, and laid it up amongst their treasures. When they had performed their devotions and made their offerings, being warned in a dream to avoid Herod, they turned back again to their own dominions; and the star which had formerly guided them to the west, now went before them towards the east, and led them safely home. When they were arrived there, they laid down their earthly state; and in emulation of the poverty and humility in which they had found the Lord of all power and might, they distributed their goods and possessions to the poor, and went about in mean attire, preaching to their people the new king of heaven and earth, the CHILD-KING, the Prince of Peace. We are not told what was the success of their mission; neither is it anywhere recorded, that from that time forth, every child, as it sat on its mother's knee, was, even for the sake of that Prince of Peace, regarded as sacred--as the heir of a divine nature--as one whose tiny limbs enfolded a spirit which was to expand into the man, the king, the God. Such a result was, perhaps, reserved for other times, when the whole mission of that divine Child should be better understood than it was then, or is _now_. But there is an ancient oriental tradition, that about forty years later, when St. Thomas the apostle travelled into the Indies, he found these Wise Men there, and did administer to them the rite of baptism; and that afterwards, in carrying the light of truth into the far East, they fell among barbarous Gentiles, and were put to death; thus each of them receiving in return for the earthly crowns they had cast at the feet of the Saviour, the heavenly crown of martyrdom and of everlasting life. Their remains, long afterwards discovered, were brought to Constantinople by the Empress Helena; thence in the time of the first Crusade they were transported to Milan, whence they were carried off by the Emperor Barbarossa, and deposited in the cathedral at Cologne, where they remain to this day, laid in a shrine of gold and gems; and have performed divers great and glorious miracles. * * * * * Such, in few words, is the church legend of the Magi of the East, the "three Kings of Cologne," as founded on the mysterious Gospel incident. Statesmen and philosophers, not less than ecclesiastics, have, as yet, missed the whole sense and large interpretation of the mythic as well as the scriptural story; but well have the artists availed themselves of its picturesque capabilities! In their hands it has gradually expanded from a mere symbol into a scene of the most dramatic and varied effect and the most gorgeous splendour. As a subject it is one of the most ancient in the whole range of Christian art. Taken in the early religions sense, it signified the calling of the Gentiles; and as such we find it carved in bas-relief on the Christian sarcophagi of the third and fourth centuries, and represented with extreme simplicity. The Virgin mother is seated on a chair, and holds the Infant upright on her knee. The Wise Men, always three in number, and all alike, approach in attitudes of adoration. In some instances they wear Phrygian caps, and their camels' heads are seen behind them, serving to express the land whence they came, the land of the East, as well as their long journey; as on one of the sarcophagi in the Christian Museum of the Vatican. The star in these antique sculptures is generally omitted; but in one or two instances it stands immediately over the chair of the Virgin. On a sarcophagus near the entrance of the tomb of Galla Placidia, at Ravenna, they are thus represented. The mosaic in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, is somewhat later in date than these sarcophagi (A.D. 440), and the representation is very peculiar and interesting. Here the Child is seated alone on a kind of square pedestal, with his hand raised in benediction; behind the throne stand two figures, supposed to be the Virgin and Joseph; on each side, two angels. The kings approach, dressed as Roman warriors, with helmets on their heads. In the mosaic in the church of Sant' Appollinare-Novo, at Ravenna (A.D. 534), the Virgin receives them seated on a throne, attended by the archangels; they approach, wearing crowns on their heads, and bending in attitudes of reverence: all three figures are exactly alike, and rather less in proportion than the divine group. * * * * * Immediately on the revival of art we find the Adoration of the Kings treated in the Byzantine style, with few accessories. Very soon, however, in the early Florentine school, the artists began to avail themselves of that picturesque variety of groups of which the story admitted. In the legends of the fourteenth century, the kings had become distinct personages, under the names of Caspar (or Jasper), Melchior, and Balthasar: the first being always a very aged man, with a long white beard; the second, a middle-aged man; the third is young, and frequently he is a Moor or Negro, to express the King of Ethiopia or Nubia, and also to indicate that when the Gentiles were called to salvation, all the continents and races of the earth, of whatever complexion, were included. The difference of ages is indicated in the Greek formula; but the difference of complexion is a modern innovation, and more frequently found in the German than in the Italian schools. In the old legend of the Three Kings, as inserted in Wright's "Chester Mysteries," Jasper, or Caspar, is King of Tarsus, the land of merchants; he makes the offering of gold. Melchior, the King of Arabia and Nubia, offers frankincense; and Balthasar, King of Saba,--"the land of spices and all manner of precious gums,"--offers myrrh.[1] [Footnote 1: The names of the Three Kings appear for the first time in a piece of rude sculpture over the door of Sant' Andrea at Pistoia, to which is assigned the date 1166. (_Vide_ D'Agincourt, _Scultura_, pl. xxvii.)] It is very usual to find, in the Adoration of the Magi, the angelic announcement to the shepherds introduced into the background; or, more poetically, the Magi approaching on one side, and the shepherds on the other. The intention is then to express a double signification; it is at once the manifestation to the Jews, and the manifestation to the Gentiles. The attitude of the Child varies. In the best pictures he raises his little hand in benediction. The objection that he was then only an infant of a few days old is futile: for he was from his birth the CHRIST. It is also in accordance with the beautiful and significant legend which describes him as dispensing to the old wise men the spiritual blessings of love, meekness, and perfect faith, in return for their gifts and their homage. It appears to me bad taste, verging on profanity, to represent him plunging his little hand into the coffer of gold, or eagerly grasping one of the gold pieces. Neither should he be wrapped up in swaddling clothes, nor in any way a subordinate figure in the group; for it is the Epiphany, the Manifestation of a divine humanity to Jews and Gentiles, which is to be expressed; and there is meaning as well as beauty in those compositions which represent the Virgin at lifting a veil and showing him to the Wise Man. The kingly character of the adorers, which became in the thirteenth century a point of faith, is expressed by giving them all the paraphernalia and pomp of royalty according to the customs of the time in which the artist lived. They are followed by a vast train of attendants, guards, pages, grooms, falconers with hawks; and, in a picture by Gaudenzio Ferrari, we have the court-dwarf, and, in a picture by Titian, the court-fool, both indispensable appendages of royal state in those times. The Kings themselves wear embroidered robes, crowns, and glittering weapons, and are booted and spurred as if just alighted from a long journey; even on one of the sarcophagi they are seen in spurs. The early Florentine and Venetian painters profited by the commercial relations of their countries with the Levant, and introduced all kinds of outlandish and oriental accessories to express the far country from which the strangers had arrived; thus we have among the presents, apes, peacocks, pheasants, and parrots. The traditions of the crusades also came in aid, and hence we have, the plumed and jewelled turbans, the armlets and the scymitars, and, in the later pictures, even umbrellas and elephants. I remember, in an old Italian print of this subject, a pair of hunting leopards or _chetas_. It is a question whether Joseph was present--whether he _ought_ to have been present: in one of the early legends, it is asserted that he hid himself and would not appear, out of his great humility, and because it should not be supposed that he arrogated any relationship to the divine Child. But this version of the scene is quite inconsistent with the extreme veneration afterwards paid to Joseph; and in later times, that is, from the fifteenth century, he is seldom omitted. Sometimes he is seen behind the chair of the Virgin, leaning on his stick, and contemplating the scene with a quiet admiration. Sometimes he receives the gifts offered to the Child, acting the part of a treasurer or chamberlain. In a picture by Angelico one of the Magi grasps his hand as if in congratulation. In a composition by Parmigiano one of the Magi embraces him. It was not uncommon for pious votaries to have themselves painted in likeness of one of the adoring Kings. In a picture by Sandro Botticelli, Cosmo de' Medici is thus introduced; and in a large and beautifully arranged composition by Leonardo da Vinci, which unhappily remains as a sketch only, the three Medici of that time, Cosmo, Lorenzo, and Giuliano, are figured as the three Kings. (Both these pictures are in the Florence Gal.) A very remarkable altar-piece, by Jean Van Eyck, represents the worship of the Magi. In the centre, Mary and her Child are seated within a ruined temple; the eldest of the three Kings kneeling, does homage by kissing the hand of the Child: it is the portrait of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. The second, prostrate behind him with a golden beaker in his hand, is supposed to be one of the great officers of his household. The third King exhibits the characteristic portrait of Charles the Bold; there is no expression of humility or devotion either in his countenance or attitude; he stands upright, with a lofty disdainful air, as if he were yet unresolved whether he would kneel or not. On the right of the Virgin, a little in the foreground, stands Joseph in a plain red dress, holding his hat in his hand, and looking with as air of simple astonishment at his magnificent guests. All the accessories in this picture, the gold and silver vessels, the dresses of the three Kings sparking with jewels and pearls, the velvets, silks, and costly furs, are painted with the most exquisite finish and delicacy, and exhibit to us the riches of the court of Burgundy, in which Van Eyck then resided. (Munich Gal, 45.) In Raphael's composition, the worshippers wear the classical, not the oriental costume; but an elephant with a monkey on his back is seen in the distance, which at once reminds us of the far East. (Rome, Vatican.) Ghirlandajo frequently painted the Adoration of the Magi, and shows in his management of the accessories much taste and symmetry. In one of his compositions, the shed forms a canopy in the centre; two of the Kings kneel in front. The country of the Ethiopian King is not expressed by making him of a black complexion, but by giving him a Negro page, who is in the act of removing his master's crown. (Florence, Pitti Pal.) A very complete example of artificial and elaborate composition may be found in the drawing by Baldassare Peruzzi in our National Gallery. It contains at least fifty figures; in the centre, a magnificent architectural design; and wonderful studies of perspective to the right and left, in the long lines of receding groups. On the whole, it is a most skilful piece of work; but to my taste much like a theatrical decoration,--pompous without being animated. A beautiful composition by Francia I must not pass over.[1] Here, to the left of the picture, the Virgin is seated on the steps of a ruined temple, against which grows a fig-tree, which, though it be December, is in full leaf. Joseph kneels at her side, and behind her are two Arcadian shepherds, with the ox and the ass. The Virgin, who has a charming air of modesty and sweetness, presents her Child to the adoration of the Wise Men: the first of these kneels with joined hands; the second, also kneeling, is about to present a golden vase; the Negro King, standing, has taken off his cap, and holds a censer in his hand; and the divine infant raises his hand in benediction. Behind the Kings are three figures on foot, one a beautiful youth in an attitude of adoration. Beyond these are five or six figures on horseback, and a long train upon horses and camels is seen approaching in the background. The landscape is very beautiful and cheerful: the whole picture much in the style of Francia's master, Lorenzo Costa. I should at the first glance have supposed it to be his, but the head of the Virgin is unmistakably Francia. [Footnote 1: Dresden Gal. Arnold, the well-known print-seller at Dresden, has lately published a very beautiful and finished engraving of this fine picture; the more valuable, because engravings after Francia are very rare.] There are instances of this subject idealized into a mystery; for example, in a picture by Palma Vecchio (Milan, Brera), St. Helena stands behind the Virgin, in allusion to the legend which connects her with the history of the Kings. In a picture by Garofalo, the star shining above is attended by angels bearing the instruments of the Passion, while St. Bartholomew, holding his skin, stands near the Virgin and Child: it was painted for the abbey of St. Bartholomew, at Ferrara. Among the German examples, the picture by Albert Durer, in the tribune of the Florence Gallery; and that of Mabuse, in the collection of Lord Carlisle, are perhaps the most perfect of their kind. In the last-named picture the Virgin, seated, in a plain dark-blue mantle, with the German physiognomy, but large browed, and with a very serious, sweet expression, holds the Child. The eldest of the Kings, as usual, offers a vase of gold, out of which Christ has taken a piece, which be holds in his hand. The name of the King, JASPER, is inscribed on the vase; a younger King behind holds a cup. The black Ethiopian king, Balthasar, is conspicuous on the left; he stands, crowned and arrayed in gorgeous drapery, and, as if more fully to mark the equality of the races--at least in spiritual privileges--his train is borne by a white page. An exquisite landscape is seen through the arch behind, and the shepherds are approaching in the middle distance. On the whole, this is one of the most splendid pictures of the early Flemish school I have ever seen; for variety of character, glow of colour, and finished execution, quite unsurpassed. In a very rich composition by Lucas van Leyden, Herod is seen in the background, standing in the balcony of his palace, and pointing out the scene to his attendants. As we might easily imagine, the ornamental painters of the Venetian and Flemish schools delighted in this subject, which allowed them full scope for their gorgeous colouring, and all their scenic and dramatic power. Here Paul Veronese revelled unreproved in Asiatic magnificence: here his brocaded robes and jewelled diadems harmonized with his subject; and his grand, old, bearded, Venetian senators figured, not unsuitably, as Eastern Kings. Here Rubens lavished his ermine and crimson draperies, his vases, and ewers, and censers of flaming gold;--here poured over his canvas the wealth "of Ormuz and of Ind." Of fifteen pictures of this subject, which he painted at different times, the finest undoubtedly is that in the Madrid Gallery. Another, also very fine, is in the collection of the Marquis of Westminster. In both these, the Virgin, contrary to all former precedent, is not seated, but _standing_, as she holds up her Child for worship. Afterwards we find the same position of the Virgin in pictures by Vandyck, Poussin, and other painters of the seventeenth century. It is quite an innovation on the old religious arrangement; but in the utter absence of all religious feeling, the mere arrangement of the figures, except in an artistic point of view, is of little consequence. As a scene of oriental pomp, heightened by mysterious shadows and flashing lights, I know nothing equal to the Rembrandt in the Queen's Gallery; the procession of attendants seen emerging from the background through the transparent gloom is quite awful; but in this miraculous picture, the lovely Virgin Mother is metamorphosed into a coarse Dutch _vrow_, and the divine Child looks like a changeling imp. In chapels dedicated to the Nativity or the Epiphany, we frequently find the journey of the Wise Men painted round the walls. They are seen mounted on horseback, or on camels, with a long train of attendants, here ascending a mountain, there crossing a river; here winding through a defile, there emerging from a forest; while the miraculous star shines above, pointing out the way. Sometimes we have the approach of the Wise Men on one side of the chapel, and their return to their own country on the other. On their homeward journey they are, in some few instances, embarking in a ship: this occurs in a fresco by Lorenzo Costa, and in a bas-relief in the cathedral of Amiens. The allusion is to a curious legend mentioned by Arnobius the Younger, in his commentary on the Psalms (fifth century). He says, in reference to the 48th Psalm, that when Herod found that the three Kings had escaped from him "in ships of Tarsus," in his wrath he burned all the vessels in the port. There is a beautiful fresco of the journey of the Magi in the Riccardi Chapel at Florence, painted by Benozzo Gozzoli for the old Cosmo de' Medici. "The Baptism of the Magi by St. Thomas," is one of the compartments of the Life of the Virgin, painted by Taddeo Gaddi, in the Baroncelli Chapel at Florence, and this is the only instance I can refer to. * * * * * Before I quit this subject--one of the most interesting in the whole range of art--I must mention a picture by Giorgione in the Belvedere Gallery, well known as one of the few undoubted productions of that rare and fascinating painter, and often referred to because of its beauty. Its signification has hitherto escaped all writers on art, as far as I am acquainted with them, and has been dismissed as one of his enigmatical allegories. It is called in German, _Die Feldmässer_ (the Land Surveyors), and sometimes styled in English the _Geometricians_, or the _Philosophers_, or the _Astrologers_. It represents a wild, rocky landscape, in which are three men. The first, very aged, in as oriental costume, with a long gray beard, stands holding in his hand an astronomical table; the next, a man in the prime of life, seems listening to him; the third, a youth, seated and looking upwards, holds a compass. I have myself no doubt that this beautiful picture represents the "three wise men of the East," watching on the Chaldean hills the appearance of the miraculous star, and that the light breaking in the far horizon, called in the German description the rising sun, is intended to express the rising of the star of Jacob.[1] In the sumptuous landscape, and colour, and the picturesque rather than religious treatment, this picture is quite Venetian. The interpretation here suggested I leave to the consideration of the observer; and without allowing myself to be tempted on to further illustration, will only add, in conclusion, that I do not remember any Spanish picture of this subject remarkable either for beauty or originality.[2] [Footnote 1: There is also a print by Giulio Bonasoni, which appears to represent the wise men watching for the star. (_Bartsch_, xv. 156.)] [Footnote 2: In the last edition of the Vienna Catalogue, this picture has received its proper title.] THE PURIFICATION OF THE VIRGIN, THE PRESENTATION, AND THE CIRCUMCISION OF CHRIST. _Ital._ La Purificazione della B. Vergine. _Ger._ Die Darbringung im Tempel. Die Beschneidung Christi. After the birth of her Son, Mary was careful to fulfil all the ceremonies of the Mosaic law. As a first-born son, he was to be redeemed by the offering of five shekels, or a pair of young pigeons (in memory of the first-born of Egypt). But previously, being born of the children of Abraham, the infant Christ was submitted to the sanguinary rite which sealed the covenant of Abraham, and received the name of JESUS--"that name before which every knee was to bow, which was to be set above the powers of magic, the mighty rites of sorcerers, the secrets of Memphis, the drugs of Thessaly, the silent and mysterious murmurs of the wise Chaldees, and the spells of Zoroaster; that name which we should engrave on our hearts, and pronounce with our most harmonious accents, and rest our faith on, and place our hopes in, and love with the overflowing of charity, joy, and adoration." (v. Bishop Taylor's Life of Christ.) The circumcision and the naming of Christ have many times been painted to express the first of the sorrows of the Virgin, being the first of the pangs which her Son was to suffer on earth. But the Presentation in the Temple has been selected with better taste for the same purpose; and the prophecy of Simeon, "Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also," becomes the first of the Seven Sorrows. It is an undecided point whether the Adoration of the Magi took place thirteen days, or one year and thirteen days after the birth of Christ. In a series of subjects artistically arranged, the Epiphany always precedes, in order of time, that scene in the temple which is sometimes styled the Purification, sometimes the Presentation and sometimes the _Nunc Dimitis_. They are three distinct incidents; but, as far as I can judge, neither the painters themselves, nor those who have named pictures, have been careful to discriminate between them. On a careful examination of various compositions, some of special celebrity, which are styled, in a general way, the Presentation in the Temple, it will appear, I think, that the idea uppermost in the painter's mind has been to represent the prophecy of Simeon. No doubt, in later times, the whole scene, as a subject of art, was considered in reference chiefly to the Virgin, and the intention was to express the first of her Seven Sorrows. But in ancient art, and especially in Greek art, the character of Simeon assumed a singular significance and importance, which so long as modern art was influenced by the traditional Byzantine types, modified, in some degree, the arrangement and sentiment of this favourite subject. It is related that when Ptolemy Philadelphus about 260 years before Christ, resolved to have the Hebrew Scriptures translated into Greek, for the purpose of placing them in his far-famed library, he despatched messengers to Eleazar, the High Priest of the Jews, requiring him to send scribes and interpreters learned in the Jewish law to his court at Alexandria. Thereupon Eleazar selected six of the most learned Rabbis from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, seventy-two persons in all, and sent them to Egypt, in obedience to the commands of King Ptolemy, and among these was Simeon, a priest, and a man full of learning. And it fell to the lot of Simeon to translate the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he came to that verse where it is written, "Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son," he began to misdoubt, in his own mind, how this could be possible; and, after long meditation, fearing to give scandal and offence to the Greeks, he rendered the Hebrew word _Virgin_ by a Greek word which signifies merely a _young woman_; but when he had written it down, behold an angel effaced it, and substituted the right word. Thereupon he wrote it again and again; and the same thing happened three times; and he remained astonished and confounded. And while he wondered what this should mean, a ray of divine light penetrated his soul; it was revealed to him that the miracle which, in his human wisdom he had presumed to doubt, was not only possible, but that he, Simeon, "should not see death till he had seen the Lord's Christ." Therefore he tarried on earth, by the divine will, for nearly three centuries, till that which he had disbelieved had come to pass. He was led by the Spirit to the temple on the very day when Mary came there to present her Son, and to make her offering, and immediately, taking the Child in his arms, he exclaimed, "Lord, _now_ lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word." And of the Virgin Mother, also, he prophesied sad and glorious things. Anna the Prophetess, who was standing by, also testified to the presence of the theocratic King: but she did not take him in her arms, as did Simeon. (Luke ii. 82.) Hence, she was early regarded as a type of the synagogue, which prophesied great things of the Messiah, but, nevertheless, did not embrace him when he appeared, as did the Gentiles. That these curious legends relative to Simeon and Anna, and their symbolical interpretation, were well known to the old painters, there can be no doubt; and both were perhaps in the mind of Bishop Taylor when he wrote his eloquent chapter on the Presentation. "There be some," he says, "who wear the name of Christ on their heads, to make a show to the world; and there be some who have it always in their mouths; and there be some who carry Christ on their shoulders, as if he were a burthen too heavy to bear; and there be some--who is me!--who trample him under their feet, but _he_ is the true Christian who, _like Simeon_, embraces Christ, and takes him to his heart." Now, it seems to me that it is distinctly the acknowledgment of Christ by Simeon,--that is, Christ received by the Gentiles,--which is intended to be placed before us in the very early pictures of the Presentation, or the _Nunc dimittis_, as it is always styled in Greek art. The appearance of an attendant, bearing the two turtle-doves, shows it to be also the so-called Purification of the Virgin. In an antique formal Greek version we have the Presentation exactly according to the pattern described by Didron. The great gold censer is there; the cupola, at top; Joseph carrying the two young pigeons, and Anna behind Simeon. * * * * * In a celebrated composition by Fra Bartolomeo, there is the same disposition of the personages, but an additional female figure. This is not Anna, the mother of the Virgin (as I have heard it said), but probably Mary Salome, who had always attended on the Virgin ever since the Nativity at Bethlehem. The subject is treated with exquisite simplicity by Francia; we have just the same personages as in the rude Greek model, but disposed with consummate grace. Still, to represent the Child as completely undraped has been considered as a solecism. He ought to stretch out his hands to his mother and to look as if he understood the portentous words which foretold his destiny. Sometimes the imagination is assisted by the choice of the accessories; thus Fra Bartolomeo has given us, in the background of his group, Moses holding the _broken_ table of the old law; and Francia represents in the same manner the sacrifice of Abraham; for thus did Mary bring her Son as an offering. In many pictures Simeon raises his eyes to heaven in gratitude; but those painters who wished to express the presence of the Divinity in the person of Christ, made Simeon looking at the Child, and addressing _him_ as "Lord." THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. _Ital._ La Fuga in Egitto. _Fr._ La Fuite de la Sainte Famille en Egypte. _Ger._ Die Flucht nach Ægypten. The wrath of Herod against the Magi of the East who had escaped from his power, enhanced by his fears of the divine and kingly Infant, occasioned the massacre of the Innocents, which led to the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. Of the martyred children, in their character of martyrs, I have already spoken, and of their proper place in a scheme of ecclesiastical decoration. There is surely something very pathetic in that feeling which exalted these infant victims into objects of religious veneration, making them the cherished companions in heavenly glory of the Saviour for whose sake they were sacrificed on earth. He had said, "Suffer little children to come unto me;" and to these were granted the prerogatives of pain, as well as the privileges of innocence. If, in the day of retribution, they sit at the feet of the Redeemer, surely they will appeal against us, then and there;--against us who, in these days, through our reckless neglect, slay, body and soul, legions of innocents,--poor little unblest creatures, "martyrs by the pang without the palm,"--yet dare to call ourselves Christians. * * * * * The Massacre of the Innocents, as an event, belongs properly to the life of Christ: it is not included in a series of the life of the Virgin, perhaps from a feeling that the contrast between the most blessed of women and mothers, and those who wept distracted for their children, was too painful, and did not harmonize with the general subject. In pictures of the Flight into Egypt, I have seen it introduced allusively into the background; and in the architectural decoration of churches dedicated to the Virgin Mother, as Notre Dame de Chartres, it finds a place, but not often a conspicuous place;[1] it is rather indicated than represented. I should pass over the subject altogether, best pleased to be spared the theme, but that there are some circumstances connected with it which require elucidation, because we find them introduced incidentally into pictures of the Flight and the _Riposo_. [Footnote 1: It is conspicuous and elegantly treated over the door of the Lorenz Kirche at Nuremberg.] Thus, it is related that among the children whom Herod was bent on destroying, was St. John the Baptist; but his mother Elizabeth fled with him to a desert place, and being pursued by the murderers, "the rock opened by a miracle, and close upon Elizabeth and her child;" which means, as we may presume, that they took refuge in a cavern, and were concealed within it until the danger was over. Zacharias, refusing to betray his son, was slain "between the temple and the altar," (Matt, xxiii. 35.) Both these legends are to be met with in the Greek pictures, and in the miniatures of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.[1] [Footnote 1: They will be found treated at length in the artistic subjects connected with St. John the Baptist.] From the butchery which made so many mothers childless, the divine Infant and his mother were miraculously saved; for an angel spoke to Joseph in a dream, saying, "Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt." This is the second of the four angelic visions which are recorded of Joseph. It is not a frequent subject in early art, but is often met with in pictures of the later schools. Joseph is asleep in his chair, the angel stands before him, and, with a significant gesture, points forward--"arise and flee!" There is an exquisite little composition by Titian, called a _Riposo_, which may possibly represent the preparation for the Flight. Here Mary is seated under a tree nursing her Infant, while in the background is a sort of rude stable, in which Joseph is seen saddling the ass, while the ox is on the outside. In a composition by Tiarini, we see Joseph holding the Infant, while Mary, leaning one hand on his shoulder, is about to mount the ass. In a composition by Poussin, Mary, who has just seated herself on the ass, takes the Child from the arms of Joseph. Two angels lead the ass, a third kneels in homage, and two others are seen above with a curtain to pitch a tent. * * * * * I must notice here a tradition that both the ox and the ass who stood over the manger at Bethlehem, accompanied the Holy Family into Egypt. In Albert Durer's print, the ox and the ass walk side by side. It is also related that the Virgin was accompanied by Salome, and Joseph by three of his sons. This version of the story is generally rejected by the painters; but in the series by Giotto in the Arena at Padua, Salome and the three youths attend on Mary and Joseph; and I remember another instance, a little picture by Lorenzo Monaco, in which Salome, who had vowed to attend on Christ and his mother as long as she lived, is seen following the ass, veiled, and supporting her steps with a staff. But this is a rare exception. The general treatment confines the group to Joseph, the mother, and the Child. To Joseph was granted, in those hours of distress and danger, the high privilege of providing for the safety of the Holy Infant--a circumstance much enlarged upon in the old legends, and to express this more vividly, he is sometimes represented in early Greek art as carrying the Child in his arms, or on his shoulder, while Mary follows on the ass. He is so figured on the sculptured doors of the cathedral of Beneventum, and in the cathedral of Monreale, both executed by Greek artists.[1] But we are not to suppose that the Holy Family was left defenceless on the long journey. The angels who had charge concerning them were sent to guide them by day, to watch over them by night, to pitch their tent before them, and to refresh them with celestial fruit and flowers. By the introduction of these heavenly ministers the group is beautifully varied. [Footnote 1: 11th century. Also at Città di Castello; same date.] Joseph, says the Gospel story, "arose by night;" hence there is both meaning and propriety in those pictures which represent the Flight as a night-scene, illuminated by the moon and stars, though I believe this has been done more to exhibit the painter's mastery over effects of dubious light, than as a matter of biblical accuracy. Sometimes an angel goes before, carrying a torch or lantern, to light them on the way; sometimes it is Joseph who carries the lantern. In a picture by Nicolo Poussin, Mary walks before, carrying the Infant; Joseph follows, leading the ass; and an angel guides them. The journey did not, however, comprise one night only. There is, indeed, an antique tradition, that space and time were, on this occasion, miraculously shortened to secure a life of so much importance; still, we are allowed to believe that the journey extended over many days and nights; consequently it lay within the choice of the artist to exhibit the scene of the Flight either by night or by day. In many representations of the Flight into Egypt, we find in the background men sowing or cutting corn. This is in allusion to the following legend:-- When it was discovered that the Holy Family had fled from Bethlehem, Herod sent his officers in pursuit of them. And it happened that when the Holy Family had travelled some distance, they came to a field where a man was sowing wheat. And the Virgin said to the husbandman, "If any shall ask you whether we have passed this way, ye shall answer, 'Such persons passed this way when I was sowing this corn.'" For the holy Virgin was too wise and too good to save her Son by instructing the man to tell a falsehood. But behold, a miracle! For by the power of the Infant Saviour, in the space of a single night, the seed sprung up into stalk, blade, and ear, fit for the sickle. And next morning the officers of Herod came up, and inquired of the husbandman, saying, "Have you seen an old man with a woman and a Child travelling this way?" And the man, who was reaping his wheat, in great wonder and admiration, replied "Yes." And they asked again, "How long is it since?" And he answered. "When I was sowing this wheat." Then the officers of Herod turned back, and left off pursuing the Holy Family. A very remarkable example of the introduction of this legend occurs in a celebrated picture by Hans Hemling (Munich Gal., Cabinet iv. 69), known as "Die Sieben Freuden Mariä." In the background, on the left, is the Flight into Egypt; the men cutting and reaping corn, and the officers of Herod in pursuit of the Holy Family. By those unacquainted with the old legend, the introduction of the cornfield and reapers is supposed to be merely a decorative landscape, without any peculiar significance. * * * * * In a very beautiful fresco by Pinturicchio, (Rome, St. Onofrio), the Holy Family are taking their departure from Bethlehem. The city, with the massacre of the Innocents, is seen in the background. In the middle distance, the husbandman cutting corn; and nearer, the palm tree bending down. * * * * * It is supposed by commentators that Joseph travelled from Bethlehem across the hilly country of Judea, taking the road to Joppa, and then pursuing the way along the coast. Nothing is said in the Gospel of the events of this long and perilous journey of at least 400 miles, which, in the natural order of things, must have occupied five or six weeks; and the legendary traditions are very few. Such as they are, however, the painters have not failed to take advantage of them. We are told that on descending from the mountains, they came down upon a beautiful plain enamelled with flowers, watered by murmuring streams, and shaded by fruit trees. In such a lovely landscape have the painters delighted to place some of the scenes of the Flight into Egypt. On another occasion, they entered a thick forest, a wilderness of trees, in which they must have lost their way, had they not been guided by an angel. Here we encounter a legend which has hitherto escaped, because, indeed, it defied, the art of the painter. As the Holy Family entered this forest, all the trees bowed themselves down in reverence to the Infant God; only the aspen, in her exceeding pride and arrogance, refused to acknowledge him, and stood upright. Then the Infant Christ pronounced a curse against her, as he afterwards cursed the barren fig tree; and at the sound of his words the aspen began to tremble through all her leaves, and has not ceased to tremble even to this day. We know from Josephus the historian, that about this time Palestine was infested by bands of robbers. There is an ancient tradition, that when the Holy Family travelling through hidden paths and solitary defiles, had passed Jerusalem, and were descending into the plains of Syria, they encountered certain thieves who fell upon them; and one of them would have maltreated and plundered them, but his comrade interfered, and said, "Suffer them, I beseech thee, to go in peace, and I will give thee forty groats, and likewise my girdle;" which offer being accepted, the merciful robber led the Holy Travellers to his stronghold on the rock, and gave them lodging for the night. (Gospel of Infancy, ch. viii.) And Mary said to him, "The Lord God will receive thee to his right hand, and grant thee pardon of thy sins!" And it was so: for in after times these two thieves were crucified with Christ, one on the right hand, and one on the left; and the merciful thief went with the Saviour into Paradise. The scene of this encounter with the robbers, near Ramla, is still pointed out to travellers, and still in evil repute as the haunt of banditti. The crusaders visited the spot as a place of pilgrimage; and the Abbé Orsini considers the first part of the story as authenticated; but the legend concerning the good thief he admits to be doubtful. (Vie de la Ste. Vierge.) As an artistic subject this scene has been seldom treated. I have seen two pictures which represent it. One is a fresco by Giovanni di San Giovanni, which, having been cut from the wail of some suppressed convent, is now in the academy at Florence. The other is a composition by Zuccaro. One of the most popular legends concerning the Flight into Egypt is that of the palm or date tree, which at the command of Jesus bowed down its branches to shade and refresh his mother; hence, in the scene of the Flight, a palm tree became a usual accessory. In a picture by Antonello Mellone, the Child stretches out his little hand and lays hold of the branch: sometimes the branch is bent down by angel hands. Sozomenes relates, that when the Holy Family reached the term of their journey, and approached the city of Heliopolis in Egypt, a tree which grew before the gates of the city, and was regarded with great veneration as the seat of a god, bowed down its branches at the approach of the Infant Christ. Likewise it is related (not in legends merely, but by grave religious authorities) that all the idols of the Egyptians fell with their faces to the earth. I have seen pictures of the Flight into Egypt, in which broken idols lie by the wayside. * * * * * In the course of the journey the Holy Travellers had to cross rivers and lakes; hence the later painters, to vary the subject, represented them as embarking in a boat, sometimes steered by an angel. The first, as I have reason to believe, who ventured on this innovation, was Annibale Caracci. In a picture by Poussin, the Holy Family are about to embark. In a picture by Giordano, an angel with one knee bent, assists Mary to enter the boat. In a pretty little picture by Teniers, the Holy Family and the ass are seen in a boat crossing a ferry by moonlight; sometimes they are crossing a bridge. I must notice here a little picture by Adrian Vander Werff, in which the Virgin, carrying her Child, holds by the hand the old decrepit Joseph, who is helping her, or rather is helped by her, to pass a torrent on some stepping-stones. This is quite contrary to the feeling of the old authorities, which represent Joseph as the vigilant and capable guardian of the Mother and her Child: but it appears to have here a rather particular and touching significance; it was painted by Vander Werff for his daughter in his old age, and intended to express her filial duty and his paternal care. The most beautiful Flight into Egypt I have ever seen, is a composition by Gaudenzio Ferrari. The Virgin is seated and sustained on the ass with a quite peculiar elegance. The Infant, standing on her knee, seems to point out the way; an angel leads the ass, and Joseph follows with the staff and wallet. In the background the palm tree inclines its branches. (At Varallo, in the church of the Minorites.) Claude has introduced the Flight of the Holy Family as a landscape group into nine different pictures. THE REPOSE OF THE HOLY FAMILY. _Ital._ Il Riposo. _Fr._ Le Repos de la Sainte Famille. _Ger._ Die Ruhe in Ægypten. The subject generally styled a "Riposo" is one of the most graceful and most attractive in the whole range of Christian art. It is not, however, an ancient subject, for I cannot recall an instance earlier than the sixteenth century; it had in its accessories that romantic and pastoral character which recommended it to the Venetians and to the landscape-painters of the seventeenth century, and among these we must look for the most successful and beautiful examples. I must begin by observing that it is a subject not only easily mistaken by those who have studied pictures; but perpetually misconceived and misrepresented by the painters themselves. Some pictures which erroneously bear this title, were never intended to do so. Others, intended to represent the scene, are disfigured and perplexed by mistakes arising either from the ignorance or the carelessness of the artist. We must bear in mind that the Riposo, properly so called, is not merely the Holy Family seated in a landscape; it is an episode of the Flight into Egypt, and is either the rest on the journey, or at the close of the journey; quite different scenes, though all go by the same name. It is not an ideal religious group, but a reality, a possible and actual scene; and it is clear that the painter, if he thought at all, and did not merely set himself to fabricate a pretty composition, was restricted within the limits of the actual and possible, at least according to the histories and traditions of the time. Some of the accessories introduced would stamp the intention at once; as the date tree, and Joseph gathering dates; the ass feeding in the distance; the wallet and pilgrim's staff laid beside Joseph; the fallen idols; the Virgin scooping water from a fountain; for all these are incidents which properly belong to the Riposo. It is nowhere recorded; either in Scripture or in the legendary stories, that Mary and Joseph in their flight were accompanied by Elizabeth and the little St. John; therefore, where either of these are introduced, the subject is not properly a _Riposo_, whatever the intention of the painter may have been: the personages ought to be restricted to the Virgin, her Infant, and St. Joseph, with attendant angels. An old woman is sometimes introduced, the same who is traditionally supposed to have accompanied them in their flight. If this old woman be manifestly St. Anna or St. Elizabeth, then it is not a _Riposo_, but merely a _Holy Family_. It is related that the Holy Family finally rested, after their long journey, in the village of Matarea, beyond the city of Hermopolis (or Heliopolis), and took up their residence in a grove of sycamores, a circumstance which gave the sycamore tree a sort of religions interest in early Christian times. The crusaders imported it into Europe; and poor Mary Stuart may have had this idea, or this feeling when she brought from France, and planted in her garden, the first sycamores which grew in Scotland. Near to this village of Matarea, a fountain miraculously sprung up for the refreshment of the Holy Family. It still exists, as we are informed by travellers, and is still styled by the Arabs, "The Fountain of Mary."[1] This fountain is frequently represented, as in the well-known Riposo by Correggio, where the Virgin is dipping a bowl into the gushing stream, hence called the "Madonna _della Scodella_" (Parma): in another by Baroccio (Grosvenor Gal.), and another by Domenichino (Louvre, 491). [Footnote 1: The site of this fountain is about four miles N.E. of Cairo.] In this fountain, says another legend, Mary washed the linen of the Child. There are several pictures which represent the Virgin washing linen in a fountain; for example, one by Lucio Massari, where, in a charming landscape, the little Christ takes the linen out of a basket, and Joseph hangs it on a line to dry. (Florence Gal.) The ministry of the angels is here not only allowable, but beautifully appropriate; and never has it been more felicitously and more gracefully expressed than in a little composition by Lucas Cranach, where the Virgin and her Child repose under a tree, while the angels dance in a circle round them. The cause of the Flight--the Massacre of the Innocents--is figuratively expressed by two winged boys, who, seated on a bough of the tree, are seen robbing a nest, and wringing the necks of the nestlings, while the parent-birds scream and flutter over their heads: in point of taste, this significant allegory had been better omitted; it spoils the harmony of composition. There is another similar group, quite as graceful, by David Hopfer. Vandyck seems to have had both in his memory when he designed the very beautiful Riposo so often copied and engraved (Coll. of Lord Ashburton); here the Virgin is seated under a tree, in an open landscape, and holds her divine Child; Joseph, behind, seems asleep; in front of the Virgin, eight lovely angels dance in a round, while others, seated in the sky, make heavenly music. In another singular and charming Riposo by Lucas Cranach, the Virgin and Child are seated under a tree; to the left of the group is a fountain, where a number of little angels appear to be washing linen; to the right, Joseph approaches leading the ass, and in the act of reverently removing his cap. There is a Riposo by Albert Durer which I cannot pass over. It is touched with all that homely domestic feeling, and at the same time all that fertility of fancy, which are so characteristic of that extraordinary man. We are told that when Joseph took up his residence at Matarea in Egypt, he provided for his wife and Child by exercising his trade as a carpenter. In this composition he appears in the foreground dressed as an artisan with an apron on, and with an axe in his hand is shaping a plank of wood. Mary sits on one side spinning with her distaff, and watching her Infant slumbering in its cradle. Around this domestic group we have a crowd of ministering angels; some of these little winged spirits are assisting Joseph, sweeping up the chips and gathering them into baskets; others are merely "sporting at their own sweet will." Several more dignified-looking angels, having the air of guardian spirits, stand or kneel round the cradle, bending over it with folded hands.[1] [Footnote 1: In the famous set of wood cuts of the Life of the Virgin Mary.] In a Riposo by Titian, the Infant lies on a pillow on the ground, and the Virgin is kneeling before him, while Joseph leans on his pilgrim's staff, to which is suspended a wallet. In another, two angels, kneeling, offer fruits in a basket; in the distance, a little angel waters the ass at a stream. (All these are engraved.) The angels, according to the legend, not only ministered to the Holy Family, but pitched a tent nightly, in which they were sheltered. Poussin, in an exquisite picture, has represented the Virgin and Child reposing under a curtain suspended from the branches of a tree and partly sustained by angels, while others, kneeling, offer fruit. (Grosvenor Gal.) Poussin is the only painter who has attempted to express the locality. In one of his pictures the Holy Family reposes on the steps of an Egyptian temple; a sphinx and a pyramid are visible in the background. In another Riposo by the same master, an Ethiopian boy presents fruits to the Infant Christ. Joseph is frequently asleep, which is hardly consonant with the spirit of the older legends. It is, however, a beautiful idea to make the Child and Joseph both reposing, while the Virgin Mother, with eyes upraised to heaven, wakes and watches, as in a picture by Mola (Louvre, 269); but a yet more beautiful idea to represent the Virgin and Joseph sunk in sleep, while the divine Infant lying in his mother's arms wakes and watches for both, with his little hands joined in prayer, and his eyes fixed on the hovering angels or the opening skies above. In a Riposo by Rembrandt, the Holy Family rest by night, and are illuminated only by a lantern suspended on the bough of a tree, the whole group having much the air of a gypsy encampment. But one of Rembrandt's imitators has in his own way improved on this fancy; the Virgin sleeps on a bank with the Child on her bosom; Joseph, who looks extremely like an old tinker, is doubling his fist at the ass, which has opened its mouth to bray. * * * * * Before quitting the subject of the Riposo, I must mention a very pretty and poetical legend, which I have met with in one picture only; a description of it may, however, lead to the recognition of others. There is, in the collection of Lord Shrewsbury, at Alton Towers, a Riposo attributed to Giorgione, remarkable equally for the beauty and the singularity of the treatment. The Holy Family are seated in the midst of a wild but rich landscape, quite in the Venetian style; Joseph is asleep; the two children are playing with a lamb. The Virgin, seated holds a book, and turns round, with an expression of surprise and alarm, to a female figure who stands on the right. This woman has a dark physiognomy, ample flowing drapery of red and white, a white turban twisted round her head, and stretches out her hand with the air of a sibyl. The explanation of this striking group I found in an old ballad-legend. Every one who has studied the moral as well as the technical character of the various schools of art, must have remarked how often the Venetians (and Giorgione more especially) painted groups from the popular fictions and ballads of the time; and it has often been regretted that many of these pictures are becoming unintelligible to us from our having lost the key to them, in losing all trace of the fugitive poems or tales which suggested them. The religious ballad I allude to must have been popular in the sixteenth century; it exists in the Provençal dialect, in German, and in Italian; and, like the wild ballad of St. John Chrysostom, it probably came in some form or other from the East. The theme is, in all these versions, substantially the same. The Virgin, on her arrival in Egypt, is encountered by a gypsy (Zingara or Zingarella), who crosses the Child's palm after the gypsy manner, and foretells all the wonderful and terrible things which, as the Redeemer of mankind, he was destined to perform and endure on earth. An Italian version which lies before me is entitled, _Canzonetta nuova, sopra la Madonna, quando si partò in Egitto col Bambino Gesù e San Giuseppe_, "A new Ballad of our Lady, when she fled into Egypt with the Child Jesus and St. Joseph." It begins with a conversation between the Virgin, who has just arrived from her long journey, and the gypsy-woman, who thus salutes her:-- ZINGARELLA. Dio ti salvi, bella Signora, E ti dia buona ventura. Ben venuto, vecchiarello, Con questo bambino bello! MADONNA. Ben trovata, sorella mia, La sua grazia Dio ti dia. Ti perdoni i tuoi peccati L' infinità sua bontade. ZINGARELLA. Siete stanchi e meschini, Credo, poveri pellegrini Che cercate d' alloggiare. Vuoi, Signora, scavalcare? MADONNA. Voi che siete, sorella mia, Tutta piena di cortesia, Dio vi renda la carità Per l'infinità sua bontà. Noi veniam da Nazaretta, Siamo senza alcun ricetto, Arrivati all' strania Stanchi e lassi dalla via! GYPSY. God save thee, fair Lady, and give thee good luck Welcome, good old man, with this thy fair Child! MARY. Well met, sister mine! God give thee grace, and of his infinite mercy forgive thee thy sins! GYPSY. Ye are tired and drooping, poor pilgrims, as I think, seeking a night's lodging. Lady, wilt thou choose to alight? MARY. O sister mine! full of courtesy, God of his infinite goodness reward thee for thy charity. We are come from Nazareth, and we are without a place to lay our heads, arrived in a strange land, all tired and weary with the way! The Zingarella then offers them a resting-place, and straw and fodder for the ass, which being accepted, she asks leave to tell their fortune, but begins by recounting, in about thirty stanzas, all the past history of the Virgin pilgrim; she then asks to see the Child-- Ora tu, Signora mia. Che sei piena di cortesia, Mostramelo per favore Lo tuo Figlio Redentore! And now, O Lady mine, that art full of courtesy, grant me to look upon thy Son, the Redeemer! The Virgin takes him from the arms of Joseph-- Datemi, o caro sposo, Lo mio Figlio grazioso! Quando il vide sta meschina Zingarella, che indovina! Give me, dear husband, my lovely boy, that this poor gypsy, who is a prophetess, may look upon him. The gypsy responds with becoming admiration and humility, praises the beauty of the Child, and then proceeds to examine his palm: which having done, she breaks forth into a prophecy of all the awful future, tells how he would be baptized, and tempted, scourged, and finally hung upon a cross-- Questo Figlio accarezzato Tu lo vedrai ammazzato Sopra d'una dura croce, Figlio bello! Figlio dolce! but consoles the disconsolate Mother, doomed to honour for the sake of us sinners-- Sei arrivata a tanti onori Per noi altri Peccatori! and ends by begging an alms-- Non ti vo' più infastidire, Bella Signora; so chi hai a fare. Dona la limosinella A sta povera Zingarella true repentance and eternal life. Vo' una vera contrizione Per la tua intercezione, Accio st' alma dopo morte Tragga alle celesti porte! And so the story ends. There can be no doubt, I think, that we have here the original theme of Giorgione's picture, and perhaps of others. In the Provençal ballad, there are three gypsies, men, not women, introduced, who tell the fortune of the Virgin and Joseph, as well as that of the Child, and end by begging alms "to wet their thirsty throats." Of this version there is a very spirited and characteristic translation by Mr. Kenyon, under the title of "a Gypsy Carol."[1] [Footnote 1: A Day at Tivoli, with other Verses, by John Kenyon, p. 149.] THE RETURN FROM EGYPT. According to some authorities, the Holy Family sojourned in Egypt during a period of seven years, but others assert that they returned to Judea at the end of two years. In general the painters have expressed the Return from Egypt by exhibiting Jesus as no longer an infant sustained in his mother's arms, but as a boy walking at her side. In a picture by Francesco Vanni, he is a boy about two or three years old, and carries a little basket full of carpenter's tools. The occasion of the Flight and Return is indicated by three or four of the martyred Innocents, who are lying on the ground. In a picture by Domenico Feti two of the Innocents are lying dead on the roadside. In a very graceful, animated picture by Rubens, Mary and Joseph lead the young Christ between them, and the Virgin wears a large straw hat. HISTORICAL SUBJECTS. PART III. THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MARY FROM THE SOJOURN IN EGYPT TO THE CRUCIFIXION OF OUR LORD. 1. THE HOLY FAMILY. 2. THE VIRGIN SEEKS HER SON. 3. THE DEATH OF JOSEPH. 4. THE MARRIAGE AT CANA. 5. "LO SPASIMO." 6. THE CRUCIFIXION. 7. THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 8. THE ENTOMBMENT. THE HOLY FAMILY. When the Holy Family under divine protection, had returned safely from their sojourn in Egypt, they were about to repair to Bethlehem; but Joseph hearing that Archelaus "did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither; and being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into Galilee," and came to the city of Nazareth, which was the native place and home of the Virgin Mary. Here Joseph dwelt, following in peace his trade of a carpenter, and bringing up his reputed Son to the same craft: and here Mary nurtured her divine Child; "and he grew and waxed strong in spirit, and the grace of God was upon him." No other event is recorded until Jesus had reached his twelfth, year. * * * * * This, then, is the proper place to introduce some notice of those representations of the domestic life of the Virgin and the infancy of the Saviour, which, in all their endless variety, pass under the general title of THE HOLY FAMILY--the beautiful title of a beautiful subject, addressed in the loveliest and most familiar form at once to the piety and the affections of the beholder. These groups, so numerous, and of such perpetual recurrence, that they alone form a large proportion of the contents of picture galleries and the ornaments of churches, are, after all, a modern innovation in sacred art. What may be called the _domestic_ treatment of the history of the Virgin cannot be traced farther back than the middle of the fifteenth century. It is, indeed, common to class all those pictures as Holy Families which include any of the relatives of Christ grouped with the Mother and her Child; but I must here recapitulate and insist upon the distinction to be drawn between the _domestic_ and the _devotional_ treatment of the subject; a distinction I have been careful to keep in view throughout the whole range of sacred art, and which, in this particular subject, depends on a difference in sentiment and intention, more easily felt than set down in words. It is, I must repeat, a _devotional_ group where the sacred personages are placed in direct relation to the worshippers, and where their supernatural character is paramount to every other. It is a _domestic_ or an _historical_ group, a Holy Family properly so called, when the personages are placed in direct relation to each other by some link of action or sentiment, which expresses the family connection between them, or by some action which has a dramatic rather than a religious significance. The Italians draw this distinction in the title "_Sacra Conversazione_" given to the first-named subject, and that of "_Sacra Famiglia_" given to the last. For instance, if the Virgin, watching her sleeping Child, puts her finger on her lip to silence the little St. John; there is here no relation between the spectator and the persons represented, except that of unbidden sympathy: it is a family group; a domestic scene. But if St. John, looking out of the picture, points to the Infant, "Behold the Lamb of God!" then the whole representation changes its significance; St. John assumes the character of precursor, and we, the spectators, are directly addressed and called upon to acknowledge the "Son of God, the Saviour of mankind." If St. Joseph, kneeling, presents flowers to the Infant Christ, while Mary looks on tenderly (as in a group by Raphael), it is an act of homage which expresses the mutual relation of the three personages; it is a Holy Family: whereas, in the picture by Murillo, in our National Gallery, where Joseph and Mary present the young Redeemer to the homage of the spectator, while the form of the PADRE ETERNO, and the Holy Spirit, with attendant angels, are floating above, we have a devotional group, a "_Sacra Conversazione_:"--it is, in fact a material representation of the Trinity; and the introduction of Joseph into such immediate propinquity with the personages acknowledged as divine is one of the characteristics of the later schools of theological art. It could not possibly have occurred before the end of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century. The introduction of persons who could not have been contemporary, as St. Francis or St. Catherine, renders the group ideal and devotional. On the other hand, as I have already observed, the introduction of attendant angels does not place the subject out of the domain of the actual; for the painters literally rendered what in the Scripture text is distinctly set down and literally interpreted, "He shall give his angels charge concerning thee." Wherever lived and moved the Infant Godhead, angels were always _supposed_ to be present; therefore it lay within the province of an art addressed especially to our senses, to place them bodily before us, and to give to these heavenly attendants a visible shape and bearing worthy of their blessed ministry. The devotional groups, of which I have already treated most fully, even while placed by the accessories quite beyond the range of actual life, have been too often vulgarized and formalized by a trivial or merely conventional treatment.[1] In these really domestic scenes, where the painter sought unreproved his models in simple nature, and trusted for his effect to what was holiest and most immutable in our common humanity, he must have been a bungler indeed if he did not succeed in touching some responsive chord of sympathy in the bosom of the observer. This is, perhaps, the secret of the universal, and, in general, deserved popularity of these Holy Families. [Footnote 1: See the "Mater Amabilis" and the "Pastoral Madonnas," p. 229, 239.] TWO FIGURES. The simplest form of the family group is confined to two figures, and expresses merely the relation between the Mother and the Child. The _motif_ is precisely the same as in the formal, goddess-like, enthroned Madonnas of the antique time; but here quite otherwise worked out, and appealing to other sympathies. In the first instance, the intention was to assert the contested pretensions of the human mother to divine honours; here it was rather to assert the humanity of her divine Son; and we have before us, in the simplest form, the first and holiest of all the social relations. The primal instinct, as the first duty, of the mother, is the nourishment of the life she has given. A very common subject, therefore, is Mary in the act of feeding her Child from her bosom. I have already observed that, when first adopted, this was a theological theme; an answer, _in form_, to the challenge of the Nestorians, "Shall we call him _God_, who hath sucked his mother's breast?" Then, and for at least 500 years afterwards, the simple maternal action involved a religious dogma, and was the visible exponent of a controverted article of faith. All such controversy had long ceased, and certainly there was no thought of insisting on a point of theology in the minds of those secular painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who have set forth the representation with such an affectionate and delicate grace; nor yet in the minds of those who converted the lovely group into a moral lesson. For example, we find in the works of Jeremy Taylor (one of the lights of our Protestant Church) a long homily "Of nursing children, in imitation of the blessed Virgin Mother;" and prints and pictures of the Virgin thus occupied often bear significant titles and inscriptions of the same import; such as "Le prémier devoir d'une mère," &c. I do not find this _motif_ in any known picture by Raphael: but in one of his designs, engraved by Marc Antonio, it is represented with characteristic grace and delicacy. Goethe describes with delight a picture by Correggio, in which the attention of the Child seems divided between the bosom of his mother, and some fruit offered by an angel. He calls this subject "The Weaning of the Infant Christ." Correggio, if not the very first, is certainly among the first of the Italians who treated this _motif_ in the simple domestic style. Others of the Lombard school followed him; and I know not a more exquisite example than the maternal group by Solario, now in the Louvre, styled _La Vierge à l'Oreiller verd_, from the colour of the pillow on which the Child is lying. The subject is frequent in the contemporary German and Flemish schools of the sixteenth century. In the next century, there are charming examples by the Bologna painters and the _Naturalisti_, Spanish, Italian, and Flemish. I would particularly point to one by Agostino Caracci (Parma), and to another by Vandyck (that engraved by Bartolozzi), as examples of elegance; while in the numerous specimens by Rubens we have merely his own wife and son, painted with all that coarse vigorous life, and homely affectionate expression, which his own strong domestic feelings could lend them. We have in other pictures the relation between the Mother and Child expressed and varied in a thousand ways; as where she contemplates him fondly--kisses him, pressing his cheeks to hers; or they sport with a rose, or an apple, or a bird; or he presents it to his mother; these originally mystical emblems being converted into playthings. In another sketch she is amusing him by tinkling a bell:--the bell, which has a religious significance, is here a plaything. One or more attendant angels may vary the group, without taking it out of the sphere of reality. In a quaint but charming picture in the Wallerstein Collection, an angel is sporting with the Child at his mother's feet--is literally his playfellow; and in a picture by Cambiaso, Mary, assisted by an angel, is teaching her Child to walk. * * * * * To represent in the great enthroned Madonnas, the Infant Saviour of the world asleep, has always appeared to me a solecism: whereas in the domestic subject the Infant slumbering on his mother's knee, or cradled in her arms, or on her bosom, or rocked by angels, is a most charming subject. Sometimes angels are seen preparing his bed, or looking on while he sleeps, with folded hands and overshadowing wings. Sometimes Marry hangs over his pillow; "pondering in her heart" the wondrous destinies of her Child. A poetess of our own time has given us an interpretation worthy of the most beautiful of these representations, in the address of the Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus,--"Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One!" "And are thou come for saving, baby-browed And speechless Being? art thou come for saving? The palm that grows beside our door is bowed By treadings of the low wind from the south, A restless shadow through the chamber waving, Upon its bough a bird sings in the sun. But thou, with that close slumber on thy mouth, Dost seem of wind and sun already weary, Art come for saving, O my weary One? "Perchance this sleep that shutteth out the dreary Earth-sounds and motions, opens on thy soul High dreams on fire with God; High songs that make the pathways where they roll More bright than stars do theirs; and visions new Of thine eternal nature's old abode. Suffer this mother's kiss, Best thing that earthly is, To glide the music and the glory through, Nor narrow in thy dream the broad upliftings Of any seraph wing. Thus, noiseless, thus!--Sleep, sleep, my dreaming One."[1] [Footnote 1: Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, vol. ii. p. 174.] Such high imaginings might be suggested by the group of Michael Angelo,--his famous "Silenzio:" but very different certainly are the thoughts and associations conveyed by some of the very lovely, but at the same time familiar and commonplace, groups of peasant-mothers and sleeping babies--the countless productions of the later schools--even while the simplicity and truth of the natural sentiment go straight to the heart. I remember reading a little Italian hymn composed for a choir of nuns, and addressed to the sleeping Christ, in which he is prayed to awake or if he will not, they threaten to pull him by his golden curls until they rouse him to listen! * * * * * I have seen a graceful print which represents Jesus as a child standing at his mother's knee, while she feeds him from a plate or cap held by an angel; underneath is the text, "_Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good_" And in a print of the same period, the mother suspends her needlework to contemplate the Child, who, standing at her side, looks down compassionately on two little birds, which flutter their wings and open their beaks expectingly; underneath is the test, "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?" Mary employed in needlework, while her cradled Infant slumbers at her side, is a beautiful subject. Rossini, in his _Storia della Pittura_, publishes a group, representing the Virgin mending or making a little coat, while Jesus, seated at her feet, without his coat, is playing with a bird; two angels are hovering above. It appears to me that there is here some uncertainty as regards both the subject and the master. In the time of Giottino, to whom Rossini attributes the picture, the domestic treatment of the Madonna and Child was unknown. If it be really by him, I should suppose it to represent Hannah and her son Samuel. * * * * * All these, and other varieties of action and sentiment connecting the Mother and her Child, are frequently accompanied by accessory figures, forming, in their combination, what is properly a Holy Family. The personages introduced, singly or together, are the young St. John, Joseph, Anna, Joachim, Elizabeth, and Zacharias. THREE FIGURES. The group of three figures most commonly met with, is that of the Mother and Child, with St. John. One of the earliest examples of the domestic treatment of this group is a quaint picture by Botticelli, in which Mary, bending down, holds forth the Child to be caressed by St. John,--very dry in colour and faulty in drawing, but beautiful for the sentiment. (Florence, Pitti Pal.) Perhaps the most perfect example which could be cited from the whole range of art, is Raphael's "Madonna del Cardellino" (Florence Gal.); another is his "Belle Jardinière" (Louvre, 375); another, in which the figures are half-length, is his "Madonna del Giglio" (Lord Garvagh's Coll.). As I have already observed, where the Infant Christ takes the cross from St. John, or presents it to him, or where St. John points to him as the Redeemer, or is represented, not as a child, but as a youth or a man, the composition assumes a devotional significance. The subject of the Sleeping Christ is beautifully varied by the introduction of St. John; as where Mary lifts the veil and shows her Child to the little St. John, kneeling with folded hands: Raphael's well-known "Vierge à la Diademe" is an instance replete with grace and expression.[1] Sometimes Mary, putting her finger to her lip, exhorts St. John to silence, as in a famous and oft-repeated subject by Annibale Caracci, of which there is a lovely example at Windsor. Such a group is called in Italian, _Il Silenzio_, and in French _le Sommeil de Jésus_. [Footnote 1: Louvre, 376. It is also styled _la Vierge au Linge_] * * * * * Another group of three figures consists of the Mother, the Child, and St. Joseph as foster-father. This group, so commonly met with in the later schools of art, dates from the end of the fifteenth century. Gerson, an ecclesiastic distinguished at the Council of Constance for his learning and eloquence, had written a poem of three thousand lines in praise of St. Joseph, setting him up as the Christian, example of every virtue; and this poem, after the invention of printing, was published and widely disseminated. Sixtus IV. instituted a festival in honour of the "Husband of the Virgin," which, as a novelty and harmonizing with the tone of popular feeling, was everywhere acceptable. As a natural consequence, the churches and chapels were filled with pictures, which represented the Mother and her Child, with Joseph standing or seated by, in an attitude of religious contemplation or affectionate sympathy; sometimes leaning on his stick, or with his tools lying beside him; and always in the old pictures habited in his appropriate colours, the saffron-coloured robe over the gray or green tunic. In the Madonna and Child, as a strictly devotional subject, the introduction of Joseph rather complicates the idea; but in the domestic Holy Family his presence is natural and necessary. It is seldom that he is associated with the action, where there is one; but of this also there are some beautiful examples. * * * * * 1. In a well-known composition by Raphael (Grosvenor Gal.), the mother withdraws the covering from the Child, who seems to have that moment awaked, and, stretching out his little arms, smiles in her face: Joseph looks on tenderly and thoughtfully. 2. In another group by Raphael (Bridgewater Gal.), the Infant is seated on the mother's knee, and sustained by part of her veil; Joseph, kneeling, offers flowers to his divine foster-Son, who eagerly stretches out his little hand to take them. In many pictures, Joseph is seen presenting cherries; as in the celebrated _Vierge aux Cerises_ of Annibale Caracci. (Louvre.) The allusion is to a quaint old legend, often introduced in the religious ballads and dramatic mysteries of the time. It is related, that before the birth of our Saviour, the Virgin Mary wished to taste of certain cherries which hung upon a tree high above her head; she requested Joseph to procure them for her, and he reaching to pluck them, the branch bowed down to his hand. 3. There is a lovely pastoral composition by Titian, in which Mary is seated under some trees, with Joseph leaning on his staff, and the Infant Christ standing between them: the little St. John approaches with his lap full of cherries; and in the background a woman is seen gathering cherries. This picture is called a Ripose; but the presence of St. John, and the cherry tree instead of the date tree, point out a different signification. Angels presenting cherries on a plate is also a frequent circumstance, derived from the same legend. 4. In a charming picture by Garofalo, Joseph is caressing the Child, while Mary--a rather full figure, calm, matronly, and dignified, as is usual with Garofalo--sits by, holding a book in her hand, from which she has just raised her eyes. (Windsor Gal.) 5. In a family group by Murillo, Joseph, standing, holds the Infant pressed to his bosom; while Mary, seated near a cradle, holds out her arms to take it from him: a carpenter's bench is seen behind. 6. A celebrated picture by Rembrandt, known as _le Ménage du Menuisier_, exhibits a rustic interior; the Virgin is seated with the volume of the Scriptures open on her knees--she turns, and lifting the coverlid of the cradle, contemplates the Infant asleep: in the background Joseph is seen at his work; while angels hover above, keeping watch over the Holy Family. Exquisite for the homely natural sentiment, and the depth of the colour and chiaro-oscuro. (Petersburg.) 7. Many who read these pages will remember the pretty little picture by Annibale Caracci, known as "le Raboteur."[1] It represents Joseph planing a board, while Jesus, a lovely boy about six or seven years old, stands by, watching the progress of his work. Mary is seated on one side plying her needle. The great fault of this picture is the subordinate and utterly commonplace character given to the Virgin Mother: otherwise it is a very suggestive and dramatic subject, and one which might be usefully engraved in a cheap form for distribution. [Footnote 1: In the Coll. of the Earl of Suffolk, at Charlton.] * * * * * Sometimes, in a Holy Family of three figures, the third figure is neither St. John nor St. Joseph, but St. Anna. Now, according to some early authorities, both Joachim and Anna died either before the marriage of Mary and Joseph, or at least before the return from Egypt. Such, however, was the popularity of these family groups, and the desire to give them all possible variety, that the ancient version of the story was overruled by the prevailing taste, and St. Anna became an important personage. One of the earliest groups in which the mother of the Virgin is introduced as a third personage, is a celebrated, but to my taste not a pleasing, composition, by Lionardo da Vinci, in which St. Anna is seated on a sort of chair, and the Virgin on her knees bends down towards the Infant Christ, who is sporting with a lamb. (Louvre, 481.) FOUR FIGURES. In a Holy Family of four figures, we have frequently the Virgin, the Child, and the infant St. John, with St. Joseph standing by. Raphael's Madonna del Passeggio is an example. In a picture by Palma Vecchio, St. John presents a lamb, while St. Joseph kneels before the Infant Christ, who, seated on his mother's knee, extends his arms to his foster-father. Nicole Poussin was fond of this group, and has repeated it at least ten times with variations. But the most frequent group of four figures consists of the Virgin and Child, with St. John and his mother, St. Elizabeth--the two mothers and the two sons. Sometimes the children are sporting together, or embracing each other, while Mary and Elizabeth look on with a contemplative tenderness, or seem to converse on the future destinies of their sons. A very favourite and appropriate action is that of St. Elizabeth presenting St. John, and teaching him to kneel and fold his hands, as acknowledging in his little cousin the Infant Saviour. We have then, in beautiful contrast, the aged coifed head of Elizabeth, with its matronly and earnest expression; the youthful bloom and soft virginal dignity of Mary; and the different character of the boys, the fair complexion and delicate proportions of the Infant Christ, and the more robust and brown-complexioned John. A great painter will be careful to express these distinctions, not by the exterior character only, but will so combine the personages, that the action represented shall display the superior dignity of Christ and his mother. FIVE OR SIX FIGURES. The addition of Joseph as a fifth figure, completes the domestic group. The introduction of the aged Zacharias renders, however, yet more full and complete, the circle of human life and human affection. We have then, infancy, youth, maturity, and age,--difference of sex and various degrees of relationship, combined into one harmonious whole; and in the midst, the divinity of innocence, the Child-God, the brightness of a spiritual power, connecting our softest earthly affections with our highest heavenward aspirations.[1] [Footnote 1: The inscription under a Holy Family in which the children are caressing each other is sometimes _Delicæ meæ esse cum filiis hominum_ (Prov. viii. 31, "My delights were with the sons of men").] * * * * * A Holy Family of more than six figures (the angels not included) is very unusual. But there are examples of groups combining all those personages mentioned in the Gospels as being related to Christ, though the nature and the degree of this supposed relationship has embarrassed critics and commentators, and is not yet settled. According to an ancient tradition, Anna, the mother of the Virgin Mary, was three times married, Joachim being her third husband: the two others were Cleophas and Salomé. By Cleophas she had a daughter, also called Mary, who was the wife of Alpheus, and the mother of Thaddeus, James Minor, and Joseph Justus. By Salomé she had a daughter, also Mary, married to Zebedee, and the mother of James Major and John the Evangelist. This idea that St. Anna was successively the wife of three husbands, and the mother of three daughters, all of the name of Mary, has been rejected by later authorities; but in the beginning of the sixteenth century it was accepted, and to that period may be referred the pictures, Italian and German, representing a peculiar version of the Holy Family more properly styled "the Family of the Virgin Mary." A picture by Lorenzo di Pavia, painted about 1513, exhibits a very complete example of this family group. Mary is seated in the centre, holding in her lap the Infant Christ; near her is St. Joseph. Behind the Virgin stand St. Anna, and three men, with their names inscribed, Joachim, Cleophas, and Salomé. On the right of the Virgin is Mary the daughter of Cleophas, Alpheus her husband, and her children Thaddeus, James Minor, and Joseph Justus. On the left of the Virgin is Mary the daughter of Salome, her husband Zebedee, and her children James Major and John the Evangelist.[1] [Footnote 1: This picture I saw in the Louvre some years ago, but it is not in the New Catalogue by M. Villot.] A yet more beautiful example is a picture by Perugino in the Musée at Marseilles, which I have already cited and described (Sacred and Legendary Art): here also the relatives of Christ, destined to be afterwards his apostles and the ministers of his word, are grouped around him in his infancy. In the centre Mary is seated and holding the child; St. Anna stands behind, resting her hands affectionately on the shoulders of the Virgin. In front, at the feet of the Virgin, are two boys, Joseph and Thaddeus; and near them Mary, the daughter of Cleophas, holds the hand of her third son James Minor. To the right is Mary Salomé, holding in her arms her son John the Evangelist, and at her feet is her other son, James Major. Joseph, Zebedee, and other members of the family, stand around. The same subject I have seen in illuminated MSS., and in German prints. It is worth remarking that all these appeared about the same time, between 1505 and 1520, and that the subject afterwards disappeared; from which I infer that it was not authorized by the Church; perhaps because the exact degree of relationship between these young apostles and the Holy Family was not clearly made out, either by Scripture or tradition. In a composition by Parmigiano, Christ is standing at his mother's knee; Elizabeth presents St. John the Baptist; the other little St. John kneels on a cushion. Behind the Virgin are St. Joachim and St. Anna; and behind Elizabeth, Zebedee and Mary Salomé, the parents of St. John the Evangelist. In the centre, Joseph looks on with folded hands. * * * * * A catalogue _raisonnée_ of the Holy Families painted by distinguished artists including from two to six figures would fill volumes: I shall content myself with directing attention to some few examples remarkable either for their celebrity, their especial beauty, or for some peculiarity, whether commendable or not, in the significance or the treatment. The strictly domestic conception may be said to have begun with Raphael and Correggio; and they afford the most perfect examples of the tender and the graceful in sentiment and action, the softest parental feeling, the loveliest forms of childhood. Of the purely natural and familiar treatment, which came into fashion in the seventeenth century, the pictures of Guido, Rubens, and Murillo afford the most perfect specimens. 1. Raphael. (Louvre, 377.) Mary, a noble queenly creature, is seated, and bends towards her Child, who is springing from his cradle to meet her embrace; Elizabeth presents St. John; and Joseph, leaning on his hand, contemplates the group: two beautiful angels scatter flowers from above. This is the celebrated picture once supposed to have been executed expressly for Francis I.; but later researches prove it to have been painted for Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino.[1] [Footnote 1: It appears from the correspondence relative to this picture and the "St. Michael," that both pictures were painted by order of this Lorenzo de' Medici, the same who is figured in Michael Angelo's _Pensiero_, and that they were intended as presents to Francis I. (See Dr. Gaye's _Carteggio_, ii. 146, and also the new Catalogue of the Louvre by F. Villot.) I have mentioned this Holy Family not as the finest of Raphael's Madonnas, but because there is something peculiarly animated and dramatic in the _motif_, considering the time at which it was painted. It was my intention to have given here a complete list of Raphael's Holy Families; but this has been so well done in the last English edition of Kugler's Handbook, that it has become superfluous as a repetition. The series of minute and exquisite drawings by Mr. George Scharf, appended to Kugler's Catalogue, renders it easy to recognize all the groups described in this and the preceding pages.] 2. Correggio. Mary holds the Child upon her knee, looking down upon him fondly. Styled, from the introduction of the work-basket, _La Vierge au Panier_. A finished example of that soft, yet joyful, maternal feeling for which Correggio was remarkable. (National Gal. 23.) 3. Pinturicchio. In a landscape, Mary and Joseph are seated together; near them are some loaves and a small cask of wine. More in front the two children, Jesus and St. John, are walking arm in arm; Jesus holds a book and John a pitcher, as if they were going to a well. (Siena Acad.) 4. Andrea del Sarto. The Virgin is seated on the ground, and holds the Child; the young St. John is in the arms of St. Elizabeth, and Joseph is seen behind. (Louvre, 439.) This picture, another by the same painter in the National Gallery, a third in the collection of Lord Lansdowne, and in general all the Holy Families of Andrea, may be cited as examples of fine execution and mistaken or defective character. No sentiment, no action, connects the personages either with each other, or with the spectator. 5. Michael Angelo. The composition, in the Florence Gallery, styled a Holy Family, appears to me a signal example of all that should be avoided. It is, as a conception, neither religious nor domestic; in execution and character exaggerated and offensive, and in colour hard and dry. Another, a bas-relief, in which the Child is shrinking from a bird held up by St. John, is very grand in the forms: the mistake in sentiment, as regards the bird, I have pointed out in the Introduction. (Royal Academy.) A third, in which the Child leans pensively on a book lying open on his mother's knee, while she looks out on the spectator, is more properly a _Mater Amabilis_. There is an extraordinary fresco still preserved in the Casa Buonarotti at Florence, where it was painted on the wall by Michael Angelo, and styled a Holy Family, though the exact meaning of the subject has been often disputed. It appears to me, however, very clear, and one never before or since attempted by any other artist. (This fresco is engraved in the _Etruria Pittrice_.) Mary is seated in the centre; her Child is reclining on the ground between her knees; and the little St. John holding his cross looks on him steadfastly. A man coming forward seems to ask of Mary, "Whose son is this?" She most expressively puts aside Joseph with her hand, and looks up, as if answering, "Not the son of an earthly, but of a heavenly Father!" There are five other figures standing behind, and the whole group is most significant. 6. Albert Durer. The Holy Family seated under a tree; the Infant is about to spring from the knee of his mother into the outstretched arms of St. Anna; Joseph is seen behind with his hat in his hand; and to the left sits the aged Joachim contemplating the group. 7. Mary appears to have just risen from her chair, the Child bends from her arms, and a young and very little angel, standing on tiptoe, holds up to him a flower--other flowers in his lap:--a beautiful old German print. 8. Giulio Romano. (_La Madonna del Bacino_.) (Dresden Gal.) The Child stands in a basin, and the young St. John pours water upon him from a vase, while Mary washes him. St. Elizabeth stands by, holding a napkin; St. Joseph, behind, is looking on. Notwithstanding the homeliness of the action, there is here a religious and mysterious significance, prefiguring the Baptism. 9. N. Poussin. Mary, assisted by angels, washes and dresses her Child. (Gal. of Mr. Hope.) 10. V. Salimbeni.--An Interior. Mary and Joseph are occupied by the Child. Elizabeth is spinning. More in front St. John is carrying two puppies in the lappet of his coat, and the dog is leaping up to him. (Florence, Pitti Pal.) This is one out of many instances in which the painter, anxious to vary the oft-repeated subject, and no longer restrained by refined taste or religious veneration, has fallen into a most offensive impropriety. 11. Ippolito Andreasi. Mary, seated, holds the Infant Christ between her knees; Elizabeth leans over the back of her chair; Joseph leans on his staff behind the Virgin; the little St. John and an angel present grapes, while four other angels are gathering and bringing them. A branch of vine, loaded with grapes, is lying in the foreground. Christ looks like a young Bacchus; and there is something mannered and fantastic in the execution. (Louvre, 38.) With this domestic scene is blended a strictly religious symbol, "_I am the vine_." 12. Murilio. Mary is in the act of swaddling her Child (Luke ii, 7), while two angels, standing near him, solace the divine Infant with heavenly music. (Madrid Gal.) 13. Rubens. Mary, seated on the ground, holds the Child with a charming maternal expression, a little from her, gazing on him with rapturous earnestness, while he looks up with responsive tenderness in her face. His right hand rests on a cross presented by St. John, who is presented by St. Elizabeth. Wonderful for the intensely natural and domestic expression, and the beauty of the execution. (Florence, Pitti Pal.) 14. D. Hopfer. Within the porch of a building, Mary is seated on one side, reading intently. St. Anna, on the other side, holds out her arms to the Child, who is sitting on the ground between them; an angel looks in at the open door behind. (Bartsch., viii. 483.) 15. Rembrandt. (_Le Ménage du Menuisier_.) A rustic interior. Mary, seated in the centre, is suckling her Child. St. Anna, a fat Flemish grandame, has been reading the volume of the Scriptures, and bends forward in order to remove the covering and look in the Infant's face. A cradle is near. Joseph is seen at work in the background. (Louvre.) 16. Le Brun. (_The Benedicite_.) Mary, the Child, and Joseph, are seated at a frugal repast. Joseph is in the act of reverently saying grace, which gives to the picture the title by which it is known.[1] [Footnote 1: Louvre, Ecole Française 57. There is a celebrated engraving by Edelinck.] * * * * * It is distinctly related that Joseph brought up his foster-Son as a carpenter, and that Jesus exercised the craft of his reputed father. In the Church pictures, we do not often meet with this touching and familiar aspect of the life of our Saviour. But in the small decorative pictures painted for the rich ecclesiastics, and for private oratories, and in the cheap prints which were prepared for distribution among the people, and became especially popular during the religious reaction of the seventeenth century, we find this homely version of the subject perpetually, and often most pleasingly, exhibited. The greatest and wisest Being who ever trod the earth was thus represented, in the eyes of the poor artificer, as ennobling and sanctifying labour and toil; and the quiet domestic duties and affections were here elevated, and hallowed, by religious associations, and adorned by all the graces of Art. Even where the artistic treatment was not first-rate, was not such as the painters--priests and poets as well as painters--of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries would have lent to such themes,--still if the sentiment and significance were but intelligible to those especially addressed, the purpose was accomplished, and the effect must have been good. I have before me an example in a set of twelve prints, executed in the Netherlands, exhibiting a sort of history of the childhood of Christ, and his training under the eye of his mother. It is entitled _Jesu Christi Del Domini Salvatoris nostri Infantia_, "The Infancy of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ;" and the title-page is surrounded by a border composed of musical instruments, spinning-wheels, distaffs, and other implements, of female industry, intermixed with all kinds of mason's and carpenter's tools. To each print is appended a descriptive Latin verse; Latin being chosen, I suppose, because the publication was intended for distribution in different countries, and especially foreign missions, and to be explained by the priests to the people. 1. The figure of Christ is seen in a glory surrounded by cherubim, &c. 2. The Virgin is seated on the hill of Sion. The Infant in her lap, with outspread arms, looks up to a choir of angels, and is singing with them. 3. Jesus, slumbering in his cradle, is rocked by two angels, while Mary sits by, engaged in needlework.[1] [Footnote 1: The Latin stanza beneath, is remarkable for its elegance, and because it has been translated by Coleridge, who mentions that he found the print and the verse under it in a little inn in Germany. Dormi, Jesu, mater ridet, Quæ tam dulcem somnum videt, Dormi, Jesu, blandule! Si non dormis mater plorat, Inter fila cantans orat, Blande, veni, somnule! Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling, Mother sits beside thee smiling, Sleep, my darling, tenderly! If thou sleep not, mother mourneth, Singing as her wheel she turneth" Come, soft slumber, balmily!"] 4. The interior of a carpenter's shop. Joseph is plying his work, while Joachim stands near him. The Virgin is measuring linen, and St. Anna looks on. Two angels are at play with the Infant Christ, who is blowing soap-bubbles. 5. While Mary is preparing the family meal, and watching a pot which is boiling on the fire, Joseph is seen behind chopping wood: more in front, Jesus is sweeping together the chips, and two angels are gathering them up. 6. Mary is reeling off a skein of thread; Joseph is squaring a plank; Jesus is picking up the chips, assisted by two angels. 7. Mary is seated at her spinning-wheel; Joseph, assisted by Jesus, is sawing through a large beam; two angels looking on. 8. Mary is spinning with a distaff; behind, Joseph is sawing a beam, on which Jesus is standing above; and two angels are lifting a plank. 9. Joseph is seen building up the framework of a house, assisted by an angel; Jesus is boring a hole with a large gimlet: an angel helps him; Mary is winding thread. 10. Joseph is busy roofing in the house; Jesus, assisted by the angels, is carrying a beam of wood up a ladder; below, in front, Mary is carding wool or flax. 11. Joseph is building a boat, assisted by Jesus, who has a hammer and chisel in his hand: two angels help him. The Virgin is knitting a stocking; and the new-built house is seen in the background. 12. Joseph is erecting a fence round a garden; Jesus, assisted by the angels, is fastening the palings together; while Mary is weaving garlands of roses. Justin Martyr mentions, as a tradition of his time, that Jesus assisted his foster-father in making yokes and ploughs. In Holland, where these prints were published, the substitution of the boat-building seems very natural. St. Bonaventura, the great Franciscan theologian, and a high authority in all that relates to the life and character of Mary, not only described her as a pattern of female industry, but alludes particularly to the legend of the distaff, and mentions a tradition, that, when in Egypt, the Holy Family was so reduced by poverty, that Mary begged from door to door the fine flax which she afterwards spun into a garment for her Child. * * * * * As if to render the circle of maternal duties, and thereby the maternal example, more complete, there are prints of Mary leading her Son to school. I have seen one in which he carries his hornbook in his hand. Such representations, though popular, were condemned by the highest church authorities as nothing less than heretical. The Abbé Méry counts among the artistic errors "which endanger the faith of good Christians," those pictures which represent Mary or Joseph instructing the Infant Christ; as if all learning, all science, divine and human, were not his by intuition, and without any earthly teaching, (v. Théologie des Peintres.) A beautiful Holy Family, by Schidone, is entitled, "The Infant Christ learning to read" (Bridgewater Gal.); and we frequently meet with pictures in which the mother holds a book, while the divine Child, with a serious intent expression, turns over the leaves, or points to the letters: but I imagine that these, and similar groups, represent Jesus instructing Mary and Joseph, as he is recorded to have done. There is also a very pretty legend, in which he is represented as exciting the astonishment, of the schoolmaster Zaccheus by his premature wisdom. On these, and other details respecting the infancy of our Saviour, I shall have to say much more when treating of the History of Christ. THE DISPUTE IN THE TEMPLE. _Ital._ La Disputa nel Tempio. _Fr._ Jésus au milieu des Docteurs. The subject which we call the Dispute in the Temple, or "Christ among the Doctors," is a scene of great importance in the life of the Redeemer (Luke ii. 41, 52). His appearance in the midst of the doctors, at twelve years old, when he sat "hearing them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and his answers," has been interpreted as the first manifestation of his high character as teacher of men, as one come to throw a new light on the prophecies,-- "For trailing clouds of glory had he come From heaven, which was his home;" and also as instructing as that those who are to become teachers of men ought, when young, to listen to the voice of age and experience; and that those who have grown old may learn lessons of wisdom from childish innocence. Such is the historical and scriptural representation. But in the life of the Virgin, the whole scene changes its signification. It is no longer the wisdom of the Son, it is the sorrow of the Mother which is the principal theme. In their journey home from Jerusalem, Jesus has disappeared; he who was the light of her eyes, whose precious existence had been so often threatened, has left her care, and gone, she knows not whither. "No fancy can imagine the doubts, the apprehensions, the possibilities of mischief, the tremblings of heart, which the holy Virgin-mother feels thronging in her bosom. For three days she seeks him in doubt and anguish." (Jeremy Taylor's "Life of Christ.") At length he is found seated in the temple in the midst of the learned doctors, "hearing them, and asking them questions." And she said unto him, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, I and thy father have sought thee sorrowing." And he said unto them, "How is it that ye sought me? Wise ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" Now there are two ways of representing this scene. In all the earlier pictures it is chiefly with reference to the Virgin Mother: it is one of the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary. The Child Jesus sits in the temple, teaching with hand uplifted; the doctors round him turn over the leaves of their great books, searching the law and the prophets. Some look up at the young inspired Teacher--he who was above the law, yet came to obey the law and fulfil the prophecies--with amazement. Conspicuous in front, stand Mary and Joseph, and she is in act to address to him the tender reproach, "I and thy father have sought thee sorrowing." In the early examples she is a principal figure, but in later pictures she is seen entering in the background; and where the scene relates only to the life of Christ, the figures of Joseph and Mary are omitted altogether, and the Child teacher becomes the central, or at least the chief, personage in the group. In a picture by Giovanni da Udine, the subject is taken out of the region of the actual, and treated altogether as a mystery. In the centre sits the young Redeemer, his hand raised, and surrounded by several of the Jewish doctors; while in front stand the four fathers of the Church, who flourished in the interval between the fourth and sixth centuries after Christ; and these, holding their books, point to Jesus, or look to him, as to the source of their wisdom;--a beautiful and poetical version of the true significance of the story, which the critics of the last century would call a chronological mistake. (Venice, Academy.) But those representations which come under our especial consideration at present, are such as represent the moment in which Mary appears before her Son. The earliest instance of this treatment is a group by Giotto. Dante cites the deportment of the Virgin on this occasion, and her mild reproach, "_con atto dolce di madre_," as a signal lesson of gentleness and forbearance. (Purgatorio, c. xv.) It is as if he had transferred the picture of Giotto into his Vision; for it is as a picture, not an action, that it is introduced. Another, by Simon Memmi, in the Roscoe Collection at Liverpool, is conceived in a similar spirit. In a picture by Garofalo, Mary does not reproach her Son, but stands listening to him with her hands folded on her bosom. In a large and fine composition by Pinturicchio, the doctors throw down their books before him, while the Virgin and Joseph are entering on one side. The subject is conspicuous in Albert Durer's Life of the Virgin, where Jesus is seated on high, as one having authority, teaching from a chair like that of a professor in a university, and surrounded by the old bearded doctors; and Mary stands before her Son in an attitude of expostulation. After the restoration of Jesus to his parents, they conducted him home; "but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart." The return to Nazareth, Jesus walking humbly between Joseph and Mary, was painted by Rubens for the Jesuit College at Antwerp, as a lesson to youth. Underneath is the text, "And he was subject unto them."[1] [Footnote 1: It has been called by mistake "The Return from Egypt"] THE DEATH OF JOSEPH. _Ital._ La Morte di San Giuseppe. _Fr._ La Mort de St. Joseph _Ger._ Josef's Tod. Between the journey to Jerusalem and the public appearance of Jesus, chronologers place the death of Joseph, but the exact date is not ascertained: some place it in the eighteenth year of the life of our Saviour, and others in his twenty-seventh year, when, as they assert, Joseph was one hundred and eleven years old. I have already observed, that the enthusiasm for the character of Joseph, and his popularity as a saint and patron of power, date from the fifteenth century; and late in the sixteenth century I find, for the first time, the death of Joseph treated as a separate subject. It appears that the supposed anniversary of his death (July 20) had long been regarded in the East as a solemn festival, and that it was the custom to read publicly, on this occasion, some homily relating to his life and death. The very curious Arabian work, entitled "The History of Joseph the Carpenter," is supposed to be one of these ancient homilies, and, in its original form, as old as the fourth century.[1] Here the death of Joseph is described with great detail, and with many solemn and pathetic circumstances; and the whole history is put into the mouth of Jesus, who is supposed to recite it to his disciples: he describes the pious end of Joseph; he speaks of himself as being present, and acknowledged by the dying man as "Redeemer and Messiah," and he proceeds to record the grief of Mary:-- "And my mother, the Virgin, arose, and she came nigh to me and said, 'O my beloved Son now must the good old man die!' and I answered and said unto her, 'O my most dear mother, needs must all created beings die; and death will have his rights, even over thee, beloved mother; but death to him and to thee is no death, only the passage to eternal life; and this body I have derived from thee shall also undergo death.'" [Footnote 1: The Arabic MS. in the library at Paris is of the year 1299, and the Coptic version as old as 1367. Extracts from these were become current in the legends of the West, about the fifteenth century.--See the "Neu Testamentlichen Apokryphen," edited in German by Dr. K.F. Borberg.] And they sat, the Son and the mother, beside Joseph; and Jesus held his hand, and watched the last breath of life trembling on his lips; and Mary touched his feet, and they were cold; and the daughters and the sons of Joseph wept and sobbed around in their grief; and then Jesus adds tenderly, "I, and my mother Mary, we wept with them." Then follows a truly Oriental scene, of the evil angels rising up with Death, and rejoicing in his power over the saint, while Jesus rebukes them; and at his prayer God sends down Michael, prince of the angelic host, and Gabriel, the herald of light, to take possession of the departing spirit, enfold it in a robe of brightness thereby to preserve it from the "dark angels," and carry it up into heaven. This legend of the death of Joseph was, in many forms, popular in the sixteenth century; hence arose the custom of invoking him as Intercessor to obtain a blessed and peaceful end, so that he became, in some sort, the patron saint of death-beds; and it is at this time we find the first representations of the death of Joseph, afterwards a popular subject in the churches and convents of the Augustine canons and Carmelite friars, who had chosen him for their patron saint; and also in family chapels consecrated to the memory or the repose of the dead. The finest example I have seen, is by Carlo Maratti, in the Vienna Gallery. St. Joseph is on a couch; Christ is seated near him; and the Virgin stands by with folded hands, in a sad, contemplative attitude. * * * * * I am not aware that the Virgin has ever been introduced into any representation of the temptation or the baptism of our Saviour. These subjects, so important and so picturesque, are reserved till we enter upon the History of Christ. THE MARRIAGE AT CANA IN GALILEE. _Ital._ Le Nozze di Cana. _Fr._ Les Noces de Cana. _Ger._ Die Hochzeit zu Cana. After his temptation and baptism, the first manifestation of the divine mission and miraculous power of Jesus was at the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee; and those who had devoted themselves to the especial glorification of the Virgin Mother did not forget that it was at her request this first miracle was accomplished:--that out of her tender and sympathetic commiseration for the apparent want, arose her appeal to him,--not, indeed, as requiring anything from him, but, looking to him with habitual dependence on his goodness and power. She simply said, "They have no wine!" He replied, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come." The term _woman_, thus used, sounds harsh to us; but in the original is a term of respect. Nor did Jesus intend any denial to the mother, whom he regarded with dutiful and pious reverence:--it was merely an intimation that he was not yet entered into the period of miraculous power. He anticipated it, however, for her sake, and because of her request. Such is the view taken of this beautiful and dramatic incident by the early theologians; and in the same spirit it has been interpreted by the painters. The Marriage at Cana appears very seldom in the ancient representations taken from the Gospel. All the monkish institutions then prevalent discredited marriage; and it is clear that this distinct consecration of the rite by the presence of the Saviour and his mother did not find favour with the early patrons of art. There is an old Greek tradition, that the Marriage at Cana was that of John the Evangelist. In the thirteenth century, when the passionate enthusiasm for Mary Magdalene was at its height, it was a popular article of belief, that the Marriage which Jesus graced with his presence was that of John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalene; and that immediately after the wedding feast, St. John and Mary, devoting themselves to an austere and chaste religious life, followed Christ, and ministered to him. As a scene in the life of Christ, the Marriage at Cana, is of course introduced incidentally; but even here, such were the monastic principles and prejudices, that I find it difficult to point out any very early example. In the "Manual of Greek Art," published by Didron, the rules for the representation are thus laid down:--"A table; around it Scribes and Pharisees; one holds up a cup of wine, and seems astonished. In the midst, the bride and bridegroom are seated together. The bridegroom is to have 'grey hair and a round beard (_cheveux gris et barbe arrondie_); both are to be crowned with flowers; behind them, a servitor. Christ, the Virgin, and Joseph are to be on one side, and on the other are six jars: the attendants are in the act of filling them with water from leathern buckets." The introduction of Joseph is quite peculiar to Greek art; and the more curious, that in the list of Greek subjects there is not one from his life, nor in which he is a conspicuous figure. On the other hand, the astonished "ruler of the feast" (the _Architriclino_), so dramatic and so necessary to the comprehension of the scene, is scarcely ever omitted. The apostles whom we may imagine to be present, are Peter, Andrew, James, and John. * * * * * As a separate subject, the Marriage at Cana first became popular in the Venetian school, and thence extended to the Lombard and German schools of the same period--that is, about the beginning of the sixteenth century. The most beautiful representation I have ever seen is a fresco, by Luini, in the church of San Maurizio, at Milan. It belongs to a convent of nuns; and I imagine, from its introduction there, that it had a mystic signification, and referred to a divine _Sposalizio_. In this sense, the treatment is perfect. There are just the number of figures necessary to tell the story, and no more. It is the bride who is here the conspicuous figure, seated in the centre, arrayed in spotless white, and represented as a nun about to make her profession; for this is evidently the intended signification. The bridegroom is at her side, and near to the spectator. Christ, and the Virgin are seated together, and appear to be conversing. A man presents a cup of wine. Including guests and attendants, there are only twelve figures. The only fault of this exquisite and graceful composition, is the introduction of a cat and dog in front: we feel that they ought to have been omitted, as giving occasion for irreverent witticisms.[1] [Footnote 1: This beautiful fresco, which is seldom seen, being behind the altar, was in a very ruined condition when I saw it last in 1855.] In contrast with this picture, and as a gorgeous specimen of the Venetian style of treatment, we may turn to the "Marriage at Cana" in the Louvre, originally painted to cover one side of the refectory of the convent of _San Giorgio Maggiore_ at Venice, whence it was carried off by the French in 1796. This immense picture is about thirty-six feet in length, and about twenty feet in height, and contains more than a hundred figures above life-size. In the centre Christ is seated, and beside him the Virgin Mother. Both heads are merely commonplace, and probably portraits, like those of the other personages at the extremity of the table. On the left are seated the bride and bridegroom. In the foreground a company of musicians are performing a concert; behind the table is a balustrade, where are seen numerous servants occupied in cutting up the viands and serving dishes, with attendants and spectators. The chief action to be represented, the astonishing miracle performed by him at whose command "the fountain blushed into wine," is here quite a secondary matter; and the value of the picture lies in its magnitude and variety as a composition, and the portraits of the historical characters and remarkable personages introduced,--Francis I., his queen Eleanora of Austria, Charles V. and others. In the group of musicians in front we recognize Titian and Tintoretto, old Bassano, and Paolo himself. The Marriage at Cana, as a refectory subject, had been unknown till this time: it became popular, and Paolo afterwards repeated it several times. The most beautiful of all, to my feeling, is that in the Dresden Gallery, where the "ruler of the feast," holding up the glass of wine with admiration, seems to exclaim, "Thou hast kept the good wine until now." In another, which is at Milan, the Virgin turns round to the attendant, and desires him to obey her Son;--"Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it!" As the Marriage at Cana belongs, as a subject, rather to the history of Christ, than to that of the Virgin his mother, I shall not enter into it further here, but proceed. * * * * * After the marriage at Cana in Galilee, which may be regarded as the commencement of the miraculous mission of our Lord, we do not hear anything of his mother, the Virgin, till the time approached when he was to close his ministry by his death. She is not once referred to by name in the Gospels until the scene of the Crucifixion. We are indeed given to understand, that in the journeys of our Saviour, and particularly when he went up from Nazareth to Jerusalem, the women followed and ministered to him (Matt. xxvii. 55, Luke, viii. 2): and those who have written the life of the Virgin for the edification of the people, and those who have translated it into the various forms of art, have taken it for granted that SHE, his mother, could not have been absent or indifferent where others attended with affection and zeal: but I do not remember any scene in which she is an actor, or even a conspicuous figure. Among the carvings on the stalls at Amiens, there is one which represents the passage (Matt. xii. 46.) wherein our Saviour, preaching in Judea, is told that his mother and his brethren stand without. "But he answering, said to him that told him, 'Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?' And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, 'Behold my mother and my brethren!'" The composition exhibits on one side Jesus standing and teaching his disciples; while on the other, through an open door, we perceive the Virgin and two or three others. This representation is very rare. The date of these stalls is the sixteenth century; and such a group in a series of the life of the Virgin could not, I think, have occurred in the fifteenth. It would have been quite inconsistent with all the religious tendencies of that time, to exhibit Christ as preaching _within_, while his "divine and most glorious" Mother was standing _without_. The theologians of the middle ages insist on the close and mystical relation which they assure us existed between Christ and his mother: however far separated, there was constant communion between them; and wherever he might be--in whatever acts of love, or mercy, or benign wisdom occupied for the good of man--_there_ was also his mother, present with him in the spirit. I think we can trace the impress of this mysticism in some of the productions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. For example, among the frescoes by Angelico da Fiesole in the cloisters of St. Mark, at Florence, there is one of the Transfiguration, where the Saviour stands glorified with arms outspread--a simple and sublime conception,--and on each side, half figures of Moses and Elias: lower down appear the Virgin and St. Dominick. There is also in the same series a fresco of the Last Supper as the Eucharist, in which the Virgin is kneeling, glorified, on one side of the picture, and appears as a partaker of the rite. Such a version of either subject must be regarded as wholly mystical and exceptional, and I am not acquainted with any other instance. LO SPASIMO. "O what avails me now that honour high, To have conceived of God, and that salute, 'Hail highly favoured among woman blest! While I to sorrows am no less advanced, And fears as eminent, above the lot Of other women by the birth I bore." --"This is my favoured lot, My exaltation to afflictions high." MILTON. In the Passion of our Lord, taken in connection with the life of the Virgin Mother, there are three scenes in which she is associated with the action as an important, if not a principal, personage. We are told in the Gospel of St. John (chap. xvii), that Christ took a solemn farewell of his disciples: it is therefore supposed that he did not go up to his death without taking leave of his Mother,--without preparing her for that grievous agony by all the comfort that his tender and celestial pity and superior nature could bestow. This parting of Christ and his Mother before the Crucifixion is a modern subject. I am not acquainted with any example previous to the beginning of the sixteenth century. The earliest I have met with is by Albert Durer, in the series of the life of the Virgin, but there are probably examples more ancient, or at least contemporary. In Albert Durer's composition, Mary is sinking to the earth, as if overcome with affliction, and is sustained in the arms of two women; she looks up with folded hands and streaming eyes to her Son who stands before her; he, with one hand extended, looks down upon her compassionately, and seems to give her his last benediction. I remember another instance, by Paul Veronese, full of that natural affectionate sentiment which belonged to the Venetian school. (Florence Gal.) In a very beautiful picture by Carotto of Verona, Jesus _kneels_ before his Mother, and receives her benediction before he departs: this must be regarded as an impropriety, a mistake in point of sentiment, considering the peculiar relation between the two personages; but it is a striking instance of the popular notions of the time respecting the high dignity of the Virgin Mother. I have not seen it repeated.[1] [Footnote 1: Verona, San Bernardino. It is worth remarking, with regard to this picture, that the Intendant of the Convent rebuked the artist, declaring that he had made the Saviour show _too little_ reverence for his Mother, seeing that he knelt to her on one knee only.--See the anecdote in _Vasari_, vol. i. p. 651. Fl. Edit. 1838.] * * * * * It appears from the Gospel histories, that the women who had attended upon Christ during his ministry failed not in their truth and their love to the last. In the various circumstances of the Passion of our Lord, where the Virgin Mother figures as an important personage, certain of these women are represented as always near her, and sustaining her with a tender and respectful sympathy. Three are mentioned by name,--Mary Magdalene; Mary the wife of Cleophas; and Mary, the mother of James and John. Martha, the sister of Mary Magdalene, is also included, as I infer from her name, which in several instances is inscribed in the nimbus encircling her head. I have in another place given the story of Martha, and the legends which in the fourteenth century converted her into a very important character in sacred art, (First Series of Sacred and Legendary Art.) These women, therefore, form, with the Virgin, the group of _five_ female figures which are generally included in the scriptural scenes from the Life of Christ. Of course, these incidents, and more especially the "Procession to Calvary," and the "Crucifixion," belong to another series of subjects, which I shall have to treat hereafter in the History of our Lord; but they are also included in a series of the Rosary, as two of the mystical SORROWS; and under this point of view I must draw attention to the peculiar treatment of the Virgin in some remarkable examples, which will serve as a guide to others. * * * * * The Procession to Calvary (_Il Portamento della Croce_) followed a path leading from the gate of Jerusalem to Mount Calvary, which has been kept in remembrance and sanctified as the _Via Dolorosa_, and there is a certain spot near the summit of the hill, where, according to a very ancient tradition, the Virgin Mother, and the women her companions, placed themselves to witness the sorrowful procession; where the Mother, beholding her divine Son dragged along, all bleeding from the scourge, and sinking under his cross, in her extreme agony sank, fainting, to the earth. This incident gave rise to one of the mournful festivals of the Passion Week, under the title, in French, of _Notre Dame du Spasme_ or _de la Pamoison_; in Italian _La Madonna dello Spasimo_, or _Il Pianto di Maria_; and this is the title given to some of those representations in which the affliction of Mary is a prominent part of the tragic interest of the scene. She is sometimes sinking to the earth, sustained by the women or by St. John; sometimes she stands with clasped hands, mute and motionless with excess of anguish; sometimes she stretches out her arms to her Son, as Jesus, sinking under the weight of his cross, turns his benign eyes upon her, and the others who follow him: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me!" This is the moment chosen by Raphael in that sublime composition celebrated under the title "_Lo Spasimo di Sicilia_" (Madrid Gal.); so called because it was originally painted for the high altar of the church of the Sicilian Olivetans at Palermo, dedicated to the _Madonna dello Spasimo_. It was thence removed, by order of Philip IV. of Spain, early in the seventeenth century, and is now placed in the gallery at Madrid. Here the group of the five women forms an important part of the picture, occupying the foreground on the right. The expression in the face of the Mother, stretching forth her arms to her Son with a look of appealing agony, has always been cited as one of the great examples of Raphael's tragic power. It is well known that in this composition the attitude of Christ was suggested by the contemporary engraving of Martin Schoen; but the prominence given to the group of women, the dramatic propriety and pathetic grace in the action of each, and the consummate skill shown in the arrangement of the whole, belong only to Raphael.[1] In Martin Schoen's vivid composition, the Virgin, and the women her companions, are seen far off in the background, crouching in the "hollow way" between two cliffs, from which spot, according to the old tradition, they beheld the sad procession. We have quite a contrary arrangement in an early composition by Lucas van Leyden. The procession to Calvary is seen moving along in the far distance, while the foreground is occupied by two figures only, Mary in a trance of anguish sustained by the weeping St. John. [Footnote 1: The veneration at all times entertained for this picture was probably enhanced by a remarkable fact in its history. Raphael painted it towards the close of the year 1517, and when finished, it was embarked at the port of Ostia, to be consigned to Palermo. A storm came on, the vessel foundered at sea, and all was lost except the case containing this picture, which was floated by the currents into the Bay of Genoa; and, on being landed, the wondrous masterpiece of art was taken out unhurt. The Genoese at first refused to give it up, insisting that it had been preserved and floated to their shores by the miraculous interposition of the blessed Virgin herself; and it required a positive mandate from the Pope before they would restore it to the Olivetan fathers.--See _Passavant's Rafael_, i. 292.] In a very fine "Portamento del Croce," by Gaudenzio Ferrari, one of the soldiers or executioners, in repulsing the sorrowful mother, lifts up a stick as if to strike her;--a gratuitous act of ferocity, which shocks at once the taste and the feelings, and, without adding anything to the pathos of the situation, detracts from the religious dignity of the theme. It is like the soldier kicking our Saviour, which I remember to have seen in a version of the subject by a much later painter, Daniele Crespi. Murillo represents Christ as fainting under the weight of the cross, while the Virgin sits on the ground by the way-side, gazing on him with fixed eyes and folded hands, and a look of unutterable anguish.[1] [Footnote 1: This picture, remarkable for the intense expression, was in the collection of Lord Orford, and sold in June, 1856.] * * * * * The Ecce Homo, by Correggio, in our National Gallery, is treated in a very peculiar manner with reference to the Virgin, and is, in fact, another version of _Lo Spasimo_, the fourth of her ineffable sorrows. Here Christ, as exhibited to the people by Pilate, is placed in the distance, and is in all respects the least important part of the picture, of which we have the real subject in the far more prominent figure of the Virgin in the foreground. At sight of the agony and degradation of her Son, she closes her eyes, and is on the point of swooning. The pathos of expression in the half-unconscious face and helpless, almost lifeless hands, which seem to seek support, is particularly fine. THE CRUCIFIXION. "Verum stabas, optima Mater, juxta crucem Filli tui, non solum corpore, sed mentis constatia." This great subject belongs more particularly to the Life of Christ. It is, I observe, always omitted in a series of the Life of the Virgin, unless it be the Rosary, in which the "Vigil of the Virgin by the Cross" is the fifth and greatest of the Seven Sorrows. We cannot fail to remark, that whether the Crucifixion be treated as a mystery or as an event, Mary is always an important figure. In the former case she stands alone on the right of the cross, and St. John on the left.[1] She looks up with an expression of mingled grief and faith, or bows her head upon her clasped hands in resignation. In such a position she is the idealized Mater Dolorosa, the Daughter of Jerusalem, the personified Church mourning for the great Sacrifice; and this view of the subject I have already discussed at length. [Footnote 1: It has been a question with the learned whether the Virgin Mary, with St. John, ought not to stand on the left of the cross, in allusion to Psalm cxlii. (always interpreted as prophetic of the Passion of Christ) ver. 4: "_I looked on my right hand, and be held, but there was none who would know me._"] On the other hand, when the Crucifixion is treated as a great historical event, as a living scene acted before our eyes, then the position and sentiment given to the Virgin are altogether different, but equally fixed by the traditions of art. That she was present, and near at hand, we must presume from the Gospel of St. John, who was an eye-witness; and most of the theological writers infer that on this occasion her constancy and sublime faith were even greater than her grief, and that her heroic fortitude elevated her equally above the weeping women and the timorous disciples. This is not, however, the view which the modern painters have taken, and even the most ancient examples exhibit the maternal grief for a while overcoming the constancy. She is standing indeed, but in a fainting attitude, as if about to sink to the earth, and is sustained in the arms of the two Marys, assisted, sometimes, but not generally, by St. John; Mary Magdalene is usually embracing the foot of the cross. With very little variation this is the visual treatment down to the beginning of the sixteenth century. I do not know who was the first artist who placed the Mother prostrate on the ground; but it must be regarded as a fault, and as detracting from the high religious dignity of the scene. In all the greatest examples, from Cimabue, Giotto, and Pietro Cavallini, down to Angelico, Masaccio, and Andrea Mantegna, and their contemporaries, Mary is uniformly standing. In a Crucifixion by Martin Schoen, the Virgin, partly held up in the arms of St. John, embraces with fervour the foot of the cross: a very rare and exceptional treatment, for this is the proper place of Mary Magdalene. In Albert Durer's composition, she is just in the act of sinking to the ground in a very natural attitude, as if her limbs had given way under her. In Tintoretto's celebrated Crucifixion, we have an example of the Virgin placed on the ground, which if not one of the earliest, is one of the most striking of the more modern conceptions. Here the group at the foot of the cross is wonderfully dramatic and expressive, but certainly the reverse of dignified. Mary lies fainting on the earth; one arm is sustained by St. John, the other is round the neck of a woman who leans against the bosom of the Virgin, with eyes closed, as if lost in grief. Mary Magdalene and another look up to the crucified Saviour, and more in front a woman kneels wrapped up in a cloak, and hides her face. (Venice, S. Rocco.) Zani has noticed the impropriety here, and in other instances, of exhibiting the "_Grandissima Donna_" as prostrate, and in a state of insensibility; a style of treatment which, in more ancient times, would have been inadmissible. The idea embodied by the artist should be that which Bishop Taylor has _painted_ in words:--"By the cross stood the holy Virgin Mother, upon whom old Simeon's prophecy was now verified; for now she felt a sword passing through her very soul. She stood without clamour and womanish noises sad, silent, and with a modest grief, deep as the waters of the abyss, but smooth as the face of a pool; full of love, and patience, and sorrow, and hope!" To suppose that this noble creature lost all power over her emotions, lost her consciousness of the "high affliction" she was called to suffer, is quite unworthy of the grand ideal of womanly perfection here placed before us. It is clear, however, that in the later representations, the intense expression of maternal anguish in the hymn of the Stabat Mater gave the key to the prevailing sentiment. And as it is sometimes easier to faint than to endure; so it was easier for certain artists to express the pallor and prostration of insensibility, than the sublime faith and fortitude which in that extremest hour of trial conquered even a mother's unutterable woe. That most affecting moment, in which the dying Saviour recommends his Mother to the care of the best beloved of his disciples, I have never seen worthily treated. There are, however, some few Crucifixions in which I presume the idea to have been indicated; as where the Virgin stands leaning on St. John, with his sustaining arm reverently round her, and both looking up to the Saviour, whose dying face is turned towards them. There is an instance by Albert Durer (the wood-cut in the "Large Passion"); but the examples are so few as to be exceptional. * * * * * THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS, and the DEPOSITION, are two separate themes. In the first, according to the antique formula, the Virgin should stand; for here, as in the Crucifixion, she must be associated with the principal action, and not, by the excess of her grief, disabled from taking her part in it. In the old legend it is said, that when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrenched out the nails which fastened the hands of our Lord to the cross, St. John took them away secretly, that his mother might not see them--"_affin que la Vierge Marie ne les veit pas, crainte que le coeur ne lui amolist_." And then, while Nicodemus drew forth the nails which fastened his feet, Joseph of Arimathea sustained the body, so that the head and arms of the dead Saviour hung over his shoulder. And the afflicted Mother, seeing this, arose on her feet and she took the bleeding hands of her Son, as they hung down, and clasped them in her own, and kissed him tenderly. And then, indeed, she sank to the earth, because of the great anguish she suffered, lamenting her Son, whom the cruel Jews had murdered.[1] [Footnote 1: "---- tant qu'il n'y a coeur si dur, ni entendement d'homme qui n'y deust penser. 'Lasse, mon confort! m'amour et ma joye, que les Juifz ont faict mourir à grand tort et sans cause pour ce qu'il leur monstrait leurs faltes et enseignoit leur saulvement! O felons et mauvais Juifz, ne m'epargnez pas! puisque vous crucifiez mon enfant crucifiez moy--moy qui suis sa dolente mere, et me tuez d'aucune mort affin que je meure avec luy!'" v. _The old French Legend_, "_Vie de Notre-Dame la glorieuse Vierge Marie._"] The first action described in this legend (the afflicted Mother embracing the arm of her Son) is precisely that which was adopted by the Greek masters, and by the early Italians who followed them, Nicolo Pisano, Cimabue, Giotto, Puccio Capanna, Duccio di Siena, and others from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. But in later pictures, the Virgin in the extremity of her grief has sunk to the ground. In an altar-piece by Cigoli, she is seated on the earth, looking out of the picture, as if appealing, "Was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow?" while the crown of thorns lies before her. This is very beautiful; but even more touching is the group in the famous "Descent from the Cross," the masterpiece of Daniel di Volterra (Rome, Trinità di Monte): here the fainting form of the Virgin, extended on the earth, and the dying anguish in her face, have never been exceeded, and are, in fact, the chief merit of the picture. In the famous Descent at Antwerp, the masterpiece of Rubens, Mary stands, and supports the arm of her Son as he is let down from the cross. This is in accordance with the ancient version; but her face and figure are the least effective part of this fine picture. In a beautiful small composition, a print, attributed to Albert Durer, there are only three figures. Joseph of Arimathea stands on a ladder, and detaches from the cross the dead form of the Saviour, who is received into the arms of his Mother. This is a form of the _Mater Dolorosa_ which is very uncommon, and must be regarded as exceptional, and ideal, unless we are to consider it as a study and an incomplete group. * * * * * The DEPOSITION is properly that moment which succeeds the DESCENT from the Cross; when the dead form of Christ is deposed or laid upon the ground, resting on the lap of his Mother, and lamented by St. John, the Magdalene, and others. The ideal and devotional form of this subject, styled a Pietà, may be intended to represent one of those festivals of the Passion Week which commemorate the participation of the holy Virgin Mother in the sufferings of her Son.[1] I have already spoken at length of this form of the Mater Dolorosa; the historical version of the same subject is what we have now to consider, but only so far as regards the figure of the Virgin. [Footnote 1: "C'est ce que l'on a jugé à propos d'appeler _La Compassion_ de la Vierge, autrement _Notre Dame de Pitié_."--Vide _Baillet_, "Les Fêtes Mobiles."] In a Deposition thus dramatically treated, there are always from four to six or eight figures. The principal group consists of the dead Saviour and his Mother. She generally holds him embraced, or bends over him contemplating his dead face, or lays her cheek to his with an expression of unutterable grief and love: in the antique conception she is generally fainting; the insensibility, the sinking of the whole frame through grief, which in the Crucifixion is misplaced, both in regard to the religious feeling and the old tradition, is here quite proper.[1] Thus she appears in the genuine Greek and Greco-Italian productions of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as well as in the two finest examples that could be cited in more modern times. [Footnote 1: The reason given is curious:--"_Perchè quando Gesù pareva tormentato essendo vivo, il dolore si partiva frà la santissima madre e lui; ma quando poi egli era morto, tutto il dolore rimaneva per la sconsolata madre._"] 1. In an exquisite composition by Raphael, usually styled a Pietà, but properly a Deposition, there are six figures: the extended form of Christ; the Virgin swooning in the arms of Mary Salome and Mary Cleophas; Mary Magdalene sustains the feet of Christ, while her sister Martha raises the veil of the Virgin, as if to give her air; St. John stands by with clasped hands; and Joseph of Arimathea looks on the sorrowing group with mingled grief and pity.[1] [Footnote 1: This wonderful drawing (there is no _finished_ picture) was in the collection of Count Fries, and then belonged to Sir T. Lawrence. There is a good engraving by Agricola.] 2. Another, an admirable and celebrated composition by Annibale Caracci, known as the Four Marys, omits Martha and St. John. The attention of Mary Magdalene is fixed on the dead Saviour; the other two Marys are occupied by the fainting Mother. (Castle Howard.) On comparing this with Raphael's conception, we find more of common nature, quite as much pathos, but in the forms less of that pure poetic grace, which softens at once, and heightens the tragic effect. Besides Joseph of Arimathea, we have sometimes Nicodemus; as in the very fine Deposition by Perugino, and in one, not loss fine, by Albert Durer. In a Deposition by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, stands near his sister Martha. In a picture by Vandyke, the Mother closes the eyes of the dead Redeemer: in a picture by Rubens, she removes a thorn from his wounded brow:--both natural and dramatic incidents very characteristic of these dramatic painters. There are some fine examples of this subject in the old German school. In spite of ungraceful forms, quaint modern costumes, and worse absurdities, we often find _motifs_, unknown in the Italian school, most profoundly felt, though not always happily expressed, I remember several instances in which the Madonna does not sustain her Son; but kneeling on one side, and, with clasped hands, she gazes on him with a look, partly of devotion, partly of resignation; both the devotion and the resignation predominating over the maternal grief. I have been asked, "why no painter has ever yet represented the Great Mother as raising her hands in thankfulness that her Son _had_ drank the cup--_had_ finished the work appointed for him on earth?" This would have been worthy of the religions significance of the moment; and I recommend the theme to the consideration of artists.[1] [Footnote 1: In the most modern Deposition I have seen (one of infinite beauty, and new in arrangement, by Paul Delaroche), the Virgin, kneeling at some distance, and a little above, contemplates her dead Son. The expression and attitude are those of intense anguish, and _only_ anguish. It is the bereaved Mother; it is a craving desolation, which is in the highest degree human and tragic; but it is not the truly religious conception.] * * * * * The entombment follows, and when treated as a strictly historical scene, the Virgin Mother is always introduced, though here as a less conspicuous figure, and one less important to the action. Either she swoons, which is the ancient Greek conception; or she follows, with streaming eyes and clasped hands, the pious disciples who bear the dead form of her Son, as in Raphael's wonderful picture in the Borghese Palace, and Titian's, hardly less beautiful, in the Louvre, where the compassionate Magdalene sustains her veiled and weeping figure;--or she stands by, looking on disconsolate, while the beloved Son is laid in the tomb. * * * * * All these fine and important themes belong properly to a series of the History of Christ. In a series of the Life of the Virgin, the incidents of the Passion of our Lord are generally omitted; whereas, in the cycle of subjects styled the ROSARY, the Bearing of the Cross, the Crucifixion, and the Deposition, are included in the fourth and fifth of the "Sorrowful Mysteries." I shall have much more to say on these subjects when treating of the artistic representations from the History of Christ. I will only add here, that their frequency as _separate_ subjects, and the preëminence given to the figure of the Virgin as the mother of Pity, are very suggestive and affecting when we come to consider their _intention_ as well as their significance. For, in the first place, they were in most instances the votive offerings of those who had lost the being most dear to them, and thus appealed so the divine compassion of her who had felt that sword "pierce through her own heart also." In this sense they were often suspended as memorials in the chapels dedicated to the dead, of which I will cite one very beautiful and touching example. There is a votive Deposition by Giottino, in which the general conception is that which belonged to the school, and very like Giotto's Deposition in the Arena at Padua. The dead Christ is extended on a white shroud, and embraced by the Virgin; at his feet kneels the Magdalene, with clasped hands and flowing hair; Mary Salome kisses one of his hands, and Martha (as I suppose) the other; the third Mary, with long hair, and head dropping with grief, is seated in front to the right. In the background, in the centre, stands St. John, bending over the group in profound sorrow; on his left hand Joseph of Arimathea stands with the vase of "spices and ointments," and the nails; near him Nicodemus. On the right of St. John kneels a beautiful young girl, in the rich Florentine costume, who, with a sorrowful earnestness and with her hands crossed over her bosom, contemplates the dead Saviour. St. Romeo (or San Remigio) patron of the church in which the picture was dedicated, lays his hand paternally on her head; beside her kneels a Benedictine nun, who in the game manner is presented by St. Benedict. These two females, sisters perhaps, are the bereaved mourners who dedicated the picture, certainly one of the finest of the Giottesque school.[1] [Footnote 1: It is now in the gallery of the Uffizii, at Florence. In the Florentine edition of Vasari the name of the church in which this picture was originally placed is called San _Romeo_, who is St. Remi (or Remigio), Bishop of Reims. The painter, Giottino, the greatest and the most interesting, personally, of the Giottesque artists, was, as Vasari says, "of a melancholy temperament, and a lover of solitude;" "more desirous of glory than of gain;" "contented with little, and thinking more of serving and gratifying others than of himself;" "taking small care for himself, and perpetually engrossed by the works he had undertaken." He died of consumption, in 1356, at the age of thirty two.] Secondly, we find that the associations left in the minds of the people by the expeditions of the Crusaders and the pilgrimages to the Holy Sepulchre, rendered the Deposition and the Entombment particularly popular and impressive as subjects of art, even down to a late period. "Ce que la vaillante épée des ayeux avait glorieusement defendu, le ciscaux des enfans aimait à le réproduire, leur piété à l'honorer." I think we may trace these associations in many examples, particularly in a Deposition by Raphael, of which there is a fine old engraving. Here, in the centre, stands a circular building, such as the church at Jerusalem was always described; in front of which are seen the fainting Virgin and the mournful women: a grand and solemn group, but poetically rather than historically treated. * * * * * In conclusion, I must notice one more form of the Mater Dolorosa, one of the dramatic conceptions of the later schools of art; as far as I knew, there exist no early examples. In a picture by Guercino (Louvre), the Virgin and St. Peter lament the death of the Saviour. The Mother, with her clasped hands resting on her knees, appears lost in resigned sorrow: she mourns her Son. Peter, weeping, as with a troubled grief, seems to mourn at once his Lord and Master, and his own weak denial. This picture has the energetic feeling and utter want of poetic elevation which generally characterized Guercino. There is a similar group by Ludovico Caracci in the Duonio at Bologna. In a picture by Tiarini, the _Madre Addolorata_ is seated, holding in her hand the crown of thorns; Mary Magdalene kneels before her, and St. John stands by--both expressing the utmost veneration and sympathy. These and similar groups are especially to be found in the later Bologna school. In all the instances known to me, they have been painted for the Dominicans, and evidently intended to illustrate the sorrows of the Rosary. In one of the services of the Passion Week, and in particular reference to the maternal anguish of the Virgin, it was usual to read, as the Epistle, a selection from the first chapter of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, eloquent in the language of desolation and grief. The painters seemed to have filled their imagination with the images there presented; and frequently in the ideal _Pietà_ the daughter of Jerusalem "sits solitary, with none to comfort her." It is the contrary in the dramatic version: the devotion of the women, the solicitude of the affectionate Magdalene, and the filial reverence of St. John, whom the scriptural history associates with the Virgin in a manner so affecting, are never forgotten. In obedience to the last command of his dying Master, John the Evangelist-- "He, into whose keeping, from the cross, The mighty charge was given--" DANTE. conducted to his own dwelling the Mother to whom he was henceforth to be as a Son. This beautiful subject, "John conducting the Virgin to his home," was quite unknown, as far as I am aware, in the earlier schools of art, and appears first in the seventeenth century. An eminent instance is a fine solemn group by Zurbaran. (Munich.) Christ was laid in the sepulchre by night, and here, in the gray dawn, John and the veiled Virgin are seen as returning from the entombment, and walking mournfully side by side. * * * * * We find the peculiar relation between the Mother of Christ and St. John, as her adopted son, expressed in a very tender and ideal manner, on one of the wings of an altar-piece, attributed to Taddeo Gaddi. (Berlin Gal., No. 1081.) Mary and St. John stand in front; he holds one of her hands clasped in both his own, with a most reverent and affectionate expression. Christ, standing between them, lays one hand on the shoulder of each; the sentiment of this group is altogether very unusual; and very remarkable. HISTORICAL SUBJECTS PART IV. THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MARY FROM THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD TO THE ASSUMPTION. 1. THE APPARITION OF CHRIST TO HIS MOTHER. 2. THE ASCENSION. 3. THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 4. THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN. 5. THE ASSUMPTION AND CORONATION. THE APPARITION OF CHRIST TO HIS MOTHER. The enthusiastic and increasing veneration for the Madonna, the large place she filled in the religious teaching of the ecclesiastics and the religious sentiments of the people, are nowhere more apparent, nor more strikingly exhibited, than in the manner in which she was associated with the scenes which followed the Passion;--the manner in which some incidents were suggested, and treated with a peculiar reference to her, and to her maternal feelings. It is nowhere said that the Virgin Mother was one of the Marys who visited the tomb on the morning of the resurrection, and nowhere is she so represented. But out of the human sympathy with that bereaved and longing heart, arose the beautiful legend of the interview between Christ and his Mother after he had risen from the dead. There existed a very ancient tradition (it is mentioned by St. Ambrose in the fourth century, as being then generally accepted by Christians), that Christ, after his return from Hades, visited his Mother even before he appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden. It is not indeed so written in the Gospel; but what of that? The reasoning which led to the conclusion was very simple. He whose last earthly thought was for his Mother would not leave her without that consolation it was in his power to give; and what, as a son, it was his duty to do (for the _humanity_ of Christ is never forgotten by those who most intensely believed in his _divinity_,) that, of course, he did do. The story is thus related:--Mary, when all was "finished," retired to her chamber, and remained alone with her grief--not wailing, not repining, not hopeless, but waiting for the fulfilment of the promise. Open before her lay the volume of the prophecies; and she prayed earnestly, and she said, "Thou, didst promise, O my most dear Son! that thou wouldst rise again on the third day. Before yesterday was the day of darkness and bitterness, and, behold, this is the third day. Return then to me thy Mother; O my Son, tarry not, but come!" And while thus she prayed, lo! a bright company of angels, who entered waving their palms and radiant with joy; and they surrounded her, kneeling and singing the triumphant Easter hymn, _Regina Coeli lætare, Alleluia!_[1] And then came Christ partly clothed in a white garment, having in his left hand the standard of the cross, as one just returned from the nether world, and victorious over the powers of sin and death. And with him came the patriarchs and prophets, whose long-imprisoned spirits he had released from Hades.[2] All these knelt before the Virgin, and saluted her, and blessed her, and thanked her, because through her had come their deliverance. But, for all this, the Mother was not comforted till she had heard the voice of her Son. Then he, raising his hand in benediction, spoke and said, "I salute thee, O my Mother!" and she, weeping tears of joy, responded, "Is it thou indeed, my most dear Son?" and she fell upon his neck, and he embraced her tenderly, and showed her the wounds he had received for sinful man. Then he bid her be comforted and weep no more, for the pain of death had passed away, and the gates of hell had not prevailed against him. And she thanked him meekly on her knees, for that he had been pleased to bring redemption to man, and to make her the humble instrument of his great mercy. And they sat and talked together, until he took leave of her to return to the garden, and to show himself to Mary Magdalene, who, next to his glorious Mother, had most need of consolation.[3] [Footnote 1: "Regina Coeli lætare Alleluia! Quia quem meruisti portare, Alleluia! Resurrexit sicut dixit, Alleluia! Ora pro nobis Deum, Alleluia!"] [Footnote 2: The legend of the "Descent into Hades" (or limbo), often treated of in art, will be given at length in the History of our Lord.] [Footnote 3: I have given the legend from various sources; but there is something quite untranslatable and perfectly beautiful in the naïveté of the old Italian version. After describing the celestial music of the angels, the rejoicing of the liberated patriarchs, and the appearance of Christ, _allegro, e bello e tutto lucido_, it thus proceeds: "_Quando ella lo vidde, gli andò incontro ella ancora con le braccia aperte, e quasi tramortita per l'allegrazza. Il benedetto Gesù l'abbraccio teneressimamente, ed ella glidesse; 'Ahi, figliuolo mio cordialissimo, sei tu veramente il mio Gesù, ò pur m'inganna l'affetto!' 'Io sono il tuo figliuolo, madre mia, dolcissima,' disse il Signore: 'cessino hormai le tue lagrime, non fare ch'io ti veda più di mala voglia, Già son finiti li tuoi e li miei travagli e dolori insieme!' Erano rimase alcune lagrime negli occhi della Vergine.... e per la grande allegrezza non poteva proferire parola alcuna ... ma quando al fine potè parlare, lo ringrazio per parte di tutto il genere humano, per la redenzione, operata e fatta, per tutto generalmente."--v. Il Perfetto Legendario_] The pathetic sentiment, and all the supernatural and mystical accompaniments of this beautiful myth of the early ages, have been very inadequately rendered by the artists. It is always treated as a plain matter-of-fact scene. The Virgin kneels; the Saviour, bearing his standard, stands before her; and where the delivered patriarchs are introduced, they are generally either Adam and Eve, the authors of the fall or Abraham and David, the progenitors of Christ and the Virgin. The patriarchs are omitted in the earliest instance I can refer to, one of the carved panels of the stalls in the Cathedral of Amiens: also in the composition by Albert Durer, not included in his life of the Virgin, but forming one of the series of the Passion. Guido has represented the scene in a very fine picture, wherein an angel bears the standard of victory, and behind our Saviour are Adam and Eve. (Dresden Gal.) Another example, by Guercino (Cathedral, Cento), is cited by Goethe as an instance of that excellence in the expression of the natural and domestic affections which characterized the painter. Mary kneels before her Son, looking up in his face with unutterable affection; he regards her with a calm, sad look, "as if within his noble soul there still remained the recollection of his sufferings and hers, outliving the pang of death, the descent into the grave, and which the resurrection had not yet dispelled." This, however, is not the sentiment, at once affectionate and joyously triumphant, of the old legend. I was pleased with a little picture in the Lichtenstein Gallery at Vienna, where the risen Saviour, standing before his Mother, points to the page of the book before her, as if he said, "See you not that thus it is written?" (Luke xxiv. 46.) Behind Jesus is St. John the Evangelist bearing the cup and the cross, as the cup of sorrow and the cross of pain, not the mere emblems. There is another example, by one of the Caracci, in the Fitzwilliam Collection at Cambridge. A picture by Albano of this subject, in which Christ comes flying or floating on the air, like an incorporeal being, surrounded by little fluttering cherubim, very much like Cupids, is an example of all that is most false and objectionable in feeling and treatment. (Florence, Pitti Pal.) The popularity of this scene in the Bologna school of art arose, I think, from its being adopted as one of the subjects from the Rosary, the first of "the five Glorious Mysteries;" therefore especially affected by the Dominicans, the great patrons of the Caracci at that time. * * * * * The ASCENSION, though one of the "Glorious Mysteries," was also accounted as the seventh and last of the sorrows of the Virgin, for she was then left alone on earth. All the old legends represent her as present on this occasion, and saying, as she followed with uplifted eyes the soaring figure of Christ, "My Son, remember me when thou comest to thy kingdom! Leave me not long after thee, my Son!" In Giotto's composition in the chapel of the Arena, at Padua, she is by far the most prominent figure. In almost all the late pictures of the Ascension, she is introduced with the other Marys, kneeling on one side, or placed in the centre among the apostles. * * * * * The DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST is a strictly scriptural subject. I have heard it said that the introduction of Mary is not authorized by the scripture narrative. I must observe, however that, without any wringing of the text for an especial purpose, the passage might be so interpreted. In the first chapter of the Acts (ver. 14), after enumerating the apostles by name, it is added, "These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." And in the commencement of the second chapter the narrative thus proceeds: "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were _all_ with one accord in one place." The word _all_ is, in the Concordance, referred to the previous text (ver. 14), as including Mary and the women: thus they who were constant in their love were not refused a participation in the gifts of the Spirit. Mary, in her character of the divine Mother of Wisdom, or even Wisdom herself,[1] did not, perhaps, need any accession of intellectual light; but we must remember that the Holy Spirit was the Comforter, as well as the Giver of wisdom; therefore, equally needed by those, whether men or women, who were all equally called upon to carry out the ministry of Christ in love and service, in doing and in suffering. [Footnote 1: The sublime eulogium of Wisdom (Prov. viii. 22), is, in the Roman Catholic Church, applied to the Virgin Mary.] In the account of the apostles I have already described at length the various treatment and most celebrated examples of this subject, and shall only make one or two observations with especial reference to the figure of the Virgin. It was in accordance with the feelings and convictions prevalent in the fifteenth century, that if Mary were admitted to be present, she would take the principal place, as Queen and Mother of the Apostles (_Regina et Mater Apostolorum_). She is, therefore, usually placed either in front, or in the centre on a raised seat or dais; and often holding a book (as the _Mater Sapientiæ_); and she receives the divine affusion either with veiled lids and meek rejoicing; or with uplifted eyes, as one inspired, she pours forth the hymn, _Veni, Sancte Spiritus_. I agree with the critics that, as the Spirit descended in form of cloven tongues of fire, the emblem of the Dove, almost always introduced, is here superfluous, and, indeed, out of place. * * * * * I must mention here another subject altogether apocryphal, and confined to the late Spanish and Italian schools: The Virgin receives the sacramental wafer from the hand of St. John the Evangelist. This is frequently misunderstood, and styled the Communion of Mary Magdalene. But the long hair and uncovered head of the Magdalene, and the episcopal robe of St. Maximin, are in general distinguishable from the veiled matronly head of the Virgin Mother, and the deacon's vest of St. John. There is also a legend that Mary received baptism from St. Peter; but this is a subject I have never met with in art, ancient or modern. It may possibly exist. I am not acquainted with any representations taken from the sojourn on earth of the Blessed Virgin from this time to the period of her death, the date of which is uncertain. It is, however, generally supposed to have taken place in the forty-eighth year of our era, and about eleven years after the Crucifixion, therefore in her sixtieth year. There is no distinct record, either historical or legendary, as to the manner in which she passed these years. There are, indeed, floating traditions alluded to by the early theological writers, that when the first persecution broke out at Jerusalem, Mary accompanied St. John the Evangelist to Ephesus, and was attended thither by the faithful and affectionate Mary Magdalene. Also that she dwelt for some time on Mount Carmel, in an oratory erected there by the prophet Elijah, and hence became the patroness of the Carmelites, under the title of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (_La Madonna del Carmine_, or _del Carmelo_). If there exist any creations of the artists founded on these obscure traditions, which is indeed most probable, particularly in the edifices of the Carmelites in Spain, I have not met with them. * * * * * It is related that before the apostles separated to obey the command of their divine Master, and preach the gospel to all the nations of the earth, they took a solemn leave of the Virgin Mary, and received her blessing. This subject has been represented, though not by any distinguished artist. I remember such a picture, apparently of the sixteenth century, in the Church of S. Maria-in-Capitolio at Cologne, and another, by Bissoni, in the San Giustina at Padua. (Sacred and Legendary Art.) THE DEATH AND ASSUMPTION Of THE VIRGIN _Lat._ Dormitio, Pausatio, Transitus, Assumptio, B. Virginis. _Ital._ Il Transito di Maria. Il Sonno della Beata Vergine. L' Assunzione. _Fr._ La Mort de la Vierge. L'Assomption. _Ger._ Das Absterben der Maria. Maria Himmelfahrt. August, 13, 15. We approach the closing scenes. Of all the representations consecrated to the glory of the Virgin, none have been more popular, more multiplied through every form of art, and more admirably treated, than her death and apotheosis. The latter in particular, under the title of "the Assumption," became the visible expression of a dogma of faith then universally received--namely, the exaltation and deification of the Virgin in the body as well as in the spirit. As such it meets us at every turn in the edifices dedicated to her; in painting over the altar, in sculpture over the portal, or gleaming upon us in light from the shining many-coloured windows. Sometimes the two subjects are combined, and the death-scene (_Il transito di Maria_) figured below, is, in fact, only the _transition_ to the blessedness and exaltation figured above. But whether separate or combined, the two scenes, in themselves most beautiful and touching,--the extremes of the mournful and the majestic, the dramatic and the ideal,--offered to the medieval artists such a breadth of space for the exhibition of feeling and fancy as no other subject afforded. Consequently, among the examples handed down to us, are to be found some of the most curious and important relics of the early schools, while others rank among the grandest productions of the best ages of art. For the proper understanding of these, it is necessary to give the old apocryphal legend at some length; for, although the very curious and extravagant details of this legend were not authorized by the Church as matters of fact or faith, it is clear that the artists were permitted thence to derive their materials and their imagery. In what manner they availed themselves of this permission, and how far the wildly poetical circumstances with which the old tradition was gradually invested, were allowed to enter into the forms of art, we shall afterwards consider. THE LEGEND OF THE DEATH AND ASSUMPTION OF THE MOST GLORIOUS VIRGIN MARY. Mary dwelt in the house of John upon Mount Sion looking for the fulfilment of the promise of deliverance, and she spent her days in visiting those places which had been hallowed by the baptism, the sufferings, the burial and resurrection of her divine Son, but more particularly the tomb wherein he was laid. And she did not this as seeking the living among the dead, but for consolation and for remembrance. And on a certain day; the heart of the Virgin, being filled with an inexpressible longing to behold her Son, melted away within her, and she wept abundantly. And lo! an angel appeared before her clothed in light as with a garment. And he saluted her, and said, "Hail, O Mary! blessed by him who hath given salvation to Israel I bring thee here a branch of palm gathered in Paradise; command that it be carried before thy bier in the day of thy death; for in three days they soul shall leave thy body, and though shalt enter into Paradise, where thy Son awaits thy coming." Mary, answering, said, "If I have found grace in thy eyes, tell me first what is thy name; and grant that the apostles my brethren may be reunited to me before I die, that in their presence I may give up my soul to God. Also, I pray thee, that my soul, when delivered from my body, may not be affrighted by any spirit of darkness, nor any evil angel be allowed to have any power over me." And the angel said, "Why dost thou ask my name? My name is the Great and the Wonderful. And now doubt not that all the apostles shall be reunited, to thee this day; for he who in former times transported the prophet Habakkuk from Judea to Jerusalem by the hair of his head, can as easily bring hither the apostles. And fear thou not the evil spirit, for hast thou not bruised his head and destroyed his kingdom?" And having said these words, the angel departed into heaven; and the palm branch which he had left behind him shed light from every leaf, and sparkled as the stars of the morning. Then Mary lighted, the lamps and prepared her bed, and waited until the hour was come. And in the same instant John, who was preaching at Ephesus, and Peter, who was preaching at Antioch, and all the other apostles who were dispersed in different parts of the world, were suddenly caught up as by a miraculous power, and found themselves before the door of the habitation of Mary. When Mary saw them all assembled round her, she blessed and thanked the Lord, and she placed in the hands of St. John the shining palm, and desired that he should bear it before her at the time of her burial. Then Mary, kneeling down, made her prayer to the Lord her Son, and the others prayed with her; then she laid herself down in her bed and composed herself for death. And John wept bitterly. And about the third hour of the night, as Peter stood at the head of the bed and John at the foot, and the other apostles around, a mighty sound filled the house, and a delicious perfume filled the chamber. And Jesus himself appeared accompanied by an innumerable company of angels, patriarchs, and prophets; all these surrounded the bed of the Virgin, singing hymns of joy. And Jesus said to his Mother, "Arise, my beloved, mine elect! come with me from Lebanon, my espoused! receive the crown that is destined for thee!" And Mary, answering, said, "My heart is ready; for it was written of me that I should do thy will!" Then all the angels and blessed spirits who accompanied Jesus began to sing and rejoice. And the soul of Mary left her body, and was received into the arms of her Son; and together they ascended into heaven.[1] And the apostles looked up, saying, "Oh most prudent Virgin, remember us when thou comest to glory!" and the angels, who received her into heaven, sung these words, "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness leaning upon her Beloved? she is fairer than all the daughters of Jerusalem." [Footnote 1: In the later French legend, it is the angel Michael who takes charge of the departing soul. "_Ecce Dominus venit cum multitudine angelorum_; et Jésus Christ vint en grande compaignie d'anges; entre lesquels estoit Sainct Michel, et quand la Vierge Marie le veit elle dit, 'Benoist soit Jésus Christ car il ne m'a pas oubliée.' Quand elle eut ce dit elle rendit l'esprit, lequel Sainct Michel print."] But the body of Mary remained upon the earth; and three among the virgins prepared to wash and clothe it in a shroud; but such a glory of light surrounded her form, that though they touched it they could not see it, and no human eye beheld those chaste and sacred limbs unclothed. Then the apostles took her up reverently and placed her upon a bier, and John, carrying the celestial palm, went before. Peter sung the 114th Psalm, "_In exitu Israel de Egypto, domus Jacob de populo barbaro_," and the angels followed after, also singing. The wicked Jews, hearing these melodious voices, ran together; and the high-priest, being seized with fury, laid his hands upon the bier intending to overturn it on the earth; but both his arms were suddenly dried up, so that he could not move them, and he was overcome with fear; and he prayed to St. Peter for help, and Peter said, "Have faith in Jesus Christ, and his Mother, and thon shalt be healed;" and it was so. Then they went on and laid the Virgin in a tomb in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.[1] [Footnote 1: Or Gethsemane. I must observe here, that in the genuine oriental legend, it is Michael the Archangel who hews off the hands of the audacious Jew, which were afterwards, at the intercession of St. Peter, reunited to his body.] And on the third day, Jesus said to the angels, "What honour shall I confer on her who was my mother on earth, and brought me forth?" And they answered, "Lord, suffer not that body which was thy temple and thy dwelling to see corruption; but place her beside thee on thy throne in heaven." And Jesus consented; and the Archangel Michael brought unto the Lord, the glorious soul of our Lady. And the Lord said, "Rise up, my dove, my undefiled, for thou shalt not remain in the darkness of the grave, nor shall thou see corruption;" and immediately the soul of Mary rejoined her body, and she arose up glorious from the tomb, and ascended into heaven surrounded and welcomed by troops of angels, blowing their silver trumpets, touching their golden lutes, singing, and rejoicing as they sung, "Who is she that riseth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?" (Cant. vi. 10.) But one among the apostles was absent; and when he arrived soon after, he would not believe in the resurrection of the Virgin; and this apostle was the same Thomas, who had formerly been slow to believe in the resurrection of the Lord; and he desired that the tomb should be opened before him; and when it was opened it was found to be full of lilies and roses. Then Thomas, looking up to heaven, beheld the Virgin bodily, in a glory of light, slowly mounting towards the heaven; and she, for the assurance of his faith, flung down to him her girdle, the same which is to this day preserved in the cathedral of Prato. And there were present at the death of the Virgin Mary, besides the twelve apostles, Dionysius the Areopagite, Timotheus, and Hierotheus; and of the women, Mary Salome, Mary Cleophas,[1] and a faithful handmaid whose name was Savia. [Footnote 1: According to the French legend, Mary Magdalene and her sister Martha were also present.] * * * * * This legend of the Death and Assumption of the Virgin has afforded to the artists seven distinct scenes. 1. The Angel, bearing the palm, announces to Mary her approaching death. The announcing angel is usually supposed to be Gabriel, but it is properly Michael, the "angel of death." 2. She takes leave of the Apostles. 3. Her Death. 4. She is borne to the Sepulchre. 5. Her Entombment. 6. Her Assumption, where she rises triumphant and glorious, "like unto the morning" ("_quasi aurora consurgens_"). 7. Her Coronation in heaven, where she takes her place beside her Son. In early art, particularly in the Gothic sculpture, two or more of these subjects are generally grouped together. Sometimes we have the death-scene and the entombment on a line below, and, above these, the coronation or the assumption, as over the portal of Notre Dame at Paris, and in many other instances; or we have first her death, above this, her assumption, and, above all, her coronation; as over the portal at Amiens and elsewhere. * * * * * I shall now take these subjects in their order. The angel announcing to Mary her approaching death has been rarely treated. In general, Mary is seated or standing, and the angel kneels before her, bearing the starry palm brought from Paradise. In the frescoes at Orvieto, and in the bas-relief of Oreagna,[1] the angel comes flying downwards with the palm. In a predella by Fra Filippo Lippi, the angel kneels, reverently presenting a taper, which the Virgin receives with majestic grace; St. Peter stands behind. It was the custom to place a taper in the hand of a dying person; and as the palm is also given sometimes to the angel of the incarnation, while the taper can have but one meaning, the significance of the scene is here fixed beyond the possibility of mistake, though there is a departure from the literal details of the old legend. There is in the Munich Gallery a curious German example of this subject by Hans Schauffelein. [Footnote 1: On the beautiful shrine in Or-San-Michele, at Florence.] * * * * * The death of the Virgin is styled in Byzantine and old Italian art the Sleep of the Virgin, _Il Sonno della Madonna_; for it was an old superstition, subsequently rejected as heretical, that she did not really die after the manner of common mortals, only fell asleep till her resurrection. Therefore, perhaps, it is, that in the early pictures we have before us, not so much a scene or action, as a sort of mysterious rite; it is not the Virgin dead or dying in her bed; she only slumbers in preparation for her entombment; while in the later pictures, we have a death-bed scene with all the usual dramatic and pathetic accessories. In one sense or the other, the theme has been constantly treated, from the earliest ages of the revival of art down to the seventeenth century. In the most ancient examples which are derived from the Greek school, it is always represented with a mystical and solemn simplicity, adhering closely to the old legend, and to the formula laid down in the Greek Manual. There is such a picture in the Wallerstein Collection at Kensington Palace. The couch or bier is in the centre of the picture, and Mary lies upon it wrapped in a veil and mantle with closed eyes and hands crossed over her bosom. The twelve apostles stand round in attitudes of grief angels attend bearing tapers. Behind the extended form of the Virgin is the figure of Christ; a glorious red seraph with expanded wings hovers above his head. He holds in his arms the soul of the Virgin in likeness of a new-born child. On each side stand St. Dionysius the Areopagite, and St. Timothy, Bishop of Ephesas, in episcopal robes. In front, the archangel Michael bends forward to strike off the hands of the high-priest Adonijah, who had attempted to profane the bier. (This last circumstance is rarely expressed, except in the Byzantine pictures; for in the Italian legend, the hands of the intruder wither and adhere to the bed or shrine.) In the picture just described; all is at once simple, and formal, and solemn, and supernatural; it is a very perfect example in its way of the genuine Byzantine treatment. There is a similar picture in the Christian museum of the Vatican. Another (the date about the first half of the fourteenth century, as I think) is curious from the introduction of the women.[1] The Virgin lies on an embroidered sheet held reverently by angels; at the feet and at the head other angels bear tapers; Christ receives the departing soul, which stretches out its arms; St. John kneels in front, and St. Peter reads the service; the other apostles are behind him, and there are three women. The execution of this curious picture is extremely rude, but the heads very fine. Cimabue painted the Death of the Virgin at Assisi. There is a beautiful example by Giotto, where two lovely angels stand at the head and two at the feet, sustaining the pall on which she lies; another most exquisite by Angelico in the Florence Gallery; another most beautiful and pathetic by Taddeo Bartoli in the Palazzo Publico at Siena. [Footnote 1: At present in the collection of Mr. Bromley, of Wootten.] The custom of representing Christ as standing by the couch or tomb of his mother, in the act of receiving her soul, continued down to the fifteenth century, at least with slight deviations from the original conception. The later treatment is quite different. The solemn mysterious sleep, the transition from one life to another, became a familiar death-bed scene with the usual moving accompaniments. But even while avoiding the supernatural incidents, the Italians gave to the representation much ideal elegance; for instance, in the beautiful fresco by Ghirlandajo. (Florence, S. Maria-Novella.) * * * * * In the old German school we have that homely matter-of-fact feeling, and dramatic expression, and defiance of all chronological propriety, which belonged to the time and school. The composition by Albert Durer, in his series of the Life of the Virgin, has great beauty and simplicity of expression, and in the arrangement a degree of grandeur and repose which has caused it to be often copied and reproduced as a picture, though the original form is merely that of a wood-cut.[1] In the centre is a bedstead with a canopy, on which Mary lies fronting the spectator, her eyes half closed. On the left of the bed stands St. Peter, habited as a bishop: he places a taper in her dying hand; another apostle holds the asperge with which to sprinkle her with holy water: another reads the service. In the foreground is a priest bearing a cross, and another with incense; and on the right, the other apostles in attitudes of devotion and grief. [Footnote 1: There is one such copy in the Sutherland Gallery; and another in the Munich Gallery, Cabinet viii. 161.] Another picture by Albert Durer, once in the Fries Gallery, at Vienna, unites, in a most remarkable manner, all the legendary and supernatural incidents with the most intense and homely reality. It appears to have been painted for the Emperor Maximilian, as a tribute to the memory of his first wife, the interesting Maria of Burgundy. The disposition of the bed is the same as in the wood-cut, the foot towards the spectator. The face of the dying Virgin is that of the young duchess. On the right, her son, afterwards Philip of Spain, and father of Charles V., stands as the young St. John, and presents the taper; the other apostles are seen around, most of them praying; St. Peter, habited as bishop, reads from an open book (this is the portrait of George à Zlatkonia, bishop of Vienna, the friend and counsellor of Maximilian); behind him, as one of the apostles, Maximilian himself, with head bowed down, as in sorrow. Three ecclesiastics are seen entering by an open door, bearing the cross, the censer, and the holy water. Over the bed is seen the figure of Christ; in his arms, the soul of the Virgin, in likeness of an infant with clasped hands; and above all, in an open glory and like a vision, her reception and coronation in heaven. Upon a scroll over her head, are the words, "_Surge propera, amica mea; veni de Libano, veni coronaberis._" (Cant. iv. 8.) Three among the hovering angels bear scrolls, on one of which is inscribed the text from the Canticles, "_Quæ est ista quæ progreditur quasi aurora consurgens, pulchra ut luna, electa ut sol, terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata?_" (Cant. vi. 10;) on another, "_Quæ est ista quæ ascendit de deserto deliciis affluens super dilectum suum?_" (Cant. viii. 5;) and on the third, "_Quæ est ista quæ ascendit super dilectum suum ut virgula fumi?_" (Cant. iii. 6.) This picture bears the date 1518. If it be true, as is, indeed, most apparent, that it was painted by order of Maximilian nearly forty years after the loss of the young wife he so tenderly loved, and only one year before his own death, there is something very touching in it as a memorial. The ingenious and tender compliment implied by making Mary of Burgundy the real object of those mystic texts consecrated to the glory of the MATER DEI, verges, perhaps, on the profane; but it was not so intended; it was merely that combination of the pious, and the poetical, and the sentimental, which was one of the characteristics of the time, in literature, as well as in art. (Heller's Albrecht Dürer p. 261.) The picture by Jan Schoreel, one of the great ornaments of the Boisserée Gallery,[1] is remarkable for its intense reality and splendour of colour. The heads are full of character; that of the Virgin in particular, who seems, with half-closed eyes, in act to breathe away her soul in rapture. The altar near the bed, having on it figures of Moses and Aaron, is, however, a serious fault and incongruity in this fine painting. [Footnote 1: Munich (70). The admirable lithograph by Strixner is well known.] I must observe that Mary is not always dead or dying: she is sometimes preparing for death, in the act of prayer at the foot of her couch, with the apostles standing round, as in a very fine picture by Martin Schaffner, where she kneels with a lovely expression, sustained in the arms of St. John, while St. Peter holds the gospel open before her. (Munich Gal.) Sometimes she is sitting up in her bed, and reading from the Book of the Scripture, which is always held by St. Peter. In a picture by Cola della Matrice, the Death of the Virgin is treated at once in a mystical and dramatic style. Enveloped in a dark blue mantle spangled with golden stars, she lies extended on a couch; St. Peter, in a splendid scarlet cope as bishop, reads the service; St. John, holding the palm, weeps bitterly. In front, and kneeling before the coach or bier, appear the three great Dominican saints as witnesses of the religious mystery; in the centre, St. Dominick; on the left, St. Catherine of Siena; and on the right, St. Thomas Aquinas. In a compartment above is the Assumption. (Rome, Capitol.) * * * * * Among the later Italian examples, where the old legendary accessories are generally omitted, there are some of peculiar elegance. One by Ludovico Caracci, another by Domenichino, and a third by Carlo Maratti, are treated, if not with much of poetry or religious sentiment, yet with great dignity and pathos. I must mention one more, because of its history and celebrity: Caravaggio, of whom it was said that he always painted like a ruffian, because he _was_ a ruffian, was also a genius in his way, and for a few months he became the fashion at Rome, and was even patronized by some of the higher ecclesiastics. He painted for the church of _la Scala in Trastevere_ a picture of the Death of the Virgin, wonderful for the intense natural expression, and in the same degree grotesque from its impropriety. Mary, instead of being decently veiled, lies extended with long scattered hair; the strongly marked features and large proportions of the figure are those of a woman of the Trastevere.[1] The apostles stand around; one or two of them--I must use the word--blubber aloud: Peter thrusts his fists into his eyes to keep back the tears; a woman seated in front cries and sobs; nothing can be more real, nor more utterly vulgar. The ecclesiastics for whom the picture was executed were so scandalized, that they refused to hang it up in their church. It was purchased by the Duke of Mantua, and, with the rest of the Mantuan Gallery, came afterwards into the possession of our unfortunate Charles I. On the dispersion of his pictures, it found its way into the Louvre, where it now is. It has been often engraved. [Footnote 1: The face has a swollen look, and it was said that his model had been a common woman whose features were swelled by intoxication. (Louvre, 32.)] * * * * * THE APOSTLES CARRY THE BODY OF THE VIRGIN TO THE TOMB. This is a very uncommon subject. There is a most beautiful example by Taddeo Bartoli (Siena, Pal. Publico), full of profound religious feeling. There is a small engraving by Bonasoni, in a series of the Life of the Virgin, apparently after Parmigiano, in which the apostles bear her on their shoulders over rocky ground, and appear to be descending into the Valley of Jehoshaphat: underneath are these lines:-- "Portan gli uomini santi in su le spalle Al Sepolcro il corpo di Maria Di Josaphat nella famosa valle." There is another picture of this subject by Ludovico Caracci, at Parma. * * * * * THE ENTOMBMENT. In the early pictures, there is little distinction between this subject and the Death of the Virgin. If the figure of Christ stand over the recumbent form, holding in his arms the emancipated soul, then it is the _Transito_--the death or sleep; but when a sarcophagus is in the centre of the picture, and the body lies extended above it on a sort of sheet or pall held by angels or apostles, it may be determined that it is the Entombment of the Virgin after her death. In a small and very beautiful picture by Angelico, we have distinctly this representation.[1] She lies, like one asleep, on a white pall, held reverently by the mourners. They prepare to lay her in a marble sarcophagus. St. John, bearing the starry palm, appears to address a man in a doctor's cap and gown, evidently intended for Dionysius the Areopagite. Above, in the sky, the soul of the Virgin, surrounded by most graceful angels, is received into heaven. This group is distinguished from the group below, by being painted in a dreamy bluish tint, like solidified light, or like a vision. [Footnote 1: This picture, now in the possession of W. Fuller Maitland, Esq., was exhibited in the British Institution in the summer of 1852. It is engraved in the Etruria Pittrice.] * * * * * THE ASSUMPTION. The old painters distinguish between the Assumption of the soul and the Assumption of the body of the Virgin. In the first instance, at the moment the soul is separated from the body, Christ receives it into his keeping, standing in person either beside her death-bed or above it. But in the Assumption properly so called, we have the moment wherein the soul of the Virgin is reunited to her body, which, at the command of Christ, rises up from the tomb. Of all the themes of sacred art there is not one more complete and beautiful than this, in what it represents, and in what it suggests. Earth and its sorrows, death and the grave, are left below; and the pure spirit of the Mother again clothed in its unspotted tabernacle, surrounded by angelic harmonies, and sustained by wings of cherubim and seraphim, soars upwards to meet her Son, and to be reunited to him forever. * * * * * We must consider this fine subject under two aspects. The first is purely ideal and devotional; it is simply the expression of a dogma of faith, "_Assumpta est Maria Virgo in Coelum_." The figure of the Virgin is seen within an almond-shaped aureole (the mandorla), not unfrequently crowned as well as veiled, her hands joined, her white robe falling round her feet (for in all the early pictures the dress of the Virgin is white, often spangled with stars), and thus she seems to cleave the air upwards, while adoring angels surround the glory of light within which she is enshrined. Such are the figures which are placed in sculpture over the portals of the churches dedicated to her, as at Florence.[1] She is not always standing and upright, but seated on a throne, placed within an aureole of light, and borne by angels, as over the door of the Campo Santo at Pisa. I am not sure that such figures are properly styled the Assumption; they rather exhibit in an ideal form the glorification of the Virgin, another version of the same idea expressed in the _Incoronata_. She is here _Varia Virgo Assumpta_, or, in Italian, _L'Assunta_; she has taken upon her the glory of immortality, though not yet crowned. [Footnote 1: The "Santa Maria del Fiore,"--the Duomo.] But when the Assumption is presented to us as the final scene of her life, and expresses, as it were, a progressive action--when she has left the empty tomb, and the wondering, weeping apostles on the earth below, and rises "like the morning" ("_quasi aurora surgens_") from the night of the grave,--then we have the Assumption of the Virgin in its dramatic and historical form, the final act and consummation of her visible and earthly life. As the Church had never settled in what manner she was translated into heaven, only pronouncing it heresy to doubt the fact itself, the field was in great measure left open to the artists. The tomb below, the figure of the Virgin floating in mid-air, and the opening heavens above, such is the general conception fixed by the traditions of art; but to give some idea of the manner in which this has been varied, I shall describe a few examples. 1. Giunta Pisano, 1230. (Assisi, S. Franceso.) Christ and the Virgin ascend together in a seated attitude upborne by clouds and surrounded by angels; his arm is round her. The empty tomb, with the apostles and others, below. The idea is here taken from the Canticles (ch. viii.), "Who is this that ariseth from the wilderness leaning upon her beloved?" 2. Andrea Orcagna, 1359. (Bas-relief, Or-San-Michele, Florence.) The Virgin Mary is seated on a rich throne within the _Mandorla_, which is borne upwards by four angels, while two are playing on musical instruments. Immediately below the Virgin, on the right, is the figure of St. Thomas, with hands outstretched, receiving the mystic girdle: below is the entombment; Mary lies extended on a pall above a sarcophagus. In the centre stands Christ, holding in his arms the emancipated soul; he is attended by eight angels. St. John is at the head of the Virgin, and near him an angel swings a censer; St. James bends and kisses her hand; St. Peter reads as usual; and the other apostles stand round, with Dionysius, Timothy, and Hierotheus, distinguished from the apostles by wearing turbans and caps. The whole most beautifully treated. I have been minutely exact in describing the details of this composition, because it will be useful as a key to many others of the early Tuscan school, both in sculpture and painting; for example, the fine bas-relief by Nanni over the south door of the Duomo at Florence, represents St. Thomas in the same manner kneeling outside the aureole and receiving the girdle; but the entombment below is omitted. These sculptures were executed at the time when the enthusiasm for the _Sacratissima Cintola della Madonna_ prevailed throughout the length and breadth of Tuscany, and Prato had become a place of pilgrimage. This story of the Girdle was one of the legends imported from the East. It had certainly a Greek origin;[1] and, according to the Greek formula, St. Thomas is to be figured apart in the clouds, on the right of the Virgin, and in the act of receiving the girdle. Such is the approved arrangement till the end of the fourteenth century; afterwards we find St. Thomas placed below among the other apostles. [Footnote 1: It may be found in the Greek Menologium, iii. p. 225] THE LEGEND OF THE HOLY GIRDLE. An account of the Assumption would be imperfect without some notice of the western legend, which relates the subsequent history of the Girdle, and its arrival in Italy, as represented in the frescoes of Agnolo Gaddi at Prato.[1] [Footnote 1: _Notizie istoriche intorno alla Sacratissima Cintola di Maria Vergine, che si conserva, nella Città di Prato, dal Dottore Giuseppe Bianchini di Prato_, 1795.] The chapel _della Sacratissima Cintola_ was erected from the designs of Giovanni Pisano about 1320. This "most sacred" relic had long been deposited under the high altar of the principal chapel, and held in great veneration; but in the year 1312, a native of Prato, whose name was Musciatino, conceived the idea of carrying it off, and selling it in Florence. The attempt was discovered; the unhappy thief suffered a cruel death; and the people of Prato resolved to provide for the future custody of the precious relic a new and inviolable shrine. The chapel is in the form of a parallelogram, three sides of which are painted, the other being separated from the choir by a bronze gate of most exquisite workmanship, designed by Ghiberti, or, as others say, by Brunelleschi, and executed partly by Simone Donatello. On the wall, to the left as we enter, is a series of subjects from the Life of the Virgin, beginning, as usual, with the Rejection of Joachim from the temple, and ending with the Nativity of our Saviour. The end of the chapel is filled up by the Assumption of the Virgin, the tomb being seen below, surrounded by the apostles; and above it the Virgin, as she floats into heaven, is in the act of loosening her girdle, which St. Thomas, devoutly kneeling, stretches out his arms to receive. Above this, a circular window exhibits, in stained glass, the Coronation of the Virgin, surrounded by a glory of angels. On the third wall to the right we have the subsequent History of the Girdle, in six compartments. St. Thomas, on the eve of his departure to fulfil his mission as apostle in the far East, intrusts the precious girdle to the care of one of his disciples, who receives it from his hands in an ecstasy of amazement and devotion. The deposit remains, for a thousand years, shrouded from the eyes of the profane; and the next scene shows us the manner in which it reached the city of Prato. A certain Michael of the Dogomari family in Prato, joined, with a party of his young townsmen, the crusade in 1096. But, instead of returning to his native country after the war was over, this same Michael took up the trade of a merchant, travelling from land to land in pursuit of gain, until he came to the city of Jerusalem, and lodged in the house of a Greek priest, to whom the custody of the sacred relic had descended from a long line of ancestry; and this priest, according to the custom of the oriental church, was married, and had "one fair daughter, and no more, the which he loved passing well," so well, that he had intrusted to her care the venerable girdle. Now it chanced that Michael, lodging in the same house, became enamoured of the maiden, and not being able to obtain the consent of her father to their marriage, he had recourse to the mother, who, moved by the tears and entreaties of the daughter, not only permitted their union, but bestowed on her the girdle as a dowry, and assisted the young lovers in their flight. In accordance with this story, we have, in the third compartment, the Marriage of Michael with the Eastern Maiden, and then the Voyage from the Holy Land to the Shores of Tuscany. On the deck of the vessel, and at the foot of the mast, is placed the casket containing the relic, to which the mariners attribute their prosperous voyage to the shores of Italy. Then Michael is seen disembarking at Pisa, and, with his casket reverently carried in his hands, he reenters the paternal mansion in the city of Prato. Then we have a scene of wonder. Michael is extended on his bed in profound sleep. An angel at his head, and another at his feet, are about to lift him up; for, says the story, Michael was so jealous of his treasure, that not only he kindled a lamp every night in its honour, but, fearing he should be robbed of it, he placed it under his bed, which action, though suggested by his profound sense of its value, offended his guardian angels, who every night lifted him from his bed and placed him on the bare earth, which nightly infliction this pious man endured rather than risk the loss of his invaluable relic. But after some years Michael fell sick and died. In the last compartment we have the scene of his death. The bishop Uberto kneels at his side, and receives from him the sacred girdle, with a solemn injunction to preserve it in the cathedral church of the city, and to present it from time to time for the veneration of the people, which injunction Uberto most piously fulfilled; and we see him carrying it, attended by priests bearing torches, in solemn procession to the chapel, in which it has ever since remained. Agnolo Gaddi was but a second-rate artist, even for his time, yet these frescoes, in spite of the feebleness and general inaccuracy of the drawing, are attractive from a certain _naïve_ grace; and the romantic and curious details of the legend have lent them so much of interest, that, as Lord Lindsay says, "when standing on the spot one really feels indisposed for criticism."[1] [Footnote 1: M. Rio is more poetical. "Comme j'entendais raconter cette légende pour la première fois, il me semblait que le tableau réfléchissait une partie de la poésie qu'elle renferme. Cet amour d'outre mer mêlé aux aventures chevaleresques d'une croisade, cette relique précieuse donnée pour dot à une pauvre fille, la dévotion des deux époux pour ce gage révéré de leur bonheur, leur départ clandestin, leur navigation prospère avec des dauphins qui leur font cortège à la surface des eaux, leur arrivée à Prato et les miracles répétés qui, joints à une maladie mortelle, arracèhrent enfin de la bouche du moribond une déclaration publique à la suite de laquelle la ceinture sacrée fut déposée dans la cathédrale, tout ce mélange de passion romanesque et de piété naïve, avait effacé pour moi les imperfections techniques qui au raient pu frapper une observateur de sang-froid."] The exact date of the frescoes executed by Agnolo Gaddi is not known, but, according to Vasari, he was called to Prato _after_ 1348. An inscription in the chapel refers them to the year 1390, a date too late to be relied on. The story of Michele di Prato I have never seen elsewhere; but just as the vicinity of Cologne, the shrine of the "Three Kings," had rendered the Adoration of the Magi one of the popular themes in early German and Flemish art; so the vicinity of Prato rendered the legend of St. Thomas a favourite theme of the Florentine school, and introduced it wherever the influence of that school had extended. The fine fresco by Mainardi, in the Baroncelli Chapel, is an instance; and I must cite one yet finer, that by Ghirlandajo in the choir of S. Maria-Novella: in this last-mentioned example, the Virgin stands erect in star-bespangled drapery and closely veiled. We now proceed to other examples of the treatment of the Assumption. 3. Taddeo Bartoli, 1413. He has represented the moment in which the soul is reunited to the body. Clothed in a starry robe she appears in the very act and attitude of one rising up from a reclining position, which is most beautifully expressed, as if she were partly lifted up upon the expanded many-coloured wings of a cluster of angels, and partly drawn up, as it were, by the attractive power of Christ, who, floating above her, takes her clasped hands in both his. The intense, yet tender ecstasy in _her_ face, the mild spiritual benignity in _his_, are quite indescribable, and fix the picture in the heart and the memory as one of the finest religious conceptions extant. (Siena, Palazzo Publico.) I imagine this action of Christ taking her hands in both his, must be founded on some ancient Greek model, for I have seen the same _motif_ in other pictures, German and Italian; but in none so tenderly or so happily expressed. 4. Domenico di Bartolo, 1430. A large altar-piece. Mary seated on a throne, within a glory of encircling cherubim of a glowing red, and about thirty more angels, some adoring, others playing on musical instruments, is borne upwards. Her hands are joined in prayer, her head veiled and crowned, and she wears a white robe, embroidered with golden flowers. Above, in the opening heaven, is the figure of Christ, young and beardless (_à l'antique_), with outstretched arms, surrounded by the spirits of the blessed. Below, of a diminutive size, as if seen from a distant height, is the tomb surrounded by the apostles, St. Thomas holding the girdle. This is one of the most remarkable and important pictures of the Siena school, out of Siena, with which I am acquainted. (Berlin Gal., 1122.) 5. Ghirlandajo, 1475. The Virgin stands in star-spangled drapery, with a long white veil, and hands joined, as she floats upwards. She is sustained by four seraphim. (Florence, S. Maria-Novella.) 6. Raphael, 1516. The Virgin is seated within the horns of a crescent moon, her hands joined. On each side an angel stands bearing a flaming torch; the empty tomb and the eleven apostles below. This composition is engraved after Raphael by an anonymous master (_Le Maitre au dé_). It is majestic and graceful, but peculiar for the time. The two angels, or rather genii, bearing torches on each side, impart to the whole something of the air of a heathen apotheosis. 7. Albert Durer. The apostles kneel or stand round the empty tomb; while Mary, soaring upwards, is received into heaven by her Son; an angel on each side. 8. Gaudenzio Ferrari, 1525. Mary, in a white robe spangled with stars, rises upward as if cleaving the air in an erect position, with her hands extended, but not raised, and a beautiful expression of mild rapture, as if uttering the words attributed to her, "My heart is ready;" many angels, some of whom bear tapers, around her. One angel presents the end of the girdle to St. Thomas; the other apostles and the empty tomb lower down. (Vercelli, S. Cristofore.) 9. Correggio. Cupola of the Duomo at Parma, 1530. This is, perhaps, one of the earliest instances of the Assumption applied as a grand piece of scenic decoration; at all events we have nothing in this luxuriant composition of the solemn simplicity of the older conception. In the highest part of the Cupola, where the strongest light falls, Christ, a violently foreshortened figure, precipitates himself downwards to meet the ascending Madonna, who, reclining amid clouds, and surrounded by an innumerable company of angels, extends her arms towards him. One glow of heavenly rapture is diffused over all; but the scene is vast, confused, almost tumultuous. Below, all round the dome, as if standing on a balcony, appear the apostles. 10. Titian, 1540 (about). In the Assumption at Venice, a picture of world-wide celebrity, and, in its way, of unequalled beauty, we have another signal departure from all the old traditions. The noble figure of the Virgin in a flood of golden light is borne, or rather impelled, upwards with such rapidity, that her veil and drapery are disturbed by the motion. Her feet are uncovered, a circumstance inadmissible in ancient art; and her drapery, instead of being white, is of the usual blue and crimson, her appropriate colours in life. Her attitude, with outspread arms--her face, not indeed a young or lovely face, but something far better, sublime and powerful in the expression of rapture--the divinely beautiful and childish, yet devout, unearthly little angels around her--the grand apostles below--and the splendour of colour over all--render this picture an enchantment at once to the senses and the imagination; to me the effect was like music. 11. Palma Vecchio, 1535. (Venice Acad.) The Virgin looks down, not upwards, as is usual, and is in the act of taking off her girdle to bestow it on St. Thomas, who, with ten other apostles, stands below. 12. Annibale Caracci, 1600. (Bologna Gal.) The Virgin amid a crowd of youthful angels, and sustained by clouds, is placed _across_ the picture with extended arms. Below is the tomb (of sculptured marble) and eleven apostles, one of whom, with an astonished air, lifts from the sepulchre a handful of roses. There is another picture wonderfully fine in the same style by Agostino Caracci. This fashion of varying the attitude of the Virgin was carried in the later schools to every excess of affectation. In a picture by Lanfranco. she cleaves the air like a swimmer, which is detestable. 13. Rubens painted at least twelve Assumptions with characteristic _verve_ and movement. Some of these, if not very solemn or poetical, convey very happily the idea of a renovated life. The largest and most splendid as a scenic composition is in the Musée at Brussels. More beautiful, and, indeed, quite unusually poetical for Rubens, is the small Assumption in the Queen's Gallery, a finished sketch for the larger picture. The majestic Virgin, arrayed in white and blue drapery, rises with outstretched arms, surrounded by a choir of angels; below, the apostles and the women either follow with upward gaze the soaring ecstatic figure, or look with surprise at the flowers which spring within the empty tomb. In another Assumption by Rubens, one of the women exhibits the miraculous flowers in her apron, or in a cloth, I forget which; but the whole conception, like too many of his religious subjects, borders on the vulgar and familiar. 14. Guido, as it is well known, excelled in this fine subject,--I mean, according to the taste and manner of his time and school. His ascending Madonnas have a sort of aërial elegance, which is very attractive; but they are too nymph-like. We must be careful to distinguish in his pictures (and all similar pictures painted after 1615) between the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception; it is a difference in sentiment which I have already pointed out. The small finished sketch by Guido in our National Gallery is an Assumption and Coronation together: the Madonna is received into heaven as _Regina Angelorum_. The fine large Assumption in the Munich Gallery may be regarded as the best example of Guido's manner of treating this theme. His picture in the Bridgewater Gallery, often styled an Assumption, is an Immaculate Conception. The same observations would apply to Poussin, with, however, more of majesty. His Virgins are usually seated or reclining, and in general we have a fine landscape beneath. * * * * * The Assumption, like the Annunciation, the Nativity, and other historical themes, may, through ideal accessories, assume a purely devotional form. It ceases then to be a fact or an event, and becomes a vision or a mystery, adored by votaries, to which attendant saints bear witness. Of this style of treatment there are many beautiful examples. 1. Early Florentine, about 1450. (Coll. of Fuller Maitland, Esq.) The Virgin, seated, elegantly draped in white, and with pale-blue ornaments in her hair, rises within a glory sustained by six angels; below is the tomb full of flowers and in front, kneeling, St. Francis and St. Jerome. 2. Ambrogio Borgognone--1506. (Milan, Brera.) She stands, floating upwards In a fine attitude: two angels crown her; others sustain her; others sound their trumpets. Below are the apostles and empty tomb; at each side, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine; behind them, St. Cosimo and St. Damian; the introduction of these saintly apothecaries stamps the picture as an ex-voto--perhaps against the plague. It is very fine, expressive, and curious. 3. F. Granacci. 1530.[1] The Virgin, ascending in glory, presents her girdle to St. Thomas, who kneels: on each, side, standing as witnesses. St. John the Baptist, as patron of Florence, St. Laurence, as patron of Lorenzo de' Medici, and the two apostles, St. Bartholomew and St. James. [Footnote 1: In the Casa Ruccellai (?) Engraved in the _Etruria Pittrice_.] 4. Andrea del Sarto, 1520. (Florence, Pitti Pal.) She is seated amid vapoury clouds, arrayed in white: on each side adoring angels: below, the tomb with the apostles, a fine solemn group: and hi front, St. Nicholas, and that interesting penitent saint, St. Margaret of Cortona. (Legends of the Monastic Orders.) The head of the Virgin is the likeness of Andrea's infamous wife; otherwise this is a magnificent picture. * * * * * The Coronation of the Virgin follows the Assumption. In some instances, this final consummation of her glorious destiny supersedes, or rather includes, her ascension into heaven. As I have already observed, it is necessary to distinguish this scenic Coronation from the mystical INCORONATA, properly so called, which is the triumph of the allegorical church, and altogether an allegorical and devotional theme; whereas, the scenic Coronation is the last event in a series of the Life of the Virgin. Here we have before us, not merely the court of heaven, its argent fields peopled with celestial spirits, and the sublime personification of the glorified Church exhibited as a vision, and quite apart from all real, all human associations; but we have rather the triumph of the human mother;--the lowly woman lifted into immortality. The earth and its sepulchre, the bearded apostles beneath, show us that, like her Son, she has ascended into glory by the dim portal of the grave, and entered into felicity by the path of pain. Her Son, next to whom she has taken her seat, has himself wiped the tears from her eyes, and set the resplendent crown upon her head; the Father blesses her; the Holy Spirit bears witness; cherubim and seraphim welcome her, and salute her as their queen. So Dante,-- "At their joy And carol smiles the Lovely One of heaven, That joy is in the eyes of all the blest." Thus, then, we must distinguish:-- 1. The Coronation of the Virgin is a strictly devotional subject where she is attended, not merely by angels and patriarchs, but by canonized saints and martyrs, by fathers and doctors of the Church, heads of religious orders in monkish dresses, patrons and votaries. 2. It is a dramatic and historical subject when it is the last scene in a series of the Life of the Virgin; when the death-bed, or the tomb, or the wondering apostles, and weeping women, are figured on the earth below. Of the former treatment, I have spoken at length. It is that most commonly met with in early pictures and altar-pieces. With regard to the historical treatment, it is more rare as a separate subject, but there are some celebrated examples both in church decoration and in pictures. 1. In the apsis of the Duomo at Spoleto, we have, below, the death of the Virgin in the usual manner, that is, the Byzantine conception treated in the Italian style, with Christ receiving her soul, and over it the Coronation. The Virgin kneels in a white robe, spangled with golden flowers; and Christ, who is here represented rather as the Father than the Son, crowns her as queen of heaven. 2. The composition by Albert Durer, which concludes his fine series of wood-cuts, the "Life, of the Virgin" is very grand and singular. On the earth is the empty tomb; near it the bier; around stand the twelve apostles, all looking up amazed. There is no allusion to the girdle, which, indeed, is seldom found in northern art. Above, the Virgin floating in the air, with the rainbow under her feet, is crowned by the Father and the Son, while over her head hovers the holy Dove. 3. In the Vatican is the Coronation attributed to Raphael. That he designed the cartoon, and began the altar-piece, for the nuns of Monte-Luce near Perugia, seems beyond all doubt; but it is equally certain that the picture as we see it was painted almost entirely by his pupils Giulo Romano and Gian Francesco Penni. Here we have the tomb below, filled with flowers; and around it the twelve apostles; John and his brother James, in front, looking up; behind John, St. Peter; more in the background, St. Thomas holds the girdle. Above is the throne set in heaven, whereon the Virgin, mild and beautiful, sits beside her divine Son, and with joined hands, and veiled head, and eyes meekly cast down, bends to receive the golden coronet he is about to place on her brow. The Dove is omitted, but eight seraphim, with rainbow-tinted wings, hover above her head. On the right, a most graceful angel strikes the tambourine; on the left, another, equally graceful, sounds the viol; and, amidst a flood of light, hosts of celestial and rejoicing spirits fill up the background. Thus, in highest heaven, yet not out of sight of earth, in beatitude past utterance, in blessed fruition of all that faith creates and love desires, amid angel hymns and starry glories, ends the pictured life of Mary, MOTHER OF OUR LORD. THE END. 
27194	----	[Note: for this online edition I have moved the Table of Contents to the beginning of the text.] THE ENJOYMENT OF ART BY CARLETON NOYES BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1903 COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY CARLETON NOYES ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published, March, 1903_ To ROBERT HENRI AND VAN D. PERRINE This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven, And I said to my spirit _When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then?_ And my spirit said _No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond._ WALT WHITMAN CONTENTS Preface I. The Picture and the Man i II. The Work of Art as Symbol 19 III. The Work of Art as Beautiful 41 IV. Art and Appreciation 67 V. The Artist 86 PREFACE The following pages are the answer to questions which a young man asked himself when, fresh from the university, he found himself adrift in the great galleries of Europe. As he stood helpless and confused in the presence of the visible expressions of the spirit of man in so many ages and so many lands, one question recurred insistently: _Why_ are these pictures? What is the meaning of all this striving after expression? What was the aim of these men who have left their record here? What was their moving impulse? Why, why does the human spirit seek to manifest itself in forms which we call beautiful? He turned to histories of art and to biographies of artists, but he found no answer! to the "Why?" The philosophers with their theories of aesthetics helped him little to understand the dignity and force of this portrait or the beauty of that landscape. In the conversation of his artist friends there was no enlightenment, for they talked about "values" and "planes of modeling" and the mysteries of "tone." At last he turned in upon himself: What does this canvas mean to me? And here he found his answer. This work of art is the revelation to me of a fuller beauty, a deeper harmony, than I have ever seen or felt. The artist is he who has experienced this new wonder in nature and who wants to communicate his joy, in concrete forms, to his fellow men. The purpose of this book is to set forth in simple, untechnical fashion the nature and the meaning of a work of art. Although the illustrations of the underlying principles are drawn mainly from pictures, yet the conclusions apply equally to books and to music. It is true that the manifestations of the art-impulse are innumerable, embracing not only painting, sculpture, literature, music, and architecture, but also the handiwork of the craftsman in the designing of a rug or in the fashioning of a cup or a candlestick; it is true that each art has its special province and function, and that each is peculiarly adapted to the expression of a certain order of emotion or idea, and that the distinctions between one art and another are not to be inconsiderately swept aside or obscured. Yet art is one. It is possible, without confusing the individual characteristics essential to each, to discuss these principles under the comprehensive rubric of Art. The attempt is made here to reduce the supposed mysteries of art discussion to the basis of practical, every-day intelligence and common sense. What the ordinary man who feels himself in any way attracted; towards art needs is not more and constantly more pictures to look at, not added lore about them, not further knowledge of the men and the times that have produced them; but rather what he needs is some understanding of what the artist has aimed to express, and, as reinforcing that understanding, the capacity rightly to appreciate and enjoy. It is hoped that in this book the artist may find expressed with simplicity and justice his own highest aims; and that the appreciator and the layman may gain some insight into the meaning of art expression, and that they may be helped a little on their way to the enjoyment of art. HARVARD COLLEGE, _December tenth, 1902._ I THE PICTURE AND THE MAN At any exhibition of paintings, more particularly at some public gallery or museum, one can hardly fail to reflect that an interest in pictures is unmistakably widespread. People are there in considerable numbers, and what is more striking, they seem to represent every station and walk in life. It is evident that pictures, as exhibited to the public, are not the cult of an initiated few; their appeal is manifestly to no one class; and this popular interest is as genuine as it is extended. Thus reflectively scanning the crowd, the observer asks himself: What has attracted these numbers to that which might be supposed not to be understood of the many? And what are the pictures that in general draw the popular attention? A few persons have of course drifted into the exhibition out of curiosity or from lack of something better to do. So much is evident at once, for these file past the walls listlessly, seldom stopping, and then but to glance at those pictures which are most obviously like the familiar object they pretend to represent,--such as the bowl of flowers which the beholder can almost smell, the theatre-checks and five-dollar note pasted on a wall which tempt him to finger them, or the panel of game birds which puzzles him to determine whether the birds are real or not. These visitors, however, are not the most numerous. With the great majority it is not enough that the picture be a clever piece of imitation or illusion: transferring their interest from the mere execution, they demand further that the subjects represented shall be pleasing. The crowd pause before a sunny landscape, with cows standing by the shaded pool; they gather about the brilliant portrait of a woman splendidly arrayed,--a favorite actress or a social celebrity; they linger before a group of children wading in a brook, or a dog crouching mournfully by an empty cradle. At length, with an approving and sympathetic word of comment, they pass on to the next pleasing picture. Some canvases, not the most popular ones, are yet not without their interest for a few; these visitors are taking things a little more seriously; they do not try to see every picture, they do not hurry; they seem to be considering the canvas immediately before them with concentrated attention. No one of all these people is insensible to the appeal of the picturesque: their presence at the exhibition is evidence of that. In life they like to see a bowl of flowers, a sunny landscape, a beautiful woman in beautiful surroundings; and naturally they are interested in that which represents and recalls the reality. At once it is plain, however, that to different individuals the various pictures appeal in different measure and for differing reasons. To one the very fact of representation is a mystery and fascination. To another the important thing is the subject; the picture must represent what he likes in nature or in life. To a third the subject itself is of less concern than what the painter wanted to say about it: the artist saw a beauty manifested by an ugly beggar, perhaps, and he wanted to show that beauty to his fellows, who could not perceive it for themselves. The special interest in pictures of each of these three men is not without its warrant in experience. What man is wholly indifferent to the display of human skill? Who is there without his store of pleasurable associations, who is not stirred by any call which rouses them into play? What lover of beauty is not ever awake to the revelation of new beauty? Indeed, upon these three principles together, though in varying proportion, depends the full significance of a great work of art. As the lover of pictures looks back over the period of his conscious interest in exhibitions and galleries, it is not improbable that his earliest memories attach themselves to those paintings which most closely resembled the object represented. He remembers the great wonder which he felt that a man with mere paint and canvas could so reproduce the reality of nature. So it is that those paintings which are perhaps the first to attract the man who feels an interest in pictures awakening are such as display most obviously the painter's skill. Whatever the subject imitated, the fascination remains; that such illusion is possible at all is the mystery and the delight. But as his interest in pictures grows with indulgence, as his experience widens, the beholder becomes gradually aware that he is making a larger demand. After the first shock of pleasurable surprise is worn away, he finds that the repeated exhibition of the painter's dexterity ceases to satisfy him; these clever pieces of deception manifest a wearying sameness, after all; and the beholder begins now to look for something more than mere expertness. Thinking on his experience, he concludes that the subjects which can be imitated deceptively are limited in range and interest; he has a vague, disquieting sense that somehow these pictures do not mean anything. Yet he is puzzled. Art aims to represent, he tells himself, and it should follow that the best art is that which represents most closely and exactly. He recalls, perhaps, the legend of the two Greek painters, one with his picture of the fruit which the birds flew down to peck at, the other with his painting of a veil which deceived his very rival. The imitative or "illusionist" picture pleads its case most plausibly. A further experience of such pictures, however, fails to bring the beholder beyond his simple admiration of the painter's skill; and that skill, he comes gradually to realize, does not differ essentially from the adroitness of the juggler who keeps a billiard ball, a chair, and a silk handkerchief rotating from hand to hand. Conscious, then, of a new demand, of an added interest to be satisfied, the amateur of pictures turns from the imitative canvas to those paintings which appeal more widely to his familiar experience. Justly, he does not here forgo altogether his delight in the painter's cunning of hand, only he requires further that the subjects represented shall be pleasing. It must be a subject whose meaning he can recognize at once: a handsome or a strong portrait, a familiar landscape, some little incident which tells its own story. The spectator is now attracted by those pictures which rouse a train of agreeable associations. He stops before a canvas representing a bit of rocky coast, with the ocean tumbling in exhilaratingly. He recognizes the subject and finds it pleasing; then he wonders where the picture was painted. Turning to his catalogue, he reads: "37. On the Coast of Maine." "Oh, yes," he says to himself, "I was on the coast of Maine last summer, and I remember what a glorious time I had sitting on the rocks of an afternoon, with some book or other which the ocean was too fine to let me read. I like that picture." If the title had read "Massachusetts Coast," it is to be feared he would not have liked the canvas quite so well. The next picture which he notices shows, perhaps, a stately woman sumptuously attired. It is with a slight shock of disappointment that the visitor finds recorded in his catalogue: "41. Portrait of a Lady." He could see that much for himself. He hoped it was going to be the painter's mother or somebody's wife,--a person he ought to know about. But the pictures which appeal to him most surely are those which tell some little story,--"The Lovers," "The Boy leaving Home," "The Wreck." Here the subject, touching some one of the big human emotions, to which no man is wholly insensible, calls out the response of immediate interest and sympathy. It is something which he can understand. At length there comes a day when the visitor stops before a landscape which seems to him more beautiful than anything he has ever seen in nature; or some portrait discloses a strength of character or radiates a charm of personality which he has seldom met with in life. Whence comes this beauty, this strength, this graciousness? Can it be that the painter has seen a new wonder in nature, a new significance in human life? The spectator's previous experience of pictures has familiarized him in some measure with the means of expression which the painter employs. More sensitive now to the appeal of color and form, he sees that what the artist cares to present on his canvas is just his peculiar sense of the beauty in the world, a beauty that is best symbolized and made manifest through the medium of color and form. Before he understood this eloquent language which the painter speaks, he misinterpreted those pictures whose significance he mistook to be literary and not pictorial. He early liked the narrative picture because here was a subject he could understand; he could rephrase it in his own terms, he could retell the story to himself in words. Now words are the means of expression of every-day life. Because of this fact, the art which employs words as its medium is the art which comes nearest to being universally understood, namely, literature. The other arts use each a medium which it requires a special training to understand. Without some sense of the expressiveness of color, line, form, and sounds,--a sense which can be cultivated,--one is necessarily unable to grasp the full and true meaning of picture, statue, or musical composition. One must realize further that the artist thinks and feels in his peculiar medium; his special meaning is conceived and expressed in color or form or sound. The task of the appreciator, correspondingly, is to receive the artist's message in the same terms in which it was conceived. The tendency is inevitable, however, to translate the meaning of the work into words, the terms in which men commonly phrase their experience. A parallel tendency is manifest in one's efforts to learn a foreign language. The English student of French at first thinks in English and laboriously translates phrase for phrase into French; and in hearing or reading the foreign language, he translates the original, word for word, into his native tongue before he can understand its sense: he has mastered the language only when he has reached that point where English is no longer present to his consciousness: he thinks in French and understands in French. Similarly, to translate the message of any art into terms that are foreign to it, to phrase the meaning of music or painting, for example, in words, is to fail of its essential, true significance. The import of music is musical; the meaning of pictures is not literary but pictorial. In the understanding of this truth, then, the spectator penetrates to the artist's real intention; and he becomes aware that when he used the picture as the peg whereon to hang his own reflections and ideas, he missed the meaning of the artist's work. "As I look at this canvas," he tells himself, "it is not what I know of the coast of Maine that is of concern, but what the painter has seen and felt of its beauty and wants to reveal to me." Able at last to interpret the painter's medium, the appreciator comes to seek in pictures not primarily an exhibition of the craftsman's skill, not even a recall of his own pleasurable experiences, but rather, beyond all this, a fuller visible revelation of beauty. The essential significance of art, that art is revelation, is illustrated not only by painting but by the other arts as well. In music, to take but a single example, are present the same elements that constitute the appeal of pictures,--skill in the rendering, a certain correspondence with experience, and the power of imaginative interpretation of the facts of life. The music-hall performer who wins the loudest and heartiest applause is he who does the greatest number of pyrotechnic, wonderful things on the piano, or holds a high note on the cornet for the longest time. His success, as with the painter whose aim is to create illusion, rests upon men's instinctive admiration for the exhibition of skill. Again, as the imitative picture involves not only the display of dexterity, but also likeness to the thing represented and the consequent possibility of recognizing it immediately, so in the domain of music there is an order of composition which seems to aim at imitation,--the so-called "descriptive" music. A popular audience is delighted with the "Cats' Serenade," executed on the violins with overwhelming likeness to the reality, or with, the "Day in the Country," in which the sun rises in the high notes, cocks crow, horses rattle down the road, merrymakers frolic on the green, clouds come up in the horns, lightning plays in the violins, thunder crashes in the drums and cymbals, the merrymakers scatter in the whole orchestra, the storm passes diminuendo, and in the muted violins the full moon rises serenely into a twilight sky. Here the intention is easily understood; the layman cannot fail to recognize what the composer wanted to say. And as in the case of pictures which interest the beholder because he can translate their subject into the terms which are his own medium of expression, that is, words, so with descriptive music, broadly speaking, the interest and significance is literary and not musical. Still another parallel is presented. Just as those pictures are popular whose subjects lie within the range of familiar experience, such as cows by the shaded pool, or children playing, or whose subjects touch the feelings; so, that music is popular which is phrased in obvious and familiar rhythms such as the march and the waltz, or which appeals readily and unmistakably to sentiment and emotion. It is after the lover of music has traversed these passages of musical expression and has proved their imitations that he comes to seek in music new ranges of experience, unguessed-at possibilities of feeling, which the composer has himself sounded and which he would communicate to others. He is truly the artist only as he leads his auditors into regions of beautiful living which they alone and of themselves had not penetrated. For it is then that his work reveals. Only such pictures, too, will have a vital meaning as reveal. The imitative and the iterative alike, that which adds nothing to the object and that which adds nothing to the experience of the beholder, though once pleasing, now fail to satisfy. The appreciator calls for something fuller. He wants to pass beyond the object, beyond his experience of it, into the realm of illumination whither the true artist would lead him. The development of appreciation, as the amateur has come to realize in his own person, is only the enlargement of demand. The appreciator requires ever fresh revelations of beauty. He discovers, too, that in practice the tendency of his development is in the direction of exclusion. As he goes on, he cares for fewer and fewer things, because those works which can minister to his ever-expanding desire of beauty must needs be less numerous. But these make up in largeness of utterance, in the intensity of their message, what they lack in numbers. Nor does this outcome make against a fancied catholicity of taste. The true appreciator still sees in his earlier loves something that is good, and he values the good the more justly that he sees it now in its right relation and apprehends its real significance. As each in its turn led him to seek further, each became an instrument in his development. For himself he has need of them no longer. But far from contemning them, he is rightly grateful for the solace they have afforded, as by them he has made his way up into the fuller meaning of art. II THE WORK OF ART AS SYMBOL In the experience of the man who feels himself attracted to pictures and who studies them intelligently and with sympathy, there comes a day when suddenly a canvas reveals to him a new beauty in nature or in life. Much seeing and much thinking, much bewilderment and some disappointment, have taught him that in the appreciation of pictures the question at issue is not, how cleverly has the painter imitated his object, is not, how suggestive is the subject of pleasing associations; he need simply ask himself, "What has the artist conceived or felt in the presence of this landscape, this arrangement of line and color, this human face, that I have not seen and felt, and that he wants to communicate to me?" The incident of the single canvas, which by its illuminating revealment first discloses to the observer the true significance of pictures, is typical of the whole scope of art. The mission of art is to reveal. It is the prophet's message to his fellow men, the apocalypse of the seer. The artist is he to whom is vouchsafed a special apprehension of beauty. He has the eye to see, the temperament to feel, the imagination to interpret; it is by virtue of these capacities, this high, transfiguring vision, that he is an artist; and his skill of hand, his equipment with the means of expression, is incidental to the great fact that he has somewhat to express that the common man has not. To his work, the manifestation of his spirit in material form, his perception made sensible, is accorded the name of art. Art is expression. It is not a display of skill; it is not the reproduction of external forms or appearances; it does not even, as some say, exist for itself: it is a message, a means. To cry "Art for Art's sake!" is to converse with the echo. Such a definition but moves in a circle, and doubles upon itself. No; art is for the artist's sake. The artist is the agent or human instrument whereby the supreme harmony, which is beauty, is manifested to men. Art is the medium by which the artist communicates himself to his fellows; and the individual work is the expression of what the artist felt or thought, as at the moment some new aspect of the universal harmony was revealed to his apprehension. Art is emotion objectified, but the object is subordinated to the emotion as means is to an end. The material result is not the final significance, but what of spiritual meaning or beauty the artist desired to convey. Not what is painted, as the layman thinks, not how it is painted, as the technician considers, but why did the artist paint it, is the question which sums up the truth about art. The appreciator need simply ask, What is the beauty, what the idea, which the artist is striving to reveal by these symbols of color and form? He understands that the import of the work is the _idea,_ and that the work itself is beautiful because it symbolizes a beautiful idea; its significance is spiritual. The function of art, then, is through the medium of concrete, material symbols to reveal to men whatever of beauty has been disclosed to the artist's more penetrating vision. In order to seize the real meaning of art it is necessary to strip the word beauty of all the wrappings of customary associations and the accretions of tradition and habit. As the word is current in ordinary parlance, the attribute of beauty is ascribed to that which is pleasing, pretty, graceful, comely; in fine, to that which is purely agreeable. But surely such is not the beauty which Rembrandt saw in the filthy, loathsome beggar. To Rembrandt the beggar was expressive of some force or manifestation of the supreme universal life, wherein all things work together to a perfect harmony. Beauty is the essential quality belonging to energy, character, significance. A merely agreeable object is not beautiful unless it is expressive of a meaning; whatever, on the other hand, is expressive of a meaning, however shocking it may be in itself, however much it may fail to conform to conventional standards, is beautiful. Beauty does not reside in the object. No; it is the artist's sense of the great meaning of things; and in proportion as he finds that meaning--the qualities of energy, force, aspiration, life--manifest and expressed in objects do those objects become beautiful. Such was the conception of beauty Keats had when he wrote in a letter: "What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be Truth--whether it existed before or not,--for I have the same idea of all our passions as of Love: they are all, in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty." And similarly; "I can never feel certain of any truth, but from a clear perception of its Beauty." It his verse he sings:-- "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." When it is said here, then, that the artist sees beauty in nature, the phrase may be understood as a convenient but inexact formula, as when one says the sun rises or the sun sets. Beauty is in the landscape only in the sense that these material forms express for the artist an idea he has conceived of some aspect of the universal life. The artist is impelled to embody concretely his perception of beauty, and so to communicate his emotion, because the emotion wakened by the perception of new harmony in things is most fully possessed and enjoyed as it comes to expression. Thus to make real his ideal and find the expression of himself is the artist's supreme Happiness. A familiar illustration of the twin need and delight of expression may be found in the handiwork produced in the old days when every artisan was an artist. It may be, perhaps, a key which some craftsman of Nuremberg fashioned. In the making of it he was not content to stop with the key which would unlock the door or the chest It was his key, the work of his hands; and he wrought upon it lovingly, devotedly, and made it beautiful, finding in his work the expression of his thought or feeling; it was the realization for that moment of his ideal. His sense of pleasure in the making of it prompted the care he bestowed upon it; his delight was in creation, in rendering actual a new beau which it was given him to conceive. In its origin as a work of art the key does not differ from a landscape by Inness, an "arrangement" by Whistler, a portrait by Sargent. The artist, whether craftsman or painter, is deeply stirred by some passage in his experience, a fair object or a true thought: it is the imperious demand of his nature, as it is his supreme pleasure, to give his feeling expression. The form which his expression takes--it may be key or carpet, it may be statue, picture, poem, symphony, or cathedral--is that which most closely responds to his idea, the form which most truly manifests and represents it. All art, as the expression of the artist's idea, is in a certain definite sense representative. Not that all art reproduces an external reality, as it is said that painting or literature represents and music does not; but every work of art, in painting, poetry, music, or in the handiwork of the craftsman, _represents_ in that it is the symbol of the creator's ideal. To be sure, the painter or sculptor or dramatist draws his symbols from already existing material forms, and these symbols are like objects in a sense in which music is not But line and color and the life of man, apart from this resemblance to external reality, are representative or symbolic of the artist's idea precisely as the craftsman's key, the designer's pattern, or the musician's symphony. The beautifully wrought key, the geometric pattern of oriental rug or hanging, the embroidered foliation on priestly vestment, are works of art equally with the landscape, the statue, the drama, or the symphony, in that they are one and all the sensuous manifestation of some new beauty spiritually conceived. The symbolic character of a work of art must not be lost from sight, for it is the clue to the interpretation of pictures, as it is of all art. The painter feels his way through the gamut of his palette to a harmony of color just as truly as the musician summons the notes of his scale and marshals them into accord. The painter is moved by some sweep of landscape; it wakens in him an emotion. When he sets himself to express his emotion in the special medium with which he works, he represents by pigment the external aspect of the landscape, yes; but not in order to imitate it or reproduce it: he represents the landscape because the colors and the forms which he registers upon the canvas express for him the emotions roused by those colors and those forms in nature. He does not try to match his grays with nature's grays, but this nuance which he gropes for on his palette, and having found it, touches upon his canvas, expresses for him what that particular gray in nature made him feel. His one compelling purpose is in all fidelity and singleness of aim to "translate the impression received." The painter's medium is just as symbolic as the notes of the musician's nocturne or the words of the poet's sonnet, equally inspired by the hour and place. Color and line and form, although they happen to be the properties of _things,_ have a value for the emotions as truly as musical sounds: they are the outward symbol of the inward thought or feeling, the visible bodying forth of the immaterial idea. The symbolic character of the material world is not early apprehended. In superficial reaction upon life, men do not readily pass beyond the immediate actuality. That the spiritual meaning of all things is not perceived, that all things are not seen to be beautiful, or expressive of the supreme harmony, is due to men's limited powers of sight and feeling. Therefore is it that the artist is given in order that he may reveal as yet unrealized spiritual relations, or new beauty. The workaday world with its burden of exigent "realities" has need of a Carlyle to declare that things are but a wonderful metaphor and the physical universe is the garment of the living God. In the realm of thought an Emerson, seer of transcendent vision, must come to restore his fellows to their birthright, which is the life of the spirit. As in life, so in art men do not easily pass the obvious and immediate. The child reads "Gulliver's Travels" or "The Pilgrim's Progress" for the story. As his experience of life both widens and deepens, he is able to see through externals, and he penetrates to the real significance, of which the narrative is but the symbol. So it is with an insight born of experience that the lover of art sees no longer the "subject," but the beauty which the subject is meant to symbolize. In the universal, all-embracing constitution of things, nothing is without its significance. To be aware that everything has a meaning is necessary to the understanding of art, as indeed of life itself. That meaning, which things symbolize and express, it cannot be said too often, is not necessarily to be phrased in words. It is a meaning for the spirit. A straight line affects one differently from a curve; that is, each kind of line means something. Every line in the face utters the character behind it; every movement of the body is eloquent of the man's whole being. "The expression of the face balks account," says Walt Whitman, "But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face, It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists, It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him, The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth, To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more, You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side." Crimson rouses a feeling different from that roused by yellow, and gray wakens a mood different from either. In considering this symbolic character of colors it is necessary to distinguish between their value for the emotions and merely literary associations. That white stands for purity or blue for fidelity is a conventionalized and attached conception. But the pleasure which a man has in some colors or his dislike for others depends upon the effect each color has upon his emotions, and this effect determines for him the symbolic value of the color. In the same way sounds are symbolic in that they affect the emotions apart from associated "thoughts." Even with a person who has no technical knowledge of music, the effect of the minor key is unmistakably different from the major. The tones and modulations of the voice, quite apart from the words uttered, have an emotional value and significance. Everything, line, form, gesture, movement, color, sound, all the material world, is expressive. All objective forms have their meaning, and rightly perceived are, in the sense in which the word is used here, beautiful, in that they represent or symbolize a spiritual idea. Thus it is that beauty is not in the object but in man's sense of the object's symbolic expressiveness. The amateur may be rapt by some artist's "quality of color." But it is probable that in the act of laying on his pigment, the artist was not thinking of his "quality" at all, but, rapt himself by the perception of the supreme harmony at that moment newly revealed to his sense, he was striving sincerely and directly to give his feeling its faithfullest expression. His color is beautiful because his idea was beautiful. The expression is of the very essence of the thought; it _is_ the thought, but the thought embodied. "Coleridge," says Carlyle, "remarks very pertinently somewhere that whenever you find a sentence musically worded, of true rhythm and melody in the words, there is something deep and good in the meaning, too. For body and soul, word and idea, go strangely together here as everywhere." Not to look beyond the material is to miss the meaning of the work. In an art such as music, in which form and content are one and inextricable, it is not difficult to understand that the medium of expression which the art employs is necessarily symbolic, for here the form cannot exist apart from the meaning to be conveyed. In the art of literature, however, the case is not so clear, for the material with which the poet, the novelist, the dramatist works, material made up of the facts of the world about us, we are accustomed to regard as objective realities. An incident is an incident, the inevitable issue of precedent circumstances, and that's all there is to it Character is the result of heredity, environment, training, plus the inexplicable _Ego._ To regard these facts of life which are so actual and immediate as a kind of animate algebraic formulae seems absurd, but absurd only as one is unable to penetrate to the inner meaning of things. "Madame Bovary," to take an example quite at random, is called a triumph of realism. Now realism, of all literary methods, should register the fact as it is, and least of all should concern itself with symbols. But this great novel is more than the record of one woman's life. Any one who has come to understand the character and temperament of Flaubert as revealed in his Letters must feel that "Madame Bovary" is no arbitrary recital of tragic incident, but those people who move through his pages, what they do and what goes on about them, expressed for Flaubert his own dreary, baffled rebellion against life. That the artist may consciously employ the facts of life, not for the sake of the fact, but to communicate his feeling by thus bodying it forth in concrete symbols, there is explicit testimony. In an essay dealing with his own method of composition, Poe writes: "I prefer commencing with the consideration of an _effect._ Keeping originality _always_ in view . . . I say to myself, in the first place, 'of the innumerable effects or impressions of which the heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select?' Having chosen a novel first, and secondly, a vivid effect, I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or tone . . . afterwards looking about me (or rather within) for such combinations of event or tone as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect." Yes, physical circumstances, the succession of incident, shifting momentary grouping of persons, traits of character in varied combination and contrast,--all these are significant for the literary artist of spiritual relations. As the symbol of what the artist feels and strives to express, the individual work of art is necessarily more than any mere transcript of fact. It is the meeting and mingling of nature and the spirit of man; the result of their union is fraught with the inheritance of the past and holds within it the limitless promise of the future. The work of art is a focus, gathering into itself all the stored experience of the artist, and radiating in turn so much to the beholder as he is able at the moment to receive. A painter is starting out to sketch. Through underbrush and across the open he pushes his way, beset by beauty on every side, and storing impressions, sensations, thoughts. At last his eye lights upon some clump of brush, some meadow or hill, which seems at the instant to sum up and express his accumulated experience. In rendering this bit of nature, he pours out upon his canvas his store of feeling. It is the single case which typifies his entire course. "The man's whole life preludes the single deed." His way through the world has been just such a gathering up of experience, and each new work which he produces is charged with the collected wealth of years. The special work is the momentary epitome of the artist's total meaning. He finds this brief passage in nature beautiful then and there because it expresses what he feels and means. He does not try to reproduce the thing, but uses the thing for what it signifies. The thing is but for that moment: it signifies all that has gone before. As he watches, a cloud passes over the sun and the face of nature is darkened. Suddenly the scene bursts into light again. In itself the landscape is no brighter than before the sun was darkened. The painter feels it brighter for the contrast, and inevitably his rendering of its aspect is heightened and intensified. Art is nature heightened and intensified as nature is interpreted through the transfiguring medium of the human spirit To the object is added "The gleam, The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration and the poet's dream." After an early morning in the fields, Corot withdraws to his house to rest. "I dream of the morning landscape," he writes; "I dream my picture, and presently I will paint my dream." But not only does the artist render the beauty which this landscape happens to express for him: he charges these colors and forms with the beauty of all landscape. Corot painted _at_ Ville d'Avray; _what_ he painted was God's twilight or dawn enwrapping tree and pool. In gratitude and worship he revealed to men the tender, ineffable poetry of gray dawns in all places and for all time. Millet's peasants were called John and Peter and Charles, and they tilled the soil of France; but on their bowed shoulders rests the universal burden; these dumb figures are eloquent of the uncomplaining, hopeless "peasanthood" of the world. In the actual to discern the ideal, in the appearance to penetrate to the reality, without taking leave of the material to reveal the spiritual,--this is the mystery and vocation of the artist, and his achievement is art. III THE WORK OF ART AS BEAUTIFUL Just as nature and life are significant as the material manifestation of spiritual forces and relations, so a work of art is in its turn the symbol by which the artist communicates himself; it is his revelation to men of the beauty he has perceived and felt. Beauty is not easy to define. That conception which regards beauty as the power to awaken merely agreeable emotions is limited and in so far false. Another source of misunderstanding is the confusion of beauty with moralistic values. It is said that beauty is the Ideal; and by many the "Ideal" is taken to mean ideal goodness. With righteousness and sin as such beauty has no concern. Much that is evil in life, much that offends against the moral law, must be regarded as beautiful in so far as it plays its necessary part in the universal whole. Clearing away these misconceptions, then, an approximate definition would be that the essence of beauty is harmony. So soon as a detail is shown in its relation to a whole, then it becomes beautiful because it is expressive of the supreme unity. A discord in music is felt to be a discord only as it is isolated; when it takes its fitting and inevitable place in the large unity of the symphony, it becomes full of meaning. The hippopotamus, dozing in his tank at the Zoo, is wildly grotesque and ugly. But who shall say that, seen in the fastnesses of his native rivers, he is not the beautiful perfect fulfilling of nature's harmony? To a race of blacks, the fair-skinned Apollo appearing among them could not but be monstrous. The smoking factory, sordid and hideous, is beautiful to him who sees that it accomplishes a necessary function in the great scheme of life. Beauty is adaptation. Whatever is truly useful is in so far truly beautiful. The steam engine and the battleship are beautiful just as truly as Titian's Madonna, glorified and sweeping upward into the presence of God the Father. Only what is vital and serviceable, and whatever is that, is beautiful. When the spirit of man perceives a unity in things, a working together of parts, there beauty exists. It resides in the synthesis of details to the end of shaping a complete whole. This perception, this synthesis, is a function of the human mind. Beauty is not in the landscape, but in the intelligence which apprehends it. Evidence of this fundamental truth is the fact that the same landscape is more "beautiful" to one man than to another, or to a third, perhaps, is not beautiful at all. It is only as the individual perceives a relation among the parts resulting in a total unity that the object becomes beautiful for him. This abstract exposition may be made clearer by a graphic illustration. Here are four figures composed of the same elements:-- * *** ** * *** * ***** * ****** * ** * * * * * ************* * * * * * ** Fig. I. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Fig. II. Fig. III. Fig. IV. Figure I., far from being pleasing, is positively disquieting. With the other three figures, the perception of their form is attended with a kind of pleasure. Whereas the first figure is without form and is meaningless, each of the second group exhibits harmony, balance, proportion, interrelation of parts: each is perceived to be a whole. Although experience itself comes to men in fragments and seemingly without order, yet the human mind is so constituted as to require that an idea or a truth be shown to be a whole before the mind can comprehend it In considering the element of balance, it should be noted, as illustrated by Figure IV., that balance is not necessarily perfect symmetry. A Gothic cathedral is beautiful no less than a Greek temple. In a painting of a landscape, for example, it is necessary simply that the masses and the tones stand in balancing relation; the perfect symmetry of geometric exactness, characteristic of Hellenic and Renaissance art, is not required. In the work which embodies the artist's perception of the universal harmony, there must be rhythm, order, unity in variety; so framed it becomes expressive and significant As the symbol of beauty, the work of art is itself beautiful in that it manifests in itself that wholeness and integrity which is beauty. Every work of art is informed by a controlling design; it subordinates manifold details to a definite whole; it reduces and adjusts its parts to an all-inclusive, perceptible unity. The Nuremberg key must have some sort of rhythm; the rug or vestment must exhibit a pattern which can be seen to be a whole; the canvas must show balance in the composition, and the color must be "in tone." In any work of art there must be design and purpose. In nature there is much which to the limited perception of men does not appear to be beautiful, for there is much that does not manifest superficially the necessary harmony. The landscape at noonday under the blaze of the relentless sun discloses many things which are seemingly incongruous with one another. The dull vision of men cannot penetrate to the unity underlying it all. At twilight, as the shadows of evening wrap it round, the same landscape is invested with mysterious beauty. Conflicting details are lost, harsh outlines are softened and merged, discordant colors are mellowed and attuned. Nature has brought her field and hill and clustered dwellings into "tone." So the artist, who has perceived a harmony where the common eye saw it not, selects; he suppresses here, strengthens there, fuses, and brings all into unity. Harmony wherever perceived is beauty. Beauty made manifest by the agency of the human spirit is art. Art, in order to reveal this harmony to men, must work through selection, through rejection and emphasis, through interpretation. It is not difficult to understand, then, that the exact reproduction of the facts of the external world is not in a true sense art. The photograph, which is the most exact method of reproducing outward aspect, is denied the title of a work of art; that is, the photograph direct, which has not been retouched. To be sure, the photograph is the product of a mechanical process, and is not, except incidentally, the result of human skill. Another kind of reproduction of outward aspect, however, virtually exact, which does show the evidence of human skill, is yet not entitled to rank as art,--the imitative or deceptive picture. Photograph and picture are ruled out equally on the one count. Neither selects. In an exhibition of paintings were once displayed two panels precisely similar in appearance, presenting an army coat and cap, a sabre and a canteen. At a distance there was no point of difference in the two. A nearer view disclosed the fact that on one panel the objects were real and that the other panel was painted. The beholder was pleased by the exhibition of the painter's skill; but in so far as the work did not reveal a significance or beauty in these objects which the artist had seen and the beholder had not, it fell short of being a work of art Just as the key of the Nuremberg craftsman was a work of art in that it was for him the expression, the rendering actual, of a new beauty it was given him to conceive, so only that is art which makes manifest a beauty that is new, a beauty that is truly born of the artist's own spirit. The repetition of existing forms with no modification by the individual workman is not creation, but imitation; and imitation is manufacture, not art. Inasmuch as the two panels could not be distinguished, the presentment signified no more than the reality. Tried as a work of art, the imitative picture, in common with the photograph, lacks the necessary element of interpretation, of revelation. That the representation may become art, there must be added to it some new attribute or quality born of the artist's spirit. The work must take on new meaning. As lending his work significance of an obvious sort, a significance not necessarily "pictorial," the painter might see in the objects some story they have to tell. The plaster of the garret wall where they are hanging he may show to be cracked; that tear in the coat speaks of faithful service, but the coat hangs limp and dusty now; the inscription on the canteen is almost obliterated, and the strap is broken; the sabre, which shows the marks of stern usage along its blade, is spotted with rust: the whole composition means Trusty Servants in Neglect. By the emphasis of certain aspects he picture is made to signify more than he mere objects themselves, wherein there was nothing salient. The meaning is imposed upon them or drawn out of them by he artist. Or again, the painter may see in these things the expression for him of a harmony which he can manifest by the arrangement of line and color, and he so disposes his material as to make that harmony visible. It is, then, not the crude fact which the artist transcribes, but rather some feeling he has toward the fact. By selection, by adjustment, he gives this special aspect of the fact emphasis and relief. In virtue of his interpretation the picture acquires a significance that is new; it gives the beholder a pleasure which the fact itself did not give, and thus it passes over into the domain of art. The purpose of art is not the reproduction of a beautiful object, but the expression in objective form of a beautiful idea. A plaster cast of a hand, however comely the hand may be, is not a work of art. As with the photograph, the work involves only incidentally the exercise of human skill. But that is not all. In order to render the work in the spirit of art, the sculptor must model, not the hand, but his sense of the hand; he must draw out and express its character, its significance. To him it is not a certain form in bone and flesh; to him it means grace, delicacy, sensitiveness, or perhaps resolution, strength, force. As the material symbol of his idea of the hand, he will select and make salient such lines and contours as are expressive to him of that character. Indeed, so little depends upon the exact subject represented and so much upon the artist's feeling toward it, so much depends upon the spirit of the rendering, that the representation of a subject uninteresting or even "ugly" in itself may be beautiful. In the art of literature, the _subject_ is drawn from the life of man. The material of the poem, the novel, the drama, is furnished by man's total experience, the sum of his sensations, impressions, emotions, and the events in which he is concerned. But experience crowds in upon him at every point, without order and without relation; the daily round of living is for most men a humdrum thing. Yet it is just this rudimentary and undistinguished mass of experience which is transmuted into literature; by the alchemy of art the representation of that which is without interest becomes interesting. And it happens on this wise. Life is humdrum only in so far as it is meaningless; men can endure any amount drudgery and monotony provided that it lead somewhere, that they perceive its relation to a larger unity which is the total of life. As part of a whole which can be apprehended, immediately it acquires purpose and becomes significant. It is the sense of meaning in life which gives color and warmth to the march of uniform days. So the literary artist shapes his inchoate material to a definite end; out of the limitless complex details at his command, he selects such passages of background, such incidents, and such traits of character as make for the setting forth of the idea he has conceived. Clearly the artist cannot use everything, clearly he does not aim to reproduce the fact: there are abridgments and suppressions, as there are accent and emphasis. The finished work is a composite, embodying what is essential of many, many preliminary studies and sketches, wrought and compiled with generous industry. The master is recognized in what he omits; what is suppressed is felt but not perceived: the great artist, in the result, steps from peak to peak. "The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out: At one stride comes the Dark." Thus with three strokes the master Coleridge depicts the onrush of the night over boundless spaces of sky and sea. Within the compass of a few lines, Tennyson registers the interminable, empty monotony of weary years: "No sail from day to day, but every day The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts Among the palms and ferns and precipices; The blaze upon the waters to the east; The blaze upon his island overhead; The blaze upon the waters to the west; Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven, The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again The scarlet shafts of sunrise--but no sail." Thus through selection does the artist work to interpretation. By detaching the eternal meaning from the momentary fact, by embodying his sense of its significance in such concrete forms as symbolize his idea, by investing the single instance with universally typical import, then in very truth he represents. Nature is not the subject of art; she is the universal treasury from whose infinitely various store the artist selects his symbols. A special method in art may here suggest itself as having for its purpose to reproduce the fact in perfect fidelity; the method is called _realism._ But a moment's considerate analysis shows that realism is only a label for one manner of handling, and in the end comes no nearer the object as it "really" is. In its essence realism is the artist's personal vision of the fact, exactly as idealism or romanticism or impressionism is personal. For after all, what is the reality? A chance newsboy is offering his papers on a crowded street corner. The fine lady recoils from his filth and from all contact with him; the philanthropist sees in him a human being to help and to redeem; the philosopher regards him dispassionately as a "social factor," the result of heredity and environment; the artist cries out in joy as his eye lights upon good stuff to paint. But all the while, which of these conceptions figures the "real" newsboy? Not one. For he is all these together; and the single observer, whatever his bias, cannot apprehend him at every point. Any attempt to represent him involves selection and interpretation, the suppression of some traits in order to emphasize others, which are the special aspects that have impressed the given observer. So there is no essential realism. The term applies to the method of those who choose to render what is less comforting in life, who insist on those characteristics of things which men call ugly. In realism, just as truly as in any other kind of treatment, is expressed the personality of the artist, his own peculiar way of envisaging the world. A work of art is born of the artist's desire to express his joy in some new aspect of the universal harmony which has been disclosed to him. The mission of art is through interpretation to reveal. It happens sometimes that a visitor at an exhibition of paintings is shocked by a picture which seems to him for the moment impossible, because so far beyond the range of his experience; yet withal he finds himself attracted by it and he returns to study it. It is not many days before his glance is arrested by that very effect in nature, and he says, "Why, that is like that picture!" It was the artist who first saw it and who taught him to see it for himself. When one observes an effect in nature or in life that one calls "a Corot" or "a Whistler," one means that to Corot or to Whistler is due the glory of discovering that fuller beauty and revealing it. Browning makes Fra Lippo Lippi say: "We're made so that we love First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; And so they are better, painted--better to us, Which is the same thing. Art was given for that." This revealing power of art is not restricted to the individual appreciator. It is said that the French are an artistic people and that Americans are not. The explanation is that for generations the artists of France have been discovering to their countrymen the beauty that is around them at their very door, and have taught them to appreciate it. The Americans will be an artistic people when our artists shall have done the like for us. When there shall have been for generations a truly native American art, there will be a public to understand and to appreciate. So it is that everywhere the high function of art is to reveal. As a friend, more sensitive and more enthusiastic, with whom we are strolling, points out to us many beauties by the wayside or in trees and sky, so the artist takes us by the hand and leads us out into life, indicating for us a harmony to which we were blind before. Burdened with affairs and the daily round, we had not thought to look off and out to the spreading meadows tossing into hills which roll upward into the blue heaven beyond. The beauty thus revealed is a beauty which the artist has apprehended in spirit and which he would make actual. A work of art is the expression of an aspiration. The crude and tawdry images of the Madonna Set in the roadside cross are just as truly a work of art as the rapt saints of Giotto or the perfect Madonnas of Raphael in so far as they are expressive of what those poor, devout souls who fashioned them felt of worship and of love. After all, the difference is that Giotto felt more than they, Raphael was endowed with more accomplished powers of expression. The work receives its import as it is the faithful utterance of him who shaped it, as it is genuinely the realization of his ideal. "The gift without the giver is bare." But it is no less true that the gift without the receiver is sterile and void, for art involves not only its creator's intention but also its message to him whom the work reaches. In a book, it is not only what the writer says that makes its significance but also what the reader thinks as he reads. In so far as any man finds in picture or poem or song a new beauty, a fuller sense of harmony than was his before, for him that is a work of art. Thus the standard by which art is to be tried is relative. For its creator, the work is art in that it embodies a perception of new harmony that is peculiarly his. In the material result, this special character is imparted to the work by the artist's instinctive selection. No two painters, though equipped with equal technical skill and perhaps of like tastes and preferences, would or indeed could render the same sweep of landscape in precisely similar fashion. Obviously, to set down everything were at once an impossibility and an untruth, for the detail of nature is infinite and the beholder does not see everything. Each is bound to select such details as impress him, and his selection will be determined by the way in which he as a unique personality, an individual different from every other man in the whole wide universe, feels about the bit of nature before him. In expressing by his special medium what he feels about the landscape, he aims, in the selection of material form and color, to detach and render visible what of essential truth the landscape means to him, to purge it of accidents, and register its eternal beauty. The painter will not attempt, then, to reproduce the physical facts of nature,--the topography, geology, botany, of the landscape,--but rather through those facts in terms of color and form he tries to render its _expression:_ its quality, as brilliance, tenderness; its mood, as joy, mystery, setting down those salient aspects of it which combine to give it character and meaning. For landscape--to recall the exposition of a preceding page--has its expression as truly as the human face. A man knows his friends not by the shape of the nose or the color of the eyes, but by the character which these features express, the personality which shines in the face and radiates from it This effluence of the soul within is the essential man; people call it the "expression." As with human life, so with the many aspects of nature. External traits are merged in the spiritual meaning. The material forms have the power of affecting the spirit thus or so; and in man's reaction on his universe they come to take on a symbolic emotional significance. Each manifestation of nature arouses in the artist, more or less consciously on his part, some feeling toward it: he cares, then, to represent these external material forms, whether a flower, a landscape, a human face, only because there is in them something in which he delights; he fashions the work of art in praise of the thing he loves. To the clever technician who imitatively paints the flower as he knows it to be, "A primrose on the river's brim A yellow primrose is to him And it is nothing more." But to the artist "The meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." And it is these thoughts that he cares to express and not the visible truth about the flower. A writer was walking along the streets of Paris on a day in early March. "It was dark and rather cold. I was gloomy, and walked because I had nothing to do. I passed by some flowers placed breast-high upon a wall. A jonquil in bloom was there. It is the strongest expression of desire: it was the first perfume of the year. I felt all the happiness destined for man. This unutterable harmony of souls, the phantom of the ideal world, arose in me complete. I never felt anything so great or so instantaneous. I know not what shape, what analogy, what secret of relation it was that made me see in this flower a limitless beauty. . . . I shall never enclose in a conception this power, this immensity that nothing will express; this form that nothing will contain; this ideal of a better world which one feels, but which it would seem that nature has not made." And if Sénancour had set himself to paint his jonquil as he has written about it, how that tender flower would have been transfigured and glorified! What the artist aims to render is not the rose but the beauty of the rose, his sense of one chord in the universal harmony which the rose sounds for him, not that only, but the beauty of all roses that ever were or ever shall be; and inevitably he will select such colors and such lines as bring that special and interpreted beauty into relief, and so make manifest to the beholder what was revealed to his own higher vision, by virtue of which, and not because of any exceptional technical skill, he is an artist. IV ART AND APPRECIATION It may be that some reader of the foregoing pages will attempt to apply the principles therein set forth to the pictures shown in the next exhibition he happens to attend. It is more than probable that in his first efforts he will be disappointed. For the principles discussed have dealt with art in its authentic manifestations; and not every painter is an artist, not every picture is a work of art. At the very outset it should be said that an exhibition of paintings as ordinarily made up is confusing and wholly illogical. We may suppose that a volume to be read through in one sitting of two hours is placed in the hands of an intelligent reader. The book consists of essays, poems, short stories, and dramatic dialogue, each within the compass of a few pages, each contributed by a different writer as an example of his work for the year. We may suppose now that the reader is asked to gather from this volume, read hastily and either superficially or in random bits, some idea of the significance of each author and of the import and scope of contemporary American literature. Is it a fair test? This volume, we may further suppose, is practically the only means by which the writer can get his work before the public. A public means a purchaser, and of course the writer must live. Is it reasonable to think that every number contributed to such a volume will be a work of art, wrought with singleness of heart and in loving devotion to an ideal? There are still with us those who "work for money" and those who "work for fame." There are those who believe in "giving the public what it wants," and the numbers they contribute to the yearly volumes are samples of the sort of thing they do, from which the public may order. In the table of contents stand celebrated names; and to the work of such men, perhaps, will turn the seeker after what he thinks ought to be the best, not realizing that these are the men who have known how to "give the people what they want," that the people do not always want the good and right thing, and that it is somewhat the habit of genius to dispense with contemporary recognition. If there is here or there in the book an essay or a poem the product of thought and effort and offered in all seriousness, how little chance it has of being appreciated, except by a few, even if it is remarked at all in the jumble of miscellaneous contributions. This hypothetical volume is a fair parallel of an annual exhibition of paintings. In such an exhibition the number of works of art, the true, inevitable expression of a new message, is relatively small. The most celebrated and most popular painters are not necessarily by that fact great artists, or indeed artists at all. Contemporary judgment is notoriously liable to go astray. The gods of one generation are often the laughing stock of the next; the idols of the fathers are torn down and trampled under foot by the children. Some spirits there have been of liberal promise who have not been able to withstand the demands made upon them by early popular approval. Such is the struggle and soul's tragedy which is studied convincingly in Mr. Zangwill's novel, "The Master." No assault on the artist's integrity is so insidious as immediate favor, which in its turn begets the fatal desire to please. To the "successful" painters, however, are for the most part accorded the places of honor on academy walls. The canvases of these men are seen first by the visitor; but they are not all. There are other pictures which promise neither better nor worse. Here are paintings of merit, good in color and good in drawing, but empty of any meaning. Scattered through the exhibition are the works of a group of able men, imitating themselves, each trying to outdo the others by a display of cleverness in solving some "painter's problem" or by some startling effect of subject or handling. But it is a sad day for any artist when he ceases to find his impulse and inspiration either in his own spirit or in nature, and when he looks to his fellow craftsmen for the motive of his work. Again, there are pictures by men who, equipped with adequate technical skill, have caught the manner of a master, and mistaking the manner for the message it was simply intended to express, they degrade it into a mannerism and turn out a product which people do not distinguish from the authentic utterances of the master. The artist is a seer and prophet, the channel of divine influences: the individual painter, sculptor, writer, is a very human being. As he looks over these walls, clamorous of the commonplace and the commercial, the seeker after what is good and true in art realizes how very few of these pictures have been rendered in the spirit of love and joy. The painter has one eye on his object and one eye on the public; and too often, as a distinguished actor once said of the stage manager whose vision is divided between art and the box office, the painter is a one-eyed man. A painter once refused to find anything to interest him, still less to move him, in a silent street with a noble spire detaching itself vaguely from the luminous blue depths of a midnight sky, because, he said, "People won't buy dark things, so what's the use? You might as well do bright, pretty things that they will buy, and that are just as easy to make." A portrait-painter gives up landscape subjects because, as he does not hesitate to declare, it hurts his business. And the painters themselves are not altogether to blame for this attitude towards their work. The fault lies half with the people who buy pictures, having the money, and who have not a gleam of understanding of the meaning of art. A woman who had ordered her house to be furnished and decorated expensively, remarked to a caller who commented on a water-color hanging in the drawing-room: "Yes, I think it matches the wall-paper very nicely." When such is the purpose of those who paint pictures and such is the understanding of those who buy them, it is not surprising that not every picture is inevitably a work of art. But what is the poor seeker after art to do? The case is by no means hopeless. In current exhibitions a few canvases strike a new note; and by senses delicately attuned this note can be distinguished within the jangle of far louder and popular tunes ground out, as it were, by the street-piano. Seriously to study contemporary painting, however, the logical opportunity is furnished by the exhibitions of the works of single men or of small groups. As the reader who wishes to understand an author or perhaps a school does not content himself with random extracts, but instead isolates the man for the moment and reads his work consecutively and one book in its relation to his others; so the student of pictures can appreciate the work and understand the significance of a given painter only as he sees a number of his canvases together and in relation. So, he is able to gather something of the man's total meaning. Widely different from annual exhibitions, too, are galleries and museums; for here the proportion of really good things is immeasurably larger. In the study of masterpieces, it need hardly be said, the amateur may exercise judgment and moderation. He should not try to do too much at one time, for he can truly appreciate only as he enters fully into the spirit of the work and allows it to possess him. To achieve this sympathy and understanding within the same hour for more than a very few great works is manifestly impossible. Such appreciation involves fundamentally a quick sensitiveness to the appeal and the variously expressive power of color and line and form. To win from the picture its fullest meaning, the observer may bring to bear some knowledge of the artist who produced it and of the age and conditions in which he lived. But in the end he must surrender himself to the work of art, bringing to it his intellectual equipment, his store of sensuous and emotional experience, his entire power of being moved. For when all is said, there is no single invariable standard by which to try a work of art: its significance to the appreciator rests upon his capacity at the moment to receive it. "A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it." The appreciator need simply ask himself, "What has this work to reveal to me of beauty that I have not perceived for myself? I shall not look for the pretty and the agreeable. But what of new significance, energy, life, has this work to express to me? I will accept no man entirely and unquestioningly, I will condemn no one unheard. No man has the whole truth; every man has some measure of the truth, however small. Let it be my task to find it and to separate it from what is unessential and false. In my search for what is true, I will conserve my integrity and maintain my independence. And I shall recognize my own wherever I may find it." "Man is the measure of all things," declared an ancient philosopher. And his teaching has not been superseded to-day. The individual is the creator of his own universe; he is the focus of the currents and forces of his world. The meaning of all things is subjective. So the measure of beauty in life for a man is determined by his capacity to receive and understand. Thus it is that a man's joy in experience and his appreciation of art in any of its manifestations are conditioned by the opportunity that nature or art furnishes for his spirit to exercise itself. In the reading of poetry, for example, we seek the expression of ourselves. Our first emotion is, perhaps, a simple, unreflecting delight, the delight which a butterfly must feel among the flowers or that of a child playing in the fields under the warm sun; it is a delight wholly physical,--pure sensation. A quick taking of the breath, the escape of a sigh, inarticulate and uncritical, are the only expression we can find at that instant for what we feel: as when an abrupt turn of the road spreads out before us a landscape of which we had not dreamed, or we enter for the first time the presence of the Apollo Belvedere. We know simply that we are pleased. But after nerves have ceased to tingle so acutely, we begin to think; and we seek to give account to ourselves of the beauty which for the moment we could but feel. Once arrived at the attitude of reflection, we find that the poetry which affects us most and to which we oftenest return is the poetry that contains the record of our own experience, but heightened, the poetry which expresses our desires and aspirations, that in which we recognize ourselves elevated and idealized. In so far as we see in it the ennobled image of our own nature, so far it has power to hold us and to stir us. An elementary manifestation of the tendency to seek in art the record of our own experience is seen in the popularity of those pictures whose subjects are familiar and can be immediately recognized. On a studio wall was once hanging a "Study of Brush," showing the play of sunlight through quivering leaves. A visitor asked the painter why he did not put some chickens in the foreground. To her the canvas was meaningless, for she had never seen, had never really seen, the sunlight dancing on burnished leaves. The chickens, which she had seen and could recognize, were the element of the familiar she required in order to find any significance in the picture. This tendency, of which the demand for chickens is a rudimentary manifestation, is the basis of all appreciation. The artist's revelation of the import of life we can receive and understand only as we have felt a little of that import for ourselves. Color is meaningless to a blind man, music does not exist for the deaf. To him who has never opened his eyes to behold the beauty of field and hill and trees and sky, to him whose spirit has not dimly apprehended something of that eternal significance of which these things are the material visible bodying forth, to such a the work of the master is only so much paint and canvas. The task of the appreciator, then, is to develop his capacity to receive and enjoy. That capacity is to be trained by the exercise of itself. Each new harmony which he is enabled to perceive intensifies his power to feel and widens the range of his vision. The more beauty he apprehends in the world, so much the more of universal forces he brings into unity with his own personality. By this extension of his spirit he reaches out and becomes merged in the all-embracing life. If the conception be true that a supreme unity, linking all seemingly chaotic details, ultimately brings them into order, and that this unity, which is spiritual, penetrates every atom of matter, fusing everything and making all things one; then the appreciator will realize that the significance of art is for the spirit The beauty which the artist reveals is but the harmony which underlies the universal order; and he in his turn must apprehend that beauty spiritually. From this truth it follows that the condition of aesthetic enjoyment, or in other words the appreciation of beauty, is detachment of spirit and remoteness from practical consequences. The classic illustration of the truth is the saying of Lucretius, that it is sublime to stand on the shore and behold a shipwreck. It is sublime only as one's personal interests and feelings are not engaged. It would not be sublime if it were possible for the spectator to aid in averting the catastrophe; it would not be sublime if one's friends were aboard the ship. One is able to appreciate beauty only as one is able to detach one's self from what is immediate and practical, and by virtue of this detachment, to apprehend the spiritual significance. The sublimity of the shipwreck lies in what it expresses of the impersonal might of elemental forces and man's impotence in the struggle against nature. That sublimity, which is one manifestation of beauty, is of the spirit, and by the spirit it must be apprehended. To illustrate this truth by a few homely examples. A farmer looking out on his fields of tossing wheat, drenched in golden sunlight, exclaims, "Look, isn't that beautiful!" What he really means is: "See there the promise of a rich harvest, and it is mine." If the fields belonged to his neighbor, his feelings towards them would be quite different. No, their _beauty_ is to be seen and felt only by him whose mind is free of thoughts of personal enrichment and who thus can perceive the harmony with life of golden sunshine and nature's abundant gifts. The farmer could not see beyond the material and its value to him as material. But beauty lies deeper than that, for it is the expression of spiritual relations. Two men are riding together in a railway carriage. As the train draws into a city, they pass a little group of tumble-down houses, brown and gray, a heap of corners thrown together. One man thinks: "What dreary lives these people must lead who dwell there." The other, with no such stirring of the sympathy, sees a wonderful "scheme" in grays and browns, or an expressive composition or ordering of line. Neither could think the thoughts of the other at the same time with his own. One feels a practical and physical reaction, and he cannot therefore at that moment penetrate to the meaning of these things for the spirit; and that meaning is the harmony which they express. From the tangle of daily living with its conflict of interests and its burden of practical needs, the appreciator turns to art with its power to chasten and to tranquillize. In art, he finds the revelation in fuller measure of a beauty which he has felt but vaguely. He realizes that underlying the external chaos of immediate practical experience rests a supreme and satisfying order. Of that order he can here and now perceive but little, hemmed in as he is by the material world, whose meaning he discerns as through a glass, darkly. Yet he keeps resolutely on his way, secure in his kinship with the eternal spirit, and rewarded by momentary glimpses of the "broken arcs" which he knows will in the end take their appointed places in the "perfect round." V THE ARTIST Out of chaos, order. Man's life on the earth is finite and fragmentary, but it is the constant effort of his spirit to bring the scattering details of momentary experience into an enduring harmony with his personality and with that supreme unity of which he is a part. The man who out of the complex disarray of his little world effects a new harmony is an artist. He who fashioned the first cup, shaping it according to his ideal,--for no prototype existed,--and in response to his needs; he who, taking this elementary form, wrought upon it with his fingers and embellished it according to his ideal and in response to his need of expressing himself; he, again, who out of the same need for expression adds to the cup anything new: each of these workmen is an artist. The reproduction of already existing forms, with no modification by the individual workman, is not art. So, for example, only that painter is an artist who adds to his representation of the visible world some new attribute or quality born of his own spirit Primitive artisan, craftsman, painter, each creates in that he reveals and makes actual some part, which before was but potential, of the all-embracing life. As the artist, then, wins new reaches of experience and brings them into unity, he reveals new beauty, new to men yet world-old. For the harmony which he effects is new only in the sense that it was not before perceived. As, in the physical universe, not an atom of matter through the ages is created or destroyed, so the supreme spiritual life is constant in its sum and complete. Of this life individuals partake in varying measure; their growth is determined by how much of it they make their own. The growth of the soul in this sense is not different from man's experience of the physical world. The child is born: he grows up into his family; the circle widens to include neighbors and the community; the circle widens again as the boy goes away to school and then to college. With ever-widening sweep the outermost bound recedes, though still embracing him, as he reaches out to Europe and at length compasses the earth, conquering experience and bringing its treasures into tribute to his own spirit. The things were there; but for the boy each was in turn created as he made it his own. So the artist, revealing new aspects of the supreme unity, creates in the sense that he makes possible for his fellows a fuller taking-up of this life into themselves. It may be said that he is the greatest artist who has felt the most of harmony in life,--the greatest artist but potentially. The beauty he has perceived must in accordance with our human needs find expression concretely, because it is only as he manifests himself in forms which we can understand that we are able to recognize him. Though a mute, inglorious Milton were Milton still, yet our human limitations demand his utterance that we may know him. So the artist accomplishes his mission when he communicates himself. The human spirit is able to bring the supreme life into unity with itself according to the measure of its own growth made possible through expression. The supreme life, of which every created thing partakes,--the stone, the flower, the animal, and man,--is beauty, because it is the supreme harmony wherein everything has its place in relation to every other thing. This central unity has its existence in expression. The round earth, broken off from the stellar system and whirling along its little orbit through space, is yet ever in communication with the great system; the tree, with its roots in the earth, puts forth branches, the branches expand into twigs, the twigs burst into leaves whose veins reach out into the air; out of the twigs spring buds swelling into blossoms, the blossoms ripen into fruit, the fruit drops seed into the earth which gave it and springs up into new trees. The tree by its growth, which is the putting forth of itself or expression, develops needs, these needs are satisfied, and the satisfying of the needs is the condition of its continued expansion. Man, too, has his existence in expression. By growth through expression, which is the creation of a new need, he is enabled to take up more into himself; he brings more into the unity of his personality, and thus he expands into the universal harmony. The unity which underlies the cosmos--to define once more the conception which is the basis of the preceding chapters--is of the spirit. The material world which we see and touch is but the symbol and bodying forth of spiritual relations. The tranquillizing, satisfying power of art is due to the revelation which art accomplishes of a spiritual harmony which transcends the seeming chaos of instant experience. So it comes about that harmony, or beauty, which is of the spirit, is apprehended by the spirit. That faculty in the artist by which he is able to perceive beauty is called _temperament._ By temperament is to be understood the receptive faculty, the power to feel, the capacity for sensations, emotions, and "such intellectual apprehensions as, in strength and directness and their immediately realized values at the bar of an actual experience, are most like sensations." The function of temperament is to receive and to transmit, to interpret, to create in the sense that it reveals. In the result it is felt to be present only as the medium through which the forces behind it come to expression. Art, the human spirit, temperament,--these terms are general and abstract. Now the abstract to be realized must be made concrete. Just as art, in order to be manifest, must be embodied in the particular work, as the statue, the picture, the building, the drama, the symphony, so the human spirit becomes operative in the person of the individual, and temperament may be best studied in the character of the individual artist. As temperament is the receptive faculty, the artist's attitude toward life is what Wordsworth called "wise passiveness,"--Wordsworth, the poet of "impassioned contemplation." Keats, too,--and among the poets, whose vision of beauty was more beautiful, whose grasp on the truth more true?--characterizes himself as "addicted to passiveness." It is of temperament that Keats is writing when he says in a letter: "That quality which goes to form a man of achievement, especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously, is _Negative Capability_ ." In another letter he writes:-- "It has been an old comparison for our urging on--the Beehive; however, it seems to me that we should rather be the flower than the Bee--for it is a false notion that more is gained by receiving than giving--no, the receiver and the giver are equal in their benefits. The flower, I doubt not, receives a fair guerdon from the Bee--its leaves blush deeper in the next spring--and who shall say between Man and Woman which is the most delighted? Now it is more noble to sit like Jove than to fly like Mercury--let us not therefore go hurrying about and collecting honey, bee-like buzzing here and there impatiently from a knowledge of what is to be aimed at; but let us open our leaves like a flower and be passive and receptive--budding patiently under the eye of Apollo and taking hints from every noble insect that favours us with a visit--sap will be given us for meat and dew for drink. . . . "O fret not after knowledge--I have none, And yet my song comes native with the warmth. O fret not after knowledge--I have none, And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens At thought of idleness cannot be idle, And he's awake who thinks himself asleep." Still again he says: "The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself. That which is creative must create itself." A nature so constituted, a nature receptive and passive, is necessarily withdrawn from practical affairs. To revert to Keats as an example, for Keats is so wholly the artist, it is his remoteness from the daily life about him that makes him the man of no one country or time. His poetry has a kind of universality, but universality within a definite sphere, and that sphere is the world of things lovely and fair. In a playful mood Keats writes to his sister: "Give me Books, fruit, French wine and fine weather and a little music out of doors, played by somebody I do not know . . . and I can pass a summer very quietly without caring much about Fat Louis, fat Regent or the Duke of Wellington." These are trivial words; but they serve to define in some measure the artistic temperament. For this characteristic remoteness from affairs the artist is sometimes reproached by those who pin their faith to material things. Such are not aware that for the artist the only reality is the life of the spirit. The artist, as Carlyle says of the Man of Letters, "lives in the inward sphere of things, in the True, Divine and Eternal, which exists always, unseen to most, under the Temporary, Trivial: his being is in that." Temperament constitutes the whole moral nature of the artist. "With a great poet," says Keats, "the sense of beauty overcomes every consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration." It is the standard which measures the worth of any act. It is conscience, too; for the functions performed by conscience in the normal moral life of the man of action are fulfilled by the artist's devotion to his ideal; his service to his art is his sole and sufficient obligation. And where the man of action looks to find his rewards in the approval of his fellow men, the artist cares to please himself. The very act of expressing is itself the joy and the reward. To this truth Keats again stands as witness: "I feel assured," he says, "I should write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful, even if my night's labours should be burnt every Morning and no eye ever shine upon them." And still again: "I value more the privilege of seeing great things in loneliness than the fame of a prophet." Not that the artist does not crave appreciation. His message fails of completeness if there is no ear to hear it, if it does not meet a sympathy which understands. But the true artist removes all shadow of petty vanity and becomes, in Whitman's phrase, "the free channel of himself." He is but the medium through whom the spirit of beauty reveals itself; in thankfulness and praise he but receives and transmits. That it is given him to see beauty and to interpret it is enough. It is by virtue of his power to feel that the artist is able to apprehend beauty; his temperament is ever responsive to new harmonies. By force of his imagination, which is one function of his temperament, he sends his spirit into other lives, absorbs their experience and makes it his own, and ultimately identifies himself with world forces and becomes creator. In a lyric passage in a letter Keats exclaims:-- "The mighty abstract Idea I have of Beauty in all things stifles the more divided and minute domestic happiness. . . . I feel more and more every day, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds. No sooner am I alone than shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve my Spirit the office which is equivalent to a King's body-guard--then 'Tragedy with sceptered pall comes sweeping by.' According to my state of mind I am with Achilles shouting in the Trenches, or with Theocritus in the Vales of Sicily. Or I throw my whole being into Troilus, and repeating those lines, 'I wander like a lost soul upon the Stygian Banks staying for waftage,' I melt into the air with a voluptuousness so delicate that I am content to be alone." This power to penetrate and to identify was exercised with peculiar directness and plenitude by Walt Whitman, prophet of the omnipotence of man. To find the burden of his message formulated in the single phrase one may turn to his Poems quite at random. "My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the whole earth." "I inhale great draughts of space,-- The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine. . . . . . All seems beautiful to me." Of the artist may be affirmed what Whitman affirms of the Answerer:-- "Every existence has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and tongue, He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men, and any man translates, and any man translates himself also, One part does not counteract another part, he is the joiner, he sees how they join." As the artist sends out his spirit through the world, as he becomes the channel of universal and divine influences, so he is admitted to new and ever new revelations of beauty. And stirred by the glorious vision, he brings that beauty to earth, communicating it to his fellows and making them partakers of it, as he gives his feeling expression. Thus finding utterance as the prophet of God, he consummates his mission and takes his place in the world order. Herein he has his being, for life is expression; and each new harmony which he makes manifest is the medium of his fuller identification with the universal life. So it is that the artist is the supreme interpreter, the mediator between man and beauty. His work is a work of joy, of gratitude, of worship. He is the happy servant of God, His prophet, through whom He declares Himself to the children of men. 
27939	----	LAURUS NOBILIS BY VERNON LEE CONTENTS The Use of Beauty "Nisi Citharam" Higher Harmonies Beauty and Sanity The Art and the Country Art and Usefulness Wasteful Pleasures LAURUS NOBILIS. CHAPTERS ON ART AND LIFE. TO ANGELICA RASPONI DALLE TESTE FROM HER GRATEFUL OLD FRIEND AND NEIGHBOUR VERNON LEE. 1885-1908. Die Realität der Dinge ist der Dinge Werk; der Schein der Dinge ist der Menschen Werk; und ein Gemüt, das sich am Scheine weidet, ergötzt sich schon nicht mehr an dem, was es empfängt, sondern an dem, was es tut. SCHILLER, _Briefe über Ästhetik_. LAURUS NOBILIS. THE USE OF BEAUTY. I. One afternoon, in Rome, on the way back from the Aventine, the road-mender climbed onto the tram as it trotted slowly along, and fastened to its front, alongside of the place of the driver, a bough of budding bay. Might one not search long for a better symbol of what we may all do by our life? Bleakness, wind, squalid streets, a car full of heterogeneous people, some very dull, most very common; a laborious jog-trot all the way. But to redeem it all with the pleasantness of beauty and the charm of significance, this laurel branch. II. Our language does not possess any single word wherewith to sum up the various categories of things (made by nature or made by man, intended solely for the purpose of subserving by mere coincidence) which minister to our organic and many-sided æsthetic instincts: the things affecting us in that absolutely special, unmistakable, and hitherto mysterious manner expressed in our finding them _beautiful_. It is of the part which such things--whether actually present or merely shadowed in our mind--can play in our life; and of the influence of the instinct for beauty on the other instincts making up our nature, that I would treat in these pages. And for this reason I have been glad to accept from the hands of chance, and of that road-mender of the tram-way, the bay laurel as a symbol of what we have no word to express: the aggregate of all art, all poetry, and particularly of all poetic and artistic vision and emotion. For the Bay Laurel--_Laurus Nobilis_ of botanists--happens to be not merely the evergreen, unfading plant into which Apollo metamorphosed, while pursuing, the maiden whom he loved, even as the poet, the artist turns into immortal shapes his own quite personal and transient moods, or as the fairest realities, nobly sought, are transformed, made evergreen and restoratively fragrant for all time in our memory and fancy. It is a plant of noblest utility, averting, as the ancients thought, lightning from the dwellings it surrounded, even as disinterested love for beauty averts from our minds the dangers which fall on the vain and the covetous; and curing many aches and fevers, even as the contemplation of beauty refreshes and invigorates our spirit. Indeed, we seem to be reading a description no longer of the virtues of the bay laurel, but of the _virtues_ of all beautiful sights and sounds, of all beautiful thoughts and emotions, in reading the following quaint and charming words of an old herbal:-- "The bay leaves are of as necessary use as any other in garden or orchard, for they serve both for pleasure and profit, both for ornament and use, both for honest civil uses and for physic; yea, both for the sick and for the sound, both for the living and for the dead. The bay serveth to adorn the house of God as well as of man, to procure warmth, comfort, and strength to the limbs of men and women;... to season vessels wherein are preserved our meats as well as our drinks; to crown or encircle as a garland the heads of the living, and to stick and deck forth the bodies of the dead; so that, from the cradle to the grave we have still use of it, we have still need of it." III. Before beginning to expound the virtues of Beauty, let me, however, insist that these all depend upon the simple and mysterious fact that--well, that the Beautiful _is_ the Beautiful. In our discussion of what the Bay Laurel symbolises, let us keep clear in our memory the lovely shape of the sacred tree, and the noble places in which we have seen it. There are bay twigs, gathered together in bronze sheaves, in the great garland surrounding Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise. There are two interlaced branches of bay, crisp-edged and slender, carved in fine low relief inside the marble chariot in the Vatican. There is a fan-shaped growth of Apollo's Laurel behind that Venetian portrait of a poet, which was formerly called Ariosto by Titian. And, most suggestive of all, there are the Mycenaean bay leaves of beaten gold, so incredibly thin one might imagine them to be the withered crown of a nameless singer in a forgotten tongue, grown brittle through three thousand years and more. Each of such presentments, embodying with loving skill some feature of the plant, enhances by association the charm of its reality, accompanying the delight of real bay-trees and bay leaves with inextricable harmonics, vague recollections of the delight of bronze, of delicately cut marble, of marvellously beaten gold, of deep Venetian crimson and black and auburn. But best of all, most satisfying and significant, is the remembrance of the bay-trees themselves. They greatly affect the troughs of watercourses, among whose rocks and embanked masonry they love to strike their roots. In such a stream trough, on a spur of the Hill of Fiesole, grow the most beautiful poet's laurels I can think of. The place is one of those hollowings out of a hillside which, revealing how high they lie only by the sky-lines of distant hills, always feel so pleasantly remote. And the peace and austerity of this little valley are heightened by the dove-cot of a farm invisible in the olive-yards, and looking like a hermitage's belfry. The olives are scant and wan in the fields all round, with here and there the blossom of an almond; the oak woods, of faint wintry copper-rose, encroach above; and in the grassy space lying open to the sky, the mountain brook is dyked into a weir, whence the crystalline white water leaps into a chain of shady pools. And there, on the brink of that weir, and all along that stream's shallow upper course among grass and brakes of reeds, are the bay-trees I speak of: groups of three or four at intervals, each a sheaf of smooth tapering boles, tufted high up with evergreen leaves, sparse bunches whose outermost leaves are sharply printed like lance-heads against the sky. Most modest little trees, with their scant berries and rare pale buds; not trees at all, I fancy some people saying. Yet of more consequence, somehow, in their calm disregard of wind, their cheerful, resolute soaring, than any other trees for miles; masters of that little valley, of its rocks, pools, and overhanging foliage; sovereign brothers and rustic demi-gods for whom the violets scent the air among the withered grass in March, and, in May, the nightingales sing through the quivering star night. Of all southern trees, most simple and aspiring; and certainly most perfect among evergreens, with their straight, faintly carmined shoots, their pliable strong leaves so subtly rippled at the edge, and their clean, dry fragrance; delicate, austere, alert, serene; such are the bay-trees of Apollo. IV. I have gladly accepted, from the hands of that tram-way road-mender, the Bay Laurel--_Laurus Nobilis_--for a symbol of all art, all poetry, and all poetic and artistic vision and emotion. It has summed up, better than words could do, what the old Herbals call the _virtues_, of all beautiful things and beautiful thoughts. And it has suggested, I hope, the contents of the following notes; the nature of my attempt to trace the influence which art should have on life. V. Beauty, save by a metaphorical application of the word, is not in the least the same thing as Goodness, any more than beauty (despite Keats' famous assertion) is the same thing as Truth. These three objects of the soul's pursuit have different natures, different laws, and fundamentally different origins. But the energies which express themselves in their pursuit--energies vital, primordial, and necessary even to man's physical survival--have all been evolved under the same stress of adaptation of the human creature to its surroundings; and have therefore, in their beginnings and in their ceaseless growth, been working perpetually in concert, meeting, crossing, and strengthening one another, until they have become indissolubly woven together by a number of great and organic coincidences. It is these coincidences which all higher philosophy, from Plato downwards, has strained for ever to expound. It is these coincidences, which all religion and all poetry have taken for granted. And to three of these it is that I desire to call attention, persuaded as I am that the scientific progress of our day will make short work of all the spurious æstheticism and all the shortsighted utilitarianism which have cast doubts upon the intimate and vital connection between beauty and every other noble object of our living. The three coincidences I have chosen are: that between development of the æsthetic faculties and the development of the altruistic instincts; that between development of a sense of æsthetic harmony and a sense of the higher harmonies of universal life; and, before everything else, the coincidence between the preference for æsthetic pleasures and the nobler growth of the individual. VI. The particular emotion produced in us by such things as are beautiful, works of art or of nature, recollections and thoughts as well as sights and sounds, the emotion of æsthetic pleasure, has been recognised ever since the beginning of time as of a mysteriously ennobling quality. All philosophers have told us that; and the religious instinct of all mankind has practically proclaimed it, by employing for the worship of the highest powers, nay, by employing for the mere designation of the godhead, beautiful sights, and sounds, and words by which beautiful sights and sounds are suggested. Nay, there has always lurked in men's minds, and expressed itself in the metaphors of men's speech, an intuition that the Beautiful is in some manner one of the primordial and, so to speak, cosmic powers of the world. The theories of various schools of mental science, and the practice of various schools of art, the practice particularly of the persons styled by themselves æsthetes and by others decadents, have indeed attempted to reduce man's relations with the great world-power Beauty to mere intellectual dilettantism or sensual superfineness. But the general intuition has not been shaken, the intuition which recognised in Beauty a superhuman, and, in that sense, a truly divine power. And now it must become evident that the methods of modern psychology, of the great new science of body and soul, are beginning to explain the reasonableness of this intuition, or, at all events, to show very plainly in what direction we must look for the explanation of it. This much can already be asserted, and can be indicated even to those least versed in recent psychological study, to wit, that the power of Beauty, the essential power therefore of art, is due to the relations of certain visible and audible forms with the chief mental and vital functions of all human beings; relations established throughout the whole process of human and, perhaps, even of animal, evolution; relations seated in the depths of our activities, but radiating upwards even like our vague, organic sense of comfort and discomfort; and permeating, even like our obscure relations with atmospheric conditions, into our highest and clearest consciousness, colouring and altering the whole groundwork of our thoughts and feelings. Such is the primordial, and, in a sense, the cosmic power of the Beautiful; a power whose very growth, whose constantly more complex nature proclaims its necessary and beneficial action in human evolution. It is the power of making human beings live, for the moment, in a more organically vigorous and harmonious fashion, as mountain air or sea-wind makes them live; but with the difference that it is not merely the bodily, but very essentially the spiritual life, the life of thought and emotion, which is thus raised to unusual harmony and vigour. I may illustrate this matter by a very individual instance, which will bring to the memory of each of my readers the vivifying power of some beautiful sight or sound or beautiful description. I was seated working by my window, depressed by the London outlook of narrow grey sky, endless grey roofs, and rusty elm tops, when I became conscious of a certain increase of vitality, almost as if I had drunk a glass of wine, because a band somewhere outside had begun to play. After various indifferent pieces, it began a tune, by Handel or in Handel's style, of which I have never known the name, calling it for myself the _Te Deum_ Tune. And then it seemed as if my soul, and according to the sensations, in a certain degree my body even, were caught up on those notes, and were striking out as if swimming in a great breezy sea; or as if it had put forth wings and risen into a great free space of air. And, noticing my feelings, I seemed to be conscious that those notes were being played _on me_, my fibres becoming the strings; so that as the notes moved and soared and swelled and radiated like stars and suns, I also, being identified with the sound, having become apparently the sound itself, must needs move and soar with them. We can all recollect a dozen instances when architecture, music, painting, or some sudden sight of sea or mountain, have thus affected us; and all poetry, particularly all great lyric poetry, Goethe's, Shelley's, Wordsworth's, and, above all, Browning's, is full of the record of such experience. I have said that the difference between this æsthetic heightening of our vitality (and this that I have been describing is, I pray you to observe, the æsthetic phenomenon _par excellence_), and such other heightening of vitality as we experience from going into fresh air and sunshine or taking fortifying food, the difference between the æsthetic and the mere physiological pleasurable excitement consists herein, that in the case of beauty, it is not merely our physical but our spiritual life which is suddenly rendered more vigorous. We do not merely breathe better and digest better, though that is no small gain, but we seem to understand better. Under the vitalising touch of the Beautiful, our consciousness seems filled with the affirmation of what life is, what is worth being, what among our many thoughts and acts and feelings are real and organic and important, what among the many possible moods is the real, eternal _ourself_. Such are the great forces of Nature gathered up in what we call the _æsthetic phenomenon_, and it is these forces of Nature which, stolen from heaven by the man of genius or the nation of genius, and welded together in music, or architecture, in the arts of visible design or of written thoughts, give to the great work of art its power to quicken the life of our soul. VII. I hope I have been able to indicate how, by its essential nature, by the primordial power it embodies, all Beauty, and particularly Beauty in art, tends to fortify and refine the spiritual life of the individual. But this is only half of the question, for, in order to get the full benefit of beautiful things and beautiful thoughts, to obtain in the highest potency those potent æsthetic emotions, the individual must undergo a course of self-training, of self-initiation, which in its turn elicits and improves some of the highest qualities of his soul. Nay, as every great writer on art has felt, from Plato to Ruskin, but none has expressed as clearly as Mr. Pater, in all true æsthetic training there must needs enter an ethical element, almost an ascetic one. The greatest art bestows pleasure just in proportion as people are capable of buying that pleasure at the price of attention, intelligence, and reverent sympathy. For great art is such as is richly endowed, full of variety, subtlety, and suggestiveness; full of delightfulness enough for a lifetime, the lifetime of generations and generations of men; great art is to its true lovers like Cleopatra to Antony--"age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety." Indeed, when it is the greatest art of all, the art produced by the marvellous artist, the most gifted race, and the longest centuries, we find ourselves in presence of something which, like Nature itself, contains more beauty, suggests more thought, works more miracles than anyone of us has faculties to appreciate fully. So that, in some of Titian's pictures and Michael Angelo's frescoes, the great Greek sculptures, certain cantos of Dante and plays of Shakespeare, fugues of Bach, scenes of Mozart and quartets of Beethoven, we can each of us, looking our closest, feeling our uttermost, see and feel perhaps but a trifling portion of what there is to be seen and felt, leaving other sides, other perfections, to be appreciated by our neighbours. Till it comes to pass that we find different persons very differently delighted by the same masterpiece, and accounting most discrepantly for their delight in it. Now such pleasure as this requires not merely a vast amount of activity on our part, since all pleasure, even the lowest, is the expression of an activity; it requires a vast amount of attention, of intelligence, of what, in races or in individuals, means special training. VIII. There is a sad confusion in men's minds on the very essential subject of pleasure. We tend, most of us, to oppose the idea of pleasure to the idea of work, effort, strenuousness, patience; and, therefore, recognise as pleasures only those which cost none of these things, or as little as possible; pleasures which, instead of being produced through our will and act, impose themselves upon us from outside. In all art--for art stands halfway between the sensual and emotional experiences and the experiences of the mere reasoning intellect--in all art there is necessarily an element which thus imposes itself upon us from without, an element which takes and catches us: colour, strangeness of outline, sentimental or terrible quality, rhythm exciting the muscles, or clang which tickles the ear. But the art which thus takes and catches our attention the most easily, asking nothing in return, or next to nothing, is also the poorest art: the oleograph, the pretty woman in the fashion plate, the caricature, the representation of some domestic or harrowing scene, children being put to bed, babes in the wood, railway accidents, etc.; or again, dance or march music, and the equivalents of all this in verse. It catches your attention, instead of your attention conquering it; but it speedily ceases to interest, gives you nothing more, cloys, or comes to a dead stop. It resembles thus far mere sensual pleasure, a savoury dish, a glass of good wine, an excellent cigar, a warm bed, which impose themselves on the nerves without expenditure of attention; with the result, of course, that little or nothing remains, a sensual impression dying, so to speak, childless, a barren, disconnected thing, without place in the memory, unmarried as it is to the memory's clients, thought and human feeling. If so many people prefer poor art to great, 'tis because they refuse to give, through inability or unwillingness, as much of their soul as great art requires for its enjoyment. And it is noticeable that busy men, coming to art for pleasure when they are too weary for looking, listening, or thinking, so often prefer the sensation-novel, the music-hall song, and such painting as is but a costlier kind of oleograph; treating all other art as humbug, and art in general as a trifle wherewith to wile away a lazy moment, a trifle about which every man _can know what he likes best_. Thus it is that great art makes, by coincidence, the same demands as noble thinking and acting. For, even as all noble sports develop muscle, develop eye, skill, quickness and pluck in bodily movement, qualities which are valuable also in the practical business of life; so also the appreciation of noble kinds of art implies the acquisition of habits of accuracy, of patience, of respectfulness, and suspension of judgment, of preference of future good over present, of harmony and clearness, of sympathy (when we come to literary art), judgment and kindly fairness, which are all of them useful to our neighbours and ourselves in the many contingencies and obscurities of real life. Now this is not so with the pleasures of the senses: the pleasures of the senses do not increase by sharing, and sometimes cannot be shared at all; they are, moreover, evanescent, leaving us no richer; above all, they cultivate in ourselves qualities useful only for that particular enjoyment. Thus, a highly discriminating palate may have saved the life of animals and savages, but what can its subtleness do nowadays beyond making us into gormandisers and winebibbers, or, at best, into cooks and tasters for the service of gormandising and winebibbing persons? IX. Delight in beautiful things and in beautiful thoughts requires, therefore, a considerable exercise of the will and the attention, such as is not demanded by our lower enjoyments. Indeed, it is probably this absence of moral and intellectual effort which recommends such lower kinds of pleasure to a large number of persons. I have said lower _kinds_ of pleasure, because there are other enjoyments besides those of the senses which entail no moral improvement in ourselves: the enjoyments connected with vanity and greed. We should not--even if any of us could be sure of being impeccable on these points--we should not be too hard on the persons and the classes of persons who are conscious of no other kind of enjoyment. They are not necessarily base, not necessarily sensual or vain, because they care only for bodily indulgence, for notice and gain. They are very likely not base, but only apathetic, slothful, or very tired. The noble sport, the intellectual problem, the great work of art, the divinely beautiful effect in Nature, require that one should _give oneself_; the French-cooked dinner as much as the pot of beer; the game of chance, whether with clean cards at a club or with greasy ones in a tap-room; the outdoing of one's neighbours, whether by the ragged heroes of Zola or the well-groomed heroes of Balzac, require no such coming forward of the soul: they _take_ us, without any need for our giving ourselves. Hence, as I have just said, the preference for them does not imply original baseness, but only lack of higher energy. We can judge of the condition of those who can taste no other pleasures by remembering what the best of us are when we are tired or ill: vaguely craving for interests, sensations, emotions, variety, but quite unable to procure them through our own effort, and longing for them to come to us from without. Now, in our still very badly organised world, an enormous number of people are condemned by the tyranny of poverty or the tyranny of fashion, to be, when the day's work or the day's business is done, in just such a condition of fatigue and languor, of craving, therefore, for the baser kinds of pleasure. We all recognise that this is the case with what we call _poor people_, and that this is why poor people are apt to prefer the public-house to the picture gallery or the concert-room. It would be greatly to the purpose were we to acknowledge that it is largely the case with the rich, and that for that reason the rich are apt to take more pleasure in ostentatious display of their properties than in contemplation of such beauty as is accessible to all men. Indeed, it is one of the ironies of the barbarous condition we are pleased to call _civilisation_, that so many rich men--thousands daily--are systematically toiling and moiling till they are unable to enjoy any pleasure which requires vigour of mind and attention, rendering themselves impotent, from sheer fatigue, to enjoy the delights which life gives generously to all those who fervently seek them. And what for? Largely for the sake of those pleasures which can be had only for money, but which can be enjoyed without using one's soul. X. [PARENTHETICAL] "And these, you see," I said, "are bay-trees, the laurels they used the leaves of to ..." I was going to say "to crown poets," but I left my sentence in mid-air, because of course he knew that as well as I. "Precisely," he answered with intelligent interest--"I have noticed that the leaves are sometimes put in sardine boxes." Soon after this conversation I discovered the curious circumstance that one of the greatest of peoples and perhaps the most favoured by Apollo, calls Laurus Nobilis "Laurier-Sauce." The name is French; the symbol, alas, of universal application. This paragraph X. had been intended to deal with "Art as it is understood by persons of fashion and eminent men of business." XI. Thus it is that real æsthetic keenness--and æsthetic keenness, as I shall show you in my next chapter, means appreciating beauty, not collecting beautiful properties--thus it is that all æsthetic keenness implies a development of the qualities of patience, attention, reverence, and of that vigour of soul which is not called forth, but rather impaired, by the coarser enjoyments of the senses and of vanity. So far, therefore, we have seen that the capacity for æsthetic pleasure is allied to a certain nobility in the individual. I think I can show that the preference for æsthetic pleasure tends also to a happier relation between the individual and his fellows. But the cultivation of our æsthetic pleasures does not merely necessitate our improvement in certain very essential moral qualities. It implies as much, in a way, as the cultivation of the intellect and the sympathies, that we should live chiefly in the spirit, in which alone, as philosophers and mystics have rightly understood, there is safety from the worst miseries and room for the most complete happiness. Only, we shall learn from the study of our æsthetic pleasures that while the stoics and mystics have been right in affirming that the spirit only can give the highest good, they have been fatally wrong in the reason they gave for their preference. And we may learn from our æsthetic experiences that the spirit is useful, not in detaching us from the enjoyable things of life, but, on the contrary, in giving us their consummate possession. The spirit--one of whose most precious capacities is that it enables us to print off all outside things on to ourselves, to store moods and emotions, to recombine and reinforce past impressions into present ones--the spirit puts pleasure more into our own keeping, making it more independent of time and place, of circumstances, and, what is equally important, independent of other people's strivings after pleasure, by which our own, while they clash and hamper, are so often impeded. XII. For our intimate commerce with beautiful things and beautiful thoughts does not exist only, or even chiefly, at the moment of seeing, or hearing, or reading; nay, if the beautiful touched us only at such separate and special moments, the beautiful would play but an insignificant part in our existence. As a fact, those moments represent very often only the act of _storage_, or not much more. Our real æsthetic life is in ourselves, often isolated from the beautiful words, objects, or sounds; sometimes almost unconscious; permeating the whole rest of life in certain highly æsthetic individuals, and, however mixed with other activities, as constant as the life of the intellect and sympathies; nay, as constant as the life of assimilation and motion. We can live off a beautiful object, we can live by its means, even when its visible or audible image is partially, nay, sometimes wholly, obliterated; for the emotional condition can survive the image and be awakened at the mere name, awakened sufficiently to heighten the emotion caused by other images of beauty. We can sometimes feel, so to speak, the spiritual companionship and comfort of a work of art, or of a scene in nature, nay, almost its particular caress to our whole being, when the work of art or the scene has grown faint in our memory, but the emotion it awakened has kept warm. Now this possibility of storing for later use, of increasing by combination, the impressions of beautiful things, makes art--and by art I mean all æsthetic activity, whether in the professed artist who creates or the unconscious artist who assimilates--the type of such pleasures as are within our own keeping, and makes the æsthetic life typical also of that life of the spirit in which alone we can realise any kind of human freedom. We shall all of us meet with examples thereof if we seek through our consciousness. That such things existed was made clear to me during a weary period of illness, for which I shall always be grateful, since it taught me, in those months of incapacity for enjoyment, that there is a safe kind of pleasure, _the pleasure we can defer_. I spent part of that time at Tangier, surrounded by everything which could delight me, and in none of which I took any real delight. I did not enjoy Tangier at the time, but I have enjoyed Tangier ever since, on the principle of the bee eating its honey months after making it. The reality of Tangier, I mean the reality of my presence there, and the state of my nerves, were not in the relation of enjoyment. But how often has not the image of Tangier, the remembrance of what I saw and did there, returned and haunted me in the most enjoyable fashion. After all, is it not often the case with pictures, statues, journeys, and the reading of books? The weariness entailed, the mere continuity of looking or attending, quite apart from tiresome accompanying circumstances, make the apparently real act, what we expect to be the act of enjoyment, quite illusory; like Coleridge, "we see, not _feel_, how beautiful things are." Later on, all odious accompanying circumstances are utterly forgotten, eliminated, and the weariness is gone: we enjoy not merely unhampered by accidents, but in the very way our heart desires. For we can choose--our mood unconsciously does it for us--the right moment and right accessories for consuming some of our stored delights; moreover, we can add what condiments and make what mixtures suit us best at that moment. We draw not merely upon one past reality, making its essentials present, but upon dozens. To revert to Tangier (whose experience first brought these possibilities clearly before me), I find I enjoy it in connection with Venice, the mixture having a special roundness of tone or flavour. Similarly, I once heard Bach's _Magnificat_, with St. Mark's of Venice as a background in my imagination. Again, certain moonlight songs of Schumann have blended wonderfully with remembrances of old Italian villas. King Solomon, in all his ships, could not have carried the things which I can draw, in less than a second, from one tiny convolution of my brain, from one corner of my mind. No wizard that ever lived had spells which could evoke such kingdoms and worlds as anyone of us can conjure up with certain words: Greece, the Middle Ages, Orpheus, Robin Hood, Mary Stuart, Ancient Rome, the Far East. XIII. And here, as fit illustration of these beneficent powers, which can free us from a life where we stifle and raise us into a life where we can breathe and grow, let me record my gratitude to a certain young goat, which, on one occasion, turned what might have been a detestable hour into a pleasant one. The goat, or rather kid, a charming gazelle-like creature, with budding horns and broad, hard forehead, was one of my fourteen fellow passengers in a third-class carriage on a certain bank holiday Saturday. Riding and standing in such crowded misery had cast a general gloom over all the holiday makers; they seemed to have forgotten the coming outing in sullen hatred of all their neighbours; and I confess that I too began to wonder whether Bank Holiday was an altogether delightful institution. But the goat had no such doubts. Leaning against the boy who was taking it holiday-making, it tried very gently to climb and butt, and to play with its sulky fellow travellers. And as it did so it seemed to radiate a sort of poetry on everything: vague impressions of rocks, woods, hedges, the Alps, Italy, and Greece; mythology, of course, and that amusement of "jouer avec des chèvres apprivoisées," which that great charmer M. Renan has attributed to his charming Greek people. Now, as I realised the joy of the goat on finding itself among the beech woods and short grass of the Hertfordshire hills, I began also to see my other fellow travellers no longer as surly people resenting each other's presence, but as happy human beings admitted once more to the pleasant things of life. The goat had quite put me in conceit with bank holiday. When it got out of the train at Berkhampstead, the emptier carriage seemed suddenly more crowded, and my fellow travellers more discontented. But I remained quite pleased, and when I had alighted, found that instead of a horrible journey, I could remember only a rather exquisite little adventure. That beneficent goat had acted as Pegasus; and on its small back my spirit had ridden to the places it loves. In this fashion does the true æsthete tend to prefer, even like the austerest moralist, the delights which, being of the spirit, are most independent of circumstances and most in the individual's own keeping. XIV. It was Mr. Pater who first pointed out how the habit of æsthetic enjoyment makes the epicurean into an ascetic. He builds as little as possible on the things of the senses and the moment, knowing how little, in comparison, we have either in our power. For, even if the desired object, person, or circumstance comes, how often does it not come at the wrong hour! In this world, which mankind fits still so badly, the wish and its fulfilling are rarely in unison, rarely in harmony, but follow each other, most often, like vibrations of different instruments, at intervals which can only jar. The _n'est-ce que cela_, the inability to enjoy, of successful ambition and favoured, passionate love, is famous; and short of love even and ambition, we all know the flatness of long-desired pleasures. King Solomon, who had not been enough of an ascetic, as we all know, and therefore ended off in cynicism, knew that there is not only satiety as a result of enjoyment; but a sort of satiety also, an absence of keenness, an incapacity for caring, due to the deferring of enjoyment. He doubtless knew, among other items of vanity, that our wishes are often fulfilled without our even knowing it, so indifferent have we become through long waiting, or so changed in our wants. XV. There is another reason for such ascetism as was taught in _Marius the Epicurean_ and in Pater's book on Plato: the modest certainty of all pleasure derived from the beautiful will accustom the perfect æsthete to seek for the like in other branches of activity. Accustomed to the happiness which is in his own keeping, he will view with suspicion all craving for satisfactions which are beyond his control. He will not ask to be given the moon, and he will not even wish to be given it, lest the wish should grow into a want; he will make the best of candles and glowworms and of distant heavenly luminaries. Moreover, being accustomed to enjoy the mere sight of things as much as other folk do their possession, he will probably actually prefer that the moon should be hanging in the heavens, and not on his staircase. Again, having experience of the æsthetic pleasures which involve, in what Milton called their sober waking bliss, no wear and tear, no reaction of satiety, he will not care much for the more rapturous pleasures of passion and success, which always cost as much as they are worth. He will be unwilling to run into such debt with his own feelings, having learned from æsthetic pleasure that there are activities of the soul which, instead of impoverishing, enrich it. Thus does the commerce with beautiful things and beautiful thoughts tend to develop in us that healthy kind of asceticism so requisite to every workable scheme of greater happiness for the individual and the plurality: self-restraint, choice of aims, consistent and thorough-paced subordination of the lesser interest to the greater; above all, what sums up asceticism as an efficacious means towards happiness, preference of the spiritual, the unconditional, the durable, instead of the temporal, the uncertain, and the fleeting. The intimate and continuous intercourse with the Beautiful teaches us, therefore, the renunciation of the unnecessary for the sake of the possible. It teaches asceticism leading not to indifference and Nervana, but to higher complexities of vitalisation, to a more complete and harmonious rhythm of individual existence. XVI. Art can thus train the soul because art is free; or, more strictly speaking, because art is the only complete expression, the only consistent realisation of our freedom. In other parts of our life, business, affection, passion, pursuit of utility, glory or truth, we are for ever _conditioned_. We are twisting perpetually, perpetually stopped short and deflected, picking our way among the visible and barely visible habits, interests, desires, shortcomings, of others and of that portion of ourselves which, in the light of that particular moment and circumstance, seems to be foreign to us, to be another's. We can no more follow the straight line of our wishes than can the passenger in Venice among those labyrinthine streets, whose everlasting, unexpected bends are due to canals which the streets themselves prevent his seeing. Moreover, in those gropings among looming or unseen obstacles, we are pulled hither and thither, checked and misled by the recurring doubt as to which, of these thwarted and yielding selves, may be the chief and real one, and which, of the goals we are never allowed finally to touch, is the goal we spontaneously tend to. Now it is different in the case of Art, and of all those æsthetic activities, often personal and private, which are connected with Art and may be grouped together under Art's name. Art exists to please, and, when left to ourselves, we feel in what our pleasure lies. Art is a free, most open and visible space, where we disport ourselves freely. Indeed, it has long been remarked (the poet Schiller working out the theory) that, as there is in man's nature a longing for mere unconditioned exercise, one of Art's chief missions is to give us free scope to be ourselves. If therefore Art is the playground where each individual, each nation or each century, not merely toils, but untrammelled by momentary passion, unhampered by outer cares, freely exists and feels itself, then Art may surely become the training-place of our soul. Art may teach us how to employ our liberty, how to select our wishes: employ our liberty so as to respect that of others; select our wishes in such a manner as to further the wishes of our fellow-creatures. For there are various, and variously good or evil ways of following our instincts, fulfilling our desires, in short, of being independent of outer circumstances; in other words, there are worthy and worthless ways of using our leisure and our surplus energy, of seeking our pleasure. And Art--Art and all Art here stands for--can train us to do so without injuring others, without wasting the material and spiritual riches of the world. Art can train us to delight in the higher harmonies of existence; train us to open our eyes, ears and souls, instead of shutting them, to the wider modes of universal life. In such manner, to resume our symbol of the bay laurel which the road-mender stuck on to the front of that tramcar, can our love for the beautiful avert, like the plant of Apollo, many of the storms, and cure many of the fevers, of life. "NISI CITHARAM." I. It is well that this second chapter--in which I propose to show how a genuine æsthetic development tends to render the individual more useful, or at least less harmful, to his fellow-men--should begin, like the first, with a symbol, such as may sum up my meaning, and point it out in the process of my expounding it. The symbol is contained in the saying of the Abbot Joachim of Flora, one of the great precursors of St. Francis, to wit: "He that is a true monk considers nothing his own except a lyre--_nihil reputat esse suum nisi citharam_." Yes; nothing except a lyre. II. But that lyre, our only real possession, is our _Soul_. It must be shaped, and strung, and kept carefully in tune; no easy matter in surroundings little suited to delicate instruments and delicate music. Possessing it, we possess, in the only true sense of possession, the whole world. For going along our way, whether rough or even, there are formed within us, singing the beauty and wonder of _what is_ or _what should_ be, mysterious sequences and harmonies of notes, new every time, answering to the primæval everlasting affinities between ourselves and all things; our souls becoming musical under the touch of the universe. Let us bear this in mind, this symbol of the lyre which Abbot Joachim allowed as sole property to the man of spiritual life. And let us remember that, as I tried to show in my previous chapter, the true Lover of the Beautiful, active, self-restrained, and indifferent to lower pleasures and interests, is in one sense your man of real spiritual life. For the symbol of Abbot Joachim's lyre will make it easier to follow my meaning, and easier to forestall it, while I try to convince you that art, and all æsthetic activity, is important as a type of the only kind of pleasure which reasonable beings should admit of, the kind of pleasure which tends not to diminish by wastefulness and exclusive appropriation, but to increase by sympathy, the possible pleasures of other persons. III. 'Tis no excessive puritanism to say that while pleasure, in the abstract, is a great, perhaps the greatest, good; pleasures, our actual pleasures in the concrete, are very often evil. Many of the pleasures which we allow ourselves, and which all the world admits our right to, happen to be such as waste wealth and time, make light of the advantage of others, and of the good of our own souls. This fact does not imply either original sinfulness or degeneracy--religious and scientific terms for the same thing--in poor mankind. It means merely that we are all of us as yet very undeveloped creatures; the majority, moreover, less developed than the minority, and the bulk of each individual's nature very much in the rear of his own aspirations and definitions. Mankind, in the process of adapting itself to external circumstances, has perforce evolved a certain amount of intellectual and moral quality; but that intellectual and moral quality is, so far, merely a means for rendering material existence endurable; it will have to become itself the origin and aim of what we must call a spiritual side of life. In the meanwhile, human beings do not get any large proportion of their enjoyment from what they admit to be their nobler side. Hence it is that even when you have got rid of the mere struggle for existence--fed, clothed, and housed your civilised savage, and secured food, clothes, and shelter for his brood--you have by no means provided against his destructive, pain-giving activities. He has spare time and energy; and these he will devote, ten to one, to recreations involving, at the best, the slaughter of harmless creatures; at the worst, to the wasting of valuable substance, of what might be other people's food; or else to the hurting of other people's feelings in various games of chance or skill, particularly in the great skilled game of brag called "Society." Our gentlemanly ancestors, indeed, could not amuse themselves without emptying a certain number of bottles and passing some hours under the table; while our nimble-witted French neighbours, we are told, included in their expenditure on convivial amusements a curious item called _la casse_, to wit, the smashing of plates and glasses. The Spaniards, on the other hand, have bull-fights, most shocking spectacles, as we know, for we make it a point to witness them when we are over there. Undoubtedly we have immensely improved in such matters, but we need a great deal of further improvement. Most people are safe only when at work, and become mischievous when they begin to play. They do not know how to _kill time_ (for that is the way in which we poor mortals regard life) without incidentally killing something else: proximately birds and beasts, and their neighbours' good fame; more remotely, but as surely, the constitution of their descendants, and the possible wages of the working classes. It is quite marvellous how little aptness there is in the existing human being for taking pleasure either in what already exists ready to hand, or in the making of something which had better be there; in what can be enjoyed without diminishing the enjoyment of others, as nature, books, art, thought, and the better qualities of one's neighbours. In fact, one reason why there is something so morally pleasant in cricket and football and rowing and riding and dancing, is surely that they furnish on the physical plane the counterpart of what is so sadly lacking on the spiritual: amusements which do good to the individual and no harm to his fellows. Of course, in our state neither of original sinfulness nor of degeneracy, but of very imperfect development, it is still useless and absurd to tell people to make use of intellectual and moral resources which they have not yet got. It is as vain to preach to the majority of the well-to-do the duty of abstinence from wastefulness, rivalry, and ostentation as it is vain to preach to the majority of the badly-off abstinence from alcohol; without such pleasures their life would be unendurably insipid. But inevitable as is such evil in the present, it inevitably brings its contingent of wretchedness; and it is therefore the business of all such as _could_ become the forerunners of a better state of things to refuse to follow the lead of their inferiors. Exactly because the majority is still so hopelessly wasteful and mischievous, does it behove the minority not merely to work to some profit, but to play without damage. To do this should become the mark of Nature's aristocracy, a sign of liberality of spiritual birth and breeding, a question of _noblesse oblige_. IV. And here comes in the immense importance of Art as a type of pleasure: of Art in the sense of æsthetic appreciation even more than of æsthetic creation; of Art considered as the extracting and combining of beauty in the mind of the obscure layman quite as much as the embodiment of such extracted and combined beauty in the visible or audible work of the great artist. For experience of true æsthetic activity must teach us, in proportion as it is genuine and ample, that the enjoyment of the beautiful is not merely independent of, but actually incompatible with, that tendency to buy our satisfaction at the expense of others which remains more or less in all of us as a survival from savagery. The reasons why genuine æsthetic feeling inhibits these obsolescent instincts of rapacity and ruthlessness, are reasons negative and positive, and may be roughly divided into three headings. Only one of them is generally admitted to exist, and of it, therefore, I shall speak very briefly, I mean the fact that the enjoyment of beautiful things is originally and intrinsically one of those which are heightened by sharing. We know it instinctively when, as children, we drag our comrades and elders to the window when a regiment passes or a circus parades by; we learn it more and more as we advance in life, and find that we must get other people to see the pictures, to hear the music, to read the books which we admire. It is a case of what psychologists call the _contagion of emotion_, by which the feeling of one individual is strengthened by the expression of similar feeling in his neighbour, and is explicable, most likely, by the fact that the greatest effort is always required to overcome original inertness, and that two efforts, like two horses starting a carriage instead of one, combined give more than double the value of each taken separately. The fact of this æsthetic sociability is so obvious that we need not discuss it any further, but merely hold it over to add, at last, to the result of the two other reasons, negative and positive, which tend to make æsthetic enjoyment the type of unselfish, nay, even of altruistic pleasure. V. The first of these reasons, the negative one, is that æsthetic pleasure is not in the least dependent upon the fact of personal ownership, and that it therefore affords an opportunity of leaving inactive, of beginning to atrophy by inactivity, the passion for exclusive possession, for individual advantage, which is at the bottom of all bad luxury, of all ostentation, and of nearly all rapacity. But before entering on this discussion I would beg my reader to call to mind that curious saying of Abbot Joachim's; and to consider that I wish to prove that, like his true monk, the true æsthete, who nowadays loves and praises creation much as the true monk did in former centuries, can really possess as sole personal possession only a musical instrument--to wit, his own well-strung and resonant soul. Having said this, we will proceed to the question of Luxury, by which I mean the possession of such things as minister only to weakness and vanity, of such things as we cannot reasonably hope that all men may some day equally possess. When we are young--and most of us remain mere withered children, never attaining maturity, in similar matters--we are usually attracted by luxury and luxurious living. We are possessed by that youthful instinct of union, fusion, marriage, so to speak, with what our soul desires; we hanker after close contact and complete possession; and we fancy, in our inexperience, that luxury, the accumulation of valuables, the appropriation of opportunities, the fact of rejecting from our life all that is not costly, brilliant, and dainty, implies such fusion of our soul with beauty. But, as we reach maturity, we find that this is all delusion. We learn, from the experience of occasions when our soul has truly possessed the beautiful, or been possessed by it, that if such union with the harmony of outer things is rare, perhaps impossible, among squalor and weariness, it is difficult and anomalous in the condition which we entitle luxury. We learn that our assimilation of beauty, and that momentary renewal of our soul which it effects, rarely arises from our own ownership; but comes, taking us by surprise, in presence of hills, streams, memories of pictures, poets' words, and strains of music, which are not, and cannot be, our property. The essential character of beauty is its being a relation between ourselves and certain objects. The emotion to which we attach its name is produced, motived by something outside us, pictures, music, landscape, or whatever it may be; but the emotion resides in us, and it is the emotion, and not merely its object, which we desire. Hence material possession has no æsthetic meaning. We possess a beautiful object with our soul; the possession thereof with our hands or our legal rights brings us no nearer the beauty. Ownership, in this sense, may empower us to destroy or hide the object and thus cheat others of the possession of its beauty, but does not help _us_ to possess that beauty. It is with beauty as with that singer who answered Catherine II., "Your Majesty's policemen can make me _scream_, but they cannot make me _sing_;" and she might have added, for my parallel, "Your policemen, great Empress, even could they make _me_ sing, would not be able to make _you_ hear." VI. Hence all strong æsthetic feeling will always prefer ownership of the mental image to ownership of the tangible object. And any desire for material appropriation or exclusive enjoyment will be merely so much weakening and adulteration of the æsthetic sentiment. Since the mental image, the only thing æsthetically possessed, is in no way diminished or damaged by sharing; nay, we have seen that by one of the most gracious coincidences between beauty and kindliness, the æsthetic emotion is even intensified by the knowledge of co-existence in others: the delight in each person communicating itself, like a musical third, fifth, or octave, to the similar yet different delight in his neighbour, harmonic enriching harmonic by stimulating fresh vibration. If, then, we wish to possess casts, copies, or photographs of certain works of art, this is, æsthetically considered, exactly as we wish to have the means--railway tickets, permissions for galleries, and so forth--of seeing certain pictures or statues as often as we wish. For we feel that the images in our mind require renewing, or that, in combination with other more recently acquired images, they will, if renewed, yield a new kind of delight. But this is quite another matter from wishing to own the material object, the thing we call _work of art itself_, forgetting that it is a work of art only for the soul capable of instating it as such. Thus, in every person who truly cares for beauty, there is a necessary tendency to replace the illusory legal act of ownership by the real spiritual act of appreciation. Charles Lamb already expressed this delightfully in the essay on the old manor-house. Compared with his possession of its beauties, its walks, tapestried walls and family portraits, nay, even of the ghosts of former proprietors, the possession by the legal owner was utterly nugatory, unreal: "Mine too, Blakesmoor, was thy noble Marble Hall, with its mosaic pavements, and its twelve Cæsars;... mine, too, thy lofty Justice Hall, with its one chair of authority.... Mine, too--whose else?--thy costly fruit-garden ... thy ampler pleasure-garden ... thy firry wilderness.... I was the true descendant of those old W----'s, and not the present family of that name, who had fled the old waste places." How often have not some of us felt like that; and how much might not those of us who never have, learn, could they learn, from those words of Elia? VII. I have spoken of _material, actual_ possession. But if we look closer at it we shall see that, save with regard to the things which are actually consumed, destroyed, disintegrated, changed to something else in their enjoyment, the notion of ordinary possession is a mere delusion. It can be got only by a constant obtrusion of a mere idea, the _idea of self_, and of such unsatisfactory ideas as one's right, for instance, to exclude others. 'Tis like the tension of a muscle, this constant keeping the consciousness aware by repeating "Mine--mine--_mine_ and not _theirs_; not _theirs_, but _mine_." And this wearisome act of self-assertion leaves little power for appreciation, for the appreciation which others can have quite equally, and without which there is no reality at all in ownership. Hence, the deeper our enjoyment of beauty, the freer shall we become of the dreadful delusion of exclusive appropriation, despising such unreal possession in proportion as we have tasted the real one. We shall know the two kinds of ownership too well apart to let ourselves be cozened into cumbering our lives with material properties and their responsibilities. We shall save up our vigour, not for obtaining and keeping (think of the thousand efforts and cares of ownership, even the most negative) the things which yield happy impressions, but for receiving and storing up and making capital of those impressions. We shall seek to furnish our mind with beautiful thoughts, not our houses with pretty things. VIII. I hope I have made clear enough that æsthetic enjoyment is hostile to the unkind and wasteful pleasures of selfish indulgence and selfish appropriation, because the true possession of the beautiful things of Nature, of Art, and of thought is spiritual, and neither damages, nor diminishes, nor hoards them; because the lover of the beautiful seeks for beautiful impressions and remembrances, which are vested in his soul, and not in material objects. That is the negative benefit of the love of the beautiful. Let us now proceed to the positive and active assistance which it renders, when genuine and thorough-paced, to such thought as we give to the happiness and dignity of others. IX. I have said that our pleasure in the beautiful is essentially a spiritual phenomenon, one, I mean, which deals with our own perceptions and emotions, altering the contents of our mind, while leaving the beautiful object itself intact and unaltered. This being the case, it is easy to understand that our æsthetic pleasure will be complete and extensive in proportion to the amount of activity of our soul; for, remember, all pleasure is proportionate to activity, and, as I said in my first chapter, great beauty does not merely _take us_, but _we_ must give _ourselves to it_. Hence, an increase in the capacity for æsthetic pleasure will mean, _cæeteris paribus_, an increase in a portion of our spiritual activity, a greater readiness to take small hints, to connect different items, to reject the lesser good for the greater. Moreover, a great, perhaps the greater, part of our æsthetic pleasure is due, as I also told you before, to the storing of impressions in our mind, and to the combining of them there with other impressions. Indeed, it is for this reason that I have made no difference, save in intensity between æsthetic creation, so called, and æsthetic appreciation; telling you, on the contrary, that the artistic layman creates, produces something new and personal, only in a less degree than the professed artist. For the æsthetic life does not consist merely in the perception of the beautiful object, not merely in the emotion of that spiritual contact between the beautiful product of art or of nature and the soul of the appreciator: it is continued in the emotions and images and thoughts which are awakened by that perception; and the æsthetic life _is_ life, is something continuous and organic, just because new forms, however obscure and evanescent, are continually born, in their turn continually to give birth, of that marriage between the beautiful thing outside and the beautiful soul within. Hence, full æsthetic life means the creating and extending of ever new harmonies in the mind of the layman, the unconscious artist who merely enjoys, as a result of the creating and extending of new harmonies in the work of the professed artist who consciously creates. This being the case, the true æsthete is for ever seeking to reduce his impressions and thoughts to harmony; and is for ever, accordingly, being pleased with some of them, and disgusted with others. X. The desire for beauty and harmony, therefore, in proportion as it becomes active and sensitive, explores into every detail, establishes comparisons between everything, judges, approves, and disapproves; and makes terrible and wholesome havoc not merely in our surroundings, but in our habits and in our lives. And very soon the mere thought of something ugly becomes enough to outweigh the actual presence of something beautiful. I was told last winter at San Remo, that the scent of the Parma violet can be distilled only by the oil of the flower being passed through a layer of pork fat; and since that revelation violet essence has lost much of the charm it possessed for me: the thought of the suet counterbalanced the reality of the perfume. Now this violet essence, thus obtained, is symbolic of many of the apparently refined enjoyments of our life. We shall find that luxury and pomp, delightful sometimes in themselves, are distilled through a layer of coarse and repulsive labour by other folk; and the thought of the pork suet will spoil the smell of the violets. For the more dishes we have for dinner, the greater number of cooking-pots will have to be cleaned; the more carriages and horses we use, the more washing and grooming will result; the more crowded our rooms with furniture and nicknacks, the more dust will have to be removed; the more numerous and delicate our clothes, the more brushing and folding there will be; and the more purely ornamental our own existence, the less ornamental will be that of others. There is a _pensée_ of Pascal's to the effect that a fop carries on his person the evidence of the existence of so many people devoted to his service. This thought may be delightful to a fop; but it is not pleasant to a mind sensitive to beauty and hating the bare thought of ugliness: for while vanity takes pleasure in lack of harmony between oneself and one's neighbour, æsthetic feeling takes pleasure only in harmonious relations. The thought of the servile lives devoted to make our life more beautiful counterbalances the pleasure of the beauty; 'tis the eternal question of the violet essence and the pork suet. Now the habit of beauty, the æsthetic sense, becomes, as I said, more and more sensitive and vivacious; you cannot hide from it the knowledge of every sort of detail, you cannot prevent its noticing the ugly side, the ugly lining of certain pretty things. 'Tis a but weak and sleepy kind of æstheticism which "blinks and shuts its apprehension up" at your bidding, which looks another way discreetly, and discreetly refrains from all comparisons. The real æsthetic activity _is_ an activity; it is one of the strongest and most imperious powers of human nature; it does not take orders, it only gives them. It is, when full grown, a kind of conscience of beautiful and ugly, analogous to the other conscience of right and wrong, and it is equally difficult to silence. If you can silence your æsthetic faculty and bid it be satisfied with the lesser beauty, the lesser harmony, instead of the greater, be sure that it is a very rudimentary kind of instinct; and that you are no more thoroughly æsthetic than if you could make your sense of right and wrong be blind and dumb at your convenience, you could be thoroughly moral. Hence, the more æsthetic we become, the less we shall tolerate such modes of living as involve dull and dirty work for others, as involve the exclusion of others from the sort of life which we consider æsthetically tolerable. We shall require such houses and such habits as can be seen, and, what is inevitable in all æsthetical development, as can also be _thought of_, in all their details. We shall require a homogeneous impression of decorum and fitness from the lives of others as well as from our own, from what we actually see and from what we merely know: the imperious demand for beauty, for harmony will be applied no longer to our mere material properties, but to that other possession which is always with us and can never be taken from us, the images and feelings within our soul. Now, that other human beings should be drudging sordidly in order that we may be idle and showy means a thought, a vision, an emotion which do not get on in our mind in company with the sight of sunset and sea, the taste of mountain air and woodland freshness, the faces and forms of Florentine saints and Antique gods, the serene poignancy of great phrases of music. This is by no means all. Developing in æsthetic sensitiveness we grow to think of ourselves also, our own preferences, moods and attitudes, as more or less beautiful or ugly; the inner life falling under the same criticism as the outer one. We become aristocratic and epicurean about our desires and habits; we grow squeamish and impatient towards luxury, towards all kinds of monopoly and privilege on account of the mean attitude, the graceless gesture they involve on our own part. XI. This feeling is increasing daily. Our deepest æsthetic emotions are, we are beginning to recognise, connected with things which we do not, cannot, possess in the vulgar sense. Nay, the deepest æsthetic emotions depend, to an appreciable degree, on the very knowledge that these things are either not such as money can purchase, or that they are within the purchasing power of all. The sense of being shareable by others, of being even shareable, so to speak, by other kinds of utility, adds a very keen attraction to all beautiful things and beautiful actions, and, of course, _vice versâ_. And things which are beautiful, but connected with luxury and exclusive possession, come to affect one as, in a way, _lacking harmonics_, lacking those additional vibrations of pleasure which enrich impressions of beauty by impressions of utility and kindliness. Thus, after enjoying the extraordinary lovely tints--oleander pink, silver-grey, and most delicate citron--of the plaster which covers the commonest cottages, the humblest chapels, all round Genoa, there is something _short and acid_ in the pleasure one derives from equally charming colours in expensive dresses. Similarly, in Italy, much of the charm of marble, of the sea-cave shimmer, of certain palace-yards and churches, is due to the knowledge that this lovely, noble substance is easy to cut and quarried in vast quantities hard by: no wretched rarity like diamonds and rubies, which diminish by the worth of a family's yearly keep if only the cutter cuts one hair-breadth wrong! Again, is not one reason why antique sculpture awakens a state of mind where stoicism, humaneness, simplicity, seem nearer possibilities--is not one reason that it shows us the creature in its nakedness, in such beauty and dignity as it can get through the grace of birth only? There is no need among the gods for garments from silken Samarkand, for farthingales of brocade and veils of Mechlin lace like those of the wooden Madonnas of Spanish churches; no need for the ruffles and plumes of Pascal's young beau, showing thereby the number of his valets. The same holds good of trees, water, mountains, and their representation in poetry and painting; their dignity takes no account of poverty or riches. Even the lilies of the field please us, not because they toil not neither do they spin, but because they do not require, while Solomon does, that other folk should toil and spin to make them glorious. XII. Again, do we not prefer the books which deal with habits simpler than our own? Do we not love the Odyssey partly because of Calypso weaving in her cave, and Nausicaa washing the clothes with her maidens? Does it not lend additional divinity that Christianity should have arisen among peasants and handicraftsmen? Nay more, do we not love certain objects largely because they are useful; boats, nets, farm carts, ploughs; discovering therein a grace which actually exists, but which might else have remained unsuspected? And do we not feel a certain lack of significance and harmony of fulness of æsthetic quality in our persons when we pass in our idleness among people working in the fields, masons building, or fishermen cleaning their boats and nets; whatever beauty such things may have being enhanced by their being common and useful. In this manner our æsthetic instinct strains vaguely after a double change: not merely giving affluence and leisure to others, but giving simplicity and utility to ourselves? XIII. And, even apart from this, does not all true æstheticism tend to diminish labour while increasing enjoyment, because it makes the already existing more sufficient, because it furthers the joys of the spirit, which multiply by sharing, as distinguished from the pleasures of vanity and greediness, which only diminish? XIV. You may at first feel inclined to pooh-pooh the notion that mere love of beauty can help to bring about a better distribution of the world's riches; and reasonably object that we cannot feed people on images and impressions which multiply by sharing; they live on bread, and not on the _idea_ of bread. But has it ever struck you that, after all, the amount of material bread--even if we extend the word to everything which is consumed for bodily necessity and comfort--which any individual can consume is really very small; and that the bad distribution, the shocking waste of this material bread arises from being, so to speak, used symbolically, used as spiritual bread, as representing those _ideas_ for which men hunger: superiority over other folk, power of having dependants, social position, ownership, and privilege of all kinds? For what are the bulk of worldly possessions to their owners: houses, parks, plate, jewels, superfluous expenditure of all kinds [and armies and navies when we come to national wastefulness]--what are all these ill-distributed riches save _ideas_, ideas futile and ungenerous, food for the soul, but food upon which the soul grows sick and corrupteth? Would it not be worth while to reorganise this diet of ideas? To reorganise that part of us which is independent of bodily sustenance and health, which lives on spiritual commodities--the part of us including ambition, ideal, sympathy, and all that I have called _ideas_? Would it not be worth while to find such ideas as all people can live upon without diminishing each other's share, instead of the _ideas_, the imaginative satisfactions which each must refuse to his neighbour, and about which, therefore, all of us are bound to fight like hungry animals? Thus to reform our notions of what is valuable and distinguished would bring about an economic reformation; or, if other forces were needed, would make the benefits of such economic reformation completer, its hardships easier to bear; and, altering our views of loss and gain, lessen the destructive struggle of snatching and holding. Now, as I have been trying to show, beauty, harmony, fitness, are of the nature of the miraculous loaves and fishes: they can feed multitudes and leave basketfuls for the morrow. But the desire for such spiritual food is, you will again object, itself a rarity, a product of leisure and comfort, almost a luxury. Quite true. And you will remember, perhaps, that I have already remarked that they are not to be expected either from the poor in material comfort, nor from the poor in soul, since both of these are condemned, the first by physical wretchedness, the second by spiritual inactivity, to fight only for larger shares of material bread; with the difference that this material bread is eaten by the poor, and made into very ugly symbols of glory by the rich. But, among those of us who are neither hungry nor vacuous, there is not, generally speaking, much attempt to make the best of our spiritual privileges. We teach our children, as we were taught ourselves, to give importance only to the fact of exclusiveness, expense, rareness, already necessarily obtruded far too much by our struggling, imperfect civilisation. We are indeed angry with little boys and girls if they enquire too audibly whether certain people are rich or certain things cost much money, as little boys and girls are apt to do in their very far from innocence; but we teach them by our example to think about such things every time we stretch a point in order to appear richer or smarter than we are. While, on the contrary, we rarely insist upon the intrinsic qualities for which things are really valuable, without which no trouble or money would be spent on them, without which their difficulty of obtaining would, as in the case of Dr. Johnson's musical performance, become identical with impossibility. I wonder how many people ever point out to a child that the water in a tank may be more wonderful and beautiful in its beryls and sapphires and agates than all the contents of all the jewellers' shops in Bond Street? Moreover, we rarely struggle against the standards of fashion in our habits and arrangements; which standards, in many cases, are those of our ladies' maids, butlers, tradesfolk, and in all cases the standards of our less intelligent neighbours. Nay, more, we sometimes actually cultivate in ourselves, we superfine and æsthetic creatures, a preference for such kinds of enjoyment as are exclusive and costly; we allow ourselves to be talked into the notion that solitary egoism, laborious self-assertion of ownership (as in the poor mad Ludwig of Bavaria) is a badge of intellectual distinction. We cherish a desire for the new-fangled and far-fetched, the something no other has had before; little suspecting, or forgetting, that to extract more pleasure not less, to enjoy the same things longer, and to be able to extract more enjoyment out of more things, is the sign of æsthetic vigour. XV. Still, on the whole, such as can care for beautiful things and beautiful thoughts are beginning to care for them more fully, and are growing, undoubtedly, in a certain moral sensitiveness which, as I have said, is coincident with æsthetic development. This strikes me every time that I see or think about a certain priest's house on a hillside by the Mediterranean: a little house built up against the village church, and painted and roofed, like the church, a most delicate grey, against which the yellow of the spalliered lemons sings out in exquisite intensity; alongside, a wall with flower pots, and dainty white curtains to the windows. Such a house and the life possible in it are beginning, for many of us, to become the ideal, by whose side all luxury and worldly grandeur becomes insipid or vulgar. For such a house as this embodies the possibility of living with grace and decorum _throughout_ by dint of loving carefulness and self-restraining simplicity. I say with grace and decorum _throughout_, because all things which might beget ugliness in the life of others, or ugliness in our own attitude towards others, would be eliminated, thrown away like the fossil which Thoreau threw away because it collected dust. Moreover, such a life as this is such as all may reasonably hope to have; may, in some more prosperous age, obtain because it involves no hoarding of advantage for self or excluding therefrom of others. And such a life we ourselves may attain at least in the spirit, if we become strenuous and faithful lovers of the beautiful, æsthetes and ascetics who recognise that their greatest pleasure, their only true possessions are in themselves; knowing the supreme value of their own soul, even as was foreshadowed by the Abbot Joachim of Flora, when he said that the true monk can hold no property except his lyre. HIGHER HARMONIES. I. "To use the beauties of earth as steps along which he mounts upwards, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is; this, my dear Socrates," said the prophetess of Mantineia, "is that life, above all others, which man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute. Do you not see that in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth not images of beauty, but realities; for he has hold not of an image, but of a reality; and bringing forth and educating true virtue to become the friend of God, and be immortal, if mortal man may?" Such are the æsthetics of Plato, put into the mouth of that mysterious Diotima, who was a wise woman in many branches of knowledge. As we read them nowadays we are apt to smile with incredulity not unmixed with bitterness. Is all this not mere talk, charming and momentarily elating us like so much music; itself mere beauty which, because we like it, we half voluntarily confuse with _truth_? And, on the other hand, is not the truth of æsthetics, the bare, hard fact, a very different matter? For we have learned that we human creatures will never know the absolute or the essence, that notions, which Plato took for realities, are mere relative conceptions; that virtue and truth are social ideals and intellectual abstractions, while beauty is a quality found primarily and literally only in material existences and sense-experiences; and every day we are hearing of new discoveries connecting our æsthetic emotions with the structure of eye and ear, the movement of muscles, the functions of nerve centres, nay, even with the action of heart and lungs and viscera. Moreover, all round us schools of criticism and cliques of artists are telling us forever that so far from bringing forth and educating true virtue, art has the sovereign power, by mere skill and subtlety, of investing good and evil, healthy and unwholesome, with equal merit, and obliterating the distinctions drawn by the immortal gods, instead of helping the immortal gods to their observance. Thus we are apt to think, and to take the words of Diotima as merely so much lovely rhetoric. But--as my previous chapters must have led you to expect--I think we are so far mistaken. I believe that, although explained in the terms of fantastic, almost mythical metaphysic, the speech of Diotima contains a great truth, deposited in the heart of man by the unnoticed innumerable experiences of centuries and peoples; a truth which exists in ourselves also as an instinctive expectation, and which the advance of knowledge will confirm and explain. For in that pellucid atmosphere of the Greek mind, untroubled as yet by theoretic mists, there may have been visible the very things which our scientific instruments are enabling us to see and reconstruct piecemeal, great groupings of reality metamorphosed into Fata Morgana cities seemingly built by the gods. And thus I am going to try to reinstate in others' belief, as it is fully reinstated in my own, the theory of higher æsthetic harmonies, which the prophetess of Mantineia taught Socrates: to wit, that through the contemplation of true beauty we may attain, by the constant purification--or, in more modern language, the constant selecting and enriching--of our nature, to that which transcends material beauty; because the desire for harmony begets the habit of harmony, and the habit thereof begets its imperative desire, and thus on in never-ending alternation. II. Perhaps the best way of expounding my reasons will be to follow the process by which I reached them; for so far from having started with the theory of Diotima, I found the theory of Diotima, when I re-read it accidentally after many years' forgetfulness, to bring to convergence the result of my gradual experience. * * * * * Thinking about the Hermes of Olympia, and the fact that so far he is pretty well the only Greek statue which historical evidence unhesitatingly gives us as an original masterpiece, it struck me that, could one become really familiar with him, could eye and soul learn all the fulness of his perfection, we should have the true starting-point for knowledge of the antique, for knowledge, in great measure, of all art. Yes, and of more than art, or rather of art in more than one relation. Is this a superstition, a mere myth, perhaps, born of words? I think not. Surely if we could really arrive at knowing such a masterpiece, so as to feel rather than see its most intimate organic principles, and the great main reasons separating it from all inferior works and making it be itself: could we do this, we should know not merely what art is and should be, but, in a measure, what life should be and might become: what are the methods of true greatness, the sensations of true sanity. It would teach us the eternal organic strivings and tendencies of our soul, those leading in the direction of life, leading away from death. If this seems mere allegory and wild talk, let us look at facts and see what art is. For is not art inasmuch as untroubled by the practical difficulties of existence, inasmuch as the free, unconscious attempt of all nations and generations to satisfy, outside life, those cravings which life still leaves unsatisfied--is not art a delicate instrument, showing in its sensitive oscillations the most intimate movements and habits of the soul? Does it not reveal our most recondite necessities and possibilities, by sifting and selecting, reinforcing or attenuating, the impressions received from without; showing us thereby how we must stand towards nature and life, how we must feel and be? And this most particularly in those spontaneous arts which, first in the field, without need of adaptations of material or avoidance of the already done, without need of using up the rejected possibilities of previous art, or awakening yet unknown emotions, are the simple, straightforward expression, each the earliest satisfactory one in its own line, of the long unexpressed, long integrated, organic wants and wishes of great races of men: the arts, for instance, which have given us that Hermes, Titian's pictures, and Michael Angelo's and Raphael's frescoes; given us Bach, Gluck, Mozart, the serener parts of Beethoven, music of yet reserved pathos, braced, spring-like strength, learned, select: arts which never go beyond the universal, averaged expression of the soul's desires, because the desires themselves are sifted, limited to the imperishable and unchangeable, like the artistic methods which embody them, reduced to the essential by the long delay of utterance, the long--century long--efforts to utter. Becoming intimate with such a statue as the Olympian Hermes, and comparing the impressions received from it with the impressions both of inferior works of the same branch of art and with the impressions of equally great works--pictures, buildings, musical compositions--of other branches of art, becoming conversant with the difference between an original and a copy, great art and poor art, we gradually become aware of a quality which exists in all good art and is absent in all bad art, and without whose presence those impressions summed up as beauty, dignity, grandeur, are never to be had. This peculiarity, which most people perceive and few people define--explaining it away sometimes as _truth_, or taking it for granted under the name of _quality_--this peculiarity I shall call for convenience' sake harmony; for I think you will all of you admit that the absence or presence of harmony is what distinguishes bad art from good. Harmony, in this sense--and remember that it is this which connoisseurs most usually allude to as _quality_--harmony may be roughly defined as the organic correspondence between the various parts of a work of art, the functional interchange and interdependence thereof. In this sense there is harmony in every really living thing, for otherwise it could not live. If the muscles and limbs, nay, the viscera and tissues, did not adjust themselves to work together, if they did not in this combination establish a rhythm, a backward-forward, contraction-relaxation, taking-in-giving-out, diastole-systole in all their movements, there would be, instead of a living organism, only an inert mass. In all living things, and just in proportion as they are really alive (for in most real things there is presumably some defect of rhythm tending to stoppage of life), there is bound to be this organic interdependence and interchange. Natural selection, the survival of such individuals and species as best work in with, are most rhythmical to, their surroundings--natural selection sees to that. III. In art the place of natural selection is taken by man's selection; and all forms of art which man keeps and does not send into limbo, all art which man finds suitable to his wants, rhythmical with his habits, must have that same quality of interdependence of parts, of interchange of function. Only in the case of art, the organic necessity refers not to outer surroundings, but to man's feeling; in fact, man's emotion constitutes necessity towards art, as surrounding nature constitutes necessity for natural objects. Now man requires organic harmony, that is, congruity and co-ordination of processes, because his existence, the existence of every cell of him, depends upon it, is one complete microcosm of interchange, of give-and-take, diastole-systole, of rhythm and harmony; and therefore all such things as give him impressions of the reverse thereof, go against him, and in a greater or lesser degree, threaten, disturb, paralyse, in a way poison or maim him. Hence he is for ever seeking such congruity, such harmony; and his artistic creativeness is conditioned by the desire for it, nay, is perhaps mainly seeking to obtain it. Whenever he spontaneously and truly creates artistic forms, he obeys the imperious vital instinct for congruity; nay, he seeks to eke out the insufficient harmony between himself and the things which he _cannot_ command, the insufficient harmony between the uncontrollable parts of himself, by a harmony created on purpose in the things which he _can_ control. To a large extent man feels himself tortured by discordant impressions coming from the world outside and the world inside him; and he seeks comfort and medicine in harmonious impressions of his own making, in his own strange inward-outward world of art. This, I think, is the true explanation of that much-disputed-over _ideal_, which, according to definitions, is perpetually being enthroned and dethroned as the ultimate aim of all art: the ideal, the imperatively clamoured-for mysterious something, is neither conformity to an abstract idea, nor conformity to actual reality, nor conformity to the typical, nor conformity to the individual; it is, I take it, simply conformity to man's requirements, to man's inborn and peremptory demand for greater harmony, for more perfect co-ordination and congruity in his feelings. Now, when, in the exercise of the artistic instincts, mankind are partially obeying some other call than this one--the desire for money, fame, or for some intellectual formula--things are quite different, and there is no production of what I have called harmony. There is no congruity when even great people set about doing pseudo-antique sculpture in Canova-Thorwaldsen fashion because Winckelmann and Goethe have made antique sculpture fashionable; there is no congruity when people set to building pseudo-Gothic in obedience to the romantic movement and to Ruskin. For neither the desire for making a mark, nor the most conscientious pressure of formula gives that instinct of selection and co-ordination characterising even the most rudimentary artistic efforts in the most barbarous ages, when men are impelled merely and solely by the æsthetic instinct. Moreover, where people do not want and need (as they want and need food or drink or warmth or coolness) one sort of effect, that is to say, one arrangement of impressions rather than another, they are sure to be deluded by the mere arbitrary classification, the mere _names_ of things. They will think that smooth cheeks, wavy hair, straight noses, limbs of such or such measure, attitude, and expression, set so, constitute the Antique; that clustered pillars, cross vaulting, spandrils, and Tudor roses make Gothic. But the Antique quality is the particular and all permeating relation between all its items; and Gothic the particular and all permeating relation between those other ones; and unless you aim at the _specific emotion_ of Antique or Gothic, unless you feel the imperious call for the special harmony of either, all the measurements and all the formulas will not avail. While, on the contrary, people without any formula or any attempt at imitation, like the Byzantine architects and those of the fifteenth century, merely because they are obeying their own passionate desire for congruity of impressions, for harmony of structure and function, will succeed in creating brand-new, harmonious, organic art out of the actual details, sometimes the material ruins, of an art which has passed away. If we become intimate with any great work of art, and intimate in so far with the thoughts and emotions it awakens in ourselves, we shall find that it possesses, besides this congruity within itself which assimilates it to all really living things, a further congruity, not necessarily found in real objects, but which forms the peculiarity of the work of art, a congruity with ourselves; for the great work of art is vitally connected with the habits and wants, the whole causality and rhythm of mankind; it has been fitted thereto as the boat to the sea. IV. In this manner can we learn from art the chief secret of life: the secret of action and reaction, of causal connection, of suitability of part to part, of organism, interchange, and growth. And when I say _learn_, I mean learn in the least official and the most efficacious way. I do not mean merely that, looking at a statue like the Hermes, a certain fact is borne in upon our intelligence, the fact of all vitality being dependent on harmony. I mean that perhaps, nay probably, without any such formula, our whole nature becomes accustomed to a certain repeated experience, our whole nature becomes adapted thereunto, and acts and reacts in consequence, by what we call intuition, instinct. It is not with our intellect alone that we possess such a fact, as we might intellectually possess that twice two is four, or that Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII., knowing casually what we may casually also forget; we possess, in such a way that forgetting becomes impossible, with our whole soul and our whole being, re-living that fact with every breath that we draw, with every movement we make, the first great lesson of art, that vitality means harmony. Let us look at this fact, and at its practical applications, apart from all æsthetic experience. All life is harmony; and all improvement in ourselves is therefore, however unconsciously, the perceiving, the realising, or the establishing of harmonies, more minute or more universal. Yes, curious and unpractical as it may seem, harmonies, or, under their humbler separate names--arrangements, schemes, classifications, are the chief means for getting the most out of all things, and particularly the most out of ourselves. For they mean, first of all, unity of means for the attaining of unity of effect, that is to say, incalculable economy of material, of time, and of effort; and secondly, unity of effect produced, that is to say, economy even greater in our power of perceiving and feeling: nothing to eliminate, nothing against whose interruptions we waste our energy, our power of becoming more fit in the course of striving. When there exists harmony one impression leads to, enhances another; we, on the other hand, unconsciously recognise at once what is doing to us, what we in return must do; the mood is indicated, fulfilled, consummated; in plenitude we feel, we are; and in plenitude of feeling and being, we, in our turn, _do_. Neither is such habit of harmony, of scheme, of congruity, a mere device for sucking the full sweetness out of life, although, heaven knows, that were important enough. As much as such a habit husbands, and in a way multiplies, life's sweetness; so likewise does it husband and multiply man's power. For there is no quicker and more thorough mode of selecting among our feelings and thoughts than submitting them to a standard of congruity; nothing more efficacious than the question: "Is such or such a notion or proceeding harmonious with what we have made the rest of our life, with what we wish our life to be?" This is, in other words, the power of the _ideal_, the force of _ideas_, of thought-out, recognised habits, as distinguished from blind helter-skelter impulse. This is what welds life into one, making its forces work not in opposition but in concordance; this is what makes life consecutive, using the earlier act to produce the later, tying together existence in an organic fatality of _must be_: the fatality not of the outside and the unconscious, but of the conscious, inner, upper man. Nay, it is what makes up the _Ego_. For the _ego_, as we are beginning to understand, is no mysterious separate entity, still less a succession of disconnected, conflicting, blind impulses; the _ego_ is the congruous, perceived, nay, thought-out system of habits, which feels all incongruity towards itself as accidental and external. Hence, when we ask which are the statements we believe in, we answer instinctively (logic being but a form of congruity) those statements which accord with themselves and with other statements; when we ask, which are the persons we trust? we answer, those persons whose feelings and actions are congruous with themselves and with the feelings and actions of others. And, on the contrary, it is in the worthless, in the degenerate creature, that we note moods which are destructive to one another's object, ideas which are in flagrant contradiction; and it is in the idiot, the maniac, the criminal, that we see thoughts disconnected among themselves, perceptions disconnected with surrounding objects, and instincts and habits incompatible with those of other human beings. Nay, if we look closely, we shall recognise, moreover, that those emotions of pleasure are the healthy, the safe ones, which are harmonious not merely in themselves (as a musical note is composed of even vibrations), but harmonious with all preceding and succeeding pleasures in ourselves, and harmonious, congruous, with the present and future pleasures in others. V. The instinct of congruity, of subordination of part to whole, the desire for harmony which is fostered above all things by art, is one of the most precious parts of our nature, if only, obeying its own tendency to expand, we apply it to ever wider circles of being; not merely to the accessories of living, but to life itself. For this love of harmony and order leads us to seek what is most necessary in our living: a selection of the congruous, an arrangement of the mutually dependent in our thoughts and feelings. Much of the work of the universe is done, no doubt, by what seems the exercise of mere random energy, by the thinking of apparently disconnected thoughts and the feeling of apparently sporadic impulses; but if the thought and the impulse remained really disconnected and sporadic, half would be lost and half would be distorted. It is one of the economical adaptations of nature that every part of us tends not merely to be consistent with itself, to eliminate the hostile, to beget the similar, but tends also to be connected with other parts; so that, action coming in contact with action, thought in contact with thought, and feeling in contact with feeling, each single one will be strengthened or neutralised by the other. And it is the especial business of what we may call the central consciousness, the dominant thought or emotion, to bring these separate thoughts and impulses, these separate groups thereof, into more complex relations, to continue on a far vaster scale that vital contact, that trying of all things by the great trial of affinity or repulsion, of congruity or incongruity. Thus we make trial of ourselves; and by the selfsame process, by the test of affinity and congruity, the silent forces of the universe make trial of _us_, rejecting or accepting, allowing us, our thoughts, our feelings to live and be fruitful, or condemning us and them to die in barrenness. Whither are we going? In what shape shall the various members of our soul proceed on their journey; which forming the van, which the rear and centre? Or shall there be neither van, nor rear, nor wedge-like forward flight? If this question remains unasked or unanswered, our best qualities, our truest thoughts and purest impulses, may be hopelessly scattered into distant regions, become defiled in bad company, or, at least, barren in isolation; the universal life rejecting or annihilating them. How often do we not see this! Natures whose various parts have rambled asunder, or have come to live, like strangers in an inn, casually, promiscuously, each refusing to be his brother's keeper: instincts of kindliness at various ends, unconnected, unable to coalesce and conquer; thoughts separated from their kind, incapable of application; and, in consequence, strange superficial comradeships, shoulder-rubbings of true and false, good and evil, become indifferent to one another, incapable of looking each other in the face, careless, unblushing. Nay, worse. For lack of all word of command, of all higher control, hostile tendencies accommodating themselves to reign alternate, sharing the individual in distinct halves, till he becomes like unto that hero of Gautier's witch story, who was a pious priest one-half of the twenty-four hours and a wicked libertine the other: all power of selection, of reaction gone in this passive endurance of conflicting tendencies; all identity gone, save a mere feeble outsider looking on at the alternations of intentions and lapses, of good and bad. And the soul of such a person--if, indeed, we can speak of one soul or one person where there exists no unity--becomes like a jangle of notes belonging to different tonalities, alternating and mingling in hideous confusion for lack of a clear thread of melody, a consistent system of harmony, to select, reject, and keep all things in place. Melody, harmony: the two great halves of the most purely æsthetic of all arts, symbolise, as we might expect, the two great forces of life: consecutiveness and congruity, under their different names of intention, fitness, selection, adaptation. These are what make the human soul like a conquering army, a fleet freighted with riches, a band of priests celebrating a rite. And this is what art, by no paltry formula, but by the indelible teaching of habit, of requirement, and expectation become part of our very fibre--this is what art can teach to those who will receive its highest lesson. VI. Those who can receive that lesson, that is to say, those in whom it can expand and ramify to the fulness and complexity which is its very essence. For it happens frequently enough that we learn only a portion of this truth, which by this means is distorted into error. We accept the æsthetic instinct as a great force of Nature; but, instead of acknowledging it as our master, as one of the great lords of life, of whom Emerson spoke, we try to make it our servant. We attempt to get congruity between the details of our everyday existence, and refuse to seek for congruity between ourselves and the life which is greater than ours. A friend of mine, who had many better ways of spending her money, was unable one day to resist the temptation of buying a beautiful old majolica inkstand, which, not without a slight qualm of conscience, she put into a very delightful old room of her house. The room had an inkstand already, but it was of glass, and modern. "This one is in harmony with the rest of the room," she said, and felt fully justified in her extravagance. It is this form, or rather this degree, of æstheticism, which so often prevents our realising the higher æsthetic harmonies. In obedience to a perception of what is congruous on a small scale we often do oddly incongruous things: spend money we ought to save, give time and thought to trifles while neglecting to come to conclusions about matters of importance; endure, or even cultivate, persons with whom we have less than no sympathy; nay, sometimes, from a keen sense of incongruity, tune down our thoughts and feelings to the flatness of our surroundings. The phenomenon of what may thus result from a certain æsthetic sensitiveness is discouraging, and I confess that it used to discourage and humiliate me. But the philosophy which the prophetess of Mautineia taught Socrates settles the matter, and solves, satisfactorily what in my mind I always think of as the question of the majolica inkstand. Diotima, you will remember, did not allow her disciple to remain engrossed in the contemplation of one kind of beauty, but particularly insisted that he should use various fair forms as steps by which to ascend to the knowledge of ever higher beauties. And this I should translate into more practical language by saying that, in questions like that of the majolica inkstand, we require not a lesser sensitiveness to congruity, but a greater; that we must look not merely at the smaller, but at the larger items of our life, asking ourselves, "Is this harmonious? or is it, seen in some wider connection, even like that clumsy glass inkstand in the oak panelled and brocade hung room?" If we ask ourselves this, and endeavour to answer it faithfully--with that truthfulness which is itself an item of _consistency_--we may find that, strange as it may seem, the glass inkstand, ugly as it is in itself, and out of harmony with the furniture, is yet more congruous, and that we actually prefer it to the one of majolica. And it is in connection with this that I think that many persons who are really æsthetic, and many more who imagine themselves to be so, should foster a wholesome suspicion of the theory which makes it a duty to accumulate certain kinds of possessions, to seek exclusively certain kinds of impressions, on the score of putting beauty and dignity into our lives. Put beauty, dignity, harmony, serenity into our lives. It sounds very fine. But _can_ we? I doubt it. We may put beautiful objects, dignified manners, harmonious colours and shapes, but can we put dignity, harmony, or beauty? Can we put them into an individual life; can anything be put into an individual life save furniture and garments, intellectual as well as material? For an individual life, taken separately, is a narrow, weak thing at the very best; and everything we can put into it, everything we lay hold of for the sake of putting in, must needs be small also, merely the chips or dust of great things; or if it have life, must be squeezed, cut down, made so small before it can fit into that little receptacle of our egoism, that it will speedily be a dead, dry thing: thoughts once thought, feelings once felt, now neither thought nor felt, merely lying there inert, as a dead fact, in our sterile self. Do we not see this on all sides, examples of life into which all the dignified things have been crammed and all the beautiful ones, and which despite the statues, pictures, poems, and symphonies within its narrow compass, is yet so far from dignified or beautiful? But we need not trouble about dignity and beauty coming to our life so long as we veritably and thoroughly _live_; that is to say, so long as we try not to put anything into our life, but to put our life into the life universal. The true, expanding, multiplying life of the spirit will bring us in contact, we need not fear, with beauty and dignity enough, for there is plenty such in creation, in things around us, and in other people's souls; nay, if we but live to our utmost power the life of all things and all men, seeing, feeling, understanding for the mere joy thereof, even our individual life will be invested with dignity and beauty in our own eyes. But furniture will not do it, nor dress, nor exquisite household appointments; nor any of the things, books, pictures, houses, parks, of which we can call ourselves owners. I say _call_ ourselves: for can we be sure we really possess them? And thus, if we think only of our life, and the decking thereof, it is only furniture, garments, and household appointments we can deal with; for beauty and dignity cannot be confined in so narrow a compass. VII. I have spoken so far of the conscious habit of harmony, and of its conscious effect upon our conduct. I have tried to show that the desire for congruity, which may seem so trivial a part of mere dilettanteist superfineness, may expand and develop into such love of harmony between ourselves and the ways of the universe as shall make us wince at other folks' loss united to our gain, at our deterioration united to our pleasure, even as we wince at a false note or a discordant arrangement of colours. But there is something more important than conscious choice, and something more tremendous than definite conduct, because conscious choice and conduct are but its separate and plainly visible results. I mean unconscious way of feeling and organic way of living: that which, in the language of old-fashioned medicine, we might call the complexion or habit of the soul. This is undoubtedly affected by conscious knowledge and reason, as it undoubtedly manifests itself in both. But it is, I believe, much more what we might call a permanent emotional condition, a particular way of feeling, of reacting towards the impressions given us by the universe. And I believe that the individual is sound, that he is capable of being happy while increasing the happiness of others, or the reverse, according as he reacts harmoniously or inharmoniously towards those universal impressions. And here comes in what seems to me the highest benefit we can receive from art and from the æsthetic activities, which, as I have said before, are in art merely specialised and made publicly manifest. VIII. The habit of beauty, of harmony, is but the habit, engrained in our nature by the unnoticed experiences of centuries, of _life_ in our surroundings and in ourselves; the habit of beauty is the habit, I believe scientific analysis of nature's ways and means will show us--of the growing of trees, the flowing of water, the perfect play of perfect muscles, all registered unconsciously in the very structure of our soul. And for this reason every time we experience afresh the particular emotion associated with the quality _beautiful_, we are adding to that rhythm of life within ourselves by recognising the life of all things. There is not room within us for two conflicting waves of emotion, for two conflicting rhythms of life, one sane and one unsound. The two may possibly alternate, but in most cases the weaker will be neutralised by the stronger; and, at all events, they cannot co-exist. We can account, only in this manner, for the indisputable fact that great emotion of a really and purely æsthetic nature has a morally elevating quality, that as long as it endures--and in finer organisations its effect is never entirely lost--the soul is more clean and vigorous, more fit for high thoughts and high decisions. All understanding, in the wider and more philosophical sense, is but a kind of becoming: our soul experiences the modes of being which it apprehends. Hence the particular religious quality (all faiths and rituals taking advantage thereof) of a high and complex æsthetic emotion. Whenever we come in contact with real beauty, we become aware, in an unformulated but overwhelming manner, of some of the immense harmonies of which all beauty is the product, of which all separate beautiful things are, so to speak, the single patterns happening to be in our line of vision, while all around other patterns connect with them, meshes and meshes of harmonies, spread out, outside our narrow field of momentary vision, an endless web, like the constellations which, strung on their threads of mutual dependence, cover and fill up infinitude. In the moments of such emotional perception, our soul also, ourselves, become in a higher degree organic, alive, receiving and giving out the life of the universe; come to be woven into the patterns of harmonies, made of the stuff of reality, homogeneous with themselves, consubstantial with the universe, like the living plant, the flowing stream, the flying cloud, the great picture or statue. And in this way is realised, momentarily, but with ever-increasing power of repetition, that which, after the teaching of Diotima, Socrates prayed for--"the harmony between the outer and the inner man." But this, I know, many will say, is but a delusion. Rapture is pleasant, but it is not necessarily, as the men of the Middle Ages thought, a union with God. And is this the time to revive, or seek to revive, when science is for ever pressing upon us the conclusion that soul is a function of matter--is this the time to revive discredited optimistic idealisms of an unscientific philosophy? But if science become omniscient, it will surely recognise and explain the value of such recurring optimistic idealisms; and if the soul be a function of matter, will not science recognise but the more, that the soul is an integral and vitally dependent portion of the material universe? IX. Be this as it may, one thing seems certain, that the artistic activities are those which bring man into emotional communion with external nature; and that such emotional communion is necessary for man's thorough spiritual health. Perception of cause and effect, generalisation of law, reduces the universe indeed to what man's intellect can grasp; but in the process of such reduction to the laws of man's thought, the universe is shorn of its very power to move man's emotion and overwhelm his soul. The abstract which we have made does not vivify us sufficiently. And the emotional communion of man with nature is through those various faculties which we call æsthetic. It is not to no purpose that poetry has for ever talked to us of skies and mountains and waters; we require, for our soul's health, to think about them otherwise than with reference to our material comfort and discomfort; we require to feel that they and ourselves are brethren united by one great law of life. And what poetry suggests in explicit words, bidding us love and be united in love to external nature; art, in more irresistible because more instinctive manner, forces upon our feelings, by extracting, according to its various kinds, the various vital qualities of the universe, and making them act directly upon our mind: rhythms of all sorts, static and dynamic, in the spatial arts of painting and sculpture; in the half spatial, half temporal art of architecture: in music, which is most akin to life, because it is the art of movement and change. X. We can all remember moments when we have seemed conscious, even to overwhelming, of this fact. In my own mind it has become indissolubly connected with a certain morning at Venice, listening to the organ in St. Mark's. Any old and beautiful church gives us all that is most moving and noblest--organism, beauty, absence of all things momentary and worthless, exclusion of grossness, of brute utility and mean compromise, equality of all men before God; moreover, time, eternity, the past, and the great dead. All noble churches give us this; how much more, therefore, this one, which is noblest and most venerable! It has, like no other building, been handed over by man to Nature; Time moulding and tinting into life this structure already so organic, so fit to live. For its curves and vaultings, its cupolas mutually supported, the weight of each carried by all; the very colour of the marbles, brown, blond, living colours, and the irregular symmetry, flower-like, of their natural patterning, are all seemingly organic and ready for life. Time has added that, with the polish and dimming alternately of the marbles, the billowing of the pavement, the slanting of the columns, and last, but not least, the tarnishing of the gold and the granulating of the mosaic into an uneven surface: the gold seeming to have become alive and in a way vegetable, and to have faded and shrunk like autumn leaves. XI. The morning I speak of they were singing some fugued composition by I know not whom. How well that music suited St. Mark's! The constant interchange of vault and vault, cupola and cupola, column and column, handing on their energies to one another; the springing up of new details gathered at once into the great general balance of lines and forces; all this seemed to find its natural voice in that fugue, to express, in that continuous revolution of theme chasing, enveloping theme, its own grave emotion of life everlasting: Being, becoming; becoming, being. XII. It is such an alternation as this, ceaseless, rhythmic, which constitutes the upward life of the soul: that life of which the wise woman of Mantineia told Socrates that it might be learned through faithful and strenuous search for ever widening kinds of beauty, the "life above all," in the words of Diotima, "which a man should live." The life which vibrates for ever between being better and conceiving of something better still; between satisfaction in harmony and craving for it. The life whose rhythm is that of happiness actual and happiness ideal, alternating for ever, for ever pressing one another into being, as the parts of a fugue, the dominant and the tonic. Being, becoming; becoming, being; idealising, realising; realising, idealising. BEAUTY AND SANITY. I. Out of London at last; at last, though after only two months! Not, indeed, within a walk of my clump of bay-trees on the Fiesole hill; but in a country which has some of that Tuscan grace and serene austerity, with its Tweed, clear and rapid in the wide shingly bed, with its volcanic cones of the Eildons, pale and distinct in the distance: river and hills which remind me of the valley where the bay-trees grow, and bring to my mind all that which the bay-trees stand for. There is always something peculiar in these first hours of finding myself once more alone, once more quite close to external things; the human jostling over, an end, a truce at least, to "all the neighbours' talk with man and maid--such men--all the fuss and trouble of street sounds, window-sights" (how he knew these things, the poet!); once more in communion with the things which somehow--nibbled grass and stone-tossed water, yellow ragwort in the fields, blue cranesbill along the road, big ash-trees along the river, sheep, birds, sunshine, and showers--somehow contrive to keep themselves in health, to live, grow, decline, die, be born again, without making a mess or creating a fuss. The air, under the grey sky, is cool, even cold, with infinite briskness. And this impression of briskness, by no means excluded by the sense of utter isolation and repose, is greatly increased by a special charm of this place, the quantity of birds to listen to and watch; great blackening flights of rooks from the woods along the watercourses and sheltered hillsides (for only solitary ashes and wind-vexed beeches will grow in the open); peewits alighting with squeals in the fields; blackbirds and thrushes in the thick coverts (I found a poor dead thrush with a speckled chest like a toad, laid out among the beech-nuts); wagtails on the shingle, whirling over the water, where the big trout and salmon leap; every sort of swallow; pigeons crossing from wood to wood; wild duck rattling up, and seagulls circling above the stream; nay, two herons, standing immovable, heraldic, on the grass among the sheep. In such moments, with that briskness transferred into my feelings, life seems so rich and various. All pleasant memories come to my mind like tunes, and with real tunes among them (making one realise that the greatest charm of music is often when no longer materially audible). Pictures also of distant places, tones of voice, glance of eyes of dear friends, visions of pictures and statues, and scraps of poems and history. More seems not merely to be brought to me, but more to exist, wherewith to unite it all, within myself. Such moments, such modes of being, ought to be precious to us; they and every impression, physical, moral, æsthetic, which is akin to them, and we should recognise their moral worth. Since it would seem that even mere bodily sensations, of pure air, bracing temperature, vigor of muscles, efficiency of viscera, accustom us not merely to health of our body, but also, by the analogies of our inner workings, to health of our soul. II. How delicate an organism, how alive with all life's dangers, is the human character; and how persistently do we consider it as the thing of all others most easily forced into any sort of position, most safely handled in ignorance! Surely some of the misery, much of the waste and deadlock of the world are due to our all being made of such obscure, unguessed at material; to our not knowing it betimes, and others not admitting it even late in the day. When, for instance, shall we recognise that the bulk of our psychic life is unconscious or semi-unconscious, the life of long-organised and automatic functions; and that, while it is absurd to oppose to these the more recent, unaccustomed and fluctuating activity called _reason_, this same reason, this conscious portion of ourselves, may be usefully employed in understanding those powers of nature (powers of chaos sometimes) within us, and in providing that these should turn the wheel of life in the right direction, even like those other powers of nature outside us, which reason cannot repress or alter, but can understand and put to profit. Instead of this, we are ushered into life thinking ourselves thoroughly conscious throughout, conscious beings of a definite and stereotyped pattern; and we are set to do things we do not understand with mechanisms which we have never even been shown: Told to be good, not knowing why, and still less guessing how! Some folk will answer that life itself settles all that, with its jostle and bustle. Doubtless. But in how wasteful, destructive, unintelligent, and cruel a fashion! Should we be satisfied with this kind of surgery, which cures an ache by random chopping off a limb; with this elementary teaching, which saves our body from the fire by burning our fingers? Surely not; we are worth more care on our own part. The recognition of this, and more especially of the manner in which we may be damaged by dangers we have never thought of as dangers, our souls undermined and made boggy by emotions not yet classified, brings home to me again the general wholesomeness of art; and also the fact that, wholesome as art is, in general, and, compared with the less abstract activities of our nature, there are yet differences in art's wholesomeness, there are categories of art which can do only good, and others which may also do mischief. Art, in so far as it moves our fancies and emotions, as it builds up our preferences and repulsions, as it disintegrates or restores our vitality, is merely another of the great forces of nature, and we require to select among its activities as we select among the activities of any other natural force.... When, I wonder, I wonder, will the forces _within_ us be recognised as natural, in the same sense as those _without_; and our souls as part of the universe, prospering or suffering, according to which of its rhythms they vibrate to: the larger rhythm, which is for ever increasing, and which means happiness; the smaller, for ever slackening, which means misery? III. But since life has got two rhythms, why should art have only one? Our poor mankind by no means always feel braced, serene, and energetic; and we are far from necessarily keeping step with the movements of the universe which imply happiness. Let alone the fact of wretched circumstances beyond our control, of natural decay and death, and loss of our nearest and dearest; the universe has made it excessively difficult, nay, impossible, for us to follow constantly its calm behest, "Be as healthy as possible." It is all very fine to say _be healthy_. Of course we should be willing enough. But it must be admitted that the Powers That Be have not troubled about making it easy. Be healthy indeed! When health is so nicely balanced that it is at the mercy of a myriad of microscopic germs, of every infinitesimal increase of cold or heat, or damp or dryness, of alternations of work and play, oscillation of want and excess incalculably small, any of which may disturb the beautiful needle-point balance and topple us over into disease. Such Job's comforting is one of the many sledge-hammer ironies with which the Cosmos diverts itself at our expense; and of course the Cosmos may permit itself what it likes, and none of us can complain. But is it possible for one of ourselves, a poor, sick, hustled human being, to take up the jest of the absentee gods of Lucretius, and say to his fellow-men: "Believe me, you would do much better to be quite healthy, and quite happy?" And, as art is one of mankind's modes of expressing itself, why in the world should we expect it to be the expression only of mankind's health and happiness? Even admitting that the very existence of the race proves that the healthy and happy states of living must on the whole preponderate (a matter which can, after all, not be proved so easily), even admitting that, why should mankind be allowed artistic emotions only at those moments, and requested not to express itself or feel artistically during the others? Bay-trees are delightful things, no doubt, and we are all very fond of them off and on. But why must we pretend to enjoy them when we don't; why must we hide the fact that they sometimes irritate or bore us, and that every now and then we very much prefer--well, weeping-willows, upas-trees, and all the livid or phosphorescent eccentricities of the various _fleurs du mal_? Is it not stupid thus to "blink and shut our apprehension up?" Nay, worse, is it not positively heartless, brutal? IV. This argument, I confess, invariably delights and humiliates me: it is so full of sympathy for all sorts and conditions of men, and so appreciative of what is and what is not. It is so very human and humane. There is in it a sort of quite gentle and dignified Prometheus Vinctus attitude towards the Powers That Be; and Zeus, with his thunderbolts and chains, looks very much like a brute by contrast. But what is to be done? Zeus exists with his chains and thunderbolts, and all the minor immortals, lying down, colossal, dim, like mountains at night, at Schiller's golden tables, each with his fine attribute, olive-tree, horse, lyre, sun and what not, by his side; also his own particular scourge, plague, dragon, wild boar, or sea monster, ready to administer to recalcitrant, insufficiently pious man. And the gods have it their own way, call them what you will, children of Chaos or children of Time, dynasty succeeding dynasty, but only for the same old gifts and same old scourges to be handed on from one to the other. In more prosaic terms, we cannot get loose of nature, the nature of ourselves; we cannot get rid of the fact that certain courses, certain habits, certain preferences are to our advantage, and certain others to our detriment. And therefore, to return to art, and to the various imaginative and emotional activities which I am obliged to label by that very insufficient name, we cannot get rid of the fact that, however much certain sorts of art are the natural expression of certain recurring and common states of being; however much certain preferences correspond to certain temperaments or conditions, we must nevertheless put them aside as much as possible, and give our attention to the opposite sorts of art and the opposite sorts of preference, for the simple reason that the first make us less fit for life and less happy in the long run, while the second make us more fit and happier. It is a question not of what we _are_, but of what _we shall be_. V. A distinguished scientific psychologist, who is also a psychologist in the unscientific sense, and who writes of Intellect and Will less in the spirit (and, thank heaven, less in the style) of Mr. Spencer than in that of Monsieur de Montaigne, has objected to music (and, I presume, in less degree to other art) that it runs the risk of enfeebling the character by stimulating emotions without affording them a corresponding outlet in activity. I agree (as will be seen farther on) that music more particularly may have an unwholesome influence, but not for the reason assigned by Professor James, who seems to me to mistake the nature and functions of artistic emotion. I doubt very much whether any non-literary art, whether even music has the power, in the modern man, of stimulating tendencies to action. It may have had in the savage, and may still have in the civilised child; but in the ordinary, cultivated grown-up person, the excitement produced by any artistic sight, sound, or idea will most probably be used up in bringing to life again some of the many millions of sights, sounds, and ideas which lie inert, stored up in our mind. The artistic emotion will therefore not give rise to an active impulse, but to that vague mixture of feelings and ideas which we call a _mood_; and if any alteration occur in subsequent action, it will be because all external impressions must vary according to the mood of the person who receives them, and consequently undergo a certain selection, some being allowed to dominate and lead to action, while others pass unnoticed, are neutralised or dismissed. More briefly, it seems to me that artistic emotion is of practical importance, not because it discharges itself in action, but, on the contrary, because it produces a purely internal rearrangement of our thoughts and feelings; because, in short, it helps to form concatenations of preferences, habits of being. Whether or not Mr. Herbert Spencer be correct in deducing all artistic activities from our primæval instincts of play, it seems to me certain that these artistic activities have for us adults much the same importance as the play activities have for a child. They represent the only perfectly free exercise, and therefore, free development, of our preferences. Now, everyone will admit, I suppose, that it is extremely undesirable that a child should amuse itself acquiring unwholesome preferences and evil habits, indulging in moods which will make it or its neighbours less comfortable out of play-time? Mind, I do not for a moment pretend that art is to become the conscious instrument of morals, any more than (Heaven forbid!) play should become the conscious preparation of infant virtue. All I contend is that if some kinds of infant amusement result in damage, we suppress them as a nuisance; and that, if some kinds of art disorganise the soul, the less we have of them the better. Moreover, the grown-up human being is so constituted, is so full of fine connections and analogies throughout his nature, that, while the sense of emulation and gain lends such additional zest to his amusements, the sense of increasing spiritual health and power, wherever it exists, magnifies almost incredibly the pleasure derivable from beautiful impressions. VI. The persons who maintained just now (and who does not feel a hard-hearted Philistine for gainsaying them?) that we have no right to ostracise, still less to stone, unwholesome kinds of art, make much of the fact that, as we are told in church, "We have no health in us." But it is the recognition of this lack of health which hardens my heart to unwholesome persons and things. If we must be wary of what moods and preferences we foster in ourselves, it is because so few of us are congenitally sound--perhaps none without some organic weakness; and because, even letting soundness alone, very few of us lead lives that are not, in one respect or another, strained or starved or cramped. Gods and archangels might certainly indulge exclusively in the literature and art for which Baudelaire may stand in this discussion. But gods and archangels require neither filters nor disinfectants, and may slake their thirst in the veriest decoction of typhoid. VII. The Greeks, who were a fortunate mixture of Conservatives and Anarchists, averred that the desire for the impossible (I do not quote, for, alas! I should not understand the quotation) is a disease of the soul. It is not, I think, the desire for the impossible (since few can tell what seems impossible, and fewer care for what indubitably is so) so much as the desire for the topsy-turvy. Baudelaire, who admired persons thus afflicted, has a fine line: "De la réalité grands esprits contempteurs"; but what they despised was not the real, but the usual. Now the usual, of the sort thus despised, happens to represent the necessities of our organisms and of that wider organism which we call circumstances. We may modify it, always in the direction in which it tends spontaneously to evolve; but we cannot subvert it. You might as well try to subvert gravitation: "Je m'en suis aperçu étant par terre," is the only result, as in Molière's lesson of physics. VIII. Also, when you come to think of it, there is nothing showing a finer organisation in the incapacity for finding sugar sweet and vinegar sour. The only difference is that, as sugar happens to be sweet and vinegar sour, an organisation which perceives the reverse is at sixes and sevens with the universe, or a bit of the universe; and, exactly to the extent to which this six-and-sevenness prevails, is likely to be mulcted of some of the universe's good things. How may I bring this home, without introducing a sickly atmosphere of decadent art and literature into my valley of the bay-trees? And yet, an instance is needed. Well; there is an old story, originating perhaps in Suetonius, handed on by Edgar Poe, and repeated, with variations, by various modern French writers, of sundry persons who, among other realities, despise the fact that sheets and table-linen are usually white; and show the subtlety of their organisation (the Emperor Tiberius, a very subtle person, was one of the earliest to apply the notion) by taking their sleep and food in an arrangement of black materials; a sort of mourning warehouse of beds and dining-tables. Now this means simply that these people have bought "distinction" at the price of one of mankind's most delightful birthrights, the pleasure in white, the queen, as Leonardo put it, of all colours. Our minds, our very sensations are interwoven so intricately of all manner of impressions and associations, that it is no allegory to say that white is good, and that the love of white is akin somehow to the love of virtue. For the love of white has come to mean, thanks to the practice of all centuries and to the very structure of our nerves, strength, cleanness, and newness of sensation, capacity for re-enjoying the already enjoyed, for preferring the already preferred, for discovering new interest and pleasureableness in old things, instead of running to new ones, as one does when not the old ones are exhausted, but one's own poor vigour. The love of white means, furthermore, the appreciation of certain circumstances, delightful and valuable in themselves, without which whiteness cannot be present: in human beings, good health and youth and fairness of life; in houses (oh! the white houses of Cadiz, white between the blue sky and blue sea!), excellence of climate, warmth, dryness and clearness of air; and in all manner of household goods and stuff, care, order, daintiness of habits, leisure and affluence. All things these which, quite as much as any peculiarity of optic function, give for the healthy mind a sort of restfulness, of calm, of virtue, and I might almost say, of regal or priestly quality to white; a quality which suits it to the act of restoring our bodies with food and wine, above all, to the act of spiritual purification, the passing through the cool, colourless, stainless, which constitutes true sleep. All this the Emperor Tiberius and his imitators forego with their bogey black sheets and table-cloths.... IX. But what if we _do not care for white_? What if we are so constituted that its insipidity sickens _us_ as much as the most poisonous and putrescent colours which Blake ever mixed to paint hell and sin? Nay, if those grumous and speckly viscosities of evil green, orange, poppy purple, and nameless hues, are the only things which give us any pleasure? Is it a reason, because you arcadian Optimists of Evolution extract, or imagine you extract, some feeble satisfaction out of white, that we should pretend to enjoy it, and the Antique and Outdoor Nature, and Early Painters, and Mozart and Gluck, and all the whitenesses physical and moral? You say we are abnormal, unwholesome, decaying; very good, then why should we not get pleasure in decaying, unwholesome, and abnormal things? We are like the poison-monger's daughter in Nathaniel Hawthorne's story. Other people's poison is our meat, and we should be killed by an antidote; that is to say, bored to death, which, in our opinion, is very much worse. To this kind of speech, common since the romantic and pre-Raphaelite movement, and getting commoner with the spread of theories of intellectual anarchy and nervous degeneracy, one is often tempted to answer impatiently, "Get out of the way, you wretched young people; don't you see that there isn't room or time for your posing?" But unfortunately it is not all pose. There are a certain number of people who really are _bored with white_; for whom, as a result of constitutional morbidness, of nervous exhaustion, or of that very disintegration of soul due to unwholesome æsthetic self-indulgence, to the constant quest for violent artistic emotion, our soul's best food has really become unpalatable and almost nauseous. These people cannot live without spiritual opium or alcohol, although that opium or alcohol is killing them by inches. It is absurd to be impatient with them. All one can do is to let them go in peace to their undoing, and hope that their example will be rather a warning than a model to others. X. But, letting alone the possibility of art acting as a poison for the soul, there remains an important question. As I said, although art is one of the most wholesome of our soul's activities, there are yet kinds of art, or (since it is a subjective question of profit or damage to ourselves) rather kinds of artistic effect, which, for some evident reason, or through some obscure analogy or hidden point of contact awaken those movements of the fancy, those states of the emotions which disintegrate rather than renew the soul, and accustom us rather to the yielding and proneness which we shun, than to the resistance and elasticity which we seek throughout life to increase. I was listening, last night, to some very wonderful singing of modern German songs; and the emotion that still remains faintly within me alongside of the traces of those languishing phrases and passionate intonations, the remembrance of the sense of--how shall I call it?--violation of the privacy of the human soul which haunted me throughout that performance, has brought home to me, for the hundredth time, that the Greek legislators were not so fantastic in considering music a questionable art, which they thought twice before admitting into their ideal commonwealths. For music can do more by our emotions than the other arts, and it can, therefore, separate itself from them and their holy ways; it can, in a measure, actually undo the good they do to our soul. But, you may object, poetry does the very same; it also expresses, strengthens, brings home our human, momentary, individual emotions, instead of uniting with the arts of visible form, with the harmonious things of nature, to create for us another kind of emotion, the emotion of the eternal, unindividual, universal life, in whose contemplation our souls are healed and made whole after the disintegration inflicted by what is personal and fleeting. It is true that much poetry expresses merely such personal and momentary emotion; but it does so through a mechanism differing from that of music, and possessing a saving grace which the emotion-compelling mechanism of music does not. For by the very nature of the spoken or written word, by the word's strictly intellectual concomitants, poetry, even while rousing emotion, brings into play what is most different to emotion, emotion's sifter and chastener, the great force which reduces all things to abstraction, to the eternal and typical: reason. You cannot express in words, even the most purely instinctive, half-conscious feeling, without placing that dumb and blind emotion in the lucid, balanced relations which thought has given to words; indeed, words rarely, if ever, reproduce emotion as it is, but instead, emotion as it is instinctively conceived, in its setting of cause and effect. Hence there is in all poetry a certain reasonable element which, even in the heyday of passion, makes us superior to passion by explaining its why and wherefore; and even when the poet succeeds in putting us in the place of him who feels, we enter only into one-half of his personality, the half which contemplates while the other suffers: we _know_ the feeling, rather than _feel_ it. Now, it is different with music. Its relations to our nerves are such that it can reproduce emotion, or, at all events, emotional moods, directly and without any intellectual manipulation. We weep, but know not why. Its specifically artistic emotion, the power it shares with all other arts of raising our state of consciousness to something more complete, more vast, and more permanent--the specific musical emotion of music can become subservient to the mere awakening of our latent emotional possibilities, to the stimulating of emotions often undesirable in themselves, and always unable, at the moment, to find their legitimate channel, whence enervation and perhaps degradation of the soul. There are kinds of music which add the immense charm, the subduing, victorious quality of art, to the power of mere emotion as such; and in these cases we are pushed, by the delightfulness of beauty and wonder, by the fascination of what is finer than ourselves, into deeper consciousness of our innermost, primæval, chaotic self: the stuff in which soul has not yet dawned. We are made to enjoy what we should otherwise dread; and the dignity of beauty, and beauty's frankness and fearlessness, are lent to things such as we regard, under other circumstances, as too intimate, too fleeting, too obscure, too unconscious, to be treated, in ourselves and our neighbours, otherwise than with decorous reserve. It is astonishing, when one realises it, that the charm of music, the good renown it has gained in its more healthful and more decorous days, can make us sit out what we do sit out under its influence: violations of our innermost secrets, revelations of the hidden possibilities of our own nature and the nature of others; stripping away of all the soul's veils; nay, so to speak, melting away of the soul's outward forms, melting away of the soul's active structure, its bone and muscle, till there is revealed only the shapeless primæval nudity of confused instincts, the soul's vague viscera. When music does this, it reverts, I think, towards being the nuisance which, before it had acquired the possibilities of form and beauty it now tends to despise, it was felt to be by ancient philosophers and law-givers. At any rate, it sells its artistic birthright. It renounces its possibility of constituting, with the other great arts, a sort of supplementary contemplated nature; an element wherein to buoy up and steady those fluctuations which we express in speech; a vast emotional serenity, an abstract universe in which our small and fleeting emotions can be transmuted, and wherein they can lose themselves in peacefulness and strength. XI. I mentioned this one day to my friend the composer. His answer is partly what I was prepared for: this emotionally disintegrating element ceases to exist, or continues to exist only in the very slightest degree, for the real musician. The effect on the nerves is overlooked, neutralised, in the activity of the intellect; much as the emotional effect of the written word is sent into the background by the perception of cause and effect which the logical associations of the word produce. For the composer, even for the performer, says my friend, music has a logic of its own, so strong and subtle as to overpower every other consideration. But music is not merely for musicians; the vast majority will always receive it not actively through the intellect, but passively through the nerves; the mood will, therefore, be induced before, so to speak, the image, the musical structure, is really appreciated. And, meanwhile, the soul is being made into a sop. "For the moment," answers my composer, "perhaps; but only for the moment. Once the nerves accustomed to those modulations and rhythms; once the form perceived by the mind, the emotional associations will vanish; the hearer will have become what the musician originally was.... How do you know that, in its heyday, all music may not have affected people as Wagner's music affects them nowadays? What proof have you got that the strains of Mozart and Gluck, nay, those of Palestrina, which fill our soul with serenity, may not have been full of stress and trouble when they first were heard; may not have laid bare the chaotic elements of our nature, brought to the surface its primæval instincts? Historically, all you know is that Gluck's _Orpheus_ made our ancestors weep; and that Wagner's _Tristram_ makes our contemporaries sob...." This is the musician's defence. Does it free his art from my rather miserable imputation? I think not. If all this be true, if _Orpheus_ has been what _Tristram_ is, all one can say is _the more's the pity_. If it be true, all music would require the chastening influence of time, and its spiritual value would be akin to that of the Past and Distant; it would be innocuous, because it had lost half of its vitality. We should have to lay down music, like wine, for the future; poisoning ourselves with the acrid fumes of its must, the heady, enervating scent of scum and purpled vat, in order that our children might drink vigour and warmth after we were dead. XII. But I doubt very much whether this is true. It is possible that the music of Wagner may eventually become serene like the music of Handel; but was the music of Handel ever morbid like the music of Wagner? I do not base my belief on any preference from Handel's contemporaries. We may, as we are constantly being told, be _degenerates_; but there was no special grace whence to degenerate in our perruked forefathers. Moreover, I believe that any very spontaneous art is to a very small degree the product of one or even two or three generations of men. It has been growing to be what it is for centuries and centuries. Its germ and its necessities of organism and development lie far, far back in the soul's world-history; and it is but later, if at all, when the organic growth is at an end, that times and individuals can fashion it in their paltry passing image. No; we may be as strong and as pure as Handel's audiences, and our music yet be less strong and pure than theirs. My reason for believing in a fundamental emotional difference between that music and ours is of another sort. I think that in art, as in all other things, the simpler, more normal interest comes first, and the more complex, less normal, follows when the simple and normal has become, through familiarity, the insipid. While pleasure unspiced by pain is still a novelty there is no reason thus to spice it. XIII. The question can, however, be tolerably settled by turning over the means which enable music to awaken emotion--emotion which we recognise as human, as distinguished from the mere emotion of pleasure attached to all beautiful sights and sounds. Once we have understood what these means are, we can enquire to what extent they are employed in the music of various schools and epochs, and thus judge, with some chance of likelihood, whether the music which strikes us as serene and vigorous could have affected our ancestors as turbid and enervating. 'Tis a dull enough psychological examination; but one worth making, not merely for the sake of music itself, but because music, being the most emotional of all the arts, can serve to typify the good or mischief which all art may do, according to which of our emotions it fosters. * * * * * 'Tis repeating a fact in different words, not stating anything new, to say that all beautiful things awaken a specific sort of emotion, the emotion or the mood of the beautiful. Yet this statement, equivalent to saying that hot objects give us the sensation of heat, and wet objects the sensation of wetness, is well worth repeating, because we so often forget that the fact of beauty in anything is merely the fact of that thing setting up in ourselves a very specific feeling. * * * * * Now, besides this beauty or quality producing the emotion of the beautiful, there exist in things a lot of other qualities also producing emotion, each according to its kind; or rather, the beautiful thing may also be qualified in some other way, as the thing which is useful, useless, old, young, common, rare, or whatever you choose. And this coincidence of qualities produces a coincidence of states of mind. We shall experience the feeling not merely of beauty because the thing is beautiful, but also of surprise because it is startling, of familiarity because we meet it often, of attraction (independently of beauty) because the thing suits or benefits us, or of repulsion (despite the beauty) because the thing has done us a bad turn or might do us one. This is saying that beauty is only one of various relations possible between something not ourselves and our feelings, and that it is probable that other relations between them may exist at the same moment, in the same way that a woman may be a man's wife, but also his cousin, his countrywoman, his school-board representative, his landlady, and his teacher of Latin, without one qualification precluding the others. Now, in the arts of line, colour, and projection, the arts which usually copy the appearance of objects existing outside the art, these other qualities, these other relations between ourselves and the object which exists in the relation of beauty, are largely a matter of superficial association--I mean, of association which may vary, and of which we are most often conscious. We are reminded by the picture or statue of qualities which do not exist in it, but in its prototype in reality. A certain face will awaken disgust when seen in a picture, or reverence or amusement, besides the specific impression of beauty (or its reverse), because we have experienced disgust, awe, amusement in connection with a similar face outside the picture. So far, therefore, as art is imitative, its non-artistic emotional capacities are due (with a very few exceptions) to association; for the feelings traceable directly to fatigue or disintegration of the perceptive faculty usually, indeed almost always, prevent the object from affecting us as beautiful. It is quite otherwise when we come to music. Here the coincidence of other emotion resides, I believe, not in the _musical thing itself_, not in the musician's creation without prototype in reality, resembling nothing save other musical structures; the coincidence resides in the elements out of which that structure is made, and which, for all its complexities, are still very strongly perceived by our senses. For instance, certain rhythms existing in music are identical with, or analogous to, the rhythm of our bodily movements under varying circumstances: we know alternations of long and short, variously composed regularities and irregularities of movement, fluctuations, reinforcements or subsidences, from experience other than that of music; we know them in connection with walking, jumping, dragging; with beating of heart and arteries, expansion of throat and lungs; we knew them, long before music was, as connected with energy or oppression, sickness or health, elation or depression, grief, fear, horror, or serenity and happiness. And when they become elements of a musical structure their associations come along with them. And these associations are the more powerful that, while they are rudimentary, familiar like our own being, perhaps even racial, the musical structure into which they enter is complete, individual, _new_: 'tis comparing the efficacy of, say, Mozart Op. So-and-so, with the efficacy of somebody sobbing or dancing in our presence. So far for the associational power of music in awakening emotions. But music has another source of such power over us. Existing as it does in a sequence, it is able to give sensations which the arts dealing with space, and not with time, could not allow themselves, since for them a disagreeable effect could never prelude an agreeable one, but merely co-exist with it; whereas for music a disagreeable effect is effaceable by an agreeable one, and will even considerably heighten the latter by being made to precede it. Now we not merely associate fatigue or pain with any difficult perception, we actually feel it; we are aware of real discomfort whenever our senses and attention are kept too long on the stretch, or are stimulated too sharply by something unexpected. In these cases we are conscious of something which is exhausting, overpowering, unendurable if it lasted: experiences which are but too familiar in matters not musical, and, therefore, evoke the remembrance of such non-musical discomfort, which reacts to increase the discomfort produced by the music; the reverse taking place, a sense of freedom, of efficiency, of strength arising in us whenever the object of perception can be easily, though energetically, perceived. Hence intervals which the ear has difficulty in following, dissonances to which it is unaccustomed, and phrases too long or too slack for convenient scansion, produce a degree of sensuous and intellectual distress, which can be measured by the immense relief--relief as an acute satisfaction--of return to easier intervals, of consonance, and of phrases of normal rhythm and length. Thus does it come to pass that music can convey emotional suggestions such as painting and sculpture, for all their imitations of reality, can never match in efficacy; since music conveys the suggestions not of mere objects which may have awakened emotion, but of emotion itself, of the expression thereof in our bodily feelings and movements. And hence also the curious paradox that musical emotion is strong almost in proportion as it is vague. A visible object may, and probably will, possess a dozen different emotional values, according to our altering relations therewith; for one relation, one mood, one emotion succeeds and obliterates the other, till nothing very potent can remain connected with that particular object. But it matters not how different the course of the various emotions which have expressed themselves in movements of slackness, agitation, energy, or confusion; it matters not through what circumstances our vigour may have leaked away, our nerves have been harrowed, our attention worn out, so long as those movements, those agitations, slackenings, oppressions, reliefs, fatigues, harrowings, and reposings are actually taking place within us. In briefer phrase, while painting and sculpture present us only with objects possibly connected with emotions, but probably connected with emotions too often varied to affect us strongly; music gives us the actual bodily consciousness of emotion; nay (in so far as it calls for easy or difficult acts of perception), the actual mental reality of comfort or discomfort. XIV. The emotion uppermost in the music of all these old people is the specific emotion of the beautiful; the emotional possibilities, latent in so many elements of the musical structure, never do more than qualify the overwhelming impression due to that structure itself. The music of Handel and Bach is beautiful, with a touch of awe; that of Gluck, with a tinge of sadness; Mozart's and his contemporaries' is beautiful, with a reminiscence of all tender and happy emotions; then again, there are the great Italians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Carissimi, Scarlatti the elder, Marcello, whose musical beauty is oddly emphasised with energy and sternness, due to their powerful, simple rhythms and straightforward wide intervals. But whatever the emotional qualification, the chief, the never varying, all-important characteristic, is the beauty; the dominant emotion is the serene happiness which beauty gives: happiness, strong and delicate; increase of our vitality; evocation of all cognate beauty, physical and moral, bringing back to our consciousness all that which is at once wholesome and rare. For beauty such as this is both desirable and, in a sense, far-fetched; it comes naturally to us, and we meet it half-way; but it does not come often enough. Hence it is that the music of these masters never admits us into the presence of such feelings as either were better not felt, or at all events, not idly witnessed. There is not ever anything in the joy or grief suggested by this music, in the love of which it is an expression, which should make us feel abashed in feeling or witnessing. The whole world may watch _Orpheus_ or _Alcestis_, as the whole world may stand (with Bach or Pergolese to make music) at the foot of the Cross. But may the whole world sit idly watching the raptures and death-throes of Tristram and Yseult? Surely the world has grown strangely intrusive and unblushing. XV. I have spoken of this old music as an expression of love; and this, in the face of the emotional effects of certain modern composers, may make some persons smile. Perhaps I should rather have said that this old music expresses, above everything else, the _lovable_; for does not eminent beauty inevitably awaken love, either as respect or tenderness; the lovable, _loveliness_? And at the same time the love itself such loveliness awakens. Love far beyond particular cases or persons, fitting all noble things, real and imaginary, complex or fragmentary. Love as a lyric essence. XVI. But why not more than merely that? I used at one time to have frequent discussions on art and life with a certain poor friend of mine, who should have found sweetness in both, giving both sweetness in return, but, alas, did neither. We were sitting in the fields where the frost-bitten green was just beginning to soften into minute starlike buds and mosses, and the birds were learning to sing in the leafless lilac hedgerows, the sunshine, as it does in spring, seeming to hold the world rather than merely to pour on to it. "You see," said my friend, "you see, there is a fundamental difference between us. You are satisfied with what you call _happiness_; but I want _rapture and excess_." Alas, a few years later, the chance of happiness had gone. That door was opened, of which Epictetus wrote that we might always pass through it; in this case not because "the room was too full of smoke," but, what is sadder by far, because the room was merely whitewashed and cleanly swept. But those words "rapture and excess," spoken in such childlike simplicity of spirit, have always remained in my mind. Should we not teach our children, among whom there may be such as that one was, that the best thing life can give is just that despised thing _happiness_? XVII. Now art, to my mind, should be one of our main sources of happiness; and under the inappropriate word _art_, I am obliged, as usual, to group all such activities of soul as deal with beauty, quite as much when it exists in what is (in this sense) not art's antithesis, but art's origin and completion, nature. Nay, art--the art exercised by the craftsman, but much more so the art, the selecting, grouping process performed by our own feelings--art can do more towards our happiness than increase the number of its constituent items: it can mould our preferences, can make our souls more resisting and flexible, teach them to keep pace with the universal rhythm. Now, there is not room enough in the world, and not stuff enough in us, for much rapture, or for any excess. The space, as it were, the material which these occupy and exhaust, has to be paid for; rapture is paid for by subsequent stinting, and excess by subsequent bankruptcy. We all know this in even trifling matters; the dulness, the lassitude or restlessness, the incapacity for enjoyment following any very acute or exciting pleasure. A man after a dangerous ride, a girl after her first wildly successful ball, are not merely exhausted in body and in mind; they are momentarily deprived of the enjoyment of slighter emotions; 'tis like the inability to hear one's own voice after listening to a tremendous band. The gods, one might say in Goethian phrase, did not intend us to share their own manner of being; or, if you prefer it, in the language of Darwin or Weissmann, creatures who died of sheer bliss, were unable to rear a family and to found a species. Be it as it may, rapture must needs be rare, because it destroys a piece of us (makes our precious piece of chagrin skin, as in Balzac's story, shrink each time). And, as we have seen, it destroys (which is more important than destruction of mere life) our sensibility to those diffuse, long-drawn, gentle, restorative pleasures which are not merely durable, but, because they invigorate our spirit, are actually reproductive of themselves, multiplying, like all sane desirable things, like grain and fruit, ten-fold. Pleasures which I would rather call, but for the cumbersome words, items of happiness. It is therefore no humiliating circumstance if art and beauty should be unable to excite us like a game of cards, a steeplechase, a fight, or some violent excitement of our senses or our vanity. This inability, on the contrary, constitutes our chief reason for considering our pleasure in beautiful sights, sounds, and thoughts, as in a sense, holy. XVIII. Yesterday morning, riding towards the cypress woods, I had the first impression of spring; and, in fact, to-day the first almond-tree had come out in blossom on our hillside. A cool morning; loose, quickly moving clouds, and every now and then a gust of rain swept down from the mountains. The path followed a brook, descending in long, steep steps from the hillside; water perfectly clear, bubbling along the yellow stones between the grassy banks and making now and then a little leap into a lower basin; along the stream great screens of reeds, sere, pale, with barely a pennon of leaves, rustling ready for the sickle; and behind, beneath the watery sky, rainy but somehow peaceful, the russet oak-scrub of the hill. Of spring there was indeed visible only the green of the young wheat beneath the olives; not a bud as yet had moved. And still, it is spring. The world is renewing itself. One feels it in the gusts of cool, wet wind, the songs of the reeds, the bubble of the brook; one feels it, above all, in oneself. All things are braced, elastic, ready for life. THE ART AND THE COUNTRY. TUSCAN NOTES. "... all these are inhabitants of truly mountain cities, Florence being as completely among the hills as Innsbruck is, only the hills have softer outlines."--_Modern Painters_, iv., chap. xx. I. Sitting in the January sunshine on the side of this Fiesole hill, overlooking the opposite quarries (a few long-stalked daisies at my feet in the gravel, still soft from the night's frost), my thoughts took the colour and breath of the place. They circled, as these paths circle round the hill, about those ancient Greek and old Italian cities, where the cyclopean walls, the carefully-terraced olives, followed the tracks made first by the shepherd's and the goat's foot, even as we see them now on the stony hills all round. What civilisations were those, thus sowed on the rock like the wild mint and grey myrrh-scented herbs, and grown under the scorch of sun upon stone, and the eddy of winds down the valleys! They are gone, disappeared, and their existence would be impossible in our days. But they have left us their art, the essence they distilled from their surroundings. And that is as good for our souls as the sunshine and the wind, as the aromatic scent of the herbs of their mountains. II. I am tempted to think that the worst place for getting to know, getting to _feel_, any school of painting, is the gallery, and the best, perhaps, the fields: the fields (or in the case of the Venetians, largely the waters), to which, with their qualities of air, of light, their whole train of sensations and moods, the artistic temperament, and the special artistic temperament of a local school, can very probably be traced. For to appreciate any kind of art means, after all, not to understand its relations with other kinds of art, but to feel its relations with ourselves. It is a matter of living, thanks to that art, according to the spiritual and organic modes of which it is an expression. Now, to go from room to room of a gallery, allowing oneself to be played upon by very various kinds of art, is to prevent the formation of any definite mood, and to set up what is most hostile to all mood, to all unity of being: comparison, analysis, classification. You may know quite exactly the difference between Giotto and Simon Martini, between a Ferrarese and a Venetian, between Praxiteles and Scopas; and yet be ignorant of the meaning which any of these might have in your life, and unconscious of the changes they might work in your being. And this, I fear, is often the case with connoisseurs and archæologists, accounting for the latent suspicion of the ignoramus and the good philistine, that such persons are somehow none the better for their intercourse with art. All art which is organic, short of which it cannot be efficient, depends upon tradition. To say so sounds a truism, because we rarely realise all that tradition implies: on the side of the artist, _what to do_, and on the side of his public, _how to feel_: a habit, an expectation which accumulates the results of individual creative genius and individual appreciative sensibility, giving to each its greatest efficacy. When one remembers, in individual instances--Kant, Darwin, Michel Angelo, Mozart--how very little which is absolutely new, how slight a variation, how inevitable a combination, marks, after all, the greatest strokes of genius in all things, it seems quite laughable to expect the mediocre person, mere looker-on or listener, far from creative, to reach at once, without a similar sequence of initiation, a corresponding state of understanding and enjoyment. But, as a rule, this thought does not occur to us; and, while we expatiate on the creative originality of artists and poets, we dully take for granted the instant appreciation of their creation; forgetting, or not understanding, in both cases, the wonderful efficacy of tradition. As regards us moderns, for whom the tradition of, say, Tuscan art has so long been broken off or crossed by various other and very different ones--as regards ourselves, I am inclined to think that we can best recover it by sympathetic attention to those forms of art, humbler or more public, which must originally have prepared and kept up the interest of the people for whom the Tuscan craftsmen worked. Pictures and statues, even in a traditional period, embody a large amount of merely personal peculiarities of individual artists, testifying to many activities--imitation, self-assertion, rivalry--which have no real æsthetic value. And, during the fifteenth century and in Tuscany especially, the flow of traditional æsthetic feeling is grievously altered and adulterated by the merest scientific tendencies: a painter or sculptor being often, in the first instance, a student of anatomy, archæology or perspective. One may, therefore, be familiar for twenty years with Tuscan Renaissance painting or sculpture, and yet remain very faintly conscious of the special æsthetic character, the _virtues_ (in the language of herbals) of Tuscan art. Hence I should almost say, better let alone the pictures and statues until you are sufficiently acquainted with the particular quality lurking therein to recognise, extricate and assimilate it, despite irrelevant ingredients. Learn the _quality_ of Tuscan art from those categories of it which are most impersonal, most traditional, and most organic and also freer from scientific interference, say architecture and decoration; and from architecture rather in its humble, unobtrusive work than in the great exceptional creations which imply, like the cupola of Florence, the assertion of a personality, the surmounting of a difficulty, and even the braving of other folks' opinion. I believe that if one learned, not merely to know, but to feel, to enjoy very completely and very specifically, the quality of distinctness and reserve, slightness of means and greatness of proportions, of the domestic architecture and decoration of the fifteenth century, if one made one's own the mood underlying the special straight lines and curves, the symmetry and hiatus of the colonnades, for instance, inside Florentine houses; of the little bits of carving on escutcheon and fireplace of Tuscan hillside farms; let alone of the plainest sepulchral slabs in Santa Croce, one would be in better case for really appreciating, say, Botticelli or Pier della Francesca than after ever so much comparison of their work with that of other painters. For, through familiarity with that humbler, more purely impersonal and traditional art, a certain mode of being in oneself, which is the special æsthetic mood of the Tuscan's would have become organised and be aroused at the slightest indication of the qualities producing it, so that their presence would never escape one. This, I believe, is the secret of all æsthetic training: the growing accustomed, as it were automatically, to respond to the work of art's bidding; to march or dance to Apollo's harping with the irresistible instinct with which the rats and the children followed the pied piper's pipe. This is the æsthetic training which quite unconsciously and incidentally came to the men of the past through daily habit of artistic forms which existed and varied in the commonest objects just as in the greatest masterpieces. And through it alone was the highest art brought into fruitful contact with even the most everyday persons: the tradition which already existed making inevitable the tradition which followed. But to return to us moderns, who have to reconstitute deliberately a vanished æsthetic tradition, it seems to me that such familiarity with Tuscan art once initiated, we can learn more, producing and canalising its special moods, from a frosty afternoon like this one on the hillside, with its particular taste of air, its particular line of shelving rock and twisting road and accentuating reed or cypress in the delicate light, than from hours in a room where Signorelli and Lippi, Angelico and Pollaiolo, are all telling one different things in different languages. III. These thoughts, and the ones I shall try to make clear as I go on, began to take shape one early winter morning some ten years ago, while I was staying among the vineyards in the little range of hills which separate the valley of the Ombrone from the lower valley of the Arno. Stony hills, stony paths between leafless lilac hedges, stony outlines of crest, fringed with thin rosy bare trees; here and there a few bright green pines; for the rest, olives and sulphur-yellow sere vines among them; the wide valley all a pale blue wash, and Monte Morello opposite wrapped in mists. It was visibly snowing on the great Apennines, and suddenly, though very gently, it began to snow here also, wrapping the blue distance, the yellow vineyards, in thin veils. Brisk cold. At the house, when I returned from my walk, the children were flattened against the window-panes, shouting for joy at the snow. We grown-up folk, did we live wiser lives, might be equally delighted by similar shows. A very Tuscan, or rather (what I mean when I make use of that word, for geographically Tuscany is very large and various) a very Florentine day. Beauty, exquisiteness, serenity; but not without austerity carried to a distinct bitingness. And this is the quality which we find again in all very characteristic Tuscan art. Such a country as this, scorched in summer, wind-swept in winter, and constantly stony and uphill, a country of eminently dry, clear, moving air, puts us into a braced, active, self-restrained mood; there is in it, as in these frosty days which suit it best, something which gives life and demands it: a quality of happy effort. The art produced by people in whom such a condition of being is frequent, must necessarily reproduce this same condition of being in others. Therefore the connection between a country and its art must be sought mainly in the fact that all art expresses a given state of being, of emotion, not human necessarily, but vital; that is to say, expresses not whether we love or hate, but rather _how_ we love or hate, how we _are_. The mountain forms, colour, water, etc., of a country are incorporated into its art less as that art's object of representation, than as the determinant of a given mode of vitality in the artist. Hence music and literature, although never actually reproducing any part of them, may be strongly affected by their character. The _Vita Nuova_, the really great (not merely historically interesting) passages of the Divine Comedy, and the popular songs of Tigri's collection, are as much the outcome of these Tuscan mountains and hills, as is any picture in which we recognise their outlines and colours. Indeed, it happens that of literal rendering (as distinguished from ever-present reference to quality of air or light, to climbing, to rock and stone as such) there is little in the _Commedia_, none at all in either the old or the more modern lyrics, and not so much even in painted landscape. The Tuscan backgrounds of the fifteenth century are _not_ these stony places, sun-burnt or wind-swept; they are the green lawns and pastures in vogue with the whole international Middle Ages, but rendered with that braced, selecting, finishing temper which _is_ the product of those stony hills. Similarly the Tuscans must have been influenced by the grace, the sparseness, the serenity of the olive, its inexhaustible vigour and variety; yet how many of them ever painted it? That a people should never paint or describe their landscape may mean that they have not consciously inventoried the items; but it does not mean that they have not æsthetically, so to speak _nervously_, felt them. Their quality, their virtue, may be translated into that people's way of talking of or painting quite different things: the Tuscan quality is a quality of form, because it is a quality of mood. IV. This Tuscan, and more than Attic, quality--for there is something akin to it in certain Greek archaic sculpture--is to be found, already perfect and most essential, in the façades of the early mediæval churches of Pistoia. _Is to be found_; because this quality, tense and restrained and distributed with harmonious evenness, reveals itself only to a certain fineness and carefulness of looking. The little churches (there are four or five of them) belong to the style called Pisan-Romanesque; and their fronts, carved arches, capitals, lintels, and doorposts, are identical in plan, in all that the mind rapidly inventories, with the fronts of the numerous contemporary churches of Lucca. But a comparison with these will bring out most vividly the special quality of the Pistoia churches. The Lucchese ones (of some of which, before their restoration, Mr. Ruskin has left some marvellous coloured drawings at Oxford) run to picturesqueness and even something more; they do better in the picture than in the reality, and weathering and defacement has done much for them. Whereas the little churches at Pistoia, with less projection, less carving in the round, few or no animal or clearly floral forms, and, as a rule, pilasters or half-pillars instead of columns, must have been as perfect the day they were finished; the subtle balancings and tensions of lines and curves, the delicate fretting and inlaying of flat surface pattern, having gained only, perhaps, in being drawn more clearly by dust and damp upon a softer colour of marble. I have mentioned these first, because their apparent insignificance--tiny flat façades, with very little decoration--makes it in a way easier to grasp the special delicate austerity of their beauty. But they are humble offshoots, naturally, of two great and complex masterpieces, and very modest sisters of a masterpiece only a degree less marvellous: Pisa Cathedral, the Baptistery of Florence and San Miniato. The wonderful nature of the most perfect of these three buildings (and yet I hesitate to call it so, remembering the apse and lateral gables of Pisa) can be the better understood that, standing before the Baptistery of Florence, one has by its side Giotto's very beautiful belfry. Looking at them turn about, one finds that the Gothic boldness of light and shade of the Campanile makes the windows, pillars and cornices of the Baptistery seem at first very flat and uninteresting. But after the first time, and once that sense of flatness overcome, it is impossible to revert to the belfry with the same satisfaction. The eye and mind return to the greater perfection of the Baptistery; by an odd paradox there is deeper feeling in those apparently so slight and superficial carvings, those lintels and fluted columns of green marble which scarcely cast a shadow on their ivory-tinted wall. The Tuscan quality of these buildings is the better appreciated when we take in the fact that their architectural items had long existed, not merely in the Romanesque, but in the Byzantine and late Roman. The series of temple-shaped windows on the outside of the Florence Baptistery and of San Miniato, has, for instance, its original in the Baptistery of Ravenna and the arch at Verona. What the Tuscans have done is to perfect the inner and subtler proportions, to restrain and accentuate, to phrase (in musical language) every detail of execution. By an accident of artistic evolution, this style of architecture, rather dully elaborated by a worn-out civilisation, has had to wait six centuries for life to be put into it by a finer-strung people at a chaster and more braced period of history. Nor should we be satisfied with such loose phrases as this, leading one to think, in a slovenly fashion (quite unsuitable to Tuscan artistic lucidity), that the difference lay in some vague metaphysical entity called _spirit_: the spirit of the Tuscan stonemasons of the early Middle Ages altered the actual tangible forms in their proportions and details: this spiritual quality affects us in their carved and inlaid marbles, their fluted pilasters and undercut capitals, as a result of actual work of eye and of chisel: they altered the expression by altering the stone, even as the frosts and August suns and trickling water had determined the expression, by altering the actual surface, of their lovely austere hills. V. The Tuscan quality in architecture must not be sought for during the hundred years of Gothic--that is to say, of foreign--supremacy and interregnum. The stonemasons of Pisa and of Florence did indeed apply their wholly classic instincts to the detail and ornament of this alien style; and one is struck by the delicacy and self-restraint of, say, the Tuscan ones among the Scaliger tombs compared with the more picturesque looseness of genuine Veronese and Venetian Gothic sculpture. But the constructive, and, so to speak, space enclosing, principles of the great art of mediæval France were even less understood by the Tuscan than by any other Italian builders; and, as the finest work of Tuscan façade architecture was given before the Gothic interregnum, so also its most noble work, as actual spatial arrangement, must be sought for after the return to the round arch, the cupola and the entablature of genuine Southern building. And then, by a fortunate coincidence (perhaps because this style affords no real unity to vast naves and transepts), the architectural masterpieces of the fifteenth century are all of them (excepting, naturally, Brunelleschi's dome) very small buildings: the Sacristies of S. Lorenzo and S. Spirito, the chapel of the Pazzi, and the late, but exquisite, small church of the Carceri at Prato. The smallness of these places is fortunate, because it leaves no doubt that the sense of spaciousness--of our being, as it were, enclosed with a great part of world and sky around us--is an artistic illusion got by co-ordination of detail, greatness of proportions, and, most of all, perhaps, by quite marvellous distribution of light. These small squares, or octagons, most often with a square embrasure for the altar, seem ample habitations for the greatest things; one would wish to use them for Palestrina's music, or Bach's, or Handel's; and then one recognises that their actual dimensions in yards would not accommodate the band and singers and the organ! Such music must remain in our soul, where, in reality, the genius of those Florentine architects has contrived the satisfying ampleness of their buildings. That they invented nothing in the way of architectural ornament, nay, took their capitals, flutings, cornices, and so forth, most mechanically from the worst antique, should be no real drawback to this architecture; it was, most likely, a matter of negative instinct. For these meagre details leave the mind free, nay, force it rather, to soar at once into the vaultings, into the serene middle space opposite the windows, and up into the enclosed heaven of the cupolas. VI. The Tuscan sculpture of this period stands, I think, midway between the serene perfection of the buildings (being itself sprung from the architecture of the Gothic time), and the splendid but fragmentary accomplishment of the paintings, many of whose disturbing problems, of anatomy and anatomic movement, it shared to its confusion. It is not for beautiful bodily structure or gesture, such as we find even in poor antiques, that we should go to the Florentine sculptors, save, perhaps, the two Robbias. It is the almost architectural distribution of space and light, the treatment of masses, which makes the immeasurable greatness of Donatello, and gives dignity to his greatest contemporary, Jacopo della Quercia. And it is again an architectural quality, though in the sense of the carved portals of Pistoia, the flutings and fretwork and surface pattern of the Baptistery and S. Miniato, which gives such poignant pleasure in the work of a very different, but very great, sculptor, Desiderio. The marvel (for it is a marvel) of his great monument in Santa Croce, depends not on anatomic forms, but on the exquisite variety and vivacity of surface arrangement; the word symphony (so often misapplied) fitting exactly this complex structure of minute melodies and harmonies of rhythms and accents in stone. But the quality of Tuscan sculpture exists in humbler, often anonymous and infinitely pathetic work. I mean those effigies of knights and burghers, coats of arms and mere inscriptions, which constitute so large a portion of what we walk upon in Santa Croce. Things not much thought of, maybe, and ruthlessly defaced by all posterity. But the masses, the main lines, were originally noble, and defacement has only made their nobleness and tenderness more evident and poignant: they have come to partake of the special solemnity of stone worn by frost and sunshine. VII. There are a great many items which go to make up Tuscany and the specially Tuscan mood. The country is at once hilly and mountainous, but rich in alluvial river valleys, as flat and as wide, very often, as plains; and the chains which divide and which bound it are as various as can be: the crystalline crags of Carrara, the washed away cones and escarpments of the high Apennines, repeating themselves in counter forts and foothills, and the low, closely packed ridges of the hills between Florence and Siena. Hence there is always a view, definite and yet very complex, made up of every variety of line, but always of clearest perspective: perfect horizontals at one's feet, perfect perpendiculars opposite the eye, a constant alternation of looking up and looking down, a never-failing possibility of looking _beyond_, an outlet everywhere for the eye, and for the breath; and endless intricacy of projecting spur and engulfed ravine, of valley above valley, and ridge beyond ridge; and all of it, whether definitely modelled by stormy lights or windy dryness, or washed to mere outline by sunshine or mist, always massed into intelligible, harmonious, and ever-changing groups. Ever changing as you move, hills rising or sinking as you mount or descend, furling or unfurling as you go to the right or to the left, valleys and ravines opening or closing up, the whole country altering, so to speak, its attitude and gesture as quickly almost, and with quite as perfect consecutiveness, as does a great cathedral when you walk round it. And, for this reason, never letting you rest; keeping _you_ also in movement, feet, eyes and fancy. Add to all this a particular topographical feeling, very strong and delightful, which I can only describe as that of seeing all the kingdoms of the earth. In the high places close to Florence (and with that especial lie of the land everything is a _high place_) a view is not only of foregrounds and backgrounds, river troughs and mountain lines of great variety, but of whole districts, or at least indications of districts--distant peaks making you feel the places at their feet--which you know to be extremely various: think of the Carraras with their Mediterranean seaboard, the high Apennines with Lombardy and the Adriatic behind them, the Siena and Volterra hills leading to the Maremma, and the great range of the Falterona, with the Tiber issuing from it, leading the mind through Umbria to Rome! The imagination is as active among these Florentine hills as is the eye, or as the feet and lungs have been, pleasantly tired, delighting in the moment's rest, after climbing those steep places among the pines or the myrtles, under the scorch of the wholesome summer sun, or in the face of the pure, snowy wind. The wind, so rarely at rest, has helped to make the Tuscan spirit, calling for a certain resoluteness to resist it, but, in return, taking all sense of weight away, making the body merge, so to speak, into eye and mind, and turning one, for a little while, into part of the merely visible and audible. The frequent possibility of such views as I have tried to define, of such moments of fulness of life, has given, methinks, the quality of definiteness and harmony, of active, participated in, greatness, to the art of Tuscany. VIII. It is a pity that, as regards painting, this Tuscan feeling (for Giottesque painting had the cosmopolitan, as distinguished from local, quality of the Middle Ages and of the Franciscan movement) should have been at its strongest just in the century when mere scientific interest was uppermost. Nay, one is tempted to think that matters were made worse by that very love of the strenuous, the definite, the lucid, which is part of the Tuscan spirit. So that we have to pick out, in men like Donatello, Uccello, Pollaiolo and Verrocchio, nay, even in Lippi and Botticelli, the fragments which correspond to what we get quite unmixed and perfect in the Romanesque churches of Pisa, Florence, and Pistoia, in the sacristies and chapels of Brunelleschi, Alberti, and Sangallo, and in a hundred exquisite cloisters and loggias of unnoticed town houses and remote farms. But perhaps there is added a zest (by no means out of keeping with the Tuscan feeling) to our enjoyment by the slight effort which is thus imposed upon us: Tuscan art does not give its exquisiteness for nothing. Be this as it may, the beauty of Florentine Renaissance painting must be sought, very often, not in the object which the picture represents, but in the mode in which that object is represented. Our habits of thought are so slovenly in these matters, and our vocabulary so poor and confused, that I find it difficult to make my exact meaning clear without some insistence. I am not referring to the mere moral qualities of care, decision, or respectfulness, though the recognition thereof adds undoubtedly to the noble pleasure of a work of art; still less to the technical or scientific lucidity which the picture exhibits. The beauty of fifteenth-century painting is a visible quality, a quality of the distribution of masses, the arrangement of space; above all, of the lines of a picture. But it is independent of the fact of the object represented being or not what in real life we should judge beautiful; and it is, in large works, unfortunately even more separate from such arrangement as will render a complicated composition intelligible to the mind or even to the eye. The problems of anatomy, relief, muscular action, and perspective which engrossed and in many cases harassed the Florentines of the Renaissance, turned their attention away from the habit of beautiful general composition which had become traditional even in the dullest and most effete of their Giottesque predecessors, and left them neither time nor inclination for wonderful new invention in figure distribution like that of their contemporary Umbrians. Save in easel pictures, therefore, there is often a distressing confusion, a sort of dreary random packing, in the works of men like Uccello, Lippi, Pollaiolo, Filippino, Ghirlandaio, and even Botticelli. And even in the more simply and often charmingly arranged easel pictures, the men and women represented, even the angels and children, are often very far from being what in real life would be deemed beautiful, or remarkable by any special beauty of attitude and gesture. They are, in truth, studies, anatomical or otherwise, although studies in nearly every case dignified by the habit of a very serious and tender devoutness: rarely soulless or insolent studio drudgery or swagger such as came when art ceased to be truly popular and religious. Studies, however, with little or no selection of the reality studied, and less thought even for the place or manner in which they were to be used. But these studies are executed, however scientific their intention, under the guidance of a sense and a habit of beauty, subtle and imperious in proportion, almost, as it is self-unconscious. These figures, sometimes ungainly, occasionally ill-made, and these features, frequently homely or marred by some conspicuous ugliness, are made up of lines as enchantingly beautiful, as seriously satisfying, as those which surrounded the Tuscans in their landscape. And it is in the extracting of such beauty of lines out of the bewildering confusion of huge frescoes, it is in the seeing as arrangements of such lines the sometimes unattractive men and women and children painted (and for that matter, often also sculptured) by the great Florentines of the fifteenth century, that consists the true appreciation and habitual enjoyment of Tuscan Renaissance painting. The outline of an ear and muscle of the neck by Lippi; the throw of drapery by Ghirlandaio; the wide and smoke-like rings of heavy hair by Botticelli; the intenser, more ardent spiral curls of Verrocchio or the young Leonardo; all that is flower-like, flame-like, that has the swirl of mountain rivers, the ripple of rocky brooks, the solemn and poignant long curves and sudden crests of hills, all this exists in the paintings of the Florentines; and it is its intrinsic nobility and exquisiteness, its reminiscence and suggestion of all that is loveliest and most solemn in nature, its analogy to all that is strongest and most delicate in human emotion, which we should seek for and cherish in their works. IX. The hour of low lights, which the painters of the past almost exclusively reproduced, is naturally that in which we recognise easiest, not only the identity of mood awakened by the art and by the country, but the closer resemblance between the things which art was able to do, and the things which the country had already done. Even more, immediately after sunset. The hills, becoming uniform masses, assert their movement, strike deep into the valley, draw themselves strongly up towards the sky. The valleys also, with their purple darkness, rising like smoke out of them, assert themselves in their turn. And the sky, the more diaphanous for all this dark solidity against it, becomes sky more decisively; takes, moreover, colour which only fluid things can have; turns into washes of pale gold, of palest tea-rose pink and beryl green. Against this sky the cypresses are delicately finished off in fine black lacework, even as in the background of Botticelli's _Spring_, and Leonardo's or Verrocchio's _Annuniciation_. One understands that those passionate lovers of line loved the moment of sunset apart even from colour. The ridges of pines and cypresses soon remain the only distinguishable thing in the valleys, pulling themselves (as one feels it) rapidly up, like great prehistoric shapes of Saurians. Soon the sky only and mountains will exist. Then begins the time, before the starlit night comes to say its say, when everything grows drowsy, a little vague, and the blurred mountains go to sleep in the smoke of dusk. Then only, due west, the great Carrara peaks stand out against the sanguine sky, long pointed curves and flame-shaped sudden crests, clear and keen beyond the power of mortal hand to draw. X. The quality of such sights as these, as I have more than once repeated, requires to be diligently sought for, and extricated from many things which overlay or mar it, throughout nearly the whole of Florentine Renaissance painting. But by good luck there is one painter in whom we can enjoy it as subtle, but also as simple, as in the hills and mountains outlined by sunset or gathered into diaphanous folds by the subduing radiance of winter moon. I am speaking, of course, of Pier della Francesca; although an over literal school of criticism stickles at classing him with the other great Florentines. Nay, by a happy irony of things, the reasons for this exclusion are probably those to which we owe the very purity and perfection of this man's Tuscan quality. For the remoteness of his home on the southernmost border of Tuscany, and in a river valley--that of the Upper Tiber--leading away from Florence and into Umbria, may have kept him safe from that scientific rivalry, that worry and vexation of professional problems, which told so badly on so many Florentine craftsmen. And, on the other hand, the north Italian origin of one of his masters, the mysterious Domenico Veneziano, seems to have given him, instead of the colouring, always random and often coarse, of contemporary Florence, a harmonious scheme of perfectly delicate, clear, and flower-like colour. These two advantages are so distinctive that, by breaking through the habits one necessarily gets into with his Florentine contemporaries, they have resulted in setting apart, and almost outside the pale of Tuscan painting, the purest of all Tuscan artists. For with him there is no need for making allowances or disentangling essentials. The vivid organic line need not be sought in details nor, so to speak, abstracted: it bounds his figures, forms them quite naturally and simply, and is therefore not thought about apart from them. And the colour, integral as it is, and perfectly harmonious, masses the figures into balanced groups, bossiness and bulk, detail and depth, all unified, co-ordinated, satisfying as in the sun-merged mountains and shelving valleys of his country; and with the immediate charm of whiteness as of rocky water, pale blue of washed skies, and that ineffable lilac, russet, rose, which makes the basis of all southern loveliness. One thinks of him, therefore, as something rather apart, a sort of school in himself, or at most with Domenico, his master, and his follower, della Gatta. But more careful looking will show that his greatest qualities, so balanced and so clear in him, are shared--though often masked by the ungainlinesses of hurried artistic growth--by Pollaiolo, Baldovinetti, Pesellino, let alone Uccello, Castagno, and Masaccio; are, in a word, Tuscan, Florentine. But more than by such studies, the kinship and nationality of Pier della Francesca is proved by reference to the other branches of Tuscan art: his peculiarities correspond to the treatment of line and projection by those early stonemasons of the Baptistery and the Pistoia churches, to the treatment of enclosed spaces and manipulated light in those fifteenth-century sacristies and chapels, to the treatment of mass and boundary in the finest reliefs of Donatello and Donatello's great decorative follower Desiderio. To persons, however, who are ready to think with me that we may be trained to art in fields and on hillsides, the essential Tuscan character of Pier della Francesca is brought home quite as strongly by the particular satisfaction with which we recognise his pictures in some unlikely place, say a Northern gallery. For it is a satisfaction, _sui generis_ and with its own emotional flavour, like that which we experience on return to Tuscany, on seeing from the train the white houses on the slopes, the cypresses at the cross roads, the subtler, lower lines of hills, the blue of distant peaks, on realising once more our depth of tranquil love for this austere and gentle country. XI. Save in the lushness of early summer, Tuscany is, on the whole, pale; a country where the loveliness of colour is that of its luminousness, and where light is paramount. From this arises, perhaps, the austerity of its true summer--summer when fields are bare, grass burnt to delicate cinnamon and russet, and the hills, with their sere herbs and bushes, seem modelled out of pale rosy or amethyst light; an austerity for the eye corresponding to a sense of healthfulness given by steady, intense heat, purged of all damp, pure like the scents of dry leaves, of warm, cypress resin and of burnt thyme and myrrh of the stony ravines and stubbly fields. On such August days the plain and the more distant mountains will sometimes be obliterated, leaving only the inexpressible suavity of the hills on the same side as the sun, made of the texture of the sky, lying against it like transparent and still luminous shadows. All pictures of such effects of climate are false, even Perugino's and Claude's, because even in these the eye is not sufficiently attracted and absorbed away from the foreground, from the earth to the luminous sky. That effect is the most powerful, sweetest, and most restorative in all nature perhaps; a bath for the soul in pure light and air. That is the incomparable buoyancy and radiance of deepest Tuscan summer. But the winter is, perhaps, even more Tuscan and more austerely beautiful. I am not even speaking of the fact that the mountains, with their near snows and brooding blue storms and ever contending currents of wind and battles and migrations of great clouds, necessarily make much of winter very serious and solemn, as it sweeps down their ravines and across their ridges. I am thinking of the serene winter days of mist and sun, with ranges of hills made of a luminous bluish smoke, and sky only a more luminous and liquid kind, and the olives but a more solid specimen, of the mysterious silvery substance of the world. The marvellous part of it all, and quite impossible to convey, is that such days are not pensive, but effulgent, that the lines of the landscape are not blurred, but exquisitely selected and worked. XII. A quality like that of Tuscan art is, as I have once before remarked, in some measure, abstract; a general character, like that of a composite photograph, selected and compounded by the repetition of the more general and the exclusion of more individual features. In so far, therefore, it is something rather tended towards in reality than thoroughly accomplished; and its accomplishment, to whatever extent, is naturally due to a tradition, a certain habit among artists and public, which neutralises the refractory tendencies of individuals (the personal morbidness evident, for instance, in Botticelli) and makes the most of what the majority may have in common--that dominant interest, let us say, in line and mass. Such being the case, this Tuscan quality comes to an end with the local art of the middle ages, and can no longer be found, or only imperfect, after the breaking up and fusion of the various schools, and the arising of eclectic personalities in the earliest sixteenth century. After the painters born between 1450 and 1460, there are no more genuine Tuscans. Leonardo, once independent of Verrocchio and settled in Lombardy, is barely one of them; and Michel Angelo never at all--Michel Angelo with his moods all of Rome or the great mountains, full of trouble, always, and tragedy. These great personalities, and the other eclectics, Raphael foremost, bring qualities to art which it had lacked before, and are required to make its appeal legitimately universal. I should shrink from judging their importance, compared with the older and more local and traditional men. Still further from me is it to prefer this Tuscan art to that, as local and traditional in its way, of Umbria or Venetia, which stands to this as the most poignant lyric or the richest romance stands, let us say, to the characteristic quality, sober yet subtle, of Dante's greatest passages. There is, thank heaven, wholesome art various enough to appeal to many various healthy temperaments; and perhaps for each single temperament more than one kind of art is needful. My object in the foregoing pages has not been to put forward reasons for preferring the art of the Tuscans any more than the climate and landscape of Tuscany; but merely to bring home what the especial charm and power of Tuscan art and Tuscan nature seem to me to be. More can be gained by knowing any art lovingly in itself than by knowing twenty arts from each other through dry comparison. I have tried to suggest rather than to explain in what way the art of a country may answer to its natural character, by inducing recurrent moods of a given kind. I would not have it thought, however, that such moods need be dominant, or even exist at all, in all the inhabitants of that country. Art, wide as its appeal may be, is no more a product of the great mass of persons than is abstract thought or special invention, however largely these may be put to profit by the generality. The bulk of the inhabitants help to make the art by furnishing the occasional exceptionally endowed creature called an artist, by determining his education and surroundings, in so far as he is a mere citizen; and finally by bringing to bear on him the stored-up habit of acquiescence in whatever art has been accepted by that public from the artists of the immediate past. In fact, the majority affects the artist mainly as itself has been affected by his predecessors. If, therefore, the scenery and climate call forth moods in a whole people definite enough to influence the art, this will be due, I think, to some especially gifted individual having, at one time or another, brought home those moods to them. Therefore we need feel no surprise if any individual, peasant or man of business or abstract thinker, reveal a lack, even a total lack, of such impressions as I am speaking of; nor even if among those who love art a great proportion be still incapable of identifying those vague contemplative emotions from which all art is sprung. It is not merely the special endowment of eye, ear, hand, not merely what we call artistic talent, which is exceptional and vested in individuals only. It takes a surplus of sensitiveness and energy to be determined in one's moods by natural surroundings instead of solely by one's own wants or circumstances or business. Now art is born of just this surplus sensitiveness and energy; it is the response not to the impressions made by our private ways and means, but to the impressions made by the ways and means of the visible, sensible universe. But once produced, art is received, and more or less assimilated, by the rest of mankind, to whom it gives, in greater or less degree, more of such sensitiveness and energy than it could otherwise have had. Art thus calls forth contemplative emotions, otherwise dormant, and creates in the routine and scramble of individual wants and habits a sanctuary where the soul stops elbowing and trampling, and being elbowed and trampled; nay, rather, a holy hill, neither ploughed nor hunted over, a free high place, in which we can see clearly, breathe widely, and, for awhile, live harmlessly, serenely, fully. XIII. Thinking these thoughts for the hundredth time, feeling them in a way as I feel the landscape, I walk home by the dear rock path girdling Fiesole, within sound of the chisels of the quarries. Blackthorn is now mixed in the bare purple hedgerows, and almond blossom, here and there, whitens the sere oak, and the black rocks above. These are the heights from which, as tradition has it, Florence descended, the people of which Dante said-- "Che discese da Fiesole ab antico, E tiene ancor del monte e del macigno," meaning it in anger. But it is true, and truer, in the good sense also. Mountain and rock! the art of Tuscany is sprung from it, from its arduous fruitfulness, with the clear stony stream, and the sparse gentle olive, and the cypress, unshaken by the wind, unscorched by the sun, and shooting inflexibly upwards. ART AND USEFULNESS. "Time was when everybody that made anything made a work of art besides a useful piece of goods, and it gave them pleasure to make it."--WILLIAM MORRIS, Address delivered at Burslem, 1881. I. Among the original capitals removed from the outer colonnade of the ducal palace at Venice there is a series devoted to the teaching of natural history, and another to that of such general facts about the races of man, his various moral attributes and activities, as the Venetians of the fourteenth century considered especially important. First, botany, illustrated by the fruits most commonly in use, piled up in baskets which constitute the funnel-shaped capital; each kind separate, with the name underneath in funny Venetian spelling: _Huva_, grapes; _Fici_, figs; _Moloni_, melons; _Zuche_, pumpkins; and _Persici_, peaches. Then, with Latin names, the various animals: _Ursus_, holding a honeycomb with bees on it; _Chanis_, mumbling only a large bone, while his cousins, wolf and fox, have secured a duck and a cock; _Aper_, the wild boar, munching a head of millet or similar grain. Now had these beautiful carvings been made with no aim besides their own beauty, had they represented and taught nothing, they would have received only a few casual glances, quite insufficient to make their excellence familiar or even apparent; at best the occasional discriminative examination of some art student; while the pleased, spontaneous attentiveness which carries beauty deep into the soul and the soul's storehouse would have been lacking. But consider these capitals to have been what they undoubtedly were meant for: the picture books and manuals off which young folks learned, and older persons refreshed, their notions of natural history, of geography, ethnology, and even of morals, and you will realise at once how much attention, and of how constant and assimilative a kind, they must have received. The child learns off them that figs (which he never sees save packed in baskets in the barges at Rialto) have leaves like funny gloves, while _huva_, grapes, have leaves all ribbed and looking like tattered banners; that the bear is blunt-featured and eats honeycomb; that foxes and wolves, who live on the mainland, are very like the dogs we keep in Venice, but that they steal poultry instead of being given bones from the kitchen. Also that there are in the world, besides these clean-shaved Venetians in armour or doge's cap, bearded Asiatics and thick-lipped negroes--the sort of people with whom uncle and cousins traffic in the big ships, or among whom grandfather helped the Doge to raise the standard of St. Mark. Also that carpenters work with planes and vices, and stonemasons with mallets and chisels; and that good and wise men are remembered for ever: for here is the story of how Solomon discovered the true mother, and here again the Emperor Trajan going to the wars, and reining in his horse to do justice first to the poor widow. The child looks at the capitals in order to see with his eyes all these interesting things of which he has been told; and, during the holiday walk, drags his parents to the spot, to look again, and to beg to be told once more. And later, he looks at the familiar figures in order to show them to his children; or, perhaps, more wistfully, loitering along the arcade in solitude, to remember the days of his own childhood. And in this manner, the things represented, fruit, animals and persons, and the exact form in which they are rendered: the funnel shape of the capitals, the cling and curl of the leafage, the sharp black undercutting, the clear, lightly incised surfaces, the whole pattern of line and curve, light and shade, the whole pattern of the eye's progress along it, of the rhythm of expansion and restraint, of pressure and thrust, in short, the real work of art, the visible form--become well-known, dwelling in the memory, cohabiting with the various moods, and haunting the fancy; a part of life, familiar, everyday, liked or disliked, discriminated in every particular, become part and parcel of ourselves, for better or for worse, like the tools we handle, the boats we steer, the horses we ride and groom, and the furniture and utensils among which and through whose help we live our lives. II. Furniture and utensils; things which exist because we require them, which we know because we employ them, these are the type of all great works of art. And from the selfsame craving which insists that these should be shapely as well as handy, pleasant to the eye as well as rational; through the selfsame processes of seeing and remembering and altering their shapes--according to the same æsthetic laws of line and curve, of surface and projection, of spring and restraint, of clearness and compensation; and for the same organic reasons and by the same organic methods of preference and adaptation as these humblest things of usefulness, do the proudest and seemingly freest works of art come to exist; come to be _just what they are_, and even come _to be at all_. I should like to state very clearly, before analysing its reasons, what seems to me (and I am proud to follow Ruskin in this as in so many essential questions of art and life) the true formula of this matter. Namely: that while beauty has always been desired and obtained for its own sake, the works in which we have found beauty embodied, and the arts which have achieved beauty's embodying, have always started from impulses or needs, and have always aimed at purposes or problems entirely independent of this embodiment of beauty. III. The desire for beauty stands to art as the desire for righteousness stands to conduct. People do not feel and act from a desire to feel and act righteously, but from a hundred different and differently-combined motives; the desire for righteousness comes in to regulate this feeling and acting, to subject it all to certain preferences and repugnances which have become organic, if not in the human being, at least in human society. Like the desire for righteousness, the desire for beauty is not a spring of action, but a regulative function; it decides the _how_ of visible existence; in accordance with deep-seated and barely guessed at necessities of body and soul, of nerves and perceptions, of brain and judgments; it says to all visible objects: since you needs must be, you shall be in _this_ manner, and not in that other. The desire for beauty, with its more potent negative, the aversion to ugliness, has, like the sense of right and wrong, the force of a categorical imperative. Such, to my thinking, is the æsthetic instinct. And I call _Art_ whatever kind of process, intellectual and technical, creates, incidentally or purposely, visible or audible forms, and creates them under the regulation of this æsthetic instinct. Art, therefore, is art whenever any object or any action, or any arrangement, besides being such as to serve a practical purpose or express an emotion or transfer a thought, is such also as to afford the _sui generis_ satisfaction which we denote by the adjective: beautiful. But, asks the reader, if every human activity resulting in visible or audible form is to be considered, at least potentially, as art; what becomes of _art_ as distinguished from _craft_, or rather what is the difference between what we all mean by art and what we all mean by _craft_? To this objection, perfectly justified by the facts of our own day, I would answer quite simply: There is no necessary or essential distinction between what we call _art_ and what we call _craft_. It is a pure accident, and in all probability a temporary one, which has momentarily separated the two in the last hundred years. Throughout the previous part of the world's history art and craft have been one and the same, at the utmost distinguishable only from a different point of view: _craft_ from the practical side, _art_ from the contemplative. Every trade concerned with visible or audible objects or movements has also been an art; and every one of those great creative activities, for which, in their present isolation, we now reserve the name of _art_, has also been a craft; has been connected and replenished with life by the making of things which have a use, or by the doing of deeds which have a meaning. IV. We must, of course, understand _usefulness_ in its widest sense; otherwise we should be looking at the world in a manner too little utilitarian, not too much so. Houses and furniture and utensils, clothes, tools and weapons, must undoubtedly exemplify utility first and foremost because they serve our life in the most direct, indispensable and unvarying fashion, always necessary and necessary to everyone. But once these universal unchanging needs supplied, a great many others become visible: needs to the individual or to individuals and races under definite and changing circumstances. The sonnet or the serenade are useful to the romantic lover in the same manner that carriage-horses and fine clothes are useful to the man who woos more practically-minded ladies. The diamonds of a rich woman serve to mark her status quite as much as to please the unpleasable eye of envy; in the same way that the uniform, the robes and vestments, are needed to set aside the soldier, the magistrate or priest, and give him the right of dealing _ex officio_, not as a mere man among men. And the consciousness of such apparent superfluities, whether they be the expression of wealth or of hierarchy, of fashion or of caste, gives to their possessor that additional self-importance which is quite as much wanted by the ungainly or diffident moral man as the additional warmth of his more obviously needed raiment is by the poor, chilly, bodily human being. I will not enlarge upon the practical uses which recent ethnology has discovered in the tattooing, the painting, the masks, headdresses, feather skirts, cowries and beads, of all that elaborate ornamentation with which, only a few years back, we were in the habit of reproaching the poor, foolish, naked savages; additional knowledge of their habits having demonstrated rather our folly than theirs, in taking for granted that any race of men would prefer ornament to clothes, unless, as was the case, these ornaments were really more indispensable in their particular mode of life. For an ornament which terrifies an enemy, propitiates a god, paralyses a wild beast, or gains a wife, is a matter of utility, not of æsthetic luxury, so long as it happens to be efficacious, or so long as its efficacy is believed in. Indeed, the gold coach and liveried trumpeters of the nostrum vendor of bygone days, like their less enlivening equivalents in many more modern professions, are of the nature of trade tools, although the things they fashion are only the foolish minds of possible customers. And this function of expressing and impressing brings us to the other great category of utility. The sculptured pediment or frescoed wall, the hieroglyph, or the map or the book, everything which records a fact or transmits a feeling, everything which carries a message to men or gods, is an object of utility: the coat-of-arms painted on a panel, or the emblem carved upon a church front, as much as the helmet of the knight or the shield of the savage. A church or a religious ceremony, nay, every additional ounce of gilding or grain of incense, or day or hour, bestowed on sanctuary and ritual, are not useful only to the selfish devotee who employs them for obtaining celestial favours; they are more useful and necessary even to the pure-minded worshipper, because they enable him to express the longing and the awe with which his heart is overflowing. For every oblation faithfully brought means so much added moral strength; and love requires gifts to give as much as hunger needs food and vanity needs ornament and wealth. All things which minister to a human need, bodily or spiritual, simple or complex, direct or indirect, innocent or noble, or base or malignant, all such things exist for their use. They do exist, and would always have existed equally if no such quality as beauty had ever arisen to enhance or to excuse their good or bad existence. V. The conception of art as of something outside, and almost opposed to, practical life, and the tendency to explain its gratuitous existence by a special "play instinct" more gratuitous itself, are due in great measure to our wrong way of thinking and feeling upon no less a matter than human activity as such. The old-fashioned psychology which, ignoring instinct and impulse, explained all action as the result of a kind of calculation of future pleasure and pain, has accustomed us to account for all fruitful human activity, whatever we call _work_, by a wish for some benefit or fear of some disadvantage. And, on the other hand, the economic systems of our time (or, at all events, the systematic exposition of our economic arrangements) have furthermore accustomed us to think of everything like _work_ as done under compulsion, fear of worse, or a kind of bribery. It is really taken as a postulate, and almost as an axiom, that no one would make or do anything useful save under the goad of want; of want not in the sense of _wanting to do or make that thing_, but of _wanting to have or be able to do something else_. Hence everything which is manifestly done from no such motive, but from an inner impulse towards the doing, comes to be thought of as opposed to _work_, and to be designated as _play_. Now art is very obviously carried on for its own sake: experience, even of our mercantile age, teaches that if a man does not paint a picture or compose a symphony from an inner necessity as disinterested as that which makes another man look at the picture or listen to the symphony, no amount of self-interest, of disadvantages and advantages, will enable him to do either otherwise than badly. Hence, as I said, we are made to think of art as _play_, or a kind of play. But play itself, being unaccountable on the basis of external advantage and disadvantage, being, from the false economic point of view, unproductive, that is to say, pure waste, has in its turn to be accounted for by the supposition of surplus energy occasionally requiring to be let off to no purpose, or merely to prevent the machine from bursting. This opposition of work and play is founded in our experience of a social state which is still at sixes and sevens; of a civilisation so imperfectly developed and organised that the majority does nothing save under compulsion, and the minority does nothing to any purpose; and where that little boy's Scylla and Charybdis _all work_ and _all play_ is effectually realised in a nightmare too terrible and too foolish, above all too wakingly true, to be looked at in the face without flinching. One wonders, incidentally, how any creature perpetually working from the reasons given by economists, that is to say, working against the grain, from no spontaneous wish or pleasure, can possibly store up, in such exhausting effort, a surplus of energy requiring to be let off! And one wonders, on the other hand, how any really good work of any kind, work not merely kept by dire competitive necessity up to a standard, but able to afford any standard to keep up to, can well be produced save by the letting off of surplus energy; that is to say, how good work can ever be done otherwise than by impulses and instincts acting spontaneously, in fact as play. The reality seems to be that, imperfect as is our poor life, present and past, we are maligning it; founding our theories, for simplicity's sake and to excuse our lack of hope and striving, upon its very worst samples. Wasteful as is the mal-distribution of human activities (mal-distribution worse than that of land or capital!), cruel as is the consequent pressure of want, there yet remains at the bottom of an immense amount of work an inner push different from that outer constraint, an inner need as fruitful as the outer one is wasteful: there remains the satisfaction in work, the wish to work. However outer necessity, "competition," "minimum of cost," "iron law of wages," call it what you choose, direct and misdirect, through need of bread or greed of luxury, the application of human activity, that activity has to be there, and with it its own alleviation and reward: pleasure in work. All decent human work partakes (let us thank the great reasonablenesses of real things!) of the quality of play: if it did not it would be bad or ever on the verge of badness; and if ever human activity attains to fullest fruitfulness, it will be (every experience of our own best work shows it) when the distinction of _work_ and of _play_ will cease to have a meaning, play remaining only as the preparatory work of the child, as the strength-repairing, balance-adjusting work of the adult. And meanwhile, through all the centuries of centuries, art, which is the type and sample of all higher, better modes of life, art has given us in itself the concrete sample, the unmistakable type of that needful reconciliation of work and play; and has shown us that there is, or should be, no difference between them. For art has made the things which are useful, and done the things which are needed, in those shapes and ways of beauty which have no aim but our satisfaction. VI. The way in which the work of art is born of a purpose, of something useful to do or desirable to say, and the way in which the suggestions of utility are used up for beauty, can best be shown by a really existing object. Expressed in practical terms the object is humble enough: a little trough with two taps built into a recess in a wall; a place for washing hands and rinsing glasses, as you see the Dominican brothers doing it all day, for I am speaking of the _Lavabo_ by Giovanni della Robbia in the Sacristy of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. The whole thing is small, and did not allow of the adjoining room usually devoted to this purpose. The washing and rinsing had to take place in the sacristy itself. But this being the case, it was desirable that the space set apart for these proceedings should at least appear to be separate; the trough, therefore, was sunk in a recess, and the recess divided off from the rest of the wall by pillars and a gable, becoming in this manner, with no loss of real standing room, a building inside a building; the operations, furthermore, implying a certain amount of wetting and slopping, the dryness of the rest of the sacristy, and particularly the _idea_ of its dryness (so necessary where precious stuffs and metal vessels are kept) had to be secured not merely by covering a piece of wainscot and floor with tiles, but by building the whole little enclosure (all save the marble trough) of white and coloured majolica, which seemed to say to the oaken and walnut presses, to the great table covered with vestments: "Don't be afraid, you shall not feel a drop from all this washing and rinsing." So far, therefore, we have got for our lavabo-trough a shallow recess, lined and paved with tiles, and cut off from the frescoed and panelled walls by two pilasters and a rounded gable, of tile work also, the general proportions being given by the necessity of two monks or two acolytes washing the sacred vessels at the same moment. The word _sacred_ now leads us to another determining necessity of our work of art. For this place, where the lavabo stands, is actually consecrated; it has an altar; and it is in it that take place all the preparations and preliminaries for the most holy and most magnificent of rites. The sacristy, like the church, is moreover an offering to heaven; and the lavabo, since it has to exist, can exist with fitness only if it also be offered, and made worthy of offering, to heaven. Besides, therefore, those general proportions which have had to be made harmonious for the satisfaction not merely of the builder, but of the people whose eye rests on them daily and hourly; besides the shapeliness and dignity which we insist upon in all things needful; we further require of this object that it should have a certain superabundance of grace, that it should have colour, elaborate pattern, what we call _ornament_; details which will show that it is a gift, and make it a fit companion for the magnificent embroideries and damasks, the costly and exquisite embossed and enamelled vessels which inhabit that place; and a worthy spectator of the sacred pageantry which issues from this sacristy. The little tiled recess, the trough and the little piece of architecture which frames it all, shall not only be practically useful, they shall also be spiritually useful as the expression of men's reverence and devotion. To whom? Why, to the dear mother of Christ and her gracious angels, whom we place, in effigy, on the gable, white figures on a blue ground. And since this humble thing is also an offering, what can be more appropriate than to hang it round with votive garlands, such as we bind to mark the course of processions, and which we garnish (filling the gaps of glossy bay and spruce pine branches) with the finest fruits of the earth, lemons, and pears, and pomegranates, a grateful tithe to the Powers who make the orchards fruitful. But, since such garlands wither and such fruits decay, and there must be no withering or decaying in the sanctuary, the bay leaves and the pine branches, and the lemons and pears and pomegranates, shall be of imperishable material, majolica coloured like reality, and majolica, moreover, which leads us back, pleasantly, to the humble necessity of the trough, the spurting and slopping of water, which we have secured against by that tiled floor and wainscot. But here another suggestion arises. Water is necessary and infinitely pleasant in a hot country and a hot place like this domed sacristy. But we have very, oh, so very, little of it in Florence! We cannot even, however great our love and reverence, offer Our Lady and the Angels the thinnest perennial spurt; we must let out the water only for bare use, and turn the tap off instantly after. There is something very disappointing in this; and the knowledge of that dearth of water, of those two taps symbolical of chronic drought, is positively disheartening. Beautiful proportions, delicate patterns, gracious effigies of the Madonna and the angels we can have, and also the most lovely garlands. But we cannot have a fountain. For it is useless calling this a fountain, this poor little trough with two taps.... But you _shall_ have a fountain! Giovanni della Robbia answers in his heart; or, at least, you shall _feel_ as if you had one! And here we may witness, if we use the eyes of the spirit as well as of the body, one of the strangest miracles of art, when art is married to a purpose. The idea of a fountain, the desirability of water, becomes, unconsciously, dominant in the artist's mind; and under its sway, as under the divining rod, there trickle and well up every kind of thought, of feeling, about water; until the images thereof, visible, audible, tactile, unite and steep and submerge every other notion. Nothing deliberate; and, in all probability, nothing even conscious; those watery thoughts merely lapping dreamily round, like a half-heard murmur of rivers, the waking work with which his mind is busy. Nothing deliberate or conscious, but all the more inevitable and efficacious, this multifold suggestion of water. And behold the result, the witness of the miracle: In the domed sacristy, the fountain cooling this sultry afternoon of June as it has cooled four hundred Junes and more since set up, arch and pilasters and statued gables hung with garlands by that particular Robbia; cooling and refreshing us with its empty trough and closed taps, without a drop of real water! For it is made of water itself, or the essence, the longing memory of water. It is water, this shining pale amber and agate and grass-green tiling and wainscotting, starred at regular intervals by wide-spread patterns as of floating weeds; water which makes the glossiness of the great leaf-garlands and the juiciness of the smooth lemons and cool pears and pomegranates; water which has washed into ineffable freshness this piece of blue heaven within the gable; and water, you would say, as of some shining fountain in the dusk, which has gathered together into the white glistening bodies and draperies which stand out against that newly-washed æther. All this is evident, and yet insufficient to account for our feelings. The subtlest and most potent half of the spell is hidden; and we guess it only little by little. In this little Grecian tabernacle, every line save the bare verticals and horizontals is a line suggestive of trickling and flowing and bubbles; a line suggested by water and water's movement; and every light and shadow is a light or a shadow suggested by water's brightness or transparent gloom; it is water which winds in tiny meanders of pattern along the shallow shining pillars, and water which beads and dimples along the shady cornice. The fountain has been thought out in longing for water, and every detail of it has been touched by the memory thereof. Water! they wanted water, and they should have it. By a coincidence almost, Giovanni della Robbia has revealed the secret which himself most probably never guessed, in the little landscape of lilac and bluish tiles with which he filled up the arch behind the taps. Some Tuscan scene, think you? Hills and a few cypresses, such as his contemporaries used for background? Not a bit. A great lake, an estuary, almost a sea, with sailing ships, a flooded country, such as no Florentine had ever seen with mortal eyes; but such as, in his longing for water, he must have dreamed about. Thus the landscape sums up this dream, this realisation of every cool and trickling sight and touch and sound which fills that sacristy as with a spray of watery thoughts. In this manner, with perhaps but a small effort of invention and a small output of fancy, and without departing in the least from the general proportions and shapes and ornaments common in his day, has an artist of the second order left us one of the most exquisitely shapely and poetical of works, merely by following the suggestions of the use, the place, the religious message and that humble human wish for water where there was none. VII. It is discouraging and humiliating to think (and therefore we think it very seldom) that nowadays we artists, painters of portraits and landscapes, builders and decorators of houses, pianists, singers, fiddlers, and, quite as really though less obviously, writers, are all of us indirectly helping to keep up the greed which makes the privileged and possessing classes cling to their monopolies and accumulate their possessions. Bitter to realise that, disinterested as we must mostly be (for good artistic work means talent, talent preference, and preference disinterestedness), we are, as Ruskin has already told us, but the parasites of parasites. For of the pleasure-giving things we make, what portion really gives any pleasure, or comes within reach of giving pleasure, to those whose hands _as a whole class_ (as distinguished from the brain of an occasional individual of the other class) produce the wealth we all of us have to live, or try to live, upon? Of course there is the seeming consolation that, like the Reynoldses and Gainsboroughs, the Watteaus and the Fragonards of the past, the Millais and the Sargents (charming sitters, or the reverse, and all), and the Monets and Brabazons, will sooner or later become what we call public property in public galleries. But, meanwhile, the Reynoldses and Gainsboroughs and Watteaus and Fragonards themselves, though the legal property of everybody, are really reserved for those same classes who own their modern equivalents, simply because those alone have the leisure and culture necessary to enjoy them. The case is not really different for the one or two seemingly more independent and noble artistic individualities, the great decorators like Watts or Besnard; their own work, like their own conscience, is indeed the purer and stronger for their intention of painting not for smoking-rooms and private collections, but for places where all men can see and understand; but then all men cannot see--they are busy or too tired--and they cannot understand, because the language of art has become foreign to them. The same applies to composers and to writers: music and books are cheap enough, but the familiarity with musical forms and literary styles, without which music and books are mere noise and waste-paper, is practically unattainable to the classes who till the ground, extract its stone and minerals, and make, with their hands, every material thing (save works of art) that we possess. Indeed, one additional reason why, ever since the eighteenth century, art has been set up as the opposite of useful work, and explained as a form of play (though its technical difficulties grew more exorbitant and exhausting year by year) is probably that, in our modern civilisations, art has been obviously produced for the benefit of the classes who virtually do not work, and by artists born or bred to belong to those idle classes themselves. For it is a fact that, as the artist nowadays finds his public only among the comparatively idle (or, at all events, those whose activity distributes wealth in their own favour rather than creates it), so also he requires to be, more and more, in sympathy with their mode of living and thinking: the friend, the client, most often the son, of what we call (with terrible unperceived irony in the words) _leisured_ folk. As to the folk who have no leisure (and therefore, according to our modern æsthetics, no _art_ because no _play_) they can receive from us privileged persons (when privilege happens to be worth its keep) no benefits save very practical ones. The only kind of work founded on "leisure"--which does in our day not merely increase the advantages of already well-off persons, but actually filter down to help the unleisured producers of our wealth--is not the work of the artist, but of the doctor, the nurse, the inventor, the man of science; who knows? Perhaps almost of the philosopher, the historian, the sociologist: the clearer away of convenient error, the unmaker and remaker of consciences. As I began by saying, it is not very comfortable, nowadays, to be an artist, and yet possess a mind and heart. And two of the greatest artists of our times, Ruskin and Tolstoi, have done their utmost to make it more uncomfortable still. So that it is natural for our artists to decide that art exists only for art's own sake, since it cannot nowadays be said to exist for the sake of anything else. And as to us, privileged persons, with leisure and culture fitting us for artistic enjoyment, it is even more natural to consider art as a kind of play: play in which we get refreshed after somebody else's work. VIII. And are we really much refreshed? Watching the face and manner, listless, perfunctory or busily attentive, of our fellow-creatures in galleries and exhibitions, and in great measure in concert rooms and theatres, one would imagine that, on the contrary, they were fulfilling a social duty or undergoing a pedagogical routine. The object of the proceeding would rather seem to be negative; one might judge that they had come lest their neighbours should suspect that they were somewhere else, or perhaps lest their neighbours should come instead, according to our fertile methods of society intercourse and of competitive examinations. At any rate, they do not look as if they came to be refreshed, or as if they had taken the right steps towards such spiritual refreshment: the faces and manner of children in a playground, of cricketers on a village green, of Sunday trippers on the beach, or of German townsfolk walking to the beerhouse or café in the deep fragrant woods, present a different appearance. And if we examine into our own feelings, we shall find that even for the most art-loving of us the hours spent in galleries of pictures and statues, or listening to music at concerts, are largely stolen from our real life of real interests and real pleasures; that there enters into them a great proportion of effort and boredom; at the very best that we do not enjoy (nor expect to enjoy) them at all in the same degree as a good dinner in good company, or a walk in bright, bracing weather, let alone, of course, fishing, or hunting, or digging and weeding our little garden. Of course, if we are really artistic, and if we have the power of analysing our own feelings and motives, we shall know that the gallery or the concert afford occasion for laying in a store of pleasurable impressions, to be enjoyed at the right moment and in the right mood later: outlines of pictures, washes of colour, grouped masses of sculpture, bars of melody, clang of especial chords or timbre combinations, and even the vague æsthetic emotion, the halo surrounding blurred recollections of sights and sounds. And knowing this, we are content that the act of garnering, of preparing, for such future enjoyment, should lack any steady or deep pleasurableness about itself. But, thinking over the matter, there seems something wrong, derogatory to art and humiliating to ourselves, in this admission that the actual presence of the work of art, sometimes the masterpiece, should give us the minimum, and not the maximum, of our artistic enjoyment. And comparing the usual dead level of such merely potential pleasure with certain rare occasions when we have enjoyed art more at the moment than afterwards, quite vividly, warmly and with the proper reluctant clutch at the divine minute as it passes; making this comparison, we can, I think, guess at the nature of the mischief and the possibility of its remedy. Examining into our experience, we shall find that, while our lack of enjoyment (our state of æsthetic _aridity_, to borrow the expression of religious mystics) had coincided with a deliberate intention to see or hear works of art, and a consequent clearing away of other claims, and on our attention, in fact, to an effort made more or less in _vacuo_; on the contrary, our Faust-moments ("Stay, thou art beautiful!") of plenitude and consummation, have always come when our activity was already flowing, our attention stimulated, and when, so to speak, the special artistic impressions were caught up into our other interests, and woven by them into our life. We can all recall unexpected delights like Hazlitt's in the odd volume of Rousseau found on the window-seat, and discussed, with his savoury supper, in the roadside inn, after his long day's pleasant tramp. Indeed, this preparing of the artistic impression by many others, or focussing of others by it, accounts for the keenness of our æsthetic pleasure when on a journey; we are thoroughly alive, and the seen or heard thing of beauty lives _into_, us, or we into it (there is an important psychological law, a little too abstract for this moment of expansiveness, called "the Law of the Summation of Stimuli"). The truth of what I say is confirmed by the frequent fact that the work of art which gives us this full and vivid pleasure (actually refreshing! for here, at last, is refreshment!) is either fragmentary or by no means first-rate. We have remained arid, hard, incapable of absorbing, while whole Joachim quartets flowed and rippled all _round_, but never _into_, us; and then, some other time, our soul seems to have drunk up (every fibre blissfully steeping) a few bars of a sonata (it was Beethoven's 10th violin, and they were stumbling through it for the first time) heard accidentally while walking up and down under an open window. It is the same with painting and sculpture. I shall never forget the exquisite poetry and loveliness of that Matteo di Giovanni, "The Giving of the Virgin's Girdle," when I saw it for the first time, in the chapel of that villa, once a monastery, near Siena. Even through the haze of twenty years (like those delicate blue December mists which lay between the sunny hills) I can see that picture, illumined piecemeal by the travelling taper on the sacristan's reed, far more distinctly than I see it to-day with bodily eyes in the National Gallery. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that where it hangs in that gallery it has not once given me one half-second of real pleasure. It is a third-rate picture now; but even the masterpieces, Perugino's big fresco, Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne," Pier della Francesca's "Baptism"; have they ever given me the complete and steady delight which that mediocre Sienese gave me at the end of the wintry drive, in the faintly illumined chapel? More often than not, as Coleridge puts it, I have "seen, not _felt_, how beautiful they are." But, apart even from fortunate circumstances or enhancing activities, we have all of us experienced how much better we see or hear a work of art with the mere dull help of some historical question to elucidate or technical matter to examine into; we have been able to follow a piece of music by watching for some peculiarity of counterpoint or excellence or fault of execution; and our attention has been carried into a picture or statue by trying to make out whether a piece of drapery was repainted or an arm restored. Indeed, the irrelevant literary programme of concerts and all that art historical lore (information about things of no importance, or none to us) conveyed in dreary monographs and hand-books, all of them perform a necessary function nowadays, that of bringing our idle and alien minds into some sort of relation of business with the works of art which we should otherwise, nine times out of ten, fail really to approach. And here I would suggest that this necessity of being, in some way, busy about beautiful things in order thoroughly to perceive them, may represent some sterner necessity of life in general; art being, in this as in so many other cases, significantly typical of what is larger than itself. Can we get the full taste of pleasure sought for pleasure's own sake? And is not happiness in life, like beauty in art, rather a means than an aim: the condition of going on, the replenishing of force; in short, the thing by whose help, not for the sake of which, we feel and act and live? IX. Beauty is an especial quality in visible or audible shapes and movements which imposes on our soul a certain rhythm and pattern of feeling entirely _sui generis_, but unified, harmonious, and, in a manner, consummate. Beauty is a power in our life, because, however intermittent its action and however momentary, it makes us live, by a kind of sympathy with itself, a life fuller, more vivid, and at the same time more peaceful. But, as the word _sympathy_, _with-feeling_--(_Einfühlen_, "feeling into," the Germans happily put it)--as the word _sympathy_ is intended to suggest, this subduing and yet liberating, this enlivening and pacifying power of beautiful form over our feelings is exercised only when our feelings enter, and are absorbed into, the form we perceive; so that (very much as in the case of sympathy with human vicissitudes) we participate in the supposed life of the form while in reality lending _our_ life to it. Just as in our relations with our fellow-men, so also in our subtler but even more potent relations with the appearances of things and actions, our heart can be touched, purified, and satisfied only just in proportion as we _give_ our heart. And even as it is possible to perceive other human beings and to adjust our action (sometimes heartlessly enough) to such qualities in them as we find practically important to ourselves, without putting out one scrap of sympathy with their own existence as felt by them; so also it is possible to recognise things and actions, to become rapidly aware of such of their peculiarities as most frequently affect us practically, and to consequently adjust our behaviour, without giving our sympathy to their form, without entering into and _living into_ those forms; and in so far it is possible for us to remain indifferent to those forms' quality of beauty or ugliness, just as, in the hurry of practical life, we remain indifferent to the stuff our neighbours' souls are made of. This rapid, partial, superficial, perfunctory mode of dealing with what we see and hear constitutes the ordinary, constant, and absolutely indispensable act of recognising objects and actions, of _spotting_ their qualities and _twigging_ their meaning: an act necessarily tending to more and more abbreviation and rapidity and superficiality, to a sort of shorthand which reduces what has to be understood, and enables us to pass immediately to understanding something else; according to that law of necessarily saving time and energy. And so we rush on, recognising, naming, spotting, twigging, answering, using, or parrying; we need not fully _see_ the complete appearance of the word we read, of the man we meet, of the street we run along, of the water we drink, the fire we light, the adversary whom we pursue or whom we evade; and in the selfsame manner we need not fully see the form of the building of which we say "This is a Gothic cathedral"--of the picture of which we say "Christ before Pilate"--or of the piece of music of which we say "A cheerful waltz by Strauss" or "A melancholy adagio by Beethoven." Now it is this fragmentary, superficial attention which we most often give to art; and giving thus little, we find that art gives us little, perhaps nothing, in return. For understand: you can be utterly perfunctory towards a work of art without hurrying away from in front of it, or setting about some visible business in its presence. Standing ten minutes before a picture or sitting an hour at a concert, with fixed sight or tense hearing, you may yet be quite hopelessly inattentive if, instead of following the life of the visible or audible forms, and _living yourself_ into their pattern and rhythm, you wander off after dramatic or sentimental associations suggested by the picture's subject; or if you let yourself be hypnotised, as pious Wagnerians are apt to be, into monotonous over response (and over and over again response) to the merely emotional stimulation of the sounds. The activity of the artist's soul has been in vain for you, since you do not let your soul follow its tracks through the work of art; he has not created for you, because you have failed to create his work afresh in vivid contemplation. But attention cannot be forced on to any sort of contemplation, or at least it cannot remain, steady and abiding, by any act of forcing. Attention, to be steady, must be held by the attraction of the thing attended to; and, to be spontaneous and easy, must be carried by some previous interest within the reach of that attractiveness. Above all, attention requires that its ways should have been made smooth by repetition of similar experience; it is excluded, rebutted by the dead wall of utter novelty; for seeing, hearing, understanding is interpreting the unknown by the known, assimilation in the literal sense also of rendering similar the new to the less new. This will explain why it is useless trying to enjoy a totally unfamiliar kind of art: as soon expect to take pleasure in dancing a dance you do not know, and whose rhythm and step you fail as yet to follow. And it is not only music, as Nietzsche said, but all art, that is but a kind of dancing, a definite rhythmic carrying and moving of the soul. And for this reason there can be no artistic enjoyment without preliminary initiation and training. Art cannot be enjoyed without initiation and training. I repeat this statement, desiring to impress it on the reader, because, by a coincidence of misunderstanding, it happens to constitute the weightiest accusation in the whole of Tolstoi's very terrible (and, in part, terribly justified) recent arraignment of art. For of what use is the restorative and refreshing power, this quality called beauty, if the quality itself cannot be recognised save after previous training? And what moral dignity, nay, what decent innocence, can there be in a kind of relaxation from which lack of initiation excludes the vast majority of men, the majority which really labours, and therefore has a real claim to relaxation and refreshment? This question of Tolstoi's arises from that same limiting of examination to a brief, partial, and, as it happens, most transitional and chaotic present, which has given us that cut-and-dried distinction between work and play; and, indeed, the two misconceptions are very closely connected. For even as our present economic system of production for exchange rather than for consumption has made us conceive _work_ as _work_ done under compulsion for someone else, and _play_ as _play_, with no result even to ourselves; so also has the economic system which employs the human hand and eye merely as a portion of a complicated, monotonously working piece of machinery, so also has our present order of mechanical and individual production divided the world into a small minority which sees and feels what it is about, and a colossal majority which has no perception, no conception, and, consequently, no preferences attached to the objects it is employed (by the methods of division of labour) to produce, so to speak, without seeing them. Tolstoi has realised that this is the present condition of human labour, and his view of it has been corrected neither by historical knowledge nor by psychological observation. He has shown us _art_, as it nowadays exists, divided and specialised into two or three "fine arts," each of which employs exceptional and highly trained talent in the production of objects so elaborate and costly, so lacking in all utility, that they can be possessed only by the rich few; objects, moreover, so unfamiliar in form and in symbol that only the idle can learn to enjoy (or pretend to enjoy) them after a special preliminary initiation and training. X. _Initiation and training_, we have returned to those wretched words, for we also had recognised that without initiation and training there could be no real enjoyment of art. But, looking not at this brief, transitional, and topsy-turvey present, but at the centuries and centuries which have evolved, not only art, but the desire and habit thereof, we have seen what Tolstoi refused to see, namely, that wherever and whenever (that is to say, everywhere and at all times save these present European days) art has existed spontaneously, it has brought with it that initiation and training. The initiation and training, the habit of understanding given qualities of form, the discrimination and preference thereof, have come, I maintain, as a result of practical utility. Or rather: out of practical utility has arisen the art itself, and the need for it. The attention, the familiarity which made beauty enjoyable had previously made beauty necessary. It was because the earthenware lamp, the bronze pitcher, the little rude household idols displayed the same arrangements of lines and surfaces, presented the same patterns and features, embodied, in a word, the same visible rhythms of being, that the Greeks could understand without being taught the temples and statues of Athens, Delphi or Olympia. It was because the special form qualities of ogival art (so subtle in movement, unstable in balance and poignant in emotion that a whole century of critical study has scarce sufficed to render them familiar to us) were present in every village tower, every window coping, every chair-back, in every pattern carved, painted, stencilled or woven during the Gothic period; it was because of this that every artisan of the Middle Ages could appreciate less consciously than we, but far more deeply, the loveliness and the wonder of the great cathedrals. Nay, even in our own times we can see how, through the help of all the cheapest and most perishable household wares, the poorest Japanese is able to enjoy that special peculiarity and synthesis of line and colour and perspective which strikes even initiated Westerns as so exotic, far-fetched and almost wilfully unintelligible. I have said that thanks to the objects and sights of everyday use and life the qualities of art could be perceived and enjoyed. It may be that it was thanks to them that art had any qualities and ever existed at all. For, however much the temple, cathedral, statue, fresco, the elaborate bronze or lacquer or coloured print, may have reacted on the form, the proportions and linear rhythms and surface arrangements, of all common useful objects; it was in the making of these common useful objects (first making by man of genius and thousandfold minute adaptation by respectful mediocrity) that the form qualities came to exist. One may at least hazard this supposition in the face of the extreme unlikeliness that the complexity and perfection of the great works of art could have been obtained solely in works so necessarily rare and few; and that the particular forms constituting each separate style could have originated save under the repeated suggestion of everyday use and technique. And can we not point to the patterns grown out of the necessities of weaving or basket-making, the shapes started by the processes of metal soldering or clay squeezing; let alone the innumerable categories of form manifestly derived from the mere convenience of handling or using, of standing, pouring, holding, hanging up or folding? This much is certain, that only the manifold application of given artistic forms in useful common objects is able to account for that very slow, gradual and unconscious alteration of them which constitutes the spontaneous evolution of artistic form; and only such manifold application could have given that almost automatic certainty of taste which allowed the great art of the past to continue perpetually changing, through centuries and centuries, and adapting itself over immense geographical areas to every variation of climate, topography, mode of life, or religion. Unless the forms of ancient art had been safely embodied in a hundred modest crafts, how could they have undergone the imperceptible and secure metamorphosis from Egyptian to Hellenic, from Greek to Græco-Roman, and thence, from Byzantine, have passed, as one great half, into Italian mediæval art? or how, without such infinite and infinitely varied practice of minute adaptation to humble needs, could Gothic have given us works so different as the French cathedrals, the Ducal Palace, the tiny chapel at Pisa, and remained equally great and wonderful, equally _Gothic_, in the ornament of a buckle as in the porch of Amiens or of Reims? Beauty is born of attention, as happiness is born of life, because attention is rendered difficult and painful by lack of harmony, even as life is clogged, diminished or destroyed by pain. And therefore, when there ceases to exist a close familiarity with visible objects or actions; when the appearance of things is passed over in perfunctory and partial use (as we see it in all mechanical and divided labour); when the attention of all men is not continually directed to shape through purpose, then there will cease to be spontaneous beauty and the spontaneous appreciation of beauty, because there will be no need for either. Beauty of music does not exist for the stone-deaf, nor beauty of painting for the purblind; but beauty of no kind whatever, nor in any art, can really exist for the inattentive, for the over-worked or the idle. XI. That music should be so far the most really alive of all our modern arts is a fact which confirms all I have argued in the foregoing pages. For music is of all arts the one which insists on most co-operation on the part of its votaries. Requiring to be performed (ninety-nine times out of a hundred) in order to be enjoyed, it has made merely _musical people_ into performers, however humble; and has by this means called forth a degree of attention, of familiarity, of practical effort, which makes the art enter in some measure into life, and in that measure, become living. To play an instrument, however humbly, to read at sight, or to sing, if only in a choir, is something wholly different from lounging in a gallery or wandering on a round of cathedrals: it means acquired knowledge, effort, comparison, self-restraint, and all the realities of manipulation; quite apart even from trying to read the composer's intentions, there is in learning to strike the keys with a particular part of the finger-tips, or in dealing out the breath and watching intonation and timbre in one's own voice, an output of care and skill akin to those of the smith, the potter or the glass blower: all this has a purpose and is work, and brings with it disinterested work's reward, love. To find the analogy of this co-operation in the arts addressing themselves to the eye, we require, nowadays, to leave the great number who merely enjoy (or ought to enjoy) painting, sculpture or architecture, and seek, now that craft is entirely divorced from art, among the small minority which creates, or tries to create. Artistic enjoyment exists nowadays mainly among the class of executive artists; and perhaps it is for this very reason, and because all chance of seeing or making shapely things has ceased in other pursuits, that the "fine arts" are so lamentably overstocked; the man or woman who would have been satisfied with playing the piano enough to read a score or sing sufficiently to take part in a chorus, has, in the case of other arts, to undergo the training of a painter, sculptor or art critic, and often to delude himself or herself with grotesque ambitions in one of these walks. XII. Be this as it may, and making the above happy and honourable exception in favour of music, it is no exaggeration to say that in our time it is only artists who get real pleasure out of art, because it is only artists who approach art from the side of work and bring to it work's familiar attention and habitual energy. Indeed, paradoxical as it may sound, art has remained alive during the nineteenth century, and will remain alive during the twentieth, only and solely because there has been a large public of artists. Of artists, I would add, of quite incomparable vigour and elasticity of genius, and of magnificent disinterestedness and purity of heart. For let us remember that they have worked without having the sympathy of their fellow-men, and worked without the aid and comfort of allied crafts: that they have created while cut off from tradition, unhelped by the manifold suggestiveness of useful purpose or necessary message; separated entirely from the practical and emotional life of the world at large; tiny little knots of voluntary outlaws from a civilisation which could not understand them; and, whatever worldly honours may have come to mock their later years, they have been weakened and embittered by early solitude of spirit. No artistic genius of the past has been put through such cruel tests, has been kept on such miserably short commons, as have our artists of the last hundred years, from Turner to Rossetti and Watts, from Manet and Degas and Whistler to Rodin and Albert Besnard. And if their work has shown lapses and failings; if it has been, alas, lacking at times in health or joy or dignity or harmony, let us ask ourselves what the greatest individualities of Antiquity and the Middle Ages would have produced if cut off from the tradition of the Past and the suggestion of the Present--if reduced to exercise art outside the atmosphere of life; and let us look with wonder and gratitude on the men who have been able to achieve great art even for only art's own sake. XIII. No better illustration of this could be found than the sections of the Paris Exhibition which came under the heading of _Decorative Art_. Decoration. But decoration of what? In reality of nothing. All the objects--from the jewellery and enamels to the furniture and hangings--which this decorative art is supposed to decorate, are the merest excuse and sham. Not one of them is the least useful, or at all events useful once it is decorated. And nobody wants it to be useful. What _is_ wanted is a pretext, for _doing art_ on the side of the artist, for buying costly things on the side of the public. And behind this pretext there is absolutely no genuine demand for any definite object serving any definite use; none of that insistence (which we see in the past) that the shape, material, and colour should be the very best for practical purposes; and of that other insistence, marvellously blended with the requirements of utility, that the shape, material and colour should also be as beautiful as possible. The invaluable suggestions of real practical purpose, the organic dignity of integrated habit and necessity, the safety of tradition, the spiritual weightiness of genuine message, all these elements of creative power are lacking. And in default of them we see a great amount of artistic talent, artificially fed and excited by the teaching and the example of every possible past or present art, exhausting itself in attempts to invent, to express, to be something, anything, so long as it is new. Hence forms gratuitous, without organic quality or logical cogency, pulled about, altered and re-altered, carried to senseless finish and then wilfully blurred. Hence that sickly imitation, in a brand-new piece of work, of the effects of time, weather, and of every manner of accident or deterioration: the pottery and enamels reproducing the mere patina of age or the trickles of bad firing; the relief work in marble or metal which looks as if it had been rolled for centuries in the sea, or corroded by acids under ground. And the total effect, increased by all these methods of wilful blunting and blurring, is an art without stamina, tired, impotent, short-lived, while produced by an excessive expense of talent and effort of invention. For here we have the mischief: all the artistic force is spent by the art in merely keeping alive; and there is no reserve energy for living with serenity and depth of feeling. The artist wears himself out, to a great extent, in wondering what he shall do (there being no practical reason for doing one thing more than another, or indeed anything at all), instead of applying his power, with steady, habitual certainty of purpose and efficiency of execution, to doing it in the very best way. Hence, despite this outlay of inventive force, or rather in direct consequence thereof, there is none of that completeness and measure and congruity, that restrained exuberance of fancy, that more than adequate carrying out, that all-round harmony, which are possible only when the artist is altering to his individual taste some shape already furnished by tradition or subduing to his pleasure some problem insisted on by practical necessity. Meanwhile, all round these galleries crammed with useless objects barely pretending to any utility, round these pavilions of the Decorative Arts, the Exhibition exhibits (most instructive of all its shows) samples of the most marvellous indifference not merely to beauty, peace and dignity, but to the most rudimentary æsthetic and moral comfort. For all the really useful things which men take seriously because they increase wealth and power, because they save time and overcome distance; all these "useful" things have the naïve and colossal ugliness of rudimentary animals, or of abortions, of everything hurried untimely into existence: machines, sheds, bridges, trams, motor-cars: not one line corrected, not one angle smoothed, for the sake of the eye, of the nerves of the spectator. And all of it, both decorative futility and cynically hideous practicality (let alone the various exotic raree shows from distant countries or more distant centuries) expect to be enjoyed after a jostle at the doors and a scurry along the crowded corridors, and to the accompaniment of every rattling and shrieking and jarring sound. For mankind in our days intends to revel in the most complicated and far-fetched kinds of beauty while cultivating convenient callousness to the most elementary and atrocious sorts of ugliness. The art itself reveals it; for even in its superfine isolation and existence for its own sake only, art cannot escape its secondary mission of expressing and recording the spirit of its times. These elaborate æsthetic baubles of the "Decorative Arts" are full of quite incredibly gross barbarism. And, even as the iron chest, studded with nails, or the walnut press, unadorned save by the intrinsic beauty and dignity of their proportions, and the tender irregularities of their hammered surface, the subtle bevelling of their panels; even as these humble objects in some dark corner of an Italian castle or on the mud floor of a Breton cottage, symbolise in my mind the most intense artistic sensitiveness and reverence of the Past; so, here at this Exhibition, my impressions of contemporary over-refinement and callousness are symbolised in a certain cupboard, visibly incapable of holding either linen or garments or crockery or books, of costly and delicately polished wood, but shaped like a packing-case, and displaying with marvellous impartiality two exquisitely cast and chased doorguard plates of far-fetched, many-tinted alloys of silver, and--a set of hinges, a lock and a key, such as the village ironmonger supplies in blue paper parcels of a dozen. A mere coincidence, an accident, you may object; an unlucky oversight which cannot be fairly alleged against the art of our times. Pardon me: there may be coincidences and accidents in other matters, but there are none in art; because the essence of art is to sacrifice even the finest irrelevancies, to subordinate the most refractory details, to subdue coincidence and accident into seeming purpose and harmony. And whatever our practical activity, in its identification of time and money, may allow itself in the way of "scamping" and of "shoddy"--art can never plead an oversight, because art, in so far as it _is_ art, represents those organic and organised preferences in the domain of form, those imperative and stringent demands for harmony, which see everything, feel everything, and know no law or motive save their own complete satisfaction. Art for art's sake! We see it nowhere revealed so clearly as in the Exhibition, where it masks as "Decorative Art." Art answering no claim of practical life and obeying no law of contemplative preference, art without root, without organism, without logical reason or moral decorum, art for mere buying and selling, art which expresses only self-assertion on the part of the seller, and self-satisfaction on the part of the buyer. A walk through this Exhibition is an object-lesson in a great many things besides æsthetics; it forces one to ask a good many of Tolstoi's angriest questions; but it enables one also, if duly familiar with the art of past times, to answer them in a manner different from Tolstoi's. One carries away the fact, which implies so many others, that not one of these objects is otherwise than expensive; expensive, necessarily and intentionally, from the rarity both of the kind of skill and of the kind of material; these things are reserved by their price as well as their uselessness, for a small number of idle persons. They have no connection with life, either by penetrating, by serviceableness, deep into that of the individual; or by spreading, by cheapness, over a wide surface of the life of the nations. XIV. The moment has now come for that inevitable question, with which friendly readers unintentionally embarrass, and hostile ones purposely interrupt, any exposition of mal-adjustment in the order of the universe: But what remedy do you propose? Mal-adjustments of a certain gravity are not set right by proposable arrangements: they are remedied by the fulness and extent of the feeling against them, which employs for its purposes and compels into its service all the unexpected and incalculable coincidences and accidents which would otherwise be wasted, counteracted or even used by some different kind of feeling. And the use that a writer can be--even a Ruskin or a Tolstoi--is limited not to devising programmes of change (mere symptoms often that some unprogrammed change is preparing), but to nursing the strength of that great motor which creates its own ways and instruments: impatience with evil conditions, desire for better. A cessation of the special æsthetic mal-adjustment of our times, by which art is divorced from life and life from art, is as difficult to foretell in detail as the new-adjustment between labour and the other elements of production which will, most probably, have to precede it. A healthy artistic life has indeed existed in the past through centuries of social wrongness as great as our own, and even greater; indeed, such artistic life, more or less continuous until our day, attests the existence of great mitigations in the world's former wretchedness (such as individuality in labour, spirit of co-operative solidarity, religious feeling: but perhaps the most important alleviations lie far deeper and more hidden)--mitigations without which there would not have been happiness and strength enough to produce art; nor, for the matter of that, to produce what was then the future, including ourselves and our advantages and disadvantages. The existence of art has by no means implied, as Ruskin imagined, with his teleological optimism and tendency to believe in Eden and banishment from Eden, that people once lived in a kind of millennium; it merely shows that, however far from millennial their condition, there was stability enough to produce certain alleviations, and notably the alleviations without which art cannot exist, and the alleviations which art itself affords. It is not therefore the badness of our present social arrangements (in many ways far less bad than those of the past) which is responsible for our lack of all really vital, deep-seated, widely spread and happiness-giving art; but merely the feature in this latter-day badness which, after all, is our chief reason for hope: the fact that the social mal-adjustments of this century are, to an extent hitherto unparalleled, the mal-adjustments incident to a state of over-rapid and therefore insufficiently deep-reaching change, of superficial legal and material improvements extending in reality only to a very small number of persons and things, and unaccompanied by any real renovation in the thought, feeling or mode of living of the majority; the mal-adjustment of transition, of disorder, and perfunctoriness, by the side of which the regularly recurring disorders of the past--civil wars, barbarian invasions, plagues, etc., are incidents leaving the foundation of life unchanged, transitional disorders, which we fail to remark only because we are ourselves a part of the hurry, the scuffle, and the general wastefulness. How soon and how this transition period of ours will come to an end, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to foretell; but that it _must_ soon end is certain, if only for one reason: namely, that the changes accumulated during our times must inevitably work their way below the surface; the new material and intellectual methods must become absorbed and organised, and thereby produce some kind of interdependent and less easily disturbed new conditions; briefly, that the amount of alteration we have witnessed will occasion a corresponding integration. And with this period of integration and increasing organisation and comparative stability there will come new alleviations and adjustments in life, and with these, the reappearance in life of art. XV. In what manner it is absurd, merely foolishly impatient or foolishly cavilling, to ask. Not certainly by a return to the past and its methods, but by the coming of the future with new methods having the same result: the maintenance and tolerable quality of human life, of body and soul. Hence probably by a further development of democratic institutions and machine industry, but democratic institutions neither authoritative nor _laissez faire_; machinery of which the hand and mind of men will be the guide, not the slave. One or two guesses may perhaps be warranted. First, that the distribution of wealth, or more properly of work and idleness, will gradually be improved, and the exploitation of individuals in great gangs cease; hence that the workman will be able once more to see and shape what he is making, and that, on the other side, the possessor of objects will have to use them, and therefore learn their appearance and care for them; also that many men will possess enough, and scarcely any men possess much more than enough, so that what there is of houses, furniture, chattels, books or pictures in private possession may be enjoyed at leisure and with unglutted appetite, and for that reason be beautiful. We may also guess that willing co-operation in peaceful employments, that spontaneous formation of groups of opinion as well as of work, and the multiplication of small centres of activity, may create a demand for places of public education and amusement and of discussion and self-expression, and revive those celebrations, religious and civil, in which the art of Antiquity and of the Middle Ages found its culmination; the service of large bodies and of the community absorbing the higher artistic gifts in works necessarily accessible to the multitude; and the humbler talents--all the good amateur quality at present wasted in ambitious efforts--being applied in every direction to the satisfaction of individual artistic desire. If such a distribution of artistic activity should seem, to my contemporaries, Utopian, I would point out that it has existed throughout the past, and in states of society infinitely worse than are ever likely to recur. For even slaves and serfs could make unto themselves some kind of art befitting their conditions; and even the most despotic aristocracies and priesthoods could adequately express their power and pride only in works which even the slave and serf was able to see. In the whole of the world's art history, it is this present of ours which forms the exception; and as the changes of the future will certainly be for greater social health and better social organisation, it is not likely that this bad exception will be the beginning of a new rule. XVI. Meanwhile we can, in some slight measure, foretell one or two of the directions in which our future artistic readjustment is most likely to begin, even apart from that presumable social reorganisation and industrial progress which will give greater leisure and comfort to the workers, and make their individual character the guide, and not the slave, of this machinery. Such a direction is already indicated by one of our few original and popular forms of art: the picture-book and the poster, which, by the new processes of our colour printing, have placed some of the most fanciful and delicate of our artists--men like Caldecott and Walter Crane, like Cheret and Boutet de Monvel, at the service of everyone equally. Moreover, it is probable that long before machinery is so perfected as to demand individual guidance, preference and therefore desire for beauty, and long before a corresponding readjustment of work and leisure, the eye will have again become attentive through the necessities of rational education. The habit of teaching both adults and children by demonstration rather than precept, by awaking the imagination rather than burdening the memory, will quite undoubtedly recall attention to visible things, and thereby open new fields to art: geography, geology, natural history, let alone history in its vaster modern sociological and anthropological aspect, will insist upon being taught no longer merely through books, but through collections of visible objects; and, for all purposes of reconstructive and synthetic conception, through pictures. And, what is more, the sciences will afford a new field for poetic contemplation; while the philosophy born of such sciences will synthetise new modes of seeing life and demand new visible symbols. The future will create cosmogonies and Divine Comedies more numerous, more various, than those on sculptured Egyptian temples and Gothic cathedrals, and Bibles more imaginative perhaps than the ones painted in the Pisa Campo Santo and in the Sixtine Chapel. The future? Nay, we can see a sample already in the present. I am alluding to the panels by Albert Besnard in the School of Pharmacy in Paris, a series illustrating the making of medicinal drugs, their employment and the method and subject-matter of the sciences on which pharmaceutical practice is based. Not merely the plucking and drying of the herbs in sunny, quiet botanical gardens, and the sorting and mingling of earths and metals among the furnaces of the laboratory; not merely the first tremendous tragic fight between the sudden sickness and the physician, and the first pathetic, hard-won victory, the first weary but rapturous return out of doors of the convalescent; but the life of the men on whose science our power for life against death is based: the botanists knee-deep in the pale spring woods; the geologists in the snowy hollows of the great blue mountain; the men themselves, the youths listening and the elder men teaching, grave and eager intellectual faces, in the lecture rooms. And, finally, the things which fill the minds of these men, their thoughts and dreams, the poetry they have given to the world; the poetry of that infinitely remote, dim past, evoked out of cavern remains and fossils--the lake dwellers among the mists of melting glaciers; the primæval horses playing on the still manless shores; the great saurians plunging in the waves of long-dried seas; the jungles which are now our coal beds; and see! the beginning of organic life, the first callow vegetation on the stagnant waters in the dawn-light of the world. The place is but a mean boarded and glazed vestibule; full of the sickly fumes of chemicals; and the people who haunt it are only future apothecaries. But the compositions are as spacious and solemn, the colours as tender and brilliant, and the poetry as high and contemplative as that of any mediæval fresco; it is all new also, undreamed of, _sui generis_, in its impersonal cosmic suggestiveness, as in its colouring of opal, and metallic patinas, and tea rose and Alpine ice cave. XVII. I have alluded already to the fact that, perhaps because of the part of actual participating work which it entails, music is the art which has most share in life and of life, nowadays. It seems probable therefore that its especial mission may be to keep alive in us the feeling and habit of art, and to transmit them back to those arts of visible form to which it owes, perhaps, the training necessary to its own architectural structure and its own colour combinations. Compared with the arts of line and projection, music seems at a certain moral disadvantage, as not being applicable to the things of everyday use, and also not educating us to the better knowledge of the beautiful and significant things of nature. In connection with this kind of blindness, music is also compatible (as we see by its flourishing in great manufacturing towns) with a great deal of desecration of nature and much hand-to-mouth ruthlessness of life. But, on the other hand, music has the especial power of suggesting and regulating emotion, and the still more marvellous faculty of creating an inner world for itself, inviolable because ubiquitous. And, therefore, with its audible rhythms and harmonies, its restrained climaxes and finely ordered hierarchies, music may discipline our feelings, or rather what underlies our feelings, the almost unconscious life of our nerves, to modalities of order and selection, and make the spaceless innermost of our spirit into some kind of sanctuary, swept and garnished, until the coming of better days. XVIII. According to a certain class of thinkers, among whom I find Guyau and other men of note, art is destined partially to replace religion in our lives. But with what are you going to replace religion itself in art? For the religious feeling, whenever it existed, gave art an element of thoroughness which the desire for pleasure and interest, even for æsthetic pleasure and interest, does not supply. An immense fulness of energy is due to the fact that beautiful things, as employed by religion, were intended to be beautiful all through, adequate in the all-seeing eye of God or Gods, not merely beautiful on the surface, on the side turned towards the glance of man. For, in religious art, beautiful things are an oblation; they are the best that we can give, as distinguished from a pleasure arranged for ourselves and got as cheap as possible. Herein lies the impassable gulf between the church and theatre, considered æsthetically; for it is only in the basest times, of formalism in art as in religion, of superstition and sensualism, that we find the church imitating the theatre in its paper glories and plaster painted like marble. The real, living religious spirit insists on bringing, as in St Mark's, a gift of precious material, of delicate antique ornament, with every shipload. The crown of the Madonna is not, like the tragedy queen's, of tinsel, the sacrament is not given in an empty chalice. The priest, even where he makes no effort to be holy as a man, is at least sacred as a priest; whereas there is something uncomfortable in the sense that the actor is only pretending to be this or the other, and we ourselves pretending to believe him; there is a thin and acid taste in the shams of the stage and in all art which, like that of the stage, exists only to the extent necessary to please our fancy or excite our feelings. Why so? For is not pleasing the fancy and exciting the feelings the real, final use of art? Doubtless. But there would seem to be in nature a law not merely of the greater economy of means, but also of the greatest output of efficacy: effort helping effort, and function, function; and many activities, in harmonious interaction, obtaining a measure of result far surpassing their mere addition. The creations of our mind are, of course, mere spiritual existences, things of seeming, akin to illusions; and yet our mind can never rest satisfied with an unreality, because our mind is active, penetrative and grasping, and therefore craves for realisation, for completeness and truth, and feels bruised and maimed whenever it hits against a dead wall or is pulled up by a contradiction; nay, worst of all, it grows giddy and faint when suddenly brought face to face with emptiness. All insufficiency and shallowness means loss of power; and it is such loss of power that we remark when we compare with the religious art of past times the art which, every day more and more, is given us by the hurried and over-thrifty (may I say "Reach-me-down"?) hands of secularism. The great art of Greece and of the Middle Ages most often represents something which, to our mind and feelings, is as important, and even as beautiful, as the representation itself; and the representation, the actual "work of art" itself, gains by that added depth and reverence of our mood, is carried deeper (while helping to carry deeper) into our soul. Instead of which we moderns try to be satisfied with allowing the seeing part of us to light on something pleasant and interesting, while giving the mind only triviality to rest upon; and the mind goes to sleep or chafes to move away. We cannot live intellectually and morally in presence of the idea, say, of a jockey of Degas or one of his ballet girls in contemplation of her shoe, as long as we can live æsthetically in the arrangement of lines and masses and dabs of colour and interlacings of light and shade which translate themselves into this _idea_ of jockey or ballet girl; we are therefore bored, ruffled, or, what is worse, we learn to live on insufficient spiritual rations, and grow anæmic. Our shortsighted practicality, which values means while disregarding ends, and conceives usefulness only as a stage in making some other _utility_, has led us to suppose that the desire for beauty is compatible, nay commensurate, with indifference to reality: the _real_ having come to mean that which you can plant, cook, eat or sell, not what you can feel and think. This notion credits us with an actual craving for something which should exist as little as possible, in one dimension only, so to speak, or as upon a screen (for fear of occupying valuable space which might be given to producing more food than we can eat); whereas what we desire is just such beauty as will surround us on all sides, such harmony as we can live in; our soul, dissatisfied with the reality which happens to surround it, seeks on the contrary to substitute a new reality of its own making, to rebuild the universe, like Omar Khayyam, according to the heart's desire. And nothing can be more different than such an instinct from the alleged satisfaction in playing with dolls and knowing that they are not real people. By an odd paradoxical coincidence, that very disbelief in the _real_ character of art, and that divorce betwixt art and utility, is really due to our ultra-practical habit of taking seriously only the serviceable or instructive sides of things: the quality of beauty, which the healthy mind insists upon in everything it deals with, getting to be considered as an idle adjunct, fulfilling no kind of purpose; and therefore, as something detachable, separate, and speedily relegated to the museum or lumber-room where we keep our various shams: ideals, philosophies, all the playthings with which we sometimes wile away our idleness. Whereas in fact a great work of art, like a great thought of goodness, exists essentially for our more thorough, our more _real_ satisfaction: the soul goes into it with all its higher hankerings, and rests peaceful, satisfied, so long as it is enclosed in this dwelling of its own choice. And it is, on the contrary, the flux of what we call real life, that is to say, of life imposed on us by outer necessities and combinations, which is so often one-sided, perfunctory, not to be dwelt upon by thought nor penetrated into by feeling, and endurable only according to the angle or the lighting up--the angle or lighting up called "purpose" which we apply to it. XIX. With what, I ventured to ask just now, are you going to fill the place of religion in art? With nothing, I believe, unless with religion itself. Religion, perhaps externally unlike any of which we have historical experience; but religion, whether individual or collective, possessing, just because it is immortal, all the immortal essence of all past and present creeds. And just because religion is the highest form of human activity, and its utility is the crowning one of thoughtful and feeling life, just for this reason will religion return, sooner or later, to be art's most universal and most noble employer. XX. In the foregoing pages I have tried to derive the need of beauty from the fact of attention, attention to what we do, think and feel, as well as see and hear; and to demonstrate therefore that all spontaneous and efficient art is _the making and doing of useful things in such manner as shall be beautiful_. During this demonstration I have, incidentally, though inexplicitly, pointed out the utility of art itself and of beauty. For beauty is that mode of existence of visible or audible or thinkable things which imposes on our contemplating energies rhythms and patterns of unity, harmony and completeness; and thereby gives us the foretaste and the habit of higher and more perfect forms of life. Art is born of the utilities of life; and art is in itself one of life's greatest utilities. WASTEFUL PLEASURES. "Er muss lernen edler begehren, damit er nicht nötig habe, erhaben zu wollen."--SCHILLER, "_Ästhetische Erziehung_." I. A pretty, Caldecott-like moment, or rather minute, when the huntsmen stood on the green lawn round the moving, tail-switching, dapple mass of hounds; and the red coats trotted one by one from behind the screens of bare trees, delicate lilac against the slowly moving grey sky. A delightful moment, followed, as the hunt swished past, by the sudden sense that these men and women, thus whirled off into what may well be the sole poetry of their lives, are but noisy intruders into these fields and spinnies, whose solemn, secret speech they drown with clatter and yelp, whose mystery and charm stand aside on their passage, like an interrupted, a profaned rite. Gone; the yapping and barking, the bugle-tootling fade away in the distance; and the trees and wind converse once more. This West Wind, which has been whipping up the wan northern sea, and rushing round the house all this last fortnight, singing its big ballads in corridor and chimney, piping its dirges and lullabies in one's back-blown hair on the sand dunes--this West Wind, with its many chaunts, its occasional harmonies and sudden modulations mocking familiar tunes, can tell of many things: of the different way in which the great trunks meet its shocks and answer vibrating through innermost fibres; the smooth, muscular boles of the beeches, shaking their auburn boughs; the stiff, rough hornbeams and thorns isolated among the pastures; the ashes whose leaves strew the roads with green rushes; the creaking, shivering firs and larches. The West Wind tells us of the way how the branches spring outwards, or balance themselves, or hang like garlands in the air, and carry their leaves, or needles, or nuts; and of their ways of bending and straightening, of swaying and trembling. It tells us also, this West Wind, how the sea is lashed and furrowed; how the little waves spring up in the offing, and the big waves rise and run forward and topple into foam; how the rocks are shaken, the sands are made to hiss and the shingle is rattled up and down; how the great breakers vault over the pier walls, leap thundering against the breakwaters, and disperse like smoke off the cannon's mouth, like the whiteness of some vast explosion. These are the things which the Wind and the Woods can talk about with us, nay, even the gorse and the shaking bents. But the hunting folk pass too quickly, and make too much noise, to hear anything save themselves and their horses' hoofs and their bugle and hounds. II. I have taken fox-hunting as the type of a pleasure _which destroys something_, just because it is, in many ways, the most noble and, if I may say so, the most innocent of such pleasures. The death, the, perhaps agonising, flight of the fox, occupy no part of the hunter's consciousness, and form no part of his pleasure; indeed, they could, but for the hounds, be dispensed with altogether. There is a fine community of emotion between men and creatures, horses and dogs adding their excitement to ours; there is also a fine lack of the mere feeling of trying to outrace a competitor, something of the collective and almost altruistic self-forgetfulness of a battle. There is the break-neck skurry, the flying across the ground and through the air at the risk of limbs and life, and at the mercy of one's own and one's horse's pluck, skill and good fellowship. All this makes up a rapture in which many ugly things vanish, and certain cosmic intuitions flash forth for some, at least, of the hunters. The element of poetry is greater, the element of brutality less, in this form of intoxication than in many others. It has a handsomer bearing than its modern successor, the motor-intoxication, with its passiveness and (for all but the driver) its lack of skill, its confinement, moreover, to beaten roads, and its petrol-stench and dustcloud of privilege and of inconvenience to others. And the intoxication of hunting is, to my thinking at least, cleaner, wholesomer, than the intoxication of, let us say, certain ways of hearing music. But just because so much can be said, both positive and negative, in its favour, I am glad that hunting, and not some meaner or some less seemly amusement, should have set me off moralising about such pleasures as are wasteful of other things or of some portion of our soul. III. For nothing can be further from scientific fact than that cross-grained and ill-tempered puritanism identifying pleasure with something akin to sinfulness. Philosophically considered, Pain is so far stronger a determinant than Pleasure, that its _vis a tergo_ might have sufficed to ensure the survival of the race, without the far milder action of Pleasure being necessary at all; so that the very existence of Pleasure would lead us to infer that, besides its function of selecting, like Pain, among life's possibilities, it has the function of actually replenishing the vital powers, and thus making amends, by its healing and invigorating, for the wear and tear, the lessening of life's resources through life's other great Power of Selection, the terror-angel of Pain. This being the case, Pleasure tends, and should tend more and more, to be consistent with itself, to mean a greater chance of its own growth and spreading (as opposed to Pain's dwindling and suicidal nature), and in so far to connect itself with whatsoever facts make for the general good, and to reject, therefore, all cruelty, injustice, rapacity and wastefulness of opportunities and powers. Nay, paradoxical though such a notion may seem in the face of our past and present state of barbarism, Pleasure, and hence amusement, should become incompatible with, be actually _spoilt by_, any element of loss to self and others, of mischief even to the distant, the future, and of impiety to that principle of Good which is but the summing up of the claims of the unseen and unborn. IV. I was struck, the other day, by the name of a play on a theatre poster: _A Life of Pleasure_. The expression is so familiar that we hear and employ it without thinking how it has come to be. Yet, when by some accident it comes to be analysed, its meaning startles with an odd revelation. Pleasure, a life of pleasure.... Other lives, to be livable, must contain more pleasure than pain; and we know, as a fact, that all healthy work is pleasurable to healthy creatures. Intelligent converse with one's friends, study, sympathy, all give pleasure; and art is, in a way, the very type of pleasure. Yet we know that none of all that is meant in the expression: a life of pleasure. A curious thought, and, as it came to me, a terrible one. For that expression is symbolic. It means that, of all the myriads of creatures who surround us, in the present and past, the vast majority identifies pleasure mainly with such a life; despises, in its speech at least, all other sorts of pleasure, the pleasure of its own honest strivings and affections, taking them for granted, making light thereof. V. We are mistaken, I think, in taxing the generality of people with indifference to ideals, with lack of ideas directing their lives. Few lives are really lawless or kept in check only by the _secular arm_, the judge or policeman. Nor is conformity to _what others do, what is fit for one's class_ or _seemly in one's position_ a result of mere unreasoning imitation or of the fear of being boycotted. The potency of such considerations is largely that of summing up certain rules and defining the permanent tendencies of the individual, or those he would wish to be permanent; in other words, we are in the presence of _ideals of conduct_. Why else are certain things _those which have to be done_; whence otherwise such expressions as _social duties_ and _keeping up one's position_? Why such fortitude under boredom, weariness, constraint; such heroism sometimes in taking blows and snubs, in dancing on with broken heart-strings like the Princess in Ford's play? All this means an ideal, nay, a religion. Yes; people, quite matter-of-fact, worldly people, are perpetually sacrificing to ideals. And what is more, quite superior, virtuous people, religious in the best sense of the word, are apt to have, besides the ostensible and perhaps rather obsolete one of churches and meeting-houses, another cultus, esoteric, unspoken but acted upon, of which the priests and casuists are ladies'-maids and butlers. Now, if one could only put to profit some of this wasted dutifulness, this useless heroism; if some of the energy put into the ideal progress (as free from self-interest most often as the _accumulating merit_ of Kim's Buddhist) called _getting on in the world_ could only be applied in _getting the world along_! VI. An eminent political economist, to whom I once confided my aversion for such _butler's and lady's-maid's ideals of life_, admonished me that although useless possessions, unenjoyable luxury, ostentation, and so forth, undoubtedly represented a waste of the world's energies and resources, they should nevertheless be tolerated, inasmuch as constituting a great incentive to industry. People work, he said, largely that they may be able to waste. If you repress wastefulness you will diminish, by so much, the production of wealth by the wasteful, by the luxurious and the vain.... This may be true. Habits of modesty and of sparingness might perhaps deprive the world of as much wealth as they would save. But even supposing this to be true, though the wealth of the world did not immediately gain, there would always be the modesty and sparingness to the good; virtues which, sooner or later, would be bound to make more wealth exist or to make existing wealth _go a longer way_. Appealing to higher motives, to good sense and good feeling and good taste, has the advantage of saving the drawbacks of lower motives, which _are_ lower just because they have such drawbacks. You may get a man to do a desirable thing from undesirable motives; but those undesirable motives will induce him, the very next minute, to do some undesirable thing. The wages of good feeling and good taste is the satisfaction thereof. The wages of covetousness and vanity is the grabbing of advantages and the humiliating of neighbours; and these make life poorer, however much bread there may be to eat or money to spend. What are called higher motives are merely those which expand individual life into harmonious connection with the life of all men; what we call lower motives bring us hopelessly back, by a series of vicious circles, to the mere isolated, sterile egos. Sterile, I mean, in the sense that the supply of happiness dwindles instead of increasing. VII. Waste of better possibilities, of higher qualities, of what we call _our soul_. To denounce this is dignified, but it is also easy and most often correspondingly useless. I wish to descend to more prosaic matters, and, as Ruskin did in his day, to denounce the _mere waste of money_. For the wasting of money implies nearly always all those other kinds of wasting. And although there are doubtless pastimes (pastimes promoted, as is our wont, for fear of yet _other_ pastimes), which are in themselves unclean or cruel, these are less typically evil, just because they are more obviously so, than the amusements which imply the destruction of wealth, the destruction of part of the earth's resources and of men's labour and thrift, and incidentally thereon of human leisure and comfort and the world's sweetness. Do you remember La Bruyère's famous description of the peasants under Louis XIV.? "One occasionally meets with certain wild animals, both male and female, scattered over the country; black, livid and parched by the sun, bound to the soil which they scratch and dig up with desperate obstinacy. They have something which sounds like speech, and when they raise themselves up they show a human face. And, as a fact, they are human beings." The _Ancien Régime_, which had reduced them to that, and was to continue reducing them worse and worse for another hundred years by every conceivable tax, tithe, toll, servage, and privilege, did so mainly to pay for amusements. Amusements of the _Roi-Soleil_, with his Versailles and Marly and aqueducts and waterworks, plays and operas; amusements of Louis XV., with his Parc-aux-Cerfs; amusements of Marie-Antoinette, playing the virtuous rustic at Trianon; amusements of new buildings, new equipages, new ribbons and bibbons, new diamonds (including the fatal necklace); amusements of hunting and gambling and love-making; amusements sometimes atrocious, sometimes merely futile, but all of them leaving nothing behind, save the ravaged grass and stench of brimstone of burnt-out fireworks. Moreover, wasting money implies _getting more_. And the processes by which such wasted money is replaced are, by the very nature of those who do the wasting, rarely, nay, never, otherwise than wasteful in themselves. To put into their pockets or, like Marshall Villeroi ("a-t-on mis de l'or dans mes poches?"), have it put by their valets, to replace what was lost overnight, these proud and often honourable nobles would ante-chamber and cringe for sinecures, pensions, indemnities, privileges, importune and supplicate the King, the King's mistress, pandar or lacquey. And the sinecure, pension, indemnity or privilege was always deducted out of the bread--rye-bread, straw-bread, grass-bread--which those parched, prone human animals described by La Bruyère were extracting "with desperate obstinacy"--out of the ever more sterile and more accursed furrow. It is convenient to point the moral by reference to those kings and nobles of other centuries, without incurring pursuit for libel, or wounding the feelings of one's own kind and estimable contemporaries. Still, it may be well to add that, odd though it appears, the vicious circle (in both senses of the words) continues to exist; and that, even in our democratic civilisation, _you cannot waste money without wasting something else in getting more money to replace it_. Waste, and _lay waste_, even as if your pastime had consisted not in harmless novelty and display, in gentlemanly games or good-humoured sport, but in destruction and devastation for their own sake. VIII. It has been laid waste, that little valley which, in its delicate and austere loveliness, was rarer and more perfect than any picture or poem. Those oaks, ivy garlanded like Maenads, which guarded the shallow white weirs whence the stream leaps down; those ilexes, whose dark, loose boughs hung over the beryl pools like hair of drinking nymphs; those trees which were indeed the living and divine owners of that secluded place, dryads and oreads older and younger than any mortals,--have now been shamefully stripped, violated and maimed, their shorn-off leafage, already withered, gathered into faggots or trodden into the mud made by woodcutters' feet in the place of violets and tender grasses and wild balm; their flayed bodies, hacked grossly out of shape, and flung into the defiled water until the moment when, the slaughter and dishonour and profanation being complete, the dealers' carts will come cutting up the turf and sprouting reeds, and carry them off to the station or timber-yard. The very stumps and roots will be dragged out for sale; the earthy banks, raw and torn, will fall in, muddying and clogging that pure mountain brook; and the hillside, turning into sliding shale, will dam it into puddles with the refuse from the quarries above. And thus, for less guineas than will buy a new motor or cover an hour of Monte Carlo, a corner of the world's loveliness and peace will be gone as utterly as those chairs and tables and vases and cushions which the harlot in Zola's novel broke, tore, and threw upon the fire for her morning's amusement. IX. There is in our imperfect life too little of pleasure and too much of play. This means that our activities are largely wasted in pleasureless ways; that, being more tired than we should be, we lose much time in needed rest; moreover, that being, all of us more or less, slaves to the drudgery of need or fashion, we set a positive value on that negative good called freedom, even as the pause between pain takes, in some cases, the character of pleasure. There is in all play a sense not merely of freedom from responsibility, from purpose and consecutiveness, a possibility of breaking off, or slackening off, but a sense also of margin, of permitted pause and blank and change; all of which answer to our being on the verge of fatigue or boredom, at the limit of our energy, as is normal in the case of growing children (for growth exhausts), and inevitable in the case of those who work without the renovation of interest in what they are doing. If you notice people on a holiday, you will see them doing a large amount of "nothing," dawdling, in fact; and "amusements" are, when they are not excitements, that is to say, stimulations to deficient energy, full of such "doing nothing." Think, for instance, of "amusing conversation" with its gaps and skippings, and "amusing" reading with its perpetual chances of inattention. All this is due to the majority of us being too weak, too badly born and bred, to give full attention except under the constraint of necessary work, or under the lash of some sort of excitement; and as a consequence to our obtaining a sense of real well-being only from the spare energy which accumulates during idleness. Moreover, under our present conditions (as under those of slave-labour) "work" is rarely such as calls forth the effortless, the willing, the pleased attention. Either in kind or length or intensity, work makes a greater demand than can be met by the spontaneous, happy activity of most of us, and thereby diminishes the future chances of such spontaneous activity by making us weaker in body and mind. Now, so long as work continues to be thus strained or against the grain, play is bound to be either an excitement which leaves us poorer and more tired than before (the fox-hunter, for instance, at the close of the day, or on the off-days), or else play will be mere dawdling, getting out of training, in a measure demoralisation. For demoralisation, in the etymological sense being _debauched_, is the correlative of over-great or over-long effort; both spoil, but the one spoils while diminishing the mischief made by the other. Art is so much less useful than it should be, because of this bad division of "work" and "play," between which two it finds no place. For Art--and the art we unwittingly practice whenever we take pleasure in nature--is without appeal either to the man who is straining at business and to the man who is dawdling in amusement. Æsthetic pleasure implies energy during rest and leisureliness during labour. It means making the most of whatever beautiful and noble possibilities may come into our life; nay, it means, in each single soul, _being_ for however brief a time, beautiful and noble because one is filled with beauty and nobility. X. To eat his bread in sorrow and the sweat of his face was, we are apt to forget, the first sign of man's loss of innocence. And having learned that we must reverse the myth in order to see its meaning (since innocence is not at the beginning, but rather at the end of the story of mankind), we might accept it as part of whatever religion we may have, that the evil of our world is exactly commensurate with the hardship of useful tasks and the wastefulness and destructiveness of pleasures and diversions. Evil and also folly and inefficiency, for each of these implies the existence of much work badly done, of much work to no purpose, of a majority of men so weak and dull as to be excluded from choice and from leisure, and a minority of men so weak and dull as to use choice and leisure mainly for mischief. To reverse this original sinful constitution of the world is the sole real meaning of progress. And the only reason for wishing inventions to be perfected, wealth to increase, freedom to be attained, and, indeed, the life of the race to be continued at all, lies in the belief that such continued movement must bring about a gradual diminution of pleasureless work and wasteful play. Meanwhile, in the wretched past and present, the only aristocracy really existing has been that of the privileged creatures whose qualities and circumstances must have been such that, whether artisans or artists, tillers of the ground or seekers after truth, poets, philosophers, or mothers and nurses, their work has been their pleasure. This means _love_; and love means fruitfulness. XI. There are moments when, catching a glimpse of the frightful weight of care and pain with which mankind is laden, I am oppressed by the thought that all improvement must come solely through the continued selfish shifting of that burden from side to side, from shoulder to shoulder; through the violent or cunning destruction of some of the intolerable effects of selfishness in the past by selfishness in the present and the future. And that in the midst of this terrible but salutary scuffle for ease and security, the ideals of those who are privileged enough to have any, may be not much more useful than the fly on the axle-tree. It may be, it doubtless is so nowadays, although none of us can tell to what extent. But even if it be so, let us who have strength and leisure for preference and ideals prepare ourselves to fit, at least to acquiesce, in the changes we are unable to bring about. Do not let us seek our pleasure in things which we condemn, or remain attached to those which are ours only through the imperfect arrangements which we deplore. We are, of course, all tied tight in the meshes of our often worthless and cruel civilisation, even as the saints felt themselves caught in the meshes of bodily life. But even as they, in their day, fixed their hopes on the life disembodied, so let us, in our turn, prepare our souls for that gradual coming of justice on earth which we shall never witness, by forestalling its results in our valuations and our wishes. XII. The other evening, skirting the Links, we came upon a field, where, among the brown and green nobbly grass, was gathered a sort of parliament of creatures: rooks on the fences, seagulls and peewits wheeling overhead, plovers strutting and wagging their tails; and, undisturbed by the white darting of rabbits, a covey of young partridges, hopping leisurely in compact mass. Is it because we see of these creatures only their harmlessness to us, but not the slaughter and starving out of each other; or is it because of their closer relation to simple and beautiful things, to nature; or is it merely because they are _not human beings_--who shall tell? but, for whatever reason, such a sight does certainly bring up in us a sense, however fleeting, of simplicity, _mansuetude_ (I like the charming mediæval word), of the kinship of harmlessness. I was thinking this while wading up the grass this morning to the craig behind the house, the fields of unripe corn a-shimmer and a-shiver in the light, bright wind; the sea and distant sky so merged in delicate white mists that a ship, at first sight, seemed a bird poised in the air. And, higher up, among the ragwort and tall thistles, I found in the coarse grass a dead baby-rabbit, shot and not killed at once, perhaps; or shot and not picked up, as not worth taking: a little soft, smooth, feathery young handful, laid out very decently, as human beings have to be laid out by one another, in death. It brought to my mind a passage where Thoreau, who understood such matters, says, that although the love of nature may be fostered by sport, such love, when once consummate, will make nature's lover little by little shrink from slaughter, and hanker after a diet wherein slaughter is unnecessary. It is sad, not for the beasts but for our souls, that, since we must kill beasts for food (though may not science teach a cleaner, more human diet?) or to prevent their eating us out of house and home, it is sad that we should choose to make of this necessity (which ought to be, like all our baser needs, a matter if not of shame at least of decorum) that we should make of this ugly necessity an opportunity for amusement. It is sad that nowadays, when creatures, wild and tame, are bred for killing, the usual way in which man is brought in contact with the creatures of the fields and woods and streams (such man, I mean, as thinks, feels or is expected to) should be by slaughtering them. Surely it might be more akin to our human souls, to gentleness of bringing up, Christianity of belief and chivalry of all kinds, to be, rather than a hunter, a shepherd. Yet the shepherd is the lout in our idle times; the shepherd, and the tiller of the soil; and alas, the naturalist, again, is apt to be the _muff_. But may the time not come when, apart from every man having to do some useful thing, something perchance like tending flocks, tilling the ground, mowing and forestering--the mere love of beauty, the desire for peace and harmony, the craving for renewal by communion with the life outside our own, will lead men, without dogs or guns or rods, into the woods, the fields, to the river-banks, as to some ancient palace full of frescoes, as to some silent church, with solemn rites and liturgy? XIII. The killing of creatures for sport seems a necessity nowadays. There is more than mere bodily vigour to be got by occasional interludes of outdoor life, early hours, discomfort and absorption in the ways of birds and beasts; there is actual spiritual renovation. The mere reading about such things, in Tolstoi's _Cossacks_ and certain chapters of _Anna Karenina_ makes one realise the poetry attached to them; and we all of us know that the genuine sportsman, the man of gun and rod and daybreak and solitude, has often a curious halo of purity about him; contact with natural things and unfamiliarity with the sordidness of so much human life and endeavour, amounting to a kind of consecration. A man of this stamp once told me that no emotion in his life had ever equalled that of his first woodcock. You cannot have such open-air life, such clean and poetic emotion without killing. Men are men; they will not get up at cock-crow for the sake of a mere walk, or sleep in the woods for the sake of the wood's noises: they must have an object; and what object is there except killing beasts or birds or fish? Men have to be sportsmen because they can't all be either naturalists or poets. Killing animals (and, some persons would add, killing other men) is necessary to keep man manly. And where men are no longer manly they become cruel, not for the sake of sport or war, but for their lusts and for cruelty's own sake. And that seems to settle the question. XIV. But the question is not really settled. It is merely settled for the present, but not for the future. It is surely a sign of our weakness and barbarism that we cannot imagine to-morrow as better than to-day, and that, for all our vaunted temporal progress and hypocritical talk of duty, we are yet unable to think and to feel in terms of improvement and change; but let our habits, like the vilest vested interests, oppose a veto to the hope and wish for better things. To realise that _what is_ does not mean what _will be_, constitutes, methinks, the real spirituality of us poor human creatures, allowing our judgments and aspirations to pass beyond our short and hidebound life, to live on in the future, and help to make that _yonside of our mortality_, which some of us attempt to satisfy with theosophic reincarnation and planchette messages! But such spirituality, whose "it shall"--or "it shall not"--will become an ever larger part of all _it is_, depends upon the courage of recognising that much of what the past forces us to accept is not good enough for the future; recognising that, odious as this may seem to our self-conceit and sloth, many of the things we do and like and are, will not bear even our own uncritical scrutiny. Above all, that the lesser evil which we prefer to the greater is an evil for all that, and requires riddance. Much of the world's big mischief is due to the avoidance of a bigger one. For instance, all this naïvely insisted on masculine inability to obtain the poet's or naturalist's joys without shooting a bird or hooking a fish, this inability to love wild life, early hours and wholesome fatigue unless accompanied by a waste of life and of money; in short, all this incapacity _for being manly without being destructive_, is largely due among us Anglo-Saxons to the bringing up of boys as mere playground dunces, for fear (as we are told by parents and schoolmasters) that the future citizens of England should take to evil communications and worse manners if they did not play and talk cricket and football at every available moment. For what can you expect but that manly innocence which has been preserved at the expense of every higher taste should grow up into manly virtue unable to maintain itself save by hunting and fishing, shooting and horse-racing; expensive amusements requiring, in their turn, a further sacrifice of all capacities for innocent, noble and inexpensive interests, in the absorbing, sometimes stultifying, often debasing processes of making money? The same complacency towards waste and mischief for the sake of moral advantages may be studied in the case also of our womankind. The absorption in their _toilettes_ guards them from many dangers to family sanctity. And from how much cruel gossip is not society saved by the prevalent passion for bridge! So at least moralists, who are usually the most complacently demoralised of elderly cynics, are ready to assure us. XV. "We should learn to have noble desires," wrote Schiller, "in order to have no need for sublime resolutions." And morality might almost take care of itself, if people knew the strong and exquisite pleasures to be found, like the aromatic ragwort growing on every wall and stone-heap in the south, everywhere in the course of everyday life. But alas! the openness to cheap and simple pleasures means the fine training of fine faculties; and mankind asks for the expensive and far-fetched and unwholesome pleasures, because it is itself of poor and cheap material and of wholesale scamped manufacture. XVI. Biological facts, as well as our observation of our own self (which is psychology), lead us to believe that, as I have mentioned before, Pleasure fulfils the function not merely of leading us along livable ways, but also of creating a surplus of vitality. Itself an almost unnecessary boon (since Pain is sufficient to regulate our choice), Pleasure would thus tend to ever fresh and, if I may use the word, gratuitous supplies of good. Does not this give to Pleasure a certain freedom, a humane character wholly different from the awful, unappeasable tyranny of Pain? For let us be sincere. Pain, and all the cruel alternatives bidding us obey or die, are scarcely things with which our poor ideals, our good feeling and good taste, have much chance of profitable discussion. There is in all human life a side akin to that of the beast; the beast hunted, tracked, starved, killing and killed for food; the side alluded to under decent formulæ like "pressure of population," "diminishing returns," "competition," and so forth. Not but this side of life also tends towards good, but the means by which it does so, nature's atrocious surgery, are evil, although one cannot deny that it is the very nature of Pain to diminish its own recurrence. This thought may bring some comfort in the awful earnestness of existence, this thought that in its cruel fashion, the universe is weeding out cruel facts. But to pretend that we can habitually exercise much moral good taste, be of delicate forethought, squeamish harmony when Pain has yoked and is driving us, is surely a bad bit of hypocrisy, of which those who are being starved or trampled or tortured into acquiescence may reasonably bid us be ashamed. Indeed, stoicism, particularly in its discourses to others, has not more sense of shame than sense of humour. But since our power of choosing is thus jeopardised by the presence of Pain, it would the more behove us to express our wish for goodness, our sense of close connection, wide and complex harmony with the happiness of others, in those moments of respite and liberty which we call happiness, and particularly in those freely chosen concerns which we call play. Alas, we cannot help ourselves from becoming unimaginative, unsympathising, destructive and brutish when we are hard pressed by agony or by fear. Therefore, let such of us as have stuff for finer things, seize some of our only opportunities, and seek to become harmless in our pleasures. Who knows but that the highest practical self-cultivation would not be compassed by a much humbler paraphrase of Schiller's advice: let us learn to like what does no harm to the present or the future, in order not to throw away heroic efforts or sentimental intentions, in doing what we don't like for someone else's supposed benefit. XVII. The various things I have been saying have been said, or, better still, taken for granted, by Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, Ruskin, Pater, Stevenson, by all our poets in verse and prose. What I wish to add is that, being a poet, seeing and feeling like a poet, means quite miraculously multiplying life's resources for oneself and others; in fact the highest practicality conceivable, the real transmutation of brass into gold. Now what we all waste, more even than money, land, time and labour, more than we waste the efforts and rewards of other folk, and the chances of enjoyment of unborn generations (and half of our so-called practicality is nothing but such waste), what we waste in short more than anything else, is our own and our children's inborn capacity to see and feel as poets do, and make much joy out of little material. XVIII. There is no machine refuse, cinder, husk, paring or rejected material of any kind which modern ingenuity cannot turn to profit, making useful and pleasant goods out of such rubbish as we would willingly, at first sight, shoot out of the universe into chaos. Every material thing can be turned, it would seem, into new textures, clean metal, manure, fuel or what not. But while we are thus economical with our dust-heaps, what horrid wastefulness goes on with our sensations, impressions, memories, emotions, with our souls and all the things that minister to their delight! XIX. An ignorant foreign body--and, after all, everyone is a foreigner somewhere and ignorant about something--once committed the enormity of asking his host, just back from cub-hunting, whether the hedgerows, when he went out of a morning, were not quite lovely with those dewy cobwebs which the French call Veils of the Virgin. It had to be explained that such a sight was the most unwelcome you could imagine, since it was a sure sign there would be no scent. The poor foreigner was duly crestfallen, as happens whenever one has nearly spoilt a friend's property through some piece of blundering. But the blunder struck me as oddly symbolical. Are we not most of us pursuing for our pleasure, though sometimes at risk of our necks, a fox of some kind: worth nothing as meat, little as fur, good only to gallop after, and whose unclean scent is incompatible with those sparkling gossamers flung, for everyone's delight, over gorse and hedgerow? * * * * * THE END. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: The edition from which this text was drawn is volume 4175 of the Tauchnitz Edition of British Authors, where it appeared together with _The Spirit of Rome_, also by Vernon Lee. The volume was published in 1910. The following changes were made to the text: solely for the purpose or solely for the purpose of coeteris paribus cæeteris paribus Mautineia (Higher Harmonies I) Mantineia The Gothic boldness of light and The Gothic boldness of light and shade of the Campanile make shade of the Campanile makes Tuskan Tuscan the workmen will be able (...) the workman will be able (...) learn their appearance and care learn their appearance and care for it for them The death, (...) the (...) The death, (...) the (...) flight of the fox, occupy no part flight of the fox, occupy no part (...) and forms no part (...) and form no part the Monnets the Monets 
28420	----	[Transcriber's note: Bold text is marked with =." Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained.] LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT PAINTERS SCULPTORS & ARCHITECTS BY GIORGIO VASARI: VOLUME IV. FILIPPINO LIPPI TO DOMENICO PULIGO 1913 NEWLY TRANSLATED BY GASTON Du C. DE VERE. WITH FIVE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS: IN TEN VOLUMES [Illustration: 1511-1574] PHILIP LEE WARNER, PUBLISHER TO THE MEDICI SOCIETY, LIMITED 7 GRAFTON ST. LONDON, W. 1912-14 CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV PAGE FILIPPO LIPPI, CALLED FILIPPINO 1 BERNARDINO PINTURICCHIO 11 FRANCESCO FRANCIA 21 PIETRO PERUGINO [PIETRO VANNUCCI, _OR_ PIETRO DA CASTEL DELLA PIEVE] 31 VITTORE SCARPACCIA [CARPACCIO], AND OTHER VENETIAN AND LOMBARD PAINTERS 49 JACOPO, CALLED L'INDACO 63 LUCA SIGNORELLI [LUCA DA CORTONA] 69 THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE THIRD PART 77 LEONARDO DA VINCI 87 GIORGIONE DA CASTELFRANCO 107 ANTONIO DA CORREGGIO 115 PIERO DI COSIMO 123 BRAMANTE DA URBINO 135 FRA BARTOLOMMEO DI SAN MARCO [BACCIO DELLA PORTA] 149 MARIOTTO ALBERTINELLI 163 RAFFAELLINO DEL GARBO 173 TORRIGIANO 181 GIULIANO AND ANTONIO DA SAN GALLO 189 RAFFAELLO DA URBINO [RAFFAELLO SANZIO] 207 GUGLIELMO DA MARCILLA [GUILLAUME DE MARCILLAC] 251 SIMONE, CALLED IL CRONACA [SIMONE DEL POLLAIUOLO] 263 DOMENICO PULIGO 277 INDEX OF NAMES 285 ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME IV PLATES IN COLOUR FACING PAGE FILIPPO LIPPI (FILIPPINO) The Vision of S. Bernard Florence: Church of the Badia 2 BERNARDINO PINTURICCHIO The Madonna in Glory San Gimignano: Palazzo Pubblico 14 BENEDETTO BUONFIGLIO Madonna, Child, and Three Angels Perugia: Pinacoteca 18 FRANCESCO FRANCIA Pietà London: N.G., 180 26 PIETRO PERUGINO Apollo and Marsyas Paris: Louvre, 1509 34 PIETRO PERUGINO Triptych: The Madonna adoring, with the Archangels Michael, Raphael, and Tobit London: N.G., 288 42 VITTORE SCARPACCIA (CARPACCIO) The Vision of S. Ursula Venice: Accademia, 578 56 VINCENZIO CATENA S. Jerome in his Study London: N.G., 694 58 GIOVAN BATTISTA DA CONIGLIANO (CIMA) Detail: Tobit and the Angel Venice: Accademia, 592 58 LUCA SIGNORELLI Pan Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 79A 72 ANDREA VERROCCHIO The Baptism in Jordan Florence: Accademia, 71 92 LEONARDO DA VINCI Monna Lisa (formerly) Paris: Louvre, 1601 102 GIORGIONE DA CASTELFRANCO Figures in a Landscape Venice: Prince Giovanelli's Collection 110 ANTONIO DA CORREGGIO Antiope Paris: Louvre, 1118 118 ANTONIO DA CORREGGIO The Adoration of the Magi Milan: Brera, 427 122 PIERO DI COSIMO The Death of Procris London: N.G., 698 126 FRA BARTOLOMMEO DI SAN MARCO The Deposition from the Cross Florence: Pitti, 64 152 MARIOTTO ALBERTINELLI The Salutation Florence: Uffizi, 1259 168 RAFFAELLO DA URBINO S. George and the Dragon S. Petersburg: Hermitage, 39 210 RAFFAELLO DA URBINO Angelo Doni Florence: Pitti, 61 214 RAFFAELLO DA URBINO The Three Graces Chantilly, 38 242 RAFFAELLO DA URBINO Baldassare Gastiglione Paris: Louvre, 1505 248 PLATES IN MONOCHROME FACING PAGE FILIPPO LIPPI (FILIPPINO) The Liberation of S. Peter Florence: S. Maria Del Carmine 6 FILIPPO LIPPI (FILIPPINO) S. John the Evangelist Raising Drusiana from the Dead Florence: S. Maria Novella, Strozzi Chapel 8 FILIPPO LIPPI (FILIPPINO) The Adoration of the Magi Florence: Uffizi, 1257 10 BERNARDINO PINTURICCHIO Frederick III Crowning the Poet Æneas Sylvius Siena: Sala Piccolominea 16 BERNARDINO PINTURICCHIO Pope Alexander VI Adoring the Risen Christ Rome: the Vatican, Borgia Apartments 16 FRANCESCO FRANCIA AND A PUPIL Medals London: British Museum 22 FRANCESCO FRANCIA Madonna and Child, with Saints Bologna: S. Giacomo Maggiore, Bentivoglio Chapel 24 PIETRO PERUGINO The Deposition Florence: Pitti, 164 38 PIETRO PERUGINO Christ Giving the Keys to S. Peter Rome: Sistine Chapel 40 PIETRO PERUGINO Fortitude and Temperance, with Warriors Perugia: Collegio Del Cambio 40 GIOVANNI (LO SPAGNA) Madonna and Child, with Saints Assisi: Lower Church 46 STEFANO DA VERONA (DA ZEVIO) The Madonna and Child with S. Catharine in a Rose Garden Verona: Gallery, 559 52 ALDIGIERI DA ZEVIO (ALTICHIERO) Presentation to the Madonna of Three Knights of the Cavalli Family Verona: S. Anastasia 54 VITTORE SCARPACCIA (CARPACCIO) S. George and the Dragon Venice: S. Giorgio Degli Schiavoni 56 MARCO BASSITI (BASAITI) Christ on the Mount of Olives Venice: Accademia, 69 60 GIOVANNI BUONCONSIGLI Pietà Vicenza: Pinacoteca, 22 60 LUCA SIGNORELLI Detail: The Last Judgment Orvieto: Duomo 74 LEONARDO DA VINCI The Adoration of the Magi Florence: Uffizi, 1252 94 LEONARDO DA VINCI The Last Supper Milan: S. Maria delle Grazie 96 LEONARDO DA VINCI Cartoon: The Madonna and Child with S. Anne London: Burlington House 98 LEONARDO DA VINCI (?) Fragment of Cartoon: The Battle of the Standard Oxford: Ashmolean Museum 104 GIOVAN ANTONIO BOLTRAFFIO Man and Woman Praying Milan: Brera, 281 104 GIORGIONE DA CASTELFRANCO Portrait of a Young Man Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 12A 112 GIORGIONE DA CASTELFRANCO Judith S. Petersburg: Hermitage, 112 112 GIORGIONE DA CASTELFRANCO (?) Caterina, Queen of Cyprus Milan: Crespi Collection 114 ANTONIO DA CORREGGIO Detail: S. Thomas and S. James the Less Parma: S. Giovanni Evangelista 120 ANTONIO DA CORREGGIO The Madonna and Child with S. Jerome Parma: Gallery, 351 120 PIERO DI COSIMO Perseus delivering Andromeda Florence: Uffizi, 1312 128 PIERO DI COSIMO Venus, Mars, and Cupid Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 107 130 PIERO DI COSIMO Francesco Giamberti Hague: Royal Museum, 255 134 BRAMANTE DA URBINO Interior of Sacristy Milan: S. Satiro 138 BRAMANTE DA URBINO Tempietto Rome: S. Pietro in Montorio 142 BRAMANTE DA URBINO Palazzo Giraud Rome 146 FRA BARTOLOMMEO DI SAN MARCO The Holy Family Rome: Corsini Gallery, 579 154 FRA BARTOLOMMEO DI SAN MARCO S. Mark Florence: Pitti, 125 158 FRA BARTOLOMMEO DI SAN MARCO God the Father, with SS. Mary Magdalen and Catharine Lucca: Gallery, 12 160 MARIOTTO ALBERTINELLI The Madonna enthroned, with Saints Florence: Accademia, 167 166 RAFFAELLINO DEL GARBO The Resurrection Florence: Accademia, 90 176 TORRIGIANO Tomb of Henry VII London: Westminster Abbey 186 GIULIANO DA SAN GALLO Façade of S. Maria delle Carceri Prato 194 RAFFAELLO DA URBINO Lo Sposalizio Milan: Brera, 472 212 RAFFAELLO DA URBINO Maddalena Doni Florence: Pitti, 59 212 RAFFAELLO DA URBINO "The School of Athens" Rome: The Vatican 216 RAFFAELLO DA URBINO The "Disputa del Sacramento" Rome: The Vatican 222 RAFFAELLO DA URBINO The Mass of Bolsena Rome: The Vatican 224 RAFFAELLO DA URBINO Pope Leo X with Two Cardinals Florence: Pitti, 40 230 RAFFAELLO DA URBINO The Transfiguration Rome: The Vatican 240 SIMONE (IL CRONACA) Detail of Cornice Florence: Palazzo Strozzi 266 NICCOLÒ GROSSO Iron Link-holder Florence: Palazzo Strozzi 268 NICCOLÒ GROSSO Iron Lantern Florence: Palazzo Strozzi 268 SIMONE (IL CRONACA) Interior of Sacristy Florence: S. Spirito 270 DOMENICO PULIGO (?) Madonna and Child, with Saints Florence: S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi 280 FILIPPO LIPPI [Illustration: FILIPPO LIPPI (FILIPPINO): THE VISION OF S. BERNARD (_Florence: Church of the Badia. Panel_)] LIFE OF FILIPPO LIPPI, CALLED FILIPPINO PAINTER OF FLORENCE There was at this same time in Florence a painter of most beautiful intelligence and most lovely invention, namely, Filippo, son of Fra Filippo of the Carmine, who, following in the steps of his dead father in the art of painting, was brought up and instructed, being still very young, by Sandro Botticelli, notwithstanding that his father had commended him on his death-bed to Fra Diamante, who was much his friend--nay, almost his brother. Such was the intelligence of Filippo, and so abundant his invention in painting, and so bizarre and new were his ornaments, that he was the first who showed to the moderns the new method of giving variety to vestments, and embellished and adorned his figures with the girt-up garments of antiquity. He was also the first to bring to light grotesques, in imitation of the antique, and he executed them on friezes in terretta or in colours, with more design and grace than the men before him had shown; wherefore it was a marvellous thing to see the strange fancies that he expressed in painting. What is more, he never executed a single work in which he did not avail himself with great diligence of Roman antiquities, such as vases, buskins, trophies, banners, helmet-crests, adornments of temples, ornamental head-dresses, strange kinds of draperies, armour, scimitars, swords, togas, mantles, and such a variety of other beautiful things, that we owe him a very great and perpetual obligation, seeing that he added beauty and adornment to art in this respect. In his earliest youth he completed the Chapel of the Brancacci in the Carmine at Florence, begun by Masolino, and left not wholly finished by Masaccio on account of his death. Filippo, therefore, gave it its final perfection with his own hand, and executed what was lacking in one scene, wherein S. Peter and S. Paul are restoring to life the nephew of the Emperor. In the nude figure of this boy he portrayed the painter Francesco Granacci, then a youth; and he also made portraits of the Chevalier, Messer Tommaso Soderini, Piero Guicciardini, father of Messer Francesco the historian, Piero del Pugliese, and the poet Luigi Pulci; likewise Antonio Pollaiuolo, and himself as a youth, as he then was, which he never did again throughout the whole of his life, so that it has not been possible to find a portrait of him at a more mature age. In the scene following this he portrayed Sandro Botticelli, his master, and many other friends and people of importance; among others, the broker Raggio, a man of great intelligence and wit, who executed in relief on a conch the whole Inferno of Dante, with all the circles and divisions of the pits and the nethermost well in their exact proportions, and all the figures and details that were most ingeniously imagined and described by that great poet; which conch was held in those times to be a marvellous thing. Next, in the Chapel of Francesco del Pugliese at Campora, a seat of the Monks of the Badia, without Florence, he painted a panel in distemper of S. Bernard, to whom Our Lady is appearing with certain angels, while he is writing in a wood; which picture is held to be admirable in certain respects, such as rocks, books, herbage, and similar things, that he painted therein, besides the portrait from life of Francesco himself, so excellent that he seems to lack nothing save speech. This panel was removed from that place on account of the siege, and placed for safety in the Sacristy of the Badia of Florence. In S. Spirito in the same city, for Tanai de' Nerli, he painted a panel with Our Lady, S. Martin, S. Nicholas, and S. Catherine; with a panel in the Chapel of the Rucellai in S. Pancrazio, and a Crucifix and two figures on a ground of gold in S. Raffaello. In front of the Sacristy of S. Francesco, without the Porta a S. Miniato, he made a God the Father, with a number of children. At Palco, a seat of the Frati del Zoccolo, without Prato, he painted a panel; and in the Audience Chamber of the Priori in that territory he executed a little panel containing the Madonna, S. Stephen, and S. John the Baptist, which has been much extolled. On the Canto al Mercatale, also in Prato, in a shrine opposite to the Nuns of S. Margherita, and near some houses belonging to them, he painted in fresco a very beautiful Madonna, with a choir of seraphim, on a ground of dazzling light. In this work, among other things, he showed art and beautiful judgment in a dragon that is at the feet of S. Margaret, which is so strange and horrible, that it is revealed to us as a true fount of venom, fire, and death; and the whole of the rest of the work is so fresh and vivacious in colouring, that it deserves infinite praise. He also wrought certain things in Lucca, particularly a panel in a chapel of the Church of S. Ponziano, which belongs to the Monks of Monte Oliveto; in the centre of which chapel there is a niche containing a very beautiful S. Anthony in relief by the hand of Andrea Sansovino, a most excellent sculptor. Being invited to go to Hungary by King Matthias, Filippo refused, but made up for this by painting two very beautiful panels for that King in Florence, and sending them to him; and in one of these he made a portrait of the King, taken from his likeness on medals. He also sent certain works to Genoa; and beside the Chapel of the High-Altar in S. Domenico at Bologna, on the left hand, he painted a S. Sebastian on a panel, which was a thing worthy of much praise. For Tanai de' Nerli he executed another panel in S. Salvadore, without Florence; and for his friend Piero del Pugliese he painted a scene with little figures, executed with so much art and diligence that when another citizen besought him to make a second like it, he refused, saying that it was not possible to do it. After these things he executed a very great work in Rome for the Neapolitan Cardinal, Olivieri Caraffa, at the request of the elder Lorenzo de' Medici, who was a friend of that Cardinal. While going thither for that purpose, he passed through Spoleto at the wish of Lorenzo, in order to give directions for the making of a marble tomb for his father Fra Filippo at the expense of Lorenzo, who had not been able to obtain his body from the people of Spoleto for removal to Florence. Filippo, therefore, made a beautiful design for the said tomb, and Lorenzo had it erected after that design (as has been told in another place), sumptuous and beautiful. Afterwards, having arrived in Rome, Filippo painted a chapel in the Church of the Minerva for the said Cardinal Caraffa, depicting therein scenes from the life of S. Thomas Aquinas, and certain most beautiful poetical compositions ingeniously imagined by himself, for he had a nature ever inclined to this. In the scene, then, wherein Faith has taken Infidelity captive, there are all the heretics and infidels. Hope has likewise overcome Despair, and so, too, there are many other Virtues that have subjugated the Vice that is their opposite. In a disputation is S. Thomas defending the Church "ex cathedra" against a school of heretics, and holding vanquished beneath him Sabellius, Arius, Averroes, and others, all clothed in graceful garments; of which scene we have in our book of drawings the original design by Filippo's own hand, with certain others by the same man, wrought with such mastery that they could not be bettered. There, too, is the scene when, as S. Thomas is praying, the Crucifix says to him, "Bene scripsisti de me, Thoma"; while a companion of the Saint, hearing that Crucifix thus speaking, is standing amazed and almost beside himself. In the panel is the Virgin receiving the Annunciation from Gabriel; and on the main wall there is her Assumption into Heaven, with the twelve Apostles round the sepulchre. The whole of this work was held, as it still is, to be very excellent and wrought perfectly for a work in fresco. It contains a portrait from life of the said Cardinal Olivieri Caraffa, Bishop of Ostia, who was buried in this chapel in the year 1511, and afterwards removed to the Piscopio in Naples. [Illustration: THE LIBERATION OF S. PETER (_After the fresco by =Filippo Lippi (Filippino)=. Florence: S. Maria del Carmine_) _Anderson_] Having returned to Florence, Filippo undertook to paint at his leisure the Chapel of the elder Filippo Strozzi in S. Maria Novella, and he actually began it; but, having finished the ceiling, he was compelled to return to Rome, where he wrought a tomb with stucco-work for the said Cardinal, and decorated with gesso a little chapel beside that tomb in a part of the same Church of the Minerva, together with certain figures, some of which were executed by his disciple, Raffaellino del Garbo. The chapel described above was valued by Maestro Lanzilago of Padua and by the Roman Antonio, known as Antoniasso, two of the best painters that were then in Rome, at 2,000 ducats of gold, without the cost of the blues and of the assistants. Having received this sum, Filippo returned to Florence, where he finished the aforesaid Chapel of the Strozzi, which was executed so well, and with so much art and design, that it causes all who see it to marvel, by reason of the novelty and variety of the bizarre things that are seen therein--armed men, temples, vases, helmet-crests, armour, trophies, spears, banners, garments, buskins, head-dresses, sacerdotal vestments, and other things--all executed in so beautiful a manner that they deserve the highest commendation. In this work there is the scene of Drusiana being restored to life by S. John the Evangelist, wherein we see most admirably expressed the marvel of the bystanders at beholding a man restore life to a dead woman by a mere sign of the cross; and the greatest amazement of all is seen in a priest, or rather philosopher, whichever he may be, who is clothed in ancient fashion and has a vase in his hand. In the same scene, likewise, among a number of women draped in various manners, there is a little boy, who, terrified by a small spaniel spotted with red, which has seized him with its teeth by one of his swathing-bands, is running round his mother and hiding himself among her clothes, and appears to be as much afraid of being bitten by the dog as his mother is awestruck and filled with a certain horror at the resurrection of Drusiana. Next to this, in the scene where S. John himself is being boiled in oil, we see the wrath of the judge, who is giving orders for the fire to be increased, and the flames reflected on the face of the man who is blowing at them; and all the figures are painted in beautiful and varied attitudes. On the other side is S. Philip in the Temple of Mars, compelling the serpent, which has slain the son of the King with its stench, to come forth from below the altar. In certain steps the painter depicted the hole through which the serpent issued from beneath the altar, and so well did he paint the cleft in one of the steps, that one evening one of Filippo's lads, wishing to hide something, I know not what, from the sight of someone who was knocking for admittance, ran up in haste in order to conceal it in the hole, being wholly deceived by it. Filippo also showed so much art in the serpent, that its venom, fetid breath, and fire, appear rather real than painted. Greatly extolled, too, is his invention in the scene of the Crucifixion of that Saint, for he imagined to himself, so it appears, that the Saint was stretched on the cross while it lay on the ground, and that afterwards the whole was drawn up and raised on high by means of ropes, cords, and poles; which ropes and cords are wound round certain fragments of antiquities, pieces of pillars, and bases, and pulled by certain ministers. On the other side the weight of the said cross and of the Saint who is stretched nude thereon is supported by two men, on the one hand by a man with a ladder, with which he is propping it up, and on the other hand by another with a pole, upholding it, while two others, setting a lever against the base and stem of the cross, are balancing its weight and seeking to place it in the hole made in the ground, wherein it had to stand upright. But why say more? It would not be possible for the work to be better either in invention or in drawing, or in any other respect whatsoever of industry or art. Besides this, it contains many grotesques and other things wrought in chiaroscuro to resemble marble, executed in strange fashion with invention and most beautiful drawing. [Illustration: S. JOHN THE EVANGELIST RAISING DRUSIANA FROM THE DEAD (_After the fresco by =Filippo Lippi [Filippino]=. Florence: S. Maria Novella, Strozzi Chapel_) _Anderson_] For the Frati Scopetini, also, at S. Donato, without Florence, which is called Scopeto and is now in ruins, he painted a panel with the Magi presenting their offerings to Christ, finished with great diligence, wherein he portrayed the elder Pier Francesco de' Medici, son of Lorenzo di Bicci, in the figure of an astrologer who is holding a quadrant in his hand, and likewise Giovanni, father of Signor Giovanni de' Medici, and another Pier Francesco, brother of that Signor Giovanni, and other people of distinction. In this work are Moors, Indians, costumes of strange shapes, and a most bizarre hut. In a loggia at Poggio a Cajano he began a Sacrifice in fresco for Lorenzo de' Medici, but it remained unfinished. And for the Nunnery of S. Geronimo, above the Costa di S. Giorgio in Florence, he began the panel of the high-altar, which was brought nearly to completion after his death by the Spaniard Alonzo Berughetta, but afterwards wholly finished by other painters, Alonzo having gone to Spain. In the Palazzo della Signoria he painted the panel of the hall where the Council of Eight held their sittings, and he made the design for another large panel, with its ornament, for the Sala del Consiglio; which design his death prevented him from beginning to put into execution, although the ornament was carved; which ornament is now in the possession of Maestro Baccio Baldini, a most excellent physician of Florence, and a lover of every sort of talent. For the Church of the Badia of Florence he made a very beautiful S. Jerome; and he began a Deposition from the Cross for the high-altar of the Friars of the Nunziata, but only finished the figures in the upper half of the picture, for, being overcome by a most cruel fever and by that contraction of the throat that is commonly known as quinsy, he died in a few days at the age of forty-five. Thereupon, having ever been courteous, affable, and kindly, he was lamented by all those who had known him, and particularly by the youth of his noble native city, who, in their public festivals, masques, and other spectacles, ever availed themselves, to their great satisfaction, of the ingenuity and invention of Filippo, who has never had an equal in things of that kind. Nay, he was so excellent in all his actions, that he blotted out the stain (if stain it was) left to him by his father--blotted it out, I say, not only by the excellence of his art, wherein he was inferior to no man of his time, but also by the modesty and regularity of his life, and, above all, by his courtesy and amiability; and how great are the force and power of such qualities to conciliate the minds of all men without exception, is only known to those who either have experienced or are experiencing it. Filippo was buried by his sons in S. Michele Bisdomini, on April 13, 1505; and while he was being borne to his tomb all the shops in the Via de' Servi were closed, as is done sometimes for the obsequies of great men. Among the disciples of Filippo, who all failed by a great measure to equal him, was Raffaellino del Garbo, who made many works, as will be told in the proper place, although he did not justify the opinions and hopes that were conceived of him while Filippo was alive and Raffaellino himself still a young man. The fruits, indeed, are not always equal to the blossoms that are seen in the spring. Nor did any great success come to Niccolò Zoccolo, otherwise known as Niccolò Cartoni, who was likewise a disciple of Filippo, and painted at Arezzo the wall that is over the altar of S. Giovanni Decollato; a little panel, passing well done, in S. Agnesa; a panel over a lavatory in the Abbey of S. Fiora, containing a Christ who is asking for water from the woman of Samaria; and many other works, which, since they were commonplace, are not mentioned. [Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI (_After the panel by =Filippo Lippi (Filippino)=. Florence: Uffizi, 1257_) _Alinari_] BERNARDINO PINTURICCHIO LIFE OF BERNARDINO PINTURICCHIO PAINTER OF PERUGIA Even as many are assisted by fortune without being endowed with much talent, so, on the contrary, there is an infinite number of able men who are persecuted by an adverse and hostile fortune; whence it is clearly manifest that she acknowledges as her children those who depend upon her without the aid of any talent, since it pleases her to exalt by her favour certain men who would never be known through their own merit; which is seen in Pinturicchio of Perugia, who, although he made many works and was assisted by various helpers, nevertheless had a much greater name than his works deserved. However, he was a man who had much practice in large works, and ever kept many assistants to aid him in his labours. Now, having worked at many things in his early youth under his master Pietro da Perugia,[1] receiving a third of all that was earned, he was summoned to Siena by Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini to paint the library made by Pope Pius II in the Duomo of that city. It is true, indeed, that the sketches and cartoons for all the scenes that he painted there were by the hand of Raffaello da Urbino, then a youth, who had been his companion and fellow-disciple under the same Pietro, whose manner the said Raffaello had mastered very well. One of these cartoons is still to be seen at the present day in Siena, and some of the sketches, by the hand of Raffaello, are in our book. [Illustration: BERNARDINO PINTURICCHIO: THE MADONNA IN GLORY (_San Gimignano. Panel_)] Now the stories in this work, wherein Pinturicchio was aided by many pupils and assistants, all of the school of Pietro, were divided into ten pictures. In the first is painted the scene when the said Pope Pius II was born to Silvio Piccolomini and Vittoria, and was called Æneas, in the year 1405, in Valdorcia, at the township of Corsignano, which is now called Pienza after the name of that Pope, who afterwards enriched it with buildings and made it a city; and in this picture are portraits from nature of the said Silvio and Vittoria. In the same is the scene when, in company with Cardinal Domenico of Capranica, he is crossing the Alps, which are covered with ice and snow, on his way to the Council of Bâle. In the second the Council is sending Æneas on many embassies--namely, to Argentina (three times), to Trent, to Constance, to Frankfurt, and to Savoy. In the third is the sending of the same Æneas by the Antipope Felix as ambassador to the Emperor Frederick III, with whom the ready intelligence, the eloquence, and the grace of Æneas found so much favour that he was given the poet's crown of laurel by Frederick himself, who made him his Protonotary, received him into the number of his friends, and appointed him his First Secretary. In the fourth he is sent by Frederick to Eugenius IV, by whom he was made Bishop of Trieste, and then Archbishop of Siena, his native city. In the fifth scene the same Emperor, who is about to come to Italy to receive the crown of Empire, is sending Æneas to Telamone, a port of the people of Siena, to meet his wife, Leonora, who was coming from Portugal. In the sixth Æneas is going to Calistus IV,[2] at the bidding of the said Emperor, to induce him to make war against the Turks; and in this part, Siena being harassed by the Count of Pittigliano and by others at the instigation of King Alfonso of Naples, that Pontiff is sending him to treat for peace. This effected, war is planned against the Orientals; and he, having returned to Rome, is made a Cardinal by the said Pontiff. In the seventh, Calistus being dead, Æneas is seen being created Supreme Pontiff, and called Pius II. In the eighth the Pope goes to Mantua for the Council about the expedition against the Turks, where the Marquis Lodovico receives him with most splendid pomp and incredible magnificence. In the ninth the same Pope is placing in the catalogue of saints--or, as the saying is, canonizing--Catherine of Siena, a holy woman and nun of the Preaching Order. In the tenth and last, while preparing a vast expedition against the Turks with the help and favour of all the Christian Princes, Pope Pius dies at Ancona; and a hermit of the Hermitage of Camaldoli, a holy man, sees the soul of the said Pontiff being borne by Angels into Heaven at the very moment of his death, as may also be read. Afterwards, in the same picture, the body of the same Pope is seen being borne from Ancona to Rome by a vast and honourable company of lords and prelates, who are lamenting the death of so great a man and so rare and holy a Pontiff. The whole of this work is full of portraits from the life, so numerous that it would be a long story to recount their names; and it is all painted with the finest and most lively colours, and wrought with various ornaments of gold, and with very well designed partitions in the ceiling. Below each scene is a Latin inscription, which describes what is contained therein. In the centre of this library the said Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, nephew of the Pope, placed the three Graces of marble, ancient and most beautiful, which are still there, and which were the first antiquities to be held in price in those times. This library, wherein are all the books left by the said Pius II, was scarcely finished, when the same Cardinal Francesco, nephew of the aforesaid Pontiff, Pius II, was created Pope, choosing the name of Pius III in memory of his uncle. Over the door of that library, which opens into the Duomo, the same Pinturicchio painted in a very large scene, occupying the whole extent of the wall, the Coronation of the said Pope Pius III, with many portraits from life; and beneath it may be read these words: PIUS III SENENSIS, PII SECUNDI NEPOS, MDIII, SEPTEMBRIS XXI, APERTIS ELECTUS SUFFRAGIIS, OCTAVO OCTOBRIS CORONATUS EST. When Pinturicchio was working with Pietro Perugino and painting at Rome in the time of Pope Sixtus, he had also been in the service of Domenico della Rovere, Cardinal of San Clemente; wherefore the said Cardinal, having built a very beautiful palace in the Borgo Vecchio, charged Pinturicchio to paint the whole of it, and to make on the façade the coat of arms of Pope Sixtus, with two little boys as supporters. The same master executed certain works for Sciarra Colonna in the Palace of S. Apostolo; and no long time after--namely, in the year 1484--Innocent VIII, the Genoese, caused him to paint certain halls and loggie in the Palace of the Belvedere, where, among other things, by order of that Pope, he painted a loggia full of landscapes, depicting therein Rome, Milan, Genoa, Florence, Venice, and Naples, after the manner of the Flemings; and this, being a thing not customary at that time, gave no little satisfaction. In the same place, over the principal door of entrance, he painted a Madonna in fresco. In S. Pietro, in the chapel that contains the Lance which pierced the side of Christ, he painted a panel in distemper, with the Madonna larger than life, for the said Innocent VIII; and he painted two chapels in the Church of S. Maria del Popolo, one for the aforesaid Domenico della Rovere, Cardinal of San Clemente, who was afterwards buried therein, and the other for Cardinal Innocenzio Cibo, wherein he also was afterwards buried; and in each of these chapels he portrayed the Cardinal who had caused him to paint it. In the Palace of the Pope he painted certain rooms that look out upon the courtyard of S. Pietro, the ceilings and paintings of which were renovated a few years ago by Pope Pius IV. In the same palace Alexander VI caused Pinturicchio to paint all the rooms that he occupied, together with the whole of the Borgia Tower, wherein he wrought stories of the liberal arts in one room, besides decorating all the ceilings with stucco and gold; but, since they did not then know the method of stucco-work that is now in use, the aforesaid ornaments are for the most part ruined. Over the door of an apartment in the said palace he portrayed the Signora Giulia Farnese in the countenance of a Madonna, and, in the same picture, the head of Pope Alexander in a figure that is adoring her. Bernardino was much given to making gilt ornaments in relief for his pictures, to satisfy people who had little understanding of his art with the more showy lustre that this gave them, which is a most barbarous thing in painting. Having then executed a story of S. Catherine in the said apartments, he depicted the arches of Rome in relief and the figures in painting, insomuch that, the figures being in the foreground and the buildings in the background, the things that should recede stand out more prominently than those that should strike the eye as the larger--a very grave heresy in our art. [Illustration: FREDERICK III CROWNING THE POET ÆNEAS SYLVIUS (_After the fresco by =Bernardino Pinturicchio=. Siena: Sala Piccolominea_) _Brogi_] In the Castello di S. Angelo he painted a vast number of rooms with grotesques; and in the Great Tower, in the garden below, he painted stories of Pope Alexander, with portraits of the Catholic Queen, Isabella; Niccolò Orsino, Count of Pittigliano; Gianjacomo Trivulzi, and many other relatives and friends of the said Pope, in particular Cæsar Borgia and his brother and sisters, with many talented men of those times. At Monte Oliveto in Naples, in the Chapel of Paolo Tolosa, there is a panel with an Assumption by the hand of Pinturicchio. This master made an infinite number of other works throughout all Italy, which, since they are of no great excellence, and wrought in a superficial manner, I will pass over in silence. Pinturicchio used to say that a painter could only give the greatest relief to his figures when he had it in himself, without owing anything to principles or to others. He also made works in Perugia, but these were few. In the Araceli he painted the Chapel of S. Bernardino; and in S. Maria del Popolo, where, as we have said, he painted the two chapels, he made the four Doctors of the Church on the vaulting of the principal chapel. [Illustration: POPE ALEXANDER VI ADORING THE RISEN CHRIST (_After the fresco by =Bernardino Pinturicchio=. Rome: The Vatican, Borgia Apartments_) _Anderson_] Afterwards, having reached the age of fifty-nine, he was commissioned to paint the Nativity of Our Lady on a panel in S. Francesco at Siena. To this he set his hand, and the friars assigned to him a room to live in, which they gave to him, as he wished, empty and stripped of everything, save only a huge old chest, which appeared to them too awkward to remove. But Pinturicchio, like the strange and whimsical man that he was, made such an outcry at this, and repeated it so often, that finally in despair the friars set themselves to carry it away. Now their good fortune was such, that in removing it there was broken a plank which contained 500 Roman ducats of gold; at which Pinturicchio was so displeased, and felt so aggrieved at the good luck of those poor friars, that it can hardly be imagined--nay, he took it so much to heart, being unable to get it out of his thoughts, that it was the death of him. His pictures date about the year 1513. A companion and friend of Pinturicchio, although he was a much older man, was Benedetto Buonfiglio, a painter of Perugia, who executed many works in company with other masters in the Papal Palace at Rome. In the Chapel of the Signoria in Perugia, his native city, he painted scenes from the life of S. Ercolano, Bishop and Protector of that city, and in the same place certain miracles wrought by S. Louis. In S. Domenico he painted the story of the Magi on a panel in distemper, and many saints on another. In the Church of S. Bernardino he painted a Christ in the sky, with S. Bernardino himself, and a multitude below. In short, this master was in no little repute in his native city before Pietro Perugino had come to be known. Another friend of Pinturicchio, associated with him in not a few of his works, was Gerino Pistoiese, who was held to be a diligent colourist and a faithful imitator of the manner of Pietro Perugino, with whom he worked nearly up to his death. He did little work in his native city of Pistoia; but for the Company of the Buon Gesù in Borgo San Sepolcro he painted a Circumcision in oil on a panel, which is passing good. In the Pieve of the same place he painted a chapel in fresco; and on the bank of the Tiber, on the road that leads to Anghiari, he painted another chapel, also in fresco, for the Commune. And he painted still another chapel in the same place, in S. Lorenzo, an abbey of the Monks of Camaldoli. By reason of all these works he made so long a stay in the Borgo that he almost adopted it as his home. He was a sorry fellow in matters of art, labouring with the greatest difficulty, and toiling with such pains at the execution of a work, that it was a torture to him. [Illustration: BENEDETTO BUONFIGLIO: MADONNA, CHILD AND THREE ANGELS (_Perugia: Pinacoteca. Panel_)] At this same time there was a painter in the city of Foligno, Niccolò Alunno, who was held to be excellent, for it was little the custom before Pietro Perugino's day to paint in oil, and many were held to be able men who did not afterwards justify this opinion. Niccolò therefore gave no little satisfaction with his works, since, although he only painted in distemper, he portrayed the heads of his figures from life, so that they appeared alive, and his manner won considerable praise. In S. Agostino at Foligno there is a panel by his hand with a Nativity of Christ, and a predella with little figures. At Assisi he painted a banner that is borne in processions, besides the panel of the high-altar in the Duomo, and another panel in S. Francesco. But the best painting that Niccolò ever did was in a chapel in the Duomo, where, among other things, there is a Pietà, with two angels who are holding two torches and weeping so naturally, that I do not believe that any other painter, however excellent, would have been able to do much better. In the same place he also painted the façade of S. Maria degli Angeli, besides many other works of which there is no need to make mention, it being enough to have touched on the best. And let this be the end of the Life of Pinturicchio, who, besides his other qualities, gave no little satisfaction to many princes and lords because he finished and delivered his works quickly, which is their pleasure, although such works are perchance less excellent than those that are made slowly and deliberately. FOOTNOTE: [1] Pietro Perugino. [2] This seems to be an error for Calistus III. FRANCESCO FRANCIA [Illustration: MEDALS (_London: British Museum_) 1. ULISSE MUSOTTI 3. FRANCESCO ALIDOSI 2. GIOVANNI II BENTIVOGLIO 4. BERNARDO ROSSI (_After_ Francesco Francia) (_After_ a pupil of Francesco Francia)] LIFE OF FRANCESCO FRANCIA GOLDSMITH AND PAINTER OF BOLOGNA Francesco Francia, who was born in Bologna in the year 1450, of parents who were artisans, but honest and worthy enough, was apprenticed in his earliest boyhood to the goldsmith's art, in which calling he worked with intelligence and spirit; and as he grew up he became so well proportioned in person and appearance, and so sweet and pleasant in manner and speech, that he was able to keep the most melancholy of men cheerful and free from care with his talk; for which reason he was beloved not only by all those who knew him, but also by many Italian princes and other lords. While working as a goldsmith, then, he gave attention to design, in which he took so much pleasure, that his mind began to aspire to higher things, and he made very great progress therein, as may be seen from many works in silver that he executed in his native city of Bologna, and particularly from certain most excellent works in niello. In this manner of work he often put twenty most beautiful and well-proportioned little figures within a space no higher than the breadth of two fingers and not much more in length. He also enamelled many works in silver, which were destroyed at the time of the ruin and exile of the Bentivogli. In a word, he did everything that can be done in that art better than any other man. But that in which he delighted above all, and in which he was truly excellent, was the making of dies for medals, wherein he was the rarest master of his day, as may be seen in some that he made with a most lifelike head of Pope Julius II, which bear comparison with those of Caradosso; not to mention that he made medals of Signor Giovanni Bentivogli, in which he appears alive, and of an infinite number of princes, who would stop in Bologna on their way through the city, whereupon he would make their portraits in wax for medals, and afterwards, having finished the matrices of the dies, he would send them; for which, besides immortal fame, he also received very rich presents. As long as he lived he was ever Master of the Mint in Bologna, for which he made the stamps of all the dies, both under the rule of the Bentivogli and also during the lifetime of Pope Julius, after their departure, as is proved by the coins struck by that Pope on his entrance into the city, which had on one side his head portrayed from life, and on the other these words: BONONIA PER JULIUM A TYRANNO LIBERATA. So excellent was he held in this profession, that he continued to make the dies for the coinage down to the time of Pope Leo; and the impressions of his dies are so greatly prized, and those who have some hold them in such esteem, that money cannot buy them. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS (_After the panel by =Francesco Francia=. Bologna: S. Giacomo Maggiore, Bentivoglio Chapel_) _Anderson_] Now it came to pass that Francia, being desirous of greater glory, and having known Andrea Mantegna and many other painters who had gained wealth and honours by their art, determined to try whether he could succeed in that part of painting which had to do with colour; his drawing was already such that it could well bear comparison with theirs. Thereupon, having made arrangements to try his hand, he painted certain portraits and some little things, keeping in his house for many months men of that profession to teach him the means and methods of colouring, insomuch that, having very good judgment, he soon acquired the needful practice. The first work that he made was a panel of no great size for Messer Bartolommeo[3] Felicini, who placed it in the Misericordia, a church without Bologna; in which panel there is a Madonna seated on a throne, with many other figures, and the said Messer Bartolommeo portrayed from life. This work, which was wrought in oil with the greatest diligence, was painted by him in the year 1490; and it gave such satisfaction in Bologna, that Messer Giovanni Bentivogli, desiring to honour his own chapel, which was in S. Jacopo in that city, with works by this new painter, commissioned him to paint a panel with the Madonna in the sky, two figures on either side of her, and two angels below sounding instruments; which work was so well executed by Francia, that he won from Messer Giovanni, besides praise, a most honourable present. Wherefore Monsignore de' Bentivogli, impressed by this work, caused him to paint a panel containing the Nativity of Christ, which was much extolled, for the high-altar of the Misericordia; wherein, besides the design, which is not otherwise than beautiful, the invention and the colouring are worthy of nothing but praise. In this work he made a portrait of Monsignore de' Bentivogli from the life (a very good likeness, so it is said by those who knew him), clothed in that very pilgrim's dress in which he returned from Jerusalem. He also painted a panel in the Church of the Nunziata, without the Porta di S. Mammolo, representing the Madonna receiving the Annunciation from the Angel, with two figures on either side, which is held to be a very well executed work. Now that Francia's works had spread his fame abroad, even as his painting in oil had brought him both profit and repute, so he determined to try whether he would succeed as well at working in fresco. Messer Giovanni Bentivogli had caused his palace to be painted by diverse masters of Ferrara and Bologna, and by certain others from Modena; but, having seen Francia's experiments in fresco, he determined that this master should paint a scene on one wall of an apartment that he occupied for his own use. There Francia painted the camp of Holofernes, guarded by various sentinels both on foot and on horseback, who were keeping watch over the pavilions; and the while that they were intent on something else, the sleeping Holofernes was seen surprised by a woman clothed in widow's garments, who, with her left hand, was holding his hair, which was wet with the heat of wine and sleep, and with her right hand she was striking the blow to slay her enemy, the while that an old wrinkled handmaid, with the true air of a most faithful slave, and with her eyes fixed on those of her Judith in order to encourage her, was bending down and holding a basket near the ground, to receive therein the head of the slumbering lover. This scene was one of the most beautiful and most masterly that Francia ever painted, but it was thrown to the ground in the destruction of that edifice at the time of the expulsion of the Bentivogli, together with another scene over that same apartment, coloured to look like bronze, and representing a disputation of philosophers, which was excellently wrought, with his conception very well expressed. These works brought it about that he was loved and honoured by Messer Giovanni and all the members of his house, and, after them, by all the city. In the Chapel of S. Cecilia, which is attached to the Church of S. Jacopo, he painted two scenes wrought in fresco, in one of which he made the Marriage of Our Lady with Joseph, and in the other the Death of S. Cecilia--a work held in great esteem by the people of Bologna. And, indeed, Francia gained such mastery and such confidence from seeing his works advancing towards the perfection that he desired, that he executed many pictures, of which I will make no mention, it being enough for me to point out, to all who may wish to see his works, only the best and most notable. Nor did his painting hinder him from carrying on both the Mint and his other work of making medals, as he had done from the beginning. Francia, so it is said, felt the greatest sorrow at the departure of Messer Giovanni Bentivogli, for he had received such great benefits from Messer Giovanni, that it caused him infinite grief; however, like the prudent and orderly man that he was, he kept at his work. After his parting from his patron, he painted three panels that went to Modena, in one of which there was the Baptism of Christ by S. John; in the second, a very beautiful Annunciation; and in the last, which was placed in the Church of the Frati dell' Osservanza, a Madonna in the sky with many figures. [Illustration: FRANCESCO FRANCIA: PIETÀ (_London: National Gallery, 180. Panel_)] The fame of so excellent a master being spread abroad by means of so many works, the cities contended with one another to obtain his pictures. Whereupon he painted a panel for the Black Friars of S. Giovanni in Parma, containing a Dead Christ in the lap of Our Lady, surrounded by many figures; which panel was universally held to be a most beautiful work; and the same friars, therefore, thinking that they had been well served, induced him to make another for a house of theirs at Reggio in Lombardy, wherein he painted a Madonna with many figures. At Cesena, likewise for the church of these friars, he executed another panel, painting therein the Circumcision of Christ, with lovely colouring. Nor would the people of Ferrara consent to be left behind by their neighbours; nay, having determined to adorn their Duomo with works by Francia, they commissioned him to paint a panel, on which he made a great number of figures; and they named it the panel of Ognissanti. He painted one in S. Lorenzo at Bologna, with a Madonna, a figure on either side, and two children below, which was much extolled; and scarcely had he finished this when he had to make another in S. Giobbe, representing a Crucifixion, with that Saint kneeling at the foot of the Cross, and two figures at the sides. So widely had the fame and the works of this craftsman spread throughout Lombardy, that even from Tuscany men sent for something by his hand, as they did from Lucca, whither there went a panel containing a S. Anne and a Madonna, with many other figures, and a Dead Christ above in the lap of His Mother; which work is set up in the Church of S. Fridiano, and is held in great price by the people of Lucca. For the Church of the Nunziata in Bologna he painted two other panels, which were wrought with much diligence; and in the Misericordia, likewise, without the Porta a Strà Castione, at the request of a lady of the Manzuoli family, he painted another, wherein he depicted the Madonna with the Child in her arms, S. George, S. John the Baptist, S. Stephen, and S. Augustine, with an angel below, who has his hands clasped with such grace, that he appears truly to belong to Paradise. He executed another for the Company of S. Francesco in the same city, and likewise one for the Company of S. Gieronimo. He lived in close intimacy with Messer Polo Zambeccaro, who, being much his friend, and wishing to have some memorial of him, caused him to paint a rather large picture of the Nativity of Christ, which is one of the most celebrated works that he ever made; and for this reason Messer Polo commissioned him to paint at his villa two figures in fresco, which are very beautiful. He also executed a most charming scene in fresco in the house of Messer Gieronimo Bolognino, with many varied and very beautiful figures. All these works together had won him such veneration in that city, that he was held in the light of a god; and what made this infinitely greater was that the Duke of Urbino caused him to paint a set of horse's caparisons, in which he made a vast forest of trees that had caught fire, from which there were issuing great numbers of all sorts of animals, both of the air and of the earth, and certain figures--a terrible, awful, and truly beautiful thing, which was held in no little esteem by reason of the time spent in painting the plumage of the birds, and the various sorts of terrestrial animals, to say nothing of the diversity of foliage and the variety of branches that were seen in the different trees. For this work Francia was rewarded with gifts of great value as a recompense for his labours, not to mention that the Duke ever held himself indebted to him for the praises that he received for it. Duke Guido Baldo, also, has in his guardaroba a picture of the Roman Lucretia, which he esteems very highly, by the same man's hand, together with many other pictures, of which mention will be made when the time comes. After these things he painted a panel for the altar of the Madonna in SS. Vitale e Agricola; in which panel are two very beautiful angels, who are playing on the lute. I will not enumerate the pictures that are scattered throughout Bologna in the houses of gentlemen of that city, and still less the infinite number of portraits that he made from life, for it would be too wearisome. Let it be enough to say that while he was living in such glory and enjoying the fruits of his labours in peace, Raffaello da Urbino was in Rome, and all day long there flocked round him many strangers, among them many gentlemen of Bologna, eager to see his works. And since it generally comes to pass that every man extols most willingly the intellects of his native place, these Bolognese began to praise the works, the life, and the talents of Francia in the presence of Raffaello, and they established such a friendship between them with these words, that Francia and Raffaello sent letters of greeting to each other. And Francia, hearing such great praise spoken of the divine pictures of Raffaello, desired to see his works; but he was now old, and too fond of his comfortable life in Bologna. Now after this it came about that Raffaello painted in Rome for Cardinal Santi Quattro, of the Pucci family, a panel-picture of S. Cecilia, which had to be sent to Bologna to be placed in a chapel of S. Giovanni in Monte, where there is the tomb of the Blessed Elena dall' Olio. This he packed up and addressed to Francia, who, as his friend, was to have it placed on the altar of that chapel, with the ornament, just as he had prepared it himself. Right readily did Francia accept this charge, which gave him a chance of seeing a work by Raffaello, as he had so much desired. And having opened the letter that Raffaello had written to him, in which he besought Francia, if there were any scratch in the work, to put it right, and likewise, as a friend, to correct any error that he might notice, with the greatest joy he had the said panel taken from its case into a good light. But such was the amazement that it caused him, and so great his marvel, that, recognizing his own error and the foolish presumption of his own rash confidence, he took it greatly to heart, and in a very short time died of grief. Raffaello's panel was divine, not so much painted as alive, and so well wrought and coloured by him, that among all the beautiful pictures that he painted while he lived, although they are all miraculous, it could well be called most rare. Wherefore Francia, half dead with terror at the beauty of the picture, which lay before his eyes challenging comparison with those by his own hand that he saw around him, felt all confounded, and had it placed with great diligence in that chapel of S. Giovanni in Monte for which it was destined; and taking to his bed in a few days almost beside himself, thinking that he was now almost of no account in his art in comparison with the opinion held both by himself and by others, he died of grief and melancholy, so some believe, overtaken by the same fate, through contemplating too attentively that most lifelike picture of Raffaello's, as befell Fivizzano from feasting his eyes with his own beautiful Death, about which the following epigram was written: Me veram pictor divinus mente recepit; Admota est operi deinde perita manus. Dumque opere in facto defigit lumina pictor, Intentus nimium, palluit et moritur. Viva igitur sum mors, non mortua mortis imago, Si fungor quo mors fungitur officio. However, certain others say that his death was so sudden, that from many symptoms it appeared to be due rather to poison or apoplexy than to anything else. Francia was a prudent man, most regular in his way of life, and very robust. After his death, in the year 1518, he was honourably buried by his sons in Bologna. FOOTNOTE: [3] The text says "Messer Bart...." PIETRO PERUGINO LIFE OF PIETRO PERUGINO [_PIETRO VANNUCCI, OR PIETRO DA CASTEL DELLA PIEVE_] PAINTER How great a benefit poverty may be to men of genius, and how potent a force it may be to make them become excellent--nay, perfect--in the exercise of any faculty whatsoever, can be seen clearly enough in the actions of Pietro Perugino, who, flying from the extremity of distress at Perugia, and betaking himself to Florence in the desire to attain to some distinction by means of his talent, remained for many months without any other bed than a miserable chest to sleep in, turning night into day, and devoting himself with the greatest ardour to the unceasing study of his profession. And, having made a habit of this, he knew no other pleasure than to labour continually at his art, and to be for ever painting; for with the fear of poverty constantly before his eyes, he would do for gain such work as he would probably not have looked at if he had possessed the wherewithal to live. Riches, indeed, might perchance have closed the path on which his talent should advance towards excellence, no less effectually than poverty opened it to him, while necessity spurred him on in his desire to rise from so low and miserable a condition, if not to supreme eminence, at least to a rank in which he might have the means of life. For this reason he never took heed of cold, of hunger, of hardship, of discomfort, of fatigue, or of ridicule, if only he might one day live in ease and repose; ever saying, as it were by way of proverb, that after bad weather there must come the good, and that during the good men build the houses that are to shelter them when there is need. [Illustration: PIETRO PERUGINO: APOLLO AND MARSYAS (_Paris: Louvre, 1509. Panel_)] But in order that the rise of this craftsman may be better known, let me begin with his origin, and relate that, according to common report, there was born in the city of Perugia, to a poor man of Castello della Pieve, named Cristofano, a son who was baptized with the name of Pietro. This son, brought up amid misery and distress, was given by his father as a shop-boy to a painter of Perugia, who was no great master of his profession, but held in great veneration both the art and the men who were excellent therein; nor did he ever cease to tell Pietro how much gain and honour painting brought to those who practised it well, and he would urge the boy to the study of that art by recounting to him the rewards won by ancient and modern masters; wherefore he fired his mind in such a manner, that Pietro took it into his head to try, if only fortune would assist him, to become one of these. For this reason he was often wont to ask any man whom he knew to have seen the world, in what part the best craftsmen in that calling were formed; particularly his master, who always gave him one and the same answer--namely, that it was in Florence more than in any other place that men became perfect in all the arts, especially in painting, since in that city men are spurred by three things. The first is censure, which is uttered freely and by many, seeing that the air of that city makes men's intellects so free by nature, that they do not content themselves, like a flock of sheep, with mediocre works, but ever consider them with regard to the honour of the good and the beautiful rather than out of respect for the craftsman. The second is that, if a man wishes to live there, he must be industrious, which is naught else than to say that he must continually exercise his intelligence and his judgment, must be ready and adroit in his affairs, and, finally, must know how to make money, seeing that the territory of Florence is not so wide or abundant as to enable her to support at little cost all who live there, as can be done in countries that are rich enough. The third, which is perchance no less potent than the others, is an eager desire for glory and honour, which is generated mightily by that air in the men of all professions; and this desire, in all persons of spirit, will not let them stay content with being equal, much less inferior, to those whom they see to be men like themselves, although they may recognize them as masters--nay, it forces them very often to desire their own advancement so eagerly, that, if they are not kindly or wise by nature, they turn out evil-speakers, ungrateful, and unthankful for benefits. It is true, indeed, that when a man has learnt there as much as suffices him, he must, if he wishes to do more than live from day to day like an animal, and desires to become rich, take his departure from that place and find a sale abroad for the excellence of his works and for the repute conferred on him by that city, as the doctors do with the fame derived from their studies. For Florence treats her craftsmen as time treats its own works, which when perfected, it destroys and consumes little by little. Moved by these counsels, therefore, and by the persuasions of many others, Pietro came to Florence, minded to become excellent; and well did he succeed, for the reason that in those times works in his manner were held in very great price. He studied under the discipline of Andrea Verrocchio, and his first figures were painted without the Porta a Prato, in the Nunnery of S. Martino, now in ruins by reason of the wars. In Camaldoli he made a S. Jerome on a wall, which was then much esteemed by the Florentines and celebrated with great praise, for the reason that he made that Saint old, lean, and emaciated, with his eyes fixed on the Crucifix, and so wasted away, that he seems like an anatomical model, as may be seen from a copy of that picture which is in the hands of the aforesaid Bartolommeo Gondi. In a few years, then, he came into such credit, that his works filled not only Florence and all Italy, but also France, Spain, and many other countries to which they were sent. Wherefore, his paintings being held in very great price and repute, merchants began to buy them up wholesale and to send them abroad to various countries, to their own great gain and profit. For the Nuns of S. Chiara he painted a Dead Christ on a panel, with such lovely and novel colouring, that he made the craftsmen believe that he would become excellent and marvellous. In this work there are seen some most beautiful heads of old men, and likewise certain figures of the Maries, who, having ceased to weep, are contemplating the Dead Jesus with extraordinary awe and love; not to mention that he made therein a landscape that was then held most beautiful, because the true method of making them, such as it appeared later, had not yet been seen. It is said that Francesco del Pugliese offered to give to the aforesaid nuns three times as much money as they had paid to Pietro, and to have a similar one made for them by the same man's hand, but that they would not consent, because Pietro said that he did not believe he could equal it. There were also many things by the hand of Pietro in the Convent of the Frati Gesuati, without the Porta a Pinti; and since the said church and convent are now in ruins, I do not wish, with this occasion, and before I proceed further with this Life, to grudge the labour of giving some little account of them. This church, then, the architect of which was Antonio di Giorgio of Settignano, was forty braccia long and twenty wide. At the upper end one ascended by four treads, or rather steps, to a platform six braccia in extent, on which stood the high-altar, with many ornaments carved in stone; and on the said altar was a panel with a rich ornament, by the hand, as has been related, of Domenico Ghirlandajo. In the centre of the church was a partition-wall, with a door wrought in open-work from the middle upwards, on either side of which was an altar, while over either altar, as will be told, there stood a panel by the hand of Pietro Perugino. Over the said door was a most beautiful Crucifix by the hand of Benedetto da Maiano, with a Madonna on one side and a S. John on the other, both in relief. Before the said platform of the high-altar, and against the said partition-wall, was a choir of the Doric Order, very well wrought in walnut-wood; and over the principal door of the church there was another choir, which rested on well-strengthened woodwork, with the under part forming a ceiling, or rather soffit, beautifully partitioned, and with a row of balusters acting as parapet to the front of the choir, which faced towards the high-altar. This choir was very convenient to the friars of that convent for holding their night services, for saying their individual prayers, and likewise for week-days. Over the principal door of the church--which was made with most beautiful ornaments of stone, and had a portico in front raised on columns, which made a covered way as far as the door of the convent--was a lunette with a very beautiful figure of S. Giusto, the Bishop, and an angel on either side, by the hand of the illuminator Gherardo; and this because that church was dedicated to the said S. Giusto, and within it those friars preserved a relic of that Saint--that is, an arm. At the entrance of the convent was a little cloister of exactly the same size as the church--namely, forty braccia long and twenty wide--with arches and vaulting going right round and supported by columns of stone, thus making a spacious and most commodious loggia on every side. In the centre of the court of this cloister, which was all neatly paved with squared stone, was a very beautiful well, with a loggia above, which likewise rested on columns of stone, and made a rich and beautiful ornament. In this cloister were the chapter-house of the friars, the side-door of entrance into the church, and the stairs that ascended to the dormitory and other rooms for the use of the friars. On the farther side of this cloister, in a straight line with the principal door of the convent, was a passage as long as the chapter-house and the steward's room put together, leading into another cloister larger and more beautiful than the first; and the whole of this straight line--that is, the forty braccia of the loggia of the first cloister, the passage, and the line of the second cloister--made a very long enfilade, more beautiful than words can tell, and the rather as from that farther cloister, in the same straight line, there issued a garden-walk two hundred braccia in length; and all this, as one came from the principal door of the convent, made a marvellous view. In the said second cloister was a refectory, sixty braccia long and eighteen wide, with all those well-appointed rooms, and, as the friars call them, offices, which were required in such a convent. Over this was a dormitory in the shape of a =T=, one part of which--namely, the principal part in the direct line, which was sixty braccia long--was double--that is to say, it had cells on either side, and at the upper end, in a space of fifteen braccia, was an oratory, over the altar of which there was a panel by the hand of Pietro Perugino; and over the door of this oratory was another work by the same man's hand, in fresco, as will be told. And on the same floor, above the chapter-house, was a large room where those fathers worked at making glass windows, with the little furnaces and other conveniences that were necessary for such an industry; and since while Pietro lived he made the cartoons for many of their works, those that they executed in his time were all excellent. Then the garden of this convent was so beautiful and so well kept, and the vines were trained round the cloister and in every place with such good order, that nothing better could be seen in the neighbourhood of Florence. In like manner the room wherein they distilled scented waters and medicines, as was their custom, had all the best conveniences that could possibly be imagined. In short, that convent was one of the most beautiful and best appointed that there were in the State of Florence; and it is for this reason that I have wished to make this record of it, and the rather as the greater part of the pictures that were therein were by the hand of our Pietro Perugino. [Illustration: THE DEPOSITION (_After the panel by =Pietro Perugino=. Florence: Pitti, 164_) _Anderson_] Returning at length to this Pietro, I have to say that of the works that he made in the said convent none have been preserved save the panels, since those executed in fresco were thrown to the ground, together with the whole of that building, by reason of the siege of Florence, when the panels were carried to the Porta a S. Pier Gattolini, where a home was given to those friars in the Church and Convent of S. Giovannino. Now the two panels on the aforesaid partition-wall were by the hand of Pietro; and in one was Christ in the Garden, with the Apostles sleeping, in whom Pietro showed how well sleep can prevail over pains and discomforts, having represented them asleep in attitudes of perfect ease. In the other he made a Pietà--that is, Christ in the lap of Our Lady--surrounded by four figures no less excellent than any others in his manner; and, to mention only one thing, he made the Dead Christ all stiffened, as if He had been so long on the Cross that the length of time and the cold had reduced Him to this; wherefore he painted Him supported by John and the Magdalene, all sorrowful and weeping. In another panel he painted the Crucifixion, with the Magdalene, and, at the foot of the Cross, S. Jerome, S. John the Baptist, and the Blessed Giovanni Colombini, founder of that Order; all with infinite diligence. These three panels have suffered considerably, and they are all cracked in the dark parts and where there are shadows; and this comes to pass when the first coat of colour, which is laid on the ground (for three coats of colour are used, one over the other), is worked on before it is thoroughly dry; wherefore afterwards, with time, in the drying, they draw through their thickness and come to have the strength to make those cracks; which Pietro could not know, seeing that in his time they were only just beginning to paint well in oil. Now, the works of Pietro being much commended by the Florentines, a Prior of the same Convent of the Ingesuati, who took delight in art, caused him to make a Nativity, with the Magi, on a wall in the first cloister, after the manner of a miniature. This he brought to perfect completion with great loveliness and a high finish, and it contained an infinite number of different heads, many of them portrayed from life, among which was the head of Andrea del Verrocchio, his master. In the same court, over the arches of the columns, he made a frieze with heads of the size of life, very well executed, among which was one of the said Prior, so lifelike and wrought in so good a manner, that it was judged by the most experienced craftsmen to be the best thing that Pietro ever made. In the other cloister, over the door that led into the refectory, he was commissioned to paint a scene of Pope Boniface confirming the habit of his Order to the Blessed Giovanni Colombino, wherein he portrayed eight of the aforesaid friars, and made a most beautiful view receding in perspective, which was much extolled, and rightly, since Pietro made a particular profession of this. In another scene below the first he began a Nativity of Christ, with certain angels and shepherds, wrought with the freshest colouring. And in an arch over the door of the aforesaid oratory he made three half-length figures--Our Lady, S. Jerome, and the Blessed Giovanni--with so beautiful a manner, that this was held to be one of the best mural paintings that Pietro ever wrought. The said Prior, so I once heard tell, was very excellent at making ultramarine blues, and, therefore, having an abundance of them, he desired that Pietro should use them freely in all the above-mentioned works; but he was nevertheless so mean and suspicious that he would never trust Pietro, and always insisted on being present when he was using blue in the work. Wherefore Pietro, who had an honest and upright nature, and had no desire for another man's goods save in return for his own labour, took the Prior's distrust very ill, and resolved to put him to shame; and so, having taken a basin of water, and having laid on the ground for draperies or for anything else that he wished to paint in blue and white, from time to time he caused the Prior, who turned grudgingly to his little bag, to put some ultramarine into the little vase that contained the tempera-water, and then, setting to work, at every second stroke of the brush Pietro would dip his brush in the basin, so that there remained more in the water than he had used on the picture. The Prior, who saw his little bag becoming empty without much to show for it in the work, kept saying time after time: "Oh, what a quantity of ultramarine this plaster consumes!" "Does it not?" Pietro would answer. After the departure of the Prior, Pietro took the ultramarine from the bottom of the basin, and gave it back to him when he thought the time had come, saying: "Father, this is yours; learn to trust honest men, who never cheat those who trust them, although, if they wished, they could cheat such distrustful persons as yourself." By reason of these works, then, and many others, Pietro came into such repute that he was almost forced to go to Siena, where he painted a large panel, which was held very beautiful, in S. Francesco; and he painted another in S. Agostino, containing a Crucifix with some saints. A little time after this, for the Church of S. Gallo in Florence, he painted a panel-picture of S. Jerome in Penitence, which is now in S. Jacopo tra Fossi, where the aforesaid friars live, near the Canto degli Alberti. He was commissioned to paint a Dead Christ, with the Madonna and S. John, above the steps of the side-door of S. Pietro Maggiore; and this he wrought in such a manner, that it has been preserved, although exposed to rain and wind, as fresh as if it had only just been finished by Pietro's hand. Truly intelligent was Pietro's understanding of colour, both in fresco and in oil; wherefore all experienced craftsmen are indebted to him, for it is through him that they have knowledge of the lights that are seen throughout his works. [Illustration: CHRIST GIVING THE KEYS TO S. PETER (_After the fresco by =Pietro Perugino=. Rome: Sistine Chapel_) _Alinari_] In S. Croce, in the same city, he made a Pietà--that is, Our Lady with the Dead Christ in her arms--and two figures, which are marvellous to behold, not so much for their excellence, as for the fact that they have remained so fresh and vivid in colouring, painted as they are in fresco. He was commissioned by Bernardino de' Rossi, a citizen of Florence, to paint a S. Sebastian to be sent into France, the price agreed on being one hundred gold crowns; but this work was sold by Bernardino to the King of France for four hundred gold ducats. At Vallombrosa he painted a panel for the high-altar; and in the Certosa of Pavia, likewise, he executed a panel for the friars of that place. At the command of Cardinal Caraffa of Naples he painted an Assumption of Our Lady, with the Apostles marvelling round the tomb, for the high-altar of the Piscopio; and for Abbot Simone de' Graziani of Borgo a San Sepolcro he executed a large panel, which was painted in Florence, and then borne to S. Gilio in the Borgo on the shoulders of porters, at very great expense. To S. Giovanni in Monte at Bologna he sent a panel with certain figures standing upright, and a Madonna in the sky. [Illustration: FORTITUDE AND TEMPERANCE, WITH WARRIORS (_After the fresco by =Pietro Perugino=. Perugia: Collegio del Cambio_) _Alinari_] Thereupon the fame of Pietro spread so widely throughout Italy and abroad, that to his great glory he was summoned to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV to work in his chapel in company with the other excellent craftsmen. There, in company with Don Bartolommeo della Gatta, Abbot of S. Clemente at Arezzo, he painted the scene of Christ giving the keys to S. Peter; and likewise the Nativity and Baptism of Christ, and the Birth of Moses, with the daughter of Pharaoh finding him in the little ark. And on the same wall where the altar is he painted a mural picture of the Assumption of Our Lady, with a portrait of Pope Sixtus on his knees. But these works were thrown to the ground in preparing the wall for the Judgment of the divine Michelagnolo, in the time of Pope Paul III. On a vault of the Borgia Tower in the Papal Palace he painted certain stories of Christ, with some foliage in chiaroscuro, which had an extraordinary name for excellence in his time. In S. Marco, likewise in Rome, he painted a story of two martyrs beside the Sacrament--one of the best works that he made in Rome. For Sciarra Colonna, also, in the Palace of S. Apostolo, he painted a loggia and certain rooms. These works brought him a very great sum of money; wherefore, having resolved to remain no longer in Rome, and having departed in good favour with the whole Court, he returned to his native city of Perugia, in many parts of which he executed panels and works in fresco; and, in particular, a panel-picture painted in oils for the Chapel of the Palace of the Signori, containing Our Lady and other saints. In S. Francesco del Monte he painted two chapels in fresco, one with the story of the Magi going to make offering to Christ, and the other with the martyrdom of certain friars of S. Francis, who, going to the Soldan of Babylon, were put to death. In S. Francesco del Convento, likewise, he painted two panels in oil, one with the Resurrection of Christ, and the other with S. John the Baptist and other saints. For the Church of the Servi he also painted two panels, one of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, and in the other, which is beside the sacristy, the Story of the Magi; but, since these are not of the same excellence as the other works of Pietro, it is held to be certain that they are among the first that he made. In the Chapel of the Crocifisso in S. Lorenzo, the Duomo of the same city, there are by the hand of Pietro the Madonna, the other Maries, S. John, S. Laurence, S. James, and other saints. And for the Altar of the Sacrament, where there is preserved the ring with which the Virgin Mary was married, he painted the Marriage of the Virgin. [Illustration: PIETRO PERUGINO: TRIPTYCH (_London: National Gallery, 288. Panel_)] Afterwards he painted in fresco the whole of the Audience Chamber of the Cambio,[4] adorning the compartments of the vaulting with the seven planets, drawn in certain cars by diverse animals, according to the old usage; on the wall opposite to the door of entrance he painted the Nativity and Resurrection of Christ, with a panel containing S. John the Baptist in the midst of certain other saints. The side-walls he painted in his own manner; one with figures of Fabius Maximus, Socrates, Numa Pompilius, F. Camillus, Pythagoras, Trajan, L. Sicinius, the Spartan Leonidas, Horatius Cocles, Fabius, Sempronius, the Athenian Pericles, and Cincinnatus. On the other wall he made the Prophets, Isaiah, Moses, Daniel, David, Jeremiah, and Solomon; and the Sibyls, the Erythræan, the Libyan, the Tiburtine, the Delphic, and the others. Below each of the said figures he placed, in the form of a written motto, something said by them, and appropriate to that place. And in one of the ornaments he made his own portrait, which appears absolutely alive, and he wrote his own name below it in the following manner: PETRUS PERUSINUS EGREGIUS PICTOR. PERDITA SI FUERAT, PINGENDO HIC RETULIT ARTEM; SI NUNQUAM INVENTA ESSET HACTENUS, IPSE DEDIT. ANNO D. 1500. This work, which was very beautiful and more highly extolled than any other that was executed by Pietro in Perugia, is now held in great price by the men of that city in memory of so famous a craftsman of their own country. Afterwards, in the principal chapel of the Church of S. Agostino, the same man executed a large panel standing by itself and surrounded by a rich ornament, with S. John baptizing Christ on the front part, and on the back--that is, on the side that faces the choir--the Nativity of Christ, with certain saints in the upper parts, and in the predella many scenes wrought very diligently with little figures. And in the Chapel of S. Niccolò, in the said church, he painted a panel for Messer Benedetto Calera. After this, returning to Florence, he painted a S. Bernard on a panel for the Monks of Cestello, and in the chapter-house a Crucifix, the Madonna, S. Benedict, S. Bernard, and S. John. And in S. Domenico da Fiesole, in the second chapel on the right hand, he painted a panel containing Our Lady and three figures, among which is a S. Sebastian worthy of the highest praise. Now Pietro had done so much work, and he always had so many works in hand, that he would very often use the same subjects; and he had reduced the theory of his art to a manner so fixed, that he made all his figures with the same expression. By that time Michelagnolo Buonarroti had already come to the front, and Pietro greatly desired to see his figures, by reason of the praise bestowed on him by craftsmen; and seeing the greatness of his own name, which he had acquired in every place through so grand a beginning, being obscured, he was ever seeking to wound his fellow-workers with biting words. For this reason, besides certain insults aimed at him by the craftsmen, he had only himself to blame when Michelagnolo told him in public that he was a clumsy fool at his art. But Pietro being unable to swallow such an affront, they both appeared before the Tribunal of Eight, where Pietro came off with little honour. Meanwhile the Servite Friars of Florence, wishing to have the altar-piece of their high-altar painted by some famous master, had handed it over, by reason of the departure of Leonardo da Vinci, who had gone off to France, to Filippino; but he, when he had finished half of one of two panels that were to adorn the altar, passed from this life to the next; wherefore the friars, by reason of the faith that they had in Pietro, entrusted him with the whole work. In that panel, wherein he was painting the Deposition of Christ from the Cross, Filippino had finished the figures of Nicodemus that are taking Him down; and Pietro continued the lower part with the Swooning of the Madonna, and certain other figures. Now this work was to be composed of two panels, one facing towards the choir of the friars, and the other towards the body of the church, and the Deposition from the Cross was to be placed behind, facing the choir, with the Assumption of Our Lady in front; but Pietro made the latter so commonplace, that the Deposition of Christ was placed in front, and the Assumption on the side of the choir. These panels have now been removed, both one and the other, and replaced by the Tabernacle of the Sacrament; they have been set up over certain other altars in that church, and out of the whole work there only remain six pictures, wherein are some saints painted by Pietro in certain niches. It is said that when the work was unveiled, it received no little censure from all the new craftsmen, particularly because Pietro had availed himself of those figures that he had been wont to use in other pictures; with which his friends twitted him, saying that he had taken no pains, and that he had abandoned the good method of working, either through avarice or to save time. To this Pietro would answer: "I have used the figures that you have at other times praised, and which have given you infinite pleasure; if now they do not please you, and you do not praise them, what can I do?" But they kept assailing him bitterly with sonnets and open insults; whereupon, although now old, he departed from Florence and returned to Perugia. There he executed certain works in fresco in the Church of S. Severo, a place belonging to the Monks of the Order of Camaldoli, wherein Raffaello da Urbino, when quite young and still the disciple of Pietro, had painted certain figures, as will be told in his Life. Pietro likewise worked at Montone, at La Fratta, and in many other places in the district of Perugia; more particularly in S. Maria degli Angeli at Assisi, where he painted in fresco a Christ on the Cross, with many figures, on the wall at the back of the Chapel of the Madonna, which faces the choir of the monks. And for the high-altar of the Church of S. Pietro, an abbey of Black Friars in Perugia, he painted a large panel containing the Ascension, with the Apostles below gazing up to Heaven; in the predella of which panel are three stories, wrought with much diligence--namely, that of the Magi, the Baptism of Christ, and His Resurrection. The whole of this picture is seen to be full of beautiful and careful work, insomuch that it is the best of those wrought in oil by the hand of Pietro which are in Perugia. The same man began a work in fresco of no small importance at Castello della Pieve, but did not finish it. It was ever Pietro's custom on his going and coming between the said Castello and Perugia, like a man who trusted nobody, to carry all the money that he possessed about his person. Wherefore certain men, lying in wait for him at a pass, robbed him, but at his earnest entreaty they spared his life for the love of God; and afterwards, by means of the services of his friends, who were numerous enough, he also recovered a great part of the money that had been taken from him; but none the less he came near dying of vexation. Pietro was a man of very little religion, and he could never be made to believe in the immortality of the soul--nay, with words in keeping with his head of granite, he rejected most obstinately every good suggestion. He placed all his hopes in the goods of fortune, and he would have sold his soul for money. He earned great riches; and he both bought and built houses in Florence, and acquired much settled property both at Perugia and at Castello della Pieve. He took a most beautiful young woman to wife, and had children by her; and he delighted so greatly in seeing her wearing beautiful head-dresses, both abroad and at home, that it is said that he would often tire her head with his own hand. Finally, having reached the age of seventy-eight, Pietro finished the course of his life at Castello della Pieve, where he was honourably buried, in the year 1524. Pietro made many masters in his own manner, and one among them, who was truly most excellent, devoted himself heart and soul to the honourable studies of painting, and surpassed his master by a great measure; and this was the miraculous Raffaello Sanzio of Urbino, who worked for many years under Pietro in company with his father, Giovanni de' Santi. Another disciple of this man was Pinturicchio, a painter of Perugia, who, as it has been said in his Life, ever held to Pietro's manner. His disciple, likewise, was Rocco Zoppo, a painter of Florence, by whose hand is a very beautiful Madonna in a round picture, which is in the possession of Filippo Salviati; although it is true that it was brought to completion by Pietro himself. The same Rocco painted many pictures of Our Lady, and made many portraits, of which there is no need to speak; I will only say that in the Sistine Chapel in Rome he painted portraits of Girolamo Riario and of F. Pietro, Cardinal of San Sisto. Another disciple of Pietro was Montevarchi, who painted many pictures in San Giovanni di Valdarno; more particularly, in the Madonna, the stories of the Miracle of the Milk. He also left many works in Montevarchi, his birth-place. Likewise a pupil of Pietro's, working with him for no little time, was Gerino da Pistoia, of whom there has been mention in the Life of Pinturicchio; and so also was Baccio Ubertino of Florence, who was most diligent both in colouring and in drawing, for which reason Pietro made much use of him. By this man's hand is a drawing in our book, done with the pen, of Christ being scourged at the Column, which is a very lovely thing. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS (_After the panel by =Giovanni (Lo Spagna)=. Assisi: Lower Church_) _Anderson_] A brother of this Baccio, and likewise a disciple of Pietro, was Francesco, called Il Bacchiaccha by way of surname, who was a most diligent master of little figures, as may be seen in many works wrought by him in Florence, above all in the house of Giovan Maria Benintendi and in that of Pier Francesco Borgherini. Bacchiaccha delighted in painting grotesques, wherefore he covered a little cabinet belonging to the Lord Duke Cosimo with animals and rare plants, drawn from nature, which are held very beautiful. Besides this, he made the cartoons for many tapestries, which were afterwards woven in silk by the Flemish master, Giovanni Rosto, for the apartments of his Excellency's Palace. Still another disciple of Pietro was the Spaniard Giovanni, called Lo Spagna by way of surname, who was a better colourist than any of the others whom Pietro left behind him at his death; after which this Giovanni would have settled in Perugia, if the envy of the painters of that city, so hostile to strangers, had not persecuted him in such wise as to force him to retire to Spoleto, where, by reason of his excellence and virtue, he obtained a wife of good family and was made a citizen of that city. He made many works in that place, and likewise in all the other cities of Umbria; and at Assisi, in the lower Church of S. Francesco, he painted the panel of the Chapel of S. Caterina, for the Spanish Cardinal Egidio, and also one in S. Damiano. In S. Maria degli Angeli, in the little chapel where S. Francis died, he painted some half-length figures of the size of life--that is, certain companions of S. Francis and other saints--all very lifelike, on either side of a S. Francis in relief. But the best master among all the aforesaid disciples of Pietro was Andrea Luigi of Assisi, called L'Ingegno, who in his early youth competed with Raffaello da Urbino under the discipline of Pietro, who always employed him in the most important pictures that he made; as may be seen in the Audience Chamber of the Cambio in Perugia, where there are some very beautiful figures by his hand; in those that he wrought at Assisi; and, finally, in the Chapel of Pope Sixtus at Rome. In all these works Andrea gave such proof of his worth, that he was expected to surpass his master by a great measure, and so, without a doubt, it would have come to pass; but fortune, which is almost always pleased to oppose herself to lofty beginnings, did not allow L'Ingegno to reach perfection, for a flux of catarrh fell upon his eyes, whence the poor fellow became wholly blind, to the infinite grief of all who knew him. Hearing of this most pitiful misfortune, Pope Sixtus, like a man who ever loved men of talent, ordained that a yearly provision should be paid to Andrea in Assisi during his lifetime by those who managed the revenues there; and this was done until he died at the age of eighty-six. Likewise disciples of Pietro, and also natives of Perugia, were Eusebio San Giorgio, who painted the panel of the Magi in S. Agostino; Domenico di Paris, who made many works in Perugia and in the neighbouring townships, being followed by his brother Orazio; and also Gian Niccola, who painted Christ in the Garden on a panel in S. Francesco, the panel of Ognissanti in the Chapel of the Baglioni in S. Domenico, and stories of S. John the Baptist in fresco in the Chapel of the Cambio. Benedetto Caporali, otherwise called Bitti, was also a disciple of Pietro, and there are many pictures by his hand in his native city of Perugia. And he occupied himself so greatly with architecture, that he not only executed many works, but also wrote a commentary on Vitruvius in the manner that all can see, for it is printed; in which studies he was followed by his son Giulio, a painter of Perugia. But not one out of all these disciples ever equalled Pietro's diligence, or the grace of colouring that he showed in that manner of his own, which pleased his time so much, that many came from France, from Spain, from Germany, and from other lands, to learn it. And a trade was done in his works, as has been said, by many who sent them to diverse places, until there came the manner of Michelagnolo, which, having shown the true and good path to these arts, has brought them to that perfection which will be seen in the Third Part, about to follow, wherein we will treat of the excellence and perfection of art, and show to craftsmen that he who labours and studies continuously, and not in the way of fantasy or caprice, leaves true works behind him and acquires fame, wealth, and friends. FOOTNOTE: [4] Exchange or Bank. VITTORE SCARPACCIA (CARPACCIO), AND OTHER VENETIAN AND LOMBARD PAINTERS LIVES OF VITTORE SCARPACCIA (CARPACCIO), AND OF OTHER VENETIAN AND LOMBARD PAINTERS It is very well known that when some of our craftsmen make a beginning in some province, they are afterwards followed by many, one after another; and very often there is an infinite number of them at one and the same time, for the reason that rivalry, emulation, and the fact that they have been dependent on others, one on one excellent master, and one on another, bring it about that the craftsmen seek with all the greater effort to surpass one another, to the utmost of their ability. And even when many depend on one, no sooner do they separate, either at the death of their master or for some other reason, than they straightway also separate in aim; whereupon each seeks to prove his own worth, in order to appear better than the rest and a master by himself. Of many, then, who flourished almost at one and the same time and in one and the same province, and about whom I have not been able to learn and am not able to write every particular, I will give some brief account, to the end that, now that I find myself at the end of the Second Part of this my work, I may not omit some who have laboured to leave the world adorned by their works. Of these men, I say, besides having been unable to discover their whole history, I have not even been able to find the portraits, excepting that of Scarpaccia, whom for this reason I have made head of the others. Let my readers therefore accept what I can offer in this connection, seeing that I cannot offer what I would wish. There lived, then, in the March of Treviso and in Lombardy, during a period of many years, Stefano Veronese, Aldigieri da Zevio, Jacopo Davanzo of Bologna, Sebeto da Verona, Jacobello de Flore, Guerriero da Padova, Giusto, Girolamo Campagnola and his son Giulio, and Vincenzio Bresciano; Vittore, Sebastiano,[5] and Lazzaro[5] Scarpaccia, Venetians; Vincenzio Catena, Luigi Vivarini, Giovan Battista da Conigliano, Marco Basarini,[6] Giovanetto Cordegliaghi, Il Bassiti, Bartolommeo Vivarini, Giovanni Mansueti, Vittore Bellini, Bartolommeo Montagna of Vicenza, Benedetto Diana, and Giovanni Buonconsigli, with many others, of whom there is no need to make mention here. [Illustration: THE MADONNA AND CHILD WITH S. CATHARINE IN A ROSE GARDEN (_After the panel by =Stefano da Verona (da Zevio)=. Verona: Gallery, 559_) _Brogi_] To begin with the first, I start by saying that Stefano Veronese, of whom I gave some account in the Life of Agnolo Gaddi, was a painter more than passing good in his day. And when Donatello was working in Padua, as has been already told in his Life, going on one of several occasions to Verona, he was struck with marvel at the works of Stefano, declaring that the pictures which he had made in fresco were the best that had been wrought in those parts up to that time. The first works of this man were in the tramezzo[7] of the Church of S. Antonio at Verona, at the top of a wall on the left, below the curve of a part of the vaulting; and the subjects were a Madonna with the Child in her arms, and S. James and S. Anthony, one on either side of her. This work is held very beautiful in that city even at the present day, by reason of a certain liveliness that is seen in the said figures, particularly in the heads, which are wrought with much grace. In S. Niccolò, a parish church of that city, likewise, he painted a S. Nicholas in fresco, which is very beautiful. On the front of a house in the Via di S. Polo, which leads to the Porta del Vescovo, he painted the Virgin, with certain very beautiful angels and a S. Christopher; and over the wall of the Church of S. Consolata in the Via del Duomo, in a recess made in the wall, he painted a Madonna and certain birds, in particular a peacock, his emblem. In S. Eufemia, a convent of the Eremite Friars of S. Augustine, he painted over the side-door a S. Augustine with two other saints, and under the mantle of this S. Augustine are many friars and nuns of his Order; but the most beautiful things in this work are two half-length prophets of the size of life, for the reason that they have the most beautiful and most lifelike heads that Stefano ever made; and the colouring of the whole work, having been executed with diligence, has remained beautiful even to our own day, notwithstanding that it has been much exposed to rain, wind, and frost. If this work had been under cover, it would still be as beautiful and fresh as it issued from his hands, for the reason that Stefano did not retouch it on the dry, but used diligence in executing it well in fresco; as it is, it has suffered a little. Within the church, in the Chapel of the Sacrament--namely, round the Tabernacle--he afterwards painted certain angels flying, some of whom are sounding instruments, some singing, and others burning incense before the Sacrament; together with a figure of Jesus Christ, which he painted at the top as a finish to the Tabernacle. Below there are other angels, who are supporting Him, clothed in white garments reaching to their feet, and ending, as it were, in clouds, which was an idea peculiar to Stefano in painting figures of angels, whom he always made most gracious in countenance and very beautiful in expression. In this same work are life-size figures of S. Augustine and S. Jerome, one on either side; and these are supporting with their hands the Church of God, as if to show that both of them defend Holy Church from heretics with their learning, and support her. On a pilaster of the principal chapel in the same church he painted a S. Eufemia in fresco, with a beautiful and gracious expression of countenance; and there he wrote his own name in letters of gold, perchance since it appeared to him to be, as in fact it is, one of the best pictures that he had made; and according to his custom he painted there a very beautiful peacock, and beside it two lion cubs, which are not very beautiful, because at that time he could not see live ones, as he saw the peacock. He also painted for the same place a panel containing, as was the custom in those times, many half-length figures, such as S. Niccola da Tolentino and others; and he filled the predella with scenes in little figures from the life of that Saint. In S. Fermo, a church in the same city belonging to the Friars of S. Francis, he painted, as an ornament for a Deposition from the Cross on the wall opposite to the side-door of entrance, twelve half-length prophets of the size of life, with Adam and Eve lying below them, and his usual peacock, which is almost the hall-mark of pictures executed by him. In Mantua, at the Martello gate of the Church of S. Domenico, the same Stefano painted a most beautiful Madonna; the head of which Madonna, when they had need to build in that place, those fathers placed with care in the tramezzo[8] of the church--that is, in the Chapel of S. Orsola, which belongs to the Recuperati family, and contains some pictures in fresco by the hand of the same man. And in the Church of S. Francesco, on the right hand as one enters by the principal door, there is a row of chapels formerly built by the noble Della Ramma family, in one of which are seated figures of the four Evangelists, painted on the vaulting by the hand of Stefano; and behind their shoulders, for a background, he made certain espaliers of roses, with a cane trellis-work in a pattern of mandorle, above which are various trees and other greenery full of birds, particularly of peacocks; and there are also some very beautiful angels. In this same church, on a column on the right hand as one enters, he painted a life-size figure of S. Mary Magdalene. And in the same city, on the frontal of a door in the street called Rompilanza, he painted in fresco a Madonna with the Child in her arms, and some angels kneeling before her; and the background he made of trees covered with fruit. These, then, are the works that are found to have been executed by Stefano, although it may well be believed, since his life was not a short one, that he made many others. But even as I have not been able to discover any more of them, so I have failed to find his surname, his father's name, his portrait, or any other particulars. Some declare that before he came to Florence he was a disciple of Maestro Liberale, a painter of Verona; but this matters nothing. It is enough that he learnt all that there was of the good in him from Agnolo Gaddi in Florence. [Illustration: PRESENTATION TO THE MADONNA OF THREE KNIGHTS OF THE CAVALLI FAMILY (_After the fresco by =Aldigieri da Zevio [Altichiero]=. Verona: S. Anastasia_) _Alinari_] Of the same city of Verona was Aldigieri da Zevio, who was very much the friend of the Signori della Scala, and who, besides many other works, painted the Great Hall of their Palace (which is now the habitation of the Podestà), depicting therein the War of Jerusalem, according as it is described by Josephus. In this work Aldigieri showed great spirit and judgment, distributing one scene over the walls of that hall on every side, with a single ornament encircling it right round; on the upper part of which ornament, as it were to set it off, he placed a row of medallions, in which it is believed that there are the portraits from life of many distinguished men of those times, particularly of many of those Signori della Scala; but, since the truth about this is not known, I will say no more of it. I must say, indeed, that Aldigieri showed in this work that he had intelligence, judgment, and invention, seeing that he took into consideration all the things that can be taken into consideration in a serious war. Besides this, the colouring has remained very fresh; and among many portraits of men of distinction and learning, there is seen that of Messer Francesco Petrarca. Jacopo Avanzi, a painter of Bologna, shared the work of this hall with Aldigieri, and below the aforesaid pictures he painted two most beautiful Triumphs, likewise in fresco, with so much art and so good a manner, that Girolamo Campagnola declares that Mantegna used to praise them as pictures of the rarest merit. The same Jacopo, together with Aldigieri and Sebeto da Verona, painted the Chapel of S. Giorgio, which is beside the Church of S. Antonio, in Padua, according to the directions left in the testaments of the Marquesses of Carrara. Jacopo Avanzi painted the upper part; below this were certain stories of S. Lucia, with a Last Supper, by Aldigieri; and Sebeto painted stories of S. John. Afterwards these three masters, having all returned to Verona, joined together to paint a wedding-feast, with many portraits and costumes of those times, in the house of the Counts Serenghi. Now the work of Jacopo Avanzi was held to be the best of all; but, since mention has been made of him in the Life of Niccolò d' Arezzo by reason of the works that he made in Bologna in competition with the painters Simone, Cristofano, and Galasso, I will say no more about him in this place. A man who was held in esteem at Venice about the same time, although he adhered to the Greek manner, was Jacobello de Flore, who made a number of works in that city; in particular, a panel for the Nuns of the Corpus Domini, which stands on the altar of S. Domenico in their church. A competitor of this master was Giromin Morzone, who painted a number of pictures in Venice and in many cities of Lombardy; but, since he held to the old manner and made all his figures on tiptoe, we will say nothing about him, save that there is a panel by his hand, with many saints, on the Altar of the Assumption in the Church of S. Lena. A much better master than Morzone was Guerriero, a painter of Padua, who, besides many other works, painted the principal chapel of the Eremite Friars of S. Augustine in Padua, and a chapel for the same friars in the first cloister. He also painted a little chapel in the house of the Urban Prefect, and the Hall of the Roman Emperors, where the students go to dance at the time of the Carnival. He also painted in fresco, in the Chapel of the Podestà of the same city, some scenes from the Old Testament. Giusto, likewise a painter of Padua, painted in the Chapel of S. Giovanni Battista, without the Church of the Vescovado, not only certain scenes from the Old Testament and the New, but also the Revelations of the Apocalypse of S. John the Evangelist; and in the upper part he made a Paradise containing many choirs of angels and other adornments, wrought with beautiful conceptions. In the Church of S. Antonio he painted in fresco the Chapel of S. Luca; and in a chapel in the Church of the Eremite Friars of S. Augustine he painted the liberal arts, with the virtues and vices beside them, and likewise those who have been celebrated for their virtues, and those who have fallen by reason of their vices into the extreme of misery and into the lowest depth of Hell. There was working in Padua, in this man's time, Stefano, a painter of Ferrara, who, as has been said elsewhere, adorned with various pictures the chapel and the tomb wherein is the body of S. Anthony, and also painted the Virgin Mary that is called the Vergine del Pilastro. [Illustration: VITTORE SCARPACCIA (CARPACCIO): THE VISION OF S. URSULA (_Venice: Accademia, 578. Canvas_)] Another man who was held in esteem in the same times was Vincenzio, a painter of Brescia, according to the account of Filarete, as was also Girolamo Campagnola, another Paduan painter, and a disciple of Squarcione. Then Giulio, son of Girolamo, made many beautiful works of painting, illumination, and copper-engraving, both in Padua and in other places. In the same city of Padua many things were wrought by Niccolò Moreto, who lived eighty years, and never ceased to exercise his art. [Illustration: S. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON (_After the panel by =Vittore Scarpaccia [Carpaccio]=. Venice: S. Giorgio Segli Schiavoni_) _Anderson_] Besides these there were many others, who were connected with Gentile and Giovanni Bellini; but Vittore Scarpaccia was truly the first among them who made works of importance. His first works were in the Scuola of S. Orsola, where he painted on canvas the greater part of the stories that are there, representing the life and death of that Saint; the labours of which pictures he contrived to carry out so well and with such great diligence and art, that he acquired thereby the name of a very good and practised master. This, so it is said, was the reason that the people of Milan caused him to paint a panel in distemper with many figures for the Friars Minor, in their Chapel of S. Ambrogio. On the altar of the Risen Christ in the Church of S. Antonio he painted the scene of Christ appearing to the Magdalene and the other Maries, in which he made a very beautiful view in perspective of a landscape receding into the distance; and in another chapel he painted the story of the Martyrs--that is, their crucifixion--in which work he made more than three hundred figures, what with the large and the small, besides a number of horses and trees, an open Heaven, figures both nude and clothed in diverse attitudes, many foreshortenings, and so many other things, that it can be seen that he did not execute it without extraordinary labour. For the altar of the Madonna, in the Church of S. Giobbe in Canareio, he painted her presenting the Infant Christ to Simeon, and depicted the Madonna herself standing, and Simeon in his cope between two ministers clothed as Cardinals; behind the Virgin are two women, one of whom has two doves, and below are three boys, who are playing on a lute, a serpent, and a lyre, or rather a viol; and the colouring of the whole panel is very charming and beautiful. And, in truth, Vittore was a very diligent and practised master, and many pictures by his hand that are in Venice, both portraits from life and other kinds, are much esteemed for works wrought in those times. He taught his art to two brothers of his own, who imitated him closely, one being Lazzaro, and the other Sebastiano; and by their hand is a panel on the altar of the Virgin in the Church of the Nuns of the Corpus Domini, showing her seated between S. Catherine and S. Martha, with other female saints, two angels who are sounding instruments, and a very beautiful view of buildings in perspective as a background to the whole work, of which we have the original drawings, by the hand of these men, in our book. Another passing good painter in the time of these masters was Vincenzio Catena, who occupied himself much more with making portraits from the life than with any other sort of painting; and, in truth, some that are to be seen by his hand are marvellous--among others, that of a German of the Fugger family, a man of rank and importance, who was then living in the Fondaco de' Tedeschi at Venice, was painted with great vivacity. Another man who made many works in Venice, about the same time, was a disciple of Giovanni Bellini, Giovan Battista da Conigliano, by whose hand is a panel on the altar of S. Pietro Martire in the aforesaid Church of the Nuns of the Corpus Domini, containing the said Saint, S. Nicholas, and S. Benedict, with landscapes in perspective, an angel tuning a cithern, and many little figures more than passing good. And if this man had not died young, it may be believed that he would have equalled his master. The name of a master not otherwise than good, likewise, in the same art and at the same time, was enjoyed by Marco Basarini, who, painting in Venice, where he was born from a Greek father and mother, executed in S. Francesco della Vigna a panel with a Deposition of Christ from the Cross, and another panel in the Church of S. Giobbe, representing Christ in the Garden, and below Him the three Apostles, who are sleeping, and S. Francis, S. Dominic, and two other saints; but what was most praised in this work was a landscape with many little figures wrought with good grace. In that same church the same Marco painted S. Bernardino on a rock, with other saints. [Illustration: VINCENZIO CATENA (DI BIAGIO): S. JEROME IN HIS STUDY (_London: National Gallery, 694. Panel_)] Giovanetto Cordegliaghi made an infinity of devotional pictures in the same city; nay, he scarcely worked at anything else, and, in truth, he had in this sort of painting a very delicate and sweet manner, no little better than that of the aforesaid masters. In S. Pantaleone, in a chapel beside the principal one, this man painted S. Peter making disputation with two other saints, who are wearing most beautiful draperies, and are wrought with a beautiful manner. [Illustration: GIOVAN BATTISTA DA CONIGLIANO (CIMA): TOBIT AND THE ANGEL (DETAIL) (_Venice: Accademia, 592. Panel transferred to Canvas_)] Marco Bassiti was in good repute almost at the same time, and by his hand is a large panel in the Church of the Carthusian Monks at Venice, in which he painted Christ between Peter and Andrew on the Sea of Tiberias, with the sons of Zebedee; making therein an arm of the sea, a mountain, and part of a city, with many persons in the form of little figures. Many other works by this man could be enumerated, but let it be enough to have spoken of this one, which is the best. Bartolommeo Vivarini of Murano also acquitted himself very well in the works that he made, as may be seen, besides many other examples, in the panel that he executed for the altar of S. Luigi in the Church of SS. Giovanni e Polo; in which panel he portrayed the said S. Luigi seated, wearing the cope, with S. Gregory, S. Sebastian, and S. Dominic on one side of him, and on the other side S. Nicholas, S. Jerome, and S. Rocco, and above them half-length figures of other saints. Another man who executed his pictures very well, taking much delight in counterfeiting things of nature, figures, and distant landscapes, was Giovanni Mansueti, who, imitating the works of Gentile Bellini not a little, made many pictures in Venice. At the upper end of the Audience Chamber of the Scuola of S. Marco he painted a S. Mark preaching on the Piazza; in which picture he painted the façade of the church, and, among the multitude of men and women who are listening to the Saint, Turks, Greeks, and the faces of men of diverse nations, with bizarre costumes. In the same place, in another scene wherein he painted S. Mark healing a sick man, he made a perspective view of two staircases and many loggie. In another picture, near to that one, he made a S. Mark converting an infinite multitude to the faith of Christ; in this he made an open temple, with a Crucifix on an altar, and throughout the whole work there are diverse persons with a beautiful variety of expression, dress, and features. The work in the same place was continued after him by Vittore Bellini, who made a view of buildings in perspective, which is passing good, in a scene wherein S. Mark is taken prisoner and bound, with a number of figures, in which he imitated his predecessors. After these men came Bartolommeo Montagna of Vicenza, a passing good painter, who lived ever in Venice and made many pictures there; and he painted a panel in the Church of S. Maria d' Artone at Padua. Benedetto Diana, likewise, was a painter no less esteemed than the masters mentioned above, as is proved, to say nothing of his other works, by those from his hand that are in S. Francesco della Vigna at Venice, where, for the altar of S. Giovanni, he painted that Saint standing between two other saints, each of whom has a book in his hand. Another man who was accounted a good master was Giovanni Buonconsigli, who painted a picture in the Church of SS. Giovanni e Polo for the altar of S. Tommaso d' Aquino, showing that Saint surrounded by many figures, to whom he is reading the Holy Scriptures; and he made therein a perspective view of buildings, which is not otherwise than worthy of praise. There also lived in Venice throughout almost the whole course of his life the Florentine sculptor, Simon Bianco, as did Tullio Lombardo, an excellent master of intaglio. In Lombardy, likewise, there were excellent sculptors in Bartolommeo Clemente of Reggio and Agostino Busto; and, in intaglio, Jacopo Davanzo of Milan, with Gasparo and Girolamo Misceroni. In Brescia there was a man who was able and masterly at working in fresco, called Vincenzio Verchio, who acquired a very great name in his native place by reason of his beautiful works. The same did Girolamo Romanino, a fine master of design, as is clearly demonstrated by the works made by him in Brescia and in the neighbourhood for many miles around. And not inferior to these--nay, even superior--was Alessandro Moretto, who was very delicate in his colouring, and much the friend of diligence, as the works made by him demonstrate. [Illustration: CHRIST ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES (_After the panel by =Marco Bassiti [Basaiti]=. Venice: Accademia, 69_) _Anderson_] But to return to Verona, in which city there have flourished excellent craftsmen, even as they flourish more than ever to-day; there, in times past, were excellent masters in Francesco Bonsignori and Francesco Caroto, and afterwards Maestro Zeno of Verona, who painted the panel of S. Marino in Rimini, with two others, all with much diligence. But the man who surpassed all others in making certain marvellous figures from life was Il Moro of Verona, or rather, as others called him, Francesco Turbido, by whose hand is a portrait now in the house of Monsignor de' Martini at Venice, of a gentleman of the house of Badovaro, painted in the character of a shepherd; which portrait appears absolutely alive, and can challenge comparison with any of the great number that have been seen in these parts. Battista d' Angelo, son-in-law of this Francesco, is also so lovely in colouring and so masterly in drawing, that he is rather superior than inferior to his father-in-law. But since it is not my intention to speak at present of the living, it must suffice me to have spoken in this place of some with regard to whose lives, as I said at the beginning of this Life, I have not been able to discover every particular with equal minuteness, to the end that their talents and merits may receive from me at least all that little which I, who would fain make it much, am able to give them. [Illustration: PIETÀ (_After the panel by =Giovanni Buonconsigli=. Vincenza: Pinacoteca, 22_) _Alinari_] FOOTNOTE: [5] It is now generally accepted that these two men are one, under the name of Lazzaro Bastiani. [6] This master has been identified with Il Bassiti, under the name of Basaiti. [7] See note on p. 57, Vol. I. [8] See note on p. 57, Vol. I. JACOPO, CALLED L'INDACO LIFE OF JACOPO, CALLED L'INDACO PAINTER Jacopo, called L'Indaco, who was a disciple of Domenico del Ghirlandajo, and who worked in Rome with Pinturicchio, was a passing good master in his day; and although he did not make many works, yet those that he did make are worthy of commendation. Nor is there any need to marvel that only very few works issued from his hands, for the reason that, being a gay and humorous fellow and a lover of good cheer, he harboured but few thoughts and would never work save when he could not help it; and so he used to say that doing nothing else but labour, without taking a little pleasure in the world, was no life for a Christian. He lived in close intimacy with Michelagnolo, for when that craftsman, supremely excellent beyond all who have ever lived, wished to have some recreation after his studies and his continuous labours of body and mind, no one was more pleasing to him for the purpose or more suited to his humour than this man. Jacopo worked for many years in Rome, or, to be more precise, he lived many years in Rome, working very little. By his hand, in that city, is the first chapel on the right hand as one enters the Church of S. Agostino by the door of the façade; on the vaulting of which chapel are the Apostles receiving the Holy Spirit, and on the wall below are two stories of Christ--in one His taking Peter and Andrew from their nets, and in the other the Feast of Simon and the Magdalene, in which there is a ceiling of planks and beams, counterfeited very well. In the panel of the same chapel, which he painted in oil, is a Dead Christ, wrought and executed with much mastery and diligence. In the Trinità at Rome, likewise, there is a little panel by his hand with the Coronation of Our Lady. But what need is there to say more about this man? What more, indeed, is there to say? It is enough that he loved gossiping as much as he always hated working and painting. Now seeing that, as has been said, Michelagnolo used to take pleasure in this man's chattering and in the jokes that he was ever making, he kept him almost always at his table; but one day Jacopo wearied him--as such fellows more often than not do come to weary their friends and patrons with their incessant babbling, so often ill-timed and senseless; babbling, I call it, for reasonable talk it cannot be called, since for the most part there is neither reason nor judgment in such people--and Michelagnolo, who, perchance, had other thoughts in his mind at the time and wished to get rid of him, sent him to buy some figs; and no sooner had Jacopo left the house than Michelagnolo bolted the door behind him, determined not to open to him when he came back. L'Indaco, then, on returning from the market-square, perceived, after having knocked at the door for a time in vain, that Michelagnolo did not intend to open to him; whereupon, flying into a rage, he took the figs and the leaves and spread them all over the threshold of the door. This done, he went his way and for many months refused to speak to Michelagnolo; but at last, becoming reconciled with him, he was more his friend than ever. Finally, having reached the age of sixty-eight, he died in Rome. Not unlike Jacopo was a younger brother of his, whose proper name was Francesco, although he too was afterwards called L'Indaco by way of surname; and he, likewise, was a painter, and more than passing good. He was not unlike Jacopo--I mean, in his unwillingness to work (to say the least), and in his love of talking--but in one respect he surpassed Jacopo, for he was ever speaking evil of everyone and decrying the works of every craftsman. This man, after having wrought certain things in Montepulciano both in painting and in clay, painted a little panel for the Audience Chamber of the Company of the Nunziata in Arezzo, containing an Annunciation, and a God the Father in Heaven surrounded by many angels in the form of children. And in the same city, on the first occasion when Duke Alessandro went there, he made a most beautiful triumphal arch, with many figures in relief, at the gate of the Palazzo de' Signori; and also, in competition with other painters who executed a number of other works for the entry of the said Duke, the scenery for the representation of a play, which was held to be very beautiful. Afterwards, having gone to Rome at the time when the Emperor Charles V was expected there, he made some figures in clay, and a coat of arms in fresco for the Roman people on the Campidoglio, which was much extolled. But the best work that ever issued from the hands of this master, and the most highly praised, was a little study wrought in stucco for the Duchess Margherita of Austria in the Palace of the Medici at Rome--a thing so beautiful and so ornate that there is nothing better to be seen; nor do I believe that it is possible, in a certain sense, to do with silver what L'Indaco did in this work with stucco. From these things it may be judged that if this man had taken pleasure in work and had made use of his intelligence, he would have become excellent. Francesco drew passing well, but Jacopo much better, as may be seen in our book. LUCA SIGNORELLI OF CORTONA LIFE OF LUCA SIGNORELLI OF CORTONA [_LUCA DA CORTONA_] PAINTER Luca Signorelli, an excellent painter, of whom, according to the order of time, we have now to speak, was more famous throughout Italy in his day, and his works were held in greater price than has ever been the case with any other master at any time whatsoever, for the reason that in the works that he executed in painting he showed the true method of making nudes, and how they can be caused, although only with art and difficulty, to appear alive. He was a pupil and disciple of Piero dal Borgo a San Sepolcro, and greatly did he strive in his youth to imitate his master, and even to surpass him; and the while that he was working with Piero at Arezzo, living in the house of his uncle Lazzaro Vasari, as it has been told, he imitated the manner of the said Piero so well that the one could scarcely be distinguished from the other. The first works of Luca were in S. Lorenzo at Arezzo, where he painted the Chapel of S. Barbara in fresco in the year 1472; and he painted for the Company of S. Caterina, on cloth and in oil, the banner that is borne in processions, and likewise that of the Trinità, although this does not appear to be by the hand of Luca, but by Piero dal Borgo himself. In S. Agostino in the same city he painted the panel of S. Niccola da Tolentino, with most beautiful little scenes, executing the work with good drawing and invention; and in the same place, in the Chapel of the Sacrament, he made two angels wrought in fresco. In the Chapel of the Accolti in the Church of S. Francesco, for Messer Francesco, Doctor of Laws, he painted a panel in which he portrayed the said Messer Francesco with some of his relatives. In this work is a S. Michael weighing souls, who is admirable; and in him there is seen the knowledge of Luca, both in the splendour of his armour and in the reflected lights, and, in short, throughout the whole work. In his hands he placed a pair of scales, in which are nude figures, very beautifully foreshortened, one going up and the other down; and among other ingenious things that are in this picture is a nude figure most skilfully transformed into a devil, with a lizard licking the blood from a wound in its body. Besides this, there is a Madonna with the Child on her lap, with S. Stephen, S. Laurence, S. Catherine, and two angels, of whom one is playing on a lute and the other on a rebec; and all these figures are draped and adorned so beautifully that it is a marvel. But the most miraculous part of this panel is the predella, which is full of Friars of the said S. Catherine in the form of little figures. [Illustration: LUCA SIGNORELLI: PAN (_Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 79A. Canvas_) In Perugia, also, he made many works; among others, a panel in the Duomo for Messer Jacopo Vannucci of Cortona, Bishop of that city; in which panel are Our Lady, S. Onofrio, S. Ercolano, S. John the Baptist, and S. Stephen, with a most beautiful angel, who is tuning a lute. At Volterra, over the altar of a Company in the Church of S. Francesco, he painted in fresco the Circumcision of Our Lord, which is considered beautiful to a marvel, although the Infant, having been injured by damp, was restored by Sodoma and made much less beautiful than before. And, in truth, it would be sometimes better to leave works half spoilt, when they have been made by men of excellence, rather than to have them retouched by inferior masters. In S. Agostino in the same city he painted a panel in distemper, and the predella of little figures, with stories of the Passion of Christ; and this is held to be extraordinarily beautiful. At S. Maria a Monte he painted a Dead Christ on a panel for the monks of that place; and at Città di Castello a Nativity of Christ in S. Francesco, with a S. Sebastian on another panel in S. Domenico. In S. Margherita, a seat of the Frati del Zoccolo in his native city of Cortona, he painted a Dead Christ, one of the rarest of his works; and for the Company of the Gesù, in the same city, he executed three panels, of which the one that is on the high-altar is marvellous, showing Christ administering the Sacrament to the Apostles, and Judas placing the Host into his wallet. In the Pieve, now called the Vescovado, in the Chapel of the Sacrament, he painted some life-size prophets in fresco; and round the tabernacle are some angels who are opening out a canopy, with S. Jerome and S. Thomas Aquinas at the sides. For the high-altar of the said church he painted a panel with a most beautiful Assumption, and he designed the pictures for the principal round window of the same church; which pictures were afterwards executed by Stagio Sassoli of Arezzo. In Castiglione Aretino he made a Dead Christ, with the Maries, over the Chapel of the Sacrament; and in S. Francesco, at Lucignano, he painted the folding-doors of a press, wherein there is a tree of coral surmounted by a cross. At Siena, in the Chapel of S. Cristofano in S. Agostino, he painted a panel with some saints, in the midst of whom is a S. Cristopher in relief. Having gone from Siena to Florence in order to see both the works of those masters who were then living and those of many already dead, he painted for Lorenzo de' Medici certain nude gods on a canvas, for which he was much commended, and a picture of Our Lady with two little prophets in terretta, which is now at Castello, a villa of Duke Cosimo's. These works, both the one and the other, he presented to the said Lorenzo, who would never be beaten by any man in liberality and magnificence. He also painted a round picture of Our Lady, which is in the Audience Chamber of the Captains of the Guelph party--a very beautiful work. At Chiusuri in the district of Siena, the principal seat of the Monks of Monte Oliveto, he painted eleven scenes of the life and acts of S. Benedict on one side of the cloister. And from Cortona he sent some of his works to Montepulciano; to Foiano the panel which is on the high-altar of the Pieve; and other works to other places in Valdichiana. In the Madonna, the principal church of Orvieto, he finished with his own hand the chapel that Fra Giovanni da Fiesole had formerly begun there; in which chapel he painted all the scenes of the end of the world with bizarre and fantastic invention--angels, demons, ruins, earthquakes, fires, miracles of Antichrist, and many other similar things besides, such as nudes, foreshortenings, and many beautiful figures; imagining the terror that there shall be on that last and awful day. By means of this he encouraged all those who have lived after him, insomuch that since then they have found easy the difficulties of that manner; wherefore I do not marvel that the works of Luca were ever very highly extolled by Michelagnolo, nor that in certain parts of his divine Judgment, which he made in the chapel, he should have deigned to avail himself in some measure of the inventions of Luca, as he did in the angels, the demons, the division of the Heavens, and other things, in which Michelagnolo himself imitated Luca's method, as all may see. In this work Luca portrayed himself and many of his friends; Niccolò, Paolo, and Vitelozzo Vitelli, Giovan Paolo and Orazio Baglioni, and others whose names are not known. In the Sacristy of S. Maria at Loreto he painted in fresco the four Evangelists, the four Doctors, and other saints, all very beautiful; and for this work he was liberally rewarded by Pope Sixtus. It is said that a son of his, most beautiful in countenance and in person, whom he loved dearly, was killed at Cortona; and that Luca, heart-broken as he was, had him stripped naked, and with the greatest firmness of soul, without lamenting or shedding a tear, portrayed him, to the end that, whenever he might wish, he might be able by means of the work of his own hands to see that which nature had given him and adverse fortune had snatched away. Being then summoned by the said Pope Sixtus to work in the chapel of his Palace in competition with many other painters, he painted therein two scenes, which are held the best among so many; one is Moses declaring his testament to the Jewish people on having seen the Promised Land, and the other is his death. [Illustration: THE LAST JUDGMENT (_Detail, after the fresco by =Luca Signorelli=. Orvieto: Duomo_) _Anderson_] Finally, having executed works for almost every Prince in Italy, and being now old, he returned to Cortona, where, in those last years of his life, he worked more for pleasure than for any other reason, as one who, being used to labour, neither could nor would stay idle. In this his old age, then, he painted a panel for the Nuns of S. Margherita at Arezzo, and one for the Company of S. Girolamo, which was paid for in part by Messer Niccolò Gamurrini, Doctor of Laws and Auditor of the Ruota,[9] who is portrayed from life in that panel, kneeling before the Madonna, to whom he is being presented by a S. Nicholas who is in the same panel; there are also S. Donatus and S. Stephen, and lower down a nude S. Jerome, and a David who is singing to a psaltery; and also two prophets, who, as it appears from the scrolls that they have in their hands, are speaking about the Conception. This work was brought from Cortona to Arezzo on the shoulders of the men of that Company; and Luca, old as he was, insisted on coming to set it in place, and partly also in order to revisit his friends and relatives. And since he lodged in the house of the Vasari, in which I then was, a little boy of eight years old, I remember that the good old man, who was most gracious and courteous, having heard from the master who was teaching me my first letters, that I gave my attention to nothing in lesson-time save to drawing figures, I remember, I say, that he turned to my father Antonio and said to him: "Antonio, if you wish little Giorgio not to become backward, by all means let him learn to draw, for, even were he to devote himself to letters, design cannot be otherwise than helpful, honourable, and advantageous to him, as it is to every gentleman." Then, turning to me, who was standing in front of him, he said: "Mind your lessons, little kinsman." He said many other things about me, which I withhold, for the reason that I know that I have failed by a great measure to justify the opinion which the good old man had of me. And since he heard, as was true, that the blood used to flow from my nose at that age in such quantities that this left me sometimes half dead, with infinite lovingness he bound a jasper round my neck with his own hand; and this memory of Luca will stay for ever fixed in my mind. The said panel set in place, he returned to Cortona, accompanied for a great part of the way by many citizens, friends, and relatives, as was due to the excellence of Luca, who always lived rather as a noble and a man of rank than as a painter. About the same time a palace had been built for Cardinal Silvio Passerini of Cortona, half a mile beyond the city, by Benedetto Caporali, a painter of Perugia, who, delighting in architecture, had written a commentary on Vitruvius a short time before; and the said Cardinal determined to have almost the whole of it painted. Wherefore Benedetto, putting his hand to this with the aid of Maso Papacello of Cortona (who was his disciple and had also learnt not a little from Giulio Romano, as will be told), of Tommaso, and of other disciples and lads, did not cease until he had painted it almost all over in fresco. But the Cardinal wishing to have some painting by the hand of Luca as well, he, old as he was, and hindered by palsy, painted in fresco, on the altar-wall of the chapel of that palace, the scene of S. John the Baptist baptizing the Saviour; but he was not able to finish it completely, for while still working at it he died, having reached the age of eighty-two. Luca was a man of most excellent character, true and loving with his friends, sweet and amiable in his dealings with every man, and, above all, courteous to all who had need of him, and kindly in teaching his disciples. He lived splendidly, and he took delight in clothing himself well. And for these good qualities he was ever held in the highest veneration both in his own country and abroad. And so, with the end of this master's life, which was in 1521, we will bring to an end the Second Part of these Lives; concluding with Luca, as the man who, with his profound mastery of design, particularly in nudes, and with his grace in invention and in the composition of scenes, opened to the majority of craftsmen the way to the final perfection of art, to which those men who followed were afterwards enabled to add the crown, of whom we are henceforward to speak. FOOTNOTE: [9] A judicial court, the members of which sat in rotation. THE THIRD PART OF THE LIVES OF THE SCULPTORS, PAINTERS, AND ARCHITECTS, WHO HAVE LIVED FROM CIMABUE TO OUR OWN DAY. WRITTEN BY MESSER GIORGIO VASARI, PAINTER AND ARCHITECT OF AREZZO PREFACE TO THE THIRD PART Truly great was the advancement conferred on the arts of architecture, painting, and sculpture by those excellent masters of whom we have written hitherto, in the Second Part of these Lives, for to the achievements of the early masters they added rule, order, proportion, draughtsmanship, and manner; not, indeed, in complete perfection, but with so near an approach to the truth that the masters of the third age, of whom we are henceforward to speak, were enabled, by means of their light, to aspire still higher and attain to that supreme perfection which we see in the most highly prized and most celebrated of our modern works. But to the end that the nature of the improvement brought about by the aforesaid craftsmen may be even more clearly understood, it will certainly not be out of place to explain in a few words the five additions that I have named, and to give a succinct account of the origin of that true excellence which, having surpassed the age of the ancients, makes the modern so glorious. Rule, then, in architecture, was the process of taking measurements from antiquities and studying the ground-plans of ancient edifices for the construction of modern buildings. Order was the separating of one style from another, so that each body should receive its proper members, with no more interchanging between Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Tuscan. Proportion was the universal law applying both to architecture and to sculpture, that all bodies should be made correct and true, with the members in proper harmony; and so, also, in painting. Draughtsmanship was the imitation of the most beautiful parts of nature in all figures, whether in sculpture or in painting; and for this it is necessary to have a hand and a brain able to reproduce with absolute accuracy and precision, on a level surface--whether by drawing on paper, or on panel, or on some other level surface--everything that the eye sees; and the same is true of relief in sculpture. Manner then attained to the greatest beauty from the practice which arose of constantly copying the most beautiful objects, and joining together these most beautiful things, hands, heads, bodies, and legs, so as to make a figure of the greatest possible beauty. This practice was carried out in every work for all figures, and for that reason it is called the beautiful manner. These things had not been done by Giotto or by the other early craftsmen, although they had discovered the rudiments of all these difficulties, and had touched them on the surface; as in their drawing, which was sounder and more true to nature than it had been before, and likewise in harmony of colouring and in the grouping of figures in scenes, and in many other respects of which enough has been said. Now although the masters of the second age improved our arts greatly with regard to all the qualities mentioned above, yet these were not made by them so perfect as to succeed in attaining to complete perfection, for there was wanting in their rule a certain freedom which, without being of the rule, might be directed by the rule and might be able to exist without causing confusion or spoiling the order; which order had need of an invention abundant in every respect, and of a certain beauty maintained in every least detail, so as to reveal all that order with more adornment. In proportion there was wanting a certain correctness of judgment, by means of which their figures, without having been measured, might have, in due relation to their dimensions, a grace exceeding measurement. In their drawing there was not the perfection of finish, because, although they made an arm round and a leg straight, the muscles in these were not revealed with that sweet and facile grace which hovers midway between the seen and the unseen, as is the case with the flesh of living figures; nay, they were crude and excoriated, which made them displeasing to the eye and gave hardness to the manner. This last was wanting in the delicacy that comes from making all figures light and graceful, particularly those of women and children, with the limbs true to nature, as in the case of men, but veiled with a plumpness and fleshiness that should not be awkward, as they are in nature, but refined by draughtsmanship and judgment. They also lacked our abundance of beautiful costumes, our great number and variety of bizarre fancies, loveliness of colouring, wide knowledge of buildings, and distance and variety in landscapes. And although many of them, such as Andrea Verrocchio and Antonio del Pollaiuolo, and many others more modern, began to seek to make their figures with more study, so as to reveal in them better draughtsmanship, with a degree of imitation more correct and truer to nature, nevertheless the whole was not yet there, even though they had one very certain assurance--namely, that they were advancing towards the good, and their figures were thus approved according to the standard of the works of the ancients, as was seen when Andrea Verrocchio restored in marble the legs and arms of the Marsyas in the house of the Medici in Florence. But they lacked a certain finish and finality of perfection in the feet, hands, hair, and beards, although the limbs as a whole are in accordance with the antique and have a certain correct harmony in the proportions. Now if they had had that minuteness of finish which is the perfection and bloom of art, they would also have had a resolute boldness in their works; and from this there would have followed delicacy, refinement, and supreme grace, which are the qualities produced by the perfection of art in beautiful figures, whether in relief or in painting; but these qualities they did not have, although they give proof of diligent striving. That finish, and that certain something that they lacked, they could not achieve so readily, seeing that study, when it is used in that way to obtain finish, gives dryness to the manner. After them, indeed, their successors were enabled to attain to it through seeing excavated out of the earth certain antiquities cited by Pliny as amongst the most famous, such as the Laocoon, the Hercules, the Great Torso of the Belvedere, and likewise the Venus, the Cleopatra, the Apollo, and an endless number of others, which, both with their sweetness and their severity, with their fleshy roundness copied from the greatest beauties of nature, and with certain attitudes which involve no distortion of the whole figure but only a movement of certain parts, and are revealed with a most perfect grace, brought about the disappearance of a certain dryness, hardness, and sharpness of manner, which had been left to our art by the excessive study of Piero della Francesca, Lazzaro Vasari, Alesso Baldovinetti, Andrea dal Castagno, Pesello, Ercole Ferrarese, Giovanni Bellini, Cosimo Rosselli, the Abbot of S. Clemente, Domenico del Ghirlandajo, Sandro Botticelli, Andrea Mantegna, Filippo, and Luca Signorelli. These masters sought with great efforts to do the impossible in art by means of labour, particularly in foreshortenings and in things unpleasant to the eye, which were as painful to see as they were difficult for them to execute. And although their works were for the most part well drawn and free from errors, yet there was wanting a certain resolute spirit which was never seen in them, and that sweet harmony of colouring which the Bolognese Francia and Pietro Perugino first began to show in their works; at the sight of which people ran like madmen to this new and more lifelike beauty, for it seemed to them quite certain that nothing better could ever be done. But their error was afterwards clearly proved by the works of Leonardo da Vinci, who, giving a beginning to that third manner which we propose to call the modern--besides the force and boldness of his drawing, and the extreme subtlety wherewith he counterfeited all the minutenesses of nature exactly as they are--with good rule, better order, right proportion, perfect drawing, and divine grace, abounding in resources and having a most profound knowledge of art, may be truly said to have endowed his figures with motion and breath. There followed after him, although at some distance, Giorgione da Castelfranco, who obtained a beautiful gradation of colour in his pictures, and gave a sublime movement to his works by means of a certain darkness of shadow, very well conceived; and not inferior to him in giving force, relief, sweetness, and grace to his pictures, with his colouring, was Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco. But more than all did the most gracious Raffaello da Urbino, who, studying the labours of the old masters and those of the modern, took the best from them, and, having gathered it together, enriched the art of painting with that complete perfection which was shown in ancient times by the figures of Apelles and Zeuxis; nay, even more, if we may make bold to say it, as might be proved if we could compare their works with his. Wherefore nature was left vanquished by his colours; and his invention was facile and peculiar to himself, as may be perceived by all who see his painted stories, which are as vivid as writings, for in them he showed us places and buildings true to reality, and the features and costumes both of our own people and of strangers, according to his pleasure; not to mention his gift of imparting grace to the heads of young men, old men, and women, reserving modesty for the modest, wantonness for the wanton, and for children now mischief in their eyes, now playfulness in their attitudes; and the folds of his draperies, also, are neither too simple nor too intricate, but of such a kind that they appear real. In the same manner, but sweeter in colouring and not so bold, there followed Andrea del Sarto, who may be called a rare painter, for his works are free from errors. Nor is it possible to describe the charming vivacity seen in the works of Antonio da Correggio, who painted hair in detail, not in the precise manner used by the masters before him, which was constrained, sharp, and dry, but soft and feathery, with each single hair visible, such was his facility in making them; and they seemed like gold and more beautiful than real hair, which is surpassed by that which he painted. The same did Francesco Mazzuoli of Parma, who excelled him in many respects in grace, adornment, and beauty of manner, as may be seen in many of his pictures, which smile on whoever beholds them; and even as there is a perfect illusion of sight in the eyes, so there is perceived the beating of the pulse, according as it best pleased his brush. But whosoever shall consider the mural paintings of Polidoro and Maturino, will see figures in attitudes that seem beyond the bounds of possibility, and he will wonder with amazement how it can be possible, not to describe with the tongue, which is easy, but to express with the brush the tremendous conceptions which they put into execution with such mastery and dexterity, in representing the deeds of the Romans exactly as they were. And how many there are who, having given life to their figures with their colours, are now dead, such as Il Rosso, Fra Sebastiano, Giulio Romano, and Perino del Vaga! For of the living, who are known to all through their own efforts, there is no need to speak here. But what most concerns the whole world of art is that they have now brought it to such perfection, and made it so easy for him who possesses draughtsmanship, invention, and colouring, that, whereas those early masters took six years to paint one panel, our modern masters can paint six in one year, as I can testify with the greatest confidence both from seeing and from doing; and our pictures are clearly much more highly finished and perfect than those executed in former times by masters of account. But he who bears the palm from both the living and the dead, transcending and eclipsing all others, is the divine Michelagnolo Buonarroti, who holds the sovereignty not merely of one of these arts, but of all three together. This master surpasses and excels not only all those moderns who have almost vanquished nature, but even those most famous ancients who without a doubt did so gloriously surpass her; and in his own self he triumphs over moderns, ancients, and nature, who could scarcely conceive anything so strange and so difficult that he would not be able, by the force of his most divine intellect and by means of his industry, draughtsmanship, art, judgment, and grace, to excel it by a great measure; and that not only in painting and in the use of colour, under which title are comprised all forms, and all bodies upright or not upright, palpable or impalpable, visible or invisible, but also in the highest perfection of bodies in the round, with the point of his chisel. And from a plant so beautiful and so fruitful, through his labours, there have already spread branches so many and so noble, that, besides having filled the world in such unwonted profusion with the most luscious fruits, they have also given the final form to these three most noble arts. And so great and so marvellous is his perfection, that it may be safely and surely said that his statues are in all their parts much more beautiful than the ancient; for if we compare the heads, hands, arms, and feet shaped by the one with those of the others, we see in his a greater depth and solidity, a grace more completely graceful, and a much more absolute perfection, accomplished with a manner so facile in the overcoming of difficulties, that it is not possible ever to see anything better. And the same may be believed of his pictures, which; if we chanced to have some by the most famous Greeks and Romans, so that we might compare them face to face, would prove to be as much higher in value and more noble as his sculptures are clearly superior to all those of the ancients. But if we admire so greatly those most famous masters who, spurred by such extraordinary rewards and by such good-fortune, gave life to their works, how much more should we not celebrate and exalt to the heavens those rare intellects who, not only without reward, but in miserable poverty, bring forth fruits so precious? We must believe and declare, then, that if, in this our age, there were a due meed of remuneration, there would be without a doubt works greater and much better than were ever wrought by the ancients. But the fact that they have to grapple more with famine than with fame, keeps our hapless intellects submerged, and, to the shame and disgrace of those who could raise them up but give no thought to it, prevents them from becoming known. And let this be enough to have said on this subject; for it is now time to return to the Lives, and to treat in detail of all those who have executed famous works in this third manner, the creator of which was Leonardo da Vinci, with whom we will now begin. LEONARDO DA VINCI LIFE OF LEONARDO DA VINCI[10] PAINTER AND SCULPTOR OF FLORENCE The greatest gifts are often seen, in the course of nature, rained by celestial influences on human creatures; and sometimes, in supernatural fashion, beauty, grace, and talent are united beyond measure in one single person, in a manner that to whatever such an one turns his attention, his every action is so divine, that, surpassing all other men, it makes itself clearly known as a thing bestowed by God (as it is), and not acquired by human art. This was seen by all mankind in Leonardo da Vinci, in whom, besides a beauty of body never sufficiently extolled, there was an infinite grace in all his actions; and so great was his genius, and such its growth, that to whatever difficulties he turned his mind, he solved them with ease. In him was great bodily strength, joined to dexterity, with a spirit and courage ever royal and magnanimous; and the fame of his name so increased, that not only in his lifetime was he held in esteem, but his reputation became even greater among posterity after his death. Truly marvellous and celestial was Leonardo, the son of Ser Piero da Vinci; and in learning and in the rudiments of letters he would have made great proficience, if he had not been so variable and unstable, for he set himself to learn many things, and then, after having begun them, abandoned them. Thus, in arithmetic, during the few months that he studied it, he made so much progress, that, by continually suggesting doubts and difficulties to the master who was teaching him, he would very often bewilder him. He gave some little attention to music, and quickly resolved to learn to play the lyre, as one who had by nature a spirit most lofty and full of refinement: wherefore he sang divinely to that instrument, improvising upon it. Nevertheless, although he occupied himself with such a variety of things, he never ceased drawing and working in relief, pursuits which suited his fancy more than any other. Ser Piero, having observed this, and having considered the loftiness of his intellect, one day took some of his drawings and carried them to Andrea del Verrocchio, who was much his friend, and besought him straitly to tell him whether Leonardo, by devoting himself to drawing, would make any proficience. Andrea was astonished to see the extraordinary beginnings of Leonardo, and urged Ser Piero that he should make him study it; wherefore he arranged with Leonardo that he should enter the workshop of Andrea, which Leonardo did with the greatest willingness in the world. And he practised not one branch of art only, but all those in which drawing played a part; and having an intellect so divine and marvellous that he was also an excellent geometrician, he not only worked in sculpture, making in his youth, in clay, some heads of women that are smiling, of which plaster casts are still taken, and likewise some heads of boys which appeared to have issued from the hand of a master; but in architecture, also, he made many drawings both of ground-plans and of other designs of buildings; and he was the first, although but a youth, who suggested the plan of reducing the river Arno to a navigable canal from Pisa to Florence. He made designs of flour-mills, fulling-mills, and engines, which might be driven by the force of water: and since he wished that his profession should be painting, he studied much in drawing after nature, and sometimes in making models of figures in clay, over which he would lay soft pieces of cloth dipped in clay, and then set himself patiently to draw them on a certain kind of very fine Rheims cloth, or prepared linen: and he executed them in black and white with the point of his brush, so that it was a marvel, as some of them by his hand, which I have in our book of drawings, still bear witness; besides which, he drew on paper with such diligence and so well, that there is no one who has ever equalled him in perfection of finish; and I have one, a head drawn with the style in chiaroscuro, which is divine. And there was infused in that brain such grace from God, and a power of expression in such sublime accord with the intellect and memory that served it, and he knew so well how to express his conceptions by draughtsmanship, that he vanquished with his discourse, and confuted with his reasoning, every valiant wit. And he was continually making models and designs to show men how to remove mountains with ease, and how to bore them in order to pass from one level to another; and by means of levers, windlasses, and screws, he showed the way to raise and draw great weights, together with methods for emptying harbours, and pumps for removing water from low places, things which his brain never ceased from devising; and of these ideas and labours many drawings may be seen, scattered abroad among our craftsmen; and I myself have seen not a few. He even went so far as to waste his time in drawing knots of cords, made according to an order, that from one end all the rest might follow till the other, so as to fill a round; and one of these is to be seen in stamp, most difficult and beautiful, and in the middle of it are these words, "Leonardus Vinci Accademia." And among these models and designs, there was one by which he often demonstrated to many ingenious citizens, who were then governing Florence, how he proposed to raise the Temple of S. Giovanni in Florence, and place steps under it, without damaging the building; and with such strong reasons did he urge this, that it appeared possible, although each man, after he had departed, would recognize for himself the impossibility of so vast an undertaking. He was so pleasing in conversation, that he attracted to himself the hearts of men. And although he possessed, one might say, nothing, and worked little, he always kept servants and horses, in which latter he took much delight, and particularly in all other animals, which he managed with the greatest love and patience; and this he showed when often passing by the places where birds were sold, for, taking them with his own hand out of their cages, and having paid to those who sold them the price that was asked, he let them fly away into the air, restoring to them their lost liberty. For which reason nature was pleased so to favour him, that, wherever he turned his thought, brain, and mind, he displayed such divine power in his works, that, in giving them their perfection, no one was ever his peer in readiness, vivacity, excellence, beauty, and grace. It is clear that Leonardo, through his comprehension of art, began many things and never finished one of them, since it seemed to him that the hand was not able to attain to the perfection of art in carrying out the things which he imagined; for the reason that he conceived in idea difficulties so subtle and so marvellous, that they could never be expressed by the hands, be they ever so excellent. And so many were his caprices, that, philosophizing of natural things, he set himself to seek out the properties of herbs, going on even to observe the motions of the heavens, the path of the moon, and the courses of the sun. He was placed, then, as has been said, in his boyhood, at the instance of Ser Piero, to learn art with Andrea del Verrocchio, who was making a panel-picture of S. John baptizing Christ, when Leonardo painted an angel who was holding some garments; and although he was but a lad, Leonardo executed it in such a manner that his angel was much better than the figures of Andrea; which was the reason that Andrea would never again touch colour, in disdain that a child should know more than he. [Illustration: ANDREA VERROCCHIO: THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN (_Florence: Accademia, 71. Panel_)] He was commissioned to make a cartoon for a door-hanging that was to be executed in Flanders, woven in gold and silk, to be sent to the King of Portugal, of Adam and Eve sinning in the Earthly Paradise; wherein Leonardo drew with the brush in chiaroscuro, with the lights in lead-white, a meadow of infinite kinds of herbage, with some animals, of which, in truth, it may be said that for diligence and truth to nature divine wit could not make it so perfect. In it is the fig-tree, together with the foreshortening of the leaves and the varying aspects of the branches, wrought with such lovingness that the brain reels at the mere thought how a man could have such patience. There is also a palm-tree which has the radiating crown of the palm, executed with such great and marvellous art that nothing save the patience and intellect of Leonardo could avail to do it. This work was carried no farther; wherefore the cartoon is now at Florence, in the blessed house of the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, presented to him not long ago by the uncle of Leonardo. It is said that Ser Piero da Vinci, being at his villa, was besought as a favour, by a peasant of his, who had made a buckler with his own hands out of a fig-tree that he had cut down on the farm, to have it painted for him in Florence, which he did very willingly, since the countryman was very skilful at catching birds and fishing, and Ser Piero made much use of him in these pursuits. Thereupon, having had it taken to Florence, without saying a word to Leonardo as to whose it was, he asked him to paint something upon it. Leonardo, having one day taken this buckler in his hands, and seeing it twisted, badly made, and clumsy, straightened it by the fire, and, having given it to a turner, from the rude and clumsy thing that it was, caused it to be made smooth and even. And afterwards, having given it a coat of gesso, and having prepared it in his own way, he began to think what he could paint upon it, that might be able to terrify all who should come upon it, producing the same effect as once did the head of Medusa. For this purpose, then, Leonardo carried to a room of his own into which no one entered save himself alone, lizards great and small, crickets, serpents, butterflies, grasshoppers, bats, and other strange kinds of suchlike animals, out of the number of which, variously put together, he formed a great ugly creature, most horrible and terrifying, which emitted a poisonous breath and turned the air to flame; and he made it coming out of a dark and jagged rock, belching forth venom from its open throat, fire from its eyes, and smoke from its nostrils, in so strange a fashion that it appeared altogether a monstrous and horrible thing; and so long did he labour over making it, that the stench of the dead animals in that room was past bearing, but Leonardo did not notice it, so great was the love that he bore towards art. The work being finished, although it was no longer asked for either by the countryman or by his father, Leonardo told the latter that he might send for the buckler at his convenience, since, for his part, it was finished. Ser Piero having therefore gone one morning to the room for the buckler, and having knocked at the door, Leonardo opened to him, telling him to wait a little; and, having gone back into the room, he adjusted the buckler in a good light on the easel, and put to the window, in order to make a soft light, and then he bade him come in to see it. Ser Piero, at the first glance, taken by surprise, gave a sudden start, not thinking that that was the buckler, nor merely painted the form that he saw upon it, and, falling back a step, Leonardo checked him, saying, "This work serves the end for which it was made; take it, then, and carry it away, since this is the effect that it was meant to produce." This thing appeared to Ser Piero nothing short of a miracle, and he praised very greatly the ingenious idea of Leonardo; and then, having privately bought from a pedlar another buckler, painted with a heart transfixed by an arrow, he presented it to the countryman, who remained obliged to him for it as long as he lived. Afterwards, Ser Piero sold the buckler of Leonardo secretly to some merchants in Florence, for a hundred ducats; and in a short time it came into the hands of the Duke of Milan, having been sold to him by the said merchants for three hundred ducats. Leonardo then made a picture of Our Lady, a most excellent work, which was in the possession of Pope Clement VII; and, among other things painted therein, he counterfeited a glass vase full of water, containing some flowers, in which, besides its marvellous naturalness, he had imitated the dew-drops on the flowers, so that it seemed more real than the reality. For Antonio Segni, who was very much his friend, he made, on a sheet of paper, a Neptune executed with such careful draughtsmanship that it seemed absolutely alive. In it one saw the ocean troubled, and Neptune's car drawn by sea-horses, with fantastic creatures, marine monsters and winds, and some very beautiful heads of sea-gods. This drawing was presented by Fabio, the son of Antonio, to Messer Giovanni Gaddi, with this epigram: Pinxit Virgilius Neptunum, pinxit Homerus, Dum maris undisoni per vada flectit equos. Mente quidem vates illum conspexit uterque, Vincius ast oculis; jureque vincit eos. [Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI (_After the panel by =Leonardo da Vinci=. Florence: Uffizi, 1252_) _Anderson_] The fancy came to him to paint a picture in oils of the head of a Medusa, with the head attired with a coil of snakes, the most strange and extravagant invention that could ever be imagined; but since it was a work that took time, it remained unfinished, as happened with almost all his things. It is among the rare works of art in the Palace of Duke Cosimo, together with the head of an angel, who is raising one arm in the air, which, coming forward, is foreshortened from the shoulder to the elbow, and with the other he raises the hand to the breast. It is an extraordinary thing how that genius, in his desire to give the highest relief to the works that he made, went so far with dark shadows, in order to find the darkest possible grounds, that he sought for blacks which might make deeper shadows and be darker than other blacks, that by their means he might make his lights the brighter; and in the end this method turned out so dark, that, no light remaining there, his pictures had rather the character of things made to represent an effect of night, than the clear quality of daylight; which all came from seeking to give greater relief, and to achieve the final perfection of art. He was so delighted when he saw certain bizarre heads of men, with the beard or hair growing naturally, that he would follow one that pleased him a whole day, and so treasured him up in idea, that afterwards, on arriving home, he drew him as if he had had him in his presence. Of this sort there are many heads to be seen, both of women and of men, and I have several of them, drawn by his hand with the pen, in our book of drawings, which I have mentioned so many times; such was that of Amerigo Vespucci, which is a very beautiful head of an old man drawn with charcoal, and likewise that of Scaramuccia, Captain of the Gypsies, which afterwards came into the hands of M. Donato Valdambrini of Arezzo, Canon of S. Lorenzo, left to him by Giambullari. He began a panel-picture of the Adoration of the Magi, containing many beautiful things, particularly the heads, which was in the house of Amerigo Benci, opposite the Loggia de' Peruzzi; and this, also, remained unfinished, like his other works. It came to pass that Giovan Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, being dead, and Lodovico Sforza raised to the same rank, in the year 1494, Leonardo was summoned to Milan in great repute to the Duke, who took much delight in the sound of the lyre, to the end that he might play it: and Leonardo took with him that instrument which he had made with his own hands, in great part of silver, in the form of a horse's skull--a thing bizarre and new--in order that the harmony might be of greater volume and more sonorous in tone; with which he surpassed all the musicians who had come together there to play. Besides this, he was the best improviser in verse of his day. The Duke, hearing the marvellous discourse of Leonardo, became so enamoured of his genius, that it was something incredible: and he prevailed upon him by entreaties to paint an altar-panel containing a Nativity, which was sent by the Duke to the Emperor. He also painted in Milan, for the Friars of S. Dominic, at S. Maria delle Grazie, a Last Supper, a most beautiful and marvellous thing; and to the heads of the Apostles he gave such majesty and beauty, that he left the head of Christ unfinished, not believing that he was able to give it that divine air which is essential to the image of Christ. This work, remaining thus all but finished, has ever been held by the Milanese in the greatest veneration, and also by strangers as well; for Leonardo imagined and succeeded in expressing that anxiety which had seized the Apostles in wishing to know who should betray their Master. For which reason in all their faces are seen love, fear, and wrath, or rather, sorrow, at not being able to understand the meaning of Christ; which thing excites no less marvel than the sight, in contrast to it, of obstinacy, hatred, and treachery in Judas; not to mention that every least part of the work displays an incredible diligence, seeing that even in the tablecloth the texture of the stuff is counterfeited in such a manner that linen itself could not seem more real. [Illustration: THE LAST SUPPER (_After the oil fresco by =Leonardo da Vinci=. Milan: S. Maria delle Grazie_) _M.S._] It is said that the Prior of that place kept pressing Leonardo, in a most importunate manner, to finish the work; for it seemed strange to him to see Leonardo sometimes stand half a day at a time, lost in contemplation, and he would have liked him to go on like the labourers hoeing in his garden, without ever stopping his brush. And not content with this, he complained of it to the Duke, and that so warmly, that he was constrained to send for Leonardo and delicately urged him to work, contriving nevertheless to show him that he was doing all this because of the importunity of the Prior. Leonardo, knowing that the intellect of that Prince was acute and discerning, was pleased to discourse at large with the Duke on the subject, a thing which he had never done with the Prior: and he reasoned much with him about art, and made him understand that men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work the least, seeking out inventions with the mind, and forming those perfect ideas which the hands afterwards express and reproduce from the images already conceived in the brain. And he added that two heads were still wanting for him to paint; that of Christ, which he did not wish to seek on earth; and he could not think that it was possible to conceive in the imagination that beauty and heavenly grace which should be the mark of God incarnate. Next, there was wanting that of Judas, which was also troubling him, not thinking himself capable of imagining features that should represent the countenance of him who, after so many benefits received, had a mind so cruel as to resolve to betray his Lord, the Creator of the world. However, he would seek out a model for the latter; but if in the end he could not find a better, he should not want that of the importunate and tactless Prior. This thing moved the Duke wondrously to laughter, and he said that Leonardo had a thousand reasons on his side. And so the poor Prior, in confusion, confined himself to urging on the work in the garden, and left Leonardo in peace, who finished only the head of Judas, which seems the very embodiment of treachery and inhumanity; but that of Christ, as has been said, remained unfinished. The nobility of this picture, both because of its design, and from its having been wrought with an incomparable diligence, awoke a desire in the King of France to transport it into his kingdom; wherefore he tried by all possible means to discover whether there were architects who, with cross-stays of wood and iron, might have been able to make it so secure that it might be transported safely; without considering any expense that might have been involved thereby, so much did he desire it. But the fact of its being painted on the wall robbed his Majesty of his desire; and the picture remained with the Milanese. In the same refectory, while he was working at the Last Supper, on the end wall where is a Passion in the old manner, Leonardo portrayed the said Lodovico, with Massimiliano, his eldest son; and, on the other side, the Duchess Beatrice, with Francesco, their other son, both of whom afterwards became Dukes of Milan; and all are portrayed divinely well. While he was engaged on this work, he proposed to the Duke to make a horse in bronze, of a marvellous greatness, in order to place upon it, as a memorial, the image of the Duke. And on so vast a scale did he begin it and continue it, that it could never be completed. And there are those who have been of the opinion (so various and so often malign out of envy are the judgments of men) that he began it with no intention of finishing it, because, being of so great a size, an incredible difficulty was encountered in seeking to cast it in one piece; and it might also be believed that, from the result, many may have formed such a judgment, since many of his works have remained unfinished. But, in truth, one can believe that his vast and most excellent mind was hampered through being too full of desire, and that his wish ever to seek out excellence upon excellence, and perfection upon perfection, was the reason of it. "Tal che l' opera fosse ritardata dal desio," as our Petrarca has said. And, indeed, those who saw the great model that Leonardo made in clay vow that they have never seen a more beautiful thing, or a more superb; and it was preserved until the French came to Milan with King Louis of France, and broke it all to pieces. Lost, also, is a little model of it in wax, which was held to be perfect, together with a book on the anatomy of the horse made by him by way of study. [Illustration: THE MADONNA AND CHILD WITH S. ANNE (_After the cartoon by =Leonardo da Vinci=. London: Burlington House_) _Vasari Society_] He then applied himself, but with greater care, to the anatomy of man, assisted by and in turn assisting, in this research, Messer Marc' Antonio della Torre, an excellent philosopher, who was then lecturing at Pavia, and who wrote of this matter; and he was one of the first (as I have heard tell) that began to illustrate the problems of medicine with the doctrine of Galen, and to throw true light on anatomy, which up to that time had been wrapped in the thick and gross darkness of ignorance. And in this he found marvellous aid in the brain, work, and hand of Leonardo, who made a book drawn in red chalk, and annotated with the pen, of the bodies that he dissected with his own hand, and drew with the greatest diligence; wherein he showed all the frame of the bones; and then added to them, in order, all the nerves, and covered them with muscles; the first attached to the bone, the second that hold the body firm, and the third that move it; and beside them, part by part, he wrote in letters of an ill-shaped character, which he made with the left hand, backwards; and whoever is not practised in reading them cannot understand them, since they are not to be read save with a mirror. Of these papers on the anatomy of man, a great part is in the hands of Messer Francesco da Melzo, a gentleman of Milan, who in the time of Leonardo was a very beautiful boy, and much beloved by him, and now is a no less beautiful and gentle old man; and he holds them dear, and keeps such papers together as if they were relics, in company with the portrait of Leonardo of happy memory; and to all who read these writings, it seems impossible that that divine spirit should have discoursed so well of art, and of the muscles, nerves, and veins, and with such diligence of everything. So, also, there are in the hands of ----,[11] a painter of Milan, certain writings of Leonardo, likewise in characters written with the left hand, backwards, which treat of painting, and of the methods of drawing and colouring. This man, not long ago, came to Florence to see me, wishing to print this work, and he took it to Rome, in order to put it into effect; but I do not know what may afterwards have become of it. And to return to the works of Leonardo; there came to Milan, in his time, the King of France, wherefore Leonardo being asked to devise some bizarre thing, made a lion which walked several steps and then opened its breast, and showed it full of lilies. In Milan he took for his assistant the Milanese Salai, who was most comely in grace and beauty, having fine locks, curling in ringlets, in which Leonardo greatly delighted; and he taught him many things of art; and certain works in Milan, which are said to be by Salai, were retouched by Leonardo. He returned to Florence, where he found that the Servite Friars had entrusted to Filippino the painting of the panel for the high-altar of the Nunziata; whereupon Leonardo said that he would willingly have done such a work. Filippino, having heard this, like the amiable fellow that he was, retired from the undertaking; and the friars, to the end that Leonardo might paint it, took him into their house, meeting the expenses both of himself and of all his household; and thus he kept them in expectation for a long time, but never began anything. In the end, he made a cartoon containing a Madonna and a S. Anne, with a Christ, which not only caused all the craftsmen to marvel, but, when it was finished, men and women, young and old, continued for two days to flock for a sight of it to the room where it was, as if to a solemn festival, in order to gaze at the marvels of Leonardo, which caused all those people to be amazed; for in the face of that Madonna was seen whatever of the simple and the beautiful can by simplicity and beauty confer grace on a picture of the Mother of Christ, since he wished to show that modesty and that humility which are looked for in an image of the Virgin, supremely content with gladness at seeing the beauty of her Son, whom she was holding with tenderness in her lap, while with most chastened gaze she was looking down at S. John, as a little boy, who was playing with a lamb; not without a smile from S. Anne, who, overflowing with joy, was beholding her earthly progeny become divine--ideas truly worthy of the brain and genius of Leonardo. This cartoon, as will be told below, afterwards went to France. He made a portrait of Ginevra d' Amerigo Benci, a very beautiful work; and abandoned the work for the friars, who restored it to Filippino; but he, also, failed to finish it, having been overtaken by death. Leonardo undertook to execute, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Monna Lisa, his wife; and after toiling over it for four years, he left it unfinished; and the work is now in the collection of King Francis of France, at Fontainebleau. In this head, whoever wished to see how closely art could imitate nature, was able to comprehend it with ease; for in it were counterfeited all the minutenesses that with subtlety are able to be painted, seeing that the eyes had that lustre and watery sheen which are always seen in life, and around them were all those rosy and pearly tints, as well as the lashes, which cannot be represented without the greatest subtlety. The eyebrows, through his having shown the manner in which the hairs spring from the flesh, here more close and here more scanty, and curve according to the pores of the skin, could not be more natural. The nose, with its beautiful nostrils, rosy and tender, appeared to be alive. The mouth, with its opening, and with its ends united by the red of the lips to the flesh-tints of the face, seemed, in truth, to be not colours but flesh. In the pit of the throat, if one gazed upon it intently, could be seen the beating of the pulse. And, indeed, it may be said that it was painted in such a manner as to make every valiant craftsman, be he who he may, tremble and lose heart. He made use, also, of this device: Monna Lisa being very beautiful, he always employed, while he was painting her portrait, persons to play or sing, and jesters, who might make her remain merry, in order to take away that melancholy which painters are often wont to give to the portraits that they paint. And in this work of Leonardo's there was a smile so pleasing, that it was a thing more divine than human to behold; and it was held to be something marvellous, since the reality was not more alive. By reason, then, of the excellence of the works of this most divine craftsman, his fame had so increased that all persons who took delight in art--nay, the whole city of Florence--desired that he should leave them some memorial, and it was being proposed everywhere that he should be commissioned to execute some great and notable work, whereby the commonwealth might be honoured and adorned by the great genius, grace and judgment that were seen in the works of Leonardo. And it was decided between the Gonfalonier and the chief citizens, the Great Council Chamber having been newly built--the architecture of which had been contrived with the judgment and counsel of Giuliano da San Gallo, Simone Pollaiuolo, called Il Cronaca, Michelagnolo Buonarroti, and Baccio d' Agnolo, as will be related with more detail in the proper places--and having been finished in great haste, it was ordained by public decree that Leonardo should be given some beautiful work to paint; and so the said hall was allotted to him by Piero Soderini, then Gonfalonier of Justice. Whereupon Leonardo, determining to execute this work, began a cartoon in the Sala del Papa, an apartment in S. Maria Novella, representing the story of Niccolò Piccinino, Captain of Duke Filippo of Milan; wherein he designed a group of horsemen who were fighting for a standard, a work that was held to be very excellent and of great mastery, by reason of the marvellous ideas that he had in composing that battle; seeing that in it rage, fury, and revenge are perceived as much in the men as in the horses, among which two with the fore-legs interlocked are fighting no less fiercely with their teeth than those who are riding them do in fighting for that standard, which has been grasped by a soldier, who seeks by the strength of his shoulders, as he spurs his horse to flight, having turned his body backwards and seized the staff of the standard, to wrest it by force from the hands of four others, of whom two are defending it, each with one hand, and, raising their swords in the other, are trying to sever the staff; while an old soldier in a red cap, crying out, grips the staff with one hand, and, raising a scimitar with the other, furiously aims a blow in order to cut off both the hands of those who, gnashing their teeth in the struggle, are striving in attitudes of the utmost fierceness to defend their banner; besides which, on the ground, between the legs of the horses, there are two figures in foreshortening that are fighting together, and the one on the ground has over him a soldier who has raised his arm as high as possible, that thus with greater force he may plunge a dagger into his throat, in order to end his life; while the other, struggling with his legs and arms, is doing what he can to escape death. It is not possible to describe the invention that Leonardo showed in the garments of the soldiers, all varied by him in different ways, and likewise in the helmet-crests and other ornaments; not to mention the incredible mastery that he displayed in the forms and lineaments of the horses, which Leonardo, with their fiery spirit, muscles, and shapely beauty, drew better than any other master. It is said that, in order to draw that cartoon, he made a most ingenious stage, which was raised by contracting it and lowered by expanding. And conceiving the wish to colour on the wall in oils, he made a composition of so gross an admixture, to act as a binder on the wall, that, going on to paint in the said hall, it began to peel off in such a manner that in a short time he abandoned it, seeing it spoiling. [Illustration: LEONARDO DA VINCI: MONNA LISA (_Formerly Paris: The Louvre, 1601. Canvas on Panel_)] Leonardo had very great spirit, and in his every action was most generous. It is said that, going to the bank for the allowance that he used to draw every month from Piero Soderini, the cashier wanted to give him certain paper-packets of pence; but he would not take them, saying in answer, "I am no penny-painter." Having been blamed for cheating Piero Soderini, there began to be murmurings against him; wherefore Leonardo so wrought upon his friends, that he got the money together and took it to Piero to repay him; but he would not accept it. He went to Rome with Duke Giuliano de' Medici, at the election of Pope Leo, who spent much of his time on philosophical studies, and particularly on alchemy; where, forming a paste of a certain kind of wax, as he walked he shaped animals very thin and full of wind, and, by blowing into them, made them fly through the air, but when the wind ceased they fell to the ground. On the back of a most bizarre lizard, found by the vine-dresser of the Belvedere, he fixed, with a mixture of quicksilver, wings composed of scales stripped from other lizards, which, as it walked, quivered with the motion; and having given it eyes, horns, and beard, taming it, and keeping it in a box, he made all his friends, to whom he showed it, fly for fear. He used often to have the guts of a wether completely freed of their fat and cleaned, and thus made so fine that they could have been held in the palm of the hand; and having placed a pair of blacksmith's bellows in another room, he fixed to them one end of these, and, blowing into them, filled the room, which was very large, so that whoever was in it was obliged to retreat into a corner; showing how, transparent and full of wind, from taking up little space at the beginning they had come to occupy much, and likening them to virtue. He made an infinite number of such follies, and gave his attention to mirrors; and he tried the strangest methods in seeking out oils for painting, and varnish for preserving works when painted. He made at this time, for Messer Baldassarre Turini da Pescia, who was Datary to Pope Leo, a little picture of the Madonna with the Child in her arms, with infinite diligence and art; but whether through the fault of whoever primed the panel with gesso, or because of his innumerable and capricious mixtures of grounds and colours, it is now much spoilt. And in another small picture he made a portrait of a little boy, which is beautiful and graceful to a marvel; and both of them are now at Pescia, in the hands of Messer Giuliano Turini. It is related that, a work having been allotted to him by the Pope, he straightway began to distil oils and herbs, in order to make the varnish; at which Pope Leo said: "Alas! this man will never do anything, for he begins by thinking of the end of the work, before the beginning." There was very great disdain between Michelagnolo Buonarroti and him, on account of which Michelagnolo departed from Florence, with the excuse of Duke Giuliano, having been summoned by the Pope to the competition for the façade of S. Lorenzo. Leonardo, understanding this, departed and went into France, where the King, having had works by his hand, bore him great affection; and he desired that he should colour the cartoon of S. Anne, but Leonardo, according to his custom, put him off for a long time with words. Finally, having grown old, he remained ill many months, and, feeling himself near to death, asked to have himself diligently informed of the teaching of the Catholic faith, and of the good way and holy Christian religion; and then, with many moans, he confessed and was penitent; and although he could not raise himself well on his feet, supporting himself on the arms of his friends and servants, he was pleased to take devoutly the most holy Sacrament, out of his bed. The King, who was wont often and lovingly to visit him, then came into the room; wherefore he, out of reverence, having raised himself to sit upon the bed, giving him an account of his sickness and the circumstances of it, showed withal how much he had offended God and mankind in not having worked at his art as he should have done. Thereupon he was seized by a paroxysm, the messenger of death; for which reason the King having risen and having taken his head, in order to assist him and show him favour, to the end that he might alleviate his pain, his spirit, which was divine, knowing that it could not have any greater honour, expired in the arms of the King, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. [Illustration: FRAGMENT FROM "THE BATTLE OF THE STANDARD" (_After the cartoon attributed to_ Leonardo da Vinci. _Oxford: Ashmolean Museum_) _Reproduced by permission of the Visitors of the Ashmolean Museum_] The loss of Leonardo grieved beyond measure all those who had known him, since there was never any one who did so much honour to painting. With the splendour of his aspect, which was very beautiful, he made serene every broken spirit: and with his words he turned to yea, or nay, every obdurate intention. By his physical force he could restrain any outburst of rage: and with his right hand he twisted the iron ring of a door-bell, or a horse-shoe, as if it were lead. With his liberality he would assemble together and support his every friend, poor or rich, if only he had intellect and worth. He adorned and honoured, in every action, no matter what mean and bare dwelling; wherefore, in truth, Florence received a very great gift in the birth of Leonardo, and an incalculable loss in his death. In the art of painting, he added to the manner of colouring in oils a certain obscurity, whereby the moderns have given great force and relief to their figures. And in statuary, he proved his worth in the three figures of bronze that are over the door of S. Giovanni, on the side towards the north, executed by Giovan Francesco Rustici, but contrived with the advice of Leonardo; which are the most beautiful pieces of casting, the best designed, and the most perfect that have as yet been seen in modern days. By Leonardo we have the anatomy of the horse, and that of man even more complete. And so, on account of all his qualities, so many and so divine, although he worked much more by words than by deeds, his name and fame can never be extinguished; wherefore it was thus said in his praise by Messer Giovan Battista Strozzi: Vince costui pur solo Tutti altri; e vince Fidia e vince Apelle E tutto il lor vittorioso stuolo. [Illustration: MAN AND WOMAN PRAYING (_After the panel by =Giovan Antonio Boltraffio=. Milan: Brera, 281_) _Anderson_] A disciple of Leonardo was Giovan Antonio Boltraffio of Milan, a person of great skill and understanding, who, in the year 1500, painted with much diligence, for the Church of the Misericordia, without Bologna, a panel in oils containing Our Lady with the Child in her arms, S. John the Baptist, S. Sebastian naked, and the patron who caused it to be executed, portrayed from the life, on his knees--a truly beautiful work, on which he wrote his name, calling himself a disciple of Leonardo. He has made other works, both at Milan and elsewhere; but it must be enough here to have named this, which is the best. Another (of his disciples) was Marco Oggioni, who painted, in S. Maria della Pace, the Passing of Our Lady and the Marriage of Cana in Galilee. FOOTNOTE: [10] Two accurate literal translations of the same original must often coincide; and in dealing with this beautiful Life, the translator has had to take the risk either of seeming to copy the almost perfect rendering of Mr. H. P. Horne, or of introducing unsatisfactory variants for mere variety's sake. Having rejected the latter course, he feels doubly bound to record once more his deep obligation to Mr. Horne's example. [11] This name is missing in the text. GIORGIONE DA CASTELFRANCO LIFE OF GIORGIONE DA CASTELFRANCO PAINTER OF VENICE At the same time when Florence was acquiring such fame by reason of the works of Leonardo, no little adornment was conferred on Venice by the talent and excellence of one of her citizens, who surpassed by a great measure not only the Bellini, whom the Venetians held in such esteem, but also every other master who had painted up to that time in that city. This was Giorgio, who was born at Castelfranco in the territory of Treviso, in the year 1478, when the Doge was Giovanni Mozzenigo, brother of Doge Piero. In time, from the nature of his person and from the greatness of his mind, Giorgio came to be called Giorgione; and although he was born from very humble stock, nevertheless he was not otherwise than gentle and of good breeding throughout his whole life. He was brought up in Venice, and took unceasing delight in the joys of love; and the sound of the lute gave him marvellous pleasure, so that in his day he played and sang so divinely that he was often employed for that purpose at various musical assemblies and gatherings of noble persons. He studied drawing, and found it greatly to his taste; and in this nature favoured him so highly, that he, having become enamoured of her beauties, would never represent anything in his works without copying it from life; and so much was he her slave, imitating her continuously, that he acquired the name not only of having surpassed Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, but also of being the rival of the masters who were working in Tuscany and who were the creators of the modern manner. Giorgione had seen some things by the hand of Leonardo with a beautiful gradation of colours, and with extraordinary relief, effected, as has been related, by means of dark shadows; and this manner pleased him so much that he was for ever studying it as long as he lived, and in oil-painting he imitated it greatly. Taking pleasure in the delights of good work, he was ever selecting, for putting into his pictures, the greatest beauty and the greatest variety that he could find. And nature gave him a spirit so benign, and with this, both in oil-painting and in fresco, he made certain living forms and other things so soft, so well harmonized, and so well blended in the shadows, that many of the excellent masters of his time were forced to confess that he had been born to infuse spirit into figures and to counterfeit the freshness of living flesh better than any other painter, not only in Venice, but throughout the whole world. [Illustration: GIORGIONE DA CASTELFRANCO: FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE (_Venice: Prince Giovanelli. Canvas_)] In his youth he executed in Venice many pictures of Our Lady and other portraits from nature, which are very lifelike and beautiful; of which we still have proof in three most beautiful heads in oils by his hand, which are in the study of the Very Reverend Grimani, Patriarch of Aquileia. One represents David--and it is reported to be his own portrait--with long locks reaching to the shoulders, as was the custom of those times; it is so vivacious and so fresh in colouring that it seems to be living flesh, and there is armour on the breast, as there is on the arm with which he is holding the severed head of Goliath. The second is a much larger head, portrayed from nature; one hand is holding the red cap of a commander, and there is a cape of fur, below which is one of the old-fashioned doublets. This is believed to represent some military leader. The third is that of a boy, as beautiful as could be, with fleecy hair. These works demonstrate the excellence of Giorgione, and no less the affection which that great Patriarch has ever borne to his genius, holding them very dear, and that rightly. In Florence, in the house of the sons of Giovanni Borgherini, there is a portrait by his hand of the said Giovanni, taken when he was a young man in Venice, and in the same picture is the master who was teaching him; and there are no two heads to be seen with better touches in the flesh-colours or with more beautiful tints in the shadows. In the house of Anton de' Nobili there is another head of a captain in armour, very lively and spirited, which is said to be one of the captains whom Consalvo Ferrante took with him to Venice when he visited Doge Agostino Barberigo; at which time, it is related, Giorgione made a portrait of the great Consalvo in armour, which was a very rare work, insomuch that there was no more beautiful painting than this to be seen, and Consalvo took it away with him. Giorgione made many other portraits which are scattered throughout many parts of Italy; all very beautiful, as may be believed from that of Leonardo Loredano, painted by Giorgione when Leonardo was Doge, which I saw exhibited on one Ascension day, when I seemed to see that most illustrious Prince alive. There is also one at Faenza, in the house of Giovanni da Castel Bolognese, an excellent engraver of cameos and crystals; which work, executed for his father-in-law, is truly divine, since there is such a harmony in the gradation of the colours that it appears to be rather in relief than painted. Giorgione took much delight in painting in fresco, and one among many works that he executed was the whole of a façade of the Ca Soranzo on the Piazza di S. Polo; wherein, besides many pictures and scenes and other things of fancy, there may be seen a picture painted in oils on the plaster, a work which has withstood rain, sun, and wind, and has remained fresh up to our own day. There is also a Spring, which appears to me to be one of the most beautiful works that he painted in fresco, and it is a great pity that time has consumed it so cruelly. For my part, I know nothing that injures works in fresco more than the sirocco, and particularly near the sea, where it always brings a salt moisture with it. There broke out at Venice, in the year 1504, in the Fondaco de' Tedeschi by the Ponte del Rialto, a most terrible fire, which consumed the whole building and all the merchandise, to the very great loss of the merchants; wherefore the Signoria of Venice ordained that it should be rebuilt anew, and it was speedily finished with more accommodation in the way of living-rooms, and with greater magnificence, adornment, and beauty. Thereupon, the fame of Giorgione having grown great, it was ordained after deliberation by those who had charge of the matter, that Giorgione should paint it in fresco with colours according to his own fancy, provided only that he gave proof of his genius and executed an excellent work, since it would be in the most beautiful place and most conspicuous site in the city. And so Giorgione put his hand to the work, but thought of nothing save of making figures according to his own fancy, in order to display his art, so that, in truth, there are no scenes to be found there with any order, or representing the deeds of any distinguished person, either ancient or modern; and I, for my part, have never understood them, nor have I found, for all the inquiries that I have made, anyone who understands them, for in one place there is a woman, in another a man, in diverse attitudes, while one has the head of a lion near him, and another an angel in the guise of a Cupid, nor can one tell what it may all mean. There is, indeed, over the principal door, which opens into the Merceria, a woman seated who has at her feet the severed head of a giant, almost in the form of a Judith; she is raising the head with her sword, and speaking with a German, who is below her; but I have not been able to determine for what he intended her to stand, unless, indeed, he may have meant her to represent Germany. However, it may be seen that his figures are well grouped, and that he was ever making progress; and there are in it heads and parts of figures very well painted, and most vivacious in colouring. In all that he did there he aimed at being faithful to nature, without any imitation of another's manner; and the work is celebrated and famous in Venice, no less for what he painted therein than through its convenience for commerce and its utility to the commonwealth. He executed a picture of Christ bearing the Cross, with a Jew dragging him along, which in time was placed in the Church of S. Rocco, and which now, through the veneration that many feel for it, works miracles, as all may see. He worked in various places, such as Castelfranco, and throughout the territory of Treviso, and he made many portraits for Italian Princes; and many of his works were sent out of Italy, as things truly worthy to bear testimony that if Tuscany had a superabundance of craftsmen in every age, the region beyond, near the mountains, was not always abandoned and forgotten by Heaven. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN (_After the painting by =Giorgione da Castelfranco=. Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 12A_) _Bruckmann_] It is related that Giorgione, at the time when Andrea Verrocchio was making his bronze horse, fell into an argument with certain sculptors, who maintained, since sculpture showed various attitudes and aspects in one single figure to one walking round it, that for this reason it surpassed painting, which only showed one side of a figure. Giorgione was of the opinion that there could be shown in a painted scene, without any necessity for walking round, at one single glance, all the various aspects that a man can present in many gestures--a thing which sculpture cannot do without a change of position and point of view, so that in her case the points of view are many, and not one. Moreover, he proposed to show in one single painted figure the front, the back, and the profile on either side, a challenge which brought them to their senses; and he did it in the following way. He painted a naked man with his back turned, at whose feet was a most limpid pool of water, wherein he painted the reflection of the man's front. At one side was a burnished cuirass that he had taken off, which showed his left profile, since everything could be seen on the polished surface of the piece of armour; and on the other side was a mirror, which reflected the other profile of the naked figure; which was a thing of most beautiful and bizarre fancy, whereby he sought to prove that painting does in fact, with more excellence, labour, and effect, achieve more at one single view of a living figure than does sculpture. And this work was greatly extolled and admired, as something ingenious and beautiful. [Illustration: JUDITH (_After the painting by =Giorgione da Castelfranco=. S. Petersburg: Hermitage, 112_) _M.S._] He also made a portrait from life of Caterina, Queen of Cyprus, which I once saw in the hands of the illustrious Messer Giovanni Cornaro. There is in our book a head coloured in oils, the portrait of a German of the Fugger family, who was at that time one of the chief merchants in the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, which is an admirable work; together with other sketches and drawings made by him with the pen. While Giorgione was employed in doing honour both to himself and to his country, and frequenting many houses in order to entertain his various friends with his music, he became enamoured of a lady, and they took much joy, one with another, in their love. Now it happened that in the year 1511 she became infected with plague, without, however, knowing anything about it; and Giorgione, visiting her as usual, caught the plague in such a manner, that in a short time, at the age of thirty-four, he passed away to the other life, not without infinite grief on the part of his many friends, who loved him for his virtues, and great hurt to the world, which thus lost him. However, they could bear up against this hurt and loss, in that he left behind him two excellent disciples in Sebastiano, the Venetian, who afterwards became Friar of the Piombo[12] at Rome, and Tiziano da Cadore, who not only equalled him, but surpassed him greatly; of both of whom we will speak at the proper time, describing fully the honour and benefit that they have conferred on art. [Illustration: CATERINA, QUEEN OF CYPRUS (_After the painting by =Giorgione da Castelfranco= (?). Milan: Crespi Collection_) _Anderson_] FOOTNOTE: [12] Signet-office, for the sealing of Papal Bulls and other papers of the Papal Court. ANTONIO DA CORREGGIO LIFE OF ANTONIO DA CORREGGIO PAINTER I do not wish to leave that country wherein our great mother Nature, in order not to be thought partial, gave to the world extraordinary men of that sort with which she had already for many and many a year adorned Tuscany; among whom was one endowed with an excellent and very beautiful genius, by name Antonio da Correggio, a most rare painter, who acquired the modern manner so perfectly, that in a few years, what with his natural gifts and his practice in art, he became a most excellent and marvellous craftsman. He was very timid by nature, and with great discomfort to himself he was continually labouring at the exercise of his art, for the sake of his family, which weighed upon him; and although it was a natural goodness that impelled him, nevertheless he afflicted himself more than was right in bearing the burden of those sufferings which are wont to crush mankind. He was very melancholy in his practice of art, a slave to her labours, and an unwearying investigator of all the difficulties of her realm; to which witness is borne by a vast multitude of figures in the Duomo of Parma, executed in fresco and well finished, which are to be found in the great tribune of the said church, and are seen foreshortened from below with an effect of marvellous grandeur. Antonio was the first who began to work in the modern manner in Lombardy; wherefore it is thought that if he, with his genius, had gone forth from Lombardy and lived in Rome, he would have wrought miracles, and would have brought the sweat to the brow of many who were held to be great men in his time. For, his works being such as they are without his having seen any of the ancient or the best of the modern, it necessarily follows that, if he had seen them, he would have vastly improved his own, and, advancing from good to better, would have reached the highest rank. It may, at least, be held for certain that no one ever handled colours better than he, and that no craftsman ever painted with greater delicacy or with more relief, such was the softness of his flesh-painting, and such the grace with which he finished his works. [Illustration: ANTONIO DA CORREGGIO: ANTIOPE (_Paris: Louvre, 1118. Canvas_)] In the same place, also, he painted two large pictures executed in oils, in one of which, among other figures, there may be seen a Dead Christ, which was highly extolled. And in S. Giovanni, in the same city, he painted a tribune in fresco, wherein he represented Our Lady ascending into Heaven amidst a multitude of angels, with other saints around; as to which, it seems impossible that he should have been able, I do not say to express it with his hand, but even to conceive it in his imagination, so beautiful are the curves of the draperies and the expressions that he gave to those figures. Of these there are some drawings in our book, done in red chalk by his hand, with some very beautiful borders of little boys, and other borders drawn in that work by way of ornament, with various fanciful scenes of sacrifices in the ancient manner. And in truth, if Antonio had not brought his works to that perfection which is seen in them, his drawings (although they show excellence of manner, and the charm and practised touch of a master) would not have gained for him among craftsmen the name that he has won with his wonderful paintings. This art is so difficult, and has so many branches, that very often a craftsman is not able to practise them all to perfection; for there have been many who have drawn divinely well, but have shown some imperfection in colouring, and others have been marvellous in colouring, but have not drawn half so well. All this depends on choice, and on the practice bestowed, in youth, in one case on drawing, in another on colour. But since all is learnt in order to carry works to the height of perfection, which is to put good colouring, together with draughtsmanship, into everything that is executed, for this reason Correggio deserves great praise, having attained to the height of perfection in the works that he coloured either in oils or in fresco; as he did in the Church of the Frati de' Zoccoli di S. Francesco, in the same city, where he painted an Annunciation in fresco so well, that, when it became necessary to pull it down in making some changes in that building, those friars caused the wall round it to be bound with timber strengthened with iron, and, cutting it away little by little, they saved it; and it was built by them into a more secure place in the same convent. He painted, also, over one of the gates of that city, a Madonna who has the Child in her arms; and it is an astounding thing to see the lovely colouring of this work in fresco, through which he has won from passing strangers, who have seen nothing else of his, infinite praise and honour. For S. Antonio, likewise in that city, he painted a panel wherein is a Madonna, with S. Mary Magdalene; and near them is a boy in the guise of a little angel, holding a book in his hand, who is smiling, with a smile that seems so natural that he moves whoever beholds him to smile also, nor can any person, be his nature ever so melancholy, see him without being cheered. There is also a S. Jerome; and the whole work is coloured in a manner so wonderful and so astounding, that painters revere it for the marvel of its colouring, and it is scarcely possible to paint better. In like manner, he executed square pictures and other paintings for many lords throughout Lombardy; and, among other works, two pictures in Mantua for Duke Federigo II, to be sent to the Emperor, a gift truly worthy of such a Prince. Giulio Romano, seeing these works, said that he had never seen any colouring that attained to such perfection. One was a naked Leda, and the other a Venus; both so soft in colouring, with the shadows of the flesh so well wrought, that they appeared to be not colours, but flesh. In one there was a marvellous landscape, nor was there ever a Lombard who painted such things better than he; and, besides this, hair so lovely in colour, and executed in detail with such exquisite finish, that it is not possible to see anything better. There were also certain Loves, executed with beautiful art, who were making trial of their arrows, some of gold and some of lead, on a stone; and what lent most grace to the Venus was a clear and limpid stream, which ran among some stones and bathed her feet, but scarcely concealed any part of them, so that the sight of their delicate whiteness was a moving thing for the eye to behold. For which reason Antonio most certainly deserved all praise and honour during his lifetime, and the greatest glory from the lips and pens of men after his death. In Modena, also, he painted a panel-picture of Our Lady, which is held in esteem by all painters, as the best picture in that city. In Bologna, likewise, in the house of the Ercolani, gentlemen of that city, there is a work by his hand, a Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene in the Garden, which is very beautiful. In Reggio there was a rare and most beautiful picture; and not long since, Messer Luciano Pallavigino, who takes much delight in noble paintings, passing through the city and seeing it, gave no thought to the cost, and, as if he had bought a jewel, sent it to his house in Genoa. At Reggio, likewise, is a panel containing a Nativity of Christ, wherein the splendour radiating from Him throws its light on the shepherds and all around on the figures that are contemplating Him; and among the many conceptions shown in that subject, there is a woman who, wishing to gaze intently at Christ, and not being able with her mortal sight to bear the light of His Divinity, which seems to be beating upon her with its rays, places a hand before her eyes; which is expressed so well that it is a marvel. Over the hut is a choir of angels singing, who are so well executed, that they appear rather to have rained down from Heaven than to have been made by the hand of a painter. And in the same city there is a little picture, a foot square, the rarest and most beautiful work that is to be seen by his hand, of Christ in the Garden, representing an effect of night, and painted with little figures; wherein the Angel, appearing to Christ, illumines Him with the splendour of his light, with such truth to nature, that nothing better can be imagined or expressed. Below, on a plain at the foot of the mountain, are seen the three Apostles sleeping, over whom the mountain on which Christ is praying casts a shadow, giving those figures a force which one is not able to describe. Far in the background, over a distant landscape, there is shown the appearing of the dawn; and on one side are seen coming some soldiers, with Judas. And although it is so small, this scene is so well conceived, that there is no work of the same kind to equal it either in patience or in study. [Illustration: S. THOMAS AND S. JAMES THE LESS (_Detail, after the fresco by =Antonio da Correggio=. Parma: S. Giovanni Evangelista_) _Anderson_] Many things might be said of the works of this master; but since, among the eminent men of our art, everything that is to be seen by his hand is admired as something divine, I will say no more. I have used all possible diligence in order to obtain his portrait, but, since he himself did not make it, and he was never portrayed by others, for he always lived in retirement, I have not been able to find one. He was, in truth, a person who had no opinion of himself, nor did he believe himself to be an able master of his art, contrasting his deficiencies with that perfection which he would have liked to achieve. He was contented with little, and he lived like an excellent Christian. [Illustration: THE MADONNA AND CHILD WITH S. JEROME (_After the painting by =Antonio da Correggio=. Parma: Gallery, 351_) _Anderson_] Antonio, like a man who was weighed down by his family, was anxious to be always saving, and he had thereby become as miserly as he could well be. Wherefore it is related that, having received at Parma a payment of sixty crowns in copper coins, and wishing to take them to Correggio to meet some demand, he placed the money on his back and set out to walk on foot; but, being smitten by the heat of the sun, which was very great, and drinking water to refresh himself, he was seized by pleurisy, and had to take to his bed in a raging fever, nor did he ever raise his head from it, but finished the course of his life at the age of forty, or thereabout. His pictures date about 1512; and he bestowed a very great gift on painting by his handling of colours, which was that of a true master; and it was by means of him that men's eyes were opened in Lombardy, where so many beautiful intellects have been seen in painting, following him in making works worthy of praise and memory. Thus, by showing them his treatment of hair, executed with such facility, for all the difficulty of painting it, he taught them how it should be painted; for which all painters owe him an everlasting debt. At their instance the following epigram was written to him by Messer Fabio Segni, a gentleman of Florence: Hujus cum regeret mortales spiritus artus Pictoris, Charites supplicuere Jovi. Non alia pingi dextra, Pater alme, rogamus; Hunc præter, nulli pingere nos liceat. Annuit his votis summi regnator Olympi, Et juvenem subito sidera ad alta tulit, Ut posset melius Charitum simulacra referre Præsens, et nudas cerneret inde Deas. At this same time lived Andrea del Gobbo of Milan, a very pleasing painter and colourist, many of whose works are scattered about in the houses of his native city of Milan. There is a large panel-picture of the Assumption of Our Lady, by his hand, in the Certosa of Pavia, but it was left unfinished, on account of death overtaking him; which panel shows how excellent he was, and how great a lover of the labours of art. [Illustration: ANTONIO DA CORREGGIO: THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI (_Milan: Brera, 427. Canvas_)] PIERO DI COSIMO LIFE OF PIERO DI COSIMO PAINTER OF FLORENCE While Giorgione and Correggio, to their own great credit and glory, were honouring the regions of Lombardy, Tuscany, on her part, was not wanting in men of beautiful intellect; among whom, not one of the least was Piero, the son of one Lorenzo, a goldsmith, and a pupil of Cosimo Rosselli, after whom he was always called Piero di Cosimo, and known by no other name. And in truth, when a man teaches us excellence and gives us the secret of living rightly, he deserves no less gratitude from us, and should be held no less as a true father, than he who begets us and gives us life and nothing more. Piero was entrusted by his father, who saw in his son a lively intelligence and an inclination to the art of design, to the care of Cosimo, who took him with no ordinary willingness; and seeing him grow no less in ability than in years, among the many disciples that he had, he bore him love as to a son, and always held him as such. This young man had by nature a most lofty spirit, and he was very strange, and different in fancy from the other youths who were working with Cosimo in order to learn the same art. He was at times so intent on what he was doing, that when some subject was being discussed, as often happens, at the end of the discussion it was necessary to go back to the beginning and tell him the whole, so far had his brain wandered after some other fancy of his own. And he was likewise so great a lover of solitude, that he knew no pleasure save that of going off by himself with his thoughts, letting his fancy roam and building his castles in the air. Right good reason had Cosimo, his master, for wishing him well, seeing that he made so much use of him in his works, that very often he caused him to execute things of great importance, knowing that Piero had a more beautiful manner, as well as better judgment, than himself. For this reason he took Piero with him to Rome, when he was summoned thither by Pope Sixtus in order to paint the scenes in his chapel; in one of which Piero executed a very beautiful landscape, as was related in the Life of Cosimo. And since Piero drew most excellently from the life, he made in Rome many portraits of distinguished persons; in particular, those of Virginio Orsino and Ruberto Sanseverino, which he placed in the aforesaid scenes. Afterwards, also, he made a portrait of Duke Valentino, the son of Pope Alexander VI; which painting, to my knowledge, is not now to be found; but the cartoon by his hand still exists, being in the possession of the reverend and cultured M. Cosimo Bartoli, Provost of S. Giovanni. In Florence, he painted many pictures for a number of citizens, which are dispersed among their various houses, and of such I have seen some that are very good; and so, also, various things for many other persons. In the Noviciate of S. Marco is a picture by his hand of Our Lady, standing, with the Child in her arms, coloured in oils. And for the Chapel of Gino Capponi, in the Church of S. Spirito at Florence, he painted a panel wherein is the Visitation of Our Lady, with S. Nicholas, and a S. Anthony who is reading with a pair of spectacles on his nose, a very spirited figure. Here he counterfeited a book bound in parchment, somewhat old, which seems to be real, and also some balls that he gave to the S. Nicholas, shining and casting gleams of light and reflections from one to another; from which even by that time men could perceive the strangeness of his brain, and his constant seeking after difficulties. [Illustration: PIERO DI COSIMO: THE DEATH OF PROCRIS (_London: National Gallery, 698. Panel_)] Even better did he show this after the death of Cosimo, when he kept himself constantly shut up, and would not let himself be seen at work, leading the life of a man who was less man than beast. He would never have his rooms swept, he would only eat when hunger came to him, and he would not let his garden be worked or his fruit-trees pruned; nay, he allowed his vines to grow, and the shoots to trail over the ground, nor were his fig-trees ever trimmed, or any other trees, for it pleased him to see everything wild, like his own nature; and he declared that Nature's own things should be left to her to look after, without lifting a hand to them. He set himself often to observe such animals, plants, or other things as Nature at times creates out of caprice, or by chance; in which he found a pleasure and satisfaction that drove him quite out of his mind with delight; and he spoke of them so often in his discourse, that at times, although he found pleasure in them, it became wearisome to others. He would sometimes stop to gaze at a wall against which sick people had been for a long time discharging their spittle, and from this he would picture to himself battles of horsemen, and the most fantastic cities and widest landscapes that were ever seen; and he did the same with the clouds in the sky. He gave his attention to colouring in oils, having seen some works of Leonardo's, executed with that gradation of colour, and finished with that extraordinary diligence, which Leonardo used to employ when he wished to display his art. And so Piero, being pleased with his method, sought to imitate it, although he was afterwards very distant from Leonardo, and worlds away from any other manner. It may be said, in truth, that he changed his manner almost for every work that he executed. If Piero had not been so solitary, and had taken more care of himself in his way of living than he did, he would have made known the greatness of his intellect in such a way that he would have been revered, whereas, by reason of his uncouth ways, he was rather held to be a madman, although in the end he did no harm save to himself alone, while his works were beneficial and useful to his art. For which reason every good intellect and every excellent craftsman should always be taught, from such an example, to keep his eyes on the end of life. Nor will I refrain from saying that Piero, in his youth, being fanciful and extravagant in invention, was much employed for the masquerades that are held during the Carnival; and he became very dear to the young noblemen of Florence, having improved their festivals much in invention, adornment, grandeur, and pomp. As to that kind of pastime, it is said that he was one of the first to contrive to marshal them in the form of triumphal processions; at least, he improved them greatly, by accompanying the invention of the story represented, not only with music and with words suited to the subject, but also with a train of incredible pomp, formed of men on foot and on horseback, with habits and ornaments in keeping with the story; which produced a very rich and beautiful effect, and had in it something both grand and ingenious. And it was certainly a very beautiful thing to see, by night, twenty-five or thirty pairs of horses, most richly caparisoned, with their riders in costume, according to the subject of the invention, and six or eight grooms to each rider, with torches in their hands, and all clothed in one and the same livery, sometimes more than four hundred in number; and then the chariot, or triumphal car, covered with ornaments, trophies, and most bizarre things of fancy; altogether, a thing which makes men's intellects more subtle, and gives great pleasure and satisfaction to the people. [Illustration: PERSEUS DELIVERING ANDROMEDA (_After the panel by =Piero di Cosimo=. Florence: Uffizi, 1312_) _Brogi_] Among these spectacles, which were numerous and ingenious, it is my pleasure to give a brief description of one, which was contrived mostly by Piero, when he was already of a mature age, and which was not, like many, pleasing through its beauty, but, on the contrary, on account of a strange, horrible, and unexpected invention, gave no little satisfaction to the people: for even as in the matter of food bitter things sometimes give marvellous delight to the human palate, so do horrible things in such pastimes, if only they be carried out with judgment and art; which is evident in the representation of tragedies. This was the Car of Death, wrought by him with the greatest secrecy in the Sala del Papa, so that nothing could ever be found out about it, until it was seen and known at one and the same moment. This triumphal chariot was an enormous car drawn by buffaloes, black all over and painted with skeletons and white crosses; and upon the highest point of the car stood a colossal figure of Death, scythe in hand, and right round the car were a number of covered tombs; and at all the places where the procession halted for the chanting of dirges, these tombs opened, and from them issued figures draped in black cloth, upon which were painted all the bones of a skeleton, over their arms, breasts, flanks, and legs; which, what with the white over the black, and the appearing in the distance of some figures carrying torches, with masks that represented a death's head both in front and behind, as well as the neck, not only gave an appearance of the greatest reality, but was also horrible and terrifying to behold. And these figures of the dead, at the sound of certain muffled trumpets, low and mournful in tone, came half out of their tombs, and, seating themselves upon them, sang to music full of melancholy that song so celebrated at the present day: "Dolor, pianto, e penitenzia." Before and after the car came a great number of the dead, riding on certain horses picked out with the greatest diligence from among the leanest and most meagre that could be found, with black caparisons covered with white crosses; and each had four grooms draped in the garb of death, with black torches, and a large black standard with crosses, bones, and death's heads. After the car were trailed ten black standards; and as they walked, the whole company sang in unison, with trembling voices, that Psalm of David that is called the Miserere. This dread spectacle, through its novelty and terror, as I have said, filled the whole city with fear and marvel together; and although at the first sight it did not seem suited to a Carnival, nevertheless, being new and very well arranged, it pleased the minds of all, and Piero, the creator and inventor of the whole, gained consummate praise and commendation for it; and it was the reason that afterwards, going from one thing to another, men continued to contrive lively and ingenious inventions, so that in truth, for such representations and for holding similar festivals, this city has never had an equal. And in those old men who saw it there still remains a vivid memory of it, nor are they ever weary of celebrating this fantastic invention. I have heard from the lips of Andrea di Cosimo, who helped him to carry out the work, and of Andrea del Sarto, who was Piero's disciple, and who also had a hand in it, that it was a common opinion at that time that this invention was intended to foreshadow the return of the Medici family to Florence in the year 1512, since at the time when the procession was held they were exiles, and, so to speak, dead, but destined in a short time to come to life; and in this sense were interpreted the following words in the song-- Morti siam come vedete, Così morti vedrem voi; Fummo già come voi siete, Voi sarete come noi, etc. whereby men wished to signify the return of that family (a resurrection, as it were, from death to life), and the expulsion and abasement of their enemies; or it may have been that many gave it that significance from the subsequent fact of the return of that illustrious house to Florence--so prone is the human intellect to applying every word and act that has come previously, to the events that happen afterwards. Certain it is that this was the opinion of many at that time; and it was much spoken of. [Illustration: VENUS, MARS, AND CUPID (_After the panel by =Piero di Cosimo=. Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 107_) _Hanfstaengl_] But to return to the art and actions of Piero; he was given the commission for a panel in the Church of the Servite Friars, in the Chapel of the Tedaldi, where they keep the garment and the pillow of S. Filippo, a brother of their Order; wherein he depicted Our Lady standing, raised from the ground on a pedestal, and uplifting her head towards Heaven, with a book in her hand, but without her Son; and above her is the Holy Spirit, bathing her with light. Nor did he wish that any other light than that of the Dove should illumine her and the figures that are round her, such as a S. Margaret and a S. Catherine, who are on their knees, adoring her, while S. Peter and S. John the Evangelist are standing, contemplating her, together with S. Filippo, the Servite Friar, and S. Antonino, Archbishop of Florence. Moreover, he made there a landscape that is very bizarre, what with the strange trees and certain grottoes. And in truth, there are some very beautiful things in this work, such as certain heads that reveal both draughtsmanship and grace; besides the colouring, which is very harmonious, for it is certain that Piero was a great master of colouring in oils. In the predella he painted some little scenes, very well executed; and, among others, there is one of S. Margaret issuing from the belly of the Dragon, wherein he made that animal so monstrous and hideous, that I do not think that there is anything better of that kind to be seen, for with its eyes it reveals venom, fire, and death, in an aspect truly terrifying. And certainly, as for such things, I do not believe that any one ever did them better than he, or came near him in imagining them; to which witness is borne by a marine monster that he made and presented to the Magnificent Giuliano de' Medici, which is so extravagant, bizarre, and fantastic in its deformity, that it seems impossible that Nature should produce anything so deformed and strange among her creations. This monster is now in the guardaroba of Duke Cosimo de' Medici, as is also a book, likewise by the hand of Piero, of animals of the same kind, most beautiful and bizarre, hatched very diligently with the pen, and finished with an incredible patience; which book was presented to him by M. Cosimo Bartoli, Provost of S. Giovanni, who is very much my friend, as he is of all our craftsmen, being a man who has always delighted, and still delights, in our profession. He also executed, round a chamber in the house of Francesco del Pugliese, various scenes with little figures; nor is it possible to describe the different fantastic things that he delighted to paint in all those scenes, what with the buildings, the animals, the costumes, the various instruments, and any other fanciful things that came into his head, since the stories were drawn from fables. These scenes, after the death of Francesco del Pugliese and his sons, were taken away, nor do I know what has become of them; and the same thing has happened to a picture of Mars and Venus, with her Loves and Vulcan, executed with great art and with an incredible patience. Piero painted, for the elder Filippo Strozzi, a picture with little figures of Perseus delivering Andromeda from the Monster, in which are some very beautiful things. It is now in the house of Signor Sforza Almeni, First Chamberlain to Duke Cosimo, having been presented to him by Messer Giovanni Battista, the son of Lorenzo Strozzi, who knew how much that nobleman delighted in painting and sculpture; and he holds it in great account, for Piero never made a more lovely or more highly finished picture than this one, seeing that it is not possible to find a more bizarre or more fantastic sea-monster than that which Piero imagined and painted, or a fiercer attitude than that of Perseus, who is raising his sword in the air to smite the beast. In it, trembling between fear and hope, Andromeda is seen bound, most beautiful in countenance; and in the foreground are many people in various strange costumes, playing instruments and singing; among whom are some heads, smiling and rejoicing at seeing the deliverance of Andromeda, that are divine. The landscape is very beautiful, and the colouring sweet and full of grace. In short, with regard to the harmony and gradation of the colours, he executed this work with the greatest possible diligence. He painted, also, a picture containing a nude Venus, with a Mars, likewise nude, who is sleeping in a meadow full of flowers, and all around are various Loves, who are carrying away, some here, some there, the helmet, armlets, and other pieces of armour of Mars; there is a grove of myrtle, with a Cupid that is afraid of a rabbit, and there are also the Doves of Venus and the other emblems of Love. This picture is at Florence, in the house of Giorgio Vasari, who keeps it in memory of that master, whose caprices have always pleased him. The Director of the Hospital of the Innocenti was much the friend of Piero; and wishing to have a panel painted, which was to be placed in the Pugliese Chapel, near the entrance into the church, on the left hand, he gave the commission for it to Piero, who brought it to completion at his leisure; but first he reduced his patron to despair, for on no account would he let him see it until it was finished. How strange this seemed to the patron, both because of their friendship, and because of his supplying Piero continually with money, without seeing what was being done, he himself showed, when, on the occasion of the final payment, he refused to give it to him without seeing the work. But, on Piero threatening that he would destroy all that he had painted, he was forced to give him the rest, and to wait patiently, in a greater rage than ever, for it to be set in place. This picture contains much that is truly beautiful. He undertook to paint a panel for a chapel in the Church of S. Piero Gattolini, and in this he represented Our Lady seated, with four figures round her, and two angels in the sky, who are crowning her; which work, executed with such diligence that it brought him praise and honour, is now to be seen in S. Friano, the other church having been ruined. For the tramezzo[13] of the Church of S. Francesco, at Fiesole, he painted a little panel-picture of the Conception, which is a passing good little work, the figures being of no great size. For Giovanni Vespucci, who lived in a house now belonging to Piero Salviati, opposite to S. Michele, in the Via de' Servi, he executed some bacchanalian scenes, which are round an apartment; wherein he made such strange fauns, satyrs, sylvan gods, little boys, and bacchanals, that it is a marvel to see the diversity of the bay horses and garments, and the variety of the goatlike features, and all with great grace and most vivid truth to nature. In one scene is Silenus riding on an ass, with many children, some supporting him, and some giving him drink; and throughout the whole is a feeling of the joy of life, produced by the great genius of Piero. And in truth, in all that there is to be seen by his hand, one recognizes a spirit very different and far distant from that of other painters, and a certain subtlety in the investigation of some of the deepest and most subtle secrets of Nature, without grudging time or labour, but only for his own delight and for his pleasure in the art. And it could not well be otherwise; since, having grown enamoured of her, he cared nothing for his own comfort, and reduced himself to eating nothing but boiled eggs, which, in order to save firing, he cooked when he was boiling his glue, and not six or eight at a time, but in fifties; and, keeping them in a basket, he would eat them one by one. In this life he found such peculiar pleasure that any other, in comparison with his own, seemed to him slavery. He could not bear the crying of children, the coughing of men, the sound of bells, and the chanting of friars; and when the rain was pouring in torrents from the sky, it pleased him to see it streaming straight down from the roofs and splashing on the ground. He had the greatest terror of lightning; and, when he heard very loud thunder, he wrapped himself in his mantle, and, having closed the windows and the door of the room, he crouched in a corner until the storm should pass. He was very varied and original in his discourse, and sometimes said such beautiful things, that he made his hearers burst with laughter. But when he was old, and near the age of eighty, he had become so strange and eccentric that nothing could be done with him. He would not have assistants standing round him, so that his misanthropy had robbed him of all possible aid. He was sometimes seized by a desire to work, but was not able, by reason of the palsy, and fell into such a rage that he tried to force his hands to labour; but, as he muttered to himself, the mahlstick fell from his grasp, and even his brushes, so that it was pitiable to behold. Flies enraged him, and even shadows annoyed him. And so, having become ill through old age, he was visited by one or two friends, who besought him to make his peace with God; but he would not believe that he was dying, and put them off from one day to another; not that he was hard of heart, or an unbeliever, for he was a most zealous Christian, although his life was that of a beast. He discoursed at times on the torments of those ills that destroy men's bodies, and of the suffering endured by those who come to die with their strength wasting away little by little, which he called a great affliction. He spoke evil of physicians, apothecaries, and those who nurse the sick, saying that they cause them to die of hunger; besides the tortures of syrups, medicines, clysters, and other martyrdoms, such as not being allowed to sleep when you are drowsy, making your will, seeing your relatives round you, and staying in a dark room. He praised death by the hand of justice, saying that it was a fine thing to go to your death in that way; to see the broad sky about you, and all that throng; to be comforted with sweetmeats and with kind words; to have the priest and the people praying for you; and to go into Paradise with the Angels; so that whoever departed from this life at one blow, was very fortunate. And as he discoursed, he would twist everything to the strangest meanings that were ever heard. Wherefore, living in such strange fashion, he reduced himself to such a state with his extravagant fancies, that one morning he was found dead at the foot of a staircase, in the year 1521; and he was given burial in S. Piero Maggiore. His disciples were many, and one among them was Andrea del Sarto, who was a host in himself. Piero's portrait I received from Francesco da San Gallo, who was much his friend and intimate companion, and who made it when Piero was old; which Francesco still has a work by the hand of Piero that I must not pass by, a very beautiful head of Cleopatra, with an asp wound round her neck, and two portraits, one of his father Giuliano, and the other of his grandfather Francesco Giamberti, which seem to be alive. [Illustration: FRANCESCO GIAMBERTI (_After the panel by =Piero di Cosimo=. Hague: Royal Museum, 255_) _Bruckmann_] FOOTNOTE: [13] See note on p. 57, Vol. I. BRAMANTE DA URBINO LIFE OF BRAMANTE DA URBINO ARCHITECT Of very great advantage to architecture, in truth, was the new method of Filippo Brunelleschi, who imitated and restored to the light, after many ages, the noble works of the most learned and marvellous ancients. But no less useful to our age was Bramante, in following the footsteps of Filippo, and making the path of his profession of architecture secure for all who came after him, by means of his courage, boldness, intellect, and science in that art, wherein he had the mastery not of theory only, but of supreme skill and practice. Nor could nature have created a more vigorous intellect, or one to exercise his art and carry it into execution with greater invention and proportion, or with a more thorough knowledge, than Bramante. But no less essential than all this was the election to the Pontificate, at that time, of Julius II, a Pope of great spirit, full of desire to leave memorials behind him. And it was fortunate both for us and for Bramante that he found such a Prince (a thing which rarely happens to men of great genius), at whose expense he might be able to display the worth of his intellect, and that mastery over difficulties which he showed in architecture. His ability was so universal in the buildings that he erected, that the outlines of the cornices, the shafts of the columns, the graceful capitals, the bases, the consoles and corners, the vaults, the staircases, the projections, and every detail of every Order of architecture, contrived from the counsel or model of this craftsman, never failed to astonish all who saw them. Wherefore it appears to me that the everlasting gratitude which is due to the ancients from the intellects that study their works, is also due from them to the labours of Bramante; for if the Greeks were the inventors of architecture, and the Romans their imitators, Bramante not only imitated what he saw, with new invention, and taught it to us, but also added very great beauty and elaboration to the art, which we see embellished by him at the present day. He was born at Castel Durante, in the State of Urbino, of poor but honest parentage. In his boyhood, besides reading and writing, he gave much attention to arithmetic; but his father, who had need that he should earn money, perceiving that he delighted much in drawing, applied him, when still a mere boy, to the art of painting; whereupon Bramante gave much study to the works of Fra Bartolommeo, otherwise called Fra Carnovale da Urbino, who painted the panel-picture of S. Maria della Bella at Urbino. But since he always delighted in architecture and perspective, he departed from Castel Durante, and made his way to Lombardy, where he went now to one city, and now to another, working as best he could, but not on things of great cost or much credit, having as yet neither name nor reputation. For this reason he determined at least to see some noteworthy work, and betook himself to Milan, in order to see the Duomo. In that city there was then living one Cesare Cesariano, reputed to be a good geometrician and an able architect, who wrote a commentary on Vitruvius, and, out of despair at not having received for this the remuneration that he had expected, became so strange that he would work no more; and, having grown almost savage, he died more like a beast than like a human being. There was also one Bernardino da Trevio, a Milanese, engineer and architect for the Duomo, and an excellent draughtsman, who was held by Leonardo da Vinci to be a rare master, although his manner was rather crude and somewhat hard in painting. By his hand is a Resurrection of Christ to be seen at the upper end of the cloister of the Grazie, with some very beautiful foreshortenings; and a chapel in fresco in S. Francesco, containing the deaths of S. Peter and S. Paul. He painted many other works in Milan, and he also made a good number in the surrounding district, which are held in esteem; and in our book there is a head of a very beautiful woman, in charcoal and lead-white, which still bears witness to the manner that he followed. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF SACRISTY (_After_ Bramante da Urbino. _Milan: S. Satiro_) _Brogi_] But to return to Bramante; having studied that building, and having come to know those engineers, he so took courage, that he resolved to devote himself wholly to architecture. Having therefore departed from Milan, he betook himself, just before the holy year of 1500, to Rome, where he was recognized by some friends, both from his own country and from Lombardy, and received a commission to paint, over the Porta Santa of S. Giovanni Laterano, which is opened for the Jubilee, the coat of arms of Pope Alexander VI, to be executed in fresco, with angels and other figures acting as supporters. Bramante had brought some money from Lombardy, and he earned some more in Rome by executing certain works; and this he spent with the greatest economy, since he wished to be able to live independently, and at the same time, without having to work, to be free to take measurements, at his ease, of all the ancient buildings in Rome. And having put his hand to this, he set out, alone with his thoughts; and within no great space of time he had measured all the buildings in that city and in the Campagna without; and he went as far as Naples, and wherever he knew that there were antiquities. He measured all that was at Tivoli and in the Villa of Hadrian, and, as will be related afterwards in the proper place, made great use of it. The mind of Bramante becoming known in this way, the Cardinal of Naples, having noticed him, began to favour him. Whereupon, while Bramante was continuing his studies, the desire came to the said Cardinal to have the cloister of the Frati della Pace rebuilt in travertine, and he gave the charge of this cloister to Bramante, and he, desiring to earn money and to gain the good will of that Cardinal, set himself to work with all possible industry and diligence, and brought it quickly to perfect completion. And although it was not a work of perfect beauty, it gave him a very great name, since there were not many in Rome who followed the profession of architecture with such zeal, study, and resolution as Bramante. At the beginning he served as under-architect to Pope Alexander VI for the fountain of Trastevere, and likewise for that which was made on the Piazza di S. Pietro. He also took part, together with other excellent architects, when his reputation had increased, in the planning of a great part of the Palace of S. Giorgio, and of the Church of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, at the commission of Raffaello Riario, Cardinal of S. Giorgio, near the Campo di Fiore; which palace, whatever better work may have been executed afterwards, nevertheless was and still is held, on account of its greatness, to be a commodious and magnificent habitation; and the building of this edifice was carried out by one Antonio Montecavallo. Bramante was consulted with regard to the enlargement of S. Jacopo degli Spagnuoli, on the Piazza Navona, and likewise in the deliberations for the building of S. Maria de Anima, which was afterwards carried out by a German architect. From his design, also, was the Palace of Cardinal Adriano da Corneto in the Borgo Nuovo, which was built slowly, and then finally remained unfinished by reason of the flight of that Cardinal; and in like manner, the enlargement of the principal chapel of S. Maria del Popolo was executed from his design. These works brought him so much credit in Rome, that he was considered the best architect, in that he was resolute, prompt, and most fertile in invention; and he was continually employed by all the great persons in that city for their most important undertakings. Wherefore, after Julius II had been elected Pope, in the year 1503, he entered into his service. The fancy had taken that Pontiff to so transform the space that lay between the Belvedere and the Papal Palace, as to give it the aspect of a square theatre, embracing a little valley that ran between the old Papal Palace and the new buildings that Innocent VIII had erected as a habitation for the Popes; and he intended, by means of two corridors, one on either side of this little valley, to make it possible to go from the Belvedere to the Palace under loggie, and also to go from the Palace to the Belvedere in the same way, and likewise, by means of various flights of steps, to ascend to the level of the Belvedere. Whereupon Bramante, who had very good judgment and an inventive genius in such matters, distributed two ranges of columns along the lowest part; first, a very beautiful Doric loggia, similar to the Colosseum of the Savelli (although, in place of half-columns, he used pilasters), and all built of travertine; and over this a second range of the Ionic Order, full of windows, of such a height as to come to the level of the first-floor rooms of the Papal Palace, and to the level of those of the Belvedere; intending to make, afterwards, a loggia more than four hundred paces long on the side towards Rome, and likewise another on the side towards the wood, with which, one on either hand, he proposed to enclose the valley; into which, after it had been levelled, was to be brought all the water from the Belvedere; and for this a very beautiful fountain was to be made. Of this design, Bramante finished the first corridor, which issues from the Palace and leads to the Belvedere on the side towards Rome, except the upper loggia, which was to go above it. As for the opposite part, on the side towards the wood, the foundations, indeed, were laid, but it could not be finished, being interrupted by the death of Julius, and then by that of Bramante. His design was held to be so beautiful in invention, that it was believed that from the time of the ancients until that day, Rome had seen nothing better. But of the other corridor, as has been said, he left only the foundations, and the labour of finishing it has dragged on down to our own day, when Pius IV has brought it almost to completion. Bramante also erected the head-wall of the Museum of ancient statues in the Belvedere, together with the range of niches; wherein were placed, in his lifetime, the Laocoon, one of the rarest of ancient statues, the Apollo, and the Venus; and the rest of the statues were set up there afterwards by Leo X, such as the Tiber, the Nile, and the Cleopatra, with some others added by Clement VII; and in the time of Paul III and Julius III many important improvements were made, at great expense. But to return to Bramante; he was very resolute, although he was hindered by the avarice of those who supplied him with the means to work, and he had a marvellous knowledge of the craft of building. This construction at the Belvedere was executed by him with extraordinary speed, and such was his eagerness as he worked, and that of the Pope, who would have liked to see the edifice spring up from the ground, without needing to be built, that the builders of the foundations brought the sand and the solid foundation-clay by night and let[14] it down by day in the presence of Bramante, who caused the foundations to be made without seeing anything more of the work. This inadvertence was the reason that all his buildings have cracked, and are in danger of falling down, as did this same corridor, of which a piece eighty braccia in length fell to the ground in the time of Clement VII, and was afterwards rebuilt by Pope Paul III, who also had the foundations restored and the whole strengthened. From his design, also, are many flights of steps in the Belvedere, varied according to their situations, whether high or low, in the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian Orders--a very beautiful work, executed with extraordinary grace. And he had made a model for the whole, which is said to have been a marvellous thing, as may still be imagined from the beginning of the work, unfinished as it is. Moreover, he made a spiral staircase upon mounting columns, in such a way that one can ascend it on horseback; wherein the Doric passes into the Ionic, and the Ionic into the Corinthian, rising from one into the other; a work executed with supreme grace, and with truly excellent art, which does him no less honour than any other thing by his hand that is therein. This invention was copied by Bramante from S. Niccolò at Pisa, as was said in the Lives of Giovanni and Niccola of Pisa. The fancy took Bramante to make, in a frieze on the outer façade of the Belvedere, some letters after the manner of ancient hieroglyphics, representing the name of the Pope and his own, in order to show his ingenuity: and he had begun thus, "Julio II, Pont. Massimo," having caused a head in profile of Julius Cæsar to be made, and a bridge, with two arches, which signified, "Julio II, Pont.," and an obelisk from the Circus Maximus, to represent "Max." At which the Pope laughed, and caused him to make the letters in the ancient manner, one braccio in height, which are there at the present day; saying that he had copied this folly from a door at Viterbo, over which one Maestro Francesco, an architect, had placed his name, carved in the architrave, and represented by a S. Francis (S. Francesco), an arch (arco), a roof (tetto), and a tower (torre), which, interpreted in his own way, denoted, "Maestro Francesco Architettore." The Pope, on account of his ability in architecture, was very well disposed towards him. [Illustration: TEMPIETTO (_After_ Bramante da Urbino. _Rome: S. Pietro in Montorio_) _Anderson_] For these reasons he was rightly held worthy by the aforesaid Pope, who loved him very dearly for his great gifts, to be appointed to the Office of the Piombo, for which he made a machine for printing Bulls, with a very beautiful screw. In the service of that Pontiff Bramante went to Bologna, in the year 1504, when that city returned to the Church; and he occupied himself, throughout the whole war against Mirandola, on many ingenious things of the greatest importance. He made many designs for ground-plans and complete buildings, which he drew very well; and of such there are some to be seen in our book, accurately drawn and executed with very great art. He taught many of the rules of architecture to Raffaello da Urbino; designing for him, for example, the buildings that Raffaello afterwards drew in perspective in that apartment of the Pope wherein there is Mount Parnassus; in which apartment he made a portrait of Bramante taking measurements with a pair of compasses. The Pope resolved, having had the Strada Julia straightened out by Bramante, to place in it all the public offices and tribunals of Rome, on account of the convenience which this would bring to the merchants in their business, which up to that time had always been much hindered. Wherefore Bramante made a beginning with the palace that is to be seen by S. Biagio sul Tevere, wherein there is still an unfinished Corinthian temple, a thing of rare excellence. The rest of this beginning is in rustic work, and most beautiful; and it is a great pity that a work so honourable, useful, and magnificent, which is held by the masters of the profession to be the most beautiful example of design in that kind that has ever been seen, should not have been finished. He made, also, in the first cloister of S. Pietro a Montorio, a round temple of travertine, than which nothing more shapely or better conceived, whether in proportion, design, variety, or grace, could be imagined; and even more beautiful would it have been, if the whole extent of the cloister, which is not finished, had been brought to the form that is to be seen in a drawing by his hand. He directed the building, in the Borgo, of the palace which afterwards belonged to Raffaello da Urbino, executed with bricks and mould-castings, the columns and bosses being of the Doric Order and of rustic work--a very beautiful work--with a new invention in the making of these castings. He also made the design and preparations for the decoration of S. Maria at Loreto, which was afterwards continued by Andrea Sansovino; and an endless number of models for palaces and temples, which are in Rome and throughout the States of the Church. So sublime was the intellect of this marvellous craftsman, that he made a vast design for restoring and rearranging the Papal Palace. And so greatly had his courage grown, on seeing the powers and desires of the Pope rise to the level of his own wishes and genius, that, hearing that he was minded to throw the Church of S. Pietro to the ground, in order to build it anew, he made him an endless number of designs. And among those that he made was one that was very wonderful, wherein he showed the greatest possible judgment, with two bell-towers, one on either side of the façade, as we see it in the coins afterwards struck for Julius II and Leo X by Caradosso, a most excellent goldsmith, who had no peer in making dies, as may still be seen from the medal of Bramante, executed by him, which is very beautiful. And so, the Pope having resolved to make a beginning with the vast and sublime structure of S. Pietro, Bramante caused half of the old church to be pulled down, and put his hand to the work, with the intention that it should surpass, in beauty, art, invention, and design, as well as in grandeur, richness, and adornment, all the buildings that had been erected in that city by the power of the Commonwealth, and by the art and intellect of so many able masters; and with his usual promptness he laid the foundations, and carried the greater part of the building, before the death of the Pope and his own, to the height of the cornice, where are the arches to all the four piers; and these he turned with supreme expedition and art. He also executed the vaulting of the principal chapel, where the recess is, giving his attention at the same time to pressing on the building of the chapel that is called the Chapel of the King of France. For this work he invented the method of casting vaults in wooden moulds, in such a manner that patterns of friezes and foliage, like carvings, come out in the plaster; and in the arches of this edifice he showed how they could be turned with flying scaffoldings, a method that we have since seen followed by Antonio da San Gallo. In the part that was finished by him, the cornice that runs right round the interior is seen to be so graceful, that no other man's hand could take away or alter anything from its design without spoiling it. It is evident from his capitals, which are of olive leaves within, and from all the Doric work on the outer side, which is extraordinarily beautiful, how sublime was the courage of Bramante, whereby, in truth, if he had possessed physical powers equal to the intellect that adorned his spirit, he would most certainly have achieved even more unexampled things than he did. This work, as will be related in the proper places, since his death and down to the present day, has been much mutilated by other architects, insomuch that it may be said that with the exception of four arches which support the tribune, nothing of his has remained there. For Raffaello da Urbino and Giuliano da San Gallo, who carried on the work after the death of Julius II, together with Fra Giocondo of Verona, thought fit to begin to alter it; and after the death of those masters, Baldassarre Peruzzi, in building the Chapel of the King of France, in the transept on the side towards the Campo Santo, changed Bramante's design; and under Paul III Antonio da San Gallo changed it again entirely. Finally, Michelagnolo Buonarroti, sweeping away the countless opinions and superfluous expenses, has brought it to such beauty and perfection as not one of those others ever thought of, which all comes from his judgment and power of design; although he said to me several times that he was only the executor of the design and arrangements of Bramante, seeing that he who originally lays the foundations of a great edifice is its true creator. Vast, indeed, seemed the conception of Bramante in this work, and he gave it a very great beginning, which, even if he had begun on a smaller scale, neither San Gallo nor the others, nor even Buonarroti, would have had enough power of design to increase, although they were able to diminish it; so immense, stupendous, and magnificent was this edifice, and yet Bramante had conceived something even greater. It is said that he was so eager to see this structure making progress, that he pulled down many beautiful things in S. Pietro, such as tombs of Popes, paintings, and mosaics, and that for this reason we have lost all trace of many portraits of distinguished persons, which were scattered throughout that church, which was the principal church of all Christendom. He preserved only the altar of S. Pietro, and the old tribune, round which he made a most beautiful ornament of the Doric Order, all of peperino-stone, to the end that when the Pope came to S. Pietro to say Mass, he might be able to stand within it with all his Court and with the Ambassadors of the Christian Princes; but death prevented him from finishing it entirely, and the Sienese Baldassarre afterwards brought it to completion. Bramante was a very merry and pleasant person, ever delighting to help his neighbour. He was very much the friend of men of ability, and favoured them in whatever way he could; as may be seen from his kindness to the gracious Raffaello da Urbino, most celebrated of painters, whom he brought to Rome. He always lived in the greatest splendour, doing honour to himself; and in the rank to which his merits had raised him, what he possessed was nothing to what he would have been able to spend. He delighted in poetry, and loved to improvise upon the lyre, or to hear others doing this: and he composed some sonnets, if not as polished as we now demand them, at least weighty and without faults. He was much esteemed by the prelates, and was received by an endless number of noblemen who made his acquaintance. In his lifetime he had very great renown, and even greater after his death, because of which the building of S. Pietro was interrupted for many years. He lived to the age of seventy, and he was borne to his tomb in Rome, with most honourable obsequies, by the Court of the Pope and by all the sculptors, architects, and painters. He was buried in S. Pietro, in the year 1514. [Illustration: PALAZZO GIRAUD (_After_ Bramante da Urbino. _Rome_) _Anderson_] Very great was the loss that architecture suffered in the death of Bramante, who was the discoverer of many good methods wherewith he enriched that art, such as the invention of casting vaults, and the secret of stucco; both of which were known to the ancients, but had been lost until his time through the ruin of their buildings. And those who occupy themselves with measuring ancient works of architecture, find in the works of Bramante no less science and design than in any of the former; wherefore, among those who are versed in the profession, he can be accounted one of the rarest intellects that have adorned our age. He left behind him an intimate friend, Giuliano Leno, who had much to do with the buildings of his time, but was employed rather to make preparations and to carry out the wishes of whoever designed them, than to work on his own account, although he had judgment and great experience. During his lifetime, Bramante employed in his works one Ventura, a carpenter of Pistoia, who was a man of very good ability, and drew passing well. This Ventura, while in Rome, delighted much in taking measurements of antiquities; and afterwards, wishing to live once more in his native place, he returned to Pistoia. Now it happened in that city, in the year 1509, that a Madonna, which is now called the Madonna della Umiltà, worked miracles; and since many offerings were brought to her, the Signoria that was then governing the city determined to build a temple in her honour. Whereupon Ventura, confronted with this opportunity, made with his own hand a model of an octagonal temple ...[15] braccia in breadth and ... braccia in height, with a vestibule or closed portico in front, very ornate within and truly beautiful. This having given satisfaction to the Signoria and to the chief men of the city, the building was begun according to the plans of Ventura, who, having laid the foundations of the vestibule and the temple, completely finished the vestibule, which he made very rich in pilasters and cornices of the Corinthian Order, with other carved stonework; while all the vaults in that work were made in like manner, with squares surrounded by mouldings, also in stone, and filled with rosettes. Afterwards, the octagonal temple was also carried to the height of the last cornice, from which the vaulting of the tribune was to rise, during the lifetime of Ventura; and since he was not very experienced in works of that size, he did not consider how the weight of the tribune might be safely laid on the building, but made within the thickness of the wall, at the first range of windows, and at the second, where the others are, a passage that runs right round, whereby he contrived to weaken the walls so much, that, the edifice being without buttresses at the base, it was dangerous to raise a vault over it, and particularly on the angles at the corners, upon which all the weight of the vault of that tribune must rest. Wherefore, after the death of Ventura, there was no architect with courage enough to raise that vault: nay, they had caused long and stout beams of timber to be brought to the place, in order to make a tent-shaped roof; but this did not please the citizens, and they would not have it put into execution. And so the building remained for many years without a roof, until, in the year 1561, the Wardens of Works besought Duke Cosimo that his Excellency should so favour them as to cause that tribune to be vaulted. Whereupon, in order to meet their wishes, the Duke ordered Giorgio Vasari to go there and see whether he could find some method of vaulting it; and he, having done this, made a model raising the building to the height of eight braccia above the cornice that Ventura had left, in order to make buttresses for it; and he decreased the breadth of the passage that runs right round between the walls, and reinforced the building with buttresses, besides binding the corners and the parts below the passages that Ventura had made, between the windows, with stout keys of iron, double at the angles; which secured the whole in such a manner that the vault could be raised with safety. Whereupon his Excellency was pleased to visit the place, and, being satisfied with everything, gave orders for the work to be executed; and so all the buttresses have been built, and a beginning has already been made with the raising of the cupola. Thus, then, the work of Ventura will become richer, greater in size and adornment, and better in proportions; but he truly deserves to have record made of him, since that building is the most noteworthy modern work in the city of Pistoia. FOOTNOTE: [14] The word "calavano" has been substituted here for the "cavavano" of the text, which gives no sense. [15] These numbers are missing from the text. FRA BARTOLOMMEO DI SAN MARCO LIFE OF FRA BARTOLOMMEO DI SAN MARCO [_BACCIO DELLA PORTA_] PAINTER OF FLORENCE Near the territory of Prato, which is ten miles distant from Florence, in a village called Savignano, was born Bartolommeo, known, according to the Tuscan custom, by the name of Baccio. He, having shown in his childhood not merely inclination, but also aptitude, for drawing, was placed, through the good services of Benedetto da Maiano, with Cosimo Rosselli, and lodged in the house of some relatives of his own, who lived at the Porta a S. Piero Gattolini; where he stayed for many years, so that he was never called or known by any other name than that of Baccio della Porta. After taking his leave of Cosimo Rosselli, he began to study with great devotion the works of Leonardo da Vinci; and in a short time he made such proficience and such progress in colouring, that he acquired the name and reputation of being one of the best young men of his art, both in colouring and in drawing. He had a companion in Mariotto Albertinelli, who in a short time acquired his manner passing well; and together with him he executed many pictures of Our Lady, which are scattered throughout Florence. To speak of all these would take too long, and I will mention only some excellently painted by Baccio. There is one, containing a Madonna, in the house of Filippo di Averardo Salviati, which is most beautiful, and which he holds very dear and in great price. Another was bought not long since, at a sale of old furniture, by Pier Maria delle Pozze, a person greatly devoted to pictures, who, having recognized its beauty, will not let it go for any sum of money; in which work is a Madonna executed with extraordinary diligence. Piero del Pugliese had a little Madonna of marble, in very low relief, a very rare work by the hand of Donatello, for which, in order to do it honour, he caused a wooden tabernacle to be made, with two little doors to enclose it. This he gave to Baccio della Porta, who painted, on the inner side of the doors, two little scenes, of which one was the Nativity of Christ, and the other His Circumcision; which Baccio executed with little figures after the manner of miniatures, in such a way that it would not be possible to do better work in oils; and then he painted Our Lady receiving the Annunciation from the Angel, in chiaroscuro, and likewise in oils, on the outer side of the same little doors, so as to be seen when they are closed. This work is now in the study of Duke Cosimo, wherein he keeps all his little antique figures of bronze, medals, and other rare pictures in miniature; and it is treasured by his most illustrious Excellency as a rare thing, as indeed it is. [Illustration: FRA BARTOLOMMEO DI SAN MARCO: THE DEPOSITION FROM THE CROSS (_Florence: Pitti, 64. Panel_)] Baccio was beloved in Florence for his virtues, for he was assiduous in his work, quiet and good by nature, and a truly God-fearing man; he had a great liking for a life of peace, and he shunned vicious company, delighted much in hearing sermons, and always sought the society of learned and serious persons. And in truth, it is seldom that nature creates a man of good parts and a gentle craftsman, without also providing him, after some time, with peace and favour, as she did for Baccio, who, as will be told below, obtained all that he desired. The report having spread abroad that he was no less good than able, his fame so increased that he was commissioned by Gerozzo di Monna Venna Dini to paint the chapel wherein the bones of the dead are kept, in the cemetery of the Hospital of S. Maria Nuova. There he began a Judgment in fresco, which he executed with such diligence and beauty of manner in the part which he finished, that he acquired extraordinary fame thereby, in addition to what he had already, and became greatly celebrated, on account of his having represented with excellent conceptions the Glory of Paradise, and Christ with the twelve Apostles judging the twelve Tribes, wherein the figures are soft in colouring and most beautifully draped. Moreover, in those figures that are being dragged to Hell, in the part that was designed but left unfinished, one sees the despair, grief, and shame of everlasting death, even as one perceives contentment and gladness in those that are being saved; although this work remained unfinished, since Baccio was inclined to give his attention more to religion than to painting. For there was living in S. Marco, at this time, Fra Girolamo Savonarola of Ferrara, of the Order of Preaching Friars, a very famous theologian; and Baccio, going continually to hear his preaching, on account of the devotion that he felt for him, contracted a very strait intimacy with him, and passed almost all his time in the convent, having also become the friend of the other friars. Now it happened that Fra Girolamo, continuing his preaching, and crying out every day from the pulpit that lascivious pictures, music, and amorous books often lead the mind to evil, became convinced that it was not right to keep in houses where there were young girls painted figures of naked men and women. And at the next Carnival--when it was the custom in the city to make little huts of faggots and other kinds of wood on the public squares, and on the Tuesday evening, according to ancient use, to burn these, with amorous dances, in which men and women, joining hands, danced round these fires, singing certain airs--the people were so inflamed by Fra Girolamo, and he wrought upon them so strongly with his words, that on that day they brought to the place a vast quantity of nude figures, both in painting and in sculpture, many by the hand of excellent masters, and likewise books, lutes, and volumes of songs, which was a most grievous loss, particularly for painting. Thither Baccio carried all the drawings of nudes that he had made by way of studies, and he was followed by Lorenzo di Credi and by many others, who had the name of Piagnoni. And it was not long before Baccio, on account of the affection that he bore to Fra Girolamo, made a very beautiful portrait of him in a picture, which was then taken to Ferrara; but not long ago it came back to Florence, and it is now in the house of Filippo di Alamanno Salviati, who, since it is by the hand of Baccio, holds it very dear. It happened, after this, that one day the opponents of Fra Girolamo rose against him, in order to take him and deliver him over to the hands of justice, on account of the disturbances that he had caused in the city; and his friends, seeing this, also banded themselves together, to the number of more than five hundred, and shut themselves up in S. Marco, and Baccio with them, on account of the great affection that he had for their party. It is true that, being a person of little courage, nay, even timorous and mean-spirited, and hearing an attack being made a little time after this on the convent, and men being wounded and killed, he began to have serious doubts about himself. For which reason he made a vow that if he were to escape from that turmoil, he would straightway assume the habit of that Order; which vow he carried out afterwards most faithfully, for when the uproar had ceased, and Fra Girolamo had been taken and condemned to death, as the writers of history relate with more detail, Baccio betook himself to Prato and became a monk in S. Domenico, in that city, on July 26, in the year 1500, as is found written in the chronicles of that same convent in which he assumed the habit; to the great displeasure of all his friends, who were grieved beyond measure at having lost him, and particularly because they heard that he had taken it into his head to forsake his painting. Whereupon Mariotto Albertinelli, his friend and companion, at the entreaties of Gerozzo Dini, took over the materials of Fra Bartolommeo--which was the name given by the Prior to Baccio, on investing him with the habit--and brought to completion the work of the Ossa in S. Maria Nuova; where he portrayed from life the Director of the Hospital at that time, and some friars skilled in surgery, with Gerozzo, the patron of the work, and his wife, full-length figures on their knees, upon the walls on either side; and in a nude figure that is seated, he portrayed Giuliano Bugiardini, his pupil, as a young man, with long locks according to the custom of that time, in which each separate hair might be counted, so carefully are they painted. He made there, likewise, his own portrait, in the head, with long locks, of a figure that is issuing from one of the tombs; and in that work, in the region of the blessed, there is also the portrait of Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, the painter, whose Life we have written. This painting was executed wholly in fresco, both by Fra Bartolommeo and by Mariotto, so that it has remained, and still remains, marvellously fresh, and is held in esteem by craftsmen, since it is scarcely possible to do better in that kind of work. [Illustration: THE HOLY FAMILY (_After the panel by =Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco=. Rome: Corsini Gallery, 579_) _Anderson_] When Fra Bartolommeo had been many months in Prato, he was sent by his superiors to take up his abode in S. Marco at Florence, and on account of his virtues he was received very warmly by the friars of that convent. In those days Bernardo del Bianco had caused to be erected, in the Badia of Florence, a chapel of grey-stone, full of carving, and very rich and beautiful, from the design of Benedetto da Rovezzano: which chapel was and still is much esteemed on account of some ornamental work of great variety, wherein Benedetto Buglioni placed, in some niches, angels and other figures made of glazed terra-cotta, in the round, to adorn it the more, with friezes containing cherubs and the devices of Bianco. And Bernardo, wishing to set up in the chapel a panel-picture that should be worthy of that adornment, and conceiving the idea that Fra Bartolommeo would be the right man for the work, sought in every possible way, through the intervention of his friends, to persuade him. Fra Bartolommeo was living in his convent, giving his attention to nothing save the divine offices and the duties of his Rule, although often besought by the Prior and by his dearest friends that he should work again at his painting; and for more than four years he had refused to touch a brush. But on this occasion, being pressed by Bernardo del Bianco, at length he began the panel-picture of S. Bernard, in which the Saint is writing, and gazing with such deep contemplation at the Madonna, with the Child in her arms, being borne by many angels and children, all coloured with great delicacy, that there is clearly perceived in him a certain celestial quality, I know not what, which seems, to him who studies it with attention, to shine out over that work, into which Baccio put much diligence and love; not to mention an arch executed in fresco, which is above it. He also made some pictures for Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici; and for Agnolo Doni he painted a picture of Our Lady, which stands on the altar of a chapel in his house--a work of extraordinary beauty. At this time the painter Raffaello da Urbino came to Florence to study his art, and taught the best principles of perspective to Fra Bartolommeo; and desiring to acquire the friar's manner of colouring, and being pleased with his handling of colours and his method of harmonizing them, Raffaello was always in his company. Fra Bartolommeo painted about the same time, in S. Marco at Florence, a panel with an infinite number of figures, which is now in the possession of the King of France, having been presented to him after being exposed to view for many months in S. Marco. Afterwards, he painted another in that convent, containing an endless number of figures, in place of the one that was sent into France; in which picture are some children who are flying in the air and holding open a canopy, executed with such good drawing and art, and with such strong relief, that they appear to stand out from the panel, while the colouring of the flesh reveals that beauty and excellence which every able craftsman seeks to give to his pictures; and this work is still considered at the present day to be most excellent. In it are many figures surrounding a Madonna, all most admirable, and executed with grace, feeling, boldness, spirit, and vivacity; and coloured, moreover, in so striking a manner, that they seem to be in relief, since he wished to show that he was able not only to draw, but also to give his figures force and make them stand out by means of the darkness of the shadows, as may be seen in some children who are round a canopy, upholding it, who, as they fly through the air, almost project from the panel. Besides this, there is an Infant Christ who is marrying S. Catherine the Nun, than which it would not be possible to paint anything more lifelike with the dark colouring that he used. There is a circle of saints on one side diminishing in perspective, round the depth of a great recess, who are distributed with such fine design that they seem to be real; and the same may be seen on the other side. And in truth, in this manner of colouring, he imitated to a great extent the works of Leonardo; particularly in the darks, for which he used printer's smoke-black and the black of burnt ivory. This panel has now become much darker than it was when he painted it, on account of those blacks, which have kept growing heavier and darker. In the foreground, among the principal figures, he made a S. George in armour, who has a standard in his hand, a bold, spirited, and vivacious figure, in a beautiful attitude. There is also a S. Bartholomew, standing, a figure that deserves the highest praise; with two children who are playing, one on a lute, and the other on a lyre, one of whom he made with a leg drawn up and his instrument resting upon it, and with the hands touching the strings in the act of running over them, an ear intent on the harmony, the head upraised, and the mouth slightly open, in such a way that whoever beholds him cannot persuade himself that he should not also hear the voice. No less lifelike is the other, who, leaning on one side, and bending over with one ear to the lyre, appears to be listening to learn how far it is in accord with the sound of the lute and the voice, while, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and his ear turned intently towards his companion, who is playing and singing, he seeks to follow in harmony with the air. These conceptions and expressions are truly ingenious; the children, who are seated, and clothed in veiling, are marvellous and executed with great industry by the practised hand of Fra Bartolommeo; and the whole work is brought out into strong relief by a fine gradation of dark shadows. A little time afterwards he painted another panel, to stand opposite to the former, and containing a Madonna surrounded by some saints, which is held to be a good work. He won extraordinary praise for having introduced a method of blending the colouring of his figures in such a way as to add a marvellous degree of harmony to art, making them appear to be in relief and alive, and executing them with supreme perfection of manner. Hearing much of the noble works made in Rome by Michelagnolo, and likewise those of the gracious Raffaello, and being roused by the fame, which was continually reaching him, of the marvels wrought by those two divine craftsmen, with leave from his Prior he betook himself to Rome. There he was entertained by Fra Mariano Fetti, Friar of the Piombo, for whom he painted two pictures of S. Peter and S. Paul at his Convent of S. Silvestro a Monte Cavallo. But since he did not succeed in working as well in the air of Rome as he had done in that of Florence, while the vast number of works that he saw, what with the ancient and the modern, bewildered him so that much of the ability and excellence that he believed himself to possess, fell away from him, he determined to depart, leaving to Raffaello the charge of finishing one of those pictures, that of S. Peter, which he had not completed; which picture was retouched all over by the hand of the marvellous Raffaello, and given to Fra Mariano. Thus, then, Fra Bartolommeo returned to Florence. There he had been accused many times of not knowing how to paint nudes; for which reason he resolved to put himself to the test, and to show by means of his labour that he was as well fitted as any other master for the highest achievements of his art. Whereupon, to prove this, he painted a picture of S. Sebastian, naked, very lifelike in the colouring of the flesh, sweet in countenance, and likewise executed with corresponding beauty of person, whereby he won infinite praise from the craftsmen. It is said that, while this figure was exposed to view in the church, the friars found, through the confessional, women who had sinned at the sight of it, on account of the charm and melting beauty of the lifelike reality imparted to it by the genius of Fra Bartolommeo; for which reason they removed it from the church and placed it in the chapter-house, where it did not remain long before it was bought by Giovan Battista della Palla and sent to the King of France. [Illustration: S. MARK (_After the painting by =Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco=. Florence: Pitti, 125_) _Anderson_] Fra Bartolommeo had fallen into a rage against the joiners who made the ornamental frames for his panels and pictures, for it was their custom, as it still is at the present day, always to cover an eighth part of the figures with the projecting inner edges of the frames. He determined, therefore, to invent some means of doing without frames for panels; and for this S. Sebastian he caused the panel to be made in the form of a half-circle, wherein he drew a niche in perspective, which has the appearance of being carved in relief in the panel. Thus, painting a frame all round, he made an ornament for the figure in the middle; and he did the same for our S. Vincent, and for the S. Mark that will be described after the S. Vincent. For the arch of a door leading into the sacristy, he painted in oils, on wood, a figure of S. Vincent, a brother of that Order, representing him in the act of preaching on the Judgment, so that there may be perceived in his gestures, and particularly in his head, that vehemence and fury which are generally seen in the faces of preachers, when they are doing their utmost, with threats of the vengeance of God, to lead men hardened in sin into the perfect life; in such a manner that this figure appears, to one who studies it with attention, to be not painted but real and alive, with such strong relief is it executed; and it is a pity that it is all cracking and spoiling, on account of its having been painted with fresh coats of colour on fresh size, as I said of the works of Pietro Perugino in the Convent of the Ingesuati. The fancy took him, in order to show that he was able to make large figures--for he had been told that his manner was that of a miniaturist--to paint on panel, for the wall in which is the door of the choir, a figure of S. Mark the Evangelist, five braccia in height, and executed with very good draughtsmanship and supreme excellence. After this, Salvadore Billi, a Florentine merchant, on his return from Naples, having heard the fame of Fra Bartolommeo, and having seen his works, caused him to paint a panel-picture of Christ the Saviour, in allusion to his own name, with the four Evangelists round Him; wherein, at the foot, are also two little boys upholding the globe of the world, whose flesh, fresh and tender, is excellently painted, as is the whole work, in which there are likewise two prophets that are much extolled. This panel stands in the Nunziata at Florence, below the great organ, according to the wish of Salvadore; it is a very beautiful work, finished by Fra Bartolommeo with much lovingness and great perfection; and it is surrounded by an ornament of marble, all carved by the hand of Pietro Rosselli. Afterwards, having need of a change of air, the Prior at that time, who was his friend, sent him away to a monastery of his Order, wherein, while he stayed there, he combined the labour of his hands with the contemplation of death, with profit[16] both for his soul and for the convent. For S. Martino in Lucca he painted a panel wherein, at the feet of a Madonna, there is a little angel playing on a lute, together with S. Stephen and S. John; in which picture, executed with excellent draughtsmanship and colouring, he proved his ability. For S. Romano, likewise, he painted a panel on canvas of the Madonna della Misericordia, who is placed on a pedestal of stone, with some angels holding her mantle; and together with her he depicted a throng of people on some steps, some standing, others seated, and others kneeling, but all gazing at a figure of Christ on high, who is sending down lightnings and thunderbolts upon the people. Clearly did Fra Bartolommeo prove in this work how well he was able to manage the gradation of shadows and darks in painting, giving extraordinary relief to his figures, and showing a rare and excellent mastery over the difficulties of his art in colouring, drawing, and invention; and the work is as perfect as any that he ever made. For the same church he painted another panel, also on canvas, containing a Christ and S. Catherine the Martyr, together with a S. Catherine of Siena, rapt in ecstasy from the earth, a figure as good as any that could possibly be painted in that manner. [Illustration: GOD THE FATHER, WITH SS. MARY MAGDALEN AND CATHARINE (_After the painting by =Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco=. Lucca: Gallery, 12_) _Alinari_] Returning to Florence, he gave some attention to the study of music; and, delighting much therein, he would sometimes sing to pass the time. At Prato, opposite to the prison, he painted a panel-picture of the Assumption. He executed some pictures of Our Lady for the house of the Medici, and also other paintings for various people, such as a picture of Our Lady which Lodovico di Lodovico Capponi has in his apartment, and likewise another of the Virgin holding the Child in her arms, with two heads of saints, that is in the possession of the very Excellent Messer Lelio Torelli, Chief Secretary to the most Illustrious Duke Cosimo, who holds it very dear both on account of the genius of Fra Bartolommeo, and because he delights in, loves, and favours not only the men of our art, but every fine intellect. In the house of Piero del Pugliese, which now belongs to Matteo Botti, a citizen and merchant of Florence, in an antechamber at the head of a staircase, he painted a S. George in armour, on horseback, who is slaying the Dragon with his lance--a very spirited figure. This he executed in chiaroscuro, in oils, a method that he much delighted to use for all his works, sketching them in the manner of a cartoon, with ink or with bitumen, before colouring them; as may still be seen from many beginnings of pictures and panels, which he left unfinished on account of his death, and as may also be perceived from many drawings by his hand, executed in chiaroscuro, of which the greater part are now in the Monastery of S. Caterina da Siena on the Piazza di S. Marco, in the possession of a nun who paints, and of whom record will be made in the proper place; while many made in the same way adorn our book of drawings, honouring his memory, and some are in the hands of Messer Francesco del Garbo, a most excellent physician. Fra Bartolommeo always liked to have living objects before him when he was working; and in order to be able to draw draperies, armour, and other suchlike things, he caused a life-size figure of wood to be made, which moved at the joints; and this he clothed with real draperies, from which he painted most beautiful things, being able to keep them in position as long as he pleased, until he had brought his work to perfection. This figure, worm-eaten and ruined as it is, is in our possession, treasured in memory of him. At Arezzo, for the Abbey of the Black Friars, he made a head of Christ in dark tints--a very beautiful work. He painted, also, the panel of the Company of the Contemplanti, which was preserved in the house of the Magnificent Messer Ottaviano de' Medici, and has now been placed in a chapel of that house, with many ornaments, by his son Messer Alessandro, who holds it very dear in memory of Fra Bartolommeo, and also because he takes vast pleasure in painting. In the chapel of the Noviciate of S. Marco there is a panel-picture of the Purification, very lovely, which he executed with good draughtsmanship and high finish. At S. Maria Maddalena, a seat of the Friars of his Order, without Florence, while staying there for his own pleasure, he made a Christ and a Magdalene; and he also painted certain things in fresco in that convent. In like manner, he wrought in fresco an arch over the strangers' apartment in S. Marco, in which he painted Christ with Cleophas and Luke, and made a portrait of Fra Niccolò della Magna, who was then a young man, and who afterwards became Archbishop of Capua, and finally a Cardinal. He began a panel for S. Gallo, afterwards finished by Giuliano Bugiardini, which is now on the high-altar of S. Jacopo fra Fossi, on the Canto degli Alberti; and likewise a picture of the Rape of Dinah, now in the possession of Messer Cristofano Rinieri, and afterwards coloured by the same Giuliano, in which are buildings and conceptions that are much extolled. From Piero Soderini he received the commission for the panel of the Council Chamber, which he began in such a manner, drawing it in chiaroscuro, that it seemed destined to do him very great credit; and, unfinished as it is, it now has a place of honour in the Chapel of the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, in S. Lorenzo. In it are all the Patron Saints of the city of Florence, and those saints on whose days that city has gained her victories; and there is also the portrait of Fra Bartolommeo himself, made by him with a mirror. He had begun this picture, and had drawn the whole design, when it happened that, from working continually under a window, with the light from it beating on his back, he became completely paralyzed on that side of his body, and quite unable to move. Thereupon he was advised--such being the orders of his physicians--to go to the baths of San Filippo; where he stayed a long time, but became very little better thereby. Now Fra Bartolommeo was a great lover of fruit, which pleased his palate mightily, although it was ruinous to his health. Wherefore one morning, having eaten many figs, there came upon him, in addition to his other infirmity, a very violent fever, which cut short the course of his life in four days, at the age of forty-eight; when, still wholly conscious, he rendered up his soul to Heaven. His death grieved his friends, and particularly the friars, who gave him honourable sepulture in their burial-place in S. Marco, on October 8, in the year 1517. He had a dispensation from attending any of the offices in the choir with the other friars, and the gains from his works went to the convent, enough money being left in his hands to pay for colours and other materials necessary for his painting. He left disciples in Cecchino del Frate, Benedetto Cianfanini, Gabriele Rustici, and Fra Paolo Pistoiese, the latter inheriting all his possessions. This Fra Paolo painted many panels and pictures from his master's drawings, after his death; of which three are in S. Domenico at Pistoia, and one at S. Maria del Sasso in the Casentino. Fra Bartolommeo gave such grace to his figures with his colouring, and made them so novel and so modern in manner, that for these reasons he deserves to be numbered by us among the benefactors of art. FOOTNOTE: [16] The word "utilmente" is substituted here for the "ultimamente" of the text, which makes no sense. MARIOTTO ALBERTINELLI LIFE OF MARIOTTO ALBERTINELLI PAINTER OF FLORENCE Mariotto Albertinelli, the closest and most intimate friend of Fra Bartolommeo--his other self, one might call him, not only on account of the constant connection and intercourse between them, but also through their similarity of manner during the period when Mariotto gave proper attention to art--was the son of Biagio di Bindo Albertinelli. At the age of twenty he abandoned his calling of gold-beater, in which he had been employed up to that time; and he learnt the first rudiments of painting in the workshop of Cosimo Rosselli, where he formed such an intimacy with Baccio della Porta, that they were one soul and one body. Such, indeed, was the brotherly friendship between them, that when Baccio took his leave of Cosimo, in order to practise his art as a master by himself, Mariotto went off with him; whereupon they lived for a long time, both one and the other, at the Porta a S. Piero Gattolini, executing many works in company. And since Mariotto was not so well grounded in drawing as was Baccio, he devoted himself to the study of such antiquities as were then in Florence, the greater part and the best of which were in the house of the Medici. He made a number of drawings of certain little panels in half-relief that were under the loggia in the garden, on the side towards S. Lorenzo, in one of which is Adonis with a very beautiful dog, and in another two nude figures, one seated, with a dog at its feet, and the other standing with the legs crossed, leaning on a staff. Both these panels are marvellous; and there are likewise two others of the same size, in one of which are two little boys carrying Jove's thunderbolt, while in the other is the nude figure of an old man, with wings on his shoulders and feet, representing Chance, and balancing a pair of scales in his hands. In addition to these works, that garden was full of torsi of men and women, which were a school not only for Mariotto, but for all the sculptors and painters of his time. A good part of these are now in the guardaroba of Duke Cosimo, and others, such as the two torsi of Marsyas, the heads over the windows, and those of the Emperors over the doors, are still in the same place. By studying these antiquities, Mariotto made great proficience in drawing; and he entered into the service of the mother of Duke Lorenzo, Madonna Alfonsina, who, desiring that he should devote himself to becoming an able master, offered him all possible assistance. Dividing his time, therefore, between drawing and colouring, he became a passing good craftsman, as is proved by some pictures that he executed for that lady, which were sent by her to Rome, for Carlo and Giordano Orsini, and which afterwards came into the hands of Cæsar Borgia. He made a very good portrait of Madonna Alfonsina from the life; and it seemed to him, on account of his friendship with her, that his fortune was made, when, in the year 1494, Piero de' Medici was banished, and her assistance and favour failed him. Whereupon he returned to the workshop of Baccio, where he set himself with even greater zeal to make models of clay and to increase his knowledge, labouring at the study of nature, and imitating the works of Baccio, so that in a few years he became a sound and practised master. And then, seeing his work succeeding so well, he so grew in courage, that, imitating the manner and method of his companion, the hand of Mariotto was taken by many for that of Fra Bartolommeo. [Illustration: THE MADONNA ENTHRONED, WITH SAINTS (_After the panel by =Mariotto Albertinelli=. Florence: Accademia, 167_) _Alinari_] But when he heard that Baccio had gone off to become a monk, Mariotto was almost overwhelmed and out of his mind; and so strange did the news seem to him, that he was in despair, and nothing could cheer him. If it had not been, indeed, that Mariotto could not then endure having anything to do with monks, against whom he was ever railing, and belonged to the party that was opposed to the faction of Fra Girolamo of Ferrara, his love for Baccio would have wrought upon him so strongly, that it would have forced him to don the cowl in the same convent as his companion. However, he was besought by Gerozzo Dini, who had given the commission for the Judgment that Baccio had left unfinished in the Ossa, that he, having a manner similar to Baccio's, should undertake to finish it; whereupon, being also moved by the circumstance that the cartoon completed by the hand of Baccio and other drawings were there, and by the entreaties of Fra Bartolommeo himself, who had received money on account of the painting, and was troubled in conscience at not having kept his promise, he finished the work, and executed all that was wanting with diligence and love, in such a way that many, not knowing this, think that it was painted by one single hand; and this brought him vast credit among craftsmen. In the Chapter-house of the Certosa of Florence he executed a Crucifixion, with Our Lady and the Magdalene at the foot of the Cross, and some angels in the sky, who are receiving the blood of Christ; a work wrought in fresco, with diligence and lovingness, and passing well painted. Now some of the young men who were learning art under him, thinking that the friars were not giving them proper food, had counterfeited, without the knowledge of Mariotto, the keys of those windows opening into the friar's rooms, through which their pittance is passed; and sometimes, in secret, they stole some of it, now from one and now from another. There was a great uproar about this among the friars, since in the matter of eating they are as sensitive as any other person; but the lads did it with great dexterity, and, since they were held to be honest fellows, the blame fell on some of the friars, who were said to be doing it from hatred of one another. However, one day the truth was revealed, and the friars, to the end that the work might be finished, gave a double allowance to Mariotto and his lads, who finished the work with great glee and laughter. For the Nuns of S. Giuliano in Florence he painted the panel of their high-altar, which he executed in a room that he had in the Gualfonda; together with another for the same church, with a Crucifix, some Angels, and God the Father, representing the Trinity, in oils and on a gold ground. Mariotto was a most restless person, devoted to the pleasures of love, and a good liver in the matter of eating; wherefore, conceiving a hatred for the subtleties and brain-rackings of painting, and being often wounded by the tongues of other painters (according to the undying custom among them, handed down from one to another), he resolved to turn to a more humble, less fatiguing, and more cheerful art. And so, having opened a very fine inn, without the Porta S. Gallo, and a tavern and inn on the Ponte Vecchio, at the Dragon, he followed that calling for many months, saying that he had chosen an art without foreshortenings, muscles, and perspectives, and, what was much more important, free from censure, and that the art which he had given up was quite the contrary of his new one, since the former imitated flesh and blood, and the latter made both blood and flesh; and now, having good wine, he heard himself praised all day long, whereas before he used to hear nothing but censure. [Illustration: MARIOTTO ALBERTINELLI: THE SALUTATION (_Florence: Uffizi, 1259. Panel_)] However, having grown weary of this as well, and ashamed of the baseness of his calling, he returned to painting, and executed pictures and paintings for the houses of citizens in Florence. For Giovan Maria Benintendi he painted three little scenes with his own hand; and for the house of the Medici, at the election of Leo X, he painted a round picture of his arms, in oils, with Faith, Hope, and Charity, which hung for a long time over the door of their palace. He undertook to make, in the Company of S. Zanobi, near the Chapter-house of S. Maria del Fiore, a panel-picture of the Annunciation, which he executed with great labour. For this he caused special windows to be made, wishing to work on the spot, in order to be able to make the views recede, where they were high and distant, by lowering the tones, or to bring them forward, at his pleasure. Now he had conceived the idea that pictures which have no relief and force, combined with delicacy, are of no account; but since he knew that they cannot be made to stand out from the surface without shadows, which, if they are too dark, remain indistinct, while, if they are delicate, they have no force, he was eager to combine this delicacy with a certain method of treatment to which up to that time, so it seemed to him, art had not attained in any satisfactory manner. Wherefore, looking on this work as an opportunity for accomplishing this, he set himself, to this end, to make extraordinary efforts, which may be recognized in a figure of God the Father, which is in the sky, and in some little children, who stand out from the panel in strong relief against a dark background in perspective that he made there with a ceiling in the form of a barrel-shaped vault, which, with its arches curving and its lines diminishing to a point, recedes inwards in such a manner that it appears to be in relief; besides which, there are some angels scattering flowers as they fly, that are very graceful. This work was painted out and painted in again many times by Mariotto before he could bring it to completion. He was for ever changing the colouring, making it now lighter, now darker, and sometimes more lively and glowing, sometimes less; but, never being completely satisfied, and never persuaded that he had done justice with his hand to the thoughts of his intellect, he wished to find a white that should be more brilliant than lead-white, and set himself, therefore, to clarify the latter, in order to be able to heighten the highest light to his own satisfaction. However, having recognized that he was not able to express by means of art all that the intelligence of the human brain grasps and comprehends, he contented himself with what he had achieved, since he could not attain to what it was not possible to reach. This work brought Mariotto praise and honour among craftsmen, but by no means as much profit as he hoped to gain from his patrons in return for his labours, since a dispute arose between him and those who had commissioned him to paint it. But Pietro Perugino, then an old man, Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, and Francesco Granacci valued it, and settled the price of the work by common consent. For S. Pancrazio, in Florence, Mariotto painted a semicircular picture of the Visitation of Our Lady. For S. Trinità, likewise, he executed with diligence a panel-picture of Our Lady, S. Jerome, and S. Zanobi, at the commission of Zanobi del Maestro; and for the Church of the Congregation of the Priests of S. Martino, he painted a picture on panel of the Visitation, which is much extolled. He was invited to the Convent of La Quercia, without Viterbo; but after having begun a panel there, he conceived a desire to see Rome. Having made his way to that city, therefore, he executed to perfection for the Chapel of Fra Mariano Fetti in S. Silvestro di Monte Cavallo, a panel-picture in oils of S. Dominic, S. Catherine of Siena, with Christ marrying her, and Our Lady, in a delicate manner. He then returned to La Quercia, where he had a mistress, to whom, on account of the desire that he had felt while he was in Rome and could not enjoy her love, he sought to show that he was valiant in the lists; wherefore he exerted himself so much, that, being no longer young and so stalwart in such efforts, he was forced to take to his bed. And laying the blame for this on the air of the place, he had himself carried to Florence in a litter; but no expedients or remedies availed him in his sickness, from which he died in a few days, at the age of forty-five. He was buried in S. Piero Maggiore, in that city. There are some drawings by the hand of this master in our book, executed with the pen and in chiaroscuro, which are very good; particularly a spiral staircase, drawn with great ingenuity in perspective, of which he had a good knowledge. Mariotto had many disciples; among others, Giuliano Bugiardini and Franciabigio, both Florentines, and Innocenzio da Imola, of whom we will speak in the proper place. Visino, a painter of Florence, was likewise his disciple, and excelled all these others in drawing, colouring, and industry, showing, also, a better manner in the works that he made, which he executed with great diligence. A few of them are still in Florence; and one can study his work at the present day in the house of Giovan Battista d' Agnol Doni, in a mirror[17]--picture painted in oils after the manner of a miniature, wherein are Adam and Eve naked, eating the apple, a work executed with great care; and from another picture, of Christ being taken down from the Cross, together with the Thieves, in which there is a beautifully contrived complication of ladders, with some men aiding each other to take down the body of Christ, and others bearing one of the Thieves on their shoulders to burial, and all the figures in varied and fantastic attitudes, suited to that subject, and proving that he was an able man. The same master was brought by some Florentine merchants to Hungary, where he executed many works and gained great renown. But the poor man was soon in danger of coming to an evil end, because, being of a frank and free-spoken nature, he was not able to endure the wearisome persistence of some Hungarians, who kept tormenting him all day long with praises of their own country, as if there were no pleasure or happiness in anything except eating and drinking in their stifling rooms, and no grandeur or nobility save in their King and his Court, all the rest of the world being rubbish. It seemed to him (and indeed it is true) that in Italy there was another kind of excellence, culture, and beauty; and one day, being weary of their nonsense, and chancing to be a little merry, he let slip the opinion that a flask of Trebbiano and a berlingozzo[18] were worth all the Kings and Queens that had ever reigned in those regions. And if the matter had not happened to fall into the hands of a Bishop, who was a gentleman and a man of the world, and also, above all, a tactful person, both able and willing to turn the thing into a joke, Visino would have learnt not to play with savages; for those brutes of Hungarians, not understanding his words, and thinking that he had uttered something terrible, such as a threat that he would rob their King of his life and throne, wished to give him short shrift and crucify him by mob-law. But the good Bishop drew him out of all embarrassment, and, appraising the merit of the excellent master at its true value, and putting a good complexion on the affair, restored him to the favour of the King, who, on hearing the story, was much amused by it. His good fortune, however, did not last long, for, not being able to endure the stifling rooms and the cold air, which ruined his constitution, in a short time this brought his life to an end; although his repute and fame survived in the memory of those who knew him when alive, and of those who saw his works in the years after his death. His pictures date about the year 1512. FOOTNOTE: [17] The words of the text, "un quadro d' una spera," are a little obscure; but the translator has been strengthened in his belief that his rendering is correct by seeing a little picture, painted on a mirror, and numbered 7697, in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The subject of this picture, which the translator was enabled to see by the courtesy of Mr. B. S. Long, of the Department of Paintings, is the same as that of the work mentioned by Vasari, and it may be a copy. [18] Florentine puff-pastry. RAFFAELLINO DEL GARBO LIFE OF RAFFAELLINO DEL GARBO PAINTER OF FLORENCE Raffaello del Garbo, while he was a little boy, was called by the pet name of Raffaellino, which he retained ever afterwards; and in his earliest days he gave such promise in his art, that he was already numbered among the most excellent masters, a thing which happens to few. But still fewer meet the fate which afterwards came upon him, in that from a splendid beginning and almost certain hopes, he arrived at a very feeble end. For it is a general rule, in the world both of nature and of art, for things to grow gradually from small beginnings, little by little, until they reach their highest perfection. It is true, however, that many laws both of art and of nature are unknown to us, nor do they hold to one unvarying order at all times and in every case, a thing which very often renders uncertain the judgments of men. How this may happen is seen in Raffaellino, since it appeared that in him nature and art did their utmost to set out from extraordinary beginnings, the middle stage of which was below mediocrity, and the end almost nothing. In his youth he drew as much as any painter who has ever exercised himself in drawing in order to become perfect; wherefore there may still be seen, throughout the world of art, a great number of his drawings, which have been dispersed by a son of his for ridiculous prices, partly drawn with the style, partly with the pen or in water-colours, but all on tinted paper, heightened with lead-white, and executed with marvellous boldness and mastery; and there are many of them in our book, drawn in a most beautiful manner. Besides this, he learnt to paint so well in distemper and in fresco, that his first works were executed with an incredible patience and diligence, as has been related. In the Minerva, round the tomb of Cardinal Caraffa, he painted the vaulted ceiling, with such delicacy, that it seems like the work of an illuminator; wherefore it was held in great estimation by craftsmen at that time. His master, Filippo, regarded him in some respects as a much better painter than himself; and Raffaellino had acquired Filippo's manner so well, that there were few who could distinguish the one from the other. Later, after having left his master, he gave much more delicacy to that manner in the draperies, and greater softness to hair and to the expressions of the heads; and he was held in such expectation by craftsmen, that, while he followed this manner, he was considered the first of the young painters of his day. Now the family of the Capponi, having built a chapel that is called the Paradiso, on the hill below the Church of S. Bartolommeo a Monte Oliveto, without the Porta a S. Friano, wished to have the panel executed by Raffaellino, and gave him the commission; whereupon he painted in oils the Resurrection of Christ, with some soldiers who have fallen, as if dead, round the Sepulchre. These figures are very spirited and beautiful, and they have the most graceful heads that it is possible to see; among which, in the head of a young man, is a marvellous portrait of Niccola Capponi, while, in like manner, the head of one who is crying out because the stone covering of the tomb has fallen upon him, is most beautiful and bizarre. Wherefore the Capponi, having seen that Raffaellino's picture was a rare work, caused a frame to be made for it, all carved, with round columns richly adorned with burnished gold on a ground of bole. Before many years had passed, the campanile of that building was struck by lightning, which pierced the vault and fell near that panel, which, having been executed in oils, suffered no harm; but where the fluid passed near the gilt frame, it consumed the gold, leaving nothing there but the bare bole. It has seemed to me right to say that much with regard to oil-painting, to the end that all may see how important it is to know how to guard against such injury, which lightning has done not only to this work, but to many others. [Illustration: THE RESURRECTION (_After the panel by =Raffaellino del Garbo=. Florence: Accademia, 90_) _Anderson_] He painted in fresco, at the corner of a house that now belongs to Matteo Botti, between the Canto del Ponte alla Carraja and the Canto della Cuculia, a little shrine containing Our Lady with the Child in her arms, with S. Catherine and S. Barbara kneeling, a very graceful and carefully executed work. For the Villa of Marignolle, belonging to the Girolami, he painted two most beautiful panels, with Our Lady, S. Zanobi, and other saints; and he filled the predella below both of these with little figures representing scenes from the lives of those saints, executed with great diligence. On the wall above the door of the Church of the Nuns of S. Giorgio, he painted a Pietà, with a group of the Maries; and in like manner, in another arch below this, a figure of Our Lady, a work worthy of great praise, executed in the year 1504. In the Church of S. Spirito at Florence, in a panel over that of the Nerli, which his master Filippo had executed, he painted a Pietà, which is held to be a very good and praiseworthy work; but in another, representing S. Bernard, he fell short of that standard. Below the door of the sacristy are two panel-pictures by his hand; one showing S. Gregory the Pope saying Mass, when Christ appears to him, naked, with the Cross on His shoulder, and shedding blood from His side, with the deacon and sub-deacon, in their vestments, serving the Mass, and two angels swinging censers over the body of Christ. For another chapel, lower down, he executed a panel-picture containing Our Lady, S. Jerome, and S. Bartholomew. On these two works he bestowed no little labour; but he went on deteriorating from day to day. I do not know to what I should attribute his misfortune, for poor Raffaellino was not wanting in industry, diligence, and application; yet they availed him little. It is believed, indeed, that, becoming overburdened and impoverished by the cares of a family, and being compelled to use for his daily needs whatever he earned, not to mention that he was a man of no great spirit and undertook to do work for small prices, in this way he went on growing worse little by little; although there is always something of the good to be seen in his works. For the Monks of Cestello, on the wall of their refectory, he painted a large scene coloured in fresco, in which he depicted the miracle wrought by Jesus Christ with the five loaves and two fishes, with which he satisfied five thousand people. For the Abbot de' Panichi he executed the panel-picture of the high-altar in the Church of S. Salvi, without the Porta alla Croce, painting therein Our Lady, S. Giovanni Gualberto, S. Salvi, S. Bernardo, a Cardinal of the Uberti family, and S. Benedetto the Abbot, and, at the sides, S. Batista and S. Fedele in armour, in two niches on either hand of the picture, which had a rich frame; and in the predella are several scenes, with little figures, from the Life of S. Giovanni Gualberto. In all this he acquitted himself very well, because he was assisted in his wretchedness by that Abbot, who took pity on him for the sake of his talents; and in the predella of the panel Raffaellino made a portrait of him from life, together with one of the General who was then ruling his Order. In S. Piero Maggiore, on the right as one enters the church, there is a panel by his hand, and in the Murate there is a picture of S. Sigismund, the King. For Girolamo Federighi, in that part of S. Pancrazio where he was afterwards buried, he painted a Trinity in fresco, with portraits of him and of his wife on their knees; and here he began to decline into pettiness of manner. He also made two figures in distemper for the Monks of Cestello, a S. Rocco and a S. Ignazio, which are in the Chapel of S. Sebastiano. And in a little chapel on the abutment of the Ponte Rubaconte, on the side towards the Mills, he painted a Madonna, a S. Laurence, and another saint. In the end he was reduced to undertaking any work, however mean; and he was employed by certain nuns and other persons, who were embroidering a quantity of church vestments and hangings at that time, to make designs in chiaroscuro and ornamental borders containing saints and stories, for ridiculous prices. For although he had deteriorated, there sometimes issued from his hand most beautiful designs and fancies, as is proved by many drawings that were sold and dispersed after the death of those who used them for embroidery; of which there are many in the book of the illustrious hospital-director,[19] that show how able he was in draughtsmanship. This was the reason that many vestments, hangings, and ornaments, which are held to be very beautiful, were made for the churches of Florence and throughout the Florentine territory, and also for Cardinals and Bishops in Rome. At the present day this method of embroidery, which was used by Paolo da Verona, the Florentine Galieno, and others like them, is almost lost, and another method, with wide stitches, has been introduced, which has neither the same beauty nor the same careful workmanship, and is much less durable than the other. Wherefore, in return for this benefit, although poverty caused him misery and hardship during his lifetime, he deserves to have honour and glory for his talents after his death. And in truth Raffaellino was unfortunate in his connections, for he always mixed with poor and humble people, like a man who had sunk and become ashamed of himself, seeing that in his youth he had given such great promise, and now knew how distant he was from the extraordinary excellence of the works that he had made at that time. And thus, growing old, he fell away so much from his early standard, that his works no longer appeared to be by his hand; and forgetting his art more and more every day, he was reduced to painting, in addition to his usual panels and pictures, the meanest kinds of works. And he sank so low that everything was a torment to him, but above all his burdensome family of children, which turned all his ability in art into mere clumsiness. Wherefore, being overtaken by infirmities and impoverished, he finished his life in misery at the age of fifty-eight, and was buried in S. Simone, at Florence, by the Company of the Misericordia, in the year 1524. He left behind him many pupils who became able masters. One, who went in his boyhood to learn the rudiments of art from Raffaellino, was the Florentine painter Bronzino, who afterwards acquitted himself so well under the wing of Jacopo da Pontormo, another painter of Florence, that he has made as much proficience in the art as his master Jacopo. The portrait of Raffaellino was copied from a drawing that belonged to Bastiano da Monte Carlo, who was also his disciple, and who, for a man with no draughtsmanship, became a passing good master. FOOTNOTE: [19] Don Vincenzio Borghini. TORRIGIANO LIFE OF TORRIGIANO SCULPTOR OF FLORENCE Great is the power of anger in the soul of one who is seeking, with arrogance and pride, to gain a reputation for excellence in some profession, when he sees rising in the same art, at a time when he does not expect it, some unknown man of beautiful genius, who not only equals him, but in time surpasses him by a great measure. Of such persons, in truth, it may be said that there is no iron that they would not gnaw in their rage, nor any evil which they would not do if they were able, for it seems to them too grievous an affront in the eyes of the world, that children whom they saw born should have reached maturity almost in one bound from their cradles. They do not reflect that every day one may see the will of young men, spurred on by zeal in their tender years, and exercised by them in continual studies, rise to infinite heights; while the old, led by fear, pride, and ambition, lose the cunning of their hands, so that the better they think to work, the worse they do it, and where they believe that they are advancing, they are going backwards. Wherefore, out of envy, they never give credit to the young for the perfection of their works, however clearly they may see it, on account of the obstinacy that possesses them. And it is known from experience that when, in order to show what they can do, they exert themselves to the utmost of their power, they often produce works that are ridiculous and a mere laughing-stock. In truth, when craftsmen have reached the age when the eye is no longer steady and the hand trembles, their place, if they have saved the wherewithal to live, is to give advice to men who can work, for the reason that the arts of painting and sculpture call for a mind in every way vigorous and awake (as it is at the age when the blood is boiling), full of burning desire, and a capital enemy of the pleasures of the world. And whoever is not temperate with regard to the delights of the world should shun the studies of any art or science whatsoever, seeing that such pleasures and study can never agree well together. Since, therefore, these arts involve so many burdens, few, indeed, are they who attain to the highest rank; and those who start with eagerness from the post are greater in number than those who run well in the race and win the prize. Now there was more pride than art, although he was very able, to be seen in Torrigiano, a sculptor of Florence, who in his youth was maintained by the elder Lorenzo de' Medici in the garden which that magnificent citizen possessed on the Piazza di S. Marco in Florence. This garden was in such wise filled with the best ancient statuary, that the loggia, the walks, and all the apartments were adorned with noble ancient figures of marble, pictures, and other suchlike things, made by the hands of the best masters who ever lived in Italy or elsewhere. And all these works, in addition to the magnificence and adornment that they conferred on that garden, were as a school or academy for the young painters and sculptors, as well as for all others who were studying the arts of design, and particularly for the young nobles; since the Magnificent Lorenzo had a strong conviction that those who are born of noble blood can attain to perfection in all things more readily and more speedily than is possible, for the most part, for men of humble birth, in whom there are rarely seen those conceptions and that marvellous genius which are perceived in men of illustrious stock. Moreover, the less highly born, having generally to defend themselves from hardship and poverty, and being forced in consequence to undertake any sort of work, however mean, are not able to exercise their intellect, or to attain to the highest degree of excellence. Wherefore it was well said by the learned Alciato--when speaking of men of beautiful genius, born in poverty, who are not able to raise themselves, because, in proportion as they are impelled upwards by the wings of their genius, so are they held down by their poverty-- Ut me pluma levat, sic grave mergit onus. Lorenzo the Magnificent, then, always favoured men of genius, and particularly such of the nobles as showed an inclination for these our arts; wherefore it is no marvel that from that school there should have issued some who have amazed the world. And what is more, he not only gave the means to buy food and clothing to those who, being poor, would otherwise not have been able to pursue the studies of design, but also bestowed extraordinary gifts on any one among them who had acquitted himself in some work better than the others; so that the young students of our arts, competing thus with each other, thereby became very excellent, as I will relate. The guardian and master of these young men, at that time, was the Florentine sculptor Bertoldo, an old and practised craftsman, who had once been a disciple of Donato. He taught them, and likewise had charge of the works in the garden, and of many drawings, cartoons, and models by the hand of Donato, Pippo,[20] Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Fra Giovanni, Fra Filippo, and other masters, both native and foreign. It is a sure fact that these arts can only be acquired by a long course of study in drawing and diligently imitating works of excellence; and whoever has not such facilities, however much he may be assisted by nature, can never arrive at perfection, save late in life. But to return to the antiquities of the garden; they were in great part dispersed in the year 1494, when Piero, the son of the aforesaid Lorenzo, was banished from Florence, all being sold by auction. The greater part of them, however, were restored to the Magnificent Giuliano in the year 1512, at the time when he and the other members of the House of Medici returned to their country; and at the present day they are for the most part preserved in the guardaroba of Duke Cosimo. Truly magnificent was the example thus given by Lorenzo, and whenever Princes and other persons of high degree choose to imitate it, they will always gain everlasting honour and glory thereby; since he who assists and favours, in their noble undertakings, men of rare and beautiful genius, from whom the world receives such beauty, honour, convenience and benefit, deserves to live for ever in the minds and memories of mankind. Among those who studied the arts of design in that garden, the following all became very excellent masters; Michelagnolo, the son of Lodovico Buonarroti; Giovan Francesco Rustici; Torrigiano Torrigiani; Francesco Granacci; Niccolò, the son of Jacopo[21] Soggi; Lorenzo di Credi, and Giuliano Bugiardini; and, among the foreigners, Baccio da Montelupo, Andrea Contucci of Monte Sansovino, and others, of whom mention will be made in the proper places. Torrigiano, then, whose Life we are now about to write, was a student in the garden with those named above; and he was not only powerful in person, and proud and fearless in spirit, but also by nature so overbearing and choleric, that he was for ever tyrannizing over all the others both with words and deeds. His chief profession was sculpture, yet he worked with great delicacy in terra-cotta, in a very good and beautiful manner. But not being able to endure that any one should surpass him, he would set himself to spoil with his hands such of the works of others as showed an excellence that he could not achieve with his brain; and if these others resented this, he often had recourse to something stronger than words. He had a particular hatred for Michelagnolo, for no other reason than that he saw him attending zealously to the study of art, and knew that he used to draw in secret at his own house by night and on feast-days, so that he came to succeed better in the garden than all the others, and was therefore much favoured by Lorenzo the Magnificent. Wherefore, moved by bitter envy, Torrigiano was always seeking to affront him, both in word and deed; and one day, having come to blows, Torrigiano struck Michelagnolo so hard on the nose with his fist, that he broke it, insomuch that Michelagnolo had his nose flattened for the rest of his life. This matter becoming known to Lorenzo, he was so enraged that Torrigiano, if he had not fled from Florence, would have suffered some heavy punishment. [Illustration: TOMB OF HENRY VII (_After_ Torrigiano. _London: Westminster Abbey_) _Mansell_] Having therefore made his way to Rome, where Alexander VI was then pressing on the work of the Borgia Tower, Torrigiano executed in it a great quantity of stucco-work, in company with other masters. Afterwards, money being offered in the service of Duke Valentino, who was making war against the people of Romagna, Torrigiano was led away by certain young Florentines; and, having changed himself in a moment from a sculptor to a soldier, he bore himself valiantly in those campaigns of Romagna. He did the same under Paolo Vitelli in the war with Pisa; and he was with Piero de' Medici at the action on the Garigliano, where he won the right to arms, and the name of a valiant standard-bearer. But in the end, recognizing that he was never likely to reach the rank of captain that he desired, although he deserved it, and that he had saved nothing in the wars, and had, on the contrary, wasted his time, he returned to sculpture. For certain Florentine merchants, then, he made small works in marble and bronze, little figures, which are scattered throughout the houses of citizens in Florence, and he executed many drawings in a bold and excellent manner, as may be seen from some by his hand that are in our book, together with others which he made in competition with Michelagnolo. And having been brought by those merchants to England, he executed there, in the service of the King, an endless number of works in marble, bronze, and wood, competing with some masters of that country, to all of whom he proved superior. For this he was so well and so richly rewarded, that, if he had not been as reckless and unbridled as he was proud, he might have lived a life of ease and ended his days in comfort; but what happened to him was the very opposite. After this, having been summoned from England into Spain, he made many works there, which are scattered about in various places, and are held in great estimation; and, among others, he made a Crucifix of terra-cotta, which is the most marvellous thing that there is in all Spain. For a monastery of Friars of S. Jerome, without the city of Seville, he made another Crucifix; a S. Jerome in Penitence, with his lion, the figure of that Saint being a portrait of an old house-steward of the Botti family, Florentine merchants settled in Spain; and a Madonna with the Child. This last figure was so beautiful that it led to his making another like it for the Duke of Arcus, who, in order to obtain it, made such promises to Torrigiano, that he believed that it would make him rich for the rest of his life. The work being finished, the Duke gave him so many of those coins that are called "maravedis," which are worth little or nothing, that Torrigiano, to whose house there came two persons laden with them, became even more confirmed in his belief that he was to be a very rich man. But afterwards, having shown this money to a Florentine friend of his, and having asked him to count it and reckon its value in Italian coin, he saw that all that vast sum did not amount to thirty ducats; at which, holding himself to have been fooled, he went in a violent rage to where the figure was that he had made for the Duke, and wholly destroyed it. Whereupon that Spaniard, considering himself affronted, denounced Torrigiano as a heretic; on which account he was thrown into prison, and after being examined every day, and sent from one inquisitor to the other, he was finally judged to deserve the severest penalty. But this was never put into execution, because Torrigiano himself was plunged thereby into such melancholy, that, remaining many days without eating, and thus becoming very weak, little by little he put an end to his own life; and in this way, by denying himself his food, he avoided the shame into which he would perchance have fallen, for it was believed that he had been condemned to death. The works of this master date about the year of our salvation, 1515, and he died in the year 1522. FOOTNOTE: [20] Filippo Brunelleschi. [21] The name given in the text is Domenico. GIULIANO AND ANTONIO DA SAN GALLO LIVES OF GIULIANO AND ANTONIO DA SAN GALLO ARCHITECTS OF FLORENCE Francesco di Paolo Giamberti, who was a passing good architect in the time of Cosimo de' Medici, and was much employed by him, had two sons, Giuliano and Antonio, whom he apprenticed to the art of wood-carving. One of these two sons, Giuliano, he placed with Francione, a joiner, an ingenious person, who gave attention at the same time to wood-carving and to perspective, and with whom Francesco was very intimate, since they had executed many works in company, both in carving and in architecture, for Lorenzo de' Medici. This Giuliano learnt so well all that Francione taught him, that the carvings and beautiful perspectives that he afterwards executed by himself in the choir of the Duomo of Pisa are still regarded not without marvel at the present day, even among the many new perspectives. While Giuliano was studying design, and his young blood ran hot in his veins, the army of the Duke of Calabria, by reason of the hatred which that lord bore to Lorenzo de' Medici, encamped before Castellina, in order to occupy the dominions of the Signoria of Florence, and also, if this should be successful, in order to accomplish some greater design. Wherefore Lorenzo the Magnificent was forced to send an engineer to Castellina, who might make mills and bastions, and should have the charge of handling the artillery, which few men at that time were able to do; and he sent thither Giuliano, considering him to have a mind more able, more ready, and more resolute than any other man, and knowing him already as the son of Francesco, who had been a devoted servant of the House of Medici. Arriving at Castellina, therefore, Giuliano fortified that place with good walls and mills, both within and without, and furnished it with everything else necessary for the defence. Then, observing that the artillery-men stood at a great distance from their pieces, handling, loading, and discharging them with much timidity, he gave his attention to this, and so contrived that from that time onwards the artillery did harm to no one, whereas it had previously killed many of them, since they had not had judgment and knowledge enough to avoid suffering injury from the recoil. Having therefore taken charge of the artillery, Giuliano showed great skill in discharging it to the best possible advantage; and the Duke's forces so lost heart by reason of this and other adverse circumstances, that they were glad to make terms and depart from the town. In consequence of this Giuliano won no little praise from Lorenzo in Florence, and was looked upon with favour and affection ever afterwards. Having meanwhile given his attention to architecture, he began the first cloister of the Monastery of Cestello, and executed that part of it that is seen to be of the Ionic Order; placing capitals on the columns with volutes curving downwards to the collarino, where the shaft of the column ends, and making, below the ovoli and the fusarole, a frieze, one-third in height of the diameter of the column. This capital was copied from a very ancient one of marble, found at Fiesole by Messer Leonardo Salutati, Bishop of that place, who kept it for some time, together with other antiquities, in a house and garden that he occupied in the Via di S. Gallo, opposite to S. Agata; and it is now in the possession of Messer Giovan Battista da Ricasoli, Bishop of Pistoia, and is prized for its beauty and variety, since among the ancient capitals there has not been seen another like it. But that cloister remained unfinished, because those monks were not then able to bear such an expense. Meanwhile Giuliano had come into even greater credit with Lorenzo; and the latter, who was intending to build a palace at Poggio a Cajano, a place between Florence and Pistoia, and had caused several models to be made for it by Francione and by others, commissioned Giuliano, also, to make one of the sort of building that he proposed to erect. And Giuliano made it so completely different in form from the others, and so much to Lorenzo's fancy, that he began straightway to have it carried into execution, as the best of all the models; on which account he took Giuliano even more into his favour, and ever afterwards gave him an allowance. After this, Giuliano wishing to make a vaulted ceiling for the great hall of that palace in the manner that we call barrel-shaped, Lorenzo could not believe, on account of the great space, that it could be raised. Whereupon Giuliano, who was building a house for himself in Florence, made a ceiling for his hall according to the design of the other, in order to convince the mind of that Magnificent Prince; and Lorenzo therefore gave orders for the ceiling at the Poggio to be carried out, which was successfully done. By that time the fame of Giuliano had so increased, that, at the entreaty of the Duke of Calabria, he was commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent to make the model for a palace that was to be built at Naples; and he spent a long time over executing it. Now while he was working at this, the Castellan of Ostia, then Bishop della Rovere, who after a time became Pope Julius II, wishing to restore that stronghold and to put it into good order, and having heard the fame of Giuliano, sent to Florence for him; and, having supplied him with a good provision, he kept him employed for two years in making therein all the useful improvements that he was able to execute by means of his art. And to the end that the model for the Duke of Calabria might not be neglected, but might be brought to conclusion, he left it to his brother Antonio, who finished it according to his directions, which, in executing it and carrying it to completion, he followed with great diligence, for he was no less competent in that art than Giuliano himself. Now Giuliano was advised by the elder Lorenzo to present it in person, to the end that he might show from the model itself the difficulties that he had triumphed over in making it. Whereupon he departed for Naples, and, having presented the work, was received with honour; for men were as much impressed by the gracious manner in which the Magnificent Lorenzo had sent him, as they were struck with marvel at the masterly work in the model, which gave such satisfaction that the building was straightway begun near the Castel Nuovo. After Giuliano had been some time in Naples, he sought leave from the Duke to return to Florence; whereupon he was presented by the King with horses and garments, and, among other things, with a silver cup containing some hundreds of ducats. These things Giuliano would not accept, saying that he served a patron who had no need of silver or gold, but that if he did indeed wish to give him some present or some token of approbation, to show that he had been in that city, he might bestow upon him some of his antiquities, which he would choose himself. These the King granted to him most liberally, both for love of the Magnificent Lorenzo and on account of Giuliano's own worth; and they were a head of the Emperor Hadrian, which is now above the door of the garden at the house of the Medici, a nude woman, more than life-size, and a Cupid sleeping, all in marble and in the round. Giuliano sent them as presents to the Magnificent Lorenzo, who expressed vast delight at the gift, and never tired of praising the action of this most liberal of craftsmen, who had refused gold and silver for the sake of art, a thing which few would have done. That Cupid is now in the guardaroba of Duke Cosimo. [Illustration: FAÇADE OF S. MARIA DELLE CARCERI (_After_ Giuliano da San Gallo. _Prato_) _Alinari_] Having then returned to Florence, Giuliano was received most graciously by the Magnificent Lorenzo. Now the fancy had taken that Prince to build a convent capable of holding a hundred friars, without the Porta S. Gallo, in order to give satisfaction to Fra Mariano da Ghinazzano, a most learned member of the Order of Eremite Friars of S. Augustine. For this convent models were made by many architects, and in the end that of Giuliano was put into execution, which was the reason that Lorenzo, from this work, gave him the name of Giuliano da San Gallo. Wherefore Giuliano, who heard himself called by everyone "da San Gallo," said one day in jest to the Magnificent Lorenzo, "By giving me this new name of 'da San Gallo,' you are making me lose the ancient name of my house, so that, in place of going forward in the matter of lineage, as I thought to do, I am going backward." Whereupon Lorenzo answered that he would rather have him become the founder of a new house through his own worth, than depend on others; at which Giuliano was well content. Meanwhile the work of S. Gallo was carried on, together with Lorenzo's other buildings; but neither the convent nor the others were finished, by reason of the death of Lorenzo. And even the completed part of this structure of S. Gallo did not long remain standing, because in 1530, on account of the siege of Florence, it was destroyed and thrown to the ground, together with the whole suburb, the piazza of which was completely surrounded by very beautiful buildings; and at the present day there is no trace to be seen there of house, church, or convent. At this time there took place the death of the King of Naples, whereupon Giuliano Gondi, a very rich Florentine merchant, returned from that city to Florence, and commissioned Giuliano da San Gallo, with whom he had become very intimate on account of his visit to Naples, to build him a palace in rustic work, opposite to S. Firenze, above the place where the lions used to be. This palace was to form the angle of the piazza and to face the old Mercatanzia; but the death of Giuliano Gondi put a stop to the work. In it, among other things, Giuliano made a chimney-piece, very rich in carvings, and so varied and beautiful in composition, that up to that time there had never been seen the like, nor one with such a wealth of figures. The same master made a palace for a Venetian in Camerata, without the Porta a Pinti, and many houses for private citizens, of which there is no need to make mention. Lorenzo the Magnificent, in order to benefit the commonwealth and adorn the State, and at the same time to leave behind him some splendid monument, in addition to the endless number that he had already erected, wished to execute the fortification of the Poggio Imperiale, above Poggibonsi, on the road to Rome, with a view to founding a city there; and he would not lay it out without the advice and design of Giuliano. Wherefore that master began that most famous structure, in which he made the well-designed and beautiful range of fortifications that we see at the present day. These works brought him such fame, that he was then summoned to Milan, through the mediation of Lorenzo, by the Duke of Milan, to the end that he might make for him the model of a palace; and there Giuliano was no less honoured by the Duke than he had previously been honoured by the King of Naples, when that Sovereign had invited him to that city. For when he had presented the model to him, on the part of the Magnificent Lorenzo, the Duke was filled with astonishment and marvel at seeing the vast number of beautiful adornments in it, so well arranged and distributed, and all accommodated in their places with art and grace; for which reason all the materials necessary for the work were got together, and they began to put it into execution. In the same city, together with Giuliano, was Leonardo da Vinci, who was working for the Duke; and Leonardo, speaking with Giuliano about the casting of the horse that he was proposing to make, received from him some excellent suggestions. This work was broken to pieces on the arrival of the French, so that the horse was never finished; nor could the palace be brought to completion. Having returned to Florence, Giuliano found that his brother Antonio, who worked for him on his models, had become so excellent, that there was no one in his day who was a better master in carving, particularly for large Crucifixes of wood; to which witness is borne by the one over the high-altar of the Nunziata in Florence, by another that is kept by the Friars of S. Gallo in S. Jacopo tra Fossi, and by a third in the Company of the Scalzo, which are all held to be very good. But Giuliano removed him from that profession and caused him to give his attention to architecture, in company with himself, since he had many works to execute, both public and private. Now it happened, as it is always happening, that Fortune, the enemy of talent, robbed the followers of the arts of their hope and support by the death of Lorenzo de' Medici, which was a heavy loss not only to all able craftsmen and to his country, but also to all Italy. Wherefore Giuliano, together with all the other lofty spirits, was left wholly inconsolable; and in his grief he betook himself to Prato, near Florence, in order to build the Temple of the Madonna delle Carcere, since all building in Florence, both public and private, was at a standstill. He lived in Prato, therefore, three whole years, supporting the expense, discomfort, and sorrow as best he could. At the end of that time, it being proposed to roof the Church of the Madonna at Loreto, and to raise the cupola, which had been formerly begun but not finished by Giuliano da Maiano, and those who had charge of the matter doubting that the piers were too weak to bear such a weight, they wrote, therefore, to Giuliano, that if he desired such a work, he should go and see it for himself. And having gone, like the bold and able man that he was, he showed them that the cupola could be raised with ease, and that he had courage enough for the task; and so many, and of such a kind, were the reasons that he put before them, that the work was allotted to him. After receiving this commission, he caused the work in Prato to be despatched, and made his way, with the same master-builders and stone-cutters, to Loreto. And to the end that this structure, besides beauty of form, might be firm, solid, stable, and well bound in the stonework, he sent to Rome for pozzolana[22]; nor was any lime used that was not mixed with it, nor any stone built in without it; and thus, within the space of three years, it was brought to perfect completion, ready for use. Giuliano then went to Rome, where, for Pope Alexander VI, he restored the roof of S. Maria Maggiore, which was falling into ruin; and he made there the ceiling that is to be seen at the present day. While he was thus employed about the Court, Bishop della Rovere, who had been the friend of Giuliano from the time when he was Castellan of Ostia, and who had been created Cardinal of S. Pietro in Vincula, caused him to make a model for the Palace of S. Pietro in Vincula. And a little time after, desiring to build a palace in his own city of Savona, he wished to have it erected likewise from the design and under the eye of Giuliano. But such a journey was difficult for Giuliano, for the reason that his ceiling was not yet finished, and Pope Alexander would not let him go. He entrusted the finishing of it, therefore, to his brother Antonio, who, having a good and versatile intelligence, and coming thus into contact with the Court, entered into the service of the Pope, who conceived a very great affection for him; and this he proved when he resolved to restore, with new foundations and with defences after the manner of a castle, the Mausoleum of Hadrian, now called the Castello di S. Angelo, for Antonio was made overseer of this undertaking, and under his direction were made the great towers below, the ditches, and the rest of the fortifications that we see at the present day. This work brought him great credit with the Pope, and with his son, Duke Valentino; and it led to his building the fortress that is now to be seen at Cività Castellana. Thus, then, while that Pontiff was alive, he was continually employed in building; and while working for him, he was rewarded by him no less than he was esteemed. Giuliano had already carried well forward the work at Savona, when the Cardinal returned to Rome on some business of his own, leaving many workmen to bring the building to completion after the directions and design of Giuliano, whom he took with him to Rome. Giuliano made that journey willingly, wishing to see Antonio and his works; and he stayed there some months. During that time, however, the Cardinal fell into disgrace with the Pope, and departed from Rome, in order not to be taken prisoner, and Giuliano, as before, went in his company. On arriving at Savona, they set a much greater number of master-builders and other artificers to work on the building. But the threats of the Pope against the Cardinal becoming every day louder, it was not long before he made his way to Avignon. From there he sent as a present to the King of France a model for a palace that Giuliano had made for him, which was marvellous, very rich in ornament, and spacious enough for the accommodation of his whole Court. The royal Court was at Lyons when Giuliano presented his model; and the gift was so welcome and acceptable to the King, that he rewarded Giuliano liberally and gave him infinite praise, besides rendering many thanks for it to the Cardinal, who was at Avignon. Meanwhile they received news that the palace at Savona was already nearly finished; whereupon the Cardinal determined that Giuliano should once more see the work, and Giuliano, having gone for this purpose to Savona, had not been there long when it was completely finished. Then, desiring to return to Florence, where he had not been for a long time, Giuliano took the road for that city together with his master-builders. Now at that time the King of France had restored Pisa her liberty, and the war between the Florentines and the Pisans was still raging; and Giuliano, wishing to pass through Pisan territory, had a safe-conduct made out for his company at Lucca, for they had no small apprehension about the Pisan soldiers. Nevertheless, while passing near Altopascio, they were captured by the Pisans, who cared nothing for safe-conducts or for any other warrant that they might have. And for six months Giuliano was detained in Pisa, his ransom being fixed at three hundred ducats; nor was he able to return to Florence until he had paid it. Antonio had heard this news in Rome, and, desiring to see his native city and his brother again, obtained leave to depart from Rome; and on his way he designed for Duke Valentino the fortress of Montefiascone. Finally, in the year 1503, he reached Florence, where the two brothers and their friends took joyful pleasure in each other's company. There now ensued the death of Alexander VI, and the election of Pius III, who lived but a short time; whereupon the Cardinal of S. Pietro in Vincula was created Pontiff, under the name of Pope Julius II; which brought great joy to Giuliano, on account of his having been so long in his service, and he determined, therefore, to go to kiss the Pope's foot. Having then arrived in Rome, he was warmly received and welcomed lovingly, and was straightway commissioned to execute the first buildings undertaken by that Pope before the coming of Bramante. Antonio, who had remained in Florence, continued, in the absence of Giuliano (Piero Soderini being Gonfalonier), the building of the Poggio Imperiale, to which all the Pisan prisoners were sent to labour, in order to finish the work the quicker. After this, by reason of the troubles at Arezzo, the old fortress was destroyed, and Antonio made the model for the new one, with the consent of Giuliano, who had come from Rome for this purpose, but soon returned thither; and this work was the reason that Antonio was appointed architect to the Commune of Florence for all the fortifications. On the return of Giuliano to Rome, the question was being debated as to whether the divine Michelagnolo Buonarroti should make the tomb of Pope Julius; whereupon Giuliano exhorted the Pope to pursue that undertaking, adding that it seemed to him that it was necessary to build a special chapel for such a monument, and that it should not be placed in the old S. Pietro, in which there was no space for it, whereas a new chapel would bring out all the perfection of the work. After many architects, then, had made designs, the matter little by little became one of such importance, that, in place of erecting a chapel, a beginning was made with the great fabric of the new S. Pietro. There had arrived in Rome, about that time, the architect Bramante of Castel Durante, who had been in Lombardy; and he went to work in such a manner, with various extraordinary means and methods of his own, and with his fantastic ideas, having on his side Baldassarre Peruzzi, Raffaello da Urbino, and other architects, that he put the whole undertaking into confusion; whereby much time was consumed in discussions. Finally--so well did he know how to set about the matter--the work was entrusted to him, as the man who had shown the finest judgment, the best intelligence, and the greatest invention. Giuliano, resenting this, for it appeared to him that he had received an affront from the Pope, in view of the faithful service that he had rendered to him when his rank was not so high, and of the promise made to him by the Pope that he should have that building, sought leave to go; and so, notwithstanding that he was appointed companion to Bramante for other edifices that were being erected in Rome, he departed, and returned, with many gifts received from that Pontiff, to Florence. This was a great joy to Piero Soderini, who straightway set him to work. Nor had six months gone by, when Messer Bartolommeo della Rovere, the nephew of the Pope, and a friend of Giuliano, wrote to him in the name of his Holiness that he should return for his own advantage to Rome; but neither terms nor promises availed to move Giuliano, who considered that he had been put to shame by the Pope. Finally, however, a letter was written to Piero Soderini, urging him in one way or another to send Giuliano to Rome, since his Holiness wished to finish the fortifications of the Great Round Tower, which had been begun by Nicholas V, and likewise those of the Borgo and the Belvedere, with other works; and Giuliano allowed himself to be persuaded by Soderini, and therefore went to Rome, where he received a gracious welcome and many gifts from the Pope. Having afterwards gone to Bologna, from which the Bentivogli had just been driven out, the Pope resolved, by the advice of Giuliano, to have a figure of himself in bronze made by Michelagnolo Buonarroti; and this was carried out, as will be related in the Life of Michelagnolo himself. Giuliano also followed the Pope to Mirandola, and after it was taken, having endured much fatigue and many discomforts, he returned with the Court to Rome. But the furious desire to drive the French out of Italy not having yet got out of the head of the Pope, he strove to wrest the government of Florence out of the hands of Piero Soderini, whose power was no small hindrance to him in the project that he had in mind. Whereupon, since the Pontiff, for these reasons, had turned aside from building and had embroiled himself in wars, Giuliano, by this time weary, and perceiving that attention was being given only to the construction of S. Pietro, and not much even to that, sought leave from him to depart. But the Pope answered him in anger, "Do you believe that you are the only Giuliano da San Gallo to be found?" To which he replied that none could be found equal to him in faithful service, while he himself would easily find Princes truer to their promises than the Pope had been towards him. However, the Pontiff would by no means give him leave to go, saying that he would speak to him about it another time. Meanwhile Bramante, having brought Raffaello da Urbino to Rome, set him to work at painting the Papal apartments; whereupon Giuliano, perceiving that the Pope took great delight in those pictures, and knowing that he wished to have the ceiling of the chapel of his uncle Sixtus painted, spoke to him of Michelagnolo, adding that he had already executed the bronze statue in Bologna. Which news pleased the Pope so much that he sent for Michelagnolo, who, on arriving in Rome, received the commission for the ceiling of that chapel. A little time after this, Giuliano coming back once more to seek leave from the Pope to depart, his Holiness, seeing him determined on this, was content that he should return to Florence, without forfeiting his favour; and, after having blessed him, he gave him a purse of red satin containing five hundred crowns, telling him that he might return home to rest, but that he would always be his friend. Giuliano, then, having kissed the sacred foot, returned to Florence, at the very time when Pisa was surrounded and besieged by the army of Florence. No sooner had he arrived, therefore, than Piero Soderini, after the due greetings, sent him to the camp to help the military commissaries, who had found themselves unable to prevent the Pisans from passing provisions into Pisa by way of the Arno. Giuliano made a design for a bridge of boats to be built at some better season, and then went back to Florence; and when spring had come, taking with him his brother Antonio, he made his way to Pisa, where they constructed a bridge, which was a very ingenious piece of work, since, besides the fact that, rising or falling with the water, and being well bound with chains, it stood safe and sound against floods, it carried out the desires of the commissaries in such a manner, cutting off Pisa from access to the sea by way of the Arno, that the Pisans, having no other expedient in their sore straits, were forced to come to terms with the Florentines; and so they surrendered. Nor was it long before the same Piero Soderini again sent Giuliano, with a vast number of master-builders, to Pisa, where with extraordinary swiftness he erected the fortress that still stands at the Porta a S. Marco, and also the gate itself, which he built in the Doric Order. And the while that Giuliano was engaged on this work, which was until the year 1512, Antonio went through the whole dominion, inspecting and restoring the fortresses and other public buildings. After this, by the favour of the same Pope Julius, the house of Medici was reinstated in the government of Florence, from which they had been driven out on the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII, King of France, and Piero Soderini was expelled from the Palace; and the Medici showed their gratitude to Giuliano and Antonio for the services that they had rendered in the past to their illustrious family. Now Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici having been elected Pope a short time after the death of Julius II, Giuliano was forced once again to betake himself to Rome; where, Bramante dying not long after his arrival, it was proposed to give to Giuliano the charge of the building of S. Pietro. But he, being worn out by his labours, and crushed down by old age and by the stone, which made his life a burden, returned by leave of his Holiness to Florence; and that commission was given to the most gracious Raffaello da Urbino. And Giuliano, after two years, was pressed so sorely by his malady, that he died at the age of seventy-four in the year 1517, leaving his name to the world, his body to the earth, and his soul to God. By his departure he left a heavy burden of sorrow to his brother Antonio, who loved him tenderly, and to a son of his own named Francesco, who was engaged in sculpture, although he was still quite young. This Francesco, who has preserved up to our own day all the treasures of his elders, and holds them in veneration, executed many works at Florence and elsewhere, both in sculpture and in architecture, and by his hand is the Madonna of marble, with the Child in her arms, and lying in the lap of S. Anne, that is in Orsanmichele; which work, with the figures carved in the round out of one single block, was held, as it still is, to be very beautiful. He has also executed the tomb that Pope Clement caused to be made for Piero de' Medici at Monte Cassino, besides many other works, of which no mention is here made because the said Francesco is still alive. After the death of Giuliano, Antonio, being a man who was not willing to stay idle, made two large Crucifixes of wood, one of which was sent into Spain, while the other, by order of the Vice-Chancellor, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, was taken by Domenico Buoninsegni into France. It being then proposed to build the fortress of Livorno, Antonio was sent thither by Cardinal de' Medici to make the design for it; which he did, although it was afterwards not carried completely into execution, nor even after the method suggested by Antonio. After this, the men of Montepulciano determining, by reason of the miracles wrought by an image of Our Lady, to build a temple for it at very great cost, Antonio made the model for this, and became head of the undertaking; on which account he visited that building twice a year. At the present day it is to be seen carried to perfect completion, having been executed with supreme grace, and with truly marvellous beauty and variety of composition, by the genius of Antonio, and all the masonry is of a certain stone that has a tinge of white, after the manner of travertine. It stands without the Porta di S. Biagio, on the right hand, half-way up the slope of the hill. At this time, he made a beginning with a palace in the township of Monte San Sovino, for Antonio di Monte, Cardinal of Santa Prassedia; and he built another for the same man at Montepulciano, both being executed and finished with extraordinary grace. He made the design for the side of the buildings of the Servite Friars (in Florence), on their Piazza, following the order of the Loggia of the Innocenti; and at Arezzo he made models for the aisles of the Madonna delle Lacrime, although that work was very badly conceived, because it is out of harmony with the original part of the building, and the arches at the ends are not in true line with the centre. He also made a model for the Madonna of Cortona; but I do not think that this was put into execution. He was employed in the siege on the bastions and fortifications within the city, and in this undertaking he had as a companion his nephew Francesco. After this, the Giant of the Piazza, executed by the hand of Michelagnolo, having been set into place in the time of Giuliano, the brother of our Antonio, it was proposed to set up the other, which had been made by Baccio Bandinelli; and the task of bringing it safely into position was given to Antonio, who, taking Baccio d' Agnolo as his companion, carried this out by means of very powerful machines, and placed it in safety on the base that had been prepared for that purpose. In the end, having become old, he took no pleasure in anything save agriculture, of which he had an excellent knowledge. And then, when on account of old age he was no longer able to bear the discomforts of this world, he rendered up his soul to God, in the year 1534, and was laid to rest by the side of his brother Giuliano in the tomb of the Giamberti, in the Church of S. Maria Novella. The marvellous works of these two brothers will bear witness before the world to the extraordinary genius that they possessed; and for their lives, their honourable ways, and their every action, they were held in estimation by all men. Giuliano and Antonio bequeathed to the art of architecture methods that gave the Tuscan Order of building better form than any other architect had yet achieved, and the Doric Order they enriched with better measures and proportions than their predecessors, following the rules and canons of Vitruvius, had been wont to use. They collected in their houses at Florence an infinite number of most beautiful antiquities in marble, which adorned Florence, and still adorn her, no less than those masters honoured themselves and their art. Giuliano brought from Rome the method of casting vaults with such materials as made them ready carved; examples of which may be seen in a room in his own house, and in the vaulting of the Great Hall at Poggio a Cajano, which is still to be seen there. Wherefore we should acknowledge our obligation to their labours, whereby they fortified the dominion of Florence, adorned the city, and gave a name, throughout the many regions where they worked, to Florence and to the intellects of Tuscany, who, to honour their memory, have written to them these verses-- Cedite Romani structores, cedite Graii, Artis, Vitruvi, tu quoque cede parens. Etruscos celebrare viros, testudinis arcus, Urna, tholus, statuæ, templa, domusque petunt. FOOTNOTE: [22] A friable volcanic tufa. RAFFAELLO DA URBINO LIFE OF RAFFAELLO DA URBINO [_RAFFAELLO SANZIO_] PAINTER AND ARCHITECT How bountiful and benign Heaven sometimes shows itself in showering upon one single person the infinite riches of its treasures, and all those graces and rarest gifts that it is wont to distribute among many individuals, over a long space of time, could be clearly seen in the no less excellent than gracious Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, who was endowed by nature with all that modesty and goodness which are seen at times in those who, beyond all other men, have added to their natural sweetness and gentleness the beautiful adornment of courtesy and grace, by reason of which they always show themselves agreeable and pleasant to every sort of person and in all their actions. Him nature presented to the world, when, vanquished by art through the hands of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, she wished to be vanquished, in Raffaello, by art and character together. And in truth, since the greater part of the craftsmen who had lived up to that time had received from nature a certain element of savagery and madness, which, besides making them strange and eccentric, had brought it about that very often there was revealed in them rather the obscure darkness of vice than the brightness and splendour of those virtues that make men immortal, there was right good reason for her to cause to shine out brilliantly in Raffaello, as a contrast to the others, all the rarest qualities of the mind, accompanied by such grace, industry, beauty, modesty, and excellence of character, as would have sufficed to efface any vice, however hideous, and any blot, were it ever so great. Wherefore it may be surely said that those who are the possessors of such rare and numerous gifts as were seen in Raffaello da Urbino, are not merely men, but, if it be not a sin to say it, mortal gods; and that those who, by means of their works, leave an honourable name written in the archives of fame in this earthly world of ours, can also hope to have to enjoy in Heaven a worthy reward for their labours and merits. [Illustration: RAPHAEL: S. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON (_S. Petersburg: Hermitage, 39. Panel_)] Raffaello was born at Urbino, a very famous city in Italy, at three o'clock of the night on Good Friday, in the year 1483, to a father named Giovanni de' Santi, a painter of no great excellence, and yet a man of good intelligence, well able to direct his children on that good path which he himself had not been fortunate enough to have shown to him in his boyhood. And since Giovanni knew how important it is to rear infants, not with the milk of nurses, but with that of their own mothers, no sooner was Raffaello born, to whom with happy augury he gave that name at baptism, than he insisted that this his only child--and he had no more afterwards--should be suckled by his own mother, and that in his tender years he should have his character formed in the house of his parents, rather than learn less gentle or even boorish ways and habits in the houses of peasants or common people. When he was well grown, he began to exercise him in painting, seeing him much inclined to such an art, and possessed of a very beautiful genius: wherefore not many years passed before Raffaello, still a boy, became a great help to Giovanni in many works that he executed in the state of Urbino. In the end, this good and loving father, knowing that his son could learn little from him, made up his mind to place him with Pietro Perugino, who, as he heard tell, held the first place among painters at that time. He went, therefore, to Perugia: but not finding Pietro there, he set himself, in order to lessen the annoyance of waiting for him, to execute some works in S. Francesco. When Pietro had returned from Rome, Giovanni, who was a gentle and well-bred person, formed a friendship with him, and, when the time appeared to have come, in the most adroit method that he knew, told him his desire. And so Pietro, who was very courteous and a lover of beautiful genius, agreed to have Raffaello: whereupon Giovanni, going off rejoicing to Urbino, took the boy, not without many tears on the part of his mother, who loved him dearly, and brought him to Perugia, where Pietro, after seeing Raffaello's method of drawing, and his beautiful manners and character, formed a judgment of him which time, from the result, proved to be very true. It is a very notable thing that Raffaello, studying the manner of Pietro, imitated it in every respect so closely, that his copies could not be distinguished from his master's originals, and it was not possible to see any clear difference between his works and Pietro's; as is still evident from some figures in a panel in S. Francesco at Perugia, which he executed in oils for Madonna Maddalena degli Oddi. These are a Madonna who has risen into Heaven, with Jesus Christ crowning her, while below, round the sepulchre, are the twelve Apostles, contemplating the Celestial Glory, and at the foot of the panel is a predella divided into three scenes, painted with little figures, of the Madonna receiving the Annunciation from the Angel, of the Magi adoring Christ, and of Christ in the arms of Simeon in the Temple. This work is executed with truly supreme diligence; and one who had not a good knowledge of the two manners, would hold it as certain that it is by the hand of Pietro, whereas it is without a doubt by the hand of Raffaello. After this work, Pietro returning to Florence on some business of his own, Raffaello departed from Perugia and went off with some friends to Città di Castello, where he painted a panel for S. Agostino in the same manner, and likewise one of a Crucifixion for S. Domenico, which, if his name were not written upon it, no one would believe to be a work by Raffaello, but rather by Pietro. For S. Francesco, also in the same city, he painted a little panel-picture of the Marriage of Our Lady, in which one may recognize the excellence of Raffaello increasing and growing in refinement, and surpassing the manner of Pietro. In this work is a temple drawn in perspective with such loving care, that it is a marvellous thing to see the difficulties that he was for ever seeking out in this branch of his profession. Meanwhile, when he had acquired very great fame by following his master's manner, Pope Pius II[23] had given the commission for painting the library of the Duomo at Siena to Pinturicchio; and he, being a friend of Raffaello, and knowing him to be an excellent draughtsman, brought him to Siena, where Raffaello made for him some of the drawings and cartoons for that work. The reason that he did not continue at it was that some painters in Siena kept extolling with vast praise the cartoon that Leonardo da Vinci had made in the Sala del Papa[24] of a very beautiful group of horsemen, to be painted afterwards in the Hall of the Palace of the Signoria, and likewise some nudes executed by Michelagnolo Buonarroti in competition with Leonardo, and much better; and Raffaello, on account of the love that he always bore to the excellent in art, was seized by such a desire to see them, that, putting aside that work and all thought of his own advantage and comfort, he went off to Florence. Having arrived there, and being pleased no less with the city than with those works, which appeared to him to be divine, he determined to take up his abode there for some time; and thus he formed a friendship with some young painters, among whom were Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Aristotile da San Gallo, and others, and became much honoured in that city, particularly by Taddeo Taddei, who, being one who always loved any man inclined to excellence, would have him ever in his house and at his table. And Raffaello, who was gentleness itself, in order not to be beaten in courtesy, made him two pictures, which incline to his first manner, derived from Pietro, but also to the other much better manner that he afterwards acquired by study, as will be related; which pictures are still in the house of the heirs of the said Taddeo. [Illustration: LO SPOSALIZIO (_After the panel by =Raffaello da Urbino=. Milan: Brera, 472_) _Anderson_] Raffaello also formed a very great friendship with Lorenzo Nasi; and for this Lorenzo, who had taken a wife about that time, he painted a picture in which he made a Madonna, and between her legs her Son, to whom a little S. John, full of joy, is offering a bird, with great delight and pleasure for both of them. In the attitude of each is a certain childlike simplicity which is wholly lovely, besides that they are so well coloured, and executed with such diligence, that they appear to be rather of living flesh than wrought by means of colour and draughtsmanship; the Madonna, likewise, has an air truly full of grace and divinity; and the foreground, the landscapes, and in short all the rest of the work, are most beautiful. This picture was held by Lorenzo Nasi, as long as he lived, in very great veneration, both in memory of Raffaello, who had been so much his friend, and on account of the dignity and excellence of the work; but afterwards, on August 9, in the year 1548, it met an evil fate, when, on account of the collapse of the hill of S. Giorgio, the house of Lorenzo fell down, together with the ornate and beautiful houses of the heirs of Marco del Nero, and other neighbouring dwellings. However, the pieces of the picture being found among the fragments of the ruins, the son of Lorenzo, Battista, who was a great lover of art, had them put together again as well as was possible. [Illustration: MADDALENA DONI (_After the panel by =Raffaello da Urbino=. Florence: Pitti, 59_) _Anderson_] After these works, Raffaello was forced to depart from Florence and go to Urbino, where, on account of the death of his mother and of his father Giovanni, all his affairs were in confusion. While he was living in Urbino, therefore, he painted for Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, then Captain of the Florentines, two pictures of Our Lady, small but very beautiful, and in his second manner, which are now in the possession of the most illustrious and excellent Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino. For the same patron he painted a little picture of Christ praying in the Garden, with the three Apostles sleeping at some distance from Him. This painting is so highly finished, that a miniature could not be better, or in any way different; and after having been a long time in the possession of Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, it was then presented by the most illustrious Signora Leonora, his consort, to the Venetians Don Paolo Giustiniano and Don Pietro Quirini, hermits of the holy Hermitage of Camaldoli, who afterwards placed it, as a relic and a very rare thing, and, in a word, as a work by the hand of Raffaello da Urbino, and also to honour the memory of that most illustrious lady, in the apartment of the Superior of that hermitage, where it is held in the veneration that it deserves. Having executed these works and settled his affairs, Raffaello returned to Perugia, where he painted a panel-picture of Our Lady, S. John the Baptist, and S. Nicholas, for the Chapel of the Ansidei in the Church of the Servite Friars. And in the Chapel of the Madonna in S. Severo, a little monastery of the Order of Camaldoli, in the same city, he painted in fresco a Christ in Glory, and a God the Father with angels round Him, and six saints seated, S. Benedict, S. Romualdo, S. Laurence, S. Jerome, S. Mauro, and S. Placido, three on either side; and on this picture, which was held at that time to be most beautiful for a work in fresco, he wrote his name in large and very legible letters. In the same city, also, he was commissioned by the Nuns of S. Anthony of Padua to paint a panel-picture of Our Lady, with Jesus Christ fully dressed, as it pleased those simple and venerable sisters, in her lap, and on either side of the Madonna S. Peter, S. Paul, S. Cecilia, and S. Catherine; to which two holy virgins he gave the sweetest and most lovely expressions of countenance and the most beautifully varied head-dresses that are anywhere to be seen, which was a rare thing in those times. Above this panel, in a lunette, he painted a very beautiful God the Father, and in the predella of the altar three scenes with little figures, of Christ praying in the Garden, bearing the Cross (wherein are some soldiers dragging Him along with most beautiful movements), and lying dead in the lap of His Mother. This work is truly marvellous and devout; and it is held in great veneration by those nuns, and much extolled by all painters. I will not refrain from saying that it was recognized, after he had been in Florence, that he changed and improved his manner so much, from having seen many works by the hands of excellent masters, that it had nothing to do with his earlier manner; indeed, the two might have belonged to different masters, one much more excellent than the other in painting. Before he departed from Perugia, Madonna Atalanta Baglioni besought him that he should consent to paint a panel for her chapel in the Church of S. Francesco; but since he was not able to meet her wishes at that time, he promised her that, after returning from Florence, whither he was obliged to go on some affairs, he would not fail her. And so, having come to Florence, where he applied himself with incredible labour to the studies of his art, he made the cartoon for that chapel, with the intention of going, as he did, as soon as the occasion might present itself, to put it into execution. [Illustration: RAFFAELLO DA URBINO: ANGELO DONI (_Florence: Pitti, 61. Panel_)] While he was thus staying in Florence, Agnolo Doni--who was very careful of his money in other things, but willing to spend it, although still with the greatest possible economy, on works of painting and sculpture, in which he much delighted--caused him to make portraits of himself and of his wife; and these may be seen, painted in his new manner, in the possession of Giovan Battista, his son, in the beautiful and most commodious house that the same Agnolo built on the Corso de' Tintori, near the Canto degli Alberti, in Florence. For Domenico Canigiani, also, he painted a picture of Our Lady, with the Child Jesus welcoming a little S. John brought to Him by S. Elizabeth, who, as she holds him, is gazing with a most animated expression at a S. Joseph, who is standing with both his hands leaning on a staff, and inclines his head towards her, as though praising the greatness of God and marvelling that she, so advanced in years, should have so young a child. And all appear to be amazed to see with how much feeling and reverence the two cousins, for all their tender age, are caressing one another; not to mention that every touch of colour in the heads, hands, and feet seems to be living flesh rather than a tint laid on by a master of that art. This most noble picture is now in the possession of the heirs of the said Domenico Canigiani, who hold it in the estimation that is due to a work by Raffaello da Urbino. This most excellent of painters studied in the city of Florence the old works of Masaccio; and what he saw in those of Leonardo and Michelagnolo made him give even greater attention to his studies, in consequence of which he effected an extraordinary improvement in his art and manner. While he was living in Florence, Raffaello, besides other friendships, became very intimate with Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco, being much pleased with his colouring, and taking no little pains to imitate it: and in return he taught that good father the principles of perspective, to which up to that time the monk had not given any attention. But at the very height of this friendly intercourse, Raffaello was recalled to Perugia, where he began by finishing the work for the aforesaid Madonna Atalanta Baglioni in S. Francesco, for which, as has been related, he had made the cartoon in Florence. In this most divine picture there is a Dead Christ being borne to the Sepulchre, executed with such freshness and such loving care, that it seems to the eye to have been only just painted. In the composition of this work, Raffaello imagined to himself the sorrow that the nearest and most affectionate relatives of the dead one feel in laying to rest the body of him who has been their best beloved, and on whom, in truth, the happiness, honour, and welfare of a whole family have depended. Our Lady is seen in a swoon; and the heads of all the figures are very gracious in their weeping, particularly that of S. John, who, with his hands clasped, bows his head in such a manner as to move the hardest heart to pity. And in truth, whoever considers the diligence, love, art, and grace shown by this picture, has great reason to marvel, for it amazes all who behold it, what with the air of the figures, the beauty of the draperies, and, in short, the supreme excellence that it reveals in every part. [Illustration: "THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS" (_After the fresco by =Raffaello da Urbino=. Rome: The Vatican_) _Anderson_] This work finished, he returned to Florence, where he received from the Dei, citizens of that city, the commission for an altar-panel that was to be placed in their chapel in S. Spirito; and he began it, and brought the sketch very nearly to completion. At the same time he painted a picture that was afterwards sent to Siena, although, on the departure of Raffaello, it was left with Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, to the end that he might finish a piece of blue drapery that was wanting. This happened because Bramante da Urbino, who was in the service of Julius II, wrote to Raffaello, on account of his being distantly related to him and also his compatriot, that he had so wrought upon the Pope, who had caused some new rooms to be made (in the Vatican), that Raffaello would have a chance of showing his worth in them. This proposal pleased Raffaello: wherefore, abandoning his works in Florence, and leaving the panel for the Dei unfinished, in the state in which Messer Baldassarre da Pescia had it placed in the Pieve of his native city after the death of Raffaello, he betook himself to Rome. Having arrived there, he found that most of the rooms in the Palace had been painted, or were still being painted, by a number of masters. To be precise, he saw that there was one room in which a scene had been finished by Piero della Francesca; Luca da Cortona had brought one wall nearly to completion; and Don Pietro[25] della Gatta, Abbot of S. Clemente at Arezzo, had begun some works there. Bramantino, the Milanese, had likewise painted many figures, which were mostly portraits from life, and were held to be very beautiful. After his arrival, therefore, having been received very warmly by Pope Julius, Raffaello began in the Camera della Segnatura a scene of the theologians reconciling Philosophy and Astrology with Theology: wherein are portraits of all the sages in the world, disputing in various ways. Standing apart are some astrologers, who have made various kinds of figures and characters of geomancy and astrology on some little tablets, which they send to the Evangelists by certain very beautiful angels; and these Evangelists are expounding them. Among them is Diogenes with his cup, lying on the steps, and lost in thought, a figure very well conceived, which, for its beauty and the characteristic negligence of its dress, is worthy to be extolled. There, also, are Aristotle and Plato, one with the Timæus in his hand, the other with the Ethics; and round them, in a circle, is a great school of philosophers. Nor is it possible to express the beauty of those astrologers and geometricians who are drawing a vast number of figures and characters with compasses on tablets: among whom, in the figure of a young man, shapely and handsome, who is throwing out his arms in admiration, and inclining his head, is the portrait of Federigo II, Duke of Mantua, who was then in Rome. There is also a figure that is stooping to the ground, holding in its hand a pair of compasses, with which it is making a circle on a tablet: this is said to be the architect Bramante, and it is no less the man himself than if he were alive, so well is it drawn. Beside a figure with its back turned and holding a globe of the heavens in its hand, is the portrait of Zoroaster; and next to him is Raffaello, the master of the work, who made his own portrait by means of a mirror, in a youthful head with an air of great modesty, filled with a pleasing and excellent grace, and wearing a black cap. Nor is one able to describe the beauty and goodness that are to be seen in the heads and figures of the Evangelists, to whose countenances he gave an air of attention and intentness very true to life, and particularly in those who are writing. Thus, behind S. Matthew, who is copying the characters from the tablet wherein are the figures (which is held before him by an angel), and writing them down in a book, he painted an old man who, having placed a piece of paper on his knee, is copying all that S. Matthew writes down; and while intent on his work in that uncomfortable position, he seems to twist his head and his jaws in time with the motion of the pen. And in addition to the details of the conceptions, which are numerous enough, there is the composition of the whole scene, which is truly arranged with so much order and proportion, that he may be said to have given therein such a proof of his powers as made men understand that he was resolved to hold the sovereignty, without question, among all who handled the brush. He also adorned this work with a view in perspective and with many figures, executed in such a sweet and delicate manner, that Pope Julius was induced thereby to cause all the scenes of the other masters, both the old and the new, to be thrown to the ground, so that Raffaello alone might have the glory of all the labours that had been devoted to these works up to that time. The work of Giovanni Antonio Sodoma of Vercelli, which was above Raffaello's painting, was to be thrown down by order of the Pope; but Raffaello determined to make use of its compartments and grotesques. There were also some medallions, four in number, and in each of these he made a figure as a symbol of the scenes below, each figure being on the same side as the scene that it represented. Over the first scene, wherein he painted Philosophy, Astrology, Geometry, and Poetry making peace with Theology, is a woman representing Knowledge, who is seated on a throne that is supported on either side by a figure of the Goddess Cybele, each with those many breasts which in ancient times were the attributes of Diana Polymastes; and her dress is of four colours, standing for the four elements; from the head downwards there is the colour of fire, below the girdle that of the sky, from the groin to the knees there is the colour of earth, and the rest, down to the feet, is the colour of water. With her, also, are some truly beautiful little boys. In another medallion, on the side towards the window that looks over the Belvedere, is a figure of Poetry, who is in the form of Polyhymnia, crowned with laurel, and holds an antique musical instrument in one hand, and a book in the other, and has her legs crossed. With a more than human beauty of expression in her countenance, she stands with her eyes uplifted towards Heaven, accompanied by two little boys, who are lively and spirited, and who make a group of beautiful variety both with her and with the others. On this side, over the aforesaid window, Raffaello afterwards painted Mount Parnassus. In the third medallion, which is above the scene where the Holy Doctors are ordaining the Mass, is a figure of Theology, no less beautiful than the others, with books and other things round her, and likewise accompanied by little boys. And in the fourth medallion, over the other window, which looks out on the court, he painted Justice with her scales, and her sword uplifted, and with the same little boys that are with the others; of which the effect is supremely beautiful, for in the scene on the wall below he depicted the giving of the Civil and the Canon Law, as we will relate in the proper place. In like manner, on the same ceiling, in the angles of the pendentives, he executed four scenes which he drew and coloured with great diligence, but with figures of no great size. In one of these, that near the Theology, he painted the Sin of Adam, the eating of the apple, which he executed with a most delicate manner; and in the second, near the Astrology, is a figure of that science setting the fixed stars and planets in their places. In the next, that belonging to Mount Parnassus, is Marsyas, whom Apollo has caused to be bound to a tree and flayed; and on the side of the scene wherein the Decretals are given, there is the Judgment of Solomon, showing him proposing to have the child cut in half. These four scenes are all full of expression and feeling, and executed with excellent draughtsmanship, and with pleasing and gracious colouring. But now, having finished with the vaulting--that is, the ceiling--of that apartment, it remains for us to describe what he painted below the things mentioned above, wall by wall. On the wall towards the Belvedere, where there are Mount Parnassus and the Fount of Helicon, he made round that mount a laurel wood of darkest shadows, in the verdure of which one almost sees the leaves quivering in the gentle zephyrs; and in the air are vast numbers of naked Loves, most beautiful in feature and expression, who are plucking branches of laurel and with them making garlands, which they throw and scatter about the mount. Over the whole, in truth, there seems to breathe a spirit of divinity, so beautiful are the figures, and such the nobility of the picture, which makes whoever studies it with attention marvel how a human brain, by the imperfect means of mere colours, and by excellence of draughtsmanship, could make painted things appear alive. Most lifelike, also, are those Poets who are seen here and there about the mount, some standing, some seated, some writing, and others discoursing, and others, again, singing or conversing together, in groups of four or six, according as it pleased him to distribute them. There are portraits from nature of all the most famous poets, ancient and modern, and some only just dead, or still living in his day; which were taken from statues or medals, and many from old pictures, and some, who were still alive, portrayed from the life by himself. And to begin with one end, there are Ovid, Virgil, Ennius, Tibullus, Catullus, Propertius, and Homer; the last-named, blind and chanting his verses with uplifted head, having at his feet one who is writing them down. Next, in a group, are all the nine Muses and Apollo, with such beauty in their aspect, and such divinity in the figures, that they breathe out a spirit of grace and life. There, also, are the learned Sappho, the most divine Dante, the gracious Petrarca, and the amorous Boccaccio, who are wholly alive, with Tibaldeo, and an endless number of other moderns; and this scene is composed with much grace, and executed with diligence. On another wall he made a Heaven, with Christ, Our Lady, S. John the Baptist, the Apostles, the Evangelists, and the Martyrs, enthroned on clouds, with God the Father sending down the Holy Spirit over them all, and particularly over an endless number of saints, who are below, writing the Mass, and engaged in disputation about the Host, which is on the altar. Among these are the four Doctors of the Church, who have about them a vast number of saints, such as Dominic, Francis, Thomas Aquinas, Buonaventura, Scotus, and Nicholas of Lira, with Dante, Fra Girolamo Savonarola of Ferrara, and all the Christian theologians, with an infinite number of portraits from nature; and in the air are four little children, who are holding open the Gospels. Anything more graceful or more perfect than these figures no painter could create, since those saints are represented as seated in the air, in a circle, and so well, that in truth, besides the appearance of life that the colouring gives them, they are foreshortened and made to recede in such a manner, that they would not be otherwise if they were in relief. Moreover, their vestments show a rich variety, with most beautiful folds in the draperies, and the expressions of the heads are more Divine than human; as may be seen in that of Christ, which reveals all the clemency and devoutness that Divinity can show to mortal men through the medium of painting. For Raffaello received from nature a particular gift of making the expressions of his heads very sweet and gracious; of which we have proof also in the Madonna, who, with her hands pressed to her bosom, gazing in contemplation upon her Son, seems incapable of refusing any favour; not to mention that he showed a truly beautiful sense of fitness, giving a look of age to the expressions of the Holy Patriarchs, simplicity to the Apostles, and faith to the Martyrs. Even more art and genius did he display in the holy Christian Doctors, in whose features, while they make disputation throughout the scene in groups of six or three or two, there may be seen a kind of eagerness and distress in seeking to find the truth of that which is in question, revealing this by gesticulating with their hands, making various movements of their persons, turning their ears to listen, knitting their brows, and expressing astonishment in many different ways, all truly well varied and appropriate; save only the four Doctors of the Church, who, illumined by the Holy Spirit, are unravelling and expounding, by means of the Holy Scriptures, all the problems of the Gospels, which are held up by those little boys who have them in their hands as they hover in the air. On another wall, where the other window is, on one side, he painted Justinian giving the Laws to the Doctors to be revised; and above this, Temperance, Fortitude, and Prudence. On the other side he painted the Pope giving the Canonical Decretals; for which Pope he made a portrait from life of Pope Julius, and, beside him, Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, who became Pope Leo, Cardinal Antonio di Monte, and Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who afterwards became Pope Paul III, with other portraits. The Pope was very well satisfied with this work; and in order to make the panelling worthy of the paintings, he sent to Monte Oliveto di Chiusuri, a place in the territory of Siena, for Fra Giovanni da Verona, a great master at that time of perspective-views in inlaid woodwork, who made there not only the panelling right round, but also very beautiful doors and seats, wrought with perspective-views, which brought him great favour, rewards, and honour from the Pope. And it is certain that in that craft there was never any man more able than Giovanni, either in design or in workmanship: of which we still have proof in the Sacristy, wrought most beautifully with perspective-views in woodwork, of S. Maria in Organo in his native city of Verona, in the choir of Monte Oliveto di Chiusuri and that of S. Benedetto at Siena, in the Sacristy of Monte Oliveto at Naples, and also in the choir of the Chapel of Paolo da Tolosa in the same place, executed by that master. Wherefore he well deserved to be esteemed and held in very great honour by the convent of his Order, in which he died at the age of sixty-eight, in the year 1537. Of him, as of a person truly excellent and rare, I have thought it right to make mention, believing that this was due to his talents, which, as will be related in another place, led to many beautiful works being made by other masters after him. [Illustration: THE "DISPUTA DEL SACRAMENTO" (_After the fresco by =Raffaello da Urbino=. Rome: The Vatican_) _Anderson_] But to return to Raffaello; his powers grew in such a manner, that he was commissioned by the Pope to go on to paint a second room, that near the Great Hall. And at this time, when he had gained a very great name, he also made a portrait of Pope Julius in a picture in oils, so true and so lifelike, that the portrait caused all who saw it to tremble, as if it had been the living man himself. This work is now in S. Maria del Popolo, together with a very beautiful picture of Our Lady, painted at the same time by the same master, and containing the Nativity of Jesus Christ, wherein is the Virgin laying a veil over her Son, whose beauty is such, both in the air of the head and in all the members, as to show that He is the true Son of God. And no less beautiful than the Child is the Madonna, in whom, besides her supreme loveliness, there may be seen piety and gladness. There is also a Joseph, who, leaning with both his hands on a staff, and lost in thoughtful contemplation of the King and Queen of Heaven, gazes with the adoration of a most saintly old man. Both these pictures are exhibited on days of solemn festival. By this time Raffaello had acquired much fame in Rome; but, although his manner was graceful and held by all to be very beautiful, and despite the fact that he had seen so many antiquities in that city, and was for ever studying, nevertheless he had not yet given thereby to his figures that grandeur and majesty which he gave to them from that time onward. For it happened in those days that Michelagnolo made the terrifying outburst against the Pope in the chapel, of which we will speak in his Life; whence he was forced to fly to Florence. Whereupon Bramante, having the keys of the chapel, allowed Raffaello, who was his friend, to see it, to the end that he might be able to learn the methods of Michelagnolo. And the sight of it was the reason that Raffaello straightway repainted, although he had already finished it, the Prophet Isaiah that is to be seen in S. Agostino at Rome, above the S. Anne by Andrea Sansovino; in which work, by means of what he had seen of Michelagnolo's painting, he made the manner immeasurably better and more grand, and gave it greater majesty. Wherefore Michelagnolo, on seeing afterwards the work of Raffaello, thought, as was the truth, that Bramante had done him that wrong on purpose in order to bring profit and fame to Raffaello. Not long after this, Agostino Chigi, a very rich merchant of Siena, who was much the friend of every man of excellence, gave Raffaello the commission to paint a chapel; and this he did because a short time before Raffaello had painted for him in his softest manner, in a loggia of his palace, now called the Chigi, in the Trastevere, a Galatea in a car on the sea drawn by two dolphins, and surrounded by Tritons and many sea-gods. Raffaello, then, having made the cartoon for that chapel, which is at the entrance of the Church of S. Maria della Pace, on the right hand as one goes into the church by the principal door, executed it in fresco, in his new manner, which was no little grander and more magnificent than his earlier manner. In this painting Raffaello depicted some Prophets and Sibyls, before Michelagnolo's chapel had been thrown open to view, although he had seen it; and in truth it is held to be the best of his works, and the most beautiful among so many that are beautiful, for in the women and children that are in it, there may be seen a marvellous vivacity and perfect colouring. And this work caused him to be greatly esteemed both in his lifetime and after his death, being the rarest and most excellent that Raffaello executed in all his life. Next, spurred by the entreaties of a Chamberlain of Pope Julius, he painted the panel for the high-altar of the Araceli, wherein he made a Madonna in the sky, with a most beautiful landscape, a S. John, a S. Francis, and a S. Jerome represented as a Cardinal; in which Madonna may be seen a humility and a modesty truly worthy of the Mother of Christ; and besides the beautiful gesture of the Child as He plays with His Mother's hand, there is revealed in S. John that penitential air which fasting generally gives, while his head displays the sincerity of soul and frank assurance appropriate to those who live away from the world and despise it, and, in their dealings with mankind, make war on falsehood and speak out the truth. In like manner, the S. Jerome has his head uplifted with his eyes on the Madonna, deep in contemplation; and in them seem to be suggested all the learning and knowledge that he showed in his writings, while with both his hands he is presenting the Chamberlain, in the act of recommending him to her; which portrait of the Chamberlain is as lifelike as any ever painted. Nor did Raffaello fail to do as well in the figure of S. Francis, who, kneeling on the ground, with one arm outstretched, and with his head upraised, is gazing up at the Madonna, glowing with a love in tone with the feeling of the picture, which, both by the lineaments and by the colouring, shows him melting with affection, and taking comfort and life from the gracious sight of her beauty and of the vivacity and beauty of her Son. In the middle of the panel, below the Madonna, Raffaello made a little boy standing, who is raising his head towards her and holding an inscription: than whom none better or more graceful could be painted, what with the beauty of his features and the proportionate loveliness of his person. And in addition there is a landscape, which is singularly beautiful in its absolute perfection. [Illustration: THE MASS OF BOLSENA (_After the fresco by =Raffaello da Urbino=. Rome: The Vatican_) _Anderson_] Afterwards, going on with the apartments of the Palace, he painted a scene of the Miracle of the Sacramental Corporal of Orvieto, or of Bolsena, whichever it may be called. In this scene there may be perceived in the face of the priest who is saying Mass, which is glowing with a blush, the shame that he felt on seeing the Host turned into blood on the Corporal on account of his unbelief. With terror in his eyes, dumbfoundered and beside himself in the presence of his hearers, he seems like one who knows not what to do; and in the gesture of his hands may almost be seen the fear and trembling that a man would feel in such a case. Round him Raffaello made many figures, all varied and different, some serving the Mass, others kneeling on a flight of steps; and all, bewildered by the strangeness of the event, are making various most beautiful movements and gestures, while in many, both men and women, there is revealed a belief that they are to blame. Among the women is one who is seated on the ground at the foot of the scene, holding a child in her arms; and she, hearing the account that another appears to be giving her of the thing that has happened to the priest, turns in a marvellous manner as she listens to this, with a womanly grace that is very natural and lifelike. On the other side he painted Pope Julius hearing that Mass, a most marvellous work, wherein he made a portrait of Cardinal di San Giorgio, with innumerable others; and the window-opening he turned to advantage by making a flight of steps, in such a way that all the painting seems to be one whole: nay, it appears as if, were that window-space not there, the work would in nowise have been complete. Wherefore it may be truly credited to him that in the invention and composition of every kind of painted story, no one has ever been more dexterous, facile, and able than Raffaello. This he also proved in another scene in the same place, opposite to the last-named, of S. Peter in the hands of Herod, and guarded in prison by men-at-arms; wherein he showed such a grasp of architecture, and such judgment in the buildings of the prison, that in truth the others after him seem to have more confusion than he has beauty. For he was ever seeking to represent stories just as they are written, and to paint in them things gracious and excellent; as is proved in this one by the horror of the prison, wherein that old man is seen bound in chains of iron between the two men-at-arms, by the deep slumber of the guards, and by the dazzling splendour of the Angel, which, in the thick darkness of the night, reveals with its light every detail of the prison, and makes the arms of the soldiers shine resplendent, in such a way that their burnished lustre seems more lifelike than if they were real, although they are only painted. No less art and genius are there in the action of S. Peter, when, freed from his chains, he goes forth from the prison, accompanied by the Angel, wherein one sees in the face of the Saint a belief that it is rather a dream than a reality; and so, also, terror and dismay are shown in some other armed guards without the prison, who hear the noise of the iron door, while a sentinel with a torch in his hand rouses the others, and, as he gives them light with it, the blaze of the torch is reflected in all their armour; and all that its glow does not reach is illumined by the light of the moon. This composition Raffaello painted over the window, where the wall is darkest; and thus, when you look at the picture, the light strikes you in the face, and the real light conflicts so well with the different lights of the night in the painting, that the smoke of the torch, the splendour of the Angel, and the thick darkness of the night seem to you to be wholly real and natural, and you would never say that it was all painted, so vividly did he express this difficult conception. In it are seen shadows playing on the armour, other shadows projected, reflections, and a vaporous glare from the lights, all executed with darkest shade, and so well, that it may be truly said that he was the master of every other master; and as an effect of night, among all those that painting has ever produced, this is the most real and most divine, and is held by all the world to be the rarest. On one of the unbroken walls, also, he painted the Divine Worship and the Ark of the Hebrews, with the Candlestick; and likewise Pope Julius driving Avarice out of the Temple, a scene as beautiful and as excellent as the Night described above. Here, in some bearers who are carrying Pope Julius, a most lifelike figure, in his chair, are portraits of men who were living at that time. And while the people, some women among them, are making way for the Pope, so that he may pass, one sees the furious onset of an armed man on horseback, who, accompanied by two on foot, and in an attitude of the greatest fierceness, is smiting and riding down the proud Heliodorus, who is seeking, at the command of Antiochus, to rob the Temple of all the wealth stored for the widows and orphans. Already the riches and treasures could be seen being removed and taken away, when, on account of the terror of the strange misfortune of Heliodorus, so rudely struck down and smitten by the three figures mentioned above (although, this being a vision, they are seen and heard by him alone), behold, they are all dropped and upset on the ground, those who were carrying them falling down through the sudden terror and panic that had come upon all the following of Heliodorus. Apart from these may be seen the holy Onias, the High Priest, dressed in his robes of office, with his eyes and hands raised to Heaven, and praying most fervently, being seized with pity for the poor innocents who were thus nearly losing their possessions, and rejoicing at the help that he feels has come down from on high. Besides this, through a beautiful fancy of Raffaello's, one sees many who have climbed on to the socles of the column-bases, and, clasping the shafts, stand looking in most uncomfortable attitudes; with a throng of people showing their amazement in many various ways, and awaiting the result of this event. This work is in every part so stupendous, that even the cartoons are held in the greatest veneration; wherefore Messer Francesco Masini, a gentleman of Cesena--who, without the help of any master, but giving his attention by himself from his earliest childhood, guided by an extraordinary instinct of nature, to drawing and painting, has painted pictures that have been much extolled by good judges of art--possesses, among his many drawings and some ancient reliefs in marble, certain pieces of the cartoon which Raffaello made for this story of Heliodorus, and he holds them in the estimation that they truly deserve. Nor will I refrain from saying that Messer Niccolò Masini, who has given me information about these matters, is as much a true lover of our arts as he is a man of real culture in all other things. But to return to Raffaello; on the ceiling above these works, he then executed four scenes, God appearing to Abraham and promising him the multiplication of his seed, the Sacrifice of Isaac, Jacob's Ladder, and the Burning Bush of Moses: wherein may be recognized no less art, invention, draughtsmanship, and grace, than in the other works that he painted. While the happy genius of this craftsman was producing such marvels, the envy of fortune cut short the life of Julius II, who had fostered such abilities, and had been a lover of every excellent work. Whereupon a new Pope was elected in Leo X, who desired that the work begun should be carried on; and Raffaello thereby soared with his genius into the heavens, and received endless favours from him, fortunate in having come upon a Prince so great, who had by the inheritance of blood a strong inclination for such an art. Raffaello, therefore, thus encouraged to pursue the work, painted on the other wall the Coming of Attila to Rome, and his encounter at the foot of Monte Mario with Leo III, who drove him away with his mere benediction. In this scene Raffaello made S. Peter and S. Paul in the air, with swords in their hands, coming to defend the Church; and while the story of Leo III says nothing of this, nevertheless it was thus that he chose to represent it, perchance out of fancy, for it often happens that painters, like poets, go straying from their subject in order to make their work the more ornate, although their digressions are not such as to be out of harmony with their first intention. In those Apostles may be seen that celestial wrath and ardour which the Divine Justice is wont often to impart to the features of its ministers, charged with defending the most holy Faith; and of this we have proof in Attila, who is to be seen riding a black horse with white feet and a star on its forehead, as beautiful as it could be, for in an attitude of the utmost terror he throws up his head and turns his body in flight. There are other most beautiful horses, particularly a dappled jennet, which is ridden by a figure that has all the body covered with scales after the manner of a fish; which is copied from the Column of Trajan, wherein the figures have armour of that kind; and it is thought that such armour is made from the skins of crocodiles. There is Monte Mario, all aflame, showing that when soldiers march away, their quarters are always left a prey to fire. He made portraits from nature, also, in some mace-bearers accompanying the Pope, who are marvellously lifelike, as are the horses on which they are riding; and the same is true of the retinue of Cardinals, and of some grooms who are holding the palfrey on which rides the Pope in full pontificals (a portrait of Leo X, no less lifelike than those of the others), with many courtiers; the whole being a most pleasing spectacle and well in keeping with such a work, and also very useful to our art, particularly for those who have no such objects at their command. At this same time he painted a panel containing Our Lady, S. Jerome robed as a Cardinal, and an Angel Raphael accompanying Tobias, which was placed in S. Domenico at Naples, in that chapel wherein is the Crucifix that spoke to S. Thomas Aquinas. For Signor Leonello da Carpi, Lord of Meldola, who is still alive, although more than ninety years old, he executed a picture that was most marvellous in colouring, and of a singular beauty, for it is painted with such force, and also with a delicacy so pleasing, that I do not think it is possible to do better. In the countenance of the Madonna may be seen such a divine air, and in her attitude such a dignity, that no one would be able to improve her; and he made her with the hands clasped, adoring her Son, who is seated on her knees, caressing a S. John, a little boy, who is adoring Him, in company with S. Elizabeth and Joseph. This picture was once in the possession of the very reverend Cardinal da Carpi, the son of the said Signor Leonello, and a great lover of our arts; and it should be at the present day in the hands of his heirs. Afterwards, Lorenzo Pucci, Cardinal of Santi Quattro, having been created Grand Penitentiary, Raffaello was favoured by him with a commission to paint a panel for S. Giovanni in Monte at Bologna, which is now set up in the chapel wherein lies the body of the Blessed Elena dall' Olio: in which work it is evident how much grace, in company with art, could accomplish by means of the delicate hands of Raffaello. In it is a S. Cecilia, who, entranced by a choir of angels on high, stands listening to the sound, wholly absorbed in the harmony; and in her countenance is seen that abstraction which is found in the faces of those who are in ecstasy. Scattered about the ground, moreover, are musical instruments, which have the appearance of being, not painted, but real and true; and such, also, are some veils that she is wearing, with vestments woven in silk and gold, and, below these, a marvellous hair-shirt. And in a S. Paul, who has the right arm leaning on his naked sword, and the head resting on the hand, one sees his profound air of knowledge, no less well expressed than the transformation of his pride of aspect into dignity. He is clothed in a simple red garment by way of mantle, below which is a green tunic, after the manner of the Apostles, and his feet are bare. There is also S. Mary Magdalene, who is holding in her hands a most delicate vase of stone, in an attitude of marvellous grace; turning her head, she seems full of joy at her conversion; and indeed, in that kind of painting, I do not think that anything better could be done. Very beautiful, likewise, are the heads of S. Augustine and S. John the Evangelist. Of a truth, other pictures may be said to be pictures, but those of Raffaello life itself, for in his figures the flesh quivers, the very breath may be perceived, the pulse beats, and the true presentment of life is seen in them; on which account this picture gave him, in addition to the fame that he had already, an even greater name. Wherefore many verses were written in his honour, both Latin and in the vulgar tongue, of which, in order not to make my story longer than I have set out to do, I will cite only the following: Pingant sola alii referantque coloribus ora; Cæciliæ os Raphael atque animum explicuit. After this he also painted a little picture with small figures, which is likewise at Bologna, in the house of Count Vincenzio Ercolano, containing a Christ after the manner of Jove in Heaven, surrounded by the four Evangelists as Ezekiel describes them, one in the form of a man, another as a lion, the third an eagle, and the fourth an ox, with a little landscape below to represent the earth: which work, in its small proportions, is no less rare and beautiful than his others in their greatness. [Illustration: POPE LEO X WITH TWO CARDINALS (_After the panel by =Raffaello da Urbino=. Florence: Pitti, 40_) _M.S._] To the Counts of Canossa in Verona he sent a large picture of equal excellence, in which is a very beautiful Nativity of Our Lord, with a daybreak that is much extolled, as is also the S. Anne, and, indeed, the whole work, which cannot be more highly praised than by saying that it is by the hand of Raffaello da Urbino. Wherefore those Counts rightly hold it in supreme veneration, nor have they ever consented, for all the vast prices that have been offered to them by many Princes, to sell it to anyone. For Bindo Altoviti, he made a portrait of him when he was a young man, which is held to be extraordinary; and likewise a picture of Our Lady, which he sent to Florence, and which is now in the Palace of Duke Cosimo, in the chapel of the new apartments, which were built and painted by me, where it serves as altar-piece. In it is painted a very old S. Anne, seated, and holding out to Our Lady her Son, the features of whose countenance, as well as the whole of His nude form, are so beautiful that with His smile He rejoices whoever beholds Him; besides which, Raffaello depicted, in painting the Madonna, all the beauty that can be imparted to the aspect of a Virgin, with the complement of chaste humility in the eyes, honour in the brow, grace in the nose, and virtue in the mouth; not to mention that her raiment is such as to reveal infinite simplicity and dignity. And, indeed, I do not think that there is anything better to be seen than this whole work. There is a nude S. John, seated, with a female saint, who is likewise very beautiful; and for background there is a building, in which he painted a linen-covered window that gives light to the room wherein are the figures. In Rome he made a picture of good size, in which he portrayed Pope Leo, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, and Cardinal de' Rossi. In this the figures appear to be not painted, but in full relief; there is the pile of the velvet, with the damask of the Pope's vestments shining and rustling, the fur of the linings soft and natural, and the gold and silk so counterfeited that they do not seem to be in colour, but real gold and silk. There is an illuminated book of parchment, which appears more real than the reality; and a little bell of wrought silver, which is more beautiful than words can tell. Among other things, also, is a ball of burnished gold on the Pope's chair, wherein are reflected, as if it were a mirror (such is its brightness), the light from the windows, the shoulders of the Pope, and the walls round the room. And all these things are executed with such diligence, that one may believe without any manner of doubt that no master is able, or is ever likely to be able, to do better. For this work the Pope was pleased to reward him very richly; and the picture is still to be seen in Florence, in the guardaroba of the Duke. In like manner he executed portraits of Duke Lorenzo and Duke Giuliano, with a perfect grace of colouring not achieved by any other than himself, which are in the possession of the heirs of Ottaviano de' Medici at Florence. Thereupon there came to Raffaello a great increase of glory, and likewise of rewards; and for this reason, in order to leave some memorial of himself, he caused a palace to be built in the Borgo Nuovo at Rome, which Bramante executed with castings. Now, the fame of this most noble craftsman, by reason of the aforesaid works and many others, having passed into France and Flanders, Albrecht Dürer, a most marvellous German painter, and an engraver of very beautiful copperplates, rendered tribute to Raffaello out of his own works, and sent to him a portrait of himself, a head, executed by him in gouache on a cloth of fine linen, which showed the same on either side, the lights being transparent and obtained without lead-white, while the only grounding and colouring was done with water-colours, the white of the cloth serving for the ground of the bright parts. This work seemed to Raffaello to be marvellous, and he sent him, therefore, many drawings executed by his own hand, which were received very gladly by Albrecht. That head was among the possessions of Giulio Romano, the heir of Raffaello, in Mantua. Raffaello, having thus seen the manner of the engravings of Albrecht Dürer, and desiring on his own behalf to show what could be done with his work by such an art, caused Marc' Antonio Bolognese to make a very thorough study of the method; and that master became so excellent, that Raffaello commissioned him to make prints of his first works, such as the drawing of the Innocents, a Last Supper, the Neptune, and the S. Cecilia being boiled in oil. Marc' Antonio afterwards made for Raffaello a number of other engravings, which Raffaello finally gave to Baviera, his assistant, who had charge of a mistress whom Raffaello loved to the day of his death. Of her he made a very beautiful portrait, wherein she seemed wholly alive: and this is now in Florence, in the possession of that most gentle of men, Matteo Botti, a Florentine merchant, and an intimate friend of every able person, and particularly of painters, who treasures it as a relic, on account of the love that he bears to art, and above all to Raffaello. And no less esteem is shown to the works of our arts and to the craftsmen by his brother, Simon Botti, who, besides being held by us all to be one of the most loving spirits that show favour to the men of our professions, is held in estimation by me in particular as the best and greatest friend that ever man loved after a long experience; not to mention the good judgment that he has and shows in matters of art. But to return to the engravings; the favour shown by Raffaello to Baviera was the reason that there afterwards sprang up Marco da Ravenna and a host of others, insomuch that the dearth of copper engravings was changed into that abundance that we see at the present day. Thereupon Ugo da Carpi, having a brain inclined to ingenious and fanciful things, and showing beautiful invention, discovered the method of wood-engraving, whereby, with three blocks, giving the middle values, the lights, and the shadows, it is possible to imitate drawings in chiaroscuro, which was certainly a thing of beautiful and fanciful invention; and from this, also, there afterwards came an abundance of prints, as will be related with greater detail in the Life of Marc' Antonio Bolognese. Raffaello then painted for the Monastery of the Monks of Monte Oliveto, called S. Maria dello Spasmo, at Palermo, a panel-picture of Christ bearing the Cross, which is held to be a marvellous work. In this may be seen the impious ministers of the Crucifixion, leading Him with wrath and fury to His death on Mount Calvary; and Christ, broken with agony at the near approach of death, has fallen to the ground under the weight of the Tree of the Cross, and, bathed with sweat and blood, turns towards the Maries, who are in a storm of weeping. Moreover, there is seen among them Veronica, who stretches out her arms and offers Him a cloth, with an expression of the tenderest love, not to mention that the work is full of men-at-arms both on horseback and on foot, who are pouring forth from the gate of Jerusalem with the standards of justice in their hands, in various most beautiful attitudes. This panel, when completely finished, but not yet brought to its resting-place, was very near coming to an evil end, for the story goes that after it had been put on shipboard, in order that it might be carried to Palermo, a terrible storm dashed against a rock the ship that was carrying it, in such a manner that the timbers broke asunder, and all the men were lost, together with the merchandise, save only the panel, which, safely packed in its case, was washed by the sea on to the shore of Genoa. There, having been fished up and drawn to land, it was found to be a thing divine, and was put into safe keeping; for it had remained undamaged and without any hurt or blemish, since even the fury of the winds and the waves of the sea had respect for the beauty of such a work. The news of this being then bruited abroad, the monks took measures to recover it, and no sooner had it been restored to them, by the favour of the Pope, than they gave satisfaction, and that liberally, to those who had rescued it. Thereupon it was once more put on board ship and brought at last to Sicily, where they set it up in Palermo; in which place it has more fame and reputation than the Mount of Vulcan itself. While Raffaello was engaged on these works, which, having to gratify great and distinguished persons, he could not refuse to undertake--not to mention that his own private interests prevented him from saying them nay--yet for all this he never ceased to carry on the series of pictures that he had begun in the Papal apartments and halls; wherein he always kept men who pursued the work from his own designs, while he himself, continually supervising everything, lent to so vast an enterprise the aid of the best efforts of which he was capable. No long time passed, therefore, before he threw open that apartment of the Borgia Tower in which he had painted a scene on every wall, two above the windows, and two others on the unbroken walls. In one was the Burning of the Borgo Vecchio of Rome, when, all other methods having failed to put out the fire, S. Leo IV presents himself at the Loggia of his Palace and extinguishes it completely with his benediction. In this scene are represented various perils. On one side are women who are bearing vessels filled with water in their hands and on their heads, whereby to extinguish the flames; and their hair and draperies are blown about by the terrible fury of a tempestuous wind. Others, who are seeking to throw water on the fire, are blinded by the smoke and wholly bewildered. On the other side, after the manner of Virgil's story of Anchises being carried by Æneas, is shown an old sick man, overcome by his infirmity and the flames of the fire; and in the figure of the young man are seen courage and strength, and great effort in all his limbs under the weight of the old man, who lies helpless on the young man's back. He is followed by an old woman with bare feet and disordered garments, who is flying from the fire; and a little naked boy runs before them. On the top of some ruins, likewise, may be seen a naked woman, with hair all dishevelled, who has her child in her hands and is throwing him to a man of her house, who, having escaped from the flames, is standing in the street on tiptoe, with arms outstretched to receive the child wrapped in swathing-bands; wherein the eager anxiety of the woman to save her son may be recognized no less clearly than her torment in the peril of the fierce flames, which are already licking around her. And no less suffering is evident in him who is receiving the child, both for its sake and on account of his own fear of death. Nor is it possible to describe the imagination that this most ingenious and most marvellous craftsman showed in a mother with her feet bare, her garments in disorder, her girdle unbound, and her hair dishevelled, who has gathered her children before her and is driving them on, holding part of her clothing in one hand, that they may escape from the ruins and from that blazing furnace; not to mention that there are also some women who, kneeling before the Pope, appear to be praying to his Holiness that he should make the fire cease. The next scene is from the life of the same S. Leo IV, wherein Raffaello depicted the port of Ostia occupied by the fleet of the Turks, who had come to take the Pope prisoner. The Christians may be seen fighting against that fleet on the sea; and already there has come to the harbour an endless number of prisoners, who are disembarking from a boat and being dragged by the beard by some soldiers, who are very beautiful in features and most spirited in their attitudes. The prisoners, dressed in the motley garb of galley-slaves, are being led before S. Leo, whose figure is a portrait of Pope Leo X. Here Raffaello painted his Holiness in pontificals, between Cardinal Santa Maria in Portico, who was Bernardo Divizio of Bibbiena, and Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, who afterwards became Pope Clement. Nor is it possible to describe in detail the beautiful conceptions that this most ingenious craftsman showed in the expressions of the prisoners, wherein one can recognize, without speech, their grief and the fear of death. In the first of the other two scenes is Pope Leo X consecrating the most Christian King, Francis I of France, chanting the Mass in his pontificals, and blessing the oil for the anointing of the King, and likewise the royal crown. There, besides the great number of Cardinals and Bishops in their robes, who are assisting, he portrayed from life many Ambassadors and other persons, and also some figures dressed in the French fashion, according to the style of that time. In the other scene he painted the Crowning of the same King, wherein are portraits from life of the Pope and of Francis, one in armour and the other in his pontificals; besides which, all the Cardinals, Bishops, Chamberlains, Esquires, and Grooms of the Chamber are seated in due order in their places, as is the custom in the chapel, all in their robes and portrayed from life, among them being Giannozzo Pandolfini, Bishop of Troia, a close friend of Raffaello, with many others who were distinguished at that time. Near the King is a little boy kneeling, who is holding the royal crown--a portrait of Ippolito de' Medici, who afterwards became Cardinal and Vice-Chancellor, a man of great repute, and much the friend not only of this art, but of all others, to whose blessed memory I acknowledge a vast obligation, seeing that my first steps, such as they were, were taken under his auspices. It is not possible to write of every detail in the works of this craftsman, wherein every least thing, although dumb, appears to have speech: save only of the bases executed below these pictures, with various figures of defenders and benefactors of the Church, and various terminal figures on either side of them, the whole being wrought in such a manner that everything reveals spirit, feeling, and thought, and with such a harmony and unity of colouring that nothing better can be conceived. And since the ceiling of that apartment had been painted by Pietro Perugino, his master, Raffaello would not destroy it, moved by respect for his memory and by the love that he bore to the man who had been the origin of the rank that he held in his art. Such was the greatness of this master, that he kept designers all over Italy, at Pozzuolo, and even in Greece; and he was for ever searching out everything of the good that might help his art. Now, continuing his work, he also painted a hall, wherein were some figures of the Apostles and other saints in tabernacles, executed in terretta; and there he caused to be made by Giovanni da Udine, his disciple, who has no equal in the painting of animals, all the animals that Pope Leo possessed, such as the chameleon, the civet-cats, the apes, the parrots, the lions, the elephants, and other beasts even more strange. And besides embellishing the Palace greatly with grotesques and varied pavements, he also gave the designs for the Papal staircases, as well as for the loggie begun by the architect Bramante, but left unfinished on account of his death, and afterwards carried out with the new design and architecture of Raffaello, who made for this a model of wood with better proportion and adornment than had been accomplished by Bramante. The Pope wishing to demonstrate the greatness and magnificence of his generous ambition, Raffaello made the designs for the ornaments in stucco and for the scenes that were painted there, and likewise for the compartments; and as for the stucco and the grotesques, he placed at the head of that work Giovanni da Udine, and the figures he entrusted to Giulio Romano, although that master worked but little at them; and he also employed Giovanni Francesco, Il Bologna, Perino del Vaga, Pellegrino da Modena, Vincenzio da San Gimignano, and Polidoro da Caravaggio, with many other painters, who executed scenes and figures and other things that were required throughout that work, which Raffaello caused to be completed with such perfection, that he even sent to Florence for pavements by the hand of Luca della Robbia. Wherefore it is certain that with regard to the paintings, the stucco-ornaments, the arrangement, or any of the beautiful inventions, no one would be able to execute or even to imagine a more marvellous work; and its beauty was the reason that Raffaello received the charge of all the works of painting and architecture that were in progress in the Palace. It is said that the courtesy of Raffaello was such that he prevailed upon the masons, in order that he might accommodate his friends, not to build the walls absolutely solid and unbroken, but to leave, above the old rooms below, various openings and spaces for the storage of barrels, flasks, and wood; which holes and spaces so weakened the lower part of the masonry, that afterwards they had to be filled in, because the whole was beginning to show cracks. He commissioned Gian Barile to adorn all the doors and ceilings of woodwork with a good number of carvings, which he executed and finished with beautiful grace. He gave architectural designs for the Vigna[26] of the Pope, and for many houses in the Borgo; in particular, for the Palace of Messer Giovanni Battista dall' Aquila, which was a very beautiful work. He also designed one for the Bishop of Troia, who had it built in the Via di S. Gallo at Florence. For the Black Friars of S. Sisto in Piacenza, he painted the picture for their high-altar, containing the Madonna with S. Sisto and S. Barbara, a truly rare and extraordinary work. He executed many pictures to be sent into France, and in particular, for the King, a S. Michael fighting with the Devil, which was held to be a marvellous thing. In this work he painted a fire-scarred rock, to represent the centre of the earth, from the fissures of which were issuing sulphurous flames; and in Lucifer, whose scorched and burned limbs are painted with various tints of flesh-colour, could be seen all the shades of anger that his venomous and swollen pride calls up against Him who overbears the greatness of him who is deprived of any kingdom where there might be peace, and doomed to suffer perpetual punishment. The opposite may be perceived in the S. Michael, clad in armour of iron and gold, who, although he is painted with a celestial air, yet has valour, force, and terror in his aspect, and has already thrown Lucifer down and hurled him backwards with his spear. In a word, this work was of such a kind that he won for it, and rightly, a most honourable reward from that King. He made portraits of Beatrice of Ferrara and other ladies, and in particular that of his own mistress, with an endless number of others. Raffaello was a very amorous person, delighting much in women, and ever ready to serve them; which was the reason that, in the pursuit of his carnal pleasures, he found his friends more complacent and indulgent towards him than perchance was right. Wherefore, when his dear friend Agostino Chigi commissioned him to paint the first loggia in his palace, Raffaello was not able to give much attention to his work, on account of the love that he had for his mistress; at which Agostino fell into such despair, that he so contrived by means of others, by himself, and in other ways, as to bring it about, although only with difficulty, that this lady should come to live continually with Raffaello in that part of the house where he was working; and in this manner the work was brought to completion. For this work he made all the cartoons, and he coloured many of the figures in fresco with his own hand. And on the ceiling he made the Council of the Gods in Heaven, wherein, in the forms of the Gods, are seen many vestments and lineaments copied from the antique, and executed with very beautiful grace and draughtsmanship. In like manner he made the Marriage of Psyche, with ministers serving Jove, and the Graces scattering flowers over the table. In the spandrels of the vaulting he executed many scenes, in one of which is Mercury with his flute, who, as he flies, has all the appearance of descending from Heaven; and in another is Jove with an air of celestial dignity, kissing Ganymede; and in another, likewise, lower down, is the Car of Venus, and the Graces, with Mercury, drawing Psyche up to Heaven; with many other scenes from the poets in the other spandrels. And in the spherical triangles of the vaulting above the arches, between the spandrels, are many most beautiful little boys in foreshortening, hovering in the air and carrying all the instruments of the gods; Jove's lightnings and thunderbolts, the helmet, sword, and shield of Mars, Vulcan's hammers, the club and lion-skin of Hercules, the caduceus of Mercury, Pan's pipes, and the agricultural rakes of Vertumnus. All are accompanied by animals appropriate to their character; and the whole work, both as picture and as poem, is truly beautiful. Round these scenes he caused Giovanni da Udine to make a border of all kinds of flowers, foliage, and fruits, in festoons, which are as beautiful as they could be. Raffaello made the designs for the architecture of the stables of the Chigi, and the design for the chapel of the aforesaid Agostino in S. Maria del Popolo, wherein, besides painting it, he made arrangements for the erection of a marvellous tomb, causing Lorenzetto, a sculptor of Florence, to execute two figures, which are still in his house in the Macello de' Corbi at Rome; but the death of Raffaello, followed by that of Agostino, brought it about that this work was given to Sebastiano Viniziano. Meanwhile Raffaello had risen to such greatness, that Leo X ordained that he should set to work on the Great Hall on the upper floor, wherein are the Victories of Constantine; and with this he made a beginning. A fancy likewise took the Pope to have some very rich tapestries made in gold and floss-silk; whereupon Raffaello drew and coloured with his own hand, of the exact form and size, all the cartoons, which were sent to Flanders to be woven; and the tapestries, when finished, were brought to Rome. This work was executed so marvellously, that it arouses astonishment in whoever beholds it, wondering how it could have been possible to weave the hair and beards in such detail, and to give softness to the flesh with mere threads; and it is truly rather a miracle than the work of human art, seeing that in these tapestries are animals, water, and buildings, all made in such a way that they seem to be not woven, but really wrought with the brush. The work cost 70,000 crowns, and it is still preserved in the Papal Chapel. For Cardinal Colonna he painted a S. John on canvas, for which, on account of its beauty, that Cardinal had an extraordinary love; but happening to be attacked by illness, he was asked by Messer Jacopo da Carpi, the physician who cured him, to give it to him as a present; and because of this desire of Messer Jacopo, to whom he felt himself very deeply indebted, he gave it up. It is now in the possession of Francesco Benintendi, in Florence. [Illustration: THE TRANSFIGURATION (_After the panel by =Raffaello da Urbino=. Rome: The Vatican_) _Anderson_] For Giulio de' Medici, Cardinal and Vice-Chancellor, he painted a panel-picture, to be sent into France, of the Transfiguration of Christ, at which he laboured without ceasing, and brought it to the highest perfection with his own hand. In this scene he represented Christ Transfigured on Mount Tabor, at the foot of which are the eleven Disciples awaiting Him. There may be seen a young man possessed by a spirit, who has been brought thither in order that Christ, after descending from the mountain, may deliver him; which young man stretches himself out in a distorted attitude, crying and rolling his eyes, and reveals his suffering in his flesh, his veins, and the beat of his pulse, all infected by that malignant spirit; and the colour of his flesh, as he makes those violent and fearsome gestures, is very pale. This figure is supported by an old man, who, having embraced him and taken heart, with his eyes wide open and the light shining in them, is raising his brows and wrinkling his forehead, showing at one and the same time both strength and fear; gazing intently, however, at the Apostles, he appears to be encouraging himself by trusting in them. Among many women is one, the principal figure in that panel, who, having knelt down before the Apostles, and turning her head towards them, stretches her arms in the direction of the maniac and points out his misery; besides which the Apostles, some standing, some seated, and others kneeling, show that they are moved to very great compassion by such misfortune. And, indeed, he made therein figures and heads so fine in their novelty and variety, to say nothing of their extraordinary beauty, that it is the common opinion of all craftsmen that this work, among the vast number that he painted, is the most glorious, the most lovely, and the most divine. For whoever wishes to know how Christ Transfigured and made Divine should be represented in painting, must look at this work, wherein Raffaello made Him in perspective over that mount, in a sky of exceeding brightness, with Moses and Elias, who, illumined by a dazzling splendour, burst into life in His light. Prostrate on the ground, in attitudes of great beauty and variety, are Peter, James, and John; one has his head to the earth, and another, shading his eyes with his hands, is defending himself from the rays and intense light of the splendour of Christ. He, clothed in snow-white raiment, with His arms outstretched and His head raised, appears to reveal the Divine essence and nature of all the Three Persons united and concentrated in Himself by the perfect art of Raffaello, who seems to have summoned up all his powers in such a manner, in order to show the supreme force of his art in the countenance of Christ, that, after finishing this, the last work that he was to do, he never again touched a brush, being overtaken by death. [Illustration: RAFFAELLO DA URBINO: THE THREE GRACES (_Chantilly, 38. Panel_)] Now, having described the works of this most excellent craftsman, before I come to relate other particulars of his life and death, I do not wish to grudge the labour of saying something, for the benefit of the men of our arts, about the various manners of Raffaello. He, then, after having imitated in his boyhood the manner of his master, Pietro Perugino, which he made much better in draughtsmanship, colouring, and invention, believed that he had done enough; but he recognized, when he had reached a riper age, that he was still too far from the truth. For, after seeing the works of Leonardo da Vinci, who had no peer in the expressions of heads both of men and of women, and surpassed all other painters in giving grace and movement to his figures, he was left marvelling and amazed; and in a word, the manner of Leonardo pleasing him more than any other that he had ever seen, he set himself to study it, and abandoning little by little, although with great difficulty, the manner of Pietro, he sought to the best of his power and knowledge to imitate that of Leonardo. But for all his diligence and study, in certain difficulties he was never able to surpass Leonardo; and although it appears to many that he did surpass him in sweetness and in a kind of natural facility, nevertheless he was by no means superior to him in that sublime groundwork of conceptions and that grandeur of art in which few have been the peers of Leonardo. Yet Raffaello came very near to him, more than any other painter, and above all in grace of colouring. But to return to Raffaello himself; in time he found himself very much hindered and impeded by the manner that he had adopted from Pietro when he was quite young, which he acquired with ease, since it was over-precise, dry, and feeble in draughtsmanship. His being unable to forget it was the reason that he had great difficulty in learning the beauties of the nude and the methods of difficult foreshortenings from the cartoon that Michelagnolo Buonarroti made for the Council Hall in Florence; and another might have lost heart, believing that he had been previously wasting his time, and would never have achieved, however lofty his genius, what Raffaello accomplished. But he, having purged himself of Pietro's manner, and having thoroughly freed himself of it, in order to learn the manner of Michelagnolo, so full of difficulties in every part, was changed, as it were, from a master once again into a disciple; and he forced himself with incredible study, when already a man, to do in a few months what might have called for the tender age at which all things are best acquired, and for a space of many years. For in truth he who does not learn in good time right principles and the manner that he wishes to follow, and does not proceed little by little to solve the difficulties of the arts by means of experience, seeking to understand every part, and to put it into practice, can scarcely ever become perfect; and even if he does, that can only be after a longer space of time and much greater labour. When Raffaello resolved to set himself to change and improve his manner, he had never given his attention to nudes with that zealous study which is necessary, and had only drawn them from life in the manner that he had seen practised by his master Pietro, imparting to them the grace that he had from nature. He then devoted himself to studying the nude and to comparing the muscles of anatomical subjects and of flayed human bodies with those of the living, which, being covered with skin, are not clearly defined, as they are when the skin has been removed; and going on to observe in what way they acquire the softness of flesh in the proper places, and how certain graceful flexures are produced by changing the point of view, and also the effect of inflating, lowering, or raising either a limb or the whole person, and likewise the concatenation of the bones, nerves, and veins, he became excellent in all the points that are looked for in a painter of eminence. Knowing, however, that in this respect he could never attain to the perfection of Michelagnolo, he reflected, like a man of supreme judgment, that painting does not consist only in representing the nude human form, but has a wider field; that one can enumerate among the perfect painters those who express historical inventions well and with facility, and who show fine judgment in their fancies; and that he who, in the composition of scenes, can make them neither confused with too much detail nor poor with too little, but distributed with beautiful invention and order, may also be called an able and judicious craftsman. To this, as Raffaello was well aware, may be added the enriching those scenes with a bizarre variety of perspectives, buildings, and landscapes, the method of clothing figures gracefully, the making them fade away sometimes in the shadows, and sometimes come forward into the light, the imparting of life and beauty to the heads of women, children, young men and old, and the giving them movement and boldness, according to necessity. He considered, also, how important is the furious flight of horses in battles, fierceness in soldiers, the knowledge how to depict all the sorts of animals, and above all the power to give such resemblance to portraits that they seem to be alive, and that it is known whom they represent; with an endless number of other things, such as the adornment of draperies, foot-wear, helmets, armour, women's head-dresses, hair, beards, vases, trees, grottoes, rocks, fires, skies turbid or serene, clouds, rain, lightning, clear weather, night, the light of the moon, the splendour of the sun, and innumerable other things, which are called for every moment by the requirements of the art of painting. Pondering over these things, I say, Raffaello resolved, since he could not approach Michelagnolo in that branch of art to which he had set his hand, to seek to equal, and perchance to surpass him, in these others; and he devoted himself, therefore, not to imitating the manner of that master, but to the attainment of a catholic excellence in the other fields of art that have been described. And if the same had been done by many craftsmen of our own age, who, having determined to pursue the study of Michelagnolo's works alone, have failed to imitate him and have not been able to reach his extraordinary perfection, they would not have laboured in vain nor acquired a manner so hard, so full of difficulty, wanting in beauty and colouring, and poor in invention, but would have been able, by aiming at catholicity and at imitation in the other fields of art, to render service both to themselves and to the world. Raffaello, then, having made this resolution, and having recognized that Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco had a passing good method of painting, well-grounded draughtsmanship, and a pleasing manner of colouring, although at times, in order to obtain stronger relief, he made too much use of darks, took from him what appeared to him to suit his need and his fancy--namely, a middle course, both in drawing and in colouring; and mingling with that method certain others selected from the best work of other masters, out of many manners he made one, which was looked upon ever afterwards as his own, and which was and always will be vastly esteemed by all craftsmen. This was then seen perfected in the Sibyls and Prophets of the work that he executed, as has been related, in S. Maria della Pace; in the carrying out of which work he was greatly assisted by having seen the paintings of Michelagnolo in the Chapel of the Pope. And if Raffaello had remained content with this same manner, and had not sought to give it more grandeur and variety in order to prove that he had as good a knowledge of the nude as Michelagnolo, he would not have lost a part of the good name that he had acquired; but the nudes that he made in that apartment of the Borgia Tower where there is the Burning of the Borgo, although they are fine, are not in every way excellent. In like manner, those that were painted likewise by him on the ceiling of the Palace of Agostino Chigi in the Trastevere did not give complete satisfaction, for they are wanting in that grace and sweetness which were peculiar to Raffaello; the reason of which, in great part, was the circumstance that he had them coloured by others after his design. However, repenting of this error, like a man of judgment, he resolved afterwards to execute by himself, without assistance from others, the panel-picture of the Transfiguration of Christ that is in S. Pietro a Montorio, wherein are all those qualities which, as has already been described, are looked for and required in a good picture. And if he had not employed in this work, as it were from caprice, printer's smoke-black, the nature of which, as has been remarked many times, is to become ever darker with time, to the injury of the other colours with which it is mixed, I believe that the picture would still be as fresh as when he painted it; whereas it now appears to be rather a mass of shadows than aught else. I have thought fit, almost at the close of this Life, to make this discourse, in order to show with what labour, study, and diligence this honoured craftsman always pursued his art; and even more for the sake of other painters, to the end that they may learn how to avoid those hindrances from which the wisdom and genius of Raffaello were able to deliver him. I must add this as well, that every man should be satisfied and contented with doing that work to which he feels himself drawn by a natural inclination, and should not seek, out of emulation, to put his hand to that for which nature has not adapted him; for otherwise he will labour in vain, and often to his own shame and loss. Moreover, where striving is enough, no man should aim at super-striving,[27] merely in order to surpass those who, by some great gift of nature, or by some special grace bestowed on them by God, have performed or are performing miracles in art; for the reason that he who is not suited to any particular work, can never reach, let him labour as he may, the goal to which another, with the assistance of nature, has attained with ease. Of this, among the old craftsmen, we may see an example in Paolo Uccello, who, striving against the limitations of his powers, in order to advance, did nothing but go backwards. The same has been done in our own day, no long time since, by Jacopo da Pontormo, and it has been proved by the experience of many others, as we have shown before and will point out yet again. And this, perchance, happens because Heaven always distributes its favours, to the end that every man may rest content with that which falls to him. But now, having discoursed on these matters of art, perchance at greater length than was needful, let us return to the life and death of Raffaello. He had a strait friendship with Cardinal Bernardo Divizio of Bibbiena, who had importuned him for many years to take a wife of his choosing; and Raffaello, while not directly refusing to obey the wishes of the Cardinal, had yet put the matter off, saying that he would rather wait till three or four years had passed. This term came upon Raffaello when he was not expecting it, and he was reminded by the Cardinal of his promise; whereupon, seeing himself bound, like the courteous man that he was, he would not break his word, and thus accepted as his wife a niece of that Cardinal. And because he was always very ill content with this entanglement, he continued to delay the matter in such a way that many months passed without the marriage being brought to pass. But it was with no dishonourable motive that he did this, for, having been so many years in the service of the Court, and being the creditor of Leo for a good sum, it had been hinted to him that when the hall on which he was engaged was finished, the Pope proposed to reward him for his labours and abilities by giving him a red hat, of which he had already determined to distribute a good number, and some of them to men of less merit than Raffaello. Meanwhile, pursuing his amours in secret, Raffaello continued to divert himself beyond measure with the pleasures of love; whence it happened that, having on one occasion indulged in more than his usual excess, he returned to his house in a violent fever. The physicians, therefore, believing that he had overheated himself, and receiving from him no confession of the excess of which he had been guilty, imprudently bled him, insomuch that he was weakened and felt himself sinking; for he was in need rather of restoratives. Thereupon he made his will: and first, like a good Christian, he sent his mistress out of the house, leaving her the means to live honourably. Next, he divided his possessions among his disciples, Giulio Romano, whom he had always loved dearly, and the Florentine Giovanni Francesco, called Il Fattore, with a priest of Urbino, his kinsman, whose name I do not know. Then he gave orders that some of his wealth should be used for restoring with new masonry one of the ancient tabernacles in S. Maria Ritonda, and for making an altar, with a marble statue of Our Lady, in that church, which he chose as his place of repose and burial after death; and he left all the rest to Giulio and Giovanni Francesco, appointing as executor of his will Messer Baldassarre da Pescia, then Datary to the Pope. Finally, he confessed and was penitent, and ended the course of his life at the age of thirty-seven, on the same day that he was born, which was Good Friday. And even as he embellished the world with his talents, so, it may be believed, does his soul adorn Heaven by its presence. As he lay dead in the hall where he had been working, there was placed at his head the picture of the Transfiguration, which he had executed for Cardinal de' Medici; and the sight of that living picture, in contrast with the dead body, caused the hearts of all who beheld it to burst with sorrow. That work, in memory of the loss of Raffaello, was placed by the Cardinal on the high-altar of S. Pietro a Montorio; and on account of the nobility of his every action, it was held ever afterwards in great estimation. His body received that honourable burial which his noble spirit had deserved, for there was no craftsman who did not weep with sorrow and follow him to the grave. His death was also a great grief to the whole Court of the Pope, first because he had held in his lifetime the office of Groom of the Chamber, and likewise because he had been so dear to the Pope that his loss caused him to weep bitterly. [Illustration: RAFAELLO SANZIO: BALDASSARE CASTIGLIONE (_Paris: Louvre, 1505. Canvas_)] O happy and blessed spirit, in that every man is glad to speak of thee, to celebrate thy actions, and to admire every drawing that thou didst leave to us! When this noble craftsman died, the art of painting might well have died also, seeing that when he closed his eyes, she was left as it were blind. And now for us who have survived him, it remains to imitate the good, nay, the supremely excellent method bequeathed to us by him as a pattern, and, as is called for by his merit and our obligations, to hold a most grateful remembrance of this in our minds, and to pay the highest honour to his memory with our lips. For in truth we have from him art, colouring, and invention harmonized and brought to such a pitch of perfection as could scarcely be hoped for; nor may any intellect ever think to surpass him. And in addition to this benefit that he conferred on art, like a true friend to her, as long as he lived he never ceased to show how one should deal with great men, with those of middle station, and with the lowest. And, indeed, among his extraordinary gifts, I perceive one of such value that I for my part am amazed at it, in that Heaven gave him the power to produce in our art an effect wholly contrary to the nature of us painters, which was that our craftsmen--I do not mean only the lesser, but also those whose humour it was to be great persons; and of this humour art creates a vast number--while working in company with Raffaello, felt themselves naturally united and in such accord, that all evil humours vanished at the sight of him, and every vile and base thought fell away from their minds. Such unity was never greater at any other time than his; and this happened because they were overcome both by his courtesy and by his art, and even more by the good disposition of his nature, which was so full of gentleness and so overflowing with loving-kindness, that it was seen that the very animals, not to speak of men, honoured him. It is said that if any painter who knew him, and even any who did not know him, asked him for some drawing that he needed, Raffaello would leave his own work in order to assist him. And he always kept a vast number of them employed, aiding them and teaching them with such a love as might have been the due rather of his own children than of fellow-craftsmen; for which reason he was never seen to go to Court without having with him, as he left his house, some fifty painters, all able and excellent, who kept him company in order to do him honour. In short, he lived not like a painter, but like a prince. Wherefore, O art of painting, thou couldst then esteem thyself indeed most blessed, in possessing a craftsman who, both with his genius and his virtues, exalted thee higher than Heaven! Truly happy mightest thou call thyself, in that thy disciples, following in the footsteps of so great a man, have seen how life should be lived, and how important is the union of art and virtue, which, wedded in Raffaello, had strength to prevail on the magnificent Julius II and the magnanimous Leo X, exalted as they were in rank and dignity, to make him their most intimate friend and show him all possible generosity, insomuch that by their favour and by the wealth that they bestowed upon him, he was enabled to do vast honour both to himself and to art. Blessed, also, may be called all those who, employed in his service, worked under him, since whoever imitated him found that he had reached an honourable haven; and in like manner all those who imitate his labours in art will be honoured by the world, even as, by resembling him in uprightness of life, they will win rewards from Heaven. Raffaello received from Bembo the following epitaph: D. O. M. RAPHAELLI SANCTIO JOAN. F. URBINAT. PICTORI EMINENTISS. VETERUMQUE ÆMULO, CUJUS SPIRANTEIS PROPE IMAGINEIS SI CONTEMPLERE, NATURÆ ATQUE ARTIS FOEDUS FACILE INSPEXERIS. JULII II ET LEONIS X PONTT. MAXX. PICTURÆ ET ARCHITECT. OPERIBUS GLORIAM AUXIT. VIXIT AN. XXXVII, INTEGER, INTEGROS. QUO DIE NATUS EST, EO ESSE DESIIT, VIII ID. APRIL. MDXX. ILLE HIC EST RAPHAEL, TIMUIT QUO SOSPITE VINCI RERUM MAGNA PARENS, ET MORIENTE MORI. And Count Baldassarre Castiglione wrote of his death in the following manner: Quod lacerum corpus medica sanaverit arte, Hyppolitum Stygiis et revocarit aquis, Ad Stygias ipse est raptus Epidaurius undas; Sic precium vitæ mors fuit artifici. Tu quoque dum toto laniatam corpore Romam Componis miro, Raphael, ingenio, Atque urbis lacerum ferro, igni, annisque cadaver, Ad vitam antiquum jam revocasque decus, Movisti superum invidiam, indignataque mors est Te dudum extinctis reddere posse animam, Et quod longa dies paulatim aboleverat, hoc te Mortali spreta lege parare iterum. Sic, miser, heu, prima cadis intercepte juventa, Deberi et morti nostraque nosque mones. FOOTNOTE: [23] In the Life of Pinturicchio, Vasari says that this commission was given to Pinturicchio by Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, who afterwards became Pope Pius III. [24] The text reads Palazzo, which is obviously an error for Papa. [25] This seems to be an error for Bartolommeo. [26] Villa Madama. [27] The use of this word, though perhaps too modern, seems to the translator to be the only way to preserve the play of words in the text. GUGLIELMO DA MARCILLA LIFE OF GUGLIELMO DA MARCILLA [_GUILLAUME DE MARCILLAC, OR THE FRENCH PRIOR_] FRENCH PAINTER AND MASTER OF GLASS WINDOWS At this same time, wherein our arts were endowed by God with the greatest felicity that they could possibly enjoy, there flourished one Guglielmo da Marcilla, a Frenchman, who, from his constant residence in Arezzo, and from the affection that he bore to that city, may be said to have chosen it for his country, insomuch that all men considered and called him an Aretine. And, in truth, among the benefits that are derived from ability, one is that from whatever strange and distant region and from however barbarous and unknown a race a man may come, be he who he may, if only he has a mind adorned with ability and practises some ingenious craft with his hands, no sooner does he make his first appearance in each city to which he turns his steps, demonstrating his worth, than the skill of his hand works so powerfully, that his name, passing from lip to lip, in a short time waxes great, and his qualities become very highly prized and honoured. And it happens often to a great number of men, who have left their country far behind them, that they chance upon nations that are lovers of ability and of foreigners, where, by reason of their upright walk of life, they find themselves recognized and cherished in such a manner, that they forget the country of their birth and choose a new one for their last resting-place. Even so was Arezzo chosen as a final home by Guglielmo, who, as a youth in France, applied himself to the art of design, and together with that gave attention to glass windows, in which he made figures no less harmonious in colouring than if they had been painted with the greatest beauty and harmony in oils. While in his own country, persuaded by the entreaties of certain of his friends, he was present at the slaying of one who was their enemy: on which account he was forced to assume the habit of a monk in the Order of S. Dominic in France, in order to escape the courts and the hand of justice. But although he remained in that Order, yet he never abandoned the study of art; nay, continuing it, he arrived at the highest perfection. Now, by order of Pope Julius II, a commission was given to Bramante da Urbino to have a number of glass windows made for the Palace; whereupon he, making inquiries about the most excellent craftsmen, received information of many who were working at that craft, and among them of some who were executing marvellous works in France; and of these he saw a specimen through the French Ambassador who was then at the Court of his Holiness, and who had in the frame of a window in his study a figure executed on a piece of white glass with a vast number of colours, fixed on the glass by the action of fire. Wherefore, by order of Bramante, a letter was written to France, inviting them to come to Rome, and offering them good payments. Thereupon Maestro Claudio, a Frenchman, the head of that art, having received the intelligence, and knowing the excellence of Guglielmo, so went to work with money and fair promises, that it was no difficult matter to draw him out of the convent, particularly because Guglielmo, on account of the discourtesy shown to him and the jealousies that there always are among monks, was even more eager to leave it than was Maestro Claudio to get him out. They went, therefore, to Rome, where the habit of S. Dominic was changed for that of S. Peter. Bramante at that time had caused two windows of travertine to be made in the Palace of the Pope, which were in the hall in front of the chapel, now embellished by a vaulted ceiling by Antonio da San Gallo, and by marvellous stucco-work from the hand of Perino del Vaga of Florence. These windows were executed by Maestro Claudio and Guglielmo, although afterwards, during the sack of Rome, they were broken to pieces, in order to extract the lead to make harquebus-balls; and they were truly marvellous. In addition to these, they made an endless number of them for the apartments of the Pope, which met with the same fate as the other two. And even now there is one to be seen in the room containing Raffaello's Burning of the Borgo, in the Borgia Tower; in which are angels who are holding the escutcheon of Leo X. They also made two windows for the chapel behind the Madonna in S. Maria del Popolo, with the stories of her life, which were highly praiseworthy examples of that craft. These works brought them no less fame and renown than comfort in life. But Maestro Claudio, being very intemperate in eating and drinking, according to the custom of his race, which is a deadly thing in the air of Rome, fell sick of so violent a fever, that in six days he passed to the other life. Whereupon Guglielmo, left alone, and almost like one lost without his companion, painted by himself a window, likewise of glass, in S. Maria de Anima, the church of the Germans in Rome; which was the reason that Cardinal Silvio of Cortona made him an offer, and made a contract with him that he should execute some windows and other works in his native city of Cortona. Wherefore the Cardinal took him in his company to take up his abode in Cortona; and the first work that he executed was the façade of the Cardinal's house on the side towards the Piazza, which he painted in chiaroscuro, depicting therein Croton and the other original founders of that city. Thereupon the Cardinal, who saw that Guglielmo was no less upright as a man than excellent as a master of that art, caused him to execute, for the Pieve of Cortona, the window of the principal chapel, in which he made the Nativity of Christ and the Magi adoring Him. Guglielmo was a man of fine spirit and intelligence, and of very great mastery in handling glass, and particularly in so distributing the colours that the brightest should come in the foremost figures, those in the other figures being darker in proportion as they receded; in which point he was a rare and truly excellent master. Moreover, he showed very good judgment in the painting of his figures; whereby he executed them with such unity, that they fell back into the distance little by little, in such a way that they did not cling either to the buildings or to the landscapes, and had the appearance of being painted on panel, or rather in relief. He showed invention and variety in the composition of scenes, making them rich and well grouped; and he rendered easy the process of making such pictures as are put together out of pieces of glass, which was held to be very difficult, as indeed it is for one who has not his skill and dexterity. He designed the pictures for his windows with such good method and order, that the mountings of lead and iron, which cross them in certain places, were so well fitted into the joinings of the figures and the folds of the draperies, that they cannot be seen--nay, they gave the whole such grace, that the brush could not have done more--and thus he was able to make a virtue of necessity. Guglielmo used only two kinds of colour for the shading of such glass as he proposed to subject to the action of fire; one was scale of iron, and the other scale of copper. That of iron, which is dark, served to shade draperies, hair, and buildings; and the other, that of copper, which produces a tawny tint, served for flesh colours. He also made much use of a hard stone that comes from Flanders and France, called at the present day hematite, which is red in colour and is much employed for burnishing gold. This, having first been pounded in a bronze mortar, and then ground with an iron brazing instrument on a plate of copper or yellow brass, and tempered with gum, works divinely well on glass. When Guglielmo first arrived in Rome, he was no great draughtsman, although he was well practised in every other respect. But having recognized the need of this, he applied himself to the study of drawing, in spite of his being well advanced in years; and thus little by little he achieved the improvement that is evident in the windows that he afterwards made for the Palace of the said Cardinal at Cortona, and for the other without the city, in a round window that is in the aforesaid Pieve, over the façade, on the right hand as one enters the church, wherein are the arms of Pope Leo X, and likewise in two little windows that are in the Company of Gesù, in one of which is a Christ, and in the other a S. Onofrio. These are no little different from his early works, and much better. Now while Guglielmo, as has been related, was living in Cortona, there died at Arezzo one Fabiano di Stagio Sassoli, an Aretine, who had been a very good master of the making of large windows. Thereupon the Wardens of Works for the Vescovado gave the commission for three windows in the principal chapel, each twenty braccia in height, to Stagio, the son of the said Fabiano, and to the painter Domenico Pecori; but when these were finished and fixed in their places, they gave no great satisfaction to the Aretines, although they were passing good and rather worthy of praise than otherwise. It happened at this time that Messer Lodovico Belichini, an excellent physician, and one of the first men in the government of the city of Arezzo, went to Cortona to cure the mother of the aforesaid Cardinal; and there he became well acquainted with our Guglielmo, with whom, when he had time, he was very willing to converse. And Guglielmo, who was then called the Prior, from his having received about that time the benefice of a priory, likewise conceived an affection for that physician, who asked him one day whether, with the good will of the Cardinal, he would go to Arezzo to execute some windows; at which Guglielmo promised that he would, and with the permission and good will of the Cardinal he made his way to that city. Now Stagio, of whom we have spoken above, having parted from the company of Domenico, received Guglielmo into his house; and the latter, for his first work, executed for a window of the Chapel of S. Lucia, belonging to the Albergotti, in the Vescovado of Arezzo, that Saint and a S. Sylvester, in so good a manner that the work may truly be said to be made with living figures, and not of coloured and transparent glass, or at least to be a picture worthy of praise and marvellous. For besides the mastery shown in the flesh-colours, the glasses are flashed; that is, in some places the first skin has been removed, and the glass then coloured with another tint; by which is meant, for example, the placing of yellow over red flashed glass, or the application of white and green over blue; which is a difficult and even miraculous thing in this craft. The first or true colour, then, such as red, blue, or green, covers the whole of one side; and the other part, which is as thick as the blade of a knife, or a little more, is white. Many, being afraid that they might break the glasses, on account of their lack of skill in handling them, do not employ a pointed iron for removing that layer, but in place of this, for greater safety, set about grinding the glasses with a copper wheel fixed on the end of an iron instrument; and thus, little by little, by the use of emery, they contrive to leave only a layer of white glass, which turns out very clear. Then, if a yellow colour has to be applied to the piece of glass thus left white, at the moment when it is to be placed into the furnace for firing, it is painted by means of a brush with calcined silver, which is a colour similar to bole, but somewhat thick; and in the fire this melts over the glass, fuses, and takes a firm hold, penetrating into the glass and making a very beautiful yellow. These methods of working no one used better, or with more ingenuity and art, than Prior Guglielmo; and it is in these things that the difficulty consists, for painting the glass with oil-colours or in any other manner is little or nothing, and that it should be diaphanous or transparent is not a matter of much importance, whereas firing it in the furnace and making it such that it will withstand the action of water and remain fresh for ever, is a difficult work and well worthy of praise. Wherefore this excellent master deserves the highest praise, since there is not a man of his profession who has done as much, whether in design, or invention, or colouring, or general excellence. He then made the great round-window of the same church, containing the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and likewise the Baptism of Christ by S. John, wherein he represented Christ in the Jordan, awaiting S. John, who has taken a cup of water in order to baptize Him, while a nude old man is taking off his shoes, and some angels are preparing Christ's raiment, and on high is the Father, sending down the Holy Spirit upon His Son. This window is over the baptismal font of that Duomo, for which he also executed the window containing the Resurrection of Lazarus on the fourth day after death; wherein it seems impossible that he could have included in so small a space such a number of figures, in which may be recognized the terror and amazement of the people, with the stench from the body of Lazarus, whose resurrection causes his two sisters to rejoice amid their tears. In this work are innumerable colours, flashed one over the other in the glass, and every least thing truly appears most natural in its own kind. And whoever wishes to learn how much the hand of the Prior was able to effect in this art, should study the window of S. Matthew over the Chapel of that Apostle, and observe the marvellous invention of that scene, wherein he can see a living figure of Christ calling Matthew from his tables, while Matthew, following Him and stretching out his arms to receive Him, abandons the riches and treasures that he has acquired. And at the same time an Apostle may be seen in a very spirited attitude, awaking another who has fallen asleep on some steps; and in like manner there may also be perceived a S. Peter speaking with S. John, both being so beautiful that they seem truly divine. In this same window are temples in perspective, staircases, and figures so well grouped, and landscapes so natural, that one would never think it was glass, but rather a thing rained down from Heaven for the consolation of mankind. In the same place he made the window of S. Anthony and that of S. Nicholas, both most beautiful, with two others, one containing the scene of Christ driving the traders from the Temple, and the other that of the woman taken in adultery; all these works being held to be truly excellent and marvellous. So fully were the labours and abilities of the Prior recognized by the Aretines, what with praises, favours, and rewards, and so satisfied and contented was he by this result, that he resolved to adopt that city as his home, and to change himself from a Frenchman into an Aretine. Afterwards, reflecting in his own mind that the art of glass-painting, on account of the destruction that takes place every moment in such works, was no lasting one, there came to him a desire to devote himself to painting, and he therefore undertook to execute for the Wardens of Works of the Vescovado in that city three very large vaults in fresco, thinking thus to leave a memorial of himself behind him. The Aretines, in return for this, presented to him a farm that belonged to the Confraternity of S. Maria della Misericordia, near their city, with some excellent houses, for his enjoyment during his lifetime. And they ordained that when the work was finished, its value should be estimated by some distinguished craftsman, and that the Wardens should make this good to him in full. Whereupon he made up his mind to show his worth in this undertaking, and he made his figures very large on account of the height, after the manner of the works in Michelagnolo's chapel. And so mightily did his wish to become excellent in such an art avail in him, that although he was fifty years of age, he improved little by little in such a manner, that he showed that his knowledge and comprehension of the beautiful were not less than his delight in imitating the good in the execution of his work. He went on to represent the earlier events of the New Testament, even as in the three large works he had depicted the beginning of the Old. For this reason, therefore, I am inclined to believe that any man of genius who has the desire to attain to perfection, is able, if he will but take the pains, to make naught of the limits of any science. At the beginning of those works, indeed, he was alarmed by their size, and because he had never executed any before; which was the reason that he sent to Rome for Maestro Giovanni, a French miniaturist, who, coming to Arezzo, painted over S. Antonio an arch with a Christ in fresco, and for that Company the banner that is carried in processions, which he executed with great diligence, having received the commission for them from the Prior. At the same time Guglielmo made the round window for the façade of the Church of S. Francesco, a great work, in which he represented the Pope in Consistory, with the Conclave of Cardinals, and S. Francis going to Rome for the confirmation of his Rule and bearing the roses of January. In this work he proved what a master of composition he was, so that it may be said with truth that he was born for that profession; nor may any craftsman ever think to equal him in beauty, in abundance of figures, or in grace. There are innumerable windows executed by him throughout that city, all most beautiful, such as the great round window in the Madonna delle Lacrime, containing the Assumption of Our Lady and the Apostles, and a very beautiful window with an Annunciation; a round window with the Marriage of the Virgin, and another containing a S. Jerome executed for the Spadari, and likewise three other windows below, in various parts of the church; with a most beautiful round window with the Nativity of Christ in the Church of S. Girolamo, and another in S. Rocco. He sent some, also, to various places, such as Castiglione del Lago, and one to Florence for Lodovico Capponi, to be set up in S. Felicita, where there is the panel by Jacopo da Pontormo, a most excellent painter, and the chapel adorned by him with mural paintings in oils and in fresco and with panel-pictures; which window came into the hands of the Frati Ingesuati in Florence, who worked at that craft, and they took it all to pieces in order to learn how it was made, removing many pieces as specimens and replacing them with new ones, so that in the end they made quite a different window. He also conceived the wish to paint in oils, and for the Chapel of the Conception in S. Francesco at Arezzo he executed a panel-picture wherein are some vestments very well painted, and many heads most lifelike, and so beautiful that he was honoured thereby ever afterwards, seeing that this was the first work that he had ever done in oils. The Prior was a very honourable person, and delighted in agriculture and in making alterations in buildings; wherefore, having bought a most beautiful house, he made in it a vast number of improvements. As a man of religion, he was always most upright in his ways; and the remorse of conscience, on account of his departure from his convent, kept him sorely afflicted. For which reason he made a very beautiful window for the Chapel of the High-altar in S. Domenico, a convent of his Order at Arezzo; wherein he depicted a vine that issues from the body of S. Dominic and embraces a great number of sanctified friars, who constitute the tree of the Order; and at the highest point is Our Lady, with Christ, who is marrying S. Catherine of Siena--a work much extolled and of great mastery, for which he would accept no payment, believing himself to be much indebted to that Order. He sent a very beautiful window to S. Lorenzo in Perugia, and an endless number of others to many places round Arezzo. And because he took much pleasure in matters of architecture, he made for the citizens of that country a number of designs of buildings and adornments for their city, such as the two doors of S. Rocco in stone, and the ornament of grey-stone that was added to the panel-picture of Maestro Luca in S. Girolamo; and he designed an ornament in the Abbey of Cipriano d' Anghiari, and another for the Company of the Trinità in the Chapel of the Crocifisso, and a very rich lavatory for the sacristy; which were all executed with great perfection by the stone-cutter Santi. Finally, ever delighting in labour, and continually working both winter and summer at his mural painting, which breaks down the healthiest of men, he became so afflicted by the damp and so swollen with dropsy, that his physicians had to tap him, and in a few days he rendered up his soul to Him who had given it. First, like a good Christian, he partook of the Sacraments of the Church, and made his will. Then, having a particular devotion for the Hermits of Camaldoli, who have their seat on the summit of the Apennines, twenty miles distant from Arezzo, he bequeathed to them his property and his body, and to Pastorino da Siena, his assistant, who had been with him many years, he left his glasses, his working-instruments, and his designs, of which there is one in our book, a scene of the Submersion of Pharaoh in the Red Sea. This Pastorino afterwards applied himself to many other fields of art, and also to glass windows, although the works that he produced in that craft were but few. Guglielmo was much imitated, also, by one Maso Porro of Cortona, who was more able in firing and putting together the glass than in painting it. One of the pupils of Guglielmo was Battista Borro of Arezzo, who continues to imitate him greatly in the making of windows; and he also taught the first rudiments to Benedetto Spadari and to Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo. The Prior lived sixty-two years, and died in the year 1537. He deserves infinite praise, in that by him there was brought into Tuscany the art of working in glass with the greatest mastery and delicacy that could be desired. Wherefore, since he conferred such great benefits upon us, we also will pay him honour, exalting him continually with loving and unceasing praise both for his life and for his works. SIMONE LIFE OF SIMONE, CALLED IL CRONACA [_SIMONE DEL POLLAIUOLO_] ARCHITECT OF FLORENCE Many intellects are lost that would make rare and worthy works, if, on coming into the world, they were to hit upon persons able and willing to set them to work on those labours for which they are fitted. But it often happens that he who has the means is neither capable nor willing; and if, indeed, there chances to be one willing to erect some worthy building, he often takes no manner of care to seek out an architect of real merit or of any loftiness of spirit. Nay, he puts his honour and glory into the keeping of certain thievish creatures, who generally disgrace the name and fame of such memorials; and in order to thrust forward into greatness those who depend entirely upon him (so great is the power of ambition), he often rejects the good designs that are offered to him, and puts into execution the very worst; wherefore his own fame is left besmirched by the clumsiness of the work, since it is considered by all men of judgment that the craftsman and the patron who employs him, in that they are conjoined in their works, are of one and the same mind. And on the other hand, how many Princes of little understanding have there been, who, through having chanced upon persons of excellence and judgment, have obtained after death no less fame from the memory of their buildings than they enjoyed when alive from their sovereignty over their people. Truly fortunate, however, in his day, was Cronaca, in that he not only had the knowledge, but also found those who kept him continually employed, and that always on great and magnificent works. Of him it is related that while Antonio Pollaiuolo was in Rome, working at the tombs of bronze that are in S. Pietro, there came to his house a young lad, his relative, whose proper name was Simone, and who had fled from Florence on account of some brawl. This Simone, having worked with a master in woodwork, and being much inclined to the art of architecture, began to observe the beautiful antiquities of that city, and, delighting in them, went about measuring them with the greatest diligence. And, going on with this, he had not been long in Rome before he showed that he had made much proficience, both in taking measurements and in carrying one or two things into execution. Thereupon he conceived the idea of returning to Florence, and departed from Rome; and on arriving in his native city, having become a passing good master of words, he described the marvels of Rome and of other places with such accuracy, that from that time onwards he was called Il Cronaca, every man thinking that he was truly a chronicle of information in his discourse. Now he had become such that he was held to be the most excellent of the modern architects in the city of Florence, seeing that he had good judgment in choosing sites, and showed that he had an intellect more lofty than that of many others who were engaged in that profession; for it was evident from his works how good an imitator he was of antiquities, and how closely he had observed the rules of Vitruvius and the works of Filippo di Ser Brunellesco. [Illustration: DETAIL OF CORNICE (_After_ Simone [Il Cronaca], _Florence: Palazzo Strozzi_) _Alinari_] There was then in Florence that Filippo Strozzi who is now called "the elder," to distinguish him from his son; and he, being very rich, wished to leave to his native city and to his children, among other memorials of himself, one in the form of a beautiful palace. Wherefore Benedetto da Maiano, having been called upon by him for this purpose, made him a model entirely isolated, which was afterwards put into execution, although not in all its extent, as will be related below, for some of his neighbours would not give up their houses to accommodate him. Benedetto began the palace, therefore, in the best way that he could, and brought the outer shell almost to completion before the death of Filippo: which outer shell is in the Rustic Order, with varying degrees of rustication, as may be seen, since the boss-covered part from the first range of windows downwards, together with the doors, is very much Rustic, and the part from the first range of windows to the second is much less Rustic. Now it happened that at the very moment when Benedetto was leaving Florence, Cronaca returned from Rome; whereupon, Simone being presented to Filippo, the latter was so pleased with the model that he made for the courtyard and for the great cornice which goes round the outer side of the palace, that, having recognized the excellence of his intellect, he decided that thenceforward the whole work should pass through his hands, and availed himself of his services ever afterwards. Cronaca, then, in addition to the beautiful exterior in the Tuscan Order, made at the top a very magnificent Corinthian cornice, which serves to complete the roof; and half of it is seen finished at the present day, with such extraordinary grace that nothing could be added to it, nor could anything more beautiful be desired. This cornice was taken by Cronaca, who copied it in Rome with exact measurements, from an ancient one that is to be found at Spoglia Cristo, which is held to be the most beautiful among the many that are in that city; although it is true that it was enlarged by Cronaca to the proportions required by the palace, to the end that it might make a suitable finish, and might also complete the roof of that palace by means of its projection. Thus, then, the genius of Cronaca was able to make use of the works of others and to transform them almost into his own; which does not succeed with many, since the difficulty lies not in merely having drawings and copies of beautiful things, but in accommodating them to the purpose which they have to serve, with grace, true measurement, proportion, and fitness. But just as much as this cornice of Cronaca's was and always will be extolled, so was that one censured which was made for the Palace of the Bartolini in the same city by Baccio d' Agnolo, who, seeking to imitate Cronaca, placed over a small façade, delicate in detail, a great ancient cornice copied with the exact measurements from the frontispiece of Monte Cavallo; which resulted in such ugliness, from his not having known how to adapt it with judgment, that it could not look worse, for it seems like an enormous cap on a small head. It is not enough for craftsmen, when they have executed their works, to excuse themselves, as many do, by saying that they were taken with exact measurements from the antique and copied from good masters, seeing that good judgment and the eye play a greater part in all such matters than measuring with compasses. Cronaca, then, executed half of the said cornice with great art right round that palace, together with dentils and ovoli, and finished it completely on two sides, counterpoising the stones in such a way, in order that they might turn out well bound and balanced, that there is no better masonry to be seen, nor any carried to perfection with more diligence. In like manner, all the other stones are so well put together, and with so high a finish, that the whole does not appear to be of masonry, but rather all of one piece. And to the end that everything might be in keeping, he caused beautiful pieces of iron-work to be made for all parts of the palace, as adornments for it, and the lanterns that are at the corners, which were all executed with supreme diligence by Niccolò Grosso, called Il Caparra, a smith of Florence. In those marvellous lanterns may be seen cornices, columns, capitals, and brackets of iron, fixed together with wonderful craftsmanship; nor has any modern ever executed in iron works so large and so difficult, and with such knowledge and mastery. [Illustration: IRON LINK-HOLDER (_After_ Niccolò Grosso. _Florence: Palazzo Strozzi_) _Alinari_] Niccolò Grosso was an eccentric and self-willed person, claiming justice for himself and giving it to others, and never covetous of what was not his own. He would never give anyone credit in the payment of his works, and always insisted on having his earnest-money. For this reason Lorenzo de' Medici called him Il Caparra,[28] and he was known to many others by that name. He had a sign fixed over his shop, wherein were books burning; wherefore, when one asked for time to make his payment, he would say, "I cannot give it, for my books are burning, and I can enter no more debtors in them." He was commissioned by the honourable Captains of the Guelph party to make a pair of andirons, which, when he had finished them, were sent for several times. But he kept saying, "On this anvil do I sweat and labour, and on it will I have my money paid down." Whereupon they sent to him once more for the work, with a message that he should come for his money, for he would straightway be paid; but he, still obstinate, answered that they must first bring the money. The provveditore, therefore, knowing that the Captains wished to see the work, fell into a rage, and sent to him saying that he had received half the money, and that when he had dispatched the andirons, he would pay him the rest. On which account Caparra, recognizing that this was true, gave one of the andirons to the messenger, saying: "Take them this one, for it is theirs; and if it pleases them, bring me the rest of the money, and I will hand over the other; but at present it is mine." The officials, seeing the marvellous work that he had put into it, sent the money to his shop; and he sent them the other andiron. It is related, also, that Lorenzo de' Medici resolved to have some pieces of iron-work made, to be sent abroad as presents, in order that the excellence of Caparra might be made known. He went, therefore, to his shop, and happened to find him working at some things for certain poor people, from whom he had received part of the price as earnest-money. On Lorenzo making his request, Niccolò would in no way promise to serve him before having satisfied the others, saying that they had come to his shop before Lorenzo, and that he valued their money as much as his. To the same master some young men of the city brought a design, from which he was to make for them an iron instrument for breaking and forcing open other irons by means of a screw, but he absolutely refused to serve them; nay, he upbraided them, and said: "Nothing will induce me to serve you in such a matter; for these things are nothing but thieves' tools, or instruments for abducting and dishonouring young girls. Such things are not for me, I tell you, nor for you, who seem to me to be honest men." And they, perceiving that Caparra would not do their will, asked him who there was in Florence who might serve them; whereupon, flying into a rage, he drove them away with a torrent of abuse. He would never work for Jews, and was wont, indeed, to say that their money was putrid and stinking. He was a good man and a religious, but whimsical in brain and obstinate: and he would never leave Florence, for all the offers that were made to him, but lived and died in that city. Of him I have thought it right to make this record, because he was truly unique in his craft, and has never had and never will have an equal, as may be seen best from the iron-work and the beautiful lanterns of the Palace of the Strozzi. [Illustration: IRON LANTERN (_After_ Niccolò Grosso. _Florence: Palazzo Strozzi_) _Alinari_] This palace was brought to completion by Cronaca, and adorned with a very rich courtyard in the Corinthian and Doric Orders, with ornaments in the form of columns, capitals, cornices, windows, and doors, all most beautiful. And if it should appear to anyone that the interior of this palace is not in keeping with the exterior, he must know that the fault is not Cronaca's, for the reason that he was forced to adapt his interior to an outer shell begun by others, and to follow in great measure what had been laid down by those before him; and it was no small feat for him to have given it such beauty as it displays. The same answer may be made to any who say that the ascent of the stairs is not easy, nor correct in proportion, but too steep and sudden; and likewise, also, to such as say that the rooms and apartments of the interior in general are out of keeping, as has been described, with the grandeur and magnificence of the exterior. Nevertheless this palace will never be held as other than truly magnificent, and equal to any private building whatsoever that has been erected in Italy in our own times; wherefore Cronaca rightly obtained, as he still does, infinite commendation for this work. The same master built the Sacristy of S. Spirito in Florence, which is in the form of an octagonal temple, beautiful in proportions, and executed with a high finish; and among other things to be seen in this work are some capitals fashioned by the happy hand of Andrea dal Monte Sansovino, which are wrought with supreme perfection; and such, likewise, is the antechamber of that sacristy, which is held to be very beautiful in invention, although the coffered ceiling, as will be described, is not well distributed over the columns. The same Cronaca also erected the Church of S. Francesco dell' Osservanza on the hill of S. Miniato, without Florence; and likewise the whole of the Convent of the Servite Friars, which is a highly extolled work. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF SACRISTY (_After_ Simone [Il Cronaca]. _Florence: S. Spirito_) _Alinari_] At this same time there was about to be built, by the advice of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, a most famous preacher of that day, the Great Council Chamber of the Palace of the Signoria in Florence; and for this opinions were taken from Leonardo da Vinci, Michelagnolo Buonarroti, although he was a mere lad, Giuliano da San Gallo, Baccio d' Agnolo, and Simone del Pollaiuolo, called Il Cronaca, who was the devoted friend and follower of Savonarola. These men, after many disputes, came to an agreement, and decided that the Hall should be made in that form which it retained down to our own times, when, as has been mentioned and will be related yet again in another place, it was almost rebuilt. The charge of the whole work was given to Cronaca, as a man of talent and also as the friend of the aforesaid Fra Girolamo; and he executed it with great promptitude and diligence, showing the beauty of his genius particularly in the making of the roof, since the structure is of vast extent in every direction. He made the tie-beams of the roof-truss, which are thirty-eight braccia in length from wall to wall, of a number of timbers well scarfed and fastened together, since it was not possible to find beams of sufficient size for the purpose; and whereas the tie-beams of other roof-trusses have only one king-post, all those of this Hall have three each, a king-post in the middle, and a queen-post on either side. The rafters are long in proportion, and so are the struts of each king-post and queen-post; nor must I omit to say that the struts of the queen-posts, on the side nearest the wall, thrust against the rafters, and, towards the centre, against the struts of the king-post. I have thought it right to describe how this roof-truss is made, because it was constructed with beautiful design, and I have seen drawings made of it by many for sending to various places. When these tie-beams, thus contrived, had been drawn up and placed at intervals of six braccia, and the roof had been likewise laid down in a very short space of time, Cronaca attended to the fixing of the ceiling, which was then made of plain wood and divided into panels, each of which was four braccia square and surrounded by an ornamental cornice of few members; and a flat moulding was made of the same width as the planks, which enclosed the panels and the whole work, with large bosses at the intersections and the corners of the whole ceiling. And although the end walls of this Hall, one on either side, were eight braccia out of the square, they did not make up their minds, as they might have done, to thicken the walls so as to make it square, but carried them up to the roof just as they were, making three large windows on each of those end walls. But when the whole was finished, the Hall, on account of its extraordinary size, turned out to be too dark, and also stunted and wanting in height in relation to its great length and breadth; in short, almost wholly out of proportion. They sought, therefore, but with little success, to improve it by making two windows in the middle of the eastern side of the Hall, and four on the western side. After this, in order to give it its final completion, they made on the level of the brick floor, with great rapidity, being much pressed by the citizens, a wooden tribune right round the walls of the Hall, three braccia both in breadth and height, with seats after the manner of a theatre, and with a balustrade in front; on which tribune all the magistrates of the city were to sit. In the middle of the eastern side was a more elevated daïs, on which the Signori sat with the Gonfalonier of Justice; and on either side of this more prominent place was a door, one of them leading to the Segreto[29] and the other to the Specchio.[30] Opposite to this, on the west side, was an altar at which Mass was read, with a panel by the hand of Fra Bartolommeo, as has been mentioned; and beside the altar was the pulpit for making speeches. In the middle of the Hall, then, were benches in rows laid crossways, for the citizens; while in the centre and at the corners of the tribune were some gangways with six steps, providing a convenient ascent for the ushers in the collection of votes. In this Hall, which was much extolled at that day for its many beautiful features and the rapidity with which it was erected, time has since served to reveal such errors as that it is low, dark, gloomy, and out of the square. Nevertheless Cronaca and the others deserve to be excused, both on account of the haste with which it was executed at the desire of the citizens, who intended in time to have it adorned with pictures and the ceiling overlaid with gold, and because up to that day there had been no greater hall built in Italy; although there are others very large, such as that of the Palace of S. Marco in Rome, that of the Vatican, erected by Pius II and Innocent VIII, that of the Castle of Naples, that of the Palace of Milan, and those of Urbino, Venice, and Padua. After this, to provide an ascent to this Hall, Cronaca, with the advice of the same masters, made a great staircase six braccia wide and curving in two flights, richly adorned with grey-stone, and with Corinthian pilasters and capitals, double cornices, and arches, of the same stone; and with barrel-shaped vaulting, and windows with columns of variegated marble and carved marble capitals. But although this work was much extolled, it would have won even greater praise if the staircase had not turned out inconvenient and too steep; for it is a sure fact that it could have been made more gentle, as has been done in the time of Duke Cosimo, within the same amount of space and no more, in the new staircase made, opposite to that of Cronaca, by Giorgio Vasari, which is so gentle in ascent and so convenient, that going up it is almost like walking on the level. This has been the work of the aforesaid Lord Duke Cosimo, who, being a man of most happy genius and most profound judgment both in the government of his people and in all other things, grudges neither expense nor anything else in his desire to make all the fortifications and other buildings, both public and private, correspond to the greatness of his own mind, and not less beautiful than useful or less useful than beautiful. His Excellency, then, reflecting that the body of this Hall is the largest, the most magnificent, and the most beautiful in all Europe, has resolved to have it improved in such parts as are defective, and to have it made in every other part more ornate than any other structure in Italy, by the design and hand of Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo. And thus, the walls having been raised twelve braccia above their former height, in such a manner that the height from the pavement to the ceiling is thirty-two braccia, the roof-truss made by Cronaca to support the roof has been restored and replaced on high after a new arrangement; and the old ceiling, which was simple and commonplace, and by no means worthy of that Hall, has been remodelled with a system of compartments of great variety, rich in mouldings, full of carvings, and all overlaid with gold, together with thirty-nine painted panels, square, round, and octagonal, the greater number of which are each nine braccia in extent, and some even more, and all containing scenes painted in oils, with the largest figures seven or eight braccia high. In these stories, commencing with the very beginning, may be seen the rise, the honours, the victories, and the glorious deeds of the city and state of Florence, and in particular the wars of Pisa and Siena, together with an endless number of other things, which it would take too long to describe. And on each of the side walls there has been left a convenient space of sixty braccia, in each of which are to be painted three scenes in keeping with the ceiling and embracing the space of seven pictures on either side, which represent events from the wars of Pisa and Siena. These compartments on the walls are so large, that no greater spaces for the painting of historical pictures have ever been seen either by the ancients or by the moderns. And the said compartments are adorned by some vast stone ornaments which meet at the ends of the Hall, at one side of which, namely, the northern side, the Lord Duke has caused to be finished a work begun and carried nearly to completion by Baccio Bandinelli, that is, a façade filled with columns and pilasters and with niches containing statues of marble; which space is to serve as a public audience chamber, as will be related in the proper place. On the other side, opposite to this, there is to be, in a similar façade that is being made by the sculptor and architect Ammanati, a fountain to throw up water in the Hall, with a rich and most beautiful adornment of columns and statues of marble and bronze. Nor will I forbear to say that this Hall, in consequence of the roof having been raised twelve braccia, has gained not only height, but also an ample supply of windows, since, in addition to the others that are higher up, in each of those end walls are to be made three large windows, which will be over the level of a corridor that is to form a loggia within the Hall and to extend on one side over the work of Bandinelli, whence there will be revealed a most beautiful view of the whole Piazza. But of this Hall, and of the other improvements that have been or are being made in the Palace, there will be a longer account in another place. This only let me say at present, that if Cronaca and those other ingenious craftsmen who gave the design for the Hall could return to life, in my belief they would not recognize either the Palace, or the Hall, or any other thing that is there. The Hall, namely, that part which is rectangular, without counting the works of Bandinelli and Ammanati, is ninety braccia in length and thirty-eight braccia in breadth. But returning to Cronaca: in the last years of his life there entered into his head such a frenzy for the cause of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, that he would talk of nothing else but that. Living thus, in the end he died after a passing long illness, at the age of fifty-five, and was buried honourably in the Church of S. Ambrogio at Florence, in the year 1509; and after no long space of time the following epitaph was written for him by Messer Giovan Battista Strozzi: CRONACA VIVO, E MILLE E MILLE ANNI E MILLE ANCORA, MERCÈ DE' VIVI MIEI PALAZZI E TEMPI, BELLA ROMA, VIVRÀ L' ALMA MIA FLORA. Cronaca had a brother called Matteo, who gave himself to sculpture and worked under the sculptor Antonio Rossellino; but although he was a man of good and beautiful intelligence, a fine draughtsman, and well practised in working marble, he left no finished work, because, being snatched from the world by death at the age of nineteen, he was not able to accomplish that which was expected from him by all who knew him. FOOTNOTE: [28] Earnest-money. [29] Room in which the beans used in voting for the election of magistrates were counted. [30] Office of those who had charge of the Specchio, the book in which were inscribed the names of such citizens as were in arrears with their taxes. DOMENICO PULIGO LIFE OF DOMENICO PULIGO PAINTER OF FLORENCE It is a marvellous and almost incredible thing, that many followers of the art of painting, through continual practice and handling of colours, either by an instinct of nature or by the trick of a good manner, acquired without any draughtsmanship or grounding, carry their works to such thorough completion, and very often contrive to make them so good, that, although the craftsmen themselves may be none of the rarest, their pictures force the world to extol them and to hold them in supreme veneration. And it has been perceived in the past from many examples, and in many of our painters, that the most vivacious and perfect works are produced by those who have a beautiful manner from nature, although they must exercise it with continual study and labour; while this gift of nature has such power, that even if they neglect or abandon the studies of art, and pay attention to nothing save the mere practice of painting and of handling colours with a grace infused in them by nature, at the first glance their works have the appearance of displaying all the excellent and marvellous qualities that are wont to appear after a close inspection in the works of those masters whom we hold to be the best. And that this is true, is demonstrated to us in our own day by experience, from the works of Domenico Puligo, a painter of Florence; wherein what has been said above may be clearly recognized by one who has knowledge of the matters of art. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS (_After the panel by =Domenico Puligo= (?). Florence: S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi_) _Alinari_] While Ridolfo, the son of Domenico Ghirlandajo, was executing a number of works in painting at Florence, as will be related, he followed his father's habit of always keeping many young men painting in his workshop: which was the reason that not a few of them, through competing one with another, became very good masters, some at making portraits from life, some at working in fresco, others in distemper, and others at painting readily on cloth. Making these lads execute pictures, panels, and canvases, in the course of a few years Ridolfo, with great profit for himself, sent an endless number of these to England, to Germany, and to Spain. Baccio Gotti and Toto del Nunziata, disciples of Ridolfo, were summoned, one to France by King Francis, and the other to England by the King of that country, each of whom invited them after having seen some of their work. Two other disciples of the same master remained with him, working under him for many years, because, although they had many invitations into Spain and Hungary from merchants and others, they were never induced either by promises or by money to tear themselves away from the delights of their country, in which they had more work to do than they were able to execute. One of these two was Antonio del Ceraiuolo, a Florentine, who, having been many years with Lorenzo di Credi, had learnt from him, above all, to draw so well from nature, that with supreme facility he gave his portraits an extraordinary likeness to the life, although otherwise he was no great draughtsman. And I have seen some heads portrayed from life by his hand, which, although they have, for example, the nose crooked, one lip small and the other large, and other suchlike deformities, nevertheless resemble the life, through his having well caught the expression of the subject; whereas, on the other hand, many excellent masters have made pictures and portraits of absolute perfection with regard to art, but with no resemblance whatever to those that they are supposed to represent. And to tell the truth, he who executes portraits must contrive, without thinking of what is looked for in a perfect figure, to make them like those for whom they are intended. When portraits are like and also beautiful, then may they be called rare works, and their authors truly excellent craftsmen. This Antonio, then, besides many portraits, executed a number of panel-pictures in Florence; but for the sake of brevity I will make mention only of two. One of these, wherein he painted a Crucifixion, with S. Mary Magdalene and S. Francis, is in S. Jacopo tra Fossi, on the Canto degli Alberti; and in the other, which is in the Nunziata, is a S. Michael who is weighing souls. The other of the two aforesaid disciples was Domenico Puligo, who was more excellent in draughtsmanship and more pleasing and gracious in colouring than any of the others mentioned above. He, considering that his method of painting with softness, without overloading his works with colour or making them hard, but causing the distances to recede little by little as though veiled with a kind of mist, gave his pictures both relief and grace, and that although the outlines of the figures that he made were lost in such a way that his errors were concealed and hidden from view in the dark grounds into which the figures merged, nevertheless his colouring and the beautiful expressions of his heads made his works pleasing, always kept to the same method of working and to the same manner, which caused him to be held in esteem as long as he lived. But omitting to give an account of the pictures and portraits that he made while in the workshop of Ridolfo, some of which were sent abroad and some remained in the city, I shall speak only of those which he painted when he was rather the friend and rival of Ridolfo than his disciple, and of those that he executed when he was so much the friend of Andrea del Sarto, that nothing was more dear to him than to see that master in his workshop, in order to learn from him, showing him his works and asking his opinion of them, so as to avoid such errors and defects as those men often fall into who do not show their work to any other craftsman, but trust so much in their own judgment that they would rather incur the censure of all the world when those works are finished, than correct them by means of the suggestions of loving friends. One of the first things that Domenico executed was a very beautiful picture of Our Lady for Messer Agnolo della Stufa, who has it in his Abbey of Capalona in the district of Arezzo, and holds it very dear for the great diligence of its execution and the beauty of its colouring. He painted another picture of Our Lady, no less beautiful than that one, for Messer Agnolo Niccolini, now Archbishop of Pisa and a Cardinal, who keeps it in his house on the Canto de' Pazzi in Florence; and likewise another, of equal size and excellence, which is now in the possession of Filippo dell' Antella, at Florence. In another, which is about three braccia in height, Domenico made a full-length Madonna with the Child between her knees, a little S. John, and another head; and this picture, which is held to be one of the best works that he executed, since there is no sweeter colouring to be seen, is at the present day in the possession of Messer Filippo Spini, Treasurer to the most Illustrious Prince of Florence, and a gentleman of magnificent spirit, who takes much delight in works of painting. Among other portraits that Domenico made from the life, which are all beautiful and also good likenesses, the most beautiful is the one which he painted of Monsignore Messer Piero Carnesecchi, at that time a marvellously handsome youth, for whom he also made some other pictures, all very beautiful and executed with much diligence. In like manner, he portrayed in a picture the Florentine Barbara, a famous and most lovely courtesan of that day, much beloved by many no less for her fine culture than for her beauty, and particularly because she was an excellent musician and sang divinely. But the best work that Domenico ever executed was a large picture wherein he made a life-size Madonna, with some angels and little boys, and a S. Bernard who is writing; which picture is now in the hands of Giovanni Gualberto del Giocondo, and of his brother Messer Niccolò, a Canon of S. Lorenzo in Florence. The same master made many other pictures, which are dispersed among the houses of citizens, and in particular some wherein may be seen a half-length figure of Cleopatra, causing an asp to bite her on the breast, and others wherein is the Roman Lucretia killing herself with a dagger. There are also some very beautiful portraits from life and pictures by the same hand at the Porta a Pinti, in the house of Giulio Scali, a man whose judgment is as fine in the matters of our arts as it is in those of every other most noble and most honourable profession. Domenico executed for Francesco del Giocondo, in a panel for his chapel in the great tribune of the Church of the Servi at Florence, a S. Francis who is receiving the Stigmata; which work is very sweet and soft in colouring, and wrought with much diligence. In the Church of Cestello, round the Tabernacle of the Sacrament, he painted two angels in fresco, and on the panel of a chapel in the same church he made a Madonna with her Son in her arms, S. John the Baptist, S. Bernard, and other saints. And since it appeared to the monks of that place that he had acquitted himself very well in those works, they caused him to paint in a cloister of their Abbey of Settimo, without Florence, the Visions of Count Ugo, who built seven abbeys. And no long time after, Puligo painted, in a shrine at the corner of the Via Mozza da S. Catarina, a Madonna standing, with her Son in her arms marrying S. Catherine, and a figure of S. Peter Martyr. For a Company in the township of Anghiari he executed a Deposition from the Cross, which may be numbered among his best works. But since it was his profession to attend rather to pictures of Our Lady, portraits, and other heads, than to great works, he gave up almost all his time to such things. Now if he had devoted himself not so much to the pleasures of the world, as he did, and more to the labours of art, there is no doubt that he would have made great proficience in painting, and especially as Andrea del Sarto, who was much his friend, assisted him on many occasions both with advice and with drawings; for which reason many of his works reveal a draughtsmanship as fine as the good and beautiful manner of the colouring. But the circumstance that Domenico was unwilling to endure much fatigue, and accustomed to labour rather in order to get through work and make money than for the sake of fame, prevented him from reaching a greater height. And thus, associating with gay spirits and lovers of good cheer, and with musicians and women, he died at the age of fifty-two, in the year 1527, in the pursuit of a love-affair, having caught the plague at the house of his mistress. Colour was handled by him in so good and harmonious a manner, that it is for that reason, rather than for any other, that he deserves praise. Among his disciples was Domenico Beceri of Florence, who, giving a high finish to his colouring, executed his works in an excellent manner. INDEX INDEX OF NAMES OF THE CRAFTSMEN MENTIONED IN VOLUME IV Abbot of S. Clemente (Don Bartolommeo della Gatta), 41, 82, 216, 217 Agnolo, Baccio d', 101, 204, 267, 270 Agnolo Gaddi, 52, 54 Agostino Busto, 60 Albertinelli, Biagio di Bindo, 165 Albertinelli, Mariotto, _Life_, 165-171. 151, 154 Albrecht Dürer, 232 Aldigieri (Altichiero) da Zevio, 51, 54, 55 Alessandro Filipepi (Sandro Botticelli, or Sandro di Botticello), 3, 4, 82 Alessandro Moretto, 60 Alesso Baldovinetti, 82 Alonzo Berughetta, 8 Alunno, Niccolò, 18, 19 Ammanati, 274 Andrea Contucci (Andrea Sansovino, or Andrea dal Monte Sansovino), 5, 144, 186, 223, 270 Andrea dal Castagno (Andrea degl' Impiccati), 82 Andrea dal Monte Sansovino (Andrea Sansovino, or Andrea Contucci), 5, 144, 186, 223, 270 Andrea degl' Impiccati (Andrea dal Castagno), 82 Andrea del Gobbo, 122 Andrea del Sarto, 83, 129, 134, 281, 283 Andrea di Cosimo, 129 Andrea Luigi (L'Ingegno), 47 Andrea Mantegna, 24, 55, 82 Andrea Sansovino (Andrea Contucci, or Andrea dal Monte Sansovino), 5, 144, 186, 223, 270 Andrea Verrocchio, 35, 39, 81, 90, 92, 112 Angelico, Fra (Fra Giovanni da Fiesole), 73, 154, 185 Angelo, Battista d', 61 Antonio (Antoniasso), 6, 7 Antonio da Correggio, _Life_, 117-122. 83, 125 Antonio da San Gallo, _Life_, 191-205. 145, 254 Antonio del Ceraiuolo, 280 Antonio di Giorgio, 36 Antonio Filarete, 56 Antonio Montecavallo, 140 Antonio Pollaiuolo, 4, 81, 265 Antonio Rossellino, 275 Apelles, 82, 83, 105 Arezzo, Niccolò d', 55 Aristotile da San Gallo, 212 Avanzi, Jacopo (Jacopo Davanzo), 51, 55 Bacchiaccha, Il (Francesco), 46 Baccio Bandinelli, 204, 274 Baccio d' Agnolo, 101, 204, 267, 270 Baccio da Montelupo, 186 Baccio della Porta (Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco), _Life_, 151-162. 82, 151-162, 165-167, 215, 244, 272 Baccio Gotti, 280 Baccio Ubertino, 46 Baldassarre Peruzzi, 145, 146, 200 Baldovinetti, Alesso, 82 Bandinelli, Baccio, 204, 274 Barile, Gian, 238 Bartolommeo, Fra (Fra Carnovale da Urbino), 138 Bartolommeo Clemente of Reggio, 60 Bartolommeo della Gatta, Don (Abbot of S. Clemente), 41, 82, 216, 217 Bartolommeo di San Marco, Fra (Baccio della Porta), _Life_, 151-162. 82, 151-162, 165-167, 215, 244, 272 Bartolommeo Montagna, 52, 60 Bartolommeo Vivarini, 52, 59 Basaiti, Marco (Il Bassiti, or Marco Basarini), 52, 58 Bastiani, Lazzaro (Sebastiano Scarpaccia, or Lazzaro Scarpaccia), 52, 57, 58 Bastiano da Monte Carlo, 179 Battista Borro, 262 Battista d' Angelo, 61 Baviera, 232, 233 Bazzi, Giovanni Antonio (Sodoma), 72, 218 Beceri, Domenico, 283 Bellini, Gentile, 57, 59, 109 Bellini, Giovanni, 57, 58, 82, 109 Bellini, Vittore (Belliniano), 52, 59, 60 Benedetto Buglioni, 155 Benedetto Buonfiglio, 17, 18 Benedetto (Giovan Battista) Caporali, 48, 75, 76 Benedetto Cianfanini, 162 Benedetto da Maiano, 36, 151, 266, 267 Benedetto da Rovezzano, 155 Benedetto Diana, 52, 60 Benedetto Spadari, 262 Bernardino da Trevio, 138 Bernardino Pinturicchio, _Life_, 13-19. 46, 65, 211, 212 Bertoldo, 185 Berughetta, Alonzo, 8 Biagio di Bindo Albertinelli, 165 Bianco, Simon, 60 Bologna, Il, 237 Bolognese, Marc' Antonio, 232, 233 Boltraffio, Giovanni Antonio, 105 Bonsignori, Francesco, 60 Borgo a San Sepolcro, Piero dal (Piero della Francesca), 71, 82, 216 Borro, Battista, 262 Botticelli, Sandro (Alessandro Filipepi, or Sandro di Botticello), 3, 4, 82 Bramante da Urbino, _Life_, 137-148. 199-202, 216, 217, 223, 232, 237, 254 Bramantino, 217 Bresciano, Vincenzio (Vincenzio Zoppa or Foppa), 51, 52, 56 Bronzino, 179 Brunelleschi, Filippo (Filippo di Ser Brunellesco), 137, 185, 266 Bugiardini, Giuliano, 154, 161, 170, 186 Buglioni, Benedetto, 155 Buonarroti, Michelagnolo, 41, 43, 48, 65, 66, 74, 84, 85, 101, 104, 145, 157, 186, 187, 199, 201, 204, 209, 212, 215, 223, 224, 242-245, 259, 270 Buonconsigli, Giovanni, 52, 60 Buonfiglio, Benedetto, 17, 18 Busto, Agostino, 60 Cadore, Tiziano da, 114 Campagnola, Girolamo, 51, 55, 56 Campagnola, Giulio, 51, 56, 57 Caparra, Il (Niccolò Grosso), 268, 269 Caporali, Benedetto (Giovan Battista), 48, 75, 76 Caporali, Giulio, 48 Caradosso, 23, 144 Caravaggio, Polidoro da, 83, 237 Carnovale da Urbino, Fra (Fra Bartolommeo), 138 Caroto, Francesco, 60 Carpaccio (Scarpaccia), Vittore, _Life_, 51-61 Carpi, Ugo da, 233 Cartoni, Niccolò (Niccolò Zoccolo), 9, 10 Castagno, Andrea dal (Andrea degl' Impiccati), 82 Castel Bolognese, Giovanni da, 111 Castel della Pieve, Pietro da (Pietro Vannucci, or Pietro Perugino), _Life_, 33-48. 13, 15, 18, 33-48, 82, 159, 169, 210-212, 236, 242, 243 Castelfranco, Giorgione da, _Life_, 109-114. 82, 125 Catena, Vincenzio, 52, 58 Cecchino del Frate, 162 Ceraiuolo, Antonio del, 280 Cesare Cesariano, 138 Cianfanini, Benedetto, 162 Cimabue, Giovanni, 77 Claudio, Maestro, 254, 255 Conigliano, Giovan Battista da, 52, 58 Contucci, Andrea (Andrea Sansovino, or Andrea dal Monte Sansovino), 5, 144, 186, 223, 270 Cordegliaghi, Giovanetto, 52, 58, 59 Correggio, Antonio da, _Life_, 117-122. 83, 125 Cortona, Luca da (Luca Signorelli), _Life_, 71-76. 82, 216, 261 Cosimo, Andrea di, 129 Cosimo, Piero di, _Life_, 125-134 Cosimo Rosselli, 82, 125, 126, 151, 165 Credi, Lorenzo di, 153, 186, 280 Cristofano, 55 Cronaca, Il (Simone, or Simone del Pollaiuolo), _Life_, 265-275. 101 Davanzo, Jacopo (Jacopo Avanzi), 51, 55 Davanzo, Jacopo (of Milan), 60 Diamante, Fra, 3 Diana, Benedetto, 52, 60 Domenico Beceri, 283 Domenico di Paris, 47 Domenico Ghirlandajo, 36, 65, 82, 279 Domenico Pecori, 257 Domenico Puligo, _Life_, 279-283 Don Bartolommeo della Gatta (Abbot of S. Clemente), 41, 82, 216, 217 Donato (Donatello), 52, 152, 185 Dürer, Albrecht, 232 Ercole Ferrarese (Ercole da Ferrara), 82 Eusebio San Giorgio, 47 Fabiano di Stagio Sassoli, 256, 257 Ferrara, Stefano da, 56 Ferrarese, Ercole (Ercole da Ferrara), 82 Ferrarese, Galasso (Galasso Galassi), 55 Fiesole, Fra Giovanni da (Fra Angelico), 73, 154, 185 Filarete, Antonio, 56 Filipepi, Alessandro (Sandro Botticelli, or Sandro di Botticello), 3, 4, 82 Filippo Brunelleschi (Filippo di Ser Brunellesco), 137, 185, 266 Filippo Lippi (Filippino), _Life_, 3-10. 44, 82, 99, 100, 176, 177 Filippo Lippi, Fra, 3, 5, 9, 185 Fivizzano, 29 Flore, Jacobello de, 51, 55 Foppa, Vincenzio (Vincenzio Zoppa, or Vincenzio Bresciano), 51, 52, 56 Fra Angelico (Fra Giovanni da Fiesole), 73, 154, 185 Fra Bartolommeo (Fra Carnovale da Urbino), 138 Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco (Baccio della Porta), _Life_, 151-162. 82, 151-162, 165-167, 215, 244, 272 Fra Carnovale da Urbino (Fra Bartolommeo), 138. Fra Diamante, 3 Fra Filippo Lippi, 3, 5, 9, 185 Fra Giocondo of Verona, 145 Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (Fra Angelico), 73, 154, 185 Fra Giovanni da Verona, 222 Fra Paolo Pistoiese, 162 Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, 84, 114, 240 Francesca, Piero della (Piero dal Borgo a San Sepolcro), 71, 82, 216 Francesco (Il Bacchiaccha), 46 Francesco (L'Indaco), 66, 67 Francesco, Maestro, 142 Francesco Bonsignori, 60 Francesco Caroto, 60 Francesco da Melzo, 99 Francesco da San Gallo, 134, 203, 204 Francesco Francia, _Life_, 23-29. 82 Francesco Giamberti, 134, 191 Francesco Granacci (Il Granaccio), 4, 169, 186 Francesco Masini, Messer, 227 Francesco Mazzuoli (Parmigiano), 83 Francesco Turbido (Il Moro), 61 Francia, Francesco, _Life_, 23-29. 82 Franciabigio, 170 Francione, 191, 192 Frate, Cecchino del, 162 Gabriele Rustici, 162 Gaddi, Agnolo, 52, 54 Galasso Ferrarese (Galasso Galassi), 55 Galieno, 179 Garbo, Raffaellino del, _Life_, 175-179. 6, 9 Gasparo Misceroni, 60 Gatta, Don Bartolommeo della (Abbot of S. Clemente), 41, 82, 216, 217 Gentile Bellini, 57, 59, 109 Gerino Pistoiese (Gerino da Pistoia), 18, 46 Gherardo, 36 Ghirlandajo, Domenico, 36, 65, 82, 279 Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo, 169, 212, 216, 279-281 Giamberti, Francesco, 134, 191 Gian Barile, 238 Gian Niccola, 47, 48 Giocondo of Verona, Fra, 145 Giorgio, Antonio di, 36 Giorgio Vasari. See Vasari (Giorgio) Giorgione da Castelfranco, _Life_, 109-114. 82, 125 Giotto, 80 Giovan Battista da Conigliano, 52, 58 Giovan Battista (Benedetto) Caporali, 48, 75, 76 Giovan Francesco Penni, 237, 247 Giovan Francesco Rustici, 105, 186 Giovanetto Cordegliaghi, 52, 58, 59 Giovanni (Lo Spagna), 46, 47 Giovanni, Maestro, 260 Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (Sodoma), 72, 218 Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, 105 Giovanni Bellini, 57, 58, 82, 109 Giovanni Buonconsigli. 52. 60 Giovanni Cimabue, 77 Giovanni da Castel Bolognese, 111 Giovanni da Fiesole, Fra (Fra Angelico), 73, 154, 185 Giovanni da Udine, 237, 239 Giovanni da Verona, Fra, 222 Giovanni de' Santi, 46, 210, 213, 249 Giovanni Mansueti, 52, 59 Giovanni Pisano, 142 Giovanni Rosto, 46 Girolamo Campagnola, 51, 55, 56 Girolamo Misceroni, 60 Girolamo Romanino, 60 Giromin Morzone, 55, 56 Giuliano Bugiardini, 154, 161, 170, 186 Giuliano da Maiano, 197 Giuliano da San Gallo, _Life_, 191-205. 101, 134, 145, 191-205, 270 Giuliano Leno, 147 Giulio Campagnola, 51, 56, 57 Giulio Caporali, 48 Giulio Romano, 76, 84, 119, 232, 237, 247 Giusto (of Padua), 51, 56 Gobbo, Andrea del, 122 Gotti, Baccio, 280 Granacci, Francesco (Il Granaccio), 4, 169, 186 Grosso, Niccolò (Il Caparra), 268, 269 Guerriero da Padova, 51, 56 Guglielmo da Marcilla (Guillaume de Marcillac), _Life_, 253-262 Il Bacchiaccha (Francesco), 46 Il Bassiti (Marco Basarini, or Marco Basaiti), 52, 58 Il Bologna, 237 Il Caparra (Niccolò Grosso), 268, 269 Il Cronaca (Simone, or Simone del Pollaiuolo), _Life_, 265-275. 101 Il Granaccio (Francesco Granacci), 4, 169, 186 Il Moro (Francesco Turbido), 61 Il Rosso, 84 Imola, Innocenzio da, 170 Impiccati, Andrea degl' (Andrea dal Castagno), 82 Indaco, L' (Francesco), 66, 67 Indaco, L' (Jacopo), _Life_, 65-67 Innocenzio da Imola, 170 Jacobello de Flore, 51, 55 Jacopo (L'Indaco), _Life_, 65-67 Jacopo Avanzi (Jacopo Davanzo), 51, 55 Jacopo Davanzo (of Milan), 60 Jacopo da Pontormo, 179, 246, 260 Lanzilago, Maestro, 6, 7 Lazzaro Scarpaccia (Sebastiano Scarpaccia, or Lazzaro Bastiani), 52, 57, 58 Lazzaro Vasari (the elder), 71, 82 Leno, Giuliano, 147 Leonardo da Vinci, _Life_. 89-105. 44, 82, 85, 89-105, 109, 127, 138, 151, 156, 196, 212, 215, 242, 270 Liberale, Maestro, 54 L'Indaco (Francesco), 66, 67 L'Indaco (Jacopo), _Life_, 65-67 L'Ingegno (Andrea Luigi), 47 Lippi, Filippo (Filippino), _Life_, 3-10. 44, 82, 99, 100, 176, 177 Lippi, Fra Filippo, 3, 5, 9, 185 Lo Spagna (Giovanni), 46, 47 Lombardo, Tullio, 60 Lorenzetto, 240 Lorenzo (father of Piero di Cosimo), 125 Lorenzo di Credi, 153, 186, 280 Luca da Cortona (Luca Signorelli), _Life_, 71-76. 82, 216, 261 Luca della Robbia (the younger), 237 Luca Signorelli (Luca da Cortona), _Life_, 71-76. 82, 216, 261 Luigi, Andrea (L'Ingegno), 47 Luigi Vivarini, 52 Maestro Claudio, 254, 255 Maestro Francesco, 142 Maestro Giovanni, 260 Maestro Lanzilago, 6, 7 Maestro Liberale, 54 Maestro Zeno, 60 Maiano, Benedetto da, 36, 151, 266, 267 Maiano, Giuliano da, 197 Mansueti, Giovanni, 52, 59 Mantegna, Andrea, 24, 55, 82 Marc' Antonio Bolognese, 232, 233 Marcilla, Guglielmo da (Guillaume de Marcillac), _Life_, 253-262 Marco Basaiti (Il Bassiti, or Marco Basarini), 52, 58 Marco da Ravenna, 233 Marco Oggioni, 105 Mariotto Albertinelli, _Life_, 165-171. 151, 154 Masaccio, 3, 185, 215 Masini, Messer Francesco, 227 Maso Papacello, 76 Maso Porro, 262 Masolino da Panicale, 3 Matteo (brother of Cronaca), 275 Maturino, 83 Mazzuoli, Francesco (Parmigiano), 83 Melzo, Francesco da, 99 Messer Francesco Masini, 227 Michelagnolo Buonarroti, 41, 43, 48, 65, 66, 74, 84, 85, 101, 104, 145, 157, 186, 187, 199, 201, 204, 209, 212, 215, 223, 224, 242-245. 259, 270 Misceroni, Gasparo, 60 Misceroni, Girolamo, 60 Modena, Pellegrino da, 237 Montagna, Bartolommeo, 52, 60 Monte Carlo, Bastiano da, 179 Montecavallo, Antonio, 140 Montelupo, Baccio da, 186 Montevarchi, 46 Monte Sansovino, Andrea dal (Andrea Contucci, or Andrea Sansovino), 5, 144, 186, 223, 270 Moreto, Niccolò, 57 Moretto, Alessandro, 60 Moro, Il (Francesco Turbido), 61 Morzone, Giromin, 55, 56 Niccola Pisano, 142 Niccolò Alunno, 18, 19 Niccolò Cartoni (Niccolò Zoccolo), 9, 10 Niccolò d' Arezzo, 55 Niccolò Grosso (Il Caparra), 268, 269 Niccolò Moreto, 57 Niccolò Soggi, 186 Niccolò Zoccolo (Niccolò Cartoni), 9, 10 Nunziata, Toto del, 280 Oggioni, Marco, 105 Orazio di Paris, 47 Padova, Guerriero da, 51, 56 Panicale, Masolino da, 3 Paolo da Verona, 179 Paolo Pistoiese, Fra, 162 Paolo Uccello, 185, 246 Papacello, Maso, 76 Paris, Domenico di, 47 Paris, Orazio di, 47 Parmigiano (Francesco Mazzuoli), 83 Pastorino da Siena, 262 Pecori, Domenico, 257 Pellegrino da Modena, 237 Penni, Giovan Francesco, 237, 247 Perino del Vaga, 84, 237, 254 Perugino, Pietro (Pietro Vannucci, or Pietro da Castel della Pieve), _Life_, 33-48. 13, 15, 18, 33-48, 82, 159, 169, 210-212, 236, 242, 243 Peruzzi, Baldassarre, 145, 146, 200 Pesello, 82 Pheidias, 105 Piero della Francesca (Piero dal Borgo a San Sepolcro), 71, 82, 216 Piero di Cosimo, _Life_, 125-134 Pietro Perugino (Pietro Vannucci, or Pietro da Castel della Pieve), _Life_, 33-48. 13, 15, 18, 33-48, 82, 159, 169, 210-212, 236, 242, 243 Pietro Rosselli, 159 Pinturicchio, Bernardino, _Life_, 13-19. 46, 65, 211, 212 Piombo, Fra Sebastiano del, 84, 114, 240 Pisano, Giovanni, 142 Pisano, Niccola, 142 Pistoiese, Fra Paolo, 162 Pistoiese, Gerino (Gerino da Pistoia), 18, 46 Polidoro da Caravaggio, 83, 237 Pollaiuolo, Antonio, 4, 81, 265 Pollaiuolo, Simone del (Simone, or Il Cronaca), _Life_, 265-275. 101 Pontormo, Jacopo da, 179, 246, 260 Porro, Maso, 262 Porta, Baccio della (Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco), _Life_, 151-162. 82, 151-162, 165-167, 215, 244, 272 Puligo, Domenico, _Life_, 279-283 Raffaellino del Garbo, _Life_, 175-179. 6, 9 Raffaello da Urbino (Raffaello Sanzio), _Life_, 209-250. 13, 28, 29, 44-47, 82, 83, 143, 145, 146, 155-158, 200, 201, 203, 209-250, 255 Raggio, 4 Ravenna, Marco da, 233 Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, 169, 212, 216, 279-281 Robbia, Luca della (the younger), 237 Rocco Zoppo, 46 Romanino, Girolamo, 60 Romano, Giulio, 76, 84, 119, 232, 237, 247 Rosselli, Cosimo, 82, 125, 126, 151, 165 Rosselli, Pietro, 159 Rossellino, Antonio, 275 Rosso, Il, 84 Rosto, Giovanni, 46 Rovezzano, Benedetto da, 155 Rustici, Gabriele, 162 Rustici, Giovan Francesco, 105, 186 Salai, 99 S. Clemente, Abbot of (Don Bartolommeo della Gatta), 41, 82, 216, 217 San Gallo, Antonio da, _Life_, 191-205. 145, 254 San Gallo, Aristotile da, 212 San Gallo, Francesco da, 134, 203, 204 San Gallo, Giuliano da, _Life_, 191-205. 101, 134, 145, 191-205, 270 San Gimignano, Vincenzio da, 237 San Giorgio, Eusebio, 47 San Marco, Fra Bartolommeo di (Baccio della Porta), _Life_, 151-162. 82, 151-162, 165-167, 215, 244, 272 Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro Filipepi, or Sandro di Botticello), 3, 4, 82 Sansovino, Andrea (Andrea Contucci, or Andrea dal Monte Sansovino), 5, 144, 186, 223, 270 Santi, 261 Santi, Giovanni de', 46, 210, 213, 249 Sanzio, Raffaello (Raffaello da Urbino), _Life_, 209-250. 13, 28, 29, 44-47, 82, 83, 143, 145, 146, 155-158, 200, 201, 203, 209-250, 255 Sarto, Andrea del, 83, 129, 134, 281, 283 Sassoli, Fabiano di Stagio, 256, 257 Sassoli, Stagio, 73, 257 Scarpaccia, Lazzaro (Sebastiano Scarpaccia, or Lazzaro Bastiani), 52, 57, 58 Scarpaccia, Sebastiano (Lazzaro Scarpaccia, or Lazzaro Bastiani), 52, 57, 58 Scarpaccia (Carpaccio), Vittore, _Life_, 51-61 Sebastiano del Piombo, Fra, 84, 114, 240 Sebastiano Scarpaccia (Lazzaro Scarpaccia, or Lazzaro Bastiani), 52, 57, 58 Sebeto da Verona, 51, 55 Siena, Pastorino da, 262 Signorelli, Luca (Luca da Cortona), _Life_, 71-76. 82, 216, 261 Simon Bianco, 60 Simone, 55 Simone (Simone del Pollaiuolo, or Il Cronaca), _Life_, 265-275. 101 Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi), 72, 218 Soggi, Niccolò, 186 Spadari, Benedetto, 262 Spagna, Lo (Giovanni), 46, 47 Squarcione, 56 Stagio Sassoli, 73, 257 Stefano da Ferrara, 56 Stefano da Zevio (Stefano Veronese), 51-54 Stefano Veronese (Stefano da Zevio), 51-54 Tiziano da Cadore, 114 Tommaso, 76 Torrigiano, _Life_, 183-188 Toto del Nunziata, 280 Trevio, Bernardino da, 138 Tullio Lombardo, 60 Turbido, Francesco (Il Moro), 61 Ubertino, Baccio, 46 Uccello, Paolo, 185, 246 Udine, Giovanni da, 237, 239 Ugo da Carpi, 233 Urbino, Bramante da, _Life_, 137-148. 199-202, 216, 217, 223, 232, 237, 254 Urbino, Fra Carnovale da (Fra Bartolommeo), 138 Urbino, Raffaello da (Raffaello Sanzio), _Life_, 209-250. 13, 28, 29, 44-47, 82, 83, 143, 145, 146, 155-158, 200, 201, 203, 209-250, 255 Vaga, Perino del, 84, 237, 254 Vannucci, Pietro (Pietro Perugino, or Pietro da Castel della Pieve), _Life_, 33-48. 13, 15, 18, 33-48, 82, 159, 169, 210-212, 236, 242, 243 Vasari, Giorgio-- as art-collector, 6, 13, 46, 58, 67, 90, 91, 95, 113, 118, 132, 138, 143, 161, 170, 175, 187, 262 as author, 7, 9, 17, 19, 26, 28, 33, 36, 38, 39, 46, 48, 51, 52, 54-56, 61, 66, 67, 71, 74-77, 79, 82-85, 91, 98, 99, 111-114, 117, 118, 121, 126-132, 134, 137, 145, 151, 154, 155, 159, 162, 170, 176, 177, 185, 186, 204, 214, 219, 222, 223, 227, 229-231, 233, 236, 242, 244-248, 257, 260, 262, 269, 271, 274, 280, 281 as painter, 231, 262, 273, 274 as architect, 148, 231, 273, 274 Vasari, Lazzaro (the elder), 71, 82 Ventura, 147, 148 Verchio, Vincenzio, 60 Verona, Fra Giovanni da, 222 Verona, Paolo da, 179 Verona, Sebeto da, 51, 55 Veronese, Stefano (Stefano da Zevio), 51-54 Verrocchio, Andrea, 35, 39, 81, 90, 92, 112 Vincenzio Bresciano (Vincenzio Zoppa, or Foppa), 51, 52, 56 Vincenzio Catena, 52, 58 Vincenzio da San Gimignano, 237 Vincenzio Foppa (Vincenzio Bresciano, or Vincenzio Zoppa), 51, 52, 56 Vincenzio Verchio, 60 Vincenzio Zoppa (Vincenzio Bresciano, or Vincenzio Foppa), 51, 52, 56 Vinci, Leonardo da, _Life_, 89-105. 44, 82, 85, 89-105, 109, 127, 138, 151, 156, 196, 212, 215, 242, 270 Visino, 170, 171 Vitruvius, 48, 75, 138, 205, 266 Vittore Scarpaccia (Carpaccio), _Life_, 51-61 Vittore Bellini (Belliniano), 52, 59, 60 Vivarini, Bartolommeo, 52, 59 Vivarini, Luigi, 52 Zeno, Maestro, 60 Zeuxis, 82, 83 Zevio, Aldigieri (Altichiero) da, 51, 54, 55 Zevio, Stefano da (Stefano Veronese), 51-54 Zoccolo, Niccolò (Niccolò Cartoni), 9, 10 Zoppa, Vincenzio (Vincenzio Foppa, or Vincenzio Bresciano), 51, 52, 56 Zoppo, Rocco, 46 END OF VOL. IV. PRINTED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF CHAS. T. JACOBI OF THE CHISWICK PRESS, LONDON. THE COLOURED REPRODUCTIONS ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY HENRY STONE AND SON, LTD., BANBURY 
13296	----	Online Proofreaders Team PROMENADES OF AN IMPRESSIONIST By JAMES HUNEKER 1910 BOOKS BY JAMES HUNEKER Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Promenades of an Impressionist. 12mo, (_Postage_ 15 cents_), _net_, $1.50. Egoists: A Book of Supermen. 12mo, _net_, $1.50. Iconoclasts: A Book of Dramatists. 12mo, _net_, $1.50. Overtones: A Book of Temperaments. 12mo, _net_, $1.50. Mezzotints in Modern Music. 12mo, $1.50. Chopin: The Man and His Music. With Portrait. l2mo, $2.00. Visionaries. 12mo, $1.50. Melomaniacs. 12mo, $1.50 TO: FREDERICK JAMES GREGG -"Let us promenade our prejudices."--Stendhal(?) CONTENTS I. PAUL CÉZANNE II. ROPS THE ETCHER III. MONTICELLI IV. RODIN V. EUGÈNE CARRIÈRE VI. DEGAS VII. BOTTICELLI VIII. SIX SPANIARDS: "EL GRECO" "VELASQUEZ" GOYA FORTUNY SOROLLA ZULOAGA IX. CHARDIN X. BLACK AND WHITE: PIRANESI MERYON JOHN MARTIN ZORN BRANGWYN DAUMIER LALANNE LEGRAND GUYS XI. IMPRESSIONISM: MONET RENOIR MANET XII. A NEW STUDY OF WATTEAU XIII. GAUGUIN AND TOULOUSE-LAUTREC XIV. LITERATURE AND ART XV. MUSEUM PROMENADES: PICTURES AT THE HAGUE THE MESDAG MUSEUM HALS OF HAARLEM PICTURES IN AMSTERDAM ART IN ANTWERP MUSEUMS OF BRUSSELS BRUGES THE BEAUTIFUL THE MOREAU MUSEUM PICTURES IN MADRID EL GRECO AT TOLEDO VELASQUEZ IN THE PRADO CODA PROMENADES OF AN IMPRESSIONIST I. PAUL CÉZANNE After prolonged study of the art shown at the Paris Autumn Salon you ask yourself: This whirlpool of jostling ambitions, crazy colours, still crazier drawing and composition--whither does it tend? Is there any strain of tendency, any central current to be detected? Is it young genius in the raw, awaiting the sunshine of success to ripen its somewhat terrifying gifts? Or is the exhibition a huge, mystifying _blague_? What, you ask, as you apply wet compresses to your weary eyeballs, blistered by dangerous proximity to so many blazing canvases, does the Autumn Salon mean to French art? There are many canvases the subjects of which are more pathologic than artistic, subjects only fit for the confessional or the privacy of the clinic. But, apart from these disagreeable episodes, the main note of the Salon is a riotous energy, the noisy ebullition of a gang of students let loose in the halls of art. They seem to rush by you, yelling from sheer delight in their lung power, and if you are rudely jostled to the wall, your toes trod upon and your hat clapped down on your ears, you console yourself with the timid phrase: Youth must have its fling. PROMENADES And what a fling! Largely a flinging of paint pots in the sacred features of tradition. It needs little effort of the imagination to see hovering about the galleries the faces of--no, not Gérôme, Bonnat, Jules Lefèvre, Cabanel, or any of the reverend _seigneurs_ of the old Salon--but the reproachful countenances of Courbet, Manet, Degas, and Monet; for this motley-wearing crew of youngsters are as violently radical, as violently secessionistic, as were their immediate forebears. Each chap has started a little revolution of his own, and takes no heed of the very men from whom he steals his thunder, now sadly hollow in the transposition. The pretty classic notion of the torch of artistic tradition gently burning as it is passed on from generation to generation receives a shock when confronted by the methods of the hopeful young anarchs of the Grand Palais. Defiance of all critical canons at any cost is their shibboleth. Compared to their fulgurant colour schemes the work of Manet, Monet, and Degas pales and retreats into the Pantheon of the past. They are become classic. Another king has usurped their throne--his name is Paul Cézanne. No need now to recapitulate the story of the New Salon and the defection from it of these Independents. It is a fashion to revolt in Paris, and no doubt some day there will arise a new group that will start the August Salon or the January Salon. "Independent of the Independents" is a magnificent motto with which to assault any intrenched organisation. PAUL CÉZANNE If riotous energy is, as I have said, the chief note of many of these hot, hasty, and often clever pictures, it must be sadly stated that of genuine originality there are few traces. To the very masters they pretend to revile they owe everything. In vain one looks for a tradition older than Courbet; a few have attempted to stammer in the suave speech of Corot and the men of Fontainebleau; but 1863, the year of the _Salon des Refusés_, is really the year of their artistic ancestor's birth. The classicism of Lebrun, David, Ingres, Prudhon; the romanticism of Géricault, Delacroix, Decamps; the tender poetry of those true _Waldmenschen_, Millet, Dupré, Diaz, Daubigny, or of that wild heir of Giorgione and Tiepolo, the marvellous colour virtuoso who "painted music," Monticelli--all these men might never have been born except for their possible impact upon the so-called "Batignolles" school. Alas! such ingratitude must rankle. To see the major portion of this band of young painters, with talent in plenty, occupying itself in a frantic burlesque of second-hand Cézannes, with here and there a shallow Monet, a faded Renoir, an affected Degas, or an impertinent Gauguin, must be mortifying to the older men. And now we reach the holy precincts. If ardent youths sneered at the lyric ecstasy of Renoir, at the severe restraint of Chavannes, at the poetic mystery of Carrière, their lips were hushed as they tiptoed into the Salle Cézanne. Sacred ground, indeed, we trod as we gazed and wondered before these crude, violent, sincere, ugly, and bizarre canvases. Here was the very hub of the Independents' universe. Here the results of a hard-labouring painter, without taste, without the faculty of selection, without vision, culture--one is tempted to add, intellect--who with dogged persistency has painted in the face of mockery, painted portraits, landscapes, flowers, houses, figures, painted everything, painted himself. And what paint! Stubborn, with an instinctive hatred of academic poses, of the atmosphere of the studio, of the hired model, of "literary," or of mere digital cleverness, Cézanne has dropped out of his scheme harmony, melody, beauty--classic, romantic, symbolic, what you will!--and doggedly represented the ugliness of things. But there is a brutal strength, a tang of the soil that is bitter, and also strangely invigorating, after the false, perfumed boudoir art of so many of his contemporaries. Think of Bouguereau and you have his antithesis in Cézanne--Cézanne whose stark figures of bathers, male and female, evoke a shuddering sense of the bestial. Not that there is offence intended in his badly huddled nudes; he only delineates in simple, naked fashion the horrors of some undressed humans. His landscapes are primitive though suffused by perceptible atmosphere; while the rough architecture, shambling figures, harsh colouring do not quite destroy the impression of general vitality. You could not say with Walt Whitman that his stunted trees were "uttering joyous leaves of dark green." They utter, if anything, raucous oaths, as seemingly do the self-portraits--exceedingly well modelled, however. Cézanne's still-life attracts by its whole-souled absorption; these fruits and vegetables really savour of the earth. Chardin interprets still-life with realistic beauty; if he had ever painted an onion it would have revealed a certain grace. When Paul Cézanne paints an onion you smell it. Nevertheless, he has captured the affections of the rebels and is their god. And next season it may be some one else. It may interest readers of Zola's L'Oeuvre to learn about one of the characters, who perforce sat for his portrait in that clever novel (a direct imitation of Goncourt's Manette Salomon). Paul Cézanne bitterly resented the liberty taken by his old school friend Zola. They both hailed from Aix, in Provence. Zola went up to Paris; Cézanne remained in his birthplace but finally persuaded his father to let him study art at the capital. His father was both rich and wise, for he settled a small allowance on Paul, who, poor chap, as he said, would never earn a franc from his paintings. This prediction was nearly verified. Cézanne was almost laughed off the artistic map of Paris. Manet they could stand, even Claude Monet; but Cézanne--communard and anarchist he must be (so said the wise ones in official circles), for he was such a villainous painter! Cézanne died, but not before his apotheosis by the new crowd of the Autumn Salon. We are told by admirers of Zola how much he did for his neglected and struggling fellow-townsman; how the novelist opened his arms to Cézanne. Cézanne says quite the contrary. In the first place he had more money than Zola when they started, and Zola, after he had become a celebrity, was a great man and very haughty. "A mediocre intelligence and a detestable friend" is the way the prototype of Claude Lantier puts the case. "A bad book and a completely false one," he added, when speaking to the painter Emile Bernard on the disagreeable theme. Naturally Zola did not pose his old friend for the entire figure of the crazy impressionist, his hero, Claude. It was a study composed of Cézanne, Bazille, and one other, a poor, wretched lad who had been employed to clean Manet's studio, entertained artistic ambitions, but hanged himself. The conversations Cézanne had with Zola, his extreme theories of light, are all in the novel--by the way, one of Zola's most finished efforts. Cézanne, an honest, hard-working man, bourgeois in habits if not by temperament, was grievously wounded by the treachery of Zola; and he did not fail to denounce this treachery to Bernard. Paul Cézanne was born January 19, 1839. His father was a rich bourgeois, and while he was disappointed when his son refused to prosecute further his law studies, he, being a sensible parent and justly estimating Paul's steadiness of character, allowed him to go to Paris in 1862, giving him an income of a hundred and fifty francs a month, which was shortly after doubled. With sixty dollars a month an art student of twenty-three could, in those days, live comfortably, study at leisure, and see the world. Cézanne from the start was in earnest. Instinctively he realised that for him was not the rapid ascent of the rocky path that leads to Parnassus. He mistrusted his own talent, though not his powers of application. At first he frequented the Académie Suisse, where he encountered as fellow-workers Pissarro and Guillaumin. He soon transferred his easel to the Beaux-Arts and became an admirer of Delacroix and Courbet. It seems strange in the presence of a Cézanne picture to realise that he, too, suffered his little term of lyric madness and wrestled with huge mythologic themes--giant men carrying off monstrous women. Connoisseurs at the sale of Zola's art treasures were astonished by the sight of a canvas signed Cézanne, the subject of which was L'Enlèvement, a romantic subject, not lacking in the spirit of Delacroix. The Courbet influence persisted, despite the development of the younger painter in other schools. Cézanne can claim Courbet and the Dutchmen as artistic ancestors. When Cézanne arrived in Paris the first comrade to greet him was Zola. The pair became inseparable; they fought for naturalism, and it was to Cézanne that Zola dedicated his _Salons_ which are now to be found in a volume of essays on art and literature bearing the soothing title of Mes Haines. Zola, pitching overboard many friends, wrote his famous eulogy of Manet in the _Evenement_, and the row he raised was so fierce that he was forced to resign as art critic from that journal. The fight then began in earnest. The story is a thrice-told one. It may be read in Théodore Duret's study of Manet and, as regards Cézanne, in the same critic's volume on Impressionism. Cézanne exhibited in 1874 with Manet and the rest at the impressionists' salon, held at the studio of Nadar the photographer. He had earlier submitted at once to Manet's magic method of painting, but in 1873, at Auvers-sur-Oise, he began painting in the _plein air_ style and with certain modifications adhered to that manner until the time of his death. The amazing part of it all is that he produced for more than thirty years and seldom sold a canvas, seldom exhibited. His solitary appearance at an official salon was in 1882, and he would not have succeeded then if it had not been for his friend Guillaumin, a member of the selecting jury, who claimed his rights and passed in, amid execrations, both mock and real, a portrait by Cézanne. Called a _communard_ in 1874, Cézanne was saluted with the title of anarchist in 1904, when his vogue had begun; these titles being a species of official nomenclature for all rebels. Thiers, once President of the French Republic, made a _bon mot_ when he exclaimed: "A Romantic--that is to say, Communist!" During his entire career this mild, reserved gentleman from Aix came under the ban of the critics and the authorities, for he had shouldered his musket in 1871, as did Manet, as did Bazille,--who, like Henri Regnault, was killed in a skirmish. His most virulent enemies were forced to admit that Edouard Manet had a certain facility with the brush; his quality and beauty of sheer paint could not be winked away even by Albert Wolff. But to Cézanne there was no quarter shown. He was called the "Ape of Manet"; he was hissed, cursed, abused; his canvases were spat upon, and as late as 1902, when M. Roujon, the Director of the Beaux-Arts, was asked by Octave Mirbeau to decorate Cézanne, he nearly fainted from astonishment. Cézanne! That barbarian! The amiable director suggested instead the name of Claude Monet. Time had enjoyed its little whirligig with that great painter of vibrating light and water, but Monet blandly refused the long-protracted honour. Another anecdote is related by M. Duret. William II of Germany in 1899 wished to examine with his own eyes, trained by the black, muddy painting of Germany, the canvases of Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, and Manet, acquired by Director Tschudi for the Berlin National Gallery. He saw them all except the Cézanne. Herr Tschudi feared that the Parisian fat would be in the imperial fire if the Cézanne picture appeared. So he hid it. As it was his Majesty nodded in emphatic disapproval of the imported purchases. If he had viewed the Cézanne! At first blush, for those whose schooling has been academic, the Cézanne productions are shocking. Yet his is a personal vision, though a heavy one. He has not a facile brush; he is not a great painter; he lacks imagination, invention, fantasy; but his palette is his own. He is a master of gray tones, and his scale is, as Duret justly observes, a very intense one. He avoids the anecdote, historic or domestic. He detests design, prearranged composition. His studio is an open field, light the chief actor of his palette. He is never conventionally decorative unless you can call his own particular scheme decorative. He paints what he sees without flattery, without flinching from any ugliness. Compared with him Courbet is as sensuous as Correggio. He does not seek for the correspondences of light with surrounding objects or the atmosphere in which Eugène Carrière bathes his portraits, Rodin his marbles. The Cézanne picture does not modulate, does not flow; is too often hard, though always veracious--Cézannes veracity, be it understood. But it is an inescapable veracity. There is, too, great vitality and a peculiar reserved passion, like that of a Delacroix _à ribbers_, and in his still-life he is as great even as Manet. His landscapes are real, though without the subtle poetry of Corot or the blazing lyricism of Monet. He hails directly from the Dutch: Van der Near, in his night pieces. Yet no Dutchman ever painted so uncompromisingly, so close to the border line that divides the rigid definitions of old-fashioned photography--the "new" photography hugs closely the mellow mezzotint--and the vision of the painter. An eye--nothing more, is Cézanne. He refuses to see in nature either a symbol or a sermon. Withal his landscapes are poignant in their reality. They are like the grill age one notes in ancient French country houses--little caseate cut in the windows through which you may see in vivid outline a little section of the landscape. Cézanne marvellously renders certain surfaces, china, fruit, tapestry. Slowly grew his fame as a sober, sincere, unaffected workman of art. Disciples rallied around him. He accepted changing fortunes with his accustomed equanimity. Maurice Denis painted for the Champ de Mars Salon of 1901 a picture entitled Homage à Cézanne, after the well-known _hommages_ of Fantin-Latour. This _homage_ had its uses. The disciples became a swelling, noisy chorus, and in 1904 the Cézanne room was thronged by overheated enthusiasts who would have offered violence to the first critical dissident. The older men, the followers of Monet, Manet, Degas, and Whistler, talked as if the end of the world had arrived. Art is a serious affair in Paris. However, after Cézanne appeared the paintings of that half-crazy, unlucky genius, Vincent van Gogh, and of the gifted, brutal Gauguin. And in the face of such offerings Cézanne may yet, by reason of his moderation, achieve the unhappy fate of becoming a classic. He is certainly as far removed from Van Gogh and Gauguin on the one side as he is from Manet and Courbet on the other. Huysmans does not hesitate to assert that Cézanne contributed more to accelerate the impressionist movement than Manet. Paul Cézanne died in Aix, in Provence, October 23, 1906. Emile Bernard, an admirer, a quasi-pupil of Cézanne's and a painter of established reputation, discoursed at length in the _Mercure de France_ upon the methods and the man. His anecdotes are interesting. Without the genius of Flaubert, Cézanne had something of the great novelist's abhorrence of life--fear would be a better word. He voluntarily left Paris to immure himself in his native town of Aix, there to work out in peace long-planned projects, which would, he believed, revolutionise the technique of painting. Whether for good or evil, his influence on the younger men in Paris has been powerful, though it is now on the wane. How far they have gone astray in imitating him is the most significant thing related by Emile Bernard, a friend of Paul Gauguin and a member of his Pont-Aven school. In February, 1904, Bernard landed in Marseilles after a trip to the Orient. A chance word told him that there had been installed an electric tramway between Marseilles and Aix. Instantly the name of Cézanne came to his memory; he had known for some years that the old painter was in Aix. He resolved to visit him, and fearing a doubtful reception he carried with him a pamphlet he had written in 1889, an eulogium of the painter. On the way he asked his fellow-travellers for Cézanne's address, but in vain; the name was unknown. In Aix he met with little success. Evidently the fame of the recluse had not reached his birthplace. At last Bernard was advised to go to the Mayor's office, where he would find an electoral list. Among the voters he discovered a Paul Cézanne, who was born January 19, 1839, who lived at 25 Rue Boulegon. Bernard lost no time and reached a simple dwelling house with the name of the painter on the door. He rang. The door opened. He entered and mounted a staircase. Ahead of him, slowly toiling upward, was an old man in a cloak and carrying a portfolio. It was Cézanne. After he had explained the reason for his visit, the old painter cried: "You are Emile Bernard! You are a maker of biographies! Signac"--an impressionist--"told me of you. You are also a painter?" Bernard, who had been painting for years, and was a friend of Signac, was nonplussed at his sudden literary reputation, but he explained the matter to Cézanne, who, however, was in doubt until he saw later the work of his admirer. He had another atelier a short distance from the town; he called it "The Motive." There, facing Mount Sainte-Victoire, he painted every afternoon in the open; the majority of his later landscapes were inspired by the views in that charming valley. Bernard was so glad to meet Cézanne that he moved to Aix. In Cézanne's studio at Aix Bernard encountered some extraordinary studies in flower painting and three death heads; also monstrous nudes, giant-like women whose flesh appeared parboiled. On the streets Cézanne was always annoyed by boys or beggars; the former were attracted by his bohemian exterior and to express their admiration shouted at him or else threw stones; the beggars knew their man to be easy and were rewarded by small coin. Although Cézanne lived like a bachelor, his surviving sister saw that his household was comfortable. His wife and son lived in Paris and often visited him. He was rich; his father, a successful banker at Aix, had left him plenty of money; but a fanatic on the subject of art, ceaselessly searching for new tonal combinations, he preferred a hermit's existence. In Aix he was considered eccentric though harmless. His pride was doubled by a morbid shyness. Strangers he avoided. So sensitive was he that once when he stumbled over a rock Bernard attempted to help him by seizing his arm. A terrible scene ensued. The painter, livid with fright, cursed the unhappy young Parisian and finally ran away. An explanation came when the housekeeper told Bernard that her master was a little peculiar. Early in life he had been kicked by some rascal and ever afterward was nervous. He was very irritable and not in good health. In Bernard's presence he threw a bust made of him by Solari to the ground, smashing it. It didn't please him. In argument he lost his temper, though he recovered it rapidly. Zola's name was anathema. He said that Daumier drank too much; hence his failure to attain veritable greatness. Cézanne worked from six to ten or eleven in the morning at his atelier; then he breakfasted, repaired to the "Motive," there to remain until five in the evening. Returning to Aix, he dined and retired immediately. And he had kept up this life of toil and abnegation for years. He compared himself to Balzac's Frenhofer (in The Unknown Masterpiece), who painted out each day the work of the previous day. Cézanne adored the Venetians--which is curious--and admitted that he lacked the power to realise his inward vision; hence the continual experimenting. He most admired Veronese, and was ambitious of being received at what he called the "Salon de Bouguereau." The truth is, despite Cézanne's long residence in Paris, he remained provincial to the end; his father before becoming a banker had been a hairdresser, and his son was proud of the fact. He never concealed it. He loved his father's memory and had wet eyes when he spoke of him. Bernard thinks that the vision of his master was defective; hence the sometime shocking deformations he indulged in. "His _optique_ was more in his brain than in his eye." He lacked imagination absolutely, and worked slowly, laboriously, his method one of excessive complication. He began with a shadow, then a touch, superimposing tone upon tone, modelling his paint somewhat like Monticelli, but without a hint of that artist's lyricism. Sober, without rhetoric, a realist, yet with a singularly rich and often harmonious palette, Cézanne reported faithfully what his eyes told him. It angered him to see himself imitated and he was wrathful when he heard that his still-life pictures were praised in Paris. "That stuff they like up there, do they? Their taste must be low," he would repeat, his eyes sparkling with malice. He disliked the work of Paul Gauguin and repudiated the claim of being his artistic ancestor. "He did not understand me," grumbled Cézanne. He praised Thomas Couture, who was, he asserted, a true master, one who had formed such excellent pupils as Courbet, Manet, and Puvis. This rather staggered Bernard, as well it might; the paintings of Couture and Cézanne are poles apart. He had, he said, wasted much time in his youth--particularly in literature. A lettered man, he read to Bernard a poem in imitation of Baudelaire, one would say very Baudelairian. He had begun too late, had submitted himself to other men's influence, and wished for half a century that he might "realise"--his favourite expression--his theories. When he saw Bernard painting he told him that his palette was too restricted; he needed at least twenty colours. Bernard gives the list of yellows, reds, greens, and blues, with variations. "Don't make Chinese images like Gauguin," he said another time. "All nature must be modelled after the sphere, cone, and cylinder; as for colour, the more the colours harmonise the more the design becomes precise." Never a devotee of form--he did not draw from the model--his philosophy can be summed up thus: Look out for the contrasts and correspondence of tones, and the design will take care of itself. He hated "literary" painting and art criticism. He strongly advised Bernard to stick to his paint and let the pen alone. The moment an artist begins to explain his work he is done for; painting is concrete, literature deals with the abstract. He loved music, especially Wagner's, which he did not understand, but the sound of Wagner's name was sympathetic, and that had at first attracted him! Pissarro he admired for his indefatigable labours. Suffering from diabetes, which killed him, his nervous tension is excusable. He was in reality an amiable, kind-hearted, religious man. Above all, simple. He sought for the simple motive in nature. He would not paint a Christ head because he did not believe himself a worthy enough Christian. Chardin he studied and had a theory that the big spectacles and visor which the Little Master (the Velasquez of vegetables) wore had helped his vision. Certainly the still-life of Cézanne's is the only modern still-life that may be compared to Chardin's; not Manet, Vollon, Chase has excelled this humble painter of Aix. He called the Écoles des Beaux-Arts the "Bozards," and reviled as farceurs the German secessionists who imitated him. He considered Ingres, notwithstanding his science, a small painter in comparison with the Venetians and Spaniards. A painter by compulsion, a contemplative rather than a creative temperament, a fumbler and seeker, nevertheless Paul Cézanne has formed a school, has left a considerable body of work. His optic nerve was abnormal, he saw his planes leap or sink on his canvas; he often complained, but his patience and sincerity were undoubted. Like his friend Zola his genius--if genius there is in either man--was largely a matter of protracted labour, and has it not been said that genius is a long labour? From the sympathetic pen of Emile Bernard we learn of a character living in the real bohemia of Paris painters who might have figured in any of the novels referred to, or, better still, might have been interpreted by Victor Hugo or Ivan Turgenieff. But the Frenchman would have made of Père Tanguy a species of poor Myriel; the Russian would have painted him as he was, a saint in humility, springing from the soil, the friend of poor painters, a socialist in theory, but a Christian in practice. After following the humble itinerary of his life you realise the uselessness of "literary" invention. Here was character for a novelist to be had for the asking. The Crainquebille of Anatole France occurs to the lover of that writer after reading Emile Bernard's little study of Father Tanguy. His name was Julien Tanguy. He was born in 1825 at Plédran, in the north of France. He was a plasterer when he married. The young couple, accustomed to hardships of all kinds, left Saint-Brieuc for Paris. This was in 1860. After various vicissitudes the man became a colour grinder in the house of Edouard, Rue Clauzel. The position was meagre. The Tanguys moved up in the social scale by accepting the job of concierge somewhere on the Butte Montmartre. This gave Père Tanguy liberty, his wife looking after the house. He went into business on his own account, vending colours in the quarter and the suburbs. He traversed the country from Argenteuil to Barbizon, from Ecouen to Sarcelle. He met Pissarro, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, all youthful and confident and boiling over with admiration for Corot, Courbet, and Millet. They patronised the honest, pleasant pedlar of colours and brushes, and when they didn't have the money he trusted them. It was his prime quality that he trusted people. He cared not enough for money, as his too often suffering wife averred, and his heart, always on his sleeve, he was an easy mark for the designing. This supreme simplicity led him into joining the Communists in 1871, and then he had a nasty adventure. One day, while dreaming on sentry duty, a band from Versailles suddenly descended upon the outposts. Père Tanguy lost his head. He could not fire on a fellow-being, and he threw away his musket. For this act of "treachery" he was sentenced to serve two years in the galleys at Brest. Released by friendly intervention he had still to remain without Paris for two years more. Finally, entering his beloved quarter he resumed his tranquil occupation, and hearing that the Maison Edouard had been moved from the Rue Clauzel he rented a little shop, where he sold material to artists, bought pictures, and entertained in his humble manner any friend or luckless devil who happened that way. Cézanne and Vignon were his best customers. Guillemin, Pissarro, Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Oller, Messurer, Augustin, Signac, De Lautrec, symbolists of the Pont-Aven school, neo-impressionists, and the young _fumistes_ of schools as yet unborn, revolutionaries with one shirt to their back, swearing at the official _Salon_ and also swearing by the brotherhood of man (with a capital), assembled in this dingy old shop. Tanguy was a rallying point. He was full of the milk of human kindness, and robbed himself to give a worthless fellow with a hard-luck story some of the sous that should have gone to his wife. Fortunately she was a philosopher as well as an admirable housekeeper. If the rent was paid and there was some soup-meat for dinner she was content. More she could not expect from a man who gave away with both hands. But--and here is the curious part of this narrative of M. Bernard's--Tanguy was the only person in Paris who bought and owned pictures by Cézanne. He had dozens of his canvases stacked away in the rear of his establishment--Cézanne often parted with a canvas for a few francs. When Tanguy was hard up he would go to some discerning amateur and sell for two hundred francs pictures that to-day bring twenty thousand francs. Tanguy hated to sell, especially his Cézannes. Artists came to see them. His shop was the scene of many a wordy critical battle. Gauguin uttered the paradox, "Nothing so resembles a daub as a masterpiece," and the novelist Elémir Bourges cried, "This is the painting of a vintager!" Alfred Stevens roared in the presence of the Cézannes, Anquetin admired; but, as Bernard adds, Jacques Blanche bought. So did Durand-Ruel, who has informed me that a fine Cézanne to-day is a difficult fish to hook. The great public won't have him, and the amateurs who adore him jealously hold on to their prizes. The socialism of Père Tanguy was of a mild order. He pitied with a Tolstoyan pity the sufferings of the poor. He did not hate the rich, nor did he stand at street corners preaching the beauties of torch and bomb. A simple soul, uneducated, not critical, yet with an instinctive _flair_ for the coming triumphs of his young men, he espoused the cause of his clients because they were poverty-stricken, unknown, and revolutionists--an æsthetic revolution was his wildest dream. He said of Cézanne that "Papa Cézanne always quits a picture before he finishes it. If he moves he lets his canvases lie in the vacated studio." He no doubt benefited by this carelessness of the painter. Cézanne worked slowly, but he never stopped working; he left nothing to hazard, and, astonishing fact, he spent every morning at the Louvre. There he practised his daily scales, optically speaking, before taking up the brush for the day's work. Many of Vincent von Gogh's pictures Tanguy owned. This was about 1886. The eccentric, gifted Dutchman attracted the poor merchant by his ferocious socialism. He was, indeed, a ferocious temperament, working like a madman, painting with his colour tubes when he had no brushes, and literally living in the _boutique_ of Tanguy. The latter always read _Le Cri du Peuple_ and _L'Intransigeant_, and believed all he read. He did not care much for Van Gogh's compositions, no doubt agreeing with Cézanne, who, viewing them for the first time, calmly remarked to the youth, "Sincerely, you paint like a crazy man." A prophetic note! Van Gogh frequented a tavern kept by an old model, an Italian woman. It bore the romantic title of The Tambourine. When he couldn't pay his bills he would cover the walls with furious frescoes, flowers of tropical exuberance, landscapes that must have been seen in a nightmare. He was painting at this time three pictures a day. He would part with a canvas at the extortionate price of a franc. Tanguy was the possessor of a large portrait by Cézanne, done in his earliest manner. This he had to sell on account of pressing need. Dark days followed. He moved across the street into smaller quarters. The old crowd began to drift away; some died, some had become famous, and one, Van Gogh, shot himself in an access of mania. This was a shock to his friend. A second followed when Van Gogh's devoted brother went mad. Good Father Tanguy, as he was affectionately called, sickened. He entered a hospital. He suffered from a cancerous trouble of the stomach. One day he said to his wife, who was visiting him: "I am bored here... I won't die here... I mean to die in my own home." He went home and died shortly afterward. In 1894 Octave Mirbeau wrote a moving article for the _Journal_ about the man who had never spoken ill of any one, who had never turned from his door a hungry person. The result was a sale organised at the Hôtel Drouot, to which prominent artists and literary folk contributed works. Cazin, Guillemet, Gyp, Maufra, Monet, Luce, Pissarro, Rochegrosse, Sisley, Vauthier, Carrier-Belleuse, Berthe Morisot, Renoir, Jongkind, Raffaelli, *Helleu, Rodin, and many others participated in this noble charity, which brought the widow ten thousand francs. She soon died. Van Gogh painted a portrait of Tanguy about 1886. It is said to belong to Rodin. It represents the naïve man with his irregular features and placid expression of a stoic; not a distinguished face, but unmistakably that of a gentle soul, who had loved his neighbour better than himself (therefore he died in misery). He it was who may be remembered by those who knew him--and also a few future historians of the futility of things in general--as the man who first made known to Paris the pictures of the timid, obstinate Paul Cézanne. An odd fish, indeed, was this same Julien Tanguy, little father to painters. II. ROPS THE ETCHER I That personality in art counts, next to actual genius, heavier than all other qualities, is such a truism that it is often forgotten. In the enormous mass of mediocre work which is turned out annually by artists of technical talent seldom is there encountered a strong, well-defined personality. Imitation has been called the bane of originality; suppress it as a factor, and nine-tenths of living painters, sculptors, etchers would have to shut up shop. The stencil is the support of many men who otherwise might have become useful citizens, shoemakers, tailors, policemen, or vice-presidents. For this reason the phrase "academic" should be more elastic in its meanings. There are academic painters influenced by Corot or Monticelli, as well as by David, Gros, or Meissonier. The "academic" Rodin has appeared in contemporary sculpture; the great Frenchman found for himself his formula, and the lesser men have appropriated it to their own uses. This is considered legitimate, though not a high order of art; however, the second-rate rules in the market-place, let the genius rage as he will. He must be tamed. He must be softened; his divine fire shaded by the friendly screens of more prudent, more conventional talent. Even among men of genius up on the heights it is the personality of each that enters largely into the equation of their work. No one can confuse Whistler the etcher with the etcher Rembrandt; the profounder is the Dutchman. Yet what individuality there is in the plates of the American! What personality! Now, Félicien Rops, the Belgian etcher, lithographer, engraver, designer, and painter, occupies about the same relative position to Honoré Daumier as Whistler does to Rembrandt. How seldom you hear of Rops. Why? He was a man of genius, one of the greatest etchers and lithographers of his century, an artist with an intense personal line, a colossal workman and versatile inventor--why has he been passed over and inferior men praised? His pornographic plates cannot be the only reason, because his representative work is free from licence or suggestion. Giulio Romano's illustrations to Aretino's sonnets are not held up as the representative art of this pupil of Raphael, nor are the vulgarities of Rowlandson, Hogarth, George Morland set against their better attempts. Collectors treasure the engravings of the eighteenth-century _éditions des fermiers-généraux_ for their capital workmanship, not for their licentious themes. But Rops is always the Rops of the Pornocrates! After discussing him with some amateurs you are forced to realise that it is his plates in which he gives rein to an unparalleled flow of animal spirits and _gauloiserie_ that are the more esteemed. Rops the artist, with the big and subtle style, the etcher of the Sataniques, of Le Pendu, of La Buveuse d'Absinthe and half a hundred other masterpieces, is set aside for the witty illustrator, with the humour of a Rabelais and the cynicism of Chamfort. And even on this side of his genius he has never been excelled, the Japanese alone being his equals in daring of invention, while he tops them in the expression of broad humour. In the Luxembourg galleries there is a picture of an interesting man, in an etcher's atelier. It is the portrait of Rops by Mathey, and shows him examining at a window, through which the light pours in, a freshly pulled proof. It depicts with skill the intense expression upon his handsome face, the expression of an artist absolutely absorbed in his work. That is the real Rops. His master quality was intensity. It traversed like a fine keen flame his entire production from seemingly insignificant tail-pieces to his agonised designs, in which luxury and pain are inextricably commingled. He was born at Namur, Belgium, July 10, 1833, and died at Essonnes, near Paris, August 23,1898. He was the son of wealthy parents, and on one side stemmed directly from Hungary. His grandfather was Rops Lajos, of the province called Alfod. The Maygar predominated. He was as proud and fierce as Goya. A fighter from the beginning, still in warrior's harness at the close, when, "cardiac and impenitent," as he put it, he died of heart trouble. He received at the hands of the Jesuits a classical education. A Latinist, he was erudite as were few of his artistic contemporaries. The mystic strain in him did not betray itself until his third period. He was an accomplished humourist and could generally cap Latin verses with D'Aurevilly or Huysmans. Tertullian's De Cultu Feminarum he must have read, for many of his plates are illustrations of the learned Bishop of Carthage's attitude toward womankind. The hot crossings of blood, Belgian and Hungarian, may be responsible for a peculiarly forceful, rebellious, sensual, and boisterous temperament. Doubtless the three stadia of an artist's career are the arbitrary classification of critics; nevertheless they are well marked in many cases. Balzac was a romantic, a realist, a mystic; Flaubert was alternately romantic and realist. Tolstoi was never a romantic, but a realist he was, and he is a mystic. Dostoïevski, from whom he absorbed so much, taught him the formulas of his mysticism--though Tolstoi has never felt the life of the soul so profoundly as this predecessor. Ibsen passed through the three stages. Huysmans, never romantic, began as a realistic pessimist and ended as a pessimistic mystic. Félicien Rops could never have been a romantic, though the _macabre_ romanticism of 1830 may be found in his designs. A realist, brutal, bitter, he was in his youth; he saw the grosser facts of life, so often lamentable and tender, in the spirit of a Voltaire doubled by a Rabelais. There is honest and also shocking laughter in these early illustrations. A _fantaisiste_, graceful, delicate--and indelicate--emerged after the lad went up to Paris, as if he had stepped out of the eighteenth century. Rops summed up in his book plates, title-pages, and wood-cuts, illustrations done in a furious speed, all the elegance, the courtly corruption, and Boucher-like luxuriousness that may be detected in the moral _marquetrie_ of the Goncourts. He had not yet said, "Evil, be thou my Good," nor had the mystic delirium of the last period set in. All his afternoons must have been those of a faun--a faun who with impeccable solicitude put on paper what he saw in the heart of the bosk or down by the banks of secret rivers. The sad turpitudes, the casuistry of concupiscence, the ironic discolourations and feverish delving into subterranean moral stratifications were as yet afar. He was young, handsome, with a lithe, vigorous body and the head of an aristocratic Mephistopheles, a head all profile, like the heads of Hungary--Hungary itself, which is all profile. Need we add that after the death of his father he soon wasted a fortune? But the reckless bohemian in him was subjugated by necessity. He set to work to earn his bread. Some conception of his labours for thirty-five years may be gleaned from the catalogue of his work by Erastène Ramiro (whose real name is Eugène Rodrigues). Nearly three thousand plates he etched, lithographed, or engraved, not including his paintings or his experiments in various mediums, such as _vernis mou_ and wood-engraving. The coarse legends of old Flanders found in Rops their pictorial interpreter. Less cerebral in his abounding youth he made Paris laugh with his comical travesties of political persons, persons in high finance, and also by his shrewd eye for the homely traits in the life of the people. His street scenes are miracles of detail, satire, and fun. The one entitled Spring is the most noted. That legacy of hate, inherited from the 1830 poets, of the bourgeois, was a merry play for Rops. He is the third of the trinity of caricature artists, Daumier and Gavarni being the other two. The liberal pinch of Gallic salt in the earlier plates need not annoy one. Deliberately vulgar he never is, though he sports with things hallowed, and always goes out of his way to insult the religion he first professed. There is in this Satanist a religious _fond_; the very fierceness of his attacks, of his blasphemies, betrays the Catholic at heart. If he did not believe, why should he have displayed such continual scorn? No, Rops was not as sincere as his friends would have us believe. He made his Pegasus plod in too deep mud, and often in his most winged flights he darkened the blue with his satyr-like brutalities. But in the gay middle period his pages overflow with decorative Cupids and tiny devils, joyful girls, dainty amourettes, and Parisian _putti_--they blithely kick their legs over the edges of eternity, and smile as if life were a snowball jest or a game at forfeits. They are adorable. His women are usually strong-backed, robust Amazons, drawn with a swirling line and a Rubens-like fulness. They are conquerors. Before these majestic idols men prostrate themselves. In his turbulent later visions there is no suspicion of the opium that gave its inspiration to Coleridge, Poe, De Quincey, James Thomson, or Baudelaire. The city of dreadful night shown us by Rops is the city through whose streets he has passed his life long. Not the dream cities of James Ensor or De Groux, the Paris of Rops is at once an abode of disillusionment, of mordant joys, of sheer ecstasy and morbid hallucinations. The opium of Rops is his imagination, aided by a manual dexterity that is extraordinary. He is a master of linear design. He is cold, deadly cold, but correct ever. Fabulous and absurd, delicious and abominable as he may be, his spirit sits critically aloft, never smiling. Impersonal as a toxicologist, he handles his poisonous acids with the gravity of a philosopher and the indifference of a destroying angel. There is a diabolic spleen more strongly developed in Rops than in any of his contemporaries, with the sole exception of Baudelaire, who inspired and spurred him on to astounding atrocities of the needle and acid. This diabolism, this worship of Satan and his works, are sincere in the etcher. A relic of rotten Romanticism, it glows like phosphorescent fire during his last period. The Church has in its wisdom employed a phrase for frigid depravity of the Rops kind, naming it "morose delectation." Morose Rops became as he developed. His private life he hid. We know little or nothing of it save that he was not unhappy in his companionships or choice of friends. He loathed the promiscuous methods by which some men achieve admiration. But secret spleen there must have been--a twist of a painter's wrist may expose his soul. He became a solitary and ate the bitter root of sin, for, cerebral as he is, his discovery of the human soul shows it as ill at ease before its maker. Flaubert has said that "the ignoble is the sublime of the lower slope." But no man may sun himself on this slope by the flames of hell without his soul shrivelling away. Rodin, who admires Rops and has been greatly influenced by him; Rodin, as an artist superior to the Belgian, has revealed less preoccupation with the ignoble; at least, despite his excursions into questionable territory, he has never been carried completely away. He always returns to the sane, to the normal life; but over the volcanic landscapes of Rops are strewn many moral abysses. II He had no illusions as to the intelligence and sincerity of those men who, denying free-will, yet call themselves free-thinkers. Rops frankly made of Satan his chief religion. He is the psychologist of the exotic. Cruel, fantastic, nonchalant, and shivering atrociously, his female Satan worshippers go to their greedy master in *fatidical and shuddering attitudes; they submit to his glacial embrace. The acrid perfume of Rops's maleficent genius makes itself manifest in his Sataniques. No longer are his women the embodiment of Corbière's "Éternel féminin de l'éternel jocrisse." Ninnies, simperers, and simpletons have vanished. The poor, suffering human frame becomes a horrible musical instrument from which the artist extorts exquisite and sinister music. We turn our heads away, but the tune of cracking souls haunts our ear. As much to Rops as to Baudelaire, Victor Hugo could have said that he had evoked a new shudder. And singularly enough Rops is in these plates the voice of the mediæval preacher crying out that Satan is alive, a tangible being, going about the earth devouring us; that Woman is a vase of iniquity, a tower of wrath, a menace, not a salvation. His readings of the early fathers and his pessimistic temperamental bent contributed to this truly morose judgment of his mother's sex. He drives cowering to her corner, after her earlier triumphs, his unhappy victim of love, absinthe, and diabolism. Not for an instant does he participate personally in the strained voluptuousness or terrific chastisements of his designs. He has all the old monachal contempt of woman. He is cerebrally chaste. Huysmans, in his admirable essay on Rops, wrote, "Car il n'y a de réellement obscènes que les gens chastes"; which is a neat bit of special pleading and quite sophistical. Rops did not lead the life of a saint, though his devotion to his art was Balzacian. It would be a more subtle sophistry to quote Paul Bourget's aphorism. "There is," he writes, "from the metaphysical observer's point of view, neither disease nor health of the soul; there are only psychological states." The _états d'âmes_ of Félicien Rops, then, may or may not have been morbid. But he has contrived that his wit in its effect upon his spectators is too often profoundly depressing and morbid and disquieting. The triumphant chorus of Rops's admirers comprises the most critical names in France and Italy: Barbey d'Aurevilly, J.K. Huysmans, Pradelle, Joséphin Péladan--once the _Sâr_ of Babylonian fame--Eugène Demolder, Emile Verhaeren, the Belgian poet; Camille Lemonnier, Champsaur, Arsène Alexandre, Fromentin, Vittorio Pica, De Hérédia, Mallarmé, Octave Uzanne, Octave Mirbeau, the biographer Ramiro and Charles Baudelaire. The last first recognised him, though he never finished the projected study of him as man and artist. In the newly published letters (1841-66) of Baudelaire there is one addressed to Rops, who saw much of the unhappy poet during his disastrous sojourn in Brussels. It was the author of Les Fleurs du Mal who made the clever little verse about "Ce tant bizarre Monsieur Rops... Qui n'est pas un grand prix de Rome, mais dont le talent est haut, comme la pyramide de Chéops." A French critic has called Rops "a false genius," probably alluding to the malign characters of the majority of his engraved works rather than to his marvellous and fecund powers of invention. Perverse idealist as he was, he never relaxed his pursuit of the perfection of form. He tells us that in 1862 he went to Paris, after much preliminary skirmishing in Belgian reviews and magazines, to "learn his art" with Bracquemond and Jacquemart, both of whom he never ceased praising. He was associated with Daubigny, painter and etcher, and with Courbet, Flameng, and Thérond. He admired Calmatta and his school--Bal, Franck, Biot, Meunier, Flameng. He belonged to the International Society of Aquafortistes. He worked in aquatint and successfully revived the old process, _vernis mou_. A sober workman, he spent at least fourteen hours a day at his desk. Being musical, he designed some genre pieces, notably that of the truthfully observed Bassoonist. And though not originating he certainly carried to the pitch of the artistically ludicrous those progressive pictures of goats dissolving into pianists; of Liszt tearing passion and grand pianos into tatters. He has contributed to the gaiety of nations with his celebrated design: Ma fille! Monsieur Cabanel, which shows a harpy-like mother presenting her nude daughter as a model for that painter. The malicious ingenuity of Rops never failed him. He produced for years numerous anecdotes in black and white. The elasticity of his line, its variety and richness, the harmonies, elliptical and condensed, of his designs; the agile, fiery movement, his handling of his velvety blacks, his tonal gradations, his caressing touch by which the metal reproduced muscular crispations of his dry-point and the fat silhouettes of beautiful human forms, above all, his virile grasp which is revealed in his balanced ensembles--these prove him to be one of the masters of modern etching. And from his cynical yet truthful motto: "J'appelle un chat un chat," he never swerved. A student and follower of Jean Francois Millet, several landscapes and pastorals of Rops recall the French painter's style. In his Belgian out-of-doors scenes and interiors the Belgian heredity of Rops projects itself unmistakably. Such a picture as Scandal, for example, might have been signed by Israels. Le Bout de Sillon is Millet, and beautifully drawn. The scheme is trite. Two peasants, a young woman and a young man holding a rope, exchange love vows. It is very simple, very expressive. His portraits of women, Walloons, and of Antwerp are solidly built, replete with character and quaint charm. Charming, too, is the portrait of his great-aunt. Scandal is an ambitious design. A group of women strongly differentiated as to types and ages are enjoying over a table their tea and a choice morsel of scandal. The situation is seized; it is a picture that appeals. Ghastly is his portrait of a wretched young woman ravaged by absinthe. Her lips are blistered by the wormwood, and in her fevered glance there is despair. Another delineation of disease, a grinning, skull-like head with a scythe back of it, is a tribute to the artist's power of rendering the repulsive. His Messalina, Lassatta, La Femme au Cochon, and La Femme au Pantin should be studied. He has painted scissors grinders, flower girls, "old guards," incantations, fishing parties, the rabble in the streets, broom-riding witches, apes, ivory and peacocks, and a notable figure piece, An Interment in the Walloon Country, which would have pleased Courbet. It is in his incarnations of Satan that Rops is unapproachable. Satan Sowing the Tares of Evil is a sublime conception, truly Miltonic. The bony-legged demon strides across Paris. One foot is posed on Notre Dame. He quite touches the sky. Upon his head is a broad-brimmed peasant's hat, Quaker in shape. Hair streams over his skeleton shoulders. His eyes are gleaming with infernal malice--it is the most diabolic face ever drawn of his majesty; not even Franz Stuck's Satan has eyes so full of liquid damnation. Scattering miniature female figures, like dolls, to the winds, this monster passes over Paris, a baleful typhoon. The moral is not far to seek; indeed, there is generally a moral, sometimes an inverted one, in the Rops etchings. Order Reigns at Warsaw is a grim commentary on Russian politics quite opportune to-day. La Peine de Mort has been used by Socialists as a protest against capital punishment. Les Diables Froids personifies the impassible artist. It is a page torn from the book of hell. Rops had read Dante; he knew the meaning of the lines: "As the rill that runs from Bulicame to be portioned out amid the sinful women"; and more than once he explored the frozen circles of Gehenna. Victor Hugo was much stirred by the design, Le Pendu, which depicts a man's corpse swinging under a huge bell in some vast and immemorial, raven-haunted, decaying tower, whose bizarre and gloomy outlines might have been created by the brain of a Piranesi. An apocalyptic imagination had Félicien Rops. III. MONTICELLI I Poor "Fada"! The "innocent," the inoffensive fool--as they christened that unfortunate man of genius, Adolphe Monticelli, in the dialect of the South, the slang of Marseilles--where he spent the last sixteen years of his life. The richest colourist of the nineteenth century, obsessed by colour, little is known of this Monticelli, even in these days when an artist's life is subjected to inquisitorial methods. Few had written of him in English before W.E. Henley and W.C. Brownell. In France eulogised by Théophile Gautier, in favour at the court, admired by Diaz, Daubigny, Troyon, and Delacroix, his hopes were cracked by the catastrophe of the Franco-Prussian war. He escaped to Marseilles, there to die poor, neglected, half mad. Perhaps he was to blame for his failures; perhaps his temperament was his fate. Yet to-day his pictures are sought for as were those of Diaz two decades ago, though there was a tacit conspiracy among dealers and amateurs not to drag his merits too soon before the foot-lights. In 1900 at the Paris Exposition a collection of his works, four being representative, opened the eyes of critics and public alike. It was realised that Monticelli had not received his proper ranking in the nineteenth-century theatre of painting; that while he owed much to Watteau, to Turner, to Rousseau, he was a master who could stand or fall on his own merits. Since then the Monticelli pictures have been steadily growing in favour. There is a Monticelli cult. America can boast of many of his most distinguished specimens, while the Louvre and the Luxembourg are without a single one. The Musée de Lille at Marseilles has several examples; the private collections of M. Delpiano at Cannes and a few collections in Paris make up a meagre list. The Comparative Exhibition in New York, 1904, revealed to many accustomed to overpraising Diaz and Fromentin the fact that Monticelli was their superior as a colourist, and a decorator of singularly fascinating characteristics, one who was not always a mere contriver of bacchanalian riots of fancy, but who could exhibit when at his best a _justesse_ of vision and a controlled imagination. The dictionaries offer small help to the student as to the doings of this erratic painter. He was born October 24, 1824. He died June 29, 1886. He was of mixed blood, Italian and French. His father was a gauger, though Adolphe declared that he was an authentic descendant of the Crusader, Godefroy Monticelli, who married in 1100 Aurea Castelli, daughter of the Duca of Spoleto. Without doubt his Italian blood counted heavily in his work, but whether of noble issue matters little. Barbey d'Aurevilly and Villiers de l'Isle Adam, two men of letters, indulged in similar boasts, and no doubt in their poverty and tribulations the oriflamme of aristocracy which they bravely bore into the café life of Paris was a source of consolation to them. But it is with brains, not blood, that painters mix their pigments, and the legend of high birth can go with the other fictions reported by Henley that Monticelli was an illegitimate offshoot of the Gonzagas; that he was the natural son of Diaz; that Diaz kept him a prisoner for years, to "steal the secret of his colours." Like many another of his temperament, he had himself to thank for his woes, though it was a streak of ill-luck for him when the Prussians bore down on Paris. He was beginning to be known. A pupil of Raymond Aubert (1781-1857), he was at first a "fanatic of Raphael and Ingres." Delacroix and his violently harmonised colour masses settled the future colourist. He met Diaz and they got on very well together. A Southerner, handsome, passionate, persuasive, dashing, with the eloquence of the meridional, Monticelli and his musical name made friends at court and among powerful artists. In 1870 he started on his walk of thirty-six days from Paris to Marseilles. He literally painted his way. In every inn he shed masterpieces. Precious gold dripped from his palette, and throughout the Rhone valley there are, it is whispered--by white-haired old men the memory of whose significant phrases awakes one in the middle of the night longing for the valley of Durance--that if a resolute, keen-eyed adventurer would traverse unostentatiously the route taken by Monticelli during his Odyssey the rewards might be great. It is an idea that grips one's imagination, but unfortunately it is an idea that gripped the imagination of others thirty years ago. Not an _auberge_, hotel, or hamlet has been left unexplored. The fine-tooth comb of familiar parlance has been sedulously used by interested persons. If there are any Monticellis unsold nowadays they are for sale at the dealers'. In him was incarnate all that we can conceive as bohemian, with a training that gave him the high-bred manner of a seigneur. He was a romantic, like his friend Félix Ziem--Ziem, Marcellin, Deboutin, and Monticelli represented a caste that no longer exists; bohemians, yes, but gentlemen, refined and fastidious. Yet, after his return to his beloved Marseilles, Monticelli led the life of an August vagabond. In his velvet coat, a big-rimmed hat slouched over his eyes, he patrolled the quays, singing, joking, an artless creature, so good-hearted and irresponsible that he was called "Fada," more in affection than contempt. He painted rapidly, a picture daily, sold it on the _terrasses_ of the cafés for a hundred francs, and when he couldn't get a hundred he would take sixty. Now one must pay thousands for a canvas. His most loving critic, Camille Mauclair, who, above any one, has battled valiantly for his art, tells us that Monticelli once took eighteen francs for a small canvas because the purchaser had no more in his pocket! In this manner he disposed of a gallery. He smoked happy pipes and sipped his absinthe--in his case as desperate an enemy as it had proved to De Musset. He would always doff his hat at the mention of Watteau or Rubens. They were his gods. When Monticelli arrived in Marseilles after his tramp down from Paris he was literally in rags. M. Chave, a good Samaritan, took him to a shop and togged him out in royal raiment. They left for a promenade, and then the painter begged his friend to let him walk alone so as not to attenuate the effect he was bound to produce on the passersby, such a childish, harmless vanity had he. His delight was to gather a few chosen ones over a bottle of old vintage, and thus with spasmodic attempts at work his days rolled by. He was feeble, semi-paralysed. With the advent of bad health vanished the cunning of his hand. His paint coarsened, his colours became crazier. His pictures at this period were caricatures of his former art. Many of the early ones were sold as the productions of Diaz, just as to-day some Diazs are palmed off as Monticellis. After four years of decadence he died, repeating for months before his taking off: "Je viens de la lune." He was one whose brain a lunar ray had penetrated; but this ray was transposed to a spectrum of gorgeous hues. Capable of depicting the rainbow, he died of the opalescence that clouded his glass of absinthe. _Pauvre Fada!_ II It is only a coincidence, yet a curious one, that two such dissimilar spirits as Stendhal and Monticelli should have predicted their future popularity. Stendhal said: "About 1880 I shall be understood." Monticelli said in 1870: "I paint for thirty years hence." Both prophecies have been realised. After the exhibition at Edinburgh and Glasgow in 1890 Monticelli was placed by a few discerning critics above Diaz in quality of paint. In 1892 Mr. Brownell said of Monticelli in his French Art--a book that every student and amateur of painting should possess--that the touch of Diaz, patrician as it was, lacked the exquisiteness of Monticelli's; though he admits the "exaggeration of the decorative impulse" in that master. For Henley Monticelli's art was purely sensuous; "his fairy meadows and enchanted gardens are that sweet word 'Mesopotamia' in two dimensions." Henley speaks of his "clangours of bronze and gold and scarlet" and admits that "there are moments when his work is as infallibly decorative as a Persian crock or a Japanese brocade." D.S. MacColl, in his study of Nineteenth-Century Painting, gives discriminating praise: "Monticelli's own exquisite sense of grace in women and invention in grouping add the positive new part without which his art would be the mannerising of Rousseau," while Arthur Symons in his Studies in Seven Arts declares all Monticelli's art "tends toward the effect of music... his colour is mood ... his mood is colour." It remained, however, for Camille Mauclair, a Parisian critic in sympathy with the arts of design, literature, and music, to place Monticelli in his proper niche. This Mauclair has done with critical tact. In his Great French Painters, the bias of which is evidently strained in favour of the impressionistic school, in his L'Impressionisme, and in his monograph on Watteau this critic declares that Monticelli's art "recalls Claude Lorraine a little and Watteau even more by its sentiment, and Turner and Bonington by its colour... His work has the same subtlety of gradations, the same division into fragments of tones (as in Watteau's 'Embarkment for Cythera'), the same variety of execution, which has sometimes the opaqueness of china and enamel and sometimes the translucence of precious stones or the brilliancy of glass, metal, or oxides and seems to be the result of some mysterious chemistry... Monticelli had an absolutely unique perception of tonalities, and his glance took in certain shades which had not been observed before, which the optic and chromatic science of the day has placed either by proof or hypothesis between the principal tones of the solar spectrum thirty years after Monticelli had fixed them. There is magic and high lyric poetry in his art." I wrote of the Monticellis exhibited at the Comparative Exhibition in New York: "At the opposite end of the room there is A Summer Day's Idyll, upon which Monticelli had squeezed all his flaming tubes. It seems orchestrated in crushed pomegranate, the light suffusing the reclining figures like a jewelled benediction. Marvellous, too, are the colour-bathed creatures in this No Man's Land of drugged dreams... Do not the walls fairly vibrate with this wealth of fairy tints and fantasy?" But it must not be forgotten that he struck other chords besides blazing sun-worshipping. We often encounter landscapes of vaporous melancholy, twilights of reverie. 8888 Monticelli once told an admiring young amateur that in his canvases "the objects are the decorations, the touches are the scales, and the light is the tenor," thereby acknowledging himself that he felt colour as music. There was hyperæsthesia in his case; his eyes were protuberant and, like the ears of violinists, capable of distinguishing quarter tones, even sixteenths. There are affiliations with Watteau; the same gem-like style of laying on the thick pâte, the same delight in fairy-like patches of paint to represent figures. In 1860 he literally resuscitated Watteau's manner, adding a personal note and a richness hitherto unknown to French paint. Mauclair thinks that to Watteau can be traced back the beginnings of modern Impressionism; the division of tones, the juxtaposition of tonalities. Monticelli was the connecting link between Watteau and Monet. The same critic does not hesitate to name Monticelli as one of the great quartet of harmonists, Claude, Turner, Monet being the other three. Taine it was who voiced the philosophy of Impressionism when he announced in his Philosophie de l'Art that the principal personage in a picture is the light in which all things are plunged. Eugène Carrière also asserted that a "picture is the logical development of light." Monticelli before him had said: "In a painting one must sound the _C_. Rembrandt, Rubens, Watteau, all the great ones have sounded the C." His C, his key-note, was the magic touch of luminosity that dominated his picture. Like Berlioz, he adored colour for colour's sake. He had a touch all Venetian in his relation of tones; at times he went in search of chromatic adventures, returning with the most marvellous trophies. No man before or since, not even those practitioners of dissonance and martyrs to the enharmonic scale, Cézanne, Gauguin, or Van Gogh, ever matched and modulated such widely disparate tints; no man before could extract such magnificent harmonies from such apparently irreconcilable tones. Monticelli thought in colour and was a master of orchestration, one who went further than Liszt. The simple-minded Monticelli had no psychology to speak of--he was a reversion, a "throw back" to the Venetians, the decorative Venetians, and if he had possessed the money or the leisure--he hadn't enough money to buy any but small canvases--he might have become a French Tiepolo, and perhaps the greatest decorative artist of France. Even his most delicate pictures are largely felt and sonorously executed; not "finished" in the studio sense, but complete--two different things. Fate was against him, and the position he might have had was won by the gentle Puvis de Chavannes, who exhibited a genius for decorating monumental spaces. With his fiery vision, his brio of execution, his palette charged with jewelled radiance, Monticelli would have been the man to have changed the official interiors of Paris. His energy at one period was enormous, consuming, though short-lived--1865-75. His lack of self-control and at times his Italian superficiality, never backed by a commanding intellect, produced the Monticelli we know. In truth his soul was not complicated. He could never have attacked the psychology of Zarathustra, Hamlet, or Peer Gynt. A Salome from him would have been a delightfully decorative minx, set blithely dancing in some many-hued and enchanted garden of Armida. She would never have worn the air of hieratic lasciviousness with which Gustave Moreau inevitably dowered her. There was too much joy of the south in Monticelli's bones to concern himself with the cruel imaginings of the Orient or the grisly visions of the north. He was Oriental _au fond_; but it was the Orientalism of the Thousand and One Nights. He painted scenes from the Decameron, and his _fêtes galantes_ may be matched with Watteau's in tone. His first period was his most graceful; ivory-toned languorous dames, garbed in Second Empire style, languidly stroll in charming parks escorted by fluttering Cupids or stately cavaliers. The "decorative impulse" is here at its topmost. In his second period we get the Decameron series, the episodes from Faust, the Don Quixote--recall, if you can, that glorious tableau with its Spanish group and the long, grave don and merry, rotund squire entering on the scene, a fantastic sky behind them. Painted music! The ruins, fountains, statues, and mellow herbage abound in this middle period. The third is less known. Extravagance began to rule; scarlet fanfares are sounded; amethysts and emeralds sparkle; yet there is more thematic variety. Voluptuous, perfumed, and semi-tragic notes were uttered by this dainty poet of the carnival of life. The canvas glowed with more reverberating and infernal lights, but lyric ever. Technique, fabulous and feverish, expended itself on flowers that were explosions of colours, on seductive marines, on landscapes of a rhythmic, haunting beauty--the Italian temperament had become unleashed. Fire, gold, and purple flickered and echoed in Monticelli's canvases. Irony, like an insinuating serpent, began to creep into this paradise of melting hues. The masterful gradations of tone became bewildered. Poison was eating the man's nerves. He discarded the brush, and standing before his canvas he squeezed his tubes upon it, literally modelling his paint with his thumb until it almost assumed the relief of sculpture. What a touch he had! What a subtle prevision of modulations to be effected by the careless scratch of his nail or the whip of a knife's edge! Remember, too, that originally he had been an adept in the art of design; he could draw as well as his peers. But he sacrificed form and observation and psychology to sheer colour. He, a veritable discoverer of tones--aided thereto by an abnormal vision--became the hasty improviser, who at the last daubed his canvases with a pasty mixture, as hot and crazy as his ruined soul. The end did not come too soon. A chromatic genius went under, leaving but a tithe of the gleams that illuminated his brain. Alas, poor Fada! IV. RODIN I Rodin, the French sculptor, deserves well of our new century; the old one did so incontinently batter him. The anguish of his own Hell's Portal he endured before he moulded its clay between his thick clairvoyant fingers. Misunderstood, therefore misrepresented, he with his pride and obstinacy aroused--the one buttressing the other--was not to be budged from his formulas and practice of sculpture. Then the world of art swung unwillingly and unamiably toward him, perhaps more from curiosity than conviction. Rodin became famous. And he is more misunderstood than ever. His very name, with its memory of Eugène Sue's romantic rancour--you recall that impossible and diabolic Jesuit Rodin in The Mysteries of Paris?--has been thrown in his teeth. He has been called _rusé_, even a fraud; while the wholesale denunciation of his work as erotic is unluckily still green in our memory. The sculptor, who in 1877 was accused of "faking" his life-like Age of Brass--now at the Luxembourg--by taking a mould from the living model, also experienced the discomfiture of being assured some years later that, not knowing the art of modelling, his statue of Balzac was only an evasion of difficulties. And this to the man who had in the interim wrought so many masterpieces. To give him his due he stands prosperity not quite as well as he did poverty. In every great artist there is a large area of self-esteem; it is the reservoir which he must, during years of drought and defeat, draw upon to keep his soul fresh. Without the consoling fluid of egoism, genius must perish in the dust of despair. But fill this source to the brim, accelerate the speed of its current, and artistic deterioration may ensue. Rodin has been called, fatuously, the second Michael Angelo--as if there could ever be a replica of any human. He has been hailed as a modern Praxiteles. And he is often damned as a myopic decadent whose insensibility to pure line and deficiency in constructional power have been elevated by his admirers into sorry virtues. Yet is Rodin justly appraised? Do his friends not overdo their glorification, his critics their censure? Nothing so stales a demigod's image as the perfumes burned before it by his worshippers; the denser the smoke the sooner crumble the feet of their idol. However, in the case of Rodin the fates have so contrived their malicious game that at no point of his career has he been without the company of envy, chagrin, and slander. Often, when he had attained a summit, he would find himself thrust down into a deeper valley. He has mounted to triumphs and fallen to humiliations, but his spirit has never been quelled, and if each acclivity he scales is steeper, the air atop has grown purer, more stimulating, and the landscape spreads wider before him. He can say with Dante: "La montagna che drizza voi che il mondo fece torti." Rodin's mountain has always straightened in him what the world made crooked. The name of his mountain is Art. A born non-conformist, Rodin makes the fourth of that group of nineteenth-century artists--Richard Wagner, Henrik Ibsen, and Edouard Manet--who taught a deaf and blind world to hear and see and think and feel. Is it not dangerous to say of a genius that his work alone should count, that his life is negligible? Though Rodin has followed Flaubert's advice to artists to lead ascetic lives that their art might be the more violent, nevertheless his career, colourless as it may seem to those who better love stage players and the watery comedies of society--this laborious life of a poor sculptor--is not to be passed over if we are to make any estimate of his art. He, it is related, always becomes enraged at the word "inspiration," enraged at the common notion that fire descends from heaven upon the head of the favoured neophyte of art. Rodin believes in but one inspiration--nature. He swears he does not invent, but copies nature. He despises improvisation, has contemptuous words for "fatal facility," and, being a slow-moving, slow-thinking man, he admits to his councils those who have conquered art, not by assault, but by stealth and after years of hard work. He sympathises with Flaubert's patient toiling days, he praises Holland because after Paris it seemed slow. "Slowness is a beauty," he declared. In a word, Rodin has evolved a theory and practice of his art that is the outcome--like all theories, all techniques--of his own temperament. And that temperament is giant-like, massive, ironic, grave, strangely perverse at times; and it is the temperament of a magician doubled by that of a mathematician. Books are written about him. De Maupassant describes him in Notre Coeur with picturesque precision. He is tempting as a psychologic study. He appeals to the literary, though he is not "literary." His modelling arouses tempests, either of dispraise or idolatry. To see him steadily, critically, after a visit to his studios in Paris or Meudon, is difficult. If the master be there then you feel the impact of a personality that is as cloudy as the clouds about the base of a mountain and as impressive as the mountain. Yet a pleasant, unassuming, sane man, interested in his clay--absolutely--that is, unless you discover him to be more interested in humanity. If you watch him well you may find yourself well watched; those peering eyes possess a vision that plunges into your soul. And the soul this master of marbles sees as nude as he sees the human body. It is the union of artist and psychologist that places Rodin apart. These two arts he practises in a medium that has hitherto not betrayed potentialities for such almost miraculous performances. Walter Pater is quite right in maintaining that each art has its separate subject-matter; nevertheless, in the debatable province of Rodin's sculpture we find strange emotional power, hints of the art of painting and a rare musical suggestiveness. But this is not playing the game according to the rules of Lessing and his Laocoön. Let us drop this old æsthetic rule of thumb and confess that during the last century a new race of artists sprang up from some strange element and, like flying-fish, revealed to a wondering world their composite structures. Thus we find Berlioz painting with his instrumentation; Franz Liszt, Tschaikowsky, and Richard Strauss filling their symphonic poems with drama and poetry, and Richard Wagner inventing an art which he believed to embrace the seven arts. And there is Ibsen, who used the dramatic form as a vehicle for his anarchistic ideas; and Nietzsche, who was such a poet that he was able to sing a mad philosophy into life; and Rossetti, who painted poems and made poetry that is pictorial. Sculpture was the only art that had resisted this universal disintegration, this imbroglio of the arts. No sculptor before Rodin had dared to break the line, dared to shiver the syntax of stone. For sculpture is a static, not a dynamic art--is it not? Let us observe the rules, though we preserve the chill spirit of the cemetery. What Mallarmé attempted to do with French poetry Rodin accomplished in clay. His marbles do not represent but present emotion, are the evocation of emotion itself; as in music, form and substance coalesce. If he does not, as did Mallarmé, arouse "the silent thunder afloat in the leaves," he can summon from the vasty deep the spirits of love, hate, pain, despair, sin, beauty, ecstasy; above all, ecstasy. Now the primal gift of ecstasy is bestowed upon few. In our age Keats had it, and Shelley; Byron, despite his passion, missed it, and so did Wordsworth. We find it in Swinburne, he had it from the first; but few French poets have it. Like the "cold devils" of Félicien Rops, coiled in frozen ecstasy, the blasts of hell about them, Charles Baudelaire can boast the dangerous attribute. Poe and Heine knew ecstasy, and Liszt also; Wagner was the master adept of his century. Tschaikowsky followed him close; and in the tiny piano scores of Chopin ecstasy is pinioned in a few bars, the soul often rapt to heaven in a phrase. Richard Strauss has shown a rare variation on the theme of ecstasy; voluptuousness troubled by pain, the soul tormented by stranger nuances. Rodin is of this tormented choir; he is master of its psychology. It may be the decadence, as any art is in decadence which stakes the parts against the whole. The same was said of Beethoven by the followers of Haydn, and the successors of Richard Strauss will be surely abused quite as violently as the Wagnerites abuse Strauss to-day--employing against him the same critical artillery employed against Wagner. That this ecstasy should be aroused by pictures of love and death, as in the case of Poe and Baudelaire, Wagner and Strauss, must not be adjudged as a black crime. In the Far East they hypnotise neophytes with a bit of broken mirror, for in the kingdom of art, as in the Kingdom of Heaven, there are many mansions. Possibly it was a relic of his early admiration and study of Baudelaire that set Wagner to extorting ecstasy from his orchestra by images of death and love; and no doubt the temperament which seeks such combinations--a temperament commoner in mediæval days than ours--was inherent in Wagner. He makes his Isolde sing mournfully and madly over a corpse and, throwing herself upon the dead body of Tristan, die shaken by the sweet cruel pains of love. Richard Strauss closely patterns after Wagner in his Salome, there is the head of a dead man, and there is the same dissolving ecstasy. Both men play with similar counters--love and death, and death and love. And so Rodin. In Pisa we may see (attributed by Vasari) Orcagna's fresco of the Triumph of Death. The sting of the flesh and the way of all flesh are inextricably blended in Rodin's Gate of Hell. His principal reading for forty years has been Dante and Baudelaire. The Divine Comedy and Les Fleurs du Mal are the key-notes in this white symphony of Auguste Rodin's. Love and life and bitterness and death rule the themes of his marbles. Like Beethoven and Wagner he breaks the academic laws of his art, but then he is Rodin, and where he achieves magnificently lesser men would miserably perish. His large tumultuous music is for his chisel alone to ring out and sing. II The first and still the best study of Rodin as man and thinker is to be found in a book by Judith Cladel, the daughter of the novelist (author of Mes Paysans). She named it Auguste Rodin, pris sur la vie, and her pages are filled with surprisingly vital sketches of the workaday Rodin. His conversations are recorded; altogether this little picture has much charm and proves what Rodin asserts--that women understand him better than men. There is a fluid, feminine, disturbing side to his art and nature very appealing to emotional women. Mlle. Cladel's book has also been treasure-trove for the anecdote hunters; all have visited her pages. Camille Mauclair admits his indebtedness; so does Frederick Lawton, whose big volume is the most complete life (probably official) that has thus far appeared, either in French or English. It is written on the side of Rodin, like Mauclair's more subtle study, and like the masterly criticism of Roger Marx. Born at Paris in 1840--the natal year of his friends Claude Monet and Zola--and in humble circumstances, not enjoying a liberal education, the young Rodin had to fight from the beginning, fight for bread as well as an art schooling. He was not even sure of a vocation. An accident determined it. He became a workman in the atelier of Carrier-Belleuse, the sculptor, but not until he had failed at the Beaux-Arts (which was a stroke of luck for his genius) and after he had enjoyed some tentative instruction under the great animal sculptor, Barye. He was never a steady pupil of Barye, nor did he long remain with him. He went to Belgium and "ghosted" for other sculptors; indeed, it was a privilege, or misfortune, to have been the "ghost"--anonymous assistant--for half a dozen sculptors. He learned his technique by the sweat of his brow before he began to make music upon his own instrument. How his first work, The Man With the Broken Nose, was refused by the Salon jury is history. He designed for the Sèvres porcelain works; he made portrait busts, architectural ornaments for sculptors, caryatides; all styles that are huddled in the yards and studios of sculptors he had essayed and conquered. No man knew his trade better, although we are informed that with the chisel of the _practicien_ Rodin was never proficient--he could not or would not work at the marble _en bloc_. His works to-day are in the leading museums of the world and he is admitted to have "talent" by the academic men. Rivals he has none, nor will he have successors. His production is too personal. Like Richard Wagner, Rodin has proved a Upas tree for many lesser men--he has reflected or else absorbed them. His closest friend, the late Eugène Carrière, warned young sculptors not to study Rodin too curiously. Carrière was wise, but his own art of portraiture was influenced by Rodin; swimming in shadow, his enigmatic heads have a suspicion of the quality of sculpture--Rodin's--not the mortuary art of so much academic sculpture. A profound student of light and of movement, Rodin, by deliberate amplification of the surfaces of his statues, avoiding dryness and harshness of outline, secures a zone of radiancy, a luminosity, which creates the illusion of reality. He handles values in clay as a painter does his tones. He gets the design of the outline by movement which continually modifies the anatomy--the secret, he believes, of the Greeks. He studies his profiles successively in full light, obtaining volume--or planes--at once and together; successive views of one movement. The light plays with more freedom upon his amplified surfaces--intensified in the modelling by enlarging the lines. The edges of certain parts are amplified, deformed, falsified, and we see that light-swept effect, that appearance as if of luminous emanations. This deformation, he declares, was practised by the great sculptors to snare the undulating appearance of life. Sculpture, he asserts, is the "art of the hole and the lump, not of clear, well-smoothed, unmodelled figures." Finish kills vitality. Yet Rodin can chisel a smooth nymph for you if he so wills, but her flesh will ripple and run in the sunlight. His art is one of accents. He works by profile in depth, not by surfaces. He swears by what he calls "cubic truth"; his pattern is a mathematical figure; the pivot of art is balance, _i.e._, the oppositions of volume produced by movement. Unity haunts him. He is a believer in the correspondences of things, of the continuity in nature; a mystic as well as a geometrician. Yet such a realist is he that he quarrels with any artist who does not see "the latent heroic in every natural movement." Therefore he does not force the pose of his model, preferring attitudes or gestures voluntarily adopted. His sketch-books, as copious, as vivid as the drawings of Hokusai--he is very studious of Japanese art--are swift memoranda of the human machine as it dispenses its normal muscular motions. Rodin, draughtsman, is as surprising and original as Rodin, sculptor. He will study a human foot for months, not to copy it, but to possess the secret of its rhythms. His drawings are the swift notations of a sculptor whose eye is never satisfied, whose desire to pin on paper the most evanescent movements of the human machine is almost a mania. The French sculptor avoids studied poses. The model tumbles down anywhere, in any contortion or relaxation he or she wishes. Practically instantaneous is the method adopted by Rodin to preserve the fleeting attitudes, the first shiver of surfaces. He draws rapidly with his eye on the model. It is a mere scrawl, a few enveloping lines, a silhouette. But vitality is in it; and for his purposes a mere memorandum of a motion. A sculptor has made these extraordinary drawings not a painter. It will be well to observe the distinction. He is the most rhythmic sculptor of them all. And rhythm is the codification of beauty. Because he has observed with a vision quite virginal he insists that he has affiliations with the Greeks. But if his vision is Greek his models are Parisian, while his forms are more Gothic than the pseudo-Greek of the academy. As W.C. Brownell wrote years ago: "Rodin reveals rather than constructs beauty... no sculptor has carried expression further; and expression means individual character completely exhibited rather than conventionally suggested." Mr. Brownell was also the first critic to point out that Rodin's art was more nearly related to Donatello than to Michael Angelo. He is in the legitimate line of French sculpture, the line of Goujon, Puget, Rude, Barye. Dalou did not hesitate to assert that the Dante portal is "one of the most, if not the most, original and astonishing pieces of sculpture of the nineteenth century." This Dante Gate, begun more than twenty years ago, not finished yet, and probably never to be, is an astounding fugue, with death, the devil, hell, and the passions as a horribly beautiful four-voiced theme. I saw the composition a few years ago at the Rue de l'Université atelier. It is as terrifying a conception as the Last Judgment; nor does it miss the sonorous and sorrowful grandeur of the Medici Tombs. Yet how different, how feverish, how tragic! Like all great men working in the grip of a unifying idea, Rodin modified the old technique of sculpture so that it would serve him as plastically as does sound a musical composer. A deep lover of music, his inner ear may dictate the vibrating rhythms of his forms--his marbles are ever musical; not "frozen music" as Goethe said of Gothic architecture, but silent swooning music. This gate is a Frieze of Paris, as deeply significant of modern aspiration and sorrow as the Parthenon Frieze is the symbol of the great clear beauty of Hellas. Dante inspired this monstrous and ennobled masterpiece, but Baudelaire filled many of its chinks and crannies with writhing ignoble shapes; shapes of dusky fire that, as they tremulously stand above the gulf of fears, wave ineffectual desperate hands. Heine in his Deutschland asks: Kennst du die Hölle des Dante nicht, Die schreckliche Terzetten? Wen da der Dichter hineingesperrt Den kann kein Gott mehr retten. And from the "singing flames" of Rodin there is no rescue. But he is not all tragedy and hell fire. Of singular delicacy, of exquisite proportions are his marbles of youth, of springtide, and the desire of life. In 1900, at his special exhibition, Paris, Europe, and America awoke to these haunting visions. Not since Keats or Swinburne has love been sung so sweetly, so romantically, so fiercely. Though he disclaims understanding the Celtic spirit, one could say that there is Celtic magic, Celtic mystery in his work. He pierces to the core the frenzy and joy of love and translates them in beautiful symbols. Nature is for him the sole theme; his works are but variations on her promptings. He knows the emerald route and all the semitones of sensuousness. Fantasy, passion, even paroxysmal madness there are; yet what elemental power in his Adam as the gigantic first _homo_ painfully heaves himself up from the earth to that posture which differentiates him from the beasts. Here, indeed, the two natures are at strife. And Mother Eve, her expression suggesting the sorrows and shames that are to be the lot of her seed; her very loins seem crushed by the ages that are hidden within them. You may walk freely about the burghers of Calais, as did Rodin when he modelled them; that is one secret of the group's vital quality. About all his statues you may walk--he is not a sculptor of one attitude, but a hewer of men and women. Consider the Balzac. It is not Balzac the writer of novels, but Balzac the prophet, the seer, the great natural force--like Rodin himself. That is why these kindred spirits converse across the years, as do the Alpine peaks in that striking parable of Turgenieff's. No doubt in bronze the Balzac will arouse less wrath from the unimaginative; in plaster it produces the effect of some surging monolith of snow. As a portraitist of his contemporaries Rodin is the unique master of character. His women are gracious, delicious masks; his men cover many octaves in virility and variety. That he is extremely short-sighted has not been dealt with in proportion to the significance of this fact. It accounts for his love of exaggerated surfaces, his formless extravagance, his indefiniteness in structural design; possibly, too, for his inability, or let us say lack of sympathy, for the monumental. He is essentially a sculptor of the intimate emotions; he delineates passion as a psychologist; and while we think of him as a cyclops wielding a huge hammer destructively, he is often ardent in his search of subtle nuance. But there is breadth even when he models an eyelid. Size is only relative. We are confronted by the paradox of an artist as torrential, as apocalyptic as Rubens and Wagner, carving with a style wholly charming a segment of a baby's back so that you exclaim, "Donatello come to life!" His slow, defective vision, then, may have been his salvation; he seems to rely as much on his delicate tactile sense as on his eyes. His fingers are as sensitive as a violinist's. At times he seems to model tone and colour. A marvellous poet, a precise sober workman of art, with a peasant strain in him like Millet, and, like Millet, very near to the soil; a natural man, yet crossed by nature with a perverse strain; the possessor of a sensibility exalted, and dolorous; morbid, sick-nerved, and as introspective as Heine; a visionary and a lover of life, very close to the periphery of things; an interpreter of Baudelaire; Dante's alter ego in his vast grasp of the wheel of eternity, in his passionate fling at nature; withal a sculptor, always profound and tortured, translating rhythm and motion into the terms of sculpture. Rodin is a statuary who, while having affinities with both the classic and romantic schools, is the most startling artistic apparition of his century. And to the century he has summed up so plastically and emotionally he has also propounded questions that only the unborn years may answer. He has a hundred faults to which he opposes one imperious excellence--a genius, sombre, magical, and overwhelming. V. EUGÈNE CARRIÈRE Death has consecrated the genius of three great painters happily neglected and persecuted during their lifetime--Manet, Monticelli, and Carrière. Though furiously opposed, Manet was admitted to the Luxembourg by the conditions of the Caillebotte legacy. There that ironic masterpiece, Olympe--otherwise known as the Cat and Cocotte--has hung for the edification of intelligent amateurs, though it was only a bequest of triumphant hatred in official eyes. And now the lady with her cat and negress is in the Louvre, in which sacrosanct region she, with her meagre, subtle figure, competes among the masterpieces. Yet there were few dissenting voices. Despite its temperamental oscillations France is at bottom sound in the matter of art. Genius may starve, but genius once recognised, the apotheosis is logically bound to follow. No fear of halls of fame with a French Poe absent. Eugène Carrière was more fortunate than his two famous predecessors. He toiled and suffered hardship, but before his death he was officially acknowledged though never altogether approved by the Salon in which he exhibited; approved or understood. He fought under no banner. He was not an impressionist. He was not a realist. Certainly he could be claimed by neither the classics nor romantics. A "solitary" they agreed to call him; but his is not the hermetic art of such a solitary as Gustave Moreau. Carrière, on the contrary, was a man of marked social impulses, and when in 1889 he received the Legion of Honour, he was enabled to mingle with his equals--he had been almost unknown until then. He was the most progressive spirit among his brethren. Nowadays he is classed as an Intimist, in which category and with such men as Simon Bussy, Ménard, Henri le Sidaner, Emile Wéry, Charles Cottet, Lucien Simon, Edouard Vuillard, the Griveaus, Lomont, Lobre, and others, he is still their master, still the possessor of a highly individualised style, and in portraiture the successor to such diverse painters as Prudhon, Ricard, and Whistler. Gabriel Seailles has written a study, Eugène Carrière, l'Homme et l'Artiste, and Charles Morice has published another, Eugène Carrière. The latter deals with the personality and ideas of one of the most original thinkers among modern French painters. We have spoken of the acerbity of Degas, of his wit, so often borrowed by Whistler and Manet; we have read Eugène Fromentin's delightful, stimulating studies of the old masters, but we doubt if Fromentin was as profound a thinker as Carrière. Degas is not, though he deals in a more acid and dangerous form of aphorism. It is one of the charms of the eulogy of M. Morice to find embalmed therein so many phrases and speeches of the dead painter. He was both poet and philosopher, let us call him a seer, for his work fully bears out this appellation. A grand visionary, he well deserves Jean Dolent's description of his pictures as "realities having the magic of a dream." Carrière's career was in no wise extraordinary. He fled to no exotic climes as did Paul Gauguin. His only tragedy was the manner of his death. For three years previous he suffered the agonies of a cancer. His bravery was admirable. No one heard him complain. He worked to the last, worked as he had worked his life long, untiringly. Morice gives a "succinct biography" at the close of his study. From it we learn that Eugène Carrière was born January 29, 1849, at Gournay (Seine-Inférieure); that he made his first steps in art at the Strasbourg Academy; in 1869 he entered the Beaux-Arts, in Cabanel's class. Penniless, he earned a precarious existence in designing industrial objects. In 1870 he was made prisoner by the Prussians, with the garrison of Neuf-Brisach, and taken to Dresden, where he was confined in prison. After peace had been declared he resumed his studies at the Beaux-Arts. In 1877 he married--an important event in his art; thenceforward Madame Carrière and the children born to them were his continual models, both by preference and also by force of circumstances--he was too poor in the beginning to hire professional models. He spent six months in London, which may or may not account for his brumous colour; and in 1879, when he was thirty years old, he exposed in the Salon of that year his Young Mother, the first of a long series of Maternities. He was violently attacked by the critics, and as violently defended. During the same year he attempted to win the "prix de Rome" and gained honours for his sketch. Luckily he did not attain this prize; and, still more luck, he left the school. In 1884 he received an honourable mention for a child's portrait; in 1885 a medal for his Sick Child, bought by the State; in 1886 Le Premier voile was bought by the State and he was proposed for a medal of honour and--singular dream of Frenchmen--he was decorated in 1889. He died March 27, 1906. Not a long, but a full life, a happy one, and at the last, glory--"_le soleil des morts_," as Balzac said--and a competence for his dear ones. And it is to the honour of such writers as Roger Marx, Anatole France, Hamel, Morice, Mauclair, Verhaeren, Geffroy, that they recognised the genius of Carrière from the beginning. In 1904 Carrière was made honorary president of the Autumn Salon and was the chief guest of these young painters, who really adored Paul Cézanne, and not the painter of an illusive psychology. I wrote at that time: "Carrière, whose delicately clouded portraits, so intimate in their revelation of the souls of his sitters, was not seen at his best. He offered a large decorative panel for the Mairie of the Thirteenth Arrondissement, entitled Les Fiancés, a sad-looking betrothal party ... the landscape timid, the decorative scheme not very effective... His tender notations of maternity, and his heads, painted with the smoky enchantments of his pearly gray and soft russet, are more credible than this _panneau_." Was Carrière a decorative painter by nature--setting aside training? We doubt it, though Morice does not hesitate to name him after Puvis de Chavannes in this field. The trouble is that he did not make many excursions into the larger forms. He painted a huge canvas, Les Théâtres Populaires, in which the interest is more intimate than epical. He also did some decorations for the Hotel de Ville, The Four Ages for a Mairie, and the Christ at the Luxembourg and a view of Paris. Nevertheless, it is his portraits that will live. Carrière was, first and last, a symbolist. There he is related to the Dutch Seer, Rembrandt; both men strove to seek for the eternal correspondence of things material and spiritual; both sought to bring into harmony the dissonance of flesh and the spirit. Both succeeded, each in his own way--though we need not couple their efforts on the technical side. Rembrandt was a prophet. There is more of the reflective poet in Carrière. He is a mystic. His mothers, his children, are dreams made real--the magic of which Dolent speaks is always there. To disengage the personality of his sitter was his first idea. Slowly he built up those volumes of colour, light, and shadow, the solidity of which caused Rodin to exclaim: "Carrière is also a sculptor!" Slowly and from the most unwilling sitter he extorted the secret of a soul. We speak of John Sargent as the master psychologist among portraitists, a superiority he himself has never assumed; but that magnificent virtuoso, an aristocratic Frans Hals, never gives us the indefinite sense of things mystic beneath the epidermis of poor, struggling humanity as does Eugène Carrière. Sargent is too magisterial a painter to dwell upon the infinite little soul-stigmata of men and women. Who can tell the renunciations made by the Frenchman in his endeavour to wrest the enigma of personality from its abysmal depths? As Canaille Mauclair says: "Carrière was first influenced by the Spaniards, then by Ver Meer and Chardin ... formerly he coloured his canvas with exquisite delicacy and with a distinction of harmonies that came very near to Whistler's. Now he confines himself to bistre, black and white, to evoke those dream pictures, true images of souls, which make him inimitable in our epoch and go back to Rembrandt's chiaroscuro." Colour went by the board at the last, and the painter was dominated by expression alone. His gamut of tones became contracted. "Physical magnetism" is exactly the phrase that illuminates his later methods. Often cavernous in tone, sooty in his blacks, he nevertheless contrives a fluid atmosphere, the shadows floating, the figure floating, that arrests instant attention. He became almost sculptural, handled his planes with imposing breadth, his sense of values was strong, his gradations and degradation of tones masterly; and he escaped the influences of the new men in their researches after luminosity at all hazards. He considered impressionism a transition; after purifying muddy palettes of the academics, the division-of-tones painters must necessarily return to lofty composition, to a poetic simplicity with nature, to a more rarefied psychology. Carrière, notwithstanding his nocturnal reveries, his sombre colouring, was not a pessimist. Indeed, the reverse. His philosophy of life was exalted--an exalted socialism. He was, to employ Nietzsche's pithy phrase, a "Yes-Sayer"; he said "Yes" to the universe. A man of vigorous affirmations, he worshipped nature, not for its pictorial aspects, but for the god which is the leaf and rock and animal, for the god that beats in our pulses and shines in the clear sunlight. Nor was it vague, windy pantheism, this; he was a believer--a glance at his Christ reveals his reverence for the Man of Sorrows--and his religious love and pity for mankind was only excelled by his hatred of wrong and oppression. He detested cruelty. His canvases of childhood, in which he exposes the most evanescent gesture, exposes the unconscious helplessness of babyhood, are so many tracts--if you choose to see them after that fashion--in behalf of mercy to all tender and living things. He is not, however, a sentimentalist. His family groups prove the absence of theatrical pity. Because of his subtle technical method, his manner of building up his heads in a misty medium and then abstracting their physical non-essentials, his portraits have a metaphysical meaning--they are a _Becoming_, not a _Being_, tangible though they be. Their fluid rhythms lend to them almost the quality of a perpetual rejuvenescence. This may be an illusion, but it tells us of the primary intensity of the painter's vision. Withal, there is no scene of the merely spectral, no optical trickery. The waves of light are magnetic. The picture floats in space, seemingly compelled by its frame into limits. Gustave Geffroy once wrote that, in common with the great masters, Carrière, on his canvas, gives a sense of volume and weight. Whatever he sacrificed, it was not actuality. His draughtsmanship never falters, his touch is never infirm. I have seen his portraits of Verlaine, Daudet, Edmond de Goncourt, Geffroy, of the artist himself and many others. The Verlaine is a veritable evocation. It was painted at one _séance_ of several hours, and the poet, it is said, did not sit still or keep silence for a moment. He was hardly conscious that he was being painted. What a head! Not that of the old faun and absinthe-sipping vagabond of the Latin quarter, but the soul that lurked somewhere in Verlaine; the dreamer, not the mystifier, the man crucified to the cross of aspiration by his unhappy temperament. Musician and child, here is the head of one of those pious, irresponsible mendicants who walked dusty roads in the Middle Ages. It needed an unusual painter to interpret an unusual poet. The Daudet face is not alone full of surface character, but explains the racial affinities of the romancer. Here he is David, not Daudet. The head of De Goncourt gives in a few touches--Carrière is ever master of the essential--the irritable pontiff of literary impressionism. Carrière was fond of repeating: "For the artist the forms evoke ideas, sensations, and sentiments; for the poet, sensations, ideas, sentiments evoke forms." Never expansively lyrical as was Monticelli, Carrière declared that a picture is the logical development of light. And on the external side his art is a continual variation with light as a theme. Morice contends that he was a colourist; that the blond of Rubens and the russet of Carrière are not monochromes; that polychromy is not the true way of seeing nature coloured. Certainly Carrière does not sacrifice style, expression, composition for splashing hues. Yet his illuminating strokes appear to proceed from within, not from without. He interrogates nature, but her answer is a sober, not a brilliant one. Let us rather say that his colouring is adequate--he always asserted that a sense of proportion was success in art. His tone is peculiarly personal; he paints expressions, the fleeting shades that cross the face of a man, a woman, a child. He patiently awaits the master trait of a soul and never misses it, though never displaying it with the happy cruelty of Sargent and always judging mercifully. Notwithstanding his humble attitude in the presence of nature, he is the most self-revealing of painters. Few before him ever interpreted maternity as he has done. Carrière is not a virtuoso. He is an initiator--a man of rare imagination. Above all, he escapes the rhetoric of the schools. His apprehension of character is that of sympathetic genius. He divines the emotions, especially in those souls made melancholy by sorrow; uneasy, complex, feverish souls; them that hide their griefs, and souls saturated with the ennuis of existence--to all he is interpreter and consoler. He has pictured the _Weltschmerz_ of his age; and without morbid self-enjoyment. A noble soul, an elevating example to those artists who believe that art and life may be dissociated. Carrière has left no school, though his spiritual influence has been great. A self-contained artist, going his own way, meditating deeply on art, on life, his canvases stand for his singleness and purity of purpose. On the purely pictorial side he is, to quote M. Mauclair, "an absolutely surprising painter of hands and glances." In the sad and anxious rectitude of his attire the artistic interest in modern man is concentrated upon his head and hands; and upon these salient points Carrière focussed his art. Peaceful or disquieted, his men and women belong to our century. Spiritually Eugène Carrière is the lineal descendant of the Rembrandt school--but one who has read Dostoïevsky. VI. DEGAS Let us suppose that gay old misogynist Arthur Schopenhauer persuaded to cross the Styx and revisiting the earth. Apart from his disgust if forced to listen to the music of his self-elected disciple Richard Wagner, what painted work would be likely to attract him? Remember he it was who named Woman the knock-kneed sex--since the new woman is here it matters little if her figure conforms to old-fashioned, stupid, masculine standards of beauty. But wouldn't the nudes of Degas confirm the Frankfort philosopher in his theories regarding the "long-haired, short-brained, unæsthetic sex," and also confirm his hatred for the exaggerations of poet and painter when describing or depicting her? We fear that Schopenhauer would smile his malicious smile and exclaim: "At last the humble truth!" It is the presentation of the humble truth that early snared the affections of Degas, who has with a passionate calm pursued the evanescent appearances of things his entire life. No doubt death will find him pencil in hand. You think of Hokusai, the old man mad with paint, when the name of Degas is mentioned. He was born in Paris July 19, 1834--his full name is Hilaire Germain Edgard (or Edgar)--and there is one phrase that will best describe his career: He painted. Like Flaubert, he never married, but lived in companionship with his art. Such a mania could have been described by Balzac. Yet no saner art ever issued from a Parisian atelier; sane, clear, and beautiful. Degas is a painter's painter. For him the subject is a peg upon which to hang superb workmanship. In amazement the public asked: How could a man in the possession of his powers shut himself up in a studio to paint ballet girls, washerwomen, jockeys, drabs of Montmartre, shopgirls, and horses? Even Zola, who should have known better, would not admit that Degas was an artist fit to be compared with such men as Flaubert and Goncourt; but Zola was never the realist that is Degas. Now it is difficult to keep asunder the names of Goncourt and Degas. To us they are too often unwisely bracketed. The style of the painter has been judged as analogous to the novelist's; yet, apart from a preference for the same subjects for the "modernity" of Paris, there is not much in Degas that recalls Goncourt's staccato, febrile, sparkling, "decomposed", impressionistic prose. Both men are brilliant, though not in the same way. Pyrotechnics are abhorrent to Degas. He has the serenity, sobriety, and impersonality of the great classic painters. He is himself a classic. His legend is slender. Possessing a private income, he never was preoccupied with the anxieties of selling his work. He first entered the atelier of Lamotte, but his stay was brief. In the studio of Ingres he was, so George Moore declares, the student who carried out the lifeless body of the painter when Ingres fell in his fatal fit. There is something peculiarly interesting about this anecdote for the tradition of Ingres has been carried on by Degas. The greatest master of pure line, in his portraits and nudes--we have forgotten his chilly _pastiches_ of Raphael--of the past century, Ingres has been and still is for Degas a god on the peaks of Parnassus. Degas is an Ingres who has studied the Japanese. Only such men as Pollajuolo and Botticelli rank with Degas in the mastery of rhythmic line. He is not academic, yet he stems from purest academic traditions. He is not of the impressionists, at least not in his technical processes, but he associated with them, exhibited with them (though rarely), and is as a rule confused with them. He never exhibited in the Salons, he has no disciples, yet it is doubtful if any painter's fashion of seeing things has had such an influence on the generation following him. The name of Degas, the pastels of Degas, the miraculous draughtsmanship of Degas created an imponderable fluid which still permeates Paris. Naturally, after the egg trick was discovered we encounter scores of young Columbuses, who paint ballet girls' legs and the heads of orchestral musicians and scenes from the racing paddock. Degas had three painters who, if any, might truthfully call themselves his pupils. These are Mary Cassatt, Alexis Rouart, and Forain. The first has achieved solid fame. The last is a remarkable illustrator, who "vulgarised" the austere methods of his master for popular Parisian consumption. That Renoir, Raffaelli, and Toulouse-Lautrec owe much to Degas is the secret of Polichinello. This patient student of the Tuscan Primitives, of Holbein, Chardin, Delacroix, Ingres, and Manet--the precepts of Manet taught him to sweeten the wiriness of his modelling and modify his tendency to a certain hardness--was willing to trust to time for the verdict of his rare art. He associated daily with Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Whistler, Duranty, Fantin-Latour, and the crowd that first went to the Café Guerbois in the Batignolles--hence the derisive nickname, "The Batignolles School"; later to the Nouvelle Athènes, finally to the Café de la Rochefoucauld. A hermit he was during the dozen hours a day he toiled, but he was a sociable man, nevertheless, a cultured man fond of music, possessing a tongue that was feared as much as is the Russian knout. Mr. Moore has printed many specimens of his caustic wit. Whistler actually kept silent in his presence--possibly expecting a repetition of the _mot_: "My dear friend, you conduct yourself in life just as if you had no talent at all." Manet good-naturedly took a browbeating, but the Academic set were outraged by the irreverence of Degas. What hard sayings were his! Poor Bastien-Lepage, too, came in for a scoring. Barricaded in his studio, it was a brave man who attempted to force an entrance. The little, round-shouldered artist, generally good-tempered, would pour a stream of verbal vitriol over the head of the unlucky impertinent. In 1860 or thereabout he visited America, and in New Orleans he saw the subject of his Interior of a Cotton Factory, which was shown as an historical curiosity at the Paris exposition in 1900. While it is implacably realistic there is little hint of the future Degas. The name of the painter was in every French painter's mouth, and the brilliant article of Huysmans concentrated his fame. Huysmans it was who first saw that Degas had treated the nude as Rembrandt would if he had been alive--making allowances for temperamental variations. Degas knew that to grasp the true meaning of the nude it must be represented in postures, movements which are natural, not studio attitudes. As Monet exposed the fallacy of studio lighting, so Degas revealed the inanity of its poses. Ibsen said the stage should be a room with the fourth wall removed; Degas preferred the key-hole through which we seem to peep upon the privacy of his ugly females bathing or combing their hair or sleeping, lounging, yawning, quarrelling, and walking. The simian and frog-like gestures and sprawling attitudes are far from arousing amiable sensations. These poor, tired women, hard-working laundresses, shopgirls, are not alluring, though they are not as hideous as the women of Cézanne or Edvard Münch; but the veracity of the "human document" (overworked phrase!) is there. Charles Morice has said that to Cézanne a potato was as significant as a human countenance. The pattern interested him in both. For Degas the beauty of life lies in the moving line. He captures with ease the swift, unconscious gesture. His models are never posed. They are nature caught in the act. There is said to be a difference between the epidermis of the professional model and the human who undresses only to go to bed. Degas has recorded this difference. What an arraignment of the corset are the creased backs and gooseflesh of his nudes! What lurking cynicism there is in some of his interiors! _Voilà l'animale!_ he exclaims as he shows us the far from enchanting antics of some girl. How Schopenhauer would laugh at the feminine "truths" of Degas! Without the leer of Rops, Degas is thrice as unpleasant. He is a douche for the romantic humbug painter, the painter of sleek bayadères and of drawing-room portraiture. Pity is deeply rooted in his nature. He is never tender, yet there is veiled sympathy in the ballet-girl series. Behind the scenes, in the waiting-rooms, at rehearsal, going home with the hawk-eyed mother, his girls are all painfully real. No "glamour of the foot-lights," generally the prosaic side of their life. He has, however, painted the glorification of the danseuse, of that lady grandiloquently described as _prima donna assoluta_. What magic he evokes as he pictures her floating down stage! The pastel in the Luxembourg, L'Etoile, is the reincarnation of the precise moment when the aerial creature on one foot lifts graceful arms and is transfigured in the glow of the lights, while about her beats--you are sure--the noisy, insistent music. It is in the pinning down of such climaxes of movement that Degas stirs our admiration. He draws movement. He can paint rhythms. His canvases are ever in modulation. His sense of tactile values is profound. His is true atmospheric colour. A feeling of exhilaration comes while contemplating one of his open-air scenes with jockeys, race-horses, and the incidental bustle of a neighbouring concourse. Unexcelled as a painter of horses, as a delineator of witching horsemanship, of vivid landscapes--true integral decorations--and of the casual movements and gestures of common folk, Degas is also a psychologist, an ironical commentator on the pettiness and ugliness of daily life, of its unheroic aspects, its comical snobberies and shocking hypocrisies; and all expressed without a melodramatic elevation of the voice, without the false sentimentalism of Zola or the morbidities of Toulouse-Lautrec. There is much Baudelaire in Degas, as there is also in Rodin. All three men despised academic rhetoric; all three dealt with new material in a new manner. It is the fashion to admire Degas, but it is doubtful if he will ever gain the suffrage of the general. He does not retail anecdotes, though to the imaginative every line of his nudes relates their history. His irony is unremitting. It suffuses the ballet-girl series and the nude sets. Irony is an illuminating mode, but it is seldom pleasant; the public is always suspicious of an ironist, particularly of the Degas variety. Careless of reputation, laughing at the vanity of his contemporaries who were eager to arrive, contemptuous of critics and criticism, of collectors who buy low to sell high (in the heart of every picture collector there is a bargain counter), Degas has defied the artistic world for a half-century. His genius compelled the Mountain to come to Mahomet. The rhythmic articulations, the volume, contours, and bounding supple line of Degas are the despair of artists. Like the Japanese, he indulges in abridgments, deformations, falsifications. His enormous faculty of attention has counted heavily in his synthetical canvases. He joys in the representation of artificial light; his theatres are flooded with it, and he is equally successful in creating the illusion of cold, cheerless daylight in a salle where rehearse the little "rats" and the older coryphées on their wiry, muscular, ugly legs. His vast production is dominated by his nervous, resilient vital line and by supremacy in the handling of values. The Degas palette is never gorgeous, consisting as it does of cool grays, discreet blues and greens, Chardin-like whites and Manet-blacks. His procedure is all his own. His second manner is a combination of drawing, painting, and pastel. "He has invented a kind of engraving mixed with wash drawing, pastel crayon crushed with brushes of special pattern." VII. BOTTICELLI The common identity of the arts was a master theory of Richard Wagner, which he attempted to put into practice. Walter Pater in his essay on The School of Giorgione has dwelt upon the same theme, declaring music the archetype of the arts. In his Essays Speculative John Addington Symonds said some pertinent things on this subject. Camille Mauclair in his Idées Vivantes proposes in all seriousness a scheme for the fusion of the seven arts, though he deplored Wagner's efforts to reach a solution. Mauclair's theory is that the fusion can only be a cerebral one, that actually mingling sculpture, architecture, music, drama, acting, colour, dancing can never evoke the sensation of unity. Synthesis is not thus to be attained. It must be in the _idea_ of the arts rather than their material realisation. A pretty chimera! Yet one that has piqued the world of art in almost every century. It was the half-crazy E.T.W. Hoffmann, composer, dramatist, painter, poet, stage manager, and a dozen other professions, including that of genius and drunkard, who set off a train of ideas which buzzed in the brains of Poe, Baudelaire, and the symbolists. People who hear painting, see music, enjoy odorous poems, taste symphonies, and write perfumes are now classed by the omnipotent psychical police as decadents, though such notions are as old as literature. Suarez de Mendoza in his L'Audition Colorée has said that the sensation of colour hearing, the faculty of associating tones and colours, is often a consequence of an association of ideas established in youth. The coloured vowels of Arthur Rimbaud, which must be taken as a poet's crazy prank; the elaborate treatises by René Ghil, which are terribly earnest; the remarks that one often hears, such as "scarlet is like a trumpet blast"; certain pages of Huysmans, all furnish examples of this curious muddling of the senses and mixing of genres. Naturally, it has invaded criticism, which, limited in imagery, sometimes seeks to transfer the technical terms of one art to another. Whistler with his nocturnes, notes, symphonies in rose and silver, his colour-sonatas, boldly annexed well-worn musical phrases, that in their new estate took on fresher meanings even if remaining knee-deep in the kingdom of the nebulous. It must be confessed modern composers have retaliated. Musical impressionism is having its vogue, while poets are desperately pictorial. Soul landscapes and etched sonnets are not unpleasing to the ear. What if they do not mean much? There was a time when to say a "sweet voice" would arouse a smile. What has sugar to do with sound? It may be erratic symbolism, this confusing of terminologies; yet, once in a while, it strikes sparks. There is a deeply rooted feeling in us that the arts have a common matrix, that they are emotionally akin. "Her slow smile" in fiction has had marked success with young people, but a "slow landscape" is still regarded suspiciously. The bravest critic of art was Huysmans. He pitched pell-mell into the hell-broth of his criticism any image that assaulted his fecund brain. He forced one to _see_ his picture--for he was primarily concerned not with the ear, but the eye. And Botticelli? Was Botticelli a "comprehensive"--as those with the sixth or synthetic sense have been named by Lombroso? Botticelli, beginning as a goldsmith's apprentice (Botticello, the little bottle), ended as a painter, the most original in all Italy. His canvases have a rare, mysterious power of evocation. He was a visionary, this Sandro Filipepi, pupil of the mercurial Fra Lippo Lippi and the brothers Pollajuolo, and his inward vision must have been something more than paint and pattern and subject. A palimpsest may be discerned by the imaginative--or, let us say, fanciful, since Coleridge long ago set forth the categories--whose secrets are not to be deciphered easily, yet are something more than those portrayed by the artist on the flat surface of his picture. He painted the usual number of Madonnas, like any artist of his period; yet he did not convince his world, or the generations succeeding, that this piety was orthodox. Suspected during his lifetime of strange heresies, this annotator and illustrator of Dante, this disciple of Savonarola, has in our times been definitely ranged as a spirit saturated with paganism, and still a mystic. Doesn't the perverse clash in such a complex temperament give us exotic dissonances? All Florence was a sounding-board of the arts when Botticelli walked its narrow ways and lived its splendid coloured life. His sensitive nature absorbed as a sponge does water the impulses and motives of his contemporaries. The lurking secrets of the "new learning"--doctrines that made for damnation, such as the recrudescence of the mediæval conception of an angelic neuter host, neither for Heaven nor Hell, not on the side of Lucifer nor with the starry hosts--were said to have been mirrored in his pictures. Its note is in Città di Vita, in the heresy of the Albigenses, and it goes as far back as Origen. Those who read his paintings, and there were clairvoyant theologians abroad in Florence, could make of them what they would. Painted music is less understandable than painted heresy. Matteo Palmieri is said to have dragged Botticelli with him into dark corners of disbelief; there was in the Medicean days a cruel order of intelligence that delighted to toy with the vital faith and ideals of the young. It was more savage and cunning when Machiavelli, shrewdest of men, wrote and lived. A nature like Botticelli's, which surrendered frankly to ideas if they but wore the mask of subtlety, could not fail to have been swept away in the eddying cross-currents of Florentine intellectual movements. Never mere instinct, for he was a sexless sort of man, moved him from his moral anchorage. Always the vision! He did not palter with the voluptuousness of his fellow-artists, yet his canvases are feverishly disquieting; the sting of the flesh is remote; love is transfigured, not spiritually and not served to us as a barren parable, but made more intense by the breaking down of the thin partition between the sexes; a consuming emotion not quite of this world nor of the next. The barren rebellion which stirred Botticelli's bosom never quite assumed the concrete. His religious subjects are Hellenised, not after Mantegna's sterner and more inflexible method, but like those of a philosophic Athenian who has read and comprehended Dante. Yet the illustrations show us a different Dante, one who would not have altogether pleased the gloomy exile. William Blake's transpositions of the Divine Comedy seem to sound the depths; Botticelli, notwithstanding the grace of his "baby centaurs" and the wreathed car of Beatrice, is the profounder man of the two. His life, veiled toward the last, was not a happy one, though he was recognised as a great painter. Watteau concealed some cankering secret; so Botticelli. Both belong to the band of the Disquieted. Melancholy was at the base of the Florentine's work. He created as a young man in joy and freedom, but the wings of Dürer's bat were outstretched over his head: Melencolia! There is more poignant music in the Primavera, in the weary, indifferent countenances of his lean, neuropathic Madonnas--Pater calls them "peevish"--in his Venus of the Uffizi, than in the paintings of any other Renaissance artist. The veils are there, the consoling veils of an exquisite art missing in the lacerated realistic holy people of the Flemish Primitives. Joyfulness cannot be denied Botticelli, but it is not the golden joy of Giorgione. An emaciated music emanates from the eyes of that sad, restless Venus, to whom love has become a scourge of the senses. Music? Yes, here is the "coloured hearing" of Mendoza. These canvases of Botticelli seem to give forth the opalescent over-tones of an unearthly composition. Is this Spring, this tender, tremulous virgin whose right hand, deprecatingly raised, signals as a conductor at the head of an invisible orchestra its rhythms? Hermes, supremely impassive, hand on thigh, plucks the fruit as the eternal trio of maidens with woven paces tread the measures of a dance whose music we but overhear. Garlanded with blossoms, a glorious girl keeps time with the pulsing atmospheric moods; her gesture, surely a divine one, shows her casting flowers upon the richly embroidered floor of the earth. The light filters through the thick trees; its rifts are as rigid as candles. The nymph in the brake is threatening. Another epicene creature flies by her. Love shoots his bolt in midair. Is it from Paphos or Mitylene! What the fable! Music plucked down from the vibrating skies and made visible to the senses. A mere masque laden with the sweet, prim allegories of the day it is not. Vasari, blunt soul, saw but its surfaces. Politian, the poet, got closer to the core. Centuries later our perceptions, sharpened by the stations of pain and experience traversed, lend to this immortal canvas a more sympathetic, less literal interpretation. Music, too, in the Anadyomene of the Uffizi. Still stranger music. Those sudden little waves that lap an immemorial strand; that shimmering shell, its fan-spokes converging to the parted feet of the goddess; her hieratic pose, its modesty symbolic, the hair that serpentines about her foam-born face, thin shoulders that slope into delicious arms; the Japanese group, blowing tiny, gem-like buds with puffed-out cheeks; the rhythmic female on tiptoe offering her mantle to Venus; and enveloping them all vernal breezes, unseen, yet sensed on every inch of the canvas--what are these things but the music of an art original at its birth and never since reborn? The larger rhythms of the greater men do not sweep us along with them in Botticelli. But his voice is irresistible. Modern as is his spirit, as modern as Watteau, Chopin, or Shelley, he is no less ethereal than any one of these three; ethereal and also realistic. We may easily trace his artistic ancestry; what he became could never have been predicted. Technically, as one critic has written, "he was the first to understand the charm of silhouettes, the first to linger in expressing the joining of the arm and body, the flexibility of the hips, the roundness of the shoulders, the elegance of the leg, the little shadow that marks the springing of the neck, and above all the carving of the hand; but even more he understood 'le prestige insolent des grands yeux.'" For Pater his colour was cold, cadaverous, "and yet the more you come to understand what imaginative colouring really is, that all colour is no mere delightful quality of natural things but a spirit upon them by which they become expressive to the spirit, the better you like this peculiar quality of colour." Bernard Berenson goes further. For him the entire picture, Venus Rising From the Sea, presents us with the quintessence of all that is pleasurable to our imagination of touch and movement... The vivid appeal to our tactile sense, the life communicating movement, is always there. And writing of the Pallas in the Pitti he most eloquently said: "As to the hair--imagine shapes having the supreme life of line you may see in the contours of licking flames and yet possessed of all the plasticity of something which caresses the hand that models it to its own desire!" And after speaking of Botticelli's stimulating line, he continues: "Imagine an art made up entirely of these quintessences of movement-values and you will have something that holds the same relation to representation that music holds to speech--and this art exists and is called lineal decoration. In this art of arts Sandro Botticelli may have had rivals in Japan and elsewhere in the East, but in Europe never!... He is the greatest master of lineal design that Europe ever had." Again music, not the music nor the symbolism of the emotions, but the abstract music of design. Botticelli's appeal is also an auditive one. Other painters have spun more intricate, more beautiful scrolls of line; other painters sounded more sensuous colour music, but the subtle sarabands of Botticelli they have not composed. There is here a pleasing problem for the psychiatrist. Manifestations in paint of this species may be set down to some mental lesion; that is how Maurice Spronck classifies the sensation in writing about the verbal sensitivity of the Goncourts and Flaubert. The latter, you may remember, said that Salammbo was purple to him, and L'Education Sentimentale gray. Carthage and Paris--a characteristic fancy! But why is it that these scientific gentlemen who account for genius by eye-strain do not reprove the poets for their sensibility to the sound of words, the shape and cadences of the phrase? It appears that only prose-men are the culpable ones when they hear the harping of invisible harps from Ibsen steeplejacks, or recognise the colour of Zarathustra's thoughts. In reality not one but thousands sit listening in the chill galleries of Florence because of the sweet, sick, nervous music of Botticelli; this testimony of the years is for the dissenters to explain. _Fantastico, Stravaganie_, as Vasari nicknamed Botticelli, has literally created an audience that has learned to see as he did, fantastically and extravagantly. He passed through the three stages dear to arbitrary criticism. Serene in his youthful years; troubled, voluptuous, visionary during the Medicean period; sombre, mystic, a convert to Savonarola at the end. He passed through, not untouched, a great crisis. Certain political assassinations and the Pazzi conspiracy hurt him to the quick. He noted the turbulence of Rome and Florence, saw behind the gay-tinted arras of the Renaissance the sinister figures of its supermen and criminals. He never married. When Tommaso Soderini begged him to take a wife, he responded: "The other night I dreamed I was married. I awoke in such horror and chagrin that I could not fall asleep again. I arose and wandered about Florence like one possessed." Evidently not intended by nature as a husband or father. Like Watteau, like Nietzsche, grand visionaries abiding on the other side of the dear common joys of life, these men were not tempted by the usual baits of happiness. The great Calumnia in the Uffizi might be construed as an image of Botticelli's soul. Truth, naked and scorned--again we note the matchless silhouette of his Venus--misunderstood and calumniated, stands in the hall of a great palace. She points to the heavens; she is an interrogation mark, Pilate's question. Botticelli was adored. But understood? An enigmatic malady ravaged his being. He died poor and alone, did this composer of luminous chants and pagan poems, this moulder of exotic dreams and of angels who long for other gods than those of Good and Evil. A grievously wounded, timid soul, an intruder at the portals of paradise, but without the courage to enter or withdraw. He had visions that rapt him up into the seventh heaven, and when he reported them in the speech of his design his harassed, divided spirit chilled the ardours of his art. And thus it is that many do not worship at his shrine as at the shrine of Raphael, for they see the adumbration of a paganism long since dead, but revived by a miracle for a brief Botticellian hour. Madonna and Venus! The Christ Child and Bacchus! Under which king? The artist never frankly tells us. The legends of fauns turned monks, of the gods at servile labour in a world that had forgotten them, are revived, but with more sublimated ecstasy than by Heine, when we stand before Botticelli and listen to his pallid, muted music. He was born at Florence in 1446; he died May 27, 1510; in 1515, according to Vasari. A study of him is by Emile Gebhart, late of the French Academy. It is erudite, although oddly enough it ignores the researches of Morelli and Berenson. Gebhart attributes to Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi about eighty-five pictures, many of which were long ago in Morelli's taboo list--that terrible Morelli, the learned iconoclast who brought many sleepless nights to Dr. Wilhelm Bode of Berlin. Time has vindicated the Bergamese critic. Berenson will allow only forty-five originals to Botticelli's credit. Furthermore, Gebhart does not mention in his catalogue the two Botticellis belonging to Mrs. Gardner of Boston, a lamentable oversight for a volume brought out in 1907. Need we add that this French author by no means sees Botticelli in the musical sense? He is chiefly concerned with his historic environment. Gebhart's authorities are the Memoriale of Francesco Albertini; Anonyme Gaddiano, the manuscript of the Magliabecchiana, which precedes the Vasari edition; the Life of Botticelli, by Vasari, and many later studies, the most complete, he avers, being that of Hermann Ulmann of Munich, whose Sandro Botticelli, which appeared in 1893, is rigorously critical. Nevertheless, it is not as critical as Morelli's Italian Painters. Details about the typical ears, hands, and noses of the painter may be found therein. The last word concerning Botticelli will not be uttered until his last line has vanished. And, even then, his archaic harmonies may continue to sound in the ears of mankind. VIII. SIX SPANIARDS "EL GRECO" Large or small, there has been a Greco cult ever since the Greek-Spanish painter died, April 7, 1614, but during the last decade it has grown into a species of worship. One hears the names of Velasquez and El Greco coupled. His profound influence on the greatest of the realists is blithely assumed, and for these worshippers, Ribera, Zurbaran, Murillo are hardly to be ranked with the painter of the Burial of the Count of Orgáz. While this undiscriminating admiration may be deplored, there are reasons enough for the canonisation of El Greco in the church of art. Violent to exaggeration in composition, morbidly mystic, there are power and emotional quality revealed in his work; above all else he anticipated Velasquez in his use of cool gray tones, and as a pupil or at least a disciple of Titian he is, as his latest biographer, Señor Manuel B. Cossio, names him, "the last epigone of the Italian Renaissance." But of the man we know almost nothing. We read his exhaustive study, a big book of over seven hundred pages fortified by a supplementary volume containing one hundred and ninety-three illustrations, poor reproductions of El Greco's accredited works (El Greco, por Manuel B. Cossio). Señor Cossio has so well accomplished his task that his book may be set down as definitive. A glance at the bibliography he compiled shows that not many writers on art have seen fit to pay particular attention to El Greco. A few Spaniards, Señor Beruete heading them; Max Boehm, Carl Justi (in his Diego Velasquez); Paul Lafond, William Ritter, Arthur Symons, William Stirling, Signor Venturi, Louis Viardot, Wyzewa, Havelock Ellis, and the inimitable Théophile Gautier--whose Travels in Spain, though published in 1840, is, as Mr. Ellis truthfully remarks, still a storehouse of original exploration. But the Cossio work, naturally, tops them all. He is an adorer, though not fanatical, of his hero, and it is safe to assert that all that is known to-day of El Greco will be found in these pages. The origins of the painter, his visit to Italy, his arrival at Toledo, are described with references to original documents--few as they are. Then follows a searching and vivid exposition of the pictures in Madrid, Toledo, and elsewhere, a technical and psychological analysis which displays vast research, critical acumen, and the sixth sense of sympathy. No pictures, sketches, sculptures, or _retablos_ escape Cossio. He considers El Greco in his relations to Velasquez and modern art. He has all the authorities at his tongue's tip; he views the man and artist from every angle. "Domenico El Greco died at Toledo two years before his contemporary Cervantes," says Cossio. Domenicos Theotocopoulos was his original name, which was softened into Domenico Theotocopuli--which, no doubt proving too much of a tongue-twister for the Spaniards, was quickly superseded by a capital nickname, "The Greek." His birthplace was the island of Crete and his birth-year between 1545 and 1550. Justi was the first to demonstrate his Cretan ancestry, which was corroborated in 1893 by Bikelas. In 1570, we learn through a letter written by Giulio Clovio to Cardinal Farnese, El Greco had astonished Roman artists by his skill in portraiture. He was said to be a pupil of Titian, on Clovio's authority. Why he went to Spain has not been discovered. He had a son, Jorge Manuel Theotocopuli, a sculptor and architect. Who the mother was history does not say. The painter took up his abode in Toledo and is not known to have left Spain thereafter. Pacheco visited him at Toledo and reported him to be as singular as his paintings and of an extravagant disposition. He was also called a wit and a philosopher. He wrote on painting, sculpture, and architecture, it is said. He made money; was, like most of his adopted countrymen, fond of litigation; lived well, loved music--and at his meals!--and that is all we may ever record of a busy life; for he painted many pictures, a careful enumeration of which makes Cossio's book valuable. There are Grecos scattered over Europe and the two Americas. Madrid and Toledo boast of his best work, but as far as St. Petersburg and Bucharest he is represented. In the United States there are eleven examples, soon to be increased by Mr. Archer M. Huntington's recent acquisition from the Kann collection. In Boston at the Museum there is the portrait of Fray Paravicino, a brilliant picture. (The worthy monk wrote four sonnets in glorification of the painter, whom he calls "Divino Griego." Quoted in one of the Cossio appendices.) There is an Assumption of the Virgin in Chicago at the Art Institute, and an Apostle, belonging to Charles Deering. In Philadelphia Mr. "J. Widner" (read P.A.B. Widener) owns a St. Francis, and at the Metropolitan Museum, hanging in Gallery 24, there is The Adoration of the Shepherds, a characteristic specimen of Greco's last manner, and in excellent condition. The gallery of the late H.O. Havemeyer contains one of the celebrated portraits of the Cardinal Inquisitor D. Fernando Nino de Guevara, painted during the second epoch, 1594 to 1604. It furnishes a frontispiece for the Cossio volume. The same dignitary was again painted, a variant, which Rudolph Kann owned, and now in the possession of Mrs. Huntington. The cardinal's head is strong, intellectual, and his expression proud and cold. Mr. Frick, at a private club exhibition, showed his Greco, St. Jerome, a subject of which the painter was almost as fond as of St. Francis (of Assisi). The National Gallery, London, owns a St. Jerome, Madrid another. Mr. Frick's example belongs to the epoch of 1584 to 1594. Mr. Erich in New York possesses three pictures, St. Jerome, a portrait of St. Domingo de Guzman and a Deposition. El Greco is a painter admired by painters for his salt individualism. Zuloaga, the Spaniard, has several; Degas, two; the critic Duret, two; John S. Sargent, one--a St. Martin. Durand-Ruel once owned the Annunciation, but sold it to Mrs. H.O. Havemeyer, and the Duveens in London possess a Disrobing of Christ. At the National Gallery there are two. Gautier wrote that El Greco surpassed Monk Lewis and Mrs. Radcliffe in his pell-mell of horrors; "extravagant and bizarre" are the adjectives he employs (said of most painters whose style is unfamiliar or out of the beaten track). In the Baptism of Christ he finds a depraved energy, a maleficent puissance; but the ardent colours, the tonal vivacity, and the large, free handling excite the Frenchman's admiration. Justi avers that Greco's "craving for originality developed incredible mannerisms. In his portraits he has delineated the peculiar dignity of the Castilian hidalgos and the beauty of Toledan dames with a success attained by few." R.A. Stevenson devotes to him a paragraph in his Velasquez. Referring to the influence of El Greco upon the greater painter, he wrote: "While Greco certainly adopted a Spanish gravity of colouring, neither that nor his modelling was ever subtle or thoroughly natural... Velasquez ripened with age and practice; Greco was rather inclined to get rotten with facility." Mr. Ricketts says that "his pictures might at times have been painted by torchlight in a cell of the Inquisition." Richard Ford in his handbook of Spain does not mince words: "Greco was very unequal... He was often more lengthy and extravagant than Fuseli, and as leaden as cholera morbus." Ritter speaks of his "symphonies in blue minor" (evidently imitating Gautier's poem, Symphony in White-Major). In Havelock Ellis's suggestive The Soul of Spain there is mention of Greco--see chapter Art of Spain. Ellis says: "In his more purely religious and supernatural scenes Greco was sometimes imaginative, but more often bizarre in design and disconcerting in his colouring with its insistence on chalky white, his violet shadows on pale faces, his love of green. [Mr. Ellis finds this 'predilection for green' significant as anticipating one of the characteristics of the Spanish palette.] His distorted fever of movement--the lean, twisted bodies, the frenzied, gesticulating arms, the mannerism of large calves that taper down to pointed toes--usually fails to convince us. But in the audacities of his colouring he revealed the possibilities of new harmonies, of higher, brighter, cooler keys." The Count Orgaz burial scene at Toledo Mr. Ellis does not rank among the world's great pictures. There is often a depressing morbidity in Greco; Goya is sane and healthy by comparison. Greco's big church pieces are full of religious sentiment, but enveloped in the fumes of nightmare. Curious it was that a stranger from Greece should have absorbed certain not particularly healthy, even sinister, Spanish traits and developed them to such a pitch of nervous intensity. As Arthur Symons says, his portraits "have all the brooding Spanish soul with its proud self-repression." Señor Cossio sums up in effect by declaring that Venice educated Greco in his art; Titian taught him technique; Tintoretto gave him his sense of dramatic form; Angelo his virility. But of the strong personality which assimilated these various influences there is no doubt when confronted with one of his canvases, every inch of which is signed El Greco. "VELASQUEZ" Why so well-known and authoritative a work as Velasquez, by Aureliano de Beruete, should have been so long in reaching America is a puzzle when you consider the velocity with which the Atlantic Ocean is traversed by so many mediocre books on art. The first Spanish edition of the Beruete monograph appeared about 1897; the same year saw it in French, and from the latter tongue it was translated into English by Hugh E. Poynter in 1906. Señor Beruete is considered with reason as the prime living authority on the great Spanish realist, though his study is not so voluminous as that of Carl Justi. The Bonn professor, however, took all Spain for his province. Velasquez and His Times is the title of his work, the first edition of which came out in 1888, the second in 1903. Beruete (whose portrait by Sorolla was one of that master's most characteristic pictures at the recent Hispanic Society exhibition in New York) is not at odds on many points with Justi; but more sceptical he is, and to R.A.M. Stevenson's list of Velasquez pictures, two hundred and thirty-four, Beruete opposes the comparatively meagre number of eighty-nine. He reduces the number of sketches and waves away as spurious the Velasquez "originals" in Italy, several in the Prado, the very stronghold of the collection; and of the eleven in that famous cabinet of the Vienna Imperial Museum--to which we went as to a divine service of eye and soul--he allows only seven as authentic. The portrait of Innocent X in the Doria palace, Rome, is naturally a masterpiece, as is the bust portrait of the same subject at the Hermitage, St. Petersburg; but the Boston Museum full-length of Philip IV is discredited as a copy, only the Prince Don Baltasar Carlos Attended by a Dwarf being admitted in the company of the true Velasquezes. Of the "supposed portrait of Cardinal Pamphili," a real Velasquez, now hanging in the Hispanic Society, 156th Street, Beruete writes: "In the winter of 1902 there appeared in Paris a bust portrait of a cardinal brought from Italy by Messrs. Trotty & Co., which had been alluded to by Professor A. Venturi of Rome in _L'Art_. It is life size, representing a person about thirty years of age in the dress of a cardinal, with smiling face and black hair, moustache and pointed beard, good carriage and a touch of levity not in keeping with the dignity and austerity of a prince of the Church. The beretta and cape, of a fine red colour, the latter painted in a uniform tone and without a crease, harmonise with the roseate hue of the features, and the plain gray background. Every detail reveals the hand of Velasquez, and it can be classed without hesitation among the characteristic works of his second style. It is on that ground that I make mention of it here. However, in Rome, at the house in which this picture was found, it was held to be the portrait of Cardinal Pamphili, nephew of Innocent X, who according to Palomino was painted in Rome by Velasquez at the same time as the Pontiff, that is in 1650." Beruete believes Palomino was wrong in declaring that Velasquez painted the young cardinal in Rome; Madrid was the likelier city. The style proves an earlier date than 1650. The cardinal withdrew from the cardinalate after three years, 1644-47 > and married. The portrait was acquired by the American artist the late Francis Lathrop. Stevenson grants to the Metropolitan Museum a fruit-piece by Velasquez. Not so Beruete. J. H. McFadden of Philadelphia once owned the Doña Mariana of Austria, second wife of Philip IV, in a white-and-black dress, gold chain over her shoulder, hair adorned with red bows and red-and-white feather, from the Lyne-Stephens collection in the New Gallery, 1895--and is so quoted by Stevenson; but he sold the picture and Beruete has lost track of it. Whereas Stevenson in his invaluable book studies his subject broadly in chapters devoted to the dignity of the Velasquez technique, his colour, modelling, brushwork, and his impressionism, Beruete follows a more detailed yet simpler method. Picture by picture, in each of the three styles--he adopts Justi's and Stevenson's classification--he follows the painter, dealing less with the man than his work. Not that biographical data are missing--on the contrary, there are many pages of anecdotes as well as the usual facts--but Beruete is principally concerned with the chronology and attribution of the pictures. He has dug up some fresh material concerning the miserable pay Velasquez received, rather fought for, at the court of Philip, where he was on a par with the dwarfs, barbers, comedians, servants, and other dependants of the royal household. The painter has been criticised for his attachment to the king; but as he was not of a religious nature and did not paint religious pieces with the gusto of his contemporaries, the court was his only hope of existence; either court or church. He made his choice early, and while we must regret the enormous wasting of the hours consequent upon the fulfilment of his duties as a functionary, master of the revels, and what not, we should not forget how extremely precarious would have been his lot as a painter without royal favour in the Spain of those days. He had his bed, board, house, and though he died penniless--his good wife Juana only survived him seven days--he had the satisfaction of knowing that he owed no man, and that his daughter had married his pupil Mazo. Velasquez was born at Seville in 1599; died at Madrid, 1660. His real name was Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velasquez. He was a Silva--for the "de" was acquired from the king after much pettifoggery on the part of that monarch with the prognathic jaw--and he was of Portuguese blood. He signed Velasquez--a magic grouping of letters for the lovers of art--though born as he was in Spain his forefathers came from Portugal. The mixed blood has led to furious disputes among hot-headed citizens of the two kingdoms. As if it much mattered. Velasquez's son-in-law, by the way, Juan Mazo, was the author of a number of imitations and forgeries. He was a true friend of the picture-dealers. Velasquez belonged to that rare family of sane genius. He was eminently the painter of daylight and not a nocturnal visionary, as was Rembrandt. Shakespeare, who had all the strings to his lyre, had also many daylight moments. Mozart always sang them, and how blithely! No one, not Beethoven, not Raphael, not Goethe--to name three widely disparate men of genius--saw life as steadily as the Spaniard. He is a magnificent refutation of the madhouse doctors who swear to you that genius is a disease. Remember, too, that the limitations of Velasquez are clearly defined. Imagination was denied to him, asserts Beruete; he had neither the turbulent temperament of Rubens nor possessed the strained, harsh mysticism of El Greco--a painter of imagination and the only painter allowed by Beruete to have affected the Velasquez palette. In a word, Velasquez was a puzzling comminglement of the classic and the realist. He had the repose and the firm, virile line of the classics, while his vision of actuality has never been surpassed. The Dutch Terburg, Vermeer, Van der Helst, Frans Hals saw as vividly the surfaces of things material; the last alone was the match of Velasquez in brushwork, but not Rembrandt recorded in his Anatomy Lesson the facts of the case as did Velasquez. Señor Beruete wittily remarks that Los Borrachos (The Topers) of Velasquez is the truer anatomy lesson of the two. A realist, an impressionist, as Stevenson has it, the Spaniard was; but he was also something more. He had a magic hand to define, the rendering of the magical mystery of space and atmosphere. Grant that he was not a colourist in the sense the Venetians were, or Rubens, yet how much more subtle, more noble, more intellectual, is his restricted tonal gamut. Those silver-grays, resonant blacks, browns, blues, and reds sing in your memory long after you have forgotten the tumultuous golden waves breaking upon the decorative coasts of Rubens. We are constrained to question the easy way Beruete and other critics deny the attributes of imagination and poetry to Velasquez. There is, perhaps, a more sublimated poetry in his pictures than in the obvious religious and mythological and allegorical set pieces of Rubens, Murillo, and how many others. His realism did not run to seed in the delineation of subject. He was as natural as Cervantes--the one great man of Spain who may be compared to him--and he saw the larger patterns of life, while never forgetting that the chief function of a painter is to paint, not to "think," not to rhapsodise, not to be "literary" on canvas. His cool, measuring eye did more than record sordid facts. He had a sort of enraptured vision of the earth as beautiful, the innocence of the eye we encounter in children only. Stevenson rages at those who say that Velasquez was not a colourist--and Beruete is of them, though he quotes with considerable satisfaction the critical pronouncement of Royal Cortissoz (in _Harper's Magazine_, May, 1895) that Las Meninas is "the most perfect study of colour and values which exists." The truth is, Stevenson, Cortissoz, and Beruete are all three in the right. That Velasquez, when in Rome, studied the pictures there; that he didn't care for Raphael; that he had very much admired the Venetians, Titian, Tintoretto; that he had admired Rubens, with whom he associated daily on the occasion of the Flemish master's visit of nine months to Madrid--these are truths not to be denied. Beruete claims that the Rubens influence is not to be seen in Velasquez, only El Greco's. Every object, living or inanimate, that swam through the eyeballs of the Spaniard--surely the most wonderful pair of eyes in history--was never forgotten. His powers of assimilation were unexcelled. He saw and made note of everything, but when he painted his spectators saw nothing of any other man, living or dead. Was not the spiritual impulse missing in this man? He couldn't paint angels, because he only painted what he saw; and as he never saw angels he only painted mankind. Life, not the "subject," appealed to him. He had little talent, less taste, for the florid decorative art of Rubens and the Venetians; but give him a simple, human theme (not pretty or sentimental) and he recreated it, not merely interpreted the scene; so that Las Meninas, The Spinners (Las Hilanderas), the hunting pictures, the various portraits of royalty, buffoons, beggars, outcasts, are the chronicles of his time, and he its master psychologist. Beruete says that Ribera more than Zurbaran affected Velasquez; "El Greco taught him the use of delicate grays in the colouring of the flesh." Hot, hard, and dry in his first period (Borrachos), he becomes more fluid and atmospheric in the Breda composition (The Lances), and in the third period he has attained absolute mastery of his material. His salary at the court was two and sixpence a day in 1628. Even Haydn and Mozart did better as menials. Yet some historians speak of the liberality of Philip IV. An "immortal employee" indeed, as Beruete names his idol. Luca Giordano called Las Meninas the "theology of painting." Wilkie declared that the Velasquez landscapes possessed "the real sun which lights us, the air which we breathe, and the soul and spirit of nature." "To see the Prado," exclaims Stevenson, "is to modify one's opinion of the novelty of recent art." To-day the impressionists and realists claim Velasquez as their patron saint as well as artistic progenitor. The profoundest master of harmonies and the possessor of a vision of the real world not second to Leonardo's, the place of the Spaniard in history will never be taken from him. Velasquez is more modern than all the moderns; more modern than to-morrow. That sense of the liberation of the spirit which Mr. Berenson is fond of adducing as the grandest attribute of the Space Composers, Raphael and the rest, may be discovered in Las Meninas, or in The Spinners, space overhead, with mystery superadded. The brumous North was the home of mysticism, of Gothic architecture. The note of tragic mystery was seldom sounded by the Italians. Faith itself seems more real in the North. It remained for Rembrandt to give it out in his chords of _chiaroscuro_. And is there more noble, more virile music in all art than The Surrender of Breda? Mr. Berenson refers only once to Velasquez and then as an "impersonal" painter. As a counterblast to his theory of impersonality let us quote a few lines from R.A.M. Stevenson's Velasquez (that most inspiring of all art monographs): "Is it wonderful," he asks, "that you can apply Morelli's principles of criticism to the Pre-Raphaelite Italian schools; that you can point to the thumbs, fingers, poses of the head, ovals of the face and schemes of colour that the painters learned by heart, and can even say from whom they learned? The later Venetians broke away, and when you come to Velasquez the system holds good as little as it can in our own day." But this charge holds good for many painters of the Renaissance, painters of patterns. Velasquez, like the great prose-master of France, Gustave Flaubert, is always in modulation. No two canvases are rhythmically alike, except in the matter of masterfulness. He, too, was a master of magnificent prose painting, painting worth a wilderness of makers of frozen mediæval patterns. Mr. Henry B. Fuller, the author of the Chevalier di Pensieri-Vani, once spoke of the "cosy sublimity" in Raphael's Vision of Ezekiel; one might paraphrase the epigram by describing the pictures of Velasquez as boxed-in eternities. Dostoïevsky knew such a sensation when he wrote of "a species of eternity within the space of a square foot." But there are many connoisseurs who find evidences of profounder and more naïve faith in the angular loveliness of the Flemish Primitives than in all the religious art of Italy or Spain. GOYA I Goya was a Titan among artists. He once boasted that "Nature, Velasquez, and Rembrandt are my masters." It was an excellent self-criticism. He not only played the Velasquez gambit in his portraits, the gambit of Rembrandt in his sombre imaginative pieces, but he boldly annexed all Spain for his sinister and turbulent art. He was more truly Spanish in the range and variety of his performances than any Spanish-born painter since Velasquez. Without the sanity, solidity, nobility of Velasquez, whose vision and voice he never possessed; without the luscious sweetness of Murillo, whose sweetness he lacked, he had something of El Greco's fierceness, and much of the vigour of Ribera. He added to these influences a temperament that was exuberant, fantastic, morose, and pessimistic yet humorous, sarcastic, sometimes melting, and ever masterful. He reminds one of an overwhelming force. The man dominates the painter. A dozen comparisons force themselves upon you when the name of Goya is pronounced: comets, cataracts, whirlwinds, and wild animals. Anarch and courtier, atheist and decorator of churches, his "whole art seems like a bullfight," says Richard Muther. One might improve on this by calling him a subtle bull, a Hercules who had read Byron. "Nature, Velasquez, and Rembrandt!" cries MacColl in a too brief summary. "How inadequate the list! Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Legion had a hand in the teaching." Goya incarnated the renaissance of old Spain and its art. Spanish art has always come from without, for its foundations were northern and Flemish. The Van Eycks and Van der Weyden were studied closely; Jan Van Eyck visited Madrid. The Venetian influence was strong, and El Greco his life long, and a pupil of Titian as he was, this gloomy painter with the awkward name of Theotocopoulo endeavoured to forget his master and became more Spanish than the Spanish. Ribera, emotional, dramatic, realistic, religious, could sound the chords of tenderness without the sentimentalism of Murillo. Goya stems more from Caravaggio and Salvator Rosa than from any of his predecessors, except Velasquez. The presence of Tiepolo, the last of the Venetians, in Spain may have influenced him. Certainly Raphael Mengs, the "Saxon pedant," did not--Mengs associated with Tiepolo at Madrid. It is in company with the bravos of the brush, Caravaggio and Rosa, that Goya is closely affiliated. We must go to Gustave Courbet for a like violence of temperament; both men painted _con furia_; both were capable of debauches in work; Goya could have covered the walls of hell with diabolic frescoes. In music three men are of a like ilk: Berlioz, Paganini, Liszt. Demoniacal, charged with electric energy, was this trinity, and Goya could have made it a quartet. But if Spain was not a country of original artists--as was Italy, for example--she developed powerful and astounding individualities. Character is her _leit motìv_ in the symphony of the nations. The rich virility and majestic seriousness of her men, their aptitudes for war, statesmanship, and drama, are borne out in her national history. Perhaps the climate plays its part. Havelock Ellis thinks so. "The hard and violent effects, the sharp contrasts, the strong colours, the stained and dusky clouds, looking as if soaked in pigment, may well have affected the imagination of the artist," he writes. Certainly the landscapes of Velasquez could not be more Spanish than they are; and, disagreeing with those who say that he had no feeling for nature, the bits of countryside and mountain Goya shows are truly peninsular in their sternness. It may be well to remark here that the softness of Tuscany is not to be found in the lean and often arid aspects of Spain. Spain, too, is romantic--but after its own fashion. Goya revived the best traditions of his country's art; he was the last of the great masters and the first of the moderns. Something neurotic, modern, disquieting, threads his work with devilish irregularity. He had not the massive temper of Velasquez, of those men who could paint day after day, year after year, until death knocked at their ateliers. As vigorous as Rubens in his sketches, Goya had not the steady, slow nerves of that master. He was very unequal. His life was as disorderly as Hals's or Steen's, but their saving phlegm was missing. In an eloquent passage--somewhere in his English Literature--Taine speaks of the sanity of genius as instanced by Shakespeare. Genius narrowly escapes nowadays being a cerebral disorder, though there was Marlowe to set off Shakespeare's serene spirit, and even of Michael Angelo's mental health and morals his prime biographer, Parlagreco, does not speak in reassuring terms. Goya was badly balanced, impulsive, easily angered, and not slow to obey the pull of his irritable motor centres when aroused. A knife was always within reach. He drove the Duke of Wellington from his presence because the inquisitive soldier asked too many questions while his portrait was being blocked out. A sword or a dagger did the business; but Wellington returned to the studio and, as Mr. Rothenstein tells us, the portrait was finished and is now at Strathfieldsaye. A sanguine is in the British Museum. His exploits in Rome may have been exaggerated, though he was quite capable of eloping with a nun from a convent, as is related, or going around the top of the Cecilia Metella tomb supported only by his thumbs. The agility and strength of Goya were notorious, though in a land where physical prowess is not the exception. He was picador, matador, banderillero by turns in the bull ring. After a stabbing affray he escaped in the disguise of a bull-fighter. If he was a _dompteur_ of dames and cattle, he was the same before his canvas. Anything that came to hand served him as a brush, an old brown stick wrapped up in cloth, a spoon--with the latter he executed that thrilling Massacre, May 2, 1808, in the Prado. He could have painted with a sabre or on all fours. Reckless to the degree of insanity, he never feared king or devil, man or the Inquisition. The latter reached out for him, but he had disappeared, after suffering a dagger-thrust in the back. When on the very roof of his prosperity, he often slipped downstairs to the company of varlets and wenches; this friend of the Duchess of Alba seemed happier dicing, drinking, dancing in the suburbs with base-born people and gipsies. A _genre_ painter, Goya delighted in depicting the volatile, joyous life of a now-vanished epoch. He was a historian of manner as well as of disordered souls, and an avowed foe of hypocrisy. Not "poignantly genteel," to use a Borrovian phrase, was he. Yet he could play the silken courtier with success. The Arabs say that "one who has been stung by a snake shivers at a string," and perhaps the violence with which the painter attacked the religious may be set down to the score of his youthful fears and flights when the Inquisition was after him. He was a sort of Voltaire in black and white. The corruption of churchmen and court at this epoch seems almost incredible. Goya noted it with a boldness that meant but one thing--friends high in power. This was the case. He was admired by the king, Charles IV, and admired--who knows how much!--by his queen, Marie Louise of Parma, Goya painted their portraits; also painted the portraits of the royal favourite and prime minister and Prince de la Paz, Manuel Godoy--favourite of both king and queen. Him, Goya left in effigy for the scorn of generations to come. "A grocer's family who have won the big lottery prize," was the witty description of Théophile Gautier when he saw the picture of the royal family. Curiously enough, this Goya, who from the first plucked success from its thorny setting, was soon forgotten, and until Gautier in 1840 recorded his impressions in his brilliant Voyage en Espagne, critical literature did not much concern itself with the versatile Spaniard. And Gautier's sketch of a few pages still remains the most comprehensive estimate. From it all have been forced to borrow; Richard Muther in his briskly enthusiastic monograph and the section in his valuable History of Modern Painting; Charles Yriarte, Will Rothenstein, Lafond, Lefort, Condé de la Vinaza--all have read Gautier to advantage. Valerian von Loga has devoted a study to the etchings, and Don Juan de la Rada has made a study of the frescoes in the church of San Antonio de la Florida; Carl Justi, Stirling Maxwell, C.G. Hartley should also be consulted. Yriarte is interesting, inasmuch as he deals with the apparition of Goya in Rome, an outlaw, but a blithe one, who, notebook in hand, went through the Trastevere district sketching with ferocious rapidity the attitudes and gestures of the vivacious population. A man after Stendhal's heart, this Spaniard. And in view of his private life one is tempted to add--and after the heart, too, of Casanova. Notwithstanding, he was an unrivalled interpreter of child-life. Some of his painted children are of a dazzling sweetness. GOYA II Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was born March 30 (or 31), 1746, at Fuentetodos, near Saragossa, Aragon. He died at Bordeaux, France, where he had gone for his health, April 16, 1828--Calvert, possibly by a pen slip, makes him expire a month earlier. He saw the beginnings of French romanticism, as he was himself a witness of the decadence of Spanish art. But his spirit has lived on in Manet and Zuloaga. Decadent he was; a romantic before French romanticism, he yet had borrowed from an earlier France. Some of his gay Fêtes Champêtres recall the influence of Watteau--a Watteau without the sweet elegiac strain. He has been called a Spanish Hogarth--not a happy simile. Hogarth preaches; Goya never; satirists both, Goya never deepened by a pen stroke the didactic side. His youth was not extraordinary in promise; his father and mother were poor peasants. The story of his discovery by a monk of Saragosela--Father Felix Salvador of the Carthusian convent of Aula Dei--is not missing. He studied with José Martinez. He ran away in 1766. He remained, say some, in Italy from 1769 to 1774; but in 1771 he appeared in Saragossa again, and the year 1772 saw him competing for the painting about to be undertaken in the cathedral. He married Josefa Bayeu, the sister of the court painter. He has told us what he thought of his jealous, intriguing brother-in-law in a portrait. In 1775 he was at Madrid. From 1776 he executed forty-six tapestry cartoons. In 1779 he presented to the king his etchings after Velasquez. His rise was rapid. He painted the queen, with her false teeth, false hair, and her infernal simper, and this portrait was acclaimed a masterpiece. His religious frescoes, supposed to be _ad majorem Dei gloriam_, were really for the greater glory of Goya. They are something more than secular, often little short of blasphemous. That they were tolerated proves the cynical temper of his times. When the fat old scoundrel of a Bourbon king ran away with all his court and the pusillanimous Joseph Bonaparte came upon the scene, Goya swerved and went through the motions of loyalty, a thing that rather disturbs the admirers of the supposedly sturdy republican. But he was only marking time. He left a terrific arraignment of war and its horrors. Nor did he spare the French. Callot, Hell-Breughel, are outdone in these swift, ghastly memoranda of misery, barbarity, rapine, and ruin. The hypocrite Ferdinand VII was no sooner on the throne of his father than Goya, hat in hand but sneer on lip and twinkle in eye, approached him, and after some parleying was restored to royal favour. Goya declared that as an artist he was not personally concerned in the pranks of the whirligig politic. Nevertheless he was bitterly chagrined at the twist of events, and, an old man, he retired to his country house, where he etched and designed upon its walls startling fancies. He died disillusioned, and though nursed by some noble countrymen, his career seemed to illustrate that terrifying picture of his invention--a skeleton lifts its gravestone and grinningly traces with bony finger in the dust the word _Nada_--Nothing! Overtaxed by the violence of his life and labours--he left a prodigious amount of work behind him--soured by satiety, all spleen and rage, he was a broken-down Lucifer, who had trailed his wings in the mud. But who shall pass judgment upon this unhappy man? Perhaps, as he saw the "glimmering square" grow less, the lament of Cardinal Wolsey may have come to a brain teeming with memories. Goya had always put his king before his God. But in his heart he loved the old romantic faith--the faith that hovered in the background of his art. Goya is not the first son of his mother church who denied her from sheer perversity. What a nation! Cervantes and Lope da Vega, Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada--most glorious of her sex, saint and genius--and Goya! Spain is the land of great and diverse personalities. But with Calderon we must now say: "Let us to our ship, for here all is shadowy and unsettled." Goya, as Baudelaire pointed out more than half a century ago, executed his etchings by combining aquatint and the use of the dry point. A few years before his death he took up lithography, then a novelty. His Caprices, Proverbs, and Horrors of War may outlive his paintings. His colour scheme was not a wide one, blacks, reds, browns, and yellows often playing solo; but all modern impressionism may be seen on his canvases--harsh dissonances, dots, dabs, spots, patches, heavy planes, strong rhythmic effects of lighting, heavy impasto, luminous atmosphere, air, sunshine, and vibrating movements; also the strangeness of his material. Manet went to him a beginner. After studying the Maja desnuda at the Prado Museum he returned to France and painted the Olympe, once of the Luxembourg, now in the Louvre. The balcony scenes of Goya, with their manolas--old-fashioned grisettes--must have stirred Manet; recall the Frenchman's Balcony. And the bull-fights? Oh! what an iron-souled master was there--Goya when he slashed a bull in the arena tormented by the human brutes! None of his successors matches him. The same is the case with that diverting, devilish, savoury, and obscene series he called Caprices. It is worth remembering that Delacroix was one of the first artists in Paris who secured a set of these rare plates. The witch's sabbaths and the modern version of them, prostitution and its symbolism, filled the brain of Goya. He always shocks any but robust nerves with his hybrid creatures red in claw and foaming at mouth as they fight in midair, hideous and unnamable phantoms of the dark. His owls are theologians. The females he often shows make us turn aside our head and shudder. With implacable fidelity he displayed the reverse of war's heroic shield. It is something more than hell. Sattler, Charlet, Raffet, James Ensor, Rethel, De Groux, Rops, Edvard Münch (did you ever see his woman wooed by a skeleton?), and the rest of these delineators of the morbid and macabre acknowledge Goya as their progenitor. He must have been a devil-worshipper. He pictures the goat devil, horns and hoofs. Gautier compares him to E.T.W. Hoffmann--Poe not being known in Paris at that time--but it is a rather laboured comparison, for there was a profoundly human side to the Spaniard. His perception of reality was of the solidest. He had lived and loved and knew before Flaubert that if the god of the Romantics was an upholsterer the god of eighteenth-century Spain was an executioner. The professed lover of the Duchess of Alba, he painted her nude, and then, hearing that the Duke might not like the theme so handled, he painted her again, and clothed, but more insolently uncovered than before. At the Spanish museum in New York you may see another portrait of this bold beauty with the name of Goya scratched in the earth at her feet. Her attitude is characteristic of the intrigue, which all Madrid knew and approved. At home sat Mrs. Goya with her twenty children. Goya was a man of striking appearance. Slender in youth, a graceful dancer, in middle life he had the wide shoulders and bull neck of an athlete. He was the terror of Madrileñan husbands. His voice had seductive charm. He could twang the guitar and fence like ten devils. A gamester, too. In a word, a figure out of the Renaissance, when the deed trod hard on the heels of the word. One of his self-portraits shows him in a Byronic collar, the brow finely proportioned, marked mobile features, sombre eyes--the ideal Don Juan Tenorio to win the foolish heart of an Emma Bovary or a bored noblewoman. Another, with its savage eye--it is a profile--and big beaver head-covering, recalls Walt Whitman's "I wear my hat as I please, indoors or out." A giant egoist, and as human, all too human, a fellow as Spain ever begot, Goya is only hinted at in Baudelaire's searching quatrain beginning: "Goya, cauchemar plein de choses inconnues." _Fleurs du Mal_ would be a happy title for the work of Francisco Goya if to "The Flowers of Evil" were added "and Wisdom." Goya is often cruel and lascivious and vulgar, but he is as great a philosopher as painter. And to offset his passionate gloom there are his visions of a golden Spain no longer in existence; happy, gorgeous of costume, the Spain of sudden coquetries, of fans, masques, bull-fights, and fandangos, of a people dancing on the rim of a fire-filled mountain, pious, capricious, child-like, romantic, and patriotic--the Spain of the eighteenth century. Goya is its spokesman, as is Velasquez the mirror of Philip's more spacious times. Velasquez--Goya! poles asunder, yet both born to the artistic purple. And the stately aristocrat who signed himself Velasquez is not more in tune with the twentieth-century _Zeitgeist_ than that coarse-fibred democrat of genius, Francisco Goya. FORTUNY Mariano Fortuny: what a magic-breeding name! The motto of this lucky Spanish painter might have been "Fortuny Fortunatus." Even his sudden death, at the early age of thirty-six, came after he had executed a number of masterpieces, an enormous quantity of water-colours, etchings, ceramics, damascene swords and chased ornaments; it followed on the heels of sudden glory. His name was in the mouth of artistic Europe, and the sale of the contents of his studio at Rome in 1875 brought eight hundred thousand francs. Yet so slippery is fame that Fortuny's name to-day is seldom without a brace of epithets, such as "garish," or "empty." His work is neither. He is a virtuoso. So was Tiepolo. He is a Romantic; so the generation preceding him. The Orientalist par excellence, he has somehow been confounded with Meissonier and Gérôme, has been called glittering like the former, hard as was the latter. It is true there are no emotional undertones in his temperament, the brilliant overtones predominating; but it is also true that when he died his manner was changing. He had said that he was tired of the "gay rags" of the eighteenth century, and his Strand of Portici shows a new line of departure. Edouard Manet made special appeal to Fortuny; Manet, who had derived from Goya, whose Spanish _fond_ is undeniable. Perhaps the thrice-brilliant Fortuny's conscience smote him when he saw a Frenchman so successfully absorbing the traditions of Goya; but it was not to be. He passed away at the very top of his renown, truly a favourite of the gods. He was admired, imitated, above all parodied; though, jealously as are his pictures guarded, he has been put on the shelf like one of the amazing painted bibelots in his work. The injustice of this is patent. Between Fortuny and Meissonier there lies the gulf that separates the genius and the hard-working man of talent. Nevertheless Meissonier's statue is in the garden of the Louvre, Meissonier is extolled as a master, while Fortuny is usually described in patronising terms as a facile trifler. The reverse is the truth. No one has painted sunlight with more intensity; he was an impressionist before the word was coined. He is a colourist almost as sumptuous as Monticelli, with a precision of vision never attained by the Marseilles rhapsodist. His figures are as delicious as Watteau's or Debucourt's--he recalls the latter frequently--and as an Orientalist he ranks all but a few. Gérôme, Guillaumet, Fromentin, Huguet are not to be mentioned in the same breath with Fortuny as to the manipulation of material; and has Guillaumet done anything savouring more of the mysterious East than Fortuny's At the Gate of the Seraglio? The magician of jewelled tones, he knew all the subtler modulations. His canvases vibrate, they emit sparks of sunlight, his shadows are velvety and warm. Compared with such a picture as The Choice of a Model, the most laboriously minute Meissonier is as cold and dead as a photograph--Meissonier, who was a capital fan painter, a patient miniaturist without colour talent, a myopic delineator of costumes, who, as Manet said, pasted paper soldiers on canvas and called the machine a battle-field. The writer recalls the sensations once evoked by a close view of Fortuny's Choice of a Model at Paris years ago, and at that time in the possession of Mr. Stewart. Psychology is not missing in this miracle of virtuosity; the nude posing on the marble table, the absolute beauty of the drawing, the colouring, the contrast of the richly variegated marble pillars in the background, the eighteenth-century costumes of the Academicians so scrupulously yet so easily set forth, all made a dazzling ensemble. Since Fortuny turned the trick a host of spurious pictures has come overseas, and we now say "Vibert" at the same time as "Fortuny," just as some enlightened persons couple the names of Ingres and Bouguereau. In the kingdom of the third rate the mediocre is conqueror. Listen to this description of La Vicaria (The Spanish Wedding), which first won for its painter his reputation. Begun in 1868, it was exhibited at Goupil's, Paris, the spring of 1870 (some say 1869), when the artist was thirty-two years old. Théophile Gautier--whose genius and Théodore de Banville's have analogies with Fortuny's in the matter of surfaces and astounding virtuosity--went up in the air when he saw the work, and wrote a feuilleton that is still recalled by the old guard. The following, however, is not by Gautier, but from the pen of Dr. Richard Muther, the erudite German critic: "A marriage is taking place in the sacristy of a rococo church in Madrid. The walls are covered with faded Cordova leather hangings figured in gold and dull colours, and a magnificent rococo screen separates the sacristy from the middle aisle. Venetian lustres are suspended from the ceiling, pictures of martyrs, Venetian glasses in carved oval frames hang on the wall, richly ornamented wooden benches and a library of missals and gospels in sparkling silver clasps, and shining marble tables and glistening braziers form part of the scene in which the marriage contract is being signed. The costumes are those of the time of Goya. An old beau is marrying a young and beautiful girl. With affected grace and a skipping minuet step, holding a modish three-cornered hat under his arm, he approaches the table to put his signature in the place which the _escribano_ points out with an obsequious bow. He is arrayed in delicate lilac, while the bride is wearing a white silk dress trimmed with flowered lace and has a wreath of orange blossoms in her luxuriant black hair. As a girl friend is talking to her she examines with abstracted attention the pretty little pictures upon her fan, the finest she ever possessed. A very piquant little head she has, with her long lashes and black eyes. Then, in the background, follow the witnesses, and first of all a young lady in a swelling silk dress of the brightest rose colour. Beside her is one of the bridegroom's friends in a cabbage-green coat with long flaps and a shining belt, from which a gleaming sabre hangs. The whole picture is a marvellous assemblage of colours in which tones of Venetian glow and strength, the tender pearly gray beloved of the Japanese, and a melting neutral brown each sets off the other and gives a shimmering effect to the entire mass." Fortuny was a gay master of character and comedy as well as of bric-a-brac. Still life he painted as no one before or after him; if Chardin is the Velasquez of vegetables, Fortuny is the Rossini of the rococo; such lace-like filigrees, _fiorturi_, marbles that are of stone, men and women that are alive, not of marble (like Alma-Tadema's). The artificiality of his work is principally in the choice of a subject, not in the performance. How luminous and silky are his blacks may be noted at the Metropolitan Museum in his portrait of a Spanish lady. There is nothing of the _petit-maître_ in the sensitive and adroit handling of values. The rather triste expression, the veiled look of the eyes, the _morbidezza_ of the flesh tones, and the general sense of amplitude and grace give us a Fortuny who knew how to paint broadly. The more obvious and dashing side of him is present in the Arabian Fantaisie of the Vanderbilt Gallery. It must be remembered that he spent some time copying, at Madrid, Velasquez and Goya, and as Camille Mauclair enthusiastically declares, these copies are literal "identifications." They are highly prized by the Marquise Carcano (who owned the Vicaria), Madrazo, and the Baron Davillieu--the last named the chief critical authority on Fortuny. In the history of the arts there are cases such as Fortuny's, of Mozart, Chopin, Raphael, and some others, whose precocity and prodigious powers of production astonished their contemporaries. Fortuny, whose full name was Mariano José Maria Bernardo Fortuny y Carbó, was born at Reus, a little town in the province of Tarragona, near Barcelona. He was very poor, and at the age of twelve an orphan. His grandfather, a carpenter, went with the lad on foot through the towns of Catalonia exhibiting a cabinet containing wax figures painted by Mariano and perhaps modelled by him. He began carving and daubing at the age of five; a regular little fingersmith, his hands were never idle. He secured by the promise of talent a pension of forty-two francs a month and went to Barcelona to study at the Academy. Winning the prize of Rome in 1857, he went there and copied old masters until 1860, when, the war between Spain and Morocco breaking out, he went to Morocco on General Prim's staff, and for five or six months his brain was saturated with the wonders of Eastern sunlight, exotic hues, beggars, gorgeous rugs, snake-charmers, Arabs afoot or circling on horseback with the velocity of birds, fakirs, all the huge glistening febrile life he was later to interpret with such charm and exactitude. He returned to Rome. He made a second trip to Africa. He returned to Spain. Barcelona gave him a pension of a hundred and thirty-two francs a month, which amount was kept up later by the Duke de Rianzarès until 1867. He went to Paris in 1866, was taken up by the Goupils, knew Meissonier and worked occasionally with Gérôme. His rococo pictures, his Oriental work set Paris ablaze. He married the daughter of the Spanish painter Federigo Madrazo, and visited at Madrid, Granada, Seville, Rome, and, in 1874, London. He contracted a pernicious fever at Rome and died there, November 21, 1874, at the age of thirty-six. His funeral was imposing, many celebrities of the world of art participating. He was buried in the Campo Varano. In 1866 at Rome he began etching, and in fifteen months finished a series of masterpieces. His line, surprisingly agile and sinuous, has the finesse of Goya--whom he resembled at certain points. He used aquatint with full knowledge of effects to be produced, and at times he recalls Rembrandt in the depth of his shadows. His friend the painter Henri Regnault despaired in the presence of such versatility, such speed and ease of workmanship. He wrote: "The time I spent with Fortuny is haunting me still. What a magnificent fellow he is! He paints the most marvellous things, and is the master of us all. I wish I could show you the two or three pictures he has in his hand or his etchings and water-colours. They inspired me with a real disgust of my own. Ah, Fortuny, you spoil my sleep!" Standing aloof from the ideas and tendencies of his times and not a sweeper of the chords that stir in human nature the heroic or the pathetic, it is none the less uncritical to rank this Spaniard as a brainless technician. Everything is relative, and the scale on which Fortuny worked was as true a medium for the exhibition of his genius as a museum panorama. Let us not be misled by the worship of the elephantine. It is characteristic of his temperament that the big battle piece he was commissioned by the Barcelona Academy to paint was never finished. Not every one who goes to Rome does as the Romans do. Dowered by nature with extraordinary acuity of vision, with a romantic, passionate nature and a will of steel, Fortuny was bound to become a great painter. His manual technique bordered on the fabulous; he had the painter's hand, as his fellow-countryman Pablo de Sarasate had the born hand of the violinist. That he spent the brief years of his life in painting the subjects he did is not a problem to be posed, for, as Henry James has said, it is always dangerous to challenge an artist's selection of subject. Why did Goya conceive his _Caprichos_? The love of decorative beauty in Fortuny was not bedimmed by criticism. He had the lust of eye which not the treasures of Ormuz and Ind, or ivory, apes, and peacocks, could satisfy. If he loved the kaleidoscopic East, he also knew his Spain. We have seen at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts a tiny picture, the court-yard of a Spanish inn through which passes a blinding shaft of sunlight, which would make envious Señor Sorolla. Fortuny has personal charm, a quality usually missing nowadays, for painters in their desire to be truthful are tumbling head over heels into the prosaic. Individuality is vanishing in the wastes of an over-anxious realism. If Fortuny is a daring virtuoso on one or two strings, his palette is ever enchanting. Personally he was a handsome man, with a distinguished head, his body broad and muscular and capable of enduring fatigues that would have killed most painters. Allied to this powerful physique was a seductive sensibility. This peasant-born painter was an aristocrat of art. Old Mother Nature is an implacable ironist. SOROLLA Y BASTIDA We might say of the Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida that he was one of those who came into the world with a ray of sunshine in their brains--altering the phrase of Villiers de l'Isle Adam. Señor Sorolla is also one of the half-dozen (are there so many?) great living painters. He belongs to the line of Velasquez and Goya, and he seldom recalls either. Under the auspices of the Hispanic Society of America there was an exhibition of his works in 1909, some two hundred and fifty in all, hung in the museum of the society, West 156th Street, near Broadway. The liveliest interest was manifested by the public and professional people in this display. Those who saw Sorolla's art at the Paris Exposition, 1900, and at the Georges Petit Gallery, Paris, a few years ago need not be reminded of his virile quality and masterly brush-work. Some art lovers in this city are aware of his Sad Inheritance, the property of Mr. John E. Berwind, which has been hung in the Sunday-school room of the Ascension Church, Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street. It is one of the artist's few pictures in which he feels the _Weltschmerz_. His is a nature bubbling over with health and happiness. He is a Valencian, was born in 1863 of poor parents, and by reason of his native genius and stubborn will power he became what he is--the painter of vibrating sunshine without equal. Let there be no mincing of comparisons in this assertion. Not Turner, not Monet painted so directly blinding shafts of sunlight as has this Spaniard. He is an impressionist, but not of the school of Monet. His manner is his own, cunningly compounded as it is of the proceeds of half a dozen artists. His trip to Rome resulted in nothing but a large eclectic canvas without individuality; what had this pagan in common with saints or sinners! He relates that in Paris Bastien-Lepage and Menzel affected him profoundly. This statement is not to be contradicted; nevertheless Sorolla is the master of those two masters in his proper province of the portrayal of outdoor life. Degas was too cruel when he called Bastien the "Bouguereau of the modern movement"; Bastien academicised Manet and other moderns. He said nothing new. As for Menzel, it would be well here to correct the notion bandied about town that he discovered impressionism before the French. He did not. He went to Paris in 1867. Meissonier at first, and later Courbet, influenced him. His Rolling Mill was painted in 1876. It is very Courbet. The Paris Exposition, 1867, picture shows the influence of Monet--who was in the Salon of 1864; and Monet was begat by Boudin, who stemmed from Jongkind; and Jongkind studied with Isabey; and they came from Turner, idolater of the Sun. Remember, too, that Corot and Courbet called Eugène Boudin "roi des ciels." Monet not only studied with him but openly admitted that he had learned everything from him, while Boudin humbly remarked that he had but entered the door forced by the Dutchman Jongkind. Doubtless Sorolla found what he was looking for in Bastien, though it would be nearer the truth to say that he studied the Barbizons and impressionists and took what he needed from them all. He is a temperament impressionable to the sun, air, trees, children, women, men, cattle, landscapes, the ocean. Such swift, vivid notation of the fluid life about him is rare; it would be photographic were it not the personal memoranda of a selecting eye; it would be transitory impressionism were it not for a hand magical in its manipulation of pigments. Brain and brush collaborate with an instantaneity that does not perplex because the result is so convincing. We do not intend to quote that musty flower of rhetoric which was a favourite with our grandfathers. It was the fashion then to say that Nature--capitalised--took the brush from the hand of the painter, meaning some old duffer who saw varnish instead of clear colour, and painted the picture for him. Sorolla is receptive; he does not attempt to impose upon nature an arbitrary pattern, but he sees nature with his own eyes, modified by the thousand subtle experiences in which he has steeped his brain. He has the tact of omission very well developed. After years of labour he has achieved a personal vision. It is so completely his that to copy it would be to perpetrate a burlesque. He employs ploys the divisional _taches_ of Monet, spots, cross-hatchings, big sabre-like strokes à la John Sargent, indulges in smooth sinuous silhouettes, or huge splotches, refulgent patches, explosions, vibrating surfaces; surfaces that are smooth and oily surfaces, as in his waters, that are exquisitely translucent. You can't pin him down to a particular formula. His technique in other hands would be coarse, crashing, brassy, bald, and too fortissimo. It sometimes is all these discouraging things. It is too often deficient in the finer modulations. But he makes one forget this by his _entrain_, sincerity, and sympathy with his subject. As a composer he is less satisfactory; it is the first impression or nothing in his art. Apart from his luscious, tropical colour, he is a sober narrator of facts. Ay, but he is a big chap, this amiable little Valencian with a big heart and a hand that reaches out and grabs down clouds, skies, scoops up the sea, and sets running, wriggling, screaming a joyful band of naked boys and girls over the golden summer sands in a sort of ecstatic symphony of pantheism. How does he secure such intensity of pitch in his painting of atmosphere, of sunshine? By a convention, just as the falsification of shadows by rendering them darker than nature made the necessary contrasts in the old formula. Brightness in clear-coloured shadows is the key-note of impressionistic open-air effects. W.C. Brownell--French Art--puts it in this way: "Take a landscape with a cloudy sky, which means diffused light in the old sense of the term, and observe the effect upon it of a sudden burst of sunlight. What is the effect where considerable portions of the scene are suddenly thrown into marked shadow, as well as others illuminated with intense light? Is the absolute value of the parts in shadow lowered or raised? Raised, of course, by reflected light. Formerly, to get the contrast between sunlight and shadow in proper scale the painter would have painted the shadows darker than they were before the sun appeared. Relatively they are darker, since their value, though heightened, is raised infinitely less than the parts in sunlight. Absolutely, their value is raised considerably. If, therefore, they are painted lighter than they were before the sun appeared they in themselves seem truer. The part of Monet's pictures that is in shadow is measurably true, far truer than it would have been if painted under the old theory of correspondence, and had been unnaturally darkened to express the relation of contrast between shadow and sunlight." Like Turner, Monet forced the colour of his shadows, as MacColl points out, and like Monet, Sorolla forces the colour of his shadows--but what a compeller of beautiful shadows--forces the key to the very verge of the luminous abyss. Señor Beruete, the Velasquez expert, truthfully says of Sorolla's method: "His canvases contain a great variety of blues and violets, balanced and juxtaposed with reds and yellows. These, and the skilful use of white, provide him with a colour scheme of great simplicity, originality, and beauty." There are no non-transparent shadows, and his handling of blacks reveals a sensitive feeling for values. Consider that black-gowned portrait of his wife. His underlying structural sense is never obscured by his fat, flowing brush. It must not be supposed that because of Sorolla's enormous _brio_ his general way of entrapping nature is brutal. He is masculine and absolutely free from the neurasthenic _morbidezza_ of his fellow-countryman Zuloaga. (And far from attaining that painter's inches as a psychologist.) For the delineation of moods nocturnal, of poetic melancholy, of the contemplative aspect of life we must not go to Sorolla. He is not a thinker. He is the painter of bright mornings and brisk salt breezes. He is half Greek. There is Winckelmann's _Heiterkeit_, blitheness, in his groups of romping children, in their unashamed bare skins and naïve attitudes. Boys on Valencian beaches evidently believe in Adamic undress. Nor do the girls seem to care. Stretched upon his stomach on the beach, a youth, straw-hatted, stares at the spume of the rollers. His companion is not so unconventionally disarrayed, and as she has evidently not eaten of the poisonous apple of wisdom she is free from embarrassment. Balzac's two infants, innocent of their sex, could not be less carefree than the Sorolla children. How tenderly, sensitively, he models the hardly nubile forms of maidens. The movement of their legs as they race the strand, their dash into the water, or their nervous pausing at the rim of the wet--here is poetry for you, the poetry of glorious days in youth-land. Curiously enough his types are for the most part more international than racial; that is, racial as are Zuloaga's Basque brigands, _manolas_, and gipsies. But only this? Can't he paint anything but massive oxen wading to their buttocks in the sea; or fisher boats with swelling sails blotting out the horizon; or a girl after a dip standing, as her boyish cavalier covers her with a robe--you see the clear, pink flesh through her garb; or vistas of flower gardens with roguish maidens and courtly parks; peasants harvesting, working women sorting raisins; sailors mending nets, boys at rope-making--is all this great art? Where are the polished surfaces of the cultured studio worker; where the bric-a-brac which we inseparably connect with pseudo-Spanish art? You will not find any of them. Sorolla, with good red blood in his veins, the blood of a great, misunderstood race, paints what he sees on the top of God's earth. He is not a book but a normal nature-lover. He is in love with light, and by his treatment of relative values creates the illusion of sun-flooded landscapes. He does not cry for the "sun," as did Oswald Alving; it comes to him at the beckoning of his brush. His many limitations are but the defects of his good qualities. Sorolla is sympathetic. He adores babies and delights in dancing. His babies are irresistible. He can sound the _Mitleid_ motive without a suspicion of odious sentimentality. What charm there is in some of his tiny children as they lean their heads on their mothers! They fear the ocean, yet are fascinated by it. Near by is a mother and child in bed. They sleep. The right hand of the mother stretches, instinctively, toward the infant. It is the sweet, unconscious gesture of millions of mothers. On one finger of the hand there is just a hint of gold from a ring. The values of the white counterpane and the contrast of dark-brown hair on the pillow are truthfully expressed. One mother and babe, all mothers and babes, are in this picture. Turn to that old rascal in a brown cloak, who is about to taste a glass of wine. A snag gleams white in his sly, thirsty mouth. The wine tastes fine, eh! You recall Goya. As for the boys swimming, the sensations of darting and weaving through velvety waters are produced as if by wizardry. But you never think of Sorolla's line, for line, colour, idea, actuality are merged. The translucence of this sea in which the boys plash and plunge is another witness to the verisimilitude of Sorolla's vision. Boecklin's large canvas at the new Pinakothek, Munich, is often cited as a _tour_ _de force_ of water painting. We allude to the mermaids and mermen playing in the trough of a greenish sea. It is mere "property" water when compared to Sorolla's closely observed and clearly reproduced waves. Rhythm--that is the prime secret of his vitality. His portraiture, when he is interested in his sitters, is excellent. Beruete is real, so Cossio, the author of the El Greco biography; so the realistic novelist Blanco Ibañez; but the best, after those of his, Sorolla's, wife and children, is that of Frantzen, a photographer, in the act of squeezing the bulb. It is a frank characterisation. The various royalties and high-born persons whose counterfeit presentments are accomplished with such genuine effort are interesting; but the heart is missing. Cleverness there is in the portraits of Alphonse; and his wife's gorgeous costume should be the envy of our fashionable portrait manufacturers. It is under the skies that Sorolla is at ease. Monet, it must not be forgotten, had two years' military service in Morocco; Sorolla has always lived, saturated himself in the rays of a hot sun and painted beneath the hard blue dome of Spanish skies. Sorolla is a painting temperament, and the freshening breezes and sunshine that emanate from his canvases should drive away the odours of the various chemical cook-shops which are called studios in our "world of art." One cannot speak too much of the large-minded and cultivated spirit of Archer Milton Huntington, who is the projector and patron of the exhibitions at the Hispanic Society Museum. Sorolla y Bastida, through the invitation of Mr. Huntington, made this exhibition. IGNACIO ZULOAGA We are no longer with Sorolla and his vibrating sunshine on Valencian sands, or under the hard blue dome of San Sebastian; the two-score canvases on view in 1909 at the Hispanic Museum were painted by a man of profounder intellect, of equally sensual but more restrained temperament than Sorolla; above all, by an artist with different ideals--a realist, not an impressionist, Ignacio Zuloaga. It would not be the entire truth to say that his masterpieces were seen; several notable pictures, unhappily, were not; but the exhibition was finely representative. Zuloaga showed us the height and depth of his powers in at least one picture, and the longer you know him the more secrets he yields up. In Paris they say of Sorolla that he paints too fast and too much; of Zuloaga that he is too lazy to paint. Half truths, these. The younger man is more deliberate in his methods. He composes more elaborately, executes at a slower gait. He resents the imputation of realism. The fire and fury of Sorolla are not his, but he selects, weighs, analyses, reconstructs--in a word, he composes and does not improvise. He is, nevertheless, a realist--a verist, as he prefers to be called. He is not cosmopolitan, and Sorolla is: the types of boys and girls racing along the beaches of watering places which Sorolla paints are cosmopolitan. Passionate vivacity and the blinding sunshine are not qualities that appeal to Zuloaga. He portrays darkest--let us rather say greenest, brownest Spain. The Basque in him is the strongest strain. He is artistically a lineal descendant of El Greco, Velasquez, Goya; and the map of his memory has been traversed by Manet. He is more racial, more truly Spanish, than any painter since Goya. He possesses the genius of place. Havelock Ellis's book, The Soul of Spain, is an excellent corrective for the operatic Spain, and George Borrow is equally sound despite his bigotry, while Gautier is invaluable. Arsène Alexandre in writing of Zuloaga acutely remarks of the Spanish conspiracy in allowing the chance tourist only to scratch the soil "of this country too well known but not enough explored." Therefore when face to face with the pictures of Zuloaga, with romantic notions of a Spain where castles grow in the clouds and moonshine on every bush, prepare to be shocked, to be disappointed. He will show you the real Spain--the sun-soaked soil, the lean, sharp outlines of hills, the arid meadows, and the swift, dark-green rivers. He has painted cavaliers and dames of fashion, but his heart is in the common people. He knows the bourgeois and he knows the gipsy. He has set forth the pride of the vagabond and the garish fascinations of the gitana. Since Goya, you say, and then wonder whether it might not be wiser to add: Goya never had so complicated a psychology. A better craftsman than Goya, a more varied colourist, a more patient student of Velasquez, of life, though without Goya's invention, caprice, satanism, and _fougue_. Zuloaga was not born poor, but with genius; and genius always spells discontent. He would not become an engineer and he would paint. His family, artists and artisans, did not favour his bent. He visited Italy, almost starved in Paris, and after he knew how to handle his tools he starved for recognition. It is only a few years since he exhibited the portrait of his uncle, Daniel Zuloaga, and his cousins. It now hangs in the Luxembourg; but Madrid would have none of him; a Spanish jury rejected him at Paris in 1900, and not possessing the means of Edouard Manet he could not hire a gallery and show the world the stuff that was in him. He did not sulk; he painted. Barcelona took him up; Paris, the world, followed suit. To-day he is rich, famous, and forty. He was born at Eibar, 1870, in the Basque province of Viscaya. He is a collector of rare taste and has housed his treasures in a gallery at his birthplace. He paints chiefly at Segovia, in an old church, though he wanders over Spain, sometimes afoot, sometimes in his motor car, often accompanied by Rodin in the latter, and wherever he finds himself he is at home and paints. A bull-fighter in the ring, as was Goya--perhaps the legend stirred him to imitation--he is a healthy athlete. His vitality, indeed, is enormous, though it does not manifest itself in so dazzling a style as Sorolla's. The demerits of literary comparisons are obvious, yet we dare to think of Sorolla and Zuloaga as we should of Théophile Gautier and Charles Baudelaire. In one is the clear day flame of impersonality; the other is all personality, given to nocturnal moods, to diabolism and perversities, cruelties and fierce voluptuousness. Sorolla is pagan; Gothic is Zuloaga, a Goth of modern Spain. He has more variety than Sorolla, more intellect. The Baudelairian strain grows in his work; it is unmistakable. The crowds that went to see the "healthy" art of Sorolla (as if art had anything in common with pulse, temperature, and respiration) did not like, or indeed understand, many of Zuloaga's magnificent pictorial ideas. He paints in large _coups_, but his broad, slashing planes are not impressionistic. He swims in the traditional Spanish current with joy. Green with him is almost an obsession--a national symbol certainly. His greens, browns, blacks, scarlets are rich, sonorous, and magnetic. He is a colourist. He also is master of a restrained palette and can sound the silver grays of Velasquez. His tonalities are massive. The essential bigness of his conceptions, his structural forms, are the properties of an eye swift, subtle, and all-embracing. It seems an image that is at once solidly rooted in mother earth and is as fluctuating as life. No painter to-day has a greater sense of character, except Degas. The Frenchman is the superior draughtsman, but he is no more vital in his interpretation of his ballet girls, washerwomen, and grisettes than is Zuloaga in his delineations of peasants, dwarfs, dogs, courtesans, scamps, zealots, pilgrims, beggars, drunkards, and working girls. What verve, what grip, what bowels of humanity has this Spaniard! A man, not a professor of academic methods. He has no school, and he is a school in himself. That the more serene, poetic aspects and readings of life have escaped him is merely to say that he is not constituted a contemplative philosopher. The sinister skein to be seen in some of his canvases does not argue the existence of a spiritual bias but is the recognition of evil in life. It is not very pleasant, nor is it reassuring, but it is part of the artist, rooted deep in his Spanish soul along with the harsh irony and a cruel spirit of mockery. He refuses to follow the ideals of other men, and he paints a spade a spade; at least the orchestration, if brutal, is not lascivious. A cold, impartial eye observes and registers the corruption of cities small and great and the infinitely worse immoralities of the open country. Sometimes Zuloaga's comments are witty, sometimes pessimistic. If he has studied Goya and Manet, he also knows Félicien Rops. The only picture in the Zuloaga exhibition that grazes the border-land of the unconventional is Le Vieux Marcheur. It is as moral as Hogarth and as bitter as Rops. It recalls the Montmartre days of the artist when he was acquainted with Paul Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec. Two women are crossing a bridge. Their actuality is impressed upon the retina in a marvellous ly definite way. They live, they move. One is gowned in dotted green, the other in black. There is a little landscape with water beyond the iron railing. A venerable minotaur is in pursuit. He wears evening clothes, an overcoat is thrown across his left arm, under his right he carries waggishly a cane. His white tie and hat of sober silk are in respectable contrast with his air of fatuousness--the Marquis of Steyne en route; the doddering hero of Mansfield in A Parisian Romance, or Baron Hulot. The alert expression of the girls, who appear to be loitering, tells us more at a glance than a chapter of Flaubert, Zola, or De Maupassant. Is it necessary to add that the handling takes your breath away because of its consummate ease and its realisation of the effects sought? Note the white of the old party's spats, echoed by the bit of stocking showing a low shoe worn by one of the girls; note the values of the blacks in the hat, coat, trousers, shoe tips of the man. The very unpleasantness of the theme is forgotten in the supreme art of its presentation. M. Alexandre, the French critic, may argue valiantly that Zuloaga must not be compared with Goya, that their methods and themes are dissimilar. True, but those witches (Les Sorcières de San Millan) are in the key of Goya, not manner, but subject-matter--a hideous crew. At once you think of the _Caprichos_ of Goya. The hag with the distaff, whose head is painted with a fidelity worthy of Holbein; the monkey profile of the witch crouching near the lantern, that repulsive creature in spectacles--Goya spectacles; the pattern hasn't varied since his days--these ladies and their companions, especially that anonymous one in a hood, coupled with the desperate dreariness of the background, a country dry and hard as a volcanic cinder, make a formidable ensemble. Zuloaga relates that the beldames screeched and fought in his studio when he posed them. You exclaim while looking at them: "How now, you secret black and midnight hags!" Hell hovers hard by; each witch of the unholy trio has the evil eye. As a painter of dwarfs Zuloaga has not been surpassed by any one but Velasquez. His Gregorio, the monster with the huge head, the sickening, livid, globular eye, the comical pose--you exclaim: What a brush! The picture palpitates with reality, an ugly reality, for the tall old couple are not prepossessing. The topography of the country is minutely observed. But this painter does not wreak himself in ugliness or morbidities; he is singularly happy in catching the attitudes and gestures of the peasants as they return from the vintage; of picadors, matadors, chulos, in the ring or lounging, smoking, awaiting the signal. The large and celebrated family group of the matador Gallito--which is to remain permanently in the Hispanic Society's museum--is a superb exemplar of the synthetic and rhythmic art of the Spaniard. Each character is seized and rendered. The strong silhouettes melt into a harmonious arabesque; the tonal gamut is nervous, strong, fiery; the dull gold background is a foil for the scale of colour notes. It is a striking picture. Very striking, too, is the portrait of Breval as Carmen, though it is the least Spanish picture in the collection; Breval is pictured on the stage, the lights from below playing over her features. The problem is solved, as Besnard or Degas has solved it, successfully, but in purely personal manner. It is the picture in the Metropolitan Museum that is bound to attract attention, as it is a technical triumph; but it is not very characteristic. We saw dark-eyed, graceful manolas on balconies--this truly Spanish motive in art, as Spanish as is the Madonna Italian--over which are thrown gorgeous shawls, smiling, flirting; with languorous eyes and provocative fans, they sit ensconced as they sat in Goya's time and centuries before Goya, the Eternal Feminine of Spain. Zuloaga is her latest interpreter. Isn't Candida delicious in green, with black head-dress of lace--isn't she bewitching? Her stockings are green. The wall is a most miraculous adumbration of green. Across the room is another agent of disquiet in Nile green, Mercedes by name. Her aquiline nose, black eyes, and the flowers she wears at the side of her head bewilder; the sky, clouds, and landscape are all very lovely. This is a singularly limpid, loose, flowing picture. It has the paint quality sometimes missing in the bold, fat massing of the Zuloaga colour chords. The Montmartre Café concert singer is a sterling specimen of Zuloaga's portraiture. He is unconventional in his poses; he will jam a figure against the right side of the frame (as in the portrait of Marthe Morineau) or stand a young lady beside an ornamental iron gate in an open park (not a remarkable portrait, but one that pleases the ladies because of the textures). The head of the old actor capitally suggests the Spanish mummer. And the painter's cousin, Esperanza! What cousins he boasts! We recall The Three Cousins, with its laughing trio and the rich colour scheme. Our recollection, too, of The Piquant Retort, and its brown and scarlet harmonies; of the Promenade After the Bull-fight, which has the classical balance and spaced charm of Velasquez; and that startling Street of Love overbalances any picture except one in this exhibition, and that is The Bull-fighter's Family. The measuring eye of Zuloaga, his tremendous vitality, his sharp, superb transference to canvas of the life he has elected to represent and interpret are at first sight dazzling. The performance is so supreme--remember, not in a niggling, technical sense--a half-dozen men beat him at mere pyrotechnics and lace _fioritura_--that his limitations, very marked in his case, are overlooked. You have drunk a hearty Spanish wine; oil to the throat, confusion to the senses. You do not at first miss the soul; it is not included in the categories of Señor Zuloaga. Zuloaga, like his contemporary farther north, Anders Zorn, is a man as well as a painter; the conjunction is not too frequent. The grand manner is surely his. He has the modulatory sense, and Christian Brinton notes his sonorous acid effects. He paints beggars, dwarfs, work-girls, noblemen, bandits, dogs, horses, lovely women, gitanas, indolent Carmens; but real, not the pasteboard and foot-lights variety of Merimée and Bizet. Zuloaga's Spain is not a second-hand Italy, like that of so many Spanish painters. It is not all bric-a-brac and moonlight and chivalric tinpot helmets. It is the real Spain of to-day, the Spain that has at last awakened to the light of the twentieth century after sleeping so long, after sleeping, notwithstanding the desperate nudging it was given a century ago by the realist Goya. Now, Zuloaga is not only stepping on his country's toes, but he is recording the impressions he makes. He, too, is a realist, a realist with such magic in his brush that it would make us forgive him if he painted the odour of garlic. Have you seen his Spanish Dancers? Not the dramatic Carmencita of Sargent, but the creature as she is, with her simian gestures, her insolence, her vulgarity, her teeth--and the shrill scarlet of the bare gum above the gleaming white, His street scenes are a transcript of the actual facts, and inextricably woven with the facts is a sense of the strange beauty of them all. His wine harvesters, venders of sacred images, or that fascinating canvas My Three Cousins--before these, also before the Promenade After the Bull-fight, you realise that by some miracle of nature the intensity of Goya and his sense of life, the charm of Velasquez and his sober dignity are recalled by the painting of a young Spanish artist who a decade ago was unknown. Nor is Zuloaga an eclectic. His force and individuality are too patent for us to entertain such a heresy. A glance at Jacques-Emile Blanche's portrait of the Spanish painter explains other things. There is the physique of a man who can work many hours a day before an easel; there are the penetrating eyes of an observer, spying eyes, slightly cruel; the head is an intellectual one, the general conformation of the face harmonious and handsome. The body is that of an athlete, but not of the bull-necked sort we see in Goya. The temperament suggested is impetuous, controlled by a strong will; it has been fined down by study and the enforced renunciations of poverty-haunted youth. Above all, there is race; race in the proud, resolute bearing, race in the large, firm, supple, and nervous hands. Indeed, the work of Zuloaga is all race. He is the most Spanish painter since Goya. IX. CHARDIN Zola, as reported by George Moore, said of Degas: "I cannot accept a man who shuts himself up all his life to draw a ballet girl as ranking co-equal in dignity and power with Flaubert, Daudet, and Goncourt." This remark gives us the cue for Zola's critical endowment; despite his asseverations his naturalism was only skin deep. He, too, was swayed by his literary notions concerning the importance of the subject. In painting the theme may count for little and yet a great picture result; in Zola's field there must be an appreciable subject, else no fiction. But what cant it is to talk about "dignity." Zola admits ingrained romanticism. He would not see, for instance, that the Degas ballet girls are on the same plane as the Ingres odalisques; that a still-life by Chardin outweighs a big canvas by David; and it must be admitted that the world is on the side of Zola. The heresy of the subject will never be stamped out, the painted anecdote will always win the eye of the easily satisfied majority. It may be remembered that the great Spaniard began his apprenticeship to art by copying still-life, which he did in a superlative manner; his Bodegones, or kitchen pieces, testify to this. Chardin, who led as laborious an existence as Degas, shutting himself away from the world, studied surfaces with an intensity that Zola, the apostle of realism, would have misunderstood. Later the French painter devoted himself with equal success to genre and figure subjects; but for him there was no such category as still-life. Everything of substance, shape, weight, and colour is alive for the eye that observes, and, except Velasquez, Vermeer, and a few others, no man was endowed with the eye of Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin, an eye microscopic in intensity and that saw the beautiful in the homely. Edmond Pilon has published a comprehensive little monograph in the series Les Maîtres de L'Art. M. Pilon is as sympathetic as he is just in his critical estimates of the man and his work. There is not much to relate of the quotidian life of the artist. His was not a romantic or a graceful figure among his contemporaries, the pastellist La Tour, Fragonard, and the rest, nor had his personality a jot of the mysterious melancholy of Watteau. His artistic ancestry was Dutch; in the footsteps of De Hooch, the younger Teniers, Vermeer, Terburg, Kalf, he trod, rather plodded, producing miracles of light, colour, finish. A long patience his career, he never indulged in brilliancy for the mere sake of brilliancy; nevertheless he was an amazing virtuoso of the brush. He was born in the Rue de Seine, Paris, November 2,1699. His father, Jean Chardin, a joiner, was a man of artistic instinct whose furniture and marquetrie were admired and in demand. The lad began his tuition under Cazes, but soon went to the atelier of Coypel. Later he worked under the eye of Carle Vanloo in the restoration of the large gallery at Fontainebleau. His painting of a barber-chirurgeon's sign drew upon him the notice of several artists of influence and he became a member of the Academy of St. Luc. When he exhibited for the first time in public, in the Place Dauphine, 1728, Watteau had been dead seven years; Coypel, Allegrain, Vanloo, Troy, and the imitators of the pompous art of Le Brun were the vogue. Colour had become a conventional abstraction; design, of the most artificial sort, the prime requisite for a sounding reputation. The unobtrusive art of Chardin, who went to nature not to books for his inspiration, was not appreciated. He was considered a belated Dutchman, though his superior knowledge of values ought to have proved him something else. Diderot, alone among the critics of his epoch, saluted him in company with the great Buffon as a man whom nature had taken into her confidence. In 1728 he was received at the Academy as painter of fruit and flowers. He married his first wife, Marguerite Saintan, in 1731, and his son, J.B. Chardin, was born the same year. In 1735 he lost his wife and infant daughter, and the double blow drove him into retirement, but he exposed his pictures from time to time. He was made counsellor of the Academy in 1743, and in 1744 married the second time, a widow, Françoise Marguerite Pouget by name. This was a happy marriage; Madame Chardin, a sensible, good-tempered bourgeoise, regulated the household accounts, and brought order and peace into the life of the lonely artist. Hereafter he painted without interruptions. He received from the king a pension of five hundred francs, his son obtained the prix de Rome for a meritorious canvas, and if he had had his father's stable temperament he would have ended an admirable artist. But he was reckless, and died at Venice in a mysterious manner, drowned in a canal, whether by murder or suicide no one knew. Chardin never recovered his spirits after this shock. The king offered him lodging in the gallery of the Louvre (Logement No. 12). This was accepted, as much as he disliked leaving his comfortable little house in the Rue Princesse. As he aged he suffered from various ailments and his eyes began to give him trouble; then it was he took up pastels. December 6, 1779, he died, his wife surviving him until 1791. He was a man of short stature, broad-shouldered and muscular. Liked by his friends and colleagues for his frankness, there was a salt savour in his forthright speech--he never learned to play the courtier. His manners were not polished, a certain rusticity clung to him always, but his honesty was appreciated and he held positions of trust. Affectionate, slow--with the Dutch slowness praised by Rodin--and tenacious, he set out to conquer a small corner in the kingdom of art, and to-day he is first among the Little Masters. This too convenient appellation must not class him with such myopic miniaturists as Meissonier. There are breadth of style, rich humanity, largeness of feeling, apart from his remarkable technique, that place him in the company of famous portrait painters. He does not possess what are called "general ideas"; he sounds no tragic chords; he has no spoor of poetry, but he sees the exterior world steadily; he is never obvious, and he is a sympathetic interpreter in the domestic domain and of character. His palette is as aristocratic as that of Velasquez: the music he makes, like that of the string quartet, borders on perfection. At his début he so undervalued his work that Vanloo, after reproaching the youth for his modesty, paid him double for a picture. Another time he gave a still-life to a friend in exchange for a waistcoat whose flowery pattern appealed to him. His pictures did not fetch fair prices during his lifetime; after more than half a century of hard work he left little for his widow. Nor in the years immediately subsequent to that of his death did values advance much. The engraver Wille bought a still-life for thirty-six livres, a picture that to-day would sell for thousands of dollars. At the beginning of the last century, in 1810, when David was ruler of the arts in Paris, the two masterpieces in pastel, now in the Louvre, the portraits of Chardin aux besicles, and the portrait of Marguerite Pouget, his second spouse, could have been bought for twenty-four francs. In 1867 at the Laperlier sale the Pourvoyeuse was sold for four thousand and fifty francs to the Louvre, and forty years later the Louvre gave three hundred and fifty thousand francs to Madame Emile Trépard for Le Jeune Homme au Violon and l'Enfant au Toton. Diderot truly prophesied that the hour of reparation would come. He is a master of discreet tonalities and a draughtsman of the first order. His lighting, more diffused than Rembrandt's, is the chief actor in his scene. With it he accomplishes magical effects, with it he makes beautiful copper caldrons, humble vegetables, leeks, carrots, potatoes, onions, shining rounds of beef, hares, and fish become eloquent witnesses to the fact that there is nothing dead or ugly in nature if the vision that interprets is artistic. It is said that no one ever saw Chardin at work in his atelier, but his method, his _facture_ has been ferreted out though never excelled. He employs the division of tones, his _couches_ are fat and his colour is laid on lusciously. His colour is never hot; coolness of tone is his chief allurement. Greuze, passing one of his canvases at an exhibition, a long time regarded it and went away, heaving a sigh of envy. The frivolous "Frago," who studied with Chardin for a brief period, even though he left him for Boucher, admired his former master without understanding him. Decamps later exclaimed in the Louvre: "The whites of Chardin! I don't know how to recapture them." He might have added the silvery grays. M. Pilon remarks that as in the case of Vermeer the secret of Chardin tones has never been surprised. The French painter knew the art of modulation, while his transitions are bold; he enveloped his objects in atmosphere and gave his shadows a due share of luminosity. He placed his colours so that at times his work resembles mosaic or tapestry. He knew a century before the modern impressionists the knack of juxtaposition, of opposition, of tonal division; his science was profound. He must have studied Watteau and the Dutchmen closely. Diderot was amazed to find that his surpassing whites were neither black nor white, but a neuter--but by a subtle transposition of tones looked white. Chardin worked from an accumulation of notes, but there are few sketches of his in existence, a _sanguine_ or two. The paucity of the Velasquez sketches has piqued criticism. Like Velasquez, Chardin was of a reflective temperament, a slow workman and a patient corrector. The intimate charm of the Chardin interiors is not equalled even in the Vermeer canvases. At the Louvre, which contains at least thirty of the masterpieces, consider the sweetness of Le Benedicite, or the three pastels, and then turn to the fruits, flowers, kitchen utensils, game, or to La Raie Ouverte, that magnificent portrait of a skatefish, with its cat slyly stealing over opened oysters, the table-cloth of such vraisemblance that the knife balanced on the edge seems to lie in a crease. What bulk, what destiny, what _chatoyant_ tones! Here are qualities of paint and vision pictorial, vision that has never been approached; paint without rhetoric, paint sincere, and the expression in terms of beautiful paint of natural truths. In Chardin's case--by him the relativity of mundane things was accepted with philosophic phlegm--an onion was more important than an angel, a copper stew-pan as thrilling as an epic. And then the humanity of his youth holding a fiddle and bow, the exquisite textures of skin and hair, and the glance of the eyes. You believe the story told of his advice to his confrère: "Paint with sentiment." But he mixed his sentiment with lovely colours, he is one of the chief glories of France as a colourist. X. BLACK AND WHITE. I Some Frenchman has called the theatre a book reversed. It is a happy epigram. By a similar analogy the engraving or mezzotint might be described as a reversed picture. And with still more propriety black and white reproductions may be compared to the pianoforte in the hands of a skilful artist. The pianoforte can interpret in cooler tones orchestral scores. It gives in its all-formal severity the line; the colour is only suggested. But such is the tendency of modern music toward painting that the success of a pianoforte virtuoso to-day depends upon his ability to arouse within his listeners' imagination the idea of colour--in reality, the emotional element. The engraver evokes colour by his cunning interplay of line and cross hatching; the mezzotinter by his disposition of dark masses and white spaces. Indeed, the mezzotint by reason of its warm, more sympathetic, and ductile medium has always seemed more colourful in his plates than the most laboriously executed steel engravings. In this sense the scraper beats the burin, while the etcher, especially if he be a painter, attains a more personal vision than either one of these processes. "The stone was made for the mystics," say the Pennells. The revival of lithography by contemporary artists of fame is very welcome. Above all, the appeal of engraving, mezzotint, and etching is to the refined. It is an art of a peculiarly intimate character. Just as some prefer the exquisite tonal purity and finished performances of the Kneisel String Quartet to the blare and thunder of the Philharmonic Society; just as some enjoy in silence beautiful prose more than our crude drama, so the lovers of black and white may feel themselves a distinctive class. They have at their elbow disposed in portfolios or spaced on walls the eloquent portraiture, the world's masterpieces, marine views, and landscapes. There is no better way to study painting historically than in the cabinet of an engraving collector. Furthermore, divested of bad or mediocre paint--many famous pictures by famous names are mere cartoons, the paint peeled or peeling off--the student and amateur penetrates to the very marrow of the painter's conception, to the very skeleton of his technical methods. PIRANESI I "Battlements that on their restless fronts bore stars" is a line from Wordsworth that Thomas de Quincey approvingly quotes in regard to his opium-induced "architectural dreams," and, aptly enough, immediately after a page devoted to Piranesi, the etcher, architect, and visionary. You may find this page in The Confessions of an English Opium Eater, that book of terror, beauty, mystification, and fudge (De Quincey deluded himself quite as much as his readers in this autobiography, which, like the confessions of most distinguished men, must not be taken too literally): "Many years ago," he wrote, "when I was looking over Piranesi's Antiquities of Rome, Mr. Coleridge, who was standing by, described to me a set of plates by that artist, called his Dreams, which record the scenery of his own soul during the delirium of a fever. Some of them (described only from memory of Mr. Coleridge's account) represented vast Gothic halls, on the floor of which stood all sorts of engines and machinery expressive of enormous power put forth and resistance overcome. Creeping along the sides of the walls, you perceived a staircase, and upon it, groping his way upward, was Piranesi himself. Follow the stairs a little farther and you perceive it to come to a sudden, abrupt termination, without any balustrade, and allowing no step onward to him who had reached the extremity, except into the depths below. Whatever is to become of poor Piranesi? You suppose, at least, that his labours must in some way terminate here. But raise your eyes, and behold a second flight of stairs still higher, on which again Piranesi is perceived, by this time standing on the very brink of the abyss. Again elevate your eyes, and a still more aerial flight of stairs is beheld, and again is poor Piranesi on his aspiring labours, and so on, until the unfinished stairs and Piranesi both are lost in the upper gloom of the hall." This plate was evidently one of the Carceri set--sixteen in all--which the etcher improvised after some severe cerebral malady. What would we not give to have heard the poet of Kubla Khan describing the fantastic visions of the Venetian artist to the English opium eater! The eloquence of the prose passage we have transcribed has in it some faint echoes of Coleridge's golden rumble. That these two men appreciated the Italian is something; perhaps they saw chiefly in his work its fantastic side. There was no saner craftsman than Piranesi apart from certain of his plates; no more solid construction in a print can be shown than his various interpretations of the classic ruins of Rome, the temples at Pæstum. He was a great engraver and etcher whose passion was the antique. He deliberately withdrew from all commerce with the ideas and art of his own times. He loved architecture for architecture's sake; not as a decoration, not as a background for humanity, but as something personal. It was for him what the human face was for Rembrandt and Velasquez. That he was called the Rembrandt of Architecture is but another testimony to the impression he made upon his contemporaries, though the title is an unhappy one. Piranesi even in his own little fenced-off coign of art is not comparable to the etcher of the Hundred Guilder print, nor are there close analogies in their respective handling of darks and lights. It might be nearer the mark to call Piranesi--though all such comparisons are thorns in the critical flesh--the Salvator Rosa of architecture, for there is much of Salvator's unbridled violence, fantasy, and genius for deforming the actual that is to be encountered in some of Piranesi's works. His was not a classic temperament. The serene, airy, sun-bathed palaces and temples which Claude introduced into his foregrounds are seldom encountered in Piranesi. A dark Gothic imagination his, Gothic and often cruel. In his etching of public buildings at Rome or elsewhere, while he is not always faultless in drawing or scrupulous in observation, such was the sincerity and passion of the man that he has left us the noblest transcriptions of these stately edifices and monuments. It is in the rhythmic expression of his personal moods that his sinister romantic imaginings are revealed, and with a detail and fulness that are positively overwhelming. It should not be forgotten that in the eighteenth and in the early part of the nineteenth centuries Piranesi achieved widespread popularity. He was admired outside of Italy, in England, in France, and Germany. A generation that in England read Vathek and Mrs. Radcliffe, supped on the horrors of Melmoth and Frankenstein, knew E.T.W. Hoffmann and the German romantic literature, could be relied on to take up Piranesi, and for his lesser artistic side. Poe knew his work and Baudelaire; we see that for De Quincey he was a kindred spirit. The English mezzotinter John Martin must have studied him closely, also Gustave Doré. The Carceri (1750) of Piranesi are indoor compositions, enclosed spaces in which wander aimlessly or deliriously the wraiths of damned men, not a whit less wretched nor awful than Dante's immemorial mob. Piranesi shows us cavernous abodes where appalling engines of torture fill the foreground, while above, at vertiginous heights, we barely discern perilous passageways, haunted windows peering out upon the high heavens, stone-fretted ceilings that are lost in a magic mist. By a sort of diabolic modulation the artist conducts our eye from these dizzy angles and granitic convolutions down tortuous and tumultuous staircases that seemingly wind about the axis of eternity. To traverse them would demand an eternity and the nerves of a madman. Lower barbaric devices reveal this artist's temperament. He is said to have executed the prison set "during the delirium of fever." This is of the same calibre as the clotted nonsense about Poe composing when intoxicated or Liszt playing after champagne. It is a credible anecdote for Philistines who do not realise that even the maddest caprice, whether in black and white, marble, music, or verse, must be executed in silence and cold blood. Piranesi simply gave wing to his fancy, recalling the more vivid of his nightmares--as did Coleridge, De Quincey, Poe, Baudelaire, and the rest of the drug-steeped choir. We recall one plate of Piranesi's in which a miserable devil climbs a staircase suspended over an abyss; as he mounts each step the lower one crumbles into the depths below. The agony of the man (do you recall The Torture by Hope of Villiers de l'Isle-Adam?) is shown in his tense, crouching attitude, his hands clawing the masonry above him. Nature is become a monstrous fever, existence a shivering dread. You overhear the crash of stone into the infernal cellarage--where awaits the hunted wretch perhaps a worse fate than on the pinnacles above. It is a companion piece to Martin's Sadak searching for the Waters of Oblivion. Another plate depicts with ingenuity terraces superimposed upon terraces, archways spaced like massive music, narrow footways across which race ape-like men, half naked, eagerly preparing some terrible punishments for criminals handcuffed and guarded. They are to walk a sharp-spiked bridge. Gigantic chains swing across stony precipices, a lamp depends from a roof whose outlines are merged in the gray dusk of dreams. There is cruelty, horror, and a sense of the wickedly magnificent in the ensemble. What crimes were committed to merit such atrocious punishment? The boldness and clearness of it all! With perspicacity George Saintsbury wrote of Flaubert's Temptation of Saint Anthony: "It is the best example of dream literature that I know--most writers who have tried this style have erred, inasmuch as they have endeavoured to throw a portion of the mystery with which the waking mind invests dreams over the dream itself. Any one's experience is sufficient to show that this is wrong. The events of dreams, as they happen, are quite plain and matter of fact, and it is only in the intervals that any suspicion occurs to the dreamer." Certainly Piranesi remembered his dreams. He is a realist in his delineation of details, though the sweep and breadth of an ideal design are never absent. He portrays ladders that scale bulky joists, poles of incredible thickness, cyclopean block and tackling. They are of wood, not metal nor marble, for the art of Piranesi is full of discriminations. Finally, you weary. The eye gorged by all the mystic engines, hieroglyphs of pain from some impossible inquisition--though not once do we see a monkish figure--all these anonymous monkey men scurrying on what errand Piranesi alone knows; these towering arches, their foundations resting on the crest of hell (you feel the tremendous impact of the architectural mass upon the earth--no mean feat to represent or rather to evoke the sense of weight, of pressure on a flat surface); the muffled atmosphere in these prisons from which no living prisoner emerges; of them all you weary, for the normal brain can only stand a certain dose of the delirious and the melancholy. This aspect, then, of Piranesi's art, black magic in all its potency, need no longer detain us. His Temples of Pæstum sound a less morbid key than his Carceri, and as etchings quite outrank them. II Giambattista Piranesi was born at Venice in 1720. Bryan says that about 1738 his father sent him to Rome, where he studied under Valeriani, through whom he acquired the style of Valeriani's master, Marco Ricci of Belluno. With Vasi, a Sicilian engraver, he learned that art. Ricci and Pannini were much in vogue, following the example of Claude in his employment of ruins as a picturesque element in a composition. But Piranesi excelled both Ricci and Pannini. He was an architect, too, helping to restore churches, and this accounts for the proud title, Architect of Venice, which may be seen on some of his plates. He lived for a time in Venice, but Rome drew him to her with an imperious call. And, notwithstanding the opposition of his father, to Rome he went, and for forty years devoted himself to his master passion, the pictorial record of the beloved city, the ancient portions of which were fast vanishing owing to time and the greed of their owners. This was Piranesi's self-imposed mission, begun as an exalted youth, finished as an irritable old man. Among his architectural restorations, made at the request of Clement XIII, were the two churches of Santa Maria del Popolo and Il Priorato. Lanciani says that Il Priorato is "a mass of monstrosities inside and out." It is his etching, not his labour as an architect, that will make Piranesi immortal. He seems to have felt this, for he wrote that he had "executed a work which will descend to posterity and will last so long as there will be men desirous of knowing all that has survived the ruins of the most famous city of the universe." In the black-and-white portrait of the etcher by F. Polonzani, we see a full-cheeked man with a well-developed forehead, the features of the classic Roman order, the general expression not far removed from a sort of sullen self-satisfaction. But the eyes redeem. They are full, lustrous, penetrating, and introspective. The portrait etched by the son of Piranesi, after a statue, discovers him posed in a toga, the general effect being classic and consular. His life, like that of all good workmen in art, was hardly an eventful one. He married precipitately and his wife bore him two sons (Francesco, the etcher, born at Rome, 1748--Bryan gives the date as 1756--died at Paris, 1810) and a daughter (Laura, born at Rome, 1750--date of death unknown). These children were a consolation to him. Both were engravers. Francesco frequently assisted his father in his work, and Bryan says that Laura's work resembled her father's. She went to Paris with her brother and probably died there. She left some views of Rome. Francesco, with his brother Pietro, attempted to found an academy in Paris and later a terra cotta manufactory. The elder Piranesi was of a quarrelsome disposition. He wrangled with an English patron, Viscount Charlemont, and, like Beethoven, destroyed title-pages when he became displeased with the subject of his dedications. He was decorated with the Order of Christ and was proud of his membership in the London Society of Antiquaries. It is said that the original copper plates of his works were captured by a British man-of-war during the Napoleonic conflict. This probably accounts for the dissemination of so many revamped and coarsely executed versions of his compositions. His besetting fault was a tendency toward an Egyptian blackness in his composition. Fond of strong contrasts as was John Martin, he is, at times, as great a sinner in the handling of his blacks. An experimenter of audacity, Piranesi's mastery of the technique of etching has seldom been equalled, and even in his inferior work the skilful printing atones for many defects. The remarkable richness and depth of tone, brought about by continuous and innumerable bitings, and other secret processes known only to himself, make his plates warm and brilliant. Nobility of form, grandeur of mass, a light and shade that is positively dramatic in its dispersion over wall and tower, are the characteristic marks of this unique etcher. He could not resist the temptation of dotting with figures the huge spaces of his ruins. They dance or recline or indulge in uncouth gestures. His shadows are luminous--you may gaze into them; his high lights caught on some projection or salient cornice or silvering the August porticoes of a vanished past, all these demonstrate his feeling for the dramatic. And dramatic is the impression evoked as you study the majestic temples that were Pæstum, the bare, ruined arches and pillars that were Rome. It is Pæstum that is the more vivid. It tallies, too, with the Piranesi plates; while Rome has visibly changed since his day. His original designs for chimneys, Diverse Maniere d'Adornare i Camini, are pronounced by several critics as "foolish and vulgar." He left nearly two thousand etchings, and died at Rome November 9, 1778. His son erected a mediocre statue by Angolin for his tomb in Il Priorato. A manuscript life of Piranesi, which was in London about 1830, is now lost. Bryan's dictionary gives a partial list of his works "as published both by himself in Rome and by his sons in Paris. The plates passed from his sons first to Firmin-Didot, and ultimately into the hands of the Papal Government." De Quincey's quotation of Wordsworth is apposite in describing Piranesi's creations: "Battlements that on their restless fronts bore stars"; from sheer brutal masonry, gray, aged, and moss-encrusted, he invented a precise pattern and one both passionate and magical. MERYON Until the recent appearance of the Baudelaire letters (1841-66) all that we knew of Meryon's personality and art was to be found in the monograph by Philippe Burty and Béraldi's Les Graveurs du XIX Siècle. Hamerton had written of the French etcher in 1875 (Etching and Etchers), and various anecdotes about his eccentric behaviour were public property. Frederick Wedmore, in his Etching in England, did not hesitate to group Meryon's name with Rembrandt's and Jacquemart's (one feels like employing the Whistlerian formula and asking: Why drag in Jacquemart?); and to-day, after years of critical indifference, the unhappy copper-scratcher has come into his own. You may find him mentioned in such company as Dürer, Rembrandt, and Whistler. The man who first acclaimed him as worthy of associating with Rembrandt was the critic Charles Baudelaire; and we are indebted to him for new material dealing with the troubled life of Charles Meryon. On January 8, 1860, Baudelaire wrote to his friend and publisher, Poulet-Malassis, that what he intends to say is worth the bother of writing. Meryon had called, first sending a card upon which he scrawled: "You live in a hotel the name of which doubtless attracted you because of your tastes." Puzzled by this cryptic introduction, the poet then noted that the address read: Charles Baudelaire, Hôtel de Thébes. He did not stop at a hotel bearing that name, but, fancying him a Theban, Meryon took the matter for granted. This letter was forwarded. Meryon appeared. His first question would have startled any but Baudelaire, who prided himself on startling others. The etcher, looking as desperate and forlorn as in the Bracquemond etched portrait (1853), demanded news of a certain Edgar Poe. Baudelaire responded sadly that he had not known Poe personally. Then he was eagerly asked if he believed in the reality of this Poe. Charles began to suspect the sanity of his visitor. "Because," added Meryon, "there is a society of littérateurs, very clever, very powerful, and knowing all the ropes." His reasons for suspecting a cabal formed against him under the guise of Poe's name were these: The Murders in the Rue Morgue. "I made a design of the Morgue--an orang-outang. I have been often compared to a monkey. This orang-outang assassinated two women, a mother and daughter. Et moi aussi, j'ai assassiné moralement deux femmes, la mère et sa fille. I have always taken this story as an allusion to my misfortunes. You, M. Baudelaire, would do me a great favour if you could find the date when Edgar Poe, supposing he was not assisted by any one, wrote his tale. I wish to see if this date coincides with my adventures." After that Baudelaire knew his man. Meryon spoke with admiration of Michelet's Jeanne d'Arc, though he swore the book was not written by Michelet. (Not such a wild shot, though not correct in this particular instance, for the world has since discovered that several books posthumously attributed to Michelet were written by his widow.) The etcher was interested in the cabalistic arts. On one of his large plates he drew some eagles, and when Baudelaire objected that these birds did not frequent Parisian skies he mysteriously whispered "those folks at the Tuileries" often launched as a rite the sacred eagles to study the omens and presages. He was firmly convinced of this. After the termination of the trying visit Baudelaire, with acrid irony, asks himself why he, with his nerves usually unstrung, did not go quite mad, and he concludes, "Seriously I addressed to Heaven the grateful prayers of a pharisee." In March the same year he assures the same correspondent that decidedly Meryon does not know how to conduct himself. He knows nothing of life, neither does he know how to sell his plates or find an editor. His work is very easy to sell. Baudelaire was hardly a practical business man, but, like Poe, he had sense enough to follow his market. He instantly recognised the commercial value of Meryon's Paris set, but knew the etcher was a hopeless character. He wrote to Poulet-Malassis concerning a proposed purchase of Meryon's work by the publisher. It never came to anything. The etcher was very suspicious as to paper and printing. He grew violent when the poet asked him to illustrate some little poems and sonnets. Had he, Meryon, not written poems himself? Had not the mighty Victor Hugo addressed flattering words to him? Baudelaire, without losing interest, then thought of Daumier as an illustrator for a new edition of Les Fleurs du Mal. It must not be supposed, however, that Meryon was ungrateful. He was deeply affected by the praise accorded him in Baudelaire's Salon of 1859. He wrote in February, 1860, sending his Views of Paris to the critic as a feeble acknowledgment of the pleasure he had enjoyed when reading the brilliant interpretative criticism. He said that he had created an epoch in etching--which was the literal truth--and he had saved a rapidly vanishing Paris for the pious curiosity of future generations. He speaks of his "naïve heart" and hoped that Baudelaire in turn would dream as he did over the plates. This letter was signed simply "Meryon, 20 Rue Duperré." The acute accent placed over the "e" in his name by the French poet and by biographers, critics, and editors since was never used by the etcher. It took years before Baudelaire could persuade the Parisians that Poe did not spell his name "Edgard Poë." And we remember the fate of Liszt and Whistler, who were until recently known in Paris as "Litz" and "Whistler." With the aid of Champfleury and Banville, Baudelaire tried to bring Meryon's art to the cognisance of the Minister of Beaux-Arts, but to no avail. Why? There was a reason. Bohemian as was the artist during the last decade of his life, he did not always haunt low cafés and drink absinthe. His beginnings were as romantic as a page of Balzac. He was born a gentleman _à la main gauche_. His father was the doctor and private secretary of Lady Stanhope. Charles Lewis Meryon was an English physician, who, falling in love with a ballet dancer at the Opéra, Pierre Narcisse Chaspoux, persuaded her that it would be less selfish on her part if she would not bind him to her legally. November 23,1821, a sickly, nervous, and wizened son was born to the pair and baptised with his father's name, who, being an alien, generously conceded that much. There his interest ceased. On the mother fell the burden of the boy's education. At five he was sent to school at Passy and later went to the south of France. In 1837 he entered the Brest naval school, and 1839 saw him going on his maiden voyage. This first trip was marred by the black sorrow that fell upon him when informed of his illegitimate birth. "I was mad from the time I was told of my birth," he wrote, and until madness supervened he suffered from a "wounded imagination." He was morbid, shy, and irritable, and his energy--the explosive energy of this frail youth was amazing; because he had been refused the use of a ship boat he wasted three months digging out a canoe from a log of wood. Like Paul Gauguin, he saw many countries, and his eyes were trained to form, though not colour--he suffered from Daltonism--for when he began to paint he discovered he was totally colour-blind. The visible world for him existed as a contrapuntal net-work of lines, silhouettes, contours, or heavy dark masses. When a sailor he sketched. Meryon tells of the drawing of a little fungus he found in Akaroa. "Distorted in form and pinched and puny from its birth, I could not but pity it; it seemed to me so entirely typical of the inclemency and at the same time of the whimsicality of an incomplete and sickly creation that I could not deny it a place in my _souvenirs de voyage_, and so I drew it carefully." This bit of fungus was to him a symbol of his own gnarled existence. Tiring of ship life, he finally decided to study art. He had seen New Zealand, Australia, Italy, New Caledonia, and if his splendid plate--No. 22 in M. Burty's list--is evidence, he must have visited San Francisco. Baudelaire, in L'Art Romantique, speaks of this perspective of San Francisco as being Meryon's most masterly design. In 1846 he quit seafaring. He was in mediocre health, and though from a cadet he had attained the rank of lieutenant it was doubtful if he would ever rise higher. His mother had left him four thousand dollars, so he went over to the Latin Quarter and began to study painting. That he was unfitted for, and meeting Eugène Bléry he became interested in etching. A Dutch seventeenth-century etcher and draughtsman, Reiner Zeeman by name, attracted him. He copied, too, Ducereau and Nicolle. "An etching by the latter of a riverside view through the arch of a bridge is like a link between Meryon and Piranesi," says D.S. MacColl. Meryon also studied under the tuition of a painter named Phelippes. He went to Belgium in 1856 on the invitation of the Duc d'Aremberg, and in 1858 he was sent to Charenton suffering from melancholy and delusions. He left in a year and returned to Paris and work; but, as Baudelaire wrote, a cruel demon had touched the brain of the artist. A mystic delirium set in. He ceased to etch, and evidently suffered from the persecution madness. In every corner he believed conspiracies were hatching. He often disappeared, often changed his abode. Sometimes he would appear dressed gorgeously at a boulevard café in company with brilliant birds of prey; then he would be seen slinking through mean streets in meaner rags. There are episodes in his life that recall the career of another man of genius, Gerard de Nerval, poet, noctambulist, suicide. It is known that Meryon destroyed his finest plates, but not in a mad fit. Baudelaire says that the artist, who was a perfectionist, did not wish to see his work suffer from rebiting, so he quite sensibly sawed up the plates into tiny strips. That he was suspicious of his fellow-etchers is illustrated in the story told by Sir Seymour Haden, who bought several of his etchings from him at a fair price. Two miles away from the atelier the Englishman was overtaken by Meryon. He asked for the proofs he had sold, "as they were of a nature to compromise him"; besides, from what he knew of Haden's etchings he was determined that his proofs should not go to England. Sir Seymour at once returned the etchings. Now, whether Meryon's words were meant as a compliment or the reverse is doubtful. He was half crazy, but he may have seen through a hole in the millstone. Frederick Keppel once met in Paris an old printer named Beillet who did work for Meryon. He could not always pay for the printing of his celebrated Abside de Notre Dame, a masterpiece, as he hadn't the necessary ten cents. "I never got my money!" exclaimed the thrifty printer. Enormous endurance, enormous vanity, diseased pride, outraged human sentiment, hatred of the Second Empire because of the particular clause in the old Napoleonic code relating to the research of paternity; an irregular life, possibly drugs, certainly alcoholism, repeated rejections by the academic authorities, critics, and dealers of his work--these and a feeble constitution sent the unfortunate back to Charenton, where he died February 14, 1868. Baudelaire, his critical discoverer, had only preceded him to a lunatic's grave six months earlier. Inasmuch as there is a certain family likeness among men of genius with disordered minds and instincts, several comparisons might be made between Meryon and Baudelaire. Both were great artists and both were born with flawed, neurotic systems. Dissipation and misery followed as a matter of course. Charles Meryon was, nevertheless, a sane and a magnificent etcher. He executed about a hundred plates, according to Burty. He did not avoid portraiture, and to live he sometimes manufactured pot-boilers for the trade. To his supreme vision was joined a miraculous surety of touch. Baudelaire was right--those plates, the Paris set, so dramatic and truthful in particulars, could have been sold if Meryon, with his wolfish visage, his fierce, haggard eyes, his gruff manner, had not offered them in person. He looked like a vagabond very often and too often acted like a brigand. The Salon juries were prejudiced against his work because of his legend. Verlaine over again! The etchings were classic when they were born. We wonder they did not appeal immediately. To-day, if you are lucky enough to come across one, you are asked a staggering price. They sold for a song--when they did sell--during the lifetime of the artist. Louis Napoleon and Baron Haussmann destroyed picturesque Paris to the consternation of Meryon, who to the eye of an archæologist united the soul of an artist. He loved old Paris. We can evoke it to-day, thanks to these etchings, just as the Paris of 1848 is forever etched in the pages of Flaubert's L'Education Sentimentale. But there is hallucination in these etchings, beginning with Le Stryge, and its demoniac leer, "insatiable vampire, l'eternelle luxure." That gallery of Notre Dame, with Wotan's ravens flying through the slim pillars from a dream city bathed in sinister light, is not the only striking conception of the poet-etcher. The grip of reality is shown in such plates as Tourelle, Rue de la Tisseranderie, and La Pompe, Notre Dame. Here are hallucinations translated into the actual terms of art, suggesting, nevertheless, a solidity, a sharpness of definition, withal a sense of fluctuating sky, air, clouds that make you realise the _justesse_ of Berenson's phrase--tactile values. With Meryon the tactile perception was a sixth sense. Clairvoyant of images, he could transcribe the actual with an almost cruel precision. Telescopic eyes his, as MacColl has it, and an imagination that perceived the spectre lurking behind the door, the horror of enclosed spaces, and the mystic fear of shadows--a Poe imagination, romantic, with madness as an accomplice in the horrible game of his life. One is tempted to add that the romantic imagination is always slightly mad. It runs to seed in darkness and despair. The fugitive verse of Meryon is bitter, ironical, defiant; a whiff from an underground prison, where seems to sit in tortured solitude some wretch abandoned by humanity, a stranger even at the gates of hell. Sir Seymour Haden has told us that Meryon's method was to make a number of sketches, two or three inches square, of parts of his picture, which he put together and arranged into a harmonious whole. Herkomer says that he "used the burin in finishing his bitten work with marvellous skill. No better combination can be found of the harmonious combination of the two." Burty declared that "Meryon preserves the characteristic detail of architecture... Without modifying the aspect of the monument he causes it to express its hidden meaning, and gives it a broader significance by associating it with his own thought." His employment of a dull green paper at times showed his intimate feeling for tonalities. He is, more so than Piranesi, the Rembrandt of architecture. Hamerton admits that the French etcher was "one of the greatest and most original artists who have appeared in Europe," and berates the public of the '60s for not discovering this. Then this writer, copying in an astonishingly wretched manner several of Meryon's etchings, analysing their defects as he proceeds, asserts that there is false tonality in Le Stryge. "The intense black in the street under the tower of St. Jacques destroys the impression of atmosphere, though at a considerable distance it is as dark as the nearest raven's wing, which cannot relieve itself against it. This may have been done in order to obtain a certain arrangement of black and white patches," etc. This was done for the sheer purpose of oppositional effects. Did Hamerton see a fine plate? The shadow is heavy; the street is in demi, not total, obscurity; the values of the flying ravens and the shadow are clearly enunciated. The passage is powerful, even sensational, and in the Romantic, Hugoesque key. Hamerton is wrong. Meryon seldom erred. His was a temperament of steel and fire. JOHN MARTIN, MEZZOTINTER The sitting-room was long and narrow. A haircloth sofa of uncompromising rectitude was pushed so close to the wall that the imprints of at least two generations of heads might be discerned upon the flowered wall-paper--flowers and grapes of monstrous size from some country akin to that visited by the Israelitish spies as related in the Good Book. A mahogany sideboard stood at the upper end of the room; in one window hung a cage which contained a feeble canary. As you entered your eyes fell upon an ornamental wax fruit piece under a conical glass. A stuffed bird, a robin redbreast, perched on a frosted tree in the midst of these pale tropical offerings, glared at you with beady eyes. Antimacassars and other things of horror were in the room. Also a centre table upon which might have been found Cowper's poems, the Bible, Beecher's sermons, and an illustrated book about the Holy Land by some hardworking reverend. It was Aunt Jane's living-room; in it she had rocked and knitted for more than half a century. There were a few pictures on the wall, a crayon of her brother, a bank president with a shaved upper lip, a high, pious forehead, and in his eyes a stern expression of percentage. Over the dull white marble mantelpiece hung a huge mezzotint, of violent contrast in black and white, a picture whose subject had without doubt given it the place of honour in this old-fashioned, tasteless, homely, comfortable room. It bore for a title The Fall of Nineveh, and it was designed and mezzotinted by John Martin. Let us look at this picture. It depicts the downfall of the great city upon which the wrath of God is visited. There are ghastly gleams of lightning above the doomed vicinity. A fierce tempest is in progress as the invading hosts break down the great waterways and enter dry-shod into the vast and immemorial temples and palaces. The tragedy, the human quality of the design, is summed up by the agitated groups in the foreground; the king, surrounded by his harem, makes a gesture of despair; the women, with loose-flowing draperies, surround him like frightened swans. A high priest raises his hand to the stormy heavens, upon which he is evidently invoking as stormy maledictions. A warrior swings his blade; to his neck clings a fair helpless one, half nude. There are other groups. Men in armour rush to meet the foe in futile agitation. On temple tops, on marble terraces and balconies, on the efflorescent capitals of vast columns that pierce the sky, swarms affrighted humanity. The impression is grandiose and terrific. Exotic architecture, ebon night, an event that has echoed down the dusty corridors of legend or history--these and a hundred other details are enclosed within the frame of this composition. Another picture which hangs hard by, the Destruction of Jerusalem, after Kaulbach, is colourless in comparison. The Englishman had greater imagination than the German, though he lacked the latter's anatomical science. To-day in the Pinakothek, Munich, Kaulbach holds a place of honour. You may search in vain at the London National Gallery for the paintings of a man who once was on the crest of popularity in England, whose Biblical subjects attracted multitudes, whose mezzotints and engravings were sold wherever the English Bible was read. John Martin, painter, mezzotinter, man of gorgeous imagination, second to De Quincey or the author of Vathek, is to-day more forgotten than Beckford himself. Heinrich Heine in his essay, The Romantic School, said that "the history of literature is a great morgue, wherein each seeks the dead who are near or dear to him." Into what morgue fell John Martin before his death? How account for the violent changes in popular taste? Martin suffered from too great early success. The star of Turner was in the ascendant. John Ruskin denied merit to the mezzotinter, and so it is to-day that if you go to our print-shops you will seldom find one of his big or little plates. He has gone out of fashion--fatal phrase!--and only in the cabinets of old collectors can you get a peep at his archaic and astounding productions. William Blake is in vogue; perhaps Martin--? And then those who have garnered his plates will reap a harvest. Facts concerning him or his work are slight. Bryan's dictionary accords him a few paragraphs. When at the British Museum, a few years ago, I asked Mr. Sidney Colvin about the Martins in his print-room. There are not many, not so many as in a certain private collection here. But Mr. Colvin told me of the article written by Cosmo Monkhouse in the Dictionary of National Biography, and from it we are enabled to present a few items about the man's career. He was born at Hayden Bridge, near Hexham, Northumberland, July 19, 1789. His father, Fenwick Martin, a fencing-master, held classes at the Chancellor's Head, Newcastle. His brothers, Jonathan (1782-1838) and William (1772-1851), have some claim on our notice, for the first was an insane prophet and incendiary, having set fire to York Minster in 1829; William was a natural philosopher and poet who published many works to prove the theory of perpetual motion. "After having convinced himself by means of thirty-six experiments of the impossibility of demonstrating it scientifically, it was revealed to him in a dream that God had chosen him to discover the great cause of all things, and this he made the subject of many works" (Jasnot, Vérités positives, 1854). Verily, as Lombroso hath it, "A hundred fanatics are found for a theological or metaphysical statement, but not one for a geometric problem." The Martin stock was, without doubt, neurasthenic. John was apprenticed when fourteen to Wilson, a Newcastle coach painter, but ran away after a dispute over wages. He met Bonifacio Musso, an Italian china painter, and in 1806 went with him to London. There he supported himself painting china and glass while he studied perspective and architecture. At nineteen he married and in 1812 lived in High Street, Marylebone, and from there sent to the Academy his first picture, Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion (from Tales of the Genii). The figure of Sadak was so small that the framers disputed as to the top of the picture. It sold to Mr. Manning for fifty guineas. Benjamin West, president of the Royal Academy, encouraged Martin, and next year he painted Adam's First Sight of Eve, which he sold for seventy guineas. In 1814 his Clytis was shown in an ante-room of the exhibition, and he bitterly complained of his treatment. Joshua, in 1816, was as indifferently hung, and he never forgave the Academy the insult, though he did not withdraw from its annual functions. In 1817 he was appointed historical painter to Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold. He etched about this time Character of Trees (seven plates) and the Bard at the Academy. In 1818 he removed to Allsop Terrace, New (Marylebone road). In 1819 came The Fall of Babylon, Macbeth (1820), Belshazzar's Feast (1821), which, "excluded" from the Academy, yet won the £200 prize. A poem by T.S. Hughes started Martin on this picture. It was a national success and was exhibited in the Strand behind a glass transparency. It went the round of the provinces and large cities and attracted thousands. Martin joined the Society of British Artists at its foundation and exhibited with them from 1824 to 1831, and also in 1837 and 1838, after which he sent his important pictures to the Royal Academy. In 1833 The Fall of Nineveh went to Brussels, where it was bought by the Government. Martin was elected member of the Belgian Academy and the Order of Leopold was conferred on him. His old quarrels with the Academy broke out in 1836, and he testified before a committee as to favouritism. Then followed The Death of Moses, The Deluge, The Eve of the Deluge, The Assuaging of the Waters, Pandemonium. He painted landscapes and water-colours, scenes on the Thames, Brent, Wandle, Wey, Stillingbourne, and the hills and eminences about London. About this time he began scheming for a method of supplying London with water and one that would improve the docks and sewers. He engraved many of his own works, Belshazzar, Joshua, Nineveh, Fall of Babylon. The first two named, with The Deluge, were presented by the French Academy to Louis Philippe, for which courtesy a medal was struck off in Martin's honour. The Ascent of Elijah, Christ Tempted in the Wilderness, and Martin's illustrations (with Westall's) to Milton's Paradise Lost were all completed at this period. For the latter Martin received £2,000. He removed to Lindsey House, Chelsea, in 1848 or 1849, and was living there in 1852, when he sent to the Academy his last contribution, Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. November 12, 1853, while engaged upon his last large canvases, The Last Judgment, The Great Day of Wrath, and The Plains of Heaven, he was paralysed on his right side. He was removed to the Isle of Man, and obstinately refusing proper nourishment, died at Douglas February 17, 1854. After his death three pictures, scenes from the Apocalypse, were exhibited at the Hall of Commerce. His portrait by Wangemann appeared in the _Magazine of Fine Arts_. A second son, Leopold Charles, writer, and godson of Leopold, King of Belgium, was an authority on costumes and numismatics (1817-89). His wife was a sister of Sir John Tenniel of _Punch_. John Martin was slightly cracked; at least he was so considered by his contemporaries. He was easily affronted, yet he was a very generous man. He bought Etty's picture, The Combat, in 1825 for two or three hundred guineas. There are at the South Kensington Museum three Martins, watercolours, and one oil; at Newcastle, an oil. At the time of his decease his principal works were in the collections of Lord de Tabley, Dukes of Buckingham and Sutherland, Messrs. Hope and Scarisbruck, Earl Grey and Prince Albert. The Leyland family of Nantchvyd, North Wales, owns the Joshua and several typical works of Martin. Wilkie, in a letter to Sir George Beaumont, describes Belshazzar's Feast as a "phenomenon." Bulwer declared that Martin was "more original and self-dependent than Raphael or Michael Angelo." In the Last Essays of Elia there is one by Charles Lamb entitled Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the Production of Modern Art. The name of Martin is not mentioned, but several of his works are unmistakably described. "His towered architecture [Lamb is writing of Belshazzar's Feast] are of the highest order of the material sublime. Whether they were dreams or transcripts of some elder workmanship--Assyrian ruins old--restored by this mighty artist, they satisfy our most stretched and craving conceptions of the glories of the antique world. It is a pity that they were ever peopled." "Literary" art critic as he was, Lamb put his finger on Martin's weakest spot--his figure painting. The entire essay should be read, for it contains a study of the Joshua in which this most delicious of English prose writers speaks of the "wise falsifications" of the great masters. Before his death the critics, tiring of him sooner than the public, called Martin tricky, meretricious, mechanical. To be sure, his drawing is faulty, his colour hot and smoky; nevertheless, he was not a charlatan. As David Wilkie wrote: "Weak in all these points in which he can be compared to other artists," he had the compensating quality of an imposing, if at times operatic, imagination. Monkhouse justly says that in Martin's illustrations to Milton the smallness of scale and absence of colour enable us to appreciate the grandeur of his conceptions with a minimum of his defects. In sooth he lacked variety. His pictures are sooty and apocalyptic. We have seen the Mountain Landscape, at South Kensington, The Destruction of Herculaneum, at Manchester, another at Newcastle whose subject escapes us, and we confess that we prefer the mezzotints of Martin, particularly those engraved by Le Keux--whose fine line and keen sense of balance corrected the incoherence of Martin's too blackened shadows and harsh explosions of whites. One looks in vain for the velvety tone of Earlom, or the vivid freshness of Valentine Green, in Martin. He was not a colourist; his mastery consisted in transferring to his huge cartoons a sense of the awful, of the catastrophic. He excelled in the delineation of massive architecture, and if Piranesi was his superior in exactitude, he equalled the Italian in majesty and fantasy of design. No such cataclysmic pictures were ever before painted, nor since, though Gustave Doré, who without doubt made a study of Martin, has incorporated in his Biblical illustrations many of Martin's overwhelming ideas--the Deluge, for example. James Ensor, the Belgian illustrator, is an artist of fecund fancy who, alone among the new men, has betrayed a feeling for the strange architecture, dream architecture, we encounter in Martin. Coleridge in Kubla Khan, De Quincey in opium reveries, Poe and Baudelaire are among the writers who seem nearest to the English mezzotinter. William Beckford's Vathek, that most Oriental of tales, first written in French by a millionaire of genius, should have inspired Martin. Perhaps its mad fantasy did, for all we know--there is no authentic compilation of his compositions. Heine has spoken of Martin, as has Théophile Gautier; and his name, by some kink of destiny, is best known to the present generation because of Macaulay's mention of it in an essay. The Vale of Tempe is one of Martin's larger plates seldom seen in the collector's catalogue. We have viewed it and other rare prints in the choice collection referred to already. Satan holding council, after Milton, is a striking conception. The Prince of Eblis sits on a vast globe of ebony. About him are tier upon tier of faces, the faces of devils. Infernal chandeliers depend from remote ceilings. Light gashes the globe and the face and figure of Satan; both are of supernal beauty. Could this mezzotint, so small in size, so vast in its shadowy suggestiveness, have stirred Baudelaire to lines that shine with a metallic poisonous lustre? And there is that tiny mezzotint in which we find ourselves at the base of a rude little hill. The shock of the quaking earth, the silent passing of the sheeted dead and the rush of the affrighted multitudes tell us that a cosmic tragedy is at hand. In a flare of lightning we see silhouetted against an angry sky three crosses at the top of a sad little hill. It is a crucifixion infinitely more real, more intense than Doré's. Another scene--also engraved by Le Keux: On a stony platform, vast and crowded, the people kneel in sackcloth and ashes; the heavens thunder over the weeping millions of Nineveh, and the Lord of Hosts will not be appeased. Stretching to the clouds are black basaltic battlements, and above rear white-terraced palaces as swans that strain their throats to the sky. The mighty East is in penitence. Or, Elijah is rapt to heaven in a fiery whirlwind; or God creates light. This latter is one of the most extraordinary conceptions of a great visionary and worthy of William Blake. Or Sadak searching for the waters of oblivion. Alas, poor humanity! is here the allegory. A man, a midget amid the terrifying altitudes of barren stone, lifts himself painfully over a ledge of rock. Above him are vertiginous heights; below him, deadly precipices. Nothing helps him but himself--a page torn from Max Stirner is this parable. Light streams upon the struggling egoist as he toils to the summit of consciousness. Among the designs of nineteenth-century artists we can recall none so touching, so powerful, so modern as this picture. Martin was not equally successful in portraying celestial episodes, though his paradises are enormous panoramas replete with architectural beauties. His figures, as exemplified in Miltonic illustrations, are more conventional than Fuseli's and never naively original as are Blake's. Indeed, of Blake's mystic poetry and divination Martin betrays no trace. He is not so much the seer as the inventor of infernal harmonies. Satan reviewing his army of devils is truly magnificent in its depiction of the serried host armed for battle; behind glistens burning Tophet in all its smoky splendour. Satan in shining armour must be a thousand feet high; he is sadly out of scale. So, too, in the quarrel of Michael and Satan over the sleeping Adam and Eve. Blake is here recalled in the rhythms of the monstrous figures. Bathos is in the design of Lucifer swimming in deepest hell upon waves of fire and filth; yet the lugubrious arches of the caverns in the perspective reveal Blake's fantasy, so quick to respond to external stimuli. Martin saw the earth as in an apocalyptic swoon, its forms distorted, its meanings inverted; a mad world, the world of an older theogony. But if there was little human in his visions, he is enormously impersonal; if he assailed heaven's gates on wings of melting wax, or dived deep into the pool of iniquity, he none the less caught glimpses in his breathless flights of strange countries across whose sill no human being ever passes. There is genuine hallucination. He must have seen his ghosts so often that in the end they petrified him, as did the Statue Don Giovanni. Martin was a species of reversed Turner. He spied the good that was in evil, the beauty in bituminous blacks. He is the painter of black music, the deifier of Beelzebub, and also one who caught the surge and thunder of the Old Testament, its majesty and its savagery. As an illustrator of sacred history, the world may one day return to John Martin. ZORN Anders Zorn--what's in a name? Possibly the learned and amiable father of Tristram Shandy or that formidable pedant Professor Slawkenbergius might find much to arouse his interest in the patronymic of the great Swedish painter and etcher. What Zorn means in his native tongue we do not profess to know; but in German it signifies anger, wrath, rage. Now, the Zorn in life is not an enraged person--unless some lady sitter asks him to paint her as she is not. He is, as all will testify who have met him, a man of rare personal charm and sprightly humour. He, it may be added, calls yellow yellow, and he never paints a policeman like a poet. In a word, a man of robust, normal vision, a realist and an artist. False realism with its hectic, Zola-like romanticism is distasteful to Zorn. He is near Degas among the Frenchmen and Zuloaga among the new Spaniards; near them in a certain forthright quality of depicting life, though unlike them in technical and individual methods. Yes, Zorn, that crisp, bold, short name, which begins with a letter that abruptly cuts both eye and ear, quite fits the painter's personality, fits his art. He is often ironic. Some fanciful theorist has said that the letters Z and K are important factors in the career of the men who possess them in their names. Camille Saint-Saëns has spoken of Franz Liszt and his lucky letter. It is a very pretty idea, especially when one stakes on zero at Monte Carlo; but no doubt Anders Zorn would be the first to laugh the idea out of doors. We recall an exhibition a few years ago at Venice in the art gallery of the Giardino Reale. Zorn had a place of honour among the boiling and bubbling Secessionists; indeed, his work filled a large room. And what work! Such a giant's revel of energy. Such landscapes, riotous, sinister, and lovely. Such women! Here we pause for breath. Zorn's conception of womanhood has given offence to many idealists, who do not realise that once upon a time our forebears were furry and indulged in arboreal habits. Zorn can paint a lady; he has signed many gentle and aristocratic canvases. But Zorn is also too sincere not to paint what he sees. Some of his models are of the earth, earthy; others step toward you with the candid majesty of a Brunhilda, naked, unashamed, and regal. They are all vital. We recall, too, the expressions, shocked, amazed, even dazed, of some American art students who, fresh from their golden Venetian dreams, faced the uncompromising pictures of a man who had faced the everyday life of his day. For these belated visionaries, whose ideal in art is to painfully imitate Giorgione, Titian, or Tiepolo, this modern, with his rude assault upon the nerves, must seem a very iconoclast. Yet Zorn only attempts to reproduce the life encircling him. He is a child of his age. He, too, has a perception of beauty, but it is the beauty that may be found by the artist with an ardent, unspoiled gaze, the curious, disquieting beauty of our time. Whistler saw it in old Venetian doorways as well as down Chelsea way or at Rotherhithe. Zorn sees it in some corner of a wood, in some sudden flex of muscle or intimate firelit interior. And he loves to depict the glistening curves of his big model as she stands in the sunlight, a solid reproach to physical and moral anæmia. A pagan, by Apollo! As an etcher the delicacy of his sheathed lion's paw is the principal quality that meets the eye, notwithstanding the broad execution. Etching is essentially an impressionistic art. Zorn is an impressionist among etchers. He seems to attack his plate not with the finesse of a meticulous fencing-master but like a Viking, with a broad Berserker blade. He hews, he hacks, he gashes. There is blood in his veins, and he does not spare the ink. But examine closely these little prints--some of them miracles of printing--and you may discern their delicate sureness, subtlety, and economy of gesture. Fitzroy Carrington quotes the Parisian critic Henri Marcel, who among other things wrote of the Zorn etchings: "Let us only say that these etchings--paradoxical in their coarseness of means and fineness of effect--manifest the master at his best." Coarseness of means and fineness of effect--the phrase is a happy one. Coarse is sometimes the needle-work of Zorn, but the end justifies the means. He is often cruel, more cruel than Sargent. His portraits prove it. He has etched all his friends, some of whom must have felt honoured and amused--or else offended. The late Paul Verlaine, for example, would not have been pleased with the story of his life as etched by the Swede. It is as biting a commentary--one is tempted to say as acid--as a page from Strindberg. Yes, without a touch of Strindberg's mad fantasy, Zorn is kin to him in his ironic, witty way of saying things about his friends and in front of their faces. Consider that large plate of Renan. Has any one so told the truth concerning the ex-seminarian, casuist, and marvellous prose writer of France? The large, loosely modelled head with its fleshy curves, its super-subtle mouth of orator, the gaze veiled, the bland, pontifical expression, the expression of the man who spoke of "the mania of certitude"--here is Ernest Renan, voluptuous disdainer of democracies, and planner of a phalanstery of superior men years before Nietzsche's superman appeared. Zorn in no unkindly spirit shows us the thinker; also the author of L'Abbesse de Jouarre. It is something, is it not, to evoke with needle, acid, paper, and ink the dualism of such a brain and temperament as was Renan's? He is not flattering to himself, Zorn. The Henry G. Marquand, two impressions, leaves one rather sad. An Irish girl, Annie, is superb in its suggestion of form and colour. Saint-Gaudens and his model is excellent; we prefer the portrait. The Evening Girl Bathing is rare in treatment--simple, restrained, vital. She has turned her back, and we are grateful, for it is a beautiful back. The landscape is as evanescent as Whistler, the printing is in a delicate key. The Berlin Gallery contains a Zorn, a portrait striking in its reality. It represents Miss Maja von Heyne wearing a collar of skins. She could represent the Maja of Ibsen's epilogue, When We Dreamers Awake; Maja, the companion of the bear hunter, Ulfheim. As etched, we miss the massiveness, the rich, vivid colour, yet it is a plate of distinction. Among his portraits are the Hon. Daniel S. Lamont, Senator "Billy" Mason, the Hon. John Hay, Mr. and Mrs. Atherton Curtis, and several big-wigs of several nations. An oil-painting is an impressionistic affair, showing some overblown girls dressing after their bath. The sun flecks their shoulders, but otherwise seems rather inclined to retire modestly. Evidently not the midnight sun. We have barely indicated the beauties in which the virile spirit of Anders Zorn comes out at you from the wall--a healthy, large-hearted, girted Swede is this man with the Z. BRANGWYN The name of Frank Brangwyn may fall upon unresponsive ears; yet he has a Continental reputation and is easily the foremost English impressionist. New York has seen but little of his work; if we mistake not, there was a large piece of his, a Gipsy Tinker in the open air, hung several seasons ago at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Mr. Kennedy shows extraordinary etchings of his at the Wunderlich Galleries. We call them extraordinary not alone because of their size, but also because Brangwyn is practically the first among latter-day artists to apply boldly to etching the methods of the impressionists. Etching in its essential nature is an impressionistic art. We do not mean to assert that Brangwyn uses the dot or dash or broken dabs in his plates, for the very good reason that he is working in black and white; nevertheless a glance at his plates will show you a new way of conquering old prejudices. Whistler it was who railed at large etchings. He was not far wrong. In the hands of the majority of etchers a large plate is an abomination, diffused in interest, coarse of line; but Brangwyn is not to be considered among this majority. He is a big fellow in everything. Besides, Whistler was using the familiar argument, _pro doma sua_. The same may be said of Poe, who simply would not hear of a long poem (shades of Milton!) or of Chopin, who lost his way in the sonata form, though coming out in the gorgeous tropical land, the thither side of sonatas and other tonal animals. Because Catullus and Sappho did not write epics that is no reason why Dante should not. It is the old story of the tailless fox. Brangwyn as well as Anders Zorn has been called a rough-and-ready artist. For exquisite tone and pattern we must go to Whistler and his school. Brangwyn is never exquisite, though he is often poetic, even epical. Look at that Bridge, Barnard Castle. It is noble in outline, lovely in atmosphere. Or at the Old Hammersmith--"swell," as the artist slang goes. The Mine is in feeling and mass Rembrandtish; and as we have used the name of the great Dutchman we may as well admit that to him, despite a world of difference, Brangwyn owes much. He has the sense of mass. What could be more tangibly massive than the plate called Breaking Up of the Hannibal? Here is a theme which Turner in The Fighting Téméraire made truly poetic, and Seymour Haden in his Agamemnon preserved more than a moiety of sentiment, not to mention the technical prowess displayed; but in the hulk of this ugly old vessel of Brangwyn's there is no beauty. However, it is hugely impressive. His landscapes are not too seldom hell-scapes. The Inn of the Parrot is quaint with its reversed lettering. The Road to Montreuil is warm in colour and finely handled. How many have realised the charm of the rear view of Santa Maria Salute? It is one of the most interesting of Brangwyn's Venetian etchings. His vision of Saint Sophia, Constantinople, has the mystic quality we find in the Dutchman Bauer's plates. A Church at Montreuil attracts the eye; London Bridge is positively dramatic; the Old Kew Bridge has delicacy; the Sawyers with their burly figures loom up monstrously; the Building of the New Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, recalls, as treated by the impressionistic brush of Brangwyn (for the needle seems transformed into a paint-loaded spike), one of H.G. Wells's terrific socialistic structures of the year 2009. Remember that Brangwyn is primarily a painter, an impressionist. He sees largely. His dream of the visible world (and like Sorolla, it is never the world invisible with him) is one of patches and masses, of luminous shadows, of animated rhythms, of rich arabesques. He is sib to the Scotch. His father is said to have been a Scottish weaver who settled in Bruges. Frank saw much of the world before settling in London. He was born at Bruges, 1867. The Golden Book of Art describes him as a one-time disciple of William Morris. He has manufactured glass, furniture, wall-paper, pottery. His curiosity is insatiable. He is a mural decorator who in a frenzy could cover miles of space if some kind civic corporation would but provide the walls. As the writer of the graceful preface to the Wunderlich catalogue has it: "He gets the character of his theme. His art is itself full of character." Temperament, overflowing, passionate, and irresistible, is his key-note. In music he might have been a Fritz Delius, a Richard Strauss. He is an eclectic. He knows all schools, all methods. He is Spanish in his fierce relish of the open air, of the sights--and we almost said sounds--of many lands, but the Belgian strain, the touch of the mystic and morose, creeps into his work. We have caught it more in his oils than etchings. It is not singular, then, that his small etched plates do not hold the eye; they lack magnetic quality. It is the Titan, rude and raging, dashing ink over an acre of white paper, that rivets you. The stock attitudes and gestures he does not give you; and it is doubtful if he will have an audience soon in America, where the sleek is king and prettiness is exalted over power. DAUMIER Mr. Frank Weitenkampf, the curator of the Lenox Library print department, shows nineteen portfolios which hold about seven hundred lithographs by Honoré Daumier. This collection is a bequest of the late Mr. Lawrence, and we doubt if the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris surpasses it; that is, in the number of detached examples. There the works of the great artist are imbedded in the various publications for which he laboured so many years--such at _La Caricature, Les Beaux Arts, L'Artiste, Les Modes Parisiennes, La Gazette Musicale, Le Boulevard,_ and _Masques et Visages_. The Lawrence lithographs are representatives, though not complete; the catalogue compiled by Loys Delteil comprises 3,958 plates; the paintings and drawings are also numerous. But an admirable idea of Daumier's versatile genius may be gleaned at the Lenox Library, as all the celebrated series are there: Paris Bohemians, the Blue Stockings, the Railways, La Caricature, Croquis d'Expressions, Emotions Parisiennes, Actualités, Les Baigneurs, Pastorales, Moeurs Conjugales, the Don Quixote plates, Silhouettes, Souvenirs d'Artistes, Types Parisiens, the Advocates and Judges, and a goodly number of the miscellanies. Altogether an adequate exhibition. Honoré Daumier, who died February 11, 1879, was almost the last of the giants of 1830, though he outlived many of them. Not affiliated with the Barbizon group--though he was a romantic in his hatred of the bourgeois--several of these painters were intimate friends; indeed, Corot was his benefactor, making him a present of a cottage at Valmondois (Seine-et-Oise), where the illustrator died. He was blind and lonely at the end. Corot died 1875; Daubigny, his companion, 1878; Millet, 1875, and Rousseau, with whom he corresponded, died 1867. In 1879 Flaubert still lived, working heroically upon that monument of human inanity, Bouvard et Pécuchet; Maupassant, his disciple, had just published a volume of verse; Manet was regarded as a dangerous charlatan, Monet looked on as a madman; while poor Cézanne was only a bad joke. The indurated critical judgment of the academic forces pronounced Bonnat a greater portraitist than Velasquez, and Gérôme and his mock antiques and mock orientalism far superior to Fromentin and Chasseriau. It was a glorious epoch for mediocrity. And Daumier, in whom there was something of Michael Angelo and Courbet, was admired only as a clever caricaturist, the significance of his paintings escaping all except a few. Corot knew, Daubigny knew, as earlier Delacroix knew; and Balzac had said: "There is something of the Michael Angelo in this man!" Baudelaire, whose critical _flair_ never failed him, wrote in his Curiosités Esthétiques: "Daumier's distinguishing note as an artist is his certainty. His drawing is fluent and easy; it is a continuous improvisation. His powers of observation are such that in his work we never find a single head that is out of character with the figure beneath it. ... Here, in these animalised faces, may be seen and read clearly all the meannesses of soul, all the absurdities, all the aberrations of intelligence, all the vices of the heart; yet at the same time all is broadly drawn and accentuated." Nevertheless one must not look at too many of these caricatures. At first the Rabelaisian side of the man appeals; presently his bitterness becomes too acrid. Humanity is silly, repulsive; it is goat, pig, snake, monkey, and tiger; but there is something else. Daumier would see several sides. His pessimism, like Flaubert's, is deadly, but at times reaches the pitch of the heroic. He could have echoed Flaubert's famous sentence: "The ignoble is the sublime of the lower slope." Yet what wit, what humour, what humanity in Daumier! His Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are worth a wilderness of Dorés. And the Good Samaritan or The Drinkers. The latter is as jovial as Steen or Hals. A story went the rounds after his death which neatly illustrates his lack of worldliness. His modesty was proverbial, and once Daubigny, on introducing him to an American picture dealer, warned him not to ask less than five thousand francs for the first picture he sold to the man. The American went to Daumier's atelier, and seeing a picture on the easel, asked, "How much?" The artist, remembering Daubigny's warning, answered, "Five thousand francs." The dealer immediately bought it, and on demanding to see something else, Daumier put another canvas on the easel, far superior to the one sold. The Yankee again asked the price. The poor artist was perplexed. He had received no instructions from Daubigny regarding a second sale; so when the question was repeated he hesitated, and his timidity getting the better of him, he replied: "Five hundred francs." "Don't want it; wouldn't take it as a gift," said the dealer. "I like the other better. Besides, I never sell any but expensive pictures," and he went away satisfied that a man who sold so cheaply was not much of an artist. This anecdote, which we heard second hand from Daubigny, may be a fable, yet it never failed to send Daubigny into fits of laughter. It may be surmised that, despite his herculean labours, extending over more than half a century, Daumier never knew how to make or save money. He was born at Marseilles in 1808. His father was a third-rate poet who, suspecting his own gift, doubted the talent of his son, though this talent was both precocious and prodigious. The usual thing happened. Daumier would stick at nothing but his drawing; the attempt to force him into law studies only made him hate the law and lawyers and that hatred he never ceased to vent in his caricatures. He knocked about until he learned in 1829 the technics of lithography; then he soon became self-supporting. His progress was rapid. He illustrated for the Boulevard journals; he caricatured Louis Philippe and was sent to jail, Sainte-Pélagie, for six months. Many years afterward he attacked with a like ferocity Napoleon III. Look at his frontispiece--rather an advertisement--of Victor Hugo's Les Châtiments. It is as sinister, as malign as a Rops. The big book, title displayed, crushes to earth a vulture which is a travesty of the Napoleonic beak. Daumier was a power in Paris. Albert Wolff, the critic of _Figaro_, tells how he earned five francs each time he provided a text for a caricature by Daumier, and Philipon, who founded several journals, actually claimed a share in Daumier's success because he wrote some of the silly dialogues to his plates. Daumier was the artistic progenitor of the Caran d'Aches, the Forains--who was it that called Forain "Degas en caricature"?--Willettes, and Toulouse-de-Lautrecs. He was a political pamphleteer, a scourger of public scamps, and a pictorial muck-raker of genius. His mockery of the classic in art was later paralleled by Offenbach in La Belle Hélène. But there were other sides to his genius. Tiring of the hurly-burly of journalism, he retired in 1860 to devote himself to painting. His style has been pronounced akin to that of Eugène Carrière; his sense of values on a par with Goya's and Rembrandt's (that Shop Window of his in the Durand-Ruel collection is truly Rembrandtesque). This feeling for values was so remarkable that it enabled him to produce an impression with three or four tones. The colours he preferred were grays, browns, and he manipulated his blacks like a master. Mauclair does not hesitate to put Daumier among the great painters of the past century on the score of his small canvases. "They contain all his gifts of bitter and profound observation, all the mastery of his drawings, to which they add the attractions of rich and intense colour," declares Mauclair. Doubtless he was affected by the influence of Henri Monnier, but Daumier really comes from no one. He belongs to the fierce tribe of synics and men of exuberant powers, like Goya and Courbet. A born anarch of art, he submitted to no yoke. He would have said with Anacharsis Cloots: "I belong to the party of indignation." He was a proud individualist. That he had a tender side, a talent for friendship, may be noted in the affectionate intercourse he maintained for years with Corot, Millet, Rousseau, Dupré, Geoffroy, the sculptor Pascal, and others. He was very impulsive and had a good heart with all his misanthropy, for he was an idealist reversed. The etching of him by Loys Delteil is thus described by a sympathetic commentator: "Daumier was very broad-shouldered, his head rather big, with slightly sunken eyes, which must, however, have had an extraordinary power of penetration. Though the nose is a little heavy and inelegant, the projecting forehead, unusually massive like that of Victor Hugo or of Beethoven and barred with a determined furrow, reveals the great thinker, the man of lofty and noble aspirations. The rather long hair, thrown backward, adds to the expression of the fine head; and finally the beard worn collarwise, according to the prevailing fashion, gives to Daumier's face the distinctive mark of his period." This etched portrait may be seen in several states at the Lenox Library. LALANNE'S ETCHINGS How heavily personality counts in etching may be noted in the etched work of Maxime Lalanne which is at the Keppel Galleries. This skilful artist, so deft with his needle, so ingenious in fancy, escapes great distinction by a hair's breadth. He is without that salt of individuality that is so attractive in Whistler. Of him Hamerton wrote: "No one ever etched so gracefully as Maxime Lalanne; ... he is essentially a true etcher... There have been etchers of greater power, of more striking originality, but there has never been an etcher equal to him in a certain delicate elegance." This is very amiable, and Joseph Pennell is quite as favourable in his judgment. "His ability," wrote Mr. Pennell in Pen Drawing and Pen Draughtsmen, "to express a great building, a vast town, or a delicate little landscape has never been equalled, I think, by anybody but Whistler." Mr. Pennell modestly omits his own name; but the truth is that Pennell is as excellent if not more individual a draughtsman as Lalanne, and when it comes to vision, to invention, and to the manipulation of the metal he is the superior of the Frenchman. The American etcher rates Lalanne's lines above Titian's. Whistler and Titian would be big companions indeed for the clever-mannered and rather pedantic Lalanne. Let us admit without balking at Hamerton that his line is graceful. He belongs to the old-fashioned school which did not dream, much less approve, of modern tonal effects in their plates. A Lalanne etching is as clean and vivid as a photograph (not an "art" photograph). It is also as hard. Atmosphere, in the material as well as the poetic sense, is missing. His skies are disappointing. Those curly-cue clouds are meaningless, and the artist succeeds better when he leaves a blank. At least some can fill it with the imagination. Another grave defect is the absence of modulation in his treatment of a landscape and its linear perspective. Everything seems to be on the same plane of interest, nor does he vary the values of his blacks--in foreground, middle distance, and the upper planes the inking is often in the same violent key. Such a capital plate, for example, which depicts a fire in the port of Bordeaux is actually untrue in its values. Dramatic in feeling and not without a note here and there of Rembrandt, this particular composition fails, just fails to hit the bull's-eye. After all, we must judge a man in his genre, as Keppel _père_ puts it. Maxime Lalanne's style is that of a vanished generation in etching. He was a contemporary of Meryon, but that unhappy man of genius taught him nothing. Born at Bordeaux in 1827, Lalanne died in 1886. He was a pupil of Jean Gigoux (1806-94), a painter whose gossipy souvenirs (1885) pleased Paris and still please the curious. (Gigoux it was who remained in Balzac's house when the novelist died; though he was not visiting the master of the house.) From this painter Lalanne evidently imbibed certain theories of his art which he set forth in his Treatise on Etching (1866). Strangely enough, illustrator as he was, his transpositions into black and white of subjects by Troyon, Ruysdael, Crome, Constable, and many others are not so striking either in actual technique or individual grasp as his original pieces. Constable, for instance, is thin, diffuse, and without richness. Mezzotinted by the hands of such a man as Lucas, we recognise the real medium for translating the English painter. A master of the limpid line, Lalanne shows you a huddled bit of Amsterdam or a distant view of Bordeaux, or that delicious prospect taken on a spot somewhere below the Pont Saint-Michel, with the Pont Neuf and the Louvre in the background. He had a feeling for those formal gardens which have captured within their enclosure a moiety of nature's unstudied ease. The plate called Aux Environs de Paris reveals this. And what slightly melancholy tenderness there is in Le Canal à Pont Sainte-Maxence. There are several states of the "Villers" etching, an attractive land and seascape, marred, however, by the clumsy sameness of the blacks in the foreground. Without possessing Meryon's grim power in the presentation of old Paris streets and tumble-down houses, Lalanne has achieved several remarkable plates of this order. One is his well-known Rue des Marmousets. This street is almost as repellent-looking as Rue Mouffetard at its worst period. Ancient and sinister, its reputation was not enticing. In it once dwelt a pastry cook who, taking his crony the barber into his confidence, literally made mince-meat of a stranger and sold the pies to the neighbours. Messire Jacques du Breul, in his Le Théâtre des Antiquités de Paris (1612), remarks, not without critical unction, in his quaint French: "De la chair d'icelui faisit des pastez qui se trouvoient meilleurs que les aultres, d'autant que la chair de l'homme est plus délicate à cause de la nourriture que celle des aultres animaux." Every one to his taste, as the old politician said when he kissed the donkey. When you study the Lalanne etching of this gruesome alley you almost expect to see at the corner Anatole France's famous cook-shop with its delectable odours and fascinating company. The scenes of Thames water-side, Nogent, Houlgate Beach, at Richmond, or at Cusset are very attractive. His larger plates are not convincing, the composition does not hang together; the eye vainly seeks focussing centres of interest. Beraldi was right when he said that Lalanne has not left one surpassing plate, one of which the world can say: There is a masterpiece! Yet is Maxime Lalanne among the Little Masters of characteristic etching. His appeal is popular, he is easily comprehended of the people. LOUIS LEGRAND The etched work of the brilliant Frenchman Louis Legrand is at last beginning to be appreciated in this country. French etchings, unless by painter-etchers, have never been very popular with us. We admire Meryon and Helleu's drypoints, Bracquemond, Jacquemart; Félix Buhot has a following; Lalanne and Daubigny too; but in comparison with the demand for Rembrandt, Whistler, Seymour Haden, or Zorn the Paris men are not in the lead. There is Rops, for example, whose etchings may be compared to Meryon's; yet who except a few amateurs seeks Rops? Louis Legrand is now about forty-five, at the crest of his career, a versatile, spontaneous artist who is equally happy with pigments or the needle. His pastels are much sought, but his dry-points have gained for him celebrity. Though a born colourist, the primary gift of the man is his draughtsmanship. His designs, swift and supple notations of the life around him, delight the eye by reason of their personal touch and because of the intensely human feeling that he infuses into every plate. Legrand was one of the few pupils of Félicien Rops, and technically he has learned much of his master; but his way of viewing men and women and life is different from that of the Belgian genius. He has irony and wit and humour--the two we seldom bracket--and he has pity also; he loves the humble and despised. His portraits of babies, the babies of the people, are captivating. Imagine a Rops who has some of Millet's boundless sympathy for his fellow-humans and you have approximately an understanding of Louis Legrand. He is a native of Dijon, the city that gave birth to Bossuet, but Legrand is not that kind of Burgundian. Several critics pretend to see in his work the characteristics of his native Côte d'Or; that, however, may be simply a desire to frame the picture appropriately. Legrand might have hailed from the south, from Daudet's country; he is exuberant as he is astute. The chief thing is that he has abundant brains and in sheer craftsmanship fears few equals. Like Whistler, his principal preoccupation is to suppress all appearance of technical procedures. His method of work is said to be simplicity itself; obsessed by his very definite visions, he transfers them to the scratched plate with admirable celerity. Dry-point etching is his principal medium. With his needle he has etched Montmartre, its cabarets, its angels--in very earthly disguise--its orators, poets, and castaways, and its visiting tourists--"God's silly sheep." He has illustrated a volume of Edgar Poe's tales that displays a _macabre_ imagination. His dancers are only second to those of Edgar Degas, and seen from an opposite side. His peasants, mothers, and children, above all, babies, reveal an eye that observes and a brain that can co-ordinate the results of this piercing vision. Withal, he is a poet who extracts his symbols from everyday life. This is what Camille Mauclair said of him at the time of his début: "An admirably skilful etcher, a draughtsman of keen vision, and a painter of curious character, who has in many ways forestalled the artists of to-day. Louis Legrand also shows to what extent Manet and Degas have revolutionised the art of illustration, in freeing the painters from obsolete laws and guiding them toward truth and frank psychological study. Legrand is full of them without resembling them. We must not forget that besides the technical innovation [division of tones, study of complementary colours] impressionism has brought us novelty of composition, realism of character, and great liberty in the choice of subjects. From this point of view Rops himself, in spite of his symbolist tendencies, could not be classed with any other group if it were not that any kind of classification in art is useless and inaccurate. However that may be, Louis Legrand has signed some volumes with the most seductive qualities." Gustave Kahn, the symbolist poet who was introduced to the English reading world in one of the most eloquent pages of George Moore, thinks that Legrand is frankly a symbolist. We side with Mauclair in not trying to pin this etcher down to any particular formula. He is anything he happens to will at the moment, symbolist, poet, and also shockingly frank at times. Take the plate with a pun for a title, Le paing quotidien ("paing" is slang for "poing," a blow from the fist, and may also mean the daily bread). A masculine brute is with clinched fist about to give his unfortunate partner her daily drubbing. He is well dressed. His silk hat is shiny, his mustache curled in the true Adolphe fashion. His face is vile. The woman cries aloud and protects herself with her hands. In Marthe Baraquin, by Rosny senior, you will find the material for this picture, though Legrand found it years ago in the streets. Unpleasant, truly, yet a more potent sermon on man's cruelty to woman than may be found in a dozen preachments, fictions, or the excited outpourings at a feminist congress. Legrand presents the facts of the case without comment, except the irony--such dismal irony!--of the title. In this he is the true pupil of Rops. However, he does not revel long among such dreary slices of life. The Poe illustrations are grotesque and shuddering, but after all make believe. The plate of The Black Cat piles horror on horror's head (literally, for the demon cat perches on the head of the corpse) and is, all said, pictorial melodrama. The Berenice illustration is, we confess, a little too much for the nerves, simply because in a masterly manner Legrand has exposed the most dreadful moment of the story (untold by Poe, who could be an artist in his tact of omission). The dental smile of the cataleptic Berenice as her necrophilic cousin bends over the coffin is a testimony to a needle that in this instance matches Goya's and Rops's in its evocation of the horrific. We turn with relief to the ballet-girl series. The impression gained from this album is that Legrand sympathises with, nay loves, his subject. Degas, the greater and more objective artist, nevertheless allows to sift through his lines an inextinguishable hatred of these girls who labour so long for so little; and Degas did hate them, as he hated all that was ugly in daily life, though he set forth this ugliness, this mediocrity, this hatred in terms of beautiful art. Legrand sees the ugliness, but he also sees the humanity of the _ballateuse_. She is a woman who is brought up to her profession with malice aforethought by her parents. These parents are usually noted for their cupidity. We need not read the witty history of the Cardinal family to discover this repellent fact. Legrand sketches the dancer from the moment when her mother brings her, a child, to undergo the ordeal of the first lesson. The tender tot stands hesitating in the doorway; one hand while holding the door open seems to grasp it as the last barrier of defence that stands between her and the strange new world. She is attired in the classical figurante's costume. Behind, evidently pushing her forward, is the grim guardian, a bony, forbidding female. Although you do not see them, it is an easy feat to imagine the roomful of girls and dancing master all staring at the new-comer. The expression on the child's face betrays it; instinctively, like the generality of embarrassed little girls, her hand clasps her head. In less than a minute she will weep. Another plate, L'ami des Danseuses, is charged with humanity. The violinist who plays for the ballet rehearsals sits resting, and facing him are two young dancers, also sitting, but stooping to relieve their strained spines and the tendons of their muscular legs. The old fellow is giving advice from the fulness of a life that has been not too easy. The girls are all attention. It is a genre bit of distinction. Upon the technical virtuosity in which this etcher excels we shall not dwell. Some of his single figures are marvels. The economy of line, the massing of lights and darks, the vitality he infuses into a woman who walks, a man who works in the fields, a child at its mother's breast, are not easily dealt with in a brief study. We prefer to note his more general qualities. His humour, whether in delineating a stupid soldier about to be exploited by camp followers, or in his Animales, is unforced. It can be Rabelaisian and it can be a record of simple animal life, as in the example with the above title. A cow stands on a grassy shore; near by a stolid peasant girl sits slicing bread and eating it. Cow and girl, grass and sky and water are woven into one natural pattern. The humour inheres in several sly touches. It is a comical Millet. Very Millet-like too is the large picture, Beau Soir, in which a field labourer bends over to kiss his wife, who has a child at her breast. A cow nuzzles her apron, the fourth member of this happy group. The Son of the Carpenter is another peasant study, but the transposition of the Holy Family to our century. A slight nimbus about the mother's head is the only indication that this is not a humble household somewhere in France. Maternal Joy, Mater Inviolata are specimens of a sane, lovely art which celebrate the joys, dolors, and exaltations of motherhood. We prefer this side of the art of Legrand to his studies of sinister jail-birds, _hetairai_, noctambules, high kickers, and private bars, the horrors of Parisian night life. Whatever he touches he vivifies. His leaping, audacious line is like the narrative prose of a Maupassant or a Joseph Conrad. Every stroke tells. His symbolical pictures please us least. They doubtless signify no end of profound things, yet to us they seem both exotic and puerile. We go back to the tiny dancers, tired to sleepiness, who sit on a sofa waiting to be called. Poor babies! Or to the plate entitled Douleur. Or to the portraits of sweet English misses--as did Constantin Guys, Legrand has caught the precise English note--or any of the children pieces. If he knows the psychology of passion, knows the most intimate detail of the daily life of _les filles_, Legrand is master too of the psychology of child life. This will endear him to English and American lovers of art, though it is only one of his many endowments. His wit keeps him from extremes, though some of his plates are not for puritans; his vivid sympathies prevent him from falling into the sterile eccentricities of so many of his contemporaries; if he is cynical he is by the same taken soft-hearted. His superb handling of his material, with a synthetic vision superadded, sets apart Louis Legrand in a profession which to-day is filled with farceurs and fakers and with too few artists by the grace of God. GUYS, THE ILLUSTRATOR Practitioners of the noble art of illustration are, as we know, modest men, but no matter the degree of their modesty they are all distanced by the record in shyness still maintained by Constantin Guys. This artist was once a living protest against Goethe's assertion that only fools are modest, and the monument recently erected to his memory in Paris is provocation enough to bring him ferrying across the Styx to enter a disclaimer in the very teeth of his admirers. So set in his anonymity was he that Charles Baudelaire, his critical discoverer, was forced to write a long essay about his work and only refer to the artist as C.G. The poet relates that once when Thackeray spoke to Guys in a London newspaper office and congratulated him on his bold sketches in the _Illustrated London News_, the fiery little man resented the praise as an outrage. Nor was this humility a pose. His life long he was morbidly nervous, as was Meryon, as was Cézanne; but he was neither half mad, like the great etcher, nor a cenobite, as was the painter of Aix. Few have lived in the thick of life as did Guys. To employ the phrase of Turgenieff, life, like grass, grew over his head. In the Crimean camps, on the Parisian boulevards, in London parks, Guys strolled, crayon in hand, a true reporter of things seen and an ardent lover of horses, soldiers, pretty women, and the mob. Baudelaire called him the soldier-artist. He resembled in his restless wanderings Poe's man of the multitude, and at the end of a long life he still drew, as did Hokusai. Who was he? Where did he receive his artistic training? Baudelaire did not tell, nor Théophile Gautier. He went through the Crimean campaign; he lived in the East, in London and Paris. Not so long ago the art critic Roger Marx, while stopping at Flushing, Holland, discovered his baptismal certificate, which reads thus: "Ernestus Adolphus Hyacinthus Constantinus Guys, born at Flushing December 3, 1805, of Elizabeth Bétin and François Lazare Guys, Commissary of the French Marine." The baptism occurred January 26, 1806, and revealed the fact that he had for godfather an uncle who held a diplomatic position. Guys told his friends that his full family name was Guys de Sainte-Hélène--which may have been an amiable weakness of the same order as that of Barbey d'Aurevilly and of Villiers de l'Isle Adam, both of whom boasted noble parentage. However, Guys was little given to talk of any sort. He was loquacious only with his pencil, and from being absolutely forgotten after the downfall of the Second Empire to-day every scrap of his work is being collected, even fought for, by French and German collectors. Yet when the Nadar collection was dispersed, June, 1909, in Paris, his aquarelles went for a few francs. Félix Fénéon and several others now own complete sets. In New York there are a few specimens in the possession of private collectors, though the Lenox Library, as a rule rich in such prints, has only reproductions to show. The essay of Charles Baudelaire, entitled Le Peintre de la Vie Moderne, to be found in Volume III of his collected works (L'Art Romantique), remains thus far the standard reference study concerning Guys, though deficient in biographical details. Other critical studies are by Camille Mauclair, Roger Marx, Richard Muther, and George Grappe; and recently Elizabeth Luther Cary in a too short but admirably succinct article characterised the Guys method in this fashion: "He defined his forms sharply and delicately, and used within his bounding line the subtlest variation of light and shade. His workmanship everywhere is of the most elusive character, and he is a master of the art of reticence." Miss Cary further speaks of his "gentle gusto of line in motion, which lately has captivated us in the paintings of the Spaniard Sorolla, and long ago gave Botticelli and Carlo Crivelli the particular distinction they had in common." Mauclair mentions "the most animated water-colour drawings of Guys, his curious vision of nervous elegance and expressive skill," and names it the impressionism of 1845, while Dr. Muther christened him the Verlaine of the crayon because, like Verlaine, he spent his life between the almshouse and a hospital, so said the German critic. Furthermore, Muther believes it was no mere chance that made of Baudelaire his admirer; in both the decadent predominated--which is getting the cart before the horse. Rops, too, is recalled by Guys, who depicted the gay grisette of the faubourgs as well as the nocturnal pierreuse of the fortifications. "Guys exercised on Gavarni an influence which brought into being his Invalides du sentiment, his Lorettes vielles, and his Fourberies de femmes." It is not quite fair to compare Guys with Rops, or indeed with either Gavarni or Daumier. These were the giants of French illustration at that epoch. Guys was more the skirmisher, the sharpshooter, the reporter of the moment, than a creative master of his art. The street or the battle-field was his atelier; speed and grace and fidelity his chief claims to fame. He never practised his art within the walls of academies; the material he so vividly dealt with was the stuff of life. The very absence of school in his illustrations is their chief charm; a man of genius this, self-taught, and a dangerous precedent for fumblers or those of less executive ability. From the huge mass of his work being unearthed from year to year he may be said to have lived crayon in hand. He is the first of a long line of newspaper illustrators. His profession was soldiering, and legend has it that he accompanied Byron to Missolonghi. The official career of his father enabled the youth to see much of the world--Greece, the Balkans, Turkey, Persia, and perhaps India. On returning to France he became an officer of dragoons and for some time led the life of a dandy and man about town. With his memory, of which extraordinary tales are told, he must have stored up countless films of impressions, all of which were utilised years later. In 1845 we find him installed at Paris, though no longer in the army. Then it was he began to design. He became contributor to many periodicals, among the rest the _Illustrated London News_ and _Punch_. For the former journal he went to the Crimean war as accredited art correspondent. The portfolio containing the Crimean set is now most sought for by his admirers. He is said to have originated the expression "taken on the spot," in the title of one of his instantaneous sketches. Few draughtsmen could boast his sure eye and manual dexterity. The Balaklava illustration is as striking in its way as Tennyson's lines, though containing less of poetic heroism and more ugly realism. Like the trained reporter that he was, Guys followed a battle, recording the salient incidents of the engagement, not overemphasising the ghastliness of the carnage, as did Callot or Goya or Raffet, but telling the truth as he saw it, with a phlegm more British and German than French. Though he had no Dutch blood in his veins, he was, like Huysmans, more the man of Amsterdam than the man of Paris. He noted the changing and shocking scenes of hospital life, and sympathy without sentimentality drops from his pen. He is drily humorous as he shows us some plumaged General peacocking on foot, or swelling with Napoleonic pride as he caracoles by on his horse. And such horses! Without a hint of the photographic realism of a Muybridge and his successors, Guys evokes vital horses and riders, those seen by the normal vision. The witching movement of beautiful Arabian steeds has not had many such sympathetic interpreters. In Turkey he depicted episodes of daily life, of the courts of the Sublime Porte itself, of the fête of Baïram, which closes the fast of Ramadan. His Turkish women are not all houris, but they bear the stamp of close study. They are pretty, indolent, brainless creatures. In his most hurried crayons, pen-and-ink sketches, and aquarelles Guys is ever interesting. He has a magnetic touch that arrests attention and atones for technical shortcomings. Abbreviation is his watchword; his drawings are a species of shorthand notations made at red-hot tempo, yet catching the soul of a situation. He repeats himself continually, but, as M. Grappe says, is never monotonous. In love with movement, with picturesque massing, and broad simple colour schemes, he naturally gravitated to battle-fields. In Europe society out of doors became his mania. Rotten Row, in the Bois, at Brighton or at Baden-Baden, the sinuous fugues of his pencil reveal to succeeding generations how the great world once enjoyed itself or bored itself to death. No wonder Thackeray admired Guys. They were kindred spirits; both recognised and portrayed the snob mundane. As he grew older Guys became an apparition in the life of Paris. The smash-up of the Empire destroyed the beloved world he knew so well. Poor, his principal pleasure was in memory; if he couldn't actually enjoy the luxury of the rich he could reproduce its images on his drawing-pad. The whilom dandy and friend of Baudelaire went about dressed in a shabby military frock-coat. He had no longer a nodding acquaintance with the fashionable lions of Napoleon the Little's reign, yet he abated not his haughty strut, his glacial politeness to all comers, nor his daily promenade in the Bois. A Barmecide feast this watching the pleasures of others more favoured, though Guys did not waste the fruits of his observation. At sixty-five he began to go down-hill. His habits had never been those of a prudent citizen, and as his earning powers grew less some imp of the perverse entered his all too solitary life. With this change of habits came a change of theme. Henceforth he drew _filles_, the outcasts, the scamps and convicts and the poor wretches of the night. He is now a forerunner of Toulouse-Lautrec and an entire school. This side of his career probably caused Dr. Muther to compare him with Paul Verlaine. Absinthe, the green fairy of so many poets and artists, was no stranger to Guys. In 1885, after dining with Nadar, his most faithful friend, Guys was run over in the Rue du Havre and had his legs crushed. He was taken to the Maison Dubois, where he lived eight years longer, dying at the venerable age of eighty-seven, though far from being a venerable person. Astonishing vitality! He did not begin to draw, that is, for a living, until past forty. His method of work was simplicity itself, declare those who watched him at work. He seemingly improvised his aquarelles; his colour, sober, delicate, was broadly washed in; his line, graceful and modulated, does not suggest the swiftness of his execution. He could be rank and vulgar, and he was gentle as a refined child that sees the spectacle of life for the first time. The bitterness of Baudelaire's flowers of evil he escaped until he was in senile decadence. In the press of active life he registered the shock of conflicting arms, the shallow pride of existence and the mere joy of living, all in a sane manner that will ever endear him to lovers of art. George Moore tells the following anecdote of Degas: Somebody was saying he did not like Daumier, and Degas preserved silence for a long while. "If you were to show Raphael," he said at last, "a Daumier, he would admire it; he would take off his hat; but if you were to show him a Cabanel, he would say with a sigh, 'That is my fault.'" If you could show Raphael a croquis by Constantin Guys he would probably look the other way, but Degas would certainly admire and buy the drawing. XI. IMPRESSIONISM I - MONET The impressionists claim as their common ancestors Claude Lorraine, Watteau, Turner, Monticelli. Watteau, Latour, Largillière, Fragonard, Saint-Aubin, Moreau, and Eisen are their sponsors in the matters of design, subject, realism, study of life, new conceptions of beauty and portraiture. Mythology, allegory, historic themes, the neo-Greek and the academic are under the ban--above all, the so-called "grand style." Impressionism has actually elevated genre painting to the position occupied by those vast, empty, pompous, frigid, smoky, classic pieces of the early nineteenth century. However, it must not be forgotten that modern impressionism is only a new technique, a new method of execution--we say new, though that is not exactly the case. The home of impressionism is in the East; it may be found in the vivid patterns woven in Persia or in old Japan. In its latest avatar it is the expression of contemporaneous reality. Therein lies its true power. The artist who turns his face only to the past--his work will never be anything but an echo. To depict the faces and things and pen the manners of the present is the task of great painters and novelists. Actualists alone count in the future. The mills of the antique grind swiftly--like the rich, they will be always with us--but they only grind out imitations; and from pseudo-classic marbles and pseudo-"beautiful" pictures may Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies, deliver us. That able and sympathetic writer D.S. MacColl has tersely summed up in his Vision of the Century the difference between the old and new manner of seeing things. "The old vision had beaten out three separate acts--the determination of the edges and limits of things, the shadings and the modellings of the spaces in between with black and white, and the tintings of those spaces with their local colour. The new vision that had been growing up among the landscape painters simplifies as well as complicates the old. For purposes of analysis it sees the world as a mosaic of patches of colour, such and such a hue, such and such a tone, such and such a shape... The new analysis looked first for colour and for a different colour in each patch of shade or light. The old painting followed the old vision by its three processes of drawing the contours, modelling the chiaroscura in dead colour, and finally in colouring this black-and-white preparation. The new analysis left the contours to be determined by the junction, more or less fused, of the colour patches, instead of rigidly defining them as they are known to be defined when seen near at hand or felt... 'Local colour' in light or shade becomes different not only in tone but in hue." To the layman who asked, "What is impressionism?" Mauclair has given the most succinct answer in his book L'Impressionisme: "In nature," he declares, "no colour exists by itself. The colouring of the object is pure illusion; the only creative source of colour is the sunlight, which envelops all things and reveals them, according to the hours, with infinite modifications... The idea of distance, of perspective, of volume is given us by darker or lighter colours; this is the sense of values; a value is the degree of light or dark intensity which permits our eyes to comprehend that one object is further or nearer than another. And as painting is not and cannot be the imitation of nature, but merely her artificial interpretation, since it has only at its disposal two out of three dimensions, the values are the only means that remain for expressing depth on a flat surface. Colour is therefore the procreatrix of design... Colours vary with the intensity of light... Local colour is an error; a leaf is not green, a tree trunk is not brown... According to the time of day, _i. e._, according to the greater or smaller inclination of the rays (scientifically called the angle of incidence), the green of the leaf and the brown of the tree are modified... The composition of the atmosphere... is the real subject of the picture... Shadow is not absence of light, but light of a different quality and of a different value. Shadow is not part of the landscape where light ceases, but where it is subordinated to a light which appears to us more intense. In the shadow the rays of the spectrum vibrate with a different speed. Painting should therefore try to discover here, as in the light parts, the play of the atoms of solar light, instead of representing shadows with ready-made tones composed of bitumen and black... In a picture representing an interior the source of light [windows] may not be indicated; the light circulating, circling around the picture, will then be composed of the _reflections_ of rays whose source is invisible, and all the objects, acting as mirrors for these reflections, will consequently influence each other. Their colours will affect each other even if the surfaces be dull. A red vase placed upon a blue carpet will lead to a very subtle but mathematically exact exchange between this blue and this red; and this exchange of luminous waves will create between the two colours a tone of reflections composed of both. These composite reflections will form a scale of tones complementary of the two principal colours. "The painter will have to paint with only the seven colours of the solar spectrum and discard all the others;... he will, furthermore, instead of composing mixtures on his palette, place upon his canvas touches of none but the seven colours juxtaposed [Claude Monet has added black and white] and leave the individual rays of each of these colours to blend at a certain distance, so as to act like sunlight upon the eye of the beholder." This is called _dissociation_ of tones; and here is a new convention; why banish all save the spectrum? We paint nature, not the solar spectrum. Claude Monet has been thus far the most successful practitioner of impressionism; this by reason of his extraordinary analytical power of vision and native genius rather than the researches of Helmholtz, Chevreul, and Rood. They gave him his scientific formulas after he had worked out the problems. He studied Turner in London, 1870; then his manner changed. He had been a devoted pupil of Eugène Boudin and could paint the discreet, pearly gray seascapes of his master. But Turner and Watteau and Monticelli modified his style, changed his way of envisaging the landscape. Not Edouard Manet but Claude Monet was the initiator of the impressionistic movement in France, and after witnessing the rout and confusion that followed in its wake one is tempted to misquote Nietzsche (who said that the first and only Christian died on the cross) and boldly assert that there has been but one impressionist; his name, Monet. "He has arrived at painting by means of the infinitely varied juxtaposition of a quantity of colour spots which dissociate the tones of the spectrum and draw the forms of objects through the arabesque of their vibrations." How his landscapes shimmer with the heat of a summer day! Truly, you can say of these pictures that "the dawn comes up like thunder." How his fogs, wet and clinging, seem to be the first real fogs that ever made misty a canvas! What hot July nights, with few large stars, has Monet not painted! His series of hayricks, cathedrals, the Thames are precious notations of contemporary life; they state facts in terms of exquisite artistic value; they resume an epoch. It is therefore no surprise to learn that in 1874 Monet gave the name (so variously abused) to the entire movement when he exhibited a water piece on the Boulevard des Capucines entitled Impression: Soleil Levant. That title became a catchword usually employed in a derisive manner. Monet earlier had resented the intrusion of a man with a name so like his, but succumbed to the influence of Monet. One thing can no longer be controverted--Claude Monet is the greatest landscape and marine painter of the second half of the last century. Perhaps time may alter this limit clause. What Turgenieff most condemned in his great contemporary, Dostoïevsky--if the gentle Russian giant ever condemned any one--was Feodor Mikhailovitch's taste for "psychological mole runs"; an inveterate burrowing into the dark places of humanity's soul. Now, if there is a dark spot in a highly lighted subject it is the question, Who was the first impressionist? According to Charles de Kay, Whistler once told him that he, James the Butterfly, began the movement; which is a capital and characteristic anecdote, especially if one recalls Whistler's boast made to a young etcher as to the initiative of Corot. Whistler practically said: "Before Corot was, I am!" And he adduced certain canvases painted with the misty-edged trees long before--but why continue? Whistler didn't start Corot--apart from the chronological difficulties in the way--any more than Courbet and Manet started Whistler; yet both these painters played important rôles in the American master's art. So let us accept Mauclair's dictum as to Claude Monet's priority in the field of impressionism. Certainly he attained his marked style before he met Manet. Later he modified his own paint to show his sympathy with the new school. Monet went to Watteau, Constable, Monticelli for his ideas, and in London, about 1870, he studied Turner with an interest that finally bordered on worship. And why not? In Turner, at the National Gallery, you may find the principles of impressionism carried to extravagant lengths, and years before Monet. Consider Rain, Steam and Speed--the Great Western Railway, that vision of a locomotive dashing across a bridge in chromatic chaos. Or the Sea Piece in the James Orrock collection--a welter of crosshatchings in variegated hues wherein any school of impressionism from Watteau's Embarkment to Monet's latest manner or the _pointillisme_ of Signac and Seurat may be recognised. And there is a water-colour of Turner's in the National Gallery called Honfleur, which has anticipated many traits of Boudin and the Manet we know when he had not forgotten Eugène Boudin's influence. Let us enjoy our Monet without too many "mole runs." As De Kay pointed out, it was not necessary for Monet to go to London to see Constables. In the Louvre he could gaze upon them at leisure, also upon Bonington; not to mention the Venetians and such a Dutchman as Vermeer. It is therefore doubly interesting to study the Monets at Durand-Ruel's. There are twenty-seven, and they range as far back as 1872, Promenade à Trouville, and come down to the Charing Cross Bridge, 1904, and the two Waterloo Bridge effects, 1903. It is a wide range in sentiment and technique. The Mills in Holland of 1874 is as cool and composed as Boudin. Sincerity and beauty are in the picture--for we do not agree with those who see in Monet only an unemotional recorder of variations in light and tone. He can compose a background as well as any of his contemporaries, and an important fact is overlooked when Monet is jumbled indiscriminately with a lot of inferior men. Monet knew how to _draw_ before he handled pigment. Some lansdcape painters do not; many impressionists trust to God and their palette-knife; so the big men are sufferers. Monet, it may be noted, essayed many keys; his compositions are not nearly so monotonous as has been asserted. What does often exhaust the optic nerve is the violent impinging thereon of his lights. He has an eagle eye, we have not. Wagner had the faculty of attention developed to such an extraordinary pitch that with our more normal and weaker nerves he soon exhausts us in his flights. Too much Monet is like too much Wagner or too much sunshine. The breezy effect with the poplars painted flat is an example very unlike Monet. The church of Varengeville at Dieppe (1880) is a classic specimen; so is the Pourville beach (1882). What delicate greens in the Spring (1885)! What fine distance, an ocean view, in the Pourville picture! Or, if you care for subdued harmonies, there is the ice floe at Vétheuil (1881). The London pictures tell of the older artist--not so vigorous, a vein of tenderness beginning to show instead of his youthful blazing optimism. Claude Monet must have had a happy life--he is still a robust man painting daily in the fields, leading the glorious life of a landscapist, one of the few romantic professions in this prosaic age. Not so vain, so irritable as either Manet or Whistler, Monet's nerves have never prompted him to extravagances. Backbiters declare that Monet is suffering from an optical degeneration--poor, overworked word! Monet sees better, sees more keenly than his fellow-men. What a misfortune! Ibsen and Wagner suffered, too, from superior brains. If Monet ever suffered seriously from a danger to his art it was--success. He was abused in the beginning, but not as severely as Manet. But success perched on Monet's palette. His pictures never seem to suggest any time but high noon, in spirit, at least. And he is never sad. Yet, is there anything sadder under the sun than a soul incapable of sadness? In his very valuable contribution to the history of the cause, Théodore Duret, the biographer and friend of Whistler and Manet has in his Les Peintres Impressionistes held the scales very much in favour of Manet's priority in the field over Monet. It is true that in 1863 Manet had drawn upon his head the thunderous wrath of Paris by exhibiting his Déjeuner sur l'Herbe and Olympe--by no means a representative effort of the painter's genius, despite its diabolic cleverness. (It reveals a profound study of Titian, Cranach, and Goya.) But his vision was in reality synthetic, not analytic; he was a primitive; he belongs to the family of Velasquez, Ribera, Goya. He studied Hals--and with what glorious results in Le Bon Bock! He manipulated paint like an "old master" and did astounding things with the higher tones of the colour scale. He was not an impressionist until he met Monet. Then in audacity he outstripped his associates. Discouraged by critical attacks, his courage had been revived by Charles Baudelaire, who fought for Richard Wagner as well as for Poe and Manet. To the painter the poet scornfully wrote: "You complain about attacks? But are you the first to endure them? Have you more genius than Chateaubriand and Wagner? They were not killed by derision. And in order not to make you too proud, I must tell you that they are models, each in his own way, and in a very rich world, while you are only the first in the decrepitude of your art." Sinister and disquieting that last phrase, and for those who see in impressionism the decadence of painting (because of the predominance given to the parts over the whole) it is a phrase prophetic. Manet is a classic. His genuine power--technically speaking--lies in the broad, sabre-like strokes of his brush and not in the niggling _taches_ of the impressionists--of which the _reuctio ad absurdum_ is pointillisme. He lays on his pigments in sweeping slashes and his divisions are large. His significance for us does not alone reside in his consummate mastery of form and colour, but in his forthright expression of the life that hummed about him. He is as actual as Hals. Study that Boy With the Sword at the Metropolitan Museum--is there anything superficial about it? It is Spanish, the Spain of Velasquez, in its beautiful thin, clear, flat painting, its sober handling of values. The truth is that Manet dearly loved a fight, and being _chef d'école_, he naturally drifted to the impressionists' camp. And it is significant that Duret did not give this virile spirit a place in his new volume, confining the estimate of his genius to the preface. Mauclair, on the contrary, includes Manet's name in his more comprehensive and more scientific study, as he also includes the name of Edgar Degas--Degas, who is a latter-day Ingres, plus colour and a new psychology. The title of impressionism has been a misleading one. If Degas is an impressionist, pray what then is Monet? Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne are impressionists, and in America there is no impropriety in attaching this handle to the works of Twachtmann, J. Alden Weir, W.L. Metcalf, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, Robert Reid, Ernest Lawson, Paul Cornoyer, Colin Campbell Cooper, Prendergast, Luks, and Glackens. But Manet, Degas! It would have been a happier invention to have called the 1877 group independents; independent they were, each man pursuing his own rainbow. We may note an identical confusion in the mind of the public regarding the Barbizon school. Never was a group composed of such dissimilar spirits. Yet people talk about Millet _and_ Breton, Corot _and_ Daubigny, Rousseau _and_ Dupré. They still say Goethe _and_ Schiller, Beethoven _and_ Mozart, Byron _and_ Shelley. It is the result of mental inertia, this coupling of such widely disparate temperaments. Nevertheless, divided tones and "screaming" palette do not always a picture make; mediocrity loves to mask itself behind artistic innovations. For the world at large impressionism spells improvisation--an easy-going, slatternly, down-at-the-heel process, facile as well as factitious. Albert Wolff must have thought these things when he sat for his portrait to Manet. His surprise was great when the artist demanded as many sittings as would have done the painstaking Bonnat. Whistler shocked Ruskin when he confessed to having painted a nocturne in two days, but with a lifetime experience in each stroke of the brush. Whistler was a swift worker, and while he claimed the honour of being the originator of impressionism--didn't he "originate" Velasquez?--he really belongs to the preceding generation. He was impressionistic, if you will, yet not an impressionist. He was Japanese and Spanish, never Watteau, Monticelli, Turner, or Monet. MacColl has pointed out the weakness of the scientific side of impressionism. Its values are strictly æsthetic; attempts to paint on a purely scientific basis have proved both monotonous and ludicrous. The experiments of the neo-impressionists (the 1885 group), of Signac, Seurat, were not very convincing. Van Rhysselberge, one of the few painters to-day who practise _pointillisme_, or the system of dots, is a gifted artist; so is Anquetin. The feminine group is headed by the name of Berthe Morisot (the wife of Eugène Manet, a brother of Edouard and the great granddaughter of Fragonard), a pupil of Manet, the most individual woman painter that ever lived; and Mary Cassatt, a pupil of Degas, though more closely allied to the open-air school in her methods. Miss Cassatt possesses a distinguished talent. As a school impressionism has run down to a thin rill in a waste of sand. It is more technical than personal, and while it was lucky to have such an exponent as Claude Monet, there is every reason to believe that Monet's impressionism is largely the result of a peculiar penetrating vision. He has been imitated, and Maufra and Moret are carrying on his tradition--yet there is but one Monet. We know that the spectral palette is a mild delusion and sometimes a dangerous snare, that impressionism is in the remotest analysis but a new convention supplanting an old. Painters will never go back to the muddy palette of the past. The trick has been turned. The egg of Columbus has been once more stood on end. Claude Monet has taught us the "innocence of the eye," has shown us how to paint air that circulates, water that sparkles. The sun was the centre of the impressionistic attack, the "splendid, silent sun." A higher pitch in key colour has been attained, shadows have been endowed with vital hues. (And Leonardo da Vinci, wonderful landscapist, centuries ago wrote learnedly of coloured shadows; every new discovery is only a rediscovery.) The "dim, religious light" of the studio has been banished; the average palette is lighter, is more brilliant. And Rembrandt is still worshipped; Raphael is still on his pedestal, and the millionaire on the street continues to buy Bouguereau. The amateur who honestly wishes to purge his vision of encrusted painted prejudices we warn not to go too close to an impressionistic canvas--any more than he would go near a red-hot stove or a keg of gunpowder. And let him forget those toothsome critical terms, decomposition, recomposition. His eyes, if permitted, will act for themselves; there is no denying that the principles of impressionism soundly applied, especially to landscape, catch the fleeting, many-hued charm of nature. It is a system of coloured stenography--in the hands of a master. Woe betide the fumbler! II - RENOIR The secret of success is never to be satisfied; that is, never to be satisfied with your work or your success. And this idea seems to have animated Auguste Renoir during his long, honourable career of painter. In common with several members of the impressionistic group to which he belonged, he suffered from hunger, neglect, obloquy; but when prosperity did at last appear he did not succumb to the most dangerous enemy that besets the artist. He fought success as he conquered failure, and his continual dissatisfaction with himself, the true critical spirit, has led him to many fields--he has been portraitist, genre painter, landscapist, delineator of nudes, a marine painter and a master of still-life. This versatility, amazing and incontrovertible, has perhaps clouded the real worth of Renoir for the public. Even after acknowledging his indubitable gifts, the usual critical doubting Thomas grudgingly remarks that if Renoir could not draw like Degas, paint land and water like Monet or figures like Manet, he was a naturally endowed colourist. How great a colourist he was may be seen at the Metropolitan Museum, where his big canvas, La Famille Charpentier, is now hung. Charpentier was the publisher of Zola, Goncourt, Flaubert, and of the newer realists. He was a man of taste, who cultivated friendships with distinguished artists and writers. Some disappointment was experienced at the recent public sale of his collection in Paris. The _clou_ of the sale was undoubtedly the portrait of his wife and two children. It was sold for the surprising sum of 84,000 francs to M. Durand-Ruel, who acted in behalf of the Metropolitan Museum. Another canvas by Renoir fetched 14,050 francs. A _sanguine_ of Puvis de Chavannes brought 2,050 francs, and 4,700 francs was paid for a Cézanne picture. The Charpentier Family, originally entitled Portrait de Madame Charpentier et Ses Filles, was painted in 1878, first exhibited at the Salon of 1879, and there we saw and admired it. The passage of the years has tempered the glistening brilliancies and audacious chromatic modulations to a suave harmony that is absolutely fascinating. The background is Japanese. Mme. Charpentier is seated on a canopy surrounded by furniture, flowers; under foot a carpet with arabesque designs. She throws one arm carelessly over some rich stuff; the hand is painted with masterly precision. The other arm has dropped in her lap. She is an interesting woman of that fine maternal type so often encountered in real France--though not in French fiction, alas! Her gaze is upon her children, two adorable little girls. A superb dog, a St. Bernard, with head resting on paws, looks at you with watchful eyes. One of the girls sits upon his shaggy hide. The mother is in black, a mellow reception robe, tulle and lace. White and blue are the contrasting tones of the girls--the blue is tender. A chair is at the side of a lacquer table, upon which are flowers. Renoir flowers, dewy, blushing. You exclaim: "How charming!" It is normal French painting, not the painting of the schools with their false ideal of pseudo-Greek beauty, but the intimate, clear, refined, and logical style of a man who does not possess the genius of Manet, Degas, or Monet, but is nevertheless an artist of copiousness, charm, and originality. Charm; yes, that is the word. There is a voluptuous magnetism in his colour that draws you to him whether you approve of his capricious designs or not. The museum paid $18,480 for the Charpentier portrait, and in 1877, after an exposition in the rue Le Peletier, sixteen of his paintings, many of them masterpieces, netted the mortifying sum of 2,005 francs. Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born at Limoges, February 25, 1840. His father was a poor tailor with five children who went to Paris hoping to better his condition. At the age of twelve the boy was painting on porcelain--his father had picked up some rudiments of the art at Limoges. Auguste did so well, displayed such energy and taste, that he soon fell to decorating blinds, and saved, in the course of four years, enough money to enable him to enter the atelier of Gleyre. There he met Sisley, Bazille--afterward shot in the Franco-Prussian war--and Claude Monet. They became friends and later allies in the conflict with the Parisian picture public. Renoir made his first offering to the Salon in 1863. It was refused. It was a romantic bit--a nude lady reclining on a bed listening to the plucked music of a guitar. It seems that the guitarist, and not the lady, was the cause of offence. It is a convention that a thousand living beings may look at an undressed female in a picture, but no painted man may be allowed to occupy with her the same apartment. In 1864 Renoir tried again--after all, the Salon, like our own academy, is a market-place--and was admitted. He sent in an Esmeralda dancing. Both these canvases were destroyed by the painter when he began to use his eyes. In 1868 his Lise betrayed direct observation of nature, influenced by Courbet. Until 1873 he sent pictures to the Salon; that year he was shut out with considerable unanimity, for his offering happened to be an Algerian subject, a Parisian woman dressed in Oriental costume, and--horrors!--the shadows were coloured. He was become an impressionist. He had listened, or rather looked at the baleful pyrotechnics of Monet, and so he joined the secessionists, though not disdaining to contribute annually to the Salon. In 1874 his L'allee Cavalière au Bois de Boulogne was rejected, an act that was evidently inspired by a desire to sacrifice Renoir because of the artistic "crimes" of Edouard Manet. Otherwise how explain why this easily comprehended composition, with its attractive figures, daring hues, and brilliant technique, came to have the door of the Salon closed upon it? The historic exposition at Nadar's photographic studio, on the Boulevard des Capucines, of the impressionists, saw Renoir in company with Monet, Sisley, and the others. His La Danseuse and La Loge were received with laughter by the discerning critics. Wasn't this the exhibition of which Albert Wolff wrote that some lunatics were showing their wares, which they called pictures, etc.? (No, it was in 1875.) From 1868 to 1877 Renoir closely studied nature and his landscapes took on those violet tones which gave him the nickname of Monsieur Violette. Previously he had employed the usual clear green with the yellow touches in the shadows of conventional _paysagistes_. But Pissarro, Monet, Sisley, and Renoir had discovered each for himself that the light and shade in the open air vary according to the hours, the seasons, the atmospheric conditions. Monet and Pissarro in painting snow and frost effects under the sun did not hesitate to put blue tones in the shadows. Sisley was fond of rose tones, Renoir saw violet in the shadows. He enraged his spectators quite as much as did Monet with his purple turkeys. His striking Avant le bain was sold for one hundred and forty francs in 1875. Any one who has been lucky enough to see it at Durand-Ruel's will cry out at the stupidity which did not recognise a masterly bit of painting with its glowing, nacreous flesh tints, its admirable modelling, its pervading air of vitality. Renoir was never a difficult painter; that is, in the sense of Monet or Manet or Gauguin. He offended the eyes of 1875, no doubt, but there was in him during his first period much of Boucher; his female nudes are, as Camille Mauclair writes, of the eighteenth century; his technique is Boucher-like: "fat and sleek paint of soft brilliancy laid on with the palette-knife with precise strokes around the principal values; pink and ivory tints relieved by strong blues similar to those of enamels; the light distributed everywhere and almost excluding the opposition of the shadows; vivacious attitudes and decorative convention." Vivacious, happy, lyrical, Renoir's work has thus far shown no hint of the bitter psychology of Edgar Degas. His nudes are pagan, child women full of life's joy, animal, sinuous, unreasoning. His _genre_ tableaux are personal enough, though in the most commonplace themes, such as Déjeuner and The Box--both have been exhibited in New York--the luminous envelope, the gorgeous riot of opposed tones, the delicious dissonances literally transfigure the themes. In his second manner his affinities to Claude Monet and impressionism are more marked. His landscapes are more atmospheric, division of tones inevitably practised. Everything swims in aerial tones. His portraits, once his only means of subsistence, are the personification of frankness. The touch is broad, flowing. Without doubt, as Theodore Duret asserts, Renoir is the first of the impressionistic portrait painters; the first to apply unflinchingly the methods of Manet and Monet to the human face--for Manet, while painting in clear tones (what magic there is in his gold!), in portraiture seldom employed the hatchings of colours, except in his landscapes, and only since 1870, when he had come under the influence of Monet's theories. Mauclair points out that fifteen years before _pointillisme_ (the system of dots, like eruptive small-pox, instead of the touches of Monet) was invented, Renoir in his portrait of Sisley used the stipplings. He painted Richard Wagner at Palermo in 1882. In his third manner--an arbitrary classification--he combines the two earlier techniques, painting with the palette-knife and in divided tones. Flowers, barbaric designs for rugs, the fantastic, vibrating waters, these appear among that long and varied series of canvases in which we see Paris enjoying itself at Bougival, dancing on the heights of Montmartre, strolling among the trees at Armenonville; Paris quivering with holiday joys, Paris in outdoor humour--and not a discordant or vicious note in all this psychology of love and sport. The lively man who in shirt sleeves dances with the jolly, plump salesgirl, the sunlight dripping through the vivid green of the tree leaves, lending dazzling edges to profiles, tips of noses, or fingers, is not the sullen _ouvrier_ of Zola or Toulouse-Lautrec--nor are the girls kin to Huysmans's Soeurs Vatard or the "human document" of Degas. Renoir's philosophy is not profound; for him life is not a curse or a kiss, as we used to say in the old Swinburne days. He is a painter of joyous surfaces and he is an incorrigible optimist. He is also a poet. The poet of air, sunshine, and beautiful women--can we ever forget his Jeanne Samary? A pantheist, withal a poet and a direct descendant in the line of Watteau, Boucher, Monticelli, with an individual touch of mundane grace and elegance. Mme. Charpentier it was who cleverly engineered the portrait of herself and children and the portrait of Jeanne Samary into the 1879 Salon. The authorities did not dare to refuse two such distinguished women. Renoir's prospects became brighter. He married. He made money. Patrons began to appear, and in 1904, at the autumn Salon, he was given a special _salle_, and homage was done him by the young men. No sweeter gift can come to a French painter than the unbidden admiration of the rising artistic generation. Renoir appreciated his honours; he had worked laboriously, had known poverty and its attendant bedfellows, and had won the race run in the heat and dust of his younger years. In 1904, describing the autumn exhibition, I wrote: "In the Renoir _salle_ a few of the better things of this luscious brush were to be found, paintings of his middle period, that first won him favour. For example, Sur la Terrasse, with its audacious crimson, like the imperious challenge of a trumpet; La Loge and its gorgeous fabrics; a Baigneuse in a light-green scheme; the quaint head of Jeanne Samary--a rival portrait to Besnard's faun-like Réjane--and a lot of Renoir's later experimentings, as fugitive as music; exploding bouquets of iridescence; swirling panels, depicting scenes from Tannhäuser; a flower garden composed of buds and blossoms in colour scales that begin at a bass-emerald and ascend to an altitudinous green where green is no longer green but an opaline reverberation. We know how exquisitely Renoir moulds his female heads, building up, cell by cell, the entire mask. The simple gestures of daily life have been recorded by Renoir for the past forty years with a fidelity and a vitality that shames the anæmic imaginings and puling pessimisms of his younger contemporaries. What versatility, what undaunted desire to conquer new problems! He has in turn painted landscapes as full of distinction as Monet's. The nervous vivacity of his brush, his love of rendered surfaces, of melting Boucher-like heads, and of a dazzling Watteau colour synthesis have endeared him to the discriminating." He may be deficient in spiritual elevation--as were Manet, Monet, and the other Impressionists; but as they were primarily interested in problems of lighting, in painting the sun and driving the old mud gods of academic art from their thrones, it is not strange that the new men became so enamoured of the coloured appearances of life that they left out the ghosts of the ideal (that dusty, battered phrase) and proclaimed themselves rank sun-worshippers. The generation that succeeded them is endeavouring to restore the balance between unblushing pantheism and the earlier mysticism. But wherever a Renoir hangs there will be eyes to feast upon his opulent and sonorous colour music. III - MANET In the autumn of 1865 Théodore Duret, the Parisian critic, found himself in the city of Madrid after a tour of Portugal on horseback. A new hotel on the Puerta del Sol was, he wrote in his life of Manet, a veritable haven after roughing it in the adjacent kingdom. At the mid-day breakfast he ate as if he had never encountered good cooking in his life. Presently his attention was attracted by the behaviour of a stranger who sat next to him. The unknown was a Frenchman who abused the food, the service, and the country. He was so irritable when he noticed Duret enjoying the very _plats_ he had passed that he turned on him and demanded if insult was meant. The horrible cuisine, he explained, made him sick, and he could not understand the appetite of Duret. Good-naturedly Duret explained he had just arrived from Portugal and that the breakfast was a veritable feast. "And I have just arrived from Paris," he answered, and gave his name, Edouard Manet. He added that he had been so persecuted that he suspected his neighbour of some evil pleasantry. The pair became friends, and went to look at the pictures of Velasquez at the Prado. Fresh from Paris, Manet was still smarting from the attacks made on him after the hanging of his Olympia in the Salon of 1865. Little wonder his nerves were on edge. A dozen days later, after he had studied Velasquez, Goya, and El Greco, Manet, in company with Duret, returned to Paris. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. About eight years ago Duret's definitive biography of Manet appeared, Histoire de Edouard Manet et de Son Oeuvre. No one was better qualified to write of the dead painter than Théodore Duret. A critic of perspicacity, his enthusiasm was kindled during the birth throes of impressionism and has never been quenched. Only a few years ago, after a tribute to Whistler, he wrote of Manet in the introduction to his volume on Impressionism, and while no one may deny his estimate, yet through zeal for the name of his dead friend he attributed to him the discoveries of the impressionists. Manet was their leader; he would have been a leader of men in any art epoch; but he did not invent the fulminating palette of Monet, and, in reality, he joined the insurgents after they had waged their earlier battles. His "impressionistic" painting, so called, did not date until later; before that he had fought for his own independence, and his method was different from that of Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne and the rest. Nevertheless, because of his notoriety--fame is hardly the word--he may be fairly called the leader of the school. As a rule he was not an irascible man, if the unpleasant nature of the attacks upon him is taken into consideration. With the exception of Richard Wagner and Ibsen, I know of no artist who was vilified during his lifetime as was Manet. A gentleman, he was the reverse of the bohemian. Duret writes of him that he was shocked at the attempt to make of him a monster. He did not desire to become _chef d'école_, nor did he set up as an eccentric. When he gave his special exhibition his catalogue contained a modest declaration of the right of the artist to his personal vision. He did not pretend to have created a new school, and he asked the public to judge his work as that of a sincere painter; but even that mild pronunciamento was received with jeers. The press, with a few exceptions, was against him, and so were nearly all the artists of influence. Zola's aggressive articles only made the situation worse. Who was this Zola but a writer of doubtful taste and sensational style! The whole crowd of realists, naturalists, and impressionists--the Batignolles school was the mocking title given the latter--were dumped into the common vat of infamy and critical vitriol poured over them. The main facts of Manet's career may be soon disposed of. His mother was Eugénie Désirée Fournier; she was the goddaughter of Charles Bernadotte, King of Sweden. Her father, a prefect at Pau, had rendered services to Bernadotte which the latter did not forget. When she married, in 1831, Auguste Manet, a distinguished judge of the Seine tribunal, Bernadotte made her many valuable presents and a dowry. Her three sons were Edouard, Eugène, and Gustave. They inherited from their rich grandfather, Fournier. Edouard was born at Paris, Rue Bonaparte, January 23, 1832. His brother Eugène became a doctor of medicine and later married one of the most gifted of women painters, Berthe Morisot, who died in 1895, after winning the praise of the most critical pens in all Europe. Edouard was intended for the bar, but he threw up his studies and swore he would become a painter. Then he was sent abroad. He visited South America and other countries, and kept his eyes wide open, as his sea-pieces proved. After his mother became a widow he married, in 1863, Susanne Leenhoff, of Delft, Holland. She was one of the early admirers of Schumann in Paris and played the A minor piano concerto with orchestra there, and, it is said, with success. She was an admirer of her husband's genius, and during all the turmoil of his existence she was a friend and counsellor. The young couple lived with the elder Mme. Manet in the Rue de Saint-Pétersbourg, and their weekly reception became a rallying centre for not only _les Jeunes_, but also for such men as Gambetta, Emile Ollivier, Clemenceau, Antonin Proust, De Banville, Baudelaire, Duranty--with whom Manet fought a duel over a trifle--Zola, Mallarmé, Abbé Hurel, Monet, and the impressionistic group. Edouard entertained great devotion for his mother. She saw two of her sons die, Edouard in 1883 (April 30) and Gustave in 1884. (He was an advocate and took Clemenceau's place as municipal councillor when the latter was elected Deputy.) Mme. Manet died in 1885. The painter was stricken with locomotor ataxia, brought on by protracted toil, in 1881. For nearly three years he suffered, and after the amputation of a leg he succumbed. His obsequies were almost of national significance. His widow lived until 1906. _Manet et manebit_ was the motto of the artist. He lived to paint and he painted much after his paralytic seizure. He was a brilliant raconteur, and, as Degas said, was at one time as well known in Paris as Garibaldi, red shirt and all. The truth is, Manet, after being forced with his back to the wall, became the active combatant in the duel with press and public. He was unhappy if people on the boulevard did not turn to look at him. "The most notorious painter in Paris" was a description which he finally grew to enjoy. It may not be denied that he painted several pictures as a direct challenge to the world, but a painter of offensive pictures he never was. The execrated Picnic, proscribed by the jury of the Salon in 1861, was shown in the Salon des Refusés (in company with works by Bracquemond, Cazin, Fantin-Latour, Harpignies, Jongkind, J.P. Laurens, Legros, Pissarro, Vollon, Whistler--the mildest-mannered crew of pirates that ever attempted to scuttle the bark of art), and a howl arose. What was this shocking canvas like? A group of people at a picnic, several nudes among them. In vain it was pointed out to the modest Parisians (who at the time revelled in the Odalisque of Ingres, in Cabanel, Gérôme, Bouguereau, and other delineators of the chaste) that in the Louvre the Concert of Giorgione depicted just such a scene; but the mixture of dressed and undressed was appalling, and Manet became a man marked for vengeance. Perhaps the exceeding brilliancy of his paint and his unconventional manner of putting it on his canvas had as much to do with the obloquy as his theme. And then he would paint the life around him instead of producing _pastiches_ of old masters or sickly evocations of an unreal past. He finished Olympia the year of his marriage, and refused to exhibit it; Baudelaire insisted to the contrary. It was shown at the Salon of 1865 (where Monet exhibited for the first time) and became the scandal of the day. Again the painter was bombarded with invectives. This awful nude, to be sure, was no more unclothed than is Cabanel's Venus, but the latter is pretty and painted with soap-suds and sentimentality. The Venus of Titian is not a whit more exposed than the slim, bony, young woman who has just awakened in time to receive a bouquet at the hands of her negress, while a black cat looks on this matutinal proceeding as a matter of course. The silhouette has the firmness of Holbein; the meagre girl recalls a Cranach. It is not the greatest of Manet; one could say, despite the bravura of the performances, that the painter was indulging in an ironic joke. It was a paint pot flung in the face of Paris. Olympia figured at the 1887 exhibition in the Pavilion Manet. An American (the late William M. Laffan) tried to buy her. John Sargent intervened, and a number of the painter's friends, headed by Claude Monet, subscribed a purse of twenty thousand francs. In 1890 Monet and Camille Pelletan presented to M. Fallières, then Minister of Instruction, the picture for the Luxembourg, and in 1907 (January 6), thanks to the prompt action of Clemenceau, one of Manet's earliest admirers, the hated Olympia was hung in the Louvre. The admission was a shock, even at that late day when the din of the battle had passed. When in 1884 there was held at the École des Beaux-Arts a memorial exposition of Manet's works, Edmond About wrote that the place ought to be fumigated, and Gérôme "brandished his little cane" with indignation. Why all the excitement in official circles? Only this: Manet was a great painter, the greatest painter in France during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Beautiful paint always provokes hatred. Manet won. Nothing succeeds like the success which follows death. (Our only fear nowadays is that his imitators won't die. Second-rate Manet is as bad as second-rate Bouguereau.) If he began by patterning after Hals, Velasquez, and Goya, he ended quite Edouard Manet; above all, he gave his generation a new vision. There will be always the battle of methods. As Mr. MacColl says: "Painting is continually swaying between the _chiaroscuro_ reading of the world which gives it depth and the colour reading which reduces it to flatness. Manet takes all that the modern inquisition of shadows will give to strike his compromise near the singing colours of the Japanese mosaic." What a wit this Parisian painter possessed! Duret tells of a passage at arms between Manet and Alfred Stevens at the period when the former's Le Bon Bock met for a wonder with a favourable reception at the Salon of 1873. This portrait of the engraver Belot smoking a pipe, his fingers encircling a glass, caused Stevens to remark that the man in the picture "drank the beer of Haarlem." The _mot_ nettled Manet, whose admiration for Frans Hals is unmistakably visible in this magnificent portrait. He waited his chance for revenge, and it came when Stevens exhibited a picture in the Rue Lafitte portraying a young woman of fashion in street dress standing before a portière which she seems about to push aside in order to enter another room. Manet studied the composition for a while, and noting a feather duster elaborately painted which lies on the floor beside the lady, exclaimed: "Tiens! elle a done un rendezvous avec le valet de chambre?" XII. A NEW STUDY OF WATTEAU New biographical details concerning Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) may never be forthcoming, though theories of his enigmatic personality and fascinating art will always find exponents. Our knowledge of Watteau is confined to a few authorities: the notes in D'Argenville's Abrégé de la Vie des Plus Fameux Peintres; Catalogue Raisonné, by Gersaint; Julienne's introduction to the Life of Watteau by Count de Caylus--discovered by the Goncourts and published in their brilliant study of eighteenth-century art. Since then have appeared monographs, études, and articles by Cellier, Mollet, Hanover, Dohme, Müntz, Séailles, Claude Phillips, Charles Blanc, Virgile Joez, F. Staley, Téodor de Wyzewa, and Camille Mauclair. Mauclair is the latest and one of the most interesting commentators, his principal contribution being De Watteau à Whistler, a chapter of which has been afterward expanded into a compact little study entitled Watteau and translated from the French text by Mme. Simon Bussy, the wife of that intimate painter of twilight and poetic reverie, Simon Bussy, to whom the book is dedicated. It is the thesis put forth and cleverly maintained by Mauclair that interests us more than his succinct notation of the painter's life. It is not so novel as it is just and moderate in its application. The pathologic theory of genius has been overworked. In literature nowadays "psychiatrists" rush in where critics fear to tread. Mahomet was an epilept; so was Napoleon. Flaubert died of epilepsy, said his friends; nevertheless, René Dumesnil has proved that his sudden decease was caused not by apoplexy but by hystero-neurasthenia. Eye strain played hob with the happiness of Carlyle, and an apostle of sweetness and light declared that Ibsen was a "degenerate"--Ibsen, who led the humdrum exterior life of a healthy _bourgeois_. Lombroso has demonstrated--to his own satisfaction--that Dante's mystic illumination was due to some brand of mental disorder. In fact, this self-styled psychologist mapped anew the topography of the human spirit. Few have escaped his fine-tooth-comb criticism except mediocrity. Painters, poets, patriots, musicians, scientists, philosophers, novelists, statesmen, dramatists, all who ever participated in the Seven Arts, were damned as lunatics, decadents, criminals, and fools. It was a convenient inferno in which to dump the men who succeeded in the field wherein you were a failure. The height of the paradox was achieved when a silly nomenclature was devised to meet every vacillation of the human temperament. If you feared to cross the street you suffered from agoraphobia; if you didn't fear to cross the street, that too was a very bad sign. If you painted like Monet, paralysis of the optical centre had set in--but why continue? It is a pity that this theory of genius has been so thoroughly discredited, for it is a field which promises many harvestings; there is mad genius as there are stupid folk. Besides, normality doesn't mean the commonplace. A normal man is a superior man. The degenerate man is the fellow of low instincts, rickety health, and a drunkard, criminal, or idiot. The comical part of the craze--which was short-lived, yet finds adherents among the half-baked in culture and the ignorant--is that it deliberately twisted the truth, making men of fine brain and high-strung temperament seem crazy or depraved, when the reverse is usually the case. Since the advent of Lombroso "brainstorms" are the possession of the privileged. Naturally your grocer, tailor, or politician may display many of the above symptoms, but no one studies them. They are not "geniuses." All this to assure you that when Camille Mauclair assumes that the malady from which Antoine Watteau died was also a determining factor in his art, the French critic is not aping some modern men of science who denounce the writings of Dostoïevsky because he suffered from epileptic fits. But there is a happy mean in this effort to correlate mind and body. If we are what we think or what we eat--and it is not necessary to subscribe to such a belief--then the sickness of the body is reflected in the soul, or vice versa. Byron was a healthy man naturally, when he didn't dissipate, and Byron's poems are full of magnificent energy, though seldom in the key of optimism. The revolt, the passion, the scorn, were they all the result of his health? Or of his liver? Or of his soul? Goethe, the imperial the myriad-minded Goethe, the apostle of culture, the model European man of the nineteenth century--what of him? Serenity he is said to have attained, yet from the summit of eighty years he confessed to four weeks of happiness in a long lifetime. Nor was he with all his superb manhood free from neurotic disorders, neurotic and erotic. Shelley? Ah! he is a pronounced case for the specialists. Any man who could eat dry bread, drink water, and write such angelic poetry must have been quite mad. Admitted. Would there were more Shelleys. Browning is a fair specimen of genius and normality; as his wife illustrated an unstable nervous temperament allied to genius. George Borrow was a rover, a difficult man to keep as a friend, happy only when thinking of the gipsies and quarrelling when with them. Would Baudelaire's magic verse and prose sound its faint, acrid, sinister music if the French poet had led a sensible life? Cruel question of the dilettante for whom the world, all its splendor, all its art, is but a spectacle. It is needless to continue, the list is too large; too large and too contradictory. The Variations of Genius would be as profound and as vast a book as Lord Acton's projected History of Human Thought. The truth is that genius is the sacrificial goat of humanity; through some inexplicable transposition genius bears the burdens of mankind; afflicted by the burden of the flesh intensified many times, burdened with the affliction of the spirit, raised to a pitch abnormal, the unhappy man of genius is stoned because he staggers beneath the load of his sensitive temperament or wavers from the straight and narrow path usually blocked by bores too thick-headed and too obese to realise the flower-fringed abysses on either side of the road. And having sent genius in general among the goats, let us turn to consumptive genius in particular. Watteau was a consumptive; he died of the disease. A consumptive genius! It is a hard saying. People of average health whose pulse-beat is normal in _tempo_ luckily never realise the febrile velocity with which flows the blood in the veins of a sick man of genius. But there is a paradox in the case of Watteau, as there was in the case of Chopin, of Keats, of Robert Louis Stevenson. The painter of Valenciennes gave little sign of his malady on his joyous lyrical canvases. Keats sang of faëry landscapes and Chopin's was a virile spirit; the most cheerful writer under the sun was Stevenson, who even in his Pulvis et Umbra conjured up images of hope after a most pitiless arraignment of the universe and man. And here is the paradox. This quartet of genius suffered from and were slain by consumption. (Stevenson died directly of brain congestion; he was, however, a victim to lung trouble.) That the poets turn their sorrow into song is an axiom. Yet these men met death, or what is worse, met life, with defiance or impassible fronts. And the world which loves the lilting rhythms of Chopin's mazourkas seldom cares to peep behind the screen of notes for the anguish ambushed there. Watteau has painted the gayest scenes of pastoral elegance in a land out of time, a No-Man's Land of blue skies, beautiful women, gallant men, and lovely landscapes, while his life was haunted by thoughts of death. The riddle is solved by Mauclaìr: These flights into the azure, these evocations of a country west of the sun and east of the moon, these graceful creatures of Watteau, the rich brocade of Chopin's harmonies, the exquisite pictures of Keats, the youthful joy in far-away countries of Stevenson, all, all are so many stigmata of their terrible affliction. They sought by the magic of their art to create a realm of enchantment, a realm wherein their ailing bodies and wounded spirits might find peace and solace. This is the secret of Watteau, says Mauclair, which was not yielded up in the eighteenth century, not even to his followers, Pater, Lancret, Boucher, Fragonard, whose pagan gaiety and artificial spirit is far removed from the veiled melancholy of Watteau. As we see Chopin, a slender man, morbid, sickly, strike the martial chord in an unparalleled manner, Chopin the timid, the composer of the Heroic Polonaise, so Watteau, morbid, sickly, timid, slender, composes that masterpiece of delicate and decorative joyousness, The Embarkment for Cythera, which hangs in the Louvre (a gorgeous sketch, the final version, is at Potsdam in the collection of the German Emperor). In these works we find the aura of consumption. None of Watteau's contemporaries fathomed the meaning of his art: not Count de Caylus, not his successors, who all recognised the masterly draughtsman, the marvellous colourist, the composer of pastoral ballets, of matchless _fêtes galantes_, of conversations, of miniatures depicting camp life, and fanciful decorations in the true style of his times. But the melancholy poet that was in the man, his lyric pessimism, and his unassuaged thirst for the infinite--these things they did not see. Caylus, who has left the only data of value, speaks of Watteau's hatred of life, his aversion at times from the human face, his restlessness that caused him to seek new abodes--Chopin was always dissatisfied with his lodgings and always changing them. The painter made friends in plenty, only to break with them because of some fancied slight. Chopin was of umbrageous nature, Liszt tells us. Watteau never married, and never, as far as is known, had a love affair. He is an inspired painter of women. (Perhaps, because of his celibacy.) He loved to depict them in delicious poses, under waving trees in romantic parks or in the nude. A gallant artist, he was not a gallant man. He had the genius of friendship but not the talent for insuring its continuity. Like Arthur Rimbaud, he suffered from the nostalgia of the open road. He disappeared frequently. His whereabouts was a mystery to his friends. He did not care for money or for honours. He was elected without volition on his part as a member of the Academy. Yet he did not use this powerful lever to further his welfare. Silent, a man of continent speech, he never convinced his friends that his art was chaste; yet he never painted an indelicate stroke. His personages, all disillusionised, vaguely suffer, make love without desire--disillusioned souls all. L'Indifférent, that young man in the Louvre who treads the earth with such light disdain, with such an airy expression of sweetness and _ennui_, that picture, Mauclair remarks, is the soul of Watteau. And, perhaps, spills his secret. Mauclair does not like the coupling of Watteau's name with those of Boucher, Pater, Lancret, De Troy, Coypel, or Vanloo. They imitated him as to externals; the spirit of him they could not ensnare. If Watteau stemmed artistically from Rubens, from Ruysdael, from Titian (or Tiepolo, as Kenyon Cox acutely hints) he is the father of a great school, the true French school, though his stock is Flemish. Turner knew him; so did Bonington. Delacroix understood him. So did Chardin, himself a solitary in his century. Without Watteau's initiative Monticelli might not be the Monticelli we know, while Claude Monet, Manet, Renoir are the genuine flowering of his experiments in the division of tones and the composition of luminous skies. Mauclair smiles at Caylus for speaking of Watteau's mannerisms, the mannerisms that proclaim his originality. Only your academic, colourless painter lacks personal style and always paints like somebody he is not. Watteau's art is peculiarly personal. Its peculiarity--apart from its brilliancy and vivacity--is, as Mauclair remarks, "the contrast of cheerful colour and morbid expression." _Morbidezza_ is the precise phrase; _morbidezza_ may be found in Chopin's art, in the very feverish moments when he seems brimming over with high spirits. Watteau was not a consumptive of the Pole's type. He did not alternate between ecstasy and languor. He was cold, self-contained, suspicious, and inveterately hid the state of his health. He might have been cured, but he never reached Italy, and that far-off dream and his longing to realise it may have been the basis of his last manner--those excursions into a gorgeous dreamland. He yearned for an impossible region. His visions on canvas are the shadowy sketches of this secret desire that burned him up. It may have been consumption--and Mauclair makes out a strong case--and it may have been the expression of a rare poetic temperament. Watteau was a poet of excessive sensibility as well as the contriver of dainty masques and ballets. In literature one man at least has understood him, Walter Pater. Readers of his Imaginary Portraits need not be reminded of A Prince of Court Painters, that imaginative reconstruction of an almost obscure personality. "His words as he spoke of them [the paintings of Rubens] seemed full of a kind of rich sunset with some moving glory within it." This was the Watteau who is summed by Pater (a distant kinsman, perhaps, of the Pater Watteau tutored) as a man who had been "a sick man all his life. He was always a seeker after something in the world, that is there in no satisfying measure, or not at all." Camille Mauclair eloquently ends his study with the confession that the mere utterance of Watteau's name "suffices to evoke in men's minds a memory of the melancholy that was his, arrayed in garments of azure and rose. Ah! crepuscular Psyche, whose smile is akin to tears!" XIII. GAUGUIN AND TOULOUSE-LAUTREC I - GAUGUIN The key-note to the character of Paul Gauguin, painter and sculptor, may be found in his declaration that in art there are only revolutionists or plagiarists. A brave speech. And a proud man who uttered it; for unless he wished to avoid its implications he must needs prove his sincerity. In the short, adventurous, crowded life vouchsafed him, Paul Gauguin proved himself indeed a revolutionary painter. His maxim was the result of hard-won experiences. He was born at Paris June 7, 1848--a stormy year for France; he died at Dominique May 9, 1904. His father was a native of Brittany, while on his mother's side he was Peruvian. This mixed blood may account for his wandering proclivities and his love for exotic colouring and manners. To further accentuate the rebellious instincts of the youth his maternal grandmother was that Flora Tristan, friend of the anarchistic thinker Proudhon. She was a socialist later and a prime mover in the Workman's Union; she allied herself with Père Enfantin and helped him to found his religion, "Mapa," of which he was the god, Ma, and she the goddess, Pa. Enfantin's career and end may be recalled by students of St. Simon and the socialistic movements of those times. Paul's father, Clovis Gauguin, wrote in 1848 the political chronicle on the _National_, but previous to the _coup d'etat_ he left for Lima, there to found a journal. He died of an aneurism in the Straits of Magellan, a malady that was to carry off his son. After four years in Lima the younger Gauguin returned to France. In 1856 a Peruvian grand-uncle died at the extraordinary age of one hundred and thirteen. His name was Don Pio de Tristan, and he was reported very rich. But Paul got none of this wealth, and at fourteen he was a cabin-boy, feeble of health but extremely curious about life. He saw much of life and strange lands in the years that followed, and he developed into a powerfully built young sailor and no doubt stored his brain with sumptuous images of tropical scenery which reappeared in his canvases. He traversed the globe several times. He married and took a position in a bank. On Sundays he painted. His hand had itched for years to reproduce the landscapes he had seen. He made friends with Degas, Cézanne, Pissarro, Renoir, Monet, Guillaumin, and Manet. He called himself an amateur and a "Sunday painter," but as he was received on terms of equality with these famous artists it may be presumed that, autodidact as he was, his versatile talent--for it literally was versatile--did not escape their scrutiny. He submitted himself to various influences; he imitated the Impressionists, became a Neo-Impressionist of the most extravagant sort; went sketching with Cézanne and Van Gogh, that unfortunate Dutchman, and finally announced to his friends and family that "henceforward I shall paint every day." He gave up his bank, and Charles Morice has said that his life became one of misery, solitude, and herculean labours. He painted in Brittany, Provence, at Martinique, in the Marquesas and Tahiti. He had parted with the Impressionists and sought for a new _æsthetik_ of art; to achieve this he broke away not only from tradition, even the tradition of the Impressionists, but from Europe and its civilisation. To this half-savage temperament devoured by the nostalgia of the tropics the pictures of his contemporaries bore the fatal stamp of the obvious, of the thrice done and used up. France, Holland, Spain, Italy--what corner was there left in these countries that had not been painted thousands of times and by great masters! The South Seas, Japan, China--anywhere away from the conventional studio landscape, studio models, poses, grimaces! At Pont-Aven in 1888, between trips made to Martinique and Provence, Gauguin had attained mastery of himself; Cézanne had taught him simplicity; Degas, his avowed admirer, had shown him the potency of the line; Renoir's warm colouring had spurred him to a still richer palette; and Manet had given him sound advice. A copy of the Olympe, by Gauguin, finished about this time, is said to be a masterpiece. But with Degas he was closer than the others. A natural-born writer, his criticisms of the modern French school are pregnant with wit and just observation. What was nicknamed the School of Pont-Aven was the outcome of Gauguin's imperious personality. A decorative impulse, a largeness of style, and a belief that everything in daily life should be beautiful and characteristic sent the painters to modelling, to ceramics and decoration. Armand Seguin, Emile Bernard, Maurice Denis, Filiger, Serusier, Bonnard, Vuillard, Chamaillard, Verkade, O'Conor, Durio, Maufra, Ranson, Mayol, Roy, and others are to-day happy to call themselves associates of Paul Gauguin in this little movement in which the idolatry of the line and the harmonies of the arabesque were pursued with joyous fanaticism. Gauguin in an eloquent letter tells of his intercourse with Vincent Van Gogh, who went mad and killed himself, not, however, before attempting the life of his master. Mauclair has said of Van Gogh that he "left to the world some violent and strange works, in which Impressionism appears to have reached the limit of its audacity. Their value lies in their naïve frankness and in the undauntable determination which tried to fix without trickery the sincerest feelings. Amid many faulty and clumsy works Van Gogh has also left some really beautiful canvases." Before Gauguin went to Tahiti his Breton peasants were almost as monstrous as his later Polynesian types. His representations of trees also seem monstrous. His endeavour was to get beyond the other side of good and evil in art and create a new synthesis, and thus it came to pass that the ugly and the formless reign oft in his work--the ugly and formless according to the old order of envisaging the world. In 1891 and 1892, at Tahiti, Gauguin painted many pictures--masterpieces his friends and disciples call them--which were later shown at an exhibition held in the Durand-Ruel Galleries. Paris shuddered or went into ecstasy over these blazing transcriptions of the tropics; over these massive men and women, nude savages who stared with such sinister magnetism from the frames. The violent deformations, the intensity of vision, the explosive hues--a novel gamut of rich tones--and the strangeness of the subject-matter caused a nine days' gossip; yet the exhibition was not a great success. Gauguin was too new, too startling, too original for his generation; he is yet for the majority, though he may be the Paint God of the twentieth century. Cut to the heart by his failure to make a dazzling reputation, also make a little money--for he was always a poor man--he left Paris forever in 1895. He was sick and his life among the Marquisians did not improve his health. He took the part of the natives against the whites and was denounced as a moral castaway. In 1904 he wrote Charles Morice: "I am a savage." But a savage of talent. In reality he was a cultivated man, an attractive man, and a billiard player and a fencer. Paint was his passion. If you live by the pen you may perish by the pen. The same is too often the case with the palette and brush hero. Though Paul Gauguin failed in his search for a synthesis of the ugly and the beautiful, he was nevertheless a bold initiator, one who shipwrecked himself in his efforts to fully express his art. With all his realism he was a symbolist, a master of decoration. A not too sympathetic commentator has written of him: "Paul Gauguin's robust talent found its first motives in Breton landscapes, in which the method of colour spots may be found employed with delicacy and placed at the service of a rather heavy but very interesting harmony. Then the artist spent a long time in Tahiti, whence he returned with a completely transformed manner. He brought back from those regions some landscapes treated in intentionally clumsy and almost wild fashion. The figures are outlined in firm strokes and painted in broad, flat tints on canvas that has the texture of tapestry. Many of these works are made repulsive by their aspect of multicoloured, crude, and barbarous imagery. Yet one cannot but acknowledge the fundamental qualities, the lovely values, the ornamental taste, and the impression of primitive animalism. On the whole, Paul Gauguin has a beautiful, artistic temperament which, in its aversion to virtuosity, has perhaps not sufficiently understood that the fear of formulas, if exaggerated, may lead to other formulas, to a false ignorance which is as dangerous as false knowledge." All of which is true; yet Paul Gauguin was a painter who had something new to say, and he said it in a very personal fashion. II - TOULOUSE-LAUTREC I once attended at Paris an exhibition devoted to the work of the late Count Toulouse-Lautrec. There the perverse genius of an unhappy man who owes allegiance to no one but Degas and the Japanese was seen at its best. His astonishing qualities of invention, draughtsmanship, and a diabolic ingenuity in sounding the sinister music of decayed souls have never been before assembled under one roof. Power there is and a saturnine hatred of his wretched sitters. Toulouse-Lautrec had not the impersonal vision of Zola nor the repressed and disenchanting irony of Degas. He loathed the crew of repulsive night birds that he pencilled and painted in old Montmartre before the foreign invasion destroyed its native and spontaneous wickedness. Now a resort for easily bamboozled English and Americans, the earlier Montmartre was a rich mine for painter-explorers. Raffaelli went there and so did Renoir; but the former was impartially impressionistic; the latter, ever ravished by a stray shaft of sunshine flecking the faces of the dancers, set it all down in charming tints. Not so Toulouse-Lautrec. Combined with a chronic pessimism, he exhibited a divination of character that, if he had lived and worked hard, might have placed him not far below Degas. He is savant. He has a line that proclaims the master. And unlike Aubrey Beardsley, his affinity to the Japanese never seduced him into the exercise of the decorative abnormal which sometimes distinguished the efforts of the Englishman. We see the Moulin Rouge with its hosts of deadly parasites, La Goulue and her vile retainers. The brutality here is one of contempt, as a blow struck full in the face. Vice has never before been so harshly arraigned. This art makes of Hogarth a pleasing preacher, so drastic is it, so deliberately searching in its insults. And never the faintest exaggeration or burlesque. These brigands and cut-throats, pimps and pickpurses are set before us without bravado, without the genteel glaze of the timid painter, without an attempt to call a prostitute a _cocotte_. Indeed, persons are called by their true names in these hasty sketches of Lautrec's, and so clearly sounded are the names that sometimes you are compelled to close your ears and eyes. His models, with their cavernous glance, their emaciated figures, and vicious expression, are a commentary on atelier life in those days and regions. Toulouse-Lautrec is like a page from Ecclesiastes. XIV. LITERATURE AND ART I - CONCERNING CRITICS The annual rotation of the earth brings to us at least once during its period the threadbare, thriceworn, stale, flat, and academic discussion of critic and artist. We believe comparisons of creator and critic are unprofitable, being for the most part a confounding of intellectual substances. The painter paints, the composer makes music, the sculptor models, and the poet sings. Like the industrious crow the critic hops after these sowers of beauty, content to peck up in the furrows the chance grains dropped by genius. This, at least, is the popular notion. Balzac, and later Disraeli, asked: "After all, what are the critics? Men who have failed in literature and art." And Mascagni, notwithstanding the laurels he wore after his first success, cried aloud in agony that a critic was _compositore mancato_. These be pleasing quotations for them whose early opus has failed to score. The trouble is that every one is a critic, your gallery-god as well as the most stately practitioner of the art severe. Balzac was an excellent critic when he saluted Stendhal's Chartreuse de Parme as a masterpiece; as was Emerson when he wrote to Walt Whitman. What the mid-century critics of the United States, what Sainte-Beuve, master critic of France, did not see, Balzac and Emerson saw and, better still, spoke out. In his light-hearted fashion Oscar Wilde asserted that the critic was also a creator--apart from his literary worth--and we confess that we know of cases where the critic has created the artist. But that a serious doubt can be entertained as to the relative value of creator and critic is hardly worth denying. Consider the painters. Time and time again you read or hear the indignant denunciation of some artist whose canvas has been ripped-up in print. If the offender happens to be a man who doesn't paint, then he is called an ignoramus; if he paints or etches, or even sketches in crayon, he is well within the Balzac definition--poor, miserable imbecile, he is only jealous of work that he could never have achieved. As for literary critics, it may be set down once and for all that they are "suspect." They write; ergo, they must be unjust. The dilemma has branching horns. Is there no midway spot, no safety ground for that weary Ishmael the professional critic to escape being gored? Naturally any expression of personal feeling on his part is set down to mental arrogance. He is permitted like the wind to move over the face of the waters, but he must remain unseen. We have always thought that the enthusiastic Dublin man in the theatre gallery was after a critic when he cried aloud at the sight of a toppling companion: "Don't waste him. Kill a fiddler with him!" It seems more in consonance with the Celtic character; besides, the Irish are music-lovers. If one could draw up the list of critical and creative men in art the scale would not tip evenly. The number of painters who have written of their art is not large, though what they have said is always pregnant. Critics outnumber them--though the battle is really a matter of quality, not quantity. There is Da Vinci. For his complete writings some of us would sacrifice miles of gawky pale and florid mediæval paintings. What we have of him is wisdom, and like true wisdom is prophetic. Then there is that immortal gossip Vasari, a very biassed critic and not too nice to his contemporaries. He need not indulge in what is called the woad argument; we sha'n't go back to the early Britons for our authorities. Let us come to Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose Discourses are invaluable--and also to be taken well salted; he was encrusted with fine old English prejudices. One of his magnificent sayings and one appreciated by the entire artistic tribe was his ejaculation: "Damn paint!" Raphael Mengs wrote. We wish that Velasquez had. What William Blake said of great artists threw much light on William Blake. Ingres uttered things, principally in a rage, about his contemporaries. Delacroix was a thinker. He literally anticipated Chevreul's discoveries in the law of simultaneous contrasts of colour. Furthermore, he wrote profoundly of his art. He appreciated Chopin before many critics and musicians--which would have been an impossible thing for Ingres, though he played the violin--and he was kind to the younger men. Need we say that Degas is a great wit, though not a writer; a wit and a critic? Rousseau, the landscapist, made notes, and Corot is often quoted. If Millet had never written another sentence but "There is no isolated truth," he would still have been a critic. Constable with his "A good thing is never done twice"; and Alfred Stevens's definition of art, "Nature seen through the prism of an emotion," forestalled Zola's pompous pronouncement in The Experimental Novel. To jump over the stile to literature, Wordsworth wrote critical prefaces, and Shelley, too; Poe was a critic; and what of Coleridge, who called painting "a middle quality between a thought and a thing--the union of that which is nature with that which is exclusively human"? There are plenty of examples on the side of the angels. Whistler! What a critic, wielding a finely chased rapier! Thomas Couture wrote and discoursed much of his art. Sick man as he was, I heard him talk of art at his country home, Villiers-le-Bel, on the Northern Railway, near Paris. This was in 1878. William M. Hunt's talks on art were fruitful. So are John Lafarge's. The discreet Gigoux of Balzac notoriety has an entertaining book to his credit; while Rodin is often coaxed into utterances about his and other men's work. There are many French, English, and American artists who write and paint with equal facility. In New York, Kenyon Cox is an instance. But the chiefest among all the painters alive and dead, one who shines and will continue to shine when his canvases are faded--and they are fading--is Eugène Fromentin, whose Maîtres d'autrefois is a classic of criticism. Since his day two critics, who are also painters, have essayed both crafts, George Clausen and D.S. MacColl. Professor Clausen is a temperate critic, MacColl a brilliant, revolutionary one. The critical temper in either man is not dogmatic. Seurat, the French Neo-Impressionist, has defended his theories; indeed, the number of talented Frenchmen who paint well and write with style as well as substance is amazing. Rossetti would no longer be a rare bird in these days of piping painters, musicians who are poets, and sculptors who are painters. The unfortunate critic occasionally writes a play or an opera (particularly in Paris), but as a rule he is content to echo that old German who desperately exclaimed: "Even if I am nothing else, I am at least a contemporary." Let us now swing around the obverse side of the medal. A good showing. You may begin with Wincklemann or Goethe--we refer entirely to critics of paint and painters--or run down the line to Diderot, Blanc, Gautier, Baudelaire, Zola, Goncourt, who introduced to Europe Japanese art; Roger Marx, Geoffroy, Huysmans, Camille Mauclair, Charles Morice, and Octave Mirbeau. Zola was not a painter, but he praised Edouard Manet. These are a few names hastily selected. In England, Ruskin too long ruled the critical roast; full of thunder-words like Isaiah, his vaticinations led a generation astray. He was a prophet, not a critic, and he was a victim to his own abhorred "pathetic fallacy." Henley was right in declaring that until R.A.M. Stevenson appeared there was no great art criticism in England or English. The "Velasquez" is a marking stone in critical literature. It is the one big book by a big temperament that may be opposed page by page to Fromentin's critical masterpiece. Shall we further adduce the names of Morelli, Sturge Moore, Roger Fry, Perkins, Cortissoz, Lionel Cust, Colvin, Ricci, Van Dyke, Mather, Berenson, Brownell, and George Moore--who said of Ruskin that his uncritical blindness regarding Whistler will constitute his passport to fame, "the lot of critics is to be remembered by what they have failed to understand." Walter Pater wrote criticism that is beautiful literature. If Ruskin missed Whistler, he is in good company, for Sainte-Beuve, the prince of critics, missed Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, and to Victor Hugo was unfair. Yet, consider the Osrics embalmed in the amber of Sainte-Beuve's style. He, like many another critic, was superior to his subject. And that is always fatal to the water-flies. George III once asked in wonderment how the apples get inside the dumplings. How can a critic criticise a creator? The man who looks on writing things about the man who does things. But he criticises and artists owe him much. Neither in "ink-horn terms" nor in an "upstart Asiatic style" need the critic voice his opinions. He must be an artist in temperament and he must have a _credo_. He need not be a painter to write of painting, for his primary appeal is to the public. He is the middle-man, the interpreter, the vulgariser. The psycho-physiological processes need not concern us. One thing is certain--a man writing in terms of literature about painting, an art in two dimensions, cannot interpret fully the meanings of the canvas, nor can he be sure that his opinion, such as it is, when it reaches the reader, will truthfully express either painter or critic. Such are the limitations of one art when it comes to deal with the ideas or material of another. Criticism is at two removes from its theme. Therefore criticism is a makeshift. Therefore, let critics be modest and allow criticism to become an amiable art. But where now is the painter critic and the professional critic? "Stands Ulster where it did?" Yes, the written and reported words of artists are precious alike to layman and critic. That they prefer painting to writing is only natural; so would the critic if he had the pictorial gift. However, as art is art and not nature, criticism is criticism and not art. It professes to interpret the artist's work, and at best it mirrors his art mingled with the personal temperament of the critic. At the worst the critic lacks temperament (artistic training is, of course, an understood requisite), and when this is the case, God help the artist! As the greater includes the lesser, the artist should permit the critic to enter, with all due reverence, his sacred domain. Without vanity the one, sympathetic the other. Then the ideal collaboration ensues. Sainte-Beuve says that "criticism by itself can do nothing. The best of it can act only in concert with public feeling ... we never find more than half the article in print--the other half was written only in the reader's mind." And Professor Walter Raleigh would further limit the "gentle art." "Criticism, after all, is not to legislate, nor to classify, but to raise the dead." The relations between the critic and his public open another vista of the everlasting discussion. Let it be a negligible one now. That painters can get along without professional criticism we know from history, but that they will themselves play the critic is doubtful. And are they any fairer to young talent than official critics? It is an inquiry fraught with significance. Great and small artists have sent forth into the world their pupils. Have they always--as befits honest critics--recognised the pupils of other men, pupils and men both at the opposite pole of their own theories? Recall what Velasquez is reported to have said to Salvator Rosa, according to Boschini and Carl Justi. Salvator had asked the incomparable Spaniard whether he did not think Raphael the best of all the painters he had seen in Italy. Velasquez answered: "Raphael, to be plain with you, for I like to be candid and outspoken, does not please me at all." This purely temperamental judgment does not make of Velasquez either a good or a bad critic. It is interesting as showing us that even a master cannot always render justice to another. Difference engenders hatred, as Stendhal would say. Can the record of criticism made by plastic artists show a generous Robert Schumann? Schumann discovered many composers from Chopin to Brahms and made their fortunes by his enthusiastic writing about them. In Wagner he met his Waterloo, but every critic has his limitations. There is no Schumann, let the fact be emphasised, among the painter-critics, though quite as much discrimination, ardour of discovery, and acumen may be found among the writings of the men whose names rank high in professional criticism. And this hedge, we humbly submit, is a rather stiff one to vault for the adherents of criticism written by artists only. Nevertheless, every day of his humble career must the critic pen his _apologia pro vita sua_. II - ART IN FICTION Fiction about art and artists is rare--that is, good fiction, not the stuff ground out daily by the publishing mills for the gallery-gods. It is to France that we must look for the classic novel dealing with painters and their painting, Manette Salomon, by Goncourt. Henry James has written several delightful tales, such as The Liar, The Real Thing, The Tragic Muse, in which artists appear. But it is the particular psychological problem involved rather than theories of art or personalities that steer Mr. James's cunning pen. We all remember the woman who destroyed a portrait of her husband which seemed to reveal his moral secret. John S. Sargeant has been credited with being the psychologist of the brush in this story. There is a nice, fresh young fellow in The Tragic Muse, who, weak-spined as he is, prefers at the last his painting to Julia Dallow and a political career. In The Real Thing we recognise one of those unerring strokes that prove James to be the master psychologist among English writers. Any discerning painter realises the value of a model who can take the pose that will give him the pictorial idea, the suggestiveness of the pose, not an attempt at crude naturalism. With this thesis the novelist has built up an amusing, semi-pathetic, and striking fable. There are painters scattered through English fiction--can we ever forget Thackeray! Ouida has not missed weaving her Tyrian purples into the exalted pattern of her romantic painters. And George Eliot. And Disraeli. And Bernard Shaw--there is a painting creature in Love Among the Artists. George Moore, however, has devoted more of his pages to paint and painters than any other of the latter-day writers. The reason is this: George Moore went to Paris to study art and he drifted into the Julian atelier like any other likely young fellow with hazy notions about art and a well-filled purse. But these early experiences were not lost. They cropped up in many of his stories and studies. He became the critical pioneer of the impressionistic movement and first told London about Manet, Monet, Degas. He even--in an article remarkable for critical acumen--declared that if Jimmy Whistler had been a heavier man, a man of beef, brawn, and beer, like Rubens, he would have been as great a painter as Velasquez. To the weighing scales, fellow-artists! retorted Whistler; yet the bolt did not miss the mark. Whistler's remarks about Mr. Moore, especially after the Eden lawsuit, were, so it is reported, not fit to print. In Mr. Moore's first volume of the half-forgotten trilogy, Spring Days, we see a young painter who, it may be said, thinks more of petticoats than paint. There is paint talk in Mike Fletcher, Moore's most virile book. In A Modern Lover the hero is an artist who succeeds in the fashionable world by painting pretty, artificial portraits and faded classical allegories, thereby winning the love of women, much wealth, popular applause, and the stamp of official approbation. This Lewis Seymour still lives and paints modish London in rose-colour. Moore's irony would have entered the soul of a hundred "celebrated" artists if they had had any soul to flesh it in. When he wrote this novel, one that shocked Mrs. Grundy, Moore was under the influence of Paris. However, that masterpiece of description and analysis, Mildred Lawson in Celibates--very Balzacian title, by the way--deals with hardly anything else but art. Mildred, who is an English girl without soul, heart, or talent, studies in the Julian atelier and goes to Fontainebleau during the summer. No one, naturally, will ever describe Fontainebleau better than Flaubert, in whose L'Education Sentimentale there are marvellous pictures; also a semi-burlesque painter, Pellerin, who reads all the works on æsthetics before he draws a line, and not forgetting that imperishable portrait of Jacques Arnoux, art dealer. Goncourt, too, has excelled in his impression of the forest and its painters, Millet in particular. Nevertheless, let us say in passing that you cannot find Mildred Lawson in Flaubert or Goncourt; no, not even in Balzac, whose work is the matrix of modern fiction. She is her own perverse, cruel Mooresque self, and she lives in New York as well as London. In both Daudet and Maupassant--Strong as Death is the latter's contribution to painter-psychology--there are stories clustered about the guild. Daudet has described a Salon on varnishing day with his accustomed facile, febrile skill; you feel that it comes from Goncourt and Zola. It is not within our scope to go back as far as Balzac, whose Frenhofer in The Unknown Masterpiece has been a model for the younger man. Poe, Hawthorne, Wilde, and Robert Louis Stevenson have dealt with the theme pictorial. Zola's The Masterpiece (L'Oeuvre) is one of the better written books of Zola. It was a favourite of his. The much-read and belauded fifth chapter is a faithful transcription of the first Salon of the Rejected Painters (Salon des Refusés) at Paris, 1863. Napoleon III, after pressure had been brought to bear upon him, consented to a special salon within the official Salon, at the Palais de l'Industrie, which would harbour the work of the young lunatics who wished to paint purple turkeys, green water, red grass, and black sunsets. (Lie down, ivory hallucinations, and don't wag your carmilion tail on the chrome-yellow carpet!) It is an enormously clever book, this, deriving in the main as it does from Manette Salomon and Balzac's Frenhofer. The fight for artistic veracity by Claude Lantier is a replica of what occurred in Manet's lifetime. The Breakfast on the Grass, described by Zola, was actually the title and the subject of a Manet picture that scandalised Paris about this epoch. The fantastic idea of a nude female stretched on the grass, while the other figures were clothed and in their right minds, was too much for public and critic, and unquestionably Manet did paint the affair to create notoriety. Like Richard Wagner, he knew the value of advertising. All the then novel theories of _plein air_ impressionism are discussed in the Zola novel, yet the work seems clumsy after Goncourt's Manette Salomon, that breviary for painters which so far back as 1867 anticipated--in print, of course--the discoveries, the experiments, the practice of the naturalistic-impressionistic groups from Courbet to Cézanne, Monet to Maufra, Manet to Paul Gauguin. There are verbal pictures of student life, of salons, of atelier and open air. No such psychologic manual of the painter's art has ever appeared before or since Manette Salomon. It was the Goncourts who introduced Japanese art to European literature--they were friends of the late M. Bing, a pioneer collector in Paris. And they foresaw the future of painting as well as of fiction. XV. MUSEUM PROMENADES PICTURES AT THE HAGUE There are two new Rembrandts in the galleries of the Mauritshuis, lent by Prof. A. Bredius, director of the Royal Picture Gallery at The Hague. Neither is an "important" picture in the professional sense of that word, but they are Rembrandts--at least one is indubitable--and that suffices. The more credible of the pair is a small canvas depicting Andromeda manacled to the rocks. Her figure is draped to the waist; it is a solid Dutch figure, ugly as the one of Potiphar's wife (in an etching by Rembrandt), and no deliverer is in sight. The flesh tones are rather cold, a cadaverous white, but it is a Rembrandt white. The picture as a whole is sketchy and without charm or mystery. Nevertheless, the lion's paws are there. The other shows us a woman reading at a table. The colouring is warm and the still-life accessories are richly and minutely painted. Not a likely Rembrandt, either in theme or notably so in treatment. We must bow, however, to the judgment of the learned Bredius who made the ascription. These two works are not as yet in the catalogue. It is a pity the catalogue to this gallery is not as complete as those of the Rijks Museum. To visitors they offer an abridged one, dated 1904. There are since then many new pictures, notably a sterling Chardin, marvellously painted, and an excellent landscape by Van Cuyp, both loans of Dr. Bredius. Otherwise this little collection is as choice and as entertaining as ever. The usual tourist makes at once for the overrated Young Bull by Paul Potter and never looks at the magnificent Weenix across the room, the Dead Swan, with its velvety tones. The head of a young girl by Vermeer, with its blue turban and buff coat, its pearl earrings, is charming. And the View of Delft seems as fresh as the day it was painted. The long façade of the houses and warehouses and the churches and towers facing the river are rendered with a vivacity of colour, a solidity in drawing, and an absence of too marked literalism which prove that this gifted artist had more than one style. The envelope is rich; there is air, though it be stagnant. Down-stairs is an allegorical subject, The New Testament, which is not very convincing as a composition, but warm in tint. The Diana and Her Companions must have inspired Diaz and many other painters. But the real Vermeer, the Vermeer of the enamelled surfaces and soft pervasive lighting, is at Amsterdam. No place is better than The Hague for the study of the earlier Rembrandt. Dr. Tulp's Anatomical Lecture is, after the Potter bull, the most gazed-at canvas in the Mauritshuis. It is not in a good condition. There are evidences of over-varnishing and cobbling; nor is it a very inspiring canvas. The head of Dr. Tulp is superb in characterisation, and there is one other head, that of a man with inquiring eyes, aquiline profile, the head strained forward (his name is given in the critical works on Rembrandt), which arrests the attention. An early composition, we are far from the perfection of The Syndics. The self-portrait of the painter (1629) is a favourite, though the much-vaunted feather in the head-gear is stiff; perhaps feathers in Holland were stiff in those days. But the painters flock to this portrait and never tire of copying its noble silhouette. The two little studies of the painter's father and mother are characteristic. One, of the man, is lent by Dr. Bredius. Rembrandt's brother (study of an old man's head) shows a large old chap with a nose of richest vintage. The portrait is brown in tone and without charm. The Susanna Bathing is famous, but it is not as attractive as Simeon in the Temple, with its masterly lighting, old gold in the gloom. The Homer never fails to warm the cockles of the imagination. What bulk! What a wealth of smothered fire in the apparel! The big Saul listening to the playing of David is still mystifying. Is Saul smiling or crying behind the uplifted cloak? Is he contemplating in his neurasthenia an attempt on David's life with a whizzing lance? His sunken cheeks, vague yet sinister eye, his turban marvellous in its iridescence, form an ensemble not to be forgotten. David is not so striking. From afar the large canvas glows. And the chiaroscuro is miraculous. The portrait of Rembrandt's sister, the Flight Into Egypt, the small, laughing man, the negroes, and the study of an old woman, the latter wearing a white head-dress, are a mine of joy for the student. The sister's head is lent by Dr. C. Hofstede de Groot, the art expert. There are only thirty-odd Rembrandts in Holland out of the five hundred and fifty he painted. Of this number eighteen are in the Mauritshuis. Holland was not very solicitous formerly of her masters. Nowadays sentiment has changed and there is a gratifying outcry whenever a stranger secures a genuine old master. As for the copies, they, like the poor, are always with us. America is flooded every year with forged pictures, especially of the minor Dutch masters, and excellent are these imitations, it must be confessed. There are only four specimens of Frans Hals here; portraits of Jacob Pieterez, Aletta Hanemans, his wife; of William Croes, and the head of a man, a small picture in The Jolly Toper style. The lace collar is genuine Hals. Let us close our catalogue and wander about the galleries. German and English are the tongues one hears, Dutch seldom, French occasionally. The Potter bull with the wooden legs is stared at by hundreds. As a picture painted by a very young man it is noteworthy. The head of the beast is nobly depicted. But what of the remainder of this insignificant composition with its toad and cows, its meaningless landscape? The Weenix swan is richer in paint texture. The Holbeins are--two anyhow--of splendid quality. Of the Rubenses it is better to defer mention until Antwerp is reached. They are of unequal value. The same may be said of the Van Dycks. Look at that baby girl standing by a chair. A Govert Flinck. How truthful! The De Heems are excellent fruit and flower pieces. Excellent, too, the Huysums, Hondecoeters, and Weenixes. There is a dead baby of the Dutch school (1661) which is as realistic as a Courbet. We admired the small Memlic, or Memling, and, naturally, the Metsus, Mierevelts, and Mierises. The Holy Virgin and Infant Christ, by Murillo, is tender and sleek in colour. It hangs near the solitary Velasquez of the museum, a portrait of Charles-Baltasar, son of King Philip IV of Spain. It is not a remarkable Velasquez. The Pieter Lastman, a Resurrection of Lazarus, is of interest because this painter was a preceptor of Rembrandt. William Kalf's still-life is admirable, and the Aert Van den Neer moonlight scene (purchased 1903) is a lovely example of this artist. Indeed, all the minor Dutchmen are well represented. Potter's much-praised Cow in the Water is faded, and the style is of the sort we smile over at our own Academy exhibitions. The Van Goyen waterscapes are not all of prime quality, but there are two that are masterpieces. Amsterdam excels in both Van Goyens and Jacob Ruisdaels. The Distant View of Haarlem of the latter proved a disappointment. The colour is vanished quite, the general effect flat. The Bol portrait of Admiral de Ruyter is a sterling specimen. The Van de Veldes and Wouvermans are excellent. The Good Housekeeper of Dou, a much-prized picture, with its tricky light and dark. The Teniers and Ostades no longer interest us as they did. Perhaps one tires soon of genre pictures. The inevitable toper, the perambulating musician, the old woman standing in a doorway, the gossips, the children, and the dog not house-broken may stand for the eternal Ostade, while the merry-makings of David Teniers are too much alike. However, this touch of spleen is the outcome of seeing so many bituminous canvases. Probably in no other painter's name have so many sins been committed as in Rembrandt's. His _chiaroscuro_ is to blame for thousands of pictures executed in the tone of tobacco juice. All the muddy browns of the studio, with the yellow smear that passes for Rembrandtish light, are but the monkey tricks of lesser men. His pupils often made a mess of it, and they were renowned. Terburg's Despatch is an interesting anecdote; so too Metsu's Amateur Musicians. There are the average number of Dutch Italianate painters, Jan Both and the rest, men who employed southern backgrounds and improvised bastard Italian figures. Schalcken's candlelight scenes are not missing, though Dou leads in this rather artificial genre. And every tourist led by a guide hears that Wouvermans always introduced a white horse somewhere in his picture. You leave Holland obsessed by that white animal. Naturally the above notes hardly scratch the surface of the artistic attractions in this Hague gallery. Not the least of them is to look out on the Vyver lake and watch the swans placidly swimming around the emerald islet in the middle. The Mauritshuis is a cabinet of gems, and months could not stale its variety. There are important omissions, and some of the names in the catalogue are not represented at top-notch. But the Rembrandts are there, and there are the Potters, the Rubenses, the Van Dycks, the Jan Steens--his Oyster Feast is here--the landscape and marine painters, not to mention the portraiture, the Murillo, Palma Vecchio, and the Titian. The single Roger van der Weyden, an attribution, is a Crucifixion, and hangs near the Memlig. It is an interesting picture. Of the sculpture there is not much to write. Houdon, Hendrick de Keyser, Verhulst, Falconet, Blommendael, and Xavery make up a meagre list. At Baron Steengracht's house--admission by personal card--on the Vyverberg there is a wonderful Rembrandt, Bathsheba After Her Bath, a golden-toned canvas, not unlike the Susanna over at the Mauritshuis. It was painted in 1643, about a year after he had finished The Night Watch, a jewel of a Rembrandt and the clou of this collection. There are some weak modern pictures and examples by Terburg, Metsu, Flinck, Jordaens, Cuyp, Potter, Brouwer--the smoker, a fine work; a Hobbema mill and others. In the Municipal Museum, full of curiosities in furniture, armour, and costumes, there is a gallery of modern paintings--Israel, David Bles, Mesdag, Neuhuys, Bisschop, J. Maris, Weissenbruch, Bosboom, Blommers, and Mauve. There are also Mierevelts, Jan Ravensteyns, Honthorst, Van Goyen, Van Ceulen, and a lot of shooting-gallery (Doelen) and guild panoramas; there are miles of them in Holland, and unless painted by Hals, Van der Heist, Elias, and a few others are shining things of horror, full of staring eyes, and a jumble of hands, weapons, and dry colours. But they are viewed with religious awe by the Dutch, whose master passion is patriotic sentiment. There is the Huis ten Bosch (The House in the Wood), the royal villa, a little over a mile from The Hague, in which De Wit's grisailles may be seen. The Japanese and orange rooms are charming; the portraits by Everdingen, Honthorst, Jordaens, and others are of historic interest. THE MESDAG MUSEUM When we were last at The Hague the Mesdag Museum had just opened (1903). There was no catalogue, and while the nature of this great gift to the city was felt it was not until a second visit (in 1909) that its extraordinary value was realised. The catalogue numbers three hundred and forty-four pictures by modern artists, and there is also a valuable collection of objects of art, bronzes, pottery, furniture, and tapestries. Philip Zilcken (a well-known Dutch etcher) in his introduction calls attention to the rare quality of the Mesdag Museum and tells us that Mr. and Mrs. Mesdag van Houten bought for their own pleasure without any thought of forming a gallery for the Dutch nation. That came later. W.H. Mesdag is the well-known marine painter whose paintings may be seen in almost every gallery on the Continent. A native of Groningen (1831), he studied under Roelofs and while in Brussels lived with his relative, Alma-Tadema; the latter is a Frieslander. Mesdag excels in marines, painting great sweep of waters with breadth and simplicity. His palette is cool and restrained, his rhythmic sense well developed, and his feeling for outdoors truly Dutch. He belongs to the line of the classic Dutch marinists, to Van der Velde, Backhuizen, and Van Goyen. His wife, a woman of charm and culture, died in the spring of last year. She signed her work S. Mesdag van Houten. Her gift lies in the delineation of forest views, interiors, portraits, and still-life. Her colour is deep and rich. A cursory walk around the various rooms on the Laan van Meerdervoort impresses one with this idea: with what envy must any curator of any museum in the world study this collection. Mesdag began gathering his treasures at a time when the Barbizon school was hardly known; when a hundred other painters had not been tempted by the dealers into overproduction; when, in a word, fancy prices were not dreamed of. The Alma-Tademas are among his best, little as we admire his vital marbles and lifeless humans. An early portrait of his wife is here. Bastien-Lepage has a preparatory sketch for Les Foins. Indeed, the Mesdag Museum is rich in _frottis_, painted-in pictures, by such men as Rousseau, Daubigny, Diaz, Vollon, Millet, Dupré. As we admire the etchings of Mari Bauer, it was a new pleasure to see half a dozen of his paintings, chiefly scenes in the Orient. The same misty, fantastic quality is present; he manipulates his colour, thinly laid on, as if it were some sort of plastic smoke. Impressionistic as are these canvases, there is a subdued splendor in them all. Bauer feels the East. His etchings recall Rembrandt's line; but his paintings are miles away in sentiment and handling. Bisschop (1828-1904) is represented by a fine still-life, and among the various Blommers is one with children playing in the water and on the sands; vividly seized, this example. The late Théophile de Bock was an interpreter of nature and his brush-work was fat and rich. His work is well known in America and gains in value every day (he died in 1904). There are fourteen specimens here of his best period. The Emile Bretons are early and therefore different from his commercial productions. Of the Corots, twelve in number, we did not see an insignificant one, not a weak one. The famous Early Morning and View at Villeneuve-lès-Avignon are hung. The first depicts a group of trees; to the right a narrow stream in which is reflected a cloudless sky. In the centre two women in white caps. The second is more elaborate in composition. The middle distance is occupied by picturesque buildings dating probably from the Middle Ages. In the foreground four persons are under the shadow of some trees. An unusual scheme for Corot. His well-known characteristics are present in the dozen; the tremulous leafage, the bright, pure light, the Italian softness. And what do you say to a half-dozen Courbets, all of his strong period, landscapes, still-life, a nude study, a dead roe, a sunlit path, and a lake scene! Good Courbets are not numerous, and these are good. The nude is a woman recumbent upon draperies. The _pâte_ is heavy but vital, the flesh tones glowing, and the silhouette firm, yet delicate. The portrait of the artist by himself is massive. It was probably painted in Ste. Pélagie. Coutures two, twenty-five Daubignys, and one of his son Karl. Daubigny the elder is here in all his manners, dark pictures with big foregrounds, intimate bits of wooded interiors, sand-hills, streamlets, moonlights, coast scenes, evening effects, sunsets at sea, twilights, sheep, broken rocks, and a study in crayon. Decamps and Delacroix come next in order. There are three of the former, among the rest his Poacher, and three of Delacroix, one a portrait of himself. Seven of Diaz, painted when his colour was most sonorous and brilliant, are here, with a study of an undraped female figure. La Mare is a sunlight effect in the forest of Fontainebnleau. Dupré has seven to his account, several of great tonal beauty. The one Fortuny is an elaborate etching of his Anchorite. The Josef Israels are strong. Jacque pigs and sheep; Klinkenberg's view of the Binnenhof; Mancini's bewildering chromatic blurs and sensuously rich gamut, and seventeen in number. This painter is seldom encountered in America. He should be better known; while his ideas are not particularly significant he is colourist for colour's sake, as was Monticelli. The three brothers Maris, Jakob, Willem, and Matthys (the latter living in London), are to be seen here in unexampled states. Mauve, too, with fourteen pictures. Both the Mesdags, Taco Mesdag, a brother and his wife are present. Also Ter Meulen, a gifted Dutch artist. We have seldom seen better George Michels. The Monticelli up-stairs is an unusual subject. It is a mountain path in the south of France. The sun is disappearing behind a cluster of trees. Rocks in the foreground. The scheme of colour is low for Monticelli, the forms sharply accented. He could see line when he wished. The smaller example is an interior, as rich as Monticelli knew how to lay the colours on. Seven Millets, one the large exhibition picture Hagar and Ishmael, another the wonderful Resting Vintager. Alone these Millets would cause a sensation if exhibited elsewhere. The Hagar seems a trifle too rhetorical for the simple-minded painter. Brown predominates in the colour scale, the composition is rather conventional, an echo, perhaps, of the artist's Delaroche apprenticeship, but the Vintager is a masterpiece. Seated among the vines in the blaze of the sun, he is resting and has removed his heavy sabots. The relaxed attitude after arduous labour is wonderfully expressed. The atmosphere indicates stifling sultriness. Ricard, Roelofs, Theodore Rousseau--halt! There are twelve of this French master, dramatic and rich. Descente des Vaches dans le Jura is the celebrated canvas refused at the Salon, 1834. But it is too bituminous in parts. A greater composition, though only a drawing, is Les grands chênes du vieux Bas-Bréau. Four large trees illumined by sun-rays. Two Segantinis, a drawing in chalk and pastel; Storm Van's Gravesande; seven Troyons, one, Le retour du Marché, a masterpiece; Vollon, still-life, fish, ivory goblets, violets; Weissenbruchs; Zilcken etchings and two De Zwarts. There is old Rozenburg pottery, designed by Colenbrander, scarce to-day; Dutch and Gothic brass, Oriental portières and brass, old Delft, Japanese armour, various weapons and lanterns, Gobelin tapestry, carved furniture, Dutch and Scandinavian, and a magnificent assortment of Satsuma pottery, Cmail cloisonné, Japanese bronzes, Persian pottery, Spanish brasses, majolica and bronzes and sculptures by Mattos, Constantin, Meunier, and Van Wijk--the list fills a pamphlet. Next door is the studio of the aged Mesdag, a hale old Dutchman who paints daily and looks forward to seeing his ninety years. In Holland octogenarians are not few. The climate is propitious; above all, the absence of hurry and worry. To see The Hague without visiting this collection would be a regrettable omission. HALS OF HAARLEM In writing of Holland more is said of its windmills than its flowers. It is a land of flowers. Consider the roll-call of its painters who their life long produced naught but fruit and flower pieces. Both the De Heems, the cunning Huysums, whose work still lives in the mezzotints of Earlom--like David de Heem, he was fond of introducing insects, flies, bees, spiders, crawling over his velvety peaches and roses--Seghers, Van Aelst and his talented pupil Rachel Ruysch, Cuyp, Breughel (Abraham), Mignon, Van Beyeren, Van den Broeck, Margaretha Rosenboom, Maria Vos, Weenix, A. Van der Velde, Kalf, and many others who excelled in this pleasing genre. Their canvases are faded, the colours oxidised, but on the highways and by-ways the miracle is daily renewed--flowers bloom at every corner, fill the window-boxes of residences, crowd the hotel balconies, and are bunched in the hands of the peddlers. A cart goes by, a gorgeous symphony of hues. Roses, chrysanthemums, dahlias, daisies, tufts of unfamiliar species, leaves that are as transparent lace, blushing wild roses, and what not. Ivy is used for practical purposes. On the steam-yacht _Carsjens_ at Leyden a wind screen is composed of ivy; you feel enclosed in a floating garden. Along the Vivjer berg, fronting the house of Baron Steengracht, is a huge boat-shaped enclosure of stone. It is full of ivy growing low. Dutch landscape gardeners are fertile in invention. They break the flat lines of the landscape with all sorts of ingenious surprises; bosky barriers, hedges abloom, elm-trees pared away to imitate the processional poplars of Belgium and France, sudden little leafy lanes--what quips and quirks we have come across a few miles away from the town! To see Haarlem and its environs in June when the bulb farms are alight with tulips must be a delightful spectacle. In the fall of the year you are perforce content to read the names of the various farms as the train passes. The many-coloured vegetable carts remind you that Snyders and Van Steen painted here. The Groote Kerke, St. Bavo, at Haarlem, is a noble pile with a tall tower. One of its attractions is the organ (built in 1735-38) by Christian Müller; it was until a few years ago the largest in the world. Its three manuals, time-stained, sixty stops and five thousand pipes (thirty-two feet the longest) when manipulated by a skilful organist produce adequate musical results. We had the pleasure of hearing the town organist play Bach for an hour. He began with a few Bach chorales, then came A Mighty Fortress is Our God; followed by the A minor prelude and fugue, and the Wedge fugue. The general diapasonic quality is noble, the wood stops soft, the mixtures without brassy squealing, and the full organ sends a thrill down your spine, so mellow is its thunder. Modern organs do not thus sound. Is the secret of the organ tone lost like the varnishing of Cremona fiddles and the blue of the old Delft china? There are no fancy "barnyard stops," as John Runciman has named the combinations often to be found in latter-day instruments. You understood after hearing the Haarlem organ why Bach wrote his organ preludes and fugues. Modern music, with its orchestral registration, its swiftness and staccato, would be a sacrilege on this key-board. The bronze statue of Coster did not unduly excite us. The Dutch claim him as the inventor of printing, but the Germans hang on to Gutenberg. At Leyden there is a steam train to Katwyk-aan-See; at Haarlem you may ride out to Zandvoort, and six miles farther is the North Sea Canal. But as the Katwyk and Zandvoort schools flourish mightily in the United States we did not feel curious enough to make the effort at either town. Regrettable as was the burning of the old church at Katwyk, perhaps its disappearance will keep it out of numerous pictures painted in that picturesque region. Of course it will be, or has been, rebuilt. We walked in the forest of Haarlem and did not once think of 125th Street; the old town is slightly unlike its modern namesake. What a charm there is in this venerable forest. The Dutch of Amsterdam, less than half an hour away, come down here on Sunday afternoons for the tranquillity and the shade. You must know that the sun-rays can be very disturbing in July. The canals intersecting the town are pretty. They may be sinks of iniquity, but they don't look so. Naturally, they exhale mephitic odours, though the people won't acknowledge it. It is the case in Venice, which on hot August afternoons is not at all romantic in a nasal sense. But you forget it all in Haarlem as you watch a hay barge float by, steered by a blond youngster of ten and poled by his brothers. From the chimney comes a light smoke. Soup is cooking. You remember the old sunlit towpath of your boyhood; a tightening at your heart warns you of homesickness, or hay fever. Oh, to be on the Erie Canal, you exclaim, as you sneeze. But the Town Hall Museum is hard by. It is the glory of Haarlem as the Rijks Museum is the glory of Amsterdam and Holland. A pull at the bell and the door is opened, a small fee is paid, and you are free to the room where are hung ten large paintings by the inimitable Frans Hals. Here are the world-renowned Regent pictures set forth in chronological order. Drop the catalogue and use your own eyes. The first impression is profound; not that Hals was profound in the sense of Rembrandt's profundity, but because of the almost terrifying vitality of these portraits. Prosaic men and women, great trenchermen, devourers of huge pasties, mowers down of wine-bottles and beer-tankards, they live with such vitality on the canvases of Hals that you instinctively lower your voice. The paint-imprisoned ghosts of these jolly officers, sharpshooters, regents, and shrewd-looking old women regents are not so disquieting as Rembrandt's misty evocations. They touch hands with you across the centuries, and finally you wonder why they don't step out the frame and greet you. Withal, no trace of literalism, of obvious contours or tricky effects. Honest, solid paint, but handled by the greatest master of the brush that ever lived--save Velasquez. How thin and unsubstantial modern painting is if compared to this magician, how even his greatest followers, Manet and Sargent, seem incomplete. Manet, with his abridgments, his suppressions, his elliptical handling, never had the smiling confidence of Hals in facing a problem. The Frenchman is more subtle, also more evasive; and there is no hint in him of the trite statement of a fact that we encounter in Bartholomew Van der Heist--himself a great painter. Hals had not the poetic vision of Rembrandt, but he possessed a more dexterous hand, a keener eye. Judged according to the rubric of sheer paint, sheer brush-work, not Rubens, not Van Dyck, was such a virtuoso. Despite his almost incredible swiftness of execution, Hals got closer to the surfaces of what is called "actual" life than any of the masters with the exception of the supreme Spaniard. At Haarlem you may follow his development; his first big picture painted in 1616; his last in 1664. He died at eighty-four. But at eighty odd he painted two important canvases, the portraits of the regents and of the lady regents. More summary as regards the execution, with a manifest tendency toward simplifications, these two pictures are very noble. The group of ladies, each a portrait of character, pleases some more than the male group. They are not so firmly modelled, and into them all has crept a certain weariness as of old age; but what justness of expression, what adjustment of puzzling relations! One lady follows you over the gallery with her stern gaze. It recalls to us the last judgment look which a maiden aunt was wont to bestow upon us years ago. The men regents will live into eternity if the canvas endures. The shiny varnish is not pleasing, yet it cannot destroy the illusion of atmosphere that circulates about the vigorously modelled figures at the table. What a colourist! What nuances he produces on a restrained key-board! The tones modulate, their juxtaposition causes no harsh discords. The velvet black, silvery grays, whites that are mellow without pastiness, and the reds and yellows do not flare out like scarlet trumpets; an aristrocratic palette. Really you begin to realise that what you formerly considered grandfather tales are the truth. The great painters have been and are not with us to-day. It is not a consoling pill to swallow for apostles of "modernity." Hals is more modern than Sargent. These corporation and regent pieces are chronologically arranged. No. 88 is considered the masterpiece. It shows the officers of the Arquebusiers of St. Andrew, fourteen life-sized figures. Again each man is a portrait. This was painted in 1633. The Regents of the Elizabeth Hospital (1641) has been likened to Rembrandt's style; nevertheless, it is very Halsian. Why, that chamber is alone worth the journey across the Atlantic. Hals shows us not the magic of life but the normal life of daylight in which move with dignity men and women undismayed by the mysteries that hem them about. He has a daylight soul, a sane if not poetic soul, and few painters before him so celebrated the bravery of appearances, the beauty of the real. PICTURES IN AMSTERDAM I The wonderful Rijks Museum is the representative home of old Dutch art. The Louvre, the Prado, the National Gallery excel it in variety, but the great Rembrandts are in it, and The Syndics and The Night Watch are worth a wilderness of other painters' work. The Night Watch has been removed from the old room, where it used to hang, facing the large Van der Heist, Captain Roelof Bicker's Company. But it is only in temporary quarters; the gallery destined for it is being completed. We were permitted to peep into it. The Night Watch will hang in one gallery, and facing it will be The Syndics, De Stallmeesters. Better lighted than in its old quarters, The Night Watch now shows more clearly the tooth of time. It is muddy and dark in the background, and the cracks of the canvas are ill-concealed by the heavy coating of varnish. If all the faults of this magnificent work are more plainly revealed its excellences are magnified. How there could have been any dispute as to the lighting is incredible. The new catalogue, the appendices of which are brought down to 1908, frankly describes the picture thus: "The Night Watch, or the Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and of Lieutenant van Ruytenburg. The corps is represented in broad daylight, leaving the Doele of the Arquebusiers. At their head, standing in the foreground about the centre, are the Captain and his Lieutenant conversing. The former wears a dark dress, the latter a yellow costume with a white sash, causing a brilliant effect of light. Near the Captain, also standing out in full light, is a little girl, a dead white cock hanging from her waistband." Then follow the names of the other personages in this strange scene. A commonplace happening is transfigured by the magic of a seer into a significant moment arrested in eternity. Rembrandt is a window looking out upon eternity. It was quite like the logical minded Frenchman, Eugène Fromentin, himself an admirable painter, to pick this canvas full of flaws. The composition is, true enough, troubled and confused. The draughtsmanship leaves much to be desired; hands are carelessly painted, the grouping haphazard, without symmetry, the general rhythm full of syncopations, cross accents, and perverse pauses--empty spaces, transitions not accounted for. And yet this painting without personal charm--it is almost impersonal--grips your soul. It is not alone the emotional quality of the paint. There are greater colourists than Rembrandt, who, strictly speaking, worked in monochrome, modelling with light. No, not the paint alone, not the mystery of the envelope, not the magnetic gaze of the many eyes, but all combined makes an assault upon nerves and imagination. You feel that Captain Cocq is a prosaic personage and is much too tall in proportion to the spry little dandy Lieutenant at his side. Invested with some strange attribute by the genius of the painter, this Dutchman becomes the protagonist in a soundless symphony of light and shadow. The waves that emanate from the canvas suffuse your senses but do not soothe or satisfy. The modern nervous intensity, missing absolutely in Hals and his substantial humans, is present in Rembrandt. We say "modern" as a sop to our vanity, but we are the "ancients," and there is no mode of thought, no mood that has not been experienced and expressed by our ancestors. Rembrandt is unlike any other Dutch painter--Hals, Vermeer, Teniers, Van der Heist--what have these in common with the miller's son? But he is as Dutch as any of them. A genius is only attached to his age through his faults, said a wise man. Rembrandt is as universal as Beethoven, a Dutchman by descent, as Bach, a Hungarian by descent, as Michael Angelo and Shakespeare. But we must go to Leonardo da Vinci if we wish to find a brother soul to Rembrandt's. There is a second child back of that iridescent and enigmatic girl with the dead fowl. And the dog that barks as Jan Van Koort ruffles his drum, what a spectre dog! No, the mystery of The Night Watch is insoluble, because it is the dream of a poet. Its light is morning light, yet it is the mystic light of Rembrandt, never seen on sea or land. In The Syndics, that group of six linen-drapers, Rembrandt shows with what supreme ease he can beat Hals at the game of make-believe actuality. Now, according to the accustomed order of development, The Night Watch should have followed The Syndics. But it preceded it by two decades, and the later work contains far better painting and a sharper presentment of the real. The Night Watch is Rembrandt's Ninth symphony; but composed before his Fifth, The Syndics. One figure in this latter picture has always fascinated us. It is of the man, Volkert Janz, according to Professor J. Six, who stoops over, his hand poised on a book. Rembrandt has seldom painted with more sensitiveness eyes, subtle corners of the mouth, and intimate expression. This syndic is evidently superior to his fellows, solid, sensible Dutch men of affairs. There is a landscape, purchased in 1900, a stone bridge, lighted by rays darting through heavy storm clouds. It is the Rembrandt of the etchings. Lovely is the portrait of a young lady of rank, though the Elizabeth Bas, in another gallery, will always be the masterpiece in portraiture if for nothing else but the hands. The Jewish Bride is bulky in its enchantments, the phosphorescent gleams of the apparel the chief attraction. The Toilet is heavy Rembrandt; while the anatomical lecture is repulsive. But the disembowelled corpse is more corpse-like than the queerly foreshortened dead body in the picture on anatomy at The Hague. The warrior's head, supposed to be a portrait of his father, is an ancient copy and a capital one. Old dame Elizabeth Bas, with her coif, ruff, and folded hands, holding a handkerchief, is a picture you return to each day of your stay. Hals at Amsterdam is interesting. There is the so-called portrait of the painter and his wife, two full-length figures; the Jolly Toper, half-length figure, large black hat, in the left hand a glass; and the insolent lute-player, a copy, said to be by Dirck Hals, the original in the possession of Baron Gustave Rothschild at Paris. And a fine copy it is. The three Vermeers are of his later enamelled period. One is a young woman reading a letter; she is seen in profile, standing near a table, and is dressed in a white skirt and blue loose jacket. The Letter shows us in the centre of a paved room a seated lady, lute in hand. She has been interrupted in her playing by a servant bringing a letter. To the right a tapestry curtain has been looped up to give a view of the scene. The new Vermeer--purchased from the Six gallery in 1908--is now called The Cook; it was formerly known as The Milkmaid. A stoutly built servant is standing behind a table covered with a green cloth, on which are displayed a basket of bread, a jug of Nassau earthenware, and a stone pot into which she is pouring milk from a can. The figure, painted almost full length, stands out against the white wall and is dressed in a lemon-coloured jacket, a red-brown petticoat, a dark-blue apron turned back, and a white cap on the head. The light falls on the scene through a window to the left, above the table. This masterpiece is in one of the cabinet galleries. It displays more breadth than the Lady Reading a Letter, and its colouring is absolutely magical. The De Hoochs are of prime quality. Greater art is the windmill and moonlit scene of Hobbema, as great a favourite as his Mill, though both must give the precedence to the Alley of Middleharnais in the Royal Academy, London. But where to begin, where to end in this high carnival of over three thousand pictures! The ticketed favourites, starred Baedeker fashion, sometimes lag behind their reputation. The great Van der Helst--and a prime portraitist he is, as may be seen over and over again--is The Company of Captain Bicker, a vast canvas. When you forget Hals and Rembrandt it is not difficult to conjure up admiration for this work. The N. Maes Spinner is very characteristic. Cuyp and Van Goyen are here; the latter's view of Dordrecht is celebrated. So is the Floating Feather of Hondecoester, a finely depicted pelican. The feather is the least part of the picture. Asselijn's angry swan is an excellent companion piece. We wish that we could describe the Jan Steens, the Dous, the Mierises, and other sterling Dutch painters. There is the gallery of Dutch and Flemish primitives about which a volume might be written; their emaciated music appeals. In expressiveness the later men did not excel them. The newest acquisition, not mentioned in the catalogue supplements, is the work of an unknown seventeenth-century master, possibly Spanish, though the figures, background, and accessories are Dutch. Two old men, their heads bowed, sit at table. Across their knees are napkins. The white is from a Spanish palette. A youth attired in dark habiliments, his back turned to the spectators, is pouring out wine or water. The canvas is large, the execution flowing; perhaps it portrays the disciples at Emmaus. The portraits of Nicholas Hasselaer and his wife Geertruyt van Erp, by Hals, in one of the cabinets, are painted with such consummate artistry that you gasp. The thin paint, every stroke of which sings out, sets you to thinking of John Sargent and how he has caught the trick of brush-work--at a slower tempo. But not even Sargent could have produced the collar and cuffs. A Whistler, a full-length, in another gallery, looks like an unsubstantial wraith by comparison. Two weeks' daily attendance at this excellently planned collection did no more than fix the position of the exhibits in the mind. There is a goodly gathering of such names as Israels, Mesdag, Blommers, and others at the Rijks, but the display of modern Dutch pictures at the Municipal Museum is more representative. The greatest Josef Israels we ever saw in the style is his Jew sitting in the doorway of a house, a most eloquent testimony to Israels' powers of seizing the "race" and the individual. Old David Bles is here, and Blommers, De Bock, Bosboom, Valkenburg, Alma-Tadema, Ary Scheffer--of Dutch descent--Roelofs, Mesdag, Mauve, Jakob Maris, Jongkind, and some of the Frenchmen, Rousseau, Millet, Dupré, and others. The Six gallery is not so accessible as it was some years ago. No doubt its Rembrandts and Vermeers will eventually find their way into the Rijks Museum. II Who was Herri met de Bles? Nearly all the large European galleries contain specimens of his work and in the majority of cases the pictures are queried. That fatal (?) which, since curators are more erudite and conscientious, is appearing more frequently than in former years, sets one to musing over the mutability of pictorial fortunes. Also, it awakens suspicions as to the genuineness of paint. Restorations, another fatal word, is usually a euphemism for overpainting. Between varnish and retouching it is difficult to tell where the old master leaves off and the "restorer" begins. Bles, for example, as seen in the Rijks Museum, is a fascinating subject to the student; but are we really looking at his work? The solitary picture of his here, Paradise, is so well preserved that it might have been painted a year ago. (It is an attribution.) Yet this painter is supposed to have been born at Bouvignes, 1480, and to have died at Liège, 1521. He was nicknamed Herri, for Hendrick, met de Bles, because he had a tuft of white in his hair (a forerunner of Whistler). The French called him Henri à la Houppe; the Italians "Civetta"--because of the tiny owl he always introduced into his work. He was a landscapist, and produced religious and popular scenes. Bles has had many works saddled upon him by unknown imitators of Metsu, Joost van Kleef, Lucas, and Dürer--who worked at Antwerp between 1520 and 1550. Thierry Vellert was also an imitator. In the old Pinakothek, Munich, there is a Henricus Blesius, which is said to be a counterfeit, and others are in Karlsruhe, Milan, Brussels, and at the Prado. The circular picture in the Rijks shows us in various episodes Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden from the Creation until the Fall. Around the edge are signs of the zodiac. The colour is rich, the figures delicate. The story is clearly told and is not unlike a "continuous performance." You see Adam asleep and over him stoops the Almighty; then Eve is shown. The apple scandal and the angel with the flaming sword are portrayed with a vivid line that recalls the miniaturist. A rare painter. Roeland Savery is an artist whose name, we confess, was not known to us until we saw his work in the Rijks. The rich _pâte_ and bouquet-like quality of his colour recall Monticelli. His compositions are composed, like Monticelli's, but much more spirited than the latter. A stag hunt, a poet crowned at the feast of animals, Elijah fed by the ravens, and the fable of the stag among the cows prove the man's versatility. He was born about 1576 and died at Utrecht, 1639. A pupil of his father, he first worked in Courtrai. The Bronzino Judith holding the head of Holophernes is a copy, the original hanging in the Pitti Palace. At Vienna there is a replica. Among the Bols (Cornelis, 1613-66) the portraits of Roelof Meulenaer and his wife, Maria Rey, attract because of their vitality and liberalism. Then we come across the oft-engraved Paternal Advice, by Gerard ter Borch (1617-81). Who doesn't remember that young lady dressed in white satin and standing with her back to you? The man in officer's uniform, admonishing her, is seated next to a woman drinking from a wine-glass. The texture of the dress and the artfully depicted glass are the delight of amateurs. As a composition it is not remarkable. The man is much too young to be the father of the blond-haired lady, and if the other one is her mother, both parents must have retained their youth. The portrait of Helena van der Schalcke is that of a quaint Dutch child standing; a serious little body carrying a basket on her right arm like a good housewife. It is a capital Ter Borch. Two beautiful Albert Cuyps are painted on the two sides of a copper panel. On one side two merchants stand at a wharf; on the other two men sit sampling wine in a cellar. The colour is singularly luminous. Let us pass quickly the Schalckens and Gerard Dous. Dou's self-portrait is familiar. He leans out of a window and smokes a clay pipe. The candle-light pictures always attract an audience. Govert Flinck (1615-60, pupil of Rembrandt) is a painter who, if he lived to-day, would be a popular portraitist. Wherever you go you see his handiwork, not in the least inspired, but honest, skilful, and genial. Look at the head of the tax-collector Johannes Wittenbogaert, covered with a black cap. So excellent is it that it has been attributed to Rembrandt. Boland, we believe, engraved it as genuine Rembrandt. Gerard van Honthorst's Happy Musician is another picture of prime quality, and a subject dear to Hals. Hoogstratten's Sick Lady is an anecdote. The young woman does not seem very ill, but the doctor gravely holds up a bottle of medicine and you feel the dread moment is at hand. How to persuade the patient to swallow the dose? She is stubborn-looking. The Pieter de Hoochs are now in the same gallery with Rembrandt's Jewish Bride. These interiors, painted with a minute, hard finish, lack the charm and the colour quality of Vermeer. With sunlight Hooch is successful, but his figures do not move freely in an atmospheric envelope, as is the case with Vermeer's. The Small Country House is the favourite. In front of a house a well-dressed man and woman are seated at a table. She is squeezing lemon juice into a glass. Behind her a servant is carrying a glass of beer, and farther away a girl cleans pots and pans. The composition is the apotheosis of domestic comfort, conjugal peace, and gluttony. We like much more The Pantry, wherein a woman hands a jug to her little girl. The adjoining room, flooded with light, is real. There is one Van der Helst we could not pass. It looks like the portrait of a corpulent woman, but is that of Gerard Bicker, bailiff of Muiden. A half-length figure turned to the left, the bailiff a well-fed pig, holds a pair of gloves in his right hand which he presses against his Gargantuan chest. His hair is long and curly. The fabrics are finely wrought. Holbein the younger is represented by the portrait of a young man. It is excellent, but doubtless a copy or an imitation. To view five Lucas van Leydens in one gallery is not an everyday event. His engravings are rare enough--that is, in good states; "ghosts" are aplenty--and his paintings rarer. Here they are chiefly portraits. Rachel Ruysch, the flower painter, has a superior in Judith Lyster, a pupil of Frans Hals. She was born at Haarlem, or Zaandam, about 1600, and died 1660. She married the painter Jan Molener. Her Jolly Toper faces the Hals of the same theme, in a cabinet, and reveals its artistic ancestry. Judith had the gift of reproducing surfaces. We need not return to the various Maeses; indeed, this is only a haphazard ramble among the less well-known pictures. Consider the heads of Van Mierevelt; those of Henrick Hooft, burgomaster of Amsterdam, of Jacob Cats, and of his wife Aegje Hasselaer (1618-64). Her hair and lace collar are wonderfully set forth. Must we stop before Mabuse, or before the cattle piece of the Dutch school, seventeenth century? A Monticelli seems out of key here, and the subject is an unusual one for him, Christ With the Little Children. The Little Princess, by P. Moreelse, has the honour, after Rembrandt, of being the most frequently copied picture in the Rijks. The theme is the magnet. A little girl, elaborately dressed, is seated. She strokes the head of a spaniel whose jewelled collar gives the impression of a dog with four eyes. In Vermeer's Young Woman Reading a Letter is a like confused passage of painting, for the uninstructed spectator. She wears her hair over her ear, an ornament clasping the hair. At first view this is not clear, principally because this fashion of wearing the hair is unusual in the eyes of a stranger. Jan van Scorel was born at Schoorl, near Alkmaar, 1495. He studied under Jacob Cornelis at Amsterdam and with Jean de Maubeuge at Utrecht. He died at Utrecht, 1562. When travelling in Germany he visited Dürer at Nuremberg; resided for a time in Italy. The Italian influence is strong, particularly in his Mary Magdalen, which formerly hung in the town-hall of Haarlem. A replica is in the residence of the head-master of Eton College, England. Mary is shown seated, richly attired. She holds in her right hand a box of perfume, her left hand, beautifully painted, rests on her knee. Behind is a mountainous landscape, distinctly Italian, beside her a tree. The head is north Lombardian in character and colouring, the glance of the eyes enigmatic. A curiously winning composition, not without _morbidezza_. Scorel has five other works in the Rijks. The Bathsheba is not a masterpiece. Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is conventional, but the Harpsichord Player was sold at Paris as late as 1823 as a Bronzino. Perhaps it is only attributed to Scorel. It is unlike his brush-work. The Painting of a Vault, divided into nine sections, five of which represent the Last Judgment, is a curiosity. The portrait of Emperor Charles V. as Pharaoh is pointed out by the gallery attendant, who then retires and diplomatically coughs in the middle distance. The Mancini (pupil of Morelli and W.H. Mesdag) is entitled Poor Thing. A little girl stands in a miserable room; mice run over the floor. The colouring is rich. There are admirable Jakob Marises; but we wish to follow in the track of the old fellows. Adrian van Ostade's Baker is so popular that it is used for advertising purposes in Holland. The baker leans out of his door, the lower half closed, and blows a horn. Palamedes evidently repainted the same picture many times. An interior with figures, seated and standing; same faces, poses, accessories. Same valet pouring out wine; variants of this figure. A Merry Party is the usual title. At The Hague in the Mauritshuis there is another such subject; also in Antwerp and Brussels. But a jolly painter. Steen and Teniers we may sidestep. Also the artificial though graceful Tischbein. There is a Winterhalter here, a mannered fashionable portrait painter (he painted the Empress Eugénie), and let us leave the Titians to the experts. When you are in Holland look at the Dutch pictures. A De Vos painted topers and fishermen with gusto, and there is Vinckboons, who doted on scenes of violence. Fancy Vollon flowers in the midst of these old Dutchmen. The Frenchman had an extraordinary feeling for still-life, though more in the decorative Venetian manner than in Chardin's serene palette, or the literalism of Kalf. Whistler's Effie Deans, presented by the Dowager Baroness R. van Lynden in 1900, is not one of that master's most successful efforts. It is a whole-length figure painted in misty semi-tones, the feeling sentimental, un-Whistlerian, and, as we before remarked, wraith-like and lacking in substance when compared to Hals. There is actually a Wouverman in which no white horse is to be discovered. On Van der Werff and the romantic landscapist Wynants we need not dwell. The miniatures, pastels, and framed drawings are of goodly array. Of the former, Samuel Cooper (portrait of Charles II.), John Hoskins, Peter Oliver, Isaac Oliver, Laurence Crosse, and others. English, Dutch, and French may be found. The Liotard and Tischbein pastels are charming. In the supplements of the catalogue we find underscored a Descent from the Cross, an anonymous work of the Flemish school (fifteenth century, second half). The dead Christ is being lowered into the arms of his mother. It is evidently a copy from a lost original in the style of Rogier van der Weyden. There are such copies in Bruges and elsewhere. Another composition is labelled as an anonymous work of undetermined school. The Christ hangs on the cross, on His right are the Virgin Mary, the holy women and St. John; on His left jeering soldiers and scribes. On either side of the composition is the figure of a saint much larger in size than the other figures; St. Cosmus on the left, St. Damian on the right. The background is a hilly landscape. An authority ascribes the work to the Catalonian school, date about 1440. There were giants in those days. Antonello da Messina has the portrait of a young man. It is an attribution, yet not without some claim to authenticity. The Jan Provosts are mostly of close study, especially The Virgin Enthroned. A certain Pieter Dubordieu, who was living in Amsterdam in 1676 (born in Touraine), painted the portraits of a man and a woman, dated 1638. Vivid portraits. We must pass over the striking head of Hanneman, the Lucas Cranach (the elder), and the thousand other attractive pictures in this gallery. The Rijks Museum could be lived with for years and still remain an inexhaustible source of joy. ART IN ANTWERP After passing Dordrecht on the way down to Antwerp the canals and windmills begin to disappear. The country is as flat as Holland, but has lost its characteristic charm. It has become less symmetrical; there is disorder in the sky-line, more trees, the architecture is different. Dutch precision has vanished. The railway carriages are not clean, punctuality is avoided, the people seem less prosperous, few speak English, and as you near Antwerp the villas and roads tell you that you are in the dominion of the King of Belgium. But Antwerp is so distinctly Flemish that you forget that bustling modern Brussels is only thirty-six minutes away by the express--a fast train for once in this land of snail expresses. No doubt the best manner of approaching Antwerp is by the Scheldt on one of the big steamers that dock so comfortably along the river. However, a trip to the vast _promenoir_ that overlooks the river gives an excellent idea of this thriving port. The city--very much modernised during the past ten years--may easily be seen in a few days, setting aside the museums and churches. The quay promenade brings you to the old Steen Castle, and the Town Hall with its _salle des marriages_, its mural paintings by the industrious Baron Leys--frigid in style and execution--will repay you for the trouble. The vestibules and galleries are noteworthy. We enjoyed the façades of the ancient guild houses on the market-place and watching the light play upon the old-time scarred front of the cathedral that stands in the Place Verte. Then there are the Zoological Garden, the Plantin Museum, the Théâtre Flamand, the various monuments, and the spectacle of the busy, lively city for those who do not go to Antwerp for its art. You may even go to Hoboken, a little town in the suburbs not at all like the well-known Sunday resort in Jersey. The Royal Museum is displayed in a large square. It is a handsome structure and the arrangement of the various galleries is simple. The Rubenses, thirty-odd in all, are the _pièce de résistance_, and the Flemish and Dutch Primitives of rare beauty. Bruges is better for Memling, Brussels for Van der Weyden, Ghent for the Van Eycks, yet Antwerp can boast a goodly number of them all. She exceeds Brussels in her Rubenses for the larger altar pieces are here, just as at Amsterdam the Rembrandts, while not numerous, take precedence because of The Syndics and The Night Watch. The tumultuous, overwhelming Peter Paul is in his glory at Antwerp. You think of some cataclysm when facing these turbulent, thrilling canvases. If Raphael woos, Rubens stuns. In the company of Michel Angelo and Balzac or Richard Wagner he would be their equal for torrential energy and vibrating humanity. Not so profound as Buonarroti, not so versatile as Balzac, he is their peer in sheer savagery of execution. Setting aside the miles of pictures signed by him though painted by his pupils, he must have covered multitudes of canvas. Like men of his sort of genius, he ends by making your head buzz and your eyes burn; and then, the sameness of his style, the repetition of his wives and children's portraits, the apotheosis of the Rubens family! He portrayed Helena Fourment and Isabella Brandt in all stages of disarray and gowns. He put them together on the same canvas. He did not hesitate to show them to the world in all their opulent nudity. Their white skins, large eyes with wide gaze, their lovely children appear in religious and mythologic pictures at every turn you make in this museum. You become too familiar with them. You learn to know that one wife was slenderer than the other; you also realise that other days had other ways. Titian painted the portrait of a noble dame quite naked and placed her husband, soberly attired, near by. No one criticised the taste of this performance. Manet, who was no Titian, did the same trick and was voted wicked. He actually dared to show us Nana dressing in the presence of a gentleman who sat in the same room with his hat on. The heavy-flanked Percheron horses are of the same order as the Rubens women. The Flemings are mighty feeders, mighty breeders, good-tempered, pleasure-loving folk. They don't work as hard as the Dutch, and they indulge in more feasting and holidays. The North seems austere and Protestant when compared with this Roman Catholic land. Its sons of genius, such as Rubens and Van Dyck, painted pictures that do not reveal the deeper faith of the Primitives. No Christ or Mary of either Van Dyck or Rubens sounds the poignant note of the Netherlandish unknown mystic masters. But what a banquet of beauty Rubens spreads for the eye! With him painting reached its apogee, and in him were the seeds of its decadence. He shattered the Florentine line; he, a tremendous space-composer when he so wished, wielded his brush at times like a scene-painter on a debauch. The most shocking, the loveliest things happen on his canvases. Set the beautiful Education of the Virgin, in this gallery, beside such a work as Venus and Vulcan at Brussels, and you will see the scale in which he sported. Or the Virgin and Parrot, with a child Christ who might have posed as a youthful Adonis, and the Venus Frigida--both in Antwerp. A pagan was Rubens, for all his religion. We prefer the Christ Crucified between Two Thieves or the Christ on the Cross, the single figure, to the more famous Descent at the Cathedral. But what can be said that is new about Rubens or Van Dyck? In the latter may be noted the beginnings of deliquescence. He is a softened Rubens, a Rubens aristocratic. The portraits here are prime, those of the Bishop of Antwerp, Jean Malderus, and of the young girl with the two dogs. His various Christs are more piteous to behold than those of his master, Rubens. The feminine note is present, and without any of the realism which so shocks in the conceptions of the Primitives. Nevertheless we turn to his portraits or to the little boy standing at a table. There is the true key of Van Dyck. He met Rubens as a portraitist and took no odds of him. Lucas Cranach's Adam and Eve is a variation of the picture in the Brussels gallery. A Gossaert portrait catches the eye, the head and bust of a man; then you find yourself staring in wonderment at the Peter Breughels and Jerome Bosches with their malodorous fantastic versions of temptations of innumerable St. Anthonys. The air is thick with monsters, fish-headed and splay of foot. St. Anthony must have had the stomach of an ostrich and the nerves of a politician to endure such sights and sounds and witches. Such females! But Peter and his two sons are both painters of interest. There are better Teniers in Brussels, though Le Chanteur is admirable. Ostade's Smoker is a masterpiece. Only four Rembrandts, the portrait of a woman, according to Vosmaer and W. Burger that of his wife Saskia; a fisherman's boy, the Burgomaster, and the Old Jew. Dr. Bode thinks that the last two are by Nikolas Maes. The portrait of Eleazer Swalmius--the so-called Burgomaster Six--is finely painted as to head and beard. The Antwerp Museum paid two hundred thousand francs for the work. We must not forget mention of a David Teniers, a loan of Dr. Bredius, a still-life, a white dead goose superb in tone. Of the two Frans Halses, the portrait of a Dutch gentleman is the better; the other was formerly known as the Strandlooper van Haarlem and shows the vigorous brush-work of the master. It is the head of a saucy fisher-boy, the colour scheme unusual for Hals. The Quentin Matsys pictures are strong; among others the portrait of Peter Gillis with his shrewd, strongly marked physiognomy. This is a Matsys town. Every one looks at his old iron well beside the Cathedral and recalls the legend of the blacksmith, as every boy remembers here Hendrik Conscience and the Lion of Flanders. Van Reymerswael's The Tax Gatherers, sometimes called The Bankers or The Misers, hangs in the museum; that realistic picture with the so highly individualised heads, a favourite of the engravers, holds its own. Both the Boutses, Albrecht and Dirck, are shown in their Holy Families, and both are painters of ineffable grace and devotion. Four Memlings of seductive beauty light the walls. One is a portrait of Nicolò Spinelli. Christ and His Angels, the angels playing in praise of the Eternal and other angels playing various instruments. The two Van Eycks, Huibrecht (Hubert) and Jan, are well represented. The St. Barbara, by Jan, is repeated in the Bruges Museum The Donateur or Donor is a repetition of the original at Bruges. The Adoration of the Lamb is a copy of the original at Ghent. There is tender beauty in Jan's St. Barbara, and infinite motherly love expressed in his Holy Virgin. Hugo van der Goes's portrait of Thomas Portunari is a marvel of characterisation. Terburg has a mandolin player and Hobbema a mill scene. The Van Orleys are interesting, and also the Van Veens. Gerard David, a painter of exquisite touch and feeling, shows a Repose in Egypt. Lucas Cranach's L'Amour is one of his Virgins transposed to the mythological key. We have barely indicated the richness of this collection, in which, of course, Rubens plays first fiddle--rather the full orchestra. And with what sonority and luminosity! At the Cathedral his three masterpieces draw their accustomed audiences with the usual guide lecturing in three languages, pointing out the whiteness of the cloth in the Descent and the anatomy in the Ascent. This latter work is always slighted by sightseers because Baedeker, or some one else, had pronounced its composition "inferior" to the Descent, but there are many more difficult problems involved in the Ascent. Its pattern is not so pleasing as the Descent, the subject is less appealing, and more sternly treated. There are more virile accents in the Ascent, though it would be idle to deny that in paint quality there is a falling off. Both pictures show the tooth of time and the ravages of the restorers. At St. Jacques, with its wonderfully carved pulpit, the St. George of Rubens hangs in a chapel. It has darkened much during the last twenty years. Also there is another Rubens family group with wives and other relatives. They thought well of themselves, the Rubens family, and little wonder. The modern pictures at the museum are of varying interest--Braekeleer, Stobbaerts, Verlat, Scheffer, Cabanel, David (J.L.), Wiertz, Wauters, Wappers, some elegant Alfred Stevenses, De Bock the landscapist, Clays, Van Beers, Meunier, Breton, Bouguereau, and a lot of nondescript lumber. In the spacious approach there is one of Constantin Meunier's famous figures. You rejoice that he followed Rodin's advice and gave up the brush for the chisel. As a painter he was not more than mediocre. The four Van der Weydens in the gallery of Primitives are not all of equal merit. The Annunciation is the most striking. The early master of Memling is distinguished by a sweetness in composition and softness in colouring. Mention must be made of the De Vos pictures by the Cornelis, Martin, and Simon. A portrait of Abraham Grapheus by the first-named is one of the most striking in the museum, and the self-portrait of the latter, smiling, is brilliant. Rombouts is a sort of Adrian Brouwer; his Cavaliers Playing at Cards recalls Caravaggio. Daniel Mytens's portrait of a lady is Rubenesque. And all that choir of elevated souls unknown to us by name, merely called after the city they inhabited, such as the Master of Bray, or by some odd device or monogram--what cannot be written of this small army which praised the Lord, His mother and the saints in form and colour, on missals, illuminated manuscripts, or on panels! The Antwerp Museum has its share of Anonymous, that master of whom it has been said that "he" was probably the master of the masters. Antwerp is a city of many charms, with its St. Jacques, St. Andres (and its carved pulpit), St. Paul and the Cathedral, and its preservation of the Flemish spirit and Flemish customs; but for us its museum was all in all. MUSEUMS OF BRUSSELS Considering its size and significance, Brussels has more than its share of museums. At the beginning of the Rue de la Régence, near the Place Royale, stands the imposing Royal Museum of old paintings and sculpture. The Museum of Modern Art is around the corner and adjoins the National Library, which is said to harbour over six hundred thousand volumes. In the gallery of old art the effect of the sculptors' hall, which is in the centre and utilises the entire height of the building, is noble. The best sculpture therein is by Rodin and Meunier; the remainder is generally academic or simply bad. Rodin's Thinker, in bronze, is a repetition of the original. After the wreathed prettiness of the conventional school--neither Greek nor Gothic--and the writhing diablerie of Rodin imitators the simplicity and directness of Constantin Meunier is refreshing. He was a man whose imagination became inflamed at the sight of suffering and injustice. He is closer to Millet than to his friend Rodin, but he lacks the sweetness and strength of Millet. Selecting the Belgian workman--the miner, the hewer of wood and drawer of water, the proletarian, in a word--for his theme, Meunier observed closely and reproduced his vision in terms of rugged beauty. The sentiment is evidently socialistic. Like Prince Kropotkin and the brothers Réclus, the Belgian sculptor revolts against the cruelty of man to man. He shows us the miner crouched in a pitiful manner finding a pocket of coal; men naked to the waist, their torsos bulging with muscles, their small heads on bull necks, are puddlers; other groups patiently haul heavy carts--labour not in its heroic aspect, but as it is in reality, is the core of Meunier's art. That he is "literary" at times may not be denied, but power he has. The early Flemish school of the fifteenth century is strongly represented in several of the galleries up-stairs. And Rogier de la Pasture, otherwise known as Rogier van der Weyden, is shown in five pictures, and at his best. The Chevalier with the Arrow, a bust portrait, will be familiar to those who have visited the Rijks Museum, where a copy hangs. The robe is black, the hat, conical, is brown, the background blue-green. The silhouette is vigorously modelled, the expression one of dignity, the glance penetrating, severe. What characterisation! The Christ is a small panel surpassingly rich in colour and charged with profound pity. The body lies in the arms of the Mother, Magdalen and John on either side. The sun is setting. The subject was a favourite of Weyden; there is a triptych in Berlin and a panel at The Hague. This Brussels picture has evidently been shorn of its wings. There are replicas of the Virgin and Child (No. 650 in the catalogue) at Berlin, Cassel, and Frankfort, also in the recently dispersed collection of Rudolph Kann. Another striking tableau is the head of a woman who weeps. The minutest tear is not missing. Hubert and Jan Van Eyck's Adam and Eve are the wings (volets) from the grand composition in the Cathedral of St. Bavo, Ghent. They are gigantic figures, nude, neither graceful nor attractive, but magnificently painted. These portraits (they don't look as if they had been finished in paradise) of our first parents rather favour the evolutionary theory of development. Eve is unlovely, her limbs lanky, her bust mediæval, her flanks Flemish. In her right hand she holds the fatal apple. Adam's head is full of character; it is Christ-like; his torso ugly, his legs wooden. Yet how superior to the copies which are now attached to the original picture at Ghent. There the figures are clothed, clumsy, and meaningless. Dierick Bouts's Justice of Emperor Otho III is a striking picture. The subject has that touch of repulsive cruelty which was a sign of the times. Hans Memling's Martyrdom of St. Sebastian is another treasure; with his portraits of a man, of Guillaume Morel and of Barbara de Vlandenberg making an immortal quartet. The head of the man is the favourite in reproduction. Morel is portrayed as in prayer, his hands clasped, his expression rapt. A landscape is seen at the back. The Virgin Surrounded by Virgins, by an unknown master of the fifteenth century (school of Bruges), is one of the most amazing pictures in the collection. It has a nuance of the Byzantine and of the hieratic, but the portraits are enchanting in their crystalline quality. Quentin Matsys' Legend of St. Anne is much admired, though for sincerity we prefer The Passion of the Master of Oultremont. Gerard David's Adoration of the Magi is no longer attributed to him. It was always in doubt: now the name has been removed, though the picture has much of his mellowness. Dr. Scheuring, the old man with the shaved upper lip, beard, and hair over his forehead, by Lucas Cranach, and Jean Gossaert's Chevalier of the Golden Fleece, are masterly portraits. Van Cleve, Van Orlay, Key--perhaps a portrait of the bloody Duke of Alva--also one of himself, Coello's Maria of Austria, are among the sterling specimens in this gallery. We need not expect to find duplicated here the Rubens of Antwerp. The most imposing example is the Adoration of the Magi, while his portraits of the Archduke Albert and his Archduchess, Isabella, are perhaps the best extant. The Calvary is a splendid canvas, full of movement and containing several members of the well-known Rubens family. Such devotion is touching. You find yourself looking for Isabella Brandt and Helena Fourment among the angels that hover in the sky above the martyred St. Lieven. The four negro heads, the Woman Taken in Adultery, a Susanna (less concerned about her predicament than any we have encountered), a curious and powerful portrait of Theophrastus Paracelsus (Browning's hero), with a dozen others, make a goodly showing for the Antwerp master. Otho Vænius (Octave Van Veen), one of the teachers of Rubens, is hung here. There are nearly a dozen Van Dycks, of prime quality all. The Crucifixion, the portrait of an unknown gentleman wearing a huge ruff and the winning portrait of a Flemish sculptor, Francesco Duquesnoy, (on a stand), give you an excellent notion of his range, though better Van Dycks are in France and England. The portrait of an old man, by Rembrandt, is beginning to fade, but that of an old woman is a superior Rembrandt. Of Frans Hals there are two fine specimens; one, a portrait of Willem van Heythusen, is a small picture, the figure sitting, the legs crossed (booted and spurred) and the figure leaning lazily back. On his head a black felt hat with a broad upturned brim. The expression of the bearded man is serious. The only Jan Vermeer is one of the best portraits by that singularly gifted painter we recall. It is called The Man with the Hat. Dr. Bredius in 1905 considered the picture by Jean Victor, but it has been pronounced Vermeer by equal authorities. It was once a part of the collection of Humphry Ward. The man sits, his hand holding a glove resting negligently over the back of a chair. He faces the spectator, on his head a long, pointed black hat with a wide brim. His collar is white. A shadow covers the face above the eyes. These are rather melancholy, inexpressive; the flesh tints are anaemic, almost morbid. We are far away from the Vermeer of the Milkmaid and the Letter. There is something disquieting in this portrait, but it is a masterpiece of paint and character. The Old Lady Dreaming, by N. Maes, and the Jan Steen (The Operator) are good though not remarkable examples. Jacob Jordaenses flood the various galleries; Rubens run to seed as far as quality, yet exhibiting enormous muscularity, is the trait of this gross painter. The King Drinks--his kings are always drinking or blind drunk--his nudes, which look like the contents of the butcher shops in Brussels, attract throngs, for the anecdote is writ large across the wall, and you don't have to run to read. Panoramas would be a better title for these robust compositions. David Teniers's La Kermesse is the most important work he ever finished. It is in good preservation. Amsterdam has not its superior. There is an ordinary El Greco, a poor Goya, and a Ribera downstairs. The French art is not enlivening. Philip Champaigne's self-portrait is familiar: it has been reproduced frequently. Jean Baptiste Huysmans, a landscape with animals; he is said to be an ancestor of the late Joris Karel Huysmans. The Mors (Antonio Moro) is of value. But the lodestone of the collection is the Primitives. The pictures in the modern gallery are largely Belgian, some French, and a few Dutch and English. It is not a collection of artistic significance. In the black-and-white room may be seen a few original drawings of Rops. The Musée Wiertz is worth visiting only as a chamber of horrors. When Wiertz is not morbid and repulsive he is of the vasty inane, a man of genius gone daft, obsessed by the mighty shades of Rubens and Michael Angelo. Wiertz was born in 1806 and died in 1865. The Belgian Government, in order to make some sort of reparation for its neglect of the painter during his troubled and unhappy lifetime, acquired his country residence and made it a repository of his art. The pictures are of a scale truly heroic. The painter pitted himself against Rubens and Michael Angelo. He said: "I, too, am a great painter!" And there is no denying his power. His tones recall the _pâte_ of Rubens without its warmth and splendour. When Wiertz was content to keep within bounds his portraits and feminine nudes are not without beauty. He was fanciful rather than poetic, and the picture of Napoleon in hell enduring the reproaches of his victims (why should they be there?) is startling. Startling, too, are the tricks played on your nerves by the peepholes. You see a woman crazed by hunger about to cook one of her murdered children; beheaded men, men crushed by superior power, the harnessed body of Patroclus, Polyphemus devouring the companions of Ulysses, and other monstrous conceptions, are all painted with reference to the ills of the poor. Anton Joseph was a socialist in sentiment. If his executive ability had been on a par with his ideas, and if those ideas had been less extravagant, the world would have had one more great painter; but his nervous system was flawed and he died a melancholic, a victim to misplaced ideals. He wished to revive the heroic age at a time of easel pictures. He, the half genius, saw himself outwitted by the sleek paint of Alfred Stevens. Born out of his due time, a dreamer of dreams, Wiertz is a sad example of the futility of looking backward in art. BRUGES THE BEAUTIFUL On the way up from Brussels to Bruges it is well to alight at Ghent for a few hours. There are attractions enough to keep one for several days, but as our objective was St. Bavon (St. Bavo, or Sint Baafs) we did not stay more than the allotted time. And an adventurous time it was. The Ostend express landed its passengers at the St. Pierre station and that meant the loss of half an hour. The Cathedral is reached by the tramway, and there we found that as an office was about to be sung no one would be allowed in the ambulatory until after its completion. It was pouring live Belgian rain without; already the choristers in surplices were filing into the choir. Not a moment to be spared! The sacristan was a practical man. He hustled us into a side chapel, locked the heavy doors, and left us in company with the great picture of the brothers Hubert and Jan Van Eyck. A monk knelt in prayer outside, the rain clouds made the lighting obscure. We were hemmed in, but by angels and ministers of grace. The chanting began. Atmosphere was not needed in this large and gloomy edifice, only more light. Gradually the picture began to burn through the artificial dusk, gradually its glories became more perceptible. Begun by Hubert in 1420 and finished by Jan in 1432, its pristine splendour has vanished; and the loss of the wings--the Adam and Eve are in Brussels, the remaining volets in the Berlin Museum--is irreparable despite the copies. But this Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, with its jewelled figures of the Christ, of St. John the Baptist, St. Cecilia, and the central panel with its mystical symbolism, painted in sumptuous tones, the lamb on the altar, the prophets and ecclesiastics in worship, the singing angels, is truly an angelic composition. The rain had ceased. A shaft of sunshine pierced the rosy glass windows and fell upon the hieratic figure of the bearded Christ, which glowed supernally. In the chancel the Psalms had died away and the only sound was that of sandals shuffling over marble floors. The man turned the lock. It was a return to the world as if one had participated in a sacred ceremony. Bruges is invariably called Bruges-la-Morte, but it is far from being dead, or even desperately melancholy. Delft, in Holland, after nine o'clock at night, is quieter than Bruges. Bruges the Dead? No, Bruges the Beautiful is nearer the truth. After reading Rodenbach's morbid romance of Bruges-la-Morte we felt sure that a stay in Bruges would be like a holiday in a cemetery. Our experience dispelled this unpleasant illusion. Bruges is in daylight a bustling and in certain spots a noisy place. Its inhabitants are not lugubrious of visage, but wideawake, practical people, close at a bargain, curious like all Belgians, and on fête days given to much feasting. Bruges is infinitely more interesting than Brussels. It is real, while modern Brussels is only mock-turtle. And Bruges is more picturesque, the food is as well flavoured, there are several resorts where ripe old Burgundy may be had at not an extravagant price, and the townsfolk are less grasping, more hearty than in Brussels. The city is nicknamed a Northern Venice, but of Venice there is naught, except the scum on the canal waters. The secular odour of Bruges was not unpleasant in October; in August it may have been. We know that the glory of the city hath departed, but there remain the Memlings, the Gerard Davids, at least one Van Eyck, not to mention several magnificent old churches. Let us stroll to the Béguinage. Reproductions of Memling and Van Eyck are in almost every window. The cafés on the square, where stands the Belfry of Longfellow's poem, are overflowing with people at table. It is Friday, and to-morrow will be market day; with perhaps a fair or a procession thrown in. You reach the Cathedral of St. Sauveur (Sint Salvator), erected in the tenth century, though the foundations date back to the seventh. The narrow lane-like street winds around the rear of the church. Presently another church is discerned with a tower that must be nearly four hundred feet high, built, you learn, some time between the tenth and fourteenth centuries. Notre Dame contains the tombs of Charles the Bold and Mary of Burgundy, a lovely white marble statue of the Virgin and Child ascribed with justice to Michael Angelo, and a fine bow-window. We pass the Hospital of St. Jean, turn up an alley full of cobblestones and children, and finally see the canal that passes the houses of the Béguinage. The view is of exceeding charm. The spire of Notre Dame and the apsis may be seen up (or is it down?) stream. A bridge cuts the river precisely where it should; weeping willows to the left lend an elegiac note to the ensemble, and there is a gabled house to the right which seems to have entered the scene so as to give an artist the exact balance for his composition. Nature and the handicraft of man paint pictures all over Bruges. We enter the enclosure with the little houses of the béguines, or lay sisterhood. There is nothing particular to see, except a man under a tree admiring his daubed canvas, near by a dog sleeps. The sense of peace is profound. Even Antwerp seems a creation of yesterday compared with the brooding calm of Bruges, while Brussels is as noisy as a boiler shop. The Minnewater (Lac d'Amour) is another pretty stretch, and so we spent the entire day through shy alleys, down crooked streets, twisting every few feet and forming deceptive vistas innumerable, leading tired legs into churches, out of museums, up tower steps. That first hard stroll told us how little we could know of Bruges in a day, a week or a month. Bag and baggage we moved up from Brussels and wished that the clock and the calendar could be set back several centuries. At twilight the unusual happened: the Sandman appeared with his hour-glass and beckoned to bed. There is no night in Bruges for the visitor within the gates; there is only slumber. Perhaps that is why the cockneys call it Bruges the Dead. The old horse that drags the hotel bus was stamping its hoofs in the court-yard; the wall of St. Jacques, eaten away by the years, faced us. The sun, somewhere, was trying to rub its sleepy eyes, the odour of omelet was in the air, and all was well. This is the home-like side of its life. It may still harbour artists who lead a mystic, ecstatic existence, but we met none of them. Poetic images are aroused at dusk along the banks of canals, bathed in spectral light. Here Georges Rodenbach, that poet of delicate images, placed his hero, a man who had lost a beloved wife. He saw her wraith-like form in the mist and at the end went mad. The Memlings hang in a chamber at the Hospital St. Jean; the Châsse of St. Ursula is a reliquary, Gothic in design. They consist of a dozen tiny panels painted in exquisite fashion, with all the bright clarity and precision of a miniaturist, coupled with a solidity of form and lyric elegance of expression. They represent the side of Memling's art which might be compared to the illuminators of manuscripts or to the artificers in gold and precious stones. There is a jewelled quality in this illustration of the pious life and martyrdom of St. Ursula at Cologne. But it is not the greatest Memling, to our thinking. A portrait of Martin van Nieuwenhoven, the donator of the diptych, La Vierge aux Pommes, is as superb a Memling as one could wish for. The little hairs are a sign of clever, minute brush. It is the modelling, the rich manipulation of tones (yes, values were known in those barbarous times), the graceful fall of the hair treated quite as much en masse as with microscopic finish; the almost miraculous painting of the folded hands, and the general expression of pious reverie, that count most. The ductile, glowing colours make this a portrait to be compared to any of the master's we have studied at London, Berlin, Dresden, Lübeck, Paris, Amsterdam, and Brussels. But Bruges is the natural frame for his exalted genius. If the Van Eycks were really the first to use oil-colour--a fable, it is said--Memling, who followed them, taught many great Italian painters the quality and expressiveness of beautiful paint. There is the portrait of Sybilla Sambetha, the serious girl with the lace veil. Did any of the later Dutch conjurers in paint attain such transparency? The Mystic Marriage of St. Catharine, a triptych with its wings representing the beheading of St. John the Baptist--the Salome is quite melancholy--and St. John at Patmos, is one of the world pictures. The Adoration of the Magi, with its wings, The Nativity, and Presentation in the Temple, is equally touching. For me Memling's Descent from the Cross sounds deeper music than Rubens--which is operatic in comparison. The Virgin type of Van Eyck is less insipid than the Italian; there is no pagan dissonance, as in the conception of Botticelli. Faith blazed more fiercely in the breasts of these Primitive artists. They felt Christ's Passion and the sorrow of the Holy Mother more poignantly than did the Italians of the golden renaissance. We have always held a brief for the Art for Art theory. The artist must think first of his material and its technical manipulation; but after that, if his pulse beat to spiritual rhythms then his work may attain the heights. It is not painting that is the lost art, but faith. Men like the Van Eycks, Rogier van der Weyden, Memling, and Gerard David were princes of their craft and saw their religion with eyes undimmed by doubt. James Weak has destroyed the legend that Hans Memling painted his St. Ursula for the benefit of St. Jean's Hospital as a recompense for treatment while sick there. He was a burgher living comfortably at Bruges. The museum is a short distance from the hospital. Its Van Eyck (Jan), La Vierge et l'Enfant--known as the Donator because of the portrait of George van der Paele--is its chief treasure, though there is the portrait of Jan's wife; Gerard David's Judgment of King Cambyses, and the savage execution companion picture; Memling's triptych, St. Christopher bearing the Christ Child, and David's masterpiece, The Baptism of Christ. Holbein never painted a head with greater verisimilitude than Van Eyck's rendering of the Donator. What an eye! What handling, missing not a wrinkle, a fold of the aged skin, the veins in the senile temples, or the thin soft hair above the ears! What synthesis! There are no niggling details, breadth is not lost in this multitude of closely observed and recorded facts. The large eyes gaze devoutly at the vision of the Child, and if neither Virgin nor Son is comely there is character delineated. The accessories must fill the latter-day painter avid of surface loveliness with consuming envy. But it is time for sleep. The Brugeois cocks have crowed, the sun is setting, and eyelids are lowering. Lucky you are if your dreams evoke the brilliant colours, the magical shapes of the Primitives of Bruges the Beautiful. THE MOREAU MUSEUM Out of the beaten track of sight-seers, and not noticed with particular favour by the guide-books, the museum founded by Gustave Moreau at 14 Rue de la Rochefoucauld in Paris, is known only to a comparatively few artists and amateurs. You seldom hear Americans speak of this rare collection, it is never written about in the magazines. In September, 1897, Moreau made a will leaving his house and its contents to the State. He died in 1898 (not in 1902, as Bryan's dictionary has it), and in 1902 President Loubet authorised the Minister of Public Instruction to accept this rich legacy in the name of the republic. The artist was not known to stranger countries; indeed he was little known to his fellow-countrymen. Huysmans had cried him up in a revolutionary article; but to be praised by Huysmans was not always a certificate of fame. That critic was more successful in attracting public attention to Degas and Rops; and Moreau, a born eclectic, though without any intention of carrying water on both shoulders, was regarded suspiciously by his associates at the Beaux-Arts, while the new men he praised, Courbet, Manet, Whistler, Monet, would hold no commerce with him. To this day opinion is divided as to his merits, he being called a _pasticheur_ or else a great painter-poet. Huysmans saw straight into the heart of the enigma--Gustave Moreau is poet and painter, a highly endowed man who had the pictorial vision in an unusual degree; whose brush responded to the ardent brain that directed it, the skilled hand that manipulated it; always responded, we say, except in the creation of life. His paintings are, strictly speaking, magnificent still-life. No vital current animates their airless, gorgeous, and sometimes cadaverous surfaces. Like his friend Gustave Flaubert, with whom he had so much in common (at least on the Salammbô side of that writer), Moreau was born to affluence. His father was a government architect; he went early to the Êcole des Beaux-Arts, and also studied under Picot. In 1852 he had a Pietà in the Salon (he was born April 6,1826), and followed it the next season with a Darius and a large canvas depicting an episode from the Song of Songs. The latter was purchased for the Dijon Museum. At the Universal Exhibition of 1855 he showed a monster work, The Athenians and the Minotaur. He withdrew from the public until 1864, when his Oedipus and the Sphinx set Paris talking. He exhibited until 1880 various canvases illustrative of his studies in classic literatures and received sundry medals. He was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1888, replacing Boulanger. He was decorated in 1875 with the Legion of Honour and made _officier_ in 1883. When a member of the Institute he had few friends, and as professor at the Beaux-Arts he disturbed the authorities by his warm praise of the Primitives. Altogether a career meagre in exciting incident, though singularly rich and significant on the intimate side. A first visit to the museum proved startling. We had seen and admired the fifteen water-colours at the Luxembourg, among them the famous Apparition, but for the enormous number of pictures, oil, water-colour, pastels, drawings, cartons, studies, we were unprepared. The bulky catalogue registers 1,132 pieces, and remember that while there are some unfinished canvases the amount of work executed--it is true during half a century--is nevertheless a testimony to Moreau's muscular and nervous energy, poetic conception, and intensity of concentration. Even his unfinished pictures are carried to a state of elaboration that would madden many modern improvisers in colour. Apart from sheer execution, there is a multitude of visions that must have been struggled for as Jacob wrestled with the Angel, for Moreau's was not a facile mind. He brooded over his dreams, he saw them before he gave them shape. He was familiar with all the Asiatic mythologies, and for him the pantheon of Christian saints must have been bone of his bone. The Oriental fantasy, the Buddhistic ideas, the fluent knowledge of Persian, Indian, and Byzantine histories, customs, and costumes sets us to wondering if this artist wasn't too cultured ever to be spontaneous. He recalls Prester John and his composite faiths. There was besides the profound artistic erudition another stumbling-block to simplicity of style and unity of conception. Moreau began by imitating both Delacroix and Ingres. Now, such a precedure is manifestly dangerous. Huysmans speaks with contempt of promiscuity in the admiration of art. You can't admire Manet and Bastien-Lepage--"le Grévin de cabaret, le Siraudin de banlieue," he names the gentle Bastien; nor ought you to admire Manet and Moreau, we may add. And Huysmans did precisely what he preached against. Moreau was a man of wide intellectual interests. Devoid of the creative energy that can eject an individual style at one jet, as a volcano casts forth a rock, he attempted to aid nature by the process of an exquisite selection. His taste was trained, his range wide--too wide, one is tempted to add; and thus by a conscious act of the will he originated an art that recalls an antique chryselephantine statue, a being rigid with precious gems, pasted with strange colours, something with mineral eyes without the breath of life--contemporary life--yet charged with its author's magnetism, bearing a charmed existence, that might come from a cold, black magic; monstrous, withal possessing a strange feverish beauty, as Flaubert's Salammbô is beautiful, in a remote, exotic way. However, it is not fair to deny Moreau human sympathies. There are many of his paintings and drawings, notably the latter, that show him as possessing heart. His handling of his medium though heavy is never timid, and at times is masterly. Delacroix inspired many of his landscape backgrounds, as Ingres gave him the proportions of his female figures. You continually encounter variations of Ingres, the sweet, serene line, the tapering feet and hands. Some critics have discerned the toe forms of Perugino; but such mechanical measurements strain our notion of eclecticism. Certainly Moreau studied Bellini, Mantegna, and Da Vinci without ever attaining the freedom and distinction of any of them. His colour, too, is often hard and cold, though not in the sumptuous surfaces of his fabrics; there Venetian splendour is apparent. He can be fiery and insipid, metallic and morbid; his Orientalism is at times transposed from the work of his old friend the painter Chasseriau into the key of a brilliant, if pompous rhetoric. THE MOREAU MUSEUM This herculean attempt at reassembling many styles in a unique style that would best express a certain frozen symbolism was the amiable mania his life long of Moreau. He compelled the spirits to come to his bidding. The moment you cross the threshold of his house the spell begins to work. It is dissipated by the daylight of Paris, but while you are under the roof of the museum you can't escape it. Nor is it as with Rossetti, a mystic opiate, or with Wiertz, a madman's delirious fancy. Moreau was a philosophic poet, and though he disclaimed being a "literary" painter, it is literature that is the mainspring of his elevated and decorative art. Open at random the catalogue full of quotations from the painter's pen and you encounter such titles as Leda and the Swan, treated with poetic restraint; Jupiter and Semele, Tyrtæus Singing During the Combat, St. Elizabeth and the Miracle of the Roses, Lucretia and Tarquin, Pasiphae, the Triumph of Alexander, Salome, Dante and Virgil, Bathsheba, Jason and the Golden Fleece. All literatures were ransacked for themes. This painter suffered from the nostalgia of the ideal. When a subject coincided with his technical expression the result approximates perfection. Consider the Salome, so marvellously paraphrased in prose by Huysmans. The aquarelle in the Luxembourg is more plastic, more jewelled than the oil; Moreau often failed in the working-out of his ideas. Yet, never in art has a hallucination been thus set before us with such uncompromising reality. The sombre, luxurious _décor_, the voluptuous silhouette of the dancing girl, the hieratic pose of the Tetrarch, even the aureoled head of John, are forgotten in the contemplation of Salome, who is become cataleptic at sight of the apparition. Arrested her attitude her flesh crisps with fear. Her face is contracted into a mask of death. The lascivious dance seems suspended in midair. To have painted so impossible a picture bears witness to the extraordinary quality of Moreau's complex art. Nor is the Salome his masterpiece. In the realm of the decorator he must be placed high. His genius is Byzantine. Jupiter and Semele, with its colossal and acrian architectures, its gigantic figure of the god, from whose august head emanate spokes of light, is Byzantine of a wild luxuriousness in pattern and fancy. Moreau excels in representing cataracts of nude women, ivory-toned of flesh, exquisite in proportion, set off by radiant jewels and wonder-breeding brocades. His skies are in violent ignition, or else as soft as Lydian airs. What could be more grandiose than the Triumph of Alexander (No. 70 in the catalogue)? Not John Martin or Piranesi excelled the Frenchman in bizarre architectural backgrounds. And the Chimeras, what a Baudelairian imagination! Baudelaire of the bitter heart! All luxury, all sin, all that is the shame and the glory of mankind is here, as in a tapestry dulled by the smoke of dreams; but as in his most sanguinary combats not a sound, not a motion comes from this canvas. When the slaves, lovely females, are thrown to the fish to fatten them for some Roman patrician's banquet, we admire the beauty of colour, the clear static style, the solidity of the architecture, but we are unmoved. If there is such a thing as disinterested art it is the claustral art of Moreau--which can be both perverse and majestic. His versatility amazes. He did not always paint the same picture. The Christ Between Two Thieves is academic, yet attracts because the expression of the converted thief is remarkable. The Three Magi and Moses Within Sight of the Promised Land do not give one the fullest sense of satisfaction, as do The Daughters of Thespus or The Rape of Europa; yet they suggest what might be termed a tragic sort of decoration. Moreau is a painter who could have illustrated Marlowe's fatuous line, "Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia," and superbly; or, "See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament." He is an exotic blossom on the stem of French art. He saw ivory, apes, and peacocks, purple, gold, and the heavens aflame with a mystic message. He never translated that message, for his was an art of silence; but the painter of The Maiden with the Head of Orpheus, of Salome, of Jason and Medea, of Jupiter and Semele, will never fail to win the admiration and homage of those art lovers who yearn for dreams of vanished ages, who long to escape the commonplaces of the present. Gustave Moreau will be their poet-painter by predilection. Once in the streets of prosaic Paris he is as unreal as Rossetti or the Pre-Raphaelites (though their superior as one who could make palpable his visions). In the Louvre--where the _Salon Carré_ is little changed--Manet's Olympe, with her every-day seductiveness, resolves the phantasies of Moreau into thin air. Here is reality for you, familiar as it may be. It is wonderful how long it took French critics to discover that Manet was _un peintre de race_. He is very French in the French gallery where he now hangs. He shows the lineage of David, one of whose declamatory portraits with beady eyes hangs near by. He is simpler than David in his methods--Mr. C.S. Ricketts critically described David as possessing the mind of a policeman--and as a painter more greatly endowed. But Goya also peeps out from the Olympe. After seeing the Maja desnuda at the Prado you realise that Manet's trip to Madrid was not without important results. Between the noble lady who was the Duchess of Alba and the ignoble girl called Olympe there is only the difference between the respective handlings of Goya and Manet. PICTURES IN MADRID I The noblest castle in Spain is the museum on the Prado. Now every great capital of Europe boasts its picture or sculpture gallery; no need to enumerate the treasures of art to be found in London, Paris, Vienna--the latter too little known by the average globe-trotter--Berlin, Dresden, Cassel, Frankfort, Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Florence, Rome, Naples, St. Petersburg, or Venice. They all boast special excellences, but the Prado collection contains pictures by certain masters, Titian, Rubens, Correggio, and others, that cannot be seen elsewhere. Setting aside Velasquez and the Spanish school, not in Venice, Florence, or London are there Titians of such quality and in such quantity as in Madrid. And the Rubenses are of a peculiar lovely order, not to be found in Antwerp, Brussels or Paris. Even without Velasquez the trying trip to the Spanish capital is a necessary and exciting experience for the painter and amateur of art. The Prado is largely reinforced by foreign pictures and is sadly lacking in historical continuity whether foreign or domestic schools. It is about ninety years old, having been opened in part (three rooms) to the public in November, 1819. At that time there were three hundred and eleven canvases. Other galleries were respectively added in 1821, 1828, 1830, and 1839. In 1890 the Queen-mother had the Sala de la Reina Isabel rearranged and better lighted. It contained then the masterpieces, but in 1899, the tercentenary of Velasquez's birth, a gallery was built to hold his works, with a special room for that masterpiece among masterpieces Las Meninas. Many notable pictures that had hung for years in the Academia de Nobles Artes de San Fernando, at the Escorial Palace, and and the collection of the Duke of Osuna are now housed within the walls of the Prado. At the entrance you encounter a monumental figure of Goya, sitting, in bronze, the work of the sculptor J. Llaneses. The Prado has been called a gallery for connoisseurs, and it is the happiest title that could be given it, for it is not a great museum in which all schools are represented. You look in vain for the chain historic that holds together disparate styles; there are omissions, ominous gaps, and the very nation that ought to put its best foot foremost, the Spanish, does not, with the exception of Velasquez. Of him there are over sixty authentic works; of Titian over thirty. Bryan only allows him twenty-three; this is an error. There are fifteen Titians in Florence, divided between the Uffizi and the Pitti; in Paris, thirteen, but one is the Man with the Glove. Quality counts heaviest, therefore the surprise is not that Madrid boasts numbers but the wonderful quality of so many of them. To lend additional lustre to the specimens of the Venetian school, the collection starts off with a superb Giorgione; Giorgione, the painter who taught Titian his magic colour secrets; the painter whose works are, with a few exceptions, ascribed to other men--more is the pity! (In this we are at one with Herbert Cook, who still clings to the belief that the Concert of the Pitti Palace is Giorgione and not Titian. At least the Concert Champêtre of the Louvre has not been taken from "Big George.") The Madrid masterpiece is The Virgin and Child Jesus with St. Anthony and St. Roch. It is easy to begin with the Titians, one of which is the famous Bacchanal. Then there are The Madonna with St. Bridget and St. Hulfus, The Garden of the Loves, Emperor Charles V. at Mühlberg, an equestrian portrait; another portrait of the same with figure standing, King Philip, Isabella of Portugal, La Gloria, The Entombment of Christ, Venus and Adonis, Danaë and the Golden Shower, a variation of this picture is in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, the other in the National Museum, Naples; Venus Listening to Music, two versions, the stately nude evidently a memory of the Venus reposing in the Uffizi: Adam and Eve (also a copy of this by Rubens); Prometheus, Sisyphus--long supposed to be copies by Coello; Christ Bearing the Cross, St. Margaret, a portrait of the Duke of Este, Salom, Ecce Homo, La Dolorosa, the once admired Allocution; Flight Into Egypt, St. Catalina, a self-portrait, St. Jerome, Diana and Actæon, The Sermon on the Mount--the list is much longer. There are many Goyas; the museum is the home of this remarkable but uneven painter. We confess to a disappointment in his colour, though his paint was not new to us; but time has lent no pleasing _patina_ to his canvases, the majority of which are rusty-looking, cracked, discoloured, dingy or dark. There are several exceptions. The nude and dressed full-lengths of the Duchess of Alba are in excellent preservation, and brilliant audacious painting it is. A lovely creature, better-looking when reclining than standing, as a glance at her full-length portrait in the New York Hispanic Museum proves. One of Goya's best portraits hangs in the Prado, the seated figure of his brother-in-law, the painter Bayeu. The Family of Charles IV, his patron and patroness, with the sheep-like head of the favourite De la Paz, is here in all its bitter humour; it might be called a satiric pendant to that other Familia, not many yards away, Las Meninas. There are the designs for tapestries in the basement; Blind Man's Buff and other themes illustrating national traits. The equestrian portraits of Charles IV and his sweet, sinister spouse, Queen Maria Luisa, reveal a Goya not known to the world. He could assume the grand manner when he so willed. He could play the dignified master with the same versatility that he played at bull-fighting. But his colour is often hot and muddy, and perhaps he will go down to that doubtful quantity, posterity, as an etcher and designer of genius. After leaving the Prado you remember only the Caprices, the Bull-fights, and the Disaster of War plates; perhaps the Duchess of Alba, undressed, and in her dainty toreador costume. The historic pictures are a tissue of horrors, patriotic as they are meant to be; they suggest the slaughter-house. Goya has painted a portrait of Villanueva, the architect of the museum; and there is a solidly constructed portrait of Goya by V. Lopez. The Raphaels have been reduced to two at the Prado: The Holy Family with the Lamb, painted a year after the Ansedei Madonna, and that wonderful head of young Cardinal Bibbiena, keen-eyed and ascetic of features. Alas! for the scholarship that attributed to the Divine Youth La Perla; the Madonna of the Fish; Lo Spasimo, Christ Bearing the Cross, and several other masterpieces. Giulio Romana, Penni, and perhaps another, turned out these once celebrated and overpraised pictures--overpraised even if they had come from the brush of Raphael himself. The Cardinal's portrait is worth the entire batch of them. There is a Murillo gallery, full of representative work, the most important being St. Elizabeth of Hungary Tending the Sick, formerly in the Escorial. The various Conceptions and saints' heads are not missing, painted in his familiar colour key with his familiar false sentiment and always an eye to the appeal popular. A mighty magnet for the public is Murillo. The peasants flock to him on Sundays as to a sanctuary. There the girls see themselves on a high footing, a heavenly saraband among woolly clouds, their prettiness idealised, their costume of exceeding grace. After a while you tire of the saccharine Murillo and his studio beggar boys, and turn to his drawings with relief. His landscapes are more sincere than his religious canvases, which are almost as sensuous and earthly as Correggio without the magisterial brush-work and commanding conception of the Parma painter. To be quite fair, it may be admitted that Murillo could make a good portrait. Both in Madrid and Seville you may verify this. A beautiful Fra Angelico, a beautiful Mantegna open your eyes, for the Italian Primitives are conspicuous by their absence. Correggio is magnificent. The well-known Magdalen and Christ Risen, Noli Me Tangere! His Virgin with Jesus and St. John is in his accustomed melting _pâte_. One Del Sarto is of prime quality, The Virgin, Jesus and St. John, called Asunto Mistico at the Prado. Truly a moving picture, by a painter who owes much of his fame to Robert Browning. His Lucrezia is a pretty portrait of his faithless wife. There are Lotto, Parmigianino, Baroccio, Tintoretto, Bassano, Veronese, Domenico Tiepolo, and his celebrated father the fantastic Giambattista Tiepolo--not startling specimens any of them. In the Spanish section Ribera comes at you the strongest. He was a personality as well as a powerful painter. Consider his Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew. Zurbaran follows next in interest, though morbid at times; but of Berragueta, Borgona, Morales, Juanes, Navarette, Coello--an excellent portraitist, imitator of Moro--La Cruz, Alfonso Cano, Luis de Tristan, Espinosa, Bias del Prado, Orrente, Esteban de March--two realistic heads of an old man and an old woman must be set down to his credit--Ribalta, influenced by Caravaggio, in turn influencing Ribera--Juan de las Roelas (el Clerigo), Del Mazo--son-in-law of Velasquez, and responsible for dozens of false attributions--Carreño de Miranda, José Leonardo, Juan Rizi V. Iriarte, the two Herreras, the elder a truculent charlatan, the younger a nonentity, and others of the Spanish school may be dismissed in a word--mediocrities. II The secret of Titian's colour, the "Venetian secret," was produced, some experts believe, by first painting a solid monochrome in tempera on which the picture was finished in oil. Unquestionably Titian corrected and amended his work as much as did Velasquez. It is a pleasing if somewhat theatric belief that Titian and Velasquez, duelled with their canvases, their rapier a brush. After inspecting many of the Hals portraits the evidences of direct painting, swift though calculated, are not to be denied. This may account, with the temperamental equation, for the less profound psychological interest of his portraiture when compared with the Raphael, Titian, Velasquez, and Rembrandt heads. Yet, what superiority in brush-work had Hals over Raphael and Rembrandt. The Raphael surfaces are as a rule hard, dry, and lustreless, while Rembrandt's heavy, troubled paint is no mate for the airy touch of the Mercutio of Haarlem. But Titian's impasto is lyric. It sings on the least of his canvases. No doubt his pictures in the Prado have been "skinned" of their delicate glaze by the iconoclastic restorer; yet they bloom and chant and ever bloom. The Bacchanal, which bears a faint family resemblance to the Bacchus and Ariadne of the London National Gallery, fairly exults in its joy of life, in its frank paganism. What rich reverberating tones, what powers of evocation! The Garden of the Loves is a vision of childhood at its sweetest; the surface of the canvas seems alive with festooned babies. The more voluptuous Venus or Danaë do not so stir your pulse as this immortal choir of cupids. The two portraits of Charles V--one equestrian--are charged with the noble, ardent gravity and splendour of phrasing we expect from the greatest Venetian of them all. We doubt, however, if the Prado Entombment is as finely wrought as the same subject by Titian in Paris; but it sounds a poignant note of sorrow. Rembrandt is more dramatic when dealing with a similar theme. The St. Margaret with its subtle green gown is a figure that is touching and almost tragic. The Madonna and Child, with St. Bridget and St. Hulfus, has been called Giorgionesque. St. Bridget is of the sumptuous Venetian type; the modelling of her head is lovely, her colouring rich. Rubens in the Prado is singularly attractive. There are over fifty, not all of the best quality, but numbering such works as the Three Graces, the Rondo, the Garden of Love, and the masterly unfinished portrait of Marie de Medicis. The Brazen Serpent is a Van Dyck, though the catalogue of 1907 credits it to Rubens. Then there are the Andromeda and Perseus, the Holy Family and Diana and Calista. The portrait of Marie de Médicis, stout, smiling, amiability personified, has been called one of the finest feminine portraits extant--which is a slight exaggeration. It is both mellow and magnificent, and unless history or Rubens lied the lady must have been as mild as mother's milk. The Three Graces, executed during the latter years of the Flemish master, is Rubens at his pagan best. These stalwart and handsome females, without a hint of sleek Italian delicacy, include Rubens's second wife, Helena Fourment, the ox-eyed beauty. What blond flesh tones, what solidity of human architecture, what positive beauty of surfaces and nobility of contours! The Rondo is a mad, whirling dance, the Diana and Calista suggestive of a Turkish bath outdoors, but a picture that might have impelled Walt Whitman to write a sequel to his Children of Adam. Such women were born not alone to bear children but to rule the destinies of mankind; genuine matriarchs. Rembrandt fares ill. His Artemisia about to drink her husband's ashes from a costly cup reveals a ponderous hand. It is but indifferent Rembrandt, despite several jewelled passages. Van Dyck shows at least one great picture, the Betrayal of Christ. The Brazen Serpent only ranks second to it; both are masterpieces, and Antwerp must envy the Prado. The Crown of Thorns, and the portraits, particularly that of the Countess of Wexford, are arresting. His Musician, being the portrait of Lanière the lute-player, and his own portrait on the same canvas with Count Bristol, are cherished treasures. The lutist is especially fascinating. That somewhat mysterious Dutch master, Moro, or Mor (Antonis; born in Utrecht, 1512; died at Antwerp, 1576 or 1578), is represented by more than a dozen portraits. To know what a master of physiognomy he was we need only study his Mary Queen of England, the Buffoon of the Beneventas, the Philip II, and the various heads of royal and noble born dames. The subdued fire and subtlety of this series, the piercing vision and superior handicraft of the painter have placed him high in the artistic hierarchy; but not high enough. At his best he is not far behind Holbein. That great German's art is shown in a solitary masterpiece, the portrait of an unknown man, with shrewd cold eyes, an enormous nose, the hands full of meaning, the fabrics scrupulous as to detail. Next to this Holbein, whose glance follows you around the gallery, are the two Dürers, the portrait of Hans Imhof, a world-renowned picture, and his own portrait (1498), a magical rendering of a Christ-like head, the ringlets curly, the beard youthful, the hands folded as if in prayer. A marvellous composition. It formerly hung too high, above the Hans Imhof; it now hangs next to it. A similar head in the Uffizi is a copy, Sir Walter Armstrong to the contrary notwithstanding. The Flemish schools are to be seen in the basement, not altogether a favourable place, though in the afternoon there is an agreeable light. Like Rubens, Jan van Eyck visited Spain and left the impress of his style. But the Van Eycks at the Prado are now all queried, though several are noteworthy. The Marriage of the Virgin is discredited. The Virgin, Christ and St. John under the golden canopy, called a Hubert van Eyck, is probably by Gossaert de Mabuse, and a clever transposition of the altar piece in St. Bavon's at Ghent. The Fountain of Life, also in the catalogue as a Jan van Eyck, has been pronounced a sixteenth-century copy of a lost picture by his brother Hubert. We may add that not one of these so-called Van Eycks recalls in all their native delicacy and richness the real Van Eycks of Bruges, Ghent, and Brussels; though the Virgin Reading, given as Jan's handiwork, is of a charm. The Depositions, attributed to Rogier van der Weyden (De la Pasture), are acknowledged to be old sixteenth-century copies of the Deposition in the Escorial. The altar piece is excellent. But there is a fine Memling, glowing in pigment and of beautiful design, The Adoration of the Kings, a triptych, like the one at Bruges. In the centre panel we see the kings adoring, one a black man; the two wings, or doors, respectively depict the birth of Christ (right) and the presentation in the temple (left). There is a retablo (reredos) in four compartments, by Petrus Cristus, and two Jerome Patinirs, one, a Temptation of St. Anthony, being enjoyable. The painter-persecuted saint sits in the foreground of a freshly painted landscape, harassed by the attentions of witches, several of them comely and clothed. To be precise, the composition suggests a much-married man listening to the reproaches of his spouses. Hanging in a doorway we found a Herri Met de Bles that is not marked doubtful. It is a triptych, an Adoration, in which the three kings, the Queen of Sheba before Solomon, and Herod participate. A brilliantly tinted work this, which once hung in the Escorial, and, _mirabile dictu_, attributed to Lucas van Leyden. No need to speak of the later Dutch and Flemish school, Teniers, Ostade, Dou, Pourbus, and the minor masters. There are Breughels and Bosches aplenty, and none too good. But there are several Jordaens of quality, a family group, and three heads of street musicians. We forgot to mention an attribution to Jan van Eyck, The Triumph of Religion, which is a curious affair no matter whose brain conceived it. The attendant always points out its religious features with ill-concealed glee. A group of ecclesiastics have confounded a group of rabbis at a fountain which is the foundation of an altar; the old fervour burns in the eyes of the gallery servitor as he shows you the discomfited Hebrew doctors of the law. We may dismiss as harmless the Pinturicchio and other Italian attributions in these basement galleries. There is the usual crew of Anonimos, and a lot of those fantastic painters who are nicknamed by critics without a sense of humour as "The Master of the Fiery Hencoop," "The Master of the Eccentric Omelet," or some such idiotic title. Up-stairs familiar names such as Domenichino, Bassano, Cortona, Crespi, Bellino, Pietra della Vecchia, Allori, Veronese, Maratta, Guido Reni, Romano need not detain us. The catalogue numbers of the Italian school go as high as 628. The Titians, however, are the glory of the Prado. The Spanish school begins at 629, ends at 1,029. The German, Flemish, and Holland schools begin at 1,146, running to 1,852. There are supplements to all of the foregoing. The French school runs from 1,969 to 2,111. But the examples in this section are not inspiring, the Watteaus excepted. There is the usual Champagne, Coypel, Claude of Lorraine (10), Largillière, Lebrun, Van Loo, Mignard (5); one of Le Nain--by both brothers. Nattier (4), Nicolas Poussin (20), Rigaud, and two delicious Watteaus; a rustic betrothal and a view of the garden of St. Cloud, the two exhaling melancholy grace and displaying subdued richness of tone. Tiepolo has been called the last link in the chain of Venetian colourists, which began with the Bellini, followed by Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Palma Vecchio, Bonifazio, Veronese--and to this list might be added the name of the Frenchman Watteau. Chardin was also a colourist, and how many of the Poussins at this gallery might be spared to make room for one of his cool, charming paintings! The Prado about exhausts the art treasures of Madrid. In the Escorial, that most monstrous and gloomiest of the tombs of kings, are pictures that should be seen--some Grecos among the rest--even if the palace does not win your sympathy. In Madrid what was once called the Academia de San Fernando is now the Real Academia de Bellas Artes. It is at 11 Calle de Alcalá and contains a Murillo of quality, the Dream of the Roman Knight, Zurbaran's Carthusians, an Ecce Homo by Ribera, of power; the Death of Dido by Fragonard; a Rubens, St. Francis, the work of his pupils; Alonzo Cano, two Murillos, Domenichino, Tristan, Mengs, Giovanni Bellini; Goya's bull-fights, mad-house scenes, and several portraits--one of the Due de la Paz; a Pereda, a Da Vinci (?), Madrazo, Zurbaran, and Goya's equestrian portrait of Charles IV. A minor gathering, the débris of a former superb collection, and not even catalogued. There are museums devoted to artillery, armour, natural sciences, and archæology. In the imposing National Library, full of precious manuscripts, is the museum of modern art--also without a catalogue. It does not make much of an impression after the Prado. The Fortuny is not characteristic, though a rarity; a sketch for his Battle of Tetuan, the original an unfinished painting, is at Barcelona. There are special galleries such as the Sala Haes with its seventy pictures, which are depressing. The modern Spaniards Zuloaga, Sorolla, Angla-Camarosa are either not represented or else are not at their best. There is a Diaz, who was of Spanish origin; but the Madrazos, Villegas, Montenas, and the others are academic echoes or else feeble and mannered. There are some adroit water-colours by modern Frenchmen, and there is a seeming attempt to make the collection contemporary in spirit, but it is all as dead as the allegorical dormouse, while over at the Prado there is a vitality manifested by the old fellows that bids fair to outlast the drums, tramplings, and conquests of many generations. We have not more than alluded to the sculpture at the Prado; it is not particularly distinguished. The best sculpture we saw in Spain was displayed in wood-carvings. The pride of the Prado is centred upon its Titians, Raphaels, Rubenses, Murillos, El Grecos, and, above all, upon Don Diego de Silva, better known as Velasquez. EL GRECO AT TOLEDO Toledo is less than three hours from Madrid; it might be three years away for all the resemblance it bears to the capital. Both situated in New Castille, Madrid seems sharply modern, as modern as the early nineteenth century, when compared to the mediæval cluster of buildings on the horseshoe-shaped granite heights almost entirely hemmed in by the river Tagus. It is not only one of the most original cities in Spain, but in all Europe. No other boasts its incomparable profile, few the extraordinary vicissitudes of its history. Not romantic in the operatic moonlit Grenada fashion, without the sparkle and colour of Seville or the mundane savour of Madrid, Toledo incarnates in its cold, detached, proud, pious way all that we feel as Spain the aristocratic, Spain the theocratic. To this city on a crag there once came, by way of Venice, a wanderer from Crete. Toledo was the final frame of the strange genius of El Greco; he made it the consecrate ground of his new art. It is difficult to imagine him developing in luxuriant Italy as he did in Spain. His nature needed a sombre and magnificent background; this city gave it to him; for no artist can entirely isolate himself from life, can work in _vacuo_. And El Greco's shivering, spiritual art could have been born on no other soil than Toledo. He is as original as the city. The place shows traces of its masters--Romans, Goths, Saracens, and Christians. It is, indeed, as much Moorish as Christian--the narrow streets, high, narrow houses often windowless, the inner court replacing the open squares that are to be found in Seville. Miscalled the "Spanish Rome," Gautier's description still holds good: Toledo has the character of a convent, a prison, a fortress with something of a seraglio. The enormous cathedral, which dates back to Visigothic Christianity, is, next to Seville's, the most beautiful in Spain. Such a façade, such stained glass, such ceilings! Blanco Ibañez has written pages about this structure. The synagogues, the Moorish mosque, the Alcázar are picturesque. And then there are the Puente de Alcántara, the Casa de Cervantes, the Puerta del Sol, the Prison of the Inquisition, the Church of Santo Tomé--which holds the most precious example of Greco's art--the Sinagogo del Transito, the Church of San Vicente--with Grecos--Santo Domingo (more Grecos); the Convent, near the Church of San Juan de los Reyes, contains the Museo Provincial in which were formerly a number of Grecos; many of these have been transferred to the new Museo El Greco, founded by the Marquis de la Vega-Inclan, an admirer of the painter. This museum was once the home of Greco, and has been restored, so that if the artist returned he might find himself in familiar quarters. Pictures, furniture, carvings of his are there, while the adjoining house is rebuilt in a harmonious style of old material. Remain various antique patios or court-like interiors, the sword manufactory, and the general view from the top of the town. El Greco's romantic portrayment of his adopted city is as true now as the day it was painted--one catches a glimpse of the scene when the contrasts of light and shadow are strong. During a thunderstorm illuminated by blazing shafts of Peninsular lightning Toledo resembles a page torn from the Apocalypse. The cathedral is the usual objective; instead, we first went to the church of Santo Tomé. It is a small Gothic structure, rebuilt from a mosque by Count Orgáz. In commemoration of this gift a large canvas, entitled El Entierro, depicting the funeral of Orgáz, by El Greco, has made Santo Tomé more celebrated than the cathedral. It is an amazing, a thrilling work, nevertheless, on a scale that prevents it from giving completely the quintessence of El Greco. No doubt he was a pupil of Titian; Gautier but repeated current gossip when he said that the Greek went mad in his attempt to emulate his master. But Tintoretto's influence counts heavier in this picture than Titian's, a picture assigned by Cossió midway between Greco's first and second period. Decorative as is the general scheme, the emotional intensity aroused by the row of portraits in the second _plan_, the touching expression of the two saints, Augustine and Stephen, as they gently bear the corpse of the Count, the murky light of the torches in the background, while overhead the saintly hierarchy terminating in a white radiance, Christ the Comforter, His mother at His right hand, quiring hosts at His left--all these figures make an ensemble that at first glance benumbs the critical faculty. You recall the solemn and spasmodic music of Michael Angelo (of whom El Greco is reported to have irreverently declared that he couldn't paint); then as your perspective slowly shapes itself you note that Tintoretto, plus a certain personal accent of morbid magnificence, is the artistic progenitor of this art, an art which otherwise furiously boils over with Spanish characteristics. Nothing could be more vivid and various than the twenty-odd heads near the bottom of the picture. Expression, character, race are not pushed beyond normal limits. The Spaniard, truly noble here, is seen at a half-dozen periods of life. El Greco himself is said to be in the group; the portrait certainly tallies with a reputed one of his. The sumptuousness of the ecclesiastical vestments, court costumes, ruffs, and eloquent hands, the grays, whites, golds, blues, blacks, chord rolling upon chord of subtle tonalities, the supreme illumination of the scene, with its suggestion of a moment swiftly trapped forever in eternity, hook this masterpiece firmly to your memory. It is not one of the greatest pictures in the pantheon of art, not Rembrandt, Velasquez, Hals, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Titian, or Rubens; yet it stands close to them all because of its massed effect of light, life, and emotional situation. We confess to liking it better than the Gloria at the Escorial Palace. This glorification of a dream of Philip II does not pluck electrically at your heart-strings as does the Burial of Count Orgáz, though the two canvases are similar in architectonic. The Expolio is in the cathedral; it belongs to the first period, before El Greco had shaken off Italian influences. The colouring is rather cold. The St. Maurice in the chapter hall of the Escorial is a long step toward a new method of expression. (A replica is in Bucharest.) The Ascension altar piece, formerly in Santo Domingo, now hangs in the Art Institute, Chicago. At Toledo there are about eighty pieces of the master, not including his sculpture, retablos; like Tintoretto, he was accustomed to make little models in clay or wax for the figures in his pictures. His last manner is best exemplified in the Divine Love and Profane Love, belonging to Señor Zuloaga, in The Adoration of the Shepherds, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Assumption at the Church of St. Vicente, Toledo. His chalky whites, poisonous greens, violet shadows, discordant passages of lighting are, as Arthur Symons puts it: Sharp and dim, gray and green, the colour of Toledo. Greco composed his palette with white vermilion, lake, yellow ochre, ivory black. Señor Beruete says that "he generally laid on an impasto for his flesh, put on in little touches, and then added a few definite strokes with the brush which, though accentuated, are very delicate... The gradations of the values is in itself instructive." His human forms became more elongated as he aged; this applies only to his males; his women are of sweetness compounded and graceful in contour. Some a mere arabesque, or living flames; some sinister and fantastic; from the sublime to the silly is with Greco not a wide stride. But in all his surging, writhing sea of wraiths, saints, kings, damned souls and blest, a cerebral grip is manifest. He knew a hawk from a handsaw despite his temperament of a mystic. "He who carries his own most intimate emotions to their highest point becomes the first in a file of a long series of men"; but, adds Mr. Ellis: "To be a leader of men one must turn one's back on men." El Greco, like Charles Baudelaire, cultivated his hysteria. He developed his individuality to the border line across which looms madness. The transmogrification of his temperament after living in Toledo was profound. Born Greek, in art a Venetian, the atmosphere of the Castilian plain changed the colour of his soul. In him there was material enough for both a Savonarola or a Torquemada--his piety was at once iconoclastic and fanatical. And his restlessness, his ceaseless experiments, his absolute discoveries of new tonalities, his sense of mystic grandeur--why here you have, if you will, a Berlioz of paint, a man of cold ardours, hot ecstasies, visions apocalyptic, with a brain like a gloomy cathedral in which the _Tuba Mirum_ is sonorously chanted. But Greco is on the side of the angels; Berlioz, like Goya, too often joined in the infernal antiphonies of Satan _Mekatrig_. And Greco is as dramatic as either. Beruete admits that his idol, Velasquez, was affected by the study of El Greco's colouring. Canaille Saint-Saëns, when Liszt and Rubinstein were compared, exclaimed: "Two great artists who have nothing in common except their superiority." It is bootless to bracket Velasquez with his elder. And Gautier was off the track when he spoke of Greco's resemblance to the bizarre romances of Mrs. Radcliffe; bizarre Greco was, but not trivial nor a charlatan. As to his decadent tendencies we side with the opinion of Mr. Frank Jewett Mather, Jr.: "Certain pedants have written as if the world would be better without its disorderly geniuses. There could, I think, be no sorer error. We need the unbalanced talents, the _poètes damnés_ of every craft. They strew the passions that enrich a lordlier art than their own. They fight valiantly, a little at the expense of their fame, against the only unpardonable sins, stupidity and indifference. Greco should always be an honoured name in this ill-destined company." In the Prado Museum there is a goodly collection. The Annunciation, The Holy Family, Jesus Christ Dead, The Baptism of Christ, The Resurrection, The Crucifixion--a tremendous conception; and The Coming of the Holy Ghost; this latter, with its tongues of fire, its flickering torches, its ecstatic apostles and Mary, her face flooded by a supernal illumination, mightily stirs the æsthetic pulse. The Prado has two dozen specimens, though two of them at least--a poor replica of the Orgáz burial, and another--are known to be by El Greco's son, Jorge Manuel Theotocopuli; of the numerous portraits and other pictures dispersed by time and chance to the four quarters of the globe, we have written earlier in this volume, when dealing with the definitive work on this Greek by Señor Manuel B. Cossio. El Greco, through sheer intensity of temperament and fierce sincerity, could pluck out from men who had become, because of their apathy and grotesque pride, mere vegetable growths, their very souls afire; or if stained by crimes, these souls, he shot them up to God like green meteors. To be sure they have eyes drunk with dreams, the pointed skull of the mystic, and betray a plentiful lack of chin and often an atrabilious nature. When old his saints resemble him, when young he must have looked like his saints, Sebastian and Martin. With his ardent faith he could have confuted the Gnostic or the Manichean heresies in colourful allegory, but instead he sang fervid hosannahs on his canvases to the greater glory of Christ and His saints. Perhaps if he had lived in our times he might have painted heads of fashionable courtesans or equivocal statesmen. But whether primitive or modern, realist or symbolist, he would always have been a painter of dramatic genius. He is the unicorn among artists. VELASQUEZ IN THE PRADO Fearful that your eye has lost its innocence after hearing so much of the picture, you enter the tiny room at the museum on the Prado in which is hung Las Meninas--The Maids of Honour, painted by Velasquez in 1656. My experience was a typical one. I went hastily through the larger Velasquez gallery in not only a challenging but an irritable mood. The holy of holies I was enraged to find, seemingly, crowded. There was the picture, but a big easel stood in the foreground blotting out the left side; some selfish artist copying, some fellow thrusting himself between us and the floating illusion of art. In despair I looked into the mirror that reflects the picture. I suspected trickery. Surely that little princess with her wilful, _distrait_ expression, surely the kneeling maid, the dwarfs, the sprawling dog, the painter Velasquez--with his wig--the heads of the king and queen in the oblong mirror, the figure of Señor Nieto in the doorway, the light framing his silhouette--surely they are all real. Here are the eternal simplicities. You realise that no one is in the room but these painted effigies of the court and family of Philip IV; that the canvas whose bare ribs deceived is in the picture, not on the floor; that Velasquez and the others are _eidolons_, arrested in space by the white magic of his art. For the moment all other artists and their works are as forgotten as the secrets in the lost and sacred books of the Magi. There is but one painter and his name is Velasquez. This mood of ecstatic absorption is never outlived; the miracle operates whenever a visit is made to the shrine. But you soon note that the canvas has been deprived of its delicate glaze. There are patches ominously eloquent of the years that have passed since the birth of this magisterial composition. The tonal key is said to be higher because of restorations; yet to the worshipper these shortcomings are of minor importance. Even Giordano's exclamation: "Sire, this is the theology of painting," falls flat. Essence of painting, would have been a truer statement. There is no other-worldliness here, but something more normal, a suggestion of solid reality, a vision of life. The various figures breathe; so potent is their vitality that my prime impression in entering the room was a sense of the presence of others. Perhaps this is not as consummate art as the voluptuous colour-symphonies of Titian, the golden exuberance of Rubens, the abstract spacing of Raphael, the mystic opium of Rembrandt; but it is an art more akin to nature, an art that is a lens through which you may spy upon life. You recall Ibsen and his "fourth wall." Velasquez has let us into the secret of human existence. Not, however, in the realistic order of inanimate objects copied so faithfully as to fool the eye. Presentation, not representation, is the heart of this coloured imagery, and so moving, so redolent of life is it that if the world were shattered and Las Meninas shot to the coast of Mars, its inhabitants would be able to reconstruct an idea of the creatures that once inhabited old Mother Earth; men, women, children, their shapes, attitudes, gestures, and attributes. The mystery of sentient beings lurks in this canvas, the illusion of atmosphere has never been so contrived. In the upper part of the picture space is indicated in a manner that recalls both Rembrandt and Raphael. Velasquez, too, was a space-composer. Velasquez, too, plucked at the heart of darkness. But his air is luminous, the logic of his proportion faultless, his synthesis absolute. Where other painters juxtapose he composes. Despite the countless nuances of his thin, slippery brush strokes, the picture is always a finely spun whole. When Fragonard was starting for Rome, Boucher said to him: "If you take those people over there seriously you are done for." Luckily Frago did not, and, despite his two Italian journeys, Velasquez was not seduced into taking "those people" seriously. His recorded opinion of Raphael is corroborative of his attitude toward Italian art. Titian was his sole god. For nearly a year he was in daily intercourse with Rubens, but of Rubens's influence upon him there is little trace. Las Meninas is the perfect flowering of the genius of the Spaniard. It has been called impressionistic; Velasquez has been claimed as the father of impressionism as Stendhal was hailed by Zola as the literary progenitor of naturalism. But Velasquez is too universal to be labelled in the interests of any school. His themes are of this earth, his religious paintings are the least credible of his efforts. They are Italianate as if the artist dared not desert the familiar religious stencil. His art is not correlated to the other arts. One does not dream of music or poetry or sculpture or drama in front of his pictures. One thinks of life and then of the beauty of the paint. Velasquez is never rhetorical, nor does he paint for the sake of making beautiful surfaces as often does Titian. His practice is not art for art as much as art for life. As a portraitist, Titian's is the only name to be coupled with that of Velasquez. He neither flattered his sitters, as did Van Dyck, nor mocked them like Goya. And consider the mediocrities, the dull, ugly, royal persons he was forced to paint! He has wrung the neck of banal eloquence, and his prose, sober, rich, noble, sonorous, rhythmic, is to my taste preferable to the exalted, versatile volubility and lofty poetic tumblings in the azure of any school of painting. His palette is ever cool and fastidiously restricted. It has been said that he lacks imagination, as if creation or evocation of character is not the loftiest attribute of imagination, even though it deals not with the stuff of which mythologies are made. We admire the enthusiasm of Mr. Ricketts for Velasquez, and his analysis is second to none save R.A.M. Stevenson's. Yet we do protest the painter was not the bundle of negations Mr. Ricketts has made of him in his evident anxiety that some homage may be diverted from Titian. Titian is incomparable. Velasquez is unique. But to describe him as an artist who cautiously studied the work of other men, and then avoided by a series of masterly omissions and evasions their faults as well as their excellences, is a statement that robs Velasquez of his originality. He is not an eclectic. He is a man of affirmations, Velasquez. A student to his death, he worked slowly, revised painfully, above all, made heroic sacrifices. Each new canvas was a discovery. The things he left out of his pictures would fill a second Prado Museum. And the things he painted in are the glories of the world. Because of his simplicity, absence of fussiness, avoidance of the mock-heroic, of the inflated "grand manner," critics have pressed too heavily upon this same simplicity. There is nothing as subtle as his simplicity, for it is a simplicity that conceals subtlety. No matter the time of day or season of the year you visit Velasquez, you never find him off his guard. Aristocratic in his ease, he disarms you first. You may change your love, your politics, your religion, but once a Velasquez worshipper, always one. Mr. Ricketts, over-anxious at precisely placing him, writes of his "distinction." He is the most "distinguished" painter in history. But we contend that this phrase eludes precise definition. "Distinguished" in what? we ask. Style, character, paint quality, vision of the beautiful? Why not come out plumply with the truth: Velasquez is the supreme harmonist in art. No one ever approached him in his handling save Hals, and Hals hardly boasts the artistic inches of Velasquez. Both possessed a daylight vision of the world. Reality came to them in the sharpest guise; but the vision of Velasquez came in a more beautiful envelope. And his psychology is profounder. He painted the sparkle of the eyes and also the look in them, the challenging glance that asks: "Are we, too, not humans?" Titian saw colour as a poet, Velasquez as a charmer and a reflective temperament. Hals doesn't think at all. He slashes out a figure for you and then he is done. The graver, deeper Spaniard is not satisfied until he has kept his pact with nature. So his vision of her is more rounded, concrete, and truthful than the vision of other painters. The balance in his work of the most disparate and complex relations of form, space, colour, and rhythm has the unpremeditated quality of life; yet the massive harmonic grandeurs of Las Meninas have been placed by certain critics in the category of glorified genre. Some prefer Las Hilanderas in the outer gallery. After the stately equestrian series, the Philip, the Olivares, the Baltasar Carlos; after the bust portraits of Philip in the Prado and in the National Gallery, the hunting series; after the Crucifixion and its sombre background, you return to The Spinners and wonder anew. Its subtitle might be: Variations on the Theme of Sunshine. In it the painter pursues the coloured adventures of a ray of light. Rhythmically more involved and contrapuntal than The Maids, this canvas, with its brilliant broken lights, its air that circulates, its tender yet potent conducting of the eye from the rounded arm of the seductive girl at the loom to the arched area with its leaning, old-time bass-viol, its human figures melting dream-like into the tapestried background, arouses within the spectator much more complicated _états d'âme_ than does Las Meninas. The silvery sorceries of that picture soothe the spirit and pose no riddles; The Spinners is a cathedral crammed with implications. Is it not the last word of the art of Velasquez--though it preceded The Maids? Will the eye ever tire of its glorious gloom, its core of tonal richness, its virile exaltation of everyday existence? Is it only a trick of the wrist, a deft blending of colours by this artist, who has been called, wrongfully--the "Shakespeare of the brush"? Is all this nothing more than "distinguished"? Mr. Ricketts justly calls Las Lanzas the unique historic picture. Painted at the very flush of his genius, painted with sympathy for the conquered and the conqueror--Velasquez accompanied the Marquis of Spinola to Italy--this Surrender of Breda has received the homage of many generations. Sir Joshua Reynolds asserted that the greatest picture at Rome was the Velasquez head of Pope Innocent X in the Doria Palace (a variant is in the Hermitage Gallery, St. Petersburg). What would he have said in the presence of this captivating evocation of a historic event? The battle pieces of Michael Angelo, Da Vinci, and Titian are destroyed; Las Lanzas remains a testimony to the powers of imaginative reconstruction and architectonic of Velasquez. It is the most complete, the most natural picture in the world. The rhythms of the bristling lances are syncopated by a simple device; they are transposed to another plane of perspective, there in company with a lowered battle standard. The acute rhythms of these spears has given to the picture its title of The Lances, and never was title more appropriate. The picture is at once a decorative arabesque, an ensemble of tones, and a slice of history. Spinola receives from the conquered Justin of Nassau the keys of the beleagured Breda. Velasquez creates two armies out of eight figures, a horse and fourteen heads--here is the recipe of Degas for making a multitude carried to the height of the incredible. His own portrait, that of a grave, handsome man, may be seen to the right of the big horse. The first period of his art found Velasquez a realist heavy in colour and brush-work, and without much hint of the transcendental realism to be noted in his later style. The dwarfs, buffoons, the Æsop and the Menippus are the result of an effortless art. In the last manner the secret of the earth mingles with the mystery of the stars, as Dostoïevsky would put it. The Topers, The Forge of Vulcan, are pictures that enthrall because of their robust simplicity and vast technical sweep though they do not possess the creative invention of the Mercury and Argus or The Anchorites. This latter is an amazing performance. Two hermits--St. Antony the Abbot visiting St. Paul the Hermit--are shown. A flying raven, bread in beak, nears them. You could swear that the wafer of flour is pasted on the canvas. This picture breathes peace and sweetness. The Christ of the Spaniard is a man, not a god, crucified. His Madonnas, masterly as they are, do not reach out hands across the frame as do his flower-like royal children and delicate monsters. The crinolined princess, Margarita, with her spangles and furbelows, is a companion to the Margarita at the Louvre and the one in Vienna. She is the exquisite and lyric Velasquez. On his key-board of imbricated tones there are grays that felicitously sing across alien strawberry tints, thence modulate into fretworks of dim golden fire. As a landscapist Velasquez is at his best in the Prado. The various backgrounds and those two views painted at Rome in the garden of the Villa Medici--a liquid comminglement of Corot and Constable, as has been pointed out--prove this man of protean gifts to have anticipated modern discoveries in vibrating atmospheric effects and colour-values. But, then, Velasquez will always be "modern." And when time has obliterated his work he may become the legendary Parrhasius of a vanished epoch. To see him in the Prado is to stand eye to eye with the most enchanting realities of art. _CODA_ When a man begins to chatter of his promenades among the masterpieces it may be assumed that he has crossed the sill of middle-age. Remy de Gourmont, gentle ironist, calls such a period _l'heure insidieuse_. Yet, is it not something--a vain virtue, perhaps--to possess the courage of one's windmills! From the Paris of the days when I haunted the ateliers of Gérôme, Bonnat, Meissonier, Couture, and spent my enthusiasms over the colour-schemes of Decamps and Fortuny, to the Paris of the revolutionists, Manet, Degas, Monet, now seems a life long. But time fugues precipitately through the land of art. In reality both periods overlap; the dichotomy is spiritual, not temporal. The foregoing memoranda are frankly in the key of impressionism. They are a record of some personal preferences, not attempts at critical revaluations. Appearing first in the New York _Sun_, the project of their publication in book form met with the approbation of its proprietor, William Mackay Laffan, whose death in 1909 was an international loss to the Fine Arts. If these opinions read like a medley of hastily crystallised judgments jotted down after the manner of a traveller pressed for time, they are none the less sincere. My garden is only a straggling weedy plot, but I have traversed it with delight; in it I have promenaded my dearest prejudices, my most absurd illusions. And central in this garden may be found the image of the supreme illusionist of art, Velasquez. Since writing the preceding articles on El Greco and Velasquez the museum of the Hispanic Society, New York, has been enabled, through the munificent generosity of Mr. Archer M. Huntington, to exhibit his newly acquired El Grecos and a Velasquez. The former comprise a brilliantly coloured Holy Family, which exhales an atmosphere of serenity; the St. Joseph is said to be a portrait of El Greco; and there also is a large canvas showing Christ with several of his disciples. Notable examples both. The Velasquez comes from the collection of the late Edouard Kann and is a life-size bust portrait of a sweetly grave little girl. Señor Beruete believes her to represent the daughter of the painter Mazo and his wife, Francisca Velasquez, therefore a granddaughter of Velasquez. The tonalities of this picture are subtly beautiful, the modelling mysterious, the expression vital and singularly child-like. It is a fitting companion to a portrait hanging on the same wall, that of the aristocratic young Cardinal Pamphili, a nephew of Pope Innocent X, also by the great Spaniard. * * * * * BOOKS BY JAMES HUNEKER MEZZOTINTS IN MODERN MUSIC BRAHMS, TSCHAÏKOWSKY, CHOPIN, RICHARD STRAUSS, LISZT AND WAGNER 12mo. $1.50 "Mr. Huneker is, in the best sense, a critic; he listens to the music and gives you his impressions as rapidly and in as few words as possible; or he sketches the composers in fine, broad, sweeping strokes with a magnificent disregard for unimportant details. And as Mr. Huneker is, as I have said, a powerful personality, a man of quick brain and an energetic imagination, a man of moods and temperament--a string that vibrates and sings in response to music--we get in these essays of his a distinctly original and very valuable contribution to the world's tiny musical literature."--J. F. Runciman, in London Saturday Review. MELOMANIACS 12mo. 31.50 Contents: The Lord's Prayer in B--A Son of Liszt--A Chopin of the Gutter--The Piper of Dreams--An Emotional Acrobat--Isolde's Mother--The Rim of Finer Issues--An Ibsen Girl--Tannhäuser's Choice--The Red-Headed Piano Player--Brynhüd's Immolation--The Quest of the Elusive--An Involuntary Insurgent--Hunding's Wife--The Corridor of Time--Avatar--The Wegstaffes give a Musicale--The Iron Virgin--Dusk of the Gods--Siegfried's Death--Intermezzo--A Spinner of Silence--The Disenchanted Symphony--Music the Conqueror. "It would be difficult to sum up 'Melomaniacs' in a phrase. Never did a book, in my opinion at any rate, exhibit greater contrasts, not, perhaps, of strength and weakness, but of clearness and obscurity. It is inexplicably uneven, as if the writer were perpetually playing on the boundary line that divides sanity of thought from intellectual chaos. There is method in the madness, but it is a method of intangible ideas. Nevertheless, there is genius written over a large portion of it, and to a musician the wealth of musical imagination is a living spring of thought"--Harold E. Gorst, in _London Saturday Review_ (Dec. 8, 1906). BOOKS BY JAMES HUNEKER ICONOCLASTS: A Book of Dramatists 12mo. $1.50 net CONTENTS: Henrik Ibsen--August Strindberg--Henry Becque--Gerhart Hauptmann--Paul Hervieu--The Quintessence of Shaw--Maxim Gorky's Nachtasyl--Hermann Sudennann--Princess Mathilde's Play--Duse and D'Annunzio--Villiers de l'lsle Adam--Maurice Maeterlinck. "His style is a little jerky, but it is one of those rare styles in which we are led to expect some significance, if not wit, in every sentence."--G.K. Chesterton, _in London Daily News._ "No other book in English has surveyed the whole field so comprehensively."--The Outlook. "A capital book, lively, informing, suggestive."--London Times Saturday Review. "Eye-opening and mind-clarifying is Mr. Huneker's criticism; ... no one having read that opening essay in this volume will lay it down until the final judgment upon Maurice Maeterlinck is reached."--Boston Transcript. OVERTONES: A Book of Temperaments _WITH FRONTISPIECE PORTRAIT OF RICHARD STRAUSS_ 12mo. $1.25 net CONTENTS: Richard Strauss--Parsifal: A Mystical Melodrama--Literary Men who loved Music (Balzac, Turgenieff, Daudet, etc.)--The Eternal Feminine--The Beethoven of French Prose--Nietzsche the Rhapsodist--Anarchs of Art--After Wagner, What?--Verdi and Boito. "The whole book is highly refreshing with its breadth of knowledge, its catholicity of taste, and its inexhaustible energy."--_Saturday Review, London._ "In some respects Mr. Huneker must be reckoned the most brilliant of all living writers on matters musical."--_Academy, London._ "No modern musical critic has shown greater ingenuity in the attempt to correlate the literary and musical tendencies of the nineteenth century."--_Spectator, London._ BOOKS BY JAMES HUNEKER EGOISTS _A BOOK OF SUPERMEN_ Stendhal, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Anatole France, Huysmans, Barrès, Hello, Blake, Nietzsche, Ibsen and Max Stirner. With portrait of Stendhal, unpublished letter of Flaubert, and original proof page of "Madame Bovary." 12mo. $1.50 net "The best thing in the book happily comes first, the essay on Stendhal. Closely and yet lightly written, full of facts yet as amusing as a bit of discursive talk, penetrating, candid and very shrewd, this study would be hard to beat in English, or, for that matter, in French. It is, too, the best of the essays as regards discrimination. There are no shades of Stendhal's genius, whether making for good or for ill, that are missed by this analyst, and, moreover, both the lights and shadows are justly distributed... He seeks to show you the color of a man's mind, and it is evidence of his validity as an essayist that straightway he interests you in the color of his own. He is an impressionist in criticism... Such an essayist is Mr. Huneker, a foe to dulness who is also a man of brains."--Royal Cortissoz in _New York Tribune._ "JAMES HUNEKER: INDIVIDUALIST" "As a critic, whether of music, the plastic arts, of poetry or fiction or philosophy, he is of those who never attain finality; but he is always stimulating, provocative of thought, and by virtue of this quality, not invariably possessed by critics, he is entitled to a distinctive place in American letters." Edward Clark Marsh in _The Forum._ BOOKS BY JAMES HUNEKER VISIONARIES 12mo. $1.50 net Contents: A Master of Cobwebs--The Eighth Deadly Sin--The Purse of Aholibah--Rebels of the Moon--The Spiral Road--A Mock Sun--Antichrist--The Eternal Duel--The Enchanted Yodler--The Third Kingdom--The Haunted Harpsichord--The Tragic Wall--A Sentimental Rebellion--Hall of the Missing Footsteps--The Cursory Light--An Iron Fan--The Woman Who Loved Chopin--The Tune of Time--Nada--Pan. "The author's style is sometimes grotesque in its desire both to startle and to find true expression. He has not followed those great novelists who write French a child may read and understand. He calls the moon 'a spiritual gray wafer'; it faints in 'a red wind'; 'truth beats at the bars of a man's bosom'; the sun is 'a sulphur-colored cymbal'; a man moves with 'the jaunty grace of a young elephant.' But even these oddities are significant and to be placed high above the slipshod sequences of words that have done duty till they are as meaningless as the imprint on a worn-out coin. "Besides, in nearly every story the reader is arrested by the idea, and only a little troubled now and then by an over-elaborate style. If most of us are sane, the ideas cherished by these visionaries are insane; but the imagination of the author so illuminates them that we follow wondering and spellbound. In 'The Spiral Road' and in some of the other stories both fantasy and narrative may be compared with Hawthorne in his most unearthly moods. The younger man has read his Nietzsche and has cast off his heritage of simple morals. Hawthorne's Puritanism finds no echo in these modern souls, all sceptical, wavering and unblessed. But Hawthorne's splendor of vision and his power of sympathy with a tormented mind do live again in the best of Mr. Huneker's stories."--London Academy (Feb. 3, 1906). * * * * * CHOPIN: The Man and His Music WITH ETCHED PORTRAIT 12mo. $2.00 "No pianist, amateur or professional, can rise from the perusal of his pages without a deeper appreciation of the new forms of beauty which Chopin has added, like so many species of orchids, to the musical flora of the nineteenth century."--The Nation. "I think it not too much to predict that Mr. Huneker's estimate of Chopin and his works is destined to be the permanent one. He gives the reader the cream of the cream of all noteworthy previous commentators, besides much that is wholly his own. He speaks at once with modesty and authority, always with personal charm."--Boston Transcript. 
28421	----	[Transcriber's note: Bold text is marked with =." Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained. "Elecate" should be "Elacate".] LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT PAINTERS SCULPTORS & ARCHITECTS BY GIORGIO VASARI: VOLUME V. ANDREA DA FIESOLE TO LORENZO LOTTO 1913 NEWLY TRANSLATED BY GASTON Du C. DE VERE. WITH FIVE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS: IN TEN VOLUMES [Illustration: 1511-1574] PHILIP LEE WARNER, PUBLISHER TO THE MEDICI SOCIETY, LIMITED 7 GRAFTON ST. LONDON, W. 1912-14 CONTENTS OF VOLUME V PAGE ANDREA DA FIESOLE [ANDREA FERRUCCI], AND OTHERS 1 VINCENZIO DA SAN GIMIGNANO [VINCENZIO TAMAGNI], AND TIMOTEO DA URBINO [TIMOTEO DELLA VITE] 9 ANDREA DAL MONTE SANSOVINO [ANDREA CONTUCCI] 19 BENEDETTO DA ROVEZZANO 33 BACCIO DA MONTELUPO, AND RAFFAELLO HIS SON 39 LORENZO DI CREDI 47 LORENZETTO AND BOCCACCINO 53 BALDASSARRE PERUZZI 61 GIOVAN FRANCESCO PENNI [CALLED IL FATTORE], AND PELLEGRINO DA MODENA 75 ANDREA DEL SARTO 83 MADONNA PROPERZIA DE' ROSSI 121 ALFONSO LOMBARDI, MICHELAGNOLO DA SIENA, GIROLAMO SANTA CROCE, AND DOSSO AND BATTISTA DOSSI 129 GIOVANNI ANTONIO LICINIO OF PORDENONE, AND OTHERS 143 GIOVANNI ANTONIO SOGLIANI 157 GIROLAMO DA TREVISO 167 POLIDORO DA CARAVAGGIO AND MATURINO 173 IL ROSSO 187 BARTOLOMMEO DA BAGNACAVALLO, AND OTHERS 205 FRANCIABIGIO [FRANCIA] 215 MORTO DA FELTRO AND ANDREA DI COSIMO FELTRINI 225 MARCO CALAVRESE 235 FRANCESCO MAZZUOLI [PARMIGIANO] 241 JACOPO PALMA [PALMA VECCHIO] AND LORENZO LOTTO 257 INDEX OF NAMES 267 ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME V PLATES IN COLOUR FACING PAGE TIMOTEO DA URBINO (TIMOTEO DELLA VITE) A Muse Florence: Corsini Gallery 10 LORENZO DI CREDI Venus Florence: Uffizi, 3452 48 BERNARDINO DEL LUPINO (LUINI) S. Catharine borne to her Tomb by Angels Milan: Brera, 288 54 ANDREA DEL SARTO Madonna dell' Arpie Florence: Uffizi, 1112 94 DOSSO DOSSI A Nymph with a Satyr Florence: Pitti, 147 140 FRANCIABIGIO (FRANCIA) Portrait of a Man Vienna: Prince Liechtenstein 222 LORENZO LOTTO The Triumph of Chastity Rome: Rospigliosi Gallery 258 JACOPO PALMA (PALMA VECCHIO) S. Barbara Venice: S. Maria Formosa 260 RONDINELLO (NICCOLÒ RONDINELLI) Madonna and Child Paris: Louvre, 1159 264 PLATES IN MONOCHROME ANDREA DA FIESOLE (ANDREA FERRUCCI) Font Pistoia: Duomo 6 SILVIO COSINI (SILVIO DA FIESOLE) Tomb of Raffaele Maffei Volterra: S. Lino 8 VINCENZIO DA SAN GIMIGNANO (VINCENZIO TAMAGNI) The Birth of the Virgin San Gimignano: S. Agostino, Cappella del S. Sacramento 12 TIMOTEO DA URBINO (TIMOTEO DELLA VITE) Madonna and Saints, with a Child Angel Milan: Brera, 508 12 TIMOTEO DA URBINO (TIMOTEO DELLA VITE) The Magdalene Bologna: Accademia, 204 16 ANDREA DAL MONTE SANSOVINO (ANDREA CONTUCCI) Altar-piece Florence: S. Spirito 22 ANDREA DAL MONTE SANSOVINO (ANDREA CONTUCCI) Tomb of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza Rome: S. Maria del Popolo 24 ANDREA DAL MONTE SANSOVINO (ANDREA CONTUCCI) The Madonna and Child, with S. Anne Rome: S. Agostino 26 BENEDETTO DA ROVEZZANO Tomb of Piero Soderini Florence: S. Maria del Carmine 38 BACCIO DA MONTELUPO S. John the Evangelist Florence: Or San Michele 42 AGOSTINO BUSTI (IL BAMBAJA) Detail from the Tomb: Head of Gaston de Foix Milan: Brera 44 RAFFAELLO DA MONTELUPO S. Damiano Florence: New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo 44 LORENZO DI CREDI Andrea Verrocchio Florence: Uffizi, 1163 50 LORENZO DI CREDI Madonna and Child, with Saints Paris: Louvre, 1263 52 LORENZO DI CREDI The Nativity Florence: Accademia, 92 52 LORENZETTO Elijah Rome: S. Maria del Popolo, Chigi Chapel 56 LORENZETTO S. Peter Rome: Ponte S. Angelo 56 BOCCACCINO Madonna and Child, with Saints Rome: Doria Gallery, 125 58 BERNARDINO DEL LUPINO (LUINI) The Marriage of the Virgin Saronno: Santuario della Beata Vergine 60 BALDASSARRE PERUZZI Cupola of the Ponzetti Chapel Rome: S. Maria della Pace 64 BALDASSARRE PERUZZI Palazzo della Farnesina Rome 66 BALDASSARRE PERUZZI Courtyard of Palazzo Massimi Rome 70 GIOVANNI FRANCESCO PENNI (IL FATTORE) The Baptism of Constantine Rome: The Vatican 78 GAUDENZIO MILANESE (GAUDENZIO FERRARI) The Last Supper Milan: S. Maria della Passione 80 ANDREA DEL SARTO "Noli Me Tangere" Florence: Uffizi, 93 86 ANDREA DEL SARTO The Last Supper Florence: S. Salvi 88 ANDREA DEL SARTO The Arrival of the Magi Florence: SS. Annunziata 90 ANDREA DEL SARTO Charity Paris: Louvre, 1514 98 ANDREA DEL SARTO Cæsar receiving the Tribute of Egypt Florence: Poggio a Caiano 104 ANDREA DEL SARTO Portrait of the Artist Florence: Uffizi, 280 112 MADONNA PROPERZIA DE' ROSSI Two Angels (with The Assumption of the Virgin, after TRIBOLO) Bologna: S. Petronio 126 ALFONSO LOMBARDI The Death of the Virgin Bologna: S. Maria della Vita 134 MICHELAGNOLO DA SIENA Tomb of Adrian VI Rome: S. Maria dell' Anima 136 GIROLAMO SANTA CROCE Madonna and Child, with SS. Peter and John Naples: Monte Oliveto 138 DOSSO DOSSI Madonna and Child, with SS. George and Michael Modena: Pinacoteca, 437 140 GIOVANNI ANTONIO LICINIO OF PORDENONE The Disputation of S. Catharine Piacenza: S. Maria di Campagna 150 GIOVANNI ANTONIO LICINIO OF PORDENONE The Adoration of the Magi Treviso: Duomo 152 GIOVANNI ANTONIO SOGLIANI The Legend of S. Dominic Florence: S. Marco 162 IL ROSSO Madonna and Child, with Saints Florence: Uffizi, 47 190 IL ROSSO The Transfiguration Città di Castello: Duomo 198 BARTOLOMMEO DA BAGNACAVALLO The Holy Family, with Saints Bologna: Accademia, 133 208 AMICO OF BOLOGNA (AMICO ASPERTINI) The Adoration Bologna: Pinacoteca, 297 210 INNOCENZIO DA IMOLA The Marriage of S. Catharine Bologna: S. Giacomo Maggiore 214 FRANCIABIGIO (FRANCIA) The Marriage of the Virgin Florence: SS. Annunziata 218 FRANCESCO MAZZUOLI (PARMIGIANO) The Marriage of S. Catharine Parma: Gallery, 192 246 FRANCESCO MAZZUOLI (PARMIGIANO) Madonna and Child, with Saints Bologna: Accademia, 116 250 JACOPO PALMA (PALMA VECCHIO) S. Sebastian Venice: S. Maria Formosa 260 LORENZO LOTTO The Glorification of S. Nicholas Venice: S. Maria del Carmine 262 LORENZO LOTTO Andrea Odoni Hampton Court Palace 262 RONDINELLO (NICCOLÒ RONDINELLI) Madonna and Child, with Saints Ravenna: Accademia 264 FRANCESCO DA COTIGNOLA The Adoration of the Shepherds Ravenna: Accademia 266 CORRIGENDUM P. 151, l. 13, _Vicenza_ is an error of the Italian text for Piacenza, the church referred to being in the latter town ANDREA DA FIESOLE LIVES OF ANDREA DA FIESOLE [_ANDREA FERRUCCI_] SCULPTOR AND OF OTHER CRAFTSMEN OF FIESOLE Seeing that it is no less necessary for sculptors to have mastery over their carving-tools than it is for him who practises painting to be able to handle colours, it therefore happens that many who work very well in clay prove to be unable to carry their labours to any sort of perfection in marble; and some, on the contrary, work very well in marble, without having any more knowledge of design than a certain instinct for a good manner, I know not what, that they have in their minds, derived from the imitation of certain things which please their judgment, and which their imagination absorbs and proceeds to use for its own purposes. And it is almost a marvel to see the manner in which some sculptors, without in any way knowing how to draw on paper, nevertheless bring their works to a fine and praiseworthy completion with their chisels. This was seen in Andrea, a sculptor of Fiesole, the son of Piero di Marco Ferrucci, who learnt the rudiments of sculpture in his earliest boyhood from Francesco di Simone Ferrucci, another sculptor of Fiesole. And although at the beginning he learnt only to carve foliage, yet little by little he became so well practised in his work that it was not long before he set himself to making figures; insomuch that, having a swift and resolute hand, he executed his works in marble rather with a certain judgment and skill derived from nature than with any knowledge of design. Nevertheless, he afterwards gave a little more attention to art, when, in the flower of his youth, he followed Michele Maini, likewise a sculptor of Fiesole; which Michele made the S. Sebastian of marble in the Minerva at Rome, which was so much praised in those days. Andrea, then, having been summoned to work at Imola, built a chapel of grey-stone, which was much extolled, in the Innocenti in that city. After that work, he went to Naples at the invitation of Antonio di Giorgio of Settignano, a very eminent engineer, and architect to King Ferrante, with whom Antonio was in such credit, that he had charge not only of all the buildings in that kingdom, but also of all the most important affairs of State. On arriving in Naples, Andrea was set to work, and he executed many things for that King in the Castello di San Martino and in other parts of that city. Now Antonio died; and after the King had caused him to be buried with obsequies suited rather to a royal person than to an architect, and with twenty pairs of mourners following him to the grave, Andrea, recognizing that this was no country for him, departed from Naples and made his way back to Rome, where he stayed for some time, attending to the studies of his art, and also to some work. Afterwards, having returned to Tuscany, he built the marble chapel containing the baptismal font in the Church of S. Jacopo at Pistoia, and with much diligence executed the basin of that font, with all its ornamentation. And on the main wall of the chapel he made two lifesize figures in half-relief--namely, S. John baptizing Christ, a work executed very well and with a beautiful manner. At the same time he made some other little works, of which there is no need to make mention. I must say, indeed, that although these things were wrought by Andrea rather with the skill of his hand than with art, yet there may be perceived in them a boldness and an excellence of taste worthy of great praise. And, in truth, if such craftsmen had a thorough knowledge of design united to their practised skill and judgment, they would vanquish in excellence those who, drawing perfectly, only hack the marble when they set themselves to work it, and toil at it painfully with a sorry result, through not having practice and not knowing how to handle the tools with the skill that is necessary. After these works, Andrea executed a marble panel that was placed exactly between the two flights of steps that ascend to the upper choir in the Church of the Vescovado at Fiesole; in which panel he made three figures in the round and some scenes in low-relief. And for S. Girolamo, at Fiesole, he made the little marble panel that is built into the middle of the church. Having come into repute by reason of the fame of these works, Andrea was commissioned by the Wardens of Works of S. Maria del Fiore, at the time when Cardinal Giulio de' Medici was governing Florence, to make a statue of an Apostle four braccia in height; at that time, I mean, when four other similar statues were allotted at one and the same moment to four other masters--one to Benedetto da Maiano, another to Jacopo Sansovino, a third to Baccio Bandinelli, and the fourth to Michelagnolo Buonarroti; which statues were eventually to be twelve in number, and were to be placed in that part of that magnificent temple where there are the Apostles painted by the hand of Lorenzo di Bicci. Andrea, then, executed his rather with fine skill and judgment than with design; and he acquired thereby, if not as much praise as the others, at least the name of a good and practised master. Wherefore he was almost continually employed ever afterwards by the Wardens of Works of that church; and he made the head of Marsilius Ficinus that is to be seen therein, within the door that leads to the chapter-house. He made, also, a marble fountain that was sent to the King of Hungary, which brought him great honour; and by his hand was a marble tomb that was sent, likewise, to Strigonia, a city of Hungary. In this tomb was a Madonna, very well executed, with other figures; and in it was afterwards laid to rest the body of the Cardinal of Strigonia. To Volterra Andrea sent two Angels of marble in the round; and for Marco del Nero, a Florentine, he made a lifesize Crucifix of wood, which is now in the Church of S. Felicita at Florence. He made a smaller one for the Company of the Assumption in Fiesole. Andrea also delighted in architecture, and he was the master of Mangone, the stonecutter and architect, who afterwards erected many palaces and other buildings in Rome in a passing good manner. In the end, having grown old, Andrea gave his attention only to mason's work, like one who, being a modest and worthy person, loved a quiet life more than anything else. He received from Madonna Antonia Vespucci the commission for a tomb for her husband, Messer Antonio Strozzi; but since he could not work much himself, the two Angels were made for him by Maso Boscoli of Fiesole, his disciple, who afterwards executed many works in Rome and elsewhere, and the Madonna was made by Silvio Cosini of Fiesole, although it was not set into place immediately after it was finished, which was in the year 1522, because Andrea died, and was buried by the Company of the Scalzo in the Church of the Servi. [Illustration: FONT (_After_ Andrea da Fiesole [Andrea Ferrucci]. _Pistoia: Duomo_) _Brogi_] Silvio, when the said Madonna was set into place and the tomb of the Strozzi completely finished, pursued the art of sculpture with extraordinary zeal; wherefore he afterwards executed many works in a graceful and beautiful manner, and surpassed a host of other masters, above all in the bizarre fancy of his grotesques, as may be seen in the sacristy of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, from some carved marble capitals over the pilasters of the tombs, with some little masks so well hollowed out that there is nothing better to be seen. In the same place he made some friezes with very beautiful masks in the act of crying out; wherefore Buonarroti, seeing the genius and skill of Silvio, caused him to begin certain trophies to complete those tombs, but they remained unfinished, with other things, by reason of the siege of Florence. Silvio executed a tomb for the Minerbetti in their chapel in the tramezzo[1] of the Church of S. Maria Novella, as well as any man could, since, in addition to the beautiful shape of the sarcophagus, there are carved upon it various shields, helmet-crests, and other fanciful things, and all with as much design as could be desired in such a work. Being at Pisa in the year 1528, Silvio made there an Angel that was wanting over a column on the high-altar of the Duomo, to face the one by Tribolo; and he made it so like the other that it could not be more like even if it were by the same hand. In the Church of Monte Nero, near Livorno, he made a little panel of marble with two figures, for the Frati Ingesuati; and at Volterra he made a tomb for Messer Raffaello da Volterra, a man of great learning, wherein he portrayed him from nature on a sarcophagus of marble, with some ornaments and figures. Afterwards, while the siege of Florence was going on, Niccolò Capponi, a most honourable citizen, died at Castel Nuovo della Garfagnana on his return from Genoa, where he had been as Ambassador from his Republic to the Emperor; and Silvio was sent in great haste to make a cast of his head, to the end that he might afterwards make one in marble, having already executed a very beautiful one in wax. Now Silvio lived for some time with all his family in Pisa; and since he belonged to the Company of the Misericordia, which in that city accompanies those condemned to death to the place of execution, there once came into his head, being sacristan at that time, the strangest caprice in the world. One night he took out of the grave the body of one who had been hanged the day before; and, after having dissected it for the purposes of his art, being a whimsical fellow, and perhaps a wizard, and ready to believe in enchantments and suchlike follies, he flayed it completely, and with the skin, prepared after a method that he had been taught, he made a jerkin, which he wore for some time over his shirt, believing that it had some great virtue, without anyone ever knowing of it. But having once been upbraided by a good Father to whom he had confessed the matter, he pulled off the jerkin and laid it to rest in a grave, as the monk had urged him to do. Many other similar stories could be told of this man, but, since they have nothing to do with our history, I will pass them over in silence. After the death of his first wife in Pisa, Silvio went off to Carrara. There he remained to execute some works, and took another wife, with whom, no long time after, he went to Genoa, where, entering the service of Prince Doria, he made a most beautiful escutcheon of marble over the door of his palace, and many ornaments in stucco all over that palace, after the directions given to him by the painter Perino del Vaga. He made, also, a very beautiful portrait in marble of the Emperor Charles V. But since it was Silvio's habit never to stay long in one place--for he was a wayward person--he grew weary of his prosperity in Genoa, and set out to make his way to France. He departed, therefore, but before arriving at Monsanese he turned back, and, stopping at Milan, he executed in the Duomo some scenes and figures and many ornaments, with much credit for himself. And there, finally, he died at the age of forty-five. He was a man of fine genius, capricious, very dexterous in any kind of work, and a person who could execute with great diligence anything to which he turned his hand. He delighted in composing sonnets and improvising songs, and in his early youth he gave his attention to arms. If he had concentrated his mind on sculpture and design, he would have had no equal; and, even as he surpassed his master Andrea Ferrucci, so, had he lived, he would have surpassed many others who have enjoyed the name of excellent masters. There flourished at the same time as Andrea and Silvio another sculptor of Fiesole, called Il Cicilia, who was a person of much skill; and a work by his hand may be seen in the Church of S. Jacopo, in the Campo Corbolini at Florence--namely, the tomb of the Chevalier Messer Luigi Tornabuoni, which is much extolled, particularly because he made therein the escutcheon of that Chevalier, in the form of a horse's head, as if to show, according to the ancient belief, that the shape of shields was originally taken from the head of a horse. About the same time, also, Antonio da Carrara, a very rare sculptor, made three statues in Palermo for the Duke of Monteleone, a Neapolitan of the house of Pignatella, and Viceroy of Sicily--namely, three figures of Our Lady in different attitudes and manners, which were placed over three altars in the Duomo of Monteleone in Calabria. For the same patron he made some scenes in marble, which are in Palermo. He left behind him a son who is also a sculptor at the present day, and no less excellent than was his father. [Illustration: TOMB OF RAFFAELE MAFFEI (_After_ Silvio Cosini [Silvio da Fiesole]. _Volterra: S. Lino_) _Alinari_] FOOTNOTE: [1] See note on p. 57, Vol. I. VINCENZIO DA SAN GIMIGNANO AND TIMOTEO DA URBINO [Illustration: TIMOTEO DA URBINO (TIMOTEO VITI): A MUSE (_Florence: Corsini Gallery. Panel_)] LIVES OF VINCENZIO DA SAN GIMIGNANO AND TIMOTEO DA URBINO [_TIMOTEO DELLA VITE_] PAINTERS Having now to write, after the Life of the sculptor Andrea da Fiesole, the Lives of two excellent painters, Vincenzio da San Gimignano of Tuscany, and Timoteo da Urbino, I propose to speak first of Vincenzio, as the man whose portrait is above,[2] and immediately afterwards of Timoteo, since they lived almost at one and the same time, and were both disciples and friends of Raffaello. Vincenzio, then, working in company with many others in the Papal Loggie for the gracious Raffaello da Urbino, acquitted himself in such a manner that he was much extolled by Raffaello and by all the others. Having therefore been set to work in the Borgo, opposite to the Palace of Messer Giovanni Battista dall' Aquila, with great credit to himself he painted on a façade a frieze in terretta, in which he depicted the Nine Muses, with Apollo in the centre, and above them some lions, the device of the Pope, which are held to be very beautiful. Vincenzio showed great diligence in his manner and softness in his colouring, and his figures were very pleasing in aspect; in short, he always strove to imitate the manner of Raffaello da Urbino, as may also be seen in the same Borgo, opposite to the Palace of the Cardinal of Ancona, from the façade of a house that was built by Messer Giovanni Antonio Battiferro of Urbino, who, in consequence of the strait friendship that he had with Raffaello, received from him the design for that façade, and also, through his good offices, many benefits and rich revenues at the Court. In this design, then, which was afterwards carried into execution by Vincenzio, Raffaello drew, in allusion to the name of the Battiferri, the Cyclopes forging thunderbolts for Jove, and in another part Vulcan making arrows for Cupid, with some most beautiful nudes and other very lovely scenes and statues. The same Vincenzio painted a great number of scenes on a façade in the Piazza di S. Luigi de' Francesi at Rome, such as the Death of Cæsar, a Triumph of Justice, and a battle of horsemen in a frieze, executed with spirit and much diligence; and in this work, close to the roof, between the windows, he painted some Virtues that are very well wrought. In like manner, on the façade of the Epifani, behind the Curia di Pompeo, and near the Campo di Fiore, he painted the Magi following the Star; with an endless number of other works throughout that city, the air and position of which seem to be in great measure the reason that men are inspired to produce marvellous works there. Experience teaches us, indeed, that very often the same man has not the same manner and does not produce work of equal excellence in every place, but makes it better or worse according to the nature of the place. [Illustration: THE BIRTH OF THE VIRGIN (_After the fresco by =Vincenzio da San Gimignano [Vincenzio Tamagni]=. San Gimignano: S. Agostino_) _Brogi_] Vincenzio being in very good repute in Rome, there took place in the year 1527 the ruin and sack of that unhappy city, which had been the mistress of the nations. Whereupon, grieved beyond measure, he returned to his native city of San Gimignano; and there, by reason of the sufferings that he had undergone, and the weakening of his love for art, now that he was away from the air which nourishes men of fine genius and makes them bring forth works of the rarest merit, he painted some things that I will pass over in silence, in order not to veil with them the renown and the great name that he had honourably acquired in Rome. It is enough to point out clearly that violence turns the most lofty intellects roughly aside from their chief goal, and makes them direct their steps into the opposite path; which may also be seen in a companion of Vincenzio, called Schizzone, who executed some works in the Borgo that were highly extolled, and also in the Campo Santo of Rome and in S. Stefano degl' Indiani, and who was likewise caused by the senseless soldiery to turn aside from art and in a short time to lose his life. Vincenzio died in his native city of San Gimignano, having had but little gladness in his life after his departure from Rome. [Illustration: MADONNA AND SAINTS, WITH A CHILD ANGEL (_After the painting by =Timoteo da Urbino [Timoteo della Vite]=. Milan: Brera, 508_) _Brogi_] Timoteo, a painter of Urbino, was the son of Bartolommeo della Vite, a citizen of good position, and Calliope, the daughter of Maestro Antonio Alberto of Ferrara, a passing good painter in his day, as is shown by his works at Urbino and elsewhere. While Timoteo was still a child, his father dying, he was left to the care of his mother Calliope, with good and happy augury, from the circumstance that Calliope is one of the Nine Muses, and the conformity that exists between poetry and painting. Then, after he had been brought discreetly through his boyhood by his wise mother, and initiated by her into the studies of the simpler arts and likewise of drawing, the young man came into his first knowledge of the world at the very time when the divine Raffaello Sanzio was flourishing. Applying himself in his earliest years to the goldsmith's art, he was summoned by Messer Pier Antonio, his elder brother, who was then studying at Bologna, to that most noble city, to the end that he might follow that art, to which he seemed to be inclined by nature, under the discipline of some good master. While living, then, in Bologna, in which city he stayed no little time, and was much honoured and received by the noble and magnificent Messer Francesco Gombruti into his house with every sort of courtesy, Timoteo associated continually with men of culture and lofty intellect. Wherefore, having become known in a few months as a young man of judgment, and inclined much more to the painter's than to the goldsmith's art, of which he had given proofs in some very well-executed portraits of his friends and of others, it seemed good to his brother, wishing to encourage the young man's natural genius, and also persuaded to this by his friends, to take him away from his files and chisels, and to make him devote himself entirely to the study of drawing. At which he was very content, and applied himself straightway to drawing and to the labours of art, copying and drawing all the best works in that city; and establishing a close intimacy with painters, he set out to such purpose on his new road, that it was a marvel to see the progress that he made from one day to another, and all the more because he learnt with facility the most difficult things without any particular teaching from any appointed master. And so, becoming enamoured of his profession, and learning many secrets of painting merely by sometimes seeing certain painters of no account making their mixtures and using their brushes, and guided by himself and by the hand of nature, he set himself boldly to colouring, and acquired a very pleasing manner, very similar to that of the new Apelles, his compatriot, although he had seen nothing by his hand save a few works at Bologna. Thereupon, after executing some works on panel and on walls with very good results, guided by his own good intellect and judgment, and believing that in comparison with other painters he had succeeded very well in everything, he pursued the studies of painting with great ardour, and to such purpose, that in course of time he found that he had gained a firm footing in his art, and was held in good repute and vast expectation by all the world. Having then returned to his own country, now a man twenty-six years of age, he stayed there for some months, giving excellent proofs of his knowledge. Thus he executed, to begin with, the altar-piece of the Madonna for the altar of S. Croce in the Duomo, containing, besides the Virgin, S. Crescenzio and S. Vitale; and there is a little Angel seated on the ground, playing on a viola with a grace truly angelic and a childlike simplicity expressed with art and judgment. Afterwards he painted another altar-piece for the high-altar of the Church of the Trinità, together with a S. Apollonia on the left hand of that altar. By means of these works and certain others, of which there is no need to make mention, the name and fame of Timoteo spread abroad, and he was invited with great insistence by Raffaello to Rome; whither having gone with the greatest willingness, he was received with that loving kindness that was as peculiar to Raffaello as was his excellence in art. Working, then, with Raffaello, in little more than a year he made a great advance, not only in art, but also in prosperity, for in that time he sent home a good sum of money. While working with his master in the Church of S. Maria della Pace, he made with his own hand and invention the Sibyls that are in the lunettes on the right hand, so much esteemed by all painters. That they are his is maintained by some who still remember having seen them painted; and we have also testimony in the cartoons which are still to be found in the possession of his successors. On his own account, likewise, he afterwards painted the bier and the dead body contained therein, with the other things, so highly extolled, that are around it, in the Scuola of S. Caterina da Siena; and although certain men of Siena, carried away by love of their own country, attribute these works to others, it may easily be recognized that they are the handiwork of Timoteo, both from the grace and sweetness of the colouring, and from other memorials of himself that he left in that most noble school of excellent painters. Now, although Timoteo was well and honourably placed in Rome, yet, not being able to endure, as many do, the separation from his own country, and also being invited and urged every moment to come home by the counsels of his friends and by the prayers of his mother, now an old woman, he returned to Urbino, much to the displeasure of Raffaello, who loved him dearly for his good qualities. And not long after, having taken a wife in Urbino at the suggestion of his family, and having become enamoured of his country, in which he saw that he was highly honoured, besides the circumstance, even more important, that he had begun to have children, Timoteo made up his mind firmly never again to consent to go abroad, notwithstanding, as may still be seen from some letters, that he was invited back to Rome by Raffaello. But he did not therefore cease to work, and he made many works in Urbino and in the neighbouring cities. At Forlì he painted a chapel in company with Girolamo Genga, his friend and compatriot; and afterwards he painted entirely with his own hand a panel that was sent to Città di Castello, and likewise another for the people of Cagli. At Castel Durante, also, he executed some works in fresco, which are truly worthy of praise, as are all the other works by his hand, which bear witness that he was a graceful painter in figures, landscapes, and every other field of painting. In Urbino, at the instance of Bishop Arrivabene of Mantua, he painted the Chapel of S. Martino in the Duomo, in company with the same Genga; but the altar-panel and the middle of the chapel are entirely by the hand of Timoteo. For the same church, also, he painted a Magdalene standing, clothed in a short mantle, and covered below this by her own tresses, which reach to the ground and are so beautiful and natural, that the wind appears to move them; not to mention the divine beauty of the expression of her countenance, which reveals clearly the love that she bore to her Master. In S. Agata there is another panel by the hand of the same man, with some very good figures. And for S. Bernardino, without that city, he made that work so greatly renowned that is at the right hand upon the altar of the Buonaventuri, gentlemen of Urbino; wherein the Virgin is represented with most beautiful grace as having received the Annunciation, standing with her hands clasped and her face and eyes uplifted to Heaven. Above, in the sky, in the centre of a great circle of light, stands a little Child, with His foot on the Holy Spirit in the form of a Dove, and holding in His left hand a globe symbolizing the dominion of the world, while, with the other hand raised, He gives the benediction; and on the right of the Child is an angel, who is pointing Him out with his finger to the Madonna. Below--that is, on the level of the Madonna, to her right--is the Baptist, clothed in a camel's skin, which is torn on purpose that the nude figure may be seen; and on her left is a S. Sebastian, wholly naked, and bound in a beautiful attitude to a tree, and wrought with such diligence that the figure could not have stronger relief nor be in any part more beautiful. At the Court of the most illustrious Dukes of Urbino, in a little private study, may be seen an Apollo and two half-nude Muses by his hand, beautiful to a marvel. For the same patrons he executed many pictures, and made some decorations for apartments, which are very beautiful. And afterwards, in company with Genga, he painted some caparisons for horses, which were sent to the King of France, with such beautiful figures of various animals that they appeared to all who beheld them to have life and movement. He made, also, some triumphal arches similar to those of the ancients, on the occasion of the marriage of the most illustrious Duchess Leonora to the Lord Duke Francesco Maria, to whom they gave vast satisfaction, as they did to the whole Court; on which account he was received for many years into the household of that Duke, with an honourable salary. [Illustration: THE MAGDALENE (_After the panel by =Timoteo da Urbino [Timoteo della Vite]=. Bologna: Accademia, 204_) _Anderson_] Timoteo was a bold draughtsman, and even more notable for the sweetness and charm of his colouring, insomuch that his works could not have been executed with more delicacy or greater diligence. He was a merry fellow, gay and festive by nature, and most acute and witty in his sayings and discourses. He delighted in playing every sort of instrument, and particularly the lyre, to which he sang, improvising upon it with extraordinary grace. He died in the year of our salvation 1524, the fifty-fourth of his life, leaving his native country as much enriched by his name and his fine qualities as it was grieved by his loss. He left in Urbino some unfinished works, which were finished afterwards by others and show by comparison how great were the worth and ability of Timoteo. In our book are some drawings by his hand, very beautiful and truly worthy of praise, which I received from the most excellent and gentle Messer Giovanni Maria, his son--namely, a pen-sketch for the portrait of the Magnificent Giuliano de' Medici, which Timoteo made when Giuliano was frequenting the Court of Urbino and that most famous academy, a "Noli me tangere," and a S. John the Evangelist sleeping while Christ is praying in the Garden, all very beautiful. FOOTNOTE: [2] In the original edition of 1568. ANDREA DAL MONTE SANSOVINO LIFE OF ANDREA DAL MONTE SANSOVINO [_ANDREA CONTUCCI_] SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT Although Andrea, the son of Domenico Contucci of Monte Sansovino, was born from a poor father, a tiller of the earth, and rose from the condition of shepherd, nevertheless his conceptions were so lofty, his genius so rare, and his mind so ready, both in his works and in his discourses on the difficulties of architecture and perspective, that there was not in his day a better, rarer, or more subtle intellect than his, nor one that was more able than he was to render the greatest doubts clear and lucid; wherefore he well deserved to be held in his own times, by all who were qualified to judge, to be supreme in those professions. Andrea was born, so it is said, in the year 1460; and in his childhood, while looking after his flocks, he would draw on the sand the livelong day, as is also told of Giotto, and copy in clay some of the animals that he was guarding. So one day it happened that a Florentine citizen, who is said to have been Simone Vespucci, at that time Podestà of the Monte, passing by the place where Andrea was looking after his little charges, saw the boy standing all intent on drawing or modelling in clay. Whereupon he called to him, and, having seen what was the boy's bent, and heard whose son he was, he asked for him from Domenico Contucci, who graciously granted his request; and Simone promised to place him in the way of learning design, in order to see what virtue there might be in that inclination of nature, if assisted by continual study. Having returned to Florence, then, Simone placed him to learn art with Antonio del Pollaiuolo, under whom Andrea made such proficience, that in a few years he became a very good master. In the house of that Simone, on the Ponte Vecchio, there may still be seen a cartoon executed by him at that time, of Christ being scourged at the Column, drawn with much diligence; and, in addition, two marvellous heads in terra-cotta, copied from ancient medals, one of the Emperor Nero, and the other of the Emperor Galba, which heads served to adorn a chimney-piece; but the Galba is now at Arezzo, in the house of Giorgio Vasari. Afterwards, while still living in Florence, he made an altar-piece in terra-cotta for the Church of S. Agata at Monte Sansovino, with a S. Laurence and some other saints, and little scenes most beautifully executed. And no long time after this he made another like it, containing a very beautiful Assumption of Our Lady, S. Agata, S. Lucia, and S. Romualdo; which altar-piece was afterwards glazed by the Della Robbia family. [Illustration: ALTAR-PIECE (_After_ Andrea dal Monte Sansovino [Andrea Contucci]. _Florence: S. Spirito_) _Alinari_] Then, pursuing the art of sculpture, he made in his youth for Simone del Pollaiuolo, otherwise called Il Cronaca, two capitals for pilasters in the Sacristy of S. Spirito, which brought him very great fame, and led to his receiving a commission to execute the antechamber that is between the said sacristy and the church; and since the space was very small, Andrea was forced to use great ingenuity. He made, therefore, a structure of grey-stone in the Corinthian Order, with twelve round columns, six on either side; and having laid architrave, frieze, and cornice over these columns, he then raised a barrel-shaped vault, all of the same stone, with a coffer-work surface full of carvings, which was something novel, rich and varied, and much extolled. It is true, indeed, that if the mouldings of that coffer-work ceiling, which serve to divide the square and round panels by which it is adorned, had been contrived so as to fall in a straight line with the columns, with truer proportion and harmony, this work would be wholly perfect in every part; and it would have been an easy thing to do this. But, according to what I once heard from certain old friends of Andrea, he used to defend himself by saying that he had adhered in his vault to the method of the coffering in the Ritonda at Rome, wherein the ribs that radiate from the round window in the centre above, from which that temple gets its light, serve to enclose the square sunk panels containing the rosettes, which diminish little by little, as likewise do the ribs; and for that reason they do not fall in a straight line with the columns. Andrea used to add that if he who built the Temple of the Ritonda, which is the best designed and proportioned that there is, and made with more harmony than any other, paid no attention to this in a vault of such size and importance, much less should he do so in a coffered ceiling with far smaller panels. Nevertheless many craftsmen, and Michelagnolo in particular, have been of the opinion that the Ritonda was built by three architects, of whom the first carried it as far as the cornice that is above the columns, and the second from the cornice upwards, the part, namely, that contains those windows of more graceful workmanship, for in truth this second part is very different in manner from the part below, since the vaulting was carried out without any relation between the coffering and the straight lines of what is below. The third is believed to have made the portico, which was a very rare work. And for these reasons the masters who practise this art at the present day should not fall into such an error and then make excuses, as did Andrea. After that work, having received from the family of the Corbinelli the commission for the Chapel of the Sacrament in the same church, he carried it out with much diligence, imitating in the low-reliefs Donato and other excellent craftsmen, and sparing no labour in his desire to do himself credit, as, indeed, he did. In two niches, one on either side of a very beautiful tabernacle, he placed two saints somewhat more than one braccio in height, S. James and S. Matthew, executed with such spirit and excellence, that every sort of merit is revealed in them and not one fault. Equally good, also, are two Angels in the round that are the crowning glory of this work, with the most beautiful draperies--for they are in the act of flying--that are anywhere to be seen; and in the centre is a little naked Christ full of grace. There are also some scenes with little figures in the predella and over the tabernacle, all so well executed that the point of a brush could scarcely do what Andrea did with his chisel. But whosoever wishes to be amazed by the diligence of this extraordinary man should look at the architecture of this work as a whole, for it is so well executed and joined together in its small proportions that it appears to have been chiselled out of one single stone. Much extolled, also, is a large Pietà of marble that he made in half-relief on the front of the altar, with the Madonna and S. John weeping. Nor could one imagine any more beautiful pieces of casting than are the bronze gratings that enclose that chapel, with their ornaments of marble, and with stags, the device, or rather the arms, of the Corbinelli, which serve as adornments for the bronze candelabra. In short, this work was executed without any sparing of labour, and with all the best considerations that could possibly be imagined. By these and by other works the name of Andrea spread far and wide, and he was sought for from the elder Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, in whose garden, as has been related, he had pursued the studies of design, by the King of Portugal; and, being therefore sent to him by Lorenzo, he executed for that King many works of sculpture and of architecture, and in particular a very beautiful palace with four towers, and many other buildings. Part of the palace was painted after designs and cartoons by the hand of Andrea, who drew very well, as may be seen from some drawings by his own hand in our book, finished with a charcoal-point, and some other architectural drawings, showing excellent design. He also made for that King a carved altar of wood, containing some Prophets; and likewise a very beautiful battle-piece in clay, to be afterwards carved in marble, representing the wars that the King waged with the Moors, who were vanquished by him; and no work by the hand of Andrea was ever seen that was more spirited or more terrible than this, what with the movements and various attitudes of the horses, the heaps of dead, and the vehement fury of the soldiers in combat. And he made a figure of S. Mark in marble, which was a very rare work. While in the service of that King, Andrea also gave his attention to some difficult and fantastic architectural works, according to the custom of that country, in order to please the King; of which things I once saw a book at Monte Sansovino in the possession of his heirs, which is now in the hands of Maestro Girolamo Lombardo, who was his disciple, and to whom it fell, as will be related, to finish some works begun by Andrea. [Illustration: TOMB OF CARDINAL ASCANIO SFORZA (_After_ Andrea dal Monte Sansovino [Andrea Contucci]. _Rome: S. Maria del Popolo_) _Alinari_] Having been nine years in Portugal, and growing weary of that service, and desirous of seeing his relatives and friends in Tuscany again, Andrea determined, now that he had put together a good sum of money, to obtain leave from the King and return home. And so, having been granted permission, although not willingly, he returned to Florence, leaving behind him one who should complete such of his works as remained unfinished. After arriving in Florence, he began in the year 1500 a marble group of S. John baptizing Christ, which was to be placed over that door of the Temple of S. Giovanni that faces the Misericordia; but he did not finish it, because he was almost forced to go to Genoa, where he made two figures of marble, Christ, or rather S. John, and a Madonna, which are truly worthy of the highest praise. And those at Florence remained unfinished, and are still to be found at the present day in the Office of Works of the said S. Giovanni. He was then summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II, and received the commission for two tombs of marble, which were erected in S. Maria del Popolo--one for Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and the other for the Cardinal of Recanati, a very near relative of the Pope--and these works were wrought so perfectly by Andrea that nothing more could be desired, since they were so well executed and finished, and with such purity, beauty, and grace, that they reveal the true consideration and proportion of art. There may be seen there, also, a Temperance with an hourglass in her hand, which is held to be a thing divine; and, indeed, it does not appear to be a modern work, but ancient and wholly perfect. And although there are other figures there similar to it, yet on account of its attitude and grace it is much the best; not to mention that nothing could be more pleasing and beautiful than the veil that she has around her, which is executed with such delicacy that it is a miracle to behold. In S. Agostino at Rome, on a pilaster in the middle of the church, he made in marble a S. Anne embracing a Madonna with the Child, a little less than lifesize. This work may be counted as one of the best of modern times, since, even as a lively and wholly natural gladness is seen in the old woman, and a divine beauty in the Madonna, so the figure of the Infant Christ is so well wrought, that no other was ever executed with such delicacy and perfection. Wherefore it well deserved that for many years a succession of sonnets and various other learned compositions should be attached to it, of which the friars of that place have a book full, which I myself have seen, to my no little marvel. And in truth the world was right in doing this, for the reason that the work can never be praised enough. [Illustration: THE MADONNA AND CHILD WITH S. ANNE (_After_ Andrea dal Monte Sansovino [Andrea Contucci]. _Rome: S. Agostino_) _Alinari_] The fame of Andrea having thereby grown greater, Leo X, who had resolved that the adornment with wrought marble of the Chamber of the Madonna in S. Maria at Loreto should be carried out, according to the beginning made by Bramante, ordained that Andrea should bring that work to completion. The ornamentation of that Chamber, which Bramante had begun, had at the corners four double projections, which, adorned by pillars with bases and carved capitals, rested on a socle rich with carvings, and two braccia and a half in height; over which socle, between the two aforesaid pillars, he had made a large niche to contain seated figures, and, above each of these niches, a smaller one, which, reaching to the collarino of the capitals of those pillars, left a frieze of the same height as the capitals. Above these were afterwards laid architrave, frieze, and richly carved cornice, which, going right round all the four walls, project over the four corners; and in the middle of each of the larger walls--for the Chamber is greater in length than in breadth--were left two spaces, since there was the same projection in the centre of those walls as there was at the corners; whence the larger niche below, with the smaller one above it, came to be enclosed by a space of five braccia on either side. In this space were two doors, one on either side, through which one entered into the chapel; and above the doors was a space of five braccia between one niche and another, wherein were to be carved scenes in marble. The front wall was the same, but without niches in the centre, and the height of the socle, with the projection, formed an altar, which was set off by the pillars and the niches at the corners. In the same front wall, in the centre, was a space of the same breadth as the spaces at the sides, to contain some scenes in the upper part, while below, the same in height as the spaces of the sides, but beginning immediately above the altar, was a bronze grating opposite to the inner altar, through which it was possible to hear the Mass and to see the inside of the Chamber and the aforesaid altar of the Madonna. Altogether, then, the spaces and compartments for the scenes were seven: one in front, above the grating, two on each of the longer sides, and two on the upper part--that is to say, behind the altar of the Madonna; and, in addition, there were eight large and eight small niches, with other smaller spaces for the arms and devices of the Pope and of the Church. Andrea, then, having found the work in this condition, distributed over these spaces, with a rich and beautiful arrangement, scenes from the life of the Madonna. In one of the two side-walls, he began in one part the Nativity of the Madonna, and executed half of it; and it was completely finished afterwards by Baccio Bandinelli. In the other part he began the Marriage of the Virgin, but this also remained unfinished, and after the death of Andrea it was completed as we see it by Raffaello da Montelupo. On the front wall he arranged that there should be made, in two small squares which are on either side of the bronze grating, in one the Visitation and in the other the scene of the Virgin and Joseph going to have themselves enrolled for taxes; which scenes were afterwards executed by Francesco da San Gallo, then a young man. Then, in that part where the greatest space is, Andrea made the Angel Gabriel bringing the Annunciation to the Virgin--which happened in that very chamber which these marbles enclose--with such grace and beauty that there is nothing better to be seen, for he made the Virgin wholly intent on that Salutation, and the Angel, kneeling, appears to be not of marble, but truly celestial, with "Ave Maria" issuing from his mouth. In company with Gabriel are two other Angels, in full-relief and detached from the marble, one of whom is walking after him and the other appears to be flying. Behind a building stand two other Angels, carved out by the chisel in such a way that they seem to be alive. In the air, on a cloud much undercut--nay, almost entirely detached from the marble--are many little boys upholding a God the Father, who is sending down the Holy Spirit by means of a ray of marble, which, descending from Him completely detached, appears quite real; as, likewise, is the Dove upon it, which represents the Holy Spirit. Nor can one describe how great is the beauty and how delicate the carving of a vase filled with flowers, which was made in this work by the gracious hand of Andrea, who lavished so much excellence on the plumes of the Angels, the hair, the grace of their features and draperies, and, in short, on every other thing, that this divine work cannot be extolled enough. And, in truth, that most holy place, which was the very house and habitation of the Mother of the Son of God, could not obtain from the resources of the world a greater, richer, or more beautiful adornment than that which it received from the architecture of Bramante and the sculpture of Andrea Sansovino; although, even if it were entirely of the most precious gems of the East, it would be little more than nothing in comparison with such merits. Andrea spent an almost incredible amount of time over this work, and therefore had no time to finish the others that he had begun; for, in addition to those mentioned above, he began in a space on one of the side-walls the Nativity of Jesus Christ, with the Shepherds and four Angels singing; and all these he finished so well that they seem to be wholly alive. But the story of the Magi, which he began above that one, was afterwards finished by Girolamo Lombardo, his disciple, and by others. On the back wall he arranged that two large scenes should be made, one above the other; in one, the Death of Our Lady, with the Apostles bearing her to her burial, four Angels in the air, and many Jews seeking to steal that most holy corpse; and this was finished after Andrea's lifetime by the sculptor Bologna. Below this one, then, he arranged that there should be made a scene of the Miracle of Loreto, showing in what manner that chapel, which was the Chamber of Our Lady, wherein she was born, brought up, and saluted by the Angel, and in which she reared her Son up to the age of twelve and lived ever after His Death, was finally carried by the Angels, first into Sclavonia, afterwards to a forest in the territory of Recanati, and in the end to the place where it is now held in such veneration and continually visited in solemn throng by all the Christian people. This scene, I say, was executed in marble on that wall, according to the arrangement made by Andrea, by the Florentine sculptor Tribolo, as will be related in due place. Andrea likewise blocked out the Prophets for the niches, but did not finish them completely, save one alone, and the others were afterwards finished by the aforesaid Girolamo Lombardo and by other sculptors, as will be seen in the Lives that are to follow. But with regard to all the works wrought by Andrea in this undertaking, they are the most beautiful and best executed works of sculpture that had ever been made up to that time. In like manner, the Palace of the Canons of the same church was also carried on by Andrea, after the arrangements made by Bramante at the commission of Pope Leo. But this, also, remained unfinished after the death of Andrea, and the building was continued under Clement VII by Antonio da San Gallo, and then by the architect Giovanni Boccalino, under the patronage of the very reverend Cardinal da Carpi, up to the year 1563. While Andrea was at work on the aforesaid Chapel of the Virgin, there were built the fortifications of Loreto and other works, which were highly extolled by the all-conquering Signor Giovanni de' Medici, with whom Andrea had a very strait friendship, having become first acquainted with him in Rome. Having four months of holiday in the year for repose while he was working at Loreto, he used to spend that time in agriculture at his native place of Monte Sansovino, enjoying meanwhile a most tranquil rest with his relatives and friends. Living thus at the Monte during the summer, he built there a commodious house for himself and bought much property; and for the Friars of S. Agostino in that place he had a cloister made, which, although small, is very well designed, but also out of the square, since those Fathers insisted on having it built over the old walls. Andrea, however, made the interior rectangular by increasing the thickness of the pilasters at the corners, in order to change it from an ill-proportioned structure into one with good and true measurements. He designed, also, for a Company that had its seat in that cloister, under the title of S. Antonio, a very beautiful door of the Doric Order; and likewise the tramezzo[3] and pulpit of the Church of S. Agostino. He also caused a little chapel to be built for the friars half-way down the hill on the descent to the fountain, without the door that leads to the old Pieve, although they had no wish for it. He made the design for the house of Messer Pietro, a most skilful astrologer, at Arezzo; and a large figure of terra-cotta for Montepulciano, of King Porsena, which was a rare work, although I have never seen it again since the first time, so that I fear that it may have come to an evil end. And for a German priest, who was his friend, he made a lifesize S. Rocco of terra-cotta, very beautiful; which priest had it placed in the Church of Battifolle, in the district of Arezzo. This was the last piece of sculpture that Andrea executed. He gave the design, also, for the steps ascending to the Vescovado of Arezzo; and for the Madonna delle Lagrime, in the same city, he made the design of a very beautiful ornament that was to be executed in marble, with four figures, each four braccia high; but this work was carried no farther, on account of the death of our Andrea. For he, having reached the age of sixty-eight, and being a man who would never stay idle, set to work to move some stakes from one place to another at his villa, whereby he caught a chill; and in a few days, worn out by a continuous fever, he died, in the year 1529. The death of Andrea grieved his native place by reason of the honour that he had brought it, and his sons and the women of his household, who lost both their dearest one and their support. And not long ago Muzio Camillo, one of the three aforesaid sons, who was displaying a most beautiful intellect in the studies of learning and letters, followed him, to the great loss of his family and displeasure of his friends. Andrea, in addition to his profession of art, was truly a person of much distinction, for he was wise in his discourse, and reasoned most beautifully on every subject. He was prudent and regular in his every action, much the friend of learned men, and a philosopher of great natural gifts. He gave much attention to the study of cosmography, and left to his family a number of drawings and writings on the subject of distances and measurements. He was somewhat small in stature, but robust and beautifully made. His hair was soft and long, his eyes light in colour, his nose aquiline, and his skin pink and white; but he had a slight impediment in his speech. His disciples were the aforesaid Girolamo Lombardo, the Florentine Simone Cioli, Domenico dal Monte Sansovino (who died soon after him), and the Florentine Leonardo del Tasso, who made the S. Sebastian of wood over his own tomb in S. Ambrogio at Florence, and the marble panel of the Nuns of S. Chiara. A disciple of Andrea, likewise, was the Florentine Jacopo Sansovino--so called after his master--of whom there will be a long account in the proper place. Architecture and sculpture, then, are much indebted to Andrea, in that he enriched the one with many rules of measurement and devices for drawing weights, and with a degree of diligence that had not been employed before, and in the other he brought his marble to perfection with marvellous judgment, care, and mastery. FOOTNOTE: [3] See note on p. 57, Vol. I. BENEDETTO DA ROVEZZANO LIFE OF BENEDETTO DA ROVEZZANO SCULPTOR Great, I think, must be the displeasure of those who, having executed some work of genius, yet, when they hope to enjoy the fruits of this in their old age, and to see the beautiful results achieved by other intellects in works similar to their own, and to be able to perceive what perfection there may be in that field of art that they themselves have practised, find themselves robbed by adverse fortune, by time, by a bad habit of body, or by some other cause, of the sight of their eyes; whence they are not able, as they were before, to perceive either the deficiencies or the perfection of men whom they hear of as living and practising their own professions. And even more are they grieved to hear the praises of the new masters, not through envy, but because they are not able to judge, like others, whether that fame be well-deserved or not. This misfortune happened to Benedetto da Rovezzano, a sculptor of Florence, of whom we are now about to write the Life, to the end that the world may know how able and practised a sculptor he was, and with what diligence he carved marble in strong relief against its ground in the marvellous works that he made. Among the first of many labours that this master executed in Florence, may be numbered a chimney-piece of grey-stone that is in the house of Pier Francesco Borgherini, wherein are capitals, friezes, and many other ornaments, carved by his hand in open-work with great diligence. In the house of Messer Bindo Altoviti, likewise, is a chimney-piece by the same hand, with a lavatory of marble, and some other things executed with much delicacy; but everything in these that has to do with architecture was designed by Jacopo Sansovino, then a young man. Next, in the year 1512, Benedetto received the commission for a tomb of marble, with rich ornaments, in the principal chapel of the Carmine in Florence, for Piero Soderini, who had been Gonfalonier in that city; and that work was executed by him with incredible diligence, seeing that, besides foliage, carved emblems of death, and figures, he made therein with basanite, in low-relief, a canopy in imitation of black cloth, with so much grace and such beautiful finish and lustre, that the stone appears to be exquisite black satin rather than basanite. And, to put it in a few words, for all that the hand of Benedetto did in this work there is no praise that would not seem too little. And since he also gave his attention to architecture, there was restored from the design of Benedetto a house near S. Apostolo in Florence, belonging to Messer Oddo Altoviti, Patron and Prior of that church. There Benedetto made the principal door in marble, and, over the door of the house, the arms of the Altoviti in grey-stone, with the wolf, lean, excoriated, and carved in such strong relief, that it seems to be almost separate from the shield; and some pendant ornaments carved in open-work with such delicacy, that they appear to be not of stone, but of the finest paper. In the same church, above the two chapels of Messer Bindo Altoviti, for which Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo painted the panel-picture of the Conception in oils, Benedetto made a marble tomb for the said Messer Oddo, surrounded by an ornament full of most masterly foliage, with a sarcophagus, likewise very beautiful. Benedetto also executed, in competition with Jacopo Sansovino and Baccio Bandinelli, as has been related, one of the Apostles, four and a half braccia in height, for S. Maria del Fiore--namely, a S. John the Evangelist, which is a passing good figure, wrought with fine design and skill. This figure is in the Office of Works, in company with the others. Next, in the year 1515, the chiefs and heads of the Order of Vallombrosa, wishing to transfer the body of S. Giovanni Gualberto from the Abbey of Passignano to the Church of S. Trinità, an abbey of the same Order, in Florence, commissioned Benedetto to make a design, upon which he was to set to work, for a chapel and tomb combined, with a vast number of lifesize figures in the round, which were to be suitably distributed over that work in some niches separated by pilasters filled with ornaments and friezes and with delicately carved grotesques. And below this whole work there was to be a base one braccio and a half in height, wherein were to be scenes from the life of the said S. Giovanni Gualberto; while endless numbers of other ornaments were to be round the sarcophagus, and as a crown to the work. On this tomb, then, Benedetto, assisted by many carvers, laboured continually for ten years, with vast expense to that Congregation; and he brought the work to completion in their house of Guarlondo, a place near San Salvi, without the Porta alla Croce, where the General of the Order that was having the work executed almost always lived. Benedetto, then, carried out the making of that chapel and tomb in such a manner as amazed Florence; but, as Fate would have it--for even marbles and the finest works of men of excellence are subject to the whims of fortune--after much discord among those monks, their government was changed, and the work remained unfinished in the same place until the year 1530. At which time, war raging round Florence, all those labours were ruined by soldiers, the heads wrought with such diligence were impiously struck off from the little figures, and the whole work was so completely destroyed and broken to pieces, that the monks afterwards sold what was left for a mere song. If any one wishes to see a part of it, let him go to the Office of Works of S. Maria del Fiore, where there are a few pieces, bought as broken marble not many years ago by the officials of that place. And, in truth, even as everything is brought to fine completion in those monasteries and other places where peace and concord reign, so, on the contrary, nothing ever reaches perfection or an end worthy of praise in places where there is naught save rivalry and discord, because what takes a good and wise man a hundred years to build up can be destroyed by an ignorant and crazy boor in one day. And it seems as if fortune wishes that those who know the least and delight in nothing that is excellent, should always be the men who govern and command, or rather, ruin, everything: as was also said of secular Princes, with no less learning than truth, by Ariosto, at the beginning of his seventeenth canto. But returning to Benedetto: it was a sad pity that all his labours and all the money spent by that Order should have come to such a miserable end. By the same architect were designed the door and vestibule of the Badia of Florence, and likewise some chapels, among them that of S. Stefano, erected by the family of the Pandolfini. Finally, Benedetto was summoned to England into the service of the King, for whom he executed many works in marble and in bronze, and, in particular, his tomb; from which works, through the liberality of that King, he gained enough to be able to live in comfort for the rest of his life. Thereupon he returned to Florence; but, after he had finished some little things, a sort of giddiness, which even in England had begun to affect his eyes, and other troubles caused, so it was said, by standing too long over the fire in the founding of metals, or by some other reasons, in a short time robbed him completely of the sight of his eyes; wherefore he ceased to work about the year 1550, and to live a few years after that. Benedetto endured that blindness during the last years of his life with the patience of a good Christian, thanking God that He had first enabled him, by means of his labours, to live an honourable life. Benedetto was a courteous gentleman, and he always delighted in the society of men of culture. His portrait was copied from one made, when he was a young man, by Agnolo di Donnino. This original is in our book of drawings, wherein there are also some drawings very well executed by the hand of Benedetto, who deserves, on account of all those works, to be numbered among our most excellent craftsmen. [Illustration: TOMB OF PIETRO SODERINI (_After_ Benedetto da Rovezzano. _Florence: S. Maria del Carmine_) _Alinari_] BACCIO DA MONTELUPO AND RAFFAELLO, HIS SON LIVES OF BACCIO DA MONTELUPO SCULPTOR AND OF RAFFAELLO, HIS SON So strong is the belief of mankind that those who are negligent in the arts which they profess to practise can never arrive at any perfection in them, that it was in the face of the judgment of many that Baccio da Montelupo learnt the art of sculpture; and this happened to him because in his youth, led astray by pleasures, he would scarcely ever study, and, although he was exhorted and upbraided by many, he thought little or nothing of art. But having come to years of discretion, which bring sense with them, he was forced straightway to learn how far he was from the good way. Whereupon, seeing with shame that others were going ahead of him in that art, he resolved with a stout heart to follow and practise with all possible zeal that which in his idleness he had hitherto shunned. This resolution was the reason that he produced in sculpture such fruits as the opinions of many no longer expected from him. Having thus devoted himself with all his powers to his art, and practising it continually, he became a rare and excellent master. And of this he gave a proof in a work in hard-stone, wrought with the chisel, on the corner of the garden attached to the Palace of the Pucci in Florence; which was the escutcheon of Pope Leo X, with two children supporting it, executed in a beautiful and masterly manner. He made a Hercules for Pier Francesco de' Medici; and from the Guild of Porta Santa Maria he received the commission for a statue of S. John the Evangelist, to be executed in bronze, in securing which he had many difficulties, since a number of masters made models in competition with him. This figure was afterwards placed on the corner of S. Michele in Orto, opposite to the Ufficio; and the work was finished by him with supreme diligence. It is said that when he had made the figure in clay, all who saw the arrangement of the armatures, and the moulds laid upon them, held it to be a beautiful piece of work, recognizing the rare ingenuity of Baccio in such an enterprise; and when they had seen it cast with the utmost facility, they gave Baccio credit for having shown supreme mastery, and having made a solid and beautiful casting. These labours endured in that profession, brought him the name of a good and even excellent master; and that figure is esteemed more than ever at the present day by all craftsmen, who hold it to be most beautiful. Setting himself also to work in wood, he carved lifesize Crucifixes, of which he made an endless number for all parts of Italy, and among them one that is over the door of the choir of the Monks of S. Marco at Florence. These are all excellent and full of grace, but there are some that are much more perfect than the rest, such as the one of the Murate in Florence, and another, no less famous than the first, in S. Pietro Maggiore; and for the Monks of SS. Fiora e Lucilla he made a similar one, which they placed over the high-altar of their abbey at Arezzo, and which is held to be much the most beautiful of them all. For the visit of Pope Leo X to Florence, Baccio erected between the Palace of the Podestà and the Badia a very beautiful triumphal arch of wood and clay; with many little works, which have either disappeared or been dispersed among the houses of citizens. Having grown weary, however, of living in Florence, he went off to Lucca, where he executed some works in sculpture, and even more in architecture, in the service of that city, and, in particular, the beautiful and well-designed Temple of S. Paulino, the Patron Saint of the people of Lucca, built with proofs of a fine and well-trained intelligence both within and without, and richly adorned. Living in that city, then, up to the eighty-eighth year of his life, he ended his days there, and received honourable burial in the aforesaid S. Paulino from those whom he had honoured when alive. [Illustration: S. JOHN THE EVANGELIST (_After_ Baccio da Montelupo. _Florence: Or San Michele_) _Alinari_] A contemporary of Baccio was Agostino, a very famous sculptor and carver of Milan, who began in S. Maria, at Milan, the tomb of Monsignore de Foix, which remains unfinished even now; and in it may still be seen many large figures, some finished, some half completed, and others only blocked out, with a number of scenes in half-relief, in pieces and not built in, and a great quantity of foliage and trophies. For the Biraghi, also, he made another tomb, which is finished and erected in S. Francesco, with six large figures, the base wrought with scenes, and other very beautiful ornaments, which bear witness to the masterly skill of that valiant craftsman. Baccio left at his death, among other sons, Raffaello, who applied himself to sculpture, and not merely equalled his father, but surpassed him by a great measure. This Raffaello, beginning in his youth to work in clay, in wax, and in bronze, acquired the name of an excellent sculptor, and was therefore taken by Antonio da San Gallo to Loreto, together with many others, in order to finish the ornamentation of that Chamber, according to the directions left by Andrea Sansovino; where Raffaello completely finished the Marriage of Our Lady, begun by the said Sansovino, executing many things in a beautiful and perfect manner, partly over the beginnings of Andrea, and partly from his own invention. Wherefore he was deservedly esteemed to be one of the best craftsmen who worked there in his time. He had finished this work, when Michelagnolo, by order of Pope Clement VII, proceeded to finish the new sacristy and the library of S. Lorenzo in Florence; and that master, having recognized the talent of Raffaello, made use of him in that work, and caused him to execute, among other things, after the model that he himself had made, the S. Damiano of marble which is now in that sacristy--a very beautiful statue, very highly extolled by all men. After the death of Clement, Raffaello attached himself to Duke Alessandro de' Medici, who was then having the fortress of Prato built; and he made for him in grey-stone, on one of the extremities of the chief bastion of that fortress--namely, on the outer side--the escutcheon of the Emperor Charles V, upheld by two nude and lifesize Victories, which were much extolled, as they still are. And for the extremity of another bastion, in the direction of the city, on the southern side, he made the arms of Duke Alessandro in the same kind of stone, with two figures. Not long after, he executed a large Crucifix of wood for the Nuns of S. Apollonia; and for Alessandro Antinori, a very rich and noble merchant of Florence at that time, he prepared a most magnificent festival for the marriage of his daughter, with statues, scenes, and many other most beautiful ornaments. Having then gone to Rome, he received from Buonarroti a commission to make two figures of marble, each five braccia high, for the tomb of Julius II, which was finished and erected at that time by Michelagnolo in S. Pietro in Vincula. But Raffaello, falling ill while he was executing this work, was not able to put into it his usual zeal and diligence, on which account he lost credit thereby, and gave little satisfaction to Michelagnolo. At the visit of the Emperor Charles V to Rome, for which Pope Paul III prepared a festival worthy of that all-conquering Prince, Raffaello made with clay and stucco, on the Ponte S. Angelo, fourteen statues so beautiful, that they were judged to be the best that had been made for that festival. And, what is more, he executed them with such rapidity that he was in time to come to Florence, where the Emperor was likewise expected, to make within the space of five days and no more, on the abutment of the Ponte a S. Trinità two Rivers of clay, each five braccia high, the Rhine to stand for Germany and the Danube for Hungary. After this, having been summoned to Orvieto, he made in marble, in a chapel wherein the excellent sculptor Mosca had previously executed many most beautiful ornaments, the story of the Magi in half-relief, which proved to be a very fine work, on account of the great variety of figures and the good manner with which he executed them. [Illustration: HEAD OF GASTON DE FOIX, FROM THE TOMB (_After_ Agostino Busti [Il Bambaja]. _Milan: Brera_) _Alinari_] Then, having returned to Rome, he was appointed by Tiberio Crispo, at that time Castellan of the Castello di S. Angelo, as architect of that great structure; whereupon he set in order many rooms there, adorning them with carvings in many kinds of stone and various sorts of variegated marbles on the chimney-pieces, windows, and doors. In addition to this, he made a marble statue, five braccia high, of the Angel of that Castle, which is on the summit of the great square tower in the centre, where the standard flies, after the likeness of that Angel that appeared to S. Gregory, who, having prayed that the people should be delivered from a most grievous pestilence, saw him sheathing his sword in the scabbard. Later, when the said Crispo had been made a Cardinal, he sent Raffaello several times to Bolsena, where he was building a palace. Nor was it long before the very reverend Cardinal Salviati and Messer Baldassarre Turini da Pescia commissioned Raffaello, who had already left the service of the Castle and of Cardinal Crispo, to make the statue of Pope Leo that is now over his tomb in the Minerva at Rome. That work finished, Raffaello made a tomb for the same Messer Baldassarre in the Church of Pescia, where that gentleman had built a chapel of marble. And for a chapel in the Consolazione, at Rome, he made three figures of marble in half-relief. But afterwards, having given himself up to the sort of life fit rather for a philosopher than for a sculptor, and wishing to live in peace, he retired to Orvieto, where he undertook the charge of the building of S. Maria, in which he made many improvements; and with this he occupied himself for many years, growing old before his time. [Illustration: S. DAMIANO (_After_ Raffaello da Montelupo. _Florence: New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo_) _Alinari_] I believe that Raffaello, if he had undertaken great works, as he might have done, would have executed more things in art, and better, than he did. But he was too kindly and considerate, avoiding all conflict, and contenting himself with that wherewith fortune had provided him; and thus he neglected many opportunities of making works of distinction. Raffaello was a very masterly draughtsman, and he had a much better knowledge of all matters of art than had been shown by his father Baccio. In our book are some drawings by the hand both of the one and of the other; but those of Raffaello are much the finer and more graceful, and executed with better art. In his architectural decorations Raffaello followed in great measure the manner of Michelagnolo, as is proved by the chimney-pieces, doors, and windows that he made in the aforesaid Castello di S. Angelo, and by some chapels built under his direction, in a rare and beautiful manner, at Orvieto. But returning to Baccio: his death was a great grief to the people of Lucca, who had known him as a good and upright man, courteous to all, and very loving. Baccio's works date about the year of our Lord 1533. His dearest friend, who learnt many things from him, was Zaccaria da Volterra, who executed many works in terra-cotta at Bologna, some of which are in the Church of S. Giuseppe. LORENZO DI CREDI [Illustration: LORENZO DI CREDI: VENUS (_Florence: Uffizi_, 3452. _Panel_)] LIFE OF LORENZO DI CREDI PAINTER OF FLORENCE The while that Maestro Credi, an excellent goldsmith in his day, was working in Florence with very good credit and repute, Andrea Sciarpelloni placed with him, to the end that he might learn that craft, his son Lorenzo, a young man of beautiful intellect and excellent character. And since the ability and willingness of the master to teach were not greater than the zeal and readiness with which the disciple absorbed whatever was shown to him, no long time passed before Lorenzo became not only a good and diligent designer, but also so able and finished a goldsmith, that no young man of that time was his equal; and this brought such honour to Credi, that from that day onward Lorenzo was always called by everyone, not Lorenzo Sciarpelloni, but Lorenzo di Credi. Growing in courage, then, Lorenzo attached himself to Andrea Verrocchio, who at that time had taken it into his head to devote himself to painting; and under him, having Pietro Perugino and Leonardo da Vinci as his companions and friends, although they were rivals, he set himself with all diligence to learn to paint. And since Lorenzo took an extraordinary pleasure in the manner of Leonardo, he contrived to imitate it so well that there was no one who came nearer to it than he did in the high finish and thorough perfection of his works, as may be seen from many drawings that are in our book, executed with the style, with the pen, or in water-colours, among which are some drawings made from models of clay covered with waxed linen cloths and with liquid clay, imitated with such diligence, and finished with such patience, as it is scarcely possible to conceive, much less to equal. For these reasons, then, Lorenzo was so beloved by his master, that, when Andrea went to Venice to cast in bronze the horse and the statue of Bartolommeo da Bergamo, he left to Lorenzo the whole management and administration of his revenues and affairs, and likewise all his drawings, reliefs, statues, and art materials. And Lorenzo, on his part, loved his master Andrea so dearly, that, besides occupying himself with incredible zeal with his interests in Florence, he also went more than once to Venice to see him and to render him an account of his good administration, which was so much to the satisfaction of his master, that, if Lorenzo had consented, Andrea would have made him his heir. Nor did Lorenzo prove in any way ungrateful for this good-will, for, after the death of Andrea, he went to Venice and brought his body to Florence; and then he handed over to his heirs everything that was found to belong to Andrea, except his drawings, pictures, sculptures, and all other things connected with art. The first paintings of Lorenzo were a round picture of Our Lady, which was sent to the King of Spain (the design of which picture he copied from one by his master Andrea), and a picture, much better than the other, which was likewise copied by Lorenzo from one by Leonardo da Vinci, and also sent to Spain; and so similar was it to that by Leonardo, that no difference could be seen between the one and the other. By the hand of Lorenzo is a Madonna in a very well executed panel, which is beside the great Church of S. Jacopo at Pistoia; and another, also, which is in the Hospital of the Ceppo, and is one of the best pictures in that city. Lorenzo painted many portraits, and when he was a young man he made that one of himself which is now in the possession of his disciple, Gian Jacopo, a painter in Florence, together with many other things left to him by Lorenzo, among which are the portrait of Pietro Perugino and that of Lorenzo's master, Andrea Verrocchio. He also made a portrait of Girolamo Benivieni, a man of great learning, and much his friend. [Illustration: ANDREA VERROCCHIO (_After the panel by =Lorenzo di Credi=. Florence: Uffizi, 1163_) _Anderson_] For the Company of S. Sebastiano, behind the Church of the Servi in Florence, he executed a panel-picture of Our Lady, S. Sebastian, and other saints; and for the altar of S. Giuseppe, in S. Maria del Fiore, he painted the first-named saint. To Montepulciano he sent a panel that is now in the Church of S. Agostino, containing a Crucifix, Our Lady, and S. John, painted with much diligence. But the best work that Lorenzo ever executed, and that to which he devoted the greatest care and zeal, in order to surpass himself, was the one that is in a chapel at Cestello, a panel containing Our Lady, S. Julian, and S. Nicholas; and whoever wishes to know how necessary it is for a painter to work with a high finish in oils if he desires that his pictures should remain fresh, must look at this panel, which is painted with such a finish as could not be excelled. While still a young man, Lorenzo painted a S. Bartholomew on a pilaster in Orsanmichele, and for the Nuns of S. Chiara, in Florence, a panel-picture of the Nativity of Christ, with some shepherds and angels; in which picture, besides other things, he took great pains with the imitation of some herbage, painting it so well that it appears to be real. For the same place he made a picture of S. Mary Magdalene in Penitence; and in a round picture that is in the house of Messer Ottaviano de' Medici he painted a Madonna. For S. Friano he painted a panel; and he executed some figures in S. Matteo at the Hospital of Lelmo. For S. Reparata he painted a picture with the Angel Michael, and for the Company of the Scalzo he made a panel-picture, executed with much diligence. And, in addition to these works, he made many pictures of Our Lady and others, which are dispersed among the houses of citizens in Florence. Having thus got together a certain sum of money by means of these labours, and being a man who loved quiet more than riches, Lorenzo retired to S. Maria Nuova in Florence, where he lived and had a comfortable lodging until his death. Lorenzo was much inclined to the sect of Fra Girolamo of Ferrara, and always lived like an upright and orderly man, showing a friendly courtesy whenever the occasion arose. Finally, having come to the seventy-eighth year of his life, he died of old age, and was buried in S. Pietro Maggiore, in the year 1530. He showed such a perfection of finish in his works, that any other painting, in comparison with his, must always seem merely sketched and dirty. He left many disciples, and among them Giovanni Antonio Sogliani and Tommaso di Stefano. Of Sogliani there will be an account in another place; and as for Tommaso, he imitated his master closely in his high finish, and made many works in Florence and abroad, including a panel-picture for Marco del Nero at his villa of Arcetri, of the Nativity of Christ, executed with great perfection of finish. But ultimately it became Tommaso's principal profession to paint on cloth, insomuch that he painted church-hangings better than any other man. Now Stefano, the father of Tommaso, had been an illuminator, and had also done something in architecture; and Tommaso, after his father's death, in order to follow in his steps, rebuilt the bridge of Sieve, which had been destroyed by a flood about that time, at a distance of ten miles from Florence, and likewise that of S. Piero a Ponte on the River Bisenzio, which is a beautiful work; and afterwards he erected many buildings for monasteries and other places. Then, being architect to the Guild of Wool, he made the model for the new buildings which were constructed by that Guild behind the Nunziata; and, finally, having reached the age of seventy or more, he died in the year 1564, and was buried in S. Marco, to which he was followed by an honourable train of the Academy of Design. But returning to Lorenzo: he left many works unfinished at his death, and, in particular, a very beautiful picture of the Passion of Christ, which came into the hands of Antonio da Ricasoli, and a panel painted for M. Francesco da Castiglioni, Canon of S. Maria del Fiore, who sent it to Castiglioni. Lorenzo had no wish to make many large works, because he took great pains in executing his pictures, and devoted an incredible amount of labour to them, for the reason, above all, that the colours which he used were ground too fine; besides which, he was always purifying and distilling his nut-oils, and he made mixtures of colours on his palette in such numbers, that from the first of the light tints to the last of the darks there was a gradual succession involving an over-careful and truly excessive elaboration, so that at times he had twenty-five or thirty of them on his palette. For each tint he kept a separate brush; and where he was working he would never allow any movement that might raise dust. Such excessive care is perhaps no more worthy of praise than the other extreme of negligence, for in all things one should observe a certain mean and avoid extremes, which are generally harmful. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS (_After the panel by =Lorenzo di Credi=. Paris: Louvre, 1263_) _Alinari_] [Illustration: THE NATIVITY (_After the panel by =Lorenzo di Credi=. Florence: Accademia, 92_) _Anderson_] LORENZETTO AND BOCCACCINO [Illustration: BERNARDINO DEL LUPINO (LUINI): S. CATHARINE BORNE TO HER TOMB BY ANGELS (_Milan: Brera, 288. Fresco_)] LIVES OF LORENZETTO SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT OF FLORENCE AND OF BOCCACCINO PAINTER OF CREMONA It happens at times, after Fortune has kept the talent of some fine intellect subjected for a period by poverty, that she thinks better of it, and at an unexpected moment provides all sorts of benefits for one who has hitherto been the object of her hatred, so as to atone in one year for the affronts and discomforts of many. This was seen in Lorenzo, the son of Lodovico the bell-founder, a Florentine, who was engaged in the work both of architecture and of sculpture, and was loved so dearly by Raffaello da Urbino, that he not only was assisted by him and employed in many enterprises, but also received from the same master a wife in the person of a sister of Giulio Romano, a disciple of Raffaello. Lorenzetto[4]--for thus he was always called--finished in his youth the tomb of Cardinal Forteguerra, formerly begun by Andrea Verrocchio, which was erected in S. Jacopo at Pistoia; and there, among other things, is a Charity by the hand of Lorenzetto, which is not otherwise than passing good. And a little afterwards he made a figure for Giovanni Bartolini, to adorn his garden; which finished, he went to Rome, where in his first years he executed many works, of which there is no need to make any further record. Then, receiving from Agostino Chigi, at the instance of Raffaello da Urbino, the commission to make a tomb for him in S. Maria del Popolo, where Agostino had built a chapel, Lorenzo set himself to work on this with all the zeal, diligence, and labour in his power, in order to come out of it with credit and to give satisfaction to Raffaello, from whom he had reason to expect much favour and assistance, and also in the hope of being richly rewarded by the liberality of Agostino, a man of great wealth. Nor were these labours expended without an excellent result, for, assisted by Raffaello, he executed the figures to perfection: a nude Jonah delivered from the belly of the whale, as a symbol of the resurrection from the dead, and an Elijah, living by grace, with his cruse of water and his bread baked in the ashes, under the juniper-tree. These statues, then, were brought to the most beautiful completion by Lorenzetto with all the art and diligence at his command, but he did not by any means obtain for them that reward which his great labours and the needs of his family called for, since, death having closed the eyes of Agostino, and almost at the same time those of Raffaello, the heirs of Agostino, with scant respect, allowed these figures to remain in Lorenzetto's workshop, where they stood for many years. In our own day, indeed, they have been set into place on that tomb in the aforesaid Church of S. Maria del Popolo; but Lorenzo, robbed for those reasons of all hope, found for the present that he had thrown away his time and labour. [Illustration: ELIJAH (_After_ Lorenzetto. _Rome: S. Maria del Popolo, Chigi Chapel_) _Anderson_] Next, by way of executing the testament of Raffaello, Lorenzo was commissioned to make a marble statue of Our Lady, four braccia high, for the tomb of Raffaello in the Temple of S. Maria Ritonda, where the tabernacle was restored by order of that master. The same Lorenzo made a tomb with two children in half-relief, for a merchant of the Perini family, in the Trinità at Rome. And in architecture he made the designs for many houses; in particular, that of the Palace of Messer Bernardino Caffarelli, and in the Valle, for Cardinal Andrea della Valle, the inner façade, and also the design of the stables and of the upper garden. In the composition of that work he included ancient columns, bases, and capitals, and around the whole, to serve as base, he distributed ancient sarcophagi covered with carved scenes. Higher up, below some large niches, he made another frieze with fragments of ancient works, and above this, in those niches, he placed some statues, likewise ancient and of marble, which, although they were not entire--some being without the head, some without arms, others without legs, and every one, in short, with something missing--nevertheless he arranged to the best advantage, having caused all that was lacking to be restored by good sculptors. This was the reason that other lords have since done the same thing and have restored many ancient works; as, for example, Cardinals Cesis, Ferrara, and Farnese, and, in a word, all Rome. And, in truth, antiquities restored in this way have more grace than those mutilated trunks, members without heads, or figures in any other way maimed and defective. But to return to the aforesaid garden: over the niches was placed the frieze that is still seen there, of supremely beautiful ancient scenes in half-relief; and this invention of Lorenzo's stood him in very good stead, since, after the troubles of Pope Clement had abated, he was employed by him with much honour and profit to himself. For the Pope had seen, when the fight for the Castello di S. Angelo was raging, that two little chapels of marble, which were at the head of the bridge, had been a source of mischief, in that some harquebusiers, standing in them, shot down all who exposed themselves at the walls, and, themselves in safety, inflicted great losses and baulked the defence; and his Holiness resolved to remove those chapels and to set up in place of them two marble statues on pedestals. And so, after the S. Paul of Paolo Romano, of which there has been an account in another Life, had been set in place, the commission for the other, a S. Peter, was given to Lorenzetto, who acquitted himself passing well, but did not surpass the work of Paolo Romano. These two statues were set up, and are to be seen at the present day at the head of the bridge. [Illustration: S. PETER (_After_ Lorenzetto. _Rome: Ponte S. Angelo_) _Anderson_] After Pope Clement was dead, Baccio Bandinelli was given the commissions for the tombs of that Pope and of Leo X, and Lorenzo was entrusted with the marble masonry that was to be executed for them; whereupon the latter spent no little time over that work. Finally, at the election of Paul III as Pontiff, when Lorenzo was in sorry straits and almost worn out, having nothing but a house which he had built for himself in the Macello de' Corbi, and being weighed down by his five children and by other expenses, Fortune changed and began to raise him and to set him back on a better path; for Pope Paul wishing to have the building of S. Pietro continued, and neither Baldassarre of Siena nor any of the others who had been employed in that work being now alive, Antonio da San Gallo appointed Lorenzo as architect for that structure, wherein the walls were being built at a fixed price of so much for every four braccia. Thereupon Lorenzo, without exerting himself, in a few years became more famous and prosperous than he had been after many years of endless labour, through having found God, mankind, and Fortune all propitious at that one moment. And if he had lived longer, he would have done even more towards wiping out those injuries that a cruel fate had unjustly brought upon him during his best period of work. But after reaching the age of forty-seven, he died of fever in the year 1541. The death of this master caused great grief to his many friends, who had always known him as a loving and reasonable man. And since he had always lived like an upright and orderly citizen, the Deputati of S. Pietro gave him honourable burial in a tomb, on which they placed the following epitaph: SCULPTORI LAURENTIO FLORENTINO ROMA MIHI TRIBUIT TUMULUM, FLORENTIA VITAM: NEMO ALIO VELLET NASCI ET OBIRE LOCO. MDXLI VIX. ANN. XLVII, MEN. II, D. XV. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS (_After the panel by =Boccaccino=. Rome: Doria Gallery, 125_) _Anderson_] Boccaccino of Cremona, who lived about the same time, had acquired the name of a rare and excellent painter in his native place and throughout all Lombardy, and his works were very highly extolled, when he went to Rome to see the works, so much renowned, of Michelagnolo; but no sooner had he seen them than he sought to the best of his power to disparage and revile them, believing that he could exalt himself almost exactly in proportion as he vilified a man who truly was in the matters of design, and indeed in all others without exception, supremely excellent. This master, then, was commissioned to paint the Chapel of S. Maria Traspontina; but when he had finished it and thrown it open to view, it was a revelation to all those who thought that he would soar above the heavens, for they saw that he could not reach even to the level of the lowest floor of a house. And so the painters of Rome, on seeing the Coronation of Our Lady that he had painted in that work, with some children flying around her, changed from marvel to laughter. From this it may be seen that when people begin to exalt with their praise men who are more excellent in name than in deeds, it is a difficult thing to contrive to bring such men down to their true level with words, however reasonable, before their own works, wholly contrary to their reputation, reveal what the masters so celebrated really are. And it is a very certain fact that the worst harm that one man can do to another is the giving of praise too early to any intellect engaged in work, since such praise, swelling him with premature pride, prevents him from going any farther, and a man so greatly extolled, on finding that his works have not that excellence which was expected, takes the censure too much to heart, and despairs completely of ever being able to do good work. Wise men, therefore, should fear praise much more than censure, for the first flatters and deceives, and the second, revealing the truth, gives instruction. Boccaccino, then, departing from Rome, where he felt himself wounded and torn to pieces, returned to Cremona, and there continued to practise painting to the best of his power and knowledge. In the Duomo, over the arches in the middle, he painted all the stories of the Madonna; and this work is much esteemed in that city. He also made other works throughout that city and in the neighbourhood, of which there is no need to make mention. He taught his art to a son of his own, called Camillo, who, applying himself to the art with more study, strove to make amends for the shortcomings of the boastful Boccaccino. By the hand of this Camillo are some works in S. Gismondo, which is a mile distant from Cremona; and these are esteemed by the people of Cremona as the best paintings that they have. He also painted the façade of a house on their Piazza, all the compartments of the vaulting and some panels in S. Agata, and the façade of S. Antonio, together with other works, which made him known as a practised master. If death had not snatched him from the world before his time, he would have achieved a most honourable success, for he was advancing on the good way; and even for those works that he has left to us, he deserves to have record made of him. But returning to Boccaccino; without having ever made any improvement in his art, he passed from this life at the age of fifty-eight. In his time there lived in Milan a passing good illuminator, called Girolamo, whose works may be seen in good numbers both in that city and throughout all Lombardy. A Milanese, likewise, living about the same time, was Bernardino del Lupino,[5] a very delicate and pleasing painter, as may be seen from many works by his hand that are in that city, and from a Marriage of Our Lady at Sarone, a place twelve miles distant from Milan, and other scenes that are in the Church of S. Maria, executed most perfectly in fresco. He also worked with a very high finish in oils, and he was a courteous person, and very liberal with his possessions; wherefore he deserves all the praise that is due to any craftsman who makes the works and ways of his daily life shine by the adornment of courtesy no less than do his works of art on account of their excellence. [Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN (_After the fresco by =Bernardino del Lupino [Luini]=. Saronno: Santuario della Beata Vergine_) _Anderson_] FOOTNOTE: [4] Diminutive of Lorenzo. [5] Luini. BALDASSARRE PERUZZI LIFE OF BALDASSARRE PERUZZI PAINTER AND ARCHITECT OF SIENA Among all the gifts that Heaven distributes to mortals, none, in truth, can or should be held in more account than talent, with calmness and peace of soul, for the first makes us for ever immortal, and the second blessed. He, then, who is endowed with these gifts, in addition to the deep gratitude that he should feel towards God, must make himself known among other men almost as a light amid darkness. And even so, in our own times, did Baldassarre Peruzzi, a painter and architect of Siena, of whom we can say with certainty that the modesty and goodness which were revealed in him were no mean offshoots of that supreme serenity for which the minds of all who are born in this world are ever sighing, and that the works which he left to us are most honourable fruits of that true excellence which was infused in him by Heaven. Now, although I have called him above, Baldassarre of Siena, because he was always known as a Sienese, I will not withhold that even as seven cities contended for Homer, each claiming that he was her citizen, so three most noble cities of Tuscany--Florence, Volterra, and Siena--have each held that Baldassarre was her son. But, to tell the truth, each of them has a share in him, seeing that Antonio Peruzzi, a noble citizen of Florence, that city being harassed by civil war, went off, in the hope of a quieter life, to Volterra; and after living some time there, in the year 1482 he took a wife in that city, and in a few years had two children, one a boy, called Baldassarre, and the other a girl, who received the name of Virginia. Now it happened that war pursued this man who sought nothing but peace and quiet, and that no long time afterwards Volterra was sacked; whence Antonio was forced to fly to Siena, and to live there in great poverty, having lost almost all that he had. Meanwhile Baldassarre, having grown up, was for ever associating with persons of ability, and particularly with goldsmiths and draughtsmen; and thus, beginning to take pleasure in the arts, he devoted himself heart and soul to drawing. And not long after, his father being now dead, he applied himself to painting with such zeal, that in a very short time he made marvellous progress therein, imitating living and natural things as well as the works of the best masters. In this way, executing what work he could find, he was able to maintain himself, his mother, and his sister with his art, and to pursue the studies of painting. [Illustration: CUPOLA OF THE PONZETTI CHAPEL (_After the fresco by =Baldassarre Peruzzi=. Rome: S. Maria della Pace_) _Anderson_] His first work--apart from some things at Siena, not worthy of mention--was in a little chapel near the Porta Fiorentina at Volterra, wherein he executed some figures with such grace, that they led to his forming a friendship with a painter of Volterra, called Piero, who lived most of his time in Rome, and going off with that master to that city, where he was doing some work in the Palace for Alexander VI. But after the death of Alexander, Maestro Piero working no more in that place, Baldassarre entered the workshop of the father of Maturino, a painter of no great excellence, who at that time had always plenty of work to do in the form of commonplace commissions. That painter, then, placing a panel primed with gesso before Baldassarre, but giving him no scrap of drawing or cartoon, told him to make a Madonna upon it. Baldassarre took a piece of charcoal, and in a moment, with great mastery, he had drawn what he wished to paint in the picture; and then, setting his hand to the colouring, in a few days he painted a picture so beautiful and so well finished, that it amazed not only the master of the workshop, but also many painters who saw it; and they, recognizing his ability, contrived to obtain for him the commission to paint the Chapel of the High-Altar in the Church of S. Onofrio, which he executed in fresco with much grace and in a very beautiful manner. After this, he painted two other little chapels in fresco in the Church of S. Rocco a Ripa. Having thus begun to be in good repute, he was summoned to Ostia, where he painted most beautiful scenes in chiaroscuro in some apartments of the great tower of the fortress; in particular, a hand-to-hand battle after the manner in which the ancient Romans used to fight, and beside this a company of soldiers delivering an assault on a fortress, wherein the attackers, covered by their shields, are seen making a beautiful and spirited onslaught and planting their ladders against the walls, while the men within are hurling them back with the utmost fury. In this scene, also, he painted many antique instruments of war, and likewise various kinds of arms; with many other scenes in another hall, which are held to be among the best works that he ever made, although it is true that he was assisted in this work by Cesare da Milano. After these labours, having returned to Rome, Baldassarre formed a very strait friendship with Agostino Chigi of Siena, both because Agostino had a natural love for every man of talent, and because Baldassarre called himself a Sienese. And thus, with the help of so great a man, he was able to maintain himself while studying the antiquities of Rome, and particularly those in architecture, wherein, out of rivalry with Bramante, in a short time he made marvellous proficience, which afterwards brought him, as will be related, very great honour and profit. He also gave attention to perspective, and became such a master of that science, that we have seen few in our own times who have worked in it as well as he. Pope Julius II having meanwhile built a corridor in his Palace, with an aviary near the roof, Baldassarre painted there, in chiaroscuro, all the months of the year and the pursuits that are practised in each of them. In this work may be seen an endless number of buildings, theatres, amphitheatres, palaces, and other edifices, all distributed with beautiful invention in that place. He then painted, in company with other painters, some apartments in the Palace of S. Giorgio for Cardinal Raffaello Riario, Bishop of Ostia; and he painted a façade opposite to the house of Messer Ulisse da Fano, and also that of the same Messer Ulisse, wherein he executed stories of Ulysses that brought him very great renown and fame. Even greater was the fame that came to him from the model of the Palace of Agostino Chigi, executed with such beautiful grace that it seems not to have been built, but rather to have sprung into life; and with his own hand he decorated the exterior with most beautiful scenes in terretta. The hall, likewise, is adorned with rows of columns executed in perspective, which, with the depth of the intercolumniation, cause it to appear much larger. But what is the greatest marvel of all is a loggia that may be seen over the garden, painted by Baldassarre with scenes of the Medusa turning men into stone, such that nothing more beautiful can be imagined; and then there is Perseus cutting off her head, with many other scenes in the spandrels of that vaulting, while the ornamentation, drawn in perspective with colours, in imitation of stucco, is so natural and lifelike, that even to excellent craftsmen it appears to be in relief. And I remember that when I took the Chevalier Tiziano, a most excellent and honoured painter, to see that work, he would by no means believe that it was painted, until he had changed his point of view, when he was struck with amazement. In that place are some works executed by Fra Sebastiano Viniziano, in his first manner; and by the hand of the divine Raffaello, as has been related, there is a Galatea being carried off by sea-gods. [Illustration: PALAZZO DELLA FARNESINA (_After_ Baldassarre Peruzzi. _Rome_) _Alinari_] Baldassarre also painted, beyond the Campo di Fiore, on the way to the Piazza Giudea, a most beautiful façade in terretta with marvellous perspectives, for which he received the commission from a Groom of the Chamber to the Pope; and it is now in the possession of Jacopo Strozzi, the Florentine. In like manner, he wrought for Messer Ferrando Ponzetti, who afterwards became a Cardinal, a chapel at the entrance of the Church of the Pace, on the left hand, with little scenes from the Old Testament, and also with some figures of considerable size; and for a work in fresco this is executed with much diligence. But even more did he prove his worth in painting and perspective near the high-altar of the same church, where he painted a scene for Messer Filippo da Siena, Clerk of the Chamber, of Our Lady going into the Temple, ascending the steps, with many figures worthy of praise, such as a gentleman in antique dress, who, having dismounted from his horse, with his servants waiting, is giving alms to a beggar, quite naked and very wretched, who may be seen asking him for it with pitiful humility. In this place, also, are various buildings and most beautiful ornaments; and right round the whole work, executed likewise in fresco, are counterfeited decorations of stucco, which have the appearance of being attached to the wall with large rings, as if it were a panel painted in oils. And in the magnificent festival that the Roman people prepared on the Campidoglio when the baton of Holy Church was given to Duke Giuliano de' Medici, out of six painted scenes which were executed by six different painters of eminence, that by the hand of Baldassarre, twenty-eight braccia high and fourteen broad, showing the betrayal of the Romans by Julia Tarpeia, was judged to be without a doubt better than any of the others. But what amazed everyone most was the perspective-view or scenery for a play, which was so beautiful that it would be impossible to imagine anything finer, seeing that the variety and beautiful manner of the buildings, the various loggie, the extravagance of the doors and windows, and the other architectural details that were seen in it, were so well conceived and so extraordinary in invention, that one is not able to describe the thousandth part. For the house of Messer Francesco di Norcia, on the Piazza de' Farnesi, he made a very graceful door of the Doric Order; and for Messer Francesco Buzio he executed, near the Piazza degl' Altieri, a very beautiful façade, in the frieze of which he painted portraits from life of all the Roman Cardinals who were then alive, while on the wall itself he depicted the scenes of Cæsar receiving tribute from all the world, and above he painted the twelve Emperors, who are standing upon certain corbels, being foreshortened with a view to being seen from below, and wrought with extraordinary art. For this whole work he rightly obtained vast commendation. In the Banchi he executed the escutcheon of Pope Leo, with three children, that seemed to be alive, so tender was their flesh. For Fra Mariano Fetti, Friar of the Piombo, he made a very beautiful S. Bernard in terretta in his garden at Montecavallo. And for the Company of S. Catherine of Siena, on the Strada Giulia, in addition to a bier for carrying the dead to burial, he executed many other things, all worthy of praise. In Siena, also, he gave the design for the organ of the Carmine; and he made some other works in that city, but none of much importance. Later, having been summoned to Bologna by the Wardens of Works of S. Petronio, to the end that he might make the model for the façade of that church, he made for this two large ground-plans and two elevations, one in the modern manner and the other in the German; and the latter is still preserved in the Sacristy of the same S. Petronio, as a truly extraordinary work, since he drew that building in such sharply-detailed perspective that it appears to be in relief. In the house of Count Giovan Battista Bentivogli, in the same city, he made several drawings for the aforesaid structure, which were so beautiful, that it is not possible to praise enough the wonderful expedients sought out by this man in order not to destroy the old masonry, but to join it in beautiful proportion with the new. For the Count Giovan Battista mentioned above he made the design of a Nativity with the Magi, in chiaroscuro, wherein it is a marvellous thing to see the horses, the equipage, and the courts of the three Kings, executed with supreme beauty and grace, as are also the walls of the temples and some buildings round the hut. This work was afterwards given to be coloured by the Count to Girolamo Trevigi, who brought it to fine completion. Baldassarre also made the design for the door of the Church of S. Michele in Bosco, a most beautiful monastery of the Monks of Monte Oliveto, without Bologna; and the design and model of the Duomo of Carpi, which was very beautiful, and was built under his direction according to the rules of Vitruvius. And in the same place he made a beginning with the Church of S. Niccola, but it was not finished at that time, because Baldassarre was almost forced to return to Siena in order to make designs for the fortifications of that city, which were afterwards carried into execution under his supervision. He then returned to Rome, where, after building the house that is opposite to the Farnese Palace, with some others within that city, he was employed in many works by Pope Leo X. That Pontiff wished to finish the building of S. Pietro, begun by Julius II after the design of Bramante, but it appeared to him that the edifice was too large and lacking in cohesion; and Baldassarre made a new model, magnificent and truly ingenious, and revealing such good judgment, that some parts of it have since been used by other architects. So diligent, indeed, was this craftsman, so rare and so beautiful his judgment, and such the method with which his buildings were always designed, that he has never had an equal in works of architecture, seeing that, in addition to his other gifts, he combined that profession with a good and beautiful manner of painting. He made the design of the tomb of Adrian VI, and all that is painted round it is by his hand; and Michelagnolo, a sculptor of Siena, executed that tomb in marble, with the help of our Baldassarre. When the Calandra, a play by Cardinal Bibbiena, was performed before the same Pope Leo, Baldassarre made the scenic setting, which was no less beautiful--much more so, indeed--than that which he had made on another occasion, as has been related above. In such works he deserved all the greater praise, because dramatic performances, and consequently the scenery for them, had been out of fashion for a long time, festivals and sacred representations taking their place. And either before or after (it matters little which) the performance of the aforesaid Calandra, which was one of the first plays in the vulgar tongue to be seen or performed, in the time of Leo X, Baldassarre made two such scenes, which were marvellous, and opened the way to those who have since made them in our own day. Nor is it possible to imagine how he found room, in a space so limited, for so many streets, so many palaces, and so many bizarre temples, loggie, and various kinds of cornices, all so well executed that it seemed that they were not counterfeited, but absolutely real, and that the piazza was not a little thing, and merely painted, but real and very large. He designed, also, the chandeliers and the lights within that illuminated the scene, and all the other things that were necessary, with much judgment, although, as has been related, the drama had fallen almost completely out of fashion. This kind of spectacle, in my belief, when it has all its accessories, surpasses any other kind, however sumptuous and magnificent. Afterwards, at the election of Pope Clement VII in the year 1524, he prepared the festivities for his coronation. He finished with peperino-stone the front of the principal chapel, formerly begun by Bramante, in S. Pietro; and in the chapel wherein is the bronze tomb of Pope Sixtus, he painted in chiaroscuro the Apostles that are in the niches behind the altar, besides making the design of the Tabernacle of the Sacrament, which is very graceful. Then in the year 1527, when the cruel sack of Rome took place, our poor Baldassarre was taken prisoner by the Spaniards, and not only lost all his possessions, but was also much maltreated and outraged, because he was grave, noble, and gracious of aspect, and they believed him to be some great prelate in disguise, or some other man able to pay a fat ransom. Finally, however, those impious barbarians having found that he was a painter, one of them, who had borne a great affection to Bourbon, caused him to make a portrait of that most rascally captain, the enemy of God and man, either letting Baldassarre see him as he lay dead, or giving him his likeness in some other way, with drawings or with words. After this, having slipped from their hands, Baldassarre took ship to go to Porto Ercole, and thence to Siena; but on the way he was robbed of everything and stripped to such purpose, that he went to Siena in his shirt. However, he was received with honour and reclothed by his friends, and a little time afterwards he was given a provision and a salary by the Commonwealth, to the end that he might give his attention to the fortification of that city. Living there, he had two children; and, besides what he did for the public service, he made many designs of houses for his fellow-citizens, and the design for the ornament of the organ, which is very beautiful, in the Church of the Carmine. [Illustration: COURTYARD OF PALAZZO MASSIMI (_After_ Baldassarre Peruzzi. _Rome_) _Anderson_] Meanwhile, the armies of the Emperor and the Pope had advanced to the siege of Florence, and his Holiness sent Baldassarre to the camp to Baccio Valori, the Military Commissary, to the end that Baccio might avail himself of his services for the purposes of his operations and for the capture of the city. But Baldassarre, loving the liberty of his former country more than the favour of the Pope, and in no way fearing the indignation of so great a Pontiff, would never lend his aid in any matter of importance. The Pope, hearing of this, for a short time bore him no little ill-will; but when the war was finished, Baldassarre desiring to return to Rome, Cardinals Salviati, Trivulzi, and Cesarino, to all of whom he had given faithful service in many works, restored him to the favour of the Pope and to his former appointments. He was thus able to return without hindrance to Rome, where, not many days after, he made for the Signori Orsini the designs of two very beautiful palaces, which were built on the way to Viterbo, and of some other edifices for Apuglia. But meanwhile he did not neglect the studies of astrology, nor those of mathematics and the others in which he much delighted, and he began a book on the antiquities of Rome, with a commentary on Vitruvius, making little by little illustrative drawings beside the writings of that author, some of which are still to be seen in the possession of Francesco da Siena, who was his disciple, and among them some papers with drawings of ancient edifices and of the modern manner of building. While living in Rome, also, he made the design for the house of the Massimi, drawn in an oval form, with a new and beautiful manner of building; and for the façade he made a vestibule of Doric columns showing great art and good proportion, with a beautiful distribution of detail in the court and in the disposition of the stairs; but he was not able to see this work finished, for he was overtaken by death. And yet, although the talents and labours of this noble craftsman were so great, they brought much more benefit to others than to himself; for, while he was employed by Popes, Cardinals, and other great and rich persons, not one of them ever gave him any remarkable reward. That this should have happened is not surprising, not so much through want of liberality in such patrons, although for the most part they are least liberal where they should be the very opposite, as through the timidity and excessive modesty, or rather, to be more exact in this case, the lack of shrewdness of Baldassarre. To tell the truth, in proportion as one should be discreet with magnanimous and liberal Princes, so should one always be pressing and importunate with such as are miserly, unthankful, and discourteous, for the reason that, even as in the case of the generous importunate asking would always be a vice, so with the miserly it is a virtue, and with such men it is discretion that would be the vice. In the last years of his life, then, Baldassarre found himself poor and weighed down by his family. Finally, having always lived a life without reproach, he fell grievously ill, and took to his bed; and Pope Paul III, hearing this, and recognizing too late the harm that he was like to suffer in the loss of so great a man, sent Jacopo Melighi, the accountant of S. Pietro, to give him a present of one hundred crowns, and to make him most friendly offers. However, his sickness increased, either because it was so ordained, or, as many believe, because his death was hastened with poison by some rival who desired his place, from which he drew two hundred and fifty crowns of salary; and, the physicians discovering this too late, he died, very unwilling to give up his life, more on account of his poor family than for his own sake, as he thought in what sore straits he was leaving them. He was much lamented by his children and his friends, and he received honourable burial, next to Raffaello da Urbino, in the Ritonda, whither he was followed by all the painters, sculptors, and architects of Rome, doing him honour and bewailing him; with the following epitaph: BALTHASARI PERUTIO SENENSI, VIRO ET PICTURA ET ARCHITECTURA ALIISQUE INGENIORUM ARTIBUS ADEO EXCELLENTI, UT SI PRISCORUM OCCUBUISSET TEMPORIBUS, NOSTRA ILLUM FELICIUS LEGERENT. VIX. ANN. LV, MENS. XI, DIES XX. LUCRETIA ET JO. SALUSTIUS OPTIMO CONJUGI ET PARENTI, NON SINE LACRIMIS SIMONIS, HONORII, CLAUDII, ÆMILIÆ, AC SULPITIÆ, MINORUM FILIORUM, DOLENTES POSUERUNT, DIE IIII JANUARII, MDXXXVI. The name and fame of Baldassarre became greater after his death than they had been during his lifetime; and then, above all, was his talent missed, when Pope Paul III resolved to have S. Pietro finished, because men recognized how great a help he would have been to Antonio da San Gallo. For, although Antonio had to his credit all that is to be seen executed by him, yet it is believed that in company with Baldassarre he would have done more towards solving some of the difficulties of that work. The heir to many of the possessions of Baldassarre was Sebastiano Serlio of Bologna, who wrote the third book on architecture and the fourth on the antiquities of Rome with their measurements; in which works the above-mentioned labours of Baldassarre were partly inserted in the margins, and partly turned to great advantage by the author. Most of these writings of Baldassarre came into the hands of Jacomo Melighino of Ferrara, who was afterwards chosen by Pope Paul as architect for his buildings, and of the aforesaid Francesco da Siena, his former assistant and disciple, by whose hand is the highly renowned escutcheon of Cardinal Trani in Piazza Navona, with some other works. From this Francesco we received the portrait of Baldassarre, and information about some matters which I was not able to ascertain when this book was published for the first time. Another disciple of Baldassarre was Virgilio Romano, who executed a façade with some prisoners in sgraffito-work in the centre of the Borgo Nuovo in his native city, and many other beautiful works. From the same master, also, Antonio del Rozzo, a citizen of Siena and a very excellent engineer, learnt the first principles of architecture; and Baldassarre was followed, in like manner, by Riccio, a painter of Siena, who, however, afterwards imitated to no small extent the manner of Giovanni Antonio Sodoma of Vercelli. And another of his pupils was Giovan Battista Peloro, an architect of Siena, who gave much attention to mathematics and cosmography, and made with his own hand mariner's compasses, quadrants, many irons and instruments for measuring, and likewise the ground-plans of many fortifications, most of which are in the possession of Maestro Giuliano, a goldsmith of Siena, who was very much his friend. This Giovan Battista made for Duke Cosimo de' Medici a plan of Siena, all in relief and altogether marvellous, with the valleys and the surroundings for a mile and a half round--the walls, the streets, the forts, and, in a word, a most beautiful model of the whole place. But, since he was unstable by nature, he left Duke Cosimo, although he had a good allowance from that Prince; and, thinking to do better, he made his way into France, where he followed the Court without any success for a long time, and finally died at Avignon. And although he was an able and well-practised architect, yet in no place are there to be seen any buildings erected by him or after his design, for he always stayed such a short time in any one place, that he could never bring anything to completion; wherefore he consumed all his time with designs, measurements, models, and caprices. Nevertheless, as a follower of our arts, he has deserved to have record made of him. Baldassarre drew very well in every manner, with great judgment and diligence, but more with the pen, in water-colours, and in chiaroscuro, than in any other way, as may be seen from many drawings by his hand that belong to different craftsmen. Our book, in particular, contains various drawings; and in one of these is a scene full of invention and caprice, showing a piazza filled with arches, colossal figures, theatres, obelisks, pyramids, temples of various kinds, porticoes, and other things, all after the antique, while on a pedestal stands a Mercury, round whom are all sorts of alchemists with bellows large and small, retorts, and other instruments for distilling, hurrying about and giving him a clyster in order to purge his body--an invention as ludicrous as it is beautiful and bizarre. Friends and intimate companions of Baldassarre, who was always courteous, modest, and gentle with every man, were Domenico Beccafumi of Siena, an excellent painter, and Il Capanna, who, in addition to many other works that he painted in Siena, executed the façade of the house of the Turchi and another that is on the Piazza. GIOVAN FRANCESCO PENNI OF FLORENCE AND PELLEGRINO DA MODENA LIVES OF GIOVAN FRANCESCO PENNI OF FLORENCE [_CALLED IL FATTORE_] AND OF PELLEGRINO DA MODENA PAINTERS Giovan Francesco Penni, called Il Fattore, a painter of Florence, was no less indebted to Fortune than he was to the goodness of his own nature, in that his ways of life, his inclination for painting, and his other qualities brought it about that Raffaello da Urbino took him into his house and educated him together with Giulio Romano, looking on both of them ever afterwards as his children, and proving at his death how much he thought both of the one and of the other by leaving them heirs to his art and to his property alike. Now Giovan Francesco, who began from his boyhood, when he first entered the house of Raffaello, to be called Il Fattore, and always retained that name, imitated in his drawings the manner of Raffaello, and never ceased to follow it, as may be perceived from some drawings by his hand that are in our book. And it is nothing wonderful that there should be many of these to be seen, all finished with great diligence, because he delighted much more in drawing than in colouring. The first works of Giovan Francesco were executed by him in the Papal Loggie at Rome, in company with Giovanni da Udine, Perino del Vaga, and other excellent masters; and in these may be seen a marvellous grace, worthy of a master striving at perfection of workmanship. He was very versatile, and he delighted much in making landscapes and buildings. He was a good colourist in oils, in fresco, and in distemper, and made excellent portraits from life; and he was much assisted in every respect by nature, so that he gained great mastery over all the secrets of art without much study. He was a great help to Raffaello, therefore, in painting a large part of the cartoons for the tapestries of the Pope's Chapel and of the Consistory, and particularly the ornamental borders. He also executed many other things from the cartoons and directions of Raffaello, such as the ceiling for Agostino Chigi in the Trastevere, with many pictures, panels, and various other works, in which he acquitted himself so well, that every day he won greater affection from Raffaello. On the Monte Giordano, in Rome, he painted a façade in chiaroscuro, and in S. Maria de Anima, by the side-door that leads to the Pace, a S. Christopher in fresco, eight braccia high, which is a very good figure; and in this work is a hermit with a lantern in his hand, in a grotto, executed with good draughtsmanship, harmony, and grace. Giovan Francesco then came to Florence, and painted for Lodovico Capponi at Montughi, a place without the Porta a San Gallo, a shrine with a Madonna, which is much extolled. Raffaello having meanwhile been overtaken by death, Giulio Romano and Giovan Francesco, who had been his disciples, remained together for a long time, and finished in company such of Raffaello's works as had been left unfinished, and in particular those that he had begun in the Vigna of the Pope, and likewise those of the Great Hall in the Palace, wherein are painted by the hands of these two masters the stories of Constantine, with excellent figures, executed in an able and beautiful manner, although the invention and the sketches of these stories came in part from Raffaello. While these works were in progress, Perino del Vaga, a very excellent painter, took to wife a sister of Giovan Francesco; on which account they executed many works in company. And afterwards Giulio and Giovan Francesco, continuing to work together, painted a panel in two parts, containing the Assumption of Our Lady, which went to Monteluci, near Perugia; and also other works and pictures for various places. [Illustration: THE BAPTISM OF CONSTANTINE (_After the fresco by =Giovanni Francesco Penni [Il Fattore]=. Rome: The Vatican_) _Anderson_] Then, receiving a commission from Pope Clement to paint a panel-picture like the one by Raffaello (which is in S. Pietro a Montorio), which was to be sent to France, whither Raffaello had meant to send the first, they began it; but soon afterwards, having fallen out with each other, they divided their inheritance of drawings and everything else left to them by Raffaello, and Giulio went off to Mantua, where he executed an endless number of works for the Marquis. Thither, not long afterwards, Giovan Francesco also made his way, drawn either by love of Giulio or by the hope of finding work; but he received so cold a welcome from Giulio that he soon departed, and, after travelling round Lombardy, he returned to Rome. And from Rome he went to Naples by ship in the train of the Marchese del Vasto, taking with him the now finished copy of the panel-picture of S. Pietro a Montorio, with other works, which he left in Ischia, an island belonging to the Marquis, while the panel was placed where it is at the present day, in the Church of S. Spirito degli Incurabili at Naples. Having thus settled in Naples, where he occupied himself with drawing and painting, Giovan Francesco was entertained and treated with great kindness by Tommaso Cambi, a Florentine merchant, who managed the affairs of that nobleman. But he did not live there long, because, being of a sickly habit of body, he fell ill and died, to the great grief of the noble Marquis and of all who knew him. He had a brother called Luca, likewise a painter, who worked in Genoa with his brother-in-law Perino, as well as at Lucca and many other places in Italy. In the end he went to England, where, after executing certain works for the King and for some merchants, he finally devoted himself to making designs for copper-plates for sending abroad, which he had engraved by Flemings. Of such he sent abroad a great number, which are known by his name as well as by the manner; and by his hand, among others, is a print wherein are some women in a bath, the original of which, by the hand of Luca himself, is in our book. A disciple of Giovan Francesco was Leonardo, called Il Pistoia because he came from that city, who executed some works at Lucca, and made many portraits from life in Rome. At Naples, for Diomede Caraffa, Bishop of Ariano, and now a Cardinal, he painted a panel-picture of the Stoning of S. Stephen for his chapel in S. Domenico. And for Monte Oliveto he painted another, which was placed on the high-altar, although it was afterwards removed to make room for a new one, similar in subject, by the hand of Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo. Leonardo earned large sums from these Neapolitan nobles, but he accumulated little, for he squandered it all as it came to his hand; and finally he died in Naples, leaving behind him the reputation of having been a good colourist, but not of having shown much excellence in draughtsmanship. Giovan Francesco lived forty years, and his works date about 1528. A friend of Giovan Francesco, and likewise a disciple of Raffaello, was Pellegrino da Modena, who, having acquired in his native city the name of a man of fine genius for painting, and having heard of the marvels of Raffaello da Urbino, determined, in order to justify by means of labour the hopes already conceived of him, to go to Rome. Arriving there, he placed himself under Raffaello, who never refused anything to men of ability. There were then in Rome very many young men who were working at painting and seeking in mutual rivalry to surpass one another in draughtsmanship, in order to win the favour of Raffaello and to gain a name among men; and thus Pellegrino, giving unceasing attention to his studies, became not only a good draughtsman, but also a well-practised master of the whole of his art. And when Leo X commissioned Raffaello to paint the Loggie, Pellegrino also worked there, in company with the other young men; and so well did he succeed, that Raffaello afterwards made use of him in many other things. He executed three figures in fresco in S. Eustachio at Rome, over an altar near the entrance into the church; and in the Church of the Portuguese, near the Scrofa, he painted in fresco the Chapel of the High-Altar, as well as the altar-piece. Afterwards, Cardinal Alborense having caused a chapel richly adorned with marbles to be erected in S. Jacopo, the Church of the Spanish people, with a S. James of marble by Jacopo Sansovino, four braccia and a half in height, and much extolled, Pellegrino painted there in fresco the stories of that Apostle, giving an air of great sweetness to his figures in imitation of his master Raffaello, and designing the whole composition so well, that the work made him known as an able man with a fine and beautiful genius for painting. This work finished, he made many others in Rome, both by himself and in company with others. [Illustration: THE LAST SUPPER (_After the fresco by =Gaudenzio Milanese [Gaudenzio Ferrari]=. Milan: S. Maria della Passione_) _Anderson_] But finally, when death had come upon Raffaello, Pellegrino returned to Modena, where he executed many works; among others, he painted for a Confraternity of Flagellants a panel-picture in oils of S. John baptizing Christ, and another panel for the Church of the Servi, containing S. Cosimo and S. Damiano, with other figures. Afterwards, having taken a wife, he had a son, who was the cause of his death. For this son, having come to words with some companions, young men of Modena, killed one of them; the news of which being carried to Pellegrino, he, in order to help his son from falling into the hands of justice, set out to smuggle him away. But he had not gone far from his house, when he stumbled against the relatives of the dead youth, who were going about searching for the murderer; and they, confronting Pellegrino, who had no time to escape, and full of fury because they had not been able to catch his son, gave him so many wounds that they left him dead on the ground. This event was a great grief to the people of Modena, who knew that by the death of Pellegrino they had been robbed of a spirit truly excellent and rare. A contemporary of this craftsman was the Milanese Gaudenzio, a resolute, well-practised, and excellent painter, who made many works in fresco at Milan; and in particular, for the Frati della Passione, a most beautiful Last Supper, which remained unfinished by reason of his death. He also painted very well in oils, and there are many highly-esteemed works by his hand at Vercelli and Veralla. ANDREA DEL SARTO LIFE OF ANDREA DEL SARTO A MOST EXCELLENT PAINTER OF FLORENCE At length, after the Lives of many craftsmen who have been excellent, some in colouring, some in drawing, and others in invention, we have come to the most excellent Andrea del Sarto, in whose single person nature and art demonstrated all that painting can achieve by means of draughtsmanship, colouring, and invention, insomuch that, if Andrea had possessed a little more fire and boldness of spirit, to correspond to his profound genius and judgment in his art, without a doubt he would have had no equal. But a certain timidity of spirit and a sort of humility and simplicity in his nature made it impossible that there should be seen in him that glowing ardour and that boldness which, added to his other qualities, would have made him truly divine in painting; for which reason he lacked those adornments and that grandeur and abundance of manners which have been seen in many other painters. His figures, however, for all their simplicity and purity, are well conceived, free from errors, and absolutely perfect in every respect. The expressions of his heads, both in children and in women, are gracious and natural, and those of men, both young and old, admirable in their vivacity and animation; his draperies are beautiful to a marvel, and his nudes very well conceived. And although his drawing is simple, all that he coloured is rare and truly divine. Andrea was born in Florence, in the year 1478, to a father who was all his life a tailor; whence he was always called Andrea del Sarto by everyone. Having come to the age of seven, he was taken away from his reading and writing school and apprenticed to the goldsmith's craft. But in this he was always much more willing to practise his hand in drawing, to which he was drawn by a natural inclination, than in using the tools for working in silver or gold; whence it came to pass that Gian Barile, a painter of Florence, but one of gross and vulgar taste, having seen the boy's good manner of drawing, took him under his protection, and, making him abandon his work as goldsmith, directed him to the art of painting. Andrea, beginning with much delight to practise it, recognized that nature had created him for that profession; and in a very short space of time, therefore, he was doing such things with colours as filled Gian Barile and the other craftsmen in the city with marvel. Now after three years, through continual study, he had acquired an excellent mastery over his work, and Gian Barile saw that by persisting in his studies the boy was likely to achieve an extraordinary success. Having therefore spoken of him to Piero di Cosimo, who was held at that time to be one of the best painters in Florence, he placed Andrea with Piero. And Andrea, as one full of desire to learn, laboured and studied without ceasing; while nature, which had created him to be a painter, so wrought in him, that he handled and managed his colours with as much grace as if he had been working for fifty years. Wherefore Piero conceived an extraordinary love for him, feeling marvellous pleasure in hearing that when Andrea had any time to himself, particularly on feast-days, he would spend the whole day in company with other young men, drawing in the Sala del Papa, wherein were the cartoons of Michelagnolo and Leonardo da Vinci, and that, young as he was, he surpassed all the other draughtsmen, both native and foreign, who were always competing there with one another. [Illustration: "NOLI ME TANGERE" (_After the panel by =Andrea del Sarto=. Florence: Uffizi, 93_) _Alinari_] Among these young men, there was one who pleased Andrea more than any other with his nature and conversation, namely, the painter Franciabigio; and Franciabigio, likewise, was attracted by Andrea. Having become friends, therefore, Andrea said to Franciabigio that he could no longer endure the caprices of Piero, who was now old, and that for this reason he wished to take a room for himself. Hearing this, Franciabigio, who was obliged to do the same thing because his master Mariotto Albertinelli had abandoned the art of painting, said to his companion Andrea that he also was in need of a room, and that it would be to the advantage of both of them if they were to join forces. Having therefore taken a room on the Piazza del Grano, they executed many works in company; among others, the curtains that cover the panel-pictures on the high-altar of the Servi; for which they received the commission from a sacristan very closely related to Franciabigio. On one of those curtains, that which faces the choir, they painted the Annunciation of the Virgin; and on the other, which is in front, a Deposition of Christ from the Cross, like that of the panel-picture which was there, painted by Filippo and Pietro Perugino. The men of that company in Florence which is called the Company of the Scalzo used to assemble at the head of the Via Larga, above the houses of the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, and opposite to the garden of S. Marco, in a building dedicated to S. John the Baptist, which had been built in those days by a number of Florentine craftsmen, who had made there, among other things, an entrance-court of masonry with a loggia which rested on some columns of no great size. And some of them, perceiving that Andrea was on the way to becoming known as an excellent painter, and being richer in spirit than in pocket, determined that he should paint round that cloister twelve pictures in chiaroscuro--that is to say, in fresco with terretta--containing twelve scenes from the life of S. John the Baptist. Whereupon, setting his hand to this, he painted in the first the scene of S. John baptizing Christ, with much diligence and great excellence of manner, whereby he gained credit, honour, and fame to such an extent, that many persons turned to him with commissions for works, as to one whom they thought to be destined in time to reach that honourable goal which was foreshadowed by his extraordinary beginnings in his profession. Among other works that he made in that first manner, he painted a picture which is now in the house of Filippo Spini, held in great veneration in memory of so able a craftsman. And not long after this he was commissioned to paint for a chapel in S. Gallo, the Church of the Eremite Observantines of the Order of S. Augustine, without the Porta a S. Gallo, a panel-picture of Christ appearing in the garden to Mary Magdalene in the form of a gardener; which work, what with the colouring and a certain quality of softness and harmony, is sweetness itself, and so well executed, that it led to his painting two others not long afterwards for the same church, as will be related below. This panel is now in S. Jacopo tra Fossi, on the Canto degli Alberti, together with the two others. After these works, Andrea and Franciabigio, leaving the Piazza del Grano, took new rooms in the Sapienza, near the Convent of the Nunziata; whence it came about that Andrea and Jacopo Sansovino, who was then a young man and was working at sculpture in the same place under his master Andrea Contucci, formed so warm and so strait a friendship together, that neither by day nor by night were they ever separated one from another. Their discussions were for the most part on the difficulties of art, so that it is no marvel that both of them should have afterwards become most excellent, as is now being shown of Andrea and as will be related in the proper place of Jacopo. [Illustration: THE LAST SUPPER (_After the fresco by =Andrea del Sarto=. Florence: S. Salvi_) _Anderson_] There was at this same time in the Convent of the Servi, selling the candles at the counter, a friar called Fra Mariano dal Canto alla Macine, who was also sacristan; and he heard everyone extolling Andrea mightily and saying that he was by way of making marvellous proficience in painting. Whereupon he planned to fulfil a desire of his own without much expense; and so, approaching Andrea, who was a mild and guileless fellow, on the side of his honour, he began to persuade him under the cloak of friendship that he wished to help him in a matter which would bring him honour and profit and would make him known in such a manner, that he would never be poor any more. Now many years before, as has been related above, Alesso Baldovinetti had painted a Nativity of Christ in the first cloister of the Servi, on the wall that has the Annunciation behind it; and in the same cloister, on the other side, Cosimo Rosselli had begun a scene of S. Filippo, the founder of that Servite Order, assuming the habit. But Cosimo had not carried that scene to completion, because death came upon him at the very moment when he was working at it. The friar, then, being very eager to see the rest finished, thought of serving his own ends by making Andrea and Franciabigio, who, from being friends, had become rivals in art, compete with one another, each doing part of the work. This, besides effecting his purpose very well, would make the expense less and their efforts greater. Thereupon, revealing his mind to Andrea, he persuaded him to undertake that enterprise, by pointing out to him that since it was a public and much frequented place, he would become known on account of such a work no less by foreigners than by the Florentines; that he should not look for any payment in return, or even for an invitation to undertake it, but should rather pray to be allowed to do it; and that if he were not willing to set to work, there was Franciabigio, who, in order to make himself known, had offered to accept it and to leave the matter of payment to him. These incitements did much to make Andrea resolve to undertake the work, and the rather as he was a man of little spirit; and the last reference to Franciabigio induced him to make up his mind completely and to come to an agreement, in the form of a written contract, with regard to the whole work, on the terms that no one else should have a hand in it. The friar, then, having thus pledged him and given him money, demanded that he should begin by continuing the life of S. Filippo, without receiving more than ten ducats from him in payment of each scene; and he told Andrea that he was giving him even that out of his own pocket, and was doing it more for the benefit and advantage of the painter than through any want or need of the convent. Andrea, therefore, pursuing that work with the utmost diligence, like one who thought more of honour than of profit, after no long time completely finished the first three scenes and unveiled them. One was the scene of S. Filippo, now a friar, clothing the naked. In another he is shown rebuking certain gamesters, who blasphemed God and laughed at S. Filippo, mocking at his admonition, when suddenly there comes a lightning-flash from Heaven, which, striking a tree under the shade of which they were sheltering, kills two of them and throws the rest into an incredible panic. Some, with their hands to their heads, cast themselves forward in dismay; others, crying aloud in their terror, turn to flight; a woman, beside herself with fear at the sound of the thunder, is running away so naturally that she appears to be truly alive; and a horse, breaking loose amid this uproar and confusion, reveals with his leaps and fearsome movements what fear and terror are caused by things so sudden and so unexpected. In all this one can see how carefully Andrea looked to variety of incident in the representation of such events, with a forethought truly beautiful and most necessary for one who practises painting. In the third he painted the scene of S. Filippo delivering a woman from evil spirits, with all the most characteristic considerations that could be imagined in such an action. All these scenes brought extraordinary fame and honour to Andrea; and thus encouraged, he went on to paint two other scenes in the same cloister. On one wall is S. Filippo lying dead, with his friars about him making lamentation; and in addition there is a dead child, who, touching the bier on which S. Filippo lies, comes to life again, so that he is first seen dead, and then revived and restored to life, and all with a very beautiful, natural, and appropriate effect. In the last picture on that side he represented the friars placing the garments of S. Filippo on the heads of certain children; and there he made a portrait of Andrea della Robbia, the sculptor, in an old man clothed in red, who comes forward, stooping, with a staff in his hand. There, too, he portrayed Luca, his son; even as in the other scene mentioned above, in which S. Filippo lies dead, he made a portrait of another son of Andrea, named Girolamo, a sculptor and very much his friend, who died not long since in France. Having thus finished that side of the cloister, and considering that if the honour was great, the payment was small, Andrea resolved to give up the rest of the work, however much the friar might complain. But the latter would not release him from his bond without Andrea first promising that he would paint two other scenes, at his own leisure and convenience, however, and with an increase of payment; and thus they came to terms. [Illustration: THE ARRIVAL OF THE MAGI (_After the fresco by =Andrea del Sarto=. Florence: SS. Annunziata_) _Alinari_] Having come into greater repute by reason of these works, Andrea received commissions for many pictures and works of importance; among others, one from the General of the Monks of Vallombrosa, for painting an arch of the vaulting, with a Last Supper on the front wall, in the Refectory of the Monastery of S. Salvi, without the Porta alla Croce. In four medallions on that vault he painted four figures, S. Benedict, S. Giovanni Gualberto, S. Salvi the Bishop, and S. Bernardo degli Uberti of Florence, a friar of that Order and a Cardinal; and in the centre he made a medallion containing three faces, which are one and the same, to represent the Trinity. All this was very well executed for a work in fresco, and Andrea, therefore, came to be valued at his true worth in the art of painting. Whereupon he was commissioned at the instance of Baccio d' Agnolo to paint in fresco, in a close on the steep path of Orsanmichele, which leads to the Mercato Nuovo, the Annunciation still to be seen there, executed on a minute scale, which brought him but little praise; and this may have been because Andrea, who worked well without over-exerting himself or forcing his powers, is believed to have tried in this work to force himself and to paint with too much care. As for the many pictures that he executed after this for Florence, it would take too long to try to speak of them all; and I will only say that among the most distinguished may be numbered the one that is now in the apartment of Baccio Barbadori, containing a full-length Madonna with a Child in her arms, S. Anne, and S. Joseph, all painted in a beautiful manner and held very dear by Baccio. He made one, likewise well worthy of praise, which is now in the possession of Lorenzo di Domenico Borghini, and another of Our Lady for Leonardo del Giocondo, which at the present day is in the hands of Piero, the son of Leonardo. For Carlo Ginori he painted two of no great size, which were bought afterwards by the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici; and one of these is now in his most beautiful villa of Campi, while the other, together with many other modern pictures executed by the most excellent masters, is in the apartment of the worthy son of so great a father, Signor Bernardetto, who not only esteems and honours the works of famous craftsmen, but is also in his every action a truly generous and magnificent nobleman. Meanwhile the Servite friar had allotted to Franciabigio one of the scenes in the above-mentioned cloister; but that master had not yet finished making the screen, when Andrea, becoming apprehensive, since it seemed to him that Franciabigio was an abler and more dexterous master than himself in the handling of colours in fresco, executed, as it were out of rivalry, the cartoons for his two scenes, which he intended to paint on the angle between the side-door of S. Bastiano and the smaller door that leads from the cloister into the Nunziata. Having made the cartoons, he set to work in fresco; and in the first scene he painted the Nativity of Our Lady, a composition of figures beautifully proportioned and grouped with great grace in a room, wherein some women who are friends and relatives of the newly delivered mother, having come to visit her, are standing about her, all clothed in such garments as were customary at that time, and other women of lower degree, gathered around the fire, are washing the newborn babe, while others are preparing the swathing-bands and doing other similar services. Among them is a little boy, full of life, who is warming himself at the fire, with an old man resting in a very natural attitude on a couch, and likewise some women carrying food to the mother who is in bed, with movements truly lifelike and appropriate. And all these figures, together with some little boys who are hovering in the air and scattering flowers, are most carefully considered in their expressions, their draperies, and every other respect, and so soft in colour, that the figures appear to be of flesh and everything else rather real than painted. In the other scene Andrea painted the three Magi from the East, who, guided by the Star, went to adore the Infant Jesus Christ. He represented them dismounted, as though they were near their destination; and that because there was only the space embracing the two doors to separate them from the Nativity of Christ which may be seen there, by the hand of Alesso Baldovinetti. In this scene Andrea painted the Court of those three Kings coming behind them, with baggage, much equipment, and many people following in their train, among whom, in a corner, are three persons portrayed from life and wearing the Florentine dress, one being Jacopo Sansovino, a full-length figure looking straight at the spectator, while another, with an arm in foreshortening, who is leaning against him and making a sign, is Andrea, the master of the work, and a third head, seen in profile behind Jacopo, is that of Ajolle, the musician. There are, in addition, some little boys who are climbing on the walls, in order to be able to see the magnificent procession and the fantastic animals that those three Kings have brought with them. This scene is quite equal in excellence to that mentioned above; nay, in both the one and the other he surpassed himself, not to speak of Franciabigio, who also finished his. At this same time Andrea painted for the Abbey of S. Godenzo, a benefice belonging to the same friars, a panel which was held to be very well executed. And for the Friars of S. Gallo he made a panel-picture of Our Lady receiving the Annunciation from the Angel, wherein may be seen a very pleasing harmony of colouring, while the heads of some Angels accompanying Gabriel show a sweet gradation of tints and a perfectly executed beauty of expression in their features; and the predella below this picture was painted by Jacopo da Pontormo, who was a disciple of Andrea at that time, and gave proofs at that early age that he was destined to produce afterwards those beautiful works which he actually did execute in Florence with his own hand, although in the end he became one might say another painter, as will be related in his Life. Andrea then painted for Zanobi Girolami a picture with figures of no great size, wherein was a story of Joseph, the son of Jacob, which was finished by him with unremitting diligence, and therefore held to be a very beautiful painting. Not long after this, he undertook to execute for the men of the Company of S. Maria della Neve, situated behind the Nunnery of S. Ambrogio, a little panel with three figures--Our Lady, S. John the Baptist, and S. Ambrogio; which work, when finished, was placed in due time on the altar of that Company. Meanwhile, thanks to his talent, Andrea had become intimate with Giovanni Gaddi, afterwards appointed Clerk of the Chamber, who, always delighting in the arts of design, was then keeping Jacopo Sansovino continually at work. Being pleased, therefore, with the manner of Andrea, he caused him to paint a picture of Our Lady for himself, which was very beautiful, for Andrea painted various patterns and other ingenious devices round it, so that it was considered to be the most beautiful work that he had executed up to that time. After this he made for Giovanni di Paolo, the mercer, another picture of Our Lady, which, being truly lovely, gave infinite pleasure to all who saw it. And for Andrea Santini he executed another, containing Our Lady, Christ, S. John, and S. Joseph, all wrought with such diligence that the painting has always been esteemed in Florence as worthy of great praise. All these works acquired such a name for Andrea in his city, that among the many, both young and old, who were painting at that time, he was considered one of the most excellent who were handling brushes and colours. Wherefore he found himself not only honoured, but even, although he exacted the most paltry prices for his labours, in a condition to do something to help and support his family, and also to shelter himself from the annoyances and anxieties which afflict those of us who live in poverty. But he became enamoured of a young woman, and a little time afterwards, when she had been left a widow, he took her for his wife; and then he had more than enough to do for the rest of his life, and much more trouble than he had suffered in the past, for the reason that, in addition to the labours and annoyances that such entanglements generally involve, he undertook others into the bargain, such as that of letting himself be harassed now by jealousy, now by one thing, and now by another. [Illustration: ANDREA DEL SARTO: MADONNA DELL' ARPIE (_Florence: Uffizi, 1112. Panel_)] But to return to the works of his hand, which were as rare as they were numerous: after those of which mention has been made above, he painted for a friar of S. Croce, of the Order of Minorites, who was then Governor of the Nunnery of S. Francesco in Via Pentolini, and delighted much in paintings, a panel-picture destined for the Church of those Nuns, of Our Lady standing on high upon an octagonal pedestal, at the corners of which are seated some Harpies, as it were in adoration of the Virgin; and she, using one hand to uphold her Son, who is clasping her most tenderly round the neck with His arms, in a very beautiful attitude, is holding a closed book in the other hand and gazing on two little naked boys, who, while helping her to stand upright, serve as ornaments about her person. This Madonna has on her right a beautifully painted S. Francis, in whose face may be seen the goodness and simplicity that truly belonged to that saintly man; besides which, the feet are marvellous, and so are the draperies, because Andrea always rounded off his figures with a very rich flow of folds and with certain most delicate curves, in such a way as to reveal the nude below. On her left hand she has a S. John the Evangelist, represented as a young man and in the act of writing his Gospel, in a very beautiful manner. In this work, moreover, over the building and the figures, is a film of transparent clouds, which appear to be really moving. This picture, among all Andrea's works, is held at the present day to be one of singular and truly rare beauty. For the joiner Nizza, also, he made a picture of Our Lady, which was considered to be no less beautiful than any of his other works. After this, the Guild of Merchants determined to have some triumphal chariots made of wood after the manner of those of the ancient Romans, to the end that these might be drawn in procession on the morning of S. John's day, in place of certain altar-cloths and wax tapers which the cities and townships carry in token of tribute, passing before the Duke and the chief magistrates; and out of ten that were made at that time, Andrea painted some with scenes in oils and in chiaroscuro, which were much extolled. But although it was proposed that some should be made every year, until such time as every city and district had one of its own, which would have produced a show of extraordinary magnificence, nevertheless this custom was abandoned in the year 1527. Now, while Andrea was adorning his city with these and other works, and his name was growing greater every day, the men of the Company of the Scalzo resolved that he should finish the work in their cloister, which he had formerly begun by painting the scene of the Baptism of Christ. Having resumed that work, therefore, more willingly, he executed two scenes there, with two very beautiful figures of Charity and Justice to adorn the door that leads into the building of the Company. In one of these scenes he represented S. John preaching to the multitude in a spirited attitude, lean in person, as befitted the life that he was leading, and with an expression of countenance filled with inspiration and thoughtfulness. Marvellous, likewise, are the variety and the vivacity of his hearers, some being shown in admiration, and all in astonishment, at hearing that new message and a doctrine so singular and never heard before. Even more did Andrea exert his genius in painting the same John baptizing with water a vast number of people, some of whom are stripping off their clothes, some receiving the baptism, and others, naked, waiting for him to finish baptizing those who are before them. In all of them Andrea showed a vivid emotion, with a burning desire in the gestures of those who are eager to be purified of their sins; not to mention that all the figures are so well executed in that chiaroscuro, that the whole has the appearance of a real and most lifelike scene in marble. I will not refrain from saying that while Andrea was employed on these and other pictures, there appeared certain copper engravings by Albrecht Dürer, and Andrea made use of them, taking some of the figures and transforming them into his manner. And this has caused some people, while not saying that it is a bad thing for a man to make adroit use of the good work of others, to believe that Andrea had not much invention. At that time there came to Baccio Bandinelli, then a draughtsman of great repute, a desire to learn to paint in oils. Whereupon, knowing that no man in Florence knew how to do that better than our Andrea, he commissioned him to paint his portrait, which was a good likeness of him at that age, as may be seen even yet; and thus, by watching him paint that work and others, he saw his method of colouring, although afterwards, either by reason of the difficulty or from lack of inclination, he did not pursue the use of colours, finding more satisfaction in sculpture. Andrea executed for Alessandro Corsini a picture of a Madonna seated on the ground with a Child in her arms, surrounded by many little boys, which was finished with beautiful art and with very pleasing colour; and for a mercer, much his friend, who kept a shop in Rome, he made a most beautiful head. Giovan Battista Puccini of Florence, likewise, taking extraordinary pleasure in the manner of Andrea, commissioned him to paint a picture of Our Lady for sending into France; but it proved to be so fine that he kept it for himself, and would by no means send it. However, having been asked, while transacting the affairs of his business in France, to undertake to send choice paintings to that country, he caused Andrea to paint a picture of a Dead Christ surrounded by some Angels, who were supporting Him and contemplating with gestures of sorrow and compassion their Maker sunk to such a pass through the sins of the world. This work, when finished, gave such universal satisfaction, that Andrea, urged by many entreaties, had it engraved in Rome by the Venetian Agostino; but it did not succeed very well, and he would never again give any of his works to be engraved. But to return to the picture: it gave no less satisfaction in France, whither it was sent, than it had done in Florence, insomuch that the King, kindled with even greater desire to have works by Andrea, gave orders that he should execute others; which was the reason that Andrea, encouraged by his friends, resolved to go in a short time to France. But meanwhile the Florentines, hearing in the year 1515 that Pope Leo X wished to grace his native city with his presence, ordained for his reception extraordinary festivities and a sumptuous and magnificent spectacle, with so many arches, façades, temples, colossal figures, and other statues and ornaments, that there had never been seen up to that time anything richer, more gorgeous, or more beautiful; for there was then flourishing in that city a greater abundance of fine and exalted intellects than had ever been known at any other period. At the entrance of the Porta di S. Piero Gattolini, Jacopo di Sandro, in company with Baccio da Montelupo, made an arch covered with historical scenes. Giuliano del Tasso made another at S. Felice in Piazza, with some statues and the obelisk of Romulus at S. Trinità, and Trajan's Column in the Mercato Nuovo. In the Piazza de' Signori, Antonio, the brother of Giuliano da San Gallo, erected an octagonal temple, and Baccio Bandinelli made a Giant for the Loggia. Between the Badia and the Palace of the Podestà there was an arch erected by Granaccio and Aristotele da San Gallo, and Il Rosso made another on the Canto de' Bischeri with a very beautiful design and a variety of figures. But what was admired more than everything else was the façade of S. Maria del Fiore, made of wood, and so well decorated with various scenes in chiaroscuro by our Andrea, that nothing more could have been desired. The architecture of this work was by Jacopo Sansovino, as were some scenes in low-relief and many figures carved in the round; and it was declared by the Pope that this structure--which was designed by Lorenzo de' Medici, father of that Pontiff, when he was alive--could not have been more beautiful, even if it had been of marble. The same Jacopo made a horse similar to the one in Rome, which was held to be a miracle of beauty, on the Piazza di S. Maria Novella. An endless number of ornaments, also, were executed for the Sala del Papa in the Via della Scala, and that street was half filled with most beautiful scenes wrought by the hands of many craftsmen, but designed for the most part by Baccio Bandinelli. Wherefore, when Leo entered Florence, on the third day of September in the same year, this spectacle was pronounced to be the grandest that had ever been devised, and the most beautiful. But to return now to Andrea: being again requested to make another picture for the King of France, in a short time he finished one wherein he painted a very beautiful Madonna, which was sent off immediately, the merchants receiving for it four times as much as they had paid. Now at that very time Pier Francesco Borgherini had caused to be made by Baccio d' Agnolo some panelling, chests, chairs, and a bed, all carved in walnut-wood, for the furnishing of an apartment; wherefore, to the end that the paintings therein might be equal in excellence to the rest of the work, he commissioned Andrea to paint part of the scenes on these with figures of no great size, representing the acts of Joseph the son of Jacob, in competition with some of great beauty that had been executed by Granaccio and Jacopo da Pontormo. Andrea, then, devoting an extraordinary amount of time and diligence to the work, strove to bring it about that they should prove to be more perfect than those of the others mentioned above; in which he succeeded to a marvel, for in the variety of events happening in the stories he showed how great was his worth in the art of painting. So excellent were those scenes, that an attempt was made by Giovan Battista della Palla, on account of the siege of Florence, to remove them from the places where they were fixed, in order to send them to the King of France; but, since they were fixed in such a way that it would have meant spoiling the whole work, they were left where they were, together with a picture of Our Lady, which is held to be a very choice work. [Illustration: CHARITY (_After the painting by =Andrea del Sarto=. Paris: Louvre, 1514_) _Neurdein_] After this Andrea executed a head of Christ, now kept by the Servite Friars on the altar of the Nunziata, of such beauty, that I for my part do not know whether any more beautiful image of the head of Christ could be conceived by the intellect of man. For the chapels in the Church of S. Gallo, without the Porta S. Gallo, there had been painted, in addition to the two panel-pictures by Andrea, a number of others, which were not equal to his; wherefore, since there was a commission to be given for another, those friars contrived to persuade the owner of the chapel to give it to Andrea; and he, beginning it immediately, made therein four figures standing, engaged in a disputation about the Trinity. One of these is S. Augustine, who, robed as a Bishop and truly African in aspect, is moving impetuously towards S. Peter Martyr, who is holding up an open book in a proud and sublime attitude: and the head and figure of the latter are much extolled. Beside him is a S. Francis holding a book in one hand and pressing the other against his breast; and he appears to be expressing with his lips a glowing ardour that makes him almost melt away in the heat of the discussion. There is also a S. Laurence, who, being young, is listening, and seems to be yielding to the authority of the others. Below them are two figures kneeling, one a Magdalene with most beautiful draperies, whose countenance is a portrait of Andrea's wife; for in no place did he paint a woman's features without copying them from her, and if perchance it happened at times that he took them from other women, yet, from his being used to see her continually, and from the circumstance that he had drawn her so often, and, what is more, had her impressed on his mind, it came about that almost all the heads of women that he made resembled her. The other kneeling figure is a S. Sebastian, who, being naked, shows his back, which appears to all who see it to be not painted, but of living flesh. And indeed, among so many works in oils, this was held by craftsmen to be the best, for the reason that there may be seen in it signs of careful consideration in the proportions of the figures, and much order in the method, with a sense of fitness in the expressions of the faces, the heads of the young showing sweetness of expression, those of the old hardness, and those of middle age a kind of blend that inclines both to the first and to the second. In a word, this panel is most beautiful in all its parts; and it is now to be found in S. Jacopo tra Fossi on the Canto degli Alberti, together with others by the hand of the same master. While Andrea was living poorly enough in Florence, engaged in these works, but without bettering himself a whit, the two pictures that he had sent to France had been duly considered in that country by King Francis I; and among many others which had been sent from Rome, from Venice, and from Lombardy, they had been judged to be by far the best. The King therefore praising them mightily, it was remarked to him that it would be an easy matter to persuade Andrea to come to France to serve his Majesty; which news was so agreeable to the King, that he gave orders that all that was necessary should be done, and that money for the journey should be paid to Andrea in Florence. Andrea then set out for France with a glad heart, taking with him his assistant Andrea Sguazzella; and, having arrived at last at the Court, they were received by the King with great kindness and rejoicing. Before the very day of his arrival had passed by, Andrea proved for himself how great were the courtesy and the liberality of that magnanimous King, receiving presents of money and rich and honourable garments. Beginning to work soon afterwards, he became so dear to the King and to all the Court, that he was treated lovingly by everyone, and it appeared to him that his departure from his country had brought him from one extreme of wretchedness to the other extreme of bliss. Among his first works was a portrait from life of the Dauphin, the son of the King, born only a few months before, and still in swaddling-clothes; and when he took this to the King, he received a present of three hundred gold crowns. Then, continuing to work, he painted for the King a figure of Charity, which was considered a very rare work and was held by that Sovereign in the estimation that it deserved. After that, his Majesty granted him a liberal allowance and did all that he could to induce Andrea to stay willingly with him, promising him that he should never want for anything; and this because he liked Andrea's resoluteness in his work, and also the character of the man, who was contented with everything. Moreover, giving great satisfaction to the whole Court, he executed many pictures and various other works; and if he had kept in mind the condition from which he had escaped and the place to which fortune had brought him, there is no doubt that he would have risen--to say nothing of riches--to a most honourable rank. But one day, when he was at work on a S. Jerome in Penitence for the mother of the King, there came to him some letters from Florence, written by his wife; and he began, whatever may have been the reason, to think of departing. He sought leave, therefore, from the King, saying that he wished to go to Florence, but would return without fail to his Majesty after settling some affairs; and he would bring his wife with him, in order to live more at his ease in France, and would come back laden with pictures and sculptures of value. The King, trusting in him, gave him money for that purpose; and Andrea swore on the Testament to return to him in a few months. Thus, then, he arrived in Florence, and for several months blissfully took his joy of his fair lady, his friends, and the city. And finally, the time at which he was to return having passed by, he found in the end that what with building, taking his pleasure, and doing no work, he had squandered all his money and likewise that of the King. Even so he wished to return, but he was more influenced by the sighs and prayers of his wife than by his own necessities and the pledge given to the King, so that, in order to please his wife, he did not go back; at which the King fell into such disdain, that for a long time he would never again look with a favourable eye on any painter from Florence, and he swore that if Andrea ever came into his hands he would give him a very different kind of welcome, with no regard whatever for his abilities. And thus Andrea, remaining in Florence, and sinking from the highest rung of the ladder to the very lowest, lived and passed the time as best he could. After Andrea's departure to France, the men of the Scalzo, thinking that he would never return, had entrusted all the rest of the work in their cloister to Franciabigio, who had already executed two scenes there, when, seeing Andrea back in Florence, they persuaded him to set his hand to the work once more; and he, continuing it, painted four scenes, one beside another. In the first is S. John taken before Herod. In the second are the Feast and the Dance of Herodias, with figures very well grouped and appropriate. In the third is the Beheading of S. John, wherein the minister of justice, a half-nude figure, is beautifully drawn, as are all the others. In the fourth Herodias is presenting the head; and here there are figures expressing their astonishment, which are wrought with most beautiful thought and care. These scenes have been for some time the study and school of many young men who are now excellent in our arts. In a shrine without the Porta a Pinti, at a corner where the road turns towards the Ingesuati, he painted in fresco a Madonna seated with a Child in her arms, and a little S. John who is smiling, a figure wrought with extraordinary art and with such perfect execution, that it is much extolled for its beauty and vivacity; and the head of the Madonna is a portrait of his wife from nature. This shrine, on account of the incredible beauty of the painting, which is truly marvellous, was left standing in 1530, when, because of the siege of Florence, the aforesaid Convent of the Ingesuati was pulled down, together with many other very beautiful buildings. About the same time the elder Bartolommeo Panciatichi, who was carrying on a great mercantile business in France, desiring to leave a memorial of himself in Lyons, ordered Baccio d' Agnolo to have a panel painted for him by Andrea, and to send it to him there; saying that he wanted the subject to be the Assumption of Our Lady, with the Apostles about the tomb. This work, then, Andrea carried almost to completion; but since the wood of the panel split apart several times, he would sometimes work at it, and sometimes leave it alone, so that at his death it remained not quite finished. Afterwards it was placed by the younger Bartolommeo Panciatichi in his house, as a work truly worthy of praise on account of the beautiful figures of the Apostles; not to speak of the Madonna, who is surrounded by a choir of little boys standing, while certain others are supporting her and bearing her upwards with extraordinary grace. And in the foreground of the panel, among the Apostles, is a portrait of Andrea, so natural that it seems to be alive. It is now at the villa of the Baroncelli, a little distance from Florence, in a small church built by Piero Salviati near his villa to do honour to the picture. At the head of the garden of the Servi, in two angles, Andrea painted two scenes of Christ's Vineyard, one showing the planting, staking, and binding of the vines, and then the husbandman summoning to the labour those who were standing idle, among whom is one who, being asked whether he wishes to join the work, sits rubbing his hands and pondering whether he will go among the other labourers, exactly as those idle fellows do who have but little mind to work. Even more beautiful is the other scene, wherein the same husbandman is causing them to be paid, while they murmur and complain, and one among them, who is counting over his money by himself, wholly intent on examining his share, seems absolutely alive, as also does the steward who is paying out the wages. These scenes are in chiaroscuro, and executed with extraordinary mastery in fresco. After them he painted a Pietà, coloured in fresco, which is very beautiful, in a niche at the head of a staircase in the noviciate of the same convent. He also painted another Pietà in a little picture in oils, in addition to a Nativity, for the room in that convent wherein the General, Angelo Aretino, once lived. The same master painted for Zanobi Bracci, who much desired to have some work by his hand, for one of his apartments, a picture of Our Lady, in which she is on her knees, leaning against a rock, and contemplating Christ, who lies on a heap of drapery and looks up at her, smiling; while a S. John, who stands there, is making a sign to the Madonna, as if to say that her Child is the true Son of God. Behind these figures is a S. Joseph with his head resting on his hands, which are lying on a rock; and he appears to be filled with joy at seeing the human race become divine through that Birth. Cardinal Giulio de' Medici having been commissioned by Pope Leo to see to the adorning with stucco and paintings of the ceiling in the Great Hall of Poggio a Caiano, a palatial villa of the Medici family, situated between Pistoia and Florence, the charge of arranging for that work and of paying out the money was given to the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, as to a person who, not falling short of the standard of his ancestors, was well informed in such matters and a loving friend to all the masters of our arts, and delighted more than any other man to have his dwellings adorned with the works of the most excellent. Ottaviano ordained, therefore, although the commission for the whole work had already been given to Franciabigio, that he should have only a third, Andrea another, and Jacopo da Pontormo the last. But it was found impossible, for all the efforts that the Magnificent Ottaviano made to urge them on, and for all the money that he offered and even paid to them, to get the work brought to completion; and Andrea alone finished with great diligence a scene on one wall, representing Cæsar being presented with tribute of all kinds of animals. The drawing for this work is in our book, with many others by his hand; it is in chiaroscuro, and is the most finished that he ever made. In this picture Andrea, in order to surpass Franciabigio and Jacopo, subjected himself to unexampled labour, drawing in it a magnificent perspective-view and a very masterly flight of steps, which formed the ascent to the throne of Cæsar. And these steps he adorned with very well-designed statues, not being content with having proved the beauty of his genius in the variety of figures that are carrying on their backs all those different animals, such as the figure of an Indian who is wearing a yellow coat, and carrying on his shoulders a cage drawn in perspective with some parrots both within it and without, the whole being rarely beautiful; and such, also, as some who are leading Indian goats, lions, giraffes, panthers, lynxes, and apes, with Moors and other lovely things of fancy, all grouped in a beautiful manner and executed divinely well in fresco. On these steps, also, he made a dwarf seated and holding a box containing a chameleon, which is so well executed in all the deformity of its fantastic shape, that it is impossible to imagine more beautiful proportions than those that he gave it. But, as has been said, this work remained unfinished, on account of the death of Pope Leo; and although Duke Alessandro de' Medici had a great desire that Jacopo da Pontormo should finish it, he was not able to prevail on him to put his hand to it. And in truth it suffered a very grievous wrong in the failure to complete it, seeing that the hall, for one in a villa, is the most beautiful in the world. After returning to Florence, Andrea painted a picture with a nude half-length figure of S. John the Baptist, a very beautiful thing, which he executed at the commission of Giovan Maria Benintendi, who presented it afterwards to the Lord Duke Cosimo. [Illustration: CÆSAR RECEIVING THE TRIBUTE OF EGYPT (_After the fresco by =Andrea del Sarto=. Florence: Poggio a Caiano_) _Alinari_] While affairs were proceeding in this manner, Andrea, remembering sometimes his connection with France, sighed from his heart: and if he had hoped to find pardon for the fault he had committed, there is no doubt that he would have gone back. Indeed, to try his fortune, he sought to see whether his talents might be helpful to him in the matter. Thus he painted a picture of a half-naked S. John the Baptist, meaning to send it to the Grand Master of France, to the end that he might occupy himself with restoring the painter to the favour of the King. However, whatever may have been the reason, he never sent it after all, but sold it to the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, who always valued it much as long as he lived, even as he did two pictures of Our Lady executed for him by Andrea in one and the same manner, which are in his house at the present day. Not long afterwards he was commissioned by Zanobi Bracci to paint a picture for Monsignore di San Biause,[6] which he executed with all possible diligence, hoping that it might enable him to regain the favour of King Francis, to whose service he desired to return. He also executed for Lorenzo Jacopi a picture of much greater size than was usual, containing a Madonna seated with the Child in her arms, accompanied by two other figures that are seated on some steps; and the whole, both in drawing and in colouring, is similar to his other works. He painted for Giovanni d' Agostino Dini, likewise, a picture of Our Lady, which is now much esteemed for its beauty; and he made so good a portrait from life of Cosimo Lapi, that it seems absolutely alive. Afterwards, in the year 1523, the plague came to Florence and also to some places in the surrounding country; and Andrea, in order to avoid that pestilence and also to do some work, went at the instance of Antonio Brancacci to the Mugello to paint a panel for the Nuns of S. Piero a Luco, of the Order of Camaldoli, taking with him his wife and a stepdaughter, together with his wife's sister and an assistant. Living quietly there, then, he set his hand to the work. And since those venerable ladies showed more and more kindness and courtesy every day to his wife, to himself, and to the whole party, he applied himself with the greatest possible willingness to executing that panel, in which he painted a Dead Christ mourned by Our Lady, S. John the Evangelist, and the Magdalene, figures so lifelike, that they appear truly to have spirit and breath. In S. John may be seen the loving tenderness of that Apostle, with affection in the tears of the Magdalene, and bitter sorrow in the face and whole attitude of the Madonna, whose aspect, as she gazes on Christ, who seems to be truly a real corpse and in relief, is so pitiful, that she fills with helpless awe and bewilderment the minds of S. Peter and S. Paul, who are contemplating the Dead Saviour of the World in the lap of His mother. From these marvellous conceptions it is clear how much Andrea delighted in finish and perfection of art; and to tell the truth, this panel has given more fame to that convent than all the buildings and all the other costly works, however magnificent and extraordinary, that have been executed there. This picture finished, Andrea, seeing that the danger of the plague was not yet past, stayed some weeks more in the same place, where he was so well received and treated with such kindness. During that time, in order not to be idle, he painted not only a Visitation of Our Lady to S. Elizabeth, which is in the church, on the right hand above the Manger, serving as a crown to a little ancient panel, but also, on a canvas of no great size, a most beautiful head of Christ, somewhat similar to that on the altar of the Nunziata, but not so finished. This head, which may in truth be numbered among the better works that issued from the hands of Andrea, is now in the Monastery of the Monks of the Angeli at Florence, in the possession of that very reverend father, Don Antonio da Pisa, who loves not only the men of excellence in our arts, but every man of talent without exception. From this picture several copies have been taken, for Don Silvano Razzi entrusted it to the painter Zanobi Poggini, to the end that he might make a copy for Bartolommeo Gondi, who had asked him for one, and some others were made, which are held in vast veneration in Florence. In this manner, then, Andrea passed without danger the time of the plague, and those nuns received from the genius of that great man such a work as can bear comparison with the most excellent pictures that have been painted in our day; wherefore it is no marvel that Ramazzotto, the captain of mercenaries of Scaricalasino, sought to obtain it on several occasions during the siege of Florence, in order to send it to his chapel in S. Michele in Bosco at Bologna. On his return to Florence, Andrea executed for Beccuccio da Gambassi, the glass-blower, who was very much his friend, a panel-picture of Our Lady in the sky with the Child in her arms, and four figures below, S. John the Baptist, S. Mary Magdalene, S. Sebastian, and S. Rocco; and in the predella he made portraits from nature, which are most lifelike, of Beccuccio and his wife. This panel is now at Gambassi, a township in Valdelsa, between Volterra and Florence. For a chapel in the villa of Zanobi Bracci at Rovezzano, he painted a most beautiful picture of Our Lady suckling a Child, with a Joseph, all executed with such diligence that they stand out from the panel, so strong is the relief; and this picture is now in the house of M. Antonio Bracci, the son of that Zanobi. About the same time, also, and in the above-mentioned cloister of the Scalzo, Andrea painted two other scenes, in one of which he depicted Zacharias offering sacrifice and being made dumb by the Angel appearing to him, while in the other is the Visitation of Our Lady, beautiful to a marvel. Now Federigo II, Duke of Mantua, in passing through Florence on his way to make obeisance to Clement VII, saw over a door in the house of the Medici that portrait of Pope Leo between Cardinal Giulio de' Medici and Cardinal de' Rossi, which the most excellent Raffaello da Urbino had formerly painted; and being extraordinarily pleased with it, he resolved, being a man who delighted in pictures of such beauty, to make it his own. And so, when he was in Rome and the moment seemed to him to have come, he asked for it as a present from Pope Clement, who courteously granted his request. Thereupon orders were sent to Florence to Ottaviano de' Medici, under whose care and government were Ippolito and Alessandro, that he should have it packed up and taken to Mantua. This matter was very displeasing to the Magnificent Ottaviano, who would never have consented to deprive Florence of such a picture, and he marvelled that the Pope should have given it up so readily. However, he answered that he would not fail to satisfy the Duke; but that, since the frame was bad, he was having a new one made, and when it had been gilt he would send the picture with every possible precaution to Mantua. This done, Messer Ottaviano, in order to "save both the goat and the cabbage," as the saying goes, sent privately for Andrea and told him how the matter stood, and how there was no way out of it but to make an exact copy of the picture with the greatest care and send it to the Duke, secretly retaining the one by the hand of Raffaello. Andrea, then, having promised to do all in his power and knowledge, caused a panel to be made similar in size and in every respect, and painted it secretly in the house of Messer Ottaviano. And to such purpose did he labour, that when it was finished even Messer Ottaviano, for all his understanding in matters of art, could not tell the one from the other, nor distinguish the real and true picture from the copy; especially as Andrea had counterfeited even the spots of dirt, exactly as they were in the original. And so, after they had hidden the picture of Raffaello, they sent the one by the hand of Andrea, in a similar frame, to Mantua; at which the Duke was completely satisfied, and above all because the painter Giulio Romano, a disciple of Raffaello, had praised it, failing to detect the trick. This Giulio would always have been of the same opinion, and would have believed it to be by the hand of Raffaello, but for the arrival in Mantua of Giorgio Vasari, who, having been as it were the adoptive child of Messer Ottaviano, and having seen Andrea at work on that picture, revealed the truth. For Giulio making much of Vasari, and showing him, after many antiquities and paintings, that picture of Raffaello's, as the best work that was there, Giorgio said to him, "A beautiful work it is, but in no way by the hand of Raffaello." "What?" answered Giulio. "Should I not know it, when I recognize the very strokes that I made with my own brush?" "You have forgotten them," said Giorgio, "for this picture is by the hand of Andrea del Sarto; and to prove it, there is a sign (to which he pointed) that was made in Florence, because when the two were together they could not be distinguished." Hearing this, Giulio had the picture turned round, and saw the mark; at which he shrugged his shoulders and said these words, "I value it no less than if it were by the hand of Raffaello--nay, even more, for it is something out of the course of nature that a man of excellence should imitate the manner of another so well, and should make a copy so like. It is enough that it should be known that Andrea's genius was as valiant in double harness as in single." Thus, then, by the wise judgment of Messer Ottaviano, satisfaction was given to the Duke without depriving Florence of so choice a work, which, having been presented to him afterwards by Duke Alessandro, he kept in his possession for many years; and finally he gave it to Duke Cosimo, who has it in his guardaroba together with many other famous pictures. While Andrea was making this copy, he also painted for the same Messer Ottaviano a picture with only the head of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, who afterwards became Pope Clement; and this head, which was similar to that by Raffaello, and very beautiful, was presented eventually by Messer Ottaviano to old Bishop de' Marzi. Not long after, Messer Baldo Magini of Prato desiring to have a most beautiful panel-picture painted for the Madonna delle Carcere in his native city, for which he had already caused a very handsome ornament of marble to be made, one of the many painters proposed to him was Andrea. Wherefore Messer Baldo, having more inclination for him than for any of the others, although he had no great understanding in such a matter, had almost given him to believe that he and no other should do the work, when a certain Niccolò Soggi of Sansovino, who had some interest at Prato, was suggested to Messer Baldo for the undertaking, and assisted to such purpose by the assertion that there was not a better master to be found, that the work was given to him. Meanwhile, Andrea's supporters sending for him, he, holding it as settled that the work was to be his, went off to Prato with Domenico Puligo and other painters who were his friends. Arriving there, he found that Niccolò not only had persuaded Messer Baldo to change his mind, but also was bold and shameless enough to say to him in the presence of Messer Baldo that he would compete with Andrea for a bet of any sum of money in painting something, the winner to take the whole. Andrea, who knew what Niccolò was worth, answered, although he was generally a man of little spirit, "Here is my assistant, who has not been long in our art. If you will bet with him, I will put down the money for him; but with me you shall have no bet for any money in the world, seeing that, if I were to beat you, it would do me no honour, and if I were to lose, it would be the greatest possible disgrace." And, saying to Messer Baldo that he should give the work to Niccolò, because he would execute it in such a manner as would please the folk that went to market, he returned to Florence. There he was commissioned to paint a panel for Pisa, divided into five pictures, which were afterwards placed round the Madonna of S. Agnese, beside the walls of that city, between the old Citadel and the Duomo. Making one figure, then, in each picture, he painted in two of them S. John the Baptist and S. Peter, one on either side of the Madonna that works miracles; and in the others are S. Catharine the Martyr, S. Agnese, and S. Margaret, each a figure by itself, and all so beautiful as to fill with marvel anyone who beholds them, and considered to be the most gracious and lovely women that he ever painted. M. Jacopo, a Servite friar, in releasing and absolving a woman from a vow, had told her that she must have a figure of Our Lady painted over the outer side of that lateral door of the Nunziata which leads into the cloister; and therefore, finding Andrea, he said to him that he had this money to spend, and that although it was not much it seemed to him right, since the other works executed by Andrea in that place had brought him such fame, that he and no other should paint this one as well. Andrea, who was nothing if not an amiable man, moved by the persuasions of the friar and by his own desire for profit and glory, answered that he would do it willingly; and shortly afterwards, putting his hand to the work, he painted in fresco a most beautiful Madonna seated with her Son in her arms, and S. Joseph leaning on a sack, with his eyes fixed upon an open book. And of such a kind was this work, in draughtsmanship, grace, and beauty of colouring, as well as in vivacity and relief, that it proved that he outstripped and surpassed by a great measure all the painters who had worked up to that time. Such, indeed, is this picture, that by its own merit and without praise from any other quarter it makes itself clearly known as amazing and most rare. There was wanting only one scene in the cloister of the Scalzo for it to be completely finished; wherefore Andrea, who had added grandeur to his manner after having seen the figures that Michelagnolo had begun and partly finished for the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, set his hand to executing this last scene. In this, giving the final proof of his improvement, he painted the Birth of S. John the Baptist, with figures that were very beautiful and much better and stronger in relief than the others made by him before in the same place. Most beautiful, among others in this work, are a woman who is carrying the newborn babe to the bed on which lies S. Elizabeth, who is likewise a most lovely figure, and Zacharias, who is writing on a paper that he has placed on his knee, holding it with one hand and with the other writing the name of his son, and all with such vivacity, that he lacks nothing save the breath of life. Most beautiful, also, is an old woman who is seated on a stool, smiling with gladness at the delivery of the other aged woman, and revealing in her attitude and expression all that would be seen in a living person after such an event. Having finished that work, which is certainly well worthy of all praise, he painted for the General of Vallombrosa a panel-picture with four very lovely figures, S. John the Baptist, S. Giovanni Gualberto, founder of that Order, S. Michelagnolo, and S. Bernardo, a Cardinal and a monk of the Order, with some little boys in the centre that could not be more vivacious or more beautiful. This panel is at Vallombrosa, on the summit of a rocky height, where certain monks live in some rooms called "the cells," separated from the others, and leading as it were the lives of hermits. After this he was commissioned by Giuliano Scala to paint a panel-picture, which was to be sent to Serrazzana, of a Madonna seated with the Child in her arms, and two half-length figures from the knees upwards, S. Celso and S. Julia, with S. Onofrio, S. Catharine, S. Benedict, S. Anthony of Padua, S. Peter, and S. Mark; which panel was held to be equal to the other works of Andrea. And in the hands of Giuliano Scala, in place of the balance due to him of a sum of money that he had paid for the owners of that work, there remained a lunette containing an Annunciation, which was to go above the panel, to complete it; and it is now in his chapel in the great tribune round the choir of the Church of the Servi. The Monks of S. Salvi had let many years pass by without thinking of having a beginning made with their Last Supper, which they had commissioned Andrea to execute at the time when he painted the arch with the four figures; but finally an Abbot, who was a man of judgment and breeding, determined that he should finish that work. Thereupon Andrea, who had already pledged himself to it on a previous occasion, far from making any demur, put his hand to the task, and, working at it one piece at a time when he felt so inclined, finished it in a few months, and that in such a manner, that the work was held to be, as it certainly is, the most spontaneous and the most vivacious in colouring and drawing that he ever made, or that ever could be made. For, among other things, he gave infinite grandeur, majesty, and grace to all the figures, insomuch that I know not what to say of this Last Supper that would not be too little, it being such that whoever sees it is struck with amazement. Wherefore it is no marvel that on account of its excellence it was left standing amid the havoc of the siege of Florence, in the year 1529, at which time the soldiers and destroyers, by command of those in authority, pulled down all the suburbs without the city, and all the monasteries, hospitals, and other buildings. These men, I say, having destroyed the Church and Campanile of S. Salvi, and beginning to throw down part of the convent, had come to the refectory where this Last Supper is, when their leader, seeing so marvellous a painting, of which he may have heard speak, abandoned the undertaking and would not let any more of that place be destroyed, reserving the task until such time as there should be no alternative. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST (_After the painting on a tile by =Andrea del Sarto=. Florence: Uffizi, 280_) _Alinari_] Andrea then painted for the Company of S. Jacopo, called the Nicchio, on a banner for carrying in processions, a S. James fondling a little boy dressed as a Flagellant by stroking him under the chin, with another boy who has a book in his hand, executed with beautiful grace and naturalness. He made a portrait from life of a steward of the Monks of Vallombrosa, who lived almost always in the country on the affairs of his monastery; and this portrait was placed under a sort of bower, in which he had made pergole and contrivances of his own in various fanciful designs, so that it was buffeted by wind and rain, according to the pleasure of that steward, who was the friend of Andrea. And because, when the work was finished, there were some colours and lime left over, Andrea, taking a tile, called to his wife Lucrezia and said to her: "Come here, for these colours are left over, and I wish to make your portrait, so that all may see how well you have preserved your beauty even at your time of life, and yet may know how your appearance has changed, which will make this one different from your early portraits." But the woman, who may have had something else in her mind, would not stand still; and Andrea, as it were from a feeling that he was near his end, took a mirror and made a portrait of himself on that tile, of such perfection, that it seems alive and as real as nature; and that portrait is in the possession of the same Madonna Lucrezia, who is still living. He also portrayed a Canon of Pisa, very much his friend; and the portrait, which is lifelike and very beautiful, is still in Pisa. He then began for the Signoria the cartoons for the paintings to be executed on the balustrades of the Ringhiera in the Piazza, with many beautiful things of fancy to represent the quarters of the city, and with the banners of the Consuls of the chief Guilds supported by some little boys, and also ornaments in the form of images of all the virtues, and likewise the most famous mountains and rivers of the dominion of Florence. But this work, thus begun, remained unfinished on account of Andrea's death, as was also the case with a panel--although it was all but finished--which he painted for the Abbey of the Monks of Vallombrosa at Poppi in the Casentino. In that panel he painted an Assumption of Our Lady, who is surrounded by many little boys, with S. Giovanni Gualberto, S. Bernardo the Cardinal (a monk of their Order, as has been related), S. Catharine, and S. Fedele; and, unfinished as it is, the picture is now in that Abbey of Poppi. The same happened to a panel of no great size, which, when finished, was to have gone to Pisa. But he left completely finished a very beautiful picture which is now in the house of Filippo Salviati, and some others. About the same time Giovan Battista della Palla, having bought all the sculptures and pictures of note that he could obtain, and causing copies to be made of those that he could not buy, had despoiled Florence of a vast number of choice works, without the least scruple, in order to furnish a suite of rooms for the King of France, which was to be richer in suchlike ornaments than any other in the world. And this man, desiring that Andrea should return to the service and favour of the King, commissioned him to paint two pictures. In one of these Andrea painted Abraham in the act of trying to sacrifice his son; and that with such diligence, that it was judged that up to that time he had never done anything better. Beautifully expressed in the figure of the patriarch was seen that living and steadfast faith which made him ready without a moment of dismay or hesitation to slay his own son. The same Abraham, likewise, could be seen turning his head towards a very beautiful little angel, who appeared to be bidding him stay his hand. I will not describe the attitude, the dress, the foot-wear, and other details in the painting of that old man, because it is not possible to say enough of them; but this I must say, that the boy Isaac, tender and most beautiful, was to be seen all naked, trembling with the fear of death, and almost dead without having been struck. The same boy had only the neck browned by the heat of the sun, and white as snow those parts that his draperies had covered during the three days' journey. In like manner, the ram among the thorns seemed to be alive, and Isaac's draperies on the ground rather real and natural than painted. And in addition there were some naked servants guarding an ass that was browsing, and a landscape so well represented that the real scene of the event could not have been more beautiful or in any way different. This picture, having been bought by Filippo Strozzi after the death of Andrea and the capture of Battista, was presented by him to Signor Alfonso Davalos, Marchese del Vasto, who had it carried to the island of Ischia, near Naples, and placed in one of his apartments in company with other most noble paintings. In the other picture Andrea painted a very beautiful Charity, with three little boys; and this was afterwards bought from the wife of Andrea, after his death, by the painter Domenico Conti, who sold it later to Niccolò Antinori, who treasures it as a rare work, as indeed it is. During this time there came to the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, seeing from that last picture how much Andrea had improved his manner, a desire to have a picture by his hand. Whereupon Andrea, who was eager to serve that lord, to whom he was much indebted, because he had always shown favour to men of lofty intellect, and particularly to painters, executed for him a picture of Our Lady seated on the ground with the Child riding astride on her knees, while He turns His head towards a little S. John supported by an old S. Elizabeth, a figure so natural and so well painted that she appears to be alive, even as every other thing is wrought with incredible diligence, draughtsmanship, and art. Having finished this picture, Andrea carried it to Messer Ottaviano; but since that lord had something else to think about, Florence being then besieged, he told Andrea, while thanking him profoundly and making his excuses, to dispose of it as he thought best. To which Andrea made no reply but this: "The labour was endured for you, and yours the work shall always be." "Sell it," answered Messer Ottaviano, "and use the money, for I know what I am talking about." Andrea then departed and returned to his house, nor would he ever give the picture to anyone, for all the offers that were made to him; but when the siege was raised and the Medici back in Florence, he took it once more to Messer Ottaviano, who accepted it right willingly, thanking him and paying him double. The work is now in the apartment of his wife, Madonna Francesca, sister to the very reverend Salviati, who holds the beautiful pictures left to her by her magnificent consort in no less account than she does the duty of retaining and honouring his friends. For Giovanni Borgherini Andrea painted another picture almost exactly like the one of Charity mentioned above, containing a Madonna, a little S. John offering to Christ a globe that represents the world, and a very beautiful head of S. Joseph. There came to Paolo da Terrarossa, a friend to the whole body of painters, who had seen the sketch for the aforesaid Abraham, a wish to have some work by the hand of Andrea. Having therefore asked him for a copy of that Abraham, Andrea willingly obliged him and made a copy of such a kind, that in its minuteness it was by no means inferior to the large original. Wherefore Paolo, well satisfied with it and wishing to pay him, asked him the price, thinking that it would cost him what it was certainly worth; but Andrea asked a mere song, and Paolo, almost ashamed, shrugged his shoulders and gave him all that he claimed. The picture was afterwards sent by him to Naples ...[7] and it is the most beautiful and the most highly honoured painting in that place. During the siege of Florence some captains had fled the city with the pay-chests; on which account Andrea was asked to paint on the façade of the Palace of the Podestà and in the Piazza not only those captains, but also some citizens who had fled and had been proclaimed outlaws. He said that he would do it; but in order not to acquire, like Andrea dal Castagno, the name of Andrea degl' Impiccati, he gave it out that he was entrusting the work to one of his assistants, called Bernardo del Buda. However, having made a great enclosure, which he himself entered and left by night, he executed those figures in such a manner that they appeared to be the men themselves, real and alive. The soldiers, who were painted on the façade of the old Mercatanzia in the Piazza, near the Condotta, were covered with whitewash many years ago, that they might be seen no longer; and the citizens, whom he painted entirely with his own hand on the Palace of the Podestà, were destroyed in like manner. After this, being very intimate in these last years of his life with certain men who governed the Company of S. Sebastiano, which is behind the Servite Convent, Andrea made for them with his own hand a S. Sebastian from the navel upwards, so beautiful that it might well have seemed that these were the last strokes of the brush which he was to make. The siege being finished, Andrea was waiting for matters to mend, although with little hope that his French project would succeed, since Giovan Battista della Palla had been taken prisoner, when Florence became filled with soldiers and stores from the camp. Among those soldiers were some lansquenets sick of the plague, who brought no little terror into the city and shortly afterwards left it infected. Thereupon, either through this apprehension or through some imprudence in eating after having suffered much privation in the siege, one day Andrea fell grievously ill and took to his bed with death on his brow; and finding no remedy for his illness, and being without much attention--for his wife, from fear of the plague, kept as far away from him as she could--he died, so it is said, almost without a soul being aware of it; and he was buried by the men of the Scalzo with scant ceremony in the Church of the Servi, near his own house, in the place where the members of that Company are always buried. The death of Andrea was a very great loss to the city and to art, because up to the age of forty-two, which he attained, he went on always improving from one work to another in such wise that, if he had lived longer, he would have continued to confer benefits on art; for the reason that it is better to go on making progress little by little, advancing with a firm and steady foot through the difficulties of art, than to seek to force one's intellect and nature in a single effort. Nor is there any doubt that if Andrea had stayed in Rome when he went there to see the works of Raffaello and Michelagnolo, and also the statues and ruins of that city, he would have enriched his manner greatly in the composition of scenes, and would one day have given more delicacy and greater force to his figures; which has never been thoroughly achieved save by one who has been some time in Rome, to study those works in detail and grow familiar with them. Having then from nature a sweet and gracious manner of drawing and great facility and vivacity of colouring, both in fresco-work and in oils, it is believed without a doubt that if he had stayed in Rome, he would have surpassed all the craftsmen of his time. But some believe that he was deterred from this by the abundance of works of sculpture and painting, both ancient and modern, that he saw in that city, and by observing the many young men, disciples of Raffaello and of others, resolute in draughtsmanship and working confidently and without effort, whom, like the timid fellow that he was, he did not feel it in him to excel. And so, not trusting himself, he resolved, as the best course for him, to return to Florence; where, reflecting little by little on what he had seen, he made such proficience that his works have been admired and held in price, and, what is more, imitated more often after his death than during his lifetime. Whoever has some holds them dear, and whoever has consented to sell them has received three times as much as was paid to him, for the reason that he never received anything but small prices for his works, both because he was timid by nature, as has been related, and also because certain master-joiners, who were executing the best works at that time in the houses of citizens, would never allow any commission to be given to Andrea (so as to oblige their friends), save when they knew that he was in great straits, for at such times he would accept any price. But this does not prevent his works from being most rare, or from being held in very great account, and that rightly, since he was one of the best and greatest masters who have lived even to our own day. In our book are many drawings by his hand, all good; but in particular there is one that is altogether beautiful, of the scene that he painted at Poggio, showing the tribute of all the animals from the East being presented to Cæsar. This drawing, which is executed in chiaroscuro, is a rare thing, and the most finished that Andrea ever made; for when he drew natural objects for reproduction in his works, he made mere sketches dashed off on the spot, contenting himself with marking the character of the reality; and afterwards, when reproducing them in his works, he brought them to perfection. His drawings, therefore, served him rather as memoranda of what he had seen than as models from which to make exact copies in his pictures. The disciples of Andrea were innumerable, but they did not all pursue the same course of study under his discipline, for some stayed with him a long time, and some but little; which was the fault, not of Andrea, but of his wife, who, tyrannizing arrogantly over them all, and showing no respect to a single one of them, made all their lives a burden. Among his disciples, then, were Jacopo da Pontormo; Andrea Sguazzella, who adhered to the manner of Andrea and decorated a palace, a work which is much extolled, without the city of Paris in France; Solosmeo; Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, who has painted three panels that are in S. Spirito; Francesco Salviati; Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo, who was the companion of the aforesaid Salviati, although he did not stay long with Andrea; Jacopo del Conte of Florence; and Nannoccio, who is now in France with Cardinal de Tournon, in the highest credit. In like manner, Jacopo, called Jacone, was a disciple of Andrea and much his friend, and an imitator of his manner. This Jacone, while Andrea was alive, received no little help from him, as is evident in all his works, and particularly in the façade executed for the Chevalier Buondelmonti on the Piazza di S. Trinita. The heir to Andrea's drawings and other art-possessions, after his death, was Domenico Conti, who made little proficience in painting; but one night he was robbed--by some men of the same profession, so it is thought--of all the drawings, cartoons, and other things that he had from Andrea, nor was it ever discovered who these men were. Now Domenico, as one not ungrateful for the benefits received from his master, and desiring to render to him after his death the honours that he deserved, prevailed upon Raffaello da Montelupo to make for him out of courtesy a very handsome tablet of marble, which was built into a pilaster in the Church of the Servi, with the following epitaph, written for him by the most learned Messer Piero Vettori, then a young man: ANDREÆ SARTIO ADMIRABILIS INGENII PICTORI, AC VETERIBUS ILLIS OMNIUM JUDICIO COMPARANDO, DOMINICUS CONTES DISCIPULUS, PRO LABORIBUS IN SE INSTITUENDO SUSCEPTIS, GRATO ANIMO POSUIT. VIXIT ANN. XLII, OB. ANN. MDXXX. After no long time, certain citizens, Wardens of Works of that church, rather ignorant than hostile to honoured memories, so went to work out of anger that the tablet should have been set up in that place without their leave, that they had it removed; nor has it yet been re-erected in any other place. Thus, perchance, Fortune sought to show that the power of the Fates prevails not only during our lives, but also over our memorials after death. In spite of them, however, the works and the name of Andrea are likely to live a long time, as are these my writings, I hope, to preserve their memory for many ages. We must conclude, then, that if Andrea showed poor spirit in the actions of his life, contenting himself with little, this does not mean that in art he was otherwise than exalted in genius, most resolute, and masterly in every sort of labour; and with his works, in addition to the adornment that they confer on the places where they are, he rendered a most valuable service to his fellow-craftsmen with regard to manner, drawing, and colouring, and that with fewer errors than any other painter of Florence, for the reason that, as has been said above, he understood very well the management of light and shade and how to make things recede in the darks, and painted his pictures with a sweetness full of vivacity; not to mention that he showed us the method of working in fresco with perfect unity and without doing much retouching on the dry, which makes his every work appear to have been painted in a single day. Wherefore he should serve in every place as an example to Tuscan craftsmen, and receive supreme praise and a palm of honour among the number of their most celebrated champions. FOOTNOTE: [6] Jacques de Beaune. [7] There is here a gap in the text. MADONNA PROPERZIA DE' ROSSI LIFE OF MADONNA PROPERZIA DE' ROSSI SCULPTOR[8] OF BOLOGNA It is an extraordinary thing that in all those arts and all those exercises wherein at any time women have thought fit to play a part in real earnest, they have always become most excellent and famous in no common way, as one might easily demonstrate by an endless number of examples. Everyone, indeed, knows what they are all, without exception, worth in household matters; besides which, in connection with war, likewise, it is known who were Camilla, Harpalice, Valasca, Tomyris, Penthesilea, Molpadia, Orizia, Antiope, Hippolyta, Semiramis, Zenobia, and, finally, Mark Antony's Fulvia, who so often took up arms, as the historian Dion tells us, to defend her husband and herself. But in poetry, also, they have been truly marvellous, as Pausanias relates. Corinna was very celebrated as a writer of verse, and Eustathius makes mention in his "Catalogue of the Ships of Homer"--as does Eusebius in his book of "Chronicles"--of Sappho, a young woman of great renown, who, in truth, although she was a woman, was yet such that she surpassed by a great measure all the eminent writers of that age. And Varro, on his part, gives extraordinary but well-deserved praise to Erinna, who, with her three hundred verses, challenged the fame of the brightest light of Greece, and counterbalanced with her one small volume, called the "Elecate," the ponderous "Iliad" of the great Homer. Aristophanes celebrates Carissena, a votary of the same profession, as a woman of great excellence and learning; and the same may be said for Teano, Merone, Polla, Elpe, Cornificia, and Telesilla, to the last of whom, in honour of her marvellous talents, a most beautiful statue was set up in the Temple of Venus. Passing by the numberless other writers of verse, do we not read that Arete was the teacher of the learned Aristippus in the difficulties of philosophy, and that Lastheneia and Assiotea were disciples of the divine Plato? In the art of oratory, Sempronia and Hortensia, women of Rome, were very famous. In grammar, so Athenæus relates, Agallis was without an equal. And as for the prediction of the future, whether we class this with astrology or with magic, it is enough to say that Themis, Cassandra, and Manto had an extraordinary renown in their times; as did Isis and Ceres in matters of agriculture, and the Thespiades in the whole field of the sciences. But in no other age, for certain, has it been possible to see this better than in our own, wherein women have won the highest fame not only in the study of letters--as has been done by Signora Vittoria del Vasto, Signora Veronica Gambara, Signora Caterina Anguisciuola, Schioppa, Nugarola, Madonna Laura Battiferri, and a hundred others, all most learned as well in the vulgar tongue as in the Latin and the Greek--but also in every other faculty. Nor have they been too proud to set themselves with their little hands, so tender and so white, as if to wrest from us the palm of supremacy, to manual labours, braving the roughness of marble and the unkindly chisels, in order to attain to their desire and thereby win fame; as did, in our own day, Properzia de' Rossi of Bologna, a young woman excellent not only in household matters, like the rest of them, but also in sciences without number, so that all the men, to say nothing of the women, were envious of her. This Properzia was very beautiful in person, and played and sang in her day better than any other woman of her city. And because she had an intellect both capricious and very ready, she set herself to carve peach-stones, which she executed so well and with such patience, that they were singular and marvellous to behold, not only for the subtlety of the work, but also for the grace of the little figures that she made in them and the delicacy with which they were distributed. And it was certainly a miracle to see on so small a thing as a peach-stone the whole Passion of Christ, wrought in most beautiful carving, with a vast number of figures in addition to the Apostles and the ministers of the Crucifixion. This encouraged her, since there were decorations to be made for the three doors of the first façade of S. Petronio all in figures of marble, to ask the Wardens of Works, by means of her husband, for a part of that work; at which they were quite content, on the condition that she should let them see some work in marble executed by her own hand. Whereupon she straightway made for Count Alessandro de' Peppoli a portrait from life in the finest marble, representing his father, Count Guido, which gave infinite pleasure not only to them, but also to the whole city; and the Wardens of Works, therefore, did not fail to allot a part of the work to her. In this, to the vast delight of all Bologna, she made an exquisite scene, wherein--because at that time the poor woman was madly enamoured of a handsome young man, who seemed to care but little for her--she represented the wife of Pharaoh's Chamberlain, who, burning with love for Joseph, and almost in despair after so much persuasion, finally strips his garment from him with a womanly grace that defies description. This work was esteemed by all to be most beautiful, and it was a great satisfaction to herself, thinking that with this illustration from the Old Testament she had partly quenched the raging fire of her own passion. Nor would she ever do any more work in connection with that building, although there was no person who did not beseech her that she should go on with it, save only Maestro Amico, who out of envy always dissuaded her and went so far with his malignity, ever speaking ill of her to the Wardens, that she was paid a most beggarly price for her work. She also made two angels in very strong relief and beautiful proportions, which may now be seen, although against her wish, in the same building. In the end she devoted herself to copper-plate engraving, which she did without reproach, gaining the highest praise. And so the poor love-stricken young woman came to succeed most perfectly in everything, save in her unhappy passion. The fame of an intellect so noble and so exalted spread throughout all Italy, and finally came to the ears of Pope Clement VII, who, immediately after he had crowned the Emperor in Bologna, made inquiries after her; but he found that the poor woman had died that very week, and had been buried in the Della Morte Hospital, as she had directed in her last testament. At which the Pope, who was eager to see her, felt much sorrow at her death; but more bitter even was it for her fellow-citizens, who regarded her during her lifetime as one of the greatest miracles produced by nature in our days. In our book are some very good drawings by the hand of this Properzia, done with the pen and copied from the works of Raffaello da Urbino; and her portrait was given to me by certain painters who were very much her friends. [Illustration: TWO ANGELS, _after_ Madonna Properzia de' Rossi (THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN, _after_ Tribolo) (_Bologna: S. Petronio_) _Alinari_] But, although Properzia drew very well, there have not been wanting women not only to equal her in drawing, but also to do as good work in painting as she did in sculpture. Of these the first is Sister Plautilla, a nun and now Prioress in the Convent of S. Caterina da Siena, on the Piazza di S. Marco in Florence. She, beginning little by little to draw and to imitate in colours pictures and paintings by excellent masters, has executed some works with such diligence, that she has caused the craftsmen to marvel. By her hand are two panels in the Church of that Convent of S. Caterina, of which the one with the Magi adoring Jesus is much extolled. In the choir of the Convent of S. Lucia, at Pistoia, there is a large panel, containing Our Lady with the Child in her arms, S. Thomas, S. Augustine, S. Mary Magdalene, S. Catherine of Siena, S. Agnese, S. Catherine the Martyr, and S. Lucia; and another large panel by the same hand was sent abroad by the Director of the Hospital of Lelmo. In the refectory of the aforesaid Convent of S. Caterina there is a great Last Supper, with a panel in the work-room, both by the hand of the same nun. And in the houses of gentlemen throughout Florence there are so many pictures, that it would be tedious to attempt to speak of them all. A large picture of the Annunciation belongs to the wife of the Spaniard, Signor Mondragone, and Madonna Marietta de' Fedini has another like it. There is a little picture of Our Lady in S. Giovannino, at Florence; and an altar-predella in S. Maria del Fiore, containing very beautiful scenes from the life of S. Zanobi. And because this venerable and talented sister, before executing panels and works of importance, gave attention to painting in miniature, there are in the possession of various people many wonderfully beautiful little pictures by her hand, of which there is no need to make mention. The best works from her hand are those that she has copied from others, wherein she shows that she would have done marvellous things if she had enjoyed, as men do, advantages for studying, devoting herself to drawing, and copying living and natural objects. And that this is true is seen clearly from a picture of the Nativity of Christ, copied from one which Bronzino once painted for Filippo Salviati. In like manner, the truth of such an opinion is proved by this, that in her works the faces and features of women, whom she has been able to see as much as she pleased, are no little better than the heads of the men, and much nearer to the reality. In the faces of women in some of her works she has portrayed Madonna Costanza de' Doni, who has been in our time an unexampled pattern of beauty and dignity; painting her so well, that it is impossible to expect more from a woman who, for the reasons mentioned above, has had no great practice in her art. With much credit to herself, likewise, has Madonna Lucrezia, the daughter of Messer Alfonso Quistelli della Mirandola, and now the wife of Count Clemente Pietra, occupied herself with drawing and painting, as she still does, after having been taught by Alessandro Allori, the pupil of Bronzino; as may be seen from many pictures and portraits executed by her hand, which are worthy to be praised by all. But Sofonisba of Cremona, the daughter of Messer Amilcaro Anguisciuola, has laboured at the difficulties of design with greater study and better grace than any other woman of our time, and she has not only succeeded in drawing, colouring, and copying from nature, and in making excellent copies of works by other hands, but has also executed by herself alone some very choice and beautiful works of painting. Wherefore she well deserved that King Philip of Spain, having heard of her merits and abilities from the Lord Duke of Alba, should have sent for her and caused her to be escorted in great honour to Spain, where he keeps her with a rich allowance about the person of the Queen, to the admiration of all that Court, which reveres the excellence of Sofonisba as a miracle. And it is no long time since Messer Tommaso Cavalieri, a Roman gentleman, sent to the Lord Duke Cosimo (in addition to a drawing by the hand of the divine Michelagnolo, wherein is a Cleopatra) another drawing by the hand of Sofonisba, containing a little girl laughing at a boy who is weeping because one of the cray-fish out of a basket full of them, which she has placed in front of him, is biting his finger; and there is nothing more graceful to be seen than that drawing, or more true to nature. Wherefore, in memory of the talent of Sofonisba, who lives in Spain, so that Italy has no abundance of her works, I have placed it in my book of drawings. We may truly say, then, with the divine Ariosto, that-- Le donne son venute in eccellenza Di ciascun' arte ov' hanno posto cura. And let this be the end of the Life of Properzia, sculptor of Bologna. FOOTNOTE: [8] The translator is unwilling to use the somewhat ugly word "sculptress." ALFONSO LOMBARDI OF FERRARA, MICHELAGNOLO DA SIENA, GIROLAMO SANTA CROCE OF NAPLES, DOSSO AND BATTISTA DOSSI LIVES OF ALFONSO LOMBARDI OF FERRARA, MICHELAGNOLO DA SIENA, AND GIROLAMO SANTA CROCE OF NAPLES SCULPTORS AND DOSSO AND BATTISTA DOSSI PAINTERS OF FERRARA Alfonso of Ferrara, working in his early youth with stucco and wax, made an endless number of portraits from life on little medallions for many nobles and gentlemen of his own country. Some of these are still to be seen, white in colour and made of wax or stucco, and bear witness to the fine intellect and judgment that he possessed; such as those of Prince Doria, of Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, of Clement VII, of the Emperor Charles V, of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, of Bembo, of Ariosto, and of other suchlike personages. Finding himself in Bologna at the coronation of Charles V, he executed the decorations of the door of S. Petronio as a part of the preparations for that festival; and he had come into such repute through being the first to introduce the good method of making portraits from life in the form of medals, as has been related, that there was not a single man of distinction in those Courts for whom he did not execute some work, to his own great profit and honour. But, not being content with the gain and the glory that came to him from making works in clay, in wax, and in stucco, he set himself to work in marble; and such was the proficience that he showed in some things that he made, although these were of little importance, that he was commissioned to execute the tomb of Ramazzotto, which brought him very great fame and honour, in S. Michele in Bosco, without Bologna. After that work he made some little scenes of marble in half-relief on the predella of the altar at the tomb of S. Dominic, in the same city. And for the door of S. Petronio, also, on the left hand of the entrance into the church, he executed some little scenes in marble, containing a very beautiful Resurrection of Christ. But what pleased the people of Bologna most of all was the Death of Our Lady, wrought with a very hard mixture of clay and stucco, with figures in full-relief, in an upper room of the Della Vita Hospital; and marvellous, among other things in that work, is the Jew who leaves his hands fixed to the bier of the Madonna. With the same mixture, also, he made a large Hercules with the dead Hydra under his feet, for the upper room of the Governor in the Palazzo Pubblico of that city; which statue was executed in competition with Zaccaria da Volterra, who was greatly surpassed by the ability and excellence of Alfonso. For the Madonna del Baracane the same master made two Angels in stucco, who are upholding a canopy in half-relief; and in some medallions in the middle aisle of S. Giuseppe, between one arch and another, he made the twelve Apostles from the waist upwards, of terra-cotta and in full-relief. In terra-cotta, likewise, for the corners of the vaulting of the Madonna del Popolo in the same city, he executed four figures larger than life; namely, S. Petronio, S. Procolo, S. Francis, and S. Dominic, figures which are all very beautiful and grand in manner. And by the hand of the same man are some works in stucco at Castel Bolognese, and some others in the Company of S. Giovanni at Cesena. Let no one marvel that hitherto our account of this master has dealt with scarcely any work save in clay, wax, and stucco, and very little in marble, because--besides the fact that Alfonso was always inclined to that sort of work--after passing a certain age, being very handsome in person and youthful in appearance, he practised art more for pleasure and to satisfy his own vanity than with any desire to set himself to chisel stone. He used always to wear on his arms, on his neck, and in his clothing, ornaments of gold and suchlike fripperies, which showed him to be rather a courtier, vain and wanton, than a craftsman desirous of glory. Of a truth, just as such ornaments enhance the splendour of those to whom, on account of their wealth, high estate, and noble blood, they are becoming, so are they worthy of reproach in craftsmen and others, who should not measure themselves, some for one reason and some for another, with the rich, seeing that such persons, in place of being praised, are held in less esteem by men of judgment, and often laughed to scorn. Now Alfonso, charmed with himself and indulging in expressions and wanton excesses little worthy of a good craftsman, on one occasion robbed himself through this behaviour of all the glory that he had won by labouring at his profession. For one evening, chancing to be at a wedding in the house of a Count in Bologna, and having made love for some time to a lady of quality, he had the luck to be invited by her to dance the torch-dance; whereupon, whirling round with her, and overcome by the frenzy of his passion, he said with a trembling voice, sighing deeply, and gazing at his lady with eyes full of tenderness: "S'amor non è, che dunque è quel ch' io sento?"[9] Hearing this, the lady, who had a shrewd wit, answered, in order to show him his error: "A louse, perhaps." Which answer was heard by many, so that the saying ran through all Bologna, and he was held to scorn ever afterwards. Truly, if Alfonso had given his attention not to the vanities of the world, but to the labours of art, without a doubt he would have produced marvellous works; for if he achieved this in part without exerting himself much, what would he have done if he had faced the dust and heat? The aforesaid Emperor Charles V being in Bologna, and the most excellent Tiziano da Cadore having come to make a portrait of his Majesty, Alfonso likewise was seized with a desire to execute a portrait of that Sovereign. And having no other means of contriving to do that, he besought Tiziano, without revealing to him what he had in mind, that he should do him the favour of introducing him, in the place of one of those who used to carry his colours, into the presence of his Majesty. Wherefore Tiziano, who loved him much, like the truly courteous man that he has always been, took Alfonso with him into the apartments of the Emperor. Alfonso, as soon as Tiziano had settled down to work, took up a position behind him, in such a way that he could not be seen by the other, who was wholly intent on his portrait; and, taking up a little box in the shape of a medallion, he made therein a portrait of the Emperor in stucco, and had it finished at the very moment when Tiziano had likewise brought his picture to completion. The Emperor then rising, Alfonso closed the box and had already hidden it in his sleeve, to the end that Tiziano might not see it, when his Majesty said to him: "Show me what you have done." He was thus forced to give his portrait humbly into the hand of the Emperor, who, having examined it and praised it highly, said to him: "Would you have the courage to do it in marble?" "Yes, your sacred Majesty," answered Alfonso. "Do it, then," added the Emperor, "and bring it to me in Genoa." How unusual this proceeding must have seemed to Tiziano every man may imagine for himself. For my part, I believe that it must have appeared to him that he had compromised his credit. But what must have seemed to him most strange was this, that when his Majesty sent a present of a thousand crowns to Tiziano, he bade him give the half, or five hundred crowns, to Alfonso, keeping the other five hundred for himself, at which it is likely enough that Tiziano felt aggrieved. Alfonso, then, setting to work with the greatest zeal in his power, brought the marble head to completion with such diligence, that it was pronounced to be a very fine thing: which was the reason that, when he had taken it to the Emperor, his Majesty ordered that three hundred crowns more should be given to him. [Illustration: THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN (_After the terra-cotta by =Alfonso Lombardi=. Bologna: S. Maria della Vita_) _Poppi_] Alfonso having come into great repute through the gifts and praises bestowed on him by the Emperor, Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici took him to Rome, where he kept many sculptors and painters about his person, in addition to a vast number of other men of ability; and he commissioned him to make a copy in marble of a very famous antique head of the Emperor Vitellius. In that work Alfonso justified the opinion held of him by the Cardinal and by all Rome, and he was charged by the same patron to make a portrait-bust in marble of Pope Clement VII, after the life, and shortly afterwards one of Giuliano de' Medici, father of the Cardinal; but the latter was left not quite finished. These heads were afterwards sold in Rome, and bought by me at the request of the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, together with some pictures; and in our own day they have been placed by the Lord Duke Cosimo de' Medici in that hall of the new apartments of his palace wherein I have painted, on the ceiling and the walls, all the stories of Pope Leo X; they have been placed, I say, in that hall, over the doors made of that red veined marble which is found near Florence, in company with the heads of other illustrious men of the house of Medici. But returning to Alfonso; he then went on to execute many works in sculpture for the same Cardinal, but these, being small things, have disappeared. After the death of Clement, when a tomb had to be made for him and also for Leo, the work was allotted by Cardinal de' Medici to Alfonso; whereupon he made a model with figures of wax, which was held to be very beautiful, after some sketches by Michelagnolo Buonarroti, and went off to Carrara with money to have the marble quarried. But not long afterwards the Cardinal, having departed from Rome on his way to Africa, died at Itri, and the work slipped out of the hands of Alfonso, because he was dismissed by its executors, Cardinals Salviati, Ridolfi, Pucci, Cibo, and Gaddi, and it was entrusted by the favour of Madonna Lucrezia Salviati, daughter of the great Lorenzo de' Medici, the elder, and sister of Leo, to Baccio Bandinelli, a sculptor of Florence, who had made models for it during the lifetime of Clement. For this reason Alfonso, thus knocked off his high horse and almost beside himself, determined to return to Bologna; and, having arrived in Florence, he presented to Duke Alessandro a most beautiful head in marble of the Emperor Charles V, which is now in Carrara, whither it was sent by Cardinal Cibo, who removed it after the death of Duke Alessandro from the guardaroba of that Prince. The Duke, when Alfonso arrived in Florence, was in the humour to have his portrait taken; for it had already been done on medals by Domenico di Polo, a gem-engraver, and by Francesco di Girolamo dal Prato, for the coinage by Benvenuto Cellini, and in painting by Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo and Jacopo da Pontormo, and he wished that Alfonso should likewise portray him. Wherefore he made a very beautiful portrait of him in relief, much better than the one executed by Danese da Carrara, and then, since he was wholly set on going to Bologna, he was given the means to make one there in marble, after the model. And so, having received many gifts and favours from Duke Alessandro, Alfonso returned to Bologna, where, being still far from content on account of the death of the Cardinal, and sorely vexed by the loss of the tombs, there came upon him a pestilent and incurable disease of the skin, which wasted him away little by little, until, having reached the age of forty-nine, he passed to a better life, never ceasing to rail at Fortune, which had robbed him of a patron to whom he might have looked for all the blessings which could make him happy in this life, and saying that she should have closed his own eyes, since she had reduced him to such misery, rather than those of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici. Alfonso died in the year 1536. [Illustration: TOMB OF ADRIAN VI (_After_ Michelagnolo da Siena. _Rome: S. Maria dell' Anima_) _Anderson_] Michelagnolo, a sculptor of Siena, after he had spent the best years of his life in Sclavonia with other excellent sculptors, made his way to Rome on the following occasion. After the death of Pope Adrian, Cardinal Hincfort, who had been the friend and favourite of that Pontiff, determined, as one not ungrateful for the benefits received from him, to erect to him a tomb of marble; and he gave the charge of this to Baldassarre Peruzzi, the painter of Siena. And that master, having made the model, desired that the sculptor Michelagnolo, his friend and compatriot, should undertake the work on his own account. Michelagnolo, therefore, made on that tomb a lifesize figure of Pope Adrian, lying upon the sarcophagus and portrayed from nature, with a scene, also in marble, below him, showing his arrival in Rome and the Roman people going to meet him and to do him homage. Around the tomb, moreover, in four niches, are four Virtues in marble, Justice, Fortitude, Peace, and Prudence, all executed with much diligence by the hand of Michelagnolo after the counsel of Baldassarre. It is true, indeed, that some of the things that are in this work were wrought by the Florentine sculptor, Tribolo, then a very young man, and these were considered the best of all; but Michelagnolo executed the minor details of the work with supreme diligence and subtlety, and the little figures that are in it deserve to be extolled more than all the rest. Among other things, there are some variegated marbles wrought with a high finish, and put together so well that nothing more could be desired. For these labours Michelagnolo received a just and honourable reward from the aforesaid Cardinal, and was treated with much favour by him for the rest of his life; and, in truth, with right good reason, seeing that this tomb and the Cardinal's gratitude have done as much to bring fame to him as did the work to give a name to Michelagnolo in his lifetime and renown after his death. This work finished, no long time elapsed before Michelagnolo passed from this life to the next, at about the age of fifty. Girolamo Santa Croce of Naples, although he was snatched from us by death in the very prime of life, at a time when greater things were looked for from him, yet showed in the works of sculpture that he made at Naples during his few years, what he would have done if he had lived longer; for the works that he executed in sculpture at Naples were wrought and finished with all the lovingness that could be desired in a young man who wishes to surpass by a great measure those who for many years before his day have held the sovereignty in some noble profession. In S. Giovanni Carbonaro at Naples he built the Chapel of the Marchese di Vico, which is a round temple, partitioned by columns and niches, with some tombs carved with much diligence. And because the altar-piece of this chapel, made of marble in half-relief and representing the Magi bringing their offerings to Christ, is by the hand of a Spaniard, Girolamo executed in emulation of this work a S. John in a niche, so beautifully wrought in full-relief, that it showed that he was not inferior to the Spaniard either in courage or in judgment; on which account he won such a name, that, although Giovanni da Nola was held in Naples to be a marvellous sculptor and better than any other, nevertheless Girolamo worked in competition with him as long as he lived, notwithstanding that his rival was now old and had executed a vast number of works in that city, where it is much the custom to make chapels and altar-pieces of marble. Competing with Giovanni, then, Girolamo undertook to execute a chapel in Monte Oliveto at Naples, just within the door of the church, on the left hand, while Giovanni executed another opposite to his, on the other side, in the same style. In his chapel Girolamo made a lifesize Madonna in the round, which is held to be a very beautiful figure; and since he took infinite pains in executing the draperies and the hands, and in giving bold relief to the marble by undercutting, he brought it to such perfection that it was the general opinion that he had surpassed all those who had handled tools for working marble at Naples in his time. This Madonna he placed between a S. John and a S. Peter, figures very well conceived and executed, and finished in a beautiful manner, as are also some children which are placed above them. In addition to these, he made two large and most beautiful statues in full-relief for the Church of Capella, a seat of the Monks of Monte Oliveto. He then began a statue of the Emperor Charles V, at the time of his return from Tunis; but after he had blocked it and carved it with the pointed chisel, and even in some places with the broad-toothed chisel, it remained unfinished, because fortune and death, envying the world such excellence, snatched him from us at the age of thirty-five. It was confidently expected that Girolamo, if he had lived, even as he had outstripped all his compatriots in his profession, would also have surpassed all the craftsmen of his time. Wherefore his death was a grievous blow to the Neapolitans, and all the more because he had been endowed by nature not only with a most beautiful genius, but also with as much modesty, sweetness, and gentleness as could be looked for in mortal man; so that it is no marvel if all those who knew him are not able to restrain their tears when they speak of him. His last sculptures were executed in 1537, in which year he was buried at Naples with most honourable obsequies. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH SS. PETER AND JOHN (_After the altar-piece_ by Girolamo Santa Croce. _Naples: Monte Oliveto_) _Alinari_] Old as he was, Giovanni da Nola, who was a well-practised sculptor, as may be seen from many works made by him at Naples with good skill of hand, but not with much design, still remained alive. Him Don Pedro di Toledo, Marquis of Villafranca, and at that time Viceroy of Naples, commissioned to execute a tomb of marble for himself and his wife; and therein Giovanni made a great number of scenes of the victories obtained by that lord over the Turks, with many statues for the same work, which stands quite by itself, and was executed with much diligence. This tomb was to have been taken to Spain; but, since that nobleman did not do this while he was alive, it remained in Naples. Giovanni died at the age of seventy, and was buried in Naples, in the year 1558. About the same time that Heaven presented to Ferrara, or rather, to the world, the divine Lodovico Ariosto, there was born in the same city the painter Dosso, who, although he was not as rare among painters as Ariosto among poets, nevertheless acquitted himself in his art in such a manner, that, besides the great esteem wherein his works were held in Ferrara, his merits caused the learned poet, his intimate friend, to honour his memory by mentioning him in his most celebrated writings; so that the pen of Messer Lodovico has given more renown to the name of Dosso than did all the brushes and colours that he used in the whole of his life. Wherefore I, for my part, declare that there could be no greater good-fortune than that of those who are celebrated by such great men, since the might of the pen forces most of mankind to accept their fame, even though they may not wholly deserve it. Dosso was much beloved by Duke Alfonso of Ferrara: first for his good abilities in the art of painting, and then because he was a very pleasant and amiable person--a manner of man in whom the Duke greatly delighted. Dosso had the reputation in Lombardy of executing landscapes better than any other painter engaged in that branch of the profession, whether in mural painting, in oils, or in gouache; and all the more after the German manner became known. In Ferrara, for the Cathedral Church, he executed a panel-picture with figures in oils, which was held to be passing beautiful; and in the Duke's Palace he painted many rooms, in company with a brother of his, called Battista. These two were always enemies, one against the other, although they worked together by the wish of the Duke. In the court of the said palace they executed stories of Hercules in chiaroscuro, with an endless number of nudes on those walls; and in like manner they painted many works on panel and in fresco throughout all Ferrara. By their hands is a panel in the Duomo of Modena; and they painted many things in the Cardinal's Palace at Trento, in company with other painters. At this same time the painter and architect, Girolamo Genga, was executing various decorations in the Imperiale Palace, above Pesaro, as will be related in the proper place, for Duke Francesco Maria of Urbino; and among the number of painters who were summoned to that work by order of the same Signor Francesco Maria, invitations were sent to Dosso and Battista of Ferrara, principally for the painting of landscapes; many paintings having been executed long before in that palace by Francesco di Mirozzo[10] of Forlì, Raffaello dal Colle of Borgo a San Sepolcro, and many others. Now, having arrived at the Imperiale, Dosso and Battista, according to the custom of men of their kidney, found fault with most of the paintings that they saw, and promised the Duke that they would do much better work; and Genga, who was a shrewd person, seeing how the matter was likely to end, gave them an apartment to paint by themselves. Thereupon, setting to work, they strove with all labour and diligence to display their worth; but, whatever may have been the reason, never in all the course of their lives did they do any work less worthy of praise, or rather, worse, than that one. It seems often to happen, indeed, that in their greatest emergencies, when most is expected of them, men become blinded and bewildered in judgment, and do worse work than at any other time; which may result, perchance, from their own malign and evil disposition to be always finding fault with the works of others, or from their seeking to force their genius overmuch, seeing that to proceed step by step according to the ruling of nature, yet without neglecting diligence and study, appears to be a better method than seeking to wrest from the brain, as it were by force, things that are not there; and it is a fact that in the other arts as well, but above all in that of writing, lack of spontaneity is only too easily recognized, and also, so to speak, over-elaboration in everything. [Illustration: DOSSO DOSSI: A NYMPH WITH A SATYR (_Florence: Pitti_, 147. _Canvas_)] Now, when the work of the Dossi was unveiled, it proved to be so ridiculous that they left the service of the Duke in disgrace; and he was forced to throw to the ground all that they had executed, and to have it repainted by others after the designs of Genga. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH SS. GEORGE AND MICHAEL (_After the painting by =Dosso Dossi=. Modena: Pinacoteca, 437_) _Anderson_] Finally, they painted a very beautiful panel-picture in the Duomo of Faenza for the Chevalier, M. Giovan Battista de' Buosi, of Christ disputing in the Temple; in which work they surpassed themselves, by reason of the new manner that they used, and particularly in the portraits of that Chevalier and of others. That picture was set up in that place in the year 1536. Ultimately Dosso, having grown old, spent his last years without working, being pensioned until the close of his life by Duke Alfonso. And in the end Battista survived him, executing many works by himself, and maintaining himself in a good condition. Dosso was buried in his native city of Ferrara. There lived in the same times the Milanese Bernazzano, a very excellent painter of landscapes, herbage, animals, and other things of earth, air, and water. And since, as one who knew himself to have little aptitude for figures, he did not give much attention to them, he associated himself with Cesare da Sesto, who painted them very well and in a beautiful manner. It is said that Bernazzano executed in a courtyard some very beautiful landscapes in fresco, in which he painted a strawberry-bed full of strawberries, ripe, green, and in blossom, and so well imitated, that some peacocks, deceived by their natural appearance, were so persistent in picking at them as to make holes in the plaster. FOOTNOTE: [9] "What is it that I feel, if it is not love?" [10] This seems to be an error for Melozzo. GIOVANNI ANTONIO LICINIO OF PORDENONE, AND OTHER PAINTERS OF FRIULI LIVES OF GIOVANNI ANTONIO LICINIO OF PORDENONE, AND OF OTHER PAINTERS OF FRIULI It would seem, as has been remarked already in the same connection, that Nature, the kindly mother of the universe, sometimes presents the rarest things to certain places that never had any knowledge of such gifts, and that at times she creates in some country men so much inclined to design and to painting, that, without masters, but only by imitating living and natural objects, they become most excellent. And it also happens very often that when one man has begun, many set themselves to work in competition with him, and labour to such purpose, without seeing Rome, Florence, or any other place full of notable pictures, but merely through rivalry one with another, that marvellous works are seen to issue from their hands. All this may be seen to have happened more particularly in Friuli, where, in our own day, in consequence of such a beginning, there has been a vast number of excellent painters--a thing which had not occurred in those parts for many centuries. While Giovanni Bellini was working in Venice and teaching his art to many, as has been related, he had two disciples who were rivals one with another--Pellegrino da Udine, who, as will be told, was afterwards called Da San Daniele, and Giovanni Martini of Udine. Let us begin, then, by speaking of Giovanni. He always imitated the manner of Bellini, which was somewhat crude, hard, and dry; nor was he ever able to give it sweetness or softness, although he was a diligent and finished painter. This may have happened because he was always making trial of certain reflections, half-lights, and shadows, with which, cutting the relief in the middle, he contrived to define light and shade very abruptly, in such a way that the colouring of all his works was always crude and unpleasant, although he strove laboriously with his art to imitate Nature. By the hand of this master are numerous works in many places in Friuli, particularly in the city of Udine, in the Duomo of which there is a panel-picture executed in oils, of S. Mark seated with many figures round him, which is held to be the best of all that he ever painted. There is another on the altar of S. Ursula in the Church of the Friars of S. Pietro Martire, wherein the first-mentioned Saint is standing with some of her virgins round her, all painted with much grace and beautiful expressions of countenance. This Giovanni, besides being a passing good painter, was endowed by Nature with beauty and grace of features and an excellent character, and, what is most desirable, with such foresight and power of management, that, after his death, in default of heirs male, he left an inheritance of much property to his wife. And she, being, so I have heard, a lady as shrewd as she was beautiful, knew so well how to manage her life after the death of her husband, that she married two very beautiful daughters into the richest and most noble houses of Udine. Pellegrino da San Daniele, who was a rival of Giovanni, as has been related, and a man of greater excellence in painting, received at baptism the name of Martino. But Giovanni Bellini, judging that he was destined to become, as he afterwards did, a truly rare master of art, changed his name from Martino to Pellegrino.[11] And even as his name was changed, so he may be said by chance to have changed his country, since, living by preference at San Daniele, a township ten miles distant from Udine, and spending most of his time in that place, where he had taken a wife, he was called ever afterwards not Martino da Udine, but Pellegrino da San Daniele. He painted many pictures in Udine, and some may still be seen on the doors of the old organ, on the outer side of which is painted a sunken arch in perspective, containing a S. Peter seated among a multitude of figures and handing a pastoral staff to S. Ermacora the Bishop. On the inner side of the same doors, likewise, in some niches, he painted the four Doctors of the Church in the act of studying. For the Chapel of S. Giuseppe he executed a panel-picture in oils, drawn and coloured with much diligence, in the middle of which is S. Joseph standing in a beautiful attitude, with an air of dignity, and beside him is Our Lord as a little Child, while S. John the Baptist is below in the garb of a little shepherd-boy, gazing intently on his Master. And since this picture is much extolled, we may believe what is said of it--namely, that he painted it in competition with the aforesaid Giovanni, and that he put forward every effort to make it, as it proved to be, more beautiful than that which Giovanni painted of S. Mark, as has been related above. Pellegrino also painted at Udine, for the house of Messer Pre Giovanni, intendant to the illustrious Signori della Torre, a picture of Judith from the waist upwards, with the head of Holofernes in one hand, which is a very beautiful work. By the hand of the same man is a large panel in oils, divided into several pictures, which may be seen on the high-altar of the Church of S. Maria in the town of Civitale, at a distance of eight miles from Udine; and in it are some heads of virgins and other figures with great beauty of expression. And in his township of San Daniele, in a chapel of S. Antonio, he painted in fresco scenes of the Passion of Jesus Christ, and that so finely that he well deserved to be paid more than a thousand crowns for the work. He was much beloved for his talents by the Dukes of Ferrara, and, in addition to other favours and many gifts, he obtained through their good offices two Canonicates in the Duomo of Udine for two of his relatives. Among his pupils, of whom he had many, making much use of them and rewarding them liberally, was one of Greek nationality, a man of no little ability, who had a very beautiful manner and imitated Pellegrino closely. But Luca Monverde of Udine, who was much beloved by Pellegrino, would have been superior to the Greek, if he had not been snatched from the world prematurely when still a mere lad; although one work by his hand was left on the high-altar of S. Maria delle Grazie in Udine, a panel-picture in oils, his first and last, in which, in a recess in perspective, there is a Madonna seated on high with the Child in her arms, painted by him with a soft gradation of shadow, while on the level surface below there are two figures on either side, so beautiful that they show that if he had lived longer he would have become truly excellent. Another disciple of the same Pellegrino was Bastianello Florigorio, who painted a panel-picture that is over the high-altar of S. Giorgio in Udine, of a Madonna in the sky surrounded by an endless number of little angels in various attitudes, all adoring the Child that she holds in her arms; while below there is a very well executed landscape. There is also a very beautiful S. John, and a S. George in armour and on horseback, who, foreshortened in a spirited attitude, is slaying the Dragon with his lance; while the Maiden, who is there on one side, appears to be thanking God and the glorious Virgin for the succour sent to her. In the head of the S. George Bastianello is said to have made his own portrait. He also painted two pictures in fresco in the Refectory of the Friars of S. Pietro Martire: in one is Christ seated at table with the two disciples at Emmaus, and breaking the bread with a benediction, and in the other is the death of S. Peter Martyr. The same master painted in fresco in a niche on a corner of the Palace of M. Marguando, an excellent physician, a nude man in foreshortening, representing a S. John, which is held to be a good painting. Finally, he was forced through some dispute to depart from Udine, for the sake of peace, and to live like an exile in Civitale. Bastianello had a crude and hard manner, because he much delighted in drawing works in relief and objects of Nature by candle-light. He had much beauty of invention, and he took great pleasure in executing portraits from life, making them truly beautiful and very like; and at Udine, among others, he made one of Messer Raffaello Belgrado, and one of the father of M. Giovan Battista Grassi, an excellent painter and architect, from whose loving courtesy we have received much particular information touching our present subject of Friuli. Bastianello lived about forty years. Another disciple of Pellegrino was Francesco Floriani of Udine, who is still alive and is a very good painter and architect, like his younger brother, Antonio Floriani, who, thanks to his rare abilities in his profession, is now in the service of his glorious Majesty the Emperor Maximilian. Some of the pictures of that same Francesco were to be seen two years ago in the possession of the Emperor, who was then a King; one of these being a Judith who has cut off the head of Holofernes, painted with admirable judgment and diligence. And in the collection of that monarch there is a book of pen-drawings by the same master, full of lovely inventions, buildings, theatres, arches, porticoes, bridges, palaces, and many other works of architecture, all useful and very beautiful. Gensio Liberale was also a disciple of Pellegrino, and in his pictures, among other things, he imitated every sort of fish excellently well. This master is now in the service of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, a splendid position, which he deserves, for he is a very good painter. But among the most illustrious and renowned painters of the territory of Friuli, the rarest and most famous in our day--since he has surpassed those mentioned above by a great measure in the invention of scenes, in draughtsmanship, in boldness, in mastery over colour, in fresco work, in swiftness of execution, in strength of relief, and in every other department of our arts--is Giovanni Antonio Licinio, called by some Cuticello. This master was born at Pordenone, a township in Friuli, twenty-five miles from Udine; and since he was endowed by nature with a beautiful genius and an inclination for painting, he devoted himself without any teacher to the study of natural objects, imitating the style of Giorgione da Castelfranco, because that manner, seen by him many times in Venice, had pleased him much. Now, having learnt the rudiments of art, he was forced, in order to save his life from a pestilence that had fallen upon his native place, to take to flight; and thus, passing many months in the surrounding country, he executed various works in fresco for a number of peasants, gaining at their expense experience of using colour on plaster. Wherefore, since the surest and best method of learning is practice and a sufficiency of work, it came to pass that he became a well-practised and judicious master of that kind of painting, and learned to make colours produce the desired effect when used in a fluid state, which is done on account of the white, which dries the plaster and produces a brightness that ruins all softness. And so, having mastered the nature of colours, and having learnt by long practice to work very well in fresco, he returned to Udine, where he painted for the altar of the Nunziata, in the Convent of S. Pietro Martire, a panel-picture in oils containing the Madonna at the moment of receiving the Salutation from the Angel Gabriel; and in the sky he made a God the Father surrounded by many little boys, who is sending down the Holy Spirit. This work, which is executed with good drawing, grace, vivacity, and relief, is held by all craftsmen of judgment to be the best that he ever painted. In the Duomo of the same city, on the balustrade of the organ, below the doors already painted by Pellegrino, he painted a story of S. Ermacora and Fortunatus, also in oils, graceful and well designed. In the same city, in order to gain the friendship of the Signori Tinghi, he painted in fresco the façade of their palace; in which work, wishing to make himself known and to prove what a master he was of architectural invention and of working in fresco, he made a series of compartments and groups of varied ornaments full of figures in niches; and in three great spaces in the centre of the work he painted scenes with figures in colours, two spaces, high and narrow, being on either side, and one square in shape in the middle; and in the latter he painted a Corinthian column planted with its base in the sea, with a Siren on the right hand, holding the column upright, and a nude Neptune on the left supporting it on the other side; while above the capital of the column there is a Cardinal's hat, the device, so it is said, of Pompeo Colonna, who was much the friend of the owners of that palace. In one of the two other spaces are the Giants being slain with thunderbolts by Jove, with some dead bodies on the ground very well painted and most beautifully foreshortened. On the other side is a Heaven full of Gods, and on the earth two Giants who, club in hand, are in the act of striking at Diana, who, defending herself in a bold and spirited attitude, is brandishing a blazing torch as if to burn the arms of one of them. [Illustration: THE DISPUTATION OF S. CATHARINE (_After the fresco by =Giovanni Antonio Licinio of Pordenone=. Piacenza: S. Maria di Campagna_) _Alinari_] At Spelimbergo, a large place fifteen miles above Udine, the balustrade and the doors of the organ in the great church are painted by the hand of the same master; on the outer side of one door is the Assumption of Our Lady, and on the inner side S. Peter and S. Paul before Nero, gazing at Simon Magus in the air above; while on the other door there is the Conversion of S. Paul, and on the balustrade the Nativity of Christ. Through this work, which is very beautiful, and many others, Pordenone came into repute and fame, and was summoned to Vicenza, whence, after having executed some works there, he made his way to Mantua, where he coloured a façade in fresco with marvellous grace for M. Paris, a gentleman of that city. Among other beautiful inventions which are in that work, much praise is due to a frieze of antique letters, one braccio and a half in height, at the top, below the cornice, among which, passing in and out of them, are many little children in various attitudes, all most beautiful. That work finished, he returned in great credit to Vicenza, and there, besides many other works, he painted the whole of the tribune of S. Maria di Campagna, although by reason of his departure a part remained unfinished, which was afterwards finished with great diligence by Maestro Bernardo da Vercelli. In the same church he painted two chapels in fresco: one with stories of S. Catherine, and the other with the Nativity of Christ and the Adoration of the Magi, both being worthy of the highest praise. He then painted some poetical pictures in the beautiful garden of M. Barnaba dal Pozzo, a doctor; and, in the said Church of S. Maria di Campagna, the picture of S. Augustine, which is on the left hand as one enters the church. All these most beautiful works brought it about that the gentlemen of that city persuaded him to take a wife there, and always held him in vast veneration. Going afterwards to Venice, where he had formerly executed some works, he painted a wall of S. Geremia, on the Grand Canal, and a panel-picture in oils for the Madonna del Orto, with many figures, making a particular effort to prove his worth in the S. John the Baptist. He also painted many scenes in fresco on the façade of the house of Martin d'Anna on the same Grand Canal; in particular, a Curtius on horseback in foreshortening, which has the appearance of being wholly in the round, like the Mercury flying freely through the air, not to speak of many other things that all prove his ability. That work pleased the whole city of Venice beyond measure, and Pordenone was therefore extolled more highly than any other man who had ever worked in the city up to that time. Among other reasons that caused him to give an incredible amount of effort to all his works, was his rivalry with the most excellent Tiziano; since, setting himself to compete with him, he hoped by means of continual study and by a bold and resolute method of working in fresco to wrest from the hands of Tiziano that sovereignty which he had gained with so many beautiful works; employing, also, unusual methods outside the field of art, such as that of being obliging and courteous and associating continually and of set purpose with great persons, making his interests universal, and taking a hand in everything. And, in truth, this rivalry was a great assistance to him, for it caused him to devote the greatest zeal and diligence in his power to all his works, so that they proved worthy of eternal praise. For these reasons, then, he was commissioned by the Wardens of S. Rocco to paint in fresco the chapel of that church, with all the tribune. Setting his hand, therefore, to this work, he painted a God the Father in the tribune, with a vast number of children in various beautiful attitudes, radiating from Him. In the frieze of the same tribune he painted eight figures from the Old Testament, with the four Evangelists in the angles, and the Transfiguration of Christ over the high-altar; and in the two lunettes at the sides are the four Doctors of the Church. By the hand of the same master are two large pictures in the middle of the church: in one is Christ healing an endless number of the sick, all very well painted, and in the other is S. Christopher carrying Jesus Christ on his shoulders. On the wooden tabernacle of the same church, wherein the vessels of silver are kept, he painted a S. Martin on horseback, with many beggars who are bringing votive offerings, in a building in perspective. [Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI (_After the fresco by =Giovanni Antonio Licinio of Pordenone=. Treviso: Duomo_) _Alinari_] This work, which was much extolled and brought him honour and profit, was the reason that M. Jacopo Soranzo, having become his intimate friend, caused him to be commissioned to paint the Sala de' Pregai in competition with Tiziano; and there he executed many pictures with figures seen foreshortened from below, which are very beautiful, together with a frieze of marine monsters painted in oils round that hall. These works made him so dear to the Senate, that as long as he lived he always received an honourable salary from them. And since, out of rivalry, he always sought to do work in places where Tiziano had also worked, he painted for S. Giovanni di Rialto a S. John, as Almoner, giving alms to beggars, and also placed on an altar a picture of S. Sebastian, S. Rocco, and other saints, which was very beautiful, but yet not equal to the work of Tiziano, although many, more out of malignity than out of a love for the truth, exalted that of Giovanni Antonio. The same master painted in the cloister of S. Stefano many scenes in fresco from the Old Testament, and one from the New, divided one from another by various Virtues; and in these figures he displayed amazing foreshortenings, in which method of painting he always delighted, seeking to introduce them into his every composition with no fear of difficulties, and making them more ornate than any other painter. Prince Doria had built a palace on the seashore in Genoa, and had commissioned Perino del Vaga, a very celebrated painter, to paint halls, apartments, and ante-chambers both in oils and in fresco, which are quite marvellous for the richness and beauty of the paintings. But seeing that Perino was not then giving much attention to the work, and wishing to make him do by the spur of emulation what he was not doing by himself, he sent for Pordenone, who began with an open terrace, wherein, following his usual manner, he executed a frieze of children, who are hurrying about in very beautiful attitudes and unloading a barque full of merchandise. He also painted a large scene of Jason asking leave from his uncle to go in search of the Golden Fleece. But the Prince, seeing the difference that there was between the work of Perino and that of Pordenone, dismissed the latter, and summoned in his place Domenico Beccafumi of Siena, an excellent painter and a rarer master than Pordenone. And he, glad to serve so great a Prince, did not scruple to leave his native city of Siena, where there are so many marvellous works by his hand; but he did not paint more than one single scene in that palace, because Perino brought everything to completion by himself. Giovanni Antonio then returned to Venice, where he was given to understand that Ercole, Duke of Ferrara, had brought a great number of masters from Germany, and had caused them to begin to make fabrics in silk, gold, floss-silk, and wool, for his own use and pleasure, but that he had no good designers of figures in Ferrara, since Girolamo da Ferrara had more ability for portraits and separate things than for difficult and complicated scenes, which called for great power of art and design; and that he should enter the service of that Prince. Whereupon, desiring to gain fame no less than riches, he departed from Venice, and on reaching Ferrara was received with great warmth by the Duke. But a little time after his arrival, being attacked by a most grievous affliction of the chest, he took to his bed with the doom of death upon him, and, growing continually worse and finding no remedy, within three days or little more he finished the course of his life, at the age of fifty-six. This seemed a strange thing to the Duke, and also to Pordenone's friends; and there were not wanting men who for many months believed that he had died of poison. The body of Giovanni Antonio was buried with honour, and his death was a grief to many, particularly in Venice, for the reason that he was ready of speech and the friend and companion of many, and delighted in music; and his readiness and grace of speech came from his having given attention to the study of Latin. He always made his figures grand, and was very rich in invention, and so versatile that he could imitate everything very well; but he was, above all, resolute and most facile in works in fresco. A disciple of Pordenone was Pomponio Amalteo of San Vito, who won by his good qualities the honour of becoming the son-in-law of his master. This Pomponio, always following that master in matters of art, has acquitted himself very well in all his works, as may be seen at Udine from the doors of the new organ, painted in oils, on the outer side of which is Christ driving the traders from the Temple, and on the inner side the story of the Pool of Bethesda and the Resurrection of Lazarus. In the Church of S. Francesco, in the same city, there is a panel-picture in oils by the hand of the same man, of S. Francis receiving the Stigmata, with some very beautiful landscapes, and with a sunrise from which, in the midst of some rays of the greatest splendour, there radiates the celestial light, which pierces the hands, feet, and side of S. Francis, who, kneeling devoutly and full of love, receives it, while his companion lies on the ground, in foreshortening, all overcome with amazement. Pomponio also painted in fresco for the Friars of La Vigna, at the end of their refectory, Jesus Christ between the two disciples at Emmaus. In the township of San Vito, his native place, twenty miles distant from Udine, he painted in fresco the Chapel of the Madonna in the Church of S. Maria, in so beautiful a manner, and so much to the satisfaction of all, that he has won from the most reverend Cardinal Maria Grimani, Patriarch of Aquileia and Lord of San Vito, the honour of being enrolled among the nobles of that place. I have thought it right in this Life of Pordenone to make mention of these excellent craftsmen of Friuli, both because it appears to me that their talents deserve it, and to the end that it may be recognized in the account to be given later how much more excellent are those who, after such a beginning, have lived since that day, as will be related in the Life of Giovanni Ricamatori of Udine, to whom our age owes a very great obligation for his works in stucco and his grotesques. But returning to Pordenone; after the works mentioned above as having been executed by him at Venice in the time of the most illustrious Gritti, he died, as has been related, in the year 1540. And because he was one of the most able men that our age has possessed, and for the reason, above all, that his figures seem to be in the round and detached from their walls, and almost in relief, he can be numbered among those who have rendered assistance to art and benefit to the world. FOOTNOTE: [11] _I.e._, singular or rare. GIOVANNI ANTONIO SOGLIANI LIFE OF GIOVANNI ANTONIO SOGLIANI PAINTER OF FLORENCE Very often do we see in the sciences of learning and in the more liberal of the manual arts, that those men who are melancholy are the most assiduous in their studies and show the greatest patience in supporting the burden of their labours; so that there are few of that disposition who do not become excellent in such professions. Even so did Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, a painter of Florence, whose cast of countenance was so cold and woeful that he looked like the image of melancholy; and such was the power of this humour over him that he gave little thought to anything but matters of art, with the exception of his household cares, through which he endured most grievous anxieties, although he had enough to live in comfort. He worked at the art of painting under Lorenzo di Credi for four-and-twenty years, living with him, honouring him always, and rendering him every sort of service. Having become during that time a very good painter, he showed afterwards in all his works that he was a most faithful disciple of his master and a close imitator of his manner. This was seen from his first paintings, in the Church of the Osservanza on the hill of San Miniato without Florence, for which he painted a panel-picture copied from the one that Lorenzo had executed for the Nuns of S. Chiara, containing the Nativity of Christ, and no less excellent than the one of Lorenzo. Afterwards, having left his master, he painted for the Church of S. Michele in Orto, at the commission of the Guild of Vintners, a S. Martin in oils, robed as a Bishop, which gave him the name of a very good master. And since Giovanni Antonio had a vast veneration for the works and the manner of Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco, and made great efforts to approach that manner in his colouring, it may be seen from a panel which he began but did not finish, not being satisfied with it, how much he imitated that painter. This panel remained in his house during his lifetime as worthless: but after his death it was sold as a piece of old rubbish to Sinibaldo Gaddi, and he had it finished by Santi Titi dal Borgo, then a mere boy, and placed it in a chapel of his own in S. Domenico da Fiesole. In this work are the Magi adoring Jesus Christ, who is in the lap of His Mother, and in one corner is his own portrait from life, which is a passing good likeness. He then painted for Madonna Alfonsina, the wife of Piero de' Medici, a panel-picture that was placed as a votive offering over the altar of the Chapel of the Martyrs in the Camaldolite Church at Florence: in which picture he painted the Crucifixion of S. Arcadio and other martyrs with their crosses in their arms, and two figures, half covered with draperies and half naked, kneeling with their crosses on the ground, while in the sky are some little angels with palms in their hands. This work, which was painted with much diligence, and executed with good judgment in the colouring and in the heads, which are very lifelike, was placed in the above-mentioned Camaldolite Church; but that monastery was taken on account of the siege of Florence from those Eremite Fathers, who used devoutly to celebrate the Divine offices in the church, and was afterwards given to the Nuns of S. Giovannino, of the Order of the Knights of Jerusalem, and finally destroyed; and the picture, being one which may be numbered among the best works that Sogliani painted, was placed by order of the Lord Duke Cosimo in one of the chapels of the Medici family in S. Lorenzo. The same master executed for the Nuns of the Crocetta a Last Supper coloured in oils, which was much extolled at that time. And in a shrine in the Via de' Ginori, he painted in fresco for Taddeo Taddei a Crucifix with Our Lady and S. John at the foot, and in the sky some angels lamenting Christ, very lifelike--a picture truly worthy of praise, and a well-executed example of work in fresco. By the hand of Sogliani, also, is a Crucifix in the Refectory of the Abbey of the Black Friars in Florence, with angels flying about and weeping with much grace; and at the foot the Madonna, S. John, S. Benedict, S. Scholastica, and other figures. For the Nuns of the Spirito Santo, on the hill of San Giorgio, he painted two pictures that are in their church, one of S. Francis, and the other of S. Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary and a sister of that Order. For the Company of the Ceppo he painted the banner for carrying in processions, which is very beautiful, representing on the front of it the Visitation of Our Lady, and on the other side S. Niccolò the Bishop, with two children dressed as Flagellants, one of whom holds his book and the other the three balls of gold. On a panel in S. Jacopo sopra Arno he painted the Trinity, with an endless number of little boys, S. Mary Magdalene kneeling, S. Catherine, S. James, and two figures in fresco standing at the sides, S. Jerome in Penitence and S. John; and in the predella he made his assistant, Sandrino del Calzolaio, execute three scenes, which won no little praise. On the end wall of the Oratory of a Company in the township of Anghiari, he executed on panel a Last Supper in oils, with figures of the size of life; and on one of the two adjoining walls (namely, the sides) he painted Christ washing the feet of the Apostles, and on the other a servant bringing two vessels of water. The work is held in great veneration in that place, for it is indeed a rare thing, and one that brought him both honour and profit. A picture that he executed of a Judith who had cut off the head of Holofernes, being a very beautiful work, was sent to Hungary. And likewise another, in which was the Beheading of S. John the Baptist, with a building in perspective for which he had copied the exterior of the Chapter-house of the Pazzi, which is in the first cloister of S. Croce, was sent as a most beautiful work to Naples by Paolo da Terrarossa, who had given the commission for it. For one of the Bernardi, also, Sogliani executed two other pictures, which were placed in a chapel in the Church of the Osservanza at San Miniato, containing two lifesize figures in oils--S. John the Baptist and S. Anthony of Padua. But as for the panel that was to stand between them, Giovanni Antonio, being dilatory by nature and leisurely over his work, lingered over it so long that he who had given the commission died: wherefore that panel, which was to contain a Christ lying dead in the lap of His Mother, remained unfinished. [Illustration: THE LEGEND OF S. DOMINIC (_After the fresco by =Giovanni Antonio Sogliani=. Florence: S. Marco_) _Anderson_] After these things, when Perino del Vaga, having departed from Genoa on account of his resentment against Prince Doria, was working at Pisa, where the sculptor Stagio da Pietrasanta had begun the execution of the new chapels in marble at the end of the nave of the Duomo, together with that space behind the high-altar, which serves as a sacristy, it was ordained that the said Perino, as will be related in his Life, with other masters, should begin to fill up those adornments of marble with pictures. But Perino being recalled to Genoa, Giovanni Antonio was commissioned to set his hand to the pictures that were to adorn the aforesaid recess behind the high-altar, and to deal in his works with the sacrifices of the Old Testament, as symbols of the Sacrifice of the Most Holy Sacrament, which was there over the centre of the high-altar. Sogliani, then, painted in the first picture the sacrifice that Noah and his sons offered when they had gone forth from the Ark, and afterwards those of Cain and of Abel; which were all highly extolled, but above all that of Noah, because some of the heads and parts of the figures in it were very beautiful. The picture of Abel is charming for its landscapes, which are very well executed, and the head of Abel himself, which is the very presentment of goodness; but quite the opposite is that of Cain, which has the mien of a truly sorry villain. And if Sogliani had pursued the work with energy instead of being dilatory, he would have been charged by the Warden, who had given him his commission and was much pleased with his manner and character, to execute all the work in that Duomo, whereas at that time, in addition to the pictures already mentioned, he painted no more than one panel, which was destined for the chapel wherein Perino had begun to work; and this he finished in Florence, but in such wise that it pleased the Pisans well enough and was held to be very beautiful. In it are the Madonna, S. John the Baptist, S. George, S. Mary Magdalene, S. Margaret, and other saints. His picture, then, having given satisfaction, Sogliani received from the Warden a commission for three other panels, to which he set his hand, but did not finish them in the lifetime of that Warden, in whose place Bastiano della Seta was elected; and he, perceiving that the business was moving but slowly, allotted four pictures for the aforesaid sacristy behind the high-altar to Domenico Beccafumi of Siena, an excellent painter, who dispatched them very quickly, as will be told in the proper place, and also painted a panel there, and other painters executed the rest. Giovanni Antonio, then, working at his leisure, finished two other panels with much diligence, painting in each a Madonna surrounded by many saints. And finally, having made his way to Pisa, he there painted the fourth and last, in which he acquitted himself worse than in any other, either through old age, or because he was competing with Beccafumi, or for some other reason. But the Warden Bastiano, perceiving the slowness of the man, and wishing to bring the work to an end, allotted the three other panels to Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo, who finished two of them, those that are beside the door of the façade. In the one nearer the Campo Santo is Our Lady with the Child in her arms, with S. Martha caressing Him. There, also, on their knees, are S. Cecilia, S. Augustine, S. Joseph, and S. Guido the Hermit, and in the foreground a nude S. Jerome, with S. Luke the Evangelist, and some little boys uplifting a piece of drapery, and others holding flowers. In the other, by the wish of the Warden, he painted another Madonna with her Son in her arms, S. James the Martyr, S. Matthew, S. Sylvester the Pope, and S. Turpè the Chevalier. Having to paint the Madonna, and not wishing to repeat the same composition (although he had varied it much in other respects), he made her with Christ dead in her arms, and those saints as it were round a Deposition from the Cross; and on the crosses, planted on high and made of tree-trunks, are fixed two naked Thieves, surrounded by horses and ministers of the crucifixion, with Joseph, Nicodemus, and the Maries; all for the satisfaction of the Warden, who wished that in those new pictures there should be included all the saints that there had been in the past in the various dismantled chapels, in order to renew their memory in the new works. One picture was still wanting to complete the whole, and this was executed by Bronzino, who painted a nude Christ and eight saints. And in this manner were those chapels brought to completion, all of which Giovanni Antonio could have done with his own hand if he had not been so slow. And since Sogliani had won much favour with the Pisans, after the death of Andrea del Sarto he was commissioned to finish a panel for the Company of S. Francesco, which the said Andrea left only sketched; which panel is now in the building of that Company on the Piazza di S. Francesco at Pisa. The same master executed some rows of cloth-hangings for the Wardens of Works of the aforesaid Duomo, and many others in Florence, because he took pleasure in doing that sort of work, and above all in company with his friend Tommaso di Stefano, a painter of Florence. Being summoned by the Friars of S. Marco in Florence to paint a work in fresco at the head of their refectory, at the expense of one of their number, a lay-brother of the Molletti family, who had possessed a rich patrimony when in the world, Giovanni Antonio wished to paint there the scene of Jesus Christ feeding five thousand persons with five loaves and two fishes, in order to make the most of his powers; and he had already made the design for it, with many women and children and a great multitude of other people, when the friars refused to have that story, saying that they wanted something definite, simple, and familiar. Whereupon, to please them, he painted the scene when S. Dominic, being in the refectory with his friars and having no bread, made a prayer to God, when the table was miraculously covered with bread, brought by two angels in human form. In this work he made portraits of many friars who were then in the convent, which have the appearance of life, and particularly that of the lay-brother of the Molletti family, who is serving at table. Then, in the lunette above the table, he painted S. Dominic at the foot of a Crucifix, with Our Lady and S. John the Evangelist, who are weeping, and at the sides S. Catherine of Siena and S. Antonino, Archbishop of Florence, a brother of their Order. All this, for a work in fresco, was executed with much diligence and a high finish; but Sogliani would have been much more successful if he had executed what he had designed, because painters express the conceptions of their own minds better than those of others. On the other hand, it is only right that he who pays the piper should call the tune. The design for the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes is in the hands of Bartolommeo Gondi, who, in addition to a large picture that he has by the hand of Sogliani, also possesses many drawings and heads painted from life on tinted paper, which he received from the wife of the painter, who had been very much his friend, after his death. And we, also, have in our book some drawings by the same hand, which are beautiful to a marvel. Sogliani began for Giovanni Serristori a large panel-picture which was to be placed in S. Francesco dell' Osservanza, without the Porta a S. Miniato, with a vast number of figures, among which are some marvellous heads, the best that he ever made; but it was left unfinished at the death of the said Giovanni Serristori. Nevertheless, since Giovanni Antonio had received full payment, he finished it afterwards little by little, and gave it to Messer Alamanno di Jacopo Salviati, the son-in-law and heir of Giovanni Serristori; and he presented it, frame and all, to the Nuns of S. Luca, who have it over their high-altar in the Via di S. Gallo. Giovanni Antonio executed many other works in Florence, some of which are in the houses of citizens, and some were sent to various countries; but of these there is no need to make mention, for we have spoken of the most important. Sogliani was an upright person, very religious, always occupied with his own business, and never interfering with his fellow-craftsmen. One of his disciples was Sandrino del Calzolaio, who painted the shrine that is on the Canto delle Murate, and, in the Hospital of the Temple, a S. John the Baptist who is assigning shelter to the poor; and he would have done more work, and good work, if he had not died as young as he did. Another of his disciples was Michele, who afterwards went to work with Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, whose name he took; and likewise Benedetto, who went with Antonio Mini, a disciple of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, to France, where he has executed many beautiful works. And another, finally, was Zanobi di Poggino, who has painted many works throughout the city. In the end, being weary and broken in health after having been long tormented by the stone, Giovanni Antonio rendered up his soul to God at the age of fifty-two. His death was much lamented, for he had been an excellent man, and his manner had been much in favour, since he gave an air of piety to his figures, in such a fashion as pleases those who, delighting little in the highest and most difficult flights of art, love things that are seemly, simple, gracious, and sweet. His body was opened after his death, and in it were found three stones, each as big as an egg; but as long as he lived he would never consent to have them extracted, or to hear a word about them. GIROLAMO DA TREVISO LIFE OF GIROLAMO DA TREVISO PAINTER Rarely does it happen that those who persist in working in the country in which they were born, are exalted by Fortune to that height of prosperity which their talents deserve; whereas, if a man tries many, he must in the end find one wherein sooner or later he succeeds in being recognized. And it often comes to pass that one who attains to the reward of his labours late in life, is prevented by the venom of death from enjoying it for long, even as we shall see in the case of Girolamo da Treviso. This painter was held to be a very good master; and although he was no great draughtsman, he was a pleasing colourist both in oils and in fresco, and a close imitator of the methods of Raffaello da Urbino. He worked much in his native city of Treviso; and he also executed many works in Venice, such as, in particular, the façade of the house of Andrea Udoni, which he painted in fresco, with some friezes of children in the courtyard, and one of the upper apartments: all of which he executed in colour, and not in chiaroscuro, because the Venetians like colour better than anything else. In a large scene in the middle of this façade is a Juno, seen from the thighs upwards, flying on some clouds with the moon on her head, over which are raised her arms, one holding a vase and the other a bowl. He also painted there a Bacchus, fat and ruddy, with a vessel that he is upsetting, and holding with one arm a Ceres who has many ears of corn in her hands. There, too, are the Graces, with five little boys who are flying below and welcoming them, in order, so they signify, to make the house of the Udoni abound with their gifts; and to show that the same house was a friendly haven for men of talent, he painted Apollo on one side and Pallas on the other. This work was executed with great freshness, so that Girolamo gained from it both honour and profit. The same master painted a picture for the Chapel of the Madonna in S. Petronio, in competition with certain painters of Bologna, as will be related in the proper place. And continuing to live in Bologna, he executed many pictures there; and in S. Petronio, in the Chapel of S. Antonio da Padova, he depicted in oils, in imitation of marble, all the stories of the life of the latter Saint, in which, without a doubt, there may be perceived grace, judgment, excellence, and a great delicacy of finish. He painted a panel-picture for S. Salvatore, of the Madonna ascending the steps of the Temple, with some saints; and another of the Madonna in the sky, with some children, and S. Jerome and S. Catherine beneath, which is certainly the weakest work by his hand that is to be seen in Bologna. Over a great portal, also, in Bologna, he painted in fresco a Crucifix with Our Lady and S. John, all worthy of the highest praise. For S. Domenico, at Bologna, he executed a panel-picture in oils of Our Lady with some saints, which is the best of his works; it is near the choir, as one ascends to the tomb of S. Dominic, and in it is the portrait of the patron who had it painted. In like manner, he painted a picture for Count Giovanni Battista Bentivogli, who had the cartoon by the hand of Baldassarre of Siena, representing the story of the Magi: a work which he carried to a very fine completion, although it contained more than a hundred figures. There are also many other works by the hand of Girolamo in Bologna, both in private houses and in the churches. In Galiera he painted in chiaroscuro the façade of the Palace of the Teofamini, with another façade behind the house of the Dolfi, which is considered in the judgment of many craftsmen to be the best work that he ever executed in that city. He went to Trento, and, in company with other painters, painted the palace of the old Cardinal, from which he gained very great fame. Then, returning to Bologna, he gave his attention to the works that he had begun. Now it happened that there was much talk throughout Bologna about having a panel-picture painted for the Della Morte Hospital, for which various designs were made by way of competition, some in drawing and some in colour. And since many thought that they had the first claim, some through interest and others because they held themselves to be most worthy of such a commission, Girolamo was left in the lurch; and considering that he had been wronged, not long afterwards he departed from Bologna. And thus the envy of others raised him to such a height of prosperity as he had never thought of; since, if he had been chosen for the work, it would have impeded the blessings that his good fortune had prepared for him. For, having made his way to England, he was recommended by some friends, who favoured him, to King Henry; and presenting himself before him, he entered into his service, although not as painter, but as engineer. Then, making trial of his skill in various edifices, copied from some in Tuscany and other parts of Italy, that King pronounced them marvellous, rewarded him with a succession of presents, and decreed him a provision of four hundred crowns a year; and he was given the means to build an honourable abode for himself at the expense of the King. Thereupon Girolamo, raised from one extreme of distress to the other extreme of grandeur, lived a most happy and contented life, thanking God and Fortune for having turned his steps to a country where men were so favourable to his talents. But this unwonted happiness was not destined to last long, for the war between the French and the English being continued, and Girolamo being charged with superintending all the work of the bastions and fortifications, the artillery, and the defences of the camp, it happened one day, when the city of Boulogne in Picardy was being bombarded, that a ball from a demi-cannon came with horrid violence and cut him in half on his horse's back. And thus, Girolamo being at the age of thirty-six, his life, his earthly honours, and all his greatness were extinguished at one and the same moment, in the year 1544. POLIDORO DA CARAVAGGIO AND MATURINO LIVES OF POLIDORO DA CARAVAGGIO AND THE FLORENTINE MATURINO PAINTERS In the last age of gold, as the happy age of Leo X might have been called for all noble craftsmen and men of talent, an honoured place was held among the most exalted spirits by Polidoro da Caravaggio, a Lombard, who had not become a painter after long study, but had been created and produced as such by Nature. This master, having come to Rome at the time when the Loggie of the Papal Palace were being built for Leo under the direction of Raffaello da Urbino, carried the pail, or we should rather say the hod, full of lime, for the masons who were doing the work, until he had reached the age of eighteen. But, when Giovanni da Udine had begun to paint there, the building and the painting proceeding together, Polidoro, whose will and inclination were much drawn to painting, could not rest content until he had become intimate with all the most able of the young men, in order to study their methods and manners of art, and to set himself to draw. And out of their number he chose as his companion the Florentine Maturino, who was then working in the Papal Chapel, and was held to be an excellent draughtsman of antiquities. Associating with him, Polidoro became so enamoured of that art, that in a few months, having made trial of his powers, he executed works that astonished every person who had known him in his former condition. On which account, the work of the Loggie proceeding, he exercised his hand to such purpose in company with those young painters, who were well-practised and experienced in painting, and learned the art so divinely well, that he did not leave that work without carrying away the true glory of being considered the most noble and most beautiful intellect that was to be found among all their number. Thereupon the love of Maturino for Polidoro, and of Polidoro for Maturino, so increased, that they determined like brothers and true companions to live and die together; and, uniting their ambitions, their purses, and their labours, they set themselves to work together in the closest harmony and concord. But since there were in Rome many who had great fame and reputation, well justified by their works, for making their paintings more lively and vivacious in colour and more worthy of praise and favour, there began to enter into their minds the idea of imitating the methods of Baldassarre of Siena, who had executed several façades of houses in chiaroscuro, and of giving their attention thenceforward to that sort of work, which by that time had come into fashion. They began one, therefore, on Montecavallo, opposite to S. Silvestro, in company with Pellegrino da Modena, which encouraged them to make further efforts to see whether this should be their profession; and they went on to execute another opposite to the side-door of S. Salvatore del Lauro, and likewise painted a scene by the side-door of the Minerva, with another, which is a frieze of marine monsters, above S. Rocco a Ripetta. And during this first period they painted a vast number of them throughout all Rome, but not so good as the others; and there is no need to mention them here, since they afterwards did better work of that sort. Gaining courage, therefore, from this, they began to study the antiquities of Rome, counterfeiting the ancient works of marble in their works in chiaroscuro, so that there remained no vase, statue, sarcophagus, scene, or any single thing, whether broken or entire, which they did not draw and make use of. And with such constancy and resolution did they give their minds to this pursuit, that they both acquired the ancient manner, the work of the one being so like that of the other, that, even as their minds were guided by one and the same will, so their hands expressed one and the same knowledge. And although Maturino was not as well assisted by Nature as Polidoro, so potent was the faithful imitation of one style by the two in company, that, wherever either of them placed his hand, the work of both one and the other, whether in composition, expression, or manner, appeared to be the same. In the Piazza di Capranica, on the way to the Piazza Colonna, they painted a façade with the Theological Virtues, and a frieze of very beautiful invention beneath the windows, including a draped figure of Rome representing the Faith, and holding the Chalice and the Host in her hands, who has taken captive all the nations of the earth; and all mankind is flocking up to bring her tribute, while the Turks, overcome at the last, are shooting arrows at the tomb of Mahomet; all ending in the words of Scripture, "There shall be one fold and one Shepherd." And, indeed, they had no equals in invention; of which we have witness in all their works, abounding in personal ornaments, vestments, foot-wear, and things bizarre and strange, and executed with an incredible beauty. And another proof is that their works are continually being drawn by all the foreign painters; wherefore they conferred greater benefits on the art of painting with the beautiful manner that they displayed and with their marvellous facility, than have all the others together who have lived from Cimabue downwards. It has been seen continually, therefore, in Rome, and is still seen, that all the draughtsmen are inclined more to the works of Polidoro and Maturino than to all the rest of our modern pictures. In the Borgo Nuovo they executed a façade in sgraffito, and on the Canto della Pace another likewise in sgraffito; with a façade of the house of the Spinoli, not far from that last-mentioned, on the way to the Parione, containing athletic contests according to the custom of the ancients, and their sacrifices, and the death of Tarpeia. Near the Torre di Nona, on the side towards the Ponte S. Angelo, may be seen a little façade with the Triumph of Camillus and an ancient sacrifice. In the road that leads to the Imagine di Ponte, there is a most beautiful façade with the story of Perillus, showing him being placed in the bronze bull that he had made; wherein great effort may be seen in those who are thrusting him into that bull, and terror in those who are waiting to behold a death so unexampled, besides which there is the seated figure of Phalaris (so I believe), ordaining with an imperious air of great beauty the punishment of the inhuman spirit that had invented a device so novel and so cruel in order to put men to death with greater suffering. In this work, also, may be perceived a very beautiful frieze of children, painted to look like bronze, and other figures. Higher up than this they painted the façade of the house where there is the image which is called the Imagine di Ponte, wherein are seen several stories illustrated by them, with the Senatorial Order dressed in the garb of ancient Rome. And in the Piazza della Dogana, beside S. Eustachio, there is a façade of battle-pieces; and within that church, on the right as one enters, may be perceived a little chapel with figures painted by Polidoro. They also executed another above the Farnese Palace for the Cepperelli, and a façade behind the Minerva in the street that leads to the Maddaleni; and in the latter, which contains scenes from Roman history, may be seen, among other beautiful things, a frieze of children in triumph, painted to look like bronze, and executed with supreme grace and extraordinary beauty. On the façade of the Buoni Auguri, near the Minerva, are some very beautiful stories of Romulus, showing him when he is marking out the site of his city with the plough, and when the vultures are flying over him; wherein the vestments, features, and persons of the ancients are so well imitated, that it truly appears as if these were the very men themselves. Certain it is that in that field of art no man ever had such power of design, such practised mastery, a more beautiful manner, or greater facility. And every craftsman is so struck with wonder every time that he sees these works, that he cannot but be amazed at the manner in which Nature has been able in this age to present her marvels to us by means of these men. Below the Corte Savella, also, on the house bought by Signora Costanza, they painted the Rape of the Sabines, a scene which reveals the raging desire of the captors no less clearly than the terror and panic of the wretched women thus carried off by various soldiers, some on horseback and others in other ways. And not only in this one scene are there such conceptions, but also (and even more) in the stories of Mucius and Horatius, and in the Flight of Porsena, King of Tuscany. In the garden of M. Stefano dal Bufalo, near the Fountain of Trevi, they executed some most beautiful scenes of the Fount of Parnassus, in which they made grotesques and little figures, painted very well in colour. On the house of Baldassini, also, near S. Agostino, they executed scenes and sgraffiti, with some heads of Emperors over the windows in the court. On Montecavallo, near S. Agata, they painted a façade with a vast number of different stories, such as the Vestal Tuccia bringing water from the Tiber to the Temple in a sieve, and Claudia drawing the ship with her girdle; and also the rout effected by Camillus while Brennus is weighing the gold. On another wall, round the corner, are Romulus and his brother being suckled by the wolf, and the terrible combat of Horatius, who is defending the head of the bridge, alone against a thousand swords, while behind him are many very beautiful figures in various attitudes, working with might and main to hew away the bridge with pickaxes. There, also, is Mucius Scævola, who, before the eyes of Porsena, is burning his own hand, which had erred in slaying the King's minister in place of the King; and in the King's face may be seen disdain and a desire for vengeance. And within that house they executed a number of landscapes. They decorated the façade of S. Pietro in Vincula, painting therein stories of S. Peter, with some large figures of Prophets. And so widespread was the fame of these masters by reason of the abundance of their work, that the pictures painted by them with such beauty in public places enabled them to win extraordinary praise in their lifetime, with glory infinite and eternal through the number of their imitators after death. On a façade, also, in the square where stands the Palace of the Medici, behind the Piazza Navona, they painted the Triumphs of Paulus Emilius, with a vast number of other Roman stories. And at S. Silvestro di Montecavallo they executed some little things for Fra Mariano, both in the house and in the garden; and in the church they painted his chapel, with two scenes in colour from the life of S. Mary Magdalene, in which the disposition of the landscapes is executed with supreme grace and judgment. For Polidoro, in truth, executed landscapes and groups of trees and rocks better than any other painter, and it is to him that art owes that facility which our modern craftsmen show in their works. They also painted many apartments and friezes in various houses at Rome, executing them with colours in fresco and in distemper; but these works were attempted by them as trials, because they were never able to achieve with colours that beauty which they always displayed in their works in chiaroscuro, in their imitations of bronze, or in terretta. This may still be seen in the house of Torre Sanguigna, which once belonged to the Cardinal of Volterra, on the façade of which they painted a most beautiful decoration in chiaroscuro, and in the interior some figures in colour, the painting of which is so badly executed, that in it they diverted from its true excellence the good design which they always had. And this appeared all the more strange because of there being beside them an escutcheon of Pope Leo, with nude figures, by the hand of Giovan Francesco Vetraio, who would have done extraordinary things if death had not taken him from our midst. However, not cured by this of their insane confidence, they also painted some children in colour for the altar of the Martelli in S. Agostino at Rome, a work which Jacopo Sansovino completed by making a Madonna of marble; and these children appear to be by the hands, not of illustrious masters, but of simpletons just beginning to learn. Whereas, on the side where the altar-cloth covers the altar, Polidoro painted a little scene of a Dead Christ with the Maries, which is a most beautiful work, showing that in truth that sort of work was more their profession than the use of colours. Returning, therefore, to their usual work, they painted two very beautiful façades in the Campo Marzio; one with the stories of Ancus Martius, and the other with the Festivals of the Saturnalia, formerly celebrated in that place, with all the two-horse and four-horse chariots circling round the obelisks, which are held to be most beautiful, because they are so well executed both in design and in nobility of manner, that they reproduce most vividly those very spectacles as representations of which they were painted. On the Canto della Chiavica, on the way to the Corte Savella, they painted a façade which is a divine thing, and is held to be the most beautiful of all the beautiful works that they executed; for, in addition to the story of the maidens passing over the Tiber, there is at the foot, near the door, a Sacrifice painted with marvellous industry and art, wherein may be seen duly represented all the instruments and all those ancient customs that used to have a place in sacrifices of that kind. Near the Piazza del Popolo, below S. Jacopo degli Incurabili, they painted a façade with stories of Alexander the Great, which is held to be very fine; and there they depicted the ancient statues of the Nile and the Tiber from the Belvedere. Near S. Simeone they painted the façade of the Gaddi Palace, which is truly a cause of marvel and amazement, when one observes the lovely vestments in it, so many and so various, and the vast number of ancient helmets, girdles, buskins, and barques, adorned with all the delicacy and abundance of detail that an inventive imagination could conceive. There, with a multitude of beautiful things which overload the memory, are represented all the ways of the ancients, the statues of sages, and most lovely women: and there are all the sorts of ancient sacrifices with their ritual, and an army in the various stages between embarking and fighting with an extraordinary variety of arms and implements, all executed with such grace and finished with such masterly skill, that the eye is dazzled by the vast abundance of beautiful inventions. Opposite to this is a smaller façade, which could not be improved in beauty and variety; and there, in the frieze, is the story of Niobe causing herself to be worshipped, with the people bringing tribute, vases, and various kinds of gifts; which story was depicted by them with such novelty, grace, art, force of relief and genius in every part, that it would certainly take too long to describe the whole. Next, there follows the wrath of Latona, and her terrible vengeance on the children of the over-proud Niobe, whose seven sons are slain by Phoebus and the seven daughters by Diana; with an endless number of figures in imitation of bronze, which appear to be not painted but truly of metal. Above these are executed other scenes, with some vases in imitation of gold, innumerable things of fancy so strange that mortal eye could not picture anything more novel or more beautiful, and certain Etruscan helmets; but one is left confused by the variety and abundance of the conceptions, so beautiful and so fanciful, which issued from their minds. These works have been imitated by a vast number of those who labour at that branch of art. They also painted the courtyard of that house, and likewise the loggia, which they decorated with little grotesques in colour that are held to be divine. In short, all that they touched they brought to perfection with infinite grace and beauty; and if I were to name all their works, I should fill a whole book with the performances of these two masters alone, since there is no apartment, palace, garden, or villa in Rome that does not contain some work by Polidoro and Maturino. Now, while Rome was rejoicing and clothing herself in beauty with their labours, and they were awaiting the reward of all their toil, the envy of Fortune, in the year 1527, sent Bourbon to Rome; and he gave that city over to sack. Whereupon was divided the companionship not only of Polidoro and Maturino, but of all the thousands of friends and relatives who had broken bread together for so many years in Rome. Maturino took to flight, and no long time passed before he died, so it is believed in Rome, of plague, in consequence of the hardships that he had suffered in the sack, and was buried in S. Eustachio. Polidoro turned his steps to Naples; but on his arrival, the noblemen of that city taking but little interest in fine works of painting, he was like to die of hunger. Working, therefore, at the commission of certain painters, he executed a S. Peter in the principal chapel of S. Maria della Grazia; and in this way he assisted those painters in many things, more to save his life than for any other reason. However, the fame of his talents having spread abroad, he executed for Count ... a vault painted in distemper, together with some walls, all of which is held to be very beautiful work. In like manner, he executed a courtyard in chiaroscuro for Signor ..., with some loggie, which are very beautiful, rich in ornaments, and well painted. He also painted for S. Angelo, beside the Pescheria at Naples, a little panel in oils, containing a Madonna and some naked figures of souls in torment, which is held to be most beautiful, but more for the drawing than for the colouring; and likewise some pictures for the Chapel of the High-Altar, each with a single full-length figure, and all executed in the same manner. It came to pass that Polidoro, living in Naples and seeing his talents held in little esteem, determined to take his leave of men who thought more of a horse that could jump than of a master whose hands could give to painted figures the appearance of life. Going on board ship, therefore, he made his way to Messina, where, finding more consideration and more honour, he set himself to work; and thus, working continually, he acquired good skill and mastery in the use of colour. Thereupon he executed many works, which are dispersed in various places; and turning his attention to architecture, he gave proof of his worth in many buildings that he erected. After a time, Charles V passing through Messina on his return from victory in Tunis, Polidoro made in his honour most beautiful triumphal arches, from which he gained vast credit and rewards. And then this master, who was always burning with desire to revisit Rome, which afflicts with an unceasing yearning those who have lived there many years, when making trial of other countries, painted as his last work in Messina a panel-picture of Christ bearing the Cross, executed in oils with much excellence and very pleasing colour. In it he made a number of figures accompanying Christ to His Death--soldiers, pharisees, horses, women, children, and the Thieves in front; and he kept firmly before his mind the consideration of how such an execution must have been marshalled, insomuch that his nature seemed to have striven to show its highest powers in this work, which is indeed most excellent. After this he sought many times to shake himself free of that country, although he was looked upon with favour there; but he had a reason for delay in a woman, beloved by him for many years, who detained him with her sweet words and cajoleries. However, so mightily did his desire to revisit Rome and his friends work in him, that he took from his bank a good sum of money that he possessed, and, wholly determined, prepared to depart. Polidoro had employed as his assistant for a long time a lad of the country, who bore greater love to his master's money than to his master; but, the money being kept, as has been said, in the bank, he was never able to lay his hands upon it and carry it off. Wherefore, an evil and cruel thought entering his head, he resolved to put his master to death with the help of some accomplices, on the following night, while he was sleeping, and then to divide the money with them. And so, assisted by his friends, he set upon Polidoro in his first sleep, while he was slumbering deeply, and strangled him with a cloth. Then, giving him several wounds, they made sure of his death; and in order to prove that it was not they who had done it, they carried him to the door of the woman whom he had loved, making it appear that her relatives or other persons of the house had killed him. The assistant gave a good part of the money to the villains who had committed so hideous an outrage, and bade them be off. In the morning he went in tears to the house of a certain Count, a friend of his dead master, and related the event to him; but for all the diligence that was used for many days in seeking for the perpetrator of the crime, nothing came to light. By the will of God, however, nature and virtue, in disdain at being wounded by the hand of fortune, so worked in one who had no interest in the matter, that he declared it to be impossible that any other but the assistant himself could have committed the murder. Whereupon the Count had him seized and put to the torture, and without the application of any further torment he confessed the crime and was condemned by the law to the gallows; but first he was torn with red-hot pincers on the way to execution, and finally quartered. For all this, however, life was not restored to Polidoro, nor was there given back to the art of painting a genius so resolute and so extraordinary, such as had not been seen in the world for many an age. If, indeed, at the time when he died, invention, grace, and boldness in the painting of figures could have laid down their lives, they would have died with him. Happy was the union of nature and art which embodied a spirit so noble in human form; and cruel was the envy and hatred of his fate and fortune, which robbed him of life with so strange a death, but shall never through all the ages rob him of his name. His obsequies were performed with full solemnity, and he was given burial in the Cathedral Church, lamented bitterly by all Messina, in the year 1543. Great, indeed, is the obligation owed by craftsmen to Polidoro, in that he enriched art with a great abundance of vestments, all different and most strange, and of varied ornaments, and gave grace and adornment to all his works, and likewise made figures of every sort, animals, buildings, grotesques, and landscapes, all so beautiful, that since his day whosoever has aimed at catholicity has imitated him. It is a marvellous thing and a fearsome to see from the example of this master the instability of Fortune and what she can bring to pass, causing men to become excellent in some profession from whom something quite different might have been expected, to the no small vexation of those who have laboured in vain for many years at the same art. It is a marvellous thing, I repeat, to see those same men, after much travailing and striving, brought by that same Fortune to a miserable and most unhappy end at the very moment when they were hoping to enjoy the fruits of their labours; and that with calamities so monstrous and terrible, that pity herself takes to flight, art is outraged, and benefits are repaid with an extraordinary and incredible ingratitude. Wherefore, even as painting may rejoice in the fruitful life of Polidoro, so could he complain of Fortune, which at one time showed herself friendly to him, only to bring him afterwards, when it was least expected, to a dreadful death. IL ROSSO LIFE OF IL ROSSO PAINTER OF FLORENCE Men of account who apply themselves to the arts and pursue them with all their powers are sometimes exalted and honoured beyond measure, at a moment when it was least expected, before the eyes of all the world, as may be seen clearly from the labours that Il Rosso, a painter of Florence, devoted to the art of painting; for if these were not acknowledged in Rome and Florence by those who could reward them, yet in France he found one to recompense him for them, and that in such sort, that his glory might have sufficed to quench the thirst of the most overweening ambition that could possess the heart of any craftsman, be he who he may. Nor could he have obtained in this life greater dignities, honour, or rank, seeing that he was regarded with favour and much esteemed beyond any other man of his profession by a King so great as is the King of France. And, indeed, his merits were such, that, if Fortune had secured less for him, she would have done him a very great wrong, for the reason that Rosso, in addition to his painting, was endowed with a most beautiful presence; his manner of speech was gracious and grave; he was an excellent musician, and had a fine knowledge of philosophy; and what was of greater import than all his other splendid qualities was this, that he always showed the invention of a poet in the grouping of his figures, besides being bold and well-grounded in draughtsmanship, graceful in manner, sublime in the highest flights of imagination, and a master of beautiful composition of scenes. In architecture he showed an extraordinary excellence; and he was always, however poor in circumstances, rich in the grandeur of his spirit. For this reason, whosoever shall follow in the labours of painting the walk pursued by Rosso, must be celebrated without ceasing, as are that master's works, which have no equals in boldness and are executed without effort and strain, since he kept them free of that dry and painful elaboration to which so many subject themselves in order to veil the worthlessness of their works with the cloak of importance. In his youth, Rosso drew from the cartoon of Michelagnolo, and would study art with but few masters, having a certain opinion of his own that conflicted with their manners; as may be seen from a shrine executed in fresco for Piero Bartoli at Marignolle, without the Porta a S. Piero Gattolini in Florence, containing a Dead Christ, wherein he began to show how great was his desire for a manner bold and grand, graceful and marvellous beyond that of all others. While still a beardless boy, at the time when Lorenzo Pucci was made a Cardinal by Pope Leo, he executed over the door of S. Sebastiano de' Servi the arms of the Pucci, with two figures, which made the craftsmen of that day marvel, for no one expected for him such a result as he achieved. Wherefore he so grew in courage, that, after having painted a picture with a half-length figure of Our Lady and a head of S. John the Evangelist for Maestro Jacopo, a Servite friar, who was something of a poet, at his persuasion he painted the Assumption of the Madonna in the cloister of the Servites, beside the scene of the Visitation, which was executed by Jacopo da Pontormo. In this he made a Heaven full of angels, all in the form of little naked children dancing in a circle round the Madonna, foreshortened with a most beautiful flow of outlines and with great grace of manner, as they wheel through the sky: insomuch that, if the colouring had been executed by him with that mature mastery of art which he afterwards came to achieve, he would have surpassed the other scenes by a great measure, even as he actually did equal them in grandeur and excellence of design. He made the Apostles much burdened with draperies, and, indeed, overloaded with their abundance; but the attitudes and some of the heads are more than beautiful. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS (_After the panel by =Il Rosso=. Florence: Uffizi, 47_) _Alinari_] The Director of the Hospital of S. Maria Nuova commissioned him to paint a panel: but when he saw it sketched, having little knowledge of that art, the Saints appeared to him like devils; for it was Rosso's custom in his oil-sketches to give a sort of savage and desperate air to the faces, after which, in finishing them, he would sweeten the expressions and bring them to a proper form. At this the patron fled from his house and would not have the picture, saying that the painter had cheated him. In like manner, over another door that leads into the cloister of the Convent of the Servites, Rosso painted the escutcheon of Pope Leo, with two children; but it is now ruined. And in the houses of citizens may be seen several of his pictures and many portraits. For the visit of Pope Leo to Florence he executed a very beautiful arch on the Canto de' Bischeri. Afterwards he painted a most beautiful picture of the Dead Christ for Signor di Piombino, and also decorated a little chapel for him. At Volterra, likewise, he painted a most lovely Deposition from the Cross. Having therefore grown in credit and fame, he executed for S. Spirito, in Florence, the panel-picture of the Dei family, which they had formerly entrusted to Raffaello da Urbino, who abandoned it because of the cares of the work that he had undertaken in Rome. This picture Rosso painted with marvellous grace, draughtsmanship, and vivacity of colouring. Let no one imagine that any work can display greater force or show more beautifully from a distance than this one, which, on account of the boldness of the figures and the extravagance of the attitudes, no longer employed by any of the other painters, was held to be an extraordinary work. And although it did not bring him much credit at that time, the world has since come little by little to recognize its excellence and has given it abundant praise; for with regard to the blending of colour it would be impossible to excel it, seeing that the lights which are in the brightest parts unite with the lower lights little by little as they merge into the darks, with such sweetness and harmony, and with such masterly skill in the projection of the shadows, that the figures stand out from one another and bring each other into relief by means of the lights and shades. Such vigour, indeed, has this work, that it may be said to have been conceived and executed with more judgment and mastery than any that has ever been painted by any other master, however superior his judgment. For S. Lorenzo, at the commission of Carlo Ginori, he painted a panel-picture of the Marriage of Our Lady, which is held to be a most beautiful work. And, in truth, with regard to his facility of method, there has never been anyone who has been able to surpass him in masterly skill and dexterity, or even to approach within any distance of him; and he was so sweet in colouring, and varied his draperies with such grace, and took such delight in his art, that he was always held to be marvellous and worthy of the highest praise. Whosoever shall observe this work must recognize that all that I have written is most true, above all as he studies the nudes, which are very well conceived, with all the requirements of anatomy. His women are full of grace, and the draperies that adorn them fanciful and bizarre. He showed, also, the sense of fitness that is necessary in the heads of the old, with their harshness of features, and in those of women and children, with expressions sweet and pleasing. He was so rich in invention, that he never had any space left over in his pictures, and he executed all his work with such facility and grace, that it was a marvel. For Giovanni Bandini, also, he painted a picture with some very beautiful nudes, representing the scene of Moses slaying the Egyptian, wherein were things worthy of the highest praise; and this was sent, I believe, into France. And for Giovanni Cavalcanti, likewise, he executed another, which went to England, of Jacob receiving water from the women at the well; this was held to be a divine work, seeing that it contained nudes and women wrought with supreme grace. For women, indeed, he always delighted to paint transparent pieces of drapery, head-dresses with intertwined tresses, and ornaments for their persons. While Rosso was engaged on this work, he was living in the Borgo de' Tintori, the rooms of which look out on the gardens of the Friars of S. Croce; and he took much pleasure in a great ape, which had the intelligence rather of a man than of a beast. For this reason he held it very dear, and loved it like his own self; and since it had a marvellous understanding, he made use of it for many kinds of service. It happened that this beast took a fancy to one of his assistants, by name Battistino, who was a young man of great beauty; and from the signs that his Battistino made to him he understood all that he wished to say. Now against the wall of the rooms at the back, which looked out upon the garden of the friars, was a pergola belonging to the Guardian, loaded with great Sancolombane grapes; and the young men used to let the ape down with a rope to the pergola, which was some distance from their window, and pull the beast up again with his hands full of grapes. The Guardian, finding his pergola stripped, but not knowing the culprit, suspected that it must be mice, and lay in hiding; and seeing Rosso's ape descending, he flew into a rage, seized a long pole, and rushed at him with hands uplifted in order to beat him. The ape, seeing that whether he went up or stayed where he was, the Guardian could reach him, began to spring about and destroy the pergola, and then, making as though to throw himself on the friar's back, seized with both his hands the outermost crossbeams which enclosed the pergola. Meanwhile the friar made play with his pole, and the ape, in his terror, shook the pergola to such purpose, and with such force, that he tore the stakes and rods out of their places, so that both pergola and ape fell headlong on the back of the friar, who shrieked for mercy. The rope was pulled up by Battistino and the others, who brought the ape back into the room safe and sound. Thereupon the Guardian, drawing off and planting himself on a terrace that he had there, said things not to be found in the Mass; and full of anger and resentment he went to the Council of Eight, a tribunal much feared in Florence. There he laid his complaint; and, Rosso having been summoned, the ape was condemned in jest to carry a weight fastened to his tail, to prevent him from jumping on pergole, as he did before. And so Rosso made a wooden cylinder swinging on a chain, and kept it on the ape, in such a way that he could go about the house but no longer jump about over other people's property. The ape, seeing himself condemned to such a punishment, seemed to guess that the friar was responsible. Every day, therefore, he exercised himself in hopping step by step with his legs, holding the weight with his hands; and thus, resting often, he succeeded in his design. For, being one day loose about the house, he hopped step by step from roof to roof, during the hour when the Guardian was away chanting Vespers, and came to the roof over his chamber. There, letting go the weight, he kept up for half an hour such a lovely dance, that not a single tile of any kind remained unbroken. Then he went back home; and within three days, when rain came, were heard the Guardian's lamentations. Rosso, having finished his works, took the road to Rome with Battistino and the ape; in which city his works were sought for with extraordinary eagerness, great expectations having been awakened about them by the sight of some drawings executed by him, which were held to be marvellous, for Rosso drew divinely well and with the highest finish. There, in the Pace, over the pictures of Raffaello, he executed a work which is the worst that he ever painted in all his days. Nor can I imagine how this came to pass, save from a reason which has been seen not only in his case, but also in that of many others, and which appears to be an extraordinary thing, and one of the secrets of nature; and it is this, that he who changes his country or place of habitation seems to change his nature, talents, character, and personal habits, insomuch that sometimes he seems to be not the same man but another, and all dazed and stupefied. This may have happened to Rosso in the air of Rome, and on account of the stupendous works of architecture and sculpture that he saw there, and the paintings and statues of Michelagnolo, which may have thrown him off his balance; which works also drove Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco and Andrea del Sarto to flight, and prevented them from executing anything in Rome. Certain it is, be the cause what it may, that Rosso never did worse; and, what is more, this work has to bear comparison with those of Raffaello da Urbino. At this time he painted for Bishop Tornabuoni, who was his friend, a picture of a Dead Christ supported by two angels, which was a most beautiful piece of work, and is now in the possession of the heirs of Monsignor della Casa. For Baviera he made drawings of all the Gods, for copper-plates, which were afterwards engraved by Jacopo Caraglio; one of them being Saturn changing himself into a horse, and the most noteworthy that of Pluto carrying off Proserpine. He executed a sketch for the Beheading of S. John the Baptist, which is now in a little church on the Piazza de' Salviati in Rome. Meanwhile the sack of the city took place, and poor Rosso was taken prisoner by the Germans and used very ill, for, besides stripping him of his clothes, they made him carry weights on his back barefooted and with nothing on his head, and remove almost the whole stock from a cheesemonger's shop. Thus ill-treated by them, he escaped with difficulty to Perugia, where he was warmly welcomed and reclothed by the painter Domenico di Paris, for whom he drew the cartoon for a panel-picture of the Magi, a very beautiful work, which is to be seen in the house of Domenico. But he did not stay long in that place, for, hearing that Bishop Tornabuoni, who was very much his friend, and had also fled from the sack, had gone to Borgo a San Sepolcro, he made his way thither. There was living at that time in Borgo a San Sepolcro a pupil of Giulio Romano, the painter Raffaello dal Colle; and this master, having undertaken for a small price to paint a panel for S. Croce, the seat of a Company of Flagellants, in his native city, lovingly resigned the commission and gave it to Rosso, to the end that he might leave some example of his handiwork in that place. At this the Company showed resentment, but the Bishop gave him every facility; and when the picture, which brought him credit, was finished, it was set up in S. Croce. The Deposition from the Cross that it contains is something very rare and beautiful, because he rendered in the colours a certain effect of darkness to signify the eclipse that took place at Christ's death, and because it was executed with very great diligence. Afterwards, at Città di Castello, he received the commission for a panel-picture, on which he was about to set to work, when, as it was being primed with gesso, a roof fell upon it and broke it to pieces; while upon him there came a fever so violent, that he was like to die of it, on which account he had himself carried from Castello to Borgo a San Sepolcro. This malady being followed by a quartan fever, he then went on to the Pieve a San Stefano for a change of air, and finally to Arezzo, where he was entertained in the house of Benedetto Spadari, who so went to work with the help of Giovanni Antonio Lappoli of Arezzo and the many friends and relatives that they had, that Rosso was commissioned to paint in fresco a vault previously allotted to the painter Niccolò Soggi, in the Madonna delle Lagrime. And so eager were they that he should leave such a memorial of himself in that city, that he was given a payment of three hundred crowns of gold. Whereupon Rosso began his cartoons in a room that they had allotted to him in a place called Murello; and there he finished four of them. In one he depicted our First Parents, bound to the Tree of the Fall, with Our Lady drawing from their mouths the Sin in the form of the Apple, and beneath her feet the Serpent; and in the air--wishing to signify that she was clothed with the sun and moon--he made nude figures of Phoebus and Diana. In the second is Moses bearing the Ark of the Covenant, represented by Our Lady surrounded by five Virtues. In another is the Throne of Solomon, also represented by the Madonna, to whom votive offerings are being brought, to signify those who have recourse to her for benefits: together with other bizarre fancies, which were conceived by the fruitful brain of M. Giovanni Pollastra, the friend of Rosso and a Canon of Arezzo, in compliment to whom Rosso made a most beautiful model of the whole work, which is now in my house at Arezzo. He also drew for that work a study of nude figures, which is a very choice thing; and it is a pity that it was never finished, for, if he had put it into execution and painted it in oils, instead of having to do it in fresco, it would indeed have been a miracle. But he was ever averse to working in fresco, and therefore went on delaying the execution of the cartoons, meaning to have the work carried out by Raffaello dal Borgo and others, so that in the end it was never done. At that same time, being a courteous person, he made many designs for pictures and buildings in Arezzo and its neighbourhood; among others, one for the Rectors of the Fraternity, of the chapel which is at the foot of the Piazza, wherein there is now the Volto Santo. For the same patrons he drew the design for a panel-picture to be painted by his hand, containing a Madonna with a multitude under her cloak, which was to be set up in the same place; and this design, which was not put into execution, is in our book, together with many other most beautiful drawings by the hand of the same master. But to return to the work that he was to execute in the Madonna delle Lagrime: there came forward as his security for this work Giovanni Antonio Lappoli of Arezzo, his most faithful friend, who gave him proofs of loving kindness with every sort of service. But in the year 1530, when Florence was being besieged, the Aretines, having been restored to liberty by the small judgment of Papo Altoviti, attacked the citadel and razed it to the ground. And because that people looked with little favour on Florentines, Rosso would not trust himself to them, and went off to Borgo a San Sepolcro, leaving the cartoons and designs for his work hidden away in the citadel. Now those who had given him the commission for the panel at Castello, wished him to finish it; but he, on account of the illness that he had suffered at Castello, would not return to that city. He finished their panel, therefore, at Borgo a San Sepolcro; nor would he ever give them the pleasure of a glance at it. In it he depicted a multitude, with Christ in the sky being adored by four figures, and he painted Moors, Gypsies, and the strangest things in the world; but, with the exception of the figures, which are perfect in their excellence, the composition is concerned with anything rather than the wishes of those who ordered the picture of him. At the same time that he was engaged on that work, he disinterred dead bodies in the Vescovado, where he was living, and made a most beautiful anatomical model. Rosso was, in truth, an ardent student of all things relating to art, and few days passed without his drawing some nude from life. He had always had the idea of finishing his life in France, and of thus delivering himself from that misery and poverty which are the lot of men who work in Tuscany, or in the country where they were born; and he resolved to depart. And with a view to appearing more competent in all matters, and to being ignorant of none, he had just learned the Latin tongue; when there came upon him a reason for further hastening his departure. For one Holy Thursday, on which day matins are chanted in the evening, one of his disciples, a young Aretine, being in church, made a blaze of sparks and flames with a lighted candle-end and some resin, at the moment when the "darkness," as they call it, was in progress; and the boy was reproved by some priests, and even struck. Seeing this, Rosso, who had the boy seated at his side, sprang up full of anger against the priests. Thereupon an uproar began, without anyone knowing what it was all about, and swords were drawn against poor Rosso, who was busy with the priests. Taking to flight, therefore, he contrived to regain his own rooms without having been struck or overtaken by anyone. But he held himself to have been affronted; and having finished the panel for Castello, without troubling about his work at Arezzo or the wrong that he was doing to Giovanni Antonio, his security (for he had received more than a hundred and fifty crowns), he set off by night. Taking the road by Pesaro, he made his way to Venice, where, being entertained by Messer Pietro Aretino, he made for him a drawing, which was afterwards engraved, of Mars sleeping with Venus, with the Loves and Graces despoiling him and carrying off his cuirass. Departing from Venice, he found his way into France, where he was received by the Florentine colony with much affection. There he painted some pictures, which were afterwards placed in the Gallery at Fontainebleau; and these he then presented to King Francis, who took infinite pleasure in them, but much more in the presence, speech, and manner of Rosso, who was imposing in person, with red hair in accordance with his name, and serious, deliberate, and most judicious in his every action. The King, then, after straightway granting him an allowance of four hundred crowns, and giving him a house in Paris, which he occupied but seldom, because he lived most of the time at Fontainebleau, where he had rooms and lived like a nobleman, appointed him superintendent over all the buildings, pictures, and other ornaments of that place. [Illustration: THE TRANSFIGURATION (_After the panel by =Il Rosso=. Città da Castello: Duomo_) _Alinari_] There, in the first place, Rosso made a beginning with a gallery over the lower court, which he completed not with a vault, but with a ceiling, or rather, soffit, of woodwork, partitioned most beautifully into compartments. The side-walls he decorated all over with stucco-work, fantastic and bizarre in its distribution, and with carved cornices of many kinds; and on the piers were lifesize figures. Everything below the cornices, between one pier and another, he adorned with festoons of stucco, vastly rich, and others painted, and all composed of most beautiful fruits and every sort of foliage. And then, in a large space, he caused to be painted after his own designs, if what I have heard is true, about twenty-four scenes in fresco, representing, I believe, the deeds of Alexander the Great; for which, as I have said, he made all the designs, executing them in chiaroscuro with water-colours. At the two ends of this gallery are two panel-pictures in oils by his hand, designed and painted with such perfection, that there is little better to be seen in the art of painting. In one of these are a Bacchus and a Venus, executed with marvellous art and judgment. The Bacchus is a naked boy, so tender, soft, and delicate, that he seems to be truly of flesh, yielding to the touch, and rather alive than painted; and about him are some vases painted in imitation of gold, silver, crystal, and various precious stones, so fantastic, and surrounded by devices so many and so bizarre, that whoever beholds this work, with its vast variety of invention, stands in amazement before it. Among other details, also, is a Satyr raising part of a pavilion, whose head, in its strange, goatlike aspect, is a marvel of beauty, and all the more because he seems to be smiling and full of joy at the sight of so beautiful a boy. There is also a little boy riding on a wonderful bear, with many other ornaments full of grace and beauty. In the other picture are Cupid and Venus, with other lovely figures; but the figure to which Rosso gave the greatest attention was the Cupid, whom he represented as a boy of twelve, although well grown, riper in features than is expected at that age, and most beautiful in every part. The King, seeing these works, and liking them vastly, conceived an extraordinary affection for Rosso; wherefore no long time passed before he gave him a Canonicate in the Sainte Chapelle of the Madonna at Paris, with so many other revenues and benefits, that Rosso lived like a nobleman, with a goodly number of servants and horses, giving banquets and showing all manner of courtesies to all his friends and acquaintances, especially to the Italian strangers who arrived in those parts. After this, he executed another hall, which is called the Pavilion, because it is in the form of a Pavilion, being above the rooms on the first floor, and thus situated above any of the others. This apartment he decorated from the level of the floor to the roof with a great variety of beautiful ornaments in stucco, figures in the round distributed at equal intervals, and children, festoons, and various kinds of animals. In the compartments on the walls are seated figures in fresco, one in each; and such is their number, that there may be seen among them images of all the Heathen Gods and Goddesses of the ancients. Last of all, above the windows, is a frieze all adorned with stucco, and very rich, but without pictures. He then executed a vast number of works in many chambers, bathrooms, and other apartments, both in stucco and in painting, of some of which drawings may be seen, executed in engraving and published abroad, which are full of grace and beauty; as are also the numberless designs that Rosso made for salt-cellars, vases, bowls, and other things of fancy, all of which the King afterwards caused to be executed in silver; but these were so numerous that it would take too long to mention them all. Let it be enough to say that he made designs for all the vessels of a sideboard for the King, and for all the details of the trappings of horses, triumphal masquerades, and everything else that it is possible to imagine, showing in these such fantastic and bizarre conceptions, that no one could do better. In the year 1540, when the Emperor Charles V went to France under the safeguard of King Francis, and visited Fontainebleau, having with him not more than twelve men, Rosso executed one half of the decorations that the King ordained in order to honour that great Emperor, and the other half was executed by Francesco Primaticcio of Bologna. The works that Rosso made, such as arches, colossal figures, and other things of that kind, were, so it was said at the time, the most astounding that had ever been made by any man up to that age. But a great part of the rooms finished by Rosso at the aforesaid Palace of Fontainebleau were destroyed after his death by the same Francesco Primaticcio, who has made a new and larger structure in the same place. Among those who worked with Rosso on the aforesaid decorations in stucco and relief, and beloved by him beyond all the others, were the Florentine Lorenzo Naldino, Maestro Francesco of Orleans, Maestro Simone of Paris, Maestro Claudio, likewise a Parisian, Maestro Lorenzo of Picardy, and many others. But the best of them all was Domenico del Barbieri, who is an excellent painter and master of stucco, and a marvellous draughtsman, as is proved by his engraved works, which may be numbered among the best in common circulation. The painters, likewise, whom he employed in those works at Fontainebleau, were Luca Penni, brother of Giovan Francesco Penni, called Il Fattore, who was a disciple of Raffaello da Urbino; the Fleming Leonardo, a very able painter, who executed the designs of Rosso to perfection in colours; Bartolommeo Miniati, a Florentine; with Francesco Caccianimici, and Giovan Battista da Bagnacavallo. These last entered his service when Francesco Primaticcio went by order of the King to Rome, to make moulds of the Laocoon, the Apollo, and many other choice antiquities, for the purpose of casting them afterwards in bronze. I say nothing of the carvers, the master-joiners, and innumerable others of whom Rosso availed himself in those works, because there is no need to speak of them all, although many of them executed works worthy of much praise. In addition to the things mentioned above, Rosso executed with his own hand a S. Michael, which is a rare work. For the Constable he painted a panel-picture of the Dead Christ, a choice thing, which is at a seat of that noble, called Ecouen; and he also executed some exquisite miniatures for the King. He then drew a book of anatomical studies, intending to have it printed in France; of which there are some sheets by his own hand in our book of drawings. Among his possessions, also, after he was dead, were found two very beautiful cartoons, in one of which is a Leda of singular beauty, and in the other the Tiburtine Sibyl showing to the Emperor Octavian the Glorious Virgin with the Infant Christ in her arms. In the latter he drew the King, the Queen, their Guard, and the people, with such a number of figures, and all so well drawn, that it may be said with truth that this was one of the most beautiful things that Rosso ever did. By reason of these works and many others, of which nothing is known, he became so dear to the King, that a little before his death he found himself in possession of more than a thousand crowns of income, without counting the allowances for his work, which were enormous; insomuch that, living no longer as a painter, but rather as a prince, he kept a number of servants and horses to ride, and had his house filled with tapestries, silver, and other valuable articles of furniture. But Fortune, who never, or very seldom, maintains for long in high estate one who puts his trust too much in her, brought him headlong down in the strangest manner ever known. For while Francesco di Pellegrino, a Florentine, who delighted in painting and was very much his friend, was associating with him in the closest intimacy, Rosso was robbed of some hundreds of ducats; whereupon the latter, suspecting that no one but the same Francesco could have done this, had him arrested by the hands of justice, rigorously examined, and grievously tortured. But he, knowing himself innocent, and declaring nothing but the truth, was finally released; and, moved by just anger, he was forced to show his resentment against Rosso for the shameful charge that he had falsely laid upon him. Having therefore issued a writ for libel against him, he pressed him so closely, that Rosso, not being able to clear himself or make any defence, felt himself to be in a sorry plight, perceiving that he had not only accused his friend falsely, but had also stained his own honour; and to eat his words, or to adopt any other shameful method, would likewise proclaim him a false and worthless man. Resolving, therefore, to kill himself by his own hand rather than be punished by others, he took the following course. One day that the King happened to be at Fontainebleau, he sent a peasant to Paris for a certain most poisonous essence, pretending that he wished to use it for making colours or varnishes, but intending to poison himself, as he did. The peasant, then, returned with it; and such was the malignity of the poison, that, merely through holding his thumb over the mouth of the phial, carefully stopped as it was with wax, he came very near losing that member, which was consumed and almost eaten away by the deadly potency of the poison. And shortly afterwards it slew Rosso, although he was in perfect health, he having drunk it to the end that it might take his life, as it did in a few hours. This news, being brought to the King, grieved him beyond measure, since it seemed to him that by the death of Rosso he had lost the most excellent craftsman of his day. However, to the end that the work might not suffer, he had it carried on by Francesco Primaticcio of Bologna, who, as has been related, had already done much work for him; giving him a good Abbey, even as he had presented a Canonicate to Rosso. Rosso died in the year 1541, leaving great regrets behind him among his friends and brother-craftsmen, who have learned by his example what benefits may accrue from a prince to one who is eminent in every field of art, and well-mannered and gentle in all his actions, as was that master, who for many reasons deserved, and still deserves, to be admired as one truly most excellent. BARTOLOMMEO DA BAGNACAVALLO AND OTHERS LIVES OF BARTOLOMMEO DA BAGNACAVALLO, AND OTHER PAINTERS OF ROMAGNA It is certain that the result of emulation in the arts, caused by a desire for glory, proves for the most part to be one worthy of praise; but when it happens that the aspirant, through presumption and arrogance, comes to hold an inflated opinion of himself, in course of time the name for excellence that he seeks may be seen to dissolve into mist and smoke, for the reason that there is no advance to perfection possible for him who knows not his own failings and has no fear of the work of others. More readily does hope mount towards proficience for those modest and studious spirits who, leading an upright life, honour the works of rare masters and imitate them with all diligence, than for those who have their heads full of smoky pride, as had Bartolommeo da Bagnacavallo, Amico of Bologna, Girolamo da Cotignola, and Innocenzio da Imola, painters all, who, living in Bologna at one and the same time, felt the greatest jealousy of one another that could possibly be imagined. And, what is more, their pride and vainglory, not being based on the foundation of ability, led them astray from the true path, which brings to immortality those who strive more from love of good work than from rivalry. This circumstance, then, was the reason that they did not crown the good beginnings that they had made with that final excellence which they expected; for their presuming to the name of masters turned them too far aside from the good way. Bartolommeo da Bagnacavallo had come to Rome in the time of Raffaello, in order to attain with his works to that perfection which he believed himself to be already grasping with his intellect. And being a young man who had some fame at Bologna and had awakened expectations, he was set to execute a work in the Church of the Pace at Rome, in the first chapel on the right hand as one enters the church, above the chapel of Baldassarre Peruzzi of Siena. But, thinking that he had not achieved the success that he had promised himself, he returned to Bologna. There he and the others mentioned above, in competition one with another, executed each a scene from the Lives of Christ and His Mother in the Chapel of the Madonna in S. Petronio, near the door of the façade, on the right hand as one enters the church; among which little difference in merit is to be seen between one and another. But Bartolommeo acquired from this work the reputation of having a manner both softer and stronger than the others; and although there is a vast number of strange things in the scene of Maestro Amico, in which he depicted the Resurrection of Christ with armed men in crouching and distorted attitudes, and many soldiers crushed flat by the stone of the Sepulchre, which has fallen upon them, nevertheless that of Bartolommeo, as having more unity of design and colouring, was more extolled by other craftsmen. On account of this Bartolommeo associated himself with Biagio Bolognese, a person with much more practice than excellence in art; and they executed in company at S. Salvatore, for the Frati Scopetini, a refectory which they painted partly in fresco and partly "a secco," containing the scene of Christ satisfying five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes. They painted, also, on a wall of the library, the Disputation of S. Augustine, wherein they made a passing good view in perspective. These masters, thanks to having seen the works of Raffaello and associated with him, had a certain quality which, upon the whole, gave promise of excellence, but in truth they did not attend as they should have done to the more subtle refinements of art. Yet, since there were no painters in Bologna at that time who knew more than they did, they were held by those who then governed the city, as well as by all the people, to be the best masters in Italy. [Illustration: THE HOLY FAMILY WITH SAINTS (_After the panel by =Bartolommeo da Bagnacavallo=. Bologna: Accademia, 133_) _Anderson_] By the hand of Bartolommeo are some round pictures in fresco under the vaulting of the Palace of the Podestà, and a scene of the Visitation of S. Elizabeth in S. Vitale, opposite to the Palace of the Fantucci. In the Convent of the Servites at Bologna, round a panel-picture of the Annunciation painted in oils, are some saints executed in fresco by Innocenzio da Imola. In S. Michele in Bosco Bartolommeo painted in fresco the Chapel of Ramazzotto, a faction-leader in Romagna. In a chapel in S. Stefano the same master painted two saints in fresco, with some little angels of considerable beauty in the sky; and in S. Jacopo, for Messer Annibale del Corello, a chapel in which he represented the Circumcision of Our Lord, with a number of figures, above which, in a lunette, he painted Abraham sacrificing his son to God. This work, in truth, was executed in a good and able manner. For the Misericordia, without Bologna, he painted a little panel-picture in distemper of Our Lady and some saints; with many pictures and other works, which are in the hands of various persons in that city. This master, in truth, was above mediocrity both in the uprightness of his life and in his works, and he was superior to the others in drawing and invention, as may be seen from a drawing in our book, wherein is Jesus Christ, as a boy, disputing with the Doctors in the Temple, with a building executed with good mastery and judgment. In the end, he finished his life at the age of fifty-eight. He had always been much envied by Amico of Bologna, an eccentric man of extravagant brain, whose figures, executed by him throughout all Italy, but particularly in Bologna, where he spent most of his time, are equally eccentric and even mad, if one may say so. If, indeed, the vast labour which Amico devoted to drawing had been pursued with a settled object, and not by caprice, he might perchance have surpassed many whom we regard as rare and able men. And even so, such is the value of persistent labour, that it is not possible that out of a mass of work there should not be found some that is good and worthy of praise; and such, among the vast number of works that this master executed, is a façade in chiaroscuro on the Piazza de' Marsigli, wherein are many historical pictures, with a frieze of animals fighting together, very spirited and well executed, which is almost the best work that he ever painted. He painted another façade at the Porta di S. Mammolo, and a frieze round the principal chapel of S. Salvatore, so extravagant and so full of absurdities that it would provoke laughter in one who was on the verge of tears. In a word, there is no church or street in Bologna which has not some daub by the hand of this master. In Rome, also, he painted not a little; and in S. Friano, at Lucca, he filled a chapel with inventions fantastic and bizarre, among which are some things worthy of praise, such as the stories of the Cross and some of S. Augustine. In these are innumerable portraits of distinguished persons of that city; and, to tell the truth, this was one of the best works that Maestro Amico ever executed with colours in fresco. In S. Jacopo, at Bologna, he painted at the altar of S. Niccola some stories of the latter Saint, and below these a frieze with views in perspective, which deserve to be extolled. When the Emperor Charles V visited Bologna, Amico made a triumphal arch, for which Alfonso Lombardi executed statues in relief, at the gate of the Palace. And it is no marvel that the work of Amico revealed skill of hand rather than any other quality, for it is said that, like the eccentric and extraordinary person that he was, he went through all Italy drawing and copying every work of painting or relief, whether good or bad, on which account he became something of an adept in invention; and when he found anything likely to be useful to him, he laid his hands upon it eagerly, and then destroyed it, so that no one else might make use of it. The result of all this striving was that he acquired the strange, mad manner that we know. Finally, having reached the age of seventy, what with his art and the eccentricity of his life, he became raving mad, at which Messer Francesco Guicciardini, a noble Florentine, and a most trustworthy writer of the history of his own times, who was then Governor of Bologna, found no small amusement, as did the whole city. Some people, however, believe that there was some method mixed with this madness of his, because, having sold some property for a small price while he was mad and in very great straits, he asked for it back again when he regained his sanity, and recovered it under certain conditions, since he had sold it, so he said, when he was mad. I do not swear, indeed, that this is true, for it may have been otherwise; but I do say that I have often heard the story told. [Illustration: THE ADORATION (_After the panel by =Amico of Bologna [Amico Aspertini]=. Bologna: Pinacoteca, 297_) _Alinari_] Amico also gave his attention to sculpture, and executed to the best of his ability, in marble, a Dead Christ with Nicodemus supporting Him. This work, which he treated in the manner seen in his pictures, is on the right within the entrance of the Church of S. Petronio. He used to paint with both hands at the same time, holding in one the brush with the bright colour, and in the other that with the dark. But the best joke of all was that he had his leather belt hung all round with little pots full of tempered colours, so that he looked like the Devil of S. Macario with all those flasks of his; and when he worked with his spectacles on his nose, he would have made the very stones laugh, and particularly when he began to chatter, for then he babbled enough for twenty, saying the strangest things in the world, and his whole demeanour was a comedy. Certain it is that he never used to speak well of any person, however able or good, and however well dowered he saw him to be by Nature or Fortune. And, as has been said, he so loved to chatter and tell stories, that one evening, at the hour of the Ave Maria, when a painter of Bologna, after buying cabbages in the Piazza, came upon Amico, the latter kept him under the Loggia del Podestà with his talk and his amusing stories, without the poor man being able to break away from him, almost till daylight, when Amico said: "Now go and boil your cabbages, for the time is getting on." He was the author of a vast number of other jokes and follies, of which I shall not make mention, because it is now time to say something of Girolamo da Cotignola. This master painted many pictures and portraits from life in Bologna, and among them are two in the house of the Vinacci, which are very beautiful. He made a portrait after death of Monsignore de Foix, who died in the rout of Ravenna, and not long after he executed a portrait of Massimiliano Sforza. For S. Giuseppe he painted a panel-picture which brought him much praise, and, for S. Michele in Bosco, the panel-picture in oils which is in the Chapel of S. Benedetto. The latter work led to his executing, in company with Biagio Bolognese, all the scenes which are round that church, laid on in fresco and executed "a secco," wherein are seen proofs of no little mastery, as has been said in speaking of the manner of Biagio. The same Girolamo painted a large altar-piece for S. Colomba at Rimini, in competition with Benedetto da Ferrara and Lattanzio, in which work he made a S. Lucia rather wanton than beautiful. And in the great tribune of that church he executed a Coronation of Our Lady, with the twelve Apostles and the four Evangelists, with heads so gross and hideous that they are an outrage to the eye. He then returned to Bologna, but had not been there long when he went to Rome, where he made portraits from life of many men of rank, and in particular that of Pope Paul III. But, perceiving that it was no place for him, and that he was not likely to acquire honour, profit, or fame among so many noble craftsmen, he went off to Naples, where he found some friends who showed him favour, and above all M. Tommaso Cambi, a Florentine merchant, and a devoted lover of pictures and antiquities in marble, by whom he was supplied with everything of which he was in need. Thereupon, setting to work, he executed a panel-picture of the Magi, in oils, for the chapel of one M. Antonello, Bishop of I know not what place, in Monte Oliveto, and another panel-picture in oils for S. Aniello, containing the Madonna, S. Paul, and S. John the Baptist, with portraits from life for many noblemen. Being now well advanced in years, he lived like a miser, and was always trying to save money; and after no long time, having little more to do in Naples, he returned to Rome. There some friends of his, having heard that he had saved a few crowns, persuaded him that he ought to get married and live a properly-regulated life. And so, thinking that he was doing well for himself, he let those friends deceive him so completely that they imposed upon him for a wife, to suit their own convenience, a prostitute whom they had been keeping. Then, after he had married her and come to a knowledge of her, the truth was revealed, at which the poor old man was so grieved that he died in a few weeks at the age of sixty-nine. And now to say something of Innocenzio da Imola. This master was for many years in Florence with Mariotto Albertinelli; and then, having returned to Imola, he executed many works in that place. But finally, at the persuasion of Count Giovan Battista Bentivogli, he went to live in Bologna, where one of his first works was a copy of a picture formerly executed by Raffaello da Urbino for Signor Leonello da Carpi. And for the Monks of S. Michele in Bosco he painted in fresco, in their chapter-house, the Death of Our Lady and the Resurrection of Christ, works which were executed with truly supreme diligence and finish. For the church of the same monks, also, he painted the panel of the high-altar, the upper part of which is done in a good manner. For the Servites of Bologna he executed an Annunciation on panel, and for S. Salvatore a Crucifixion, with many pictures of various kinds throughout the whole city. At the Viola, for the Cardinal of Ivrea, he painted three loggie in fresco, each containing two scenes, executed in colour from designs by other painters, and yet finished with much diligence. He painted in fresco a chapel in S. Jacopo, and for Madonna Benozza a panel-picture in oils, which was not otherwise than passing good. He made a portrait, also, besides many others, of Cardinal Francesco Alidosio, which I have seen at Imola, together with the portrait of Cardinal Bernardino Carvajal, and both are works of no little beauty. Innocenzio was a very good and modest person, and therefore always avoided any dealings or intercourse with the painters of Bologna, who were quite the opposite in nature, and he was always exerting himself beyond the limits of his strength; wherefore, when he fell sick of a putrid fever at the age of fifty-six, it found him so weak and exhausted that it killed him in a few days. He left unfinished, or rather, scarcely begun, a work that he had undertaken without Bologna, and this was completed to perfection, according to the arrangement made by Innocenzio before his death, by Prospero Fontana, a painter of Bologna. The works of all the above-named painters date from 1506 to 1542, and there are drawings by the hands of them all in our book. [Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF S. CATHARINE (_After the painting by =Innocenzio da Imola=. Bologna: S. Giacomo Maggiore_) _Alinari_] FRANCIABIGIO LIFE OF FRANCIABIGIO [_FRANCIA_] PAINTER OF FLORENCE The fatigues that a man endures in this life in order to raise himself from the ground and protect himself from poverty, succouring not only himself but also his nearest and dearest, have such virtue, that the sweat and the hardships become full of sweetness, and bring comfort and nourishment to the minds of others, insomuch that Heaven, in its bounty, perceiving one drawn to a good life and to upright conduct, and also filled with zeal and inclination for the studies of the sciences, is forced to be benign and favourably disposed towards him beyond its wont; as it was, in truth, towards the Florentine painter Francia. This master, having applied himself to the art of painting for a just and excellent reason, laboured therein not so much out of a desire for fame as from a wish to bring assistance to his needy relatives; and having been born in a family of humble artisans, people of low degree, he sought to raise himself from that position. In this effort he was much spurred by his rivalry with Andrea del Sarto, then his companion, with whom for a long time he shared both work-room and the painter's life; on account of which life they made great proficience, one through the other, in the art of painting. Francia learned the first principles of art in his youth by living for some months with Mariotto Albertinelli. And being much inclined to the study of perspective, at which he was always working out of pure delight, while still quite young he gained a reputation for great ability in Florence. The first works painted by him were a S. Bernard executed in fresco in S. Pancrazio, a church opposite to his own house, and a S. Catharine of Siena, executed likewise in fresco, on a pilaster in the Chapel of the Rucellai; whereby, exerting himself in that art, he gave proofs of his fine qualities. Much more, even, was he established in repute by a picture which is in a little chapel in S. Pietro Maggiore, containing Our Lady with the Child in her arms, and a little S. John caressing Jesus Christ. He also gave proof of his excellence in a shrine executed in fresco, in which he painted the Visitation of Our Lady, on a corner of the Church of S. Giobbe, behind the Servite Convent in Florence. In the figure of that Madonna may be seen a goodness truly appropriate, with profound reverence in that of the older woman; and the S. Job he painted poor and leprous, and also rich and restored to health. This work so revealed his powers that he came into credit and fame; whereupon the men who were the rulers of that church and brotherhood gave him the commission for the panel-picture of their high-altar, in which Francia acquitted himself even better; and in that work he painted a Madonna, and S. Job in poverty, and made a portrait of himself in the face of S. John the Baptist. There was built at that time, in S. Spirito at Florence, the Chapel of S. Niccola, in which was placed a figure of that Saint in the round, carved in wood from the model by Jacopo Sansovino; and Francia painted two little angels in two square pictures in oils, one on either side of that figure, which were much extolled, and also depicted the Annunciation in two round pictures; and the predella he adorned with little figures representing the miracles of S. Nicholas, executed with such diligence that he deserves much praise for them. In S. Pietro Maggiore, by the door, and on the right hand as one enters the church, is an Annunciation by his hand, wherein he made the Angel still flying through the sky, and the Madonna receiving the Salutation on her knees, in a most graceful attitude; and he drew there a building in perspective, which was a masterly thing, and was much extolled. And, in truth, although Francia had a somewhat dainty manner, because he was very laborious and constrained in his work, nevertheless he showed great care and diligence in giving the true proportions of art to his figures. [Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN (_After the fresco by =Franciabigio [Francia]=. Florence: SS. Annunziata_) _Anderson_] He was commissioned to execute a scene in the cloister in front of the Church of the Servites, in competition with Andrea del Sarto; and there he painted the Marriage of Our Lady, wherein may be clearly recognized the supreme faith of Joseph, who shows in his face as much awe as joy at his marriage with her. Besides this, Francia painted there one who is giving him some blows, as is the custom in our own day, in memory of the wedding; and in a nude figure he expressed very happily the rage and disappointment that drive him to break his rod, which had not blossomed, the drawing of which, with many others, is in our book. In the company of Our Lady, also, he painted some women with most beautiful expressions and head-dresses, things in which he always delighted. And in all this scene he did not paint a single thing that was not very well considered; as is, for example, a woman with a child in her arms, who, turning to go home, has cuffed another child, who has sat down in tears and refuses to go, pressing one hand against his face in a very graceful manner. Certain it is that he executed every detail in this scene, whether large or small, with much diligence and love, on account of the burning desire that he had to show therein to craftsmen and to all other good judges how great was his respect for the difficulties of art, and how successfully he could solve them by faithful imitation. Not long after this, on the occasion of a festival, the friars wished that the scenes of Andrea, and likewise that of Francia, should be uncovered; and the night after Francia had finished his with the exception of the base, they were so rash and presumptuous as to uncover them, not thinking, in their ignorance of art, that Francia would want to retouch or otherwise change his figures. In the morning, both the painting of Francia and those of Andrea were open to view, and the news was brought to Francia that Andrea's works and his own had been uncovered; at which he felt such resentment, that he was like to die of it. Seized with anger against the friars on account of their presumption and the little respect that they had shown to him, he set off at his best speed and came up to the work; and then, climbing on to the staging, which had not yet been taken to pieces, although the painting had been uncovered, and seizing a mason's hammer that was there, he beat some of the women's heads to fragments, and destroyed that of the Madonna, and also tore almost completely away from the wall, plaster and all, a nude figure that is breaking a rod. Hearing the noise, the friars ran up, and, with the help of some laymen, seized his hands, to prevent him from destroying it completely. But, although in time they offered to give him double payment, he, on account of the hatred that he had conceived for them, would never restore it. By reason of the reverence felt by other painters both for him and for the work, they have refused to finish it; and so it remains, even in our own day, as a memorial of that event. This fresco is executed with such diligence and so much love, and it is so beautiful in its freshness, that Francia may be said to have worked better in fresco than any man of his time, and to have blended and harmonized his paintings in fresco better than any other, without needing to retouch the colours; wherefore he deserves to be much extolled both for this and for his other works. At Rovezzano, without the Porta alla Croce, near Florence, he painted a shrine with a Christ on the Cross and some saints; and in S. Giovannino, at the Porta a S. Piero Gattolini, he executed a Last Supper of the Apostles in fresco. No long time after, on the departure for France of the painter Andrea del Sarto, who had begun to paint the stories of S. John the Baptist in chiaroscuro in a cloister of the Company of the Scalzo at Florence, the men of that Company, desiring to have that work finished, engaged Francia, to the end that he, being an imitator of the manner of Andrea, might complete the paintings begun by the other. Thereupon Francia executed the decorations right round one part of that cloister, and finished two of the scenes, which he painted with great diligence. These are, first S. John the Baptist obtaining leave from his father Zacharias to go into the desert, and then the meeting of Christ and S. John on the way, with Joseph and Mary standing there and beholding them embrace one another. But more than this he did not do, on account of the return of Andrea, who then went on to finish the rest of the work. With Ridolfo Ghirlandajo he prepared a most beautiful festival for the marriage of Duke Lorenzo, with two sets of scenery for the dramas that were performed, executing them with much method, masterly judgment, and grace; on account of which he acquired credit and favour with that Prince. This service was the reason that he received the commission for gilding the ceiling of the Hall of Poggio a Caiano, in company with Andrea di Cosimo. And afterwards, in competition with Andrea del Sarto and Jacopo da Pontormo, he began, on a wall in that hall, the scene of Cicero being carried in triumph by the citizens of Rome. This work had been undertaken by the liberality of Pope Leo, in memory of his father Lorenzo, who had caused the edifice to be built, and had ordained that it should be painted with scenes from ancient history and other ornaments according to his pleasure. And these had been entrusted by the learned historian, M. Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, who was then chief in authority near the person of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, to Andrea del Sarto, Jacopo da Pontormo, and Franciabigio, that they might demonstrate the power and perfection of their art in the work, each receiving thirty crowns every month from the magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici. Thereupon Francia executed on his part, to say nothing of the beauty of the scene, some buildings in perspective, very well proportioned. But the work remained unfinished on account of the death of Leo; and afterwards, in the year 1532, it was begun again by Jacopo da Pontormo at the commission of Duke Alessandro de' Medici, but he lingered over it so long, that the Duke died and it was once more left unfinished. But to return to Francia; so ardent was his love for the matters of art, that there was no summer day on which he did not draw some study of a nude figure from the life in his work-room, and to that end he always kept men in his pay. For S. Maria Nuova, at the request of Maestro Andrea Pasquali, an excellent physician of Florence, he executed an anatomical figure, in consequence of which he made a great advance in the art of painting, and pursued it ever afterwards with more zeal. He then painted in the Convent of S. Maria Novella, in the lunette over the door of the library, a S. Thomas confuting the heretics with his learning, a work which is executed with diligence and a good manner. There, among other details, are two children who serve to uphold an escutcheon in the ornamental border; and these are very fine, full of the greatest beauty and grace, and painted in a most lovely manner. He also executed a picture with little figures for Giovanni Maria Benintendi, in competition with Jacopo da Pontormo, who painted another of the same size for that patron, containing the story of the Magi; and two others were painted by Francesco d' Albertino.[12] In his work Francia represented the scene of David seeing Bathsheba in her bath; and there he painted some women in a manner too smooth and dainty, and drew a building in perspective, wherein is David giving letters to the messengers, who are to carry them to the camp to the end that Uriah the Hittite may meet his death; and under a loggia he painted a royal banquet of great beauty. This work contributed greatly to the fame and honour of Francia, who, if he had much ability for large figures, had much more for little figures. Francia also made many most beautiful portraits from life; one, in particular, for Matteo Sofferroni, who was very much his friend, and another for a countryman, the steward of Pier Francesco de' Medici at the Palace of S. Girolamo da Fiesole, which seems absolutely alive, with many others. And since he undertook any kind of work without being ashamed, so long as he was pursuing his art, he set his hand to whatever commission was given to him; wherefore, in addition to many works of the meanest kind, he painted a most beautiful "Noli me tangere" for the cloth-weaver Arcangelo, at the top of a tower that serves as a terrace, in Porta Rossa; with an endless number of other trivial works, executed by Francia because he was a person of sweet and kindly nature and very obliging, of which there is no need to say more. [Illustration: FRANCIABIGIO: PORTRAIT OF A MAN (_Vienna: Collection of Prince Liechtenstein._ _Canvas_)] This master loved to live in peace, and for that reason would never take a wife; and he was always repeating the trite proverb, "The fruits of a wife are cares and strife." He would never leave Florence, because, having seen some works by Raffaello da Urbino, and feeling that he was not equal to that great man and to many others of supreme renown, he did not wish to compete with craftsmen of such rare excellence. In truth, the greatest wisdom and prudence that a man can possess is to know himself, and to refrain from exalting himself beyond his true worth. And, finally, having acquired much by constant work, for one who was not endowed by nature with much boldness of invention or with any powers but those that he had gained by long study, he died in the year 1524 at the age of forty-two. One of Francia's disciples was his brother Agnolo, who died after having painted a frieze that is in the cloister of S. Pancrazio, and a few other works. The same Agnolo painted for the perfumer Ciano, an eccentric man, but respected after his kind, a sign for his shop, containing a gipsy woman telling the fortune of a lady in a very graceful manner, which was the idea of Ciano, and not without mystic meaning. Another who learnt to paint from the same master was Antonio di Donnino Mazzieri, who was a bold draughtsman, and showed much invention in making horses and landscapes. He painted in chiaroscuro the cloister of S. Agostino at Monte Sansovino, executing therein scenes from the Old Testament, which were much extolled. In the Vescovado of Arezzo he painted the Chapel of S. Matteo, with a scene, among other things, showing that Saint baptizing a King, in which he made a portrait of a German, so good that it seems to be alive. For Francesco del Giocondo he executed the story of the Martyrs in a chapel behind the choir of the Servite Church in Florence; but in this he acquitted himself so badly, that he lost all his credit and was reduced to undertaking any sort of work. Francia taught his art also to a young man named Visino, who, to judge from what we see of him, would have become an excellent painter, if he had not died young, as he did; and to many others, of whom I shall make no further mention. He was buried by the Company of S. Giobbe in S. Pancrazio, opposite to his own house, in the year 1525; and his death was truly a great grief to all good craftsmen, seeing that he had been a talented and skilful master, and very modest in his every action. FOOTNOTE: [12] Francesco Ubertini, called Il Bacchiacca. MORTO DA FELTRO AND ANDREA DI COSIMO FELTRINI LIVES OF MORTO DA FELTRO AND OF ANDREA DI COSIMO FELTRINI PAINTERS The painter Morto da Feltro, who was as original in his life as he was in his brain and in the new fashion of grotesques that he made, which caused him to be held in great estimation, found his way as a young man to Rome at the time when Pinturicchio was painting the Papal apartments for Alexander VI, with the loggie and lower rooms in the Great Tower of the Castello di S. Angelo, and some of the upper apartments. He was a melancholy person, and was constantly studying the antiquities; and seeing among them sections of vaults and ranges of walls adorned with grotesques, he liked these so much that he never ceased from examining them. And so well did he grasp the methods of drawing foliage in the ancient manner, that he was second to no man of his time in that profession. He was never tired, indeed, of examining all that he could find below the ground in Rome in the way of ancient grottoes, with vaults innumerable. He spent many months in Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, drawing all the pavements and grottoes that are there, both above ground and below. And hearing that at Pozzuolo, in the Kingdom of Naples, ten miles from the city, there were many walls covered with ancient grotesques, both executed in relief with stucco and painted, and said to be very beautiful, he devoted several months to studying them on the spot. Nor was he content until he had drawn every least thing in the Campana, an ancient road in that place, full of antique sepulchres; and he also drew many of the temples and grottoes, both above and below the ground, at Trullo, near the seashore. He went to Baia and Mercato di Sabbato, both places full of ruined buildings covered with scenes, searching out everything in such a manner that by means of his long and loving labour he grew vastly in power and knowledge of his art. Having then returned to Rome, he worked there many months, giving his attention to figures, since he considered that in that part of his profession he was not the master that he was held to be in the execution of grotesques. And after he had conceived this desire, hearing the renown that Leonardo and Michelagnolo had in that art on account of the cartoons executed by them in Florence, he set out straightway to go to that city. But, after he had seen those works, he did not think himself able to make the same improvement that he had made in his first profession, and he went back, therefore, to work at his grotesques. There was then living in Florence one Andrea di Cosimo Feltrini, a painter of that city, and a young man of much diligence, who received Morto into his house and entertained him with most affectionate attentions. Finding pleasure in the nature of Morto's art, Andrea also gave his mind to that vocation, and became an able master, being in time even more excellent than Morto, and much esteemed in Florence, as will be told later. And it was through Andrea that Morto came to paint for Piero Soderini, who was then Gonfalonier, decorations of grotesques in an apartment of the Palace, which were held to be very beautiful; but in our own day these have been destroyed in rearranging the apartments of Duke Cosimo, and repainted. For Maestro Valerio, a Servite friar, Morto decorated the empty space on a chair-back, which was a most beautiful work; and for Agnolo Doni, likewise, in a chamber, he executed many pictures with a variety of bizarre grotesques. And since he also delighted in figures, he painted Our Lady in some round pictures, in order to see whether he could become as famous for them as he was (for his grotesques). Then, having grown weary of staying in Florence, he betook himself to Venice; and attaching himself to Giorgione da Castelfranco, who was then painting the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, he set himself to assist him and executed the ornamentation of that work. And in this way he remained many months in that city, attracted by the sensuous pleasures and delights that he found there. He then went to execute works in Friuli, but he had not been there long when, finding that the rulers of Venice were enlisting soldiers, he entered their service; and before he had had much experience of that calling he was made Captain of two hundred men. The army of the Venetians had advanced by that time to Zara in Sclavonia; and one day, when a brisk skirmish took place, Morto, desiring to win a greater name in that profession than he had gained in the art of painting, went bravely forward, and, after fighting in the mêlée, was left dead on the field, even as he had always been in name,[13] at the age of forty-five. But in fame he will never be dead, because those who exercise their hands in the arts and produce everlasting works, leaving memorials of themselves after death, are destined never to suffer the death of their labours, for writers, in their gratitude, bear witness to their talents. Eagerly, therefore, should our craftsmen spur themselves on with incessant study to such a goal as will ensure them an undying name both through their own works and through the writings of others, since, by so doing, they will gain eternal life both for themselves and for the works that they leave behind them after death. Morto restored the painting of grotesques in a manner more like the ancient than was achieved by any other painter, and for this he deserves infinite praise, in that it is after his example that they have been brought in our own day, by the hands of Giovanni da Udine and other craftsmen, to the great beauty and excellence that we see. For, although the said Giovanni and others have carried them to absolute perfection, it is none the less true that the chief praise is due to Morto, who was the first to bring them to light and to devote his whole attention to paintings of that kind, which are called grotesques because they were found for the most part in the grottoes of the ruins of Rome; besides which, every man knows that it is easy to make additions to anything once it has been discovered. The painting of grotesques was continued in Florence by Andrea Feltrini, called Di Cosimo, because he was a disciple of Cosimo Rosselli in the study of figures (which he executed passing well), as he was afterwards of Morto in that of grotesques, of which we have spoken. In this kind of painting Andrea had from nature such power of invention and such grace that he was the first to make ornaments of greater grandeur, abundance, and richness than the ancient, and quite different in manner; and he gave them better order and cohesion, and enriched them with figures, such as are not seen in Rome or in any other place but Florence, where he executed a great number. In this respect there has never been any man who has surpassed him in excellence, as may be seen from the ornament and the predella painted with little grotesques in colour round the Pietà that Pietro Perugino executed for the altar of the Serristori in S. Croce at Florence. These are heightened with various colours on a ground of red and black mixed together, and are wrought with much facility and with extraordinary boldness and grace. Andrea introduced the practice of covering the façades of houses and palaces with an intonaco of lime mixed with the black of ground charcoal, or rather, burnt straw, on which intonaco, when still fresh, he spread a layer of white plaster. Then, having drawn the grotesques, with such divisions as he desired, on some cartoons, he dusted them over the intonaco, and proceeded to scratch it with an iron tool, in such a way that his designs were traced over the whole façade by that tool; after which, scraping away the white from the grounds of the grotesques, he went on to shade them or to hatch a good design upon them with the same iron tool. Finally, he went over the whole work, shading it with a liquid water-colour like water tinted with black. All this produces a very pleasing, rich, and beautiful effect; and there was an account of the method in the twenty-sixth chapter, dealing with sgraffiti, in the Treatise on Technique. The first façades that Andrea executed in this manner were that of the Gondi, which is full of delicacy and grace, in Borg' Ognissanti, and that of Lanfredino Lanfredini, which is very ornate and rich in the variety of its compartments, on the Lungarno between the Ponte S. Trinita and the Ponte della Carraja, near S. Spirito. He also decorated in sgraffito the house of Andrea and Tommaso Sertini, near S. Michele in Piazza Padella, making it more varied and grander in manner than the two others. He painted in chiaroscuro the façade of the Church of the Servite Friars, for which work he caused the painter Tommaso di Stefano to paint in two niches the Angel bringing the Annunciation to the Virgin; and in the court, where there are the stories of S. Filippo and of Our Lady painted by Andrea del Sarto, he executed between the two doors a very beautiful escutcheon of Pope Leo X. And on the occasion of the visit of that Pontiff to Florence he executed many beautiful ornaments in the form of grotesques on the façade of S. Maria del Fiore, for Jacopo Sansovino, who gave him his sister for wife. He executed the baldachin under which the Pope walked, covering the upper part with most beautiful grotesques, and the hangings round it with the arms of that Pope and other devices of the Church; and this baldachin was afterwards presented to the Church of S. Lorenzo in Florence, where it is still to be seen. He also decorated many standards and banners for the visit of Leo, and in honour of many who were made Chevaliers by that Pontiff and by other Princes, of which there are some hung up in various churches in that city. Andrea, working constantly in the service of the house of Medici, assisted at the preparations for the wedding of Duke Giuliano and that of Duke Lorenzo, executing an abundance of various ornaments in the form of grotesques; and so, also, in the obsequies of those Princes. In all this he was largely employed by Franciabigio, Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, and Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, and by Granaccio for triumphal processions and other festivals, since nothing good could be done without him. He was the best man that ever touched a brush, and, being timid by nature, he would never undertake any work on his own account, because he was afraid of exacting the money for his labours. He delighted to work the whole day long, and disliked annoyances of any kind; for which reason he associated himself with the gilder Mariotto di Francesco, one of the most able and skilful men at his work that ever existed in the world of art, very adroit in obtaining commissions, and most dexterous in exacting payments and doing business. This Mariotto also brought the gilder Raffaello di Biagio into the partnership, and the three worked together, sharing equally all the earnings of the commissions that they executed; and this association lasted until death parted them, Mariotto being the last to die. To return to the works of Andrea; he decorated for Giovanni Maria Benintendi all the ceilings of his house, and executed the ornamentation of the ante-chambers, wherein are the scenes painted by Franciabigio and Jacopo da Pontormo. He went with Franciabigio to Poggio, and executed in terretta the ornaments for all the scenes there in such a way that there is nothing better to be seen. For the Chevalier Guidotti he decorated in sgraffito the façade of his house in the Via Larga, and he also executed another of great beauty for Bartolommeo Panciatichi, on the house (now belonging to Ruberto de' Ricci) which he built on the Piazza degli Agli. Nor am I able to describe all the friezes, coffers, and strong-boxes, or the vast quantity of ceilings, which Andrea decorated with his own hand, for the whole city is full of these, and I must refrain from speaking of them. But I must mention the round escutcheons of various kinds that he made, for they were such that no wedding could take place without his having his workshop besieged by one citizen or another; nor could any kind of brocade, linen, or cloth of gold, with flowered patterns, ever be woven, without his making the designs for them, and that with so much variety, grace, and beauty, that he breathed spirit and life into all such things. If Andrea, indeed, had known his own value, he would have made a vast fortune; but it sufficed him to live in love with his art. I must not omit to tell that in my youth, while in the service of Duke Alessandro de' Medici, I was commissioned, when Charles V came to Florence, to make the banners for the Castle, or rather, as it is called at the present day, the Citadel; and among these was a standard of crimson cloth, eighteen braccia wide at the staff and forty in length, and surrounded by borders of gold containing the devices of the Emperor Charles V and of the house of Medici, with the arms of his Majesty in the centre. For this work, in which were used forty-five thousand leaves of gold, I summoned to my assistance Andrea for the borders and Mariotto for the gilding; and many things did I learn from that good Andrea, so full of love and kindness for those who were studying art. And so great did the skill of Andrea then prove to be, that, besides availing myself of him for many details of the arches that were erected for the entry of his Majesty, I chose him as my companion, together with Tribolo, when Madama Margherita, daughter of Charles V, came to be married to Duke Alessandro, in making the festive preparations that I executed in the house of the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici on the Piazza di S. Marco, which was adorned with grotesques by his hand, with statues by the hand of Tribolo, and with figures and scenes by my hand. At the last he was much employed for the obsequies of Duke Alessandro, and even more for the marriage of Duke Cosimo, when all the devices in the courtyard, described by M. Francesco Giambullari, who wrote an account of the festivities of that wedding, were painted by Andrea with ornaments of great variety. And then Andrea--who, by reason of a melancholy humour which often oppressed him, was on many occasions on the point of taking his own life, but was observed so closely and guarded so well by his companion Mariotto that he lived to be an old man--finished the course of his life at the age of sixty-four, leaving behind him the name of a good and even rarely excellent master of grotesque-painting in our own times, wherein every succeeding craftsman has always imitated his manner, not only in Florence, but also in other places. FOOTNOTE: [13] From the word "Morto," which means "dead." MARCO CALAVRESE LIFE OF MARCO CALAVRESE PAINTER When the world possesses some great light in any science, every least part is illuminated by its rays, some with greater brightness and some with less; and the miracles that result are also greater or less according to differences of air and place. Constantly, in truth, do we see a particular country producing a particular kind of intellect fitted for a particular kind of work, for which others are not fitted, nor can they ever attain, whatever labours they may endure, to the goal of supreme excellence. And if we marvel when we see growing in some province a fruit that has not been wont to grow there, much more can we rejoice in a man of fine intellect when we find him in a country where men of the same bent are not usually born. Thus it was with the painter Marco Calavrese, who, leaving his own country, chose for his habitation the sweet and pleasant city of Naples. He had been minded, indeed, on setting out, to make his way to Rome, and there to achieve the end that rewards the student of painting; but the song of the Siren was so sweet to him, and all the more because he delighted to play on the lute, and the soft waters of Sebeto so melted his heart, that he remained a prisoner in body of that land until he rendered up his spirit to Heaven and his mortal flesh to earth. Marco executed innumerable works in oils and in fresco, and he proved himself more able than any other man who was practising the same art in that country in his day. Of this we have proof in the work that he executed at Aversa, ten miles distant from Naples; and, above all, in a panel-picture in oils on the high-altar of the Church of S. Agostino, with a large ornamental frame, and various pictures painted with scenes and figures, in which he represented S. Augustine disputing with the heretics, with stories of Christ and Saints in various attitudes both above and at the sides. In this work, which shows a manner full of harmony and drawing towards the good manner of our modern works, may also be seen great beauty and facility of colouring; and it was one of the many labours that he executed in that city and for various places in the kingdom. Marco always lived a gay life, enjoying every minute to the full, for the reason that, having no rivalry to contend with in painting from other craftsmen, he was always adored by the Neapolitan nobles, and contrived to have himself rewarded for his works by ample payments. And so, having come to the age of fifty-six, he ended his life after an ordinary illness. He left a disciple in Giovan Filippo Crescione, a painter of Naples, who executed many pictures in company with his brother-in-law, Leonardo Castellani, as he still does; but of these men, since they are alive and in constant practice of their art, there is no need to make mention. The pictures of Maestro Marco were executed by him between 1508 and 1542. He had a companion in another Calabrian (whose name I do not know), who worked for a long time in Rome with Giovanni da Udine and executed many works by himself in that city, particularly façades in chiaroscuro. The same Calabrian also painted in fresco the Chapel of the Conception in the Church of the Trinità, with much skill and diligence. At this same time lived Niccola, commonly called by everyone Maestro Cola dalla Matrice, who executed many works in Calabria, at Ascoli, and at Norcia, which are very well known, and which gained for him the name of a rare master--the best, indeed, that there had ever been in these parts. And since he also gave his attention to architecture, all the buildings that were erected in his day at Ascoli and throughout all that province had him as architect. Cola, without caring to see Rome or to change his country, remained always at Ascoli, living happily for some time with his wife, a woman of good and honourable family, and endowed with extraordinary nobility of spirit, as was proved when the strife of parties arose at Ascoli, in the time of Pope Paul III. For then, while she was flying with her husband, with many soldiers in pursuit, more on her account (for she was a very beautiful young woman) than for any other reason, she resolved, not seeing any other way in which she could save her own honour and the life of her husband, to throw herself from a high cliff to the depth below. At which all the soldiers believed that she was not only mortally injured, but dashed to pieces, as indeed she was; wherefore they left the husband without doing him any harm, and returned to Ascoli. After the death of this extraordinary woman, worthy of eternal praise, Maestro Cola passed the rest of his life with little happiness. A short time afterwards, Signor Alessandro Vitelli, who had become Lord of Matrice,[14] took Maestro Cola, now an old man, to Città di Castello, where he caused him to paint in his palace many works in fresco and many other pictures; which works finished, Maestro Cola returned to finish his life at Matrice. This master would have acquitted himself not otherwise than passing well, if he had practised his art in places where rivalry and emulation might have made him attend with more study to painting, and exercise the beautiful intellect with which it is evident that he was endowed by nature. FOOTNOTE: [14] Amatrice. FRANCESCO MAZZUOLI LIFE OF FRANCESCO MAZZUOLI [_PARMIGIANO_] PAINTER OF PARMA Among the many natives of Lombardy who have been endowed with the gracious gift of design, with a lively spirit of invention, and with a particular manner of making beautiful landscapes in their pictures, we should rate as second to none, and even place before all the rest, Francesco Mazzuoli of Parma, who was bountifully endowed by Heaven with all those parts that are necessary to make a supreme painter, insomuch that he gave to his figures, in addition to what has been said of many others, a certain nobility, sweetness, and grace in the attitudes which belonged to him alone. To his heads, likewise, it is evident that he gave all the consideration that is needful; and his manner has therefore been studied and imitated by innumerable painters, because he shed on art a light of grace so pleasing, that his works will always be held in great price, and himself honoured by all students of design. Would to God that he had always pursued the studies of painting, and had not sought to pry into the secrets of congealing mercury in order to become richer than Nature and Heaven had made him; for then he would have been without an equal, and truly unique in the art of painting, whereas, by searching for that which he could never find, he wasted his time, wronged his art, and did harm to his own life and fame. Francesco was born at Parma in the year 1504, and because he lost his father when he was still a child of tender age, he was left to the care of two uncles, brothers of his father, and both painters, who brought him up with the greatest lovingness, teaching him all those praiseworthy ways that befit a Christian man and a good citizen. Then, having made some little growth, he had no sooner taken pen in hand in order to learn to write, than he began, spurred by Nature, who had consecrated him at his birth to design, to draw most marvellous things; and the master who was teaching him to write, noticing this and perceiving to what heights the genius of the boy might in time attain, persuaded his uncles to let him give his attention to design and painting. Whereupon, being men of good judgment in matters of art, although they were old and painters of no great fame, and recognizing that God and Nature had been the boy's first masters, they did not fail to take the greatest pains to make him learn to draw under the discipline of the best masters, to the end that he might acquire a good manner. And coming by degrees to believe that he had been born, so to speak, with brushes in his fingers, on the one hand they urged him on, and on the other, fearing lest overmuch study might perchance spoil his health, they would sometimes hold him back. Finally, having come to the age of sixteen, and having already done miracles of drawing, he painted a S. John baptizing Christ, of his own invention, on a panel, which he executed in such a manner that even now whoever sees it stands marvelling that such a work should have been painted so well by a boy. This picture was placed in the Nunziata, the seat of the Frati de' Zoccoli at Parma. Not content with this, however, Francesco resolved to try his hand at working in fresco, and therefore painted a chapel in S. Giovanni Evangelista, a house of Black Friars of S. Benedict; and since he succeeded in that kind of work, he painted as many as seven. But about that time Pope Leo X sent Signor Prospero Colonna with an army to Parma, and the uncles of Francesco, fearing that he might perchance lose time or be distracted, sent him in company with his cousin, Girolamo Mazzuoli, another boy-painter, to Viadana, a place belonging to the Duke of Mantua, where they lived all the time that the war lasted; and there Francesco painted two panels in distemper. One of these, in which are S. Francis receiving the Stigmata, and S. Chiara, was placed in the Church of the Frati de' Zoccoli; and the other, which contains a Marriage of S. Catharine, with many figures, was placed in S. Piero. And let no one believe that these are works of a young beginner, for they seem to be rather by the hand of a full-grown master. The war finished, Francesco, having returned with his cousin to Parma, first completed some pictures that he had left unfinished at his departure, which are in the hands of various people. After this he painted a panel-picture in oils of Our Lady with the Child in her arms, with S. Jerome on one side and the Blessed Bernardino da Feltro on the other, and in the head of one of these figures he made a portrait of the patron of the picture, which is so wonderful that it lacks nothing save the breath of life. All these works he executed before he had reached the age of nineteen. Then, having conceived a desire to see Rome, like one who was on the path of progress and heard much praise given to the works of good masters, and particularly to those of Raffaello and Michelagnolo, he spoke out his mind and desire to his old uncles, who, thinking that such a wish was not otherwise than worthy of praise, said that they were content that he should go, but that it would be well for him to take with him some work by his own hand, which might serve to introduce him to the noblemen of that city and to the craftsmen of his profession. This advice was not displeasing to Francesco, and he painted three pictures, two small and one of some size, representing in the last the Child in the arms of the Madonna, taking some fruits from the lap of an Angel, and an old man with his arms covered with hair, executed with art and judgment, and pleasing in colour. Besides this, in order to investigate the subtleties of art, he set himself one day to make his own portrait, looking at himself in a convex barber's mirror. And in doing this, perceiving the bizarre effects produced by the roundness of the mirror, which twists the beams of a ceiling into strange curves, and makes the doors and other parts of buildings recede in an extraordinary manner, the idea came to him to amuse himself by counterfeiting everything. Thereupon he had a ball of wood made by a turner, and, dividing it in half so as to make it the same in size and shape as the mirror, set to work to counterfeit on it with supreme art all that he saw in the glass, and particularly his own self, which he did with such lifelike reality as could not be imagined or believed. Now everything that is near the mirror is magnified, and all that is at a distance is diminished, and thus he made the hand engaged in drawing somewhat large, as the mirror showed it, and so marvellous that it seemed to be his very own. And since Francesco had an air of great beauty, with a face and aspect full of grace, in the likeness rather of an angel than of a man, his image on that ball had the appearance of a thing divine. So happily, indeed, did he succeed in the whole of this work, that the painting was no less real than the reality, and in it were seen the lustre of the glass, the reflection of every detail, and the lights and shadows, all so true and natural, that nothing more could have been looked for from the brain of man. [Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF S. CATHARINE (_After the painting by =Francesco Mazzuoli [Parmigiano]=. Parma: Gallery, 192_) _Anderson_] Having finished these works, which were held by his old uncles to be out of the ordinary, and even considered by many other good judges of art to be miracles of beauty, and having packed up both pictures and portrait, he made his way to Rome, accompanied by one of the uncles. There, after the Datary had seen the pictures and appraised them at their true worth, the young man and his uncle were straightway introduced to Pope Clement, who, seeing the works and the youthfulness of Francesco, was struck with astonishment, and with him all his Court. And afterwards his Holiness, having first shown him much favour, said that he wished to commission him to paint the Hall of the Popes, in which Giovanni da Udine had already decorated all the ceiling with stucco-work and painting. And so, after presenting his pictures to the Pope, and receiving various gifts and marks of favour in addition to his promises, Francesco, spurred by the praise and glory that he heard bestowed upon him, and by the hope of the profit that he might expect from so great a Pontiff, painted a most beautiful picture of the Circumcision, which was held to be extraordinary in invention on account of three most fanciful lights that shone in the work; for the first figures were illuminated by the radiance of the countenance of Christ, the second received their light from others who were walking up some steps with burning torches in their hands, bringing offerings for the sacrifice, and the last were revealed and illuminated by the light of the dawn, which played upon a most lovely landscape with a vast number of buildings. This picture finished, he presented it to the Pope, who did not do with it what he had done with the others; for he had given the picture of Our Lady to Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, his nephew, and the mirror-portrait to Messer Pietro Aretino, the poet, who was in his service, but the picture of the Circumcision he kept for himself; and it is believed that it came in time into the possession of the Emperor. The mirror-portrait I remember to have seen, when quite a young man, in the house of the same Messer Pietro Aretino at Arezzo, where it was sought out as a choice work by the strangers passing through that city. Afterwards it fell, I know not how, into the hands of Valerio Vicentino, the crystal-engraver, and it is now in the possession of Alessandro Vittoria, a sculptor in Venice, the disciple of Jacopo Sansovino. But to return to Francesco; while studying in Rome, he set himself to examine all the ancient and modern works, both of sculpture and of painting, that were in that city, but held those of Michelagnolo Buonarroti and Raffaello da Urbino in supreme veneration beyond all the others; and it was said afterwards that the spirit of that Raffaello had passed into the body of Francesco, when men saw how excellent the young man was in art, and how gentle and gracious in his ways, as was Raffaello, and above all when it became known how much Francesco strove to imitate him in everything, and particularly in painting. Nor was this study in vain, for many little pictures that he painted in Rome, the greater part of which afterwards came into the hands of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, were truly marvellous; and even such is a round picture with a very beautiful Annunciation, executed by him for Messer Agnolo Cesis, which is now treasured as a rare work in the house of that family. He painted a picture, likewise, of the Madonna with Christ, some Angels, and a S. Joseph, which are beautiful to a marvel on account of the expressions of the heads, the colouring, and the grace and diligence with which they are seen to have been executed. This work was formerly in the possession of Luigi Gaddi, and it must now be in the hands of his heirs. Hearing the fame of this master, Signor Lorenzo Cibo, Captain of the Papal Guard, and a very handsome man, had a portrait of himself painted by Francesco, who may be said to have made, not a portrait, but a living figure of flesh and blood. Having then been commissioned to paint for Madonna Maria Bufolini of Città di Castello a panel-picture which was to be placed in S. Salvatore del Lauro, in a chapel near the door, Francesco painted in it a Madonna in the sky, who is reading and has the Child between her knees, and on the earth he made a figure of S. John, kneeling on one knee in an attitude of extraordinary beauty, turning his body, and pointing to the Infant Christ; and lying asleep on the ground, in foreshortening, is a S. Jerome in Penitence. But he was prevented from bringing this work to completion by the ruin and sack of Rome in 1527, which was the reason not only that the arts were banished for a time, but also that many craftsmen lost their lives. And Francesco, also, came within a hair's breadth of losing his, seeing that at the beginning of the sack he was so intent on his work, that, when the soldiers were entering the houses, and some Germans were already in his, he did not move from his painting for all the uproar that they were making; but when they came upon him and saw him working, they were so struck with astonishment at the work, that, like the gentlemen that they must have been, they let him go on. And thus, while the impious cruelty of those barbarous hordes was ruining the unhappy city and all its treasures, both sacred and profane, without showing respect to either God or man, Francesco was provided for and greatly honoured by those Germans, and protected from all injury. All the hardship that he suffered at that time was this, that he was forced, one of them being a great lover of painting, to make a vast number of drawings in water-colours and with the pen, which formed the payment of his ransom. But afterwards, when these soldiers changed their quarters, Francesco nearly came to an evil end, because, going to look for some friends, he was made prisoner by other soldiers and compelled to pay as ransom some few crowns that he possessed. Wherefore his uncle, grieved by that and by the fact that this disaster had robbed Francesco of his hopes of acquiring knowledge, honour, and profit, and seeing Rome almost wholly in ruins and the Pope the prisoner of the Spaniards, determined to take him back to Parma. And so he set Francesco on his way to his native city, but himself remained for some days in Rome, where he deposited the panel-picture painted for Madonna Maria Bufolini with the Friars of the Pace, in whose refectory it remained for many years, until finally it was taken by Messer Giulio Bufolini to the church of his family in Città di Castello. Having arrived in Bologna, and finding entertainment with many friends, and particularly in the house of his most intimate friend, a saddler of Parma, Francesco stayed some months in that city, where the life pleased him, during which time he had some works engraved and printed in chiaroscuro, among others the Beheading of S. Peter and S. Paul, and a large figure of Diogenes. He also prepared many others, in order to have them engraved on copper and printed, having with him for this purpose one Maestro Antonio da Trento; but he did not carry this intention into effect at the time, because he was forced to set his hand to executing many pictures and other works for gentlemen of Bologna. The first picture by his hand that was seen at Bologna was a S. Rocco of great size in the Chapel of the Monsignori in S. Petronio; to which Saint he gave a marvellous aspect, making him very beautiful in every part, and conceiving him as somewhat relieved from the pain that the plague-sore in the thigh gave him, which he shows by looking with uplifted head towards Heaven in the act of thanking God, as good men do in spite of the adversities that fall upon them. This work he executed for one Fabrizio da Milano, of whom he painted a portrait from the waist upwards in the picture, with the hands clasped, which seems to be alive; and equally real, also, seems a dog that is there, with some landscapes which are very beautiful, Francesco being particularly excellent in this respect. He then painted for Albio, a physician of Parma, a Conversion of S. Paul, with many figures and a landscape, which was a very choice work. And for his friend the saddler he executed another picture of extraordinary beauty, containing a Madonna turned to one side in a lovely attitude, and several other figures. He also painted a picture for Count Giorgio Manzuoli, and two canvases in gouache, with some little figures, all graceful and well executed, for Maestro Luca dai Leuti. One morning about this time, while Francesco was still in bed, the aforesaid Antonio da Trento, who was living with him as his engraver, opened a strong-box and robbed him of all the copper-plate engravings, woodcuts, and drawings that he possessed; and he must have gone off to the Devil, for all the news that was ever heard of him. The engravings and woodcuts, indeed, Francesco recovered, for Antonio had left them with a friend in Bologna, perchance with the intention of reclaiming them at his convenience; but the drawings he was never able to get back. Driven almost out of his mind by this, he returned to his painting, and made a portrait, for the sake of money, of I know not what Count of Bologna. After that he painted a picture of Our Lady, with a Christ who is holding a globe of the world. The Madonna has a most beautiful expression, and the Child is also very natural; for he always gave to the faces of children a vivacious and truly childlike air, which yet reveals that subtle and mischievous spirit that children often have. And he attired the Madonna in a very unusual fashion, clothing her in a garment that had sleeves of yellowish gauze, striped, as it were, with gold, which gave a truly beautiful and graceful effect, revealing the flesh in a natural and delicate manner; besides which, the hair is painted so well that there is none better to be seen. This picture was painted for Messer Pietro Aretino, but Francesco gave it to Pope Clement, who came to Bologna at that time; then, in some way of which I know nothing, it fell into the hands of Messer Dionigi Gianni, and it now belongs to his son, Messer Bartolommeo, who has been so accommodating with it that it has been copied fifty times, so much is it prized. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS (_After the panel by =Francesco Mazzuoli [Parmigiano]=. Bologna: Accademia, 116_) _Brogi_] The same master painted for the Nuns of S. Margherita, in Bologna, a panel-picture containing a Madonna, S. Margaret, S. Petronio, S. Jerome, and S. Michael, which is held in vast veneration, as it deserves, since in the expressions of the heads and in every other part it is as fine as all the other works of this painter. He made many drawings, likewise, and in particular some for Girolamo del Lino, and some for Girolamo Fagiuoli, a goldsmith and engraver, who desired them for engraving on copper; and these drawings are held to be full of grace. For Bonifazio Gozzadino he painted his portrait from life, with one of his wife, which remained unfinished. He also began a picture of Our Lady, which was afterwards sold in Bologna to Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo, who has it in the new house built by himself at Arezzo, together with many other noble pictures, works of sculpture, and ancient marbles. When the Emperor Charles V was at Bologna to be crowned by Clement VII, Francesco, who went several times to see him at table, but without drawing his portrait, made a likeness of that Emperor in a very large picture in oils, wherein he painted Fame crowning him with laurel, and a boy in the form of a little Hercules offering him a globe of the world, giving him, as it were, the dominion over it. This work, when finished, he showed to Pope Clement, who was so pleased with it that he sent it and Francesco together, accompanied by the Bishop of Vasona, then Datary, to the Emperor; at which his Majesty, to whom it gave much satisfaction, hinted that it should be left with him. But Francesco, being ill advised by an insincere or injudicious friend, refused to leave it, saying that it was not finished; and so his Majesty did not have it, and Francesco was not rewarded for it, as he certainly would have been. This picture, having afterwards fallen into the hands of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, was presented by him to the Cardinal of Mantua; and it is now in the guardaroba of the Duke of that city, with many other most noble and beautiful pictures. After having been so many years out of his native place, as we have related, during which he had gained much experience in art, without accumulating any store of riches, but only of friends, Francesco, in order to satisfy his many friends and relatives, finally returned to Parma. Arriving there, he was straightway commissioned to paint in fresco a vault of some size in the Church of S. Maria della Steccata; but since in front of that vault there was a flat arch which followed the curve of the vaulting, making a sort of façade, he set to work first on the arch, as being the easier, and painted therein six very beautiful figures, two in colour and four in chiaroscuro. Between one figure and another he made some most beautiful ornaments, surrounding certain rosettes in relief, which he took it into his head to execute by himself in copper, taking extraordinary pains over them. At this same time he painted for the Chevalier Baiardo, a gentleman of Parma and his intimate friend, a picture of a Cupid, who is fashioning a bow with his own hand, and at his feet are seated two little boys, one of whom catches the other by the arm and laughingly urges him to touch Cupid with his finger, but he will not touch him, and shows by his tears that he is afraid of burning himself at the fire of Love. This picture, which is charming in colour, ingenious in invention, and executed in that graceful manner of Francesco's that has been much studied and imitated, as it still is, by craftsmen and by all who delight in art, is now in the study of Signor Marc' Antonio Cavalca, heir to the Chevalier Baiardo, together with many drawings of every kind by the hand of the same master, all most beautiful and highly finished, which he has collected. Even such are the many drawings, also by the hand of Francesco, that are in our book; and particularly that of the Beheading of S. Peter and S. Paul, of which, as has been related, he published copper-plate engravings and woodcuts, while living in Bologna. For the Church of S. Maria de' Servi he painted a panel-picture of Our Lady with the Child asleep in her arms, and on one side some Angels, one of whom has in his arms an urn of crystal, wherein there glitters a Cross, at which the Madonna gazes in contemplation. This work remained unfinished, because he was not well contented with it; and yet it is much extolled, and a good example of his manner, so full of grace and beauty. Meanwhile Francesco began to abandon the work of the Steccata, or at least to carry it on so slowly that it was evident that he was not in earnest. And this happened because he had begun to study the problems of alchemy, and had quite deserted his profession of painting, thinking that he would become rich quicker by congealing mercury. Wherefore, wearing out his brain, but not in imagining beautiful inventions and executing them with brushes and colour-mixtures, he wasted his whole time in handling charcoal, wood, glass vessels, and other suchlike trumperies, which made him spend more in one day than he earned by a week's work at the Chapel of the Steccata. Having no other means of livelihood, and being yet compelled to live, he was wasting himself away little by little with those furnaces; and what was worse, the men of the Company of the Steccata, perceiving that he had completely abandoned the work, and having perchance paid him more than his due, as is often done, brought a suit against him. Thereupon, thinking it better to withdraw, he fled by night with some friends to Casal Maggiore. And there, having dispersed a little of the alchemy out of his head, he painted a panel-picture for the Church of S. Stefano, of Our Lady in the sky, with S. John the Baptist and S. Stephen below. Afterwards he executed a picture, the last that he ever painted, of the Roman Lucretia, which was a thing divine and one of the best that were ever seen by his hand; but it has disappeared, however that may have happened, so that no one knows where it is. By his hand, also, is a picture of some nymphs, which is now in the house of Messer Niccolò Bufolini at Città di Castello, and a child's cradle, which was painted for Signora Angiola de' Rossi of Parma, wife of Signor Alessandro Vitelli, and is likewise at Città di Castello. In the end, having his mind still set on his alchemy, like every other man who has once grown crazed over it, and changing from a dainty and gentle person into an almost savage man with long and unkempt beard and locks, a creature quite different from his other self, Francesco went from bad to worse, became melancholy and eccentric, and was assailed by a grievous fever and a cruel flux, which in a few days caused him to pass to a better life. And in this way he found an end to the troubles of this world, which was never known to him save as a place full of annoyances and cares. He wished to be laid to rest in the Church of the Servite Friars, called La Fontana, one mile distant from Casal Maggiore; and he was buried naked, as he had directed, with a cross of cypress upright on his breast. He finished the course of his life on the 24th of August, in the year 1540, to the great loss of art on account of the singular grace that his hands gave to the pictures that he painted. Francesco delighted to play on the lute, and had a hand and a genius so well suited to it that he was no less excellent in this than in painting. It is certain that if he had not worked by caprice, and had laid aside the follies of the alchemists, he would have been without a doubt one of the rarest and most excellent painters of our age. I do not deny that working at moments of fever-heat, and when one feels inclined, may be the best plan. But I do blame a man for working little or not at all, and for wasting all his time over cogitations, seeing that the wish to arrive by trickery at a goal to which one cannot attain, often brings it about that one loses what one knows in seeking after that which it is not given to us to know. If Francesco, who had from nature a spirit of great vivacity, with a beautiful and graceful manner, had persisted in working every day, little by little he would have made such proficience in art, that, even as he gave a beautiful, gracious, and most charming expression to his heads, so he would have surpassed his own self and the others in the solidity and perfect excellence of his drawing. He left behind him his cousin Girolamo Mazzuoli, who, with great credit to himself, always imitated his manner, as is proved by the works by his hand that are in Parma. At Viadana, also, whither he fled with Francesco on account of the war, he painted, young as he was, a very beautiful Annunciation on a little panel for S. Francesco, a seat of the Frati de' Zoccoli; and he painted another for S. Maria ne' Borghi. For the Conventual Friars of S. Francis at Parma he executed the panel-picture of their high-altar, containing Joachim being driven from the Temple, with many figures. And for S. Alessandro, a convent of nuns in that city, he painted a panel with the Madonna in Heaven, the Infant Christ presenting a palm to S. Giustina, and some Angels drawing back a piece of drapery, with S. Alexander the Pope and S. Benedict. For the Church of the Carmelite Friars he painted the panel-picture of their high-altar, which is very beautiful, and for S. Sepolcro another panel-picture of some size. In S. Giovanni Evangelista, a church of nuns in the same city, are two panel-pictures by the hand of Girolamo, of no little beauty, but not equal to the doors of the organ or to the picture of the high-altar, in which is a most beautiful Transfiguration, executed with much diligence. The same master has painted a perspective-view in fresco in the refectory of those nuns, with a picture in oils of the Last Supper of Christ with the Apostles, and fresco-paintings in the Chapel of the High-Altar in the Duomo. And for Madama Margherita of Austria, Duchess of Parma, he has made a portrait of the Prince Don Alessandro, her son, in full armour, with his sword over a globe of the world, and an armed figure of Parma kneeling before him. In a chapel of the Steccata, at Parma, he has painted in fresco the Apostles receiving the Holy Spirit, and on an arch similar to that which his cousin Francesco painted he has executed six Sibyls, two in colour and four in chiaroscuro; while in a niche opposite to that arch he has painted the Nativity of Christ, with the Shepherds adoring Him, which is a very beautiful picture, although it was left not quite finished. For the high-altar of the Certosa, without Parma, he has painted a panel-picture with the three Magi; a panel for S. Piero, an abbey of Monks of S. Bernard, at Pavia; another for the Duomo of Mantua, at the commission of the Cardinal; and yet another panel for S. Giovanni in the same city, containing a Christ in a glory of light, surrounded by the Apostles, with S. John, of whom He appears to be saying, "Sic eum volo manere," etc.; while round this panel, in six large pictures, are the miracles of the same S. John the Evangelist. In the Church of the Frati Zoccolanti, on the left hand, there is a large panel-picture of the Conversion of S. Paul, a very beautiful work, by the hand of the same man. And for the high-altar of S. Benedetto in Pollirone, a place twelve miles distant from Mantua, he has executed a panel-picture of Christ in the Manger being adored by the Shepherds, with Angels singing. He has also painted--but I do not know exactly at what time--a most beautiful picture of five Loves, one of whom is sleeping, and the others are despoiling him, one taking away his bow, another his arrows, and the others his torch, which picture belongs to the Lord Duke Ottavio, who holds it in great account by reason of the excellence of Girolamo. This master has in no way fallen short of the standard of his cousin Francesco, being a fine painter, gentle and courteous beyond belief; and since he is still alive, there are seen issuing from his brush other works of rare beauty, which he has constantly in hand. A close friend of the aforesaid Francesco Mazzuoli was Messer Vincenzio Caccianimici, a gentleman of Bologna, who painted and strove to the best of his power to imitate the manner of Francesco. This Vincenzio was a very good colourist, so that the works which he executed for his own pleasure, or to present to his friends and various noblemen, are truly well worthy of praise; and such, in particular, is a panel-picture in oils, containing the Beheading of S. John the Baptist, which is in the chapel of his family in S. Petronio. This talented gentleman, by whose hand are some very beautiful drawings in our book, died in the year 1542. JACOPO PALMA AND LORENZO LOTTO [Illustration: LORENZO LOTTO: THE TRIUMPH OF CHASTITY (_Rome: Rospigliosi Gallery. Panel_)] LIVES OF JACOPO PALMA [_PALMA VECCHIO_] AND LORENZO LOTTO PAINTERS OF VENICE So potent are mastery and excellence, even when seen in only one or two works executed to perfection by a man in the art that he practises, that, no matter how small these may be, craftsmen and judges of art are forced to extol them, and writers are compelled to celebrate them and to give praise to the craftsman who has made them; even as we are now about to do for the Venetian Palma. This master, although not very eminent, nor remarkable for perfection of painting, was nevertheless so careful and diligent, and subjected himself so zealously to the labours of art, that a certain proportion of his works, if not all, have something good in them, in that they are close imitations of life and of the natural appearance of men. [Illustration: JACOPO PALMA (PALMA VECCHIO): S. BARBARA (_Venice: S. Maria Formosa. Panel_)] Palma was much more remarkable for his patience in harmonizing and blending colours than for boldness of design, and he handled colour with extraordinary grace and finish. This may be seen in Venice from many pictures and portraits that he executed for various gentlemen; but of these I shall say nothing more, since I propose to content myself with making mention of some altar-pieces and of a head that I hold to be marvellous, or rather, divine. One of the altar-pieces he painted for S. Antonio, near Castello, at Venice, and another for S. Elena, near the Lido, where the Monks of Monte Oliveto have their monastery. In the latter, which is on the high-altar of that church, he painted the Magi presenting their offerings to Christ, with a good number of figures, among which are some heads truly worthy of praise, as also are the draperies, executed with a beautiful flow of folds, which cover the figures. Palma also painted a lifesize S. Barbara for the altar of the Bombardieri in the Church of S. Maria Formosa, with two smaller figures at the sides, S. Sebastian and S. Anthony; and the S. Barbara is one of the best figures that this painter ever executed. The same master also executed another altar-piece, in which is a Madonna in the sky, with S. John below, for the Church of S. Moisè, near the Piazza di S. Marco. In addition to this, Palma painted a most beautiful scene for the hall wherein the men of the Scuola of S. Marco assemble, on the Piazza di SS. Giovanni e Paolo, in emulation of those already executed by Giovanni Bellini, Giovanni Mansueti, and other painters. In this scene is depicted a ship which is bringing the body of S. Mark to Venice; and there may be seen counterfeited by Palma a terrible tempest on the sea, and some barques tossed and shaken by the fury of the winds, all executed with much judgment and thoughtful care. The same may be said of a group of figures in the air, and of the demons in various forms who are blowing, after the manner of winds, against the barques, which, driven by oars, and striving in various ways to break through the dangers of the towering waves, are like to sink. In short, to tell the truth, this work is of such a kind, and so beautiful in invention and in other respects, that it seems almost impossible that brushes and colours, employed by human hands, however excellent, should be able to depict anything more true to reality or more natural; for in it may be seen the fury of the winds, the strength and dexterity of the men, the movements of the waves, the lightning-flashes of the heavens, the water broken by the oars, and the oars bent by the waves and by the efforts of the rowers. Why say more? I, for my part, do not remember to have ever seen a more terrible painting than this, which is executed in such a manner, and with such care in the invention, the drawing, and the colouring, that the picture seems to quiver, as if all that is painted therein were real. For this work Jacopo Palma deserves the greatest praise, and the honour of being numbered among those who are masters of art and who are able to express with facility in their pictures their most sublime conceptions. For many painters, in difficult subjects of that kind, achieve in the first sketch of their work, as though guided by a sort of fire of inspiration, something of the good and a certain measure of boldness; but afterwards, in finishing it, the boldness vanishes, and nothing is left of the good that the first fire produced. And this happens because very often, in finishing, they consider the parts and not the whole of what they are executing, and thus, growing cold in spirit, they come to lose their vein of boldness; whereas Jacopo stood ever firm in the same intention and brought to perfection his first conception, for which he received vast praise at that time, as he always will. [Illustration: S. SEBASTIAN (_After the panel by =Jacopo Palma [Palma Vecchio]=. Venice: S. Maria Formosa_) _Anderson_] But without a doubt, although the works of this master were many, and all much esteemed, that one is better than all the others and truly extraordinary in which he made his own portrait from life by looking at himself in a mirror, with some camel-skins about him, and certain tufts of hair, and all so lifelike that nothing better could be imagined. For so much did the genius of Palma effect in this particular work, that he made it quite miraculous and beautiful beyond belief, as all men declare, the picture being seen almost every year at the Festival of the Ascension. And, in truth, it well deserves to be celebrated, in point of draughtsmanship, colouring, and mastery of art--in a word, on account of its absolute perfection--beyond any other work whatsoever that had been executed by any Venetian painter up to that time, since, besides other things, there may be seen in the eyes a roundness so perfect, that Leonardo da Vinci and Michelagnolo Buonarroti would not have done it in any other way. But it is better to say nothing of the grace, the dignity, and the other qualities that are to be seen in this portrait, because it is not possible to say as much of its perfection as would exhaust its merits. If Fate had decreed that Palma should die after this work, he would have carried off with him the glory of having surpassed all those whom we celebrate as our rarest and most divine intellects; but the duration of his life, keeping him at work, brought it about that, not maintaining the high beginning that he had made, he came to deteriorate as much as most men had thought him destined to improve. Finally, content that one or two supreme works should have cleared him of some of the censure that the others had brought upon him, he died in Venice at the age of forty-eight. A friend and companion of Palma was Lorenzo Lotto, a painter of Venice, who, after imitating for some time the manner of the Bellini, attached himself to that of Giorgione, as is shown by many pictures and portraits which are in the houses of gentlemen in Venice. In the house of Andrea Odoni there is a portrait of him, which is very beautiful, by the hand of Lorenzo. And in the house of Tommaso da Empoli, a Florentine, there is a picture of the Nativity of Christ, painted as an effect of night, which is one of great beauty, particularly because the splendour of Christ is seen to illuminate the picture in a marvellous manner; and there is the Madonna kneeling, with a portrait of Messer Marco Loredano in a full-length figure that is adoring Christ. For the Carmelite Friars the same master painted an altar-piece showing S. Nicholas in his episcopal robes, poised in the air, with three Angels; below him are S. Lucia and S. John, on high some clouds, and beneath these a most beautiful landscape, with many little figures and animals in various places. On one side is S. George on horseback, slaying the Dragon, and at a little distance the Maiden, with a city not far away, and an arm of the sea. For the Chapel of S. Antonino, Archbishop of Florence, in SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Lorenzo executed an altar-piece containing the first-named Saint seated with two priests in attendance, and many people below. [Illustration: THE GLORIFICATION OF S. NICHOLAS (_After the painting by =Lorenzo Lotto=. Venice: S. Maria del Carmine_) _Anderson_] While this painter was still young, imitating partly the manner of the Bellini and partly that of Giorgione, he painted an altar-piece, divided into six pictures, for the high-altar of S. Domenico at Recanati. In the central picture is the Madonna with the Child in her arms, giving the habit, by the hands of an Angel, to S. Dominic, who is kneeling before the Virgin; and in this picture are also two little boys, one playing on a lute and the other on a rebeck. In the second picture are the Popes S. Gregory and S. Urban; and in the third is S. Thomas Aquinas, with another saint, who was Bishop of Recanati. Above these are the three other pictures; and in the centre, above the Madonna, is a Dead Christ, supported by an Angel, with His Mother kissing His arm, and S. Magdalene. Over the picture of S. Gregory are S. Mary Magdalene and S. Vincent; and in the third--namely, above the S. Thomas Aquinas--are S. Gismondo and S. Catharine of Siena. In the predella, which is a rare work painted with little figures, there is in the centre the scene of S. Maria di Loreto being carried by the Angels from the regions of Sclavonia to the place where it now stands. Of the two scenes that are on either side of this, one shows S. Dominic preaching, the little figures being the most graceful in the world, and the other Pope Honorius confirming the Rule of S. Dominic. In the middle of this church is a figure of S. Vincent, the Friar, executed in fresco by the hand of the same master. And in the Church of S. Maria di Castelnuovo there is an altar-piece in oils of the Transfiguration of Christ, with three scenes painted with little figures in the predella--Christ leading the Apostles to Mount Tabor, His Prayer in the Garden, and His Ascension into Heaven. [Illustration: ANDREA ODONI (_After the painting by =Lorenzo Lotto=. Hampton Court Palace_) _Mansell_] After these works Lorenzo went to Ancona, at the very time when Mariano da Perugia had finished a panel-picture, with a large ornamental frame, for the high-altar of S. Agostino. This did not give much satisfaction; and Lorenzo was commissioned to paint a picture, which is placed in the middle of the same church, of Our Lady with the Child in her lap, and two figures of Angels in the air, in foreshortening, crowning the Virgin. Finally, being now old, and having almost lost his voice, Lorenzo made his way, after executing some other works of no great importance at Ancona, to the Madonna of Loreto, where he had already painted an altar-piece in oils, which is in a chapel at the right hand of the entrance into the church. There, having resolved to finish his life in the service of the Madonna, and to make that holy house his habitation, he set his hand to executing scenes with figures one braccio or less in height round the choir, over the seats of the priests. In one scene he painted the Birth of Jesus Christ, and in another the Magi adoring Him. Next came the Presentation to Simeon, and after that the Baptism of Christ by John in the Jordan. There was also the Woman taken in Adultery being led before Christ, and all these were executed with much grace. Two other scenes, likewise, did he paint there, with an abundance of figures; one of David causing a sacrifice to be offered, and in the other was the Archangel Michael in combat with Lucifer, after having driven him out of Heaven. These works finished, no long time had passed when, even as he had lived like a good citizen and a true Christian, so he died, rendering up his soul to God his Master. These last years of his life he found full of happiness and serenity of mind, and, what is more, we cannot but believe that they gave him the earnest of the blessings of eternal life; which might not have happened to him if at the end of his life he had been wrapped up too closely in the things of this world, which, pressing too heavily on those who put their whole trust in them, prevent them from ever raising their minds to the true riches and the supreme blessedness and felicity of the other life. [Illustration: RONDINELLO (NICCOLÒ RONDINELLI): MADONNA AND CHILD (_Paris: Louvre, 1159. Panel_)] There also flourished in Romagna at this time the excellent painter Rondinello, of whom we made some slight mention in the Life of Giovanni Bellini, whose disciple he was, assisting him much in his works. This Rondinello, after leaving Giovanni Bellini, laboured at his art to such purpose, that, being very diligent, he executed many works worthy of praise; of which we have witness in the panel-picture of the high-altar in the Duomo at Forlì, showing Christ giving the Communion to the Apostles, which he painted there with his own hand, executing it very well. In the lunette above this picture he painted a Dead Christ, and in the predella some scenes with little figures, finished with great diligence, representing the actions of S. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, in the finding of the Cross. He also painted a single figure of S. Sebastian, which is very beautiful, in a picture in the same church. For the altar of S. Maria Maddalena, in the Duomo of Ravenna, he painted a panel-picture in oils containing the single figure of that Saint; and below this, in a predella, he executed three scenes with very graceful little figures. In one is Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene in the form of a gardener, in another S. Peter leaving the ship and walking over the water towards Christ, and between them the Baptism of Jesus Christ; and all are very beautiful. For S. Giovanni Evangelista, in the same city, he painted two panel-pictures, one with that Saint consecrating the church, and in the other three martyrs, S. Cantius, S. Cantianus, and S. Cantianilla, figures of great beauty. In S. Apollinare, also in that city, are two pictures, highly extolled, each with a single figure, S. John the Baptist and S. Sebastian. And in the Church of the Spirito Santo there is a panel, likewise by his hand, containing the Madonna placed between the Virgin Martyr S. Catharine and S. Jerome. For S. Francesco, likewise, he painted two panel-pictures, one of S. Catharine and S. Francis, and in the other Our Lady with S. James the Apostle, S. Francis, and many figures. For S. Domenico, in like manner, he executed two other panels, one of which, containing the Madonna and many figures, is on the left hand of the high-altar, and the other, a work of no little beauty, is on a wall of the church. And for the Church of S. Niccolò, a convent of Friars of S. Augustine, he painted another panel with S. Laurence and S. Francis. So much was he commended for all these works, that during his lifetime he was held in great account, not only in Ravenna but throughout all Romagna. Rondinello lived to the age of sixty, and was buried in S. Francesco at Ravenna. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS (_After the painting by =Rondinello [Niccolò Rondinelli]=. Ravenna: Accademia_) _Alinari_] This master left behind him Francesco da Cotignola, a painter likewise held in estimation in that city, who painted many works; in particular, for the high-altar of the Church of the Abbey of Classi in Ravenna, a panel-picture of some size representing the Raising of Lazarus, with many figures. There, opposite to that work, in the year 1548, Giorgio Vasari executed for Don Romualdo da Verona, Abbot of that place, another panel-picture containing the Deposition of Christ from the Cross, with a large number of figures. Francesco also painted a panel-picture of the Nativity of Christ, which is of great size, for S. Niccolò, and likewise two panels, with various figures, for S. Sebastiano. For the Hospital of S. Catarina he painted a panel-picture with Our Lady, S. Catharine, and many other figures; and for S. Agata he painted a panel with Christ Crucified, the Madonna at the foot of the Cross, and a good number of other figures, for which he won praise. And for S. Apollinare, in the same city, he executed three panel-pictures; one for the high-altar, containing the Madonna, S. John the Baptist, and S. Apollinare, with S. Jerome and other saints; another likewise of the Madonna, with S. Peter and S. Catharine; and in the third and last Jesus Christ bearing His Cross, but this he was not able to finish, being overtaken by death. Francesco was a very pleasing colourist, but not so good a draughtsman as Rondinello; yet he was held in no small estimation by the people of Ravenna. He chose to be buried after his death in S. Apollinare, for which he had painted the said figures, being content that his remains, when he was dead, should lie at rest in the place for which he had laboured when alive. [Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS (_After the panel by =Francesco da Cotignola=. Ravenna: Accademia_) _Alinari_] INDEX OF NAMES OF THE CRAFTSMEN MENTIONED IN VOLUME V Agnolo, Andrea d' (Andrea del Sarto), _Life_, 85-120. 164, 194, 217-221, 231 Agnolo, Baccio d' (Baccio Baglioni), 91, 98, 102 Agnolo Bronzino, 127, 163 Agnolo di Cristofano, 223 Agnolo di Donnino, 38 Agostino Busto (Il Bambaja), 42, 43 Agostino Viniziano, 97 Aimo, Domenico (Bologna), 28 Albertinelli, Mariotto, 86, 212, 217 Albertino, Francesco d' (Francesco Ubertini, or Il Bacchiacca), 222 Alberto, Antonio, 13 Albrecht Dürer, 96 Alessandro Allori, 127 Alessandro Vittoria, 247 Alesso Baldovinetti, 88, 92 Alfonso Lombardi, _Life_, 131-136. 210 Allori, Alessandro, 127 Amalteo, Pomponio, 154, 155 Amico Aspertini, _Life_, 209-211. 125, 207-211 Andrea Contucci (Andrea Sansovino, or Andrea dal Monte Sansovino), _Life_, 21-31. 43, 88 Andrea d' Agnolo (Andrea del Sarto), _Life_, 85-120. 164, 194, 217-221, 231 Andrea da Fiesole (Andrea Ferrucci), _Life_, 3-8. 11 Andrea dal Castagno (Andrea degli Impiccati), 116 Andrea dal Monte Sansovino (Andrea Sansovino, or Andrea Contucci), _Life_, 21-31. 43, 88 Andrea degli Impiccati (Andrea dal Castagno), 116 Andrea del Sarto (Andrea d' Agnolo), _Life_, 85-120. 164, 194, 217-221, 231 Andrea della Robbia, 90 Andrea di Cosimo Feltrini, _Life_, 229-233. 221, 228 Andrea Ferrucci (Andrea da Fiesole), _Life_, 3-8. 11 Andrea Sansovino (Andrea Contucci, or Andrea dal Monte Sansovino), _Life_, 21-31. 43, 88 Andrea Sguazzella, 100, 118 Andrea Verrocchio, 49, 50, 55 Anguisciuola, Sofonisba, 127, 128 Antonio Alberto, 13 Antonio da Carrara, 8 Antonio da San Gallo (the elder), 97 Antonio da San Gallo (the younger), 29, 43, 58, 72 Antonio da Trento (Antonio Fantuzzi), 249, 250 Antonio del Rozzo (Antonio del Tozzo), 73 Antonio di Donnino Mazzieri, 223 Antonio di Giorgio Marchissi, 4 Antonio di Giovanni (Solosmeo), 118 Antonio Fantuzzi (Antonio da Trento), 249, 250 Antonio Floriani, 148, 149 Antonio Mini, 165 Antonio Pollaiuolo, 21 Apelles, 14 Aretusi, Pellegrino degli (Pellegrino da Modena, or Pellegrino de' Munari), _Life_, 80-81. 176 Aristotele (Sebastiano) da San Gallo, 97 Aspertini, Amico, _Life_, 209-211. 125, 207-211 Bacchiacca, Il (Francesco Ubertini, or Francesco d' Albertino), 222 Baccio Baglioni (Baccio d' Agnolo), 91, 98, 102 Baccio Bandinelli, 5, 27, 36, 57, 96-98, 135 Baccio d' Agnolo (Baccio Baglioni), 91, 98, 102 Baccio da Montelupo, _Life_, 41-45. 97 Baccio della Porta (Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco), 159, 160, 194 Baglioni, Baccio (Baccio d' Agnolo), 91, 98, 102 Bagnacavallo, Bartolommeo da (Bartolommeo Ramenghi), _Life_, 207-209 Bagnacavallo, Giovan Battista da, 201 Baldassarre Peruzzi, _Life_, 63-74. 57, 63-74, 136, 170, 176, 208 Baldovinetti, Alesso, 88, 92 Bambaja, Il (Agostino Busto), 42, 43 Bandinelli, Baccio, 5, 27, 36, 57, 96-98, 135 Barbieri, Domenico del, 201 Barile, Gian (of Florence), 86 Bartolommeo da Bagnacavallo (Bartolommeo Ramenghi), _Life_, 207-209 Bartolommeo di San Marco, Fra (Baccio della Porta), 159, 160, 194 Bartolommeo Miniati, 201 Bartolommeo Neroni (Riccio), 73 Bartolommeo Ramenghi (Bartolommeo da Bagnacavallo), _Life_, 207-209 Bastianello Florigorio (Sebastiano Florigerio), 148 Battista, Martino di (Pellegrino da San Daniele, or Martino da Udine), 145-150 Battista Dossi, _Life_, 139-141 Battistino, 193, 194 Baviera, 194 Bazzi, Giovanni Antonio (Sodoma), 73 Beccafumi, Domenico (Domenico di Pace), 74, 153, 163 Belli, Valerio de' (Valerio Vicentino), 247 Bellini family, 262 Bellini, Giovanni, 145, 146, 260, 264 Bembo, Giovan Francesco (Giovan Francesco Vetraio), 180 Benedetto, 165 Benedetto da Ferrara (Benedetto Coda), 211, 212 Benedetto da Maiano, 5 Benedetto da Rovezzano, _Life_, 35-38 Benedetto Spadari, 195, 196 Benvenuto Cellini, 135 Bernardino del Lupino (Bernardino Luini), 60 Bernardino Pinturicchio, 227 Bernardo da Vercelli, 151 Bernardo del Buda (Bernardo Rosselli), 116 Bernazzano, Cesare, 141 Biagio, Raffaello di, 231, 232 Biagio Bolognese (Biagio Pupini), 208, 211 Bicci, Lorenzo di, 5 Boccaccino, Boccaccio, _Life_, 58-60 Boccaccino, Camillo, 59, 60 Boccalino, Giovanni (Giovanni Ribaldi), 29 Bologna (Domenico Aimo), 28 Bolognese, Biagio (Biagio Pupini), 208, 211 Borgo, Raffaello dal (Raffaello dal Colle), 140, 195, 196 Borgo, Santi Titi dal, 160 Boscoli, Maso, 6 Bramante da Urbino, 26, 28, 29, 65, 68, 69 Bronzino, Agnolo, 127, 163 Buda, Bernardo del (Bernardo Rosselli), 116 Buonaccorsi, Perino (Perino del Vaga), 7, 77-79, 153, 162 Buonarroti, Michelagnolo, 5, 6, 23, 43-45, 58, 86, 111, 117, 128, 135, 165, 190, 194, 228, 245, 247, 261 Busto, Agostino (Il Bambaja), 42, 43 Caccianimici, Francesco, 201 Caccianimici, Vincenzio, 255, 256 Cadore, Tiziano da (Tiziano Vecelli), 66, 133, 134, 152, 153 Calavrese, Marco (Marco Cardisco), _Life_, 237-239 Caldara, Polidoro (Polidoro da Caravaggio), _Life_, 175-185 Calzolaio, Sandrino del, 161, 165 Camillo Boccaccino, 59, 60 Capanna (of Siena), 74 Caraglio, Giovanni Jacopo, 194 Caravaggio, Polidoro da (Polidoro Caldara), _Life_, 175-185 Cardisco, Marco (Marco Calavrese), _Life_, 237-239 Carpi, Girolamo da (Girolamo da Ferrara), 154 Carrara, Antonio da, 8 Carrara, Danese da (Danese Cattaneo), 135 Carrucci, Jacopo (Jacopo da Pontormo), 93, 98, 104, 118, 135, 190, 221, 222, 231, 232 Castagno, Andrea dal (Andrea degli Impiccati), 116 Castelfranco, Giorgione da, 149, 228, 262 Castellani, Leonardo, 238 Castrocaro, Gian Jacopo da, 50 Cattaneo, Danese (Danese da Carrara), 135 Cellini, Benvenuto, 135 Cesare Bernazzano, 141 Cesare da Sesto (Cesare da Milano), 65, 141 Cicilia, Il, 8 Cimabue, Giovanni, 177 Cioli, Simone, 30 Claudio of Paris, 201 Coda, Benedetto (Benedetto da Ferrara), 211, 212 Cola dalla Matrice (Niccola Filotesio), 238, 239 Colle, Raffaello dal (Raffaello dal Borgo), 140, 195, 196 Conte, Jacopo del, 119 Conti, Domenico, 115, 119 Contucci, Andrea (Andrea Sansovino, or Andrea dal Monte Sansovino), _Life_, 21-31. 43, 88 Cosimo, Piero di, 86 Cosimo Rosselli, 88, 229 Cosimo, Silvio, 6-8 Cotignola, Francesco da (Francesco de' Zaganelli), _Life_, 265-266 Cotignola, Girolamo da (Girolamo Marchesi), _Life_, 211-212. 207 Credi, Lorenzo di, _Life_, 49-52. 159 Credi, Maestro, 49 Crescione, Giovan Filippo, 238 Cristofano, Agnolo di, 223 Cronaca, Il (Simone del Pollaiuolo), 22 Cuticello (Giovanni Antonio Licinio, or Pordenone), _Life_, 145-155 Danese da Carrara (Danese Cattaneo), 135 Della Robbia family, 22 Domenico Aimo (Bologna), 28 Domenico Beccafumi (Domenico di Pace), 74, 153, 163 Domenico Conti, 115, 119 Domenico dal Monte Sansovino, 30 Domenico del Barbieri, 201 Domenico di Pace (Domenico Beccafumi), 74, 153, 163 Domenico di Paris, 195 Domenico di Polo, 135 Domenico Puligo, 109 Donato (Donatello), 23 Donnino, Agnolo di, 38 Dossi, Battista, _Life_, 139-141 Dossi, Dosso, _Life_, 139-141 Dürer, Albrecht, 96 Fagiuoli, Girolamo, 250 Fantuzzi, Antonio (Antonio da Trento), 249, 250 Fattore, Il (Giovan Francesco Penni), _Life_, 77-80. 201 Feltrini, Andrea di Cosimo, _Life_, 229-233. 221, 228 Feltro, Morto da, _Life_, 227-229. 230 Ferrara, Benedetto da (Benedetto Coda), 211, 212 Ferrara, Girolamo da (Girolamo da Carpi), 154 Ferrari, Gaudenzio, 81 Ferrucci, Andrea (Andrea da Fiesole), _Life_, 3-8. 11 Ferrucci, Francesco di Simone, 3 Fiesole, Andrea da (Andrea Ferrucci), _Life_, 3-8. 11 Filippo Lippi (Filippino), 87 Filotesio, Niccola (Cola dalla Matrice), 238, 239 Floriani, Antonio, 148, 149 Floriani, Francesco, 148, 149 Florigorio, Bastianello (Sebastiano Florigerio), 148 Fontana, Prospero, 213 Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco (Baccio della Porta), 159, 160, 194 Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del Piombo, 66 Francesco, Mariotto di, 231-233 Francesco Caccianimici, 201 Francesco d' Albertino (Francesco Ubertini, or Il Bacchiacca), 222 Francesco da Cotignola (Francesco de' Zaganelli), _Life_, 265-266 Francesco da San Gallo, 27 Francesco da Siena, 71, 73 Francesco de' Rossi (Francesco Salviati), 119 Francesco de' Zaganelli (Francesco da Cotignola), _Life_, 265-266 Francesco di Girolamo dal Prato, 135 Francesco di Mirozzo (Melozzo), 140 Francesco di Simone Ferrucci, 3 Francesco Floriani, 148, 149 Francesco Granacci (Il Granaccio), 97, 98, 231 Francesco Mazzuoli (Parmigiano), _Life_, 243-256 Francesco of Orleans, 201 Francesco Primaticcio, 200, 201, 203 Francesco Salviati (Francesco de' Rossi), 119 Francesco Ubertini (Francesco d' Albertino, or Il Bacchiacca), 222 Franciabigio (Francia), _Life_, 217-223. 86-89, 91, 93, 101, 103, 104, 217-223, 231, 232 Francucci, Innocenzio (Innocenzio da Imola), _Life_, 212-213. 207, 209 Gaudenzio Ferrari, 81 Genga, Girolamo, 15, 16, 140 Gensio Liberale, 149 Ghirlandajo, Michele di Ridolfo, 165 Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo, 220, 231 Gian Barile (of Florence), 86 Gian Jacopo da Castrocaro, 50 Giannuzzi, Giulio Pippi de' (Giulio Romano), 55, 77-79, 108, 109, 195 Giorgio Vasari. See Vasari (Giorgio) Giorgione da Castelfranco, 149, 228, 262 Giotto, 21 Giovan Battista da Bagnacavallo, 201 Giovan Battista de' Rossi (Il Rosso), _Life_, 189-203. 97 Giovan Battista Grassi, 148 Giovan Battista Peloro, 73 Giovan Filippo Crescione, 238 Giovan Francesco Bembo (Giovan Francesco Vetraio), 180 Giovan Francesco Penni (Il Fattore), _Life_, 77-80. 201 Giovan Francesco Vetraio (Giovan Francesco Bembo), 180 Giovanni, Antonio di (Solosmeo), 118 Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (Sodoma), 73 Giovanni Antonio Lappoli, 196-198 Giovanni Antonio Licinio (Cuticello, or Pordenone), _Life_, 145-155 Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, _Life_, 159-166. 51 Giovanni Bellini, 145, 146, 260, 264 Giovanni Boccalino (Giovanni Ribaldi), 29 Giovanni Cimabue, 177 Giovanni da Nola, 137-139 Giovanni da Udine (Giovanni Martini), 145-147 Giovanni da Udine (Giovanni Nanni, or Giovanni Ricamatori), 77, 155, 175, 229, 238, 246 Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio, 194 Giovanni Mangone, 5 Giovanni Mansueti, 260 Giovanni Martini (Giovanni da Udine), 145-147 Giovanni Nanni (Giovanni da Udine, or Giovanni Ricamatori), 77, 155, 175, 229, 238, 246 Giovanni Ribaldi (Giovanni Boccalino), 29 Giovanni Ricamatori (Giovanni da Udine, or Giovanni Nanni), 77, 155, 175, 229, 238, 246 Girolamo, 60 Girolamo da Carpi (Girolamo da Ferrara), 154 Girolamo da Cotignola (Girolamo Marchesi), _Life_, 211-212. 207 Girolamo da Ferrara (Girolamo da Carpi), 154 Girolamo da Treviso (Girolamo Trevigi), _Life_, 169-171. 68 Girolamo della Robbia, 90 Girolamo Fagiuoli, 250 Girolamo Genga, 15, 16, 140 Girolamo Lombardo, 24, 28-30 Girolamo Marchesi (Girolamo da Cotignola), _Life_, 211-212. 207 Girolamo Mazzuoli, 244, 245, 254, 255 Girolamo Santa Croce, _Life_, 137-138 Girolamo Trevigi (Girolamo da Treviso), _Life_, 169-171. 68 Giuliano da San Gallo, 97 Giuliano del Tasso, 97 Giuliano (di Niccolò Morelli), Maestro, 73 Giulio Romano (Giulio Pippi de' Giannuzzi), 55, 77-79, 108, 109, 195 Granacci, Francesco (Il Granaccio), 97, 98, 231 Grassi, Giovan Battista, 148 Guazzetto, Il (Lorenzo Naldino), 201 Il Bacchiacca (Francesco Ubertini, or Francesco d' Albertino), 222 Il Bambaja (Agostino Busto), 42, 43 Il Cicilia, 8 Il Cronaca (Simone del Pollaiuolo), 22 Il Fattore (Giovan Francesco Penni), _Life_, 77-80. 201 Il Granaccio (Francesco Granacci), 97, 98, 231 Il Guazzetto (Lorenzo Naldino), 201 Il Pistoia (Leonardo), 79, 80 Il Rosso (Giovan Battista de' Rossi), _Life_, 189-203. 97 Imola, Innocenzio da (Innocenzio Francucci), _Life_, 212-213. 207, 209 Impiccati, Andrea degli (Andrea dal Castagno), 116 Innocenzio da Imola (Innocenzio Francucci), _Life_, 212-213. 207, 209 Jacomo Melighino, 72, 73 Jacone (Jacopo), 119 Jacopo da Pontormo (Jacopo Carrucci), 93, 98, 104, 118, 135, 190, 221, 222, 231, 232 Jacopo del Conte, 119 Jacopo di Sandro, 97 Jacopo Palma (Palma Vecchio), _Life_, 259-261 Jacopo Sansovino, 5, 31, 35, 36, 80, 88, 92, 93, 97, 98, 180, 218, 231, 247 Lappoli, Giovanni Antonio, 196-198 Lattanzio Pagani, 212 Leonardo (Il Pistoia), 79, 80 Leonardo Castellani, 238 Leonardo da Vinci, 49, 50, 86, 228, 261 Leonardo del Tasso, 31 Leonardo the Fleming, 201 Liberale, Gensio, 149 Licinio, Giovanni Antonio (Cuticello, or Pordenone), _Life_, 145-155 Lippi, Filippo (Filippino), 87 Lombardi, Alfonso, _Life_, 131-136. 210 Lombardo, Girolamo, 24, 28-30 Lorenzetto (Lorenzo) Lotti, _Life_, 55-58 Lorenzo di Bicci, 5 Lorenzo di Credi, _Life_, 49-52. 159 Lorenzo Lotto, _Life_, 261-264 Lorenzo Naldino (Il Guazzetto), 201 Lorenzo of Picardy, 201 Lotti, Lorenzetto (Lorenzo), _Life_, 55-58 Lotto, Lorenzo, _Life_, 261-264 Luca della Robbia (the younger), 90 Luca Monverde, 147 Luca Penni, 79, 201 Lucrezia, Madonna, 127 Luini, Bernardino (Bernardino del Lupino), 60 Lunetti, Stefano (Stefano of Florence), 51 Lunetti, Tommaso di Stefano, 51, 52, 164, 231 Lupino, Bernardino del (Bernardino Luini), 60 Madonna Lucrezia, 127 Madonna Properzia de' Rossi, _Life_, 123-128 Maestro Credi, 49 Maestro Giuliano (di Niccolò Morelli), 73 Maiano, Benedetto da, 5 Maini (Marini), Michele, 3, 4 Mangone, Giovanni, 5 Mansueti, Giovanni, 260 Marchesi, Girolamo (Girolamo da Cotignola), _Life_, 211-212. 207 Marchissi, Antonio di Giorgio, 4 Marco Calavrese (Marco Cardisco), _Life_, 237-239 Mariano da Perugia, 263 Marini (Maini), Michele, 3, 4 Mariotto Albertinelli, 86, 212, 217 Mariotto di Francesco, 231-233 Martini, Giovanni (Giovanni da Udine), 145-147 Martino da Udine (Pellegrino da San Daniele, or Martino di Battista), 145-150 Maso Boscoli, 6 Matrice, Cola dalla (Niccola Filotesio), 238, 239 Maturino, _Life_, 175-185 Mazzieri, Antonio di Donnino, 223 Mazzuoli, Francesco (Parmigiano), _Life_, 243-256 Mazzuoli, Girolamo, 244, 245, 254, 255 Melighino, Jacomo, 72, 73 Michelagnolo Buonarroti, 5, 6, 23, 43-45, 58, 86, 111, 117, 128, 135, 165, 190, 194, 228, 245, 247, 261 Michelagnolo da Siena, _Life_, 136-137. 69 Michele di Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, 165 Michele Maini (Marini), 3, 4 Milano, Cesare da (Cesare da Sesto), 65, 141 Mini, Antonio, 165 Miniati, Bartolommeo, 201 Mirozzo (Melozzo), Francesco di, 140 Modena, Pellegrino da (Pellegrino degli Aretusi, or Pellegrino de' Munari), _Life_, 80-81. 176 Monte Sansovino, Andrea dal (Andrea Contucci, or Andrea Sansovino), _Life_, 21-31. 43, 88 Monte Sansovino, Domenico dal, 30 Montelupo, Baccio da, _Life_, 41-45. 97 Montelupo, Raffaello da, _Life_, 41-45. 27, 119 Monverde, Luca, 147 Morelli, Maestro Giuliano di Niccolò, 73 Morto da Feltro, _Life_, 227-229. 230 Mosca, Simone, 44 Munari, Pellegrino de' (Pellegrino da Modena, or Pellegrino degli Aretusi), _Life_, 80-81. 176 Naldino, Lorenzo (Il Guazzetto), 201 Nanni, Giovanni (Giovanni da Udine, or Giovanni Ricamatori), 77, 155, 175, 229, 238, 246 Nannoccio, 119 Neroni, Bartolommeo (Riccio), 73 Niccola Filotesio (Cola dalla Matrice), 238, 239 Niccolò (called Tribolo), 6, 28, 136, 233 Niccolò Rondinello (Rondinello da Ravenna), _Life_, 264-265. 266 Niccolò Soggi, 109, 110, 196 Nola, Giovanni da, 137-139 Pace, Domenico di (Domenico Beccafumi), 74, 153, 163 Pagani, Lattanzio, 212 Palma, Jacopo (Palma Vecchio), _Life_, 259-261 Paolo Romano, 57 Paris, Domenico di, 195 Parmigiano (Francesco Mazzuoli), _Life_, 243-256 Pellegrino da Modena (Pellegrino degli Aretusi, or Pellegrino de' Munari), _Life_, 80-81. 176 Pellegrino da San Daniele (Martino da Udine, or Martino di Battista), 145-150 Peloro, Giovan Battista, 73 Penni, Giovan Francesco (Il Fattore), _Life_, 77-80. 201 Penni, Luca, 79, 201 Perino del Vaga (Perino Buonaccorsi), 7, 77-79, 153, 162 Perugia, Mariano da, 263 Perugino, Pietro (Pietro Vannucci), 49, 50, 87, 230 Peruzzi, Baldassarre, _Life_, 63-74. 57, 63-74, 136, 170, 176, 208 Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, 118, 119 Piero da Volterra, 64 Piero di Cosimo, 86 Pietrasanta, Stagio da, 162 Pietro Perugino (Pietro Vannucci), 49, 50, 87, 230 Pinturicchio, Bernardino, 227 Piombo, Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del, 66 Pistoia, Il (Leonardo), 79, 80 Plautilla, 126 Poggini, Zanobi, 106 Poggino, Zanobi di, 165 Polidoro da Caravaggio (Polidoro Caldara), _Life_, 175-185 Pollaiuolo, Antonio, 21 Pollaiuolo, Simone del (Il Cronaca), 22 Polo, Domenico di, 135 Pomponio Amalteo, 154, 155 Pontormo, Jacopo da (Jacopo Carrucci), 93, 98, 104, 118, 135, 190, 221, 222, 231, 232 Pordenone (Giovanni Antonio Licinio, or Cuticello), _Life_, 145-155 Porta, Baccio della (Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco), 159, 160, 194 Prato, Francesco di Girolamo dal, 135 Primaticcio, Francesco, 200, 201, 203 Properzia de' Rossi, Madonna, _Life_, 123-128 Prospero Fontana, 213 Puligo, Domenico, 109 Pupini, Biagio (Biagio Bolognese), 208, 211 Raffaello da Montelupo, _Life_, 41-45. 27, 119 Raffaello da Urbino (Raffaello Sanzio), 11-15, 55, 56, 66, 72, 77-81, 107-109, 117, 126, 169, 175, 191, 194, 201, 207, 208, 213, 222, 245, 247 Raffaello dal Colle (Raffaello dal Borgo), 140, 195, 196 Raffaello di Biagio, 231, 232 Raffaello Sanzio (Raffaello da Urbino), 11-15, 55, 56, 66, 72, 77-81, 107-109, 117, 126, 169, 175, 191, 194, 201, 207, 208, 213, 222, 245, 247 Ramenghi, Bartolommeo (Bartolommeo da Bagnacavallo), _Life_, 207-209 Ravenna, Rondinello da (Niccolò Rondinello), _Life_, 264-265. 266 Ribaldi, Giovanni (Giovanni Boccalino), 29 Ricamatori, Giovanni (Giovanni Nanni, or Giovanni da Udine), 77, 155, 175, 229, 238, 246 Riccio (Bartolommeo Neroni), 73 Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, 220, 231 Robbia, Andrea della, 90 Robbia, Girolamo della, 90 Robbia, Luca della (the younger), 90 Romano, Giulio (Giulio Pippi de' Giannuzzi), 55, 77-79, 108, 109, 195 Romano, Paolo, 57 Romano, Virgilio, 73 Rondinello, Niccolò (Rondinello da Ravenna), _Life_, 264-265. 266 Rosselli, Bernardo (Bernardo del Buda), 116 Rosselli, Cosimo, 88, 229 Rossi, Francesco de' (Francesco Salviati), 119 Rossi, Giovan Battista de' (Il Rosso), _Life_, 189-203. 97 Rossi, Madonna Properzia de', _Life_, 123-128 Rosso, Il (Giovan Battista de' Rossi), _Life_, 189-203. 97 Rovezzano, Benedetto da, _Life_, 35-38 Rozzo, Antonio del (Antonio del Tozzo), 73 Salviati, Francesco (Francesco de' Rossi), 119 San Daniele, Pellegrino da (Martino da Udine, or Martino di Battista), 145-150 San Gallo, Antonio da (the elder), 97 San Gallo, Antonio da (the younger), 29, 43, 58, 72 San Gallo, Francesco da, 27 San Gallo, Giuliano da, 97 San Gallo, Sebastiano (Aristotele) da, 97 San Gimignano, Vincenzio da (Vincenzio Tamagni), _Life_, 11-17 San Marco, Fra Bartolommeo di (Baccio della Porta), 159, 160, 194 Sandrino del Calzolaio, 161, 165 Sandro, Jacopo di, 97 Sandro, Pier Francesco di Jacopo di, 118, 119 Sansovino, Andrea (Andrea dal Monte Sansovino, or Andrea Contucci), _Life_, 21-31. 43, 88 Sansovino, Jacopo, 5, 31, 35, 36, 80, 88, 92, 93, 97, 98, 180, 218, 231, 247 Santa Croce, Girolamo, _Life_, 137-138 Santi Titi dal Borgo, 160 Sanzio, Raffaello (Raffaello da Urbino), 11-15, 55, 56, 66, 72, 77-81, 107-109, 117, 126, 169, 175, 191, 194, 201, 207, 208, 213, 222, 245, 247 Sarto, Andrea del (Andrea d' Agnolo), _Life_, 85-120. 164, 194, 217-221, 231 Schizzone, 12 Sebastiano (Aristotele) da San Gallo, 97 Sebastiano Florigerio (Bastianello Florigorio), 148 Sebastiano Serlio, 72 Sebastiano Viniziano del Piombo, Fra, 66 Serlio, Sebastiano, 72 Sesto, Cesare da (Cesare da Milano), 65, 141 Sguazzella, Andrea, 100, 118 Siena, Francesco da, 71, 73 Siena, Michelagnolo da, _Life_, 136-137. 69 Silvio Cosini, 6-8 Simone Cioli, 30 Simone del Pollaiuolo (Il Cronaca), 22 Simone Mosca, 44 Simone of Paris, 201 Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi), 73 Sofonisba Anguisciuola, 127, 128 Soggi, Niccolò, 109, 110, 196 Sogliani, Giovanni Antonio, _Life_, 159-166. 51 Solosmeo (Antonio di Giovanni), 118 Spadari, Benedetto, 195, 196 Stagio da Pietrasanta, 162 Stefano Lunetti (Stefano of Florence), 51 Tamagni, Vincenzio (Vincenzio da San Gimignano), _Life_, 11-17 Tasso, Giuliano del, 97 Tasso, Leonardo del, 31 Timoteo da Urbino (Timoteo della Vite), _Life_, 11-17 Titi dal Borgo, Santi, 160 Tiziano da Cadore (Tiziano Vecelli), 66, 133, 134, 152, 153 Tommaso di Stefano Lunetti, 51, 52, 164, 231 Tozzo, Antonio del (Antonio del Rozzo), 73 Trento, Antonio da (Antonio Fantuzzi), 249, 250 Treviso, Girolamo da (Girolamo Trevigi), _Life_, 169-171. 68 Tribolo (Niccolò), 6, 28, 136, 233 Ubertini, Francesco (Francesco d' Albertino, or Il Bacchiacca), 222 Udine, Giovanni da (Giovanni Martini), 145-147 Udine, Giovanni da (Giovanni Nanni, or Giovanni Ricamatori), 77, 155, 175, 229, 238, 246 Udine, Martino da (Pellegrino da San Daniele, or Martino di Battista), 145-150 Urbino, Bramante da, 26, 28, 29, 65, 68, 69 Urbino, Raffaello da (Raffaello Sanzio), 11-15, 55, 56, 66, 72, 77-81, 107-109, 117, 126, 169, 175, 191, 194, 201, 207, 208, 213, 222, 245, 247 Urbino, Timoteo da (Timoteo della Vite), _Life_, 11-17 Vaga, Perino del (Perino Buonaccorsi), 7, 77-79, 153, 162 Valerio Vicentino (Valerio de' Belli), 247 Vannucci, Pietro (Pietro Perugino), 49, 50, 87, 230 Vasari, Giorgio-- as art-collector, 17, 22, 24, 38, 45, 49, 74, 77, 79, 104, 118, 126, 128, 165, 196, 197, 201, 209, 213, 219, 250-252, 256 as author, 3-5, 7, 11, 12, 17, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 35, 45, 63, 66, 69, 73, 91, 96, 98, 108, 112, 114, 120, 126, 128, 132, 134, 135, 139, 145, 146, 148, 155, 177, 182, 185, 192, 194, 199, 201, 210-213, 223, 230, 232, 238, 247, 250, 251, 253-255, 259, 260, 264 as painter, 36, 80, 119, 135, 163, 232, 233, 265 as architect, 233, 250, 251 Vecchio, Palma (Jacopo Palma), _Life_, 259-261 Vecelli, Tiziano (Tiziano da Cadore), 66, 133, 134, 152, 153 Vercelli, Bernardo da, 151 Verrocchio, Andrea, 49, 50, 55 Vetraio, Giovan Francesco (Giovan Francesco Bembo), 180 Vicentino, Valerio (Valerio de' Belli), 247 Vincenzio Caccianimici, 255, 256 Vincenzio da San Gimignano (Vincenzio Tamagni), _Life_, 11-17 Vincenzio Tamagni (Vincenzio da San Gimignano), _Life_, 11-17 Vinci, Leonardo da, 49, 50, 86, 228, 261 Viniziano, Agostino, 97 Virgilio Romano, 73 Visino, 223 Vite, Timoteo della (Timoteo da Urbino), _Life_, 11-17 Vitruvius, 68, 71 Vittoria, Alessandro, 247 Volterra, Piero da, 64 Volterra, Zaccaria da, 45, 132 Zaccaria da Volterra, 45, 132 Zaganelli, Francesco de' (Francesco da Cotignola), _Life_, 265-266 Zanobi di Poggino, 165 Zanobi Poggini, 106 END OF VOL. V. PRINTED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF CHAS. T. JACOBI OF THE CHISWICK PRESS, LONDON. THE COLOURED REPRODUCTIONS ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY HENRY STONE AND SON, LTD., BANBURY 
2901	----	ESSAYS ON CENSORSHIP AND ART By John Galsworthy "Je vous dirai que l'exces est toujours un mal." --ANATOLE FRANCE TABLE OF CONTENTS: ABOUT CENSORSHIP VAGUE THOUGHTS ON ART ABOUT CENSORSHIP Since, time and again, it has been proved, in this country of free institutions, that the great majority of our fellow-countrymen consider the only Censorship that now obtains amongst us, namely the Censorship of Plays, a bulwark for the preservation of their comfort and sensibility against the spiritual researches and speculations of bolder and too active spirits--it has become time to consider whether we should not seriously extend a principle, so grateful to the majority, to all our institutions. For no one can deny that in practice the Censorship of Drama works with a smooth swiftness--a lack of delay and friction unexampled in any public office. No troublesome publicity and tedious postponement for the purpose of appeal mar its efficiency. It is neither hampered by the Law nor by the slow process of popular election. Welcomed by the overwhelming majority of the public; objected to only by such persons as suffer from it, and a negligible faction, who, wedded pedantically to liberty of the subject, are resentful of summary powers vested in a single person responsible only to his own 'conscience'--it is amazingly, triumphantly, successful. Why, then, in a democratic State, is so valuable a protector of the will, the interests, and pleasure of the majority not bestowed on other branches of the public being? Opponents of the Censorship of Plays have been led by the absence of such other Censorships to conclude that this Office is an archaic survival, persisting into times that have outgrown it. They have been known to allege that the reason of its survival is simply the fact that Dramatic Authors, whose reputation and means of livelihood it threatens, have ever been few in number and poorly organised--that the reason, in short, is the helplessness and weakness of the interests concerned. We must all combat with force such an aspersion on our Legislature. Can it even for a second be supposed that a State which gives trial by Jury to the meanest, poorest, most helpless of its citizens, and concedes to the greatest criminals the right of appeal, could have debarred a body of reputable men from the ordinary rights of citizenship for so cynical a reason as that their numbers were small, their interests unjoined, their protests feeble? Such a supposition were intolerable! We do not in this country deprive a class of citizens of their ordinary rights, we do not place their produce under the irresponsible control of one not amenable to Law, by any sort of political accident! That would indeed be to laugh at Justice in this Kingdom! That would indeed be cynical and unsound! We must never admit that there is no basic Justice controlling the edifice of our Civic Rights. We do, we must, conclude that a just and well-considered principle underlies this despotic Institution; for surely, else, it would not be suffered to survive for a single moment! Pom! Pom! If, then, the Censorship of Plays be just, beneficent, and based on a well-considered principle, we must rightly inquire what good and logical reason there is for the absence of Censorship in other departments of the national life. If Censorship of the Drama be in the real interests of the people, or at all events in what the Censor for the time being conceives to be their interest--then Censorships of Art, Literature, Religion, Science, and Politics are in the interests of the people, unless it can be proved that there exists essential difference between the Drama and these other branches of the public being. Let us consider whether there is any such essential difference. It is fact, beyond dispute, that every year numbers of books appear which strain the average reader's intelligence and sensibilities to an unendurable extent; books whose speculations are totally unsuited to normal thinking powers; books which contain views of morality divergent from the customary, and discussions of themes unsuited to the young person; books which, in fine, provide the greater Public with no pleasure whatsoever, and, either by harrowing their feelings or offending their good taste, cause them real pain. It is true that, precisely as in the case of Plays, the Public are protected by a vigilant and critical Press from works of this description; that, further, they are protected by the commercial instinct of the Libraries, who will not stock an article which may offend their customers--just as, in the case of Plays, the Public are protected by the common-sense of theatrical Managers; that, finally, they are protected by the Police and the Common Law of the land. But despite all these protections, it is no uncommon thing for an average citizen to purchase one of these disturbing or dubious books. Has he, on discovering its true nature, the right to call on the bookseller to refund its value? He has not. And thus he runs a danger obviated in the case of the Drama which has the protection of a prudential Censorship. For this reason alone, how much better, then, that there should exist a paternal authority (some, no doubt, will call it grand-maternal--but sneers must not be confounded with argument) to suppress these books before appearance, and safeguard us from the danger of buying and possibly reading undesirable or painful literature! A specious reason, however, is advanced for exempting Literature from the Censorship accorded to Plays. He--it is said--who attends the performance of a play, attends it in public, where his feelings may be harrowed and his taste offended, cheek by jowl with boys, or women of all ages; it may even chance that he has taken to this entertainment his wife, or the young persons of his household. He--on the other hand--who reads a book, reads it in privacy. True; but the wielder of this argument has clasped his fingers round a two-edged blade. The very fact that the book has no mixed audience removes from Literature an element which is ever the greatest check on licentiousness in Drama. No manager of a theatre,--a man of the world engaged in the acquisition of his livelihood, unless guaranteed by the license of the Censor, dare risk the presentment before a mixed audience of that which might cause an 'emeute' among his clients. It has, indeed, always been observed that the theatrical manager, almost without exception, thoughtfully recoils from the responsibility that would be thrust on him by the abolition of the Censorship. The fear of the mixed audience is ever suspended above his head. No such fear threatens the publisher, who displays his wares to one man at a time. And for this very reason of the mixed audience; perpetually and perversely cited to the contrary by such as have no firm grasp of this matter, there is a greater necessity for a Censorship on Literature than for one on Plays. Further, if there were but a Censorship of Literature, no matter how dubious the books that were allowed to pass, the conscience of no reader need ever be troubled. For, that the perfect rest of the public conscience is the first result of Censorship, is proved to certainty by the protected Drama, since many dubious plays are yearly put before the play-going Public without tending in any way to disturb a complacency engendered by the security from harm guaranteed by this beneficent, if despotic, Institution. Pundits who, to the discomfort of the populace, foster this exemption of Literature from discipline, cling to the old-fashioned notion that ulcers should be encouraged to discharge themselves upon the surface, instead of being quietly and decently driven into the system and allowed to fester there. The remaining plea for exempting Literature from Censorship, put forward by unreflecting persons: That it would require too many Censors--besides being unworthy, is, on the face of it, erroneous. Special tests have never been thought necessary in appointing Examiners of Plays. They would, indeed, not only be unnecessary, but positively dangerous, seeing that the essential function of Censorship is protection of the ordinary prejudices and forms of thought. There would, then, be no difficulty in securing tomorrow as many Censors of Literature as might be necessary (say twenty or thirty); since all that would be required of each one of them would be that he should secretly exercise, in his uncontrolled discretion, his individual taste. In a word, this Free Literature of ours protects advancing thought and speculation; and those who believe in civic freedom subject only to Common Law, and espouse the cause of free literature, are championing a system which is essentially undemocratic, essentially inimical to the will of the majority, who have certainly no desire for any such things as advancing thought and speculation. Such persons, indeed, merely hold the faith that the People, as a whole, unprotected by the despotic judgments of single persons, have enough strength and wisdom to know what is and what is not harmful to themselves. They put their trust in a Public Press and a Common Law, which deriving from the Conscience of the Country, is openly administered and within the reach of all. How absurd, how inadequate this all is we see from the existence of the Censorship on Drama. Having observed that there is no reason whatever for the exemption of Literature, let us now turn to the case of Art. Every picture hung in a gallery, every statue placed on a pedestal, is exposed to the public stare of a mixed company. Why, then, have we no Censorship to protect us from the possibility of encountering works that bring blushes to the cheek of the young person? The reason cannot be that the proprietors of Galleries are more worthy of trust than the managers of Theatres; this would be to make an odious distinction which those very Managers who uphold the Censorship of Plays would be the first to resent. It is true that Societies of artists and the proprietors of Galleries are subject to the prosecution of the Law if they offend against the ordinary standards of public decency; but precisely the same liability attaches to theatrical managers and proprietors of Theatres, in whose case it has been found necessary and beneficial to add the Censorship. And in this connection let it once more be noted how much more easily the ordinary standards of public decency can be assessed by a single person responsible to no one, than by the clumsy (if more open) process of public protest. What, then, in the light of the proved justice and efficiency of the Censorship of Drama, is the reason for the absence of the Censorship of Art? The more closely the matter is regarded, the more plain it is, that there is none! At any moment we may have to look upon some painting, or contemplate some statue, as tragic, heart-rending, and dubiously delicate in theme as that censured play "The Cenci," by one Shelley; as dangerous to prejudice, and suggestive of new thought as the censured "Ghosts," by one Ibsen. Let us protest against this peril suspended over our heads, and demand the immediate appointment of a single person not selected for any pretentiously artistic feelings, but endowed with summary powers of prohibiting the exhibition, in public galleries or places, of such works as he shall deem, in his uncontrolled discretion, unsuited to average intelligence or sensibility. Let us demand it in the interest, not only of the young person, but of those whole sections of the community which cannot be expected to take an interest in Art, and to whom the purpose, speculations, and achievements of great artists, working not only for to-day but for to-morrow, must naturally be dark riddles. Let us even require that this official should be empowered to order the destruction of the works which he has deemed unsuited to average intelligence and sensibility, lest their creators should, by private sale, make a profit out of them, such as, in the nature of the case, Dramatic Authors are debarred from making out of plays which, having been censured, cannot be played for money. Let us ask this with confidence; for it is not compatible with common justice that there should be any favouring of Painter over Playwright. They are both artists--let them both be measured by the same last! But let us now consider the case of Science. It will not, indeed cannot, be contended that the investigations of scientific men, whether committed to writing or to speech, are always suited to the taste and capacities of our general public. There was, for example, the well-known doctrine of Evolution, the teachings of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russet Wallace, who gathered up certain facts, hitherto but vaguely known, into presentments, irreverent and startling, which, at the time, profoundly disturbed every normal mind. Not only did religion, as then accepted, suffer in this cataclysm, but our taste and feeling were inexpressibly shocked by the discovery, so emphasised by Thomas Henry Huxley, of Man's descent from Apes. It was felt, and is felt by many to this day, that the advancement of that theory grossly and dangerously violated every canon of decency. What pain, then, might have been averted, what far-reaching consequences and incalculable subversion of primitive faiths checked, if some judicious Censor of scientific thought had existed in those days to demand, in accordance with his private estimate of the will and temper of the majority, the suppression of the doctrine of Evolution. Innumerable investigations of scientists on subjects such as the date of the world's creation, have from time to time been summarised and inconsiderately sprung on a Public shocked and startled by the revelation that facts which they were accustomed to revere were conspicuously at fault. So, too, in the range of medicine, it would be difficult to cite any radical discovery (such as the preventive power of vaccination), whose unchecked publication has not violated the prejudices and disturbed the immediate comfort of the common mind. Had these discoveries been judiciously suppressed, or pared away to suit what a Censorship conceived to be the popular palate of the time, all this disturbance and discomfort might have been avoided. It will doubtless be contended (for there are no such violent opponents of Censorship as those who are threatened with the same) that to compare a momentous disclosure, such as the doctrine of Evolution, to a mere drama, were unprofitable. The answer to this ungenerous contention is fortunately plain. Had a judicious Censorship existed over our scientific matters, such as for two hundred years has existed over our Drama, scientific discoveries would have been no more disturbing and momentous than those which we are accustomed to see made on our nicely pruned and tutored stage. For not only would the more dangerous and penetrating scientific truths have been carefully destroyed at birth, but scientists, aware that the results of investigations offensive to accepted notions would be suppressed, would long have ceased to waste their time in search of a knowledge repugnant to average intelligence, and thus foredoomed, and have occupied themselves with services more agreeable to the public taste, such as the rediscovery of truths already known and published. Indissolubly connected with the desirability of a Censorship of Science, is the need for Religious Censorship. For in this, assuredly not the least important department of the nation's life, we are witnessing week by week and year by year, what in the light of the security guaranteed by the Censorship of Drama, we are justified in terming an alarming spectacle. Thousands of men are licensed to proclaim from their pulpits, Sunday after Sunday, their individual beliefs, quite regardless of the settled convictions of the masses of their congregations. It is true, indeed, that the vast majority of sermons (like the vast majority of plays) are, and will always be, harmonious with the feelings--of the average citizen; for neither priest nor playwright have customarily any such peculiar gift of spiritual daring as might render them unsafe mentors of their fellows; and there is not wanting the deterrent of common-sense to keep them in bounds. Yet it can hardly be denied that there spring up at times men--like John Wesley or General Booth--of such incurable temperament as to be capable of abusing their freedom by the promulgation of doctrine or procedure, divergent from the current traditions of religion. Nor must it be forgotten that sermons, like plays, are addressed to a mixed audience of families, and that the spiritual teachings of a lifetime may be destroyed by ten minutes of uncensored pronouncement from a pulpit, the while parents are sitting, not, as in a theatre vested with the right of protest, but dumb and excoriated to the soul, watching their children, perhaps of tender age, eagerly drinking in words at variance with that which they themselves have been at such pains to instil. If a set of Censors--for it would, as in the case of Literature, indubitably require more than one (perhaps one hundred and eighty, but, for reasons already given, there should be no difficulty whatever in procuring them) endowed with the swift powers conferred by freedom from the dull tedium of responsibility, and not remarkable for religious temperament, were appointed, to whom all sermons and public addresses on religious subjects must be submitted before delivery, and whose duty after perusal should be to excise all portions not conformable to their private ideas of what was at the moment suitable to the Public's ears, we should be far on the road toward that proper preservation of the status quo so desirable if the faiths and ethical standards of the less exuberantly spiritual masses are to be maintained in their full bloom. As things now stand, the nation has absolutely nothing to safeguard it against religious progress. We have seen, then, that Censorship is at least as necessary over Literature, Art, Science, and Religion as it is over our Drama. We have now to call attention to the crowning need--the want of a Censorship in Politics. If Censorship be based on justice, if it be proved to serve the Public and to be successful in its lonely vigil over Drama, it should, and logically must be, extended to all parallel cases; it cannot, it dare not, stop short at--Politics. For, precisely in this supreme branch of the public life are we most menaced by the rule and license of the leading spirit. To appreciate this fact, we need only examine the Constitution of the House of Commons. Six hundred and seventy persons chosen from a population numbering four and forty millions, must necessarily, whatever their individual defects, be citizens of more than average enterprise, resource, and resolution. They are elected for a period that may last five years. Many of them are ambitious; some uncompromising; not a few enthusiastically eager to do something for their country; filled with designs and aspirations for national or social betterment, with which the masses, sunk in the immediate pursuits of life, can in the nature of things have little sympathy. And yet we find these men licensed to pour forth at pleasure, before mixed audiences, checked only by Common Law and Common Sense political utterances which may have the gravest, the most terrific consequences; utterances which may at any moment let loose revolution, or plunge the country into war; which often, as a fact, excite an utter detestation, terror, and mistrust; or shock the most sacred domestic and proprietary convictions in the breasts of vast majorities of their fellow-countrymen! And we incur this appalling risk for the want of a single, or at the most, a handful of Censors, invested with a simple but limitless discretion to excise or to suppress entirely such political utterances as may seem to their private judgments calculated to cause pain or moral disturbance in the average man. The masses, it is true, have their protection and remedy against injudicious or inflammatory politicians in the Law and the so-called democratic process of election; but we have seen that theatre audiences have also the protection of the Law, and the remedy of boycott, and that in their case, this protection and this remedy are not deemed enough. What, then, shall we say of the case of Politics, where the dangers attending inflammatory or subversive utterance are greater a million fold, and the remedy a thousand times less expeditious? Our Legislators have laid down Censorship as the basic principle of Justice underlying the civic rights of dramatists. Then, let "Censorship for all" be their motto, and this country no longer be ridden and destroyed by free Institutions! Let them not only establish forthwith Censorships of Literature, Art, Science, and Religion, but also place themselves beneath the regimen with which they have calmly fettered Dramatic Authors. They cannot deem it becoming to their regard for justice, to their honour; to their sense of humour, to recoil from a restriction which, in a parallel case they have imposed on others. It is an old and homely saying that good officers never place their men in positions they would not themselves be willing to fill. And we are not entitled to believe that our Legislators, having set Dramatic Authors where they have been set, will--now that their duty is made plain--for a moment hesitate to step down and stand alongside. But if by any chance they should recoil, and thus make answer: "We are ready at all times to submit to the Law and the People's will, and to bow to their demands, but we cannot and must not be asked to place our calling, our duty, and our honour beneath the irresponsible rule of an arbitrary autocrat, however sympathetic with the generality he may chance to be!" Then, we would ask: "Sirs, did you ever hear of that great saying: 'Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you!'" For it is but fair presumption that the Dramatists, whom our Legislators have placed in bondage to a despot, are, no less than those Legislators, proud of their calling, conscious of their duty, and jealous of their honour. 1909. VAGUE THOUGHTS ON ART It was on a day of rare beauty that I went out into the fields to try and gather these few thoughts. So golden and sweetly hot it was, that they came lazily, and with a flight no more coherent or responsible than the swoop of the very swallows; and, as in a play or poem, the result is conditioned by the conceiving mood, so I knew would be the nature of my diving, dipping, pale-throated, fork-tailed words. But, after all--I thought, sitting there--I need not take my critical pronouncements seriously. I have not the firm soul of the critic. It is not my profession to know 'things for certain, and to make others feel that certainty. On the contrary, I am often wrong--a luxury no critic can afford. And so, invading as I was the realm of others, I advanced with a light pen, feeling that none, and least of all myself, need expect me to be right. What then--I thought--is Art? For I perceived that to think about it I must first define it; and I almost stopped thinking at all before the fearsome nature of that task. Then slowly in my mind gathered this group of words: Art is that imaginative expression of human energy, which, through technical concretion of feeling and perception, tends to reconcile the individual with the universal, by exciting in him impersonal emotion. And the greatest Art is that which excites the greatest impersonal emotion in an hypothecated perfect human being. Impersonal emotion! And what--I thought do I mean by that? Surely I mean: That is not Art, which, while I, am contemplating it, inspires me with any active or directive impulse; that is Art, when, for however brief a moment, it replaces within me interest in myself by interest in itself. For, let me suppose myself in the presence of a carved marble bath. If my thoughts be "What could I buy that for?" Impulse of acquisition; or: "From what quarry did it come?" Impulse of inquiry; or: "Which would be the right end for my head?" Mixed impulse of inquiry and acquisition--I am at that moment insensible to it as a work of Art. But, if I stand before it vibrating at sight of its colour and forms, if ever so little and for ever so short a time, unhaunted by any definite practical thought or impulse--to that extent and for that moment it has stolen me away out of myself and put itself there instead; has linked me to the universal by making me forget the individual in me. And for that moment, and only while that moment lasts, it is to me a work of Art. The word "impersonal," then, is but used in this my definition to signify momentary forgetfulness of one's own personality and its active wants. So Art--I thought--is that which, heard, read, or looked on, while producing no directive impulse, warms one with unconscious vibration. Nor can I imagine any means of defining what is the greatest Art, without hypothecating a perfect human being. But since we shall never see, or know if we do see, that desirable creature--dogmatism is banished, "Academy" is dead to the discussion, deader than even Tolstoy left it after his famous treatise "What is Art?" For, having destroyed all the old Judges and Academies, Tolstoy, by saying that the greatest Art was that which appealed to the greatest number of living human beings, raised up the masses of mankind to be a definite new Judge or Academy, as tyrannical and narrow as ever were those whom he had destroyed. This, at all events--I thought is as far as I dare go in defining what Art is. But let me try to make plain to myself what is the essential quality that gives to Art the power of exciting this unconscious vibration, this impersonal emotion. It has been called Beauty! An awkward word--a perpetual begging of the question; too current in use, too ambiguous altogether; now too narrow, now too wide--a word, in fact, too glib to know at all what it means. And how dangerous a word--often misleading us into slabbing with extraneous floridities what would otherwise, on its own plane, be Art! To be decorative where decoration is not suitable, to be lyrical where lyricism is out of place, is assuredly to spoil Art, not to achieve it. But this essential quality of Art has also, and more happily, been called Rhythm. And, what is Rhythm if not that mysterious harmony between part and part, and part and whole, which gives what is called life; that exact proportion, the mystery of which is best grasped in observing how life leaves an animate creature when the essential relation of part to whole has been sufficiently disturbed. And I agree that this rhythmic relation of part to part, and part to whole--in short, vitality--is the one quality inseparable from a work of Art. For nothing which does not seem to a man possessed of this rhythmic vitality, can ever steal him out of himself. And having got thus far in my thoughts, I paused, watching the swallows; for they seemed to me the symbol, in their swift, sure curvetting, all daring and balance and surprise, of the delicate poise and motion of Art, that visits no two men alike, in a world where no two things of all the things there be, are quite the same. Yes--I thought--and this Art is the one form of human energy in the whole world, which really works for union, and destroys the barriers between man and man. It is the continual, unconscious replacement, however fleeting, of oneself by another; the real cement of human life; the everlasting refreshment and renewal. For, what is grievous, dompting, grim, about our lives is that we are shut up within ourselves, with an itch to get outside ourselves. And to be stolen away from ourselves by Art is a momentary relaxation from that itching, a minute's profound, and as it were secret, enfranchisement. The active amusements and relaxations of life can only rest certain of our faculties, by indulging others; the whole self is never rested save through that unconsciousness of self, which comes through rapt contemplation of Nature or of Art. And suddenly I remembered that some believe that Art does not produce unconsciousness of self, but rather very vivid self-realisation. Ah! but--I though--that is not the first and instant effect of Art; the new impetus is the after effect of that momentary replacement of oneself by the self of the work before us; it is surely the result of that brief span of enlargement, enfranchisement, and rest. Yes, Art is the great and universal refreshment. For Art is never dogmatic; holds no brief for itself you may take it or you may leave it. It does not force itself rudely where it is not wanted. It is reverent to all tempers, to all points of view. But it is wilful--the very wind in the comings and goings of its influence, an uncapturable fugitive, visiting our hearts at vagrant, sweet moments; since we often stand even before the greatest works of Art without being able quite to lose ourselves! That restful oblivion comes, we never quite know when--and it is gone! But when it comes, it is a spirit hovering with cool wings, blessing us from least to greatest, according to our powers; a spirit deathless and varied as human life itself. And in what sort of age--I thought--are artists living now? Are conditions favourable? Life is very multiple; full of "movements," "facts," and "news"; with the limelight terribly turned on--and all this is adverse to the artist. Yet, leisure is abundant; the facilities for study great; Liberty is respected--more or less. But, there is one great reason why, in this age of ours, Art, it seems, must flourish. For, just as cross-breeding in Nature--if it be not too violent--often gives an extra vitality to the offspring, so does cross-breeding of philosophies make for vitality in Art. I cannot help thinking that historians, looking back from the far future, will record this age as the Third Renaissance. We who are lost in it, working or looking on, can neither tell what we are doing, nor where standing; but we cannot help observing, that, just as in the Greek Renaissance, worn-out Pagan orthodoxy was penetrated by new philosophy; just as in the Italian Renaissance, Pagan philosophy, reasserting itself, fertilised again an already too inbred Christian creed; so now Orthodoxy fertilised by Science is producing a fresh and fuller conception of life--a, love of Perfection, not for hope of reward, not for fear of punishment, but for Perfection's sake. Slowly, under our feet, beneath our consciousness, is forming that new philosophy, and it is in times of new philosophies that Art, itself in essence always a discovery, must flourish. Those whose sacred suns and moons are ever in the past, tell us that our Art is going to the dogs; and it is, indeed, true that we are in confusion! The waters are broken, and every nerve and sinew of the artist is strained to discover his own safety. It is an age of stir and change, a season of new wine and old bottles. Yet, assuredly, in spite of breakages and waste, a wine worth the drinking is all the time being made. I ceased again to think, for the sun had dipped low, and the midges were biting me; and the sounds of evening had begun, those innumerable far-travelling sounds of man and bird and beast--so clear and intimate--of remote countrysides at sunset. And for long I listened, too vague to move my pen. New philosophy--a vigorous Art! Are there not all the signs of it? In music, sculpture, painting; in fiction--and drama; in dancing; in criticism itself, if criticism be an Art. Yes, we are reaching out to a new faith not yet crystallised, to a new Art not yet perfected; the forms still to find-the flowers still to fashion! And how has it come, this slowly growing faith in Perfection for Perfection's sake? Surely like this: The Western world awoke one day to find that it no longer believed corporately and for certain in future life for the individual consciousness. It began to feel: I cannot say more than that there may be--Death may be the end of man, or Death may be nothing. And it began to ask itself in this uncertainty: Do I then desire to go on living? Now, since it found that it desired to go on living at least as earnestly as ever it did before, it began to inquire why. And slowly it perceived that there was, inborn within it, a passionate instinct of which it had hardly till then been conscious--a sacred instinct to perfect itself, now, as well as in a possible hereafter; to perfect itself because Perfection was desirable, a vision to be adored, and striven for; a dream motive fastened within the Universe; the very essential Cause of everything. And it began to see that this Perfection, cosmically, was nothing but perfect Equanimity and Harmony; and in human relations, nothing but perfect Love and Justice. And Perfection began to glow before the eyes of the Western world like a new star, whose light touched with glamour all things as they came forth from Mystery, till to Mystery they were ready to return. This--I thought is surely what the Western world has dimly been rediscovering. There has crept into our minds once more the feeling that the Universe is all of a piece, Equipoise supreme; and all things equally wonderful, and mysterious, and valuable. We have begun, in fact, to have a glimmering of the artist's creed, that nothing may we despise or neglect--that everything is worth the doing well, the making fair--that our God, Perfection, is implicit everywhere, and the revelation of Him the business of our Art. And as I jotted down these words I noticed that some real stars had crept up into the sky, so gradually darkening above the pollard lime-trees; cuckoos, who had been calling on the thorn-trees all the afternoon, were silent; the swallows no longer flirted past, but a bat was already in career over the holly hedge; and round me the buttercups were closing. The whole form and feeling of the world had changed, so that I seemed to have before me a new picture hanging. Ah! I thought Art must indeed be priest of this new faith in Perfection, whose motto is: "Harmony, Proportion, Balance." For by Art alone can true harmony in human affairs be fostered, true Proportion revealed, and true Equipoise preserved. Is not the training of an artist a training in the due relation of one thing with another, and in the faculty of expressing that relation clearly; and, even more, a training in the faculty of disengaging from self the very essence of self--and passing that essence into other selves by so delicate means that none shall see how it is done, yet be insensibly unified? Is not the artist, of all men, foe and nullifier of partisanship and parochialism, of distortions and extravagance, the discoverer of that jack-o'-lantern--Truth; for, if Truth be not Spiritual Proportion I know not what it is. Truth it seems to me--is no absolute thing, but always relative, the essential symmetry in the varying relationships of life; and the most perfect truth is but the concrete expression of the most penetrating vision. Life seen throughout as a countless show of the finest works of Art; Life shaped, and purged of the irrelevant, the gross, and the extravagant; Life, as it were, spiritually selected--that is Truth; a thing as multiple, and changing, as subtle, and strange, as Life itself, and as little to be bound by dogma. Truth admits but the one rule: No deficiency, and no excess! Disobedient to that rule--nothing attains full vitality. And secretly fettered by that rule is Art, whose business is the creation of vital things. That aesthete, to be sure, was right, when he said: "It is Style that makes one believe in a thing; nothing but Style." For, what is Style in its true and broadest sense save fidelity to idea and mood, and perfect balance in the clothing of them? And I thought: Can one believe in the decadence of Art in an age which, however unconsciously as yet, is beginning to worship that which Art worships--Perfection-Style? The faults of our Arts to-day are the faults of zeal and of adventure, the faults and crudities of pioneers, the errors and mishaps of the explorer. They must pass through many fevers, and many times lose their way; but at all events they shall not go dying in their beds, and be buried at Kensal Green. And, here and there, amid the disasters and wreckage of their voyages of discovery, they will find something new, some fresh way of embellishing life, or of revealing the heart of things. That characteristic of to-day's Art--the striving of each branch of Art to burst its own boundaries--which to many spells destruction, is surely of happy omen. The novel straining to become the play, the play the novel, both trying to paint; music striving to become story; poetry gasping to be music; painting panting to be philosophy; forms, canons, rules, all melting in the pot; stagnation broken up! In all this havoc there is much to shock and jar even the most eager and adventurous. We cannot stand these new-fangled fellows! They have no form! They rush in where angels fear to tread. They have lost all the good of the old, and given us nothing in its place! And yet--only out of stir and change is born new salvation. To deny that is to deny belief in man, to turn our backs on courage! It is well, indeed, that some should live in closed studies with the paintings and the books of yesterday--such devoted students serve Art in their own way. But the fresh-air world will ever want new forms. We shall not get them without faith enough to risk the old! The good will live, the bad will die; and tomorrow only can tell us which is which! Yes--I thought--we naturally take a too impatient view of the Art of our own time, since we can neither see the ends toward which it is almost blindly groping, nor the few perfected creations that will be left standing amidst the rubble of abortive effort. An age must always decry itself and extol its forbears. The unwritten history of every Art will show us that. Consider the novel--that most recent form of Art! Did not the age which followed Fielding lament the treachery of authors to the Picaresque tradition, complaining that they were not as Fielding and Smollett were? Be sure they did. Very slowly and in spite of opposition did the novel attain in this country the fulness of that biographical form achieved under Thackeray. Very slowly, and in face of condemnation, it has been losing that form in favour of a greater vividness which places before the reader's brain, not historical statements, as it were, of motives and of facts, but word-paintings of things and persons, so chosen and arranged that the reader may see, as if at first hand, the spirit of Life at work before him. The new novel has as many bemoaners as the old novel had when it was new. It is no question of better or worse, but of differing forms--of change dictated by gradual suitability to the changing conditions of our social life, and to the ever fresh discoveries of craftsmen, in the intoxication of which, old and equally worthy craftsmanship is--by the way--too often for the moment mislaid. The vested interests of life favour the line of least resistance--disliking and revolting against disturbance; but one must always remember that a spurious glamour is inclined to gather around what is new. And, because of these two deflecting factors, those who break through old forms must well expect to be dead before the new forms they have unconsciously created have found their true level, high or low, in the world of Art. When a thing is new how shall it be judged? In the fluster of meeting novelty, we have even seen coherence attempting to bind together two personalities so fundamentally opposed as those of Ibsen and Bernard Shaw dramatists with hardly a quality in common; no identity of tradition, or belief; not the faintest resemblance in methods of construction or technique. Yet contemporary; estimate talks of them often in the same breath. They are new! It is enough. And others, as utterly unlike them both. They too are new. They have as yet no label of their own then put on some one else's! And so--I thought it must always be; for Time is essential to the proper placing and estimate of all Art. And is it not this feeling, that contemporary judgments are apt to turn out a little ludicrous, which has converted much criticism of late from judgment pronounced into impression recorded--recreative statement--a kind, in fact, of expression of the critic's self, elicited through contemplation of a book, a play, a symphony, a picture? For this kind of criticism there has even recently been claimed an actual identity with creation. Esthetic judgment and creative power identical! That is a hard saying. For, however sympathetic one may feel toward this new criticism, however one may recognise that the recording of impression has a wider, more elastic, and more lasting value than the delivery of arbitrary judgment based on rigid laws of taste; however one may admit that it approaches the creative gift in so far as it demands the qualities of receptivity and reproduction--is there not still lacking to this "new" critic something of that thirsting spirit of discovery, which precedes the creation--hitherto so-called--of anything? Criticism, taste, aesthetic judgment, by the very nature of their task, wait till life has been focussed by the artists before they attempt to reproduce the image which that imprisoned fragment of life makes on the mirror of their minds. But a thing created springs from a germ unconsciously implanted by the direct impact of unfettered life on the whole range, of the creator's temperament; and round the germ thus engendered, the creative artist--ever penetrating, discovering, selecting--goes on building cell on cell, gathered from a million little fresh impacts and visions. And to say that this is also exactly what the recreative critic does, is to say that the interpretative musician is creator in the same sense as is the composer of the music that he interprets. If, indeed, these processes be the same in kind, they are in degree so far apart that one would think the word creative unfortunately used of both.... But this speculation--I thought--is going beyond the bounds of vagueness. Let there be some thread of coherence in your thoughts, as there is in the progress of this evening, fast fading into night. Return to the consideration of the nature and purposes of Art! And recognize that much of what you have thought will seem on the face of it heresy to the school whose doctrine was incarnated by Oscar Wilde in that admirable apotheosis of half-truths: "The Decay of the Art of Lying." For therein he said: "No great artist ever sees things as they really are." Yet, that half-truth might also be put thus: The seeing of things as they really are--the seeing of a proportion veiled from other eyes (together with the power of expression), is what makes a man an artist. What makes him a great artist is a high fervour of spirit, which produces a superlative, instead of a comparative, clarity of vision. Close to my house there is a group of pines with gnarled red limbs flanked by beech-trees. And there is often a very deep blue sky behind. Generally, that is all I see. But, once in a way, in those trees against that sky I seem to see all the passionate life and glow that Titian painted into his pagan pictures. I have a vision of mysterious meaning, of a mysterious relation between that sky and those trees with their gnarled red limbs and Life as I know it. And when I have had that vision I always feel, this is reality, and all those other times, when I have no such vision, simple unreality. If I were a painter, it is for such fervent vision I should wait, before moving brush: This, so intimate, inner vision of reality, indeed, seems in duller moments well-nigh grotesque; and hence that other glib half-truth: "Art is greater than Life itself." Art is, indeed, greater than Life in the sense that the power of Art is the disengagement from Life of its real spirit and significance. But in any other sense, to say that Art is greater than Life from which it emerges, and into which it must remerge, can but suspend the artist over Life, with his feet in the air and his head in the clouds--Prig masquerading as Demi-god. "Nature is no great Mother who has borne us. She is our creation. It is in our brain that she quickens to life." Such is the highest hyperbole of the aesthetic creed. But what is creative instinct, if not an incessant living sympathy with Nature, a constant craving like that of Nature's own, to fashion something new out of all that comes within the grasp of those faculties with which Nature has endowed us? The qualities of vision, of fancy, and of imaginative power, are no more divorced from Nature, than are the qualities of common-sense and courage. They are rarer, that is all. But in truth, no one holds such views. Not even those who utter them. They are the rhetoric, the over-statement of half-truths, by such as wish to condemn what they call "Realism," without being temperamentally capable of understanding what "Realism" really is. And what--I thought--is Realism? What is the meaning of that word so wildly used? Is it descriptive of technique, or descriptive of the spirit of the artist; or both, or neither? Was Turgenev a realist? No greater poet ever wrote in prose, nor any one who more closely brought the actual shapes of men and things before us. No more fervent idealists than Ibsen and Tolstoy ever lived; and none more careful to make their people real. Were they realists? No more deeply fantastic writer can I conceive than Dostoievsky, nor any who has described actual situations more vividly. Was he a realist? The late Stephen Crane was called a realist. Than whom no more impressionistic writer ever painted with words. What then is the heart of this term still often used as an expression almost of abuse? To me, at all events--I thought--the words realism, realistic, have no longer reference to technique, for which the words naturalism, naturalistic, serve far better. Nor have they to do with the question of imaginative power--as much demanded by realism as by romanticism. For me, a realist is by no means tied to naturalistic technique--he may be poetic, idealistic, fantastic, impressionistic, anything but--romantic; that, in so far as he is a realist, he cannot be. The word, in fact, characterises that artist whose temperamental preoccupation is with revelation of the actual inter-relating spirit of life, character, and thought, with a view to enlighten himself and others; as distinguished from that artist whom I call romantic--whose tempera mental purpose is invention of tale or design with a view to delight himself and others. It is a question of temperamental antecedent motive in the artist, and nothing more. Realist--Romanticist! Enlightenment--Delight! That is the true apposition. To make a revelation--to tell a fairy-tale! And either of these artists may use what form he likes--naturalistic, fantastic, poetic, impressionistic. For it is not by the form, but by the purpose and mood of his art that he shall be known, as one or as the other. Realists indeed--including the half of Shakespeare that was realist not being primarily concerned to amuse their audience, are still comparatively unpopular in a world made up for the greater part of men of action, who instinctively reject all art that does not distract them without causing them to think. For thought makes demands on an energy already in full use; thought causes introspection; and introspection causes discomfort, and disturbs the grooves of action. To say that the object of the realist is to enlighten rather than to delight, is not to say that in his art the realist is not amusing himself as much as ever is the teller of a fairy-tale, though he does not deliberately start out to do so; he is amusing, too, a large part of mankind. For, admitted that the abject, and the test of Art, is always the awakening of vibration, of impersonal emotion, it is still usually forgotten that men fall, roughly speaking, into two flocks: Those whose intelligence is uninquiring in the face of Art, and does not demand to be appeased before their emotions can be stirred; and those who, having a speculative bent of mind, must first be satisfied by an enlightening quality in a work of Art, before that work of Art can awaken in them feeling. The audience of the realist is drawn from this latter type of man; the much larger audience of the romantic artist from the former; together with, in both cases, those fastidious few for whom all Art is style and only style, and who welcome either kind, so long as it is good enough. To me, then--I thought--this division into Realism and Romance, so understood, is the main cleavage in all the Arts; but it is hard to find pure examples of either kind. For even the most determined realist has more than a streak in him of the romanticist, and the most resolute romanticist finds it impossible at times to be quite unreal. Guido Reni, Watteau, Leighton were they not perhaps somewhat pure romanticists; Rembrandt, Hogarth, Manet mainly realists; Botticelli, Titian, Raphael, a blend. Dumas pere, and Scott, surely romantic; Flaubert and Tolstoy as surely realists; Dickens and Cervantes, blended. Keats and Swinburne romantic; Browning and Whitman--realistic; Shakespeare and Goethe, both. The Greek dramatists--realists. The Arabian Nights and Malory romantic. The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Old Testament, both realism and romance. And if in the vagueness of my thoughts I were to seek for illustration less general and vague to show the essence of this temperamental cleavage in all Art, I would take the two novelists Turgenev and Stevenson. For Turgenev expressed himself in stories that must be called romances, and Stevenson employed almost always a naturalistic technique. Yet no one would ever call Turgenev a romanticist, or Stevenson a realist. The spirit of the first brooded over life, found in it a perpetual voyage of spiritual adventure, was set on discovering and making clear to himself and all, the varying traits and emotions of human character--the varying moods of Nature; and though he couched all this discovery in caskets of engaging story, it was always clear as day what mood it was that drove him to dip pen in ink. The spirit of the second, I think, almost dreaded to discover; he felt life, I believe, too keenly to want to probe into it; he spun his gossamer to lure himself and all away from life. That was his driving mood; but the craftsman in him, longing to be clear and poignant, made him more natural, more actual than most realists. So, how thin often is the hedge! And how poor a business the partisan abuse of either kind of art in a world where each sort of mind has full right to its own due expression, and grumbling lawful only when due expression is not attained. One may not care for a Rembrandt portrait of a plain old woman; a graceful Watteau decoration may leave another cold but foolish will he be who denies that both are faithful to their conceiving moods, and so proportioned part to part, and part to whole, as to have, each in its own way, that inherent rhythm or vitality which is the hall-mark of Art. He is but a poor philosopher who holds a view so narrow as to exclude forms not to his personal taste. No realist can love romantic Art so much as he loves his own, but when that Art fulfils the laws of its peculiar being, if he would be no blind partisan, he must admit it. The romanticist will never be amused by realism, but let him not for that reason be so parochial as to think that realism, when it achieves vitality, is not Art. For what is Art but the perfected expression of self in contact with the world; and whether that self be of enlightening, or of fairy-telling temperament, is of no moment whatsoever. The tossing of abuse from realist to romanticist and back is but the sword-play of two one-eyed men with their blind side turned toward each other. Shall not each attempt be judged on its own merits? If found not shoddy, faked, or forced, but true to itself, true to its conceiving mood, and fair-proportioned part to whole; so that it lives--then, realistic or romantic, in the name of Fairness let it pass! Of all kinds of human energy, Art is surely the most free, the least parochial; and demands of us an essential tolerance of all its forms. Shall we waste breath and ink in condemnation of artists, because their temperaments are not our own? But the shapes and colours of the day were now all blurred; every tree and stone entangled in the dusk. How different the world seemed from that in which I had first sat down, with the swallows flirting past. And my mood was different; for each of those worlds had brought to my heart its proper feeling--painted on my eyes the just picture. And Night, that was coming, would bring me yet another mood that would frame itself with consciousness at its own fair moment, and hang before me. A quiet owl stole by in the geld below, and vanished into the heart of a tree. And suddenly above the moor-line I saw the large moon rising. Cinnamon-coloured, it made all things swim, made me uncertain of my thoughts, vague with mazy feeling. Shapes seemed but drifts of moon-dust, and true reality nothing save a sort of still listening to the wind. And for long I sat, just watching the moon creep up, and hearing the thin, dry rustle of the leaves along the holly hedge. And there came to me this thought: What is this Universe--that never had beginning and will never have an end--but a myriad striving to perfect pictures never the same, so blending and fading one into another, that all form one great perfected picture? And what are we--ripples on the tides of a birthless, deathless, equipoised Creative-Purpose--but little works of Art? Trying to record that thought, I noticed that my note-book was damp with dew. The cattle were lying down. It was too dark to see. 1911 
31045	----	FRONDES AGRESTES. READINGS IN 'MODERN PAINTERS.' CHOSEN AT HER PLEASURE, BY THE AUTHOR'S FRIEND, THE YOUNGER LADY OF THE THWAITE, CONISTON. 'Spargit agrestes tibi silva frondes.' Thirty-Eighth Thousand. London: George Allen, 156, Charing Cross Road. 1902. Printed By Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. At the Ballantyne Press PREFACE. I have been often asked to republish the first book of mine which the public noticed, and which, hitherto, remains their favourite, in a more easily attainable form than that of its existing editions. I am, however, resolved never to republish the book as a whole; some parts of it being, by the established fame of Turner, rendered unnecessary; and others having been always useless, in their praise of excellence which the public will never give the labour necessary to discern. But, finding lately that one of my dearest friends, who, in advanced age, retains the cheerfulness and easily delighted temper of bright youth, had written out, for her own pleasure, a large number of passages from 'Modern Painters,' it seemed to me certain that what such a person felt to be useful to herself, could not but be useful also to a class of readers whom I much desired to please, and who would sometimes enjoy, in my early writings, what I never should myself have offered them. I asked my friend, therefore, to add to her own already chosen series, any other passages she thought likely to be of permanent interest to general readers; and I have printed her selections in absolute submission to her judgment, merely arranging the pieces she sent me in the order which seemed most convenient for the reciprocal bearing of their fragmentary meanings, and adding here and there an explanatory note; or, it may be, a deprecatory one, in cases where my mind had changed. That she did me the grace to write every word with her own hands, adds, in my eyes, and will, I trust, in the readers' also, to the possible claims of the little book on their sympathy; and although I hope to publish some of the scientific and technical portions of the original volumes in my own large editions, the selections here made by my friend under her quiet woods at Coniston--the Unter-Walden of England--will, I doubt not, bring within better reach of many readers, for whom I am not now able myself to judge or choose, such service as the book was ever capable of rendering, in the illustration of the powers of nature, and intercession for her now too often despised and broken peace. Herne Hill, 5th December, 1874. CONTENTS. PAGE PREFACE V SECTION I. PRINCIPLES OF ART 1 II. POWER AND OFFICE OF IMAGINATION 10 III. ILLUSTRATIVE: THE SKY 35 IV. " STREAMS AND SEA 64 V. " MOUNTAINS 74 VI. " STONES 107 VII. " PLANTS AND FLOWERS 115 VIII. EDUCATION 140 IX. MORALITIES 151 FRONDES AGRESTES. SECTION I. PRINCIPLES OF ART. 1. Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection; but why we receive pleasure from some forms and colours, and not from others, is no more to be asked or answered than why we like sugar and dislike wormwood. 2. The temper by which right taste is formed is characteristically patient. It dwells upon what is submitted to it. It does not trample upon it,--lest it should be pearls, even though it look like husks. It is good ground, penetrable, retentive; it does not send up thorns of unkind thoughts, to choke the weak seed; it is hungry and thirsty too, and drinks all the dew that falls on it. It is an honest and good heart, that shows no too ready springing before the sun be up, but fails not afterwards; it is distrustful of itself, so as to be ready to believe and to try all things; and yet so trustful of itself, that it will neither quit what it has tried, nor take anything without trying. And the pleasure which it has in things that it finds true and good, is so great, that it cannot possibly be led aside by any tricks of fashion, or diseases of vanity; it cannot be cramped in its conclusions by partialities and hypocrisies; its visions and its delights are too penetrating,--too living,--for any whitewashed object or shallow fountain long to endure or supply. It clasps all that it loves so hard that it crushes it if it be hollow. 3. It is the common consent of men that whatever branch of any pursuit ministers to the bodily comforts, and regards material uses, is ignoble, and whatever part is addressed to the mind only, is noble; and that geology does better in reclothing dry bones and revealing lost creations, than in tracing veins of lead and beds of iron; astronomy better in opening to us the houses of heaven, than in teaching navigation; botany better in displaying structure than in expressing juices; surgery better in investigating organization than in setting limbs.--Only it is ordained that, for our encouragement, every step we make in the more exalted range of science adds something also to its practical applicabilities; that all the great phenomena of nature, the knowledge of which is desired by the angels only, by us partly, as it reveals to farther vision the being and the glory of Him in whom they rejoice and we live, dispense yet such kind influences and so much of material blessing as to be joyfully felt by all inferior creatures, and to be desired by them with such single desire as the imperfection of their nature may admit; that the strong torrents, which, in their own gladness, fill the hills with hollow thunder, and the vales with winding light, have yet their bounden charge of field to feed, and barge to bear; that the fierce flames to which the Alp owes its upheaval and the volcano its terror, temper for us the metal vein, and warm the quickening spring; and that for our incitement, I say, not our reward,--for knowledge is its own reward,--herbs have their healing, stones their preciousness, and stars their times. 4. Had it been ordained by the Almighty[1] that the highest pleasures of sight should be those of most difficult attainment, and that to arrive at them it should be necessary to accumulate gilded palaces, tower over tower, and pile artificial mountains around insinuated lakes, there would never have been a direct contradiction between the unselfish duties and the inherent desires of every individual. But no such contradiction exists in the system of Divine Providence; which, leaving it open to us, if we will, as creatures in probation, to abuse this sense like every other, and pamper it with selfish and thoughtless vanities, as we pamper the palate with deadly meats, until the appetite of tasteful cruelty is lost in its sickened satiety, incapable of pleasure unless, Caligula like, it concentrates the labour of a million of lives into the sensation of an hour,--leaves it also open to us, by humble and loving ways, to make ourselves susceptible of deep delight, which shall not separate us from our fellows, nor require the sacrifice of any duty or occupation, but which shall bind us closer to men and to God, and be with us always, harmonized with every action, consistent with every claim, unchanging and eternal. [1] The reader must observe, that having been thoroughly disciplined in the Evangelical schools, I supposed myself, at four-and-twenty, to know all about the ordinances of the Almighty. Nevertheless, the practical contents of the sentence are good; if only they are intelligible, which I doubt. 5. A great Idealist never can be egotistic. The whole of his power depends upon his losing sight and feeling of his own existence, and becoming a mere witness and mirror of truth, and a scribe of visions,--always passive in sight, passive in utterance, lamenting continually that he cannot completely reflect nor clearly utter all he has seen,--not by any means a proud state for a man to be in. But the man who has no invention is always setting things in order,[2] and putting the world to rights, and mending, and beautifying, and pluming himself on his doings, as supreme in all ways. [2] I am now a comic illustration of this sentence, myself. I have not a ray of invention in all my brains; but am intensely rational and orderly, and have resolutely begun to set the world to rights. 6. So far as education does indeed tend to make the senses delicate, and the perceptions accurate, and thus enables people to be pleased with quiet instead of gaudy colour, and with graceful instead of coarse form; and by long acquaintance with the best things, to discern quickly what is fine from what is common--so far acquired taste is an honourable faculty, and it is true praise of anything to say it is "in good taste." But,[3] so far as this higher education has a tendency to narrow the sympathies and harden the heart, diminishing the interest of all beautiful things by familiarity, until even what is best can hardly please, and what is brightest hardly entertain,--so far as it fosters pride, and leads men to found the pleasure they take in anything, not on the worthiness of the thing, but on the degree in which it indicates some greatness of their own, (as people build marble porticoes, and inlay marble floors, not so much because they like the colours of marble, or find it pleasant to the foot, as because such porches and floors are costly, and separated in all human eyes from plain entrances of stone and timber);--so far as it leads people to prefer gracefulness of dress, manner, and aspect, to value of substance and heart, liking a well-_said_ thing better than a true thing, and a well-trained manner better than a sincere one, and a delicately-formed face better than a good-natured one,--and in all other ways and things setting custom and semblance above everlasting truth;--so far, finally, as it induces a sense of inherent distinction between class and class, and causes everything to be more or less despised which has no social rank, so that the affection, pleasure, and grief of a clown are looked upon as of no interest compared with the affection and grief of a well-bred man;--just so far, in all these several ways, the feeling induced by what is called "a liberal education" is utterly adverse to the understanding of noble art. [3] Nobody need begin this second volume sentence unless they are breathed like the Græme:-- "Right up Ben Ledi could he press, And not a sob his toil confess." 7. He who habituates himself in his daily life to seek for the stern facts in whatever he hears or sees, will have these facts again brought before him by the involuntary imaginative power, in their noblest associations; and he who seeks for frivolities and fallacies, will have frivolities and fallacies again presented to him in his dreams.[4] [4] Very good. Few people have any idea how much more important the government of the mind is, than the force of its exertion. Nearly all the world flog their horses, without ever looking where they are going. 8. All the histories of the Bible are yet waiting to be painted. Moses has never been painted; Elijah never; David never (except as a mere ruddy stripling); Deborah never; Gideon never; Isaiah never.[5] What single example does the reader remember of painting which suggested so much as the faintest shadow of their deeds? Strong men in armour, or aged men with flowing beards, he _may_ remember, who, when he looked at his Louvre or Uffizi catalogue, he found were intended to stand for David, or Moses. But does he suppose that, if these pictures had suggested to him the feeblest image of the presence of such men, he would have passed on, as he assuredly did, to the next picture, representing, doubtless, Diana and Actæon, or Cupid and the Graces, or a gambling quarrel in a pothouse--with no sense of pain or surprise? Let him meditate over the matter, and he will find ultimately that what I say is true, and that religious art at once complete and sincere never yet has existed. [5] I knew nothing, when I wrote this passage, of Luini, Filippo Lippi, or Sandro Botticelli; and had not capacity to enter into the deeper feelings, even of the men whom I was chiefly studying,--Tintoret and Fra Angelico. But the British public is at present as little acquainted with the greater Florentines as I was then, and the passage, for _them_, remains true. SECTION II. POWER AND OFFICE OF IMAGINATION. 9. What are the legitimate uses of the imagination,--that is to say, of the power of perceiving, or conceiving with the mind, things which cannot be perceived by the senses? Its first and noblest use is,[6] to enable us to bring sensibly to our sight the things which are recorded as belonging to our future state, or invisibly surrounding us in this. It is given us, that we may imagine the cloud of witnesses, in heaven, and earth, and sea, as if they were now present,--the souls of the righteous waiting for us; that we may conceive the great army of the inhabitants of heaven, and discover among them those whom we most desire to be with for ever; that we may be able to vision forth the ministry of angels beside us, and see the chariots of fire on the mountains that gird us round; but, above all, to call up the scenes and facts in which we are commanded to believe, and be present, as if in the body, at every recorded event of the history of the Redeemer. Its second and ordinary use is, to empower us to traverse the scenes of all other history, and to force the facts to become again visible, so as to make upon us the same impression which they would have made if we had witnessed them; and, in the minor necessities of life, to enable us, out of any present good, to gather the utmost measure of enjoyment, by investing it with happy associations, and, in any present evil, to lighten it, by summoning back the images of other hours; and also to give to all mental truths some visible type, in allegory, simile, or personification, which shall most deeply enforce them; and finally, when the mind is utterly outwearied, to refresh it with such innocent play as shall be most in harmony with the suggestive voices of natural things, permitting it to possess living companionship, instead of silent beauty, and create for itself fairies in the grass, and naiads in the wave. [6] I should be glad if the reader who is interested in the question here raised, would read, as illustrative of the subsequent statement, the account of Tintoret's 'Paradise,' in the close of my Oxford lecture on Michael Angelo and Tintoret, which I have printed separately to make it generally accessible. 10. Yet, because we thus reverence the power and art of imagination, let none of us despise the power and art of memory. Let the reader consider seriously what he would give at any moment to have the power of arresting the fairest scenes, those which so often rise before him only to vanish; to stay the cloud in its fading, the leaf in its trembling, and the shadows in their changing; to bid the fitful foam be fixed upon the river, and the ripples be everlasting upon the lake; and then to bear away with him no darkness or feeble sun-stain, (though even that is beautiful,) but a counterfeit which should seem no counterfeit--the true and perfect image of life indeed. Or rather, (for the full majesty of such a power is not thus sufficiently expressed,) let him consider that it would be in effect nothing less than a capacity of transporting himself at any moment into any scene--a gift as great as can be possessed by a disembodied spirit; and suppose, also, this necromancy embracing not only the present but the past, and enabling us seemingly to enter into the very bodily presence of men long since gathered to the dust; to behold them in act as they lived; but, with greater privilege than ever was granted to the companions of those transient acts of life, to see them fastened at our will in the gesture and expression of an instant, and stayed on the eve of some great deed, in immortality of burning purpose.--Conceive, so far as is possible, such power as this, and then say whether the art which conferred it is to be spoken lightly of, or whether we should not rather reverence, as half-divine, a gift which would go so far as to raise us into the rank, and invest us with the felicities, of angels.[7] [7] Passage written in opposition to the vulgar notion that the 'mere imitation' of Nature is easy, and useless. 11. I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own power, or hesitation of speaking his opinions; but a right understanding of the relation between what _he_ can do and say, and the rest of the world's sayings and doings. All great men not only know their business, but usually know that they know it; and are not only right in their main opinions, but they usually know that they are right in them; only they do not think much of themselves on that account. Arnolfo knows he can build a good dome at Florence; Albert Durer writes calmly to one who has found fault with his work,--"It cannot be better done;" Sir Isaac Newton knows that he has worked out a problem or two that would have puzzled anybody else; only they do not expect their fellow-men, therefore, to fall down and worship them. They have a curious under-sense of powerlessness, feeling that the greatness is not _in_ them, but _through_ them--that they could not do or be anything else than God made them; and they see something divine and God-made in every other man they meet, and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful. 12. As far as I can observe, it is a constant law, that the greatest men, whether poets or historians, live entirely in their own age, and the greatest fruits of their work are gathered out of their own age. Dante paints Italy in the thirteenth century; Chaucer, England in the fourteenth; Masaccio, Florence in the fifteenth; Tintoret, Venice in the sixteenth; all of them utterly regardless of anachronism and minor error of every kind, but getting always vital truth out of the vital present. If it be said that Shakespeare wrote perfect historical plays on subjects belonging to the preceding centuries, I answer that they _are_ perfect plays, just because there is no care about centuries in them, but a life which all men recognise for the human life of all time--and this it is, not because Shakespeare sought to give universal truth, but because painting, honestly and completely, from the men about him, he painted that human nature which is indeed constant enough,--a rogue in the fifteenth century being _at heart_ what a rogue is in the nineteenth, and was in the twelfth; and an honest or knightly man being in like manner very similar to other such at any other time. And the work of these great idealists is, therefore, always universal; not because it is not _portrait_, but because it is _complete_ portrait, down to the heart, which is the same in all ages; and the work of the mean idealists is _not_ universal, not because it is portrait, but because it is _half_ portrait--of the outside, the manners and the dress, not of the heart. Thus Tintoret and Shakespeare paint, both of them, simply Venetian and English nature, as they saw it in their time, down to the root; and it does for _all_ time; but as for any care to cast themselves into the particular ways and tones of thought, or custom, of past time in their historical work, you will find it in neither of them,[8] nor in any other perfectly great man that I know of. [8] What vestige of Egyptian character is there, for instance, in Cleopatra?--of Athenian in Theseus or Timon?--of old English in Imogen or Cordelia?--of old Scottish in Macbeth?--or even of mediæval Italian in Petruchio, the Merchant of Venice, or Desdemona? And the Roman plays appear definitely Roman only because the strength of Rome was the eternal strength of the world,--pure family life, sustained by agriculture, and defended by simple and fearless manhood. 13. I think it probable that many readers may be surprised at my calling Scott the great representative of the mind of the age of literature. Those who can perceive the intense penetrative depth of Wordsworth, and the exquisite finish and melodious power of Tennyson, may be offended at my placing in higher rank that poetry of careless glance and reckless rhyme in which Scott poured out the fancies of his youth; and those who are familiar with the subtle analysis of the French novelists, or who have in any wise submitted themselves to the influence of German philosophy, may be equally indignant at my ascribing a principality to Scott among the literary men of Europe, in an age which has produced De Balzac, and Goethe.[9] [9] I knew nothing of Goethe when I put him with Balzac; but the intolerable dulness which encumbers the depth of Wilhelm Meister, and the cruel reserve which conceals from all but the intensest readers the meaning of Faust, have made him, in a great degree, an evil influence in European literature; and Evil is always second-rate. But the mass of sentimental literature concerned with the analysis and description of emotion, headed by the poetry of Byron, is altogether of lower rank than the literature which merely describes what it saw. The true seer feels as intensely as any one else; but he does not much describe his feelings. He tells you whom he met, and what they said; leaves you to make out, from that, what they feel, and what he feels, but goes into little detail. And, generally speaking, pathetic writing and careful explanation of passion are quite easy, compared with this plain recording of what people said, and did; or with the right invention of what they are likely to say and do; for this reason, that to invent a story, or admirably and thoroughly tell any part of a story, it is necessary to grasp the entire mind of every personage concerned in it, and know precisely how they would be affected by what happens; which to do, requires a colossal intellect; but to describe a separate emotion delicately, it is only needed that one should feel it oneself; and thousands of people are capable of feeling this or that noble emotion, for one who is able to enter into all the feelings of somebody sitting on the other side of the table. Even, therefore, where this sentimental literature is first rate, as in passages of Byron, Tennyson, and Keats, it ought not to be ranked so high as the creative; and though perfection even in narrow fields is perhaps as rare as in the wider, and it may be as long before we have another "In Memoriam" as another "Guy Mannering," I unhesitatingly receive as a greater manifestation of power, the right invention of a few sentences spoken by Pleydell and Mannering across their supper-table, than the most tender and passionate melodies of the self-examining verse. 14. Fancy plays like a squirrel in its circular prison, and is happy; but Imagination is a pilgrim on the earth--and her home is in heaven. Shut her from the fields of the celestial mountains, bear her from breathing their lofty, sun-warmed air; and we may as well turn upon her the last bolt of the Tower of Famine, and give the keys to the keeping of the wildest surge that washes Capraja and Gorgona.[10] [10] I leave this passage, as my friend has chosen it; but it is unintelligible without the contexts, which show how all the emotions described in the preceding passages of this section, are founded on trust in the beneficence and rule of an Omnipotent Spirit. 15. In the highest poetry, there is no word so familiar, but a great man will "bring good out of it, or rather, it will bring good to him, and answer some end for which no other word would have done equally well. A common person, for instance, would be mightily puzzled to apply the word 'whelp' to anyone, with a view of flattering him. There is a certain freshness and energy in the term, which gives it agreeableness, but it seems difficult, at first hearing it, to use it complimentarily. If the person spoken of be a prince, the difficulty seems increased; and when farther he is at one and the same moment to be called a 'whelp' and contemplated as a hero, it seems that a common idealist might well be brought to a pause! But hear Shakespeare do it:-- "Awake his warlike spirit, And your great uncle's, Edward the Black Prince, Who on the French ground played a tragedy, Making defeat on the full power of France, While his most mighty father on a hill Stood smiling, to behold his lion's whelp Forage in blood of French nobility." 16. Although in all lovely nature there is, first, an excellent degree of simple beauty, addressed to the eye alone, yet often what impresses us most will form but a very small portion of that visible beauty. That beauty may, for instance, be composed of lovely flowers, and glittering streams, and blue sky and white clouds; and yet the thing that impresses us most, and which we should be sorriest to lose, may be a thin grey film on the extreme horizon, not so large, in the space of the scene it occupies, as a piece of gossamer on a near-at-hand bush, nor in any wise prettier to the eye than the gossamer; but because the gossamer is known by us for a little bit of spider's work, and the other grey film is known to mean a mountain ten thousand feet high, inhabited by a race of noble mountaineers, we are solemnly impressed by the aspect of it, and yet all the while the thoughts and knowledge which cause us to receive this impression are so obscure that we are not conscious of them. 17. Examine the nature of your own emotion, (if you feel it,) at the sight of the Alps; and you find all the brightness of that emotion hanging, like dew on a gossamer, on a curious web of subtle fancy and imperfect knowledge. First you have a vague idea of its size, coupled with wonder at the work of the great Builder of its walls and foundations; then an apprehension of its eternity, a pathetic sense of its perpetualness, and your own transientness, as of the grass upon its side;--then, and in very sadness, a sense of strange companionship with past generations, in seeing what they saw. They did not see the clouds that are floating over your head, nor the cottage wall on the other side of the field, nor the road by which you are travelling. But they saw _that_. The wall of granite in the heavens was the same to them as to you. They have ceased to look upon it; you will soon cease to look also, and the granite wall will be for others. Then, mingled with these more solemn imaginations, come the understandings of the gifts and glories of the Alp;--the fancying forth of all the fountains that well from its rocky walls, and strong rivers that are born out of its ice, and of all the pleasant valleys that wind between its cliffs, and all the châlets that gleam among its clouds, and happy farmsteads couched upon its pastures; while, together with the thoughts of these, rise strange sympathies with all the unknown of human life, and happiness, and death, signified by that narrow white flame of the everlasting snow, seen so far in the morning sky. These images, and far more than these, lie at the root of the emotion which you feel at the sight of the Alps. You may not trace them in your heart, for there is a great deal more in your heart, both of evil and good, than you can ever trace; but they stir you and quicken you for all that. Assuredly, so far as you feel more at beholding the snowy mountain than any other object of the same sweet silvery grey, these are the kind of images which cause you to do so; and observe, these are nothing more than a greater apprehension of the _facts_ of the thing. We call the power 'Imagination,' because it imagines or conceives; but it is only noble imagination, if it imagines or conceives the _truth_. And according to the degree of knowledge possessed, and of sensibility to the pathetic or impressive character of the things known, will be the degree of this imaginative delight. 18. So natural is it to the human heart to fix itself in hope rather than in present possession, and so subtle is the charm which the imagination casts over what is distant or denied, that there is often a more touching power in the scenes which contain far-away promises of something greater than themselves, than in those which exhaust the treasures and powers of nature in an unconquerable and excellent glory, leaving nothing more to be by fancy pictured or pursued. I do not know that there is a district in the world more calculated to illustrate this power of the expectant imagination than that which surrounds the city of Fribourg in Switzerland, extending from it towards Berne. It is of grey sandstone, considerably elevated, but presenting no object of striking interest to the passing traveller; so that as it is generally seen in the course of a hasty journey from the Bernese Alps to those of Savoy, it is rarely regarded with any other sensation than that of weariness, all the more painful because accompanied with reaction from the high excitement caused by the splendour of the Bernese Oberland. The traveller--foot-sore, feverish, and satiated with glacier and precipice,--lies back in the corner of the diligence, perceiving little more than that the road is winding and hilly, and the country through which it passes, cultivated and tame. Let him, however, only do this tame country the justice of staying in it a few days, until his mind has recovered its tone, and take one or two long walks through its fields, and he will have other thoughts of it. It is, as I said, an undulating district of grey sandstone, never attaining any considerable height, but having enough of the mountain spirit to throw itself into continual succession of bold slope and dale; elevated, also, just far enough above the sea to render the pine a frequent forest tree along its irregular ridges. Through this elevated tract the river cuts its way in a ravine some five or six hundred feet in depth, which winds for leagues between the gentle hills, unthought of until its edge is approached; and then, suddenly, through the boughs of the firs, the eye perceives, beneath, the green and gliding stream, and the broad walls of sandstone cliff that form its banks; hollowed out where the river leans against them, at its turns, into perilous over-hanging; and, on the other shore, at the same spots, leaving little breadths of meadow between them and the water, half overgrown with thicket, deserted in their sweetness, inaccessible from above, and rarely visited by any curious wanderers along the hardly traceable footpath which struggles for existence beneath the rocks. And there the river ripples and eddies and murmurs in an outer solitude. It is passing through a thickly peopled country; but never was a stream so lonely. The feeblest and most far-away torrent among the high hills has its companions; the goats browse beside it; and the traveller drinks from it, and passes over it with his staff; and the peasant traces a new channel for it down to his mill-wheel. But this stream has no companions; it flows on in an infinite seclusion, not secret, nor threatening, but a quietness of sweet daylight and open air--a broad space of tender and deep desolateness, drooped into repose out of the midst of human labour and life; the waves plashing lowly, with none to hear them; and the wild birds building in the boughs, with none to fray them away; and the soft, fragrant herbs rising and breathing and fading, with no hand to gather them;--and yet all bright and bare to the clouds above, and to the fresh fall of the passing sunshine and pure rain. But above the brows of these scarped cliffs, all is in an instant changed. A few steps only beyond the firs that stretch their branches, angular, and wild, and white, like forks of lightning, into the air of the ravine,--and we are in an arable country of the most perfect richness; the swathes of its corn glowing and burning from field to field: its pretty hamlets all vivid with fruitful orchards, and flowery garden, and goodly with steep-roofed storehouse and barn; its well-kept, hard, park-like roads rising and falling from hillside to hillside, or disappearing among brown banks of moss, and thickets of the wild raspberry and rose, or gleaming through lines of tall trees, half glade, half avenue, where the gate opens, or the gateless path turns trustedly aside, unhindered, into the garden of some statelier house, surrounded in rural pride with its golden hives, and carved granaries, and irregular domain of latticed and espaliered cottages, gladdening to look upon in their delicate homeliness--delicate, yet in some sort, rude; not like our English homes--trim, laborious, formal, irreproachable in comfort--but with a peculiar carelessness and largeness in all their detail, harmonizing with the outlawed loveliness of their country. For there is an untamed strength even in all that soft and habitable land. It is indeed gilded with corn, and fragrant with deep grass, but it is not subdued to the plough or to the scythe. It gives at its own free will; it seems to have nothing wrested from it, nor conquered in it. It is not redeemed from desertness, but unrestrained in fruitfulness,--a generous land, bright with capricious plenty, and laughing from vale to vale in fitful fulness, kind and wild. Nor this without some sterner element mingled in the heart of it. For, along all its ridges stand the dark masses of innumerable pines,[11] taking no part in its gladness; asserting themselves for ever as fixed shadows, not to be pierced or banished even in the intensest sunlight; fallen flakes and fragments of the night, stayed in their solemn squares in the midst of all the rosy bendings of the orchard boughs and yellow effulgence of the harvest, and tracing themselves in black network and motionless fringes against the blanched blue of the horizon in its saintly clearness. And yet they do not sadden the landscape, but seem to have been set there chiefly to show how bright everything else is round them; and all the clouds look of pure silver, and all the air seems filled with a whiter and more living sunshine, where they are pierced by the sable points of the pines; and all the pastures look of more glowing green where they run up between the purple trunks; and the sweet field footpaths skirt the edges of the forest for the sake of its shade, sloping up and down about the slippery roots, and losing themselves every now and then hopelessly among the violets and ground-ivy and brown sheddings of the fibrous leaves, and at last plunging into some open aisle, where the light through the distant stems shows that there is a chance of coming out again on the other side; and coming out indeed in a little while from the scented darkness into the dazzling air and marvellous landscape, which stretches still farther and farther in new wilfulness of grove and garden, until at last the craggy mountains of the Simmenthal rise out of it, sharp into the rolling of the southern clouds. [11] Almost the only pleasure I have, myself, in rereading my old books, is my sense of having at least done justice to the pine. Compare the passage in this book, No. 47. 19.[12] Although there are few districts of Northern Europe, however apparently dull or tame, in which I cannot find pleasure; though the whole of Northern France (except Champagne), dull as it seems to most travellers, is to me a perpetual paradise; and, putting Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, and one or two such other perfectly flat districts aside, there is not an English county which I should not find entertainment in exploring the cross-roads of, foot by foot,--yet all my best enjoyment would be owing to the imagination of the hills, colouring with their far-away memories every lowland stone and herb. The pleasant French coteau, green in the sunshine, delights me either by what real mountain character it has in itself, (for in extent and succession of promontory, the flanks of the French valleys have quite the sublimity of true mountain distances,) or by its broken ground and rugged steps among the vines, and rise of the leafage above against the blue sky, as it might rise at Vevay or Como. There is not a wave of the Seine, but is associated in my mind with the first rise of the sandstones and forest pines of Fontainebleau; and with the hope of the Alps, as one leaves Paris, with the horses' heads to the southwest, the morning sun flashing on the bright waves at Charenton. If there be no hope or association of this kind, and if I cannot deceive myself into fancying that perhaps at the next rise of the road there may be the film of a blue hill in the gleam of sky at the horizon, the landscape, however beautiful, produces in me even a kind of sickness and pain; and the whole view from Richmond Hill or Windsor Terrace,--nay, the gardens of Alcinous, with their perpetual summer--or of the Hesperides, (if they were flat, and not close to Atlas,) golden apples and all, I would give away in an instant, for one mossy granite stone a foot broad, and two leaves of lady fern. [12] This, and the following passage, have nothing to do with the general statements in the book. They occur with reference only to my own idiosyncrasy. I was much surprised when I found first how individual it was, by a Pre-Raphaelite painter's declaring a piece of unwholesome reedy fen to be more beautiful than Benvenue. 20. I cannot find words to express the intense pleasure I have always in first finding myself, after some prolonged stay in England, at the foot of the old tower of Calais Church. The large neglect, the noble unsightliness of it; the record of its years written so visibly, yet without sign of weakness or decay; its stern wasteness and gloom, eaten away by the Channel winds, and overgrown with the bitter sea grasses; its slates and tiles all shaken and rent, and yet not falling; its desert of brickwork, full of bolts, and holes, and ugly fissures, and yet strong, like a bare brown rock; its carelessness of what any one thinks or feels about it, putting forth no claim, having no beauty, nor desirableness, pride, nor grace; yet neither asking for pity; not, as ruins are, useless and piteous, feebly or fondly garrulous of better days; but, useful still, going through its own daily work,--as some old fisherman, beaten grey by storm, yet drawing his daily nets: so it stands, with no complaint about its past youth, in blanched and meagre massiveness and serviceableness, gathering human souls together underneath it; the sound of its bells for prayer still rolling through its rents; and the grey peak of it seen far across the sea, principal of the three that rise above the waste of surfy sand and hillocked shore,--the lighthouse for life, and the belfry for labour, and this--for patience and praise. I cannot tell the half of the strange pleasures and thoughts that come about me at the sight of that old tower; for, in some sort, it is the epitome of all that makes the continent of Europe interesting, as opposed to new countries; and, above all, it completely expresses that agedness in the midst of active life which binds the old and the new into harmony. We in England have our new streets, our new inn, our green shaven lawn, and our piece of ruin emergent from it--a mere _specimen_ of the Middle Ages put on a bit of velvet carpet, to be shown; and which, but for its size, might as well be on a museum shelf at once, under cover;--but, on the Continent, the links are unbroken between the past and present; and, in such use as they can serve for, the grey-headed wrecks are suffered to stay with men; while, in unbroken line, the generations of spared buildings are seen succeeding, each in its place. And thus, in its largeness, in its permitted evidence of slow decline, in its poverty, in its absence of all pretence, of all show and care for outside aspect, that Calais tower has an infinite of symbolism in it, all the more striking because usually seen in contrast with English scenes expressive of feelings the exact reverse of these.[13] [13] My friend won't write out the reverse! Our book is to be all jelly, and no powder, it seems. Well, I'm very thankful she likes the jelly,--at any rate, it makes me sure that _it_ is well made. SECTION III. ILLUSTRATIVE: THE SKY. 21. It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which Nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man--more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him, and teaching him--than in any other of her works; and it is just the part in which we least attend to her. There are not many of her other works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere pleasing of man is not answered by every part of their organization; but every essential purpose of the sky might, so far as we know, be answered if once in three days, or thereabouts, a great, ugly, black rain-cloud were brought up over the blue, and everything well watered, and so all left blue again till next time, with perhaps a film of morning and evening mist for dew;--and instead of this, there is not a moment of any day of our lives, when Nature is not producing scene after scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain[14] it is all done for us, and intended for our perpetual pleasure. And every man, wherever placed, however far from other sources of interest or of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. The noblest scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few; it is not intended that man should live always in the midst of them; he injures them by his presence, he ceases to feel them if he is always with them; but the sky is for all: bright as it is, it is not "too bright nor good For human nature's daily food;" it is fitted in all its functions for the perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart,--for soothing it, and purifying it from its dross and dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes awful--never the same for two moments together; almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in us is as distinct as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to what is mortal is essential. And yet we never attend to it, we never make it a subject of thought, but as it has to do with our animal sensations; we look upon all by which it speaks to us more clearly than to brutes, upon all which bears witness to the intentions of the Supreme that we are to receive more from the covering vault than the light and the dew which we share with the weed and the worm, as only a succession of meaningless and monotonous accident, too common and too vain to be worthy of a moment of watchfulness, or a glance of admiration. If in our moments of utter idleness and insipidity, we turn to the sky as a last resource, which of its phenomena do we speak of? One says, it has been wet; and another, it has been windy; and another, it has been warm. Who among the whole chattering crowd can tell one of the forms and the precipices of the chain of tall white mountains that girded the horizon at noon yesterday? Who saw the narrow sunbeam that came out of the south, and smote upon their summits until they melted and mouldered away in a dust of blue rain? Who saw the dance of the dead clouds when the sunlight left them last night, and the west wind blew them before it like withered leaves? All has passed unregretted as unseen; or, if the apathy be ever shaken off even for an instant, it is only by what is gross, or what is extraordinary. And yet it is not in the broad and fierce manifestations of the elemental energies, not in the clash of the hail, nor the drift of the whirlwind, that the highest characters of the sublime are developed. God is not in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still, small voice. They are but the blunt and the low faculties of our nature, which can only be addressed through lamp-black and lightning. It is in quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty, the deep and the calm, and the perpetual; that which must be sought ere it is seen, and loved ere it is understood; things which the angels work out for us daily, and yet vary eternally; which are never wanting, and never repeated; which are to be found always, yet each found but once;--it is through these that the lesson of devotion is chiefly taught, and the blessing of beauty given. [14] At least, I thought so, when I was four-and-twenty. At five-and-fifty, I fancy that it is just possible there may be other creatures in the universe to be pleased, or,--it may be,--displeased, by the weather. 22. We habitually think of the rain-cloud only as dark and grey; not knowing that we owe to it perhaps the fairest, though not the most dazzling, of the hues of heaven. Often in our English mornings, the rain-clouds in the dawn form soft, level fields, which melt imperceptibly into the blue; or, when of less extent, gather into apparent bars, crossing the sheets of broader cloud above; and all these bathed throughout in an unspeakable light of pure rose-colour, and purple, and amber, and blue; not shining, but misty-soft; the barred masses, when seen nearer, composed of clusters or tresses of cloud, like floss silk; looking as if each knot were a little swathe or sheaf of lighted rain. 23. Aqueous vapour or mist, suspended in the atmosphere, becomes visible exactly as dust does in the air of a room. In the shadows, you not only cannot see the dust itself, because unillumined, but you can see other objects through the dust, without obscurity; the air being thus actually rendered more transparent by a deprivation of light. Where a sunbeam enters, every particle of dust becomes visible, and a palpable interruption to the sight; so that a transverse sunbeam is a real obstacle to the vision--you cannot see things clearly through it. In the same way, wherever vapour is illuminated by transverse rays, there it becomes visible as a whiteness more or less affecting the purity of the blue, and destroying it exactly in proportion to the degree of illumination. But where vapour is in shade, it has very little effect on the sky, perhaps making it a little deeper and greyer than it otherwise would be, but not, itself, unless very dense, distinguishable or felt as mist. 24. Has the reader any distinct idea of what clouds are? [15]That mist which lies in the morning so softly in the valley, level and white, through which the tops of the trees rise as if through an inundation--why is _it_ so heavy, and why does it lie so low, being yet so thin and frail that it will melt away utterly into splendour of morning when the sun has shone on it but a few moments more? Those colossal pyramids, huge and firm, with outlines as of rocks, and strength to bear the beating of the high sun full on their fiery flanks,--why are _they_ so light, their bases high over our heads, high over the heads of Alps? Why will these melt away, not as the sun _rises_, but as he _descends_, and leave the stars of twilight clear; while the valley vapour gains again upon the earth, like a shroud? Or that ghost of a cloud, which steals by yonder clump of pines; nay, which does _not_ steal by them, but haunts them, wreathing yet round them, and yet,--and yet,--slowly; now falling in a fair waved line like a woman's veil; now fading, now gone; we look away for an instant, and look back, and it is again there. What has it to do with that clump of pines, that it broods by them, and weaves itself among their branches, to and fro? Has it hidden a cloudy treasure among the moss at their roots, which it watches thus? Or has some strong enchanter charmed it into fond returning, or bound it fast within those bars of bough? And yonder filmy crescent, bent like an archer's bow above the snowy summit, the highest of all the hills--that white arch which never forms but over the supreme crest,--how is it stayed there, repelled apparently from the snow,--nowhere touching it, the clear sky seen between it and the mountain edge, yet never leaving it--poised as a white bird hovers over its nest? Or those war clouds that gather on the horizon, dragon-crested, tongued with fire,--how is their barbed strength bridled? What bits are those they are champing with their vapourous lips, flinging off flakes of black foam? Leagued leviathans of the Sea of Heaven,--out of their nostrils goeth smoke, and their eyes are like the eyelids of the morning; the sword of him that layeth at them cannot hold the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon. Where ride the captains of their armies? Where are set the measures of their march? Fierce murmurers, answering each other from morning until evening--what rebuke is this which has awed them into peace;--what hand has reined them back by the way in which they came? [15] This is a fifth volume bit, and worth more attention. I know not if the reader will think at first that questions like these are easily answered. So far from it, I rather believe that some of the mysteries of the clouds never will be understood by us at all. "Knowest thou the balancings of the clouds?" Is the answer ever to be one of pride? The wondrous works of Him, who is perfect in knowledge? Is _our_ knowledge ever to be so?... For my own part, I enjoy the mystery, and perhaps the reader may. I think he ought. He should not be less grateful for summer rain, or see less beauty in the clouds of morning, because they come to prove him with hard questions; to which perhaps, if we look close at the heavenly scroll, we may find also a syllable or two of answer, illuminated here and there.[16] [16] Compare, in 'Sartor Resartus,' the boy's watching from the garden wall. And though the climates of the south and east may be _comparatively_ clear, they are no more absolutely clear than our own northern air. Intense clearness, whether, in the north, after or before rain, or in some moments of twilight in the south, is always, as far as I am acquainted with natural phenomena, a _notable_ thing. Mist of some sort, or mirage, or confusion of light or of cloud, are the general facts; the distance may vary in different climates at which the effects of mist begin, but they are always present; and therefore, in all probability, it is meant that we should enjoy them.... We surely need not wonder that mist and all its phenomena have been made delightful to us, since our happiness as thinking beings must depend on our being content to accept only partial knowledge even in those matters which chiefly concern us. If we insist upon perfect intelligibility and complete declaration in every moral subject, we shall instantly fall into misery of unbelief. Our whole happiness and power of energetic action depend upon our being able to breathe and live in the cloud; content to see it opening here, and closing there; rejoicing to catch through the thinnest films of it, glimpses of stable and substantial things; but yet perceiving a nobleness even in the concealment, and rejoicing that the kindly veil is spread where the untempered light might have scorched us, or the infinite clearness wearied. And I believe that the resentment of this interference of the mist is one of the forms of proud error which are too easily mistaken for virtues. To be content in utter darkness and ignorance is indeed unmanly, and therefore we think that to love light and find knowledge must always be right. Yet (as in all matters before observed,) wherever _pride_ has any share in the work, even knowledge and light may be ill pursued. Knowledge is good, and light is good: yet man perished in seeking knowledge, and moths perish in seeking light; and if we, who are crushed before the moth, will not accept such mystery as is needful to us, we shall perish in like manner. But, accepted in humbleness, it instantly becomes an element of pleasure; and I think that every rightly constituted mind ought to rejoice, not so much in knowing anything clearly, as in feeling that there is infinitely more which it cannot know. None but proud or weak men would mourn over this, for we may always know more, if we choose, by working on; but the pleasure is, I think, to humble people, in knowing that the journey is endless, the treasure inexhaustible,--watching the cloud still march before them with its summitless pillar, and being sure that, to the end of time, and to the length of eternity, the mysteries of its infinity will still open farther and farther, their dimness being the sign and necessary adjunct of their inexhaustibleness. I know there are an evil mystery, and a deathful dimness,--the mystery of the great Babylon--the dimness of the sealed eye and soul; but do not let us confuse these with the glorious mystery of the things which the "angels desire to look into," or with the dimness which, even before the clear eye and open soul, still rests on sealed pages of the eternal volume. 25. On some isolated mountain at day-break,[17] when the night mists first rise from off the plain, watch their white and lakelike fields, as they float in level bays, and winding gulfs, about the islanded summits of the lower hills, untouched yet by more than dawn, colder and more quiet than a windless sea under the moon of midnight; watch when the first sunbeam is sent upon the silver channels, how the foam of their undulating surface parts, and passes away, and down under their depths the glittering city and green pastures lie like Atlantis, between the white paths of winding rivers; the flakes of light falling every moment faster and broader among the starry spires, as the wreathed surges break and vanish above them, and the confused crests and ridges of the dark hills shorten their grey shadows upon the plain. Wait a little longer, and you shall see those scattered mists rallying in the ravines, and floating up towards you, along the winding valleys, till they crouch in quiet masses, iridescent with the morning light, upon the broad breasts of the higher hills, whose leagues of massy undulation will melt back, back into that robe of material light, until they fade away, lost in its lustre, to appear again above in the serene heaven like a wild, bright, impossible dream, foundationless, and inaccessible, their very bases vanishing in the unsubstantial and mocking blue of the deep lake below. Wait yet a little longer, and you shall see those mists gather themselves into white towers, and stand like fortresses along the promontories, massy and motionless, only piled, with every instant, higher and higher into the sky, and casting longer shadows athwart the rocks; and out of the pale blue of the horizon you will see forming and advancing a troop of narrow, dark, pointed vapours, which will cover the sky, inch by inch, with their grey network, and take the light off the landscape with an eclipse which will stop the singing of the birds, and the motion of the leaves, together;--and then you will see horizontal bars of black shadow forming under them, and lurid wreaths create themselves, you know not how, among the shoulders of the hills; you never see them form, but when you look back to a place which was clear an instant ago, there is a cloud on it, hanging by the precipice, as a hawk pauses over his prey;--and then you will hear the sudden rush of the awakened wind, and you will see those watch-towers of vapour swept away from their foundations, and waving curtains of opaque rain, let down to the valley, swinging from the burdened clouds in black bending fringes, or, pacing in pale columns along the lake level, grazing its surface into foam as they go. And then, as the sun sinks, you shall see the storm drift for an instant from off the hills, leaving their broad sides smoking and loaded yet with snow-white, torn, steam-like rags of capricious vapour, now gone, now gathered again,--while the smouldering sun, seeming not far away, but burning like a red-hot ball beside you, and as if you could reach it, plunges through the rushing wind and rolling cloud with headlong fall, as if it meant to rise no more, dyeing all the air about it with blood;--and then you shall hear the fainting tempest die in the hollow of the night, and you shall see a green halo kindling on the summit of the eastern hills, brighter, brighter yet, till the large white circle of the slow moon is lifted up among the barred clouds, step by step, line by line; star after star she quenches with her kindling light, setting in their stead an army of pale, penetrable, fleecy wreaths in the heaven, to give light upon the earth, which move together hand in hand, company by company, troop by troop, so measured in their unity of motion that the whole heaven seems to roll with them, and the earth to reel under them. And then wait yet for one hour, until the east again becomes purple, and the heaving mountains, rolling against it in darkness, like waves of a wild sea, are drowned one by one in the glory of its burning; watch the white glaciers blaze in their winding paths about the mountains, like mighty serpents with scales of fire; watch the columnar peaks of solitary snow, kindling downwards chasm by chasm, each in itself a new morning--their long avalanches cast down in keen streams brighter than the lightning, sending each his tribute of driven snow, like altar-smoke, up to heaven; the rose-light of their silent domes flushing that heaven about them, and above them, piercing with purer light through its purple lines of lifted cloud, casting a new glory on every wreath, as it passes by, until the whole heaven, one scarlet canopy, is interwoven with a roof of waving flame, and tossing vault beyond vault, as with the drifted wings of many companies of angels; and then, when you can look no more for gladness, and when you are bowed down with fear and love of the Maker and Doer of this, tell me who has best delivered this His message unto men! [17] I forget now what all this is about. It seems to be a recollection of the Rigi, with assumption that the enthusiastic spectator is to stand for a day and night in observation; to suffer the effects of a severe thunder-storm, and to get neither breakfast nor dinner. I have seen such a storm on the Rigi, however, and more than one such sunrise; and I much doubt if its present visitors by rail will see more. 26.[18] The account given of the stages of creation in the first chapter of Genesis is in every respect clear and intelligible to the simplest reader, except in the statement of the work of the second day. I suppose that this statement is passed over by careless readers without any endeavour to understand it, and contemplated by simple and faithful readers as a sublime mystery which was not intended to be understood. But there is no mystery in any other part of the chapter, and it seems to me unjust to conclude that any was intended here. And the passage ought to be peculiarly interesting to us, as being the first in the Bible in which the heavens are named, and the only one in which the word "Heaven," all-important as that word is to our understanding of the most precious promises of Scripture, receives a definite explanation. Let us therefore see whether, by a little careful comparison of the verse with other passages in which the word occurs, we may not be able to arrive at as clear an understanding of this portion of the chapter as of the rest. In the first place the English word, "Firmament," itself is obscure and useless; because we never employ it but as a synonym of heaven, it conveys no other distinct idea to us; and the verse, though from our familiarity with it we imagine that it possesses meaning, has in reality no more point nor value than if it were written, "God said, Let there be a something in the midst of the waters, and God called the something, Heaven." But the marginal reading, "Expansion," has definite value; and the statement that "God said, Let there be an expansion in the midst of the waters, and God called the expansion, Heaven," has an apprehensible meaning. Accepting this expression as the one intended, we have next to ask what expansion there is, between two waters, describable by the term "heaven." Milton adopts the term "expanse," but he understands it of the whole volume of the air which surrounds the earth. Whereas, so far as we can tell, there is no water beyond the air, in the fields of space; and the whole expression of division of waters from waters is thus rendered valueless. Now with respect to this whole chapter, we must remember always that it is intended for the instruction of all mankind, not for the learned reader only; and that therefore the most simple and natural interpretation is the likeliest in general to be the true one. An unscientific reader knows little about the manner in which the volume of the atmosphere surrounds the earth; but I imagine that he could hardly glance at the sky when rain was falling in the distance, and see the level line of the bases of the clouds from which the shower descended, without being able to attach an instant and easy meaning to the words, "expansion in the midst of the waters;" and if, having once seized this idea, he proceeded to examine it more accurately, he would perceive at once, if he had ever noticed _anything_ of the nature of clouds, that the level line of their bases did indeed most severely and stringently divide "waters from waters"--that is to say, divide water in its collective and tangible state, from water in its aërial state; or the waters which _fall_, and _flow_, from those which _rise_, and _float_. Next, if we try this interpretation in the theological sense of the word _heaven_, and examine whether the clouds are spoken of as God's dwelling-place, we find God going before the Israelites in a pillar of cloud; revealing Himself in a cloud on Sinai; appearing in a cloud on the mercy-seat; filling the Temple of Solomon with the cloud when its dedication is accepted; appearing in a great cloud to Ezekiel; ascending into a cloud before the eyes of the disciples on Mount Olivet; and in like manner returning to judgment: "Behold He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him." "Then shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory." While, further, the "clouds" and "heavens" are used as interchangeable words in those psalms which most distinctly set forth the power of God: "He bowed the heavens also, and came down; He made darkness pavilions round about Him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies." And again, "Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens, and Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds." And again, "His excellency is over Israel, and His strength is in the clouds." And again, "The clouds poured out water, the skies sent out a sound, the voice of Thy thunder was in the heaven." Again, "Clouds and darkness are round about Him, righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne; the heavens declare His righteousness, and all the people see His glory." In all these passages the meaning is unmistakable if they possess definite meaning at all. We are too apt to take them merely for sublime and vague imagery, and therefore gradually to lose the apprehension of their life and power. The expression, "He bowed the heavens," for instance, is, I suppose, received by most readers as a magnificent hyperbole, having reference to some peculiar and fearful manifestation of God's power to the writer of the psalm in which the words occur. But the expression either has _plain_ meaning, or it has _no_ meaning. Understand by the term "heavens" the compass of infinite space around the earth, and the expression "bowed the heavens," however sublime, is wholly without meaning: infinite space cannot be bent or bowed. But understand by the "heavens" the veil of clouds above the earth, and the expression is neither hyperbolical nor obscure; it is pure, plain, accurate truth, and it describes God, not as revealing Himself in any peculiar way to David, but doing what He is still doing before our own eyes, day by day. By accepting the words in their simple sense, we are thus led to apprehend the immediate presence of the Deity, and His purpose of manifesting Himself as near us whenever the storm-cloud stoops upon its course; while by our vague and inaccurate acceptance of the words, we remove the idea of His presence far from us, into a region which we can neither see nor know: and gradually, from the close realization of a living God, who "maketh the clouds His chariot," we define and explain ourselves into dim and distant suspicion of an inactive God inhabiting inconceivable places, and fading into the multitudinous formalisms of the laws of Nature. All errors of this kind--and in the present day we are in constant and grievous danger of falling into them--arise from the originally mistaken idea that man can, "by searching, find out God--find out the Almighty to perfection"--that is to say, by help of courses of reasoning and accumulations of science, apprehend the nature of the Deity, in a more exalted and more accurate manner than in a state of comparative ignorance; whereas it is clearly necessary, from the beginning to the end of time, that God's way of revealing Himself to His creatures should be a _simple_ way, which _all_ those creatures may understand. Whether taught or untaught, whether of mean capacity or enlarged, it is necessary that communion with their Creator should be possible to all; and the admission to such communion must be rested, not on their having a knowledge of astronomy, but on their having a human soul. In order to render this communion possible, the Deity has stooped from His throne, and has, not only in the person of the Son, taken upon Him the veil of our human _flesh_, but, in the person of the Father, taken upon Him the veil of our human _thoughts_, and permitted us, by His own spoken authority, to conceive Him simply and clearly as a loving father and friend; a being to be walked with and reasoned with, to be moved by our entreaties, angered by our rebellion, alienated by our coldness, pleased by our love, and glorified by our labour; and, finally, to be beheld in immediate and active presence in all the powers and changes of creation. This conception of God, which is the child's, is evidently the only one which can be universal, and, therefore, the only one which _for us_ can be true. The moment that, in our pride of heart, we refuse to accept the condescension of the Almighty, and desire Him, instead of stooping to hold our hands, to rise up before us into His glory, we hoping that, by standing on a grain of dust or two of human knowledge higher than our fellows, we may behold the Creator as He rises,--God takes us at our word. He rises into His own invisible and inconceivable majesty; He goes forth upon the ways which are not our ways, and retires into the thoughts which are not our thoughts; and we are left alone. And presently we say in our vain hearts, "There is no God." [18] This passage, to the end of the section, is one of the last, and best, which I wrote in the temper of my youth; and I can still ratify it, thus far, that the texts referred to in it must either be received as it explains them, or neglected altogether. I would desire, therefore, to receive God's account of His own creation as under the ordinary limits of human knowledge and imagination it would be received by a simple-minded man; and finding that "the heavens and the earth" are spoken of always as having something like equal relation to each other, ("Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them,") I reject at once all idea of the term "heavens" being intended to signify the infinity of space inhabited by countless worlds; for between those infinite heavens and the particle of sand, which not the earth only, but the sun itself, with all the solar system, is, in relation to them, no relation of equality or comparison could be inferred. But I suppose the heavens to mean that part of creation which holds equal companionship with our globe; I understand the "rolling of these heavens together as a scroll," to be an equal and relative destruction with the melting of the elements in fervent heat; and I understand the making of the firmament to signify that, so far as man is concerned, most magnificent ordinance of the clouds;--the ordinance that, as the great plain of waters was formed on the face of the earth, so also a plain of waters should be stretched along the height of air, and the face of the cloud answer the face of the ocean; and that this upper and heavenly plain should be of waters, as it were, glorified in their nature, no longer quenching the fire, but now bearing fire in their own bosoms; no longer murmuring only when the winds raise them or rocks divide, but answering each other with their own voices, from pole to pole; no longer restrained by established shores, and guided through unchanging channels, but going forth at their pleasure like the armies of the angels, and choosing their encampments upon the heights of the hills; no longer hurried downwards for ever, moving but to fall, nor lost in the lightless accumulation of the abyss, but covering the east and west with the waving of their wings, and robing the gloom of the farther infinite with a vesture of diverse colours, of which the threads are purple and scarlet, and the embroideries flame. This I believe is the ordinance of the firmament; and it seems to me that in the midst of the material nearness of these heavens, God means us to acknowledge His own immediate presence as visiting, judging, and blessing us: "The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God." "He doth set His bow in the clouds," and thus renews, in the sound of every drooping swathe of rain, His promises of everlasting love. "In them hath He set a _tabernacle_ for the sun;" whose burning ball, which, without the firmament, would be seen but as an intolerable and scorching circle in the blackness of vacuity, is by that firmament surrounded with gorgeous service, and tempered by mediatorial ministries: by the firmament of clouds the temple is built, for his presence to fill with light at noon; by the firmament of clouds the purple veil is closed at evening, round the sanctuary of his rest; by the mists of the firmament his implacable light is divided, and its separated fierceness appeased into the soft blue that fills the depth of distance with its bloom, and the flush with which the mountains burn, as they drink the overflowing of the dayspring. And in this tabernacling of the unendurable sun with men, through the shadows of the firmament, God would seem to set forth the stooping of His own Majesty to men, upon the throne of the firmament. As the Creator of all the worlds, and the Inhabiter of eternity, we cannot behold Him; but as the Judge of the earth and the Preserver of men, those heavens are indeed His dwelling-place: "Swear not, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool!" And all those passings to and fro of fruitful showers and grateful shade, and all those visions of silver palaces built about the horizon, and voices of moaning winds and threatening thunders, and glories of coloured robe and cloven ray, are but to deepen in our hearts the acceptance, and distinctness, and dearness of the simple words, "Our Father, which art in heaven." SECTION IV. ILLUSTRATIVE: STREAMS AND SEA. 27. Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper nature, and without assistance and combination, water is the most wonderful. If we think of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty which we have seen in clouds,--then, as the instrument by which the earth we have contemplated was modelled into symmetry, and its crags chiselled into grace;--then, as in the form of snow, it robes the mountains it has made with that transcendent light which we could not have conceived if we had not seen;--then, as it exists in the foam of the torrent, in the iris which spans it, in the morning mist which rises from it, in the deep crystalline pools which mirror its hanging shore, in the broad lake and glancing river;--finally, in that which is to all human minds the best emblem of unwearied, unconquerable power the wild, various, fantastic, tameless unity of the sea;--what shall we compare to this mighty, this universal element, for glory and beauty? or how shall we follow its eternal changefulness of feeling? It is like trying to paint a soul! 28. The great angel of the sea--rain; the angel, observe,--the messenger sent to a special place on a special errand. Not the diffused, perpetual presence of the burden of mist, but the going and returning of the intermittent cloud. All turns upon that intermittence. Soft moss on stone and rock; cave fern of tangled glen; wayside well--perennial, patient, silent, clear, stealing through its square font of rough-hewn stone; ever thus deep, no more;--which the winter wreck sullies not, the summer thirst wastes not, incapable of stain as of decline;--where the fallen leaf floats undecayed, and the insect darts undefiling: cressed brook and ever-eddying river, lifted even in flood scarcely over its stepping stones,--but through all sweet summer keeping tremulous music with harp-strings of dark water among the silver fingering of the pebbles. Far away in the south the strong river gods have all hasted, and gone down to the sea. Wasted and burning, white furnaces of blasting sand, their broad beds lie ghastly and bare; but here in the moss lands, the soft wings of the sea angel droop still with dew, and the shadows of their plumes falter on the hills; strange laughings and glitterings of silver streamlets, born suddenly, and twined about the mossy heights in trickling tinsel, answering to them as they wave. 29. Stand for half an hour beside the fall of Schaffhausen, on the north side, where the rapids are long, and watch how the vault of water first bends unbroken, in pure polished velocity, over the arching rocks at the brow of the cataract, covering them with a dome of crystal twenty feet thick, so swift that its motion is unseen except when a foam globe from above darts over it like a falling star; and how the trees are lighted above it under all their leaves,[19] at the instant that it breaks into foam; and how all the hollows of that foam burn with green fire like so much shattering chrysoprase; and how, ever and anon startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall, like a rocket, bursting in the wind and driven away in dust, filling the air with light; and how through the curdling wreaths of the restless crashing abyss below, the blue of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the sky through white rain-cloud, while the shuddering iris stoops in tremulous stillness over all, fading and flushing alternately through the choking spray and shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among the thick golden leaves which toss to and fro in sympathy with the wild water,--their dripping masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of loaded corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies away,--the dew gushing from their thick branches through drooping clusters of emerald herbage, and sparkling in white threads along the dark rocks of the shore, feeding the lichens, which chase and chequer them with purple and silver. [19] Well noticed. The drawing of the fall of Schaffhausen, which I made at the time of writing this study, was one of the very few, either by other draughtsmen or myself, which I have seen Turner pause at with serious attention. 30. Close beside the path by which travellers ascend the Montanvert from the valley of Chamouni, on the right hand, where it first begins to rise among the pines, there descends a small stream from the foot of the granite peak known to the guides as the Aiguille Charmoz. It is concealed from the traveller by a thicket of alder, and its murmur is hardly heard, for it is one of the weakest streams of the valley. But it is a constant stream, fed by a permanent, though small, glacier; and continuing to flow even to the close of summer, when more copious torrents, depending only on the melting of the lower snows, have left their beds,--"stony channels in the sun." The long drought which took place in the autumn of 1854, sealing every source of waters except these perpetual ones, left the torrent of which I am speaking, and such others, in a state peculiarly favourable to observance of their _least_ action on the mountains from which they descend. They were entirely limited to their own ice fountains, and the quantity of powdered rock which they brought down was, of course, at its minimum, being nearly unmingled with any earth derived from the dissolution of softer soil, or vegetable mould, by rains. At three in the afternoon, on a warm day in September, when the torrent had reached its average maximum strength for the day, I filled an ordinary Bordeaux wine flask with the water where it was least turbid. From this quart of water I obtained twenty-four grains of sand and sediment more or less fine. I cannot estimate the quantity of water in the stream; but the runlet of it at which I filled the flask was giving about two hundred bottles a minute, or rather more, carrying down, therefore, about three quarters of a pound of powdered granite every minute. This would be forty-five pounds an hour; but allowing for the inferior power of the stream in the cooler periods of the day, and taking into consideration, on the other side, its increased power in rain, we may, I think, estimate its average hour's work at twenty-eight or thirty pounds, or a hundredweight every four hours. By this insignificant runlet, therefore, rather more than two tons of the substance of the Mont Blanc are displaced and carried down a certain distance every week; and as it is only for three or four months that the flow of the stream is checked by frost, we may certainly allow eighty tons for the mass which it annually moves. It is not worth while to enter into any calculation of the relation borne by this runlet to the great torrents which descend from the chain of Mont Blanc into the valley of Chamouni.[20] I but take this quantity, eighty tons, as the result of the labour of a scarcely noticeable runlet at the side of one of them, utterly irrespective of all sudden falls of stones and of masses of mountain (a single thunderbolt will sometimes leave a scar on the flank of a soft rock looking like a trench for a railroad), and we shall then begin to apprehend something of the operation of the great laws of change which are the conditions of all material existence, however apparently enduring. The hills, which, as compared with living beings, seem "everlasting," are in truth as perishing as they; its veins of flowing fountain weary the mountain heart, as the crimson pulse does ours; the natural force of the iron crag is abated in its appointed time, like the strength of the sinews in a human old age; and it is but the lapse of the longer years of decay which, in the sight of its Creator, distinguishes the mountain range from the moth and the worm. [20] I have slightly modified and abridged what follows, being impatient of its prolixity, as well as ashamed of what is truly called the ludicrous under-estimate of the mass of the larger streams. 31. Few people, comparatively, have ever seen the effect on the sea of a powerful gale continued without intermission for three or four days and nights; and to those who have not, I believe it must be unimaginable, not from the mere force or size of surge, but from the complete annihilation of the limit between sea and air. The water, from its prolonged agitation, is beaten, not into mere creamy foam, but into masses of accumulated yeast, which hang in ropes and wreaths from wave to wave; and where one curls over to break, form a festoon like a drapery from its edge; these are taken up by the wind, not in dissipating dust, but bodily, in writhing, hanging, coiling masses, which make the air white, and thick as with snow, only the flakes are a foot or two long each; the surges themselves are full of foam in their very bodies, underneath, making them white all through, as the water is under a great cataract,--and their masses, being thus half water and half air, are torn to pieces by the wind whenever they rise, and carried away in roaring smoke, which chokes and strangles like actual water. Add to this, that when the air has been exhausted of its moisture by long rain, the spray of the sea is caught by it as described above, and covers its surface not merely with the smoke of finely divided water, but with boiling mist: imagine also the low rain-clouds brought down to the very level of the sea, as I have often seen them, whirling and flying in rags and fragments from wave to wave; and finally conceive the surges themselves in their utmost pitch of power, velocity, vastness, and madness, lifting themselves in precipices and peaks furrowed with their whirl of ascent, through all this chaos; and you will understand that there is indeed no distinction left between the sea and air; that no object, nor horizon, nor any landmark, or natural evidence of position is left; that the heaven is all spray, and the ocean all cloud, and that you can see no farther in any direction than you could see through a cataract.[21] [21] The whole of this was written merely to show the meaning of Turner's picture of the steamer in distress, throwing up signals. It is a good study of wild weather; but, separate from its aim, utterly feeble in comparison to the few words by which any of the great poets will describe sea, when they have got to do it. I am rather proud of the short sentence in the 'Harbours of England,' describing a great breaker against rock:--"One moment, a flint cave,--the next, a marble pillar,--the next, a fading cloud." But there is nothing in sea-description, detailed, like Dickens' storm at the death of Ham, in 'David Copperfield.' SECTION V. ILLUSTRATIVE: MOUNTAINS. 32. The words which marked for us the purpose of the clouds are followed immediately by those notable ones,--"And God said, Let the waters which are under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." We do not, perhaps, often enough consider the deep signification of this sentence. We are too apt to receive it as the description of an event vaster only in its extent, not in its nature, than the compelling of the Red Sea to draw back that Israel might pass by. We imagine the Deity in like manner rolling the waves of the greater ocean together on an heap, and setting bars and doors to them eternally. But there is a far deeper meaning than this in the solemn words of Genesis, and in the correspondent verse of the Psalm, "His hands prepared the dry land." Up to that moment the earth had been _void_; for, it had been _without_ _form_. The command that the waters should be gathered, was the command that the earth should be _sculptured_. The sea was not driven to its place in suddenly restrained rebellion, but withdrawn to its place in perfect and patient obedience. The dry land appeared, not in level sands forsaken by the surges, which those surges might again claim for their own; but in range beyond range of swelling hill and iron rock, for ever to claim kindred with the firmament, and be companioned by the clouds of heaven. What space of time was in reality occupied by the "day" of Genesis, is not at present of any importance for us to consider. By what furnaces of fire the adamant was melted, and by what wheels of earthquake it was torn, and by what teeth of glacier and weight of sea-waves it was engraven and finished into its perfect form, we may, perhaps, hereafter endeavour to conjecture; but here, as in few words the work is summed by the historian, so in few broad thoughts it should be comprehended by us; and, as we read the mighty sentence, "Let the dry land appear," we should try to follow the finger of God as it engraved upon the stone tables of the earth the letters and the law of its everlasting form, as gulf by gulf the channels of the deep were ploughed; and cape by cape the lines were traced with Divine foreknowledge of the shores that were to limit the nations; and chain by chain the mountain walls were lengthened forth, and their foundations fastened for ever; and the compass was set upon the face of the depth, and the fields and the highest part of the dust of the world were made; and the right hand of Christ first strewed the snow on Lebanon, and smoothed the slopes of Calvary. It is not, I repeat, always needful, in many respects it is not possible, to conjecture the manner or the time in which this work was done; but it is deeply necessary for all men to consider the magnificence of the accomplished purpose, and the depth of the wisdom and love which are manifested in the ordinances of the hills. For observe, in order to bring the world into the form which it now bears, it was not mere _sculpture_ that was needed; the mountains could not stand for a day unless they were formed of materials altogether different from those which constitute the lower hills, and the surfaces of the valleys. A harder substance had to be prepared for every mountain chain, yet not so hard but that it might be capable of crumbling down into earth fit to nourish the Alpine forest, and the Alpine flower; not so hard but that in the midst of the utmost majesty of its enthroned strength there should be seen on it the seal of death, and the writing of the same sentence that had gone forth against the human frame, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." And with this perishable substance the most majestic forms were to be framed that were consistent with the safety of man; and the peak was to be lifted and the cliff rent, as high and as steeply as was possible, in order yet to permit the shepherd to feed his flocks upon the slopes, and the cottage to nestle beneath their shadow. And observe, two distinct ends were to be accomplished in doing this. It was, indeed, absolutely necessary that such eminences should be created, in order to fit the earth in any wise for human habitation; for without mountains the air could not be purified, nor the flowing of the rivers sustained, and the earth must have become for the most part plain, or stagnant marsh. But the feeding of the rivers and the purifying of the winds, are the least of the services appointed to the hills. To fill the thirst of the human heart for the beauty of God's working--to startle its lethargy with the deep and pure agitation of astonishment,--are their higher missions. They are as a great and noble architecture, first giving shelter, comfort, and rest; and covered also with mighty sculpture and painted legend. It is impossible to examine, in their connected system, the features of even the most ordinary mountain scenery, without concluding that it has been prepared in order to unite as far as possible, and in the closest compass, every means of delighting and sanctifying the heart of man: "as far as _possible_,"--that is, as far as is consistent with the fulfilment of the sentence of condemnation on the whole earth. Death must be upon the hills; and the cruelty of the tempests smite them, and the briar and thorn spring up upon them; but they so smite as to bring their rocks into the fairest forms, and so spring as to make the very desert blossom as the rose. Even among our own hills of Scotland and Cumberland, though often too barren to be perfectly beautiful, and always too low to be perfectly sublime, it is strange how many deep sources of delight are gathered into the compass of their glens and vales; and how, down to the most secret cluster of their far-away flowers, and the idlest leap of their straying streamlets, the whole heart of Nature seems thirsting to give, and still to give, shedding forth her everlasting beneficence with a profusion so patient, so passionate, that our utmost observance and thankfulness are but, at last, neglects of her nobleness, and apathy to her love. But among the true mountains of the greater orders, the Divine purpose of appeal at once to all the faculties of the human spirit becomes still more manifest. Inferior hills ordinarily interrupt, in some degree, the richness of the valleys at their feet; the grey downs of southern England and treeless coteaux of central France, and grey swells of Scottish moor, whatever peculiar charm they may possess in themselves, are at least destitute of those which belong to the woods and fields of the lowlands. But the great mountains _lift_ the lowlands on _their sides_. Let the reader imagine first the appearance of the most varied plain of some richly cultivated country; let him imagine it dark with graceful woods, and soft with deepest pastures; let him fill the space of it, to the utmost horizon, with innumerable and changeful incidents of scenery and life; leading pleasant streamlets through its meadows, strewing clusters of cottages beside their banks, tracing sweet footpaths through its avenues, and animating its fields with happy flocks, and slow wandering spots of cattle; and when he has wearied himself with endless imagining, and left no space without some loveliness of its own, let him conceive all this great plain, with its infinite treasures of natural beauty, and happy human life, gathered up in God's hands from one edge of the horizon to the other, like a woven garment, and shaken into deep falling folds, as the robes droop from a king's shoulders; all its bright rivers leaping into cataracts along the hollows of its fall, and all its forests rearing themselves aslant against its slopes, as a rider rears himself back when his horse plunges, and all its villages nestling themselves into the new windings of its glens, and all its pastures thrown into steep waves of greensward, dashed with dew along the edges of their folds, and sweeping down into endless slopes, with a cloud here and there lying quietly, half on the grass, half in the air,--and he will have as yet, in all this lifted world, only the foundation of one of the great Alps. And whatever is lovely in the lowland scenery, becomes lovelier in this change; the trees which grew heavily and stiffly from the level line of plain, assume strange curves of strength and grace as they bend themselves against the mountain side; they breathe more freely and toss their branches more carelessly as each climbs higher, looking to the clear light above the topmost leaves of its brother tree; the flowers which on the arable plain fall before the plough, now find out for themselves unapproachable places where year by year they gather into happier fellowship, and fear no evil; and the streams which in the level land crept in dark eddies by unwholesome banks, now move in showers of silver, and are clothed with rainbows, and bring health and life wherever the glance of their waves can reach.... It may not, therefore, be altogether profitless or unnecessary to review briefly the nature of the three great offices which mountain ranges are appointed to fulfil, in order to preserve the health and increase the happiness of mankind. Their first use is, of course, to give motion to water. Every fountain and river, from the inch-deep streamlet that crosses the village lane in trembling clearness, to the massy and silent march of the everlasting multitude of waters in Amazon or Ganges, owe their play, and purity, and power, to the ordained elevations of the earth. Gentle or steep, extended or abrupt, some determined slope of the earth's surface is of course necessary before any wave can so much as overtake one sedge in its pilgrimage; and how seldom do we enough consider, as we walk beside the margins of our pleasant brooks, how beautiful and wonderful is that ordinance, of which every blade of grass that waves in their clear water is a perpetual sign--that the dew and rain fallen on the face of the earth shall find no resting-place; shall find, on the contrary, fixed channels traced for them from the ravines of the central crests down which they roar, in sudden ranks of foam, to the dark hollows beneath the banks of lowland pasture, round which they must circle slowly among the stems and beneath the leaves of the lilies; paths prepared for them by which, at some appointed rate of journey, they must evermore descend, sometimes slow, and sometimes swift, but never pausing; the daily portion of the earth they have to glide over marked for them at each successive sunrise, the place which has known them knowing them no more, and the gateways of guarding mountains opened for them in cleft and chasm, none letting them in their pilgrimage; and, from afar off, the great heart of the sea calling them to itself! "Deep calleth unto deep." I know not which of the two is the more wonderful,--that calm, gradated, invisible slope of the champaign land, which gives motion to the stream; or that passage cloven for it through the ranks of hill, which, necessary for the health of the land immediately around them, would yet, unless so supernaturally divided, have fatally intercepted the flow of the waters from far-off countries. When did the great spirit of the river first knock at these adamantine gates? When did the porter open to it, and cast his keys away for ever, lapped in whirling sand? I am not satisfied--no one should be satisfied--with that vague answer, The river cut its way. Not so. The river _found_ its way. [22]I do not see that rivers in their own strength can do much in cutting their way; they are nearly as apt to choke their channels up as to carve them out. Only give a river some little sudden power in a valley, and see how it will use it. Cut itself a bed? Not so, by any means, but fill up its bed; and look for another in a wild, dissatisfied, inconsistent manner,--any way rather than the old one will better please it; and even if it is banked up and forced to keep to the old one, it will not deepen, but do all it can to raise it, and leap out of it. And although wherever water has a steep fall it will swiftly cut itself a bed deep into the rock or ground, it will not, when the rock is hard, cut a wider channel than it actually needs; so that if the existing river beds, through ranges of mountains, had in reality been cut by the streams, they would be found, wherever the rocks are hard, only in the form of narrow and profound ravines, like the well-known channel of the Niagara, below the fall; not in that of extended valleys. And the actual work of true mountain rivers, though often much greater in proportion to their body of water than that of the Niagara, is quite insignificant when compared with the area and depth of the valleys through which they flow; so that, although in many cases it appears that those larger valleys have been excavated at earlier periods by more powerful streams, or by the existing stream in a more powerful condition, still the great fact remains always equally plain, and equally admirable, that, whatever the nature and duration of the agencies employed, the earth was so shaped at first as to direct the currents of its rivers in the manner most healthy and convenient for man. The valley of the Rhone may have been in great part excavated, in early times, by torrents a thousand times larger than the Rhone; but it could not have been excavated at all, unless the mountains had been thrown at first into two chains, by which the torrents were set to work in a given direction. And it is easy to conceive how, under any less beneficent dispositions of their masses of hill, the continents of the earth might either have been covered with enormous lakes, as parts of North America actually are covered; or have become wildernesses of pestiferous marsh; or lifeless plains, upon which the water would have dried as it fell, leaving them for great part of the year desert. Such districts do exist, and exist in vastness; the whole earth is not prepared for the habitation of man; only certain small portions are prepared for him,--the houses, as it were, of the human race, from which they are to look abroad upon the rest of the world; not to wonder or complain that it is not all house, but to be grateful for the kindness of the admirable building, in the house itself, as compared with the rest. It would be as absurd to think it an evil that all the world is not fit for us to inhabit, as to think it an evil that the globe is no larger than it is. As much as we shall ever need is evidently assigned to us for our dwelling-place; the rest, covered with rolling waves or drifting sands, fretted with ice or crested with fire, is set before us for contemplation in an uninhabitable magnificence. And that part which we are enabled to inhabit owes its fitness for human life chiefly to its mountain ranges, which, throwing the superfluous rain off as it falls, collect it in streams or lakes, and guide it into given places, and in given directions; so that men can build their cities in the midst of fields which they know will be always fertile, and establish the lines of their commerce upon streams which will not fail. [22] I attach great importance to the remaining contents of this passage, and have had occasion to insist on them at great length in recent lectures at Oxford. Nor is this giving of motion to water to be considered as confined only to the surface of the earth. A no less important function of the hills is in directing the flow of the fountains and springs from subterranean reservoirs. There is no miraculous springing up of water out of the ground at our feet; but every fountain and well is supplied from reservoirs among the hills, so placed as to involve some slight fall or pressure enough to secure the constant flowing of the stream; and the incalculable blessing of the power given to us, in most valleys, of reaching by excavation some point whence the water will rise to the surface of the ground in perennial flow, is entirely owing to the concave dispositions of the beds of clay or rock raised from beneath the bosom of the valley into ranks of enclosing hills. The second great use of mountains is to maintain a constant change in the currents and nature of the _air_. Such change would, of course, have been partly caused by difference in soil and vegetation, even if the earth had been level; but to a far less extent than it is now by the chains of hills which--exposing on one side their masses of rock to the full heat of the sun, (increased by the angle at which the rays strike on the slope,) and on the other casting a soft shadow for leagues over the plains at their feet--divide the earth not only into districts, but into climates; and cause perpetual currents of air to traverse their passes in a thousand different states; moistening it with the spray of their waterfalls, sucking it down and beating it hither and thither in the pools of their torrents, closing it within clefts and caves, where the sunbeams never reach, till it is as cold as November mists; then sending it forth again to breathe lightly across the slopes of velvet fields, or to be scorched among sunburnt shales and grassless crags; then drawing it back in moaning swirls through clefts of ice, and up into dewy wreaths above the snow-fields; then piercing it with strange electric darts and flashes of mountain fire, and tossing it high in fantastic storm-cloud, as the dried grass is tossed by the mower, only suffering it to depart at last, when chastened and pure, to refresh the faded air of the far-off plains. The third great use of mountains is to cause perpetual change in the _soils_ of the earth. Without such provision the ground under cultivation would in a series of years become exhausted, and require to be upturned laboriously by the hand of man. But the elevations of the earth's surface provide for it a perpetual renovation. The higher mountains suffer their summits to be broken into fragments, and to be cast down in sheets of massy rock, full, as we shall see presently, of every substance necessary for the nourishment of plants; these fallen fragments are again broken by frost, and ground by torrents, into various conditions of sand and clay--materials which are distributed perpetually by the streams farther and farther from the mountain's base. Every shower that swells the rivulet enables their waters to carry certain portions of earth into new positions, and exposes new banks of ground to be mined in their turn. That turbid foaming of the angry water,--that tearing down of bank and rock along the flanks of its fury,--are no disturbances of the kind course of nature; they are beneficent operations of laws necessary to the existence of man, and to the beauty of the earth. The process is continued more gently, but not less effectively, over all the surface of the lower undulating country; and each filtering thread of summer rain which trickles through the short turf of the uplands is bearing its own appointed burden of earth to be thrown down on some new natural garden in the dingles beneath. I have not spoken of the local and peculiar utilities of mountains. I do not count the benefit of the supply of summer streams from the moors of the higher ranges,--of the various medicinal plants which are nested among their rocks,--of the delicate pasturage which they furnish for cattle,--of the forests in which they bear timber for shipping,--the stones they supply for building, or the ores of metal which they collect into spots open to discovery, and easy for working. All these benefits are of a secondary or a limited nature. But the three great functions which I have just described, those of giving motion and change to water, air, and earth, are indispensable to human existence; they are operations to be regarded with as full a depth of gratitude as the laws which bid the tree bear fruit, or the seed multiply itself in the earth. And thus those desolate and threatening ranges of dark mountain, which in nearly all ages of the world men have looked upon with aversion, or with terror, and shrunk back from as if they were haunted by perpetual images of death, are in reality sources of life and happiness far fuller and more beneficent than all the bright fruitfulness of the plain. The valleys only feed; the mountains feed, and guard, and strengthen us. We take our idea of fearlessness and sublimity alternately from the mountains and the sea; but we associate them unjustly. The sea-wave, with all its beneficence, is yet devouring and terrible; but the silent wave of the blue mountain is lifted towards heaven in a stillness of perpetual mercy; and the one surge, unfathomable in its darkness, the other unshaken in its faithfulness, for ever bear the seal of their appointed symbolism:-- "Thy _righteousness_ is like the great mountains; "Thy _judgments_ are a great deep." 33. Mountains are to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons of its anatomy are, in the mountain, brought out with force and convulsive energy, full of expression, passion, and strength; the plains and the lower hills are the repose and the effortless motion of the frame, when its muscles lie dormant and concealed beneath the lines of its beauty,--yet ruling those lines in their every undulation. This then is the first grand principle of the truth of the earth. The spirit of the hills is action, that of the lowlands repose; and between these there is to be found every variety of motion and rest, from the inactive plain, sleeping like the firmament, with cities for stars, to the fiery peaks, which, with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, with the clouds drifting like hair from their bright foreheads, lift up their Titan heads to Heaven, saying, "I live for ever." 34. Where they are,[23] they seem to form the world; no mere bank of a river here, or of a lane there, peeping out among the hedges or forests, but from the lowest valley to the highest clouds, all is theirs,--one adamantine dominion and rigid authority of rock. We yield ourselves to the impression of their eternal unconquerable stubbornness of strength; their mass seems the least yielding, least to be softened, or in anywise dealt with by external force, of all earthly substance. And behold, as we look further into it, it is all touched and troubled, like waves by a summer breeze; rippled far more delicately than seas or lakes are rippled; _they_ only undulate along their surfaces--this rock trembles through its every fibre, like the chords of an Eolian harp, like the stillest air of spring, with the echoes of a child's voice. Into the heart of all those great mountains, through every tossing of their boundless crests, and deep beneath all their unfathomable defiles, flows that strange quivering of their substance. Other and weaker things seem to express their subjection to an Infinite Power only by momentary terrors: as the weeds bow down before the feverish wind, and the sound of the going in the tops of the taller trees passes on before the clouds, and the fitful opening of pale spaces on the dark water, as if some invisible hand were casting dust abroad upon it, gives warning of the anger that is to come, we may well imagine that there is a fear passing upon the grass, and leaves, and waters, at the presence of some great spirit commissioned to let the tempest loose; but the terror passes, and their sweet rest is perpetually restored to the pastures and the waves. Not so to the mountains. They, which at first seem strengthened beyond the dread of any violence or change, are yet also ordained to bear upon them the symbol of a perpetual fear. The tremor which fades from the soft lake and gliding river is sealed to all eternity upon the rock; and while things that pass visibly from birth to death may sometimes forget their feebleness, the mountains are made to possess a perpetual memorial of their infancy--that infancy which the prophet saw in his vision,[24]--"I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and lo, they _trembled_, and all the hills moved _lightly_." [23] Passage written after I had got by some years cooler and wiser than when I wrote No. 33, describing however the undulation of the gneiss rocks, which, 'where they are, seem, to form the world,' in terms more fanciful than I now like. [24] Utter misinterpretation of the passage. It is the old age, not the childhood of earth, which Jeremiah describes in this passage. See its true interpretation in 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter XLVI. 35. The longer I stayed among the Alps, and the more closely I examined them, the more I was struck by the one broad fact of there being a vast Alpine plateau, or mass of elevated land, upon which nearly all the highest peaks stood like children set upon a table, removed, in most cases, far back from the edge of the plateau,--as if for fear of their falling; while the most majestic scenes in the Alps are produced, not so much by any violation of this law, as by one of the great peaks having apparently walked to the edge of the table to look over, and thus showing itself suddenly above the valley in its full height. This is the case with the Wetterhorn and Eiger at Grindelwald, and with the Grande Jorasse above the Col de Ferret. But the raised bank or table is always intelligibly in existence, even in these apparently exceptional cases; and for the most part, the great peaks are not allowed to come to the edge of it, but remain like the keeps of castles far withdrawn, surrounded, league beyond league, by comparatively level fields of mountain, over which the lapping sheets of glacier writhe and flow, foaming about the feet of the dark central crests like the surf of an enormous sea-breaker hurled over a rounded rock, and islanding some fragment of it in the midst. And the result of this arrangement is a kind of division of the whole of Switzerland into an upper and lower mountain world,--the lower world consisting of rich valleys, bordered by steep, but easily accessible, wooded banks of mountain, more or less divided by ravines, through which glimpses are caught of the higher Alps; the upper world, reached after the first banks of 3,000 or 4,000 feet in height have been surmounted, consisting of comparatively level but most desolate tracts of moor and rock, half covered by glacier, and stretching to the feet of the true pinnacles of the chain. It can hardly be necessary to point out the perfect wisdom and kindness of this arrangement, as a provision for the safety of the inhabitants of the high mountain regions. If the great peaks rose at once from the deepest valleys, every stone which was struck from their pinnacles, and every snow-wreath which slipped from their ledges, would descend at once upon the inhabitable ground, over which no year would pass without recording some calamity of earth-slip or avalanche; while in the course of their fall both the stones and the snow would strip the woods from the hillsides, leaving only naked channels of destruction where there are now the sloping meadow and the chestnut glade. Besides this, the masses of snow, cast down at once into the warmer air, would all melt rapidly in the spring, causing furious inundation of every great river for a month or six weeks. The snow being then all thawed, except what lay upon the highest peaks in regions of nearly perpetual frost, the rivers would be supplied during the summer only by fountains, and the feeble tricklings on sunny days from the high snows. The Rhone, under such circumstances, would hardly be larger, in summer, than the Severn, and many Swiss valleys would be left almost without moisture. All these calamities are prevented by the peculiar Alpine structure which has been described. The broken rocks and the sliding snow of the high peaks, instead of being dashed at once to the vales, are caught upon the desolate shelves, or shoulders, which everywhere surround the central crests. The soft banks which terminate these shelves, traversed by no falling fragments, clothe themselves with richest wood, while the masses of snow heaped upon the ledge above them, in a climate neither so warm as to thaw them quickly in the spring, nor so cold as to protect them from all the power of the summer sun, either form themselves into glaciers, or remain in slowly wasting fields even to the close of the year,--in either case supplying constant, abundant, and regular streams to the villages and pastures beneath, and to the rest of Europe, noble and navigable rivers. Now, that such a structure is the best and wisest possible,[25] is indeed sufficient reason for its existence, and to many people it may seem useless to question farther respecting its origin. But I can hardly conceive any one standing face to face with one of these towers of central rock, and yet not also asking himself, Is this indeed the actual first work of the Divine Master, on which I gaze? Was the great precipice shaped by His finger, as Adam was shaped out of the dust? Were its clefts and ledges carved upon it by its Creator, as the letters were on the tables of the law, and was it thus left to bear its eternal testimony to His beneficence among these clouds of Heaven? Or is it the descendant of a long race of mountains, existing under appointed laws of birth and endurance, death and decrepitude? There can be no doubt as to the answer. The rock itself answers audibly by the murmur of some falling stone or rending pinnacle. It is _not_ as it was once. Those waste leagues around its feet are loaded with the wrecks of what it was. On these perhaps, of all mountains, the characters of decay are written most clearly; around these are spread most gloomily the memorials of their pride, and the signs of their humiliation. [25] Of course I had seen every other tried before giving this favourable judgment. What then were they once? The only answer is yet again--"Behold the cloud!" 36. There are many spots among the inferior ridges of the Alps, such as the Col de Ferret, the Col d'Anterne, and the associated ranges of the Buet, which, though commanding prospects of great nobleness, are themselves very nearly types of all that is most painful to the human mind. Vast wastes of mountain ground,[26] covered here and there with dull grey grass or moss, but breaking continually into black banks of shattered slate, all glistening and sodden with slow tricklings of clogged, incapable streams; the snow-water oozing through them in a cold sweat, and spreading itself in creeping stains among their dust; ever and anon a shaking here and there, and a handful or two of their particles or flakes trembling down, one sees not why, into more total dissolution, leaving a few jagged teeth, like the edges of knives eaten away by vinegar, projecting, through the half-dislodged mass, from the inner rock; keen enough to cut the hand or foot that rests on them, yet crumbling as they wound, and soon sinking again into the smooth, slippery, glutinous heap; looking like a beach of black scales of dead fish cast ashore from a poisonous sea, and sloping away into foul ravines, branched down immeasurable slopes of barrenness, where the winds howl and wander continually, and the snow lies in wasted and sorrowful fields covered with sooty dust, that collects in streaks and stains at the bottom of all its thawing ripples. [26] This is a fourth volume passage,--and I will venture to say of it, as Albert Dürer, when he was pleased with his work--that for what it has to do, it cannot be much better done. It is a study on the Col de Bon Homme. I know of no other scenes so appalling as these in storm, or so woful in sunshine. Where, however, these same rocks exist in more favourable positions--that is to say, in gentler banks and at lower elevations--they form a ground for the most luxuriant vegetation; and the valleys of Savoy owe to them some of their loveliest solitudes--exquisitely rich pastures, interspersed with arable and orchard land, and shaded by groves of walnut and cherry. Scenes of this kind, and of that just described, so singularly opposed, and apparently brought together as foils to each other, are however peculiar to certain beds of the slaty coherents, which are both vast in elevation, and easy of destruction. In Wales and Scotland the same groups of rocks possess far greater hardness, while they attain less elevation; and the result is a totally different aspect of scenery. The severity of the climate, and the comparative durableness of the rock, forbid the rich vegetation; but the exposed summits, though barren, are not subject to laws of destruction so rapid and fearful as in Switzerland, and the natural colour of the rock is oftener developed in the purples and greys which, mingled with the heather, form the principal elements of the deep and beautiful distant blue of the British hills. Their gentler mountain streams also permit the beds of rock to remain in firm, though fantastic, forms along their banks, and the gradual action of the cascades and eddies upon the slaty cleavage produces many pieces of foreground scenery to which higher hills can present no parallel. 37. Unlike Chamouni Aiguilles, there is no aspect of destruction about the Matterhorn cliffs. They are not torn remnants of separating spires, yielding, flake by flake, and band by band, to the continual process of decay. They are, on the contrary, an unaltered monument, seemingly sculptured long ago, the huge walls retaining yet the forms into which they were first engraven, and standing like an Egyptian temple;--delicately fronted, softly coloured, the suns of uncounted ages rising and falling upon it continually, but still casting the same line of shadows from east to west; still, century after century, touching the same purple stains on the lotus pillars; while the desert sand ebbs and flows about their feet, as those autumn leaves of rock lie heaped and weak about the base of the Cervin. Is not this a strange type in the very heart and height of these mysterious Alps--these wrinkled hills in their snowy, cold, grey-haired old age, at first so silent, then, as we keep quiet at their feet, muttering and whispering to us garrulously in broken and dreaming fits, as it were, about their childhood,--is it not a strange type of the things which "out of weakness are made strong"? If one of these little flakes of mica sand, hurried in tremulous spangling along the bottom of the ancient river, too light to sink, too faint to float, almost too small for sight, could have had a mind given to it as it was at last borne down with its kindred dust into the abysses of the stream, and laid, (might it not have been thought?) for a hopeless eternity, in the dark ooze, the most despised, forgotten, and feeble of all earth's atoms; incapable of any use or change; not fit, down there in the diluvial darkness, so much as to help an earth wasp to build its nest, or feed the first fibre of a lichen; what would it have thought, had it been told that one day, knitted into a strength as of imperishable iron, rustless by the air, infusible by the flame, out of the substance of it, with its fellows, the axe of God should hew that Alpine tower?--that against _it_--poor, helpless mica flake!--the wild north winds should rage in vain; beneath _it_--low-fallen mica flake!--the snowy hills should lie bowed like flocks of sheep, and the kingdoms of the earth fade away in unregarded blue; and around _it_--weak, wave-drifted mica flake!--the great war of the firmament should burst in thunder and yet stir it not; and the fiery arrows and angry meteors of the night fall blunted back from it into the air; and all the stars in the clear heaven should light, one by one as they rose, new cressets upon the points of snow that fringed its abiding-place on the imperishable spire? SECTION VI. ILLUSTRATIVE: STONES. 38. There are no natural objects out of which more can be learned than out of stones. They seem to have been created especially to reward a patient observer. Nearly all other objects in nature can be seen to some extent without patience, and are pleasant even in being half seen. Trees, clouds, and rivers are enjoyable even by the careless; but the stone under his foot has, for carelessness, nothing in it but stumbling; no pleasure is languidly to be had out of it, nor food, nor good of any kind; nothing but symbolism of the hard heart, and the unfatherly gift. And yet, do but give it some reverence and watchfulness, and there is bread of thought in it, more than in any other lowly feature of all the landscape. For a stone, when it is examined, will be found a mountain in miniature. The fineness of Nature's work is so great, that into a single block, a foot or two in diameter, she can compress as many changes of form and structure, on a small scale, as she needs for her mountains on a large one; and taking moss for forests, and grains of crystal for crags, the surface of a stone in by far the plurality of instances is more interesting than the surface of an ordinary hill; more fantastic in form, and incomparably richer in colour. 39. On a Highland hillside are multitudinous clusters of fern and heather; on an Alpine one, multitudinous groves of chestnut and pine. The number of the things may be the same, but the sense of infinity is in the latter case far greater, because the number is of nobler things. Indeed, so far as mere magnitude of space occupied on the field of the horizon is the measure of objects, a bank of earth ten feet high may, if we stoop to the foot of it, be made to occupy just as much of the sky as that bank of mountain at Villeneuve; nay, in many respects, its little ravines and escarpments, watched with some help of imagination, may become very sufficiently representative to us of those of the great mountain; and in classing all water-worn mountain ground under the general and humble term of Banks, I mean to imply this relationship of structure between the smallest eminences and the highest. But in this matter of superimposed _quantity_, the distinctions of rank are at once fixed. The heap of earth bears its few tufts of moss, or knots of grass; the Highland or Cumberland mountain, its honeyed heathers or scented ferns; but the mass of the bank at Martigny or Villeneuve has a vineyard in every cranny of its rocks, and a chestnut grove on every crest of them.... The minute mounds and furrows scattered up the side of that great promontory, when they are actually approached after three or four hours' climbing, turn into independent hills, with true _parks_ of lovely pasture-land enclosed among them, and avenue after avenue of chestnuts, walnuts, and pines bending round their bases; while in the deeper dingles, populous villages, literally bound down to the rock by enormous trunks of vine, which, first trained lightly over the loose stone roofs, have in process of years cast their fruitful net over the whole village, and fastened it to the ground under their purple weight and wayward coils as securely as ever human heart was fastened to earth by the net of the Flatterer. 40. When a rock of any kind has lain for some time exposed to the weather, Nature finishes it in her own way. First she takes wonderful pains about its forms, sculpturing it into exquisite variety of dent and dimple, and rounding or hollowing it into contours which for fineness no human hand can follow; then she colours it; and every one of her touches of colour, instead of being a powder mixed with oil, is a minute forest of living trees, glorious in strength and beauty, and concealing wonders of structure. 41. On the broken rocks in the foreground in the crystalline groups, the mosses seem to set themselves consentfully and deliberately to the task of producing the most exquisite harmonies of colour in their power. They will not conceal the form of the rock, but will gather over it in little brown bosses, like small cushions of velvet, made of mixed threads of dark ruby silk and gold, rounded over more subdued films of white and grey, with lightly crisped and curled edges like hoar frost on fallen leaves, and minute clusters of upright orange stalks with pointed caps, and fibres of deep green, and gold, and faint purple passing into black, all woven together, and following with unimaginable fineness of gentle growth the undulation of the stone they cherish, until it is charged with colour so that it can receive no more; and instead of looking rugged, or cold, or stern, or anything that a rock is held to be at heart, it seems to be clothed with a soft dark leopard's skin, embroidered with arabesque of purple and silver. 42. The colour of the white varieties of marble is of exquisite delicacy, owing to the partial translucency of the pure rock; and it has always appeared to me a most wonderful ordinance--one of the most _marked_ pieces of purpose in the creation--that all the variegated kinds should be comparatively opaque, so as to set off the colour on the surface, while the white, which, if it had been opaque, would have looked somewhat coarse, (as for instance common chalk does,) is rendered just translucent enough to give an impression of extreme purity, but not so translucent as to interfere in the least with the distinctness of any forms into which it is wrought. The colours of variegated marbles are also for the most part very beautiful, especially those composed of purple, amber, and green, with white; and there seems something notably attractive to the human mind in the _vague_ and veined labyrinths of their arrangements. 43. I have often had occasion to allude to the apparent connection of brilliancy of colour with vigour of life or purity of substance. This is pre-eminently the case in the mineral kingdom. The perfection with which the particles of any substance unite in crystallization, corresponds in that kingdom to the vital power in organic nature; and it is a universal law, that according to the purity of any substance, and according to the energy of its crystallization, is its beauty or brightness. Pure earths are white when in powder; and the same earths, which are the constituents of clay and sand, form, when crystallized, the emerald, ruby, sapphire, amethyst, and opal. 44. As we pass between the hills which have been shaken by earthquake and torn by convulsion, we find that periods of perfect repose succeed those of destruction. The pools of calm water lie clear beneath their fallen rocks, the water-lilies gleam, and the reeds whisper among their shadows; the village rises again over the forgotten graves, and its church tower, white through the storm-light, proclaims a renewed appeal to His protection in whose hand "are all the corners of the earth, and the strength of the hills is His also." There is no loveliness of Alpine valley that does not teach the same lesson. It is just where "the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place," that in process of years the fairest meadows bloom between the fragments, the clearest rivulets murmur from between their crevices among the flowers, and the clustered cottages, each sheltered beneath some strength of mossy stone, now to be removed no more, and with their pastured flocks around them, safe from the eagle's stoop and the wolf's ravin, have written upon their fronts, in simple words, the mountaineer's faith in the ancient promise,--"Neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction, when it cometh; for thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee." SECTION VII. ILLUSTRATIVE: PLANTS AND FLOWERS. 45. Wonderful, in universal adaptation to man's need, desire, and discipline, God's daily preparation of the earth for him, with beautiful means of life. First, a carpet, to make it soft for him; then a coloured fantasy of embroidery thereon; then, tall spreading of foliage to shade him from sun-heat, and shade also the fallen rain, that it may not dry quickly back into the clouds, but stay to nourish the springs among the moss. Stout wood to bear this leafage; easily to be cut, yet tough and light, to make houses for him, or instruments (lance-shaft, or plough-handle, according to his temper); useless it had been if harder; useless if less fibrous; useless if less elastic. Winter comes, and the shade of leafage falls away, to let the sun warm the earth; the strong boughs remain, breaking the strength of winter winds. The seeds which are to prolong the race, innumerable according to the need, are made beautiful and palatable, varied into infinitude of appeal to the fancy of man, or provision for his service; cold juice, or flowing spice, or balm, or incense, softening oil, preserving resin, medicine of styptic, febrifuge, or lulling charm; and all these presented in forms of endless change. Fragility or force, softness and strength, in all degrees and aspects; unerring uprightness, as of temple pillars, or unguided wandering of feeble tendrils on the ground; mighty resistances of rigid arm and limb to the storms of ages, or wavings to and fro with faintest pulse of summer streamlet; roots cleaving the strength of rock, or binding the transience of the sand; crests basking in sunshine of the desert, or hiding by dripping spring and lightless cave; foliage far tossing in entangled fields beneath every wave of ocean--clothing with variegated, everlasting films the peaks of the trackless mountains, or ministering, at cottage doors, to every gentlest passion and simplest joy of humanity. 46. If ever in autumn a pensiveness falls upon us, as the leaves drift by in their fading, may we not wisely look up in hope to their mighty monuments? Behold how fair, how far prolonged in arch and aisle, the avenues of the valleys, the fringes of the hills! so stately,--so eternal; the joy of man, the comfort of all living creatures, the glory of the earth,--they are but the monuments of those poor leaves that flit faintly past us to die. Let them not pass, without our understanding their last counsel and example: that we also, careless of monument by the grave, may build it in the world--monument by which men may be taught to remember, not where we died, but where we lived. 47. The Pine. Magnificent! nay, sometimes almost terrible. Other trees, tufting crag or hill, yield to the form and sway of the ground, clothe it with soft compliance, are partly its subjects, partly its flatterers, partly its comforters. But the pine rises in serene resistance, self-contained; nor can I ever without awe stay long under a great Alpine cliff, far from all house or work of men, looking up to its companies of pines, as they stand on the inaccessible juts and perilous ledges of the enormous wall, in quiet multitudes, each like the shadow of the one beside it--upright, fixed, spectral, as troops of ghosts standing on the walls of Hades, not knowing each other, dumb for ever. You cannot reach them, cannot cry to them: those trees never heard human voice; they are far above all sound but of the winds. No foot ever stirred fallen leaf of theirs: all comfortless they stand, between the two eternities of the Vacancy and the Rock; yet with such iron will, that the rock itself looks bent and shattered beside them,--fragile, weak, inconsistent, compared to their dark energy of delicate life, and monotony of enchanted pride--unnumbered, unconquerable. Then note farther their perfectness. The impression on most people's minds must have been received more from pictures than reality, so far as I can judge, so ragged they think the pine; whereas its chief character in health is green and full _roundness_. It stands compact, like one of its own cones, slightly curved on its sides, finished and quaint as a carved tree in some Elizabethan garden; and instead of being wild in expression, forms the softest of all forest scenery, for other trees show their trunks and twisting boughs; but the pine, growing either in luxuriant mass, or in happy isolation, allows no branch to be seen. Summit behind summit rise its pyramidal ranges, or down to the very grass sweep the circlets of its boughs; so that there is nothing but green cone, and green carpet. Nor is it only softer, but in one sense more cheerful than other foliage, for it casts only a pyramidal shadow. Lowland forest arches overhead, and chequers the ground with darkness; but the pine, growing in scattered groups, leaves the glades between emerald-bright. Its gloom is all its own; narrowing into the sky, it lets the sunshine strike down to the dew. And if ever a superstitious feeling comes over me among the pine glades, it is never tainted with the old German forest fear, but it is only a more solemn tone of the fairy enchantment that haunts our English meadows; so that I have always called the prettiest pine-glade in Chamouni, "Fairies' Hollow." It is in the glen beneath the steep ascent above Pont Pelissier, and may be reached by a little winding path which goes down from the top of the hill[27]--being indeed not truly a glen, but a broad ledge of moss and turf, leaning in a formidable precipice (which, however, the gentle branches hide) over the Arve. An almost isolated rock promontory, many coloured, rises at the end of it. On the other sides it is bordered by cliffs, from which a little cascade falls, literally, down among the pines, for it is so light, shaking itself into mere showers of seed pearl in the sun, that the pines don't know it from mist, and grow through it without minding. Underneath, there is only the mossy silence; and above, for ever, the snow of the nameless Aiguille. [27] The new road to Chamouni has been carried right through it. A cascade on the right, as you ascend, marks the place spoken of in the text,--once as lonely as Corrie-nan-shian. Other trees rise against the sky in dots and knots, but this, in fringes. You never see the edges of it, so subtle are they; and for this reason,--it alone of trees, so far as I know, is capable of the fiery change which has been noticed by Shakespeare. When the sun rises behind a ridge crested with pine, provided the ridge be at a distance of about two miles, and seen clear, all the trees, for about three or four degrees on each side of the sun, become trees of light, seen in clear flame against the darker sky, and dazzling as the sun itself. I thought at first this was owing to the actual lustre of the leaves; but I believe now it is caused by the cloud-dew upon them--every minutest leaf carrying its diamond. It seems as if these trees, living always among the clouds, had caught part of their glory from them; and themselves, the darkest of vegetation, could yet add splendour to the sun itself. 48. The Swiss have certainly no feelings respecting their mountains in anywise correspondent with ours. It was rather as fortresses of defence, than as spectacles of splendour, that the cliffs of the Rothslock bare rule over the destinies of those who dwelt at their feet; and the training for which the mountain children had to thank the slopes of the Muotta-Thal, was in soundness of breath, and steadiness of limb, far more than in elevation of idea. But the point which I desire the reader to note is, that the character of the scene which, if any, appears to have been impressive to the inhabitant, is not that which we ourselves feel when we enter the district. It was not from their lakes, nor their cliffs, nor their glaciers--though these were all peculiarly their possessions--that the three venerable cantons received their name. They were not called the States of the Rock, nor the States of the Lake, but the States of the _Forest_. And the one of the three which contains the most touching record of the spiritual power of Swiss religion, in the name of the convent of the 'Hill of Angels,' has, for its own, none but the sweet childish name of 'Under the Woods.' And indeed you may pass under them if, leaving the most sacred spot in Swiss history, the Meadow of the Three Fountains, you bid the boatman row southward a little way by the shore of the Bay of Uri. Steepest there on its western side, the walls of its rocks ascend to heaven. Far in the blue of evening, like a great cathedral pavement, lies the lake in its darkness; and you may hear the whisper of innumerable falling waters return from the hollows of the cliff, like the voices of a multitude praying under their breath. From time to time the beat of a wave, slow lifted where the rocks lean over the black depth, dies heavily as the last note of a requiem. Opposite, green with steep grass, and set with châlet villages, the Fron-Alp rises in one solemn glow of pastoral light and peace; and above, against the clouds of twilight, ghostly on the gray precipice, stand, myriad by myriad, the shadowy armies of the Unterwalden pine. 49. It had been wild weather when I left Rome, and all across the Campagna the clouds were sweeping in sulphurous blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and breaking gleams of sun along the Claudian aqueduct, lighting up the infinity of its arches, like the bridge of Chaos. But as I climbed the long slope of the Alban Mount, the storm swept finally to the north, and the noble outline of the domes of Albano, and graceful darkness of its ilex grove, rose against pure streaks of alternate blue and amber, the upper sky gradually flushing through the last fragments of rain-cloud in deep palpitating azure, half æther and half dew. The noonday sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and their masses of entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it, as with rain. I cannot call it colour,--it was conflagration. Purple, and crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God's Tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life; each, as it turned to reflect, or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald. Far up into the recesses of the valley the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed along their banks for foam, and silver flakes of orange spray tossed into the air around them, breaking over the grey walls of rock into a thousand separate stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening in sudden gleams as the foliage broke, and closed above it, as sheet-lightning opens in a cloud at sunset; the motionless masses of dark rock, dark though flushed with scarlet lichen, casting their quiet shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound; and, over all, the multitudinous bars of amber and rose--the sacred clouds that have no darkness, and only exist to illumine--were seen in fathomless intervals between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines, passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the measureless line where the Campagna melted into the blaze of the sea. 50. Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity: children love them; quiet, contented, ordinary people love them as they grow; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in them gathered; they are the cottager's treasure; and in the crowded town, mark, as with a little broken fragment of rainbow, the windows of the workers in whose hearts rests the covenant of peace. 51. Yet few people really care about flowers. Many, indeed, are fond of finding a new shape of blossom, caring for it as a child cares about a kaleidoscope. Many, also, like a fair service of flowers in the greenhouse, as a fair service of plate on the table. Many are scientifically interested in them, though even these in the nomenclature, rather than the flowers; and a few enjoy their gardens.... But, the blossoming time of the year being principally spring, I perceive it to be the mind of most people, during that period, to stay in towns. A year or two ago a keen-sighted and eccentrically-minded friend of mine, having taken it into his head to violate this national custom, and go to the Tyrol in spring, was passing through a valley near Landech with several similarly headstrong companions. A strange mountain appeared in the distance, belted about its breast with a zone of blue, like our English Queen. Was it a blue cloud, a blue horizontal bar of the air that Titian breathed in youth, seen now far away, which mortal might never breathe again? Was it a mirage--a meteor? Would it stay to be approached?--(ten miles of winding road yet between them and the foot of the mountain)--such questioning had they concerning it. My keen-sighted friend, alone, maintained it to be substantial;--whatever it might be, it was not air, and would not vanish. The ten miles of road were overpast, the carriage left, the mountain climbed. It stayed patiently, expanding still into richer breath and heavenlier glow--a belt of gentians. Such things may verily be seen among the Alps in spring, and in spring only; which being so, I observe most people prefer going in autumn. 52. Perhaps few people have ever asked themselves why they admire a rose so much more than all other flowers. If they consider, they will find, first, that red is, in a delicately gradated state, the loveliest of all pure colours; and, secondly, that in the rose there is _no shadow_, except what is composed of colour. All its shadows are fuller in colour than its lights, owing to the translucency and reflective power of the leaves. 53. Has the reader ever considered the relations of commonest forms of volatile substance? The invisible particles which cause the scent of a rose-leaf, how minute, how multitudinous, passing richly away into the air continually! 54. In the range of inorganic nature I doubt if any object can be found more perfectly beautiful, than a fresh, deep snow-drift, seen under warm light. Its curves are of inconceivable perfection and changefulness; its surface and transparency alike exquisite; its light and shade of inexhaustible variety and inimitable finish,--the shadows sharp, pale, and of heavenly colour, the reflected lights intense and multitudinous, and mingled with the sweet occurrences of transmitted light.... If, passing to the edge of a sheet of it upon the lower Alps, early in May, we find, as we are nearly sure to find, two or three little round openings pierced in it; and through these, emergent, a slender, pensive, fragile flower,[28] whose small, dark, purple-fringed bell hangs down and shudders over the icy cleft that it has cloven, as if partly wondering at its own recent grave, and partly dying of very fatigue after its hard-won victory; we shall be, or we ought to be, moved by a totally different impression of loveliness from that which we receive among the dead ice and the idle clouds: there is now uttered to us a call for sympathy, now offered to us an image of moral purpose and achievement, which, however unconscious or senseless the creature may indeed be that so seems to call, cannot be heard without affection, nor contemplated without worship, by any of us whose heart is rightly turned, or whose mind is clearly and surely sighted. [28] Soldanella Alpina. I think it is the only Alpine flower which actually pierces snow, though I have seen gentians filling thawed hoof-prints. Crocuses are languid till they have had sun for a day or two. But the soldanella enjoys its snow, at first, and afterwards its fields. I have seen it make a pasture look like a large lilac silk gown. 55. It has been well shown by Dr. Herbert, that many plants are found alone on a certain soil or sub-soil in a wild state, not because such soil is favourable to them, but because they alone are capable of existing on it, and because all dangerous rivals are by its inhospitality removed. Now if we withdraw the plant from this position, which it hardly endures, and supply it with the earth and maintain about it the temperature that it delights in; withdrawing from it, at the same time, all rivals, which in such conditions Nature would have thrust upon it, we shall indeed obtain a magnificently developed example of the plant, colossal in size, and splendid in organization; but we shall utterly lose in it that moral ideal which is dependent on its right fulfilment of its appointed functions. It was intended and created by the Deity for the covering of those lonely spots where no other plant could live. It has been thereto endowed with courage and strength, and capacities of endurance; its character and glory are not therefore in the gluttonous and idle feeding of its own over luxuriance, at the expense of other creatures utterly destroyed and rooted out for its good alone; but in its right doing of its hard duty, and forward climbing into those spots of forlorn hope where it alone can bear witness to the kindness and presence of the Spirit that cutteth out rivers among the rocks, as He covers the valleys with corn; and there, in its vanward place, and only there, where nothing is withdrawn for it, nor hurt by it, and where nothing can take part of its honour, nor usurp its throne, are its strength and fairness, and price, and goodness in the sight of God to be truly esteemed. The first time I saw the Soldanella Alpina, before spoken of, it was growing of magnificent size on a sunny Alpine pasture, among bleating of sheep, and lowing of cattle, associated with a profusion of Geum Montanum, and Ranunculus Pyrenæus. I noticed it only because new to me--nor perceived any peculiar beauty in its cloven flower. Some days after, I found it alone, among the rack of the higher clouds, and howling of glacier winds; and, as I described it, piercing through an edge of avalanche which in its retiring had left the new ground brown and lifeless, and as if burnt by recent fire. The plant was poor and feeble, and seemingly exhausted with its efforts,--but it was then that I comprehended its ideal character, and saw its noble function and order of glory among the constellations of the earth. 56. GRASSES.--Minute, granular, feathery, or downy seed-vessels, mingling quaint brown punctuation, and dusty tremors of dancing grain, with the bloom of the nearer fields; and casting a gossamered grayness and softness of plumy mist along their surfaces far away; mysterious evermore, not only with dew in the morning, or mirage at noon, but with the shaking threads of fine arborescence, each a little belfry of grainbells, all a-chime. 57. Gather a single blade of grass, and examine for a minute quietly its narrow sword-shaped strip of fluted green. Nothing, as it seems, there of notable goodness or beauty. A very little strength and a very little tallness, and a few delicate long lines meeting in a point,--not a perfect point neither, but blunt and unfinished, by no means a creditable or apparently much-cared-for example of Nature's workmanship, made, only to be trodden on to-day, and to-morrow to be cast into the oven,--and a little pale and hollow stalk, feeble and flaccid, leading down to the dull brown fibres of roots. And yet, think of it well, and judge whether, of all the gorgeous flowers that beam in summer air, and of all strong and goodly trees, pleasant to the eyes, or good for food,--stately palm and pine, strong ash and oak, scented citron, burdened vine--there be any by man so deeply loved, by God so highly graced, as that narrow point of feeble green. And well does it fulfil its mission. Consider what we owe merely to the meadow grass, to the covering of the dark ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies of those soft, and countless, and peaceful spears. The fields! Follow forth but for a little time the thoughts of all that we ought to recognise in these words. All spring and summer is in them--the walks by silent, scented paths--the rests in noonday heat,--the joy of herds and flocks,--the power of all shepherd life and meditation,--the life of sunlight upon the world falling in emerald streaks, and falling in soft blue shadows where else it would have struck upon the dark mould, or scorching dust. Pastures beside the pacing brooks, soft banks and knolls of lowly hills, thymy slopes of down, overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea, crisp lawns, all dim with early dew, or smooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet, and softening in their fall the sound of loving voices,--all these are summed in those simple words; and these are not all. We may not measure to the full the depth of this heavenly gift in our own land, though still as we think of it longer, the infinite of that meadow sweetness, Shakespeare's peculiar joy, would open on us more and more; yet we have it but in part. Go out in the springtime among the meadows that slope from the shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains. There, mingled with the taller gentians, and the white narcissus, the grass grows deep and free; and as you follow the winding mountain path, beneath arching boughs, all veiled with blossom--paths that for ever droop and rise over the green banks and mounds sweeping down in scented undulation steep to the blue water, studded here and there with new-mown heaps filling all the air with fainter sweetness,--look up towards the higher hills, where the waves of everlasting green roll silently into their long inlets among the shadows of the pines; and we may perhaps at last know the meaning of those quiet words of the 147th Psalm, "He maketh grass to grow upon the mountains." Assembling the images we have traced, and adding the simplest of all, from Isaiah xl. 6, we find the grass and flowers are types, in their passing, of the passing of human life, and in their excellence, of the excellence of human life; and this in twofold way: first by their beneficence, and then by their endurance--the grass of the earth, in giving the seed of corn, and in its beauty under tread of foot and stroke of scythe; and the grass of the waters, in giving its freshness for our rest, and in its bending before the wave. But, understood in the broad human and Divine sense, the "_herb_ yielding seed"--(as opposed to the fruit tree yielding fruit)--includes a third family of plants, and fulfils a third office to the human race. It includes the great family of the lints and flaxes, and fulfils thus the _three_ offices of giving food, raiment, and rest. Follow out this fulfilment; consider the association of the linen garment and the linen embroidery with the priestly office and the furniture of the tabernacle, and consider how the rush has been to all time the first natural carpet thrown under the human foot. Then next observe the three virtues definitely set forth by the three families of plants--not arbitrarily or fancifully associated with them, but in all the three cases marked for us by Scriptural words: 1st. Cheerfulness, or joyful serenity; in the grass for food and beauty--"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin." 2nd. Humility; in the grass for rest--"A bruised reed shall he not break." 3rd. Love; in the grass for clothing, (because of its swift kindling,)--"The smoking flax shall he not quench." And then finally observe the confirmation of these last two images in, I suppose, the most important prophecy, relating to the future state of the Christian Church, which occurs in the Old Testament, namely that contained in the closing chapters of Ezekiel. The measures of the Temple of God are to be taken; and because it is only by charity and humility that those measures ever can be taken, the angel has "a line of _flax_ in his hand, and a measuring reed." The use of the line was to measure the land, and of the reed to take the dimensions of the buildings; so the buildings of the church, or its labours, are to be measured by humility; and its territory, or land, by love. 58. LEAVES motionless. The strong pines wave above them, and the weak grasses tremble beside them; but the blue stars rest upon the earth with a peace as of heaven; and far along the ridges of iron rock, moveless as they, the rubied crests of Alpine rose flush in the low rays of morning. 59. MOSSES.--Meek creatures! the first mercy of the earth, veiling with hushed softness its dintless rocks; creatures full of pity, covering with strange and tender honour the scarred disgrace of ruin, laying quiet finger on the trembling stones to teach them rest. No words, that I know of, will say what these mosses are. None are delicate enough, none perfect enough, none rich enough. How is one to tell of the rounded bosses of furred and beaming green,--the starred divisions of rubied bloom, fine-filmed, as if the rock spirits could spin porphyry as we do glass,--the traceries of intricate silver, and fringes of amber, lustrous, arborescent, burnished through every fibre into fitful brightness and glossy traverses of silken change, yet all subdued and pensive, and framed for simplest, sweetest offices of grace? They will not be gathered, like the flowers, for chaplet, or love-token; but of these the wild bird will make its nest, and the wearied child his pillow. And as the earth's first mercy, so they are its last gift to us: when all other service is vain, from plant and tree, the soft mosses and gray lichen take up their watch by the headstone. The woods, the blossoms, the gift-bearing grasses, have done their parts for a time; but these do service for ever. Trees for the builder's yard, flowers for the bride's chamber, corn for the granary, moss for the grave. 60. LICHENS.--As in one sense the humblest, in another they are the most honoured of the earth-children. Unfading as motionless, the worm frets them not, and the autumn wastes not. Strong in loveliness, they neither blanch in heat, nor pine in frost. To them, slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is entrusted the weaving of the dark, eternal tapestries of the hills; to them, slow-pencilled, iris-dyed, the tender framing of their endless imagery. Sharing the stillness of the unimpassioned rock, they share also its endurance; and while the winds of departing spring scatter the white hawthorn blossom like drifted snow, and summer dims on the parched meadow the drooping of its cowslip gold,--far above, among the mountains, the silver lichen spots rest, star-like, on the stone: and the gathering orange stain, upon the edge of yonder western peak, reflects the sunsets of a thousand years. SECTION VIII. EDUCATION. 61. The most helpful and sacred work which can at present be done for humanity, is to teach people (chiefly by example, as all best teaching must be done) not how "to better themselves," but how to "satisfy themselves." It is the curse of every evil nature and evil creature to eat and _not_ be satisfied. The words of blessing are, that they shall eat and be satisfied; and as there is only one kind of water which quenches all thirst, so there is only one kind of bread which satisfies all hunger--the bread of justice or righteousness; which hungering after, men shall always be filled, that being the bread of Heaven; but hungering after the bread or wages of unrighteousness, shall not be filled, that being the bread of Sodom. And in order to teach men how to be satisfied, it is necessary fully to understand the art of joy and humble life--this, at present, of all arts or sciences, being the one most needing study. Humble life; that is to say, proposing to itself no future exaltation, but only a sweet continuance: not excluding the idea of foresight, but wholly of fore-sorrow, and taking no troublous thought for coming days; so also not excluding the idea of providence or provision, but wholly of accumulation;--the life of domestic affection and domestic peace, full of sensitiveness to all elements of costless and kind pleasure;--therefore chiefly to the loveliness of the natural world. 62. We shall find that the love of nature, wherever it has existed, has been a faithful and sacred element of feeling; that is to say, supposing all the circumstances otherwise the same with respect to two individuals, the one who loves nature most will be always found to have more capacity for _faith_ in God than the other. Nature-worship will be found to bring with it such a sense of the presence and power of a Great Spirit as no mere reasoning can either induce or controvert; and where that nature-worship is innocently pursued--_i.e._, with due respect to other claims on time, feeling, and exertion, and associated with the higher principles of religion,--it becomes the channel of certain sacred truths, which by no other means can be conveyed. 63. Instead of supposing the love of nature necessarily connected with the faithlessness of the age, I believe it is connected properly with the benevolence and liberty[29] of the age; that it is precisely the most healthy element which distinctively belongs to us; and that out of it, cultivated no longer in levity or ignorance, but in earnestness and as a duty, results will spring of an importance at present inconceivable; and lights arise, which, for the first time in man's history, will reveal to him the true nature of his life, the true field for his energies, and the true relations between him and his Maker. [29] I forget, now, what I meant by 'liberty' in this passage; but I often used the word in my first writings, in a good sense, thinking of Scott's moorland rambles and the like. It is very wonderful to me, now, to see what hopes I had once: but Turner was alive, then; and the sun used to shine, and rivers to sparkle. 64. To any person who has all his senses about him, a quiet walk, over not more than ten or twelve miles of road a day, is the most amusing of all travelling; and all travelling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity. Going by railroad I do not consider as travelling at all; it is merely "being sent" to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel. 65. I believe an immense gain in the bodily health and happiness of the upper classes would follow on their steadily endeavouring, however clumsily, to make the physical exertion they now necessarily exert in amusements, definitely serviceable. It would be far better, for instance, that a gentleman should mow his own fields, than ride over other people's. 66. In order to define what is fairest, you must delight in what is fair; and I know not how few or how many there may be who take such delight. Once I could speak joyfully about beautiful things, thinking to be understood; now I cannot, any more, for it seems to me that no one regards them. Wherever I look or travel, in England or abroad, I see that men, wherever they can reach, destroy all beauty. They seem to have no other desire or hope but to have large houses, and be able to move fast. Every perfect and lovely spot which they can touch, they defile. Thus the railroad bridge over the fall of Schaffhausen, and that round the Clarens shore of the lake of Geneva, have destroyed the power of two pieces of scenery of which nothing can ever supply the place, in appeal to the higher ranks of European mind. 67. The first thing which I remember as an event in life, was being taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar's Crag on Derwentwater. The intense joy, mingled with awe, that I had in looking through the hollows in the mossy roots, over the crag into the dark lake, has associated itself more or less with all twining roots of trees ever since. Two other things I remember as, in a sort, beginnings of life;--crossing Shap-fells, being let out of the chaise to run up the hills; and going through Glenfarg, near Kinross, on a winter's morning, when the rocks were hung with icicles; these being culminating points in an early life of more travelling than is usually indulged to a child. In such journeyings, whenever they brought me near hills, and in all mountain ground and scenery, I had a pleasure, as early as I can remember, and continuing till I was eighteen or twenty, infinitely greater than any which has been since possible to me in anything. 68. A fool always wants to shorten space and time; a wise man wants to lengthen both. A fool wants to kill space and time; a wise man, first to gain them, then to animate them. 69. I suspect that system-makers in general are not of much more use, each in his own domain, than, in that of Pomona, the old women who tie cherries upon sticks, for the more portableness of the same. To cultivate well, and choose well, your cherries, is of some importance; but if they can be had in their own wild way of clustering about their crabbed stalks, it is a better connection for them than any others; and if they cannot, then so that they be not bruised, it makes to a boy of practical disposition not much difference whether he gets them by handfuls, or in beaded symmetry on the exalting stick. 70. Every great man is always being helped by everybody, for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons. 71. God appoints to every one of His creatures a separate mission, and if they discharge it honourably, if they quit themselves like men, and faithfully follow the light which is in them, withdrawing from it all cold and quenching influence, there will assuredly come of it such burning as, in its appointed mode and measure, shall shine before men, and be of service constant and holy. Degrees infinite of lustre there must always be, but the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a gift also to his race for ever. 72. There is not any matter, nor any spirit, nor any creature, but it is capable of a unity of some kind with other creatures; and in that unity is its perfection and theirs, and a pleasure also for the beholding of all other creatures that can behold. So the unity of spirits is partly in their sympathy, and partly in their giving and taking, and always in their love; and these are their delight and their strength; for their strength is in their co-working and army fellowship, and their delight is in their giving and receiving of alternate and perpetual good; their inseparable dependency on each other's being, and their essential and perfect depending on their Creator's. And so the unity of earthly creatures is their power, and their peace; not like the dead and cold peace of undisturbed stones and solitary mountains, but the living peace of trust, and the living power of support; of hands that hold each other and are still.[30] [30] A long, affected, and obscure second volume sentence, written in imitation of Hooker. One short sentence from Ecclesiastes is the sum of it: "How can one be warm alone?" 73. It is good to read of that kindness and humbleness of St. Francis of Assisi, who spoke never to bird, nor to cicada, nor even to wolf and beasts of prey, but as his brother;--and so we find are moved the minds of all good and mighty men, as in the lesson that we have from the 'Mariner' of Coleridge, and yet more truly and rightly taught in the 'Hartleap Well'-- "Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels,"-- and again in the 'White Doe' of Rylstone, with the added teaching, that anguish of our own "Is tempered and allayed by sympathies Aloft ascending, and descending deep, Even to the inferior kinds;"-- so that I know not of anything more destructive of the whole theoretic faculty, not to say of the Christian character and human intellect,[31] than those accursed sports in which man makes of himself cat, tiger, leopard, and alligator in one; and gathers into one continuance of cruelty, for his amusement, all the devices that brutes sparingly and at intervals use against each other for their necessities. [31] I am more and more grieved, as I re-read this and other portions of the most affected and weak of all my books, (written in a moulting time of my life,)--the second volume of 'Modern Painters,'--at its morbid violence of passion and narrowness of thought. Yet, at heart, the book was, like my others, honest; and in substance it is mostly good; but all boiled to rags. 74. He who loves not God, nor his brother, cannot love the grass beneath his feet, nor the creatures which live not for his uses, filling those spaces in the universe which he needs not: while, on the other hand, none can love God, nor his human brother, without loving all things which his Father loves; nor without looking upon them every one as in that respect his brethren also, and perhaps worthier than he, if, in the under concords they have to fill, their part is touched more truly.[32] [32] Morbidly Franciscan, again! and I am really compelled to leave out one little bit my friend liked,--as all kindly and hopeful women would,--about everything turning out right, and being to some good end. For we have no business whatever with the ends of things, but with their beings; and their beings are often entirely bad. 75. Things may always be seen truly by candid people, though never _completely_. No human capacity ever yet saw the whole of a thing; but we may see more and more of it the longer we look. Every individual temper will see something different in it; but supposing the tempers honest, all the differences are there. Every advance in our acuteness of perception will show us something new; but the old and first-discerned thing will still be there, not falsified, only modified and enriched by the new perceptions, becoming continually more beautiful in its harmony with them, and more approved as a part of the infinite truth. SECTION IX. MORALITIES. 76. When people read, "The law came by Moses, but grace and truth by Christ," do they suppose it means that the law was ungracious and untrue? The law was given for a foundation; the grace (or mercy) and truth for fulfilment;--the whole forming one glorious Trinity of judgment, mercy, and truth.[33] And if people would but read the text of their Bibles with heartier purpose of understanding it, instead of superstitiously, they would see that throughout the parts which they are intended to make most personally their own, (the Psalms,) it is always the Law which is spoken of with chief joy. The Psalms respecting mercy are often sorrowful, as in thought of what it cost; but those respecting the Law are always full of delight. David cannot contain himself for joy in thinking of it,--he is never weary of its praise: "How love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Thy testimonies are my delight and my counsellors; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb." [33] A great deal of the presumption and narrowness caused by my having been bred in the Evangelical schools, and which now fill me with shame and distress in re-reading 'Modern Painters,' is, to my present mind, atoned for by the accurate thinking by which I broke my way through to the great truth expressed in this passage, which all my later writings, without exception, have been directed to maintain and illustrate. 77. I suppose there is no event in the whole life of Christ to which, in hours of doubt or fear, men turn with more anxious thirst to know the close facts of it, or with more earnest and passionate dwelling upon every syllable of its recorded narrative, than Christ's showing Himself to His disciples at the Lake of Galilee. There is something pre-eminently open, natural, full fronting our disbelief, in this manifestation. The others, recorded after the resurrection, were sudden, phantom-like, occurring to men in profound sorrow and wearied agitation of heart; not, it might seem, safe judges of what they saw. But the agitation was now over. They had gone back to their daily work, thinking still their business lay net-wards, unmeshed from the literal rope and drag. "Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a-fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee." True words enough, and having far echo beyond those Galilean hills. That night they caught nothing; but when the morning came, in the clear light of it, behold! a figure stood on the shore. They were not thinking of anything but their fruitless hauls. They had no guess who it was. It asked them simply if they had caught anything. They say, No, and it tells them to cast again. And John shades his eyes from the morning sun with his hand to look who it is; and though the glistening of the sea, too, dazzles him, he makes out who it is at last; and poor Simon, not to be outrun this time, tightens his fisher's coat about him, and dashes in over the nets. One would have liked to see him swim those hundred yards, and stagger to his knees upon the beach. Well, the others get to the beach, too, in time, in such slow way as men in general do get in this world to its true shore, much impeded by that wonderful "dragging the net with fishes"; but they get there--seven of them in all; first the Denier, and then the slowest believer, and then the quickest believer, and then the two throne-seekers, and two more, we know not who. They sit down on the shore, face to face with Him, and eat their broiled fish as He bids. And then to Peter, all dripping still, shivering, and amazed, staring at Christ in the sun, on the other side of the coal-fire,--thinking a little perhaps of what happened by another coal-fire, when it was colder, and having had no word changed with him by his Master, since that look of His,--to him so amazed, comes the question, "Simon, lovest thou Me?" Try to feel that a little; and think of it till it is true to you: and then take up that infinite monstrosity and hypocrisy,--Raphael's cartoon of the charge to Peter. Note first the bold fallacy--the putting _all_ the Apostles there, a mere lie to serve the Papal heresy of the Petric supremacy, by putting them all in the background while Peter receives the charge, and making them all witnesses to it. Note the handsomely curled hair and neatly tied sandals of the men who had been out all night in the sea-mists, and on the slimy decks; note their convenient dresses for going a-fishing, with trains that lie a yard along the ground, and goodly fringes--all made to match;--an apostolic fishing costume. Note how Peter especially, (whose chief glory was in his wet coat _girt_ about him, and naked limbs,) is enveloped in folds and fringes, so as to kneel and hold his keys with grace. No fire of coals at all, nor lonely mountain shore, but a pleasant Italian landscape, full of villas and churches, and a flock of sheep to be pointed at; and the whole group of Apostles, not round Christ, as they would have been naturally, but straggling away in a line, that they may be shown. The simple truth is, that the moment we look at the picture we feel our belief of the whole thing taken away. There is visibly no possibility of that group even having existed, in any place, or on any occasion. It is all a mere mythic absurdity, and faded concoction of fringes, muscular arms, and curly heads of Greek philosophers. 78. Among the children of God, there is always that fearful and bowed apprehension of His majesty, and that sacred dread of all offence to Him which is called the Fear of God; yet of real and essential fear there is not any, but clinging of confidence to Him as their Rock, Fortress, and Deliverer; and perfect love, and casting out of fear; so that it is not possible that, while the mind is rightly bent on Him, there should be dread of anything earthly or supernatural; and the more dreadful seems the height of His majesty, the less fear they feel that dwell in the shadow of it. "Of whom shall I be afraid?" 79. If for every rebuke that we utter of men's vices, we put forth a claim upon their hearts; if for every assertion of God's demands from them, we could substitute a display of His kindness to them; if side by side with every warning of death, we could exhibit proofs and promises of immortality; if, in fine, instead of assuming the being of an awful Deity, which men, though they cannot, and dare not deny, are always unwilling, sometimes unable to conceive, we were to show them a near, visible, inevitable, but all beneficent Deity, whose presence makes the earth itself a heaven, I think there would be fewer deaf children sitting in the market-place. 80. If not by sympathy discovered, it is not in words explicable with what divine lines and light the exercise of godliness and charity will mould and gild the hardest and coldest countenance, neither to what darkness their departure will consign the loveliest. For there is not any virtue the exercise of which, even momentarily, will not impress a new fairness upon the features. 81. The love of the human race is increased by their individual differences, and the unity of the creature, made perfect by each having something to bestow and to receive, bound to the rest by a thousand various necessities and various gratitudes; humility in each rejoicing to admire in his fellow that which he finds not in himself, and each being in some respect the complement of his race. 82. They who are as the angels of God in heaven, yet cannot be conceived as so assimilated that their different experiences and affections upon earth shall then be forgotten and effectless: the child, taken early to his place, cannot be imagined to wear there such a body, nor to have such thoughts, as the glorified apostle who had finished his course and kept the faith on earth. And so, whatever perfections and likeness of love we may attribute to either the tried or the crowned creatures, there is the difference of the stars in glory among them yet; differences of original gifts, though not of occupying till their Lord come; different dispensations of trial and of trust, of sorrows and support, both in their own inward, variable hearts, and in their positions of exposure or of peace; of the gourd shadow and the smiting sun, of calling at heat of day, or eleventh hour, of the house unroofed by faith, or the clouds opened by revelation; differences in warning, in mercies, in sickness, in signs, in time of calling to account; alike only they all are by that which is not of them, but the gift of God's unchangeable mercy: "I will give unto this last even as unto thee." 83. The desire of rest planted in the heart is no sensual, no unworthy one; but a longing for renovation, and for escape from a state whose every phase is mere preparation for another equally transitory, to one in which permanence shall have become possible through perfection. Hence the great call of Christ to men, that call on which St. Augustine fixed as the essential expression of Christian hope, is accompanied by the promise of rest; and the death bequest of Christ to men, is peace. 84. He who has once stood beside the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been for ever closed, feeling how impotent, there, are the wild love, and the keen sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit, for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart, which can only be discharged to the dust. But the lessons which men receive as individuals, they do not learn as nations. Again and again they have seen their noblest descend into the grave, and have thought it enough to garland the tombstone when they had not crowned the brow, and to pay the honour to the ashes, which they had denied to the spirit. Let it not displease them that they are bidden, amidst the tumult and the dazzle of their busy life, to listen for the few voices, and watch for the few lamps, which God has toned and lighted to charm and to guide them, that they may not learn their sweetness by their silence, nor their light by their decay. 85. In the Cathedral of Lucca, near the entrance door of the north transept, there is a monument by Jacopo della Quercia to Ilaria di Caretto, the wife of Paolo Guinigi. I name it not as more beautiful or perfect than other examples of the same period; but as furnishing an instance of the exact and right mean between the rigidity and rudeness of the earlier monumental effigies, and the morbid imitation of life, sleep, or death, of which the fashion has taken place in modern times. She is lying on a simple couch, with a hound at her feet; not on the side, but with the head laid straight and simply on the hard pillow, in which, let it be observed, there is no effort at deceptive imitation of pressure.--It is understood as a pillow, but not mistaken for one. The hair is bound in a flat braid over the fair brow, the sweet and arched eyes are closed, the tenderness of the loving lips is set and quiet; there is that about them which forbids breath; something which is not death nor sleep, but the pure image of both. The hands are not lifted in prayer, neither folded, but the arms are laid at length upon the body, and the hands cross as they fall. The feet are hidden by the drapery, and the form of the limbs concealed, but not their tenderness. 86. I do not know any district possessing a more pure or uninterrupted fulness of mountain character, (and that of the highest order,) or which appears to have been less disturbed by foreign agencies, than that which borders the course of the Trient between Valorsine and Martigny. The paths which lead to it out of the valley of the Rhone, rising at first in steep circles among the walnut trees, like winding stairs among the pillars of a Gothic tower, retire over the shoulders of the hills into a valley almost unknown, but thickly inhabited by an industrious and patient population. Along the ridges of the rocks, smoothed by old glaciers into long, dark, billowy swellings, like the backs of plunging dolphins, the peasant watches the slow colouring of the tufts of moss and roots of herb, which little by little gather a feeble soil over the iron substance; then, supporting the narrow slip of clinging ground with a few stones, he subdues it to the spade; and in a year or two a little crest of corn is seen waving upon the rocky casque. The irregular meadows run in and out like inlets of lake among these harvested rocks, sweet with perpetual streamlets that seem always to have chosen the steepest places to come down for the sake of the leaps, scattering their handfuls of crystal this way and that, as the wind takes them with all the grace, but with none of the formalism, of fountains; dividing into fanciful change of dash and spring, yet with the seal of their granite channels upon them, as the lightest play of human speech may bear the seal of past toil, and closing back out of their spray to lave the rigid angles, and brighten with silver fringes and glassy films each lower and lower step of sable stone; until at last, gathered altogether again,--except perhaps some chance drops caught on the apple blossom, where it has budded a little nearer the cascade than it did last spring,--they find their way down to the turf, and lose themselves in that, silently; with quiet depth of clear water furrowing among the grass-blades, and looking only like their shadows but presently emerging again in little startled gushes and laughing hurries, as if they had remembered suddenly that the day was too short for them to get down the hill. Green field, and glowing rock, and glancing streamlet, all slope together in the sunshine towards the brows of ravines, where the pines take up their own dominion of saddened shade; and with everlasting roar, in the twilight, the stronger torrents thunder down, pale from the glaciers, filling all the chasms with enchanted cold, beating themselves to pieces against the great rocks that they have themselves cast down, and forcing fierce way beneath their ghastly poise. The mountain paths stoop to those glens in forky zigzags, leading to some grey and narrow arch, all fringed under its shuddering curve with the ferns that fear the light; a cross of rough-hewn pine, iron-bound to its parapet, standing dark against the lurid fury of the foam. Far up the glen, as we pause beside the cross, the sky is seen through the openings in the pines thin with excess of light; and, in its clear consuming flame of white space, the summits of the rocky mountains are gathered into solemn crowns and circlets, all flushed in that strange faint silence of possession by the sunshine, which has in it so deep a melancholy, full of power, yet as frail as shadows; lifeless, like the walls of a sepulchre, yet beautiful in tender fall of crimson folds, like the veil of some sea spirit, that lives and dies as the foam flashes; fixed on a perpetual throne, stern against all strength, lifted above all sorrows, and yet effaced and melted utterly into the air by that last sunbeam that has crossed to them from between the two golden clouds. High above all sorrow? Yes; but not unwitnessing to it. The traveller on his happy journey, as his foot springs from the deep turf, and strikes the pebbles gaily over the edge of the mountain road, sees with a glance of delight the clusters of nut-brown cottages that nestle along those sloping orchards, and glow beneath the boughs of the pines. Here, it may well seem to him, if there be sometimes hardship, there must be at least innocence and peace, and fellowship of the human soul with nature. It is not so. The wild goats that leap along those rocks have as much passion of joy in all that fair work of God as the men that toil among them,--perhaps more. Enter the street of one of those villages, and you will find it foul with that gloomy foulness that is suffered only by torpor, or by anguish of soul. Here, it is torpor--not absolute suffering--not starvation or disease; but darkness of calm enduring: the spring, known only as the time of the scythe, and the autumn as the time of the sickle, and the sun only as a warmth, the wind as a chill, and the mountains as a danger. They do not understand so much as the name of beauty, or of knowledge. They understand dimly that of virtue. Love, patience, hospitality, faith--these things they know. To glean their meadows side by side, so happier; to bear the burden up the breathless mountain flank unmurmuringly; to bid the stranger drink from their vessel of milk; to see at the foot of their low death-beds a pale figure upon a cross, dying, also patiently;--in this they are different from the cattle and from the stones; but, in all this, unrewarded, as far as concerns the present life. For them, there is neither hope nor passion of spirit; for them, neither advance nor exultation. Black bread, rude roof, dark night, laborious day, weary arm at sunset; and life ebbs away. No books, no thoughts, no attainments, no rest,--except only sometimes a little sitting in the sun under the church wall, as the bell tolls thin and far in the mountain air; a pattering of a few prayers, not understood, by the altar-rails of the dimly gilded chapel,--and so, back to the sombre home, with the cloud upon them still unbroken--that cloud of rocky gloom, born out of the wild torrents and ruinous stones, and unlightened even in their religion, except by the vague promise of some better thing unknown, mingled with threatening, and obscured by an unspeakable horror--a smoke, as it were, of martyrdom, coiling up with the incense; and amidst the images of tortured bodies and lamenting spirits in hurtling flames, the very cross, for them, dashed more deeply than for others with gouts of blood. 87. A Highland scene is beyond doubt pleasant enough in its own way; but, looked close at, has its shadows.[34] Here, for instance, is the very fact of one--as pretty as I can remember,--having seen many. It is a little valley of soft turf, enclosed in its narrow oval by jutting rocks, and broad flakes of nodding fern. From one side of it to the other winds, serpentine, a clear brown stream, drooping into quicker ripple as it reaches the end of the oval field, and then, first islanding a purple and white rock with an amber pool, it dashes away into a narrow fall of foam under a thicket of mountain ash and alder. The autumn sun, low, but clear, shines on the scarlet ash-berries and on the golden birch-leaves, which, fallen here and there, when the breeze has not caught them, rest quiet in the crannies of the purple rock. Beside the rock, in the hollow under the thicket, the carcase of a ewe, drowned in the last flood, lies nearly bare to the bone, its white ribs protruding through the skin, raven-torn; and the rags of its wool still flickering from the branches that first stayed it as the stream swept it down. A little lower, the current plunges, roaring, into a circular chasm like a well, surrounded on three sides by a chimney-like hollowness of polished rock, down which the foam slips in detached snow-flakes. Round the edges of the pool beneath, the water circles slowly like black oil; a little butterfly lies on its back, the wings glued to one of the eddies, its limbs feebly quivering; a fish arises, and it is gone. Lower down the stream, I can see over a knoll the green and damp turf roofs of four or five hovels, built at the edge of a morass, which is trodden by the cattle into a black Slough of Despond at their doors, and traversed by a few ill-set stepping stones, with here and there a flat slab on the tops, where they have sunk out of sight;--and at the turn of the brook I see a man fishing, with a boy and a dog--a picturesque and pretty group enough certainly, if they had not been there all day starving. I know them, and I know the dog's ribs also, which are nearly as bare as the dead ewe's; and the child's wasted shoulders, cutting his old tartan jacket through, so sharp are they. [34] Passage written to be opposed to an exuberant description, by an amiable Scottish pastor, of everything flattering to Scotchmen in the Highlands. I have put next to it, a little study of the sadness of Italy. 88. Perhaps there is no more impressive scene on earth than the solitary extent of the Campagna of Rome under evening light. Let the reader imagine himself for a moment withdrawn from the sounds and motion of the living world, and sent forth alone into this wild and wasted plain. The earth yields and crumbles beneath his foot, tread he never so lightly, for its substance is white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty wreck of the bones of men. The long knotted grass waves and tosses feebly in the evening wind, and the shadows of its motion shake feverishly along the banks of ruin that lift themselves to the sunlight. Hillocks of mouldering earth heave around him, as if the dead beneath were struggling in their sleep. Scattered blocks of black stone, four-square remnants of mighty edifices, not one left upon another, lie upon them to keep them down. A dull purple poisonous haze stretches level along the desert, veiling its spectral wrecks of massy ruins, on whose rents the red light rests, like dying fire on defiled altars; the blue ridge of the Alban Mount lifts itself against a solemn space of green, clear, quiet sky. Watch-towers of dark clouds stand steadfastly along the promontories of the Apennines. From the plain to the mountains, the shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier, melt into the darkness, like shadowy and countless troops of funeral mourners, passing from a nation's grave. 89. I was coming down one evening from the Rochers de Naye, above Montreux, having been at work among the limestone rocks, where I could get no water, and both weary and thirsty. Coming to a spring at the turn of the path, conducted, as usual, by the herdsmen, into a hollowed pine trunk, I stooped to it, and drank deeply. As I raised my head, drawing breath heavily, some one behind me said, "Celui qui boira de cette eau-ci, aura encore soif." I turned, not understanding for a moment what was meant, and saw one of the hill peasants, probably returning to his châlet from the market place at Vevay or Villeneuve. As I looked at him with an uncomprehending expression, he went on with the verse: "Mais celui qui boira de l'eau que je lui donnerai, n'aura jamais soif." 90. It may perhaps be permitted me[35] to mark the significance of the earliest mention of mountains in the Mosaic books; at least of those in which some Divine appointment or command is stated respecting them. They are first brought before us as refuges for God's people from the two judgments of water and fire. The Ark rests upon the mountains of Ararat; and man, having passed through the great Baptism unto death, kneels upon the earth first where it is nearest heaven, and mingles with the mountain clouds the smoke of his sacrifice of thanksgiving. Again; from the midst of the first judgment by fire, the command of the Deity to His servant is, "Escape to the mountain;" and the morbid fear of the hills, which fills any human mind after long stay in places of luxury and sin, is strangely marked in Lot's complaining reply, "I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me." The third mention, in way of ordinance, is a far more solemn one: "Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off." "The Place," the mountain of myrrh, or of bitterness, chosen to fulfil to all the seed of Abraham, far off and near, the inner meaning of promise regarded in that vow: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh mine help." And the fourth is the delivery of the law on Sinai. It seemed then to the monks that the mountains were appointed by their Maker to be to man refuges from judgment, signs of redemption, and altars of sanctification and obedience; and they saw them afterwards connected, in the manner the most touching and gracious, with the death, after his task had been accomplished, of the first anointed Priest; the death, in like manner, of the first inspired Lawgiver; and lastly, with the assumption of His office, by the Eternal Priest, Lawgiver, and Saviour. [35] With reference to the choice of mountain dwellings by the greater monastic orders. Observe the connection of these three events. Although the _time_ of the deaths of Aaron and Moses was hastened by God's displeasure, we have not, it seems to me, the slightest warrant for concluding that the _manner_ of their deaths was intended to be grievous or dishonourable to them. Far from this, it cannot, I think, be doubted that in the denial of the permission to enter the Promised Land, the whole punishment of their sin was included; and that, as far as regarded the manner of their deaths, it must have been appointed for them by their Master, in all tenderness and love, and with the full purpose of ennobling the close of their service upon the earth. It might have seemed to _us_ more honourable that both should have been permitted to die beneath the shadow of the Tabernacle, the congregation of Israel watching by their side; and all whom they loved gathered together to receive the last message from the lips of the meek lawgiver, and the last blessing from the prayer of the anointed priest. But it was not thus they were permitted to die. Try to realize that going forth of Aaron from the midst of the congregation. He who had so often done sacrifice for their sin, going forth now to offer up his own spirit. He who had stood among them between the dead and the living, and had seen the eyes of all that great multitude turned to him, that by his intercession their breath might yet be drawn a moment more, going forth now to meet the angel of death face to face, and deliver himself into his hand. Try if you cannot walk in thought with those two brothers, and the son, as they passed the outmost tents of Israel, and turned, while yet the dew lay round about the camp, towards the slopes of Mount Hor; talking together for the last time, as step by step they felt the steeper rising of the rocks, and hour after hour, beneath the ascending sun, the horizon grew broader as they climbed, and all the folded hills of Idumea, one by one subdued, showed, amidst their hollows in the haze of noon, the windings of that long desert journey, now at last to close. But who shall enter into the thoughts of the High Priest as his eye followed those paths of ancient pilgrimage; and through the silence of the arid and endless hills, stretching even to the dim peak of Sinai, the whole history of those forty years was unfolded before him, and the mystery of his own ministries revealed to him; and that other Holy of Holies, of which the mountain peaks were the altars, and the mountain clouds the veil, the firmament of his Father's dwelling, opened to him still more brightly and infinitely as he drew nearer his death?--until at last, on the shadeless summit, from him on whom sin was to be laid no more, from him on whose heart the names of sinful nations were to press their graven fire no longer, the brother and the son took breastplate and ephod, and left him to his rest. There is indeed a secretness in this calm faith, and deep restraint of sorrow, into which it is difficult for us to enter; but the death of Moses himself is more easily to be conceived, and had in it circumstances still more touching as regards the influence of the external scene. For forty years Moses had not been alone. The care and burden of all the people, the weight of their woe, and guilt, and death, had been upon him continually. The multitude had been laid upon him as if he had conceived them; their tears had been his meat night and day, until he had felt as if God had withdrawn His favour from him, and he had prayed that he might be slain, and not see his wretchedness. And now at last the command came, "Get thee up into this mountain." The weary hands, that had been so long stayed up against the enemies of Israel, might lean again upon the shepherd's staff, and fold themselves for the shepherd's prayer--for the shepherd's slumber. Not strange to his feet, though forty years unknown, the roughness of the bare mountain path, as he climbed from ledge to ledge of Abarim; not strange to his aged eyes the scattered clusters of the mountain herbage, and the broken shadows of the cliffs, indented far across the silence of uninhabited ravines; scenes such as those among which, as now, with none beside him but God, he had led his flocks so often; and which he had left, how painfully! taking upon him the appointed power to make of the fenced city a wilderness, and to fill the desert with songs of deliverance. It was not to embitter the last hours of his life that God restored to him for a day the beloved solitudes he had lost, and breathed the peace of the perpetual hills around him, and cast the world in which he had laboured, and sinned, far beneath his feet in that mist of dying blue;--all sin, all wandering, soon to be forgotten for ever. The Dead Sea--a type of God's anger understood by him, of all men, most clearly, who had seen the earth open her mouth, and the sea his depth, to overwhelm the companies of those who contended with his Master--laid waveless beneath him; and beyond it the fair hills of Judah, and the soft plains and banks of Jordan, purple in the evening light as with the blood of redemption, and fading in their distant fulness into mysteries of promise and of love. There, with his unabated strength, his undimmed glance, lying down upon the utmost rocks, with angels waiting near to contend for the spoils of his spirit, he put off his earthly armour. We do deep reverence to his companion prophet, for whom the chariot of fire came down from heaven; but was his death less noble whom his Lord Himself buried in the vales of Moab, keeping, in the secrets of the eternal counsels, the knowledge of a sepulchre, from which he was to be called in the fulness of time, to talk with that Lord upon Hermon of the death that He should accomplish at Jerusalem? And lastly, let us turn our thoughts for a few moments to the cause of the resurrection of these two prophets. We are all of us too much in the habit of passing it by, as a thing mystical and inconceivable, taking place in the life of Christ for some purpose not by us to be understood, or, at the best, merely as a manifestation of His divinity by brightness of heavenly light, and the ministering of the spirits of the dead, intended to strengthen the faith of His three chosen apostles. And in this, as in many other events recorded by the Evangelists, we lose half the meaning, and evade the practical power upon ourselves, by never accepting in its fulness the idea that our Lord was "perfect man,"--"tempted in all things like as we are." Our preachers are continually trying, in all manner of subtle ways, to explain the union of the Divinity with the Manhood--an explanation which certainly involves first their being able to describe the nature of Deity itself, or, in plain words, to comprehend God. They never can explain, in any one particular, the union of the natures; they only succeed in weakening the faith of their hearers as to the entireness of either. The thing they have to do is precisely the contrary of this--to insist upon the _entireness_ of both. We never think of Christ enough as God, never enough as Man; the instinctive habit of our minds being always to miss of the Divinity, and the reasoning and enforced habit to miss of the humanity. We are afraid to harbour in our own hearts, or to utter in the hearing of others, any thought of our Lord as hungering, tired, sorrowful, having a human soul, a human will, and affected by events of human life, as a finite creature is: and yet one half of the efficiency of His atonement, and the whole of the efficiency of His example, depend on His having been this to the full. Consider, therefore, the Transfiguration as it relates to the human feelings of our Lord. It was the first definite preparation for His death. He had foretold it to His disciples six days before; then takes with Him the three chosen ones into "an high mountain apart." From an exceeding high mountain, at the first taking on Him the ministry of life, He had beheld and rejected the kingdoms of the earth, and their glory: now, on a high mountain, He takes upon Him the ministry of death. Peter and they that were with Him, as in Gethsemane, were heavy with sleep. Christ's work had to be done alone. The tradition is that the Mount of Transfiguration was the summit of Tabor; but Tabor is neither a high mountain, nor was it in any sense a mountain "_apart_," being in those years both, inhabited and fortified. All the immediately preceding ministries of Christ had been at Cesarea Philippi. There is no mention of travel southward in the six days that intervened between the warning given to His disciples and the going up into the hill. What other hill could it be than the southward slope of that goodly mountain, Hermon, which is indeed the centre of all the Promised Land, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt; the mount of fruitfulness, from which the springs of Jordan descended to the valleys of Israel? Along its mighty forest avenues, until the grass grew fair with the mountain lilies, His feet dashed in the dew of Hermon, He must have gone to pray His first recorded prayer about death; and from the steep of it, before He knelt, could see to the south all the dwellings of the people that had sat in darkness, and seen the great light, the land of Zabulon and of Naphtali, Galilee of the nations,--could see, even with His human sight, the gleam of that lake by Capernaum and Chorazin, and many a place loved by Him, and vainly ministered to, whose house was now left unto them desolate; and chief of all, far in the utmost blue, the hills above Nazareth, sloping down to His old home; hills on which yet the stones lay loose that had been taken up to cast at Him when He left them for ever. "And as He prayed, two men stood by Him." Among the many ways in which we miss the help and hold of Scripture, none is more subtle than our habit of supposing that, even as man, Christ was free from the fear of death. How could He then have been tempted as we are?--since among all the trials of the earth, none spring from the dust more terrible than that fear. It had to be borne by Him, indeed, in a unity which we can never comprehend, with the foreknowledge of victory,--as His sorrow for Lazarus with the consciousness of His power to restore him; but it _had_ to be borne, and that in its full earthly terror; and the presence of it is surely marked for us enough by the rising of those two at His side. When, in the desert, He was girding Himself for the work of life, angels of life came and ministered to Him; now in the fair world, when He is girding Himself for the work of death, the ministrants come to Him from the grave. But, from the grave, conquered. One from that tomb under Abarim, which His own hand had sealed long ago; the other, from the rest into which he had entered without seeing corruption. "There stood by Him Moses and Elias, and spake of His decease." Then, when the prayer is ended, the task accepted, first, since the star paused over Him at Bethlehem, the full glory falls upon Him from heaven, and the testimony is borne to His everlasting Sonship and power. "Hear ye Him." If, in their remembrance of these things, and in their endeavour to follow in the footsteps of their Master, religious men of bygone days, closing themselves in the hill solitudes, forgot sometimes, and sometimes feared, the duties they owed to the active world, we may perhaps pardon them more easily than we ought to pardon ourselves, if we neither seek any influence for good, nor submit to it unsought, in scenes to which thus all the men whose writings we receive as inspired, together with their Lord, retired whenever they had any task or trial laid upon them needing more than their usual strength of spirit. Nor perhaps should we have unprofitably entered into the mind of the earlier ages, if among our other thoughts, as we watch the chains of the snowy mountains rise on the horizon, we should sometimes admit the memory of the hour in which their Creator, among their solitudes, entered on His travail for the salvation of our race; and indulge the dream, that as the flaming and trembling mountains of the earth seem to be the monuments of the manifesting of His terror on Sinai, these pure and white hills, near to the heaven, and sources of all good to the earth, are the appointed memorials of that light of His mercy, that fell, snowlike, on the Mount of Transfiguration. FINIS. Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. Edinburgh & London 
31411	----	STORIES PICTURES TELL BOOK FOUR _By_ FLORA L. CARPENTER _Instructor in drawing in Waite High School, Toledo, Ohio Formerly supervisor of drawing, Bloomington, Illinois_ _Illustrated with Half Tones from Original Photographs_ RAND MCNALLY & COMPANY CHICAGO NEW YORK _Copyright, 1918, by_ RAND MCNALLY & COMPANY All rights reserved Edition of 1928 [Illustration] Made in U. S. A. THE CONTENTS SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER PAGE "The Sower" _Millet_ 1 "Highland Shepherd's Chief Mourner" _Landseer_ 13 NOVEMBER, DECEMBER, AND JANUARY "Children of the Shell" _Murillo_ 23 "Saved" _Landseer_ 31 FEBRUARY AND MARCH "Pilgrim Exiles" _Boughton_ 43 "Dance of the Nymphs" _Corot_ 51 APRIL, MAY, AND JUNE "Oxen Plowing" _Rosa Bonheur_ 63 Review of Pictures and Artists Studied _The Suggestions to Teachers_ 75 THE PREFACE Art supervisors in the public schools assign picture-study work in each grade, recommending the study of certain pictures by well-known masters. As Supervisor of Drawing I found that the children enjoyed this work but that the teachers felt incompetent to conduct the lessons as they lacked time to look up the subject and to gather adequate material. Recourse to a great many books was necessary and often while much information could usually be found about the artist, very little was available about his pictures. Hence I began collecting information about the pictures and preparing the lessons for the teachers just as I would give them myself to pupils of their grade. My plan does not include many pictures during the year, as this is to be only a part of the art work and is not intended to take the place of drawing. The lessons in this grade may be used for the usual drawing period of from twenty to thirty minutes, and have been successfully given in that time. However, the most satisfactory way of using the books is as supplementary readers, thus permitting each child to study the pictures and read the stories himself. FLORA L. CARPENTER [Illustration: By permission of Braun & Co., Paris and New York THE SOWER] STORIES PICTURES TELL THE SOWER =Questions to arouse interest.= What is this man doing? Why do you think so? What does he carry over his shoulder? in his bag? How does he sow the grain? What will be the result of his work? How do you think the grain will be covered? What can you see in the background? Do you think the oxen are plowing the field or covering the grain? why? What time of the day is it? What can you see in this picture to indicate that the man has been working a long time? How is he dressed? How does he wear his hat? What kind of boots is he wearing? What makes you think the ground is soft? Is the man standing still, or walking? Why do you think so? Where does he seem to be looking? Why do you think he looks ahead? What is the cause of the glow in the sky behind him? What do you think are the colors in the sky? the colors in the field? What time of the year is it? in what country? What do you like best about this picture? =Original Picture:= Vanderbilt Collection, Metropolitan Museum, New York. =Artist:= Jean François Millet (m[=e]´l[)e]´´). =Birthplace:= Gruchy, France. =Dates:= Born, 1814; died, 1875. =The story of the picture.= In this picture Millet has tried to tell us only a few important facts about the man and his work. It is easy to see that he is sowing grain broadcast over the field. The shadows creeping over ground and sky tell us that night is fast approaching. He seems intent upon finishing that last stretch of field before dark, and his steady, rhythmic swing shows none of the physical weariness he must feel. When we think of the life of this sturdy French peasant, as the artist surely intended we should, we realize the patience and perseverance required in the monotonous day's work, and we are forced to a feeling of respect and admiration for him. In these days with what ease and skill the same task is performed by the aid of machinery! Riding on the seat of a machine which drills the seed into the ground and covers it up, the man would have found the simple task of guiding his horses a very pleasant one indeed. As he walks along so energetically, his eyes are probably fixed on some stake at the end of the field to guide him as he travels back and forth, sowing the grain. No doubt he used a team of oxen to plow and harrow the ground before he sowed the seed. We have no way of knowing just what kind of a harrow he had, but very likely it was one made of brush or branches of trees. We can see a team of oxen and a driver in the distance, who seem to be following in the tracks of our sower and covering up the seeds he is sowing. The artist, Millet, knew all about such work, for he himself had worked out in the fields through the long day. He tells us that his "ancestors were peasants and he was born a peasant." No doubt the man in our picture started out on his day's work long before the sun was up. His first task, after eating his breakfast and feeding his oxen, was to yoke the oxen ready for the journey to the field where their work was to be done. No doubt the man has been working steadily ever since, for he does not look like a man who would stop to rest very many times. He gives us rather a feeling of physical strength and of steady, faithful effort in the accomplishment of his daily tasks. At the close of such a day's labor in the field he will be too utterly weary to sit up and read, as most of our farmers do during these days of farm machinery and rural delivery. And yet, there were some who did read even in those days when work was so difficult, for we know that Millet sat up many nights with the village priest, who taught him reading and arithmetic, and with whom he studied Latin and read the works of Shakespeare. It was due to this greater knowledge that Millet became something more than a mere peasant. It was this that gave him such perfect sympathy with and keen insight into the peasants' lives. His own knowledge of the world made him more conscious of the great contrast between their narrow, hard-working lives so full of privation, and those of the men and women in the great world outside so full of opportunity and promise. Yet even in so great a city as Paris, men could starve, as he had found out by his own experience. Perhaps Millet wished to make us feel the content of a successful day's work such as this, with its well-earned quiet and rest, free from the hurry and noise of the city. Although the sun is sinking over a world of beauty and pleasure, our sower knows nothing and cares for nothing except the accomplishment of his task. His hat, pulled down over his face, shades his heavy, coarse features. Although an expert in his work, doing to the utmost, his mind is probably dull and slow and quite unequal to any great mental task. And yet what a great work is his, after all! How dependent we are upon the men of whom he is a type! The fact that he is doing his own work and doing that work well compels our respect and admiration. The light from the sun disappearing behind the hill brings out in silhouette the figure of the sower turned toward the dark and earthy field. This man is not posing for his picture. Quite unconscious of our gaze, he swings briskly forward, his feet sinking slightly into the newly plowed field. From the bag hanging from his shoulder he scatters the grain with a long sweep of his strong right arm. He is actually moving in the picture. Take this position for yourself. The weight of the body falls evenly upon both feet. To raise either foot you must move the entire body. As the right foot goes forward the right arm goes back. If you try taking long strides and swinging your arms you will find this is the natural movement. The horizon line is slanting or diagonal, and divides the light part of the picture from the dark. The sky and ground are held together by the figure of the sower. Notice the absence of details in the picture. The art critics of Millet's day did not appreciate the great thought expressed in this picture, for nearly all of them found fault with it. They could see no beauty in "a common laborer in his dirty clothes doing his miserable work," and thought Millet should have chosen something more beautiful to paint. What do you think of the justice of this criticism? What is your opinion of the beauty of this picture? Millet loved these simple, kind-hearted, hard-working peasants, loved their lives of toil in the fields, respected their labors, and being so wholly in sympathy with them, he wished to make us feel so, too. =Questions to help the pupil understand the picture.= Where is the man? in what country? How can you tell what time of the day it is? Why does he not seem weary? Why do you think he must be very tired? How early do the French peasants usually start to work? What must this man do before daybreak? Why do you think he is not lazy? Why do we respect and admire him? How could his work be made easier now? How do most of our farmers sow and plant their seed? How did this man plow his ground? What is a harrow for? What kind of a harrow did this man have? What is the team of oxen at the farther end of the field doing? Does this man seem to be looking at the ground or far ahead? How did the artist, Millet, know so much about this kind of work? What would this man probably do after his day's work? Why did he not read the newspaper, as our farmers do? What did Millet do in the evening? How did this help him? What did Millet wish to make us feel in this picture? How does the horizon line divide the picture? How are the sky and ground held together? Why do you suppose Millet did not paint details, such as the features of the face or the buttons on the coat? What did the critics say about this picture? How many agree with them? why? why not? =To the Teacher:= Ask one of the pupils to take this position while the others sketch the action, finishing the sketch from memory--and adding their own background. Use ink silhouette, or charcoal on manila paper. =The story of the artist.= Jean François Millet was the son of poor French peasants who lived on a farm and worked hard to take care of their large family of eight children. Jean was the eldest boy. The father was very fond of music and of all beautiful things out of doors, and often he would say to his son, "Look at that tree, how large and beautiful! It is as beautiful as a flower." He would call the boy's attention to the beauty of the fields, the sunsets, and all things around them. Millet's mother worked out in the fields with the father all day long, so it was the grandmother who took care of the little boy. It was she who named him Jean after his father, and François after the good Saint Francis. She was a deeply religious woman, and nearly all the pictures Millet saw when a boy were those in her Bible. He copied these pictures many times, drawing them with white chalk on the stone walls of the house. This pleased his grandmother very much, and she encouraged him all she could. At the age of six he was sent to school. When he was twelve years old, the priest of the village became interested in him and offered to teach him Latin. Millet was only too glad to accept this offer, and many a happy evening the two spent thus together. But his studies were frequently interrupted by his work on the farm, for since he was the eldest son his father depended most upon him. It was the custom in France among the peasants to take a daily hour of rest from their labors. But the boy Millet, instead of sleeping, spent the hour in drawing the homely scenes around him. One Sunday morning, coming home from church, Millet met an old man who walked very slowly, his back bent over a cane. We have all seen just such old men, and their feebleness has aroused our sympathy and respect. It is not strange, then, that something about this bent figure appealed to young Millet so strongly that he could not resist the desire to draw a portrait of the man. He drew the portrait on a stone wall, with a piece of charcoal, and so well that people passing on their way home from church recognized it at once and were very much surprised and pleased. His father, perhaps, was the most delighted of all, for once he himself had wished to be an artist. Now he determined that his son should have the chance. We are sure Millet never forgot that day when the father, mother, grandmother, and his brothers and sisters sat around the table after dinner and talked about his wonderful picture and what they could do to help him become a great painter. And when it was finally decided that his father should take him to the artist (Mouchel) in the next village, you may be sure he worked hard on the drawings he was to take with him. At last the day came for the journey, and the proud father and his happy son set out on foot for the home of the artist. When shown the drawings Mouchel at first refused to believe the boy had made them, they were so good. Finally convinced, he was glad indeed to take Millet as one of his pupils. But Millet studied with him only two months when his father died and he was obliged to return home to take his father's place on the farm as best he could. By this time the people of the village had become so much interested in his paintings that they decided to help him. So they raised a large sum of money, sent him back to the artist to study, and finally sent him to the great city of Paris, France. But although he painted wonderful pictures which are worth thousands of dollars to-day, his style of art was not appreciated then and would not sell, and he was glad to paint portraits for a few francs each in order to make a living. His life in Paris was a continuous struggle with poverty, and at last he decided to leave. With his wife and children he settled in a little three-roomed cottage at Barbizon, a tiny little village near a great forest and only a day's journey from Paris. Here was Millet's home all the rest of his life. Although still very poor, the family did not starve, as they came so near doing while they lived in Paris, for the garden and the fruit trees always provided them with something to eat. At that time the popular artists were painting beautiful pictures of lovely women and men of the nobility in their fine clothes, or of wonderful saints and angels, and pictures showing only the happier side of life. To them Millet's pictures came as a shock, bringing to mind the dirt and grime of the common, everyday tasks of the poorer French peasants. And, more than that, he made them realize the dreadful condition in which the French Revolution had left many of these same peasants, and that was something of which they did not care to be reminded. So they refused to buy his pictures, and it was not until the last ten years of his life that Millet received a little of the recognition and honor that he so richly deserved. With his increasing fame came better financial conditions, and in 1867 he received the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. =Questions about the artist.= Who painted this picture? In what country did he live? Tell about his mother and father. Who took care of Millet when he was a boy? What pictures did he copy? Where did he draw them? With what did he draw? Who encouraged him? What did the priest teach him? Tell about the picture of the old man leaning on the cane. Where did he draw this picture? Who saw it? Why do you think it must have been a good likeness? How did Millet's father feel about it? What did he do? How did they travel? What did the artist think? How long did Millet study with him? Why did he return home? What did his neighbors do for him? What was he obliged to paint for a living? Where did he move? What kind of pictures were the popular artists of that day painting? Why were Millet's pictures not popular? When were his pictures appreciated? Why have his pictures outlived those of the popular artists of that time? [Illustration] HIGHLAND SHEPHERD'S CHIEF MOURNER =Questions to arouse interest.= What do you see in this picture? For whom is the dog grieving? What makes you think the shepherd may have been an old man? a religious man? a lonely man? Is there anything in the picture that would suggest the country in which he lived? What is there in the picture to suggest the time of the year? the occupation of the man? What kind of dog is this? Who painted the picture? Tell something about his life. Do you like this picture? How does it make you feel? =Original Picture:= South Kensington Museum, London. =Artist:= Sir Edwin Landseer (l[)a]nd´´s[=e]r). =Birthplace:= London, England. =Dates:= Born, 1802; died, 1873. =The story of the picture.= Here we are looking into the interior of a highland shepherd's hut. Our eyes are immediately attracted to the center of the room, where we see the coffin of the shepherd covered with a blanket against which his dog keeps solitary watch. A well-worn Bible and a pair of glasses on the stool near by, the hat, the cane, all suggest something of the life and age of the shepherd. We are told that he was a very old man who had lived all his life among the hills of Scotland. For the last few years, at least, he had lived here alone except for the companionship of his faithful dog and his sheep. The good old dog could tell you all about it. How, early in the morning, he would go with his master to drive the sheep to the best grazing ground, where all day long they guarded and watched them, the man and the dog sharing their noonday lunch of coarse bread. And why did they need to watch the sheep so carefully? There were a great many eagles whose nests were high up in the giant oak trees or up in some rocky cliff far away, and they came flying over the hills looking for food. Woe to the sheep if their master was not near to care for them, for then an eagle would swoop down upon his choice and carry it away to his nest. Then, too, there may have been wild animals prowling about, and the sheep must be protected from them. The dog and his master also had to keep watch lest some lamb stray away from the flock and get lost. In the evening the dog helped his master drive the sheep to shelter in the great sheds where they were kept safe all night. Then up the hill they would climb to their home, where the shepherd prepared the simple evening meal for himself and his dog. Now what could they do after supper? It was too far for the old man to go to the distant village, and no one was likely to come in to see them. No doubt, too, he was very tired, and ready to go to bed very early. You know how sleepy you are after you have been out in the fields all day long. But first he read a little in his Bible; and when the dog saw his master take up the book and put on his spectacles, he probably stretched out on the floor and kept very still. As time went on, the old man became more feeble and the dog worked all the harder to save his master's strength. It may be that toward the last the dog did almost all the work of caring for the sheep. Then, one morning, the old shepherd did not wake up. Even the tugging and sharp barks of his faithful friend failed to arouse him. It may be that the dog's barks brought some passing drovers to the door. In the picture the dog presses close to the coffin. His clinging paws have dragged the blanket to the floor. His eyes seem full of tears of hopeless grief, as if he understood his master could not come back. He must have kept that same rigid and sorrowful position since the men left. Some green branches placed upon the coffin have fallen to the floor because of the dog's first frantic tugging at the blanket. The shepherd must have led a lonely life indeed to have no one but his faithful dog to watch beside him. His hat and cane lie where he left them, and all is very quiet. In another picture Landseer painted a dog lying on the ground over the grave where his master lies buried. We can easily imagine that this dog will follow his master to his last resting place and that he, too, will act as sentinel over the grave of the one he loves so dearly. Landseer wanted to make us feel how good and faithful a friend a dog is. =Questions to help the pupil understand the picture.= Whose home was this? In what country did he live? Tell about his life among the hills. Who helped him care for the sheep? Why must they be cared for? Where did they stay at night? What could the old man do in the evening? When he became feeble, who did nearly all the work of caring for the sheep? When the master did not wake up what did the dog probably do? Why have the branches fallen from the coffin? Why do you suppose there is no one else in the room? =The story of the artist.= Sir Edwin Landseer's grandfather was a jeweler and his father also learned that trade. The jewelers of that day were very often asked to engrave the copper plates that were used in printing pictures. Sir Edwin's father soon decided that he would rather engrave pictures than sell jewels, and he became a very skillful engraver. At that time few people realized what an art it was to be able to cut a picture in copper so that a great many copies of it could be made from one plate. They did not even consider it an art as we do, and so engravers were not allowed to exhibit at the Royal Academy and were given no honors at all. Edwin's father thought this was not right, and gave several lectures in defense of the art. He said that engraving is a kind of "sculpture performed by incision." His talks were of no avail at the time, but within a year after his death the engravers received the recognition due them. His eldest son, Thomas, also became famous as an engraver, and to him we are indebted for so many fine prints of Sir Edwin Landseer's paintings. Thomas also made an engraving of the "Horse Fair" for Rosa Bonheur. Few can afford to own the paintings, but the prints come within the means of all of us. Edwin's father taught him to draw, and even when Edwin was only five years old he could draw remarkably well. Edwin had three sisters and two brothers. They lived in the country, and often the father went with his children for a walk through the fields. There were two very large fields separated by a fence over which was built an old-fashioned stile with several steps. The fence was built high so the sheep and cows in the fields could not jump over. One day Edwin stopped at the stile to look at the cows and asked his father to show him how to draw them. His father then gave Edwin his first lesson in drawing a cow. After this Edwin came nearly every day to these fields and his father called them "Edwin's studio." When he was only thirteen years old, two of his pictures were exhibited at the Royal Academy. One was a portrait of a mule, and the other was of a dog and puppies. Edwin painted from real life always, not caring to make copies from the work of others. All the sketches he made when he was a little boy were kept carefully by his father, and now if you go to England you may see them in the South Kensington Museum in London. Landseer was only sixteen years old when he exhibited his wonderful picture "Fighting Dogs Getting Wind." A very rich man whose praise meant a great deal bought the picture, and the young artist's success was assured. It was about this time, too, that he painted an old white horse in the stable of another wealthy man. After the picture was finished and ready to deliver, it suddenly disappeared. A diligent search was made for it, but it was not found until twenty-four years afterwards. A servant had stolen it and hidden it in a hayloft. He had been afraid to sell it or even to keep it in his home, for no one would have failed to recognize the great artist's work. For many years Landseer lived and painted in his father's house in a poor little room without even a carpet. The only furniture, we are told, were three cheap chairs and an easel. Later he had a fine studio not far from Regent's Park. Here was a small house with a garden and a barn. The barn was made over into a studio. Here so many people brought their pets for him to paint that he had to keep a list, and each was obliged to wait his turn. But Sir Edwin was not a very good business man, so he left all his affairs to his father, who sold his pictures for him and kept his accounts. Landseer made a special study of lions, too. A lion died at the park menagerie and he dissected its body and studied and drew every part. He painted many pictures of lions. He also modeled the great lions at the base of the Nelson Monument in Trafalgar Square, London. Although Landseer painted so many wild animals, birds, and hunting scenes, he did not care to shoot animals. His weapons were his pencil and sketch book. Sometimes he hired guides to take him into the wildest parts of the country in search of game. But he quite disgusted the guides when, a great deer bounding toward him, he would merely make a sketch of it in his book. Many of Landseer's paintings are of scenes in Scotland, as is this one, "Highland Shepherd's Chief Mourner." When Sir Edwin Landseer went to visit Scotland one of his fellow travelers was Sir Walter Scott, the great novelist. The two became close friends. Sir Walter Scott tells us: "Landseer's dogs were the most magnificent things I ever saw, leaping and bounding and grinning all over the canvas." Landseer painted Sir Walter Scott's dog "Maida Vale" many times, and he named his studio for the dog. At twenty-four Landseer became an associate of the Royal Academy, which was an unusual honor for so young a man. In 1850 the honor of knighthood was conferred upon him. This story is told of him at a social gathering in the home of a well-known leader of society in London. The company had been talking about skill with the hands, when some one remarked that no one had ever been found who could draw two things at once. "Oh, I can do that," said Landseer; "lend me two pencils and I will show you." Quickly he drew the head of a horse with one hand while with the other he drew a stag's head and antlers. Both sketches were so good that they might well have been drawn with the same hand and with much more study. Sir Edwin Landseer felt that animals understand, feel, and reason just like people, so he painted them as happy, sad, gay, dignified, frivolous, rich, poor, and in all ways just like human beings. This appealed to the people, and he became very popular. Sir Edwin did and said all he could against the custom of "cropping" the ears of dogs. He said that nature intended to protect the ears of dogs that "dig in the dirt," and man should not interfere. People paid attention to what he said, and the custom lost favor. Landseer died in London in 1873 at the age of seventy-one. A tablet placed to his memory in the notch of one of the windows at Westminster Abbey has a medallion portrait of him at the top, and below this, carved in light relief, is a copy of one of his most famous paintings, "The Highland Shepherd's Chief Mourner." =Questions about the artist.= Tell about Sir Edwin Landseer's father. What did he do? Why were engravers not allowed to exhibit their work? What did Edwin's father do to defend his art? What did Edwin's brother, Thomas, accomplish? Why are we so indebted to him? Who taught Edwin how to draw? Tell about his brothers and their walks in the fields. What animal did Edwin draw first? Where was "Edwin's studio"? Which two of his pictures were exhibited when he was only thirteen years old? What became of the sketches he made when he was a boy? Tell about his two studios. Tell about his picture of the old white horse. With whom did Sir Edwin Landseer travel through Scotland? What did Sir Walter Scott say about Landseer's dogs? How did Landseer happen to name his studio "Maida Vale"? What weapons did Sir Edwin use when he hunted? Why did he not shoot the animals? Tell about his drawing with both hands. In what ways are animals like people according to Landseer's judgment? [Illustration] CHILDREN OF THE SHELL =Questions to arouse interest.= Where do these children seem to be? Which of the two children seems to be the older? What is the boy at the right doing? From what is he drinking? Why do you think the boy at the left has given him a drink? How is he helping him now? What does the boy who is drinking hold in his left hand? How is he standing? What is the lamb doing? Who else seems to be watching them? Why do you think the picture is called "Children of the Shell"? Do you like this picture? why? =Original Picture:= Prado Gallery, Madrid, Spain. =Artist:= Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (m[=oo] r[=e]l´´y[=o]). =Birthplace:= Seville, Spain. =Dates:= Born, 1618; died, 1682. =The story of the picture.= The great religious painter, Murillo, has given us many pictures of the Christ child and John the Baptist, but perhaps none more pleasing than this one which critics have so often declared the most beautiful picture of children ever painted. We must go back in our Bible history to the time when the wicked King Herod reigned over Judea, for it was then that our story begins. This proud king had conquered all his enemies and expected to live at ease in his rich and beautiful palace, surrounded by all that would give him comfort and pleasure. But one day he was made very unhappy when a messenger appeared bringing him most unwelcome news. It was that a child had been born in Bethlehem at just the time and place it had been prophesied that a child should be born who would one day be king over all the world. In a manger of a stable, true to the prophecy, the baby Jesus was born. The three wise men of the East and many others who already worshiped him as king sought and found him there. The thought that the child would grow up to rule over his kingdom alarmed King Herod, and he resolved to remove this possible rival before it was too late. Fearful lest the child should escape, Herod sent out a terrible decree that all boy babies under two years of age should be killed. That must have been a dreadful day, for there was little hope of escape or concealment. However, Mary and Joseph had been warned by an angel several days before, and with the child Jesus they were already safe on their way to Egypt. They had left in the night, and no one could tell anything about them, or where to look for them. Several years later King Herod died, and almost immediately Mary, Joseph, and the boy Jesus started on the homeward journey. It was during this journey, we are told, that the boy, running on ahead of the donkey Mary was riding, found a cool little spring where he could quench his thirst. Suddenly there appeared another boy wearing a camel's-hair cloak and carrying a wooden stick with a cross carved upon it. He was followed by a lamb. It was John the Baptist, who, although only a child, was living among the hills, eating locusts and wild honey, preparing for the great work he was to do. It is supposed that as the mothers of these two boys often visited each other, the children must have met before. In the picture we see them standing near the cool little spring. Jesus has in his hand a shell which, straightway forgetting his own thirst, he has filled and now offers to his cousin John. John the Baptist is bending over to drink from the shell which Jesus holds for him. The lamb watches them contentedly, while from the sky above the angels, with clasped hands and smiling faces, look down in silent adoration. Although he does not look at them, Jesus seems conscious of their presence, for he points toward them with his little hand. Light radiates from the clouds and the angels, while deep shadows at the left and the right serve to heighten the effectiveness of the central part of the picture. The lamb, as the symbol of innocence, is the natural playmate of these two healthy, sturdy boys. The little John drinks eagerly, as if he were indeed thirsty and weary, while Jesus, although younger in years, has the kind and thoughtful look of an elder brother caring for a younger. At this moment they seem to be merely two thirsty boys, little knowing the great work before them or thinking of anything but to quench their thirst. Yet some of the coming greatness shows itself in the generous action of the child Jesus and the gentle acceptance of John the Baptist. =Questions to help the pupil understand the picture.= Whom does this picture represent? For what kind of paintings is Murillo famous? what subjects? Tell about King Herod. Why was he worried when he heard of the birth of Jesus? What did he do in order to be sure the child would be killed? What did the parents of the baby Jesus do? When was it safe for the boy Jesus to return? How did he happen to meet John at the spring? How was John dressed? What followed him? For what does the lamb stand? Who has the shell? What does he do with it? Why do you suppose he did not drink first? To whom does Jesus point or beckon with his left hand? Which boy was the younger? For what is this picture famous? =The story of the artist.= A little Spanish boy, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, born into the home of a poor mechanic, and with no opportunities save those of his own making, grew to be one of the greatest of Spanish painters. Both his parents died before he was eleven years old, and he seems to have been left quite to his own devices. Until that time he had attended school, where his ability to draw had shown itself in pictures drawn on the walls of the school building. After school and on Saturdays he had assisted an artist, doing such work as cleaning brushes, grinding paints, and running errands. An uncle had secured this position for him, but seemed to be unable to help him further. By these means and by painting banners and pictures for the weekly market, the boy earned his own living. The peasants came to Seville from all the country around, bringing in their fruits, vegetables, and wares to sell. Here the young Murillo took his paintings, which were on coarse, cheap cloth instead of on canvas, which he could not afford. Sometimes it was a Madonna, sometimes a portrait of the buyer which he would finish quickly while the crowd watched, or sometimes one of the beggar boys in the gypsy quarters of the city. But Murillo had a boy friend who went to London to study with the great Sir Anthony Van Dyck, and who, when he returned, brought such news of the wonderful paintings in the galleries of London and Paris that Murillo began to dream of seeing them. Before he had saved enough money to go, however, the artist Van Dyck died, and Murillo decided to go to Madrid, where one of his own countrymen, Velásquez, had won great fame. He walked nearly all the way, presenting his letter of introduction to Velásquez, who received him most kindly. Murillo was now twenty-four years old, enthusiastic, ambitious, and manly. Velásquez soon discovered his great talent, and not only received him as a pupil but took him into his own home, where he remained three years. When, at the end of that time, he returned to Seville, his fame as an artist was established and pupils came to him from all over the country. His friends could be found among the very poorest beggars as well as among the most influential men of the city, and he was idolized by his pupils. Always of a deeply religious nature, he chose religious subjects for most of his paintings. In his studio all swearing and ill conduct were forbidden, and his religious paintings were produced only after much prayerful meditation. He gave so generously to the poor about him that it was said he gave away all he earned. Often his wife, who was very beautiful, his lovely daughter, or his two handsome sons posed for his paintings, and so we find the same faces repeated in several pictures. One day when Murillo was painting on the walls of a convent the cook there asked him to paint a small picture for him on a napkin, which was all he had to offer for a canvas. Without hesitation Murillo painted a beautiful Madonna and Child which has since become famous as the "Virgin of the Napkin." While painting the ceiling in a church in Cadiz the scaffolding broke and he fell, injuring himself so seriously that he died shortly after. Every Sunday afternoon, which is a free day at the gallery in Madrid, crowds of the poor, men, women, and children, may be seen gathered around the paintings by Murillo, which they regard with an admiration which is almost worship. To them Murillo is little less than a saint. =Questions about the artist.= In what country did Murillo live? What nationality do his pictures represent? Tell about his boyhood. In what did he excel at school? What work did he do after school and on Saturdays? What else did Murillo do to earn money? Tell about the weekly market. What did Murillo paint for the market? Whom did he paint? What did his boy friend tell him that made him want to go to London? Why did he not go? What happened before he had saved enough money to go? To whom did he go then? How did he go? How old was he by that time? What did the artist Velásquez do for him? What kind of people were Murillo's friends? What kind of pictures did he like to paint best? How did he prepare for this? What rules did he have in his studio? Tell about the cook at the convent and the napkin. What is this picture called? How was Murillo hurt? How do some of the Spanish people regard Murillo? [Illustration] SAVED =Questions to arouse interest.= What has happened? Where are the dog and the child? Why do you think it could not have been a shipwreck? Why are the sea gulls flying around? What can you see in the distance? What kind of a beach is it? =Artist:= Sir Edwin Landseer (l[)a]nd´´s[=e]r). =Birthplace:= London, England. =Dates:= Born, 1802; died, 1873. =The story of the picture.= This fine Newfoundland dog has just saved the life of a little child. We can see even in this print of the picture that they are both dripping wet, and so we know the child must have fallen into the water and was about to drown when the dog swam out and brought her safely to the shore. We can only guess how the accident occurred. It could not have been a shipwreck, for then there would be others for the good old dog to save; besides, although the sky is partly cloudy, there is no evidence of a storm, and we see sailboats in the distance. The child evidently had not been wading out into the water and gone beyond her depth, because she has on her shoes and stockings and is dressed for a day in the warm sunshine, perhaps out on the beach. Probably she had been playing on the wharf or on the rocky shore and had reached out too far or had slipped on a rock. The dog, hearing her cry, must have immediately plunged into the water after her. Then holding the child firmly by her dress, he had battled against the waves until he reached a sandy beach from which he had dragged himself to this place. Although we cannot see the parents, nurse, or playmates, no doubt they are running toward the child and the dog. The dog seems to be watching their approach as he lies there exhausted, guarding the precious burden lying across his paws. His great tongue hangs out and we can almost hear him pant as he gasps for breath after his fierce struggle against the waves. The child is still unconscious, her large shade hat held by a rubber band under her chin; her arm lies limp and lifeless, yet we are sure the great dog has been in time, and she will soon open her eyes. The sea gulls circle about the two as if they were glad of the rescue, and were trying to show the parents where to find the child. These powerful Newfoundland dogs are strong swimmers. At the first cry of alarm they usually plunge unbidden into the water, and rarely fail to accomplish a rescue. In France they are kept on the banks of the Seine as important members of the life-saving crew. Here they are carefully trained for this purpose by their masters, who throw a stuffed figure of a man into the water and teach the dogs to bring it back to shore. They are taught always to hold the head of the figure above the water. They seem to understand perfectly just what is wanted of them and why. A story is told, and it is claimed to be true, of a woman who, while washing clothes on the bank of a river, placed her baby in the clothes basket to keep it safe. In some way the child tipped the basket, rolling out of it and down the bank into the deep water below. The woman screamed but she was helpless. Hearing her cry, a large Newfoundland dog that she had never seen before came swimming down the stream and saved the child, carrying it to the opposite shore. The woman ran down the bank of the river and secured the help of a ferryman and his grandson, a boy about ten years old. When the boat reached the opposite shore the big dog was licking the hands and face of the cooing child, but growled and barked viciously at the people who were approaching him. No one dared go near him. They tried every device, but no, he could not be coaxed away from the baby. At last the boy said he had an idea, and off he ran down the bank and jumped into the boat. Rowing out some distance into the river, he suddenly jumped from the boat into the water, uttering a loud cry of distress. He struggled a while, and then to all appearances sank out of sight. The grandfather knew the boy could swim and dive, and yet the suddenness with which he sank alarmed him greatly, and he called out, too. Immediately the great dog recognized the cry of alarm and, forgetting all else, left his small charge and rushed to the help of the larger one, bringing the boy safely to the shore. Meanwhile, of course, the mother had taken up the baby. The dog, though showing surprise at the quick recovery of the boy he supposed to be nearly drowned, still determined to guard him in the same way he had guarded the baby. About this time, however, the dog's owner, a huntsman, appeared. The dog greeted him joyously, running from the child to the boy and then to his master as if to tell him what he had done and how he had guarded them until his master came. Many times it has been told of a Newfoundland that, when annoyed by some small dog that persisted in barking and snapping at him, he would finally seize it by the back of the neck, carry it to the river, and drop it into the water. After watching the struggles of the little dog, which seldom was able to swim, the Newfoundland would plunge in and rescue him. After that you may be sure the little dog took care not to annoy the big one. A humorous incident is told of two boatmen who, on a wager, started to swim across a stream. When one of the men was in midstream his Newfoundland dog plunged in after him and in spite of his struggles brought him back to the shore by his hair. The crowd which had been watching was greatly amused, but the chagrined sailor was able to laugh in turn when the great animal, mistaking the emotion of the onlookers, brought the other man back also. A lady who owned a fine Newfoundland dog allowed him one day to carry her parasol. When they came to a baker's shop she bought a bun for him. The next day the dog met another lady coming down the street carrying a parasol. He immediately seized it and ran on ahead until he came to the baker's shop. The lady went in and asked the baker to help her secure her parasol. He suggested that she give the dog a bun as his mistress had done. Then the dog gave up the parasol willingly. He had to be punished very severely before he could be broken of this habit. Cases have been known of these dogs rescuing even so delicate a thing as a canary bird that had fallen into the water. Intelligent and faithful, perhaps there is no other dog, unless it be the St. Bernard, which rescues travelers in the snow-covered Alps, that has done so much for man or has saved so many lives. These dogs show remarkable kindness not only toward man but toward other animals. When another dog has been injured they have been known to carry bones and other food to it. A Newfoundland was once taken to a dog pound with numerous other dogs. He soon gnawed his rope in two and was about to escape when, hearing the piteous cries of the other dogs, he went from one to another, setting them all free. Even abuse will not make these loyal animals turn against a master, although they have been known to run away from a cruel one. A story is told of a man who, while rowing a boat, pushed his Newfoundland dog into the stream. The dog followed the boat for some time but, growing tired at last, tried to get back into the boat. The man pushed him away several times, finally pushing so hard that he overturned the boat and was about to drown. The good dog, however, caught hold of his coat and held him above water until help came. In the island of Newfoundland these dogs are used much as we use horses, and are very valuable. With them duty is first. We often hear of one of these dogs carrying a basket of meat, a paper, or some other thing for his owner, and bearing any amount of annoyance from other dogs until he has delivered his charge safely; then he promptly goes back and punishes the offenders in such a way that they dare not interfere with him again. These dogs are noble animals indeed. Their lives are devoted to man, though their devotion is not always appreciated as it should be. Lord Byron writes: "In life the firmest friend, The first to welcome, foremost to defend; Whose honest heart is still his master's own; Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone. The rich man's guardian, and the poor man's friend." No wonder Sir Edwin Landseer loved to paint these noble animals. Their intelligent look and, better still, their brave and noble deeds render them almost human, lacking only the power of speech. It seems sometimes as if they really do talk, and the owners of such dogs declare that their actions prove that the dogs understand every word said to them. Sir Edwin Landseer has painted another picture of a Newfoundland dog, called "A Member of the Royal Humane Society," which looks so much like this one that it might be the same dog. =Questions to help the pupil understand the picture.= What kind of a dog is this? What has he done? What makes you think he and the little girl have been in the water? that there has not been a shipwreck? Why do you think the child had not been wading? How is she dressed? How do you suppose she happened to fall into the water? How could this dog save her? Where do you suppose the child's playmates and nurse are? Where is the dog lying? Why does he not take the child to them? What makes you think he is tired? How are Newfoundland dogs sometimes trained in France? Tell about the washwoman and her baby. How was the baby rescued? Why could the mother not take the child? What did the boy do? What happened then? When were they released? How do Newfoundland dogs sometimes punish small dogs that annoy them? Why do they not drown? Tell about the two boatmen and their wager. Tell about the dog and the lady's parasol. What do these stories tell us about Newfoundland dogs? What other kind of dogs save many lives? What did the Newfoundland do at the dog pound? How do they sometimes resent abuse? Tell about the boatman and his dog. Upon what island are they used to carry burdens? Tell a story showing that duty comes first with these dogs. What other picture of this dog has Sir Edwin Landseer painted? Why do you think he was especially fond of Newfoundland dogs? =To the Teacher:= Short stories of the bravery and faithfulness of dogs may take the place of other talks on kindness to animals. SUBJECTS FOR COMPOSITIONS A Description of a Newfoundland Dog. How a Dog Saved a Child from Drowning. The Smartest Dog I Ever Saw. The Bravest Dog I Ever Heard of. A Description of a St. Bernard Dog. How to Treat a Dog. Why We Should Be Kind to Dogs. =The story of the artist.= When Edwin Landseer was a small boy he lived in the country. Nearly every day at breakfast the father would ask his boys, "What shall we draw to-day?" The three boys would take turns choosing and sometimes they would vote on it. Then out across the fields the father and his boys would tramp until they came to where the donkeys, sheep, goats, and cows were grazing. Each would choose the animal he wished to draw; then the four would sit down on the grass and make their sketches. Edwin's first choice for a subject was a cow, and his father helped him draw it. When he was five years old he drew a picture of a dog asleep on the floor that was very much better than any his older brothers could do, and so even then they began to expect much from him. At this time Edwin had three dogs of his own named Brutus, Vixen, and Boxer. They were always with him, and so intelligent they almost seemed to speak. In their back yard the children had several pens for pet rabbits and they kept pigeons in the attic of their house. The story is told of how Mr. Landseer once decided to move, selected the house, and thought all was settled, when the landlord refused to rent the house to him because he kept so many animals and birds as pets. We read of how the father and his sons made many visits to the Zoölogical Gardens where they could watch and make sketches of lions, bears, and other wild animals. One day they saw a strange sight in one of the store windows in London--a large Newfoundland dog caring for a lion. The lion had been caught in Africa when it was very little and had been cared for by this dog. They had never been separated. Now, although the lion was much larger than the dog, they were still the best of friends. Sometimes the dog would punish the lion if it did not behave, and the great beast would whimper just as if it could not help itself. All three boys made many sketches of this strange pair and could hardly be persuaded to leave the window. Every one knew of Sir Edwin Landseer and wanted some one of his pictures of dogs because it looked so much like a dog they knew. In the story of the picture "Highland Shepherd's Chief Mourner," are further particulars of the life of Sir Edwin Landseer. =Questions about the artist.= What other picture have we studied by this artist? Tell about Sir Edwin Landseer's boyhood. How did the brothers decide where to go to sketch? How old was Edwin when he drew a very good picture of a dog? What was the dog doing? Tell about Edwin's dogs; the other pets. Why did the landlord refuse to rent Edwin's father a house? Tell about the Newfoundland dog and the lion. What else can you tell about the artist's life? [Illustration] PILGRIM EXILES =Questions to arouse interest.= Describe this picture. Where are these people? Who are they? Who were the Pilgrims? Where are they looking? Why do you think they may be homesick or sad? What time of day do you think it is? (Notice the shadows.) What time of year does it seem to be? How is the man dressed? the two women? What relation do you think these people are to each other? Upon what is the older woman sitting? What can you see in the distant background? =Artist:= George Henry Boughton (bô´´t[.o]n). =Birthplace:= Norwich, England. =Dates:= Born, 1833; died, 1905. =The story of the picture.= We all know how, long ago, that sturdy band of one hundred and two Puritans left England in the small and storm-beaten ship called the _Mayflower_. They were called Puritans because they were dissatisfied with the religion of the Church of England, and demanded purification of all the old observances and doctrines. When they began to establish in England separate churches of their own, they were driven from place to place. They longed for a land where they could worship God in their own way, so they came to America, determined to endure every danger and to trust in God to care for them. Their wanderings from place to place had given them a new name, "Pilgrim," which means "wanderer." Then, ever since their landing on the rock at Plymouth, they have been called Pilgrim Fathers. There were many women and children in this band of wanderers. On the journey a little baby was born and was called Oceanus after the great rolling ocean. The Pilgrims endured many hardships in those first few years, and none more distressing than the frequent attacks by the Indians, who resented the strangers' presence in a land which belonged to them. The Pilgrims carried their guns with them even when they went to church, for they never knew just when they might be attacked. They arrived in the fall of the year, too late to plant grain or to put by enough provisions for the winter, so they were quite dependent upon the provision boat from England. Often this boat was long delayed because of storms at sea, or because the people in England did not send it on time. This caused much suffering and distress. In our picture we see three of the first settlers of our New England coast, waiting for the provision ship. The waves come rolling in to this rough and barren shore, but as far as the eye can see there is yet no sign of the awaited boat. On that point of land in the distance are a few rude houses which must be the homes of the Pilgrims. This dreary place, so bleak and barren, makes us wonder how they could ever hope to survive the perils of a winter there. Our interest is centered upon the three figures at the right in the picture. One can almost read the thoughts expressed in the three faces. The figure of the man stands out strong and erect, and there is that in his fixed gaze which tells us his thoughts are far away. No doubt he is thinking of his old home across the ocean. He is homesick, yet go back he would not; there is no sign of discouragement. His wife, standing beside him, places her hand on his shoulder to comfort him, but she too looks as if she were thinking of that other home and the friends across the sea. Her gentle, refined face is saddened for the moment, yet in it we see expressed the fine courage which has carried her thus far along the way. The mother, seated on the great rock, has the same thoughtful, far-away gaze. Her hands, clasped in her lap, have more of resignation and patience in them. Probably her thoughts and affections are centered in the two dear ones beside her, and in their welfare, rather than in the friends across the sea. Notice the Puritan dress, cloaks, shoes, caps, and collars. These people are well dressed, and do not seem to be poor. Perhaps they are simply longing to hear from their friends, and hoping the ship will bring some news of them. It may be that it has been due for several days, and each day they have walked out to this same rocky point, hoping to see it on the distant horizon. They are dressed in warm clothes. From that fact and from the half-bare branches of the bush that we see growing beside the rock in the foreground of the picture we should judge it to be the fall of the year. Standing in the bright sunlight, they look anxiously out toward the rolling ocean. The length of the shadows makes us think it must be late in the afternoon. When at last they catch a glimpse of the dark masts of the approaching ship they will send a glad shout along the shore, and soon the beach will be crowded with an anxious throng of people hoping for some message or news from home. At what seems to be a long distance from the shore the great ship will cast anchor and send out its rowboats filled with passengers, mail, and provisions. How eagerly the homesick people will crowd around the new arrivals and welcome them! Our three friends will not be standing quiet and alone, but each will be hurrying about to help the others. The spirit of helpfulness was very strong in those days of hardship and toil. Notice the arrangement of lights and shadows in this picture. Our eye is first attracted to the faces of these three Pilgrims, then carried almost in a circle to the ocean, the rocks at the left side of the picture, to the rock the mother is seated upon, and back to the three faces. Start where we please the play of light leads us back to the three faces brought out by the white collars. Suppose we start with the mother's hands, our eyes follow her apron, the man's shoes, the light on the grass and ocean, then to the man's face and on around. Without these echoes of light, the picture would be unbalanced and much less interesting. Half close your eyes and study the picture. There is not a single straight line in the composition. Notice the placing of the horizon line, of the distant shore. The artist started his landscape much as we do, with a rectangular space divided into two parts by the horizon line. He chose for his picture a small division for sky; the larger space to be divided into less than half as much water as land. Instead of standing so the shore line would appear exactly horizontal, he chose a position where the near shore line and that of the distant point of land are at an angle, thus relieving the monotony. The tall, determined figure of the man, and his gentle wife, standing silhouetted against the sky, hold the ground space and the sky space together, while the mother seated on the rock serves as another connecting link. All the figures serve to unite the different parts of the picture into an effect of unity most gratifying to the eye. =Questions to help the pupil understand the picture.= Tell about the Puritans. Why were they so called? Why did they leave England? In what boat did they sail? To what country did they come? Why were they then called Pilgrims? Why did they have such a hard time in this country? Upon what were they dependent? Why was the boat often delayed? What are the three people in our picture waiting for? What do the expressions in their faces tell us? How can we tell what time of year it is? the time of day? What will they do when they see the boat? Who will join them? Where will they come from? What can you see of their homes? Why are they so anxious to have the boat come? Why cannot the ship land at this beach? How will it land its passengers and freight? What do you suppose these three people will be doing then? What can you say of the composition of this picture? What did the artist consider first? What holds the ground and the sky spaces together? What can you say of the light and shade in this picture? Why is the picture called "Pilgrim Exiles"? =The story of the artist.= George Henry Boughton was born near Norwich, England, but when he was only a year old his parents came to America. He grew up and was educated at Albany, New York, where he first began to paint. As soon as he started to school he showed great skill at drawing, by, as he says, "drawing every mortal thing that came under my notice." When he was nineteen years old he sold enough of his sketches to pay his way back to London, England. He spent several months in England, sketching wherever he went. When he came back to New York he painted a picture called "Winter Twilight," which marked the beginning of his success. Later he spent a year in Paris, finally making his permanent home in London. His studio in New York City was given up, but, although he lived in England, his art remained distinctly American. He was especially interested in the history and literature of our country and has been called "the interpreter and illuminator of New England life in the seventeenth century." Besides painting, he wrote for magazines, illustrating his own stories with great success. =Questions about the artist.= Tell about the artist. Where was he born? Where did he grow up? How old was he when he came to America? In what did he excel at school? When did he go back to England? How did he earn the money? What did he do when he came back? Of what country did he paint the most pictures? What part of our history interested him especially? In what else was he successful besides painting? [Illustration] DANCE OF THE NYMPHS =Questions to arouse interest.= Of what is this a picture? What time of the year do you think it is? what time of the day? What are the people doing? Half close your eyes and look at the picture. What do you see first? what next? Where is the sun? How do you know? (Look at the trunks of the trees and the shadows.) What do you see in the foreground to the left? to the right? Do you like this scene? why? =Original Picture:= Luxembourg Gallery, Paris, France. =Artist:= Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (k[+o]´r[+o]´´). =Birthplace:= Paris, France. =Dates:= Born, 1796; died, 1875. =The story of the picture.= The artist who painted this picture, Jean Baptiste Corot, tells us that when he was a small boy he used to lean out of his window at night, long after his mother and father thought him safe in bed, to watch the clouds, the sky, and the trees. He continued this study as a young man, and soon made friends with three other young men, all artists (Rousseau, Daubigny, and Dupré) who were also studying nature. All had studios and painted in the city; but they were always longing for a glimpse of the country. One day the four started out together for a day's outing, each taking his painter's outfit. They went to the end of the omnibus line from Paris and then started on foot for a long tramp across the country. It was then they thought of the great Forest of Fontainebleau, where nature was wild and undisturbed in its wondrous beauty. "We will go to that beautiful forest and spend our vacation there," they said. And so it came about several weeks later. In this forest, at all times of the day or night, they could be found wandering about, searching out new vistas and discovering new wonders and beauties in nature. They hid their paints and brushes in the rocks to keep them from the dew, and they themselves slept under the spreading branches of the great oak trees. These city-bred young men, brought up in the rush and hurry of the great city of Paris, cared for no other shelter than the wide expanse of sky and the protecting branches of the trees. So when we know that later Corot came to live near this Forest of Fontainebleau, it is easy to guess where he painted this picture called the "Dance of the Nymphs." Sometimes this picture is called "Morning," for Corot painted another picture much like this one, and called it, "The Dance of the Nymphs, Evening." Corot is often spoken of as the "happy one," and many stories are told of him and how surprising it was to hear him singing lustily as he painted. Seated on his camp stool before his easel, wearing his blue calico blouse and painter's hat, he was indeed happy. He is described as adding the finishing touches to one of his landscapes in this way: "Let us put that there--tra, la, tra, la,--a little boy,--ding dong, ding dong! Oh, a little boy, he wants a cap--la, la, la, la, tra la!" People always smiled when they saw Corot start out, carrying his easel, paints, and brushes, and singing or whistling like a care-free boy. But it happened more often that they saw him going toward home in the evening, for he had a way of starting out before sunrise when nobody was about and seating himself in some lovely spot in the woods, waiting breathlessly to see what would happen next. That is what he did the morning he sketched this picture. The grass was heavy with dew, the birds were still asleep, all was quiet and covered with the veil of night. As the mist slowly lifted, the great trees gradually assumed definite shapes, the birds awoke, the sun shone forth, and all was bright and fresh as the early mornings in spring always are. Look at this picture, then close your eyes and open them slowly, and you yourself can see just such an awakening to life. Is it any wonder then that, as Corot sat, pencil in hand, this lovely spring morning and watched the trees gradually take shape against the slowly lightening sky, and listened to the birds singing their morning greeting, he should fancy he saw the fairy wood nymphs come out from their secret hiding places and dance joyously about in the bright morning sunlight? It seems most natural indeed that they should be there, and dancing, too. The mere fact of being alive on such a morning as this fills us too with delight. When Corot began to paint his large picture from the small sketch he made in the woods that morning, he must have sung his merriest tunes. The picture seems full of music, from the quivering leaves, the waving grass, and the shifting clouds to the dancing figures. Although there is not a bird in sight, we know that they are there, and it takes very little imagination to hear them singing. At the right-hand side of the picture one of the wood nymphs has seized the hand of a timid companion, urging her to come and join in the frolic. So much are we in sympathy with those merry ones that we too find ourselves unconsciously urging her to join in the dance. When he painted trees, Corot did not pay very great attention to details, and so we cannot always tell what kind of trees they were. He cared most to make us feel the beauty of the sunlight on their tender leaves, their growth, and the protection they offer to birds and men. A young art student once approached Corot and asked him why he left so many things out of his pictures and put others in. Then pointing to a certain tree in Corot's painting he said, "This tree is not in the landscape." Corot smiled, then whispered to him, "Don't you tell, but I put it there to please the birds." It would be difficult indeed to find a single straight line in our picture, so full is it of rhythmic curves, from the treetops to the graceful figures in the foreground. The skillful blending of colors, of light and shade, gives it that mysterious, misty quality which is one of its chief charms. Corot's favorite colors were pale green, gray browns, and silvery grays. One little touch of bright color in his pictures makes them alive. The costumes of the nymphs were chosen for the very few bright touches in this painting, and the tall, slender tree near the left-hand side of the picture for the pale green feathery foliage of early spring. Our eye moves pleasantly through all the leafy maze of this enchanted forest. We are at the edge of the woods. Looking out through the trees we see the wide, open fields beyond, with their high canopy of sky, and we feel a new contentment steal over us as our eye again seeks this sheltered nook in the great Forest of Fontainebleau. =Questions to help the pupil understand the picture.= How had the artist, Corot, studied the clouds, sky, and trees? With whom did he become friends? What were these three young artists doing? Where did they go for an outing? What did they take with them? What forest did they decide would be a good place to spend a vacation? How did they live in this forest? What shelter did they have? What nickname did they give Corot? How did he like to paint? How did he dress? What did he do while painting? Where was this picture painted? What is it sometimes called? What time of day did he usually start out to paint? What are the nymphs doing? What did Corot wish to tell us about the trees? What did a young art student once ask Corot? What was the answer? Of what kind of lines is this picture made up? What colors were used? Where are the bright colors? In what part of the forest is this picture? What can you see through the open space? =The story of the artist.= From the very first all things seemed to favor Corot. Of a naturally happy disposition, born into a family of means, and all his life free from financial worries, everything seemed to combine to make his life one of care-free ease and pleasure. His father and mother kept a millinery store; this must have been a good business, for they soon accumulated a comfortable fortune. At ten years of age Corot was sent away to school at Rouen in the hope of making a business man of him. He lived with a friend of his father who was a serious man but also a great lover of nature. Corot took many a long walk with him over narrow, unfrequented paths. They took these walks usually at the close of the day, and so Corot's love of the twilight hour grew strong. Upon his return to Paris seven years later, his father placed him in a drygoods store, where he remained for nearly nine years. Whenever there were no customers the boy would hide under the counter and draw. His employer was a good-natured man and he sympathized with Corot in his desire to be a painter. So he told the father it was of no use to try to make a business man of him as his tastes were all for art. About this time Corot went to his father and asked his permission to study painting. The father was not at all pleased with the idea, but decided to let him try. He told his son he had set aside a certain sum of money to start him in business for himself and he could choose that or a small income which would be allowed him for the study of art. If he chose the latter, however, he must not expect any other help from his father, as he did not approve of this new venture. But Corot embraced his father most affectionately and declared he had made him the happiest person in the world. He then proceeded at once to the nearest store and bought a complete painter's outfit. Choosing a spot by the river near his father's house, he began to paint. He tells us how the girls who worked in the millinery store slipped away and came to see what he was doing. He never parted with this first painting, but kept it as a reminder of his great happiness when he was at last free to do "what he most desired in the world." He studied under several artists, but received little encouragement until he went to Rome to study. Most of the paintings of that time were classical, including Greek temples, shepherds, nymphs, or dryads, and such trees as cedars and palms. That is why Millet's simple peasants and Corot's misty landscapes were not appreciated. At Rome, Corot became a great favorite among the students because of his happy nature and the rollicking, jolly songs he could sing. But as for his pictures,--they were considered very amusing. However, one day as he sat sketching the Coliseum a friend who was regarded as an authority on landscape painting praised his work. Corot looked around expecting to be laughed at, but no,--the man was in earnest. That evening, before all the other students, he remarked that Corot might some day become the master of them all. This gave him standing among the artists and was greatly appreciated by Corot, who always felt that this praise was the beginning of his success. It was not long after this that his pictures were exhibited and many honors came to him. Does it seem strange that Corot and Millet, looking upon the same woods and people, living and painting so near each other, should choose such different subjects? Corot saw the same poor, toilworn peasants, and he helped them most generously when they asked him, but as for painting them--he did not think of it. Millet saw the same beautiful woods, fields, and sky, and loved them all, but to him the peasant came first. He said, "Corot's pictures are beautiful, but they do not reveal anything new." Corot said, "Millet's painting is for a new world; I do not feel at home there. I am too much attracted to the old. I see therein great knowledge, air, and depth, but it frightens me; I love better my little music." In speaking of another artist he said, "He is an eagle; I am only a skylark. I send forth little songs in my gray clouds." As success came to Corot he was most generous in helping others. Many young artists came to study with him, but he would accept no pay for his instruction and gladly did all he could to encourage and help them. He did not have the heart to turn a beggar from his door, and often had as many as twenty-five come to him in a day. The story is told of a beggar who demanded a larger sum of money than Corot usually gave, and was refused. After he left, the artist could not paint; his day was spoiled. So he hurriedly ran out after the beggar, gave him the money, and all was well again. During the siege of Paris he gave both time and money to help the wounded. "Papa Corot," as the people called him, was greatly beloved. The demand for his paintings increased. He said that when youth left him, honor and fame came to make him still the happiest man in the world. =Questions about the artist.= In what ways was Corot favored? What did his father and mother do? What did they hope to make of Corot? Where was he sent? With whom did he live? Where did they walk? How did this influence Corot? Upon his return home, what did he do? What did his employer finally do? What did Corot ask his father? What offer did his father make? What did Corot decide? What did he do at once? Who came to watch him? What became of this first painting? Where did Corot go to study? What subjects did most of the artists of Corot's time choose to paint? What happened that raised Corot in their estimation? Compare the subjects chosen by Corot and Millet. Tell about Corot and the beggar. Why did Corot claim to be the happiest man in the world? Does this picture make you feel happy or sad? why? [Illustration: OXEN PLOWING] OXEN PLOWING =Questions to arouse interest.= How many of you have ever watched oxen plowing? How are these oxen geared together? How many oxen usually draw one plow? Why do you think they use so many in the field? With what part of the body do the oxen pull the plow? Why is the earth plowed? How can you tell that the soil these men are plowing is moist and fertile? In what direction is the sun? (Look at the shadows.) How is the driver urging the oxen on? Where is the farm house? What do you consider most interesting about the oxen? =Original Picture:= Luxembourg Gallery, Paris, France. =Artist:= Rosa Bonheur (b[+o]´nûr´´). =Birthplace:= Bordeaux, France. =Dates:= Born, 1822; died, 1899. =The story of the picture.= It must have been very early in the morning indeed when these men and their oxen started to plow this great field, for although the sun is still low in the sky, each group of oxen has already plowed two furrows. By those long shadows and the light in the sky we know the sun cannot be very high in the heavens, and there is that about the ground, the occupation, and the distant trees that suggests the season, spring. We are told that Rosa Bonheur went out into the country to paint this picture, and that she had a small shed made into a studio where she could keep her canvas and paints. Every evening when she came home her father would ask anxiously about the picture, for he was not well enough to go to see it and he knew Rosa was working very hard on it. Even her genius could not make it possible for her to paint such a picture as this without much preparation. In fact, she had been preparing for it for years,--as far back as when she made her first drawing of oxen, and then later when she went to the packing houses and made separate studies of each part of an ox. She knew just how those great muscles did their work, and just how the curving ribs and the joints did their part. In this picture she shows us just enough of their movements to make us feel the great strength and power of those patient animals. Our wonder grows anew that even one such powerful ox can be controlled by man's will. It is plain to see that the ox nearest us, of the middle pair, does resent the prodding with the stick which the driver uses so vigorously. His great eye rolls and he looks indignant, but it is only for the moment--he accepts all with resignation and indifference, knowing that it will be the turn of one of the other oxen next. These oxen are geared together by a central pole which is fastened to their horns. This causes them to take the entire weight of the plow with their horns instead of with their shoulders as our horses do. It would seem to be a most uncomfortable arrangement, yet they are used to it. The leaders must be chosen very carefully if the farmer would have a straight furrow. It seems as if these first two oxen in the picture feel the responsibility, and are glad and willing to do their part. There is a look of intelligence about them that makes us certain that they know and understand the worth of the thing they are doing. Oxen in our country are driven by the words "gee," meaning turn to the right, and "haw," turn to the left. However, the drivers in this picture would not use these words, for they are Frenchmen, and would speak to them in their own language. It is easy to tell that the ground is soft by the way the feet of the oxen sink down into it, and by the man's wooden shoe which has half slipped off his foot as he starts to lift it from the ground. On this quiet, peaceful morning we can almost hear the heavy tread of the oxen as they pass us, and the harsh call of the drivers as they urge them on. In imagination we can smell the freshly plowed earth. To be sure, it is a hard pull up the hill, but how cheerfully, even proudly, the oxen pull their load! Look at their backs; you will see a slanting line which emphasizes the fact that they are climbing a hill. This line is broken somewhat by the slant of the woods in the distance. Cover up these distant woods with the hand or a piece of paper and we immediately have the uncomfortable feeling that the oxen are going to slip back out of the picture. In this picture the artist has portrayed the intelligent use man makes of the power and strength of animals and of the soil. We see so few oxen now that we wonder why they were so much used in those days; but of course we know it was because the farmers did not have the machinery for tilling the ground, sowing, and planting grain that we have. Horses were used also, but oxen were cheaper, so all could afford them. Then, too, oxen may have been chosen because of their superior strength, steadiness, and patience. The artist has centered our attention on the nearest of the two first pairs of oxen. The other oxen and driver are of secondary importance and the landscape itself last of all. The artist has accomplished this by color, light, and shade, and by a more careful treatment of the nearest oxen, showing plainly their intelligent eyes, wrinkled hides, and even the play of muscles as they step forward, pulling their heavy load. Rosa Bonheur finished this painting only a short time before her father died. As soon as he saw it he knew that his daughter had painted a masterpiece, and almost his last words were in praise of her work. =Questions to help the pupil understand the picture.= Why do you think these men and oxen must have started to work very early? Why do you think it is still early? What time of year do you think it is? why? Where did Rosa Bonheur paint this picture? Where did she keep her canvas and paints? What preparation did she make before painting the picture? What is the driver doing? In what humor does the nearest ox seem to be? How are the oxen geared together? Why must they have good leaders? How are oxen driven? Why do you think these drivers would not use the same words that we should? How can you tell that the ground is soft? Do you think the oxen are pulling hard? Why did they use oxen so much in those days? What are used now? Upon which of the oxen has the artist centered our attention? What is next in importance? last of all? How has the artist done this? What did Rosa Bonheur's father think of this picture? =To the Teacher:= SUBJECTS FOR COMPOSITIONS The Picture and What It Represents. How This Picture Was Painted. What I Would Consider Most Important in a Picture. Why I Like This Picture. Rosa Bonheur as a Little Girl. Rosa Bonheur as an Artist. =The story of the artist.= Marie Rosalie Bonheur spent the first ten years of her life in a little country town. It was almost as good as living in the country, for Rosa and her two brothers spent most of their time in the woods or fields. At home they had lambs, rabbits, and squirrels for pets. The father was an artist, and since he could not sell many pictures in such a little village he decided to move to the great city of Paris. The children liked the gay city with its many surprises, but they missed the woods and their pets. The first place in which they lived was up several flights of stairs and across the street from a butcher's shop. This shop had a queer sign. It was a wild boar roughly carved out of wood, but it looked so much like the little pet pig Rosa had in the country that she used to stop and pet it every time she passed that way. A man who lived in the same house with the Bonheur family kept a small school for boys. Rosa's two brothers went to this school, and after a while the teacher said Rosa might come too. She was the only girl in the school, but she did not mind that at all. The boys were glad to have her with them, for she knew more games than they did and played just like one of them. Her father did not do so well with his painting as he had hoped, so they moved into a cheaper house. It was here that Rosa's mother died. The father was obliged to send his children where they could be well cared for, so the baby daughter, Juliette, was sent to her grandmother, the two boys to school, and Rosa went to live with an aunt. This aunt sent her to school. To reach the schoolhouse Rosa had to walk some distance through the woods. Sometimes she would stop and smooth the dust in the road with her hand and then draw pictures in it with a stick. Even then she liked to draw pictures of animals best of all. Often she had such a good time drawing that she forgot to go to school, or was very late, so she did not get along very well and was delighted when her father came to take her home. He had married again and wanted all his children with him. How happy they were! A great many stories have been told about the pets they kept in their house. Rosa's brother Isidore carried a little lamb on his shoulders down six flights of stairs every morning and evening, that it might nibble the green grass and be out in the fresh air. It became a great pet, and all the children drew its picture in ever so many different positions. Besides, they had a parrot, a monkey, two dogs, and some rabbits and birds for pets. Their father let them keep these pets in a room fitted especially for them. The father taught in a private school at that time, and was away from home all day, but when he came home at night Rosa would show him what she had been doing while he was gone. Once she had been painting cherries, and her father came home while she was at work on them. He praised her very much and helped her finish painting them. In the evening Rosa, her two brothers, and her father used to put their easels in different parts of the big room and draw and paint until it was quite late. They would all much rather do this than anything else in the world, and it was the only time their father could help them. The father belonged to a religious order called the "Saint Simonians." The members wore queer gowns and bonnets with long tassels. Such a bonnet with a big tassel Rosa wore on the street, and sometimes boys shouted and laughed at her, but she paid no attention to that. The father secured a teaching position in another private school and earned enough money to send his three children there and give them all they needed at home. Rosa did not behave very well in school. Often she was punished, sometimes by being given nothing to eat but bread and water. Every one liked her, however, for she was good-hearted, kind, and full of fun. But finally she did something that could not be overlooked. This is what she did. The lady who kept the school was very fond of flowers, and above all she loved the stately hollyhocks. She had a beautiful bed of them in the front yard of the school that was very much admired by all who passed. One day Rosa had been reading in the history about war, and she thought it would be fine fun to arrange a battle between the school girls. They used wooden sticks for swords. Very soon the girls on Rosa's side drove their enemies toward the hollyhock bed, where they turned and fled. Seeing the hollyhocks standing guard like soldiers, Rosa thought it would be fun to charge upon them, which she did, cutting off all their heads with her stick. Is it any wonder she was sent home in disgrace? Her father then sent her to a dressmaker to see if she could learn that trade, but Rosa did not like dressmaking and finally went home without having learned very much. Then some friends gave her some photographs to color. This she liked to do, so her father decided that the only thing to do was to let her paint. Rosa was willing to walk miles in all kinds of weather, to sit hours in all kinds of uncomfortable positions, and to go without food in order to draw a good picture of some animal. Now she began her study of animals in earnest. She went to all the country horse fairs, to the slaughter houses, and wherever there was an opportunity to study them. Rosa never had very pretty clothes. She tells us herself that one day a parrot called after her "Ha, ha! That hat!" Now that she was grown up she found she could not get about very easily in her long skirts. There were so many rough men in the packing houses and in other places where she must go to study that she obtained a permit to wear men's clothing. Her hair was short, anyway, and with her blue working blouse and dark trousers she looked just like a man. Then no one noticed her as she went about, for they thought her one of the workmen. People who knew her did not mind her dress, and were ready to help her as much as they could in her work. The first picture she exhibited was of some little rabbits nibbling carrots. Her pictures became famous the world over. From all over the country she received gifts of fine horses and other animals to paint. Buffalo Bill once sent her two fine horses from Texas. She bought a farm, and had a very large barn built where she could keep her animals. How proud her father was of her! One day she was working hard in her studio when a servant came to tell her that the Empress Eugénie had come to see her. It was a great event when this royal lady came to the artist's studio; and there was Rosa dressed in her old blue blouse covered with paint! She did not have time even to slip it off before the empress came in, but they had a most delightful visit. As the Empress Eugénie bent over and kissed Rosa Bonheur, she pinned the Cross of the Legion of Honor on the artist's blue blouse. Rosa did not notice it until after the Empress was gone. How pleased she must have been, for she was the first woman to receive that honor. =Questions about the artist.= What is the artist's full name? Where did she live the first ten years of her life? What did the father do for a living? Why did they move to the city? How did the children like this change? In what kind of a house did they live? Tell about Rosa and the wild boar; the school for boys. Why did they move? What became of the children after their mother died? Why was Rosa often late to school? Who came to take her home? Tell about the new home and the pets; Isidore and the lamb. How did they all spend their evenings? Tell about the "Saint Simon" bonnet. How did Rosa behave at the private school? Tell about Rosa and the hollyhocks. How was she punished? What trade did her father wish her to learn? What was she willing to do in order to paint pictures? Where did she go to study animals? How did she dress? Why did she dress like a man? What presents did she receive? Where did she keep them? Tell about the visit of the Empress Eugénie. How did she honor Rosa Bonheur? THE SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS =Studying the picture.= Several days before the lesson is to be taken up, the picture to be studied should be placed where every pupil can see it. First of all, the children should find out for themselves what is in the picture. The questions accompanying the story of each picture are intended to help them to do this. =Language work.= The pupils should be encouraged in class to talk freely and naturally. In this way the lesson becomes a language exercise in which the pupils will gain in freedom of expression and in the ability to form clear mental images. If a lesson does not occupy the entire drawing period, the children should be asked to retell the story of the picture. =Dramatization and drawing.= Most of the stories told by the pictures lend themselves readily to dramatization and, whenever practicable, such stories should be acted out. The stories also offer numerous interesting situations that may be used as subjects for drawing lessons. =The review lesson.= The review lesson should cover all pictures and artists studied throughout the year. At this time other pictures available, by the same artists should be on exhibition. The review work may be conducted as a contest in which the pictures are held up, one at a time, while the class writes the name of the picture and the artist on slips of paper which have been prepared and numbered for that purpose. One teacher who used this device surprised her class by presenting those whose lists were correct with their choice of any of the large-sized Perry pictures studied. Many teachers, however, will prefer to use this time for composition work, although the description of pictures is often given as an English lesson. Pupils may write a description of their favorite picture. In fact, the lessons can be made to correlate with history, geography, English, spelling, reading, or nature study. In any event the real purpose of the work is that the pupils shall become so familiar with the pictures that they will recognize them as old friends whenever and wherever they may see them. It is hoped that acquaintance with the picture and the interest awakened by its story will grow into a fuller appreciation and understanding of the artist's work. Thus the children will have many happy hours and will learn to love the good, the true, and the beautiful in everything about them. Transcriber's Note: * Some words have accents of different weights. The heavier accent is marked double (´´). (Example: bo´nûr´´) * Pg 2 Replaced colon with a semi-colon after "1814" located in "Born, 1814:". * Pg 51 (k[+o]´r[+o]´´) and Pg 63 (b[+o]´nûr´´) contains the + symbol representing an "up tack" not represented in any charts. 
3151	----	None 
31940	----	See Transcriber's Notes at end of text. ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENT By the Same Author =The Works of James McNeill Whistler.= Illustrated with Many Reproductions of Etchings, Lithographs, Pastels and Paintings, 6-3/4 × 9-1/4 Inches. Boxed, $4.00 Net. (Postage 32 cents.) A study of Whistler and his works, including etchings, lithographs, pastels, water-colors, paintings, landscapes. Also a chapter on Whistler's "Theory of Art." =The Same.--Limited Edition de Luxe.= The Limited Edition of the Above Work, Illustrated with Additional Examples on Japan and India Paper. Printed on Van Gelder Hand-made Paper, with Wide Margins. Limited to 250 Numbered and Signed Copies, of which a few are left unsold. Boxed, $15.00 Net. (Postage Extra.) =The Art of William Blake.= Uniquely and Elaborately Illustrated. Size 7-1/2 × 10-1/2 Inches. Wide Margins. Boxed, $3.50 Net. (Postage 25 cents.) A volume of great distinction, discussing the art of Blake in several unusual phases, and dwelling importantly upon his Manuscript Sketch Book, to which the author has had free access, and from which the publishers have drawn freely for illustrations, many of which have never been published before. [Illustration: DANS LA LOGE _From a painting by Mary Cassatt_] Artists Past and Present RANDOM STUDIES BY ELISABETH LUTHER CARY Author of "_The Art of William Blake_," "_Whistler_," Etc. _ILLUSTRATED_ NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 1909 _Copyright_,1909, _by_ MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY NEW YORK PUBLISHED, SEPTEMBER, 1909 _The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A._ CONTENTS PAGE I. ANTOINE LOUIS BARYE 1 II. THE ART OF MARY CASSATT 25 III. MAX KLINGER 37 IV. ALFRED STEVENS 49 V. A SKETCH IN OUTLINE OF JACQUES CALLOT 61 VI. CARLO CRIVELLI 81 VII. THE CASSEL GALLERY 95 VIII. FANTIN-LATOUR 109 IX. CARL LARSSON 119 X. JAN STEEN 131 XI. ONE SIDE OF MODERN GERMAN PAINTING 143 XII. TWO SPANISH PAINTERS 165 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS DANS LA LOGE _Frontispiece_ _From a painting by Mary Cassatt_ Facing Page PORTRAIT OF ANTOINE LOUIS BARYE 2 _From a painting by J. F. Millet_ LION DEVOURING A DOE 6 BULL THROWN TO EARTH BY A BEAR 6 _From a bronze by Barye_ A LIONESS 8 _From a bronze by Barye_ THE PRANCING BULL 10 _From a bronze by Barye_ PANTHER SEIZING A DEER 12 _From a bronze by Barye_ THE LION AND THE SERPENT 16 _From a bronze by Barye_ ASIAN ELEPHANT CRUSHING TIGER 20 _From a bronze by Barye_ CHILD RESTING 28 _From an etching by Mary Cassatt_ ON THE BALCONY 32 _From a painting by Mary Cassatt_ WOMAN WITH A FAN 34 _From a painting by Mary Cassatt_ BEETHOVEN 38 _From a statue in colored marble by Max Klinger_ CASSANDRA 44 _From a statue in colored marble by Max Klinger_ L'ATELIER 52 _From a painting by Alfred Stevens_ PORTRAIT OF JACQUES CALLOT 68 _Engraved by Vosterman after the painting of Van Dyck_ ST. DOMINIC 84 _From a panel by Carlo Crivelli_ ST. GEORGE 86 _From a panel by Carlo Crivelli_ PIETÀ 88 _From a panel by Carlo Crivelli_ A PANEL BY CARLO CRIVELLI (_a_) 90 A PANEL BY CARLO CRIVELLI (_b_) 92 SASKIA 98 _From a portrait by Rembrandt_ NICHOLAS BRUYNINGH 102 _From a portrait by Rembrandt_ PORTRAIT OF MME. MAÎTRE 112 _From a painting by Fantin-Latour_ MY FAMILY 120 _From a painting by Carl Larsson_ A PAINTING BY CARL LARSSON 126 PEASANT WOMEN OF DACHAUER 148 _From a painting by Leibl_ FIDDLING DEATH 154 _From a portrait by Arnold Boecklin_ THE SWIMMERS 166 _From a painting by Sorolla_ THE BATH--JÁVEA 168 _From a painting by Sorolla_ THE SORCERESSES OF SAN MILAN 170 _From a painting by Zuloaga_ THE OLD BOULEVARDIER 172 _From a painting by Zuloaga_ MERCEDÈS 174 _From a painting by Zuloaga_ ARTISTS PAST AND PRESENT I ANTOINE LOUIS BARYE At the Metropolitan Museum of Art are two pictures by the Florentine painter of the fifteenth century called Piero di Cosimo. They represent hunting scenes, and the figures are those of men, women, fauns, satyrs, centaurs, and beasts of the forests, fiercely struggling together. As we observe the lion fastening his teeth in the flesh of the boar, the bear grappling with his human slayer, and the energy and determination of the creatures at bay, our thought involuntarily bridges a chasm of four centuries and calls up the image of the Barye bronzes in which are displayed the same detachment of vision, the same absence of sentimentality, the same vigor and intensity if not quite the same strangeness of imagination. It is manifestly unwise to carry the parallel very far, yet there is still another touch of similarity in the beautiful surfaces. Piero's fine, delicate handling of pigment is in the same manner of expression as Barye's exquisite manipulation of his metal after the casting, his beautiful thin patines that do not suppress but reveal sensitive line and subtle modulation. We know little enough of Piero beyond what his canvases tell us. Of Barye we naturally know more, although everything save what his work confides of his character and temperament is of secondary importance, and he is interesting to moderns, especially as the father of modern animal sculpture, and not for the events of his quiet life. [Illustration: From the collection of the late Cyrus J. Lawrence, Esq. PORTRAIT OF ANTOINE LOUIS BARYE _From a painting by J. F. Millet_] Antoine Louis Barye, born at Paris September 15, 1796, died June 25, 1875, in the same year with Corot and at the same age. The circumstances under which he began his career have been told in detail by more than one biographer, but it would be difficult rightly to estimate the importance and singularity of his work without some review of them. His father was a jeweler of Lyons, who settled in Paris before Antoine was born, and whose idea of education for his son was to place him at less than fourteen with an engraver of military equipments from whom he learned to engrave on steel and other metals, and later with a jeweler from whom he learned to make steel matrixes for molding reliefs from thin metals. A certain stress has been laid on this lack of schooling in the conventional sense of the word, but it is difficult to see that it did much harm, since Barye, though he was not a correct writer of French, was a great reader, keenly intelligent in his analysis of the knowledge he gained from books, and with extraordinary power of turning it to his own uses. Such a mind does not seriously miss the advantages offered by a formal training, and it might fairly be argued that the manual skill developed at the work-bench was in the long run more valuable to him than the abstract knowledge which he might have acquired in school could possibly have been. Be that as it may, up to the time of his marriage in 1823 he had a varied apprenticeship. At sixteen he was drawn as a conscript and was first assigned to the department where maps in relief are modeled. Before he was twenty-one he was working with a sculptor called Bosio, and also in the studio of the painter, Baron Gros. He studied Lamarck, Cuvier and Buffon. He competed five times for the _Prix de Rome_ at the Salon, once in the section of medals and four times in the section of sculpture, succeeding once (in the first competition) in gaining a second prize. He then went back to the jeweler's bench for eight years, varying the monotony of his work by modeling independently small reliefs of _Eagle and Serpent_, _Eagle and Antelope_, _Leopard_, _Panther_, and other animals. In 1831 he sent to the Salon of that year the _Tiger Devouring a Gavial of the Ganges_, a beautiful little bronze, seven and a half inches high, which won a Second Medal and was bought by the Government for the Luxembourg. This was the beginning of his true career. In the same Salon was exhibited his _Martyrdom of St. Sebastian_, but the powerful realism and energy of the animal group represented what henceforth was to be Barye's characteristic achievement, the realization, that is, of what the Chinese call the "movement of life;" the strange reality of appearance that is never produced by imitation of nature and that makes the greatness of art. The tiger clutches its victim with great gaunt paws, its eyes are fixed upon the prey, its body is drawn together with tense muscles, its tail is curled, the serpent is coiled about the massive neck of its destroyer with large undulating curves. The touch is everywhere certain, the composition is dignified, and the group as an exhibition of extraordinary knowledge is noteworthy. A lithograph portrait of Barye by Gigoux, made at about this time, shows a fine head, interested eyes, a firm mouth and a determined chin. His chief qualities were perseverance, scientific curiosity, modesty and pride, and that indomitable desire for perfection so rarely encountered and so precious an element in the artist's equipment. He was little of a talker, little of a writer, infinitely studious, somewhat reserved and cold in manner, yet fond of good company and not averse to good dinners. Guillaume said of him that he had the genius of great science and of high morality, which is the best possible definition in a single phrase of his artistic faculty. He had the kind of sensitiveness, or self-esteem, if you will, that frequently goes with a mind confident of its merits, but not indifferent to criticism or sufficiently elevated and aloof to dispense with resentment. In 1832 he sent to the Salon his _Lion Crushing a Serpent_, and in 1833 he sent a dozen animal sculptures, a group of medallions and six water-colors. That year he was made chevalier of the Legion of Honour, but the following year nine groups made for the Duke of Orleans were rejected by the Salon jury, and again in 1836 several small pieces were rejected, although the _Seated Lion_, later bought by the government, was accepted. The reasons for the rejections are not entirely clear, but Barye was an innovator, and in the field of art the way of the innovator is far harder than that of the transgressor. Charges of commercialism were among those made against him, and he--the least commercial of men--took them deeply to heart. His bitterness assumed a self-respecting but an inconvenient and unprofitable form, as he made up his mind to exhibit thereafter only in his own workshop, a resolution to which he held for thirteen years. After the rejection of his groups in 1834 he happened to meet Jules Dupré, who expressed his disgust with the decision. "It is quite easy to understand," Barye replied, "I have too many friends on the jury." This touch of cynicism indicates the ease with which he was wounded, but it was equally characteristic of him that in planning his simple revenge he hurt only himself. He did indeed refrain from sending his bronzes to the Salon and he did act as his own salesman, and the result was the incurrence of a heavy debt. To meet this he was obliged to sell all his wares to a founder who wanted them for the purpose of repeating them in debased reproductions. His own care in obtaining the best possible results in each article that he produced, his reluctance to sell anything of the second class, and his perfectly natural dislike to parting with an especially beautiful piece under any circumstances, did not, of course, work to his business advantage, although the amateurs who have bought the bronzes that came from his own refining hand have profited by it immensely. It would be a mistake, however, to think of him as a crushed or even a deeply misfortunate man. He simply was poor and not appreciated by the general public according to his merits. After 1850, however, he had enough orders from connoisseurs, many of them Americans, and also from the French government to make it plain that his importance as an artist was firmly established at least in the minds of a few. He sold his work at low prices which since his death have been trebled and quadrupled, in fact, some of his proofs have increased fifty-fold, but the fact that he was not overwhelmed with orders gave him that precious leisure to spend upon the perfecting of his work which, we may fairly assume, was worth more to him than money. [Illustration: From the collection of the late Cyrus J. Lawrence, Esq. LION DEVOURING A DOE ("LION DEVORANT UNE BICHE")] [Illustration: From the collection of the late Cyrus J. Lawrence, Esq. BULL THROWN TO EARTH BY A BEAR ("TAUREAU TERRASSÉ PAR UN OURS") _From a bronze by Barye_] Nor was he entirely without honor in his own country. At the Universal Exposition of 1855 he received the Grand Medal of Honour in the section of artistic bronzes, and in the same year the Officer's Cross of Legion of Honour--a dignity that is said to have reached poor Rousseau only when he was too near death to receive the messengers. In 1868 Barye was made Member of the Institute, although two years earlier he had been humiliated by having his application refused. And from America, in addition to numerous proofs of the esteem in which he was held there by private amateurs, he received through Mr. Walters in 1875 an order to supply the Corcoran Gallery at Washington with an example of every bronze he had made. This last tribute moved him to tears, and he replied, "Ah! Monsieur Walters, my own country has never done anything like that for me!" These certainly were far from being trivial satisfactions, and Barye had also reaped a harvest of even subtler joys. One likes to think of him in Barbizon, living in cordial intimacy with Diaz and Rousseau and Millet and the great Daumier. Here he had sympathy, excellent talk of excellent things, the company of artists working as he did, with profound sincerity and intelligence, and he had a chance himself to paint in the vast loneliness of the woods where he could let his imagination roam, and could find a home for his tigers and lions and bears studied in menageries and in the _Jardin des Plantes_. It is pleasant also to think of him among the five and twenty _Amis du Vendredi_ dining together at little wineshops on mutton and cheese and wine with an occasional pâté given as a treat by some member in funds for the moment. He was not above enthusiasm for "_un certain pâté de maquereau de Calais_" and he was fond of the theater and of all shows where animals were to be seen. It is pleasantest of all to think of him at his work, the beauty of which he knew and the ultimate success of which he could hardly have doubted. [Illustration: From the collection of the late Cyrus J. Lawrence, Esq. A LIONESS _From a bronze by Barye_] In what does the extraordinary quality of this work consist? The question is not difficult to answer, since, like most of the truly great artists, Barye had clear-cut characteristics among which may be found those that separate him from and raise him above his contemporaries. Scientific grasp of detail and artistic generalization are to be found in all his work where an animal is the subject, and this combination is in itself a mark of greatness. If we should examine the exceptionally fine collection of Barye bronzes belonging to the late Mr. Cyrus J. Lawrence, and consisting of more than a hundred beautiful examples, or the fine group in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington, we should soon learn his manner and the type established by him in his animal subjects. In the presence of so large a number of the works of a single artist, certain features common to the whole accomplishment may easily be traced. One dominating characteristic in this case is the ease with which the anatomical knowledge of the artist is worn. Even in the early bronzes the execution is free, large, and quite without the dry particularity that might have been expected from a method the most exacting and specific possible. Barye from the first went very deeply into the study of anatomy, examining skeletons, and dissecting animals after death to gain the utmost familiarity with all the bones and muscles, the articulations, the fur and skin and minor details. His reading of Cuvier and Lamarck indicates his interest in theories of animal life and organism. He took, also, great numbers of comparative measurements that enabled him to represent not merely an individual specimen of a certain kind of animal, but a type which should be true in general as well as in particular. He would measure, for example, the bones of a deer six months old and those of a deer six weeks old, carefully noting all differences in order to form a definite impression of the normal measurements of the animal at different ages. He made comparative drawings of the skulls of cats, tigers, leopards, panthers, the whole feline species, in short, seeking out the principles of structure and noting the dissimilarities due to differences in size. He made innumerable drawings of shoulders, heads, paws, nostrils, ears, carefully recording the dimensions on each sketch. Among his notes was found a minute description of the characteristic features of a blooded horse. He was never content with merely an external observation of a subject when he had it in his power to penetrate the secrets of animal mechanism. He first made sketches of his subjects, of course, but frequently he also modeled parts of the animal in wax on the spot to catch the characteristic movement. His indefatigable patience in thus laying the groundwork of exact knowledge suggests the thoroughness of the old Dutch artists. He followed, too, the recommendation of Leonardo--so dangerous to any but the strongest mind--to draw the parts before drawing the whole, to "learn exactitude before facility." [Illustration: From the collection of the late Cyrus J. Lawrence, Esq. THE PRANCING BULL ("TAUREAU CABRÉ") _From a bronze by Barye_] A story is told of a visit paid him by the sculptor Jacquemart: "I will show you what I have under way, just now," said he to his friend, and looking about his studio for a moment, drew out a couple of legs and stood them erect. After a few seconds of puzzled thought he remembered the whereabouts of the other members, and finally drew out the head from under a heap in a corner. And the statue once in place was conspicuous for its fine sense of unity. It was not, of course, this meticulous method, but the use he made of it, that led Barye to his great results. His mind was strengthened and enriched by every fragment of knowledge with which he fed it. It all went wholesomely and naturally to the growth of his artistic ideas, and he does not appear to have been interested in acquiring knowledge that did not directly connect itself with these ideas. By his perfect familiarity with the facts upon which he built his conceptions he was fitted to use them intelligently, omit them where he chose, exaggerate them where he chose, minimize them where he chose. They did not fetter him; they freed him; and he could work with them blithely, unhampered by doubts and inabilities. It is most significant both of his accuracy and his freedom that in constructing his models he dispensed with the rigid iron skeleton on which the clay commonly is built. Having modeled the different parts of his composition, he brought them together and supported them from the outside by means of crutches and tringles, after the fashion of the boat builders, thus enabling himself to make alterations, corrections and revisions to the very end of his task. The definitive braces were put in place only at the moment of the molding in plaster. [Illustration: PANTHER SEIZING A DEER _From a bronze by Barye_] For small models he preferred to use wax which does not dry and crack like the clay. He also sometimes covered his plaster model with a layer, more or less thick, of wax, upon which he could make a more perfect rendering of superficial subtleties. Occasionally, as in the instance of _The Lion Crushing the Serpent_, cast by Honoré Gonon, he employed the process called _à cire perdue_, in which the model is first made in wax, then over it is formed a mold from which the wax is melted out by heat. The liquid bronze is poured into the matrix thus formed, and when this has become cold the mold is broken off, leaving an almost accurate reproduction of the original model, which is also, of course, unique, the wax model and the mold both having been destroyed in the process. Upon his _patines_ he lavished infinite care. Theodore Child has given an excellent description of the difference between this final enrichment of a bronze as applied by a master and the _patine_ of commerce. "The ideal _patine_," he says, "is an oxydation and a polish, without thickness, as it were, a delicate varnish or glaze, giving depth and tone to the metal. Barye's green _patine_ as produced by himself has these qualities of lightness and richness of tone, whereas the green _patine_ of the modern proofs is not a _patine_, not an oxydation, but an absolute application of green color in powder, a _mise en couleur_, as the technical phrase is. In places this _patine_ will be nearly a millimeter thick and will consequently choke up all delicate modeling, soften all that is sharp, and render the bronze dull, _mou_, heavy. To produce Barye's fine green _patine_, requires time and patience, and for commercial bronze is impracticable. Barye, however, was never a commercial man. When a bronze was ordered he would never promise it at any fixed date; he would ask for one or two or three months; 'he did not know exactly, it would depend on how his _patine_ came.'" His patines are by no means all green; some of them are almost golden in their vitality of color--the "_patine médaillé_," as in _The Walking Deer_, which is a superb example; some are dark brown approaching black. The most beautiful in color and delicacy which I have seen is that on Mr. Lawrence's _Bull Felled by a Bear_ (_Taureau terrassé par un ours_), a bronze which seems to me in many particulars to remain a masterpiece unsurpassed by the more violent and splendid later works. Another remarkable example of the effect of color possible to produce by a _patine_ is furnished by the _Lion Devouring a Doe_ (_Lion devorant une biche_), dated 1837. The green lurking in the shadows and the coppery gleam on the ridge of the spine, the thigh, and the bristling mane, the rich yet bright intermediate tones, give a wonderful brilliancy and vitality to the magnificent little piece in which the ferocity of nature and the charm and lovableness of art are commingled. In his interesting book on Barye, published by the Barye Monument Association, Mr. De Kay has referred to this work as an example of Barye's power to reproduce the horrible and to make one's blood run cold with the ferocity of the destroying beast. It seems to me, however, that it is one of the pieces in which Barye's power to represent the horrible without destroying the peace of mind to be found in all true art, is most obvious. With his capacity for emphasizing that which he wishes to be predominant in his composition he has brought out to the extreme limit of expression the strength of the lion and its savage interest in its prey. The lashing tail, the wrinkled nose, the concentrated eyes are fully significant of the mood of the beast, and were the doe equally defined the effect would be disturbing. But the doe, lying on the ground, is treated almost in bas-relief, hardly distinguishable against the massive bulk of its oppressor. The appeal is not to pity, but to recognition of the force of native instincts. Added to this is the beauty, subtly distinguished and vigorously rendered, of the large curves of the splendid body of the lion. Even among the superb later pieces it would be difficult to find one with greater beauty of flowing line and organic composition. In the illustration we can see the general contour from one point of view, but we cannot see the rhythm of the curves balancing and repeating each other from the tip of the uplifted tail to the arch of the great neck. Nor is a particle of energy sacrificed to these beautiful contours. The body is compact, the head large and expressive of power, the thick paws rest with weight on the ground. There is none of the pulling out of forms so often employed to give grace and so usually suggestive of weakness. The composition is at once absolutely graceful and eloquent of immense physical force. In the _Panther Seizing a Deer_ (_Panthère saississant un Cerf_), one of the largest of the animal groups, we have again the characteristic double curves, the fine play of line, and the appropriate fitting of the figures into a long oval, and also the minimizing of the cruelty of the subject by the reticent art with which it is treated. We see clearly enough the angry jaws, the curled tail, the weight of the attacking beast falling on the head of its victim, dragging it toward the ground. Nothing is slighted or compromised. We see even the gash in the flesh made by the panther's claws and the drops of blood trickling from the wound. But we have to thank Barye's instinct for refined conception that these features of the work do not claim and hold our attention which is absorbed by the vital line, the gracious sweep of the contours, the lovely surface, and the omission of all irrelevant and unreasonable detail. Many of Barye's subjects included the human figure and in a few instances the human figure alone preoccupied him. Occasionally he was very successful in this kind. The small silver reproduction of _Hercules Carrying a Boar_ has the remarkable quality of easy force. The figure of Hercules is without exaggerated muscles, is normally proportioned and quietly modeled. His burden rests lightly on his shoulders, and his free long stride indicates that the labor is joy. This is the ancient, not the modern tradition, and the little figure corresponds, curiously enough, with one of the male figures in the Piero di Cosimo mentioned at the beginning of this article. In the latter case the strong man is engaged in combat with a living animal, but he carries his strength with the same assurance and absence of effort in its exercise. Barye, however, does not always give this happy impression when he seeks to represent the human figure. If we compare, for example, the bronze made in 1840 for the Duke of Montpensier (_Roger Bearing off Angelica on the Hippogriff_) with any of the animal groups of that decade or earlier, we can hardly fail to be amazed at the lack of unity in the composition and the distracting multiplicity of the details. If we compare the _Hunt of the Tiger_ with the _Asian Elephant Crushing Tiger_ the great superiority of the latter in the arrangement of the masses, the dignity of the proportions, and in economy of detail, is at once evident. The figures of the four stone groups on the Louvre, however, have a certain antique nobility of design and withal a naturalness that put them in the first class of modern sculpture, I think. [Illustration: From the collection of the late Cyrus J. Lawrence, Esq. THE LION AND THE SERPENT ("LION AU SERPENT") _From a bronze by Barye_] One point worthy of note in any comparison between Barye's animals and his human beings is the intensity and subtlety of expression in the former and the absence of any marked expression in the latter. His men are practically masked. No passion or emotion makes its impression on their features. Even their gestures, violent though they may be, seem inspired from without and not by the impulse of their own feelings. His animals on the contrary show many phases of what must be called, for lack of a more exact word, psychological expression. A striking instance of this is found in the contrast between the sketch for _The Lion Crushing the Serpent_ and the finished piece. In the sketch there is terror in the lion's face, his paw is raised to strike at the reptile, his tail is uplifted and lashing, the attitude and expression are those of terror mingled with rage and the serpent appears the aggressor. In the finished bronze the lion is calmer and in obvious possession of the field. The fierce claws pushing out from their sheathing, the eyes that seem to snarl with the mouth, the massive paw resting on the serpent's coiled body combine to give a subtle impression of certain mastery, and the serpent is unquestionably the victim and defendant in the encounter. It is by such intuitive reading of the aspect of animals of diverse kinds, that Barye awakens the imagination and leads the mind into the wilderness of the untamed world. He is perhaps most himself when depicting moods of concentration. The fashion in which he gathers the great bodies together for springing upon and holding down their prey is absolutely unequaled among animal sculptors. His mind handled monumental compositions with greater success, I think, than compositions of the lighter type in which the subject lay at ease or exhibited the pure joy of living which we associate with the animal world. Two exceptions to this statement come, however, at once to my mind--the delightful _Bear in his Trough_ and the _Prancing Bull_. The former is the only instance I know of a Barye animal disporting itself with youthful irresponsibility, and the innocence and humor of the little beast make one wish that it had not occupied this unique place in the list of Barye's work. The _Prancing Bull_ also is a conception by itself and one of which Barye may possibly have been a little afraid. With his extraordinary patience it is not probable that he had the opposite quality of ability to catch upon the fly, as it were, a passing motion, an elusive and swiftly fading effect. But in this instance he has rendered with great skill the curvetting spring of the bull into the air and the lightness of the motion in contrast with the weight of the body. This singular lightness or physical adroitness he has caught also in his representation of elephants, the _Elephant of Senégal Running_, showing to an especial degree the agility of the animal despite its enormous bulk and ponderosity. While Barye's most important work was accomplished in the field of sculpture, his merits as a painter were great. His devotion to the study of structural expression was too stern to permit him to lapse into mediocrity, whatever medium he chose to use, and the animals he created, or re-created, on canvas are as thoroughly understood, as clearly presented, as artistically significant as those in bronze. With every medium, however, there is, of course, a set of more or less undefinable laws governing its use. Wide as the scope of the artist is there are limits to his freedom, and if he uses water-color, for example, in a manner which does not extract from the medium the highest virtue of which it is capable he is so much the less an artist. It has been said of Barye that his paintings were unsatisfactory on that score. About a hundred pictures in oil and some fifty water-colors have been put on the list of his works. Mr. Theodore Child found his execution heavy, uniform, of equal strength all over, and of a monotonous impasto which destroys all aerial perspective. I have not seen enough of his painting in oils either to contradict or to acquiesce in this verdict; but his water-colors produce a very different impression on my mind. He uses body-color but with restraint and his management of light and shade and his broad, free treatment of the landscape background give to his work in this medium a distinction quite apart from that inseparable from the beautiful drawing. In the painting that we reproduce the soft washes of color over the rocky land bring the background into delicate harmony with the richly tinted figure of the tiger with the effect of variety in unity sought for and obtained by the masters of painting. The weight and roundness of the tiger's body is brought out by the firm broad outline which Barye's contemporary Daumier is so fond of using in his paintings, the interior modeling having none of the emphasis on form that one looks for in a sculptor's work. In his paintings indeed, even more than in his sculpture, Barye shows his interest in the psychological side of his problem. Here if ever he sees his subject whole, in all its relations to life. The vast sweep of woodland or desert in which he places his wild creatures, the deep repose commingled with the potential ferocity of these creatures, their separateness from man in their inarticulate emotions, their inhuman passions, their withdrawn powerfully realized lives, their self-sufficiency, their part in nature--all this becomes vivid to us as we look at his paintings and we are aware that the portrayal of animal life went far deeper with Barye than a mere anatomical grasp of his subject. Corot did not find his tigers sufficiently poetic and altered, it is said, the tiger drawn for one of his own paintings until he succeeded in giving it a more romantic aspect. Barye's poetry, however, was the unalterable poetry of life. He found his inspiration in realities but that is not to say that his realities were external ones. He excluded nothing belonging to the sentiment of his subject and comparison of his work with that of other animal sculptors and painters deepens one's respect for the penetrating insight with which he sought his truths. Since Barye's death and the great increase in the prices of his work, many devices have been used to sell objects bearing his name, but not properly his work. For example, he produced for the city of Marseilles some objects in stone (designed for the columns of the gateway), which were never done in bronze; since his death these have been reduced in size and produced in bronze as his work. Works of the younger Barye signed by the great name are also confused with those of the father. Further still, to the confusion of inexperienced collectors, the bronzes of Méne, Fratin, and Cain, all artists of importance, but hardly increasing fame, have had the signatures erased and that of Barye substituted. It is therefore inadvisable to attempt at this date the collection of Barye's bronzes without special knowledge or advice. The great collections of early and fine proofs have been made. At the sale of his effects after his death the models with the right of reproduction were sold, and in many instances these modern proofs are on the market bearing the name of Barye, with no indication of their modernity. Some of these are so cleverly done that great knowledge is required to detect them, and if they were sold for a moderate price, would be desirable possessions. Certain dealers frankly sell a modern reproduction as modern and at an appropriate price, but I know of one only, M. Barbédienne, who puts a plaque with his initials on each piece produced by him. [Illustration: ASIAN ELEPHANT CRUSHING TIGER _From a bronze by Barye_] During Barye's lifetime he had, however, in his employ, a man named Henri, who possessed his confidence to a full degree. A few pieces are found with the initial of this man, showing that they were done under his supervision and not that of Barye, but whether before or after the death of the latter is not yet determined. THE ART OF MARY CASSATT II THE ART OF MARY CASSATT Some fifteen years ago, on the occasion of an exhibition in Paris of Miss Cassatt's work a French critic suggested that she was then, perhaps, with the exception of Whistler, "the only artist of an elevated, personal and distinguished talent actually possessed by America." The suggestion no doubt was a rash one, since, as much personal and distinguished work by American artists never leaves this country, the data for comparison must be lacking to a French critic; but it is certainly true that, like Whistler, Miss Cassatt early struck an individual note, looked at life with her own eyes, and respected her intellectual instrument sufficiently to master it to the extent, at least, of creating a style for herself. Born at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she studied first at the Philadelphia Academy, and later traveled through Spain, Italy, and Holland in search of artistic knowledge and direction. In France she came to know the group of painters including Monet, Renoir, Pissarro and Degas, and especially influenced by the work of Degas, she turned to him for the counsel she needed, receiving it in generous measure. It was a fortunate choice, the most fortunate possible, if she wished to combine in her art the detached observation characteristic in general of the Impressionist school with a passionate pursuit of all the subtlety, eloquence and precision possible to pure line. The fruit of his influence is to be found in the technical excellence of her representations of life, the firmness and candor of her drawing, her competent management of planes and surfaces, and the audacity with which she attacks difficult problems of color and tone. The extreme gravity of her method is the natural result of working under a master whose intensity and austerity in the pursuit of artistic truth are perhaps unequaled in the history of modern art. Her choice of subject is not, however, the inspiration of any mind other than her own. She has taken for the special field in which to exercise her vigorous talent that provided by the various phases of the maternal relation. Her wholesome young mothers with their animated children, comely and strong, unite the charm of great expressiveness with that of profoundly scientific execution. The attentive student of art is well aware how easily the former quality unsupported by the latter may degenerate into the cloying exhibition of sentiment, and is equally aware of the sterility of the latter practised for itself alone. With expressiveness for her goal and the means of rendering technical problems for her preoccupation, Miss Cassatt has arrived at hard-earned triumphs of accomplishment. One has only to turn from one of her recently exhibited pictures to another painted ten or twelve years ago to appreciate the length of the way she has come. The earlier painting, an oil color, is of a woman in a striped purple, white, and green gown, holding a half-naked child, who is engaged in bathing its own feet, with the absorbed expression on its face common to children occupied with such responsible tasks. The bricky flesh tints of the faces and hands, and the greenish half-tones of the square little body are too highly emphasized, but a keen perception of facts of surface and construction is obvious in the well-defined planes of the child's anatomy, in the foreshortened, thin little arm pressing firmly on the woman's knee and in the stout little legs, hard and round and simply modeled. There is plenty of truth in the picture, but in spite of an almost effective effort toward harmony of color, it lacks what the critics call "totality of effect." The annotation of the various phenomena is too explicit, the values are not finely related, and there is little suggestion of atmosphere. In the later picture this crudity is replaced by a beautiful fluent handling and the mastery of tone. The subject is again a woman and child, the latter just out of its bath, its flesh bright and glowing, its limbs instinct with life and ready to spring with uncontrollable vivacity. The modeling of the figures is as elusive as it is sure, and in the warm, golden air by which they seem to be enveloped, the well-understood forms lose all suggestion of the hardness and dryness conspicuous in the early work. Another recent painting of a kindred subject, _Le lever de bébé_, shows the same synthesis of detail, the same warmth and richness of tone, the same free and learned use of line. Obviously, Miss Cassatt has come into the full possession of her art and is no longer constrained by the struggle, sharp and hard as it must have been, with her exacting method--a method that has not at any time permitted the sacrifice of truth to charm. Since art is both truth and charm, record and poetry, there is a great satisfaction in watching the flowering of a positive talent, after the inevitable stages of literalism are passed, into the beauty of intelligent generalization. In all the later work there is the important element of ease, a certain graciousness of style, that enhances to a very great degree the beauty of the serious, dignified canvases. And from the beginning these have shown the admirable qualities of serenity and poise. There is no superficiality or pettiness about these homely women with their deep chests and calm faces, peacefully occupying themselves with their sound, agreeable children. The air of health, of fresh and normal vigor, is the characteristic of the chosen type, and lends a suggestion of the Hellenic spirit to the modern physiognomies. [Illustration: CHILD RESTING _From an etching by Mary Cassatt_] If, however, in her technique and in the feeling of quietness she conveys, Miss Cassatt recalls the classic tradition, she is intensely modern in her choice of natural, unhackneyed gesture, and faces in which individuality is strongly marked and from which conventional beauty is absent. Occasionally, as in the picture shown at Philadelphia in 1904, and in the fine painting owned by Sir William C. Van Horne, we have a face charming in itself and modeled in a way to bring out its refinement, but in the greater number of instances the rather heavy and imperfect features of our average humanity are reproduced without compromise, with even a certain sense of triumph in the beautiful statement of sufficiently ugly facts and freedom from a fixed ideal. Nothing, for example, could be less in the line of academic beauty than the quiet bonneted woman in the opera-box shown at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1907. She has her opera-glass to her eyes and her pleasant refined profile is cut sharply against the light balustrade of the balcony. Other figures in adjoining boxes are mere patches of color and of light and shade, telling, nevertheless, as personalities so acutely are the individual values perceived and discriminated. The color is personal and interesting, the difficult perspective of the curving line of boxes is mastered with amazing skill; the fidelity of the drawing to the forms and aspects of things seen gives expression to even the inanimate objects recorded--and to painters who have tried it we recommend the subtlety of that simply modeled cheek! The whole produces the impression of solid reality and quick life and we get from it the kind of pleasure communicated not by the imitation but by the evocation of living truth. We note things that have significance for us for the first time--the fineness of the hair under the dark bonnet, the pressure of the body's weight on the arm supported by the railing, the relaxation of the arm holding the fan, and very clever painting by artists of less passionate sincerity takes on a meretricious look in contrast with this closeness of interpretation. This, perhaps, is the chief distinction of Miss Cassatt's art--closeness of interpretation united to the Impressionist's care for the transitory aspect of things. She follows the track of an outline as sensitively if not as obviously as Ingres, and she exacts from line as much as it is capable of giving without interference with the expressiveness of the whole mass. She takes account of details with an unerring sense for their appropriateness. She selects without forcing the note of exclusion, and she thus becomes an artist of sufficiently general appeal to be understood at once. She is not merely intelligent, but intelligible; her art has no cryptic side. It is only the initiated frequenter of galleries who will pause to reflect how tremendously it costs to be so clear and plain. In her etchings and drawings Miss Cassatt early arrived at freedom of handling. The more responsive medium gave her an opportunity to produce delightful studies of domestic life while she was still far from having attained an easy control of pigment and brush. Her dry-points, pulled under her own direction and enriched with flat tints of color, are interesting and expressive, rich in line and large and full in modeling. The color was not, however, wholly an improving experiment. Under the friendly influence of time it may become an element of beauty, since in no case is it either commonplace or crude, but in its newness it lacks something of both delicacy and depth. The later etchings without color are more nearly completely satisfying. The three charming interpretations of children recently sent over to this country are full of freshness and life, and are admirable examples of the brilliant use of pure line. The attitude of the child in the etching reproduced here is, indeed, quite an extraordinary feat of richness of expression with economy of means. The heavy little head sagging against the tense arm, the small, childish neck and thin shoulder are insisted upon just sufficiently to render the mood of light weariness, and the little face, full of individuality, is tenderly observed and modeled with feeling. The psychological bent of the artist, her interest in the portrayal of mental and moral qualities, is nowhere more clearly revealed than in her drawings of children. She has never been content to reproduce merely the physical plasticity and delicacy of infancy, but has shown in her joyous babies and dreamy little girls at least the potentiality of strong wills and clear minds. Great diversity of character and temperament are displayed in the expressive curves of the plump young faces, and the eyes, in particular, questioning, exultant, wondering, reflective or merry, betray a penetrating and subtle insight into the dawning personality under observation. [Illustration: From the Wilstach Collection, Philadelphia. ON THE BALCONY _From a painting by Mary Cassatt_] One of her earliest works recently has been added to the Wilstach collection in Philadelphia. It shows a man and two women on a balcony. The straight line of the balcony railing stretches across the foreground without any modification of its rigid linear effect. The man's figure is in shadow, barely perceptible as to detail, yet indicated without uncertainty of drawing or vagueness of any kind, a solid figure the "tactile values" of which are clearly recognized. One of the women is bending over the railing in a half-shadow while the other lifts her face toward the man in an attitude that makes exacting requirements of the artist's knowledge of foreshortening. The whole is duskily brilliant in color, full of the sense of form, simple, dignified, sturdy, opulent. It shows that Miss Cassatt held at the beginning of her career as now, valuable ideals of competency and lucidity in the interpretation of life. [Illustration: WOMAN WITH A FAN _From a painting by Mary Cassatt_] MAX KLINGER III MAX KLINGER Max Klinger is one of the most interesting and representative figures in the art of Germany to-day. Essentially German in manner of thought and feeling, he has brought into the stiff formality of early nineteenth century German painting and sculpture a plasticity of mind and an elevation of purpose and idea that suggest (as most that is excellent in Germany does suggest) the influence of Goethe. In his restless interrogation of all the forms of representative art, his work in the mass shows a curious mingling of fantasy, imagination, brusque realism, antique austerity, and modern science. The enhancing of the sense of life is, however, always the first thought with him, and lies at the root of his method of introducing color into sculpture, not by the means of a deadening pigment but by the use of marbles of deep tints and positive hues, and of translucent stones. As an artist, his chief distinction is this unremitting intention to convey in one way or another the sense of the vitalizing principle in animate objects. We may say of him that his drawing is sometimes poor, that his imagination may be clumsy and infelicitous, that his treatment of a subject is frequently coarse and even crude, but we cannot deny that out of his etchings and paintings, and out of his great strange sculptured figures looks the spirit of life, more often defiant than noble, more often capricious than beautiful, but not to be mistaken, and the rarest phenomenon in the art product of his native country. He unites, too, a profound respect for the art of antiquity with a stout modern sentiment, a union that gives to his better work both dignity and force. What he seems to lack is the one impalpable, delicate, elusive quality that makes for our enjoyment of so many imperfect productions, and the lack of which does so much to blind us to excellence in other directions--the quality of charm, which in the main depends upon the possession by the artist of taste. Max Klinger was born in Leipzig on the eighteenth of February, 1857. His father was a man of artistic predilections, and in easy circumstances, so that the choice of a bread-winning profession for the son was not of first importance. As Klinger's talent showed itself at a very early age, it was promptly decided that he should be an artist. He left school at the age of sixteen, and went to Karlsruhe, where Gussow was beginning to gather about him a large number of pupils. In 1875 he followed Gussow to Berlin, where he came also under the influence of Menzel. Gussow's teaching was all in the line of individualism and naturalism. He led his pupils straight to nature for their model, and encouraged them to paint only what they themselves saw and felt. For this grounding in the representation of plain facts Klinger has been grateful in his maturer years, and looks back to his first master with admiration and respect as having early armed him against his tendency toward fantasy and idealism. His early style in the innumerable drawings of his youth is thin and weak, without a sign of the bold originality characterizing his recent work, and he obviously needed all the support he could get from frank and sustained observation of nature. His first oil-painting, exhibited in Berlin in 1878, showed the result of Gussow's influence in its solidity and practical directness of appeal, but a number of etchings, executed that year and the next--forerunners of the important later series--indicate the natural bent of the young artist's mind toward symbolic forms and unhackneyed subjects. [Illustration: BEETHOVEN _From a statue in colored marble by Max Klinger_] About the art of drawing as distinguished from that of painting he has his own opinions, expressed with emphasis in an essay called _Malerei und Zeichnung_. Drawing, etching, lithography and wood-engraving he considers preeminently adapted to convey purely imaginative thoughts such as would lose a part of their evanescent suggestiveness by translation into the more definite medium of oil-color, and he holds _Griffelkunst_, or the art of the point in as high estimation as any other art for the interpretation of ideas appropriate to it, an opinion not now as unusual as when he first announced it to his countrymen. For about five years after the close of his student period, he occupied himself chiefly with etchings, turning out between 1879 and 1883 no fewer than nine of the elaborate "cycles" which are so expressive of his method of thought, and of the best qualities of his workmanship. In these cycles he delights in following a development not unlike that of a musical theme, beginning with a prelude and carrying the idea through manifold variations to its final expression. His curious history of the finding of a glove which passes through different symbolic forms of individuality in the dreams of a lover, is a fair example of his eccentric and somewhat lumbering humor in the use of a symbol in his earlier years. His etchings for Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ show the same violent grasp of the lighter side of his subject, but in his landscape etchings of 1881 we have ample opportunity to see what he could do with a conventionally charming subject treated with conventional sentiment and without symbolic intention. The moonlight scene which he calls _Mondnacht_, has all the subtle exquisite feeling for harmony and tone to be gained from a Whistler nocturne. The dim light on the buildings, the soft sweep of the clouds across the dark sky, the impalpable rendering, the grave and deep beauty of the scene combine to express the essence of night and its mystery. The oil-painting _Abend_, of 1882, also bears eloquent testimony to Klinger's power to evoke purely pictorial images of great loveliness. In 1882, after about a year of study in Munich, he painted the important frescoes for the Steglitz Villa, in which the influence of Boecklin played freely. It was in Paris, however, where he studied between 1883 and 1885, that Klinger received his strongest and most definite impulse toward painting. His _Judgment of Paris_ revealed the fact that the young painter had come into possession of himself, and could be depended upon for qualities demanding constraint and a measure of severity. In choosing a legend of antiquity for the subject of his picture, he may have felt a psychological obligation to obey the greater influences of the antique tradition. At all events he rather suddenly developed a style of great maturity and firmness. From Paris he went back to Berlin, but in 1889 he started for Rome, where he spent four profitable years. The fruit of this Roman period has continued to ripen up to the present time, although since 1893 Klinger has made his home in Leipzig, his _wanderjahre_ apparently over and done with. He not only painted in Rome a _Pietà_, a _Crucifixion_, and a number of pictures in which problems of open-air painting are attacked, but he conceived there the powerful series of etchings on the subject of death, and there he made his first attempts in colored sculpture. From his earliest years, the image of death had often solicited him, and some of his interpretations are filled with dignity and pathos. In the slender, rigid figure on a white draped bed, from the etching cycle entitled _Eine Liebe_, there is the suggestion of a classic tomb, severe and impressive in outline, while nothing could be more poignant than the emotional appeal of the _Mutter und Kind_ in the second death series. To turn from these to the two religious paintings executed in Rome, is to realize that eccentric as Klinger often is, both in choice of subject and treatment, his attitude toward the mysteries and problems of man's existence is that of a serious thinker with a strong artistic talent, but a still stronger intelligence. It is not, however, until we reach the period which he devotes to sculpture, that we find in his art the quality of nobility, a certain breadth, which in spite of innovations in execution and almost trivial symbolic detail, impresses upon his conceptions the classic mark. He began his studies for his great polychromatic statue of Beethoven as early as 1886, fifteen years before its completion. In 1892 it was reported in Rome that he had turned to sculpture as a new field in which to prove himself a master, and his first exhibited figure placed him above the rank of the amateur. He threw himself into his new work with his usual energy, making himself familiar with the technicalities of marble cutting in order to follow the execution with intelligence at every stage. He sought for his material with unwearying zest, taking long journeys into Italy, Greece and the Pyrenees to procure marble with the soft, worn, rich quality produced by exposure to the weather; with this he combined onyx and brilliant stones, bronze, ivory and gold, always with the intention of creating an impression of life in addition to producing a decorative result. His strong decorative instinct comes to his aid, however, in avoiding the incoherence that would seem inevitable from the mixture of so many and such diverse materials, and the equally strong intellectual motive always obvious in his work also tends to hold it together in a more or less dignified unity. The _Cassandra_, his second colored statue, finished in Leipzig in 1895, and now in possession of the Leipzig Museum, is especially free from eccentricity and caprice. The beautiful Greek head, with its deep-set eyes and delicate mouth, is expressive of intense but normal feeling. The flesh is represented by warm-toned marble, the hair is brownish-red, the garment is of alabaster, yellowish-red with violet tones, and the figure stands on a pedestal of Pyranean marble. In color effect, however, the _Beethoven_ is the most striking. In _Les Maîtres Contemporains_, M. Paul Mongré thus describes it: "The pedestal, half rock, half cloud, which supports the throne of the Olympian master, is of Pyranean marble of a dark violet-brown; the eagle is of black marble, veined with white, its eyes are of amber. The nude bust of Beethoven is of white Syrian marble, with light yellowish reflections, the drapery, hanging in supple folds, is of Tyrolean onyx with yellow-brown streaks in it. The throne of bronze is of a dull brown tone, except in the curved arms, which are brilliantly gilded. Five angel heads in ivory are placed like a crown on the inside of the back of the throne; their wings are studded with multi-colored gems and with antique fluorspar; the back of the throne is laid with blue Hungarian opals." All these different elements, the French critic maintains, are held together in reciprocal cohesion, and are kept subordinated to the bold conception of Beethoven as the Jupiter of music--"the godlike power accumulated and concentrated, on the point of breaking forth in lightnings; the eagle in waiting, ready to take flight, as the visible thought of Jupiter, before whom will spring up a whole world, or the musical image of a world: that is what is manifested by this close alliance of idea and form." [Illustration: CASSANDRA _From a statue in colored marble by Max Klinger_] This monument to Beethoven is a performance designed to express not merely the artistic interest of the subject for Klinger, but the abounding enthusiasm of the latter for the great musician's genius. Immediately after leaving Rome, Klinger also brought to completion a series of etchings called _Brahms-phantasie_, and intended to illustrate the emotions aroused by the compositions of Brahms. In 1901 he made a portrait bust of Liszt, and his drawings for the _Metamorphoses_ were dedicated to Schumann. In the autumn of 1906 his Brahms memorial was placed in the new Music Hall in Hamburg. This memorial monument has the form of a powerful Hermes with the head of Brahms. The Muse of tone is apparently whispering secrets of art into the ears of the master. His debt, therefore, to the masters of music may be considered as fully and promptly paid, and the impression of hero-worship conveyed by these ardent tributes is a reminder that the artist is young in temperament, Teutonic in origin, and untouched by the modern spirit of indifference to persons. Unlike many German artists of the present day, he did not find in Paris the atmosphere that suited him. In spite of his years there and in Rome, he has remained undisturbed by any anti-German influence. His compatriots speak with pride of the intensely national character of his mind, and have early recognized his importance, as perhaps could hardly have failed to be the case with powers so far from humble, and a method so far from patient. France also has paid him more than one tribute of appreciation, and the general feeling toward him seems now to be that expressed by one of his German admirers in America: "Why criticize him? He is so overwhelming, so overpowering intellectually that the best we can do is to try to understand him." ALFRED STEVENS IV ALFRED STEVENS An exhibition of the paintings of Alfred Stevens was held in April and May, 1907, at the city of Brussels, and later in May and in June at the city of Antwerp. The collection comprised examples from the museums at Brussels, Antwerp, Paris and Marseilles, and from the galleries of many private owners. It was representative in the fullest sense of the word, showing the literal tendencies of the artist's youth in such pictures as _Les Chasseurs de Vincennes_ (1855) tightly painted, conscientiously modeled, with only the deep, resonant red of a woman's cape to indicate the magnificent color-sense soon to be revealed; or _Le Convalescent_, in which the two sympathetic women hovering over the languid young man in a Paris drawing-room are photographically true to the life of the time, without, however, conveying its spiritual or intellectual expression; showing also the rich and grave middle period in which beauty of face and form and the charm of elegant accessories are rendered with singular intensity and perfect sincerity; as in _Les Visiteuses_, _Désespérée_, etc.; and, finally, showing the psychological synthesis of the later years, which reveals itself in such works as _Un Sphinx Parisien_, baffling in its fixed introspective gaze, and executed with an impeccable technique. Many of the early pictures have a joyousness of frank workmanship, a directness of attack and a simplicity of arrangement that appeal to the world at large more freely than the subtler blonde harmonies of the later years. The _Profil de Femme_ (1855) in which M. Lambotte discerns the influence of Rembrandt, is more suggestive to the present writer of familiarity with Courbet's bold, heavy impasto and sharp transitions from light to shadow. The _Réverie_ of the preceding year has also its suggestions of Courbet, in spite of the delicately painted flowers in the Japanese vase; but in the pictures of the next few years, the robust freshness of the painter's Flemish vision finds expression in color-schemes that resemble nothing so much as the gardens of Belgium in springtime, filled with hardy blossoms and tended by skillful hands; _La Consolation_ of 1857, for example, in which the two black-robed women form the heavy note of dead color against which are relieved the pink and white of their companion's gown, the pale yellow of the wall, the blue of the floor and the low, softly brilliant tones of the beautiful tapestry curtain. Another painting of about the same time has almost the charm of Fantin-Latour's early renderings of serious women bending over their books or their sewing. In _La Liseuse_ the girl's face is absorbed and thoughtful, the color harmony is quiet, the white dress, the dull red of the chair, the blue and yellow and green wools on the table, forming a pattern of closely related tones as various in its unity as the motley border of an old-fashioned dooryard. In other examples we have reminiscences of that time of excitement and esthetic riot when the silks and porcelains and enamels of the Far East came into the Paris of artists and artisans and formed at once a part of the baggage of the Parisian atelier. _L'Inde à Paris_ is a particularly delightful reflection of this period of "Chinoiseries." It depicts a young woman in a black gown of the type that Millais loved, leaning forward with both hands on a table covered with an Indian drapery. On the table stands the miniature figure of an elephant. The background is of the strong green so often used by Manet and the varied pattern of the table cover gives opportunity for assembling a number of rich and vivid yet quiet hues in an intricate and interesting color composition. _La Parisienne Japonaise_ is a subject of the kind that enlisted Whistler's interest during the sixties--a handsome girl in a blue silk kimono embroidered with white and yellow flowers, and a green sash, looks into a mirror that reflects a yellow background and a vase of flowers. The colors are said to have faded and changed, to the complete demoralization of the color-scheme, but it is still a picture of winning charm, less reserved and dignified than Whistler's _Lange Leizen_ of 1864, but with passages of subtle color and a just relation of values that have survived the encroachments of time. From a very early period Stevens adopted the camel's-hair shawl with its multi-colored border as the model for his palette and the chief decoration of his picture. It is easier, says one of his French critics, to enumerate the paintings in which such a shawl does not appear than those in which it does. It slips from the shoulders of the _Désespérée_ and forms a wonderful contrast to the smooth fair neck and arm relieved against it; it is the magnificent background of the voluminous gauzy robe in _Une Douloureuse Certitude_; it falls over the chair in which the young mother sits nursing her baby in _Tous les Bonheurs_; it hangs in the corners of studios, it is gracefully worn by fashionable visitors in fashionable drawing-rooms; its foundation color is cream or red or a deep and tender yellow as soft as that of a tea-rose; it determines the harmony of the colored silks and bric-à-brac which are in its vicinity, it rules its surroundings with a truly oriental splendor, and it gives to the work in which it plays so prominent a part an individuality supplementary to the artist's own. It is as important as the rugs in the pictures of Vermeer of Delft or Gerard Terborch. [Illustration: L'ATELIER _From a painting by Alfred Stevens_] The silks and muslins of gowns and scarves are also important accessories in these pictures which have a modernity not unlike that of the pictures of Velasquez, in which the ugliness of contemporary fashions turns to beauty under the learned rendering of textures and surfaces. Bibelots and furnishings, wall-hangings, pictures, rugs, polished floors, glass and silver and china and jewels are all likewise pressed into the service of an art that used what lay nearest to it, not for the purposes of realism but for the enchantment of the vision. M. Lambotte has pointed out that Stevens introduced mirrors, crystals and porcelains into his canvasses with the same intention as that of the landscape-painter who makes choice of a subject with a river, lake or pond, knowing that clear reflections and smooth surface aid in giving the effect of distance and intervening atmosphere. The same writer has told us that so far from reproducing the ordinary costumes of his period Stevens took pains to seek exclusive and elegant examples, _chefs d'oeuvres_ of the dressmaker's art, and that such were put at his service by the great ladies of the second empire. The beautiful muslin over-dress of the _Dame en Rose_ is perhaps the one that most taxed his flexible brush. It is diaphanous in texture, elaborately cut and trimmed with delicate laces and embroideries, and the rose of the under-robe, the snowy white of the muslin, the silver ornaments and the pale blonde hair of the wearer make the lightest and daintiest of harmonies accentuated by the black of the lacquer cabinet with its brilliant polychromatic insets. Unlike Whistler, Stevens never abandoned the rich and complicated color arrangements of his youth for an austere and restricted palette. He nevertheless was at his best when his picture was dominated by a single color, as in the wonderful _Fédora_ of 1882 or _La Tricoteuse_. In the former the warmly tinted hair and deep yellow fan are the vibrant notes, the creamy dress, the white flowers, the silver bracelet, and the white butterfly making an _ensemble_ like a golden wheatfield swept by pale lights. The piquant note of contrast is given by the blue insolent eyes and the hardly deeper blue blossoms of the love-in-a-mist held in the languid hands. In _La Tricoteuse_ the composition of colors is much the same--a creamy white dress with gray shadows, reddish yellow hair, and a bit of blue knitting with the addition of a sharp line of red made by the signature. There is no austerity in these vaporous glowing arrangements of a single color. They are as near to the portraiture of full sunlight as pigment has been able to approach and if it can be said that Whistler has "painted the soul of color," it certainly can be said that Stevens here has painted its embodied life. For the most part we have, however, to think of Alfred Stevens as a portraitist of the ponderable world; a Flemish lover of brilliant appearances, a scrupulous translator of the language of visible things into the idiom of art. In the picture entitled _L'Atelier_, which we reproduce, is a more or less significant instance of his artistic veracity. On the crowded wall, forming the background against which is seen the model's charming profile, is a picture which obviously is a copy of the painting of _La Fuite en Egypte_ by Breughel. Two versions of the same subject, one, the original by Breughel the elder, the other, a copy by his son, now hang in the Brussels Museum, alike in composition but differing in tone, the son's copy having apparently been left in an unfinished condition with the brown underpainting visible throughout. That this, and not the elder Breughel's, is the original of the picture in Steven's _L'Atelier_ is clear at the first glance, the warm tonality having been accurately reproduced and even the drawing of the tree branches, which differs much in the two museum pictures having conformed precisely to that in the copy by the younger Breughel. It is by this accuracy of touch, this respect for differences of texture and material, this recognition of the part played in the ensemble by insignificant detail, this artistic conscience, in a word, that Stevens demonstrates his descent from the great line of Flemish painters and makes good their tradition in modern life. Many of his sayings are expressive of his personal attitude toward art. For example: "It is first of all necessary to be a painter. No one is wholly an artist who is not a perfect workman." "When your right hand becomes too facile--more facile than the thought that guides it, use the left hand." "Do not put into a picture too many things which attract attention. When every one speaks at once no one is heard." Concerning technique, he says to his pupils: "Paint quantities of flowers. It is excellent practice. Use the palette knife to unite and smooth the color, efface with the knife the traces of the brush. When one paints with a brush the touches seen through a magnifying glass are streaked with light and shade because of the hairs of the brush. The use of the palette knife renders these strokes as smooth as marble, the shadows have disappeared. The material brought together renders the tone more beautiful. Marble has never an ugly tone." "One may use impasto, but not everywhere. Your brush should be handled with reference to the character of what you are copying ... do not forget that an apple is smooth. I should like to see you model a billiard ball. Train yourself to have a true eye." These are precepts that might be given by any good painter, but few of the moderns could more justly claim to have practiced all that they preached. As a creative artist Stevens had his limitations. His lineal arrangements are seldom entirely fortunate and his compositions, despite the skill with which the given space is filled, lack except in rare instances the serenity of less crowded canvasses. He invariably strove to gain atmosphere by his choice and treatment of accessories but he rarely used the delicate device of elimination. Nevertheless he was a great painter and a great Belgian, untrammeled by foreign influences. He not only drank from his own glass but he drank from it the rich old wines of his native country. A SKETCH IN OUTLINE OF JACQUES CALLOT V A SKETCH IN OUTLINE OF JACQUES CALLOT In the Print Room of the New York Public Library are a large number of etchings by Jacques Callot, which are a mine of wealth to the painter-etcher of to-day, curious of the methods of his predecessors. Looking at the portrait of Callot in which he appears at the height of his brief career with well formed, gracious features, ardent eyes, a bearing marked by serenity and distinction, an expression both grave and genial, the observer inevitably must ask: "Is this the creator of that grotesque manner of drawing which for nearly three centuries has borne his name, the artist of the _Balli_, the _Gobbi_, the _Beggars_?" In this dignified, imaginative countenance we have no hint of Callot's tremendous curiosity regarding the most fantastic side of the fantastic times in which he lived. We see him in the rôle least emphasized by his admirers, although that to which the greater number of his working years were dedicated: the rôle, that is, of moralist, philosopher and historian, one deeply impressed by the sufferings and cruelties of which he became a sorrowful critic. There surely never was an artist whose life and environment were more faithfully illustrated by his art. To know one is to know the other, at least as they appear from the outside, for with Callot, as with the less veracious and ingenuous Watteau, it is the external aspect of things that we get and from which we must form our inferences. Only in his selection of his subjects do we find the preoccupation of his mind; in his rendering he is detached and impersonal, helping us out at times in our knowledge of his mental attitude with such quaint rhymes as those accompanying _Les Grandes Misères de la Guerre_, but chiefly confining his hand to the representation of forms, relations and distances, with as little concern as possible for the expression of his own temperament, or for psychological portraiture of any sort. In the little history, more or less authenticated, of his eventful youth is the key to his charm as an artist, a charm the essence of which is freedom, an easy, informal way of looking at the visible world, a light abandon in the method of reproducing it, an independence of the tool or medium, resulting in art which, despite its minuteness of detail, seems to "happen" as Whistler has said all true art must. The beginning was distinctly picturesque, befitting a nature to which the world at first unfolded itself as a great Gothic picturebook filled with strange, eccentric and misshapen figures. One spring day in 1604, a band of Bohemians, such as are described in Gautier's _Le Capitaine Fracasse_, might have been seen journeying through the smiling country of Lorraine on their way to Florence to be present there at the great Fair of the Madonna. No gipsy caravan of to-day would so much as suggest that bizarre and irresponsible company of men, women, and children, clad in motley rags, some in carts, some trudging on foot, some mounted on asses or horses rivaling Rosinante in bony ugliness, the men armed with lance, cutlass and rifle, a cask of wine strapped to the back of one, a lamb in the arms of another. A couple of the swarming children were decked out with cooking utensils, an iron pot for a hat, a turnspit for a cane, a gridiron hanging in front apron wise. Chickens, ducks, and other barnyard plunder testified to the marauding course of the troop whose advent at an inn was the signal for terrified flight on the part of the inmates. The camp by night, if no shelter were at hand, was in the forest, where the travelers tied their awnings to the branches of trees, built their fires, dressed their stolen meats, and lived so far as they could accomplish it on the fat of the land--for the most part of their way a rich and lovely land of vine-clad hills and opulent verdure. The period was lavish in curious gay figures to set against the peaceful background of the landscape. Strolling players of the open-air theaters, jugglers, fortune-tellers, acrobats, Pierrots, and dancers amused the pleasure-loving people. The band of Bohemians just described was but one of many. Its peculiarity consisted in the presence among its members of a singularly fair and spirited child, about twelve years of age, whose alert face and gentle manner indicated an origin unmistakably above that of his companions. This was little Jacques Callot, son of Renée Brunehault and Jean Callot, and grandson of the grandniece of the Maid of Orleans, whose self-reliant temper seems to have found its way to this remote descendant. Already determined to be an artist, he had left home with almost no money in his pocket and without the consent of his parents, set upon finding his way to Rome, where one of his playfellows--the Israel Henriet, "_son ami_," whose name is seen upon so many of the later Callot prints--was studying. Falling in with the gipsies, he traveled with them for six or eight weeks, receiving impressions of a flexible, wanton, vagabond life that were never entirely to lose their influence upon his talent, although his most temperate and scholarly biographer, M. Meaume, finds little of Bohemianism in his subsequent manner of living. Félibien records that according to Callot's own account, when he found himself in such wicked company, "he lifted his heart to God and prayed for grace not to join in the disgusting debauchery that went on under his eyes." He added also that he always asked God to guide him and to give him grace to be a good man, beseeching Him that he might excel in whatever profession he should embrace, and that he "might live to be forty-three years old." Strangely enough this most explicit prayer was granted to the letter, and was a prophecy in outline of his future. Arriving in Florence with his friends the Bohemians, fortune seemed about to be gracious to him. His delicate face with its indefinable suggestions of good breeding attracted the attention of an officer of the Duke, who took the first step toward fulfilling his ambition by placing him with the painter and engraver, Canta Gallina, who taught him design and gave him lessons in the use of the burin. His taste was already for oddly formed or grotesque figures, and to counteract this tendency Gallina had him copy the most beautiful works of the great masters. Possibly this conventional beginning palled upon his boyish spirit, or he may merely have been impatient to reach Israel and behold with his own eyes the golden city described in his friend's letters. At all events, he shortly informed his master that he must leave him and push on to Rome. Gallina was not lacking in sympathy, for he gave his pupil a mule and a purse and plenty of good advice, and started him on his journey. Stopping at Siena, Callot gained his first notion of the style, later to become so indisputably his own, from Duccio's mosaics, the pure unshadowed outline of which he bore in mind when he dismissed shading and cross-hatching from the marvelously expressive little figures that throng his prints. He had hardly entered Rome, however, when some merchants from the town of Nancy, his birthplace, recognized him and bore him, protesting, back to his home. Once more he ran away, this time taking the route to Italy through Savoy and leading adventurous days. In Turin he was met by his elder brother and again ignominiously returned to his parents. But his persistence was not to go unrewarded. The third time that he undertook to seek the light burning for him in the city of art, he went with his father's blessing, in the suite of the ambassador dispatched to the Pope by the new duke, Henry II. It is said that a portrait of Charles the Bold, engraved by Jacques from a painting, was what finally turned the scale in favor of his studying seriously with the purpose of making art his profession. He had gained smatterings of knowledge, so far as the use of his tools went, from Dumange Crocq, an engraver and Master of the Mint to the Duke of Lorraine, and from his friend Israel's father, chief painter to Charles III. He had the habit also of sketching on the spot whatever happened to attract his attention. In truth he had lost but little time. At the age of seventeen he was at work, and very hard at work, in Rome under Tempesta. Money failing him, he became apprenticed to Philippe Thomassin, a French engraver, who turned out large numbers of rubbishy prints upon which his apprentices were employed at so much a day. Some three years spent in this fashion taught Callot less art than skill in the manipulation of his instruments. Much of his early work is buried in the mass of Thomassin's production, and such of it as can be identified is poor and trivial. His precocity was not the indication of rapid progress. His drawing was feeble and was almost entirely confined to copying until 1616, when, at the age of twenty-four, he began regularly to engrave his own designs, and to show the individuality of treatment and the abundant fancy that promptly won for him the respect of his contemporaries. While he was in Thomassin's studio, it is reported that his bright charm of face and manner gained him the liking of Thomassin's young wife--much nearer in age to Callot than to her husband--and the jealousy of his master. He presently left the studio and Rome as well, never to return to either. It is the one misadventure suggestive of erratic tendencies admitted to Callot's story by M. Meaume, although other biographers have thrown over his life in Italy a sufficiently lurid light, hinting at revelries and vagaries and lawless impulses unrestrained. If, indeed, the brilliant frivolity of Italian society at that time tempted him during his early manhood, it could only have been for a brief space of years. After he was thirty all unquestionably was labor and quietness. From Rome he went to Florence, taking with him some of the plates he recently had engraved. These at once found favor in the eyes of Cosimo II, of the Medici then ruling over Tuscany, and Callot was attached to his person and given a pension and quarters in what was called, "the artist's gallery." At the same time he began to study under the then famous Jules Parigi, and renewed his acquaintance with his old friend Canta Gallina, meeting in their studios the most eminent artists of the day--the bright day not yet entirely faded of the later Renaissance. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF JACQUES CALLOT _Engraved by Vosterman after the painting of Van Dyck_] Still his work was copying and engraving from the drawings of others. Had he been under a master less interested and sympathetic than the good Parigi, it is possible that his peculiar talent would never have declared itself. At all events, Parigi urged him, and the urging seems to have been necessary, to improve his drawing, to drop the burin and study the great masters. Especially Parigi prayed him to cultivate his precious talent for designing on a very small scale the varied and complicated compositions with which his imagination teemed. His taste for whatever was fantastic and irregular in aspect had not been destroyed by his study of the beautiful. The Bohemian side of human nature, the only nature for which he cared, still fascinated his mind, whether it had or had not any influence upon his activities, and Parigi's remonstrances were silenced by his appreciation of the comic wit sparkling in his pupil's sketches. We see little of Callot among his friends of this period, but the glimpses we get reveal a lovable and merry youth in whose nature is a strain of sturdy loyalty, ardent in work and patient in seeking perfectness in each individual task undertaken, but with a curious contrasting impatience as well, leading him frequently to drop one thing for another, craving the relaxation of change. An anecdote is told of him that illustrates the sweet-tempered blitheness of spirit with which he quickly won affection. In copying a head he had fallen into an error common among those who draw most successfully upon a small scale, he had made it much too large. His fellow-students were prompt to seize the opportunity of jeering at him, and he at once improvised a delightful crowd of impish creatures on the margin of his drawing, dancing and pointing at it in derision. His progress under Parigi's wise instruction was marked, but it was four years after his arrival in Florence before he began to engrave to any extent from his own designs. In the meantime, he had studied architecture and aerial and linear perspective, and had made innumerable pen and pencil drawings from nature. He had also begun to practice etching, attaining great dexterity in the use of the needle and in the employment of acids. In 1617--then twenty-five years old--he produced the series of plates which he rightly deemed the first ripe fruits of his long toil in the domain of art. These were the delightful _Capricci di varie figure_ in which his individuality shone resplendent. They reproduced the spectacle of Florence as it might then have been seen by any wayfarer; street people, soldiers, officers, honest tradesmen and rogues, mandolin players, loiterers of the crossways and bridges, turnpike-keepers, cut-throats, buffoons and comedians, grimacing pantaloons, fops, coquettes, country scenes, a faithful and brilliant study of the time, the manners, and the place. Parigi was enthusiastic and advised his pupil to dedicate the plates to the brother of the Grand Duke. After this all went well and swiftly. Passing over many plates, important and unimportant, we come three years later to the _Great Fair of Florence_, pronounced by M. Meaume, Callot's masterpiece. "It is doubtful," says this excellent authority, "if in Callot's entire work a single other plate can be found worthy to compete with the _Great Fair of Florence_. He has done as well, perhaps, but never better." At this time his production was, all of it, full of life and spirit, vivacious and fluent, the very joy of workmanship. He frequently began and finished a plate in a day, and his long apprenticeship to his tools had made him completely their master. In many of the prints are found traces of dry point, and those who looked on while he worked have testified that when a blank space on his plate displeased him he was wont to take up his instrument and engrave a figure, a bit of drapery, or some trees in the empty spaces, directly upon the copper, improvising from his ready fancy. For recreation he commonly turned to some other form of his craft. He tried painting, and some of his admirers would like to prove that he was a genius in this sort, but it is fairly settled that when once he became entangled in the medium of color he was lost, producing the heaviest and most unpleasing effects, and that he produced no finished work in this kind. He contributed to the technical outfit of the etcher a new varnish, the hard varnish of the lute-makers which up to that time had not been used in etching, and which, substituted for the soft ground, enabled him to execute his marvelous little figures with great lightness and delicacy, and also made it possible for him to keep several plates going at once, as he delighted to do, turning from one to another as his mood prompted him. This Florentine period was one of countless satisfactions for him. More fortunate than many artists, he won his fame in time to enjoy it. His productions were so highly regarded during his lifetime that good proofs were eagerly sought, and to use Baldinucci's expression, were "_enfermées sous sept clefs_." He was known all over Europe, and about his neck he wore a magnificent gold chain given him by the Grand Duke Cosimo II, in token of esteem. In the town which he had entered so few years before in the gipsy caravan, he was now the arbiter of taste in all matters of art, highly honored, and friend of the great. When Cosimo died and the pensions of the artists were discontinued, Callot was quite past the need of princely favors, and could choose his own path. He had already refused offers from Pope and emperor and doubtless would have remained in Florence had not Prince Charles of Lorraine determined to reclaim him for his native place. In 1621 or 1622 he returned to Nancy, never again to live in Italy. He went back preeminent among his countrymen. He had done in etching what had not been done before him and much that has not been done since. He had created a new genre and a new treatment. He had been faithful to his first lesson from Duccio and had become eloquent in his use of simple outline to express joy, fear, calm or sorrow, his work gaining from this abandonment of shadows a largeness and clearness that separates him from his German contemporaries and adds dignity to the elegance and grace of his figures. His skill with the etching needle had become so great that technical difficulties practically did not exist for him. What he wished to do he did with obvious ease and always with distinction. His feeling for synthesis and balance was as striking as his love of the curious, and as these qualities seldom go together in one mind, the result was an art extremely unlike that of other artists. It was characteristic of him that he could not copy himself, and found himself completely at a loss when he tried to repeat some of his Florentine plates under other skies. Arrived at Nancy, he found Henry II, the then reigning Duke of Lorraine, ready to accord him a flattering welcome, and under his favor he worked with increasing success. Among the plates produced shortly after his return is one called _Les Supplices_, in which is represented all the punishments inflicted throughout Europe upon criminals and legal offenders. In an immense square the revolting scenes are taking place, and innumerable little figures swarm about the streets and even upon the roofs of the houses. Yet the impression is neither confused nor painful. A certain impersonality in the rendering, a serious almost melancholy austerity of touch robs the spectacle of its ignoble suggestion. Inspection of this remarkable plate makes it easy to realize Callot's supreme fitness for the tasks that shortly were to be laid upon him. He was chosen by the Infanta Elisabeth-Claire-Eugenie of Austria to commemorate the Siege of Breda, in a series of etchings, and while he was in Brussels gathering his materials for this tremendous work he came to know Van Dyck, who painted his portrait afterward engraved by Vosterman, a superb delineation of both his face and character at this important period of his eminent career. Soon after the etchings were completed, designs were ordered by Charles IV, for the decorations of the great carnival of 1627. Callot was summoned to Paris to execute some plates representing the surrender of La Rochelle in 1628, and the prior attack upon the fortress of St. Martin on the Isle of Ré. In Paris he dwelt with his old friend Israel Henriet, who dealt largely in prints and who had followed with keen attention Callot's constantly increasing renown. Henriet naturally tried to keep his friend with him in Paris as long as possible, but Callot had lost by this time the vagrant tendencies of his youth. He was married and of a home-keeping disposition, and all that Henriet could throw in his way of stimulating tasks and congenial society, in addition to the formidable orders for which he had contracted, detained him hardly longer than a year. Upon leaving he made over all his Parisian plates save those of the great sieges to Henriet, whose name as publisher appears upon them. Callot's return to Nancy marked the close of the second period of his art, the period in which he painted battles with ten thousand episodes revealed in one plate, and so accurately that men of war kept his etchings among their text-books for professional reference. The next demand that was made upon him to represent the downfall of a brave city came from Louis XIII, upon the occasion of his entering Nancy on the 25th of September, 1633. By a ruse Richelieu had made the entry possible, and the inglorious triumph Louis deemed worthy of commemoration by the accomplished engraver now his subject. Neither Callot's high Lorraine heart nor his brilliant instrument was subjugated, however, and he respectfully begged the monarch to absolve him from a task so revolting to his patriotism. "Sire," he said, "I am of Lorraine, and I cannot believe it my duty to do anything contrary to the honor of my Prince and my Country." The king accepted his remonstrance in good part, declaring that Monsieur of Lorraine was very happy to have subjects so faithful in affection. Certain courtiers took Callot to task, however, for his refusal to obey the will of His Majesty, and to them Callot responded that he would cut off his thumb rather than do violence to his sense of honor. Some of the artist's historians have made him address this impetuous reply to the king himself, but M. Meaume reminds us that, familiar with courts, he knew too well the civility due to a sovereign to make it probable that he so forgot his dignity. Later the king tried to allure Callot by gifts, honors and pensions, but in vain. The sturdy gentleman preferred his oppressed prince to the royal favor, and set himself to immortalizing the misfortunes of his country in the superb series of etchings which he called "_Les Misères de la Guerre_." He made six little plates showing in the life of the soldier the misery he both endures and inflicts upon others. These were the first free inspiration of the incomparable later set called "_Les Grandes Misères_," "a veritable poem," M. Meaume declares, "a funeral ode describing and deploring the sorrows of Lorraine." These sorrows so much afflicted him that he would gladly have gone back to Italy to spend the last years of his life, had not the condition of his health, brought on by his indefatigable labor, prevented him. He lived simply in the little town where he had seen his young visions of the spirit of art, walking in the early morning with his elder brother, attending mass, working until dinner time, visiting in the early afternoon with the persons, many of them distinguished and even of royal blood, who thronged his studio, then working until evening. He rarely attended the court, but grew constantly more quiet in taste and more severe in his artistic method, until the feeling for the grotesque that inspired his earlier years were hardly to be discerned. Once only, in the tremendous plate illustrating the Temptation of Saint Anthony, did he return to his old bizarre vision of a world conceived in the mood of Dante and Ariosto. Callot died on the 24th of March, 1635, at the age of forty-three. Still a young man, he had passed through all the phases of temperament that commonly mark the transit from youth to age. And he had used his art in the manner of a master to express the external world and his convictions concerning the great spiritual and ethical questions of his age. He enunciated his message distinctly; there were no tender gradations, no uncertainties of outline or mysteries of surface in his work. It is the grave utterance of the definite French intelligence with a note of deeper suggestion brought from those regions of ironic gloom in which the Florentine recorded his sublime despair. CARLO CRIVELLI VI CARLO CRIVELLI Among the more interesting pictures acquired by the Metropolitan Museum within the past two years are the panels by Carlo Crivelli, representing respectively St. George and St. Dominic. Crivelli is one of the fifteenth century Italian masters who show their temperament in their work with extraordinary clearness. His spirit was ardent and his moods were varying. With far less technical skill than his contemporary, Mantegna, he has at once a warmer and more brilliant style and a more modern feeling for natural and significant gesture. His earliest known work that bears a date is the altar-piece in S. Silvestro at Massa near Fermo; but his most recent biographer, Mr. Rushworth, gives to his Venetian period before he left for the Marches, the Virgin and Child now at Verona, and sees in this the strongest evidences of his connection with the School of Padua. Other important pictures by him are at Ascoli, in the Lateran Gallery, Rome, in the Vatican, in the Brera Gallery at Milan, in the Berlin Gallery, in the National Gallery at London, in Frankfurt (the Städel Gallery), in the Museum of Brussels, in Lord Northbrook's collection, London, in the Boston Museum, in Mrs. Gardiner's collection at Boston, and in Mr. Johnson's collection at Philadelphia. The eight examples in the National Gallery, although belonging for the most part to his later period, show his wide range and his predominating characteristics, which indeed are stamped with such emphasis upon each of his works that despite the many and great differences in these, there seems to be little difficulty in recognizing their authorship. No. 788, _The Madonna and Child Enthroned, surrounded by Saints_, an altarpiece painted for the Dominican Church at Ascoli in 1476, is the most elaborate and pretentious of the National Gallery compositions, but fails as a whole to give that impression of moral and physical energy, of intense feeling expressed with serene art, which renders the _Annunciation_ (No. 739) both impressive and ingratiating. The lower central compartment is instinct with grace and tenderness. The Virgin, mild-faced and melancholy, is seated on a marble throne. The Child held on her arm, droops his head, heavy with sleep, upon her arm in a babyish and appealing attitude curiously opposed to the dignity of the Child in Mantegna's group which hangs on the opposite wall. His hand clasps his mother's finger and his completely relaxed figure has unquestionably been studied from life. At the right and left of the Virgin are St. Peter and St. John, St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Dominic, whole-length figures strongly individualized and differentiated. St. John in particular reveals in the beauty of feature and expression Crivelli's power to portray subtleties and refinements of character without sacrificing his sumptuous taste for accessories and ornament. The Saint, wearing his traditional sheep skin and bearing his cross and scroll, bends his head in meditation. His brows are knit, his features, ascetic in mold and careworn, are eloquent of serious thought and moral conviction. By the side of St. Peter resplendent in pontifical robes and enriched with jewels, he wears the look of a young devout novice not yet so familiar with sanctity as to carry it with ease. He stands by the side of a little stream, in a landscape that combines in the true Crivelli manner direct realism with decorative formality. The St. Dominic with book and lily in type resembles the figure in the Metropolitan, but the face is painted with greater skill and has more vigor of expression. Above this lower stage of the altarpiece are four half-length figures of St. Francis, St. Andrew the Apostle, St. Stephen and St. Thomas Aquinas, and over these again are four pictures showing the Archangel Michael trampling on the Dragon, St. Lucy the Martyr, St. Jerome and St. Peter, Martyr, all full length figures of small size and delicately drawn, but which do not belong to the original series. The various parts of the altarpiece were enclosed in a splendid and ornate frame while in the possession of Prince Demidoff in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the whole is a magnificent monument to Crivelli's art. The heavy gold backgrounds and the free use of gold in the ornaments, together with the use of high relief (St. Peter's keys are modeled, for example, almost in the round, so nearly are they detached from the panel) represent his tendency to overload his compositions with archaic and realistic detail, but here as elsewhere the effect is one of harmony and corporate unity of many parts. The introduction of sham jewels, such as those set in the Virgin's crown and in the rings and medallions worn by Peter, fails to destroy the dignity of the execution. It may even be argued that these details enhance it by affording a salient support to the strongly marked emotional faces of the saints and to the vigorous gestures which would be violent in a classic setting. [Illustration: ST. DOMINIC _From a panel by Carlo Crivelli_] A quite different note is struck in the grave little composition belonging to an altarpiece of early date in which two infant angels support the body of Christ on the edge of the tomb. Nothing is permitted to interrupt the simplicity of this pathetic group. In the much more passionate rendering of a similar subject--the _Pietà_ in Mr. Johnson's collection--the child angels are represented in an agony of grief, their features contorted and their gestures despairing. The little angels of the National Gallery picture, on the contrary, are but touched by a pensive sorrow. One of them rests his chin upon the shoulder of the Christ half tenderly, half wearily; the other in fluttering robes of a lovely yellow, applies his slight strength to his task seriously but without emotion. The figure of Christ, tragically quiet, with suffering brows, the wound in the side gaping, is without the suggestion of extreme physical anguish that marks the figure in the Boston _Pietà_. The sentiment with which the panel is inspired is one of gentleness, of resignation, of self-control and piety. The same sentiment is felt in the companion panel, now in the Brussels Gallery--_The Virgin and the Child Jesus_--which originally, with the _Pietà_, formed the central double compartment of a triptych at Monte Fiore, near Fermo. The sad coloring of the Virgin's robe--a dull bluish green with a gold pattern over an under robe of pale ashes of roses, the calm, benign features, the passive hands, are all in the spirit of subdued feeling. The child alone, gnomish in expression and awkward in a straddling attitude upon his mother's knee, fails to conform to the general gracious scheme. In the _Annunciation_ already mentioned, we have another phase of Crivelli's flexible genius--a phase in which are united the pomp and splendor of his fantastic taste with the innocence and sweetness of his most engaging feminine type. It would be difficult to imagine a more demure and girlish Virgin than the small kneeling figure in the richly furnished chamber at the right of the panel. The glory of her fate is symbolized by the broad golden ray falling from the heavens upon her meekly bowed head. Her face is pale with the dim pallor that commonly rests upon Crivelli's flesh tones, and her clasped hands have the exaggerated length of finger and also the look of extraordinary pliability which he invariably gives. Outside the room in the open court kneels the Angel of the Annunciation and by his side kneels St. Emedius, the patron of Ascoli, with a model of the city in his hands. These figures are realistic in gesture and expression, interested, eager, responsive, filled with quick life and joyous impulse. The richly embroidered garment of the angel, his gilded wings, his traditional attitude, neither overpower nor detract from the vivid individuality of the beautiful face so firmly yet so freely modeled within its delicate hard bounding line. This feeling of actuality in the scene is carried still farther by the introduction of a charming little child on a balcony at the left, peering out from behind a pillar with naive curiosity and half-shy, half-bold determination to see the end of the adventure. All this is conceived in the spirit of modernity and the personal quality is unmistakable and enchanting. There is no excess of emotion nor is there undue restraint. There is a blithe sense of the interest of life and the personality of human beings that gives a value to the subject and a meaning beyond its accepted symbolism. On the technical side, also, the panel has remarkable merit even for this expert and careful painter. His Venetian fondness for magnificent externals finds ample expression in the rich accessories. A peacock is perched on the casement of the Virgin's room, flowers and fruits, vases and variegated marbles all come into the plan of the handsome environment, and are justified artistically by the differentiation of textures, the gradation of color, the research into intricacies of pattern, the light firm treatment of architectural structure, and the skilful subordination of all superficial detail to the elements of the human drama, the figures of which occupy little space, but are overwhelming in significance. [Illustration: In the Metropolitan Museum, New York. ST. GEORGE _From a panel by Carlo Crivelli_] It is interesting to compare this _Annunciation_ with the two small sextagonal panels of the same subject in the Städel Museum at Frankfurt which are earlier in date. In many respects the compositions are closely similar. There is the same red brick wall, the same Oriental rug hanging from the casement, the types of Angel and Virgin are the same, but in the Frankfurt panel there is more impetuous motion in the gesture of the Angel, who hardly pauses in his flight through air to touch his knee to the parapet. His mouth is open and the words of his message seem trembling on his lips. Although all the outlines are severely defined with the sharpness of a Schiavone, the interior modeling is sensitive and delicate and in the case of the Virgin, tender and softly varied, so that the curve of the throat and chin seem almost to ripple with the breathing, the young chest swells in lovely gradation of form under the close bodice, and the whole figure has a graciousness of contour, a slim roundness and elasticity by which it takes its place among Crivelli's many realizations of his ideal type as at least one of the most lovable if not the most characteristic and personal. Especially fine, also, is the treatment of the drapery in these two admirable little panels. The mantle surrounding the angel billows out in curling folds as eloquent of swift movement as the draperies of Botticelli's striding nymphs; and the opulent line of the Virgin's cloak is superb in its lightly broken swirl about the figure. The hair, too, of both the Angel and the Virgin, waves in masses at once free and formal, with something of the wild beauty of Botticelli's windblown tresses. The analogy between the two painters, the ardent and poetic Florentine and the no less ardent and at times almost as poetic Venetian (if we accept his own claim to the title), might be further dwelt upon, although it would be easy to overemphasize it. One attribute, certainly, they had in common and it is the one that most completely separates each of them from his fellows--the exultant _verve_, that is, with which the human form is made to communicate energy of movement in their compositions. It is impossible to believe that either of them ever painted a tame picture. If, however, Crivelli could not be tame he could be insipid, escaping tameness by what might be called the violence of his affectation. The _St. George_ in the Metropolitan Museum is an instance of his occasional use of a type so frail and languid in its grace and so sentimental in gesture and expression as to suggest caricature. Another example dated 1491 is the _Madonna and Child Enthroned_ in the National Gallery. On either side of the melancholy Madonna are St. Francis and St. Sebastian. The latter is pierced by arrows and tied to a pillar, but so far from wearing the look of suffering or of calm endurance, he has a trivial glance of deprecation for the observer, and his figure is wholly wanting in the force of young manhood. A striking contrast to this effeminate mood may be found in No. 724, also a _Madonna Enthroned_, between St. Jerome and St. Sebastian, a late signed picture of Crivelli's declining talent, with a predella below the chief panel in which appear St. Catherine, St. Jerome in the Wilderness, the Nativity, the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian again, and St. George and the Dragon. The little compartment containing the scene of the Nativity is quite by itself among Crivelli's works for intimate and homely charm. The simplicity of the surroundings and the natural attitudes of the people have an almost Dutch character, borne out by the meticulous care for detail in the execution united to an effect of chiaro-oscuro very rare in early Italian art and hardly to be expected in a painter of Crivelli's Paduan tendencies. The St. George is more characteristic, with an immense energy in its lines. In arrangement it recalls the St. George of Mrs. Gardiner's collection and despite its small size is almost the equal of that magnificent example in concentration and fire. [Illustration: In the Metropolitan Museum, New York. PIETÀ _From a panel by Carlo Crivelli_] Still another type, and one that combines dignity and much spirituality with naive realism, is the _Beato Ferretti_ (No. 668), showing an open landscape with a village street at the right and a couple of ducks in a small pond at the left, the Beato kneeling in adoration with a vision of the _Virgin and Child_ surrounded by the _Mandorla_ or _Verica_ glory appearing above. The kneeling saint is realistically drawn and his face wears an expression of intense piety. The landscape is marked by the bare twisted stems of trees, that seem to repeat the rigid and conceivably tortured form of the saint. A beautiful building with a domed roof is seen at the right. At the top of the picture across the cloud-strewn sky is a festoon of fruits, Crivelli's characteristic decoration. [Illustration: In the Städel Gallery at Frankfort. A PANEL BY CARLO CRIVELLI (_a_)] [Illustration: In the Städel Gallery at Frankfort. A PANEL BY CARLO CRIVELLI (_b_)] In all these pictures Crivelli reveals himself as an artist filled with emotional inspiration, to whom the thrill of life is more than its trappings, and one, moreover, who observes, balances and differentiates. The society of his saints and angels is stimulating; the element of the unexpected enters into his work in open defiance of his pronounced mannerism. It is possible to detect beneath the close and manifold coverings of his ornate decoration a swift flame of imaginative impulse such as Blake sent into the world without such covering. He would have pleased Blake by this nervous energy and by his pure bright coloring, despite the fact that he signed himself "Venetus." He painted in tempera and finished his work with care and deliberation. It is remarkable that so little of his mental fire died out in the slow process of his execution. It is still more remarkable that in spite of his reactionary tendencies, his archaistic use of gold and relief at a moment when all great artists were renouncing these, he is intensely modern in his sentiment. He seems to represent a phase of human development at which we in America have but recently arrived; a phase in which appreciation of ancient finished forms of beauty is united to a restless eagerness and the impulse toward exaggerated self-expression. He is supposed to have been born about 1440, which would make him a contemporary of the two Bellini, of Hans Memling and of Mantegna. Had he only been able to give his imagination a higher range--had he possessed a more controlling spiritual ideal, had the touch of self-consciousness that rests like a grimace on the otherwise lovely aspect of much of his painting, been eliminated, he would have stood with these on the heights of fifteenth century art. We are fortunate to have in America the Boston Museum _Pietà_, which shows him in one of his most temperate moods, the _Pietà_ of Mr. Johnson's collection, which is the emphatic expression of his least restrained moments, the _St. George_ of Mrs. Gardiner's collection, in which his grasp of knightly character and pictorial grace is at its best, and these two strongly contrasted types of the Metropolitan Museum. REMBRANDT AT THE CASSEL GALLERY VII REMBRANDT AT THE CASSEL GALLERY The art gallery of Cassel is well known to connoisseurs as containing a group of Rembrandts of the first order. The earliest example is a small painting of a boy's head supposed to be a portrait of the artist at the age of twenty or one and twenty; Dr. Bode considers 1628 too late rather than too early as the probable date, and the same authority warns us against considering such studies in the light of serious portraiture: "It had never occurred to the young artist," he says, "to make a dignified portrait of himself at the time when he painted these pictures." The execution is clumsy, the color is dull and heavy and of the brownish tone common to Rembrandt's early painting, and much of the drawing--as in the rings of hair escaping to the surface from the thick curling mass--is meaningless and indefinite, but the distribution of light and shade is not unlike that of Rembrandt's later work and the touch has a certain bold freedom that seems to have been his from the first whenever he served as his own model, even while his handling was still hard and prim in his portraits of others. Another work ascribed to his early period, about 1634, is the "Man with a Helmet," also commonly known as a self-portrait, fluent in execution and vivacious and lifelike in expression, yet not without that hint of conscious pose common with the artist in his endeavors to force the note of character. The blunt, strong features are strikingly like those of the authenticated portraits of the artist, but Dr. Karl Voll, Director of the Alt Pinakothek at Munich, declares that the idea of a "self-portrait," attractive as it is, can hardly in this case be upheld. Whoever the sitter may have been, the painting is an amazing example of dexterity of hand and acute observation. The sharp glitter of the helmet, the contrasting flesh-like quality of the painting in the face, the light vigorous drawing of the moustache and hair, give an impression of the artist's mastery of his craft hardly to be surpassed at any period of his life. Far less poetic in its color-scheme and chiaro-oscuro than the youthful portrait belonging to Mrs. Gardiner's collection, it is even more eloquent of the ease with which he managed his tools. Of a still greater charm, with subtler problems met and solved, is the portrait of Saskia van Ulenburgh, whom he married in Amsterdam in the year 1634, the probable date of the Cassel portrait. At all events the young woman carries in her hand a spray of rosemary, the symbol of betrothal, and her dress has the richness of a Dutch bride's equipment. Here we see Rembrandt's art in perhaps its most delicate and psychologically interesting phase. The character revealed by the small pretty features has neither extraordinary force nor marked individuality. The lines are neither deep-cut nor broad. One is reminded of a fine little etching in which the plate has been bitten only to a moderate depth and which requires a sensitive handling in the printing to produce anything like richness. Yet the result is rich in the fullest sense of the term. It depends for its quality not only upon the splendid color-scheme formed by the dark red of the velvet hat and gown, the white of the feather, the gold and gray and dull blue of the trimmings and ornaments, the beautiful jewels, with which Rembrandt then as later produced an appearance of great magnificence, the bright red-gold of the hair falling lightly over the softly modeled brow, and the fair warm tones of the flesh glowing as from living health and physical energy: it depends as much upon the deep research into the expression that has resulted in the intimate portraiture possible only to genius and seldom found even in the work of the great masters, never, so far as the writer's observation has gone, in the work of their later years. The smile that hesitates at the corner of the whimsical little mouth, the tender modulations of surface on the forehead and about the straight-gazing honest eyes, the swift suggestions of movement and play of mood in the flexible contours, the gaiety and sweetness and singular purity of the girlish face, are evoked with magisterial authority and precision. Never surely has there been a finer example of Dutch care and thoroughness in the observation and rendering of minute detail united to breadth of effect. The painting of the jewels and embroideries is wrought to a singularly perfect finish. It is almost as though the artist had set himself to extract the utmost beauty of which the textures of stuffs and gems are capable, to prove how much more enchanting was the beauty of the brilliant blond demure little face daintily poised above them. Dr. Bode calls the picture "one of the most attractive, not only of his early pictures, but of all his works." [Illustration: Courtesy of Berlin Photographic Company. SASKIA _From a portrait by Rembrandt_] To Rembrandt's early years also are ascribed certain careful studies of old men's heads and several portraits of younger men. Among these are one of the writing-master Coppenol and one of the poet Krul, the former painted in 1632, the latter in 1633. The Krul portrait is the more striking of the two, and the pictorial costume with the broad hat casting its lucent shadow over the fine brow, the silken jacket with its gleaming reflections and the wide white ruffles at neck and sleeve on which the light blazes full, adds to the dignity and richness of the effect. It is easy, however, to agree with Dr. Voll in ranking the splendid portrait of an unknown man, of some five or six years later date, far above the Krul portrait in artistic quality. Although excessively warm in tone it has in addition to excellent construction and a lifelike aspect a nobility of bearing that imposes itself directly and irresistibly upon the spectator. The portrait of Coppenol is not easily analyzed and Dr. Bode notes that the likeness to the authenticated portraits of the famous drawing master is not altogether convincing. Simpler and homelier in appearance than the portrait of Krul, this solid and even heavy figure seated comfortably in an armchair, the well-drawn hands busy with mending a quill pen, the glance reflective, but hardly thoughtful, the mouth under the small fair moustache slightly indeterminate, the head covered with short hair, the smooth fat face three-quarters in light, presents at first glance a commonplace aspect enough. But returning to it from the Krul or even from the more masterly later portrait, the spectator is certain to be deeply impressed by the quiet yet searching execution that takes account of every significant change in plane or outline in the large cheek and full chin. From the very commonplace of the pose and type one gains a special pleasure, since the power of the artist to irradiate an ordinary subject is the more clearly seen. The serene light enveloping the good head and falling gently on the background brings no thought of method or pigment to the mind, and the fleshlike quality of the face and hands is as near imitation of reality as is possible within the bounds of synthetic art. It is easy to agree with Dr. Bode's opinion that the homely simple portraits painted in ordinary costume and under ordinary conditions of light during Rembrandt's first three years in Amsterdam are intellectually more worth while than the earlier more personal works. The theory is that he turned them out in competition with his contemporaries and eclipsed them on their own ground. The portrait of "Rembrandt's Father in Indoor Dress," of the preceding year (1631), is in a quite different manner, and closely resembles the painting in Boston of an old man with downcast eyes, from the same model. The bald head and scanty beard, the wrinkled face and slightly uncertain mouth, are familiar to all students of Rembrandt's art. In 1631 Rembrandt was still in his father's house and one gains some notion of the old miller's amiability from the frequency with which he appeared in etchings and paintings and the variety of the poses which he took on behalf of his ardent son, adjusting his expression to his assumed character with no little dramatic skill. Never in his later years did Rembrandt so delicately render the patience and discipline of age. In this alert, unprepossessing yet kindly face we can read a not too fanciful history of the temperament of the sitter. We see, at all events, the mark of a sympathetic mind. The next picture in the collection to mark a special period and one of brilliant achievement in Rembrandt's career is the so-called "Woodcutter's Family," belonging to the decade between 1640 and 1650. After an old fashion the Holy Family is represented as seen in a painting before which a curtain is partly drawn. The mother sits by the side of a cradle from which she has lifted the child who clings to her neck while she presses him to her in a close embrace. In the farther corner of the room is the figure of the father in his carpenter's apron, and in the center a cat is crouching near some dishes on the floor. The room is filled with a mild sunlight that filters through the air and falls across the figures of the mother and child and across the broad expanse of floor. The simplicity and poetic feeling in lighting and gesture are worthy of Rembrandt's prime, and there is no trace of the extreme drama that marks the religious compositions at Munich. The color is beautiful and the tone mysterious. Nevertheless one misses the precious quality of the earlier craftmanship as it shines in such lovely paintings as the "Saskia" and the "Portrait of a Young Woman." In these the painter shows that he was still young, that he had arrived at a skill of hand that permitted him to use his medium with ease and certainty, but that he had not yet ceased to attempt what lay just beyond his powers. His brush still sought out subtle refinements of modeling with the patience that allied him to the earlier Dutch and Flemish masters. He had, no doubt, the instinctive feeling of ardent youth, the assumption of time ahead for the carrying out of all projects, and his brilliant manipulations of his pigment showed neither haste, nor as yet the complete confidence that leaves untold the detail of the story for the imagination of the audience to supply. He was not ready to sacrifice everything else to that light and atmosphere of which he made his own world in his later years. Characteristic of his most winning use of this light that he created for his own purposes is the portrait of Nicholas Bruyningh, Secretary of one of the divisions of the Courts of Justice at Amsterdam: one of the most salient and brilliant of the Rembrandts in the Cassel Gallery. This portrait belongs to the year 1652 when the artist was about forty-five years old, and it is a superb example of matured genius. The subject offered an opportunity for daring handling and pictorial arrangement upon which Rembrandt seized with a full understanding of its possibilities. The beautiful gay face with its suggestion of irresponsibility glows from a mist of atmosphere that veils all minor detail, leaving in strong relief the mass of curling hair, the smiling dark eyes, the smiling mouth unconcealed by the slight moustache, the firmly modeled nose and pliant chin, with the tasseled collar below catching the point of highest light. It is the poetry of good humor, of physical beauty, of content with life and life's adventures. It also marks what Herr Knackfuss calls Rembrandt's "softer manner" in which all sharp outlines of objects are effaced, and the lights gleam from a general darkness. More than "The Sentinel," which sometimes is given as the starting point for this departure in style, it has the appearance of a dramatic emergence from shadow. From having been a painstaking craftsman Rembrandt at this time had become a dramatist selecting from his material those elements best adapted to sway the emotions. He has lost himself--or found himself--in the expression of character; not merely character as one element in a picture's interest, but character as _the_ element. In this picture of Nicholas Bruyningh we cannot escape from the merry careless temperament. We cannot as in the early portrait of Saskia linger in dalliance over charming accessories and beautifully discriminated textures until we reach by moderate degrees the eloquence of the profoundly studied face. Bruyningh's face is like the "_tirade_" of a French play--it is rendered at white heat and in one inconceivably long breath. Its significance is so intensified as to produce a profound feeling in a sympathetic spectator. [Illustration: Courtesy of Berlin Photographic Company. In the Cassel Museum. NICHOLAS BRUYNINGH _From a portrait by Rembrandt_] If we compare it with the badly named "Laughing Cavalier" of Franz Hals we see clearly enough the difference between drama and realism. Drama as defined by Robert Louis Stevenson consists not of incident but of passion that must progressively increase in order that the actor may be able to "carry the audience from a lower to a higher pitch of interest and emotion." This also defines Rembrandt's painting at all periods. As one approaches the human face in his pictures one becomes aware of an emotional quality that is irresistible, and in a portrait like that of Bruyningh the emotional quality is almost isolated from incident or detail. It is the great moment of the third act when the audience holds its breath. "The Standard Bearer" is not accepted by Dr. Bode as a fine work or even as certainly original, the version of the same subject in Baron G. du Rothschild's collection having made much deeper an impression upon him. The Cassel version is nevertheless a work of great distinction, the grave and beautiful face and shining armor looking out of a luminous atmosphere that has more of the Rembrandtesque quality than many authenticated works of Rembrandt's riper period. The work is engaging, personal, striking, and if not entirely great certainly possessed of many of the qualities of greatness. While the Cassel collection does not contain any of the superb self portraits of Rembrandt's later years, the one example in this kind having authority without great interest, it does include one biblical picture of unusual importance belonging to the year 1656, the "Jacob Blessing his Grandchildren," which is, however, unfinished. The square, direct brush strokes suggest those of Hals, the drapery is thinly painted with a flowing medium, the black shadows on the face of Jacob cut sharply into the half tones, there is little discrimination in the textures and the background comes forward. But the faces of the children are charming in characterization, recalling the simple tenderness of the "Girl Leaning Out of the Window" at Dulwich, one of the most enchanting embodiments of youth ever achieved by Rembrandt, and the woman, Israelitish in type, with large eyes and features rather abruptly defined, is an attractive attempt to realize feminine beauty, a task in which Rembrandt was never dexterous, however. Of the two landscapes, that with the ruined castle is the most impressive, but neither compares favorably with the dainty perfection of the landscape etchings. If we add to these examples the studies of old men's heads and the delightful portrait of the artist's sister holding a pink in her hand, we realize that the group as a whole covers many phases of Rembrandt's constantly changing inspiration. He betrayed in his later works the impatience of those to whom few years are left in which to complete their accomplishment, but he kept the sensitiveness of his youth well into his brief prime, although he transferred it from the field of form to that of light. It betrays itself in the quality of that light which absorbs all that is ugly, coarse, or ultra real in its poetizing glamour. From the tender explicit craftsmanship of the wonderful Saskia to the golden mist enveloping the figure of Nicholas Bruyningh, is a long step, but not longer than many a painter has taken in his progress from youth to maturity. The special comment upon Rembrandt's character as a painter which we are able to gather from the Cassel pictures is that in casting off the trammels of particularity he did not become less receptive to poetic influences. He grew more and more a dreamer, and in losing the clear objective manner of his early portraits he substituted not the idle carelessness which in the work of a painter's later years is apt to be condoned as freedom, but the generalization that excludes vulgarities of execution and makes necessary increased mastery of the difficult craft of painting. FANTIN-LATOUR VIII FANTIN-LATOUR Fantin-Latour was born in 1836, was the son of a painter, and was educated at Paris under his father's guidance and that of Lecoq and Boisbaudeau, professor at a little art school connected with the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. One of the most interesting painters of the little group in France whose work began to come before the public about the middle of the nineteenth century, a close friend of Whistler, a passionate admirer of Delacroix, and an inspired student of the old masters, he managed to preserve intact an individuality that has a singular richness and simplicity seen against the many-colored tapestry of nineteenth-century art. Rubens, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Franz Hals, and Nicolaas Maas, Pieter de Hooch and Vermeer of Delft, Watteau and Chardin, Van Dyck, Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese were his true masters and his copies of their works are said by his enlightened critic, M. Arsène Alexandre, to have a masterly quality of their own, to be far removed from the conventionality of facsimiles, and to bear upon an underlying fidelity of transcription an impress of individual sentiment. He sought to be faithful to the originals beyond external imitation, by seeking to render the original tone of the painting in its first freshness, as it appeared before time and varnish had yellowed and darkened it. He thus made himself familiar with the technical methods of the great periods of painting, and, coming into his inheritance of modern ideas and ideals, he was able to achieve a beauty of execution much too rarely sought by his contemporaries, although his intimate companions like himself frequented the Louvre with a considerable assiduity, spending upon the old masters the enthusiasm which they withheld from the later academic school of painting. His earlier subjects were largely Biblical and historical. He then passed to domestic scenes and in 1859, 1861, and 1863 was painting his pictures of _Les Liseurs_ and _Les Brodeuses_ which showed the charming face of his sister with her sensitive smiling mouth and softly modeled brows, and later that of his wife. At the Salon of 1859 he and Whistler both submitted subjects drawn from family life, Whistler his _At the Piano_ with his own sister and his niece, little Annie Haden, for the models, and Fantin his painting of young women embroidering and reading, only to have their canvases refused. Fantin was not, however, a martyr to his predilections in art. He early obtained admission to the Salon although he had enough rejected work to permit him to appear among the painters exhibiting in the famous little "Salon des Refusés" of 1863. He received medals and official recognitions. But his modesty of taste led him to hold himself somewhat apart and exclusive among those who shared his likings. His portrait of himself, painted in 1858, shows a dreamy young man with serious, almost solemn, eyes, sitting before his easel, and looking into the distance with the expression of one who sees visions. As a matter of fact he did see visions and attempted to fix them with his art. An ardent lover of music, he was eager to translate the emotions aroused by it into the terms of his own art. As early as 1859 he was in England, to which he returned in 1861 and 1864, and while there he was surrounded by a group of people who shared his enthusiasm for German music. There he first became familiar with Schumann's melodies, and made the rare little etching representing his English friends, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, playing one of Schumann's compositions, Edwards with his flute and Mrs. Edwards at the piano. In 1862 he had the very tempered satisfaction of finding that Wagner, already beloved by him, had reached the public taste through the labors of the courageous Pasdeloup. "I always regret," he wrote to Edwards, "seeing the objects of my adoration adored by others, especially by the masses. I am very jealous when I love." In order to celebrate Wagner's triumph over these masses, however, he at once made the lithograph called _Venusberg_, from which sprang the very different oil version of the same subject which together with the _Hommage à Delacroix_, the story of which M. Bénédite has recounted, was admitted to the Salon of 1864. Fantin's lithographs, a number of which are in the print room of the Lenox Library building in New York City, show clearly his preoccupation with music, and an interesting article on this phase of his temperament appeared in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, September 15, 1906. Naturally a worshiper, he did not confine himself to commemorating only the musicians who were his favorites. In lithography and painting he exalted such diverse heroes of the different arts as Stendhal, Hugo, Baudelaire, Delacroix, Manet, Schumann, Weber, Berlioz, and Wagner. In 1877 his enthusiasm for Wagner revived in his work, and compositions based on the Ring music followed each other in rapid succession. Wolfram gazing at the evening star, or following with enchanted eyes Elizabeth's ghostly figure as it moves slowly up the hill toward the towers of Wartburg; the Rhine maidens playing with rhythmic motions in the swirling waters, with Alberic, crouched in the foreground, watching them; Sieglinde, giving Siegmund to drink, as hounded and pursued he sinks at the door of Hunding's dwelling; the evocation of Kundry by Klingner; Siegfried blowing his horn and receding from the enticements of the Rhine maidens--these are among the subjects that engaged him. It would be difficult to describe his manner of interpretation. Quite without theatrical suggestion, it combines a dramatic use of dark and light and a feeling for palpable atmosphere hardly equaled by Rembrandt himself, with a remarkably certain touch. Nothing could better emphasize the value of technical drill to a poetic temperament than these imaginative drawings. In them Fantin gives full rein to his emotional delight in tender visions and twilight dreams. The lovely rhythm of his lines, the rise and fall of his sensitive shadows and lights that play and interplay in as strict obedience to law as the waves of the sea, his delicate modeling by which he brings form out of nebulous half-tones with the slightest touches, the least discernible accents, the accurate bland drawing, the ordered composition, the subtle spacing, the innumerable indications of close observation of life--all these qualities combine to give an impression of fantasy and reality so welded and fused as to be indistinguishable to the casual glance. [Illustration: In the Brooklyn Art Museum. PORTRAIT OF MME. MAÎTRE _From a painting by Fantin-Latour_] In spite of the assiduous study of Dutch and Italian masters, Fantin's work is characteristically French in both its fantasy and its realism. Not only the grace of the forms and the elegance of the gestures, but the sentiment of the composition and the quality of the color, are undisguisedly Gallic. He is closer to Watteau than to any other painter but his firmer technic and more patient temperament give him an advantage over the feverish master of eighteenth-century idyls. His art throbs with a fuller life and in his airiest dreams his world is made of a more solid substance. For melancholy he offers serenity, for daintiness he offers delicacy. His technique, especially in his later work, is quite individual in its character. He models with short swift strokes of the brush--not unlike the brush work in some of Manet's pictures. His pigment is rather dry and often almost crumbly in texture, but his values are so carefully considered that this delicately ruffled surface has the effect of casting a penumbra about the individual forms, of causing them to swim in a thickened but fluent atmosphere, instead of suggesting the rugosity of an ill-managed medium. In his paintings of flowers he found the best possible expression for his subtle color sense. The letters written to him by Whistler in the sixties show how fervently these paintings were admired by the American master of harmony, and also how much good criticism came to him from his comrade whose enthusiasm for Japanese art already was fully awakened. As a portraitist, Fantin was peculiarly fortunate. His exquisitely painted flower studies, his pearly-toned beautifully drawn nudes, his lithographs with their soft darks and tender manipulations of line, his ambitious imaginative compositions, are none of them so eloquent of his personality as his portraits with their absolute integrity, their fine divination, and their fluent technique. The portrait which we reproduce is of Madam Maître, was painted in 1882, and was acquired by the Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1906. It represents a woman of middle years with a sincere and thoughtful face and a quiet bearing. The felicities of Fantin's brush are seen in the way in which the silk sleeve follows the curve of the round firm arm, and the soft lace of the bodice rests against the throat and is relieved almost without contrast of color against the white skin. The touches of pure pale blue in the fan and the delicate tints of the rose are manifestations of the artist's restrained and subtle management of color, but above all there is a perfectly unassuming yet uncompromising rendering of character. There is nothing in the plain refined features that cries out for recognition of a temperament astutely divined. They have the calm repose that indicates entire lack of self-consciousness, no quality is unduly insisted upon, there is neither sentimentality nor brutal realism in the handling, the sitter simply lives as naturally upon the canvas as we feel that she must have lived in the world. It is for such sweet and logical truth-telling, such mild and strict interpretation, that we must pay our debt of appreciation to Fantin, the painter of ideal realities and of actual ideals. CARL LARSSON IX CARL LARSSON The accomplished Swedish critic, Georg Nordensvan, opens his monograph on Carl Larsson with the statement that the latter is unquestionably the most popular artist of the present day in his own country, and that he is equally popular as a man. It is not often that the personality of an artist seems so essentially connected with his work as in Larsson's case. His gay, pugnacious, independent, yet amiable temper of mind is so directly reflected in the character of his various production as to make a consideration of the two together an almost necessary prelude to any account of him. He has insisted upon expressing his individuality at whatever cost of traditional and conventional technique and he has at the same time unconsciously represented the frankest, most wholesome, and, on the whole, most characteristic side of the Swedish character. A rather daring and flippant humor enters into his paintings. One of his portraits of himself shows him standing, his happy reddish face aglow, against a yellowish-brown wall. He is dressed in a long, yellowish-brown smoking frock, and holds in his raised hand a pencil from which appears to spring a little feminine figure supposed to represent his genius. "This figure carries what looks like a quantity of small round cookies," says his critic, "possibly to symbolize the adequacy with which his genius provides for his nourishment." Another shows him with his little girl sitting on his head, maintaining her equilibrium by planting stout feet on his shoulders. The painter wears a house-jacket, loose slippers and baggy trousers, his face beams with good-humor; the child is brimming with laughter; the little scene is instinctive with the spirit of intimate domesticity, and the drawing, free and easy, without apparent effort in the direction of elegant arrangement or expressiveness of line, is nevertheless singularly nervous and vigorous. [Illustration: MY FAMILY _From a painting by Carl Larsson_] In still another portrait, he is sitting before his easel, his little girl on one knee, his canvas on the other with the easel serving only as a prop. His eyes are turned toward a mirror which is outside the picture and the reflection in which he is using as a model; the child's eyes are fixed on the canvas watching the growth of the design. These are "self-portraits" in more than the usual sense. It is the rarest thing in art to find a painter representing his own aspect with such complete lack of self-consciousness. No characteristics seem especially to be emphasized, none betray exaggeration, there apparently is neither distortion nor idealization, nor is there any attempt to select a mood that shall preserve a favorable impression of the sitter. Nothing could, however, more favorably present a character to the critical scrutiny of strangers than this superb good faith. The least sentimental of us must recognize with frank delight the wholesome sweetness of the world these kindly faithful records open to us. Larsson was born at Stockholm in 1853. From the age of thirteen he depended upon his own labors for support; retouching photographs at first. Later he entered the elementary school of the academy where he received honors. He drew from the antique and from the model and began to make drawings for illustration when he was about eighteen. The public knew him first through his drawings for the comic paper called _Kasper_, and he shortly became a much sought after illustrator for papers and books. The first book illustrated by him was a collection of stories by Richard Gustafsson, the editor of _Kasper_, the next was Anderson's "Tales." In the latter he succeeded Isidor Törnblom, who died in 1876 after having executed only a few drawings for the first part. He became bold and rapid in improvisation, and light and easy in execution--qualities that he never lost. He was obliged to make of his academic studies a side issue, bread-winning taking necessarily the first place with him. No doubt it is to this necessity that he owes that prompt adaptation of his facility to various uses, that practical application of his freshly acquired knowledge which give to the simple compositions of his earlier period an especial spontaneity. He had no time to fix himself in ruts of practice. To draw from the Antinous one day and the next to press one's Greek outline into service for the representation of little dancing girls and happy babies is to effect that union between art and life which makes the first moving and the second beautiful; the union in which Daumier found the source of his prodigious strength. In his early years Larsson was anything but a realist. His fancy turned to unusual and vast subjects, and his natural impatience caused him to launch himself upon them with very inadequate preliminary study. The first canvas attempted by him during the study-time in Paris (time which he won at the Academy) was nearly ten feet high and represented a scene from the deluge with figures double life size. Naturally, he found himself unable to cope with the difficulties that promptly arose and was obliged to give it up. In 1877, when he was twenty-four years old, he painted a three-quarter length portrait of a woman standing, which was his best work of that period. The genre pictures which he sent home to Stockholm at about the same time awakened little enthusiasm and spread the impression that he had no future as a painter and would be obliged to content himself with illustration. As an illustrator he became thoroughly successful, turning out a large amount of work and gaining for himself in Stockholm the very inappropriate name of "the Swedish Doré." He made enough money in this branch of art to try painting again in Paris, but with almost no success until the Spring of 1883, when he exhibited at the Salon a couple of small water-colors, the subjects taken from the field and garden life of Grez, a little painting village that lies south of the Fontainebleau forest. These pictures won a medal and were bought in Gothenburg. Other similar subjects followed, all distinguished, Nordensvan affirms, by the same pleasing delicacy of handling, the same glow and splendor of sunlight, and the same glad color-harmony. He now was in a position to marry, and pictures of family life presently appeared in great numbers. These are altogether charming--spirited, vivid, original, and full of an indescribable freshness and heartiness. Sometimes he painted his young wife holding her baby, sometimes he painted his two boys parading as mimic soldiers; sometimes it was his little girl hiding under the great, handsome dining-table; or a young people's party in the characteristic dining-room, all the furniture and decorations of which are reproduced with crisp naturalism. Not the least charm of his paintings lies in the beauty of these handsome interiors in which detail has the precise definition found in the work of the old Dutch artists. While Larsson's technique lacks the exquisite finish of a Terborch or Vermeer of Delft he tells almost as many truths about a house and its occupants as they do. If we consider, for example, the charming composition which he calls "The Sluggard's Melancholy Breakfast" ("Sjusofverskans dystra frukost") we find worthy of note not only the pensive and rather cross little girl sitting alone at the table with her loaf of bread and cup of milk, but also the long tablecloth with its handsome conventional design, obviously a bit of artistic handicraft since it is signed and dated above the fringe at one end, the decoration on the wall, possibly the lower part of a painted window, with its significant motto "Arte et Probitate"; the graceful pattern of the chairs, the big pitcher full of flowers and fruits, the plain ample dishes, the polished floor of the passage-way at the end of which a door opens on the green fields with a child's figure half-seen standing on the threshold, the fine rich color harmony of greens and reds and blues and browns held together by a subtlety of tone that involves no loss of strength. His outdoor scenes are hardly less personal in their portraiture. There is the one called "Apple-Bloom" with a Larsson child in a pink sunbonnet clinging to the slim stem of a young apple-tree; in the distance some long low red buildings behind a board fence, in the foreground the pale green of spring grass; there is the one in which the larger part of the picture is filled with delicate field growth, thin sprays of pink, blue and white blossoms, and long slender leaves, at the top of the canvas a little thicket of trees with a small bright head peering between the branches; there is the one in which a baby lies on the greensward under the trees; each has an indescribable charm of individuality. Doubtless resembling a hundred other groves or meadows, these have an expression of their own distinguishing them from their kind. It is the genius of the close observer for discrimination between like things. Whatever the subject, the treatment is always brilliant, frank and joyous. Larsson's brushwork is light and flowing; he has, indeed, a certain French vivacity of technique, but his motives and his personal point of view are so purely Scandinavian as to leave no other impression on the mind. Nor is he merely the painter of the Swedish type. He is the painter of intimate home life and character as found within his own walls. Hardly any other family in Sweden is known so well as his, and the variety and enthusiasm of his mind lend spontaneity to these domestic pictures, so that one does not easily tire of the strong smiling creatures naturally and effectively presented to our vision. In the field of mural decoration also he has shown marked originality. Under the encouragement of Mr. Pontus Furstenberg, one of the foremost patrons of art in Sweden, he tested himself on a series of paintings for a girl's school in Gothenburg. He accomplished his task in a manner entirely his own, taking for his subjects typical figures of women in Sweden at different periods of history--a Viking's widow; the holy Brigitta; a noble house mother of the time of the Vasas, etc.--but although his manner of painting was free and blithe it hardly satisfied the most severe critics on account of its lack of architectonic qualities and the absence in it of anything like monumental simplicity. He has continued, however, to go his own way in mural decoration and holds to the principle that the walls should look flat and that the harmony of color and line should be balanced and proportioned with regard to decorative and not to realistic effect. His subjects are apt to be fanciful and are executed in a semi-playful spirit not in the least familiar to an uninventive age, as where the spirit of the Renaissance is represented by a young woman seated high on a step-ladder, looking toward the sky, with Popes and Cardinals seated on the rungs below gazing in adoration, while underneath them all yawns the grave filled with skeletons, from which the Renaissance has risen. [Illustration: A PAINTING BY CARL LARSSON] On the subject of home arts and handicrafts Larsson has emphatic ideas and urges on his compatriots the desirability of preserving their national types. "Take care of your true self while time is," he says, "again become a plain and worthy people. Be clumsy rather than elegant: dress yourselves in furs, skins, and woolens, make yourselves things that are in harmony with your heavy bodies, and make everything in bright strong colors; yes, in the so-called gaudy peasant colors which are needed contrasts to your deep green pine forests and cold white snow." He has made designs for haute-lisse weaving which were executed by the Handicraft Guild and which were practically open air painting translated into the Gobelin weave. In all that he does he is free from the trammels of convention; but his chief triumphs are in a field that is sadly neglected in modern art. As a painter of family life he is surpassed by none of his contemporaries. JAN STEEN X JAN STEEN Jan Steen was born in Leyden about 1626, which would make him nineteen years younger than Rembrandt. He is said to have studied first under Nicolas Knüpfer and then possibly under Adriaen van Ostade in Harlem, and finally under Jan van Goyen at the Hague. In 1648 he was enrolled in the Painter's Guild at Leyden, and the following year he married Margaretha van Goyen, the daughter of his latest master. His father was a well-to-do merchant and beer-brewer and Steen himself at one time ran a brewery, though apparently not with great success. He incontestably was familiar with the life of drinking places and houses in which rough merrymaking was the chief business. Many of his subjects are drawn from such sources and his brush brings them before us with their characteristic features sharply observed and emphasized. He has been accused of a moralizing tendency and it may at least be said that he permits us to draw our own moral from perverted and unpolished facts. In his least restrained moments he is a kind of Dutch Jordaens, less exuberant, less sturdy and florid and gesticulatory; but with the same zest for living, the same union of old and young in any festival that includes good meat and good drink with song and dance and horse-play. If we compare "_Die Lustige Familie_" at Amsterdam with that ebullient rendering of the same subject by Jordaens entitled "_Zoo de ouden zongen: Zoo pypen de jongen_" that hangs in the Antwerp Museum, we have no difficulty in perceiving the points of similarity. There even are likenesses in the color-schemes of the two painters, Jordaen's silvery yellows for once meeting their match; but we find in Steen's picture a more subtle discrimination in the characters and temperaments lying beneath the physical features of the gay company. Oftentimes Steen indulges in a gay and harmless badinage as different as possible from the bold and keen irony of his wilder themes. In "_Die Katzentanz Stunde_" of the Rijks museum at Amsterdam the laughing children putting the wretched little cat through a course of unwelcome instruction, the excited pose of the dog, the concentration of the girl upon her dance-music, are rendered with joyous freedom and animation, and suggest a childlike mood. The lovely _Menagerie_ of the Hague is conceived in a still milder and gentler temper, the demure child among her pets, feeding her lamb, with her doves flying about her head and the faithful little Steen dog in the background, is an idyllic figure. Indeed the entire composition has a tenderness and almost a religious depth of sentiment that make it unique among the painter's achievements. Another charming composition in which homely pleasures enjoyed with moderation and in a mood of simple merriment are delicately depicted is "_Der Wirtshausgarten_" in Berlin, in which the young people and their elders together with the happy dog are having a quiet meal under a green arbor. Family pets play an important part in all these scenes of domestic life; apparently Jan Steen even more than other Dutch painters was interested in the idiosyncrasies of the animals about him and was amused by incidents including them. His pictures gain by this a certain suggestion of kindliness and community of good feeling that is refreshing in the midst of the frequent vulgarity of theme and sentiment. Reminiscences of the exquisite feeling shown in "_Die Menagerie_" continually occur in such incidents as a girl feeding her parrot, the play of children with the friendly dogs and cats of the noisy inn, and especially in the importance given to the expressions and attitudes of the dumb creatures. The dog is nearly always in the foreground, invariably characterized with the utmost vivacity and clearness, and usually playing his cheerful part in whatever of lively occupation his masters are engaged in. In "_Die Lustige Familie_" he joins his voice to the family concert with an expression of canine agony. Frequently the subjects are obviously drawn from the life of his own family circle and the portraits of his children in these canvases are always sympathetic and delightful, giving a peculiarly intimate character to the artist's works in this kind. In "_Das Nikolausfest_" at Amsterdam the little girl in the foreground--apparently the little Elisabeth born in 1662, who figures in so many of the later paintings--is a particularly engaging figure. These simpler "feasts" and family gatherings in which gay laughter reigns in place of brawling, constitute a delightful phase of Steen's art, yet curiously they are seldom as beautiful in their esthetic qualities as the tavern scenes and incidents of low and vicious life. The picture in the Louvre, however, "_Das Familien Mahl_," contradicts this generalization in the sheer loveliness of color, in the light that streams through the window hung with vines, and in the delicately discriminated textures of the gowns and furnishings. In this picture the figure of the woman nursing her child in the background has an amplitude of line and graciousness of pose that places it on a plane with Millet's renderings of similar subjects, while the painting in itself is of a quality never achieved by the poetic Frenchman. Occasionally we find compositions by Steen in which only two or three figures are introduced, although as a rule he crowds every inch of his canvas with human beings and still-life. A very beautiful example of these compositions is seen in "_Die Musikstunde_" of the National Gallery, London. The daintiness and innocence of the young girl's profile, the refinement of the man's face, and the enchanting tones of the yellow bodice and blue skirt make of this picture a worthy sequel to "_Die Menagerie_." Another composition of two figures is "_Das Trinkerpaar_" in the Rijks Museum at Amsterdam. A woman is drinking from a glass, and a man standing at one side holds a jug and looks at her with an expression of concern. The painting of the woman's right hand which she holds to her breast is delightful and so is the clear half-tone of her face. An attractive one-figure composition, also in the Rijks Museum, is "_Die Scheuermagd_," a scullery maid scouring a metal pitcher on the top of a cask. The discriminations of texture in this picture, the wood and metal surfaces, the cotton of the woman's blouse, the rather coarse skin of her bared arms and the more delicate texture of her full throat, are especially noteworthy. Several compositions in which two or three figures are grouped are variations of one theme, an invalid visited by her physician. In several instances the title, the rather lackadaisical expression of the lady, and the significant glances of her companions, indicate that love-sickness is the malady. The color in these pictures is usually beautiful and the types are cleverly differentiated, the entire story becoming apparent to the spectator by particularities of gesture and feature, neither exaggerated nor emphasized unduly, but acutely observed and rendered at their precise value in the expressiveness of the whole. A very fine example of these "_Doktorbilder_" is in the collection of the New York Historical Society. The doctor is bleeding his patient, and there are several people in the room. The rich costumes are distinguished by the indescribable blond yellows and silvery blues that make Steen's color harmonies at their best singularly delicate and blithe. Among the compositions in which many figures in a complicated environment tax the artist's technical skill to the utmost, are several representations of the bean feast, that saturnalia of Germany, upon which abundant eating and drinking are in order. One of the most beautiful of these pictures is in the Cassel Gallery. Steen himself, portly and flushed, sits at the table, grimacing good-naturedly at the racket assailing his ears. His handsome wife is in the foreground, her large free gesture and unrestrained pose bringing out the opulent beauty of her form draped in shining silken stuffs. Her face, turned toward the little urchin who has found the bean in the cake and thus won the right to wear a paper crown as king of the revels, is dimpled with smiles. The two children are babyish in figure and expression and the little dog is more serious than is his wont upon these occasions. A couple of men are making a din with bits of brass and iron, and the place is in complete disorder with eggshells and kitchen utensils scattered about on the floor, yet the aspect of the scene is curiously removed from vulgarity. Both beauty and character have been ideals of the artist. He has not only grasped the loveliness of external things but he has delved rather deeply into the individualities of these roistering Hollanders. You do not feel as you do with Jordaens that excess of flesh and the joys of the palate are all the world holds for the revelers. The world holds, for one thing, appreciation of rich accessories. The columned bedstead, the handsome rugs, the carved furniture, the glint of gold in the ornate picture frame, especially the sheen of the silk skirts, the soft thick velvet and fur of the sacques and bodices, these, while they are not uncommon in the Dutch interiors of the period combine to produce an impression of esthetic well-being that tempers the unctuous physical satisfactions of a merry-making class. With Jordaens it is the satyr in man that sets the standard of enjoyment, except in his religious pictures which often are filled with genuine and noble emotion, and in which he rises superior to Steen where the latter works in the same kind. Nothing could be more commonplace or characterless in color and form than Steen's rendering of the dinner at Emmaus. Occasionally, however, he is equally without inspiration in his lustiest subjects. In the "_Fröhliche Heimkehr_" at Amsterdam, a merry enough scene of people returning from a boatride in high spirits, there is neither charm of color (save in the yellow jacket of a girl who leans over the side of the boat) nor subtlety of characterization. Fully to appreciate Steen, we should know his pictures in the Louvre and at Amsterdam. They cover a wide range and comprise a considerable number of masterpieces. The life he depicts in them is not of a very high order, but he has seen the possibilities for pictorial representation in his surroundings as almost no other painter of his time. His people are alive and their living is active and fervent. What they do they do with zest. There is energy in the painter's line and vitality in his color. Nothing is dull or tame in his family drama. All has a touch of moving beauty. In the "_Schlechte Gesellschaft_" of the Louvre or the more vulgar "_Nach dem Gelage_" of the Rijks Museum--least rewarding of pictures for the moralist--how rich in beauties of color and line is the composition, how tender in modeling are the forms, how bewitching to the eye the fine enamel of the surface! In the Metropolitan Museum, in New York, is one characteristic example: "The old rat comes to the trap at last," which badly needs cleaning, and one new purchase attributed to Steen in the lists of his work but hardly typical or even characteristic. The subject is a kitchen scene. In it we have neither Steen's charm of color nor his perfection of finish. Yet the turn of the woman's head, the unaffected merriment of her expression and that of the youth, and the type to which her face belongs sufficiently recall such examples of the artist's work as "_Das Galante Anerbieten_" at Brussels with which indeed it has more in common than with any other of Jan Steen's pictures known to me. Steen's own portrait, painted by himself and hanging now in the Amsterdam Museum, shows a face upon which neither wild living nor ardent toil has left unhappy marks. His serious eyes look frankly out from under arched brows. His mouth is firm though smiling slightly. The high, bold nose and strong chin, the well-shaped head and thoughtful brow indicate a character more decided and more praiseworthy than the legends adrift concerning his life would lead us to expect in him. ONE SIDE OF MODERN GERMAN PAINTING XI ONE SIDE OF MODERN GERMAN PAINTING The best substitutes for the judgments of posterity are the judgments of foreigners. A group of pictures by the artists of one country, taken to another country for exhibition and criticism, is subjected to something the same test as the pictures of one generation coming under the scrutiny of another generation. When a collection of pictures by modern German artists was exhibited in America in 1909, the American people were prompt in their recognition of a certain quality which they termed national. The critics--many of them--saw this quality from the adverse side and were far from complimentary to the Germans in their comparisons between American art and German art, but a general impression was given of a vitality sufficiently marked to make itself felt by the least initiated observer. A number of the pictures by the older men had little enough of this vitality, but where it existed it was so decided as to leaven the mass. And there was almost none of the sentimentality characterizing the Teutonic ideal as it had manifested itself in the pictures formerly brought to this country. Compared, then, with the paintings of American artists and with those of the Frenchmen, whose work we have known so much better than that of any other country, compared also with the work of the modern Spaniards, whose paintings were on exhibition the same winter at the Hispanic Museum, we find the special character of the German painting to exist in a resolute individualism, a determination to express the inner life of the artist, his temperament and predilections and his mood at whatever cost of technical facility. Expressiveness, getting the idea into circulation, getting something said, this appears to be the common goal of the German painter of the present day. In such case, of course, the idea is of particular importance. If it is to take precedence over purely esthetic qualities it is reasonable to expect it to be an idea of no little importance. Let us examine some of the painters represented in the exhibition arranged for America, and see whether in most cases the idea is emotional as with the artists of China and Japan, and therefore peculiarly appropriate to translation by rhythms of line and harmonies of color, or intellectual, and therefore demanding a complex and difficult expression and the solution of technical problems that do not come into the question at all when nothing else is required than to evoke an especial mood or temper of soul. The oldest of the painters represented was Adolf von Menzel, who was born in 1815 and died in his ninetieth year. As he began work at an early age his accomplishment practically covers the period of the nineteenth century. He has been designated by one of his German critics as three Menzels in one: the first, the historian of the Freiderician period; the second, the historian of his own time, recording the court life in which he played his part; the third, the acute observer of the life of the streets and workrooms and a commentator on the amusing details of the passing show. A number of his sketches were shown at the exhibition, a couple of landscapes, a ballroom scene and a theater subject, beside a little mediaeval subject in gouache. These displayed his dexterity of hand which was truly astounding, and also his memory, as the "Théâtre Gymnase" was painted fully a year after he left Paris. The ballroom supper was painted in an ironic mood and the gluttony of his fellow humans, their unattractive personalities, their curious aspect of the educated animal, appear with an intense and pitiless fidelity to the fact which is of the essence of intellectual realism, but which could equally have been achieved through the medium of words. In spite of a cultivated color sense and a fine control over his instrument he was from first to last essentially an illustrator. It was difficult for him to omit any detail that would add to the piquancy or fulness of his story, however much the omission might have done for his general effect. He said himself, "There should be no unessentials for the artist," and he advised his pupils to finish as much as possible and not to sketch at all. This passion for completeness rarely accompanies a strong feeling for the romantic aspects of nature or for atmospheric subtleties. Neither does the painter who observes human nature closely and represents it with a detailed commentary upon its characteristics usually convey the impression of any subjective emotion. Menzel is no exception to this rule. In his work he appears as emotionless as a machine, but his accomplishment is not mechanical. It is, on the contrary, the record of a busy, highly individualized, accurate mind. A Berlin man, he had the alertness, the clear-cut effectiveness, the energy, and the coldness typical of a cosmopolitan product. If we compare his "Ball Supper" in which the glare of lights, the elaboration of costume, the rapacity and shallow glittering superficiality of a Court festivity are presented almost as though in hackneyed phrases, so devoid is the picture of any meaning beyond the obvious, with the "Steel Foundry" in which the unsentimental acceptance of labor as a necessary factor in civilization is conspicuous, it is clear that his mind was free from dreams and visions whichever side of society he looked upon. In this respect his influence is salutary. It is like a cool and wholesome breeze blowing away all miasmic vapors, and there is a positively exhilarating quality in his firm assumption of the power of the human being over his material. His workmen are men of strong muscle and prompt brain. In the "Steel Foundry" we see their efficient handling of the great bars of metal with admiration as we should in life, and we note what in modern times is not always present for notation, the intelligence and interest in their faces. In one corner of the room, behind a screen or partition, a little group is devouring luncheon. Here we strike once more the note of the ballroom supper in the munching eagerness of the eaters, but seen in juxtaposition with the physical force and effort of the workers it ceases to be revolting, and seems to symbolize the lusty joy of living with a sympathetic zest of realization. In all of Menzel's work we have this sense of physical and mental competency. It shows nothing of the abnormal or decadent, and it must also be admitted that only in a few instances does it show anything of esthetic beauty. He was able to paint crowds of people and he managed to get a remarkable unity of effect in spite of his devotion to detail, but his masses of light and shade are not held in that noble harmonious relation achieved by the peasant Millet who was Menzel's contemporary, his lines have no rhythmic flow, his color, though often charming, is seldom held together in a unified tone. Some one has called him "the conscience of German painting," but he is more than that. He is both conscience and brain. It is always possible to obtain an intellectual satisfaction from his point of view. What is lacking is emotion. We feel this lack in other Berlin masters. Professor Max Liebermann is one of the most distinguished of the modern group, and his large, cool, definite art is innocent of the moving quality. He was represented in the exhibition by a portrait of Dr. Bode, a vigorous little composition called "The Polo-players," the "Flax Barn at Laren," and "The Lace Maker." The last two were especially typical of his steady detachment from his subject. The old lace maker, bending over her bobbins, suggests only absorption in her task. There is no ennobling of her form, no idealizing of her features, no enveloping of her occupation with sentiment, nothing but the direct statement of her personality which is neither subtle nor complex and the description of what she is doing. But she is intensely real, more real, even, than Menzel's closely observed individuals. Liebermann, born in 1847, was the leader of the new tendency characterizing the Germany of the seventies, the tendency toward constant reference to nature as opposed to the old-fashioned conventionalism and Academic methods. There could have been no safer leader for a band of rebels since he was the sanest of thinkers and worked out a style in which the classic qualities of nobility in the disposition of lines and spaces and remarkable purity of form played a prominent part. [Illustration: Courtesy of Berlin Photographic Company. PEASANT WOMEN OF DACHAUER _From a painting by Leibl_] Observing his "_Flax Barn_," in comparison with the work of his compatriots, its fine freedom from triviality of detail was apparent, and the beauty of its cool light, spread over large spaces and diffused throughout the interior of the low shed, made itself felt. One noted also, as elements of the picture's peculiarly dignified appeal, the severe arrangement of the figures with the long row of workers under the windows, the long threads of flax passing over their heads to the women in the foreground, and the almost straight line formed in turn by these women. The composition, quite geometrical in its precision, gave a sense of deep repose in spite of the vitality of the individual figures and the impression they made of being able to turn and move at will, an impression nearly always missed by Leibl, Liebermann's great forerunner in the painting of humble life. We get much the same austere effect from the almshouse pictures of old men and women on benches in the open square, always arranged in a geometrical design, and always calm in gesture and mild in type, which appear from time to time in the foreign exhibitions of Liebermann's work. Liebermann has done for the Germans something of what Millet did for the French. He has built his art upon the daily life of the poor, but while, like Millet, he has introduced a monumental element into his work, it is clearer, more closely reasoned, more firmly knit than Millet's art, and at the same time less emotional. Liebermann's hospitality to purely technical ideas, his interest in problems of light and air, his diligent analysis of motion, his ability to translate a scene from the life of the laboring class without sentimentality, without prettiness or eloquence or any of the attributes that catch the multitude, give to his art a touch of coldness that is not without its charm for those who care for a highly developed orderly product of the mind. Most of the Berlin men who are in any degree notable share somewhat in this attribute. Arthur Kampf, although he has less than Liebermann of cool detachment, has both elegance and gravity. He could hardly have had a better representation by any one or two canvases than by the "Charity" and the "Two Sisters" of the American exhibition. In the first he depicts a street scene with its contrasts of poverty and wealth. A man and woman in evening dress, returning from their evening's pleasure, are besought by poor people clustering around a soup stall and drop coin into the insistent hands. The smoking caldron of soup in the center and the circle of sharply differentiated faces form an admirable composition, the apparently accidental lines of which play into a dignified linear scheme. The "Two Sisters" reveals the influence of Velasquez in its flat modeling and subtle characterization, and in its atmospheric grays enlivened with geranium reds. Both of these pictures indicate a modern temper of mind in the fluency of their technique and the realism of their treatment together with the attention paid to the tonal quality and to the character of the space composition. Kampf, however, although a young man--he was born in 1864--has passed through many phases of development which are recorded in his many-sided art. His subjects range from the historical themes of his wall decorations at Magdeburg and Aachen through portraiture in which he grasps characters essentially diverse and suggests with unerring instinct the dominant quality, scenes of labor as in his "Bridge-Building," scenes of brutality and excitement as in his "Bull-fight," scenes from the drama of the Biblical story, scenes of domestic life as in his delicately humorous picture of the absorbed reader eating his breakfast with the morning paper propped up in front of him, and scenes of peaceful holiday-making among the poor as in his idyllic "Sunday Afternoon" which shows a peasant boy playing his harmonicum under the trees, with his old father and mother sitting by in placid enjoyment. Various as these pictures are and closely as the manner has in each case been adapted to the special subject, we nowhere miss the note of individuality, although in such a portrait as that of the Kaiser, which was shown in America, it unquestionably is subdued. Neither do we miss the note of locality. Born at Aachen, Kampf is a true Rheinlander and one of his German critics notes that we must look to this fact for the explanation of his special qualities, declaring that without the Rheinlander's cheerfulness and energetic temperament, and without the background of the ancient Rhenish culture, he would be inconceivable. On the other hand his turning to drama and romance for his inspiration speaks of his Duesseldorfian training and his realism of representation allies him to Menzel. At forty-two he was made president of the Royal Academy of Art in Berlin, and it is probable that the wholesome Rhenish energy of which his critic speaks will save him from sinking into the formalism of the academic tradition. In his art, however, as in that of his compatriots, it is apparent that the world of ideas is the world in which he lives, and he works to express his mind rather than his soul, his thoughts rather than his emotions, if we follow the indefinite and arbitrary division between thought and feeling that does service as a symbol of a meaning difficult to express clearly. There were other interesting painters represented in the Berlin group at the American Exhibition, Otto Engel, Fritz Berger, Hans Hartig--and of all it is more or less true that the idea in their work is more important than the feeling. It is true also that the tradition of the peasant Leibl, a great painter, but invariably cold, rests upon most of them. His wonderful manipulation of pigment is equaled by none of them, but his accurate, detached observation, his balanced rendering, the firmness of his method, have entered more or less into their scheme of art. And it is to be noted that his ideas and theirs are ideas appropriate to the painter's medium. Menzel's literary bent is not shared by them, his predilection for a story to illustrate almost never appears among the younger Berlin painters, and he cannot in any real sense be considered their prototype. When we turn to the older members of the modern Munich school we find the influence of Boecklin dominant. Arnold Boecklin, a Swiss by birth, and possessed of the Swiss ingenuity of mind, has been the subject of endless discussion among the Germans of the present day. He exhausted his very great talent in painting a symbolic world, and by his appreciation of the value of coherence he made his paintings impressive. They are each a perfectly coherent arrangement of parts, making a whole which has the appearance of simplicity, however numerous the elements composing it may be. By a combined generalization and intensity he turned the actual world which he studied closely enough, into his own unreality. Thus, in his Italian landscapes, he reveals the architectonic structure of his scene stripped of all incidental ornament, the upright and horizontal lines left severe and uncompromised, and the blue of the heavens and the sea, and the dark green of the cypresses, pushed to an almost incredible depth. Everything is more significant than in nature, yet nature has provided the elements of significance. It is in his ability to see things whole and to co-ordinate the selected details that Boecklin is most an artist. This largeness of generalization gives him power over the imagination, and is, perhaps the only, certainly the chief source of his power. His color by its very intensity overdoes the intended effect. The imagination instead of being stimulated is sated, and his obvious symbolism fails to pique the curiosity. Moreover, his handling of paint lacks sensitiveness. He has something of the disregard shown by the English painter Watts for the beauty inherent in his material which might as well be clay or textile as pigment in his hands. But his appreciation of the effect upon the mind of noble arrangements of space and mass raises him to a much higher place as an artist than he can be said to occupy as a painter. [Illustration: FIDDLING DEATH _From a portrait by Arnold Boecklin_] Franz von Stuck is Boecklin's most distinguished follower. When we turn from the examples of Boecklin's work, by no means the most impressive examples, exhibited in America, to Stuck's "Inferno" we perceive both the influence of Boecklin and the powerful individuality that mingles with it. There is Boecklin's insistence upon the symbol, and upon the bodying forth of things unseen, there is the solid violence of color, there is the pompous statement of the half-discerned truths which more sensitive artists are content to whisper. But there is also a splendid arabesque of line and a deeper reading of the spiritual content of the subject. If we compare Stuck with William Blake whose fancy also was haunted by Dantesque conceptions, we see how much more impressive Blake's visions of the unreal world are and we find the reason in their swift energy of conception and in the artist's tenacity in holding his conception. With both Boecklin and Stuck we feel that the manner of rendering the conception becomes more important than the initial conception, and this seldom, if ever, is true of Blake. In spite of Boecklin's superb restraint in the disposition of his masses, when it comes to color he is at the mercy of the material pigment and permits it to obliterate where it should enhance and reveal. His forms, also, and even more than Stuck's, lose vitality under the weight of significance forced upon them, while Blake's emerge from the blank panel clean and strong and unencumbered. We feel that Blake, with all his struggle to utter truth by means of symbol, never allows his mind to lose the idea that "Living form is eternal existence," but in Boecklin's pictures "living form" is often buried beneath his colored clays. Thus we see that it cannot truly be said of him and his followers that the idea is of first importance to them. It is their material that is of first importance, otherwise they would learn so to subordinate their material as to support and disclose their idea. This is the more obvious that their idea is emotional and therefore perfectly suited to expression through the medium of art. Liebermann's ideas although they are intellectual are not of a kind that cannot appropriately be translated into pictures, and his respect for them leads him to fit his manner of expression closely to their requirements. Like Leibl he is a painter and a thinker in one, and the faculties of the two work in complete coordination. Painters of Boecklin's type, on the other hand, wish to produce in the observer a strong emotion, but they become slaves to their medium because their own emotion is not sufficiently powerful to conquer their minds, which become diverted by the colors and forms they produce. One of Blake's swift upward soaring lines has more power to carry the imagination heavenward than all the versions of Boecklin's "Island of Death." Against Boecklin's followers, whose minds are more or less befogged by their lack of appreciation of paint as a means to an end, we must place Wilhelm Truebner who is a clear thinker and a great painter, with more warmth than Liebermann and with a reticent color sense, a feeling for expressive form, a love of reality, and no apparent desire to re-invent the grotesque. His elegance of line in itself sets him apart from most of his compatriots, and his knowledge of how to extract from his color scheme its essential beauty is greater than that of most modern painters, whatever their nationality. His blacks have the depth and luster without unctiousness characteristic of black as the great colorists use it, and in his touches of pale refined color enlivening a black and white composition, we have the delightful effect so often given by Manet, as of a bunch of bright flowers thrown into a shadowy corner. If young Germany were content to follow in Truebner's footsteps we should soon have a revival of the ancient craftsmanship and conscience that animated Holbein and Dürer. Young Germany, however, has other plans. To learn of them the reader is referred to Meier-Graefe's comprehensive and stimulating volume on modern art. The only representation of the painters of the immediate present given in the American exhibition was confined to the Scholle School, which, however, indicates clearly the creative impulse that is stirring in the younger painters. "A warlike state," Blake wrote, "never can produce Art. It will Rob and Plunder and accumulate into one place and Translate and Copy and Buy and Sell and Criticize, but not Make." This has been true of the Germans, but the present generation is bent upon making and it is natural that the strongest impulse toward originality should come to the Munich painters rather than to the cosmopolitan Berlin men. The Scholle is a Munich association consisting of a group of young men who, taking the humble and fecund earth as their symbol, as the title of the society implies, seek to get into their painting the vigor and intensity of life and force which devotion to the healthy joys provided by our mother Earth is supposed to engender. They are like the giant Antaeus whose strength was invincible so long as he remained in contact with the earth, but who easily was strangled when lifted into the upper air. Their strength also melts into helplessness when confronted by problems of atmosphere and the delicate veils of tone which enwrap the material world for the American painter. But the energy of these young Germans in their own field is something at which to wonder. They remind one of their critics of a band of lusty peasant boys journeying in rank from their University to the nearest beer garden, singing loud songs by the way. Leo Putz, Adolf Muenzer, Fritz Erler, are the leaders of the group, although Alex Salzmann and Ferdinand Spiegel were Erler's collaborators in the famous Wiesbaden frescoes which offended the taste of the Kaiser. These young men are entirely capable of offending a less conventional taste than the Kaiser's, but they all are doing something which has not been done in Germany for many a long year; they are busying themselves with the visible world and painting frankly what they see. It does not matter in the least that in their decorative work they give rein to their fancy and produce such symbolism as we find in Erler's "Pestilence," or that in the illustrations for Jugend they tell a story with keen appreciation of its literary significance. Their eyes are open upon the aspect of material things and they paint flesh that is palpitating with life, forms that live and move, and color that vibrates. Here again as with Liebermann and Truebner the idea and the execution are in harmony, but with the Scholle painters the idea is apt to be a very simple one, depending upon straightforward representation for its impressiveness. Above all it reflects the national temper of mind, for all these individualists are German to the core and not to be mistaken for any other race. One characteristic of this national temper is directness. Not necessarily simplicity, of course, since the German painter as well as the German writer has frequently complex thoughts to express and uses corresponding elaborations of expression. But he does not often say one thing while seeming to say another; he does not often give double and contradictory meanings to the same subject. He does not present for your contemplation the disheartening spectacle of sophistication masquerading as innocence, or duplicity masquerading as frankness. To that extent he is an optimist, however deep his native pessimism may go in other directions. There is, for example, a picture by the French artist Jacques Blanche, entitled "Louise of Montmartre," and known to many Americans, in which the girl to whom Paris irresistibly calls is shown in her boyish blouse and collar, her youthful hat and plainly dressed hair, in a nonchalant attitude, pretty and plebeian, with honest eyes, yet revealing in every line of her frank and fresh young face the potentiality of response to all the appeals made by the ruthless spirit of the city. It is impossible to discern at what points the artist has betrayed that artless physiognomy in order to reveal the secrets of temperament, but the thing is done. It is not what the German is interested in doing. His imagination works subjectively, giving form to his own conceptions, rather than objectively or as an interpreter of others. Hence the downright, and, in a sense, confiding aspect of so much of this brave art. Hence, also, its affinity with the American spirit, for the American still bends a rather unsuspecting gaze upon life and accepts character and temperament as they choose to present themselves. The German, however, is articulate and ratiocinating where we are more purely instinctive. We are not inclined to reason about our moods and we seldom are able to express them in our literature. In our art, on the other hand, especially in our landscape art, we manage to translate our subtlest emotion. We are able to suggest what is too delicate for analysis, and in this we stand almost alone in the painting of the present day. TWO SPANISH PAINTERS XII TWO SPANISH PAINTERS Modern art, particularly American art, owes much to Velasquez and something to Goya, and modern painters have been prompt to acknowledge their indebtedness. But there has been a prevailing impression that with Goya's rich and unique achievement Spanish art stopped in its own country so completely as to be incapable of revival. The impression was disturbed in this country by the appearance in the galleries of the Hispanic Museum in New York, and also in Buffalo and in Boston, of the work of two modern Spaniards, one a painter who demonstrated by his methods and choice of subjects that the old Spanish traditions and ideals had not been forgotten, the other a singularly isolated individual who illumined for us a side of Spanish life which art previously had ignored. Both spoke a racy idiom and conveyed a sense of quickened vitality by freedom of gesture, unhackneyed arrangement, intensity of color, reality of type, yet in their influence upon the public they were as far as might be asunder. Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida was born at Valencia, Spain, in 1863, and began seriously to study art at the age of fifteen. He studied at the Academy of his birthplace for several years and won there a scholarship entitling him to a period of study in Italy. He visited Paris also, where he was profoundly impressed, it is said, by two exhibitions in the French capital, one of the work of Bastien LePage, the other of the work of the German Menzel. The modern note is clearly felt in all his later painting, but certainly not the influence of either Bastien LePage or Menzel. The painter to whom he bears the most marked resemblance is Botticelli. The spiritual languor, the melancholy sentiment, the mystical tendency, the curiosity and interest in the unseen which are important characteristics of the Florentine who read his Dante to such good purpose do not appear in the work of this frank and lusty Valencian, but where else in modern painting do we find the gracile forms, the supple muscles, the buoyancy of carriage, the light impetuosity of movement, and the draperies blown into the shapes of wings and sails, which meet us here as in the pagan compositions of Botticelli? [Illustration: In the Metropolitan Museum of Art. THE SWIMMERS _From a painting by Sorolla_] If we glance at Sorolla's young girls and young boys racing along the hot beach, or his bathers exulting in their "water joy," we recall at the same moment the "Primavera" with its swift-stepping nymphs, the wind gods in the "Birth of Venus," or the "Judith" with her maid moving rapidly along a flower-strewn path. This joy of motion and this continual suggestion of youth and vitality form the link that binds together the so dissimilar ideals of the old and the modern master. Sorolla's inspiration is by far the simpler. His art reflects the brilliant sunshine of the Mediterranean coast, the tonic quality of the fresh air, and the unconventionality of life by the sea. All his people use natural gestures and express in their activity the untrammeled energy of primitive life. In looking at these children, and there is hardly a figure that has not the naïveté of childhood, we think less of the individuals portrayed than of the outdoor freshness of which they are a part. They are much more spirits of nature than the dryads and nereids and mermaids conceived by the Germans to express in symbol the natural forces. Nothing suggests the use of models, all has the look of spontaneity as though the artist had made his notes in passing, without the slightest regard to producing a picture, with only the idea of reproducing life. Life, however, appears in his canvases in a sufficiently decorative form, although not in the carefully considered patterns of those artists with whom the decorative instinct is supreme. Observe, for example, the painting entitled "Sea Idyl." Two children are stretched on the beach, their bright bodies wet and glistening and casting blue shadows on the sands. They are lying so close to the water's edge that the waves lap over them, the boy's skin shines like polished marble under the wet film just passing across it, and the girl's drenched garments cling with sharp chiseled folds to the form beneath like the draperies of some young Greek goddess just risen from the sea. The insolence of laughing eyes, the idle fumbling of young hands in the wet sand, the tingling life in the clean-cut limbs, the buoyancy of the waves that lift them slightly and hold them above the earth,--all are seen with unwearied eyes, and reproduced with energy. The management of the pigment in this picture as in many of the others can be called neither learned nor subtle. Apparently the artist had in mind two intentions, the one to represent motion, the other to represent light, and he set about his task in the simplest way possible, with such simplicity, indeed, that the extraordinary character of the result would easily be missed by a pedant. It has not been missed by the public, who have entered with enthusiasm into the painter's mood, perceived the originality of his vision and the joyousness of his art, and have radiated their own appreciation of this vitalized, healthful world of happy people until they have increased the distrust of the pedant for an art so helplessly popular. [Illustration: In the Metropolitan Museum of Art. THE BATH--JÁVEA _From a painting by Sorolla_] The distrust is not unnatural. To follow the popular taste would lead us into strange errors in our judgments of art, and only rarely would produce a predilection capable of lasting over a generation. How is it, then, that we fearlessly may range ourselves on the side of the public in admiration of Sorolla's art? Because the painter has cast off the slavery of the conventional vision. He sees for himself, the rarest of gifts, and thus can well afford to paint like others. He spends, apparently, but little thought upon his execution, letting it flow easily according to his instinct for the appropriate. It is not a safe example to follow for painters who do not see with unusual directness. Often in searching out refinements of execution the eye discovers refinements of fact in the scene to be portrayed and makes its selection with greater distinction than would be possible at first sight. But Sorolla's prompt selective vision flies to its goal like a bee to a honey-bearing flower. He takes what he wants and leaves the rest with the dew still on it. His forces are neither scattered nor spent. His freshness is overmastering, and with our eyes on his creations we have that curious sense of possessing youth and health and freedom which we get sometimes from the sight of boys at their games. We are cheated into forgetfulness of the world's great age and our own lassitudes and physical ineffectiveness. This illusion is agreeable to the most of us, hence our unreserved liking for Sorolla's art which produces it. The art of Ignacio Zuloaga, on the contrary, produces the opposite impression of complete sophistication. In place of adolescent exultations and ebullient physical activities, we find in it the strange sorceries of a guileful civilization. There are smiling women with narrowed eyelids and powdered faces, old men practising dolorous rejuvenations, laughter that conceals more than it expresses, motions that are as calculated as those of the dance, serpentine forms, fervid passions, and underneath the sophistries a violent primeval temper. In spite of the flowerlike gaiety of the color in rich costumes, the glint of silver, the sweet cool blues, the pale violets, in the painter's versions of the typical toreador of Spain the types are bold, cruel, and sullen. In spite of the fragility and elegance of the women on balconies under soft laces the prevailing note is that of undisciplined ferocity of emotion. This too is Spain, but not the Spain of the beach and sea life. The rather numerous examples of what Mr. Christian Brinton has called Zuloaga's "growing diabolic tendency" make it clear that his art holds no place for spontaneity and the innocence due to ignorance, but where he keeps to Spanish subjects his work remains healthy. There is the picture entitled "The Sorceresses of San Milan" in which three old women are seen against a dramatic landscape. These haggard jests of nature bring before us a Spain from which the American finds it impossible not to shrink with horror, but they are rich in dramatic quality and recall the power of Goya to endow the abnormal with imaginative splendor while holding to essential truth. They are diabolic, if you will, but not Mephistophelian. There is the abstract horror in them which we associate with unknown powers of darkness, but not the guile with which we endow a personal devil. In striking contrast to this group are the balcony pictures in which women of ripe aggressive beauty lounge gracefully in the open-air rooms with the same freedom of pose as within doors, haughty yet frank, opulent, languid yet animated, flowers that could have bloomed nowhere else than under a scorching sun. [Illustration: Courtesy of the Hispanic Society of America. THE SORCERESSES OF SAN MILAN _From a painting by Zuloaga_] Then there is the group of dancers and actors and singers in each of which we find the adroit mingling of the artificial with the real, and the appreciation of the fact that with the people of the stage much that is artificial to others becomes their reality. The most vivid of them all is Mlle. Lucienne Bréval as "Carmen." The sinuous figure is wrapped in a shawl apparently of a thousand colors; actually, a strong combination of yellow, green, and red. The skirt which the singer gathers in one hand and lifts sufficiently to show the small foot in its red slipper has a dark vermilion ground on which is a pattern of large flowers of paler vermilion, boldly outlined with blue. Over it droops the dark fringe of the shawl. A crimson flower is in the dark hair, and the footlights cast an artificial amber glow on the face. This tawny harmony is seen against a background of slightly acid green; at the other side of the canvas is a little table with two men seated at it. They look "made up," in the theatrical sense, and the table looks rather light and rickety; there is one solid natural stage property, the yellow jug on the table with its dull blue figure. The whole life and reality of the picture are in the Carmen smiling and muffled in the curious shawl, as if she were about to move in a fiery dance in which her brilliant wrappings would take a part as animated and vital as her own. No one but a Spaniard could invest a garment with such expressiveness. [Illustration: Courtesy of the Hispanic Society of America. THE OLD BOULEVARDIER _From a painting by Zuloaga_] "Paulette as Danseuse" is another stage figure. Here again the costume speaks with extraordinary eloquence. The colors are green and pink, and play delicately within a narrow range of varied tones. Under the short green jacket the low-cut bodice shows a finely modeled throat and a chest that seems almost to rise and fall with the breath, so palpitating with life is the fleshlike surface. The poise of the figure suggests that the dance has that moment ended, and the eyes and mouth are slightly arched. The undulating line of the draperies, now tightly drawn about the figure, and again billowing into ampler curves, suggests the rhythm of the dance. In another canvas we see Paulette once more, this time in walking costume, standing with her hands on her hips in a daintily awkward pose. Her lips, in the first picture upturned at the corners, mouselike, have widened in a frank smile, her eyes have lost their formal archness and look with detached interest upon the passing show, she still is supple, clear cut, with a flexible silhouette, but her gown would find it impossible to dance, and, as before, she and her gown are one. In "The Actress Pilar Soler," on the other hand, Zuloaga dispenses as far as possible with definite aids to expression. The costume is undefined; the half-length figure, draped in black and placed high on the canvas, is seen against a dark greenish-blue background. The mass of the silhouette, unbroken as in an Egyptian statue, but with tremulous contours suggesting the fluttering of life in the dimly defined body, is sufficiently considered and distinguished; but it is the modeling of the face that holds the attention, a mere blur of tone, yet with all the planes understood and with a certain material richness of impasto that contributes to the look of solid flesh, the dark of the eyebrows making the only pronounced accent--a face that becomes more and more vital as you look at it, with that indestructible vitality of which, among the Frenchmen, Carrière was master. In several other canvases, notably in the first version of "My Cousin Esperanza," and the second version of "Women in a Balcony," Zuloaga has caught this effect of vague fleeting values, changes in surface so subtle as to be felt rather than seen, a kind of floating modeling that suggests form rather than insists upon it. And he has done this in the most difficult manner. Whistler long ago taught us to appreciate the effect, but he worked with thin layers of pigment, a sensitive surface upon which the slightest accent made an impression. Zuloaga, on the contrary, works with a full brush, and consequently a more unmanageable surface. He attains his success as a sculptor does against the odds of his material, but he seems better to suggest his special types in this way. [Illustration: Courtesy of the Hispanic Society of America. MERCEDÈS _From a painting by Zuloaga_] Often he makes his modeling with the sweep of his brush in one direction and another. "Candida Laughing" shows this method, and so does the "Village Judge," in which the pigment is still more freely swept about the bone of the cheek and the setting of the eye, telling its story of the way the human face is built up in the frankest and briefest manner. With the lovely "Mercedès," a fragile figure, elegant in type, the workmanship becomes again less outspoken. The haughty, graceful carriage, and the intense refinement of the features that glow with a pale light beneath the fine lace of the scarf, demand and receive a daintier, more fastidious interpretation. In the portrait of Mrs. F., Jr., there is a fresher manner, a breezier, crisper feeling throughout. The color harmony of gray and green is cool and lively, the poise of the figure lacks the touch of languor that is present in the fieriest of the typical Spaniards. We seem to have passed into another and cooler air. The composition of this picture too, is especially admirable. The subject stands, bending forward a little, the left hand resting on the hip, the other fingering a string of pearls, a gauzy scarf is about the shoulder and floats away from the figure at the hips, the sky is atmospheric and there is a background of trees, river, and bridge. At the left of the canvas an iron balustrade, bent into free, graceful curves, comes into the composition, beautifully drawn and painted in a just value, adding in the happiest manner to the decorative effect. This is the class of pictures in which Zuloaga is at his best. The types offer him adequate opportunity for exercising the faculty of astute discrimination with which he is gifted, without calling into play the ironic temper that broods with cold amusement over such a canvas as "The Old Boulevardier" than which cynicism can go but little farther. It might reasonably be argued that it is only in subjects which call forth as many evidences as possible of the artist's temperament and character that we can fully measure his force. The impulse, however, that turns his gaze toward those physiognomies that offer the richest reward to the investigating scrutiny is a part of his force, as also his choice of subjects about which he can talk, as one of his French critics has put it in his own language. Transcriber's Notes: The word esthetic left as is throughout text. Compound words left as is throughout text. Alternative and original spelling has been maintained including Rijksmuseum and Rijks Museum. Spelling and punctuation, by page number: Page 3 - _Tiger devouring a Gavial of the Ganges_ changed to Devouring. 12 - the patine of commerce[inserted . period] "The ideal 27 - fluent handling and the mystery of tone changed to mastery. 44 - In Les Mâitre Contemporains, M. Paul Mongré thus changed to Maître. 45 - but the abounding enthusisam of the latter changed to enthusiasm. 61 - the _Gobbi_, the _Beggars_?" inserted question mark and closing quotation mark. 74 - Years 1827 and 1828 changed to 1627 and 1628 respectively. 82 -(Städel Gallery) in the Museum of Brussels, changed to (Städel Gallery), in the Museum of Brussels, 84 - those set in the Virign's changed to Virgin's. 85 - physical anguish that mark the figure changed to marks. 92 - his most temperate moods, the _Pieta_ changed to _Pietà_. 100 - 1831 changed to 1631. 132 - of the two painters, Jordaen's silvery---Jordaen's left as is, corrected it would have been Jordaens'. Jordaens was the painter's name. 138 - In the "_Frohliche Heimkehr_" at Amsterdam changed to Fröhliche. 174 - slightest accent made an impresssion changed to impression. 174 - With the lovely "Mercedes," changed to Mercedès. 
37495	----	THESE BOOKS WERE PLANNED IN A SERIES OF CONFERENCES AND CONSULTATIONS WITH LEADING ART TEACHERS AND EDUCATORS, AMONG WHOM WERE THE FOLLOWING: MISS BONNIE E. SNOW, FORMERLY DIRECTOR OF ART, PUBLIC SCHOOLS, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. MISS WILHELMINA SEEGMILLER, DIRECTOR OF ART, PUBLIC SCHOOLS, INDIANAPOLIS, IND. MISS HARRIETTE L. RICE, DIRECTOR OF ART, PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PROVIDENCE, R. I. MR. WALTER SCOTT PERRY, DIRECTOR OF THE ART DEPARTMENT, PRATT INSTITUTE, BROOKLYN, N. Y. MRS. M. E. RILEY, DIRECTOR OF ART, PUBLIC SCHOOLS, ST. LOUIS, MO. DR. HUGO MÜNSTERBERG, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. MRS. ALICE W. COOLEY, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA. MR. JOHN S. CLARK, BOSTON, MASS. TEXT BOOKS OF ART EDUCATION BOOK II. / / SECOND YEAR BY HUGO B. FROEHLICH FORMERLY INSTRUCTOR IN PRATT INSTITUTE BROOKLYN, N. Y. AND BONNIE E. SNOW FORMERLY SUPERVISOR OF DRAWING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. [Illustration] THE PRANG EDUCATIONAL COMPANY NEW YORK / / BOSTON / / CHICAGO COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY THE PRANG EDUCATIONAL COMPANY. Acknowledgment. We are indebted to the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons, for permission to use the verses, "At the Seaside" (page 46), the lines from "Good and Bad Children" (page 13), and the lines from "Singing" (page 36)--all from "A Child's Garden of Verses," by Robert Louis Stevenson; to the Macmillan Company for the lines by Christina Rossetti (page 16); to Houghton, Mifflin and Company for the stanza from Longfellow's "The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz" (page 1). For the Theory of Color Relations used in these books, special acknowledgment is due to Dr. Denman W. Ross, of Harvard University. The lessons in Design are preparatory to the fuller exposition in the upper books of Dr. Ross's principles of arrangement--Balance, Rhythm and Harmony. "_I took a piece of plastic clay, And idly fashioned it one day, And as my fingers pressed it, still It moved and yielded to my will. I came again when days were past,-- The bit of clay was hard at last. The form I gave it still it bore, But I could change that form no more._ "_I took a piece of living clay, And gently formed it day by day, And moulded, with my power and art, A young child's soft and yielding heart. I came again, when years were gone,-- It was a man I looked upon. He still that early impress bore, And I could change it nevermore!_" [Illustration] And Nature, the old nurse, took The child upon her knee, Saying; "Here is a story-book Thy Father has written for thee." [Illustration] Come out of doors with paint-box and brush! Come to a clear little pool in a meadow! The world is dressed in blue, yellow and green. The green in the distant trees looks blue-green; but the color of the meadow is yellow-green. The pool is the color of the sky. Paint the picture and choose a name for it. [Illustration] Autumn likes bright red and yellow, with orange, violet, and deep, deep blue. See how she has dressed our meadow. Look at the trees and the clear little pool. What color is the grass? Where is the deep blue? Where does the violet look more red than blue? Paint an autumn picture of our meadow. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] Name each of these four trees. Tell how you know them. Which tree is like a leafy tent or umbrella? Its arms reach far and wide to bend over us. Which tree looks like a spire? Its arms are raised toward the sky. Which tree stands with trunk tall and straight from the root to the pointed top? See "the brave old oak, with broad green crown and fifty arms so strong." Paint a set of shadow pictures (silhouettes) of the trees you like best. Study the trunk: its shape; its size; the way it sends out its branches. Study the branches: their shapes; their length; the way they stretch out, or stretch up, or droop. Paint the true shape of the whole big tree. [Illustration] The maple-tree in autumn looks like a great bouquet of reds and yellows in a dark vase. You can tell it from all others by the shape and the color. Paint the bright bouquet. Drop in clear colors to show the shape of the maple-tree. [Illustration] When the trees are bare of leaves, we see how beautiful the branches are. No two trees stretch out their arms in just the same way. But the largest boughs always spring from the big round trunk. See how the smaller boughs spring from larger ones and rock the winter buds in the air. Paint a tree as it looks in November. [Illustration: "There's a ship on the sea And it's sailing to-night, sailing to-night,-- And father's aboard, and the moon is all bright. Dear moon, he'll be sailing for many a night-- Sailing from mother and me. O follow the ship with your silvery light, As father sails over the sea."] [Illustration] Ship, sky and sea in the soft grays of night! Which is darker, the sky or the sea? Look at the light in the sky where it seems to meet the sea. The ship looks darkest gray. We see it against the lighter grays. Paint a "ship on the sea, sailing to-night." [Illustration] Have you seen how sunset light over snow warms the white to a violet glow? Have you seen an evergreen tree against a sunset sky? The green looks very dark. Have you noticed the beautiful shape of Christmas trees? Paint a winter sunset, with an evergreen against the sunset sky. [Illustration] Words make us see pictures. We can paint the same pictures with the brush. Paint what the next lines make you see. "A little swerve; a tricky curve,-- And such a tumble! A whirl; a stop; the sled on top; A merry laugh,--yet this is not half The fun of sliding!" [Illustration] Here is Susan in the rain again! Now there are sky and trees in the picture. Think how the little girl is placed to show that she is walking on the ground. Which is lightest gray--sky, trees, or ground? Draw the picture with pencil, or paint it with brush and ink. [Illustration] "Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places." Do these lines tell the truth about your field-day picnic? Were you in the fields or in the woods? Show with brush or pencil the best fun of the day. [Illustration] Daisies are dancing, dancing, dancing,-- Daisies are dancing, list to the call Sung by the Katydid, gay little fiddler "Come all ye Flowers and dance at the Ball!" [Illustration] When the dandelion looks up at the sun, it shakes out its golden tresses from the green flower-cup. See the tall, round stem--pale green, with tints of red. What colors do you see in the long, narrow, hooked leaves? Do they grow on the flower-stem? Paint your dandelions with their leaves just as you see them. [Illustration] "Wheat sways heavy, oats are airy, Barley bows a graceful head." Bring stalks of wheat, oats, and other grains. Look at the shapes of the heads. See how each slender stalk holds its beautiful crown. Paint with ink from grasses, grains, or weeds of slender growth. [Illustration] How do you know this plant without seeing its colors? Paint a shadow picture of this flower, or of some other blossom that is a bunch of many little flowers in one head. Does the blossom droop, or nod, or stand erect? Show just how each leaf grows on the stem. Our pictures must tell the truth. [Illustration] Look closely at the two pictures of the chrysanthemum. See the two ways of painting the same plant. Which is easier to paint--this flower, or the dandelion? In what ways is this stem not like the flower-stem of the dandelion? In what ways are the leaves not like the dandelion leaves? Can you see the flower-cup? What colors will you use to paint your flower? [Illustration] "Many fingered maple Spreads her palms on high." Study the shape of your own bright maple leaf. Are the leaf stems the same color as the bough? What do you see where the stems join the bough? Is your bough bent or straight? Does it grow smaller toward the end? What colors do you see in the leaves? Paint this bit of autumn glory. [Illustration] Plums on their twigs, Cherries and figs, Peaches, pears, and apples,--growing in the sun. Which fruit is shown in the picture? Try to find fruit growing. Paint a twig with leaves and fruit. Use ink. Show how the leaves and the fruit grow on the bough. Show true shapes. [Illustration: "APPLES! RIPE APPLES! WHO'LL BUY?"] [Illustration] An apple growing on a twig is as beautiful as a flower. See how the leaves hide part of the bough. Paint the shape of the apple with water; drop in fresh, clear colors. Study the growth and color of the stem. Paint what you see. [Illustration] When you painted pussy-willows last year, you painted them in grays. Now show them in colors. The budding twigs of spring often show colors as bright as those of flowers. Look for color in the stems and buds of bushes, and in the tiny twigs of many trees. For willow catkins spring chooses her daintiest colors: soft silvery grays; rosy pink; pale green; bits of yellow; and never are two dressed alike! Paint them as they look now. [Illustration] Would you like to tell the story of the life of the bean from seed to fruit? You can tell it by shadow pictures. Now let us paint its flower and fruit. Look closely at the shape of each pod. Show by the stem how your bean grows. [Illustration] This little wild fellow of the woods is very like another flower we love. The other is a queenly lady in pure, spotless white. Her name is calla lily. Tell how the two plants are alike; how unlike. Paint shadow pictures of both. [Illustration] [Illustration] Alice is glad to find the ground covered with snow this morning. She wishes to take her new sled to school. She sees the bright, blue sky; she sees the snow sparkle in the sunlight; she sees the soft violet of the far-off trees. Paint the little girl and what she sees. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] We have very good times taking care of our goldfish. The beautiful shapes darting about in the water glow and flash like the brightest of jewels. They seem to have all the colors of the rainbow. We often paint them. [Illustration] [Illustration] "Said the rooster, 'I'd have you all know I am nearly the whole of the show; Why, the sun every morn Gets up with the dawn For the purpose of hearing me crow!'" [Illustration: RHINOCEROS HIPPOPOTAMUS] Cut pictures to show animals you have seen in a circus parade. [Illustration: LION TIGRESS ELEPHANT CAMEL] Look at this picture. See how it shows that the little girl is jumping. [Illustration] Who can jump the rope without tripping? Alice may try it. Draw or paint the picture these verses make you see: "Over your head, and under your toes, That is the way the merry rope goes. Up with this foot, down with that, Happy heart, go pit-a-pat." [Illustration: This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash our clothes; This is the way we wash our clothes, on a cold and frosty morning! This is the way we dry our clothes, dry our clothes, dry our clothes; This is the way we dry our clothes on a cold and frosty morning!] [Illustration: This is the way the ladies walk, ladies walk, ladies walk; This is the way the ladies walk, on a cold and frosty morning! This is the way the gentlemen walk, gentlemen walk, gentlemen walk; This is the way the gentlemen walk, on a cold and frosty morning.] [Illustration] The children sing in far Japan, The children sing in Spain; The organ with the organ man Is singing in the rain. Show in a Picture: 1. What you can do to help mother. 2. A game the girls play at recess. 3. What the boys play at recess. 4. What the wind does. 5. Something that can swim. 6. Something that can fly. 7. What you play with at home. 8. What you do in school. 9. What the birds do in the spring. 10. A picnic in the grove. [Illustration] "Does your little Mary drink tea, Mrs. Brown?" "Oh, no, Mrs. Bird! but she likes to drink milk out of these pretty cups." "My little Ruth likes the cups, too. You see I have a new tea-set. It was my Christmas present. I have a tea-party almost every day." [Illustration] [Illustration] Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye; Four-and-twenty blackbirds Baked in a pie. When the pie was opened, The birds began to sing; Was not that a dainty dish To set before a King? The King was in his counting-house Counting out his money; The Queen was in the parlor, Eating bread and honey. The maid was in the garden, Hanging out the clothes; When up came a blackbird, And snapt off her nose. [Illustration] Look over your toys. Choose two you would like to see together in a picture. What would you like with a doll? Why not a drum? Why not a flat-iron and a whip? Why do you like the picture of a tub with a wash-board? Place your two toys as they look best. Draw their picture as you see them. [Illustration] What dishes do you use in your play kitchen when you are getting ready for a tea-party? Choose two you would like to see together in a picture. Place them as you think they look best. Look at them very closely. Be sure to see their true shapes. Draw just what you see. [Illustration] Mrs. Marsh was getting ready to take Roy and Grace to spend a week at Clear Lake. Grace saw the open trunk. "Oh, Roy!" said she, "here's our trunk open, ready to be packed. Let's pack it ourselves and surprise mother." "All right! That will be great fun! Then we can take just what we like." * * * * * Draw the open trunk. Draw it after it was packed and closed. Guess what they put into it. How do you think mother liked to be surprised in this way? [Illustration] "When I was down beside the sea A wooden spade they gave to me To dig the sandy shore." [Illustration] "In the sunlit garden Through the glad spring day, Watch the happy little folk Turning work to play." [Illustration] Mould clay to make a sphere. With thread, cut it into two parts of just the same size. You have cut your sphere into two equal parts. Each is called a hemisphere. Mould clay to make half an apple on a square tablet. Think how many things shaped like a hemisphere you can mould and draw. [Illustration] Mould a square prism of clay. Draw it standing on a square face. Draw it lying on an oblong face. Think of things shaped like a square prism: things you see out of doors; at home; at school; everywhere you go. Tell what you have seen. Choose some to draw, mould or paint. [Illustration] Mould a square prism of clay. With thread, cut it into two equal parts like those in the picture. Each of these two equal parts is a right tri-prism. Look at the three oblong faces of your right tri-prism. One face is wider than either of the others. When a right tri-prism is resting on its widest oblong face, it looks like a roof. What does it look like in other positions? Show by drawing or painting. [Illustration] Draw a circle. Fold and cut it into two equal parts. Each is a semicircle. Place a hemisphere on a book. Raise the book to the level of your eyes. Draw the shape of the hemisphere. You have drawn a semicircle. What plant is shaped like a hemisphere on a round stem? Do you see how to draw a row of these shapes, or a border of semicircles? [Illustration] These pictures show you how to get a square and an oblong from a square prism. Draw an oblong four inches long and two inches wide. Draw a three-inch square. Draw an oblong table-cloth with a border of squares in a row. Lay a row of tablets: first, an oblong; then a square. Draw this border on a paper towel. [Illustration] One of the drawings on this page is called a right triangle. Can you find it? Think how you can get a right triangle from a right tri-prism. Lay tablets of the same shape to make a border across the ends of a rug. Draw a house with a triangle in the roof. [Illustration] [Illustration: COLOR CHART] [Illustration] What pleasure to paint a window like this, beautiful in shape, beautiful in color! Draw a two-inch square. On this lay tablets--the inch square in the center, with semicircles about it. Draw around it. Draw around the semicircles. Paint the shape with water. Drop in the fresh colors and let the water blend them. Finish with the dark edge. In the two bright circles of color, point out the six rainbow colors: yellow, orange, red, violet, blue, green. Find in the circles the color that is between yellow and orange. These two colors are blended in one, named yellow-orange. Find the color between red and orange. What two colors are blended in red-orange? Find the color between red and violet, named red-violet. Why? Find blue-violet. Find blue-green. What two colors blend to make yellow-green? Find it in the circles. How many of these colors are in your stained glass window? Paint another window, and watch the colors come. [Illustration] Draw or paint a picture of the animal you know best. Draw or paint a row of these shapes, all just alike. Take pictures of your animal as it looks when it stands; sits up; lies down; walks or runs. Make rows of these shapes. Which row would you like best for a border on your book cover? [Illustration] Look at the shapes on these book covers. In the borders you have made, the shapes have always faced the same way. Do these? Place two sweet-peas, daffodils, or other flowers, as the grasses are placed. Choose those that seem to look toward each other. Place shapes of animals in the same way. Draw or paint them on book covers. [Illustration] This is a good pattern for a floor of wood, or for oil-cloth to cover a floor. You may draw it for your play house. On an eight-inch square of paper draw sixteen two-inch squares. In the center of each, lay an inch tablet. Draw around it. With the pencil, color the squares like the squares in the picture. [Illustration] Look at bowls at home and in stores. Choose the shape you like best. We will make one out of clay. Does it not seem strange that you can make a lump of moist clay into a beautiful bowl? With the thumbs, press a deep hollow in the lump of clay for the inside of the bowl. Press and pull up the outside into the shape you wish. If you need more clay, work in a small lump at a time. Let the bowls stand one day to dry. Then wash the inside with a glaze. When the bowl is very dry, it is ready to be baked in the kiln. [Illustration] This clay match-safe is not so easy to make as the round bowls we have made. Shape a lump of clay like a square prism. With the thumbs, press the hollow inside until the bottom is like an oblong tablet. Press and pull the walls into good shape. Leave square corners. Work in the handle. Let the match-safe stand one day to dry. Then, with the brush, paint upon it a row of shapes in red. When the match-safe is very dry, it may be fired in a kiln. [Illustration] [Illustration] Look at this pattern for wall-paper. It would be good for a bedroom. You may make your own patterns for different rooms in your house. Choose your shapes. Think how to place them. Choose two colors you like to see together. Color with brush or pencil. Choose the best patterns for your rooms. [Illustration] [Illustration] See how this table is made from a box like a cube without a cover. Make one. Look at this stove, and at the one in the play house. We can make such a stove. Make a solid cube of stiff black paper. Cut pieces for doors, covers, grate, hearth and pipe. Paste them on. The bottom is a very low box with a little larger face than the cube. Make one. If you like, cut out the sides to leave wide legs. Paste the bottom of the stove on this base. [Illustration] Fold, cut, and paste an eight-inch square to make a square prism for the seat. Cut a sheet six inches by eight inches. Fold and crease two inches from each short edge. Shape the sides. Fold around the seat. Paste. [Illustration] To make a short book-mark, fold four strips ten inches long into double five-inch strips. Hold two of them side by side in the left hand, with the open ends of the outer strip at the top, and the open ends of the inner strip at the bottom. With a third strip in the right hand, pass its two parts around the outer strip in the left hand. Pass its two ends between the two parts of the inner strip. Then hold the work in the right hand. With the fourth strip in the left hand, pass it around the outer strip and between the parts of the inner strip in the right hand. To draw the strips tight, pull the open ends. Cut two ends. Trim the other ends. (See the picture.) Paste the parts in place. You have made a pretty gift. [Illustration] [Illustration] "Hi, weavers! Ho, weavers! Come, and weave with me! You'll rarely find, go where you will, A happier band than we!" [Illustration] Choose, for the body of your rug, carpet yarn of a color you will like in the room where you will put it. What color that looks well with this, will you choose for the stripes? String your loom with one long piece of warp. Draw it so it feels firm. Leave long, free ends. Thread your needle or shuttle, and weave from both ends to the middle. Lift the rug from the loom when it is woven full. Run the ends of the warp strings along the sides of the rug; or, tie them to the next warp strings. Is your rug for a hall, a parlor, a dining-room or a bedroom? [Illustration] "There is work that is work; There is play that is play; There is play that is work; There is work that is play-- And one of these four Is the very best way." Transcriber's note: _Underscores_ have been used to indicate _italic_ fonts. 
30693	----	Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net RENAISSANCE FANCIES AND STUDIES: BEING A SEQUEL TO EUPHORION BY VERNON LEE LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1895 [_All rights reserved_] _Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. _At the Ballantyne Press_ _TO_ _MY DEAR FRIENDS_ _MARIA AND PIER DESIDERIO PASOLINI_ _EASTER 1895_ PREFACE These essays being mainly the outcome of direct personal impressions of certain works of art and literature, and of the places in which they were produced, I have but few acknowledgments to make to the authors of books treating of the same subject. Among the exceptions to this rule, I must mention foremost Professor Tocco's _Eresia nel Medio Evo_, Monsieur Gebhart's _Italie Mystique_, and Monsieur Paul Sabatier's _St. François d'Assise_. I am, on the other hand, very deeply indebted to the conversation and advice of certain among my friends, for furnishing me second-hand a little of that archæological and critical knowledge which is now-a-days quite unattainable save by highly trained specialists. My best thanks, therefore, to Miss Eugénie Sellers, editor of Furtwängler's "Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture;" to Mr. Bernhard Berenson, author of "Venetian Painters," and a monograph on Lorenzo Lotto; and particularly to my friend Mrs. Mary Logan, whose learned catalogue of the Italian paintings at Hampton Court is sufficient warrant for the correctness of my art-historical statements, which she has had the kindness to revise. MAIANO, NEAR FLORENCE, _April_ 1895. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE ix THE LOVE OF THE SAINTS 1 THE IMAGINATIVE ART OF THE RENAISSANCE 65 TUSCAN SCULPTURE 135 A SEEKER OF PAGAN PERFECTION, BEING THE LIFE OF DOMENICO NERONI, PICTOR SACRILEGUS 163 VALEDICTORY 233 THE LOVE OF THE SAINTS I "Panis Angelicus fit panis hominum. O res mirabilis, manducat Dominum Pauper, Servus et Humilis." These words of the Matins of the Most Holy Sacrament I heard for the first time many years ago, to the beautiful and inappropriate music of Cherubini. They struck me at that time as foolish, barbarous, and almost gross; but since then I have learned to think of them, and in a measure to feel of them, as of something greater and more solemn than all the music that Cherubini ever wrote. All the hymns of the same date are, indeed, things to think upon. They affect one--the "Stabat Mater," for instance, and the "Ave Verum"--very much in the same way as the figures which stare down, dingy green and blue, from the gold of the Cosmati's mosaics: childish, dreary, all stiff and agape, but so solemn and pathetic, and full of the greatest future. For out of those Cosmati mosaics, and those barbarous frescoes of the old basilicas, will come Giotto and all the Renaissance; and out of those Church songs will come Dante; they are all signs, poor primitive rhymes and primitive figures, that the world is teeming again, and will bear, for centuries to come, new spiritual wonders. Hence the importance, the venerableness of all those mediæval hymns. But of none so much, to my mind, as of those words I have quoted from the Matins of the Most Holy Sacrament-- "O res mirabilis, manducat Dominum, Pauper, Servus et Humilis." For their crude and pathetic literality, their image of the Godhead actually giving Himself, as they emphatically say, to be _chewed_ by the poor and humble man and the serf, show them to have been most especially born, abortions though they be, in the mightiest throes of mystical feeling, after the incubation of whole nations, born of the great mediæval marriage, sublime, grotesque, morbid, yet health-bringing, between abstract idealising religious thought and the earthly affections of lovers and parents--a strange marriage, like that of St. Francis and Poverty, of which the modern soul also had to be born anew. Indeed, if we realise in the least what this hymn must have meant, shouted in the processions of Flagellants, chaunted in the Pacts of Peace after internecine town wars; above all, perhaps, muttered in the cell of the friar, in the den of the weaver; if we sum up, however inadequately, the state of things whence it arose, and whence it helped to deliver us, we may think that the greatest music is scarcely reverent enough to accompany these poor blundering rhymes. The Feast of the Most Holy Sacrament, to whose liturgy this hymn, "O Res Mirabilis," belongs, was instituted to commemorate the miracle of Bolsena, which, coming late as it did, in the country of St. Francis, and within two years of the birth of Dante, seems in its significant coincidences, in its startling symbolism, the fit material summing up of what is conveniently designated as the Franciscan revival: the introduction into religious matters of passionate human emotion. For in the year 1263, at Bolsena in Umbria, the consecrated wafer dropped blood upon the hands of an unbelieving priest. This trickery of a single individual, or more probably hallucination--this lie and self-delusion of interested or foolish bystanders--just happened to symbolise a very great reality. For during the earlier Middle Ages, before the coming of Francis of Assisi, the souls of men, or, more properly, their hearts, had been sorely troubled and jeopardised. The mixture of races and civilisations, southern and northern and eastern, antique and barbarian, which had been slowly taking place ever since the fall of the Roman Empire, had seemed, in its consummation of the twelfth century, less fertile on the whole than poisonous. The old tribal system, the old civic system, triumphant centralising imperialism, had all been broken up long since; and now feudalism was going to pieces in its turn, leaving a chaos of filibustering princelets, among whom loomed the equivocal figures of Provençal counts, of Angevin and Swabian kings, brutal as men of the North, and lax as men of the South; moreover, suspiciously oriental; brilliant and cynical persons, eventually to be typified in Frederick II., who was judiciously suspected of being Antichrist in person. In the midst of this anarchy, over-rapid industrial development had moreover begotten the tendencies to promiscuity, to mystical communism, always expressive of deep popular misery. The Holy Land had become a freebooter's Eldorado; the defenders of Christ's sepulchre were turned half-Saracen, infected with unclean mixtures of creeds. Theology was divided between neo-Aristotelean logic, abstract and arid, and Alexandrian esoteric mysticism, quietistic, nay, nihilistic; and the Church had ceased to answer to any spiritual wants of the people. Meanwhile, on all sides everywhere, heresies were teeming, austere and equivocal, pure and unclean according to individuals, but all of them anarchical, and therefore destructive at a moment when, above all, order and discipline were wanted. The belief in the world's end, in the speedy coming of Antichrist and the Messiah, was rife among all sects; and learned men, the disciples of Joachim of Flora, were busy calculating the very year and month. Lombardy, and most probably the south of France, Flanders and the Rhine towns, were full of strange Manichean theosophies, pessimistic dualism of God and devil, in which God always got the worst of it, when God did not happen to be the devil himself. The ravening lions, the clawing, tearing griffins, the nightmare brood carved on the capitals, porches, and pulpits of pre-Franciscan churches, are surely not, as orthodox antiquarians assure us, mere fanciful symbols of the Church's vigilance and virtues: they express too well the far-spread occult Manichean spirit, the belief in a triumphant power of evil. Michelet, I think, has remarked that there was a moment in the early Middle Ages when, in the mixture of all contrary things, in the very excess of spiritual movement, there seemed a possibility of dead level, of stagnation, of the peoples of Europe becoming perhaps bastard Saracens, as in Merovingian times they had become bastard Romans; a chance of Byzantinism in the West. Be this as it may, it seems certain that, towards the end of the twelfth century, men's souls were shaken, crumbling, and what was worse, excessively arid. There was as little certainty of salvation as in the heart of that Priest saying Mass at Bolsena; but the miracle came to mankind at large some seventy years before it came to him. It had begun, no doubt, unnoticed in scores of obscure heresies, in hundreds of unnoticed individuals; it became manifest to all the world in the persons of Dominick, of Elizabeth of Hungary, of King Lewis--above all, of Francis of Assisi. As in the hands of the doubting priest, so in the hands of all suffering mankind, the mystic wafer broke, proving itself true food for the soul: the life-blood of hope and love welled forth and fertilised the world. For the second time, and in far more humble and efficacious way, Christ had been given to man. To absorb the Eternal Love, to feed on the Life of the World, to make oneself consubstantial therewith, these passionate joys of poor mediæval humanity are such as we should contemplate with sympathy only and respect, even when the miracle is conceived and felt in the grossest, least spiritual manner. That act of material assimilation, that feeding off the very Godhead in most literal manner, as described in the hymn to the Most Holy Sacrament, was symbolic of the return from exile of the long-persecuted instincts of mankind. It meant that, spiritually or grossly, each according to his nature, men had cast fear behind them, and--O res mirabilis!--grown proud once more to love. Of this new wonder--questionable enough at times, but, on the whole, marvellously beneficent--the German knightly poets, so early in the field, are naturally among the earliest (for the Provençals belonged to a sceptical, sensual country) to give us a written record. Nearly all of the Minnesingers composed what we must call religious erotics, in no way different, save for names of Christ and the Virgin, from their most impassioned secular ones. The Song of Solomon, therefore, is one of the few pieces of written literature of which we find constant traces in the works of these very literally illiterate poets. Yet the quality of their love, if one may say so, is very different from anything Hebrew, or, for the matter of that, Greek or Roman; their ardour is not a transient phenomenon which disturbs them, like that of the Shulamite, or the lover described by Sappho or Plato, but a chief business of their life, as in the case of Dante, of Petrarch, of Francesca and Paolo, or Tristram and Yseult. Indeed, it is difficult to guess whether this self-satisfied, self-glorifying quality, which distinguishes mediæval passion from the passion (always regarded as an interlude, harmless or hurtful, in civic concerns) of unromantic Antiquity--whether, I say, this peculiarity of mediæval love is due to its having served for religious as well as for secular use, or whether the possibility of its being brought into connection with the highest mysteries and aspirations was not itself a result of the dignity in which mere earthly ardours had come to be held. Be this as it may, these German devotional rhapsodies display their essentially un-Hebrew, un-antique characters only the more by the traces of the _canticus canticorum_ in them, as in all devout love lyrics. Any one curious in such matters may turn to a very striking poem by Dante's contemporary, Frauenlob, in Von der Hagen's great collection. Also to a very strange composition, from the heyday of minne-song, by Heinrich von Meissen. This is not the furious love ode, but the ceremonious epithalamium of devotional poetry. It is the bearing in triumph, among flare of torches and incense smoke, over flower-strewn streets and beneath triumphal arches, of the Bride of the Soul, her enthroning on a stately couch, like some new-wed Moorish woman, for men to come and covet and admire. Above all, and giving one a shock of surprise by association with the man's other work, is a very long and elaborate poem addressed to Christ or God by no less a minnesinger than Master Gottfried of Strasburg. In it the Beloved is compared to all the things desired by eye or ear or taste or smell: cool water and fruit slaking feverish thirst, lilies with vertiginous scent, wine firing the blood, music wakening tears, precious stones of Augsburger merchants, essences and spices of an Eastern cargo:-- "Ach herzen Trut, genaden vol, Ach wol u je mer mere wol, Ein suez in Arzeniê Ach herzen bruch, ach herzen not. Ach Rose rot, Ach rose wandels vrie! Ach jugend in jugent, ach jugender Muot, Ach bluejender herzen Minne!" And so on for pages; the sort of words which poor Brangwain may have overheard on the calm sea, when the terrible knowledge rushed cold to her heart that Tristram and Yseult had drained the fatal potion. All this is foolish and unwholesome enough, just twice as much so, for its spiritual allegorising, as the worldly love poetry of these often foolish and unwholesome German chivalrous poets. But, for our consolation, in that same huge collection of Von der Hagen's Minnesingers, stand the following six lines, addressed to the Saviour, if tradition is correct, by a knightly monk, Bruder Wernher von der Tegernsee:-- "Dû bist mîn, ih bin dîn; Des solt dû gewis sîn. Dû bist beslozzen In mînem herzen; _Verlorn ist daz sluzzelîn: Dû muost immer drinne sîn._" "Thou art locked up in my heart; the little key is lost; thou must remain inside." This is a way of loving not logically suitable, perhaps, to a divine essence, but it is the lovingness which fertilises the soul, and makes flowers bud and birds sing in the heart of man. Out of it, through simple creatures like Bruder Wernher, through the simplicity of scores of obscurer singers and craftsmen than he, of hundreds of nameless good men and women, comes one large half of the art of Dante and Giotto, nay, of Raphael and Shakespeare: the tenderness of the modern world, unknown to stoical Antiquity. II The early Middle Ages--the times before Love came, and with it the gradual dignifying of all realities which had been left so long to mere gross or cunning or violent men--the early Middle Ages have left behind them one of the most complete and wonderful of human documents, the letters of Abélard and Héloïse. This is a book which each of us should read, in order to learn, with terror and self-gratulation, how the aridity of the world's soul may neutralise the greatest individual powers for happiness and good. These letters are as chains which we should keep in our dwelling-place, to remind us of past servitude, perhaps to warn us against future. No other two individuals could have been found to illustrate, by the force of contrast, the intellectual and moral aridity of that eleventh century, which yet, in a degree, was itself a beginning of better things. For Héloïse and Abélard were not merely among the finest intellects of the Middle Ages; they were both, in different ways, to the highest degree passionately innovating natures. No woman has ever been more rich and bold and warm of mind and heart than Héloïse; nor has any woman ever questioned the unquestioned ideas and institutions of her age, of any age, with such vehemence and certainty of intuition. She judges questions which are barely asked and judged of now-a-days, applying to consecrated sentimentality the long-lost instinctive human rationalism of the ancient philosophers. How could St. Luke recommend us to desist from getting back our stolen property? She feels, however obscurely, that this is foolish, antisocial, unnatural. Nay, why should God prefer the penitence of one sinner to the constant goodness of ninety-nine righteous men? She is, this learned theologian of the eleventh century, as passionately human in thought as any Mme. Roland or Mary Wolstonecraft of a hundred years ago. Abélard, on the other hand, we know to have been one of the most subtle and solvent thinkers of the Middle Ages; pursued by the greatest theologians, crushed by two Councils, and remaining, in the popular fancy, as a sort of Friar Bacon, a forerunner of the wizard Faustus; a man whom Bernard of Clairvaux called a thief of souls, a rapacious wolf, a Herod; a man who reveals himself a Pagan in his attempts to turn Plato into a Christian; a man who disputes about Faith in the teeth of Faith, and criticises the Law in the name of the Law; a man, most enormous of all, who sees nothing as symbol or emblem (_per speculum in ænigmate_), but dares to look all things in the face (_facie ad faciem omnia intuetur_). _Facie ad faciem omnia intuetur_, this, which is the acknowledged method of all modern, as it had been of all antique, thought, nay, of all modern, all antique, all healthy spiritual life--this was the most damnable habit of Abélard; and, as the letters show, of Héloïse. What shall we think, in consequence, of the intellectual and moral sterility of the orthodox world of the eleventh century, when we find this heretical man, this rebellious woman, arguing incessantly about unrealities, crushing out all human feeling, judging all questions of cause and effect, settling all relations of life, with reference to a system of intricate symbolical riddles? These things are exceedingly difficult for a modern to realise; we feel as though we had penetrated into some Gulliver's world or kingdom of the Moon; for theology and its methods have been relegated, these many hundred years, to a sort of _Hortus inclusus_ where nothing human grows. These mediæval men of science apply their scientific energies to mastering, collecting, comparing and generalising, not of any single fact of nature, but of the words of other theologians. The magnificent sense of intellectual duty, so evident in Abélard, and in a dozen monastic authors quoted by him, is applied solely to fantasticating over Scripture and its expositors, and diverting their every expression from its literal, honest, sane meaning. And indeed, are some of the high efforts of mediæval genius, the calculations of Joachim and the Eternal Gospel, any better than the Book of Dreams and the Key to the Lottery? Most odious, perhaps, in this theology triumphant (sickening enough, in good sooth, even in the timid official theology of later days), is the loss of all sense of what's what, of fitness and decency, which interprets allegorically the grosser portions of Scripture, and, by a reverse process, lends to the soul the vilest functions of the body, and discusses virtue in the terms of fleshliness. No knowledge can come out of this straw-splitting _in vacuo_; and certainly no art out of this indecent pedant's symbolism: all things are turned to dusty, dirty lumber. As with the intellectual, so also, in large degree, with the moral: a splendid will to do right is applied, in its turn, to phantoms. Here again the letters of Abélard and Héloïse are extraordinarily instructive. The highest virtue, the all-including (how differently Dante feels, whatever he may say!), is _obedience_. Thus Abélard, having quoted from St. Augustine that all which is done for obedience' sake is well done, proceeds very logically: "It is more advantageous for us to act rightly than to do good.... We should think not so much of the action itself, as of the manner in which it is performed." Do not imagine that this care for the motive and contempt of the action arises from an estimate of the importance of a man's sum-total of tendencies, contrasted with his single, perhaps unintentional, acts; still less that the advantage thus referred to has anything to do with other men's happiness. The advantage is merely to the individual soul, or in a cruder, truer view, to the individual combustible body to which that soul shall be eternally reunited hereafter. And the spirit which makes virtue alone virtuous is the spirit of obedience: obedience theoretically to a god, but practically to a father of the Church, a Council, an abbot or abbess. In this manner right-doing is emptied of all rational significance, becomes dependent upon what itself, having no human, practical reason, is mere arbitrary command. Chastity, for instance, which is, together with mansuetude, the especial Christian virtue, becomes in this fashion that mere guarding of virginity which, for some occult reason, is highly prized in Heaven; as to clean living being indispensable for bearable human relations, which even the unascetic ancients recognised so clearly, there is never an inkling of that. Whence, indeed, such persons as do not _go in for_ professionally pleasing the divinity, who are neither priests, monks, nor nuns, need not stickle about it; and the secular literature of the Middle Ages, with its Launcelots, Tristrams, Flamencas, and all its German and Provençal lyrists, becomes the glorification of illicit love. Indeed, in the letters before us, Abélard regrets his former misconduct only with reference to religious standards: as a layman he was perfectly free to seduce Héloïse; the scandal, the horrible sin, was not the seduction, but the profanation by married love of the dress of a nun, the sanctuary of the virgin. So it is with the renunciation of all the world's pleasures and interests. The ascetic sacrifice of inclination, which the stoics had conceived as resistance to the tyrant without and the tyrant within, as a method for serene and independent life and death, this ascetic renunciation becomes, in this arid theological world, the mere giving up to please a jealous God of all that is not He. Abélard's regulations for the nuns, which he gives as rules of perfection (save in the matter of that necessary half sin, marriage) to devout lay folk, come after all to this: give human nature enough to keep it going, so that it may be able to sacrifice everything else to the jealousy of the Godhead. Eating, clothing oneself, washing (though, by the way, there is no mention of this save for the sick), nay, speaking and thinking, are merely instrumental to the contemplation of God; any more than suffices for this is sinful. On this point Abélard quotes, with stolidest approval, one of the most heart-rending of anecdotes. A certain monk being asked why he had fled humankind, answered, on account of his great love for it, and the impossibility of loving God and it at the same time. Think upon that. Think on the wasted treasure of loving-kindness of which that monk and the thousands he represents cheated his fellow-men. O love of human creatures, of man for woman, parents and children, of brethren, love of friends; fuel and food, which keeps the soul alive, balm curing its wounds, or, if they be incurable, helps the poor dying thing to die at last in peace--this was those early saints' notion of thee! To refuse thus to love is to refuse not merely the highest usefulness, but to refuse also the best kind of justice. Here again, nay, here more than ever, we may learn from those wonderful letters. They constitute, indeed, a document of the human soul to which, in my recollection, one other only, Benjamin Constant's _Adolphe_, can be compared. But in these letters,--hers of grief, humiliation, hopelessness, making her malign her noble self; and his, bitter, self-righteous, crammed with theological moralisings--we see not merely the dual drama of two ill-assorted creatures, but the much more terrible tragedy, superadded by the presence, looming, impassive, as of Cypris in Euripides' Hippolytus, of a third all-powerful and superhuman entity: the spirit of monasticism. The unequal misery, the martyrdom of Héloïse arises herefrom, that she rebels against this _Deus ex machina_; that this nun of the eleventh century is a strong warm-hearted modern woman, fit for Browning. While Abélard is her whole life, the intimate companion of her highest thoughts, she is only a toy to him, and a toy which his theologian's pride, his monkish self-debasement, makes him afraid and ashamed of. Abélard has been for her, and ever remains, something like Brahma to Goethe's Bayadere; her love, her love above all for his intrepid intellect, has raised him to a sacredness so great, that his whim, his fame, his peace, his very petulance can be refused nothing; and that, on the other hand, any concession taken from him seems positive sacrilege. Hence her refusal of marriage, her answer, "that she would be prouder as his mistress--the Latin word is harlot--than as the wife of Cæsar." Fifty years later, in the kind, passionate, poetical days of St. Francis, Héloïse might have given this loving fervour to Christ, and been a happy, if a deluded, woman; but in those frigid monkish days, there was no one for her to love, save this frigid monkish Abélard. As it is, therefore, she loves Christ and God in obedience to Abélard; she passionately cons the fathers, the Scriptures, merely because, so to speak, the hand of Abélard has lain on the page, the eyes of Abélard have followed the characters; and finally, after all her vain entreaties for (she scarce knows what!) love, sympathy, one personal word, she feeds her starving heart on the only answer to her supplications--the dialectic exercises, metaphysical treatises, and theological sermons (containing even the forms applicable only to a congregation) which he doles out to her. Thankful for anything which comes _from_ him, however little it comes _to_ her. How different with Abélard! Despite occasional atrocious misery and unparalleled temporal misfortunes (which on the whole act upon him as tonics), this great metaphysician is well suited to his times, and spiritually thrives in their exhausted, chill atmosphere. The public rumour (which Héloïse hurls at him in a fit of broken-hearted rage), that his passion for her had been but a passing folly of the flesh, he never denies, but, on the contrary, reiterates perpetually for her spiritual improvement; let her understand clearly from what inexpressible degradation God in His mercy has saved them, at least saved him; let her realise that he wanted only carnal indulgence, and would have got it, if need be, through threats and blows. He recognises, in his past, only a feeling which, now it is over, fills his ascetic mind with nothing but disgust and burning shame, and hence he tries, by degrading it still more, by cynically raking up all imaginable filth, to separate that past from his present. So far, were only he himself concerned, one would sympathise, though contemptuously, with this agonised reaction of a proud, perhaps a vain, _man_ of mere intellect. But the atrocious thing is, that he treats her as a loathsome relic of this past dishonour; and answers her prayer (after twelve years' silence!) for a word of loving-kindness by elaborate denunciations of their former love, and reiterated jubilations that _he_, at least, has long been purged thereof; not unmixed with sharp admonishment that she had better not try to infect his soul afresh, but set about, if needful, cleansing her own. Now it so happens that what he would cure her of is incurable, being, in fact, eternal, divine--simple human love. So, to his pious and cynical admonitions she answers with strange inconsistency. Long brooding over his taunts will sometimes make her, to whom he is always the divinity, actually believe, despite her reiteration, that she had sinned out of obedience to him, that she really is a polluted creature, guilty of the unutterable crime of contaminating a man of God, nay, a god himself. And then, unable to silence affection, she cries out in agony at the perversity of her nature, incapable even of hating sincerely its sinfulness; for would she not do it again, is she not the same Héloïse who would have left the very altar, the very communion with Christ, at Abélard's word? At other times she is pious, resigned, almost serene; for is that not Abélard's wish? a careful mother to her nuns. But when, encouraged by her docility and blind to her undying love, Abélard believes that he has succeeded in quieting her down, and rewards her piety by some rhetorical phrase of Monkish eulogy, she suddenly turns round, a terrible tragic figure. She repudiates the supposed purity and piety, blazons out her wickedness and hypocrisy, and cries out, partly with the horror of the sacrilegious nun, mainly with the pride of the faithful wife, that it is not God she loves but Abélard. After the most violent of these outbreaks there is a dead silence. One guesses that some terrible message has come, warning her that unless she promised that she would never write to Abélard save as the Abbess of the Paraclete to the monk of Cluny, not a word from him shall ever come; and that, in order to keep this last miserable comfort, she has bitten out that truth-speaking tongue of hers. For after this there are only questions on theological points and on the regulation of nunneries; and Abélard becomes as liberal of words as he used to be chary, as full of encouragement as he once was of insult, now that he feels comfortably certain that Héloïse has changed from a mistress to a penitent, and that in her also there is an end at last of all that sinful folly of love. And thus, upon Héloïse pacified, numbed, dead of soul, among her praying and scrubbing and cooking and linen-mending nuns; and Abélard reassured, serene, spiritually proud once more among the raging controversies, the ecclesiastical persecutions in which his soul prospered, the volume closes; the curtain falls upon one of the most terrible tragedies of the heart, as poignant after seven hundred years as in those early Middle Ages, before St. Francis claimed sun and swallows as brethren, and the baby Christ was given to hold to St. Anthony of Padua. III The humanising movement, due no doubt to greater liberty and prosperity, to the growing importance of honest burgher life, which the Church authorised in the person of Francis of Assisi, doubtless after persecuting it in the persons of dozens of obscure heresiarchs--this great revival of religious faith was essentially the triumph of profane feeling in the garb of religious: the sanctification, however much disguised, of all forms of human love. One is fully aware of the moral dangers attendant upon every such equivocation; and the great saints (like their last modern representatives, the fervent, shrewd, and kindly leaders of certain Protestant revivals) were probably, for all their personal extravagances, most fully prepared for every sort of unwholesome folly among their disciples. The whole of a certain kind of devotional literature, manuals of piety, Church hymns, lives and correspondence of saintly persons, is unanimous in testifying to the hysterical self-consciousness, intellectual enervation, emotional going-to-bits, and moral impotence produced by such vicarious and barren expenditure of feeling. Yet it seems to me certain that this enthroning of human love in matters spiritual was an enormous, indispensable improvement, which, whatever detriment it may have brought in individual and, so to say, professionally religious cases, nay, perhaps to all religion as a whole, became perfectly wholesome and incalculably beneficent in the enormous mass of right-minded laity. For human emotion, although so often run to waste, had been at least elicited, and, once elicited, could find, in nine cases out of ten, its true and beneficent channel; whereas, in the earlier mediæval days, the effort to crush out all human feeling (as with that holy man quoted by Abélard), to break all human solidarity, had not merely left the world in the hands of unscrupulous and brutal persons, but had imprisoned all finer souls in solitary and selfish thoughts of their individual salvation. Things were now different. The story of Lucchesio of Poggibonsi, recovered from oblivion by M. Paul Sabatier, is the most lovely expression of Franciscan tenderness and reverence towards the affections of the laymen, and ought to be remembered in company with the legend of the wood-pigeons, whom St. Francis established in his cabin and blessed in their courtship and nesting. This Lucchesio had exercised a profession which has ever savoured of damnation to the minds of the poor and their lovers, that of corn merchant or speculator in grain; but touched by Franciscan preaching, he had kept only one small garden, which, together with his wife, he cultivated half for the benefit of the poor. One day the wife, known in the legend only as Bona Donna, sickened and knew she must die, and the sacrament was brought to her accordingly. But Lucchesio never thought that it could be God's will that he should remain on earth after his wife had been taken from him. So he got himself shriven, received the last sacraments with her, held her hands while she died; and when she was dead, stretched himself out, made the sign of the cross, called on Jesus, Mary, and St. Francis, and peacefully died in his turn: God could not have wished him to live on without her. The passionate Franciscan sympathy with human love makes light of all the accepted notions of bereavement being acceptable as a divine dispensation. Lucchesio of Poggibonsi was, we are told, a member of the Third Order of Franciscans, and his legend may help us to appreciate the value of such institutions, which gave heaven to the laity, to the married burgher, the artisan, the peasant; which fertilised the religious ideal with the simplest and sweetest instincts of mankind. But, Third Order apart, the mission of the regular Franciscans and Dominicans is wholly different from that of the earlier orders of monasticism proper. The earlier monks, however useful and venerable as tillers of the soil and students of all sciences, were, nevertheless, only agglomerated hermits, retired from the world for the safety each of his own soul; whereas the preaching, wandering friars are men who mix with the world for the sake of souls of others. Thus, throughout the evolution of religious communities, down to the Jesuits and Oratorians, to the great nursing brother-and sisterhoods of the seventeenth century, we can watch the substitution of care for lay souls in the place of more saintly ones--a gradual secularisation in unsuspected harmony with the heretical and philosophical movements which tend more and more to make religion an essential function of life, instead of an activity with which life is for ever at variance. In accordance with this evolution is the great enthroning of love in the thirteenth century: it means the replacing of the terror of a divinity, who was little better than a metaphysical Moloch (sometimes, and oftener than we think, a metaphysical Ormuzd and Ahriman of Manichean character), by the idolatry of an all-gracious Virgin, of an all-compassionate and all-sympathising Christ. It was an effort at self-righting of the unhappy world, this love-fever which followed on the many centuries of monastic self-mutilation; for, in sickness of the spirit, the hot stage, for all its delirium, means a possibility of life. Moreover, it gave to mankind a plenitude of happiness such as is necessary, whether reasonable or unreasonable, for mankind to continue living at all; art, poetry, freedom, all the things which form the _Viaticum_ on mankind's journey through the dreary ages, requiring for their production, it would seem, an extra dose of faith, of hope, and happiness. Indeed, the Franciscan movement is important not so much for its humanitarian quality as for its optimism. Many other religious movements have asserted, with equal and greater efficacy, the need for charity and loving-kindness; but none, as it seems to me, has conceived like it that charity and loving-kindness are not mitigations of misery, but aids to joy. The universal brotherhood, preached by Francis of Assisi, is a brotherhood not of suffering, but of happiness, nay, of life and of happiness. The sun, in the wonderful song which he made--characteristically--during his sickness, is the brother of man because of his radiance and splendour; water and fire are his brethren on account of their virtues of purity and humbleness, of jocund and beautiful strength;[1] and if we find, throughout his legends, the Saint perpetually accompanied by birds--the swallows he begged to let him speak, the falcon who called him in the morning, the turtle-doves whose pairing he blessed, and all the feathered flock whom Benozzo represents him preaching to in the lovely fresco at Montefalco--if, as I say, there is throughout his life and thoughts a sort of perpetual whir and twitter of birds, it is, one feels sure, because the creatures of the air, free to come and go, to sit on beautiful trees, to drink of clear streams, to play in the sunshine and storm, able above all to be like himself, poets singing to God, are the symbols, in the eyes of Francis, of the greatest conceivable felicity.[2] [Footnote 1: St. Francis's hymn (Sabatier, _St. François d'Assise_):-- Laudato sie, mi signore, cum tucte le tue creature, Spetialimento messer lo frate sole, Lo quale jorna, et illumini per lui; _Et ello è bello e radiante cum grande splendore._ * * * * * Laudato si, mè signore per frate Vento Et per aere et nubilo et sereno et omne tempo * * * * * Laudato, si, mi signore, per sor acqua La quale è multo utile et humele et pretiosa et casta; Laudato si, mi signore, per frate focu Per lo quale ennallumini la nocte _Et ello è bello et jocundo e robustioso e forte._ In its rudeness, how magnificent is this last line!] [Footnote 2: St. Francis's sermon to the birds in the valley of Bevagna (_Fioretti_ xvi.): "Ancora gli (a Dio) siete tenuti per lo elemento dell' aria che egli ha diputato a voi ... e Iddio vi pasce, e davvi li fiumi e le fonti per vostro bere; davvi li monti e le valli per vostro rifugio e gli alberi alti per fare li vostri nidi ... e però guardatevi, sirocchie mie, del peccato della ingratitudine, e sempre vi studiate di lodare Iddio ... e allora tutti qugli uccilli si levarons in aria con maraviglios canti." _Fioretti_ xxviii. "... Questo dono, che era dato a frate Bernardo da Quintevalle, cioè, che volando si pascesse come la rondine." _Fioretti_ xxii., Considerazioni i.] Indeed, we can judge of what the Franciscan movement was to the world by what its gospel, the divine _Fioretti_, are even to ourselves. This humble collection of stories and sayings, sometimes foolish, always childlike, becomes, to those who have read it with more than the eyes of the body, a beloved and necessary companion, like the solemn serene books of antique wisdom, the passionate bitter Book of Job, almost, in a way, like the Gospels of Christ. But not for the same reason: the book of Francis teaches neither heroism nor resignation, nor divine justice and mercy; it teaches love and joyfulness. It keeps us for ever in the company of creatures who are happy because they are loving: whether the creatures be poor, crazy Brother Juniper (the comic person of the cycle) eating his posset in brotherly happiness with the superior he had angered; or Brother Masseo, unable from sheer joy in Christ to articulate anything save "U-u-u," "like a pigeon;" or King Lewis of France falling into the arms of Brother Egidio; or whether they be the Archangel Michael in friendly converse with Brother Peter, or the Madonna handing the divine child for Brother Conrad to kiss, or even the Wolf of Gubbio, converted, and faithfully fulfilling his bargain. There are sentences in the _Fioretti_ such as exist perhaps in no other book in the world, and which teach something as important, after all, as wisdom even and perfect charity--"And there answered Brother Egidio: Beloved brethren, know that as soon as he and I embraced one another, the light of wisdom revealed and manifested to me his heart, and to him mine; and thus by divine operation, seeing one into the other's heart, that which I would have said to him and he to me, each understood much better than had we spoken with our tongue, and with greater joyfulness...." Again, Jesus appeared to Brother Ruffino and said, "Well didst thou do, my son, inasmuch as thou believedst the words of St. Francis; for he who saddened thee was the demon, whereas I am Christ thy teacher; and for token thereof I will give thee this sign: As long as thou live, thou shalt never feel affliction of any sort nor sadness of heart." St. Francis, we are told, being infirm of body, was comforted through God's goodness by a vision of the joy of the blessed. "Suddenly there appeared to him an angel in a great radiance, which angel held a viol in his left hand and a bow in his right. And while St. Francis remained in stupefaction at the sight, this angel drew the bow once _upwards_ across the viol, and instantly there issued such sweetness of melody as melted the soul of St. Francis, and suspended it from all bodily sense. And, as he afterwards told his companions, he was of opinion that if that angel had drawn the bow _downwards_ (instead of upwards) across the viol, his soul would have departed from his body for the very excess of delight." It was not so much to save the souls of men from hell, about which, indeed, there is comparatively little talk in the _Fioretti_, but to draw them also into the mystic circle where such angelic music was heard, that Francis of Assisi preached throughout Umbria, and even as far as the Soldan's country; and, if we interpret it rightly, the strings of that heavenly viol were the works of creation and the souls of all creatures, and the bow, whose upward movement ravished, and whose downward movement would have almost annihilated with its sweetness, that bow drawn across the vibrating world was no other than love. IV Justice preached by Hebrew prophets, charity and purity taught by Jesus of Nazareth, fortitude recommended by Epictetus and Aurelius, none of these great messages to men necessarily produce that special response which we call Art. But the message of loving joyfulness, of happiness in the world and the world's creatures, whether men or birds, or sun or moon,--this message, which was that of St. Francis, sets the soul singing; and just such singing of the soul makes art. Hence, even as the Apennine blazed with supernatural light, and its forests and rocks became visible to the most distant wayfarers, when the Eternal Love smote with its beams the praying saint on La Vernia; so also the souls of those men of the Middle Ages were made luminous and visible by the miracle of poetry and painting, and we can see them still, distinct even at this distance. One of the earliest of the souls so revealed is that of the Blessed Jacopone of Todi. Jacopo dei Benedetti, a fellow-countryman of St. Francis, must have been born in the middle of the thirteenth century, and is said to have died in 1316, when Dante, presumably, was writing his "Purgatory" and "Paradise;" to him is ascribed the authorship of the hymn "Stabat Mater," remembered, and to be remembered (owing to the embalming power of music) far beyond his vernacular poems. Tradition has it that he turned to the religious life in consequence of the sudden death of his beloved, and the discovery that she had worn a hair-shirt next her delicate body. Be this as it may, many allusions in his poems suggest that he had lived the wild life of the barbarous Umbrian cities, being a highwayman perhaps, forfeiting his life, and also having to fly the country before the fury of some family vendetta. On the other hand, it is plain at every line that he was a frantic ascetic, taking a savage pleasure in vilifying all mundane things, and passionately disdainful of study, of philosophical and theological subtleties. No poet, therefore, of the troubadour sort, or of the idealising learned refinement of Guinicelli or Cavalcanti. Nor was his life one of apostolic sweetness. Having taken part in the furious Franciscan schism, and pursued with invectives Boniface VIII., he was cast by that Pope into a dungeon at Palestrina. "My dwelling," he writes, "is subterranean, and a cesspool opens on to it; hence a smell not of musk. No one can speak to me; the man who waits on me may, but he is obliged to make confession of my sayings. I wear jesses like a falcon, and ring whenever I move: he who comes near my room may hear a queer kind of dance. When I have laid myself down, I am tripped up by the irons, and wound round in a big chain (_negli ferri inzampagliato, inguainato in catenone_). I have a little basket hung up so that the mice may not injure it; it can hold five loaves.... While I eat them little by little, I suffer great cold." Moreover, Pope Boniface refuses him absolution, and Jacopone's invectives are alternated with heart-rending petitions that this mercy at least be shown him; as to his other woes, he will endure them till his death. In this frightful place Jacopone had visions, which the Church, giving him therefore the title of Blessed, ratifies as genuine. One might expect nightmares, such as troubled the early saints in the wilderness, or John Bunyan in gaol; but that was not the spirit of the mediæval revival: terror had been cast out by love. More than a quarter of Jacopone's huge volume consists in what is merely love poetry: he is languishing, consumed by love; when the beloved departs, he sighs and weeps, and shrieks, and _dies alive_. Will the beloved have no mercy? "Jesu, donami la morte, o di te fammi assaggiare." Then the joys of love, depicted with equal liveliness, amplifications as usual of the erotic hyperboles of the Shulamite and her lover; the phenomenon, to whose uncouth strangeness devotional poetry accustoms us even now-a-days, which we remarked in Gottfried von Strasburg and Frauenlob, and on which it is needless further to insist. But there is here in Jacopone something which we missed in Gottfried and Frauenlob, of which there is no trace in the Song of Solomon, but which, suggested in the lovely six lines of Bruder Wernher, makes the emotionalism of the Italian Middle Ages wholesome and fruitful. A child-like boy and girlish light-heartedness that makes love a matter not merely of sighing and dying, but of singing and dancing; and, proceeding thence, a fervour of loving delightedness which is no longer of the man towards the woman, but of the man and the woman towards the baby. The pious monk, in his ecstasies over Jesus, intones a song which might be that of those passionate _farandoles_ of angels who dance and carol in Botticelli's most rapturous pictures:-- "Amore, amor, dove m'hai tu menato? Amore, amor, fuor di me m'hai trattato. Ciascun amante, amator del Signore, Venga alla danza cantando d'amore." Can we not see them, the souls of such fervent lovers, swaying and eddying, with joined hands and flapping wings, flowers dropping from their hair, above the thatched roof of the stable at Bethlehem? The stable at Bethlehem! It is perpetually returning to Jacopone's thoughts. The cell, the dreadful underground prison at Palestrina, is broken through, irradiated by visions which seem paintings by Lippo or Ghirlandaio, nay, by Correggio and Titian themselves, "the tender baby body (_il tenerin corpo_) of the blood of Mary has been given in charge to a pure company; St. Joseph and the Virgin contemplate the little creature (_il piccolino_) with stupefaction. _O gran piccolino Jesu nostro diletto_, he who had seen Thee between the ox and the little ass, breathing upon thy holy breast, would not have guessed thou were begotten of the Trinity!" But besides the ox and the ass there are the angels. "In the worthy stable of the sweet baby the angels are singing round the little one; they sing and cry out, the beloved angels, quite reverent, timid and shy (_tutti riverenti, timidi e subbietti_, this beautiful expression is almost impossible save in Italian), round the little baby Prince of the Elect who lies naked among the prickly hay. He lies naked and without covering; the angels shout in the heights. And they wonder greatly that to such lowliness the Divine Verb should have stooped. The Divine Verb, which is highest knowledge, this day seems as if He knew nothing of anything (_il verbo divino che è sommo sapiente, in questo di par che non sappia niente!_). Look at him on the hay, crying and kicking (_che gambetta piangente_), as if He were not at all a divine man...." Meanwhile, other angels, as in Benozzo's frescoes, are busy "picking rarest flowers in the garden." In the garden! Why He Himself is a fragrant garden; Jesus is a garden of many sweet odours; and "what they are those can tell who are the lovers of this sweet little brother of ours." _Di Questo nostro dolce fratellino_: it is such expressions as these, Bambolino, Piccolino, Garzolino, "el magno Jesulino," these caressing, ever-varied diminutives, which make us understand the monk's passionate pleasure in the child; and which, by the emotion they testify to and re-awaken, draw more into relief, make visible and tangible the little kicking limbs on the straw, the dimpled baby's body. And then there are the choruses of angels. "O new song," writes Jacopone, "which has killed the weeping of sick mankind! Its melody, methinks, begins upon the high _Fa_, descending gently on the _Fa_ below, which the _Verb_ sounds. The singers, jubilating, forming the choir, are the holy angels, singing songs in that hostelry, before the little babe, who is the Incarnate Word. On lamb's parchment, behold! the divine note is written, and God is the scribe, Who has opened His hand, and has taught the song." Have we not here, in this odd earliest allegory of music and theology, this earliest precursor of the organ-playing of Abt Vogler, one of those choirs, clusters of singing childish heads--clusters, you might almost say, of sweet treble notes, tied like nosegays by the score held scrollwise across them, which are among the sweetest inventions of Italian art, from Luca della Robbia to Raphael, "cantatori, guibilatori, che tengon il coro?" And this is the place for a remark which, in the present uncertainty of all æsthetic psychology, I put forward as a mere suggestion, but a suggestion less wide of the truth than certain theories now almost unquestioned: the theories which arbitrarily assume that art is the immediate and exact expression of contemporary spiritual aspirations and troubles. That such may be the case with literature, particularly the more ephemeral kinds thereof, is very likely, since literature, save in the great complex structures of epos, tragedy, choral lyric, is but the development of daily speech, and possibly as upstart, as purely passing, as daily speech itself; moreover, in its less artistic forms, requiring little science or apprenticeship. But art is a thing of older ancestry; you cannot, however bursting with emotion, embody your feelings in forms like those of Phidias, of Michelangelo, of Bach, or Mozart, unless such forms have come ready to hand through the long, steady working of generations of men: Phidias and Bach in person, cut off from their precursors, would not, for all their genius, get as far as a schoolboy's caricature, or a savage's performance on a marrow-bone. And these slowly elaborated forms, representing the steady impact of so many powerful minds, representing, moreover, the organic necessity by which, a given movement once started, that movement is bound to proceed in a given direction, these forms cannot be altered, save infinitesimally, to represent the particular state of the human soul at a given moment. You might as well suppose that the human shape itself, evolved through these millions of years, could suddenly be accommodated to perfect representation of the momentary condition of certain human beings; even the Tricoteuses of the guillotine had the heads and arms of ordinary women, not the beaks and claws of harpies. Hence such expressiveness must be limited to microscopic alterations; and, indeed, one marvels at the modest demands of the art critics, who are satisfied with the pucker of a frontal muscle of a Praxitelean head as testimony to the terrible deep disorder in the post-Periclean Greek spirit, and who can still find in the later paintings of Titian, when all that makes Titian visible and admirable is deducted, a something, just a little _je ne sais quoi_, which proves these later Titians to have originated in the Catholic reaction. If the theory of art as the outcome of momentary conditions be limited to such particularities, I am quite willing to accept it; only, such particularities do not constitute the large, important and really valuable characteristics of art, and it matters very little by what they are produced. How then do matters stand between art and civilisation? Here follows my hypothesis. There is in the history of every art (and for brevity's sake, I include in this term every distinct category, say, renaissance sculpture as distinguished from antique, of the same art) a moment when, for one reason or other, that art begins to come to the fore, to bestir itself. The circumstances of the nation and time make this art materially advantageous or spiritually attractive; the opening up of quarries, the discovery of metallic alloys, the necessity of roofing larger spaces, the demand for a sedentary amusement, for music to dance to in new social gatherings--any such humble reason, besides many others, can cause one art to issue more particularly out of the limbo of the undeveloped, or out of the lumber-room of the unused. It is during this historic moment--a moment which may last years or scores of years--that, as it seems to me, an art can really be deeply affected by its surrounding civilisation. For is it not called forth by that civilisation's requirements, material or spiritual; and is it not, by the very fact of being thus new, or at all events nascent, devoid of all conditioning factors, save those which the civilisation and its requirements impose from without? An art, like everything vital, takes shape not merely by pressure from without, but much more by the necessities inherent in its own constitution, the almost mechanical necessities by which all variable things _can_ vary only in certain fashions. All the natural selection, all the outer pressure in the world, cannot make a stone become larger by cutting, cannot make colour less complex by mixing, cannot make the ear perceive a dissonance more easily than a consonance, cannot make the human mind turn back from problems once opened up, or revert instantaneously to effects it is sick of; and a number of such immutable necessities constitute what we call the organism of an art, which can therefore respond only in one way and not another to the influences of surrounding civilisation. Given the sculpture of the Ægina period, it is impossible we should not arrive at the sculpture of the time of Alexander: the very constitution of clay and bronze, of marble, chisel and mallet, let alone that of the human mind, makes it inevitable; and you would have it inevitably if you could invert history, and put Chæronea in the place of Salamis. But there is no reason why you should eventually get Lysippian and Praxitelean sculpture instead of Egyptian or Assyrian, say, in the time of Homer, whenever that may have been. For the causes which forced Greek sculpture along the line leading to Praxiteles and Lysippus were not yet at work; and had other forces, say, a preference for stone work instead of clay and bronze work, a habit of Persian or Gaulish garments, of Lydian effeminate life instead of Dorian athleticism, supervened, had satraps ordered rock-reliefs of battles instead of burghers ordering brazen images of boxers and runners, Praxiteles and Lysippus might have remained _in mente Dei_, if, indeed, even there. Similarly, once given your Pisan sculptors, Giotto, nay, your imaginary Cimabue, you inevitably get your Donatello, Masaccio, Ghirlandajo, and eventually your Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Titian; for the problems of form and of sentiment, the questions of perspective, anatomy, dramatic expression, lyric suggestion, architectural decoration, were established, in however rudimentary a manner, as soon as painting was ordered to leave off doing idle, emotionless Christs, rows of gala saints and symbols of metaphysic theology, and told to set about showing the episodes of Scripture, the things Christ and the Apostles did, and the places where they did them, and the feelings they felt about it all; told to make visible to the eye the gallant archangels, the lovable Madonnas, the dear little baby Saviours, the angels with their flowers and songs, all the human hope and pity and passion and tenderness which possessed the world in the days of St. Francis. What pictures should we have seen if Christianity (which was impossible) had continued in the habits of thought and feeling of the earlier Middle Ages? Byzantine _icones_ become frightfuler and frightfuler, their theological piety perhaps sometimes relieved by odd wicked Manichean symbolism; all talent and sentiment abandoning painting, perhaps to the advantage of music, whose solemn period of recondite contrapuntal complexity--something corresponding to the ingenuities and mysticism of theology--might have come two centuries earlier, and delighted the world instead of being unnoticed by it. Be this as it may, there is no need for wondering, as people occasionally wonder, how the solemn terror, the sweetness, pathos, or serenity of men like Signorelli, Botticelli, or Perugino, nay Michelangelo, Raphael, or Giorgione, could have originated among Malatestas, Borgias, Poggios, or Aretines. It did not. And, therefore, since literature always precedes its more heavily cumbered fellow-servant art, we must look for the literary counterpart of the painters of the Renaissance among the writers who preceded them by many generations, men more obviously in touch with the great mediæval revival: Dante, Boccaccio, the compilers of the "Fioretti di San Francesco," and, as we have just seen, Fra Jacopone da Todi. V What art would there have been without that Franciscan revival, or rather what emotional synthesis of life would art have had to record? This speculation has been dismissed as futile, because it is impossible to conceive that mankind could have gone on without some such enthusiastic return of faith in the goodness of things. But another question remains to be answered, remains to be asked; and that is, what was the spiritual meaning of the art which immediately preceded the Franciscan revival? what was the emotional synthesis of life given by those who had come too early to partake in the new religion of love? The question seems scarcely to have occurred to any one, perhaps because the Church found it expedient to obliterate, to the best of her power, all records of her terrible mediæval vicissitudes, and to misinterpret, for the benefit of purblind antiquarians, the architectural symbolism of the earlier Middle Ages. Since, in the deciphering of such expressions of mankind's moods and intuitions, scientific investigation is scarcely more important than the moods and intuitions of the looker-on, it seems quite fitting that I should begin these suggestions about pre-Franciscan Italian art by saying that some years ago there met by accident in my mind a certain impression of Lombard twelfth-century art, and a certain anecdote of Lombard twelfth-century history. It was at Lucca, a place most singularly rich in round-arched buildings, that I was, so to speak, overwhelmed by the fact that the Italian churches of immediately pre-Franciscan days possess by way of architectural ornamentation nothing but images of deformity and emblems of wickedness. This fact, apart from its historical bearing, may serve also to illustrate a theory I have already put forth, to wit, that the only art which is necessarily expressive of contemporary thought and feeling is such as embodies very little skill, and as expresses but very few organic necessities of form, both of which can result only from the activity and the influence of generations of craftsmen; since in these Lucchese churches the architectural forms proclaim one thing and the sculptural details another. The first speak only of logic and serenity; the second only of the most abominable nightmare. The truth is, that these churches of Lucca, and their more complex and perfect prototypes, like Sant' Ambrogio of Milan, and San Miniato of Florence, are not the real outcome of the century which built them. It is quite natural that, with their stately proportions, their harmonious restrained vaultings, their easy, efficient colonnades, their ample and equable illumination, above all their obvious pleasure in constructive logic, these churches should affect us as being _classic_ as opposed to romantic, and even in a very large measure actually antique; for they have come, through generations as long-lived and as scanty as those of the patriarchs, straight from the classic, the antique; grandchildren of the courts of law and temples of Pagan Rome, children of the Byzantine basilicas of early Christian days; strange survivals from distant antiquity, testifying to the lack of artistic initiative in the barbarous centuries between Constantine to Barbarossa. No period in the world's history could have produced anything so organic without the work of previous periods; and when the Middle Ages did in their turn produce an architecture original to themselves, it was by altering these still classic forms into something absolutely different: that thirteenth-century Gothic which answers to the material and necessities of the democratic and romantic times heralded by St. Francis. The twelfth century, therefore, could not express itself in the architectural forms and harmonies of those Lucchese churches; but it could express itself in their rude and thoroughly original sculpture. Hence, while there is in them no indication of the symbolism of the coming ogival Gothic, there is no trace either of the symbolism belonging to Byzantine buildings. None of the Gothic imagery testifying faith and joy in God and His creatures; no effigies of saints; at most only of the particular building's patron; no Madonnas, infant Christs, burning cherubim, singing and playing angels, armed romantic St. Michael or St. George; none of those goodly rows of kings and queens guarding the portals, or of those charming youthful heads marking the spring of the pointed arch, the curve of the spandril. Nor, on the other hand, any remnant of Byzantine devices of the date-loaded palms, the peacocks and doves, the bunches of grapes, the serene, almost Pagan imagery which graces the churches of the Cælian and Aventine, the basilicas of Ravenna, and which would seem the necessary accompaniment of this stately Neo-Byzantine architecture. The churches of Lucca, like their contemporaries and immediate predecessors throughout Tuscany and North Italy, are ornamented only with symbols of terror.[3] [Footnote 3: The Cathedral of Assisi, a very early mediæval building, affords a singular instance of the meeting of the last remnant of that serene symbolism of Roman and Byzantine-Roman churches with the usual Lombard horrors. A fine passion-flower or vine encircles the porch, peacocks strut and drink from an altar, while, on the other hand, lions mangle a man and a sheep, and horrible composite monsters, resembling the prehistoric plesiosaurus, bite each other's necks. A Madonna and Christ are enthroned on Byzantine seats, the weight resting on human beings, not so realistically crushed as those of Ferrara and Milan, but suffering. There is a similar meeting of symbols in the neighbouring Cathedral of Foligno; and, so far as I could see, the Umbrian valley is rich in very early churches of this type, sometimes lovely in ornamentation, like S. Pietro of Spoleto, sometimes very rude, like the tiny twin churches of Bevagna.] The minds of the sculptors seem haunted by the terror of wicked wild beasts, irresistible and mysterious, as in the night fears of children. The chief ornament of St. Michael of Lucca is a curious band of black and white inlaid work, of which Mr. Ruskin has said, with the optimism of an orthodox symbolist, that it shows that the people of Lucca loved hunting, even as the people of Florence loved the sciences and crafts symbolised on their belfry. But the two or three solitary mannikins of the frieze of St. Michael exemplify not the pleasures, but the terrors of the chase; or rather they are not hunting, but being hunted by the wild beasts all round; attacked rather than pursuing, flying on their little horses from the unequal fight, or struggling under the hug of bears, the grip of lions; never does one of them carry off a dead creature or deal a mortal blow. The wild beasts are masters of the situation, the men mere intruders, speedily worsted; and this is proved by the fact that where the wolves, lions, and bears are not struggling with human beings, they are devouring each another, the appearance of the poor little scared men being only an interlude in the everlasting massacre of one beast by another. The people who worked this frieze may have pretended, perhaps, that they were expressing the pleasures of hunting; but what they actually realised was evidently the horrors of a world given over to ravening creatures. The porch sculptures of this and all the other churches of Lucca remove all further doubt upon this point. For here what human beings there lie under the belly and in the claws (sometimes a mere horrid mangled human head) of the lions and lionesses who project like beamheads out of the wall or carry the porch columns on their back: scowling, murderous creatures, with which the twelfth and early thirteenth century ornamented even houses and public tanks like Fonte Branda, which less terrified generations adorned with personified virtues. The nightmare of wild beasts is carried on in the inside of the churches: there again, under the columns of the pulpits are the lions and lionesses gnashing their teeth, tearing stags and gazelles and playing with human heads. And, to increase the horror, there also loom on the capitals of the nave strange unknown birds of prey, fantastic terrible vultures and griffins. Everywhere massacre and nightmare in those churches of Lucca. And the impression they made on my mind was naturally strengthened by the recollection of the similar and often more terrible carvings in other places, Milan, Pavia, Modena, Volterra, the Pistoiese and Lucchese hill-towns, in all other places rich in pre-Franciscan art. Above all, there came to my mind the image of the human figures which in most of such pre-Franciscan places express the other half of all this terror, the feelings of mankind in this kingdom of wicked, mysterious wild beasts. I allude to the terrible figures, crushed into dwarfs and hunchbacks by the weight of porch columns and pulpits, amid which the tragic creature, with broken spine and starting eyes, of Sant' Ambrogio of Milan is, through sheer horrified realisation, a sort of masterpiece. But there are wild beasts, lions and lionesses, among the works of thirteenth-century sculptors, and lions and lionesses continue for a long time as ornaments of pure Gothic architecture. Of course; but it was the very nearness of the resemblance of these later creatures that brought home to me the utterly different, the uniform and extraordinary character, of those of earlier date: the emblem was kept by the force of tradition, but the meaning thereof was utterly changed. The Pisani, for instance, carved lions and lionesses under all their pulpits; some of them are merely looking dignified, others devouring their prey, but they are conceived by a semi-heraldic decorator or an intelligent naturalist; nay, the spirit of St. Francis has entered into the sculptors, the feeling for animal piety and happiness, to the extent of representing the lionesses as suckling and tenderly licking their whelps. The men of that time cannot even conceive, in their newly acquired faith and joy in God and His creatures, what feelings must have been uppermost in the men who first set the fashion of adorning churches with men-devouring monsters. Such were my impressions during those days spent among the serene Lucchese churches and their terrible emblems. And under their influence, thinking of the times which had built the churches and carved the emblems, there came to my memory a very curious anecdote, unearthed by the learned ecclesiastical historian Tocco, and consigned in his extremely suggestive book on mediæval heresies. A certain priest of Milan became so revered for his sanctity and learning, and for the marvellous cures he worked, that the people insisted on burying him before the high altar, and resorting to his tomb as to that of a saint. The holy man became even more undoubtedly saintly after his death; and in the face of the miracles which were wrought by his intercession, it became necessary to proceed to his beatification. The Church was about to establish his miraculous sainthood, when, in the official process of collecting the necessary information, it was discovered that the supposed saint was a Manichean heretic, a _Catharus_, a believer in the wicked Demiurgus, the creating Satan, the defeat of the spiritual God, and the uselessness of the coming of Christ. It was quite probable that he had spat upon the crucifix as a symbol of the devil's triumph; it was quite possible that he had said masses to Satan as the true creator of all matter. Be this as it may, that priest's half-canonised bones were publicly burnt and their ashes scattered to the wind. The anecdote shows that the Manichean heresies, some ascetic and tender, others brutal and foul, had made their way into the most holy places. And, indeed, when we come to think of it, no longer startled by so extraordinary a revelation, this was the second time that Christianity ran the risk of becoming a dualistic religion--a religion, like some of its Asiatic rivals, of pessimism, transcendentally spiritual or cynically base according to the individual believer. Nor is it surprising that such views, identical with those of the transcendental theologians of the fourth century, and equivalent to the philosophical pessimism of our own day, as expounded particularly by Schopenhauer, should have found favour among the best and most thoughtful men of the early Middle Ages. In those stern and ferocious, yet tender-hearted and most questioning times, there must have been something logically satisfying, and satisfying also to the harrowed sympathies, in the conviction, if not in the dogma, that the soul of man had not been made by the maker of the foul and cruel world of matter; and that the suffering of all good men's hearts corresponded with the suffering, the humiliation of a mysteriously dethroned God of the Spirit. And what a light it must have shed, completely solving all terrible questions, upon the story of Christ's martyrdom, so constantly uppermost in the thoughts and feelings of mediæval men! Now, the men who built Sant' Ambrogio[4] and San Miniato a Monte, who carved the stone nightmares, the ravening lions, the squashed and writhing human figures of the early Lombard and Tuscan churches, were the contemporaries of that Manichean priest of Milan, who, although a saint, had believed in the triumph of the Devil and the wickedness of the Creator. And among his fellow-heretics--those heretics lurking everywhere, and most among the most religious--should we not expect to find the mysterious guilds of Lombard freemasons, and the craftsmen to whom they gradually revealed their secrets, affirming in their stone symbolism to the already initiated, and suggesting to the uninitiated, their terrible creed of inevitable misery on earth? Nay, can we not imagine some of them, even as the Templars were accused of doing (and the Templars were patrons, remember, of important guilds of masons), propitiating the Great Enemy by service and ritual, proclaiming his Power, even as the ancients propitiated the divinities of darkness whom they hated? For the God of Good, we can fancy them reasoning, the Pure Spirit who will triumph when all this cruel universe goes to pieces, can wish for no material altars, and can have no use for churches. Or did not the idea of a dualism become confused into a vacillating, contradictory notion of a Power at once good and evil, something inscrutable, unthinkable, but inspiring less confidence than terror? [Footnote 4: Here are a few dates, as given by Murray's Handbooks. Fiesole Cathedral begun 1028; S. Miniato a Monte, 1013; Pisa Cathedral consecrated 1118; baptistery (lower storey), 1153. Lucca façade (interior later), 1204; S. Frediano of Lucca begun by Perharit 671, altered in twelfth century; S. Michele façade, 1188. Pistoia: S. Giovanni Evangelista by Gruamons, 1166; S. Andrea, also by Gruamons; S. Bartolomeo by Rudolphinus, 1167. Pulpit of S. Ambrogio of Milan, 1201; church traditionally begun about 868, probably much more modern.] Whatever the secret of those sculptured monsters, this much is historically certain, that a dualistic, profoundly pessimist belief had honeycombed Christianity throughout Provence and Northern and Central Italy. But for this knowledge it would be impossible to explain the triumphant reception given to St. Francis and his sublime, illogical optimism, his train of converted wolves, sympathising birds, and saints and angels mixing familiarly with mortal men. The Franciscan revival has the strength and success of a reaction. And in sweeping away the pessimistic terrors of mankind, it swept away, by what is at least a strange coincidence, the nightmare sculpture of the old Lombard stonemasons. What the things were which made room for the carved virgins and saints, the lute-playing angels and nibbling squirrels and twittering birds of Gothic sculpture, I wish to put before the reader in one significant example. The Cathedral of Ferrara is a building which, although finished in the thirteenth century, had been begun and consecrated so early as 1135, and the porch thereof, as is frequently the case, appears to have been erected earlier than other portions. Of this porch two pillars are supported by life-sized figures, one bearded, one beardless, both dressed in the girdled smock of the early Middle Ages. The enormous weight of the porch is resting, not conventionally (as in the antique caryatid) on the head, but on the spine; and the head is protruded forwards in a fearful effort to save itself, the face most frightfully convulsed: another moment and the spine must be broken and the head droop freely down. Before the portals, but not supporting anything, are six animals of red marble--a griffin, two lions, two lionesses, or what seem such, and a second griffin. The central lions are well preserved, highly realistic, but also decorative; one of them is crushing a large ram, another an ox, both creatures splendidly rendered. I imagine these central lions to be more recent (having perhaps replaced others) than their neighbours, which are obliterated to the extent of being lions or lionesses only by guesswork. These nameless feline creatures hold what appear to be portions of sheep, one of them having at its flank a curious excrescence like the stinging scorpion of the Mithra groups. The griffins, on the other hand, although every detail is rubbed out, are splendid in power and expression--great lion-bodied creatures, with gigantic eagle's beak, manifestly birds rather than beasts, with the muscular neck and probably the movement of a hawk. Like hawks, they have not swooped on to their prey, but let themselves drop on to it, arriving not on their belly like lions, but on their wings like birds. The prey is about a fourth of the griffin's size. One of the griffins has swooped down upon a wain, whose two wheels just protrude on either side of him; the heads of two oxen are under his paws, and the head, open mouthed, with terrified streaming hair, of the driver; beasts and men have come down flat on their knees. The other griffin has captured a horse and his rider; the horse has shied and fallen sideways beneath the griffin's loins, with head protruding on one side and hoofs on the other, the empty stirrup is still swinging. The rider, in mail-shirt and Crusader's helmet, has been thrown forward, and lies between the griffin's claws, his useless triangular shield clasped tight against his breast. Perhaps merely because the attitude of the two griffins had to be symmetrical, and the horse and rider filled up the space under their belly less closely than the cart, oxen, and driver, there arises the suggestive fact that the poor man and his bullocks are crushed more mercilessly than the rich man and his horse. But be this as it may, poor and rich, serf and knight, the griffin of destiny encompasses and pounces upon each; and the talons of evil pin down and the beak of misery rends with impartial cruel certainty. Such is the account of the world and man, of justice and mercy, recorded for us by the stonemasons of Ferrara. VI As with the emotional, the lyric element in Renaissance art, so also with the narrative or dramatic; it belongs not to the original, real, or at all events primitive Christianity of the time when the Man Jesus walked on earth in the body, but to that day when He arose once more, no less a Christ, be sure, in the soul of those men of the Middle Ages. The Evangelists had never felt--why should they, good, fervent Jewish laymen?--the magic of the baby Christ as it was felt by those mediæval ascetics, suddenly reawakened to human feeling. There is neither tenderness nor reverence in the Gospels for the mother of the Lord; some rather rough words on her motherhood; and that mention in St. John, intended so evidently to bring the Evangelist, or supposed Evangelist, into closer communion with Christ, not to draw attention to Christ's mother. Yet out of those slight, and perhaps almost contemptuous indications, the Middle Ages have made three or four perfect and wonderful types of glorified womanhood: the Mother in adoration, the crowned, enthroned Virgin, the Mater Gloriosa; the broken-hearted Mother, Mater Dolorosa, as found at the foot of the cross or fainting at the deposition therefrom; types more complete and more immortal than that of any Greek divinity; above all, perhaps, the mere young mother holding the child for kindly, reverent folk to look at, for the little St. John to play with, or alone, looking at it, thinking of it in solitude and silence: the whole lovingness of all creatures rising in a clear flame to heaven. Nay, is not the suffering Christ a fresh creation of the Middle Ages, made really to bear the sorrows of a world more sorrowful than that of Judea? That strange Christ of the Resurrection, as painted occasionally by Angelico, by Pier della Francesca, particularly in a wonderful small panel by Botticelli; the Christ not yet triumphant at Easter, but risen waist-high in the sepulchre, sometimes languidly seated on its rim, stark, bloodless, with scarce seeing eyes, and the motionless agony of one recovering from a swoon, enduring the worst of all his martyrdom, the return to life in that chill, bleak landscape, where the sparse trees bend in the dawn wind; returning from death to a new, an endless series of sufferings, even as that legend made him answer the wayfaring Peter, _returning to be crucified once more--iterum crucifigi_. All this is the lyric side, on which, in art as in poetry, there are as many variations as there are individual temperaments, and the variety in Renaissance art is therefore endless. Let us consider the narrative or dramatic side, on which, as I have elsewhere tried to show, all that could be done was done, only repetition ensuing, very early in the history of Italian art, by the Pisans, Giotto and Giotto's followers. These have their counterpart, their precursors, in the writers and reciters of devotional romances. Among the most remarkable of these is the "Life of the Magdalen," printed in certain editions of Frate Domenico Cavalca's well known charming translations of St. Jerome's "Lives of the Saints." Who the author may be seems quite doubtful, though the familiar and popular style might suggest some small burgher turned Franciscan late in life. As the spiritual love lyrics of Jacopone stand to the _Canzonieri_ of Dante and of Dante's circle of poets, so does this devout novel stand to Boccaccio's more serious tales, and even to his "_Fiammetta_;" only, I think that the relation of the two novelists is the reverse of that of the poets; for, with an infinitely ruder style, the biographer of the Magdalen, whoever he was, has also an infinitely finer psychological sense than Boccaccio. Indeed, this little novel ought to be reprinted, like "Aucasin et Nicolette," as one of the absolutely satisfactory works, so few but so exquisite, of the Middle Ages. It is the story of the relations of Jesus with the family of Lazarus, whose sister Mary is here identified with the Magdalen; and it is, save for the account of the Passion, which forms the nucleus, a perfect tissue of inventions. Indeed, the author explains very simply that he is narrating not how he knows of a certainty that things did happen, but how it pleases him to think that they might have happened. For the man puts his whole heart in the story, and alters, amplifies, explains away till his heart is satisfied. The Magdalen, for instance, was not all the sort of woman that foolish people think. If she took to scandalous courses, it was only from despair at being forsaken by her bridegroom, who left her on the wedding-day to follow Christ to the desert, and who was no other than the Evangelist John. Moreover, let no vile imputations be put upon it; in those days, when everybody was so good and modest, it took very little indeed (in fact, nothing which our wicked times would notice at all) to get a woman into disrepute. Judged by our low fourteenth-century standard, this sinning Magdalen would have been only a little over-cheerful, a little free, barely what in the fourteenth century is called (the mere notion would have horrified the house of Lazarus) _a trifle fast_; our unknown Franciscan--for I take him to be a Franciscan--insists very much on her having sung and whistled on the staircase, a thing no modest lady of Bethany would then have done; but which, my dear brethren, is after all.... This sinful Magdalen, repenting of her sins, such as they are, is living with her sister Mary and her brother Lazarus; the whole little family bound to Jesus by the miracle which had brought Lazarus back to life. Jesus and his mother are their guests during Passion week; and the awful tragedy of the world and of heaven passes, in the anonymous narrative, across the narrow stage of that little burgher's house. As in the art of the fifteenth century, the chief emotional interest of the Passion is thrown not on the Apostles, scarcely on Jesus, but upon the two female figures, facing each other as in some fresco of Perugino, the Magdalen and the Mother of Christ. Facing one another, but how different! This Magdalen has the terrific gesture of despair of one of those colossal women of Signorelli's, flung down, as a town by earthquake, at the foot of the cross. She was pardoned "because she had loved much"--_quia multo amavit_. The unknown friar knew what _that_ meant as well as his contemporary Dante, when Love showed him the vision of Beatrice's death. Never was there such heart-breaking as that of his heroine: she becomes almost the chief personage of the Passion; for she knows not merely all the martyrdom of the Beloved, feels all the agonies of His flesh and His spirit, but knows--how well!--that she has lost Him. Opposite this terrible convulsive Magdalen, sobbing, tearing her hair and rolling on the ground, is the other heart-broken woman, the mother; but how different! She remains maternal through her grief, with motherly thoughtfulness for others; for to the real mother (how different in this to the lover!) there will always remain in the world some one to think of. She bridles her sorrow; when John at last hesitatingly suggests that they must not stay all night on Calvary, she turns quietly homeward; and, once at home, tries to make the mourners eat, tries to eat with them, makes them take rest that dreadful night. For such a mother there shall not be mere bitterness in death; and here follows a most beautiful and touching invention: the glorified Christ, returning from Limbo, takes the happy, delivered souls to visit his mother. "And Messer Giesù having tarried awhile with them in that place, said: 'Now let us go and make my mother happy, who with most gentle tears is calling upon me.' And they went forthwith, and came to the room where our Lady was praying, and with gentle tears asking God to give her back her son, saying it was to-day the third day. And as she stayed thus, Messer Giesù drew near to her on one side, and said: 'Peace and cheerfulness be with thee, Holy Mother.' And straightway she recognised the voice of her blessed son, and opened her eyes and beheld him thus glorious, and threw herself down wholly on the ground and worshipped him. And the Lord Jesus knelt himself down like her; and then they rose to their feet and embraced one another most sweetly, and gave each other peace, and then went and sat together," while all the holy people from Limbo looked on in admiration, and knelt down one by one, first the Baptist, and Adam and Eve, and all the others, saluting the mother of Christ, while the angels sang the end of all sorrows. VII There would be much to say on this subject. One might point out, for instance, not only that Dante has made the lady he loved in his youth into the heroine--a heroine smiling in fashion more womanlike than theological--of his vision of hell and heaven; but what would have been even less possible at any previous moment of the world's history, he has interwoven his theogony so closely with strands of most human emotion and passion (think of that most poignant of love dramas in the very thick of hell!), that, instead of a representation, a chart, so to speak, of long-forgotten philosophical systems, his poem has become a picture, pattern within pattern, of the life of all things: flowers blowing, trees waving, men and women moving and speaking in densest crowds among the flaming rocks of hell, the steps of purgatory, the planispheres of heaven's stars making the groundwork of that wondrous tapestry. But it is better to read Dante than to read about Dante, so I let him be. On the other hand, and lest some one take Puritanic umbrage at my remarks on early Italian art, and deprecate the notion that religious painters could be so very human, I shall say a few parting words about the religious painter, the saint _par excellence_, I mean the Blessed Angelico. Heaven forbid I should attempt to turn him into a brother Lippo, of the Landor or Browning pattern! He was very far indeed, let alone from profanity, even from such flesh and blood feeling as that of Jacopone and scores of other blessed ones. He was, emotionally, rather bloodless; and whatsoever energy he had probably went in tussels with the technical problems of the day, of which he knew much more, for all his cloistered look, than I suspected when I wrote of him before. Angelico, to return to the question, was not a St. Francis, a Fra Jacopone. But even Angelico had his passionately human side, though it was only the humanness of a nice child. In a life of hard study, and perhaps hard penance, that childish blessed one nourished childish desires--desires for green grass and flowers, for gay clothes,[5] for prettily-dressed pink and lilac playfellows, for the kissing and hugging in which he had no share, for the games of the children outside the convent gate. How human, how ineffably full of a good child's longing, is not his vision of Paradise! The gaily-dressed angels are leading the little cowled monks--little baby black and white things, with pink faces like sugar lambs and Easter rabbits--into deep, deep grass quite full of flowers, the sort of grass every child on this wicked earth has been cruelly forbidden to wade in! They fall into those angels' arms, hugging them with the fervour of children in the act of _loving_ a cat or a dog. They join hands with those angels, outside the radiant pink and blue toy-box towers of the celestial Jerusalem, and go singing "Round the Mulberry Bush" much more like the babies in Kate Greenaway's books than like the Fathers of the Church in Dante. The joys of Paradise, for this dear man of God, are not confined to sitting _ad dexteram domini_.... [Footnote 5: Mme. Darmesteter's charming essays "The End of the Middle Ages," contain some amusing instances of such repressed love of finery on the part of saints. Compare Fioretti xx., "And these garments of such fair cloth, which we wear (in Heaven) are given us by God in exchange for our rough frocks."] _Di questo nostro dolce Fratellino_; that line of Jacopone da Todi, hymning to the child Christ, sums up, in the main, the vivifying spirit of early Italian art; nay, is it not this mingled emotion of tenderness, of reverence, and deepest brotherhood which made St. Francis claim sun and birds, even the naughty wolf, for brethren? This feeling becomes embodied, above all, in the very various army of charming angels; and more particularly, perhaps, because Venice had no other means of expression than painting, in the singing and playing angels of the old Venetians. These angels, whether they be the girlish, long-haired creatures, robed in orange and green, of Carpaccio; or the naked babies, with dimpled little legs and arms, and filetted silky curls of Gian Bellini, seem to concentrate into music all the many things which that strong pious Venice, tongue-tied by dialect, had no other way of saying; and we feel to this day that it sounds in our hearts and attunes them to worship or love or gentle contemplation. The sound of those lutes and pipes, of those childish voices, heard and felt by the other holy persons in those pictures--Roman knight Sebastian, Cardinal Jerome, wandering palmer Roch, and all the various lovely princesses with towers and palm boughs in their hands--moreover brings them together, unites them in one solemn blissfulness round the enthroned Madonna. These are not people come together by accident to part again accidentally; they are eternal, part of a vision disclosed to the pious spectator, a crowning of the Mass with its wax-lights and songs. But the Venetian playing and singing angels are there for something more important still. Those excellent old painters understood quite well that in the midst of all this official, doge-like ceremony, it was hard, very hard lines for the poor little Christ Child, having to stand or lie for ever, for ever among those grown-up saints, on the knees of that majestic throning Madonna; since the oligarchy, until very late, allowed no little playfellow to approach the Christ Child, bringing lambs and birds and such-like, and leading Him off to pick flowers as in the pictures of those democratic Tuscans and Umbrians. None of that silly familiarity, said stately Venetian piety. But the painters were kinder. They incarnated their sympathy in the baby music-making angels, and bade them be friendly to the Christ Child. They are so; and nowhere does it strike one so much as in that fine picture, formerly called Bellini, but more probably Alvise Vivarini, at the Redentore, where the Virgin, in her lacquer-scarlet mantle, has ceased to be human altogether, and become a lovely female Buddha in contemplation, absolutely indifferent to the poor little sleeping Christ. The little angels have been sorry. Coming to make their official music, they have brought each his share of heaven's dessert: a little offering of two peaches, three figs, and three cherries on one stalk (so precious therefore!), placed neatly, spread out to look much, not without consciousness of the greatness of the sacrifice. They have not, those two little angels, forgotten, I am sure, the gift they have brought, during that rather weary music-making before the inattentive Madonna. They keep on thinking how Christ will awake to find all those precious things, and they steel their little hearts to the sacrifice. The little bird who has come (invited for like reason) and perched on the curtain bar, understands it all, respects their feelings, and refrains from pecking. Such is the heart of the saints, and out of it comes the painted triumph of _El Magno Jesulino_. THE IMAGINATIVE ART OF THE RENAISSANCE I In a Florentine street through which I pass most days, is a house standing a little back (the place is called the Square of Purgatory), the sight of which lends to that sordid street of stained palace backs, stables, and dingy little shops, a certain charm and significance, in virtue solely of three roses carved on a shield over a door. The house is a humble one of the sixteenth century, and its three roses have just sufficient resemblance to roses, with their pincushion heads and straight little leaves, for us to know them as such. Yet that rude piece of heraldic carving, that mere indication that some one connected with the house once thought of roses, is sufficient, as I say, to give a certain pleasurableness to the otherwise quite unpleasurable street. This is by no means an isolated instance. In various places, as emblems of various guilds or confraternities, one meets similarly carved, on lintel or escutcheon, sheaves of lilies, or what is pleasanter still, that favourite device of the Renaissance (become well known as the monogram of the painter Benvenuto Garofalo), a jar with five clove-pinks. And on each occasion of meeting them, that carved lily and those graven clove-pinks, like the three roses in the Square of Purgatory, have shed a charm over the street, given me a pleasure more subtle than that derived from any bed of real lilies, or pot of real clove-pinks, or bush of real roses; colouring and scenting the street with this imaginary colour and perfume. What train of thought has been set up? It would be hard to say. Something too vague to be perceived except as a whole impression of pleasure; a half-seen vision, doubtless, of the real flowers, of the places where they grow; perhaps even a faint reminiscence, a dust of broken and pounded fragments, of stories and songs into which roses enter, or lilies, or clove-pinks. Hereby hangs a whole question of æsthetics. Those three stone roses are the type of one sort of imaginative art; of one sort of art which, beyond or independent of the charm of visible beauty, possesses a charm that acts directly upon the imagination. Such charm, or at least such interest, may be defined as the literary element in art; and I should give it that name, did it not suggest a dependence upon the written word which I by no means intend to imply. It is the element which, unlike actual representation, is possessed by literature as well as by art; indeed, it is the essence of the former, as actual representation is of the latter. But it belongs to art, in the cases when it belongs to it at all, not because the artist is in any way influenced by the writer, but merely because the forms represented by the artist are most often the forms of really existing things, and fraught, therefore, with associations to all such as know them; and because, also, the artist who presents these forms is a human being, and as such not only sees and draws, but feels and thinks; because, in short, literature being merely the expression of habits of thought and emotion, all such art as deals with the images of real objects tends more or less, in so far as it is a human being, to conform to its type. This is one kind of artistic imagination, this which I have rudely symbolised in the symbol of the three carved roses--the imagination which delights the mind by holding before it some charming or uncommon object, and conjuring up therewith a whole train of feeling and fancy; the school, we might call it, of intellectual decoration, of arabesques formed not of lines and colours, but of associations and suggestions. And to this school of the three carved roses in the Square of Purgatory belong, among others, Angelico, Benozzo, Botticelli, and all those Venetians who painted piping shepherds, and ruralising magnificent ladies absorbed in day-dreams. But besides this kind of imagination in art, there is another and totally different. It is the imagination of how an event would have looked; the power of understanding and showing how an action would have taken place, and how that action would have affected the bystanders; a sort of second-sight, occasionally rising to the point of revealing, not merely the material aspect of things and people, but the emotional value of the event in the eyes of the painter. Thus, for instance, Tintoret concentrated a beam of sunlight into the figure of Christ before Pilate, not because he supposed Christ to have stood in that sunlight, but because the white figure, shining yet ghost-like, seemed to him, perhaps unconsciously, to indicate the position of the betrayed Saviour among the indifference and wickedness of the world. Hence I would divide all imaginative art, particularly that of the old Italian masters, into art which stirs our own associations, and suggests to us trains of thought and feeling perhaps unknown to the artist, and art which exhibits a scene or event foreign to ourselves, and placed before us with a deliberate intention. Both are categories of imaginative activity due to inborn peculiarities of character; but one of them, namely, the suggestive, is probably spontaneous, and quite unintentional, hence never asked for by the public, nor sought after by the artist; while the other, self-conscious and intentional, is therefore constantly sought after by the artist, and bargained for by the public. I shall begin with the latter, because it is the recognised commodity: artistic imagination, as bought and sold in the market, whether of good quality or bad. II The painters of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, developing the meagre suggestions of Byzantine decoration, incorporating the richer inventions of the bas-reliefs of the Pisan sculptors and of the medallions surrounding the earliest painted effigies of holy personages, produced a complete set of pictorial themes illustrative of Gospel history and of the lives of the principal saints. These illustrative themes--definite conceptions of situations and definite arrangements of figures--became forthwith the whole art's stock, universal and traditional; few variations were made from year to year and from master to master, and those variations resolved themselves continually back into the original type. And thus on, through the changes in artistic means and artistic ends, until the Italian schools disappeared finally before the schools of France and Flanders. Let us take a striking example. The presentation of the Virgin remains unaltered in main sentiment and significance of composition, despite the two centuries and more which separate the Gaddi from Titian and Tintoret, despite the complete change in artistic aims and methods separating still more completely the men of the fourteenth century from the men of the sixteenth. The long flight of steps stretching across the fresco in Santa Croce stretches also across the canvas of the great Venetians; and the little girl climbs up them alike, presenting her profile to the spectator; although at the top of the steps there is in one case a Gothic portal, and in the other a Palladian portico, and at the bottom of the steps in the fresco stand Florentines who might personally have known Dante, and at the bottom of the steps in the pictures the Venetian patrons of Aretino. Yet the presentation of the little maiden to the High Priest is quite equally conceivable in many other ways and from many other points of view. As regards both dramatic conception and pictorial composition, the moment might have been differently chosen; the child might still be with its parents or already with the priest; and the flight of steps might have been replaced by the court of the temple. Any man might have invented his own representation of the occurrence. But the men of the sixteenth century adhered scrupulously or indifferently to the inventions of the men of the fourteenth. This is merely one instance in a hundred. If we summon up in our mind as many as we can of the various frescoes and pictures representing the chief incidents of Scripture history, we shall find that, while there are endless differences between them with respect to drawing, anatomy, perspective, light and shade, colour and handling, there are but few and slight variations as regards the conception of the situation and the arrangement for the figures. In the Marriage of the Virgin the suitors are dressed, sometimes in the loose robe and cap with lappets of the days of Giotto, and sometimes in the tight hose and laced doublet of the days of Raphael and of Luini; but they break their wands across their knees with the same gesture and expression; and although the temple is sometimes close at hand, and sometimes a little way off, the wedding ceremony invariably takes place outside it, and not inside. The shepherds in the Nativity are sometimes young and sometimes old, but they always come in broad daylight, and the manger by which the Virgin is kneeling is always outside the stable, and always in one corner of the picture. Again, whatever slight difference there may be in the expression and gesture of the apostles at the Last Supper, they are always seated on one side only of a table facing the spectator, with Judas alone on a stool on the opposite side. And although there are two themes of the Entombment of Christ, one where the body is stretched on the ground, the other where it is being carried to the sepulchre, the action is always out of doors, and never, as might sometimes be expected, gives us the actual burial in the vault. These examples are more than sufficient. Yet I feel that any description in words is inadequate to convey the extreme monotony of all these representations, because the monotony is not merely one of sentiment by selection of the dramatic moment, but of the visible composition of the paintings, of the outlines of the groups and the balancing of them. A monotony so complete that any one of us almost knows what to expect, in all save technical matters and the choice of models, on being told that in such a place there is an old Italian fresco, or panel, or canvas, representing some principal episode of Gospel history. The explanation of this fidelity to one theme of representation in an art which was the very furthest removed from any hieratic prescriptions, in an art which was perpetually growing--and growing more human and secular--must be sought for, I think, in no peculiarities of spiritual condition or national imagination, but in two facts concerning the merely technical development of painting, and the results thereof. These two facts are briefly: that at a given moment--namely, the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth--there existed just enough power of imitating nature to admit of the simple indication of a dramatic situation, without further realisation of detail; and that at this moment, consequently, there originated such pictorial indications of the chief dramatic situations as concerned the Christian world. And secondly, that from then and until well into the sixteenth century, the whole attention of artists was engrossed in changing the powers of indication into powers of absolute representation, developing completely the drawing, anatomy, perspective, colour, light and shade, and handling, which Giotto and his contemporaries had possessed only in a most rudimentary condition, and which had sufficed for the creation of just such pictorial themes as they had invented, and no more. Let me explain myself further. The artists of the fourteenth century, with the exception of Giotto himself--to whose premature excellence none of his contemporaries and disciples ever attained--give us, by means of pictorial representation, just about the same as could be given to us by the conventional symbolism of writing. In describing a Giottesque fresco, or panel, we are not stopped by the difficulty of rendering visible effects in words, because the visible effects that meet us are in reality so many words; so that, to describe the picture, it almost suffices to narrate the story, no arrangements of different planes and of light and shade, no peculiarities of form, foreshortening, colour, or texture requiring to be seen in order to be fully understood. The artists of the fifteenth century--for the Giottesques do little more than carry, without developing them, the themes of Giotto into various parts of Italy--work at adding to the art exactly those qualities which belong exclusively to it, and which baffle the mere written word: they acquire the means, slowly and laboriously, of showing these events no longer merely to the mind, but also to the eye; they place these people in real space, in real relations of distance and light, they give them a real body which can stand and move, made of real flesh and blood and bones, and covered with real clothes; they turn these abstractions once more into realities like the realities of nature whence they had been abstracted. But the work of the fifteenth century does not go beyond filling up the programme indicated by the Giottesques; and it is only after the men of the sixteenth century have been enabled to completely realise all that the men of the fourteenth century had indicated, that art, with Michelangelo, Tintoret, and still more with the great painters of Spain and Flanders, proceeds to encounter problems of foreshortening, of light and shade, of atmospheric effect, that could never have been imagined by the contemporaries of Giotto, nor even by the contemporaries of Ghirlandaio and the Bellini. Hence, throughout the fifteenth century, while there is a steady development of the artistic means required to realise those narrative themes which the Giottesques had invented, there is no introduction of any new artistic means unnecessary for this result, but which, like the foreshortenings of Michelangelo, and the light and shade of Tintoret, like the still further additions to painting represented by men like Velasquez and Rembrandt, could suggest new treatment of the old histories and enable the well-known events to be shown from totally new intellectual standpoints, and in totally new artistic arrangements. If we look into the matter, we shall recognise that the monotony of representation throughout the Renaissance can be amply accounted for without referring to the fact, which, however, doubtless went for something, that the men of the fifteenth century were too much absorbed in the working out of details to feel any desire for new pictorial versions of the stories of the Gospel, and the lives of the Saints. Moreover, the Giottesques--among whom I include the immediate precursors, sculptors as well as painters, of Giotto--put into their Scripture stories an amount of logic, of sentiment, of dramatic and psychological observation and imagination more than sufficient to furnish out the works of three generations of later comers. Setting aside Giotto himself, who concentrates and diffuses the vast bulk of dramatic invention as well as of artistic observation and skill, there is in even the small and smallest among his followers, an extraordinary happiness of individual invention of detail. I may quote a few instances at random. It would be difficult to find a humbler piece of work than the so-called Tree of the Cross, in the Florentine Academy: a thing like a huge fern, with medallion histories in each frond, it can scarcely be considered a work of art, and stands halfway between a picture and a genealogical tree. Yet in some of its medallions there is a great vivacity of imaginative rendering; for instance, the Massacre of the Innocents represented by a single soldier, mailed and hooded, standing before Herod on a floor strewn with children's bodies, and holding up an infant by the arm, like a dead hare, preparing slowly to spit it on his sword; and the kiss of Judas, the soldiers crowding behind, while the traitor kisses Christ, seems to bind him hand and foot with his embraces, to give him up, with that stealthy look backwards to the impatient rabble--a representation of the scene, infinitely superior in its miserable execution to Angelico's Ave Rabbi! with its elaborate landscape of towers and fruit trees. Again, in a series of predella histories of the Virgin, in the same place, also a very mediocre and anonymous work, there is extraordinary charm in the conception of the respective positions of Mary and Joseph at their wedding: he is quite old and grey; she young, unformed, almost a child, and she has to stand on two steps to be on his level, raising her head with a beautiful, childlike earnestness, quite unlike the conventional bridal timidity of other painters. Leaving these unknown mediocrities, I would refer to the dramatic value (besides the great pictorial beauty) of an Entombment by Giottino, in the corridor of the Uffizi: the Virgin does not faint, or has recovered (thus no longer diverting the attention from the dead Saviour to herself, as elsewhere), and surrounds the head of her son with her arms; the rest of the figures restrain themselves before her, and wink with strange blinking efforts to keep back their tears. Still more would I speak of two small frescoes in the Baroncelli Chapel at Santa Croce, which are as admirable in poetical conception as they are unfortunately poor in artistic execution. One of them represents the Annunciation to the Shepherds: they are lying in a grey, hilly country, wrapped in grey mists, their flock below asleep, but the dog vigilant, sniffing the supernatural. One is hard asleep; the other awakes suddenly, and has turned over and looks up screwing his eyes at the angel, who comes in a pale yellow winter sunrise cloud, in the cold, grey mist veined with yellow. The chilliness of the mist at dawn, the wonder of the vision, are felt with infinite charm. In the other fresco the three kings are in a rocky place, and to them appears, not the angel, but the little child Christ, half-swaddled, swimming in orange clouds on a deep blue sky. The eldest king is standing, and points to the vision with surprise and awe; the middle-aged one shields his eyes coolly to see; while the youngest, a delicate lad, has already fallen on his knees, and is praying with both hands crossed on his breast. For dramatic, poetic invention, these frescoes can be surpassed, poor as is their execution, only by Giotto's St. John ascending slowly from the open grave, floating upwards, with outstretched arms and illumined face, to where a cloud of prophets, with Christ at their head, enwraps him in the deep blue sky. These pictorial themes elaborated by the painters of the school of Giotto were not merely as good, in a way, as any pictorial themes could be: simple, straightforward, often very grand, so that the immediately following generations could only spoil, but not improve upon them; they were also, if we consider the matter, the only pictorial representations of Scripture histories possible until art had acquired those new powers of foreshortening, and light and shade and perspective, which were sought for only after the complete attainment of the more elementary powers which the Giottesques never fully possessed. Let us ask ourselves how, in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, any notable change in general arrangement of any well-known Scripture subject could well have been introduced; and, in order to do so, let us realise one or two cases where the same subjects have been treated by later masters. Tintoretto's Last Judgment, where the Heavenly Hosts brood, poised on their wings, above the river of hell which hurries the damned down its cataracts, is impossible so long as perspective and foreshortening will barely admit (as is the case up to the end of the fifteenth century), of figures standing firmly on the ground and being separated into groups at various distances. In Rembrandt's and Terburg's Adoration of the Shepherds, the light emanates from the infant Christ; in Ribera's magnificent Deposition from the Cross, the dead Saviour and His companions are represented, not, as in the Entombments of Perugino and Raphael, in the open air, but in the ghastly light of the mouth of the sepulchre. These are new variations upon the hackneyed themes, but how were they possible so long as the problems of light and shade were limited (as was the case even with Leonardo), to giving the modelling, rather in form than in colour, of a face or a limb? One of the earliest and greatest innovations is Signorelli's treatment of the Resurrection in the chapel of San Brizio, at Orvieto; he broke entirely with the tradition (exemplified particularly by Angelico) of making the dead come fully fleshed and dressed as in their lifetime from under the slabs of a burial place, goaded by grotesque devils with the snouts and horns of weasels and rams, with the cardboard masks of those carnival mummers who gave the great pageant of Hell mentioned by old chroniclers. But Signorelli's innovation, his naked figures partially fleshed and struggling through the earth's crust, his naked demons shooting through the air and tying up the damned, could not possibly have been executed or even conceived until his marvellous mastery of the nude and of the anatomy of movement had been obtained. Indeed, wherever, in the art of the fifteenth century, we find a beginning of innovation in the conception and arrangement of a Scripture history, we shall find also the beginning of the new technical method which has suggested such a partial innovation. Thus, in the case of one of the greatest, but least appreciated, masters of the early Renaissance, Paolo Uccello. His Deluge, in the frescoes of the green cloister of S. Maria Novella, is wonderfully original as a whole conception; and the figure clinging to the side of the ark, with soaked and wind-blown drapery; the man in a tub trying to sustain himself with his hands, the effort and strain of the people in the water, are admirable as absolute realisation of the scene. Again, in the Sacrifice of Noah, there is in the foreshortened figure of God, floating, brooding, like a cloud, with face downward and outstretched hands over the altar, something which is a prophecy, and more than a prophecy, of what art will come to in the Sixtine and the Loggie. But these inventions are due to Uccello's special and extraordinary studies of the problems of modelling and foreshortening; and when his contemporaries try to assimilate his achievements, and unite them with the achievements of other men in other special technical directions, there is an end of all individual poetical conception, and a relapse into the traditional arrangements; as may be seen by comparing the Bible stories of Paolo Uccello with those of Benozzo Gozzoli at Pisa. It is not wonderful that the painters of the fifteenth century should have been satisfied with repeating the themes left by the Giottesques. For the Giottesques had left them, besides this positive heritage, a negative heritage, a programme to fill up, of which it is difficult to realise the magnitude. The work of the Giottesques is so merely poetic, or at most so merely decorative in the sense of a mosaic or a tapestry, and it is in the case of Giotto and one or two of his greatest contemporaries, particularly the Sienese, so well-balanced and satisfying as a result of its elementary nature that we are apt to overlook the fact that everything in the way of realisation as opposed to indication, everything distinguishing the painting of a story from the mere telling thereof, remained to be done. And such realisation could be attained only through a series of laborious failures. It is by comparing some of the later Giottesques themselves, notably the Gaddi with Giotto, that we bring home to ourselves, for instance, that Giotto did not, at least in his finest work at Florence, attempt to model his frescoes in colour. Now the excessive ugliness of the Gaddi frescoes at St. Croce is largely due to the effort to make form and boss depend, as in nature, upon colour. Giotto, in the neighbouring Peruzzi and Bardi chapels, is quite satisfied with outlining the face and draperies in dark paint, and laying on the colour, in itself beautiful, as a child will lay it on to a print or outline drawing, filling up the lines, but not creating them. I give this as a solitary instance of one of the first and most important steps towards pictorial realisation which the great imaginative theme-inventors left to their successors. As a fact, the items at which the fifteenth century had to work are too many to enumerate; in many cases each man or group of men took up one particular item, as perspective, modelling, anatomy, colour, movement, and their several subdivisions, usually with the result of painful and grotesque insistency and onesidedness, from the dreadful bag of bones anatomies of Castagno and Pollaiolo, down to the humbler, but equally necessary, architectural studies of Francesco di Giorgio. Add to this the necessity of uniting the various attainments of such specialists, of taming down these often grotesque monomaniacs, of making all these studies of drawing, anatomy, colour, modelling, perspective, &c., into a picture. If that picture was lacking in individual poetic conception; if those studies were often intolerably silly and wrong-headed from the intellectual point of view; if the old themes were not only worn threadbare, but actually maltreated, what wonder? The themes were there, thank Heaven! no one need bother about them; and no one did. Moreover, as I have already pointed out, no one could have added anything, save in the personal sentiment of the heads, the hands, the tilt of the figure, or the quality of the form. Everything which depends upon dramatic conception, which is not a question of form or sentiment, tended merely to suffer a steady deterioration. Thus, nearly two hundred years after Giotto, Ghirlandaio could find nothing better for his frescoes in St. Trinità than the arrangement of Giotto's St. Francis, with the difference that he omitted all the more delicate dramatic distinctions. I have already alluded to the poetic conception of an early Marriage of the Virgin in the Florence Academy; that essential point of the extreme youth of Mary was never again attended to, although the rest of the arrangement was repeated for two centuries. Similarly, no one noticed or reproduced the delicate distinctions of action which Gaddi had put into his two Annunciations of the Cappella Baroncelli; the shepherds henceforth sprawled no matter how; and the scale of expression in the vision of the Three Kings was not transferred to the more popular theme of their visit to the stable at Bethlehem. In Giotto's Presentation at the Temple in the Arena chapel at Padua, the little Mary is pushed up the steps by her mother; in the Baroncelli frescoes the little girl, ascending gravely, turns round for a minute to bless the children at the foot of the steps. Here are two distinct dramatic conceptions, the one more human, the other more majestic; both admirable. The fifteenth century, nay, the fourteenth, took no account of either; the Virgin merely went up the steps, connected by no emotion with the other characters, a mere little doll, as she is still in the big pictures of Titian and Tintoret, and quite subordinate to any group of richly dressed men or barebacked women. It is difficult to imagine any miracle quite so dull as the Raising of the King's Son in the Brancacci Chapel; its dramatic or undramatic foolishness is surpassed only by certain little panels of Angelico, with fiery rain and other plagues coming down upon the silly blue and pink world of dolls. A satisfactory study of the lack of all dramatic invention of the painters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is afforded by the various representations of the Annunciation of the Virgin, one of the favourite themes of the early Renaissance. It never seems to have occurred to any one that the Virgin and the Archangel might be displayed otherwise than each in one corner of the picture. Such a composition as that of Rossetti's Ancilla Domini, where the Virgin cowers on her bed as the angel floats in with flames round his feet; such a suggestion as that of the unfinished lily on the embroidery frame, was reserved for our sceptical and irreverent, but imaginative times. The variety in these Annunciations depends, as I have remarked, not upon a new dramatic conception, producing, as in the case of Rossetti's, a new visible arrangement; but upon the particular kind of form preferred by the artist, and the particular kind of expression common in his pictures; the variety, I may add, is, with one or two exceptions, a variety in inertness. Let us look at a few, taking merely those in one gallery, the Uffizi. The Virgin, in that superb piece of gilding by Simone Martini (did those old painters ever think of the glorified evening sky when they devised such backgrounds?), is turning away from the angel in sheer loathing and anger, a great lady feeling sick at the sudden intrusion of a cad. In a picture by Angelo Gaddi, she is standing with her hand on her chest, just risen from her chair, like a prima donna going to answer an _encore_--a gracious, but not too eager recognition of an expected ovation. In one by Cosimo Rossetti she lifts both hands with shocked astonishment as the angel scuddles in; in the lovely one, with blue Alpine peaks and combed-out hair, now given to Verocchio, she raises one hand with a vacant smile, as if she were exclaiming, "Dear me! there's that angel again." The one slight deviation from the fixed type of Annunciation, Angelico's, in a cell at St. Mark's, where he has made the Virgin kneel and the angel stand, merely because he had painted another Annunciation with a kneeling angel a few doors off, is due to no dramatic inspiration. The angel standing upright with folded arms (how different from Rossetti's standing angel!) while the Virgin kneels, instead of kneeling to her as, according to etiquette, results merely in an impression that this silly, stolid, timid little _Ancilla Domini_ (here again one thinks of Rossetti's cowering and dazed Virgin), has been waiting for some time in that kneeling attitude, and that the Archangel has come by appointment. Among this crowd of unimpressive, nay brainless, representations of one of the grandest and sweetest of all stories, there stand out two--an Annunciation by Signorelli, a small oil painting in the Uffizi, and one by Botticelli,[6] a large tempera picture in the same room. But they stand out merely because the one is the work of the greatest early master of form and movement, or rather the master whose form and movement had a peculiar quality of the colossal; and the other is the work of the man, of all Renaissance painters, whose soul seems to have known most of human, or rather feminine wistfulness, and sorrow, and passion. [Footnote 6: Probably executed from Botticelli's design, by Raffaellino del Garbo.] The little panel by Signorelli (the lowest compartment, divided into three, of an altar-piece) is perhaps, besides the Orvieto _Resurrection_, his most superb and poetical work. The figures, only three inches high, have his highest quality of powerful grandeur, solemnly rustic in the kneeling shepherds--solemn in the very swagger, hand on hip, of the parti-coloured bravoes of the Magi; the landscape, only a few centimetres across, is one of the amplest and most austere that ever has been painted: a valley, bounded by blue hills and dark green ilex groves, wide, silent, inhabited by a race larger and stronger than the human, with more than human passions, but without human speech. In it the Virgin is seated beneath a portico, breathing, as such creatures must breathe, the vast greenness, the deep evening breeze. And to her comes bounding, with waving draperies and loosened hair, the Archangel, like a rushing wind, the wind which the strong woman is quietly inhaling. There is no religious sentiment here, still less any human: the Madonna bows gravely as one who is never astonished; and, indeed, this race of giants, living in this green valley, look as if nothing could ever astonish them--walking miracles themselves, and in constant relation with the superhuman. We must forget all such things in turning to that Annunciation of Botticelli. The angel has knelt down vehemently, but drawn himself back, frightened at his own message; moved overmuch and awed by what he has to say, and her to whom he must say it; lifting a hand which seems to beg patience, till the speech which is throbbing in his heart can pass his lips; eagerness defeating itself, passionate excitement turned into awe in this young, delicate, passionate, and imaginative creature. He has not said the word; but she has understood. She has seen him before; she knows what he means, this vehement, tongue-tied messenger; and at his sight she reels, her two hands up, the beating of her own blood too loud in her ears, a sudden mist of tears clouding her eyes. This is no simple damsel receiving the message, like Rossetti's terrified and awe-stricken girl, that she is the handmaid of the Lord. This is the nun who has been waiting for years to become Christ's own bride, and receives at length the summons to him, in a tragic overpowering ecstasy, like Catherine in Sodoma's fresco, sinking down at the touch of the rays from Christ's wounds. Nay, this is, in fact, the mere long-loving woman, suddenly overcome by the approach of bliss ever hungered for, but never expected, hearing that it is she who is the beloved; and the angel is the knight's squire, excited at the message he has to carry, but terrified at the sight of the woman to whom he must carry it, panting with the weight of another man's love, and learning, as he draws his breath to say those words, what love is himself. The absence of individual invention, implying the absence of individual dramatic realisation, strikes one more than anywhere in the works of Angelico; and most of all in his frescoes of the cells of St. Mark's. For, while these are evidently less cared for as art, indeed scarcely intended, in their hasty execution, to be considered as paintings at all, they are more strictly religious in intention than any other of Angelico's works; indeed, perhaps, of all paintings in the world, the most exclusively devoted to a religious object. They are, in fact, so many pages of Scripture stuck up, like texts in a waiting-room, in the cells of the convent: an adjunct to the actual written or printed Bible of each monk. For this reason we expect them to possess what belongs so completely to the German engravers of Dürer's school, the very essential of illustrative art--imaginative realisation of the scenes, an attempt to seize the attention and fill it with the subject. This is by no means the case: for Angelico, although a saint, was a man of the fifteenth century, and, despite all his obvious efforts, he was not a real follower of Giotto. What impressiveness of actual artistic arrangement these frescoes really possess, is due, I think, to no imaginative effort of the artist, but to the exigencies of the place; as any similar impressiveness is due in Signorelli's Annunciation to the quality of his form, and in Botticelli's Annunciation to the pervading character of his heads and gestures. These pale angels and St. Dominicks and Magdalens, these diaphanous, dazzling Christs and Virgins of Angelico's, shining out of the dark corner of the cell made darker, deeper, by the dark green or inky purple ground on which they are painted, are less the spiritual conception of the painter than the accidental result of the darkness of the place, where lines must be simple and colours light, if anything is to be visible. For in the more important frescoes in the corridors and chapter-room, where the light is better, there is a return to Angelico's hackneyed vapid pinks and blues and lilacs, and a return also to his niminy-piminy lines, to all the wax-doll world of the missal painter. The fine fresco of St. Dominick at the foot of the cross, which seems to constitute an exception to this rule, really goes to prove it, since it is intended to be seen very much like the cell frescoes: white and black on a blue ground at the end of the first corridor, a thing to be looked at from a great distance, to impress the lay world that sees it at the cloister and from outside the convent railing. The cell frescoes are, I have said, the most exclusively religious paintings in the world, since they are to the highest degree, what all absolutely pious art must be, _aids to devotion_. Their use is to assist the monk in that conjuring up of the actual momentary feelings, nay, sensations, of the life of Christ which is part of his daily duty. They are such stimuli as the Church has given sometimes in an artistic, sometimes in a literary form, to an imagination jaded by the monotonous contemplation of one subject, or overexcited to the extent of rambling easily to another: they are what we fondly imagine will be the portraits of the dear dead which we place before us, forgetting that after a while we look without seeing, or see without feeling. That this is so, that these painted Gospel leaves stuck on the cell walls are merely such mechanical aids to devotion, explains the curious and startling treatment of some of the subjects, which are yet, despite the seeming novelty and impressiveness, very cold, undramatic, and unimaginative. Thus, there is the fresco of Christ enthroned, blindfold, with alongside of Him a bodiless scoffing head, with hat raised, and in the act of spitting; buffeting hands, equally detached from any body, floating also on the blue background. There is a Christ standing at the foot of the cross, but with his feet in a sarcophagus, the column of the flagellation monumentally or heraldically on one side, the lance of Longinus on the other; and above, to the right, the floating face of Christ being kissed by that of Judas; to the left the blindfold floating head of Christ again, with the floating head of a soldier spitting at Him; and all round buffeting and jibing hands, hands holding the sceptre of reed, and hands counting out money; all arranged very much like the nails, hammer, tweezers and cock on roadside crosses; each a thing whereon to fix the mind, so as to realise that kiss of Judas, that spitting of the soldiers, those slaps; and to hear, if possible, the chink of the pieces of silver that sold our Lord. How different, these two pictorial dodges of the purely mechanical Catholicism of the fifteenth century from the tender or harrowing gospel illustrations, where every detail is conceived as happening in the artist's own town and to his own kinsfolk, of the Lutheran engravers of the school of Dürer! Thus things go on throughout the fifteenth century, and, indeed, deep into the sixteenth, where traditional arrangement and individual conception overlap, according as a new artistic power does or does not call forth a new dramatic idea. I have already alluded to the fact that the Presentation of the Virgin remains the same, so far as arrangement is concerned, in the pictures of Titian and Tintoret as in the frescoes of Giotto and Gaddi. Michelangelo's Creation of Adam seems still inherited from an obscure painter in the "Green Cloister," who inherited it from the Pisan sculptors. On the other hand, the Resurrection and Last Judgment of Signorelli at Orvieto, painted some years earlier, constitutes in many of its dramatic details a perfectly original work. Be this as it may, and however frequent the recurrence of old themes, with the sixteenth century commences the era of new individual dramatic invention. Michelangelo's Dividing of the Light from the Darkness, where the Creator broods still in chaos, and commands the world to exist; and Raphael's Liberation of St. Peter, with its triple illumination from the moon, the soldier's torches and the glory of the liberating angel, are witnesses that henceforward each man may invent for himself, because each man is in possession of those artistic means which the Giottesques had indicated and the artists of the fifteenth century had laboriously acquired. And now, the Giottesque programme being fulfilled, art may go abroad and seek for new methods and effects, for new dramatic conceptions. III The other day, walking along the river near Careggi (with its memories of Lorenzo dei Medici and his Platonists), close to the little cupola and loggia built by Ghirlandaio, I came upon a strip of new grass, thickly whitened with daisies, beneath the poplars beginning to yellow with pale sprouting leaves. And immediately there arose in my mind, by the side of this real grass and real budding of trees, the remembrance of certain early Renaissance pictures: the rusty, green, stencilled grass and flowers of Botticelli, the faded tapestry work of Angelico; making, as it were, the greenness greener, the freshness fresher, of that real grass and those real trees. And not by the force of contrast, but rather by the sense that as all this appears to me green and fresh in the present, so likewise did it appear to those men of four centuries ago: the fact of their having seen and felt, making me, all the more, see and feel. This is one of the peculiarities of rudimentary art--of the art of the early Renaissance as well as of that of Persia and India, of Constantinople, of every peasant potter all through the world: that, not knowing very well its own aims, it fills its imperfect work with suggestion of all manner of things which it loves, and tries to gain in general pleasurableness what it loses in actual achievement; and lays hold of us, like fragments of verse, by suggestiveness, quite as much as by pictorial realisation. And upon this depends the other half of the imaginative art of the Renaissance, the school of intellectual decoration, of arabesques formed, not of lines and of colours, but of associations and suggestions. The desire which lies at the bottom of it--a desire masked as religious symbolism in the old mosaicists and carvers and embroiderers--is the desire to paint nice things, in default of painting a fine picture. The beginning of such attempts is naturally connected with the use of gilding; whether those gold grounds of the panel pictures of the fourteenth century represented to the painters only a certain expenditure of gold foil, or whether (as I have suggested, but I fear fantastically) their streakings and veinings of coppery or silvery splendour, their stencillings of rays and dots and fretwork, their magnificent inequality and variety of brown or yellow or greenish effulgence, were vaguely connected in the minds of those men with the splendour of the heaven in which the Virgin and the Saints really dwell. It is the cunning use of this gilding, of tools for ribbing and stencilling and damascening, which give half of their marvellous exotic loveliness to Simone Martini's frescoes at Assisi and his Annunciation of the Florentine Gallery; this, and the feeling for wonderful gold woven and embroidered stuffs, like that white cloth of gold of the kneeling angel, fit, in its purity and splendour, for the robe of Grail king. The want of mechanical dexterity, however, prevented the Giottesques from doing very much in the decorative line except in conjunction with the art--perhaps quite separate from that of the painter, and exercised by a different individual--of the embosser and gilder. It is with the fifteenth century that begins, in Italy as in Flanders (we must think of the carved stonework, the Persian carpets, the damascened armour, the brocade dresses of Van Eyck's and Memling's Holy Families), the deliberate habit of putting into pictures as much as possible of the beautiful and luxurious things of this world. The house of the Virgin, originally a very humble affair, or rather, in the authority of the early Giottesques, a _no place, nowhere_, develops gradually into a very delightful residence in the choicest part of the town, or into a pleasantly situated villa, like the one described in the Decameron, commanding a fine view. The Virgin's bedchamber, where we are shown it, as, for instance, in Crivelli's picture in the National Gallery, is quite as well appointed in the way of beautiful bedding, carving, and so forth, as the chamber of the lady of John Arnolfini of Lucca in Van Eyck's portrait. Outside it, as we learn from Angelico, Cosimo Rosselli, Lippi, Ghirlandaio, indeed, from almost every Florentine painter, stretches a pleasant portico, decorated in the Ionic or Corinthian style, as if by Brunellesco or Sangallo, with tesselated floor, or oriental carpet, and usually a carved or gilded desk and praying stool; while the privacy of the whole place is guarded by a high wall, surmounted by vases, overtopped by cypresses, and in whose shelter grows a row of well-kept roses and lilies. Sometimes this house, as I have said, becomes a villa, as is the case, not unfrequently, with the Lombards, who love to make the angel appear on the flowery grass against a background of Alpine peaks, such as you see them, rising blue and fairylike from the green ricefields about Pavia. Crivelli, however, though a Lombard, prefers a genteel residence in town, the magnificent Milan of Galeazzo and Filippo Visconti. He gives us a whole street, where richly dressed and well peruked gentlemen look down from the terraces, duly set with flower-pots, of houses ornamented with terra-cotta figures and medallions like those of the hospital at Milan. In this street the angel of the Annunciation is kneeling, gorgeously got up in silks and brocades, and accompanied by a nice little bishop carrying a miniature town on a tray. The Virgin seems to be receiving the message through the window or the open door. She has a beautiful bed with a red silk coverlet, some books, and a shelf covered with plates and preserve jars. This evident appreciation of jam, as one of the pleasant things of this world, corresponds with the pot of flowers on the window, the bird-cage hanging up: the mother of Christ must have the little tastes and luxuries of a well-to-do burgess's daughter. Again, the cell of St. Jerome, painted some thirty years later by Carpaccio, in the Church of the Slavonians, contains not only various convenient and ornamental articles of furniture, but a collection of nick-nacks, among which some antique bronzes are conspicuous. The charm in all this is not so much that of the actual objects themselves; it is that of their having delighted those people's minds. We are pleased by their pleasure, and our imagination is touched by their fancy. The effect is akin to that of certain kinds of poetry, not the dramatic certainly, where we are pleased by the mere suggestion of beautiful things, and quite as much by finding in the poet a mind appreciative and desirous of them, constantly collecting them and enhancing them by subtle arrangements; it is the case with much lyric verse, with the Italian folk-rhymes, woven out of names of flowers and herbs, with some of Shakespeare's and Fletcher's songs, with the "Allegro" and "Penseroso," Keats, some of Heine, and, despite a mixture of unholy intention, Baudelaire. The great master thereof in the early Renaissance, the lyrist, if I may use the word, of the fifteenth century, is of course Botticelli. He is one of those who most persistently introduce delightful items into their works: elaborately embroidered veils, scarves, and gold fringes. But being a man of fine imagination and most delicate sense of form, he does not, like Angelico or Benozzo or Carpaccio, merely stick pretty things about; he works them all into his strange arabesque, half intellectual, half physical. Thus the screen of roses[7] behind certain of his Madonnas, forming an exquisite Morris pattern with the greenish-blue sky interlaced; and those beautiful, carefully-drawn branches of spruce-fir and cypress, lace-like in his Primavera; above all, that fan-like growth of myrtles, delicately cut out against the evening sky, which not merely print themselves as shapes upon the mind, but seem to fill it with a scent of poetry. [Footnote 7: I learn from the learned that the Florence and Louvre Madonnas, with the roses, are not Botticelli's; but Botticelli, I am sure, would not have been offended by those lovely bushes being attributed to him.] This pleasure in the painter's pleasure in beautiful things is connected with another quality, higher and rarer, in this sort of imaginative art. It is our appreciation of the artist's desire for beauty and refinement, of his search for the exquisite. Herein, to my mind, lies some of the secret of Botticelli's fantastic grace; the explanation of that alternate or rather interdependent ugliness and beauty. Botticelli, as I have said elsewhere, must have been an admirer of the grace and sentiment of Perugino, of the delicacy of form of certain Florentine sculptors--Ghiberti, and those who proceed from him, Desiderio, Mino, and particularly the mysterious Florentine sculptor of Rimini; and what these men have done or do, Botticelli attempts, despite or (what is worse) by means of the realistic drawing and ugly models of Florence, the mechanism and arrangement of coarse men like the Pollaiolos. The difficulty of attaining delicate form and sentiment with such materials--it cannot be said to have been attained in that sense by any other early Tuscan painter, not even Angelico or Filippo Lippi--makes the desire but the keener, and turns it into a most persevering and almost morbid research. Thence the extraordinary ingenuity displayed, frequently to the detriment of the work, in the arrangement of hands (witness the tying, clutching hands, with fingers bent curiously in intricate knots, of the Calumny of Apelles), and of drapery; in the poising of bodies and selection of general outline. This search for elegance and grace, for the refined and unhackneyed, is frequently baffled by the ugliness of Botticelli's models, and still more by Botticelli's deficient knowledge of anatomy and habit of good form. But, when not baffled, this desire is extraordinarily assisted by those very defects. This great decorator, who uses the human form as so much pattern element, mere lines and curves like those of a Raffaelesque arabesque, obtains with his imperfect, anatomically defective, and at all events ill-fashioned figures, a far-fetched and poignant grace impossible to a man dealing with more perfect elements. For grace and distinction, which are qualities of movement rather than of form, do not strike us very much in a figure which is originally well made. The momentary charm of movement is lost in the permanent charm of form; the creature could not be otherwise than delightful, made as it is; and we thus miss the sense of selection and deliberate arrangement, the sense of beauty as movement, that is, as grace. Whereas, in the case of defective form, any grace that may be obtained affects us _per se_. It need not have been there; indeed, it was unlikely to be there; and hence it obtains the value and charm of the unexpected, the rare, the far-fetched. This, I think, is the explanation of the something of exotic beauty that attaches to Botticelli: we perceive the structural form only negatively, sufficiently to value all the more the ingenuity of arrangement by which it is made to furnish a beautiful outline and beautiful movement; and we perceive the great desire thereof. If we allow our eye to follow the actual structure of the bodies, even in the Primavera, we shall recognise that not one of these figures but is downright deformed and out of drawing. Even the Graces have arms and shoulders and calves and stomachs all at random; and the most beautiful of them has a slice missing out of her head. But if, instead of looking at heads, arms, legs, bodies, separately, and separate from the drapery, we follow the outline of the groups against the background, drapery clinging or wreathing, arms intertwining, hands combed out into wonderful fingers; if we regard these groups of figures as a pattern stencilled on the background, we recognise that no pattern could be more exquisite in its variety of broken up and harmonised lines. The exquisite qualities of all graceful things, flowers, branches, swaying reeds, and certain animals like the stag and peacock, seem to have been abstracted and given to these half-human and wholly wonderful creatures--these thin, ill put together, unsteady youths and ladies. The ingenious grace of Botticelli passes sometimes from the realm of art to that of poetry, as in the case of those flowers, with stiff, tall stems, which he places by the uplifted foot of the middle Grace, thus showing that she has trodden over it, like Virgil's Camilla, without crushing it. But the element of sentiment and poetry depends in reality upon the fascination of movement and arrangement; fascination seemingly from within, a result of exquisite breeding in those imperfectly made creatures. It is the grace of a woman not beautiful, but well dressed and moving well; the exquisiteness of a song sung delicately by an insufficient or defective voice: a fascination almost spiritual, since it seems to promise a sensitiveness to beauty, a careful avoidance of ugliness, a desire for something more delicate, a reverse of all things gross and accidental, a possibility of perfection. This imagination of pleasant detail and accessory, which delights us by the intimacy into which we are brought with the artist's innermost conception, develops into what, among the masters of the fifteenth century, I should call the imagination of the fairy tale. A small number of scriptural and legendary stories lend themselves quite particularly to the development of such beautiful accessory, which soon becomes the paramount interest, and vests the whole with a totally new character: a romantic, childish charm, the charm of the improbable taken for granted, of the freedom to invent whatever one would like to see but cannot, the charm of the fairy story. From this unconscious altering of the value of certain Scripture tales, arises a romantic treatment which is naturally applied to all other stories, legends of saints, biographical accounts, Decameronian tales (Mr. Leyland once possessed some Botticellian illustrations of the tale of Nastagio degli Onesti, the hero of Dryden's "Theodore and Honoria," a sort of pendant to the Griseldis attributed to Pinturicchio), and mythological episodes: a new kind of invention, based upon a desire to please, and as different from the invention of the Giottesques as the Arabian Nights are different from Homer. I have said that it begins with the unconscious altering of the values of certain scriptural stories, owing to the preponderance of detail over accessory. The chief example of this is the Adoration of the Magi. In the paintings of the Giottesques, and in the paintings of the serious, or duller, masters of the fifteenth century--Ghirlandaio, Rosselli, Filippino, those for whom the fairy tale could exist no more than for Michelangelo or Andrea del Sarto--the chief interest in this episode is the Holy Family, the miraculous Babe whom these great folk came so far to see. The fourteenth century made very short work of the kings, allowing them a minimum of splendour; and those of the fifteenth century, who cared only for artistic improvement, copied slavishly, giving the kings their retinue only as they might have introduced any number of studio models or burgesses aspiring at portraits, after the fashion of the Brancacci and S. Maria Novella frescoes, where spectators of miracles make a point never to look at the miraculous proceedings. But there were men who felt differently: the men who loved splendour and detail. To Gentile da Fabriano, that wonderful man in whom begins the colour and romance of Venetian painting,[8] the adoration of the kings could not possibly be what it had been for the Giottesques, or what it still was for Angelico. The Madonna, St. Joseph, the child Christ did not cease to be interesting: he painted them with evident regard, gave the Madonna a beautiful gold hem to her dress, made St. Joseph quite unusually amiable, and shed a splendid gilt glory about the child Christ. But to him the wonderful part of the business was not the family in the shed at Bethlehem which the kings came to see; but those kings themselves, who came from such a long way off. He put himself at the point of view of a holy family less persuaded of its holiness, who should suddenly see a bevy of grand folks come up to their door: the miraculous was here. The spiritual glory was of course on the side of the family of Joseph; but the temporal glory, the glory that delighted Gentile, that went to his brain and made him childishly happy, was with the kings and their retinue. That retinue--the trumpeters prancing on white horses, with gold lace covers, the pages, the armour-bearers, the treasurers, the huntsmen with the hounds, the falconers with the hawks, winding for miles down the hills, and expanding into the circle of strange and delightful creatures that kings must have about their persons: jesters with heads thrown back and eyes squeezed close, while thinking of some funny jest; dwarfs and negroes, almost as amusing as their camels and giraffes; tame lynxes chained behind the saddle, monkeys perched, jabbering, on the horses' manes--all this was much more wonderful in Gentile da Fabriano's opinion than all the wonders of the Church, which grew somehow less wonderful the more implicitly you believed in them. Then, in the midst of all these delightful splendours, the kings themselves! The old grey-beard in the brown pomegranate embossed brocade going on all fours, and kissing the little child's feet; the dark young man, with peaked beard and wistful face, removing his coroneted turban; and last, but far from least, the youngest king, the beardless boy, with the complexion of a well-bred young lady, the almond eyes and golden hair, standing up in his tunic of white cloth of silver, while one squire unbuckled his spurs and another removed his cloak. The darling little Prince Charming, between whom and the romantic bearded young king there must for some time have been considerable rivalry, and alternating views in the minds of men and the hearts of women (particularly when the second king, the bearded one, became the John Palæologus of Benozzo), until it was victoriously borne in upon the public that this delicate, beardless creature, so much younger and always the last, must evidently be _the_ prince, the youngest of the king's sons in the fairy tales, the one who always succeeds where the two elder have failed, who gets the Water that Dances and the Apple Branch that Sings, who carries off the enchanted oranges, slays the ogre, releases the princess, flies through the air, the hero, the prince of Fairyland.... [Footnote 8: This quality, particularly in the Adoration of the Magi, is already very marked in the very charming and little known frescoes of Ottaviano Nelli, in the former Trinci Palace at Foligno. Nelli was the master of Gentile, and through him greatly influenced Venice.] The fairy business of the story of the Three Kings takes even greater proportions in the delightful frescoes of Benozzo Gozzoli in the Riccardi Chapel. Here the Holy Family are suppressed, so to speak, altogether, tucked into the altar in a picture, and the act of adoration at Bethlehem becomes the mere excuse for the romantic adventures of three people of the highest quality. The journey itself, where Gentile da Fabriano sums up in that procession twisting about the background of his picture, here occupies a whole series of frescoes. And on this journey is concentrated all that the Renaissance knew of splendour, delightfulness, and romance. The green valleys, watered by twisting streams, with matted grasses, which Botticelli puts behind his enthroned Madonna and victorious Judith; Angelico's favourite hillsides with blossoming fruit trees and pointing cypresses; the mysterious firwoods--more mysterious for their remoteness on the high Apennines--which fascinate the fancy of Filippo Lippi; all this is here, and through it all winds the procession of the Three Kings. There are the splendid stuffs and Oriental jewels and trappings, the hounds and monkeys, and jesters and negroes, the falcon on the wrist, the lynxes chained to the saddle, all the magnificence dreamed by Gentile da Fabriano; and among it all ride, met by bevies of peacock-winged angels, kneeling and singing before the flowering rose-hedges, the Three Kings. The old man, who looks like some Platonist philosopher, the beardless prince, surrounded by his noisy huntsmen and pages; and that dark-bearded youth in the Byzantine dress and shovel hat, the genuine king from the East, riding with ardent, wistful eyes, a beautiful kingly young Quixote: Sir Percival seeking the Holy Grail, or King Cophetua seeking for his beggar girl. It is a page of fairy tale, retold by Boiardo or Spenser. After such things as these it is difficult to speak of those more prosaic tales, really intended as such, on which the painters of the Renaissance spent their fancy. Still they have all their charm, these fairy tales, not of the great poets indeed, but of the nursery. There is, for instance, the story of a good young man (with a name for a fairy tale too, Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini!) showing his adventures by land and sea and at many courts, the honours conferred on him by kings and emperors, and how at last he was made Pope, having begun as a mere poor scholar on a grey nag; all painted by Pinturicchio in the Cathedral library of Siena. There is the lamentable story of a bride and bridegroom, by Vittore Carpaccio: the stately, tall bride, St. Ursula, and the dear little foolish bridegroom, looking like her little brother; a story containing a great many incidents: the sending of an embassy to the King; the King being sorely puzzled in his mind, leaning his arm upon his bed and asking the Queen's advice; the presence upon the palace steps of an ill-favoured old lady, with a crutch and basket, suspiciously like the bad fairy who had been forgotten at the christening; the apparition of an angel to the Princess, sleeping, with her crown neatly put away at the foot of the bed; the arrival of the big ship in foreign parts, with the Bishop and Clergy putting their heads out of the port-holes and asking very earnestly, "Where are we?" and finally, a most fearful slaughter of the Princess and her eleven thousand ladies-in-waiting. The same Carpaccio--a regular old gossip from whom one would expect all the formulas, "and then he says to the king, Sacred Crown," "and then the Prince walks, walks, walks, walks." "A company of knights in armour nice and shining," "three comely ladies in a green meadow," and so forth of the professional Italian story-teller--the same Carpaccio, who was also, and much more than the more solemn Giovanni Bellini, the first Venetian to handle oil paints like Titian and Giorgione, painted the fairy tale of St. George, with quite the most dreadful dragon's walk, a piece of sea sand embedded with bones and half-gnawed limbs, and crawled over by horrid insects, that any one could wish to see; and quite the most comical dragon, particularly when led out for execution among the minarets and cupolas and camels and turbans and symbols of a kind of small Constantinople. One of the funniest of all such series of stories, and which shows that when the Renaissance men were driven to it they could still invent, though (apparently) when they had to invent in this fashion, they ceased to be able to paint, is the tale of Griseldis, attributed in our National Gallery to Pinturicchio, but certainly by a very inferior painter of his school. The Marquis, after hunting deer on a steep little hill, shaded by elm trees, sees Griseldis going to a well, a pitcher on her head. He reins in his white horse, and cranes over in his red cloak, the young parti-coloured lords-in-waiting pressing forwards to see her, but only as much as politeness warrants. Scene II.--A stubbly landscape. The Marquis, in red and gold cloak and well-combed yellow head of hair, approaches on foot to the little pink farm-house. Surprise of old Giannucole, who is coming down the exterior steps. "Bless my soul! the Lord Marquis!" "Where is your daughter?" asks the Marquis, with pointing finger. But the daughter, hearing voices, has come on to the balcony and throws up her arms astonished. "Dear me! the cavalier who accosted me in the wood!" The Marquis and Grizel walk off, he deferentially dapper, she hanging back a little in her black smock. Scene III.--The Marquis, still in purple and gold, and red stockings and Hessian boots, says with some timidity and much grace, pointing to the magnificent clothes brought by his courtiers, "Would you mind, dear Grizel, putting on these clothes to please me?" But Griseldis is extremely modest. She tightens her white shift about her, and doesn't dare look at the cloth of gold dress which is so pretty. Scene IV.--A triumphal arch, with four gilt figures. The Marquis daintily, with much wrist-twisting, offers to put the ring on Griseldis' hand, who obediently accepts, while pages and trumpeters hold the Marquis's three horses. Act II. Scene I.--A portico. Griseldis reluctantly, but obediently, gives up her baby. Scene II.--A conspirator in black cloak and red stockings walks off with it on the tips of his toes, and then returns and tells the Marquis that his Magnificence's orders have been executed. Scene III.--Giannucole, father of Griseldis, having been sent for, arrives in his best Sunday cloak. The Marquis in red, with a crown on, says, standing hand on hip, "You see, after that I really cannot keep her on any longer." Several small dogs sniff at each other in the background. Scene V.--Triumphal arch, with bear chained to it, peacock, tame deer, crowd of courtiers. A lawyer reads the act of divorce. The Marquis steps forward to Grizel with hands raised, "After this kind of behaviour, it is quite impossible for me to live with you any longer." Griseldis is ladylike and resigned. The Marquis says with acrimonious politeness, "I am sorry, madam, I must trouble you to restore to me those garments before departing from my house." Griseldis slowly let her golden frock fall to her feet, then walks off (Scene VI.) towards the little pink farm, where her father is driving the sheep. The courtiers look on and say, "Dear, dear, what very strange things do happen!" Act III. Scene I.--Outside Giannucole's farm. The Marquis below. Griseldis at the balcony. He says, "I want to hire you as a maid." "Yes, my Lord." Scene II.--A portico, with a large company at dinner. The Marquis introduces his supposed bride and brother-in-law, in reality his own children. He turns round to Griseldis, who is waiting at table, and bids her be a little more careful what she is about with those dishes. Scene III.--Dumb show. Griseldis, in her black smock, is sweeping out the future Marchioness's chamber. Scene IV.--At table. The Marquis suddenly bids Griseldis, who is waiting, come and sit by him; he kisses her, and points at the supposed bride and brother-in-law. "Those are our children, dear." A young footman is quite amazed. Scene V.--A procession of caparisoned horse, and giraffes carrying monkeys. A grand supper. "And they live happy ever after." But the fairy tale, beyond all others, with these painters of the fifteenth century, is the antique myth. No Bibbienas and Bembos and Calvos have as yet indoctrinated them (as Raphael, alas! was indoctrinated) with the _real spirit of classical times_, teaching them that the essence of antiquity was to have no essence at all; no Ariostos and Tassos have taught the world at large the real Ovidian conception, the monumental allegoric nature and tendency to vacant faces and sprawling, big-toed nudity of the heroes and goddesses as Giulio Romano and the Caracci so well understood to paint them. For all the humanists that hung about courts, the humanities had not penetrated much into the Italian people. The imaginative form and colour was still purely mediæval; and the artists of the early Renaissance had to work out their Ovidian stories for themselves, and work them out of their own material. Hence the mythological creatures of these early painters are all, more or less, gods in exile, with that charm of a long residence in the Middle Ages which makes, for instance, the sweetheart of Ritter Tannhäuser so infinitely more seductive than the paramour of Adonis; that charm which, when we meet it occasionally in literature, in parts of Spenser, for instance, or in a play like Peel's "Arraignment of Paris," is so peculiarly delightful. These early painters have made up their Paganism for themselves, out of all pleasant things they knew; their fancy has brooded upon it; and the very details that make us laugh, the details coming direct from the Middle Ages, the spirit in glaring opposition occasionally to that of Antiquity, bring home to us how completely this Pagan fairyland is a genuine reality to these men. We feel this in nearly all the work of that sort--least, in the archæological Mantegna's. We see it beginning in the mere single figures--the various drawings of Orpheus, "Orpheus le doux menestrier jouant de flutes et de musettes," as Villon called him, much about that time--piping or fiddling among little toy animals out of a Nuremberg box; the drawing of fauns carrying sheep, some with a queer look of the Good Shepherd about them, of Pinturicchio; and rising to such wonderful exhibitions (to me, with their obscure reminiscence of pageants, they always seem like ballets) as Perugino's Ceiling of the Cambio, where, among arabesqued constellations, the gods of antiquity move gravely along: the bearded knight Mars, armed _cap-à-pie_ like a mediæval warrior; the delicate Mercurius, a beautiful page-boy stripped of his emblazoned clothes; Luna dragged along by two nymphs; and Venus daintily poised on one foot on her dove-drawn chariot, the exquisite Venus in her clinging veils, conquering the world with the demure gravity and adorable primness of a high-born young abbess. The actual fairy story becomes, little by little, more complete--the painters of the fifteenth century work, little guessing it, are the precursors of Walter Crane. The full-page illustration of a tale of semi-mediæval romance--of a romance like Spenser's "Fairy Queen" or Mr. Morris's "Earthly Paradise," exists distinctly in that picture and drawing, by the young Raphael or whomsoever else, of Apollo and Marsyas.[9] This piping Marsyas seated by the tree stump, this naked Apollo, thin and hectic like an undressed archangel, standing against the Umbrian valley with its distant blue hills, its castellated village, its delicate, thinly-leaved trees--things we know so well in connection with the Madonna and Saints, that this seems absent for only a few minutes--all this is as little like Ovid as the triumphant antique Galatea of Raphael is like Spenser. Again, there is Piero di Cosimo's Death of Procris: the poor young woman lying dead by the lake, with the little fishing town in the distance, the swans sailing and cranes strutting, and the dear young faun--no Praxitelian god with invisible ears, still less the obscene beast whom the late Renaissance copied from Antiquity--a most gentle, furry, rustic creature, stooping over her in puzzled, pathetic concern, at a loss, with his want of the practice of cities and the knowledge of womankind, what to do for this poor lady lying among the reeds and the flowering scarlet sage; a creature the last of whose kind (friendly, shy, woodland things, half bears or half dogs, frequent in mediæval legend), is the satyr of Fletcher's "Faithful Shepherdess," the only poetic conception in that gross and insipid piece of magnificent rhetoric. The perfection of the style must naturally be sought from Botticelli, and in his Birth of Venus (but who may speak of that after the writer of most subtle fancy, of most exquisite language, among living Englishman?)[10] This goddess, not triumphant but sad in her pale beauty, a king's daughter bound by some charm to flit on her shell over the rippling sea, until the winds blow it in the kingdom of the good fairy Spring, who shelters her in her laurel grove and covers her nakedness with the wonderful mantle of fresh-blown flowers.... [Footnote 9: I believe now unanimously given to Pinturicchio.] [Footnote 10: Alas! no longer among the living, though among those whose spiritual part will never die. Walter Pater died July 1894: a man whose sense of loveliness and dignity made him, in mature life, as learned in moral beauty as he had been in visible.] But the imagination born of the love of beautiful and suggestive detail soars higher; become what I would call the lyric art of the Renaissance, the art which not merely gives us beauty, but stirs up in ourselves as much beauty again of stored-up impression, reaches its greatest height in certain Venetian pictures of the early sixteenth century. Pictures of vague or enigmatic subject, or no subject at all, like Giorgione's Fête Champêtre and Soldier and Gipsy, Titian's Sacred and Profane Love, The Three Ages of Man, and various smaller pictures by Bonifazio, Palma, Basaiti; pictures of young men in velvets and brocades, solemn women with only the glory of their golden hair and flesh, seated in the grass, old men looking on pensive, children rolling about; with the solemnity of great, spreading trees, of greenish evening skies: the pathos of the song about to begin or just finished, lute or viol or pipe still lying hard by. Of such pictures it is best, perhaps, not to speak. The suggestive imagination is wandering vaguely, dreaming; fumbling at random sweet, strange chords out of its viol, like those young men and maidens. The charm of such works is that they are never explicit; they tell us, like music, deep secrets, which we feel, but cannot translate into words. IV The first new factor in art which meets us at the beginning of the sixteenth century is not among the Italians, and is not a merely artistic power. I speak of the passionate individual fervour for the newly recovered Scriptures, manifest among the German engravers, Protestants all or nearly all, and among whose works is for ever turning up the sturdy, passionate face of Luther, the enthusiastic face of Melanchthon. The very nature of these men's art is conceivable only where the Bible has suddenly become the reading, and the chief reading, of the laity. These prints, large and small, struck off in large numbers, are not church ornaments like frescoes or pictures, nor aids to monastic devotion like Angelico's Gospel histories at St. Mark's--they are illustrations to the book which every one is reading, things to be framed in the chamber of every burgher or mechanic, to be slipped into the prayer-book of every housewife, to be conned over during the long afternoons, by the children near the big stove or among the gooseberry bushes of the garden. And they are, therefore, much more than the Giottesque inventions, the expression of the individual artist's ideas about the incidents of Scripture; and an expression not for the multitude at large, fresco or mosaic that could be elaborated by a sceptical or godless artist, but a re-explanation as from man to man and friend: this is how the dear Lord looked, or acted--see, the words in the Bible are so or so forth. Therefore, there enters into these designs, which contain after all only the same sort of skill which was rife in Italy, so much homeliness at once, and poignancy and sublimity of imagination. The Virgin, they have discovered, is not that grandly dressed lady, always in the very finest brocade, with the very finest manners, and holding a divine infant that has no earthly wants, whom Van Eyck and Memling and Meister Stephan painted. She is a good young woman, a fairer version of their dear wife, or the woman who might have been that; no carefully selected creature as with the Italians, no well-made studio model, with figure unspoilt by child-bearing, but a real wife and mother, with real milk in her breasts (the Italian virgin, save with one or two Lombards, is never permitted to suckle)[11], which she very readily and thoroughly gives to the child, guiding the little mouth with her fingers. And she sits in the lonely fields by the hedges and windmills in the fair weather; or in the neat little chamber with the walled town visible between the pillar of the window, as in Bartholomew Beham's exquisite design, reading, or suckling, or sewing, or soothing the fretful baby; no angels around her, or rarely: the Scripture says nothing about such a court of seraphs as the Italians and Flemings, the superstitious Romanists, always placed round the mother of Christ. It is all as it might have happened to them; they translate the Scripture into their everyday life, they do not pick out of it the mere stately and poetic incidents like the Giottesques. This everyday life of theirs is crude enough, and in many cases nasty enough; they have in those German free towns a perfect museum of loathsome ugliness, born of ill ventilation, gluttony, starvation, or brutality: quite fearful wrinkled harridans and unabashed fat, guzzling harlots, and men of every variety of scrofula, and wart and belly, towards none of which (the best far transcending the worst Italian Judas) they seem to feel any repugnance. They have also a beastly love of horrors; their decollations and flagellations are quite sickening in detail, as distinguished from the tidy, decorous executions of the early Italians; and one feels that they do enjoy seeing, as in one of their prints, the bowels of St. Erasmus being taken out with a windlass, or Jael, as Altdorfer has shown her in his romantic print, neatly hammering the nail into the head of the sprawling, snoring Sisera. There is a good deal of grossness, too (of which, among the Italians, even Robetta and similar, there is so little), in the details of village fairs and adventures of wenches with their Schatz; and a strange permeating nightmare, gruesomeness of lewd, warty devils, made up of snouts, hoofs, bills, claws, and incoherent parts of incoherent creatures; of perpetual skeletons climbing in trees, or appearing behind flower-beds. But there is also--and Holbein's Dance of Death, terrible, jocular, tender, vulgar and poetic, contains it all, this German world--a great tenderness. Tenderness not merely in the heads of women and children, in the fervent embrace of husband and wife and mother and daughter; but in the feeling for dumb creatures and inanimate things, the gentle dogs of St. Hubert, the deer that crouch among the rocks with Genevieve, the very tangled grasses and larches and gentians that hang to the crags, drawn as no Italian ever drew them; the quiet, sentimental little landscapes of castles on fir-clad hills, of manor-houses, gabled and chimneyed, among the reeds and willows of shallow ponds. These feelings, Teutonic doubtless, but less mediæval than we might think, for the Middle Ages of the Minnesingers were terribly conventional, seem to well up at the voice of Luther; and it is this which make the German engravers, men not always of the highest talents, invent new and beautiful Gospel pictures. Of these I would take two as typical--typical of individual fancy most strangely contrasting with the conventionalism of the Italians. Let the reader think of any of the scores of Flights into Egypt, and of Resurrections by fifteenth-century Italians, or even Giottesques; and then turn to two prints, one of each of these subjects respectively, by Martin Schongauer and Altdorfer. Schongauer gives a delightful oasis: palms and prickly pears, the latter conceived as growing at the top of a tree; below, lizards at play and deer grazing; in this place the Virgin has drawn up her ass, who browses the thistles at his feet, while St. Joseph, his pilgrim bottle bobbing on his back, hangs himself with all his weight to the branches of a date palm, trying to get the fruit within reach. Meanwhile a bevy of sweet little angels have come to the rescue; they sit among the branches, dragging them down towards him, and even bending the whole stem at the top so that he may get at the dates. Such a thing as this is quite lovely, particularly after the routine of St. Joseph trudging along after the donkey, the eternal theme of the Italians. In Altdorfer's print Christ is ascending in a glory of sunrise clouds, banner in hand, angels and cherubs peering with shy curiosity round the cloud edge. The sepulchre is open, guards asleep or stretching themselves, and yawning all round; and childish young angels look reverently into the empty grave, rearranging the cerecloths, and trying to roll back the stone lid. One of them leans forward, and utterly dazzles a negro watchman, stepping forward, lantern in hand; in the distance shepherds are seen prowling about. "This," says Altdorfer to himself, "is how it must have happened." [Footnote 11: And the circular so-called Botticelli (now given, I believe, to San Gallo) in the National Gallery.] Hence, among these Germans, the dreadful seriousness and pathos of the Passion, the violence of the mob, the brutality of the executioners, above all, the awful sadness of Christ. There is here somewhat of the realisation of what He must have felt in finding the world He had come to redeem so vile and cruel. In what way, under what circumstances, such thoughts would come to these men, is revealed to us by that magnificent head of the suffering Saviour--a design apparently for a carved crucifix--under which Albrecht Dürer wrote the pathetic words: "I drew this in my sickness." Thus much of the power of that new factor, the individual interest in the Scriptures. All other innovations on the treatment of religious themes were due, in the sixteenth century, but still more in the seventeenth, to the development of some new artistic possibility, or to the gathering together in the hands of one man of artistic powers hitherto existing only in a dispersed condition. This is the secret of the greatness of Raphael as a pictorial poet, that he could do all manner of new things merely by holding all the old means in his grasp. This is the secret of those wonderful inventions of his, which do not take our breath away like Michelangelo's or Rembrandt's, but seem at the moment the one and only right rendering of the subject: the Liberation of St. Peter, Heliodorus, Ezechiel, and the whole series of magnificent Old Testament stories on the ceiling of the Loggie. In Raphael we see the perfect fulfilment of the Giottesque programme: he can do all that the first theme inventors required for the carrying out of their ideas; and therefore he can have new, entirely new, themes. Raphael furnishes, for the first time since Giotto, an almost complete set of pictorial interpretations of Scripture. We are now, as we proceed in the sixteenth century, in the region where new artistic powers admit of new imaginative conceptions on the part of the individual. We gain immensely by the liberation from the old tradition, but we lose immensely also. We get the benefit of the fancy and feelings of this individual, but we are at the mercy, also, of his stupidity and vulgarity. Of this the great examples are Tintoretto, and after him Velasquez and Rembrandt. Of Tintoret I would speak later, for he is eminently the artist in whom the gain and the loss are most typified, and perhaps most equally distributed, and because, therefore, he contrasts best with the masters anterior to Raphael. The new powers in Velasquez and Rembrandt were connected with the problem of light, or rather, one might say, in the second case, of darkness. This new faculty of seizing the beauties, momentary and not inherent in the object, due to the various effects of atmosphere and lighting up, added probably a good third to the pleasure-bestowing faculty of art; it was the beginning of a kind of democratic movement against the stern domination of such things as were privileged in shape and colour. A thousand things, ugly or unimaginative in themselves, a plain face, a sallow complexion, an awkward gesture, a dull arrangement of lines, could be made delightful and suggestive. A wet yard, a pail and mop, and a servant washing fish under a pump could become, in the hands of Peter de Hoogh, and thanks to the magic of light and shade, as beautiful and interesting in their way as a swirl of angels and lilies by Botticelli. But this redemption of the vulgar was at the expense, as I have elsewhere pointed out, of a certain growing callousness to vulgarity. What holds good as to the actual artistic, visible quality, holds good also as to the imaginative value. Velasquez's Flagellation, if indeed it be his, in our National Gallery, has a pathos, a something that catches you by the throat, in that melancholy weary body, broken with ignominy and pain, sinking down by the side of the column, which is inseparable from the dreary grey light, the livid colour of the flesh--there is no joy in the world where such things can be. But the angel who has just entered has not come from heaven--such a creature is fit only to roughly shake up the pillows of paupers, dying in the damp dawn in the hospital wards. It is, in a measure, different with Rembrandt, exactly because he is the master, not of light, but of darkness, or of light that utterly dazzles. His ugly women and dirty Jews of Rotterdam are either hidden in the gloom or reduced to mere vague outlines, specks like gnats in the sunshine, in the effulgence of light. Hence we can enjoy, almost without any disturbing impressions, the marvellous imagination shown in his etchings of Bible stories. Rembrandt is to Dürer as an archangel to a saint: where the German draws, the Dutchman seems to bite his etching plate with elemental darkness and glory. Of these etchings I would mention a few; the reader may put these indications alongside of his remembrances of the Arena Chapel, or of Angelico's cupboard panels in the Academy at Florence: they show how intimately dramatic imagination depends in art upon mere technical means, how hopelessly limited to mere indication were the early artists, how forced along the path of dramatic realisation are the men of modern times. _The Annunciation to the Shepherds_: The heavens open in a circular whirl among the storm darkness, cherubs whirling distantly like innumerable motes in a sunbeam; the angel steps forward on a ray of light, projecting into the ink-black night. The herds have perceived the vision, and rush headlong in all directions, while the trees groan beneath the blast of that opening of heaven. A horse, seen in profile, with the light striking on his eyeball, seems paralysed by terror. The shepherds have only just awakened. _The Nativity_: Darkness. A vague crowd of country folk jostling each other noiselessly. A lantern, a white speck in the centre, sheds a smoky, uncertain light on the corner where the Child sleeps upon the pillows, the Virgin, wearied, resting by its side, her face on her hand. Joseph is seated by, only his head visible above his book. The cows are just visible in the gloom. The lantern is held by a man coming carefully forward, uncovering his head, the crowd behind him. _A Halt on the Journey to Egypt_: Night. The lantern hung on a branch. Joseph seated sleepily, with his fur cap drawn down; the Virgin and Child resting against the packsaddle on the ground. _An Interior_: The Virgin hugging and rocking the Child. Joseph, outside, looks in through the window. _The Raising of Lazarus_: A vault hung with scimitars, turbans, and quivers. Against the brilliant daylight just let in, the figure of Christ, seen from behind, stands out in His long robes, raising His hand to bid the dead arise. Lazarus, pale, ghost-like in this effulgence, slowly, wearily raises his head in the sepulchre. The crowd falls back. Astonishment, awe. This coarse Dutchman has suppressed the incident of the bystanders holding their nose, to which the Giottesques clung desperately. This is not a moment to think of stenches or infection. _Entombment_: Night. The platform below the cross. A bier, empty, spread with a winding-sheet, an old man arranging it at the head. The dead Saviour being slipped down from the cross on a sheet, two men on a ladder letting the body down, others below receiving it, trying to prevent the arm from trailing. Immense solemnity, carefulness, hushedness. A distant illuminated palace blazes out in the night. One feels that they are stealing Him away. I have reversed the chronological order and chosen to speak of Tintoret after Rembrandt, because, being an Italian and still in contact with some of the old tradition, the great Venetian can show more completely, both what was gained and what was lost in imaginative rendering by the liberation of the individual artist and the development of artistic means. First, of the gain. This depends mainly upon Tintoret's handling of light and shade, and his foreshortenings: it enables him to compose entirely in huge masses, to divide or concentrate the interest, to throw into vague insignificance the less important parts of a situation in order to insist upon the more important; it gives him the power also of impressing us by the colossal and the ominous. The masterpiece of this style, and probably Tintoret's masterpiece therefore, is the great Crucifixion at S. Rocco. To feel its full tragic splendour one must think of the finest things which the early Renaissance achieved, such as Luini's beautiful fresco at Lugano; by the side of the painting at S. Rocco everything is tame, except, perhaps, Rembrandt's etching called the Three Crosses. After this, and especially to be compared with the frescoes of Masaccio and Ghirlandaio of the same subject, comes the Baptism of Christ. The old details of figures dressing and undressing, which gave so much pleasure to earlier painters, for instance, Piero della Francesca, in the National Gallery, are entirely omitted, as the nose-holding in the Raising of Lazarus, is omitted by Rembrandt. Christ kneels in the Jordan, with John bending over him, and vague multitudes crowding the banks, distant, dreamlike beneath the yellow storm-light. Of Tintoret's Christ before Pilate, of that figure of the Saviour, long, straight, wrapped in white and luminous like his own wraith, I have spoken already. But I must speak of the S. Rocco Christ in the Garden, as imaginative as anything by Rembrandt, and infinitely more beautiful. The moonlight tips the draperies of the three sleeping apostles, gigantic, solemn. Above, among the bushes, leaning His head on His hand, is seated Christ, weary to death, numbed by grief and isolation, recruiting for final resistance. The sense of being abandoned of all men and of God has never been brought home in this way by any other painter; the little tear-stained Saviours, praying in broad daylight, of Perugino and his fellows, are mere distressed mortals. This betrayed and resigned Saviour has upon Him the _weltschmerz_ of Prometheus. But even here we begin to feel the loss, as well as the gain, of the painter being forced from the dramatic routine of earlier days: instead of the sweet, tearful little angel of the early Renaissance, there comes to this tragic Christ, in a blood-red nimbus, a brutal winged creature thrusting the cup in His face. The uncertainty of Tintoret's inspirations, the uncertainty of result of these astonishing pictorial methods of attaining the dramatic, the occasional vapidness and vulgarity of the man, unrestrained by any stately tradition like the vapidness and vulgarity of so many earlier masters,[12] comes out already at S. Rocco. And principally in the scene of the Temptation, a theme rarely, if ever, treated before the sixteenth century, and which Tintoret has made unspeakably mean in its unclean and dramatically impotent suggestiveness: the Saviour parleying from a kind of rustic edifice with a good-humoured, fat, half feminine Satan, fluttering with pink wings like some smug seraph of Bernini's pupils. After this it is scarce necessary to speak of whatever is dramatically abortive (because successfully expressing just the wrong sort of sentiment, the wrong situation) in Tintoret's work: his Woman taken in Adultery, with the dapper young Rabbi, offended neither by adultery in general nor by this adulteress in particular; the Washing of the Feet, in London, where the conversation appears to turn upon the excessive hotness or coldness of the water in the tub; the Last Supper at S. Giorgio Maggiore, where, among the mysterious wreaths of smoke peopled with angels, Christ rises from His seat and holds the cup to His neighbour's lips with the gesture, as He says, "This is My blood," of a conjuror to an incredulous and indifferent audience. To Tintoret the contents of the chalice is the all-important matter: where is the majesty of the old Giottesque gesture, preserved by Leonardo, of pushing forward the bread with one hand, the wine with the other, and thus uncovering the head and breast of the Saviour, the gesture which does indeed mean--"I am the bread you shall eat, and the wine you shall drink"? There remains, however, to mention another work of Tintoret's which, coming in contact with one's recollections of earlier art, may suggest strange doubts and well nigh shake one's faith in the imaginative efficacy of all that went before: his enormous canvas of the Last Day, at S. Maria dell' Orto. The first and overwhelming impression, even before one has had time to look into this apocalyptic work, is that no one could have conceived such a thing in earlier days, not even Michelangelo when he painted his Last Judgment, nor Raphael when he designed the Vision of Ezechiel. This is, indeed, one thinks, a revelation of the end of all things. Great storm clouds, whereon throne the Almighty and His Elect, brood over the world, across which, among the crevassed, upheaving earth, pours the wide glacier torrent of Styx, with the boat of Charon struggling across its precipitous waters. The angels, confused with the storm clouds of which they are the spirit, lash the damned down to the Hell stream, band upon band, even from the far distance. And in the foreground the rocks are splitting, the soil is upheaving with the dead beneath; here protrudes a huge arm, there a skull; in one place the clay, rising, has assumed the vague outline of the face below. In the rocks and water, among the clutching, gigantic men, the huge, full-bosomed woman, tosses a frightful half-fleshed carcass, grass still growing from his finger tips, his grinning skull, covered half with hair and half with weeds, greenish and mouldering: a sinner still green in earth and already arising. [Footnote 12: How peccable is the individual imagination, unchastened by tradition! I find among the illustrations of Mr. Berenson's very valuable monograph on Lotto, a most curious instance in point. This psychological, earnest painter has been betrayed, by his morbid nervousness of temper, into making the starting of a cat into the second most important incident in his Annunciation.] A wonderful picture: a marvellous imaginative mind, with marvellous imaginative means at his command. Yet, let us ask ourselves, what is the value of the result? A magnificent display of attitudes and forms, a sort of bravura ghastliness and impressiveness, which are in a sense _barrocco_, reminding us of the wax plague models of Florence and of certain poems of Baudelaire's. But of the feeling, the poetry of this greatest of all scenes, what is there? And, standing before it, I think instinctively of that chapel far off on the windswept Umbrian rock, with Signorelli's Resurrection: a flat wall accepted as a flat wall, no place, nowhere. A half-dozen groups, not closely combined. Colour reduced to monochrome; light and shade nowhere, as nowhere also all these devices of perspective. But in that simply treated fresco, with its arrangement as simple as that of a vast antique bas-relief, there is an imaginative suggestion far surpassing this of Tintoret's. The breathless effort of the youths breaking through the earth's crust, shaking their long hair and gasping; the stagger of those rising to their feet; the stolidity, hand on hip, of those who have recovered their body but not their mind, blinded by the light, deafened by the trumpets of Judgment; the absolute self-abandonment of those who can raise themselves no higher; the dull, awe-stricken look of those who have found their companions, clasping each other in vague, weak wonder; and further, under the two archangels who stoop downwards with the pennons of their trumpets streaming in the blast, those figures who beckon to the re-found beloved ones, or who shade their eyes and point to a glory on the horizon, or who, having striven forward, sink on their knees, overcome by a vision which they alone can behold. And recollecting that fresco of Signorelli's, you feel as if this vast, tall canvas at S. Maria dell' Orto, where topple and welter the dead and the quick, were merely so much rhetorical rhodomontade by the side of the old hymn of the Last Day-- "Mors stupebit et natura Quum resurget creatura Judicanti responsura." V Again, in the chaos of newly-developing artistic means, and of struggling individual imaginations, we get once more, at the end of the eighteenth century, to what we found at the beginning of the fourteenth: the art that does not show, but merely speaks. We find it in what, of all things, are the apparently most different to the quiet and placid outline illustration of the Giottesque: in the terrible portfolio of Goya's etchings, called the Disasters of War. Like Dürer and Rembrandt, the great Spaniard is at once extremely realistic and extremely imaginative. But his realism means fidelity, not to the real aspect of things, of the _thing in itself_, so to speak, but to the way in which things will appear to the spectator at a given moment. He isolates what you might call a case, separating it from the multitude of similar cases, giving you one execution where several must be going on, one firing off of cannon, one or two figures in a burning or a massacre; and his technique conduces thereunto, blurring a lot, rendering only the outline and gesture, and that outline and gesture frequently so momentary as to be confused. But he is real beyond words in his reproduction of the way in which such dreadful things must stamp themselves upon the mind. They are isolated, concentrated, distorted: the multiplicity of horrors making the perceiving mind more sensitive, morbid as from opium eating, and thus making the single impression, which excludes all the rest, more vivid and tremendous than, without that unconsciously perceived rest, it could possibly be. Nay, more, these scenes are not merely rather such as they were recollected than as they really were seen; they are such as they were recollected in the minds and feelings of peasants and soldiers, of people who could not free their attention to arrange all these matters logically, to give them their relative logical value. The slaughtering soldiers--Spaniards, English, or French--of the Napoleonic period become in his plates Turks, Saracens, huge vague things in half Oriental costumes, whiskered, almost turbaned in their fur caps, they become almost ogres, even as they must have done in the popular mind. The shooting of deserters and prisoners is reduced to the figures at the stake, the six carbine muzzles facing them: no shooting soldiers, no stocks to the carbines, any more than in the feeling of the man who was being shot. The artistic training, the habit of deliberately or unconsciously looking for visible effects which all educated moderns possess, prevents even our writers from thus reproducing what has been the actual mental reality. But Goya does not for a moment let us suspect the presence of the artist, the quasi-writer. The impression reproduced is the impression, not of the artistic bystander, but of the sufferer or the sufferer's comrades. This makes him extraordinarily faithful to the epigraphs of his plates. We feel that the woman, all alone, without bystanders, earthworks, fascines, smoke, &c., firing off the cannon, is the woman as she is remembered by the creature who exclaims, "Que valor!" We feel that the half-dead soldier being stripped, the condemned turning his head aside as far as the rope will permit, the man fallen crushed beneath his horse or vomiting out his blood, is the wretch who exclaims, "Por eso soy nacido!" They are, these etchings of Goya's, the representation of the sufferings, real and imaginative, of the real sufferers. In the most absolute sense they are the art which does not merely show, but tells; the suggestive and dramatic art of the individual, unaided and unhampered by tradition, indifferent to form and technicality, the art which even like the art of the immediate predecessors of Giotto, those Giuntas and Berlinghieris, who left us the hideous and terrible Crucifixions, says to the world, "You shall understand and feel." TUSCAN SCULPTURE I We are all of us familiar with the two adjacent rooms at South Kensington which contain, respectively, the casts from antique sculpture and those from the sculpture of the Renaissance; and we are familiar also with the sense of irritation or of relief which accompanies our passing from one of them to the other. This feeling is typical of our frame of mind towards various branches of the same art, and, indeed, towards all things which might be alike, but happen to be unlike. Times, countries, nations, temperaments, ideas, and tendencies, all benefit and suffer alternately by our habit of considering that if two things of one sort are not identical, one must be in the right and the other in the wrong. The act of comparison evokes at once our innate tendency to find fault; and having found fault, we rarely perceive that, on better comparing, there may be no fault at all to find. As the result of such comparison, we shall find that Renaissance sculpture is unrestful, huddled, lacking selection of form and harmony of proportions; it reproduces ugliness and perpetuates effort; it is sometimes grotesque, and frequently vulgar. Or again, that antique sculpture is conventional, insipid, monotonous, without perception for the charm of detail or the interest of individuality; afraid of movement and expression, and at the same time indifferent to outline and grouping; giving us florid nudities which never were alive, and which are doing and thinking nothing whatever. Thus, according to which room or which mood we enter first, we are sure to experience either irritation at wrong-headedness or relief at right-doing; whether we pass from the sculpture of ancient Greece to the sculpture of mediæval Italy, or _vice versâ_. But a more patient comparison of these two branches of sculpture, and of the circumstances which made each what it was, will enable us to enjoy the very different merits of both, and will teach us also something of the vital processes of the particular spiritual organism which we call an art. In the early phase of the philosophy of art--a phase lingering on to our own day in the works of certain critics--the peculiarities of a work of art were explained by the peculiarities of character of the artist: the paintings of Raphael and the music of Mozart partook of the gentleness of their life; while the figures of Michelangelo and the compositions of Beethoven were the outcome of their misanthropic ruggedness of temper. The insufficiency, often the falseness, of such explanations became evident when critics began to perceive that the works of one time and country usually possessed certain common peculiarities which did not correspond to any resemblance between the characters of their respective artists; peculiarities so much more dominant than any others, that a statue or a picture which was unsigned and of obscure history was constantly attributed to half-a-dozen contemporary sculptors or painters by half-a-dozen equally learned critics. The recognition of this fact led to the substitution of the _environment_ (the _milieu_ of Monsieur Taine) as an explanation of the characteristics, no longer of a single work of art, but of a school or group of kindred works. Greek art henceforth was the serene outcome of a serene civilisation of athletes, poets, and philosophers, living with untroubled consciences in a good climate, with slaves and helots to char for them while they ran races, discussed elevated topics, and took part in Panathenaic processions, riding half naked on prancing horses, or carrying olive branches and sacrificial vases in honour of a divine patron, in whom they believed only as much as they liked. And the art of the Middle Ages was the fantastic, far-fetched, and often morbid production of nations of crusaders and theologians, burning heretics, worshipping ladies, seeing visions, and periodically joining hands in a vertiginous death-reel, whose figures were danced from country to country. This new explanation, while undoubtedly less misleading than the other one, had the disadvantage of straining the characteristics of a civilisation or of an art in order to tally with its product or producer; it forgot that Antiquity was not wholly represented by the frieze of the Parthenon, and that the Gothic cathedrals and the frescoes of Giotto had characteristics more conspicuous than morbidness and insanity. Moreover, in the same way that the old personal criticism was unable to account for the resemblance between the works of different individuals of the same school, so the theory of the environment fails to explain certain qualities possessed in common by various schools of art and various arts which have arisen under the pressure of different civilisations; and it is obliged to slur over the fact that the sculpture of the time of Pericles and Alexander, the painting of the early sixteenth century, and the music of the age of Handel, Haydn, and Mozart are all very much more like one another in their serene beauty than they are any of them like the other productions, artistic or human, of their environment. Behind this explanation there must therefore be another, not controverting the portion of truth it contains, but completing it by the recognition of a relation more intimate than that of the work of art with its environment: the relation of form and material. The perceptions of the artist, what he sees and how he sees it, can be transmitted to others only through processes as various as themselves: hair seen as colour is best imitated with paint, hair seen as form with twisted metal wire. It is as impossible to embody certain perceptions in some stages of handicraft as it would be to construct a complex machine in a rudimentary condition of mechanics. Certain modes of vision require certain methods of painting, and these require certain kinds of surface and pigment. Until these exist, a man may see correctly, but he cannot reproduce what he is seeing. In short, the work of art represents the meeting of a mode of seeing and feeling (determined partly by individual characteristics, partly by those of the age and country) and of a mode of treating materials, a craft which may itself be, like the mind of the artist, in a higher or lower stage of development. The early Greeks had little occasion to become skilful carvers of stone. Their buildings, which reproduced a very simple wooden structure, were ornamented with little more than the imitation of the original carpentering; for the Ionic order, poor as it is of ornament, came only later; and the Corinthian, which alone offered scope for variety and skill of carving, arose only when figure sculpture was mature. But the Greeks, being only just in the iron period (and iron, by the way, is the tool for stone), were great moulders of clay and casters of metal. The things which later ages made of iron, stone, or wood, they made of clay or bronze. The thousands of exquisite utensils, weapons, and toys in our museums make this apparent; from the bronze greaves delicately modelled like the legs they were to cover, to the earthenware dolls, little Venuses, exquisitely dainty, with articulated legs and go-carts. Hence the human figure came to be imitated by a process which was not sculpture in the literal sense of carving. It is significant that the Latin word whence we get _effigy_ has also given us _fictile_, the making of statues being thus connected with the making of pots; and that the whole vocabulary of ancient authors shows that they thought of statuary not as akin to cutting and chiselling, but to moulding ([Greek: plassô] = _fingo_), shaping out of clay on the wheel or with the modelling tool.[13] It seems probable that marble-work was but rarely used for the round until the sixth century; and the treatment of the hair, the propping of projecting limbs and drapery, makes it obvious that a large proportion of the antiques in our possession are marble copies of long-destroyed bronzes.[14] So that the Greek statue, even if eventually destined for marble, was conceived by a man having the habit of modelling in clay. [Footnote 13: I am confirmed in these particulars by my friend Miss Eugenie Sellers, whose studies of the ancient authorities on art--Lucian, Pausanias, Pliny, and others, will be the more fruitful that they are associated with knowledge--uncommon in archæologists--of more modern artistic processes.] [Footnote 14: This becomes overwhelmingly obvious on reading Professor Furtwängler's great "Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture." Praxiteles appears to have been exceptional in his preference for marble.] Let us turn from early Greece to mediæval Italy. Hammered iron had superseded bronze for weapons and armour, and silver and gold, worked with the chisel, for ornaments. On the other hand, the introduction from the East of glazed pottery had banished to the art of the glass-blower all fancy in shaping utensils. There was no demand in common life for cast metal-work, and there being no demand for casting, there was no practice either in its cognate preliminary art of moulding clay. Hence, such bronze work as originated was very unsatisfactory; the lack of skill in casting, and the consequent elaboration of bronze-work with the file, lasting late into the Renaissance. But the men of the Middle Ages were marvellously skilful carvers of stone. Architecture, ever since the Roman time, had given more and more importance to sculptured ornament: already exquisite in the early Byzantine screens and capitals, it developed through the elaborate mouldings, traceries, and columns of the Lombard style into the art of elaborate reliefs and groups of the full-blown Gothic; indeed the Gothic church is, in Italy, the work no longer of the mason, but of the sculptor. It is no empty coincidence that the hillside villages which still supply Florence with stone and with stonemasons should have given their names to three of its greatest sculptors, Mino da Fiesole, Desiderio da Settignano, and Benedetto da Maiano; that Michelangelo should have told Vasari that the chisel and mallet had come to him with the milk of his nurse, a stonecutter's wife from those same slopes, down which jingle to-day the mules carting ready-shaped stone from the quarries. The mediæval Tuscans, the Pisans of the thirteenth, and the Florentines of the fifteenth century, evidently made small wax or clay sketches of their statues; but their works are conceived and executed in the marble, and their art has come out of the stone without interposition of other material, even as the figures which Michelangelo chopped, living and colossal, direct out of the block.[15] [Footnote 15: Interesting details in Vasari's treatise, and in his Lives of J. della Quercia, Ferrucci, and other sculptors.] The Greek, therefore, was a moulder of clay, a caster of bronze, in the early time when the art acquires its character and takes its direction; in that period, on the contrary, the Tuscan was a chaser of silver, a hammerer of iron, above all a cutter of stone. Now clay (and we must remember that bronze is originally clay) means the modelled plane and succession of planes smoothed and rounded by the finger, the imitation of all nature's gently graduated swellings and depressions, the absolute form as it exists to the touch; but clay does not give interesting light and shade, and bronze is positively blurred by high lights; and neither clay nor bronze has any resemblance to the texture of human limbs or drapery: it gives the form, but not the stuff. It is the exact reverse with marble. Granulated like a living fibre, yet susceptible of a delicate polish, it can imitate the actual substance of human flesh, with its alternations of opacity and luminousness; it can reproduce, beneath the varied strokes of the chisel, the grain, running now one way, now another, which is given to the porous skin by the close-packed bone and muscle below. Moreover, it is so docile, so soft, yet so resistant, that the iron can cut it like butter or engrave it lightly like agate; so that the shadows may pour deep into chasms and pools, or run over the surface in a network of shallow threads; light and shade becoming the artist's material as much as the stone itself. The Greek, as a result, perceived form not as an appearance, but as a reality; saw with the eye the complexities of projection and depression perceivable by the hand. His craft was that of measurements, of minute proportion, of delicate concave and convex--in one word, of _planes_. His dull, malleable clay, and ductile, shining bronze had taught him nothing of the way in which light and shadow corrode, blur, and pattern a surface. His fancy, his skill, embraced the human form like the gypsum of the moulder, received the stamp of its absolute being. The beauty he sought was concrete, actual, the same in all lights and from all points of view: the comely man himself, not the beautiful marble picture. The marble picture, on the other hand--a picture in however high and complete relief--a picture for a definite point of view, arranged by receiving light projected at a given angle on a surface cut deep or shallow especially to receive it--was produced by the sculpture that spontaneously grew out of the architectural stone-cutting of the Byzantine and Lombard schools. The mouldings on a church, still more the stone ornaments of its capitals, pulpit, and choir rails, seen, as they are, each at various and peculiar heights above the eye, under light which, however varying, can never get behind or above them if outdoor, below or in flank if indoor--these mouldings, part of a great architectural pattern of black and white, inevitably taught the masons all the subtle play of light and surface, all the deceits of position and perspective. And the mere manipulation of the marble taught them, as we have seen, the exquisite finenesses of surface, texture, crease, accent, and line. What the figure actually was--the real proportions and planes, the actual form of the model--did not matter; no hand was to touch it, no eye to measure; it was to be delightful only in the position which the artist chose, and in no other had it a right to be seen. II These were the two arts, originating from a material and a habit of work which were entirely different, and which produced artistic necessities diametrically opposed. It might be curious to speculate upon what would have resulted had their position in history been reversed; what statues we should possess had the marble-carving art born of architectural decoration originated in Greece, and the art of clay and bronze flourished in Christian and mediæval Italy. Be this as it may, the accident of the surroundings--of the habits of life and thought which pressed on the artist, and combined with the necessities of his material method--appears to have intensified the peculiarities organic in each of the two sculptures. I say _appears_, because we must bear in mind that the combination was merely fortuitous, and guard against the habit of thinking that because a type is familiar it is therefore alone conceivable. We all know all about the antique and the mediæval _milieu_. It is useless to recapitulate the influence, on the one hand, of antique civilisation, with its southern outdoor existence, its high training of the body, its draped citizens, naked athletes, and half-clothed work-folk, its sensuous religion of earthly gods and muscular demigods; or the influence, on the other hand, of the more complex life of the Middle Ages, essentially northern in type, sedentary and manufacturing, huddled in unventilated towns, with its constant pre-occupation, even among the most sordid grossness, of the splendour of the soul, the beauty of suffering, the ignominy of the body, and the dangers of bodily prosperity. Of all this we have heard even too much, thanks to the picturesqueness which has recommended the _milieu_ of Monsieur Taine to writers more mindful of literary effect than of the philosophy of art. But there is another historical circumstance whose influence, in differentiating Greek sculpture from the sculpture of mediæval Italy, can scarcely be overrated. It is that, whereas in ancient Greece sculpture was the important, fully developed art, and painting merely its shadow; in mediæval Italy painting was the art which best answered the requirements of the civilisation, the art struggling with the most important problems; and that painting therefore reacted strongly upon sculpture. Greek painting was the shadow of Greek sculpture in an almost literal sense: the figures on wall and base, carefully modelled, without texture, symmetrically arranged alongside of each other regardless of pictorial pattern, seem indeed to be projected on to the flat surface by the statues; they are, most certainly, the shadow of modelled figures cast on the painter's mind. The sculptor could learn nothing new from paintings where all that is proper to painting is ignored:--plane always preferred to line, the constructive details, perceptible only as projection, not as colour or value (like the insertion of the leg and the thigh), marked by deep lines that look like tattoo marks; and perspective almost entirely ignored, at least till a late period. It is necessary thus to examine Greek painting[16] in order to appreciate, by comparison with this negative art, the very positive influence of mediæval painting or mediæval sculpture. The painting on a flat surface--fresco or panel--which became more and more the chief artistic expression of those times, taught men to consider perspective; and, with perspective and its possibility of figures on many planes, grouping: the pattern that must arise from juxtaposed limbs and heads. It taught them to perceive form no longer as projection or plane; but as line and light and shade, as something whose charm lay mainly in the boundary curves, the silhouette, so much more important in one single, unchangeable position than where, the eye wandering round a statue, the only moderate interest of one point of view is compensated by the additional interest of another. Moreover, painting, itself the product of a much greater interest in colour than Antiquity had known, forced upon men's attention the important influence of colour upon form. For, although the human being, if we abstract the element of colour, if we do it over with white paint, has indeed the broad, somewhat vague form, the indecision of lines which characterises antique sculpture; yet the human being as he really exists, with his coloured hair, eyes, and lips, his cheeks, forehead, and chin patterned with tint, has a much greater sharpness, precision, contrast of form, due to the additional emphasis of the colour. Hence, as pictorial perspective and composition undoubtedly inclined sculptors to seek greater complexities of relief and greater unity of point of view, so the new importance of drawing and colouring suggested to them a new view of form. A human being was no longer a mere arrangement of planes and of masses, homogeneous in texture and colour. He was made of different substances, of hair, skin over fat, muscle, or bone, skin smooth, wrinkled, or stubbly, and, besides this, he was painted different colours. He had, moreover, what the Greeks had calmly whitewashed away, or replaced by an immovable jewel or enamel: that extraordinary and extraordinarily various thing called an Eye. [Footnote 16: At all events, Greek painting preceding or contemporaneous with the great period of sculpture. Later painting was, of course, much more pictorial.] All these differences between the monochrome creature--colour abstracted--of the Greeks and the mottled real human being, the sculptors of the Renaissance were led to perceive by their brothers the painters; and having perceived, they were dissatisfied at having to omit in their representation. But how show that they too had seen them? Here return to our notice two other peculiarities which distinguish mediæval sculpture from antique: first, that mediæval sculpture, rarely called upon for free open-air figures, was for ever producing architectural ornament, seen at a given height and against a dark background; and indoor decoration seen under an unvarying and often defective light; and secondly, that mediæval sculpture was the handicraft of the subtle carver in delicate stone. The sculpture which was an essential part of Lombard and Gothic architecture required a treatment that should adapt it to its particular place and subordinate it to a given effect. According to the height above the eye and the direction of the light, certain details had to be exaggerated, certain others suppressed; a sculptured window, like those of Orsanmichele, would not give the delightful pattern of black and white unless some surfaces were more raised than others, some portions of figure or leafage allowed to sink into quiescence, others to start forward by means of the black rim of undercutting; and a sepulchral monument, raised thirty feet above the spectator's eye, like those inside Sta. Maria Novella, would present a mere intricate confusion unless the recumbent figure, the canopy, and various accessories, were such as to seem unnatural at the level of the eye. Thus, the heraldic lions of one of these Gothic tombs have the black cavity of the jaw cut by marble bars which are absolutely out of proportion to the rest of the creature's body, and to the detail of the other features, but render the showing of the teeth even at the other side of the transept. Again, in the more developed art of the fifteenth century, Rossellino's Cardinal of Portugal has the offside of his face shelved upwards so as to catch the light, because he is seen from below, and the near side would otherwise be too prominent; while the beautiful dead warrior, by an unknown sculptor, at Ravenna has had a portion of his jaw and chin deliberately cut away, because the spectator is intended to look down upon his recumbent figure. If we take a cast of the Cardinal's head and look down upon it, or hang a cast of the dead warrior on the wall, the whole appearance alters; the expression is almost reversed and the features are distorted. On the other hand, a cast from a real head, placed on high like the Cardinal's, would become insignificant, and laid at the height of a table, like the dead warrior's, would look lumbering and tumid. Thus, again, the head of Donatello's Poggio, which is visible and intelligible placed high up in the darkness of the Cathedral of Florence, looks as if it had been gashed and hacked with a blunt knife when seen in the cast at the usual height in an ordinary light. Now this subtle circumventing of distance, height, and darkness; this victory of pattern over place; this reducing of light and shadow into tools for the sculptor, mean, as we see from the above examples, sacrificing the reality to the appearance, altering the proportions and planes so rigorously reproduced by the Greeks, mean sacrificing the sacred absolute form. And such a habit of taking liberties with what can be measured by the hand, in order to please the eye, allowed the sculptors of the Renaissance to think of their model no longer as the homogeneous _white man_ of the Greeks, but as a creature in whom structure was accentuated, intensified, or contradicted by colour and texture. Furthermore, these men of the fifteenth century possessed the cunning carving which could make stone vary in texture, in fibre, and almost in colour. A great many biographical details substantiate the evidence of statues and busts that the sculptors of the Renaissance carried on their business in a different manner from the ancient Greeks. The great development in Antiquity of the art of casting bronze, carried on everywhere for the production of weapons and household furniture, must have accustomed Greek sculptors (if we may call them by that name) to limit their personal work to the figure modelled in clay. And the great number of their works, many tediously constructed of ivory and gold, shows clearly that they did not abandon this habit in case of marble statuary, but merely gave the finishing strokes to a copy of their clay model, produced by workmen whose skill must have been fostered by the apparently thriving trade in marble copies of bronzes. It was different in the Renaissance. Vasari recommends, as obviating certain miscalculations which frequently happened, that sculptors should prepare large models by which to measure the capacities of their block of marble. But these models, described as made of a mixture of plaster, size, and cloth shavings over tow and hay, could serve only for the rough proportions and attitude; nor is there ever any allusion to any process of minute measurement, such as pointing, by which detail could be transferred from the model to the stone. Most often we hear of small wax models which the sculptors enlarged directly in the stone. Vasari, while exaggerating the skill of Michelangelo in making his David out of a block mangled by another sculptor, expresses no surprise at his having chopped the marble himself; indeed, the anecdote itself affords evidence of the commonness of such a practice, since Agostino di Duccio would not have spoilt the block if he had not cut into it rashly without previous comparison with a model.[17] We hear, besides, that Jacopo della Quercia spent twelve years over one of the gates of S. Petronio, and that other sculptors carried out similar great works with the assistance of one man, or with no assistance at all,--a proceeding which would have seemed the most frightful waste except in a time and country where half of the sculptors were originally stone-masons and the other half goldsmiths, that is to say, men accustomed to every stage, coarse or subtle, of their work. The absence of replicas of Renaissance sculpture, so striking a contrast to the scores of repetitions of Greek works, proves, moreover, that the actual execution in marble was considered an intrinsic part of the sculpture of the fifteenth century, in the same way as the painting of a Venetian master. Phidias might leave the carving of his statues to skilful workmen, once he had modelled the clay, even as the painters of the merely designing and linear schools, Perugino, Ghirlandaio, or Botticelli, might employ pupils to carry out their designs on panel or wall. But in the same way as a Titian is not a Titian without a certain handling of the brush, so a Donatello is not a Donatello, or a Mino not a Mino, without a certain individual excellence in the cutting of the marble. [Footnote 17: Several Greek vases and coins show the sculptor modelling his figure; while in Renaissance designs, from that of Nanni di Banco to a mediocre allegorical engraving in an early edition of Vasari, the sculptor, or the personified art of Sculpture, is actually working with chisel and mallet.] These men brought, therefore, to the cutting of marble a degree of skill and knowledge of which the ancients had no notion, as they had no necessity. In their hands the chisel was not merely a second modelling tool, moulding delicate planes, uniting insensibly broad masses of projection and depression. It was a pencil, which, according as it was held, could emphasise the forms in sharp hatchings or let them die away unnoticed in subdued, imperceptible washes. It was a brush which could give the texture and the values of the colour--a brush dipped in various tints of light and darkness, according as it poured into the marble the light and the shade, and as it translated into polishings and rough hewings and granulations and every variety of cutting, the texture of flesh, of hair, and of drapery; of the blonde hair and flesh of children, the coarse flesh and bristly hair of old men, the draperies of wool, of linen, and of brocade. The sculptors of Antiquity took a beautiful human being--a youth in his perfect flower, with limbs trained by harmonious exercise and ripened by exposure to the air and sun--and, correcting whatever was imperfect in his individual forms by their hourly experience of similar beauty, they copied in clay as much as clay could give of his perfections: the subtle proportions, the majestic ampleness of masses, the delicate finish of limbs, the harmonious play of muscles, the serene simplicity of look and gesture, placing him in an attitude intelligible and graceful from the greatest possible distance and from the largest variety of points of view. And they preserved this perfect piece of loveliness by handing it over to the faithful copyist in marble, to the bronze, which, more faithful still, fills every minutest cavity left by the clay. Being beautiful in himself, in all his proportions and details, this man of bronze or marble was beautiful wherever he was placed and from wheresoever he was seen; whether he appeared foreshortened on a temple front, or face to face among the laurel trees, whether shaded by a portico, or shining in the blaze of the open street. His beauty must be judged and loved as we should judge and love the beauty of a real human being, for he is the closest reproduction that art has given of beautiful reality placed in reality's real surroundings. He is the embodiment of the strength and purity of youth, untroubled by the moment, independent of place and of circumstance. Of such perfection, born of the rarest meeting of happy circumstances, Renaissance sculpture knows nothing. A lesser art, for painting was then what sculpture had been in Antiquity; bound more or less closely to the service of architecture; surrounded by ill-grown, untrained bodies; distracted by ascetic feelings and scientific curiosities, the sculpture of Donatello and Mino, of Jacopo della Quercia and Desiderio da Settignano, of Michelangelo himself, was one of those second artistic growths which use up the elements that have been neglected or rejected by the more fortunate and vigorous efflorescence which has preceded. It failed in everything in which antique sculpture had succeeded; it accomplished what Antiquity had left undone. Its sense of bodily beauty was rudimentary; its knowledge of the nude alternately insufficient and pedantic; the forms of Donatello's David and of Benedetto's St. John are clumsy, stunted, and inharmonious; even Michelangelo's Bacchus is but a comely lout. This sculpture has, moreover, a marvellous preference for ugly old men--gross, or ascetically imbecile; and for ill-grown striplings: except the St. George of Donatello, whose body, however, is entirely encased in inflexible leather and steel, it never gives us the perfection and pride of youth. These things are obvious, and set us against the art as a whole. But see it when it does what Antiquity never attempted; Antiquity which placed statues side by side in a gable, balancing one another, but not welded into one pattern; which made relief the mere repetition of one point of view of the round figure, the shadow of the gable group; which, until its decline, knew nothing of the pathos of old age, of the grotesque exquisiteness of infancy, of the endearing awkwardness of adolescence; which knew nothing of the texture of the skin, the silkiness of the hair, the colour of the eye. III Let us see Renaissance sculpture in its real achievement. Here are a number of children by various sculptors of the fifteenth century. This is the tiny baby whose little feet still project from a sort of gaiter of flesh, whose little boneless legs cannot carry the fat little paunch, the heavy big head. Note that its little skull is still soft, like an apple, under the thin floss hair. Its elder brother or sister is still vaguely contemplative of the world, with eyes that easily grow sleepy in their blueness. Those a little older have learned already that the world is full of solemn people on whom to practise tricks; their features have scarcely accentuated, their hair has merely curled into loose rings, but their eyes have come forward from below the forehead, eyes and forehead working together already; and there are great holes, into which you may dig your thumb, in the cheeks. Those of fourteen or fifteen have deplorably thin arms, and still such terrible calves; and a stomach telling of childish gigantic meals; but they have the pert, humorous frankness of Verrocchio's David, who certainly flung a jest at Goliath's unwieldy person together with his stone; or the delicate, sentimental pretty woman's grace of Donatello's St. John of the Louvre, and Benedetto da Maiano's: they will soon be poring over the _Vita Nuova_ and Petrarch. Two other St. Johns--I am speaking of Donatello's--have turned out differently. One, the first beard still doubtful round his mouth, has already rushed madly away from earthly loves; his limbs are utterly wasted by fasting; except his legs, which have become incredibly muscular from continual walking; he has begun to be troubled by voices in the wilderness--whether of angels or of demons--and he flies along, his eyes fixed on his scroll, and with them fixing his mind on unearthly things; he will very likely go mad, this tempted saint of twenty-one. Here he is again, beard and hair matted, almost a wild man of the woods, but with the gravity and self-possession of a preacher; he has come out of the wilderness, overcome all temptations, his fanaticism is now militant and conquering. This is certainly not the same man, but perhaps one of his listeners, this old King David of Donatello--a man at no time intelligent, whose dome-shaped head has taken back, with the thin white floss hair that recalls infancy, an infantine lack of solidity; whose mouth is drooping already, perhaps after a first experience of paralysis, and his eyes getting vague in look; but who, in this intellectual and physical decay, seems to have become only the more full of gentleness and sweetness; misnamed David, a Job become reconciled to his fate by becoming indifferent to himself, an Ancient Mariner who has seen the water-snakes and blessed them and been filled with blessing. These are all statues or busts intended for a given niche or bracket, a given portico or window, but in a measure free sculpture. Let us now look at what is already decoration. Donatello's Annunciation, the big coarse relief in friable grey stone (incapable of a sharp line), picked out with delicate gilding; no fluttering or fainting, the angel and the Virgin grave, decorous, like the neighbouring pilasters. Again, his organ-loft of flat relief, with granulated groundwork: the flattened groups of dancing children making, with deep, wide shadows beneath their upraised, linked arms, a sort of human trellis-work of black and white. Mino's Madonna at Fiesole: the relief turned and cut so as to look out of the chapel into the church, so that the Virgin's head, receiving the light like a glory on the pure, polished forehead, casts a nimbus of shadow round itself, while the saints are sucked into the background, their accessories only, staff and gridiron, allowed to assert themselves by a sharp shadow; a marvellous vision of white heavenly roses, their pointed buds and sharp spines flourishing on martyrs' blood and incense, grown into the close lips and long eyes, the virginal body and thin hands of Mary. From these reliefs we come to the compositions, group inside group, all shelving into portico and forest vista, of the pulpit of Sta. Croce, the perspective bevelling it into concavities, like those of panelling; the heads and projecting shoulders lightly marked as some carved knob or ornament; to the magnificent compositions in light and shade, all balancing and harmonising each other, and framed round by garlands of immortal blossom and fruit, of Ghiberti's gates. Nor is this all. The sculpture of the Renaissance, not satisfied with having portrayed the real human being made of flesh and blood, of bone and skin, dark-eyed or flaxen-haired, embodied in the marble the impalpable forms of dreams. Its latest, greatest, works are those sepulchres of Michelangelo, whose pinnacle enthrones strange ghosts of warriors, and whose steep sides are the unquiet couch of divinities hewn, you would say, out of darkness and the light that is as darkness. A SEEKER OF PAGAN PERFECTION BEING THE LIFE OF DOMENICO NERONI, PICTOR SACRILEGUS Every time, of late years, of my being once more in Rome, I have been subject to a peculiar mental obsession: retracing my steps, if not materially, in fancy at least, to such parts of the city as bear witness to the strange meeting of centuries, where the Middle Ages have altered to their purposes, or filled with their significance, the ruined remains of Antiquity. Such places are scarcer than one might have expected, and for that reason perhaps more impressive, more fragmentary and enigmatic. There are the colossal columns--great trickles and flakes of black etching as with acid their marble--of the temple of Mars Ultor, with that Tuscan palace of Torre della Milizia rising from among them. There is, inside Ara Coeli--itself commemorating the legend of Augustus and the Sibyl--the tomb of Dominus Pandulphus Sabelli, its borrowed vine-garlands and satyrs and Cupids surmounted by mosaic crosses and Gothic inscriptions; and outside the same church, on a ground of green and gold, a Mother of God looking down from among gurgoyles and escutcheons on to the marble river-god of the yard of the Capitol below. Then also, where pines and laurels still root in the unrifled tombs, the skeleton feudal fortress, gutted as by an earthquake, alongside of the tower of Cæcilia Metella. These were the places to which my thoughts were for ever recurring; to them, and to nameless other spots, the street-corner, for instance, where an Ionic pillar, with beaded and full-horned capital, is walled into the side of an insignificant modern house. I know not whether, in consequence of this straining to see the meeting-point of Antiquity and the Middle Ages (like the fancy, sometimes experienced, to reach the confluence of rivers), or rather as a cause thereof, but a certain story has long lurked in the corners of my mind. Twenty years have passed since first I was aware of its presence, and it has undergone many changes. It is presumably a piece of my inventing, for I have neither read it nor heard it related. But by this time it has acquired a certain traditional veracity in my eyes, and I give to the reader rather as historical fact than as fiction the study which I have always called to myself: _Pictor Sacrilegus_. I Domenico, the son of Luca Neroni, painter, sculptor, goldsmith, and engraver, about whom, owing either to the scarcity of his works or the scandal of his end, Vasari has but a few words in another man's biography, must have been born shortly before or shortly after the year 1450, a contemporary of Perugino, of Ghirlandaio, of Filippino Lippi, and of Signorelli, by all of whom he was influenced at various moments, and whom he influenced by turns. He was born and bred in the Etruscan town of Volterra, of a family which for generations had exercised the art of the goldsmith, stimulated, perhaps, by the sight of ornaments discovered in Etruscan tombs, and carrying on, peradventure, some of the Etruscan traditions of two thousand years before. The mountain city, situate on the verge of the malarious seaboard of Southern Tuscany, is reached from one side through windings of barren valleys, where the dried-up brooks are fringed, instead of reed, with the grey, sand-loving tamarisk; and from the other side, across a high-lying moorland of stunted heather and sere grass, whence the larks rise up scared by only a flock of sheep or a mare and her foal, and you journey for miles without meeting a house or a clump of cypresses. In front, with the white road zigzagging along their crests, is a wilderness of barren, livid hillocks, separated by huge fissures and crevassed by huge cracks, with here and there separate rocks, projecting like Druidic stones from the valley of gaping ravines; and beyond them all a higher mountain, among whose rocks and ilexes you doubtfully distinguish the walls and towers of the Etruscan city. A mass of Cyclopean wall and great black houses, grim with stone brackets and iron hooks and stanchions, all for defence and barricade, Volterra looks down into the deep valleys, like the vague heraldic animal, black and bristly, which peers from the high tower of the municipal palace. One wonders how this could ever have been a city of the fat, voluptuous Etruscans, whose images lie propped up and wide-eyed on their stone coffin-lids. The long wars of old Italic times, in which Etruria fell before Rome, must have burned and destroyed, as one would think, the land as well as the inhabitants, leaving but grey cinders and blackened stone behind. Siena and Florence ruined Volterra once more in the Middle Ages, isolating it near the pestilential Maremma and checking its growth outward and inward. The cathedral, the pride of a mediæval commonwealth, is still a mean and unfinished building of the twelfth century. There is no native art, of any importance, of a later period; what the town possesses has come from other parts, the altar-pieces by Matteo di Giovanni and Signorelli, for instance, and the marble candelabra, carried by angels, of the school of Mino da Fiesole. In this remote and stagnant town, the artistic training of Domenico Neroni was necessarily imperfect and limited throughout his boyhood to the paternal goldsmith's craft. Indeed, it seems likely that some peculiarities of his subsequent life as an artist, his laboriousness disproportionate to all results, his persistent harping on unimportant detail, and his exclusive interest in line and curve, were due not merely to an unhappy and laborious temperament, but also to the long habit of an art full of manual skill and cunning tradition, which presented the eye with ingenious patterns, but rarely attempted, save in a few church ornaments, more of the domain of sculpture, to tell a story or express a feeling. Besides this influence of his original trade, we find in Domenico Neroni's work the influence of his early surroundings. His native country is such as must delight, or help to form, a painter of pale anatomies. The painters of Southern Tuscany loved as a background the arid and mountainous country of their birth. Taddeo di Bartolo placed the Death of the Virgin among the curious undulations of pale clay and sandy marl that stretch to the southernmost gates of Siena; Signorelli was amused and fascinated by the odd cliffs and overhanging crags, unnatural and grotesque like some Druidic monument, of the valleys of the Paglia and the Chiana; and Pier della Francesca has left, in the allegorical triumphs of Frederick of Urbino and his duchess, studies most exquisite and correct, of what meets the traveller's eyes on the watersheds of the central Apennine, sharp-toothed lines of mountain peaks pale against the sky, dim distant whiteness of sea, and valleys and roads and torrents twisting intricately as on a map. The country about Volterra, revealing itself with rosy lividness at dawn, with delicate periwinkle blue at sunset, through an open city gate or a gap between the tall black houses, helped to make Neroni a lover of muscle and sinew, of the strength and suppleness of movement, of the osseous structure divined within the limbs; and made him shrink all his life long, not merely from drapery or costume that blunted the lines of the body, but from any warmth and depth of colour; till the figures stood out like ghosts, or people in faded tapestries, from the pale lilacs and greys and washed out cinnamons of his backgrounds. For the bold peaks and swelling mountains of the valleys of the Arno and the Tiber, and the depths of colour among vegetation and rivers, seemed crude and emphatic to a man who carried in his memory those bosses of hill, pearly where the waters have washed the sides, pale golden buff where a little sere grass covers the rounded top; those great cracks and chasms, with the white road snaking along the narrow table-land and the wide valleys; and the ripple of far-off mountain chains, strong and restrained in curves, exquisite in tints, like the dry white and purpled hemlock, and the dusty lilac scabius, which seem to flower alone in that arid and melancholy and beautiful country. "Colour," wrote Domenico Neroni, among a mass of notes on his art, measurements, and calculations, "is the enemy of noble art. It is the enemy of all precise and perfect form, since where colour exists form can be seen only as juxtaposition of colour. For this reason it has pleased the Creator to lend colour only to the inanimate world, as to senseless vegetables and plants, and to the lower kinds of living creatures, as birds, fishes, and reptiles; whereas nobler creatures, as lions, tigers, horses, cattle, stags, and unicorns, are robed in white or dull skins, the noblest breeds, indeed, both of horses, as those of the Soldans of Egypt and Numidia, and of oxen, as those of the valleys of the Clitumnus and Chiana, being white; whence, indeed, the poet Virgil has said that such latter are fittest for sacrifice to the immortal gods; 'hinc albi, Clitumne, greges,' and what follows. And man, the masterpiece of creation, is white; and only in the less noble portions of his body, which have no sensitiveness and no shape (being, indeed, vegetative and deciduous), as hair and beard, partaking of colour. Wherefore the ancient Romans and Greeks, portraying their gods, chose white marble for material, and not gaudy porphyry or jasper, and portrayed them naked. Whence certain moderns, calling themselves painters, who muffle our Lord and the Holy Apostles in many-coloured garments, thinking thereby to do a seemly and honourable thing, but really proceeding basely like tailors, might take a lesson if they could." The quotation from Virgil, and the allusion to the statues of the immortal gods, shows that Neroni must have written these lines in the later part of his career, when already under the influence of that humanist Filarete, who played so important a part in his life, and when possessed already by those notions which brought him to so strange and fearful an end. But from his earliest years he sought for form, despising other things. He passed with contempt through a six months' apprenticeship at Perugia, railing at the great factory of devotional art established there by Perugino, of whom, with his rows of splay-footed saints and spindle-shanked heroes, he spoke with the same sweeping contempt as later Michelangelo. At Siena, which he described (much as its earlier artists painted it) as a town of pink toy-houses and scarlet toy-towers, he found nothing to admire save the marble fountain of Jacopo della Quercia, for the antique group of the Three Graces, later to be drawn by the young Raphael, had not yet been given to the cathedral by the nephew of Pius II. The sight of these noble reliefs, particularly of the one representing Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise, with their strong and well-understood nudities, determined him to exchange painting for sculpture, and made him hasten to Florence to see the works of Donatello and of Ghiberti. Domenico Neroni must have spent several years of his life--between 1470 and 1480--in Florence, but little of his work has remained in that city,--little, at least, that we can identify with certainty. For taking service, as he did, with the Pollaiolos, Verrocchio, Nanni di Banco, and even with Filippino and Botticelli, wherever his inquisitive mind could learn, or his restless, fastidious, laborious talent gain him bread, it is presumable that much of his work might be discovered alongside that of his masters, in the collective productions of the various workshops. It is possible thus that he had a hand in much metal and relief work of the Pollaiolos, and perhaps even in the embroidering and tapestries of which they were undertakers; also in certain ornaments, friezes of Cupids and dolphins, and exquisite shell and acanthus carving of the monuments of Santa Croce; and it may be surmised that he occasionally assisted Botticelli in his perspective and anatomy, since that master took him to Rome when commissioned to paint in the chapel of Pope Sixtus. Indeed, in certain little-known studies for Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Calumny of Apelles one may discover, in the strong sweep of the outline, in the solid fashion in which the figures are planted on their feet--all peculiarities which disappear in the painted pictures, where grace of motion and exquisitive research take the place of solid draughtsman-ship--the hand of the artist whom the restless desire to confront ever new problems alone prevented from attaining a place among the great men of his time. For there was in Domenico Neroni, from the very outset of his career, a curiosity after the hidden, a passion for the unattainable, which kept him, with greater power than many of his contemporaries, and vastly greater science, a mere student throughout his lifetime. He resembled in some respects his great contemporary Leonardo, but while the eager inquisitiveness of the latter was tempered by a singular power of universal enjoyment, a love of luxury and joyousness in every form, the intellectual activity of Neroni was exasperated into a kind of unhappy mania by the fact that its satisfaction was the only happiness that he could conceive. He would never have understood, or understanding would have detested, the luxurious _dilettante_ spirit which made Leonardo prefer painting to sculpture, because whereas the sculptor is covered with a mud of marble dust, and works in a place disorderly with chips and rubbish, the painter "sits at his easel, well dressed and at ease, in a clean house adorned with pictures, his work accompanied by music or the reading of delightful books, which, untroubled by the sound of hammering and other noises, may be listened to with very great pleasure." The workshop of Neroni, when he had one of his own, was full of cobwebs and dust, littered with the remains of frugal and unsavoury meals, and resolutely closed to the rich and noble persons in whose company Leonardo delighted. And if Neroni, in his many-sided activity, eventually put aside sculpture for painting, it was merely because, as he was wont to say, a figure must needs look real when it is solid and you can walk round it; but to make men and women rise out of a flat canvas or plastered wall, and stand and move as if alive, is truly the work of a god. Men and women, said Neroni; and he should have added men and women nude. For the studies which he made of the anatomy of horses and dogs were destined merely to shed light on the construction of human creatures; and his elaborate and exquisite drawings of undulating hills and sinuous rivers, nay, of growths of myrtle and clumps of daffodils, were intended as practice towards drawing the more subtle lines and curves of man's body. And as to clothes, he could not understand that great anatomists like Signorelli should huddle their figures quite willingly in immense cloaks and gowns; still less how exquisite draughtsmen like his friend Botticelli (who had the sense of line like no other man since Frate Lippo, although his people were oddly out of joint) could take pleasure in putting half-a-dozen veils atop of each other, and then tying them all into bunches and bunches with innumerable bits of tape! As to himself, he invariably worked out every detail of the nude, in the vain hope that the priests and monks for whom he worked would allow at least half of those beautiful anatomies to remain visible; and when, with infinite difficulties and bad language, he gradually gave in to the necessity of some sort of raiment, it was of such a nature--the hose and jerkins of the men-at-arms like a second skin, the draperies of the womankind as clinging as if they had been picked out of the river, that a great many pious people absolutely declined to pay the agreed on sum for paintings more suited to Pagan than to Christian countries; and indeed Fra Girolamo Savonarola included much work of Domenico's in his very finest burnings. Such familiarity with nude form was not easily attained in the fifteenth century. Mediæval civilisation gave no opportunities for seeing naked or half-naked people moving freely as in the antique palæstra; and there had yet been discovered too few antique marbles for the empiric knowledge of ancient sculptors to be empirically inherited by modern ones. Observation of the hired model, utterly insufficient in itself, required to be supplemented by a thorough science of the body's mechanism. But physiology and surgery were still in their infancy; and artists could not, as they could after the teachings of Vesalius, Fallopius, and Cesalpinus, avail themselves of the science accumulated for medical purposes. Verrocchio and the Pollaiolos most certainly, and Donatello almost without a doubt, practised dissection as a part of their business, as Michelangelo, with the advantage of twenty years of their researches behind him, practised it passionately in his turn. Of all the men of his day, Domenico Neroni, however, was the most fervent anatomist. He ran every risk of contagion and of punishment in order to procure corpses from the hospital and the gibbet. He undermined his constitution by breathing and handling corruption, and when his friends implored him to spare his health, he would answer, although unable to touch food for sickness, by paraphrasing the famous words of Paolo Uccello, and exclaiming from among his grisly and abominable properties, "Ah! how sweet a thing is not anatomy!" There was nothing, he said--for he spoke willingly to any one who questioned him on these subjects--more beautiful than the manner in which human beings are built, or indeed living creatures of any kind; for, in the scarcity of corpses and skeletons, he would pick up on his walks the bones of sheep that had died on the hill-sides, or those of horses and mules furbished up by the scavenger dogs of the river-edge. It was marvellous to listen to him when he was in the vein. He sat handling horrible remains and talking about them like a lover about his mistress or a preacher about God; indeed, bones, muscles, and tendons were mistress and god all in one to this fanatical lover of human form. He would insist on the loveliness of line of the scapula, finding in the sweep of the _acromion_ ridge a fanciful resemblance to the pinion, and in the angular shape of the _coracoid_ process to the neck and head of a raven in full flight. Following with his finger the triangular outline of the bone, he went on to explain how its freedom of movement is due to its singular independence; laid loosely on the flat muscles behind the upper ribs, it moves with absolute freedom, backwards and forwards, up and down, unconnected with any other bone, till, turning the corner of the shoulder, it is hinged rather than tied to the collar-bone; the collar-bone itself free to move upwards from its articulation in the sternum. And then talk of the great works of man! Talk of Brunellesco and his cupola, of the engineers of the Duke of Calabria! Look at the human arm: what engineer would have dared to fasten anything to such a movable base as that? Yet an arm can swing round like a windmill, and lift weights like the stoutest crane without being wrenched out of its sockets, because the muscles act as pulleys in four different directions. And see, under the big _deltoid_, which fits round the shoulder like an epaulette and pulls the arm up, is the scapular group, things like tidily sorted skeins, thick on the shoulder-blades, diminished to a tendon string at their insertion in the arm; their business is to pull the arm back, in opposition to the big pectoral muscle which pulls it forwards. Here you have your arm working up, backwards or forwards; but how about pulling it down? An exquisite little arrangement settles that. Instead of being inserted with the rest on the outside of the arm-bone, the lowest muscle takes another road, and is inserted in the under part of the bone, in company with the great _latissimus dorsi_, and these tightening while the _deltoid_ slackens, pull the arm down. No other arrangement could have done it with so little bulk; and an additional muscle on the under-arm or the ribs would have spoilt the figure of Apollo himself. Among the paintings of contemporary artists, the one which at that time afforded Domenico the most unmingled satisfaction was Pollaiolo's tiny panel of Hercules and the Hydra. There! You might cover it with the palm of your hand; but in that hand you would be holding the concentrated strength and valour of the world, the true son of Jove, the most beautiful muscles that ever were seen! At least the most beautiful save in the statues of Donatello; for, of course, Donato was the greatest craftsman that had ever lived; and Domenico spoke of him as, in Vasari's day, men were to speak of Michelangelo. For I ask you, who save an angel in human shape could have modelled that David, so young and triumphant and modest, treading on Goliath's head, with toes just slightly turned downwards, and those sandals, of truly divine workmanship? And that St. John in the Wilderness--how beautiful are not his ribs, showing under the wasted pectoral muscles; and how one sees that the _radius_ rolls across the _ulna_ in the forearm; surely one's heart, rather than the statue, must be made of stone if one can contemplate without rapture the exquisite rendering of the texture where the shin-bone stands out from the muscles of the leg. Such must have been the works of those famous Romans and Greeks, Phidias and Praxiteles. Such were the notions of Domenico of Volterra in the earlier part of his career. For a change came gradually upon him after his first visit to Rome, whither, about 1480, he accompanied Botticelli, Rosselli, and Ghirlandaio, whom His Beatitude Pope Sixtus had sent for to decorate the new chapel of the palace. II We must not be deluded, like Domenico Neroni during his Florentine days, into the easy mistake of considering mere realism as the veritable aim of the art of his days. Deep in the life of that art, and struggling for ever through whatever passion for scientific accuracy, technical skill, or pathetic expression, is the sense of line and proportion, the desire for pattern, growing steadily till its triumph under Michelangelo and Raphael. This reveals itself earliest in architecture. The men of the fifteenth century had lost all sense of the logic of construction. Columns, architraves, friezes, and the various categories of actual stone and brick work, occurred to them merely as so much line and curve, applicable to the surface of their buildings, with not more reference to their architecture than a fresco or an arras. The Pazzi Chapel, for instance, is one agglomeration of architectural members which perform no architectural function; but, taken as a piece of surface decoration, say as a stencilling, what could be more harmonious? Or take Alberti's famous church at Rimini; it is but a great piece of architectural veneering, nothing that meets the eye doing any real constructive duty, its exquisite decoration no more closely connected with the building than the strips of damask and yards of gold braid used in other places on holidays. As the fifteenth century treats the architectural detail of Græco-Roman art, so likewise does it proceed with its sculptured ornament; all meaning vanishes before the absorbing interest in pattern. For there is in antique architectural ornament a much larger proportion of significance than can strike us at first. Thus the garlands of ivy and fruit had actually hung round the tomb before being carved on its sides; before ornamenting its corners the rams' heads and skulls of oxen had lain for centuries on the altar. The medallions of nymphs, centaurs, tritons, which to us are so meaningless and irrelevant, had a reference either to the divinity or to the worshippers; and there is probably almost as much spontaneous symbolism in the little cinerary box in the Capitol (of a person called Felix), with its variously employed genii, making music, carrying lanterns and torches, burning or extinguished under a trellis hung with tragic masks, as in any Gothic tomb with angels drawing the curtains of the deathbed. There has been, with the change of religion, an interruption in the symbolic tradition; yet, though we no longer interpret with readiness this dead language of paganism, we feel, if we are the least attentive, that it contains a real meaning. We feel that the sculptors cared not merely for the representation, but also for the object represented. These things were dear to them, a part of their life, their worship, their love; and they put as much observation into their work as any Gothic sculptor, and often as much fancy and humour (though both more beautiful), as one may judge, with plenty of comparison at hand, by a certain antique altar in Siena Cathedral, none of whose Gothic animals come up to the wonderful half-human rams' heads and bored, cross griffins of this forlorn fragment of paganism. The significance of classic ornament the men of the fifteenth century straightway overlooked. They laid hold of it as merely so much form, joining sirens, griffins, garlands, rams' heads, victories, without a suspicion that they might mean or suggest anything. They do, in fact, mean nothing, in most Florentine work, besides exquisite pattern; in the less subtle atmosphere of Venice they reach that frank senselessness which has moved the wrath of Ruskin. But what a charm have not even those foolish monuments of doges and admirals, tier upon tier of triumphal arch, of delicately flowered column and scalloped niche, and then rows of dainty warriors and virtues; how full of meaning to the eye and spirit is not this art so meaningless to the literary mind! Of course the painting of that age never became an art of mere pattern like the architecture. The whole life and thought of the time was poured into it; and the art itself developed in its upward movement a number of scientific interests--perspective, anatomy, expression--which counteracted that tendency to seek for mere beauty of arrangement and detail. Yet the perfection of Renaissance art never lies in any realism in our modern sense, still less in such suggestiveness as belongs to our literary age; and its triumph is when Raphael can vary and co-ordinate the greatest number of heads, of hands, feet, and groups, as in the School of Athens, the Parnassus, the marvellous little Bible histories of the Loggie; above all, in that "Vision of Ezekiel," which is the very triumph of compact and harmonious composition; when Michelangelo can tie human beings into the finest knots, twist them into the most shapely brackets, frameworks, and key-stones. Even throughout the period of utmost realism, while art was struggling with absorbing problems, men never dreamed of such realism as ours. They never painted a corner of nature at random, merely for the sake of veracity; they never modelled a modern man or woman in their real everyday dress and at their real everyday business. In the midst of everything composition ruled supreme, and each object must needs find its echo, be worked into a scheme of lines, or, with the Venetians, of symmetrically arranged colours. There is an anatomical engraving by Antonio Pollaiolo, one of the strongest realists of his time, which sums up the tendencies of fifteenth-century art. It is a combat of twelve naked men, extraordinarily hideous and in hideous attitudes, but they are so arranged that their ungainly and flayed-looking limbs form with the background of gigantic ivy tendrils an intricate and beautiful pattern, such as we find in Morris's paper and stuffs. This hankering after pattern, this desire for beauty as such, became manifest in Domenico Neroni after his first sojourn in Rome. The Roman basilicas, with their stately rows of columns, Corinthian and Ionic, taken from some former temple, and their sunken floor, solemn with Byzantine patterns of porphyry and serpentine, had impressed with their simplicity and harmony the mind of this Florentine, surrounded hitherto by the intricacies of Gothic buildings. They had formed the link to those fragments of ancient architecture, more intact but also more hidden than in our days, whose dignity of proportion and grace of detail--vast rosetted arches and slender rows of fluted pillars--our modern and Hellenicised taste has treated with too ready contempt. For this Vitruvian art, unoriginal and bungling in the eyes of our purists, was yet full of the serenity, the ampleness which the Middle Ages lacked, and affected the men of the fifteenth century much like a passage of Virgil after a canto of Dante. It formed the fit setting for those remains of antique sculpture which were then gradually beginning to be drawn from the earth. Of such statues and reliefs--which the men of the Renaissance regarded as the work rather of ancient Rome than of Greece--a certain amount was beginning to be carried all over Italy, and notably to the houses of the rich Florentine merchants, who incrusted their staircase walls with inscriptions and carvings, and set statues and sarcophagi under the columns of their courtyards. But such sculpture was chosen rather for its portable character than its excellence; and although single busts and slabs were diligently studied by Florentine artists, there could not have existed in Florence a number of antiques sufficient to impress the ideal of ancient art upon men surrounded on all sides by the works of medieval painters and sculptors. To the various sights of Rome must be due that sudden enlarging of style, that kind of new classicism, which distinguishes the work of fifteenth-century masters after their visit to the Eternal City, enabling Ghirlandaio, Signorelli, Perugino, and Botticelli to make the Sixtine Chapel, and even the finical Pinturicchio, the Vatican library, into centres of fresh influence for harmony and beauty. The result upon Domenico Neroni was a momentary confusion in all his artistic conceptions. Too much of a seeker for new things, for secret and complicated knowledge, to undergo a mere widening of style like his more gifted or more placid contemporaries, he fell foul of his previous work and his previous masters, without finding a new line or new ideals. The frescoes of Castagno, the little panels of the Pollaiolos, nay, even the works of Donatello, were no longer what they had seemed before his Roman journey, and even what he had remembered them in Rome; for it is with more noble things, even as with the rooms which we inhabit, which strike us as small and dingy only on returning from larger and better lighted ones. It is to this period of incipient but ill-understood classicism that belongs the only work of Domenico Neroni--at least the only work still extant nowadays--which possesses, over and above its artistic or scientific merit, that indefinable quality which we must simply call _charm_; to this time, with the one exception of the famous woodcuts done for Filarete. Domenico began about this time, and probably under the stress of necessity, to make frontispieces for the books with which Florentine printers were rapidly superseding the manuscripts of twenty years before: collections of sermons, of sonnets, lives of saints, editions of Virgil and Terence, quaint versified encyclopædias, and even books on medicine and astrology. From these little woodcuts, groups of saints round the Cross, with Giotto's tower and Brunellesco's dome in the distance, pictures of Fathers of the Church or ancient poets seated at desks in neatly panelled closets--always with their globes, books, and pot of lilies, and a vista of cloisters; or battles between chaste viragos, in flying Botticellian draperies, and slim, naked Cupids; from such frontispieces Domenico passed on to larger woodcuts, destined to illustrate books never printed, or perhaps, like the so-called _playing cards of Mantegna_ and certain prints of Robetta, to be bought as cheap ornaments for walls. Some of those that remain to us have a classical stiffness, reminding one of the Paduan school; others, and these his best, remind one of the work of Botticelli. There is, for instance, the figure of a Muse, elaborately modelled under her ample drapery, seated cross-legged by a playing fountain, on a carpet of exquisitely designed ground-ivy, a little bare trellis behind her, a tortoise lyre in her hand; which has in it somewhat of that odd, vague, questioning character, half of eagerness, half of extreme lassitude, which we find in Botticelli. Only that in Neroni's work it seems not the outcome of a certain dreamy spiritual dissatisfaction--the dissatisfaction which makes us feel that Botticelli's flower-wreathed nymphs may end in the pool under the willows like Ophelia--but rather of a torturing of line and attitude in search of grace. Grace! Unclutchable phantom, which had appeared tantalisingly in Neroni's recollections of the antique, a something ineffable, which he could not even see clearly when it was there before him, accustomed as he had been to all the hideousness of anatomised reality. In these woodcuts he seems hunting it for ever; and there is one of them which is peculiarly significant, of a nymph in elaborately wound robes and veils, striding, with an odd, mad, uncertain swing, through fields of stiff grass and stunted rushes, a baby faun in her bosom, another tiny goat-legged creature led by the hand, while she carries uncomfortably, in addition to this load, a silly trophy of wild-flowers tied to a stick; the personification almost, this lady with the wide eyes and crazy smile, of the artist's foolishly and charmingly burdened journey in quest of the unattainable. The imaginative quality, never intended or felt by the painter himself, here depends on his embodying longings after the calm and stalwart goddesses on sarcophagus and vase, in the very thing he most seeks to avoid, a creature borrowed from a Botticelli allegory, or one of the sibyls of the unspeakable Perugino himself! The circumstances of this quest, and the accidental meeting in it of the antique and the mediæval, the straining, the Quixote-riding or Three-King pilgrimaging after a phantom, gives to such work of Domenico's that indefinable quality of _charm_; the man does not indeed become a poet, but in a measure a subject for poetry. III In order to understand what must have passed in the mind of one of those Florentines of the fifteenth century, we must realise the fact that, unlike ourselves, they had not been brought up under the influence of the antique, and, unlike the ancients, they had not lived in intimacy with Nature. The followers of Giotto had studied little beyond the head and hands, and as much of the body as could be guessed at under drapery or understood from movement; and this achievement, with no artistic traditions save those of the basest Byzantine decay, was far greater than we easily appreciate. It remained for the men of the fifteenth century, Donatello, Ghiberti, Masaccio, and their illustrious followers, to become familiar with the human body. To do so is easy for every one in our day, when we are born, so to speak, with an unconscious habit of antique form, diffused not merely by ancient works of art in marble or plaster, but by more recent schools of art, painting as well as sculpture, themselves the outcome of classical imitation. The early Italian Renaissance had little or none of these facilitations. Fragments of Greek and Roman sculpture were still comparatively uncommon before the great excavations of the sixteenth century; nor was it possible for men so unfamiliar, not merely with the antique, but with Nature itself, to profit very rapidly by the knowledge and taste stored up even in those fragments. It was necessary to learn from reality to appreciate the antique, however much the knowledge of the antique might later supplement, and almost supplant, the study of reality. So these men of the fifteenth century had to teach themselves, in the first instance, the very elements of this knowledge. And here their position, while yet so unlike ours, was even more utterly unlike that of the ancients themselves. The great art of Greece undoubtedly had its days of ignorance; but for those ancient painters and sculptors, who for generations had watched naked lads exercising in the school or racecourse, and draped, half-naked men and women walking in the streets and working in the fields, their ignorance was of the means of representation, not of the object represented. It is the hand, the tool which is at fault in those constrained, simpering warriors of the schools of Ægina, in those slim-waisted dæmonic dancers of the Apulian vases; the eye is as familiar with the human body, the mind as accustomed to select its beauty from its ugliness, as the eye and mind of such of us as cannot paint are familiar nowadays with the shapes and colours, with the charm of the trees and meadows that we love. The contemporaries, on the contrary, of Donatello had received from the sculptors of the very farthest Middle Ages, those who carved the magnificent patterns of Byzantine coffins and the exquisite leafage of Longobard churches, a remarkable mastery over the technical part of their craft. The hand was cunning, but the eye unfamiliar. Hence it comes that the sculpture of the earlier Renaissance displays perfection of workmanship, which occasionally blinds us to its poverty of form, and even to its deficiency of science. And hence also the rapidity with which every additional item of knowledge is put into practice that seems to argue perfect familiarity. But these men were not really familiar with their work. The dullest modern student, brought up among casts and manuals, would not be guilty of the actual anatomical mistakes committed every now and then by these great anatomists, so passionately curious of internal structure, so exquisitely faithful to minute peculiarity, let alone the bunglings of men so certain of their pencil, so exquisitely keen to form, as Botticelli. As a matter of fact, every statue or drawn figure of this period represents a hard fight with ignorance and with unfamiliarity worse than ignorance. The grosser the failure hard-by, the more splendid the real achievement. For every limb modelled truthfully from the life, every gesture rendered correctly, every bone or muscle making itself felt under the skin, every crease or lump in the surface, is so much conquered from the unknown. So long as this study, or rather this ignorance, continued, the antique could be appreciated only very partially, and almost exclusively in the points in which it differed least from the works of these modern men. It must have struck them by its unerring science, its great truthfulness to nature, but its superior beauty could not have appealed to artists too unfamiliar with form to think of selecting it. The study of antique proportion, the reproduction of antique types, so visible in the sculptures of Michelangelo, of Cellini, and of Sansovino, and no less in the painting of Raphael, of Andrea, and even of the later Venetians, was very unimportant in the school of Donatello; and it is probable that he and his pupils did not even perceive the difference between their own works and the old marbles, which they studied merely as so many realistic documents. During his Florentine days Domenico Neroni, like his masters, was unconscious of the real superiority of the antique, and blind to its difference from what his contemporaries and himself were striving to produce. He did not perceive that the David of Donatello and that of Verrocchio were unlike the marble gods and heroes with whom he would complacently compare them, nor that the bas-reliefs of the divine Ghiberti were far more closely connected with the Gothic work of Orcagna, even of the Pisans, than with those sculptured sarcophagi collected by Cosimo and Piero dei Medici. It was only when his insatiate curiosity had exhausted those problems of anatomy which had still troubled his teachers that he was able to see what the antique really was, or rather to see that the modern was not the same thing. Ghirlandaio, Filippino, Signorelli, and Botticelli undoubtedly were affected by a similar intuition of the Antique; but they were diverted from its thorough investigation by the manifold other problems of painting as distinguished from sculpture, and by the vagueness, the unconsciousness of great creative activity: the antique became one of the influences in their development, helping very quietly to enlarge and refine their work. It was different with Domenico, in whom the man of science was much more powerful than the artist. His nature required definite decisions and distinct formulas. It took him some time to understand that the school of Donatello differed absolutely from the antique, but the difference once felt, it appeared to him with extraordinary clearness. He never put his thoughts into words, and probably never admitted even to himself that the works he had most admired were lacking in beauty; he merely asserted that the statues of the old Romans and Greeks were astonishingly beautiful. In reality, however, he was perpetually comparing the two, and always to the disadvantage of the moderns. It is possible in our day to judge justly the comparative merits of antique sculpture and of that of the early Renaissance; or rather to appreciate them as two separate sorts of art, delightful in quite different ways, letting ourselves be charmed not more by the actual beauty of form, and nobility of movement of the one than by the simplicity, the very homeliness, the essentially human quality of the other. To us there is something delightful in the very fact that the Davids of Donatello and Verrocchio are mere ordinary striplings from the street and the workshop, that the singers of Luca della Robbia are simple unfledged choir-boys, and the Virgins of Mino Florentine fine ladies; we have enough of antique perfection, we have had too much of pseudo-antique faultlessness, and we feel refreshed by this unconsciousness of beauty and ugliness. A contemporary could not enter into such feelings, he could not enjoy his own and his fellows' _naïveté_; besides, the antique was only just becoming manifest, and therefore triumphant. To Domenico, Donatello's David became more and more unsatisfactory, faulty above the waist, positively ungainly below, weak and lubberly; how could so divine an artist have been satisfied with that flat back, those narrow shoulders and thick thighs? He felt freer to dislike the work of Verrocchio, his own teacher, and a man without Donatello's overwhelming genius; that David of his, with his immense head and wizen face, his pitiful child's arms and projecting clavicles, straddling with hand on hip; was it possible that a great hero, the slayer of a giant (Domenico's notions of giants were taken rather from the romances of chivalry recited in the market than from study of Scripture) should have been made like that? And so, like his great contemporary Mantegna in far-off Lombardy, Domenico turned that eager curiosity with which he had previously sought for the secret of flayed limbs and fleshless skeletons, to studying the mystery of proportion and beauty which was hidden, more subtly and hopelessly, in the broken marbles of the Pagans. It happened one day, somewhere about the year 1485, that he was called to examine a group of Bacchus and a Faun, recently brought from Naples by the banker Neri Altoviti, of the family which once owned a charming house, recently destroyed, whose triple row of pillared balconies used to put an odd Florentine note into the Papal Rome, turning the swirl of the Tiber opposite Saint Angelo's into a reach of the Arno. The houses of the Altovitis in Florence were in that portion of the town most favoured by the fifteenth century, already a little way from the market: the lion on the tower of the Podestà, and the Badia steeple printing the sky close by; while not far off was the shop where the good bookseller Vespasiano received orders for manuscripts, and conversed with the humanists whose lives he was to write. The Albizis and Pandolfinis, illustrious and numerous families, struck in so many of their members by the vindictiveness of the Medicis, had their houses in the same quarter, and at the corner of the narrow street hung the carved escutcheon--two fishes rampant--of the Pazzis: their house shut up and avoided by the citizens, who had so recently seen the conspirators dangling in hood and cape from the windows of the public palace. The house of the Altovitis was occupied on the ground floor by great warehouses, whose narrow, grated windows were attainable only by a steep flight of steps. The court was surrounded on three sides by a cloister or portico, which repeated itself on the first and second floors, with the difference that the lowest arches were supported by rude square pillars, ornamented with only a carved marigold, while the uppermost weighed on stout oaken shafts, between which ropes were stretched for the drying of linen; and the middle colonnade consisted of charming Tuscan columns, where Sirens and Cupids and heraldic devices replaced the acanthus or rams' horns of the capitals. It was to this middle portion of the house that Domenico ascended up a noble steep-stepped staircase, protected from the rain by a vaulted and rosetted roof, for it was external and occupied the side of the yard left free from cloisters. The great banker had bidden Domenico to his midday meal, which was served with a frugality now fast disappearing, but once habitual even among the richest Florentines. But though the food was simple and almost scanty, nearly forty persons sat down to meat together, for Neri Altoviti held to the old plan, commended by Alberti in his dialogue on the governing of a household, that the clerks and principal servants of a merchant were best chosen among his own kinsfolk, living under his roof, and learning obedience from the example of his children. Despite this frugality, the dining-room was, though bare, magnificent. There were none of those carpets and Eastern stuffs which surprised strangers from the North in the voluptuous little palaces of contemporary Venetians, and the benches were hard and narrow. But the ceiling overhead was magnificently arranged in carved compartments, great gold sunflowers and cherubs projecting from a dark blue ground among the brown raftering; in the middle of the stencilled wall was one of those high sideboards so frequently shown in old paintings, covered with gold and silver dishes and platters embossed by the most skilful craftsmen; and at one end a great washing trough and fountain, such as still exist in sacristies, ornamented with groups of dancing children by Benedetto da Maiano; while behind the high seat of the father of the family a great group of saints, emerging from blooming lilies and surrounded by a glory of angels, was hanging in a frame divided into carved compartments: the work, panel and frame, of the late Brother Filippo Lippi. At one end of the board sat all the men, arranged hierarchically, from the father in his black loose robe to lads in short plaited tunic and striped hose; the womankind were seated together, and the daughters, even the mother of the house, modest and almost nunlike in apparel and head-dress, would rise and help to wait on the men, with that silent and grave courtesy which, according to Vespasiano, had disappeared from Florence with Alessandra dei Bardi. There was little speech, and only in undertones; a Franciscan said a long grace, and afterwards, and in the middle of the meal, a young student, educated by the frequent munificence of the Altovitis, read out loud a chapter of Cicero's "De Senectute;" for Neri, although a busy banker, with but little time for study, was not behind his generation in the love of letters and philosophy. After meat Messer Neri dismissed the rest of the company to their various avocations; the ladies silently retired to superintend the ironing and mending of the house linen, and Domenico was escorted by his host to see the newly arrived piece of statuary. It had been placed already in the banker's closet, where he could feast his eyes on its perfection while attending to his business or improving his mind by study. This closet, compared to the rest of the house, was small and low-roofed. At its end, as we see in the pictures of Van Eyck and Memling, opened out the conjugal chamber, reflecting its vast, red-covered bed, raised several steps, its crucifix and praying-stool, and its latticed window in a circular mirror framed in cut facets, which hung opposite on the wall of the closet. The latter was dark, a single trefoiled window admitting on either side of its column and through its greenish bottle-glass but little light from the narrow street. The chief furniture consisted of shelves carrying books, small antique bronzes, some globes, a sand-glass, and panel cupboards, ornamented with pictures of similar objects, and with ingenious perspectives of inlaid wood. An elaborate iron safe, painted blue and studded with beautiful metal roses, stood in a corner. There were two or three arm chairs of carved oak for visitors. The master sat upon a bench behind an oaken counter or desk, very much like St. Jerome in his study. On the wall behind, and above his head, hung a precious Flemish painting (Flemish paintings were esteemed for their superior devoutness) representing the Virgin at the foot of the Cross, with a Nativity and a Circumcision on either of the opened shutters. It made a glowing patch of vivid geranium and wine colour, of warm yellow glazing on the oak of the wall. On the counter or writing-table stood a majolica pot with three lilies in it, a pile of manuscript and ledgers, and a human skull alongside of a crucifix, beautifully wrought of bronze by Desiderio da Settignano. A Latin translation of Plato's "Phædo" was spread open on the desk, together with one of the earliest printed copies of the "Divine Comedy." Messer Neri did not take his seat at the counter, but, after a pause, and with some solemnity, drew a curtain of dark brocade which had been spread across one end of the closet, and displayed his new purchase. "I have it from the king, for the settling of a debt of a thousand crowns contracted with my father, when he was Duke of Calabria," said the banker, with due appreciation of the sum. "'Tis said they found it among the ruins of that famous palace of the Emperor Tiberius of which Tacitus has told us." The two marble figures, to which time and a long sojourn underground had given a brownish yellow colour, reddish in places with rust stains, stood out against a background of Flemish tapestry, whose emaciated heads of kings and thin bodies of warrior saints made a confused pattern on the general dusky blue and green. The group was in wonderful preservation: the figure of Bacchus intact, that of the young faun lacking only the arm, which had evidently been freely extended. It exists in many repetitions and variations in most of our museums; a work originally of the school of Praxiteles, but in none of the copies handed to us of excellence sufficient to display the hand of the original sculptor. Besides, we have been spoilt by familiarity with an older and more powerful school, by knowledge of a few great masterpieces, for complete appreciation of such a work. But it was different four hundred years ago; and Domenico Neroni stood long and entranced before the group. The principal figure embodied all those beauties which he had been striving so hard to understand: it was, in the most triumphant manner, the absolute reverse of the figures of Donatello. The young god was represented walking with leisurely but vigorous step, supporting himself upon the shoulder of the little satyr as the vine supports itself, with tendrils trailed about branches and trunk, on the propping tree from which the child Ampelos took his name. Like the head with its elaborately dressed curls, the beautiful body had an ampleness and tenderness that gave an impression almost womanly till you noticed the cuirass-like sit of the chest on the loins, and the compressed strength of the long light thighs. The creature, as you looked at him, seemed to reveal more and more, beneath the roundness and fairness of surface, the elasticity and strength of an athlete in training. But when the eye was not exploring the delicate, hard, and yet supple depressions and swellings of the muscles, the slender shapeliness of the long legs and springy feet, the back bulging with strong muscles above, and going in, tight, with a magnificent dip at the waist; all impressions were merged in a sense of ease, of suavity, of full-blown harmony. Here was no pomp of anatomical lore, of cunning handicraft, but the life seemed to circulate strong and gentle in this exquisite effortless body. And the creature was not merely alive with a life more harmonious than that of living men or carved marbles, but beautiful, equally in simple outline if you chose that, and in subtle detail when that came under your notice, with a beauty that seemed to multiply itself, existing in all manners, as it can only in things that have life, in perfect flowers and fruits, or high-bred Oriental horses. Of such things did the under-strata of consciousness consist in Neroni--vague impressions of certain bunches of grapes with their great rounded leaves hanging against the blue sky, of the flame-like tapered petals of wild tulips in the fields, of the golden brown flanks of certain horses, and the broad white foreheads of the Umbrian bullocks; forming as it were a background for the perception of this god, for no man or woman had ever been like unto him. Domenico remained silent, his arms folded on his breast; it was not a case for talking. But the young man who had read Cicero aloud at table had come up behind him, and thought it more seemly to praise his patron's new toy, while at the same time displaying his learning; so he cleared his throat, and said in a pompous manner:-- "It is stated in the fifth chapter of the Geography of Strabo that the painter Parrhasius, having been summoned by the inhabitants of Lindos to make them an image of their tutelary hero Hercules, obtained from the son of Jupiter that he should appear to him in a dream, and thus enable him worthily to portray the perfections of a demigod. Might we not be tempted to believe that the divine son of Semele had vouchsafed a similar boon to the happy sculptor of this marble?" But Domenico only bit his thumb and sighed very heavily. IV To the men of those days, which have taken their name from the revival of classical studies, Antiquity, although studied and aped till its phrases, feelings, and thoughts had entered familiarly into all life, remained, nevertheless, a period of permanent miracle. It was natural, therefore, to the contemporaries of Poggius and Æneas Sylvius, of Ficinus and Politian, that the art of the Romans and Greeks should, like their poetry, philosophy, and even their virtues, be of transcendent and unqualified splendour. Why it should be thus they asked as little as why the sun shines, mediæval men as they really were, and accepting quite simply certain phenomena as the result of inscrutable virtues. Even later, when Machiavelli began to examine why the ancients had been more valorous and patriotic than his contemporaries, nay, when Montaigne expounded with sceptical cynicism the superior sanity and wisdom of Pagan days, people were satisfied to think--when they thought at all--that antique art was excellent because it belonged to antiquity. And it was not till the middle of the eighteenth century that the genius of Winkelmann brought into fruitful contact the study of ancient works of art, and that of the manners and notions of antiquity, showing the influence of a civilisation which cultivated bodily beauty as an almost divine quality, and making us see behind that beautiful nation of marble the generations of living athletes, among whom the sculptor had found his critics and his models. To a man like Domenico Neroni, devoid of classical learning and accustomed to struggling with anatomy and perspective, the problem of ancient art was not settled by the fact of its antiquity. He had gone once more to Rome on purpose to see as many old marbles as possible, and he brought to their study the feverish curiosity with which in former years he had flayed and cut up corpses and spent his nights in calculations of perspective. To such a mind, where modern scientific methods were arising among mediæval habits of allegory and mysticism, the statues and reliefs which he was perpetually analysing became a sort of subsidiary nature, whose riddles might be read by other means than mere investigation; for do not the forces of Nature, its elemental spirits, give obedience to wonderful words and potent combinations of numbers? Certain significant facts had flashed across his mind in his studies of that almost abstract, nay, almost cabalistic thing, the science of bodily proportions. It was plain that the mystery of antique beauty--the ancient symmetry, _symmetria prisca_ as a humanist designs it in his epitaph for Leonardo da Vinci--was but a matter of numbers. For a man's length, if he stand with outstretched arms, is the same from finger tip to finger tip as his length when erect from head to feet, namely, eight times the length of his head. Now eight heads, if divided into halves, give four as the measure of throat and thorax; and four heads to the length of the leg from the acetabulum to the heel, divided themselves into two heads going to the thigh and two heads to the shank; while in the cross measurement two heads equal the breadth of the chest, and three measure the length from the shoulder to the middle finger. These measures--a mere rough rule of thumb in our eyes--contained to this mediæval mind the promise of some great mystery. To him, accustomed to hear all the occurrences of Nature, and all human concerns referred to astrological calculations, and conceiving the universe as governed by spirits--in shape, perhaps, like the Primum Mobile, the Mercurius and Jupiter of Mantegna's playing cards, crowned with stars and poised upon globes--it was as if the divining rod were turning pertinaciously to one spot in the earth, where, had he but the necessary tools, he must strike upon veins of the purest gold, or cause water to spirt high in the air. This number _eight_, and the pertinacity of its recurrence, puzzled him intensely. It seemed to point so clearly, much as in music the sensitive seventh points to the tonic, to a sort of resolution on the number nine. And if only nine could be established, it would seem to explain so much.... For five being man's numeral in creation (and is not the measurement of his face also _five eyes_?), it makes, when added to four, the number of the material elements over which he dominates, _nine_, which would thus represent the supremacy or perfection of man. Man's power of reproduction being represented by three, its multiple nine would be still more obviously important. How to turn this eight into nine became Domenico's study, and he took measurement after measurement for this purpose. At length he remembered that man's body is a unity, therefore represented by the number one, and that will, judgment, and supremacy are also comprised in the unit. Now one and eight make nine beyond all possibility of doubt, and the formula--"man's body is a unity--or one"--composed of harmonies of eight, would give the formula _nine_ meaning _man's supremacy is expressed in his body_. The importance of working round to this famous nine will be clear when we reflect that, according to the Kabbala and the lost sacred book of Hermes Trismegistus--the Pimandra, doubtless, which he is represented, on the floor of Siena Cathedral, as offering to a Jew and a Gentile--nine represents the sun and all beautiful bright things that draw their influence from it, as the gleam of beaten gold, the rustle of silken stuffs, the smell of the flower heliotrope, and all such men as delineate human beings with colours, or make their effigy in stone or metal; moreover, Phoebus Apollo, whom the poets describe as the most beautiful of the gods, as indeed he is represented in all statues and reliefs. Domenico would often discuss these matters with a learned man who greatly frequented his company. This was the humanist Niccolò Feo, known as Filarete. Filarete was a native of Southern Apulia, a bastard of the house of the Counts of Sulmona, who, in order to prevent any plots against the legitimate branch, had handsomely provided for him in an abbey of which they enjoyed the patronage. But his restless spirit drove him from the cloister, and impelled him to long and adventurous journeys. He had travelled in India and the East, and in Greece, returning to Italy only when Constantinople fell before the Turks. During these years he had acquired immense learning, considerable wealth, and a vaguely sinister reputation. He had been persecuted by Paul II. for taking part in the famous banquets, savouring oddly of Paganism, of Pomponius Lætus; but the late Pontiff Sixtus IV. had taken him into his favour together with Platina, one of his fellow-sufferers in the castle of Saint Angelo. He was now old, and, after a life of study, adventure, and possibly of sin, was living in affluence in a house given him by the illustrious Cardinal at St. Peter ad Vincula, who had also obtained him a canonry of St. John Lateran. He was busying his last year in a great work of fancy and erudition, for which he required the assistance of a skilful draughtsman and connoisseur of antiquities, than whom none could suit him so well as Domenico Neroni. The book of Filarete, of which the rare copies are among the most precious relics of the Renaissance, was a strange mixture of romance, allegory, and encyclopædic knowledge, such as had been common in the Middle Ages, and was still fashionable during the revival of letters, which merely added the element of classical learning. Like the _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_ of Francesco Colonna, of which it was doubtless the prototype, the _Alcandros_ of Filarete, though never carried beyond the first volume, is an amazing and wearisome display of the author's archæological learning. It contains exact descriptions of all the rarities of ancient art, and of things Oriental which he had seen, and pages of transcripts from obscure Latin and Greek authors, descriptive of religious ceremonies; varied with Platonic philosophy, Decameronian obscenities, in laboured pseudo-Florentine style, and Dantesque visions, all held together by the confused narrative of an allegorical journey performed by the author. It is profusely ornamented with woodcuts, representing architectural designs of a fantastic, rather Oriental description, restorations of ancient buildings, reproductions of antique inscriptions and designs, and last, but far from least, a certain number of small compositions, of Mantegnesque quality, but Botticellian charm, showing the various adventures of the hero in terrible woods, delicious gardens, and in the company of nymphs, demigods, and allegorical personages. These latter are undoubtedly from the hand of Domenico Neroni; and it was while discussing these delightful damsels seated with lutes and psalteries under vine-trellises, these scholars in cap and gown, weeping in quaint chambers with canopied beds and carnations growing on the window, these processions--suggesting Mantegna's Triumph of Julius Cæsar--of priests and priestesses with victories and trophies, that the painter from Volterra and the Apulian humanist would discuss the secret of antique beauty--discuss it for hours, surrounded by the precious manuscripts and inscriptions, the fragments of sculpture, the Eastern rarities, of Filarete's little house on the Quirinal hill, or among the box-hedges, clipped cypresses, and fountains of his garden; while the riots and massacres, the fanatical processions and feudal wars, of mediæval Rome raged unnoticed below. For Pope Sixtus and his Riarios, and Pope Innocent and his Cybos, thirsting for power and gold, drunken with lust and bloodshed, were benign and courteous patrons of all art and all learning. V But that number nine, attained with so much difficulty, although it put the human proportion into visible connection with the sun, with beaten gold, the smell of the heliotrope, and the god Apollo, and opened a vista of complicated astral influences, did not in reality bring Domenico one step nearer the object of his desires. It had enabled those ancient men to make statues that were perfectly beautiful, that was obvious; but it did not make his own figures one tittle less hideous, for he felt them now to be absolutely hideous. One wintry day, as he was roaming amongst the fallen pillars and arches, thickly covered with myrtle and ilex, of the desolate region beyond what had once been the Forum and was now the cattle-market, there came across Domenico's mind, while he watched a snake twisting in the grass, the remembrance of a certain anecdote about a Greek painter, to whom Hercules had shown himself in a vision. He had heard it, without taking any notice, two years before, from the young scholar who read Cicero at table for Messer Neri Altoviti; and although he had thought of it several times, it had never struck him except as one of the usual impudent displays of learning of the parasitic tribe of humanists. But at this moment the remembrance of this fact came as a great light into Domenico's soul. For what were these statues save the idols of the heathens; and what wonder they should be divinely beautiful, when those who made them might see the gods in visions? This explanation, which to us must sound far-fetched and fantastic, knowing, as we do, the real reason that made a people of athletes into a people of sculptors, savoured of no strangeness to a man of the Middle Ages. Visions of superhuman creatures were among the most undisputed articles of his belief, and among the commonest subjects of his art. Had not the Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Bernard, the Saviour among His cherubim to St. Francis--the very stones shown at La Vernia where it had happened--the Divine Bridegroom to Catherine of Siena? Had not St. Anthony of Padua held the Divine Child in his arms? And all not so long ago? Besides, every year there was some nun or monk claiming to have conversed with Christ and His court; and the heavens were opening quite frequently in the walls of cells and the clefts of hermitages. And did not Dante relate a journey into Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise? It was perfectly natural that what was constantly happening to holy men and women nowadays should have happened in Pagan times also; and what men could so well have deserved a visit from gods as those who spent their lives faithfully portraying them? The story of Parrhasius and his vision was familiar ground to a man accustomed to see, in all corners of Italy, portraits of the Saviour painted by St. Luke, or finished, like the famous Holy Face of Lucca, by angels. For an absolute contempt for the artistic value of such miraculous images did not, in the mind of Neroni, throw any doubt on their authenticity; in the same way that the passion for antiquity, the hankering after Pagan beliefs, did not probably interfere with the orthodoxy of so many of the humanists. Domenico, besides, remembered that Virgil and Ovid, whom he had not read, but whose fables he had sometimes been asked to illustrate, were constantly talking of visions of gods and goddesses, nay, of their descending upon earth to unite themselves with mortals in love or friendship, for he had had to furnish designs for woodcuts representing Diana and Endymion, Jupiter and Ganymede, the gods coming to Philemon and Baucis, and Apollo tending the herds of Admetus. Neither did it occur to Domenico's mind that the existence of the old gods might be a mere invention, or a mere delusion of the heathen. For all their classic culture, the men of the fifteenth century, as the men of the thirteenth for all their scholasticism, were in an intellectual condition such as we rarely meet with nowadays among educated persons; and Domenico, a mere handicraftsman, had not learned from the study of Cicero and Plato to examine and understand the difference between reality and fiction. To him a scene which was frequently painted, an adventure which was written down and could be read, was necessarily a reality. Dante had spoken of the gods, and what Dante said was evidently true, the allegorical meaning, the metaphor, entirely escaping this simple mind; and Virgil, Homer, Ovid told the most minute details about gods and goddesses, and they themselves were grave and learned men. Domenico did not even think that the ancient gods were dead. Of course heaven was now occupied by Christ and His saints, those heavenly hosts of whom he would think, when he thought of them at all, as seated stepwise on a great stand, blue and pink and green in dress, golden discs about their heads, and an atmosphere of fretted gold, of swirling stencilled golden angels' wings all round them, and God the Father, a great triangle blazing with Alpha and Omega, above Jesus enthroned, and His mother; and it was they who ruled things here, and to them he said his prayers night and morning, and knelt in church. But _here_, somehow did not cover the whole universe, nor did that pink and blue and gold miniature painter's heaven extend everywhere, although, of course, somehow or other it did. Anyhow, it was certain that not so very far off there were Saracens and Turks--why he had seen some of the Duke of Calabria's Turkish garrison--who believed in Macomet, Trevigant, and Apollinis; these to be sure were false gods (the word _false_ carried no clear meaning to his mind, or if any, one rather equivalent to _wrong, objectionable_ rather than to non-existent), but they certainly worked wonderful miracles for their people. And indeed--here Domenico's placid contemplation of the kingdom of Macomet, Trevigant, and Apollinis was exchanged for a vague horror, shot with gleams of curiosity--the devil also had his place in the world, a place much nearer and universal, and did marvellous things, pointing out treasures, teaching the future, lending invulnerable strength to the men and women who worshipped him, of whom some might be pointed out to you in every town--yes, grave and respectable men, priests and monks among them, and even Cardinals of Holy Church, as every one knew quite well.... So that, in a confused manner, rather negative than positive, Domenico considered that the Pagan gods must be somewhere or other, the past and present not very clearly separated in his mind, or rather the past existing in a peculiar simultaneous manner with the present, as a sort of St. Brandan's isle, in distant, unattainable seas; or as Dante's mountain of Purgatory, a very solid mountain indeed, yet which, for some mysterious and unquestioned reason, people never stumbled upon except after death. All this was scarcely an actual series of arguments; it was rather the arguments which, with much effort, Domenico might have fished out of his obscure consciousness had you summoned him to explain how the ancient gods could possibly be immortal. As to him, he had always heard of them as immortal, and although he had not been taught any respect or love for them as for Christ, the Madonna, and the saints, they must be existing somewhere since _immortal_ means that which cannot die. But now he began to feel a certain shyness about immortal gods, for they had begun to occupy his thoughts, and it was with much cunning that he put questions to his friend Filarete, desirous to gain information on certain points without actually seeming to ask it. The humanist, summoned to explain what the Fathers of the Church--those worthies crowned with mitres and offering rolls of manuscript, whom Domenico had occasionally to portray for his customers--said about the ancient gods, answered with much glibness but considerable contempt, for the Greek and Latin of these saintly philosophers inspired the learned man with a feeling of nausea. He got out of a chest several volumes covered with dust, and began to quote the "Apology" of Justin Martyr, the "Legation" of Athenagoras, the "Apology" of Tertullian and Lactantius, whose very name caused him to writhe with philological loathing. And he told Domenico that it was the opinion of these holy but ill-educated persons that dæmons assumed the name and attributes of Jupiter, of Venus, of Apollo and Bacchus, lurking in temples, instituting festivals and sacrifices, and were often allowed by Heaven to distract the faithful by a display of miracles. "Then they are devils?" asked Domenico, trying to follow. A smile passed over the beautifully cut mouth, the noble, wrinkled face--like that of the marble Seneca--of the old humanist. "Talk of devils to the barefoot friar who preaches in the midst of the market-place," he said, "not to Filarete. The whole world, air, fire, earth, water, the entire universe is governed by dæmons, and they inspire our noblest thoughts. Hast never heard of the familiar dæmon of Socrates, whispering to him superhuman wisdom? Yes, indeed, Venus, Apollo, Æsculapius, Jove, the stars and planets, the winds and tides are dæmons. But thou canst not understand such matters, my poor Domenico. So get thee to Brother Baldassare of Palermo, and ask him questions." But Filarete's expression was very different when, one day, Domenico shyly inquired concerning the truth of that story of Parrhasius and the Hercules of Lindos. Strange rumours were current in Rome of unholy festivities in which Filarete and other learned men--some of those whom Paul II. had thrown into prison--had once taken part. They had not merely laid their tables and spread their couches according to descriptions contained in ancient authors; but, crowned with roses, laurel, myrtle, or parsley, had sung hymns to the heathen gods, and, it was whispered, poured out libations and burned incense in their honour. Their friends, indeed, had answered scornfully that these were but amusements of learned men; not to be taken more seriously than the invocations to the gods and muses in their poems, than the mythological subjects which the Popes themselves selected to adorn their dwellings. And doubtless this explanation was correct. Yet the pleasure of these little pedantic and artistic mummeries, which took place in suburban gardens, while the townsfolk streamed in the hot June nights, decked with bunches of cloves and of lavender, to make bonfires in the empty places near the Lateran, little guessing that their ancestors had once done the same in honour of the neighbouring Venus--the innocent childishness of these learned men was perhaps spiced, for some individuals at least, by a momentary belief in the gods of the old poets, by a sudden forbidden fervour for the exiled divinities of Virgil and Ovid, under whose reign the world had been young, men had been free to love and think, and Rome, now the object of the world's horror and contempt, had been the world's triumphant mistress. But these had been mere mummeries, mere child's play, and the soul of Filarete had thirsted for a reality. He could not have answered had you asked whether he believed in the absolute existence and power of the old gods, any more than whether he disbelieved in the power of Christ and His avenging angels; his cultivated and sceptical mind was, after all, in a state of disorder similar to that of Domenico's ignorance. All that he knew with certainty was that Christ and His worship represented to him all that was unnatural, cruel, foolish, and hypocritical; while the gods were associated with every thought of liberty, of beauty, and of glory. And so, one evening, after working up still further the enthusiasm, the passionate desire of his friend, he told Domenico that, if he chose, he too perhaps might see a god. In his antiquarian rambles Filarete had discovered, a mile or two outside the southern gates of Rome, a subterranean chamber, richly adorned with stuccoes--known nowadays as the tomb of certain members of the Flavian family, but which, thanks to the defective knowledge of his day and the habit of seeing people buried in churches, the humanist had mistaken for a temple--intact, and scarcely desecrated, of the Eleusinian Bacchus. Above its vaults, barely indicated by a higher mound in the waving ground of the pasture land, had once stood a Christian church, as ancient almost as the supposed temple below, whose Byzantine columns lay half hidden by the high grass, and the walls of whose apse had become overgrown by ivy and weeds, the nest of lazy snakes. The Gothic soldiers, Arians or heathens, who had burned down, in some drunken bout, the little church above-ground, had penetrated at the same time into the tomb beneath in search of treasure, and finding none, dispersed the bones in the sarcophagi they had opened. They had left open the aperture leading downward, which had been matted over by a thick growth of ivy and wild clematis. One day, while surveying the remains of the Christian church, always in hopes of discovering in it a former temple of the Pagans, Filarete had walked into that tuft of solid green, and found himself, buried and half stunned, in the mouth of the tomb below. It was through this that he bade Domenico follow him, bearing a certain mysterious package in his cloak, one January day of the year fourteen hundred and eighty-eight. Above-ground it had frozen in the night; here below, when they had descended the rugged sepulchral stairs, the air had a damp warmth, an odd feel of inhabitation. Above-ground, also, everything lay in ruins, while here all was intact. As the light of the torches moved slowly along the vaulted and stuccoed ceilings, it showed the delicate lines of a profusion of little reliefs and ornaments, fresh as if cast and coloured yesterday. Slender garlands of leaves, and long knotted ribbons and veils in lowest relief partitioned the space; and framed by them, now round, now oval, now oblong, were medallions of naked gods banqueting and playing games, of satyrs and nymphs dancing, nereids swinging on the backs of hippocamps, tritons curling their tails and blowing their horns, Cupids fluttering among griffins and chimæras; a life of laughter and love, which mocked the eye, starting into vividness in one place, dying away in a mere film where the torchlight pressed on too closely in others. All along the walls, below the line of the stuccoes, were excavated shelves, on which stood numbers of small cinerary boxes, each bearing a name. In the middle of the vaulted chamber was a huge stone coffin, carved with revelling Bacchantes, and grim tragic masks at its corners; and all round the coffin, broken in one of its flanks by the tools of the treasure-seeker, lay bones and skulls, dispersed on the damp ground even as the Goths had left them. It was this sarcophagus which, with its Dionysiac revels, and the name of one Dionysius carved on it, a freedman of the Flavians, had led Filarete to consider the tomb as a kind of temple consecrated to Bacchus. Filarete bade Domenico stick the pointed end of his torch into the mouth of an amphora standing erect in a corner, and began to unpack the load they had brought on a mule. It looked like the preparation for a feast: there were loaves of bread, fruit, a flask of choice wine; and Domenico, for a moment, thought the old man mad. But his feelings changed when Filarete produced a set of silver lamps, and bade him trim and light them, placing them on the ledges alongside of the cinerary urns; and when he lit some strange incense and filled the place with its smoke. Despite the many descriptions of ancient sacrifices with which the humanist had entertained him, Domenico had brought a vague notion of a raising of devils, and felt relieved at the absence of brimstone fumes, and of the magic books that accompanied them. Although more passionately longing--he knew not, he dared not tell himself for what--Domenico did not come with the curious exaltation of spirits of his companion, all whose antiquarian lore had gone to his head, and who really imagined himself to be a genuine Pagan engaged in Pagan rites. For Filarete the ceremony was everything; for Domenico it was merely a means, a sort of sacrilegious juggling, into which he had not inquired more particularly, which was to give him the object of his wishes at the price of great peril to his soul. But when the subterranean chamber was filled with a cloud of incense, through which, in the dim yellow light of the lamp, the naked gods and goddesses on the vault, the satyrs and nymphs, the Tritons and Bacchantes seemed to float in and out of sight, a feeling of awe, of an unknown kind of reverence and rapture, began to fill his soul, and his eyes became fixed on the lid of the carved sarcophagus--vague images of Christian resurrections mingling with his hopes--Would the god appear? Filarete, meanwhile, had enveloped his head in a long linen veil, and, after washing his hands thrice in a golden basin brought for the purpose, he placed some faggots on the sarcophagus, lit them, and throwing grains of incense and of salt alternately into the flames, began to chant in an unknown tongue, which Domenico guessed to be Greek. Then beckoning to the painter, who was kneeling, as at church, in a corner, he bade him unpack a basket matted over with leaves, whose movements and sounds had puzzled Domenico as he carried it down. In great surprise, and with a vague sense of he knew not what, he handed its contents to Filarete. It was a miserable little lamb, newly born, its long, soft legs tied together, its almost sightless, pale eyes half-started from its sockets. As the humanist took it, it bleated with sudden shrill strength, and Domenico could not help thinking of certain images he had seen on monastery walls of the Good Shepherd carrying the lame lamb on his shoulders. This was very different. For, with an odd ferocity, Filarete placed the miserable young creature on the stone before the fire, and slit its throat and chest with a long knife. The god did not appear. They extinguished the lamps, left the carcase of the lamb half charred in a pool of blood on the stone, and slowly reascended into the daylight, leaving behind them, in the vaulted chamber, a stifling fume of incense, of burnt flesh, and mingled damp. Up above, among the ruins of the Christian church, where they had left their mules, it was cold and sunny, and the light seemed curiously blue, almost grey and dusty, after the yellow illumination below. Before them, interrupted here and there by a mass of ruined masonry, or a few arches of aqueduct, waved the grey-green, billowy plain, where the wind, which rolled the great winter cloud-balls overhead, danced and sang with the tall, dry hemlocks and sere white thistles, shining and rattling like skeletons. And on to it seemed to descend cloud-mountains, vague blueness and darkness--cloud or hill, you could not tell which--out of whose flank, ever and anon, a sunbeam conjured up a visionary white resplendent city. The short winter day was beginning to draw in when they approached silently the city walls, solemn with their towers and gates, endless as it seemed, and enclosing, one felt vaguely, an endless, distant, invisible city. The sound of its bells came as from afar to meet the sacrilegious men. VI The culminating sacrilege was yet to come. The place that witnessed it remains unchanged--a half-deserted church among the silent grass-grown lanes, the crumbling convent walls, and ill-tended vineyards of the Aventine; a hill that has retained in Christian times a look of its sinister fame in Pagan ones. Among the cypresses, which seem to wander up the hillside, rises the square belfry, among whose brickwork, flushed in the sunset, are inlaid discs of porphyry torn from some temple pavement, and plates of green majolica brought from the East, it is said, by pilgrims or Crusaders. The arum-fringed lane widens before the outer wall of the church, overtopped by its triangular gable. Behind this wall is a yard or atrium, the pavement grass-grown, the walls stained with great patches of mildew, and showing here and there in their dilapidation the shaft and capital of a bricked-up Ionic pillar. The place tells of centuries of neglect, of the gradual invasion of resistless fever; and it was fitly chosen, some fifty years ago, for the abode of a community of Trappists. In the reign of Innocent VIII. it was still nominally in the hands of certain Cistercians; but the fever had long driven these monks to the more wholesome end of the hill, where they had erected a smaller church; and the convent had served for years as a fortress of the turbulent family of the Capranicas, one of whose members was always the nominal abbot, with the Cardinal's hat, and title Jervase and Protasius. And now, at the end of the fifteenth century, a Cardinal Ascanio Capranica, famous for his struggle in magnificence and sinfulness with the magnificent and sinful young nephews of Pope Sixtus, had determined to restore the fortified monastery, to combat the fever by abundant plantations, and to make the church a monument of his splendour. And, in order to secure some benefit by his own munificence, he had begun by commissioning Domenico Neroni to design and execute a sepulchre three storeys high, full of carvings, and covered with statues, so that his soul, if sent untimely to heaven, might not be dishonoured by the unworthy resting-place of its trusty companion, the Cardinal's handsome and well-tended body. This church of SS. Jervase and Protasius, which imitated, like most churches of the early Christian period, the form of a basilica or court of law, was constructed out of fragments of Pagan edifices, and occupied the site of a Pagan edifice, whose columns had been employed to carry the roof of the church, or, when of porphyry or serpentine, had been sawed into discs for the pavement. On the slant of the hill, supporting the apse, encircled by pillarets, is a round mass of masonry, overgrown with ivy and ilex scrub, the remains of some antique bath or grotto; and under the battlemented walls, the cloistered courts of the convent, there stretches, it is said, a network of subterranean passages running down to the Tiber. Four hundred years ago they were not to be discovered if looked for, being completely hidden by the fallen masonry and the cypress roots and growths of poisonous plants--nightshade, and hemlock, and green-flowered hellebore; but wicked monks had sometimes been sucked into them while digging the ground, or decoyed into their labyrinths by devils. Was it possible that there had lingered on through the ages a vague and horrified remembrance of those rites, the discovery of whose mysterious and wide-spread abominations had frozen Rome with horror in her most high and palmy days; and was there a connection between those neophytes, wandering with blood-stained limbs and dishevelled locks among the groves of the Aventine, then rushing to quench their burning torches in the Tiber, two centuries before Christ, and the devils who troubled the Benedictines of SS. Jervase and Protasius? These evil spirits would appear, it had been said, in the cloisters of the convent, processions carrying lights and garlands; and on certain nights, when the monks were in prayer in their cells, strange sounds would issue from the church itself, of flutes and timbrels, and demon laughter, and demon voices chanting some unknown litany, and clearly aping the mass; and Cardinal Capranica was blamed by many pious persons for his rash intention of filling once more the deserted convent, and exposing holy men to the wrath of such very pertinacious devils. Meanwhile mass upon mass was said to clear the place of this demoniac infection. It was in this church that the sacrilege of Domenico and Filarete rose to its highest, and that an event took place which the men of the fifteenth century could scarce find words to designate. Domenico had grown tired of his friend's archæological impieties. It gave him no satisfaction to pour out wine, burn incense, arrange garlands, and even cut the throats of animals according to a correct Pagan ritual. It was nothing to him that Horace and Ovid and Tibullus should have done alike. He was a good Christian, never doubting for a moment the power of the Blessed Virgin, the saints, and even the smallest and meanest priest, nor the heat of hell-fire. But he wanted to have the secret of antique proportions, and he was convinced that this secret could be communicated only by a Pagan divinity, just as certain theological mysteries, such as the use of the rosary, had been revealed to the saints by Christ or the Virgin. The Pagan gods were devils, and to hold communication with devils was mortal sin and sure damnation. But lots of people communicated with devils for much more paltry motives, for greed of gold or love of woman, and were yet saved by the intercession of some heavenly patron, or found it worth while not to be saved at all. Domenico, like them, put the question of salvation behind him. He might think of that afterwards, when he had possessed himself of the proportion of the ancients. At all events, at present he was willing to risk everything in order to attain that. He was determined to see that god of the heathens, not as he had seen him once in the house of Messer Neri Altoviti, cut out of marble, but alive, moving, speaking; for _that_ was the god. The god was a devil. Now it is well known that there is a way of compelling every devil to show himself, providing you use sufficiently strong spells. They had sacrificed goats and lambs enough, also doves, and had burned perfumes, and spilt wine sufficient for one of Cardinal Riario's suppers. It was evidently not that sort of sacrifice which would rejoice the god or compel him to show himself. For weeks and weeks Domenico ruminated over the subject. And little by little the logical, inevitable answer dawned upon his horrified but determined mind. For what was the sacrifice which witches and warlocks notoriously offered their Master? The place could not be better chosen. This church was full, every one knew, of demons, who were certainly none other than the gods of the heathen, as Tertullian, Lactantius, Athenagoras, Justin Martyr, and all those other holy doctors had written. It was deserted, its keys in the hands of Cardinal Capranica's confidential architect and decorator; and there were masses being said every holiday to scare the evil spirits. The sacrament was frequently left on the altar. All this Domenico expounded frequently to Filarete. But Filarete's classic taste did not approve of Domenico's methods, which savoured of vulgar witchcraft; perhaps also the learned man, who did not want the secret of antique proportion, recoiled from a degree of profanity and of danger, both to body and soul, which his companion willingly incurred in such a quest as his. So Filarete demurred for a time, until at length his feebler nature took fire at Domenico's determination, and the guilty pair fixed upon the day and place for this unspeakable sacrilege. The Church of SS. Jervase and Protasius has undergone no change since the feast of Corpus Christi of the year 1488. The damp that lies in the atrium outside, making the grass and poppies sprout round the Byzantine pillar which carries a cross over a pine-cone, has invaded the flat-roofed nave and the wide aisles, separated from it by a single colonnade. A greenish mildew marks the fissures in the walls, rent here and there by landslips and earthquakes. The cipolline columns carrying the round arches on their square capitals are lustreless, and their green-veined marble looks like long-buried wood. The mosaic pavement stretches its discs and volutes of porphyry and serpentine or yellowed Parian marble, a tarnished and uneven carpet, to the greenish-white marble steps of the chancel. The mosaics have long fallen out of the circle of the apse; and the frescoes, painted by some obscure follower of Giotto, have left only a green vague stain over the arches of the aisle. Pictures or statues there are none, and no conspicuous sepulchre. Only, over the low entrance, a colossal wooden crucifix of the thirteenth century hangs at an angle from the wall, a painted Christ, stretching his writhing livid limbs in agony opposite the high altar. It was in this stately and desolate church, under the misty light that pours in through the wide windows of grey coarse glass, and on the marble altar, facing that effigy of the dying Saviour, that, in derision as it were of the miracle which the church commemorates on that feast-day, Domenico and Filarete were about to offer up to the demons Apollo, Bacchus, and Jove the freshly consecrated wafer, the very body and blood of Christ. But an accomplice of theirs, a certain monk well versed in magic, whom they employed in sundry details of devil-raising, on the score that they were seeking treasure hidden in the church, had suddenly been seized with qualms of conscience. Instead of appearing at the appointed time alone, and bearing certain necessaries of his art, he kept them waiting a full hour, until they began their proceedings without his assistance. And even as Domenico was reaching his companion the ostensorium, which had remained on the altar after the morning's mass, the church was surrounded by the officers of the Podestà, on horseback, and by a crowd of monks and priests, and rabble who had followed them. Of these persons, not a few affirmed in after years, that, as they arrived at the church door, they had heard sounds of flutes and timbrels, and mocking songs filling the place; and that the devil, dressed in skins and garlands like a wild man of the woods, had cleft the roof with his head, and disappeared with many blasphemous yells as they entered. VII In those last years of the fifteenth century, Rome was a city of the Middle Ages. The cupola of the Pantheon, the circular hulk of the Colosseum, and the twin columns of Trajan and Antoninus projected, like the fantastic antiquities of some fresco of Benozzo Gozzoli, above domeless church roofs, battlemented palace walls, and innumerable Gothic belfries and feudal towers. In the theatre of Marcellus rose the fortress of the Orsinis; against the tower whence Nero, as the legend ran, had watched the city burning, were clustered the fortifications of the Colonnas; and in every quarter the stern palaces of their respective partisans frowned with their rough-hewn fronts, their holes for barricade beams, and hooks for chains. The bridge of St. Angelo was covered with the shops of armourers, as the old bridge of more peaceful Florence with those of silversmiths. Walls and towers encircled the Leonine City where the Pope sat unquietly in the big battlemented donjon by the Sixtine Chapel; and in its midst was still old St. Peter's, half Lombard, half Byzantine. In Rome there was no industry, no order, no safety. Through its gates rushed raids of Colonnas and Orsinis, sold to or betrayed by the Popes, from their castles of Umbria or the Campagna to their castles in town; and their feuds meant battles also between the citizens who obeyed or thwarted them. Houses were sacked and burnt, and occasionally razed to the ground, for the ploughshare and the salt-sower to go over their site. A few years later, when Pope Borgia dredged the Tiber for the body of his son, the boatmen of Ripetta reported that so many bodies were thrown over every night that they no longer heeded such occurrences. And when, two centuries later, the Corsinis dug the foundations of their house on the Longara, there were discovered quantities of human bones in what had been the palace of Pope della Rovere's nephew. Meanwhile Ghirlandaio and Perugino were painting the walls of the Sixtine; Pinturicchio was designing the blue and gold allegorical ceilings of the library; Bramante building the Chancellor's palace, and the Pollaiolas and Mino da Fiesole carving the tombs in St. Peter's, while learned men translated Plato and imitated Horace. Of this Rome there remains nowadays nothing, or next to nothing. Sometimes, indeed, looking up the green lichened sides of some mediæval tower, with its hooks for chains, and its holes for beams, a vague vision thereof rises in our mind. And in the presence of certain groups by Signorelli, representing murderous scuffles or supernatural destruction, we feel as if we had come in contact with the other reality of those times, the thing which serene art and literature and the love of antiquity have driven into the background. But the complete vision of the time and place, the certain knowledge of that Rome of Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII., we can now no longer grasp, a dreadful phantom passing too rapidly across the centuries. It is with this feeling of impotence in my attempt to follow the thoughts of an illiterate artist of the Renaissance, that I prefer to conclude this strange story of the quest after antique beauty and antique gods by quoting a page from one of the barbarous chroniclers of mediæval Rome. The entry in the continuation of Infessura's diary is headed "Pictor Sacrilegus":-- "On the 20th July of the year of salvation fourteen hundred and eighty-eight, there were placed for three days in a cage on high in the Campo dei Fiori, Messer Niccolò Filarete, Canon of Sancto Joanne; also Domenico, the Volterran, painter and architect to the magnificent Cardinal Ascanio, and Frate Garofalo of Valmontone, they having been discovered in the act of desecrating the Church of SS. Jervase and Protasius, and stealing for magic purposes the ostensorium and many gold chalices and reliquaries with precious stones; and it was Frate Garofalo who, being versed in witchcraft and treasure finding, was the accomplice of the above, and denounced them on the feast of Corpus Domini. And the twenty-third of the said month of July they were justiced, and in this manner. _Videlicet_, Filarete and Domenico, having been removed from the cage, were dragged on hurdles as far as the square of San Joanni, and Frate Garofalo went on an ass, all of them crowned with paper mitres. Frate Garofalo was hanged to the elm-tree of the square. Of Filarete and Domenico, the right hand was chopped off, after which they were burned in the said square. And their chopped off right hands were taken to the Capitol and nailed up above the gate, alongside of the She-wolf of metal. Laus Deo." VALEDICTORY I While gathering together the foregoing pages, written at different periods and in different phases of thought, the knowledge has grown on me that I was saying farewell to some of the ambitions and to most of the plans of my youth. All writers start with the hope of solving a problem or establishing a formula, however fragmentary or humble; and many, the most fortunate, and probably the most useful, continue to work out their program, or at least to think that they do so. Life to them is but the framework for work; and that is why they manage to leave a fair amount of work behind them,--work for other workers to employ or to undo. But with some persons, life somehow gets the better of work, becomes, whether in the form of circumstance or of new problems, infinitely the stronger; and scatters work, tossing about such fragments as itself, in its irregular, irresistible fashion, has torn into insignificance, or (once in a blue moon!) shaped into more complete meaning. As regards my own case, I began by believing I should be an historian and a philosopher, as most young people have done before me; then, coming in contact with the concrete miseries of others, called social and similar problems, I sought to apply some of my historical or philosophic lore (such as it was) to their removal; and finally, life having manifested itself as offering problems (unexpected occurrence!) not merely concerning the Past, nor even the abstract Present, but respecting my own comfort and discomfort, I have found myself at last wondering in what manner thoughts and impressions could make the world, the Past and Present, the near and the remote, more satisfying and useful to myself. Circumstances of various kinds, and particularly ill-health, have thus put me, although a writer, into the position of a reader; and have made me ask myself, as I collected these fragments of my former studies, what can the study of history, particularly of the history of art and of other manifestations of past conditions of soul, do for us in the present? All knowledge is bound to be useful. Apart from this truism, I believe that all study of past conditions and activities will eventually result, if not in the better management of present conditions and activities (as all partisan historians have hoped, from Machiavelli to Macaulay), at all events in a greater familiarity with the various kinds of character expressed in historical events and in the way of looking at them; for even if we cannot learn to guide and employ such multifold forces as make, for instance, a French revolution, we may learn to use for the best the individual minds and temperaments of those who describe them: a Carlyle, a Michelet, a Taine, are natural forces also, which may serve or may damage us. Moreover, I hold by the belief, expressed years ago, in my previous volume of Renaissance studies, to wit, that historical reading (and in historical I include the history of thoughts and feelings as much as of events and persons) is a useful exercise for our sympathies, bringing us wider and more wholesome notions of justice and charity. And I feel sure that other uses for historical studies could be pointed out by other persons, apart from the satisfaction they afford to those who pursue them, which, considered merely as so much spiritual gymnastics, or cricket, or football, or alpineering, is surely not to be despised. But now, having dropped long since out of the ranks of those who study in order to benefit others, or even to benefit only themselves, I would say a few words about the advantage which mere readers, as distinguished from writers, may get from familiarity with the Past. This advantage is that they may find in the Past not merely a fine field for solitary and useless delusions (though that also seems necessary), but an additional world for real companionship and congenial activity. Our individual activities and needs of this kind are innumerable, and of infinite delicate variety; and there is reason to suppose that the place in which our lot is cast does not necessarily fit them to perfection. For things in this world are very roughly averaged; and although averaging is a useful, rapid way of despatching business, it does undoubtedly waste a great deal which is too good for wasting. Hence, it seems to me, the need which many of us feel, which most of us would feel, if secured of food and shelter, of spending a portion of their life of the spirit in places and climates beyond that River Oceanus which bounds the land of the living. As I write these words, I am conscious that this will strike many readers as the expression of a superfine and selfish dilettantism, arising no doubt from morbid lack of sympathy with the world into which Heaven has put us. What! become absentees from the poor, much troubled Present; turn your backs to Realities, become idle strollers in the Past? And why not, dear friends? why not recognise the need for a holiday? why not admit, just because work has to be done and loads to be borne, that we cannot grind and pant on without interruption? Nay, that the bearing of the load, the grinding of the work, is useless save to diminish the total grinding and panting on this earth. Moreover, I maintain that we have but a narrow conception of life if we confine it to the functions which are obviously practical, and a narrow conception of reality if we exclude from it the Past. And not because the Past has been, has actually existed outside some one, but because it may, and often does, actually exist within ourselves. The things in our mind, due to the mind's constitution and its relation with the universe, are, after all, realities; and realities to count with, as much as the tables and chairs, and hats and coats, and other things subject to gravitation outside it. It would seem, indeed, as if the chief outcome of the spiritualising philosophy which maintains the immaterial and independent quality of mind had been to make mind, the contents of our consciousness, ideas, images, and feelings, into something quite separate from this real material universe, and hence unworthy of practical consideration. But granted that mind is not a sort of independent and foreign entity, we must admit that what exists in it has a place in reality, and requires, like the rest of reality, to be dealt with. But to return to my thesis: that we require occasionally to live in the Past (and I shall go on to state that it may be a Past of our own making); Do we not require to travel in foreign parts which know us not, to sojourn for our welfare in cities where we can neither elect members nor exercise professions, but whence we bring back, not merely wider views, but sounder nerves, tempers more serene and elastic? Nor is this all. We think poorly of a man or woman who, besides practical cases for self or others, does not require to come in contact also with the tangible, breathable, visible, audible universe for its own sake; require to wander in fields and on moors, to steep in sunshine or be battered by winds, for the sake of a certain specific emotion of participation in, of closer union with, the universal. Now the Past--the joys and sufferings of the men long dead, their efforts, ideals, emotions, nay, their very sensations and temperaments as registered in words or expressed in art, are but another side of the universe, of that universal life, to participate ever deeper in which is the condition of our strength and serenity, the imperious necessity of our ever giving, ever taking soul. And so, for our greater nobility and happiness, we require, all of us, to live to some extent in the Past, as to live to some extent in what we significantly call _nature_. We require, as we require mountain air or sea scents, hayfields or wintry fallows, sun, storm, or rain, each individual according to individual subtle affinities, certain emotions, ideals, persons, or works of art from out of the Past. For one it will be Socrates; for another St. Francis; for every one something somewhat different, or at all events something differently conceived and differently felt: some portion of the universe in time, as of the universe in space, which answers in closest and most intimate way to the complexion and habits of that individual soul. II The satisfaction which it can bring to every individual soul: this is, therefore, one of the uses of the Past to the Present, and surely not one of the smallest. It is, I venture to insist, the special, the essential use of all art and all poetry; any additional knowledge of Nature's proceedings, any additional discipline of thought and observation which may accrue in the study of art as an historic or psychological phenomenon being, after all, valuable eventually for the amount of such mere satisfaction of the spirit as that additional knowledge or additional discipline can conduce towards. Scientific results are important for the maintenance of life, doubtless; but the sense of satisfaction, whether simple or complex, high or low, is the sign that the processes we call life are being fulfilled and not thwarted; so, since satisfaction is no such contemptible thing, why not allow art to furnish it unmixed? I am sure to be misunderstood. I do not in the least mean to imply that art can best be appreciated with the least trouble. The mere fact that the pleasure of a faculty is proportioned to its activity negatives that; and the fact that the richness, fulness, and hence also the durability, of all artistic pleasure answers to the amount of our attention: the mine, the ore, will yield, other things equal, according as we dig, and wash, and smelt, and separate to the last possibility of separation what we want from what we do not want. The historic or psychological study of art does thus undoubtedly increase our familiarity, and hence our enjoyment. The mere scientific inquiry into the difference between originals and copies, into the connection between master and pupil, makes us alive to the special qualities which can delight us. As long as we looked in a manner so slovenly that a spurious Botticelli could pass for a genuine one, we could evidently never benefit by the special quality, the additional excellence of Botticelli's own work. And similarly in the case of archæology. Indeed, in the few cases where I have myself hazarded an hypothesis on some point of artistic history, as, for instance, regarding the respective origin of antique and mediæval sculpture, I am inclined to think that the chief use (if any at all) of my work, will be to make my readers more sensitive to the specific pleasure they may get from Praxiteles or from Mino da Fiesole, than they could have been when the works of both were so little understood as to be judged by one another's standards. But to return. It seems as if at present the development, the contagion, so to speak, of scientific methods applied to art were making people forget a little that art, besides being, like everything else, the passive object of scientific treatment, is (what most other things are not) an active, positive, special factor of pleasure; and that, therefore, save to special students, the greater, more efficacious form of art should occupy an immensely larger share of attention than the lesser and more inefficient. We are made, nowadays, to look at too much mediocre art on the score of its historical value; we are kept too long in contemplation of pictures and statues which cannot give much pleasure, on the score that they led to or proceeded from other pictures or statues which can. As regards Greek sculpture, the insistance on archaic forms is becoming, if I may express my own feelings, a perfect bore. Why should we be kept in the kitchen tasting half-cooked stuff out of ladles, when most of us have barely time to eat our fully cooked dinner, which we like and thrive on, in peace? Similarly with such painters as are mainly precursors. They are taking up too much of our attention; and one might sometimes be tempted to think that the only use of great artists, like the only functions of those patriarchs who kept begetting one another, was to produce other great artists: Giotto to produce eventually Masaccio, Masaccio through various generations Michelangelo and Raphael, and Michelangelo and Raphael, through even more, Manet and Degas, who in their turn doubtless dutifully.... Meanwhile why should art have gone on evolving, artists gone on making _filiations of schools_, if art, if artists, if schools of artists had not answered an imperious, undying wish for the special pleasures which painting can give? Therefore it seems to me that, desirable for all reasons as may be the study of art, the knowledge of _filiations and influences_, it is still more desirable that each of us should find out some painter whom he can care for individually; and that all of us should find out certain painters who can, almost infallibly, give immense pleasure to all of us; painters who, had they been produced out of nothingness and been followed by nobody, would yet stand in the most important relation in which an artist can be: the relation of being beloved by the whole world, or even by a few solitary individuals. For this reason let not the mere reader, who comes to art not for work, but for refreshment, let not the mere reader (I call him reader, to note his passive, leisurely character) be vexed with too much study of Florentine and Paduan _precursors_, but go straight to the masters, whom those useful and dreary persons rendered possible by their grinding. Our ancestors, or rather those cardinals and superb lords with whom we have neither spiritual nor temporal relationship, who made the great collections of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, placing statues under delicate colonnades and green ilex hedges, and hanging pictures in oak-panelled corridors and tapestried guard-rooms, were occasionally mistaken in thinking that a Roman emperor much restored, or a chalky, sprawling Guido Reni, could afford lasting æsthetic pleasure; but, bating such errors, were they not nearer good sense than we moderns, who arrange pictures and statues as we might minerals or herbs in a museum, and who, for instance, insist that poor tired people, longing for a little beauty, should carefully examine the works of Castagno, of Rosselli, and of that artist, so interesting as a specimen of the minimum of talent, Neri di Bicci? They were unscientific, those lords and cardinals, and desperately pleasure-seeking; but surely, surely they were more sensible than we. Connected with this fact, and to be borne in mind by those not called upon to elucidate art scientifically, is the further fact, which I have analogically pointed out, when I said that every individual has in the Past affinities, possibilities of spiritual satisfaction differing somewhat from those of every other. It is well that we should try to enlarge those possibilities; and we must never make up our mind that a picture, statue, piece of music or poetry, says little to us until we have listened to its say. But although we strive to make new friends, let us waste no further time on such persons as we have vainly tried to make friends of; and let each of us, in heaven's name, cherish to the utmost his natural affinities. There are persons to whom, for instance, Botticelli can never be what he truly is to some of their neighbours: the very quality which gives such marvellous poignancy of pleasure to certain temperaments causing almost discomfort to others; and similarly about many other artists, representing very special conditions of being, and appealing to special conditions in consequence. High Alpine air, sea-water, Roman melting westerly winds, so vitalising, so soothing to some folk, are mere worry, or fever, or lassitude to others, without its being correct to say that one set of persons is healthy and the other morbid: each being, in truth, healthy or morbid just in proportion as it realises its necessities of existence, fitting equally into the universe providing it be fitted each into the proper piece thereof. On the other hand (and this, rather than _filiations of schools_ and _influences_ of artistic _milieus_, it were well we should know), it becomes daily more empirically certain, and will some day doubtless become scientifically obvious, that there are works of art which awaken such emotion that they can be delectable only to creatures with instincts out of gear and perception upside down; while there are others, infinitely more plentiful, which, in greater or lesser degree, must delight all persons who are sane, as all such are delighted by fine weather, normal exercise, and kindly sympathy; and, _vice versâ_, that as these wholesome works of art merely bore or actually distress the poor morbid exceptions, so the unwholesome ones sicken or harrow the sound generality; the world of art, moreover, like every other world, being best employed in keeping alive its sound, not its unsound, clients. Such works of art, such artists of widest wholesome appealingness, there are in all periods of artistic development; more in certain fortunate moments, say the Periklean age and the early sixteenth century, than in others; and most perhaps in certain specially favoured regions--in Attica during Antiquity, and during painting times, in the happy Venetian country. These we all know of; but by the grace of Nature, which creates men occasionally so fortunately balanced that their work, learned or unlearned, must needs be fortunately balanced also, they arise sometimes in the midst of mere artistic worry and vexation of spirit, or of artist bleakness, perfect like the almond and peach trees, which blossom, white and pink, on the frost-bitten green among the sapless vines of wintry Tuscan hills; and to some natures, doubtless, these are more pleasant and health-giving than more mature or mellow summer or autumnal loveliness. But, as I have said, each must find his own closest affinities in art and history as in friendship. III There are some more things, and more important, still to be said, from the reader's standpoint rather than the writer's, about the influence on our lives of the Past and of its art, and more particularly of the vague period called the Renaissance. When the Renaissance began to attract attention, some twenty or twenty-five years ago, there happened among English historians and writers on art, and among their readers, something very similar to what had happened, apparently, when the Englishmen of the sixteenth century first came in contact with the Italian Renaissance itself, or whatever remained of it. Their conscience was sickened, their imagination hag-ridden, by the discovery of so much beauty united to so much corruption; and, among our latter-day students of the Renaissance, there became manifest the same morbid pre-occupation, the same exaggerated repulsion, which is but inverted attraction, which were rife among the playwrights who wrote of _Avengers_ and _Atheists_, Giovannis and Annabellas, Brachianos and Corombonas, and other _White Devils_, as old Webster picturesquely put it, _of Italy_. Indeed, the second discovery of the Renaissance by Englishmen had spiritual consequences so similar to those of the first, that in an essay written fifteen years ago I analysed the feelings of the Elizabethan playwrights towards Italian things in order to vent the intense discomfort of spirit which I shared assuredly with students older and more competent than myself. This kind of feeling has passed away among writers, together with much of the fascination of the Renaissance itself. But it has left, I see, vague traces in the mind of readers, rendering the Renaissance a little distasteful (and no wonder) to the majority; or worse, a little too congenial to an unsound minority; worst of all, tarnishing a little the fair fame of Art; and as a writer now turned reader, I am anxious to deliver, to the best of my powers, other readers from this perhaps inevitable but false and unprofitable view of such matters. The conscience of writers on history and art has long become quite comfortable about the Renaissance; and the Websterian or (in some cases John Fordian) phenomenon of twenty years ago been forgotten as a piece of childish morbidness. Does this mean that the conscience has become hardened, that evil has ceased to repel us, or that beauty has been accepted calmly as a pleasant and necessary, but somewhat immoral thing? Very far from it. Our conscience has become quieter, not because it has grown more callous, but because it has become more healthily sensitive, more perceptive of many sides, instead of only one side of life. For with experience and maturity there surely comes, to every one of us in his own walk of life, a growing, at length an intuitive sense that evil is a thing incidentally to fight, but not to think very much about, because if it is evil, it is in so far sporadic, deciduous, and eminently barren; while good, that is to say, soundness, harmony of feeling, thought, and action with themselves, with others' feeling, thought, and action, and with the great eternities, is organic, fruitful and useful, as well as delightful to contemplate. Hence that the evil of past ages should not concern us, save in so far as the understanding thereof may teach us to diminish the evil of the Present. In any case, that evil must be handled not with terror, which enervates and subjects to contagion, but with the busy serenity of the physician, who studies disease for the sake of health, and eats his wholesome food after washing his hands, confident in the ultimate wholesomeness of nature. And in such frame of mind the corruption of the Renaissance leaves us calm, and we know we had better turn our backs on it, and get from the Renaissance only what was good. Only, if we are physicians, or more correctly (since in a private capacity we all are) only _when_ we are physicians, must we handle the unwholesome. Meanwhile, if we wish to be sound, let us fill our soul with images and emotions of good; we shall tackle evil, when need be, only the better. And here, by the way, let me open a parenthesis to say that, of the good we moderns may get from occasional journeys into the Past, there is a fine example in our imaginary and emotional commerce with St. Francis and his joyous theology. For while other times, our own among them, have given us loftier morality and severer good sense, no period save that of St. Francis could have given us a blitheness of soul so vivifying and so cleansing. For the essence of his teaching, or rather the essence of his personality, was the trust that serenity and joyfulness must be incompatible with evil; that simple, spontaneous happiness is, even like the air and the sunshine in which his beloved brethren the birds flew about and sang, the most infallible antidote to evil, and the most sovereign disinfectant. And because we require such doctrine, such personal conviction, for the better living of our lives, we must, even as to better climates, journey forth occasionally into that distant Past of mediæval Italy; and as to the Ezzelinos, Borgias, and Riarios, and the foul-mouthed humanists, good heavens! why should we sicken ourselves with the thought of this long dead and done for abomination? So much for the history of the Renaissance and the good it can be to us. Now as to the art. That more organic mode of feeling and thinking which results in active maturity, from the ever-increasing connections between our individual soul and the surrounding world; that same intuition which told us that historic evil was no subject for contemplation, does also admonish us never to be suspicious of true beauty, of thoroughly delightful art. Nay, beauty and art in any case; for though beauty may be adulterated, and art enslaved to something not itself, be sure that the element of beauty, the activity of art, so far as they are themselves specific, are far above suspicion even in the most suspicious company. For even if beauty is united to perverse fashions, and art (as with Baudelaire and the decadents) employed to adorn the sentiments of maniacs and gaol-birds, the beauty and the art remain sound; and if we must needs put them behind us, on account of too inextricable a fusion, we should remember it is as we sometimes throw away noble ore, for lack of skill to separate it from a base alloy. As regards the nightmare anomaly of perfect art arisen in times of moral corruption, those unconscious analogies I have spoken of, and which perhaps are our most cogent reasons, have taught us that such anomalies are but nightmares and horrid delusions. For, taking the phenomenon historically, we shall see that although art has arisen in periods of stress and change, and therefore of moral anarchy, it has never arisen among the immoral classes nor to serve any immoral use: the apparent anomaly in the Renaissance, for instance, was not an anomaly, but a coincidence of contrary movements: a materially prosperous, intellectually innovating epoch, producing on the one hand moral anarchy, on the other artistic perfection, connected not as cause and effect, but as coincidence, the one being the drawback, the other the advantage, of that particular phase of being. The Malatestas and Borgias, of whom we have heard too much, did not employ Alberti and Pier della Francesca, Pinturicchio and Bramante, to satisfy their convict wickedness, but to satisfy their artistic taste, which, in so far, was perfectly sound, as various others among their faculties, their eye and ear, and sense of cause and effect, were apparently sound also. And the architecture of Alberti, the decorations of Pinturicchio, remain as spotless of all contact with their evil instincts as the hills they may have looked at, the sea they may have listened to, the eternal verity that two and two make four, which had doubtless passed through their otherwise badly inhabited minds. And, moreover, the sea is still sonorous, the mountains are still hyacinth blue, and the buildings and frescoes still noble, while the rest of those disagreeable mortals' cravings and strivings are gone, and on the whole were best forgotten. But there is another side of this same question, and of it we are admonished, as it seems to me, still louder by our growing intellectual instincts--those instincts, let us remember, which do but represent whatever has been congruous and uniform in repeated experience. Art is a much greater and more cosmic thing than the mere expression of man's thoughts or opinions on any one subject, of man's attitude towards his neighbour or towards his country, much as all this concerns us. Art is the expression of man's life, of his mode of being, of his relations with the universe, since it is, in fact, man's inarticulate answer to the universe's unspoken message. Hence it represents not the details of his existence, which, more's the pity, are rarely what they should be, whether in thought or action, but the bulk of his existence, _when that bulk is unusually sound_. This clause contains the whole philosophy of art. For art is the outcome of a surplus of human energy, the expression of a state of vital harmony, striving for and partly realising a yet greater energy, a more complete harmony in one sphere or another of man's relations with the universe. Now if evil is a non-vital, deciduous, and sterile phenomenon _par excellence_, art must be necessarily opposed to it, and opposed in proportion to art's vigour. While, on the other hand, the seeking, the realisation of greater harmony, whether harmony visible, audible, thinkable, and livable, is as necessarily opposed to anomaly and perversity as the great healthinesses of air and sunshine are opposed to bodily disease. Hence, in whatever company we find art, even as in whatever company we find bodily health and vigour, let us understand that _in so far as truly art_, it is good and a source of good. Let us never waver in our faith in art, for in so doing we should be losing (what, alas! Puritan contemners of art, and decadent defilers thereof, are equally doing) much of our faith in nature and much of our faith in man. For art is the expression of the harmonies of nature, conceived and incubated by the harmonious instincts of man. I have given the influence of St. Francis as an example of what added strength our modern soul may get by a sojourn in the Past. What our soul may get of similar but more sober joy may be shown by another example from that wonderful Umbrian district, one of the earth's oases of spiritual rest and refreshment. Among all the sane and satisfying art of the Renaissance, Umbria, on the whole, has surely grown for us the highest and the holiest. I am not speaking of the fact that Perugino painted saints in devout contemplation, nor of their type of face and expression. Whatever his people might be doing, or if they were not people at all, but variations only of his little slender trees or distant domes and steeples, his art would have been equally high and holy. And this because of its effect, direct, unreasoning, on our spirit, making us, while we look, live with a deeper, more devoutly joyful life. What the man Perugino was, in his finite dealings with his clients and neighbours, has mattered nothing in the painting of these pictures and frescoes; still less what samples of conduct he was shown by the ephemeral magnificos who bought his works. The tenderness and strength of the mediæval Italian temper (as shown in Dante when he is human, but above all in Francis of Assisi) has been working through generations toward these paintings, interpreting in its spirit, selecting and emphasising for its meaning the country in all the world most naturally fit to express it; and thus in these paintings we have the incomparable visible manifestation of a perfect mood: that wide pale shimmering valley, circular like a temple, and domed by the circular vault of sky, really turned, for our feelings, into a spiritual church, wherein not merely saints meditate and Madonnas kneel, but ourselves in deepest devout happiness. IV Thoughts such as these bring with them the memory of the master we have recently lost, of the master who, in the midst of æsthetical anarchy, taught us once more, and with subtle and solemn efficacy, the old Platonic and Goethian doctrine of the affinity between artistic beauty and human worthiness. The spiritual evolution of the late Walter Pater--with whose name I am proud to conclude my second, as with it I began my first book on Renaissance matters--had been significantly similar to that of his own Marius. He began as an æsthete, and ended as a moralist. By faithful and self-restraining cultivation of the sense of harmony, he appears to have risen from the perception of visible beauty to the knowledge of beauty of the spiritual kind, both being expressions of the same perfect fittingness to an ever more intense and various and congruous life. Such an evolution, which is, in the highest meaning, an æsthetic phenomenon in itself, required a wonderful spiritual endowment and an unflinchingly discriminating habit. For Walter Pater started by being above all a writer, and an æsthete in the very narrow sense of twenty years ago: an æsthete of the school of Mr. Swinburne's _Essays_, and of the type still common on the Continent. The cultivation of sensations, vivid sensations, no matter whether healthful or unhealthful, which that school commended, was, after all, but a theoretic and probably unconscious disguise for the cultivation of something to be said in a new way, which is the danger of all persons who regard literature as an end, and not as a means, feeling in order that they may write, instead of writing because they feel. And of this Mr. Pater's first and famous book was a very clear proof. Exquisite in technical quality, in rare perception and subtle suggestion, it left, like all similar books, a sense of caducity and barrenness, due to the intuition of all sane persons that only an active synthesis of preferences and repulsions, what we imply in the terms _character_ and _moral_, can have real importance in life, affinity with life--be, in short, vital; and that the yielding to, nay, the seeking for, variety and poignancy of experience, must result in a crumbling away of all such possible unity and efficiency of living. But even as we find in the earliest works of a painter, despite the predominance of his master's style, indications already of what will expand into a totally different personality, so even in this earliest book, examined retrospectively, it is easy to find the characteristic germs of what will develop, extrude all foreign admixture, knit together congruous qualities, and give us presently the highly personal synthesis of _Marius_ and the _Studies on Plato_. These characteristic germs may be defined, I think, as the recurrence of impressions and images connected with physical sanity and daintiness; of aspiration after orderliness, congruity, and one might almost say _hierarchy_; moreover, a certain exclusiveness, which is not the contempt of the craftsman for the _bourgeois_, but the aversion of the priest for the profane uninitiated. Some day, perhaps, a more scientific study of æsthetic phenomena will explain the connection which we all feel between physical sanity and purity and the moral qualities called by the same names; but even nowadays it might have been prophesied that the man who harped upon the clearness and livingness of water, upon the delicate bracingness of air, who experienced so passionate a preference for the whole gamut, the whole palette, of spring, of temperate climates and of youth and childhood; a person who felt existence in the terms of its delicate vigour and its restorative austerity, was bound to become, like Plato, a teacher of self-discipline and self-harmony. Indeed, who can tell whether the teachings of Mr. Pater's maturity--the insistance on scrupulously disciplined activity, on cleanness and clearness of thought and feeling, on the harmony attainable only through moderation, the intensity attainable only through effort--who can tell whether this abstract part of his doctrine would affect, as it does, all kindred spirits if the mood had not been prepared by some of those descriptions of visible scenes--the spring morning above the Catacombs, the Valley of Sparta, the paternal house of Marius, and that temple of Æsculapius with its shining rhythmical waters--which attune our whole being, like the music of the Lady in _Comus_, to modes of _sober certainty of waking bliss_? This inborn affinity for refined wholesomeness made Mr. Pater the natural exponent of the highest æsthetic doctrine--the search for harmony throughout all orders of existence. It gave the nucleus of what was his soul's synthesis, his system (as Emerson puts it) of rejection and acceptance. Supreme craftsman as he was, it protected him from the craftsman's delusion--rife under the inappropriate name of "art for art's sake" in these uninstinctive, over-dextrous days--that subtle treatment can dignify all subjects equally, and that expression, irrespective of the foregoing _impression_ in the artist and the subsequent _impression_ in the audience, is the aim of art. Standing as he did, as all the greatest artists and thinkers (and he was both) do, in a definite, inevitable relation to the universe--the equation between himself and it--he was utterly unable to turn his powers of perception and expression to idle and irresponsible exercises; and his conception of art, being the outcome of his whole personal mode of existence, was inevitably one of art, not for art's sake, but of art for the sake of life--art as one of the harmonious functions of existence. Harmonious, and in a sense harmonising. For, as I have said, he rose from the conception of physical health and congruity to the conception of health and congruity in matters of the spirit; the very thirst for healthiness, which means congruity, and congruity which implies health, forming the vital and ever-expanding connection between the two orders of phenomena. Two orders, did I say? Surely to the intuition of this artist and thinker, the fundamental unity--the unity between man's relations with external nature, with his own thoughts and with others' feelings--stood revealed as the secret of the highest æsthetics. This which we guess at as the completion of Walter Pater's message, alas! must remain for ever a matter of surmise. The completion, the rounding of his doctrine, can take place only in the grateful appreciation of his readers. We have been left with unfinished systems, fragmentary, sometimes enigmatic, utterances. Let us meditate their wisdom and vibrate with their beauty; and, in the words of the prayer of Socrates to the Nymphs and to Pan, ask for beauty in the inward soul, and congruity between the inner and the outer man; and reflect in such manner the gifts of great art and of great thought in our soul's depths. For art and thought arise from life; and to life, as principle of harmony, they must return. Many years ago, in the fulness of youth and ambition, I was allowed, by him whom I already reverenced as a master, to write the name of Walter Pater on the flyleaf of a book which embodied my beliefs and hopes as a writer. And now, seeing books from the point of view of the reader, I can find no fitter ending to this present volume than to express what all we readers have gained, and lost, alas! in this great master. THE END _Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. _Edinburgh and London_ TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE The following changes have been made to the text: and will bare (...) new and will _bear_ (...) new spiritual wonders spiritual wonders per speculum et ænigmata per speculum _in ænigmate_ In was in this church that _It_ was in this church that 
31938	----	[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected. Hyphenation and accentuation have been standardised, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained. Bold text is marked with =.] LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT PAINTERS SCULPTORS AND ARCHITECTS BY GIORGIO VASARI: VOLUME VIII. BASTIANO TO TADDEO ZUCCHERO 1914 NEWLY TRANSLATED BY GASTON Du C. DE VERE. WITH FIVE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS: IN TEN VOLUMES [Illustration: 1511-1574] PHILIP LEE WARNER, PUBLISHER TO THE MEDICI SOCIETY, LIMITED 7 GRAFTON ST. LONDON, W. 1912-15 CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII PAGE BASTIANO DA SAN GALLO, CALLED ARISTOTILE 3 BENVENUTO GAROFALO AND GIROLAMO DA CARPI, AND OTHER LOMBARDS 23 RIDOLFO, DAVID, AND BENEDETTO GHIRLANDAJO 59 GIOVANNI DA UDINE 73 BATTISTA FRANCO 89 GIOVAN FRANCESCO RUSTICI 111 FRA GIOVANNI AGNOLO MONTORSOLI 133 FRANCESCO SALVIATI 161 DANIELLO RICCIARELLI 197 TADDEO ZUCCHERO 215 INDEX OF NAMES 265 ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME VIII PLATES IN COLOUR FACING PAGE ALESSANDRO BONVICINO (MORETTO DA BRESCIA) S. Justina Vienna: Imperial Gallery, 218 22 GAUDENZIO FERRARI Madonna and Child Milan: Brera, 277 56 RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO Portrait of a Lady Florence: Pitti, 224 64 JACOPO TINTORETTO Bacchus and Ariadne Venice: Doges' Palace, Sala Anticollegio 96 PLATES IN MONOCHROME FRANCESCO UBERTINI (IL BACCHIACCA) The Baptist in Jordan Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 267 18 BENVENUTO GAROFALO The Madonna and Child with Saints Ferrara: Pinacoteca, 1514 24 BENVENUTO GAROFALO The Massacre of the Innocents Ferrara: Pinacoteca, 1519 26 BENVENUTO GAROFALO The Adoration of the Magi Ferrara: Pinacoteca, 1537 30 NICCOLÒ (NICCOLÒ DELL'ABATE) Scene from the Æneid Modena: Reale Galleria Estense 34 IL MODENA (ANTONIO BEGARELLI) The Madonna and Child with S. John Modena: Museo Civico 38 IL MODENA (ANTONIO BEGARELLI) Four Saints Modena: S. Pietro 40 GIULIO CAMPO The Purification of the Virgin Cremona: S. Margherita 42 SOFONISBA ANGUISCIUOLA Portrait of the Artist Vienna: Imperial Gallery, 109 44 GIROLAMO ROMANINO The Madonna and Child with Saints Brescia: S. Francesco 46 ALESSANDRO BONVICINO (MORETTO DA BRESCIA) The Coronation of the Virgin Brescia: SS. Nazzaro e Celso 48 GIAN GIROLAMO BRESCIANO (SAVOLDO) The Adoration of the Shepherds Brescia: Palazzo Martinengo 50 BRAMANTINO The Holy Family Milan: Brera, 279 50 BRAMANTINO A Warrior Milan: Brera, 494 52 CESARE DA SESTO Salome Vienna: Imperial Gallery, 91 54 GAUDENZIO (GAUDENZIO FERRARI) S. Paul Paris: Louvre, 1285 56 RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO Christ bearing the Cross London: N. G., 1143 60 RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO The Miracle of S. Zanobi Florence: Uffizi, 1275 62 ANTONIO DEL CERAIOLO The Crucifixion with SS. Francis and Mary Magdalene Florence: Accademia, 163 66 RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO The Madonna giving the Girdle to S. Thomas Prato: Duomo 70 GIOVANNI DA UDINE Arabesques Rome: The Vatican, Loggia di Raffaello 78 JACOPO TINTORETTO The Pool of Bethesda Venice: S. Rocco 98 JACOPO TINTORETTO The Last Judgment Venice: S. Maria dell'Orto 102 JACOPO TINTORETTO The Miracle of S. Mark Venice: Accademia 104 JACOPO TINTORETTO The Apotheosis of S. Rocco Venice: Scuola di S. Rocco 106 GIOVAN FRANCESCO RUSTICI S. John Preaching Florence: The Baptistry 114 FRA GIOVANNI AGNOLO MONTORSOLI S. Cosmas Florence: S. Lorenzo, Medici Chapel 136 FRA GIOVANNI AGNOLO MONTORSOLI Tomb of Andrea Doria Genoa: S. Matteo 144 FRA GIOVANNI AGNOLO MONTORSOLI Fountain of Neptune Messina: Piazza del Duomo 146 FRA GIOVANNI AGNOLO MONTORSOLI High Altar Bologna: S. Maria dei Servi 150 FRANCESCO SALVIATI (FRANCESCO DE' ROSSI) Portrait of a Man Florence: Uffizi, 1256 162 FRANCESCO SALVIATI (FRANCESCO DE' ROSSI) Justice Florence: Bargello 174 FRANCESCO SALVIATI (FRANCESCO DE' ROSSI) The Deposition Florence: S. Croce, the Refectory 180 FRANCESCO DAL PRATO Medal of Pope Clement VII. London: British Museum 190 GIUSEPPE DEL SALVIATI (GIUSEPPE PORTA) The Reconciliation of Pope Alexander III and Frederick Barbarossa Rome: The Vatican, Sala Regia 192 DANIELLO RICCIARELLI The Descent from the Cross Rome: SS. Trinita dei Monti 200 DANIELLO RICCIARELLI The Massacre of the Innocents Florence: Uffizi, 1107 208 FEDERIGO ZUCCHERO Portrait of the Artist Florence: Uffizi, 270 226 BASTIANO DA SAN GALLO, CALLED ARISTOTILE LIFE OF BASTIANO DA SAN GALLO, CALLED ARISTOTILE, PAINTER AND SCULPTOR OF FLORENCE When Pietro Perugino, by that time an old man, was painting the altar-piece of the high-altar of the Servites at Florence, a nephew of Giuliano and Antonio da San Gallo, called Bastiano, was placed with him to learn the art of painting. But the boy had not been long with Perugino, when he saw the manner of Michelagnolo in the cartoon for the Hall, of which we have already spoken so many times, in the house of the Medici, and was so struck with admiration, that he would not return any more to Pietro's workshop, considering that his manner, beside that of Buonarroti, was dry, petty, and by no means worthy to be imitated. And since, among those who used to go to paint that cartoon, which was for a time the school of all who wished to attend to painting, the most able of all was held to be Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Bastiano chose him as his companion, in order to learn colouring from him, and so they became fast friends. But not ceasing therefore to give his attention to that cartoon and to work at those nudes, Bastiano copied all together in a little cartoon the whole composition of that mass of figures, which not one of all those who had worked at it had ever drawn as a whole. And since he applied himself to it with all the earnestness that was in him, it proved that he was afterwards able on any occasion to render an account of the attitudes, muscles, and movements of those figures, and of the reasons that had caused Buonarroti to depict certain difficult postures; in doing which he would speak slowly and sententiously, with great gravity, so that a company of able craftsmen gave him the name of Aristotile, which, moreover, sat upon him all the better because it appeared that according to an ancient portrait of that supreme philosopher and confidant of Nature, Bastiano much resembled him. But to return to the little cartoon drawn by Aristotile; he held it always so dear, that, after Buonarroti's original had perished, he would never let it go either at a price or on any other terms, or allow it to be copied; indeed, he would not show it, save only as a man shows precious things to his dearest friends, as a favour. Afterwards, in the year 1542, this drawing was copied in oils by Aristotile, at the persuasion of Giorgio Vasari, who was much his friend, in a picture in chiaroscuro, which was sent through Monsignor Giovio to King Francis of France, who held it very dear, and gave a handsome reward to San Gallo. This Vasari did in order that the memory of that work might be preserved, seeing that drawings perish very readily. In his youth, then, Aristotile delighted, as the others of his house have done, in the matters of architecture, and he therefore gave his attention to measuring the ground-plans of buildings and with great diligence to the study of perspective; in doing which he was much assisted by a brother of his, called Giovan Francesco, who was employed as architect in the building of S. Pietro, under Giuliano Leno, the proveditor. Giovan Francesco, having drawn Aristotile to Rome, employed him to keep the accounts in a great business that he had of furnaces for lime and works in pozzolana and tufa, which brought him very large profits; and in this way Bastiano lived for a time, without doing anything but draw in the Chapel of Michelagnolo, and resort, by means of M. Giannozzo Pandolfini, Bishop of Troia, to the house of Raffaello da Urbino. After a time, Raffaello having made for that Bishop the design of a palace which he wished to erect in the Via di S. Gallo at Florence, the above-named Giovan Francesco was sent to put it into execution, which he did with all the diligence wherewith it is possible for such a work to be carried out. But in the year 1530, Giovan Francesco being dead, and the siege of Florence in progress, that work, as we shall relate, was left unfinished. Its completion was afterwards entrusted to his brother Aristotile, who, as will be told, had returned to Florence many and many a year before, after having amassed a large sum of money under the above-named Giuliano Leno, in the business that his brother had left him in Rome; with a part of which money Aristotile bought, at the persuasion of Luigi Alamanni and Zanobi Buondelmonte, who were much his friends, a site for a house behind the Convent of the Servites, near Andrea del Sarto, where, with the intention of taking a wife and living at leisure, he afterwards built a very commodious little house. After returning to Florence, then, Aristotile, being much inclined to perspective, to which he had given his attention under Bramante in Rome, appeared to delight in scarcely any other thing; but nevertheless, besides executing a portrait or two from the life, he painted in oils, on two large canvases, the Eating of the Fruit by Adam and Eve and their Expulsion from Paradise, which he did after copies that he had made from the works painted by Michelagnolo on the vaulting of the Chapel in Rome. These two canvases of Aristotile's, because of his having taken them bodily from that place, were little extolled; but, on the other hand, he was well praised for all that he did in Florence for the entry of Pope Leo, making, in company with Francesco Granacci, a triumphal arch opposite to the door of the Badia, with many scenes, which was very beautiful. In like manner, at the nuptials of Duke Lorenzo de' Medici, he was of great assistance in all the festive preparations, and particularly in some prospect-views for comedies, to Franciabigio and Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, who had charge of everything. He afterwards executed many pictures of Our Lady in oils, partly from his own fancy, and partly copied from the works of others; and among them he painted one similar to that which Raffaello executed for S. Maria del Popolo in Rome, with the Madonna covering the Child with a veil, which now belongs to Filippo dell'Antella. And another is in the possession of the heirs of Messer Ottaviano de' Medici, together with the portrait of the above-named Lorenzo, which Aristotile copied from that which Raffaello had executed. Many other pictures he painted about the same time, which were sent to England. But, recognizing that he had no invention, and how much study and good grounding in design painting required, and that for lack of these qualities he would not be able to achieve any great excellence, Aristotile resolved that his profession should be architecture and perspective, executing scenery for comedies, to which he was much inclined, on every occasion that might present itself to him. And so, the above-mentioned Bishop of Troia having once more set his hand to his palace in the Via di S. Gallo, the charge of this was given to Aristotile, who in time carried it with much credit to himself to the condition in which it is now to be seen. Meanwhile Aristotile had formed a great friendship with Andrea del Sarto, his neighbour, from whom he learned to do many things to perfection, attending with much study to perspective; wherefore he was afterwards employed in many festivals that were held by certain companies of gentlemen who were living at Florence in those peaceful times. Thus, when the Mandragola, a most amusing comedy, was to be performed by the Company of the Cazzuola in the house of Bernardino di Giordano, on the Canto a Monteloro, Andrea del Sarto and Aristotile executed the scenery, which was very beautiful; and not long afterwards Aristotile executed the scenery for another comedy by the same author, in the house of the furnace-master Jacopo at the Porta S. Friano. From that kind of scenery and prospect-views, which much pleased the citizens in general, and in particular Signor Alessandro and Signor Ippolito de' Medici (who were in Florence at that time, under the care of Silvio Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona), Aristotile acquired so great a name, that it was ever afterwards his principal profession; indeed, so some will have it, his name of Aristotile was given him because he appeared in truth to be in perspective what Aristotle was in philosophy. But, as it often happens that from the height of peace and tranquillity one falls into wars and discords, with the year 1527 all peace and gladness in Florence were changed into sorrow and distress, for by that time the Medici had been driven out, and then came the plague and the siege, and for many years life was anything but gay; wherefore no good could be done then by craftsmen, and Aristotile lived in those days always in his own house, attending to his studies and fantasies. Afterwards, however, when Duke Alessandro had assumed the government of Florence, and matters were beginning to clear up a little, the young men of the Company of the Children of the Purification, which is opposite to S. Marco, arranged to perform a tragi-comedy taken from the Book of Kings, of the tribulations that ensued from the violation of Tamar, which had been composed by Giovan Maria Primerani. Thereupon the charge of the scenery and prospect-views was given to Aristotile, and he prepared the most beautiful scenery, considering the capacity of the place, that had ever been made. And since, besides the beauty of the setting, the tragi-comedy was beautiful in itself and well performed, and very pleasing to Duke Alessandro and his sister, who heard it, their Excellencies caused the author, who was in prison, to be liberated, on the condition that he should write another comedy, but after his own fancy. Which having been done by him, Aristotile made in the loggia of the garden of the Medici, on the Piazza di S. Marco, a very beautiful scene and prospect-view, full of colonnades, niches, tabernacles, statues, and many other fanciful things that had not been used up to that time in festive settings of that kind; which all gave infinite satisfaction, and greatly enriched that sort of painting. The subject of the piece was Joseph falsely accused of having sought to violate his mistress, and therefore imprisoned, and then liberated after his interpretation of the King's dream. This scenery having also much pleased the Duke, he ordained, when the time came, that for his nuptials with Madama Margherita of Austria another comedy should be performed, with scenery by Aristotile, in the Company of Weavers, which is joined to the house of the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, in the Via di S. Gallo. To which having set his hand with all the study, diligence, and labour of which he was capable, Aristotile executed all those preparations to perfection. Now Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici, having himself written the piece that was to be performed, had charge of the whole representation and the music; and, being such a man that he was always thinking in what way he might be able to kill the Duke, by whom he was so much favoured and beloved, he thought to find a way of bringing him to his end in the preparations for the play. And so, where the steps of the prospect-view and the floor of the stage ended, he caused the wing-walls on either side to be thrown down to the height of eighteen braccia, intending to build up in that space a room in the form of a purse-shaped recess, which was to be of considerable size, and a stage on a level with the stage proper, which might serve for the choral music. Above this first stage he wished to make another for harpsichords, organs, and other suchlike instruments that cannot be moved or changed about with ease; and the space where he had pulled down the walls, in front, he wished to have covered with curtains painted with prospect-views and buildings. All which pleased Aristotile, because it enriched the proscenium, and left the stage free of musicians, but he was by no means pleased that the rafters upholding the roof, which had been left without the walls below to support them, should be arranged otherwise than with a great double arch, which should be very strong; whereas Lorenzo wished that it should be sustained by some props, and by nothing else that could in any way interfere with the music. Aristotile, knowing that this was a trap certain to fall headlong down on a multitude of people, would not on any account agree in the matter with Lorenzo, who in truth had no other intention but to kill the Duke in that catastrophe. Wherefore, perceiving that he could not drive his excellent reasons into Lorenzo's head, he had determined that he would withdraw from the whole affair, when Giorgio Vasari, who was the protégé of Ottaviano de' Medici, and was at that time, although a mere lad, working in the service of Duke Alessandro, hearing, while he was painting on that scenery, the disputes and differences of opinion that there were between Lorenzo and Aristotile, set himself dexterously between them, and, after hearing both the one and the other and perceiving the danger that Lorenzo's method involved, showed that without making any arch or interfering in any other way with the stage for the music, those rafters of the roof could be arranged easily enough. Two double beams of wood, he said, each of fifteen braccia, should be placed along the wall, and fastened firmly with clamps of iron beside the other rafters, and upon them the central rafter could be securely placed, for in that way it would lie as safely as upon an arch, neither more nor less. But Lorenzo, refusing to believe either Giorgio, who proposed the plan, or Aristotile, who approved it, did nothing but oppose them with his cavillings, which made his evil intention known to everyone. Whereupon Giorgio, having seen what a terrible disaster might result from this, and that it was nothing less than an attempt to kill three hundred persons, said that come what might he would speak of it to the Duke, to the end that he might send to examine and render safe the whole fabric. Hearing this, and fearing to betray himself, Lorenzo, after many words, gave leave to Aristotile that he should follow the advice of Giorgio; and so it was done. This scenery, then, was the most beautiful not only of all that Aristotile had executed up to that time, but also of all that had ever been made by others, for he made in it many corner-pieces in relief, and also, in the opening of the stage, a representation of a most beautiful triumphal arch in imitation of marble, covered with scenes and statues, not to mention the streets receding into the distance, and many other things wrought with marvellous invention and incredible diligence and study. After Duke Alessandro had been killed by the above-named Lorenzo, and Cosimo had been elected Duke; in 1536, there came to be married to him Signora Leonora di Toledo, a lady in truth most rare, and of such great and incomparable worth, that she may be likened without question, and perchance preferred, to the most celebrated and renowned woman in ancient history. And for the nuptials, which took place on the 27th of June in the year 1539, Aristotile made in the great court of the Medici Palace, where the fountain is, another scenic setting that represented Pisa, in which he surpassed himself, ever improving and achieving variety; wherefore it will never be possible to put together a more varied arrangement of doors and windows, or façades of palaces more fantastic and bizarre, or streets and distant views that recede more beautifully and comply more perfectly with the rules of perspective. And he depicted there, besides all this, the Leaning Tower of the Duomo, the Cupola, and the round Temple of S. Giovanni, with other features of that city. Of the flights of steps that he made in the work, and how everyone was deceived by them, I shall say nothing, lest I should appear to be saying the same that has been said at other times; save only this, that the flight of steps which appeared to rise from the ground to the stage was octagonal in the centre and quadrangular at the sides--an artifice extraordinary in its simplicity, which gave such grace to the prospect-view above, that it would not be possible to find anything better of that kind. He then arranged with much ingenuity a lantern of wood in the manner of an arch, behind all the buildings, with a sun one braccio high, in the form of a ball of crystal filled with distilled water, behind which were two lighted torches, which rendered the sky of the scenery and prospect-view so luminous, that it had the appearance of the real and natural sun. This sun, which had around it an ornament of golden rays that covered the curtain, was drawn little by little by means of a small windlass that was there, in such a manner that at the beginning of the performance the sun appeared to be rising, and then, having climbed to the centre of the arch, it so descended that at the end of the piece it was setting and sinking below the horizon. The author of the piece was Antonio Landi, a gentleman of Florence, and the interludes and music were in the hands of Giovan Battista Strozzi, a man of very beautiful genius, who was then very young. But since enough was written at that time about the other things that adorned the performance, such as the interludes and music, I shall do no more than mention who they were who executed certain pictures, and it must suffice for the present to know that all the other things were carried out by the above-named Giovan Battista Strozzi, Tribolo, and Aristotile. Below the scenery of the comedy, the walls at the sides were divided into six painted pictures, each eight braccia in height and five in breadth, and each having around it an ornamental border one braccio and two-thirds in width, which formed a frieze about it and was moulded on the side next the picture, containing four medallions in the form of a cross, with two Latin mottoes for each scene, and in the rest were suitable devices. Over all, right round, ran a frieze of blue baize, save where the scene was, above which was a canopy, likewise of baize, which covered the whole court. On that frieze of baize, above every painted story, were the arms of some of the most illustrious families with which the house of Medici had kinship. Beginning with the eastern side, then, next to the stage, in the first picture, which was by the hand of Francesco Ubertini, called Il Bacchiacca, was the Return from Exile of the Magnificent Cosimo de' Medici; the device consisted of two Doves on a Golden Bough, and the arms in the frieze were those of Duke Cosimo. In the second, which was by the same hand, was the Journey of the Magnificent Lorenzo to Naples; the device a Pelican, and the arms those of Duke Lorenzo--namely, Medici and Savoy. In the third picture, painted by Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, was Pope Leo X on his visit to Florence, being carried by his fellow-citizens under the baldachin; the device was an Upright Arm, and the arms those of Duke Giuliano--Medici and Savoy. In the fourth picture, by the same hand, was Biegrassa taken by Signor Giovanni, who was to be seen issuing victorious from that city; the device was Jove's Thunderbolt, and the arms in the frieze were those of Duke Alessandro--Austria and Medici. In the fifth, Pope Clement was crowning Charles V at Bologna; the device was a Serpent that was biting its own tail, and the arms were those of France and Medici. That picture was by the hand of Domenico Conti, the disciple of Andrea del Sarto, who proved that he had no great ability, being deprived of the assistance of certain young men whose services he had thought to use, since all, both good and bad, were employed; wherefore he was laughed at, who, much presuming, at other times with little discretion had laughed at others. In the sixth scene, the last on that side, by the hand of Bronzino, was the Dispute that took place at Naples, before the Emperor, between Duke Alessandro and the Florentine exiles, with the River Sebeto and many figures, and this was a most beautiful picture, and better than any of the others; the device was a Palm, and the arms those of Spain. Opposite to the Return of Cosimo the Magnificent (that is, on the other side), was the happy day of the birth of Duke Cosimo; the device was a Phoenix, and the arms those of the city of Florence--namely, a Red Lily. Beside this was the Creation, or rather, Election of the same Cosimo to the dignity of Duke; the device was the Caduceus of Mercury, and in the frieze were the arms of the Castellan of the Fortress; and this scene, which was designed by Francesco Salviati, who had to depart in those days from Florence, was finished excellently well by Carlo Portelli of Loro. In the third were the three proud Campanian envoys, driven out of the Roman Senate for their presumptuous demand, as Titus Livius relates in the twentieth book of his history; and in that place they represented three Cardinals who had come to Duke Cosimo, but in vain, with the intention of removing him from the government; the device was a Winged Horse, and the arms those of the Salviati and the Medici. In the fourth was the Taking of Monte Murlo; the device an Egyptian Horn-owl over the head of Pyrrhus, and the arms those of the houses of Sforza and Medici; in which scene, painted by Antonio di Donnino, a bold painter of things in motion, might be seen in the distance a skirmish of horsemen, which was so beautiful that this picture, by the hand of a person reputed to be feeble, proved to be much better than the works of some others who were able men only by report. In the fifth could be seen Duke Alessandro being invested by his Imperial Majesty with all the devices and insignia of a Duke; the device was a Magpie, with leaves of laurel in its beak, and in the frieze were the arms of the Medici and of Toledo; and that picture was by the hand of Battista Franco the Venetian. In the last of all those pictures were the Espousals of the same Duke Alessandro, which took place at Naples; the devices were two Crows, the ancient symbols of marriage, and in the frieze were the arms of Don Pedro di Toledo, Viceroy of Naples; and that picture, which was by the hand of Bronzino, was executed with such grace, that, like the first-named, it surpassed the scenes of all the others. By the same Aristotile, likewise, there was executed over the loggia a frieze with other little scenes and arms, which was much extolled, and which pleased his Excellency, who rewarded him liberally for the whole work. Afterwards, almost every year, he executed scenery and prospect-views for the comedies that were performed at Carnival time; and he had in that manner of painting such assistance from nature and such practice, that he had determined that he would write of it and teach others; but this he abandoned, because the undertaking proved to be more difficult than he had expected, but particularly because afterwards commissions to execute prospect-views were given by new men in authority at the Palace to Bronzino and Francesco Salviati, as will be related in the proper place. Aristotile, therefore, perceiving that many years had passed during which he had not been employed, went off to Rome to find Antonio da San Gallo, his cousin, who, immediately after his arrival, having received and welcomed him very warmly, set him to press on certain buildings, with a salary of ten crowns a month, and then sent him to Castro, where he stayed some months, being commissioned by Pope Paul III to execute a great part of the buildings there after the designs and directions of Antonio. But, because Aristotile, having been brought up with Antonio from childhood, had become accustomed to treat him too familiarly, it is said that Antonio kept him at a distance, since Aristotile had never been able to accustom himself to calling him "you," insomuch that he gave him the "thou" even if they were before the Pope, to say nothing of a circle of nobles and gentlemen, even as is still done by Florentines used to the ancient fashions and to giving the "thou" to everyone, as if they were from Norcia, without being able to accommodate themselves to modern ways of life as others do, who march step by step with the times. And how strange this circumstance appeared to Antonio, accustomed as he was to be honoured by Cardinals and other great men, everyone may imagine for himself. Having therefore grown weary of his stay at Castro, Aristotile besought Antonio that he should enable him to return to Rome; in which Antonio obliged him very readily, but said to him that he must behave towards him in a different manner and with better breeding, particularly whenever they were in the presence of great persons. One year, at the time of the Carnival, when Ruberto Strozzi was giving a banquet at Rome to certain lords, his friends, and a comedy was to be performed at his house, Aristotile made for him in the great hall a prospect-scene, which, considering the little space at his disposal, was so pleasing, so graceful, and so beautiful, that Cardinal Farnese, among others, not only was struck with astonishment at it, but caused him to make one in his Palace of S. Giorgio, where is the Cancelleria, in one of those mezzanine halls that look out on the garden; but in such a way that it might remain there permanently, so that he might be able to make use of it whenever he so wished or required. This work, then, was carried out by Aristotile with all the study in his power and knowledge, and in such a manner, that it gave the Cardinal and the men of the arts infinite satisfaction. Now the Cardinal commissioned Messer Curzio Frangipane to remunerate Aristotile; and he, as a man of prudence, wishing to do what was right by him, but also not to overpay him, asked Perino del Vaga and Giorgio Vasari to value the work. This was very agreeable to Perino, because, feeling hatred for Aristotile, and taking it ill that he had executed that prospect-scene, which he thought should have fallen to him as the servant of the Cardinal, he was living in apprehension and jealousy, and all the more because the Cardinal had made use in those days not only of Aristotile but also of Vasari, and had given him a thousand crowns for having painted in fresco, in a hundred days, the Hall of "Parco Majori" in the Cancelleria. For these reasons, therefore, Perino intended to value that prospect-view of Aristotile's at so little, that he would have to repent of having done it. But Aristotile, having heard who were the men who had to value his prospect-view, went to seek out Perino, and at the first word, according to his custom, began to give him the "thou" to his face, for he had been his friend in youth; whereupon Perino, who had already an ill-will against him, flew into a rage and all but revealed, without noticing, the malicious thing that he had it in his mind to do. Aristotile having therefore told the whole story to Vasari, Giorgio told him that he should have no anxiety and should be of good cheer, for no wrong would be done to him. Afterwards, Perino and Giorgio coming together to settle that affair, Perino, as the older man, began to speak, and set himself to censure that prospect-scene and to say that it was a work of a few halfpence, and that Aristotile, having received money on account and having been paid for those who had assisted him, had been overpaid, adding: "If I had been commissioned to do it, I would have done it in another manner, and with different scenes and ornaments from those used by that fellow; but the Cardinal always chooses to favour some person who does him little honour." From these words and others Giorgio recognized that Perino wished rather to avenge himself on Aristotile for the grievance that he had against the Cardinal than to ensure with friendly affection the remuneration of the talents and labours of a good craftsman; and he spoke these soft words to Perino: "Although I have not as much knowledge of such works as I might have, nevertheless, having seen some by the hands of those who know how to do them, it appears to me that this one is very well executed, and worthy to be valued at many crowns, and not, as you say, at a few halfpence. And it does not seem to me right that he who sits in his work-room drawing cartoons, in order afterwards to reproduce in great works such a variety of things in perspective, should be paid for the labour of his nights--and perhaps for the work of many weeks into the bargain--on the same scale as are paid the days of those who have to undergo no fatigue of the mind and hand, and little of the body, it being enough for them to imitate, without in any way racking their brains, as Aristotile has done. And if you, Perino, had executed it, as you say, with more scenes and ornaments, perhaps you might not have done it with that grace which has been achieved by Aristotile, who in that kind of painting has been esteemed with much judgment by the Cardinal to be a better master than you. Remember that in the end, by giving a wrong and unjust estimate, you do harm not so much to Aristotile as to art and excellence in general, and even more to your own soul, if you depart from what is right for the sake of some private grievance; not to mention that all who recognize the work as a good one, will censure not it but our weak judgment, and may even put it down to envy and malice in our natures. And whoever seeks to ingratiate himself with another, to glorify his own works, or to avenge himself for any injury by censuring or estimating at less than their true value the good works of others, is finally recognized by God and man as what he is, namely, as malignant, ignorant, and wicked. Consider, you who do all the work in Rome, how it would appear to you if others were to value your labours as you do theirs? Put yourself, I beg you, in the shoes of this poor old man, and you will see how far you are from reason and justice." Of such force were these and other words that Giorgio spoke lovingly to Perino, that they arrived at a just estimate, and satisfaction was given to Aristotile, who, with that money, with the payment for the picture sent, as was related at the beginning, to France, and with the savings from his salaries, returned joyously to Florence, notwithstanding that Michelagnolo, who was his friend, had intended to make use of him in the building that the Romans were proposing to erect on the Campidoglio. Having thus returned to Florence in the year 1547, Aristotile went to kiss the hands of the Lord Duke Cosimo, and besought his Excellency, since he had set his hand to many buildings, that he should assist him and make use of his services. And that lord, having received him graciously, as he has always received men of excellence, ordained that an allowance of ten crowns a month should be given to him, and said to him that he would be employed according as occasion might arise. With that allowance Aristotile lived peacefully for some years, without doing anything more, and then died at the age of seventy, on the last day of May in the year 1551, and was buried in the Church of the Servites. In our book are some drawings by the hand of Aristotile, and there are some in the possession of Antonio Particini; among which are some very beautiful sheets drawn in perspective. There lived in the same times as Aristotile, and were his friends, two painters of whom I shall make brief mention here, because they were such that they deserve to have a place among these rare intellects, on account of some works executed by them that were truly worthy to be extolled. One was Jacone, and the other Francesco Ubertini, called Il Bacchiacca. Jacone, then, did not execute many works, being one who lost himself in talking and jesting, and contented himself with the little that his fortune and his idleness allowed him, which was much less than what he required. But, since he was closely associated with Andrea del Sarto, he drew very well and with great boldness; and he was very fantastic and bizarre in the posing of his figures, distorting them and seeking to make them varied and different from those of others in all his compositions. In truth, he had no little design, and when he chose he could imitate the good. In Florence, when still young, he executed many pictures of Our Lady, many of which were sent by Florentine merchants into France. For S. Lucia, in the Via de' Bardi, he painted in an altar-piece God the Father, Christ, and Our Lady, with other figures, and at Montici, about a tabernacle on the corner of the house of Lodovico Capponi, he executed two figures in chiaroscuro. For S. Romeo, in an altar-piece, he painted Our Lady and two Saints. Then, hearing once much praise spoken of the façades executed by Polidoro and Maturino at Rome, without anyone knowing about it he went off to that city, where he stayed some months and made some copies, gaining such proficience in matters of art, that he afterwards proved himself in many works a passing good painter. Wherefore the Chevalier Buondelmonte commissioned him to paint in chiaroscuro a house that he had built opposite to S. Trinita, at the beginning of the Borgo S. Apostolo; wherein Jacone painted stories from the life of Alexander the Great, very beautiful in certain parts, and executed with so much grace and design, that many believe that the designs for the whole work were made for him by Andrea del Sarto. To tell the truth, from the proof of his powers that Jacone gave in that work, it was thought that he was likely to produce some great fruits. But, since he always had his mind set more on giving himself a good time and every possible amusement, living in a round of suppers and feastings with his friends, than on studying and working, he was for ever forgetting rather than learning. And that which was a thing to laugh at or to pity, I know not which, was that he belonged to a company, or rather, gang, of friends who, under the pretence of living like philosophers, lived like swine and brute-beasts; they never washed their hands, or face, or head, or beard; they did not sweep their houses, and never made their beds save only once every two months; they laid their tables with the cartoons for their pictures, and they drank only from the flask or the jug; and this miserable existence of theirs, living, as the saying goes, from hand to mouth, was held by them to be the finest life in the world. But, since the outer man is wont to be a guide to the inner, and to reveal what our minds are, I believe, as has been said before, that they were as filthy and brutish in mind as their outward appearance suggested. For the festival of S. Felice in Piazza--that is, the representation of the Annunciation of the Madonna, of which there has been an account in another place--which was held by the Company of the Orciuolo in the year 1525, Jacone made among the outer decorations, according to the custom of those times, a most beautiful triumphal arch standing by itself, large, double, and very high, with eight columns, pilasters, and pediments; all of which he caused to be carried to completion by Piero da Sesto, a well-practised master in woodwork. On this arch, then, were painted nine scenes, part of which, the best, he executed himself, and the rest Francesco Ubertini, Il Bacchiacca; and these scenes were all from the Old Testament, and for the greater part from the life of Moses. Having then been summoned by a Scopetine friar, his kinsman, to Cortona, Jacone painted two altar-pieces in oils for the Church of the Madonna, which is without the city. In one of these is Our Lady with S. Rocco, S. Augustine, and other Saints, and in the other a God the Father who is crowning Our Lady, with two Saints at the foot, and in the centre is S. Francis, who is receiving the Stigmata; which two works were very beautiful. Then, having returned to Florence, he decorated for Bongianni Capponi a vaulted chamber in that city; and he executed certain others for the same man in his villa at Montici. And finally, when Jacopo da Pontormo painted for Duke Alessandro, in his villa at Careggi, that loggia of which there has been an account in his Life, Jacone helped to execute the greater part of the ornaments, such as grotesques, and other things. After this he occupied himself with certain insignificant works, of which there is no need to make mention. [Illustration: THE BAPTISM IN JORDAN (_After the painting by =Bacchiacca=. Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, No. 267_) _Hanfstaengl_] The sum of the matter is that Jacone spent the best part of his life in jesting, in going off into cogitations, and in speaking evil of all and sundry. For in those days the art of design in Florence had fallen into the hands of a company of persons who paid more attention to playing jokes and to enjoyment than to working, and whose occupation was to assemble in shops and other places, and there to spend their time in criticizing maliciously, in their own jargon, the works of others who were persons of excellence and lived decently and like men of honour. The heads of this company were Jacone, the goldsmith Piloto, and the wood-carver Tasso; but the worst of them all was Jacone, for the reason that, among his other fine qualities, his every word was always a foul slander against somebody. Wherefore it was no marvel that from such a company there should have sprung in time, as will be related, many evil happenings, or that Piloto, on account of his slanderous tongue, was killed by a young man. And since their habits and proceedings were displeasing to honest men, they were generally to be found--I do not say all of them, but some at least--like wool-carders and other fellows of that kidney, playing at chuck-stones at the foot of a wall, or making merry in a tavern. One day that Giorgio Vasari was returning from Monte Oliveto, a place without Florence, after a visit to the reverend and most cultured Don Miniato Pitti, who was then Abbot of that monastery, he found Jacone, with a great part of his crew, at the Canto de' Medici; and Jacone thought to attempt, as I heard afterwards, with some of his idle talk, speaking half in jest and half in earnest, to hit on some phrase insulting to Giorgio. And so, when Vasari rode into their midst on his horse, Jacone said to him: "Well, Giorgio, how goes it with you?" "Finely, my Jacone," answered Giorgio. "Once I was poor like all of you, and now I find myself with three thousand crowns or more. You thought me a fool, and the priests and friars think me an able master. I used to be your servant, and here is a servant of my own, who serves me and looks after my horse. I used to dress in the clothes that beggarly painters wear, and here am I dressed in velvet. Once I went on foot, and now I go on horseback. So you see, my Jacone, it goes exceeding well with me. May God be with you." When poor Jacone had heard all this recital in one breath, he lost all his presence of mind and stood confused, without saying another word, as if reflecting how miserable he was, and how often the engineer is hoist with his own petard. Finally, having become much reduced by an infirmity, and being poor, neglected, and paralysed in the legs, so that he could do nothing to better himself, Jacone died in misery in a little hovel that he had on a mean street, or rather, alley, called Codarimessa, in the year 1553. Francesco Ubertini, called Il Bacchiacca, was a diligent painter, and, although he was the friend of Jacone, he always lived decently enough and like an honest man. He was likewise a friend of Andrea del Sarto, and much assisted and favoured by him in matters of art. Francesco, I say, was a diligent painter, and particularly in painting little figures, which he executed to perfection, with much patience, as may be seen from a predella with the story of the Martyrs, below the altar-piece of Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, in S. Lorenzo at Florence, and from another predella, executed very well, in the Chapel of the Crocifisso. For the chamber of Pier Francesco Borgherini, of which mention has already been made so many times, Il Bacchiacca, in company with the others, executed many little figures on the coffers and the panelling, which are known by the manner, being different from the others. For the antechamber of Giovan Maria Benintendi, which likewise has been already mentioned, he painted two very beautiful pictures with little figures, in one of which, the most beautiful and the most abundant in figures, is the Baptist baptizing Jesus Christ in the Jordan. He also executed many others for various persons, which were sent to France and England. Finally, having entered the service of Duke Cosimo, since he was an excellent painter in counterfeiting all the kinds of animals, Il Bacchiacca painted for his Excellency a cabinet all full of birds of various kinds, and rare plants, all of which he executed divinely well in oils. He then made, with a vast number of little figures, cartoons of all the months of the year, which were woven into most beautiful tapestries in silk and gold, with such industry and diligence that there is nothing better of that kind to be seen, by Marco, the son of Maestro Giovanni Rosto the Fleming. After these works, Il Bacchiacca decorated in fresco the grotto of a water-fountain that is at the Pitti Palace. Lastly, he made the designs for a bed that was executed in embroidery, all full of scenes and little figures. This is the most ornate work in the form of a bed, in such a kind of workmanship, that there is to be seen, the embroidering having been made rich with pearls and other things of price by Antonio Bacchiacca, the brother of Francesco, who is an excellent embroiderer; and, since Francesco died before the completion of the bed, which has served for the happy nuptials of the most illustrious Lord Prince of Florence, Don Francesco de' Medici, and of her serene Highness Queen Joanna of Austria, it was finished in the end after the directions and designs of Giorgio Vasari. Francesco died at Florence in the year 1557. BENVENUTO GAROFALO AND GIROLAMO DA CARPI, AND OTHER LOMBARDS [Illustration: MORETTO DA BRESCIA: S. JUSTINA (_Vienna: Imperial Gallery, 218. Panel_)] LIVES OF BENVENUTO GAROFALO AND GIROLAMO DA CARPI, PAINTERS OF FERRARA, AND OF OTHER LOMBARDS In this part of the Lives that we are about to write we shall give a brief account of the best and most eminent painters, sculptors, and architects who have lived in Lombardy in our time, after Mantegna, Costa, Boccaccino of Cremona, and Francia of Bologna; for I am not able to write the life of each in detail, and it seems to me enough to enumerate their works. And even this I would not have set myself to do, nor to give a judgment on those works, if I had not first seen them; but since, from the year 1542 down to this present year of 1566, I had not travelled, as I did before, over almost the whole of Italy, nor seen the above-mentioned works and the others that had appeared in great numbers during that period of four-and-twenty years, I resolved, before writing of them, being almost at the end of this my labour, to see them and judge of them with my own eyes. Wherefore, after the conclusion of the above-mentioned nuptials of the most illustrious Lord Don Francesco de' Medici, Prince of Florence and Siena, my master, and of her serene Highness Queen Joanna of Austria, on account of which I had been much occupied for two years on the ceiling of the principal hall of their Palace, I resolved, without sparing any expense or fatigue, to revisit Rome, Tuscany, part of the March, Umbria, Romagna, Lombardy, and Venice with all her domain, in order to re-examine the old works and to see the many that have been executed from the year 1542 onward. And so, having made a record of the works that were most notable and most worthy to be put down in writing, in order not to do wrong to the talents of many craftsmen or depart from that sincere truthfulness which is expected from those who write history of any kind, I shall proceed without bias of mind to write down all that is wanting in any part of what has been already written, without disturbing the order of the story, and then to give an account of the works of some who are still living, and have worked or are still working excellently well; for it appears to me that so much is demanded by the merits of many rare and noble craftsmen. Let me begin, then, with the men of Ferrara. Benvenuto Garofalo was born at Ferrara in the year 1481, to Piero Tisi, whose elders had their origin in Padua. He was born, I say, so inclined to painting, that, when still but a little boy, while going to school to learn reading, he would do nothing but draw; from which exercise his father, who looked on painting as a folly, sought to divert him, but was never able. Wherefore that father, having seen that he must second the inclination of that son of his, who would never do anything day and night but draw, finally placed him with Domenico Panetti, a painter of some repute at that time, although his manner was dry and laboured, in Ferrara. With that Domenico Benvenuto had been some little time, when, going once to Cremona, he happened to see in the principal chapel of the Duomo in that city, among other works by the hand of Boccaccio Boccaccino, a painter of Cremona, who had painted the tribune there in fresco, a Christ seated on a throne surrounded by four Saints, and giving the Benediction. Whereupon, that work having pleased him, he placed himself by means of some friends under Boccaccino, who was at that time executing in the same church, likewise in fresco, some stories of the Madonna, as has been said in his Life, in competition with the painter Altobello, who was painting in the same church, opposite to Boccaccino, some stories of Jesus Christ, which are very beautiful and truly worthy to be praised. [Illustration: THE MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS (_After the painting by =Benvenuto Garofalo=. Ferrara: Pinacoteca, 1514_) _Alinari_] Now, after Benvenuto had been two years in Cremona, and had made much progress under the discipline of Boccaccino, he went off in the year 1500, at the age of nineteen, to Rome, where, having placed himself with Giovanni Baldini, a Florentine painter of passing good skill, who possessed many very beautiful drawings by various excellent masters, he was constantly practising his hand on those drawings whenever he had time, and particularly at night. Then, after he had been fifteen months with that master and had seen to his great delight the works of Rome, he travelled for a time over various parts of Italy, and finally made his way to Mantua. There he stayed two years with the painter Lorenzo Costa, serving him with such lovingness, that Lorenzo, after that period of two years, in order to reward him, placed him in the service of Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, for whom Costa himself was working. But Benvenuto had not been long with the Marquis, when, his father Piero falling ill in Ferrara, he was forced to return to that city, where he stayed afterwards for four years together, executing many works by himself alone, and some in company with the Dossi. Then, in the year 1505, being sent for by Messer Geronimo Sagrato, a gentleman of Ferrara, who was living in Rome, Benvenuto returned there with the greatest willingness, and particularly from a desire to see the miracles that were being related of Raffaello da Urbino and of the Chapel of Julius painted by Buonarroti. But when Benvenuto had arrived in Rome, he was struck with amazement, and almost with despair, by seeing the grace and vivacity that the pictures of Raffaello revealed, and the depth in the design of Michelagnolo. Wherefore he cursed the manners of Lombardy, and that which he had learned with so much study and effort at Mantua, and right willingly, if he had been able, would he have purged himself of all that knowledge; but he resolved, since there was no help for it, that he would unlearn it all, and, after the loss of so many years, change from a master into a disciple. And so he began to draw from such works as were the best and the most difficult, and to study with all possible diligence those greatly celebrated manners, and gave his attention to scarcely any other thing for a period of two whole years; by reason of which he so changed his method, transforming his bad manner into a good one, that notice was taken of him by the craftsmen. And, what was more, he so went to work with humility and every kind of loving service, that he became the friend of Raffaello da Urbino, who, being very courteous and not ungrateful, taught Benvenuto many things, and always assisted and favoured him. If Benvenuto had pursued his studies in Rome, without a doubt he would have done things worthy of his beautiful genius; but he was constrained, I know not by what cause, to return to his own country. In taking leave of Raffaello, he promised that he would, as that master advised him, return to Rome, where Raffaello assured him that he would give him more than enough in the way of work, and that in honourable undertakings. Having then arrived in Ferrara, Benvenuto settled the affairs and despatched the business that had caused him to return; and he was preparing himself to make his way back to Rome, when the Lord Duke Alfonso of Ferrara set him to decorate a little chapel in the Castle, in company with other Ferrarese painters. That work finished, his departure was again delayed by the great courtesy of M. Antonio Costabili, a Ferrarese gentleman of much authority, who gave him an altar-piece to paint in oils for the high-altar of the Church of S. Andrea; which finished, he was forced to execute another for S. Bartolo, a convent of Cistercian Monks, wherein he painted the Adoration of the Magi, which was beautiful and much extolled. He then painted another for the Duomo, full of figures many and various, and two others that were placed in the Church of S. Spirito, in one of which is the Virgin in the air with the Child in her arms, and some other figures below, and in the other the Nativity of Jesus Christ. [Illustration: THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS (_After the painting by =Benvenuto Garofalo=. Ferrara: Pinacoteca, 1519_) _Alinari_] In executing those works, remembering at times how he had turned his back on Rome, he felt the bitterest regret; and he had resolved at all costs to return thither, when, his father Piero's death taking place, all his plans were broken off; for, finding himself burdened with a sister ready for a husband and a brother fourteen years of age, and his affairs in disorder, he was forced to compose his mind and resign himself to live in his native place. And so, after parting company with the Dossi, who had worked with him up to that time, he painted by himself in the Church of S. Francesco, in a little chapel, the Raising of Lazarus, a work filled with a variety of good figures, and pleasant in colouring, with attitudes spirited and vivacious, which brought him much commendation. In another chapel in the same church he painted the Massacre of the Innocents, cruelly done to death by Herod, so well and with such spirited movements in the soldiers and other figures, that it was a marvel. Very well depicted, in addition, are different expressions in the great variety of heads, such as terror in the mothers and nurses, death in the infants, and cruelty in the slayers, and many other things, which gave infinite satisfaction. It is worthy of remark that in executing that work Benvenuto did a thing that up to that time had never been done in Lombardy--namely, he made models of clay, the better to see the shadows and lights, and availed himself of a figure-model made of wood, jointed in such a way that the limbs moved in every direction, which he arranged as he wished, in various attitudes, with draperies over it. But what is most important is that he copied every least detail from life and nature, as one who knew that the true way is to observe and imitate the reality. For the same church he executed the altar-piece of a chapel; and on a wall he painted in fresco Christ taken by the multitude in the Garden. For S. Domenico, in the same city, he painted two altar-pieces in oils; in one is the Miracle of the Cross and S. Helen, and in the other is S. Peter Martyr with a good number of very beautiful figures, wherein it is evident that Benvenuto departed considerably from his first manner, making it bolder and less laboured. For the Nuns of S. Salvestro he painted an altar-picture of Christ praying to His Father on the Mount, while the three Apostles are lower down, sleeping. For the Nuns of S. Gabriello he executed an Annunciation, and for those of S. Antonio, in the altar-piece of their high-altar, the Resurrection of Christ. For the high-altar of the Frati Ingesuati, in the Church of S. Girolamo, he painted Jesus Christ in the Manger, with a choir of Angels on a cloud, held to be very beautiful. In S. Maria del Vado, in an altar-piece by the same hand, very well conceived and coloured, is Christ ascending into Heaven, with the Apostles standing in contemplation of Him. For the Church of S. Giorgio, a seat of the Monks of Monte Oliveto, without the city, he painted an altar-piece in oils of the Magi adoring Christ and offering to Him myrrh, incense, and gold; and this is one of the best works that Benvenuto ever executed in all his life. All these works much pleased the people of Ferrara, by reason of which he executed pictures almost without number for their houses, and many others for monasteries and for the townships and villas round about the city; and, among others, he painted the Resurrection of Christ in an altar-piece for Bondeno. And, finally, he executed in fresco with beautiful and fantastic invention, in the Refectory of S. Andrea, many figures that are bringing the Old Testament into accord with the New. But, since the works of this master are numberless, let it be enough to have spoken of those that are the best. Girolamo da Carpi having received his first instructions in painting from Benvenuto, as will be related in his Life, they painted in company the façade of the house of the Muzzarelli, in the Borgo Nuovo, partly in chiaroscuro and partly in colours, with some things done in imitation of bronze. They painted together, likewise, both within and without, the Palace of Coppara, a place of recreation belonging to the Duke of Ferrara; for which lord Benvenuto executed many other works, both by himself and in company with other painters. Then, having lived a long time in the determination that he would not take a wife, in the end, after separating from his brother and growing weary of living alone, at the age of forty-eight he took one; but he had scarcely had her a year, when, falling grievously ill, he lost the sight of his right eye, and was in fear and peril of the other. However, having recommended himself to God and made a vow that he would always dress in grey, as he afterwards did, by the grace of God he preserved the sight of the other eye, insomuch that the works executed by him at the age of sixty-five were so well done, and with such diligence and finish, that it was a marvel. Wherefore on one occasion, when the Duke of Ferrara showed to Pope Paul III a Triumph of Bacchus in oils, five braccia in length, and the Calumny of Apelles, painted by Benvenuto at that age after the designs of Raffaello da Urbino, which pictures are now over certain chimney-pieces belonging to his Excellency, that Pontiff was struck with astonishment that an old man of such an age, with only one eye, should have executed works so large and so beautiful. On every feast-day for twenty whole years Benvenuto worked for the love of God in the Convent of the Nuns of S. Bernardino, where he executed many works of importance in oils, in distemper, and in fresco; which was certainly a marvellous thing, and a great proof of his true and good nature, for in that place he had no competition, and nevertheless put no less study and diligence into his labour than he would have done at any other more frequented place. Those works are passing good in composition, with beautiful expressions in the heads, not confused, and executed in a truly sweet and good manner. For all the disciples that Benvenuto had, although he taught them everything that he knew with no ordinary willingness, in order to make some of them excellent masters, he never had any success with a single one of them, and, in place of being rewarded by them for his lovingness at least with gratitude of heart, he never received anything from them save vexations; wherefore he used to say that he had never had any enemies but his own disciples and assistants. In the year 1550, being now old, and the malady returning to his eye, he became wholly blind, and he lived thus for nine years; which misfortune he bore with a patient mind, resigning himself completely to the will of God. Finally, when he had come to the age of seventy-eight, thinking at last that he had lived too long in that darkness, and rejoicing in death, in the hope of going to enjoy eternal light, he finished the course of his life on the 6th of September in the year 1559, leaving a son called Girolamo, who is a very gentle person, and a daughter. Benvenuto was a very honest creature, fond of a jest, pleasant in his conversation, patient and calm in all his adversities. As a young man he delighted in fencing and playing the lute, and in his friendships he was loving beyond measure and prodigal with his services. He was the friend of the painter Giorgione da Castelfranco, Tiziano da Cadore, and Giulio Romano, and most affectionate towards all the men of art in general; and to this I can bear witness, for on the two occasions when I was at Ferrara in his time I received from him innumerable favours and courtesies. He was buried with honour in the Church of S. Maria del Vado, and was celebrated in verse and prose by many choice spirits no less than his talents deserved. But it has not been possible to obtain Benvenuto's portrait, and therefore there has been placed at the head of these Lives of the Lombard painters that of Girolamo da Carpi, whose Life we are now about to write. [Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI (_After the painting by =Benvenuto Garofalo=. Ferrara: Pinacoteca, 1537_) _Alinari_] Girolamo, then, called Da Carpi, who was a Ferrarese and a disciple of Benvenuto, was employed at first by his father Tommaso, who was a kind of house-painter, in his workshop, to paint strong-boxes, stools, mouldings, and other suchlike commonplace things. After Girolamo had made some proficience under the discipline of Benvenuto, he began to think that he should be removed by his father from those base labours; but Tommaso, as one who had need of money, would do nothing of the kind, and Girolamo resolved at all costs to leave him. And so he went to Bologna, where he received no little favour from the gentlemen of that city; wherefore, having made some portraits, which were passing good likenesses, he acquired so much credit that he earned much money and assisted his father more while living at Bologna than he had done when staying in Ferrara. At that time there was brought to the house of the noble Counts Ercolani at Bologna a picture by the hand of Antonio da Correggio, in which Christ is appearing to Mary Magdalene in the form of a gardener, executed with incredible softness and excellence; and that manner so took possession of Girolamo's heart, that, not content with having copied that picture, he went to Modena to see the other works by the hand of Correggio. Having arrived there, besides being filled with marvel at the sight of them, one among them in particular struck him with amazement, and that was the great picture, a divine work, in which is the Madonna, with the Child in her arms marrying S. Catharine, a S. Sebastian, and other figures, with an air of such beauty in the heads, that they appear as if made in Paradise; nor is it possible to find more beautiful hair, more lovely hands, or any colouring more pleasing and natural. Having then received permission to copy it from the owner of the picture, Messer Francesco Grillenzoni, a doctor, who was much the friend of Correggio, Girolamo copied it with the greatest diligence that it is possible to imagine. After that he did the same with the altar-picture of S. Peter Martyr, which Correggio had painted for a Company of Secular Priests, who hold it in very great price, as it deserves, there being in it, in particular, besides other figures, an Infant Christ in the lap of His Mother, who appears as if breathing, and a most beautiful S. Peter Martyr; and another little altar-piece by the same hand, painted for the Company of S. Bastiano, and no less beautiful than the other. All these works, thus copied by Girolamo, were the reason that he so improved his manner, that it did not appear like his original manner, or in any way the same thing. From Modena Girolamo went to Parma, where he had heard that there were some works by the same Correggio, and he copied some of the pictures in the tribune of the Duomo, considering them extraordinary works, particularly the beautiful foreshortening of the Madonna, who is ascending into Heaven, surrounded by a multitude of Angels, with the Apostles, who are standing gazing on her as she ascends, and four Saints, Protectors of that city, who are in the niches--S. John the Baptist, who is holding a lamb; S. Joseph, the husband of Our Lady; S. Bernardo degli Uberti the Florentine, a Cardinal and Bishop of Florence; and another Bishop. Girolamo likewise studied the figures by the hand of the same Correggio in the recess of the principal chapel in S. Giovanni Evangelista--namely, the Coronation of the Madonna, with S. John the Evangelist, the Baptist, S. Benedict, S. Placido, and a multitude of Angels who are about them; and the marvellous figures that are in the Chapel of S. Gioseffo in the Church of S. Sepolcro--a divine example of panel-painting. Now, since it is inevitable that those who are pleased to follow some particular manner, and who study it with lovingness, should acquire it--at least, in some degree (whence it also happens that many become more excellent than their masters)--Girolamo caught not a little of Correggio's manner; wherefore, after returning to Bologna, he imitated him always, not studying any other thing but that manner and that altar-piece by the hand of Raffaello da Urbino which we mentioned as being in that city. And all these particulars I heard from Girolamo da Carpi, who was much my friend, at Rome in the year 1550; and he lamented very often to me that he had consumed his youth and his best years in Ferrara and Bologna, and not in Rome or some other place, where, without a doubt, he would have made much greater proficience. No little harm, also, did Girolamo suffer in matters of art from his having given too much attention to amorous delights and to playing the lute at the time when he might have been making progress in painting. Having returned, then, to Bologna, he made a portrait, among others, of Messer Onofrio Bartolini, a Florentine, who was then in that city for his studies, and afterwards became Archbishop of Pisa; and that head, which is now in the possession of the heirs of that Messer Noferi, is very beautiful and in a manner full of grace. There was working in Bologna at this time a certain Maestro Biagio, a painter, who, perceiving that Girolamo was coming into good repute, began to be afraid lest he might outstrip him and deprive him of all his profits. Wherefore, seizing a good occasion, he established a friendship with Girolamo, with the intention of hindering him in his work, and became his intimate companion to such purpose, that they began to work in company; and so they continued for a while. This friendship was harmful to Girolamo, not only in the matter of his earnings, but likewise with respect to art, for the reason that he followed in the footsteps of Maestro Biagio (who worked by rule of thumb, and took everything from the designs of one master or another), and he, also, put no more diligence into his pictures. Now in the monastery of S. Michele in Bosco, without Bologna, a certain Fra Antonio, a monk of that convent, had painted a S. Sebastian of the size of life, besides executing an altar-piece in oils for a convent of the same Order of Monte Oliveto at Scaricalasino, and some figures in fresco in the Chapel of S. Scholastica, in the garden of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, and Abbot Ghiaccino, who had compelled him to stay that year in Bologna, desired that he should paint the new sacristy of his church there. But Fra Antonio, who did not feel it in him to do so great a work, and perchance was not very willing to undergo such fatigue, as is often the case with that kind of man, so contrived that the work was allotted to Girolamo and Maestro Biagio, who painted it all in fresco. In the compartments of the vaulting they executed some little boys and Angels, and at the head, in large figures, the story of the Transfiguration of Christ, availing themselves of the design of that which Raffaello da Urbino painted for S. Pietro in Montorio at Rome; and on the other walls they painted some Saints, in which, to be sure, there is something of the good. But Girolamo, having recognized that to stay in company with Maestro Biagio was not the course for him, and, indeed, that it was his certain ruin, broke up the partnership when that work was finished, and began to work for himself. The first work that he executed on his own account was an altar-piece for the Chapel of S. Bastiano in the Church of S. Salvadore, in which he acquitted himself very well. But then, having heard of the death of his father, he returned to Ferrara, where for a time he did nothing save some portraits and works of little importance. Meanwhile, Tiziano Vecelli went to Ferrara to execute certain things for Duke Alfonso, as will be related in his Life, in a little closet, or rather, study, where Giovanni Bellini had already painted some pictures, and Dosso a Bacchanal rout of men which was so good, that, even if he had never done any other thing, for that alone he would deserve praise and the name of an excellent painter; and Girolamo, by means of Tiziano and others, began to have dealings with the Court of the Duke. And so, as it were to give a proof of his powers before he should do anything else, he copied the head of Duke Ercole of Ferrara from one by the hand of Tiziano, and counterfeited it so well, that it seemed the same as the original; wherefore it was sent, as a work worthy of praise, into France. Afterwards, having taken a wife and had children by her, sooner, perchance, than he should have done, Girolamo painted in S. Francesco at Ferrara, in the angles of the vaulting, the four Evangelists in fresco, which were passing good figures. In the same place he executed a frieze right round the church, which was a very large and abundant work, being full of half-length figures and little boys linked together in a very pleasing manner; and for that church, also, he painted an altar-picture of S. Anthony of Padua, with other figures, and another altar-piece of Our Lady in the air with two Angels, which was placed on the altar of Signora Giulia Muzzarelli, whose portrait was executed very well therein by Girolamo. At Rovigo, in the Church of S. Francesco, the same master painted the Holy Spirit appearing in Tongues of Fire, which was a work worthy of praise for the composition and for the beauty of the heads. At Bologna, for the Church of S. Martino, he painted an altar-piece of the three Magi, with most beautiful heads and figures; and at Ferrara, in company with Benvenuto Garofalo, as has been related, the façade of the house of Signor Battista Muzzarelli, and also the Palace of Coppara, a villa of the Duke's, distant twelve miles from Ferrara; and, again, in Ferrara, the façade of Piero Soncini in the Piazza near the Fishmarket, painting there the Taking of Goletta by the Emperor Charles V. The same Girolamo painted for S. Polo, a church of the Carmelite Friars in the same city, a little altar-piece in oils of S. Jerome with two other Saints, of the size of life; and for the Duke's Palace a great picture with a figure large as life, representing Opportunity, and executed with beautiful vivacity, movement and grace, and fine relief. He also painted a nude Venus, life-size and recumbent, with Love beside her, which was sent to Paris for King Francis of France; and I, who saw it at Ferrara in the year 1540, can with truth affirm that it was very beautiful. He also made a beginning with the decorations in the Refectory of S. Giorgio, a seat of the Monks of Monte Oliveto at Ferrara, and executed a great part of them; but he left the work unfinished, and it has been completed in our own day by Pellegrino Pellegrini, a painter of Bologna. [Illustration: SCENE FROM THE ÆNEID (_After the painting by =Niccolò [Niccolò dell'Abate]=. Modena: R. Galleria Estense_) _Alinari_] Now, if we were to seek to make particular mention of the pictures that Girolamo executed for many lords and gentlemen, the story would be longer than is our desire, and I shall speak of two only, which are most beautiful. From a picture by the hand of Correggio that the Chevalier Baiardo has at Parma, beautiful to a marvel, in which Our Lady is putting a shirt on the Infant Christ, Girolamo made a copy so like it that it seems the very same picture, and he made another copy from one by the hand of Parmigiano, which is in the cell of the Vicar in the Certosa at Pavia, doing this so well and with such diligence, that there is no miniature to be seen that is wrought with more subtlety; and he executed innumerable others with great care. And since Girolamo delighted in architecture, and also gave his attention to it, in addition to many designs of buildings that he made for private persons, he served in that art, in particular, Cardinal Ippolito of Ferrara, who, having bought the garden at Monte Cavallo in Rome which had formerly belonged to the Cardinal of Naples, with many vineyards belonging to individuals around it, took Girolamo to Rome, to the end that he might serve him not only in the buildings, but also in the truly regal ornaments of woodwork in that garden. In this he acquitted himself so well, that everyone was struck with astonishment; and, indeed, I know not what other man could have done better than he did in executing in woodwork--which has since been covered with most beautiful verdure--works so fine and so pleasingly designed in various forms and in different kinds of temples, in which there may now be seen arranged the richest and most beautiful ancient statues that there are in Rome, some whole and some restored by Valerio Cioli, a Florentine sculptor, and by others. By these works Girolamo came into very great credit in Rome, and in the year 1550 he was introduced by the above-named Cardinal, his lord, who loved him dearly, into the service of Pope Julius III, who made him architect over the works of the Belvedere, giving him rooms in that place and a good salary. But, since that Pontiff could never be satisfied in such matters, and, to make it worse, was hindered by understanding very little of design, and would not have in the evening a thing that had pleased him in the morning, and also because Girolamo had to be always contending with certain old architects, to whom it seemed strange to see a new man of little reputation preferred to themselves, he resolved, having perceived their envy and possible malignity, and also being rather cold by nature than otherwise, to retire. And so he chose, as the better course, to return to the service of the Cardinal at Monte Cavallo; for which action Girolamo was much commended, for it is too wretched a life to have to be always contending all day long and on every least detail with one person or another, and, as he used to say, it is at times better to enjoy peace of mind on bread and water than to sweat and strive amid grandeur and honours. Wherefore, after Girolamo had executed for his lord the Cardinal a very beautiful picture, which, when I saw it, pleased me very much, being now weary, he returned with him to Ferrara, to enjoy the peace of his home with his wife and children, leaving the hopes and rewards of fortune in the possession of his adversaries, who received from that Pope the same as he had done, neither more nor less. While he was living thus at Ferrara, a part of the Castle was burned, I know not by what mischance, and Duke Ercole gave the charge of restoring it to Girolamo, who did it very well, adorning it as much as is possible in that district, which suffers from a great dearth of stone wherewith to make carvings and ornaments; for which he well deserved to be always held dear by that lord, who rewarded him liberally for his labours. Finally, after having executed these and many other works, Girolamo died in the year 1556, at the age of fifty-five, and was buried in the Church of the Angeli, beside his wife. He left two daughters, and also three sons, Giulio, Annibale, and another. Girolamo was a blithe spirit, very sweet and pleasing in his conversation, and in his work somewhat slow and dilatory. He was of middle stature, and he delighted beyond measure in music, and more in the pleasures of love than was perhaps expedient. The buildings of his patrons have been carried on since his death by the Ferrarese architect Galasso, a man of the most beautiful genius, and of such judgment in matters of architecture, that, in so far as may be seen from the ordering of his designs, he would have demonstrated his worth much more than he has done, if he had been employed in works of importance. An excellent sculptor, and likewise a Ferrarese, has been Maestro Girolamo, who, living at Recanati, has executed many works in marble at Loreto after his master, Andrea Contucci, and has made many of the ornaments round that Chapel or House of the Madonna. This master--since the departure from that place of Tribolo, who was the last there, after he had finished the largest scene in marble, which is at the back of the chapel, wherein are the Angels carrying that house from Sclavonia into the forest of Loreto--has laboured there continually from 1534 to the year 1560, executing many works. The first of these was a seated figure of a Prophet of three braccia and a half, which, being good and beautiful, was placed in a niche that is turned towards the west; which statue, having given satisfaction, was the reason that he afterwards made all the other Prophets, with the exception of one, that facing towards the east on the outer side, over against the altar, which is by the hand of Simone Cioli of Settignano, likewise a disciple of Andrea Sansovino. The rest of those Prophets, I say, are by the hand of Maestro Girolamo, and are executed with much diligence and study and good skill of hand. For the Chapel of the Sacrament the same master has made the candelabra of bronze about three braccia in height, covered with foliage and figures cast in the round, which are so well wrought that they are things to marvel at. And a brother of Maestro Girolamo's, who is an able master in similar works of casting, has executed many things in company with him at Rome, and in particular a very large tabernacle of bronze for Pope Paul III, which was to be placed in the chapel that is called the Pauline in the Palace of the Vatican. Among the Modenese, also, there have been at all times craftsmen excellent in our arts, as has been said in other places, and as may be seen from four panel-pictures, of which no mention was made in the proper place because the master was not known; which pictures were executed in distemper a hundred years ago in that city, and, for those times, they are painted with diligence and very beautiful. The first is on the high-altar of S. Domenico, and the others in the chapels that are in the tramezzo[1] of that church. And there is living in the same country at the present day a painter called Niccolò, who in his youth painted many works in fresco about the Beccherie, which have no little beauty, and for the high-altar of S. Piero, a seat of the Black Friars, in an altar-piece, the Beheading of S. Peter and S. Paul, imitating in the soldier who is cutting off their heads a similar figure by the hand of Antonio da Correggio, much renowned, which is in S. Giovanni Evangelista at Parma. Niccolò has been more excellent in fresco-painting than in the other fields of painting, and, in addition to many works that he has executed at Modena and Bologna, I understand that he has painted some very choice pictures in France, where he still lives, under Messer Francesco Primaticcio, Abbot of S. Martin, after whose designs Niccolò has painted many works in those parts, as will be related in the Life of Primaticcio. [Footnote 1: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.] Giovan Battista, also, a rival of that Niccolò, has executed many works in Rome and elsewhere, and in particular he has painted at Perugia, in the Chapel of Signor Ascanio della Cornia, in S. Francesco, many pictures of the life of S. Andrew the Apostle, in which he has acquitted himself very well. In competition with the above-named Niccolò, the Fleming Arrigo, a master of glass windows, has painted in the same place an altar-piece in oils, containing the story of the Magi, which would be beautiful enough if it were not somewhat confused and overloaded with colours, which conflict with one another and destroy all the gradation; but he has acquitted himself better in a window of glass designed and painted by himself, and executed for the Chapel of S. Bernardino in S. Lorenzo, in the same city. But to return to Giovan Battista; having gone back after the above-named works to Modena, he has executed in the same S. Piero, for which Niccolò painted the altar-piece, two great scenes at the sides, of the actions of S. Peter and S. Paul, in which he has acquitted himself with no ordinary excellence. In the same city of Modena there have also been some sculptors worthy to be numbered among the good craftsmen, for, in addition to Modanino, of whom mention has been made in another place, there has been a master called Il Modena, who has executed most beautiful works in figures of terra-cotta, of the size of life and even larger; among others, those of a chapel in S. Domenico at Modena, and for the centre of the dormitory of S. Piero (a monastery of Black Friars, likewise in Modena), a Madonna, S. Benedict, S. Giustina, and another Saint. To all these figures he has given so well the colour of marble, that they appear as if truly of that stone; not to mention that they all have beautiful expressions of countenance, lovely draperies, and admirable proportions. The same master has executed similar figures for the dormitory of S. Giovanni Evangelista at Parma; and he has made a good number of figures in the round and of the size of life for many niches on the outer side of S. Benedetto at Mantua, in the façade and under the portico, which are so fine that they have the appearance of marble. [Illustration: THE MADONNA AND CHILD WITH S. JOHN (_After the terra-cotta by =Il Modena [Antonio Begarelli]=. Modena: Museo Civico_) _Alinari_] In like manner Prospero Clemente, a sculptor of Modena, has been, and still is, an able man in his profession, as is evident from the tomb of Bishop Rangone, by his hand, in the Duomo of Reggio, wherein is a seated statue of that prelate, as large as life, with two little boys, all very well executed; which tomb he made at the commission of Signor Ercole Rangone. In the Duomo of Parma, likewise, in the vaults below, there is by the hand of Prospero the tomb of the Blessed Bernardo degli Uberti, the Florentine, Cardinal and Bishop of that city, which was finished in the year 1548, and much extolled. Parma, also, has had at various times many excellent craftsmen and men of fine genius, as has been said above, for, besides one Cristofano Castelli, who painted a very beautiful altar-piece for the Duomo in the year 1499, and Francesco Mazzuoli, whose Life has been written, there have been many other able men in that city. Mazzuoli, as has been related, executed certain works in the Madonna della Steccata, but left that undertaking unfinished at his death, and Giulio Romano, having made a coloured design on paper, which may be seen in that place by everyone, directed that a certain Michelagnolo Anselmi, a Sienese by origin, but a citizen of Parma by adoption, being a good painter, should carry that cartoon into execution, wherein is the Coronation of Our Lady. This he did excellently well, in truth, so that he well deserved that there should be allotted to him a great niche--one of four very large niches that are in that temple--opposite to that in which he had executed the above-mentioned work after the design of Giulio. Whereupon, setting his hand to this, he carried well on towards completion there the Adoration of the Magi, with a good number of beautiful figures, making on the flat arch, as was related before in the Life of Mazzuoli, the Wise Virgins and the design of copper rosettes; but, when about a third of that work remained for him to do, he died, and so it was finished by Bernardo Soiaro of Cremona, as we shall relate in a short time. By the hand of that Michelagnolo is the Chapel of the Conception in S. Francesco, in the same city; and a Celestial Glory in the Chapel of the Cross in S. Pier Martire. Girolamo Mazzuoli, the cousin of Francesco, as has been told, continuing the work in that Church of the Madonna, left unfinished by his kinsman, painted an arch with the Wise Virgins and adorned it with rosettes. Then, in the recess at the end, opposite to the principal door, he painted the Holy Spirit descending in Tongues of Fire on the Apostles, and in the last of the flat arches the Nativity of Jesus Christ, which, although not yet uncovered, he has shown to us this year of 1566, to our great pleasure, since it is a truly beautiful example of work in fresco. The great central tribune of the same Madonna della Steccata, which is being painted by Bernardo Soiaro, the painter of Cremona, will also be, when finished, a rare work, and able to compare with the others that are in that place. But of all these it cannot be said that the cause has been any other than Francesco Mazzuoli, who was the first who with beautiful judgment began the magnificent ornamentation of that church, which, so it is said, was built after the designs and directions of Bramante. [Illustration: FOUR SAINTS (_After =Begarelli=. Modena: S. Pietro_) _Anderson_] As for the masters of our arts in Mantua, besides what has been said of them up to the time of Giulio Romano, I must say that he sowed the seeds of his art in Mantua and throughout all Lombardy in such a manner that there have been able men there ever since, and his own works are every day more clearly recognized as good and worthy of praise. And although Giovan Battista Bertano, the principal architect for the buildings of the Duke of Mantua, has constructed in the Castle, over the part where there are the waters and the corridor, many apartments that are magnificent and richly adorned with stucco-work and pictures, executed for the most part by Fermo Ghisoni, the disciple of Giulio, and by others, as will be related, nevertheless he has not equalled those made by Giulio himself. The same Giovan Battista has caused Domenico Brusciasorzi to execute after his design for S. Barbara, the church of the Duke's Castle, an altar-piece in oils truly worthy to be praised, in which is the Martyrdom of that Saint. And, in addition, having studied Vitruvius, he has written and published a work on the Ionic volute, showing how it should be turned, after that author; and at the principal door of his house at Mantua he has placed a complete column of stone, and the flat module of another, with all the measurements of that Ionic Order marked, and also the palm, inch, foot, and braccio of the ancients, to the end that whoever so desires may be able to see whether those measurements are correct or not. In the Church of S. Piero, the Duomo of Mantua, which was the work and architecture of the above-named Giulio Romano, since in renovating it he gave it a new and modern form, the same Bertano has caused an altar-piece to be executed for each chapel by the hands of various painters; and two of these he has had painted after his own designs by the above-mentioned Fermo Ghisoni, one for the Chapel of S. Lucia, containing that Saint and two children, and the other for that of S. Giovanni Evangelista. Another similar picture he caused to be executed by Ippolito Costa of Mantua, in which is S. Agata with the hands bound and between two soldiers, who are cutting and tearing away her breasts. Battista d'Agnolo del Moro of Verona painted for the same Duomo, as has been told, the altar-piece that is on the altar of S. Maria Maddalena, and Girolamo Parmigiano that of S. Tecla. Paolo Farinato of Verona Bertano commissioned to execute the altar-piece of S. Martino, and the above-named Domenico Brusciasorzi that of S. Margherita; and Giulio Campo of Cremona painted that of S. Gieronimo. And one that was better than any other, although all are very beautiful, in which is S. Anthony the Abbot beaten by the Devil in the form of a woman, who tempts him, is by the hand of Paolo Veronese. But of all the craftsmen of Mantua, that city has never had a more able master in painting than Rinaldo, who was a disciple of Giulio. By his hand is an altar-piece in S. Agnese in that city, wherein is Our Lady in the air, with S. Augustine and S. Jerome, which are very good figures; but him death snatched from the world before his time. In a very beautiful antiquarium and study made by Signor Cesare Gonzaga, which is full of ancient statues and heads of marble, that lord has had the genealogical tree of the House of Gonzaga painted, in order to adorn it, by Fermo Ghisoni, who has acquitted himself very well in everything, and especially in the expressions of the heads. The same Signor Cesare has placed there, in addition, some pictures that are certainly very rare, such as that of the Madonna with the Cat which Raffaello da Urbino painted, and another wherein Our Lady with marvellous grace is washing the Infant Jesus. In another little cabinet made for medals, which has been beautifully wrought in ebony and ivory by one Francesco da Volterra, who has no equal in such works, he has some little antique figures in bronze, which could not be more beautiful than they are. In short, between the last time that I saw Mantua and this year of 1566, when I have revisited that city, it has become so much more beautiful and ornate, that, if I had not seen it for myself, I would not believe it; and, what is more, the craftsmen have multiplied there, and they still continue to multiply. Thus, to that Giovan Battista Mantovano, an excellent sculptor and engraver of prints, of whom we have spoken in the Life of Giulio Romano and in that of Marc'Antonio Bolognese, have been born two sons, who engrave copper-plates divinely well, and, what is even more astonishing, a daughter, called Diana, who also engraves so well that it is a thing to marvel at; and I who saw her, a very gentle and gracious girl, and her works, which are most beautiful, was struck with amazement. Nor will I omit to say that in S. Benedetto, a very celebrated monastery of Black Friars at Mantua, renovated by Giulio Romano after a most beautiful design, are many works executed by the above-named craftsmen of Mantua and other Lombards, in addition to those described in the Life of the same Giulio. There are, then, works by Fermo Ghisoni, such as a Nativity of Christ, two altar-pieces by Girolamo Mazzuoli, three by Lattanzio Gambara of Brescia, and three others by Paolo Veronese, which are the best. In the same place, at the head of the refectory, by the hand of a certain Fra Girolamo, a lay-brother of S. Dominic, as has been related elsewhere, is a picture in oils which is a copy of the very beautiful Last Supper that Leonardo painted in S. Maria delle Grazie at Milan, and copied so well, that I was amazed by it. Of which circumstance I make mention again very willingly, having seen Leonardo's original in Milan, this year of 1566, reduced to such a condition, that there is nothing to be seen but a mass of confusion; wherefore the piety of that good father will always bear testimony in that respect to the genius of Leonardo da Vinci. By the hand of the same monk I have seen in the above-named house of the Mint, at Milan, a picture copied from one by Leonardo, in which are a woman that is smiling and S. John the Baptist as a boy, counterfeited very well. [Illustration: THE PURIFICATION OF THE VIRGIN (_After the fresco by =Giulio Campi=. Cremona: S. Margherita_) _Alinari_] Cremona, as was said in the Life of Lorenzo di Credi and in other places, has had at various times men who have executed in painting works worthy of the highest praise. And we have already related that when Boccaccio Boccaccino was painting the great recess of the Duomo at Cremona and the stories of Our Lady throughout the church, Bonifazio Bembi was also a good painter, and Altobello executed in fresco many stories of Jesus Christ with much more design than have those of Boccaccino. After these works Altobello painted in fresco a chapel in S. Agostino of the same city, in a manner full of beauty and grace, as may be seen by everyone. At Milan, in the Corte Vecchia--that is, the courtyard, or rather, piazza of the Palace--he painted a standing figure armed in the ancient fashion, much better than any of the others that were executed there by many painters about the same time. After the death of Bonifazio, who left unfinished the above-mentioned stories of Christ in the Duomo of Cremona, Giovanni Antonio Licinio of Pordenone, called in Cremona De' Sacchi, finished those stories begun by Bonifazio, painting there in fresco five scenes of the Passion of Christ with a grand manner in the figures, bold colouring, and foreshortenings that have vivacity and force; all which things taught the good method of painting to the Cremonese, and not in fresco only, but likewise in oils, for the reason that in the same Duomo, placed against a pilaster in the centre of the church, is an altar-piece by the hand of Pordenone that is very beautiful. Camillo, the son of Boccaccino, afterwards imitated that manner in painting in fresco the principal chapel of S. Gismondo, without the city, and in other works, and so succeeded much better than his father had done. That Camillo, however, being slow and even dilatory in his work, did not paint much save small things and works of little importance. But he who imitated most the good manners, and who profited most by the competition of the above-named masters, was Bernardo de' Gatti, called Il Soiaro, of whom mention has been made in speaking of Parma. Some say that he was of Verzelli, and others of Cremona; but, wherever he may have come from, he painted a very beautiful altar-piece for the high-altar of S. Piero, a church of the Canons Regular, and in their refectory the story of the miracle that Jesus Christ performed with the five loaves and two fishes, satisfying an infinite multitude, although he retouched it so much "a secco," that it has since lost all its beauty. That master also executed under a vault in S. Gismondo, without Cremona, the Ascension of Jesus Christ into Heaven, which was a pleasing work and very beautiful in colouring. In the Church of S. Maria di Campagna at Piacenza, in competition with Pordenone and opposite to the S. Augustine that has been mentioned, he painted in fresco a S. George in armour and on horseback, who is killing the Serpent, with spirit, movement, and excellent relief. That done, he was commissioned to finish the tribune of that church, which Pordenone had left unfinished, wherein he painted in fresco all the life of the Madonna; and although the Prophets and Sibyls that Pordenone executed there, with some children, are beautiful to a marvel, nevertheless Soiaro acquitted himself so well, that the whole of that work appears as if all by one and the same hand. In like manner, some little altar-pieces that he has executed at Vigevano are worthy of considerable praise for their excellence. Finally, after he had betaken himself to Parma to work in the Madonna della Steccata, the great niche and the arch that were left incomplete through the death of Michelagnolo of Siena were finished by the hands of Soiaro. And to him, from his having acquitted himself well, the people of Parma have since given the charge of painting the great tribune that is in the centre of that church, where he is now constantly occupied in executing in fresco the Assumption of Our Lady, which, it is hoped, is to prove a most admirable work. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST (_After the panel by =Sofonisba Anguisciola=. Vienna: Imperial Gallery, 109_) _Bruckmann_] While Boccaccino was still alive, but old, Cremona had another painter, called Galeazzo Campo, who painted the Rosary of the Madonna in a large chapel in the Church of S. Domenico, and the façade at the back of S. Francesco, with other works and altar-pieces by his hand that are in Cremona, all passing good. To him were born three sons, Giulio, Antonio, and Vincenzio; but Giulio, although he learned the first rudiments of art from his father Galeazzo, nevertheless afterwards followed the manner of Soiaro, as being better, and studied much from some canvases executed in colours at Rome by the hand of Francesco Salviati, which were painted for the weaving of tapestries, and sent to Piacenza to Duke Pier Luigi Farnese. The first works that this Giulio executed in his youth at Cremona were four large scenes in the choir of the Church of S. Agata, containing the martyrdom of that virgin, which proved to be such, that a well-practised master might perhaps not have done them so well. Then, after executing some works in S. Margherita, he painted many façades of palaces in chiaroscuro, with good design. For the Church of S. Gismondo, without the city, he painted in oils the altar-piece of the high-altar, which was very beautiful on account of the diversity and multitude of the figures that he executed in it, in competition with the many painters who had worked in that place before him. After the altar-piece he painted there many things in fresco on the vaulting, and in particular the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, who are foreshortened to be seen from below, with beautiful grace and great artistry. At Milan, for the Church of the Passione, a convent of Canons Regular, he painted a Christ Crucified on a panel in oils, with some Angels, the Madonna, S. John the Evangelist, and the other Maries. In the Nunnery of S. Paolo, a convent also in Milan, he executed four scenes, with the Conversion and other acts of that Saint. In that work he was assisted by Antonio Campo, his brother, who also painted for the Nunnery of S. Caterina at the Porta Ticinese, likewise in Milan, for a chapel in the new church, the architecture of which is by Lombardino, a picture in oils of S. Helen directing the search for the Cross of Christ, which is a passing good work. And Vincenzio, likewise, the third of those three brothers, having learned much from Giulio, as Antonio has also done, is a young man of excellent promise. To the same Giulio Campo have been disciples not only his two above-named brothers, but also Lattanzio Gambara and others; but most excellent in painting, doing him more honour than any of the rest, has been Sofonisba Anguisciuola of Cremona, with her three sisters, which most gifted maidens are the daughters of Signor Amilcare Anguisciuola and Signora Bianca Punzona, both of whom belong to the most noble families in Cremona. Speaking, then, of Signora Sofonisba, of whom we said but little in the Life of Properzia of Bologna, because at that time we knew no more, I must relate that I saw this year in the house of her father at Cremona, in a picture executed with great diligence by her hand, portraits of her three sisters in the act of playing chess, and with them an old woman of the household, all done with such care and such spirit, that they have all the appearance of life, and are wanting in nothing save speech. In another picture may be seen, portrayed by the same Sofonisba, her father Signor Amilcare, who has on one side one of his daughters, her sister, called Minerva, who was distinguished in painting and in letters, and on the other side Asdrubale, their brother, the son of the same man; and these, also, are executed so well, that they appear to be breathing and absolutely alive. At Piacenza, in the house of the reverend Archdeacon of the principal church, are two very beautiful pictures by the same hand: in one is the portrait of the Archdeacon, and in the other that of Sofonisba herself, and each of those figures lacks nothing save speech. That lady, having been brought afterwards by the Duke of Alva, as was related above, into the service of the Queen of Spain, in which she still remains at the present day with a handsome salary and much honour, has executed a number of portraits and pictures that are things to marvel at. Moved by the fame of which works, Pope Pius IV had Sofonisba informed that he desired to have from her hand the portrait of her serene Highness the Queen of Spain; wherefore, having executed it with all the diligence in her power, she sent it to Rome to be presented to him, writing to his Holiness a letter in the precise form given below: [Illustration: THE MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS (_After the painting by =Girolamo Romanino=. Brescia: S. Francesco_) _Alinari_] "HOLY FATHER, "From the very reverend Nuncio of your Holiness I understood that you desired to have a portrait by my hand of her Majesty the Queen, my Liege-lady. And since I accepted this commission as a singular grace and favour, having thus to serve your Holiness, I asked leave of her Majesty, who granted it very willingly, recognizing therein the fatherly affection that your Holiness bears to her. Taking the opportunity presented by this Chevalier, I send it to you, and, if I shall have satisfied therein the desire of your Holiness, I shall receive infinite compensation; but I must not omit to tell you that if it were possible in the same way to present with the brush to the eyes of your Holiness the beauties of the mind of this most gracious Queen, you would see the most marvellous thing in all the world. But in those parts which can be portrayed by art, I have not failed to use all the diligence in my power and knowledge, in order to present the truth to your Holiness. And with this conclusion, in all reverence and humility, I kiss your most holy feet. "From the most humble servant of your Holiness, "SOFONISBA ANGUISCIUOLA. "At Madrid, on the 16th of September, 1561." To that letter his Holiness answered with that given below, which, having thought the portrait marvellously beautiful, he accompanied with gifts worthy of the great talents of Sofonisba: "PIUS PAPA IV DILECTA IN CHRISTO FILIA. "We have received the portrait of the most gracious Queen of Spain, our dearest daughter, which you have sent to us; and it has been most acceptable to us, both on account of the person therein represented, whom we love with the love of a father by reason of her true piety and her other most beautiful qualities of mind, to say nothing of other reasons, and also because it has been very well and diligently executed by your hand. We thank you for it, assuring you that we shall hold it among our dearest possessions, and commending this your art, which, although it is marvellous, we understand to be the least of the many gifts that are in you. And with this conclusion we send you once again our benediction. May our Lord God preserve you. "Dat. Romæ, die 15 Octob., 1561." And let this testimony suffice to prove how great is the talent of Sofonisba. A sister of hers, called Lucia, left at her death fame no less than that of Sofonisba, by means of some pictures by her hand that are no less beautiful and precious than those of her sister described above, as may be seen at Cremona from a portrait that she executed of Signor Pietro Maria, an eminent physician, but even more from another portrait, painted by that gifted maiden, of the Duke of Sessa, which was counterfeited by her so well, that it would seem impossible to do better or to make a portrait with a more animated likeness. The third of the sisters Anguisciuola, called Europa, is still a child in age. To her, a girl all grace and talent, I have spoken this very year; and, in so far as one can see from her works and drawings, she will be in no way inferior to Sofonisba and Lucia, her sisters. This Europa has executed many portraits of gentlemen at Cremona, which are altogether beautiful and natural, and one of her mother, Signora Bianca, she sent to Spain, which vastly pleased Sofonisba and everyone of that Court who saw it. Anna, the fourth sister, although but a little girl, is also giving her attention with much profit to design: so that I know not what to say save that it is necessary to have by nature an inclination for art, and then to add to that study and practice, as has been done by those four noble and gifted sisters, so much enamoured of every rare art, and in particular of the matters of design, insomuch that the house of Signor Amilcare Anguisciuola, most happy father of a fair and honourable family, appeared to me the home of painting, or rather, of all the arts. But, if women know so well how to produce living men, what marvel is it that those who wish are also so well able to create them in painting? But to return to Giulio Campo, of whom I have said that those young women are the disciples; besides other works, a painting on cloth that he has made as a cover for the organ in the Cathedral Church, is executed with much study in distemper, with a great number of figures representing the stories of Esther and Ahasuerus and the Crucifixion of Haman. And in the same church there is a graceful altar-piece by his hand on the altar of S. Michael; but since Giulio is still alive, I shall say no more for the present about his works. Of Cremona, likewise, were the sculptor Geremia, who was mentioned by us in the Life of Filarete,[2] and who has executed a large work in marble in S. Lorenzo, a seat of the Monks of Monte Oliveto; and Giovanni Pedoni, who has done many works at Cremona and Brescia, and in particular many things in the house of Signor Eliseo Raimondo, which are beautiful and worthy of praise. [Footnote 2: Really in the Life of Filippo Brunelleschi, p. 236, Vol. II.] [Illustration: THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN (_After the painting by =Alessandro Bonvicino [Il Moretto _or_ Moretto da Brescia]=. Brescia: SS. Nazaro e Celso_) _Alinari_] In Brescia, also, there have been, and still are, persons most excellent in the arts of design, and, among others, Girolamo Romanino has executed innumerable works in that city. The altar-piece on the high-altar of S. Francesco, which is a passing good picture, is by his hand, and so also the little shutters that enclose it, which are painted in distemper both within and without; and his work, likewise, is another altar-piece executed in oils that is very beautiful, wherein may be seen masterly imitations of natural objects. But more able than that Girolamo was Alessandro Moretto, who painted in fresco, under the arch of the Porta Brusciata, the Translation of the bodies of SS. Faustino and Jovita, with some groups of figures that are accompanying those bodies, all very well done. For S. Nazzaro, also in Brescia, he executed certain works, and others for S. Celso, which are passing good, and an altar-piece for S. Piero in Oliveto, which is full of charm. At Milan, in the house of the Mint, there is a picture by the hand of that same Alessandro with the Conversion of S. Paul, and other heads that are very natural, with beautiful adornments of draperies and vestments, for the reason that he much delighted to counterfeit cloth of gold and of silver, velvets, damasks, and other draperies of every kind, which he used to place on the figures with great diligence. The heads by the hand of that master are very lifelike, and hold to the manner of Raffaello da Urbino, and even more would they hold to it if he had not lived so far from Raffaello. The son-in-law of Alessandro was Lattanzio Gambara, a painter of Brescia, who, having learned his art, as has been related, under Giulio Campo of Verona,[3] is now the best painter that there is in Brescia. By his hand, in the Black Friars Church of S. Faustino, are the altar-piece of the high-altar, and the vaulting and walls painted in fresco, with other pictures that are in the same church. In the Church of S. Lorenzo, also, the altar-piece of the high-altar is by his hand, with two scenes that are on the walls, and the vaulting, all painted in fresco almost in the same manner. He has also painted, besides many other façades, that of his own house, with most beautiful inventions, and likewise the interior; in which house, situated between S. Benedetto and the Vescovado, I saw, when I was last in Brescia, two very beautiful portraits by his hand, that of Alessandro Moretto, his father-in-law, which is a very lovely head of an old man, and that of the same Alessandro's daughter, his wife. And if the other works of Lattanzio were equal to those portraits, he would be able to compare with the greatest men of his art. But, since his works are without number, and he himself besides is still living, it must suffice for the present to have made mention of those named. [Footnote 3: Rather, of Cremona.] By the hand of Gian Girolamo Bresciano are many works to be seen in Venice and Milan, and in the above-mentioned house of the Mint there are four pictures of Night and of Fire, which are very beautiful. In the house of Tommaso da Empoli at Venice is a Nativity of Christ, a very lovely effect of night, and there are some other similar works of fantasy, in which he was a master. But, since he occupied himself only with things of that kind, and executed no large works, there is nothing more to be said of him save that he was a man of fanciful and inquiring mind, and that what he did deserves to be much commended. Girolamo Mosciano of Brescia, after spending his youth in Rome, has executed many beautiful works in figures and landscapes, and at Orvieto, in the principal Church of S. Maria, he has painted two altar-pieces in oils and some Prophets in fresco, which are good works; and the drawings by his hand that are published in engraving, are executed with good design. But, since he also is alive, serving Cardinal Ippolito d'Este in the buildings and restorations that he is carrying out in Rome, in Tivoli, and in other places, I shall say no more about him at present. There has returned recently from Germany Francesco Ricchino, likewise a painter of Brescia, who, besides many other pictures that he has painted in various places, has executed some works of painting in oils in the above-named S. Piero in Oliveto at Brescia, which are done with much study and diligence. [Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS (_After the painting by =Gian Girolamo Bresciano [Savoldo]=. Brescia: Palazzo Martinengo_) _Alinari_] The brothers Cristofano and Stefano, painters of Brescia, have a great name among craftsmen for their facility in drawing in perspective; and, among other works in Venice, they have counterfeited in painting on the flat ceiling of S. Maria dell'Orto a corridor of double twisted columns, similar to those of the Porta Santa in S. Pietro at Rome, which, resting on certain great consoles that project outwards, form a superb corridor with groined vaulting right round that church. This work, when seen from the centre of the church, displays most beautiful foreshortenings, which fill with astonishment everyone who sees them, and make the ceiling, which is flat, appear to be vaulted; besides that it is accompanied by a beautiful variety of mouldings, masks, festoons, and some figures, which make a very rich adornment to the work, which deserves to be vastly extolled by everyone, both for its novelty and for its having been carried to completion excellently well and with great diligence. And, since this method gave much satisfaction to that most illustrious Senate, there was entrusted to the same masters another ceiling, similar, but small, in the Library of S. Marco, which, for a work of that kind, was very highly extolled. Finally, those brothers have been summoned to their native city of Brescia to do the same with a magnificent hall which was begun on the Piazza many years ago, at vast expense, and erected over a theatre of large columns, under which is a promenade. This hall is sixty-two full paces long, thirty-five broad, and likewise thirty-five in height at the highest point of its elevation; although it appears much larger, being isolated on every side, and without any apartment or other building about it. On the ceiling of this magnificent and most honourable hall, then, those two brothers have been much employed, with very great credit to themselves; having made a roof-truss for the roof (which is covered with lead) of beams of wood that are very large, composed of pieces well secured with clamps of iron, and having turned the ceiling with beautiful artistry in the manner of a basin-shaped vault, so that it is a rich work. It is true that in that great space there are included only three pictures painted in oils, each of ten braccia, which were painted by the old Tiziano; whereas many more could have gone there, with a richer, more beautiful, and better proportioned arrangement of compartments, which would have made that hall more cheerful, handsome, and ornate; but in every other part it has been made with much judgment. [Illustration: THE HOLY FAMILY (_After the panel by =Bramantino=. Milan: Brera, 279_) _Anderson_] Now, having spoken in this part of our book, up to the present, of the craftsmen of design in the cities of Lombardy, it cannot but be well to say something about those of the city of Milan, the capital of that province, of whom no mention has been made here, although of some of them we have spoken in many other places in this our work. To begin, then, with Bramantino, of whom mention has been made in the Life of Piero della Francesca of the Borgo, I find that he executed many more works than I have enumerated above; and, in truth, it did not then appear to me possible that a craftsman so renowned, who introduced good design into Milan, should have executed works so few as those that had come to my notice. Now, after he had painted in Rome, as has been related, some apartments for Pope Nicholas V, and had finished over the door of S. Sepolcro, in Milan, the Christ in foreshortening, the Madonna who has Him on her lap, the Magdalene, and S. John, which was a very rare work, he painted in fresco, on a façade in the court of the Mint in Milan, the Nativity of Christ our Saviour, and, in the Church of S. Maria di Brera, in the tramezzo,[4] the Nativity of Our Lady, with some Prophets on the doors of the organ, which are foreshortened very well to be seen from below, and a perspective-view which recedes with a beautiful gradation excellently contrived; at which I do not marvel, he having always much delighted in the studies of architecture, and having had a very good knowledge of them. Thus I remember to have seen once in the hands of Valerio Vicentino a very beautiful book of antiquities, drawn with all the measurements by the hand of Bramantino, wherein were those of Lombardy and the ground-plans of many well-known edifices, which I drew from that book, being then a lad. In it was the Temple of S. Ambrogio in Milan, built by the Lombards, and all full of sculptures and pictures in the Greek manner, with a round tribune of considerable size, but not well conceived in the matter of architecture; which temple was rebuilt in the time of Bramantino, after his design, with a portico of stone on one side, and with columns in the manner of trunks of trees that have been lopped, which have in them something of novelty and variety. There, likewise, was drawn the ancient portico of the Church of S. Lorenzo in the same city, built by the Romans, which is a great work, beautiful and well worthy of note; but the temple there, or rather, the church, is in the manner of the Goths. In the same book was drawn the Temple of S. Aquilino, which is very ancient, and covered with incrustations of marble and stucco, very well preserved, with some large tombs of granite. In like manner, there was the Temple of S. Piero in Ciel d'Oro at Pavia, in which place is the body of S. Augustine, in a tomb that is in the sacristy, covered with little figures, which, according to my belief, is by the hands of Agostino and Agnolo, the sculptors of Siena. There, also, was drawn the tower of brick built by the Goths, which is a beautiful work, for there may be seen in it, besides other things, some figures fashioned of terra-cotta after the antique, each six braccia high, which have remained in passing good preservation down to the present day. In that tower, so it is said, died Boetius, who was buried in the above-named S. Piero in Ciel d'Oro, now called S. Agostino, where there may be seen, even at the present day, the tomb of that holy man, with the inscription placed there by Aliprando, who restored and rebuilt the church in the year 1222. And, besides all these, there was in that book, drawn by the hand of Bramantino himself, the very ancient Temple of S. Maria in Pertica, round in shape, and built with fragments by the Lombards; in which place now lie the bones from the slaughter of the Frenchmen and others who were routed and slain before Pavia, when King Francis I of France was taken prisoner there by the Emperor Charles V. [Footnote 4: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.] [Illustration: A WARRIOR (_After the fresco by =Bramantino=. Milan: Brera, No. 494_) _Alinari_] But let us now leave drawings on one side: Bramantino painted in Milan the façade of the house of Signor Giovan Battista Latuate, with a most beautiful Madonna, and on either side of her a Prophet. On the façade of Signor Bernardo Scacalarozzo he painted four Giants in imitation of bronze, which are reasonably good; with other works that are in Milan, which brought him credit, from his having been the first light of a good manner of painting that was seen in Milan, and the reason that after him Bramante became, on account of the good form that he gave to his buildings and perspective-views, an excellent master in the matters of architecture; for the first things that Bramante studied were the works of Bramantino. Under the direction of Bramante was built the Temple of S. Satiro, which pleases me exceedingly, for it is a very rich work, adorned both within and without with columns, double corridors, and other ornaments, with the accompaniment of a most beautiful sacristy all full of statues. But above all does the central tribune of that place merit praise, the beauty of which, as has been related in the Life of Bramante, was the reason that Bernardino da Trevio followed that method in the Duomo of Milan, and gave his attention to architecture, although his first and principal art was painting; having executed, as has been related, in a cloister of the Monastery of S. Maria delle Grazie, four scenes of the Passion in fresco, and some others in chiaroscuro. [Illustration: SALOME (_After the panel by =Cesare da Sesto=. Vienna: Imperial Gallery, 91_) _Bruckmann_] By that Bernardino was brought forward and much assisted the sculptor Agostino Busto, called Il Bambaja, of whom there has been an account in the Life of Baccio da Montelupo. Agostino executed some works in S. Marta, a convent of nuns in Milan, among which, although it is difficult to obtain leave to enter that place, I have seen the tomb of Monsignor de Foix, who died at Pavia,[5] in the form of many pieces of marble, wherein are about ten scenes with little figures, carved with much diligence, of the deeds, battles, victories, and triumphant assaults on strongholds of that lord, and finally his death and burial. To put it briefly, that work is such that I, gazing at it in amazement, stood for a while marvelling that it was possible for works so delicate and so extraordinary to be done with the hand and with tools of iron; for there may be seen in that tomb, executed with the most marvellous carving, decorations of trophies, arms of every kind, chariots, artillery, and many other engines of war, and, finally, the body of that lord in armour, large as life, and almost seeming to be full of gladness, as he lies dead, at the victories that he had gained. And certainly it is a pity that this work, which is well worthy to be numbered among the most stupendous examples of the art, should be unfinished and left to lie on the ground in pieces, and not built up in some place; wherefore I do not marvel that some figures have been stolen from it, and then sold and set up in other places. The truth is that there is so little humanity, or rather, piety, to be found among men at the present day, that of all those who were benefited and beloved by de Foix not one has ever felt a pang for his memory or for the beauty and excellence of the work. By the hand of the same Agostino Busto are some works in the Duomo, and, as has been related, the tomb of the Biraghi in S. Francesco, with many others that are very beautiful in the Certosa of Pavia. [Footnote 5: Ravenna.] A rival of Agostino was one Cristofano Gobbo, who also executed many works in the façade of the above-named Certosa and in the church, and that so well, that he can be numbered among the best sculptors that there were in Lombardy at that time. And the Adam and Eve that are in the east front of the Duomo of Milan, which are by his hand, are held to be rare works, and such as can stand in comparison with any that have been executed by other masters in those parts. Almost at the same time there lived at Milan another sculptor called Angelo, and by way of surname Ciciliano, who executed on the same side (of the Duomo), and of equal size, a S. Mary Magdalene raised on high by four little Angels, which is a very beautiful work, and by no means inferior to those of Cristofano. That sculptor also gave his attention to architecture, and executed, among other works, the portico of S. Celso in Milan, which was finished after his death by Tofano, called Lombardino, who, as was said in the Life of Giulio Romano, built many churches and palaces throughout all Milan, and, in particular, the convent, church, and façade of the Nuns of S. Caterina at the Porta Ticinese, with many other buildings similar to these. Silvio da Fiesole, labouring at the instance of Tofano in the works of that Duomo, executed in the ornament of a door that faces between the west and the north, wherein are several scenes from the life of Our Lady, the scene containing her Espousal, which is very beautiful; and that of equal size opposite to it, in which is the Marriage of Cana in Galilee, is by the hand of Marco da Grà, a passing well-practised sculptor. The work of these scenes is now being continued by a very studious young man called Francesco Brambilari, who has carried one of them almost to completion, a very beautiful work, in which are the Apostles receiving the Holy Spirit. He has made, also, a drop-shaped console of marble, all in open-work, with foliage and a group of children that are marvellous; and over that work, which is to be placed in the Duomo, there is to go a statue in marble of Pope Pius IV, one of the Medici, and a citizen of Milan. If there had been in that place the study of those arts that there is in Rome and in Florence, those able masters would have done, and would still be doing, astonishing things. And, in truth, they are greatly indebted at the present day to the Chevalier Leone Lioni of Arezzo, who, as will be told, has spent much time and money in bringing to Milan casts of many ancient works, taken in gesso, for his own use and that of the other craftsmen. But to return to the Milanese painters; after Leonardo da Vinci had executed there the Last Supper already described, many sought to imitate him, and these were Marco Oggioni and others, of whom mention has been made in Leonardo's Life. In addition to them, Cesare da Sesto, likewise a Milanese, imitated him very well; and, besides what has been mentioned in the Life of Dosso, he painted a large picture that is in the house of the Mint in Milan, a truly abundant and beautiful work, in which is Christ being baptized by John. By the same hand, also, in that place, is a head of Herodias, with that of S. John the Baptist in a charger, executed with most beautiful artistry. And finally he painted for S. Rocco, without the Porta Romana, an altar-piece containing that Saint as a very young man; with other pictures that are much extolled. Gaudenzio, a Milanese painter, who in his lifetime was held to be an able master, painted the altar-piece of the high-altar in S. Celso. In a chapel of S. Maria delle Grazie he executed in fresco the Passion of Jesus Christ, with figures of the size of life in strange attitudes; and then, in competition with Tiziano, he painted an altar-piece for a place below that chapel, in which, although he was very confident, he did not surpass the works of the others who had laboured in that place. Bernardino del Lupino, of whom some mention was made not very far back, painted in Milan, near S. Sepolcro, the house of Signor Gian Francesco Rabbia--that is, the façade, loggie, halls, and apartments--depicting there many of the Metamorphoses of Ovid and other fables, with good and beautiful figures, executed with much delicacy. And in the Monastero Maggiore he painted all the great altar-wall with different stories, and likewise, in a chapel, Christ scourged at the Column, with many other works, which are all passing good. [Illustration: GAUDENZIO FERRARI: MADONNA AND CHILD (_Milan: Brera, 277. Panel_)] And let this be the end of the above-written Lives of various Lombard craftsmen. [Illustration: S. PAUL (_After the panel by =Gaudenzio [Gaudenzio Ferrari]=. Paris: Louvre, 1285_) _Alinari_] RIDOLFO, DAVID, AND BENEDETTO GHIRLANDAJO LIVES OF RIDOLFO, DAVID, AND BENEDETTO GHIRLANDAJO PAINTERS OF FLORENCE Although it appears in a certain sense impossible that one who imitates some man excellent in our arts, and follows in his footsteps, should not become in great measure like him, nevertheless it may be seen that very often the brothers and sons of persons of singular ability do not follow their kinsmen in this respect, but fall away strangely from their standard. Which comes to pass, I think, not because there are not in them, through their blood, the same fiery spirit and the same genius, but rather from another reason--that is, from overmuch ease and comfort and from an over-abundance of means, which often prevent men from becoming industrious and assiduous in their studies. Yet this rule is not so fixed that the contrary does not sometimes happen. David and Benedetto Ghirlandajo, although they had very good parts and could have followed their brother Domenico in the matters of art, yet did not do so, for the reason that after the death of that same brother they strayed away from the path of good work, one of them, Benedetto, spending a long time as a wanderer, and the other distilling his brains away vainly in the study of mosaic. David, who had been much beloved by Domenico, and who loved him equally, both living and dead, finished after his death, in company with his brother Benedetto, many works begun by Domenico, and in particular the altar-piece of the high-altar in S. Maria Novella, that is, the part at the back, which now faces the choir; and some pupils of the same Domenico finished the predella in little figures, Niccolaio painting with great diligence, below the figure of S. Stephen, a disputation of that Saint, while Francesco Granacci, Jacopo del Tedesco, and Benedetto executed the figures of S. Antonino, Archbishop of Florence, and S. Catharine of Siena. And they painted an altar-picture of S. Lucia that is in that place, with the head of a friar, near the centre of the church; and many other paintings and pictures that are in the houses of various individuals. After having been several years in France, where he worked and earned not a little, Benedetto returned to Florence with many privileges and presents that he had received from that King in testimony of his talents. And finally, after having given his attention not only to painting but also to miniatures, he died at the age of fifty. David, although he drew and worked much, yet did not greatly surpass Benedetto: and this may have come about from his being too prosperous, and from not keeping his thoughts fixed on art, who is never found save by him who seeks her, and, when found, must not be abandoned, or she flies away. By the hand of David, in the garden of the Monks of the Angeli in Florence, at the head of a path that is opposite to a door that leads into that garden, are two figures in fresco at the foot of a Crucifix--namely, S. Benedict and S. Romualdo--with some other similar works, little worthy to have any record made of them. But, while David himself would not give attention to art, it was not a little to his credit that he caused his nephew Ridolfo, the son of Domenico, to devote himself to it with all diligence, and set him on the right way; for that Ridolfo, who was under the care of David, being a lad of beautiful genius, was placed by him to practise painting, and provided with all facilities for study by his uncle, who repented too late that he had not studied that art, and had spent all his time on mosaic. David executed on a thick panel of walnut-wood, which was to be sent to the King of France, a Madonna in mosaic, with some Angels about her, which was much extolled. And, living at Montaione, a township in Valdelsa, where he had furnaces, glass, and wood at his command, he executed there many works in glass and mosaic, and in particular some vases, which were presented to the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici, the elder, and three heads, that of S. Peter, that of S. Laurence, and that of Giuliano de' Medici, on a dish of copper, which are now in the guardaroba of the Duke. [Illustration: CHRIST BEARING THE CROSS (_After the painting by =Ridolfo Ghirlandajo=. London: National Gallery, 1143_) _Mansell_] Meanwhile Ridolfo, drawing from the cartoon of Michelagnolo, was held to be one of the best draughtsmen thus employed, and was therefore much beloved by everyone, and particularly by Raffaello Sanzio of Urbino, who at that time, also being a young man of great reputation, was living in Florence, as has been related, in order to learn art. After Ridolfo had studied from that cartoon, and had become well-practised in painting under Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco, he already knew so much, according to the judgment of the best masters, that Raffaello, when about to go to Rome at the summons of Pope Julius II, left him to finish the blue drapery and other little things that were wanting in the picture of a Madonna that he had painted for some gentlemen of Siena; which picture Ridolfo, after he had finished it with much diligence, sent to Siena. And Raffaello had not been long in Rome before he sought in many ways to attract Ridolfo to that city, but he, having never been out of sight of the Cupola, as the saying goes, and not being able to reconcile himself to living out of Florence, never accepted any proposal made to him that would interfere with his living in that city. For the Convent of the Nuns of Ripoli Ridolfo painted two altar-pieces in oils: in one the Coronation of Our Lady, and in the other a Madonna surrounded by certain Saints. For the Church of S. Gallo he painted in an altar-piece Christ bearing the Cross, with a good number of soldiers, and the Madonna and the other Maries, who are weeping in company with John, while Veronica is offering the Sudarium to Christ; all showing force and animation. That work, in which are many very beautiful heads, taken from life and executed with lovingness, acquired a great name for Ridolfo; and in it are portrayed his father and some lads who were working with him, and, of his friends, Poggino, Scheggia, and Nunziata, the head of the last-named being very lifelike. That Nunziata, although he was a puppet-painter, was in some things a person of distinction, and above all in preparing fireworks and the girandole that were made every year for the festival of S. John; and, since he was an amusing and facetious person, everyone took great pleasure in conversing with him. A citizen once saying to him that he was displeased with certain painters who could paint nothing but lewd things, and that he therefore wished him to paint a picture of a Madonna that might be seemly, well advanced in years and not likely to provoke lascivious thoughts, Nunziata painted him one with a beard. Another meaning to ask from him a Christ on the Cross for a ground-floor room where he lived in summer, and not being able to say anything but "I want a Christ on the Cross for summer," Nunziata, who saw him to be a simpleton, painted him one in breeches. But to return to Ridolfo. Having been commissioned to paint the Nativity of Christ in an altar-piece for the Monastery of Cestello, he exerted himself much, in order to surpass his rivals, and executed that work with the greatest diligence and labour at his command, painting therein the Madonna, who is adoring the Infant Christ, S. Joseph, and two figures, S. Francis and S. Jerome, kneeling. He also made there a most beautiful landscape, very like the Sasso della Vernia, where S. Francis received the Stigmata, and above the hut some Angels that are singing; and the whole work was very beautiful in colouring, and passing good in relief. About the same time, after executing an altar-piece that went to Pistoia, he set his hand to two others for the Company of S. Zanobi, which is beside the canonical buildings of S. Maria del Fiore; which altar-pieces were to stand on either side of the Annunciation that Mariotto Albertinelli had formerly painted there, as was related in his Life. Ridolfo, then, carried the two pictures to completion with great satisfaction to the men of that Company, painting in one S. Zanobi restoring a boy to life in the Borgo degli Albizzi in Florence, which is a very lively and spirited scene, for there are in it many heads portrayed from life, and some women who show very vividly their joy and astonishment at seeing the boy reviving and the spirit returning to him. In the other is the scene of the same S. Zanobi being carried dead by six Bishops from S. Lorenzo, where he was first buried, to S. Maria del Fiore, when, passing through the Piazza di S. Giovanni, an elm that was there, all withered, on the spot where there is now a column of marble, with a cross upon it in memory of the miracle, was no sooner touched (through the will of God) by the coffin wherein was the holy corpse, than it put forth leaves again and burst into bloom; which picture was no less beautiful than the others by Ridolfo mentioned above. [Illustration: THE MIRACLE OF S. ZANOBI (_After the painting by =Ridolfo Ghirlandajo=. Florence: Uffizi, 1275_) _Anderson_] Now those works were executed by that painter while his uncle David was still alive, and that good old man took the greatest pleasure in them, thanking God that he had lived so long as to see the art of Domenico come to life again, as it were, in Ridolfo. But finally, being seventy-four years of age, while he was preparing, old as he was, to go to Rome to take part in the holy Jubilee, he fell ill and died in the year 1525, and received burial from Ridolfo in S. Maria Novella, where the others of the Ghirlandajo family lie. Ridolfo had a brother called Don Bartolommeo in the Angeli, a seat of the Monks of Camaldoli in Florence, who was a truly religious, upright, and worthy man; and Ridolfo, who loved him much, painted for him in the cloister that opens into the garden--that is, in the loggia where there are the stories of S. Benedict painted in verdaccio by the hand of Paolo Uccello, on the right hand as one enters by the door of the garden--a scene in which that same Saint, seated at table with two Angels beside him, is waiting for bread to be sent for him into the grotto by Romanus, but the Devil has cut the cord with stones; and the same Saint investing a young man with the habit. But the best figure of all those that are on that little arch, is the portrait of a dwarf who stood at the door of the monastery at that time. In the same place, over the holy-water font at the entrance into the church, he painted in fresco-colours a Madonna with the Child in her arms, and some Angels about her, all very beautiful. And in the cloister that is in front of the chapter-house, in a lunette over the door of a little chapel, he painted in fresco S. Romualdo with the Church of the Hermitage of Camaldoli in his hand: and not long afterwards a very beautiful Last Supper that is at the head of the refectory of the same monks, which he did at the commission of Don Andrea Doffi the Abbot, who had been a monk of that monastery, and who had his own portrait painted in a corner at the foot. Ridolfo also executed three very beautiful stories of the Madonna, which have the appearance of miniatures, on a predella in the little Church of the Misericordia, in the Piazza di S. Giovanni. And for Matteo Cini, in a little tabernacle on the corner of his house, near the Piazza di S. Maria Novella, he painted Our Lady, S. Matthew the Apostle, and S. Dominic, with two little sons of that Matteo on their knees, portrayed from life; which work, although small, is very beautiful and full of grace. For the Nuns of S. Girolamo, of the Order of S. Francesco de' Zoccoli, on the heights of S. Giorgio, he painted two altar-pieces; in one is S. Jerome in Penitence, very beautiful, with a Nativity of Jesus Christ in the lunette above, and in the other, which is opposite to the first, is an Annunciation, and in the lunette above S. Mary Magdalene partaking of the Communion. In the Palace that is now the Duke's he painted the chapel where the Signori used to hear Mass, executing in the centre of the vaulting the most Holy Trinity, and in the other compartments some little Angels who are holding the Mysteries of the Passion, with some heads representing the twelve Apostles. In the four corners he painted the four Evangelists in whole-length figures, and at the head the Angel Gabriel bringing the Annunciation to the Virgin, depicting in a kind of landscape the Piazza della Nunziata in Florence as far as the Church of S. Marco; and all this work is executed excellently well, with many beautiful ornaments. When it was finished, he painted in an altar-piece, which was placed in the Pieve of Prato, Our Lady presenting the Girdle to S. Thomas, who is with the other Apostles. For Ognissanti, at the commission of Monsignor de' Bonafè, Director of the Hospital of S. Maria Nuova, and Bishop of Cortona, he executed an altar-piece with Our Lady, S. John the Baptist, and S. Romualdo; and for the same patron, having served him well, he painted some other works, of which there is no need to make mention. He then copied the three Labours of Hercules (which Antonio del Pollaiuolo had formerly painted in the Palace of the Medici), for Giovan Battista della Palla, who sent them to France. [Illustration: RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO: PORTRAIT OF A LADY (_Florence: Pitti, 224. Panel_)] After he had executed these and many other pictures, Ridolfo, happening to have in his house all the appliances for working in mosaic which had belonged to his uncle David and his father Domenico, and having also learned something of that work from the uncle, determined that he would try to do some work in mosaic with his own hand. Which having done, and finding that he was successful, he undertook to decorate the arch that is over the door of the Nunziata, wherein he made the Angel bringing the Annunciation to Our Lady. But, since he had not the patience for putting together all those little pieces, he never again did any work in that field of art. For a little church of the Company of Wool-carders at the head of the Campaccio, he painted in an altar-piece the Assumption of the Madonna, with a choir of Angels, and the Apostles about the Sepulchre. But by misadventure, the room in which the picture was having been filled in the year of the siege with green broom for making fascines, the damp so softened the gesso that it all peeled away; wherefore Ridolfo had to repaint it, and made in it his own portrait. At the Pieve of Giogoli, in a tabernacle that is on the high road, he painted Our Lady with two Angels; and in another tabernacle opposite to a mill of the Eremite Fathers of Camaldoli, which is on the Ema, beyond the Certosa, he painted many figures in fresco. By reason of all which works, Ridolfo, finding himself sufficiently employed, and living comfortably with a good income, would by no means rack his brains to do all that he could have done in painting, but rather became disposed to live like a gentleman and take life as it came. For the visit of Pope Leo to Florence, he executed in company with his young men and assistants all the festive preparations in the house of the Medici, and decorated the Sala del Papa and the adjoining rooms, causing the chapel to be painted by Pontormo, as has been related. In like manner, for the nuptials of Duke Giuliano and Duke Lorenzo he executed the decorations and some scenery for comedies; and, since he was much beloved by those lords for his excellence, he received many offices by their means, and was elected to the Collegio as an honoured citizen. Ridolfo did not disdain also to make pennons, standards, and other suchlike things in plenty, and I remember having heard him say that three times he had painted the banners of the Potenze,[6] which used every year to hold tournaments and keep the city festive. In short, all sorts of works used to be executed in his shop, so that many young men frequented it, each learning that which pleased him best. [Footnote 6: See note on p. 59, Vol. VI.] Thus Antonio del Ceraiolo, having been with Lorenzo di Credi, was then with Ridolfo, and afterwards, having withdrawn by himself, executed many works and portraits from life. In S. Jacopo tra Fossi there is by the hand of this Antonio an altar-piece, with S. Francis and S. Mary Magdalene at the foot of a Crucifix; and in the Church of the Servites, behind the high-altar, a S. Michelagnolo copied from that by Ghirlandajo in the Ossa of S. Maria Nuova. Another disciple of Ridolfo, who acquitted himself very well, was Mariano da Pescia, by whose hand is a picture of Our Lady, with the Infant Christ, S. Elizabeth, and S. John, executed very well, in the above-mentioned chapel of the Palace, which Ridolfo had previously painted for the Signoria. The same Mariano painted in chiaroscuro the whole house of Carlo Ginori, in the street which takes its name from that family, executing there stories from the life of Samson, in a very beautiful manner. And if this painter had enjoyed a longer life than he did, he would have become an excellent master. A disciple of Ridolfo, likewise, was Toto del Nunziata, who painted for S. Piero Scheraggio, in company with his master, an altar-piece of Our Lady, with the Child in her arms, and two Saints. [Illustration: THE CRUCIFIXION WITH SS. FRANCIS AND MARY MAGDALENE (_After the panel by =Antonio del Ceraiolo=. Florence: Accademia, 163_) _Brogi_] But dear beyond all the others to Ridolfo was a disciple of Lorenzo di Credi, who was also with Andrea del Ceraiolo, called Michele, a young man of an excellent nature, who executed his works with boldness and without effort. This Michele, then, following the manner of Ridolfo, approached him so closely that, whereas at the beginning he received from his master a third of his earnings, they came to execute their works in company, and shared the profits. Michele looked upon Ridolfo always as a father, and loved him, and also was so beloved by him, that, as one belonging to Ridolfo, he has ever been and still is known by no other name but Michele di Ridolfo. These two, I say, loving each other like father and son, executed innumerable works in company. First, for the Church of S. Felice in Piazza, a place then belonging to the Monks of Camaldoli, they painted in an altar-piece Christ and Our Lady in the air, who are praying to God the Father for the people below, where some Saints are kneeling. In S. Felicita they painted two chapels in fresco, despatching them in an able manner; in one is the Dead Christ with the Maries, and in the other the Assumption of Our Lady, with some Saints. For the Church of the Nuns of S. Jacopo delle Murate they executed an altar-piece at the commission of Bishop de' Bonafè of Cortona: and for the Convent of the Nuns of Ripoli another altar-piece with Our Lady and some Saints. For the Chapel of the Segni, below the organ in the Church of S. Spirito, they painted, likewise in an altar-piece, Our Lady, S. Anne, and many other Saints; for the Company of the Neri a picture of the Beheading of S. John the Baptist; and for the Monachine in Borgo S. Friano an altar-piece of the Annunciation. In another altar-piece, for S. Rocco at Prato, they painted S. Rocco, S. Sebastian, and between them Our Lady; and likewise, for the Company of S. Bastiano, beside S. Jacopo sopra Arno, they executed an altar-piece containing Our Lady, S. Sebastian, and S. James; with another for S. Martino alla Palma. And, finally, they painted for S. Alessandro Vitelli a S. Anne in a picture that was sent to Città di Castello, and placed in the chapel of that lord in S. Fiorido. But, since the works and pictures that issued from Ridolfo's shop were without number, and even more so the portraits from life, I shall say only that a portrait was made by him of Signor Cosimo de' Medici when he was very young, which was a most beautiful work, and very true to life; which picture is still preserved in the guardaroba of his Excellency. Ridolfo was a rapid and resolute painter in certain kinds of work, and particularly in festive decorations; and thus, for the entry of the Emperor Charles V into Florence, he executed in ten days an arch at the Canto alla Cuculia, and another arch in a very short time at the Porta al Prato for the coming of the most illustrious Lady, Duchess Leonora, as will be related in the Life of Battista Franco. At the Madonna di Vertigli, a seat of the Monks of Camaldoli, without the township of Monte Sansovino, Ridolfo, having with him the above-named Battista Franco and Michele, executed in chiaroscuro, in a little cloister, all the stories of the life of Joseph; in the church, the altar-pieces of the high-altar, and a Visitation of Our Lady in fresco, which is as beautiful as any work in fresco that Ridolfo ever painted. But lovely beyond all others, in the venerable aspect of the countenance, is the figure of S. Romualdo, which is on that high-altar. They also executed other pictures there, but it must suffice to have spoken of these. Ridolfo painted grotesques on the vaulting of the Green Chamber in the Palace of Duke Cosimo, and some landscapes on the walls, which much pleased the Duke. Finally, having grown old, Ridolfo lived a very happy life, having his daughters married, and seeing his sons well started in the affairs of commerce in France and at Ferrara. And, although afterwards he found himself so oppressed by the gout that he stayed always in the house or had to be carried in a chair, nevertheless he bore that infirmity with great patience, and also some misfortunes suffered by his sons. Old as he was, he felt a great love for the world of art, and insisted on being told of, and at times on seeing, those works that he heard much praised, such as buildings, pictures, and other suchlike things that were being executed every day; and one day that the Lord Duke was out of Florence, having had himself carried in his chair into the Palace, he dined there and stayed the whole day, gazing at that Palace, which was so changed and transformed from what it was before, that he did not recognize it; and in the evening, when going away, he said: "I die happy, because I shall be able to carry to our craftsmen in the next world the news that I have seen the dead restored to life, the ugly rendered beautiful, and the old made young." Ridolfo lived seventy-five years, and died in the year 1560; and he was buried with his forefathers in S. Maria Novella. His disciple Michele, who, as I have said, is called by no other name than Michele di Ridolfo, has painted in fresco, since Ridolfo left the world of art, three great arches over certain gates of the city of Florence; at S. Gallo, Our Lady, S. John the Baptist, and S. Cosimo, which are executed with very beautiful mastery; at the Porta al Prato, other similar figures; and, at the Porta alla Croce, Our Lady, S. John the Baptist, and S. Ambrogio; with altar-pieces and pictures without number, painted with good mastery. And I, on account of his goodness and capacity, have employed him several times, together with others, in the works of the Palace, with much satisfaction to myself and everyone besides. But that which pleases me most in him, in addition to his being a truly honest, orderly, and God-fearing man, is that he has always in his workshop a good number of young men, whom he teaches with incredible lovingness. A disciple of Ridolfo, also, was Carlo Portelli of Loro in the Valdarno di Sopra, by whose hand are some altar-pieces and innumerable pictures in Florence; as in S. Maria Maggiore, in S. Felicita, in the Nunnery of Monticelli, and, at Cestello, the altar-piece of the Chapel of the Baldesi on the right hand of the entrance into the church, wherein is the Martyrdom of S. Romolo, Bishop of Fiesole. [Illustration: THE MADONNA GIVING THE GIRDLE TO S. THOMAS (_After the painting by =Ridolfo Ghirlandajo=. Prato: Duomo_) _Brogi_] GIOVANNI DA UDINE LIFE OF GIOVANNI DA UDINE PAINTER In Udine, a city of Friuli, lived a citizen called Giovanni, of the family of the Nanni, who was the first of that family to give attention to the practice of embroidery, in which his descendants afterwards followed him with such excellence, that their house was called no longer De' Nanni but De' Ricamatori.[7] Among them, then, one Francesco, who lived always like an honourable citizen, devoted to the chase and to other suchlike exercises, had in the year 1494 a son, to whom he gave the name Giovanni; and this son, while still a child, showed such inclination to design that it was a thing to marvel at, for, following behind his father in his hunting and fowling, whenever he had time he was for ever drawing dogs, hares, bucks, and, in short, all the kinds of birds and beasts that came into his hands; which he did in such a fashion that everyone was astonished. Perceiving this inclination, his father Francesco took him to Venice, and placed him to learn the art of design with Giorgione da Castelfranco; but, while working under him, the boy heard the works of Michelagnolo and Raffaello so extolled, that he resolved at all costs to go to Rome. And so, having obtained from Domenico Grimani, who was much his father's friend, letters of introduction to Baldassarre Castiglioni, the Secretary of the Duke of Mantua and a close friend of Raffaello da Urbino, he went off to that city. There, having been placed by that Castiglioni in the school of the young men of Raffaello, he learned excellently well the principles of art, a thing which is of great importance, for the reason that when a man begins by adopting a bad manner, it rarely happens that he can abandon it without great difficulty, in order to learn a better. [Footnote 7: Embroiderers.] Giovanni, then, having been only a very short time under the discipline of Giorgione in Venice, when he had once seen the sweet, graceful, and beautiful manner of Raffaello, determined, like a young man of fine intelligence, that he would at all costs attach himself to that manner. And so, his brain and hand being equal to his noble intention, he made so much proficience, that in a short time he was able to draw very well and to work in colour with facility and grace, insomuch that, to put it in a few words, he succeeded in counterfeiting excellently well every natural object--animals, draperies, instruments, vases, landscapes, buildings, and verdure; in which not one of the young men of that school surpassed him. But, above all, he took supreme delight in depicting birds of every kind, insomuch that in a short time he filled a book with them, which was so well varied and so beautiful, that it was a recreation and a delight to Raffaello. Living with Raffaello was a Fleming called Giovanni, who was an excellent master in depicting fruits, leaves, and flowers with a very faithful and pleasing likeness to nature, although in a manner a little dry and laboured; and from him Giovanni da Udine learned to make them as beautiful as his master, and, what is more, with a certain soft and pastose manner that enabled him to become, as will be related, supremely excellent in some fields of art. He also learned to execute landscapes with ruined buildings and fragments of antiquities, and likewise to paint landscapes and verdure in colours on cloth, in the manner that has been followed after him not only by the Flemings, but also by all the Italian painters. Raffaello, who much loved the genius of Giovanni, in executing the altar-picture of S. Cecilia that is in Bologna, caused him to paint the organ which that Saint has in her hand; and he counterfeited it so well from the reality, that it appears as if in relief, and also all the musical instruments that are at the feet of the Saint. But what was of much greater import was that he made his painting so similar to that of Raffaello, that the whole appears as if by one and the same hand. Not long afterwards, excavations being made at S. Pietro in Vincula, among the ruins and remains of the Palace of Titus, in the hope of finding figures, certain rooms were discovered, completely buried under the ground, which were full of little grotesques, small figures, and scenes, with other ornaments of stucco in low-relief. Whereupon, Giovanni going with Raffaello, who was taken to see them, they were struck with amazement, both the one and the other, at the freshness, beauty, and excellence of those works, for it appeared to them an extraordinary thing that they had been preserved for so long a time; but it was no great marvel, for they had not been open or exposed to the air, which is wont in time, through the changes of the seasons, to consume all things. These grotesques--which were called grotesques from their having been discovered in the underground grottoes--executed with so much design, with fantasies so varied and so bizarre, with their delicate ornaments of stucco divided by various fields of colour, and with their little scenes so pleasing and beautiful, entered so deeply into the heart and mind of Giovanni, that, having devoted himself to the study of them, he was not content to draw and copy them merely once or twice; and he succeeded in executing them with facility and grace, lacking nothing save a knowledge of the method of making the stucco on which the grotesques were wrought. Now many before him, as has been related, had exercised their wits on this, but had discovered nothing save the method of making the stucco, by means of fire, with gypsum, lime, colophony, wax, and pounded brick, and of overlaying it with gold; and they had not found the true method of making stucco similar to that which had been discovered in those ancient chambers and grottoes. But at that time works were being executed in lime and pozzolana, as was related in the Life of Bramante, for the arches and the tribune at the back in S. Pietro, all the ornaments of foliage, with the ovoli and other members, being cast in moulds of clay, and Giovanni, after considering that method of working with lime and pozzolana, began to try if he could succeed in making figures in low-relief; and so, pursuing his experiments, he contrived to make them as he desired in every part, save that the outer surface did not come out with the delicacy and finish that the ancient works possessed, nor yet so white. On which account he began to think that it might be necessary to mix with the white lime of travertine, in place of pozzolana, some substance white in colour; whereupon, after making trial of various materials, he caused chips of travertine to be pounded, and found that it answered passing well, but that still the work was of a livid rather than a pure white, and also rough and granular. But finally, having caused chips of the whitest marble that could be found to be pounded and reduced to a fine powder, and then sifted, he mixed it with white lime of travertine, and discovered that thus he had succeeded without any doubt in making the true stucco of the ancients, with all the properties that he had desired therein. At which rejoicing greatly, he showed to Raffaello what he had done; wherefore he, who was then executing by order of Pope Leo X, as has been related, the Loggie of the Papal Palace, caused Giovanni to decorate all the vaulting there in stucco, with most beautiful ornaments bordered by grotesques similar to the antique, and with very lovely and fantastic inventions, all full of the most varied and extravagant things that could possibly be imagined. Having executed the whole of that ornamentation in half-relief and low-relief, he then divided it up with little scenes, landscapes, foliage, and various friezes, in which he touched the highest level, as it were, that art can reach in that field. In all this he not only equalled the ancients, but also, in so far as one can judge from the remains that we have seen, surpassed them, for the reason that these works of Giovanni's, in beauty of design, in the invention of figures, and in colouring, whether executed in stucco or painted, are beyond all comparison superior to those of the ancients that are to be seen in the Colosseum, and to the paintings in the Baths of Diocletian and in other places. In what other place are there to be seen birds painted that are more lifelike and natural, so to speak, in colouring, in the plumage, and in all other respects, than those that are in the friezes and pilasters of the Loggie? And they are there in as many varieties as Nature herself has been able to create, some in one manner and some in another; and many are perched on bunches, ears, and panicles, not only of corn, millet, and buckwheat, but of all the kinds of cereals, vegetables, and fruits that earth has produced from the beginning of time for the sustenance and nourishment of birds. As for the fishes, likewise, the sea-monsters, and all the other creatures of the water that Giovanni depicted in the same place, since the most that one could say would be too little, it is better to pass them over in silence rather than seek to attempt the impossible. And what should I say of the various kinds of fruits and flowers without number that are there, in all the forms, varieties, and colours that Nature contrives to produce in all parts of the world and in all the seasons of the year? What, likewise, of the various musical instruments that are there, all as real as the reality? And who does not know as a matter of common knowledge that--Giovanni having painted at the head of the Loggia, where the Pope had not yet determined what should be done in the way of masonry, some balusters to accompany the real ones of the Loggia, and over them a carpet--who, I say, does not know that one day, a carpet being urgently required for the Pope, who was going to the Belvedere, a groom, who knew not the truth of the matter, ran from a distance to take one of those painted carpets, being completely deceived? In short, it may be said, without offence to other craftsmen, that of all works of the kind this is the most beautiful, the most rare, and the most excellent painting that has ever been seen by mortal eye. And, in addition, I will make bold to say that this work has been the reason that not Rome only but also all the other parts of the world have been filled with this kind of painting, for, besides that Giovanni was the restorer and almost the inventor of grotesques in stucco and of other kinds, from this his work, which is most beautiful, whoever has wished to execute such things has taken his exemplar; not to mention that the young men that assisted Giovanni, who were many, and even, what with one time and another, innumerable, learned from the true master and filled every province with them. Then, proceeding to execute the first range below those Loggie, Giovanni used another and quite different method in the distribution of the stucco-work and paintings on the walls and vaultings of the other Loggie; but nevertheless those also were very beautiful, by reason of the pleasing invention of the pergole of canes counterfeited in various compartments, all covered with vines laden with grapes, and with clematis, jasmine, roses, and various kinds of birds and beasts. Next, Pope Leo, wishing to have painted the hall where the guard of halberdiers have their quarters, on the level of the above-named Loggie, Giovanni, in addition to the friezes of children, lions, Papal arms, and grotesques that are round that hall, made some divisions on the walls with imitations of variegated marbles of different kinds, similar to the incrustations that the ancient Romans used to make on their baths, temples, and other buildings, such as may be seen in the Ritonda and in the portico of S. Pietro. In another hall beside that one, which was used by the Chamberlains, Raffaello da Urbino painted in certain tabernacles some Apostles in chiaroscuro, large as life and very beautiful; and over the cornices of that work Giovanni portrayed from life many parrots of various colours which his Holiness had at that time, and also baboons, marmosets, civet-cats, and other strange creatures. But this work had a short life, for the reason that Pope Paul IV destroyed that apartment in order to make certain small closets and little places of retirement, and thus deprived the Palace of a very rare work; which that holy man would not have done if he had possessed any taste for the arts of design. Giovanni painted the cartoons for those hangings and chamber-tapestries that were afterwards woven in silk and gold in Flanders, in which are certain little boys that are sporting around various festoons, and as ornaments the devices of Pope Leo and various animals copied from life. These tapestries, which are very rare works, are still in the Palace at the present day. He also executed the cartoons for some tapestries full of grotesques, which are in the first rooms of the Consistory. [Illustration: ARABESQUES (_After the fresco by =Giovanni da Udine=. Rome: The Vatican, Loggia_) _Anderson_] While Giovanni was labouring at those works, the Palace of M. Giovan Battista dall'Aquila, which had been erected at the head of the Borgo Nuovo, near the Piazza di S. Pietro, had the greater part of the façade decorated in stucco by the hand of the same master, which was held to be a remarkable work. The same Giovanni executed the paintings and all the stucco-work in the loggia of the villa that Cardinal Giulio de' Medici caused to be built under Monte Mario, wherein are animals, grotesques, festoons, and friezes of such beauty, that it appears as if in that work Giovanni had sought to outstrip and surpass his own self. Wherefore he won from that Cardinal, who much loved his genius, in addition to many benefits that he received for his relatives, the gift of a canonicate for himself at Civitale in Friuli, which was afterwards given by Giovanni to a brother of his own. Then, having to make for the same Cardinal, likewise at that villa, a fountain with the water spouting through the trunk of an elephant's head in marble, he imitated in the whole work and in every detail the Temple of Neptune, which had been discovered a short time before among the ancient ruins of the Palazzo Maggiore, all adorned with lifelike products of the sea, and wrought excellently well with various ornaments in stucco; and he even surpassed by a great measure the artistry of that ancient hall by giving great beauty to those animals, shells, and other suchlike things without number, and arranging them very well. After this he made another fountain, but in a rustic manner, in the hollow of a torrent-bed surrounded by a wood; causing water to flow in drops and fine jets from sponge-stones and stalactites, with beautiful artifice, so that it had all the appearance of a work of nature. On the highest point of those hollow rocks and sponge-stones he fashioned a large lion's head, which had around it a garland formed of maidenhair and other plants, trained there with great artistry; and no one could believe what grace these gave to that wild place, which was most beautiful in every part and beyond all conception pleasing. That work finished, after the Cardinal had made Giovanni a Chevalier of S. Pietro, he sent him to Florence, to the end that, when a certain chamber had been made in the Palace of the Medici (at that corner, namely, where the elder Cosimo, the builder of that edifice, had made a loggia for the convenience and assemblage of the citizens, as it was the custom at that time for the most noble families to do), he might paint and adorn it all with grotesques and stucco. That loggia having then been enclosed after the design of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, and given the form of a chamber, with two knee-shaped windows, which were the first to be made in that manner, with iron gratings, for the exterior of a palace, Giovanni adorned all the vaulting with stucco-work and painting, making in a medallion the six balls, the arms of the House of Medici, supported by three little boys executed in relief in attitudes of great beauty and grace. Besides this, he made there many most beautiful animals, and also many most lovely devices of gentlemen and lords of that illustrious house, together with some scenes in half-relief, executed in stucco; and on the field of the vaulting he did the rest of the work in pictures, counterfeiting them after the manner of cameos in black and white, and so well, that nothing better could be imagined. There remained four arches beneath the vaulting, each twelve braccia in breadth and six in height, which were not painted at that time, but many years afterwards by Giorgio Vasari, as a young man of eighteen years, when he was in the service of Duke Alessandro de' Medici, his first lord, in the year 1535; which Giorgio executed there stories from the life of Julius Cæsar, in allusion to the above-named Cardinal Giulio, who had caused the work to be done. Giovanni then executed on a little barrel-shaped vault, beside that chamber, some works in stucco in the lowest of low-relief, and likewise some pictures, which are exquisite; but, although these pleased the painters that were in Florence at that time, being wrought with boldness and marvellous mastery, and filled with spirited and fantastic inventions, yet, since they were accustomed to a laboured manner of their own and to doing everything that they carried into execution with copies taken from life, they did not praise them without reserve, not being altogether decided in their minds, nor did they set themselves to imitate them, perhaps because they had not the courage. Having then returned to Rome, Giovanni executed in the loggia of Agostino Chigi, which Raffaello had painted and was still engaged in carrying to completion, a border of large festoons right round the groins and squares of the vaulting, making there all the kinds of fruits, flowers, and leaves, season by season, and fashioning them with such artistry, that everything may be seen there living and standing out from the wall, and as natural as the reality; and so many are the various kinds of fruits and plants that are to be seen in that work, that, in order not to enumerate them one by one, I will say only this, that there are there all those that Nature has ever produced in our parts. Above the figure of a Mercury who is flying, he made, to represent Priapus, a pumpkin entwined in bind-weed, which has for testicles two egg-plants, and near the flower of the pumpkin he depicted a cluster of large purple figs, within one of which, over-ripe and bursting open, the point of the pumpkin with the flower is entering; which conceit is rendered with such grace, that no one could imagine anything better. But why say more? To sum the matter up, I venture to declare that in that kind of painting Giovanni surpassed all those who have best imitated Nature in such works, for the reason that, besides all the other things, even the flowers of the elder, of the fennel, and of the other lesser plants are there in truly astonishing perfection. There, likewise, may be seen a great abundance of animals in the lunettes, which are encircled by those festoons, and certain little boys that are holding in their hands the attributes of the Gods; and, among other things, a lion and a sea-horse, being most beautifully foreshortened, are held to be divine. Having finished that truly extraordinary work, Giovanni executed a very beautiful bathroom in the Castello di S. Angelo, and in the Papal Palace, besides those mentioned above, many other small works, which for the sake of brevity are passed over. Raffaello having then died, whose loss much grieved Giovanni, and Pope Leo having also left this world, there was no more place in Rome for the arts of design or for any other art, and Giovanni occupied himself for many months on some works of little importance at the villa of the above-named Cardinal de' Medici. And for the arrival of Pope Adrian in Rome he did nothing but the small banners of the Castle, which he had renewed twice in the time of Pope Leo, together with the great standard that flies on the summit of the highest tower. He also executed four square banners when the Blessed Antonino, Archbishop of Florence, and S. Hubert, once Bishop of I know not what city of Flanders, were canonized as Saints by the above-mentioned Pope Adrian; of which banners, one, wherein is the figure of that S. Antonino, was given to the Church of S. Marco in Florence, where the body of the Saint lies, another, wherein is the figure of S. Hubert, was placed in S. Maria de Anima, the church of the Germans in Rome, and the other two were sent to Flanders. Clement VII having then been elected Supreme Pontiff, with whom Giovanni had a strait bond of service, he returned immediately from Udine, whither he had gone to avoid the plague, to Rome; where having arrived, he was commissioned to make a rich and beautiful decoration over the steps of S. Pietro for the coronation of that Pope. And afterwards it was ordained that he and Perino del Vaga should paint some pictures on the vaulting of the old hall opposite to the lower apartments, which lead from the Loggie, which he had painted before, to the apartments of the Borgia Tower; whereupon Giovanni executed there a most beautiful design in stucco-work, with many grotesques and various animals, and Perino the cars of the seven planets. They had also to paint the walls of that same hall, on which Giotto, according as is written by Platina in the Lives of the Pontiffs, had formerly painted some Popes who had been put to death for the faith of Christ, on which account that hall was called for a time the Hall of the Martyrs. But the vaulting was scarcely finished, when there took place that most unhappy sack of Rome, and the work could not be pursued any further. Thereupon Giovanni, having suffered not a little both in person and in property, returned again to Udine, intending to stay there a long time; but in that he did not succeed, for the reason that Pope Clement, after returning from Bologna, where he had crowned Charles V, to Rome, caused Giovanni also to return to that city, where he commissioned him first to make anew the standards of the Castello di S. Angelo, and then to paint the ceiling of the great chapel, the principal one in S. Pietro, where the altar of that Saint is. Meanwhile, Fra Mariano having died, who had the office of the Piombo, his place was given to Sebastiano Viniziano, a painter of great repute, and to Giovanni a pension on the same of eighty chamber-ducats. Then, after the troubles of the Pontiff had in great measure ceased and affairs in Rome had grown quiet, Giovanni was sent by his Holiness with many promises to Florence, to execute in the new sacristy of S. Lorenzo, which had been adorned with most excellent sculptures by Michelagnolo, the ornaments of the tribune, which is full of sunk squares that diminish little by little towards the central point. Setting his hand to this, then, Giovanni carried it excellently well to completion with the aid of many assistants, with most beautiful foliage, rosettes, and other ornaments of stucco and gold; but in one thing he failed in judgment, for the reason that on the flat friezes that form the ribs of the vaulting, and on those that run crossways, so as to enclose the squares, he made foliage, birds, masks, and figures that cannot be seen at all from the ground, although they are very beautiful, by reason of the distance, and also because they are divided up by other colours, whereas, if he had painted them in colours without any other elaboration, they would have been visible, and the whole work would have been brighter and richer. There remained no more of the work to be executed than he would have been able to finish in a fortnight, going over it again in certain places, when there came the news of the death of Pope Clement, and Giovanni was robbed of all his hopes, particularly of that which he expected from that Pontiff as the reward and guerdon of this work. Wherefore, having recognized, although too late, how fallacious in most cases are the hopes based on the favour of Courts, and how often those who put their trust in the lives of particular Princes are left disappointed, he returned to Rome; but, although he would have been able to live there on his offices and revenues, serving also Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici and the new Pontiff, Paul III, he resolved to repatriate himself and to return to Udine. Carrying that intention into effect, therefore, he went back to live in his native place with that brother to whom he had given the canonicate, determined that he would never more handle a brush. But in this also he was disappointed, for the reason that, having taken a wife and had children by her, he was in a manner forced by the instinct that a man naturally feels to bring up his children and to leave them in good circumstances, to set himself once more to work. He painted, then, at the entreaty of the father of the Chevalier Giovan Francesco di Spilimbergo, a frieze in a hall, filling it with children, festoons, fruits, and other things of fancy. After that, he adorned with lovely paintings and works in stucco the Chapel of S. Maria at Civitale; and for the Canons of the Duomo of that place he executed two most beautiful standards. And for the Confraternity of S. Maria di Castello, at Udine, he painted on a rich banner Our Lady with the Child in her arms, and an Angel full of grace who is offering to her that Castello, which stands on a hill in the centre of the city. At Venice, in the Palace of Grimani, the Patriarch of Aquileia, he decorated with stucco-work and paintings a very beautiful chamber in which are some lovely little scenes by the hand of Francesco Salviati. Finally, in the year 1550, Giovanni went to Rome to take part in the most holy Jubilee, on foot and dressed poorly as a pilgrim, and in the company of humble folk; and he stayed there many days without being known by anyone. But one day, while going to S. Paolo, he was recognized by Giorgio Vasari, who was riding in a coach to the same Pardon in company with Messer Bindo Altoviti, who was much his friend. At first Giovanni denied that it was he, but finally he was forced to reveal himself and to confess that he had great need of Giorgio's assistance with the Pope in the matter of the pension that he had from the Piombo, which was being denied to him by one Fra Guglielmo, a Genoese sculptor, who had received that office after the death of Fra Sebastiano. Giorgio spoke of this matter to the Pope, which was the reason that the bond was renewed, and afterwards it was proposed to exchange it for a canonicate at Udine for Giovanni's son. But afterwards, being again defrauded by that Fra Guglielmo, Giovanni went from Udine to Florence, after Pope Pius had been elected, in the hope of being assisted and favoured by his Excellency with that Pontiff, by means of Vasari. Having arrived in Florence, then, he was presented by Giorgio to his most illustrious Excellency, with whom he went to Siena, and then from there to Rome, whither there also went the Lady Duchess Leonora; and in such wise was he assisted by the kindness of the Duke, that he was not only granted all that he desired, but also set to work by the Pope with a good salary to give the final completion to the last Loggia, which is the one over that which Pope Leo had formerly caused him to decorate. That finished, the same Pope commissioned him to retouch all that first Loggia, which was an error and a thing very ill considered, for the reason that retouching it "a secco" caused it to lose all those masterly strokes that had been drawn by Giovanni's brush in all the excellence of his best days, and also the boldness and freshness that had made it in its original condition so rare a work. After finishing that work, Giovanni, being seventy years of age, finished also the course of his life, in the year 1564, rendering up his spirit to God in that most noble city which had enabled him for many years to live with so much success and so great a name. Giovanni was always, but much more in his last years, a God-fearing man and a good Christian. In his youth he took pleasure in scarcely any other thing but hunting and fowling; and his custom when he was young was to go hunting on feast-days with his servant, at times roaming over the Campagna to a distance of ten miles from Rome. He could shoot very well with the fusil and the crossbow, and therefore rarely returned home without his servant being laden with wild geese, ringdoves, wild ducks, and other creatures such as are to be found in those marshy places. Giovanni, so many declare, was the inventor of the ox painted on canvas that is made for using in that pursuit, so as to fire off the fusil without being seen by the wild creatures; and on account of those exercises of hunting and fowling he always delighted to keep dogs and to train them by himself. Giovanni, who deserves to be extolled among the greatest masters of his profession, chose to be buried in the Ritonda, near his master Raffaello da Urbino, in order not to be divided in death from him to whom in life his spirit was always attached; and since, as has been told, each of them was an excellent Christian, it may be believed that they are still together in eternal blessedness. BATTISTA FRANCO LIFE OF BATTISTA FRANCO PAINTER OF VENICE Battista Franco of Venice, having given his attention in his early childhood to design, went off at the age of twenty, as one who aimed at perfection in that art, to Rome, where, after he had devoted himself for some time with much study to design, and had seen the manner of various masters, he resolved that he would not study or seek to imitate any other works but the drawings, paintings, and sculptures of Michelagnolo; wherefore, having set himself to make research, there remained no sketch, study, or even any thing copied by Michelagnolo that he had not drawn. Wherefore no long time passed before he became one of the first draughtsmen who frequented the Chapel of Michelagnolo; and, what was more, he would not for a time set himself to paint or to do any other thing but draw. But in the year 1536, festive preparations of a grand and sumptuous kind being arranged by Antonio da San Gallo for the coming of the Emperor Charles V, in which, as has been related in another place, all the craftsmen, good and bad, were employed, Raffaello da Montelupo, who had to execute the decorations of the Ponte S. Angelo with the ten statues that were placed upon it, having seen that Battista was a young man of good parts and a finished draughtsman, resolved to bring it about that he also should be employed, and by hook or by crook to have some work given to him to do. And so, having spoken of this to San Gallo, he so contrived that Battista was commissioned to execute in fresco four large scenes in chiaroscuro on the front of the Porta Capena, now called the Porta di S. Bastiano, through which the Emperor was to enter. In that work Battista, without having hitherto touched colours, executed over the gate the arms of Pope Paul III and those of the Emperor Charles, with a Romulus who was placing on the arms of the Pontiff a Papal crown, and on those of the Emperor an Imperial crown; which Romulus, a figure of five braccia, dressed in the ancient manner, with a crown on the head, had on the right hand Numa Pompilius, and on the left Tullus Hostilius, and above him these words--Quirinus Pater. In one of the scenes that were on the faces of the towers standing on either side of the gate, was the elder Scipio triumphing over Carthage, which he had made tributary to the Roman people; and in the other, on the right hand, was the triumph of the younger Scipio, who had ruined and destroyed that same city. In one of the two pictures that were on the exterior of the towers, on the front side, could be seen Hannibal under the walls of Rome, driven back by the tempest, and in the other, on the left, Flaccus entering by that gate to succour Rome against that same Hannibal. All these scenes and pictures, being Battista's first paintings, and in comparison with those of the others, were passing good and much extolled. And, if Battista had begun from the first to paint and from time to time to practise using colours and handling brushes, there is no doubt that he would have surpassed many craftsmen; but his obstinate adherence to a certain opinion that many others hold, who persuade themselves that draughtsmanship is enough for him who wishes to paint, did him no little harm. For all that, however, he acquitted himself much better than did some of those who executed the scenes on the arch of S. Marco, on which there were eight scenes, four on each side, the best of which were painted partly by Francesco Salviati, and partly by a certain Martino[8] and other young Germans, who had come to Rome at that very time in order to learn. Nor will I omit to tell, in this connection, that the above-named Martino, who was very able in works in chiaroscuro, executed some battle scenes with such boldness and such beautiful inventions in certain encounters and deeds of arms between Christians and Turks, that nothing better could have been done. And the marvellous thing was that Martino and his assistants executed those canvases with such assiduity and rapidity, in order that the work might be finished in time, that they never quitted their labour; and since drink, and that good Greco, was continually being brought to them, what with their being constantly drunk and inflamed with the heat of the wine, and their facility in execution, they achieved wonders. Wherefore, when Salviati, Battista, and Calavrese saw the work of these men, they confessed that for him who wishes to be a painter it is necessary to begin to handle brushes in good time; which matter having afterwards considered more carefully in his own mind, Battista began not to give so much study to finishing his drawings, and at times to use colour. [Footnote 8: Martin Heemskerk.] Montelupo then going to Florence, where, in like manner, very great preparations were being made for the reception of the above-named Emperor, Battista went with him, and when they arrived they found those preparations well on the way to completion; but Battista, being set to work, made a base all covered with figures and trophies for the statue on the Canto de' Carnesecchi that Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli had executed. Having therefore become known among the craftsmen as a young man of good parts and ability, he was much employed afterwards at the coming of Madama Margherita of Austria, the wife of Duke Alessandro, and particularly in the festive preparations that Giorgio Vasari made in the Palace of Messer Ottaviano de' Medici, where that lady was to reside. These festivities finished, Battista set himself to draw with the greatest industry the statues of Michelagnolo that are in the new Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, to which at that time all the painters and sculptors of Florence had flocked to draw and to work in relief; and among these Battista made no little proficience, but, nevertheless, it was recognized that he had committed an error in never consenting to draw from the life and to use colours, or to do anything but imitate statues and little else besides, which had given his manner a hardness and dryness that he was not able to shake off, nor could he prevent his works from having a hard and angular quality, as may be seen from a canvas in which he depicted with much pains and labour the Roman Lucretia violated by Tarquinius. Consorting thus with the others and frequenting that sacristy, Battista formed a friendship with the sculptor Bartolommeo Ammanati, who was studying the works of Buonarroti there in company with many others. And of such a kind was that friendship, that Ammanati took Battista into his house, as well as Genga of Urbino, and they lived thus in company for some time, attending with much profit to the studies of art. Duke Alessandro having then been done to death in the year 1536, and Signor Cosimo de' Medici elected in his place, many of the servants of the dead Duke remained in the service of the new, but others did not, and among those who went away was the above-named Giorgio Vasari, who returned to Arezzo, with the intention of having nothing more to do with Courts, having lost Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, his first lord, and then Duke Alessandro; but he brought it about that Battista was invited to serve Duke Cosimo and to work in his guardaroba, where he painted in a large picture Pope Clement and Cardinal Ippolito, copying them from a work by Fra Sebastiano and from one by Tiziano, and Duke Alessandro from a picture by Pontormo. This picture was not of that perfection that was expected; but, having seen in the same guardaroba the cartoon of the "Noli me tangere" by Michelagnolo, which Pontormo had previously executed in colours, he set himself to make a cartoon like it, but with larger figures; which done, he painted a picture from it wherein he acquitted himself much better in the colouring. And the cartoon, which he copied exactly after that of Michelagnolo, was executed with great patience and very beautiful. The affair of Monte Murlo having then taken place, in which the exiles and rebels hostile to the Duke were routed and captured, Battista depicted with beautiful invention a scene of the battle fought there, mingled with poetic fantasies of his own, which was much extolled, although there were recognized in the armed encounter and in the taking of the prisoners many things copied bodily from the works and drawings of Buonarroti. For the battle was in the distance, and in the foreground were the huntsmen of Ganymede, who were standing there gazing at Jove's Eagle carrying the young man away into Heaven; which part Battista took from the design of Michelagnolo, in order to use it to signify that the young Duke had risen by the grace of God from the midst of his friends into Heaven, or some such thing. This scene, I say, was first drawn by Battista in a cartoon, and then painted with supreme diligence in a picture; and it is now, together with his other works mentioned above, in the upper apartments of the Pitti Palace, which his most illustrious Excellency has just caused to be completely finished. Having thus been engaged on these and some other works in the service of the Duke, until the time when he took to wife the Lady Donna Leonora of Toledo, Battista was next employed in the festive preparations for those nuptials, on the triumphal arch at the Porta al Prato, where Ridolfo Ghirlandajo caused him to execute some scenes of the actions of Signor Giovanni, father of Duke Cosimo. In one of these that lord could be seen passing the Rivers Po and Adda, in the presence of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, who became Pope Clement VII, Signor Prospero Colonna, and other lords; and in another was the scene of the delivering of San Secondo. On the other side Battista painted in another scene the city of Milan, and around it the Camp of the League, which, on departing, the above-named Signor Giovanni leaves there. On the right flank of the arch he painted on one side a picture of Opportunity, who, having her tresses all unbound, was offering them with one hand to Signor Giovanni, and on the other side Mars, who was likewise offering him his sword. In another scene under the arch, by the hand of Battista, was Signor Giovanni fighting between the Tesino and Biegrassa upon the Ponte Rozzo, defending it, as it were like another Horatius, with incredible bravery. Opposite to this was the Taking of Caravaggio, and in the centre of the battle Signor Giovanni, who was passing fearlessly through fire and sword in the midst of the hostile army. Between the columns, on the right hand, there was in an oval Garlasso, taken by the same lord with a single company of soldiers, and on the left hand, between the two other columns, the bastion of Milan, likewise taken from the enemy. On the fronton, which was at the back of anyone entering, was the same Signor Giovanni on horseback under the walls of Milan, when, tilting in single combat with a knight, he ran him through from side to side with his lance. Above the great cornice, which reached out to the other cornice, on which the pediment rested, in another large scene executed by Battista with much diligence, there was in the centre the Emperor Charles V, who, crowned with laurel, was seated on a rock, with the sceptre in his hand; at his feet lay the River Betis with a vase that poured water from two mouths, and beside that figure was the River Danube, which, with seven mouths, was pouring its waters into the sea. I shall not make mention here of the vast number of statues that accompanied the above-named pictures and others on that arch, for the reason that it is enough for me at the present moment to describe that which concerns Battista Franco, and it is not my office to give an account of all that was done by others in the festive preparations for those nuptials and described at great length; besides which, having spoken of the masters of those statues where the necessity arose, it would be superfluous for me to say anything about them here, and particularly because the statues are not now standing, so that they cannot be seen and considered. But to return to Battista: the best thing that he did for those nuptials was one of the ten above-mentioned pictures which were in the decorations in the great court of the Medici Palace, wherein he painted in chiaroscuro Duke Cosimo invested with all the Ducal insignia. But, for all the diligence that he used there, he was surpassed by Bronzino, and by others who had less design than himself, in invention, in boldness, and in the treatment of the chiaroscuro. For, as has been said before, pictures must be executed with facility, and the parts set in their places with judgment, and without that effort and that labour which make things appear hard and crude; besides which, overmuch study often makes them come out heavy and dark, and spoils them, while lingering over them so long takes away the grace, boldness and excellence that facility is wont to give them. And these qualities, although they come in great measure as gifts from nature, can also in part be acquired by study and art. Having then been taken by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo to the Madonna di Vertigli in Valdichiana (which place was once attached to the Monastery of the Angeli, of the Order of Camaldoli, in Florence, and is now an independent body in place of the Monastery of S. Benedetto, which, being without the Porta a Pinti, was destroyed on account of the siege of Florence), Battista painted there the scenes in the cloister already mentioned, while Ridolfo was executing the altar-piece and the ornaments of the high-altar. These finished, as has been related in the Life of Ridolfo, they adorned with other pictures that holy place, which is very celebrated and renowned for the many miracles that are wrought there by the Virgin Mother of the Son of God. Battista then returned to Rome, at the very time when the Judgment of Michelagnolo had just been uncovered; and, being a zealous student of the manner and works of that master, he gazed at it very gladly, and in infinite admiration made drawings of it all. And then, having resolved to remain in Rome, at the commission of Cardinal Francesco Cornaro--who had rebuilt the palace that he occupied beside S. Pietro, which looks out on the portico in the direction of the Camposanto--he painted over the stucco a loggia that looks towards the Piazza, making there a kind of grotesques all full of little scenes and figures; which work, executed with much labour and diligence, was held to be very beautiful. About the same time, which was the year 1538, Francesco Salviati, having painted a scene in fresco in the Company of the Misericordia, was to give it the final completion and to set his hand to others, which many private citizens desired to have painted; but, by reason of the rivalry that there was between him and Jacopo del Conte, nothing more was done; which hearing, Battista sought to obtain by this means an opportunity to prove himself superior to Francesco and the best master in Rome; and he so went to work, employing his friends and other means, that Monsignor della Casa, after seeing a design by his hand, allotted the work to him. Thereupon, setting his hand to it, he painted there in fresco S. John the Baptist taken at the command of Herod and cast into prison. But, although this picture was executed with much labour, it was not held to be equal by a great measure to that of Salviati, from its having been painted with very great effort and in a manner crude and melancholy, while it had no order in the composition, nor in a single part any of that grace and charm of colouring which Francesco's work possessed. And from this it may be concluded that those men are deceived who, in pursuing this art, give all their attention to executing well and with a good knowledge of muscles a torso, an arm, a leg, or other member, believing that a good grasp of that part is the whole secret; for the reason that the part of a work is not the whole, and only he carries it to perfect completion, in a good and beautiful manner, who, after executing the parts well, knows how to make them fit in due proportion into the whole, and who, moreover, so contrives that the composition of the figures expresses and produces well and without confusion the effect that it should produce. And, above all, care must be taken to make the heads vivacious, spirited, gracious, and beautiful in the expressions, the manner not crude, and the nudes so tinted with black that they may have relief, melting gradually into the distance according as may be required; to say nothing of the perspective-views, landscapes, and other parts that good pictures demand, nor that in making use of the works of others a man should proceed in such a manner that this may not be too easily recognized. Battista thus became aware too late that he had wasted time beyond all reason over the minutiæ of muscles and over drawing with too great diligence, while paying no attention to the other fields of art. [Illustration: TINTORETTO: BACCHUS AND ARIADNE (_Venice: Doge's Palace, Salon Anticollegio. Canvas_)] Having finished that work, which brought him little praise, Battista transferred himself by means of Bartolommeo Genga to the service of the Duke of Urbino, to paint a very large vaulting in the church and chapel attached to the Palace of Urbino. Having arrived there, he set himself straightway to make the designs according as the invention presented itself in the work, without giving it any further thought and without making any compartments. And so in imitation of the Judgment of Buonarroti, he depicted in a Heaven the Glory of the Saints, who are dispersed over that vaulting on certain clouds, with all the choirs of the Angels about a Madonna, who, having ascended into Heaven, is received by Christ, who is in the act of crowning her, while in various separate groups stand the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Sibyls, the Apostles, the Martyrs, the Confessors, and the Virgins; which figures, in their different attitudes, reveal their rejoicing at the advent of that Glorious Virgin. This invention would certainly have given Battista a great opportunity to prove himself an able master, if he had chosen a better way, not only making himself well-practised in fresco-colours, but also proceeding with better order and judgment than he displayed in all his labour. But he used in this work the same methods as in all his others, for he made always the same figures, the same countenances, the same members, and the same draperies; besides which, the colouring was without any charm, and everything laboured and executed with difficulty. When all was finished, therefore, it gave little satisfaction to Duke Guidobaldo, Genga, and all the others who were expecting great things from that master, equal to the beautiful design that he had shown to them in the beginning; for, in truth, in making beautiful designs Battista had no peer and could be called an able man. Which recognizing, the Duke thought that his designs would succeed very well if carried into execution by those who were fashioning vases of clay so excellently at Castel Durante, for which they had availed themselves much of the prints of Raffaello da Urbino and other able masters; and he caused Battista to draw innumerable designs, which, when put into execution in that sort of clay, the most kindly of all that there are in Italy, produced a rare result. Wherefore vases were made in such numbers and of as many kinds as would have sufficed to do honour to the credence of a King; and the pictures that were painted on them would not have been better if they had been executed in oils by the most excellent masters. Of these vases, which in the quality of the clay much resemble the kind that was wrought at Arezzo in ancient times, in the days of Porsenna, King of Tuscany, the above-named Duke Guidobaldo sent enough for a double credence to the Emperor Charles V, and a set to Cardinal Farnese, the brother of Signora Vittoria, his consort. And it is right that it should be known that of this kind of paintings on vases, in so far as we can judge, the Romans had none, for the vases of those times, filled with the ashes of their dead or used for other purposes, are covered with figures hatched and grounded with only one colour, either black, or red, or white; nor have they ever that lustrous glazing or that charm and variety of paintings which have been seen and still are seen in our own times. Nor can it be said that, if perchance they did have such things, the paintings have been consumed by time and by their having been buried, for the reason that we see our own resisting the assaults of time and every other danger, insomuch that it may even be said that they might remain four thousand years under the ground without the paintings being spoilt. Now, although vases and paintings of that kind are made throughout all Italy, yet the best and most beautiful works in clay are those that are wrought, as I have said, at Castel Durante, a place in the State of Urbino, and those of Faenza, the best of which are for the most part of a very pure white, with few paintings, and those in the centre or on the edges, but delicate and pleasing enough. But to return to Battista: for the nuptials of the above-mentioned Lord Duke and Signora Vittoria Farnese, which took place afterwards at Urbino, he, assisted by his young men, executed on the arches erected by Genga, who was the head of the festive preparations, all the historical pictures that were painted upon them. Now, since the Duke doubted that Battista would not finish in time, the undertaking being very great, he sent for Giorgio Vasari--who at that time was painting at Rimini, for the White Friars of Scolca, of the Order of Monte Oliveto, a large chapel in fresco and an altar-piece in oils for their high-altar--to the end that he might go to the aid of Genga and Battista in those preparations. But Vasari, feeling indisposed, made his excuses to his Excellency and wrote to him that he should have no doubt, for the reason that the talents and knowledge of Battista were such that he would have everything finished in time, as indeed, in the end, he did. Giorgio then going, after finishing his works at Rimini, to visit that Duke and to make his excuses in person, his Excellency caused him to examine, to the end that he might value it, the above-mentioned chapel that had been painted by Battista, which Vasari much extolled, recommending the ability of that master, who was largely rewarded by the great liberality of that lord. [Illustration: THE POOL OF BETHESDA (_After the painting by =Jacopo Tintoretto=. Venice: S. Rocco_) _Anderson_] It is true, however, that Battista was not at that time in Urbino, but in Rome, where he was engaged in drawing not only the statues but all the antiquities of that city, and in making, as he did, a great book of them, which was a praiseworthy work. Now, while Battista was giving his attention to drawing in Rome, Messer Giovanni Andrea dell'Anguillara, a man truly distinguished in certain forms of poetry, having got together a company of various choice spirits, was causing very rich scenery and decorations to be prepared in the large hall of S. Apostolo, in order to perform comedies by various authors before gentlemen, lords, and great persons. He had caused seats to be made for the spectators of different ranks, and for the Cardinals and other great prelates he had prepared certain rooms from which, through jalousies, they could see and hear without being seen. And since in that company there were painters, sculptors, architects, and men who were to perform the dramas and to fulfil other offices, Battista and Ammanati, having been chosen of the company, were given the charge of preparing the scenery, with some stories and ornaments in painting, which Battista executed so well (together with some statues that Ammanati made), that he was very highly extolled for them. But the great expenses of that place exceeded the means available, so that M. Giovanni Andrea and the others were forced to remove the prospect-scene and the other ornaments from S. Apostolo and to convey them into the new Temple of S. Biagio, in the Strada Giulia. There, Battista having once more arranged everything, many comedies were performed with extraordinary satisfaction to the people and courtiers of Rome; and from this origin there sprang in time the players who travel around, called the Zanni. After these things, having come to the year 1550, Battista executed in company with Girolamo Siciolante of Sermoneta, for Cardinal di Cesis, on the façade of his palace, the coat of arms of Pope Julius III, who had been newly elected Pontiff, with three figures and some little boys, which were much extolled. That finished, he painted in the Minerva, in a chapel built by a Canon of S. Pietro and all adorned with stucco, some stories of the Madonna and of Jesus Christ in the compartments of the vaulting, which were the best works that he had ever executed up to that time. On one of the two walls he painted the Nativity of Jesus Christ, with some Shepherds, and Angels that are singing over the hut, and on the other the Resurrection of Christ, with many soldiers in various attitudes about the Sepulchre; and above each of those scenes, in certain lunettes, he executed some large Prophets. And finally, on the altar-wall, he painted Christ Crucified, Our Lady, S. John, S. Dominic, and some other Saints in the niches; in all which he acquitted himself very well and like an excellent master. But since his earnings were scanty and the expenses of Rome very great, after having executed some works on cloth, which had not much success, he returned to his native country of Venice, thinking by a change of country to change also his fortune. There, by reason of his fine manner of drawing, he was judged to be an able man, and a few days afterwards he was commissioned to execute an altar-piece in oils for the Chapel of Mons. Barbaro, Patriarch-elect of Aquileia, in the Church of S. Francesco della Vigna; in which he painted S. John baptizing Christ in the Jordan, in the air God the Father, at the foot two little boys who are holding the vestments of Christ, in the angles the Annunciation, and below these figures the semblance of a canvas superimposed, with a good number of little nude figures of Angels, Demons, and Souls in Purgatory, and with an inscription that runs--"In nomine Jesu omne genuflectatur." That work, which was certainly held to be very good, won him much credit and fame; indeed, it was the reason that the Frati de' Zoccoli, who have their seat in that place, and who have charge of the Church of S. Giobbe in Canareio, caused him to paint in the Chapel of the Foscari, in that Church of S. Giobbe, a Madonna who is seated with the Child in her arms, with a S. Mark on one side and a female Saint on the other, and in the air some Angels who are scattering flowers. In S. Bartolommeo, at the tomb of Cristofano Fuccheri, a German merchant, he executed a picture of Abundance, Mercury, and Fame. For M. Antonio della Vecchia, a Venetian, he painted in a picture with figures of the size of life and very beautiful Christ crowned with Thorns, and about them some Pharisees, who are mocking Him. Meanwhile there had been built of masonry in the Palace of S. Marco, after the design of Jacopo Sansovino, as will be related in the proper place, the staircase that leads from the first floor upwards, and it had been adorned with various designs in stucco by the sculptor Alessandro, a disciple of Sansovino; and Battista painted very minute grotesques over it all, and in certain larger spaces a good number of figures in fresco, which have been extolled not a little by the craftsmen, and he then decorated the ceiling of the vestibule of that staircase. Not long afterwards, when, as has been related above, three pictures were given to each of the best and most renowned painters of Venice to paint for the Library of S. Marco, on the condition that he who should acquit himself best in the judgment of those Magnificent Senators was to receive, in addition to the usual payment, a chain of gold, Battista executed in that place three scenes, with two Philosophers between the windows, and acquitted himself very well, although he did not win the prize of honour, as we said above. After these works, having received from the Patriarch Grimani the commission for a chapel in S. Francesco della Vigna, which is the first on the left hand entering into the church, Battista set his hand to it and began to make very rich designs in stucco over the whole vaulting, with scenes of figures in fresco, labouring there with incredible diligence. But--whether it was his own carelessness, or that he had executed some works, perchance on very fresh walls, as I have heard say, at the villas of certain gentlemen--before he had that chapel finished, he died, and it remained incomplete. It was finished afterwards by Federigo Zucchero of S. Agnolo in Vado, a young and excellent painter, held to be among the best in Rome, who painted in fresco on the walls at the sides Mary Magdalene being converted by the Preaching of Christ and the Raising of her brother Lazarus, which are pictures full of grace. And, when the walls were finished, the same Federigo painted in the altar-piece the Adoration of the Magi, which was much extolled. Extraordinary credit and fame have come to Battista, who died in the year 1561, from his many printed designs, which are truly worthy to be praised. In the same city of Venice and about the same time there lived, as he still does, a painter called Jacopo Tintoretto, who has delighted in all the arts, and particularly in playing various musical instruments, besides being agreeable in his every action, but in the matter of painting swift, resolute, fantastic, and extravagant, and the most extraordinary brain that the art of painting has ever produced, as may be seen from all his works and from the fantastic compositions of his scenes, executed by him in a fashion of his own and contrary to the use of other painters. Indeed, he has surpassed even the limits of extravagance with the new and fanciful inventions and the strange vagaries of his intellect, working at haphazard and without design, as if to prove that art is but a jest. This master at times has left as finished works sketches still so rough that the brush-strokes may be seen, done more by chance and vehemence than with judgment and design. He has painted almost every kind of picture in fresco and in oils, with portraits from life, and at every price, insomuch that with these methods he has executed, as he still does, the greater part of the pictures painted in Venice. And since in his youth he proved himself by many beautiful works a man of great judgment, if only he had recognized how great an advantage he had from nature, and had improved it by reasonable study, as has been done by those who have followed the beautiful manners of his predecessors, and had not dashed his work off by mere skill of hand, he would have been one of the greatest painters that Venice has ever had. Not that this prevents him from being a bold and able painter, and delicate, fanciful, and alert in spirit. [Illustration: THE LAST JUDGMENT (_After the painting by =Jacopo Tintoretto=. Venice: S. Maria dell'Orto_) _Anderson_] Now, when it had been ordained by the Senate that Jacopo Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese, at that time young men of great promise, should each execute a scene in the Hall of the Great Council, and Orazio, the son of Tiziano, another, Tintoretto painted in his scene Frederick Barbarossa being crowned by the Pope, depicting there a most beautiful building, and about the Pontiff a great number of Cardinals and Venetian gentlemen, all portrayed from life, and at the foot the Pope's chapel of music. In all this he acquitted himself in such a manner, that the picture can bear comparison with those of the others, not excepting that of the above-named Orazio, in which is a battle that was fought at Rome between the Germans of that Frederick and the Romans, near the Castello di S. Angelo and the Tiber. In this picture, among other things, is a horse in foreshortening, leaping over a soldier in armour, which is most beautiful; but some declare that Orazio was assisted in the work by his father Tiziano. Beside these Paolo Veronese, of whom there has been an account in the Life of Michele San Michele, painted in his scene the same Frederick Barbarossa presenting himself at Court and kissing the hand of Pope Ottaviano, to the despite of Pope Alexander III; and, in addition to that scene, which was very beautiful, Paolo painted over a window four large figures: Time, Union, with a bundle of rods, Patience, and Faith, in which he acquitted himself better than I could express in words. Not long afterwards, another scene being required in that hall, Tintoretto so went to work with the aid of friends and other means, that it was given to him to paint; whereupon he executed it in such a manner that it was a marvel, and that it deserves to be numbered among the best things that he ever did, so powerful in him was his determination that he would equal, if not vanquish and surpass, his rivals who had worked in that place. And the scene that he painted there--to the end that it may be known also by those who are not of the art--was Pope Alexander excommunicating and interdicting Barbarossa, and that Frederick therefore forbidding his subjects to render obedience any longer to the Pontiff. And among other fanciful things that are in this scene, that part is most beautiful in which the Pope and the Cardinals are throwing down torches and candles from a high place, as is done when some person is excommunicated, and below is a rabble of nude figures that are struggling for those torches and candles--the most lovely and pleasing effect in the world. Besides all this, certain bases, antiquities, and portraits of gentlemen that are dispersed throughout the scene, are executed very well, and won him favour and fame with everyone. He therefore painted, for places below the work of Pordenone in the principal chapel of S. Rocco, two pictures in oils as broad as the width of the whole chapel--namely, about twelve braccia each. In one he depicted a view in perspective as of a hospital filled with beds and sick persons in various attitudes who are being healed by S. Rocco; and among these are some nude figures very well conceived, and a dead body in foreshortening that is very beautiful. In the other is a story likewise of S. Rocco, full of most graceful and beautiful figures, and such, in short, that it is held to be one of the best works that this painter has executed. In a scene of the same size, in the centre of the church, he painted Jesus Christ healing the impotent man at the Pool of Bethesda, which is also a work held to be passing good. [Illustration: THE MIRACLE OF S. MARK (_From the painting by =Jacopo Tintoretto=. Venice: Accademia_) _Alinari_] In the Church of S. Maria dell'Orto, where, as has been told above, Cristofano and his brother, painters of Brescia, painted the ceiling, Tintoretto has painted--that is, on canvas and in oils--the two walls of the principal chapel, which are twenty-two braccia in height from the vaulting to the cornice at the foot. In that which is on the right hand he has depicted Moses returning from the Mount, where he had received the Laws from God, and finding the people worshipping the Golden Calf; and opposite to that, in the other, is the Universal Judgment of the last day, painted with an extravagant invention that truly has in it something awesome and terrible, by reason of the diversity of figures of either sex and all ages that are there, with vistas and distant views of the souls of the blessed and the damned. There, also, may be seen the boat of Charon, but in a manner so different from that of others, that it is a thing beautiful and strange. If this fantastic invention had been executed with correct and well-ordered drawing, and if the painter had given diligent attention to the parts and to each particular detail, as he has done to the whole in expressing the confusion, turmoil, and terror of that day, it would have been a most stupendous picture. And whoever glances at it for a moment, is struck with astonishment; but, considering it afterwards minutely, it appears as if painted as a jest. The same master has painted in oils in that church, on the doors of the organ, Our Lady ascending the steps of the Temple, which is a highly-finished work, and the best-executed and most gladsome picture that there is in that place. In S. Maria Zebenigo, likewise on the doors of the organ, he has painted the Conversion of S. Paul, but not with much care. In the Carità is an altar-piece by his hand, of Christ taken down from the Cross; and in the Sacristy of S. Sebastiano, in competition with Paolo Veronese, who executed many pictures on the ceiling and the walls of that place, he painted over the presses Moses in the Desert and other scenes, which were continued afterwards by Natalino, a Venetian painter, and by others. The same Tintoretto then painted for the altar of the Pietà, in S. Giobbe, three Maries, S. Francis, S. Sebastian, and S. John, with a piece of landscape; and, on the organ-doors in the Church of the Servites, S. Augustine and S. Philip, and beneath them Cain killing his brother Abel. At the altar of the Sacrament in S. Felice, or rather, on the ceiling of the tribune, he painted the four Evangelists; and in the lunette above the altar an Annunciation, in the other lunette Christ praying on the Mount of Olives, and on the wall the Last Supper that He had with His Apostles. And in S. Francesco della Vigna, on the altar of the Deposition from the Cross, there is by the same hand the Madonna in a swoon, with the other Maries and some Prophets. In the Scuola of S. Marco, near SS. Giovanni e Polo, are four large scenes by his hand. In one of these is S. Mark, who, appearing in the air, is delivering one who is his votary from many torments that may be seen prepared for him with various instruments of torture, which being broken, the executioner was never able to employ them against that devout man; and in that scene is a great abundance of figures, foreshortenings, pieces of armour, buildings, portraits, and other suchlike things, which render the work very ornate. In the second is a tempest of the sea, and S. Mark, likewise in the air, delivering another of his votaries; but that scene is by no means executed with the same diligence as that already described. In the third is a storm of rain, with the dead body of another of S. Mark's votaries, and his soul ascending into Heaven; and there, also, is a composition of passing good figures. In the fourth, wherein an evil spirit is being exorcised, he counterfeited in perspective a great loggia, and at the end of it a fire that illumines it with many reflections. And in addition to those scenes there is on the altar a S. Mark by the same hand, which is a passing good picture. These works, then, and many others that are here passed over, it being enough to have made mention of the best, have been executed by Tintoretto with such rapidity, that, when it was thought that he had scarcely begun, he had finished. And it is a notable thing that with the most extravagant ways in the world, he has always work to do, for the reason that when his friendships and other means are not enough to obtain for him any particular work, even if he had to do it, I do not say at a low price, but without payment or by force, in one way or another, do it he would. And it is not long since, Tintoretto having executed the Passion of Christ in a large picture in oils and on canvas for the Scuola of S. Rocco, the men of that Company resolved to have some honourable and magnificent work painted on the ceiling above it, and therefore to allot that commission to that one among the painters that there were in Venice who should make the best and most beautiful design. Having therefore summoned Joseffo Salviati, Federigo Zucchero, who was in Venice at that time, Paolo Veronese, and Jacopo Tintoretto, they ordained that each of them should make a design, promising the work to him who should acquit himself best in this. While the others, then, were engaged with all possible diligence in making their designs, Tintoretto, having taken measurements of the size that the work was to be, sketched a great canvas and painted it with his usual rapidity, without anyone knowing about it, and then placed it where it was to stand. Whereupon, the men of the Company having assembled one morning to see the designs and to make their award, they found that Tintoretto had completely finished the work and had placed it in position. At which being angered against him, they said that they had called for designs and had not commissioned him to execute the work; but he answered them that this was his method of making designs, that he did not know how to proceed in any other manner, and that designs and models of works should always be after that fashion, so as to deceive no one, and that, finally, if they would not pay him for the work and for his labour, he would make them a present of it. And after these words, although he had many contradictions, he so contrived that the work is still in the same place. In this canvas, then, there is painted a Heaven with God the Father descending with many Angels to embrace S. Rocco, and in the lowest part are many figures that signify, or rather, represent the other principal Scuole of Venice, such as the Carità, S. Giovanni Evangelista, the Misericordia, S. Marco, and S. Teodoro, all executed after his usual manner. But since it would be too long a task to enumerate all the pictures of Tintoretto, let it be enough to have spoken of the above-named works of that master, who is a truly able man and a painter worthy to be praised. [Illustration: THE APOTHEOSIS OF S. ROCCO (_After the painting by =Jacopo Tintoretto=. Venice: Scuola di S. Rocco_) _Anderson_] There was in Venice about this same time a painter called Brazzacco, a protégé of the house of Grimani, who had been many years in Rome; and he was commissioned by favour to paint the ceiling in the Great Hall of the Chiefs of the Council of Ten. But this master, knowing that he was not able to do it by himself and that he had need of assistance, took as companions Paolo Veronese and Battista Farinato, dividing between himself and them nine pictures in oils that were destined for that place--namely, four ovals at the corners, four oblong pictures, and a larger oval in the centre. Giving the last-named oval, with three of the oblong pictures, to Paolo Veronese, who painted therein a Jove who is hurling his thunderbolts against the Vices, and other figures, he took for himself two of the smaller ovals, with one of the oblong pictures, and gave two ovals to Battista. In one of these pictures is Neptune, the God of the Sea, and in each of the others two figures demonstrating the greatness and the tranquil and peaceful condition of Venice. Now, although all three of them acquitted themselves well, Paolo Veronese succeeded better than the others, and well deserved, therefore, that those Signori should afterwards allot to him the other ceiling that is beside the above-named hall, wherein he painted in oils, in company with Battista Farinato, a S. Mark supported in the air by some Angels, and lower down a Venice surrounded by Faith, Hope, and Charity; which work, although it was beautiful, was not equal in excellence to the first. Paolo afterwards executed by himself in the Umiltà, in a large oval of the ceiling, an Assumption of Our Lady with other figures, which was a gladsome, beautiful, and well-conceived picture. Likewise a good painter in our own day, in that city, has been Andrea Schiavone; I say good, because at times, for all his misfortunes, he has produced some good work, and because he has always imitated as well as he has been able the manners of the good masters. But, since the greater part of his works have been pictures that are dispersed among the houses of gentlemen, I shall speak only of some that are in public places. In the Chapel of the family of Pellegrini, in the Church of S. Sebastiano at Venice, he has painted a S. James with two Pilgrims. In the Church of the Carmine, on the ceiling of the choir, he has executed an Assumption with many Angels and Saints; and in the Chapel of the Presentation, in the same church, he has painted the Infant Christ presented by His Mother in the Temple, with many portraits from life, but the best figure that is there is a woman suckling a child and wearing a yellow garment, who is executed in a certain manner that is used in Venice--dashed off, or rather, sketched, without being in any respect finished. Him Giorgio Vasari caused in the year 1540 to paint on a large canvas in oils the battle that had been fought a short time before between Charles V and Barbarossa; and that work, which is one of the best that Andrea Schiavone ever executed, and truly very beautiful, is now in Florence, in the house of the heirs of the Magnificent M. Ottaviano de' Medici, to whom it was sent as a present by Vasari. GIOVAN FRANCESCO RUSTICI LIFE OF GIOVAN FRANCESCO RUSTICI SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT OF FLORENCE It is in every way a notable thing that all those who were of the school in the garden of the Medici, and were favoured by the Magnificent Lorenzo the Elder, became without exception supremely excellent; which circumstance cannot have come from any other cause but the great, nay, infinite judgment of that most noble lord, the true Mæcenas of men of talent, who, even as he was able to recognize men of lofty spirit and genius, was also both willing and able to recompense and reward them. Thus Giovan Francesco Rustici, a Florentine citizen, acquitting himself very well in drawing and working in clay in his boyhood, was placed by that Magnificent Lorenzo, who recognized him as a boy of spirit and of good and beautiful genius, to learn under Andrea del Verrocchio, with whom there was also working Leonardo da Vinci, a rare youth and gifted with infinite parts. Whereupon Rustici, being pleased by the beautiful manner and ways of Leonardo, and considering that the expressions of his heads and the movements of his figures were more graceful and more spirited than those of any other works that he had ever seen, attached himself to him, after he had learned to cast in bronze, to draw in perspective, and to work in marble, and after Andrea had gone to work in Venice. Rustici thus living with Leonardo and serving him with the most loving submission, Leonardo conceived such an affection for him, recognizing him to be a young man of good, true, and liberal mind, patient and diligent in the labours of art, that he did nothing, either great or small, save what was pleasing to Giovan Francesco, who, besides being of a noble family, had the means to live honourably, and therefore practised art more for his own delight and from desire of glory than for gain. And, to tell the truth of the matter, those craftsmen who have as their ultimate and principal end gain and profit, and not honour and glory, rarely become very excellent, even although they may have good and beautiful genius; besides which, labouring for a livelihood, as very many do who are weighed down by poverty and their families, and working not by inclination, when the mind and the will are drawn to it, but by necessity from morning till night, is a life not for men who have honour and glory as their aim, but for hacks, as they are called, and manual labourers, for the reason that good works do not get done without first having been well considered for a long time. And it was on that account that Rustici used to say in his more mature years that you must first think, then make your sketches, and after that your designs; which done, you must put them aside for weeks and even months without looking at them, and then, choosing the best, put them into execution; but that method cannot be followed by everyone, nor do those use it who labour only for gain. And he used to say, also, that works should not be shown readily to anyone before they are finished, so that a man may change them as many times and in as many ways as he wishes, without any scruple. Giovan Francesco learned many things from Leonardo, but particularly how to represent horses, in which he so delighted that he fashioned them of clay and of wax, in the round or in low-relief, and in as many manners as could be imagined; and of these there are some to be seen in our book which are so well drawn, that they bear witness to the knowledge and art of Giovan Francesco. He knew also how to handle colours, and executed some passing good pictures, although his principal profession was sculpture. And since he lived for a time in the Via de' Martelli, he became much the friend of all the men of that family, which has always had men of the highest ability and worth, and particularly of Piero, for whom, being the nearest to his heart, he made some little figures in full-relief, and, among others, a Madonna with the Child in her arms seated upon some clouds that are covered with Cherubim. Similar to that is another that he painted after some time in a large picture in oils, with a garland of Cherubim that form a diadem around the head of Our Lady. The Medici family having then returned to Florence, Rustici made himself known to Cardinal Giovanni as the protégé of his father Lorenzo, and was received with much lovingness. But, since the ways of the Court did not please him and were distasteful to his nature, which was altogether simple and peaceful, and not full of envy and ambition, he would always keep to himself and live the life as it were of a philosopher, enjoying tranquil peace and repose. And although he did at times choose to take some recreation, and found himself among his friends in art or some citizens who were his intimate companions, he did not therefore cease to work when the desire came to him or the occasion presented itself. Wherefore, for the visit of Pope Leo to Florence in the year 1515, at the request of Andrea del Sarto, who was much his friend, he executed some statues that were held to be very beautiful; which statues, since they pleased Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, were the reason that the Cardinal caused him to make, for the summit of the fountain that is in the great court of the Palace of the Medici, the nude Mercury of bronze about one braccio in height, standing on a ball in the act of taking flight. In the hands of that figure Rustici placed an instrument that is made to revolve by the water that it pours down from above, in the following manner: one leg being perforated, a pipe passes through it and through the torso, and the water, having risen to the mouth of the figure, falls upon that instrument, which is balanced with four thin plates fixed after the manner of a butterfly, and causes it to revolve. That figure, I say, for a small work, was much extolled. Not long afterwards, Giovan Francesco made for the same Cardinal the model for a David to be cast in bronze (similar to that executed by Donato, as has been related, for the elder Cosimo, the Magnificent), for placing in the first court, whence the other had been taken away. That model gave much satisfaction, but, by reason of a certain dilatoriness in Giovan Francesco, it was never cast in bronze; wherefore the Orpheus in marble of Bandinelli was placed there, and the David of clay made by Rustici, which was a very rare work, came to an evil end, which was a very great loss. Giovan Francesco made an Annunciation in half-relief in a large medallion, with a most beautiful perspective-view, in which he was assisted by the painter Raffaello Bello and by Niccolò Soggi. This, when cast in bronze, proved to be a work of such rare beauty, that there was nothing more beautiful to be seen; and it was sent to the King of Spain. And then he executed in marble, in another similar medallion, a Madonna with the Child in her arms and S. John the Baptist as a little boy, which was placed in the first hall in the residence of the Consuls of the Guild of Por Santa Maria. By these works Giovan Francesco came into great credit, and the Consuls of the Guild of Merchants, who had caused to be removed certain clumsy figures of marble that were over the three doors of the Temple of S. Giovanni (made, as has been related, in the year 1240), after allotting to Contucci of Sansovino those that were to be set up in place of the old ones over the door that faces towards the Misericordia, allotted to Rustici those that were to be placed over the door that faces towards the canonical buildings of that temple, on the condition that he should make three figures of bronze of four braccia each, representing the same persons as the old ones--namely, S. John in the act of preaching, standing between a Pharisee and a Levite. That work was much after the heart of Giovan Francesco, because it was to be set up in a place so celebrated and of such importance, and, besides this, by reason of the competition with Andrea Contucci. Having therefore straightway set his hand to it and made a little model, which he surpassed in the excellence of the work itself, he showed all the consideration and diligence that such a labour required. When finished, the work was held to be in all its parts the best composed and best conceived of its kind that had been made up to that time, the figures being wholly perfect and wrought with great grace of aspect and also extraordinary force. In like manner, the nude arms and legs are very well conceived, and attached at the joints so excellently, that it would not be possible to do better; and, to say nothing of the hands and feet, what graceful attitudes and what heroic gravity have those heads! [Illustration: S. JOHN PREACHING (_After the bronze by =Giovan Francesco Rustici=. Florence: The Baptistery_) _Alinari_] Giovan Francesco, while he was fashioning that work in clay, would have no one about him but Leonardo da Vinci, who, during the making of the moulds, the securing them with irons, and, in short, until the statues were cast, never left his side; wherefore some believe, but without knowing more than this, that Leonardo worked at them with his own hand, or at least assisted Giovan Francesco with his advice and good judgment. These statues, which are the most perfect and the best conceived that have ever been executed in bronze by a modern master, were cast in three parts and polished in the above-mentioned house in the Via de' Martelli where Giovan Francesco lived; and so, also, the ornaments of marble that are about the S. John, with the two columns, the mouldings, and the emblem of the Guild of Merchants. In addition to the S. John, which is a spirited and lively figure, there is a bald man inclined to fatness, beautifully wrought, who, having rested the right arm on one flank, with part of a shoulder naked, and with the left hand holding a scroll before his eyes, has the left leg crossed over the right, and stands in an attitude of deep contemplation, about to answer S. John; and he is clothed in two kinds of drapery, one delicate, which floats over the nude parts of the figure, and over that a mantle of thicker texture, executed with a flow of folds full of mastery and artistry. Equal to him is the Pharisee, who, having laid his right hand on his beard, with a grave gesture, is drawing back a little, revealing astonishment at the words of John. While Rustici was executing that work, growing weary at last of having to ask for money every day from those Consuls or their agents, who were not always the same (and such persons are generally men who hold art or any work of value in little account), he sold, in order to be able to finish the work, a farm out of his patrimony that he possessed at San Marco Vecchio, at a short distance from Florence. And yet, notwithstanding such labours, expenses, and pains, he was poorly remunerated for it by the Consuls and by his fellow-citizens, for the reason that one of the Ridolfi, the head of that Guild, out of some private spite, and perchance also because Rustici had not paid him enough honour or allowed him to see the figures at his convenience, was always opposed to him in everything. And so that which should have resulted in honour for Giovan Francesco did the very opposite, for, whereas he deserved to be esteemed not only as a nobleman and a citizen but also as a master of art, his being a most excellent craftsman robbed him, with the ignorant and foolish, of all that was due to his noble blood. Thus, when Giovan Francesco's work was to be valued, and he had chosen on his side Michelagnolo Buonarroti, the body of Consuls, at the persuasion of Ridolfi, chose Baccio d'Agnolo; at which Rustici complained, saying to the men of that body, at the audience, that it was indeed something too strange that a worker in wood should have to value the labours of a statuary, and he as good as declared that they were a herd of oxen, but Ridolfi answered that, on the contrary, it was a good choice, and that Giovan Francesco was a swollen bladder of pride and arrogance. And, what was worse, that work, which deserved not less than two thousand crowns, was valued by the Consuls at five hundred, and even those were not paid to him in full, but only four hundred, and that only with the help of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici. Having met with such malignity, Giovan Francesco withdrew almost in despair, determined that he would never again do work for public bodies, or in any undertaking where he might have to depend on more than one citizen or any other single person. And so, keeping to himself and leading a solitary life in his rooms at the Sapienza, near the Servite Friars, he continued to work at various things, in order to pass the time and not to live in idleness; but also consuming his life and his money in seeking to congeal mercury, in company with a man of like brain called Raffaello Baglioni. Giovan Francesco painted a picture in oils three braccia in breadth and two in height, of the Conversion of S. Paul, full of different kinds of horses ridden by the soldiers of that Saint, with various beautiful attitudes and foreshortenings; which painting, together with many other works by the hand of the same master, is in the possession of the heirs of the above-named Piero Martelli, to whom he gave it. In a little picture he painted a hunting-scene full of various animals, which is a very bizarre and pleasing work; and it now belongs to Lorenzo Borghini, who holds it dear, as one who much delights in the treasures of our arts. For the Nuns of S. Luca, in the Via di S. Gallo, he executed in clay, in half-relief, a Christ in the Garden who is appearing to Mary Magdalene, which was afterwards glazed by Giovanni della Robbia and placed on an altar in the church of those sisters, within an ornament of grey sandstone. For Jacopo Salviati the elder, of whom he was much the friend, he made a most beautiful medallion of marble, containing a Madonna, for the chapel in his palace above the Ponte alla Badia, and, round the courtyard, many medallions filled with figures of terra-cotta, together with other very beautiful ornaments, which were for the most part, nay, almost all, destroyed by the soldiers in the year of the siege, when the palace was set on fire by the party hostile to the Medici. And since Giovan Francesco had a great affection for that place, he would set out at times from Florence to go there just as he was, in his lucco;[9] and once out of the city he would throw it over his shoulder and slowly wander all by himself, lost in contemplation, until he was there. One day among others, being on that road, and the day being hot, he hid the lucco in a thicket of thorn-bushes, and, having reached the palace, had been there two days before he remembered it. In the end, sending his man to look for it, when he saw that he had found it he said: "The world is too good to last long." [Footnote 9: A long gown worn by the Florentine citizens, particularly on occasions of ceremony.] Giovan Francesco was a man of surpassing goodness, and very loving to the poor, insomuch that he would never let anyone leave him uncomforted; nay, keeping his money, whether he had much or little, in a basket, he would give some according to his ability to anyone who asked of him. Wherefore a poor man who often went to him for alms, seeing him go always to that basket, said, not thinking that he could be heard: "Ah! God! if I had in my own room all that is in that basket, I would soon settle all my troubles." Giovan Francesco, hearing him, said, after gazing at him fixedly a while: "Come here, I will satisfy you." And then, emptying the basket into a fold of his cloak, he said to him: "Go, and may God bless you." And shortly afterwards he sent to Niccolò Buoni, his dearest friend, who managed all his affairs, for more money; which Niccolò, who kept an account of his crops and of his money in the Monte, and sold his produce at the proper seasons, made a practice, according to Rustici's own wish, of giving him so much money every week, which Giovan Francesco then kept in the drawer of his desk, without a key, and from time to time anyone who wished would take some to spend on the requirements of the household, according as might be necessary. But to return to his works: Giovan Francesco made a most beautiful Crucifix of wood, as large as life, for sending to France, but it was left with Niccolò Buoni, together with other things in low-relief and drawings, which are now in his possession, at the time when Rustici resolved to leave Florence, believing that it was no place for him and thinking by a change of country to obtain a change of fortune. For Duke Giuliano, by whom he was always much favoured, he made a profile of his head in half-relief, and cast it in bronze; and this, which was held to be a remarkable work, is now in the house of M. Alessandro, the son of M. Ottaviano de' Medici. To the painter Ruberto di Filippo Lippi, who was his disciple, Giovan Francesco gave many works by his own hand, such as low-reliefs, models, and designs; and, among other things, several pictures--a Leda, a Europa, a Neptune, a very beautiful Vulcan, and another little panel in low-relief wherein is a nude man on horseback of great beauty, which panel is now in the study of Don Silvano Razzi, at the Angeli. The same Giovan Francesco made a very beautiful woman in bronze, two braccia in height, representing one of the Graces, who was pressing one of her breasts; but it is not known what became of it, nor in whose possession it is to be found. Of his horses in clay with men on their backs or under them, similar to those already mentioned, there are many in the houses of citizens, which were presented by him to his various friends, for he was very courteous, and not, like most men of his class, mean and discourteous. And Dionigi da Diacceto, an excellent and honourable gentleman, who also kept the accounts of Giovan Francesco, like Niccolò Buoni, and was his friend, had from him many low-reliefs. There never was a man more amusing or fanciful than Giovan Francesco, nor one that delighted more in animals. He had made a porcupine so tame, that it stayed under the table like a dog, and at times it rubbed against people's legs in such a manner, that they drew them in very quickly. He had an eagle, and also a raven that said a great number of things so clearly, that it was just like a human being. He also gave his attention to the study of necromancy, and by means of that I am told that he gave strange frights to his servants and assistants; and thus he lived without a care. Having built a room almost in the manner of a fish-pond, and keeping in it many serpents, or rather, grass-snakes, which could not escape, he used to take the greatest pleasure in standing, particularly in summer, to observe the mad pranks that they played, and their fury. There used to assemble in his rooms at the Sapienza a company of good fellows who called themselves the Company of the Paiuolo;[10] and these, whose numbers were limited to twelve, were our Giovan Francesco, Andrea del Sarto, the painter Spillo, Domenico Puligo, the goldsmith Robetta, Aristotile da San Gallo, Francesco di Pellegrino, Niccolò Buoni, Domenico Baccelli, who played and sang divinely, the sculptor Solosmeo, Lorenzo called Guazzetto, and the painter Ruberto di Filippo Lippi, who was their proveditor. Each of these twelve could bring to certain suppers and entertainments of theirs four friends and no more. The manner of the suppers, which I am very willing to describe because these companies have fallen almost entirely out of fashion, was that each man should bring some dish for supper, prepared with some beautiful invention, which, on arriving at the proper place, he presented to the master of the feast, who was always one of their number, and who then gave it to whomsoever he pleased, each man thus exchanging his dish for that of another. When they were at table, they all offered each other something from their dishes, and every man partook of everything; and whoever had hit on the same invention for his dish as another, and had produced the same thing, was condemned to pay a penalty. [Footnote 10: Cooking-pot or cauldron.] One evening, then, when Giovan Francesco gave a supper to that Company of the Paiuolo, he arranged that there should serve as a table an immense cauldron made with a vat, within which they all sat, and it appeared as if they were in the water of the cauldron, in the centre of which came the viands arranged in a circle; and the handle of the cauldron, which curved like a crescent above them, gave out a most beautiful light from the centre, so that, looking round, they all saw each other face to face. Now, when they were all seated at table in the cauldron, which was most beautifully contrived, there issued from the centre a tree with many branches, which set before them the supper, that is, the first course of viands, two to each plate. This done, it descended once more below, where there were persons who played music, and in a short time came up again and presented the second course, and then the third, and so on in due order, while all around were servants who poured out the choicest wines. The invention of the cauldron, which was beautifully adorned with hangings and pictures, was much extolled by the men of that company. For that evening the contribution of Rustici was a cauldron in the form of a pie, in which was Ulysses dipping his father in order to make him young again; which two figures were boiled capons that had the form of men, so well were the limbs arranged, and all with various things good to eat. Andrea del Sarto presented an octagonal temple, similar to that of S. Giovanni, but raised upon columns. The pavement was a vast plate of jelly, with a pattern of mosaic in various colours; the columns, which had the appearance of porphyry, were sausages, long and thick; the socles and capitals were of Parmesan cheese; the cornices of sugar, and the tribune was made of sections of marchpane. In the centre was a choir-desk made of cold veal, with a book of lasagne[11] that had the letters and notes of the music made of pepper-corns; and the singers at the desk were cooked thrushes standing with their beaks open, and with certain little shirts after the manner of surplices, made of fine cauls of pigs, and behind them, for the basses, were two fat young pigeons, with six ortolans that sang the soprano. Spillo presented as his dish a smith, which he had made from a great goose or some such bird, with all the instruments wherewith to mend the cauldron in case of need. Domenico Puligo represented by means of a cooked sucking-pig a serving-girl with a distaff at her side, who was watching a brood of chickens, and was there to scour the cauldron. Robetta made out of a calf's head, with appurtenances formed of other fat meats, an anvil for the maintenance of the cauldron, which was very fine and very beautiful, as were also all the other contributions; not to enumerate one by one all the dishes of that supper and of many others that they gave. [Footnote 11: Broad, flat strips of maccheroni.] The Company of the Cazzuola,[12] which was similar to the other, and to which Giovan Francesco belonged, had its origin in the following manner. One evening in the year 1512 there were at supper in the garden that Feo d'Agnolo the hunchback, a fife-player and a very merry fellow, had in the Campaccio, with Feo himself, Ser Bastiano Sagginati, Ser Raffaello del Beccaio, Ser Cecchino de' Profumi, Girolamo del Giocondo, and Il Baia, and, while they were eating their ricotta,[13] the eyes of Baia fell on a heap of lime with the trowel sticking in it, just as the mason had left it the day before, by the side of the table in a corner of the garden. Whereupon, taking some of the lime with that trowel, or rather, mason's trowel, he dropped it all into the mouth of Feo, who was waiting with gaping jaws for a great mouthful of ricotta from another of the company. Which seeing, they all began to shout: "A Trowel, a Trowel!" That Company being then formed by reason of that incident, it was ordained that its members should be in all twenty-four, twelve of those who, as the phrase was in those times, were "going for the Great,"[14] and twelve of those who were "going for the Less"; and that its emblem should be a trowel, to which they added afterwards those little black tadpoles that have a large head and a tail, which are called in Tuscany Cazzuole. Their Patron Saint was S. Andrew, whose festal day they used to celebrate with much solemnity, giving a most beautiful supper and banquet according to their rules. The first members of that Company, those "going for the Great," were Jacopo Bottegai, Francesco Rucellai, Domenico his brother, Giovan Battista Ginori, Girolamo del Giocondo, Giovanni Miniati, Niccolò del Barbigia, Mezzabotte his brother, Cosimo da Panzano, Matteo his brother, Marco Jacopi, and Pieraccino Bartoli; and those "going for the Less," Ser Bastiano Sagginati, Ser Raffaello del Beccaio, Ser Cecchino de' Profumi, Giuliano Bugiardini the painter, Francesco Granacci the painter, Giovan Francesco Rustici, Feo the hunchback, his companion Il Talina the musician, Pierino the fifer, Giovanni the trombone-player, and Il Baia the bombardier. The associates were Bernardino di Giordano, Il Talano, Il Caiano, Maestro Jacopo del Bientina and M. Giovan Battista di Cristofano Ottonaio, both heralds of the Signoria, Buon Pocci, and Domenico Barlacchi. And not many years passed (so much did they increase in reputation as they held their feasts and merrymakings), before there were elected to that Company of the Cazzuola Signor Giuliano de' Medici, Ottangolo Benvenuti, Giovanni Canigiani, Giovanni Serristori, Giovanni Gaddi, Giovanni Bandini, Luigi Martelli, Paolo da Romena, and Filippo Pandolfini the hunchback; and together with these, at one and the same time, as associates, Andrea del Sarto the painter, Bartolommeo Trombone the musician, Ser Bernardo Pisanello, Piero the cloth-shearer, Gemma the mercer, and lastly Maestro Manente da San Giovanni the physician. [Footnote 12: Mason's trowel.] [Footnote 13: A sort of curd.] [Footnote 14: The phrase, "To go for the Great," was originally applied to those Florentine families that belonged to the seven chief Guilds. It afterwards came to be used simply as a mark of superiority.] The feasts that these men held at various times were innumerable, and I shall describe only a few of them for the sake of those who do not know the customs of these Companies, which, as has been related, have now fallen almost entirely out of fashion. The first given by the Cazzuola, which was arranged by Giuliano Bugiardini, was held at a place called the Aia,[15] at S. Maria Nuova, where, as we have already said, the gates of S. Giovanni were cast in bronze. There, I say, the master of the Company having commanded that every man should present himself dressed in whatever costume he pleased, on condition that those who might resemble one another in their manner of dress by being clothed in the same fashion, should pay a penalty, at the appointed hour there appeared the most beautiful, bizarre, and extravagant costumes that could be imagined. Then, the hour of supper having come, they were placed at table according to the quality of their clothes--those who were dressed as Princes in the first places, the rich and noble after them, and those dressed as poor persons in the last and lowest places. And whether they had games and merrymaking after supper, it is better to leave that to everyone to imagine for himself than to say anything about it. [Footnote 15: Threshing-floor.] At another repast, which was arranged by the same Bugiardini and by Giovan Francesco Rustici, the men of the Company appeared, as the master had commanded, all in the dress of masons and their labourers; that is, those who were "going for the Great" had the trowel with the cutting edge and hammer in their girdles, and those "going for the Less" were dressed as labourers with the hod, the levers for moving weights, and in their girdles the ordinary trowel. When all had arrived in the first room, the lord of the feast showed them the ground-plan of an edifice that had to be built by the company, and placed the master-masons at table around it; and then the labourers began to carry up the materials for making the foundations--hods full of cooked lasagne and ricotta prepared with sugar for mortar, sand made of cheese, spices, and pepper mixed together, and for gravel large sweetmeats and pieces of berlingozzo.[16] The wall-bricks, paving-bricks, and tiles, which were brought in baskets and hand-barrows, were loaves of bread and flat cakes. A basement having then come up, it appeared to the stone-cutters that it had not been executed and put together well enough, and they judged that it would be a good thing to break it and take it to pieces; whereupon, having set upon it and found it all composed of pastry, pieces of liver, and other suchlike things, they feasted on these, which were placed before them by the labourers. Next, the same labourers having come on the scene with a great column swathed with the cooked tripe of calves, it was taken to pieces, and after distributing the boiled veal, capons, and other things of which it was composed, they eat the base of Parmesan cheese and the capital, which was made in a marvellous manner of pieces carved from roasted capons and slices of veal, with a crown of tongues. But why do I dally over describing all the details? After the column, there was brought up on a car a very ingenious piece of architrave with frieze and cornice, composed in like manner so well and of so many different viands, that to attempt to describe them all would make too long a story. Enough that when the time came to break up, after many peals of thunder an artificial rain began to fall, and all left the work and fled, each one going to his own house. [Footnote 16: A Florentine cake.] Another time, when the master of the same Company was Matteo da Panzano, the banquet was arranged in the following manner. Ceres, seeking Proserpine her daughter, who had been carried off by Pluto, entered the room where the men of the Cazzuola were assembled, and, coming before their master, besought him that they should accompany her to the infernal regions. To which request consenting after much discussion, they went after her, and so, entering into a somewhat darkened room, they saw in place of a door a vast mouth of a serpent, the head of which took up the whole wall. Round which door all crowding together, while Cerberus barked, Ceres called out asking whether her lost daughter were in there, and, a voice having answered Yes, she added that she desired to have her back. But Pluto replied that he would not give her up, and invited Ceres with all the company to the nuptials that were being prepared; and the invitation was accepted. Whereupon, all having entered through that mouth, which was full of teeth, and which, being hung on hinges, opened to each couple of men that entered, and then shut again, they found themselves at last in a great room of a round shape, which had no light but a very little one in the centre, which burned so dim that they could scarcely see one another. There, having been pushed into their seats with a great fork by a most hideous Devil who was in the middle, beside the tables, which were draped in black, Pluto commanded that in honour of his nuptials the pains of Hell should cease for as long as those guests remained there; and so it was done. Now in that room were painted all the chasms of the regions of the damned, with their pains and torments; and, fire being put to a match of tow, in a flash a light was kindled at each chasm, thus revealing in the picture in what manner and with what pains those who were in it were tormented. The viands of that infernal supper were all animals vile and most hideous in appearance; but nevertheless within, under the loathly covering and the shape of the pastry, were most delicate meats of many kinds. The skin, I say, on the outer side, made it appear as if they were serpents, grass-snakes, lizards large and small, tarantulas, toads, frogs, scorpions, bats, and other suchlike animals; but within all were composed of the choicest viands. And these were placed on the tables before every man with a shovel, under the direction of the Devil, who was in the middle, while a companion poured out exquisite wines from a horn of glass, ugly and monstrous in shape, into glazed crucibles, which served as drinking-glasses. These first viands finished, which formed a sort of relish, dead men's bones were set all the way down the table in place of fruits and sweetmeats, as if the supper, which was scarcely begun, were finished; which reliquary fruits were of sugar. That done, Pluto, who proclaimed that he wished to go to his repose with his Proserpine, commanded that the pains should return to torment the damned; and in a moment all the lights that have been mentioned were blown out by a sort of wind, on every side were heard rumblings, voices, and cries, awesome and horrible, and in the middle of that darkness, with a little light, was seen the image of Baia the bombardier, who was one of the guests, as has been related--condemned to Hell by Pluto for having always chosen as the subjects and inventions of his girandole and other fireworks the seven mortal sins and the things of Hell. While all were occupied in gazing on that spectacle and listening to various sounds of lamentation, the mournful and funereal table was taken away, and in place of it, lights being kindled, was seen a very rich and regal feast, with splendid servants who brought the rest of the supper, which was handsome and magnificent. At the end of the supper came a ship full of various confections, and the crew of the ship, pretending to remove their merchandize, little by little brought the men of the Company into the upper rooms, where, a very rich scenic setting having been already prepared, there was performed a comedy called the Filogenia, which was much extolled; and at dawn, the play finished, every man went happily home. Two years afterwards, it being the turn of the same man, after many feasts and comedies, to be master of the Company another time, he, in order to reprove some of that Company who had spent too much on certain feasts and banquets (only, as the saying goes, to be themselves eaten alive), had his banquet arranged in the following manner. At the Aia, where they were wont to assemble, there were first painted on the wall without the door some of those figures that are generally painted on the walls and porticoes of hospitals, such as the director of the hospital, with gestures full of charity, inviting and receiving beggars and pilgrims. This picture being uncovered late on the evening of the feast, there began to arrive the men of the Company, who, after knocking and being received at the entrance by the director of the hospital, made their way into a great room arranged in the manner of a hospital, with the beds at the sides and other suchlike things. In the middle of that room, round a great fire, were Bientina, Battista dell'Ottonaio, Barlacchi, Baia, and other merry spirits, dressed after the manner of beggars, wastrels, and gallows-birds, who, pretending not to be seen by those who came in from time to time and gathered into a circle, and conversing of the men of the Company and also of themselves, said the hardest things in the world about those who had thrown away their all and spent on suppers and feasts much more than was right. Which discourse finished, when it was seen that all who were to be there had arrived, in came S. Andrew, their Patron Saint, who, leading them out of the hospital, took them into another room, magnificently furnished, where they sat down to table and had a joyous supper. Then the Saint laughingly commanded them that, in order not to be too wasteful with their superfluous expenses, so that they might keep well away from hospitals, they should be contented with one feast, a grand and solemn affair, every year; after which he went his way. And they obeyed him, holding a most beautiful supper, with a comedy, every year over a long period of time; and thus there were performed at various times, as was related in the Life of Aristotile da San Gallo, the Calandra of M. Bernardo, Cardinal of Bibbiena, the Suppositi and the Cassaria of Ariosto, and the Clizia and Mandragola of Macchiavelli, with many others. Francesco and Domenico Rucellai, for the feast that it fell to them to give when they were masters of the Company, performed first the Arpie of Fineo, and the second time, after a disputation of philosophers on the Trinity, they caused to be represented S. Andrew throwing open a Heaven with all the choirs of the Angels, which was in truth a very rare spectacle. And Giovanni Gaddi, with the help of Jacopo Sansovino, Andrea del Sarto, and Giovan Francesco Rustici, represented a Tantalus in Hell, who gave a feast to all the men of the Company clothed in the dress of various Gods; with all the rest of the fable, and many fanciful inventions of gardens, scenes of Paradise, fireworks, and other things, to recount which would make our story too long. A very beautiful invention, also, was that of Luigi Martelli, when, being master of the Company, he gave them supper in the house of Giuliano Scali at the Porta Pinti; for he represented Mars all smeared with blood, to signify his cruelty, in a room full of bloody human limbs; in another room he showed Mars and Venus naked in a bed, and a little farther on Vulcan, who, having covered them with the net, was calling all the Gods to see the outrage done to him by Mars and by his sorry spouse. But it is now time--after this digression, which may perchance appear to some too long, although for many reasons it does not seem to me that this account has been given wholly out of place--that I return to the Life of Rustici. Giovan Francesco, then, not liking much to live in Florence after the expulsion of the Medici in the year 1528, left the charge of all his affairs to Niccolò Buoni, and went off with his young man Lorenzo Naldini, called Guazzetto, to France, where, having been made known to King Francis by Giovan Battista della Palla, who happened to be there then, and by Francesco di Pellegrino, his very dear friend, who had gone there a short time before, he was received very willingly, and an allowance of five hundred crowns a year was granted to him. By that King, for whom Giovan Francesco executed some works of which nothing in particular is known, he was finally commissioned to make a horse in bronze, twice the size of life, upon which was to be placed the King himself. Whereupon, having set his hand to the work, after some models which much pleased the King, he went on with the making of the large model and the mould for casting it, in a large palace given to him for his enjoyment by the King. But, whatever may have been the reason, the King died before the work was finished; and since at the beginning of Henry's reign many persons had their allowances taken away and the expenses of the Court were cut down, it is said that Giovan Francesco, now old and not very prosperous, had nothing to live upon save the profit that he made by letting the great palace and dwelling that he had received for his own enjoyment from the liberality of King Francis. And Fortune, not content with all that the poor man had endured up to that time, gave him, in addition to all the rest, another very great shock, in that King Henry presented that palace to Signor Piero Strozzi; and Giovan Francesco would have found himself in very dire straits, if the goodness of that lord, to whom the misfortunes of Rustici were a great grief (the latter having made himself known to him), had not brought him timely aid in the hour of his greatest need. For Signor Piero, sending him to an abbey or some other place, whatever it may have been, belonging to his brother, not only succoured Giovan Francesco in his needy old age, but even had him attended and cared for, according as his great worth deserved, until the end of his life. Giovan Francesco died at the age of eighty, and his possessions fell for the most part to the above-named Signor Piero Strozzi. I must not omit to tell that it has come to my ears that while Antonio Mini, a disciple of Buonarroti, was living in France, when he was entertained and treated with much lovingness in Paris by Giovan Francesco, there came into the hands of Rustici some cartoons, designs, and models by the hand of Michelagnolo; a part of which the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini received when he was in France, and he brought them to Florence. Giovan Francesco, as has been said, was not only without an equal in the work of casting, but also exemplary in conduct, of supreme goodness, and a great lover of the poor. Wherefore it is no marvel that he was assisted most liberally in the hour of his need by the above-mentioned Signor Piero with money and every other thing, for it is true beyond all other truths that even in this life the good works that we do to our neighbours for the love of God are repaid a thousand-fold. Rustici drew very well, as may be seen, besides our own book, from the book of drawings of the very reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini. The above-mentioned Lorenzo Naldini, called Guazzetto, the disciple of Rustici, has executed many works of sculpture excellently well in France, but of these I have not been able to learn any particulars, any more than of those of his master, who, it may well be believed, did not stay all those years in France as good as idle, nor always occupied with that horse of his. That Lorenzo possessed some houses beyond the Porta a San Gallo, in the suburbs that were destroyed on account of the siege of Florence, which houses were thrown to the ground together with the rest by the people. That circumstance so grieved him, that, returning in the year 1540 to revisit his country, when he was within a quarter of a mile of Florence he put the hood of his cloak over his head, covering his eyes, in order that, in entering by that gate, he might not see the suburb and his own houses all pulled down. Wherefore the guards at the gate, seeing him thus muffled up, asked him what that meant, and, having heard from him why he had so covered his face, they laughed at him. Lorenzo, after being a few months in Florence, returned to France, taking his mother with him; and there he still lives and labours. FRA GIOVANNI AGNOLO MONTORSOLI LIFE OF FRA GIOVANNI AGNOLO MONTORSOLI SCULPTOR To one Michele d'Agnolo of Poggibonzi, in the village of Montorsoli, which is three miles distant from Florence on the road to Bologna, where he had a good farm of some size, there was born a male child, to whom he gave the name of his father, Agnolo. That child, growing up, and having an inclination for design, as could be readily seen, was placed by his father, according to the advice of friends, to learn stone-cutting under some masters who worked at the quarries of Fiesole, almost opposite to Montorsoli. Agnolo continuing to ply the chisel with those masters, in company with Francesco del Tadda, who was then a lad, and with others, not many months had passed before he knew very well how to handle the tools and to execute many kinds of work in that profession. Having then contracted a friendship by means of Francesco del Tadda with Maestro Andrea, a sculptor of Fiesole, the genius of the child so pleased that master, that he conceived an affection for him, and began to teach him; and thus he kept him in his workshop for three years. After which time, his father Michele being dead, Agnolo went off in company with other young stone-cutters to Rome, where, having been set to work on the building of S. Pietro, he carved some of those rosettes that are in the great cornices which encircle the interior of that temple, with much profit to himself and a good salary. Having then departed from Rome, I know not why, he placed himself in Perugia with a master stone-cutter, who at the end of a year left him in charge of all his works. But, recognizing that to stay at Perugia was not the life for him, and that he was not learning, he went off, when the opportunity to depart presented itself, to work on the tomb of M. Raffaello Maffei, called Il Volterrano, at Volterra; and in that work, which was being made in marble, he carved some things which showed that his genius was destined some day to achieve a good result. Which labour finished, hearing that Michelagnolo Buonarroti was setting to work at that time on the buildings of the sacristy and library of S. Lorenzo the best carvers and stone-cutters that could be found, he went off to Florence; where, having been likewise set to work, among the first things that he did were some ornaments from which Michelagnolo recognized that he was a young man of most beautiful and resolute genius, and that, moreover, he could do more in one day by himself alone than the oldest and best practised masters could do in two. Wherefore he caused to be given to him, boy as he was, the same salary as the older men were drawing. These buildings being then suspended in the year 1527 on account of the plague and for other reasons, Agnolo, not knowing what else to do, went to Poggibonzi, from which place his father and grandfather had their origin; and there he remained for a time with M. Giovanni Norchiati, his uncle, a pious and well-lettered man, doing nothing but draw and study. But in the end, seeing the world turned topsy-turvy, a desire came to him to become a monk, and to give his attention in peace to the salvation of his soul, and he went to the Hermitage of Camaldoli. There, making trial of that life, and not being able to endure the discomforts, fastings, and abstinences, he did not stay long; but nevertheless, during the time that he was there, he became very dear to those Fathers, for he was of an excellent disposition. And during that time his diversion was to carve heads of men and of various animals, with beautiful and fanciful inventions, on the ends of the staves, or rather, sticks, that those holy Fathers carry when they go from Camaldoli to the Hermitage or for recreation into the forest, at which time they have a dispensation from silence. Having departed from the Hermitage with the leave and good-will of the Principal, he went off to La Vernia, as one who was drawn at all costs to become a monk, and stayed there awhile, frequenting the choir and mixing with those Fathers; but that life, also, did not please him, and, after having received information about the life in many religious houses of Florence and Arezzo, he left La Vernia and went to those places. And finally, not being able to settle in any other in such a manner as to have facilities for attending both to drawing and to the salvation of his soul, he became a friar in the Ingesuati at Florence, without the Porta a Pinti, and was received by them very willingly; for they gave their attention to making windows of glass, and they hoped that he would be of great assistance and advantage to them in that work. Now those Fathers, according to the custom of their life and rule, do not say Mass, and keep for that purpose a priest to say Mass every morning; and they had at that time as their chaplain a certain Fra Martino of the Servite Order, a person of passing good judgment and character. That Fra Martino, having recognized the young man's genius, reflected that he was little able to exercise it among those Fathers, who do nothing but say Paternosters, make windows of glass, distil waters, and lay out gardens, with other suchlike pursuits, and do not study or give their attention to letters; and he contrived to say and do so much that the young man, going forth from the Ingesuati, assumed the habit among the Servite Friars of the Nunziata in Florence on the seventh day of October in the year 1530, receiving the name of Fra Giovanni Agnolo. In the next year, 1531, having learned in the meanwhile the ceremonies and offices of that Order, and studied the works of Andrea del Sarto that are in that place, he made what they call his profession; and in the year following, to the full satisfaction of those Fathers and the contentment of his relatives, he chanted his first Mass with much pomp and honour. Then, the images in wax of Leo, Clement, and others of that most noble family, which had been placed there as votive offerings, having been destroyed during the expulsion of the Medici by some young men who were rather mad than valorous, the friars determined that these should be made again, and Fra Giovanni Agnolo, with the help of some of those men who gave their attention to the work of fashioning such images, restored some that were old and consumed by time, and made anew those of Pope Leo and Pope Clement, which are still to be seen there, and a short time afterwards those of the King of Bosnia and of the old Lord of Piombino. And in these works Fra Giovanni Agnolo made no little proficience. Meanwhile, Michelagnolo being in Rome with Pope Clement, who desired that the work of S. Lorenzo should be continued, and had therefore had him summoned, his Holiness asked him to find a young man who might restore some ancient statues in the Belvedere, which were broken. Whereupon Buonarroti, remembering Fra Giovanni Agnolo, proposed him to the Pope, and his Holiness demanded him in a brief from the General of the Servite Order, who gave him up because he could not do otherwise, and very unwillingly. Arriving in Rome, then, the friar, labouring in the rooms of the Belvedere that were given to him by the Pope to live and work in, restored the left arm that was wanting to the Apollo and the right arm of the Laocoon, which statues are in that place, and likewise gave directions for restoring the Hercules. And, since the Pope went almost every morning to the Belvedere for recreation and to say the office, the friar made his portrait in marble, and that so well that the work brought him much praise, and the Pope conceived a very great affection for him, particularly because he saw him to be very studious of the matters of art, and heard that he used to draw all night in order to have new things every morning to show to the Pope, who much delighted in them. During that time, a canonicate having fallen vacant at S. Lorenzo, a church in Florence built and endowed by the House of Medici, Fra Giovanni Agnolo, who by that time had laid aside the friar's habit, obtained it for M. Giovanni Norchiati, his uncle, who was chaplain in the above-named church. [Illustration: S. COSMAS (_After the marble by =Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli=. Florence: S. Lorenzo, Medici Chapel_) _Alinari_] Finally, Pope Clement, having determined that Buonarroti should return to Florence to finish the works of the sacristy and library of S. Lorenzo, gave him orders, since many statues were wanting there, as will be told in the Life of Michelagnolo himself, that he should avail himself of the most able men that could be found, and particularly of Fra Giovanni Agnolo, employing the same methods as had been adopted by Antonio da San Gallo in order to finish the works of the Madonna di Loreto. Having therefore made his way with the Frate to Florence, Michelagnolo, in executing the statues of Duke Lorenzo and Duke Giuliano, employed the Frate much in polishing them and in executing certain difficult undercuttings; with which occasion Fra Giovanni Agnolo learned many things from that truly divine man, standing with attention to watch him at work, and observing every least thing. Now among other statues that were wanting to the completion of that work, there were lacking a S. Cosimo and a S. Damiano that were to be one on either side of the Madonna, and Michelagnolo gave the S. Damiano to Raffaello da Montelupo to execute, and to the Frate the S. Cosimo, commanding the latter that he should work in the same rooms where he himself had worked and was still working. Having therefore set his hand with the greatest zeal to that work, the Frate made a large model of the figure, which was retouched by Buonarroti in many parts; indeed, Michelagnolo made with his own hand the head and the arms of clay, which are now at Arezzo, held by Vasari among his dearest treasures in memory of that great man. There were not wanting many envious persons who blamed Michelagnolo for his action, saying that in allotting that statue he had shown little judgment, and had made a bad choice; but the result afterwards proved, as will be related, that Michelagnolo had shown excellent judgment, and that the Frate was an able man. When Michelagnolo, with the assistance of Fra Giovanni Agnolo, had finished and placed in position the statues of Duke Giuliano and Duke Lorenzo, being summoned by the Pope, who wished that arrangements should be made for executing in marble the façade of S. Lorenzo, he went to Rome; but he had not made a long stay there, when, Pope Clement dying, everything was left unfinished. At Florence the statue of the Frate, unfinished as it was, together with the other works, was thrown open to view, and was very highly extolled; and in truth, whether it was his own study and diligence, or the assistance of Michelagnolo, it proved in the end to be an excellent figure, and the best that Fra Giovanni Agnolo ever made among all that he executed in the whole of his life, so that it was truly worthy to be placed where it was. Buonarroti, being freed by the death of the Pope from his engagements at S. Lorenzo, turned his attention to discharging his obligations in connection with the tomb of Pope Julius II; but, since he had need of assistance for this, he sent for the Frate. But Fra Giovanni Agnolo did not go to Rome until he had finished entirely the image of Duke Alessandro for the Nunziata, which he executed in a manner different from the others, and very beautiful, in the form in which that lord may still be seen, clad in armour and kneeling on a Burgundian helmet, and with one hand to his breast, in the act of recommending himself to the Madonna there. That image finished, he then went to Rome, and was of great assistance to Michelagnolo in the work of the above-mentioned tomb of Julius II. Meanwhile Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici heard that Cardinal de Tournon had to take a sculptor to France to serve the King, and he proposed to him Fra Giovanni Agnolo, who, being much exhorted with good reasons by Michelagnolo, went with that same Cardinal de Tournon to Paris. Arriving there, he was introduced to the King, who received him very willingly, and shortly afterwards assigned to him a good allowance, with the command that he should execute four large statues. Of these the Frate had not yet finished the models, when, the King being far away and occupied in fighting with the English on the borders of his kingdom, he began to be badly treated by the treasurers, not being able to draw his allowances and have whatever he desired, according as had been ordained by the King. At which feeling great disdain--for it appeared to him that in proportion as these arts and the men of the arts were esteemed by that magnanimous King, even so they were disprized and put to shame by his Ministers--he departed, notwithstanding that the treasurers, who became aware of his displeasure, paid him his overdue allowances down to the last farthing. It is true that before setting out he gave both the King and the Cardinal to know by means of letters that he wished to go away. Having therefore gone from Paris to Lyons, and from there through Provence to Genoa, he had not been long there when, in company with some friends, he went to Venice, Padua, Verona, and Mantua, seeing with great pleasure buildings, sculptures, and pictures, and at times drawing them; but above all did the pictures of Giulio Romano in Mantua please him, some of which he drew with care. Then, having heard at Ferrara and Bologna that his fellow-friars of the Servite Order were holding a General Chapter at Budrione, he went there in order to see again many who were his friends, and in particular the Florentine Maestro Zaccheria, whom he loved most dearly. At his entreaty Fra Giovanni Agnolo made in a day and a night two figures in clay of the size of life, a Faith and a Charity, which, made in the semblance of white marble, served to adorn a temporary fountain contrived by him with a great vessel of copper, which continued to spout water during the whole day when the Chapter was held, to his great credit and honour. Having returned with the above-named Maestro Zaccheria from Budrione to Florence, he made in his own Servite Convent, likewise of clay, and placed in two niches of the chapter-house, two figures larger than life, Moses and S. Paul, which brought him much praise. Being then sent to Arezzo by Maestro Dionisio, the General of the Servites at that time, who was afterwards made a Cardinal by Pope Paul III, and who felt himself much indebted to Angelo, the General at Arezzo, who had brought him up and taught him the appreciation of letters, Fra Giovanni Agnolo executed for that General of Arezzo a beautiful tomb of grey sandstone in S. Piero in that city, with many carvings and some statues, and upon a sarcophagus the above-named General Angelo taken from life, and two nude little boys in the round, who are weeping and extinguishing the torches of human life, with other ornaments, which render that work very beautiful. It was not yet completely finished, when, being summoned to Florence by the proveditors for the festive preparations that Duke Alessandro was then causing to be made for the visit to that city of the Emperor Charles V, who was returning victorious from Tunis, the Frate was forced to depart. Having arrived in Florence, he made on the Ponte a S. Trinita, upon a great base, a figure of eight braccia, representing the River Arno lying down, which from its attitude appeared to be rejoicing with the Rhine, the Danube, the Bagradas, and the Ebro, statues executed by others, over the coming of his Majesty; which Arno was a very good and beautiful figure. On the Canto de' Carnesecchi the same master made a figure, twelve braccia high, of Jason, Leader of the Argonauts, but this, being of immoderate size, and the time short, did not prove to have the perfection of the first; nor, indeed, did the figure of August Gladness that he made on the Canto alla Cuculia. But, everyone remembering the shortness of the time in which he executed those works, they won much honour and fame for him both from the craftsmen and from all others. Having then finished the work at Arezzo, and hearing that Girolamo Genga had a work to execute in marble at Urbino, the Frate went to seek him out; but, not having come to any agreement, he took the road to Rome, and, after staying there but a short time, went on to Naples, in the hope that he might have to make the tomb of Jacopo Sannazzaro, a gentleman of Naples, and a truly distinguished and most rare poet. Sannazzaro had built at Margoglino, a very pleasant place with a most beautiful view at the end of the Chiaia, on the shore, a magnificent and most commodious habitation, which he enjoyed during his lifetime; and, coming to his death, he left that place, which has the form of a convent, with a beautiful little church, to the Order of Servite Friars, enjoining on Signor Cesare Mormerio and the Lord Count d'Aliffe, the executors of his will, that they should erect his tomb in that church, built by himself, which was to be administered by the above-named friars. When the making of it came to be discussed, Fra Giovanni Agnolo was proposed by the friars to the above-named executors; and to him, after he had gone to Naples, as has been related, that tomb was allotted, for his models had been judged to be no little better than the many others that had been made by various sculptors, the price being a thousand crowns. Of which having received a good portion, he sent to quarry the marbles Francesco del Tadda of Fiesole, an excellent carver, whom he had commissioned to execute all the squared work and carving that had to be done in that undertaking, in order to finish it more quickly. While the Frate was preparing himself to make that tomb, the Turkish army having entered Puglia and the people of Naples being in no little alarm on that account, orders were given that the city should be fortified, and for that purpose there were appointed four men of importance and of the best judgment. These men, wishing to make use of competent architects, turned their thoughts to the Frate; but he, having heard some rumour of this, and not considering that it was right for a man of religion, such as he was, to occupy himself with affairs of war, gave the executors to understand that he would do the work either in Carrara or in Florence, and that at the appointed time it would be finished and erected in its place. Having then made his way from Naples to Florence, he straightway received a command from the Signora Donna Maria, the mother of Duke Cosimo, that he should finish the S. Cosimo that he had previously begun under the direction of Buonarroti, for the tomb of the elder Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent. Whereupon he set his hand to it, and finished it; and that done, since the Duke had already caused to be constructed a great part of the conduits for the great fountain of his villa at Castello, and that fountain was to have at the top, as a crowning ornament, a Hercules in the act of crushing Antæus, from whose mouth there was to issue, in place of breath, a jet of water rising to some height, the Frate was commissioned to make for this a model of considerable size; which pleasing his Excellency, it was ordained that he should execute it and should go to Carrara to quarry the marble. To Carrara the Frate went very willingly, hoping with that opportunity to carry forward the above-mentioned tomb of Sannazzaro, and in particular a scene with figures in half-relief. While Fra Giovanni Agnolo was there, then, Cardinal Doria wrote from Genoa to Cardinal Cibo, who happened to be at Carrara, saying that, since Bandinelli had not finished the statue of Prince Doria, and would now never finish it, he should contrive to obtain for him some able man, a sculptor, who might do it, for the reason that he had the charge of pressing on that work. Which letter having been received by Cibo, who had long had knowledge of the Frate, he did his utmost to send him to Genoa; but he steadfastly declared that he could not and would not serve his most reverend Highness until he had fulfilled the promise and obligation by which he was bound to Duke Cosimo. While these matters were being discussed, he had carried the tomb of Sannazzaro well forward, and had blocked out the marble for the Hercules; and he then went with the latter to Florence. There he brought it with much promptitude and study to such a condition, that it would have been but little toil for him to finish it completely if he had continued to work at it. But a rumour having arisen that the marble was not proving to be by any means as perfect a work as the model, and that the Frate was likely to find difficulty in fitting together the legs of the Hercules, which did not correspond with the torso, Messer Pier Francesco Riccio, the majordomo, who was paying the Frate his allowance, let himself be swayed by that more than a serious man should have done, and began to proceed very cautiously with his payments, trusting too much to Bandinelli, who was leaning with all his weight against Fra Giovanni Agnolo, in order to avenge himself for the wrong which it appeared to him that master had done to him by promising that he would make the statue of Doria when once free of his obligation to the Duke. It was also thought that the favour of Tribolo, who was executing the ornaments of Castello, was no advantage to the Frate. However that may have been, perceiving himself to be badly treated by Riccio, and being a proud and choleric man, he went off to Genoa. There he received from Cardinal Doria and from the Prince the commission for the statue of that Prince, which was to be placed on the Piazza Doria; to which having set his hand, yet without altogether neglecting the tomb of Sannazzaro, while Tadda was executing the squared work and the carvings at Carrara, he finished it to the great satisfaction of the Prince and the people of Genoa. But, although that statue had been made to be placed on the Piazza Doria, nevertheless the Genoese made so much ado, that, to the despair of the Frate, it was placed on the Piazza della Signoria, notwithstanding that he said that he had fashioned it to stand by itself on a pedestal, and that therefore it could not look well or have its proper effect against a wall. And, to tell the truth, nothing worse can be done than to set up a work made for one place in some other place, seeing that the craftsman accommodates himself in the process of his labour, with regard to the lights and view-points, to the position in which his work, whether sculpture or painting, is to be placed. After this the Genoese, seeing the scenes and figures made for the tomb of Sannazzaro, and much liking them, desired that the Frate should execute a S. John the Evangelist for their Cathedral Church; which, when finished, pleased them so much that it filled them with stupefaction. Finally Fra Giovanni Agnolo departed from Genoa and went to Naples, where he set up in the place already mentioned the tomb of Sannazzaro, which is composed in this fashion. At the lower corners are two pedestals, on each of which are carved the arms of Sannazzaro, and between them is a slab of one braccio and a half on which is carved the epitaph that Jacopo wrote for himself, supported by two little boys. Next, on each of the said pedestals is a seated statue of marble in the round, four braccia in height, these being Minerva and Apollo; and between them, set off by two ornamental consoles that are at the sides, is a scene two braccia and a half square, in which are carved in low-relief Fauns, Satyrs, Nymphs, and other figures that are playing and singing, after the manner which that most excellent man has described in the pastoral verses of his most learned Arcadia. Above this scene is placed a sarcophagus of a very beautiful shape in the round, all carved and very ornate, in which are the remains of that poet; and upon it, on a base in the centre, is his head taken from life, with these words at the foot--ACTIUS SINCERUS; accompanied by two boys with wings in the manner of Loves, who have some books about them. And in two niches that are at the sides, in the other two walls of the chapel, there are on two bases two upright figures of marble in the round, each of three braccia or little more; these being S. James the Apostle and S. Nazzaro. When this work had been built up in the manner that has been described, the above-mentioned lords, the executors, were completely satisfied with it, and all Naples likewise. [Illustration: TOMB OF ANDREA DORIA (_After =Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli=. Genoa: S. Matteo_) _Alinari_] The Frate then remembering that he had promised Prince Doria that he would return to Genoa to make his tomb for him in S. Matteo and to adorn the whole church, he departed straightway from Naples and set out for Genoa. Having arrived there, he made the models of the work that he was to execute for that lord, which pleased him vastly; and then he set his hand to it, with a good allowance of money and a good number of masters. And thus, dwelling in Genoa, the Frate made many friendships with noblemen and men of distinction, and in particular with some physicians, who were of much assistance to him; for, helping one another, they made anatomical studies of many human bodies, and gave their attention to architecture and perspective, and so Fra Giovanni Agnolo attained to the greatest excellence. Besides this, the Prince, going very often to the place where he was working, and much liking his discourse, conceived a very great affection for him. At that time, also, of two nephews that he had left in charge of Maestro Zaccheria, one, called Agnolo, was sent to him, a young man of beautiful genius and exemplary character; and shortly afterwards there was sent to him by the same Zaccheria another young man called Martino, the son of one Bartolommeo, a tailor. Of both these young men, teaching them as if they were his sons, the Frate availed himself in the work that he had in hand. And when he had finally come to the end of it, he built up the chapel, the tomb, and the other ornaments that he had made for that church, which forms a cross at the head of the central nave and three crosses down along the length of the nave, and has the high-altar standing isolated at the head and in the centre. The chapel, then, is supported at the corners by four large pilasters, which likewise uphold the great cornice that runs right round, over which curve four semicircular arches that lie in line with the pilasters. Of these arches, three are adorned in their central space with windows of no great size; and over the arches curves a round cornice that forms four angles between one arch and another at the corners, while above it rises a vaulting in the form of a basin. After the Frate, then, had made many ornaments of marble about the altar on all four sides, he placed upon the altar a very rich and beautiful vase of marble for the most Holy Sacrament, between two Angels of the size of life, likewise of marble. Next, around the whole runs a pattern of different kinds of stone let into the marble with a beautiful and well-varied arrangement of variegated marbles and rare stones, such as serpentines, porphyries, and jaspers. And in the principal wall, at the head of the chapel, he made another pattern from the level of the floor to the height of the altar, with similar kinds of variegated marble and stone, which forms a base to four pilasters of marble that enclose three spaces. In the central space, which is larger than the others, there is in a tomb the body of I know not what Saint, and in those at the sides are two statues of marble, representing two Evangelists. Above that range of pilasters is a cornice, and above the cornice four other smaller pilasters; and these support another cornice, which is divided into compartments to hold three little tablets that correspond to the spaces below. In the central compartment, which rests upon the great cornice, is a Christ of marble rising from the dead, in full-relief, and larger than life. On the walls at the sides the same order of columns is repeated; and above that tomb, in the central space, is a Madonna in half-relief, with the Dead Christ: which Madonna is between King David and S. John the Baptist; and on the other side are S. Andrew and Jeremiah the Prophet. The lunettes of the arches above the great cornice, wherein are two windows, are in stucco-work, with two children that appear to be adorning the windows. In the angles below the tribune are four Sibyls, likewise of stucco, even as the whole vaulting is also wrought in grotesques of various manners. Beneath this chapel is built a subterranean chamber, wherein, after descending to it by a marble staircase, one sees at the head a sarcophagus of marble with two children upon it, in which was to be placed--as I believe was done after his death--the body of Signor Andrea Doria himself. And on an altar opposite to the sarcophagus, within a most beautiful vase of bronze, which was made and polished divinely well by him who cast it, whoever he may have been, is a piece of the wood of that most holy Cross upon which our Blessed Jesus Christ was crucified; which wood was presented to Prince Doria by the Duke of Savoy. The walls of that tomb are all encrusted with marble, and the vaulting wrought in stucco and gold, with many stories of the noble deeds of Doria; and the pavement is all divided into compartments with different kinds of variegated stone, to correspond with the vaulting. Next, on the walls of the cross of the nave, at the head, are two tombs of marble with two tablets in half-relief; in one is buried Count Filippino Doria, and in the other Signor Giannettino of the same family. Against the pilasters at the beginning of the central nave are two very beautiful pulpits of marble, and at the sides of the aisles there are distributed along the walls in a fine order of architecture some chapels with columns and many other ornaments, which make that church a truly rich and magnificent edifice. The church finished, the same Prince Doria ordained that work should be begun on his Palace, and that new additions of buildings should be made to it, with very beautiful gardens. These were executed under the direction of the Frate, who, having at the last constructed a fish-pond in front of that Palace, made a sea monster of marble in full-relief, which pours water in great abundance into that fish-pond; and after the likeness of that monster he made for those lords another, which was sent into Spain to Granvela. He also executed a great Neptune in stucco, which was placed on a pedestal in the garden of the Prince; and he made in marble two portraits of the same Prince and two of Charles V, which were taken by Covos to Spain. Much the friends of the Frate, while he was living in Genoa, were Messer Cipriano Pallavicino, who, being a man of great judgment in the matters of our arts, has always associated readily with the most excellent craftsmen, and has shown them every favour; the Lord Abbot Negro, Messer Giovanni da Montepulciano, the Lord Prior of S. Matteo, and, in a word, all the first lords and gentlemen of that city, in which he acquired both fame and riches. Having finished the works described above, Fra Giovanni Agnolo departed from Genoa and went to Rome to visit Buonarroti, whom he had not seen for many years past, and to try if he could by some means pick up again the thread of his connection with the Duke of Florence and return to complete the Hercules that he had left unfinished. But, after arriving in Rome, where he bought himself the title of Chevalier of S. Pietro, he heard by letters received from Florence that Bandinelli, pretending to be in want of marble, and giving out that the above-named Hercules was a piece of marble spoiled, had broken it up, with the leave of Riccio the majordomo, and had used it to make cornices for the tomb of Signor Giovanni, on which he was then at work; and at this he felt such disdain, that for the time being he would not on any account return to visit Florence, since it appeared to him that the presumption, arrogance, and insolence of that man were too easily endured. [Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF NEPTUNE (_After =Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli=. Messina: Piazza del Duomo_) _Brogi_] While the Frate was thus passing his time in Rome, the people of Messina, having determined to erect on the Piazza of their Duomo a fountain with a very great enrichment of statues, had sent men to Rome to seek out some excellent sculptor. These men had secured Raffaello da Montelupo, but he fell ill at the very moment when he was about to depart with them for Messina, so that they made another choice and took the Frate, who had sought with all insistence, and even with some interest, to obtain that work. Having therefore apprenticed as a carpenter in Rome his nephew Agnolo, who had proved to be less gifted than he had expected, he set out with Martino, and they arrived in Messina in the month of September, 1547. There, having been provided with rooms, he set his hand to making the conduit for the waters, which come from a distance, and to having marble sent from Carrara; and with great promptitude, assisted by many stone-cutters and carvers, he finished that fountain, which is made in the following manner. The fountain, I say, has eight sides--namely, four large, the principal sides, and four smaller. The principal sides are divided, and two of these, projecting outwards, form an angle in the middle, and two, receding inwards, join a straight face that belongs to the four smaller sides, so that in all there are eight. The four angular sides, which jut outwards, making a projection, give space for the four straight sides, which recede inwards; and in each enclosed space is a basin of some size, which receives water in great abundance from one of four River Gods of marble that are placed on the edge of the basin of the whole fountain, so as to command all the eight sides already described. The fountain stands on a base of four steps, which form twelve sides; eight longer sides, which contain the angles, and four smaller sides, where the basins are, under the four River Gods. The borders of the fountain are five palms high, and at each of the corners (which in all cover twenty sides) there is a terminal figure as an ornament. The circumference of the first basin with eight sides is one hundred and two palms, and the diameter is thirty-four; and in each of the above-named twenty sides is a little scene of marble in low-relief, with poetical subjects appropriate to water and fountains, such as the horse Pegasus creating the Castalian Fount, Europa passing over the sea, Icarus flying and falling into the same, Arethusa transformed into a fount, Jason crossing the sea with the Golden Fleece, Narcissus changed into a fount, and Diana in the water and transforming Actæon into a stag, with other suchlike stories. At the eight angles that divide the projections of the steps of the fountain, which rises two steps towards the basins and River Gods, and four towards the angular sides, are eight Sea Monsters, lying on certain dados, with their front paws resting on some masks that pour water into some vases. The River Gods which are on the border, and which rest within the basin on dados so high that they appear as if sitting in the water, are the Nile with seven little boys, the Tiber surrounded by an infinite number of palms and trophies, the Ebro with many victories of Charles V, and the River Cumano, near Messina, from which the waters for the fountain are taken; with some stories and Nymphs executed with beautiful conceptions. Up to this level of ten palms there are sixteen jets of water, very abundant; eight come from the masks already mentioned, four from the River Gods, and four from some fishes seven palms high, which, standing upright in the basin, with their heads out, spout water towards the larger sides. In the centre of the octagonal basin, on a pedestal four palms high, are Sirens with wings in place of arms, one at each corner; and above these Sirens, which are twined together in the centre, are four Tritons eight palms high, which likewise have their tails twined together, and with their arms they support a great tazza, into which water is poured by four masks superbly carved. From the centre of that tazza rises a round shaft that supports two most hideous masks, representing Scylla and Charybdis, which are trodden under foot by three nude Nymphs, each six palms high, above whom is placed the last tazza, which is upheld by them with their arms. In that tazza four Dolphins, with their heads down and their tails raised on high, forming a base, support a ball, from the centre of which, through four heads, there issues water that spouts upwards, and so also from the Dolphins, upon which are mounted four naked little boys. On the topmost summit, finally, is a figure in armour representing the constellation of Orion, which has on the shield the arms of the city of Messina, of which Orion is said, or rather is fabled, to have been the founder. Such, then, is that fountain of Messina, although it is not so easy to describe it in words as it would be to picture it in drawing. And since it much pleased the people of Messina, they caused him to make another on the shore, where the Customs-house is; which also proved to be beautiful and very rich. Now, although that fountain has in like manner eight sides, it is nevertheless different from that described above; for it has four straight sides that rise three steps, and four others, smaller, that are semicircular, and upon these stands the fountain with its eight sides. The borders of the great basin on the lowest level have at each angle a carved pedestal of an equal height, and in the centre of four of them, on the front face, is another pedestal. On each side where the steps are semicircular there is an elliptical basin of marble, into which water pours in great abundance through two masks that are on the parapet below the carved border. In the centre of the great basin of the fountain is a pedestal high in proportion, on which are the arms of Charles V; at each angle of that pedestal is a Sea-horse, which spouts water on high from between its feet; and in the frieze of the same, beneath the upper cornice, are eight great masks that pour jets of water downwards. And on the summit is a Neptune of five braccia, who holds the trident in his hand, and has the right leg planted beside a Dolphin. At the sides, also, upon two other pedestals, are Scylla and Charybdis in the forms of two monsters, fashioned very well, with heads of Dogs and Furies about them. That work, likewise, when finished, much pleased the people of Messina, who, having found a man to their liking, made a beginning, when the fountains were completed, with the façade of the Duomo, and carried it to some extent forward. And then they ordained that twelve chapels in the Corinthian Order should be made in that Duomo, six on either side, with the twelve Apostles in marble, each of five braccia. Of these chapels only four were finished by the Frate, who also made with his own hand a S. Peter and a S. Paul, which were two large and very good figures. He was also commissioned to make a Christ of marble for the head of the principal chapel, with a very rich ornament all around, and a scene in low-relief beneath each of the statues of the Apostles; but at that time he did nothing more. On the Piazza of the same Duomo he directed the building of the Temple of S. Lorenzo, in a beautiful manner of architecture, which won him much praise; and on the shore there was built under his direction the Beacon-tower. And while these works were being carried forward, he caused a chapel to be erected for the Captain Cicala in S. Domenico, for which he made a Madonna of marble as large as life; and for the chapel of Signor Agnolo Borsa, in the cloister of the same church, he executed a scene of marble in low-relief, which was held to be beautiful, and was wrought with much diligence. He also caused water to be conducted by way of the wall of S. Agnolo for a fountain, and made for it with his own hand a large boy of marble, which pours water into a vase that is very ornate and beautifully contrived; which was held to be a lovely work. At the Wall of the Virgin he made another fountain, with a Virgin by his own hand, which pours water into a basin; and for that which is erected at the Palace of Signor Don Filippo Laroca, he made a boy larger than life, of a kind of stone that is used at Messina, which boy, surrounded by certain monsters and other products of the sea, pours water into a vase. And he made a statue in marble of four braccia, a very beautiful figure of S. Catharine the Martyr, which was sent to Taormina, a place twenty-four miles distant from Messina. [Illustration: HIGH ALTAR (_After =Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli=. Bologna: S. Maria dei Servi_) _Alinari_] Friends of Fra Giovanni Agnolo, while he was living at Messina, were the above-named Signor Don Filippo Laroca, and Don Francesco of the same family; Messer Bardo Corsi, Giovan Francesco Scali, and M. Lorenzo Borghini, all three Florentine gentlemen then in Messina; Serafino da Fermo, and the Grand Master of Rhodes, which last many times sought to draw him to Malta and to make him a Knight; but he answered that he did not wish to confine himself in that island, besides which, feeling that he was doing ill not to be wearing the habit of his Order, he thought at times of going back to it. And, in truth, I know that even if he had not been in a manner forced to do it, he was determined to resume the habit and to go back to live like a good Churchman. When, therefore, in the time of Pope Paul IV, in the year 1557, all the apostates, or rather, friars who had thrown off the habit, were constrained to return to their Orders under threat of the severest penalties, Fra Giovanni Agnolo abandoned the works that he had in hand, leaving his disciple Martino in his place, and went in the month of May from Messina to Naples, intending to return to his Servite Monastery in Florence. But before doing any other thing, wishing to devote himself entirely to God, he set about thinking how he might dispose of his great gains most suitably. And so, after having given in marriage certain nieces who were poor girls, and others from his native country and from Montorsoli, he ordained that a thousand crowns should be given to his nephew Agnolo, of whom mention has been already made, in Rome, and that a knighthood of the Lily should be bought for him. To each of two hospitals in Naples he gave a good sum of money in alms. To his own Servite Convent he left a thousand crowns to buy a farm, and also that at Montorsoli which had belonged to his forefathers, on the condition that twenty-five crowns should be paid to each of two nephews of his own, friars of the same Order, every year during their lifetime, together with other charges that will be mentioned later. All these matters being arranged, he showed himself in Rome and resumed the habit, with much joy to himself and to his fellow-friars, and particularly to Maestro Zaccheria. Then, having gone to Florence, he was received and welcomed by his relatives and friends with incredible pleasure and gladness. But, although the Frate had determined that he would spend the rest of his life in the service of our Lord God and the salvation of his soul, and live in peace and quietness, enjoying a knighthood that he had reserved for himself, he did not succeed in this so easily. For he was summoned to Bologna with great insistence by Maestro Giulio Bovio, the uncle of Vascone Bovio, to the end that he might make the high-altar in the Church of the Servites, which was to be all of marble and isolated, and in addition a tomb with figures, richly decorated with variegated stone and incrustations of marble; and he was not able to refuse him, particularly because that work was to be executed in a church of his Order. Having therefore gone to Bologna, he set his hand to the work and executed it in twenty-eight months, making that altar, which shuts off the choir of the friars from one pilaster to the other, all of marble both within and without, with a nude Christ of two braccia and a half in the centre, and with some other statues at the sides. That work is truly beautiful in architecture, well designed and distributed, and so well put together, that nothing better could be done; the pavement, also, wherein there is the tomb of Bovio on the level of the ground, is wrought in a beautifully ordered pattern; certain candelabra of marble, with some little figures and scenes, are passing well contrived; and every part is rich in carving. But the figures, besides that they are small, on account of the difficulty that is found in conveying large pieces of marble to Bologna, are not equal to the architecture, nor much worthy to be praised. While Fra Giovanni Agnolo was executing that work in Bologna, he was ever pondering, as one who was not yet firmly resolved in the matter, in what place, among those of his Order, he might be able most conveniently to spend his last years; when Maestro Zaccheria, his very dear friend, who was then Prior of the Nunziata in Florence, desiring to attract him to that place and to settle him there, spoke of him to Duke Cosimo, recalling to his memory the excellence of the Frate, and praying that he should deign to make use of him. To which the Duke having answered graciously, saying that he would avail himself of the Frate as soon as he had returned from Bologna, Maestro Zaccheria wrote to him of the whole matter, and then sent him a letter of Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, in which that lord exhorted him that he should return to his own country to execute some important work with his own hand. Having received these letters, the Frate, remembering that Messer Pier Francesco Riccio, after having been mad many years, had died, and that Bandinelli also had left the world, which men had seemed to be little his friends, wrote back that he would not fail to return as soon as he might be able, in order to serve his most illustrious Excellency, and to execute under his protection not profane things, but some sacred work, since he had a mind wholly turned to the service of God and of His Saints. Finally, then, having returned to Florence in the year 1561, he went off with Maestro Zaccheria to Pisa, where the Lord Duke and the Cardinal were, to do reverence to their most illustrious lordships; and after he had been received with much kindness and favour by those lords, and informed by the Duke that after his return to Florence he would be given a work of importance to execute, he went back. Then, having obtained leave from his fellow-friars of the Nunziata by means of Maestro Zaccheria, he erected in the centre of the chapter-house of that convent, where many years before he had made the Moses and S. Paul of stucco, as has been related above, a very beautiful tomb for himself and for all such men of the arts of design, painters, sculptors, and architects, as had not a place of their own in which to be buried; intending to arrange by a contract, as he did, that those friars, in return for the property that he was to leave to them, should be obliged to say Mass on some feast-days and ordinary days in that chapter-house, and that every year, on the day of the most Holy Trinity, a solemn festival should be held there, and on the following day an office of the dead for the souls of those buried in that place. This design having then been imparted by Fra Giovanni Agnolo and Maestro Zaccheria to Giorgio Vasari, who was very much their friend, they discoursed together on the affairs of the Company of Design, which had been created in the time of Giotto, and had a home in S. Maria Nuova in Florence, which it had possessed from that time down to our own, as may still be seen at the present day from a record at the high-altar of that Hospital; and they thought with this occasion to revive it and set it up again. For that Company had been removed from the above-mentioned high-altar, as has been related in the Life of Jacopo di Casentino, to a place under the vaulting of the same Hospital at the corner of the Via della Pergola, and finally had been removed and driven from that place also by Don Isidoro Montaguti, the Director of the Hospital, so that it was almost entirely dispersed, and no longer assembled. Now, after Fra Giovanni Agnolo, Maestro Zaccheria, and Giorgio had thus discoursed at some length of the condition of that Company, and the Frate had spoken of it with Bronzino, Francesco da San Gallo, Ammanati, Vincenzio de' Rossi, Michele di Ridolfo, and many other sculptors and painters of the first rank, and had declared his mind to them, when the morning of the most Holy Trinity came, all the most noble and excellent craftsmen of the arts of design, to the number of forty-eight, were assembled in the above-named chapter-house, where a most beautiful festival had been prepared, and where the tomb was already finished, and the altar so far advanced that there were wanting only some figures of marble that were going into it. There, after a most solemn Mass had been said, a beautiful oration was made by one of those fathers in praise of Fra Giovanni Agnolo, and of the magnificent liberality that he was showing to the Company by presenting to them that chapter-house, that tomb, and that chapel, in order to take possession of which, he said in conclusion, it had been already arranged that the body of Pontormo, which had been placed in a vault in the first little cloister of the Nunziata, should be laid in the new tomb before any other. When, therefore, the Mass and the oration were finished, they all went into the church, where there were on a bier the remains of that Pontormo; and then, having placed the bier on the shoulders of the younger men, with a taper for each and also some torches, they passed around the Piazza and carried it into the chapter-house, which, previously draped with cloth of gold, they found all black and covered with painted corpses and other suchlike things; and thus was Pontormo laid in the new tomb. The Company then dispersing, the first meeting was ordained for the next Sunday, when, besides settling the constitution of the Company, they were to make a selection of the best and create an Academy, with the assistance of which those without knowledge might learn, and those with knowledge, spurred by honourable and praiseworthy emulation, might proceed to make greater proficience. Giorgio, meanwhile, had spoken of these matters with the Duke, and had besought him that he should favour the study of these noble arts, even as he had favoured the study of letters by reopening the University of Pisa, creating a college for scholars, and making a beginning with the Florentine Academy; and he found him as ready to assist and favour that enterprise as he could have desired. After these things, the Servite Friars, having thought better over the matter, came to a resolution, which they made known to the Company, that they would not have their chapter-house used by them save for holding festivals, offices, and burials, and would not have their convent disturbed by the Company's meetings and assemblies, or in any other way. Of which Giorgio having spoken with the Duke, demanding some place from him, his Excellency said that he had thought of providing them with one wherein they might not only be able to erect a building for the Company, but also have room enough to work and demonstrate their worth. And shortly afterwards he wrote through M. Lelio Torelli to the Prior and Monks of the Angeli, giving them to understand that they were to accommodate the above-named Company in the temple that had been begun in their monastery by Filippo Scolari, called Lo Spano. The monks obeyed, and the Company was provided with certain rooms, in which they assembled many times with the gracious leave of those fathers, who received them sometimes even in their own chapter-house with much courtesy. But the Duke having been informed afterwards that some of those monks were not altogether content that the Company's building should be erected in their precincts, because the monastery would be encumbered thereby, and the above-named temple, which the craftsmen said that they wished to fill with their works, would do very well as it was, so far as they were concerned, his Excellency made it known to the men of the Academy, which had already made a beginning and had held the festival of S. Luke in that temple, that the monks, so he understood, were not very willing to have them in their house, and that therefore he would not fail to provide them with another place. The same Lord Duke also said, like the truly magnanimous Prince that he is, that he wished not only always to favour that Academy, but also to be himself its chief, guide, and protector, and that for that reason he would appoint year by year a Lieutenant who might be present in his stead at all their meetings. Acting on this promise, he chose as the first the reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, the Director of the Hospital of the Innocenti; and for these favours and courtesies shown by the Lord Duke to his new Academy, he was thanked by ten of the oldest and most excellent of its members. But since the reformation of the Company and the rules of the Academy are described at great length in the statutes that were drawn up by the men elected and deputed for that purpose as reformers by the whole body (who were Fra Giovanni Agnolo, Francesco da San Gallo, Agnolo Bronzino, Giorgio Vasari, Michele di Ridolfo, and Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro), in the presence of the said Lieutenant, and with the approval of his Excellency, I shall say no more about it in this place. I must mention, however, that since the old seal and arms, or rather, device of the Company, which was a winged ox lying down, the animal of S. Luke the Evangelist, displeased many of them, it was ordained that each one should give in words his suggestion for a new one, or show it in a drawing, and then there were seen the most beautiful inventions and the most lovely and extravagant fantasies that could be imagined. But for all that it is not yet completely determined which of them is to be accepted. Meanwhile Martino, the disciple of the Frate, having come from Messina to Florence, died in a few days, and was buried in the above-named tomb that had been made by his master. And not long afterwards, in 1564, the good father himself, Fra Giovanni Agnolo, who had been so excellent a sculptor, was buried in the same tomb with most honourable obsequies, a very beautiful oration being delivered in his praise in the Temple of the Nunziata by the very reverend and most learned Maestro Michelagnolo. Truly great is the debt that our arts for many reasons owe to Fra Giovanni Agnolo, in that he bore infinite love to them and likewise to their craftsmen; and of what great service has been and still is that Academy, which may be said to have received its origin from him in the manner that has been described, and which is now under the protection of the Lord Duke Cosimo, and assembles by his command in the new sacristy of S. Lorenzo, where there are so many works in sculpture by Michelagnolo, may be recognized from this, that not only in the obsequies of that Buonarroti (which, thanks to our craftsmen and to the assistance of the Prince, were not merely magnificent, but little less than regal, and which will be described in his Life), but also in many other undertakings, the same men, from emulation, and from a desire not to be unworthy of their Academy, have achieved marvellous things, and particularly in the nuptials of the most illustrious Lord, Don Francesco de' Medici, Prince of Florence and Siena, and of her Serene Highness, Queen Joanna of Austria, which have been described fully and in due order by others, and will be described again by us at great length in a more convenient place. And since not only in this good father, but also in many others of whom we have spoken above, it has been seen, as it still continues to be, that good Churchmen are useful and serviceable to the world in the arts and in the other more noble exercises no less than in letters, in public instruction, and in sacred councils, and that they have no reason to fear comparison in this respect with others, it may be said that there is probably no truth whatever in that which certain persons, influenced more by anger or by some private spite than by reason and love of truth, declare so freely of them--namely, that they devote themselves to such a life because from poverty of spirit they have not, like other men, the power to make a livelihood; for which may God forgive them. Fra Giovanni Agnolo lived fifty-six years, and died on the last day of August, 1563. FRANCESCO SALVIATI LIFE OF FRANCESCO SALVIATI PAINTER OF FLORENCE The father of Francesco Salviati, whose Life we are now about to write, and who was born in the year 1510, was a good man called Michelagnolo de' Rossi, a weaver of velvets; and he, having not only this child but also many others, both male and female, and being therefore in need of assistance, had determined in his own mind that he would at all costs make Francesco devote himself to his own calling of weaving velvets. But the boy, who had turned his mind to other things, and did not like the pursuit of that trade, although in the past it had been practised by persons, I will not say noble, but passing rich and prosperous, followed his father's wishes in that matter with no good-will. Indeed, associating in the Via de' Servi, where his father had a house, with the children of Domenico Naldini, their neighbour and an honoured citizen, he showed himself all given to gentle and honourable ways, and much inclined to design. In which matter he received no little assistance for a time from a cousin of his own called Diacceto, a young goldsmith, who had a passing good knowledge of design, in that he not only taught him all that he knew, but also furnished him with many drawings by various able men, over which, without telling his father, Francesco practised day and night with extraordinary zeal. And Domenico Naldini, having become aware of this, first examined the boy well, and then prevailed upon his father, Michelagnolo, to place him in his uncle's shop to learn the goldsmith's art; by reason of which opportunity for design Francesco in a few months made so much proficience, that everyone was astonished. In those days a company of young goldsmiths and painters used to assemble together at times and go throughout Florence on feast-days drawing the most famous works, and not one of them laboured more or with greater love than did Francesco. The young men of that company were Nanni di Prospero delle Corniole, the goldsmith Francesco di Girolamo dal Prato, Nannoccio da San Giorgio, and many other lads who afterwards became able men in their professions. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A MAN (_After the panel by =Francesco Salviati [Francesco de' Rossi]=. Florence: Uffizi, 1256_) _Alinari_] At this time Francesco and Giorgio Vasari, both being still boys, became fast friends, and in the following manner. In the year 1523, Silvio Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, passing through Arezzo as the Legate of Pope Clement VII, Antonio Vasari, his kinsman, took Giorgio, his eldest son, to make his reverence to the Cardinal. And the Cardinal, finding that the boy, who at that time was not more than nine years of age, had been so well grounded in his first letters by the diligence of M. Antonio da Saccone and of Messer Giovanni Pollastra, an excellent poet of Arezzo, that he knew by heart a great part of the _Æneid_ of Virgil, which he was pleased to hear him recite, and that he had learned to draw from Guglielmo da Marcilla, the French painter--the Cardinal, I say, ordained that Antonio should himself take the boy to Florence. There Giorgio was settled in the house of M. Niccolò Vespucci, Knight of Rhodes, who lived on the abutment of the Ponte Vecchio, above the Church of the Sepolcro, and was placed with Michelagnolo Buonarroti; and this circumstance came to the knowledge of Francesco, who was then living in the Chiasso di Messer Bivigliano, where his father rented a great house that faced on the Vacchereccia, employing many workmen. Whereupon, since like always draws to like, he so contrived that he became the friend of Giorgio, by means of M. Marco da Lodi, a gentleman of the above-named Cardinal of Cortona, who showed to Giorgio a portrait, which much pleased him, by the hand of Francesco, who a short time before had been placed to learn painting with Giuliano Bugiardini. Meanwhile Vasari, not neglecting the study of letters, by order of the Cardinal spent two hours every day with Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici, under their master Pierio, an able man. And this friendship, contracted as described above between Vasari and Francesco, became such that it never ceased to bind them together, although, by reason of their rivalry and a certain somewhat haughty manner of speech that Francesco had, some persons thought otherwise. When Vasari had been some months with Michelagnolo, that excellent man was summoned to Rome by Pope Clement, to receive instructions for beginning the Library of S. Lorenzo; and he was placed by him, before he departed, with Andrea del Sarto. And devoting himself under him to design, Giorgio was continually lending his master's drawings in secret to Francesco, who had no greater desire than to obtain and study them, as he did day and night. Afterwards Giorgio was placed by the Magnificent Ippolito with Baccio Bandinelli, who was pleased to have the boy with him and to teach him; and Vasari contrived to obtain Francesco as his companion, with great advantage to them both, for the reason that while working together they learned more and made greater progress in one month than they had done in two years while drawing by themselves. And the same did another young man who was likewise working under Bandinelli at that time, called Nannoccio of the Costa San Giorgio, of whom mention was made not long ago. In the year 1527, the Medici being expelled from Florence, there was a fight for the Palace of the Signoria, and a bench was thrown down from on high so as to fall upon those who were assaulting the door; but, as fate would have it, that bench hit an arm of the David in marble by Buonarroti, which is beside the door on the Ringhiera, and broke it into three pieces. These pieces having remained on the ground for three days, without being picked up by anyone, Francesco went to the Ponte Vecchio to find Giorgio, and told him his intention; and then, children as they were, they went to the Piazza, and, without thinking of any danger, in the midst of the soldiers of the guard, they took the pieces of that arm and carried them to the house of Michelagnolo, the father of Francesco, in the Chiasso di M. Bivigliano. From which house having afterwards recovered them, Duke Cosimo in time caused them to be restored to their places with pegs of copper. After this, the Medici being in exile, and with them the above-mentioned Cardinal of Cortona, Antonio Vasari took his son back to Arezzo, to the no little regret of Giorgio and Francesco, who loved one another as brothers. But they did not long remain separated from each other, for the reason that after the plague, which came in the following August, had killed Giorgio's father and the best part of his family, he was so pressed with letters by Francesco, who also came very near dying of plague, that he returned to Florence. There, working with incredible zeal for a period of two years, being driven by necessity and by the desire to learn, they made marvellous proficience, having recourse, together with the above-named Nannoccio da San Giorgio, to the workshop of the painter Raffaello da Brescia, under whom Francesco, being the one who had most need to provide himself with the means to live, executed many little pictures. Having come to the year 1529, since it did not appear to Francesco that staying in Brescia's workshop was doing him much good, he and Nannoccio went to work with Andrea del Sarto, and stayed with him all the time that the siege lasted, but in such discomfort, that they repented that they had not followed Giorgio, who spent that year in Pisa with the goldsmith Manno, giving his attention for four months to the goldsmith's craft to occupy himself. Vasari having then gone to Bologna, at the time when the Emperor Charles V was crowned there by Clement VII, Francesco, who had remained in Florence, executed on a little panel a votive picture for a soldier who had been murderously attacked in bed by certain other soldiers during the siege; and although it was a paltry thing, he studied it and executed it to perfection. That votive picture fell not many years ago into the hands of Giorgio Vasari, who presented it to the reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, the Director of the Hospital of the Innocenti, who holds it dear. For the Black Friars of the Badia Francesco painted three little scenes on a Tabernacle of the Sacrament made by the carver Tasso in the manner of a triumphal arch. In one of these is the Sacrifice of Abraham, in the second the Manna, and in the third the Hebrews eating the Paschal Lamb on their departure from Egypt; and the work was such that it gave an earnest of the success that he has since achieved. He then painted in a picture for Francesco Sertini, who sent it to France, a Dalilah who was cutting off the locks of Samson, and in the distance Samson embracing the columns of the temple and bringing it down upon the Philistines; which picture made Francesco known as the most excellent of the young painters that were then in Florence. Not long afterwards the elder Cardinal Salviati having requested Benvenuto della Volpaia, a master of clock-making, who was in Rome at that time, to find for him a young painter who might live with him and paint some pictures for his delight, Benvenuto proposed to him Francesco, who was his friend, and whom he knew to be the most competent of all the young painters of his acquaintance; which he did all the more willingly because the Cardinal had promised that he would give the young man every facility and all assistance to enable him to study. The Cardinal, then, liking the young Francesco's qualities, said to Benvenuto that he should send for him, and gave him money for that purpose. And so, when Francesco had arrived in Rome, the Cardinal, being pleased with his method of working, his ways, and his manners, ordained that he should have rooms in the Borgo Vecchio, and four crowns a month, with a place at the table of his gentlemen. The first works that Francesco (to whom it appeared that he had been very fortunate) executed for the Cardinal were a picture of Our Lady, which was held to be very beautiful, and a canvas of a French nobleman who is running in chase of a hind, which, flying from him, takes refuge in the Temple of Diana: of which work I keep the design, drawn by his hand, in my book, in memory of him. That canvas finished, the Cardinal caused him to portray in a very beautiful picture of Our Lady a niece of his own, married to Signor Cagnino Gonzaga, and likewise that lord himself. Now, while Francesco was living in Rome, with no greater desire than to see his friend Giorgio Vasari in that city, Fortune was favourable to his wishes in that respect, and even more to Vasari. For, Cardinal Ippolito having parted in great anger from Pope Clement for reasons that were discussed at the time, but returning not long afterwards to Rome accompanied by Baccio Valori, in passing through Arezzo he found Giorgio, who had been left without a father and was occupying himself as best he could; wherefore, desiring that he should make some proficience in art, and wishing to have him near his person, he commanded Tommaso de' Nerli, who was Commissary there, that he should send him to Rome as soon as he should have finished a chapel that he was painting in fresco for the Monks of S. Bernardo, of the Order of Monte Oliveto, in that city. That commission Nerli executed immediately, and Giorgio, having thus arrived in Rome, went straightway to find Francesco, who joyfully described to him in what favour he was with his lord the Cardinal, and how he was in a place where he could satisfy his hunger for study; adding, also: "Not only do I enjoy the present, but I hope for even better things, for, besides seeing you in Rome, with whom, as the young friend nearest to my heart, I shall be able to study and discuss the matters of art, I also live in hope of entering the service of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, from whose liberality, as well as from the favour of the Pope, I may look for greater things than I have at present; and this will happen without a doubt if a certain young man, who is expected from abroad, does not arrive." Giorgio, although he knew that the young man who was expected was himself, and that the place was being kept for him, yet would not reveal himself, because of a certain doubt that had entered his mind as to whether the Cardinal might not have another in view, and also from a wish not to declare a circumstance that might afterwards fall out differently. Giorgio had brought a letter from the above-named Commissary Nerli to the Cardinal, which, after having been five days in Rome, he had not yet presented. Finally Giorgio and Francesco went to the Palace and found in what is now the Hall of Kings Messer Marco da Lodi, who had formerly been with the Cardinal of Cortona, as was related above, but was then in the service of Medici. To him Giorgio presented himself, saying that he had a letter from the Commissary of Arezzo that was to be delivered to the Cardinal, and praying that he should give it to him; which Messer Marco was promising to do immediately, when at that very moment the Cardinal himself appeared there. Whereupon Giorgio, coming forward before him, presented the letter and kissed his hands; and he was received graciously, and shortly afterwards given into the charge of Jacopone da Bibbiena, the master of the household, who was commanded to provide him with rooms and with a place at the table of the pages. It appeared a strange thing to Francesco that Giorgio should not have confided the matter to him; but he was persuaded that he had done it for the best and with a good intention. When the above-named Jacopone, therefore, had given Giorgio some rooms behind S. Spirito, near Francesco, the two devoted themselves in company all that winter to the study of art, with much profit, leaving no noteworthy work, either in the Palace or in any other part of Rome, that they did not draw. And since, when the Pope was in the Palace, they were not able to stay there drawing at their ease, as soon as his Holiness had ridden forth to the Magliana, as he often did, they would gain admittance by means of friends into those apartments to draw, and would stay there from morning till night without eating anything but a little bread, and almost freezing with cold. Cardinal Salviati having then commanded Francesco that he should paint in fresco in the chapel of his Palace, where he heard Mass every morning, some stories of the life of S. John the Baptist, Francesco set himself to study nudes from life, and Giorgio with him, in a bath-house near there; and afterwards they made some anatomical studies in the Campo Santo. The spring having then come, Cardinal Ippolito, being sent by the Pope to Hungary, ordained that Giorgio should be sent to Florence, and should there execute some pictures and portraits that he had to despatch to Rome. But in the July following, what with the fatigues of the past winter and the heat of summer, Giorgio fell ill and was carried by litter to Arezzo, to the great sorrow of Francesco, who also fell sick and was like to die. However, being restored to health, Francesco was commissioned by Maestro Filippo da Siena, at the instance of Antonio L'Abacco, a master-worker in wood, to paint in fresco in a niche over the door at the back of S. Maria della Pace, a Christ speaking with S. Filippo, and in two angles the Virgin and the Angel of the Annunciation; which pictures, much pleasing Maestro Filippo, were the reason that he caused him to paint the Assumption of Our Lady in the same place, in a large square space that was not yet painted in one of the eight sides of that temple. Whereupon Francesco, reflecting that he had to execute that work not merely in a public place, but in a place where there were pictures by the rarest masters--Raffaello da Urbino, Rosso, Baldassarre da Siena, and others--put all possible study and diligence into executing it in oils on the wall, so that it proved to be a beautiful picture, and was much extolled; and excellent among other figures is held to be the portrait that he painted there of the above-named Maestro Filippo with the hands clasped. And since Francesco lived, as has been told, with Cardinal Salviati, and was known as his protégé, he began to be called and known by no other name but Cecchino Salviati, and he kept that name to the day of his death. Pope Clement VII being dead and Paul III elected, M. Bindo Altoviti caused Francesco to paint on the façade of his house at the Ponte S. Agnolo the arms of the new Pontiff, with some large nude figures, which gave infinite satisfaction. About the same time he made a portrait of that Messer Bindo, which was a very good figure and a beautiful portrait; and this was afterwards sent to his villa of S. Mizzano in the Valdarno, where it still is. He then painted for the Church of S. Francesco a Ripa a very beautiful altar-picture of the Annunciation in oils, which was executed with the greatest diligence. For the coming of Charles V to Rome in the year 1535, he painted for Antonio da San Gallo some scenes in chiaroscuro, which were placed on the arch that was made at S. Marco; and these pictures, as has been said in another place, were the best that there were in all those festive decorations. Afterwards Signor Pier Luigi Farnese, who had been made Lord of Nepi at that time, wishing to adorn that city with new buildings and pictures, took Francesco into his service, giving him rooms in the Belvedere; and there Francesco painted for him on large canvases some scenes in gouache of the actions of Alexander the Great, which were afterwards carried into execution and woven into tapestries in Flanders. For the same Lord of Nepi he decorated a large and very beautiful bathroom with many scenes and figures executed in fresco. Then, the same lord having been created Duke of Castro, for his first entry rich and most beautiful decorations were made in that city under the direction of Francesco, and at the gate an arch all covered with scenes, figures, and statues, executed with much judgment by able men, and in particular by Alessandro, called Scherano, a sculptor of Settignano. Another arch, in the form of a façade, was made at the Petrone, and yet another on the Piazza, which arches, with regard to the woodwork, were executed by Battista Botticelli; and in these festive preparations, among other things, Francesco made a beautiful perspective-scene for a comedy that was performed. About the same time, Giulio Camillo, who was then in Rome, having made a book of his compositions in order to send it to King Francis of France, had it all illustrated by Francesco Salviati, who put into it all the diligence that it is possible to devote to such a work. Cardinal Salviati, having a desire to possess a picture in tinted woods (that is, in tarsia) by the hand of Fra Damiano da Bergamo, a lay-brother of S. Domenico at Bologna, sent him a design done in red chalk by the hand of Francesco, as a pattern for its execution; which design, representing King David being anointed by Samuel, was the best thing that Cecchino Salviati ever drew, and truly most rare. After this, Giovanni da Cepperello and Battista Gobbo of San Gallo--who had caused the Florentine painter Jacopo del Conte, then a young man, to paint in the Florentine Company of the Misericordia in S. Giovanni Decollato, under the Campidoglio at Rome, namely, in the second church where they hold their assemblies, a story of that same S. John the Baptist, showing the Angel appearing to Zacharias in the Temple--commissioned Francesco to paint below that scene another story of the same Saint, namely, the Visitation of Our Lady to S. Elizabeth. That work, which was finished in the year 1538, he executed in fresco in such a manner, that it is worthy to be numbered among the most graceful and best conceived pictures that Francesco ever painted, in the invention, in the composition of the scene, in the method and the attention to rules for the gradation of the figures, in the perspective and the architecture of the buildings, in the nudes, in the draped figures, in the grace of the heads, and, in short, in every part; wherefore it is no marvel if all Rome was struck with astonishment by it. Around a window he executed some bizarre fantasies in imitation of marble, and some little scenes that have marvellous grace. And since Francesco never wasted any time, while he was engaged on that work he executed many other things, and also drawings, and he coloured a Phaëthon with the Horses of the Sun, which Michelagnolo had drawn. All these things Salviati showed to Giorgio, who after the death of Duke Alessandro had gone to Rome for two months; saying to him that, once he had finished a picture of a young S. John that he was painting for his master Cardinal Salviati, a Passion of Christ on canvas that was to be sent to Spain, and a picture of Our Lady that he was painting for Raffaello Acciaiuoli, he wished to turn his steps to Florence in order to revisit his native place, his relatives, and his friends, for his father and mother were still alive, to whom he was always of the greatest assistance, and particularly in settling two sisters, one of whom was married, and the other is a nun in the Convent of Monte Domini. Coming thus to Florence, where he was received with much rejoicing by his relatives and friends, it chanced that he arrived there at the very moment when the festive preparations were being made for the nuptials of Duke Cosimo and the Lady Donna Leonora di Toledo. Wherefore he was commissioned to paint one of the already mentioned scenes that were executed in the courtyard, which he accepted very willingly; and that was the one in which the Emperor was placing the Ducal crown on the head of Duke Cosimo. But being seized, before he had finished it, with a desire to go to Venice, Francesco left it to Carlo Portelli of Loro, who finished it after Francesco's design; which design, with many others by the same hand, is in our book. Having departed from Florence and made his way to Bologna, Francesco found there Giorgio Vasari, who had returned two days before from Camaldoli, where he had finished the two altar-pieces that are in the tramezzo[17] of the church, and had begun that of the high-altar; and Vasari was arranging to paint three great panel-pictures for the refectory of the Fathers of S. Michele in Bosco, where he kept Francesco with him for two days. During that time, some of his friends made efforts to obtain for him the commission for an altar-piece that was to be allotted by the men of the Della Morte Hospital. But, although Salviati made a most beautiful design, those men, having little understanding, were not able to recognize the opportunity that Messer Domeneddio[18] had sent them of obtaining for Bologna a work by the hand of an able master. Wherefore Francesco went away in some disdain, leaving some very beautiful designs in the hands of Girolamo Fagiuoli, to the end that he might engrave them on copper and have them printed. [Footnote 17: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.] [Footnote 18: A method of alluding to the Deity, which, in its playful simplicity, is quite impossible in English.] Having arrived in Venice, he was received courteously by the Patriarch Grimani and his brother Messer Vettorio, who showed him a thousand favours. For that Patriarch, after a few days, he painted in oils, in an octagon of four braccia, a most beautiful Psyche to whom, as to a Goddess, on account of her beauty, incense and votive offerings are presented; which octagon was placed in a hall in the house of that lord, wherein is a ceiling in the centre of which there curve some festoons executed by Camillo Mantovano, an excellent painter in representing landscapes, flowers, leaves, fruits, and other suchlike things. That octagon, I say, was placed in the midst of four pictures each two braccia and a half square, executed with stories of the same Psyche, as was related in the Life of Genga, by Francesco da Forlì; and the octagon is not only beyond all comparison more beautiful than those four pictures, but even the most beautiful work of painting that there is in all Venice. After that, in a chamber wherein Giovanni Ricamatori of Udine had executed many works in stucco, he painted some little figures in fresco, both nude and draped, which are full of grace. In like manner, in an altar-piece that he executed for the Nuns of the Corpus Domini at Venice, he painted with much diligence a Dead Christ with the Maries, and in the air an Angel who has the Mysteries of the Passion in the hands. He made the portrait of M. Pietro Aretino, which, as a rare work, was sent by that poet to King Francis, with some verses in praise of him who had painted it. And for the Nuns of S. Cristina in Bologna, of the Order of Camaldoli, the same Salviati, at the entreaty of Don Giovan Francesco da Bagno, their Confessor, painted an altar-piece with many figures, a truly beautiful picture, which is in the church of that convent. Then, having grown weary of the life in Venice, as one who remembered that of Rome, and considering that it was no place for men of design, Francesco departed in order to return to Rome. And so, making a détour by Verona and Mantua, in the first of which places he saw the many antiquities that are there, and in the other the works of Giulio Romano, he made his way back to Rome by the road through Romagna, and arrived there in the year 1541. There, having rested a little, the first works that he made were the portrait of Messer Giovanni Gaddi and that of Messer Annibale Caro, who were much his friends. Those finished, he painted a very beautiful altar-piece for the Chapel of the Clerks of the Chamber in the Pope's Palace. And in the Church of the Germans he began a chapel in fresco for a merchant of that nation, painting on the vault above the Apostles receiving the Holy Spirit, and in a picture that is half-way up the wall Jesus Christ rising from the dead, with the soldiers sleeping round the Sepulchre in various attitudes, foreshortened in a bold and beautiful manner. On one side he painted S. Stephen, and on the other side S. George, in two niches; and at the foot he painted S. Giovanni Limosinario, who is giving alms to a naked beggar, with a Charity on one side of him, and on the other side S. Alberto, the Carmelite Friar, between Logic and Prudence. And in the great altar-picture, finally, he painted in fresco the Dead Christ with the Maries. Having formed a friendship with Piero di Marcone, a Florentine goldsmith, and having become his gossip, Francesco made to Piero's wife, who was also his gossip, after her delivery, a present of a very beautiful design, which was to be painted on one of those round baskets in which food is brought to a newly-delivered woman. In that design there was the life of man, in a number of square compartments containing very beautiful figures, both on one side and on the other; namely, all the ages of human life, each of which rested on a different festoon appropriate to the particular age and the season. In that bizarre composition were included, in two long ovals, figures of the sun and moon, and between them Sais, a city of Egypt, standing before the Temple of the Goddess Pallas and praying for wisdom, as if to signify that on behalf of newborn children one should pray before any other thing for wisdom and goodness. That design Piero held ever afterwards as dear as if it had been, as indeed it was, a most beautiful jewel. Not long afterwards, the above-named Piero and other friends having written to Francesco that he would do well to return to his native place, for the reason that it was held to be certain that he would be employed by the Lord Duke Cosimo, who had no masters about him save such as were slow and irresolute, he finally determined (trusting much, also, in the favour of M. Alamanno, the brother of the Cardinal and uncle of the Duke) to return to Florence. Having arrived, therefore, before attempting any other thing, he painted for the above-named M. Alamanno Salviati a very beautiful picture of Our Lady, which he executed in a room in the Office of Works of S. Maria del Fiore that was occupied by Francesco dal Prato, who at that time, from being a goldsmith and a master of tausia,[19] had set himself to casting little figures in bronze and to painting, with much profit and honour. In that same place, then, which that master held as the official in charge of the woodwork of the Office of Works, Francesco made portraits of his friend Piero di Marcone and of Avveduto del Cegia, the dresser of minever-furs, who was also much his friend; which Avveduto, besides many other things by the hand of Francesco that he possesses, has a portrait of Francesco himself, executed in oils with his own hand, and very lifelike. [Footnote 19: Damascening.] [Illustration: JUSTICE (_After the fresco by =Francesco Salviati [Francesco de' Rossi]=. Florence: Bargello_) _Alinari_] The above-mentioned picture of Our Lady, being, after it was finished, in the shop of the wood-carver Tasso, who was then architect of the Palace, was seen by many persons and vastly extolled; but what caused it even more to be considered a rare picture was that Tasso, who was accustomed to censure almost everything, praised it to the skies. And, what was more, he said to M. Pier Francesco, the majordomo, that it would be an excellent thing for the Duke to give Francesco some work of importance to execute; whereupon M. Pier Francesco and Cristofano Rinieri, who had the ear of the Duke, played their part in such a way, that M. Alamanno spoke to his Excellency, saying to him that Francesco desired to be commissioned to paint the Hall of Audience, which is in front of the Chapel of the Ducal Palace, and that he cared nothing about payment; and the Duke was content that this should be granted to him. Whereupon Francesco, having made small designs of the Triumph of Furius Camillus and of many stories of his life, set himself to contrive the division of that hall according to the spaces left by the windows and doors, some of which are high and some low; and there was no little difficulty in making that division in such a way that it might be well-ordered and might not disturb the sequence of the stories. In the wall where there is the door by which one enters into the hall, there were two large spaces, divided by the door. Opposite to that, where there are the three windows that look out over the Piazza, there were four spaces, but not wider than about three braccia each. In the end-wall that is on the right hand as one enters, wherein are two windows that likewise look out on the Piazza, but in another direction, there were three similar spaces, each about three braccia wide; and in the end-wall that is on the left hand, opposite to the other, what with the marble door that leads into the chapel, and a window with a grating of bronze, there remained only one space large enough to contain a work of importance. On the wall of the chapel, then--within an ornament of Corinthian columns that support an architrave, which has below it a recess, wherein hang two very rich festoons, and two pendants of various fruits, counterfeited very well, while upon it sits a naked little boy who is holding the Ducal arms, namely, those of the Houses of Medici and Toledo--he painted two scenes; on the right hand Camillus, who is commanding that the schoolmaster shall be given up to the vengeance of his young scholars, and on the other the same Camillus, while the army is in combat and fire is burning the stockades and tents of the camp, is routing the Gauls. And beside that, where the same range of pilasters continues, he painted a figure of Opportunity, large as life, who has seized Fortune by the locks, and some devices of his Excellency, with many ornaments executed with marvellous grace. On the main wall, where there are two great spaces divided by the principal door, he painted two large and very beautiful scenes. In the first are the Gauls, who, weighing the gold of the tribute, add to it a sword, to the end that the weight may be the greater, and Camillus, full of rage, delivers himself from the tribute by force of arms; which scene is very beautiful, and crowded with figures, landscapes, antiquities, and vases counterfeited very well and in various manners in imitation of gold and silver. In the other scene, beside the first, is Camillus in the triumphal chariot, drawn by four horses; and on high is Fame, who is crowning him. Before the chariot are priests very richly apparelled, with the statue of the Goddess Juno, and holding vases in their hands, and with some trophies and spoils of great beauty. About the chariot are innumerable prisoners in various attitudes, and behind it the soldiers of the army in their armour, among whom Francesco made a portrait of himself, which is so good that it seems as if alive. In the distance, where the triumphal procession is passing, is a very beautiful picture of Rome, and above the door is a figure of Peace in chiaroscuro, who is burning the arms, with some prisoners; all which was executed by Francesco with such diligence and study, that there is no more beautiful work to be seen. On the wall towards the west he painted in a niche in one of the larger spaces, in the centre, a Mars in armour, and below that a nude figure representing a Gaul,[20] with a crest on the head similar to that of a cock; and in another niche a Diana with a skin about her waist, who is drawing an arrow from her quiver, with a dog. In the two corners next the other two walls are two figures of Time, one adjusting weights in a balance, and the other tempering the liquid in two vases by pouring one into the other. On the last wall, which is opposite to the chapel and faces towards the north, in a corner on the right hand, is the Sun figured in the manner wherein the Egyptians represent him, and in the other corner the Moon in the same manner. In the middle is Favour, represented as a nude young man on the summit of the wheel, with Envy, Hatred, and Malice on one side, and on the other side Honours, Pleasure, and all the other things described by Lucian. Above the windows is a frieze all full of most beautiful nudes, as large as life, and in various forms and attitudes; with some scenes likewise from the life of Camillus. And opposite to the Peace that is burning the arms is the River Arno, who, holding a most abundant horn of plenty, raises with one hand a curtain and reveals Florence and the greatness of her Pontiffs and the heroes of the House of Medici. He painted there, besides all that, a base that runs round below those scenes, and niches with some terminal figures of women that support festoons; and in the centre are certain ovals with scenes of people adorning a Sphinx and the River Arno. [Footnote 20: A play on the word Gallo, which means both Gaul and cock.] Francesco put into the execution of that work all the diligence and study that are possible; and, although he had many contradictions, he carried it to a happy conclusion, desiring to leave in his native city a work worthy of himself and of so great a Prince. Francesco was by nature melancholy, and for the most part he did not care to have anyone about him when he was at work. But nevertheless, when he first began that undertaking, almost doing violence to his nature and affecting an open heart, with great cordiality he allowed Tasso and others of his friends, who had done him some service, to stand and watch him at work, showing them every courtesy that he was able. But when he had gained a footing at Court, as the saying goes, and it seemed to him that he was in good favour, returning to his choleric and biting nature, he paid them no attention. Nay, what was worse, he used the most bitter words according to his wont (which served as an excuse to his adversaries), censuring and decrying the works of others, and praising himself and his own works to the skies. These methods, which displeased most people and likewise certain craftsmen, brought upon him such odium, that Tasso and many others, who from being his friends had become his enemies, began to give him cause for thought and for action. For, although they praised the excellence of the art that was in him, and the facility and rapidity with which he executed his works so well and with such unity, they were not at a loss, on the other hand, for something to censure. And since, if they had allowed him to gain a firm footing and to settle his affairs, they would not have been able afterwards to hinder or hurt him, they began in good time to give him trouble and to molest him. Whereupon many of the craftsmen and others, banding themselves together and forming a faction, began to disseminate among the people of importance a rumour that Salviati's work was not succeeding, and that he was labouring by mere skill of hand, and devoting no study to anything that he did. In which, in truth, they accused him wrongly, for, although he never toiled over the execution of his works, as they themselves did, yet that did not mean that he did not study them and that his works had not infinite grace and invention, or that they were not carried out excellently well. Not being able to surpass his excellence with their works, those adversaries wished to overwhelm it with such words and reproaches; but in the end truth and excellence have too much force. At first Francesco made light of such rumours, but later, perceiving that they were growing beyond all reason, he complained of it many times to the Duke. But, since it began to be seen that the Duke, to all appearance, was not showing him such favours as he would have liked, and it seemed that his Excellency cared nothing for those complaints, Francesco began to fall from his position in such a manner, that his adversaries, taking courage from that, sent forth a rumour that his scenes in the hall were to be thrown to the ground, because they did not give satisfaction and had in them no particle of excellence. All these calumnies, which were pressed against him with incredible envy and malice by his adversaries, had reduced Francesco to such a state, that, if it had not been for the goodness of Messer Lelio Torelli, Messer Pasquino Bertini, and others of his friends, he would have retreated before them, which was exactly what they desired. But the above-named friends, exhorting him continually to finish the work of the hall and others that he had in hand, restrained him, even as was done by many other friends not in Florence, to whom he wrote of these persecutions. And Giorgio Vasari, among others, answering a letter that Salviati wrote to him on the matter, exhorted him always to have patience, because excellence is refined by persecution as gold by fire; adding that a time was about to come when his art and his genius would be recognized, and that he should complain of no one but himself, in that he did not yet know men's humours, and how the people and the craftsmen of his own country were made. Thus, notwithstanding all these contradictions and persecutions that poor Francesco suffered, he finished that hall--namely, the work that he had undertaken to execute in fresco on the walls, for the reason that on the ceiling, or rather, soffit, there was no need for him to do any painting, since it was so richly carved and all overlaid with gold, that among works of that kind there is none more beautiful to be seen. And as a finish to the whole the Duke caused two new windows of glass to be made, with his devices and arms and those of Charles V; and nothing could be better in that kind of work than the manner in which they were executed by Battista del Borro, an Aretine painter excellent in that field of art. After that, Francesco painted for his Excellency the ceiling of the hall where he dines in winter, with many devices and little figures in distemper; and a most beautiful study which opens out over the Green Chamber. He made portraits, likewise, of some of the Duke's children; and one year, for the Carnival, he executed in the Great Hall the scenery and prospect-view for a comedy that was performed, and that with such beauty and in a manner so different from those that had been done in Florence up to that time, that they were judged to be superior to them all. Nor is this to be marvelled at, since it is very certain that Francesco was always in all his works full of judgment, and well-varied and fertile in invention, and, what is more, he had a perfect knowledge of design, and had a more beautiful manner than any other painter in Florence at that time, and handled colours with great skill and delicacy. He also made a head, or rather, a portrait, of Signor Giovanni de' Medici, the father of Duke Cosimo, which was very beautiful; and it is now in the guardaroba of the same Lord Duke. For Cristofano Rinieri, who was much his friend, he painted a most beautiful picture of Our Lady, which is now in the Udienza della Decima. For Ridolfo Landi he executed a picture of Charity, which could not be more lovely than it is; and for Simone Corsi, likewise, he painted a picture of Our Lady, which was much extolled. For M. Donato Acciaiuoli, a knight of Rhodes, with whom he always maintained a particular intimacy, he executed certain little pictures that are very beautiful. And he also painted in an altar-piece Christ showing to S. Thomas, who would not believe that He had newly risen from the dead, the marks of the blows and wounds that He had received from the Jews; which altar-piece was taken by Tommaso Guadagni into France, and placed in the Chapel of the Florentines in a church at Lyons. Francesco also depicted at the request of the above-named Cristofano Rinieri and of Maestro Giovanni Rosto, the Flemish master of tapestry, the whole story of Tarquinius and the Roman Lucretia in many cartoons, which, being afterwards put into execution in tapestries woven in silk, floss-silk, and gold, proved to be a marvellous work. Which hearing, the Duke, who was at that time having similar tapestries, all in silk and gold, made in Florence by the same Maestro Giovanni for the Sala de' Dugento, and had caused cartoons with the stories of the Hebrew Joseph to be executed by Bronzino and Pontormo, as has been related, commanded that Francesco also should make a cartoon, which was that with the interpretation of the dream of the seven fat and seven lean kine. Into that cartoon Francesco put all the diligence that could possibly be devoted to such a work, and that is required for pictures that are to be woven; for there must be fantastic inventions and variety of composition in the figures, and these must stand out one from another, so that they may have strong relief, and they must come out bright in colouring and rich in the costumes and vestments. That piece of tapestry and the others having turned out well, his Excellency resolved to establish the art in Florence, and caused it to be taught to some boys, who, having grown to be men, are now executing most excellent works for the Duke. Francesco also executed a most beautiful picture of Our Lady, likewise in oils, which is now in the chamber of Messer Alessandro, the son of M. Ottaviano de' Medici. For the above-named M. Pasquino Bertini he painted on canvas yet another picture of Our Lady, with Christ and S. John as little children, who are smiling over a parrot that they have in their hands; which was a very pleasing and fanciful work. And for the same man he made a most beautiful design of a Crucifix, about one braccio high, with a Magdalene at the foot, in a manner so new and so pleasing that it is a marvel; which design M. Salvestro Bertini lent to Girolamo Razzi, his very dear friend, who is now Don Silvano, and two pictures were painted from it by Carlo of Loro, who has since executed many others, which are dispersed about Florence. Giovanni and Piero d'Agostino Dini had erected in S. Croce, on the right hand as one enters by the central door, a very rich chapel of grey sandstone and a tomb for Agostino and others of their family; and they gave the commission for the altar-piece of that chapel to Francesco, who painted in it Christ taken down from the Cross by Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, and at the foot the Madonna in a swoon, with Mary Magdalene, S. John, and the other Maries. That altar-piece was executed by Francesco with so much art and study, that not only the nude Christ is very beautiful, but all the other figures likewise are well disposed and coloured with relief and force; and although at first the picture was censured by Francesco's adversaries, nevertheless it won him a great name with men in general, and those who have painted others after him out of emulation have not surpassed him. The same Francesco, before he departed from Florence, painted the portrait of the above-mentioned M. Lelio Torelli, and some other works of no great importance, of which I know not the particulars. But, among other things, he brought to completion a design of the Conversion of S. Paul that he had drawn long before in Rome, which is very beautiful; and he had it engraved on copper in Florence by Enea Vico of Parma, and the Duke was content to retain him in Florence until that should be done, with his usual salary and allowances. During that time, which was in the year 1548, Giorgio Vasari being at Rimini in order to execute in fresco and in oils the works of which we have spoken in another place, Francesco wrote him a long letter, informing him in exact detail how his affairs were passing in Florence, and, in particular, that he had made a design for the principal chapel of S. Lorenzo, which was to be painted by order of the Lord Duke, but that with regard to that work infinite mischief had been done against him with his Excellency, and, among other things, that he held it almost as certain that M. Pier Francesco, the majordomo, had not presented his design, so that the work had been allotted to Pontormo. And finally he said that for these reasons he was returning to Rome, much dissatisfied with the men and the craftsmen of his native country. [Illustration: THE DEPOSITION (_After the painting by =Francesco Salviati [Francesco de' Rossi]=. Florence: S. Croce, the Refectory_) _Alinari_] Having thus returned to Rome, he bought a house near the Palace of Cardinal Farnese, and, while he was occupying himself with executing some works of no great importance, he received from that Cardinal, through M. Annibale Caro and Don Giulio Clovio, the commission to paint the Chapel of the Palace of S. Giorgio, in which he executed an ornament of most beautiful compartments in stucco, and a vaulting in fresco with stories of S. Laurence and many figures, full of grace, and on a panel of stone, in oils, the Nativity of Christ, introducing into that work, which was very beautiful, the portrait of the above-named Cardinal. Then, having another work allotted to him in the above-mentioned Company of the Misericordia (where Jacopo del Conte had painted the Preaching and the Baptism of S. John, in which, although he had not surpassed Francesco, he had acquitted himself very well, and where some other works had been executed by the Venetian Battista Franco and by Pirro Ligorio), Francesco painted, on that part that is exactly beside his own picture of the Visitation, the Nativity of S. John, which, although he executed it excellently well, was nevertheless not equal to the first. At the head of that Company, likewise, he painted for M. Bartolommeo Bussotti two very beautiful figures in fresco--S. Andrew and S. Bartholomew, the Apostles--which are one on either side of the altar-piece, wherein is a Deposition from the Cross by the hand of the same Jacopo del Conte, which is a very good picture and the best work that he had ever done up to that time. In the year 1550, Julius III having been elected Supreme Pontiff, Francesco painted some very beautiful scenes in chiaroscuro for the arch that was erected above the steps of S. Pietro, among the festive preparations for the coronation. And then, in the same year, a sepulchre with many steps and ranges of columns having been made in the Minerva by the Company of the Sacrament, Francesco painted upon it some scenes and figures in terretta, which were held to be very beautiful. In a chapel of S. Lorenzo in Damaso he executed two Angels in fresco that are holding a canopy, the design of one of which is in our book. In the refectory of S. Salvatore del Lauro at Monte Giordano, on the principal wall, he painted in fresco, with a great number of figures, the Marriage of Cana in Galilee, at which Jesus Christ turned water into wine; and at the sides some Saints, with Pope Eugenius IV, who belonged to that Order, and other founders. Above the door of that refectory, on the inner side, he painted a picture in oils of S. George killing the Dragon, and he executed that whole work with much mastery, finish, and charm of colouring. About the same time he sent to Florence, for M. Alamanno Salviati, a large picture in which are Adam and Eve beside the Tree of Life in the Earthly Paradise, eating the Forbidden Fruit, which is a very beautiful work. For Signor Ranuccio, Cardinal Sant'Agnolo, of the House of Farnese, Francesco painted with most beautiful fantasy two walls in the hall that is in front of the great hall in the Farnese Palace. On one wall he depicted Signor Ranuccio the Elder receiving from Eugenius IV his baton as Captain-General of Holy Church, with some Virtues, and on the other Pope Paul III, of the Farnese family, who is giving the baton of the Church to Signor Pier Luigi, while there is seen approaching from a distance the Emperor Charles V, accompanied by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and by other lords portrayed from life; and on that wall, besides the things described above and many others, he painted a Fame and a number of other figures, which are executed very well. It is true, indeed, that the work received its final completion, not from him, but from Taddeo Zucchero of Sant'Agnolo, as will be related in the proper place. He gave completion and proportion to the Chapel of the Popolo, which Fra Sebastiano Viniziano had formerly begun for Agostino Chigi, but had not finished; and Francesco finished it, as has been described in the Life of Fra Sebastiano. For Cardinal Riccio of Montepulciano he painted a most beautiful hall in his Palace in the Strada Giulia, where he executed in fresco various pictures with many stories of David; and, among others, one of Bathsheba bathing herself in a bath, with many other women, while David stands gazing at her, is a scene very well composed and full of grace, and as rich in invention as any other that there is to be seen. In another picture is the Death of Uriah, in a third the Ark, before which go many musical instruments, and finally, after some others, a battle that is being fought between David and his enemies, very well composed. And, to put it briefly, the work of that hall is all full of grace, of most beautiful fantasies, and of many fanciful and ingenious inventions; the distribution of the parts is done with much consideration, and the colouring is very pleasing. To tell the truth, Francesco, feeling himself bold and fertile in invention, and having a hand obedient to his brain, would have liked always to have on his hands works large and out of the ordinary. And for no other reason was he strange in his dealings with his friends, save only for this, that, being variable and in certain things not very stable, what pleased him one day he hated the next; and he did few works of importance without having in the end to contend about the price, on which account he was avoided by many. After these works, Andrea Tassini, having to send a painter to the King of France, in the year 1554 sought out Giorgio Vasari, but in vain, for he said that not for any salary, however great, or promises, or expectations, would he leave the service of his lord, Duke Cosimo; and finally Andrea came to terms with Francesco and took him to France, undertaking to recompense him in Rome if he were not satisfied in France. Before Francesco departed from Rome, as if he thought that he would never return, he sold his house, his furniture, and every other thing, excepting the offices that he held. But the venture did not succeed as he had expected, for the reason that, on arriving in Paris, where he was received kindly and with many courtesies by M. Francesco Primaticcio, painter and architect to the King, and Abbot of S. Martin, he was straightway recognized, so it is said, as the strange sort of man that he was, for he saw no work either by Rosso or by any other master that he did not censure either openly or in some subtle way. Everyone therefore expecting some great work from him, he was set by the Cardinal of Lorraine, who had sent for him, to execute some pictures in his Palace at Dampierre. Whereupon, after making many designs, finally he set his hand to the work, and executed some pictures with scenes in fresco over the cornices of chimney-pieces, and a little study full of scenes, which are said to have shown great mastery; but, whatever may have been the reason, these works did not win him much praise. Besides that, Francesco was never much liked there, because he had a nature altogether opposed to that of the men of that country, where, even as those merry and jovial men are liked and held dear who live a free life and take part gladly in assemblies and banquets, so those are, I do not say shunned, but less liked and welcomed, who are by nature, as Francesco was, melancholy, abstinent, sickly, and cross-grained. For some things he might have deserved to be excused, since his habit of body would not allow him to mix himself up with banquets and with eating and drinking too much, if only he could have been more agreeable in conversation. And, what was worse, whereas it was his duty, according to the custom of that country and that Court, to show himself and pay court to others, he would have liked, and thought that he deserved, to be himself courted by everyone. In the end, the King being occupied with matters of war, and likewise the Cardinal, and himself being disappointed of his salary and promised benefits, Francesco, after having been there twenty months, resolved to return to Italy. And so he made his way to Milan, where he was courteously received by the Chevalier Leone Aretino in the house that he has built for himself, very ornate and all filled with statues ancient and modern, and with figures cast in gesso from rare works, as will be told in another place; and after having stayed there a fortnight and rested himself, he went on to Florence. There he found Giorgio Vasari and told him how well he had done not to go to France, giving him an account that would have driven the desire to go there, no matter how great, out of anyone. From Florence he returned to Rome, and there entered an action against those who had guaranteed his allowances from the Cardinal of Lorraine, and compelled them to pay him in full; and when he had received the money he bought some offices, in addition to others that he held before, with a firm resolve to look after his own life, knowing that he was not in good health and that he had wholly ruined his constitution. Notwithstanding that, he would have liked to be employed in great works; but in this he did not succeed so readily, and he occupied himself for a time with executing pictures and portraits. Pope Paul IV having died, Pius was elected, likewise the Fourth of that name, who, much delighting in building, availed himself of Pirro Ligorio in matters of architecture; and his Holiness ordained that Cardinals Alessandro Farnese and Emulio should cause the Great Hall, called the Hall of Kings, to be finished by Daniello da Volterra, who had begun it. That very reverend Farnese did his utmost to obtain the half of that work for Francesco, and in consequence there was a long contention between Daniello and Francesco, particularly because Michelagnolo Buonarroti exerted himself in favour of Daniello, and for a time they arrived at no conclusion. Meanwhile, Vasari having gone with Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, the son of Duke Cosimo, to Rome, Francesco related to him his many difficulties, and in particular that in which, for the reasons just given, he then found himself; and Giorgio, who much loved the excellence of the man, showed him that up to that time he had managed his affairs very badly, and that for the future he should let him (Vasari) manage them, for he would so contrive that in one way or another the half of that Hall of Kings would fall to him to execute, which Daniello was not able to finish by himself, being a slow and irresolute person, and almost certainly not as able and versatile as Francesco. Matters standing thus, and nothing more being done for the moment, not many days afterwards Giorgio himself was requested by the Pope to paint part of that Hall, but he answered that he had one three times larger to paint in the Palace of his master, Duke Cosimo, and, in addition, that he had been so badly treated by Pope Julius III, for whom he had executed many labours in the Vigna on the Monte and elsewhere, that he no longer knew what to expect from certain kinds of men; adding that he had painted for the Palace of the same Pontiff, without being paid, an altar-piece of Christ calling Peter and Andrew from their nets on the Sea of Tiberias (which had been taken away by Pope Paul IV from a chapel that Julius had built over the corridor of the Belvedere, and which was to be sent to Milan), and that his Holiness should cause it to be either paid for or restored to him. To which the Pope said in answer--and whether it was true or not, I do not know--that he knew nothing of that altar-piece, but wished to see it; whereupon it was sent for, and, after his Holiness had seen it, but in a bad light, he was content that it should be restored. The discussion about the Hall being then resumed, Giorgio told the Pope frankly that Francesco was the first and best painter in Rome, that his Holiness would do well to employ him, since no one could serve him better, and that, although Buonarroti and the Cardinal of Carpi favoured Daniello, they did so more from the motive of friendship, and perhaps out of animosity, than for any other reason. But to return to the altar-piece; Giorgio had no sooner left the Pope than he sent it to the house of Francesco, who afterwards had it taken to Arezzo, where, as we have related in another place, it has been deposited by Vasari with a rich, costly, and handsome ornament, in the Pieve of that city. The affairs of the Hall of Kings remaining in the condition that has been described above, when Duke Cosimo departed from Siena in order to go to Rome, Vasari, who had gone as far as that with his Excellency, recommended Salviati warmly to him, beseeching him to make interest on his behalf with the Pope, and to Francesco he wrote as to all that he was to do when the Duke had arrived in Rome. In all which Francesco departed in no way from the advice given him by Giorgio, for he went to do reverence to the Duke, and was welcomed by his Excellency with an aspect full of kindness, and shortly afterwards so much was said to his Holiness on his behalf, that the half of the above-mentioned Hall was allotted to him. Setting his hand to the work, before doing any other thing he threw to the ground a scene that had been begun by Daniello; on which account there were afterwards many contentions between them. The Pontiff was served in matters of architecture, as has been already related, by Pirro Ligorio, who at first had much favoured Francesco, and would have continued to favour him; but Francesco paying no more attention either to Pirro or to any other after he had begun to work, this was the reason that Ligorio, from being his friend, became in a certain sort his adversary, and of this very manifest signs were seen, for Pirro began to say to the Pope that since there were many young painters of ability in Rome, and he wished to have that Hall off his hands, it would be a good thing to allot one scene to each of them, and thus to see it finished once and for all. These proceedings of Pirro's, to which it was evident that the Pope was favourable, so displeased Francesco, that in great disdain he retired from the work and all the contentions, considering that he was held in little estimation. And so, mounting his horse and not saying a word to anyone, he went off to Florence, where, like the strange creature that he was, without giving a thought to any of the friends that he had there, he took up his abode in an inn, as if he did not belong to the place and had no acquaintance there nor anyone who cared for him in any way. Afterwards, having kissed the hands of the Duke, he was received with such kindness, that he might well have looked for some good result, if only he had been different in nature and had adhered to the advice of Giorgio, who urged him to sell the offices that he had in Rome and to settle in Florence, so as to enjoy his native place with his friends and to avoid the danger of losing, together with his life, all the fruits of his toil and grievous labours. But Francesco, moved by sensitiveness and anger, and by his desire to avenge himself, resolved that he would at all costs return to Rome in a few days. Meanwhile, moving from that inn at the entreaty of his friends, he retired to the house of M. Marco Finale, the Prior of S. Apostolo, where he executed a Pietà in colours on cloth of silver for M. Jacopo Salviati, as it were to pass the time, with the Madonna and the other Maries, which was a very beautiful work. He renewed in colours a medallion with the Ducal arms, which he had made on a former occasion and placed over a door in the Palace of Messer Alamanno. And for the above-named M. Jacopo he made a most beautiful book of bizarre costumes and various headdresses of men and horses for masquerades, for which he received innumerable courtesies from the liberality of that lord, who lamented the strange and eccentric nature of Francesco, whom he was never able to attract into his house on this occasion, as he had done at other times. Finally, Francesco being about to set out for Rome, Giorgio, as his friend, reminded him that, being rich, advanced in years, weak in health, and little fitted for more fatigues, he should think of living in peace and shun strife and contention, which he would have been able to do with ease, having acquired honour and property in plenty, if he had not been too avaricious and desirous of gain. He exhorted him, in addition, to sell the greater part of the offices that he possessed and to arrange his affairs in such a manner, that in any emergency or any misfortune that might happen he might be able to remember his friends and those who had given him faithful and loving service. Francesco promised that he would do right both in word and deed, and confessed that Giorgio had spoken the truth; but, as happens to most of the men who think that time will last for ever, he did nothing more in the matter. Having arrived in Rome, Francesco found that Cardinal Emulio had distributed the scenes of the Hall, giving two of them to Taddeo Zucchero of Sant' Agnolo, one to Livio da Forlì, another to Orazio da Bologna, yet another to Girolamo da Sermoneta, and the rest to others. Which being reported by Francesco to Giorgio, whom he asked whether it would be well for him to continue the work that he had begun, he received the answer that it would be a good thing, after making so many little designs and large cartoons, to finish at least one picture, notwithstanding that the greater part of the work had been allotted to so many others, all much inferior to him, and that he should make an effort to approach as near as possible in his work to the pictures by Buonarroti on the walls and vaulting of the Sistine Chapel, and to those of the Pauline; for the reason that after his work was seen, the others would be thrown to the ground, and all, to his great glory, would be allotted to him. And Giorgio warned him to give no thought to profit or money, or to any vexation that he might suffer from those in charge of the work, telling him that the honour was much more important than any other thing. Of all these letters and of the replies, the originals, as well as copies, are among those that we ourselves treasure in memory of so great a man, who was our dearest friend, and among those by our own hand that must have been found among his possessions. After these things Francesco was living in an angry mood, in no way certain as to what he wished to do, afflicted in mind, feeble in body, and weakened by everlasting medicines, when finally he fell ill with the illness of death, which carried him in a short time to the last extremity, without having given him time to make a complete disposal of his possessions. To a disciple called Annibale, the son of Nanni di Baccio Bigio, he left sixty crowns a year on the Monte delle Farine, fourteen pictures, and all his designs and other art possessions. The rest of his property he left to Suor Gabriella, his sister, a nun, although I understand that she did not receive, as the saying goes, even the "cord of the sack." However, there must have come into her hands a picture painted on cloth of silver, with embroidery around it, which he had executed for the King of Portugal or of Poland, whichever it was, and left to her to the end that she might keep it in memory of him. All his other possessions, such as the offices that he had bought after unspeakable fatigues, all were lost. Francesco died on S. Martin's Day, the 11th of November, in the year 1563, and was buried in S. Gieronimo, a church near the house where he lived. The death of Francesco was a very great loss to art, seeing that, although he was fifty-four years of age and weak in health, he was continually studying and working, cost what it might; and at the very last he had set himself to work in mosaic. It is evident that he was capricious, and would have liked to do many things; and if he had found a Prince who could have recognized his humour and could have given him works after his fancy, he would have achieved marvellous things, for, as we have said, he was rich, fertile, and most exuberant in every kind of invention, and a master in every field of painting. He gave great beauty and grace to every kind of head, and he understood the nude as well as any other painter of his time. He had a very graceful and delicate manner in painting draperies, arranging them in such a way that the nude could always be perceived in the parts where that was required, and clothing his figures in new fashions of dress; and he showed fancy and variety in headdresses, foot-wear, and every other kind of ornament. He handled colours in oils, in distemper, and in fresco in such a manner, that it may be affirmed that he was one of the most able, resolute, bold, and diligent craftsmen of our age, and to this we, who associated with him for so many years, are well able to bear testimony. And although there was always between us a certain proper emulation, by reason of the desire that good craftsmen have to surpass one another, none the less, with regard to the claims of friendship, there was never any lack of love and affection between us, although each of us worked in competition in the most famous places in Italy, as may be seen from a vast number of letters that are in my possession, as I have said, written by the hand of Francesco. Salviati was affectionate by nature, but suspicious, acute, subtle, and penetrative, and yet ready to believe anything; and when he set himself to speak of some of the men of our arts, either in jest or in earnest, he was likely to give offence, and at times touched them to the quick. It pleased him to mix with men of learning and great persons, and he always held plebeian craftsmen in detestation, even though they might be able in some field of art. He avoided such persons as always speak evil, and when the conversation turned on them he would tear them to pieces without mercy. But most of all he abhorred the knaveries that craftsmen sometimes commit, of which, having been in France, and having heard something of them, he was only too well able to speak. At times, in order to be less weighed down by his melancholy, he used to mingle with his friends and force himself to be cheerful. But in the end his strange nature, so irresolute, suspicious, and solitary, did harm to no one but himself. His dearest friend was Manno, a Florentine goldsmith in Rome, a man rare in his profession and excellent in character and goodness of heart. Manno is burdened with a family, and if Francesco had been able to dispose of his property, and had not spent all the fruits of his labours on offices, only to leave them to the Pope, he would have left a great part of them to that worthy man and excellent craftsman. Very dear to him, likewise, was the above-mentioned Avveduto dell'Avveduto, a dresser of minever-furs, who was the most loving and most faithful friend that Francesco ever had; and if he had been in Rome when Francesco died, Salviati would probably have arranged certain of his affairs with better judgment than he did. [Illustration: MEDAL OF POPE CLEMENT VII (_After =Francesco dal Prato=. London: British Museum_)] His disciple, also, was the Spaniard Roviale, who executed many works in company with him, and by himself an altar-piece containing the Conversion of S. Paul for the Church of S. Spirito in Rome. And Salviati was very well disposed towards Francesco di Girolamo dal Prato, in company with whom, as has been related above, he studied design while still a child; which Francesco was a man of most beautiful genius, and drew better than any other goldsmith of his time; and he was not inferior to his father Girolamo, who executed every kind of work with plates of silver better than any of his rivals. It is said that Girolamo succeeded with ease in any kind of work; thus, having beaten the plate of silver with certain hammers, he placed it on a piece of plank, and between the two a layer of wax, tallow and pitch, producing in that way a material midway between soft and hard, and then, beating it with iron instruments both inwards and outwards, he caused it to come out in whatever shapes he desired--heads, breasts, arms, legs, backs, and any other thing that he wished or was demanded from him by those who caused votive offerings to be made, in order to attach them to those holy images that were to be found in any place where they had received favours or had been heard in their prayers. Francesco, then, not attending only to the making of votive offerings, as his father did, worked also at tausia and at inlaying steel with gold and silver after the manner of damascening, making foliage, figures, and any other kind of work that he wished; in which manner of inlaid work he made a complete suit of armour for a foot-soldier, of great beauty, for Duke Alessandro de' Medici. Among many medals that the same man made, those were by his hand, and very beautiful, which were placed in the foundations of the fortifications at the Porta a Faenza, with the head of the above-named Duke Alessandro; together with others in which there was on one side the head of Pope Clement VII, and on the other a nude Christ with the scourges of His Passion. Francesco also delighted in the work of sculpture, and cast some little figures in bronze, full of grace, which came into the possession of Duke Alessandro. And the same master polished and carried to great perfection four similar figures, made by Baccio Bandinelli--namely, a Leda, a Venus, a Hercules, and an Apollo--which were given to the same Duke. Being dissatisfied, then, with the goldsmith's craft, and not being able to give his attention to sculpture, which calls for too many resources, Francesco, having a good knowledge of design, devoted himself to painting; and since he was a person who mixed little with others, and did not care to have it known more than was inevitable that he was giving his attention to painting, he executed many works by himself. Meanwhile, as was related at the beginning, Francesco Salviati came to Florence, and he worked at the picture for M. Alamanno in the rooms that the other Francesco occupied in the Office of Works of S. Maria del Fiore; wherefore with that opportunity, seeing Salviati's method of working, he applied himself to painting with much more zeal than he had done up to that time, and executed a very beautiful picture of the Conversion of S. Paul, which is now in the possession of Guglielmo del Tovaglia. And after that, in a picture of the same size, he painted the Serpents raining down on the Hebrew people, and in another he painted Jesus Christ delivering the Holy Fathers from the Limbo of Hell; which two last-named pictures, both very beautiful, now belong to Filippo Spini, a gentleman who much delights in our arts. Besides many other little works that Francesco dal Prato executed, he drew much and well, as may be seen from some designs by his hand that are in our book of drawings. He died in the year 1562, and his death much grieved the whole Academy, because, besides his having been an able master in art, there was never a more excellent man than Francesco. [Illustration: THE RECONCILIATION OF POPE ALEXANDER III AND FREDERICK BARBAROSSA (_After the fresco by =Giuseppe del Salviati [Giuseppe Porta]=. Rome: The Vatican, Sala Regia_) _Anderson_] Another pupil of Francesco Salviati was Giuseppe Porta of Castelnuovo della Garfagnana, who, out of respect for his master, was also called Giuseppe Salviati. This Giuseppe, having been taken to Rome as a boy, in the year 1535, by an uncle, the secretary of Monsignor Onofrio Bartolini, Archbishop of Pisa, was placed with Salviati, under whom he learned in a short time not only to draw very finely, but also to use colour excellently well. He then went with his master to Venice, where he formed so many connections with noble persons, that, being left there by Francesco, he made up his mind that he would choose that city as his home; and so, having taken a wife there, he has lived there ever since, and he has worked in few other places but Venice. He painted long ago the façade of the house of the Loredani on the Campo di S. Stefano, with scenes very pleasingly coloured in fresco and executed in a beautiful manner. He painted, likewise, that of the Bernardi at S. Polo, and another behind S. Rocco, which is a very good work. Three other façades he has painted in chiaroscuro, very large and covered with various scenes--one at S. Moisè, the second at S. Cassiano, and the third at S. Maria Zebenigo. He has also painted in fresco, at a place called Treville, near Treviso, the whole of the Palace of the Priuli, a rich and vast building, both within and without; of which building there will be a long account in the Life of Sansovino; and at Pieve di Sacco he has painted a very beautiful façade. At Bagnuolo, a seat of the Friars of S. Spirito at Venice, he has executed an altar-piece in oils; and for the same fathers he has painted the ceiling, or rather, soffit of the refectory in the Convent of S. Spirito, with a number of compartments filled with painted pictures, and a most beautiful Last Supper on the principal wall. For the Hall of the Doge, in the Palace of S. Marco, he has painted the Sibyls, the Prophets, the Cardinal Virtues, and Christ with the Maries, which have won him vast praise; and in the above-mentioned Library of S. Marco he painted two large scenes, in competition with the other painters of Venice of whom mention has been made above. Being summoned to Rome by Cardinal Emulio after the death of Francesco, he finished one of the larger scenes that are in the Hall of Kings, and began another; and then, Pope Pius IV having died, he returned to Venice, where the Signoria commissioned him to paint a ceiling with pictures in oils, which is at the head of the new staircase in the Palace. The same master has painted six very beautiful altar-pieces in oils, one of which is on the altar of the Madonna in S. Francesco della Vigna, the second on the high-altar in the Church of the Servites, the third is with the Friars Minors, the fourth in the Madonna dell'Orto, the fifth at S. Zaccheria, and the sixth at S. Moisè; and he has painted two at Murano, which are beautiful and executed with much diligence and in a lovely manner. But of this Giuseppe, who is still alive and is becoming a very excellent master, I say no more for the present, save that, in addition to his painting, he devotes much study to geometry. By his hand is the Volute of the Ionic Capital that is to be seen in print at the present day, showing how it should be turned after the ancient measure; and there is to appear soon a work that he has composed on the subject of geometry. A disciple of Francesco, also, was one Domenico Romano, who was of great assistance to him in the hall that he painted in Florence, and in other works. Domenico engaged himself in the year 1550 to Signor Giuliano Cesarino, and he does not work on his own account. DANIELLO RICCIARELLI LIFE OF DANIELLO RICCIARELLI PAINTER AND SCULPTOR OF VOLTERRA Daniello, when he was a lad, learned to draw a little from Giovanni Antonio Sodoma, who went at that time to execute certain works in the city of Volterra; and when Sodoma had gone away he made much greater and better proficience under Baldassarre Peruzzi than he had done under the discipline of the other. But to tell the truth, for all that, he achieved no great success at that time, for the reason that in proportion as he devoted great effort and study to seeking to learn, being urged by a strong desire, even so, on the other hand, did his brain and hand fail him. Wherefore in his first works, which he executed at Volterra, there is evidence of very great, nay, infinite labour, but not yet any promise of a grand or beautiful manner, nor any grace, charm, or invention, such as have been seen at an early hour in many others who have been born to be painters, and who, even in their first beginnings, have shown facility, boldness, and some indication of a good manner. His first works, indeed, seem in truth as if done by a melancholic, being full of effort and executed with much patience and expenditure of time. But let us come to his works, leaving aside those that are not worthy of attention; in his youth he painted in fresco at Volterra the façade of M. Mario Maffei, in chiaroscuro, which gave him a good name and won him much credit. But after he had finished it, perceiving that he had there no competition that might spur him to seek to rise to greater heights, and that there were no works in that city, either ancient or modern, from which he could learn much, he determined at all costs to go to Rome, where he heard that there were not at that time many who were engaged in painting, excepting Perino del Vaga. Before departing, he resolved that he would take some finished work that might make him known; and so, having painted a canvas in oils of Christ Scourged at the Column, with many figures, to which he devoted all possible diligence, availing himself of models and portraits from life, he took it with him. And, having arrived in Rome, he had not been long there before he contrived by means of friends to show that picture to Cardinal Triulzi, whom it satisfied in such a manner that he not only bought it, but also conceived a very great affection for Daniello; and a short time afterwards he sent him to work in a village without Rome belonging to himself, called Salone, where he had built a very large house, which he was having adorned with fountains, stucco-work, and paintings, and in which at that very time Gian Maria da Milano and others were decorating certain rooms with stucco and grotesques. Arriving there, then, Daniello, both out of emulation and from a desire to serve that lord, from whom he could hope to win much honour and profit, painted various things in many rooms and loggie in company with the others, and in particular executed many grotesques, full of various little figures of women. But the work that proved to be more beautiful than all the rest was a story of Phaëthon, executed in fresco with figures of the size of life, and a very large River God that he painted there, which is a very good figure; and all these works, since the above-named Cardinal went often to see them, and took with him now one and now another of the Cardinals, were the reason that Daniello formed a friendship and bonds of service with many of them. Afterwards, Perino del Vaga, who at that time was painting the Chapel of M. Agnolo de' Massimi in the Trinita, having need of a young man who might help him, Daniello, desiring to make proficience, and drawn by his promises, went to work with him and assisted him to execute certain things in the work of that chapel, which he carried to completion with much diligence. Now, before the sack of Rome Perino had painted on the vaulting of the Chapel of the Crocifisso in S. Marcello, as has been related, the Creation of Adam and Eve in figures of the size of life, and in much larger figures two Evangelists, S. John and S. Mark, which were not yet completely finished, since the figure of S. John was wanting from the middle upwards; and the men of that Company resolved, when the affairs of Rome had finally become settled again, that the same Perino should finish the work. But he, having other work to do, made the cartoons and had it finished by Daniello, who completed the S. John that had been left unfinished, painted all by himself the two other Evangelists, S. Luke and S. Matthew, between them two little boys that are holding a candelabrum, and, on the arch of the wall that contains the window, two Angels standing poised on their wings in the act of flight, who are holding in their hands the Mysteries of the Passion of Jesus Christ; and he adorned the arch richly with grotesques and little naked figures of great beauty. In short, he acquitted himself marvellously well in all that work, although he took a considerable time over it. [Illustration: THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS (_After the fresco by =Daniello Ricciarelli=. Rome: SS. Trinita dei Monti_) _Anderson_] The same Perino having then caused Daniello to execute a frieze in the hall of the Palace of M. Agnolo Massimi, with many divisions in stucco and other ornaments, and stories of the actions of Fabius Maximus, he bore himself so well, that Signora Elena Orsina, having seen that work and hearing the ability of Daniello much extolled, commissioned him to paint her chapel in the Church of the Trinita in Rome, on the hill, where the Friars of S. Francesco di Paola have their seat. Wherefore Daniello, putting forth all possible effort and diligence, in order to produce a rare work which might make him known as an excellent painter, did not shrink from devoting to it the labour of many years. From the name of that lady, the title given to the chapel being that of the Cross of Christ Our Saviour, the subject chosen was that of the actions of S. Helen; and so in the principal altar-piece Daniello painted Jesus Christ taken down from the Cross by Joseph, Nicodemus, and other disciples, and the Virgin Mary in a swoon, supported on the arms of the Magdalene and the other Maries, in all which he showed very great judgment, and gave proof of very rare ability, for the reason that, besides the composition of the figures, which has a very rich effect, the figure of Christ is very fine and most beautifully foreshortened, with the feet coming forward and the rest backwards. Very beautiful and difficult, likewise, are the foreshortenings in the figures of those who, having removed Him from the Cross, support Him with some bands, standing on some ladders and revealing in certain parts the nude flesh, executed with much grace. Around that altar-piece he made an ornament in stucco-work of great beauty and variety, full of carvings, with two figures that support the pediment with their heads, while with one hand they hold the capital, and with the other they seek to place the column, which stands at the foot on the base, below the capital to support it; which work is done with extraordinary care. In the arch above the altar-piece he painted two Sibyls in fresco, which are the best figures in the whole work; and those Sibyls are one on either side of the window, which is above the centre of the altar-piece, giving light to the whole chapel. The vaulting of the chapel is divided into four compartments by bizarre, well varied, and beautiful partitions of stucco-work and grotesques made with new fantasies of masks and festoons; and in those compartments are four stories of the Cross and of S. Helen, the mother of Constantine. In the first is the scene when, before the Passion of the Saviour, three Crosses are constructed; in the second, S. Helen commanding certain Hebrews to reveal those Crosses to her; in the third, the Hebrews not consenting to reveal them, she causes to be cast into a well him who knows where they are; and in the fourth he reveals the place where all three are buried. Those four scenes are beautiful beyond belief, and executed with great care. On the side-walls are four other scenes, two to each wall, and each is divided off by the cornice that forms the impost of the arch upon which rests the groined vaulting of the chapel. In one is S. Helen causing the Holy Cross and the two others to be drawn up from a well; and in the second is that of the Saviour healing a sick man. Of the pictures below, in that on the right hand is the same S. Helen recognizing the Cross of Christ because it restores to life a corpse upon which it is laid; to the nude flesh of which corpse Daniello devoted extraordinary pains, searching out all the muscles and seeking to render correctly all the parts of the body, as he also did in those who are placing the Cross upon it, and in the bystanders, who are all struck with amazement by the sight of that miracle. And, in addition, there is a bier of bizarre shape painted with much diligence, with a skeleton embracing it, executed with great care and with beautiful invention. In the other picture, which is opposite to the first, he painted the Emperor Heraclius walking barefoot and in his shirt, and carrying the Cross of Christ through the gate of Rome, with men, women, and children kneeling, who are adoring it, many lords in his train, and a groom who is holding his horse. Below each scene, forming a kind of base, are two most beautiful women in chiaroscuro, painted in imitation of marble, who appear to be supporting those scenes. And under the first arch, on the front side, he painted on the flat surface, standing upright, two figures as large as life, a S. Francesco di Paola, the head of the Order that administers the above-named church, and a S. Jerome robed as a Cardinal, which are two very good figures, even as are those of the whole work, which Daniello executed in seven years, with incalculable labour and study. But, since pictures that are executed in that way have always a certain hard and laboured quality, the work is wanting in the grace and facility that give most pleasure to the eye. Wherefore Daniello, himself confessing the fatigue that he had endured in the work, and fearing the fate that did come upon him (namely, that he would be censured), made below the feet of those two Saints, to please himself, and as it were in his own defence, two little scenes of stucco in low-relief, in which he sought to show that, although he worked slowly and with effort, nevertheless, since Michelagnolo Buonarroti and Fra Sebastiano del Piombo were his friends, and he was always imitating their works and observing their precepts, his imitation of those two men should be enough to defend him from the biting words of envious and malignant persons, whose evil nature must perforce be revealed, although they may not think it. In one of these scenes, then, he made many figures of Satyrs that are weighing legs, arms, and other members of figures with a steelyard, in order to put on one side those that are correct in weight and satisfactory, and to give those that are bad to Michelagnolo and Fra Sebastiano, who are holding conference over them; and in the other is Michelagnolo looking at himself in a mirror, the significance of which is clear enough. At two angles of the arch, likewise, on the outer side, he painted two nudes in chiaroscuro, which are of the same excellence as the other figures in that work. When it was all uncovered, which was after a very long time, it was much extolled, and held to be a very beautiful work and a triumph over difficulties, and the painter a most excellent master. After that chapel, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese caused him to execute in a room in his Palace--namely, at the corner, under one of those very rich ceilings made under the direction of Maestro Antonio da San Gallo for three large chambers that are in a line--a very beautiful frieze in painting, with a scene full of figures on each wall, the scenes being a very beautiful triumph of Bacchus, a Hunt, and others of that kind. These much pleased the Cardinal, who caused him to paint, in addition, in several parts of that frieze, the Unicorn in various forms in the lap of a Virgin, which is the device of that most illustrious family. Which work was the reason that that lord, who has ever been the friend of all talented and distinguished men, always favoured him, and even more would he have done it, if Daniello had not been so dilatory over his work; but for that Daniello was not to blame, seeing that such was his nature and genius, and he was content to do little well rather than much not so well. Now, in addition to the affection that the Cardinal bore him, Signor Annibale Caro worked on his behalf in such a manner with his patrons, the Farnesi, that they always assisted him. And for Madama Margherita of Austria, the daughter of Charles V, he painted in eight spaces in the study of which mention has been made in the Life of Indaco, in the Palace of the Medici on the Piazza Navona, eight little stories of the actions and illustrious deeds of the above-named Emperor Charles V, with such diligence and excellence, that it would be almost impossible to do better in that kind of work. In the year 1547 Perino del Vaga died, leaving unfinished the Hall of Kings, which, as has been related, is in the Papal Palace, in front of the Sistine and Pauline Chapels; and by the mediation of many friends and lords, and in particular of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, Daniello was set in his place by Pope Paul III, with the same salary that Perino had received, and was commanded to make a beginning with the ornaments of the walls that were to be executed in stucco, with many nudes in the round over certain pediments. Now, since the walls of that Hall are broken by six large doors in variegated marble, and only one wall is left unbroken, Daniello made over each door what is almost a tabernacle in stucco, of great beauty. In each of these he intended to execute in painting one of those Kings who have defended the Apostolic Church, and then to continue on the walls with stories of those Kings who have benefited the Church with tributes or victories, so that in all there were to be six stories and six niches. After those niches, or rather, tabernacles, Daniello with the aid of many assistants executed all the other very rich decorations in stucco that are to be seen in that Hall, studying at the same time over the cartoons for all that he had proposed to do in that place in the way of painting. Which done, he made a beginning with one of the stories, but he did not paint more than about two braccia of it, and two of the Kings in the tabernacles of stucco over the doors. For, although he was pressed by Cardinal Farnese and by the Pope, not reflecting that death very often spoils the designs of men, he carried on the work so slowly that when in the year 1549 the death of the Pope took place, there was nothing done save what has been described; and then, the Conclave having to be held in the Hall, which was full of scaffolding and woodwork, it became necessary to throw everything to the ground and uncover the work. The whole being thus seen by everyone, the works in stucco were vastly extolled, as they deserved, but not so the two Kings in painting, for it was thought that they were not equal in excellence to the work at the Trinita, and that with all those fine allowances and advantages he had gone rather backward than forward. Julius III having been created Pontiff in the year 1550, Daniello put himself forward by means of friends and interests, hoping to obtain the same salary and to continue the work of that Hall, but the Pope, not having any inclination in his favour, always put him off; indeed, sending for Giorgio Vasari, who had been his servant from the time when he was Archbishop of Siponto, he made use of him in all matters concerned with design. Nevertheless, his Holiness having determined to make a fountain at the head of the corridor of the Belvedere, and not liking a design by Michelagnolo (in which was Moses striking the rock and causing water to flow from it) because it was a thing that could not be carried out without a great expenditure of time, since Michelagnolo wished to make it of marble; his Holiness, I say, preferring the advice of Giorgio, which was that the Cleopatra, a divine figure made by the Greeks, should be set up in that place, the charge of that work was given by means of Buonarroti to Daniello, with orders that he should make in the above-named place a grotto in stucco-work, within which that Cleopatra was to be placed. Daniello, then, having set his hand to that work, pursued it so slowly, although he was much pressed, that he finished only the stucco-work and the paintings in that room, but as for the many other things that the Pope wished to have done, seeing them delayed longer than he had expected, he lost all desire for them, so that nothing more was done and everything was left in the condition that is still to be seen. In a chapel in the Church of S. Agostino Daniello painted in fresco, with figures of the size of life, S. Helen causing the Cross to be found, and in two niches at the sides S. Cecilia and S. Lucia, which work was painted partly by him and partly, after his designs, by the young men who worked with him, so that it did not prove as perfect as his others. At this same time there was allotted to him by Signora Lucrezia della Rovere a chapel in the Trinita, opposite to that of Signora Elena Orsina. In that chapel, having divided it into compartments with stucco-work, he had the vaulting painted with stories of the Virgin, after his own cartoons, by Marco da Siena and Pellegrino da Bologna; on one of the walls he caused the Nativity of the Virgin to be painted by the Spaniard Bizzerra, and on the other, by Giovan Paolo Rossetti of Volterra, his disciple, the Presentation of Jesus Christ to Simeon; and he caused the same Giovan Paolo to execute two scenes that are on the arches above, Gabriel bringing the Annunciation to the Virgin and the Nativity of Christ. On the outer side, at the angles, he painted two large figures, and on the pilasters, at the foot, two Prophets. On the altar-front Daniello painted with his own hand the Madonna ascending the steps of the Temple, and on the principal wall the same Virgin ascending into Heaven, borne by many most beautiful Angels in the forms of little boys, and the twelve Apostles below, gazing on her as she ascends. And since the place would not hold so many figures, and he desired to use a new invention in the work, he made it appear as if the altar of that chapel were the sepulchre, and placed the Apostles around it, making their feet rest on the floor of the chapel, where the altar begins; which method of Daniello's has pleased some, but others, who form the greater and better part, not at all. And although Daniello toiled fourteen years over executing that work, it is not a whit better than the first. On the last wall of the chapel that remained to be finished, on which there was to be painted the Massacre of the Innocents, having himself made the cartoons, he had the whole executed by the Florentine Michele Alberti, his disciple. The Florentine Monsignor M. Giovanni della Casa, a man of great learning (to which his most pleasing and learned works, both in Latin and in the vulgar tongue, bear witness), having begun to write a treatise on the matters of painting, and wishing to enlighten himself as to certain minute particulars with the help of men of the profession, commissioned Daniello to make with all possible care a finished model of a David in clay. And then he caused him to paint, or rather, to copy in a picture, the same David, which is very beautiful, from either side, both the front and the back, which was a fanciful notion; and that picture now belongs to M. Annibale Rucellai. For the same M. Giovanni he executed a Dead Christ with the Maries; and, on a canvas that was to be sent to France, Æneas disrobing in order to go to sleep with Dido, and interrupted by Mercury, who is represented as speaking to him in the manner that may be read in the verses of Virgil. And he painted for the same man in another picture, likewise in oils, a most beautiful S. John in Penitence, of the size of life, which was held very dear by that lord as long as he lived; and also a S. Jerome, beautiful to a marvel. Pope Julius III having died, and Paul IV having been elected Supreme Pontiff, the Cardinal of Carpi sought to persuade his Holiness to give the above-mentioned Hall of Kings to Daniello to finish, but that Pope, not delighting in pictures, answered that it was much better to fortify Rome than to spend money on painting it. And so he caused a beginning to be made with the great portal of the Castle, after the design of Salustio, the son of Baldassarre Peruzzi of Siena and his architect, and ordained that in that work, which was being executed all in travertine, after the manner of a sumptuous and magnificent triumphal arch, there should be placed in niches five statues, each of four braccia and a half; whereupon Daniello was commissioned to make an Angel Michael, the other statues having been allotted to other craftsmen. Meanwhile Monsignor Giovanni Riccio, Cardinal of Montepulciano, resolved to erect a chapel in S. Pietro a Montorio, opposite to that which Pope Julius had caused to be built under the direction of Giorgio Vasari, and he allotted the altar-piece, the scenes in fresco and the statues of marble that were going into it, to Daniello; and Daniello, by that time completely determined that he would abandon painting and devote himself to sculpture, went off to Carrara to have the marble quarried both for the S. Michael and for the statues that he was to make for the chapel in S. Pietro a Montorio. With that occasion, coming to see Florence and the works that Vasari was executing in the Palace for the Duke, and the other works in that city, he received many courtesies from his innumerable friends, and in particular from Vasari himself, to whom Buonarroti had recommended him by letter. Abiding in Florence, then, and perceiving how much the Lord Duke delighted in all the arts of design, Daniello was seized with a desire to attach himself to the service of his most illustrious Excellency. Many means being therefore employed, the Lord Duke replied to those who were recommending him that he should be introduced by Vasari, and so it was done; and Daniello offering himself as the servant of his Excellency, the Duke answered graciously that he accepted him most willingly, and that after he had fulfilled the engagements that he had in Rome, he should come when he pleased, and he would be received very gladly. Daniello stayed all that summer in Florence, where Giorgio lodged him in the house of Simon Botti, who was much his friend. There, during that time, he cast in gesso nearly all the figures of marble by the hand of Michelagnolo that are in the new sacristy of S. Lorenzo; and for the Fleming Michael Fugger he made a Leda, which was a very beautiful figure. He then went to Carrara, and from there, having sent the marble that he desired in the direction of Rome, he returned once again to Florence, for the following reason. Daniello had brought with him, when he first came from Rome to Florence, a young disciple of his own called Orazio Pianetti, a talented and very gentle youth; but no sooner had he arrived in Florence, whatever may have been the reason, than he died. At which feeling infinite grief and sorrow, Daniello, as one who much loved the young man for his fine qualities, and was not able to show his affection for him in any other way, returning that last time to Florence, made a portrait of him in marble from the breast upwards, which he copied excellently well from one moulded from his dead body. And when it was finished, he placed it with an epitaph in the Church of S. Michele Berteldi on the Piazza degli Antinori; in which Daniello proved himself, by that truly loving office, to be a man of rare goodness, and a different sort of friend to his friends from the kind that is generally seen at the present day, when there are very few to be found who value anything in friendship beyond their own profit and convenience. After these things, it being a long time since he had been in his native city of Volterra, he went there before returning to Rome, and was warmly welcomed by his relatives and friends. Being besought to leave some memorial of himself in his native place, he executed the story of the Innocents in a small panel with little figures, which was held to be a very beautiful work, and placed it in the Church of S. Piero. Then, thinking that he would never return, he sold the little that he possessed there by way of patrimony to Leonardo Ricciarelli, his nephew, who, having been with him in Rome, and having learned very well how to work in stucco, afterwards served Giorgio Vasari for three years, in company with many others, in the works that were executed at that time in the Palace of the Duke. When Daniello had finally returned to Rome, Pope Paul IV having a desire to throw to the ground the Judgment of Michelagnolo on account of the nudes, which seemed to him to display the parts of shame in an unseemly manner, it was said by the Cardinals and by men of judgment that it would be a great sin to spoil them, and they found a way out of it, which was that Daniello should paint some light garments to cover them; and the business was afterwards finished in the time of Pius IV by repainting the S. Catherine and the S. Biagio, which were thought to be unseemly. [Illustration: THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS (_After the painting by =Daniello Ricciarelli=. Florence: Uffizi, 1107_) _Anderson_] In the meantime he began the statues for the Chapel of the above-named Cardinal of Montepulciano, and the S. Michael for the great portal; but none the less, being a man who was always going from one notion to another, he did not work with the promptitude that he could and should have used. About this time, after King Henry of France had been killed in a tournament, Signor Ruberto Strozzi being about to come to Italy and to Rome, Queen Caterina de' Medici, having been left Regent in that kingdom, and wishing to erect some honourable memorial to her dead husband, commanded the said Ruberto to confer with Buonarroti and to contrive to have her desire in that matter fulfilled. Wherefore, having arrived in Rome, he spoke long of the matter with Michelagnolo, who, not being able, because he was old, to accept that undertaking himself, advised Signor Ruberto to give it to Daniello, saying that he would not fail to give him all the counsel and assistance that he could. To that offer Strozzi attached great importance, and, after they had considered with much deliberation what should be done, it was resolved that Daniello should make a horse of bronze all in one piece, twenty palms high from the head to the feet, and about forty in length, and that upon it there should then be placed the statue of King Henry in armour, likewise of bronze. Daniello having then made a little model of clay after the advice and judgment of Michelagnolo, which much pleased Signor Ruberto, an account of everything was written to France, and in the end an agreement was made between him and Daniello as to the method of executing that work, the time, the price, and every other thing. Whereupon Daniello, setting to work with much study on the horse, made it in clay exactly as it was to be, without ever doing any other work; and then, having made the mould, he was proceeding to prepare to cast it, and, the work being of such importance, was taking advice from many founders as to the method that he ought to pursue, to the end that it might come out well, when Pius IV, who had been elected Pontiff after the death of Paul, gave Daniello to understand that he desired, as has been related in the Life of Salviati, that the work of the Hall of Kings should be finished, and that therefore every other thing was to be put on one side. To which Daniello answered that he was fully occupied and pledged to the Queen of France, but would make the cartoons and have the work carried forward by his young men, and, in addition, would also do his own part in it. The Pope, not liking that answer, began to think of allotting the whole to Salviati; wherefore Daniello, seized with jealousy, so went to work with the help of the Cardinal of Carpi and Michelagnolo, that the half of that Hall was given to him to paint, and the other half, as we have related, to Salviati, although Daniello did his utmost to obtain the whole, in order to proceed with it at his leisure and convenience, without competition. But in the end the matter of that work was handled in such a manner, that Daniello did not do there one thing more than what he had done before, and Salviati did not finish the little that he had begun, and even that little was thrown to the ground for him by certain malicious persons. Finally, after four years, Daniello was ready, so far as concerned him, to cast the above-mentioned horse, but he was obliged to wait many months more than he would otherwise have done, for want of the supplies of iron instruments, metal, and other materials that Signor Ruberto was to give him. But in the end, all these things having been provided, Daniello embedded the mould, which was a vast mass, between two furnaces for founding in a very suitable room that he had at Monte Cavallo. The material being melted and the orifices unstopped, for a time the metal ran well enough, but at length the weight of the metal burst the mould of the body of the horse, and all the molten material flowed in a wrong direction. At first this much troubled the mind of Daniello, but none the less, having thought well over everything, he found a way to remedy that great misfortune; and so after two months, casting it a second time, his ability prevailed over the impediments of Fortune, so that he executed the casting of that horse (which is a sixth, or more, larger than that of Antoninus which is on the Campidoglio) perfectly uniform and equally delicate throughout, and it is a marvellous thing that a work so large should not weigh more than twenty thousand (libbre). But such were the discomforts and fatigues that were endured in the work by Daniello, who was rather feeble in constitution and melancholy than otherwise, that not long afterwards there came upon him a cruel catarrh, which much reduced him; indeed, whereas Daniello should have been happy at having surmounted innumerable difficulties in so rare a casting, it seemed that he never smiled again, no matter what good fortune might befall him, and no long time passed before that catarrh, after an illness of two days, robbed him of his life, on the 4th of April, 1566. But before that, having foreseen his death, he confessed very devoutly, and demanded all the Sacraments of the Church; and then, making his will, he directed that his body should be buried in the new church that had been begun at the Baths by Pius IV for the Carthusian Monks, ordaining also that at his tomb, in that place, there should be set up the statue of the Angel that he had formerly begun for the great portal of the Castle. And of all this he gave the charge to the Florentine Michele degli Alberti and to Feliciano of San Vito in the district of Rome, making them executors of his will in those matters, and leaving them two hundred crowns for the purpose. Which last wishes of Daniello's the two of them executed with diligence and love, giving him honourable burial in that place, according as he had directed. To the same men he left all his property pertaining to art, moulds in gesso, models, designs, and all the other materials and implements of his work; wherefore they offered themselves to the Ambassador of France, saying that they would deliver completely finished, within a fixed time, the work of the horse and the figure of the King that was to go upon it. And, in truth, both of them having practised many years under the instruction and discipline of Daniello, the greatest things may be expected from them. Disciples of Daniello, likewise, have been Biagio da Carigliano of Pistoia, and Giovan Paolo Rossetti of Volterra, who is a very diligent person and of most beautiful genius; which Giovan Paolo, having retired to Volterra many years ago, has executed, as he still does, works worthy of much praise. Another who also worked with Daniello, and made much proficience, was Marco da Siena, who, having made his way to Naples and chosen that city as his home, lives there and is constantly at work. And Giulio Mazzoni of Piacenza has likewise been a disciple of Daniello; which Giulio received his first instruction from Vasari, when Giorgio was executing in Florence an altar-piece for M. Biagio Mei, which was sent to Lucca and placed in S. Piero Cigoli, and when the same Giorgio was painting the altar-piece of the high-altar and a great work in the refectory of Monte Oliveto at Naples, besides the Sacristy of S. Giovanni Carbonaro and the doors of the organ in the Piscopio, with other altar-pieces and pictures. Giulio, having afterwards learned from Daniello to work in stucco, in which he equalled his master, has adorned with his own hand all the interior of the Palace of Cardinal Capodiferro, executing there marvellous works not only in stucco, but also of scenes in fresco and in oils, which have won him infinite praise, and that rightly. The same master has made a head of Francesco del Nero in marble, copying it so well from the life, that I do not believe that it is possible to do better; wherefore it may be hoped that he is destined to achieve a very fine result, and to attain to the greatest excellence and perfection that a man can reach in these our arts. Daniello was an orderly and excellent man, but so intent on the studies of art, that he gave little thought to the other circumstances of his life. He was a melancholy person, and very solitary; and he died at about the age of fifty-seven. A request for his portrait was made to those disciples of his, who had taken it in gesso, and when I was in Rome last year they promised it to me; but, for all the messages and letters that I have sent to them, they have refused to give it, thus showing little affection for their dead master. However, I have been unwilling to be hindered by that ingratitude on their part, seeing that Daniello was my friend, and I have included the portrait given above, which, although it is little like him, must serve as a proof of my diligence and of the little care and lovingness of Michele degli Alberti and Feliciano da San Vito. TADDEO ZUCCHERO LIFE OF TADDEO ZUCCHERO PAINTER OF SANT'AGNOLO IN VADO Francesco Maria being Duke of Urbino, there was born in the township of Sant'Agnolo in Vado, a place in that State, on the 1st of September in the year 1529, to the painter Ottaviano Zucchero, a male child to whom he gave the name of Taddeo; which boy having learned by the age of ten to read and write passing well, his father took him under his own discipline and taught him something of design. But, perceiving that his son had a very beautiful genius and was likely to become a better master in painting than he believed himself to be, Ottaviano placed him with Pompeo da Fano, who was very much his friend, but a commonplace painter. Pompeo's works not pleasing Taddeo, and likewise his ways, he returned to Sant'Agnolo, and there, as well as in other places, assisted his father to the best of his power and knowledge. Finally, being well grown in years and in judgment, and perceiving that he could not make much progress under the discipline of his father, who was burdened with seven sons and one daughter, and also that with his own little knowledge he could not be of as much assistance to his father as he might wish, he went off all alone, at the age of fourteen, to Rome. There, at first, not being known by anyone, and himself knowing no one, he suffered some hardships; and, if he did know one or two persons, he was treated worse by them than by the others. Thus, having approached Francesco, called Sant'Agnolo, who was working by the day at grotesques under Perino del Vaga, he commended himself to him with all humility, praying him that, being his kinsman, he should consent to help him; but no good came of it, for Francesco, as certain kinds of kinsmen often do, not only did not assist him by word or deed, but reproved and repelled him harshly. But for all that, not losing heart and not being dismayed, the poor boy contrived to maintain himself (or we should rather say, to starve himself) for many months in Rome by grinding colours for a small price, now in one shop and now in another, at times also drawing something, as best he could. And although in the end he placed himself as an assistant with one Giovan Piero Calavrese, he did not gain much profit from that, for the reason that his master, together with his wife, a shrew of a woman, not only made him grind colours all day and all night, but even, among other things, kept him in want of bread, which, lest he should be able to have enough or to take it at his pleasure, they used to keep in a basket hung from the ceiling, with some little bells, which would ring at the least touch of a hand on the basket, and thus give the alarm. But this would have caused little annoyance to Taddeo, if only he had had any opportunity of drawing some designs by the hand of Raffaello da Urbino that his pig of a master possessed. On account of these and many other strange ways Taddeo left Giovan Piero, and resolved to live by himself and to have recourse to the workshops of Rome, where he was by that time known, spending a part of the week in doing work for a livelihood, and the rest in drawing, particularly the works by the hand of Raffaello that were in the house of Agostino Chigi and in other places in Rome. And since very often, when the evening came on, he had no place wherein to sleep, many a night he took refuge under the loggie of the above-named Chigi's house and in other suchlike places; which hardships did something to ruin his constitution, and, if his youth had not helped him, they would have killed him altogether. As it was, falling ill, and not being assisted by his kinsman Francesco Sant'Agnolo any more than he had been before, he returned to his father's house at Sant'Agnolo, in order not to finish his life in such misery as that in which he had been living. However, not to waste any more time on matters that are not of the first importance, now that I have shown at sufficient length with what difficulties and hardships he made his proficience, let me relate that Taddeo, at length restored to health and once more in Rome, resumed his usual studies, but with more care of himself than he had taken in the past, and learned so much under a certain Jacopone, that he came into some credit. Wherefore the above-mentioned Francesco, his kinsman, who had behaved so cruelly toward him, perceiving that he had become an able master, and wishing to make use of him, became reconciled with him; and they began to work together, Taddeo, who was of a kindly nature, having forgotten all his wrongs. And so, Taddeo making the designs, and both together executing many friezes in fresco in chambers and loggie, they went on assisting one another. Meanwhile the painter Daniello da Parma, who had formerly been many years with Antonio da Correggio, and had associated with Francesco Mazzuoli of Parma, having undertaken to paint a church in fresco for the Office of Works of S. Maria at Vitto,[21] beyond Sora, on the borders of the Abruzzi, called Taddeo to his assistance and took him to Vitto. In which work, although Daniello was not the best painter in the world, nevertheless, on account of his age, and from his having seen the methods of Correggio and Parmigiano, and with what softness they executed their paintings, he had such experience that, imparting it to Taddeo and teaching him, he was of the greatest assistance to him with his words; no less, indeed, than another might have been by working before him. In that work, which was on a groined vaulting, Taddeo painted the four Evangelists, two Sibyls, two Prophets, and four not very large stories of Jesus Christ and of the Virgin His Mother. [Footnote 21: Alvito.] He then returned to Rome, where, M. Jacopo Mattei, a Roman gentleman, discoursing with Francesco Sant'Agnolo of his desire to have the façade of his house painted in chiaroscuro, Francesco proposed Taddeo to him; but he appeared to that gentleman to be too young, wherefore Francesco said to him that he should make trial of Taddeo in two scenes, which, if they were not successful, could be thrown to the ground, and, if successful, could be continued. Taddeo having then set his hand to the work, the two first scenes proved to be such, that M. Jacopo was not only satisfied with them, but astonished. In the year 1548, therefore, when Taddeo had finished that work, he was vastly extolled by all Rome, and that with good reason, because after Polidoro, Maturino, Vincenzio da San Gimignano, and Baldassarre da Siena, no one had attained in works of that kind to the standard that Taddeo had reached, who was then a young man only eighteen years of age. The stories of the work may be understood from these inscriptions, of the deeds of Furius Camillus, one of which is below each scene. The first, then, runs thus-- TUSCULANI, PACE CONSTANTI, VIM ROMANAM ARCENT. The second-- M.F.C. SIGNIFERUM SECUM IN HOSTEM RAPIT. The third-- M.F.C. AUCTORE, INCENSA URBS RESTITUITUR. The fourth-- M.F.C. PACTIONIBUS TURBATIS PRÆLIUM GALLIS NUNCIAT. The fifth-- M.F.C. PRODITOREM VINCTUM FALERIO REDUCENDUM TRADIT. The sixth-- MATRONALIS AURI COLLATIONE VOTUM APOLLINI SOLVITUR. The seventh-- M.F.C. JUNONI REGINÆ TEMPLUM IN AVENTINO DEDICAT. The eighth-- SIGNUM JUNONIS REGINÆ A VEIIS ROMAM TRANSFERTUR. The ninth-- M.F.C. ... ANLIUS DICT. DECEM ... SOCIOS CAPIT. From that time until the year 1550, when Julius III was elected Pope, Taddeo occupied himself with works of no great importance, yet with considerable profits. In which year of 1550, the year of the Jubilee, Ottaviano, the father of Taddeo, with his mother and another of their sons, went to Rome to take part in that most holy Jubilee, and partly, also, to see their son. After they had been there some weeks with Taddeo, on departing they left with him the boy that they had brought with them, who was called Federigo, to the end that he might cause him to study letters. But Taddeo judged him to be more fitted for painting, as indeed Federigo has since been seen to be from the excellent result that he has achieved; and so, after he had learned his first letters, Taddeo began to make him give his attention to design, with better fortune and support than he himself had enjoyed. Meanwhile Taddeo painted in the Church of S. Ambrogio de' Milanesi, on the wall of the high-altar, four stories of the life of that Saint, coloured in fresco and not very large, with a frieze of little boys, and women after the manner of terminal figures; which was a work of no little beauty. That finished, he painted a façade full of stories of Alexander the Great, beside S. Lucia della Tinta, near the Orso, beginning from his birth and continuing with five stories of the most noteworthy actions of that famous man; which work won him much praise, although it had to bear comparison with another façade near it by the hand of Polidoro. About that time Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, having heard the fame of the young man, who was his vassal, and desiring to give completion to the walls of the chapel in the Duomo of Urbino, wherein Battista Franco, as has been related, had painted the vaulting in fresco, caused Taddeo to be summoned to Urbino. And he, leaving Federigo in Rome, under the care of persons who might make him give his attention to his studies, and likewise another of his brothers, whom he placed with some friends to learn the goldsmith's art, went off to Urbino, where many attentions were paid him by that Duke; and then orders were given to him as to all that he was to design in the matter of the chapel and other works. But in the meantime the Duke, as General to the Signori of Venice, had to visit Verona and the other fortified places of that dominion, and he took with him Taddeo, who copied for him the picture by the hand of Raffaello da Urbino which, as has been related in another place, is in the house of the noble Counts of Canossa. And he afterwards began, also for his Excellency, a large canvas with the Conversion of S. Paul, which, unfinished as he left it, is still in the possession of his father Ottaviano at Sant'Agnolo. Then, having returned to Urbino, he occupied himself for a time with continuing the designs for the above-mentioned chapel, which were of the life of Our Lady, as may be seen from some of them that are in the possession of his brother Federigo, drawn in chiaroscuro with the pen. But, whether it was that the Duke had not made up his mind or considered Taddeo to be too young, or for some other reason, Taddeo remained with him two years without doing anything but some pictures in a little study at Pesaro, a large coat of arms in fresco on the façade of the Palace, and a picture with a life-size portrait of the Duke, which were all beautiful works. Finally the Duke, having to depart for Rome to receive from Pope Julius III his baton as General of Holy Church, left directions that Taddeo was to proceed with the above-named chapel, and that he was to be provided with all that he required for that purpose. But the Duke's ministers, keeping him, as such men generally do, in want of everything, brought it about that Taddeo, after having lost two years of his time, had to go off to Rome, where, having found the Duke, he excused himself adroitly, without blaming anyone, and promised that he would not fail to do the work when the time came. In the year 1551, Stefano Veltroni, of Monte Sansovino--having received orders from the Pope and from Vasari to have adorned with grotesques the apartments of the villa on the hill without the Porta del Popolo, which had belonged to Cardinal Poggio--summoned Taddeo, and caused him to paint in the central picture a figure of Opportunity, who, having seized Fortune by the locks, appears to be about to cut them with her shears (the device of that Pope); in which Taddeo acquitted himself very well. Then, Vasari having made before any of the others the designs for the court and the fountain at the foot of the new Palace, which were afterwards carried on by Vignuola and Ammanati and built by Baronino, Prospero Fontana, in painting many pictures there, as will be related hereafter, availed himself not a little of Taddeo in many things. And these were the cause of even greater benefits for him, for the Pope, liking his method of working, commissioned him to paint in some apartments, above the corridor of the Belvedere, some little figures in colour that served as friezes for those apartments; and in an open loggia, behind those that faced towards Rome, he painted in chiaroscuro on the wall, with figures as large as life, all the Labours of Hercules, which were destroyed in the time of Pope Paul IV, when other apartments and a chapel were built there. At the Vigna of Pope Julius, in the first apartments of the Palace, he executed some scenes in colour, and in particular one of Mount Parnassus, in the centre of the ceilings, and in the court of the same he painted in chiaroscuro two scenes of the history of the Sabines, which are one on either side of the principal door of variegated marble that leads into the loggia, whence one descends to the fountain of the Acqua Vergine; all which works were much commended and extolled. Now Federigo, while Taddeo was in Rome with the Duke, had returned to Urbino, and he had lived there and at Pesaro ever since; but Taddeo, after the works described above, caused him to return to Rome, in order to make use of him in executing a great frieze in a hall, with others in other rooms, of the house of the Giambeccari on the Piazza di S. Apostolo, and in other friezes that he painted in the house of M. Antonio Portatore at the Obelisk of S. Mauro, all full of figures and other things, which were held to be very beautiful. Maestro Mattivolo, the Master of the Post, bought in the time of Pope Julius a site on the Campo Marzio, and built there a large and very commodious house, and then commissioned Taddeo to paint the façade in chiaroscuro; which Taddeo executed there three stories of Mercury, the Messenger of the Gods, which were very beautiful, and the rest he caused to be painted by others after designs by his own hand. Meanwhile M. Jacopo Mattei, having caused a chapel to be built in the Church of the Consolazione below the Campidoglio, allotted it to Taddeo to paint, knowing already how able he was; and he willingly undertook to do it, and for a small price, in order to show to certain persons, who went about saying that he could do nothing save façades and other works in chiaroscuro, that he could also paint in colour. Having then set his hand to that work, Taddeo would only touch it when he was in the mood and vein to do well, spending the rest of his time on works that did not weigh upon him so much in the matter of honour; and so he executed it at his leisure in four years. On the vaulting he painted in fresco four scenes of the Passion of Christ, of no great size, with most beautiful fantasies, and all so well executed in invention, design, and colouring, that he surpassed his own self; which scenes are the Last Supper with the Apostles, the Washing of Feet, the Prayer in the Garden, and Christ taken and kissed by Judas. On one of the walls at the sides he painted in figures large as life Christ Scourged at the Column, and on the other Pilate showing Him after the scourging to the Jews, saying "Ecce Homo"; above this last, in an arch, is the same Pilate washing his hands, and in the other arch, opposite to that, Christ led before Annas. On the altar-wall he painted the same Christ Crucified, and the Maries at the foot of the Cross, with Our Lady in a swoon; on either side of her is a Prophet, and in the arch above the ornament of stucco he painted two Sibyls; which four figures are discoursing of the Passion of Christ. And on the vaulting, about certain ornaments in stucco, are four half-length figures representing the Four Evangelists, which are very beautiful. The whole work, which was uncovered in the year 1556, when Taddeo was not more than twenty-six years of age, was held, as it still is, to be extraordinary, and he was judged by the craftsmen at that time to be an excellent painter. That work finished, M. Mario Frangipane allotted to him his chapel in the Church of S. Marcello, in which Taddeo made use, as he also did in many other works, of the young strangers who are always to be found in Rome, and who go about working by the day in order to learn and to gain their bread; but none the less for the time being he did not finish it completely. The same master painted in fresco in the Pope's Palace, in the time of Paul IV, some rooms where Cardinal Caraffa lived, in the great tower above the Guard of Halberdiers; and two little pictures in oils of the Nativity of Christ and the Virgin flying with Joseph into Egypt, which were sent to Portugal by the Ambassador of that Kingdom. The Cardinal of Mantua, wishing to have painted with the greatest possible rapidity the whole interior of his Palace beside the Arco di Portogallo, allotted that work to Taddeo for a proper price; and Taddeo, beginning it with the help of a good number of men, in a short time carried it to completion, showing that he had very great judgment in being able to employ so many different brains harmoniously in so great a work, and in managing the various manners in such a way, that the work appears as if all by the same hand. In short, Taddeo satisfied in that undertaking, with great profit to himself, the Cardinal and all who saw it, disappointing the expectations of those who could not believe that he was likely to succeed amid the perplexities of such a great work. In like manner, he painted some scenes with figures in fresco for M. Alessandro Mattei in some recesses in the apartments of his Palace near the Botteghe Scure, and some others he caused to be executed by his brother Federigo, to the end that he might become accustomed to the work. Which Federigo, having taken courage, afterwards executed by himself a Mount Parnassus in the recess of a ceiling in the house of a Roman gentleman called Stefano Margani, below the steps of the Araceli. Whereupon Taddeo, seeing Federigo confident and working by himself from his own designs, without being assisted more than was reasonable by anyone, contrived to have a chapel allotted to him by the men of S. Maria dell'Orto a Ripa, making it almost appear that he intended to do it himself, for the reason that it would never have been given to Federigo alone, who was still a mere lad. Taddeo, then, in order to satisfy these men, painted there the Nativity of Christ, and Federigo afterwards executed all the rest, acquitting himself in such a manner that there could be seen the beginning of that excellence which is now made manifest in him. In those same times the Duke of Guise, who was then in Rome, desiring to take an able and practised painter to paint his Palace in France, Taddeo was proposed to him; whereupon, having seen some of his works, and liking his manner, he agreed to give him a salary of six hundred crowns a year, on condition that Taddeo, after finishing the work that he had in hand, should go to France to serve him. And so Taddeo would have done, the money for his preparations having been deposited in a bank, if it had not been for the wars that broke out in France at that time, and shortly afterwards the death of that Duke. Taddeo then went back to finish the work for Frangipane in S. Marcello, but he was not able to work for long without being interrupted, for, the Emperor Charles V having died, preparations were made for giving him most honourable obsequies in Rome, fit for an Emperor of the Romans, and to Taddeo were allotted many scenes from the life of that Emperor, and also many trophies and other ornaments, which were made by him of pasteboard in a very sumptuous and magnificent manner; and he finished the whole in twenty-five days. For his labours, therefore, and those of Federigo and others who had assisted him, six hundred crowns of gold were paid to him. Shortly afterwards he painted two great chambers at Bracciano for Signor Paolo Giordano Orsini, which were very beautiful and richly adorned with stucco-work and gold; in one the stories of Cupid and Psyche, and in the second, which had been begun previously by others, some stories of Alexander the Great; and others that remained for him to paint, continuing the history of the same Alexander, he caused to be executed by his brother Federigo, who acquitted himself very well. And then he painted in fresco for M. Stefano del Bufalo, in his garden near the fountain of Trevi, the Muses around the Castalian Fount and Mount Parnassus, which was held to be a beautiful work. The Wardens of Works of the Madonna of Orvieto, as has been related in the Life of Simone Mosca, had caused some chapels with ornaments of marble and stucco to be built in the aisles of their church, and had also had some altar-pieces executed by Girolamo Mosciano of Brescia; and, having heard the fame of Taddeo by means of friends, they sent a summons to him, and he went to Orvieto, taking with him Federigo. There, settling to work, he executed two great figures on the wall of one of those chapels, one representing the Active Life, and the other the Contemplative, which were despatched with a very sure facility of hand, in the manner wherein he executed works to which he gave little study; and while Taddeo was painting those figures, Federigo painted three little stories of S. Paul in the recess of the same chapel. At the end of which, both having fallen ill, they went away, promising to return in September. Taddeo returned to Rome, and Federigo to Sant'Agnolo with a slight fever; which having passed, at the end of two months he also returned to Rome. There, Holy Week being close at hand, the two together set to work in the Florentine Company of S. Agata, which is behind the Banchi, and painted in four days on the vaulting and the recess of that oratory, for a rich festival that was prepared for Holy Thursday and Good Friday, scenes in chiaroscuro of the whole Passion of Christ, with some Prophets and other pictures, which caused all who saw them to marvel. After that, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, having brought very near completion his Palace of Caprarola, with Vignuola as architect, of whom there will be an account in a short time, gave the charge of painting it all to Taddeo, on these conditions: that, since Taddeo did not wish to abandon his other works in Rome, he should be obliged to make all the cartoons, designs, divisions, and arrangements for the works in painting and in stucco that were to be executed in that place; that the men who were to carry them into execution should be chosen by Taddeo, but paid by the Cardinal; and that Taddeo should be obliged to work there himself for two or three months in the year, and to go there as many times as it might be necessary to see how things were progressing, and to retouch all that was not to his satisfaction. And for all these labours the Cardinal promised him a salary of two hundred crowns a year. Whereupon Taddeo, having so honourable an appointment and the support of so great a lord, determined that he would give himself some peace of mind, and would no longer accept any mean work in Rome, as he had done up to that time; desiring, above all, to avoid the censure that many men of art laid upon him, saying that from a certain grasping avarice he would accept any kind of work, in order to gain with the arms of others that which would have been to many of them an honest means to enable them to study, as he himself had done in his early youth. Against which reproaches Taddeo used to defend himself by saying that he did it on account of Federigo and the other brothers that he had on his shoulders, desiring that they should learn with his assistance. Having thus resolved to serve Farnese and also to finish the chapel in S. Marcello, he obtained for Federigo from M. Tizio da Spoleti, the master of the household to the above-named Cardinal, the commission to paint the façade of a house that he had on the Piazza della Dogana, near S. Eustachio; which was very welcome to Federigo, for he had never desired anything so much as to have some work altogether for himself. On one part of the façade, therefore, he painted in colours the scene of S. Eustachio causing himself to be baptized with his wife and children, which was a very good work; and on the centre of the façade he painted the same Saint, when, while hunting, he sees Jesus Christ on the Cross between the horns of a stag. Now since Federigo, when he executed that work, was not more than twenty-eight[22] years of age, Taddeo, who reflected that the work was in a public place, and that it was of great importance to the credit of Federigo, not only went sometimes to see him at his painting, but also at times insisted on retouching and improving some part. Wherefore Federigo, after having had patience for a time, finally, carried away on one occasion by the anger natural in one who would have preferred to work by himself, seized a mason's hammer and dashed to the ground something (I know not what) that Taddeo had painted; and in his rage he stayed some days without going back to the house. Which being heard by the friends of both the one and the other of them, they so went to work that the two were reconciled, on the understanding that Taddeo should be able to set his hand on the designs and cartoons of Federigo and correct them at his pleasure, but never the works that he might execute in fresco, in oils, or in any other medium. [Footnote 22: An error of the copyist or printer for eighteen.] [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST (_After the panel by =Federigo Zucchero=. Florence: Uffizi, 270_) _Alinari_] Federigo having then finished the work of that house, it was universally extolled, and won him the name of an able painter. After that, Taddeo was ordered to repaint in the Sala de' Palafrenieri those Apostles which Raffaello had formerly executed there in terretta, and which had been thrown to the ground by Paul IV; and he, having painted one, caused all the others to be executed by his brother Federigo, who acquitted himself very well. Next, they painted together a frieze in fresco-colours in one of the halls of the Palace of the Araceli. Then, a proposal being discussed, about the same time that they were working at the Araceli, to give to Signor Federigo Borromeo as a wife the Lady Donna Virginia, the daughter of Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, Taddeo was sent to take her portrait, which he did excellently well; and before he departed from Urbino he made all the designs for a credence, which that Duke afterwards caused to be made in clay at Castel Durante, for sending to King Philip of Spain. Having returned to Rome, Taddeo presented to the Pope that portrait, which pleased him well enough; but such was the discourtesy of that Pontiff, or of his ministers, that the poor painter was not recompensed even for his expenses. In the year 1560 the Pope expected in Rome the Lord Duke Cosimo and the Lady Duchess Leonora, his consort, and proposed to lodge their Excellencies in the apartments formerly built by Innocent VIII, which look out upon the first court of the Palace and that of S. Pietro, and have in front of them loggie that look out on the piazza where the Benediction is given; and Taddeo received the charge of painting the pictures and some friezes that were to be executed there, and of overlaying with gold the new ceilings that had been made in place of the old ones, which had been consumed by time. In that work, which was certainly a great and important undertaking, Federigo, to whom his brother Taddeo gave the charge of almost the whole, acquitted himself very well; but he incurred a great danger, for, as he was painting grotesques in those loggie, he fell from a staging that rested on the main part of the scaffolding, and was near coming to an evil end. No long time passed before Cardinal Emulio, to whom the Pope had given the charge of the matter, commissioned many young men, to the end that the work might be finished quickly, to paint the little palace that is in the wood of the Belvedere, which was begun in the time of Pope Paul IV with a most beautiful fountain and many ancient statues as ornaments, after an architectural design by Pirro Ligorio. The young men who worked (with great credit to themselves) in that place, were Federigo Barocci of Urbino, a youth of great promise, and Leonardo Cungi and Durante del Nero, both of Borgo San Sepolcro, who executed the apartments of the first floor. At the head of the staircase, which was made in a spiral shape, the first room was painted by Santi Titi, a painter of Florence, who acquitted himself very well; the larger room, which is beside the first, was painted by the above-named Federigo Zucchero, the brother of Taddeo; and the Sclavonian Giovanni dal Carso, a passing good master of grotesques, executed another room beyond it. But, although each of the men named above acquitted himself very well, nevertheless Federigo surpassed all the others in some stories of Christ that he painted there, such as the Transfiguration, the Marriage of Cana in Galilee, and the Centurion kneeling before Christ. And of two that were still wanting, one was painted by Orazio Sammacchini, a Bolognese painter, and the other by a certain Lorenzo Costa of Mantua. The same Federigo Zucchero painted in that place the little loggia that looks out over the fish-pond. And then he painted a frieze in the principal hall of the Belvedere (to which one ascends by the spiral staircase), with stories of Moses and Pharaoh, beautiful to a marvel; the design for which work, drawn and coloured with his own hand in a most beautiful drawing, Federigo himself gave not long since to the Reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, who holds it very dear as a drawing by the hand of an excellent painter. In the same place, also, Federigo painted the Angel slaying the first-born in Egypt, availing himself, in order to finish it the quicker, of the help of many of his young men. But when those works came to be valued by certain persons, the labours of Federigo and the others were not rewarded as they should have been, because there are among our craftsmen in Rome, as well as in Florence and everywhere else, some most malignant spirits who, blinded by prejudice and envy, are not able or not willing to recognize the merits of the works of others and the deficiency of their own; and such persons are very often the reason that the young men of fine genius, becoming dismayed, grow cold in their studies and their work. After these works, Federigo painted in the Office of the Ruota, about an escutcheon of Pope Pius IV, two figures larger than life, Justice and Equity, which were much extolled; thus giving time to Taddeo, meanwhile, to attend to the work of Caprarola and the chapel in S. Marcello. In the meantime his Holiness, wishing at all costs to finish the Hall of Kings, after the many contentions that had taken place between Daniello and Salviati, as has been related, gave orders to the Bishop of Forlì as to all that he wished him to do in the matter. Wherefore the Bishop wrote to Vasari (on the 3rd of September in the year 1561), that the Pope, wishing to finish the work of the Hall of Kings, had given him the charge of finding men who might once and for all take it off his hands, and that therefore, moved by their ancient friendship and by other reasons, he besought Giorgio to consent to go to Rome in order to execute that work, with the good pleasure and leave of his master the Duke, for the reason that, while giving satisfaction to his Holiness, he would win much honour and profit for himself; praying him to answer as soon as possible. Replying to which letter, Vasari said that, finding himself very well placed in the service of the Duke, and remunerated for his labours with rewards different from those that he had received from other Pontiffs in Rome, he intended to remain in the service of his Excellency, for whom he was at that very time to set his hand to a hall much greater than the Hall of Kings; and that there was no want in Rome of men who might be employed in that work. The above-named Bishop having received that answer from Vasari, and having conferred with his Holiness of the whole matter, Cardinal Emulio, immediately after receiving from the Pontiff the charge of having that Hall finished, divided the work, as has been related, among many young men, some of whom were already in Rome, and others were summoned from other places. To Giuseppe Porta of Castelnuovo della Garfagnana, a disciple of Salviati, were given two of the largest scenes in the Hall; to Girolamo Siciolante of Sermoneta, one of the large scenes and one of the small; to Orazio Sammacchini of Bologna one of the small scenes, to Livio da Forlì a similar one, and to Giovan Battista Fiorini of Bologna yet another of the small scenes. Which hearing, Taddeo perceived that he had been excluded because it had been said to the above-named Cardinal Emulio that he was a person who gave more attention to gain than to glory and working well; and he did his utmost with Cardinal Farnese to obtain a part of that work. But the Cardinal, not wishing to move in the matter, answered him that his labours at Caprarola should content him, and that it did not seem to him right that his own works should be neglected by reason of the rivalry and emulation between the craftsmen; adding also that, when a master does well, it is the works that give a name to the place, and not the place to the works. Notwithstanding this, Taddeo so went to work by other means with Emulio, that finally he was commissioned to execute one of the smaller scenes over a door, not being able, either by prayers or by any other means, to obtain the commission for one of the large scenes; and, in truth, it is said that Emulio was acting with caution in the matter, for the reason that, hoping that Giuseppe Salviati would surpass all the others, he was minded to give him the rest, and perchance to throw to the ground all that might have been done by the others. Now, after all the men named above had carried their works well forward, the Pope desired to see them all; and so, everything being uncovered, he recognized (and all the Cardinals and the best craftsmen were of the same opinion) that Taddeo had acquitted himself better than any of the others, although all had done passing well. His Holiness, therefore, commanded Signor Agabrio that he should cause Cardinal Emulio to commission him to execute one of the larger scenes; whereupon the head-wall was allotted to him, wherein is the door of the Pauline Chapel. And there he made a beginning with the work, but he did not carry it any farther, for, the death of the Pope supervening, everything was uncovered for the holding of the Conclave, although many of those scenes had not been finished. Of the scene that Taddeo began in that place, we have the design by his hand, sent to us by him, in the book of drawings that we have so often mentioned. Taddeo painted at the same time, besides some other little things, a picture with a very beautiful Christ, which was to be sent to Caprarola for Cardinal Farnese; which work is now in the possession of his brother Federigo, who says that he desires it for himself as long as he lives. The picture receives its light from some weeping Angels, who are holding torches. But since the works that Taddeo executed at Caprarola will be described at some length in a little time, in discoursing of Vignuola, who built that fabric, for the present I shall say nothing more of them. Federigo was meanwhile summoned to Venice, and made an agreement with the Patriarch Grimani to finish for him the chapel in S. Francesco della Vigna, which had remained incomplete, as has been related, on account of the death of the Venetian Battista Franco. But, before he began that chapel, he adorned for that Patriarch the staircase of his Palace in Venice, with little figures placed with much grace in certain ornaments of stucco; and then he executed in fresco, in the above-named chapel, the two stories of Lazarus and the Conversion of the Magdalene, the design of which, by the hand of Federigo, is in our book. Afterwards, in the altar-piece of the same chapel, Federigo painted the story of the Magi in oils. And then he painted some pictures in a loggia, which are much extolled, at the villa of M. Giovan Battista Pellegrini, between Chioggia and Monselice, where Andrea Schiavone and the Flemings, Lamberto and Gualtieri, have executed many works. After the departure of Federigo, Taddeo continued to work in fresco all that summer in the chapel of S. Marcello; and for that chapel, finally, he painted in the altar-piece the Conversion of S. Paul. In that picture may be seen, executed in a beautiful manner, the Saint fallen from his horse and all dazed by the splendour and voice of Jesus Christ, whom he depicted amid a Glory of Angels, in the act, so it appears, of saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" His followers, who are about him, are likewise struck with awe, and stand as if bereft of their senses. On the vaulting, within certain ornaments of stucco, he painted in fresco three stories of the same Saint. In one he is being taken as a prisoner to Rome, and disembarks on the Island of Malta; and there may be seen how, on the kindling of the fire, a viper strikes at his hand to bite it, while some mariners, almost naked, stand in various attitudes about the barque; in another is the scene when a young man, having fallen from a window, is brought to S. Paul, who by the power of God restores him to life; and in the third is the Beheading and Death of the Saint. On the walls below are two large scenes, likewise in fresco; in one is S. Paul healing a man crippled in the legs, and in the other a disputation, wherein he causes a magician to be struck with blindness; and both the one and the other are truly most beautiful. But that work having been left incomplete by reason of his death, Federigo has finished it this year, and it has been thrown open to view with great credit to him. At this same time Federigo executed some pictures in oils, which were sent to France by the Ambassador of that kingdom. The little hall in the Farnese Palace having remained unfinished on account of the death of Salviati (wanting two scenes, namely, at the entrance, opposite to the great window), Cardinal Sant'Agnolo, of the Farnese family, gave them to Taddeo to execute, and he carried them to completion very well. But nevertheless he did not surpass or even equal Francesco in the works executed by him in the same apartment, as certain envious and malignant spirits went about saying throughout Rome, in order to diminish the glory of Salviati by their foul calumnies; and although Taddeo used to defend himself by saying that he had caused the whole to be executed by his assistants, and that there was nothing in that work by his hand save the design and a few other things, such excuses were not accepted, for the reason that a man who wishes to surpass another in any competition, must not entrust the credit of his art to the keeping of feeble persons, for that is clearly the way to perdition. Thus Cardinal Sant'Agnolo, a man of truly supreme judgment in all things, and of surpassing goodness, recognized how much he had lost by the death of Salviati; for, although he was proud and even arrogant, and ill-tempered, in matters of painting he was truly most excellent. However, since the best craftsmen had disappeared from Rome, that lord, for want of others, resolved to entrust the painting of the Great Hall in that Palace to Taddeo, who accepted it willingly, in the hope of being able to prove by means of every effort how great were his ability and knowledge. The Florentine Lorenzo Pucci, Cardinal Santiquattro, had formerly caused a chapel to be built in the Trinita, and all the vaulting to be painted by Perino del Vaga, with certain Prophets on the outer side, and two little boys holding the arms of that Cardinal. But the chapel remaining unfinished, with three walls still to be painted, when the Cardinal died, those fathers, without any regard for what was just and reasonable, sold that chapel to the Archbishop of Corfu; and it was afterwards given by that Archbishop to Taddeo to paint. Now although, out of respect for the church and from other reasons, it may have been well to find means of finishing the chapel, at least they should not have allowed the arms of the Cardinal to be removed from the part that was finished, only in order to place there those of the above-named Archbishop, which they could have set up in another place, instead of offering so manifest an affront to the memory of that good Cardinal. Having thus so many works on his hands, Taddeo was every day urging Federigo to return from Venice. That Federigo, after having finished the chapel for the Patriarch, was negotiating to undertake to paint the principal wall of the Great Hall of the Council, where Antonio Viniziano had formerly painted; but the rivalry and the contentions that he suffered from the Venetian painters were the reason that neither they, with all their interest, nor he, likewise, obtained it. Meanwhile Taddeo, having a desire to see Florence and the many works which, so he heard, Duke Cosimo had carried out and was still carrying out, and the beginning that his friend Giorgio Vasari was making in the Great Hall; Taddeo, I say, pretending one day to go to Caprarola in connection with the work that he was doing there, went off to Florence for the Festival of S. John, in company with Tiberio Calcagni, a young Florentine sculptor and architect. There, to say nothing of the city, he found vast pleasure in the works of the many excellent sculptors and painters, ancient as well as modern; and if he had not had so many charges and so many works on his hands, he would gladly have stayed there some months. Thus he saw the preparations of Vasari for the above-named Hall--namely, forty-four great pictures, of four, six, seven, or ten braccia each--in which he was executing figures for the most part of six or eight braccia, with the assistance only of the Fleming Giovanni Strada and Jacopo Zucchi, his disciples, and Battista Naldini, in all which he took the greatest pleasure, and, hearing that all had been executed in less than a year, it gave him great courage. Wherefore, having returned to Rome, he set his hand to the above-named chapel in the Trinita, with the resolve that he would surpass himself in the stories of Our Lady that were to be painted there, as will be related presently. Now Federigo, although he was pressed to return from Venice, was not able to refuse to stay in that city for the Carnival in company with the architect Andrea Palladio. And Andrea, having made for the gentlemen of the Company of the Calza a theatre in wood after the manner of a Colosseum, in which a tragedy was to be performed, caused Federigo to execute for the decoration of the same twelve large scenes, each seven feet and a half square, with innumerable other stories of the actions of Hyrcanus, King of Jerusalem, after the subject of the tragedy; in which work Federigo gained much honour, from its excellence and from the rapidity with which he executed it. Next, Palladio going to Friuli to found the Palace of Civitale, of which he had previously made the model, Federigo went with him in order to see that country; and there he drew many things that pleased him. Then, after having seen many things in Verona and in many other cities of Lombardy, he finally made his way to Florence, at the very time when festive preparations, rich and marvellous, were being made for the coming of Queen Joanna of Austria. Having arrived there, he executed, after the desire of the Lord Duke, a most beautiful and fanciful Hunt in colours on a vast canvas that covered the stage at the end of the Hall, and some scenes in chiaroscuro for an arch; all which gave infinite satisfaction. From Florence he went to Sant' Agnolo, to revisit his relatives and friends, and finally he arrived in Rome on the 16th of the January following; but he was of little assistance to Taddeo at that time, for the reason that the death of Pope Pius IV, followed by that of Cardinal Sant'Agnolo, interrupted the work of the Hall of Kings and that of the Farnese Palace. Whereupon Taddeo, who had finished another apartment of rooms at Caprarola, and had carried almost to completion the chapel in S. Marcello, proceeded to give his attention to the work of the Trinita, much at his leisure, and to execute the Passing of Our Lady, with the Apostles standing about the bier. In the meantime, also, Taddeo had obtained for Federigo a chapel to be painted in fresco in the Church of the Reformed Priests of Jesus at the Obelisk of S. Mauro; and to that Federigo straightway set his hand. Taddeo, feigning to be angry because Federigo had delayed too long to return, appeared to care little for his arrival; but in truth he welcomed it greatly, as was afterwards seen from the result. For he was much annoyed by having to provide for his house (of which annoyance Federigo had been accustomed to relieve him), and by the anxious care of that brother who was employed as a goldsmith; but when Federigo came they put many inconveniences to rights, in order to be able to attend to their work with a quiet mind. The friends of Taddeo were seeking meanwhile to give him a wife, but he, being one who was accustomed to living free, and feared that which generally happens (namely, that he would bring into his house, together with the wife, a thousand vexatious cares and annoyances), could never make up his mind to it. Nay, attending to his work in the Trinita, he proceeded to make the cartoon of the principal wall, on which there was going the Ascension of Our Lady into Heaven; while Federigo painted a picture of S. Peter in Prison for the Lord Duke of Urbino; another, wherein is a Madonna in Heaven with some Angels about her, which was to be sent to Milan; and a third with a figure of Opportunity, which was sent to Perugia. The Cardinal of Ferrara had kept many painters and masters in stucco at work at the very beautiful villa that he has at Tivoli, and finally he sent Federigo there to paint two rooms, one of which is dedicated to Nobility, and the other to Glory; in which Federigo acquitted himself very well, executing there beautiful and fantastic inventions. That finished, he returned to the work of the above-mentioned chapel in Rome, which he has carried to completion, painting in it a choir of many Angels and various Glories, with God the Father sending down the Holy Spirit upon the Madonna, who is receiving the Annunciation from the Angel Gabriel, while about her are six Prophets, larger than life and very beautiful. Taddeo, meanwhile, continuing to paint the Assumption of the Madonna in fresco in the Trinita, appeared to be driven by nature to do in that work, as his last, the utmost in his power. And in truth it proved to be his last, for, having fallen ill of a sickness which at first appeared to be slight enough, and caused by the great heat that there was that year, and which afterwards became very grave, he died in the month of September in the year 1566; having first, like a good Christian, received the Sacraments of the Church, and seen the greater part of his friends, and leaving in his place his brother Federigo, who was also ill at that time. And so in a short time, Buonarroti, Salviati, Daniello, and Taddeo having been taken from the world, our arts have suffered a very great loss, and particularly the art of painting. Taddeo was very bold in his work, and had a manner passing soft and pastose, and very far removed from the hardness often seen. He was very abundant in his compositions, and he made his heads, hands, and nudes very beautiful, keeping them free of the many crudities over which certain painters labour beyond all reason, in order to make it appear that they understand anatomy and art; to which kind of men there often happens that which befell him who, from his seeking to be in his speech more Athenian than the Athenians, was recognized by a woman of the people to be no Athenian. Taddeo also handled colours with much delicacy, and he had great facility of manner, for he was much assisted by nature; but at times he sought to make too much use of it. He was so desirous of having something of his own, that he continued for a time to accept any sort of work for the sake of gain; but for all that he executed many, nay, innumerable works worthy of great praise. He kept a number of assistants in order to finish his works, for the reason that it is not possible to do otherwise. He was sanguine, hasty, and quick to take offence, and, in addition, much given to the pleasures of love; but nevertheless, although he was strongly inclined by nature to such pleasures, he contrived to conduct his affairs with a certain degree of decency, and very secretly. He was loving with his friends, and whenever he could help them he never spared himself. At his death he left the work in the Trinita not yet uncovered, and the Great Hall in the Farnese Palace unfinished, and so also the works of Caprarola, but nevertheless these all remained in the hands of his brother Federigo, whom the patrons of the works are content to allow to give them completion, as he will do; and, in truth, Federigo will be heir to the talents of Taddeo no less than to his property. Taddeo was given burial by Federigo in the Ritonda of Rome, near the tabernacle where Raffaello da Urbino, his fellow-countryman, is buried; and certainly they are well placed, one beside the other, for the reason that even as Raffaello died at the age of thirty-seven and on the same day that he was born, which was Good Friday, so Taddeo was born on the first day of September, 1529, and died on the second day of the same month in the year 1566. Federigo is minded, if it should be granted to him, to restore the other tabernacle in the Ritonda, and to make some memorial in that place to his loving brother, to whom he knows himself to be deeply indebted. Now, since mention has been made above of Jacopo Barozzi of Vignuola, saying that after his architectural designs and directions the most illustrious Cardinal Farnese has built his rich and even regal villa of Caprarola, let me relate that the same Jacopo Barozzi of Vignuola, a Bolognese painter and architect, who is now fifty-eight years of age, was placed in his childhood and youth to learn the art of painting in Bologna, but did not make much proficience, because he did not receive good guidance at the beginning. And also, to tell the truth, he had by nature much more inclination for architecture than for painting, as was clearly manifest even at that time from his designs and from the few works of painting that he executed, for there were always to be seen in them pieces of architecture and perspective; and so strong and potent in him was that inclination of nature, that he may be said to have learned almost by himself, in a short time, both the first principles and also the greatest difficulties, and that very well. Wherefore, almost before he was known, various designs with most beautiful and imaginative fantasies were seen to issue from his hand, executed for the most part at the request of M. Francesco Guicciardini, at that time Governor of Bologna, and for others of his friends; which designs were afterwards put into execution in tinted woods inlaid after the manner of tarsia, by Fra Damiano da Bergamo, of the Order of S. Domenico in Bologna. Vignuola then went to Rome to work at painting, and to obtain from that art the means to assist his poor family; and at first he was employed at the Belvedere with Jacopo Melighini of Ferrara, the architect of Pope Paul III, drawing some architectural designs for him. But afterwards, there being in Rome at that time an academy of most noble lords and gentlemen who occupied themselves in reading Vitruvius (among whom were M. Marcello Cervini, who afterwards became Pope, Monsignor Maffei, M. Alessandro Manzuoli, and others), Vignuola set himself in their service to take complete measurements of all the antiquities of Rome, and to execute certain works after their fancy; which circumstance was of the greatest assistance to him both for learning and for profit. Meanwhile Francesco Primaticcio, the Bolognese painter, of whom there will be an account in another place, had arrived in Rome, and he made much use of Vignuola in making moulds of a great part of the antiques in Rome, in order to take those moulds into France, and then to cast from them statues in bronze similar to the antiques; which work having been despatched, Primaticcio, in going to France, took Vignuola with him, in order to make use of him in matters of architecture and to have his assistance in casting in bronze the above-mentioned statues of which they had made the moulds; which things, both the one and the other, he did with much diligence and judgment. After two years had passed, he returned to Bologna, according to the promise made by him to Count Filippo Pepoli, in order to attend to the building of S. Petronio. In that place he consumed several years in discussions and disputes with certain others who were his competitors in the affairs there, without doing anything but design and cause to be constructed after his plans the canal that brings vessels into Bologna, whereas before that they could not come within three miles; than which work none better or more useful was ever executed, although Vignuola, the originator of an enterprise so useful and so praiseworthy, was poorly rewarded for it. Pope Julius III having been elected in the year 1550, by means of Vasari Vignuola was appointed architect to his Holiness, and there was given to him the particular charge of conducting the Acqua Vergine and of superintending the works at the Vigna of Pope Julius, who took Vignuola into his service most willingly, because he had come to know him when he was Legate in Bologna. In that building, and in other works that he executed for that Pontiff, he endured much labour, but was badly rewarded for it. Finally Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, having recognized the genius of Vignuola, to whom he always showed much favour, desired, in carrying out the building of his Palace at Caprarola, that the whole work should spring from the fanciful design and invention of Vignuola. And, in truth, the judgment of that lord in making choice of so excellent an architect was no less than the greatness of his mind in setting his hand to an edifice so noble and grand, which, although it is in a place where it can be enjoyed but little by men in general, being out of the way, yet is none the less marvellous in its site, and very suitable for one who wishes at times to withdraw from the vexations and tumult of the city. This edifice, then, has the form of a pentagon, and is divided into four sets of apartments, without counting the front part, where the principal door is; in which front part is a loggia forty palms in breadth and eighty in length. On one side there curves in a round form a spiral staircase, ten palms wide across the steps, and twenty palms across the space in the centre, which gives light to the staircase, which curves from the base to the third or uppermost story; and these steps are all supported by double columns with cornices, which curve in a round in accordance with the staircase. The whole is a rich and well-varied work, beginning with the Doric Order, and continuing in the Ionic, the Corinthian, and the Composite, with a wealth of balusters, niches, and other fanciful ornaments, which make it a rare thing, and most beautiful. Opposite to this staircase--namely, at the other of the corners that are one on either side of the above-mentioned loggia of the entrance--there is a suite of rooms that begins in a circular vestibule equal in breadth to the staircase, and leads to a great hall on the ground floor, eighty palms long and forty broad. This hall is wrought in stucco and painted with stories of Jove--namely, his birth, his being nursed by the Goat Amaltheia, and her coronation, with two other stories on either side of the last-named, showing her being placed in the heavens among the forty-eight Heavenly Signs, and another similar story of the same Goat, which alludes, as also do the others, to the name of Caprarola. On the walls of this hall are perspective-views of buildings drawn by Vignuola and coloured by his son-in-law, which are very beautiful and make the room seem larger than it is. Beside this hall is a smaller hall of forty palms, which comes exactly at the next corner, and in it, besides the works in stucco, are painted things that are all significant of Spring. Continuing from this little hall towards the other angle (that is, towards the point of the pentagon, where a tower has been begun), one goes into three chambers, each forty palms broad and thirty long. In the first of these are various inventions executed in stucco and painting, representing Summer, to which season this first chamber is dedicated. In that which follows there is painted and wrought in the same manner the season of Autumn; and in the last, which is sheltered from the north, and decorated likewise in the same manner, there is represented in a similar kind of work the season of Winter. So far we have spoken (with regard to the floor that is over the underground rooms of the basement, cut out of the tufa, where there are rooms for the servants, kitchens, larders, and wine-cellars) of the half of this pentagonal edifice--namely, of the part on the right hand. Opposite to that part, on the left hand, there are rooms exactly equal in number and of the same size. Within the five angles of the pentagon Vignuola has made a circular court, into which all the apartments of the edifice open with their doors; which doors, I mean, all open into the circular loggia surrounding the court, which is eighteen palms in breadth, while the diameter of the remaining space in the court is ninety-five palms and five inches. The pilasters of the loggia (which is divided up by niches), supporting the arches and the vaulting, are in couples, with a niche in the centre, and twenty in number; and each couple covers a breadth of fifteen palms, which is also the breadth of the space of the arches. Around the loggia, at the angles that form the shape of the round, are four spiral staircases, which lead from the basement of the palace up to the top, for the convenience of the edifice and of the rooms. And there are reservoirs that collect the rain-water, which feed a very large and beautiful cistern in the centre; to say nothing of the windows and innumerable other conveniences, which make this building appear to be, as indeed it is, a rare and most beautiful fabric. And, besides having the site and form of a fortress, it is furnished on the outer side with an oval flight of steps, with ditches all around, and with drawbridges made with beautiful invention and in a novel manner, which lead into gardens full of rich and well-varied fountains, graceful parterres of verdure, and, in short, all that is required for a truly regal villa. Now, ascending by the great spiral staircase from the level of the court to the other apartment above, one finds already finished, over the part of which we have spoken, an equal number of rooms, and also the chapel, which is opposite to the principal round staircase on this floor. In the hall that is exactly above that of Jove, and of equal size, there are painted by the hands of Taddeo and his young men, with very rich and beautiful ornaments of stucco, the actions of the illustrious men of the House of Farnese. On the vaulting are compartments with six scenes, four square and two round, which follow right round the cornice of this hall, and in the centre are three ovals, accompanied along their length by two smaller and rectangular pictures, in one of which is painted Fame, and in the other Bellona. In the first of the three ovals is Peace, in the central oval the ancient arms of the House of Farnese, with the helmet-crest, above which is the Unicorn, and in the last is Religion. In the first of the six above-mentioned scenes, which is a round, is Guido Farnese, with many persons, all well executed, about him, and with this inscription below: GUIDO FARNESIUS, URBIS VETERIS PRINCIPATUM CIVIBUS IPSIS DEFERENTIBUS ADEPTUS, LABORANTI INTESTINIS DISCORDIIS CIVITATI, SEDITIOSA FACTIONE EJECTA, PACEM ET TRANQUILLITATEM RESTITUIT, ANNO 1323. In an oblong picture is Pietro Niccolò Farnese, who is delivering Bologna, with this inscription below: PETRUS NICOLAUS, SEDIS ROMANÆ POTENTISSIMIS HOSTIBUS MEMORABILI PRÆLIO SUPERATIS, IMMINENTI OBSIDIONIS PERICULO BONONIAM LIBERAT, ANNO SALUTIS 1361. In the rectangular picture next to this is Pietro Farnese, elected Captain of the Florentines, with this inscription: PETRUS FARNESIUS, REIP. FLORENTINÆ IMPERATOR, MAGNIS PISANORUM COPIIS ... URBEM FLORENTIAM TRIUMPHANS INGREDITUR, ANNO 1362. In the other round picture, which is opposite to that described above, is another Pietro Farnese, who routs the enemies of the Roman Church at Orbatello, with his inscription. In one of the two other rectangular pictures, which are of equal size, is Signor Ranieri Farnese, elected General of the Florentines in place of the above-named Signor Pietro, his brother, with this inscription: RAINERIUS FARNESIUS A FLORENTINIS DIFFICILI REIP. TEMPORE IN PETRI FRATRIS MORTUI LOCUM COPIARUM OMNIUM DUX DELIGITUR, ANNO 1362. In the last picture is Ranuccio Farnese, chosen by Eugenius III as General of the Church, with this inscription: RANUTIUS FARNESIUS, PAULI TERTII PAPÆ AVUS, EUGENIO TERTIO P.M. ROSÆ AUREÆ MUNERE INSIGNITUS, PONTIFICII EXERCITUS IMPERATOR CONSTITUITUR, ANNO CHRISTI 1435. In short, there are on this vaulting vast numbers of most beautiful figures, besides the stucco-work and other ornaments overlaid with gold. On the walls are eight scenes, two to each wall. On the first, in a scene on the right hand as one enters, is Pope Julius III confirming Duke Ottavio and the Prince his son in the possession of Parma and Piacenza, in the presence of Cardinal Farnese, Sant'Agnolo his brother, the Camarlingo Santa Fiore, the elder Salviati, Chieti, Carpi, Polo, and Morone, all being portraits from life; with this inscription: JULIUS III, P.M., ALEXANDRO FARNESIO AUCTORE, OCTAVIO FARNESIO, EJUS FRATRI, PARMAM AMISSAM RESTITUIT, ANNO SALUTIS 1550. In the second scene is Cardinal Farnese going to Worms as Legate to the Emperor Charles V, and his Majesty and the Prince, his son, are coming forth to meet him, with a vast multitude of Barons, and among them the King of the Romans; with the proper inscription. On the wall on the left hand as one enters, in the first scene, is the war fought against the Lutherans in Germany, where Duke Ottavio Farnese was Legate, in the year 1546, with the inscription; and in the second are the above-named Cardinal Farnese and the Emperor with his sons, who are all four under a baldachin carried by various persons portrayed from life, among whom is Taddeo, the master of the work, with a company of many lords all around. On one of the head-walls, or rather, ends, are two scenes, and between them an oval, in which is the portrait of King Philip, with this inscription: PHILIPPO HISPANIARUM REGI MAXIMO, OB EXIMIA IN DOMUM FARNESIAM MERITA. In one of the scenes is Duke Ottavio taking Madama Margherita of Austria as his wife, with Pope Paul III in the centre, and portraits of Cardinal Farnese the younger, the Cardinal of Carpi, Duke Pier Luigi, M. Durante, Eurialo da Cingoli, M. Giovanni Riccio of Montepulciano, the Bishop of Como, Signora Livia Colonna, Claudia Mancina, Settimia, and Donna Maria di Mendoza. In the other is Duke Orazio taking as his wife the daughter of King Henry of France, with this inscription: HENRICUS II, VALESIUS, GALLORUM REX, HORATIO FARNESIO CASTRI DUCI DIANAM FILIAM IN MATRIMONIUM COLLOCAT, ANNO SALUTIS 1552. In which scene, besides the portrait of Diana herself with the royal mantle, and that of her husband Duke Orazio, are portraits of Caterina de' Medici, Queen of France, Marguerite, the sister of the King, the King of Navarre, the Constable, the Duke of Guise, the Duke of Nemours, the Admiral Prince of Condé, the younger Cardinal of Lorraine, Guise not yet a Cardinal, Signor Piero Strozzi, Madame de Montpensier, and Mademoiselle de Rohan. On the other head-wall, opposite to that already described, are likewise two other scenes, with the oval in the centre, in which is the portrait of King Henry of France, with this inscription: HENRICO FRANCORUM REGI MAX. FAMILIÆ FARNESIÆ CONSERVATORI. In one of the scenes (namely, in that which is on the right hand) Pope Paul III is investing Duke Orazio, who is kneeling, with a priestly robe, and making him Prefect of Rome, with Duke Pier Luigi close at hand, and other lords around; and with these words: PAULUS III P.M. HORATIUM FARNESIUM NEPOTEM, SUMMÆ SPEI ADOLESCENTEM, PRÆFECTUM URBIS CREAT, ANNO SAL. 1549. And in this scene are portraits of the Cardinal of Paris, Viseo, Morone, Badia, Trento, Sfondrato, and Ardinghelli. In the other scene, beside the last-named, the same Pope is giving the General's baton to Pier Luigi and his sons, who were not yet Cardinals; with portraits of the Pope, Pier Luigi Farnese, the Camarlingo, Duke Ottavio, Orazio, the Cardinal of Capua, Simonetta, Jacobaccio, San Jacopo, Ferrara, Signor Ranuccio Farnese as a young man, Giovio, Molza, Marcello Cervini, who afterwards became Pope, the Marquis of Marignano, Signor Giovan Battista Castaldo, Signor Alessandro Vitelli, and Signor Giovan Battista Savelli. Coming now to the little hall which is beside the hall just described, and which is above the Hall of Spring, in the vaulting, which is adorned with a vast and rich decoration in stucco and gold, in the recess in the centre, there is the Coronation of Pope Paul III, with four spaces that form a cruciform inscription, with these words: PAULUS III FARNESIUS, PONTIFEX MAXIMUS, DEO ET HOMINIBUS APPROBANTIBUS, SACRA TIARA SOLEMNI RITU CORONATUR, ANNO SALUTIS 1534, III NON. NOVEMB. Then follow four scenes above the cornice--namely, one over every wall. In the first the Pope is blessing the galleys at Cività Vecchia, when about to send them to Tunis in Barbary in the year 1535. In the next the same Pope is excommunicating the King of England in the year 1537; with the proper inscription. In the third is a fleet of galleys which the Emperor and the Venetians fitted out against the Turk, with the authority and assistance of the Pontiff, in the year 1538. In the fourth, Perugia having rebelled against the Church, the people of that city go to seek pardon in the year 1540. On the walls of the same little hall are four large scenes, one to each wall, with windows and doors between. In the first large scene the Emperor Charles V, having returned victorious from Tunis, is kissing the feet of Pope Paul, of the Farnese family, in Rome, in the year 1535. In the next, which is above the door on the left hand, is the story of the peace that Pope Paul III brought about at Busseto between the Emperor Charles V and Francis I of France, in the year 1538; in which scene are these portraits--the elder Bourbon, King Francis, King Henry, the elder Lorenzo, Tournon, the younger Lorenzo, the younger Bourbon, and two sons of King Francis. In the third the same Pope is making Cardinal di Monte his Legate at the Council of Trent; and there are innumerable portraits. In the last, which is between two windows, the same Pontiff is creating many Cardinals in preparation for the Council, among whom there are four who became Popes in succession after him--Julius III, Marcello Cervini, Paul IV, and Pius IV. To put it briefly, this little hall is very richly adorned with all that is required in such a place. In the first chamber next to the little hall, which is dedicated to Dress, and likewise richly wrought in stucco and gold, there is in the centre a Sacrifice, with three nude figures, among which is an armed figure of Alexander the Great, who is casting some garments of skin upon the fire; and in many other scenes that are in the same place, one sees how men discovered the way to make garments from plants and other wild products; but it would take too long to seek to describe the whole in full. From this chamber one enters into a second, dedicated to Sleep, for which, when Taddeo had to paint it, he received the inventions given below from the Commendatore Annibale Caro, at the commission of the Cardinal; and, to the end that the whole may be the better understood, we shall write here the advice of Caro in his own words, which are these-- "The subjects that the Cardinal has commanded me to give you for the pictures in the Palace of Caprarola, it is not enough for them to be explained by word of mouth, because, besides the invention, we must look to the disposition of the figures, the attitudes, the colours, and a number of other considerations, all in accordance with the descriptions that I find of the things that appear to me to be suitable; wherefore I shall put down on paper all that occurs to me in the matter, as briefly and as distinctly as I shall be able. And first with regard to the chamber with the flat vaulting--for of any other, up to the present, he has not given me the charge--it appears to me that since it is destined to contain the bed for the person of his most illustrious lordship, there must be executed there things in keeping with the place and out of the common both in the invention and in the workmanship. Now, to declare my conception first in general, I would have a Night painted there, because, besides that it would be appropriate to sleep, it would be a subject not very customary and different from those of the other rooms, and would give you an occasion of executing rare and beautiful works in your art, since the strong lights and dark shadows that go into such a subject are wont to give no little grace and relief to the figures; and it would please me to have the time of this Night close upon the dawn, to the end that the things represented there may be visible without improbability. And to come to the details and to their disposition, it is necessary that we come to an understanding first about the situation and the distribution of the chamber. Let us say, then, that it is divided, as indeed it is, into vaulting and walls, or façades, as we wish to call them. The vaulting has a sunk oval in the centre and four great spandrels at the corners, which, drawing together little by little and continuing one with the other along the façades, embrace the above-mentioned oval. The walls, also, are four, and between the spandrels they form four lunettes. "Now, let us give names to all these parts, with the divisions that we shall make in the whole chamber, and we shall thus be able to distinguish each part on every side, all the way round. Dividing it into five sections, then, the first shall be the 'head'; and this I presume to be next to the garden. The second, which must be that opposite to the first, we shall call the 'foot'; the third, on the right hand, we shall call the 'right'; the fourth, on the left hand, the 'left'; and the fifth, situated in the midst of the others, shall be named the 'centre.' Thus, distinguishing all the parts with these names, we shall speak, for example, of the lunette at the head, the façade at the foot, the concavity on the left, the horn on the right, and so with any other part that it may be necessary to name; and to the spandrels that are at the corners, each between two of these boundaries, we shall give the name both of the one and of the other. And thus, also, we shall determine on the pavement below the situation of the bed, which, in my opinion, must be along the façade at the foot, with the head turned to the left-hand façade. "Now, all the parts having received a name, let us turn to give a form to them all in general, and then to each by itself. First of all, the concavity of the vaulting, or rather, the oval, shall be represented--so the Cardinal has judiciously determined--as being all heaven. The rest of the vaulting, comprising the four spandrels together with the border that we have already mentioned as enclosing the oval all around, shall be made to appear as the unbroken surface within the chamber, and as resting upon the façades, with some beautiful architectural design of your own devising. The four lunettes I would have counterfeited as likewise concave; and, whereas the oval above represents a heaven, these must represent heaven, earth, and sea, as if without the chamber, in accordance with the various figures and scenes that shall be there. And since, the vaulting being very flat, the lunettes are so low that they will not hold any but little figures, I would divide each lunette into three parts along its length, and, leaving the ends in a line with the height of the spandrels, I would deepen the centre part below that line, in such a manner that it may be like a great high window and show the exterior of the room, as it were, with figures and scenes proportionate in size to the others. And the two extremities that remain on either side, like horns to the lunette--and horns henceforward they will be called--shall be left low, of the height that they are above that line, and in each of them must be painted a figure seated or recumbent, and seeming to be either within or without the room, whichever you please, for you must choose what looks best; and what I say of one lunette I say of all four. "To return to the interior of the chamber as a whole, it appears to me that it should be in itself all in darkness, save in so far as the concavities both of the oval above and of the large windows at the sides may give it a certain degree of light, partly from the heaven, with its celestial lights, and partly from the earth with fires that must be painted there, as will be described later. At the same time, from the centre of the room to the lower end, I would have it that the nearer one may approach to the foot, where the Night is to be, the greater shall be the darkness, and that in like manner in the other half, from the centre to the upper end, in proportion as one approaches step by step to the head, where Aurora is to be, it shall grow continually lighter. "Having thus disposed of the chamber as a whole, let us proceed to distribute the subjects, giving to each part its own. In the oval that is in the vaulting, you must paint at the head, as we have said, a figure of Aurora. This figure, I find, may be made in several ways, but of all these I shall choose that which in my opinion can be done with the greatest grace in painting. You must paint, then, a maiden of such beauty as the poets strive to express with words, composing her of roses, gold, purple, dew, and other suchlike graces; and so much for the colours and flesh-tints of her person. As for her dress, composing out of many one that appears most suitable, we must reflect that, even as she has three stages and three distinct colours, so she has three names--Alba, Vermiglia, and Rancia;[23] and for this reason I would make her down to the girdle a garment delicate in texture, as it were transparent, and white; from the girdle down to the knees an outer garment of scarlet, with certain pinkings and tassels in imitation of the reflections seen on the clouds when she is vermilion, and from the knees down to the feet of the colour of gold, in order to represent her when she is orange, taking heed that this dress must be slit from the thighs downwards, in order to show the bare legs; and both the under garment and the outer must be blown by the wind, so as to flutter in folds. The arms, also, must be naked and of a rosy flesh-tint; on the shoulders you must make her wings of various colours, and on the head a crown of roses; and in her hands you must place a lamp or a lighted torch, or rather, there must go before her a Cupid who is carrying a torch, and after her another who with another torch awakens Tithonus. She must be seated on a gilded throne in a chariot likewise gilded, drawn by a winged Pegasus or by two horses, for she is depicted both in the one way and in the other. As for the colours of the horses, one must be shining white and the other shining red, in order to denote them according to the names that Homer gives them of Lampus and Phaëthon. You must make her rising from a tranquil sea, which should appear rippled, luminous, and glancing. On the wall behind, upon the right-hand horn, you must paint her husband Tithonus, and on the left her lover Cephalus. Tithonus should be an old man white as snow, on an orange-coloured bed, or rather, in a cradle, according to those who make him, on account of his great age, once more a child; and he should be shown in the act of holding her back, or gazing on her with amorous eyes, or sighing after her, as if her departure grieved him. Cephalus must be a most beautiful young man dressed in a doublet girt at the waist, with his buskins on his feet, with the spear, which must have the iron head gilded, in his hand, and with a dog at his side, in the act of entering into a wood, as if caring nothing for her by reason of the love that he bears to his Procris. Between Cephalus and Tithonus, in the space with the great window, behind the Aurora, there must shoot upwards some few rays of the sun, of a splendour more vivid than that of the Aurora; but these must be cut off, so as not to be seen, by a large figure of a woman who must appear before them. This woman shall be Vigilance, and she must be so painted that it may appear that she is illumined from behind by the rising sun, and that, in order to forestall him, she is entering into the chamber by the great window that has been mentioned. Let her form be that of a tall, valorous, and splendid woman, with the eyes well open and the brows well arched; dressed down to the feet in a transparent veil, which is girt at the waist; leaning with one hand on a lance, and with the other gathering together a fold of her gown. Let her stand firmly on the right foot, and, holding the left foot suspended, appear from one side to be rooted to the ground, and from the other to be ready to step out. Let her raise her head in order to gaze at Aurora, and appear to be angry that she has risen before her; and let her have on the head a helmet with a cock upon it, which shall be in the act of beating its wings and crowing. All this must be behind the Aurora; and in front of her, in the heaven of the concave oval, I would make certain little figures of girls one behind another, some more bright and some less bright, according as they are more or less near to the light of the Aurora, in order to represent the Hours which go before her and the sun. These Hours shall be painted with the vestments, garlands, and headdresses of virgins, and winged, with the hands full of flowers, as if they were scattering these about. [Footnote 23: White, vermilion, and orange.] "On the opposite side, at the foot of the oval, there shall be Night, and even as Aurora is rising, Night shall be sinking; as the one shows her front, the other shall turn her back; as the first is issuing from a tranquil sea, the second shall be plunging into a sea that is troubled and dark; the horses of the first come with the breast forward, those of the second shall show their croups; and so, also, the person of Night shall be altogether different from that of Aurora. Her flesh-tint shall be dark, dark her mantle, dark her hair, and dark her wings; and these shall be open, as if she were flying. She shall hold her hands on high, and in one a white babe that is sleeping, to represent Sleep, and in the other a black babe that appears to be sleeping, to represent Death; for of both these she is said to be the mother. She shall appear to be sinking with the head downwards and wrapped in thicker shadow, and the heaven about her shall be of a deeper blue and dotted with many stars. Her car shall be of bronze, with the wheels divided into four spaces, to denote her four watches. Then, on the façade opposite (namely, at the foot), even as Aurora has on either side Tithonus and Cephalus, Night shall have Oceanus and Atlas. Oceanus shall be painted on the right, a great figure of a man with the beard and hair dripping and dishevelled, and both from the beard and from the hair there shall issue here and there some heads of dolphins. He shall be depicted as resting on a car drawn by whales, with the Tritons all around in front of him, with their trumpets, and also the Nymphs, and behind him some beasts of the sea; or, if not with all these things, at least with some of them, according to the space that you will have, which to me appears little for so much matter. For Atlas, on the left hand, there shall be painted a mountain with the breast, arms, and all the upper parts of a robust man, bearded and muscular, in the act of upholding the heavens, as his figure is generally shown. Lower down, likewise, over against the Vigilance that we have placed opposite to Aurora, there should be placed a figure of Sleep; but, since it appears to me better, for several reasons, that Sleep should be over the bed, we must place in his stead a figure of Repose. As for this Repose, I find, indeed, that she was worshipped, and that temples were dedicated to her; but I can by no means find how she was figured, unless her figure was that of Security, which I do not believe, because security is a thing of the mind and repose of the body. We must therefore figure a Repose of our own devising, in this manner: a young maiden of pleasing aspect, who, being weary, yet does not lie down, but sleeps seated with the head resting on the left arm. She shall have a spear with the head lying against her shoulder and the foot fixed in the ground, and shall let one arm hang limply down it, and have one leg crossed over it, in the attitude of resting for the restoration of her strength, and not from indolence. She shall have a crown of poppies, and a sceptre laid on one side, but not so far distant that she cannot readily take it up again; and whereas Vigilance has upon her head a cock crowing, so to her we may give a sitting hen, in order to signify that even when resting she is active. "Within the same oval, on the right hand, you shall paint a Moon. Her figure shall be that of a maiden of about eighteen years, tall and virginal in aspect, after the likeness of Apollo, with long tresses, thick and somewhat waved, or wearing on the head one of those caps that are called Phrygian, wide at the foot and pointed and twisted at the top, like the Doge's hat, with two wings over the brow that must hang down and cover the ears, and with two little horns jutting from the head, as of the crescent moon; or, after Apuleius, with a flat disk, polished and shining in the manner of a mirror, on the centre of the brow, which must have on either side of it some serpents and over it some few ears of corn, and on the head a crown of dittany, after the Greeks, or of various flowers, after Marcian, or of helichrysum, after certain others. Her dress some would have reaching down to the feet, others only to the knees, girt under the breasts and crossed below the navel after the fashion of a nymph, with a little mantle on the shoulder clasped over the muscle on the right side, and on the feet buskins wrought in a pleasing pattern. Pausanias, alluding, I believe, to Diana, makes her dressed in deerskin; Apuleius, taking her perchance for Isis, gives her a vestment of the finest veiling in various colours, white, yellow, and red, and another garment all black, but bright and shining, dotted with many stars and with a moon in the centre, and all around it a border with ornaments of fruits and flowers hanging down after the manner of tassels. Of these vestments, take whichever looks best. The arms you must make bare, with the sleeves broad; with the right hand she must hold a lighted torch, and with the left an unbent bow, which, according to Claudian, is of horn, and, according to Ovid, of gold. Make it as seems best to you, and attach the quiver to her shoulders. She is found in Pausanias with two serpents in the left hand, and in Apuleius she has a gilded vase with a serpent as a handle, which appears as if swollen with poison, the foot of the vase being adorned with palm leaves; but by this I believe that he means to indicate Isis, and I have therefore resolved that you shall represent her with the bow, as described above. She shall ride on a car drawn by horses, one black and the other white, or, if you desire variety, by a mule, after Festus Pompeius, or by bullocks, after Claudian and Ausonius; and if you choose bullocks, they must have the horns very small and a white patch on the right flank. The attitude of the Moon must be that of looking down from the heaven in the oval towards the horn of the façade that looks out over the garden, where you must place her lover Endymion, and she shall lean down from the car to kiss him, and, not being able by reason of the interposition of the border, she shall gaze lovingly upon him and illumine him with her radiance. For Endymion you must make a beautiful young shepherd, asleep at the foot of Mount Latmus. In the horn on the other side there shall be Pan, the God of Shepherds, who was enamoured of the Moon; his figure is very well known. Round his neck place his pipes, and with both hands he shall hold out towards the Moon a skein of white wool, with which he is fabled to have won her love; and with that present he must appear to be persuading her to come down to live with him. In the rest of the space of the same great window you must paint a scene, and that shall be the scene of the sacrifices to the Lemures, which men used to hold at night in order to drive evil spirits from their houses. The ritual of these sacrifices was to go about, with the hands washed and the feet bare, scattering black beans; first rolling them about in the mouth, and then throwing them over the shoulder; and among the company were some who made a noise by sounding basins and suchlike instruments of copper. "On the left side of the oval you must paint Mercury in the ordinary manner, with the little winged cap, with the winged sandals on the feet, with the Caduceus in the left hand, and with the purse in the right; altogether nude, save for his little mantle on the shoulder; a most beautiful youth, but with a natural beauty, without any artifice; of a cheerful countenance, spirited eyes, beardless, or with the first down, with reddish hair, and narrow in the shoulders. Some place wings over his ears, and make certain golden feathers coming out of his hair. The attitude you may make as you please, provided only that it shows him gliding down from Heaven in order to infuse sleep, and, turning towards the side of the bed, about to touch the tester with his wand. On the left-hand façade, in the horn next to the façade at the foot, we might have the Lares, his two sons, who were the tutelary spirits of private houses; namely, two young men dressed in the skins of dogs, with certain garments girt up and thrown over the left shoulder in such a way that they may come out under the right, in order to signify that they are unencumbered and ready to guard the house. They shall sit one beside the other, each holding a spear in the right hand, and between them, in the centre, there shall be a dog, and above them a small head of Vulcan, wearing a little cap, with a smith's pincers beside it. In the other horn, next to the façade at the head, you must paint a Battus being converted into stone for having revealed the cattle stolen by Mercury. Let him be an old shepherd seated, showing with the forefinger of the right arm the place where the cattle were hidden, and leaning with the left arm on a stick or rod, the herdsman's staff; and from the waist downwards he must be of black stone of the colour of basanite, into which stone he was converted. Then in the rest of the great window you must paint the scene of the sacrifice that the ancients used to offer to Mercury to the end that their sleep might not be interrupted; and to represent this it is necessary to make an altar with his statue upon it, at the foot of that a fire, and all around persons who are throwing into it pieces of wood for burning, and who, having in their hands cups full of wine, are sprinkling part of the wine and drinking the rest. "In the centre of the oval, in order to fill up all the space of the heaven, I would paint Twilight, as being the mean between Aurora and Night. To represent him, I find that one must paint a young man wholly naked, sometimes with wings and sometimes without, and with two lighted torches, one of which we must show being kindled at that of Aurora, and the other held out towards Night. Some represent this young man, with the same two torches, as riding on one of the horses of the Sun or of Aurora, but this would not be a composition suitable for our purpose; wherefore we shall make him as described above, turned towards Night, and place behind him, between his legs, a great star, which shall be that of Venus, because Venus, Phosphorus, Hesperus, and Twilight seem to be regarded as one and the same thing. And with the exception of this star, see to it that all the lesser stars near the Aurora shall have disappeared. "Now, having by this time filled up all the exterior of the chamber both above in the oval and on the sides and façades, it remains for us to come to the interior, the four spandrels of the vaulting. Beginning with that over the bed, which is between the left-hand façade and that at the foot, you must paint Sleep there; and in order to figure him, you must first figure his home. Ovid places it in Lemnos and among the Cimmerii, Homer in the Ægean Sea, Statius among the Ethiopians, and Ariosto in Arabia. Wherever it may be, it is enough to depict a mountain, such an one as may be imagined where there is always darkness and never any sun; at the foot of it a deep hollow, through which water shall pass, as still as death, in order to signify that it makes no murmur, and this water must be of a sombre hue, because they make it a branch of Lethe. Within this hollow shall be a bed, which, being fabled to be of ebony, shall be black in colour and covered with black draperies. In this bed shall be placed Sleep, a young man of perfect beauty, for they make him surpassing beautiful and serene; nude, according to some, and according to others clothed in two garments, one black below and another white over it, with wings on the shoulders, and, according to Statius, also at the top of the head. Under his arm he shall hold a horn, which shall appear to be spilling a liquid of a livid hue over the bed, in order to denote Oblivion; although others make the horn full of fruits. In one hand he shall hold the wand, and in the other three poppy-heads. He shall be sleeping like one sick, with the head and the limbs hanging limp, as if wholly relaxed in slumber. About his head shall be seen Morpheus, Icelus, and Phantasus, and a great number of Dreams, all which are his children. The Dreams shall be little figures, some of a beautiful aspect and others hideous, as being things that partly please and partly terrify. Let them, likewise, have wings, and also twisted feet, as being unstable and uncertain things, and let them hover and whirl about him, making a kind of dramatic spectacle by transforming themselves into things possible and impossible. Morpheus is called by Ovid the creator and fashioner of figures, and I would therefore make him in the act of fashioning various masks with grotesque faces and placing some of them on feet. Icelus, they say, transforms himself into many shapes, and him I would figure in such a way that as a whole he may have the appearance of a man, and yet may have parts of a wild beast, of a bird, and of a serpent, as the same Ovid describes him. Phantasus, they have it, transforms himself into various inanimate things, and him, also, we may represent, after the words of Ovid, partly of stone, partly of water, and partly of wood. You must feign that in this place there are two gates, one of ivory, whence there issue the false dreams, and one of horn, whence the true dreams come; the true shall be more distinct in colour, more luminous, and better executed, and the false shall be confused, sombre, and imperfect. "In the next spandrel, between the façade at the foot and that on the right hand, you shall place Brizo, the Goddess of prophecy and the interpretress of dreams. For her I cannot find the vestments, but I would make her in the manner of a Sibyl, seated at the foot of the elm described by Virgil, under the branches of which are placed innumerable images, which, falling from those branches, must be shown flying about her in the forms that we have given them; as has been related, some lighter and some darker, some broken and some indistinct, and others almost wholly invisible; in order to represent by these the dreams, the visions, the oracles, the phantasms, and the vain things that are seen in sleep (for into these five kinds Macrobius appears to divide them); and she shall be as it were lost in thought, interpreting them, and shall have about her persons offering to her baskets filled with all manner of things, excepting only fishes. "In the spandrel between the right-hand façade and that at the head it will be well to place Harpocrates, the God of Silence, because this, presenting itself at the first glance before those who enter by the door that leads from the great painted chamber, will warn them as they enter that they must not make any noise. His figure is that of a young man, or rather, of a boy, black in colour, from his being God of the Egyptians, and with his finger to his mouth in the act of commanding silence. He shall carry in his hand a branch of a peach-tree, and, if you think it well, a garland of the leaves of the same tree. They feign that he was born weak in the legs, and that, having been killed, his mother Isis restored him to life; and for this reason some make him stretched out on the ground, and others in the lap of his mother, with the feet joined together. But, for the sake of harmony with the other figures, I would make him standing, supported in some way, or rather, seated, like that of the most illustrious Cardinal Sant'Agnolo, which is likewise winged and holds a horn of plenty. He shall have about him persons offering to him, as was the custom, first-fruits of lentils and other vegetables, and also of peaches, as mentioned above. Others used to make for this same God a figure without a face, with a little cap on the head, and about him a wolf's skin, all covered with eyes and ears. Take which of these two you please. "In the last spandrel, between the façade at the head and that on the left, it will be well to place Angerona, the Goddess of Secrecy, which figure, coming within the same door of entrance, will admonish those who come out of the chamber to keep secret all that they have seen and heard, as is the duty of the servants of noblemen. The figure is that of a woman placed upon an altar, with the mouth bound and sealed. I know not with what vestments she used to be depicted, but I would envelop her in a long gown covering her whole person, and would represent her as shrugging her shoulders. Around her there must be painted some priests, by whom sacrifices used to be offered to her before the gate in the Curia, to the end that it might be unlawful for any person to reveal to the prejudice of the Republic any matter that might be discussed there. "The space within the spandrels being filled up, it now only remains to say that around all this work it seems to me that there should be a frieze to encircle it on every side, and in this I would make either grotesques or small scenes with little figures. The matter of these I would have in harmony with the subjects already given above, each in accord with that nearest to it; and if you paint little scenes, it would please me to have them representing the actions that men and also animals do at the hour that we have fixed there. Now, beginning at the head, I would paint in the frieze of that façade, as things appropriate to the Dawn, artisans, workmen, and persons of various kinds who, having risen, are returning to the labours of their pursuits--as smiths to the forge, men of letters to their studies, huntsmen to the open country, and muleteers to the road, and above all would I like to have the poor old woman from Petrarca rising from her spinning and lighting the fire, with her feet bare and her clothes dishevelled. And if you think fit to make grotesques of animals there, make them of birds singing, geese going forth to their pasture, cocks announcing the day, and similar fancies. In the frieze on the façade at the foot, in accord with the darkness there, I would make persons going fowling by night, spies, adulterers, climbers of windows, and other suchlike things; and for grotesques, porcupines, hedgehogs, badgers, a peacock with the tail spread, signifying the night of stars, owls large and small, bats, and suchlike animals. In the frieze on the right-hand façade you must paint things in keeping with the Moon, such as fishers of the night, mariners navigating with the compass, necromancers, witches, and the like; for grotesques, a beacon-tower in the distance, nets, weir-baskets with some fishes in them, crabs feeding by the light of the moon, and, if there be space enough, an elephant kneeling in adoration of her. And, finally, in the frieze on the left-hand façade, mathematicians with their instruments for measuring, thieves, false-coiners, robbers of buried treasure, shepherds with their folds still closed, lying around their fires, and the like; and for animals I would make there wolves, foxes, apes, weasels, and any other treacherous animals that lie in wait for other creatures. "In this part I have placed these phantasies thus at random in order to suggest what kinds of inventions could be painted there; but, since they are not things that need to be described, I leave you to imagine them in your own manner, knowing that painters are by their nature full of resource and grace in inventing such bizarre fantasies. And now, having filled in all the parts of the work both within and without the chamber, there is no occasion for us to say any more, save that you must discuss the whole matter with the most illustrious Monsignore, and, according to his taste, adding or taking away whatever may be necessary, you must strive on your part to do yourself honour. Fare you well." Now, although all these beautiful inventions of Caro's were very ingenious, fanciful, and worthy of praise, nevertheless Taddeo was not able to carry into execution more than the place would contain; but those that he painted there were the greater part, and they were executed by him with much grace and in a most beautiful manner. Next to this chamber, in the last of the three, which is dedicated to Solitude, Taddeo, with the help of his assistants, painted Christ preaching to the Apostles in the desert and in the woods, with a S. John on the right hand that is very well executed. In another scene, which is opposite to the first, are painted many figures of men who are living in the forest in order to avoid the conversation of mankind; and these certain others are seeking to disturb, throwing stones at them, while some are plucking out their own eyes so as not to see. And in this scene, likewise, is painted the Emperor Charles V, portrayed from life, with this inscription-- POST INNUMEROS LABORES OCIOSAM QUIETAMQUE VITAM TRADUXIT. Opposite to Charles is the portrait of the last Grand Turk, who much delighted in solitude, with these words-- ANIMUM A NEGOCIO AD OCIUM REVOCAVIT. Near him is Aristotle, who has beneath him these words-- ANIMA FIT SEDENDO ET QUIESCENDO PRUDENTIOR. Opposite to him, beneath another figure by the hand of Taddeo, is written this-- QUEMADMODUM NEGOCII, SIC ET OCII RATIO HABENDA. Beneath another may be read-- OCIUM CUM DIGNITATE, NEGOCIUM SINE PERICULO. And opposite to that, under another figure, is this motto-- VIRTUTIS ET LIBERÆ VITÆ OPTIMA MAGISTRA SOLITUDO. Beneath another-- PLUS AGUNT QUI NIHIL AGERE VIDENTUR. And under the last-- QUI AGIT PLURIMA, PLURIMUM PECCAT. To put it briefly, this room is very ornate with beautiful figures, and likewise very rich in stucco and gold. But to return to Vignuola; how excellent he is in matters of architecture, the works that he has written and published and still continues to write, in addition to his marvellous buildings, bear ample testimony, and in the Life of Michelagnolo we shall say all that it may be expedient for us to say in this connection. Taddeo, in addition to the works described above, executed many others of which there is no need to make mention; but in particular a chapel in the Church of the Goldsmiths in the Strada Giulia, a façade in chiaroscuro at S. Gieronimo, and the Chapel of the High-altar in S. Sabina. And his brother Federigo is painting for the Chapel of S. Lorenzo, which is all wrought in stucco, in S. Lorenzo in Damaso, an altar-piece with that Saint on the gridiron and Paradise all open; which altar-piece is expected to prove a very beautiful work. And, in order not to omit anything that may be useful, pleasing, or helpful to anyone who may read these my labours, I shall add this as well. While Taddeo was working, as has been related, at the Vigna of Pope Julius and at the façade of Mattiuolo, the Master of the Post, he executed for Monsignor Innocenzio, the most reverend and illustrious Cardinal di Monte, two painted pictures of no great size; and one of them, which is beautiful enough, is now in the guardaroba of that Cardinal (who has given the other away), in company with a vast number of things ancient and modern, all truly of the rarest, among which, I must not omit to mention, there is a painted picture as fantastic as any work of which we have spoken hitherto. In this picture, which is about two braccia and a half in height, there is nothing to be seen by him who looks at it from the ordinary point of view, from the front, save some letters on a flesh-coloured ground, and in the centre the Moon, which goes gradually increasing or diminishing according to the lines of the writing. And yet, if you go below the picture and look in a sphere or mirror that is placed over the picture in the manner of a little baldachin, you see in that mirror, which receives the image from the picture, a most lifelike portrait in painting of King Henry II of France, somewhat larger than life, with these words about it--HENRY II, ROY DE FRANCE. You can see the same portrait by lowering the picture, placing your brow on the upper part of the frame, and looking down; but it is true that whoever looks at it in that manner, sees it turned the other way from what it is in the mirror. That portrait, I say, cannot be seen save by looking at it as described above, because it is painted on twenty-eight ridges, too low to be perceived, which are between the lines of the words given below, in which, besides the ordinary meaning, there may be read, by looking at both ends of the lines and in the centre, certain letters somewhat larger than the others, which run thus-- HENRICUS VALESIUS DEI GRATIA GALLORUM REX INVICTISSIMUS. It is true, indeed, that the Roman M. Alessandro Taddei, the secretary of that Cardinal, and Don Silvano Razzi, my dearest friend, who have given me information about this picture and about many other things, do not know by whose hand it is, but only that it was presented by the above-named King Henry to Cardinal Caraffa, when he was in France, and then by Caraffa to the most illustrious Cardinal di Monte, who treasured it as a very rare thing, which in truth it is. The words painted in the picture, which alone are to be seen by him who looks at it from the ordinary point of view, as one looks at other pictures, are these-- HEus tu quid viDes nil ut reoR Nisi lunam crEscentem et E Regione posItam quæ eX Intervallo GRadatim utI Crescit nos Admonet ut iN Una spe fide eT charitate tV Simul et ego Illuminat I Verbo dei crescAmus, doneC Ab ejusdem Gratia fiaT Lux in nobis Amplissima quI ESt æternus iLLe dator luciS In quo et a quO mortales omneS Veram lucem Recipere sI Speramus in vanUM non sperabiMUS In the same guardaroba is a most beautiful portrait of Signora Sofonisba Anguisciuola by her own hand, once presented by her to Pope Julius III. And there is another thing of great value, a very ancient book with the Bucolics, the Georgics, and the Æneid of Virgil, in characters so old, that it has been judged by many men of learning in Rome and in other places that it was written in the very time of Cæsar Augustus, or little after; wherefore it is no marvel that it should be held by the Cardinal in the greatest veneration. And let this be the end of the Life of the painter Taddeo Zucchero. INDEX INDEX OF NAMES OF THE CRAFTSMEN MENTIONED IN VOLUME VIII Abacco, Antonio L', 167 Abate, Niccolò dell', 37, 38 Agnolo (nephew of Montorsoli), 144, 147, 151 Agnolo, Baccio d', 116 Agnolo, Battista d' (Battista del Moro), 41 Agnolo Bronzino, 11, 12, 94, 153, 156, 179 Agnolo da Siena, 53 Agostino Busto (Il Bambaja), 54, 55 Agostino da Siena, 53 Alberti, Michele, 205, 210, 211 Albertinelli, Mariotto, 62 Alessandro (Scherano), 168 Alessandro Moretto (Alessandro Bonvicini), 49, 50 Alessandro Vittoria, 100 Altobello da Melone, 24, 43 Ammanati, Bartolommeo, 91, 92, 99, 153, 220 Andrea Contucci (Andrea dal Monte Sansovino), 36, 114 Andrea da Fiesole, 133 Andrea dal Monte Sansovino (Andrea Contucci), 36, 114 Andrea del Sarto, 5, 6, 11, 16, 17, 19, 113, 119, 120, 122, 126, 135, 163, 164 Andrea Mantegna, 23 Andrea Palladio, 233, 234 Andrea Schiavone, 107, 108, 231 Andrea Verrocchio, 111 Angelo Ciciliano, 55 Anguisciuola, Anna, 48 Anguisciuola, Europa, 45, 48 Anguisciuola, Lucia, 45, 47, 48 Anguisciuola, Minerva, 45, 46 Anguisciuola, Sofonisba, 45-48, 261 Anna Anguisciuola, 48 Annibale da Carpi, 36 Annibale di Nanni di Baccio Bigio, 188 Anselmi, Michelagnolo, 39, 44 Antonio, Fra, 32 Antonio Bacchiacca, 20 Antonio Begarelli (Il Modena), 38 Antonio Campo, 44, 45 Antonio da Correggio, 30, 31, 34, 37, 217 Antonio da San Gallo (the elder), 3 Antonio da San Gallo (the younger), 13, 89, 136, 168, 202 Antonio del Ceraiolo, 65, 66 Antonio del Pollaiuolo, 64 Antonio di Donnino Mazzieri, 12 Antonio Filarete, 48 Antonio L'Abacco, 167 Antonio Mini, 128 Antonio Particini, 16 Antonio Viniziano, 233 Apelles, 28 Aretino, Leone (Leone Lioni), 56, 184 Aristotile (Bastiano) da San Gallo, _Life_, 3-20. 119, 126 Arrigo (Heinrich Paludanus), 38 Bacchiacca, Antonio, 20 Bacchiacca, Il (Francesco Ubertini), 10, 11, 16, 18-20 Baccio Bandinelli, 113, 141, 142, 146, 152, 163, 191 Baccio d'Agnolo, 116 Baccio da Montelupo, 54 Baglioni, Raffaello, 116 Baldassarre Peruzzi (Baldassarre da Siena), 167, 168, 197, 205, 218 Baldini, Giovanni, 24, 25 Bambaja, Il (Agostino Busto), 54, 55 Bandinelli, Baccio, 113, 141, 142, 146, 152, 163, 191 Barocci, Federigo, 227 Baronino, Bartolommeo, 220 Barozzi, Jacopo (Vignuola), 220, 230, 237-240, 259 Bartolommeo Ammanati, 91, 92, 99, 153, 220 Bartolommeo Baronino, 220 Bartolommeo di San Marco, Fra, 61 Bartolommeo Genga, 92, 96-98 Bartolommeo Suardi (Bramantino), 52, 53 Bastiano (Aristotile) da San Gallo, _Life_, 3-20. 119, 126 Battista Botticelli, 169 Battista d'Agnolo (Battista del Moro), 41 Battista da San Gallo (Battista Gobbo), 169 Battista da Verona (Battista Farinato), 107 Battista del Borro, 178 Battista del Moro (Battista d'Agnolo), 41 Battista del Tasso, 18, 164, 173, 176 Battista Dossi, 25, 26 Battista Farinato (Battista da Verona), 107 Battista Franco (Battista Semolei), _Life_, 89-101. 12, 67, 68, 89-101, 181, 219, 230 Battista Gobbo (Battista da San Gallo), 169 Battista Naldini, 233 Battista Semolei (Battista Franco), _Life_, 89-101. 12, 67, 68, 89-101, 181, 219, 230 Begarelli, Antonio (Il Modena), 38 Bellini, Giovanni, 33 Bello, Raffaello, 114 Bembi, Bonifazio, 42, 43 Benedetto Ghirlandajo, _Life_, 59-60 Benvenuto Cellini, 128 Benvenuto Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisi), _Life_, 24-29. 30, 33, 34 Bergamo, Fra Damiano da, 169, 237 Bernardino da Trevio (Bernardino Zenale), 54 Bernardino Luini (Bernardino del Lupino), 56 Bernardino Zenale (Bernardino da Trevio), 54 Bernardo Soiaro (Bernardo de' Gatti), 39, 40, 43, 44 Bertano, Giovan Battista, 40, 41 Biagio da Carigliano (Biagio Betti), 210 Biagio Pupini, 32, 33 Bigio, Annibale di Nanni di Baccio, 188 Bizzerra, 204 Boccaccino, Boccaccio, 23, 24, 42-44 Boccaccino, Camillo, 43 Bologna, Orazio da (Orazio Sammacchini), 188, 228, 229 Bologna, Pellegrino da (Pellegrino Pellegrini, or Pellegrino Tibaldi), 34, 204 Bolognese, Marc'Antonio, 42 Bonifazio Bembi, 42, 43 Bonsignori (Monsignori), Fra Girolamo, 42 Bonvicini, Alessandro (Alessandro Moretto), 49, 50 Borro, Battista del, 178 Botticelli, Battista, 169 Bozzacco (Brazzacco), 107 Bramante da Urbino, 5, 40, 53, 54, 75 Bramantino (Bartolommeo Suardi), 52, 53 Brambilari (Brambilla), Francesco, 55 Brazzacco (Bozzacco), 107 Brescia, Raffaello da (Raffaello Brescianino, or Raffaello dei Piccinelli), 164 Brescianino, Girolamo (Girolamo Mosciano, or Muziano), 50, 224 Brescianino, Raffaello (Raffaello da Brescia, or Raffaello dei Piccinelli), 164 Bresciano, Gian Girolamo (Gian Girolamo Savoldo), 50 Bronzino, Agnolo, 11, 12, 94, 153, 156, 179 Brunelleschi, Filippo, 48 Brusciasorzi, Domenico (Domenico del Riccio), 40, 41 Bugiardini, Giuliano, 121-123, 162 Buonarroti, Michelagnolo, 3-5, 16, 25, 61, 73, 79, 82, 89, 91, 92, 95, 96, 116, 128, 134, 136-138, 141, 146, 156, 162, 163, 170, 185, 188, 201-204, 206-209, 235, 259 Busto, Agostino (Il Bambaja), 54, 55 Cadore, Tiziano da (Tiziano Vecelli), 29, 33, 51, 56, 92, 102 Calavrese, 91 Calavrese, Giovan Piero, 216 Calcagni, Tiberio, 233 Caliari, Paolo (Paolo Veronese), 41, 42, 102-104, 106, 107 Camillo Boccaccino, 43 Camillo Mantovano, 171 Campo, Antonio, 44, 45 Campo, Galeazzo, 44 Campo, Giulio, 41, 44, 45, 48, 49 Campo, Vincenzio, 44, 45 Caravaggio, Polidoro da, 17, 218, 219 Carigliano, Biagio da (Biagio Betti), 210 Carlo Portelli, 11, 69, 170, 179 Carpi, Annibale da, 36 Carpi, Girolamo da, _Life_, 30-36. 28, 29 Carpi, Giulio da, 36 Carso, Giovanni dal, 227 Caselli (Castelli), Cristofano, 39 Castelfranco, Giorgione da, 29, 73, 74 Castelli (Caselli), Cristofano, 39 Cellini, Benvenuto, 128 Ceraiolo, Antonio del, 65, 66 Cesare da Sesto, 56 Ciciliano, Angelo, 55 Cioli, Simone, 36 Cioli, Valerio, 35 Clemente, Prospero, 38, 39 Conte, Jacopo del, 95, 169, 181 Conti, Domenico, 11 Contucci, Andrea (Andrea dal Monte Sansovino), 36, 114 Corniole, Nanni di Prospero delle, 162 Correggio, Antonio da, 30, 31, 34, 37, 217 Cosini, Silvio (Silvio da Fiesole), 55 Costa, Ippolito, 41 Costa, Lorenzo (the elder), 23, 25 Costa, Lorenzo (the younger), 228 Credi, Lorenzo di, 42, 65, 66 Cremona, Geremia da, 48 Cristofano Castelli (Caselli), 39 Cristofano Gobbo (Cristofano Solari), 55 Cristofano Lombardi (Tofano Lombardino), 45, 55 Cristofano Rosa, 50, 51, 104 Cristofano Solari (Cristofano Gobbo), 55 Cungi, Leonardo, 227 Daniello da Parma (Daniello Porri), 217 Daniello da Volterra (Daniello Ricciarelli), _Life_, 197-211. 184-186, 197-211, 228, 235 Daniello Porri (Daniello da Parma), 217 Daniello Ricciarelli (Daniello da Volterra), _Life_, 197-211. 184-186, 197-211, 228, 235 David Ghirlandajo, _Life_, 59-60. 63, 64 Diacceto, 161 Diana Mantovana (Sculptore), 42 Domenico Brusciasorzi (Domenico del Riccio), 40, 41 Domenico Conti, 11 Domenico del Riccio (Domenico Brusciasorzi), 40, 41 Domenico Ghirlandajo, 59-61, 63, 64, 66 Domenico Panetti, 24 Domenico Puligo, 119, 120 Domenico Romano, 193 Donato (Donatello), 113 Dossi, Battista, 25, 26 Dossi, Dosso, 25, 26, 33, 56 Durante del Nero, 227 Enea Vico, 180 Europa Anguisciuola, 45, 48 Faenza, Jacopone da, 217 Fagiuoli, Girolamo, 171 Fano, Pompeo da, 215 Farinato, Battista (Battista da Verona), 107 Farinato, Paolo, 41 Federigo Barocci, 227 Federigo Zucchero, 101, 106, 218-221, 223-228, 230, 231, 233-236, 259 Feliciano da San Vito, 210, 211 Fermo Ghisoni, 40-42 Ferrarese, Girolamo (Girolamo Lombardi), 36, 37 Ferrari, Gaudenzio, 56 Ferrucci, Francesco (Francesco del Tadda), 133, 140, 142 Fiesole, Andrea da, 133 Fiesole, Silvio da (Silvio Cosini), 55 Filarete, Antonio, 48 Filippo Brunelleschi, 48 Fiorini, Giovan Battista, 229 Fontana, Prospero, 220 Forlì, Francesco da, 171 Forlì, Livio da, 188, 229 Fra Antonio, 32 Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco, 61 Fra Damiano da Bergamo, 169, 237 Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli, _Life_, 133-157. 91 Fra Girolamo Bonsignori (Monsignori), 42 Fra Guglielmo della Porta, 84 Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del Piombo, 82, 84, 92, 182, 201 Francesca, Piero della, 52 Francesco Brambilari (Brambilla), 55 Francesco da Forlì, 171 Francesco da San Gallo, 153, 155, 156 Francesco da Volterra, 41 Francesco de' Rossi (Francesco Salviati), _Life_, 161-193. 11, 12, 44, 84, 90, 91, 95, 161-193, 208, 209, 228, 229, 231, 232, 235 Francesco del Tadda (Francesco Ferrucci), 133, 140, 142 Francesco di Girolamo dal Prato, 162, 173, 190-192 Francesco Ferrucci (Francesco del Tadda), 133, 140, 142 Francesco Francia, 23 Francesco Granacci, 5, 59, 60, 121 Francesco (L'Indaco), 202 Francesco Mazzuoli (Francesco Parmigiano), 34, 39, 40, 217 Francesco Primaticcio, 37, 183, 237, 238 Francesco Ricchino, 50 Francesco Salviati (Francesco de' Rossi), _Life_, 161-193. 11, 12, 44, 84, 90, 91, 95, 161-193, 208, 209, 228, 229, 231, 232, 235 Francesco Sant'Agnolo, 215-217 Francesco Ubertini (Il Bacchiacca), 10, 11, 16, 18-20 Francia, Francesco, 23 Franciabigio, 5 Franco, Battista (Battista Semolei), _Life_, 89-101. 12, 67, 68, 89-101, 181, 219, 230 Galasso (of Ferrara), 36 Galeazzo Campo, 44 Gambara, Lattanzio, 42, 45, 49, 50 Garofalo, Benvenuto (Benvenuto Tisi), _Life_, 24-29. 30, 33, 34 Gatti, Bernardo de' (Bernardo Soiaro), 39, 40, 43, 44 Gaudenzio Ferrari, 56 Genga, Bartolommeo, 92, 96-98 Genga, Girolamo, 140, 171 Geremia da Cremona, 48 Ghirlandajo, Benedetto, _Life_, 59-60 Ghirlandajo, David, _Life_, 59-60. 63, 64 Ghirlandajo, Domenico, 59-61, 63, 64, 66 Ghirlandajo, Michele di Ridolfo, 66-69, 153, 156 Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo, _Life_, 60-69. 3, 5, 60-69, 93-95 Ghisoni, Fermo, 40-42 Gian Girolamo Bresciano (Gian Girolamo Savoldo), 50 Gian Maria da Milano, 198 Giorgio Vasari. See Vasari (Giorgio) Giorgione da Castelfranco, 29, 73, 74 Giotto, 82, 153 Giovan Battista Bertano, 40, 41 Giovan Battista Fiorini, 229 Giovan Battista Ingoni, 37, 38 Giovan Battista Mantovano (Sculptore), 42 Giovan Francesco da San Gallo, 4 Giovan Francesco Rustici, _Life_, 111-129 Giovan Paolo Rossetti, 204, 210 Giovan Piero Calavrese, 216 Giovanni (the Fleming), 74 Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli, Fra, _Life_, 133-157. 91 Giovanni Antonio Licinio (Pordenone), 43, 44, 103 Giovanni Antonio Sodoma, 197 Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, 20 Giovanni Baldini, 24, 25 Giovanni Bellini, 33 Giovanni da Udine (Giovanni Nanni, or Giovanni Ricamatori), _Life_, 73-85. 171 Giovanni dal Carso, 227 Giovanni della Robbia, 116 Giovanni Nanni (Giovanni da Udine, or Giovanni Ricamatori), _Life_, 73-85. 171 Giovanni Pedoni, 48 Giovanni Ricamatori (Giovanni da Udine, or Giovanni Nanni), _Life_, 73-85. 171 Giovanni Rosto, 20, 179 Giovanni Strada (Jan van der Straet), 233 Girolamo Bonsignori (Monsignori), Fra, 42 Girolamo Brescianino (Girolamo Mosciano, or Muziano), 50, 224 Girolamo da Carpi, _Life_, 30-36. 28, 29 Girolamo da Sermoneta (Girolamo Siciolante), 99, 188, 229 Girolamo dal Prato, 190, 191 Girolamo Fagiuoli, 171 Girolamo Ferrarese (Girolamo Lombardi), 36, 37 Girolamo Genga, 140, 171 Girolamo Lombardi (Girolamo Ferrarese), 36, 37 Girolamo Mazzuoli, 39, 41, 42 Girolamo Mosciano (Girolamo Muziano, or Brescianino), 50, 224 Girolamo Romanino, 49 Girolamo Siciolante (Girolamo da Sermoneta), 99, 188, 229 Giuliano Bugiardini, 121-123, 162 Giuliano da San Gallo, 3 Giuliano Leno, 4 Giulio Campo, 41, 44, 45, 48, 49 Giulio da Carpi, 36 Giulio Mazzoni, 210, 211 Giulio Romano, 29, 39-42, 55, 138, 172 Giuseppe Porta (Giuseppe or Joseffo Salviati), 106, 192, 193, 229, 230 Gobbo, Battista (Battista da San Gallo), 169 Gobbo, Cristofano (Cristofano Solari), 55 Grà, Marco da, 55 Granacci, Francesco, 5, 59, 60, 121 Gualtieri (the Fleming), 231 Guazzetto (Lorenzo Naldini), 119, 127-129 Guglielmo da Marcilla, 162 Guglielmo della Porta, Fra, 84 Guido Mazzoni (Modanino), 38 Heemskerk, Martin (Martino), 90, 91 Heinrich Paludanus (Arrigo), 38 Il Bacchiacca (Francesco Ubertini), 10, 11, 16, 18-20 Il Bambaja (Agostino Busto), 54, 55 Il Modena (Antonio Begarelli), 38 Il Rosso, 167, 183 Indaco, L' (Francesco), 202 Ingoni, Giovan Battista, 37, 38 Ippolito Costa, 41 Jacomo Melighino (Jacopo Melighini), 237 Jacone (Jacopo), 16-19 Jacopo Barozzi (Vignuola), 220, 230, 237-240, 259 Jacopo da Pontormo, 18, 65, 92, 154, 179, 180 Jacopo del Conte, 95, 169, 181 Jacopo del Tedesco, 59, 60 Jacopo di Casentino, 153 Jacopo Melighini (Jacomo Melighino), 237 Jacopo Robusti (Jacopo Tintoretto), 101-106 Jacopo Sansovino, 100, 126, 192 Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), 101-106 Jacopo Zucchi, 233 Jacopone da Faenza, 217 Jan van der Straet (Giovanni Strada), 233 Joseffo Salviati (Giuseppe Salviati or Giuseppe Porta), 106, 192, 193, 229, 230 Lamberto (the Fleming), 231 Lattanzio Gambara, 42, 45, 49, 50 Leno, Giuliano, 4 Leonardo Cungi, 227 Leonardo da Vinci, 42, 56, 111, 112, 114, 115 Leonardo Ricciarelli, 207 Leone Lioni (Leone Aretino), 56, 184 Licinio, Giovanni Antonio (Pordenone), 43, 44, 103 Ligorio, Pirro, 181, 184, 186, 227 L'Indaco (Francesco), 202 Lioni, Leone (Leone Aretino), 56, 184 Lippi, Ruberto di Filippo, 118, 119 Livio da Forlì, 188, 229 Lombardi, Cristofano (Tofano Lombardino), 45, 55 Lombardi, Girolamo (Girolamo Ferrarese), 36, 37 Lombardino, Tofano (Cristofano Lombardi), 45, 55 Lorenzo Costa (the elder), 23, 25 Lorenzo Costa (the younger), 228 Lorenzo di Credi, 42, 65, 66 Lorenzo Naldini (Guazzetto), 119, 127-129 Lucia Anguisciuola, 45, 47, 48 Luini, Bernardino (Bernardino del Lupino), 56 Manno, 164, 190 Mantegna, Andrea, 23 Mantovana (Sculptore), Diana, 42 Mantovano, Camillo, 171 Mantovano (Sculptore), Giovan Battista, 42 Mantovano, Rinaldo, 41 Marc'Antonio Bolognese, 42 Marcilla, Guglielmo da, 162 Marco (son of Giovanni Rosto), 20 Marco da Grà, 55 Marco da Siena (Marco del Pino), 204, 210 Marco Oggioni, 56 Marcone, Piero di, 172, 173 Mariano da Pescia, 66 Mariotto Albertinelli, 62 Martin Heemskerk (Martino), 90, 91 Martino (pupil of Montorsoli), 144, 147, 151, 156 Martino (Martin Heemskerk), 90, 91 Maturino, 17, 218 Mazzieri, Antonio di Donnino, 12 Mazzoni, Giulio, 210, 211 Mazzoni, Guido (Modanino), 38 Mazzuoli, Francesco (Francesco Parmigiano), 34, 39, 40, 217 Mazzuoli, Girolamo, 39, 41, 42 Melighini, Jacopo (Jacomo Melighino), 237 Melone, Altobello da, 24, 43 Michelagnolo Anselmi, 39, 44 Michelagnolo Buonarroti, 3-5, 16, 25, 61, 73, 79, 82, 89, 91, 92, 95, 96, 116, 128, 134, 136-138, 141, 146, 156, 162, 163, 170, 185, 188, 201-204, 206-209, 235, 259 Michele Alberti, 205, 210, 211 Michele di Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, 66-69, 153, 156 Michele San Michele, 102 Milano, Gian Maria da, 198 Minerva Anguisciuola, 45, 46 Mini, Antonio, 128 Modanino (Guido Mazzoni), 38 Modena, Il (Antonio Begarelli), 38 Monsignori (Bonsignori), Fra Girolamo, 42 Montelupo, Baccio da, 54 Montelupo, Raffaello da, 89, 91, 137, 147 Montorsoli, Fra Giovanni Agnolo, _Life_, 133-157. 91 Moretto, Alessandro (Alessandro Bonvicini), 49, 50 Moro, Battista del (Battista d'Agnolo), 41 Mosca, Simone, 224 Mosciano, Girolamo (Girolamo Muziano, or Brescianino), 50, 224 Murano, Natalino da, 104 Muziano, Girolamo (Girolamo Mosciano, or Brescianino), 50, 224 Naldini, Battista, 233 Naldini, Lorenzo (Guazzetto), 119, 127-129 Nanni, Giovanni (Giovanni da Udine, or Giovanni Ricamatori), _Life_, 73-85. 171 Nanni di Prospero delle Corniole, 162 Nannoccio da San Giorgio, 162-164 Natalino da Murano, 104 Nero, Durante del, 227 Niccolaio, 59 Niccolò (Tribolo), 10, 36, 142 Niccolò dell'Abate, 37, 38 Niccolò Soggi, 114 Nunziata, 61, 62 Nunziata, Toto del, 66 Oggioni, Marco, 56 Orazio da Bologna (Orazio Sammacchini), 188, 228, 229 Orazio Pianetti, 206, 207 Orazio Sammacchini (Orazio da Bologna), 188, 228, 229 Orazio Vecelli, 102 Ottaviano Zucchero, 215, 218, 219 Palladio, Andrea, 233, 234 Paludanus, Heinrich (Arrigo), 38 Panetti, Domenico, 24 Paolo Caliari (Paolo Veronese), 41, 42, 102-104, 106, 107 Paolo Farinato, 41 Paolo Uccello, 63 Paolo Veronese (Paolo Caliari), 41, 42, 102-104, 106, 107 Parma, Daniello da (Daniello Porri), 217 Parmigiano, Francesco (Francesco Mazzuoli), 34, 39, 40, 217 Particini, Antonio, 16 Pedoni, Giovanni, 48 Pellegrino Pellegrini (Pellegrino da Bologna, or Pellegrino Tibaldi), 34, 204 Perino del Vaga, 14, 15, 82, 197-199, 202, 215, 232 Perugino, Pietro, 3 Peruzzi, Baldassarre (Baldassarre da Siena), 167, 168, 197, 205, 218 Peruzzi, Salustio, 205 Pescia, Mariano da, 66 Pianetti, Orazio, 206, 207 Piccinelli, Raffaello dei (Raffaello da Brescia, or Raffaello Brescianino), 164 Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, 11, 156 Piero da Sesto, 18 Piero della Francesca, 52 Piero di Marcone, 172, 173 Pietro Perugino, 3 Piloto, 18 Pino, Marco del (Marco da Siena), 204, 210 Piombo, Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del, 82, 84, 92, 182, 201 Pirro Ligorio, 181, 184, 186, 227 Poggino (Zanobi Poggini), 61 Polidoro da Caravaggio, 17, 218, 219 Pollaiuolo, Antonio del, 64 Pompeo da Fano, 215 Pontormo, Jacopo da, 18, 65, 92, 154, 179, 180 Pordenone (Giovanni Antonio Licinio), 43, 44, 103 Porri, Daniello (Daniello da Parma), 217 Porta, Fra Guglielmo della, 84 Porta, Giuseppe (Giuseppe or Joseffo Salviati), 106, 192, 193, 229, 230 Portelli, Carlo, 11, 69, 170, 179 Prato, Francesco di Girolamo dal, 162, 173, 190-192 Prato, Girolamo dal, 190, 191 Primaticcio, Francesco, 37, 183, 237, 238 Properzia de' Rossi, 45 Prospero Clemente, 38, 39 Prospero Fontana, 220 Puligo, Domenico, 119, 120 Pupini, Biagio, 32, 33 Raffaello Baglioni, 116 Raffaello Bello, 114 Raffaello da Brescia (Raffaello Brescianino, or Raffaello dei Piccinelli), 164 Raffaello da Montelupo, 89, 91, 137, 147 Raffaello da Urbino (Raffaello Sanzio), 4, 5, 25, 26, 28, 31, 32, 41, 49, 61, 73-76, 78, 80, 81, 85, 97, 167, 216, 219, 226, 236 Raffaello dei Piccinelli (Raffaello da Brescia, or Raffaello Brescianino), 164 Raffaello Sanzio (Raffaello da Urbino), 4, 5, 25, 26, 28, 31, 32, 41, 49, 61, 73-76, 78, 80, 81, 85, 97, 167, 216, 219, 226, 236 Ricamatori, Giovanni (Giovanni da Udine, or Giovanni Nanni), _Life_, 73-85. 171 Ricchino, Francesco, 50 Ricciarelli, Daniello (Daniello da Volterra), _Life_, 197-211. 184-186, 197-211, 228, 235 Ricciarelli, Leonardo, 207 Riccio, Domenico del (Domenico Brusciasorzi), 40, 41 Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, _Life_, 60-69. 3, 5, 60-69, 93-95 Rinaldo Mantovano, 41 Robbia, Giovanni della, 116 Robetta, 119, 120 Robusti, Jacopo (Jacopo Tintoretto), 101-106 Romanino, Girolamo, 49 Romano, Domenico, 193 Romano, Giulio, 29, 39-42, 55, 138, 172 Rosa, Cristofano, 50, 51, 104 Rosa, Stefano, 50, 51, 104 Rossetti, Giovan Paolo, 204, 210 Rossi, Francesco de' (Francesco Salviati), _Life_, 161-193. 11, 12, 44, 84, 90, 91, 95, 161-193, 208, 209, 228, 229, 231, 232, 235 Rossi, Properzia de', 45 Rossi, Vincenzio de', 153 Rosso, Il, 167, 183 Rosto, Giovanni, 20, 179 Roviale, 190 Ruberto di Filippo Lippi, 118, 119 Rustici, Giovan Francesco, _Life_, 111-129 Salustio Peruzzi, 205 Salviati, Francesco (Francesco de' Rossi), _Life_, 161-193. 11, 12, 44, 84, 90, 91, 95, 161-193, 208, 209, 228, 229, 231, 232, 235 Salviati, Giuseppe (Joseffo Salviati, or Giuseppe Porta), 106, 192, 193, 229, 230 Sammacchini, Orazio (Orazio da Bologna), 188, 228, 229 San Gallo, Antonio da (the elder), 3 San Gallo, Antonio da (the younger), 13, 89, 136, 168, 202 San Gallo, Bastiano (Aristotile) da, _Life_, 3-20. 119, 126 San Gallo, Battista da (Battista Gobbo), 169 San Gallo, Francesco da, 153, 155, 156 San Gallo, Giovan Francesco da, 4 San Gallo, Giuliano da, 3 San Gimignano, Vincenzio da, 218 San Giorgio, Nannoccio da, 162-164 San Marco, Fra Bartolommeo di, 61 San Michele, Michele, 102 San Vito, Feliciano da, 210, 211 Sandro, Pier Francesco di Jacopo di, 11, 156 Sansovino, Andrea dal Monte (Andrea Contucci), 36, 114 Sansovino, Jacopo, 100, 126, 192 Sant'Agnolo, Francesco, 215-217 Santi Titi, 227 Sanzio, Raffaello (Raffaello da Urbino), 4, 5, 25, 26, 28, 31, 32, 41, 49, 61, 73-76, 78, 80, 81, 85, 97, 167, 216, 219, 226, 236 Sarto, Andrea del, 5, 6, 11, 16, 17, 19, 113, 119, 120, 122, 126, 135, 163, 164 Savoldo, Gian Girolamo (Gian Girolamo Bresciano), 50 Scheggia, 61 Scherano (Alessandro), 168 Schiavone, Andrea, 107, 108, 231 Sculptore (Mantovana), Diana, 42 Sculptore (Mantovano), Giovan Battista, 42 Sebastiano Viniziano del Piombo, Fra, 82, 84, 92, 182, 201 Semolei, Battista (Battista Franco), _Life_, 89-101. 12, 67, 68, 89-101, 181, 219, 230 Sermoneta, Girolamo da (Girolamo Siciolante), 99, 188, 229 Sesto, Cesare da, 56 Sesto, Piero da, 18 Settignano, Solosmeo da, 119 Siciolante, Girolamo (Girolamo da Sermoneta), 99, 188, 229 Siena, Agnolo da, 53 Siena, Agostino da, 53 Siena, Baldassarre da (Baldassarre Peruzzi), 167, 168, 197, 205, 218 Siena, Marco da (Marco del Pino), 204, 210 Silvio da Fiesole (Silvio Cosini), 55 Simone Cioli, 36 Simone Mosca, 224 Sodoma, Giovanni Antonio, 197 Sofonisba Anguisciuola, 45-48, 261 Soggi, Niccolò, 114 Sogliani, Giovanni Antonio, 20 Soiaro, Bernardo (Bernardo de' Gatti), 39, 40, 43, 44 Solari, Cristofano (Cristofano Gobbo), 55 Solosmeo da Settignano, 119 Spillo, 119, 120 Stefano Rosa, 50, 51, 104 Stefano Veltroni, 220 Strada, Giovanni (Jan van der Straet), 233 Suardi, Bartolommeo (Bramantino), 52, 53 Tadda, Francesco del (Francesco Ferrucci), 133, 140, 142 Taddeo Zucchero, _Life_, 215-236, 240-261. 182, 188 Tasso, Battista del, 18, 164, 173, 176 Tedesco, Jacopo del, 59, 60 Tibaldi, Pellegrino (Pellegrino Pellegrini, or Pellegrino da Bologna), 34, 204 Tiberio Calcagni, 233 Tintoretto, Jacopo (Jacopo Robusti), 101-106 Tisi, Benvenuto (Benvenuto Garofalo), _Life_, 24-29. 30, 33, 34 Titi, Santi, 227 Tiziano Vecelli (Tiziano da Cadore), 29, 33, 51, 56, 92, 102 Tofano Lombardino (Cristofano Lombardi), 45, 55 Toto del Nunziata, 66 Trevio, Bernardino da (Bernardino Zenale), 54 Tribolo (Niccolò), 10, 36, 142 Ubertini, Francesco (Il Bacchiacca), 10, 11, 16, 18-20 Uccello, Paolo, 63 Udine, Giovanni da (Giovanni Nanni, or Giovanni Ricamatori), _Life_, 73-85. 171 Urbino, Bramante da, 5, 40, 53, 54, 75 Urbino, Raffaello da (Raffaello Sanzio), 4, 5, 25, 26, 28, 31, 32, 41, 49, 61, 73-76, 78, 80, 81, 85, 97, 167, 216, 219, 226, 236 Vaga, Perino del, 14, 15, 82, 197-199, 202, 215, 232 Valerio Cioli, 35 Valerio Vicentino, 52 Vasari, Giorgio-- as art-collector, 16, 29, 112, 128, 164, 165, 170, 181, 192, 211, 230, 231 as author, 3, 4, 8-10, 14-17, 19, 23, 24, 26, 29, 31, 34-37, 39-42, 45, 48-54, 59, 65-68, 77, 80, 81, 84, 90, 92, 94, 98, 101, 103, 105, 107, 108, 113, 119, 122-124, 127, 128, 133, 144, 145, 147, 150, 153-157, 161-167, 170, 171, 177, 180, 183-189, 193, 203, 206, 211, 216, 220, 226, 228-230, 233, 237, 238, 240, 245, 259, 260 as painter, 8, 14, 20, 23, 52, 68, 80, 91, 98, 162-164, 166, 167, 170, 180, 183, 185, 186, 189, 203, 206, 207, 210, 229, 233 as architect, 206, 207, 220 Vecelli, Orazio, 102 Vecelli, Tiziano (Tiziano da Cadore), 29, 33, 51, 56, 92, 102 Veltroni, Stefano, 220 Verona, Battista da (Battista Farinato), 107 Veronese, Paolo (Paolo Caliari), 41, 42, 102-104, 106, 107 Verrocchio, Andrea, 111 Vicentino, Valerio, 52 Vico, Enea, 180 Vignuola (Jacopo Barozzi), 220, 230, 237-240, 259 Vincenzio Campo, 44, 45 Vincenzio da San Gimignano, 218 Vincenzio de' Rossi, 153 Vinci, Leonardo da, 42, 56, 111, 112, 114, 115 Viniziano, Antonio, 233 Vitruvius, 40, 237 Vittoria, Alessandro, 100 Volterra, Daniello da (Daniello Ricciarelli), _Life_, 197-211. 184-186, 197-211, 228, 235 Volterra, Francesco da, 41 Zanobi Poggini (Poggino), 61 Zenale, Bernardino (Bernardino da Trevio), 54 Zucchero, Federigo, 101, 106, 218-221, 223-228, 230, 231, 233-236, 259 Zucchero, Ottaviano, 215, 218, 219 Zucchero, Taddeo, _Life_, 215-236, 240-261. 182, 188 Zucchi, Jacopo, 233 PRINTED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF CHAS. T. JACOBI OF THE CHISWICK PRESS, LONDON. THE COLOURED REPRODUCTIONS ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY HENRY STONE AND SON, LTD., BANBURY 
3751	----	None 
37313	----	+----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Notes: | | | | Words surrounded by _ are italicized. | | Words surrounded by = are bold. | | Words surrounded by { } are superscript. | | | | A number of obvious errors have been corrected in this text. | | For a complete list, please see the bottom of this document. | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------+ THE STANDARD GALLERIES HOLLAND [Illustration: JAN VERMEER View of Delft] THE STANDARD GALLERIES HOLLAND BY ESTHER SINGLETON _Author of "Dutch and Flemish Furniture," "Great Pictures Described by Great Writers," etc., etc._ WITH FORTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS [Illustration: A. C. McClurg & Co Logo] CHICAGO A. C. MCCLURG & CO. 1908 COPYRIGHT A. C. MCCLURG & CO. 1908 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England _All rights reserved_ Published October 10, 1908 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. _Preface_ When a tourist who, having mapped out his itinerary in accordance with the time at his disposal for a European trip, arrives at a city for seeing which he has allowed two or three days at the utmost, the first question he puts to a fellow traveller, the hotel clerk, or his Baedeker is, "What must I see?" First, there is the city itself: its streets, bridges, canals, parks, and drives. Then there are famous churches, city halls, and other ancient buildings, including city gates and castles in the immediate neighborhood. Perhaps there is a palace, and most certainly one or more museums of art and antiquities. The tourist gazes his fill on architecture, stone and wood carving, exterior and interior; but above all he feels that he must make the best use of his opportunities of seeing the pictures, the fame of which has spread into all civilized countries. His time is short. He is therefore grateful for a guide that will direct him to the beauties and celebrities of the famous local picture-gallery, and point out to him the qualities of the paintings as well as tell him something of the art of the masters and of the school to which they belong. It is important first for him to know what he should see, and secondly what he should see in it beyond the bare facts he can gather from the catalogue. On returning home with a few photographs of the canvases that have struck his fancy, he is also pleased to renew his acquaintance with the gallery in the pages of a modest work that does not go too deeply into art questions beyond the grasp of the ordinary layman. Such a guide and companion this book aims to be; it leads the tourist rapidly through the most important picture-galleries of Holland, and points out the pictures that all the world talks about; and gives some account of the Dutch masters, their qualities and characteristics as exemplified in their works, there and elsewhere. It does not pretend to be exhaustive, and confines itself almost exclusively to the consideration of the examples of native schools. On going through a gallery the visitor, in accordance with his individual tastes, will frequently be halted by a picture whose fame has not reached him, but whose beauty appeals to him quite as much as the celebrities with which he is familiar from numberless reproductions, such as Potter's Bull, Rembrandt's Night Watch, or Snyder's Boar Hunt. The traveller is tempted to linger over the little pictures of the Little Masters, the charming interiors, marines, landscapes, and still life of the galaxy of painters of the seventeenth century. It is for this reason, therefore, that for illustrating the following pages I have selected many of the less familiar examples of the art of that period. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was a sound art critic as well as a great painter--an unusual combination of qualities--described with fine appreciation the pleasure derived from the contemplation of the works of the Dutch school. He says: "The most considerable of the Dutch school are Rembrandt, Teniers, Jan Steen, Ostade, Brouwer, Gerard Dow, Mieris, Metsu, and Terburg,--these excel in small conversations. For landscapes and cattle, Wouvermans, P. Potter, Berchem, and Ruysdael; and for buildings, Venderheyden. For sea-views, W. Vandervelde, jun., and Backhuysen. For dead game, Weenix and Hondekoeter. For flowers, De Heem, Vanhuysum, Rachael Roos, and Brueghel. These make the bulk of the Dutch school. "I consider those painters as belonging to this school, who painted only small conversations, landscapes, etc. Though some of these were born in Flanders, their works are principally found in Holland--and to separate them from the Flemish school, which generally painted figures large as life, it appears to me more reasonable to class them with the Dutch painters, and to distinguish those two schools rather by their style and manner, than by the place where the artist happened to be born. "Rembrandt may be considered as belonging to both or either, as he painted both large and small pictures. "A clearness and brilliancy of coloring may be learned by examining the flower-pieces of De Heem, Huysum, and Mignon; and a short time employed in painting flowers would make no improper part of a painter's study. Rubens's pictures strongly remind one of a nosegay of flowers, where all the colors are bright, clear, and transparent. "A market woman with a hare in her hand, a man blowing a trumpet, or a boy blowing bubbles, a view of the inside or outside of a church, are the subjects of some of their most valuable pictures; but there is still entertainment, even in such pictures--however uninteresting their subjects, there is some pleasure in the contemplation of the imitation. But to a painter they afford likewise instruction in his profession; here he may learn the art of coloring and composition, a skilful management of light and shade, and indeed all the mechanical parts of the art, as well as in any other school whatever. "The same skill which is practised by Rubens and Titian in their large works, is here exhibited, though on a smaller scale. Painters should go to the Dutch school to learn the art of painting as they would go to a grammar school to learn languages. They must go to Italy to learn the higher branches of knowledge." In attempting to be of some service to the art lover who has no leisure for extended and independent study, I have by no means relied entirely upon my own impressions and observation. In describing the pictures, I have drawn largely on the writings of the best English, French, German, and Dutch art critics and historians,--Crowe, Reynolds, Blanc, Burger, Havard, Fromentin, Michel, Mainz, Wurtz, Bode, Bredius, and many others. When so many authorities disagree with one another in the spelling of the names of the Dutch artists, I have endeavored to avoid all criticism by adopting the spelling used in the official catalogues of The Hague, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam galleries; and in a few instances these are not agreed. For valuable aid in compiling this work, my thanks are due to Mr. Arthur Shadwell Martin. E. S. NEW YORK, August 1, 1908. _Galleries Included_ PAGE THE HAGUE GALLERY 1 THE RIJKS MUSEUM 109 THE STEDELIJK MUSEUM 193 THE TOWN HALL, HAARLEM 211 THE BOIJMANS MUSEUM, ROTTERDAM 217 _Illustrations_ THE HAGUE GALLERY PAGE Vermeer, View of Delft _Frontispiece_ Paul Potter, _Vache qui se mire_ 10 Rembrandt, Portrait of Himself as Officer 14 Rembrandt, Homer 16 F. Bol, Admiral de Ruyter 24 Moeyaert, The Visit of Antiochus to the Augur 32 Ruisdael, Distant View of Haarlem 40 A. van de Velde, A Dutch Roadstead 48 P. Wouwermans, The Hay Wain 50 P. Wouwermans, The Arrival at the Inn 52 Dou, The Good Housekeeper 60 Ostade, The Fiddler 66 Ter Borch, The Despatch 70 Metsu, The Amateur Musicians 74 Rubens, Helena Fourment 100 THE RIJKS MUSEUM Moreelse, The Little Princess 118 Mierevelt, Prince Maurits of Nassau 120 Van der Helst, Company of Captain R. Bicker 126 Hobbema, The Water Mill 130 Hackaert, Avenue of Ash-trees 132 Maes, The Spinner 136 Cuijp, Fight between a Turkey and a Cock 140 Cuijp, Shepherds with their Flocks 142 Jan van Goyen, View of Dordrecht 144 W. van de Velde, The Ij, or Y, at Amsterdam 150 F. Snyders, Dead Game and Vegetables 152 M. d'Hondecoeter, The Floating Feather 154 Asselijn, The Swan 156 A. de Vois, Lady and Parrot 164 F. van Mieris, The Grocer's Shop 172 P. de Hooch, The Country House 176 Jan Steen, The Parrot Cage 178 Jan Steen, The Happy Family 180 Jan Steen, Eve of St. Nicholas 182 THE STEDELIJK MUSEUM, THE TOWN HALL, HAARLEM AND THE BOIJMANS MUSEUM Mauve, Sheep on the Dunes 196 Israëls, Fisherman's Children 198 Roelofs, Marshy Landscape 200 A. Neuhuys, By the Cradle 202 Mesdag, Sunrise on the Dutch Coast 204 Israëls, Old Jewish Peddler 206 J. Maris, Two Windmills 208 Frans Hals, Reunion of the Arquebusiers of St. Andrew. 214 Bisschop, Winter in Friesland 226 Mauve, Cows in a Shady Nook 236 Klinkenberg, View of the Vijver at The Hague 246 Jongkind, View of Overschie in Moonlight 256 The Standard Galleries of Holland THE HAGUE GALLERY THE OLD MAURITSHUIS Not far from the Binnenhof, on the Vijver, where the principal historic buildings of The Hague are grouped, stands the Mauritshuis, now the home of one of the most famous collections of paintings in Europe. Originally it was the palace of Prince John Maurice of Nassau, Governor of Brazil, who, on his return to his fatherland in the year 1644, found it completed and took up his residence there. This splendor-loving prince had had this building erected to please his own tastes by the court architect of The Hague, Pieter Post, after the plans of Jacob van Campen, the designer of the Dam Palace in Amsterdam and other buildings; and for the decoration of the interior he had sent rare and costly woods from Brazil. Everything was heavily gilded and painted; and, in particular, a very artistic staircase attracted universal admiration. Brazilian landscapes painted by Frans Post, richly carved chimney-pieces, and exotic objects of every kind adorned the halls; but, alas! in 1704 all this magnificence was destroyed by a fire, and only the walls of the palace remain. =The Restored Building made into an Art Gallery.=--The exterior of the building was restored just as it was originally; but the interior was finished in a much simpler style that does not in the least suggest the splendor of the past. It was not until the year 1820 that the Mauritshuis was devoted by royal decree to its present use,--the sheltering of the royal picture collection, which was at that time combined with the Cabinet of Rarities, now in the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam. =History of the Collection.=--The collection has an interesting history as a whole; and the majority of the pictures have their own special history. The nucleus of the gallery formed the collection of the last Stadtholder of the Netherlands, William V. of Orange. The Princes of Orange were art-collectors as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century. Although we do not know much regarding the art tastes of Prince Maurice of Orange, who died in 1625, yet we learn from a document that he employed Esais van de Velde as a court painter. On the other hand, we do know that his brother, Prince Frederick Hendrik, was a collector of fine taste and a Mæcenas. He employed a great number of important artists, among whom were Rembrandt, Honthorst, Dirck Bleker, Cornelis Vroom, Christiaen Couwenberch, Cornelisz Jacobsz Delff, Thomas Willeborts, Moses van Uyttenbrouck, Jacob Backer, Gonzales Coques, Frans Pietersz de Grebber, Dirck Dalens, Gerrit van Santen, Adriaen Hanneman, Nicholaes de Helt Stocade, and Dirck van der Lisse. Besides works by these artists, he acquired in Antwerp pictures by Rubens, Paulus de Vos, Adriaen van Utrecht, and others. To the Jesuit Father Soghers he even gave a golden palette made in The Hague by the goldsmith Hans Coenraet Brechtel. No wonder that his widow, Princess Amalia of Solms, following the ideas of her dead husband, employed Jordaens, Van Thulden, De Grebber, Casar van Everdingen, Honthorst, Lievens, Solomon de Bray, Pieter Soutman, and Cornelis Brisé to decorate the House in the Wood. At her death in 1675, she left a collection of two hundred and fifty pieces, which were divided among her four daughters. Some of these pictures are now in Dessau and Moscow, and others in Prussian castles. William III., who gained the English throne, had a fine picture-gallery, of which the portrait-painter, Robert Duval was the director. The greater part of this collection was sold in Amsterdam in 1713; but a few of these pictures are still in The Hague Gallery. The latter, however, owes its importance and distinction to the collection of William V. =The Collection of William V. of Orange.=--This prince purchased his treasures at the best auctions of the day, such as the Lomier, De la Court, Braamcamp, and Slingerlandt collections. A German painter, Tethardt Philip Christian Haag, was made the director of this gallery, which was established in the Buitenhof. When the French entered The Hague in 1795 these pictures were carried to Paris by the troops and placed in the Louvre. When Napoleon's lucky star set, the French had the grace to return the pictures that they had carried away as spoils from various countries; and on November 20, 1815, the one hundred and ten pictures belonging to the prince's collection were returned to The Hague amid the ringing of bells, firing of cannon, and rejoicing of the people. Although a certain number remained in France, the chief gems were restored undamaged. =Growth of The Hague Gallery.=--In 1817 the gallery contained only one hundred and twenty-three pictures. Gradually others were purchased; for example, in 1829, King William I. bought Rembrandt's Anatomy for 3200 gulden. Very few purchases were made from 1831 to 1874; but during the reign of the art-loving William III. the gallery was greatly augmented by both purchase and gift. The growth of the collection is principally the result of the great generosity of the Baron Victor de Stuers, who in 1874 issued an admirable catalogue (revised ed., 1895). =The Cabinet Pieces.=--The nucleus of this collection, originally a "princely cabinet," consists of the cabinet pieces. Therefore we find here pictures (that were highly valued in their day) by Poelenburgh, Dou, Van Mieris, De Vois, Schalcken, Netscher, Van der Werff, P. van Dyck, Ostade, Jan Steen, Ter Borch, and Metsu. There were also four Rembrandts, two De Keijsers, three Potters, the beautiful Moro, and examples by Adriaen and Willem van de Velde. The modern additions, generally speaking, do not equal in interest the original collection. The most important are two portraits by Hals; a triptych, by Jacob Cornelisz van Ootsanen, a bequest; an Aert de Gelder, a gift, unfortunately much restored and spoilt by Houbraken; a signed still life, by Jan van Huysum; a portrait by Bol; a broad and spirited Begeyn; a Dusart; a strong, dark, and somewhat sunken view of The Hague by Jacob van Ruisdael; a beautiful Van Goyen; a head by Vermeer of Delft; a landscape by G. du Bois; a wonderful flower-piece by Abraham van Beyeren; several still-life pictures; and some portraits, among the latter Moreelse's portrait of himself. =Sir Joshua Reynolds's Visit to the Gallery.=--Sir Joshua Reynolds left an account of his visit to the Prince of Orange's Gallery in 1781; and among the pictures that he especially admired are those that critics unite in extolling to-day. He calls attention to the Wouwermans, two Van de Veldes, the portraits of Rubens's two wives, Rembrandt's Portrait of a Young Man, a Conversation by Ter Borch (The Despatch it is now called), Van Dijck's Portrait of Simons the Painter, Teniers's Kitchen, two Ostades, a landscape by Rubens, Paul Potter's _Vache qui se mire_, the Inside of a Delft Church, by Hoogest (Houckgeest), Fruit, by De Heem, "done with the utmost perfection"; a Woman with a Candle, by Gerard Dow; a Woman writing, looking up and speaking to Another Woman, by Metsu; a picture of Dutch Gallantry by Mieris,--"a man pinching the ear of a dog which lies on his mistress's lap"; a Boy blowing Bubbles, also by Mieris, and The Flight into Egypt, by Van der Werff,--"one of his best." =The Vijver Lake.=--But while we have been talking of the past history of the Mauritshuis and its treasures, we have failed to notice the Vijver, a pretty lake bordered with trees and dotted with islands, the haunt of swans and other waterfowl--descendants, perhaps, of Hondecoeter's and Weenix's models--that float upon its glassy surface, and cut through those quiet reflections of the long line of picturesque buildings, including the Mauritshuis. The long quay on the other side is the favorite and fashionable promenade of The Hague. We must note the Vijver, because it has been an attractive subject for Dutch painters of all periods; and the traveller will frequently see representations of it. One of the most recent is Klinkenberg's View of the Vijver at The Hague, which was presented to Boijman's Museum in 1876, by the Rotterdam Society for Promoting Art. The Mauritshuis is represented on the right. And now, having looked at this building from across the Vijver, we will pass to the entrance. =Paucity of Foreign Pictures in Dutch Galleries.=--The Dutch galleries differ from many other great European galleries, such as the National Gallery, the Louvre, the Hermitage, and the big German galleries, by being devoted almost exclusively to works of the Dutch and Flemish masters. Pictures of foreign schools are insignificant in number and of very slight importance. The foreign pictures in the Mauritshuis can be dismissed in a few words. =Italian Pictures in the Mauritshuis.=--The Italian pictures include: Holy Family, by Fra Bartolommeo; Holy Family, by P. Berettini; Christ Blessing, by P. Bordone; Adoration of Magi, by C. Caliari; Virgin and Child, and Birth of Virgin, by L. Cambiaso; Temptation of Adam and Eve, by C. Cignani; Virgin, Child, and Saints, by M. Fogolino; Massacre of Innocents, by L. Mazzolini; Holy Family, by F. Santafede; Madonna, by G. B. Sassoferrato; Annunciation, by F. Solimena; Holy Family, and two Portraits, by Titian; Venus, Mistress of the World, by A. Turchi; an Italian Landscape, by F. Zuccherelli; Cupid (poor copy), by Guido Reni; Venus and Cupid (copy), by Raphael; two Male Portraits, by Piero de Cosimo; Female Portrait, by G. Palma; Female Portrait, by A. Allori; Landscape, by F. Lauri; two Landscapes with Pilgrims, Monks in a Grotto and Capuchins in a Grotto, by A. Magnasco; two Ruins, by L. Carlevaris; and Prometheus and Sisyphus, by L. Giordano. Of unknown Italian artists of the sixteenth century, the subjects are: God the Father and Holy Spirit, Landscape with Mary Magdalen, Landscape with St. Paul and the Hermit, Death of Abel, Venus, Dalilah, St. John the Evangelist, Ecce Homo, Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, and The Musicians. =Other Foreign Pictures in the Mauritshuis.=--France is represented only by a portrait by J. A. Aved, A Group of Merchants by S. Bourdon, and two ideal landscapes by C. Vernet. The Spanish school is represented by a portrait by Velasquez, a Virgin and Child by Murillo, a Magdalen by M. Cereso, and a landscape and a portrait by unknown artists. The German artists are scarcely more numerous. There are two portraits by Holbein and three others of his school, three portraits by B. Beham, an Italian landscape by J. H. Roos, three portraits by J. F. A. Tischbein, and four Biblical and one mythological pictures by H. Rottenhamer. The subjects of these are: The Meeting of David and Abigail, St. Philip Baptizing the Eunuch, The Rest in Egypt, Christ Delivering Souls from Purgatory, and The Fall of Phaeton. The meagre list of foreign works also includes two portraits by the Danish artist, J. G. Ziesenis. =Strength and Weakness of the Gallery.=--The strength of The Hague Gallery lies mainly in its portraits, either single or in groups. Of these there are considerably more than a hundred; of _genre_ pictures there are about seventy, and of landscape more than sixty. There are nearly fifty Biblical and religious subjects, and more than thirty taken from pagan mythology. The Gallery is weak in historical pictures, of which there are only seventeen. Only seven canvases represent the great marine painters; and the pictures of birds, flowers and fruits, and still life are comparatively few. The student naturally turns first to the great pictures that have a world-wide reputation. The two most famous are undoubtedly Paul Potter's Bull and Rembrandt's Lesson in Anatomy. =Paul Potter's Bull.=--The picture represents an enormous black and white bull standing on a hillock beneath two trees. Beneath the trees lie a cow, a sheep, and a lamb, and behind the trunks stand a ram and a shepherd. An immense meadow, on which cattle are grazing, stretches away to the dim horizon, where the buildings of a town are barely visible. In the broad expanse of sky a bird soars with outspread wings. The bull is proud and defiant, with silky hide and loose dewlap, and stands with firmly planted feet. His eye is savage. This picture has been the subject of much criticism: the figures of the man, the sheep, and the lamb have been condemned by most critics, while the ram's horns have been called "a splendid piece of sculpture," and the head of the cow "the gem of the whole work." The face of the cow is marvellous. The eyes, and the wet and dripping nose and mouth, rivet the spectator's gaze. He fancies he smells the grass-laden breath of the animal, and sees her jaw begin to move as she chews the cud. "No painter ever concentrated so much life and truthful expression in the face of a ruminant," remarks a critic. Strange, then, that the fawn-colored body and crumpled leg are hard and wooden. The Bull was painted in 1647, when Paul Potter was but twenty-two years of age, and was living in Amsterdam and Haarlem. The picture was purchased in 1749 for 630 florins, and in 1795 was carried by the French to Paris and placed in the Louvre, where it was ranked as the fourth most valuable painting,--the others being Raphael's Transfiguration, Domenichino's Communion of St. Jerome, and Titian's Martyrdom of St. Peter. The Dutch government offered 60,000 florins to Napoleon for its restoration. =The Mirrored Cow.=--A more beautiful picture, and greatly preferred by most critics to the Bull, is the Mirrored Cow, known generally by the French title, _La Vache qui se mire_. This was painted in 1648, and represents a beautiful landscape on a hot summer day. The meadows are flooded with sunshine; a limpid pool on the border of a forest is shown in the foreground, where cows, goats, and sheep are lying or standing under the shade of the trees. Two cows and a sheep stand in the water and are reflected there; one cow is drinking, and the other has her back to the spectator and is idly standing in the mud. Boys and men are swimming or playing on the banks, and two have evidently finished their bath. On the right is a farmhouse with some cows. One of these an old woman is milking, and a man stands by with his arm over the cow's back. In the middle distance a coach and six horses with lackeys is seen, and in the background the spires and towers of Rijswick are basking in the sunlight. The castle of Binkhorst is visible, and Delft lies on the horizon. [Illustration: PAUL POTTER La Vache qui se mire] =Criticism of these two Pictures.=--Burger very wittily said that _La Vache qui se mire_ was a _chef d'oeuvre_, and not a _hors d'oeuvre_, like the Bull. And Sir Joshua Reynolds noted: "Cattle finely painted by Potter, remarkable for the strong reflection of one of them in the water: dated 1648." "How bright, how sunny is this landscape!" exclaims Dr. Bredius. "How splendidly are all these animals drawn and modelled! The whole composition is beautiful and full of charm." It is painted in the small size which Potter usually preferred, and is one of his greatest creations. =Other Pictures by Potter, his Father, and Van der Helst.=--The third picture by Potter, painted four years later, is also ranked among his best works. Like the two others it represents cattle in a meadow. A portrait of Paul Potter by Van der Helst, painted shortly before his death (January 27, 1654), hangs near his masterpieces. It is the only work by which Van der Helst is represented in The Hague Gallery. A picture by Paul Potter's father, Pieter Symonsz Potter, Shepherds with their Troops, signed and dated 1638, is owned by the Mauritshuis, but a better work is his Straw-Cutter in the Rijks. =Rembrandt.=--The Hague Gallery is particularly rich in works by Rembrandt (1606-69). The Rijks Museum is the place to study the great productions of his middle and last periods; but The Hague Gallery is strong in works of his first period, owning no less than five painted during the first ten years of his career. =The Anatomy Lesson.=--First, let us look at the most important work of Rembrandt in this gallery, The Anatomy Lesson by Dr. Tulp (1632), which made Rembrandt the most sought-after painter of his time. Rembrandt was barely settled in Amsterdam and had painted only a few pictures there when the famous Amsterdam surgeon, Dr. Nicholaes Tulp, gave him the order to represent him with his students at an operation for the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons, to be hung on the walls of their dissecting room with other works of a similar nature, such as the great anatomy pictures by Aert Pietersz (1603), by Thomas de Keijser (1618), by Claes Elias (1625), two by Mierevelt (1617), and one by Vosmaer. Rembrandt's work overshadowed them all. There is a resemblance to Vosmaer's picture and also to that of De Keijser too striking to be accidental; but Rembrandt's work shows the master's genius in the style, the arrangement of the figures, and the illumination. Bode says: "Instead of an accidental arrangement of single persons, a masterly rounded-out composition has been created, in the happiest way, and at the most important moment, when at a point in the lecture to the learned anatomists the interest is concentrated on the body. The circumstances and the way it is painted deprive the picture of all disgust. In contrast with his predecessors, Rembrandt has painted his doctors, not as if they were having their photographs taken and gazing at the spectator, but in the most natural way--some looking at the body and some at the lecturing Dr. Tulp, Tulp himself quiet, and explaining his subject with the greatest authority. The body is painted in a masterly manner and the portraits are beyond all praise." =Physicians portrayed in the Anatomy Lesson.=--On a paper held by Hartman Harmansz, the names of the physicians are inscribed: his own; Matthijs Kalkoen, who is leaning forward; Jakob de Wit, almost in profile, with extended neck, looking with extreme attention, with his collar almost touching the head of the corpse; below him, Jakob Blok, with fixed glance and furrowed brow; above Blok, Frans van Loenen, the only one present not a Master of the Guild; and, finally, lower down in the foreground, Adriaan Slabbraan, with his back turned to the spectator, but his head in profile; and Jakob Koolveld, entirely in profile, the last on the left. All are bareheaded, robed in black with plated ruffs, with the exception of Harmansz, who wears an old-fashioned ruff. This work remained in the Surgeons' Hall in Amsterdam until 1828, when King William I. bought it for 32,000 florins. Sir Joshua Reynolds saw it in Amsterdam in 1781, and thus described it: "To avoid making it an object disagreeable to look at, the figure is but just cut at the wrist. There are seven other portraits colored like nature itself, fresh and highly finished. One of the figures behind has a paper in his hand, on which are written the names of the rest; Rembrandt has also added his own name with the date, 1672. The dead body is perfectly well drawn (a little foreshortened), and seems to have been just washed. Nothing can be more truly the color of dead flesh. The legs and feet, which are nearest the eye, are in shadow; the principal light, which is on the body, is by that means preserved of a compact form. All these figures are dressed in black. "Above stairs is another Rembrandt of the same kind of subject; Professor Deeman[1] standing by a dead body, which is so much foreshortened that the hands and the feet almost touch each other; the dead man lies on his back with his feet toward the spectator. There is something sublime in the character of the head, which reminds one of Michael Angelo; the whole is finely painted, the coloring much like Titian." =Rembrandt's first Important Work.=--Critics are uncertain as to whether the Presentation in the Temple, also called Simeon in the Temple, was painted in Leyden or in Amsterdam, to which city Rembrandt removed in 1631, the date of this picture; but all agree that it is his first important work, far exceeding in certainty of composition and treatment the Simeon of 1628, Peter's Denial of 1628, and the Good Samaritan of 1631. In the centre of a temple whose roof is supported by gigantic columns, the Virgin and St. Joseph make their offering and present the newborn child, who is in the arms of Simeon, to the Lord. They gaze tenderly at the infant. In front of the group stands the High Priest in a long violet robe, holding up his hands in ecstasy. The light is focussed on the faces of Mary, Simeon, and Jesus, and falls on the High Priest's back and hand. Behind the Virgin, who is dressed in light blue, are two rabbis; and in the background in the nave are several groups almost imperceptible in the shadows; and to the right in the chiaroscuro are a number of persons ascending and descending a flight of steps, at the top of which stands a priest. In the foreground on the right two old men are sitting on a bench, the arm of which bears the monogram "R. H.," and the date 1631. It is supposed that Rembrandt's sister was the model for Mary. Emile Michel says: "The simple garb of the Virgin and St. Joseph and the squalor of the two beggars beside them emphasize the splendor of the High Priest and of Simeon, whose heavy cymar seems to be woven of gems and gold. The execution is a miracle of subtlety and skill. Note how supreme a colorist has been at work on the High Priest's cope! With what science is the violet carried through the lights and shadows, and with what truth are the tones observed and rendered, with what scrupulous care is the general harmony preserved in spite of the marvellous treatment of detail!" Of this picture, so particularly remarkable for its artistic treatment and composition, Bode exclaims: "How appropriately are the groups in the halls of the high fantastic vaults distributed! How masterly is the chief group in the middle distance! How complete in drawing and action is every single figure, though so minute! How powerfully is the light sprinkled over the chief figures before it slowly melts away into the mystic darkness of the broad nave whereby that peculiar mood of reverence--the holy calm of the place--results as the most happy effect of handling." =Lights and Coloring of the Picture.=--Notwithstanding their smallness, the figures are most completely and expressively treated, so that in the half-lights the background shimmers here and there. The coloring equals that of the other pictures of this period; in the lights, greenish brown tones come to the aid of the local colors--blue, violet, and, very seldom, yellow (next to gray and brown, which are used only in a very modest way). William de Poorter made a striking copy of this picture, which hangs in the Dresden Gallery. =Susanna.=--The chief beauty of Susanna, which bears the signature "R. f. 1637," lies in the brilliant, warm coloring which bestows a rich effect on the somewhat ugly form of the crouching heroine. Bode, like Burger before him, thinks that he recognizes in the little head the likeness of Rembrandt's wife, Saskia. The flesh is wonderfully painted, the figure lifts itself splendidly out from the dark but transparent background. Moreover, the modelling of the body leaves nothing to be desired. Susanna is represented as about to step into the bath and is alarmed by the presence of the two Elders, one of whom is seen lurking in the shrubbery. Burger notes: "Placed by the side of the School of Anatomy and the Simeon, the merits of this work are too often overlooked. Yet Susanna, strongly relieved against a dark background, is one of the most interesting female figures ever painted by Rembrandt, being remarkably faithful to nature, though not of classic beauty." Of this picture Sir Joshua Reynolds remarks, and many will agree with him: "It appears very extraordinary that Rembrandt should have taken so much pains and have made at last so very ugly and ill-favored a figure; but his attention was principally directed to the coloring and effect, in which it must be acknowledged he has attained the highest degree of excellence." =Portraits of Rembrandt and Others.=--The portraits are of Rembrandt, aged about twenty-two, painted about 1629; one of his mother, about 1628; one of a young woman, painted about 1635, supposed to be Saskia van Ulenborgh, whom Rembrandt married in 1634; a portrait of Rembrandt as an officer, about 1635, and one of an old man's head, supposed to be that of his brother Adriaen Harmensz van Rijn (1597-8-1654), painted in 1650. The portrait of himself is one of Rembrandt's earliest known pictures and was painted in Leyden between 1628 and 1629. It belongs to similar works that are now in Cassel, Gotha, Nuremberg, and in the possession of Count Esterhazy at Nordkirchen, etc., but is the most beautiful because of its perfect condition. Rembrandt, aged twenty-two or twenty-three, is dressed in a somewhat fanciful costume and wears a steel cuirass. The artistic way in which the light falls and the management of the chiaroscuro foretells what was destined to be Rembrandt's peculiarity of manner, which Sir Joshua Reynolds has so happily described as "of admitting but little light and giving to that little a wonderful brilliancy." Bode says: "Although the brush work is broad, the finish is strong. It stands out above all others of this period; we feel already in this youthful work the paw of the lion." [Illustration: REMBRANDT Portrait of Himself as Officer] =Rembrandt's Portraits of Himself.=--The artist was not handsome; indeed he selected himself so often for a model only for the sake of making a study of light and shade, etc., and because he had not always any other casual model than himself at hand. As keen as the glance of his eyes is the painting of this picture,--sharp, broad, but not so heavily _impasto_ as is the case a few years later. At this period he painted many portraits of himself. The Wallace Collection in London alone possesses two of the master's self-studies, as does also the Berlin Picture-Gallery, all of which are contemporary with this picture. The date of this portrait is about 1634, when the artist was twenty-eight. It is familiar to every one. Sir Joshua Reynolds described it as "a portrait of a young man by Rembrandt, dressed in a black cap and feathers, the upper part of the face overshadowed; for coloring and force nothing can exceed it." Homer reciting his Poems (1663) represents an old man in yellow robe. Part of the picture has suffered by having been cut. [Illustration: REMBRANDT Homer] =Van Ravesteyn (1572-1657).=--J. A. van Ravesteyn was in The Hague what Rembrandt was in Amsterdam, Hals in Haarlem, Mierevelt in Delft, Moreelse in Utrecht, and Cuijp in Dordrecht. We have to thank him for the beautiful Shooting Meetings in The Hague Gemeente Museum, and we also have to thank him for a series of fine portraits full of character of officers in the Mauritshuis. Although he had a dangerous rival in Mierevelt, who was employed principally by the Court of the Prince of Orange, yet Ravesteyn was the official painter of The Hague. When the marksmen wanted to have their portraits painted, or when the magistracy wanted to be immortalized, it was Ravesteyn's brush that had to undertake the work. He was not very highly paid, in common with all other Dutch artists of that period. =Van Ravesteyn's Masterpiece.=--His great masterpiece, the splendid shooting picture of 1618, the most important one that had been painted up to that time in Holland, brought him only 500 gulden; but in freeing him from all guard duties and from beer and wine taxes, the rulers of The Hague showed that they wanted to honor their artist. =Portraits by Van Ravesteyn.=--The portraits of this magnificent portrait-painter are noble in conception and full of life and character; and in his first period were brilliant in color. Indeed, the flesh tones of his first period are even too red in his male portraits. Yet the pictures which he painted before 1625-30 are stronger and more full of spirit than the later pictures, which are cooler and flatter in the tones and softer in the painting. There is a series of twenty-three portraits of officers who are unknown. =Pot's Schützenstück.=--It was not until 1886 that the great Schützenstück, a Civic Guard picture in the Haarlem Museum, which had always been so greatly admired by critics, was discovered to be the long-lost picture painted by Pot (1585-1657) in 1630, which had been falsely attributed to Van der Helst. At the date when he painted the picture Pot was so famous that the historiographer, Ampzingh, had rhymed two years earlier, 1628, "then shall also Hendrik Pot rightfully wear his crown. We wonder what his busy hand is creating to-day." He calls the Allegory of the Death of William I., the great Prince of Orange, painted by Pot in 1620, and now unfortunately lost, "a very fine and artistically painted picture." We have no means of following his development, because his pictures are rare, and seldom dated. The Hague picture shows us a young gallant in bright green costume in the gay company of three sirens and an old woman whose calling is unmistakable. The young woman on his right is in violet; the one on the left, in pink; and the third, in yellow and blue. All this is in a strongly pronounced local color. The drawing is careful and good. This is far superior in all respects to a similar picture in the Berlin Gallery. The background of this picture is a fine gray. The details are convincingly and beautifully painted. The painting of the high lights reminds us of the Hals School. The picture was probably painted about 1630, and takes a commanding place among the contemporary pictures of this style. It was bought for 1300 gulden. A similar picture hangs in the National Gallery. =Two Portraits by Frans Hals.=--"The Government was happily inspired," writes Mr. Bredius, "in 1881, when it bought for The Hague Gallery two portraits by the great Frans Hals [1580-1666], who had not been represented up till that time. Yet there were and still are dissatisfied people who maintain that the authorities ought to have tried to acquire a still better example of the art of the master, these pictures of his being too trifling and not worthy of the collection," etc. But people forgot that such an opportunity does not often occur, and then that the price is often so high that the slim purse of The Hague Gallery makes a purchase not to be thought of. "The smaller and more beautiful of the pair, the male portrait, is quite capable of giving us a good idea of the virtuosity of the portrait-painting of Hals. How fine, how self-assertive, is the attitude of this twenty-nine-year-old patrician Haarlemite! How sympathetically the costume is painted! How well are the head and hands modelled and drawn! The portraits were painted in the year 1625." The portraits here described are of Jacob Olycan and his wife, Aletta Hanemans. =Bode's Opinion of Hals's Pictures.=--In his celebrated study of Hals of this period, Bode says: "About the year 1625 the master had advanced to a style of impression and way of handling that in general remained stationary for about ten years. A gay, delightful humor laughs out at us from all these pictures: from the rich, full local colors, the clear blonde tones, playful easy handling, which quickly, in a few minutes with a few scattered strokes and sweeps of the brush and palette knife blade, brings the personality of the subject upon the canvas, and soon the conception is rendered to the smallest detail in lovely, delicate completeness." =Characteristics of Thomas de Keijser's Work.=--Of all important painters who flourished in Amsterdam when Rembrandt settled there at the end of 1631, Thomas de Keijser (1596-1667) was by far the greatest. His portraits, particularly those of small dimensions, take high rank among those which the Dutch school in its glory produced. His work is distinguished by a masterly technique, a splendid characterization in portraiture, a powerful but brilliant selection of color, and a broad, heavy brush. =Description of a Portrait painted by him.=--These qualities are found in the Portrait of a Man of Distinction, signed and dated 1631. The man, nearly life size, is seated before a table covered with a reddish Oriental carpet, and with his left hand is turning over the leaves of a book that rests upon a desk. He is not looking at the book, however, but at the spectator. His hair is gray and quite short, he wears a moustache, his eyes are full of fire, and his face is expressive. He has on a large black hat, and a white collar spreads out over his black silk doublet; his stockings are black silk, and his shoes are ornamented with rosettes. The right hand, which is superb, rests on his hip. The floor is paved with black and gray tiles and in the sober background, which serves to bring out the face, a library is indicated on the left. =Group of Four Burgomasters.=--The portrait is painted on oak, as is also that of the Amsterdam Burgomasters Deliberating with Regard to the Visit of Marie de Médici to that city. This very small picture, in which the figures are only eight and a half inches high, was painted by De Keijser in 1638, when the widow of the French King Henri IV. visited Amsterdam. "It is no small glory," says Blanc, "for De Keijser to have painted a picture which in value of execution may be placed between the Peace of Münster and the Syndics by Rembrandt." =Description of the Figures.=--Here we find four burgomasters sitting around a table covered with a green cloth in an austere hall, whose gray walls are broken by niches containing statues. These four old men--Abraham Boom, Petrus Hasselaer, Albert Coenraet Burgh, and Antonie Oetgens van Waveren--are dressed in black and wear black felt hats unadorned with plumes. Their grave deliberations regarding the entertainment of the royal guest are interrupted by the entrance of the lawyer, Cornelis van Davelaer, who, hat in hand, salutes them with the greatest respect, as he announces the arrival of Marie de Médici. =Blanc's Opinion of the Picture.=--Blanc, who greatly admires this picture, calls attention to the fact that no useless piece of furniture or accessory of any kind disturbs the solemnity of this little scene, which, on account of the simple manner in which it is conceived, is great, notwithstanding its size. He says: "With the exception of Rembrandt, I do not know of a single Dutch painter, not even Van der Helst (who painted such great canvases), who would not have belittled his picture, either by elegance of touch and finish, or by the richness of the costumes and arms, or by the effect of a carpet variegated with a thousand shades. I imagine that Gerard Ter Borch, in spite of his habitual dignity, would have found some pretext for introducing into his composition a beautiful sword with a baudrick, a crossbow, or a chandelier; that Metsu would certainly have found some excuse for placing a richly chiselled silver _aiguière_ or a golden goblet on the table; and I am sure that through the door by which the lawyer, Davelaer, enters, Pieter de Hooch would have let you see the antechamber of the Council, with its high chairs covered with Utrecht velvet, or a winding stairway, or a distant door opening into a garden or street. The attention would then have been somewhat distracted by the very striking accessories, or by the optical charm of the chiaroscuro. Here we find nothing of the kind; not a single concession to conventional treatment. By the gravity of their attitude, we see that these four citizens, chosen by a free people who sit here with covered heads, express in themselves the majesty of the United Provinces, and they consider themselves of equal rank with the Queen of France, whose arrival is being announced; you feel at once that they bring a plebeian pride to their magnificent reception of that princess who was, like them, originally from a republic of merchants. All the costumes being black,--that beautiful, warm, transparent, silky black peculiar to Velasquez and Anthonis Moro,--you only notice in this picture the hands and the heads. The heads have an expression that will remain engraven in the mind forever, for the painter has accented them so deeply, and brought into contrast both physical and moral features. Notwithstanding their individuality, they all have a certain grandeur. The peculiar trait of this master, however, is the neutral background, the exquisite sobriety of the tone of the wall, recalling the beautiful gray of the great Spanish painter; and from this stand out the black of the doublets and the white collars." Blanc also calls attention to the splendid painting of the faces: the eyes sunken by age, the wrinkles of the skin, and the withered cheeks. Bredius writes: "What character has the artist put into these heads! We feel at once that it must have been this kind of men who conducted Amsterdam to greatness and fame. What worth and dignity in the way they hold themselves! What self-confidence in the proud glance!" =Other Portraits in the Mauritshuis.=--Of other notable portraits in the Mauritshuis there are three by Moreelse (one of himself); six by Honthorst, including one of a child gathering fruit, originally in the Castle of Honsholredijk; nine by Mierevelt (chiefly of various Princes of Orange); three by Ravesteyn, one a group; two by Moro, one of a goldsmith, the other supposed to be Prince William I. in his youth; three by Netscher; Ter Borch's of himself; two by Frans van Mieris; one by Cuijp, and other examples by Rubens and Van Dijck. =Ferdinand Bol's Pay for Portraits.=--Of Rembrandt's numerous pupils, one of the most eminent in portraiture was Ferdinand Bol (1616-80), whose earliest signed work is dated 1642. In his earliest period he devoted himself chiefly to large pictures of Biblical subjects; but, like many other artists, he very soon found that there was a great deal more money to be made in portraiture. At that time, when photography was unknown, it was only natural that everybody who could afford it had his picture painted. From the burgomaster to the ordinary tailor or skipper--all wanted to have pictures of themselves and their families hanging on their own walls; and the purchaser could indulge himself in this natural vanity at comparatively small cost, for the demand naturally increased the supply; and there were only too many painters who were glad enough to serve their patrons. As the artists became famous their prices naturally increased; and some received higher pay than others who to-day have a greater reputation. Rembrandt probably received as much as anybody else for a time; but at the end of his life there was a greater demand for portraits by others, such as Maes, who were more pliant to the changing mode. Rembrandt received 500 gulden each for his famous portraits, whilst others were content with 150, 100, and even 30 or 40 gulden. Caspar Netscher, for instance, received only from 50 to 70 gulden for his elegantly finished pictures. The usual custom was for an artist to paint portraits for a living, meanwhile working and developing himself along the lines of his special genius. Thus we find several of the Little Masters practically relinquishing portraiture as soon as they had made a big reputation in _genre_, or other fields. =Bol's Work in Portraiture.=--Bol was a portrait-painter exclusively; he married first in 1653, and a second time in 1669. Probably both wives belonged to rich and important families, for Bol was kept busy his whole life long and became wealthy, dying in 1680 in his beautiful house with its fine grounds and stables. With him, as with so many other successful painters, his last pictures were not his best. In his earlier portraits he represents his sitters in beautiful chiaroscuro. The painting is broad and spirited; the color strong and brilliant. He painted so much in Rembrandt's style at first that many of Bol's pictures have been taken for those of his master; and later, when Bol's reputation had faded, unscrupulous dealers did not hesitate to change his signature on the canvases for that of Rembrandt. A celebrated instance of this practice is the so-called Portrait of Flinck and his Wife in Munich, which by many connoisseurs was long admired as Rembrandt's work; but, by Hauser's skill, the false Rembrandt signature was obliterated and the real one of Bol brought to light. =Bol's Portrait of De Ruyter's Son.=--The Mauritshuis owns one of the best portraits by Bol, painted in his later period, that of the handsome twenty-year-old son of the great Admiral de Ruyter. This son, Engel de Ruyter, was born in 1649 and died in 1683. Bol painted him in the year 1669, as may be seen by the date on the picture. It is only quite recently that the pendant, a portrait of the great Admiral de Ruyter, has come to be regarded as a copy after Bol. The charming little marine in the picture is undoubtedly by the hand of Willem van de Velde the younger, and adds greatly to the interest of the painting because it is of itself a fine picture of that great master. In many of his later portraits, Bol is somewhat dull in his color and painted them too rapidly, besides giving to his flesh too strong a red-rose tint; but that cannot be said of him in this case, where he has done his very best. In particular, he has handled the rich costume with affectionate and masterful touch. [Illustration: F. BOL Admiral de Ruyter] =Description of the Sitter.=--The genial countenance, which displays none of the real martial type of his celebrated father, rises finely out of the red drapery. The bearing is elegant, though perhaps there is a little too much pose in it. The portrait is particularly interesting, because the sitter had a career of great promise which was cut short all too soon. Nine years after the portrait was painted, the youth had already risen to the rank of Vice-Admiral and had been created a Spanish count, having also refused the title of duke; but before he had attained thirty-four years of age, he died, not a hero's death like his father, as he had desired, but in his own luxurious dwelling in Amsterdam. However, he had already while very young fought valiantly beside his father in the Battle of Solebay. =A Picture by Salomon Koninck.=--Another pupil of Rembrandt whom we shall see in the Rijks is G. van den Eeckhout. A picture formerly attributed to him, the Adoration of the Magi, is now known to be by Salomon Koninck (1618-88). One of the Magi in a red cloak is kneeling before the Infant Jesus and another on the right wears a golden mantle. The color is vigorous and the work shows the knowledge of chiaroscuro for which Rembrandt's school was so famous. =Two Pictures by Nicholas Maes.=--Nicholas Maes (1632-93) is represented in the Mauritshuis by only two pictures,--one of them of questionable origin, moreover; and therefore the student must go to Amsterdam for varied examples of his work. The portrait here is that of the Grand Pensionary, Jakob Cats, an original replica of which hangs in the Budapesth gallery. Diana and Her Nymphs shows some of the qualities to be expected of one who worked in Rembrandt's studio for eighteen years; but it is now sometimes attributed to Vermeer of Delft. The signature, "N. M. 1650," is said to be false. =Maes's Work as a Portrait-Painter.=--Maes was a pupil of Rembrandt and became a very successful portrait-painter by copying the master's style. He soon became rich by his talents, his wit, his polished manners, and by flattering his sitters. He charged high prices for his pictures; and he deserved his great reputation. The chiaroscuro of his paintings is very vigorous. If the shadows are not heavily massed as with Rembrandt, they are at least strongly accented; and, as the half-tones are very summary, the passage from light to dark is very brusque, and by this means the painter attains a powerful effect and strong relief. =His Visit to Jordaens at Antwerp.=--Having become rich, and getting tired of everlastingly painting the rich burghers of Amsterdam and their wives, Maes thought he would like to go to see the works of the great artists of Antwerp, who at that time were so much talked about throughout Europe. Having been initiated into the high freemasonry of art by Rembrandt, he was cordially received by the Antwerp painters and soon recognized by them as a brother. Among others, he went to visit Jordaens and was shown into a room filled with pictures, which he examined while awaiting the appearance of the latter, who was watching his visitor through the keyhole. When he entered, Jordaens said: "I see plainly that you are a great connoisseur, or perhaps an able painter, for the best pictures in my gallery detained you longer than the others." Maes simply replied, "I am a portrait-painter." "In that case," replied Jordaens, "I sincerely pity you. So you also are one of those martyrs of painting who so richly deserve our commiseration!" In fact, Maes's weariness at having to put up with the whims of human vanity probably had much to do with his turning to _genre_, by which he is now best known and for which he is most highly prized. =Maes's Pictures of Familiar Scenes.=--The average art-lover, however, cares little for the portraiture of Maes, but prizes him as a painter of familiar scenes, like Pieter de Hooch. Although less varied and less supple, but not less robust than the latter, Maes was his equal in the power of his effects. The triviality of the subject which he often selects is relieved by the charm of an astonishingly vigorous and spirited execution. Burger says: "On passing through a kitchen, perhaps, you see an old woman scraping carrots, having various kitchen utensils about her. If you have seen this humble interior in one of Maes's pictures, it will be impossible for you not to halt and spend some time in looking at it. The painting of Nicholas Maes is one of those that become encrusted in the memory. The light gleams in it, the canvas glows, the subject stands out, the eye runs over it, and if the figures were of natural size one would go forward to meet them, so strong is the impression, so solid is the tone, so palpable, and modelled in relief are the forms. "In his little familiar scenes, Maes is not always insignificant or vulgar in his choice of subject. Most often, indeed, his composition is ingenious, witty, and piquant. In the first place, it is set in the most picturesque corner of the room; the painter likes to take up his position in a place whence he can see at once the house from top to bottom,--both the stairs descending to the cellar and those mounting to the first floor. Then the figures he brings into the scene usually have some malicious trick to play, some secret conversation to overhear, some theft to discover, or some infidelity to discover." =Samuel van Hoogstraaten.=--It is singular how few pictures are known by Rembrandt's remarkable pupil, Samuel van Hoogstraaten (1625-78), a versatile painter of landscapes, portraits, marines, architecture, fruits, flowers, and, more particularly, interiors, in which he followed Pieter de Hooch. In his Lady in a Vestibule he has demonstrated his knowledge of perspective, of which he was very proud. The chief feature of the picture, however, is the beautiful chiaroscuro, for which he has to thank Rembrandt's teaching. The lady is walking in a portico of very fine architecture, and reading. With one hand she is holding up her straw-colored dress. This figure is only two feet high, while the spaniel that accompanies her is life size! =Effects of Rembrandt's Teaching on his Pupils.=--Thirty of Rembrandt's pupils made great names for themselves by copying that great master in one or other of his manners. Some made a system of what with him was merely a mood or caprice. Not being able to follow him in the expression of the human soul, they made a specialty, some of portraiture, some of costume, some of chiaroscuro, some of _genre_, and some of landscape. =Philip Koninck's Landscapes.=--Philip Koninck (1619-88) is almost the only pupil of Rembrandt who painted landscapes almost exclusively, and he listened to the teachings of his master with great docility. His principle was to regard nature from a little distance, so as to grasp the masses, rather than to enter into details. The Mauritshuis possesses a beautiful and characteristic specimen of his genius. In composition and treatment, it reminds us of Rembrandt's Landscape of the Three Trees.[2] Blanc says: "Among the Dutch landscape painters perhaps there is not one, unless it is Van der Hagen, who would have dared to paint this monotonous plain, all the lines of which are horizontal, all the clumps and rows of trees of the same height, and in which the only objects in the foreground are a cottage half hidden among trees, and, a little farther on, a low sandy hill which does not rise beyond the level of the middle distance. The vast stretch of country is traversed by so many courses of water that it almost looks as if it were threatened with an inundation. The meadows are on a level with the sea; the distant villages look like flotillas at anchor, and the houses seem to be floating on the canals. The painter has placed his point of view so high that neither the sails of the windmills, nor the points of the belfries, nor the tops of the highest trees stand out against the sky. The picture is cut in half by the almost straight line of a horizon which gradually recedes until lost to view, and the towns we perceive in the distance, the rows of trees, the hamlets, and rivers all run parallel with this horizon. That is to say, that Philip Koninck (and this picture resembles all the others of his we know) is conceived entirely at variance with the ideas that are generally held regarding the picturesque." Gilpin says: "'The greatest enemies of the picturesque are the symmetry of the forms, the resemblance and parallelism of the lines, the polish of the surfaces, and the uniformity of the colors.' "Very well! Here is a landscape by Koninck that fulfils all the conditions of the non-picturesque; and which, nevertheless, produces a certain impression of grandeur and sadness, solely by means of the canvas being furrowed into infinite depths, the gradations of the perspective being extremely well observed, and the uniformity of the ground being happily contrasted with a sky full of movement, a fine disorder of clouds which the breeze slowly drives before it as a shepherd does his flock." =Dutch Painters who imitated Italians.=--Rembrandt, although he arose at a time when the influence of Italian art was supreme, never went to Rome; nevertheless, he owed a great deal to the studies of those artists who had been there. The Hague Gallery contains several pictures of this period; and these are sufficient to give us a very good idea of the qualities of Dutch art just before Rembrandt, in 1629, set up for himself in Amsterdam at the age of twenty-one. =Hendrik Goltzius.=--An influential founder of a large school of painters who modelled themselves on the great Italians was Hendrik Goltzius (1558-1616). He started for Rome in 1590, and indulged to the full his intense admiration for Michelangelo, which led him to surpass that master in the extravagance of his designs. The works by his own hand he most valued were his eccentric imitations of the designs of Michelangelo. His portraits show exquisite finish, and are fine studies of character. The beauty and freedom of his execution make amends for his extravagance. In the Mauritshuis are three pictures painted shortly before he died--Mercury, Hercules, and Minerva. =His Academy at Haarlem.=--On his return from Italy Mander, who was a great friend of Goltzius, induced him to open an academy at Haarlem, in combination with Mander and Cornelisz, and with the assistance of his old pupils, Matham, Müller, Sanraedam, and De Gheyn, as professors. As might be expected, Italian taste predominated in this academy, not solely on account of the personal preference of the founders, but because the Italian style had been popularized in the Low Countries by Lambert Lombard, and his pupils, Hubert Golz, Lambert Zutman, Dominic Lampson, William Key, and Frans Floris (1518-70). Of these the most famous was Floris, who also studied in Italy, and himself founded a large school. The Hague possesses in Venus and Adonis a charming example of his style. =The Italian Style followed by Cornelisz.=--Cornelis Cornelisz (1562-1638) had never been to Italy, but his education and environment had given him Italian tendencies. We learn that even after he had attained proficiency he never dispensed with the model; nevertheless, he was neither a slavish imitator of nature, nor altogether a painter of style. He has two large pictures in The Hague Gallery that were painted about the time he joined Goltzius in the Haarlem academy. These are the Massacre of the Innocents (1591) and the Marriage of Peleus and Thetis (1593). The dominating idea of the artist in the Massacre of the Innocents, which covers a canvas 8-3/4 by 8-1/4 feet, is the wish to appear a great master of drawing by curves and modeling that exaggerate the relief of the muscles. There are more than two hundred figures which are almost all entirely nude. The executioners, and the infants in particular, show an attempt at noble form which rises above nothing more than affectation. There is an obvious striving after the genius of Michelangelo which, in the Dutch master, is merely pretentious imitation of what would be facile and superb in the great Florentine. There is not a single attitude nor a movement that is not _contrasted_; for instance, if the left arm is behind, the right leg is in front. In fact, the study of nature is completely subordinated to academic conventions. The color is far more natural than the drawing. The artist has been extremely successful in rendering the flesh tints of life as well as of death, and he has varied the _nuances_ in accordance with sex and age, giving very faithfully the tenderness and freshness of the flesh tints of infancy, and the softness of the female form, the stronger tones of the executioners in action, and even the cadaverous hue of the bloodless corpses. As for the expressions of the faces, they are vulgar though energetic. =His Love of painting the Nude.=--The love of Cornelisz for compositions thronged with nude figures in the most varied attitudes wherein he could exhibit all the resources of his learning and study of the works of Michelangelo is again shown in the large canvas, measuring 8 by 14 feet, entitled Banquet of the Gods of Olympus, or Marriage of Peleus and Thetis. =Gilles Coignet.=--Cornelisz had received his tastes and instruction principally from Gilles Coignet (1540-99), who set out for Italy with another painter named Stello in 1555 and worked principally at Terni, between Loretto and Rome, for five years. He painted historical and mythological subjects of easel size, but was more successful in landscapes, and more particularly in candle-light subjects and moonlight. He took up his abode in Amsterdam in 1586. His influence on the Haarlem school was pronounced. =Elsheimer's Excellence in Chiaroscuro.=--The Mauritshuis possesses two Italian Landscapes by Adam Elsheimer (Elshaimer or Elzheimer) (1574-1620), a German painter, whom the Italians call Adam Tedesco, who possessed great influence over his contemporaries, particularly the elder Teniers and Rembrandt, who followed out the same characteristics of chiaroscuro. Elsheimer delighted in the effects of moonlight and evening dusk; also in torchlight, conflagrations, and every other kind of artificial light,--all of which he represented with greater excellence than had ever been done before him. Visiting Italy, he became charmed with the country and settled in Rome, where his little pictures, usually painted on copper with microscopic and beautifully finished figures, had great success. Elsheimer was visited by all the artists of his country, including Poelemburg, who saw him in 1617. He was almost as great in chiaroscuro as Rembrandt; and his immense reputation did not diminish until after the eighteenth century. =Cornelis van Poelemburg.=--A picture of Women Bathing, by Cornelis van Poelemburg (1586-1667), is a fine example of his style. He studied first under Bloemaert, but during a protracted visit to Italy he fell under the influence of Elsheimer; and on his return to his own country he became quite the rage as a painter of classic landscape. In Rome he had been fascinated by Raphael's pictures, and studied him with affectionate admiration. Poelemburg possessed a happy and tranquil nature. =His Attractive Landscapes.=--"The little pictures that his imagination painted breathe a quiet happiness, and are imprinted with a suave poesy. They nearly always represent a countryside adorned with ancient ruins and frequented by demi-nude nymphs. His landscapes, enveloped in vapor which, while decreasing the dryness of the outlines and crudity of the tones, would soften the aspect of the most rugged spots, serve as a background for the whiteness of the goddesses who dance with fauns or repose in the shade of some abandoned monument. Sometimes, as though the vale that they dwell in were reserved for the gods, Poelemburg's nymphs do not fear to remove their light vesture and bathe in some open pool where only the painter may see them. But, most frequently, it is in the neighborhood of a grotto, at the foot of rocks perpetually washed by a spring of fresh water, that one likes to surprise them, nude, trembling, their bodies rendered whiter by the transparent veil of the atmosphere, playing with the water they are disturbing, swimming after one another and half-hidden by the current of their chaste fountains." =Dutch Artists who migrated to Rome.=--Bartholomeus Breenborch (1599-1659) was another member of that band of artists who at the beginning of the seventeenth century deserted the banks of the Meuse for those of the Tiber, and exchanged the land that was to produce Rembrandt for the country of Raphael's birth. A few Dutch artists successfully resisted the lures of the Eternal City; but the majority of painters of that period followed the example of Elsheimer, Poelemburg, Karel Dujardin, Herman Swanevelt, Andreas and Jan Both, and others, and formed a little Dutch colony among the Seven Hills. =Breenborch compared with Poelemburg.=--Breenborch devoted himself to history and landscape alternately. His historical subjects were chiefly Biblical and mythological. He was fond of painting classical landscapes with ruins; and the only artist who could excel him in painting charming little figures in a landscape was Van de Velde. The chief characteristic of Poelemburg, with whom Breenborch is so often compared, is grace. The only picture of this artist in The Hague Gallery, Mercury appearing to the Nymph Hersé, resembles Poelemburg both in subject and treatment. =Van der Ulft's Architectural Paintings.=--Van der Ulft (1627-90), another artist of this school, was originally a painter on glass. Later, he turned to historical compositions of small dimensions; but his real talent lay in the representation of architectural monuments, and scenes inside city walls. It is strange that he never visited Italy, but formed himself by the study of the works of returning Roman art pilgrims and of engravings. His perspective is exact; his ancient ruins, triumphal arches, and statues are correctly placed in his pictures, and his architectural backgrounds, abounding in strong and golden grays, form an excellent frame for the little figures that animate his spirited paintings. He delighted to paint Roman processions. The Hague picture shows an army on the march in a landscape adorned with architectural remains. =Nicolas Moeyaert's Best Points.=--A follower of Elsheimer, who later became a disciple of Rembrandt, was Nicolas Moeyaert (1630-?), who settled in Amsterdam in 1624 and joined the Painters' Guild in 1630. In some of his pictures he imitated Rembrandt very closely. He excelled in portraits, animals, landscapes, and historical and Biblical scenes. The Hague Gallery contains three: Mercury appearing to the Nymph Hersé; Triumph of Silenus, and a Biblical scene, also called the Visit of Antiochus to the Augur. =Description of one of his Pictures.=--Antiochus, about to engage in a war, is consulting the augur. In the centre stands the king dressed in a long blue robe, with a white girdle and a purple cloak lined with fur; also a furred bonnet. He is talking to an old man, the augur, who has a long white beard. He is wrapped in a yellow cloak, is barefooted, and he is writing in a book. By him are some animals, including a dog and some rabbits, and on the right of Antiochus are two goats and a sheep. On a rock on the left is a group of ten persons; and in the centre of the picture between the two high rocks stand a tower and a temple. For pupils Moeyaert had Berchem, Van der Does, Salomon Koninck, and J. B. Weenix. [Illustration: MOEYAERT The Visit of Antiochus to the Augur] =Pieters and Lastman.=--Gerrit Pieters, the best pupil of C. Cornelisz, also went to Rome. He painted assemblies, _genre_, and small portraits; his success prevented him from devoting himself to historical painting, which he preferred. A pupil of his was Pieter Lastman (1583-1633), who also made a long sojourn in Italy under Elsheimer's influence. He groped about in different styles for a long time, devoting himself principally to Biblical subjects. He learned a good deal about light effects from Elsheimer; on his return he imparted what he knew to Rembrandt, who studied with him for a short time. Later, when his brilliant pupil grew famous, Lastman humbly followed his lead. Jan Lievens (1607-74), was another of his pupils. A picture by him, painted in 1622, when Rembrandt was still only fourteen years old, and therefore could not have influenced him, is in the Mauritshuis. It is called The Resurrection of Lazarus. An artist who accompanied Lastman to Italy in 1605 was named Jan Pinas (f. 1608-21). He painted portraits, landscapes, and historical subjects. =Herman Swanevelt's Study of Nature.=--Herman Swanevelt (Herman of Italy) (1600-55) was a pupil and imitator of Claude Lorraine in Rome, whither he went in 1624, and where his excessive application to study gained for him the name of "the Hermit" from the band of Dutch and German artists established in that city. Unlike Claude, with whom he used to walk in the environs of Rome, and who never sketched from nature, Swanevelt always had his pencil in his hand, taking note of all that he saw, studying the oaks and large plants, and copying the buildings, campaniles, and vine-wreathed arcades and ruins. He left nothing to his imagination. While Claude's landscapes speak of the Golden Age, Swanevelt's are actual reproductions of the country as he saw it. His buildings are not imaginary villas, temples, and palaces, but are the Roman ruins and the façades and cloisters that he knew. In his arrangement and composition he resembled Claude; and, like him, often placed in the corner of his picture wooded mountains or large trees, and sometimes even placed them in the very centre to make a striking contrast to the very light background. Naturally rude and savage, Swanevelt contributed some of his character to his work. He liked bold mountains clothed with dark forests, deep ravines, solitary places, and torrents bounding from the rocks; and he understood how to mingle the heroic style with rural beauty. Two Italian landscapes, one dated 1650, the other formerly attributed to Claude Lorraine, hang in the Mauritshuis. =J. van Swanenburch.=--Rembrandt spent three years in the studio of J. van Swanenburch (d. 1638), who had finished his studies at Rome, and worked in Naples for a long time, returning to Holland in 1617. =Bloemaert, Founder of the School of Utrecht.=--Abraham Bloemaert (1564-1651) constitutes in many respects the link of transition with the succeeding epoch; for however his frequent mannerisms and gaudy coloring betray the tasteless period in which he was born, his later pictures show a power, taste, and broader touch. He painted a great number of religious and mythological subjects, portraits, landscapes, and animals. By reason of his talent and his long life (ninety-two years), he exercised great influence over the School of Utrecht, and may be regarded as its founder. =Some of his Pupils.=--Among his principal pupils may be mentioned: J. and A. Both, the Honthorsts, J. B. Weenix, Knupfer, Cornelis van Poelemburg, and the father of Albert Cuijp. Two pictures painted in the prime of his life are in The Hague Gallery; they deserve attention if only for their size and the number of figures they contain. The subjects are: Hippomenes receiving the Prize (signed and dated 1626), and the Marriage of Peleus (signed and dated 1628). The latter was carried off by the French, but returned after 1815. =Description of the Marriage of Peleus and Thetis.=--"It is composed of fourteen large figures, half nude, representing the gods of Olympus celebrating the marriage of Thetis. Seated at table and distinguished by their divine attributes, the gods appear to be troubled at the sight of Discord, who descends from above, borne on a cloud, and throws down among them the golden apple destined for the most beautiful. In the foreground, with her back turned to the spectator, is shown the figure of Venus, who displays unveiled her divine shoulders, her voluptuous neck, and her incomparably beautiful body, which will carry off the prize, and which has no need of the girdle of beauty to render the goddess beloved. Elsewhere than in The Hague Gallery this mythological painting would perhaps not excite more remark than any other picture, but there, in the midst of a family, _bourgeoise_, and Protestant school, which avoids the nude and ignores academic conventions and style, a picture of this kind cannot fail strongly to attract attention. Abraham Bloemaert, like the famous Cornelis of Haarlem, has the air of an Italian who has gone astray in these northern regions. These noble contours and learned lines, this modelling of the flesh pursued with a certain pedanticism by the former, and with grace and facility by the latter, and finally these more or less violent foreshortenings,--those, for instance, offered by this picture in the figures of Discord and the Loves who scatter flowers or suspend from trees the curtain that decorates the place of banqueting,--all this is at variance with the jollity and naturalism of the Dutch; all this betrays the influence of a foreign style, an influence that reigned in Holland in the sixteenth century, disappeared at the arrival of Rembrandt, and did not return till the appearance of Gérard de Lairesse, more than a century later."[3] =Others who painted in the Italian Style.=--Nicholas (or Claes) Berchem (1620-83), Karel Dujardin (1622-78), and Jan (or Johannes) Both (1610-52), painted in the Italian style. Berchem was a pupil of his father, Pieter Claes, and of J. B. Weenix, Moeyaert, Pieter de Grebber, and probably Jan van Goyen. Karel Dujardin was a pupil of Berchem. All three travelled in Italy; and all three are represented in The Hague Gallery. Berchem has an Italian Landscape and Figures; an Italian Landscape or Pastoral (dated 1648), with life-sized figures. =Berchem's Picture of a Boar-Hunt.=--A Wild Boar Hunt, of the year 1659, shows that he could successfully treat an animated scene. Crowe says: "It is a model of precision combined with elegance of execution; though at the same time that blue dark tone which, to the eye of a connoisseur, so much detracts from the value of his later works, already partially appears. This is more seen in a landscape dated 1661 in the same museum, though otherwise belonging to his more attractive works. But here also the conventional and monotonous treatment of his cattle begins to be visible.... But the most striking example of the master's deterioration is afforded us by one of his latest works, the Cavalry Engagement, in The Hague Museum, which is a very type of crude and discordant effect and hardness of detail." His fourth picture is An Italian Quay, dated 1661. =Pictures by Dujardin, Jan Both, and Others.=--Karel Dujardin, famous for his animals, portraits, and landscapes, can be well studied in a fine Italian landscape, called A Cascade in Italy, rich and warm in tone and dated 1673. Johannes Both has two Italian landscapes, one of which glows with sunshine and is remarkable for breadth and delicacy. Other pictures showing this Italian influence are The Ambuscade and an Italian landscape by Moucheron, with figures by J. Lingelbach; the Terrestrial Paradise by Jan Brueghel the Elder; and The Torrent, by Adam Pynacker. =Adam Pynacker and Jan Both compared.=--Pynacker, though inferior to Jan Both in his Italian landscapes, surpasses him in variety. His tone is cooler than Both's, and he excels in painting early morning scenes. In addition to pastoral scenes, he loves rocky heights, mountain ranges, Italian harbors, bold bridges, and waterfalls. Pynacker enlivened his landscapes with human figures and cattle, both of which he was able to draw and paint extremely well. =Albert Cuijp's Portrait of Sieur de Roovere.=--The famous Albert Cuijp (1620-91) belongs to this group, being a pupil of his father, Jacob Gerritsz Cuijp, who was a pupil of Abraham Bloemaert. There is but one Cuijp in the Mauritshuis, Portrait of Sieur de Roovere directing the salmon fishery near Dordrecht, which need not detain us long, for we shall find more interesting examples of this master in the Rijks. Burger calls this A View in the Environs of Dordrecht, and says it is "a beautiful painting, but perhaps a little brusque." A gentleman wearing a black hat with red plumes and mounted on a bay horse, is seen on the left, to whom a fisherman in heavy boots is offering fish. On the right lies a spaniel. In the middle distance are some fishermen, a black horse, the other side of a canal, and a house. The two principal figures are about a foot high. =The Beginning of the School of Dutch Landscape.=--Jan Hackaert (1629-99) forms a connecting link between those painters who represent Northern and those who represent Southern scenery. He travelled when young into Germany and Switzerland. The Hague has a good example of an Italian landscape with figures by Lingelbach; but better examples of his work are in the Rijks. This brings us to the beginning of the great school of Dutch landscape, when the painters began to take an interest in the scenery of their own country. Two great names are Jan van Goyen (1596-1666) and Jan Wijnants (1600-77), important not only because of their own productions, but because they were the first painters of Dutch landscape, and each had followers and pupils who attained great fame. Jan van Goyen was a pupil of Esais van de Velde and the master of Salomon Ruisdael, who produced Jacob Ruisdael, who in turn produced Hobbema. Another famous pupil was Simon de Vlieger, who was also a follower of Willem van de Velde. =Jan Wijnants and his Followers.=--Around Wijnants cluster Adriaen van de Velde, Wouwermans, Lingelbach, Barent Gael, Schellinkx, and Helt Stockade. =Characteristics of Van Goyen's Works.=--Jan van Goyen was fortunate in being the son of an amateur of painting, who encouraged his talent. After studying with various artists of no special reputation, he travelled in France and on his return studied with Esais van de Velde. He is always simple in painting and manner. Ordinarily he selects tranquil river scenes on which merchant ships or fishing-boats are quietly sailing. You often see hamlets on piles, and, very frequently, the steeple of a church, standing out in picturesque contrast to the horizon line. Sometimes a ruined tower forms the chief motive of his composition. =His Marines and Watery Landscapes.=--One of the principal characteristics of Van Goyen's marines and landscapes is their peacefulness, calmness, and slight touch of sadness. It is not the sadness inspired by Ruisdael's groves, but a gentle melancholy feeling that touches the imagination and induces dreams. The sun never appears in Van Goyen's pictures. Humid clouds veil his skies, which in their light portions have the silvery tones of Teniers. His beach or shore is generally enveloped in a grayish mist, and in the moving clouds you feel the breath of wind and fancy you hear it sigh. His long flat surface, so dull and solitary, is animated only by a fishing-boat or a shallop. Holland, because of its water-ways, is a silent country and the impression of silence and peace is marvellously reproduced in Van Goyen's pictures. He never allows a brilliant tone to disturb the uniformity and harmony of his watery landscapes; but behind the clouds that float across the sky you divine the far-away sun, like a light behind a curtain. The famous View of the City of Dordrecht, by the latter, signed and dated 1634, is a splendid example of his qualities and style. =His Illustrious Pupils.=--After his marriage, Van Goyen established himself in Leyden, his native town, where he opened a school, to which flocked painters who afterward became illustrious. Among them was Jan Steen, who married Van Goyen's daughter Marguerite. Only one of Esais van de Velde's (1590-1630) pictures--A Dinner in the Open Air, painted in 1614, hangs in this gallery, so that one cannot learn here how much Jan van Goyen owed to his master. Hermann Saftleven (1606-81), a pupil of Jan van Goyen, painted, as a rule, views of the Rhine and Moselle with small boats and figures. He was a good portrait-painter and was successful with animals. His Landscape with Cattle is a charming example of his work. To Salomon Ruisdael, who so greatly resembles Jan van Goyen with his pictures of canals, bordered with houses and trees, river banks, etc., we shall return when visiting the Rijks; for the Mauritshuis possesses no picture of this artist. He taught his more famous brother. =The Greatest of the Dutch Landscape-Painters.=--"Jacob Ruisdael (1628-82) is beyond all dispute the greatest of the Dutch landscape-painters. In the works of no other do we find that feeling for the poetry of Northern nature and perfection united in the same degree. With admirable drawing he combined a knowledge of chiaroscuro in its most multifarious aspects, a coloring powerful and warm, and a mastery of the brush, which, while never too smooth in surface, ranges from the tenderest and most minute touch to the broadest, freest, and most marrowy execution. The prevailing tone of his coloring is a full, decided green. Unfortunately, however, many of his pictures have, in the course of years, acquired a heavy brown tone, and thus forfeited their highest charm. Many also were originally painted in a grayish but clear tone." =His Favorite Subjects.=--"He generally presents us with the flat and homely scenery of his native country under the conditions of repose; while the usually heavy clouded sky, which tells either of a shower just past or one impending, and dark sheets of water overshadowed by trees, impart a melancholy character to his pictures. Especially does he delight in representing a wide expanse of land or water. If the former, the scene is frequently taken from some elevation in the surrounding country, commanding a view of his native city, Haarlem, which is seen breaking the line of the horizon with its spires. "Taken altogether, his wide expanses of sky, earth, or sea, with their tender gradations of aërial perspective, diversified here and there by alternations of sunshine and shadow, may be said to attract us as much by the deep pathos as well as picturesqueness of their character. On the other hand, we often find the great master taking pleasure in the representation of hilly and even mountainous districts, with foaming waterfalls, in which he has won some of his greatest triumphs; or he gives us a bare pile of rock, with a dark lake at its base; but these latter subjects, which embody the feeling of the most elevated melancholy, occur very rarely. In his drawing of men and animals he was weak, and occasionally obtained the assistance of other masters, especially of A. van de Velde and Berchem." =Difference between his Earlier and Later Works.=--"As he seldom dated his pictures, and early attained his full development, we find a difficulty in determining the order in which they were painted. His earlier works, however, may be identified by the extraordinary minuteness with which all objects--trees, plants, and every diversity in the soil--are represented; by a decision of form bordering on hardness, and by less freedom of handling and delicacy of aërial perspective."[4] =Reynolds's Estimate of him as a Landscape-Painter.=--Four very fine examples of Jacob van Ruisdael are owned by the Mauritshuis: a Cascade, a Strand, View of Haarlem, and View of the Vijver at The Hague. After a study of these beautiful works, Sir Joshua Reynolds's estimate of the painter will not seem excessive: "The landscapes of Ruisdael," he says, "have not only great force, but have a freshness which is seen in scarce any other painter." =His Character seen in his Paintings.=--Ruisdael is considered by many critics the greatest of the Dutch landscape-painters. His execution is always masterly, and his works always express a poetic sentiment. Ruisdael delights in portraying sombre forests, rushing cascades, trees bent by the wind, gathering storm-clouds, and all the dark mysteries of the woodlands. His misfortunes probably had much to do with increasing his natural melancholy, to the great gain of his artistic development. As a rule, the paintings of his mature period have greatly blackened because he loved to paint sombre backgrounds, and always used a very dark green for his foliage and other verdure. His earlier works have remained brighter in tint; for at the beginning of his career he painted the dunes and meadows, woods and roads near Haarlem, bathed in light from sunny skies half veiled with clouds. [Illustration: RUISDAEL Distant View of Haarlem] =His Picture of Haarlem.=--The View of Haarlem, taken from the dunes of Overveen, shows a bird's-eye view of an immense stretch of country. In the foreground is shown a level meadow on which strips of white linen are being bleached; and on the left are the houses of the washerwomen. Beyond, a vast stretch of country almost destitute of trees or dwellings, reaches to the horizon line, where the town of Haarlem, with its bell-tower, is discerned. "All these miles of country," exclaims Burger, "are represented on a little canvas only one foot eight inches high!" This picture is regarded as one of the gems of The Hague Gallery. The Cascade is noted for its warm lighting and careful execution; and the beautiful Beach at Scheveningen for its heavy gathering clouds and dim and broken light upon the water and shipping. =Ruisdael's Sea Pieces.=--Ruisdael's sea-pieces are few; and, unlike Willem van de Velde, he never represents the ocean in repose; his sea is always stormy and sometimes raging, and the sky is full of heavy, angry clouds. The waves are always fluid and full of motion. =Some of his Notable Works.=--The Mauritshuis has the rare luck to possess three pictures by Ruisdael, which are splendidly preserved, and each of which exemplifies a separate style of the master. A fourth one, bought more recently, is also exceedingly interesting in its way, because it gives a view of the Vijverberg in The Hague; but the rest of this picture is of such dubious art, and the color so sunken, that it cannot hold its own beside the others in the collection. The Strand and the View of Haarlem belong to the artist's middle period (between 1660 and 1670) as well as the Cascade. Bredius says: "The still, heavy impasto and the clearness of the color make me think it is one of the first waterfalls that Ruisdael painted. We never, or hardly ever, find pictures of the painter's earliest period (covering the years 1646 to 1655) in the Dutch galleries. "A fine, strong, cleverly painted little picture of Ruisdael's, painted in 1653, was sent to the Amsterdam Gallery with the Dupper Collection. Another very clear, lovely, and beautifully worked study of the Dunes, with a Grove, similar to the picture in the Louvre, is owned by Madame van Vollenhoven in Amsterdam. A somewhat dark but strong and spirited study, the Hut in the Dunes, also of his early period, was lately acquired by the Haarlem Gallery, which hitherto had owned nothing of Ruisdael's. These early pictures, of which, for instance, the Leipzig Exhibition in the Autumn of 1889 was able to show very important examples (the figures are often supplied by Berchem), are very highly esteemed by connoisseurs." =Love of Nature seen in his Earlier Works.=--"In these works we see the youthful painter turning exclusively to Nature: a clump of bushes on a dune; a glimpse of the 'Haarlemer Hout'; a grove of trees on the shore, he paints exactly as he saw them. But how he saw them! In these early pictures his color is brighter, his manner of painting thicker and stronger than in his later works. Instead of the beautiful clouds for which Ruisdael was so famous, we often see the sky still painted in a more antique manner, with striped clouds in the style of his uncle Salomon. =His Growth toward Composition.=--"Gradually his subjects become more 'composed,' but in the best sense of the word. Only occasionally does he wander away, as, for instance, in the Dresden Jewish Cemetery, which lay in the neighborhood of Amsterdam, but which he set in a fanciful landscape unknown to himself. He had quite another intention in the picture before us: the View of Haarlem from Overveen, with its bleaching-green in the foreground. Above it a beautifully clouded sky with the floating clouds casting their shadows here and there over the broad landscape. Amsterdam owns a similar picture; the Berlin Gallery another; the Ritter de Steurs in Maestricht, a fourth; and there are still others in private collections in England and Paris. Each of these pictures has a new excellence,--Nature glorified through an artistic eye and immortalized with the practised hand of an artist. What mastery there is in the representation of the broad, broad space!" =His Carefulness of Detail.=--"Nevertheless Ruisdael does not neglect the detail of his landscapes. We need only notice in him the tree-characteristics--how carefully he handles every kind of foliage in accordance with the forms of its leaves and branches; but with him the whole is never subordinated to the details. When he paints the sea--he does not paint it often--he does it better and more artistically than any other painter. What a mighty effect his great marine in Berlin produces! The real air from the sea seems to blow upon us. Views of the seashore by him are even rarer. The Hague picture shows us a beautiful view of a sea and sky happily illuminated without the dark, melancholy tone which so often dwells in his works, and which we would consider as a reflection of his own sad moods. Who can it be that painted the fine figures in this picture? Perhaps it was Eglon van der Neer." =Vermeer's View of Delft.=--Vermeer of Delft (1632-75) was a pupil of Karel Fabricius (whom we shall meet in the Rijks), who was a pupil of Rembrandt. One of the most important and beautiful pictures in The Hague Gallery is Vermeer's View of Delft. On an appreciative eye and receptive mood it leaves a tenacious impression which will never be forgotten. Until about thirty years ago, Vermeer of Delft was hardly thought of, although in his own day his pictures were highly prized and sought after, and later his work received great praise from Sir Joshua Reynolds. It was the French critic Burger (Thoré), who rehabilitated this great artist. Bredius exclaims: "How this picture shines out from the others around it like a stream of light out of dark clouds! "All the light which the artist saw fall upon his town, he has succeeded in concentrating at once in this picture, the broad, masterful, sure painting, the luminous colors, the clear sky which arches over the town, all excite our highest admiration." A drawing said to be a sketch for this picture is in the Stadel Institute of Frankfort. The picture which brought 200 florins in 1698 was sold for 2,900 gulden at the Stinstra sale in 1822. (See Frontispiece.) =A Painter of Light and Sun.=--The beautiful picture of Diana and her Nymphs, which was bought as a Maes in Paris in 1876 for 4,725 gulden, is now attributed by some people to this master, and by others to Vermeer of Utrecht. Lemke says: "Vermeer was a painter of the light and sun school; and this was his chief study--to catch and hold fast the moment. What Frans Hals did for physiognomy, grasping the flying moment in an incomparable manner with winks, smiles, leers, gesticulations, etc., and fixing it in paint, that Vermeer, as a landscape-painter, delighted to do for the sunshine. He shows its rays streaming into a room or the play of light and shadow when the light with the moving air falls through heavy foliage against a bright house and paints it with rays of light and shade. Unlike the moment of Rembrandt and Ruisdael, which is fixed for all eternity, with Vermeer the moment vibrates in the light. The shadows lose their sharp outlines, and the fine brush-work suggests the living change and play of the light. Rembrandt paints light in darkness and lets it glow in the dark, or streaming into it, or in a broad flood of brilliance; but Vermeer prefers to set darkness or twilight against the light. For interiors, Vermeer has another palette and mode of painting than for the outdoor pictures. When he selects the moment for this, where the scene consists of trees, houses, water, etc., it would seem that the artist wanted to make us blink, as if we were looking at the sun." =Vermeer's Portrait of a Girl.=--Vermeer did not confine himself to landscape. In 1903, The Hague Gallery acquired by bequest a remarkable portrait by this master, the portrait of a girl wearing a buff coat, a blue and cream turban, and magnificent pearl earrings, on which are "concentrated," says the enthusiastic Frank Rinder, "those dreams of gray, which are Vermeer's. Although in this portrait, with its liquid spots of light, we at once apprehend the presence of Vermeer, with his nostalgia for the interpretation of a beauty visioned inwardly rather than seen with the eye, the picture passed through the auction rooms at The Hague in 1878, fetching only 230 florins. It was bequeathed in 1903 to the Mauritshuis by M. des Tombes." "In his laying on of paint he was distinguished," says Frank Rinder, "even among his technically well-equipped contemporaries; by virtue of his isolated vision, he is of all the Little Dutchmen the one inimitable weaver of spells." =Jan Wijnants's Love for the Dunes.=--Jan Wijnants (1615-80) has two pictures in the Mauritshuis, Clearing in the Forest (1659) and Road through the Dunes (1675). Wijnants, the Haarlemite, loved his dunes, and when he lived for years in Amsterdam (probably he died there), he painted them even more frequently,--every little hill, with its sandy rises and with little stunted trees, and those roads marked with deep wagon-ruts, almost always bright and illumined with warm sunshine. How had he observed them? How did he always know how to discover the paintable spot? Frankly, his fancy sometimes made the hills somewhat higher than we really find them at Haarlem; indeed, sometimes, he created landscapes with so poetic a flight, or we might say he sometimes composed them to such an extent that in truth we might seek them in vain in Holland; as, for instance, the great pictures in the Munich museum. We are, therefore, forced to conclude that he had seen Claude Lorraine's pictures, and wanted to paint somewhat in the same spirit. In Haarlem he was painted by Wouwermans, and as a fine little cavalier. =His Pictures enlivened by other Artists.=--When he settled down in Amsterdam in 1660, the always ready Adriaen van de Velde often assisted him by enlivening his landscapes with charming little figures. He had no idea that at present a Wijnants would be so much more highly valued on account of his little figures than it would be without them. Lingelbach undertook this work later, straining after Van de Velde but not reaching him. In his early pictures, Wijnants is somewhat labored; but by and by he acquires that sureness of painting which must have become ever easier to him because he almost always painted the same subjects and the same style of landscape. In his last pictures he was quite broad and decorative in style, but less convincing. One picture with fine little figures by Lingelbach bears the date 1675. In his Clearing in the Forest (1659) he has depicted his favorite subjects: the old oaks mutilated by the storm and partly stripped of their bark; the fallen trunk of a tree and large, handsome plants, whose leaves pour raindrops over the blades of grass that have pushed their way up between them. Van de Velde has added to this lovely landscape a distant farm, cattle walking along the road, and a pond crossed by a rustic bridge. "With such simple objects," exclaims Blanc, "Wijnants and his pupil have produced a masterpiece, expressing a poetry that few could perhaps explain, but which every well-organized man can feel." =Neglect of Dutch Scenery by Dutch Artists.=--Wijnants, like Van Goyen, is not only an excellent painter but chief of a school. Until their time the artists of the Netherlands hunted for scenery outside of their country; for instance, Memling and Saftleven chose the borders of the Rhine; others, like Savery, liked to wander in the Tyrol; others, like Paul Bril, visited the Alps; others, like Everdingen, went to Norway to get inspiration from pine forests and foaming cascades; and Asselijn, Berghem, Jan Both, Moucheron, and Pynacker sought the sunny clime of classic Italy. Into the "Italian landscapes," which they either brought home or finished from memory when they returned, they frequently introduced among the classic ruins and sunlit verdure the cattle and peasants of their own country. =Wijnants the Leader of a new School.=--Wijnants was one of the first to take pleasure in his own country. In the environs of Haarlem, his native town, he saw much that would make pictures of charm; so, while other painters were roaming in foreign lands, he took walks in the neighboring meadows and followed the paths that led to the dunes, noticing everything on the way,--the tufts of grass, the shrubs, the moss-covered stones, the trees, the roads, the hillocks, the flowers, and taking note of the reflections of light on the bark of the trees, the lichens growing on the stump of a tree, the common bugloss, burdock, and thistle, and the swarming insects. Wijnants was the first to show that poetry was to be found in the lonely walk that led to the sea. =His Influence on other Artists.=--Nature seems to have been his chief master; but he soon became the master of others. Adriaen van de Velde, for instance, feeling his vocation for landscape, entered his studio in Haarlem. It is said that one day his wife said to him, "Wijnants, this child is your pupil to-day, but one day he will be your master." Instead of being jealous, the painter never ceased to boast of his pupil's talent, and even allowed him to contribute the figures in many of his landscapes,--for Wijnants could paint only earth, trees, and sky. A great number of the figures in Wijnants's pictures, therefore, are the work of Adriaen van de Velde, who always introduces them modestly and in such a way that they render the landscape even more attractive. Philips Wouwermans and Lingelbach also were employed by Wijnants to add figures to his pictures, and a few times Adriaen van Ostade aided him, also Gael, Schellinkx (who painted the dunes very well himself), Jan Wouwermans, Nicholas de Helt Stockade, the painter of battles, and Wyntranck, the clever painter of farmyard animals. =Dutch Landscape-Painters who followed Wijnants.=--Wijnants was, as has been said, one of the creators of the Dutch landscape, one of the first to imitate Nature in her humbler expression, finding beauty in common things. After him came such landscape-artists as Philips Wouwermans, Adriaen van de Velde, Daniel Schellinkx, Isaac Ostade, Karel Dujardin, Paul Potter, and in some respects the great Ruisdael. =Van de Velde's Favorite Subjects.=--Adriaen van de Velde (1635-72) was a painter of animals, figures, interiors (rarely religious and historical subjects). He is worthily represented in The Hague Gallery by two pictures: a Dutch Roadstead and a Landscape with Cattle. Van de Velde is also responsible for the figures in the pictures of Van der Hagen (No. 47), Van der Heyde (No. 53), and Wijnants (No. 212), in this gallery. Bode says: =Impressionism and Naturalism.=--"Adriaen van de Velde is one of the few artists by whom landscape and figures composed in a masterly manner are both felt and thought out harmoniously. He stands so close to our modern impression as does scarcely another of his day, being so simple in his motives and going so straight to nature, that he knows how to reveal the intimate connection between the outside world and our own feeling. A real painter of moods, he excels in awakening in us dark and gloomy feelings; his shadowy forest-glimpses on summer days, with herdsmen reclining beside their panting cattle in obvious rest. His bright mornings with the hunting-parties called together to the halloo, with the gentlemen and nobles promenading on the walks near their equipages, ring fresh and gay in the heart of the spectator; in his homelike evening-feeling with the sound of the returning cattle, he affects us with the feeling of happy departure and well-earned rest." [Illustration: A. VAN DE VELDE A Dutch Roadstead] =His Helpfulness to other Artists.=--The strong feeling in the figures, and, particularly, the lifelike color of the landscape, is so individual that almost all the landscape-painters of his home--Amsterdam--made use of his assistance in peopling their landscapes,--Wijnants, Ruisdael, Hobbema, Hackaert, F. R. de Moucheron, Ph. de Koninck, Verboom, and, above all, Jan van der Heyde, have made excessive use of his services and ability. Even with these artists, who were so foreign to each other in style, the figures that he introduced are so fine that the force of the landscape in both feeling and artistic effect is strengthened in the highest degree; indeed, many of these pictures have attained a higher fame solely through these contributions by the hand of Adriaen van de Velde. =His Skill as a Colorist.=--"The paintings of this artist have an additional attraction in their rich and harmonious coloring, the fineness of the tone, and the peculiar tender manipulation of the pigments, which have such a soothing artistic effect. "Some pictures painted in his last years have suffered by the sinking in and change of color (notably the increase of blue in the green leafage), by which some of their effect has been lost. The Landscape with Cattle has not sunk in; but it has, nevertheless, lost some of its original color in the green of the trees. The idyllic landscape with its joyous, bright sunlight and its peaceful animal life, is a good specimen of this style of Van de Velde's work. The picture is signed 'A. V. Velde, 1663.'"[5] =His Sea Pieces.=--The second picture of this artist in this gallery, A Dutch Strand (1665) with numerous figures, is more important. Two similar views of the seashore by him are at Cassel and in the Six collection; and all these examples show that great and simple representation of the sea, in which he is also remarkable for his fine poetic feeling, equalling that in similar works by his brother Willem. =Wouwermans's Delight in painting Horses.=--Philips Wouwermans's (1619-68) half century of life was industriously spent in producing about eight hundred pictures. Although his preference for the representation of the horse is evident in almost all his works, there is great variety in the treatment. Wouwermans is at the same time a striking landscape-painter. In many of his pictures the landscape is astonishingly often foreign and sometimes even Italian in subject, and the figures are merely lay-figures. The Country Riding-School plainly exhibits the artist's delight in horses. How beautifully painted are the grays on the right! He draws a brown horse so often that it must have been in particular favor. Some of his pictures must certainly have cost the painter a great deal of time, especially when numerous figures occur in them; as, for instance, in his horse-fairs and battle pictures. =The Fruits of his Great Industry.=--It would appear that Wouwermans was well paid, for he was able to give his daughter, who married the flower-painter, De Fromantiou, a handsome dower,--Houbraken says 20,000 gulden! He was buried with pomp in Haarlem, on May 23, 1668, having bequeathed to his widow, who was destined not to survive him two years, a very good estate; and to us such a treasury of his art that we can enjoy it all over the world, in almost every important public and private collection. =The Variety and Abundance of his Works.=--Whether he shows us the horse wildly rearing in the battle or quietly watering at the river, or being trained by an expert hand, or returning home to a well-cared-for stall after a long ride, we always admire again the rich variety of the master, who, an eminent horseman of knowledge and enthusiasm, never wearies us as such. Many of his pictures are a true reproduction of the farm life, or of the warfare of his day; and, on that account, have, moreover, a historical value. Dresden alone possesses sixty-two, and St. Petersburg fifty, of his pictures. The Hague Gallery has to be content with nine. These are a Battle; the Hunt with Falcon; Arrival and Departure from an Inn; A Country House; The Hay-Wagon; the Hunters' Halt, a charming example of his earliest period; A Landscape with Horses; and a Camp. In all these the horse plays an important part. =Description of The Hay-Wagon.=--The Hay-Wagon is a popular work representing a large canal and a large hay-wagon drawn by two horses, and a man on horseback with a woman behind him on a pillion; farther away are seen men loading boats with the hay. In the foreground on the right are a woman with a little boy, a chariot drawn by a horse which is led by a peasant. [Illustration: P. WOUWERMANS The Hay Wain] =The Arrival at an Inn.=--The beautiful Arrival at an Inn represents an inn and a barn. On the one side a coach is arriving, and on the left a mounted lady and cavalier. Others are getting booted and spurred and saddling mettlesome steeds prefatory for departure. In the left foreground, a dwarf, a charlatan, and a monkey, eating a simple meal, regardless of the bustle around them, give a touch of the life of the travelling mountebank. A handsome castle closes the view on the left. [Illustration: P. WOUWERMANS The Arrival at the Inn] =Crowe's Appreciation of Wouwermans.=--"Wouwermans's authentic works are distinguished by great spirit and animation, and are infinitely varied and full of incident, though dealing recurrently with cavalry battle pieces, military encampments, scenes of cavalcades, and hunting and hawking parties. He is equally excellent in his vivacious treatment of figures, in his skilful animal painting, and in his admirable and appropriate introduction of landscape backgrounds. Three different styles have been observed as characteristic of the various periods of his art. His earlier works are marked by the prevalence of a foxy brown coloring, and by a tendency to an angular form in the draughtsmanship; the productions of his middle period have greater purity and brilliancy, and his latest and greatest pictures possess more of force and breadth, and are full of a delicate silvery gray tone."[6] =Reynolds on Wouwermans's Three Different Manners.=--On his visit to the Royal Collection in 1781, Sir Joshua Reynolds was greatly impressed with the pictures of this artist, and said: "Here are many of the best works of Wouwermans whose pictures are well worthy the attention and close examination of a painter. One of the most remarkable of them is known by the name of The Hay-Cart; another, in which there is a coach and horses, is equally excellent. There are three pictures hanging close together in his three different manners: his middle manner is by much the best; the first and last have not that liquid softness which characterizes his best works. Besides his great skill in coloring, his horses are correctly drawn, very spirited, of a beautiful form, and always in unison with their ground. Upon the whole, he is one of the few painters whose excellence in his way is such as leaves nothing to be wished for." Johannes Lingelbach (1623-74), a native of Frankfort-on-the-Main, settled in Amsterdam on his return from Italy. He was frequently employed by Wijnants to insert figures and animals in his landscapes. He was a successful imitator of Wouwermans. =Crowe's Estimate of Lingelbach's Powers.=--"Lingelbach's coloring, as was almost always the case with Wijnants's, and also with Wouwermans's in his latest manner, is characterized by a cool and often delicate silvery tone, which with him sometimes degenerates into coldness and want of harmony. In his flesh, especially, a cold red tone often prevails, added to which, neither in clearness nor impasto, does he equal the above-named masters. He ranks, however, high for skill in composition, good drawing, careful execution, to which is sometimes added a happy vein of humor. He may be studied under all his different aspects in the galleries of the Louvre, The Hague, and Amsterdam. Of the four pictures by him in the gallery of The Hague, the Italian Seaport, dated 1670, is remarkable for a power and warmth quite unusual in this painter."[7] =Examples showing the Variety of Lingelbach's Style.=--The variety of his style is well exhibited in The Hague Gallery by four pictures of different dates. These are the Italian Seaport, with large figures, signed and dated 1670; the Departure of Charles II. from Scheveningen for England in 1660, a very rich, luminous, and fine work; a small Cavalry March, in which the little figures are beautifully executed and are thoroughly original; and a Landscape with a Hay-Wagon, much in the manner of Philips Wouwermans. =Weakness of the Mauritshuis in Marines.=--The Mauritshuis is weak in marines: two by Willem van de Velde; three by Backhuysen, two by Abraham Storck, a view of the Amstel at Amsterdam by Torenburg (1737-86), a few Italian Seaports, and a few Beaches at Scheveningen painted by the landscape artists are all that the gallery owns. =Excellence of W. van de Velde's Marines.=--Willem van de Velde (1633-1707) stands very high in the ranks of the marine painters of the seventeenth century. In the last years of that century we have artists like Simon de Vlieger, Jan van de Capelle, Hendrik Dubbels, and Abraham van Beyerex (in his rare marines); but Van de Velde is a master in his sphere, especially when he represents the calm sea under bright sunlight. In his View on the Y we obtain enjoyment from the fine aërial perspective, the correct drawing of the ships, and the numerous little figures. The accuracy of the detail does not detract from the wonderful composition, the play of the sunlight on sail and water, and the beautiful sky, lightly flecked with clouds. Probably, the gaily decorated ship on the left is the yacht of the Princes of Orange; the boat which is being rowed away from it is bringing important visitors to shore, while the trumpeter on the ship loudly announces their departure. Although not of the very first rank, this picture belongs to the best work of the master's middle period. The other picture, of exactly the same size, is also identical in subject and treatment. Both are small. The other picture owned in the Mauritshuis is the Capture of the Royal Prince (June 18, 1666). =His Greatness as a Marine Painter.=--"There is no question that Willem van de Velde the younger is the greatest marine painter of the whole Dutch school. His untiring study of nature of which his numerous sepia drawings are the best evidence, his perfect knowledge of lineal and aërial perspective and the incomparable technical process which he inherited from his school,--all these qualifications enabled him to represent the great element under every form, whether that of the raging storm, the gentlest crisping wind, or of the profoundest calm, with the utmost truth of form and color. Nor are his skies, with their transparent ether and light and airy clouds, less entitled to admiration than his seas; the surface of which he diversified, with the purest feeling for the picturesque, by various vessels, near and distant, which are drawn with a knowledge that extends to every rope. Finally his various lightnings create the most charming effect of light and shade. With this combination of qualities, so calculated to please a seafaring nation, it is no wonder that he should have become the most popular painter with the Dutch and English."[8] =The Fulness of his Knowledge of the Sea and Ships.=--Both England and Holland, the two greatest sea nations, agree that Willem van de Velde was the greatest marine painter up to his time. In fact, no one had so well observed the motion of the waters, their breaking, or their repose; and no one knew so well the habits of sailors, the rigging of boats, their behavior and their variety. He knew how to make them picturesque, whether isolated between the sky and the water in the most beautiful lines, or in cleverly foreshortening them while they gently rock on the waves singly, or in picturesque groups. Nobody has better understood the profound calm of the ocean, or better expressed the emotion produced by an infinite horizon. =The Van de Velde Family.=--The family was talented. Willem the Elder, born at Leyden in 1611, was a magnificent draughtsman, and taught his sons, Willem and Adriaen, drawing. Willem, however, became a pupil of Simon de Vlieger, and the pictures that he sent to his father, then in the service of the English king, astonished the Court. James II. sent for the young man and offered him a pension. In England he frequently colored his father's drawings; and on the Thames from Greenwich to London he had a great opportunity for the study of shipping. =The Simplicity of W. van de Velde's Pictures.=--With very simple details, Willem van de Velde produces marvellous effects. He paints the ocean from the shore to the distant horizon; and this straight line is in beautiful contrast to the rounded clouds, while the severity of the tall masts is relieved by the curves of the puffing sails. Sometimes a group of fishermen on the beach or the end of a wharf of piles is seen in the foreground; but he more frequently begins his picture in the middle distance and gives the foreground up to waves slightly agitated or with a buoy tossing in the rising tide, in such a way as to suggest that the picture was painted not from the shore but from a vessel at anchor. =W. van de Velde compared with other Painters.=--Sir Joshua Reynolds said: "Another Raphael might be born; but there could never be a second Willem van de Velde"; and Havard calls him "not only the greatest marine painter of the Dutch school, but also one of the greatest in the whole world." Blanc draws the following distinction between Van de Velde and Backhuysen: "Backhuysen makes us fear the sea, whilst Van de Velde makes us love it." =Backhuysen, a Painter of Ships and Shipping.=--Backhuysen (1631-1708) probably owed his darker moods to his master Allart van Everdingen, who was a pupil of Pieter Molijn (1600-54), whose works are now so rare, and who was also one of the founders of Dutch landscape-painting. Backhuysen was a painter of ships and shipping, as well as of the sea, and had a practical knowledge of nautical matters. =Examples showing his Style.=--Three pictures in The Hague Gallery afford good examples for study of his style. One, Entrance to a Dutch Port, dated 1693, shows an agitated sea, very remarkable for the happy distribution of sunlight and shadows of clouds upon the water, and broad yet delicate treatment; another is a View of the Wharf Belonging to the Dutch East India Company, and is dated 1696; and the third has for its subject The Landing of William III. of England in the Oranje Polder in 1692. =Imitators of Backhuysen.=--Pictures by Jan van de Capelle and Jan Dubbels often pass for Backhuysen's; and another imitator is Abraham Storck, who is greatly inferior in elegance of touch. Good examples of Storck's style--a Marine and a Shore--hang in The Hague Gallery. Storck was much influenced by Lingelbach. The latter was also quite successful with his harbors and quays, with their shipping and human figures. =Simon de Vlieger as a Painter of the Ocean.=--A greater painter, however, is Simon de Vlieger (1601-59), who is supposed to have studied under Jan van Goyen, and painted landscapes in the style of that master; he is famous for his marines. He frequently painted sea pieces which included the coast. He was the first to represent the ocean in its varying moods. His execution is free and soft, and his aërial perspective very fine. Like the majority of the Dutch painters he loved to paint Scheveningen. His Beach at Scheveningen, signed and dated 1643, is a fine example of his work. =The Diversity of his Subjects.=--"De Vlieger often paints birds of the farmyard, which, both in truth and delicacy, are equal to anything produced either by Hondecoeter or Flamen. His horses, hares, and sheep may certainly pair with those of Van der Hecke, Jouckeer, or Jean Leducq; his pigs are observed differently from those of Karel Dujardin, but perhaps they are more true to nature because he has not put any malice or irony into his representation of them. The diversity of his subjects, the talent he displays in grouping figures and animals in an extensive landscape, or in a boat passing along a canal, or on the beach of Scheveningen where, in The Hague picture, we see them huddling together as if the ocean had just cast them ashore with its shells and fishes; the art of lighting them so as to delight the eyes without too greatly distracting the mind from the spectacle of vast nature and the infinite ocean--all that makes Simon de Vlieger one of the most remarkable Dutch masters."[9] De Vlieger was as eminent in interiors, ruins, and processions as in marines and landscapes. He loved to frame familiar and rustic scenes in beautiful landscapes; and he had no need to call upon others, such as Barent Gael, Schellinkx or Van de Velde, for his figures, as so many of his contemporaries did. =Painters of Architectural Pictures: De Vries.=--Pictures in which architecture forms the chief interest had their beginning with Jan Vriedeman de Vries, who devoted himself to the study of Vitruvius and Serlio. His works were very successful, though in the mannered taste of his time. =Hendrik van Steenwyck and his Son.=--A scholar of his, Hendrik van Steenwyck (1550-1604), who became a master in Antwerp in 1577, painted chiefly interiors of Gothic churches of fine perspective, both lineal and aërial, and was the first to represent the light of torches and tapers on architectural forms. One of the very numerous Francken family usually added the human figures. His son Hendrik van Steenwyck was his pupil and follower, though he painted in a cooler tone and was inferior in all respects. =Pieter Neeffs and his Son.=--Pieter Neeffs (1620-75), however, was the elder Steenwyck's best pupil. He followed him in style but excelled him in warmth of tone, power, and truthfulness in expressing torchlight effects. Many of his pictures contain figures by Frans Francken the younger, Jan Breughel, and David Teniers the elder. In the Mauritshuis we find a good example of Pieter Neeffs,--The Interior of a Church, with figures by Frans Francken III. His son of the same name was his pupil and follower, but produced pictures of inferior merit. To this group belongs Bartholomew van Bassen, who painted interiors of the Renaissance churches and halls. =Van der Heyden's Architectural Paintings.=--Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) is "the Gerrit Dou of architectural painters." His subjects chiefly are well-known buildings, palaces, churches, etc., in Holland and Belgium, canals in Dutch towns with houses on their banks, fine perspective, the views selected with great taste. The trees are rather minute in foliage. The figures in many of his works were supplied by A. van de Velde, and after his death by Eglon van der Neer and Lingelbach. A View of the Church of the Jesuits at Düsseldorf, signed and dated 1667, is a valuable work. The figures are by A. van de Velde. "The warm, clear chiaroscuro in which the whole foreground is kept is admirable, while the sunlight falling on the middle distance has a peculiar charm."[10] He is also represented in The Hague Gallery by a still life. =Other Architectural Painters.=--Other architectural painters are Gerrit Berckheyde, who painted exteriors of buildings in his own country, and occasionally interiors of churches; Jacob van der Ulft (1627-90), whose large picture in the Mauritshuis of troops marching has already been mentioned; Pieter Saenredam, whose works form a transition from the earliest architectural painters like Pieter Neeffs to the maturest expression of this class; Dirck van Deelen, a pupil of Frans Hals, who has a view of the Binnenhof with the last great Meeting of the States General; Emanuel de Witte, who, strange to say, was a pupil of Evert van Aelst, the painter of dead game and still life; Hendrik van Vliet, pupil of his father, Willem, who has an interior of part of the Old Church at Delft in the Mauritshuis, of peculiar warmth, brilliancy of effect, and delicate treatment of reflected lights; and last of all, Gerard Houckgeest (?-1655), who is represented by the Interior of the New Church at Delft and Tomb of William I. in the New Church at Delft. =The Excellence of Houckgeest's two Paintings.=--"This almost unknown artist is a new proof of the astonishing efflorescence of excellent painters in Holland about the middle of the seventeenth century. Two views of the Interior of the New Church at Delft, in The Hague Museum, are on a level with the highest development of the school. It would be difficult to render the brilliancy and transparency of full sunlight more completely than in the one which contains the monuments of the Princes of the House of Orange. The other picture also, inscribed with the master's monogram, and 1631, is in every respect, and especially in the soft and full treatment, of the utmost excellence."[11] =Dou, Founder of the Leyden School.=--The founder of the Leyden school of painters, Gerrit Dou (1613-75), is represented in the Mauritshuis by a masterpiece of the first rank, which is considered one of the gems of the gallery. It is known as The Good Housekeeper, The Household, and The Young Mother. =Description of The Good Housekeeper.=--In a large room that serves as hall, dining-room, and sitting-room, as well as kitchen, is seated a lady, handsomely dressed in a morning costume. She has evidently just returned from market; for there is a plucked fowl in a basket on the window seat and an unplucked bird on the table, where a cabbage also lies. A hare hangs on the wall above, and below the table one notes a fish on a platter, and near a pot a bunch of carrots. A lantern has fallen on the floor in the foreground. The lady is sewing, with a basket beside her and a sewing-pillow on her knee; while a little servant watches the baby in its basket cradle. The pillar that supports the roof is carved, the brass chandelier is of splendid design, the draperies are heavy, and a coat-of-arms is painted on the windows. Everything betokens wealth and comfort. The young mother looks at us in a very friendly way with her attractive little face. Our attention is first attracted to the group in the foreground; but gradually we admire the complete representation of all the little things around; the wonderful, finely expressed chiaroscuro, the beautiful stream of light, and the boldness of the shadowed yet plainly visible group in the background. The picture belongs to the artist's middle period and is dated 1658; and although it has darkened, it is still full of rich color. [Illustration: GERRIT DOU The Good Housekeeper] =The Good Housekeeper presented to Charles II.=--When Charles II. left Holland for his Restoration in England, the directors of the East India Company could think of no finer present to offer him than a picture by Gerrit Dou, which they bought for 4,000 florins from M. de Bie. It was this very picture of The Good Housekeeper, which was afterwards brought back to Holland by William III. and hung in his castle at Loo. =Dou's Style imitated by his Pupils.=--It is by such pictures that we test the numerous works of his pupils, which are now, and have been from the end of the seventeenth century, offered for sale as Dou's. Very early in life Dou made use of magnifying glasses, and with great care he ground his own colors. Sandart relates that he once went with Pieter de Laer to pay a visit to Dou, who was painting a broomstick "which was slightly longer than a finger-nail." When Sandart praised his great industry, he answered that he "had to work about three days longer on it." =His Devotedness to his Work.=--When the weather was not fine, he stopped his work. He devoted his whole life to work. His palette, colors, and brushes he carefully protected from dust, which gave him much trouble; he put them away with the utmost care, and when he sat down to paint he would wait a long time until the dust had entirely settled. His studio was a large one with high lights, facing the north and looking out on the still waters of the canal. =His Fondness for Domestic Subjects.=--He almost always depicts a view of the interior of a burgher's dwelling. He is the painter of nice, quiet domesticity, and his people almost invariably look gay and happy. When he attempts to portray strong emotions, his people do not look as if they felt them; even his Dropsical Woman in the Louvre is dying peacefully and with resignation. Dou was an excellent observer of all surroundings, and the slightest objects in his pictures are represented with the utmost completeness. Dou could readily please, and form a school, in a Northern and Protestant country, where people lead an indoor life, a silent, concentrated family life, where man is attached to his dwelling, adorns it with care, and closes it in, with the feeling of a sanctuary. In fact, Dou painted only familiar subjects on canvases or panels of small size, such as are suited to the small cabinet of a _curieux_, and he was one of the first to set in honor the most _recherché_ style of painting in Holland,--that of little pictures executed in that precious manner which the French of the eighteenth century called the _beau fini_. =Dou and Rembrandt contrasted.=--Dou differed greatly from his master, Rembrandt. The one had the fire of genius; the other had patience. Even when Rembrandt highly finished his pictures, he knew when to neglect some accessory, to sacrifice some detail to the expression of the essential parts, and thus to give full value to everything in the picture that could appeal to the heart or interest the mind. Dou, on the contrary, applying himself to what he considered the last word of painting, tried to give equal importance to everything that entered into his composition, without admitting any of those negligences that are often such happy artifices, and taking as much care in the finish of a pewter pot as in expressing the feeling in a woman's features, or the thought in a man's physiognomy. Therefore, Dou's natural tendency, instead of being modified by Rembrandt, became only more pronounced. As his master broadened, his manner grew more smooth and polished. =The Fruit of Dou's Precautions.=--His care in making his own brushes, colors, and varnishes, and his precautions to keep his wet canvases free from dust (he chose a studio overlooking stagnant water) have been rewarded by the present condition of admirable preservation of his pictures. His minuteness wearied his sitters and he soon failed as a portrait-painter. It is related that he made a distinguished Dutch lady, Madame Spiering, pose five days for her hand alone. =He forsakes Portraits for Scenes in Common Life.=--As his sitters left him one after another, Dou devoted himself entirely to represent the scenes of common life without giving himself any trouble in selection, being sure that in them he would find opportunities to display his veritable genius, that of detail. He was content to take what first offered as a subject, and the circle of his invention did not go beyond that. He simply observed life in the neighboring shops: the pepper-seller, when she is dangling the scales with the tips of her fingers; the marketwoman verifying the transparence of her eggs by the light of a candle, and the mysterious interior of the barber-surgeon. If he sees in the street a servant coming home from market loaded with vegetables, counting what she has spent and what she is going to steal from the change, there is a picture already made. In the public square he stops to study the faces of the simple dupes gathered around a charlatan vaunting his elixir, teaching the practice of love-philtres, and drawing teeth painlessly. His artist's eye finds motives readily at hand; sometimes in the room of the embroiderer, absorbed in her needlework; sometimes in the juvenile schoolroom, where the martinet overawes his frolicsome pupils. He also delights in representing the joys of the domestic hearth, that ever simple and ever charming picture of the _mater familias_ busy with household cares, while the children are rolling about on the floor at their grandmother's feet. Finally, he sometimes goes so far as to be malicious and to complicate the picturesque accidents of a winding staircase which a woman descends softly to surprise her husband in the kitchen with the servant. The simplicity of trivialities Dou made the subject of the finest and most precious pictures in the world. The Herring Seller is as finely and minutely painted as The Philosopher in Meditation. =He preferred Interiors to Open-Air Scenes.=--Dou seldom painted open-air pictures. Interior light suited him better; and moreover he had learned chiaroscuro from Rembrandt. However, one of his most famous pictures, The Charlatan (in the Old Pinakothek, Munich), is an exception. "Upon the whole, the single figure of the Woman Holding a Hare, in Mr. Hope's collection, is worth more than this large picture, in which perhaps there is ten times the quantity of work."[12] =His Foreground in Many Cases bordered by a Window.=--His small pictures of one or two figures were usually framed by a window. He has often painted his own portrait thus, sometimes holding a trumpet, and sometimes playing a violin. Having once found this natural border, the painter framed all his models with it. To-day we see the girl with beautiful blond hair blowing soap bubbles and smilingly watching the prismatic globes rise in the air; to-morrow, the pretty girl who is not sorry to have on her window-sill more than one pretext for showing herself,--the canary-cage, hanging outside; a letter to read; a pot of geraniums to water, and what not. And this fresh face, which has for a background the transparent shadow of a room wherein a group of people are conversing, comes forward to be gracefully framed by the vine that runs along the sash, and with its contours relieves the cold regularity of the architecture. It is certain that this patient imitator of nature must have been very industrious, if we may judge from the number of his pictures and the time he devoted to each. His pupil, Karel de Moor, says so. The pronounced liking of his countrymen for his pictures left him no repose. =The Best Example of his Candle-light Scenes.=--He frequently painted by the aid of a concave mirror, and to obtain exactness, looked at his subject through a frame crossed with squares of silk thread. The Evening School, in the Amsterdam Gallery, is the best example of the candle-light scenes in which he excelled. President van Spiering of The Hague paid him 1,000 florins a year simply for the right of preëmption. =Godfried Schalcken, Pupil and Imitator of Dou.=--The other picture credited to Dou, A Young Woman Holding a Lamp in her Hand, and which was so greatly admired by Sir Joshua Reynolds, is thought to be by Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706). Those who are curious on this question may turn to a picture by Schalcken called a Lady at her Toilette, by candle-light, an effect which he was so fond of painting. =His Device for securing Candle-light Effects.=--Schalcken was a pupil of Dou, under whom he acquired delicacy of finish and skill in the treatment of light and shade. He gained a reputation for his small domestic scenes, chiefly with candle-light effects; and, to treat these accurately, he is said to have placed the object he intended to paint in a dark room with a lighted candle and peeping through a small hole painted by daylight the effects he saw. A pupil of Samuel van Hoogstraaten and Gerrit Dou (who were pupils of Rembrandt), he became an imitator of the latter, following him in his depth of tone, extreme finish, and preference for night scenes. =Schalcken's Weakness in Drawing.=--Blanc says he was aware of his weakness in drawing, particularly the extremities of the human body, and this was one reason he liked partly to conceal his subjects in shadows and half-lights. His master, Dou, had made a sensation with his Evening School (in the Rijks) in which the effect of candle-light is treated with such skill; but what was a caprice with Dou, Schalcken made a habit. His pictures are a series of fantastic scenes and illusions. This painter saw the night only; his pictures whether mythological, historical, religious, or commonplace scenes, are always nocturnal ones. Blanc says: "His brush was a permanent candle." =His Great Popularity.=--Schalcken, however, attained an enormous vogue, and many of the wealthy Dutch had their portraits painted by him, pleased with the mysterious or piquant light he threw upon them. He went to London, where he painted William III. with a candle in his hand. This is now in the Rijks. Schalcken found Kneller too strong a rival, and returned to Holland, having, however, acquired a good deal of money. The Mauritshuis also contains four others of his pictures: a Portrait of William III., King of England; _La morale inutile_; A Visit to the Doctor; and a Venus. =The Best Examples of Ostade's Work.=--Among the best recognized examples of Ostade's work are: The Fiddler and his Audience (1673) and Peasants in an Inn (1662), in The Hague; The Village School (1662), in the Louvre; the Tavern Courtyard (1670), at Cassel; and The Sportsman's Rest (1671), at Amsterdam. =Description of The Fiddler.=--One of the gems of The Hague Gallery is The Fiddler by Adriaen van Ostade (1610-85). The old dilapidated inn with its broken casement window is picturesque because of the graceful festoons of vine-leaves that grow above the roof and penthouse. A wandering fiddler is playing to the innkeeper and his wife, who lean over the door, while five children and a dog are variously grouped. A young man with a large tankard in his hand also enjoys the music in his lazy position. [Illustration: A. VAN OSTADE The Fiddler] =Description of Peasants in an Inn.=--"Peasants in an Inn was painted in 1662; but it exhibits all the qualities of Ostade's best work. The figures are drawn true to life. Very charming is the poodle gazing with great interest at the child, who is eating his bread and butter. By allowing the full daylight to fall from the left through the door while the background is lighted by a high window, Ostade gives himself every opportunity to express his chiaroscuro as beautifully as he desires. The little pot on the tree-trunk and all the other still life of this picture forcibly remind us that Ostade was an unusually great master in this field. His small pictures of still life, principally representing pots and other kitchen stuff, are pearls of the first water; but they are somewhat rare. The coloring of this picture is warm, but it melts into cool tones, which we find still more strongly in The Organ Grinder of the same gallery, which was painted eleven years later."[13] The Demand in Marriage, painted between 1650 and 1655, also hangs in the Mauritshuis. This picture is owned by Dr. A. Bredius. =Ostade's Pictures Generally taken from Low Life.=--The number of Ostade's pictures as given by Smith is 385; but it is thought that he painted even more. About 220 pictures have been traced in public and private collections. Adriaen Ostade was the contemporary of David Teniers and Adriaen Brouwer, and, like them, chiefly devoted himself to painting rustic and village life, tavern and gambling scenes, brawls and open-air games. Smokers, drinkers, fish-wives, quacks, strolling musicians, itinerant players, wood-cutters, children at play, alehouse-keepers and their wives, all find sympathetic treatment. Like Brouwer, Ostade wandered about the towns and country, finding his models in the taverns and cottages. =Increase in the Value of his Pictures.=--He painted with equal vigor at all times; and so highly appreciated is he that pictures worth little in his day now bring large sums. For instance, in 1876 Earl Dudley paid £4,120 for a cottage interior. According to Houbraken, Ostade was a pupil of Frans Hals, while he was also teaching Brouwer. =Crowe's Opinion of Ostade's Style.=--"There is less of the style of Hals in Adriaen Ostade than in Brouwer, but a great likeness to Brouwer in Ostade's early works. During the first years of his career, Ostade displayed the same tendency to exaggeration and frolic as his comrade. He had humor and boisterous spirits, but he is to be distinguished from his rival by a more general use of the principles of light and shade, and especially by a greater concentration of light on a small surface in contrast with a broad expanse of gloom. The key of his harmonies remains for a time in the scale of grays. But his treatment is dry and careful, and in this style he shuns no difficulties of detail, representing cottages inside and out, with the vine leaves covering the poorness of the outer side, and nothing inside to deck the patch-work of rafters and thatch, or tumble-down chimneys and ladder staircases, that make up the sordid interior of the Dutch rustic of those days. His men and women, attuned to these needy surroundings, are invariably dressed in the poorest clothes. The hard life and privations of the race are impressed on their shapes and faces, their shoes and hats, worn at heel and battered to softness, as if they had descended from generation to generation, so that the boy of ten seems to wear the cast-off things of his sire and grandsire. It was not easy to get poetry out of such materials. But the greatness of Ostade lies in the fact that he often caught the poetic side of the life of the peasant class, in spite of its ugliness and stunted form and misshapen features. He did so by giving their vulgar sports, their quarrels, even their quieter moods of enjoyment, the magic light of the sungleam, and by clothing the wreck of cottages with gay vegetation."[14] =Ostade the Greatest Dutch Painter of Peasant Life in his Day.=--Adriaen van Ostade is rightly regarded as the greatest of the Dutch painters of the seventeenth century who represented the peasant life of that day. In song and dance, weddings and _kermesses_, at bowling, love-making, and drinking, Ostade always was an observer of country folk, although he himself was a townsman, and held a rather exalted position in the world. His second wife seems to have raised him into a very high social class of Amsterdam families, as numerous records of executions of wills, which the painter must have signed in Amsterdam, inform us. To some extent, his peasants involuntarily progress parallel with the force of his own life. In his earliest pictures, when Ostade was still a modest artist, his peasants are also still quite peasant-like; in his tavern-scenes things are still very lively. Later, when the painter became closely related to refined and well-to-do patricians, his peasants also became more prosperous and polite; in a word, more decorous. Unfortunately, his painting also became somewhat more polished and smooth, so that the early pictures, and particularly those of the middle period, more strongly delight the heart of an artist than the cool, smooth works of the later period. Ostade is eminent in his coloring, chiaroscuro, and composition: he knows how to arrange his groups in the most spontaneous and natural manner; and truly artistic is his method of illumination, for which, knowingly or unknowingly, he has to thank Rembrandt. In his earliest pictures, which have a somewhat cold tone grading into gray, reminding us of his teacher Hals (from 1631 to 1640), there still remains some local color. The subjects, mostly peasants in poor homes or in the tavern, are energetically conceived. Bode rightly says: "Instead of the pleasant humor and the poetry of the prosperous middle class which are common to the later pictures, these earlier works display an effort for characterizing according to life and movement; a keen humor in the spirit of Hals and Brouwer; and, particularly, a characteristic inquiry into the separate individualities, such as the lifelike representation of an expressive scene, the feasting, round dances, and fighting of his jovial peasant folk." =Bredius on the increasing Brightness of his Pictures.=--"He died in 1685. Before 1640 his chiaroscuro was already finer, and between 1640 and 1655 (his flowering-time) many of his pictures show no traces of Rembrandt's influence. The tone of his works was quite different and approaches a warm brown; the chiaroscuro, as, for instance, in his well-known Painter's Studio in Amsterdam; and later, very closely repeated (Dresden, 1663), attains the highest degree of freedom; then his pictures become somewhat slowly cooler, the tone gets constantly grayer, but the drawing always remains strikingly correct, the grouping natural, and the pictures become brighter, smoother, and more polished. In the meantime Ostade had become a finer, more respectable gentleman. Well on in years, he could leave this life without worry, and was buried at Haarlem by his admirers and pupils on May 2, 1685." =Ter Borch's Freedom from Grossness.=--Ter Borch (1617-81) is excellent as a portrait-painter, but still greater as a painter of _genre_ subjects. He depicts with admirable truth the life of the wealthy and cultured classes of his time, and his work is free from any touch of the grossness which finds so large a place in Dutch art. His figures are well drawn and expressive in attitude; his coloring is clear and rich, but his best skill lies in his unequalled rendering of textiles in draperies. =The Elegance of his Sitters.=--Ter Borch was not only an excellent painter of Conversations, he was, indeed, the creator of his _genre_. With a little less wit and a little less taste, perhaps, than Metsu, he charms you with his family concerts, his _tête-à-tête_ lovers, his light afternoon repasts, and in selecting for heroes the most elegant cavaliers of the world in which he lived. His pretty pages with great puffed sleeves striped with velvet, and those blond ladies with transparent complexions, plump hands, and round waists, constitute a type that no artist has so well represented as Ter Borch. Before depicting these delightful and familiar scenes, he first learned to imitate all that could add to the charm of these pictures of private life,--silken draperies, Turkish rugs, leather, ermine, velvet, and satin,--more particularly satin, and _white_ satin above all else. The most striking example we shall see at the Rijks, in the picture called Paternal Advice, known also as the _Robe de Satin_. =Resemblance between his Paintings and those of Metsu.=--There is so much resemblance between Gerard Ter Borch (or Terburg) and Metsu that at first it is hard to distinguish them. Their subjects are much the same; for instead of painting scenes of low life--inns with carousing peasants, etc.--both turn with sympathy to high life; _sujets de mode_ is the name given to their works in which satins, velvets, silks, and lace, rich robes and mantles, elegant hangings, and table-carpets figure so largely. =The Difference between Ter Borch and Metsu.=--The difference between Ter Borch and Metsu is defined by Blanc, who says it is the difference between _bonhomie_ and _finesse_; the one is naive and gracious, the other ingenious and piquant. Both, however, are charming in the way they introduce us into a house and show us some little comedy that is being played by the unconscious lovers, family group, or party of friends. Like Metsu, Ter Borch is particularly fond of making music a motive of his pictures. A timid love often expresses itself to the notes of a mandolin or lute; sometimes we surprise a musical party singing and playing instruments; a lady composing music or trying a new piece for the first time, while her gallant and richly dressed lover stands by her side. Sometimes we see a young lady quite alone in jacket of puce-colored velvet plucking her lute, which rests on her satin skirt. Sometimes again the conversation takes place in front of a clavecin, where the lady's hands are painted in correct position, though she pauses to hear what her lover has to say, while her spaniel sleeps on the foot-warmer. =Ter Borch's Conversations characterized.=--"Pretty little dramas," Blanc calls these Conversations of Ter Borch, "dramas without action or noise, which excite the thought only, and whose intrigue consists only in a clasp of the hand, the lowering of an eyelid, or the exchange of a glance and a smile." He also calls attention to the type of woman represented by Ter Borch, Van Mieris, and Metsu, all of whom have high foreheads on which a few little curls wander, like those made fashionable at this period by Ninon de Lenclos, and known as "_boucles à la Ninon_." =The Women of Ter Borch's Pictures.=--The women of Ter Borch's pictures are like Rousseau's pen-portrait of Madame de Warens, who "had an air caressing and tender, a very gentle glance, ash-colored hair of uncommon beauty, which she arranged in a very _négligé_ style that produced a piquant effect. She was small and a little thick in the waist; but it would be impossible to find a more beautiful head or a lovelier bust, hands, and arms." Dr. Bredius, who calls attention to Ter Borch's position in the hall of fame as singular in the fact that he has never been assailed by critics, nor, on the other hand, sufficiently appreciated, says: "Without striking originality, without any commanding dramatic quality, without humor, and without any startling light effects, Ter Borch is yet entitled to the name of the first _genre_ painter of Holland,--indeed, of all schools,--merely by his perfect talent and fulfilment as an artist. Rightly is Ter Borch called the most eminent painter of the Dutch school. Not only does he paint high society almost exclusively, but he does it in a distinguished style. The pose of his figures, the composition of his picture, the fine color, the admirable drawing, all breathe an elegance which is not met with elsewhere in the Dutch school. Thereby, he is the one and only master of his subject. What he paints is always completed to the highest degree. We never find in him a trace of effort. What he does must be so and not otherwise. We look for humor in him in vain; but nobility we always find, and not least in his likenesses, which, notwithstanding their small dimensions, are 'the last word of a portrait.'" [Illustration: TER BORCH The Despatch] =Description of The Despatch.=--The Despatch, dated 1655, belongs to his second period. On a low chair beside a table on which stand a decanter and beaker, an officer is sitting with his wife or sweetheart. She is sitting on the floor reclining against his knee. Both are young. He holds the despatch in his hand and she looks somewhat distressed. In front of them stands the trumpeter, who, it appears, has brought the message. The officer is fully dressed, and on the table beside him lie his weapons. =His own Likeness, painted by Himself.=--The other picture of Ter Borch's in this gallery is his own likeness, painted by himself about 1660. He is dressed entirely in black and stands out strongly against a gray background. He wears a large wig, the curls of which shade his rather melancholy face, distinguished by a long nose and grayish moustache. It was probably painted while Ter Borch was a burgomaster of Deventer. =Caspar Netscher's Family Group.=--Much in the same style as Ter Borch's Conversations is Netscher's Family Group. Caspar Netscher (1639-84) was a pupil of Ter Borch, and this is one of the best works of his best period. The painter, in a red slashed jacket, is accompanying on his lute his daughter, who is singing, and whose timidity is well expressed. She wears a dress of white satin and has feathers in her hair. On the other side of the table covered with a Persian carpet, and in the half light, sits Netscher's wife. On the back of the arm-chair in which Netscher is sitting is his signature and the date 1665. Netscher is also represented by two portraits--Mr. and Mrs. Van Waalwijk. =Few Examples of Metsu.=--Metsu, like many other Dutch masters, is poorly represented in the great public galleries of his own country. While The Hague Gallery has but three and the Rijks only four, the Louvre, for example, has eight and Dresden six. Those who have seen pictures by Metsu (1630-67), Ter Borch, or Caspar Netscher, will have a better knowledge of the customs and costumes of the upper classes at the period of the Stadtholders, their faces, their polished manners, their interiors, and even their thoughts, than if they had read many books of travel, whole volumes of geography, description, and history. =The Rich Dutchman as painted by Metsu.=--As he appears in the pictures of Gabriel Metsu, the rich Dutchman is domesticated, methodical, and well regulated in his life. His house is the universe for him. In this cherished and well-arranged abode, he concentrates as many joys as the ancient kings of Asia assembled in the palaces of Susa or Ecbatana. His country's and his own ships have "ploughed the sea from end to end, penetrating to Japan for porcelain and amber, and bringing back from Goa pepper and ginger." From the ends of the earth have come to him all things that could charm his family life and distract the melancholy that the sad nature of the North and its long winters inspire. Asia has sent to him her muslins, spices, and diamonds; the polar ice has furnished him with the furs that edge the velvet robes which his wife and his eldest daughter wear indoors. The birds, insects, shells, and mineral specimens of the most distant climes fill his cabinet, carefully arranged under glass. In his gardens flourish rare plants, the choicest flowers and bulbs cultivated by himself or under his own eyes. His furniture, of exquisite taste and workmanship, carefully looked after and incessantly cleaned, does not suffer by the changes of fashion; it is transmitted from father to son, and lasts for generations. His alcove bed is supported by ebony columns and closed in with green damask curtains. Hanging from the ceiling, a candelabrum of gilt bronze spreads its branches twisted into elegant volutes. The floors are waxed till they are a pleasure to the eye, the windows are polished, the door-knob is shining, the furniture gleams like a mirror, and yet the daylight falling through lightly tinted taffeta curtains sheds over all these objects only a soft, moderate, and harmonious radiance. =How Metsu depicts the Manners of the Dutch.=--"The manners of Holland, as well as its material physiognomy in civil life, its interiors, its furniture, the decoration and luxury of its apartments, are all written down in Metsu's pictures with charming clearness, which is all the more pleasing since this merit seems to be involuntary in the painter. After two hundred years, his work may serve for the complete reconstitution of a well-to-do interior as it was composed in the seventeenth century by the climate of the country, the character of its inhabitants, and the historic circumstances in the midst of which the Dutch merchants, the masters of the commerce of the world, then lived. "By Metsu's favor we are able to penetrate into those interiors which are so jealously closed to strangers. Most often it is by a window that serves as a frame for his picture that Metsu gives us access to the boudoirs of fashionable ladies, and makes us take them by surprise, sometimes in velvet _déshabille_ writing their secrets; sometimes finishing their toilette in view of a hoped-for visit; and sometimes breathing over the keys of their clavecin the sighs of their hearts and the thoughts they do not express." =His Carefulness in selecting Details.=--"Metsu rarely paints an interior without introducing the pet spaniel of the period, which often contributes much to our comprehension of the scene by the character of its attitude. "There are some Dutch masters who unintelligently accumulate innumerable details everywhere. They make a picture of manners the pretext for a ridiculous display of furniture, crystal, lustres, _chinoisarie_ and curiosities of every kind; their interiors resemble bazaars. Metsu puts beside his subjects only those details necessary to make the intrigue clear, and to explain the conversation. =His Treatment of Still Life.=--"However great may have been his talent for painting still life, he never allowed himself to be carried away, like so many others, by that vulgar pleasure; but, on the other hand, what finish! what a precious touch! And then how he loves to give full value to the beauties of local color, or to shade a Turkey carpet, or to grade down the lights on gold and silver vases. What pleasure he takes in the Bohemian glasses and the transparent liquors that half fill them! The glasses in his pictures have great importance, for the life of a retired Dutchman is spent in continual smoking and drinking; but in Metsu we no longer see the Pantagruelesque glasses of several stages that Van Ostade's peasants always have in their hands; these are fine and more discrete glasses, of elegant form, tall and oblong glasses in which the Haarlem beer froths; glasses cut and fashioned in twenty different ways, octagon glasses each facet of which ends with a curve and which cut the light with their sharp edges, or glasses the calyx of which forms a reversed cone on a heron's claw, or elongates into a swan's neck, and finishes like a trumpet; lastly, the glasses of the grandparents, sometimes of an imperishable thickness and solidity, sometimes as delicate, light, and thin as an onion skin."[15] =Favorite Subjects.=--Metsu is fond of representing the patricians of his day and their womankind either in pleasant entertainment, or, more frequently, in individual figures engaged in quiet work. A picture of this class is The Amateur Musicians. The lady on the left is very quietly playing her instrument with the same sense of repose that is expressed by the lady who seems to be writing down the notes. Only on the face of the elegant gentleman standing behind her chair is painted a merry, almost roguish, smile. [Illustration: METSU The Amateur Musicians] =The Elegance of Metsu's Figures.=--The figures are drawn with certainty; the artistic handling of the subject is remarkable; and a fine feeling for color is shown in the selection of the tones. In Metsu's figures we notice an elegance and a nobility which are not found elsewhere except in Ter Borch. =The Influence of other Artists on Metsu.=--It is strange that the earliest works of Metsu, which are the most broadly painted ones, show little of Dou's influence, which is always so unmistakable in his pupils, so that Bode believes he finds in them the working of Hals's influence; and, in fact, the large pictures of Metsu's early period are painted with a broad brush in Hals's gray tones. When Metsu removed to Amsterdam, he fell more under Rembrandt's influence, and the beautiful chiaroscuro of his later works incontestably proves this. =His Miscellaneous Works.=--Metsu's Biblical and allegorial pictures are the least important of his works. Besides The Amateur Musicians, signed by Metsu, the Mauritshuis possesses a fine Portrait of a Huntsman dated 1661, and a great academical, constrained allegory of Justice Protecting the Widow and Orphan, a picture that was found in the vestibule of a house in Leyden in 1667. It was painted in 1655. Crowe, who does not believe that this "rough and frosty composition" is the work of Metsu, says: "What Metsu undertook and carried out from the first with surprising success was the low life of the market and tavern, contrasted with wonderful versatility by incidents of high life and the drawing-room. In each of these spheres he combined humor with expression, a keen appreciation of nature, with feeling and breadth, with delicacy of touch, unsurpassed by any of his contemporaries. In no single instance do the artistic lessons of Rembrandt appear to have been lost on him. The same principles of light and shade which had marked his school work in The Woman Taken in Adultery[16] were applied to subjects of quite a different kind. A group in a drawing-room, a series of groups in the market-place, a single figure in the gloom of a tavern or parlor, was treated with the utmost felicity by fit concentration and gradation of light; a warm flush of tone pervaded every part, and, with that, the study of texture in stuffs was carried as far as it had been by Terburg, or Dou, if not with the finish or the _brio_ of De Hooch. Metsu's pictures are all in such admirable keeping and so warm and harmonious in his middle, or so cool and harmonious in his closing time, that they always make a pleasing impression. They are more subtle in modulation than Dou's, more spirited and forcible in touch than Terburg's; and, if Terburg may of right claim to have first painted the true satin robe, he never painted it more softly or with more judgment as to color than Metsu." One of the best pictures of Metsu's middle period is The Market Place of Amsterdam, in the Louvre. =Two Fine Portraits by F. van Mieris.=--Frans van Mieris (1635-81) reached the highest rung of art in his portraits, of which The Hague Gallery possesses two fine examples. One is of Florentius Schuyl, Professor of Medicine and Botany in the University of Leyden, painted in 1666, and a still more important picture of the painter himself and his wife. He has made a charming _genre_ picture of it, which Sir Joshua Reynolds admired, not knowing who the characters were. The artist shows himself standing and pulling the ear of the beautiful little dog which his wife holds in her lap, while, to protect her pet, she gently wards off her smiling husband with her right hand. The little dog's mother is trying to spring into the lady's lap in order to take care of her offspring. Both the drawing and modelling here are masterly, and endow the scene with such charm that this work must be pronounced one of the best by his brush. The tablecloth and the lute lying upon it are beautifully painted. =Description of Soap Bubbles.=--Sir Joshua also noticed the picture of Soap Bubbles dated 1663, representing a boy at an open and vine-framed window, blowing bubbles that are exquisitely painted and show beautiful reflections and prismatic colors. His red hat with white plumes is lying on the window-sill, near a bottle containing a sprig of heliotrope, and above hangs a cage. Behind the child in the half-light stands a young woman with a dog in her arms. On the window-frame is written the date in Roman numerals. Willem van Mieris often imitated this composition of his father's, who frequently repeated it himself. =Pictures by Van Mieris Full of Refinement.=--Van Mieris takes us into an elegant world, although he himself was fond of low life, a heavy drinker and the companion of Jan Steen. He was the son of a goldsmith and diamond-setter of Leyden, who wanted him to follow his business. He was naturally influenced by his earliest surroundings, and in his father's shop became familiar with the dress and manners of people of distinction. His eye was also fascinated by the sheen of jewelry and stained glass. Houbraken writes: "Seeing his talent for painting his father placed him with Abraham Torenvliet, a famous glass painter and a good draughtsman. From him he passed to the school of Gerrit Dou, where in a short time he eclipsed every one and gained the affection of the master, who loved to call him 'the prince of his pupils.' At the end of a few years, his father sent him to the historical painter Abraham van Tempel; but he did not remain long with him, for his natural taste would allow him to follow no other manner than that of Gerrit Dou,--a manner extremely finished, demanding attention and excessive care." =His Love of Elegant Accessories.=--Houbraken calls Metsu a painter of _sujets de mode_. This term applies also to Frans van Mieris; for certainly with him costumes, materials, and accessories play an important part. If his people were less attractive one might imagine that they were only a pretext for showing off the velvet jackets, satin skirts, and rich furs. Very often Van Mieris shows us a spacious and magnificently decorated hall, in the background of which a richly dressed lady and her lover are walking; again he allows us to peep into a charmingly furnished room where a lady in white satin is playing the lute to entertain her guest, a handsome cavalier in black velvet; or we surprise a lady as she is about to drink a glass of wine which a page offers her on a silver salver. At other times we find a group of ladies and gentlemen about to enjoy a light repast; or see a table invitingly spread with luscious fruit in rich silver dishes; or watch a lady feed her parrot. Sometimes the pet monkey is discerned behind the looped-back curtains of taffetas. Frans van Mieris seldom chose panels above 12 by 15 inches in size. He never ventured to design life-sized figures. =The Kind of Subjects he treated Best.=--"Characteristic of his art in its minute proportions is a shiny brightness and metallic polish. The subjects which he treated best are those in which he illustrated the habits or actions of the wealthier classes; but he sometimes succeeded in homely incidents and in portraits, and not unfrequently he ventured on allegory. He repeatedly painted the satin skirt which Terburg brought into fashion, and he often rivalled him in the faithful rendering of rich and highly colored woven tissues. But he remained below Terburg and Metsu, because he had not their delicate perception of harmony, or their charming mellowness of touch and tint; and he fell below Gerard Dou, because he was hard and had not his feeling for effect by concentrated light and shade. In the form of his composition, which sometimes represents the framework of a window enlivened with greenery, and adorned with bas-reliefs, within which figures are seen to the waist, his model is certainly Gerard Dou." =His Lack of Humor.=--"It has been said that he possessed some of the humor of Jan Steen, who was his friend, but the only approach to humor in any of his works is the quaint attitude and look of a tinker in a picture at Dresden, who glances knowingly at a worn copper kettle which a maid asks him to mend.... If there be a difference between his earlier and later work, it is that the former was clearer and more delicate in flesh, whilst the latter was often darker and more livid in the shadows."[17] Blanc says: "Among so many Dutch painters who copy nature it is very pleasant to find one who deigns to select his models, and who, preferring grace to ugliness, would rather paint beautifully women elegantly dressed than _magots_. Strange, indeed! He loved distinction, yet lived in a tavern; he loved luxury, and was soon ruined; and, in spite of a life devoid of dignity, Van Mieris always kept a love of beauty and elegance, as is shown in his delicate faces, fine complexions, beautiful hands, grace of attitude, taste in costume and furniture, and choice of splendid materials." =Willem van Mieris.=--The Grocer's Shop, by his son and pupil, Willem van Mieris (1662-1747), signed and dated 1717, also hangs in The Hague Gallery. In extreme finish and minuteness of painting, this picture would not disgrace Mieris the Elder or Gerrit Dou. =Its Wealth of Still Life.=--You see only two figures, a young boy who is buying and a young woman who is selling; but these figures are of no more importance than the foods of all kinds exposed in the shop, on the sill of the window, and outside. The lower part of the window is decorated with a bas-relief, representing Cupids playing with a bird. This bas-relief is half hidden by a superb piece of tapestry, on which the painter has placed a basket of dried fruits. Great bags of grain, peas, and beans, and everything that is sold by the bushel are exposed on the pavement of the street, with a bucket and some tubs filled with olives, sardines, and anchovies. On the wall hang a basket and a bird-cage, and a magnificent damask curtain with large flowers falls in graceful folds from an outside ring. Among the innumerable details of the shop you note a little rat gnawing at the grains which have fallen through a hole in one of the sacks. The pendant to this picture hangs in the Louvre, where it is called _Marchande de Volailles_. =W. van Mieris influenced by his Father and by G. de Lairesse.=--Willem van Mieris was a pupil of his father, and at first had no other ambition than to imitate his style and produce those charming Conversations in which rich furniture, shining chandeliers of brass or copper, Japanese porcelains, silken curtains, Turkish table-carpets, flowers, and elegantly dressed people make a somewhat restricted, although delightful, world. Willem, falling under the influence of Gérard de Lairesse, who was much in vogue in Holland, selected such subjects as a young lady playing on the clavecin, or making lace, or walking in the country in a lilac satin robe with large sleeves that reveal through their slashes a beautiful arm, and a straw hat ornamented with a sweeping plume. Becoming a shepherdess this attractive lady next sits in his pictures with bare feet, in the shade of an oak, and beside her Corydon talks of love. =His Success with Mythical and Biblical Subjects.=--Next he turned his attention to subjects from fable, romance, and mythology; and Diana, Armida, Cleopatra, Bacchus, Jupiter, Tarquin, the Sabines, etc., fill his panels or copper plates, which were hardly larger than your hand. Biblical and religious subjects occupied him for a time and then he again turned pagan. His success grew greater every day, and his Dutch patrons who loved scenes of familiar life demanded from Van Mieris pictures in the style of his famous father--those charming _genre_ pictures still being produced by Slingelandt, Van Tol, and other imitators of Gerrit Dou. =A Window-frame his Favorite Setting.=--Like Gerrit Dou, Willem van Mieris selects a window-frame of stone, which he often decorates with graceful creepers or a bouquet of tulips or jonquils placed on the sill, or throws over it a bright piece of tapestry. From it a blond lady leans to flirt with the unseen passer, a child blows bubbles, a portly dame waters her flowers; or the artist himself sits calmly by. When tired of this, Willem van Mieris takes us to his favorite shop. =Arie de Vois.=--Among the portraits one must not fail to notice the picture of A Huntsman Holding a Partridge by Arie de Vois (1630-80). This was originally in the collection of William V. and was bought for 1,210 florins. His pictures are so rare that we are not surprised that the Mauritshuis contains but one example. The Rijks is more fortunate in owning four by this delightful painter. =Abraham de Pape's Style.=--Abraham de Pape (1625-66), supposed to have been a pupil of Gerrit Dou, is represented by An Old Woman Plucking a Cock, with a little boy kneeling beside her. It is a very good example of this master; and at the Gerrit Muller sale brought no less than 490 florins. Crowe says: "This almost unknown artist is decidedly one of the best _genre_ painters of this time. He is true and speaking in action, animated in his heads, harmonious, and even in some of his pictures warm in coloring, and very careful and soft in execution." =A. van der Werff's Biblical and Mythological Pictures.=--Adriaan van der Werff (1659-1722) occupied a peculiar position among Dutch painters. While his contemporaries were devoting themselves to the study of nature and becoming realistic, he adhered to the pursuit of the ideal and produced pictures inspired by Biblical or mythological subjects,--pictures noted for their beauty and elegance, and moreover finished with wonderful smoothness of touch, which he had learned from his master Eglon van der Neer. His figures as a rule are small, and the flesh-tints are of an ivory tone. Van der Werff was so popular that it was impossible for him to execute all the commissions sent him. His greatest patron was the Elector Palatine John William; the pictures that Van der Werff painted for him are now in Munich, where this master may best be studied. =Description of The Flight into Egypt.=--He is fairly well represented in the Rijks; but The Hague has only two of his works,--a Portrait of a Man, dated 1689, and The Flight into Egypt, dated 1710. This is only one foot six inches high and one foot two inches wide. The Virgin is in profile in a Prussian-blue mantle, accompanied by St. Joseph, who is leading an ass. The road runs by the side of a brook, and the landscape is diversified with trees, ruins, and a portico. This picture was given by the artist to his daughter, who sold it to Mr. Schuijlenberg for 4,000 florins. At the Schuijlenberg sale at The Hague in 1765 it brought 6,500 florins. =Reynolds on Van der Werff's Manner.=--This picture was much admired by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who saw it in the King's collection. In describing Van der Werff's manner he said: "He has also the defect which is often found in Rembrandt,--that of making his light only a single spot. However, to do him justice his figures and heads are generally well drawn and his drapery is excellent; perhaps there are in his pictures as perfect examples of drapery as are to be found in any other painter's work whatever." =Philip van Dijk and his pupil, Louis de Moni.=--To this group belongs Philip van Dijk (1680-1753), a pupil of Arnold Boonen, and an imitator of Van der Werff. Judith with the Head of Holofernes is a good example of his historical work; and two good _genre_ pictures, A Lady Playing the Guitar, and A Lady at her Toilet, show this artist in a happier mood, where he gives free play to his more delicate touch. His Bookkeeper also hangs in this gallery. His pupil, Louis de Moni, shows the decline of the school. An Old Woman and a Boy, in a window, the boy blowing soap bubbles, is dated 1742. =Ochtervelt a follower of Metsu and of Pieter de Hooch.=--Jacob van Ochtervelt (?-1700), who occupies a first place among the second-rate painters of his day, was a follower of Metsu and also of Pieter de Hooch. The Fish Vender, representing a woman in a room where a man is offering her fish, in conception and careful finish recalls Metsu, while in lighting and combination of color it reminds one of Pieter de Hooch. The general tone is warmer than most of Ochtervelt's pictures. =Jan Steen's Favorite Subjects.=--One of the greatest of all the Dutch _genre_ painters is Jan Steen (1626-79), "the jolly landlord of Leyden." As a draughtsman and colorist he takes high rank, and as a student of human nature he has been compared to Hogarth and Molière. His pictures are studies of life and character, and are full of humor. He paints feasts and merry-makings, weddings, quacks, tavern-brawls, dentists, invalids, children at play, family parties, etc., with sympathy and joyousness. =His Character-painting.=--As a character-painter, he is unapproachable. Nobody so well as he has understood all human passions, all emotions--hilarious joy, deep-seated satisfaction, fear, grief, and _Weltschmerz_ with such mastery, and known how to represent them in the smallest possible space. =His Method of showing Background to Advantage.=--With regard to Jan Steen's interiors it is interesting to note that, like Ostade's, they are painted from an elevation, so that the figures in the background are not hidden by those in the foreground. Ordinarily he opens a window in the background to illuminate the distant figures and thus is formed an echo of the principal light. The number of utensils is less than with most painters of this class, for Jan Steen had too much sense to multiply them uselessly. Like Metsu, he often painted little pictures on the walls of his interiors, and it is singular that these depict heroic landscapes, battle scenes, mythological subjects, etc., and never tavern or _genre_ scenes such as he himself painted. =Refinement and Culture in his Pictures.=--Another thing to notice is that whether in houses of affluence or in common taverns his people do not drink grossly and from jugs, as in the taverns of Adriaen Brouwer. Each one takes his place gracefully and naturally at the table or in the room; and the details of the furniture accord with the politeness of the people or the players. On the mantelpiece, for instance, stands a bronze figure of Love; a guitar hangs from one of the panels; and here hangs a fine landscape in an ebony frame. The collation consists of delicious fruits that rejoice the eyes; perhaps also open oysters, which glisten in the light like pearls; ripe grapes and beautiful peaches, whose furry skins are blushing like the cheeks of a young girl, and finally some lemons half peeled, the skin falling in a golden spiral. All this shows the influence of Van Mieris, who was a friend of Steen and who spent many hours in his tavern at Leyden. =Reynolds's Appreciation of Jan Steen.=--Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was so delighted with the Steens he saw in Holland, wrote the following appreciative criticism of the artist: "Jan Steen has a strong manly style of painting, which might become even the design of Raffaelle, and he has shown the greatest skill in composition and management of light and shadow as well as great truth in the expression and character of his figures." =Jan Steen's Fondness for painting his own Family.=--Jan Steen was very fond of painting his own family; his wives, his aged parents, and his children provided him with varied models of assorted ages and sizes. He had six children by his wife Marguerite van Goyen, daughter of the painter; and when she died, he married a widow, named Mariette Herkulens, who had two. He has characterized the pleasures of all ages in his picture called The Family of Jan Steen, bearing the legend "_Soo de ouden songen pypen de jongen._" (As the old ones sing so will the young ones pipe.) This is particularly interesting, because the artist has painted himself between his wife Marguerite van Goyen and Mariette Herkulens, who was destined to be his second wife. They were both quite handsome, especially Marguerite. Mariette Herkulens was a meat vender. =How he ridiculed the Physicians.=--Physicians were always butt for Steen's caustic wit. It was a common practice in the seventeenth century to turn them into ridicule; and as Molière brought them on the French stage, Jan Steen painted them with all their charlatanism and gravity and that severity of costume so studied for effect. =Description of The Young Lady who is Ill.=--The Hague Gallery contains two of these,--one known as The Young Lady who is Ill (sometimes called The Doctor Feeling the Pulse of a Young Woman). In this picture a doctor dressed in black, with a pointed hat like that worn by Sagnarelle in the _Médecin malgré lui_, is seated at the bedside of a young and pretty girl with round arms and clear, pale complexion, who looks with interest at the potion that is being prepared according to the doctor's instructions. The latter pretends to be looking at the medicine which an elegant woman is bringing, but he is really looking at the beautiful throat of the blond and well-dressed Dutch lady, who lowers her eyes, charmed to let him gaze at her brilliant white neck, her little _retroussé_ nose, and her hair arranged _à la Ninon_, which is half covered with a sort of black cap. "If it were not for a little touch of malice and certain inconsistencies in the somewhat careless execution," Blanc says, "this picture might pass for a Van Mieris or a Metsu." =Description of The Doctor's Visit.=--In The Doctor's Visit, a physician dressed in black, with pointed hat and holding his gloves in one hand, with the other is feeling the pulse of a young lady who is sitting near her bed in a _négligé_ costume. With a very knowing and solicitous manner the doctor seems to interrogate the throbs of the pulse; but while he seeks for the secret of the illness, the chamber-maid has found it out, as her glance indicates; and, that you may not be left in doubt, the painter has placed on the corner of the chimney a little statue of Love the Conqueror. In some of his pictures of this class Steen adds the legend "_Wat baet hier medecyn--het is der minne pijn_" (Of what use is medicine here? Love is the trouble). =Other Pictures by Jan Steen, in the Mauritshuis.=--In addition to those already mentioned, the Mauritshuis owns A Village Feast, a picture of his first period; the Dentist, who is extracting the tooth of a peasant; A Menagerie; and an Interior known as The Oyster Feast and Jan Steen's Tap-room. =Description of Jan Steen's Tap-room.=--The latter is not an inn of the common or rustic type such as is seen in Ostade's or Brouwer's pictures, for the room is furnished in the best style of the period. In it we see about twenty figures in several groups. On the left, an old man is playing with a little child; near him a young girl is kneeling as she cooks the oysters; and in the centre an old man offers an oyster to a seated woman. Children are amusing themselves everywhere: here one is making a cat dance; another is holding a dog; another is carrying a jug and a basket of fruit. At the table on the right and a little back Jan Steen sits playing a lute, a young woman is listening to him, a fat companion with a glass of liquor in his hand is laughing; and in the background are groups of players and smokers. Above and in the foreground a large violet curtain is looped and casts its shadow over a part of the interior. This fine picture is only 2 feet 3 inches by 2 feet 8 inches. =Description of A Menagerie.=--A Menagerie is nearly four feet square, and represents the courtyard of a country house--that of William III. at Honsholredijk, which is seen in the distance. Near the stone terrace, beneath the steps of which is a pool, a peacock sits on a branch of an old tree; ducks are swimming in the pool, and hens, turkeys, and pigeons are picking up grains in the courtyard. A little girl in a pale straw-colored dress and a white apron is sitting on the steps and giving a lamb milk out of a cup. A man, carrying a basket of eggs and a green pot, is laughing and talking with her. Another old farm-servant is also laughing as he regards his young mistress; another person, who carries a hen under his left arm and her brood of chickens in a basket, is one of those dumpy and deformed creatures that Jan Steen likes to paint. Burger considers the head of the man with the basket of eggs is one of the most wonderful heads that were ever painted by Jan Steen or any of the Dutch Little Masters. =Troost, the Dutch Watteau or Hogarth.=--Cornelis Troost (1697-1750) was born at the close of the great period of Dutch art. The great painters were all dead. Dutch painting had lost its originality and native vigor. Under these circumstances Troost made himself the painter of his period and of his country. Impelled by a witty and caustic humor, he thought to bring back in the eighteenth century what Jan Steen had illustrated in the seventeenth. But, inferior in every way to that master, he saw contemporary society only on the stage or in books; and, instead of painting manners, customs, and absurdities of the middle classes by observing them in nature, he painted them as they were represented on the stage. Almost all his heroes were characters of the comedy or the novel. Troost has been called the Dutch Watteau and the Dutch Hogarth. His pictures may be classified as follows: Conversations, Comic subjects, Portraits, and Military subjects. The first follow the style of Watteau; the second, Hogarth; and the last are reminiscent of Frans Hals. =His Excellence in Drawing and Color.=--Excellence of drawing and richness of color distinguish all his works, which are also valuable for their accurate portrayal of the manners and customs, costume and furniture of his day. Troost worked in oil, pastel, and gouache with equal facility; and produced many excellent mezzotints and etchings. =Blanc on Troost's Style.=--"What we admire in him to-day is the talent of the painter properly so-called, the art of enlightening and grouping his figures and placing them on the stage, the brush-work, the selection and quality of the tones,--in other words, order, chiaroscuro, color, and touch. A man of wit, he shines in composition; although adroitly calculated, his own humor always appears spontaneous and natural. Troost never introduces useless personages nor superfluous ornaments into his pictures. He clearly sets forth what he wants to show; and, contrary to the habits of the other masters of his nation who take pleasure in the accumulation of accessories, he only puts into his interiors necessary furniture and significant utensils; and in his open-air Conversations the surroundings are not overloaded with detail, but simple and agreeable, being calculated to achieve the idea of the picture, so admirably are they connected with the action of the figures. Troost and Terburg, of all the Dutch masters of _genre_, are the ones who best understood the concentration of the interest of a picture, and what is called the repose of the composition."[18] =A Picture Illustrative of the Concentration of its Interest.=--"On looking over his pictures in the little room devoted to his work in the Mauritshuis, we find more than one example of this intelligent sobriety. Take for instance _L'Amour mal assorté_. Here we have an old man declaring his love to a young widow. He has thrown on the floor his cane, hat, and gloves; and, in his senile ardor, he clasps the facilely chaste Susanna. What a pretty interior! A Slingelandt, a Gerard Dou, or a Mieris would have multiplied here the details of domestic comfort; here there is not a detail, not a single piece of furniture too much; but yet there is nothing lacking that should be there,--neither the clock, the canary in its cage, the portrait of the deceased husband whose place the guest desires to fill, nor the flower-vase with its full-blown rose, like the charmer whom the admirer wants to gather." =Pictures of Love and Intrigue.=--"Again we have The Deceived Tutor, a scene anticipated from 'The Barber of Seville.' Here we see coming down the street a maiden led prisoner by her tutor, a jealous bear clothed all in black. While she occupies his attention with a sweet smile, her little hand receives the kiss of a lover whom chance has led that way. Other scenes of similar intrigue treated in this light vein are The Lover in Disguise and The Lover Artist. The scenes are taken from the comedies and vaudevilles of Langendijk, Lingelbach, Asselijn, Van der Hoeven, Van Paffenrode, and D. Buysero." =The Dispute of the Astronomers.=--"A picture that does not deal with love and intrigue, but is full of a different kind of humor is The Dispute of the Astronomers, from a comedy by P. Langendijk, in which two astronomers in the heat of their discussion on the systems of Copernicus and Ptolemy make use of the plates and bottles on the supper table to illustrate the sun and the planets. Another interesting pastel is one depicting the old Dutch custom of a band of men and children singing hymns before the doors of the village on Twelfth Night, carrying a huge paper star, lighted within." =Hondecoeter, Painter of Living Birds.=--The great Melchior d'Hondecoeter (1636-95) began his career with marines; but it was not long before he acquired celebrity as a painter of birds only, which he represented not exclusively like Fyt, after a day's shooting, or as stock in a poulterer's shop, but as living beings with passions of joy and fear and anger. Though without Fyt's brilliant tone and high finish, his birds are always full of action. William III. employed him to paint his menagerie at Loo, and this picture shows that he could overcome the difficulty of painting India's cattle, elephants, and gazelles. Hondecoeter's best pictures have remained in Holland, and The Hague and Amsterdam galleries possess his most interesting canvases. The four at the Mauritshuis are: Geese and Ducks, Hens and Ducks, The Menagerie of William III. at Loo, and The Jackdaw Stripped of his Borrowed Feathers. All these are worthy of study, although Hondecoeter's most celebrated picture, The Floating Feather, hangs in the Rijks. Blanc says: "In one of these the artist has amused himself with making his usual heroes play a scene of human comedy; and, as a professional fabulist would have imagined it, he has shown a jackdaw stripped of the borrowed plumes with which he had adorned himself in his vanity. This is a very fine picture, although it has somewhat blackened in certain parts. Hondecoeter seems to us to have been happier in another canvas in which he has grouped various birds. It seems as if on this occasion he wanted to prove what prodigies he was capable of in the touch of divers plumages; and the effect he has obtained is, in truth, astonishing. We could not find the equivalent of this lightness of touch and of this coloring either in Gryff[19] or in the two Weenixes, or in any of the masters who have tried to paint birds, with the possible exception of Giacomo Victor."[20] =His Preparation for Bird-painting.=--"It is true that before having succeeded so well in the representation of the bird, Hondecoeter made a long study, not only of its external form, but of its habits, customs, and manner of life. His studio had been turned into a menagerie, or, rather, a game preserve. He had paid particular attention to the education of a handsome cock, which seemed to comprehend every word and gesture of his master; and who, at the slightest sign, came near the easel and posed, often in very fatiguing attitudes, for hours." =Hondecoeter's Skill in painting Farmyard Scenes.=--"In painting, Melchior d'Hondecoeter was a very able man without leaving the poultry yard, and was satisfied with painting on the spot either the bloody dramas or the peaceful scenes of the farmyard--the hen teaching her chickens to scratch for grubs, the duck giving her little ones their first swimming lesson, the superb cock keeping watch over his seraglio, the peacock spreading his magnificent tail, and those memorable combats in which for a fine-plumaged Helen, two rivals spur one another while awaiting the hawk's talons. He painted 'the crested gentry' and knew how to interest us in them by means of picturesque truth, rustic grace, color, and spirit. "Melchior, after the death of his father, found an excellent guide in his uncle, J. B. Weenix, and followed his manner till his death in 1660 without servility."[21] Burger says: =His Pictures of Bird Families.=--"No one has painted better than he cocks and hens, ducks and drakes, and particularly little chicks and ducklings. He has understood such families as the Italians have the mystical Holy Family; he has expressed the motherhood of the hen as Raphael has the motherhood of the Madonna. In fact, the subject is more naturally treated because it has less sublimity. Hondecoeter gives us here a mother-hen, who could face the Madonna of the Chair. She bends over with solicitude, with outspread wings, beneath which peep the excited heads of the little chickens; while on her back is perched the privileged _bambino_: she does not dare move, the good mother!" A picture of Cock and Hens by his father, Gijsbert d'Hondecoeter (1604-53), was acquired in 1876. He was the teacher of his more talented son, who also studied with his uncle, Jan Baptist Weenix (1621-60), no pictures of whom are owned by the Mauritshuis. =Jan Weenix's Tasteful Compositions.=--Two pictures of Jan Weenix (1640-1719) hang in this gallery and are good examples. One is The Dead Swan, the other is Game. Though Weenix painted portraits, landscapes, and even seaports, his chief works represent dead animals, the size of life. Peacocks, pheasants, partridges, geese, and most frequently swans, figure in his pictures. Sometimes, too, he introduces a living dog and paints it in the most spirited manner. Weenix had great taste in composition and arranged his models (more often dead than living) around the base of a handsome vase or urn in a beautiful park. =Reynolds and Blanc on Jan Weenix's Paintings.=--"What excellence in coloring and handling is to be found in the dead game of Weenix!" exclaimed Sir Joshua Reynolds, who declared that he saw no less than twenty dead swans by this painter during his walks through the Holland galleries. "In his works of small dimensions," says Blanc, "his execution is delicate and caressing; but it is broad and accentuated in his decorative paintings. At his best he was the equal of his father, which is no small praise." =Jan David de Heem, the Greatest of the Group of Fruit and Flower Painters.=--First in this group comes Jan David de Heem (1606-03 or 04), the pupil of his father, David de Heem, and not only the first to develop the art of fruit-painting, but the greatest master of the class that the school produced. In the beautiful arrangement of his subjects he has been compared to Giovanni da Udine. He is also a great colorist; some of his early works approach Rembrandt in their golden tone. Although his two most important works are in the galleries of Vienna and Berlin, and splendid examples hang in the Louvre, Dresden, and Cassel, the Mauritshuis owns two very fine examples. One is a Table with Fruits, very tasteful in arrangement and soft in treatment; the other is a Garland of Flowers and Fruits, enlivened with insects. When Sir Joshua Reynolds visited the Prince of Orange's collection, he saw these pictures and noted: "Fruits by De Heem, done with the utmost perfection." =His Greatness as a Painter of Fruits, Flowers, and Insects.=--De Heem was one of the greatest painters of still life in Holland; no artist of his class combined form and color more successfully. His drawing is correct, and his colors are brilliant and combined harmoniously. He is familiar with every object of stone and silver, every flower, whether humble or gorgeous, every fruit of Europe or the tropics, every twig and leaf and blossom. Burger has said of Heda, but it is true of De Heem, that "he glorified insects, butterflies, and all the minute beings that swarm in vegetation, and made the moths drink in cups of chased gold." =His Pictures that point a Moral.=--De Heem was also famous for his pictures that point a moral or illustrate a motto--those canvases known as Vanitas. Here the snake lies coiled under the grass; there a skull rests on blooming plants. "Gold and silver tankards or cups suggest the vanity of earthly possessions; salvation is allegorized in a chalice amid blossoms; death, as a crucifix inside a wreath." Sometimes De Heem painted alone, or with men of his school, Madonnas or portraits surrounded by festoons of fruits and flowers. He was so fond of the festoon that he sometimes painted it alone. Sometimes, too, a nosegay is figured alone. =Cornelis de Heem's Subjects like those of his Father.=--The Hague Gallery also owns Fruits by his son Cornelis (1631-95). The latter painted precisely the same subjects as his father and with scarcely less success. Still life, flowers, fruits, oysters, and lemons on a plate; cold hams, boiled lobsters, flowers, knives, forks, glasses, watches, clocks, etc., are all treated by him with the utmost cleverness. Crowe says: "He is not inferior to his father in drawing and warmth of color, and with an equally solid impasto, almost surpasses him in melting softness of touch. He is, however, in rare instances, somewhat gaudier. Under these circumstances it is easy to understand that his works are often mistaken for those of his father." =Abraham Mignon, Pupil and Imitator of De Heem.=--Another pupil was Abraham Mignon (1640-79), who is represented in the Mauritshuis by Flowers and Fruits, and two canvases called Summer Flowers, which show the influence of his master. Mignon's fruits and flowers have all the bloom of nature; his butterflies and other insects seem to live and feed on the leaves, buds, and blossoms; and the dewdrops on the leaves and petals have all the transparency of real water. He was very popular in his day and was overwhelmed with commissions. =Jacob Walscapelle.=--Jacob Walscapelle is also supposed to have been a pupil of De Heem, and many of his pictures have been attributed to one of the De Heems. =Maria van Oosterwyck, an Excellent Painter of Flowers.=--Another pupil was Maria van Oosterwyck (1630-93), who usually painted flowers in vases or glasses, and occasionally fruits. In 1882 the Mauritshuis acquired a picture of Flowers, by this artist, who, perhaps, because of the rarity of her pictures, is not so widely known as she deserves to be. Although her flowers are not always arranged with taste and the colors are often gaudy, yet Crowe thinks she represents them with the "utmost truth of drawing, and with a depth, brilliancy, and juiciness of local coloring unattained by any other flower-painter. At the same time, her execution, in spite of great finish, is broad and free, and the impasto excellent." She was much admired in her day and received commissions from Louis XIV., William III. of England, Augustus I. of Poland, and the Emperor Leopold. =Jan van Huysum, the Correggio of Flowers and Fruits.=--"If De Heem, by the harmony of his warm golden color, be called the Titian of flowers and fruits, Jan van Huysum's bright and sunny treatment entitles him to the name of the Correggio of the same branch of art. In masterly drawing and truth of single objects, both masters may be classed on the same level, only that De Heem's principal subjects were fruit; Van Huysum's were flowers, in which he entered into greater detail; for instance, in the gloss of the tulip, the pollen of the auricula, and the dewdrop on the petal. It is to these merits, fitted as they are to the capacity of the greater number of admirers of art, that Van Huysum owed the eager demand for, and high payment of his pictures by princes and wealthy amateurs, even in his own day, and also that of all painters of his class he still commands the highest prices."[22] =Van Huysum's Pictures in The Hague.=--Jan van Huysum (1682-1749) is not so well represented in his own country as in the Louvre (which contains eleven fine examples), Berlin, St. Petersburg, Munich, Hanover, and Dresden. The Rijks owns but six, and The Hague only three,--an Italian Landscape, Fruits, and Flowers. The two latter are such beautiful examples of Van Huysum's art that they deserve study. In the one are found that marvellous blush and downy bloom for which he was so famous, while the other reveals his delicate treatment of petals and his graceful arrangement. In Fruits, a peach, two plums, a small bunch of grapes and some gooseberries are beautifully grouped, as to form and color, on a marble table. Its pendant, Flowers, is an exquisite picture of a full-blown rose and a rosebud, a pink and a convolvulus, placed on a marble console. A butterfly of the admiral variety has alighted on the rosebud. =His Earliest Works.=--In his earliest period he painted landscapes representing views of imaginary lakes and harbors, woods with tall, lifeless trees, and classic buildings and ruins--finished in a glossy and smooth style--which are now of little value in comparison with his fruit and flower pieces. The Italian Landscape, which the Mauritshuis acquired in 1816, is a very good example of this style. =Fruits and Flowers his Forte.=--It is doubtful if any artist ever surpassed Van Huysum in the representation of fruits and flowers, to which he finally devoted himself with the greatest success. He set himself the task of surpassing De Heem and Abraham Mignon; and he studied the most exquisite fruits and flowers known. His taste in the arrangement of his groups in elegant vases, of which the ornaments and bas-reliefs were finished in the most polished and beautiful manner, and in graceful baskets on marble tables, is generally considered to be superior to that of any other flower-painter. He also shows great art in relieving flowers of various colors against each other, and often they stand out from a light transparent background. His fame rose to the highest pitch, and the first florists of Holland were ambitious of supplying him with their choicest flowers for subjects. Naturally, therefore, we find on his canvases beautiful groups and bunches of hyacinths, roses, pinks, primroses, and other garden buds and blossoms. =His Skill in depicting Dewdrops and Insects.=--With marvellous skill he frequently introduces dewdrops of incomparable transparency that trickle down the leaves or sprinkle the fresh delicate petals. Butterflies and other insects are also depicted with a truthfulness and precision that give a perfect illusion, and often a bird's nest with eggs is introduced. =His Exquisite Taste.=--Jan van Huysum's pictures are so bright that they have even been accused of being gaudy; but no critic has yet found fault with his exquisite taste and faultless velvet-like finish that seems to rival nature. His fruit pieces are inferior to his flowers, though they are worthy of great admiration. Those painted on a clear or yellow background are the most esteemed, and are distinguished from his early works, which are usually on a dark one, by a superior style of pencilling and a more harmonious color. =Rachel Ruijsch.=--Another charming flower and fruit painter,--noted especially for her flowers,--Rachel Ruijsch (1664-1750), is represented in The Hague Gallery by two Bouquets. In 1693 she was married, but she always signed her maiden name, and in several ways,--Ruijsch, Ruysch, and Ruisch. She took great pains with her pictures, and the amount of time spent on them limited their number. She is said to have given seven years to two pictures, Flowers and Fruits, which she gave to one of her daughters for a wedding present. Blanc has most sympathetically described her qualities. He says: =Her Truthfulness to Nature.=--"Whether she is painting the flowers of the gardens or those of the field, which she groups so beautifully on marble tables and calls around them fluttering butterflies and droning bees, or beautiful ripe fruits that refresh the eyes and mind, Rachel is always truthful, graceful, and clever. A colorist, she frankly selects the brightest tones and combines them marvellously; a draughtsman, she reproduces splendidly the most complicated forms, while preserving to each plant its individual elegance, its aspect, its way of holding itself, and foreshortening." =Her Love of Nature.=--"In all justice, therefore, the Dutch rank Rachel Ruijsch among their most excellent painters. She retained her love of nature in all its freshness; it even seems as if she had a weakness for rustic beauty, and that she found the same pleasure in wandering about the country that others have in gardens and greenhouses. Sometimes she even mingles thistles with her field flowers, which she carelessly throws on a table; sometimes she chooses an old tree-trunk overgrown with moss, upon which she places her bunch of spring blossoms, while the insects hum around them, and the wings of a beetle gleam through the shadow. Sometimes she brings a green frog from some pool in the neighboring meadow and gives him a place in her picture. In the infinite little world of great nature Rachel finds no creature unworthy of her brush--not even the snail that crawls on the leaf and is hunted away by the gardener, nor the little worm who moves his variegated rings and spins his thread, destined to clothe magnificent ladies, as he elevates himself into the air. Those insects that we deem vile she honors in her paintings: she lets them lie on her marble tables, crawl on the stem of the glass in which her peonies and pinks are arranged; and she even allows them to devour the plums and grapes of her picturesque collations. Nothing, however, is more charming than her birds' nests, lined with lightest down and tiny blades of grass, moss, and straw, expressed with the art and industry of a wren or a tomtit." The larger picture in The Hague Gallery is a charming group of roses and tulips, with butterflies and insects. Rachel Ruijsch was a pupil of Willem van Aelst (1626-83?), whose Flowers (dated 1663) and Still Life (dated 1671) hang in The Hague Gallery. =Description of One of Willem van Aelst's Pictures.=--M. de Burtin has described a picture by Willem van Aelst which gives an idea of all the works of this master: "A table covered with a crimson velvet carpet bordered with golden fringe, on which stands a drinking-vessel of antique shape half filled with Rhine wine. The sides of this glass cup reflect several times and in different views the street with the most magical and astounding way, and in the very centre you see the reflection of the painter himself, holding his palette. On one side of the cup are placed, on a glass dish, four superb peaches and some roasted chestnuts; on the other side are bunches of red and white grapes. Butterflies and other insects add to the illusion, and the vine and peach leaves are artistically used to decorate the beautiful pyramidal group that stands out from a looped-back curtain of brownish yellow." =Resemblance of his Work to that of Van Huysum.=--Although his name is less celebrated than that of Van Huysum, Willem Aelst is not very far removed from him in his beautiful productions; and certainly he surpasses Evert van Aelst (1602-58) who was his uncle and master. Without carrying finish to excess and preserving a certain freedom of touch, he knows how to express marvellously the delicate wings of a butterfly, the down of a peach, the dewdrops on a bunch of grapes, the feathers of a dead bird, and the wrinkles of a game-pouch. =In Favor with Princes and Cardinals.=--Many of his works are in France, where he spent four years, and in Italy, where he lived seven years filling orders for princes and cardinals. He was only thirty years old when he returned to his native town, Delft; but he removed to Amsterdam, where his works brought high prices. =His Favorite Subjects.=--The pictures by him representing dead birds are, as respects picturesque arrangement, finely balanced harmony of cool but transparent color, perfect nature in every detail, and delicate, soft treatment, admirable types of the perfection of the Dutch School. Specimens of this class are a picture in the Munich Gallery of two dead partridges and instruments of the chase, and another in the Berlin Museum signed "W. v. Aelst, 1653," representing a marble table with two woodcocks and other small birds, and two French partridges suspended above. His favorite subjects, however, were fruit and other eatables, herrings, oysters, bread, etc., with glasses and gorgeous vessels in gold and silver. Although Willem van Aelst owed much to his uncle Evert van Aelst, so famous for his dead birds and instruments of the chase, perhaps he owed still more to his other teacher, Otho Marcellis van Schrieck (1613-73), who acquired celebrity, excelling in a singular branch of art. He painted the humblest creatures,--frogs, snails, lizards, worms, serpents, and curious plants. The name of his master is unknown; but he painted entirely from nature and is said to have kept a kind of museum of serpents, vipers, insects and other curiosities. These he studied with great attention, and drew them with extraordinary fidelity and care, reproducing also their glowing and metallic hues. =Two Pictures by Beijeren, and Two by Seghers.=--Another famous Flowers is that by Abraham van Beijeren (1620 or 1621-75), which was acquired at the Van Pappelendam sale in Amsterdam in 1889. A fine Fish and Lobster by the same painter should also be studied. The visitor will perhaps notice as he passes two pictures by Daniel Seghers (1590-1661), one a garland of flowers around a statuette of the Virgin; the other, a garland of flowers around the bust of William III. The bust was a later addition. =Other Painters belonging to the Same Group.=--An interesting and curious work is Shells, by Balthasar van der Ast (?-1656). There is also a still life (1644) by Pieter Claez. To this group should be added Pieter Roestraeten (1627-1700), famous for his great vases of gold and silver, bas-reliefs, musical instruments, etc., which he designed with precision. He spent most of his time in London, where he was injured in the Great Fire (1666). Belonging to the same group are Pieter de Ring and Willem Kalf, whom we shall see in the Rijks, and the strange Christoffel Pierson, whose specialty was still life (particularly the attributes of the chase) and portraits. His works are very rare; but a peculiar combination of portraiture and still life hangs in The Hague Gallery, representing the pastor of the Protestant Church at Hoorn, Joris Goethals, and noticeable for the number of hunting implements and objects hanging on the wall. Though sombre and monotonous in tone, his touch and drawing are masterly. He thoroughly understood composition and distributed lights and shadows with skill. Pierson was turned aside from painting historical subjects and portraits by the success of Leemens, a painter of dead game, guns, etc., and speedily surpassed his model. Jan van Os, Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os, and Marie Margrita van Os we shall see in the Rijks. =Portrait of Rubens's Second Wife.=--Although Holland is not the land where we can study Rubens (1577-1640) in all his greatness, yet the Amsterdam Gallery and more particularly The Hague Gallery possess some splendid pictures by his hand. In the latter hang the portraits of his two wives. That of his second wife, the buxom Helena, whom he married on December 6, 1630, and who bore him five children, is a masterpiece of the first rank; certainly an entirely individual work of the artist's later period. =Much of Rubens's Work done by his Pupils.=--Thus we immediately come to the question: What has the master himself and what have his pupils done on it? No master has left behind him a larger amount of painted surface of canvas and wood; but how unequal is the artistic value of all this material! We know how that happened. Overwhelmed with pressing orders and surrounded by a large throng of sometimes very able pupils, he often only made a sketch, leaving the chief work to his best pupils, and finally adding a few corrections; perhaps here or there a head or a figure that particularly interested him. Rubens made no secret of this fact; he often openly acknowledged what he and what his scholars had done on a work. =Dr. Sperling's Visit to Rubens's Studio.=--An eye-witness, the Danish physician, Otto Sperling, who visited Rubens's studio in 1621, describes the master as walking up and down in his vast hall among his many pupils, making remarks and going over a picture here and there finally with a few brush-strokes. The Doctor jocularly adds: "It is supposed that everything is the work of Rubens, by which this man has amassed enormous wealth, and has been rewarded by kings and princes with great gifts and many jewels." =His Pupils not very often allowed to assist him in Portraits.=--One should remember that this assistance of his pupils was generally confined to his greater historical pictures and church pieces; but the portraits that Rubens painted are not always entirely the work of his hand. Sometimes an order for a portrait was repeated, and his students made the replica of a well-known personality. Rubens painted portraits of small dimensions and then left them to be enlarged by able pupils; but he himself added the final touches. =Dr. Bredius on the Portraits of Rubens's Two Wives.=--"Even in the case of the portrait of one of his wives, we are not quite sure whether the work is exclusively his own. There exist such a marvellous number of these portraits, and, moreover, of such varied artistic value, that we must at last conclude that the family and friends of these ladies, who belonged to the best families in Antwerp, all ordered portraits from Rubens, who painted some of them entirely and others only in part. "While, for example, the present portrait of Rubens's first wife, Isabella Brandt, whom he married in 1609, betrays the master's own hand in the head and in part of the costume, the hands look to me to be so extraordinarily like Van Dijck's work that I ask myself whether the latter (about 1618) might not have had some part in this portrait. On the other hand, the portrait of Helena Fourment, whom he married in 1630 (Isabella Brandt died in 1626) is handled with such a gush, although very rapidly and with such geniality that hardly anybody would say that this spirited portrait is not all his own. "What flesh! what brilliance! what glow of color! what virtuosity in the painting of the details and the material! What life streams from this warm, youthful, proud wife upon her husband!" Sir Joshua Reynolds describes these portraits thus: "Two portraits, Kitcat size, by Rubens, of his two wives, both fine portraits, but Eleanor Forman is by far the most beautiful and the best colored." [Illustration: RUBENS Helena Fourment] =Description of Helena's Portrait.=--This is one of the most beautiful of all Rubens's portraits of his second wife. Her face and figure are not only wonderfully modelled and painted, but her red mouth has a sweet, half-smiling expression, and dimples are ready to break out at any moment and render the brilliant face even more brilliant. The eyes are lustrous and handsome, beneath finely arched brows. The light silky hair is roped with pearls, and a long plume falls gracefully from the coquettish toque of velvet adjusted at an angle that suits the face exactly. A pearl necklace and earrings adorn the ears and snowy neck, a magnificent jewel with three pear-shaped pearls for pendants clasps the front of the dress, jewels ornament the sleeves, and a great rope of goldsmith's work passes from shoulder to shoulder. She wears a light blue satin dress the sleeves of which are slashed with white, and a black velvet cloak with gold buttons and a fur collar. The sleeves end with delicate filmy frills at the wrist, and she gracefully holds in her hand a couple of beautiful pink roses. The background is gray and the curtain is red. This picture was painted in 1634, four years after Rubens's marriage to the daughter of Daniel Fourment. After Rubens's death the beautiful Helena was married to Jan B. Broekhoven, Baron of Bergeijck. She died in 1673. =Burger's Admiration for the Portrait of the First Wife.=--Not far away from her portrait hangs that of Isabella Brandt, painted in 1620. Burger admired it more than that of Helena, and went into ecstasies over the "beautiful hands" crossed over her girdle. Isabella is dressed in black, with a square and low-cut bodice and a gauze fichu. Her hair is adorned with pearls. =Portrait of Father Ophovius.=--The Mauritshuis possesses also a famous portrait by Rubens of quite another character; this is that of a friend whom he had sufficient influence to have made Bishop of Bois-le-Duc, the Rev. Father Michael Ophovius, a Dominican monk. He is seen full face in the costume of his order. He has an energetic head and is in robust health. It is a broad and vigorous painting, and formerly adorned the Dominican monastery at Antwerp. =Two Pictures painted Partly by Rubens.=--Two other pictures by Rubens should be studied. Adam and Eve in Paradise, in which, however, only the figures are by Rubens (Dr. Bredius thinks the horse also); while the landscape and other animals are by Jan Brueghel, also called Velvet Brueghel. The latter also painted the landscape in the Naiads Filling the Horn of Plenty, a picture that was once attributed to Van Bolen, but now to Rubens. It is interesting to compare the landscape of the Terrestrial Paradise by Jan Brueghel (Velvet) with the landscapes in the above-mentioned pictures. Copies of six pictures by Rubens are also owned by this gallery. =Portraits by Van Dijck in The Hague.=--There are only three portraits by Van Dijck (1599-1641) in The Hague Gallery: Portrait of Sir ---- Sheffield, painted in 1627; a Portrait of Anna Wake, his Wife, painted in 1628; and a Portrait of the painter, Quintijn Simons. Of the latter, Sir Joshua Reynolds said: "A portrait by Van Dyck of Simon the painter. This is one of the very few pictures that can be seen of Van Dyck which is in perfect preservation; and on examining it closely it appeared to me a perfect pattern of portrait-painting: every part is distinctly marked, but with the lightest hand and without destroying the breadth of light; the coloring is perfectly true to nature, though it has not the brilliant effect of sunshine, such as is seen in Rubens's wife; it is nature seen by common daylight." =A Picture by Frans Snijders.=--Anthonie van Dijck is said to have painted the huntsman in the picture of still life and game by which Frans Snijders is represented here. Fuller knowledge of Snijders, however, is to be gained in the Rijks. =A Picture by Several Artists.=--One of the most curious and interesting pictures in the entire gallery is The Interior of a Picture Gallery, painted by a number of Antwerp artists, but which is catalogued under the name of Gonzales Coques (1618-84). This artist and his family are represented in the centre of a picture gallery, and are by the hand of Coques himself. The pictures on the walls were painted by pupils of Rubens, Van Dijck, Rembrandt, and others, and represent still life, landscapes, mythological and allegorical scenes. Many of them possess great charm. On the left are: the Meeting of Christ and a Centurion, by Pieter Yykens (1648-95); The Earth, an allegory, by Erasmus Quellinus (1607-78); an Italian Landscape, by Antoni Goubau (1616-98); The Metamorphosis of Ascalaphus, by Carel Emanuel Biset (1633-after 1691); A Boar Hunt, by Peter Boel (1622-89); a Moonlight and Landscape, signed J. v. K.; a Landscape, by Pieter van Bredael (1629-1719), signed P. v. B.; a Marine (unknown); The Nymphs Spied On, by Jan de Duyts (1629-76); and a Marine, by Jan Peeters (1624-77). Above the door in the centre are two pictures: The Judgment of Paris, by Theodoor Boeyermans (1620-78), and Leda, by the same artist. On the left: The Triumph of Silenus, by Jan Cossiers (1600-71); Water, an allegory, by Theodoor Boeyermans; the Four Seasons, by the same artist; a Landscape (unknown); Still Life (unknown); The Descent from the Cross and View of a City, both by Johan van den Hecke (1620-84); Landscape (unknown); a Village Festival, by Peter Spierinckx (1635-1711); a Landscape, by Johan van den Hecke (1620-84), and Bathers, by the same artist; Still Life, by Peter Gysels (1621-90); and a Venus and Adonis, by Casper Jacob van Opstal (1654-1717). The architecture of the room was painted in 1674 by Willem van Ehrenberg (1637-about 76). The picture is 5-3/4 feet high by 7 feet broad, and was offered in 1683 by the Brotherhood of Painters in Antwerp to Jan van Bavegom, Procureur of the Court of Brussels, as a reward for the services he had rendered to the Brotherhood in the lawsuit against the armies of the Six Guilds. It finally became the property of William V. ="The Little Van Dijck."=--Gonzales Coques was a pupil of Pieter Brueghel III. and David Ryckaert, whose daughter he married. He was fond of painting portraits of his family walking in a park or engaged in various occupations and pleasures indoors; and very frequently he was assisted by other artists, as in the case of the picture just described. Coques was a man of letters, and presided over the Chamber of Rhetoric in his native city, Antwerp. His elegance, taste, and delicacy have procured for him the name of "The Little Van Dijck." In his own day he enjoyed great renown, and was honored with orders for pictures and presents from many sovereigns, including Charles I. of England, the Prince of Orange, and the Archdukes of Austria. =Francken, Painter of Allegories and Festive Scenes.=--A historical picture of interest is that of A Ball at the Court of Albert and Isabella in 1611, by Frans Francken the Younger (1581-1642). He was famous for his scenes from the Bible, allegories, landscapes, mythological pictures, and particularly for his balls, masquerades, and other scenes of festivity in which he introduced figures of small size. Frequently, too, he painted figures in the pictures of the elder Neeffs, the younger De Momper, and Bartelmees van Bassen. =Description of the Picture of a Historical Ball.=--This ball scene, which belonged to William V. at Het Loo, was painted between 1611 and 1616. The couple who are dancing in the centre are Philip William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, and his wife, Eleonore de Bourbon, Princess of Condé. Albert and his wife, Isabelle Claire Eugénie, and five other portraits are by the hand of Frans Pourbus the Younger. =Pictures by Vinck Boons and Droochsloot.=--Pictures of peasants enjoying the _kermesse_, by David Vinck Boons (1578-1629), (1622), a landscape and genre painter, whose figures are often of repulsive ugliness, and by J. C. Droochsloot (1586-1666), also represented by a Dutch Village (1652), bring us to a more brilliant painter of such scenes. =David Teniers the Younger a Conspicuous Painter of Still Life.=--David Teniers the Younger (1610-90) is one of those Flemish painters who were known and sought after in Holland during their lifetime. This may have arisen from the fact that he was closely allied with the Dutch school and with Brouwer, who lived and worked for a long time in Holland and was very highly prized there. Teniers painted in particular little cabinet pictures, soldier scenes, alchemists and cooks, and in them often showed a conspicuous love of still life, so greatly liked in Holland. Another circumstance which must be taken into consideration is that his brothers Hendrik and Julius, both painters, lived for some time in Holland and occupied themselves--the former in Middelburg and the latter in Amsterdam--with the sale of the pictures of their famous brother. =The Resemblance of his Pictures to those of his Master.=--The younger Teniers developed himself principally in the school of Adriaen Brouwer. Some of his early pictures, painted between 1630 and 1640, stand so closely sometimes beside those of Brouwer that they have been attributed to the latter. In his first period, Teniers, quite trickily copied Brouwer's real types, and many of his mannerisms, such as the famous red cap which he so often put on his figures. The spirited painting, the clear bright light with the finely expressed chiaroscuro, and the beautiful harmony of tone he followed in the happiest way. He became Brouwer's successor; and he is greatest when he is still under the inspiration of his great prototype. Splendid pictures of this style are possessed by the Museums of Madrid, the Louvre, Berlin, Dresden, St. Petersburg, and many of the great private collections. =A Gradual Change in the Tone of Teniers's Pictures.=--About 1650 the warm golden tone of the master falls more and more into a cooler silver tone. Bright and clear in the highest degree are the treasured works of this period. At the end of his life, however, he grades more and more into a brown, dull tone far removed from the vigor and transparency of his youth. Still in his old age he maintained a careful drawing, a great completeness in the painting, only the very last pictures show that the hand of the old man at length had begun to tremble. =Description of The Good Kitchen.=--The Hague possesses two fine examples of this artist. In The Good Kitchen, a splendid work of his middle period, painted in 1644, he delights us especially with masterly representation of assembled details. Magnificently painted are the fish and fowl, pots and kitchen stuff; only, perhaps, is the background keyed up a little too high. The figures, as unfortunately so frequently happens with Teniers, are somewhat uninteresting; only the little boy who is holding the dish for his mother (evidently the portrait of a child) looks out at us in a lifelike and endearing manner. A famous kitchen it is, in fact; and it is evident that a feast of some consequence is in preparation. Fowl, game, fish, vegetables, fruits, all are there on the tables and the floor. In the background, before a big fire, a cook is roasting joints, and a man and woman are very busy close beside him. In front, in the middle, and in the bright light, is seated the young mistress of the house, also aiding in the preparations. For the moment she is peeling a lemon, and the little boy is standing beside her holding a plate. She wears a blood-colored skirt, and on her sky-blue bodice expands a broad collar of a whiteness that Metsu would envy. The whole is very ably and broadly painted with that just and free touch and those spirited accents which characterize the technique of Teniers. It is painted at the beginning of his best period when his silvery period begins: he was then thirty-four years old. Burger cleverly says: "Like certain of those fishes that he has painted so well, Teniers is excellent between the head and tail." The Good Kitchen is painted on copper and is only two feet and a half broad. A small picture on wood shows an alchemist with a gray beard seated beside a table holding a book. His assistant is kneeling beside a furnace. Sir Joshua Reynolds said: "The works of David Teniers, Jun., are worthy the closest attention of a painter who desires to excel in the mechanical knowledge of his art. His manner of touching, or what we call handling, has perhaps never been equalled: there is in his pictures that exact mixture of softness and sharpness which is difficult to execute." =Tilborgh's Picture of A Dinner.=--We must not neglect now to look at the one picture by Tilborgh, A Dinner, particularly interesting on account of the personages represented. Tilborgh (1625-78), supposed to have been a pupil of Teniers, certainly follows him in choice of subject--interiors of taverns, peasants merry-making, _kermesses_, village feasts, etc. He was popular in his day,--even more so, it is said, than Teniers himself. The dinner is taking place in the home of Adriaen van Ostade, who is seated in the middle, with his wife on his right, beyond whom are a man and a woman. On the left is Paul Potter, with long hair and a large hat, dressed in a pearl-gray doublet and red stockings. His general appearance is very gay, and quite a contrast to the melancholy portrait by B. van der Helst, which also hangs in this gallery. Near Potter stands his silly little wife, dressed in light blue,--a not specially graceful figure. Two other painters are standing on the left, talking together. Burger thinks they may be Tilborgh himself and Isaak van Ostade. FOOTNOTES: [1] This picture, representing Dr. Johan Deyman's lecture in anatomy, was partly burned in the eighteenth century, and the fragment now hangs in the Rijks with the other collection of anatomical pictures from the Surgeons' Guild of Amsterdam. [2] The figures in this landscape were painted by Lingelbach. [3] Blanc. [4] Crowe. [5] Bredius. [6] Crowe. [7] Crowe. [8] Crowe. [9] Blanc. [10] Crowe. [11] Crowe. [12] Reynolds. [13] Dr. Bredius. [14] Crowe. [15] Blanc. [16] In the Louvre. [17] Hymans. [18] Blanc. [19] Greef (Grif, Grifir, or Gryef), Anton, Flemish painter of landscapes with dogs and dead game, born at Antwerp in 1670; died in Brussels in 1715. He is supposed to have been a pupil of Frans Synders. There seem to have been two painters of the same name. [20] Victor, Jakob or Giacomo, Dutch painter of the seventeenth century. Pictures by him are in Dresden, Copenhagen, and Munich; in the latter, his Barnyard bears the forged signature of Hondecoeter. [21] Blanc. [22] Crowe. THE RIJKS MUSEUM THE WAY TO THE RIJKS On taking the tramway at the Dam, the traveller will find the short trip to the Rijks Museum a very pleasant one. The car glides rapidly through a busy part of Amsterdam, crossing canal after canal,--the Singel, Heeren, Keizers, and Prinsen grachts,--bordered with leafy trees and houses that present a picturesque appearance. Alighting at Willems Park, on the canal long known as the Buiten Singel, or outer girdle, separating the old from the new town, we walk a short distance along the Stadhouders-Kade to the imposing red brick building with granite bands, arches, tympans, entablatures, etc., in the transition style between the Gothic and the Dutch Renaissance, which covers nearly three acres of ground. The principal _façade_, turned toward the Buiten Singel, presents a somewhat majestic appearance, with its two fine towers and central gable surmounted by a statue of Victory, by Vermeylen. =History of this Collection.=--Before entering, we may note that this splendid Museum was opened in the name of the King of Holland in 1885. Perhaps we may pause also to recall the history and development of this great collection, which was formed of the remnant of the pictures and curiosities left by the last Stadtholder, William V. In 1798 the Government decreed the formation of a National Museum, and this was installed in the Huis ten Bosch (House in the Wood), near The Hague, and opened to the public in 1800. From time to time the collection was increased by purchases, and in 1805 it received the name of Cabinet National. When the King of Holland removed his residence, however, from Utrecht to Amsterdam, in 1808, he ordered that a Royal Museum for the preservation of pictures, drawings, prints, sculpture, carvings, engraven gems, antiquities, and curiosities of all kinds should be formed. =Opening of the Royal Museum in 1808.=--This Museum was opened in the Palace on the Dam in December, 1808. Here were gathered ninety-six pictures from the National Museum of 1798 (one hundred and fifty-four remaining pictures being sent to The Hague); fifty-seven pictures bought in 1808 at the sale of G. van der Pot van Groeneveld in Rotterdam; eight old pictures given by The Hague in 1808; seven old pictures lent by the city of Amsterdam (among them The Night Watch and Syndics and The Banquet of the Civil Guard); six pictures and a marble statuette by J. B. Xavery, given by Baron van Spaen de Biljoen; a few modern pictures bought at the exposition of 1808; one hundred and thirty-seven pictures forming the Van Heteren Collection, bought in 1809 for 100,000 florins; and seven pictures bought in the same year at the Bicker sale; several casts of antique statues from the Musée Napoléon of Paris; and some antiquities found chiefly in Drenthe. =Removal to the Trippenhuis.=--In 1810 the name was changed from the "Royal Museum" to the "Dutch Museum," and in 1814 the collections were transferred to the Trippenhuis, where they remained until 1885. =Numerous Additions from 1825 to 1885.=--In 1825 some pictures were exchanged with the Royal Museum at The Hague (Mauritshuis); and in 1828 some duplicates were sold for 23,701 florins, with which sum other pictures were purchased. In 1828 William I. made a present of some pictures he had acquired at the Brentano and Muller sales to the State Museum, as it was now called. In 1838 many of the modern pictures were transferred to the Paviljoen Welgelegen, which became, therefore, a gallery of the works of living painters of the Netherlands; and this collection was gradually enriched by gifts and purchases. In 1885 the one hundred and eighty-four pictures of this collection were sent to the Rijks. =Bequests.=--The principal bequests have been as follows: Madame la Ve Balguerie Van Rijswijck, twenty-two family portraits (1823); M. L. Dupper, Wz., sixty-four superb pictures (1870); Mlle. J. E. Liotard, an enamel of great value, and fifteen pastels by the Genevese painter, J. E. Liotard, to which Mme. Liotard sent six other pastels by the same artist in 1885 (1873); Jhr. Me. J. de Witte van Citters some objects of art, curios, prints, and thirty-five family portraits (1875); Mme. J. J. van Winter Bicker, forty-four portraits of the Bicker family (1879); Jhr. J. S. H. van de Poll, fifty-two pictures of great value (1880); and a gift of Jhr. J. S. R. van de Poll, comprising thirty-five family portraits. =Two Important Collections added.=--Two important collections have yet to be mentioned: the famous Van der Hoop Collection and The Collection of Contemporary Art. The former was gathered by M. Adriaan van der Hoop, head of the house of Hope & Co., and knight of several orders, who made a magnificent collection of about two hundred and twenty-four ancient and modern pictures. These he left to the city of Amsterdam in 1854. It was lodged in the Académie des Beaux Arts until removed to the Rijks in 1885. In 1880 Mme. Van der Hoop left twenty-four more pictures, which had adorned her house, to complete the gift. The Collection of Contemporary Art is the work of an association of Amsterdam art-lovers founded in 1875. =The Staircase and the Rembrandt Room.=--Before ascending the stairs guarded by two lions couchant, we may stop to notice a picture by Pieter Cornelisz van Rijck (1568-16--), representing an old Dutch kitchen with all sorts of eatables, and in the background a feast representing the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. This staircase leads to the Entrance Hall, from which we go to the Grand Gallery, which leads directly into the famous Rembrandt Room, in which The Night Watch holds the place of honor. The Grand Gallery is bordered on each side by four compartments, or cabinets, hung with pictures of the seventeenth century. =A Tour through the Rooms.=--To the left of the Rembrandt Room is the Carlovingian Room; and from this we pass into International Hall, where pictures of foreign masters are gathered. In the next room are assembled the oldest pictures of the Dutch School. The next room contains masters of the sixteenth century, and next to it comes Dupper Hall, devoted to the glorious period of Dutch art, the seventeenth century. Here are sixty-four paintings, many of which are masterpieces. Next comes Van der Poll Hall with fifty-two pictures, then the Hall of Anatomy Pictures, and next Portrait Hall. From this we visit the five cabinets, containing such pictures of the Old Dutch School as from their small dimensions and minute finish are best seen in small rooms. On the opposite side of the vestibule are five similar cabinets with similar pictures. Beyond these is Pavilion Hall, containing portraits, many of which are painters' portraits of themselves. Then come the Van der Hoop Museum and two galleries of modern pictures, one of which is called Waterloo Hall, because of The Battle of Waterloo, by J. W. Pieneman, hanging there. From this we enter the Old Dutch Governors' Room, representing a typical room of the seventeenth century with allegorical ceiling, tapestries, and old furniture. From this we pass into the adjoining Gold Leather Room, where there is a picture representing a marriage party, and a collection of drinking vessels of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in one of the cupboards. The Dutch Governors' Room leads into the Rembrandt Room, which again leads us into the Grand Gallery, our starting point. =Rembrandt's Work in his Middle and Last Periods.=--We have seen in The Hague the great works of Rembrandt's early period; in the Rijks we find the full flowering of his genius in his middle and last periods. The Night Watch was painted in 1642; the Portrait of Elizabeth Bas, about 1645; the fragment of the Anatomy picture, representing Dr. Deyman, in 1656; The Syndics, in 1661; and The Jewish Bride, or Ruth and Boaz, about 1663. The Rijks owns two other pictures: a mythological composition and the head of his father, painted in Leyden in 1630. =Description of The Night Watch.=--Let us look carefully at The Night Watch, Rembrandt's most famous picture and also his largest (11 feet by 14). It was painted in 1642, ten years after the Lesson in Anatomy, for the Kloveniers Doele (Arquebusiers Shooting Company). The great Sortie of the Banning Cock Company, which is the more correct name for The Night Watch, represents twenty-nine life-sized civic guards issuing from their guardhouse in a great state of bustle and confusion, while the drums beat and the dog barks. The dominant color is the citron-yellow uniform of the lieutenant, wearing a blue sash, while a Titian-like red dress of a musketeer, the black velvet dress of the captain, and the varied green of the girl and the drummer, all produce a rich and harmonious effect. The background has become dark and heavy by accident or neglect, and the scutcheon on which the names are painted is scarcely to be seen.[23] In the middle, in front, marches the captain in a dark brown, almost black, costume, at his side Lieutenant Willem van Ruitenberg, in a yellow buffalo jerkin, both figures in the full sunlight, so that the shadow of the captain's hand is distinctly traceable on the jerkin. On the right hand of the captain are an arquebusier loading his weapon, and two children, of whom the one in front, a girl, has a dead cock hanging from her girdle (perhaps one of the prizes). On a step behind them is the flag-bearer, Jan Visser Cornelissen. The other side of the picture is pervaded with similar life and spirit, from the lieutenant to the drummer, Jan van Kamboort, at the extreme corner, who energetically beats his drum. In an oval frame on a column in the background are inscribed the names of the members of the guild. =The Night Watch a Misnomer.=--The remarkable chiaroscuro of the whole picture (seen to greatest advantage in the afternoon) has led to the belief that Rembrandt intended to depict a nocturnal scene; but the event represented really takes place in daylight, the lofty vaulted hall of the guild being lighted only by windows above, to the left, not visible to the spectator, and being therefore properly obscured in partial twilight. The peculiar light and the spirited action of the picture elevate this group of portraits into a most effective dramatic scene, which ever since its creation has been enthusiastically admired by all connoisseurs of art. Each guild member represented paid 100 florins for his portrait, so that, as there were originally sixteen in the group, the painter received 1,600 florins for his work. The painting was successfully cleaned by Hopman in 1889. The picture is so deeply enveloped in shadow that it is some time before the spectator can see figures emerge, although they always retain something of a supernatural quality, derived partly from the phosphorescent gleams that here and there illuminate faces, figures, drum, halberds, flag-pole, and lances. =The Mutilation of the Picture.=--When The Night Watch was removed from the Kloveniers Doele to the small military council chamber of the Town Hall on the Dam, in 1715, portions of it were cut off on the right and left and at the bottom, which has greatly interfered with its appearance. A photograph of an old drawing hangs near the picture, which shows the (supposed) original form of the composition. =The Syndics.=--Some critics consider The Syndics Rembrandt's greatest achievement; and all are agreed that it is one of the finest groups of portraits ever painted. This work, finished in 1662--twenty years after The Night Watch--was ordered by the Guild of Clothmakers, who wished to have a portrait group of their Syndics to hang in their chamber at the Staalhof (sample hall) in the Staalstraat in Amsterdam. =Rembrandt's Special Traits exhibited in this Picture.=--Here Rembrandt's special traits are exhibited: his wonderful treatment of light, his grouping of figures, and his study of character. The five Syndics, all dressed alike in black with flat white collars and broad-brimmed-high-crowned hats, are grouped around a table verifying their accounts. The yellow oak wainscot behind them and the scarlet table-cloth contribute the only color to the sombre group. Six canvases of portraits of Syndics formerly hung in the Staalhof, the oldest of which was painted in 1559. Only two now remain: the one by Rembrandt, and another, also in the Rijks, by Aert Pietersen, painted in 1599. Upon the frame of the latter is a Dutch inscription, which, translated, reads: "Consider your oath In what you know. Live uprightly. Through favor or hatred Or self-interest Don't give an opinion." Rembrandt's five Dutch gentlemen look as if they had closely followed this excellent moral advice. =Description of The Jewish Bride.=--The Jewish Bride depicts two life-size figures, standing and seen to the knees, one a young woman dressed in a red gown with white sleeves and white cape. Her complexion is rosy, and she has an abundance of brown hair. She is simply covered with jewels,--a comb, earrings, collar, large chain, bracelets, rings of pearls, and sparkling gems. Her face is tranquil and radiant. Her gallant companion is about to embrace her, his face full of tenderness. He wears a long wig with curls falling over his shoulders and has no beard; this was the fashion after 1660. He has a large black cap on his head, and his pourpoint, mantle, and wide and embroidered sleeves are yellow. The head of the man is very highly finished, slightly recalling in manner those in The Syndics; but his clothing is somewhat hastily done. The picture is unfinished, but in the dark fantastic background some architecture with foliage and a vase of flowers suggesting a park may be discerned to the left; also the vague form of a dog. On the right, there are some shrubs and a wall. Burger thinks this was painted in 1669, the last year of Rembrandt's life. The canvas is about five feet long and four feet high. =The Celebrated Portrait of Elizabeth Bas.=--The portrait of Elizabeth Bas, the widow of Lieutenant Admiral Joachim Swartenhout, painted in 1642, is considered one of Rembrandt's most celebrated portraits. Seated in an easy chair and wearing a rich dress profusely ornamented with buttons, the stern, commanding face of the old lady looks directly at the spectator. Her marvellously painted hands are folded over a handkerchief, and she wears a cap and a fluted ruff. Two other portraits by Rembrandt can be seen here: one, of a lady; and the other, of his father (a copy). =Multiplicity of Portraits in the Rijks.=--In the Rijks Gallery portraits, either single or groups, outnumber all other branches of art. Some of these have a world-wide reputation, while others are interesting only to the special student. No less famous than Rembrandt's Elizabeth Bas is that of another old lady, Maria Voogt, Madame van der Meer, painted by Frans Hals in 1639, which hangs in the Van der Hoop Room. "An old woman is seated in an arm-chair almost full face and of natural size. She is dressed in black velvet, with a white ruff. Her right hand holds a book with a silver clasp, the left hand rests on the arm of the chair. The tone is neutral. A superb portrait of the first order. You read above the coat-of-arms _Ætatis suæ_ 64. _A{o}_ 1639."[24] =Hals's Portrait of Himself and his Wife.=--Hals's portrait of himself and his wife, Lysbeth Reyniers, represents the couple as life-size and seated in a rather uncomfortable position on a bank under the trees, in a garden ornamented with statues and fountains. In the distance a peacock struts; and the scene is so cheerful that the smiling faces of Hals and his wife are quite explicable. The latter's ruff is of enormous size and marvellously painted. =Hals's The Jester.=--Hals always loved to render the face in action, to fix forever a rapid fleeting expression; and one of his most notable achievements is the famous Jester owned by Baron Rothschild in Paris. As few art lovers can ever have the chance of seeing this masterpiece, the admirable copy that hangs in the Rijks, said to have been made by Dirck Hals, should be carefully examined. The canvas is variously known as The Jester, The Fool, The Mandolin Player, and The Lute Player; and is said to be a portrait of the artist's pupil, Adriaen Brouwer; but whoever he is, he is a rascally, impudent fellow with a mocking, cynical smile, and belongs to the same class as Touchstone, Dogberry, Launcelot Gobbo, and other of our prized and disreputable Shakespearian acquaintances. Hals's Jester is a creation. Look at the vagabond well, first because he will soon twang the chords of his lute, break out into a song of the day, then doff his cap and beg for money. Look at the pose of his left hand and the strong, flexible thumb. He can _play_. Next look at the artist's work and note the broad sweeps of the brush that so simply but surely create the features and expression. A Jolly Man is another of Hals's pictures that may be classed as portraits, a splendid piece of work. Go closely up to the picture and notice how the broad brush strokes are made. [Illustration: MOREELSE The Little Princess] =Moreelse's The Little Princess.=--A very charming portrait is that of The Little Princess by Moreelse. The child looks somewhat demurely at the spectator, with large brown eyes. Her face is round, her forehead high, and her light brown hair, brushed severely from her face, is ornamented with a pink rose held in place by a jewelled band. Her large earrings are coral and pearl. A necklace and bracelets of three rows of handsome pearls adorn her neck and wrists, and a brooch containing a miniature set with jewels fastens the rosette at the point of her collar. Her dress is of dark green velvet embroidered with gold and fastened by rich girdles and chains. Marvellously indeed has the artist executed the lace and transparent lawn of which the "butterfly" ruff and dainty cuffs are made. The little right hand rests lovingly on the head of a King Charles spaniel, whose neck is adorned with bells. An old rose curtain gives a charming note of color to the background. =Moreelse's Great Success as a Portrait-painter.=--Paulus Moreelse (1571-1638), a native of Utrecht and a pupil and follower of Mierevelt in Delft, became so successful as a portrait-painter that all the great ladies desired to sit to him. He visited Rome in 1604, and on his return painted for a time historical and architectural subjects. He was also a capable engraver and architect. =Other Portraits by Moreelse.=--In addition to The Little Princess, we may see in this gallery a very fine portrait of Maria van Utrecht, wife of Joan van Oldenbarnevelt, at the age of sixty-three (1615); also a Portrait of Himself; one of A Woman; another of Frederick V., King of Bohemia; another of Colonel Wtenhoghe; and The Beautiful Shepherdess, dated 1630, with flowers and a veil on her head, yellow draperies, and a rake in her hand. This picture was purchased for 2,150 florins in 1817. In all probability it is a portrait. [Illustration: MIEREVELT Prince Maurits of Nassau] =Mierevelt, a Popular Portrait-painter.=--Michael Mierevelt (1567-1641), the son of a goldsmith and pupil of Anthony van Montfoort at Utrecht, attained notoriety by his portraits of some of the princes of the House of Nassau. From that time he was never without orders; and he is supposed to have painted a greater number of portraits than any other artist of his country. Mierevelt spent most of his life in Delft. The Rijks contains a great number of his works, among which are: portraits of Jacob Cats; Johan v. Oldenbarnevelt; F. Hendrik; Philips Willem, Prince of Orange; Prince Maurits; Johannes Uitenbogaert; Frederick V., Elector of the Palatinate; Lubbert Gerritz; Paulus van Beresteyn; Volckera Nicolai; Henrick Hooft, and of Aegje Hasselaer, wife of Henrick Hooft. =Portraits by Honthorst.=--The student of history and lover of portraits will be attracted by the following Honthorsts: Frederick Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg, and his wife, Louise Henriette of Orange; William II., Prince of Orange; William II. with his wife, Princess Maria Stuart of England; Frederik Hendrik; Amalia v. Solms; and the Princes of Orange, William I., Maurits, Frederik Hendrik, William II., and William III. =Portraits by Van der Helst.=--By Van der Helst there are portraits of Maria Stuart, Princess Royal of England, widow of William II., Prince of Orange; Portrait of a Warrior; and Portraits of Andries Bicker, Burgomaster of Amsterdam (1586-1652); and Gerard A. Bicker (1623-66). =Rubens's Portrait of Helena Fourment.=--Rubens's portrait of Helena Fourment shows his second wife, in a different mood and costume from the one in the Mauritshuis. Here she is represented full face, with hair curled in tufts, a satin bodice, high fan-shaped ruff spreading behind the head, throat half bare, with necklace and many jewels. He has also a portrait of Anna Maria, wife of Louis XIII. of France. =Portraits by Van Dijck.=--Van Dijck is represented by a Portrait of William II., Prince of Orange, and his Betrothed, Mary Stuart, painted in 1641; a Portrait of a Man; and one of Johannes Baptist Franck, a young man of twenty-eight, with light hair, pointed beard, and moustache, and wearing a black cloak draped in graceful folds. This was once in Lucien Bonaparte's collection. =Portraits by T. de Keijser.=--A few examples of Theodor de Keijser, though of small dimensions, rank among the best specimens of this painter. =Change of Fashion in Portrait-painting exemplified by Maes.=--Maes, more familiar by his _genre_, has no less than eight portraits here, besides a large corporation picture representing the Chiefs of the Corporation of Surgeons of Amsterdam, 1680-81. The great difference in style and quality between the early and late portraits of this master has led many to believe that they are the work of more than one master. The change is attributed to his visit to Antwerp; but it has been pointed out that the fashion was changing everywhere, including Amsterdam, where even Rembrandt during the closing years of his life was despised and neglected by the fashionable public. Maes, on the other hand, made concessions to the vulgar taste; and, for a quarter of a century, produced an enormous quantity of secondary or mediocre portraits, in which all trace of his master's qualities was lost. =Artists' Portraits of Themselves.=--Though not so great in the line of painters' portraits of themselves as the Uffizi, the Rijks possesses a good number of men who thought they saw themselves as others saw them, or at any rate, as they wished posterity to know them. Among these are Jan Steen, Gerrit Dou, Ferdinand Bol, Honthorst, Ter Borch, and L. Bakhuysen. A fine portrait by Bol of the famous sculptor Artus Quellin; a Male Portrait by Dou; one of Amalia v. Solms by Flinck; and the Portrait of an Architect with his Wife and Child, by Bernhart Fabritius, deserve notice. =Van der Helst, a Great Portrait-painter.=--Bartholomew van der Helst (1613-70) was considered the greatest portrait-painter of his time, and received more money for his portraits than any other Dutch painter; yet, notwithstanding his industry and the money that he received, he died poor. He is thought to have been a pupil of Nicholas Eliasz Pickenoy at Amsterdam, where he fell under the influence of Rembrandt. =Description of The Civic Guard Banquet.=--Bartholomew van der Helst's great work, The Schuttersmaaltijd (Civic Guard Banquet), held June 18, 1648, in the upper hall of the Cross-bow, or St. George Company House, at the Singel, in celebration of the Peace of Münster, always fascinates. The twenty-five figures are all portraits. At the head of the table Captain Wits is seated in a chair of black oak with a velvet cushion. He is dressed in black velvet, his breast covered with a cuirass, and on his head is a broad-brimmed black hat with white plumes. His left hand, supported on his knee, holds a magnificent silver drinking-horn ornamented with a St. George and the Dragon,--which valuable piece of silver, by the way, is on permanent exhibition with other beakers and drinking-horns of the old guilds in the Rijks. The good-humored Captain is cordially grasping the hand of Lieutenant Van Waveren, who wears a handsome pearl-gray doublet richly brocaded with gold, and lace collar and cuffs. His feet are crossed, and he wears boots of yellow leather with large tops and gold spurs. His hat is black, with dark brown plumes. Behind him, in the centre of the picture, is the standard-bearer, Jacob Banning, in easy, martial attitude, hat in hand, his right hand on his chair, his right leg on his left knee. He holds the flag of blue silk, on which the Virgin is embroidered. The banner covers his shoulder, and he looks out toward the spectator frankly and complacently. The man behind him is probably a sergeant. He wears a cuirass, yellow gloves, gray stockings, and boots with large tops and kneecaps of cloth. On his knee is a napkin, and in his hands a piece of ham, a slice of bread, and a knife. The old man behind him is thought to be William the Drummer. In one hand he holds his hat, and in the other a gold-footed wineglass filled with the most marvellously painted white wine. He wears a black satin doublet slashed with yellow silk, and a red sash. Behind him are two matchlock men seated at the end of a table. One, with a napkin on his knee, is eating with his knife; the other holds a long glass of white wine, also a marvel of the painter's skill. Four musketeers, with differently shaped hats, stand behind; one holds a glass, the others have their guns on their shoulders. Between the standard-bearer and the Captain several guests are placed: one is carving a fowl; another, with his hat off and hand uplifted, is talking to his neighbor; a third is filling a cup from a silver flagon; and a fourth holds a silver plate. Behind the Captain are two other figures, one of whom is peeling an orange. Two others with halberts are standing, and one holds a plumed hat. Between Banning and the Captain there are three others, one of whom holds a pewter pot, engraved with the name Pocock, the landlord of the Hotel Doele. At the back a maidservant is bringing in a pasty on which rests a turkey. The _façades_ of two houses are seen through the panes of the window in the background. In the left-hand corner stands a very handsome wine-cooler. =Reynolds's Opinion of this Picture.=--"The best picture in this house is painted by Van der Helst. It represents a company of trained bands, about thirty figures, whole-length, among which the Spanish Ambassador is introduced shaking hands with one of the principal figures. This is perhaps the first picture of portraits in the world, comprehending more of those qualities which make a perfect portrait than any other I have ever seen: they are correctly drawn, both head and figures, and well colored; and have great variety of action, characters, and countenances, and those so lively and truly expressing what they are about, that the spectator has nothing to wish for. Of this picture I had before heard great commendations; but it far exceeded my expectations." ... =A Portrait Group by Rembrandt, and another by Van der Helst.=--"A Frieze over one of the doors in chiaroscuro by De Witt, is not only one of the best deceptions I have seen, but the boys are well drawn; the ceiling and side of the room are likewise by him, but a poor performance. The academy of painting is a part of this immense building: in it are two admirable pictures, composed entirely of portraits,--one by Rembrandt, and the other by Bartholomew van der Helst. That of Rembrandt contains six men dressed in black; one of them, who has a book before him, appears to have been reading a lecture; the top of the table not seen. The heads are finely painted, but not superior to those of his neighbor. The subject of Van der Helst is the Society of Archers bestowing a premium: they appear to be investing some person with an order. The date on this is 1657; on the Rembrandt 1661." =Van der Helst's Masterpiece.=--Captain Roelof Bicker's Company, painted in 1639, has been termed Van der Helst's masterpiece. It is the largest picture of its class in the gallery and contains thirty-two figures. Captain Bicker and Lieutenant Jan Blaeu have brought their men from their headquarters, and are welcoming a new ensign before the Brewery de Haen (the Cock) on the corner of the Lastaadje (Geldersche Kade and Bloomsloot), in 1639. The picture is remarkable for its wonderful display of color and the vitality that every figure possesses. [Illustration: B. VAN DER HELST Company of Captain R. Bicker] =Regent, Doelen, and Corporation Pictures.=--In every gallery in Holland the traveller will come across the life-size groups known as "Regent," "Doelen," and "Corporation" pictures. These are always portraits of members of shooting, charitable, and medical civic societies and guilds of merchants, and were painted at the order of these various companies to hang in their guild halls, shooting galleries (_doelen_), and hospitals. Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Bartholomew van der Helst brought these pictures to their highest expression and made of them artistic compositions. Hals's great works of this class are in Haarlem; but the Rijks owns, as we have seen, the celebrated Night Watch and The Syndics, and B. Van der Helst's masterpieces, Schuttersmaaltijd and Company of Captain Roelof Bicker. =Similar Pictures by Govert Flinck.=--Next in importance are the works of Govert Flinck (1615-60), a pupil and close imitator of Rembrandt, who devoted his energies to portraits and historical and religious subjects. Three "Corporation" or "Doelen" pictures by his hand hang in this gallery; also Isaac Blessing Jacob, dated 1638; and three portraits, including one of J. van den Vondel, who thought so highly of Flinck that he compared him to the Greek Apelles. =His Greatest Work.=--His most important "Corporation" picture depicts the same scene as Van der Helst's. This, called Arquebusiers of Amsterdam at a Banquet Celebrating the Signing of the Peace of Münster in 1648, is considered this artist's greatest work; it is particularly interesting from the fact that it contains a portrait of the painter himself standing in the doorway. This picture is in two groups: on the left, nine men are coming from the St. Jorisdoele, led by Captain Jan Huidecoper van Maarseveen, dressed in black velvet, with a blue sash; and the other group, consisting of eleven figures, is led by Lieutenant Frans van Waveren, also dressed in black velvet with a blue sash, who is congratulating the Captain. The two other "Regent" pictures are: Four Chief Masters of the Arquebusiers' Shooting Company and The Company of Captain Bas and Lieutenant Conyn. =Bol's Pictures of this Class.=--Burger, however, when looking at Ferdinand Bol's pictures of this class in the Rijks, especially The Regents of the Leprozenhuis in Amsterdam, and its companion The Lady Patronesses of the Leprozenhuis, placed the artist second to none but Rembrandt, and even the superior of B. van der Helst. =Description of the First of These.=--The first picture (8 by 6 feet) represents the Regents of the establishment, among whom are the Burgomaster Hofdt and the Receiver of Amsterdam, Pieter van Uitenbogaard, Rembrandt's friend. All are dressed in black, with large hats, and are seated around a table covered with a Persian carpet. The _custos_ is bringing before them a little bare-headed leper. The figures are life-size, and "have the distinction of Van Dijck's personages," writes Burger, "and the solidity and depth of Rembrandt's." =Dujardin's Regents of the House of Correction.=--Karel Dujardin's Regents of the House of Correction in Amsterdam, painted in 1669, is another remarkable work and very unusual in style for this artist. The canvas is no less than 12 feet 8 inches by 7 feet 8 inches, and represents the five Regents. Of natural size, these are grouped around a table with a violet velvet cover. (Violet, it may be noted, was Karel Dujardin's favorite color.) One of the Regents, his body turned to the left and his head three-quarters, is seated in front, with his right hand on the table; he holds a paper with a coat-of-arms dated February, 1669, and signed "Medelman"; his left hand rests on his hip. Another holds out his hand to a servant, who is bringing him a paper. One only is standing. All are dressed in black, with large black hats and white neckbands. Some white marble columns in the style of G. de Lairesse are seen in the background, where a servant with her hands crossed over her waist is entering the open door and turning her head to listen to a young man. Heads, hands, faces, and costumes are all remarkably depicted. =Other Pictures of the Same Class.=--Before dismissing the Corporation pictures we may mention J. van Sandrart's Captain van Swieten's Company Preparing to Escort Queen Dowager Marie de Médici, painted in 1638, and considered the artist's chief work; P. Moreelse's Amsterdam Arquebusiers; N. Elias's Banquet of Captain J. Backer's Company; B. van der Helst's Presidents of the Voetboog-doelen and Presidents of the Handboog-doelen. One of the earliest pictures of this class is Cornelis Teunissen's Banquet of the Civic Guards of the Cross-bow Company, painted in Amsterdam in 1533. Another by the same artist, Guards of the Cloveniers-doelen, was painted in 1557. A still earlier one, Dirck Jacobsz's Civic Guards of the Cloveniers-doelen, was painted in 1529. This artist is also represented by Civic Guards of the Arquebusiers, which hangs near Dirck Barentsz's Civic Guards and Civic Guards of the Cross-bow Company. A number of Regent pictures also hang in the Hall of Anatomy Pictures, including Lessons in Anatomy, by Thomas de Keijser, Nicolaes Elias, Dr. J. Deyment, and Rembrandt (the latter a fragment). It is unlikely, however, that the visitor will care to linger in this lugubrious hall. =The Portrait Hall.=--We now pass into the Portrait Hall, which contains two portrait collections, consisting of portraits bequeathed by the Bicker family of Amsterdam, and twenty-six pictures purchased in 1895 from the descendants of the great Admiral de Ruyter. Here we again find a number of Corporation and Regent pictures, chief among which is Rembrandt's Syndics of the Guild of Clothmakers, which has been described. =Abundance of Dutch Landscapes in the Rijks.=--The Rijks is rich in landscapes of every period of Dutch art. Ruisdael is particularly well represented. His pictures are The Torrent, Château de Bentheim, Winter, The Forest, View of Haarlem, Landscape, Wooded Landscape, Landscape in Norway, and View of the Rhine near Wijk bij Duurstede. =Description of Ruisdael's View of the Rhine near Duurstede.=--Burger thought that the picture of the banks of the Rhine taken from Wijk near Duurstede deserved to be placed by the side of the superb Tempest in the Louvre; for it has "the same original grandeur of execution and the same depth of sentiment." This is almost a marine. The water occupies almost all the left foreground, where you note a sail-boat. A large boat, the masts of which you see only, has taken refuge in the little bay in the centre. On the right, upon a tongue of land that juts out and is bordered by piles, stands a windmill; behind this is a house, and on the horizon a steeple. A little to the left of the mill and far distant is a castle with turrets. On the road that leads to the mill come three peasant women in white aprons. One wears a white head-dress; the two others have yellow ones. You can also distinguish some other tiny figures by the little bay where the boat lies. The incomparable sky is gray, and the clouds are of the same hue. =Burger on the Same Picture.=--"Earth, water, sky, all are so beautifully combined in a harmony so strong and dominating, so simple and magnificent, that you are impressed with that strange--almost terrible--effect produced, and you can't tell why. Indeed, there is only a large mill with a round, tower-like base in the ordinary fashion of the country, and three women who are returning to the village. There is nothing to excite the imagination. Yet, notwithstanding, you are filled with an irresistible melancholy. The character and nature of the people are so strongly marked that you are taken out of yourself and transported by the force of the artist's heart and creation." Another picture represents a mill with its wheel in the water; and on the right some wood-cutters at work. This is a strong picture, but a little sombre. =Burger on The Cascade.=--"The Cascade [6 feet long by 4 feet high] seems to have been composed with various elements of Nature herself. The water bounds and foams in the foreground and over the entire canvas. Above this great torrent on the right are tall trees, beneath which are four little figures; and on the left, a clump of shrubs, in the shadows of which a flock of sheep is passing by the brook. In the background, behind the meadows, a belfry is seen on the horizon. It is very rich, very vigorous, very beautiful." =Influence of Everdingen.=--The Norwegian Landscape (about five feet long) is also a large picture. Here the cascade tumbles over little rocks, and on the right are rocks, trees, a house, and one tall, isolated tree. This is cleverly painted, but the composition is not happy. The true accents of nature are lacking; for it is certain that Ruisdael never was in Norway, and that he devoted himself to cascades and rocks on account of his intimacy with Van Everdingen, whose bold landscapes, so different from Holland, surprised and delighted the Dutch. Everdingen had suffered shipwreck in Norway, and had been greatly taken with its bold, savage scenery. His favorite subject was a waterfall in a glen with sombre fringes of pines mingled with birch, and log huts at the base of rocks and craggy slopes. The prevalence of falling water in his pictures, when others could paint only the monotonous Dutch lowlands, gained for him the name "Inventor of Cascades." Salomon Ruisdael (?-1670) has two fine landscapes, The Halt, dated 1660, and The Village Inn, dated 1655. =Description of Hobbema's Water Mill.=--Hobbema is represented by two Water Mills and a Landscape. The picture in the Van der Hoop Collection shows a wooden mill with red-tiled roof in the centre of the picture; and behind it a background of tall trees. Hollowed-out-tree-trunks supported by boards carry the water to the mill wheel, over which it falls. The foreground is occupied with water in which ducks are swimming. In the shadows of the door of the house, a tiny figure of a man appears; and a small figure of a woman in bright red bodice, upon which the sunlight falls, is busy washing clothes in a copper. On the right, an old peasant in brown is holding by the hand a little boy who wears a red cap. The Landscape is diversified with trees and thickets. The sky is full of clouds, between which the rays of sunlight issue to gild the verdure. Delicate tones of olive and gray distinguish this beautiful picture. [Illustration: HOBBEMA The Water Mill] =Description of Hobbema's Landscape.=--In the Landscape, which by some is thought superior to the Water Mill, a house and barn are seen on the right; two small figures are in front of the house, a man in black, standing, and a woman in red, bending over; and there are a group of trees, a large elm, and a hedge. All this is beautifully reflected in a sheet of water in the foreground,--a reflection that seems to tremble. This picture is only one foot five inches long by one foot high. =Hobbema and his most Frequent Scenes.=--Meyndert Hobbema (1638-1709), supposed to have been a pupil of Jacob Ruisdael, or of Jacob's brother Salomon, was long neglected, and died in penury. He is now regarded second to none but Ruisdael and his works are worth their weight in gold. His most frequent scenes are villages surrounded by trees, such as are frequently met with in Guelderland, with winding pathways leading from house to house. A water mill occasionally forms a prominent feature,--so prominent, indeed, as to give its name to the picture. Again, he paints a slightly uneven country diversified by trees in groups or rows, wheat fields, meadows, and small pools; occasionally a view of a town with gates, or canals with sluices and quays; and more rarely the ruins of an old castle or a stately residence in the far distance. =Hobbema, a Master of the Still Life of Woods and Waters.=--"It is doubtful whether any one ever mastered so completely as he did the still life of woods and hedges, or mills and pools. Nor can we believe that he obtained this mastery otherwise than by constantly dwelling in the same neighborhood, say in Guelders or on the Dutch Westphalian border, where day after day he might study the branching and foliage of trees and underwood embowering cottages and mills, under every variety of light, in every shade of transparency, in all changes produced by the season. Though his landscapes are severely and moderately toned, generally in an olive key, and often attuned to a puritanical gray or russet, they surprise us, not only by the variety of their leafage, but by the finish of their detail as well as the boldness of their touch. With astonishing subtlety light is shown penetrating cloud, and illuminating--sometimes transiently, sometimes steadily--different portions of the ground, shining through leaves upon other leaves, and multiplying in an endless way the transparency of the picture. If the chance be given him he mirrors all these things in the still pool near a cottage, the reaches of a sluggish river, or the swirl of a stream that feeds a busy mill. The same spot will furnish him with several pictures. One mill gives him repeated opportunity of charming our eye. And this wonderful artist, who is only second to Ruisdael because he had not Ruisdael's versatility and did not extend his study equally to downs and rocky eminences or torrents and estuaries,--this is the man who lived penuriously, died poor, and left no trace in the artistic annals of his country. It has been said that Hobbema did not paint his own figures, but transferred that duty to Adriaen van de Velde, Lingelbach, Barent Gael, and Abraham Storck. As to this, much is conjecture."[25] =Hackaert's Pictures.=--Jan Hackaert is perfect when he is simple and inspired by the character and style of his own country. The Rijks owns his beautiful Avenue of Ash-trees; a Clearing in the Forest; a Landscape with Cattle; and a Landscape, which is full of light and delicacy, and recalls the manner of Wijnants, although the arrangement follows the pseudo-Italians. =Hackaert's Avenue of Ash-trees.=--The Avenue of Ash-trees is a charming picture, representing a park from which a hunting-party is about to set forth in the early morning. The light shines on the trunks of the trees that border the park, to the right of which is a large sheet of water. Huntsmen accompanied by dogs, one of which is barking at two swans in the pool, ladies and gentlemen on horseback, servants, and dogs, all issue forth with good wishes from the master of the _château_ at the gate. All of these elegantly painted little figures are the work of A. van de Velde. [Illustration: JAN HACKAERT Avenue of Ash-trees] =Joos van Winghen.=--Joos van Winghen (1544-1603) travelled to Rome, where he lived for four years; and, on his return, was appointed Court Painter to the Prince of Parma. He painted portraits, interiors, and Biblical subjects. A Banquet and Masquerade at Night is one of his best-known pictures. =Pieter Aertsen.=--This artist has a picture called The Egg Dance, which claims attention by its life and spirit. =Jan Lijs.=--Jan Lijs (d. 1629) was a pupil of Goltzius; and then visited France and Italy, where he executed large works under Caravaggio's influence. His Music Party is signed and dated 1625; and therefore belongs to his last and not his first period, as the catalogue informs us. =Pieter van Rijck.=--Pieter Cornelisz van Rijck (1568-1628) painted interiors, especially kitchens, and landscape. He was a pupil of H. Jacobs Grimani, whom he accompanied to Italy; he remained there fifteen years. The big picture in the Rijks representing a kitchen interior was described in enthusiastic terms by Van Mander. =Willem Duyster.=--Willem Cornelisz Duyster (1599-1635) was a pupil of Pieter Codde. His picture of Backgammon Players is matched by a similar subject in St. Petersburg, and another in Dresden. Another picture in the Rijks, variously attributed to J. v. Bijlert, Jan Lijs, P. Codde, Jan Miense Molenaer and others, has by recent discoveries been finally recognized as the work of Duyster. The subject is The Marriage of Adriaen Ploos van Amstel, Lord of Oudegein and Tienhoven, to Agnes van Bijler, widow Broekhuysen. A contemporary of whom little is known, Abraham van der Hecken (fl. 1650), has a Butcher's Shop, painted with much truth and spirit. =Pieter de Bloot.=--Pieter de Bloot (1600-52) was a pupil of Jordaens; he painted, however, more closely after Teniers, with fine grasp of chiaroscuro and perspective, with a soft and agreeable coloring. He copied nature so faithfully as to reproduce his subjects in all their ignobleness. _Kermesses_ and interiors chiefly occupied his brush. The Lawyer's Office is signed and dated 1628; it is a fine specimen of the work of this artist in his prime. =Van Gaesbeeck and Van der Kuyl.=--Adriaen van Gaesbeeck (?-1650), of the same period, was probably one of G. Dou's pupils. He painted _genre_ pictures of small dimensions. His Young Man in a Study is full of the feeling found in his master's work. Another painter of _genre_, who is represented here by two charming pictures, is Gysbert van der Kuyl (?-1673). He was a pupil of the famous Wouter Crabeth the Younger, and like his early master, spent many years in France and Italy. Later in life he modelled himself on Honthorst and Abraham Bloemaert. His Ruse Surpasses Force and The Music Party are worth more than a passing glance. =Nicolas Moeyaert.=--Nicolas Cornelisz Moeyaert was a forerunner of Rembrandt in his treatment of light and shade. His powers of portraiture are exemplified here in a group of Regents; and another side of his art is charmingly displayed in the Choice of a Lover. =Jan van Bijlert.=--Jan van Bijlert (1603-71) was a painter of _genre_, mythological, and historical subjects. Almost all his known pictures were ordered by foreign rulers. The Guitar Player is a small example of his work, for he usually painted his figures life-size. His style so much resembles that of G. Honthorst that his pictures have frequently been confounded with those of the latter. =Adriaen Brouwer.=--Adriaen Brouwer studied with Adriaen van Ostade and under Hals; and afterwards adopted the Flemish style when he returned to Antwerp in 1631. However, he remained true to one ideal,--the striving after true action and physiognomy, and the feeling for character and expression. No finer examples of his powers in this field exist than The Village Orgy and The Peasant Combat. These both belong to the days when he was under the influence of Hals. =Cornelis Saftleven.=--Cornelis Saftleven (1606-81) also took Brouwer as his model, for his usual types and favorite motives are borrowed from that master. Like Brouwer, he painted tavern interiors with men sitting at table before a pot of beer and a game of cards. Sometimes he mixes with his jovial companions a peasant who seems to have escaped from one of Teniers's _kermesses_; and sometimes he makes an excursion into the simple representation of rustic scenes. He is full of spirit, and groups his little characters with fine art. His compositions are full of life and movement, but his color is tame and lacks brilliance. His three pictures here are Peasants at an Inn (1642); Landscape with Peasants and Cattle (1652); and Peasants Praying: an Approaching Storm. =Jan Olis.=--Jan Olis (1610-70) was a painter of _genre_ and landscape. An interesting picture of a kitchen here is signed and dated 1645. Until recently, however, this picture was attributed to Sorgh. =Van der Oudenrogge.=--Johannes van Oudenrogge (1622-53) also was a painter of this class. His picture of Peasants in a Weaving Factory is dated 1652. =Egbert van der Poel.=--Egbert van der Poel (1621-64) was a prolific and versatile painter of the school of Isaac van de Velde and A. van der Neer. He painted pictures of all kinds,--portraits, still life, figures, landscapes, perspective, kitchen interiors, moonlit landscapes, and more particularly devoted his talents to conflagrations at night, in which he was very successful. Nothing could be more natural and animated than the large number of tiny figures he shows occupied in extinguishing the flames. His color is clear and strong. In his Ruins in the Town of Delft after the Explosion of the Powder Magazine, October 12, 1654, we have a good example of his style. He has also another picture of the Interior of a Farm, dated 1646. =Pieter J. Quast.=--Pieter Jansz Quast (1606-47) was a follower in the steps of Adriaen Brouwer. His selection of subjects often verges on caricature. His characterization is well displayed in The Card Players. The figure of the young woman in this picture, however, has been entirely repainted by another hand. =Thomas Wijck's Versatility.=--Thomas Wijck (1616-77) was another artist who visited Italy and painted its landscapes, especially coast scenery, after having been taught, or at least influenced, by P. de Laer. Besides marines, he painted interiors, fairs, etc. He had the talent to depict sea-gates full of movement, figures and merchandise, in the taste of J. B. Weenix, markets, outlandish charlatans, public squares, hunts, ruins, tavern scenes, and everything that the Italians call _capricci_. =Chemical Laboratories his Forte.=--But the subject that he treated with the greatest care and taste, and with which he was most happily successful, was that of chemical laboratories. These he arranges, illuminates, and paints in a style entirely his own. Without endowing them with the magic of A. van Ostade, or enveloping them in that master's full and warm atmosphere, Wijck gave much charm to his alchemistic interiors, and the objects he multiplied therein are full of the right kind of feeling. =His Picture of The Alchemist.=--Moreover, he has a sound comprehension of chiaroscuro, as may be seen here in his picture The Alchemist. He casts a shadow over the skeleton fish and stuffed crocodiles and other monstrous animals hanging from the ceiling. The principal light usually falls full upon a medley of phials, retorts, furnaces, bellows, and alembics--a whole apparatus of strange utensils that in a subject of this kind could not be regarded as mere accessories, and which are touched with spirit but also with sobriety. A second window at the end of the apartment admits a softer light that forms an echo to the principal one, and faintly illumines other objects that are toned down by the intervening atmosphere. Placed in the centre of his laboratory, wearing a red cap, Wijck's alchemist is quite individual in not being old, bald, bent, or grizzled; on the contrary, here is a man in the prime of life and full of health, with a bright eye and an open countenance that has no such melancholy in it as is generally affected by alchemists. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that Wijck has represented himself in the person of this seeker after gold. The Rustic Interior depicts a woman spinning, with a child and a dog near her. =Karel Slabbaert.=--Karel Slabbaert (1619-54), whose Grace before Meat is in this gallery, is supposed to have been one of G. Dou's pupils. His pictures are scarce. This one shows a woman cutting bread, while two children are saying grace. He paints in warm tones; his composition is good and full of feeling. =Jan Wolfert.=--Jan Baptist Wolfert (1625-87) also travelled in Italy, and was famous for his classical landscapes with animals and human figures; he also painted _genre_. He was very learned; and his works show fine spirit and imagination. The Bagpipe Player is dated 1646, and is therefore an early work of this artist before he was subjected to foreign influence. =Caspar Netscher.=--Besides three portraits of brilliant quality, Caspar Netscher has a beautiful little interior called Maternal Care, in which the influence of his master, Ter Borch, is noticeable. This picture of a mother arranging her child's hair is generally considered this artist's masterpiece. There is some story told with each of his portraits. He marvellously rendered the texture of stuffs; and his drawing is always full of grace and truth. Inferior to Ter Borch in harmony and chiaroscuro and to Metsu in touch, and to both in feeling for color, he equals them in the tasteful composition and the elegance of his figures, and surpasses them in beauty of form. =Esaias Bourse.=--Esaias Bourse (1630-?) was a follower of Rembrandt. He had a roving career, making many voyages to the East Indies during sixteen years as an officer, and then working as a painter in Italy. His color is usually brownish in tone. His pictures have sometimes been confused with those of another of Rembrandt's pupils--Pieter de Hooch. An Interior with a Woman Spinning enables us to compare the merits of the two artists. =Daniel Boone.=--Daniel Boone (1631-98) painted mythological subjects and familiar scenes of peasant life. In the latter, his chief aim was to provoke laughter by the representation of grotesque situations and grimaces. In this he was generally successful. Peasants Playing Cards is painted in this vein. [Illustration: N. MAES The Spinner] =Pictures by Maes.=--Nicholas Maes is represented in the Dupper Collection by The Spinner. The old woman is seated before her wheel in a simply furnished room, which is dimly lighted from a window on the left. Through this the fading daylight falls, illuminating the rich red of her costume and the dull colors of the table-cloth. There is something inexpressibly still, solemn, and charming about the figure, the room, and the light. Another Spinner, in the Van der Hoop Collection, is seated by her wheel. She wears a black cap, and the sleeves of her dress are red. She stands out boldly from the brightly lighted wall. The lights and the figure are heavily impasted. The forehead of the old woman is in sunlight, the rest of the face is in shadow. A very pleasing picture of his earlier period is The Dreamer, sometimes called Musing, representing a young woman who is looking out of a window. From her glance we gather that she has spied her lover, who is looking up to her casement, so gracefully decorated with apricots and peaches. =L. de Moni, an Imitator of Dou.=--Louis de Moni (1698-1771) was a pupil of F. van Kessel and K. E. Biset at Breda, and later (1721-25) of Philip van Dijk at The Hague. Blanc says that this mediocre painter endeavored to resuscitate the long-extinct style of G. Dou and the elder Mieris, and to constitute himself their posthumous disciple. In this he only partially succeeded, but at least he exhibited, along with a certain delicacy of touch, great care and patience. More than once he borrowed a subject from Dou--familiar scenes, and small pictures of one or two figures. He is good in detail but poor in color. The Rijks has a small and pleasing picture of his called The Gardener. =J. Quinckhard.=--Julius Quinckhard (1736-76) was a pupil of his father, Jan Maurits, but soon abandoned art for commerce. He was an able painter of portraits and _genre_ nevertheless, as his Amateurs of Music (dated 1755) and Amateurs of Art (1757) attest. The figures in the latter are portraits of the painter and his friend, M. J. C. Ploos van Amstel. =Eight Pictures by Paul Potter in the Rijks.=--Although there is nothing of Paul Potter's in the Rijks to compare in reputation with The Bull, or in beauty with _La Vache qui se mire_, there are no less than eight of his pictures there. Horses in a Meadow (1649) and Cows in a Meadow (1651), the latter having a dark sky that proclaims approaching rain, were acquired with the Van der Hoop Collection. The Shepherd's Hut, painted in 1645, is only ten inches long and six high, but is as brilliant in color as a Cuijp. The composition is simple: a shepherd guarding his cows and sheep is seated near his lowly dwelling. A Little Dog is dated 1653, as is also a Landscape with Cattle. =Description of The Bear Hunt.=--An extraordinary picture is The Bear Hunt, eleven feet square. No one would ever imagine who the painter was if his signature were not in enormous letters on the trunk of a tree. This gigantic work was painted two years after The Bull and represents a gentleman on horseback and one on foot, six dogs, and two bears. The bloody contest is taking place in the foreground. This work was repainted during the first half of the nineteenth century, and only two dogs remain of the original painting. =Crowe's Opinion of Orpheus Charming Animals.=--The celebrated Orpheus Charming Animals, painted in 1650, is much smaller (3 by 2 feet), and is much admired by critics. Crowe says: "For power and fulness of warm tones this is one of his most beautiful works. The left is occupied with little hills crowned with trees; the right shows a forest, and a glimpse of the sky. In the foreground is a meadow, where we see a camel, a boar, a cow, a buffalo, an ass, a ram, a goat, a sheep, and a hare. In the middle distance, at the foot of a hill, sits Orpheus playing his lyre; behind him is a dog, and in front of him a crouching lion, an elephant, a horse, a white unicorn, a wolf, and various other animals. On the right, at the border of the forest, emerges a deer." =Description of Shepherds and Flocks.=--Shepherds and Flocks, painted in the next year (1651), is also a masterpiece, remarkable for the clearness of its light golden tones, especially in the sky. It represents a hilly landscape with a shepherd playing on the bagpipes, a shepherdess singing to her child, and flocks of sheep, goats, and oxen grouped variously. By the side of the shepherd is a black dog. At the Van der Pot sale, in 1808, this picture brought 10,050 florins! =Description of A. van de Velde's The Artist and his Family.=--A very beautiful work by Adriaen van de Velde is The Artist and his Family in the Van der Hoop Collection. It is generally considered one of the most incomparable and precious works in the gallery. This is a landscape bathed in the light of a lovely Autumn evening. The scene is probably near Haarlem, where the artist is enjoying the country with his family. Adriaen himself, about twenty-eight, is standing in the foreground, dressed very simply but elegantly in brown with a white collar, his hat under his left arm while his right rests on his huge and fashionable walking-stick. He has blue eyes, chestnut hair, a small moustache, a fine mouth, and a charming expression. On his left stands his wife, whose handsome figure is dressed in a crimson skirt, brown corsage, a white fichu, and a black cloak. She wears a little cap and long, ash-colored gloves. Her hands are crossed over her waist. Near this attractive couple is a little boy of seven dressed just like his father, leading a little spaniel by a string to a fountain. He has thrown his hat on the ground. A nurse dressed in a blue skirt, white apron, and yellow bodice is sitting at a little distance on a tree-trunk, taking care of the little daughter, who is playing with some flowers. Around them are some bushes and stumps, a kind of hedge, and an undulating and sandy ground that leads into a group of trees. On the road, in the middle distance behind Adriaen, is the carriage that has brought them here,--an open four-wheeled chariot, with red seats, drawn by two fine dappled-gray horses, whose harness a servant in gray is examining. On the right, a shepherd is lying on the grass, near a flock of sheep and a goat. In the background is a meadow with cattle, a winding stream, a house half hidden in the woods, and the distant line of the horizon. The landscape has all the delicacy of a Wijnants, but more breadth and harmony. =Crowe's Opinion of this Picture.=--"This picture, signed and dated 1667, and of considerable size (4 ft. 8-1/2 in. high by 5 ft. 7 in. wide), is without question the finest work of the master. The composition of the whole is picturesque in no common degree; while the union of a tenderly graduated tone in keeping with the most delicate carrying out of all the parts shows what a height of perfection the school had attained at this time." This picture was bought in London in 1833 for 15,700 florins. =Description of The Chase.=--The Chase (1669) shows a beautiful picture with a wooded background. On the left, through the gate of a park comes a huntsman with the hounds. A large chestnut palfrey with a green saddle embroidered with silver is led by a valet in red livery, and a little farther away a gray horse with trappings of scarlet velvet is led by another valet. On the right are seated two men: one in red, the other in brown, and before them a big fawn and a white dog; another large dog is sniffing the ground in the foreground on the left. =Other Works by A. van de Velde.=--A Landscape with Cattle shows a somewhat sombre country with clumps of trees; on the left, sheep, goats, and a little shepherd; in full light two cows, one white standing in profile, and the other black, seen from behind and foreshortened. It brought 5,650 florins in 1838. A Landscape with Ferry (1666), The Cabin (1671), and another Landscape complete the list of A. van de Velde's works in the Rijks. =An Appreciation of A. van de Velde's Pictures.=--His cattle browse in velvet meadows under a beautiful sky. Animals, meadows, grassy hills, and trees--he painted them all with affection. He excels in depicting the various hides and skins of goats, sheep, horses, and asses. Animals always occupy a prominent place in Van de Velde's canvases. The air seems to circulate--light, pure air gently moving the trees or slightly waving the grass. The blue sky is filled with vaporous clouds, which are often mirrored in tranquil lakes. The chestnut with its thick foliage, the willow with its flexible branches, the oak, he paints in masses, or singly, with exquisite skill. =General Description of Aelbert Cuijp's Style.=--Aelbert Cuijp (1620-91), son and pupil of Jacob Cuijp, first followed his father's style, as is evidenced in the Hilly Landscape in the Rijks. Little by little he formed his own style and became thoroughly original. He excelled in depicting the humid atmosphere about Dordrecht, and on the horizon of all his landscapes generally the clock-tower of his native city is represented half veiled in golden mist emerging from the lush meadows, where placid cows repose in the bright sunshine. =His Versatility.=--Though Cuijp loves to paint the calm meadows of Holland under a golden light, his elegant figures of men and animals, dashing cavaliers, boats driven by the approaching storm, and landscapes seen under the enchantment of moonlight prove how versatile he was. Moreover, he was a brilliant painter of still life, as the partridges in The Return from the Chase (in the Louvre), the Salmons Offered to Mr. de Roovere Directing the Fisheries in Dordrecht (in The Hague), and the Dead Game (in the Rotterdam Gallery) show. [Illustration: A. CUIJP Fight between a Turkey and a Cock] =His Skill in painting Living Birds.=--As for painting living birds he is only equalled by Melchior d' Hondecoeter. It is only necessary to look at his magnificent Fight between a Turkey and a Cock which hangs in the Rijks. The sky has darkened in sympathy, as it were, with this epic combat, where two splendid specimens are using their beaks and claws with the greatest fury, and the brilliant feathers fly in all directions. Splendid in color, furious of action, and beautiful in its arrangement of light and shade, it deserves its great reputation. The Rijks owns four other pictures: Portrait of a Young Man, Shepherds with their Flocks, Cattle, and View of Dordrecht. [Illustration: A. CUIJP Shepherds with their Flocks] =Description of Shepherds with their Flocks.=--Shepherds with their Flocks represents an Autumn morning in a meadow, where four grazing cows and a shepherd on a mule occupy the foreground; on the left, a man on an ass and a man on foot wearing a red vest; on the right, two large trees; in the middle distance, some trees, a river, and a tower; and in the background, mountains. =Description of Cattle.=--This painting represents a great red ox with a white head, standing in profile on the left, occupying half the picture; a little behind is seen a black ox, full face; both stand out from the gray wall of a house. In front of the red ox three lovely pigeons are pecking. On the left, in the middle distance, a brown and a dun-colored ox are lying down. In the background, on the horizon, are trees and the spires and towers of Dordrecht. The sky is superb. The View of Dordrecht seen from a great expanse of water, marvellously painted, is also a beautiful picture. =Jacob G. Cuijp's Scène Champêtre.=--Jacob Gerritsz Cuijp (1594-1651?), father of Aelbert, is a painter whose pictures are very scarce. His Portrait of a Woman is dated 1651; and a very fine _Scène Champêtre_, which brought no less than 4,000 florins in 1849, represents, according to Immergeel, the family of the painter Cornelis Troost, a gay and large family. The grandmother, father, mother, four boys, and two girls are walking in a landscape where is also seen a chariot drawn by a handsome black horse of the Frisian race that Aelbert Cuijp so often paints. =The Cuijp Family.=--The founder of this family was Gerrit Gerritsz Cuijp, originally from Venlo, who settled in Dordrecht, where in 1585 he entered the Guild of St. Luke as a painter on glass. He sent his talented son, Jacob, to study with Abraham Bloemaert. Jacob Cuijp became known as a portrait-painter, and was noted for his fine drawing, splendid coloring, and force of expression. His pictures were ranked with those of Th. de Keijser. He was no less skilful in painting animals and landscapes and family groups in the open air, undisturbed by browsing cattle. =Benjamin G. Cuijp's Style.=--Benjamin Gerritsz Cuijp (1612-52), brother of Jacob and uncle of Aelbert, a painter who has attracted much attention of late years, differed entirely in taste and style from them both. He was particularly fond of historical and mythological subjects, and belonged to the Italian group of Dutch painters, who tried to amalgamate the traditions of classic art with the growing realism of the day. Some of his works show the influence of the young Rembrandt. His Joseph Interpreting Dreams was acquired by the Rijks in 1883. =Jan van Goyen.=--Jan van Goyen has five beautiful landscapes: River Scene, View on the Meuse and Town of Dordrecht, View of Valkenhof at Nimeguen, View of Dordrecht, and a Landscape. [Illustration: JAN VAN GOYEN View of Dordrecht] =Burger's Explanation of the River Scene.=--"The view of a river in the Van der Hoop Collection is the last expression of his magnificent and exalted manner. A better name for this picture would be The Windmill. In a few words here is the picture: A bit of the Meuse; on the right a piece of ground covered with trees and houses, and on the summit a black mill with its sails spread to the winds, extending high upon the canvas; a stockade, against which the waves of the river break gently, the water heavy, soft, and admirable; and a little corner of the almost lost horizon, very attenuated, very firm, very pale, yet very distinct, on which rises the white sail of a boat, a flat sail without the slightest wind in the canvas, but having a value tender and perfectly exquisite. Above, a great sky filled with clouds; through the rifts and holes the shining blue that they efface, the clouds all gray and filling the space from the stockade to the top of the canvas; so that there is no light in any part of this powerful tonality, composed of dark brown and sombre slate colors. In the centre of the picture one ray of light glimmers like a smile upon the clouds. A great square _grave_ picture, of an extreme sonority in the deepest register, and my notes add _merveilleux dans l'or_." =Karel Dujardin (1625-78).=--Of the Portrait of a Gentleman with a Dog and a Dead Hare (1670), Burger says: =A Dead Picture of a Dead Hare.=--"The deadest one in the lot is not the hare; for if the hare were alive the dog certainly could not run after him, nor could the gentleman run after his dog. The gentleman is dressed in tin-plate and is represented to the knees and of natural size, with the background of a dark sky. The hands have been praised; but they do not look as if they could move." =A Good Portrait of Gerard Reinst.=--A Portrait of Gerard Reinst, a celebrated art collector of Amsterdam, who died in 1658, and who was a patron of Dujardin, is painted sympathetically. He is bareheaded, with a blond wig, and is dressed in a grayish violet with chocolate tones. One hand rests on his hip; the other is marvellously represented. A landscape and sky form the background, and two greyhounds are at the gentleman's side. =A Portrait of Himself.=--A portrait of himself is signed and dated 1660. This is only nine inches by six and one-half inches. It is only a bust showing a shaven face with a thread of a moustache, long black hair, brilliant eyes, and handsome mouth. He wears a grayish costume with puffed sleeves, and his right hand somewhat pretentiously holds the drapery of his cloak on his chest. =Dujardin's Other Works.=--A Landscape, dated 1655, and showing a peasant winnowing corn, is noted for its silvery tone; A Trumpeter on Horseback shows a cavalier in a blue mantle and on a white horse, stopping before the door of an inn, and drinking from a glass offered by the hostess, who is standing at the door. His other works are an Italian Landscape with Animals and The Muleteers. Another Landscape in the Van der Hoop Collection was bought at the Duchesse de Berry's sale in 1837 for 4,000 florins. A copy after Karel Dujardin shows an Italian Landscape with figures, and a white horse. =Adam Pynacker.=--Adam Pynacker has four landscapes: Border of a Lake in Italy, Italian Landscape, Landscape, and Pilgrimage. =Johannes Both's Pictures.=--Johannes Both may be studied in The Courtyard of a Farm; two Italian Landscapes, one of which is a luminous picture of a summer morning, with mountains on the horizon on the left, trees to the right in the foreground, and many small figures on the road; and in Painters Studying from Nature. Here we see on a canvas about six feet by seven, a vast landscape of much beauty, having the Apennines for a background. Beneath a tall oak tree on the right and among the rocks, Johannes Both himself is seated, with his back turned to the spectator. He has a sketch book before him and is talking to a beggar; his brother Andries is facing us; and the fourth person is talking to some one in the distance. The time is a beautiful Summer morning. =Jan Asselijn.=--Jan Asselijn (1610-60) was a pupil of Esaias van de Velde, but went when young to Italy, where he was called by the band of Dutch painters "Krabbetje," on account of a contraction in his fingers. His pictures are highly valued, representing, as a rule, views of Rome, enriched with figures and cattle in the style of N. Berchem. He greatly resembles Jan Both. His Italian Landscape in the Rijks is considered a very true and important landscape, with a background of bluish mountains, and a bridge on the left. The artist has introduced Italian ruins and some muleteers. He is also represented by a Cavalry Combat, signed and dated 1646; and the Allegory on John de Witt. =Philips Wouwermans's Hawking Scene.=--Of the thirteen pictures by Philips Wouwermans we may pause before the well-known Hawking Scene, noted as a specimen of his delicacy and precision on a small scale. It is only one foot high by eight inches wide. The exceedingly animated composition shows about a dozen people on horseback scattered through a delicate landscape. Other figures of men, women, and children enliven the scene. This is painted in his last and most prized period. =His Horse-pond.=--The Horse-pond is a lovely picture, with a silvery sky filled with luminous morning clouds, and, far away in the distance, hills, trees, and women bleaching linen. In the centre of the picture, a lovely stream in which children are bathing, and a ferry with persons and animals passing over in little boats. It is the moment when grooms and peasants are taking their horses and animals to water; and naturally, therefore, we have some beautiful groups: here a man is leading two horses, one of which is kicking at a barking dog; other horses are at the edge of the stream; others have plunged in. Among the eight horses, there is one splendid white one, and there are about twenty figures, including washerwomen and children. It is impossible, even with Wouwermans, who is so _spirituel_ and clever, to find a richer, more animated, more varied, and more brilliant composition. A Landscape with Water belongs to the first period when Wouwermans followed Wijnants; The Camp shows horsemen and other people; a horseman turned to the right and mounted on a white and brown horse is very remarkable. =Description of The Kicking White Horse.=--A celebrated canvas is The Kicking White Horse. Two mounted horses and one lead horse are under a tree in the foreground. The white horse, after having knocked over an old woman with a basket of fruit, is kicking the lead horse on the right, while a dog is snarling at his heels. On the extreme left, a richly dressed lady and gentleman are watching the affair with interest, and in the middle distance, on the right, two men are watering their horses at a ford. There is fine painting of distance in the low landscape and beautiful aërial perspective in the Summer sky with its floating clouds. Besides landscapes, a camp, and others in his usual style, there are two pictures of fighting peasants. His brother, Pieter Wouwermans (1623-82), is represented by two works: Assault on the Town of Koevorden, 1672, and The Hunting Party. His works have frequently been mistaken for Philips's, though, as may be seen in these pictures, his brush work has less freedom, and his tones are heavier than his brother's. =Jan Wijnants Unsuccessful in peopling his Scenery.=--Jan Wijnants (1600-79), who is said to have been the master of Philips Wouwermans, has eight pictures by which his qualities may be compared with those of that painter. These are Landscape in the Dunes, with Hunters; Mountainous Country; The Farm; and Flock in a Landscape; and four landscapes in the Van der Hoop Collection. He was a painter of extreme care and finish; and in painting nature he ranks among the highest. Like so many other Dutch landscape-painters, however, he was not successful with figures; and for peopling his scenery he availed himself of the assistance of his great pupil, Adriaen van de Velde (as in the case of the above-mentioned Landscape in the Dunes), Lingelbach, Wouwermans, Helt Stokade, and others. =Jan Wijnants's Love of painting the Dunes.=--Durand Gréville says: "His dated pictures are of his last period, 1641-79, so that he may claim the honor of first having introduced into the landscape the neighboring dunes of Haarlem and of having been the first to love them. He faithfully translated in their blond harmony the dunes, gray or golden, with the sun, the trees with their pale foliage, and the skies with their light vaporous veilings. To his last hour he went back again and again to that inexhaustible theme in its apparent monotony. He put into the execution of the dazzle of the sand, tree-trunks, spaces of moss and clumps of grasses an astonishing sincerity, perhaps even somewhat too minute from the point of view of the impression of the whole, but, even by that, quite accessible to the taste of the majority of people. None the less he remains to-day one of the most remarkable landscape-painters of Holland." =Cornelis van Poelenburg.=--Cornelis van Poelenburg has four characteristic pictures in his favorite Italian style: The Bathers, Women Coming from the Bath, Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise, and The Bathers Spied Upon. =Winter Scenes by A. van der Neer.=--The most noted painter of winter scenes and of the magic beauty of snow and ice is Aart van der Neer (1603-77), a friend of A. Cuijp, from whom he doubtless learned much, as they frequently worked together on the same canvas. His winter pieces are generally warm in their lighting. Two fine specimens hang in this gallery, one of which is brightened by numerous figures skating and playing ball on a frozen canal. The sky is full of dark snow-clouds. He may also be studied by a Landscape. =His Moonlight Scenes.=--He is also famous for his beautiful towns on the canals, lighted by the moon, and his conflagrations. No other painter has depicted the broad masses of shadow, and the effects of light and tranquillity of character peculiar to a moonlight night, with so much truthfulness as Van der Neer. In his rendering of the warm glow of sunset he has been compared to his friend Cuijp. =Hendrick Averkamp.=--In this connection The Skaters, by Hendrick Averkamp (1585-after 1663), should be noted. This artist was surnamed "the Mute of Kampen" because of his taciturnity. He produced many marines, landscapes, and festivals on the ice, which have, unfortunately, lost their color. =Esais van de Velde's Pictures.=--Winter amusements by Esais van de Velde will afford pleasure to the student, who may also see this artist's Dutch Landscape, painted in 1623; The Surrender of Bois-le-Duc (1629-30), and an original replica of his curious satire on religious quarrels in 1618-19, Prince Maurice Fastening Bells on a Cat. Many of the architectural painters have depicted the well-known street scenes and buildings under the mantle of winter. =Three Excellent Pictures by Hendrik Dubbels.=--Hendrik Dubbels (1620-76?), about whom comparatively little is known, has three pictures of great excellence: A Marine, a Calm, and a River Scene. Dubbels is supposed to have taught Ludolf Bakhuysen (1631-1708), who was also a pupil of Allart van Everdingen. =Bakhuysen, Painter of Stormy Seas.=--Bakhuysen loved the ocean in its angry moods, and used to hire fishermen to take him out in their boats in the fury of storms. His works are highly valued, and some critics prefer them to the more placid pictures of Willem van de Velde. The Rijks owns two views of The Ij (or Y) near Amsterdam; The Port of Amsterdam, painted in 1673; Agitated Water: Haarlemmer Meer (for which 3,500 florins was paid in 1840); Stormy Sea After the Storm (1672); Embarkation of Jan de Witt on the Dutch Fleet; and Portrait of the Painter by himself. =Van de Velde, the Elder and the Younger.=--Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611-93), who was Court Painter to Charles II. and James II. of England, is represented in the Rijks by eleven marine drawings. We have already seen fine examples of his more famous son, Willem van de Velde, at the Mauritshuis, but thirteen splendid examples hang in this gallery. =Some Notable Pictures of Naval Warfare.=--The Ij (or Y) at Amsterdam, dated 1686, which formerly hung in the Schreierstoren in Amsterdam, was described by Sir Joshua Reynolds as follows: "At the office of the Commissary of the Wharfs is one of Vandervelde's most capital pictures: it is about twelve feet long; a view of the port of Amsterdam with an infinite quantity of shipping." [Illustration: W. VAN DE VELDE The Ij or Y at Amsterdam] The Four Days' Combat is a picture of the moment when the English flag-ship, the "Prince Royal," is striking her colors in the fight with the Dutch fleet in 1666; and its companion, The Capture, shows four English men-of-war brought in as prizes in the same fight. Here the painter has represented himself in a small boat, for in such a position he actually witnessed the battle. An Agitated Sea, with various sailing-vessels, is delightful because of the warm lighting and movement of the waves; two Calms represent the painter in the mood he best loves to paint the sea. Other canvases represent the sea under squalls, light breezes, etc. The Canon Shot, with a large ship in the foreground, was bought in 1834 for 3,000 florins. =A Beautiful Picture of the Dutch Coast.=--View on the Coast of Scheveningen shows the dunes on the right, above which rises the steeple of a church; on the left is the calm sea under a lovely afternoon light. Two fishing-boats are seen in the distance; a boat lies on the beach; a fisherman walks by with his nets, and in the foreground are three men. The sea, the dunes, the tiny figures, and the light all combine to make a beautiful picture. =How some Painters helped each Other.=--The great geniuses could do everything well--portraits, landscapes, marines, figure subjects, architecture, interiors, and still life. Some, however, excelled in one particular branch, and, sometimes against their will bowed to the popular demand for their works in that line, and devoted themselves entirely to it. This specialization was carried to great lengths; and it seems strange to us to find one master of landscape calling upon a famous figure-painter to people his landscapes _à la mode_, and _vice versa_, as happened in numberless instances. Sometimes even cattle were supplied; and, more particularly, live and dead game, flowers, fruits, household stuff, and all kinds of still life. =The Effect of this on their Reputation.=--Sometimes a young artist's facility in a certain field was detrimental to high esteem. Paul Potter, for example, had to live down the reproach that he was nothing but a painter of animals,--which he very quickly did. Those who made a specialty of live animals apart from landscape are very few. With the exception of the works of Snyders, hunting scenes are rare. Wouwermans's hunts are confined to the start and the return of the cavalcades. =Blanc's Description of Weenix's Style.=--J. B. Weenix must have loved hunting also, for it forms one of the familiar motives in his landscapes in the Italian style. However, "as he painted above all for the pleasure of painting, his usual custom was to group in the foreground of his composition the products of the chase rather than to represent the hunt itself. It is only in the distance that hounds and huntsmen are seen hunting the hare, while the poor animal is already dead and hanging by its foot to a branch of a tree in the foreground. A brilliant gamecock, one or two partridges, some ribbons and flowers, and a big garden vase will accompany the hare and form a charming picture for the mere delight of the eyes. Truth, finesse of local color, delightful light and shade, exquisite handling, and the whole technique of art are employed to make us admire this still life. We cannot help noticing the masterly manner in which the artist has rendered the fur of his dead hare, crimsoned with blood; and how lovingly he has caressed the plumage of the neck and crop of his partridges, and reproduced the beautiful lustrous black of the cock, whose wings are splashed with white; how he has made us feel the velvet of the skin at the joining of the muscles, and accentuated the feet and claws. But the final luxury of the palette seems to have been reserved for a superb hunting-dog with delicate ears, that watches with an eye full of life over his master's gun and the glorious trophies of the chase; and distends his nostrils as if to snuff the odor of the gunpowder, the aroma of the gin, and the strong scents of the venison." =Painters of Still Life.=--Usually the painters of inanimate objects take the trouble to arrange their inert models, just as a historical painter would dispose his living figures. The human figures in Snyders's pictures were painted by Rubens, Jordaens, or Martin de Vos. His pupils were Jan Fyt, Nicasius Bernarts, and Pieter Boel. The Rijks Gallery has two splendid pictures by him: one, a dish garnished with fruits and dead game; and the other, a dead roebuck, a wild boar's head, and vegetables. =Snyders's Dead Game and Vegetables.=--Beautiful in composition and color is his Dead Game and Vegetables. On a shelf are placed choice specimens of china, glass, earthenware, fruit stands, etc., and these are balanced on the left by a beautiful glass vase of roses and iris standing in a niche. A large basket of apples, peaches, melons, pears, and grapes, a hung deer, a boar's head, a lobster, a few artichokes, and a bunch of asparagus show the artist's wonderful arrangement of form and color. [Illustration: FRANS SNYDERS Dead Game and Vegetables] =Savery's Landscapes and other Pictures.=--Roelandt Savery (1576-1639) was famous as a landscape-painter. The landscapes are somewhat artificial, and really are used as framework for the animal life he loved to introduce. His execution is sometimes rather heavy but with strong tones. The landscapes usually consist of grassy swards with brownish-green trees and shrubs in the foreground, while the background is bathed in the bluish tints so dear to Brueghel. Animals and birds of all kinds animate Savery's pictures, as well as human figures, all drawn with much talent. The Hague has a famous picture, by this artist, of Orpheus Charming the Animals; and the Rijks owns Elijah Fed by the Ravens (1634) and A Stag Hunt in a Rocky Landscape (1626). =Adriaen van Utrecht and his Still Life.=--Adriaen van Utrecht was ten years ahead of Jan Fyt in painting those pictures of live or dead animals, game, fruits, and implements of the chase that we still admire so much. Although his lights are sometimes somewhat heavy and his brush work is not so fine as Fyt's, yet he equals the latter in certainty of touch and especially in his feeling for life and nature. His pictures are very scarce: Amsterdam possesses only one, called Still Life, signed and dated 1644. On a canvas eight by ten feet the painter has grouped pies, hams, a lobster, grapes, peaches, and lemons on a table. On the left, on the floor, are some musical instruments; on a chair some golden vases; above, a parrot; on the right a great sculptured basin and a little white spaniel, and in the centre a monkey playing with some fruit from an overturned basket. =Ten Pictures by M. Hondecoeter.=--Melchior d' Hondecoeter can be studied to great advantage in the Rijks, which owns several pictures of the first order: The Floating Feather, The Philosophical Magpie, Animals and Plants, The Country House, The Duck Pond, The Frightened Hen, The Menagerie, Dead Game, and two of birds. =Hondecoeter's Father and Grandfather.=--The great Hondecoeter was a pupil of his father, Gijsbert d' Hondecoeter (1604-53), the pupil of his father Gillis d' Hondecoeter (1583-1638), a painter of portraits and landscapes in the manner of R. Savery and David Vinck Boons. Gijsbert followed his father's style of landscapes; but he attained a great reputation for his birds, and particularly his ducks. Both styles may be seen in the Rijks: A Landscape with Figures, dated 1652, and Aquatic Birds, dated 1651. In the duck pond, where ducks and pigeons are sporting, is also a feather floating on the water, for the artist was fond of repeating this little touch. The Philosophical Magpie regards from a tree-trunk a dead heron, a goose, and ducks; its pendant shows a living peacock near a large vase and a dead hare and pheasant. Dead Game, a small picture, exhibits a dead partridge and a string of four little birds, and the others represent parrots and other exotic birds, flowers, and plants, and some monkeys. The Frightened Hen is defending her chickens against the attack of a pea-hen. The most famous of all, however, is The Floating Feather. [Illustration: M. D'HONDECOETER The Floating Feather] =Burger's Criticism of The Floating Feather.=--"To make a pilgrimage to Amsterdam without admiring The Floating Feather, would be committing the crime of _lèse-peinture_. Hondecoeter has painted this most carefully and in his happiest vein. In a park luxuriantly decorated with beautiful trees and springing fountains, he has grouped strange and rare birds with domestic fowls. On the left in the foreground may be recognized a pelican, a crane, a flamingo, and a cassowary; on the right are ducks and geese of various breeds; a magpie cleaves the air with rapid wings; and, lastly, a light feather floats on the surface of a quiet pool, and this detail has given the picture its name." Dr. Bredius says: "The pelican on the left is particularly remarkable; but the ducks do no less credit to this artist, who has expressed with such penetration the life of the feathered world, the movements of these creatures, I should indeed say their expression; and he has rendered their physiognomy and character with such profound truth that no other artist can approach Hondecoeter in this respect." The Philosophical Magpie, the Country House, and, better still, the modest frame in which the artist, putting aside for a moment his usual style, has brought together lizards, butterflies, and sparrows amid shrubs and large-leaved plants, are Hondecoeters of the most admirable quality, whether in frankness of detail, or for the mastery of execution and accent of color. =Asselijn's Allegorical Bird Picture.=--The curious Allegory of the Vigilance of the Grand Pensionary John de Witt by Jan Asselijn is a bird picture. Here a great white swan is defending her nest against the attack of a black dog swimming rapidly toward it. Beneath the swan is the Dutch legend The Grand Pensionary; on the eggs, Holland; and under the dog, The Enemy of the State (intended for England). The feather lost by the bird is beautifully painted, and has challenged comparison with Hondecoeter's Floating Feather. [Illustration: ASSELIJN The Swan] =Eckhout.=--G. van der Eckhout (1621-74) has a Huntsman with Two Greyhounds, painted about 1670. The huntsman, wearing a red vest, is seated on the grayish earth. The general tone of the picture is chocolate or chestnut. =Jan Vonck.=--Jan Vonck (1630-?), another painter who devoted himself principally to still life, especially dead birds, sometimes was responsible for the birds in Ruisdael's pictures. His brush work is that of a master; his color is strong and agreeable with a transparent touch. The Rijks owns one example, Dead Birds. =Jan Weenix.=--Jan Weenix (1640-1719) was the pupil of his celebrated father during the latter's lifetime; and later he studied still life under his uncle G. Hondecoeter, Elias Vonck (brother of Jan), and Matthys Bloem. He surpassed his father in his pictures of dead game, one of which hangs in this gallery. His animals--swans, hares, and various birds, arranged with flowers and fruits around sumptuous antique vases--are not so strong in character as those in Hondecoeter's works; but they are very true to nature and have the great charm of harmony and picturesqueness. They richly deserve their original popularity which their wonderful finish and execution have preserved till the present day. =Coninck a Good Animal-painter.=--David de Coninck (1636-87), who had many affinities with Fyt, also painted landscapes, animals, and birds. He received the nickname Ramelaer from his fondness for painting rabbits especially. He was quite at home in hunting scenes, two of which are in the Rijks,--The Bear Hunt and The Stag Hunt. Another painter of this period, Pieter Jan Ruijven (1651-1716), has a fine picture of a cock and hens. =Bosch, an Early Painter of Flowers.=--One of the early Dutch painters of flowers was L. J. van den Bosch (?-1517), who painted with a transparent color and a light touch. He treated fruits, flowers, and insects with sympathy and truth. He often represented flowers in vases; his insects are so minute that they have to be examined with a magnifying glass. =Delff's Poultry Seller.=--Pictures of this school, however, do not abound in the Dutch galleries till we come to the artists who lived a century later. The first of these who appears in the Rijks is Cornelis Jacobsz Delff (1571-1643), a pupil of Cornelis Cornelisz. Delff was renowned for his pictures of still life. He is represented in the Rijks by The Poultry Seller. =Other Still-life Painters in this Gallery.=--Other still-life painters born in the sixteenth century, who are represented in this gallery, are Ambrosius Bosschaert (1570-?), Pieter Noort (1592-1650), Pieter Symonsz Potter (1597-1652), Adriaen van Utrecht (1599-1652), and Hans Boulengier (1600-45). Bosschaert has a picture, Flowers, dated 1619. He had a son of the same name who also painted flowers. Of Pieter Noort little is known beyond the fact that he painted still life, and especially Fish, as in the two pictures here signed P. van Noort. P. S. Potter painted on glass and was the manager of a gilded leather establishment at Amsterdam. His model was Hals. Besides portraits and landscapes, his preference was for still life. The Straw Cutter and Still Life (signed and dated 1646) are worthy of attention. =Two Pictures by Heem of Utrecht.=--Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606-84) of Utrecht was a son of David de Heem, so famous for his _déjeuners_ spread with game, oysters, lobsters, fruits, wine, china, glass, and silver. Jan inherited his father's tastes, and much of his talent, as is evidenced by two pictures in the Rijks. One shows flowers and fruits of natural size; and the other represents a table on which are a cup, a glass, and a vase of wrought silver loaded with fruits. =Gréville on his Style.=--"At Antwerp, under Seghers, he enriched his palette and learned the art of composing a delicious harmony by setting flowers and fruits and glass and silver vases on an Oriental table-cloth. To the most minute exactitude and almost microscopic details, he added the most brilliant coloring and an unfailing taste in the arrangement of his flowers and still life." =Pieter de Ring.=--A picture of a table covered with blue velvet and spread with lobsters, oysters, bread, fruit, etc., is typical of the work of Pieter de Ring (1615-60), one of De Heem's pupils, a Fleming, who spent his whole life in Holland, and was noted for his picturesque arrangement and fine execution. Hans Boulengier has a flower piece signed 1625. He painted still life, _genre_, and sometimes "fantasmagories." Little is known about him. =Still-life Painters in the Latter Half of the Seventeenth Century.=--A generation later this school was in full blossom. Pictures of fruits, flowers, and dead game, by artists who flourished in the second half of the seventeenth century, are fairly plentiful. Abraham Hendricksz van Beyeren (1620-74) painted with fine composition and strong color breakfast pictures in the style of David de Heem, and delighted in portraying fish as in the Rijks example. Cornelis Brisé (1622-7-) painted portraits; this gallery possesses one of his pictures of flowers, signed C. Brisé, 1665. On the wall beside it hangs another flower piece by the brush of Elias van Broeck (?-1708). =De Snuffelaer.=--Otto Marseus van Schrieck (1619-78) was nicknamed De Snuffelaer (the ferreter), by the Dutch art colony in Rome, because of his frequent country walks to discover new plants, insects, and reptiles as models for his compositions. He painted with wonderful finish, good drawing, and truth to nature, as may be seen in his Insects, Lizards, etc., here signed O. M. V. S. Jacob Marrel (1614-81) has a flower piece signed and dated 1634. Among other masters in Utrecht, Frankfort, Brussels, and Antwerp, he studied with J. D. de Heem. =Kalff, a Good Painter and a Brilliant Talker.=--Willem Kalff (1622-93) was the pupil of Henry Pot, and as soon as he left the master he abandoned his manner, choosing for his subjects vegetables, fruits, kitchen utensils, and sometimes handsome vases. Houbraken says he spent whole days before a lemon, a beautiful orange, and the agate or mother-of-pearl handle of a dessert-knife; and the vessels of Holland never brought home a single shell, the strange form and splendid colors of which he did not copy. Unlike many of the Dutch painters of his day, who spent most of their time in the tavern, Kalff was a man of charming and distinguished manner and a brilliant talker, and he possessed a witty and cultivated mind. His friends would spend the entire night listening to his conversation, and when he died from an accidental fall from the bridge at Bantem, the poet Willem van der Hoeven wrote a eulogy in which he said that Willem Kalff "knew how to paint golden vases and silver cups and all the treasures of opulence, but no treasures could outweigh his merit, for he had no equal in his line." =His Favorite Subjects.=--The kitchen with Kalff became a heroic subject, and over it he threw the most subtle effects of chiaroscuro, throwing a gleam of light upon a well, a scoured saucepan, or a bunch of vegetables. Who is the hero or heroine of the scene? A fine cauldron or saucepan or kettle shining with a thousand reflected lights that come through a window of thick glass or yellow paper. An old cask stands by, interesting us with all its details of decay,--its swollen staves, its rusted hoops, and the insects that lodge in the rotten wood. A big nail, an earthen pot, a skimmer, a few onions with their shining skins, a broom, a jug of water, and a towel lying on a barrel,--with such simple things he makes a beautiful picture. Perhaps in the background the cook and her dog are discerned. Kalff never allows figures to become too prominent, for he wishes his still life to catch and hold the spectator's interest. The picture by this artist in the Rijks has for its subject a silver vase, of elegant form, and a porcelain dish filled with oranges and lemons. The objects are tastefully arranged and beautifully painted. =Some other Painters of Animals and Fruits.=--Anthonie Leemans (1630-8-) has also a characteristic picture of still life; he was fond of painting dead birds. Another picture of dead birds is by Willem G. Fergusson (1632-9-), a Scotchman, who hired a house at The Hague in 1660, and another in 1668; he was living in Amsterdam in 1681. The picture is dated 1662. A Garland of Fruits is signed J. Borman, who flourished in Leyden in 1657 and 1658; but about him little is known. Another notable canvas belonging to this school is Animals, Insects, and Fruits, by Anthony van Borssom (1629-77), who was probably a pupil, and certainly an admirer of Rembrandt; his tones are somewhat sombre, but his drawing is vigorous and full of interest. R. van der Burgh (fl. 1680) has a lifelike painting of Sea Fish; and Karel Batist is a little-known flower-painter, who worked in Amsterdam in 1659; his canvas is unusually large for this _genre_, though the student will have noticed that most of the artists of this period liked to paint their flowers and fruits natural size. Pieter Claes van Haerlem (d. 1660) has a small picture of still life which bears the false signature, Johan de Heem, 1640; and Jan van Kessel (1626-79) has a much smaller one of Fruits and Insects. Another picture by the latter, representing a woman seated at a table with fruits, etc., on it, is falsely attributed to Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-78), who was called "the marvel of her century." Her great reputation probably prompted some dealer to attempt the fraud. None of the principal galleries of Europe possesses any examples of her pictures, insects, etc., so celebrated during her lifetime. Another picture of Flowers, dated 1667, is by Nicolaes Lachtropius, who was a famous Dutch painter of coach panels during the second half of the seventeenth century. A contemporary German painter, Ottomar Elliger (1633-79), also has a flower piece, dated 1674. =Mignon, a First-class Flower-painter.=--Abraham Mignon (1640-79) was a pupil of J. D. de Heem. He had as pupils in the same style, two daughters and M. S. Mérian. He belongs to the first rank of flower-painters. Péries says: "The qualities which distinguish the works of Mignon are freshness, delicacy of tone, finish, the splendor of the reflections, and the perfect imitation of nature. His flowers are selected with taste and he perfectly well understands the art of giving them their full value. He equally excels in painting insects, flies, and butterflies, and the dewdrops trembling on the leaves; the velvety skin of his fruits invites the touch of the fingers. His only fault is perhaps a dryness in his draughtsmanship." =Some of his Pictures.=--His masterpiece, _Mignon au Chat_, showing a Persian cat upsetting a vase of flowers on a marble table, is in the Rijks. Another picture here is Fruits, representing a dish with grapes and pomegranates, besides oysters and white bread. In composition, warmth, harmony, and truth to nature this belongs to his best work. Inferior to this is Flowers, where flowers appear in a vase, and a cat and a mouse-trap are also represented. Still Life and Fruits shows a marble table, on which are fruits and flowers, a boiled lobster and an antique vase, a picture that approaches his master Jan de Heem in harmony and softness of touch. =How Jan van Huysum became a Great Fruit and Flower painter.=--Jan van Huysum was the son of a flower-painter who had turned his house into a sort of factory where everything contributing to the decoration of rooms and gardens could be found. Jan, who was placed at the head of the enterprise, grew tired of the business side and devoted himself to art, especially the works of Mignon, Verelst, and David de Heem. He also closely studied nature, and seeing a whole world unfold itself in the study of flowers alone, he explored the furthest recesses of his domain; birds, butterflies, beetles, wasps, bees,--he forgot none of the satellites of the flowers. Being also surrounded with examples of all the exterior and interior art decorations of the day, he was able to copy the marble consoles that served as supports for his baskets, the earthenware bowls and vases in which he kept his bouquets fresh, and the bas-reliefs that set off the flowers in those vases, and the mascarons and chimæras that formed the handles. It may be said of him as a French critic said of Baptiste: "His beautiful flowers lacked only the perfume that they seemed to exhale." Reynolds must also have been thinking of Huysum's effects when he said that Rubens's pictures were "bouquets of colors." Huysum's fruits have received some criticism: some critics hold that he has given them the look of wax and the polish of ivory. In this branch of his art, he perhaps falls short of David de Heem. His peaches are too firm, his plums not provocative of thirst, and his grapes leave a little more ripeness, gold, and sun to be desired. He succeeded better with red gooseberries and the cleft pomegranates with their pulp and seeds sparkling like rubies and delightful to the eye. The Rijks Museum has five pictures by this master in which his qualities as a fruit and flower painter are fully displayed. =His Landscapes.=--A small landscape is also here. Formerly Huysum's landscapes were as highly prized and as costly as his flower pieces. However, his works in this field are echoes merely of Guaspre, Glauber, Poussin, and Claude; he lived in an age when the Dutch again bowed down before foreign idols. The familiar Dutch pastures were now peopled with nymphs and demigods. =Conrad Roepel.=--Conrad Roepel (1678-1748) was famous for his flowers, fruits, festoons, garlands, birds, and insects. He painted with much truth and good color. He studied under C. Netscher; but later he took Huysum for his model. The Rijks has a picture of Flowers and another of Fruits by him, both signed and dated 1721. =The Van Os Family.=--Jan van Os (1744-1808) was greatly admired in his day as a painter of marines, landscapes, and more particularly flowers and fruits. There is one of the latter here. His son and pupil, Georgius Jacobus Johannes (1782-1861), was equally famous as a painter of flowers and game. He is represented here by four pictures, one of which is a landscape, the animals of which are painted by his brother Peter Gerhardus (1776-1839). The latter painted chiefly military and hunting scenes, landscapes, and animals. Nine canvases exhibit his qualities in this gallery. His sister Marie Margrita van Os (1780-1862) was, like her brothers, a pupil of Jan van Os; she has a Still Life in the Rijks. =Eight of Gerrit Dou's Pictures.=--Gerrit Dou is represented by eight works including the famous Evening School which in 1808 was sold for 17,500 florins. The others are his own Portrait; the Portrait of a Man, dated 1646; Portraits of a Gentleman and his Wife, in a landscape painted by Nicholas Berchem; _La Curieuse_, a small oval picture of a girl with a lamp in her hand; a Hermit in Prayer in a Grotto; a Hermit, dated 1664; and A Fisherwoman. =Description of The Evening School.=--The Evening School is the most important of all Dou's candle-light pictures. The composition is very simple. A looped curtain is lifted to reveal a room poorly furnished with benches and tables. The schoolmaster, who sits at a table with his arm on a small desk, is hearing a girl spell, and shaking his finger at a boy who is walking away. This group is lighted by a candle that stands on the table near an hour-glass. In the background a small group is seen at a table also lighted by a candle. On the left of the teacher a boy is making calculations on a slate, while a girl by his side looks on, holding a lighted candle in her hand. A fourth light--from a large lantern on the floor--adds another artificial light for the painter to treat. This great work is painted on a panel 1 foot 8 inches high by 1 foot 3 inches long. =The Fisherman's Wife.=--The Fisherman's Wife, painted in 1653, shows an old woman in a black gown with yellow sleeves and a man's round hat. She is holding a reel. =Description of The Hermit.=--The Hermit is one of the most marvellously finished works of the master in his most minute style. You can count the wrinkles and hairs of the old white-bearded man who holds a crucifix in his hands. An open book, an hour-glass, a can, and a basket (for bread and wine or water) and other accessories are painted in miniature; on the right is seen the trunk of a tree, and in the far distance are some arcades, probably cloisters. The tiny panel is only ten by eight inches. =Schalcken, Imitator of Dou and Rembrandt.=--Godfried Schalcken was the pupil of Hoogstraten, and of Dou, whom he skilfully imitated. The sight of some of Rembrandt's pictures next led him to devote himself to the effects of light, artificial light especially: the majority of his pictures therefore are illuminated by lamp or candle light. His most remarkable work is at Amsterdam. It is called Young Girl Lighting a Lantern. At the Revolution, he accompanied William III. to England, and painted portraits of that king, one of which, signed with the artist's name and dated 1699, is in The Hague Gallery. Among his best pictures is the Boy Eating an Egg, in the Rijks Museum. =His Portrait of William III.=--The half-length portrait of William III. in the same gallery, in which there is a remarkable play of light, shows that this master who delighted in the composition of small subjects borrowed from common life, was equally capable of painting pictures of natural size. Schalcken's chief merit consists in the neatness of his finishing and the perfect intelligence of his chiaroscuro. His touch is mellow, but too fused, and his color warm and golden. =His Other Pictures.=--The other pictures here are A Young Man Smoking; Difference in Taste, in which two men are talking, while another lights his pipe; and two Female Portraits, one of an ambassador's daughter, and the other her companion. =Slingelandt, Another Imitator of Dou.=--Pieter Cornelisz van Slingelandt (1640-91) is another pupil and a close imitator of Dou; and almost surpasses him in laborious execution. He reached the limits of what can be done by a painter in oils. All his work seems to have been done under the impression that imitation is the sole end of art. =His Skill in Delicately Minute Painting.=--Naturally he excelled in still-life painting, in which nothing was too minute for him to endeavor to reproduce on his canvas. His brush indicates the weft of the most delicate tissues; the coloring matter, almost microscopically divided, gives a tone to every stitch in a linen hood or cap, or a knitted stocking. On a panel of the smallest size you can sometimes distinguish the shadow, half tone, and high light of each of the pearls in a necklace; sometimes also a cat's whiskers, and even the hairs on the skin of a mouse. Sometimes a piece of lace is rendered with such labor that it took more time to paint than to make. The consequence is that his pictures are very scarce: not fifty are known. =His Favorite Subjects.=--Though as a rule he preferred the luxury and elegance of high life, with its marbles and richly carved furniture, upholstery and tapestry, jewels and laces, silks and satins, velvets and furs, he also sometimes chose models of humble estate. The Rehearsal is a masterpiece in this class. Here a man is playing a violin while a boy is singing and a woman preparing dinner. The other example of his art is quite in contrast with the above. It is called The Rich Man, and on it Slingelandt has lavished all the resources of his brush. Blanc says: "He painted the merchant at his counter and the lacemaker at her distaff, the housekeeper purchasing partridges or getting dinner ready, and the woman of the people occupied in sewing beside the cradle in which her infant is sleeping. From the richly furnished salon Slingelandt descended to the scullery and took pleasure in looking at the rows of shining pots and pans, and other kitchen utensils. He observed the correct tone of the servant's apron as well as that of the silken skirt he had painted in her mistress's portrait. He devoted as much attention to imitating the polish of a brass vase or the rough varnish of an earthenware pot, as to expressing the transparency of a Bohemian glass. Cats and mice were also honored with his precious painting, as well as parrots and spaniels. But what he rendered with most love and with unequalled truth was the musical instrument. His violins are light, and sonorous; his violoncellos provoke the virtuoso and enchant the ear almost as much as the eye. One would say that nothing escaped his observation, nothing of what constituted private and family life, that which he himself lived in obscurity, the simplicity and joys of which he painted with so much application, finish, and patience." =Adriaen de Vois.=--Arie (or Adriaen) de Vois (about 1630-80) studied first under Nicholas Knupfer in Utrecht, next with Abraham van den Tempel, and lastly with Pieter van Slingelandt, whose highly finished style he followed with great success. He painted charming scenes of familiar life, lovely portraits, interiors, and even landscapes, in which he introduced, in the style of Poelenburg, tiny nude figures. The Dutch collectors have always prized them for the delicacy of their color and touch and vivacity. [Illustration: A. DE VOIS Lady and Parrot] =Description of The Lady with a Parrot.=--In his Lady with a Parrot, the lady is rather French in type, and dressed in the most fashionable style of the period. Her earrings are wonderfully painted and perhaps even more realistic are the fruits in the basket which she holds on her knee, and from which she offers her parrot a tempting treat. Every detail of this picture is perfect in treatment--the dress, the hair, the face, the jewels, the still life, and the brilliant feathers of the bird. =His Other Pictures in the Rijks.=--In addition to this beautiful picture the Rijks also owns The Fisherman Smoking, a little oval panel; A Violin Player, who holds a wineglass; and The Fish-Vender, a jolly old fisherman with a glass of beer in his hand. =Seven Pictures by Brekelenkam.=--Quieringh Gerritsz van Brekelenkam (?-1668) was a pupil of Gerrit Dou; and his own manner was a mixture of Dou and Rembrandt. He settled in Leyden in 1648. His works, representing, as a rule, interiors, with figures noted for the natural expression of their heads, are highly esteemed. His touch is light and spirited, and he understands the art of chiaroscuro. The Rijks owns seven pictures: Two Interiors, The Fireside (1664), The Mouse Trap (1660), Confidences (1661), Reading, and A Mother and Child. The latter is a little oval panel, in which a woman in a red skirt and black jacket is giving some porridge to her child. One of the Interiors, representing A Tailor's Shop, is one of his best works. The tailor, with long hair and fur cap, is seated at a work-table on the right; he is talking to a woman who is carrying a tin bucket. On the right, near the window, you see the back of a young workman. In the background hangs a picture, and there are some clothes on a board. The work is somewhat in the style of Pieter de Hooch. =His Poverty of Imagination.=--Brekelenkam has been accused of poverty of imagination because of the paucity of figures in his compositions; and yet some of the most beautiful and famous pictures of the Little Masters consist of single figures, such as a woman sitting spinning. One critic complains: "Notwithstanding his ability (his method is preferable to Dou's; his painting is more unctuous, warmer, and freer, being finely accented with lifelike touches on the various utensils or accessories of his interiors), it seems that this painter was not endowed with a very fertile imagination. He has a very slight taste for difficult subjects, and carefully avoids complicated compositions; most often, indeed, a single personage suffices him for a picture. A smoker lighting his pipe, an old woman sitting in the chimney corner, a philosopher turning over the leaves of a folio volume, the interior of a farm, or a kitchen,--these are Brekelenkam's ordinary motives. But feeling and intellect give relief to these vulgar themes, and render the delicate works of this too-little-known painter precious to art-lovers." The student will be able to judge from the pictures in the Rijks whether or no the artist deserves more or less than this half-hearted praise. =Ter Borch's Famous Paternal Advice.=--Ter Borch, as we have seen by The Message or Despatch in the Mauritshuis, was fond of painting pictures with some slight dramatic connection. Here we find the very famous Paternal Advice, also called The Paternal Reproof, but better known as The Satin Dress (_Robe de Satin_). A young lady is standing with her back to the spectator. She wears a black cape and a white satin dress, and her hair is blond. The table-cloth, bed curtains, and other hangings are red. On the table at the left are a silver candlestick, two combs, and a pink string, and a mirror or perhaps a picture in a frame. On the right is seated a rather young man with long hair, and richly and somewhat extravagantly dressed in lilac and gray. In one hand he holds a large hat trimmed with three immense blue and lemon-colored plumes. His sword is by his side, and behind him in the shadows stands his greyhound. His left hand is raised with some gesture, probably of admiration, as his face is smiling. The old woman at his side is interested solely in her glass, through which half of her face is seen as she is drinking. It was Goethe who bestowed the name Paternal Advice upon this picture, the story of which is not yet known; but although critics have accepted fatherly admonition as the theme, the relative ages of the characters do not justify the theory. =Blanc's Critique of the Picture.=--Blanc is one who does not question this. He exclaims: "Truly this dress is perfect: it is so close to the eye and within reach of the hand that it engrosses the entire attention of the spectator. One would say that the young girl, so gently reprimanded by her father, has come there merely for the sake of showing her dress; and, indeed, the painter has dwelt on this detail with the greatest affection, and, moreover, has hidden the face of the young girl, and shown us only the back of her head with its blond coil and the escaping tresses, in which are mingled some black velvet, which relieves the ash-colored tone of the hair. What a singular thing! A frightful sacrifice of a woman's head to a robe of satin, the unheard-of triumph of an accessory--a charming infraction against all the principles of art--we might call it a colossal fault--but a privilege only allowed to great artists. The painter has by this aroused our curiosity regarding the face of the young girl, who has turned away her head, and so we have to imagine her blushing cheeks and her lowered eyelids. As for the father, he is remonstrating with her so tenderly, with such a gentle gesture and so paternal a manner that we are not disturbed by it, and can therefore fix our glance on the magnificent satin dress, the folds of which are so beautifully broken by the light, and in which all the interest of the picture is concentrated. But what an inexplicable attitude is that of the mother, who is slowly drinking a glass of fine wine, while her husband lectures their daughter." =Other Pictures by Ter Borch in the Rijks.=--The Rijks owns a Portrait of Ter Borch, painted by himself, and one of his wife, Geertruida Matthyssen; a copy of The Peace of Münster (original in the National Gallery), and a copy of his Boy and a Dog, also known as The Scholar. =Description of The Scholar.=--The latter shows a table covered with an old gray carpet, on which is a copy-book and an inkstand. The scholar, who instead of writing his exercise is busy catching fleas on the dog, which he holds between his knees, wears a violet coat and blue stockings, and his gray hat lies on a little wooden bench before him. The whole is of a neutral color, but very clear. =Seven Pictures by Adriaen van Ostade.=--Adriaen van Ostade has seven pictures on these walls: An Artist's Studio, Travellers' Halt (1671), The Charlatan (1648), The Baker, The Merry Peasant, The Intimate Company (1642), Confidences (1642). =His Artist's Studio.=--An Artist's Studio, of which there is a replica dated 1666 in the Dresden Gallery, shows a painter sitting at an easel with his back to the spectator; he wears a violet coat and a red cap. The other features of the composition are a black dog asleep, an assistant grinding colors in a corner, and a pupil preparing a palette. The artist is supposed to be Ostade himself in both instances; but for some reason his face is half hidden. The play of light and shadow in the apartment is noticeably Rembrandtesque in character. =A Tavern Interior.=--There are two tavern interiors here. In one (dated 1661) five peasants are grouped in the foreground. Before a large chimney stands a man in a blue vest and gray hat, holding a mug in his hand; opposite is a man in a blue mantle and a white hat, who is filling his pipe; in the chimney corner an old man is dreaming; and to his right an old woman is listening to what a man in a furred cap, with a pipe in his hand, is saying to the man before the fire. On the extreme right a little girl, on a wooden stool before a rustic table, is eating her soup and amusing herself with a little black-and-white dog. In the background, near the open window, five men are grouped around a table, smoking, drinking, and talking. The lights on the separate groups from the back and side windows are ably managed. =Ostade's Best Period.=--The Charlatan, dated 1648, belongs to the master's best period, when he painted such gems as The Barn, The Family, and The Father of the Family. The Intimate Company, signed 1642, is in the Van der Hoop Collection, as is also a rustic interior, _Société de campagnards_, signed 1661. The latter has passed through the Lormier, Choiseul, Du Barry, Tolozon, and Duchesse de Berry collections. =Some of his Pupils.=--Among Adriaen's many pupils may be mentioned Cornelis Dusart, Cornelis Bega, Michiel van Musscher, R. Brakenburgh, and Jan de Groot. They all followed his style more or less closely. When Jan Steen visited Haarlem he also fell under his influence. =Isaak van Ostade.=--Isaak van Ostade (1621-49) has two rustic inns, one signed and dated 1643, that are typical of his style. In his early work he imitated his brother and teacher with some success, both in subject and treatment, especially wayside hostelries. His pictures, however, are browner in tone and harder in execution than Adriaen's. In one picture here we see two travellers with a white horse halting in front of an inn. The composition is delightful and full of nature and spirit. =C. Dusart, Better in some Respects than his Master.=--Cornelis Dusart (1660-1704) adopted his master's (Ostade) style without servile imitation. He was a minute observer of details and had an astonishing memory that enabled him to use them to the best advantage in his interiors. His choice and treatment of scenes were rather more distinguished and less vulgar than some of his master's. His later pictures are inferior to his early ones: they lack spontaneity of conception, and that freshness and simplicity of impression that mark so many of his works. Five striking pictures worthily represent his abilities,--Wandering Musicians, The Fish Market (1683), The Village Kermesse, A Village Inn, and Maternal Happiness. =Cornelis Bega.=--Cornelis Bega (1620-64), another pupil of Adriaen van Ostade, copied and improved upon him. A Concert of Peasants is full of color, light, movement, life, and gayety, with music, singing, and dancing. It is warmer in color than most of his works. The Grace before the Meal (1663) shows a young woman with folded hands seated at the table, and on the other side an old man. On the window-sill is a flower-pot; in front, on the floor, a foot-warmer. This is a good picture, but a little too red in tone, as often happens with Bega. =M. van Musscher's Lack of Originality.=--Michiel van Musscher (1645-1705) was completely lacking in individuality: he simply mirrored his successive masters, Martin Zaagmorlen, Abraham van den Tempel, Gabriel Metsu, and Adriaen van Ostade. Not only that, but he sometimes painted also in the style of Jan Steen, and even imitated the marvellous chiaroscuro of Pieter de Hooch. Sometimes also in subject and treatment his work resembles that of Netscher and Albert Cuijp. He has five portraits here, but is not represented by an example of his many interiors, feasts, or scenes of peasant or genteel life. =Brakenburgh, a Clever Colorist.=--Richard Brakenburgh (1650-1702), a pupil of A. van Ostade, Hendrick Mommers, and probably Jan Steen, whom he imitated, lived in Haarlem. He also studied with B. Schendel, and became a clever painter and very able in the management of chiaroscuro. He is fond of merrymakings, drunken assemblies, doctors' visits, and children's feasts. He sometimes painted the figures in the landscapes of P. de Koninck and others. In his best works, some competent critics consider him worthy to rank with Ostade in the brilliance of his color, although it is always inferior in transparency. In form and modelling his subjects suffer by comparison with those of his master. The Rijks owns a jovial tavern scene, and The Feast of St. Nicholas, signed and dated 1665, which the student will be interested in comparing with Jan Steen's treatment of the same subject. =Several Periods in the Career of D. Teniers the Younger.=--David Teniers the Younger (1610-90) has seven pictures here that illustrate his various styles. As with most other artists who reached old age, critics recognize several periods in the career of Teniers. At first, his figures, from twelve to eighteen inches high, are broadly painted in brownish and somewhat heavy tones. Toward 1640 his color becomes clearer and more luminous and golden. From 1640 to 1660 it assumes silvery tones of admirable lightness and limpidity; and, at the same time, his execution grows more careful and precise. The pictures of this last period are held in highest esteem. After that Teniers returned to a gamut of golden tones, in which he sometimes displayed great power. At the close of his life he became heavy and brownish in tone, and his touch lost some of its clearness. Not many of his pictures are dated. The earliest known date is 1641, on Our Corps de Garde, a medium-sized picture of no special interest, in which we note numerous military attributes. This is far inferior to a similar picture, now in St. Petersburg, painted two years later. =His Relish for Pictures of the Supernatural.=--The Temptation of St. Anthony is one of many pictures he painted in his relish for the class of subjects painted two centuries earlier by Jerome Bosch--Dives in Hell, incantations, witches, phantasmagoria, etc.--for the simple purpose of assembling the most hideous and grotesque apparitions imaginable. =His Pictures of other Kinds.=--The other pictures here are devoted to his villagers, drinking, playing bowls, dancing, singing, and fighting. A Landscape, with a rustic house, shows a gardener standing, spade in hand, talking to a woman with a child on her lap. On the left, on the ground, are some vegetables, also pots and other household utensils. =Peter Balten.=--Peter Balten (fl. 1540-71) is represented by a large picture, St. Martin's Fair. His figures are full of spirit, and his touch is sure. Little is known of him except that he was one of the greatest wits of his day. He studied under Pierre Brueghel, whom he resembles in style. =B. van Bassen.=--A contemporary of his was Bartholomeus van Bassen (d. 1652), who has a fine Interior with figures supplied by Esais van de Velde. His specialty was portraits, with studies of perspective, and church and other interiors. =Three Pictures by Hendrick Bloemaert.=--Hendrick Bloemaert (1601-72) was probably the son of Abraham. The Rijks has three of his pictures, signed and dated: Winter (1631), Portrait of Johannes Puttkamer (1671), and The Eggseller (1632). The latter is in the Van der Hoop Room. =Three Popular Artists.=--Jan van der Meer the Younger (1656-1705) is represented by a charming picture, The Sleeping Shepherd, dated 1678. Frans van Mieris the Elder is represented by The Letter, The Lute Player, Jacob's Dream, The Lost Bird, and Fragility. His son, Willem van Mieris, is represented by The Poulterer (1733), A Landscape with Shepherds and Shepherdesses (1722), and a Lady and a Gentleman. [Illustration: F. VAN MIERIS Grocer's Shop] =The Grocer's Shop by F. van Mieris the Younger.=--Willem's son and pupil, Frans van Mieris the Younger (1689-1763), who carried on the family traditions in Leyden, although somewhat inferior to his father and grandfather, is represented by A Hermit (1721), A Chemist's Shop (1714), and The Grocer's Shop (1715). This latter picture presents an interesting scene of the day. Note the beautiful painting of the sculptured bas-relief of the counter, at which stand the purchasers--an old woman and a child. The shopkeeper holds scales and two baskets, about the contents of which there seems to be some contention. In the shop there is a larder, on the shelves of which various articles are seen; baskets hang on the wall; and tubs, barrels, and casks are also visible. Over the shop has grown a grape-vine, and its graceful festoons of leaves make a beautiful effect. =Several of Karel Dujardin's Pictures.=--Karel Dujardin may also be studied by his Portrait of a Man; Portrait of Gerard Reinst, a celebrated art collector of Amsterdam and also a patron of the painter; The Muleteers; The Laborer on his Farm (1655), in which a peasant is seen winnowing corn; A Trumpeter on Horseback; a Portrait of Himself (1660); an Italian Landscape with Animals; and a Landscape, which was purchased at the Duchesse de Berry's sale in 1837 for 4,000 florins. =Burger on A Woman Reading.=--"Again the sphinx! Here we have an interior with a woman standing in profile to the left. She is reading a letter; she wears a light blue jacket and a grayish-blue skirt. Before her are a table and a chair with a blue back. Behind her is another blue chair. Decidedly Van der Meer has an affection for the blue sky. The wall of the background is a pale moonlight blue, and the woman's figure stands out against a geographical map a little tinted with _bistre_, which hangs on the wall. "The execution of this picture is very delicate, indeed almost trivial: the paint is laid on very lightly, the color is weak and even a little dry. It is true that this picture is a little rubbed. On the contrary, Van de Meer's touch was frank and the _pâte grasse_ abundant, even somewhat exaggerated in the View of Delft at The Hague; there is an incomparable firmness of design and modelling in The Milkmaid in the Six Gallery; and in the Façade of a Dutch House in the same gallery, the color is extremely warm and harmonious. These differences of practice make us hesitate for a time regarding the parentage of The Woman Reading in the Van der Hoop Collection. However, the physiognomy of this woman is of an exquisite delicacy; her bare arms and the hand that holds the paper are marvellously drawn.... This pale light and these delicate blues betray Van der _Meer_. This artist probably had several styles. "This picture is signed: an open book on the table bears the word Meer." =Van der Meer's Later Style.=--In later pieces his style is reminiscent of De Hooch and Metsu, but it is brighter and the tone more enamelled. In most instances the scene is in a small room lighted by a casement window. Sometimes the painter himself is seated in a studio; sometimes a girl and her lover are together; sometimes a woman is seated at the clavecin. The Milkmaid in the Six Collection is noted for its brilliancy of tone, harmonious distribution of tints, delicacy of gradations, and solidity of touch. =His Portrait-painting.=--Van der Meer was also a splendid portrait-painter and excelled in landscapes, in which he sacrificed figures to trees, cottages, and lanes. There is a charming little picture of this class in the Six Collection, representing a row of brick houses with people, in the style of Pieter de Hooch. It is said that he was killed by the fall of his house at the time when Simon Decker, a vestryman of the Delft Church, was sitting to him for his portrait. =Pieter de Hooch (1635-78).=--This master who was so long neglected and is now regarded as at least the equal of Ter Borch, Metsu, and Van Mieris, is well represented in the Rijks, though absent from The Hague Gallery. His talent is exhibited chiefly in his Conversations. Burger says he has never seen a single picture by De Hooch that is not of the first rank. =Burger on De Hooch's Choice of Subjects.=--"Sometimes he paints interiors--people are playing at cards, or having a family concert, or reading, or drinking, or conversing. Sometimes he paints exteriors; then the painter introduces us to domestic occupations, and the innocent recreations of private life, as, for instance, a servant washing linen in a back yard, or cleaning fish, or plucking a fowl; or perhaps there are ladies and their cavaliers playing at bowls in a garden with trim gravelled walks." =His Excellent Painting of Interiors.=--"When he paints interiors, this artist rarely neglects to show, on the right or left, doors opening on a staircase or revealing a leafy alley, or the trees along a quay, so that his pictures almost always seem to be the antechamber of another picture. In this characteristic style of De Hooch, when the interior of the apartment is moderately lighted, the sun shines outside, and we feel its heat and brilliance in the vistas gradually lost to view in the background, so inimitably managed in the artist's manner.... Pieter de Hooch seems to have been in Rembrandt's secrets, and knew how to adapt the genius of that great master to familiar scenes, just as Gonzales Coques had adapted the genius of Rubens." [Illustration: P. DE HOOCH The Country House] =Seven Fine Examples of his Work in the Rijks.=--The Rijks Museum owns seven fine examples of this master's work. The Portrait of a Man is said to be that of the painter at the age of nineteen; but this is doubtful. One of the most celebrated interiors shows a woman about to let a child drink from a jug of beer at the entrance to a cellar. This picture is very attractive for the simple attitudes, and for the depth of the equally sustained warm harmony. "The execution," says Crowe, "is a model of softness and juiciness." The most glowing example, however, of this warm lighting is a woman cleaning the hair of a child, in the Van der Hoop Room. The woman wears a skirt of deep blue and a bodice of red, bordered with white fur, while the child has a skirt of green and a gray bodice. Behind them is an alcove bed with green curtains, and to the right, in the foreground, a little chair. An open door on the left allows you to see into another room with a passage and courtyard beyond. A little black dog seen from behind lies on the reddish tiles. The picture is beautiful in its treatment of three successive planes of light. Another picture in the same collection represents apparently a pair of lovers who seem to be teasing each other. The lady seen in profile is squeezing a lemon into a glass, and the young man sitting opposite with his elbow on the table looks at her with a subtle smile. The costumes are elegant--the lady wears a straw-colored skirt and a rose-colored jacket. The man has on a garnet-colored doublet, scarlet knee-breeches, and white stockings. He is bareheaded and wears a wig. If it were not for the pipe in his hand he would remind you of Molière's gentlemen. They are sitting in a kind of courtyard of a house with a red-tiled roof, and a window with red shutters is also visible. At the door of the house a woman is standing with a glass in her hand. A servant is busy with a kettle by the window. On the right there is an opening into a clump of trees, suggesting a park, and to the left another enclosure. One of the most beautiful pictures in the collection, a marvel very difficult to describe because its superlative value lies in its luminous effect, is thus described: =A Picture Highly valued for its Luminous Effect.=--"We are in a room, the door of which, in the background on the left, opens onto the quay of a canal. A girl passes along the path; next we see a tree, a stretch of the canal, and on the opposite bank another street, flooded with sunlight, in which two cloaked men have halted in front of a house. Above the door, which is slightly arched, is a large window with small panes in four compartments, one of which is open. Under the light falling from the window, in the corner of the room, a girl in a blue bodice and white apron is seated, with her head turned toward a youth who is entering through on the extreme right in the foreground. In one hand he holds his hat, and presents a letter with the other."[26] =A Pleasing Sunlight Effect.=--Another picture shows a sunlight effect, in which both De Hooch and Vermeer of Delft delighted. There is a window on the left, above a table covered with a Turkey-red table-cloth, which is silhouetted brightly on the lower part of the opposite wall, close to a chimney piece. A servant is sweeping in front of the latter. Another woman, almost full-face, is seated, holding a baby in a yellow frock, with a child's cradle beside her. She wears a blue velvet jacket and red skirt. Behind her a door opens into a courtyard, and gives us a glimpse of the town. The rest of the background consists of a gray wall, on which hangs a picture. There is also a picture over the fireplace. =The Sick Lady.=--Very similar to the pictures by Jan Steen and Metsu is Hooghstraten's The Sick Lady, who, very pale and with drooping head, sits by a table on which her left elbow rests. On the red cloth, which is covered with a piece of white linen, stand a pot and a phial. She wears a white cap, a yellow jacket bordered with ermine, a Persian-blue skirt, and a white apron. Her hands are clasped at her waist, and her feet rest on a foot-warmer. Behind the table stands the doctor in his conventional costume of black. The bed, draped with green curtains, is seen in the background, where, to the left, a short flight of stairs leads to a series of rooms opening one into another in the style of Pieter de Hooch. The figures, about a foot high, are very finely drawn. Burger says: "The general harmony of color is strange, distinguished, and original. There are tones of straw-color, tones of pearl-color, and silvery tones, happily brought together, a clever distribution of light, and lightness in the shadows." =Jan Steen's Style patterned after Hals and A. van Ostade.=--Jan Steen shows the influence of his models, Hals and Adriaen van Ostade, in several of the seventeen pictures of this artist owned by the Rijks Museum. His own portrait and those in the Oostwaard picture (dated 1659) are strong, bright, and clear with the qualities he admired in Hals. The other pictures are all distinguished by correct drawing, admirable freedom and spirit of touch, and clear and transparent color. They range in subject from the stately interiors of grave and opulent burghers to tavern scenes of jollity and debauch. =Some of the Seventeen of his Pictures owned by the Rijks.=--There are two pictures of the charlatan who puffs his pills, draws teeth, and sells everything helpful to those sick in body or in mind, from a love-philtre to the Elixir of Life. Here, also, we see doctors and patients, card-parties, marriage-feasts, and the festivals of St. Nicholas and Twelfth Night. His delightful rendering of children is also fully exemplified here. In detail, the pictures are as follows: A Portrait of Himself, showing a rather handsome man with oval face, arched brows, and well-cut mouth; A Charlatan Selling his Wares, in which the chief figure is standing on a platform beneath the shade of a tree, while around him are many little figures variously grouped, forming comic episodes; The Baker Oostwaard with his Wife and a Son of the Painter (1659). The baker is arranging his wares, and the little boy is blowing on a horn. The Scullion represents a woman scouring a pewter pot. She is in a kitchen, and wears a white jacket and a blue skirt. On the table by which she stands are utensils and a lantern. [Illustration: JAN STEEN The Parrot Cage] =Description of The Parrot Cage.=--The Parrot Cage is a domestic scene, in what appears to be a tavern or a middle-class hall, in which there is a bed, a chair, and a table, at which two men are playing backgammon, while a third looks on smoking a pipe. At the big fireplace an old woman is broiling oysters, which are likely to spoil, as she is taking more interest in the backgammon than in her own task. A boy seated on a low stool is feeding a kitten with milk from a spoon, and watching a woman of graceful figure who is offering a biscuit to a parrot in a cage. The Orgy is famous for the dash and abandon with which it is painted. =The Village Wedding and Other Pictures.=--The Rijks owns also The Birthday of the Prince of Orange, The Happy Return, The Rake, The Dancing Lesson, in which merry children are teaching a cat to dance; The Village Wedding, a little masterpiece, in which the light is treated as if by Ostade, and where the bride and groom are seated at a table with friends, while musicians play for many dancers. =Description of The Happy Family.=--In The Happy Family we see a simply furnished room, in which is a bed, and next it a cupboard, on the top of which stand a mortar, some platters, and a vase of flowers; a happy family group is seated at a table. Hanging on the bed curtains is the legend in Dutch, "As the old ones sing so will the young ones pipe." This is the keynote of the picture. Every one is singing, piping, and making merry. Their gaiety is infectious. The father, seated at the end of the table, has a viola in one hand, while the right holds a glass of wine. Next him stands a boy playing bagpipes. Then the grandmother, singing, with a jolly expression on her face; next, the merry mother, with a merry baby, the image of her; next, a boy with a flute, another with a pipe; next, a girl about to smoke a pipe, in front two children, and at the open window a boy with a pipe. A dog stands by the master, near an empty platter, that shows he too has shared in the feast. There is a handsome table-carpet on the table, protected by a napkin, and on it a ham and a loaf of bread. [Illustration: JAN STEEN The Happy Family] =A Family Scene on Twelfth Night.=--Nearly all the same persons, only grown older, appear in A Family Scene on Twelfth Night: Margarita van Goyen, Steen's wife, seen this time from behind, with her profile upturned, and wearing a red skirt and a blue jacket trimmed with ermine, and ten other figures, including the old father and the painter himself, who are smoking in the background. "Delicious in color and vivacity!" is Burger's comment. =A Doubtful Picture of Steen and his Wife.=--The Couple Drinking is said to be Steen and his wife. The latter with a white handkerchief on her head, a dark blue jacket, red skirt, and white apron is drinking from a tall glass. The man in black behind her and talking to her is about to drink from a mug. The ages of the couple make it doubtful if the painter and his wife are represented. =The Young Lady who is Ill.=--The Young Lady who is Ill, seated languidly in a red arm-chair, with her head on a pillow, may be compared with similar pictures in The Hague Gallery. She wears a yellow silk skirt, and a jacket of lilac velvet bordered with ermine. The doctor is one of Steen's best creations of this type. =Steen's Most Popular Picture.=--The most popular of all Steen's pictures, however, is the Eve of St. Nicholas, which shows a room in Jan Steen's house, and himself, his first wife, and their children. Beside the chimney sits the mother in lilac skirt and green velvet jacket bordered with ermine, and on her left is a low table, on which is a variety of cakes, fruits, and other holiday sweets. In the background sits the father, who is enjoying the scene. Seven children are present. The oldest, holding a baby with a rag doll in its arms, is pointing up the chimney, explaining to the open-mouthed and staring little boy at his side whence St. Nicholas came. On the extreme left a boy is crying because all that St. Nicholas has rewarded him with is a birch rod, which his sister is presenting to him in his wooden shoe, and with evident pleasure. A little boy, with his father's cane in his hand, is enjoying his brother's disappointment and probable future punishment. In the background, the grandmother, drawing the curtains of the bed and tauntingly beckoning to the crying boy, seems to invite him to spend his St. Nicholas festival in bed. In the very centre of the picture is the pet of the family--a little girl, the very image of her mother. She has a pail full of toys, fruits, and cakes on one arm, and in her tiny hands she holds the figure of St. Nicholas, whose head is surrounded with a nimbus. [Illustration: JAN STEEN Eve of St. Nicholas] A basket of wafers, cakes, waffles, buns, crullers, etc., stands on the floor on the left; and leaning against the little table on the right is an enormous flat loaf of bread or cake iced in lines and decorated with figures of the cock at the four corners and in the centre that of St. Nicholas. =Early and Later Styles of Jan Miense Molenaer.=--Jan Miense Molenaer (1610-68) was either a pupil or a very skilful imitator of Jan Steen in his early works, which are painted in strong, clear color with bold execution. About 1650, however, he adopted a brown tone with a light and transparent execution, and concentrated his effects of light after the manner of Ostade when the latter was under the influence of Rembrandt. =A Fine Example of his Powers.=--The Lady at the Clavecin is a splendid example of the powers of this artist who was almost as fond of making musical instruments important features of his compositions as Slingelandt was. It was painted in 1637 as the signature shows, and therefore is full of the Hals influence. The lady and two children, whose amiable faces are turned with interested expression toward the spectator, are evidently portraits, probably of the artist's wife and children. The other picture, Grace before Meat, is also a fine study with Hals's technique. It is in the Van der Hoop Collection. =Four Pictures by Metsu.=--Four Metsus hang in the Rijks: The Huntsman's Present, purchased in 1843 for 12,400 florins, The Old Drinker, purchased in 1827 for 2,960 florins, The Breakfast, acquired in 1809, and the Old Woman in Meditation, bought in 1880 for 6,170 florins. =Description of The Huntsman's Present.=--For taste, depth, warm harmony, and careful execution, The Huntsman's Present is of the first order. In a room lighted by a window on the left, a lady is seated by the side of a table on which is a rich carpet. A large white apron of exquisite tone covers her lap, and on it lies a little green cushion on which she has been making lace, which she holds in her left hand. Her jacket, bordered with ermine, is of that flesh-color that Metsu loved. With her right hand she caresses a little King Charles spaniel perched on the table. On her right, an old gentleman is seated. He still wears his hunting clothes and holds his hat under his arm. Evidently he has just returned from the chase, for his dog is with him, and on the floor lie his game bag, gun, and a dead duck. To the lady he is presenting a partridge. On a handsome _kas_ stands a statuette of Cupid. =The Old Drinker.=--The Old Drinker represents a man with gray hair and short gray beard, with a pipe in one hand and a mug in the other. He has on a gray coat and a red cap edged with brown fur. He is perfectly happy, as his joyous expression shows. =The Breakfast.=--The Breakfast is a beautifully painted scene. At a table covered with a Persian carpet over which is thrown a linen cloth, a woman in a light pink bodice, a violet skirt, green apron, and white fichu, seated at the right in profile, is pouring wine from a jug into a tall glass. A man in a puce-colored vest is placing a dish of meat on the table, which is already set with plates, bread, knives, and a glass. On the left is a dark green curtain, and in the background a door is indicated. =Johannes Verkolje.=--Johannes Verkolje (1650-93) is represented by The Family Concert (1673). He was the son of a locksmith in Amsterdam, and studied with Jan Lievensz, but later imitated the highly finished style of Gerard Pietersz Zijl (fl. 1655), whose works were in such favor. He produced portraits, historical subjects, and conversations, delicate and graceful in sentiment, charming in color, and excellent in drawing. =Jan Victors's Pork Butcher.=--The Pork Butcher (1648) and The Dentist (1654) are by Jan Victors, an artist about whom so little has been known until recent years that he has been confused with two others of the same name. The pork butcher is seen in the centre of the picture, which represents a village street; the butcher is standing before his freshly butchered quarter of pork, and a boy, in a large hat and jacket, with yellow sleeves, with knife in hand, is helping his master, to whom a woman is bringing a drink in a glass. On the right, a little boy seated on a fence is blowing a bladder, while a little girl looks on and laughs. Behind, a man is ascending a ladder into a barn. On the right a little boy is washing a ham in a tub, and a woman is kneeling by him with a dish. =The Dentist.=--The pendant shows a table over which a rose-colored umbrella is opened, and under it a charlatan is drawing the tooth of a peasant. A man and a woman witness the operation, and three children on the left, a peasant, and a woman with some vegetables on her head are laughing heartily. In the foreground two dogs are quarrelling over a bone; and in the background small figures and a village clock-tower are visible. =The Religious Pictures.=--The religious pictures need not detain us long. Two or three in the style of Rembrandt: Isaac Blessing Jacob, by Govert Flinck; The Woman Taken in Adultery, by G. van der Eckhout, purchased in London in 1828 for 3,000 florins, and belonging to that artist's best period; and the picture of Herodias with the Head of John the Baptist are worth the student's attention. The latter is particularly interesting, because, although the catalogues give it to Cornelis Drost (1638-?), a pupil and imitator of Rembrandt, it is really by the hand of Karel Fabritius (1624?-54), also a pupil of Rembrandt and so close a follower that many of his pictures have passed for Rembrandt's. The artist met with a tragic death; for he was killed in Delft by the explosion of a powder magazine. =Aertsen's Altarpieces.=--Of historic value are the altar wings by Pieter Aertsen (Long Peter), The Presentation at the Temple; on the reverse, King Balthasar, painted for the Delft church; and the Nativity of Jesus Christ, a fragment of a picture destroyed in the fire of the Town Hall in Amsterdam in 1652. On Dr. J. Six's authority, the rest of this picture is in the New Church in Amsterdam. Aertsen was particularly famous for his altarpieces, many of which were destroyed by the Iconoclasts in 1566. =Other Painters of Biblical Scenes.=--Of other painters whose reputations are larger in other fields, but who are represented in this gallery by one or two Biblical works, we may mention Berchem, with Ruth and Boaz; Velvet Brueghel, Repose of the Holy Family, Christ Preaching in a Fisherman's Boat, and the Adoration of the Kings, in a winter landscape; Frans Francken II., Adoration of Jesus Christ, and The Prodigal Son; and Maerten van Heemskerck (1498-1574), The Resurrection of Christ. Benjamin Gerritsz Cuijp may be studied in Joseph Interpreting the Dreams of the Baker and Butler; Dirck van Hoogstraten (1595-1640), The Virgin, with Jesus and St. Anne; Eglon Hendrick van der Neer (1643-1703), Young Tobias with the Angel; and Rubens, Bearing of the Cross (a sketch for the picture in the Royal Museum in Brussels), and Ecce Homo and Meeting of Jacob and Esau (copies). In addition to several Biblical pictures in the Italian, Flemish, and German schools, there are, by François Joseph Navez (1787-1839), Isaac and Rebecca and the Resurrection of the Widow's Son; by A. van Dijck, The Repentant Magdalen; (School of Van Dijck) The Holy Family; one by Bronzino, Judith with the head of Holofernes; one of the School of Palma Vecchio, The Holy Family; and Spain is represented by The Annunciation to the Virgin, by Murillo (1618-82), and The Glorification of the Virgin, by Antolines (1639-76). Hans Rottenhammer (1564-1623) has a Virgin with the Infant Jesus (1604); Nicholas Bertin (1667-1736), Joseph Fleeing from Potiphar's Wife, and Susannah at the Bath; Sebastian Bourdon (1616-71), the Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine; copy after Hieronymus van Aeken, surnamed Bosch (1462?-1516), Adoration of the Magi; Leonard Bramer (1595-1674), a Biblical Subject(?) and King Solomon Sacrificing to Idols; Mechior Brassauw (1709-57?), The Prodigal Son; Peter Codde (1599?-1678), Adoration of the Shepherds; Jacob Cornelissen, Saul and the Witch of Endor; Gasper de Craeyer (1584-1669), The Adoration of the Shepherds and Descent from the Cross; Geertgen van St. Jans (fifteenth century), Allegory on the Death of Jesus Christ; Barend Graat (1628-1709), The Prodigal Son (1661); Nicolaes de Gijselaer (1590-95-1644?), The Angel Gabriel Appearing to Zacharias in the Temple (1625); Cornelis van Haerlem (1562-1638), Massacre of the Innocents, and Adam and Eve in the Terrestrial Paradise; Pieter van Hanselaere, Chaste Susannah; Frans Haseleer (1804-?), Esther before Ahasuerus; Isaac Isacsz (1599-1648), Abimelech Giving Sarah to Abraham (1640); Cornelis Kruseman (1797-1857), The Burial of Christ; J. A. Kruseman (1804-62), Elisha and the Shunammite; Pieter Pietersz Lastman (1583-1633), The Sacrifice of Abraham; Willem de Poorter (?-1645?), Solomon Sacrificing to Idols; Joris van Schooten (1587-1651), The Adoration of the Kings (1646); Jan van Scorel (1495-1562), St. Madeleine, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and David and Bathsheba; Gerard Seghers (1591-1651), Christ and the Penitents; Benvenuto Tisi (the Garofalo) (1481-1559), Holy Family, and Adoration of the Magi; Tiziano Vecelli (1477-1576), Repentant Magdalen (copy); Jan Victors (1620-82?), Joseph Interpreting Dreams (1648); Jacob de Wet (1610?-71?), Christ Blessing the Children; Rogier van der Weyden (1399?-1464), Descent from the Cross; and Joachim A. Wttewael (1566-1638), David and Abigail (1597). =Mythological Pictures combined with Landscape.=--It is noticeable that in mythological pictures landscape forms a prominent feature. Rubens was, doubtless, responsible for much of the popularity of this class of art, and the vogue that the Italian landscape also enjoyed aided the taste. Nymphs and satyrs and gods and goddesses were more appropriate figures to introduce into the classic scenes of Italy than Dutch peasants and cattle. We, therefore, find two classes of mythological pictures: one in which the landscape is more important than the figures; and one in which the figures take precedence. Born more than half a century after Poelenburg, Gerard de Lairesse (1641-1711), the most important Flemish painter of historical and mythological subjects in the generation succeeding Rubens, followed Poelenburg in his taste for Italian settings for his figures, although he had never been to Italy. He is represented in the Rijks by Mars, Venus, and Cupid; another of the same title, Seleucus Abdicating in Favor of his Son Antiochus; Diana and Endymion; Virtue, an Allegory; and two in _grisaille_,--The Revolution and Legitimate Power. =G. de Lairesse, Portrait-painter.=--Gerard de Lairesse was the son of an artist of some celebrity, studied under Bertholet Flemalle, and by the age of sixteen had become known as a portrait-painter. Some historical works for the Electors of Cologne and Brandenburg established his reputation, and when he settled in Amsterdam he was regarded as the greatest historical painter of his time. At the age of fifty he lost his eyesight. His style is grand and poetical, and his background enriched with architecture. =More Mythological Pictures in the Rijks.=--The other mythological pictures in this gallery are: Hendrick van Balen (1575-1632), Bacchus's Homage to Diana; Jan Brueghel le Vieux (Velvet) (1568-1625), Latona in Caria; Caravaggio (1569-1609), The Death of Orion; Johannes Glauber (1646-1726), Mercury and Io, and Diana Bathing; Henricus Goltzius (1558-1616), The Dying Adonis (1603); Hendrick Heerschop (1620 or 21-72?), Erechthonius Found by the Daughters of Cecrops; Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678), A Satyr; Hendrik van Limborgh (1680-1759), Cupid and Psyche; W. Ossenbeeck (?-1678), Mercury and Io (1632); Hans Rottenhammer (1564-1623), Mars and Venus (1604); Adriaan van der Werff (1659-1722), Cupid Embracing Venus; Pieter van der Werff (1665-after 1721), Cupid Adorned with Flowers (1713), Young Hercules and Young Bacchus; Thomas Willeborts (1614-54), Mars Armed by Venus; Flemish School (1610-20), Dispute of Apollo and Pan; Dutch School (sixteenth century), Adonis (supposed to be by Jan van Scorel); and Dietz (living in 1830), Hebe. Here must be mentioned Rembrandt's mythological picture known by the name of Narcissus. =Painters of Exteriors and Painters of Interiors.=--No survey of Dutch art would be complete without a brief account of the painters of buildings; and these may be divided again into two classes: those who painted the exteriors and those who painted the interiors. =Murant and his Old Farm-house.=--The first of those who painted exteriors seems to have been Emanuel Murant (1622-1700), a pupil of Philips Wouwermans. He chose for his specialty Dutch village houses which he painted with vigor and warmth, and introduced figures and cattle into his foregrounds. These he painted himself. His works are rare, because he spent so much time on each work that he produced few pictures. He also spent much time in travel. His color is rich and silvery in tone; his impasto fine, and he gives the details with great truth and finish. By the aid of a magnifying-glass every stone in his buildings and every leaf on his trees may be counted. The Rijks possesses The Old Farm-house, which represents a dilapidated old house, where a man is feeding the chickens, and there are also pigs and an old woman at her spinning-wheel. =Jan van der Heyden.=--Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) was "the Gerard Dou of architectural painters." The Rijks owns View of the Town of Amersfoort, with delightful figures by A. van der Velde, A Drawbridge, A Stone Bridge, and A Canal in Holland. He loved to paint canals bordered with trees. His tone is warm, and his execution soft and free. =G. A. Berck-Heyde, Painter of German and Dutch Towns.=--Another skilful painter of exteriors, Gerrit Adriaensz Berck-Heyde (1638-98), is noted for his faithful representations of the principal towns of Germany and Holland. His perspective is extremely fine. The Rijks owns: View of the Dam at Amsterdam; View of the Heerengracht (1685); The Flower-Market, Amsterdam; The Ruins of the Castle of Egmont, near Alkmaar; and three Views of the Town-hall. In some of his works he was assisted by his brother. =J. A. Berck-Heyde.=--Job Adriaensz Berck-Heyde (1630-93) was a pupil of Frans Hals and Jacob de Wet. He is represented in the Amsterdam Museum by The Spaarne at Haarlem, Interior of a Church (1674), and Interior of the Old Bourse at Amsterdam. =J. van der Ulft the Versatile.=--The works of Jacob van der Ulft, so remarkable for his versatility, are rare. The Rijks, however, owns two pretty cabinet-pictures by him, representing an Italian town and an Italian port. A very interesting and valuable picture by him, representing the Town-hall on the Dam, completed in 1667, is in the present Town-hall. =Other Painters of Exteriors.=--Among the other artists and pictures represented are: Kornelis Beelt (seventeenth century), Dutch Flotilla at the Herring Fishery and View of the Haarlem Market; Anthonie Beerstraten (seventeenth century), View of Regulierspoort in Amsterdam in Winter, and Interior of a Town in Winter; Johannes Bosboom (1817- ), Notre-Dame, Breda, Great Church, Edam, and Aire in Guelders; F. der Braekeleer, Ruins of the Citadel of Antwerp (1832); Hendrik Gerrit Ten Cate (1803-56), The Tower, Jan Rodenpoort in Amsterdam (1829), and the City in Moonlight; Jan Ten Compe (1713-61), View of the Quay called Keizersgracht, in Amsterdam; Constantinus Coene (1780-1841), the Porte de Hal in Brussels (1823); Croos (seventeenth century), View of the Castle of Egmont, near Alkmaar; Claes Dircksz van der Heck (seventeenth century), The Castle of Egmont and The Abbey of Egmont (1638); Edward A. Hilverdink, View of the Singel in Amsterdam; Johannes Janson (1729-84), The Château de Heemstede (1766); Kasparus Karssen (1810-?), Interior of the Old Bourse at Amsterdam (1837); J. C. K. Klinkenberg (1852- ), The Market at Nimeguen; Everhardus Kloster (1817- ), Amsterdam; Dirk Jan van der Laen (1759-1829), View of a Town: A Snow Scene; François de Momper (1603-60), The Valkenhof at Nimeguen; Isaac de Moucheron (1670-1744), View of Tivoli, near Rome, and View in the Hortus Medicus at Amsterdam; Isaak Ouwater (1747-93), Unfinished Tower of the New Church at Amsterdam and Le Poids St. Anthony at Amsterdam; Antoon Sminck Pitloo (1791-1837), St. Georgis Church, Rome (1820); P. J. Poelman (1801-?), The Town Hall at Oudenarde (1824); J. H. Prins (1758-1806), View of a City (1793); Cornelis Springer (1817-91), Town-hall and Vegetable Market at Vere (1861), and Town-hall, Cologne (1874); Abraham Storck (1630?-1710?), View of the Dam; Pieter George Westenberg (1791-1873), View of Amsterdam in Winter (1817); and Jan Wildens (1586-1653), View of Amsterdam (1636). =Painters of Interiors--P. H. van Steenwyck.=--Turning now to those painters who devoted their attention chiefly to interiors, the first to be noticed is Pieter Hendrik van Steenwyck the Elder (1550-about 1604), the pupil of Jan Vredeman de Vries, who has never been surpassed in this particular field. He usually painted the interiors of Gothic churches and other buildings. He also won distinction with torchlight effects. The figures were usually supplied by the Franckens and others. Van Steenwyck lived in Antwerp and also in Frankfort. The Interior of a Catholic Church, in the Rijks, is a good example of his style. =His Pupil, Pieter Neeffs the Elder.=--Among his pupils was Pieter Neeffs the Elder (1577-between 1657-61), who followed his master closely, but with a heavy touch. His colors are not so pleasing as Steenwyck's, but his mechanical skill is great. F. Francken, Teniers, Velvet Brueghel, and Van Thulden are responsible for the figures in his pictures. In the Rijks we may study him by his Church of the Dominicans in Antwerp (1636), A Church: Effect of Candle-light (1636), and Interior of a Church. =P. J. Saenredam, Painter of Church Interiors.=--Next must be mentioned Pieter Jansz Saenredam (1597-1665), who painted the interior of churches in a large and luminous manner. His pictures were highly esteemed, but are now very rare. The Rijks owns: two Interiors of the Church of St. Bavon, Haarlem; three Interiors of St. Mary's, Utrecht; and View of the Church in Assendelft. Adriaen van Ostade contributed the figures in the latter. Pieter Saenredam was a pupil of his father, a celebrated engraver, and of Frans de Grebber in Haarlem. =Emanuel de Witte's Beautiful Work.=--Emanuel de Witte (1617-92), a pupil of Evert van Aelst, bears the same relation to the representation of interiors that Ruisdael does to landscape, and Willem van de Velde to marine painting. Beautiful modelling, fine color, linear and aërial perspective, masterly treatment of chiaroscuro, and animated figures are all at his command. The Vestibule in the Prinsenhof in Delft and two Interiors of a Church are picturesque canvases that exhibit the rich talents of this painter. =H. C. van Vliet.=--Hendrik Cornelisz van Vliet (1608-66?), a pupil of his father, Willem van Vliet (1584-1642), paints under the influence of De Witte as is shown in the Interior of Part of the Old Church at Delft, signed "H. van Vliet, 1654." Here the treatment of sunlight is very reminiscent of Emanuel de Witte. =Egbert van der Poel.=--In this connection may be mentioned Egbert van der Poel (1621-64), whose specialty was conflagrations. The effects of lurid light are seen in his Ruins in Delft after the Explosion of a Powder Magazine (1654) and Interior of a Farm-house (1646). =Collections on the Ground-floor and Basement.=--After lunching in the pleasant little restaurant in the west wing on the ground-floor we take a rapid view of the collections here. The East and West Courts contain military, naval, and colonial collections, weapons, uniforms, and models of ships, which need not detain us long; nor will the department of Ecclesiastical Architecture and the Hall of the Admirals, where there is a collection of modern French paintings. In the western half of the building there are splendid collections of engravings, porcelain, lacquer, and textiles, two seventeenth century rooms furnished by the Antiquarian Society, and in the basement a collection of old Dutch costumes, carriages, and doll houses. On the east side are a number of correctly furnished Dutch rooms, one a "Chinese Boudoir" from the Stadtholder's Palace at Leeuwarden (seventeenth century), and a great collection of civic and industrial domestic art. Silver occupies a conspicuous place, and one of the cases contains drinking-horns, among which is the original drinking-horn of the Guild of St. Joris, which appears in Van der Helst's painting. The visitor will seldom see a more wonderful collection of glass of all shapes and forms, and beautifully engraved, cut, and mounted; and the display of jewelry, trinkets, and children's toys will also claim attention. =The Garden.=--We now enter the garden at the south side of the building. This is laid out in the Dutch style of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with clipped hedges of beech and box, and adorned with flowers, vases, statues, and busts. There is also a maze, and fragments of old Dutch buildings, such as the old Bergpoort of Deventer (1619) and the Heerenpoort of Groningen (1621). Various old gables, pilasters, columns, walls, tympanums, and gates have been grouped; and in the eastern part of the garden is the house of the Director of the Museum. FOOTNOTES: [23] J. F. White. [24] Burger. [25] J. A. Crowe. [26] Blanc. THE STEDELIJK MUSEUM =Ground-floor of the Stedelijk Museum.=--A short walk from the Rijks down Paulus Potter Straat brings us to the Stedelijk (Municipal) Museum, built in 1892-95. The ground-floor is devoted to uniforms, weapons, and pictures of the Schutterij of Amsterdam, and a series of rooms furnished in the style of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, including an old Dutch kitchen. =Its Pictures of the History of the Netherlands.=--An extraordinary collection of pictures by Allebé, Israëls, Rochussen, and other well-known painters, treating of the history of the Netherlands, deserves a passing glance, for there are no less than 250 small canvases, all of the same dimensions and similar treatment. A more curiously monotonous effect would be impossible to imagine; but, to use a Dutch term, they are decidedly _symmetrisch_. =The Gallery of Modern Pictures.=--Ascending the stairs we reach the gallery of modern pictures. The collection consists of about 200 paintings gathered by a society founded in 1874, and is very rich in fine examples of the modern Dutch school. =Mauve's Sheep on the Dunes.=--One of the gems of the modern landscapes is Mauve's Sheep on the Dunes. The sheep, all of which have their backs to the spectator, the rolling dunes with their tall, waving grass, the shepherd boy and his dog, are all painted with equal skill; and over the still landscape hovers a poetic feeling that communicates itself instantly to the spectator. Mauve is also represented by A Fold and Woodmen. =Anton Mauve.=--Anton Mauve (1838-89) was a native of Zaandam, and the son of a clergyman. He studied under the cattle-painter, Van Os, who was not particularly pleased with his pupil. After his apprenticeship was over, he began to paint little pictures in the neat manner and conventional style of his master. Mauve lived in Oosterbeck, "the Barbison of Holland," for a time, and at a later period spent his winters in Amsterdam and his summers in The Hague, where he could enjoy Scheveningen and the dunes. A Dutch writer, A. C. Loffelt, says: =His Style.=--"The poetry of Mauve's art, its tenderness, the unobtrusive, quiet sadness of the scenery and people which attracted him most; the homeliness, humor, and domestic happiness which he interpreted in his interiors and scenes of country and village life, can only be appreciated by people of the same descent." The same critic tells us that Mauve lived for a time in a farm-house, near Dekkersdinn. =His Favorite Themes.=--"Here Mauve found some of his most important and favorite themes, such as poor cots built in or near the downs, where slender, poorly nurtured women tended a few sheep or a goat, or occupied themselves in bleaching linen. His painting had not yet gained that transparency and brilliancy of tone which the artist acquired in subsequent years. At this time his work was gray, but not always pellucid or silvery. Thus it came to pass that critics and public began to talk of 'The Gray School,' for a few other artists painted in the same neutral scale of tints. "As we walk in the rural lanes, beneath the slender birches wrapped in their mantle of silver-gray haze, or watch the chequered sunlight dancing into the secluded nooks of some emerald meadow, when we hear the echoes of the tinkling sheep-bells on the moors, we think 'There lives Mauve!'" [Illustration: MAUVE Sheep on the Dunes] =His Truthful Painting of Sheep and Cattle.=--Mauve is, perhaps, best known by his flocks of sheep painted under all conditions and at all seasons and times of day; but not less true to nature are his cows in the _Melkbocht_, that paddock or reserved spot in the meadow where the cows are gathered for milking. His horses ploughing, or at rest, and his coast scenes, showing Dutch fishing-boats about to be pulled across the sands by teams of horses, are no less remarkable performances. =The Early Training of Josef Israëls.=--For a whole generation Josef Israëls has stood at the head of modern Dutch art. Born in 1827, at Groningen, the son of a money-changer, he carried money-bags in his early years to the banking-house of Mesdag. He studied under Jan Adam Kruseman, and at first painted historical pictures; lived in the Ghetto in Amsterdam, and nearly starved in Paris, where he studied in the Delaroche school. =The Themes of his Paintings.=--It was in Zandvoort, near Haarlem, that he discovered his true bent, and began to depict the seafaring man and the peasant in their homely every-day life. His people are all humble, and most of them are broken by poverty and sorrows. For more than thirty years his pictures have occupied the place of honor in all the Dutch exhibitions; and on his seventieth birthday he was made Commander of the Order of Orange-Nassau, and was the recipient of many gifts and congratulations. In this gallery hang a number of pictures dating from various periods. Among them are Fisherman's Children, Rustic Interior, After the Storm, Passing the Mother's Grave, Margaret of Parma and William of Orange (one of his earliest efforts), Old Jewish Peddler, and a Study of a Head. [Illustration: ISRAËLS Fisherman's Children] =Veth's Appreciation of Israëls.=--The artist himself is represented in a statuette by F. Leenhoff, which stands in one of the rooms, and also in a portrait by J. Veth, who sympathetically writes: "The choicest pictures by this master are painted in a truly mysterious way, simply by the nervous vigor of an untaught hand with heavy, sweeping shadows and thick touches of paint, which stand out in a wonderful mixture of sharp relief and dim, confused distance; with soft hesitation and touches of crudely decisive certainty; with broad outlines and incisive emphasis. Ruggedness and tenderness, corruption and sweetness, whimsicality and decision, are magically mingled there in dignified depth, with the most refined feeling--the most ductile language of the brush that is known to me. "And yet, notwithstanding, all this exists, as far as possible, in the clear, simple execution of the old Dutch painters, and there is one great family resemblance between the nineteenth century master and those who are the classics among the _petits maîtres_." =Each of his Pictures a Harmonious Whole.=--"The resemblance--the revived tradition--is to be seen in the fact that Israëls, like the old Dutch painters, nay, even more than they, always aims at the sober, general harmony of the whole work. It is wonderful how discreet the effect is of a picture, for instance, by Pieter de Hooch, with all its elaborate execution; how splendidly it holds together, how strong yet delicate the construction is. It is this great quality of presenting an absolutely organic whole at one impulse which seems to have passed into Israëls from his precursors, who otherwise painted so utterly differently. Indeed, it is in this concentrated power, in this self-contained harmony, the outcome of one glance, as it were, and of one impetus, that we may discern one of the principal features of Israëls's art. There is nothing in his work that asserts itself alone, nothing detached, nothing that plays any part but that of strengthening the whole." =His Aim to paint the Truth, rather than to produce Studied Effects.=--"Those who really understand the sincerity of his art know that he rejects everything approaching to working for effect--everything that looks like rule of thumb; and that he in fact never consciously troubles his head about studied effects or beauty. Beauty to him lies in the silent woe with which the survivors stand in a house of death; in the attitude of the old wife left alone, who spreads her hands stiffly out to the fire, as though she might win a spark of life from the smouldering hearth; in the way in which the decrepit old man sits with resigned dejection in his gloomy hovel, staring into his old dog's eyes; in the stupefied wretch who sits on a broken bench, where, behind him, his dead wife lies stretched on her bed; in the woful gleam in the eyes of the huckster who sits in front of his dirty booth, with a motley collection of rags above his head, watching us so mysteriously; in the sad old woman who, with elbows wide apart on her table, her hands quietly folded, sits weary and alone in front of her meal; in the kindly but hard-set woman, who, through wind and weather, tramps along field and road by her jolting dog-barrow, in a cruel struggle for existence; in the business of the fisherman and seafaring folk and their hard and simple labor; in the dignity of the patriarchal peasant family that gathers round the dish; he sees beauty in everything which lays bare what lies mysteriously latent in poverty and privation and suffering, at the very roots of human life." =Roelofs, Painter of A Marshy Landscape.=--Familiar to the Holland traveller is the Marshy Landscape, so true to nature and so charming in color. [Illustration: ROELOFS Marshy Landscape] If he had painted nothing else, Willem Roelofs (1822-97) would deserve his reputation because of this work. This painter was born in Amsterdam and was a pupil of H. van de Sande Bakhuijzen for about a year; then he remained for six years in Utrecht; and settled in Brussels, where he remained forty years, finally returning to Holland. This painter's chief desire is to express himself poetically. =The Inexhaustible Supply of His Favorite Subjects.=--"His pictures are truly beautiful: cattle standing up to their knees in rich green pasture land; luxuriant meadows; secluded pools reflecting the blue sky and the moving clouds; lakes with floating lilies; rivers, streams, noble trees, canals, and the thoroughly Dutch windmill. Roelofs may be called the pioneer in our country of a broader school of painting, especially that pertaining to landscape. Much of this he may be said to have taken from the French.... Of late years he has added more cattle to his pictures; but whether cattle or trees, land or water, they are painted with the firm belief that they needed no embellishment, but were good enough to be represented exactly as they were. For Roelofs will not invent a subject. And why, indeed, should he do so? Is the supply exhausted? _He_ does not think so, for no summer passes but he packs up his paint-box and with his little stool, his easel, and his umbrella, goes off either to Noorden, or Abcoude, or to Voorschoten, to study nature again and again, as if he did not know her well already."[27] =J. Maris, Skilful in producing Ethereal Effects.=--Of Jacob Maris, Zilcken writes: "No painter has so well expressed the ethereal effects, bathed in air and light, through floating silvery mist, in which painters delight, and the characteristic remote horizons blurred by haze; or again the gray yet luminous weather of Holland, unlike the dead gray rain of England, or the heavy sky of Paris." This artist may be studied in this gallery by A Beach, two Views of a Town, The Ferry, and The Two Windmills, which latter represents two windmills standing as sentinels over a rather dreary landscape at the edge of a river and a canal. =His Training and his Aim in Art.=--Jacob Maris (1837-99) was born in The Hague and was sent to Stroebel's studio, and later studied in the Antwerp Academy of Drawing. He was also a pupil of Louis Meyer in The Hague, and in 1865 went to Paris and studied with Hébert. Returning to The Hague, he devoted himself to landscape. He painted views of streets, country lanes, small hamlets, windmills, canals, rivers, and, sometimes, _genre_ pieces. In all his work his aim was to make an impression. One day he said: "A picture is finished as soon as you can see what it is intended to represent." =Marius on the Beauty of his Work.=--The Dutch critic, G. H. Marius, writes: "If you stand before one of Maris's pictures for a long time you discover many objects which you had not noticed at first--houses, bridges, trees, all looming out of the mellow misty light which is diffused over the entire canvas.... What an endless variety of windmills he immortalizes! Some of his canvases have but a small solitary windmill, while others have a crowd of these gigantic, cumbersome structures. Some pictures have a fringe of them upon the horizon. "However simple the subject, it is ofttimes made almost dramatic by the rays of the setting sun, or by the brilliancy of a silver-lined cloud. These effects of light and shade are rapidly passing, and we gaze with admiration upon the skilful work of a man who can produce such a faithful picture, which his eye could have seen but momentarily. Sometimes he paints a canal with a barge pulled by a weary-looking horse, tramping along the muddy road the ruts of which are filled with water from recent rain (his horses are generally white). Or it is a bit of rich agricultural land, the long furrows stretching into the far distance; against a wonderful sky you see the profiles of distant houses, trees, mills, etc., all dying away into the horizon, showing the flatness of our Dutch landscape, where there is nothing to impede or obstruct the eye for miles." =Willem Maris's Relish for painting Cows.=--Willem Maris (1844- ) studied with his brothers Jacob and Matthys, and all three worked together. As early as 1868 he sold a picture which found its way to The Hague Gallery. This, representing cattle in a green meadow, at once showed his talent for painting warm sunlight. A typical picture of Cattle hangs in this gallery; for the chief subjects of Willem Maris's pictures are cows in meadow lands; sometimes they are waiting to be milked, or are being milked; sometimes they are standing or lying under the trees; and sometimes they are knee-deep in one of the lakes. Mr. Marius says: =Willem's Style contrasted with his Brother Jacob's.=--"The two brothers Maris [Jacob and Willem] treat their skies in exactly opposite manners. The one depicts clouds, threatening storm, and changeable weather, whereas the younger brother gives us only sunshine and a sky of turquoise blue; if, however, clouds are introduced, they are like small white feathers or like the petals of a white rose. Each in his own way true to nature, and beautiful to gaze upon, yet methinks that we must give the preference to the one who gives us that greatest of all blessings, sunshine. "A very favorite aspect of his is a cloudless sky, the brightest of suns, and part of the canvas thrown into deep shade, producing a wonderful contrast. "Another bewitching feature, so truly Dutch, in Maris's landscapes, is the rising mist after the heat of the day. It rises from the meadows at sunset and covers the land like a cloak, especially after a hot day when the ground has been baked." =A Socialistic Artist with Romantic Visions.=--Matthys Maris, the second of the three, joined his brother Jacob in Paris, and eventually he settled in London. "Thys Maris found rest and isolation in a suburb of London; a few faithful friends, such as Swan (the animal painter) and Van Wisselingh, break in occasionally upon his solitude. But his ideas are still socialistic, not only theoretically, but materially; and, without looking around, he gives what he receives. On this point he is likewise very sensitive. To be waited on by another, although that service is paid for, he considers humiliating; and, in order to avoid such a possibility, he lives without the comfort of attendance. "Many might pass by the works of Maris without even noticing them; many may consider them impossible and inexplicable, and pass on, almost out of humor, perhaps even angry with them; the rational spectator will put questions to which he will receive no satisfactory replies. "Though in his early years he painted still-life pieces, his fame rests chiefly on his visionary women seen in his romantic dreams, and portrayed with the clouds and mists of dreamland about them."[28] In this gallery The Bride represents him worthily. =Two Pictures representing Albert Neuhuys.=--Albert Neuhuys, born in Utrecht in 1844, studied in the Academy of Drawing in Antwerp, and settled in Amsterdam, the painter of landscapes and scenes from homely and humble life. He is represented by The Doll's Dressmaker and By the Cradle, which represents a mother leaning over the cradle of her baby lying comfortably on pillows. It is interesting to note how thickly the artist has spread the paint on the canvas. [Illustration: A. NEUHUYS By the Cradle] =A Characteristic Picture by Christoffel Bisschop.=--Christoffel Bisschop (1828-1904) may be studied by The Lord Gave and the Lord hath Taken Away, Sunday in Hindeloopen, Sister of the Bride, and Winter in Friesland, also called Repairing Skates. This is a very characteristic and typical picture. Friesland is not only the home of a peculiar style of brightly painted furniture, but also the home of a school of skating of which there are two schools,--the Dutch and the Frisian. The latter, which is the older, aims at speed; and the skater wears a peculiar kind of skate, well shown on the foot of the young girl seated on the right, who is having the other skate repaired. The carved and colored sledges are also typical of Friesland. An escort waits at the door. The painter was himself a native of Friesland, and therefore depicts the costumes, furniture, houses, and people of this most picturesque corner of Holland with accuracy, charm, and sympathy. [Illustration: BISSCHOP Winter in Friesland] =Christoffel Bisschop.=--Christoffel Bisschop is the Dutch colorist _par excellence_. He entered the studio of Schmidt in Delft, and worked at The Hague under Huib van Hove. He also studied in Paris with Le Comte and Gleyre, and in 1855 established himself in The Hague. A visit to the quaint town of Hindeloopen charmed his artistic eye, and henceforth the peasants, with their gay costumes, and the brightly painted furniture and quaint houses, have furnished themes and settings for his pictures. =H. W. Mesdag.=--Born in Groningen in 1831, Hendrick Willem Mesdag was destined to follow the family business of banking. Art, however, claimed him; and after painting for several years as an amateur he started work in Brussels in 1866. Except for the criticisms of Roelofs, Alma-Tadema, and other artists, Mesdag may be said to be self-taught. In 1869 he removed to The Hague, so that he could be near Scheveningen, for he had found his special talent. "I must go and live near the sea," he said, "gaze upon it daily, not only for weeks, but for months and years; watch and study its every movement, this ever-changing element, this amazing, stupendous work of the Almighty!" In 1870 he exhibited at the Paris Salon, and his Breakers in the North Sea received the gold medal. His fame was now established. France has decorated Mesdag more than once, and one of his sea pictures hangs in the Luxembourg. =His Style.=--Mesdag is a realist, and with broad, bold strokes of the brush he portrays what he sees and feels. He depicts the ever-changing ocean in all its moods, at all times of day and in all seasons; and the life of the fisherfolk on the shore and in the fishing-boats is also treated with sympathy. His Calm Sea by Sunset, painted in 1878, and Fishing-boats at Sea and Beach, the two latter painted in 1895, belong to this gallery. "High up in the scale, and standing somewhat apart, is Henry William Mesdag, the marine painter. Into a branch of art which had been treated in so masterly a fashion in former centuries by Willem van de Velde and Van Capelle, not to speak of Lodewijk Backhuysen and Bonaventure Peeters, he introduced a thorough reform. In the beginning of the century he was preceded by men of note, such as Schotel, Waldorp, Meyer, Greive, Van Heemskerck, Van Beest, Van Deventer; but their chief aim was to remain true to the tradition of the great period. They painted pretty little ships sailing on calm seas, their white sails catching a gentle breeze and reflecting the rays of the sun; or again they would paint large vessels, driven before a gale over mountainous waves. But the one was as artificial as the other; their water was like glass, their ships as if made of tin, their skies seemed cut out of oilcloth, and not one showed that he felt any love for the sea. "Mesdag was the first to paint the sea as it is, the turbulent, restless, omnipotent, unlimited sea, that free, majestic, and mysterious element which cannot be brought within any formula, but can only be rendered in its tossing and pitching, peopled by its 'children of the sea' living on its shores or drifting on its billows. He studied every movement of the waves, every tint of the water, every change in the ever-changing sky; he bade good-bye to large vessels, huge castles of the sea, and took to painting small ships and fishing smacks, the cottages, so to speak, of the ocean. His painting is as broad and manly as the element wherein he moves and the space it covers; not as soft and transparent as the works of landscape painters,--those who give us meadows and downs,--but yet a revelation."[29] [Illustration: MESDAG Sunrise on the Dutch Coast] =Other Works in the Stedelijk by Modern Artists.=--Other works by modern artists worthy of attention are: Canal in Amsterdam and Sinking Piles for the Erection of a House, by G. H. Breitner (1857); Te Deum Laudamus, Groote Kerk at The Hague, Oude Kerk at Amsterdam, Groote Kerk at Edam, and Barn-floor in Guelderland, by J. Bosboom (1817-91); Mother and Child, by B. J. Blommers (1845); Arrival of the Water Gueux at Leyden, by C. Rochussen (1814-94); Episode from the Siege of Leyden, Battle at Castricum, and Mellis Stoke Presenting his Rhymed Chronicle to Floris V., Count of Holland, by K. Klinkenberg (1852); River Scene in Winter, by L. Apol (1850); Scheveningen in Rainy Weather, by S. L. Verveer (1850); Queen Fredegonda and St. Prætextatus, by Alma-Tadema (1836); Mary Magdalen at the Foot of the Cross, by Ary Scheffer (1795-1858); A Landscape, by H. van de Sande Bakhuijzen (1795-1860); Church at Zandvoort, View in Enkhuizen, Town Hall in Cologne, and Heeren-Gracht at Amsterdam, by C. Springer (1818-91); and A Prison of the Spanish Period, and Norwegian Women Bringing their Children to be Christened, by H. A. van Trigt (1829). =A Survey of Modern Dutch Art.=--A brief survey of modern Dutch art, condensed from the learned pen of Max Rooses, will not be unwelcome, particularly as we shall meet many more examples of the modern artists. =The French Neo-Classical School.=--He tells us that the group of Dutch and Belgian figure-painters of the beginning of the century were descendants of the French neo-classical school; and until 1850 the principles of David, Gros, and Girodet were highly respected. The best-known representatives were John William Pieneman in Holland, and Bree, Navez, and Paelinck in Belgium. =The Romantic School.=--Thereupon followed the Romantic school, whose leaders in France were Eugène Delacroix, Horace Vernet, and Descamps; in Belgium, Wappers and De Keyser; in Holland, Huib van Hove, Herman Ten Cate, Charles Rochussen, Stroebel, and Van Trigt. This school departed from the academic tendency of its predecessors, just as romantic literature declared war against classicism in poetry. =The Secret of the Success of the Romanticists.=--Another source helped to swell the stream of Romanticism in Holland. The artists of the neo-classical school, with their pompous but severe forms, paid more attention to line than to color. They took their example from the Italians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Their successors set themselves to study the masters of their own country, and learned to appreciate the rich coloring, the warm lights, and harmonious tones of the golden period of their own art. We can see that they were filled with admiration for the effects of light and color in Rembrandt's works and in those of De Hooch, Gerrit Dou, and Ter Borch. Not only did they find subjects for rich and warm coloring and pleasing treatment in the history of former days, but also in that of their own times. They took, in fact, a great step forward in that they observed the daily life around them, and kept in touch with their fellow-creatures, their ways and habits. To this group belongs Hubert van Hove, who was the first to admire the works of the old masters, and again to carry on the broken tradition; Charles Rochussen, Stroebel, to whom the effects of light and color were particularly attractive; and Herman Ten Cate and Van Trigt, the talented painters of romantic scenes derived from history. [Illustration: ISRAËLS Old Jewish Peddler] =Josef Israëls, a Brilliant Painter in this Group.=--To this group belongs Josef Israëls in his earliest works. During this period of his brilliant career he was filled with enthusiasm for all that is sweet, joyous, and charming in the world, all that is fair in youth and nature; this is the period of his Children of the Sea, his Fishwomen, and his Knitting Girls. Later his subjects became more serious, and more serious, too, the claims of his art. Many followed Israëls's example. The group of admirers of the master, those who saw the world as he did,--though with their own eyes,--may be called the pith and kernel of the young Dutch school. Blommers, Valkenburg, Neuhuys, and Artz may be placed at the head. They did not take life quite so sadly, they did not wish to obscure light and color but allowed the sun to blaze and triumph over mystery and darkness. =A New Party opposed to the Romanticists.=--In opposition to these "champions of twilight and tenderness" arose those who preferred the real and substantial: Breitner; Sosselin de Jong, the portrait-painter; Witkamp; Thérèse Schwartze, and Van der Waay. A similar movement took place in landscape-painting. The most important landscape-artists in the first half of the nineteenth century were Kobell, Koekkoek, and Schelfhout. Their great ideal was a careful, almost painful, working out of detail; they selected subjects rich in material, masses of big trees against water, producing great effects of light and shade. They sought to captivate the eye by an abundance of detail, and to depict woods and meadows with a smoothness which was more artificial than natural. =Bilders, Roelofs, and their Followers.=--What was called the picturesque in a landscape became unnecessary to the younger men of the newer school; they painted Nature in its own beauty and in the simplicity of its charm, as they saw it in their daily lives. Of this group Bilders is the most important. He admired in the landscape, not a favorite spot, or a pretty pool, or a gayly colored cow; he saw rather land and meadow and wood in the mass, as one whole, beautiful by reason of its grand lines, its rich tones. William Roelofs went a step further; his first works differ little from those of his predecessors, but by degrees he tore himself away from the accepted style and became a true reformer. It was no longer the color or the beautiful contours of a view that attracted him, but the country itself, the vegetation, the verdure, the cattle in the meadows, the sky that seems always holiday-making, the ever-changing clouds, always full of beauty. A whole school followed in this new track,--Van de Sande Bakhuijzen, Mevrouw Bilders van Bosse and Mevrouw Mesdag, Van Borselen, Storlenbeker, Gabriël, who depicted with extraordinary fidelity both land and sea; John Vrolijk, whose cows are always grazing in sunny meadows under a brilliantly blue sky; De Haas, whose cattle are more heavy and massive; Du Chattel, who prefers the effect of light in Spring and in Autumn; Apol, who devotes himself almost exclusively to snow scenes, producing singularly charming effects of the sun shining upon monotonous whiteness; Mari Ten Kate, De Bock, Wijsmüller, Weissenbruch, and Tholen. =Another Step in the Modern Direction.=--Another step in the modern direction was taken by artists who gave themselves up entirely to the impression of the landscape, and painted exactly what they saw; Ter Meulen, for instance, who loves Nature for the mood which she awakes in him, and who understands so well how to convey light and tone into his clever and refined pictures; Anton Mauve, and the brothers William and Jacob Maris, were also accomplished interpreters of nature, and all that lives and moves therein. [Illustration: J. MARIS Two Windmills] =Modern Dutch Painters pursuing Independent Lines.=--Of other modern Dutch painters pursuing different lines may be mentioned Bosboom, who devoted himself chiefly to the interiors of old churches, bringing out the play of light and shadow among the pillars; Klinkenberg, who paints Dutch streets and canals and the old buildings upon them in full sunshine; Jansen, who paints the Amsterdam docks and quays; Alma-Tadema, painter of classical scenes; Bisschop, the great colorist; David Bles, "the witty portrayer of morals and manners of years ago"; Henrietta Ronner-Knip, the famous painter of cats and dogs; Henkes, who depicts in grayish tones old-fashioned scenes and characters; Bakker Korff, who paints similar scenes, but in miniature; the brothers Oyens; Elchanon Verveer, painter of jolly old fishermen; Sadée; Mejuffrouw van de Sande Bakhuijzen, and Mejuffrouw Roosenboom, painters of flowers and fruit; Eerelman and Van Essen, the animal painters; Allebé, the colorist, painter of human figures and animals; and Kaemmerer, who is fond of painting figures in the costumes of the Directoire. FOOTNOTES: [27] H. Smissaert. [28] G. H. Marius. [29] H. Smissaert. THE TOWN HALL, HAARLEM FROM AMSTERDAM TO HAARLEM It would be well now to make a day's trip to Haarlem. The steam tram takes us through an interesting country, and in about an hour we reach the centre of the town,--the Groote Markt,--in which are several old buildings, the meat market, the Groote Kerk, and the Town Hall. The latter is the chief object of our visit to Haarlem, for it contains ten large pictures by Frans Hals, which no admirer of this great master can afford to neglect. The Town Hall, facing the Groote Kerk, was originally a palace of the counts of Holland. It was begun in the twelfth century, but was remodelled in 1620 and 1630, when a wing was added. Some of the large beams in the interior date from the thirteenth century. The walls of the vestibule are decorated with coats of arms and portraits of the counts and countesses of Holland. =The Room containing Hals's Doelen Pictures.=--We pass at once into the principal room, where the famous Regent (or _Doelen_) pictures by Hals are arranged in chronological order. These pictures represent nearly all the artist's working period. The Banquet of the Officers of the Guild of the Archers of St. George was painted in 1616, when the artist was thirty-five; the same subject, with different portraits, in 1627; the Banquet of the Officers of the Arquebusiers of St. Andrew, in 1622, when the corps departed for the siege of Hasselt and Mons; Reunion of the Arquebusiers of St. Andrew, in 1633; and Officers and Sub-Officers of the Arquebusiers of St. George, in 1639. [Illustration: FRANS HALS Reunion of the Arquebusiers of St. Andrew] As the enormous canvases each contain from fourteen to twenty life-size portraits, we feel as if we were entering a hall full of convivial officers, laughing, jesting, and making merry over their fine wines and choice food. They are richly dressed; many of them wear lace cuffs and ruffs and bright scarfs; flags flutter, spears glitter, spurs and swords clank and flash in the sunlight; the plumes on the large hats nod; and loud talk and bursts of laughter seem to issue from the frames. These convivial men have fought against the hated Spaniards, and are ready to trail a pike at any moment. The artist was commanded to paint each man accurately and according to his rank in the company. Every picture is, therefore, a group of portraits; and Colonel Jan Claasz Loo, in the picture of 1633, is considered one of Hals's masterpieces of portraiture. These pictures rank with Rembrandt's and Van der Helst's works of this class. In addition to these are Regents of the Hospital of St. Elizabeth (1641), Regents of the Old Men's Almshouse, and Lady Regents of the Old Men's Almshouse, both painted in 1664, when Hals was over eighty. Two fine portraits of Nicholas van der Meer, Burgomaster of Haarlem, and his wife, are dated 1631. A copy of a portrait of Frans Hals by himself hangs in an adjoining room. =Crowe on Hals's Earlier and Later Styles.=--"In every form of his art we can distinguish his earlier style from that of later years. Two Boys Playing and Singing, in the Gallery of Cassel, and A Banquet of Officers, in the Museum of Haarlem, exhibit him as a careful draughtsman, capable of great finish, yet spirited withal. His flesh, less clear than it afterwards became, is pastose and burnished. Further on he becomes more effective, displays more freedom of hand and a greater command of effect. At this period we note the beautiful full-length of a young lady of the Berensteyn family in the house of that name in Haarlem, and a splendid full-length of A Patrician Leaning on a Sword, in the Lichtenstein Collection at Vienna. Both these pictures are equalled by the Banquets of Officers of 1627, and a Meeting of the Company of St. George, of 1633, in the Haarlem Museum. A picture of the same kind in the Town Hall of Amsterdam, with the date of 1637, suggests some study of the masterpieces of Rembrandt, and a similar influence is apparent in a picture of 1641 at Haarlem, representing the Regents of the Company of St. Elizabeth.... Rembrandt's example did not create a lasting impression on Hals. He gradually dropped more and more into gray and silvery harmonies of tone; and two of his canvases, executed in 1664,--the Regents and Regentesses of the Oudemannenhuis, at Haarlem,--are masterpieces of color, though in substance they are but monochromes." =His Pictures of Various Strata of Society.=--"Hals's pictures illustrate the various strata of society into which his misfortunes led him. His banquets or meetings of officers, of sharpshooters and guildsmen, are the most interesting of his works. But they are not more characteristic than his low-life pictures of itinerant players and singers. His portraits of gentlefolk are true and noble, but hardly so expressive as those of fishwives and tavern heroes. His first master was Van Mander, the painter and historian, of whom he possessed some pictures. But he soon left behind him the practice of the time illustrated by Schoreel and Moro, and, emancipating himself gradually from tradition, produced pictures remarkable for truth and dexterity of hand." =Hals and Rembrandt compared.=--"We prize in Rembrandt the golden glow of effects based upon artificial contrasts of low light in immeasurable gloom. Hals was fond of daylight, of silvery sheen. Both men were painters of touch, but of touch on different keys. Rembrandt was the bass, Hals the treble. The latter is, perhaps, more expressive than the former. He seizes with rare intuition a moment in the life of his sitters. What nature displays in that moment he reproduces thoroughly in a very delicate scale of color, and with a perfect mastery over every form of expression. He becomes so clever at last that exact tone, light and shade, and modelling are all obtained with a few marked and fluid strokes of the brush." =The Other Corporation Pictures.=--The other Corporation pictures will not detain us; but while here we can take a hasty glance at A. Brouwer's Binnenhuis; Jan Steen's Peasants' _Kermesse_; Philips Wouwermans's Stags and Goats; Molenaer's Rustic Wedding; F. Hals the Younger's Binnenhuis; Pieter Aertsen's Children in the Fiery Furnace; A. Backer's Semiramis; Cornelis Bega's Street Musicians; Gerrit Berckheyde's Groote Markt in Haarlem and Fish Market in Haarlem; Job Berckheyde's Groote Kerk, Haarlem, and Joseph and his Brothers in Egypt; Bloemaert's Message to the Shepherds; Pieter Claez's Still Life; Jacques de Claen, Fruits; Droochsloot's _Kermesse_; A. van Everdingen's Street in Haarlem; H. Goltzius's Titus; G. W. Heda's Still Life; G. van Honthorst's Singer; Hendrik Meyer's Groote Markt, Haarlem; P. de Molyn's Pillaged and Burning Village; Isaac van Nickele's Groote Kerk, Haarlem; Isaac Ouwater's Groote Markt, Haarlem; Christoffel Pierson's Hunting Attributes; Isaac Ruisdael's Holland Dunes and Landscape in the Dunes; Saenredam's Nieuwe Kerk, Haarlem; P. van Santvoort's Winter Landscape; J. van Scorel's Adam and Eve, St. Cecilia Playing the Organ, and Christ's Baptism in the Jordan; Jacob van der Ulft's The Forum of Nerva, Rome; Esais van de Velde's Landscape; Jan Wijnants's Landscape; Thomas Wyck's Roman Ruins; and many portraits by Maes, Jan Weenix, Jan Victors, Verkolje, Ter Borch, Ravesteyn, Pot, Netscher, Mierevelt, T. de Keijser, and other famous Dutch artists. =The Teyler Museum.=--We can afford to neglect the Teyler Museum, unless we are particularly interested in the study of modern Dutch art. In that case, we can view there some excellent examples of Israëls, Mauve, Mesdag, Ten Cate, J. Koster, Bosboom, Verveer, Eeckhout, Koekkoek, and others. The Teyler Museum also contains a valuable collection of engravings and drawings by old masters, including Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Goltzius, and A. van Ostade. =The Paviljoen Welgelegen.=--Taking the tram to Frederiks-Park, we may glance at the Paviljoen Welgelegen, a _château_ built in 1788 by Mr. Hope, an Amsterdam banker, and which was purchased by Louis Napoleon when he became King of Holland. It was to this building that the modern pictures were removed from the Trippenhuis in 1838. This now shelters a Colonial Museum and a Museum of Industrial Art, both of great interest. THE BOIJMANS MUSEUM, ROTTERDAM THE MUSEUM'S ORIGIN AND GROWTH The Boijmans (or Boymans) Museum, on the Schiedamsche Dyk, was founded by a bequest of Mr. F. J. O. Boijmans, who died in 1847. His fine collection of 360 paintings suffered by fire in 1864, and only 163 of them were left. These were housed in a new building, completed in 1867. By means of various bequests and purchases, the collection has been increased to more than four hundred paintings and two thousand drawings and engravings. The ground-floor contains the drawings and engravings, the Library of Rotterdam (30,000 volumes), and the Portrait-room. The upper floor consists of six galleries, two of which are devoted to modern pictures. =Two Classes of Landscapes in this Museum.=--The Boijmans Museum is rich in landscapes. These naturally fall into two classes: first, the works of those men who studied in Italy or at least owed their inspiration to others who did; and secondly, pictures of purely Dutch scenery with the peasants, flocks, and herds familiar to the native. The classical landscapes are framed with mountains, and usually have cascades and ruins, and often are peopled with nymphs, shepherds, and other figures classically draped. Many examples of this school have already been noted in The Hague and Amsterdam museums. =Painters of Italian Landscapes.=--Jan Miel (1599-1664) went to Rome and studied under Andreas Sacchi. His Italian Landscape, alive with travellers, is similar in feeling and treatment to many others in this gallery by Jan van de Meer, Jr., Adam Pynacker, J. Lingelbach, Jacob van Huchtenburgh, Willem de Heusch, Jan Hackaert, J. van Bronckhorst, Pieter Bout, Jan Both, Adriaen Bloemaert, and Johannes van der Bent. In many of these classical landscapes the figures are supplied by A. van de Velde and Lingelbach. =Poelenburg's Figure-painting.=--Poelenburg painted the figures in the pictures of some of his contemporaries,--in the Rocky Landscape by Willem de Heusch, for instance. In this panel we find the usual road with women, children, cattle, sheep, goats, trees, cascade, rocks covered with vegetation, shepherd with flock, travellers with a pack-mule, and mountainous background. =A. Bloemaert's Italian Landscape.=--Adriaen Bloemaert (d. 1668) painted historical subjects and landscape. His Italian Landscape exhibits goats on rocks covered with vegetation in the foreground, from which a road rises to a castle on a mountain. A man and a child are coming down the road. The background is mountainous. =Dirk Maas's Camp.=--Dirk Maas (1656-1717) studied successively under Mommers, Berchem, and Huchtenburgh, and finally adopted the style of the latter. His subjects generally are skirmishes, marches, and camps. His Camp is full of life. The canvas of a tent is fixed to a tree-trunk. Before the tent sits a cavalier, glass in hand and holding a horse by the bridle, talking to a woman standing in front of him. Inside the tent, soldiers are playing cards; on the right, two dogs are fighting. There are other groups of soldiers, beggars, horses, women, and children. The background is closed by tents at the foot of an elevation crowned by a fortress. =Jan Maartsen's Cavalry Combat.=--Jan Maartsen (d. 1645) painted battles and cavalry skirmishes. His Cavalry Combat, dated 1630, shows a fight between Dutch and Spaniards. Infantry are engaged in the background. =Vrancx's Pillage and his Promenade.=--Sebastian Vrancx (or Francken) has a Pillage, somewhat similar to that of Wouwermans. Soldiers are seen pursuing fugitives and chasing cattle before them; one soldier takes a poor peasant from his house as prisoner; and farther away, near a tree, are a horseman on a rearing horse, and a house in flames; in the middle distance the village street guarded by the cavalry; and in the background houses, and a town on the horizon. His Promenade shows a gentleman in black, with brown mantle and large hat ornamented with green, white, and red feathers, offering his hand to a lady in a white dress, red overskirt, black mantle, and red bonnet. On the right is a grape-vine; on the left, an inn, in which several persons are seated; and on the horizon, a town. The same subject is again treated, but this time the gentleman wears a costume of white satin and red velvet, a brown cloak and a brown hat with a green plume, and high leather boots, while the lady has a blue dress, a white bodice, a tunic of red satin, a fluted ruff, and a round hat. Fireworks are seen in the background. =Esais van de Velde's Battle Picture.=--Esais van de Velde has a Nocturnal Combat between Cavalry and Infantry, in which a Dutch troop of cavalry are attacking Spanish Mousquetaires and Lansquenets, the scene illuminated by a tent in flames. Far in the distance are the towers and spires of a town. =Johan Huchtenburgh and his Cavalry Combat.=--Johan van Huchtenburgh (1646-1733) was a pupil of Thomas Wijk. After joining his brother Jacob in Italy in 1667, and working there for a time, he left for France, and painted under the direction of the celebrated battle-painter, A. F. van der Meulen. On his return to Holland in 1670 he grew famous; afterwards he painted scenes from the wars in which William III., Marlborough, and Prince Eugene were prominent. His Cavalry Combat shows a fight between the Imperial troops and the Turks in a mountainous district. It is full of action. The foreground is in shadow, while the middle distance and background are fully illuminated. =Lingelbach's Country People by a Fountain.=--Country People by a Fountain is the title of a picture by J. Lingelbach. In the foreground of an Italian landscape several country people are variously grouped; on the right, at the foot of a rock, a fountain gushes forth, by which is a man wrapped in sheepskin; in the centre, a woman riding an ass, is talking to another woman, who stands by her side; then comes a boy; then a man is seen drinking from the fountain, his ass beside him. On the left, another peasant is riding a white horse laden with panniers; and by his side walks a man with a stick in his hand, and followed by a dog. On the left is a lake; and mountains form the background. =Three Landscapes by Adam Pynacker.=--The Rotterdam Gallery owns three pictures by Adam Pynacker. In An Italian Landscape a line of high mountains edges the horizon, from which stretches a plain; and in the foreground on the right, a river flows from a high mountain through a rocky gorge. Two men are fishing; and near them are a dog and an ass. On the left a road leads to a small lake, on the borders of which a herdsman and his cattle are advancing. In the Mountainous Landscape a ruined tower stands at the foot of a high rock on the left; and along the road that is lost behind the hill and rocks in the foreground, peasants and their cattle are seen. The setting sun throws its warm rays over the wooded hills and over the river that winds through the vast landscape and upon the figures, and illuminates a cow and a goat browsing among the bushes and rocks. On the Border of a Lake shows a sheet of water illuminated by the sun, and on the left several persons are embarking. In the distance are rocky peaks partly wooded; and men are fishing from the shore of the lake. =Jacob Huchtenburgh's Mountainous Landscape.=--Jacob van Huchtenburgh followed his master, Berchem. In the foreground of his Mountainous Landscape a road crosses a river by a three-arched stone bridge. In the road are some sheep and peasants; and a shepherd with an ass and two cows is crossing the bridge. At a ford on the right a man is watering two horses. Some distance away there is a cloister at the foot of a high mountain, before which are monks, peasants, and a carriage and horses. Higher up the mountain are a farm, a castle, and a group of buildings surrounded by walls. Peasants are dancing in a valley on the left. Finally, we see a vast mountain landscape through which a river winds. =Moucheron's Mountainous Landscape.=--Another Mountainous Landscape is by Moucheron. In the foreground we observe a woman on a white horse. She is talking to a man who descends a hill. Some country people are wading through a ford, and on the other side of the stream stands a ruined tower. The picture is lighted by the warm rays of the setting sun. Adriaen van de Velde painted the figures. =Two Imitators of Poelenburg's Style.=--Jan van Bronckhorst has an Italian Landscape in the style of Poelenburg, by which he is most commonly known. There are ruins partly surrounded by water, two bathers, a shepherd and goats, a stone bridge, and mountainous background. Another imitator of Poelenburg was Jacob Esselens (b. 1628), who painted landscapes, marines, and town views. A Landscape shows a distinguished company of ladies and gentlemen beside a stream with carriages, horses, hounds, herons, and falcons. On the river are a yacht and a row-boat; and, in the distance, a castle among the trees. The scene is full of color and movement. =Jan Beerstraten and his Town Gate.=--Jan Beerstraten (d. 1660) painted marines and town views; but nothing is known of him except that he married Magdalena Bronckhorst. His drawing is good, color excellent, and brush work strong. Some of his marines will bear comparison with those of Backhuysen. A. van de Velde sometimes painted his figures. A Town Gate, signed and dated 1654, worthily displays his powers. In a mountainous country we see a town, with its churches, towers, gates, and fortifications, situated on both sides of a river; on the water several boats are sailing and rowing; and, on the banks, people are bathing and promenading. =Jan Hackaert's Mountainous Landscape.=--Jan Hackaert has a fine Mountainous Landscape with a shepherd playing a clarinet by a stream, and a couple of peasants dancing, watched by a man with his back to us. On a hill to the right, under tall trees, are a hunter and his dog; to the left, a man on horseback followed by a dog. A road runs along the banks of a lake, at the foot of a high mountain brightly illuminated by the sun, on which three cavaliers are approaching at a fast trot. The figures and animals in this canvas belong to J. Lingelbach. =Berchem and Two who painted in his Style.=--Johannes van der Bent (1650-90) was a pupil of Ph. Wouwermans and A. van de Velde; but he also imitated the style of N. Berchem. He has an Italian Landscape in which a shepherdess is milking a goat in the foreground, with another woman and a boy near her; farther on are a white horse and cattle. The mountainous background has a cascade as usual. Berchem is not strongly represented here,--only by A Grotto: a woman and two men, one mounted on an ass, are driving cattle over a ford. On the right, a shepherd is driving a flock of sheep; there are high mountains in the distance. Dirk van Berghen has also a Landscape and Animals in this style with mountainous and woody perspective. =J. Both's Italian Landscape: Evening.=--Johannes Both has another of his pictures here that shows the influence of Claude Lorraine. In the Italian Landscape: Evening, the left foreground is occupied by tall trees; a chariot is drawn by two oxen along a road leading to an old tower; on the horizon is a town on the sea-shore. =P. Bout's Italian Seaport.=--Pieter Bout (1658-1702) almost always worked in collaboration with N. Boudwijns, for whose landscapes he supplied figures. Works exclusively his own are very rare. He belonged to the Flemish-Italian school, and has here a busy and lively Italian Seaport in the style of J. B. Weenix. It is signed and dated 1669, which hardly agrees with the date given for his birth unless he was very precocious. =Other Painters in the Same Group.=--In this group also we might include Gerrit Claes Bleecker (d. 1656), whose work recalls Elzheimer and his followers. His Saul on the Road to Damascus is classical rather than Biblical in sentiment, and the landscape is Italian. =Weenix's Tobias Sleeping under a Vine.=--The same may be said of the charming Tobias Sleeping under a Vine by J. B. Weenix. In this there is a house on the right, against the wall of which is a vine under which Tobias is sleeping. A magpie is flying above his head, and beside him are various objects such as this artist loved to paint,--vegetables, a great copper milk pan, a yoke, harness, and other things, including a basket of grapes and an earthen pitcher. In the background a man is mounting a ladder. The picture is signed and dated 1662, two years before the painter's death. Hendrick Mommers (1623-97) also has an Italian Landscape. He imitated the style of Karel Dujardin, another painter of this school. Frederick de Moucheron has a Mountainous Landscape. His pictures also were peopled by the indefatigable Van de Velde and Lingelbach. =Landscape Setting for The Good Samaritan.=--Joris van der Hagen is another who makes use of a Biblical episode as an excuse for a landscape, or for the frame of the subject, as in his Landscape Serving as a Frame for the Parable of the Good Samaritan. In the foreground on the left, near two tall trees, the Good Samaritan has dismounted and is stanching the wounds of the traveller; four dogs are near the ass; not far away the brigands are descending a path at the foot of a mountain. On the right is the Levite, and farther back is the Pharisee, going away in a different direction. In the background is a river crossed by a three-arched bridge, on the other side of which are high buildings surrounded with trees. Mountains close the view. =Boaz and Ruth in an Italian Setting.=--Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1621-74), although a pupil of Rembrandt, painted so-called Biblical scenes in much the same spirit. Thus his Boaz and Ruth has an Italian setting. In the foreground Boaz is talking to his servant; Ruth is standing beside the latter with her apron full of wheat. On the left is a barn surrounded with trees; in front of it three harvesters are eating their meal; on the right beside a plough are a straw hat, a game-bag, and a pitcher. In the background is a field of corn which is being reaped and sheafed. Mountains close the scene. =Balaam, by the Same Artist.=--Again in Balaam, trees and a river, high mountains and ruins, form the background. The prophet is seated on his ass, and beating him with a stick to make him advance; but on the left an angel in white with golden wings stops him, sword in hand. Balaam is followed by two horsemen in Roman costume, and behind them is a chariot drawn by two horses. =The Flight into Egypt with an Italian Background.=--Pieter Lastman painted an Italian landscape as a background for the Flight into Egypt. Here we see the Virgin Mary on an ass with the Infant Jesus in her arms, and by her side walks Joseph, carrying his carpenter's tools. A tree is seen on the left; and a cascade, ruins, and rocks in the background on the right. =Van der Weyden's The Apostle John.=--Rogier van der Weyden (1390-1464) is an early master who painted in this style. In his The Apostle St. John, the Apostle is seated in the foreground of a landscape, writing on a sheet of paper which lies on his knees. He wears a red robe, and a large red mantle lined with green falls from his shoulders and covers his knees with ample folds. Behind him, a winged demon empties his inkstand. On the left two gentleman are seen on horseback, and the background shows a mountainous landscape traversed by a river and enlivened by a castle and a fortified town. =Van der Maes and Van der Werff.=--Evert Crijnsz van der Maes (1577-1646) has a St. Jerome in a landscape, signed and dated 1609. Another picture of a hermit is by B. Matton, who lived a little later. Pieter van der Werff has a Repentant Magdalen, who is kneeling in a grotto with hands crossed on her breast, while she reads a parchment scroll covered with Hebraic characters. =Jan van Byler's Picture of Rachel and her Father.=--Jan van Byler, born in Utrecht in the second half of the seventeenth century, and pupil of his father, is rarely met with in either public or private galleries. Here, however, we find Laban Reproaching Rachel for having Carried off his Household Gods. In the foreground, Rachel is seated holding by one hand a little boy, while with the other she makes a gesture, as if to ward off the reproaches of Laban, who is standing before her. On the right is a young man carrying a basket. A brown and white dog lies in the foreground; and in the distance are seen two men and a camel near a tent attached to the trunk of a tree. =H. Goltzius.=--H. Goltzius is represented by an interesting picture, Juno Receiving the Eyes of Argus Killed by Mercury. Mercury is seated on a red cloak; in his right hand he holds one of the eyes of Argus, which Juno, descending on a cloud, is about to receive in her robe. Before him are the severed head and corpse of Argus and a naked sword. A rocky landscape extends to the right, and on the left, in the clouds, the chariot of Juno, drawn by peacocks. =Moreelse's Vertumnus and Pomona.=--An interesting mythological picture by Moreelse is called Vertumnus and Pomona. The latter is seated under the trees to the left with her face turned toward the spectator. She wears a yellow silk dress with a blue tunic; her right hand holds a pruning-hook and her left a bunch of white grapes. A little behind her Vertumnus is seen in the guise of an old woman, leaning on a stick and extending the left hand. =De Vos's Allegory, Crowned by Riches.=--Cornelius de Vos (1585-1651), pupil of David Remens, has an Allegory, Crowned by Riches. On the right, under a red tent fringed with gold, a young woman in a green dress and mantle embroidered with gold, a crown of gold in her right hand and a sceptre in her left, stands majestically. Before her kneels a farmer to be crowned, and he extends his hand to the fruits and vegetables in the foreground. On a table to the right, covered with a crimson cloth, are various objects of gold and silver. Farther back under the tent are two women, a negro, and Love. In the middle distance is Time with his scythe. To the left in the background, a landscape, where people are tilling the soil. =An Allegory by De Wit.=--Jacob de Wit also has an Allegory. Minerva, in a landscape, is seated with her right hand on her harp; in front of her, four naked children are sporting, and one is playing a harp. =A Classical Scene by Van der Ulft.=--Jacob van der Ulft has a picture, painted in 1674, representing The Betrothed of Allucius Led as Prisoner Before Scipio. Ruins of temples and city walls and gates are seen to right and left. In the foreground are Scipio, the betrothed of Allucius, and other prisoners. Farther back are Roman soldiers with chariots, elephants, camels, and spoils of war. In the background a town is seen at the base of the mountains. =Achilles Recognized by Ulysses, by Van Limborch.=--Achilles Recognized by Ulysses, by H. van Limborch, shows Achilles kneeling on the ground in the dress of a woman with a blue chalmys, having a sword in his right and the scabbard in his left hand; he is recognized by Ulysses who, with another person, is standing behind him. On the ground lie a helmet, a shield, several precious objects, and some jewels which are being examined and handled by the wives of Lycomedes, King of Scyros. In the background on the left is the peristyle of a palace; and on the right are several persons near a statue and a boat. =De Vriendt's The Death of Lucrezia.=--The Death of Lucrezia, by Frans Floris de Vriendt, is painted in a similar vein. Lucrezia is on her knees, in a despairing pose, and about to stab herself. In the background several buildings are seen. =Painters of Purely Dutch Scenery.=--Turning now to painters of purely Dutch scenery and outdoor life, the Boijmans contains many pictures by the followers of Rembrandt, Potter, Ruisdael, and Wouwermans. Some of these display the open country, and others the life by the wayside, in the streets, and in the vicinity of towns. There are many charming pictures of the outdoor life of the gentry, the tradesmen, and the farmers. We have scenes of hunting, hawking, fishing, promenades, and cavalcades, with beautiful landscape surroundings, and several pictures of the farm, pure and simple. =Three Pictures by Jacob Ruisdael.=--Jacob Ruisdael has one picture, The Corn Field, which represents a hilly landscape. In the foreground brushwood, heath, and moss; on the right two oaks and, on an incline, a wheat-field partly cut, and mowers who are resting. On the horizon, to the left, is the sea with a few sails upon it. Another picture is called A Sandy Road, and on this, which leads through brushwood and oak-trees, trudge two persons. On the right is a pool partly hidden in shadow. The third picture by Ruisdael represents The Old Fish-Market at Amsterdam. On the right is the tower of the old church; in the foreground are the fish-venders sitting at their stalls and many promenaders; and in the background is the canal, on which boats are lying and sails spread out to dry. The figures were painted by Gerard van Battem. =A Wooded Landscape by Izack van Ruisdael.=--Izack van Ruisdael (1628 or 9-1677) is represented by A Wooded Landscape, signed and dated 1665. Water is seen to the right, as well as in the foreground, and six cows are standing in it. On the left are several tall trees, beneath which are cows and sheep; and far in the distance some men are fishing from the bank. =A Wooded Landscape by Hobbema.=--A Wooded Landscape and Landscape by Hobbema are characteristic examples. The first shows fine treatment of light. The sun piercing through thick clouds lights the middle distance, while foreground and background are in shadow. Among the tall trees in the background a barn is seen; then a boy and a woman fording the stream; a shepherd and some sheep near a willow tree; then come two tree-trunks and some brushwood; then a winding road, on which a peasant and a boy are walking; then a sheet of water bordered by willows. =Another Landscape by Hobbema.=--The other Landscape also shows a sheet of water in the foreground where two persons are fishing; then a tree-trunk, half of which is in the water; then some trees on a rising ground. A couple of ducks are swimming in the water. In the background a peasant's house is seen, before which a man is standing; and on the left a second clump of trees, where two persons are walking. The background is brilliantly lighted; but the middle distance and the foreground are in shadow. =Van Kessel's Landscape near Haarlem.=--Jan van Kessel (1648-98), about whom little is known, and some of whose works follow the style of J. van Ruisdael, has here a Landscape near Haarlem and a View of Amsterdam. The first shows a brightly lighted foreground with a road leading to a village on the right, the ruins of the Castle of Brederode. Huntsmen and dogs, a shepherd and sheep, and some swans in a moat, by Lingelbach, enliven the scene. The middle distance is in shadow, and here we have trees, fields, and dunes. The background shows a brightly lighted landscape stretching away into the distance. =His View of Amsterdam.=--His View of Amsterdam shows a canal where a man is rowing a boat, a large boat fastened on the right, some swans floating in the water on the left. The canal, shut by the gates, is crossed by a stone bridge, on which some people are walking. In the corner is a quay bordered with trees, and on the horizon a clock-tower. =One of Isaak van Ostade's Rare Pictures.=--Isaak van Ostade (1621-49), a pupil of his brother Adriaen, usually painted inns and village scenes, now extremely rare. Neither the Mauritshuis nor the Rijks owns an example. Hence the Inn among the Dunes is of great interest. A chariot, drawn by a white horse, is arriving before an inn among the trees on the left. The horse is being fed, and some travellers and children stand in front of the door. A little boy is leading some pigs across the foreground; two horsemen are galloping away in the distance, and the horizon shows the dunes and a clock-tower. =A. van der Neer's Moonlit Landscape.=--A Moonlit Landscape by Aert van der Neer is a striking picture with simple materials. A road, bordered with trees, is seen in the foreground, with two persons approaching; in the middle distance are some cows on the banks of a canal, and peasants' houses under the trees, with a clock-tower in the background. The sky is stormy, and the moon is rising and throwing its rays on the water. =A. van de Velde's Landscape and Blacksmith.=--Adriaen van de Velde has a Landscape with Animals and A Blacksmith. The first shows a flat landscape with a light brown ox, and a little farther away a sheep lying down, and also a cow; in the background a farmhouse is seen beneath the trees, and a vast meadow dotted with cows stretches away to the right. The Blacksmith is in the background at the door of his forge, before which a boy stands with a gray horse. An ass, a cock, and some hens lend additional animation to the little scene. =Two Norwegian Landscapes by Everdingen.=--Albert van Everdingen is represented by two fine examples of the Norwegian landscape, for which he is famous. The scenes are lively, with human figures in both. =A Hunting Scene by Keirinckx and Poelenburg.=--Alexander Keirinckx (b. 1600) was a painter of landscapes and views of towns. He painted with much truth to nature, his foliage especially being executed with rare perfection. Poelenburg, as a rule, painted the figures in his pictures, as he did in A Forest, signed and dated 1630. This is a hunting scene, with a gentleman on horseback followed by hounds under tall trees in the foreground. Other figures are a huntsman sounding a call, two other hunters, and a stag in the distance among the trees. =Verboom's Evening.=--Abraham Hendricksz Verboom (seventeenth century) is represented by Evening, showing trees in the foreground, huntsmen and dogs in the middle distance lighted by the setting sun, and behind a wooden fence a farmhouse. In the background a clock-tower appears on the right, while a rocky landscape extends to the left. =Nymegen's Swiss Landscape.=--Gerard van Nymegen (1735-1808) was the pupil of his father D. van Nymegen. He visited Germany and Switzerland. The Boijmans owns a Swiss Landscape, in which a majestic and foaming cascade plunges down the rocks; while, on the left, in the foreground, is a large fallen tree. Shepherds and sheep are crossing a bridge. =Van der Heyde's Ruined Castle.=--A good example of Jan van der Heyde is A Ruined Castle. The scene is a courtyard with a large tree, under which is seated a shepherd playing a flute; a horseman is in a gateway on the left; and several persons are standing on a stone bridge on the right. A few clouds are floating across the clear sky. The picture is much admired for its light and shadow. =Donck's Coming Home from Shooting.=--Gerrit Donck has a canvas called Coming Home from Shooting, with a cottage, two gentlemen, a woman, a peasant, and a boy. In the centre, some dead game lies on an inverted tub. One gentleman is seated; he points to the birds and talks to the woman. The other gentleman holds his gun and listens to what the peasant has to say. The boy looks on. Through the open door on the right we see a landscape in the style of J. van Goyen. =P. Wouwermans's Gentleman on Horseback.=--A Gentleman on Horseback is by Philips Wouwermans. Mounted on a gray horse the rider takes his way through a sandy landscape toward the dunes that are seen on the left. He wears a gray costume embroidered with gold, a black hat with a white feather, and high black boots. In the background are trees, and on the right is a pavilion. =An Admired Picture by E. van de Velde.=--Esais van de Velde's Cavalier has always been greatly admired. Vosmaer says: "This little figure, seen from behind, sitting so squarely and easily on his horse, seems really a personage of life size; it is almost an equestrian statue. The horse is rearing, and the rider, whose back is turned to the spectator, wears a felt hat, a blue cloak, and high black riding-boots." =P. Wouwermans's Pillaging Soldiers.=--Philips Wouwermans once again displays the pleasure he takes in painting horses in his Pillaging Soldiers. In a hilly country and on the banks of a river a soldier on a white horse is aiming at the cheek of a peasant who is begging for mercy on his knees; one individual lies stretched out on the ground; and on the right a woman with her child in her arms is being pursued by a soldier. In the middle distance, a horseman is carrying off his booty, and on the left two horsemen are pursuing the fugitives. A village in flames appears in the background. =Verschuring's Horse-Shoer.=--Hendrick Verschuring (1627-90) was a painter of social life, portraits, and figures, and was a pupil of Dirk Govertsz and Jan Both. He visited Italy. His picture here is called A Horse-Shoer. Before the steps of the old town hall of Amsterdam (represented also in Beerstraten's picture in this gallery) a man is shoeing a white horse. Farther back stands a man in a red cloak; to the right some beggars with a dog. Among the trees in the background a horseman is disappearing. =A Spirited Forest Scene by Looten.=--Another landscape painter of this period was Jan Looten, who died in England in 1660. Like so many of his contemporaries, he employed others, especially Nicolaes Berchem, to enliven his scenery with figures. His large picture, A Forest, signed and dated 1658, is a spirited scene of ladies and gentlemen mounted, with hawks on their fists and followed by falconers. The landscape is prettily diversified with woods, streams, and hills. =The Dunes, by J. Wouwermans.=--Jan Wouwermans (1629-66), pupil of his brother Philips, has a picture of The Dunes. In the middle of the picture is a watercourse, which is crossed by a bridge and loses itself behind a hill over which is seen the roof of a house. =A Sunny Picture by Molenaer.=--Nicolaas Molenaer (d. 1676) has a sunny picture of a Bleaching Ground. In the foreground is a man in a boat on a stretch of water. To the right is the bleaching ground, in which people are busy spreading out the linen; and on the left are cottages, with tall trees behind. =P. de Molyn's Farm.=--Pieter de Molyn the Elder (?-1661) has a pretty picture of a farm, where two peasant men are talking to a peasant woman. A very large tree stands in the front in full light, and behind the hedge are a hayrick and the house. =Murant's Farm.=--Another farm is the work of Emanuel Murant. A large tree and a sheet of water occupy the foreground. Near the latter a goat is lying; then come three pigs before a stable, and three sheep and a peasant. A pigeon-house on four poles and a hay-wagon are seen in the background. =Three Good Landscape-painters.=--Jan Breughel (1601-78) painted so much like his father ("Velvet") that it is hard to distinguish the one from the other. His two village scenes are full of the country and rural life. Michiel Carree (1666-1747) was another painter of the country. His Wooded Landscape with Cattle has a mountainous background; it is animated by a shepherd, an ass, two oxen, two goats, a ram, and several lambs. Cornelis Decker (d. 1678) was a pupil of Salomon Ruisdael, whom he greatly resembles in style. His landscape depicts a peasant's cot half hidden among trees on the bank of a stream. On a plank crossing the latter a woman is washing clothes; on the right are two persons in a boat; on the horizon are trees and a clock-tower. =Netscher's Family Scene.=--Netscher's Family Scene, painted in 1667, shows a group in a garden in front of an imposing house. A gentleman in a long brown wig leans on the base of a pillar; behind him is a statue of Justice, and beside him a lady in white satin with a child on her knee. Near her are two young girls; one is in red silk, the other in blue satin. They are making floral crowns, while three other children are twining flowers around a statue of Love. On the left, in the foreground, is a handsome stone vase containing a plant. =Two Landscapes.=--Pieter Jansz van As has a typical Dutch landscape with rustic cottages, goats, shepherds, etc. Jan van Gool (1685-1763) was a pupil of Terwesten and Van der Does. His Landscape and Animals is a milking scene in a meadow, wherein are also a dog, goat, sheep, and lambs. Trees, meadows, and a town close the distance. =One of Koninck's Very Scarce Pictures.=--Jacob Koninck (fl. 1640) was a pupil of A. van de Velde; his pictures are very scarce. Landscape with Animals shows sheep and cattle browsing and lying down, with a young shepherd presumably cutting his name on a tree-trunk. Banks of trees and a farmhouse close the background. =A Charming Landscape by P. van der Leeuw.=--Another little-known landscape-painter, Pieter van der Leeuw (fl. 1670), was a son and pupil of Sebastiaen van der Leeuw. He has a charming Landscape and Animals; the animals consist of two oxen drinking at a stream, a ram, two ewes, a goat, a sheep, and two lambs. A shepherd and shepherdess rest under a tree. The color and composition are excellent. =Michau's Landscape with Cottages.=--Theobald Michau (1676-1765) modelled himself on D. Teniers the Younger. His Landscape with Peasants' Cottages is full of the spirit of humble life. A woman sits at her door with a child on her lap, talking to three neighbors; another is washing kitchen utensils; a man and a dog are approaching. On the left there are tall trees, and five cows beside a stream; and farther back are cottages and a church-tower above trees. =A Characteristic Picture by Van der Poel.=--Egbert van der Poel has here a characteristic picture, Fire at Night in a Village House. The house in flames occupies the middle of the picture; many persons are trying to put out the fire, and some are throwing water upon it. Several neighboring houses and a clock-tower are lighted by the glow of the flames. =Van Straaten's Washerwoman.=--Bruno van Straaten, who was born in Utrecht in 1786, is represented by The Washerwoman. She is represented as busy outside the walls of the town; near her are houses, trees, and a windmill. =Van Os's Farrier.=--Pieter Frederik van Os (b. 1808), a pupil of his father, Pieter Gerardus, has a canvas called The Farrier. In this, two men are shoeing a white horse in front of an old forge. =Cuijp's Stable.=--Aelbert Cuijp's picture The Stable shows two dappled horses seen from the back in a stable; in the foreground are seen a stable-boy, a goat, some stable utensils, and a brown dog. =An Interesting Kermesse by Droochsloot.=--Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot, a native of Utrecht, who was born about 1586 and died after 1666, has an interesting _Kermesse_. The scene is a village street, where a great number of peasants are drinking, singing, and quarrelling. The houses are half hidden by trees, and in the background is seen a clock-tower, on the summit of which a red flag is floating. =An Interesting Picture of Low Life.=--An interesting picture by Govert Camphuysen, who lived in the seventeenth century, called Wagon Full of Drunken Peasants before an Inn, shows a wagon drawn by a white and a brown horse standing before an inn. About half a dozen men and women are seated in it drinking and singing, and there is a fiddler upon the front seat. The driver is cutting some bread; by the door stands the hostess, who is pouring beer into a pewter mug; a man with glass in hand is seen at an open window; a beggar stands by the wagon; and a horseman is riding along the road. =A Dutch Landscape by Van Os.=--Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os has a landscape. The scene is in Guelderland. Trees and a wheat field occupy the background and middle distance; and in the foreground are seen sheep and cows, painted by his brother, Pieter Gerardus van Os. =Maria J. Ommeganck's Landscape with Sheep.=--Maria Jacoba Ommeganck (1760-1849) is represented in this gallery by a Landscape with Sheep. The scenery is mountainous. In the foreground two sheep are lying down; in the middle distance a brown sheep is standing near a portion of a house; and in the background are a shepherd with his dog and some browsing sheep. =Two Landscapes.=--Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch, born in Amsterdam in 1829, has a Landscape with Animals, representing cattle in a meadow bright with sunshine. In the foreground to the right is a watercourse, and in the middle distance a mill. A Landscape in Guelderland by Anthonie Jacobus van Wijngaerdt (1808- ) represents a sandy road through a forest along which a man and a woman trudge bearing fagots. The sky is full of clouds. =A Sunset, by Schipperus.=--Pieter Adriannus Schipperus (b. 1840) has a Sunset. The red sun disappears behind the trees and is reflected across a pond surrounded by brushwood that occupies the foreground. =A Fine Example of H. van Hove's First Period.=--Hubertus van Hove (1814-65), the son of Bartholomeus, painted figure subjects, after having first applied himself to landscape. A fine example of his first period is the View of the Lakes in the Environs of Rotterdam. =An Early Production of W. Roelofs.=--Willem Roelofs is represented here by one of his early productions, Landscape and Animals. In the middle distance are trees and a country house, and in the foreground a meadow with cows standing on the banks of the river. It is interesting to note that the cows were painted by J. H. L. de Haas. [Illustration: MAUVE Cows in a Shady Nook] =Mauve's Cows in a Shady Nook.=--Anton Mauve is represented by Cows in a Shady Nook. Several black cows spotted with white are lying under the shade of the big boughs; another stands in the foreground near the water; in the background there is a ditch bordered with willows and tall grasses. =Other Modern Landscapes.=--Among the other modern landscapes we may note: Landscape, by Apol; On the Dunes, by Artz; The Water-mill and View of the Village of Nuenen in Northern Brabant, by Vincent van Gogh; An Afternoon at Katwijk-on-Sea, by S. L. Verveer; Landscape with a Windmill near Schiedam, by Weissenbruch; Heath in Guelders in Autumn, by Théophile de Bock; Street View (The Hague) and March Showers, by J. J. van de Sande Bakhuijzen; and Summer (a woman and three children playing on a beach), by Blommers. =Jäger's View of the Town of Alger.=--Gerard de Jäger (d. after 1663) was a painter of marines and canals. Nothing is known of him. His View of the Town of Alger is signed and dated 1665. It is a plan rather than a picture, having an explanatory placard of the objects of interest depicted. =A Village Picture by Van der Meer.=--Jan van der Meer (1628-91) has a picture of The Village of Noordwijk Seen from the Dunes, dated 1676. A hunter is talking to two women in the foreground; cattle and a bleaching-ground occupy the middle distance, while a church amid trees is in the extensive stretch of background. =Two Town Views of Van Hove.=--B. J. van Hove has a Town View, where upon a square in front of a Gothic church three men are talking. One of them is accompanied by a dog. On a stone parapet on the left is seated a person with a basket on his back. In the background a canal is seen with two boats on it, and behind the trees on the quays some houses are visible. Another Town View by the same painter shows a canal with a bridge, beneath which a boat is passing. In the middle distance on the right there is an old Dutch house, a part of which, as well as the church with its clock-tower in the distance, is brilliantly lighted. =Two of De Hulst's now Rare Pictures.=--The pictures of Frans de Hulst, a native of Haarlem, where he died in 1662, are now exceedingly rare. Two hang here. One is a View of the Old Gate of the East at Hoorn, showing the moat surrounding the town, and various boats, in one of which the fishermen are drawing their nets. In the middle distance is the old fortified gate (built in 1511 and now demolished) and the drawbridge, and in the horizon a large sheet of water. The View of Nymegen shows some travellers arriving on the river bank in a chariot drawn by four horses; the city is seen on the hills bordering the river on the right, and beyond the walls and gates rises the Valkhof with its square tower. The river is lost on the left. =Town Views, by Vertin.=--Petrus Gerardus Vertin (born 1820) has two Town Views. One represents some old houses more or less dilapidated, and persons carrying merchandise and talking; the second, a canal bordered with very old Dutch houses. On the horizon a clock-tower is seen. =Winter Scenes by Leichert.=--Charles Henri Joseph Leichert (1818- ) has two winter scenes: one represents a frozen canal animated with skaters, with a frame of houses, a church, and a clock-tower; and the other a street covered with snow, with houses on either side, and many figures. =Van Beest's Market.=--Sybrandt van Beest (d. 1665) painted landscapes, marines, and _genre_. His pictures are rare. He somewhat resembled Van Goyen in style. In his Market, we see on the right a richly costumed gentleman bargaining for a melon with a woman who is seated before a table loaded with all kinds of fruit. Behind her are a man and two women in conversation; an ass drawing a cart is passing. To the left are a heap of vegetables and a woman is picking up a red cabbage. The background is composed of houses and a wall partly covered with verdure, and several women in front, also selling vegetables. The panel is signed and dated 1652. =De Witte's Fish Market at Amsterdam.=--Emanuel de Witte's The Fish Market at Amsterdam is an interesting picture. In the foreground under an awning near her stall, where lie many kinds of fish, a fishwoman is standing and disputing with a lady who has a white handkerchief on her head and a blue satin jacket. On the right a fisherman is taking off his hat to her. In the background a part of the quay, Buitenkant, and the Y are seen. =Three Pictures of Fish-Sellers.=--Frans van Mieris the Younger has a picture of a fish-seller standing behind his stall; he holds a whiting in his right hand and two baskets in his left; on the right are a tobacco-box, a knife, and a pipe. On the left are some trees, and the sea extends on the right into the background. Louis de Moni has The Fishmonger. An old woman stands at a window where dried fish are hanging; on the left is a spinning-wheel. She is talking to a servant who is standing before the window and who has a basket full of bread. Several houses are seen in the background. The Herring Seller, by Pieter Christoffel Wonder (1780-1852), belongs to this group. A young woman is seated before the window of her house and at her stall, on which are apples, cabbages, and onions. She has a pot on her knee and holds it with her right hand, while in her left she offers a herring for sale. =Two of Barent Gael's Good Pictures.=--Barent Gael (d. 1663) was a pupil of Ph. Wouwermans; and, like his master, painted battles and cavalcades with rich ordering, careful drawing, and picturesque effect. He sometimes painted more humble scenes, as in the Woman with Cakes. She is making these appetizing dainties in front of a village house, watched by a man and four children. To the left are a hedge and some trees, and in the background a few little houses. A beggar with his wife and child is trudging along the road. The Village Inn is not less interesting. Here a gentleman, having alighted before the inn, stands with the bridle in his left hand and a glass in his right, as he talks to a man and woman seated on a bench. In the foreground a dog is lying, and in the background are two horsemen and some trees. =A Town View by Beerstraten, with Figures by Lingelbach.=--A. Beerstraten, about whom little is known except that he lived in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century, has an interesting picture of The Old Town Hall of Amsterdam, built in the fifteenth century and destroyed by fire in 1652. The old building on the Dam and the adjacent houses are covered with snow. Persons of quality, and also merchants and peasants, are seen walking through the snowy streets in all directions. These little figures were painted by Lingelbach. =Job Berckheyde's Old Bourse at Amsterdam.=--Another architectural picture by Job Berckheyde (1630-93) shows The Old Bourse at Amsterdam, built by De Keyser in 1608-11, and destroyed in 1836. We see only a portion of the interior of this building under the colonnade, where many merchants are talking. Some of them are in oriental costume. The picture is beautifully lighted by the sun, which enters on the right. =His Brother Gerard's Cologne.=--His brother Gerard Berckheyde (1631-98?) has painted The Town of Cologne, showing the quay, the wall, churches and other buildings, with the Rhine on the left. The foreground is beautifully lighted. A brown and white horse, wagons, and boats enliven the scene. =Two Town Pictures by Verheijen.=--A fine view of The Geertekerk at Utrecht by Jan Hendrik Verheijen (1778-1846) shows the church on the right and the streets enlivened with strollers, playing children, and a fish-seller. His Town View, where brightly lighted buildings are seen across the bridge of a canal, should also be noted. =St. Mary's Church, Utrecht, by Saenredam.=--Pieter Jansz Saenredam (1597-65) is represented by St. Mary's Church, Utrecht. This remarkable church, demolished in 1813 or 1816, was a copy of a church of the eleventh century in Milan. It dominates the picture, although it stands on the right. Behind it are some houses, and in front are trees and a square, on which men and women are promenading, and children playing. =A Good Example of H. van Vliet's Style.=--The Interior of a Protestant Church, by Hendrick van Vliet (1605-71), is a good example of this painter's style. On the left is the choir; in the centre of the foreground, an open tomb; on the right, near a pillar, a gentleman whose back is turned toward us, and who is accompanied by a dog. Between the pillars the preacher in his pulpit and his hearers are seen. The name and date, 1666, appear on one of the pillars. =A Splendid Church Interior by Neeffs.=--Pieter Neeffs the Elder has a splendid Interior of a Catholic Church, showing the nave animated with many figures; chapels and altars are on right and left, and the choir is in the background. =Two Church Interiors by Bosboom.=--Johannes Bosboom (1817-91) has an Interior of a Protestant Temple, with people walking about in costumes of the seventeenth century; and also an Interior of the Church of St. Laurence, Alkmaar, also brightened with figures. =A Noted Picture by Klinkenberg, and Others by him.=--John Christian Charles Klinkenberg (1852- ) is the modern Dutch painter of towns, cities, and hamlets,--the Dutch Canaletto. He is a pupil of Bisschop and Louis Meyer. At first he was inclined to historical subjects, but soon turned his attention to street views. It would be impossible to enumerate them all,--the old water-gate at Sneek, the town hall at Zutphen, the town-gate at Hoorn, the market at Nymegen, the chancellory at Leeuwarden, the old gate at Haarlem, the old streets of Amsterdam, and the old buildings of The Hague. His noted picture representing a View of the Vijver at The Hague was presented to the Museum by the Rotterdam Society for Promoting Art in 1876. The Royal Museum is represented on the right. [Illustration: KLINKENBERG View of the Vijver at The Hague] =The Maas before Dordrecht, by S. van Ruisdael.=--The view of a town seen across the river has always attracted Dutch artists. Dordrecht and Rotterdam in particular have been painted by Jan van Goyen, Cuijp, and others. One of the most noted pictures of river scenes is The Maas before Dordrecht by Salomon van Ruisdael. In the foreground, to the right, is a shabby old pier on which some cows are standing, while others are in the water. Row-boats and sail-boats brighten the river, and one of them on the left is flying the flag of Dordrecht. The town is seen on the horizon. =Burger's Opinion of this Artist.=--Burger says that this artist formed his brother, and that he stands between Van Goyen and the glorious Jacob. The picture just mentioned he considers "as masterly as one of Jacob's works. The distant horizon and the tiny sails, extremely fine in color, harmonize with the beautiful silvery sky." =A Fine River Scene by Aelbert Cuijp.=--Aelbert Cuijp has a beautiful View of the River in the Morning. On the right, at the foot of a high mountain, a tongue of land advances into the water; two shepherds are visible; some cows are browsing, quenching their thirst, or lying down; and the river is dotted with row-boats and sail-boats. On the left are some mountains, and in the background the town lies on the banks of the river. =One of Pompe's Rare Works.=--A View of Rotterdam, by a little-known painter, Gerrit Pompe (fl. 1700), whose works are very rare, deserves study. The Maas, animated with ships, occupies the foreground; on the left, the Admiralty yacht is under full sail, and there is also a row-boat; in the middle distance is a battleship; in the background are some other boats; and still farther away extends the town of Rotterdam. The painter has signed his name on a floating plank. =Pompe's Rotterdam and Sonjé's.=--It is interesting to compare Pompe's Rotterdam with the View near Rotterdam by Johannes Sonjé. Here we have the Rotter in the foreground, on which a merchant ship and a row-boat are seen. The river winds among the trees of the meadows, which are animated with persons and animals. Under the trees on the left is a farmhouse. Farther back are two sail-boats, and in the background is the city. =A Beautiful River Scene by Van Goyen.=--J. van Goyen, the father-in-law of Jan Steen, was particularly famous for his landscapes and river scenery, a beautiful example of which is called View of a River in Holland. On the left is a jetty, from which fishermen are loading a boat with baskets; in the middle distance is a boat with fishermen drawing a seine; and in the background are a mill and some houses on the bank. Several other sailing and rowing boats are on the water, and on the horizon to the left is a village. =Avercamp's Famous View of a River.=--Hendrik Avercamp (fl. 1660) was famous in his day for his Dutch _kermesses_, camp life, landscape, and still life. His View of a River is full of life and color. In the left foreground are two fishermen, and on the left a seated fisherman's wife. The men are dragging a big seine. In the middle distance to the right people are bathing and swimming; swans are on the stream, also boats with occupants; and there are houses on the banks. =River Scenes by Willaerts, Father and Son.=--Isaac Willaerts (fl. 1650) has a View of a River. On the left is a village on a dike; on the right, a river with many sail-boats. He was a pupil of his father, Adam. The Mouth of the Meuse near Brielle, by Adam Willaerts, also belongs to this group. In the foreground on the left stands an inn with the sign In de Witte Zwaan (The White Swan), and before it on a cask sits a wandering singer, surrounded by fishermen and peasants; a little to the front are seen a gentleman and his family, to whom an old fisherman offers fish; on the banks of the river are groups of peasants, sailors, and fishermen, talking, embracing the women, and offering their arms to them for a promenade. Boats are arriving and departing, and on the horizon lies the town. =A River Picture and Two Others by Verschuier.=--Lieve Verschuier has The Maas before Rotterdam. The river is seen on the right; on the left are the Bompjes (the quay bordered with trees), the Oudehoofdpoort (old gate), and the Haringvliet (canal). Merchant vessels are riding at anchor, and all sorts of boats are carrying merchandise and passengers. In the foreground is a boat with two fishermen. The same artist has here a Mountainous Landscape, and the old Oostpoort at Rotterdam, built in 1611-13 and demolished in 1836. =Jongkind's Impressive Picture of Overschie in Moonlight.=--The impressive picture, View of Overschie in Moonlight, was purchased in 1893 out of a bequest by Mr. Prainat at Rotterdam. After Jongkind settled in France he frequently visited Holland, and this picture was painted in 1872, during one of his visits. He was exceedingly fond of Rotterdam and its environs. Overschie is a village near Rotterdam, and the Schie, it may be noted, joins the Maas at Delftshaven; upon it is situated Delft. It is interesting to compare this picture with Gabriel's In the Environs of Overschie. [Illustration: JONGKIND View of Overschie in Moonlight] =Jan Storck's Picture of the Old Gate at Rotterdam.=--Jan Storck, whose Castle of Nyenrode is in the Rijks, has here The Oude Hoofdpoort at Rotterdam seen from the Maas. In addition to the old gate (built in 1598 and demolished in 1856), several boats are represented, and a yacht is just leaving port amidst salvos of artillery. The Maas is seen to the right. =Two Pictures Characteristic of A. Storck's Style.=--Abraham Storck has two characteristic works. An Italian Seaport has a jetty on the right with a large building and a stone fountain. Several persons are busy discharging the contents of the boats and galleys. On the left a sloop is going toward a Dutch boat at anchor. His other picture is A Dutch Port in Winter. A great hole appears in the ice in the centre; on the right is a pole on which nets are drying; on the left, a boat stuck fast in the ice: Farther along are more imprisoned boats, some houses, and a mill; near the bridge are a lady and gentleman in a sleigh; on the left, two persons playing hockey; farther along are some skaters and promenaders. In the background are two ships in the ice; and on the horizon, some houses and a clock-tower. =Two Marines by Backhuysen.=--Ludolf Backhuysen has a large View of the Dutch Coast in Stormy Weather, dated 1682. Ships of various sizes are endeavoring to escape an approaching heavy squall. A marine, about one-third the size of the above, is a calmer but bustling scene of ships of war exchanging salutes at a place of embarkation. =A Marine, by Zeeman.=--Reinier Zeeman (16-- after 1673), whose pictures greatly resemble those of Jan Both and Claude Lorraine, is represented by a marine. On the left some vessels are in the roadstead, on the right other boats are off for the deep, and on the banks sailors and fishermen are seen. =Two Marines by Schotel.=--J. C. Schotel has an Agitated Sea showing a brig at anchor and a fisherman's boat. A lighthouse is seen on the shore to the right. Another, called Au Moerdijk, represents a steamboat plying toward the landing, and in the background boats laden with hay. The weather is calm. =The Port of Texel, by W. van de Velde.=--A characteristic example of Willem van de Velde is The Port of Texel. On the left is a jetty from which large merchant ships are preparing to leave, on the right the Admiralty yacht firing salvos, in the foreground fishermen busy with their nets, a boat containing several gentlemen, and in the offing many boats leaving port. =A Sea-Strand, by Mans.=--Fredericus Mans (d. 1673) has a panel called A Sea-Strand. In the foreground are fishermen, peasants, and women. A road on the right leads to a village in the dunes. On the left, the beach is animated with many figures and fishing boats. =A Marine, by L. G. Man.=--L. G. Man (eighteenth century) has a marine consisting of several English men-of-war on a sunlit sea. =Sunset at Scheveningen and Two Other Pictures, by Schelfhout.=--Andreas Schelfhout (1787-1870) has A Beach, with the sea in the background, fishing-boats in the middle distance, and a fisherman on the dunes, with his dog in the foreground. A Winter Scene represents a frozen stream where three children are playing with a sled; farther away are some skaters; and to the right, the village houses beneath wintry trees. Sunset at Scheveningen shows a beautifully lighted sea; some boats with fishermen occupy the middle distance; and the beach with promenaders is shown in the foreground. =H. Koekkoek's Stormy Sea.=--Hermanus Koekkoek (1815-82) was a pupil of his father, and, like him, a marine painter. His Stormy Sea, showing various vessels struggling with the elements, is full of force and atmospheric effects. =Two Beautiful Marines by Mesdag.=--Two beautiful pictures by the skilful marine-painter, H. W. Mesdag, should be noted: Breakers on the North Sea Coast, presented by Mr. C. E. van Stolk in 1885, depicts a scene that the traveller himself may verify at any moment; and A Sunrise on the Dutch Coast, presented by the Society for Promoting Art at Rotterdam in 1876. This was painted in 1875. Beautiful in color and striking in composition, it appeals equally to the artist and the amateur. A picture by Mrs. Mesdag, Moorland with a Sheepfold in Moonlight, was presented to this gallery by her in 1904. =David de Heem, One of the First Painters of Still Life.=--This gallery owns many pictures of fruits, flowers, animals, and birds. David de Heem (1570-1632) was one of the first to devote his talents almost exclusively to still life. Neither The Hague nor the Rijks gallery contains an example of his work. He treated with great minuteness flowers, fruits, glasses, etc. Even during his own lifetime his paintings were much sought after, and high prices were paid for them. In his Flowers and Fruits we see a glass of Rhine wine standing in a stone niche ornamented with carved mouldings. The glass is garlanded with roses, honeysuckle, pinks, and chrysanthemums; and grouped about it are white grapes, peaches, apricots, plums, etc. =A Large Still-life Picture by Jan de Heem.=--His more famous son, Jan Davidsz, who inherited his talents and tastes, has here a large picture of still life. On a table partly covered with a cloth of green velvet are arranged various fruits,--grapes, peaches, figs, and a lemon partly peeled. In the foreground is a pewter dish full of crabs, prawns, and hazelnuts; then come a blue porcelain bowl and a pewter plate with oranges and strawberries; next we have a basket covered with a blue velvet cloth, on which is a pewter dish with a cut ham. In the background is a box with gold and silver fringe, and on it a wide-mouthed bottle of Rhine wine, with a vine branch, a cooked crayfish, and some chestnuts. To the left are two wine glasses and a silver plate of plums, figs, and cherries. Well may Blanc exclaim: "There is no eater so cloyed, no gourmet so _blasé_, who would not have his appetite restored by the sight of one of De Heem's pictures; for here everything is exquisite, both the form and the substance, the viands and the fruits, as well as the way in which they are served. It is necessary that the eye should dine, says the proverb; and this is particularly true of feasts and collations given in painting.... De Heem has happily expressed the quality of every viand and every fruit, its rough or smooth surface, dull or shining, and even its stage of ripeness,--the violet plum with its thin skin, splashed with red and drab, the light down of the peach with its pale and purple tones, the plush envelope in which the hazelnut hides, and the green and split shell inside which we see the kernel. Moreover, this diversity of substances is not only rendered by local color but also by certain variations of the brush work by fine shades of touch. On the oak or marble table is placed an enormous glass vessel cut in facets, a patriarchal glass, all the ridges of which glitter in the light, and through the crystal of which we see a golden liquid, fused topaz. Sometimes it is a _roemer_, a cylindrical vase of Bohemian glass mounted in silver, a precious utensil transmitted from generation to generation. This is a picture that transports us to the intimate life of these domestic Dutchmen, attentive to all the delicacies of interior comfort." Jan's son, Cornelis, has also a piece called Flowers and Fruits in the same style. =Seghers's Flowers.=--The striking picture of Flowers, by David Seghers, shows a stone cartouche with a little bust of Ceres framed in a garland of red and white roses, tulips, and many small flowers, around which hover numerous butterflies. =W. C. Héda, an Early Still-life Painter.=--Willem Claes Héda (1594-1668) was one of the earliest Dutchmen who devoted themselves exclusively to the painting of still life. Héda was the contemporary and companion of Dirk Hals, with whom he had in common pictorial touch and technical execution. But Héda was more careful and finished than Hals, and showed considerable skill and not a little taste in arranging and coloring chased cups and beakers and tankards of precious and inferior metals. Nothing is so appetizing as his Luncheon, with rare comestibles set out upon rich plate, oysters,--seldom without the cut lemon,--bread, champagne, olives, and pastry. Even the commoner Refection is also not without charm, as it comprises a cut ham, bread, walnuts, and beer. =Van Gelder and Gillemans, Famous Painters of Still Life.=--N. van Gelder (d. 1660) painted birds, animals, and flowers with great finish and delicacy. His Poultry consists of a dead cock on a black marble plinth, partly suspended by one of its feet from an iron hook fixed behind a partly open green curtain. To the left are two shot pigeons, a green velvet game-bag, and a fowling-piece. Jan Paul Gillemans (1618-?) was famous for his still life. This gallery possesses one of his fruit pieces, in which grapes, oranges, lemons, plums, and apricots are temptingly displayed. =Ykens, Painter of Flowers.=--Franchois Ykens (or Ikens) (1601-93), a painter of flowers and pupil of his uncle, Osias Beest, has a picture here that was formerly attributed to François Seghers. A stone cartouche, surrounded with a garland of roses, tulips, pinks, honeysuckle, clematis, etc., and bearing a representation of the mystic marriage of St. Catherine, is called simply Flowers. =W. van Aelst and his Famous Pupil, Rachel Ruysch.=--Willem van Aelst delights us with his Flowers. On a brown marble slab in a niche stands an elegant vase containing roses, poppies, a pink, and other blossoms, around which a butterfly is fluttering. A snail is crawling in the niche. On a brown table-cloth with gold fringe, to the right, is an open gold watch with a green ribbon attached. The picture is signed and dated 1662. Willem's famous pupil, Rachel Ruysch, may be seen here by a charming flower piece. A tree-trunk surrounded by red and white roses, poppies, convolvuluses, etc., and upon the stony ground, covered with moss and mushrooms, innumerable lizards, toads, snails, and various insects swarm. Butterflies hover over the flowers. Rachel Ruysch painted this picture in 1685, and gave it as a present to the famous painter, Ludolf Bakhuysen. =Pieter Boel's Dead Game.=--Her contemporary, Pieter Boel, shows the influence of his master, F. Snyders, in Dead Game. A dead swan hangs by its foot to a tree. In the foreground, near a pedestal, are arranged two partridges and some other game, with a gun and a brass hunting-horn. On the left is a hound; and, in the background to the right, an owl on a cage with a little dead bird in front of it. =Marseus, Painter of Lowly Animal Life.=--Another follower of Snyders was Otto Marseus van Schrieck. He excelled in the loving rendering of lowly animal life. His Nest is of natural size, with eggs lying on the moss near some thistles, wild mulberries, and red mushrooms. Around it flutter some butterflies; on the right is a lizard, and on the left a Mayfly. =A. Breughel's Still-life Pictures.=--His pupil, Abraham Breughel (1631-?), went to Rome; but little is known about him except that his favorite subject was still life. Like so many others, his flowers and fruits are painted natural size. The principal objects in his picture are a silver dish with figs, a silver bowl containing roses and gladioluses at the foot of a column, and black and white grapes, apples, etc., in the foreground. =A. Cuijp, a Painter Catholic in his Tastes.=--Aelbert Cuijp was very catholic in his tastes. He occupied a country house near Dordrecht, called Dordwijck, where he painted everything that struck his fancy,--men, animals, fruits, flowers, and landscape. The poultry yard is noticed in a Cock and Hen scratching in the straw, with a broom and some blocks of red stone conspicuously placed. A hare, two pigeons, and other birds on a stone pillar compose his Dead Game. A painting called Fruits represents peaches on a blue plate on a table, and, beside the plate, white grapes, cherries, and green gooseberries. On the left is also a butterfly. A charming jumble of peaches, black and white grapes, and various shells make the picture, Fruits and Shells, in which three butterflies and a housefly are also prominent. =One of Jan Weenix's Many Dead Swans.=--No Dutch gallery would be complete without a Dead Swan by Jan Weenix. Sir Joshua Reynolds admitted that he had seen no less than twenty during his visit to Holland. The dead swan is here suspended by the foot from a stone pedestal; on one side lie a peacock, a partridge, and a thrush; and near them a branch from a rosebush and a basket of fruit. In the background is seen a park with a lake, statues, fountains, and large trees. =Two of Mignon's Best Pictures.=--Abraham Mignon appears at his best in two pictures in this gallery called Flowers and Fruits. In the former we admire a vase on a stone table, filled with red and white roses, tulips, blue irises, poppies, pinks, convolvuluses, and ears of wheat; on the left on the table a mouse, snails, butterflies, beetles, and other insects are painted with rare delicacy and truth. Insects and snails also occur in the second picture, in which the fruits are placed in a niche, and consist of a bunch of black grapes, a peach, a melon, an apricot, and some plums decorated with a vine leaf, wheat, and small flowers. =A Still Life by Van Beyeren.=--Abraham Hendricksz van Beyeren was especially fond of painting flowers and marine life. His Sea Fish is an evidence of his excellence in this line. On a table is a basket containing whiting and a slice of salmon; in front of the basket are a crab, some soles, some slices of cod, and a knife. =Van den Broeck's Flowers.=--Elias van den Broeck (1653-1711), a pupil of Jan de Heem, delighted to immortalize on canvas the flowers he cultivated in his beautiful garden. A stone plinth with roses and Indian cress; and, in front, chrysanthemums and creepers, a lizard, two snails, and butterflies are the chief features of his Flowers. =Van Os, Another Good Flower-painter.=--Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os (1782-1861) was a worthy successor of the seventeenth-century masters of this school. Flowers and Flowers and Fruits are artistically composed and lovingly painted. The former consists of an Etruscan vase filled with roses, blue irises, tulips, and anemones, standing on a marble table. The second picture represents, on a marble plinth in a niche, a melon, a pear, and a bunch of black grapes with roses, convolvuluses, poppies, and other flowers. =His Pupil, Hendrik Reekers.=--His pupil, Hendrik Reekers (1815-54), has here Fruits, Vegetables, and Game, arranged on a marble table. A basket is full of white and black grapes, a cut lemon, and some oranges, plums, peaches, and an artichoke, mingled with flowers. Above these hang a partridge and a grouse. =Flowers, by Steenbergen.=--Flowers, by Albertus Steenbergen (1814- ), consists of roses, poppies, lilacs, convolvuluses, nasturtiums, etc., arranged in a vase that stands on a marble plinth. On the right flutters a butterfly. =Still Life, by Maria Vos.=--Still Life by Maria Vos (b. 1824) consists of a stone plinth partly covered with a piece of matting on which stand a white cock and a black hen, an overturned basket of oranges and lemons, a copper dish, and a porcelain bowl; and on the wall a stone jug with a pewter top. =Flowers, by Margaretha Roosenboom.=--In Flowers, by Margaretha Roosenboom (1843), we have a silver vase filled with roses, standing on a table with a green cover. In the background, a green curtain is half drawn. =Two Excellent Hunting Scenes by Hondius.=--Abraham Hondius (1638-91), who excelled in painting the different breeds of dogs and other animals, and hunting scenes, with much fire and action, has two pictures here. A Boar Defending Itself Against Dogs shows the furious beast at bay, with four dying or dead dogs under him in the foreground. On the left three more dogs are rushing to the attack. The features of the landscape are three trees, with a mountainous background. The other picture, of exactly the same size, depicts a Bear Attacked by Dogs. The bear is standing on his hind legs with a dog under him, and throwing another into the air, while he hugs the life out of another. On the right and left, more dogs are rushing to attack. There is a dying dog in the left foreground. On the right, in the middle distance, there are two trees near a rock, and a cascade, and the background is mountainous. Both pictures are signed and dated 1672. =Bird Pictures by the Hondecoeters, Father and Son.=--Gijsbert de Hondecoeter shows his loving study of the gallinaceous tribe in Cock and Hens. In the foreground is a black hen with a white comb; and behind her are a sitting yellow hen and a standing white one; still farther back are three more hens, one perched on the branch of a tree. To the left sits a brown hen with a black comb, with a yellow-brown cock behind. The ground is strewed with oyster shells and straw. Three hens are in the background. The picture is signed and dated 1652. Melchior de Hondecoeter, who surpassed his father as a painter of birds alive and dead, enriches this collection with his Dead Game. In a grotto at the foot of some ruins a dead bittern and two partridges are hanging. In front are two gulls; and on the right are a hunting-horn, tied with a red tasselled cord, a green velvet bag, a kingfisher, and two finches. In the middle distance is a fowling-piece with a shoulder belt and net. The entrance of the grotto is in the background on the left. =Four Portrait Groups by the Eversdijcks.=--In common with all other Dutch galleries, the Boijmans is rich in portraits. Royalties, admirals, officers, ladies of quality, gentlemen, elderly men and women, and children are all represented. Three pictures of gatherings of officers at Goes, by Cornelis Willemsz Eversdijck, who died in his native town of Goes about 1649, and one by his son Willem, representing the same corps of archers, are the only important pictures of this class in the gallery. =Two Portraits by Mostert, and One by Queborn.=--Jan Mostert (1474-?), who was a painter of portraits and altarpieces, has here two half-lengths of Augusteyn van Teylingen, Anno 1511, and Judoca van Egmont van der Nieuburch, 1511 (his wife). Crispyn van den Queborn (1604-58) was a distinguished portrait-painter and engraver. His half-length Portrait of Hartogh van Moerkerken was painted in 1645. =Santvoort, a Portrait-painter after the Style of Rembrandt.=--Dirk van Santvoort (d. 1660) was probably one of Rembrandt's pupils; or, at least, he adopted that master's manner. Not many of his pictures are known, and the majority of these are portraits. His two pictures in the Boijmans Museum, however, belong rather to the classical school of the Elzheimers and Poelenburgs. A Young Shepherd Playing the Chalumeau, wearing a brown cap with an ostrich feather, and a bright brown robe over a white shirt, with a knife and horn at his belt (green background), is dated 1632. A Young Shepherdess, half-length, turned to the left, wears a violet dress with red sleeves. A blue hat with a green branch is on her head and a crook over her right shoulder. The background is greenish. =Two Portraits by F. Bol.=--Ferdinand Bol's Portrait of a Woman represents a young woman seen in profile half-length, and turned to the left. She wears a red dress and a violet velvet mantle lined with fur. Beautiful ornaments of gold and pearls are in her hair and on her neck and arms. One hand rests on the base of a column, and the other holds a closed fan. His portrait of Dirk van Walijen represents a young boy with long curls, dressed in yellow satin, red tunic, and yellow boots. =Portrait by Gerrit Dou.=--Among the most striking portraits is that of An Old Lady by Gerrit Dou. She is dressed in black velvet trimmed with fur; her bodice is of black silk, and she wears a large turned-down collar, and round her neck a gold chain with a pendent jewel. She has on a blue cap with a gold band. The head stands out boldly from the grayish background, and the expression of the smiling face is singularly impressive. =Jacob Cats and his Cousin, by Mytens.=--Mytens's Portrait of Jacob Cats, the Dutch poet, and his cousin Cornelia Bars, is also of interest. It was painted in 1650, and represents Jacob Cats seated at a table before a tent. He is dressed in crimson, and turns toward his cousin at his side, who wears brown silk. On the table, with its red carpet, are an open book and an inkstand. On the left is seen a hilly landscape with trees; and in the background an angel with a long white robe. =Portraits by Opzoomer.=--Simon Opzoomer has a portrait of Rembertus Frescarode, one called Erasmus in his Study, and one of the Brothers de Witt in Prison in Gevangenpoort. Cornelis is in bed, and Jacob is seated by him with a book on his knees. The time is just before their murder by the populace in 1672. =Portraits of Two Notables by Mierevelt.=--Mierevelt has a Portrait of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, painted in 1671. His Maurice of Nassau shows that prince standing by a table and wearing a richly worked cuirass, the present of the States-General after the victory of Nieuwpoort, and an orange silk scarf. He holds a commandant's baton in his right hand, and his helmet with orange plumes is seen on the table. Mierevelt has here also A Lady of Quality. =Finely painted Portraits by Nason.=--Pieter Nason (1612-90), who painted portraits and still life, and who has a Portrait of Willem Frederick, Count of Nassau (1662), in The Hague, has here The Portrait of a Lord, and one of A Woman of Quality. The lady is holding some yellow flowers. She is dressed in red silk with white undersleeves; a brown scarf falls over her shoulders; and pearls ornament her hair, ears, and neck. The jewels, silks, and satins are beautifully painted, as is also the costume of the lord in the accompanying picture. He is dressed in yellow silk with a brown mantle, and his lace cravat is held by a circle of diamonds. Trees form the background. =A Woman of Quality, by Pourbus.=--Pieter Pourbus (1510-83) was a painter, geographer, and architect. His Portrait of a Woman of Quality shows her costumed in the Valois mode, with Mary Stuart cap, fluted ruff, and black robe. =Two Portraits by Netscher.=--Caspar Netscher has a sombre Portrait of a Protestant Pastor and a brilliant Lady of Quality, dressed in blue satin with a graceful brown scarf. She is seated by a fountain. One hand is placed on her breast; the other is full of roses. =Pool's Interesting Portraits of his Wife and her Father.=--Of great interest is the portrait of Rachel Ruysch, painted by her husband, Juriaan Pool. This is a bust only. The lady is represented with powdered hair and dressed in brown satin with lace at the neck and sleeves. Her right hand is lifted and holds a veil. The background contains a column and a green curtain. Pool's portrait of her father, Professor Frederik Ruysch, is also a bust. He wears a large powdered wig and a long robe with a band; his left hand holds a skull. =A Portrait Group by Maes.=--Nicholas Maes is represented by a Portrait of a Gentleman and a Lady standing in front of a noble house. The lady, in black with a gray tunic having an embroidered gold border and a large collar, holds a little child with her left hand. The latter is dressed in white and wears a cap with a red feather. The gentleman holds his wife by her other hand. He is dressed in black, with white ruff and cuffs, and a mantle is thrown over his left shoulder. His right hand holds a glove. Behind them are a rosebush and flowers, and there are shrubs and bushes by the wall. =Other Portraits by Maes.=--Another by the same artist represents Mr. Willem Nieupoort, Envoy from the States-General to Oliver Cromwell in 1653. He is standing by a broken column, and is dressed in yellow silk and brown velvet, a corselet, a lace cravat, and a red scarf. Near the column are a sword and a helmet with red plumes. His wife, Anna van Loon, is also painted by Maes, standing by a stone balustrade. She wears a dress of red velvet with a tunic of yellow silk, a gray veil, and pearls in her hair. In her left hand she holds some oranges, and her right clasps that of a little girl in white. Trees occupy the background. =A Portrait of a Priest, by Metsu.=--Gabriel Metsu has a Portrait of a Priest, seated at a table in his study. One hand rests on his breast, the other on a death's head. On the table, covered with a green cloth, are placed an open book, a crucifix, and a sheet of paper. A glove, books, and a half-drawn curtain occupy the background. =A Lawyer in his Study, by A. van Ostade.=--Adriaen van Ostade has A Lawyer in his Study. This important personage, dressed in black velvet and a violet robe, is seated by a table covered with a Smyrna rug, on which are books, papers, documents, and a pewter inkstand. He is reading a document which he holds in his left hand; his right, resting on the arm of his chair, holds his spectacles. Behind the table there is a blue screen. An open door is seen in the background. Honthorst has a Portrait of an Old Man, dressed in brown, and having a long gray beard. =Several Portraits by Van der Helst.=--Bartholomeus van der Helst has one of A Protestant Minister, painted in 1638; one called A Man, and another A Woman (the two latter painted in 1646); Portrait of Daniel Bernard; and Portrait of a Lady and Gentleman. The latter, painted in 1654, represents the couple on a bench in the garden. The lady is beautifully dressed in white satin, with pearls and diamonds, and she is plucking a rose from a bush near by. She has a huge diamond ring on her thumb. The gentleman is dressed in black satin: in one hand he holds his large-brimmed hat; the other supports the right arm of the lady. The landscape, with its varied trees and playing fountain, was painted by Aldert van Everdingen (1654). =A Portrait by Jan de Vos.=--Jan de Vos, who died about 1651, has here a Portrait of a Man, dressed in black with white ruff, and standing by a table. His right hand holds a pen, his left rests on an open copy-book. =A Portrait by Stolker.=--Jan Stolker (1724-85), pupil of J. M. Quinkhard, has a Portrait of the Burgomaster of Rotterdam, Willem Schefers, seated at a table covered with a red cloth, on which are several books. He is dressed in black velvet, and wears a powdered wig. =Portraits by Simon de Vos.=--Simon de Vos (1608-76), a pupil of Cornelis de Vos and Rubens, has a Portrait of a Man, dressed in black with striped sleeves and a large fluted ruff. His right hand rests on a table, and his left on his hip. He has also another Portrait of a Man, whose left hand rests on a chair, while his right holds a glove. =A Man in Oriental Costume by Van Vliet.=--Jan Joris van Vliet, born in Delft in 1610, and one of Rembrandt's pupils, can be studied here by An Old Man in Oriental Costume. This is only a bust; the hair is short, the moustache gray; and the costume consists of a black turban with gold ornaments, a crimson coat, black mantle, and a golden chain. His right hand rests on his chest. =A Huntsman by Verkolje.=--Verkolje has a Portrait of a Huntsman seated beneath a tree. He is young, and wears a large black hat, a gray costume, and orange scarf. His undersleeves are white, his stockings brown, and his garters orange. His left hand rests on his hip, and his right holds a gun. Two hunting-dogs are by his side, and some dead rabbits. Trees occupy the background. =Van der Werff's Portraits of himself and Others.=--Pieter van der Werff has portraits of W. B. Schefers and his wife, of Johannes Texelius and of himself. The painter stands with his elbow on a stone balustrade, dressed in grayish blue embroidered with gold. A brown velvet cloak is thrown over his shoulder, and he holds his palette and brushes in his left hand. =An Admiral and his Wife, by Van den Tempel.=--A. van den Tempel has An Admiral and his Wife, in which the former is dressed in gray and silver, and his wife in black and pink and jewels. She holds an orange in her hand; and in the distance a negro is seen with a dish of oranges. In the background a lifted curtain of crimson velvet reveals a warship from which a gun is being discharged. =A Portrait by Zimmerman.=--J. W. G. Zimmerman has a Portrait of Mr. Joost van Vollenhoven, Burgomaster of Rotterdam in 1864-81, dressed in the robes of office, his right hand holding a letter and his left resting on some books on the table. =Other Portraits of Interest.=--Other portraits of interest are Adriaen Backer's Portrait of a Man; Hendrik Berckman's Portrait of Admiral Adriaen van Trappen; Portrait of Himself, by Gijsbertus Johannes van den Berg, and Portrait of his Wife with her son on her knee; C. Bisschop's Portrait of Prince Henry of the Netherlands, in the costume of the Royal Yacht Club; Ferdinand Bol's Portrait of a Woman (two), and Dirk Van der Waeijen; Cornelis Cels's Gijsbert Karel, Count of Hogendorp; Cornelius Janszoon van Ceulen's Portrait of a Gentleman, and Portrait of a Young Woman; P. van Champaigne's Portraits of two Artists; Jacobus Delff's Portrait of a Man; Albrecht Dürer's Portrait of Erasmus; Anthonie van Dijck's Portraits of Charles I., King of England, Henrietta Maria, and Their Two Children; Gerbrand van den Eeckhout's Portrait of a Child; Robbert van Eysden's Portrait of J. F. Hoffman, Burgomaster of Rotterdam, 1845-66; Carel Fabritius's Portrait of a Man, dressed in black with open shirt showing his neck and chest; Govert Flinck's Portraits of Dirck Graswinckel, and his Sister, under a tree, in a landscape with ruins in the distance; George Gilles Haanen's Portrait of a Young Man; Frans Hals's Portrait of an Old Gentleman; Adriaen Hanneman's Portrait of Johan de Witt; Constantin Netscher's William III., King of England; Dionys van Nymegen's Willem van der Pot (1733) and Sara, his Wife (1733); Nicholaes Pieneman's William III., King of the Netherlands; David van der Plaes's Cornelis Tromp, and A Gentleman; Crispyn van den Queborn's Hartogh van Moerkerken; Jan van Scorel's A Young Man, and A Gentleman; Pieter van Slingelandt's Johannes van Crombrugge; Hendricus Turken's (1791-?) Margarethe Agnes de Vries; Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne's Prince Frederick Henry on Horseback with his Suite (_en grisaille_); and Abraham de Vries's A. A. Vroesen (1639), and An Old Woman (1644). Musscher's Portraits of Three Children, crowning the statue of a child with flowers, should also be noticed, as well as Jacob Gerritz Cuijp's Portraits of a General, a Lady of Distinction, and Three Children. The last, a boy and two little girls, are beautifully dressed, and are playing under the trees in a charming landscape, with several buildings, including a mill and a church-tower in the distance. =Good Pictures of Social Life by Palamedesz.=--Anthonie Palamedesz (1601-73) was a painter of social life, _corps-de-gardes_, portraits, landscapes, and still life. His art belonged to the school of Frans Hals. The quality of his work is very unequal, but many of his interiors are full of life and color. He was such a good painter of figures in landscapes that his aid was much sought after by brother artists, notably B. van Bassen and A. de Lorme. In The Hague Gallery he has two works that show him at his best,--Music after Dinner, and Merry Company; also a Portrait of Martinus van Stavenisse, Knight of St. Michael. =An Interior of High Life, by Palamedesz.=--The Rotterdam Gallery has An Interior of High Life by this artist. In an apartment hung with gilded leather several ladies and gentlemen are talking and playing musical instruments. In the foreground there is a lady dressed in blue with a light red tunic; next to her is a gentleman holding a guitar. On the left there is a lady with a sheet of music in her hand. She wears a white dress and a yellow tunic, and beside her is seated a gentleman. In the centre of the room there is a table covered with a red carpet, at which two persons are seated. Farther back in the room several groups of ladies and gentlemen are seen; and in the background a chimney-piece. =A Musical Reunion, by Van Deelen.=--A Musical Reunion by Dirk van Deelen (1605-71) is a scene in high life. Six gentlemen and four ladies are in a hall paved with blue and white marble. A gentleman who turns his back to the spectator is seen in the foreground. He is dressed in black satin slashed with yellow, a black velvet cloak, yellow stockings, red-heeled shoes, lace collar, and large black hat. At the right a lady is leaning on a table with a red cloth. She wears a black-and-yellow flowered dress with a red tunic and large lace collar and sleeves. Near the table, on which are a guitar and some books of music, are four gentlemen, one of whom is without his hat. In the centre a lady dressed in green silk is playing the guitar, with her foot on a foot-warmer. Beside her stand a gentleman and two ladies, one of whom wears a black dress with a yellow satin tunic and holds a book of music. In the background on the right there is a bed with green curtains and an open door flanked with columns at each side. On the left are two tall windows, and on the wall hang two male portraits. =An Architectural Painting by Van Deelen.=--The Peristyle of a Building, by this artist, shows his love for classic architecture. A stone bath with steps occupies the foreground, and two men enveloped in long cloaks talk with a woman who is seated on the steps. Near it is a statue of Hercules on a red marble pedestal. Many people are seen in a distant gallery through the columns. =A Delightful Conversation Piece, by Ochtervelt.=--The Collation, by Jacob Ochtervelt, is one of those delightful "conversation pieces" so popular in the seventeenth century. A young woman in a yellow satin skirt and a red velvet jacket bordered with white fur is seated on a tabouret of green velvet with her back turned toward the spectator. Her left hand rests on her hip and her right holds a glass of wine. On her right is a table with an Oriental carpet upon which stands a flagon of wine. By its side is an officer in a blue costume and large blond wig, who is handing some oysters in a silver dish to the young woman. =A Ball, by François Francken, Junior.=--François Vranckz, or Francken, the Younger (1581-1642), pupil of his father François Francken and a native of Antwerp, has here A Ball. In the foreground a gentleman and lady are beginning a dance surrounded by spectators; at the entrance of the hall on the right a servant comes in with wine, and farther down against the wall and under the windows is a long table served with refreshments. In the centre farther back two gentlemen are talking to a lady; on the left a platform with musicians; in the background a large chimney-piece between two windows. =A Fine Interior, by Tilborch.=--Of Egidius, or Gilles, Tilborch (1625-78), a fine Interior (once attributed to Biset) hangs here. In a very rich room hung with gilded leather, and from the ceiling of which is suspended a copper chandelier ornamented with a two-headed eagle, a lady is seated before the mantelpiece near a table covered with a Smyrna rug. She is dressed in white, with a red petticoat, and some red bows on her breast. Around her are six children of different ages, including one in the arms of a servant. Opposite to her is a gentleman dressed in black with white sleeves, accompanied by a dog; a little behind is a servant with an inkstand. On the left an aged woman dressed in black is seen, and two ladies and a gentleman enter the chamber on the left. Over the chimney-piece is a beautifully painted landscape, and on the left against the wall a large _armoire_ or _kas_ of black wood ornamented with gold, above which hangs a large portrait. =A Village Interior, by C. de Man.=--Cornelus de Man (1621-1706) painted portraits, churches, and social life. In The Hague Gallery he has a Peasants' Wedding, and here his qualities may be studied in A Village Interior. A joyous company of peasants, with a sprinkling of the better class, are gathered in a big barn. In the centre, a couple are dancing,--the man holding aloft a pewter pot. On the right a group are playing "hot cockles." In front, there is a dog asleep; on the right, a little girl with a hoop; and on the left, a peasant asleep on a barrel. Farther back is a long table covered with food, at which several men and women are seated. A violinist sits on a barrel, and a guest is sitting on the table mimicking him with tongs; on the floor in front of him is an earthen pitcher with a pewter lid. In the background are two individuals, one with a drum. A black bird is on a perch close to the ceiling. =Two Pictures of Rustic Life by Molenaer.=--Two pictures by Jan Miense Molenaer are owned by this gallery,--The Clarinet Player and Rustic Gaiety. The former represents a peasant's house, where a man with his foot resting on a stool is playing the clarinet; his audience consists of two peasants, one of whom is sitting and the other standing by the side of the fire. Music is the feature of Rustic Gaiety also. A table with a green cover is set with pewter plates and bread; seated thereat is a peasant, dressed in green blouse and wearing a red cap, his face turned toward the spectator. His left hand rests on his leg and he holds a glass of wine in his right. Opposite is a woman singing and playing the guitar; a little farther away another woman, with a glass of wine in one hand and a jug in the other, is also singing. In the background a peasant, seated near a barrel, is lighting a pipe, and still farther back a man is playing a fiddle. =A Village Interior, by Sorgh.=--Hendrik Maertinsz Sorgh, who died in Rotterdam in 1670, and who was a pupil of David Teniers, reflects his master in A Village Interior. Here we have the interior of a barn where five peasants are eating and drinking around a table, at which is also seated an old woman whose hands are resting on a jug. On the left is a brick oven, and utensils of various kinds hang on the wall. Many articles are scattered about, including a leather slipper, a wooden spoon, some mussel shells, a tub of onions, etc. From the ceiling hangs a wicker bird-cage and in the foreground a cock and hen are strutting about. =The Market in Rotterdam, by Sorgh.=--Another picture represents an animated scene at The Market in Rotterdam. In the foreground a vegetable stall is placed against the _façade_ of a house. A woman carrying a copper pail is selecting some vegetables and disputing with the vender. Farther back more buyers and sellers are arguing; and the background is closed with some houses and the entrance to the Nieuwsteeg. =A Village Interior, by Wyck.=--A Village Interior, by Thomas Wyck (1616-77), shows a room in which a woman is seated; a little boy kneeling has his head in her lap; by her side is a little girl, and other little girls are sitting on the floor; under the window on the left a child is sitting at a table with a red carpet; on the right, in the foreground, stands a barrel on which is a jug. A wooden stairway is seen in the background. =Two Paintings illustrating the Versatility of Quellinus.=--Erasmus Quellinus (1607-78) was a pupil of Rubens, and painted history, architecture, landscape, portraits, and religious subjects, like his master. He was a strong colorist and his draughtsmanship is excellent. Two sides of his art are exhibited in The Ascension of the Virgin and A Woman in a Kitchen. The latter is a fine study of still life in the rendering of the various utensils. On the right a young woman with bare arms, a white cap, a red dress, and white tunic is represented down to the knees; on the left on the table and by its side are all sorts of pewter, copper, and earthenware utensils. Behind the table stands a young negress who is offering a bunch of cherries to the woman. =A Fine Example of Kalff's Still-life Painting.=--Another study of still life is shown in The Village Kitchen, by Willem Kalff, a fine example of this master. In the background a woman is preparing vegetables, a man stands near a ladder with a basket filled with vegetables, and another woman is coming through an open door; but these figures are subordinate in interest to the pots, kettles, and pans of shining copper; the meat hanging from the ceiling; the bottles, the casks, milk jugs, white linen, beer, artichokes, onions, cabbages, and other vegetables and fruits variously arranged. =Koninck's Famous Gold Weigher.=--Of single figures perhaps the most famous is by Salomon Koninck (1609-68?), pupil of N. Moijaert. The Gold Weigher, an old man with white hair and beard, is seated at a table. He wears a doublet of green velvet and gray fur, and a crimson velvet cap; he weighs the gold with the greatest care in a pair of scales which he holds in his right hand. He holds a piece of gold in his left hand also. On the table, which is covered with a red cloth, are books, a sheet of paper, a box of weights, and a bag of gold. The light falls through a window on the left. =Van der Neer's Guitar Player.=--The Guitar Player, by Eglon Hendrik van der Neer, is probably a portrait. Here we see a young woman dressed in a red satin skirt and a white satin jacket, seated by a clavecin. She is tuning a guitar; and not far away is a gentleman who has a glass of wine in his hand. =Pencz's Savant in his Cabinet.=--George Pencz (d. 1550) was a pupil of Albert Dürer, who also went to Rome and studied under Raphael. He painted therefore much the same class of subjects and in the same style as Van Orley. His Savant in his Cabinet is an interesting interior. The savant is seated at a table covered with a green carpet, his head rests on his right hand, and his left is extended toward a death's head. He is dressed in red and wears a red cap. Behind the table is a desk on which are an open book and a copper chandelier with an extinguished candle. Through an open window in the background a landscape is visible. =The Drinker, by D. Ryckaert.=--Another good study is The Drinker, by David Ryckaert (1612-77), a pupil of his father, Maerten Ryckaert, and who formed himself on Teniers, Brouwer, and Ostade. The man in a brown coat with red sleeves and a red cap is seated at a table with a pewter mug in one hand and a pipe in the other. A pewter plate and an earthenware jug stand on the table. =Pictures containing Human Figures, by Muys.=--Nicholas Muys (1740-1808) has three scenes in _grisaille_ from plays, A Study in Light, two Interiors, and a Landscape with Figures. The last shows a monument in the shadow of an oak, and before it a gentleman, lady, and little child in the costume of the end of the eighteenth century. A beggar and his family sue for charity. Near the monument are three other persons. Two ducks are being pursued by dogs in the foreground, a hut is seen among the trees in the distance, and a village lies on the horizon. One of the Interiors represents an apartment of the eighteenth century, where a lady dressed in a green robe is showing a little picture to two gentlemen. The other Interior is a richly carved vestibule, in which stands a lady in a violet silk dress and a blue hat; by her side on the floor are a dead heron, a partridge, a hare, and some rabbits, and the live greyhound that helped to catch them. Through a door in the centre is seen the kitchen, where the huntsman and his wife are preparing the vegetables; and there are two other persons, one of whom is hanging a cage from the ceiling. In A Study in Light the painter has grouped a number of objects,--a bust of Homer on a white marble table, a guitar, music-books, and a chair with a violin on it,--and lighted them from a candle in a silver chandelier. In the background a lady is standing before an open clavecin with a sheet of music in her hand. =An Interior, by J. B. Scheffer.=--Johan Baptist Scheffer, who died in Amsterdam in 1809, has here An Interior, showing a room in which a young peasant woman is sitting at a table preparing vegetables. Beside her stands a pedler who has placed his right hand on her shoulder, while his left dangles a gold chain before her eyes. On the left, a little girl is amusing herself by scaring a cat with her dog; in the background an open door gives a view through the next room into the street. =Ary Scheffer's Training.=--Scheffer's more famous son, Arie (1795-1858), inherited talent also from his mother, Cornelia Lamme, a very distinguished miniature-painter. He received his first instruction from his father and in Paris studied under Pierre Guérin. Géricault and Eugène Delacroix joined him in striking into a new path of art. =His Two Paintings of Ulrich of Würtemburg.=--Here Arie Scheffer has two sketches--Heads of Two Children, and A Shepherd Under a Stormy Sky, and two large canvases on Uhland's ballad representing Ulrich, son of Count Eberhard of Würtemburg. He first represents the young warrior who, having lost the Battle of Reutlingen, returns to Stuttgart and finds his father at the table alone. He has a cold welcome; and Count Eberhard without greeting him takes a knife and cuts the table-cloth in halves. In Scheffer's picture Ulrich is standing by the table on the right, and the angry father is cutting the table-cloth. Exasperated by this insult, Ulrich returned to the army and, throwing himself into the thickest of the fray at Doffingen, was killed. The old count spent the night weeping over the body of his only son. The companion picture, called The Weeper, represents the bereaved father with clasped hands seated by Ulrich's body, which still is in armor and lying on a bearskin in the tent. =Hendrik Scheffer's The First Child.=--Arie's younger brother, Hendrik Scheffer (1798-1862), also a pupil of Guérin, was a capable painter whose work, The First Child, hangs in this gallery. A young mother in bed receives a visit from her husband, who is kissing her hand. On the right the nurse is seen with the child in her arms. =A Similar Picture by Cornelis Troost.=--Another similar picture is by Cornelis Troost. The lady is lying in bed eating her breakfast. Near her are a cradle, a nurse with the baby, and a little girl. The wall is hung with portraits, and a clock and a painted screen are seen. =Brakenburg's Malade Imaginaire and Interior.=--Richard Brakenburg (1650-1702), a pupil of Ostade, has a _Malade Imaginaire_, in which a young woman in blue rests languidly on her pillow, attended by a physician, who is feeling her pulse. A little dog plays by her side, and several persons are variously grouped and laughing. A parrot cage hangs from the ceiling. This picture is dated 1696. A different phase of life appears in his Interior, showing a large room full of peasants, including women and children. They are laughing at an owl on a perch, because a man dressed in a black satin doublet is giving it a piece of cake on the point of a knife. A bird-cage hangs from the ceiling. =Bollongier's Carnival.=--Hans or Johan Bollongier, who lived in the middle of the seventeenth century, has a Carnival. A man and woman are dancing in a street, the former being dressed as a savage and carrying a club; an individual follows them with a "rommel pot." In the foreground we see a dog, and a man in a blue toga, holding a sword and an imperial globe in his hands. Behind these persons a house is visible, the doors and windows of which are filled with people. The picture is dated 1720. =Jan Steen's Feast of St. Nicholas.=--Turning now to humorous pictures, Jan Steen affords two. The Feast of St. Nicholas differs slightly from the one in the Rijks, and represents the painter's family. On the right is seated a young woman in a white satin dress and a blue velvet jacket trimmed with white fur. She is holding out her hands to a little girl, whose arms are full of spiced bread and other dainties. On the left a boy is crying behind the table, on which is a shoe containing a switch, and near him a servant, a boy, and an elderly man are laughing at his distress. The last has a glass of wine in his hand. Behind the group is an old woman, who is showing a piece of silver to the poor little boy to console him for St. Nicholas's present. =Another Humorous Picture by Jan Steen.=--Another picture which shows Jan Steen in his most humorous vein is The Operator, who is removing the stones from a man's head. In Holland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to say that a man had "a stone in his head" was only the equivalent for saying that he was "cracked"; and "to extract the stone from one's brain" merely meant to cure him of his folly. The patient is seated in a surgeon's office, and the surgeon, who is behind him performing an imaginary operation, ostentatiously places some stones in a basin that an old woman is holding in the full view of the patient. On the left stands a boy with a basket full of stones, from which the surgeon supplies himself. The patient's arms are tightly bound with a rope of straw; a crow is pecking at his hand, and he is screaming with all his might. Some spectators at an open window are laughing heartily. =A Similar Picture in the Style of Frans Hals.=--This may be compared with a picture of the school of Frans Hals, called The Quack Doctor. The doctor pretends to be cutting stones from the head of a man. To his cap is fastened a piece of parchment with Hebrew letters and three seals, and he wears spectacles. The patient is crying out; and a boy, dressed as a negro, stands in front with a basin full of stones. On the right is a table covered with a red cloth, upon which are scissors and other instruments, books, gourds, and a water bottle. =Cuijp's Eater of Mussels.=--Aelbert Cuijp's Eater of Mussels has a double interest because the painter has represented himself here. The scene is laid in a forge, where the master is eating mussels from a plate that stands beside a glass of beer on a keg. Two little girls and a boy are watching him with great attention, and through an open window two gentlemen are peeping in from outside. One has a glass of wine in his hand, and the other is the artist himself, who is laughing heartily at the man devouring the mussels. In the foreground are seen a dog, a large jug, an anvil, some shells, an overturned basket of wood, a cat, and a hen. In the background are seen a blacksmith and many utensils. =Two Bright Pictures by Van Stry.=--Abraham van Stry (1753-1826), a pupil of his father, the architectural painter, has an amusing Table Well Served. In a middle-class room a fat man is seated at a table, on which stand a fine roast and other dishes. He casts an approving glance upon a dish which a servant is just bringing in. Behind him another servant is pouring out some wine. This artist's Village Inn represents a peasant on a white horse. He is taking a glass of beer from the innkeeper's wife. A servant, a barking dog, a woman, and a boy are the other figures. The sunlight is very vivid. =Some Characteristic Examples of the Early Netherlands School.=--The early Netherlands school is well represented by a few characteristic examples. Toost van der Beke, called "The Master of the Death of the Virgin Mary," may be studied by three pictures,--Saint Jerome in his Study, the Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus, and Portrait of Joris van der Helde (who died in Ghent in 1569). Dierick, or Dirck, Bouts is represented by The Apostle Saint John, which was formerly attributed to Rogier van der Weijden. Saint John is seated in a landscape writing the first verse of his Gospel on a sheet of paper, and a devil is tormenting him. "The Master of the Half-Length Female Figures," a Dutch painter who is supposed to have worked at Bruges between 1520 and 1540, and who is known only by his pictures of saints on altarpieces and young women playing musical instruments, may be studied here in pictures called Golgotha and Young Woman Playing on a Lute. The latter is dressed in the costume of 1540, and she is singing from a music-book the words: "Si jayme mon amy Trop, plus que mon mary, Se n'est pas de mervelles." Golgotha represents the Crucifixion. The Cross, bearing the livid figure of Christ, is in the foreground, and beside it stand the Virgin on the left and St. John on the right. The landscape is very fine, but is entirely Flemish in character, although soldiers are supposed to be returning to the distant Jerusalem. At the foot of the hills Flemish cottages are noticeable, and the sky is gradually darkened from the sun on the horizon, until it gets very black just above the Cross. This may be compared with The Crucifixion of Christ of the Netherlands school, an altarpiece of the sixteenth century, formerly attributed to Bernard van Orley (died in Brussels in 1525). Like the former, it presents a green landscape with horsemen wending their way to the distant Jerusalem. The Virgin and St. John are kneeling at the foot of the Cross, and in the clouds are two female saints, God the Father, and the dove representing the Holy Ghost. THE END INDEX [Names will be found indexed under the surname, not under the prefix thereto; as, Dijck, van, Heem, de.] A Aelst, Evert van, 58, 97, 98 Aelst, Willem van, 96-98, 250 Aertsen, Pieter, 132, 183, 184, 215 Alchemist, The (Wijck), 136 Allebé, 209 Allegory of the Vigilance of the Grand Pensionary (Asselijn), 155 Alma-Tadema, 205, 208 Amalia of Solms, 4, 122 Amateur Musicians (Metsu), 74, 75 Amsterdam, Old Bourse at, 241 Amsterdam, Town Hall at, 241 Anatomy pictures, 11, 115 Anatomy Pictures, Hall of, 114, 127 Anatomy (Rembrandt), 5, 9, 11-13 Antiochus to the Augur, Visit of (Moeyaert), 32 Apol, 205, 208, 238 Architectural pictures in the Boijmans, 241-243, 262 Architectural pictures in the Mauritshuis, 57, 58 Architectural pictures in the Rijks, 187-190 Arquebusiers of Amsterdam (Flinck), 126 Arquebusiers of St. Andrew (Hals), 213 Arrival at an Inn, 50, 51 Artists' portraits of themselves, 122, 140, 145 Artist's Studio (Ostade), 169 Artz, 207, 238 As, Pieter Jansz van, 235 Asselijn, Jan, 46, 146, 155 Ast, Balthasar van der, 98 Avenue of Ash-trees (Hackaert), 132 Avercamp (or Averkamp), H., 149, 244 B Backer, Adriaen, 215, 260 Backhuysen (or Bakhuysen), L., 52, 55, 122, 149, 150 Bakhuijzen, J. J. van de Sande, 199, 205, 208, 209, 238 Balen, Hendrick van, 186, 204, 224, 246, 250 Balten, Peter, 172 Banning Cock Company, Sortie of the, 115, 116 Barentsz, Dirck, 127 Bas, Elizabeth, Portrait of (Rembrandt), 115, 118 Bassen, Bartholomew van, 57, 104, 172, 261 Batist, Karel, 159 Battle Picture, E. van de Velde, 221 Bavegom, Jan van, 103 Bear Hunt (Potter), 139 Beelt, Kornelis, 188 Beerstraten, A., 188, 233, 241 Beerstraten, Jan, 223, 224 Beest, Osias, 250 Beest, Sybrandt van, 240 Bega, Cornelis, 169, 170, 215 Begeyn, 6 Beijeren (or Beyeren), Abraham van, 6, 98, 157, 252 Beke, Toost van der, 271 Bent, Johannes van der, 220, 224 Berchem, N., 32, 35, 36, 40, 46, 146, 162, 184, 222, 224, 234 Berckheyde (or Berck-Heyde), Gerard (or Gerrit), 58, 188, 215, 216, 242 Berck-Heyde, J. A., 188 Berckheyde, Job, 216, 241 Berckman, Hendrik, 260 Berg, G. J. van den, 260 Berghen, Dirk van, 224 Bernarts, Nicasius, 152 Bertin, Nicholas, 184 Beyerex, Abraham van, 53 Biblical pictures in the Mauritshuis, 8, 32 Biblical pictures in the Rijks, 183-185 Bicker Collection, 113 Bicker's Company Captain (B. van der Helst), 125 Bijlert, J. van, 133, 134 Bilders, 207 Binnenhof, The, 3 Birds, pictures of, 8, 56, 89, 90, 153-162, 250, 254 Biset, C. E., 103, 138 Bisschop, Christoffel, 202, 203, 208, 243, 260 Blanc, quoted, 20, 21, 26, 27, 55, 56, 73, 75, 78, 87, 88, 89-91, 95, 96, 138, 151, 164, 165, 167, 168, 176, 177, 248, 249 Bleecker, G. C., 225 Bles, David, 208 Bloem, Matthys, 155 Bloemaert, Abraham, 30, 34, 37, 133, 143, 172 Bloemaert, Adriaen, 220 Bloemaert, Hendrick, 172 Blommers, B. J., 205, 207, 238 Bloot, Pieter de, 133 Bock, Théophile de, 208, 238 Bode, quoted, 14, 15, 18, 48 Boel, Pieter, 103, 152, 251 Boeyermans, Theodoor, 103 Bol, Ferdinand, 21-23, 126, 255, 260 Bol, Ferdinand, Portrait of, 122 Bolen, van, 102 Bollongier. _See_ Boulengier, Hans. Boone, Daniel, 137 Boonen, Arnold, 82 Borman, J., 159 Borselen, van, 208 Borssom, A. van, 159 Bosboom, 208 Bosboom, Johannes, 188, 205, 242 Bosch (Hieronymus van Aeken), 184 Bosch, Jerome, 172 Bosch, L. J. van den, 156 Bosschaert, Ambrosius, 156 Bosse, Mevrouw Bilders van, 208 Both, Andreas (or Andries), 31, 34, 146 Both, Jan (or Johannes), 31, 34-36, 46, 145, 146, 220, 224, 233, 246 Boudwijns, N., 225 Boulengier (or Bollongier), Hans, 156, 157, 269 Bourdon, Sebastian, 184 Bourse, Esaias, 137 Bout, Pieter, 220, 225 Bouts, Dierick (or Dirck), 271 Braekeleer, F. der, 188 Brakenburgh (or Brakenburg), Richard, 169, 171, 268 Bramer, Leonard, 185 Brandt, Isabella, 100, 101 Brassauw, Mechior, 185 Breakfast, The (Metsu), 182 Bredael, Pieter van, 103 Bredius, quoted, 10, 18, 21, 42-44, 65, 68, 70, 71, 100, 154 Breenborch, B., 31 Breitner, G. H., 205, 207 Brekelenkam, Q. G., 166, 167 Breughel, Abraham, 251 Breughel, Jan ("Velvet"), 57, 153, 234 Breughel, Jan, the Elder, 36, 102, 184, 186, 190, 234 Breughel, Pieter, III., 104 Bril, Paul, 46 Brisé, C., 157 Broeck, Elias van den, 157,252 Bronckhorst, Jan van, 223 Brouwer, Adriaen, 66, 68, 83, 85, 105, 119, 134, 135, 215 Bull (Paul Potter), 9, 10 Burgh, R. van der, 159 Burgher, quoted, 10, 14, 25-26, 37, 41, 101, 106, 126, 128, 129, 144, 154, 173-174, 175, 177, 180, 243 Burgomasters Deliberating with Regard to the Visit of Marie de Médici (T. de Keijser), 19-21 Byler, Jan van, 227 C Campen, Jacob van, 3 Camphuysen, Govert, 237 Candlelight Scenes, 63, 64, 163 Capelle, Jan van de, 55 Carree, M., 235 Cascades (Ruisdael), 41, 42, 129 Cate, Hendrik Gerrit Ten, 188 Cate, Herman Ten, 205, 206 Cattle (A. Cuijp), 143 Cels, Cornelis, 260 Ceulen, C. J. van, 260 Champaigne, P. van, 260 Chase, The (A. van de Velde), 141 Chattel, Du, 208 Chemical laboratories, pictures of, 135 Chinese Boudoir, 191 Civic Guard Banquet (B. van der Helst), 123, 124 Claen, Jacques de, 216 Claez, Pieter, 98, 216 Codde, Pieter, 133, 185 Coene, Constantinus, 188 Coignet, Gilles, 29, 30 Collections in the Rijks, 191 Colonial Museum, 216 Compe, Jan Ten, 188 Conflagrations, pictures of, 149, 190, 236 Coninck, David de, 155, 156 Conversation pictures, 6, 68, 70, 262 Coques, Gonzales, 103, 104, 175 Cornelissen, Jacob, 185 Cornelisz, Cornelis, 28, 29, 33, 156 Corporation pictures, 125-127, 215, 216 Cossiers, Jan, 103 Cows in a Shady Nook (Mauve), 238 Crabeth, Wouter, the Younger, 133 Cradle, By the (Neuhuys), 202 Craeyer, Gasper de, 185 Croos, 188 Crowe, quoted, 36, 39, 40, 51-54, 58, 66, 67, 75, 80, 92, 93, 139, 140, 175, 214, 215 Cuijp, Aelbert, 37, 141-143, 148, 149, 171, 236, 243, 251, 270 Cuijp, Benjamin G., 143, 144, 184 Cuijp, Gerrit Gerritsz, 143 Cuijp, Jacob G., 34, 37, 141, 143, 261 D Dam, Palace on the, 3, 112, 214 Dead Game and Vegetables (Snyders), 152 Decker, Cornelis, 235 Deelen, Dirck (or Dirk) van, 58, 261, 262 Delff, Cornelis J., 156 Delff, Jacobus, 260 Delft, View of (Vermeer), 43, 44 Despatch, The (Ter Borch), 6, 71 Dietz, 187 Dijck, A. van, 6, 102, 121, 126, 184, 260 Dijk, Philip van, 82 Dinner, Picture of a (Tilborgh), 107 Doctor's Visit, The (Jan Steen), 85 _Doelen_ pictures, 125-127 Donck, Gerrit, 232, 233 Dordrecht, View of (Cuijp), 37, 143 Dordrecht (J. van Goyen), 38 Dou (or Dow), Gerrit (or Gerard), 6, 59-64, 74, 75, 77, 78, 80, 87, 138, 162-164, 166, 206, 255 Dou, Gerrit, Portrait of, 122 "Dou of Architectural Painters," The, 187 Dreamer, The (Maes), 138 Drinking Horn, Silver, 123, 191 Droochsloot, Joost C., 104, 105, 216, 236, 237 Drost, Cornelis, 183 Dubbels, Jan, 55, 149 Dujardin, Karel, 31, 35, 36, 56, 126, 127, 144, 145, 175, 225 Dupper Collection, 113 Dupper Hall, 114 Dürer, Albrecht, 260 Dusart, C., 170 Dutch artists in Rome, colony of, 31 Dutch buildings, 191 Dutch garden, 191 "Dutch Hogarth, The," 86 Dutch Kitchen in the Stedelijk Museum, 195 Dutch landscapes, 37-44, 55, 128, 146, 229-231, 235, 237 "Dutch Watteau, The," 86 Duval, Robert, 5 Duyster, Willem Cornelisz, 133 Duyts, Jan de, 103 E Eeckhout (or Eckhout), G. van der (or van den), 23, 155, 183, 226, 260 Eerelman, 209 Ehrenberg, Willem van, 103 Elias, Claes, 11 Elias, N., 127 Elliger, Ottomar, 160 Elsheimer (or Elshaimer, Elzheimer), Adam, 30, 31, 225 Esselens, Jacob, 223 Essen, van, 209 Evening School (Dou), 64, 162, 163 Everdingen, A. van, 46, 55, 129, 216, 231 Eversdijcks, C. W., 254 Eversdijcks, Willem, 254 Eysden, Robbert van, 260 F Fabricius, Karel, 43, 183, 260 Fantasmagories, 157 Farm-house, The Old (Murant), 187 Fergusson, W. G., 159 Fiddler, The (Ostade), 65 Fish markets, pictures of, 240 Fish, pictures of, 98, 156, 157, 159, 240, 252 Fisherman's Children (Israëls), 197 Flamen, 56 Flemalle, Bertholet, 186 Flemish pictures in the Rijks, 184, 185 Flinck, Govert, 122, 125, 126, 183, 260 Floating Feather, The (M. d'Hondecoeter), 89, 154 Floris, Frans, 28 Flowers, pictures of, 8,91-98, 156-158, 248-253 Fourment, Helena, 99-101, 121 Francken, Frans, the Younger, 57, 104, 262 Francken, Frans, II., 184 Francken, Frans, III., 57 French pictures in the Mauritshuis, 8 French pictures in the Rijks, 191 Fromantiou, de, 50 Fruit, pictures of, 8, 91-98, 156-161, 248-253 Fyt, Jan, 88, 152, 153, 155 G Gabriël, 208, 245 Gael, Barent, 37, 47, 131, 241 Gaesbeeck, Adriaen van, 133 Gelder, Aert de, 6 Gelder, N. van, 250 German pictures in the Mauritshuis, 8 German pictures in the Rijks, 184,185 Gheyn, de, 28 Gijselaer, Nicolaes de, 185 Gillemans, J. P., 250 Gilpin, quoted, 27 Glauber, Johannes, 186 Goethe, 167 Gogh, Vincent van, 238 Goltzius, H., 28, 29, 186, 216, 227 Golz, Hubert, 28 Gool, Jan van, 235 Goubau, Antoni, 103 Goyen, Jan van, 6, 35,37, 38, 46, 144, 233, 243, 244 Goyen, Jan van, pupils of, 37-39 Goyen, Marguerite van, 38, 84, 179, 180 Graat, Barend, 185 Grebber, Pieter de, 35 Greef (or Gryff, Grif, Grifir, Gryef), Anton, 89 Gréville, quoted, 157 Grimani, H. Jacobs, 132 Grocer's Shop (F. van Mieris the Younger), 173 Grocer's Shop (W. van Mieris), 78, 79 Gysels, Peter, 103 H Haag, T. P. C., 5 Haanen, G. G., 260 Haarlem, 213 Haarlem Museum, 17 Haarlem, View of (Ruisdael), 41, 42 Haas, J. H. L. de, 208, 238 Hackaert, Jan, 37, 132, 224 Haerlem, C. van, 185 Haerlem, Pieter Claes van, 159 Hagen, Joris van der, 27, 48, 225 Hague Gallery, 5, 8 Hals, Dirck (or Dirk), 119, 249 Hals, Frans, 6, 18, 44, 66, 67, 74, 118, 119, 125, 178,181, 213-215, 260, 270 Hals, Frans, Portrait of Himself and Wife, 119 Hanneman, A., 260 Hanselaere, P. van, 185 Happy Family, The (Jan Steen), 179 Haseleer, Frans, 185 Hauser, 22 Hawking Scene (Wouwermans), 146 Hay-wagon, The (Wouwermans), 91, 249, 250 Heck, C. D. van der, 188, 189 Hecke, J. van den, 103 Hecke, van der, 56 Hecken, A. van der, 133 Heda, G. W., 216 Héda, W. C., 91, 249 Heem, Cornelis de, 92, 249 Heem, David de, 91, 156, 157, 161, 248 Heem, Jan Davidsz (or David) de, 6, 91-94, 156, 157, 248, 249 Heem, Johan de (false signature), 159 Heemskerck, M. van, 184 Heerschop, H., 186 Helst, B. van der, 10, 17, 20, 107, 121-127, 258 Henkes, 208 Herkulens, Mariette, 84 Hermit, The. _See_ Swanevelt. Hermit, The (Dou), 163 Heusch, Willem de, 220 Heyden (or Heyde), Jan van der, 48, 57, 58, 187, 232 Hilverdink, E. A., 189 History of the Netherlands, pictures of the, 195 Hobbema, Meyndert, 37, 130, 131, 230 Homer Reciting His Poems (Rembrandt), 16 Hondecoeter, G. d', 90, 153, 155, 254 Hondecoeter, Gillis d', 153 Hondecoeter, M. d', 6, 56, 88-90, 142, 153, 154, 254 Hondius, Abraham, 253, 254 Honthorst, 21, 121, 134, 216, 258 Honthorst, Portrait of, 122 Hooch, Pieter de, 20, 25, 26, 75, 82, 137, 171, 175, 177, 198 Hoogstraten, S. van, 26, 64, 177, 184 Hoop, van der, Collection, 113, 114 Horse-pond, The (Wouwermans), 146 Houbraken, 6, 77, 158 Houckgeest (or Hoogest), Gerard, 6, 58 House in the Wood, The, 4, 111 Housekeeper, The Good (Dou), 59, 60 Hove, B. T. van, 238, 239 Hove, Hubertus van, 206, 238 Huchtenburgh, Jacob, 222, 223 Huchtenburgh, Johan, 221, 222 Hulst, Frans de, 239 Huntsman's Present, The (Metsu), 181, 182 Huysum, Jan van, 6, 93-95, 97, 160, 161 Hymans, quoted, 77-78 I Industrial Art, Museum of, 216 Insects in art, 96, 98, 156, 158, 159, 250, 251 Interiors in the Boijmans, 261-264 "Inventor of Cascades," 130 Isacsz, Isaac, 185 Israëls, Josef, 197-199, 206 Italian influence on Dutch painters, 27-36 Italian Landscapes, 30, 31, 36, 46, 145, 146, 151, 152, 222-227 Italian pictures in the Mauritshuis, 7, 8 Italian pictures in the Rijks, 184, 185 J Jacobsz, Dirck, 127 Jäger, Gerard de, 238 Jansen, 208 Janson, Johannes, 189 Jester (Hals), 119 Jewish Bride (Rembrandt), 115, 117, 118 Jewish Peddler, Old (Israëls), 197 Jong, Sosselin de, 207 Jongkind, 245 Jordaens, J., 186 Jordaens, Maes's visit to, 24, 25 Jouckeer, 56 K Kaemmerer, 209 Kalff (or Kalf), Willem, 98, 158, 159, 265 Karssen, K., 189 Kate, Mari Ten, 208 Keijser, Theodor de, 121, 122, 143 Keijser, Thomas de, 11, 18-21, 127 Keirinckx, Alexander, 232 Kessel, Jan van, 159, 230 Key, William, 28 Kicking White Horse (Wouwermans), 147 Kitchen, The Good (Teniers), 6, 106 Kitchen utensils, painted by Kalff, 158, 159 Kitchen, Village, 265 Klinkenberg, J. C. C., 7, 189, 205, 208, 243 Kloster, E., 189 Kobell, 207 Koekkoek, H., 207, 247 Koninck, Jacob, 235 Koninck, Philip, 26, 27, 171 Koninck, Salomon, 23, 24, 32, 266 Korff, Bakker, 208 "Krabbetje." _See_ Asselijn. Kruseman, C., 185 Kruseman, J. A., 185 Kuyl, G., van der, 133 L Lachtropius, N., 160 Lady at the Clavecin (Molenaer), 181 Lady with a Parrot (A. de Vois), 165 Laen, D. J. van der, 189 Laer, P. de, 135 Lairesse, G. de, 35, 79, 127, 186 Lamme, Cornelia, 267 Lampson, D., 28 Landscapes. _See_ Dutch Landscapes and Italian Landscapes. Lastman, Pieter, 33, 185, 226 Leducq, Jean, 56 Leemans (or Leemens), A., 99, 159 Leenhoff, F., statuette of Israëls by, 197 Leeuw, P. van der, 235 Leeuw, S. van der, 235 Leichert, C. H. J., 239, 240 Lemke, quoted, 44 Lievens, Jan, 33 Lijs, Jan, 132, 133 Limborch, H. van, 228 Limborgh, H. van, 186 Lingelbach, J., 51, 52, 55, 56, 222 Lingelbach, J., figures by, 26, 36, 37, 45-47, 57, 131, 148, 220, 224, 225, 230, 241 "Little Van Dijck, The," 104 Loffelt, A. C., quoted, 196 Lombard, Lambert, 28 "Long Peter." _See_ Aertsen. Looten, Jan, 234 Lorme, A. de, 261 Lorraine, Claude, 33, 34, 45, 224 M Maartsen, Jan, 220 Maas, Dirk, 220 Maes, Evert C. van der, 227 Maes, Nicholas, 22, 24-26, 44, 122, 137, 138, 257 Man, Cornelus de, 263 Man, L. G., 247 Mans, Fredericus, 247 Marines in the Boijmans, 246-247 Marines in the Mauritshuis, 8, 52, 56 Marines in the Rijks, 149, 150 Marines in the Stedelijk, 203, 204 Maris, J., 200, 201, 208 Maris, Matthys, 202 Maris, Willem, 201, 208 Marius, G. H., quoted, 200-202 Marrel, Jacob, 158 Marseus. _See_ Schrieck. Marshy Landscape (Roelofs), 199 "Marvel of Her Century, The," 159 "Master of the Half-Length Female Figures," 271 Maurice (or Maurits) of Nassau, Prince, and portraits of, 3, 121, 256 Mauritshuis, The, 3, 112 Mauve, Anton, 195-197, 208, 238 Meer, Jan van der, the Younger, 173 Meer, Van der, 174 Meer, Jan van der, 238, 239 Meer, Madame van der, Portrait of, 118 Memling, 46 Menagerie, A (Jan Steen), 86 Mesdag, H. W., 203, 204, 247, 248 Metsu, Gabriel, 6, 20, 68-75, 77, 78, 82, 83, 85, 181, 182, 258 Michau, Theobald, 236 Michel, Emile, quoted, 13 Mierevelt, Michael, 11, 16, 21, 120, 121, 256 Mieris, F. van, 6, 76-78, 173, 240 Mieris, Willem van, 76, 78-80, 173 Mignon, Abraham, 92, 94, 160, 161, 252 _Mignon au Chat_, 160 Mirrored Cow (Potter), 9, 10 Modern Dutch Art, 205-209, 238 Modern pictures in the Stedelijk, 204, 205 Moeyaert, Nicolas, 32, 133 Molenaer, Jan Miense, 181, 264 Molenaer, Nicolaas, 234 Molyn (or Molijn), Pieter, 55, 234 Mommers, Hendrick, 225 Moni, Louis de, 82, 138 Moonlight Scenes, 149 Moor, K. de, 63 Moreelse, Paulus, 119, 120, 127, 227, 228 Moreelse's portrait of himself, 6, 21 Moro, A., 20, 21 Mostert, Jan, 254 Moucheron, F. R. de, 36, 46, 48, 223 Murant, Emanuel, 187, 234 Musscher, M. van, 169, 170 "Mute of Kampen, The," 149 Muys, N., 266, 267 Mytens, 255 Mythological pictures in the Mauritshuis, 8, 29-34 Mythological pictures in the Rijks, 185-187 N Nason, Pieter, 256 Neeffs, Pieter, 57 Neeffs, Pieter the Elder, 57, 58, 189, 190, 242 Neer, A. van der, 148, 149, 231 Neer, Eglon van der, 57, 81, 266 Neo-Classic School, French, 205 Netscher, Caspar, 21, 22, 71, 72, 136, 137, 235, 257 Neuhuys, Albert, 202 Night Watch, The (Rembrandt), 112, 115, 116 Noort, Pieter, 156 Nymegen, G. van, 232 O Ochtervelt, Jacob van, 82, 262 Olis, Jan, 134 Ommeganck, Maria J., 237 Oosterwyck, Maria van, 93 Operator, The (Jan Steen), 269, 270 Opzoomer, Simon, 256 Orange, Princes of, 4 Orley, Bernard van, 272 Orpheus (Potter), 139 Os, Georgius, J. J. van, 162, 237, 252 Os, Jan van, 162 Os, Marie M. van, 162 Os, Peter G. van, 162, 236, 237 Os, Pieter F. van, 236 Ostade, Adriaen van, 47, 64-68, 74, 83, 85, 107, 135, 168, 169, 231, 258 Ostade, Isaak van, 170, 231 Oudenrogge, Johannes van, 134 Overschie in Moonlight (Jongkind), 245 P Palamedesz, A., 261 Pape, Abraham de, 80 Parrot Cage (Jan Steen), 178, 179 Paternal Advice (Ter Borch), 167 Pavilion Hall, 114 Paviljoen Welgelegen, 112, 216 Peleus and Thetis, Marriage of, (Bloemaert), 34, 35 Pencz, George, 266 Physicians, Jan Steen's, 84, 85 Picture Gallery, picture of a (Coques), 103, 104 Pierson, Christoffel, 98, 99 Pinas, Jan, 33 Poel, Egbert van der, 135, 190, 236 Poelemburg (Poelenburg, or Poelenburgh), Cornelis van, 30, 31, 148, 220, 223, 232 Poll Collection, van der, 113 Poll Hall, van der, 114 Pompe, Gerrit, 244 Pool, Juriaan, 257 Pork Butcher, The (Victors), 182, 183 Portrait of a Girl (Vermeer), 44, 45 Portrait of F. van Mieris and his wife, 6, 76 Portrait of Sieur de Roovere (Cuijp), 37 Portrait of Ter Borch by himself, 71 Portrait Hall in the Rijks, 114, 128 Portraits, F. Hals, 214 Portraits in the Boijmans, 254-261 Portraits in the Mauritshuis, 8, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 37, 71, 75, 76, 80, 99, 100-102 Portraits in the Rijks, 118-122, 145 Post, Frans, 3 Post, Pieter, 3 Pot, Hendrik, 17 Potter, Paul, 9, 10, 138, 139 Potter, Paul, portraits of, 10, 107 Potter, Pieter Symonsz, 10, 156 Pourbus, Pieter, 256 Presentation in the Temple (Rembrandt), 13, 14 Princess, The Little (Moreelse), 119, 120 Pynacker (or Pijnacker), Adam, 36, 46, 145, 222 Q Quack Doctor (of the school of F. Hals), 270 Quast, Peter J., 135 Queborn, C. van den, 255 Quellinus, E., 265 Quinckhard, Julius, 138 R "Ramelaer." _See_ Coninck, David de. Ravesteyn, J. A. van, 16, 17, 21 Realistic School, 207 Reekers, H., 253 Regent pictures, 125-127, 213, 214 Reinst, G., 145 Rembrandt, 11-16, 27, 28, 125 Rembrandt, compared with Dou, 61 Rembrandt, compared with Hals, 215 Rembrandt, masters of, 33 Rembrandt, portraits by, 15, 16 Rembrandt, pupils of, 21, 23, 24, 26, 32 Reptiles, pictures of, 98, 157, 158 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, quoted, 6, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 40, 43, 51, 55, 62, 81, 83, 91, 100, 102, 107, 124, 150, 161, 252 Rijck, Pieter C. van, 132 Rijks Museum, 111-113 Rinder, Frank, 45 Ring, Pieter de, 98, 157 River Scenes, 242-245 _Robe de Satin_ (Ter Borch), 69, 167 Roelofs, Willem, 199, 207, 238 Roepel, Conrad, 162 Roestraeten, Pieter, 98 Romantic School, 205, 206 Ronner-Knip, Henrietta, 208 Roosenboom, Margaretha, 253 Rooses, Max, 205-209 Rubens, 99-102, 121, 185 Rubens, wives of, 99-101 Ruijsch, Rachel, 95, 96, 250 Ruijsch, Rachel, Portrait of, 257 Ruijven, Pieter Jan, 156 Ruisdael, Izack van, 229, 230 Ruisdael, Jacob, 37, 39-43, 128, 229 Ruisdael, Salomon, 37, 39, 130, 243 Ruth and Boaz (Rembrandt), 115, 116 Ruyter, Admiral de, Portrait of (Bol), 23 Ruyter, Engel de, Portrait of (Bol), 23 Ryckaert, D., 266 S Saenredam, Pieter, 58, 242 Saenredam, Pieter Jansz, 190 Saftleven, Cornelis, 134 Saftleven, Hermann, 39 Saint Nicholas, Eve of (Jan Steen), 180, 181 Saint Nicholas, Feast of (Brakenburgh), 171 Saint Nicholas, Feast of (Jan Steen), 269 Santvoort, Dirk van, 255 Saskia van Ulenborgh, 14, 15 Satin Dress, The (Ter Borch), 167 Savery, Roelandt, 152, 153 Schalcken, G., 63, 64, 163, 164 Scheffer, Arie (or Ary), 267, 268 Scheffer, Hendrik, 268 Scheffer, J. B., 267 Schelfhout, Andreas, 247 Scheveningen, Coast of (A. van de Velde), 150, 151 Schipperus, Pieter A., 237, 238 School, Early Netherlands, 271, 272 Gray, 196 Leyden, 59 Romantic, 205, 206 Utrecht, 34 Schotel, J. C., 246 Schrieck, Otto Marcellis van, 98, 157, 251 Schurman, Anna Maria van, 159 Schuttersmaaltijd (B. van der Helst), 123 Seghers, D., 98, 249 Seghers, F., 250 Sheep on the Dunes (Mauve), 195 Shells, picture of, 98 Shepherds and Flocks (Cuijp), 142 Shepherds and Flocks (Potter), 139 Sick Lady (Hoogstraten), 177 Simeon in the Temple (Rembrandt), 13, 14 Skates, Repairing (Bisschop), 202 Slabbaert, Karel, 136 Slingelandt, P. C. van, 164 Smissaert, H., quoted, 199, 204 Snijders (or Snyders), Frans, 102, 152 "Snuffelaer, De." _See_ Schrieck. Soap Bubbles (F. van Mieris), 6, 76 Sonjé, Johannes, 244 Sorgh, Hendrik M., 264, 265 Spanish pictures in the Mauritshuis, 8 Spinner, The (Maes), 137, 138 Stedelijk Museum, 195-209 Steen, Jan, 38, 76, 82-86, 178-181, 269, 270 Steen, Jan, family of, 84 Steen, Jan, Portrait of, 122 Steenbergen, A., 253 Steenwyck, Hendrik van, II., 57 Steenwyck, Pieter H. van, 189 Still Life in the Boijmans, 248, 265 Still Life in the Mauritshuis, 8, 98 Still Life in the Rijks, 152, 153, 156-162 Stolker, Jan, 258 Storck, Abraham, 55, 56, 246 Storck, Jan, 246 Straaten, Bruno van, 236 Stry, Abraham van, 270 Sunrise on the Dutch Coast (Mesdag), 248 Susanna (Rembrandt), 14, 15 Swanevelt, Herman, 33 Syndics (Rembrandt), 112, 115, 116, 117, 128 T Tap Room (Jan Steen), 85, 86 Tavern Interior (Ostade), 169 Tedesco. _See_ Elsheimer, Adam. Tempel, A. van den, 259 Temptation of St. Anthony (Teniers), 172 Teniers, David, the Younger, 66, 105-107, 171, 172 Ter Borch (or Terburg), 69, 70, 167, 168 Ter Borch, portrait of, 122 Ter Meulen, 208 Teyler Museum, 216 Tilborch, Gilles, 107, 263 Town Hall, Haarlem, 213-216 Toys in the Rijks, 191 Trippenhuis, The, 112, 216 Troost, Cornelis, 86-88, 143, 268 Tulp, Dr. N., 11 Turkey and a Cock, Fight between a (Cuijp), 142 U Ulft, Jacob van der, 31, 32, 58, 188, 228 Utrecht, Adriaen van, 153 V _Vache qui se mire_ (Paul Potter), 6, 9, 10 Velde, Adriaen van de, 45, 47-49, 139-140, 231 Velde, Adriaen van de, figures by, 57, 220, 223, 224 Velde, E. van de, 37, 39, 149, 221, 233 Velde, Willem van de, 23, 52-55, 150, 247 Velde, Willem van de, the Elder, 54, 150 Verboom, A. H., 232 Verheijen, Jan H., 242 Verkolje, Johannes, 182, 259 Vermeer of Delft, 43, 44 Verschuier, Lieve, 245 Verschuring, Hendrick, 233, 234 Vertin, P. G., 239 Veth, J., 197-199 Victors, Jan, 182, 183 View on the Y (W. van de Velde), 53 Vijver, The, 3, 6, 7 Vijver, View of the (Klinkenberg), 243 Vinck Boons, D., 104, 105 Vlieger, Simon de, 56 Vliet, Hendrik van, 52, 242 Vliet, H. C. van, 190 Vliet, J. J. van, 259 Vois, Arie de, 80, 165, 166 Vonck, Jan, 155 Vos, C., 228 Vos, Jan de, 258 Vos, Maria, 253 Vos, Simon de, 259 Vosmaer, 233 Vrancx, Sebastian, 221 Vriendt, Frans Floris de, 229 Vries, Jan Vriedeman de, 57 Vrolijk, J., 208 W Walscapelle, Jacob, 93 Watermills (Hobbema), 130 Weenix, Jan, 90, 91, 155, 252 Weenix, J. B., 151, 152, 225 Weijden (or Weyden), Rogier van, 226, 271 Weissenbruch, J. H., 237 Werff, A. van der, 81 Werff, Pieter van der, 227, 259 Wijck (or Wyck), Thomas, 135, 265 Wijnants (or Wynants), Jan, 37, 43-47, 147-148 Wijngaerdt, A. J. van, 237 Wild Boar Hunt (Berchem), 36 Willaerts, Adam, 245 Willaerts, Isaac, 245 William III., portrait of, 163 William V. of Orange, 5, 111 Windmills, The two (J. Maris), 200 Winghen, Joos van, 132 Winter in Friesland (Bisschop), 202 Wit, Jacob de, 228 Witte, Emanuel de, 58, 190, 240 Wolfert, J. B., 136 Woman Reading (Van der Meer), 173, 174 Wonder, Pieter C., 240 Wouwermans, Jan, 234 Wouwermans, Philips, 47, 49-51, 146, 147, 233 Wouwermans, Pieter, 147 Y Y at Amsterdam (W. van der Velde), 150 Ykens, F., 250 Young Lady who is Ill (Jan Steen), 84, 85, 180 Z Zeeman, Reinier, 246 Zilcken, 200 Zimmerman, J. W. G., 260 +----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Notes: | | | | Obvious punctuation errors repaired. | | | | Printer errors corrected. These include: | | - Page 59, word "foregound" corrected to be "foreground" (in | | the foreground) | | - Page 114, word "Musuem" corrected to be "Museum" (Van der | | Hoop Museum) | | - Page 117, word "Snydics" corrected to be "Syndics" (The five | | Syndics) | | - Page 121, word "Portaits" corrected to be "Portraits" | | (Portraits by Honthorst) | | - Page 175, word "juciness" corrected to be "juiciness" | | (softness and juiciness) | | - Page 197, word "Zantvoort" corrected to be "Zandvoort" | | (Zandvoort, near Haarlem) | | - Page 203, word "Hinloopen" corrected to be "Hindeloopen" | | (town of Hindeloopen) | | - Page 256, word "Nienwpoort" corrected to be "Nieuwpoort" | | (victory of Nieuwpoort) | | | | Index entries that do not match their referred text have been | | corrected (except if the referred text is an obvious typo). | | These include: | | - Index entry "Beijren" corrected to be "Beijeren" | | - Index entry "Binnerhof" corrected to be "Binnenhof" | | - Index entry "Boreelen" corrected to be "Borselen" | | - Index entry "Burgomasters ---- Medici" corrected to be | | "---- Médici" | | - Index entry "Candlelight" corrected to be "Candle-light" | | - Index entry "Floating ---- d'Hondécoeter)" corrected to | | be "---- d'Hondecoeter)" | | - Index entry "Heda, W. C." corrected to be "Héda, ----" | | - Index entry "Hove, Huburtus" corrected to be "---- Hubertus" | | - Index entry "Menagarie" corrected to be "Menagerie" | | - Index entry "Polemburg (Polenburg, Polenburgh, or | | Poelenburg)" corrected to be "Poelemburg (Poelenburg, or | | Poelenburgh)" | | - Index entry "Portraits ---- Boijmars" corrected to be "---- | | Boijmans" | | - Index entry "Reeckers" corrected to be "Reekers" | | - Index entry "Ruisdael, Isack" corrected to be "---- Izack" | | - Index entry "Schelthout" corrected to be "Schelfhout" | | - Index entry "Sonje" corrected to be "Sonjé" | | - Index entry "Sorg" corrected to be "Sorgh" | | - Index entry "Watermills" should be "Water Mill" | | - Index entry "Weijden ---- Roger" corrected to be "---- | | Rogier" | | - Index entry "Zilchen" corrected to be "Zilcken" | | | | The book's variable spelling has been kept. This includes: | | (Note: Where the variable spelling has been described in the | | text or Index, it is omitted from the below list.) | | - Both "bare-headed" and "bareheaded" | | - Both "chimney-piece" and "chimney piece" | | - Both "farm-house" and "farmhouse" | | - Both "fish-wives" and "fishwives" | | - Both "halberds" and "halberts" | | - Both "Heeren-Gracht" and "Heerengracht" | | - Both "merry-making" and "merrymaking" | | - Both "Oude Hoofdpoort" and "Oudehoofdpoort" | | - Both "sea-shore" and "seashore" | | - Both "table-cloth" and "tablecloth" | | - Both "town-hall" and "town hall" | | - Both "water-mill" and "water mill" | | - Both "Aart" and "Aert" van der Neer | | - Both "Albert" and "Albrecht" Dürer | | - "Albert," "Aldert," and "Allart" van Everdingen | | - "Bartelmees," "Bartholomew," and "Bartholomeus" van Bassen | | - Both "Boijmans" and "Boijman's" Museum | | - Both "Carel Fabritius" and "Karel Fabricius" (or vice versa) | | - Both Dirk van "der Waeijen" and "Walijen" | | - "Dr. J. Deyman," "Dr. J. Deyment," and "Prof. Deeman" | | - Both "Esais" and "Esaias" van de Velde | | - Both "Eversdijck" and "Eversdijcks" | | - Frans "Snijders," "Snyders," "Snyder," and "Synders" | | - Both "Frederik Hendrik" and "Frederick Henry" (or vice versa)| | - Both "Gabriël" and "Gabriel" (NOT Metsu) | | - Both "Gérard" and "Gerard" de Lairesse | | - Both "Helena Fourment" and "Eleanor Forman" | | - Both "Henricus" and "Hendrik" Goltzius | | - Both "Hondecoeter" and "Hondekoeter" | | - Both "Isaac" and "Izack van" Ruisdael | | - Both Jacob "Gerritz" and "Gerritsz" Cuijp | | - Both Jan "Vredeman" and "Vriedeman" de Vries | | - Both "Lievens" and "Lievensz" | | - Both "Ludolf" and "Lodewijk" Backhuysen/ Bakhuysen | | - Both "Marguerite" and "Margarita" van Goyen | | - Both "Matthys" and "Thys" Maris | | - Both "Michelangelo" and "Michael Angelo" | | - Both "Moeyaert" and "Moijaert" | | - Both "Nicholas Eliasz" and "Nicolaes Elias" | | - Both "Nicholas" and "Nicolaes" Berchem | | - "Nicholas" and "Nicholaes" de Helt "Stocade," "Stokade," and | | "Stockade" | | - Both "Otho Marcellis" and "Otto Marseus" (or vice versa) van | | Schrieck | | - Both "Peter Gerhardus" and "Pieter Gerardus" van Os | | - Both "Quinkhard" and "Quinckhard" | | - Both "Rottenhamer" or "Rottenhammer" | | - Both "Ruisdael" and "Ruysdael" | | - Samuel van "Hoogstraten," "Hoogstraaten," and "Hooghstraten" | | - Both "Slingelandt" and "Slingerlandt" | | - Both "Tilborch" and "Tilborgh" | | - "Van de Velde," "Van der Velde," and "Vandervelde" | | - "Van der Heyden," "Van der Heyde," and "Venderheyden" | | - "Vanhuysum," "Van Huysum," and "Huysum" | | - "Wijck," "Wyck," and "Wijk" | | - Both "William" and "Willem" de Poorter | | - Both "William" and "Willem" Roelofs | | - Both "Wouvermans" and "Wouwermans" | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 
32362	----	http://www.archive.org/details/livesofmostemine09vasauoft Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected. Hyphenation and accentuation have been made consistent. All other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been retained. Text enclosed by equal signs was in bold face (=bold=). LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT PAINTERS SCULPTORS & ARCHITECTS by GIORGIO VASARI: Volume IX. Michelagnolo to the Flemings 1915 Newly Translated by GASTON Du C. DE VERE. With Five Hundred Illustrations: In Ten Volumes [Illustration: 1511-1574] Philip Lee Warner, Publisher to the Medici Society, Limited 7 Grafton St. London, W. 1912-15 CONTENTS OF VOLUME IX PAGE MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI 1 FRANCESCO PRIMATICCIO 143 TIZIANO DA CADORE 157 JACOPO SANSOVINO 185 LEONE LIONI OF AREZZO 227 DON GIULIO CLOVIO 243 DIVERS ITALIAN CRAFTSMEN STILL LIVING 255 DIVERS FLEMINGS 263 INDEX OF NAMES 273 ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME IX PLATES IN COLOUR FACING PAGE MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI The Holy Family Florence: Uffizi, 1,239 4 TIZIANO DA CADORE The Madonna of the Cherries Vienna: Imperial Gallery, 180 158 TIZIANO DA CADORE Sacred and Profane Love Rome: Borghese Gallery, 147 164 TIZIANO DA CADORE The Duke of Norfolk Florence: Pitti, 92 168 TIZIANO DA CADORE The Education of Cupid Rome: Borghese Gallery, 170 176 PARIS BORDONE The Venetian Lovers Milan: Brera, 105 178 PLATES IN MONOCHROME MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI The Battle of the Centaurs Florence: Museo Buonarroti 8 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI The Angel with the Candlestick Bologna: S. Domenico 10 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Bacchus Florence: Museo Nazionale 12 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Pietà Rome: S. Peter's 14 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Wax Models for the David Florence: Museo Buonarroti 16 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Madonna, Child, and S. John Florence: Museo Nazionale 18 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Young Captive Paris: Louvre 20 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Victory Florence: Museo Nazionale 22 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Moses Rome: S. Pietro in Vincoli 24 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Tomb of Pope Julius II Rome: S. Pietro in Vincoli 24 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI God Dividing the Waters from the Earth Rome: Sistine Chapel 28 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI The Creation of Eve Rome: Sistine Chapel 28 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI The Creation of Adam Rome: Sistine Chapel 32 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI The Fall and the Expulsion Rome: Sistine Chapel 32 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI The Lybian Sibyl Rome: Sistine Chapel 36 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Decorative Figure Rome: Sistine Chapel 38 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI The New Sacristy Florence: S. Lorenzo 40 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Madonna and Child Florence: S. Lorenzo 42 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Giuliano de' Medici Florence: S. Lorenzo 44 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici Florence: S. Lorenzo 44 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Apollo Florence: Museo Nazionale 50 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI The Last Judgment Rome: Sistine Chapel 56 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Charon's Boat Rome: Sistine Chapel 58 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI S. Sebastian Rome: Sistine Chapel 60 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Pietà Florence: Duomo 62 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Stairs of the Palace of the Senators Rome: The Capitol 64 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Court of the Palazzo Farnese Rome 66 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Biblioteca Laurenziana Florence 78 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Pietà Rome: Palazzo Rondanini 84 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI S. Peter's Rome 86 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI S. Peter's Rome 88 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Porta Pia Rome 96 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI S. Maria degli Angeli Rome 98 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Brutus Florence: Museo Nazionale 100 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI Unfinished Figure Florence: Museo Nazionale 106 FRANCESCO PRIMATICCIO Galerie Henry IV Fontainebleau 146 FRANCESCO PRIMATICCIO Escalier du Roi Fontainebleau 148 PELLEGRINO TIBALDI The Adoration of the Shepherds Vienna: Collection of Prince Liechtenstein 152 TIZIANO DA CADORE Ariosto London: National Gallery, 1,944 160 TIZIANO DA CADORE Bacchanal Madrid: The Prado, 450 162 TIZIANO DA CADORE Madonna With Saints and Donor Ancona: S. Domenico 162 TIZIANO DA CADORE Charles V with Dog Madrid: The Prado, 453 166 TIZIANO DA CADORE Pope Paul III Naples: Museo Nazionale 168 TIZIANO DA CADORE Danaë Naples: Museo Nazionale 170 TIZIANO DA CADORE Perseus and Andromeda London: Wallace Collection, 11 172 TIZIANO DA CADORE Philip II Naples: Museo Nazionale 172 TIZIANO DA CADORE Mary Magdalene Naples: Museo Nazionale 174 TIZIANO DA CADORE The Entombment Madrid: The Prado, 464 176 PARIS BORDONE The Fisherman and the Doge Gradenigo Venice: Accademia, 320 180 PARIS BORDONE Portrait of a Woman London: National Gallery, 674 180 ZUCCATI Vision of the Apocalypse Venice: S. Marco 182 JACOPO SANSOVINO S. James Florence: Duomo 190 JACOPO SANSOVINO Bacchus Florence: Museo Nazionale 192 JACOPO SANSOVINO Mars and Neptune Venice: Ducal Palace 196 JACOPO SANSOVINO Library of S. Marco Venice 198 JACOPO SANSOVINO Loggetta Venice 200 JACOPO SANSOVINO Miracle of S. Anthony Padua: S. Antonio 202 ANDREA PALLADIO Palazzo della Comunità Vicenza 210 LEONE LEONI Tomb of Gian Jacopo Medici Milan: Duomo 230 CRISTOFANO SOLARI (IL GOBBO) Eve Milan: Duomo 234 GUGLIELMO DELLA PORTA Tomb of Pope Paul III Rome: S. Peter's 236 GALEAZZO ALESSI Palazzo Grimaldi Genoa 240 GIULIO CLOVIO Pietà Florence: Pitti, 241 246 GIROLAMO SERMONETA Martyrdom of S. Catherine Rome: S. Maria Maggiore 258 JOHANNES CALCAR Portrait of a Man Paris: Louvre, 1,185 266 MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI LIFE OF MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI PAINTER, SCULPTOR, AND ARCHITECT OF FLORENCE While the most noble and industrious spirits were striving, by the light of the famous Giotto and of his followers, to give to the world a proof of the ability that the benign influence of the stars and the proportionate admixture of humours had given to their intellects, and while, desirous to imitate with the excellence of their art the grandeur of Nature in order to approach as near as possible to that supreme knowledge that many call understanding, they were universally toiling, although in vain, the most benign Ruler of Heaven in His clemency turned His eyes to the earth, and, having perceived the infinite vanity of all those labours, the ardent studies without any fruit, and the presumptuous self-sufficiency of men, which is even further removed from truth than is darkness from light, and desiring to deliver us from such great errors, became minded to send down to earth a spirit with universal ability in every art and every profession, who might be able, working by himself alone, to show what manner of thing is the perfection of the art of design in executing the lines, contours, shadows, and high lights, so as to give relief to works of painting, and what it is to work with correct judgment in sculpture, and how in architecture it is possible to render habitations secure and commodious, healthy and cheerful, well-proportioned, and rich with varied ornaments. He was pleased, in addition, to endow him with the true moral philosophy and with the ornament of sweet poesy, to the end that the world might choose him and admire him as its highest exemplar in the life, works, saintliness of character, and every action of human creatures, and that he might be acclaimed by us as a being rather divine than human. And since He saw that in the practice of these rare exercises and arts--namely, in painting, in sculpture, and in architecture--the Tuscan intellects have always been exalted and raised high above all others, from their being diligent in the labours and studies of every faculty beyond no matter what other people of Italy, He chose to give him Florence, as worthy beyond all other cities, for his country, in order to bring all the talents to their highest perfection in her, as was her due, in the person of one of her citizens. [Illustration: MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI: THE HOLY FAMILY (_Florence: Uffizi, 1239. Panel_)] There was born a son, then, in the Casentino, in the year 1474, under a fateful and happy star, from an excellent and noble mother, to Lodovico di Leonardo Buonarroti Simoni, a descendant, so it is said, of the most noble and most ancient family of the Counts of Canossa. To that Lodovico, I say, who was in that year Podestà of the township of Chiusi and Caprese, near the Sasso della Vernia, where S. Francis received the Stigmata, in the Diocese of Arezzo, a son was born on the 6th of March, a Sunday, about the eighth hour of the night, to which son he gave the name Michelagnolo, because, inspired by some influence from above, and giving it no more thought, he wished to suggest that he was something celestial and divine beyond the use of mortals, as was afterwards seen from the figures of his horoscope, he having had Mercury and Venus in the second house of Jupiter, with happy augury, which showed that from the art of his brain and of his hand there would be seen to issue forth works marvellous and stupendous. Having finished his office as Podestà, Lodovico returned to Florence and settled in the village of Settignano, at a distance of three miles from the city, where he had a farm that had belonged to his forefathers; which place abounds with stone and is all full of quarries of grey-stone, which is constantly being worked by stone-cutters and sculptors, who for the most part are born in the place. Michelagnolo was put out to nurse by Lodovico in that village with the wife of a stone-cutter: wherefore the same Michelagnolo, discoursing once with Vasari, said to him jestingly, "Giorgio, if I have anything of the good in my brain, it has come from my being born in the pure air of your country of Arezzo, even as I also sucked in with my nurse's milk the chisels and hammer with which I make my figures." In time Lodovico's family increased, and, being in poor circumstances, with slender revenues, he set about apprenticing his sons to the Guilds of Silk and Wool. Michelagnolo, who by that time was well grown, was placed to be schooled in grammar with Maestro Francesco da Urbino; but, since his genius drew him to delight in design, all the time that he could snatch he would spend in drawing in secret, being scolded for this by his father and his other elders, and at times beaten, they perchance considering that to give attention to that art, which was not known by them, was a mean thing and not worthy of their ancient house. At this time Michelagnolo had formed a friendship with Francesco Granacci, who, likewise a lad, had placed himself with Domenico Ghirlandajo in order to learn the art of painting; wherefore Granacci, loving Michelagnolo, and perceiving that he was much inclined to design, supplied him daily with drawings by Ghirlandajo, who at that time was reputed to be one of the best masters that there were not only in Florence, but throughout all Italy. Whereupon, the desire to work at art growing greater every day in Michelagnolo, Lodovico, perceiving that he could not divert the boy from giving his attention to design, and that there was no help for it, and wishing to derive some advantage from it and to enable him to learn that art, resolved on the advice of friends to apprentice him with Domenico Ghirlandajo. Michelagnolo, when he was placed with Domenico Ghirlandajo, was fourteen years of age. Now he who wrote his life after the year 1550, when I wrote these Lives the first time, has said that some persons, through not having associated with him, have related things that never happened, and have left out many that are worthy to be recorded, and has touched on this circumstance in particular, taxing Domenico with jealousy and saying that he never offered any assistance to Michelagnolo; which is clearly false, as may be seen from an entry by the hand of Lodovico, the father of Michelagnolo, written in one of Domenico's books, which book is now in the possession of his heirs. That entry runs thus: "1488, I record, this first day of April, that I, Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarrota, placed Michelagnolo my son with Domenico and David di Tommaso di Currado for the three years next to come, on these terms and conditions, that the said Michelagnolo shall remain with the above-named persons for the said period of time, in order to learn to paint and to exercise that vocation; that the said persons shall have command over him; and that the same Domenico and David shall be bound to give him in those three years twenty-four florins of full weight, the first year six florins, the second year eight florins, and the third ten florins; in all, the sum of ninety-six lire." And next, below this, is another record, or rather, entry, also written in the hand of Lodovico: "The aforesaid Michelagnolo has received of that sum, this sixteenth day of April, two gold florins in gold. I, Lodovico di Leonardo, his father, have received twelve lire and twelve soldi as cash due to him." These entries I have copied from the book itself, in order to prove that all that was written at that time, as well as all that is about to be written, is the truth; nor do I know that anyone has been more associated with him than I have been, or has been a more faithful friend and servant to him, as can be proved even to one who knows not the facts, neither do I believe that there is anyone who can show a greater number of letters written by his own hand, or any written with greater affection than he has expressed to me. I have made this digression for the sake of truth, and it must suffice for all the rest of his Life. Let us now return to our story. When the ability as well as the person of Michelagnolo had grown in such a manner, that Domenico, seeing him execute some works beyond the scope of a boy, was astonished, since it seemed to him that he not only surpassed the other disciples, of whom he had a great number, but very often equalled the things done by himself as master, it happened that one of the young men who were learning under Domenico copied with the pen some draped figures of women from works by Ghirlandajo; whereupon Michelagnolo took that drawing and with a thicker pen outlined one of those women with new lineaments, in the manner that it should have been in order to be perfect. And it is a marvellous thing to see the difference between the two manners, and the judgment and excellence of a mere lad who was so spirited and bold, that he had the courage to correct the work of his master. That sheet is now in my possession, treasured as a relic; and I received it from Granacci to put in my book of drawings together with others by the same hand, which I received from Michelagnolo. In the year 1550, when Giorgio was in Rome, he showed it to Michelagnolo, who recognized it and was pleased to see it again, saying modestly that he knew more of the art when he was a boy than he did at that time, when he was an old man. Now it happened that when Domenico was at work on the great chapel of S. Maria Novella, one day that he was out Michelagnolo set himself to draw the staging from the reality, with some desks and all the appliances of art, and some of the young men who were working there. Whereupon, when Domenico had returned and seen Michelagnolo's drawing, he said, "This boy knows more about it than I do;" and he was struck with amazement at the novel manner and the novel method of imitation that a mere boy of such tender age displayed by reason of the judgment bestowed upon him by Heaven, for these, in truth, were as marvellous as could have been looked for in the workmanship of a craftsman who had laboured for many years. And this was because all the power and knowledge of the gracious gifts of his nature were exercised by study and by the practice of art, wherefore these gifts produced every day fruits more divine in Michelagnolo, as began to be made clearly manifest in the copy that he executed of a printed sheet by the German Martino, which gave him a very great name. For there had come to Florence at that time a scene by the above-named Martino, of the Devils beating S. Anthony, engraved on copper, and Michelagnolo copied it with the pen in such a manner that it could not be detected, and then painted that same sheet in colours, going at times, in order to counterfeit certain strange forms of devils, to buy fishes that had scales bizarre in colouring; and in that work he showed so much ability, that he acquired thereby credit and fame. He also counterfeited sheets by the hands of various old masters, making them so similar that they could not be detected, for, tinting them and giving them the appearance of age with smoke and various other materials, he made them so dark that they looked old, and, when compared with the originals, one could not be distinguished from the other. Nor did he do this with any other purpose but to obtain the originals from the hands of their owners by giving them the copies, for he admired them for the excellence of their art and sought to surpass them in his own practice; on which account he acquired a very great name. [Illustration: THE BATTLE OF THE CENTAURS (_After the relief by =Michelangelo=. Florence: Museo Buonarroti_) _Alinari_] At that time the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici kept the sculptor Bertoldo in his garden on the Piazza di S. Marco, not so much as custodian or guardian of the many beautiful antiques that he had collected and gathered together at great expense in that place, as because, desiring very earnestly to create a school of excellent painters and sculptors, he wished that these should have as their chief and guide the above-named Bertoldo, who was a disciple of Donato. Bertoldo, although he was so old that he was not able to work, was nevertheless a well-practised master and in much repute, not only because he had polished with great diligence the pulpits cast by his master Donato, but also on account of many castings in bronze that he had executed himself, of battles and certain other small works, in the execution of which there was no one to be found in Florence at that time who surpassed him. Now Lorenzo, who bore a very great love to painting and to sculpture, was grieved that there were not to be found in his time sculptors noble and famous enough to equal the many painters of the highest merit and reputation, and he determined, as I have said, to found a school. To this end he besought Domenico Ghirlandajo that, if he had among the young men in his workshop any that were inclined to sculpture, he might send them to his garden, where he wished to train and form them in such a manner as might do honour to himself, to Domenico, and to the whole city. Whereupon there were given to him by Domenico as the best of his young men, among others, Michelagnolo and Francesco Granacci; and they, going to the garden, found there that Torrigiano, a young man of the Torrigiani family, was executing in clay some figures in the round that had been given to him by Bertoldo. Michelagnolo, seeing this, made some out of emulation; wherefore Lorenzo, seeing his fine spirit, always regarded him with much expectation. And he, thus encouraged, after some days set himself to counterfeit from a piece of marble an antique head of a Faun that was there, old and wrinkled, which had the nose injured and the mouth laughing. Michelagnolo, who had never yet touched marble or chisels, succeeded so well in counterfeiting it, that the Magnificent Lorenzo was astonished; and then, perceiving that, departing from the form of the antique head, he had opened out the mouth after his own fancy and had made a tongue, with all the teeth showing, that lord, jesting pleasantly, as was his wont, said to him, "Surely you should have known that old folks never have all their teeth, and that some are always wanting." It appeared to Michelagnolo, in his simplicity, both fearing and loving that lord, that he had spoken the truth; and no sooner had Lorenzo departed than he straightway broke one of the teeth and hollowed out the gum, in such a manner, that it seemed as if the tooth had dropped out. And then he awaited with eagerness the return of the Magnificent Lorenzo, who, when he had come and had seen the simplicity and excellence of Michelagnolo, laughed at it more than once, relating it as a miracle to his friends. Moreover, having made a resolve to assist and favour Michelagnolo, he sent for his father Lodovico and asked for the boy from him, saying that he wished to maintain him as one of his own children; and Lodovico gave him up willingly. Thereupon the Magnificent Lorenzo granted him a chamber in his own house and had him attended, and he ate always at his table with his own children and with other persons of quality and of noble blood who lived with that lord, by whom he was much honoured. This was in the year after he had been placed with Domenico, when Michelagnolo was about fifteen or sixteen years of age; and he lived in that house four years, which was until the death of the Magnificent Lorenzo in 1492. During that time, then, Michelagnolo had five ducats a month from that lord as an allowance and also to help his father; and for his particular gratification Lorenzo gave him a violet cloak, and to his father an office in the Customs. Truth to tell, all the young men in the garden were salaried, some little and some much, by the liberality of that magnificent and most noble citizen, and rewarded by him as long as he lived. At this time, at the advice of Poliziano, a man eminent in letters, Michelagnolo executed from a piece of marble given to him by that lord the Battle of Hercules with the Centaurs, which was so beautiful that now, to those who study it from time to time, it appears as if by the hand not of a youth but of a master of repute, perfected by study and well practised in that art. It is now in his house, treasured in memory of him by his nephew Leonardo as a rare thing, which indeed it is. That Leonardo, not many years since, had in his house in memory of his uncle a Madonna of marble in low-relief by the hand of Michelagnolo, little more than one braccio in height, in which when a lad, at this same time, wishing to counterfeit the manner of Donatello, he acquitted himself so well that it seems as if by Donatello's hand, save that there may be seen in it more grace and more design. That work Leonardo afterwards gave to Duke Cosimo de' Medici, who treasures it as a unique thing, for we have no other low-relief in sculpture by his hand save that one. Now, returning to the garden of the Magnificent Lorenzo; that garden was full of antiques and richly adorned with excellent pictures, all gathered together in that place for their beauty, for study, and for pleasure. Michelagnolo always had the keys, and he was much more earnest than the others in his every action, and showed himself always alert, bold, and resolute. He drew for many months from the pictures of Masaccio in the Carmine, where he copied those works with so much judgment, that the craftsmen and all other men were astonished, in such sort that envy grew against him together with his fame. It is said that Torrigiano, after contracting a friendship with him, mocked him, being moved by envy at seeing him more honoured than himself and more able in art, and struck him a blow of the fist on the nose with such force, that he broke and crushed it very grievously and marked him for life; on which account Torrigiano was banished from Florence, as has been related in another place. [Illustration: THE ANGEL WITH THE CANDLESTICK (_After =Michelagnolo=. Bologna: S. Domenico_) _Alinari_] When the Magnificent Lorenzo died, Michelagnolo returned to his father's house in infinite sorrow at the death of so great a man, the friend of every talent. There he bought a great piece of marble, and from it carved a Hercules of four braccia, which stood for many years in the Palace of the Strozzi; this was esteemed an admirable work, and afterwards, in the year of the siege, it was sent into France to King Francis by Giovan Battista della Palla. It is said that Piero de' Medici, who had been left heir to his father Lorenzo, having long been intimate with Michelagnolo, used often to send for him when he wished to buy antiques, such as cameos and other carved stones. One winter, when much snow fell in Florence, he caused him to make in his courtyard a statue of snow, which was very beautiful; and he honoured Michelagnolo on account of his talents in such a manner, that his father, beginning to see that he was esteemed among the great, clothed him much more honourably than he had been wont to do. For the Church of S. Spirito in the city of Florence Michelagnolo made a Crucifix of wood, which was placed, as it still is, above the lunette of the high-altar; doing this to please the Prior, who placed rooms at his disposal, in which he was constantly flaying dead bodies, in order to study the secrets of anatomy, thus beginning to give perfection to the great knowledge of design that he afterwards acquired. It came about that the Medici were driven out of Florence, and a few weeks before that Michelagnolo had gone to Bologna, and then to Venice, fearing, as he saw the insolence and bad government of Piero de' Medici, lest some evil thing might befall him from his being the servant of that family; but, not having found any means of living in Venice, he returned to Bologna. There he had the misfortune to neglect, through lack of thought, when entering by the gate, to learn the countersign for going out again, a command having been issued at that time, as a precaution, at the desire of Messer Giovanni Bentivogli, that all strangers who had not the countersign should be fined fifty Bolognese lire; and having fallen into such a predicament, nor having the means to pay, Michelagnolo by chance was seen by Messer Giovan Francesco Aldovrandi, one of the Sixteen of the Government, who had compassion on him, and, having made him tell his story, liberated him, and then kept him in his house for more than a year. One day Aldovrandi took him to see the tomb of S. Dominic, made, as has been related, by Giovanni Pisano and then by Maestro Niccolò dell'Arca, sculptors of olden days. In that work there were wanting a S. Petronio and an Angel holding a candelabrum, figures of about one braccio, and Aldovrandi asked him if he felt himself able to make them; and he answered Yes. Whereupon he had the marble given to him, and Michelagnolo executed them in such a manner, that they are the best figures that are there; and Messer Francesco Aldovrandi caused thirty ducats to be given to him for the two. Michelagnolo stayed a little more than a year in Bologna, and he would have stayed there even longer, in order to repay the courtesy of Aldovrandi, who loved him both for his design and because, liking Michelagnolo's Tuscan pronunciation in reading, he was pleased to hear from his lips the works of Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, and other Tuscan poets. But, since he knew that he was wasting his time, he was glad to return to Florence. [Illustration: BACCHUS (_After =Michelagnolo=. Florence: Museo Nazionale_) _Alinari_] There he made for Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici a S. Giovannino of marble, and then set himself to make from another piece of marble a Cupid that was sleeping, of the size of life. This, when finished, was shown by means of Baldassarre del Milanese to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco as a beautiful thing, and he, having pronounced the same judgment, said to Michelagnolo: "If you were to bury it under ground and then sent it to Rome treated in such a manner as to make it look old, I am certain that it would pass for an antique, and you would thus obtain much more for it than by selling it here." It is said that Michelagnolo handled it in such a manner as to make it appear an antique; nor is there any reason to marvel at that, seeing that he had genius enough to do it, and even more. Others maintain that Milanese took it to Rome and buried it in a vineyard that he had there, and then sold it as an antique to Cardinal San Giorgio for two hundred ducats. Others, again, say that Milanese sold to the Cardinal one that Michelagnolo had made for him, and that he wrote to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco that he should cause thirty crowns to be given to Michelagnolo, saying that he had not received more for the Cupid, and thus deceiving the Cardinal, Lorenzo di Pier Francesco, and Michelagnolo; but afterwards, having received information from one who had seen that the boy was fashioned in Florence, the Cardinal contrived to learn the truth by means of a messenger, and so went to work that Milanese's agent had to restore the money and take back the Cupid. That work, having come into the possession of Duke Valentino, was presented by him to the Marchioness of Mantua, who took it to her own country, where it is still to be seen at the present day. This affair did not happen without some censure attaching to Cardinal San Giorgio, in that he did not recognize the value of the work, which consisted in its perfection; for modern works, if only they be excellent, are as good as the ancient. What greater vanity is there than that of those who concern themselves more with the name than the fact? But of that kind of men, who pay more attention to the appearance than to the reality, there are some to be found at any time. Now this event brought so much reputation to Michelagnolo, that he was straightway summoned to Rome and engaged by Cardinal San Giorgio, with whom he stayed nearly a year, although, as one little conversant with our arts, he did not commission Michelagnolo to do anything. At that time a barber of the Cardinal, who had been a painter, and could paint with great diligence in distemper-colours, but knew nothing of design, formed a friendship with Michelagnolo, who made for him a cartoon of S. Francis receiving the Stigmata. That cartoon was painted very carefully in colours by the barber on a little panel; and the picture is now to be seen in S. Pietro a Montorio in the first chapel on the left hand as one enters the church. The talent of Michelagnolo was then clearly recognized by a Roman gentleman named Messer Jacopo Galli, an ingenious person, who caused him to make a Cupid of marble as large as life, and then a figure of a Bacchus ten palms high, who has a cup in the right hand, and in the left hand the skin of a tiger, with a bunch of grapes at which a little satyr is trying to nibble. In that figure it may be seen that he sought to achieve a certain fusion in the members that is marvellous, and in particular that he gave it both the youthful slenderness of the male and the fullness and roundness of the female--a thing so admirable, that he proved himself excellent in statuary beyond any other modern that had worked up to that time. On which account, during his stay in Rome, he made so much proficience in the studies of art, that it was a thing incredible to see his exalted thoughts and the difficulties of the manner exercised by him with such supreme facility; to the amazement not only of those who were not accustomed to see such things, but also of those familiar with good work, for the reason that all the works executed up to that time appeared as nothing in comparison with his. These things awakened in Cardinal di San Dionigi, called Cardinal de Rohan, a Frenchman, a desire to leave in a city so famous some worthy memorial of himself by the hand of so rare a craftsman; and he caused him to make a Pietà of marble in the round, which, when finished, was placed in the Chapel of the Vergine Maria della Febbre in S. Pietro, where the Temple of Mars used to be. To this work let no sculptor, however rare a craftsman, ever think to be able to approach in design or in grace, or ever to be able with all the pains in the world to attain to such delicacy and smoothness or to perforate the marble with such art as Michelagnolo did therein, for in it may be seen all the power and worth of art. Among the lovely things to be seen in the work, to say nothing of the divinely beautiful draperies, is the body of Christ; nor let anyone think to see greater beauty of members or more mastery of art in any body, or a nude with more detail in the muscles, veins, and nerves over the framework of the bones, nor yet a corpse more similar than this to a real corpse. Here is perfect sweetness in the expression of the head, harmony in the joints and attachments of the arms, legs, and trunk, and the pulses and veins so wrought, that in truth Wonder herself must marvel that the hand of a craftsman should have been able to execute so divinely and so perfectly, in so short a time, a work so admirable; and it is certainly a miracle that a stone without any shape at the beginning should ever have been reduced to such perfection as Nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh. Such were Michelagnolo's love and zeal together in this work, that he left his name--a thing that he never did again in any other work--written across a girdle that encircles the bosom of Our Lady. And the reason was that one day Michelagnolo, entering the place where it was set up, found there a great number of strangers from Lombardy, who were praising it highly, and one of them asked one of the others who had done it, and he answered, "Our Gobbo from Milan." Michelagnolo stood silent, but thought it something strange that his labours should be attributed to another; and one night he shut himself in there, and, having brought a little light and his chisels, carved his name upon it. And truly the work is such, that an exalted spirit has said, as to a real and living figure-- Bellezza ed Onestate E Doglia e Pietà in vivo marmo morte, Deh, come voi pur fate, Non piangete si forte, Che anzi tempo risveglisi da morte; E pur mal grado suo Nostro Signore, e tuo Sposo, Figliuolo, e Padre, Unica Sposa sua, Figliuola, e Madre. From this work he acquired very great fame, and although certain persons, rather fools than otherwise, say that he has made Our Lady too young, are these so ignorant as not to know that unspotted virgins maintain and preserve their freshness of countenance a long time without any mark, and that persons afflicted as Christ was do the contrary? That circumstance, therefore, won an even greater increase of glory and fame for his genius than all his previous works. [Illustration: PIETÀ (_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome: S. Peter's_) _Anderson_] Letters were written to him from Florence by some of his friends, saying that he should return, because it was not unlikely that he might obtain the spoiled block of marble lying in the Office of Works, which Piero Soderini, who at that time had been made Gonfalonier of the city for life, had very often talked of having executed by Leonardo da Vinci, and was then arranging to give to Maestro Andrea Contucci of Monte Sansovino, an excellent sculptor, who was seeking to obtain it. Now, however difficult it might be to carve a complete figure out of it without adding pieces (for which work of finishing it without adding pieces none of the others, save Buonarroti alone, had courage enough), Michelagnolo had felt a desire for it for many years back; and, having come to Florence, he sought to obtain it. This block of marble was nine braccia high, and from it, unluckily, one Maestro Simone da Fiesole had begun a giant, and he had managed to work so ill, that he had hacked a hole between the legs, and it was altogether misshapen and reduced to ruin, insomuch that the Wardens of Works of S. Maria del Fiore, who had the charge of the undertaking, had placed it on one side without troubling to have it finished; and so it had remained for many years past, and was likely to remain. Michelagnolo measured it all anew, considering whether he might be able to carve a reasonable figure from that block by accommodating himself as to the attitude to the marble as it had been left all misshapen by Maestro Simone; and he resolved to ask for it from Soderini and the Wardens, by whom it was granted to him as a thing of no value, they thinking that whatever he might make of it would be better than the state in which it was at that time, seeing that neither in pieces nor in that condition could it be of any use to their building. Whereupon Michelagnolo made a model of wax, fashioning in it, as a device for the Palace, a young David with a sling in his hand, to the end that, even as he had defended his people and governed them with justice, so those governing that city might defend her valiantly and govern her justly. And he began it in the Office of Works of S. Maria del Fiore, in which he made an enclosure of planks and masonry, thus surrounding the marble; and, working at it continuously without anyone seeing it, he carried it to perfect completion. The marble had already been spoilt and distorted by Maestro Simone, and in some places it was not enough to satisfy the wishes of Michelagnolo for what he would have liked to do with it; and he therefore suffered certain of the first marks of Maestro Simone's chisel to remain on the extremity of the marble, some of which are still to be seen. And truly it was a miracle on the part of Michelagnolo to restore to life a thing that was dead. This statue, when finished, was of such a kind that many disputes took place as to how to transport it to the Piazza della Signoria. Whereupon Giuliano da San Gallo and his brother Antonio made a very strong framework of wood and suspended the figure from it with ropes, to the end that it might not hit against the wood and break to pieces, but might rather keep rocking gently; and they drew it with windlasses over flat beams laid upon the ground, and then set it in place. On the rope which held the figure suspended he made a slip-knot which was very easy to undo but tightened as the weight increased, which is a most beautiful and ingenious thing; and I have in my book a drawing of it by his own hand--an admirable, secure, and strong contrivance for suspending weights. [Illustration: WAX MODELS FOR THE DAVID (_After =Michelagnolo=. Florence: Museo Buonarroti_) _Alinari_] It happened at this time that Piero Soderini, having seen it in place, was well pleased with it, but said to Michelagnolo, at a moment when he was retouching it in certain parts, that it seemed to him that the nose of the figure was too thick. Michelagnolo noticed that the Gonfalonier was beneath the Giant, and that his point of view prevented him from seeing it properly; but in order to satisfy him he climbed upon the staging, which was against the shoulders, and quickly took up a chisel in his left hand, with a little of the marble-dust that lay upon the planks of the staging, and then, beginning to strike lightly with the chisel, let fall the dust little by little, nor changed the nose a whit from what it was before. Then, looking down at the Gonfalonier, who stood watching him, he said, "Look at it now." "I like it better," said the Gonfalonier, "you have given it life." And so Michelagnolo came down, laughing to himself at having satisfied that lord, for he had compassion on those who, in order to appear full of knowledge, talk about things of which they know nothing. When it was built up, and all was finished, he uncovered it, and it cannot be denied that this work has carried off the palm from all other statues, modern or ancient, Greek or Latin; and it may be said that neither the Marforio at Rome, nor the Tiber and the Nile of the Belvedere, nor the Giants of Monte Cavallo, are equal to it in any respect, with such just proportion, beauty and excellence did Michelagnolo finish it. For in it may be seen most beautiful contours of legs, with attachments of limbs and slender outlines of flanks that are divine; nor has there ever been seen a pose so easy, or any grace to equal that in this work, or feet, hands and head so well in accord, one member with another, in harmony, design, and excellence of artistry. And, of a truth, whoever has seen this work need not trouble to see any other work executed in sculpture, either in our own or in other times, by no matter what craftsman. Michelagnolo received from Piero Soderini in payment for it four hundred crowns; and it was set in place in the year 1504. In consequence of the fame that he thereby won as a sculptor, he made for the above-named Gonfalonier a most beautiful David of bronze, which Soderini sent to France; and at this time, also, he began, but did not finish, two medallions of marble--one for Taddeo Taddei, which is now in his house, and another that he began for Bartolommeo Pitti, which was presented by Fra Miniato Pitti of Monte Oliveto, a man with a rare knowledge in cosmography and many other sciences, and particularly in painting, to Luigi Guicciardini, who was much his friend. These works were held to be admirable in their excellence; and at this same time, also, he blocked out a statue of S. Matthew in marble in the Office of Works of S. Maria del Fiore, which statue, rough as it is, reveals its full perfection and teaches sculptors in what manner figures can be carved out of marble without their coming out misshapen, so that it may be possible to go on ever improving them by removing more of the marble with judgment, and also to draw back and change some part, according as the necessity may arise. He also made a medallion in bronze of a Madonna, which he cast in bronze at the request of certain Flemish merchants of the Moscheroni family, persons of high nobility in their own country, who paid him a hundred crowns for it, and intended to send it to Flanders. [Illustration: MADONNA, CHILD, AND S. JOHN (_After the relief by =Michelagnolo=. Florence: Museo Nazionale_) _Anderson_] There came to Agnolo Doni, a Florentine citizen and a friend of Michelagnolo, who much delighted to have beautiful things both by ancient and by modern craftsmen, a desire to possess some work by Michelagnolo; wherefore that master began for him a round picture containing a Madonna, who, kneeling on both knees, has an Infant in her arms and presents Him to Joseph, who receives Him. Here Michelagnolo expresses in the turn of the head of the Mother of Christ and in the gaze of her eyes, which she keeps fixed on the supreme beauty of her Son, her marvellous contentment and her lovingness in sharing it with that saintly old man, who receives Him with equal affection, tenderness, and reverence, as may be seen very readily in his countenance, without considering it long. Nor was this enough for Michelagnolo, who, the better to show how great was his art, made in the background of his work a number of nudes, some leaning, some standing, and some seated; and with such diligence and finish he executed this work, that without a doubt, of his pictures on panel, which indeed are but few, it is held to be the most finished and the most beautiful work that there is to be found. When it was completed, he sent it covered up to Agnolo's house by a messenger, with a note demanding seventy ducats in payment. It seemed strange to Agnolo, who was a careful person, to spend so much on a picture, although he knew that it was worth more, and he said to the messenger that forty was enough, which he gave to him. Thereupon Michelagnolo sent them back to him, with a message to say that he should send back either one hundred ducats or the picture. Then Agnolo, who liked the work, said, "I will give him these seventy," but he was not content; indeed, angered by Agnolo's breach of faith, he demanded the double of what he had asked the first time, so that, if Agnolo wanted the picture, he was forced to send him a hundred and forty. It happened that while Leonardo da Vinci, that rare painter, was painting in the Great Council Hall, as has been related in his Life, Piero Soderini, who was then Gonfalonier, moved by the great ability that he saw in Michelagnolo, caused a part of that Hall to be allotted to him; which was the reason that he executed the other façade in competition with Leonardo, taking as his subject the War of Pisa. To this end Michelagnolo was given a room in the Hospital of the Dyers at S. Onofrio, and there he began a vast cartoon, but would never consent that anyone should see it. And this he filled with naked men that were bathing in the River Arno on account of the heat, when suddenly the alarm sounded in the camp, announcing that the enemy were attacking; and, as the soldiers were springing out of the water to dress themselves, there could be seen, depicted by the divine hands of Michelagnolo, some hastening to arm themselves in order to give assistance to their companions, others buckling on their cuirasses, many fastening other armour on their bodies, and a vast number beginning the fray and fighting on horseback. There was, among other figures, an old man who had a garland of ivy on his head to shade it, and he, having sat down in order to put on his hose, into which his legs would not go because they were wet with water, and hearing the cries and tumult of the soldiers and the uproar of the drummers, was struggling to draw on one stocking by force; and, besides that all the muscles and nerves of his figure could be perceived, his mouth was so distorted as to show clearly how he was straining and struggling even to the very tips of his toes. There were also drummers, and figures with their clothes in their arms running to the combat; and there were to be seen the most extravagant attitudes, some standing, some kneeling or bent double, others stretched horizontally and struggling in mid-air, and all with masterly foreshortenings. There were also many figures in groups, all sketched in various manners, some outlined with charcoal, some drawn with strokes, others stumped in and heightened with lead-white, Michelagnolo desiring to show how much he knew in his profession. Wherefore the craftsmen were seized with admiration and astonishment, seeing the perfection of art revealed to them in that drawing by Michelagnolo; and some who saw them, after beholding figures so divine, declare that there has never been seen any work, either by his hand or by the hands of others, no matter how great their genius, that can equal it in divine beauty of art. And, in truth, it is likely enough, for the reason that since the time when it was finished and carried to the Sala del Papa with great acclamation from the world of art and extraordinary glory for Michelagnolo, all those who studied from that cartoon and drew those figures--as was afterwards the custom in Florence for many years both for strangers and for natives--became persons eminent in art, as we have since seen. For among those who studied the cartoon were Aristotile da San Gallo, the friend of Michelagnolo, Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Raffaello Sanzio of Urbino, Francesco Granacci, Baccio Bandinelli, and the Spaniard Alonzo Berughetta, and then there followed Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio, Jacopo Sansovino, Rosso, Maturino, Lorenzetto, Tribolo, who was then a boy, Jacopo da Pontormo, and Perino del Vaga; and all these became excellent Florentine masters. The cartoon having thus become a school for craftsmen, it was taken into the Great Upper Hall in the house of the Medici; and this was the reason that it was left with too little caution in the hands of the craftsmen, insomuch that during the illness of Duke Giuliano, while no one was expecting such a thing, it was torn up and divided into many pieces, as has been related elsewhere, and scattered over various places, to which some pieces bear witness that are still to be seen in Mantua, in the house of M. Uberto Strozzi, a gentleman of that city, where they are treasured with great reverence; and, indeed, they seem to the eye things rather divine than human. [Illustration: YOUNG CAPTIVE (_After =Michelagnolo=. Paris: Louvre_) _Alinari_] The name of Michelagnolo, by reason of the Pietà that he had made, the Giant in Florence, and the cartoon, had become so famous, that in the year 1503, Pope Alexander VI having died and Julius II having been elected, at which time Michelagnolo was about twenty-nine years of age, he was summoned with much graciousness by Julius II, who wished to set him to make his tomb; and for the expenses of the journey a hundred crowns were paid to him by the Pope's representatives. Having made his way to Rome, he spent many months there before he was made to set his hand to any work. But finally the Pope's choice fell on a design that he had made for that tomb, an excellent testimony to the genius of Michelagnolo, which in beauty and magnificence, abundance of ornamentation and richness of statuary, surpassed every ancient or imperial tomb. Whereupon Pope Julius took courage, and thus resolved to set his hand to make anew the Church of S. Pietro in Rome, in order to erect the tomb in it, as has been related in another place. And so Michelagnolo set to work with high hopes; and, in order to make a beginning, he went to Carrara to excavate all the marble, with two assistants, receiving a thousand crowns on that account from Alamanno Salviati in Florence. There, in those mountains, he spent eight months without other moneys or supplies; and he had many fantastic ideas of carving great statues in those quarries, in order to leave memorials of himself, as the ancients had done before him, being invited by those masses of stone. Then, having picked out the due quantity of marbles, he caused them to be loaded on board ship at the coast and then conveyed to Rome, where they filled half the Piazza di S. Pietro, round about S. Caterina, and between the church and the corridor that goes to the Castello. In that place Michelagnolo had prepared his room for executing the figures and the rest of the tomb; and, to the end that the Pope might be able to come at his convenience to see him at work, he had caused a drawbridge to be constructed between the corridor and that room, which led to a great intimacy between them. But in time these favours brought much annoyance and even persecution upon him, and stirred up much envy against him among his fellow-craftsmen. [Illustration: VICTORY (_After =Michelagnolo=. Florence: Museo Nazionale_) _Anderson_] Of this work Michelagnolo executed during the lifetime and after the death of Julius four statues completely finished and eight only blocked out, as will be related in the proper place; and since the work was designed with extraordinary invention, we will describe here below the plan that he adopted. In order to produce an effect of supreme grandeur, he decided that it should be wholly isolated, so as to be seen from all four sides, each side in one direction being twelve braccia and each in the other eighteen, so that the proportions were a square and a half. It had a range of niches running right round the outer side, which were divided one from another by terminal figures clothed from the middle upwards, which with their heads supported the first cornice, and each terminal figure had bound to it, in a strange and bizarre attitude, a naked captive, whose feet rested on a projection of the base. These captives were all provinces subjugated by that Pontiff and rendered obedient to the Apostolic Church; and there were various other statues, likewise bound, of all the noble arts and sciences, which were thus shown to be subject to death no less than was that Pontiff, who made such honourable use of them. On the corners of the first cornice were to go four large figures, the Active and the Contemplative Life, S. Paul, and Moses. The structure rose above the cornice in steps gradually diminishing, with a frieze of scenes in bronze, and with other figures, children and ornaments all around, and at the summit, as a crown to the work, were two figures, one of which was Heaven, who, smiling, was supporting a bier on her shoulder, together with Cybele, the Goddess of Earth, who appeared to be grieving that she was left in a world robbed of all virtue by the death of such a man; and Heaven appeared to be smiling with gladness that his soul had passed to celestial glory. The work was so arranged that one might enter and come out again by the ends of the quadrangular structure, between the niches, and the interior curved in the form of an oval after the manner of a temple, in the centre of which was the sarcophagus wherein was to be laid the dead body of that Pope. And, finally, there were to be in this whole work forty statues of marble, without counting the other scenes, children, and ornaments, the carvings covering the cornices, and the other architectural members of the work. Michelagnolo ordained, to expedite the labour, that a part of the marbles should be conveyed to Florence, where he intended at times to spend the summer months in order to avoid the malaria of Rome; and there he executed one side of the work in many pieces, complete in every detail. In Rome he finished entirely with his own hand two of the captives, figures divinely beautiful, and other statues, than which none better have ever been seen; but in the end they were never placed in position, and those captives were presented by him to S. Ruberto Strozzi, when Michelagnolo happened to be lying ill in his house; which captives were afterwards sent as presents to King Francis, and they are now at Ecouen in France. Eight statues, likewise, he blocked out in Rome, and in Florence he blocked out five and finished a Victory with a captive beneath, which are now in the possession of Duke Cosimo, having been presented by Michelagnolo's nephew, Leonardo, to his Excellency, who has placed the Victory in the Great Hall of his Palace, which was painted by Vasari. He finished the Moses, a statue in marble of five braccia, which no modern work will ever equal in beauty; and of the ancient statues, also, the same may be said. For, seated in an attitude of great dignity, he rests one arm on the Tables, which he holds with one hand, and with the other he holds his beard, which is long and waving, and carved in the marble in such sort, that the hairs--in which the sculptor finds such difficulty--are wrought with the greatest delicacy, soft, feathery, and detailed in such a manner, that one cannot but believe that his chisel was changed into a pencil. To say nothing of the beauty of the face, which has all the air of a true Saint and most dread Prince, you seem, while you gaze upon it, to wish to demand from him the veil wherewith to cover that face, so resplendent and so dazzling it appears to you, and so well has Michelagnolo expressed the divinity that God infused in that most holy countenance. In addition, there are draperies carved out and finished with most beautiful curves of the borders; while the arms with their muscles, and the hands with their bones and nerves, are carried to such a pitch of beauty and perfection, and the legs, knees, and feet are covered with buskins so beautifully fashioned, and every part of the work is so finished, that Moses may be called now more than ever the friend of God, seeing that He has deigned to assemble together and prepare his body for the Resurrection before that of any other, by the hands of Michelagnolo. Well may the Hebrews continue to go there, as they do every Sabbath, both men and women, like flocks of starlings, to visit and adore that statue; for they will be adoring a thing not human but divine. [Illustration: MOSES (_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome: S. Pietro in Vincoli_) _Anderson_] Finally all the agreements for this work were made, and the end came into view; and of the four sides one of the smaller ones was afterwards erected in S. Pietro in Vincola. It is said that while Michelagnolo was executing the work, there came to the Ripa all the rest of the marbles for the tomb that had remained at Carrara, which were conveyed to the Piazza di S. Pietro, where the others were; and, since it was necessary to pay those who had conveyed them, Michelagnolo went, as was his custom, to the Pope. But, his Holiness having on his hands that day some important business concerning Bologna, he returned to his house and paid for those marbles out of his own purse, thinking to have the order for them straightway from his Holiness. He returned another day to speak of them to the Pope, but found difficulty in entering, for one of the grooms told him that he had orders not to admit him, and that he must have patience. A Bishop then said to the groom, "Perhaps you do not know this man?" "Only too well do I know him," answered the groom; "but I am here to do as I am commanded by my superiors and by the Pope." This action displeased Michelagnolo, and, considering that it was contrary to what he had experienced before, he said to the Pope's groom that he should tell his Holiness that from that time forward, when he should want him, it would be found that he had gone elsewhere; and then, having returned to his house, at the second hour of the night he set out on post-horses, leaving two servants to sell all the furniture of his house to the Jews and to follow him to Florence, whither he was bound. Having arrived at Poggibonzi, a place in the Florentine territory, and therefore safe, he stopped; and almost immediately five couriers arrived with letters from the Pope to bring him back. Despite their entreaties and also the letters, which ordered him to return to Rome under threat of punishment, he would not listen to a word; but finally the prayers of the couriers induced him to write a few words in reply to his Holiness, asking for pardon, but saying that he would never again return to his presence, since he had caused him to be driven away like a criminal, that his faithful service had not deserved such treatment, and that his Holiness should look elsewhere for someone to serve him. [Illustration: TOMB OF POPE JULIUS II (_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome: S. Pietro in Vincoli_) _Alinari_] After arriving at Florence, Michelagnolo devoted himself during the three months that he stayed there to finishing the cartoon for the Great Hall, which Piero Soderini, the Gonfalonier, desired that he should carry into execution. During that time there came to the Signoria three Briefs commanding them to send Michelagnolo back to Rome: wherefore he, perceiving this vehemence on the part of the Pope, and not trusting him, conceived the idea, so it is said, of going to Constantinople to serve the Grand Turk, who desired to secure him, by means of certain Friars of S. Francis, to build a bridge crossing from Constantinople to Pera. However, he was persuaded by Piero Soderini, although very unwilling, to go to meet the Pope as a person of public importance with the title of Ambassador of the city, to reassure him; and finally the Gonfalonier recommended him to his brother Cardinal Soderini for presentation to the Pope, and sent him off to Bologna, where his Holiness had already arrived from Rome. His departure from Rome is also explained in another way--namely, that the Pope became angered against Michelagnolo, who would not allow any of his works to be seen; that Michelagnolo suspected his own men, doubting (as happened more than once) that the Pope disguised himself and saw what he was doing on certain occasions when he himself was not at home or at work; and that on one occasion, when the Pope had bribed his assistants to admit him to see the chapel of his uncle Sixtus, which, as was related a little time back, he caused Buonarroti to paint, Michelagnolo, having waited in hiding because he suspected the treachery of his assistants, threw planks down at the Pope when he entered the chapel, not considering who it might be, and drove him forth in a fury. It is enough for us to know that in the one way or the other he fell out with the Pope and then became afraid, so that he had to fly from his presence. Now, having arrived in Bologna, he had scarcely drawn off his riding-boots when he was conducted by the Pope's servants to his Holiness, who was in the Palazzo de' Sedici; and he was accompanied by a Bishop sent by Cardinal Soderini, because the Cardinal, being ill, was not able to go himself. Having come into the presence of the Pope, Michelagnolo knelt down, but his Holiness looked askance at him, as if in anger, and said to him, "Instead of coming yourself to meet us, you have waited for us to come to meet you!" meaning to infer that Bologna is nearer to Florence than Rome. Michelagnolo, with a courtly gesture of the hands, but in a firm voice, humbly begged for pardon, saying in excuse that he had acted as he had done in anger, not being able to endure to be driven away so abruptly, but that, if he had erred, his Holiness should once more forgive him. The Bishop who had presented Michelagnolo to his Holiness, making excuse for him, said to the Pope that such men were ignorant creatures, that they were worth nothing save in their own art, and that he should freely pardon him. The Pope, seized with anger, belaboured the Bishop with a staff that he had in his hand, saying to him, "It is you that are ignorant, who level insults at him that we ourselves do not think of uttering;" and then the Bishop was driven out by the groom with fisticuffs. When he had gone, the Pope, having discharged his anger upon him, gave Michelagnolo his benediction; and the master was detained in Bologna with gifts and promises, until finally his Holiness commanded him that he should make a statue of bronze in the likeness of Pope Julius, five braccia in height. In this work he showed most beautiful art in the attitude, which had an effect of much majesty and grandeur, and displayed richness and magnificence in the draperies, and in the countenance, spirit, force, resolution, and stern dignity; and it was placed in a niche over the door of S. Petronio. It is said that while Michelagnolo was working at it, he received a visit from Francia, a most excellent goldsmith and painter, who wished to see it, having heard so much praise and fame of him and of his works, and not having seen any of them, so that agents had been set to work to enable him to see it, and he had obtained permission. Whereupon, seeing the artistry of Michelagnolo, he was amazed: and then, being asked by Michelagnolo what he thought of that figure, Francia answered that it was a most beautiful casting and a fine material. Wherefore Michelagnolo, considering that he had praised the bronze rather than the workmanship, said to him, "I owe the same obligation to Pope Julius, who has given it to me, that you owe to the apothecaries who give you your colours for painting;" and in his anger, in the presence of all the gentlemen there, he declared that Francia was a fool. In the same connection, when a son of Francia's came before him and was announced as a very beautiful youth, Michelagnolo said to him, "Your father's living figures are finer than those that he paints." Among the same gentlemen was one, whose name I know not, who asked Michelagnolo which he thought was the larger, the statue of the Pope or a pair of oxen; and he answered, "That depends on the oxen. If they are these Bolognese oxen, then without a doubt our Florentine oxen are not so big." Michelagnolo had the statue finished in clay before the Pope departed from Bologna for Rome, and his Holiness, having gone to see it, but not knowing what was to be placed in the left hand, and seeing the right hand raised in a proud gesture, asked whether it was pronouncing a benediction or a curse. Michelagnolo answered that it was admonishing the people of Bologna to mind their behaviour, and asked his Holiness to decide whether he should place a book in the left hand; and he said, "Put a sword there, for I know nothing of letters." The Pope left a thousand crowns in the bank of M. Anton Maria da Lignano for the completion of the statue, and at the end of the sixteen months that Michelagnolo toiled over the work it was placed on the frontispiece in the façade of the Church of S. Petronio, as has been related; and we have also spoken of its size. This statue was destroyed by the Bentivogli, and the bronze was sold to Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, who made with it a piece of artillery called La Giulia; saving only the head, which is to be found in his guardaroba. [Illustration: GOD DIVIDING THE WATERS FROM THE EARTH (_After the fresco by =Michelagnolo=. Rome: The Vatican, Sistine Chapel_) _Anderson_] When the Pope had returned to Rome and Michelagnolo was at work on the statue, Bramante, the friend and relative of Raffaello da Urbino, and for that reason little the friend of Michelagnolo, perceiving that the Pope held in great favour and estimation the works that he executed in sculpture, was constantly planning with Raffaello in Michelagnolo's absence to remove from the mind of his Holiness the idea of causing Michelagnolo, after his return, to devote himself to finishing his tomb; saying that for a man to prepare himself a tomb during his own lifetime was an evil augury and a hurrying on of his death. And they persuaded his Holiness that on the return of Michelagnolo, he should cause him to paint in memory of his uncle Sixtus the vaulting of the chapel that he had built in the Palace. In this manner it seemed possible to Bramante and other rivals of Michelagnolo to draw him away from sculpture, in which they saw him to be perfect, and to plunge him into despair, they thinking that if they compelled him to paint, he would do work less worthy of praise, since he had no experience of colours in fresco, and that he would prove inferior to Raffaello, and, even if he did succeed in the work, in any case it would make him angry against the Pope; so that in either event they would achieve their object of getting rid of him. And so, when Michelagnolo returned to Rome, the Pope was not disposed at that time to finish his tomb, and requested him to paint the vaulting of the chapel. Michelagnolo, who desired to finish the tomb, believing the vaulting of that chapel to be a great and difficult labour, and considering his own want of practice in colours, sought by every means to shake such a burden from his shoulders, and proposed Raffaello for the work. But the more he refused, the greater grew the desire of the Pope, who was headstrong in his undertakings, and, in addition, was being spurred on anew by the rivals of Michelagnolo, and especially by Bramante; so that his Holiness, who was quick-tempered, was on the point of becoming enraged with Michelagnolo. Whereupon Michelagnolo, perceiving that his Holiness was determined in the matter, resolved to do it; and the Pope commanded Bramante to erect the scaffolding from which the vaulting might be painted. Bramante made it all supported by ropes, piercing the vaulting; which having perceived, Michelagnolo inquired of Bramante how he was to proceed to fill up the holes when he had finished painting it, and he replied that he would think of that afterwards, and that it could not be done otherwise. Michelagnolo recognized that Bramante was either not very competent for such a work or else little his friend, and he went to the Pope and said to him that the scaffolding was not satisfactory, and that Bramante had not known how to make it; and the Pope answered, in the presence of Bramante, that he should make it after his own fashion. And so he commanded that it should be erected upon props so as not to touch the walls, a method of making scaffoldings for vaults that he taught afterwards to Bramante and others, whereby many fine works have been executed. Thus he enabled a poor creature of a carpenter, who rebuilt the scaffolding, to dispense with so many of the ropes, that, after selling them (for Michelagnolo gave them to him), he made up a dowry for his daughter. [Illustration: THE CREATION OF EVE (_After the fresco by =Michelagnolo=. Rome: The Vatican, Sistine Chapel_) _Anderson_] He then set his hand to making the cartoons for that vaulting; and the Pope decided, also, that the walls which the masters before him in the time of Sixtus had painted should be scraped clean, and decreed that he should have fifteen thousand ducats for the whole cost of the work; which price was fixed through Giuliano da San Gallo. Thereupon, forced by the magnitude of the undertaking to resign himself to obtaining assistance, Michelagnolo sent for men to Florence; and he determined to demonstrate in such a work that those who had painted there before him were destined to be vanquished by his labours, and also resolved to show to the modern craftsmen how to draw and paint. Having begun the cartoons, he finished them; and the circumstances of the work spurred him to soar to great heights, both for his own fame and for the welfare of art. And then, desiring to paint it in fresco-colours, and not having any experience of them, there came from Florence to Rome certain of his friends who were painters, to the end that they might give him assistance in such a work, and also that he might learn from them the method of working in fresco, in which some of them were well-practised; and among these were Granaccio, Giuliano Bugiardini, Jacopo di Sandro, the elder Indaco, Agnolo di Donnino, and Aristotile. Having made a commencement with the work, he caused them to begin some things as specimens; but, perceiving that their efforts were very far from what he desired, and not being satisfied with them, he resolved one morning to throw to the ground everything that they had done. Then, shutting himself up in the chapel, he would never open to them, nor even allowed himself to be seen by them when he was at home. And so, when the jest appeared to them to be going too far, they resigned themselves to it and returned in shame to Florence. Thereupon Michelagnolo, having made arrangements to paint the whole work by himself, carried it well on the way to completion with the utmost solicitude, labour, and study; nor would he ever let himself be seen, lest he should give any occasion to compel him to show it, so that the desire in the minds of everyone to see it grew greater every day. Pope Julius was always very desirous to see any undertakings that he was having carried out, and therefore became more eager than ever to see this one, which was hidden from him. And so one day he resolved to go to see it, but was not admitted, for Michelagnolo would never have consented to show it to him; out of which affair arose the quarrel that has been described, when he had to depart from Rome because he would not show his work to the Pope. Now, when a third of the work was finished (as I ascertained from him in order to clear up all doubts), it began to throw out certain spots of mould, one winter that the north wind was blowing. The reason of this was that the Roman lime, which is made of travertine and white in colour, does not dry very readily, and, when mixed with pozzolana, which is of a tawny colour, makes a dark mixture which, when soft, is very watery; and when the wall has been well soaked, it often breaks out into an efflorescence in the drying; and thus this salt efflorescence of moisture came out in many places, but in time the air consumed it. Michelagnolo was in despair over this, and was unwilling to continue the work, asking the Pope to excuse him, since he was not succeeding; but his Holiness sent Giuliano da San Gallo to see him, and he, having told him whence the defect arose and taught him how to remove the spots of mould, encouraged him to persevere. Now, when he had finished half of it, the Pope, who had subsequently gone to see it several times (mounting certain ladders with the assistance of Michelagnolo), insisted that it should be thrown open, for he was hasty and impatient by nature, and could not wait for it to be completely finished and to receive, as the saying is, the final touch. No sooner was it thrown open than all Rome was drawn to see it, and the Pope was the first, not having the patience to wait until the dust caused by the dismantling of the scaffolding had settled. Thereupon Raffaello da Urbino, who was very excellent in imitation, after seeing it straightway changed his manner, and without losing any time, in order to display his ability, painted the Prophets and Sibyls in the work of the Pace; and at the same time Bramante sought to have the other half of the chapel entrusted by the Pope to Raffaello. Which hearing, Michelagnolo complained of Bramante, and revealed to the Pope without any reserve many faults both in his life and in his architectural works; of which last, in the building of S. Pietro, as was seen afterwards, Michelagnolo became the corrector. But the Pope, recognizing more clearly every day the ability of Michelagnolo, desired that he should continue the work, judging, after he had seen it uncovered, that he could make the second half considerably better; and so in twenty months he carried that work to perfect completion by himself alone, without the assistance even of anyone to grind his colours. Michelagnolo complained at times that on account of the haste that the Pope imposed on him he was not able to finish it in his own fashion, as he would have liked; for his Holiness was always asking him importunately when he would finish it. On one occasion, among others, he replied, "It will be finished when I shall have satisfied myself in the matter of art." "But it is our pleasure," answered the Pope, "that you should satisfy us in our desire to have it done quickly;" and he added, finally, that if Michelagnolo did not finish the work quickly he would have him thrown down from the scaffolding. Whereupon Michelagnolo, who feared and had good reason to fear the anger of the Pope, straightway finished all that was wanting, without losing any time, and, after taking down the rest of the scaffolding, threw it open to view on the morning of All Saints' Day, when the Pope went into the chapel to sing Mass, to the great satisfaction of the whole city. Michelagnolo desired to retouch some parts "a secco," as the old masters had done on the scenes below, painting backgrounds, draperies, and skies in ultramarine, and ornaments in gold in certain places, to the end that this might produce greater richness and a more striking effect; and the Pope, having learned that this ornamentation was wanting, and hearing the work praised so much by all who had seen it, wished him to finish it; but, since it would have been too long a labour for Michelagnolo to rebuild the scaffolding, it was left as it was. His Holiness, often seeing Michelagnolo, would say to him that the chapel should be enriched with colours and gold, since it looked poor. And Michelagnolo would answer familiarly, "Holy Father, in those times men did not bedeck themselves with gold, and those that are painted there were never very rich, but rather holy men, on which account they despised riches." For this work Michelagnolo was paid by the Pope three thousand crowns on several occasions, of which he had to spend twenty-five on colours. The work was executed with very great discomfort to himself, from his having to labour with his face upwards, which so impaired his sight that for a time, which was not less than several months, he was not able to read letters or look at drawings save with his head backwards. And to this I can bear witness, having painted five vaulted chambers in the great apartments in the Palace of Duke Cosimo, when, if I had not made a chair on which I could rest my head and lie down at my work, I would never have finished it; even so, it has so ruined my sight and injured my head, that I still feel the effects, and I am astonished that Michelagnolo endured all that discomfort so well. But in truth, becoming more and more kindled every day by his fervour in the work, and encouraged by the proficience and improvement that he made, he felt no fatigue and cared nothing for discomfort. [Illustration: THE CREATION OF ADAM (_After the fresco by =Michelagnolo=. Rome: The Vatican, Sistine Chapel_) _Anderson_] The distribution of this work is contrived with six pendentives on either side, with one in the centre of the walls at the foot and at the head, and on these he painted Sibyls and Prophets, six braccia in height; in the centre of the vault the history of the world from the Creation down to the Deluge and the Drunkenness of Noah, and in the lunettes all the Genealogy of Christ. In these compartments he used no rule of perspectives in foreshortening, nor is there any fixed point of view, but he accommodated the compartments to the figures rather than the figures to the compartments, being satisfied to execute those figures, both the nude and the draped, with the perfection of design, so that another such work has never been and never can be done, and it is scarcely possible even to imitate his achievement. This work, in truth, has been and still is the lamp of our art, and has bestowed such benefits and shed so much light on the art of painting, that it has served to illuminate a world that had lain in darkness for so many hundreds of years. And it is certain that no man who is a painter need think any more to see new inventions, attitudes, and draperies for the clothing of figures, novel manners of expression, and things painted with greater variety and force, because he gave to this work all the perfection that can be given to any work executed in such a field of art. And at the present day everyone is amazed who is able to perceive in it the excellence of the figures, the perfection of the foreshortenings, and the extraordinary roundness of the contours, which have in them slenderness and grace, being drawn with the beauty of proportion that is seen in beautiful nudes; and these, in order to display the supreme perfection of art, he made of all ages, different in expression and in form, in countenance and in outline, some more slender and some fuller in the members; as may also be seen in the beautiful attitudes, which are all different, some seated, some moving, and others upholding certain festoons of oak-leaves and acorns, placed there as the arms and device of Pope Julius, and signifying that at that time and under his government was the age of gold; for Italy was not then in the travail and misery that she has since suffered. Between them, also, they hold some medallions containing stories in relief in imitation of bronze and gold, taken from the Book of Kings. [Illustration: THE FALL AND THE EXPULSION (_After the fresco by =Michelagnolo=. Rome: The Vatican, Sistine Chapel_) _Anderson_] Besides this, in order to display the perfection of art and also the greatness of God, he painted in a scene God dividing Light from Darkness, wherein may be seen His Majesty as He rests self-sustained with the arms outstretched, and reveals both love and power. In the second scene he depicted with most beautiful judgment and genius God creating the Sun and Moon, in which He is supported by many little Angels, in an attitude sublime and terrible by reason of the foreshortenings in the arms and legs. In the same scene Michelagnolo depicted Him after the Blessing of the Earth and the Creation of the Animals, when He is seen on that vaulting as a figure flying in foreshortening; and wherever you go throughout the chapel, it turns constantly and faces in every direction. So, also, in the next scene, where He is dividing the Water from the Earth; and both these are very beautiful figures and refinements of genius such as could be produced only by the divine hands of Michelagnolo. He then went on, beyond that scene, to the Creation of Adam, wherein he figured God as borne by a group of nude Angels of tender age, which appear to be supporting not one figure only, but the whole weight of the world; this effect being produced by the venerable majesty of His form and by the manner of the movement with which He embraces some of the little Angels with one arm, as if to support Himself, and with the other extends the right hand towards Adam, a figure of such a kind in its beauty, in the attitude, and in the outlines, that it appears as if newly fashioned by the first and supreme Creator rather than by the brush and design of a mortal man. Beyond this, in another scene, he made God taking our mother Eve from Adam's side, in which may be seen those two nude figures, one as it were dead from his being the thrall of sleep, and the other become alive and filled with animation by the blessing of God. Very clearly do we see from the brush of this most gifted craftsman the difference that there is between sleep and wakefulness, and how firm and stable, speaking humanly, the Divine Majesty may appear. Next to this there follows the scene when Adam, at the persuasion of a figure half woman and half serpent, brings death upon himself and upon us by the Forbidden Fruit; and there, also, are seen Adam and Eve driven from Paradise. In the figure of the Angel is shown with nobility and grandeur the execution of the mandate of a wrathful Lord, and in the attitude of Adam the sorrow for his sin together with the fear of death, as likewise in the woman may be seen shame, abasement, and the desire to implore pardon, as she presses the arms to the breast, clasps the hands palm to palm, and sinks the neck into the bosom, and also turns the head towards the Angel, having more fear of the justice of God than hope in His mercy. Nor is there less beauty in the story of the sacrifice of Cain and Abel; wherein are some who are bringing up the wood, some who are bent down and blowing at the fire, and others who are cutting the throat of the victim; which certainly is all executed with not less consideration and attention than the others. He showed the same art and the same judgment in the story of the Deluge, wherein are seen various deaths of men, who, terrified by the horror of those days, are striving their utmost in different ways to save their lives. For in the faces of those figures may be seen life a prey to death, not less than fear, terror, and disregard of everything; and compassion is visible in many that are assisting one another to climb to the summit of a rock in search of safety, among them one who, having embraced one half dead, is striving his utmost to save him, than which Nature herself could show nothing better. Nor can I tell how well expressed is the story of Noah, who, drunk with wine, is sleeping naked, and has before him one son who is laughing at him and two who are covering him up--a scene incomparable in the beauty of the artistry, and not to be surpassed save by himself alone. [Illustration: THE LYBIAN SIBYL (_After the fresco by =Michelagnolo=. Rome: The Vatican, Sistine Chapel_) _Anderson_] Then, as if his genius had taken courage from what it had achieved up to that time, it soared upwards and proved itself even greater in the five Sibyls and seven Prophets that are painted there, each five braccia or more in height. In all these are well-varied attitudes, beautiful draperies, and different vestments; and all, in a word, are wrought with marvellous invention and judgment, and to him who can distinguish their expressions they appear divine. Jeremiah is seen with the legs crossed, holding one hand to the beard, and resting that elbow on the knee; the other hand rests in his lap, and he has the head bowed in a manner that clearly demonstrates the melancholy, cogitation, anxious thought and bitterness of soul that his people cause him. Equally fine, also, are two little children that are behind him, and likewise the first Sibyl, beyond him in the direction of the door, in which figure, wishing to depict old age, in addition to enveloping her in draperies, he sought to show that her blood is already frozen by time; besides which, since her sight has become feeble, he has made her as she reads bring the book very close to her eyes. Beyond this figure follows the Prophet Ezekiel, an old man, who has a grace and a movement that are most beautiful, and is much enveloped in draperies, while with one hand he holds a roll of prophecies, and with the other uplifted, turning his head, he appears to be about to utter great and lofty words; and behind him he has two boys who hold his books. Next to him follows a Sibyl, who is doing the contrary to the Erythræan Sibyl that we described above, for, holding her book away from her, she seeks to turn a page, while with one knee over the other she sits sunk within herself, pondering gravely over what she is to write; and then a boy who is behind her, blowing on a burning brand, lights her lamp. This figure is of extraordinary beauty in the expression of the face, in the head-dress, and in the arrangement of the draperies; besides which she has the arms nude, which are equal to the other parts. Beyond this Sibyl he painted the Prophet Joel, who, sunk within himself, has taken a scroll and reads it with great attention and appreciation: and from his aspect it is so clearly evident that he is satisfied with that which he finds written there, that he looks like a living person who has applied his thoughts intently to some matter. Over the door of the chapel, likewise, he placed the aged Zaccharias, who, seeking through his written book for something that he cannot find, stands with one leg on high and the other low; and, while the ardour of the search after something that he cannot find causes him to stand thus, he takes no notice of the discomfort that he suffers in such a posture. This figure is very beautiful in its aspect of old age, and somewhat full in form, and has draperies with few folds, which are most beautiful. In addition, there is another Sibyl, who is next in the direction of the altar on the other side, displaying certain writings, and, with her boys in attendance, is no less worthy of praise than are the others. Beyond her is the Prophet Isaiah, who, wholly absorbed in his own thoughts, has the legs crossed over one another, and, holding one hand in his book to mark the place where he was reading, has placed the elbow of the other arm upon the book, with the cheek pressed against the hand; and, being called by one of the boys that he has behind him, he turns only the head, without disturbing himself otherwise. Whoever shall consider his countenance, shall see touches truly taken from Nature herself, the true mother of art, and a figure which, when well studied in every part, can teach in liberal measure all the precepts of the good painter. Beyond this Prophet is an aged Sibyl of great beauty, who, as she sits, studies from a book in an attitude of extraordinary grace, not to speak of the beautiful attitudes of the two boys that are about her. Nor may any man think with all his imaginings to be able to attain to the excellence of the figure of a youth representing Daniel, who, writing in a great book, is taking certain things from other writings and copying them with extraordinary attention; and as a support for the weight of the book Michelagnolo painted a boy between his legs, who is upholding it while he writes, all which no brush held by a human hand, however skilful, will ever be able to equal. And so, also, with the beautiful figure of the Libyan Sibyl, who, having written a great volume drawn from many books, is in an attitude of womanly grace, as if about to rise to her feet; and in one and the same movement she makes as if to rise and to close the book--a thing most difficult, not to say impossible, for any other but the master of the work. And what can be said of the four scenes at the corners, on the spandrels of that vaulting; in one of which David, with all the boyish strength that he can exert in the conquest of a giant, is cutting off his head, bringing marvel to the faces of some soldiers who are about the camp. And so, also, do men marvel at the beautiful attitudes that Michelagnolo depicted in the story of Judith, at the opposite corner, in which may be seen the trunk of Holofernes, robbed of life but still quivering, while Judith is placing the lifeless head in a basket on the head of her old serving-woman, who, being tall in stature, is stooping to the end that Judith may be able to reach up to her and adjust the weight well; and the servant, while upholding the burden with her hands, seeks to conceal it, and, turning her head towards the trunk, which, although dead, draws up an arm and a leg and makes a noise in the tent, she shows in her expression fear of the camp and terror of the dead body--a picture truly full of thought. But more beautiful and more divine than this or any of the others is the story of the Serpents of Moses, which is above the left-hand corner of the altar; for the reason that in it is seen the havoc wrought by death, the rain of serpents, their stings and their bites, and there may also be perceived the serpent of brass that Moses placed upon a pole. In this scene are shown vividly the various deaths that those die who are robbed of all hope by the bite of the serpents, and one sees the deadly venom causing vast numbers to die in terror and convulsions, to say nothing of the rigid legs and twisted arms of those who remain in the attitudes in which they were struck down, unable to move, and the marvellous heads that are shrieking and thrown backwards in despair. Not less beautiful than all these are those who, having looked upon the serpent, and feeling their pains alleviated by the sight of it, are gazing on it with profound emotion; and among them is a woman who is supported by another figure in such a manner that the assistance rendered to her by him who upholds her is no less manifest than her pressing need in such sudden alarm and hurt. In the next scene, likewise, in which Ahasuerus, reclining in a bed, is reading his chronicles, are figures of great beauty, and among them three figures eating at a table, which represent the council that was held for the deliverance of the Jewish people and the hanging of Haman. The figure of Haman was executed by Michelagnolo in an extraordinary manner of foreshortening, for he counterfeited the trunk that supports his person, and that arm which comes forward, not as painted things but as real and natural, standing out in relief, and so also that leg which he stretches outwards and other parts that bend inwards: which figure, among all that are beautiful and difficult, is certainly the most beautiful and the most difficult. [Illustration: DECORATIVE FIGURE (_After the fresco by =Michelagnolo Buonarroti=. Rome: Sistine Chapel_) _Anderson_] It would take too long to describe all the beautiful fantasies in the different actions in the part where there is all the Genealogy of the Fathers, beginning with the sons of Noah, to demonstrate the Genealogy of Jesus Christ, in which figures is a variety of things that it is not possible to enumerate, such as draperies, expressions of heads, and an infinite number of novel and extraordinary fancies, all most beautifully considered. Nothing there but is carried into execution with genius: all the figures there are masterly and most beautifully foreshortened, and everything that you look at is divine and beyond praise. And who will not be struck dumb with admiration at the sight of the sublime force of Jonas, the last figure in the chapel, wherein by the power of art the vaulting, which in fact springs forward in accord with the curve of the masonry, yet, being in appearance pushed back by that figure, which bends inwards, seems as if straight, and, vanquished by the art of design with its lights and shades, even appears in truth to recede inwards? Oh, truly happy age of ours, and truly blessed craftsmen! Well may you be called so, seeing that in our time you have been able to illumine anew in such a fount of light the darkened sight of your eyes, and to see all that was difficult made smooth by a master so marvellous and so unrivalled! Certainly the glory of his labours makes you known and honoured, in that he has stripped from you that veil which you had over the eyes of your minds, which were so full of darkness, and has delivered the truth from the falsehood that overshadowed your intellects. Thank Heaven, therefore, for this, and strive to imitate Michelagnolo in everything. When the work was thrown open, the whole world could be heard running up to see it, and, indeed, it was such as to make everyone astonished and dumb. Wherefore the Pope, having been magnified by such a result and encouraged in his heart to undertake even greater enterprises, rewarded Michelagnolo liberally with money and rich gifts: and Michelagnolo would say at times of the extraordinary favours that the Pope conferred upon him, that they showed that he fully recognized his worth, and that, if by way of proving his friendliness he sometimes played him strange tricks, he would heal the wound with signal gifts and favours. As when, Michelagnolo once demanding from him leave to go to Florence for the festival of S. John, and asking money for that purpose, the Pope said, "Well, but when will you have this chapel finished?" "As soon as I can, Holy Father." The Pope, who had a staff in his hand, struck Michelagnolo, saying, "As soon as I can! As soon as I can! I will soon make you finish it!" Whereupon Michelagnolo went back to his house to get ready to go to Florence; but the Pope straightway sent Cursio, his Chamberlain, to Michelagnolo with five hundred crowns to pacify him, fearing lest he might commit one of his caprices, and Cursio made excuse for the Pope, saying that such things were favours and marks of affection. And Michelagnolo, who knew the Pope's nature and, after all, loved him, laughed over it all, for he saw that in the end everything turned to his profit and advantage, and that the Pontiff would do anything to keep a man such as himself as his friend. When the chapel was finished, before the Pope was overtaken by death, his Holiness commanded Cardinal Santiquattro and Cardinal Aginense, his nephew, in the event of his death, that they should cause his tomb to be finished, but on a smaller scale than before. To this work Michelagnolo set himself once again, and so made a beginning gladly with the tomb, hoping to carry it once and for all to completion without so many impediments; but he had from it ever afterwards vexations, annoyances, and travails, more than from any other work that he did in all his life, and it brought upon him for a long time, in a certain sense, the accusation of being ungrateful to that Pope, who had so loved and favoured him. Thus, when he had returned to the tomb, and was working at it continually, and also at times preparing designs from which he might be able to execute the façades of the chapel, envious Fortune decreed that that memorial, which had been begun with such perfection, should be left unfinished. For at that time there took place the death of Pope Julius, and the work was abandoned on account of the election of Pope Leo X, who, being no less splendid than Julius in mind and spirit, had a desire to leave in his native city (of which he was the first Pope), in memory of himself and of a divine craftsman who was his fellow-citizen, such marvels as only a mighty Prince like himself could undertake. Wherefore he gave orders that the façade of S. Lorenzo, a church built by the Medici family in Florence, should be erected for him, which was the reason that the work of the tomb of Julius was left unfinished; and he demanded advice and designs from Michelagnolo, and desired that he should be the head of that work. Michelagnolo made all the resistance that he could, pleading that he was pledged in the matter of the tomb to Santiquattro and Aginense, but the Pope answered him that he was not to think of that, and that he himself had already seen to it and contrived that Michelagnolo should be released by them; promising, also, that he should be able to work in Florence, as he had already begun to do, at the figures for that tomb. All this was displeasing to the Cardinals, and also to Michelagnolo, who went off in tears. [Illustration: THE NEW SACRISTY (_After =Michelangelo=. Florence: S. Lorenzo_) _Alinari_] Many and various were the discussions that arose on this subject, on the ground that such a work as that façade should have been distributed among several persons, and in the matter of the architecture many craftsmen flocked to Rome to see the Pope, and made designs; Baccio d'Agnolo, Antonio da San Gallo, Andrea Sansovino and Jacopo Sansovino, and the gracious Raffaello da Urbino, who was afterwards summoned to Florence for that purpose at the time of the Pope's visit. Thereupon Michelagnolo resolved to make a model and not to accept anyone beyond himself as his guide or superior in the architecture of such a work; but this refusal of assistance was the reason that neither he nor any other executed the work, and that those masters returned in despair to their customary pursuits. Michelagnolo, going to Carrara, had an order authorizing that a thousand crowns should be paid to him by Jacopo Salviati; but on his arrival Jacopo was shut up in his room on business with some citizens, and Michelagnolo, refusing to wait for an audience, departed without saying a word and went straightway to Carrara. Jacopo heard of Michelagnolo's arrival, and, not finding him in Florence, sent him a thousand crowns to Carrara. The messenger demanded that Michelagnolo should write him a receipt, to which he answered that the money was for the expenses of the Pope and not for his own interest, and that the messenger might take it back, but that he was not accustomed to write out quittances or receipts for others; whereupon the other returned in alarm to Jacopo without a receipt. While Michelagnolo was at Carrara and was having marble quarried for the tomb of Julius, thinking at length to finish it, no less than for the façade, a letter was written to him saying that Pope Leo had heard that in the mountains of Pietrasanta near Seravezza, in the Florentine dominion, at the summit of the highest mountain, which is called Monte Altissimo, there were marbles of the same excellence and beauty as those of Carrara. This Michelagnolo already knew, but it seems that he would not take advantage of it because of his friendship with the Marchese Alberigo, Lord of Carrara, and, in order to do him a good service, chose to quarry those of Carrara rather than those of Seravezza; or it may have been that he judged it to be a long undertaking and likely to waste much time, as indeed it did. However, he was forced to go to Seravezza, although he pleaded in protest that it would be more difficult and costly, as in truth it was, especially at the beginning, and, moreover, that the report about the marble was perhaps not true; but for all that the Pope would not hear a word of objection. Thereupon it was decided to make a road for several miles through the mountains, breaking down rocks with hammers and pickaxes to obtain a level, and sinking piles in the marshy places; and there Michelagnolo spent many years in executing the wishes of the Pope. Finally five columns of the proper size were excavated, one of which is on the Piazza di S. Lorenzo in Florence, and the others are on the sea-shore. And for this reason the Marchese Alberigo, who saw his business ruined, became the bitter enemy of Michelagnolo, who was not to blame. Michelagnolo, in addition to these columns, excavated many other marbles there, which are still in the quarries, abandoned there for more than thirty years. But at the present day Duke Cosimo has given orders for the road to be finished, of which there are still two miles to make over very difficult ground, for the transportation of these marbles, and also a road from another quarry of excellent marble that was discovered at that time by Michelagnolo, in order to be able to finish many beautiful undertakings. In the same district of Seravezza he discovered a mountain of variegated marble that is very hard and very beautiful, below Stazema, a village in those mountains; where the same Duke Cosimo has caused a paved road of more than four miles to be made, for conveying the marble to the sea. But to return to Michelagnolo: having gone back to Florence, he lost much time now in one thing and now in another. And he made at that time for the Palace of the Medici a model for the knee-shaped windows of those rooms that are at the corner, where Giovanni da Udine adorned the chamber in stucco and painting, which is a much extolled work; and he caused to be made for them by the goldsmith Piloto, but under his own direction, those jalousies of perforated copper, which are certainly admirable things. Michelagnolo consumed many years in quarrying marbles, although it is true that while they were being excavated he made models of wax and other things for the work. But this undertaking was delayed so long, that the money assigned by the Pope for the purpose was spent on the war in Lombardy; and at the death of Leo the work was left unfinished, nothing being accomplished save the laying of a foundation in front to support it, and the transportation of a large column of marble from Carrara to the Piazza di S. Lorenzo. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD (_After =Michelagnolo=. Florence: New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo_) _Anderson_] The death of Leo completely dismayed the craftsmen and the arts both in Rome and in Florence; and while Adrian VI was alive Michelagnolo gave his attention in Florence to the tomb of Julius. But after the death of Adrian Clement VII was elected, who was no less desirous than Leo and his other predecessors to leave his fame established by the arts of architecture, sculpture, and painting. At this time, which was the year 1525, Giorgio Vasari was taken as a little boy to Florence by the Cardinal of Cortona, and placed with Michelagnolo to learn art. But Michelagnolo was then summoned to Rome by Pope Clement VII, who had made a beginning with the library of S. Lorenzo and also the new sacristy, in which he proposed to place the marble tombs that he was having made for his forefathers; and he resolved that Vasari should go to work with Andrea del Sarto until he should himself be free again, and went in person to Andrea's workshop to present him. Michelagnolo departed for Rome in haste, harassed once again by Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, the nephew of Pope Julius, who complained of him, saying that he had received sixteen thousand crowns for the above-named tomb, yet was living a life of pleasure in Florence; and he threatened in his anger that, if Michelagnolo did not give his attention to the work, he would make him rue it. Having arrived in Rome, Pope Clement, who wished to make use of him, advised him to draw up his accounts with the agents of the Duke, believing that after all that he had done he must be their creditor rather than their debtor; and so the matter rested. After discussing many things together, they resolved to finish completely the library and new sacristy of S. Lorenzo in Florence. Michelagnolo therefore departed from Rome, and raised the cupola that is now to be seen, causing it to be wrought in various orders of composition; and he had a ball with seventy-two faces made by the goldsmith Piloto, which is very beautiful. It happened, while Michelagnolo was raising the cupola, that he was asked by some friends, "Should you not make your lantern very different from that of Filippo Brunelleschi?" And he answered them, "Different it can be made with ease, but better, no." He made four tombs in that sacristy, to adorn the walls and to contain the bodies of the fathers of the two Popes, the elder Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano, and those of Giuliano, the brother of Leo, and of Duke Lorenzo, his nephew. And since he wished to execute the work in imitation of the old sacristy that Filippo Brunelleschi had built, but with another manner of ornamentation, he made in it an ornamentation in a composite order, in a more varied and more original manner than any other master at any time, whether ancient or modern, had been able to achieve, for in the novelty of the beautiful cornices, capitals, bases, doors, tabernacles, and tombs, he departed not a little from the work regulated by measure, order, and rule, which other men did according to a common use and after Vitruvius and the antiquities, to which he would not conform. That licence has done much to give courage to those who have seen his methods to set themselves to imitate him, and new fantasies have since been seen which have more of the grotesque than of reason or rule in their ornamentation. Wherefore the craftsmen owe him an infinite and everlasting obligation, he having broken the bonds and chains by reason of which they had always followed a beaten path in the execution of their works. And even more did he demonstrate and seek to make known such a method afterwards in the library of S. Lorenzo, at the same place; in the beautiful distribution of the windows, in the pattern of the ceiling, and in the marvellous entrance of the vestibule. Nor was there ever seen a more resolute grace, both in the whole and in the parts, as in the consoles, tabernacles, and cornices, nor any staircase more commodious; in which last he made such bizarre breaks in the outlines of the steps, and departed so much from the common use of others, that everyone was amazed. [Illustration: GIULIANO DE' MEDICI (_After =Michelagnolo=. Florence: New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo_) _Anderson_] At this time he sent his disciple Pietro Urbano of Pistoia to Rome to carry to completion a nude Christ holding the Cross, a most admirable figure, which was placed beside the principal chapel of the Minerva, at the commission of Messer Antonio Metelli. About the same time there took place the sack of Rome and the expulsion of the Medici from Florence; by reason of which upheaval those who governed the city of Florence resolved to rebuild the fortifications, and therefore made Michelagnolo Commissary General over all that work. Whereupon he made designs and caused fortifications to be built for several parts of the city, and finally encircled the hill of San Miniato with bastions, which he made not with sods of earth, wood, and bundles of brushwood, as is generally done, but with a stout base of chestnut, oak, and other good materials interwoven, and in place of sods he took unbaked bricks made with tow and the dung of cattle, squared with very great diligence. And for this reason he was sent by the Signoria of Florence to Ferrara, to inspect the fortifications of Duke Alfonso I, and so also his artillery and munitions; where he received many courtesies from that lord, who besought him that he should do something for him with his own hand at his leisure, and Michelagnolo promised that he would. After his return, he was continually engaged in fortifying the city, but, although he was thus occupied, nevertheless he kept working at a picture of a Leda for that Duke, painted with his own hand in distemper-colours, which was a divine thing, as will be related in the proper place; also continuing the statues for the tombs of S. Lorenzo, but in secret. At this time Michelagnolo spent some six months on the hill of San Miniato in order to press on the fortification of that hill, because if the enemy became master of it, the city was lost; and so he pursued these undertakings with the utmost diligence. [Illustration: TOMB OF GIULIANO DE' MEDICI (_After =Michelagnolo=. Florence: New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo_) _Anderson_] At this same time he continued the work in the above-mentioned sacristy, in which were seven statues that were left partly finished and partly not. With these, and with the architectural inventions of the tombs, it must be confessed that he surpassed every man in these three professions; to which testimony is borne by the statues of marble, blocked out and finished by him, which are to be seen in that place. One is Our Lady, who is in a sitting attitude, with the right leg crossed over the left and one knee placed upon the other, and the Child, with the thighs astride the leg that is uppermost, turns in a most beautiful attitude towards His Mother, hungry for her milk, and she, while holding Him with one hand and supporting herself with the other, bends forward to give it to Him; and although the figure is not equal in every part, and it was left rough and showing the marks of the gradine, yet with all its imperfections there may be recognized in it the full perfection of the work. Even more did he cause everyone to marvel by the circumstance that in making the tombs of Duke Giuliano and Duke Lorenzo de' Medici he considered that earth alone was not enough to give them honourable burial in their greatness, and desired that all the phases of the world should be there, and that their sepulchres should be surrounded and covered by four statues; wherefore he gave to one Night and Day, and to the other Dawn and Twilight; which statues, most beautifully wrought in form, in attitude, and in the masterly treatment of the muscles, would suffice, if that art were lost, to restore her to her pristine lustre. There, among the other statues, are the two Captains, armed; one the pensive Duke Lorenzo, the very presentment of wisdom, with legs so beautiful and so well wrought, that there is nothing better to be seen by mortal eye; and the other is Duke Giuliano, so proud a figure, with the head, the throat, the setting of the eyes, the profile of the nose, the opening of the mouth, and the hair all so divine, to say nothing of the hands, arms, knees, feet, and, in short, every other thing that he carved therein, that the eye can never be weary or have its fill of gazing at them; and, of a truth, whoever studies the beauty of the buskins and the cuirass, believes it to be celestial rather than mortal. But what shall I say of the Dawn, a nude woman, who is such as to awaken melancholy in the soul and to render impotent the style of sculpture? In her attitude may be seen her effort, as she rises, heavy with sleep, and raises herself from her downy bed; and it seems that in awakening she has found the eyes of that great Duke closed in death, so that she is agonized with bitter grief, weeping in her own unchangeable beauty in token of her great sorrow. And what can I say of the Night, a statue not rare only, but unique? Who is there who has ever seen in that art in any age, ancient or modern, statues of such a kind? For in her may be seen not only the stillness of one sleeping, but the grief and melancholy of one who has lost a great and honoured possession; and we must believe that this is that night of darkness that obscures all those who thought for some time, I will not say to surpass, but to equal Michelagnolo in sculpture and design. In that statue is infused all the somnolence that is seen in sleeping forms; wherefore many verses in Latin and rhymes in the vulgar tongue were written in her praise by persons of great learning, such as these, of which the author is not known-- La Notte che tu vedi in si dolci atti Dormire, fu da un Angelo scolpita In questo sasso; e perche dorme, ha vita. Destala, se no 'l credi, e parleratti. To which Michelagnolo, speaking in the person of Night, answered thus-- Grato mi è il sonno, e più l'esser di sasso; Mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura, Non veder' non sentir' m'è gran ventura. Però non mi destar'; deh parla basso. Truly, if the enmity that there is between Fortune and Genius, between the envy of the one and the excellence of the other, had not prevented such a work from being carried to completion, Art was like to prove to Nature that she surpassed her by a great measure in every conception. While Michelagnolo was labouring with the greatest solicitude and love at these works, there came in 1529 the siege of Florence, which hindered their completion only too effectually, and was the reason that he did little or no more work upon them, the citizens having laid upon him the charge of fortifying not only the hill of S. Miniato, but also the city, as we have related. And thus, having lent a thousand crowns to that Republic, and being elected one of the Nine, a military Council appointed for the war, he turned all his mind and soul to perfecting those fortifications. But in the end, when the enemy had closed round the city, and all hope of assistance was failing little by little, and the difficulties of maintaining the defence were increasing, and it appeared to Michelagnolo that he was in a sorry pass with regard to his personal safety, he determined to leave Florence and make his way to Venice, without making himself known to anyone on the road. He set out secretly, therefore, by way of the hill of S. Miniato, without anyone knowing of it, taking with him Antonio Mini, his disciple, and the goldsmith Piloto, his faithful friend; and each of them carried a number of crowns on his person, sewn into his quilted doublet. Having arrived in Ferrara, they rested there; and it happened that on account of the alarm caused by the war and the league of the Emperor and the Pope, who were besieging Florence, Duke Alfonso d'Este was keeping strict watch in Ferrara, and required to be secretly informed by the hosts who gave lodging to travellers of the names of all those who lodged with them from one day to another; and he caused a list of all foreigners, with their nationality, to be brought to him every day. It came to pass, then, that when Michelagnolo had dismounted with his companions, intending to stay there without revealing himself, this became known in that way to the Duke, who was very glad, because he had already become his friend. That Prince was a man of lofty mind, delighting constantly in persons of ability all his life long, and he straightway sent some of the first men of his Court with orders to conduct him in the name of his Excellency to the Palace, where the Duke was, to remove thither his horses and all his baggage, and to give him a handsome lodging in that Palace. Michelagnolo, finding himself in the power of another, was constrained to obey and to make the best of a bad business, and he went with those courtiers to the Duke, but without removing his baggage from the inn. Thereupon the Duke, after first complaining of his reserve, gave him a great reception; and then, making him rich and honourable presents, he sought to detain him in Ferrara with the promise of a fine salary. He, having his mind set on something else, would not consent to remain; but the Duke again made him a free offer of all that was in his power, praying him that he should at least not depart as long as the war continued. Whereupon Michelagnolo, not wishing to be outdone in courtesy, thanked him warmly, and, turning towards his two companions, said that he had brought twelve thousand crowns to Ferrara, and that, if the Duke had need of them, they were at his disposal, together with himself. The Duke then took him through the Palace to divert him, as he had done on another occasion, and showed him all the beautiful things that he had there, including a portrait of himself by Tiziano, which was much commended by Michelagnolo. However, his Excellency was not able to keep him in the Palace, for he insisted on returning to the inn; wherefore the host who was lodging him received from the Duke a great abundance of things wherewith to do him honour, and also orders that at his departure he should not accept anything for his lodging. From Ferrara he made his way to Venice, where many gentlemen sought to become known to him; but he, who always had a very poor opinion of their knowledge of his profession, departed from the Giudecca, where he had his lodging. There, so it is said, he made for that city at that time, at the request of the Doge Gritti, a design for the bridge of the Rialto, which was very rare in invention and in ornamentation. Michelagnolo was invited with great insistence to go back to his native country, being urgently requested not to abandon his undertaking there, and receiving a safe-conduct; and finally, vanquished by love of her, he returned, but not without danger to his life. At this time he finished the Leda that he was painting, as has been related, at the request of Duke Alfonso; and it was afterwards taken to France by Antonio Mini, his disciple. And at this same time he saved the campanile of S. Miniato, a tower which sorely harassed the enemy's forces with its two pieces of artillery, so that their artillerists, having set to work to batter it with heavy cannon, had half ruined it, and were like to destroy it completely, when Michelagnolo protected it so well with bales of wool and stout mattresses suspended by cords, that it is still standing. It is said, also, that at the time of the siege there came to him an opportunity to acquire, according to a desire that he had long had, a block of marble of nine braccia which had come from Carrara, and which Pope Clement, after much rivalry and contention between him and Baccio Bandinelli, had given to Baccio. But Michelagnolo, now that such a matter was in the hands of the Commonwealth, asked for it from the Gonfalonier, who gave it to him that he might likewise try his hand upon it, although Baccio had already made a model and hacked away much of the stone in blocking it out. Thereupon Michelagnolo made a model, which was held to be a marvellous and very beautiful thing; but on the return of the Medici the marble was restored to Baccio. When peace had been made, Baccio Valori, the Pope's Commissioner, received orders to have some of the most partisan citizens arrested and imprisoned in the Bargello, and the same tribunal sought out Michelagnolo at his house; but he, fearing that, had fled secretly to the house of one who was much his friend, where he remained hidden many days. Finally, when the first fury had abated, Pope Clement, remembering the ability of Michelagnolo, caused a diligent search to be made for him, with orders that nothing should be said to him, but rather that his former appointments should be restored to him, and that he should attend to the work of S. Lorenzo, over which he placed as proveditor M. Giovan Battista Figiovanni, the old servant of the Medici family and Prior of S. Lorenzo. Thus reassured, Michelagnolo, in order to make Baccio Valori his friend, began a figure of three braccia in marble, which was an Apollo drawing an arrow from his quiver, and carried it almost to completion. It is now in the apartment of the Prince of Florence, and is a very rare work, although it is not completely finished. At this time a certain gentleman was sent to Michelagnolo by Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, who, having heard that the master had made some rare work for him with his own hand, did not wish to lose such a jewel. Having arrived in Florence and found Michelagnolo, the envoy presented to him letters of recommendation from that lord; whereupon Michelagnolo, receiving him courteously, showed him the Leda embracing the Swan that he had painted, with Castor and Pollux issuing from the Egg, in a large picture executed in distemper, as it were with the breath. The Duke's envoy, thinking from the praise that he heard everywhere of Michelagnolo that he should have done something great, and not recognizing the excellence and artistry of that figure, said to Michelagnolo: "Oh, this is but a trifle." Michelagnolo, knowing that no one is better able to pronounce judgment on works than those who have had long practise in them, asked him what was his vocation. And he answered, with a sneer, "I am a merchant"; believing that he had not been recognized by Michelagnolo as a gentleman, and as it were making fun of such a question, and at the same time affecting to despise the industry of the Florentines. Michelagnolo, who had understood perfectly the meaning of his words, at once replied: "You will find you have made a bad bargain this time for your master. Get you gone out of my sight." [Illustration: APOLLO (_After =Michelagnolo=. Florence: Museo Nazionale_) _Alinari_] Now in those days Antonio Mini, his disciple, who had two sisters waiting to be married, asked him for the Leda, and he gave it to him willingly, with the greater part of the designs and cartoons that he had made, which were divine things, and also two chests full of models, with a great number of finished cartoons for making pictures, and some of works that had been painted. When Antonio took it into his head to go to France, he carried all these with him; the Leda he sold to King Francis by means of some merchants, and it is now at Fontainebleau, but the cartoons and designs were lost, for he died there in a short time, and some were stolen; and so our country was deprived of all these valuable labours, which was an incalculable loss. The cartoon of the Leda has since come back to Florence, and Bernardo Vecchietti has it; and so also four pieces of the cartoons for the chapel, with nudes and Prophets, brought back by the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, and now in the possession of the heirs of Girolamo degli Albizzi. It became necessary for Michelagnolo to go to Rome to see Pope Clement, who, although angry with him, yet, as the friend of every talent, forgave him everything, and gave him orders that he should return to Florence and have the library and sacristy of S. Lorenzo completely finished; and, in order to shorten that work, a vast number of statues that were to be included in it were distributed among other masters. Two he allotted to Tribolo, one to Raffaello da Montelupo, and one to Fra Giovanni Agnolo, the Servite friar, all sculptors; and he gave them assistance in these, making rough models in clay for each of them. Whereupon they all worked valiantly, and he, also, caused work to be pursued on the library, and thus the ceiling was finished in carved woodwork, which was executed after his models by the hands of the Florentines Carota and Tasso, excellent carvers and also masters of carpentry; and likewise the shelves for the books, which were executed at that time by Battista del Cinque and his friend Ciappino, good masters in that profession. And in order to give the work its final perfection there was summoned to Florence the divine Giovanni da Udine, who, together with others his assistants and also some Florentine masters, decorated the tribune with stucco; and they all sought with great solicitude to give completion to that vast undertaking. Now, just as Michelagnolo was about to have the statues carried into execution, at that very time the Pope took it into his head to have him near his person, being desirous to have the walls of the Chapel of Sixtus painted, where Michelagnolo had painted the vaulting for Julius II, his nephew. On the principal wall, where the altar is, Clement wished him to paint the Universal Judgment, to the end that he might display in that scene all that the art of design could achieve, and opposite to it, on the other wall, over the principal door, he had commanded that he should depict the scene when Lucifer was expelled for his pride from Heaven, and all those Angels who sinned with him were hurled after him into the centre of Hell: of which inventions it was found that Michelagnolo many years before had made various sketches and designs, one of which was afterwards carried into execution in the Church of the Trinità at Rome by a Sicilian painter, who stayed many months with Michelagnolo, to serve him and to grind his colours. This work, painted in fresco, is in the Chapel of S. Gregorio, in the cross of the church, and, although it is executed badly, there is a certain variety and terrible force in the attitudes and groups of those nudes that are raining down from Heaven, and of the others who, having fallen into the centre of the earth, are changed into various forms of Devils, very horrible and bizarre; and it is certainly an extraordinary fantasy. While Michelagnolo was directing the preparation of the designs and cartoons of the Last Judgment on the first wall, he never ceased for a single day to be at strife with the agents of the Duke of Urbino, by whom he was accused of having received sixteen thousand crowns from Julius II for the tomb. This accusation was more than he could bear, and he desired to finish the work some day, although he was already an old man, and he would have willingly stayed in Rome to finish it, now that he had found, without seeking it, such a pretext for not returning any more to Florence, since he had a great fear of Duke Alessandro de' Medici, whom he regarded as little his friend; for, when the Duke had given him to understand through Signor Alessandro Vitelli that he should select the best site for the building of the castle and citadel of Florence, he answered that he would not go save at the command of Pope Clement. Finally an agreement was formed in the matter of the tomb, that it should be finished in the following manner: there was no longer to be an isolated tomb in a rectangular shape, but only one of the original façades, in the manner that best pleased Michelagnolo, and he was to be obliged to place in it six statues by his own hand. In this contract that was made with the Duke of Urbino, his Excellency consented that Michelagnolo should be at the disposal of Pope Clement for four months in the year, either in Florence or wherever he might think fit to employ him. But, although it seemed to Michelagnolo that at last he had obtained some peace, he was not to be quit of it so easily, for Pope Clement, desiring to see the final proof of the force of his art, kept him occupied with the cartoon of the Judgment. However, contriving to convince the Pope that he was thus engaged, at the same time he kept working in secret, never relaxing his efforts, at the statues that were going into the above-named tomb. In the year 1533[1] came the death of Pope Clement, whereupon the work of the library and sacristy in Florence, which had remained unfinished in spite of all the efforts made to finish it, was stopped. Then, at length, Michelagnolo thought to be truly free and able to give his attention to finishing the tomb of Julius II. But Paul III, not long after his election, had him summoned to his presence, and, besides paying him compliments and making him offers, requested him to enter his service and remain near his person. Michelagnolo refused, saying that he was not able to do it, being bound by contract to the Duke of Urbino until the tomb of Julius should be finished. The Pope flew into a rage and said: "I have had this desire for thirty years, and now that I am Pope do you think I shall not satisfy it? I shall tear up the contract, for I am determined to have you serve me, come what may." Michelagnolo, hearing this resolution, was tempted to leave Rome and in some way find means to give completion to the tomb; however, fearing, like a wise man, the power of the Pope, he resolved to try to keep him pacified with words, seeing that he was so old, until something should happen. The Pope, who wished to have some extraordinary work executed by Michelagnolo, went one day with ten Cardinals to visit him at his house, where he demanded to see all the statues for the tomb of Julius, which appeared to him marvellous, and particularly the Moses, which figure alone was said by the Cardinal of Mantua to be enough to do honour to Pope Julius. And after seeing the designs and cartoons that he was preparing for the wall of the chapel, which appeared to the Pope to be stupendous, he again besought Michelagnolo with great insistence that he should enter his service, promising that he would persuade the Duke of Urbino to content himself with three statues, and that the others should be given to other excellent masters to execute after his models. Whereupon, his Holiness having arranged this with the agents of the Duke, a new contract was made, which was confirmed by the Duke; and Michelagnolo of his own free will bound himself to pay for the other three statues and to have the tomb erected, depositing for this purpose in the bank of the Strozzi one thousand five hundred and eighty ducats. This he might have avoided, and it seemed to him that he had truly done enough to be free of such a long and troublesome undertaking; and afterwards he caused the tomb to be erected in S. Pietro in Vincola in the following manner. He erected the lower base, which was all carved, with four pedestals which projected outwards as much as was necessary to give space for the captive that was originally intended to stand on each of them, instead of which there was left a terminal figure; and since the lower part had thus a poor effect, he placed at the feet of each terminal figure a reversed console resting on the pedestal. Those four terminal figures had between them three niches, two of which (those at the sides) were round, and were to have contained the Victories. Instead of the Victories, he placed in one Leah, the daughter of Laban, to represent the Active Life, with a mirror in her hand to signify the consideration that we should give to our actions, and in the other hand a garland of flowers, to denote the virtues that adorn our life during its duration, and make it glorious after death; and the other figure was her sister Rachel, representing the Contemplative Life, with the hands clasped and one knee bent, and on the countenance a look as of ecstasy of spirit. These statues Michelagnolo executed with his own hand in less than a year. In the centre is the other niche, rectangular in shape, which in the original design was to have been one of the doors that were to lead into the little oval temple of the rectangular tomb; this having become a niche, there is placed in it, upon a dado of marble, the gigantic and most beautiful statue of Moses, of which we have already said enough. Above the heads of the terminal figures, which form capitals, are architrave, frieze, and cornice, which project beyond those figures and are carved with rich ornaments, foliage, ovoli, dentils, and other rich members, distributed over the whole work. Over that cornice rises another course, smooth and without carvings, but with different terminal figures standing directly above those below, after the manner of pilasters, with a variety of cornice-members; and since this course accompanies that below and resembles it in every part, there is in it a space similar to the other, forming a niche like that in which there is now the Moses, and in the niche, resting on projections of the cornice, is a sarcophagus of marble with the recumbent statue of Pope Julius, executed by the sculptor Maso dal Bosco, while in that niche, also, there stands a Madonna who is holding her Son in her arms, wrought by the sculptor Scherano da Settignano from a model by Michelagnolo; which statues are passing good. In two other rectangular niches, above the Active and the Contemplative Life, are two larger statues, a Prophet and a Sibyl seated, which were both executed by Raffaello da Montelupo, as has been related in the Life of his father Baccio, but little to the satisfaction of Michelagnolo. For its crowning completion this work had a different cornice, which, like those below, projected over the whole work; and above the terminal figures, as a finish, were candelabra of marble, with the arms of Pope Julius in the centre. Above the Prophet and the Sibyl, in the recess of each niche, he made a window for the convenience of the friars who officiate in that church, the choir having been made behind; which windows serve to send their voices into the church when they say the divine office, and permit the celebration to be seen. Truly this whole work has turned out very well, but not by a great measure as it had been planned in the original design. [Footnote 1: 1534.] [Illustration: THE LAST JUDGMENT (_After the fresco by =Michelagnolo=. Rome: The Vatican, Sistine Chapel_) _Anderson_] Michelagnolo resolved, since he could not do otherwise, to serve Pope Paul, who allowed him to continue the work as ordered by Clement, without changing anything in the inventions and the general conception that had been laid before him, thus showing respect for the genius of that great man, for whom he felt such reverence and love that he sought to do nothing but what pleased him; of which a proof was soon seen. His Holiness desired to place his own arms beneath the Jonas in the chapel, where those of Pope Julius II had previously been put; but Michelagnolo, being asked to do this, and not wishing to do a wrong to Julius and Clement, would not place them there, saying that they would not look well; and the Pope, in order not to displease him, was content to have it so, having recognized very well the excellence of such a man, and how he always followed what was just and honourable without any adulation or respect of persons--a thing that the great are wont to experience very seldom. Michelagnolo, then, caused a projection of well baked and chosen bricks to be carefully built on the wall of the above-named chapel (a thing which was not there before), and contrived that it should overhang half a braccio from above, so that neither dust nor any other dirt might be able to settle upon it. But I will not go into the particulars of the invention and composition of this scene, because so many copies of it, both large and small, have been printed, that it does not seem necessary to lose time in describing it. It is enough for us to perceive that the intention of this extraordinary man has been to refuse to paint anything but the human body in its best proportioned and most perfect forms and in the greatest variety of attitudes, and not this only, but likewise the play of the passions and contentments of the soul, being satisfied with justifying himself in that field in which he was superior to all his fellow-craftsmen, and to lay open the way of the grand manner in the painting of nudes, and his great knowledge in the difficulties of design; and, finally, he opened out the way to facility in this art in its principal province, which is the human body, and, attending to this single object, he left on one side the charms of colouring and the caprices and new fantasies of certain minute and delicate refinements which many other painters, perhaps not without some show of reason, have not entirely neglected. For some, not so well grounded in design, have sought with variety of tints and shades of colouring, with various new and bizarre inventions, and, in short, with the other method, to win themselves a place among the first masters; but Michelagnolo, standing always firmly rooted in his profound knowledge of art, has shown to those who know enough how they should attain to perfection. But to return to the story: Michelagnolo had already carried to completion more than three-fourths of the work, when Pope Paul went to see it. And Messer Biagio da Cesena, the master of ceremonies, a person of great propriety, who was in the chapel with the Pope, being asked what he thought of it, said that it was a very disgraceful thing to have made in so honourable a place all those nude figures showing their nakedness so shamelessly, and that it was a work not for the chapel of a Pope, but for a bagnio or tavern. Michelagnolo was displeased at this, and, wishing to revenge himself, as soon as Biagio had departed he portrayed him from life, without having him before his eyes at all, in the figure of Minos with a great serpent twisted round the legs, among a heap of Devils in Hell; nor was Messer Biagio's pleading with the Pope and with Michelagnolo to have it removed of any avail, for it was left there in memory of the occasion, and it is still to be seen at the present day. It happened at this time that Michelagnolo fell no small distance from the staging of this work, and hurt his leg; and in his pain and anger he would not be treated by anyone. Now there was living at this same time the Florentine Maestro Baccio Rontini, his friend, an ingenious physician, who had a great affection for his genius; and he, taking compassion on him, went one day to knock at his door. Receiving no answer either from the neighbours or from him, he so contrived to climb by certain secret ways from one room to another, that he came to Michelagnolo, who was in a desperate state. And then Maestro Biagio would never abandon him or take himself off until he was cured. Having recovered from this injury, he returned to his labour, and, working at it continually, he carried it to perfect completion in a few months, giving such force to the paintings in the work, that he justified the words of Dante-- Morti li morti, i vivi parean vivi. And here, also, may be seen the misery of the damned and the joy of the blessed. Wherefore, when this Judgment was thrown open to view, it proved that he had not only vanquished all the earlier masters who had worked there, but had sought to surpass the vaulting that he himself had made so famous, excelling it by a great measure and outstripping his own self. For he imagined to himself the terror of those days, and depicted, for the greater pain of all who have not lived well, the whole Passion of Christ, causing various naked figures in the air to carry the Cross, the Column, the Lance, the Sponge, the Nails, and the Crown of Thorns, all in different attitudes, executed to perfection in a triumph of facility over their difficulties. In that scene is Christ seated, with a countenance proud and terrible, turning towards the damned and cursing them; not without great fear in Our Lady, who, hearing and beholding that vast havoc, draws her mantle close around her. There are innumerable figures, Prophets and Apostles, that form a circle about Him, and in particular Adam and S. Peter, who are believed to have been placed there, one as the first parent of those thus brought to judgment, and the other as having been the first foundation of the Christian Church; and at His feet is a most beautiful S. Bartholomew, who is displaying his flayed skin. There is likewise a nude figure of S. Laurence; besides which, there are multitudes of Saints without number, both male and female, and other figures, men and women, around Him, near or distant, who embrace one another and make rejoicing, having received eternal blessedness by the grace of God and as the reward of their works. Beneath the feet of Christ are the Seven Angels with the Seven Trumpets described by S. John the Evangelist, who, as they sound the call to judgment, cause the hair of all who behold them to stand on end at the terrible wrath that their countenances reveal. Among others are two Angels that have each the Book of Life in the hands: and near them, on one side, not without beautiful consideration, are seen the Seven Mortal Sins in the forms of Devils, assailing and striving to drag down to Hell the souls that are flying towards Heaven, all with very beautiful attitudes and most admirable foreshortenings. Nor did he hesitate to show to the world, in the resurrection of the dead, how they take to themselves flesh and bones once more from the same earth, and how, assisted by others already alive, they go soaring towards Heaven, whence succour is brought to them by certain souls already blessed; not without evidence of all those marks of consideration that could be thought to be required in so great a work. For studies and labours of every kind were executed by him, which may be recognized throughout the whole work without exception; and this is manifested with particular clearness in the barque of Charon, who, in an attitude of fury, strikes with his oars at the souls dragged down by the Devils into the barque, after the likeness of the picture that the master's best-beloved poet, Dante, described when he said-- Caron demonio con occhi di bragia, Loro accennando, tutte le raccoglie, Batte col remo qualunque si adagia. [Illustration: CHARON'S BOAT: DETAIL FROM THE LAST JUDGMENT (_After the fresco by =Michelangelo=. Rome: The Vatican, Sistine Chapel_) _Anderson_] Nor would it be possible to imagine how much variety there is in the heads of those Devils, which are truly monsters from Hell. In the sinners may be seen sin and the fear of eternal damnation; and, to say nothing of the beauty of every detail, it is extraordinary to see so great a work executed with such harmony of painting, that it appears as if done in one day, and with such finish as was never achieved in any miniature. And, of a truth, the terrible force and grandeur of the work, with the multitude of figures, are such that it is not possible to describe it, for it is filled with all the passions known to human creatures, and all expressed in the most marvellous manner. For the proud, the envious, the avaricious, the wanton, and all the other suchlike sinners can be distinguished with ease by any man of fine perception, because in figuring them Michelagnolo observed every rule of Nature in the expressions, in the attitudes, and in every other natural circumstance; a thing which, although great and marvellous, was not impossible to such a man, for the reason that he was always observant and shrewd and had seen men in plenty, and had acquired by commerce with the world that knowledge that philosophers gain from cogitation and from writings. Wherefore he who has judgment and understanding in painting perceives there the most terrible force of art, and sees in those figures such thoughts and passions as were never painted by any other but Michelagnolo. So, also, he may see there how the variety of innumerable attitudes is accomplished, in the strange and diverse gestures of young and old, male and female; and who is there who does not recognize in these the terrible power of his art, together with the grace that he had from Nature, since they move the hearts not only of those who have knowledge in that profession, but even of those who have none? There are foreshortenings that appear as if in relief, a harmony of painting that gives great softness, and fineness in the parts painted by him with delicacy, all showing in truth how pictures executed by good and true painters should be; and in the outlines of the forms turned by him in such a way as could not have been achieved by any other but Michelagnolo, may be seen the true Judgment and the true Damnation and Resurrection. This is for our art the exemplar and the grand manner of painting sent down to men on earth by God, to the end that they may see how Destiny works when intellects descend from the heights of Heaven to earth, and have infused in them divine grace and knowledge. This work leads after it bound in chains those who persuade themselves that they have mastered art; and at the sight of the strokes drawn by him in the outlines of no matter what figure, every sublime spirit, however mighty in design, trembles and is afraid. And while the eyes gaze at his labours in this work, the senses are numbed at the mere thought of what manner of things all other pictures, those painted and those still unpainted, would appear if placed in comparison with such perfection. Truly blessed may he be called, and blessed his memories, who has seen this truly stupendous marvel of our age! Most happy and most fortunate Paul III, in that God granted that under thy protection should be acquired the renown that the pens of writers shall give to his memory and thine! How highly are thy merits enhanced by his genius! And what good fortune have the craftsmen had in this age from his birth, in that they have seen the veil of every difficulty torn away, and have beheld in the pictures, sculptures, and architectural works executed by him all that can be imagined and achieved! [Illustration: S. SEBASTIAN (_After the fresco by =Michelagnolo=. Rome: The Vatican, Sistine Chapel_) _Anderson_] He toiled eight years over executing this work, and threw it open to view in the year 1541, I believe, on Christmas day, to the marvel and amazement of all Rome, nay, of the whole world; and I, who was that year in Venice, and went to Rome to see it, was struck dumb by its beauty. Pope Paul, as has been related, had caused a chapel called the Pauline to be erected on the same floor by Antonio da San Gallo, in imitation of that of Nicholas V; and in this he resolved that Michelagnolo should paint two great pictures with two large scenes. In one he painted the Conversion of S. Paul, with Jesus Christ in the air and a multitude of nude Angels making most beautiful movements, and below, all dazed and terrified, Paul fallen from his horse to the level of the ground, with his soldiers about him, some striving to raise him up, and others, struck with awe by the voice and splendour of Christ, are flying in beautiful attitudes and marvellous movements of panic, while the horse, taking to flight, appears to be carrying away in its headlong course him who seeks to hold it back; and this whole scene is executed with extraordinary design and art. In the other picture is the Crucifixion of S. Peter, who is fixed, a nude figure of rare beauty, upon the cross; showing the ministers of the crucifixion, after they have made a hole in the ground, seeking to raise the cross on high, to the end that he may remain crucified with his feet in the air; and there are many remarkable and beautiful considerations. Michelagnolo, as has been said elsewhere, gave his attention only to the perfection of art, and therefore there are no landscapes to be seen there, nor trees, nor buildings, nor any other distracting graces of art, for to these he never applied himself, as one, perchance, who would not abase his great genius to such things. These, executed by him at the age of seventy-five, were his last pictures, and, as he used himself to tell me, they cost him much fatigue, for the reason that painting, and particularly working in fresco, is no art for men who have passed a certain age. Michelagnolo arranged that Perino del Vaga, a very excellent painter, should decorate the vaulting with stucco and with many things in painting, after his designs, and such, also, was the wish of Pope Paul III; but the work was afterwards delayed, and nothing more was done, even as many undertakings are left unfinished, partly by the fault of want of resolution in the craftsmen, and partly by that of Princes little zealous in urging them on. Pope Paul had made a beginning with the fortifying of the Borgo, and had summoned many gentlemen, together with Antonio da San Gallo, to a conference; but he wished that Michelagnolo also should have a part in this, knowing that the fortifications about the hill of S. Miniato in Florence had been constructed under his direction. After much discussion, Michelagnolo was asked what he thought; and he, having opinions contrary to San Gallo and many others, declared them freely. Whereupon San Gallo said to him that his arts were sculpture and painting, and not fortification. Michelagnolo replied that of sculpture and painting he knew little, but of fortification, what with the thought that he had devoted to it for a long time, and his experience in what he had done, it appeared to him that he knew more than either Antonio or any of his family; showing him in the presence of the company that he had made many errors in that art. Words rising high on either side, the Pope had to command silence; but no long time passed before Michelagnolo brought a design for all the fortifications of the Borgo, which laid open the way for all that has since been ordained and executed; and this was the reason that the great gate of S. Spirito, which was approaching completion under the direction of San Gallo, was left unfinished. [Illustration: PIETÀ (_After =Michelagnolo=. Florence: Duomo_) _Alinari_] The spirit and genius of Michelagnolo could not rest without doing something; and, since he was not able to paint, he set to work on a piece of marble, intending to carve from it four figures in the round and larger than life, including a Dead Christ, for his own delight and to pass the time, and because, as he used to say, the exercise of the hammer kept him healthy in body. This Christ, taken down from the Cross, is supported by Our Lady, by Nicodemus, who bends down and assists her, planted firmly on his feet in a forceful attitude, and by one of the Maries, who also gives her aid, perceiving that the Mother, overcome by grief, is failing in strength and not able to uphold Him. Nor is there anywhere to be seen a dead form equal to that of Christ, who, sinking with the limbs hanging limp, lies in an attitude wholly different, not only from that of any other work by Michelagnolo, but from that of any other figure that was ever made. A laborious work is this, a rare achievement in a single stone, and truly divine; but, as will be related hereafter, it remained unfinished, and suffered many misfortunes, although Michelagnolo had intended that it should serve to adorn his own tomb, at the foot of that altar where he thought to place it. It happened in the year 1546 that Antonio da San Gallo died; whereupon, there being now no one to direct the building of S. Pietro, many suggestions were made by the superintendents to the Pope as to who should have it. Finally his Holiness, inspired, I believe, by God, resolved to send for Michelagnolo. But he, when asked to take Antonio's place, refused it, saying, in order to avoid such a burden, that architecture was not his proper art; and in the end, entreaties not availing, the Pope commanded that he should accept it, whereupon, to his great displeasure and against his wish, he was forced to undertake that enterprise. And one day among others that he went to S. Pietro to see the wooden model that San Gallo had made, and to examine the building, he found there the whole San Gallo faction, who, crowding before Michelagnolo, said to him in the best terms at their command that they rejoiced that the charge of the building was to be his, and that the model was a field where there would never be any want of pasture. "You speak the truth," answered Michelagnolo, meaning to infer, as he declared to a friend, that it was good for sheep and oxen, who knew nothing of art. And afterwards he used to say publicly that San Gallo had made it wanting in lights, that it had on the exterior too many ranges of columns one above another, and that, with its innumerable projections, pinnacles, and subdivisions of members, it was more akin to the German manner than to the good method of the ancients or to the gladsome and beautiful modern manner; and, in addition to this, that it was possible to save fifty years of time and more than three hundred thousand crowns of money in finishing the building, and to execute it with more majesty, grandeur, and facility, greater beauty and convenience, and better ordered design. This he afterwards proved by a model that he made, in order to bring it to the form in which the work is now seen constructed; and thus he demonstrated that what he said was nothing but the truth. This model cost him twenty-five crowns, and was made in a fortnight; that of San Gallo, as has been related, cost four thousand, and took many years to finish. From this and other circumstances it became evident that that fabric was but a shop and a business for making money, and that it would be continually delayed, with the intention of never finishing it, by those who had undertaken it as a means of profit. [Illustration: STAIRS OF THE PALACE OF THE SENATORS (_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome: The Capitol_) _Anderson_] Such methods did not please our upright Michelagnolo, and in order to get rid of all these people, while the Pope was forcing him to accept the office of architect to the work, he said to them openly one day that they should use all the assistance of their friends and do all that they could to prevent him from entering on that office, because, if he were to undertake such a charge, he would not have one of them about the building. Which words, spoken in public, were taken very ill, as may be believed, and were the reason that they conceived a great hatred against him, which increased every day as they saw the whole design being changed, both within and without, so that they would scarcely let him live, seeking out daily new and various devices to harass him, as will be related in the proper place. Finally the Pope issued a Motu-proprio creating him head of that fabric, with full authority, and giving him power to do or undo whatever he chose, and to add, take away, or vary anything at his pleasure; and he decreed that all the officials employed in the work should be subservient to his will. Whereupon Michelagnolo, seeing the great confidence and trust that the Pope placed in him, desired, in order to prove his generosity, that it should be declared in the Motu-proprio that he was serving in the fabric for the love of God and without any reward. It is true that the Pope had formerly granted to him the ferry over the river at Parma,[2] which yielded him about six hundred crowns; but he lost it at the death of Duke Pier Luigi Farnese, and in exchange for it he was given a Chancellery at Rimini, a post of less value. About that he showed no concern; and, although the Pope sent him money several times by way of salary, he would never accept it, to which witness is borne by Messer Alessandro Ruffini, Chamberlain to the Pope at that time, and by M. Pier Giovanni Aliotti, Bishop of Forlì. Finally the model that had been made by Michelagnolo was approved by the Pope; which model diminished S. Pietro in size, but gave it greater grandeur, to the satisfaction of all those who have judgment, although some who profess to be good judges, which in fact they are not, do not approve of it. He found that the four principal piers built by Bramante, and left by Antonio da San Gallo, which had to support the weight of the tribune, were weak; and these he partly filled up, and beside them he made two winding or spiral staircases, in which is an ascent so easy that the beasts of burden can climb them, carrying all the materials to the very top, and men on horseback, likewise, can go up to the uppermost level of the arches. The first cornice above the arches he constructed of travertine, curving in a round, which is an admirable and graceful thing, and very different from any other; nor could anything better of that kind be done. He also made a beginning with the two great recesses of the transepts; and whereas formerly, under the direction of Bramante, Baldassarre, and Raffaello, as has been related, eight tabernacles were being made on the side towards the Camposanto, and that plan was afterwards followed by San Gallo, Michelagnolo reduced these to three, with three chapels in the interior, and above them a vaulting of travertine, and a range of windows giving a brilliant light, which are varied in form and of a sublime grandeur. But, since these things are in existence, and are also to be seen in engraving, not only those of Michelagnolo, but those of San Gallo as well, I will not set myself to describe them, for it is in no way necessary. Let it suffice to say that he set himself, with all possible diligence, to cause the work to be carried on in those parts where the fabric was to be changed in design, to the end that it might remain so solid and stable that it might never be changed by another; which was the wise provision of a shrewd and prudent intellect, because it is not enough to do good work, if further precautions be not taken, seeing that the boldness and presumption of those who might be supposed to have knowledge if credit were placed rather in their words than in their deeds, and at times the favour of such as know nothing, may give rise to many misfortunes. [Footnote 2: Piacenza.] The Roman people, with the sanction of that Pope, had a desire to give some useful, commodious, and beautiful form to the Campidoglio, and to furnish it with colonnades, ascents, and inclined approaches with and without steps, and also with the further adornment of the ancient statues that were already there, in order to embellish that place. For this purpose they sought the advice of Michelagnolo, who made them a most beautiful and very rich design, in which, on the side where the Senatore stands, towards the east, he arranged a façade of travertine, and a flight of steps that ascends from two sides to meet on a level space, from which one enters into the centre of the hall of that Palace, with rich curving wings adorned with balusters that serve as supports and parapets. And there, to enrich that part, he caused to be placed on certain bases the two ancient figures in marble of recumbent River Gods, each of nine braccia, and of rare workmanship, one of which is the Tiber and the other the Nile; and between them, in a niche, is to go a Jove. On the southern side, where there is the Palace of the Conservatori, in order that it might be made rectangular, there followed a rich and well varied façade, with a loggia at the foot full of columns and niches, where many ancient statues are to go; and all around are various ornaments, doors, windows, and the like, of which some are already in place. On the other side from this, towards the north, below the Araceli, there is to follow another similar façade; and before it, towards the west, is to be an ascent of baston-like steps, which will be almost level, with a border and parapet of balusters; here will be the principal entrance, with a colonnade, and bases on which will be placed all that wealth of noble statues in which the Campidoglio is now so rich. In the middle of the Piazza, on a base in the form of an oval, is placed the famous bronze horse on which is the statue of Marcus Aurelius, which the same Pope Paul caused to be removed from the Piazza di Laterano, where Sixtus IV had placed it. This edifice is now being made so beautiful that it is worthy to be numbered among the finest works that Michelagnolo has executed, and it is being carried to completion at the present day under the direction of M. Tommaso de' Cavalieri, a Roman gentleman who was, and still is, one of the greatest friends that Michelagnolo ever had, as will be related hereafter. [Illustration: COURT OF THE PALAZZO FARNESE (_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome_) _Anderson_] Pope Paul III had caused San Gallo, while he was alive, to carry forward the Palace of the Farnese family, but the great upper cornice, to finish the roof on the outer side, had still to be constructed, and his Holiness desired that Michelagnolo should execute it from his own designs and directions. Michelagnolo, not being able to refuse the Pope, who so esteemed and favoured him, caused a model of wood to be made, six braccia in length, and of the size that it was to be; and this he placed on one of the corners of the Palace, so that it might show what effect the finished work would have. It pleased his Holiness and all Rome, and that part of it has since been carried to completion which is now to be seen, proving to be the most varied and the most beautiful of all that have ever been known, whether ancient or modern. On this account, after San Gallo was dead, the Pope desired that Michelagnolo should have charge of the whole fabric as well; and there he made the great marble window with the beautiful columns of variegated marble, which is over the principal door of the Palace, with a large escutcheon of great beauty and variety, in marble, of Pope Paul III, the founder of that Palace. Within the Palace he continued, above the first range of the court, the two other ranges, with the most varied, graceful, and beautiful windows, ornaments and upper cornice that have ever been seen, so that, through the labours and the genius of that man that court has now become the most handsome in Europe. He widened and enlarged the Great Hall, and set in order the front vestibule, and caused the vaulting of that vestibule to be constructed in a new variety of curve, in the form of a half oval. Now in that year there was found at the Baths of Antoninus a mass of marble seven braccia in every direction, in which there had been carved by the ancients a Hercules standing upon a mound, who was holding the Bull by the horns, with another figure assisting him, and around that mound various figures of Shepherds, Nymphs, and different animals--a work of truly extraordinary beauty, showing figures so perfect in one single block without any added pieces, which was judged to have been intended for a fountain. Michelagnolo advised that it should be conveyed into the second court, and there restored so as to make it spout water in the original manner; all which advice was approved, and the work is still being restored at the present day with great diligence, by order of the Farnese family, for that purpose. At that time, also, Michelagnolo made a design for the building of a bridge across the River Tiber in a straight line with the Farnese Palace, to the end that it might be possible to go from that palace to another palace and gardens that they possessed in the Trastevere, and also to see at one glance in a straight line from the principal door which faces the Campo di Fiore, the court, the fountain, the Strada Giulia, the bridge, and the beauties of the other garden, even to the other door which opened on the Strada di Trastevere--a rare work, worthy of that Pontiff and of the judgment, design, and art of Michelagnolo. In the year 1547 died Sebastiano Viniziano, the Friar of the Piombo; and, Pope Paul proposing that the ancient statues of his Palace should be restored, Michelagnolo willingly favoured the Milanese sculptor Guglielmo della Porta, a young man of promise, who had been recommended by the above-named Fra Sebastiano to Michelagnolo, who, liking his work, presented him to Pope Paul for the restoration of those statues. And the matter went so far forward that Michelagnolo obtained for him the office of the Piombo, and he then set to work on restoring the statues, some of which are to be seen in that Palace at the present day. But Guglielmo, forgetting the benefits that he had received from Michelagnolo, afterwards became one of his opponents. In the year 1549 there took place the death of Pope Paul III; whereupon, after the election of Pope Julius III, Cardinal Farnese gave orders for a grand tomb to be made for his kinsman Pope Paul by the hand of Fra Guglielmo, who arranged to erect it in S. Pietro, below the first arch of the new church, beneath the tribune, which obstructed the floor of the church, and was, in truth, not the proper place. Michelagnolo advised, most judiciously, that it could not and should not stand there, and the Frate, believing that he was doing this out of envy, became filled with hatred against him; but afterwards he recognized that Michelagnolo had spoken the truth, and that the fault was his, in that he had had the opportunity and had not finished the work, as will be related in another place. And to this I can bear witness, for the reason that in the year 1550 I had gone by order of Pope Julius III to Rome to serve him (and very willingly, for love of Michelagnolo), and I took part in that discussion. Michelagnolo desired that the tomb should be erected in one of the niches, where there is now the Column of the Possessed, which was the proper place, and I had so gone to work that Julius III was resolving to have his own tomb made in the other niche with the same design as that of Pope Paul, in order to balance that work; but the Frate, who set himself against this, brought it about that his own was never finished after all, and that the tomb of the other Pontiff was also not made; which had all been predicted by Michelagnolo. In the same year Pope Julius turned his attention to having a chapel of marble with two tombs constructed in the Church of S. Pietro a Montorio for Cardinal Antonio di Monte, his uncle, and Messer Fabiano, his grandfather, the first founder of the greatness of that illustrious house. For this work Vasari having made designs and models, Pope Julius, who always esteemed the genius of Michelagnolo and loved Vasari, desired that Michelagnolo should fix the price between them; and Vasari besought the Pope that he should prevail upon him to take it under his protection. Now Vasari had proposed Simone Mosca for the carvings of this work, and Raffaello da Montelupo for the statues; but Michelagnolo advised that no carvings of foliage should be made in it, not even in the architectural parts of the work, saying that where there are to be figures of marble there must not be any other thing. On which account Vasari feared that the work should be abandoned, because it would look poor; but in fact, when he saw it finished, he confessed that Michelagnolo had shown great judgment. Michelagnolo would not have Montelupo make the statues, remembering how badly he had acquitted himself in those of his own tomb of Julius II, and he was content, rather, that they should be entrusted to Bartolommeo Ammanati, whom Vasari had proposed, although Buonarroti had something of a private grievance against him, as also against Nanni di Baccio Bigio, caused by a reason which, if one considers it well, seems slight enough; for when they were very young, moved rather by love of art than by a desire to do wrong, they had entered with great pains into his house, and had taken from Antonio Mini, the disciple of Michelagnolo, many sheets with drawings; but these were afterwards all restored to him by order of the Tribunal of Eight, and, at the intercession of his friend Messer Giovanni Norchiati, Canon of S. Lorenzo, he would not have any other punishment inflicted on them. Vasari, when Michelagnolo spoke to him of this matter, said to him, laughing, that it did not seem to him that they deserved any blame, and that he himself, if he had ever been able, would have not taken a few drawings only, but robbed him of everything by his hand that he might have been able to seize, merely for the sake of learning art. One must look kindly, he said, on those who seek after excellence, and also reward them, and therefore such men must not be treated like those who go about stealing money, household property, and other things of value; and so the matter was turned into a jest. This was the reason that a beginning was made with the work of the Montorio, and that in the same year Vasari and Ammanati went to have the marble conveyed from Carrara to Rome for the execution of that work. At that time Vasari was with Michelagnolo every day; and one morning the Pope in his kindness gave them both leave that they might visit the Seven Churches on horseback (for it was Holy Year), and receive the Pardon in company. Whereupon, while going from one church to another, they had many useful and beautiful conversations on art and every industry, and out of these Vasari composed a dialogue, which will be published at some more favourable opportunity, together with other things concerning art. In that year Pope Julius III confirmed the Motu-proprio of Pope Paul III with regard to the building of S. Pietro; and although much evil was spoken to him of Michelagnolo by the friends of the San Gallo faction, in the matter of that fabric of S. Pietro, at that time the Pope would not listen to a word, for Vasari had demonstrated to him (as was the truth) that Michelagnolo had given life to the building, and also persuaded his Holiness that he should do nothing concerned with design without the advice of Michelagnolo. This promise the Pope kept ever afterwards, for neither at the Vigna Julia did he do anything without his counsel, nor at the Belvedere, where there was built the staircase that is there now, in place of the semicircular staircase that came forward, ascending in eight steps, and turned inwards in eight more steps, erected in former times by Bramante in the great recess in the centre of the Belvedere. And Michelagnolo designed and caused to be built the very beautiful quadrangular staircase, with balusters of peperino-stone, which is there at the present day. Vasari had finished in that year the printing of his work, the Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, in Florence. Now he had not written the Life of any living master, although some who were old were still alive, save only of Michelagnolo; and in the book were many records of circumstances that Vasari had received from his lips, his age and his judgment being the greatest among all the craftsmen. Giorgio therefore presented the work to him, and he received it very gladly; and not long afterwards, having read it, Michelagnolo sent to him the following sonnet, written by himself, which I am pleased to include in this place in memory of his loving-kindness: Se con lo stile o co' colori havete Alla Natura pareggiato l'Arte, Anzi a quella scemato il pregio in parte, Che 'l bel di lei più bello a noi rendete, Poichè con dotta man posto vi siete A più degno lavoro, a vergar carte, Quel che vi manca a lei di pregio in parte, Nel dar vita ad altrui tutto togliete. Che se secolo alcuno omai contese In far bell'opre, almen cedale, poi Che convien', ch'al prescritto fine arrive. Or le memorie altrui già spente accese Tornando fate, or che sien quelle, e voi, Mal grado d'esse, eternalmente vive. Vasari departed for Florence, and left to Michelagnolo the charge of having the work founded in the Montorio. Now Messer Bindo Altoviti, the Consul of the Florentine colony at that time, was much the friend of Vasari, and on this occasion Giorgio said to him that it would be well to have this work erected in the Church of S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini, and that he had already spoken of it with Michelagnolo, who would favour the enterprise; and that this would be a means of giving completion to that church. This proposal pleased Messer Bindo, and, being very intimate with the Pope, he urged it warmly upon him, demonstrating that it would be well that the chapel and the tombs which his Holiness was having executed for the Montorio should be placed in the Church of S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini; adding that the result would be that with this occasion and this spur the Florentine colony would undertake such expenditure that the church would receive its completion, and, if his Holiness were to build the principal chapel, the other merchants would build six chapels, and then little by little all the rest. Whereupon the Pope changed his mind, and, although the model for the work was already made and the price arranged, went to the Montorio and sent for Michelagnolo, to whom Vasari was writing every day, receiving answers from him according to the opportunities presented in the course of affairs. Michelagnolo then wrote to Vasari, on the first day of August in 1550, of the change that the Pope had made; and these are his words, written in his own hand: ROME. "MY DEAR MESSER GIORGIO, "With regard to the founding of the work at S. Pietro a Montorio, and how the Pope would not listen to a word, I wrote you nothing, knowing that you are kept informed by your man here. Now I must tell you what has happened, which is as follows. Yesterday morning the Pope, having gone to the said Montorio, sent for me. I met him on the bridge, on his way back, and had a long conversation with him about the tombs allotted to you; and in the end he told me that he was resolved that he would not place those tombs on that mount, but in the Church of the Florentines. He sought from me my opinion and also designs, and I encouraged him not a little, considering that by this means the said church would be finished. Respecting your three letters received, I have no pen wherewith to answer to such exalted matters, but if I should rejoice to be in some sort what you make me, I should rejoice for no other reason save that you might have a servant who might be worth something. But I do not marvel that you, who restore dead men to life, should lengthen the life of the living, or rather, that you should steal from death for an unlimited period those barely alive. To cut this short, such as I am, I am wholly yours, "MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI." While these matters were being discussed, and the Florentine colony was seeking to raise money, certain difficulties arose, on account of which they came to no decision, and the affair grew cold. Meanwhile, Vasari and Ammanati having by this time had all the marbles quarried at Carrara, a great part of them were sent to Rome, and with them Ammanati, through whom Vasari wrote to Buonarroti that he should ascertain from the Pope where he wanted the tomb, and, after receiving his orders, should have the work begun. The moment that Michelagnolo received the letter, he spoke to his Holiness; and with his own hand he wrote the following resolution to Vasari: "_13th of October_, 1550. "MY DEAR MESSER GIORGIO, "The instant that Bartolommeo arrived here, I went to speak to the Pope, and, having perceived that he wished to begin the work once more at the Montorio, in the matter of the tombs, I looked for a mason from S. Pietro. 'Tantecose'[3] heard this and insisted on sending one of his choosing, and I, to avoid contending with a man who commands the winds, have retired from the matter, because, he being a light-minded person, I would not care to be drawn into any entanglement. Enough that in my opinion there is no more thought to be given to the Church of the Florentines. Fare you well, and come back soon. Nothing else occurs to me." [Footnote 3: Busybody, or Jack-of-all-Trades.] Michelagnolo used to call Monsignor di Forlì "Tantecose," because he insisted on doing everything himself. Being Chamberlain to the Pope, he had charge of the medals, jewels, cameos, little figures in bronze, pictures, and drawings, and desired that everything should depend on him. Michelagnolo was always anxious to avoid the man, because he had been constantly working against the master's interests, and therefore Buonarroti feared lest he might be drawn into some entanglement by the intrigues of such a man. In short, the Florentine colony lost a very fine opportunity for that church, and God knows when they will have such another; and to me it was an indescribable grief. I have desired not to omit to make this brief record, to the end that it may be seen that our Michelagnolo always sought to help his fellow-countrymen and his friends, and also art. Vasari had scarcely returned to Rome, when, before the beginning of the year 1551, the San Gallo faction arranged a conspiracy against Michelagnolo, whereby the Pope was to hold an assembly in S. Pietro, and to summon together the superintendents and all those who had the charge of the work, in order to show to the Pope, by means of false calumnies, that Michelagnolo had ruined that fabric, because, he having already built the apse of the King, where there are the three chapels, and having executed these with the three windows above, they, not knowing what was to be done with the vaulting, with feeble judgment had given the elder Cardinal Salviati and Marcello Cervini, who afterwards became Pope, to understand that S. Pietro was being left with little light. Whereupon, all being assembled, the Pope said to Michelagnolo that the deputies declared that the apse would give little light, and he answered: "I would like to hear these deputies speak in person." Cardinal Marcello replied: "We are here." Then Michelagnolo said to him: "Monsignore, above these windows, in the vaulting, which is to be made of travertine, there are to be three others." "You have never told us that," said the Cardinal. And Michelagnolo answered: "I am not obliged, nor do I intend to be obliged, to say either to your Highness or to any other person what I am bound or desirous to do. Your office is to obtain the money and to guard it from thieves, and the charge of the design for the building you must leave to me." And then, turning to the Pope, he said: "Holy Father, you see what my gains are, and that if these fatigues that I endure do not profit me in my mind, I am wasting my time and my work." The Pope, who loved him, laid his hands on his shoulders, and said: "You shall profit both in mind and in body; do not doubt it." Michelagnolo having thus been able to get rid of those persons, the Pope came to love him even more; and he commanded him and Vasari that on the day following they should both present themselves at the Vigna Julia, in which place his Holiness had many discussions with him, and they carried that work almost to the condition of perfect beauty in which it now is; nor did the Pope discuss or do anything in the matter of design without Michelagnolo's advice and judgment. And, among other things, since Michelagnolo went often with Vasari to visit him, the Pope insisted, once when he was at the fountain of the Acqua Vergine with twelve Cardinals, after Buonarroti had come up; the Pope, I say, insisted very strongly that he should sit beside him, although he sought most humbly to excuse himself; thus always honouring his genius as much as lay in his power. The Pope caused him to make the model of a façade for a palace that his Holiness desired to build beside S. Rocco, intending to avail himself of the Mausoleum of Augustus for the rest of the masonry; and, as a design for a façade, there is nothing to be seen that is more varied, more ornate, or more novel in manner and arrangement, for the reason that, as has been seen in all his works, he never consented to be bound by any law, whether ancient or modern, in matters of architecture, as one who had a brain always able to discover things new and well-varied, and in no way less beautiful. That model is now in the possession of Duke Cosimo de' Medici, who had it as a present from Pope Pius IV when he went to Rome; and he holds it among his dearest treasures. That Pope had such respect for Michelagnolo, that he was constantly taking up his defence against Cardinals and others who sought to calumniate him, and he desired that other craftsmen, however able and renowned they might be, should always go to seek him at his house; such, indeed, were the regard and reverence that he felt for him, that his Holiness did not venture, lest he might annoy him, to call upon Michelagnolo for many works which, although he was old, he could have executed. As far back as the time of Paul III Michelagnolo had made a beginning with the work of refounding, under his own direction, the Ponte S. Maria at Rome, which had been weakened by the constant flow of water and by age, and was falling into ruin. The refounding was contrived by Michelagnolo by means of caissons, and by making stout reinforcements against the piers; and already he had carried a great part of it to completion, and had spent large sums on wood and travertine on behalf of the work, when, in the time of Julius III, an assembly was held by the Clerks of the Chamber with a view to making an end of it, and a proposal was made among them by the architect Nanni di Baccio Bigio, saying that if it were allotted by contract to him it would be finished in a short time and without much expense; and this they suggested on the pretext, as it were, of doing a favour to Michelagnolo and relieving him of a burden, because he was old, alleging that he gave no thought to it, and that if matters remained as they were the end would never be seen. The Pope, who little liked being troubled, not thinking what the result might be, gave authority to the Clerks of the Chamber that they should have charge of the work, as a thing pertaining to them; and then, without Michelagnolo hearing another word about it, they gave it with all those materials, without any conditions, to Nanni, who gave no attention to the reinforcements, which were necessary for the refounding, but relieved the bridge of some weight, in consequence of having seen a great quantity of travertine wherewith it had been flanked and faced in ancient times, the result of which was to give weight to the bridge and to make it stouter, stronger, and more secure. In place of that he used gravel and other materials cast with cement, in such a manner that no defect could be seen in the inner part of the work, and on the outer side he made parapets and other things, insomuch that to the eye it appeared as if made altogether new; but it was made lighter all over and weakened throughout. Five years afterwards, when the flood of the year 1557 came down, it happened that the bridge collapsed in such a manner as to make known the little judgment of the Clerks of the Chamber and the loss that Rome suffered by departing from the counsel of Michelagnolo, who predicted the ruin of the bridge many times to me and to his other friends. Thus I remember that he said to me, when we were passing there together on horseback, "Giorgio, this bridge is shaking under us; let us spur our horses, or it may fall while we are upon it." But to return to the narrative interrupted above; when the work of the Montorio was finished, and that much to my satisfaction, I returned to Florence to re-enter the service of Duke Cosimo, which was in the year 1554. The departure of Vasari grieved Michelagnolo, and likewise Giorgio, for the reason that Michelagnolo's adversaries kept harassing him every day, now in one way and now in another; wherefore they did not fail to write to one another daily. And in April of the same year, Vasari giving him the news that Leonardo, the nephew of Michelagnolo, had had a male child, that they had accompanied him to baptism with an honourable company of most noble ladies, and that they had revived the name of Buonarroto, Michelagnolo answered in a letter to Vasari in these words: "DEAR FRIEND GIORGIO, "I have had the greatest pleasure from your letter, seeing that you still remember the poor old man, and even more because you were present at the triumph which, as you write, you witnessed in the birth of another Buonarroto; for which intelligence I thank you with all my heart and soul. But so much pomp does not please me, for man should not be laughing when all the world is weeping. It seems to me that Leonardo should not make so much rejoicing over a new birth, with all that gladness which should be reserved for the death of one who has lived well. Do not marvel if I delay to answer; I do it so as not to appear a merchant. As for the many praises that you send me in your letter, I tell you that if I deserved a single one of them, it would appear to me that in giving myself to you body and soul, I had truly given you something, and had discharged some infinitesimal part of the debt that I owe you; whereas I recognize you every hour as my creditor for more than I can repay, and, since I am an old man, I can now never hope to be able to square the account in this life, but perhaps in the next. Wherefore I pray you have patience, and remain wholly yours. Things here are much as usual." Already, in the time of Paul III, Duke Cosimo had sent Tribolo to Rome to see if he might be able to persuade Michelagnolo to return to Florence, in order to give completion to the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo. But Michelagnolo excused himself because, having grown old, he could not support the burden of such fatigues, and demonstrated to him with many reasons that he could not leave Rome. Whereupon Tribolo finally asked him about the staircase of the library of S. Lorenzo, for which Michelagnolo had caused many stones to be prepared, but there was no model of it nor any certainty as to the exact form, and, although there were some marks on a pavement and some other sketches in clay, the true and final design could not be found. However, no matter how much Tribolo might beseech him and invoke the name of the Duke, Michelagnolo would never answer a word save that he remembered nothing of it. Orders were given to Vasari by Duke Cosimo that he should write to Michelagnolo, requesting him to write saying what final form that staircase was to have; in the hope that through the friendship and love that he bore to Vasari, he would say something that might lead to some solution and to the completion of the work. Vasari wrote to Michelagnolo the mind of the Duke, saying that the execution of all that was to be done would fall to him; which he would do with that fidelity and care with which, as Michelagnolo knew, he was wont to treat such of his works as he had in charge. Wherefore Michelagnolo sent the directions for making the above-named staircase in a letter by his own hand on the 28th of September, 1555. [Illustration: BIBLIOTECA LAURENZIANA (_After =Michelagnolo=. Florence_) _Alinari_] "MESSER GIORGIO, DEAR FRIEND, "Concerning the staircase for the library, of which so much has been said to me, you may believe that if I could remember how I had designed it, I would not need to be entreated. There does, indeed, come back to my mind, like a dream, a certain staircase; but I do not believe that it is exactly the one which I conceived at that time, because it comes out so stupid. However, I will describe it here. Take a quantity of oval boxes, each one palm in depth, but not of equal length and breadth. The first and largest place on the pavement at such a distance from the wall of the door as may make the staircase easy or steep, according to your pleasure. Upon this place another, which must be so much smaller in every direction as to leave on the first one below as much space as the foot requires in ascending; diminishing and drawing back the steps one after another towards the door, in accord with the ascent. And the diminution of the last step must reduce it to the proportion of the space of the door. The said part of the staircase with the oval steps must have two wings, one on one side and one on the other, with corresponding steps but not oval. Of these the central flight shall serve as the principal staircase, and from the centre of the staircase to the top the curves of the said wings shall meet the wall; but from the centre down to the pavement they shall stand, together with the whole staircase, at a distance of about three palms from the wall, in such a manner that the basement of the vestibule shall not be obstructed in any part, and every face shall be left free. I am writing nonsense; but I know well that you will find something to your purpose." Michelagnolo also wrote to Vasari in those days that Julius III being dead, and Marcellus elected, the faction that was against him, in consequence of the election of the new Pontiff, had again begun to harass him. Which hearing, and not liking these ways, the Duke caused Giorgio to write and tell him that he should leave Rome and come to live in Florence, where the Duke did not desire more than his advice and designs at times for his buildings, and that he would receive from that lord all that he might desire, without doing anything with his own hand. Again, there were carried to him by M. Leonardo Marinozzi, the private Chamberlain of Duke Cosimo, letters written by his Excellency; and so also by Vasari. But then, Marcellus being dead, and Paul IV having been elected, by whom once again numerous offers had been made to him from the very beginning, when he went to kiss his feet, the desire to finish the fabric of S. Pietro, and the obligation by which he thought himself bound to that task, kept him back; and, employing certain excuses, he wrote to the Duke that for the time being he was not able to serve him, and to Vasari a letter in these very words: "MESSER GIORGIO, MY DEAR FRIEND, "I call God to witness how it was against my will and under the strongest compulsion that I was set to the building of S. Pietro in Rome by Pope Paul III, ten years ago. Had they continued to work at that fabric up to the present day, as they were doing then, I would now have reached such a point in the undertaking that I might be thinking of returning home; but for want of money it has been much retarded, and is still being retarded at the time when it has reached the most laborious and difficult stage, insomuch that to abandon it now would be nothing short of the greatest possible disgrace and sin, losing the reward of the labours that I have endured in those ten years for the love of God. I have made you this discourse in answer to your letter, and also because I have a letter from the Duke that has made me marvel much that his Excellency should have deigned to write so graciously; for which I thank God and his Excellency to the best of my power and knowledge. I wander from the subject, because I have lost my memory and my wits, and writing is a great affliction to me, for it is not my art. The conclusion is this: to make you understand what would be the result if I were to abandon the fabric and depart from Rome; firstly, I would please a number of thieves, and secondly, I would be the cause of its ruin, and perhaps, also, of its being suspended for ever." Continuing to write to Giorgio, Michelagnolo said to him, to excuse himself with the Duke, that he had a house and many convenient things at his disposal in Rome, which were worth thousands of crowns, in addition to being in danger of his life from disease of the kidneys, colic, and the stone, as happens to every old person, and as could be proved by Maestro Realdo, his physician, from whom he congratulated himself on having his life, after God; that for these reasons he was not able to leave Rome, and, finally, that he had no heart for anything but death. He besought Vasari, as he did in several other letters that Giorgio has by his hand, that he should recommend him to the Duke for pardon, in addition to what he wrote to the Duke, as I have said, to excuse himself. If Michelagnolo had been able to ride, he would have gone straightway to Florence, whence, I believe, he would never have consented to depart in order to return to Rome, so much was he influenced by the tenderness and love that he felt for the Duke; but meanwhile he gave his attention to working at many parts of the above-named fabric, in order so to fix the form that it might never again be changed. During this time certain persons had informed him that Pope Paul IV was minded to make him alter the façade of the chapel where the Last Judgment is, because, he said, those figures showed their nakedness too shamelessly. When, therefore, the mind of the Pope was made known to Michelagnolo, he answered: "Tell the Pope that it is no great affair, and that it can be altered with ease. Let him put the world right, and every picture will be put right in a moment." The office of the Chancellery of Rimini was taken away from Michelagnolo, but he would never speak of this to the Pope, who did not know it; and it was taken away from him by the Pope's Cup-bearer, who sought to have a hundred crowns a month given to him in respect of the fabric of S. Pietro, and caused a month's payment to be taken to his house, but Michelagnolo would not accept it. In the same year took place the death of Urbino, his servant, or rather, as he may be called, and as he had been, his companion. This man came to live with Michelagnolo in Florence in the year 1530, after the siege was finished, when his disciple Antonio Mini went to France; and he rendered very faithful service to Michelagnolo, insomuch that in twenty-six years that faithful and intimate service brought it about that Michelagnolo made him rich and so loved him, that in this, Urbino's last illness, old as he was, he nursed him and slept in his clothes at night to watch over him. Wherefore, after he was dead, Vasari wrote to Michelagnolo to console him, and he answered in these words: "MY DEAR MESSER GIORGIO, "I am scarce able to write, but, in reply to your letter, I shall say something. You know how Urbino died, wherein God has shown me very great grace, although it is also a grave loss and an infinite grief to me. This grace is that whereas when living he kept me alive, dying he has taught me to die not with regret, but with a desire for death. I have had him twenty-six years, and have found him a very rare and faithful servant; and now, when I had made him rich and was looking to him as the staff and repose of my old age, he has flown from me, nor is any hope left to me but to see him again in Paradise. And of this God has granted a sign in the happy death that he died, in that dying grieved him much less than leaving me in this traitorous world with so many afflictions; although the greater part of me is gone with him, and nothing is left me but infinite misery. I commend myself to you." Michelagnolo was employed in the time of Pope Paul IV on many parts of the fortifications of Rome, and also by Salustio Peruzzi, to whom that Pope, as has been related elsewhere, had given the charge of executing the great portal of the Castello di S. Angelo, which is now half ruined; and he occupied himself in distributing the statues of that work, examining the models of the sculptors, and correcting them. At that time the French army approached near to Rome, and Michelagnolo thought that he was like to come to an evil end together with that city; whereupon he resolved to fly from Rome with Antonio Franzese of Castel Durante, whom Urbino at his death had left in his house as his servant, and went secretly to the mountains of Spoleto, where he visited certain seats of hermits. Meanwhile Vasari wrote to him, sending him a little work that Carlo Lenzoni, a citizen of Florence, had left at his death to Messer Cosimo Bartoli, who was to have it printed and dedicated to Michelagnolo; which, when it was finished, Vasari sent in those days to Michelagnolo, and he, having received it, answered thus: "_September_ 18, 1556. "MESSER GIORGIO, DEAR FRIEND, "I have received Messer Cosimo's little book, which you send to me, and this shall be a letter of thanks. I pray you to give them to him, and send him my compliments. "I have had in these days great discomfort and expense, but also great pleasure, in visiting the hermits in the mountains of Spoleto, insomuch that less than half of me has returned to Rome, seeing that in truth there is no peace to be found save in the woods. I have nothing more to tell you. I am glad that you are well and happy, and I commend myself to you." Michelagnolo used to work almost every day, as a pastime, at that block with the four figures of which we have already spoken; which block he broke into pieces at this time for these reasons, either because it was hard and full of emery, and the chisel often struck sparks from it, or it may have been that the judgment of the man was so great that he was never content with anything that he did. A proof that this is true is that there are few finished statues to be seen out of all that he executed in the prime of his manhood, and that those completely finished were executed by him in his youth, such as the Bacchus, the Pietà in S. Maria della Febbre, the Giant of Florence, and the Christ of the Minerva, which it would not be possible to increase or diminish by as little as a grain of millet without spoiling them; and the others, with the exception of the Dukes Giuliano and Lorenzo, Night, Dawn, and Moses, with the other two, the whole number of these statues not amounting in all to eleven, the others, I say, were all left unfinished, and, moreover, they are many, Michelagnolo having been wont to say that if he had had to satisfy himself in what he did, he would have sent out few, nay, not one. For he had gone so far with his art and judgment, that, when he had laid bare a figure and had perceived in it the slightest degree of error, he would set it aside and run to lay his hand on another block of marble, trusting that the same would not happen to the new block; and he often said that this was the reason that he gave for having executed so few statues and pictures. This Pietà, when it was broken, he presented to Francesco Bandini. Now at this time Tiberio Calcagni, a Florentine sculptor, had become much the friend of Michelagnolo by means of Francesco Bandini and Messer Donato Giannotti; and being one day in Michelagnolo's house, where there was the Pietà, all broken, after a long conversation he asked him for what reason he had broken it up and destroyed labours so marvellous, and he answered that the reason was the importunity of his servant Urbino, who kept urging him every day to finish it, besides which, among other things, a piece of one of the elbows of the Madonna had been broken off, and even before that he had taken an aversion to it, and had had many misfortunes with it by reason of a flaw that was in the marble, so that he lost his patience and began to break it up; and he would have broken it altogether into pieces if his servant Antonio had not besought him that he should present it to him as it was. Whereupon Tiberio, having heard this, spoke to Bandini, who desired to have something by the hand of Michelagnolo, and Bandini contrived that Tiberio should promise to Antonio two hundred crowns of gold, and prayed Michelagnolo to consent that Tiberio should finish it for Bandini with the assistance of models by his hand, urging that thus his labour would not be thrown away. Michelagnolo was satisfied, and then made them a present of it. The work was carried away immediately, and then put together again and reconstructed with I know not what new pieces by Tiberio; but it was left unfinished by reason of the death of Bandini, Michelagnolo, and Tiberio. At the present day it is in the possession of Pier Antonio Bandini, the son of Francesco, at his villa on Monte Cavallo. But to return to Michelagnolo; it became necessary to find some work in marble on which he might be able to pass some time every day with the chisel, and another piece of marble was put before him, from which another Pietà had been already blocked out, different from the first and much smaller. [Illustration: PIETÀ (_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome: Palazzo Rondanini_) _Alinari_] There had entered into the service of Paul IV, and also into the charge of the fabric of S. Pietro, the architect Pirro Ligorio, and he was now once more harassing Michelagnolo, going about saying that he had sunk into his second childhood. Wherefore, angered by such treatment, he would willingly have returned to Florence, and, having delayed to return, he was again urged in letters by Giorgio, but he knew that he was too old, having now reached the age of eighty-one. Writing at that time to Vasari by his courier, and sending him various spiritual sonnets, he said that he was come to the end of his life, that he must be careful where he directed his thoughts, that by reading he would see that he was at his last hour, and that there arose in his mind no thought upon which was not graved the image of death; and in one letter he said: "It is God's will, Vasari, that I should continue to live in misery for some years. I know that you will tell me that I am an old fool to wish to write sonnets, but since many say that I am in my second childhood, I have sought to act accordingly. By your letter I see the love that you bear me, and you may take it as certain that I would be glad to lay these feeble bones of mine beside those of my father, as you beg me to do; but by departing from here I would be the cause of the utter ruin of the fabric of S. Pietro, which would be a great disgrace and a very grievous sin. However, when it is so firmly established that it can never be changed, I hope to do all that you ask me, if it be not a sin to keep in anxious expectation certain gluttons that await my immediate departure." With this letter was the following sonnet, also written in his own hand: Giunto è già 'l corso della vita mia Con tempestoso mar' per fragil barca Al comun porto, ov'a render' si varca Conto e ragion' d'ogni opra trista e pia. Onde l'affetuosa fantasia, Che l'arte mi fece idolo e monarca, Conosco or' ben' quant'era d'error' carca, E quel ch'a mal suo grado ognun' desia. Gli amorosi pensier' già vani e lieti Che sien'or', s'a due morti mi avvicino? D'una so certo, e l'altra mi minaccia. Nè pinger' nè scolpir' sia più che quieti L'anima volta a quello Amor Divino Ch'aperse a prender' noi in Croce le braccia. Whereby it was evident that he was drawing towards God, abandoning the cares of art on account of the persecution of his malignant fellow-craftsmen, and also through the fault of certain overseers of the fabric, who would have liked, as he used to say, to dip their hands in the chest. By order of Duke Cosimo, a reply was written to Michelagnolo by Vasari in a letter of few words, exhorting him to repatriate himself, with a sonnet corresponding in the rhymes. Michelagnolo would willingly have left Rome, but he was so weary and aged, that although, as will be told below, he was determined to go back, while the spirit was willing the flesh was weak, and that kept him in Rome. It happened in June of the year 1557, he having made a model for the vault that was to cover the apse, which was being built of travertine in the Chapel of the King, that, from his not being able to go there as he had been wont, an error arose, in that the capomaestro took the measurements over the whole body of the vault with one single centre, whereas there should have been a great number; and Michelagnolo, as the friend and confidant of Vasari, sent him designs by his own hand, with these words written at the foot of two of them: "The centre marked with red was used by the capomaestro over the body of the whole vault; then, when he began to pass to the half-circle, which is at the summit of the vault, he became aware of the error which that centre was producing, as may be seen here in the design, marked in black. With this error the vault has gone so far forward, that we have to displace a great number of stones, for in that vault there is being placed no brick-work, but all travertine, and the diameter of the circle, without the cornice that borders it, is twenty-two palms. This error, after I had made an exact model, as I do of everything, has been caused by my not being able, on account of my old age, to go there often; so that, whereas I believed that the vault was now finished, it will not be finished all this winter, and, if it were possible to die of shame and grief, I should not be alive now. I pray you account to the Duke for my not being at this moment in Florence." [Illustration: S. PETER'S (_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome_) _Alinari_] And continuing in the other design, where he had drawn the plan, he said this: "MESSER GIORGIO, "To the end that it may be easier to understand the difficulty of the vault by observing its rise from the level of the ground, let me explain that I have been forced to divide it into three vaults, corresponding to the windows below divided by pilasters; and you see that they go pyramidally into the centre of the summit of the vault, as also do the base and sides of the same. It was necessary to regulate them with an infinite number of centres, and there are in them so many changes in various directions, from point to point, that no fixed rule can be maintained. And the circles and squares that come in the middle of their deepest parts have to diminish and increase in so many directions, and to go to so many points, that it is a difficult thing to find the true method. Nevertheless, having the model, such as I make for everything, they should never have committed so great an error as to seek to regulate with one single centre all those three shells; whence it has come about that we have been obliged with shame and loss to pull down, as we are still doing, a great number of stones. The vault, with its sections and hewn stone-work, is all of travertine, like all the rest below; a thing not customary in Rome." Michelagnolo was excused by Duke Cosimo, hearing of these misfortunes, from coming to Florence; the Duke saying to him that his contentment and the continuation of S. Pietro were more dear to him than anything in the world, and that he should rest in peace. Whereupon Michelagnolo wrote to Vasari, on the same sheet in which he thanked the Duke to the best of his power and knowledge for such kindness, saying, "God give me grace that I may be able to serve him with this my poor person, for my memory and my brain are gone to await him elsewhere." The date of this letter was August in the year 1557. Thus, then, Michelagnolo learned that the Duke esteemed his life and his honour more than he did himself, who so revered him. All these things, and many more that it is not necessary to mention, we have in our possession, written in his hand. Michelagnolo by this time was reduced to a feeble condition, and it was evident that little was being done in S. Pietro, now that he had carried on a great part of the frieze of the windows within, and of the double columns without, which curve above the great round cornice[4] where the cupola is to be placed, as will be related; and he was exhorted and urged by his greatest friends, such as the Cardinal of Carpi, Messer Donato Giannotti, Francesco Bandini, Tommaso de' Cavalieri, and Lottino that, since he saw the delay in the raising of the cupola, he should at least make a model of it. He stayed many months without making up his mind to this, but in the end he made a beginning, and then little by little constructed a small model in clay, from which, as an exemplar, and from the plans and profiles that he had drawn, it might be possible afterwards to make a larger one of wood. This, having made a beginning with it, he caused to be constructed in little more than a year by Maestro Giovanni Franzese, with much study and pains; and he made it on such a scale that the smaller proportions of the model, measured by the old Roman palm, corresponded with complete exactness to those of the large work, he having fashioned with diligence in that model all the members of columns, bases, capitals, doors, windows, cornices, projections, and likewise every least thing, knowing that in such a work no less should be done, for in all Christendom, nay, in all the world, there is not to be found or seen any fabric more ornate or more grand. And I cannot but think that, if we have given up time to noting smaller things, it is even more useful, and also our duty, to describe this manner of design for building the structure of this tribune with the form, order, and method that Michelagnolo thought to give it; wherefore with such brevity as we may we will give a simple description of it, to the end that, if it should ever be the fate of this work, which God forbid, to be disturbed by the envy and malice of presumptuous persons after the death of Michelagnolo, even as we have seen it disturbed up to the present during his lifetime, these my writings, such as they may be, may be able to assist the faithful who are to be the executors of the mind of that rare man, and also to restrain the malignant desires of those who may seek to alter it, and so at one and the same time assist, delight, and open the minds of those beautiful intellects that are the friends of this profession and regard it as their joy. [Footnote 4: Drum.] [Illustration: S. PETER'S (_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome_) _Anderson_] I must begin by saying that according to this model, made under the direction of Michelagnolo, I find that in the great work the whole space within the tribune will be one hundred and eighty-six palms, speaking of its width from wall to wall above the great cornice of travertine that curves in a round in the interior, resting on the four great double piers that rise from the ground with their capitals carved in the Corinthian Order, accompanied by their architrave, frieze, and cornice, likewise of travertine; which great cornice, curving right round over the great niches, rests supported upon the four great arches of the three niches and of the entrance, which form the cross of the building. Then there begins to spring the first part of the tribune, the rise of which commences in a basement of travertine with a platform six palms broad, where one can walk; and this basement curves in a round in the manner of a well, and its thickness is thirty-three palms and eleven inches, the height to the cornice eleven palms and ten inches, the cornice over it about eight palms, and its projection six and a half palms. Into this basement you enter, in order to ascend the tribune, by four entrances that are over the arches of the niches, and the thickness of the basement is divided into three parts; that on the inner side is fifteen palms, that on the outer side is eleven palms, and that in the centre is seven palms and eleven inches, which make up the thickness of thirty-three palms and eleven inches. The space in the centre is hollow and serves as a passage, which is two squares in height and curves in a continuous round, with a barrel-shaped vault; and in line with the four entrances are eight doors, each of which rises in four steps, one of them leading to the level platform of the cornice of the first basement, six palms and a half in breadth, and another leading to the inner cornice that curves round the tribune, eight palms and three-quarters broad, on which platforms, by each door, you can walk conveniently both within and without the edifice, and from one entrance to another in a curve of two hundred and one palms, so that, the sections being four, the whole circuit comes to be eight hundred and four palms. We now have to ascend from the level of this basement, upon which rest the columns and pilasters, and which forms the frieze of the windows within all the way round, being fourteen palms and one inch in height, and around it, on the outer side, there is at the foot a short order of cornice-work, and so also at the top, which does not project more than ten inches, and all of travertine; and so in the thickness of the third part, above that on the inner side, which we have described as fifteen palms thick, there is made in every quarter-section a staircase, one half of which ascends in one direction and the second half in another, the width being four palms and a quarter; and this staircase leads to the level of the columns. Above this level there begin to rise, in line with the solid parts of the basement, eighteen large piers all of travertine, each adorned with two columns on the outer side and pilasters on the inner, as will be described below, and between the piers are left the spaces where there are to be all the windows that are to give light to the tribune. These piers, on the sides pointing towards the central point of the tribune, are thirty-six palms in extent, and on the front sides nineteen and a half. Each of them, on the outer side, has two columns, the lowest dado of which is eight palms and three-quarters broad and one palm and a half high, the base five palms and eight inches broad and ... palms and eleven inches high, the shaft of the column forty-three and a half palms high, five palms and six inches thick at the foot and four palms and nine inches at the top, the Corinthian capital six palms and a half high, with the crown of mouldings nine palms. Of these columns three quarters are to be seen, and the other quarter is merged into the corner, with the accompaniment of the half of a pilaster that makes a salient angle on the inner side, and this is accompanied in the central inner space by the opening of an arched door, five palms wide and thirteen palms and five inches high, from the summit of which to the capitals of the pilasters and columns there is a filling of solid masonry, serving as a connection with two other pilasters that are similar to those that form a salient angle beside the columns. These two pilasters correspond to the others, and adorn the sides of sixteen windows that go right round the tribune, each with a light twelve palms and a half wide and about twenty-two palms high. These windows are to be adorned on the outer side with varied architraves two palms and three-quarters high, and on the inner side they are to be adorned with orders likewise varied, with pediments and quarter-rounds; and they are wide without and more narrow within, and so, also, they are sloped away at the foot of the inner side, so that they may give light over the frieze and cornice. Each of them is bordered by two flat pilasters that correspond in height to the columns without, so that there come to be thirty-six columns without and thirty-six pilasters within; over which pilasters is the architrave, which is four palms and three-quarters in height, the frieze four and a half, and the cornice four and two-thirds, with a projection of five palms; and above this is to go a range of balusters, so that one may be able to walk all the way round there with safety. And in order that it may be possible to climb conveniently from the level where the columns begin, another staircase ascends in the same line within the thickness of the part that is fifteen palms wide, in the same manner and of the same width, with two branches or ascents, all the way up to the summit of the columns, with their capitals, architraves, friezes, and cornices; insomuch that, without obstructing the light of the windows, these stairs pass at the top into a spiral staircase of the same breadth, which finally reaches the level where the turning of the tribune is to begin. All this order, distribution, and ornamentation is so well varied, commodious, rich, durable, and strong, and serves so well to support the two vaults of the cupola that is to be turned upon it, that it is a very ingenious thing, and it is all so well considered and then executed in masonry, that there is nothing to be seen by the eyes of one who has knowledge and understanding that is more pleasing, more beautiful, or wrought with greater mastery, both on account of the binding together and mortising of the stones and because it has in it in every part strength and eternal life, and also because of the great judgment wherewith he contrived to carry away the rain-water by many hidden channels, and, finally, because he brought it to such perfection, that all other fabrics that have been built and seen up to the present day appear as nothing in comparison with the grandeur of this one. And it has been a very great loss that those whose duty it was did not put all their power into the undertaking, for the reason that, before death took away from us that rare man, we should have seen that beautiful and terrible structure already raised. Up to this point has Michelagnolo carried the masonry of the work; and it only remains to make a beginning with the vaulting of the tribune, of which, since the model has come down to us, we shall proceed to describe the design that he has left to the end that it may be carried out. He turned the curve of this vault on three points that make a triangle, in this manner: A B C The point C, which is the lowest, is the principal one, wherewith he turned the first half-circle of the tribune, with which he gave the form, height and breadth of this vault, which he ordered to be built entirely of bricks well baked and fired, laid herring-bone fashion. This shell he makes four palms and a half thick, and as thick at the top as at the foot, and leaving beside it, in the centre, a space four palms and a half wide at the foot, which is to serve for the ascent of the stairs that are to lead to the lantern, rising from the platform of the cornice where there are balusters. The arch of the interior of the other shell, which is to be wider at the foot and narrower at the top, is turned on the point marked B, and the thickness of the shell at the foot is four palms and a half. And the last arch, which is to be turned in order to make the exterior of the cupola, wider at the foot and narrowing towards the top, is to be raised on the point marked A, which arch turned, there remains at the top all the hollow space of the interior for the ascent of the stairs, which are eight palms high, so that one may climb them upright; and the thickness of that shell comes to diminish little by little, insomuch that, being as before four palms and a half at the foot, it decreases at the top to three palms and a half. And the outer shell comes to be so well bound to the inner shell with bonds and with the stairs, that the one supports the other; while of the eight parts into which the fabric is divided at the base, the four over the arches are left hollow, in order to put less weight upon the arches, and the other four are bound and chained together with bonds upon the piers, so that the structure may have everlasting life. The stairs in the centre between one shell and the other are constructed in this form; from the level where the springing of the vault begins they rise in each of the four sections, and each ascends from two entrances, the stairs intersecting one another in the form of an X, until they have covered the half of the arch marked C, on the upper side of the shell, when, having ascended straight up the half of that arch, the remaining space is then easily climbed circle after circle and step after step in a direct line, until finally one arrives at the eye of the cupola, where the rise of the lantern begins, around which, in accord with the diminution of the compartments that spring above the piers, there is a smaller range of double pilasters and windows similar to those that are constructed in the interior, as will be described below. Over the first great cornice within the tribune there begin at the foot the compartments for the recesses that are in the vault of the tribune, which are formed by sixteen projecting ribs. These at the foot are as broad as the breadth of the two pilasters which at the lower end border each window below the vault of the tribune, and they rise, diminishing pyramidally, as far as the eye of the lantern; at the foot they rest on pedestals of the same breadth and twelve palms high, and these pedestals rest on the level platform of the cornice which goes in a circle right round the tribune. Above this, in the recessed spaces between the ribs, there are eight large ovals, each twenty-nine palms high, and over them a number of straight-sided compartments that are wider at the foot and narrower at the top, and twenty-four palms high, and then, the ribs drawing together, there comes above each straight-sided compartment a round fourteen palms high; so that there come to be eight ovals, eight straight-sided compartments, and eight rounds, each range forming recesses that grow more shallow in succession. The ground of all these displays extraordinary richness, for Michelagnolo intended to make the ribs and the ornaments of the said ovals, straight-sided compartments, and rounds, all corniced in travertine. It remains for us to make mention of the surface and adornment of the arch on that side of the vault where the roofing is to go, which begins to rise from a base twenty-five palms and a half high, which has at the foot a basement that has a projection of two palms, as have the crowning mouldings at the top. The covering or roofing with which he proposed to cover it is of lead, such as covers the roof of the old S. Pietro at the present day, and is divided into sixteen sections from one solid base to another, each base beginning where the two columns end, which are one on either side of it. In each of these sections, in the centre, he made two windows to give light to the inner space where the ascent of the stairs is, between the two shells, so that in all they are thirty-two. These, by means of brackets that support a quarter-round, he made projecting from the roof in such a manner as to protect the lofty and novel view-point from the rain. In a line with the centre of the solid base between each two columns, above which was the crowning cornice, sprang a rib, one to each, wider at the foot and narrowing at the top; in all sixteen ribs, five palms broad, in the centre of each of which was a quadrangular channel one palm and a half wide, within which is formed an ascent of steps about one palm high, by which to ascend or descend between the platform at the foot and the summit where the lantern begins. These are to be built of travertine and constructed with mortisings, to the end that the joins may be protected against water and ice during times of rain. The design for the lantern is reduced in the same proportion as all the rest of the work, so that, taking lines round the circumference, everything comes to diminish in exact accord, and with proportionate measurements it rises as a simple temple with round columns two by two, like those on the solid bases below. These have pilasters to correspond to them, and one can walk all the way round and see from the central spaces between the pilasters, where the windows are, the interior of the tribune and the church. Above this, architrave, frieze, and cornice curve in a round, projecting over each pair of columns; and over these columns, in a line with them, spring some caulicoles, which, together with some niches that divide them, rise to find the end of the lantern, which, beginning to draw together, grows gradually narrower for a third of its height, in the manner of a round pyramid, until it reaches the ball, upon which, as the final crown of the structure, goes the cross. Many particulars and minute details I might have mentioned, such as air-holes for protection against earthquakes, water-conduits, the various lights, and other conveniences, but I omit them because the work is not yet come to completion, being content to have touched on the principal parts as well as I have been able. For, since every part is in existence and can be seen, it is enough to have made this brief sketch, which is a great light to him who has no knowledge of the structure. The completion of this model caused the greatest satisfaction not only to all his friends, but to all Rome, the form of the fabric having been thus settled and established. It then came to pass that Paul IV died, and after him was elected Pius IV, who, while causing the building of the little palace in the wood of the Belvedere to be continued by Pirro Ligorio, who remained architect to the Palace, made many gracious offers and advances to Michelagnolo. The Motu-proprio originally received by Michelagnolo from Paul III, and then from Julius III and Paul IV, in respect of the fabric of S. Pietro, he confirmed in his favour, and he restored to him a part of the revenues and allowances taken away by Paul IV, employing him in many of his works of building; and in his time he caused the fabric of S. Pietro to be carried on vigorously. He made use of Michelagnolo, in particular, in preparing a design for the tomb of the Marchese Marignano, his brother, which, destined to be erected in the Duomo of Milan, was allotted by his Holiness to the Chevalier Leone Lioni of Arezzo, a most excellent sculptor and much the friend of Michelagnolo; the form of which tomb will be described in the proper place. At this time the Chevalier Leone made a very lively portrait of Michelagnolo in a medal, and to please him he fashioned on the reverse a blind man led by a dog, with these letters around: DOCEBO INIQUOS VIAS TUAS, ET IMPII AD TE CONVERTENTUR. And Michelagnolo, since it pleased him much, presented him a model in wax of Hercules crushing Antæus, by his own hand, with certain of his designs. Of Michelagnolo we have no other portraits but two in painting, one by the hand of Bugiardini and the other by Jacopo del Conte, one in bronze executed in full-relief by Daniello Ricciarelli, and this one by the Chevalier Leone; from which portraits so many copies have been made, that I have seen a good number in many places in Italy and in foreign parts. The same year Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, the son of Duke Cosimo, went to Rome to receive the hat from Pius IV, and it fell to Vasari, as his servant and familiar friend, to go with him; which Vasari went there willingly and stayed about a month, in order to enjoy Michelagnolo, who received him with great affection and was always with him. Vasari had taken with him, by order of his Excellency, a model in wood of the whole Ducal Palace of Florence, together with designs of the new apartments that had been built and painted by him; which Michelagnolo desired to see both in the model and in the designs, since, being old, he was not able to see the works themselves. These works, which were abundant and well varied, with different inventions and fancies, began with the Castration of Uranus and continued in stories of Saturn, Ops, Ceres, Jove, Juno, and Hercules, each room having one of these names, with the stories in various compartments; even as the other chambers and halls, which were beneath these, had the names of the heroes of the House of Medici, beginning with the elder Cosimo, and continuing with Lorenzo, Leo X, Clement VII, Signor Giovanni, Duke Alessandro, and Duke Cosimo, in each of which were not only the stories of their actions, but also portraits of them, of their children, and of all the ancients renowned in statesmanship, in arms, and in letters, taken from the life. Of these Vasari had written a Dialogue in which he explained all the stories, the end of the whole invention, and how the fables above harmonized with the stories below; which was read to Michelagnolo by Annibale Caro, and he took the greatest pleasure in it. This Dialogue, when Vasari shall have more time, will be published. The result of all this was as follows. Vasari was desirous of setting his hand to the Great Hall, and since, as has been said elsewhere, the ceiling was low, making it stunted and wanting in lights, he had a desire to raise that ceiling. Now the Duke would not make up his mind to give him leave that it should be raised; not that the Duke feared the cost, as was seen afterwards, but rather the danger of raising the beams of the roof thirteen braccia. However, like a man of judgment, his Excellency consented that the advice of Michelagnolo should be taken, and Michelagnolo, having seen in that model the Hall as it then was, and afterwards, all the beams having been removed and replaced by other beams with a new invention in the ceiling and walls, the same Hall as it has since been made, with the invention of the stories likewise designed therein, liked it and straightway became not a judge but a supporter, and the rather as he saw the facile method of raising the beams and the roof, and the plan for executing the whole work in a short time. Wherefore, on Vasari's return, he wrote to the Duke that he should carry out that undertaking, since it was worthy of his greatness. [Illustration: PORTA PIA (_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome_) _Alinari_] The same year Duke Cosimo went to Rome with the Lady Duchess Leonora, his consort, and Michelagnolo, after the Duke's arrival, went straightway to see him. The Duke, after receiving him with many endearments, caused him, out of respect for his great genius, to sit by his side, and with much familiarity talked to him of all that he had caused to be done in painting and sculpture at Florence, and also of all that he was minded to have done, and in particular of the Hall; and Michelagnolo again encouraged and reassured him in that matter, lamenting, since he loved that Lord, that he was not young enough to be able to serve him. His Excellency said that he had discovered the way to work porphyry, a thing which Michelagnolo could not believe, and the Duke therefore sent him, as has been related in the first chapter of the Treatise on Theory, the head of Christ wrought by the sculptor Francesco del Tadda, at which he was astonished; and he visited the Duke several times the while that he stayed in Rome, to his vast satisfaction. He did the same a short time afterwards when the most Illustrious Don Francesco de' Medici, the Duke's son, went there, in whom Michelagnolo took much delight from the marks of regard and affection shown to him by his most Illustrious Excellency, who spoke with him always cap in hand, having infinite reverence for so rare a man; and Michelagnolo wrote to Vasari that it vexed him to be old and infirm, for he would have liked to do something for that Lord, but he was going about trying to buy some beautiful antique to send to him in Florence. Being requested at this time by the Pope for a design for the Porta Pia, Michelagnolo made three, all fantastic and most beautiful, of which the Pope chose the least costly for putting into execution; and it is now to be seen erected there, with much credit to him. Perceiving the inclination of the Pope, and hoping that he would restore the other gates of Rome, he made many other designs for him; and he did the like, at the request of the same Pontiff, in the matter of the new Church of S. Maria degli Angeli in the Baths of Diocletian, in order to convert them into a temple for the use of Christians. A design by his hand prevailed over many others made by excellent architects, being executed with such beautiful considerations for the convenience of the Carthusian Friars, who have now carried it almost to completion, that it caused his Holiness and all the prelates and lords of the Court to marvel at the judgment of the lovely conceptions that he had drawn, availing himself of all the skeleton of those baths, out of which was seen formed a most beautiful temple, with an entrance surpassing the expectations of all the architects; from which he acquired infinite praise and honour. For that place, also, he designed for his Holiness a Ciborium of the Sacrament in bronze, cast for the most part by Maestro Jacopo Ciciliano, an excellent bronze-caster, who makes his works come out very delicate and fine, without any roughness, so that they can be polished with little labour; in which field he is a rare master, and gave much satisfaction to Michelagnolo. [Illustration: S. MARIA DEGLI ANGELI (_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome_) _Alinari_] The Florentine colony had often talked among themselves of giving a good beginning to the Church of S. Giovanni in the Strada Giulia. Finally, all the heads of the richest houses having assembled together, they each promised to contribute in due proportion according to their means towards that fabric, insomuch that they contrived to collect a good sum of money; and then it was discussed among them whether it were better to follow the old lines or to have something new and finer. It was determined that something new should be erected upon the old foundations, and finally they elected three men to have the charge of the fabric, who were Francesco Bandini, Uberto Ubaldini, and Tommaso de' Bardi; and these requested Michelagnolo for a design, recommending themselves to him on the ground that it was a disgrace to their colony to have thrown away so much money without any kind of profit, and that, if his genius did not avail to finish the work, they had no other resource. He promised them to do it, with as much lovingness as he had ever shown in any work in the past, because in this his old age he readily gave his attention to sacred things, such as might redound to the honour of God, and also from affection for his fellow-Florentines, whom he loved always. Michelagnolo had with him at this conference the Florentine sculptor Tiberio Calcagni, a young man very ardent to learn art, who, after going to Rome, had turned his mind to the study of architecture. Loving him, Michelagnolo had given him to finish, as has been related, the Pietà in marble that he had broken, and, in addition, a head of Brutus in marble with the breast, considerably larger than life, to the end that he might finish it. Of this the head alone was carved, with certain most minute gradines, and he had taken it from a portrait of Brutus cut in a very ancient cornelian that was in the possession of Signor Giuliano Cesarino; which Michelagnolo was doing for Cardinal Ridolfi at the entreaty of Messer Donato Giannotti, his very dear friend, and it is a rare work. Michelagnolo, then, in matters of architecture, not being able by reason of old age to draw any more or to make accurate lines, was making use of Tiberio, because he was very gentle and discreet; and thus, desiring to avail himself of him in such an undertaking, he laid on him the charge of tracing the plan of the site of the above-named church. That plan having been traced and carried straightway to Michelagnolo, at a time when it was not thought that he was doing anything, he gave them to understand through Tiberio that he had carried out their wishes, and finally showed them five most beautiful ground-plans of temples; which having seen, they marvelled. He said to them that they should choose one that pleased them, and they, not wishing to do it, left the matter to his judgment, but he insisted that they should decide of their own free will; wherefore they all with one accord chose the richest. This having been adopted, Michelagnolo said to them that if they carried such a design to completion, neither the Greeks nor the Romans ever in their times executed such a work; words that neither before nor afterwards ever issued from the mouth of Michelagnolo, for he was very modest. Finally it was agreed that the direction should be left entirely to Michelagnolo, and that the labour of executing that work should fall to Tiberio; with all which they were content, Buonarroti promising them that Tiberio would serve them excellently well. And so, having given the ground-plan to Tiberio to be drawn accurately and with correct measurements, he drew for him the profiles both within and without, and bade him make a model of clay, teaching him the way to execute it so that it might stand firm. In ten days Tiberio executed a model of eight palms, which much pleased the whole Florentine colony, so that afterwards they caused to be made from it a model of wood, which is now in the residence of the Consuls of that colony; a thing as rare in its beauty, richness, and great variety, as any temple that has ever been seen. A beginning was made with the building, and five thousand crowns were spent; but the funds for the fabric failed, and so it was abandoned, at which Michelagnolo felt very great displeasure. He obtained for Tiberio the commission to finish under his direction, at S. Maria Maggiore, a chapel begun for Cardinal Santa Fiore; but it was left unfinished, on account of the death of the Cardinal, of Michelagnolo, and of Tiberio himself, the death of which young man was a very great loss. [Illustration: BRUTUS (_After =Michelagnolo=. Florence: Museo Nazionale_) _Brogi_] Michelagnolo had been seventeen years in the fabric of S. Pietro, and several times the deputies had tried to remove him from that position, but they had not succeeded, and they were seeking to oppose him in every matter now with one vexatious pretext and now with another, hoping that out of weariness, being now so old that he could do no more, he would retire before them. It happened in those days that Cesare da Castel Durante, who had been the overseer, died, and Michelagnolo, to the end that the fabric might not suffer, sent there Luigi Gaeta, who was too young but very competent, until he should find a man after his desire. The deputies (some of whom had many times made efforts to place there Nanni di Baccio Bigio, who was always urging them and promising great things), in order to be able to disturb the affairs of the fabric at their pleasure, sent Luigi Gaeta away, which having heard, Michelagnolo, as in anger, would no longer show himself at the fabric; whereupon they began to give out that he could do no more, that it was necessary to give him a substitute, and that he himself had said that he did not wish to be embroiled any longer with S. Pietro. All this came to the ears of Michelagnolo, who sent Daniello Ricciarelli of Volterra to Bishop Ferratino, one of the superintendents, who had said to the Cardinal of Carpi that Michelagnolo had told one of his servants that he did not wish to be mixed up with the fabric any longer; and Daniello said that this was by no means Michelagnolo's desire. Ferratino complained that Michelagnolo would not make his conception known, adding that it would be well for him to provide a substitute, and that he would have gladly accepted Daniello; and with this Michelagnolo appeared to be content. Thereupon Ferratino, having had the deputies informed in the name of Michelagnolo that they now had a substitute, presented not Daniello, but in his place Nanni di Baccio Bigio, who came in and was accepted by the superintendents. Before very long he gave orders to make a scaffolding of wood from the side of the Pope's stables, where the hill is, to rise above the great recess that is turned towards that side, and caused some stout beams of fir to be cut, saying that too many ropes were consumed in drawing up the materials, and that it was better to raise them by his method. Which having heard, Michelagnolo went straight to the Pope, who was on the Piazza di Campidoglio, and made so much noise that his Holiness made him go at once into a room, where he said: "Holy Father, there has been appointed as my substitute by the deputies a man of whom I know nothing; but if they are convinced, and also your Holiness, that I am no longer the proper man, I will return to rest in Florence, where I will enjoy the favours of that great Duke who has so long desired me, and will finish my life in my own house; I therefore beg your gracious leave." The Pope was vexed at this, and, consoling him with kind words, ordained that he should come to speak with him on the following day at the Araceli. There, having caused the deputies of the fabric to be assembled together, he desired to be informed of the reasons of what had happened: whereupon their answer was that the fabric was going to ruin, and that errors were being made in it. Which having heard not to be the truth, the Pope commanded Signor Gabrio Scerbellone that he should go to see the fabric for himself, and that Nanni, who was making these assertions, should show it to him. This was carried out, and Signor Gabrio found that the whole story was a malicious slander, and not the truth; wherefore Nanni was dismissed from that fabric with no very flattering words in the presence of many lords, being also reproached that by his fault the bridge of Santa Maria fell into ruin, and that at Ancona, seeking to do great things at little cost in the matter of cleaning out the harbour, he filled it up more in one day than the sea had done in ten years. Such was the end of Nanni in the fabric of S. Pietro. For that work Michelagnolo for seventeen years attended constantly to nothing but to establishing it securely with directions, doubting on account of those envious persecutions lest it might come to be changed after his death; so that at the present day it is strong enough to allow the vaulting to be raised with perfect security. Thus it has been seen that God, who is the protector of the good, defended him as long as he lived, and worked for the benefit of the fabric and for the defence of the master until his death. Moreover, Pius IV, living after him, commanded the superintendents of the fabric that nothing of what Michelagnolo had directed should be changed; and with even greater authority his successor, Pius V, caused it to be carried out, who, lest disorder should arise, insisted that the designs made by Michelagnolo should be carried into execution with the utmost fidelity, so that, when the architects Pirro Ligorio and Jacopo Vignuola were in charge of it, and Pirro wished presumptuously to disturb and alter those directions, he was removed with little honour from that fabric, and only Vignuola remained. Finally, that Pontiff being full of zeal no less for the honour of the fabric of S. Pietro than for the Christian religion, in the year 1565, when Vasari went to kiss the feet of his Holiness, and in the year 1566, when he was again summoned, nothing was discussed save the means to ensure the observing of the designs left by Michelagnolo; and his Holiness, in order to obviate all chance of disorder, commanded Vasari that he should go with Messer Guglielmo Sangalletti, the private treasurer of his Holiness, to seek out Bishop Ferratino, the head of the superintendents of S. Pietro, with orders from the Pontiff that he should listen to all the suggestions and records of importance that Vasari might impart to him, to the end that no words of any malignant and presumptuous person might ever cause to be disturbed any line or order left by the excellent genius of Michelagnolo of happy memory; and at that interview was present Messer Giovan Battista Altoviti, who was much the friend of Vasari and of these arts. And Ferratino, having heard a discourse that Vasari made to him, readily accepted every record, and promised to observe and to cause to be observed with the utmost fidelity in that fabric every order and design that Michelagnolo had left for that purpose, and, in addition, to be the protector, defender, and preserver of the labours of that great man. But to return to Michelagnolo: I must relate that about a year before his death, Vasari secretly prevailed upon Duke Cosimo de' Medici to persuade the Pope by means of Messer Averardo Serristori, his Ambassador, that, since Michelagnolo was much reduced, a diligent watch should be kept on those who were about him to take care of him, or who visited him at his house, and that, in the event of some sudden accident happening to him, such as might well happen to an old man, he should make arrangements for his property, designs, cartoons, models, money, and all his other possessions at the time of his death, to be set down in an inventory and placed in security, for the sake of the fabric of S. Pietro, so that, if there were things pertaining to that fabric, and also to the sacristy, library, and façade of S. Lorenzo, they might not be taken away, as is often wont to happen; and in the end, all this being duly carried out, such diligence had its reward. Leonardo, the nephew of Michelagnolo, was desirous to go during the coming Lent to Rome, as one who guessed that he was now come to the end of his life; and at this Michelagnolo was content. When, therefore, he fell sick of a slow fever, he straightway caused Daniello to write to Leonardo that he should come; but the illness grew worse, although Messer Federigo Donati, his physician, and his other attendants were about him, and with perfect consciousness he made his will in three sentences, leaving his soul in the hands of God, his body to the earth, and his substance to his nearest relatives, and enjoining on his friends that, at his passing from this life, they should recall to him the agony of Jesus Christ. And so at the twenty-third hour of the seventeenth day of February, in the year 1563 (after the Florentine reckoning, which according to the Roman would be 1564), he breathed his last, to go to a better life. Michelagnolo was much inclined to the labours of art, seeing that everything, however difficult, succeeded with him, he having had from nature a genius very apt and ardent in these most noble arts of design. Moreover, in order to be entirely perfect, innumerable times he made anatomical studies, dissecting men's bodies in order to see the principles of their construction and the concatenation of the bones, muscles, veins, and nerves, the various movements and all the postures of the human body; and not of men only, but also of animals, and particularly of horses, which last he much delighted to keep. Of all these he desired to learn the principles and laws in so far as touched his art, and this knowledge he so demonstrated in the works that fell to him to handle, that those who attend to no other study than this do not know more. He so executed his works, whether with the brush or with the chisel, that they are almost inimitable, and he gave to his labours, as has been said, such art and grace, and a loveliness of such a kind, that (be it said without offence to any) he surpassed and vanquished the ancients; having been able to wrest things out of the greatest difficulties with such facility, that they do not appear wrought with effort, although whoever draws his works after him finds enough in imitating them. The genius of Michelagnolo was recognized in his lifetime, and not, as happens to many, after death, for it has been seen that Julius II, Leo X, Clement VII, Paul III, Julius III, Paul IV, and Pius IV, all supreme Pontiffs, always wished to have him near them, and also, as is known, Suleiman, Emperor of the Turks, Francis of Valois, King of France, the Emperor Charles V, the Signoria of Venice, and finally, as has been related, Duke Cosimo de' Medici; all offering him honourable salaries, for no other reason but to avail themselves of his great genius. This does not happen save to men of great worth, such as he was; and it is evident and well known that all these three arts were so perfected in him, that it is not found that among persons ancient or modern, in all the many years that the sun has been whirling round, God has granted this to any other but Michelagnolo. He had imagination of such a kind, and so perfect, and the things conceived by him in idea were such, that often, through not being able to express with the hands conceptions so terrible and grand, he abandoned his works--nay, destroyed many of them; and I know that a little before he died he burned a great number of designs, sketches, and cartoons made with his own hand, to the end that no one might see the labours endured by him and his methods of trying his genius, and that he might not appear less than perfect. Of such I have some by his hand, found in Florence, and placed in my book of drawings; from which, although the greatness of that brain is seen in them, it is evident that when he wished to bring forth Minerva from the head of Jove, he had to use Vulcan's hammer. Thus he used to make his figures in the proportion of nine, ten, and even twelve heads, seeking nought else but that in putting them all together there should be a certain harmony of grace in the whole, which nature does not present; saying that it was necessary to have the compasses in the eyes and not in the hand, because the hands work and the eye judges; which method he used also in architecture. No one should think it strange that Michelagnolo delighted in solitude, he having been one who was enamoured of his art, which claims a man, with all his thoughts, for herself alone; moreover, it is necessary that he who wishes to attend to her studies should shun society, and, while attending to the considerations of art, he is never alone or without thoughts. And those who attributed it to caprice and eccentricity are wrong, because he who wishes to work well must withdraw himself from all cares and vexations, since art demands contemplation, solitude, and ease of life, and will not suffer the mind to wander. For all this, he prized the friendship of many great persons and of learned and ingenious men, at convenient times; and these he maintained. Thus the great Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici loved him greatly, and, having heard that a Turkish horse that he possessed pleased Michelagnolo because of its beauty, it was sent as a present to him by the liberality of that lord, with ten mules laden with fodder, and a serving-man to attend to it; and Michelagnolo accepted it willingly. The illustrious Cardinal Pole was much his friend, Michelagnolo being enamoured of his goodness and his talents; also Cardinal Farnese, and Santa Croce, which latter afterwards became Pope Marcellus, Cardinal Ridolfi, Cardinal Maffeo, Monsignor Bembo, Carpi, and many other Cardinals, Bishops, and Prelates, whom it is not necessary to name. Others were Monsignor Claudio Tolomei, the Magnificent Messer Ottaviano de' Medici, his gossip, whose son he held at baptism, and Messer Bindo Altoviti, to whom he presented that cartoon of the Chapel in which Noah, drunk with wine, is derided by one of his sons, and his nakedness is covered by the two others; M. Lorenzo Ridolfi, M. Annibale Caro, and M. Giovan Francesco Lottini of Volterra. But infinitely more than any of the others he loved M. Tommaso de' Cavalieri, a Roman gentleman, for whom, being a young man and much inclined to these arts, he made, to the end that he might learn to draw, many most superb drawings of divinely beautiful heads, designed in black and red chalk; and then he drew for him a Ganymede rapt to Heaven by Jove's Eagle, a Tityus with the Vulture devouring his heart, the Chariot of the Sun falling with Phaëthon into the Po, and a Bacchanal of children, which are all in themselves most rare things, and drawings the like of which have never been seen. Michelagnolo made a life-size portrait of Messer Tommaso in a cartoon, and neither before nor afterwards did he take the portrait of anyone, because he abhorred executing a resemblance to the living subject, unless it were of extraordinary beauty. These drawings, on account of the great delight that M. Tommaso took in them, were the reason that he afterwards obtained a good number, miraculous things, which Michelagnolo once drew for Fra Sebastiano Viniziano, who carried them into execution; and in truth he rightly treasures them as reliques, and he has courteously given craftsmen access to them. Of a truth Michelagnolo always placed his affections with persons noble, deserving, and worthy of them, for he had true judgment and taste in all things. [Illustration: UNFINISHED FIGURE (_After =Michelagnolo=. Florence: Museo Nazionale_) _Brogi_] M. Tommaso afterwards caused Michelagnolo to make many designs for friends, such as that of the picture for Cardinal di Cesis, wherein is Our Lady receiving the Annunciation from the Angel, a novel thing, which was afterwards executed in colours by Marcello Mantovano and placed in the marble chapel which that Cardinal caused to be built in the Church of the Pace at Rome. So, also, with another Annunciation coloured likewise by the hand of Marcello in a picture in the Church of S. Giovanni Laterano, the design of which belongs to Duke Cosimo de' Medici, having been presented after Michelagnolo's death by his nephew Leonardo Buonarroti to his Excellency, who cherishes it as a jewel, together with a Christ praying in the Garden and many other designs, sketches, and cartoons by the hand of Michelagnolo, and likewise the statue of Victory with a captive beneath, five braccia in height, and four captives in the rough which serve to teach us how to carve figures from the marble by a method secure from any chance of spoiling the stone; which method is as follows. You take a figure in wax or some other solid material, and lay it horizontally in a vessel of water, which water being by its nature flat and level at the surface, as you raise the said figure little by little from the level, so it comes about that the more salient parts are revealed, while the lower parts--those, namely, on the under side of the figure--remain hidden, until in the end it all comes into view. In the same manner must figures be carved out of marble with the chisel, first laying bare the more salient parts, and then little by little the lower parts; and this method may be seen to have been followed by Michelagnolo in the above-mentioned captives, which his Excellency wishes to be used as exemplars for his Academicians. Michelagnolo loved his fellow-craftsmen, and held intercourse with them, as with Jacopo Sansovino, Rosso, Pontormo, Daniello da Volterra, and Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo, to which last he showed innumerable kindnesses; and he was the reason that Giorgio gave his attention to architecture, intending to make use of him some day, and he readily conferred and discussed matters of art with him. Those who say that he was not willing to teach are wrong, because he was always willing with his intimates and with anyone who asked him for counsel; and I have been present on many such occasions, but of these, out of consideration, I say nothing, not wishing to reveal the deficiencies of others. It may be urged that he had bad fortune with those who lived with him in his house, which was because he hit upon natures little able to imitate him. Thus, Pietro Urbano of Pistoia, his pupil, was a man of parts, but would never exert himself. Antonio Mini was willing, but had no aptitude of brain; and when the wax is hard it does not readily take an impression. Ascanio dalla Ripa Transone took great pains, but of this no fruits were ever seen either in designs or in finished works, and he toiled several years over a picture for which Michelagnolo had given him a cartoon. In the end, all the good expectation in which he was held vanished in smoke; and I remember that Michelagnolo would be seized with compassion for his toil, and would assist him with his own hand, but this profited him little. If he had found a nature after his heart, as he told me several times, in spite of his age he would often have made anatomical studies, and would have written upon them, for the benefit of his fellow-craftsmen; for he was disappointed by several. But he did not trust himself, through not being able to express himself in writing as he would have liked, because he was not practised in diction, although in the prose of his letters he explained his conceptions very well in a few words. He much delighted in readings of the poets in the vulgar tongue, and particularly of Dante, whom he much admired, imitating him in his conceptions and inventions; and so with Petrarca, having delighted to make madrigals and sonnets of great weight, upon which commentaries have been written. M. Benedetto Varchi gave a lecture in the Florentine Academy upon that sonnet which begins-- Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto Ch'un marmo solo in se non circonscriva. Michelagnolo sent a vast number by his own hand--receiving answers in rhyme and in prose--to the most illustrious Marchioness of Pescara, of whose virtues he was enamoured, and she likewise of his; and she went many times to Rome from Viterbo to visit him, and Michelagnolo designed for her a Dead Christ in the lap of Our Lady, with two little Angels, all most admirable, and a Christ fixed on the Cross, who, with the head uplifted, is recommending His Spirit to the Father, a divine work; and also a Christ with the Woman of Samaria at the well. He much delighted in the sacred Scriptures, like the excellent Christian that he was; and he held in great veneration the works written by Fra Girolamo Savonarola, because he had heard the voice of that friar in the pulpit. He greatly loved human beauty for the sake of imitation in art, being able to select from the beautiful the most beautiful, for without this imitation no perfect work can be done; but not with lascivious and disgraceful thoughts, as he proved by his way of life, which was very frugal. Thus, when he was young, all intent on his work, he contented himself with a little bread and wine, and this he continued when old until the time when he was painting the Judgment in the Chapel, taking his refreshment in the evening when he had finished the day's work, but always very frugally. And, although he was rich, he lived like a poor man, nor did any friend ever eat at his table, or rarely; and he would not accept presents from anyone, because it appeared to him that if anyone gave him something, he would be bound to him for ever. This sober life kept him very active and in want of very little sleep, and often during the night, not being able to sleep, he would rise to labour with the chisel; having made a cap of thick paper, and over the centre of his head he kept a lighted candle, which in this way threw light over where he was working without encumbering his hands. Vasari, who had seen the cap several times, reflecting that he did not use wax, but candles of pure goat's tallow, which are excellent, sent him four bundles of these, which weighed forty libbre. And his servant with all courtesy carried them to him at the second hour of the evening, and presented them to him; but Michelagnolo refused them, declaring that he did not want them; and then the servant said: "They have broken my arms on the way between the bridge and here, and I shall not carry them back to the house. Now here in front of your door there is a solid heap of mud; they will stand in it beautifully, and I will set them all alight." Michelagnolo said to him: "Put them down here, for I will not have you playing pranks at my door." He told me that often in his youth he slept in his clothes, being weary with labour and not caring to take them off only to have to put them on again later. There are some who have taxed him with being avaricious, but they are mistaken, for both with works of art and with his substance he proved the contrary. Of works of art, as has been seen and related, he presented to M. Tommaso de' Cavalieri, to Messer Bindo, and to Fra Sebastiano, designs of considerable value; and to Antonio Mini, his pupil, all his designs, all his cartoons, and the picture of the Leda, and all the models in clay and wax that he ever made, which, as has been related, were all left in France. To Gherardo Perini, a Florentine gentleman who was very much his friend, he gave three sheets with some divine heads in black chalk, which since Perini's death have come into the hands of the most illustrious Don Francesco, Prince of Florence, who treasures them as jewels, as indeed they are; for Bartolommeo Bettini he made a cartoon, which he presented to him, of a Venus with a Cupid that is kissing her, a divine thing, which is now in the possession of Bettini's heirs in Florence, and for the Marchese del Vasto he made a cartoon of a "Noli me Tangere," a rare thing; and these two last were painted excellently well by Pontormo, as has been related. He presented the two Captives to Signor Ruberto Strozzi, and the Pietà in marble, which he broke, to Antonio, his servant, and to Francesco Bandini. I know not, therefore, how this man can be taxed with avarice, he having given away so many things for which he could have obtained thousands of crowns. What better proof can I give than this, that I know from personal experience that he made many designs and went to see many pictures and buildings, without demanding any payment? But let us come to the money earned by him by the sweat of his brow, not from revenues, not from traffickings, but from his own study and labour. Can he be called avaricious who succoured many poor persons, as he did, and secretly married off a good number of girls, and enriched those who served him and assisted him in his works, as with his servant Urbino, whom he made a very rich man? This Urbino was his man of all work, and had served him a long time; and Michelagnolo said to him: "If I die, what will you do?" And he answered: "I will serve another master." "You poor creature," said Michelagnolo, "I will save you from such misery"; and presented two thousand crowns to him in one sum, an act such as is generally left to Cæsars and Pontiffs. To his nephew, moreover, he gave three and four thousand crowns at a time, and at the end he left him ten thousand crowns, besides the property in Rome. Michelagnolo was a man of tenacious and profound memory, so that, on seeing the works of others only once, he remembered them perfectly, and could avail himself of them in such a manner, that scarcely anyone has ever noticed it; nor did he ever do anything that resembled another thing by his hand, because he remembered everything that he had done. In his youth, being once with his painter-friends, they played for a supper for him who should make a figure most completely wanting in design and clumsy, after the likeness of the puppet-figures which those make who know nothing, scrawling upon walls; and in this he availed himself of his memory, for he remembered having seen one of those absurdities on a wall, and drew it exactly as if he had had it before him, and thus surpassed all those painters--a thing difficult for a man so steeped in design, and accustomed to choice works, to come out of with credit. He was full of disdain, and rightly, against anyone who did him an injury, but he was never seen to run to take revenge; nay, rather, he was most patient, modest in all his ways, very prudent and wise in his speech, with answers full of weight, and at times sayings most ingenious, amusing, and acute. He said many things that have been written down by me, of which I shall include only a few, because it would take too long to give them all. A friend having spoken to him of death, saying that it must grieve him much, because he had lived in continual labour in matters of art, and had never had any repose, he answered that all that was nothing, because, if life is a pleasure to us, death, being likewise by the hand of one and the same master, should not displease us. To a citizen who found him by Orsanmichele in Florence, where he had stopped to gaze at Donato's statue of S. Mark, and who asked him what he thought of that figure, Michelagnolo answered that he had never seen a figure that had more of the air of a good man than that one, and that, if S. Mark was like that, one could give credence to what he had written. Being shown the drawing of a boy then beginning to learn to draw, who was recommended to him, some persons excusing him because it was not long since he had applied himself to art, he replied: "That is evident." He said a similar thing to a painter who had painted a Pietà, and had not acquitted himself well: "It is indeed a pitiful thing to see." Having heard that Sebastiano Viniziano had to paint a friar in the chapel of S. Pietro a Montorio, he said that this would spoil the work for him; and being asked why he said that, he answered: "Since they have spoiled the world, which is so large, it would not be surprising if they were to spoil such a small thing as that chapel." A painter had executed a work with very great pains, toiling over it a long time; but when it was given to view he had made a considerable profit. Michelagnolo was asked what he thought of the craftsman, and he answered: "As long as this man strives to be rich, he will always remain a poor creature." One of his friends who was a churchman, and used formerly to say Mass, having arrived in Rome all covered with points and silk, saluted Michelagnolo; but he pretended not to see him, so that the friend was forced to declare his name to him. Michelagnolo expressed marvel that he should be in that habit, and then added, as it were to congratulate him: "Oh, but you are magnificent! If you were as fine within as I see you to be without, it would be well with your soul." The same man had recommended a friend to Michelagnolo (who had given him a statue to execute), praying him that he should have something more given to him, which Michelagnolo graciously did; but the envy of the friend, who had made the request to Michelagnolo only in the belief that he would not grant it, brought it about that, perceiving that the master had granted it after all, he complained of it. This matter was reported to Michelagnolo, and he answered that he did not like men made like sewers, using a metaphor from architecture, and meaning that it is difficult to have dealings with men who have two mouths. Being asked by a friend what he thought of one who had counterfeited in marble some of the most celebrated antique figures, and boasted that in his imitations he had surpassed the antiques by a great measure, Michelagnolo replied: "He who goes behind others can never go in front of them, and he who is not able to work well for himself cannot make good use of the works of others." A certain painter, I know not who, had executed a work wherein was an ox, which looked better than any other part; and Michelagnolo, being asked why the painter had made the ox more lifelike than the rest, said: "Any painter can make a good portrait of himself." Passing by S. Giovanni in Florence, he was asked his opinion of those doors, and he answered: "They are so beautiful that they would do well at the gates of Paradise." While serving a Prince who kept changing plans every day, and would never stand firm, Michelagnolo said to a friend: "This lord has a brain like a weather-cock, which turns round with every wind that blows on it." He went to see a work of sculpture which was about to be sent out because it was finished, and the sculptor was taking much trouble to arrange the lights from the windows, to the end that it might show up well; whereupon Michelagnolo said to him: "Do not trouble yourself; the important thing will be the light of the Piazza"; meaning to infer that when works are in public places, the people must judge whether they are good or bad. There was a great Prince in Rome who had a notion to play the architect, and he had caused certain niches to be built in which to place figures, each three squares high, with a ring at the top; and having tried to place various statues within these niches, which did not turn out well, he asked Michelagnolo what he should place in them, and he answered: "Hang bunches of eels from those rings." There was appointed to the government of the fabric of S. Pietro a gentleman who professed to understand Vitruvius, and to be a critic of the work done. Michelagnolo was told, "You have obtained for the fabric one who has a great intelligence"; and he answered, "That is true, but he has a bad judgment." A painter had executed a scene, and had copied many things from various other works, both drawings and pictures, nor was there anything in that work that was not copied. It was shown to Michelagnolo, who, having seen it, was asked by a very dear friend what he thought of it, and he replied: "He has done well, but I know not what this scene will do on the day of Judgment, when all bodies shall recover their members, for there will be nothing left of it"--a warning to those who practise art, that they should make a habit of working by themselves. Passing through Modena, he saw many beautiful figures by the hand of Maestro Antonio Bigarino,[5] a sculptor of Modena, made of terra-cotta and coloured in imitation of marble, which appeared to him to be excellent works; and, since that sculptor did not know how to work marble, Michelagnolo said: "If this clay were to become marble, woe to the ancient statues." Michelagnolo was told that he should show resentment against Nanni di Baccio Bigio, who was seeking every day to compete with him; but he answered: "He who contends with men of no account never gains a victory." A priest, his friend, said to him: "It is a pity that you have not taken a wife, so that you might have had many children and left them all your honourable labours." And Michelagnolo replied: "I have only too much of a wife in this art of mine, who has always kept me in tribulation, and my children shall be the works that I may leave, which, even if they are naught, will live a while. Woe to Lorenzo di Bartoluccio Ghiberti, if he had not made the gates of S. Giovanni, for his children and grandchildren sold or squandered all that he left, but the gates are still standing." Vasari, sent by Julius III to Michelagnolo's house for a design at the first hour of the night, found him working at the Pietà in marble that he broke. Michelagnolo, recognizing him by the knock at the door, left his work and took a lamp with his hand by the handle; Vasari explained what he wanted, whereupon Michelagnolo sent Urbino upstairs for the design, and then they entered into another conversation. Meanwhile Vasari turned his eyes to examine a leg of the Christ at which he was working, seeking to change it; and, in order to prevent Vasari from seeing it, he let the lamp fall from his hand, and they were left in darkness. He called to Urbino to bring a light, and meanwhile came forth from the enclosure where the work was, and said: "I am so old that death often pulls me by the cloak, that I may go with him, and one day this body of mine will fall like the lamp, and the light of my life will be spent." [Footnote 5: Begarelli.] For all this, he took pleasure in certain kinds of men after his taste, such as Menighella, a commonplace and clownish painter of Valdarno, who was a most diverting person. He would come at times to Michelagnolo, that he might make for him a design of S. Rocco or S. Anthony, to be painted for peasants; and Michelagnolo, who was with difficulty persuaded to work for Kings, would deign to set aside all his other work and make him simple designs suited to his manner and his wishes, as Menighella himself used to say. Among other things, Menighella persuaded him to make a model of a Crucifix, which was very beautiful; of this he made a mould, from which he formed copies in pasteboard and other materials, and these he went about selling throughout the countryside. Michelagnolo would burst out laughing at him, particularly because he used to meet with fine adventures, as with a countryman who commissioned him to paint a S. Francis, and was displeased because Menighella had made the vestment grey, whereas he would have liked it of a finer colour; whereupon Menighella painted over the Saint's shoulders a pluvial of brocade, and so contented him. He loved, likewise, the stone-cutter Topolino, who had a notion of being an able sculptor, but was in truth very feeble. This man spent many years in the mountains of Carrara, sending marble to Michelagnolo; nor would he ever send a boatload without adding to it three or four little figures blocked out with his own hand, at which Michelagnolo would die of laughing. Finally Topolino returned, and, having blocked out a Mercury from a piece of marble, he set himself to finish it; and one day, when there was little left to do, he desired that Michelagnolo should see it, and straitly besought him that he should tell him his opinion. "You are a madman to try to make figures, Topolino," said Michelagnolo. "Do you not see that your Mercury is more than a third of a braccio too short between the knees and the feet, and that you have made him a dwarf and all misshapen?" "Oh, that is nothing! If there is nothing else wrong, I will put it right; leave it to me." Michelagnolo laughed once more at his simplicity; and when he was gone, Topolino took a piece of marble, and, having cut the Mercury a quarter of a braccio below the knees, he let it into the new piece of marble and joined it neatly together, making a pair of buskins for the Mercury, the tops of which were above the joins; and so he added the length required. Then he invited Michelagnolo to come, and showed him his work once again; and the master laughed, marvelling that such simpletons, when driven by necessity, form resolutions of which able men are not capable. While Michelagnolo was having the tomb of Julius II finished, he caused a marble-hewer to execute a terminal figure for placing in the tomb in S. Pietro in Vincola, saying to him, "Cut away this to-day," "Level that," "Polish here"; insomuch that, without the other noticing it, he enabled him to make a figure. Wherefore, when it was finished, the man gazed at it marvelling; and Michelagnolo said: "What do you think of it?" "I think it fine," he answered, "and I am much obliged to you." "Why so?" asked Michelagnolo. "Because by your means I have discovered a talent that I did not know I possessed." Now, to be brief, I must record that the master's constitution was very sound, for he was lean and well knit together with nerves, and although as a boy he was delicate, and as a man he had two serious illnesses, he could always endure any fatigue and had no infirmity, save that in his old age he suffered from dysuria and from gravel, which in the end developed into the stone; wherefore for many years he was syringed by the hand of Maestro Realdo Colombo, his very dear friend, who treated him with great diligence. He was of middle stature, broad in the shoulders, but well proportioned in all the rest of the body. In his latter years he wore buskins of dogskin on the legs, next to the skin, constantly for whole months together, so that afterwards, when he sought to take them off, on drawing them off the skin often came away with them. Over the stockings he wore boots of cordwain fastened on the inside, as a protection against damp. His face was round, the brow square and spacious, with seven straight lines, and the temples projected considerably beyond the ears; which ears were somewhat on the large side, and stood out from the cheeks. The body was in proportion to the face, or rather on the large side; the nose somewhat flattened, as was said in the Life of Torrigiano, who broke it for him with his fist; the eyes rather on the small side, of the colour of horn, spotted with blueish and yellowish gleams; the eyebrows with few hairs, the lips thin, with the lower lip rather thicker and projecting a little, the chin well shaped and in proportion with the rest, the hair black, but mingled with white hairs, like the beard, which was not very long, forked, and not very thick. Truly his coming was to the world, as I said at the beginning, an exemplar sent by God to the men of our arts, to the end that they might learn from his life the nature of noble character, and from his works what true and excellent craftsmen ought to be. And I, who have to praise God for infinite blessings, as is seldom wont to happen with men of our profession, count it among the greatest blessings that I was born at the time when Michelagnolo was alive, that I was thought worthy to have him as my master, and that he was so much my friend and intimate, as everyone knows, and as the letters written by him to me, now in my possession, bear witness; and out of love for truth, and also from the obligation that I feel to his loving kindness, I have contrived to write many things of him, and all true, which many others have not been able to do. Another blessing he used to point out to me himself: "You should thank God, Giorgio, who has caused you to serve Duke Cosimo, who, in his contentment that you should build and paint and carry into execution his conceptions and designs, has grudged no expense; and you will remember, if you consider it, that the others whose Lives you have written did not have such advantages." With most honourable obsequies, and with a concourse of all the craftsmen, all his friends, and all the Florentine colony, Michelagnolo was given burial in a sepulchre at S. Apostolo, in the sight of all Rome; his Holiness having intended to make him some particular memorial and tomb in S. Pietro at Rome. Leonardo, his nephew, arrived when all was over, although he travelled post. When Duke Cosimo was informed of the event, he confirmed his resolve that since he had not been able to have him and honour him alive, he would have him brought to Florence and not hesitate to honour him with all manner of pomp after death; and the body was sent secretly in a bale, under the title of merchandise, which method was adopted lest there might be a tumult in Rome, and lest perchance the body of Michelagnolo might be detained and prevented from leaving Rome for Florence. But before the body arrived, the news of the death having been heard, the principal painters, sculptors, and architects were assembled together at the summons of the Lieutenant of their Academy, and they were reminded by that Lieutenant, who at that time was the Reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, that they were obliged by virtue of their statutes to pay due honour to the death of any of their brethren, and that, they having done this so lovingly and with such universal satisfaction in the obsequies of Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli, who had been the first to die after the creation of the Academy, they should look well to what it might be proper for them to do in honour of Buonarroti, who had been elected by an unanimous vote of the whole body of the Company as the first Academician and the head of them all. To which proposal they all replied, as men most deeply indebted and affected to the genius of so great a man, that at all costs pains should be taken to do him honour in the best and finest ways available to them. This done, in order not to have to assemble so many persons together every day, to their great inconvenience, and to the end that matters might proceed more quietly, four men were elected as heads of the obsequies and the funeral pomp that were to be held; the painters Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, and the sculptors Benvenuto Cellini and Bartolommeo Ammanati, all men of illustrious name and eminent ability in their arts; to the end, I say, that they might consult and determine between themselves and the Lieutenant what was to be done in each particular, and in what way, with authority and power to dispose of the whole body of the Company and Academy. This charge they accepted all the more willingly because all the members, young and old, each in his own profession, offered their services for the execution of such pictures and statues as had to be done for that funeral pomp. They then ordained that the Lieutenant, in pursuance of his office, and the Consuls, in the name of the Company and Academy, should lay the whole matter before the Lord Duke, and beseech him for all the aids and favours that might be necessary, and especially for permission to have those obsequies held in S. Lorenzo, the church of the most illustrious House of Medici; wherein are the greater part of the works by the hand of Michelagnolo that there are to be seen in Florence; and, in addition, that his Excellency should allow Messer Benedetto Varchi to compose and deliver the funeral oration, to the end that the excellent genius of Michelagnolo might be extolled by the rare eloquence of a man so great as was Varchi, who, being in the particular service of his Excellency, would not have undertaken such a charge without a word from him, although they were very certain that, as one most loving by nature and deeply affected to the memory of Michelagnolo, of himself he would never have refused. This done, and the Academicians dismissed, the above-named Lieutenant wrote to the Lord Duke a letter of this precise tenor: "The Academy and Company of Painters and Sculptors having resolved among themselves, if it should please your most illustrious Excellency, to do honour in some sort to the memory of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, both from the general obligation due from their profession to the extraordinary genius of one who was perhaps the greatest craftsman who has ever lived, and from their particular obligation through their belonging to a common country, and also because of the great advantage that these professions have received from the perfection of his works and inventions, insomuch that they hold themselves obliged to prove their affection to his genius in whatever way they are able, they have laid this their desire before your illustrious Excellency in a letter, and have besought you, as their peculiar refuge, for a certain measure of assistance. I, entreated by them, and being, as I think, obliged because your most illustrious Excellency has been content that I should be again this year in their Company with the title of your Lieutenant, with the added reason that the proposal is a generous one and worthy of virtuous and grateful minds, and, above all, knowing how your most illustrious Excellency is the patron of talent, and as it were a haven and unique protector for ingenious persons in this age, even surpassing in this respect your forefathers, who bestowed extraordinary favours on those excellent in these professions, as, by order of the Magnificent Lorenzo, Giotto, already so long dead, received a statue in the principal church, and Fra Filippo a most beautiful tomb of marble at his expense, while many others obtained the greatest benefits and honours on various occasions; moved, I say, by all these reasons, I have taken it upon myself to recommend to your most illustrious Excellency the petition of this Academy, that they may be able to do honour to the genius of Michelagnolo, the particular nursling and pupil of the school of the Magnificent Lorenzo, which will be an extraordinary pleasure to them, a vast satisfaction to men in general, no small incitement to the professors of these arts, and to all Italy a proof of the lofty mind and overflowing goodness of your most illustrious Excellency, whom may God long preserve in happiness for the benefit of your people and the support of every talent." To which letter the above-named Lord Duke answered thus: "REVEREND AND WELL-BELOVED FRIEND, "The zeal that this Academy has displayed, and continues to display, to honour the memory of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, who has passed from this to a better life, has given us much consolation for the loss of a man so extraordinary; and we wish not only to satisfy them in all that they have demanded in their memorial, but also to have his remains brought to Florence, which, according as we are informed, was his own desire. All this we are writing to the aforesaid Academy, to encourage them to celebrate by every possible means the genius of that great man. May God content you in your desire." Of the letter, or rather, memorial, of which mention has been made above, addressed by the Academy to the Lord Duke, the tenor was as follows: "MOST ILLUSTRIOUS, ETC. "The Academy and the Men of the Company of Design, created by the grace and favour of your most illustrious Excellency, knowing with what solicitude and affection you caused the body of Michelagnolo Buonarroti to be brought to Florence by means of your representative in Rome, have assembled together and have unanimously determined that they shall celebrate his obsequies in the best manner in their power and knowledge. Wherefore they, knowing that your most illustrious Excellency was revered by him as much as you yourself loved him, beseech you that you should deign in your infinite goodness and liberality to grant to them, first, that they may be allowed to celebrate the said obsequies in the Church of S. Lorenzo, a church built by your ancestors, in which are so many beautiful works wrought by his hand, both in architecture and in sculpture, and near which you are minded to have erected a place that shall be as it were a nest and an abiding school of architecture, sculpture, and painting, for the above-named Academy and Company of Design. Secondly, they pray you that you should consent to grant a commission to Messer Benedetto Varchi that he shall not only compose the funeral oration, but also deliver it with his own mouth, as he has promised most freely that he would do, when besought by us, in the event of your most illustrious Excellency consenting. In the third place, they entreat and pray you that you should deign, in the same goodness and liberality of your heart, to supply them with all that may be necessary for them in celebrating the above-mentioned obsequies, over and above their own resources, which are very small. All these matters, and each singly, have been discussed and determined in the presence and with the consent of the most Magnificent and Reverend Monsignor, Messer Vincenzio Borghini, Prior of the Innocenti and Lieutenant of your most illustrious Excellency in the aforesaid Academy and Company of Design, which, etc." To which letter of the Academy the Duke made this reply: "WELL-BELOVED ACADEMICIANS, "We are well content to give full satisfaction to your petitions, so great is the affection that we have always borne to the rare genius of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, and that we still bear to all your profession; do not hesitate, therefore, to carry out all that you have proposed to do in his obsequies, for we will not fail to supply whatever you need. Meanwhile, we have written to Messer Benedetto Varchi in the matter of the oration, and to the Director of the Hospital with regard to anything more that may be necessary in this undertaking. Fare you well. "PISA." The letter to Varchi was as follows: "MESSER BENEDETTO, OUR WELL-BELOVED, "The affection that we bear to the rare genius of Michelagnolo Buonarroti makes us desire that his memory should be honoured and celebrated in every possible way. It will be pleasing to us, therefore, that you for love of us shall undertake the charge of composing the oration that is to be delivered at his obsequies, according to the arrangements made by the deputies of the Academy; and still more pleasing that it should be delivered by your own lips. Fare you well." Messer Bernardino Grazzini, also, wrote to the above-named deputies that they could not have expected in the Duke any desire in that matter more ardent than that which he had shown, and that they might be assured of every aid and favour from his most illustrious Excellency. While these matters were being discussed in Florence, Leonardo Buonarroti, Michelagnolo's nephew (who, when informed of his uncle's illness, had made his way to Rome by post, but had not found him alive), having heard from Daniello da Volterra, who had been the very familiar friend of Michelagnolo, and also from others who had been about the person of that saintly old man, that he had requested and prayed that his body should be carried to Florence, that most noble city of his birth, of which he was always a most tender lover; Leonardo, I say, with prompt and therefore good resolution, removed the body cautiously from Rome and sent it off to Florence in a bale, as if it had been a piece of merchandise. And here I must not omit to say that this final resolution of Michelagnolo's proved a thing against the opinion of certain persons, but nevertheless very true, namely, that his absence for so many years from Florence had been caused by no other thing but the nature of the air, for the reason that experience had taught him that the air of Florence, being sharp and subtle, was very injurious to his constitution, while that of Rome, softer and more temperate, had kept him in perfect health up to his ninetieth year, with all the senses as lively and sound as they had ever been, and with such strength, for his age, that up to the last day he had never ceased to work at something. Since, then, the coming of the bale was so sudden and so unexpected that for the time being it was not possible to do what was done afterwards, the body of Michelagnolo, on arriving in Florence, was placed with the coffin, at the desire of the deputies, on the same day that it arrived in the city (namely, on the 11th of March, which was a Saturday), in the Company of the Assumption, which is under the high-altar of S. Pietro Maggiore, beneath the steps at the back; but it was not touched in any way whatever. The next day, which was Sunday of the second week in Lent, all the painters, sculptors, and architects assembled as quietly as possible round S. Pietro, whither they had brought nothing but a pall of velvet, all bordered and embroidered in gold, which covered the coffin and the whole bier; upon which coffin was an image of Christ Crucified. Then, about the middle hour of the night, all having gathered around the body, all at once the oldest and most eminent craftsmen laid their hands on a great quantity of torches that had been carried there, and the younger men took up the bier with such eagerness, that blessed was he who could approach it and place his shoulders under it, believing as it were that in the time to come they would be able to claim the glory of having borne the remains of the greatest man that there had ever been in their arts. The sight of a certain number of persons assembled about S. Pietro had caused, as always happens in such cases, many others to stop there, and the rather as it had been trumpeted abroad that the body of Michelagnolo had arrived, and was to be carried to S. Croce. And although, as I have said, every precaution had been taken that the matter should not become known, lest the report might spread through the city, and there might flock thither such a multitude that it would not be possible to avoid a certain degree of tumult and confusion, and also because they desired that the little which they wished to do at that time should be done with more quiet than pomp, reserving the rest for a more convenient time with greater leisure; nevertheless, both the one thing and the other took a contrary course, for with regard to the multitude, the news, as has been related, passing from lip to lip, in the twinkling of an eye the church was so filled, that in the end it was with the greatest difficulty that the body was carried from the church to the sacristy, in order to take it out of the bale and then place it in the sepulchre. With regard to the question of honour, although it cannot be denied that to see in funeral pomps a great show of priests, a large quantity of wax tapers, and a great number of mourners dressed in black, is a thing of grand and magnificent appearance, it does not follow that it was not also a great thing to see thus assembled in a small company, without preparation, all those eminent men who are now in such repute, and who will be even more in the future, honouring that body with such loving and affectionate offices. And, in truth, the number of such craftsmen in Florence--and they were all there--has always been very great, for the reason that these arts have always flourished in Florence in such a manner, that I believe that it may be said without prejudice to other cities that their principal and true nest and domicile is Florence, not otherwise than Athens once was of the sciences. In addition to that number of craftsmen, there were so many citizens following them, and so many at the sides of the streets where the procession passed, that there was no place for any more; and, what is an even greater thing, there was nothing heard but praises in every man's mouth of the merits of Michelagnolo, all saying that true genius has such force that, after all expectation of such honour and profit as can be obtained from a gifted man has failed, nevertheless, by its own nature and peculiar merits, it remains honoured and beloved. For these reasons that demonstration was more vivid in effect and more precious than any pomp of gold and trappings that could have been contrived. The body having been carried with so beautiful a train into S. Croce, after the friars had finished the ceremonies that were customary for the dead, it was borne--not without very great difficulty, as has been related, by reason of the concourse of people--into the sacristy, where the above-named Lieutenant, who had been present in virtue of his office, thinking to do a thing pleasing to many, and also (as he afterwards confessed) desiring to see in death one whom he had not seen in life, or had seen at such an early age that he had lost all memory of him, then resolved to have the coffin opened. This done, when he and all the rest of us present thought to find the body already marred and putrefied, because Michelagnolo had been dead twenty-five days and twenty-two in the coffin, we found it so perfect in every part, and so free from any noisome odour, that we were ready to believe that it was rather at rest in a sweet and most peaceful sleep; and, besides that the features of the face were exactly as in life (except that there was something of the colour of death), it had no member that was marred or revealed any corruption, and the head and cheeks were not otherwise to the touch than as if he had passed away but a few hours before. When the tumult of the people had abated, arrangements were made to place the body in a sepulchre in the church, beside the altar of the Cavalcanti, by the door that leads into the cloister of the chapter-house. Meanwhile the news had spread through the city, and such a multitude of young people flocked thither to see the corpse, that there was great difficulty in contriving to close the tomb; and if it had been day, instead of night, we would have been forced to leave it open many hours in order to satisfy the public. The following morning, while the painters and sculptors were commencing to make arrangements for the memorial of honour, many choice spirits, such as have always abounded in Florence, began to attach above the aforesaid sepulchre verses both Latin and in the vulgar tongue, and so it was continued for some time; but those compositions that were printed at that time were but a small part with respect to the many that were written. Now to come to the obsequies, which were not held the day after the day of S. John, as had been intended, but were postponed until the 14th of July. The three deputies (for Benvenuto Cellini, having felt somewhat indisposed from the beginning, had never taken any part in the matter), having appointed the sculptor Zanobi Lastricati as their proveditor, resolved that they would do something ingenious and worthy of their arts rather than costly and full of pomp. And, in truth, since honour was to be paid (said those deputies and their proveditor) to such a man as Michelagnolo, and by men of the profession that he had practised, men rich rather in talents than in excess of means, that must be done not with regal pomp or superfluous vanities, but with inventions and works abounding in spirit and loveliness, such as issue from the knowledge and readiness of hand of our craftsmen; thus honouring art with art. For although, they said, we may expect from his Excellency the Lord Duke any sum of money that may be necessary, and we have already received such amounts as we have demanded, nevertheless we must hold it as certain that from us there is expected something ingenious and pleasing in invention and art, rather than rich through vast expense or grand by reason of superb appurtenances. But, notwithstanding this, it was seen in the end that the work was equal in magnificence to any that ever issued from the hands of those Academicians, and that this memorial of honour was no less truly magnificent than it was ingenious and full of fanciful and praiseworthy inventions. Finally, then, it was arranged that in the central nave of S. Lorenzo, between the two lateral doors, of which one leads out of the church and the other into the cloister, there should be erected, as was done, a catafalque of a rectangular form, twenty-eight braccia high, eleven braccia long, and nine broad, with a figure of Fame on the summit. On the base of the catafalque, which rose two braccia from the ground, on the part looking towards the principal door of the church, there were placed two most beautiful recumbent figures of Rivers, one representing the Arno and the other the Tiber. Arno had a horn of plenty, full of flowers and fruits, signifying thereby the fruits that have come to these professions from the city of Florence, which have been of such a kind and so many that they have filled the world, and particularly Rome, with extraordinary beauty. This was demonstrated excellently well by the other River, representing, as has been said, the Tiber, in that, extending one arm, it had the hands full of flowers and fruits received from the horn of plenty of the Arno, which lay beside it, face to face; and it served also to demonstrate, by enjoying the fruits of Arno, that Michelagnolo had lived a great part of his life in Rome, and had executed there those marvels that cause amazement to the world. Arno had for a sign the Lion, and Tiber the She-Wolf, with the infants Romulus and Remus; and they were both colossal figures of extraordinary grandeur and beauty, in the likeness of marble. One, the Tiber, was by the hand of Giovanni di Benedetto of Castello, a pupil of Bandinelli, and the other by Battista di Benedetto, a pupil of Ammanati; both excellent young men of the highest promise. From this level rose façades of five braccia and a half, with the proper cornices above and below, and also at the corners, leaving space for four pictures, one in the centre of each. In the first of these, which was on the façade where the two Rivers were, there was painted in chiaroscuro (as were also all the other pictures of this structure) the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici, the Elder, receiving Michelagnolo as a boy in his garden, of which there has been an account in another place, after he had seen certain specimens of his handiwork, which foreshadowed, as early flowers, the fruits that afterwards issued in abundance from the living force and grandeur of his genius. Such, then, was the story contained in that picture, which was painted by Mirabello and Girolamo del Crocifissaio, so called, who, as very dear friends and companions, undertook to do the work together. In it were animated and lively attitudes, and there could be seen the above-named Magnificent Lorenzo, portrayed from nature, graciously receiving Michelagnolo, a boy all full of reverence, into his garden, and, after an examination, handing him over to some masters who should teach him. In the second scene, which came, continuing the same order, to face towards the lateral door that leads out of the church, was figured Pope Clement, who, contrary to the expectation of the public, which thought that his Holiness felt disdain against Michelagnolo on account of his actions in the siege of Florence, not only assures his safety and shows himself lovingly disposed towards him, but sets him to work on the new sacristy and the library of S. Lorenzo, in which places how divinely well he worked has been already told. In this picture, then, there was painted by the hand of Federigo Fiammingo, called Del Padovano, with much dexterity and great sweetness of manner, Michelagnolo showing to the Pope the ground-plan of that sacristy, and behind him were borne, partly by little Angels and partly by other figures, the models of the library and sacristy and of the statues that are there, finished, at the present day; which was all very well composed and executed with diligence. In the third picture, which stood on the first level, like the others described above, and looked towards the high-altar, was a great Latin epitaph composed by the most learned M. Pier Vettori, the sense of which was in the Florentine speech as follows: "The Academy of Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, with the favour and assistance of Duke Cosimo de' Medici, their head and the supreme protector of these arts, admiring the extraordinary genius of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, and seeking to acknowledge in part the benefits received from his divine works, has dedicated this memorial, born from their own hands and from all the affection of their hearts, to the excellence and genius of the greatest painter, sculptor, and architect that there has ever been." The Latin words were these: COLLEGIUM PICTORUM, STATUARIORUM, ARCHITECTORUM, AUSPICIO OPEQUE SIBI PROMPTA COSIMI DUCIS AUCTORIS SUORUM COMMODORUM, SUSPICIENS SINGULAREM VIRTUTEM MICHAELIS ANGELI BONARROTÆ, INTELLIGENSQUE QUANTO SIBI AUXILIO SEMPER FUERINT PRÆCLARA IPSIUS OPERA, STUDUIT SE GRATUM ERGA ILLUM OSTENDERE, SUMMUM OMNIUM QUI UNQUAM FUERINT P.S.A., IDEOQUE MONUMENTUM HOC SUIS MANIBUS EXTRUCTUM MAGNO ANIMI ARDORE IPSIUS MEMORIÆ DEDICAVIT. This epitaph was supported by two little Angels, who, with weeping faces, and extinguishing each a torch, appeared to be lamenting that a genius so great and so rare was now spent. Next, in the picture which came to face towards the door that leads into the cloister, was Michelagnolo making, on account of the siege of Florence, the fortifications of the hill of San Miniato, which were held to be impregnable and a marvellous work. This was by the hand of Lorenzo Sciorini, a pupil of Bronzino and a young man of excellent promise. This lowest part, or, so to speak, the base of the whole structure, had at every corner a pedestal that projected, and upon every pedestal was a statue larger than life, which had beneath it another, as it were subjugated and vanquished, of similar size, but each constrained in a different and extravagant attitude. The first, on the right hand going towards the high-altar, was a young man, slender and the very presentment of pure spirit, and of a most lively beauty, representing Genius, with two little wings over the temples, in the guise wherein at times Mercury is painted; and beneath this young man, wrought with incredible diligence, was a marvellous figure with asses' ears, representing Ignorance, the mortal enemy of Genius. These two statues were by the hand of Vincenzio Danti of Perugia, of whom and of his works, which are renowned among the young modern sculptors, we shall speak at greater length in another place. Upon the next pedestal, which, being on the right hand of the approach towards the high-altar, looked towards the new sacristy, was a woman representing Christian Piety, which, being composed of religion and every other excellence, is nothing less than an aggregate of all those virtues that we have called the Theological, and of those that were named by the Gentiles the Moral; wherefore it was right that, since the genius of a Christian, adorned by most saintly character, was being celebrated by Christians, a seemly and honourable place should be given to this Piety, which is concerned with the law of God and the salvation of souls, seeing that all other ornaments of body and mind, where she is lacking, are to be held in little estimation, or rather, none. This figure, who had beneath her, prostrate and trampled under foot by her, Vice, or rather, Impiety, was by the hand of Valerio Cioli, who is a young man of ability and fine spirit, and deserves the name of a very judicious and diligent sculptor. Opposite to this, on the side towards the old sacristy, was another similar figure made with much judgment to represent Minerva, or rather, Art; for the reason that it may be said with truth that after excellence of character and life, which must always hold the first place among the good, it was Art that gave to this man not only honour and profit, but also so much glory, that he may be said to have enjoyed in his lifetime such fruits as able and illustrious men have great difficulty in wresting even after death from the grasp of Fame, by means of their finest works; and, what is more, that he so vanquished envy, that by common consent, without any contradiction, he has obtained the rank and fame of the best and highest excellence. And for this reason this figure had beneath her feet Envy, who was an old woman lean and withered, with the eyes of a viper; in short, with features that all breathed out venom and poison, besides which she was girt with serpents, and had a viper in her hand. These two statues were by the hand of a boy of very tender years, called Lazzaro Calamech of Carrara, who at the present day, although still a mere lad, has given in some works of painting and sculpture convincing proofs of a beautiful and most lively genius. By the hand of Andrea Calamech, the uncle of the above-mentioned Lazzaro, and pupil of Ammanati, were the two statues placed upon the fourth pedestal, which was opposite to the organ and looked towards the principal doors of the church. The first of these was made to represent Study, for the reason that those who exert themselves little and sluggishly can never acquire repute, as Michelagnolo did, who from his early boyhood, from fifteen to ninety years of age, as has been seen above, never ceased to labour. This statue of Study, which was well in keeping with that great man, was a bold and vigorous youth, who had at the end of the arms, just above the joint of the hands, two little wings signifying rapidity and frequency of working; and he had prostrate beneath him, as a prisoner, Idleness or Indolence, who was a sluggish and weary woman, heavy and somnolent in her whole attitude. These four figures, disposed in the manner that has been described, made a very handsome and magnificent composition, and had all the appearance of marble, because a coat of white had been laid over the clay, which resulted in a very beautiful effect. From this level, upon which the above-named figures rested, there rose another base, likewise rectangular and about four braccia high, but smaller in length and breadth than that below by the extent of the projection and cornice-work upon which those figures rested; and on every side this had a painted compartment six braccia and a half in length and three in height. Above this rose a platform in the same manner as that below, but smaller; and upon every corner, on the projection of a socle, sat a figure of the size of life, or rather more. These were four women, who, from the instruments that they had, were easily recognized as Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Poetry; placed there for reasons that have been perceived in the narration of Michelagnolo's Life. Now, going from the principal door of the church towards the high-altar, in the first picture of the second range of the catafalque--namely, above the scene in which, as has been related, Lorenzo de' Medici is receiving Michelagnolo into his garden--there was painted in a most beautiful manner, to suggest Architecture, Michelagnolo in the presence of Pope Pius IV, with a model in his hand of the stupendous pile of the Cupola of S. Pietro in Rome. This scene, which was much extolled, was painted by Piero Francia, a Florentine painter, with beautiful manner and invention; and the statue, or rather, image of Architecture, which was on the left hand of this scene, was by the hand of Giovanni di Benedetto of Castello, who with so much credit to himself, as has been related, executed also the Tiber, one of the two Rivers that were on the front part of the catafalque. In the second picture, continuing to go forward on the right hand towards the lateral door that leads out of the church, was seen (to suggest Painting) Michelagnolo painting that so much but never sufficiently extolled Judgment: that Judgment, I mean, which is an exemplar in foreshortenings and all the other difficulties of art. This picture, which was executed by Michele di Ridolfo's young men with much diligence and grace, had likewise, on the left hand (namely, at the corner looking towards the new sacristy), its appropriate image, a statue of Painting, wrought by Battista del Cavaliere, a young man no less excellent in sculpture than remarkable for his goodness, modesty, and character. In the third picture, facing towards the high-altar (in that, namely, which was above the epitaph already mentioned), there was to be seen, to suggest Sculpture, Michelagnolo speaking with a woman, who by many signs could be recognized as Sculpture; and it appeared that he was taking counsel with her. Michelagnolo had about him some of the most excellent works that he executed in sculpture; and the woman held a little tablet with these words of Boethius: SIMILI SUB IMAGINE FORMANS. Beside that picture, which was the work of Andrea del Minga, and executed by him with beautiful invention and manner, there was on the left hand the statue of Sculpture, wrought very well by the sculptor Antonio di Gino Lorenzi. In the fourth of those four scenes, which faced towards the organ, there could be seen, to suggest Poetry, Michelagnolo all intent on writing some composition, and about him the Nine Muses, marvellous in their grace and beauty and with their distinctive garments, according as they are described by the poets, and before them Apollo with the lyre in his hand, his crown of laurel on his head, and another crown in the hand, which he made as if to place on the head of Michelagnolo. Near the gladsome and beautiful composition of this scene, painted in a very lovely manner, with most vivacious and spirited attitudes, by Giovan Maria Butteri, there was on the left hand the statue of Poetry, the work of Domenico Poggini, a man much practised not only in sculpture and in striking impressions of coins and medals with great beauty, but also in working in bronze and likewise in poetry. Of such a kind, then, was the ornamentation of the catafalque, which so diminished from course to course that it was possible to walk round each, and it was much after the likeness of the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome; although perchance, from being rectangular, it rather resembled the Septizonium of Severus, not that near the Campidoglio, which is commonly so called in error, but the true one, which is to be seen in stamp in the "Nuove Rome," near the Baths of Antoninus. Up to this point the catafalque had three levels; where the Rivers lay was the first, the second where the pairs of figures rested, and the third where the single figures had their feet. From this last level rose a base, or rather, socle, one braccio high, and much less in length and breadth than that last level; upon the projections of that base sat the above-named single figures, and around it could be read these words: SIC ARS EXTOLLITUR ARTE. Upon this base stood a pyramid nine braccia high, on two sides of which (namely, that which looked towards the principal door, and that which faced towards the high-altar), at the foot, were two ovals with the head of Michelagnolo portrayed from nature in relief and executed very well by Santi Buglioni. At the summit of the pyramid was a ball in due proportion with the pyramid, such as might have contained the ashes of him who was being honoured, and upon the ball was a figure of Fame, larger than life and in the likeness of marble, and in the act, as it were, of taking flight, and at the same time of causing the praises and glory of that great craftsman to resound throughout the world through a trumpet which branched into three mouths. That Fame was by the hand of Zanobi Lastricati, who, besides the labours that he had as proveditor for the whole work, desired also not to fail to show, with much honour to himself, the virtue of his hand and brain. In all, from the level of the ground to the head of the Fame, the height, as has been related, was twenty-eight braccia. Besides the catafalque described above, the whole church was draped with black baize and serge, hung not on the columns in the centre, as is usual, but on the chapels that are all around; and there was no space between the pilasters that enclose those chapels and correspond to the columns, that had not some adornment in painting, which, making an ingenious, pleasing, and beautiful display, caused marvel and at the same time the greatest delight. Now, to begin with one end: in the space of the first chapel that is beside the high-altar, as you go towards the old sacristy, was a picture six braccia in height and eight in length, in which, with novel and as it were poetical invention, was Michelagnolo in the centre, already come to the Elysian fields, where, on his right hand, were figures considerably larger than life of the most famous and most highly celebrated sculptors and painters of antiquity. Each of these could be recognized by some notable sign; Praxiteles by the Satyr that is in the Vigna of Pope Julius III, Apelles by the portrait of Alexander the Great, Zeuxis by a little panel on which were figured the grapes that deceived the birds, and Parrhasius with the covering counterfeited in painting over his picture; and, even as these, so the others were known by other signs. On the left hand were those who have been illustrious in these arts in our own centuries, from Cimabue to the present day. Thus Giotto could be recognized there by a little panel on which was seen the portrait of Dante as a young man, in the manner in which he may be seen in S. Croce, painted by Giotto himself; Masaccio by his portrait from life, Donatello likewise by his portrait, and also by his Zuccone from the Campanile, which was by his side, and Filippo Brunelleschi by the representation of his Cupola of S. Maria del Fiore; and there were portrayed from life, without other signs, Fra Filippo, Taddeo Gaddi, Paolo Uccello, Fra Giovanni Agnolo, Jacopo da Pontormo, Francesco Salviati, and others. All these were about him with the same expressions of welcome as the ancients, full of love and admiration, in the same manner as Virgil was received by the other poets on his return, according to the fable of the divine poet Dante, from whom, in addition to the invention, there was taken also the verse that could be read in a scroll both above and in the hand of the River Arno, which lay at the feet of Michelagnolo, most beautiful in features and in attitude: TUTTI L'AMMIRAN, TUTTI ONOR GLI FANNO. This picture, by the hand of Alessandro Allori, the pupil of Bronzino, an excellent painter and a not unworthy disciple and pupil of so great a master, was consummately extolled by all those who saw it. In the space of the Chapel of the most holy Sacrament, at the head of the transept, there was in a picture, five braccia in length and four in breadth, Michelagnolo with all the school of the arts about him, little children, boys, and young men of every age up to twenty-four, who were offering to him, as to a being sacred and divine, the firstfruits of their labours, such as pictures, sculptures, and models; and he was receiving them courteously, and was instructing them in the matters of art, while they were listening most intently and gazing upon him with expressions and attitudes truly full of beauty and grace. And, to tell the truth, the whole composition of this picture could not have been, in a certain sense, better done, nor could anything more beautiful have been desired in any of the figures, wherefore Battista, the pupil of Pontormo, who had done the work, received infinite praise for it; and the verses that were to be read at the foot of the scene, ran thus: TU PATER, TU RERUM INVENTOR, TU PATRIA NOBIS SUPPEDITAS PRÆCEPTA TUIS EX, INCLYTE, CHARTIS. Going, then, from the place where was the picture described above, towards the principal doors of the church, almost at the corner and just before arriving at the organ, in a picture six braccia long and four high that was in the space of a chapel, there was depicted the extraordinary and unexampled favour that was paid to the rare genius of Michelagnolo by Pope Julius III, who, wishing to avail himself in certain buildings of the judgment of that great man, had him summoned to his presence at his villa, where, having invited him to sit by his side, they talked a good time together, while Cardinals, Bishops, and other personages of the Court, whom they had about them, remained constantly standing. This event, I say, was seen to have been depicted with such fine composition and so much relief, and with such liveliness and spirit in the figures, that perchance it might not have turned out better from the hands of an eminent, aged, and well-practised master; wherefore Jacopo Zucchi, a young man, the pupil of Giorgio Vasari, who executed the work in a beautiful manner, proved that a most honourable result could be expected from him. Not far from this, on the same side (namely, a little below the organ), Giovanni Strada, an able Flemish painter, had depicted in a picture six braccia long and four high the story of Michelagnolo's going to Venice at the time of the siege of Florence; where, living in that quarter of that most noble city which is called the Giudecca, the Doge Andrea Gritti and the Signoria sent some gentlemen and others to visit him and make him very great offers. In representing that event the above-named painter showed great judgment and much knowledge, which did him great honour, both in the whole composition and in every part of it, for in the attitudes, the lively expressions of the faces, and the movements of every figure, were seen invention, design, and excellent grace. Now, returning to the high-altar, and facing towards the new sacristy: in the first picture found there, which came in the space of the first chapel, there was depicted by the hand of Santi Titi, a young man of most beautiful judgment and much practised in painting both in Florence and in Rome, another signal favour paid to the genius of Michelagnolo, as I believe I mentioned above, by the most illustrious Lord, Don Francesco de' Medici, Prince of Florence, who, happening to be in Rome about three years before Michelagnolo died, and receiving a visit from him, the moment that Buonarroti entered the Prince rose to his feet, and then, in order to do honour to that great man and to his truly venerable age, with the greatest courtesy that ever young Prince showed, insisted--although Michelagnolo, who was very modest, protested against it--that he should sit in his own chair, from which he had risen, standing afterwards on his feet to hear him with the attention and reverence that children are wont to pay to a well-beloved father. At the feet of the Prince was a boy, executed with great diligence, who had in his hands a mazzocchio,[6] or Ducal cap, and around them were some soldiers dressed in ancient fashion, and painted with much spirit and a beautiful manner; but beyond all the rest, most beautifully wrought, most lifelike and most natural were the Prince and Michelagnolo, insomuch that it appeared as if the old man were in truth speaking, and the young man most intently listening to his words. [Footnote 6: See note on p. 132, vol. ii.] In another picture, nine braccia in height and twelve in length, which was opposite to the Chapel of the Sacrament, Bernardo Timante Buontalenti, a painter much beloved and favoured by the most illustrious Prince, had figured with most beautiful invention the Rivers of the three principal parts of the world, come, as it were, all grieving and sorrowful, to lament with Arno on their common loss and to console him; and these Rivers were the Nile, the Ganges, and the Po. The Nile had as a symbol a crocodile, and, to signify the fertility of his country, a garland of ears of corn; the Ganges, a gryphon-bird and a chaplet of gems; the Po, a swan and a crown of black amber. These Rivers, having been conducted into Tuscany by the Fame, who was to be seen on high, as it were in flight, were standing round Arno, who was crowned with cypress and held his vase, drained empty, uplifted with one hand, and in the other a branch of cypress, and beneath him was a lion. And, to signify that the soul of Michelagnolo had flown to the highest felicity in Heaven, the judicious painter had depicted in the air a Splendour representing the celestial light, towards which the blessed soul, in the form of a little Angel, was winging its way; with this lyric verse: VIVENS ORBE PETO LAUDIBUS ÆTHERA. At the sides, upon two bases, were two figures in the act of holding open a curtain within which, so it appeared, were the above-named Rivers, the soul of Michelagnolo, and the Fame; and each of those two figures had another beneath it. That which was on the right hand of the Rivers, representing Vulcan, had a torch in the hand; and the figure representing Hatred, which had the neck under Vulcan's feet in an attitude of great constraint, and as it were struggling to writhe free, had as symbol a vulture, with this verse: SURGERE QUID PROPERAS ODIUM CRUDELE? JACETO. And that because things superhuman, and almost divine, should in no way be regarded with envy or hatred. The other, representing Aglaia, one of the Three Graces and wife of Vulcan, to signify Proportion, had in her hand a lily, both because flowers are dedicated to the Graces, and also because the lily is held to be not inappropriate to the rites of death. The figure which was lying beneath Aglaia, and which was painted to represent Disproportion, had as symbol a monkey, or rather, ape, and above her this verse: VIVUS ET EXTINCTUS DOCUIT SIC STERNERE TURPE. And under the Rivers were these two other verses: VENIMUS, ARNE, TUO CONFIXA IN VULNERE MOESTA FLUMINA, UT EREPTUM MUNDO PLOREMUS HONOREM. This picture was held to be very beautiful in the invention, in the composition of the whole scene and the loveliness of the figures, and in the beauty of the verses, and because the painter honoured Michelagnolo with this his labour, not by commission, but spontaneously and with such assistance as his own merit enabled him to obtain from his courteous and honourable friends; and for this reason he deserved to be even more highly commended. In another picture, six braccia in length and four in height, near the lateral door that leads out of the church, Tommaso da San Friano, a young painter of much ability, had painted Michelagnolo as Ambassador of his country at the Court of Pope Julius II; as we have related that he went, and for what reasons, sent by Soderini. Not far distant from the above-named picture (namely, a little below that lateral door which leads out of the church), in another picture of the same size, Stefano Pieri, a pupil of Bronzino and a young man of great diligence and industry, had painted a scene that had in truth happened several times in Rome not long before--namely, Michelagnolo seated in a room by the side of the most illustrious Lord Duke Cosimo, who stood conversing with him; of all which enough has been said above. Over the said black draperies with which, as has been told, the whole church was hung all round, wherever there were no painted scenes or pictures, there were in each of the spaces of the chapels images of death, devices, and other suchlike things, all different from those that are generally made, and very fanciful and beautiful. Some of these, as it were lamenting that they had been forced to deprive the world of such a man, had these words in a scroll: COEGIT DURA NECESSITAS. And near them was a globe of the world, from which had sprung a lily, which had three flowers and was broken in the middle, executed with most beautiful fantasy and invention by the above-named Alessandro Allori. There were other Deaths, also, depicted with other inventions, but that one was most extolled upon whose neck, as she lay prostrate on the ground, Eternity, with a palm in the hand, had planted one of her feet, and, regarding her with a look of disdain, appeared to be saying to her: "Be it necessity or thy will, thou hast done nothing, for in spite of thee, come what may, Michelagnolo shall live." The motto ran thus: VICIT INCLYTA VIRTUS. And all this was the invention of Vasari. I will not omit to say that each of these Deaths had on either side the device of Michelagnolo, which was three crowns, or rather, three circlets, intertwined together in such a manner, that the circumference of one passed through the centre of the two others, and so with each; which sign Michelagnolo used either to suggest that the three professions of sculpture, painting, and architecture are interwoven one with another and so bound together, that each of them receives benefit and adornment from the others, and they neither can nor should be separated; or, indeed, being a man of lofty genius, he may have had a more subtle meaning. But the Academicians, considering him to have been perfect in all these three professions, and that each of these had assisted and embellished the other, changed his three circlets into three crowns intertwined together, with the motto: TERGEMINIS TOLLIT HONORIBUS. Which was intended to signify that in those three professions the crown of human perfection was justly due to him. On the pulpit from which Varchi delivered the funeral oration, which was afterwards printed, there was no ornamentation, because, that work having been executed in bronze, with scenes in half-relief and low-relief, by the excellent Donatello, any adornment that might have been added to it would have been by a great measure less beautiful. But on the other, which is opposite to the first, although it had not yet been raised on the columns, there was a picture, four braccia in height and little more than two in width, wherein there was painted with beautiful invention and excellent design, to represent Fame, or rather, Honour, a young man in a most beautiful attitude, with a trumpet in the right hand, and with the feet planted on Time and Death, in order to show that fame and honour, in spite of death and time, preserve alive to all eternity those who have laboured valiantly in this life. This picture was by the hand of Vincenzio Danti, the sculptor of Perugia, of whom we have spoken, and will speak again elsewhere. The church having been embellished in such a manner, adorned with lights, and filled with a countless multitude, for everyone had left every other care and flocked together to such an honourable spectacle, there entered behind the above-named Lieutenant of the Academy, accompanied by the Captain and Halberdiers of the Duke's Guard, the Consuls and the Academicians, and, in short, all the painters, sculptors, and architects of Florence. After all these had sat down between the catafalque and the high-altar, where they had been awaited for a good while by an infinite number of lords and gentlemen, who had been accommodated with seats according to the rank of each, there was begun a most solemn Mass for the dead, with music and ceremonies of every kind. Which finished, Varchi mounted the above-mentioned pulpit, who had never performed such an office since he did it for the most illustrious Lady Duchess of Ferrara, the daughter of Duke Cosimo; and there, with that elegance, those modes of utterance, and that voice which were the peculiar attributes of that great man in oratory, he recounted the praises and merits, life and works of the divine Michelagnolo Buonarroti. Of a truth, what great good fortune it was for Michelagnolo that he did not die before our Academy was created, whereby his funeral rites were celebrated with so much honour and such magnificent and honourable pomp! So, also, it must be considered most fortunate for him that it happened that he passed from this to an eternal and most blessed life before Varchi, seeing that he could not have been extolled by any more eloquent and learned man. That funeral oration by M. Benedetto Varchi was printed a short time afterwards, as was also, not long after that, another equally beautiful oration, likewise in praise of Michelagnolo and of painting, composed by the most noble and most learned M. Leonardo Salviati, at that time a young man of about twenty-two years of age, and of a rare and happy genius in all manner of compositions, both Latin and Tuscan, as is known even now, and will be better known in the future, to all the world. And what shall I say, what can I say, that would not be too little, of the capacity, goodness, and wisdom of the very reverend Lord Lieutenant, the above-named Don Vincenzio Borghini? Save that it was with him as their chief, their guide, and their counsellor, that the eminent men of the Academy and Company of Design celebrated those obsequies; for the reason that, although each of them was competent to do much more in his art than he did, nevertheless no enterprise is ever carried to a perfect and praiseworthy end save when one single man, in the manner of an experienced pilot and captain, has authority and power over all others. And since it was not possible that the whole city should see that funeral pomp in one day, by order of the Duke it was all left standing many weeks, for the satisfaction of his people and of the strangers who came from neighbouring places to see it. We shall not give in this place the great multitude of epitaphs and verses, both Latin and Tuscan, composed by many able men in honour of Michelagnolo; both because they would require a work to themselves, and because they have been written down and published by other writers elsewhere. But I will not omit to say in this last part, that after all the honours described above the Duke ordained that an honourable place should be given to Michelagnolo for his tomb in S. Croce, in which church he had purposed in his lifetime to be buried, because the sepulchre of his ancestors was there. And to Leonardo, the nephew of Michelagnolo, his Excellency gave all the marbles, both white and variegated, for that tomb, which was allotted to Battista Lorenzi, an able sculptor, to execute after the design of Giorgio Vasari, together with the head of Michelagnolo. And since there are to be three statues there, Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, one of these was allotted to the above-named Battista, one to Giovanni dell'Opera, and the last to Valerio Cioli, Florentine sculptors; which statues are in process of being fashioned together with the tomb, and soon they will be seen finished and set in their places. The cost, over and above the marbles received from the Duke, has been borne by the same Leonardo Buonarroti. But his Excellency, in order not to fail in any respect in doing honour to that great man, will cause to be placed in the Duomo, as he has previously thought to do, a memorial with his name, besides the head, even as there are to be seen there the names and images of the other eminent Florentines. FRANCESCO PRIMATICCIO DESCRIPTION OF THE WORKS OF FRANCESCO PRIMATICCIO PAINTER AND ARCHITECT OF BOLOGNA, AND ABBOT OF S. MARTIN Having treated hitherto of such of our craftsmen as are no longer alive among us--of those, namely, who have lived from 1200 until this year of 1567--and having set Michelagnolo Buonarroti in the last place for many reasons, although two or three have died later than he, I have thought that it cannot be otherwise than a praiseworthy labour to make mention likewise in this our work of many noble craftsmen who are alive, and, for their merits, most worthy to be highly extolled and to be numbered among these last masters. This I do all the more willingly because they are all very much my friends and brothers, and the three most eminent are already so far advanced in years, that, having come to the furthest limit of old age, little more can be expected from them, although they still continue by a sort of habit to occupy themselves with some work. After these I will also make brief mention of those who under their discipline have become such, that they hold the first places among the craftsmen of our own day; and of others who in like manner are advancing towards perfection in our arts. Beginning, then, with Francesco Primaticcio, to go on afterwards to Tiziano Vecelli and Jacopo Sansovino: I have to record that the said Francesco, born in Bologna of the noble family of the Primaticci, much celebrated by Fra Leandro Alberti and by Pontano, was apprenticed in his early boyhood to commerce. But, that calling pleasing him little, not long afterwards, being exalted in mind and spirit, he set himself to practise design, to which he felt himself inclined by nature; and so, giving his attention to drawing, and at times to painting, no long time passed before he gave proof that he was likely to achieve an excellent result. Going afterwards to Mantua, where at that time Giulio Romano was working at the Palace of the Te for Duke Federigo, he employed such interest that he was set, in company with many other young men who were with Giulio, to labour at that work. There, attending to the studies of art with much industry and diligence for a period of six years, he learned very well to handle colours and to work in stucco; wherefore, among all the other young men who were labouring in the work of that Palace, Francesco came to be held one of the most excellent, and the best of all at drawing and colouring. This may be seen in a great chamber, round which he made two friezes of stucco, one above the other, with a great abundance of figures that represent the ancient Roman soldiery; and in the same Palace, likewise, he executed many works in painting that are to be seen there, after the designs of the above-named Giulio. Through these works Primaticcio came into such favour with that Duke, that, when King Francis of France heard with what quantity of ornaments he had caused the work of the Palace to be executed, and wrote to him that at all costs he should send him a young man able to work in painting and stucco, the Duke sent him Francesco Primaticcio, in the year 1531. And although the year before that the Florentine painter Rosso had gone into the service of the same King, as has been related, and had executed many works there, and in particular the pictures of Bacchus and Venus, Psyche and Cupid, nevertheless the first works in stucco that were done in France, and the first labours in fresco of any account, had their origin, it is said, from Primaticcio, who decorated in this manner many chambers, halls, and loggie for that King. [Illustration: DECORATIVE PANELS (_After =Primaticcio=. Fontainebleau: Galerie Henry II_) _X. Photo_] Liking the manner of this painter, and his procedure in every matter, the King sent him in the year 1540 to Rome, to contrive to obtain certain antique marbles; in which Primaticcio served him with such diligence, that in a short time, what with heads, torsi, and figures, he bought one hundred and twenty-five pieces. And at that same time he caused to be moulded by Jacopo Barozzi of Vignuola, and by others, the bronze horse that is on the Campidoglio, a great part of the scenes on the Column, the statue of Commodus, the Venus, the Laocoon, the Tiber, the Nile, and the statue of Cleopatra, which are in the Belvedere; to the end that they might all be cast in bronze. Rosso having meanwhile died in France, and a long gallery therefore remaining unfinished which had been begun after his designs and in great part adorned with stucco-work and pictures, Primaticcio was recalled from Rome; whereupon he took ship with the above-mentioned marbles and moulds of antique figures, and returned to France. There, before any other thing, he cast according to those moulds and forms a great part of those antique figures, which came out so well, that they might be the originals; as may be seen in the Queen's garden at Fontainebleau, where they were placed, to the vast satisfaction of that King, who made in that place, one might say, another Rome. I will not omit to say that Primaticcio, in executing those statues, employed masters so excellent in the art of casting, that those works came out not only light, but with a surface so smooth, that it was hardly necessary to polish them. This work done, Primaticcio was commissioned to give completion to the gallery that Rosso had left unfinished; whereupon he set his hand to it, and in a short time delivered it finished with as many works in stucco and painting as have ever been executed in any place. Wherefore the King, finding that he had been well served in the period of eight years that this master had worked for him, had him placed among the number of his chamberlains; and a short time afterwards, which was in the year 1544, he made him Abbot of S. Martin, considering that Francesco deserved no less. But for all this Francesco has never ceased to have many works in stucco and in painting executed in the service of his King and of the others who have governed that kingdom after Francis I. Among others who have assisted him in this, he has been served, to say nothing of many of his fellow-Bolognese, by Giovan Battista, the son of Bartolommeo Bagnacavallo, who has proved not less able than his father in many scenes and other works of Primaticcio's that he has carried into execution. Another who has served him for a considerable time is one Ruggieri da Bologna, who is still with him. In like manner, Prospero Fontana, a painter of Bologna, was summoned to France not long since by Primaticcio, who intended to make use of him; but, having fallen ill to the danger of his life immediately after his arrival, he returned to Bologna. To tell the truth, these two, Bagnacavallo and Fontana, are able men, and I, who have made considerable use both of the one and of the other, of the first at Rome, and of the second at Rimini and Florence, can declare this with certainty. But of all those who have assisted the Abbot Primaticcio, none has done him more honour than Niccolò da Modena, of whom mention has been made on another occasion, for by the excellence of his art this master has surpassed all the others. Thus he executed with his own hand, after the designs of the Abbot, a hall called the Ball-room, with such a vast number of figures, that it appears scarcely possible that they could be counted, and all as large as life and coloured in so bright a manner, that in the harmony of the fresco-colours they appear like work in oils. After this work he painted in the Great Gallery, likewise from the designs of the Abbot, sixty stories of the life and actions of Ulysses, but with a colouring much darker than the pictures in the Ball-room. This came about because he used no other colours but the earths in the pure state in which they are produced by Nature, without mixing with them, it may be said, any white, and so heavily loaded with darks in the deep parts, that these have extraordinary relief and force; besides which, he executed the whole work with such harmony, that it appears almost as if painted in one and the same day. Wherefore he merits extraordinary praise, particularly because he executed it in fresco, without ever retouching it "a secco," as many at the present day are accustomed to do. The vaulting of this gallery, likewise, is all wrought in stucco and painting, executed with much diligence by the men mentioned above and other young painters, but still after the designs of the Abbot; as is also the old Hall, and likewise a lower gallery that is over the pond, which is most beautiful and better adorned with lovely works than any other part of that place; but to attempt to speak of it at any length would make too long a story. [Illustration: DECORATIVE PANEL (_After the painting by =Primaticcio=. Fontainebleau: Escalier du Roi_) _Mansell_] At Meudon the same Abbot Primaticcio has made innumerable decorations for the Cardinal of Lorraine in a vast palace belonging to him, called the Grotto, a place so extraordinary in size, that, after the likeness of similar edifices of the ancients, it might be called the Thermæ, by reason of the vast number and grandeur of the loggie, staircases, and apartments, both public and private, that are there; and, to say nothing of other particulars, most beautiful is a room called the Pavilion, for it is all adorned with compartments and mouldings of stucco that are wrought with a view to being seen from below, and filled with a number of figures foreshortened in the same manner, which are very beautiful. Beneath this, then, is a large room with some fountains wrought in stucco, and full of figures in the round and compartments formed of shells and other products of the sea and natural objects, which are marvellous things and beautiful beyond measure; and the vaulting, likewise, is all most excellently wrought in stucco by the hand of Domenico del Barbiere, a Florentine painter, who is excellent not only in this kind of relief, but also in design, so that in some works that he has coloured he has given proofs of the rarest ability. In the same place, also, many figures of stucco in the round have been executed by a sculptor likewise of our country, called Ponzio, who has acquitted himself very well. But, since the works that have been executed in those places in the service of those lords are innumerable in their variety, I must touch only on the principal works of the Abbot, in order to show how rare he is in painting, in design, and in matters of architecture; although, in truth, it would not appear to me an excessive labour to enlarge on the particular works, if I had some true and clear information about them, as I have about works here. With regard to design, Primaticcio has been and still is most excellent, as may be seen from a drawing by his hand painted with the signs of the heavens, which is in our book, sent to me by Francesco himself; and I, both for love of him and because it is a thing of absolute perfection, hold it very dear. King Francis being dead, the Abbot remained in the same place and rank with King Henry, and served him as long as he lived; and afterwards he was created by King Francis II Commissary-General over all the buildings of the whole kingdom, in which office, one of great honour and much repute, there had previously acted the father of Cardinal della Bordagiera and Monseigneur de Villeroy. Since the death of Francis II, he has continued in the same office, serving the present King, by whose order and that of the Queen-Mother Primaticcio has made a beginning with the tomb of the above-named King Henry, making in the centre of a six-sided chapel the sepulchre of the King himself, and at four sides the sepulchres of his four children; while at one of the other two sides of the chapel is the altar, and at the other the door. And since there are going into this work innumerable statues in marble and bronzes and a number of scenes in low-relief, it will prove worthy of all these great Kings and of the excellence and genius of so rare a craftsman as is this Abbot of S. Martin, who in his best years has been most excellent and versatile in all things that pertain to our arts, seeing that he has occupied himself in the service of his lords not only in buildings, paintings, and stucco-work, but also in the preparations for many festivals and masquerades, with most beautiful and fantastic inventions. He has been very liberal and most loving towards his friends and relatives, and likewise towards the craftsmen who have served him. In Bologna he has conferred many benefits on his relatives, and has bought honourable dwellings for them and made them commodious and very ornate, as is that wherein there now lives M. Antonio Anselmi, who has for wife one of the nieces of our Abbot Primaticcio, who has also given in marriage another niece, the sister of the first-named, with honour and a good dowry. Primaticcio has always lived not like a painter and craftsman, but like a nobleman, and, as I have said, he has been very loving towards our craftsmen. When, as has been related, he sent for Prospero Fontana, he despatched to him a good sum of money, to the end that he might be able to make his way to France. This sum, having fallen ill, Prospero was not able to pay back or return by means of his works and labours; wherefore I, passing in the year 1563 through Bologna, recommended Prospero to him in this matter, and such was the courtesy of Primaticcio, that before I departed from Bologna I saw a writing by the hand of the Abbot in which he made a free gift to Prospero of all that sum of money which he had in hand for that purpose. For which reasons the affection that he has won among craftsmen is such, that they address and honour him as a father. Now, to say something more of Prospero, I must record that he was once employed with much credit to himself in Rome, by Pope Julius III, at his Palace, at the Vigna Giulia, and at the Palace of the Campo Marzio, which at that time belonged to Signor Balduino Monti, and now belongs to the Lord Cardinal Ernando de' Medici, the son of Duke Cosimo. In Bologna the same master has executed many works in oils and in fresco, and in particular an altar-piece in oils in the Madonna del Baracane, of a S. Catherine who is disputing with philosophers and doctors in the presence of the Tyrant, which is held to be a very beautiful work. And the same Prospero has painted many pictures in fresco in the principal chapel of the Palace where the Governor lives. Much the friend of Primaticcio, likewise, is Lorenzo Sabatini, an excellent painter; and if he had not been burdened with a wife and many children, the Abbot would have taken him to France, knowing that he has a very good manner and great mastery in all kinds of work, as may be seen from many things that he has done in Bologna. And in the year 1566 Vasari made use of him in the festive preparations that were carried out in Florence for the above-mentioned nuptials of the Prince and her serene Highness Queen Joanna of Austria, causing him to execute, in the vestibule that is between the Sala dei Dugento and the Great Hall, six figures in fresco that are very beautiful and truly worthy to be praised. But since this able painter is constantly making progress, I shall say nothing more about him, save that, attending as he does to the studies of art, a most honourable result is expected from him. Now, in connection with the Abbot and the other Bolognese of whom mention has been made hitherto, I shall say something of Pellegrino Bolognese, a painter of the highest promise and most beautiful genius. This Pellegrino, after having attended in his early years to drawing the works by Vasari that are in the refectory of S. Michele in Bosco at Bologna, and those by other painters of good name, went in the year 1547 to Rome, where he occupied himself until the year 1550 in drawing the most noteworthy works; executing during that time and also afterwards, in the Castello di S. Angelo, some things in connection with the works that Perino del Vaga carried out. In the centre of the vaulting of the Chapel of S. Dionigi, in the Church of S. Luigi de' Franzesi, he painted a battle-scene in fresco, in which he acquitted himself in such a manner, that, although Jacopo del Conte, a Florentine painter, and Girolamo Siciolante of Sermoneta had executed many works in the same chapel, Pellegrino proved to be in no way inferior to them; nay, it appears to many that he acquitted himself better than they did in the boldness, grace, colouring, and design of those his pictures. By reason of this Monsignor Poggio afterwards availed himself much of Pellegrino, for he had erected a palace on the Esquiline Hill, where he had a vineyard, without the Porta del Popolo, and he desired that Pellegrino should execute some figures for him on the façade, and then that he should paint the interior of a loggia that faces towards the Tiber, which he executed with such diligence, that it is held to be a work of much beauty and grace. In the house of Francesco Formento, between the Strada del Pellegrino and the Parione, he painted in a courtyard a façade and two figures besides. By order of the ministers of Pope Julius III, he executed a large escutcheon, with two figures, in the Belvedere; and without the Porta del Popolo, in the Church of S. Andrea, which that Pontiff had caused to be built, he painted a S. Peter and a S. Andrew, which two figures were much extolled, and the design of the S. Peter is in our book, together with other sheets drawn with much diligence by the same hand. [Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS (_After the painting by =Pellegrino Tibaldi=. Vienna: Prince Liechtenstein_) _Hanfstaengl_] Being then sent to Bologna by Monsignor Poggio, he painted for him in his palace there many scenes in fresco, among which is one that is most beautiful, wherein from the many figures, both nude and clothed, and the lovely composition of the scene, it is evident that he surpassed himself, insomuch that he has never done any work since better than this. In S. Jacopo, in the same city, he began to paint a chapel likewise for Cardinal Poggio, which was afterwards finished by the above-mentioned Prospero Fontana. Being then taken by the Cardinal of Augsburg to the Madonna of Loreto, Pellegrino decorated for him a chapel most beautifully with stucco-work and pictures. On the vaulting, within a rich pattern of compartments in stucco, are the Nativity of Christ and His Presentation in the arms of Simeon at the Temple; and in the centre, in particular, is the Transfiguration of the Saviour on Mount Tabor, and with Him Moses, Elias, and the Disciples. In the altar-piece that is above the altar, he painted S. John the Baptist baptizing Christ; and in this he made a portrait of the above-named Cardinal, kneeling. On one of the façades at the sides he painted S. John preaching to the multitude, and on the other the Beheading of the same Saint. In the forecourt below the church he painted stories of the Judgment, and some figures in chiaroscuro in the place where the Theatines now have their Confessional. Being summoned not long afterwards to Ancona by Giorgio Morato, he painted for the Church of S. Agostino a large altar-piece in oils of Christ baptized by S. John, with S. Paul and other Saints on one side, and in the predella a good number of little figures, which are full of grace. For the same man he made in the Church of S. Ciriaco sul Monte a very beautiful ornament in stucco for the altar-piece of the high-altar, and within it a Christ of five braccia in full-relief, which was much extolled. In like manner, he has made in the same city a very large and very beautiful ornament of stucco for the high-altar of S. Domenico, and he would also have painted the altar-picture, but he had a difference with the patron of that work, and it was given to Tiziano Vecelli to execute, as will be related in the proper place. Finally, having undertaken to decorate in the same city of Ancona the Loggia de' Mercanti, which faces on one side over the sea-shore and on the other towards the principal street of the city, Pellegrino has adorned the vaulting, which is a new structure, with pictures and many large figures in stucco; in which work since he has exerted all the effort and study possible to him, it has turned out in truth full of beauty and grace, for the reason that, besides that all the figures are beautiful and well executed, there are some most lovely foreshortenings of nudes, in which it is evident that he has imitated with much diligence the works of Buonarroti that are in the Chapel in Rome. Now, since there are not in those parts any architects or engineers of account, or any who know more than he does, Pellegrino has taken it upon himself to give his attention to architecture and to the fortifying of places in that province; and, as one who has recognized that painting is more difficult and perhaps less advantageous than architecture, setting his painting somewhat on one side, he has executed many works for the fortification of Ancona and for many other places in the States of the Church, and particularly at Ravenna. Finally, he has made a beginning with a palace for the Sapienza, at Pavia, for Cardinal Borromeo. And at the present day, since he has not wholly abandoned painting, he is executing a scene in fresco, which will be very beautiful, in the refectory of S. Giorgio at Ferrara, for the Monks of Monte Oliveto; and of this Pellegrino himself not long ago showed me the design, which is very fine. But, seeing that he is a young man of thirty-five, and is constantly making more and more progress and advancing towards perfection, this much about him must suffice for the present. In like manner, I shall be brief in speaking of Orazio Fumaccini,[7] a painter likewise from Bologna, who has executed in Rome, as has been related, above one of the doors of the Hall of Kings, a scene that is very fine, and in Bologna many much-extolled pictures; for he also is young, and he is acquitting himself in such a manner, that he will not be inferior to his elders, of whom we have made mention in these our Lives. [Footnote 7: Sammacchini.] The men of Romagna, also, spurred by the example of the Bolognese, their neighbours, have executed many noble works in our arts; for, besides Jacopone da Faenza, who, as has been related, painted the tribune of S. Vitale in Ravenna, there have been and still are many others after him who are excellent. Maestro Luca de' Longhi of Ravenna, a man of good, quiet, and studious nature, has painted in his native city of Ravenna and in the surrounding country many very beautiful panel-pictures in oils and portraits from nature; and of much charm, among others, are two little altar-pieces that he was commissioned not long since to paint for the Church of the Monks of Classi by the Reverend Don Antonio da Pisa, then Abbot of that Monastery; to say nothing of an infinite number of other works that this painter has executed. And, to tell the truth, if Maestro Luca had gone forth from Ravenna, where he has always lived and still lives with his family, being assiduous and very diligent, and of fine judgment, he would have become a very rare painter, because he has executed his works, as he still does, with patience and study; and to this I can bear witness, who know how much proficience he made during my sojourn of two months in Ravenna, both practising and discussing the matters of art; nor must I omit to say that a daughter of his, still but a little girl, called Barbara, draws very well, and has begun to do some work in colour with no little grace and excellence of manner. A rival of Luca, for a time, was Livio Agresti of Forlì, who, after he had executed for Abbot de' Grassi in the Church of the Spirito Santo some scenes in fresco and certain other works, departed from Ravenna and made his way to Rome. There, attending with much study to design, he became a well-practised master, as may be seen from some façades and other works in fresco that he executed at that time; and his first works, which are in Narni, have in them not a little of the good. In a chapel of the Church of the Santo Spirito, in Rome, he has painted a number of figures and scenes in fresco, which are executed with much industry and study, so that they are rightly extolled by everyone. That work was the reason, as has been related, that there was allotted to him one of the smaller scenes that are over the doors in the Hall of Kings in the Palace of the Vatican, in which he acquitted himself so well, that it can bear comparison with the others. The same master has executed for the Cardinal of Augsburg seven pieces with scenes painted on cloth of silver, which have been held to be very beautiful in Spain, where they have been sent by that same Cardinal as presents to King Philip, to be used as hangings in a chamber. Another picture on cloth of silver he has painted in the same manner, which is now to be seen in the Church of the Theatines at Forlì. Finally, having become a good and bold draughtsman, a well-practised colourist, fertile in the composition of scenes, and universal in his manner, he has been invited by the above-named Cardinal with a good salary to Augsburg, where he is constantly executing works worthy of much praise. But most rare among the other men of Romagna, in certain respects, is Marco da Faenza (for only so, and not otherwise, is he called), for the reason that he has no ordinary mastery in the work of fresco, being bold, resolute, and of a terrible force, and particularly in the manner and practice of making grotesques, in which he has no equal at the present day, nor one who even approaches his perfection. His works may be found throughout all Rome; and in Florence there is by his hand the greater part of the ornaments of twenty different rooms that are in the Ducal Palace, and the friezes of the ceiling in the Great Hall of that Palace, which was painted by Giorgio Vasari, as will be fully described in the proper place; not to mention that the decorations of the principal court of the same Palace, made in a short time for the coming of Queen Joanna, were executed in great part by the same man. And this must be enough of Marco, he being still alive and in the flower of his growth and activity. In Parma there is at the present day in the service of the Lord Duke Ottavio Farnese, a painter called Miruolo, a native, I believe, of Romagna, who, besides some works executed in Rome, has painted many scenes in fresco in a little palace that the same Lord Duke has caused to be built in the Castle of Parma. There, also, are some fountains constructed with fine grace by Giovanni Boscoli, a sculptor of Montepulciano, who, having worked in stucco for many years under Vasari in the Palace of the above-named Lord Duke Cosimo of Florence, has finally entered the service of the above-mentioned Lord Duke of Parma, with a good salary, and has executed, as he continues constantly to do, works worthy of his rare and most beautiful genius. In the same cities and provinces, also, are many other excellent and noble craftsmen; but, since they are still young, we shall defer to a more convenient time the making of that honourable mention of them that their talents and their works may have merited. And this is the end of the works of Abbot Primaticcio. I will add that, he having had himself portrayed in a pen-drawing by the Bolognese painter Bartolommeo Passerotto, who was very much his friend, that portrait has come into our hands, and we have it in our book of drawings by the hands of various excellent painters. TIZIANO DA CADORE [Illustration: TIZIANO: THE MADONNA OF THE CHERRIES (_Vienna: Imperial Gallery, 180. Panel_)] DESCRIPTION OF THE WORKS OF TIZIANO DA CADORE PAINTER Tiziano was born at Cadore, a little township situated on the Piave and five miles distant from the pass of the Alps, in the year 1480, from the family of the Vecelli, one of the most noble in that place. At the age of ten, having a fine spirit and a lively intelligence, he was sent to Venice to the house of an uncle, an honoured citizen, who, perceiving the boy to be much inclined to painting, placed him with Gian Bellini, an excellent painter very famous at that time, as has been related. Under his discipline, attending to design, he soon showed that he was endowed by nature with all the gifts of intellect and judgment that are necessary for the art of painting; and since at that time Gian Bellini and the other painters of that country, from not being able to study ancient works, were much--nay, altogether--given to copying from the life whatever work they did, and that with a dry, crude, and laboured manner, Tiziano also for a time learned that method. But having come to about the year 1507, Giorgione da Castelfranco, not altogether liking that mode of working, began to give to his pictures more softness and greater relief, with a beautiful manner; nevertheless he used to set himself before living and natural objects and counterfeit them as well as he was able with colours, and paint them broadly with tints crude or soft according as the life demanded, without doing any drawing, holding it as certain that to paint with colours only, without the study of drawing on paper, was the true and best method of working, and the true design. For he did not perceive that for him who wishes to distribute his compositions and accommodate his inventions well, it is necessary that he should first put them down on paper in several different ways, in order to see how the whole goes together, for the reason that the idea is not able to see or imagine the inventions perfectly within herself, if she does not reveal and demonstrate her conception to the eyes of the body, that these may assist her to form a good judgment. Besides which, it is necessary to give much study to the nude, if you wish to comprehend it well, which you will never do, nor is it possible, without having recourse to paper; and to keep always before you, while you paint, persons naked or draped, is no small restraint, whereas, when you have formed your hand by drawing on paper, you then come little by little with greater ease to carry your conceptions into execution, designing and painting together. And so, gaining practice in art, you make both manner and judgment perfect, doing away with the labour and effort wherewith those pictures were executed of which we have spoken above, not to mention that by drawing on paper, you come to fill the mind with beautiful conceptions, and learn to counterfeit all the objects of nature by memory, without having to keep them always before you or being obliged to conceal beneath the glamour of colouring the painful fruits of your ignorance of design, in the manner that was followed for many years by the Venetian painters, Giorgione, Palma, Pordenone, and others, who never saw Rome or any other works of absolute perfection. [Illustration: ARIOSTO (_After the painting by =Tiziano=. London: National Gallery, No. 1944_) _Mansell_] Tiziano, then, having seen the method and manner of Giorgione, abandoned the manner of Gian Bellini, although he had been accustomed to it for a long time, and attached himself to that of Giorgione; coming in a short time to imitate his works so well, that his pictures at times were mistaken for works by Giorgione, as will be related below. Then, having grown in age, practice, and judgment, Tiziano executed many works in fresco, which cannot be enumerated in order, being dispersed over various places; let it suffice that they were such, that the opinion was formed by many experienced judges that he would become, as he afterwards did, a most excellent painter. At the time when he first began to follow the manner of Giorgione, not being more than eighteen years of age, he made the portrait of a gentleman of the Barberigo family, his friend, which was held to be very beautiful, the likeness of the flesh-colouring being true and natural, and all the hairs so well distinguished one from another, that they might have been counted, as also might have been the stitches in a doublet of silvered satin that he painted in that work. In short, it was held to be so well done, and with such diligence, that if Tiziano had not written his name on a dark ground, it would have been taken for the work of Giorgione. Meanwhile Giorgione himself had executed the principal façade of the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, and by means of Barberigo there were allotted to Tiziano certain scenes on the same building, above the Merceria. After which work he painted a large picture with figures of the size of life, which is now in the hall of M. Andrea Loredano, who dwells near S. Marcuola. In that picture is painted Our Lady going into Egypt, in the midst of a great forest and certain landscapes that are very well done, because Tiziano had given his attention for many months to such things, and had kept in his house for that purpose some Germans who were excellent painters of landscapes and verdure. In the wood in that picture, likewise, he painted many animals, which he portrayed from the life; and they are truly natural, and almost alive. Next, in the house of M. Giovanni D'Anna, a Flemish gentleman and merchant, his gossip, he made his portrait, which has all the appearance of life, and also an "Ecce Homo" with many figures, which is held by Tiziano himself and by others to be a very beautiful work. The same master painted a picture of Our Lady with other figures the size of life, of men and children, all portrayed from the life and from persons of that house. Then in the year 1507, while the Emperor Maximilian was making war on the Venetians, Tiziano, according to his own account, painted an Angel Raphael with Tobias and a dog in the Church of S. Marziliano, with a distant landscape, where, in a little wood, S. John the Baptist is praying on his knees to Heaven, whence comes a radiance that illumines him; and this work it is thought that he executed before he made a beginning with the façade of the Fondaco de' Tedeschi. Concerning which façade, many gentlemen, not knowing that Giorgione was not working there any more and that Tiziano was doing it, who had uncovered one part, meeting with Giorgione, congratulated him in friendly fashion, saying that he was acquitting himself better in the façade towards the Merceria than he had done in that which is over the Grand Canal. At which circumstance Giorgione felt such disdain, that until Tiziano had completely finished the work and it had become well known that the same had done that part, he would scarcely let himself be seen; and from that time onward he would never allow Tiziano to associate with him or be his friend. [Illustration: BACCHANAL (_After the painting by =Tiziano=. Madrid: The Prado_) _Anderson_] In the year after, 1508, Tiziano published in wood-engraving the Triumph of Faith, with an infinity of figures; our first Parents, the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Sibyls, the Innocents, the Martyrs, the Apostles, and Jesus Christ borne in Triumph by the four Evangelists and the Four Doctors, with the Holy Confessors behind. In that work Tiziano displayed boldness, a beautiful manner, and the power to work with facility of hand; and I remember that Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, conversing of this, said to me that if Tiziano had been in Rome at that time, and had seen the works of Michelagnolo, those of Raffaello, and the ancient statues, and had studied design, he would have done things absolutely stupendous, considering the beautiful mastery that he had in colouring, and that he deserved to be celebrated as the finest and greatest imitator of Nature in the matter of colour in our times, and with the foundation of the grand method of design he might have equalled the Urbinate and Buonarroti. Afterwards, having gone to Vicenza, Tiziano painted the Judgment of Solomon in fresco, which was a beautiful work, under the little loggia where justice is administered in public audience. He then returned to Venice, and painted the façade of the Grimani. At Padua, in the Church of S. Antonio, he executed likewise in fresco some stories of the actions of that Saint, and for that of S. Spirito he painted a little altar-piece with a S. Mark seated in the midst of certain Saints, in whose faces are some portraits from life done in oils with the greatest diligence; which picture many have believed to be by the hand of Giorgione. Then, a scene having been left unfinished in the Hall of the Great Council through the death of Giovanni Bellini, wherein Frederick Barbarossa is kneeling at the door of the Church of S. Marco before Pope Alexander IV, who places his foot on Barbarossa's neck, Tiziano finished it, changing many things, and making there many portraits from life of his friends and others; for which he was rewarded by receiving from the Senate an office in the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, called the Senseria, which yields three hundred crowns a year. That office those Signori are accustomed to give to the most excellent painter of their city, on the condition that he shall be obliged from time to time to paint the portrait of their Prince or Doge, at his election, for the price of only eight crowns, which the Prince himself pays to him; which portrait is afterwards kept, in memory of him, in a public place in the Palace of S. Marco. [Illustration: MADONNA WITH SAINTS AND DONOR (_After the panel by =Tiziano da Cadore=. Ancona: S. Domenico_) _Anderson_] In the year 1514 Duke Alfonso of Ferrara had caused a little chamber to be decorated, and had commissioned Dosso, the painter of Ferrara, to execute in certain compartments stories of Æneas, Mars, and Venus, and in a grotto Vulcan with two smiths at the forge; and he desired that there should also be there pictures by the hand of Gian Bellini. Bellini painted on another wall a vat of red wine with some Bacchanals around it, and Satyrs, musicians, and other men and women, all drunk with wine, and near them a nude and very beautiful Silenus, riding on his ass, with figures about him that have the hands full of fruits and grapes; which work was in truth executed and coloured with great diligence, insomuch that it is one of the most beautiful pictures that Gian Bellini ever painted, although in the manner of the draperies there is a certain sharpness after the German manner (nothing, indeed, of any account), because he imitated a picture by the Fleming Albrecht Dürer, which had been brought in those days to Venice and placed in the Church of S. Bartolommeo, a rare work and full of most beautiful figures painted in oils. On that vat Gian Bellini wrote these words: JOANNES BELLINUS VENETUS, P. 1514. That work he was not able to finish completely, because he was old, and Tiziano, as the most excellent of all the others, was sent for to the end that he might finish it; wherefore, being desirous to acquire excellence and to make himself known, he executed with much diligence two scenes that were wanting in that little chamber. In the first is a river of red wine, about which are singers and musicians, both men and women, as it were drunk, and a naked woman who is sleeping, so beautiful that she might be alive, together with other figures; and on this picture Tiziano wrote his name. In the other, which is next to it and seen first on entering, he painted many little boys and Loves in various attitudes, which much pleased that lord, as also did the other picture; but most beautiful of all is one of those boys who is making water into a river and is reflected in the water, while the others are around a pedestal that has the form of an altar, upon which is a statue of Venus with a sea-conch in the right hand, and Grace and Beauty about her, which are very lovely figures and executed with incredible diligence. On the door of a press, likewise, Tiziano painted an image of Christ from the waist upwards, marvellous, nay, stupendous, to whom a base Hebrew is showing the coin of Cæsar; which image, and also other pictures in that little chamber, our best craftsmen declare to be the finest and best executed that Tiziano has ever done, and indeed they are most rare. Wherefore he well deserved to be most liberally recompensed and rewarded by that lord, whom he portrayed excellently well with one arm resting on a great piece of artillery; and he also made a portrait of Signora Laura, who afterwards became the wife of the Duke, which is a stupendous work. And, in truth, gifts have great potency with those who labour for the love of art, when they are uplifted by the liberality of Princes. At that time Tiziano formed a friendship with the divine Messer Lodovico Ariosto, and was recognized by him as a most excellent painter and celebrated in his Orlando Furioso: ... E Tizian che onora Non men Cador, che quei Vinezia e Urbino. [Illustration: TIZIANO: SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE (_Rome: Borghese Gallery, 147. Canvas_)] Having then returned to Venice, Tiziano painted on a canvas in oils, for the father-in-law of Giovanni da Castel Bolognese, a naked shepherd and a country-girl who is offering him some pipes, that he may play them, with a most beautiful landscape; which picture is now at Faenza, in the house of the said Giovanni. He then executed for the high-altar in the Church of the Friars Minors, called the Cà Grande, a picture of Our Lady ascending into Heaven, and below her the twelve Apostles, who are gazing upon her as she ascends; but of this work, from its having been painted on cloth, and perhaps not well kept, there is little to be seen. For the Chapel of the Pesari family, in the same church, he painted in an altar-piece the Madonna with the Child in her arms, a S. Peter and a S. George, and about them the patrons of the work, kneeling and portrayed from life; among whom are the Bishop of Paphos and his brother, then newly returned from the victory which that Bishop won against the Turks. For the little Church of S. Niccolò, in the same convent, he painted in an altar-piece S. Nicholas, S. Francis, S. Catharine, and also a nude S. Sebastian, portrayed from life and without any artifice that can be seen to have been used to enhance the beauty of the limbs and trunk, there being nothing there but what he saw in the work of nature, insomuch that it all appears as if stamped from the life, so fleshlike it is and natural; but for all that it is held to be beautiful, as is also very lovely the Madonna with the Child in her arms at whom all those figures are gazing. The subject of that picture was drawn on wood by Tiziano himself, and then engraved by others and printed. For the Church of S. Rocco, after the works described above, he painted a picture of Christ with the Cross on His shoulder, and about His neck a cord that is drawn by a Hebrew; and that figure, which many have believed to be by the hand of Giorgione, is now the object of the greatest devotion in Venice, and has received in alms more crowns than Tiziano and Giorgione ever gained in all their lives. Then he was invited to Rome by Bembo, whom he had already portrayed, and who was at that time Secretary to Pope Leo X, to the end that he might see Rome, Raffaello da Urbino, and others; but Tiziano delayed that visit so long from one day to another, that Leo died, and Raffaello in 1520, and after all he never went. For the Church of S. Maria Maggiore he painted a picture with S. John the Baptist in the Desert among some rocks, an Angel that appears as if alive, and a little piece of distant landscape with some trees upon the bank of a river, all full of grace. He made portraits from life of the Prince Grimani and Loredano, which were held to be admirable; and not long afterwards of King Francis, when he departed from Italy in order to return to France. And in the year when Andrea Gritti was elected Doge, Tiziano painted his portrait, which was a very rare thing, in a picture wherein are Our Lady, S. Mark, and S. Andrew with the countenance of that Doge; which picture, a most marvellous work, is in the Sala del Collegio. He has also painted portraits, in addition to those of the Doges named above (being obliged, as has been related, to do it), of others who have been Doges in their time; Pietro Lando, Francesco Donato, Marcantonio Trevisano, and Veniero. But by the two Doges and brothers Paoli[8] he has been excused recently, because of his great age, from that obligation. Before the sack of Rome there had gone to live in Venice Pietro Aretino, a most famous poet of our times, and he became very much the friend of Tiziano and Sansovino; which brought great honour and advantage to Tiziano, for the reason that the poet made him known wherever his pen reached, and especially to Princes of importance, as will be told in the proper place. [Footnote 8: Priuli.] [Illustration: CHARLES V (_After the painting by =Tiziano=. Madrid: The Prado_) _Anderson_] Meanwhile, to return to Tiziano's works, he painted the altar-piece for the altar of S. Piero Martire in the Church of SS. Giovanni e Polo, depicting therein that holy martyr larger than life, in a forest of very great trees, fallen to the ground and assailed by the fury of a soldier, who has wounded him so grievously in the head, that as he lies but half alive there is seen in his face the horror of death, while in another friar who runs forward in flight may be perceived the fear and terror of death. In the air are two nude Angels coming down from a flash of Heaven's lightning, which gives light to the landscape, which is most beautiful, and to the whole work besides, which is the most finished, the most celebrated, the greatest, and the best conceived and executed that Tiziano has as yet ever done in all his life. This work being seen by Gritti, who was always very much the friend of Tiziano, as also of Sansovino, he caused to be allotted to him a great scene of the rout of Chiaradadda, in the Hall of the Great Council. In it he painted a battle with soldiers in furious combat, while a terrible rain falls from Heaven; which work, wholly taken from life, is held to be the best of all the scenes that are in that Hall, and the most beautiful. And in the same Palace, at the foot of a staircase, he painted a Madonna in fresco. Having made not long afterwards for a gentleman of the Contarini family a picture of a very beautiful Christ, who is seated at table with Cleophas and Luke, it appeared to that gentleman that the work was worthy to be in a public place, as in truth it is. Wherefore having made a present of it, like a true lover of his country and of the commonwealth, to the Signoria, it was kept a long time in the apartments of the Doge; but at the present day it is in a public place, where it may be seen by everyone, in the Salotta d'Oro in front of the Hall of the Council of Ten, over the door. About the same time, also, he painted for the Scuola of S. Maria della Carità Our Lady ascending the steps of the Temple, with heads of every kind portrayed from nature; and for the Scuola of S. Fantino, likewise, a little altar-piece of S. Jerome in Penitence, which was much extolled by the craftsmen, but was consumed by fire two years ago together with the whole church. It is said that in the year 1530, the Emperor Charles V being in Bologna, Tiziano was invited to that city by Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, through the agency of Pietro Aretino. There he made a most beautiful portrait of his Majesty in full armour, which so pleased him, that he caused a thousand crowns to be given to Tiziano; but of these he was obliged afterwards to give the half to the sculptor Alfonso Lombardi, who had made a model to be reproduced in marble, as was related in his Life. Having returned to Venice, Tiziano found that a number of gentlemen, who had taken Pordenone into their favour, praising much the works executed by him on the ceiling of the Sala de' Pregai and elsewhere, had caused a little altar-piece to be allotted to him in the Church of S. Giovanni Elemosinario, to the end that he might paint it in competition with Tiziano, who for the same place had painted a short time before the said S. Giovanni Elemosinario in the habit of a Bishop. But, for all the diligence that Pordenone devoted to that altar-piece, he was not able to equal or even by a great measure to approach to the work of Tiziano. Next, Tiziano executed a most beautiful altar-picture of an Annunciation for the Church of S. Maria degli Angeli at Murano, but he who had caused it to be painted not being willing to spend five hundred crowns upon it, which Tiziano was asking, by the advice of Messer Pietro Aretino he sent it as a gift to the above-named Emperor Charles V, who, liking that work vastly, made him a present of two thousand crowns; and where that picture was to have been placed, there was set in its stead one by the hand of Pordenone. Nor had any long time passed when Charles V, returning to Bologna for a conference with Pope Clement, at the time when he came with his army from Hungary, desired to be portrayed again by Tiziano. Before departing from Bologna, Tiziano also painted a portrait of the above-named Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici in Hungarian dress, and in a smaller picture the same man in full armour; both which portraits are now in the guardaroba of Duke Cosimo. At that same time he executed a portrait of Alfonso Davalos, Marchese del Vasto, and one of the above-named Pietro Aretino, who then contrived that he should become the friend and servant of Federigo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, with whom Tiziano went to his States and there painted a portrait of him, which is a living likeness, and then one of the Cardinal, his brother. These finished, he painted, for the adornment of a room among those of Giulio Romano, twelve figures from the waist upwards of the twelve Cæsars, very beautiful, beneath each of which the said Giulio afterwards painted a story from their lives. [Illustration: TIZIANO: THE DUKE OF NORFOLK (_Florence: Pitti, 92. Canvas_)] In Cadore, his native place, Tiziano has painted an altar-picture wherein are Our Lady, S. Tiziano the Bishop, and a portrait of himself kneeling. In the year when Pope Paul III went to Bologna, and from there to Ferrara, Tiziano, having gone to the Court, made a portrait of that Pope, which was a very beautiful work, and from it another for Cardinal S. Fiore; and both these portraits, for which he was very well paid by the Pope, are in Rome, one in the guardaroba of Cardinal Farnese, and the other in the possession of the heirs of the above-named Cardinal S. Fiore, and from them have been taken many copies, which are dispersed throughout Italy. At this same time, also, he made a portrait of Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, which was a marvellous work; wherefore M. Pietro Aretino on this account celebrated him in a sonnet that began: Se il chiaro Apelle con la man dell'arte Rassembrò d'Alessandro il volto e il petto. There are in the guardaroba of the same Duke, by the hand of Tiziano, two most lovely heads of women, and a young recumbent Venus with flowers and certain light draperies about her, very beautiful and well finished; and, in addition, a figure of S. Mary Magdalene with the hair all loose, which is a rare work. There, likewise, are the portraits of Charles V, King Francis as a young man, Duke Guidobaldo II, Pope Sixtus IV, Pope Julius II, Paul III, the old Cardinal of Lorraine, and Suleiman Emperor of the Turks; which portraits, I say, are by the hand of Tiziano, and most beautiful. In the same guardaroba, besides many other things, is a portrait of Hannibal the Carthaginian, cut in intaglio in an antique cornelian, and also a very beautiful head in marble by the hand of Donato. [Illustration: POPE PAUL III (_After the painting by =Tiziano=. Naples: Museo Nazionale_) _Anderson_] In the year 1541 Tiziano painted for the Friars of S. Spirito, in Venice, the altar-piece of their high-altar, figuring in it the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, with a God depicted as of fire, and the Spirit as a Dove; which altar-piece becoming spoiled in no long time, after having many disputes with those friars he had to paint it again, and it is that which is over the altar at the present day. For the Church of S. Nazzaro in Brescia he executed the altar-piece of the high-altar in five pictures; in the central picture is Jesus Christ returning to life, with some soldiers around, and at the sides are S. Nazzaro, S. Sebastian, the Angel Gabriel, and the Virgin receiving the Annunciation. In a picture for the wall at the entrance of the Duomo of Verona, he painted an Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven, with the Apostles on the ground, which is held to be the best of the modern works in that city. In the year 1541 he made the portrait of Don Diego di Mendoza, at that time Ambassador of Charles V in Venice, a whole-length figure and standing, which was very beautiful; and from this Tiziano began what has since come into fashion, the making of certain portraits of full length. In the same manner he painted that of the Cardinal of Trento, then a young man, and for Francesco Marcolini the portrait of Messer Pietro Aretino, but this last was by no means as beautiful as one of that poet, likewise by the hand of Tiziano, which Aretino himself sent as a present to Duke Cosimo de' Medici, to whom he sent also the head of Signor Giovanni de' Medici, the father of the said Lord Duke. That head was copied from a cast taken from the face of that lord when he died at Mantua, which was in the possession of Aretino; and both these portraits are in the guardaroba of the same Lord Duke, among many other most noble pictures. The same year, Vasari having been thirteen months in Venice to execute, as has been related, a ceiling for Messer Giovanni Cornaro, and some works for the Company of the Calza, Sansovino, who was directing the fabric of S. Spirito, had commissioned him to make designs for three large pictures in oils which were to go into the ceiling, to the end that he might execute them in painting; but, Vasari having afterwards departed, those three pictures were allotted to Tiziano, who executed them most beautifully, from his having contrived with great art to make the figures foreshortened from below upwards. In one is Abraham sacrificing Isaac, in another David severing the neck of Goliath, and in the third Abel slain by his brother Cain. About the same time Tiziano painted a portrait of himself, in order to leave that memory of himself to his children. [Illustration: DANAË (_After the painting by =Tiziano=. Naples: Museo Nazionale_) _Anderson_] The year 1546 having come, he went at the invitation of Cardinal Farnese to Rome, where he found Vasari, who, having returned from Naples, was executing the Hall of the Cancelleria for the above-named Cardinal; whereupon, Tiziano having been recommended by that lord to Vasari, Giorgio kept him company lovingly in taking him about to see the sights of Rome. And then, after Tiziano had rested for some days, rooms were given to him in the Belvedere, to the end that he might set his hand to painting once more the portrait of Pope Paul, of full length, with one of Farnese and one of Duke Ottavio, which he executed excellently well and much to the satisfaction of those lords. At their persuasion he painted, for presenting to the Pope, a picture of Christ from the waist upwards in the form of an "Ecce Homo," which work, whether it was that the works of Michelagnolo, Raffaello, Polidoro, and others had made him lose some force, or for some other reason, did not appear to the painters, although it was a good picture, to be of the same excellence as many others by his hand, and particularly his portraits. Michelagnolo and Vasari, going one day to visit Tiziano in the Belvedere, saw in a picture that he had executed at that time a nude woman representing Danaë, who had in her lap Jove transformed into a rain of gold; and they praised it much, as one does in the painter's presence. After they had left him, discoursing of Tiziano's method, Buonarroti commended it not a little, saying that his colouring and his manner much pleased him, but that it was a pity that in Venice men did not learn to draw well from the beginning, and that those painters did not pursue a better method in their studies. "For," he said, "if this man had been in any way assisted by art and design, as he is by nature, and above all in counterfeiting the life, no one could do more or work better, for he has a fine spirit and a very beautiful and lively manner." And in fact this is true, for the reason that he who has not drawn much nor studied the choicest ancient and modern works, cannot work well from memory by himself or improve the things that he copies from life, giving them the grace and perfection wherein art goes beyond the scope of nature, which generally produces some parts that are not beautiful. Tiziano, finally departing from Rome, with many gifts received from those lords, and in particular a benefice of good value for his son Pomponio, set himself on the road to return to Venice, after Orazio, his other son, had made a portrait of Messer Battista Ceciliano, an excellent player on the bass-viol, which was a very good work, and he himself had executed some other portraits for Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino. Arriving in Florence, and seeing the rare works of that city, he was amazed by them no less than he had been by those of Rome. And besides that, he visited Duke Cosimo, who was at Poggio a Caiano, offering to paint his portrait; to which his Excellency did not give much heed, perchance in order not to do a wrong to the many noble craftsmen of his city and dominion. Then, having arrived in Venice, Tiziano finished for the Marchese del Vasto an Allocution (for so they called it) made by that lord to his soldiers; and after that he took the portrait of Charles V, that of the Catholic King, and many others. These works finished, he painted a little altar-piece of the Annunciation for the Church of S. Maria Nuova in Venice; and then, employing the assistance of his young men, he executed a Last Supper in the refectory of SS. Giovanni e Polo, and for the high-altar of the Church of S. Salvadore an altar-piece in which is a Christ Transfigured on Mount Tabor, and for another altar in the same church a Madonna receiving the Annunciation from the Angel. But these last works, although there is something of the good to be seen in them, are not much esteemed by him, and have not the perfection that his other pictures have. And since the works of Tiziano are without number, and particularly the portraits, it is almost impossible to make mention of them all; wherefore I shall speak only of the most remarkable, but without order of time, it being of little import to know which was first and which later. Several times, as has been related, he painted the portrait of Charles V, and in the end he was summoned for that purpose to the Court, where he portrayed him as he was in those his later years; and the work of Tiziano so pleased that all-conquering Emperor, that after he had once seen it he would not be portrayed by other painters. Each time that he painted him, he received a thousand crowns of gold as a present, and he was made by his Majesty a Chevalier, with a revenue of two hundred crowns on the Chamber of Naples. In like manner, when he portrayed Philip, King of Spain, the son of Charles, he received from him a fixed allowance of two hundred crowns more; insomuch that, adding those four hundred to the three hundred that he has on the Fondaco de' Tedeschi from the Signori of Venice, he has without exerting himself a fixed income of seven hundred crowns every year. Of the same Charles V and King Philip Tiziano sent portraits to the Lord Duke Cosimo, who has them in his guardaroba. He portrayed Ferdinand, King of the Romans, who afterwards became Emperor, and both his sons, Maximilian, now Emperor, and his brother. He also portrayed Queen Maria, and, for the Emperor Charles V, the Duke of Saxony when he was a prisoner. But what a waste of time is this? There has been scarce a single lord of great name, or Prince, or great lady, who has not been portrayed by Tiziano, a painter of truly extraordinary excellence in this field of art. He painted portraits of King Francis I of France, as has been related, Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, the Marquis of Pescara, Antonio da Leva, Massimiano Stampa, Signor Giovan Battista Castaldo, and other lords without number. [Illustration: PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA (_After the painting by =Tiziano=. London: Hertford House_) _Mansell_] In like manner, besides the works mentioned above, at various times he has executed many others. In Venice, by order of Charles V, he painted in a great altar-piece the Triune God enthroned, Our Lady and the Infant Christ, with the Dove over Him, and the ground all of fire, signifying Love; and the Father is surrounded by fiery Cherubim. On one side is the same Charles V, and on the other the Empress, both clothed in linen garments, with the hands clasped in the attitude of prayer, among many Saints; all which was after the command of the Emperor, who, at that time at the height of his victories, began to show that he was minded to retire from the things of this world, as he afterwards did, in order to die like a true Christian, fearing God and desirous of his own salvation. Which picture the Emperor said to Tiziano that he wished to place in the monastery wherein afterwards he finished the course of his life; and since it is a very rare work, it is expected that it may soon be published in engravings. The same Tiziano executed for Queen Maria a Prometheus who is bound to Mount Caucasus and torn by Jove's Eagle, a Sisyphus in Hell who is toiling under his stone, and Tityus devoured by the Vulture. These her Majesty received, excepting the Prometheus, and with them a Tantalus of the same size (namely, that of life), on canvas and in oils. He executed, also, a Venus and Adonis that are marvellous, she having swooned, and the boy in the act of rising to leave her, with some dogs about him that are very natural. On a panel of the same size he represented Andromeda bound to the rock, and Perseus delivering her from the Sea-Monster, than which picture none could be more lovely; as is also another of Diana, who, bathing in a fount with her Nymphs, transforms Actæon into a stag. He also painted Europa passing over the sea on the back of the Bull. All these pictures are in the possession of the Catholic King, held very dear for the vivacity that Tiziano has given to the figures with his colours, making them natural and as if alive. [Illustration: PHILIP II (_After the painting by =Tiziano=. Naples: Museo Nazionale_) _Anderson_] It is true, however, that the method of work which he employed in these last pictures is no little different from the method of his youth, for the reason that the early works are executed with a certain delicacy and a diligence that are incredible, and they can be seen both from near and from a distance, and these last works are executed with bold strokes and dashed off with a broad and even coarse sweep of the brush, insomuch that from near little can be seen, but from a distance they appear perfect. This method has been the reason that many, wishing to imitate him therein and to play the practised master, have painted clumsy pictures; and this happens because, although many believe that they are done without effort, in truth it is not so, and they deceive themselves, for it is known that they are painted over and over again, and that he returned to them with his colours so many times, that the labour may be perceived. And this method, so used, is judicious, beautiful, and astonishing, because it makes pictures appear alive and painted with great art, but conceals the labour. [Illustration: MARY MAGDALENE (_After the painting by =Tiziano=. Naples: Museo Nazionale_) _Anderson_] Tiziano painted recently in a picture three braccia high and four braccia broad, Jesus Christ as an Infant in the lap of Our Lady and adored by the Magi, with a good number of figures of one braccio each, which is a very lovely work, as is also another picture that he himself copied from that one and gave to the old Cardinal of Ferrara. Another picture, in which he depicted Christ mocked by the Jews, which is most beautiful, was placed in a chapel of the Church of S. Maria delle Grazie, in Milan. For the Queen of Portugal he painted a picture of a Christ scourged by Jews at the Column, a little less than the size of life, which is very beautiful. For the high-altar of S. Domenico, at Ancona, he painted an altar-piece with Christ on the Cross, and at the foot Our Lady, S. John, and S. Dominic, all most beautiful, and executed in his later manner with broad strokes, as has just been described above. And by the same hand, in the Church of the Crocicchieri at Venice, is the picture that is on the altar of S. Lorenzo, wherein is the martyrdom of that Saint, with a building full of figures, and S. Laurence lying half upon the gridiron, in foreshortening, with a great fire beneath him, and about it some who are kindling it. And since he counterfeited an effect of night, there are two servants with torches in their hands, which throw light where the glare of the fire below the gridiron does not reach, which is piled high and very fierce. Besides this, he depicted a lightning-flash, which, darting from Heaven and cleaving the clouds, overcomes the light of the fire and that of the torches, shining over the Saint and the other principal figures, and, in addition to those three lights, the figures that he painted in the distance at the windows of the building have the light of lamps and candles that are near them; and all, in short, is executed with beautiful art, judgment, and genius. In the Church of S. Sebastiano, on the altar of S. Niccolò, there is by the hand of the same Tiziano a little altar-piece of a S. Nicholas who appears as if alive, seated in a chair painted in the likeness of stone, with an Angel that is holding his mitre; which work he executed at the commission of Messer Niccolò Crasso, the advocate. Tiziano afterwards painted, for sending to the Catholic King, a figure of S. Mary Magdalene from the middle of the thighs upwards, all dishevelled; that is, with the hair falling over the shoulders, about the throat, and over the breast, the while that, raising the head with the eyes fixed on Heaven, she reveals remorse in the redness of the eyes, and in her tears repentance for her sins. Wherefore the picture moves mightily all who behold it; and, what is more, although she is very beautiful, it moves not to lust but to compassion. This picture, when it was finished, so pleased ... Silvio, a Venetian gentleman, that in order to have it, being one who takes supreme delight in painting, he gave Tiziano a hundred crowns: wherefore Tiziano was forced to paint another, which was not less beautiful, for sending to the above-named Catholic King. There are also to be seen portraits from life by Tiziano of a Venetian citizen called Sinistri, who was much his friend, and of another named M. Paolo da Ponte, for whom he likewise portrayed a daughter that he had at that time, a most beautiful young woman called Signora Giulia da Ponte, a dear friend of Tiziano; and in like manner Signora Irene, a very lovely maiden, skilled in letters and music and a student of design, who, dying about seven years ago, was celebrated by the pens of almost all the writers of Italy. He portrayed M. Francesco Filetto, an orator of happy memory, and in the same picture, before him, his son, who seems as if alive; which portrait is in the house of Messer Matteo Giustiniani, a lover of these arts, who has also had a picture painted for himself by the painter Jacopo da Bassano, which is very beautiful, as also are many other works by that Bassano which are dispersed throughout Venice, and held in great price, particularly his little works and animals of every kind. Tiziano portrayed Bembo another time (namely, after he became a Cardinal), Fracastoro, and Cardinal Accolti of Ravenna, which last portrait Duke Cosimo has in his guardaroba; and our Danese, the sculptor, has in his house at Venice a portrait by the hand of Tiziano of a gentleman of the Delfini family. There may be seen portraits by the same hand of M. Niccolò Zono, of Rossa, wife of the Grand Turk, at the age of sixteen, and of Cameria, her daughter, with most beautiful dresses and adornments. In the house of M. Francesco Sonica, an advocate and a gossip of Tiziano, is a portrait by his hand of that M. Francesco, and in a large picture Our Lady flying to Egypt, who is seen to have dismounted from the ass and to have seated herself upon a stone on the road, with S. Joseph beside her, and a little S. John who is offering to the Infant Christ some flowers picked by the hand of an Angel from the branches of a tree that is in the middle of a wood full of animals, where in the distance the ass stands grazing. That picture, which is full of grace, the said gentleman has placed at the present day in a palace that he has built for himself at Padua, near S. Giustina. In the house of a gentleman of the Pisani family, near S. Marco, there is by the hand of Tiziano the portrait of a gentlewoman, which is a marvellous thing. And having made for Monsignor Giovanni della Casa, the Florentine, who has been illustrious in our times both for nobility of blood and as a man of letters, a very beautiful portrait of a gentlewoman whom that lord loved while he was in Venice, Tiziano was rewarded by being honoured by him with the lovely sonnet that begins-- Ben vegg'io, Tiziano, in forme nuove L'idolo mio, che i begli occhi apre e gira (with what follows). Finally, this excellent painter sent to the above-named Catholic King a Last Supper of Christ with the Apostles, in a picture seven braccia long, which was a work of extraordinary beauty. [Illustration: TIZIANO: THE EDUCATION OF CUPID (_Rome: Borghese Gallery. Canvas_)] In addition to the works described and many others of less merit executed by this man, which are omitted for the sake of brevity, he has in his house, sketched in and begun, the following: the Martyrdom of S. Laurence, similar to that described above, and destined by him for sending to the Catholic King; a great canvas wherein is Christ on the Cross, with the Thieves, and at the foot the ministers of the crucifixion, which he is painting for Messer Giovanni d'Anna; and a picture which was begun for the Doge Grimani, father of the Patriarch of Aquileia. And for the Hall of the Great Palace of Brescia he has made a beginning with three large pictures that are to go in the ornamentation of the ceiling, as has been related in speaking of Cristofano and his brother, painters of Brescia. He also began, many years ago, for Alfonso I, Duke of Ferrara, a picture of a nude young woman bowing before Minerva, with another figure at the side, and a sea in the centre of which, in the distance, is Neptune in his car; but through the death of that lord, after whose fancy the work was being executed, it was not finished, and remained with Tiziano. He has also carried well forward, but not finished, a picture wherein is Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene in the Garden in the form of a gardener, with figures the size of life; another, also, of equal size, in which the Madonna and the other Maries being present, the Dead Christ is laid in the Sepulchre; likewise a picture of Our Lady, which is one of the best things that are in that house, and, as has been told, a portrait of himself that was finished by him four years ago, very beautiful and natural, and finally a S. Paul who is reading, a half-length figure, which has all the appearance of the real Saint filled with the Holy Spirit. [Illustration: THE ENTOMBMENT (_After the painting by =Tiziano=. Madrid: The Prado_) _Anderson_] All these works, I say, he has executed, with many others that I omit in order not to be wearisome, up to his present age of about seventy-six years. Tiziano has been very sound in health, and as fortunate as any man of his kind has ever been; and he has not received from Heaven anything save favours and blessings. In his house at Venice have been all the Princes, men of letters and persons of distinction who have gone to that city or lived there in his time, because, in addition to his excellence in art, he has shown great gentleness, beautiful breeding, and most courteous ways and manners. He has had in Venice some competitors, but not of much worth, so that he has surpassed them easily with the excellence of his art and with his power of attaching himself and making himself dear to the men of quality. He has earned much, for he has been very well paid for his works; but it would have been well for him in these his last years not to work save as a pastime, so as not to diminish with works of less excellence the reputation gained in his best years, when his natural powers were not declining and drawing towards imperfection. When Vasari, the writer of this history, was at Venice in the year 1566, he went to visit Tiziano, as one who was much his friend, and found him at his painting with brushes in his hand, although he was very old; and he had much pleasure in seeing him and discoursing with him. He made known to Vasari Messer Gian Maria Verdezotti, a young Venetian gentleman full of talent, a friend of Tiziano and passing able in drawing and painting, as he showed in some landscapes of great beauty drawn by him. This man has by the hand of Tiziano, whom he loves and cherishes as a father, two figures painted in oils within two niches, an Apollo and a Diana. Tiziano, then, having adorned with excellent pictures the city of Venice, nay, all Italy and other parts of the world, deserves to be loved and revered by the craftsmen, and in many things to be admired and imitated, as one who has executed and is still executing works worthy of infinite praise, which shall endure as long as the memory of illustrious men may live. [Illustration: PARIS BORDONE: THE VENETIAN LOVERS (_Milan: Brera, 105. Canvas_)] Now, although many have been with Tiziano in order to learn, yet the number of those who can truly be called his disciples is not great, for the reason that he has not taught much, and each pupil has gained more or less knowledge according as he has been able to acquire it from the works executed by Tiziano. There has been with him, among others, one Giovanni, a Fleming, who has been a much-extolled master in figures both small and large, and in portraits marvellous, as may be seen in Naples, where he lived some time, and finally died. By his hand--and this must do him honour for all time--were the designs of the anatomical studies that the most excellent Andrea Vessalio caused to be engraved and published with his work. But he who has imitated Tiziano more than any other is Paris Bordone, who, born in Treviso from a father of Treviso and a Venetian mother, was taken at the age of eight to the house of some relatives in Venice. There, having learned his grammar and become an excellent musician, he went to be with Tiziano, but he did not spend many years with him, for he perceived that man to be not very ready to teach his young men, although besought by them most earnestly and invited by their patience to do his duty by them; and he resolved to leave him. He was much grieved that Giorgione should have died in those days, whose manner pleased him vastly, and even more his reputation for having taught well and willingly, and with lovingness, all that he knew; but, since there was nothing else to be done, Paris resolved in his mind that he would follow the manner of Giorgione. And so, setting himself to labour and to counterfeit the work of that master, he became such that he acquired very good credit; wherefore at the age of eighteen there was allotted to him an altar-piece that was to be painted for the Church of S. Niccolò, of the Friars Minors. Which having heard, Tiziano so went to work with various means and favours that he took it out of his hands, either to prevent him from being able to display his ability so soon, or perhaps drawn by his desire of gain. Afterwards Paris was summoned to Vicenza, to paint a scene in fresco in the Loggia of the Piazza where justice is administered, beside that of the Judgment of Solomon which Tiziano had previously executed; and he went very willingly, and painted there a story of Noah with his sons, which was held to be a work passing good in diligence and in design, and not less beautiful than that of Tiziano, insomuch that by those who know not the truth they are considered to be both by the same hand. Having returned to Venice, Paris executed some nudes in fresco at the foot of the bridge of the Rialto; by reason of which essay he was commissioned to paint some façades of houses in Venice. Being then summoned to Treviso, he painted there likewise some façades and other works, and in particular many portraits, which gave much satisfaction; that of the Magnificent M. Alberto Unigo, that of M. Marco Seravalle, and of M. Francesco da Quer, of the Canon Rovere, and of Monsignor Alberti. For the Duomo of that city, in an altar-piece in the centre of the church, at the instance of the reverend Vicar, he painted the Nativity of Jesus Christ, and then a Resurrection. For S. Francesco he executed another altar-piece at the request of the Chevalier Rovere, another for S. Girolamo, and one for Ognissanti, with different heads of Saints both male and female, all beautiful and varied in the attitudes and in the vestments. He executed another altar-piece for S. Lorenzo, and in S. Polo he painted three chapels, in the largest of which he depicted Christ rising from the dead, the size of life, and accompanied by a great multitude of Angels; in the second some Saints with many Angels about them, and in the third Jesus Christ upon a cloud, with Our Lady, who is presenting to Him S. Dominic. All these works have made him known as an able man and a lover of his city. In Venice, where he has dwelt almost always, he has executed many works at various times. But the most beautiful, the most remarkable and the most worthy of praise that Paris ever painted, was a scene in the Scuola of S. Marco, at SS. Giovanni e Polo, wherein is the story of the fisherman presenting to the Signoria of Venice the ring of S. Mark, with a very beautiful building in perspective, about which is seated the Senate with the Doge; among which Senators are many portraits from nature, lifelike and well painted beyond belief. The beauty of this work, executed so well and coloured in fresco, was the reason that he began to be employed by many gentlemen. Thus in the great house of the Foscari, near S. Barnaba, he executed many paintings and pictures, and among them a Christ who, having descended to the Limbo of Hell, is delivering the Holy Fathers; which is held to be a work out of the ordinary. For the Church of S. Giobbe in Canal Reio he painted a most beautiful altar-piece, and for S. Giovanni in Bragola another, and the same for S. Maria della Celeste and for S. Marina. [Illustration: THE FISHERMAN AND THE DOGE GRADENIGO (_After the painting by =Paris Bordone=. Venice: Accademia_) _Anderson_] But, knowing that he who wishes to be employed in Venice is obliged to endure too much servitude in paying court to one man or another, Paris resolved, as a man of quiet nature and far removed from certain methods of procedure, whenever an occasion might present itself, to go abroad to execute such works as Fortune might set before him, without having to go about begging. Wherefore, having made his way with a good opportunity into France in the year 1538, to serve King Francis, he executed for him many portraits of ladies and other pictures with various paintings; and at the same time he painted for Monseigneur de Guise a most beautiful church-picture, and a chamber-picture of Venus and Cupid. For the Cardinal of Lorraine he painted a Christ in an "Ecce Homo," a Jove with Io, and many other works. He sent to the King of Poland a picture wherein was Jove with a Nymph, which was held to be a very beautiful thing. And to Flanders he sent two other most beautiful pictures, a S. Mary Magdalene in the Desert accompanied by some Angels, and a Diana who is bathing with her Nymphs in a fount; which two pictures the Milanese Candiano caused him to paint, the physician of Queen Maria, as presents for her Highness. At Augsburg, in the Palace of the Fugger family, he executed many works of the greatest importance, to the value of three thousand crowns. And in the same city he painted for the Prineri, great men in that place, a large picture wherein he counterfeited in perspective all the five Orders of architecture, which was a very beautiful work; and another chamber-picture, which is in the possession of the Cardinal of Augsburg. At Crema he has executed two altar-pieces for S. Agostino, in one of which is portrayed Signor Giulio Manfrone, representing a S. George, in full armour. The same master has painted many works at Civitale di Belluno, which are extolled, and in particular an altar-piece in S. Maria and another in S. Giosef, which are very beautiful. He sent to Signor Ottaviano Grimaldo a portrait of him the size of life and most beautiful, and with it another picture, equal in size, of a very lustful woman. Having then gone to Milan, Paris painted for the Church of S. Celso an altar-piece with some figures in the air, and beneath them a very beautiful landscape, at the instance, so it is said, of Signor Carlo da Roma; and for the palace of the same lord two large pictures in oils, in one Venus and Mars under Vulcan's net, and in the other King David seeing Bathsheba being bathed by her serving-women in the fount; and also the portrait of that lord and that of Signora Paola Visconti, his consort, and some pieces of landscape not very large, but most beautiful. At this same time he painted many of Ovid's Fables for the Marchese d'Astorga, who took them with him to Spain; and for Signor Tommaso Marini, likewise, he painted many things of which there is no need to make mention. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A LADY (_After the painting by =Paris Bordone=. London: National Gallery, No. 674_) _M.S._] And this much it must suffice to have said of Paris, who, being seventy-five years of age, lives quietly at home with his comforts, and works for pleasure at the request of certain Princes and others his friends, avoiding rivalries and certain vain ambitions, lest he should suffer some hurt and have his supreme tranquillity and peace disturbed by those who walk not, as he says, in truth, but by dubious ways, malignantly and without charity; whereas he is accustomed to live simply and by a certain natural goodness, and knows nothing of subtleties or astuteness in his life. He has executed recently a most beautiful picture for the Duchess of Savoy, of a Venus and Cupid that are sleeping, guarded by a servant; all executed so well, that it is not possible to praise them enough. [Illustration: VISION OF THE APOCALYPSE (_After the mosaic by =Zuccati=. Venice: S. Marco_) _Anderson_] But here I must not omit to say that a kind of painting which is almost discontinued in every other place, namely, mosaic, is kept alive by the most Serene Senate of Venice. Of this the benign and as it were the principal reason has been Tiziano, who, so far as it has lain in him, has always taken pains that it should be practised in Venice, and has caused honourable salaries to be given to those who have worked at it. Wherefore various works have been executed in the Church of S. Marco, all the old works have been almost renewed, and this sort of painting has been carried to such a height of excellence as is possible, and to a different condition from that in which it was in Florence and Rome at the time of Giotto, Alesso Baldovinetti, the Ghirlandajo family, and the miniaturist Gherardo. And all that has been done in Venice has come from the design of Tiziano and other excellent painters, who have made drawings and coloured cartoons to the end that the works might be carried to such perfection as may be seen in those of the portico of S. Marco, where in a very beautiful niche there is a Judgment of Solomon so lovely, that in truth it would not be possible to do more with colours. In the same place is the genealogical tree of Our Lady by the hand of Lodovico Rosso, all full of Sibyls and Prophets executed in a delicate manner and put together very well, with a relief that is passing good. But none have worked better in this art in our times than Valerio and Vincenzio Zuccheri[9] of Treviso, by whose hands are stories many and various that may be seen in S. Marco, and in particular that of the Apocalypse, wherein around the Throne of God are the Four Evangelists in the form of animals, the Seven Candlesticks, and many other things executed so well, that, looking at them from below, they appear as if done in oil-colours with the brush; besides that there may be seen in their hands and about them little pictures full of figures executed with the greatest diligence, insomuch that they have the appearance not of paintings only, but of miniatures, and yet they are made of stones joined together. There are also many portraits; the Emperor Charles V, Ferdinand his brother, who succeeded him in the Empire, and Maximilian, son of Ferdinand and now Emperor; likewise the head of the most illustrious Cardinal Bembo, the glory of our age, and that of the Magnificent ...; all executed with such diligence and unity, and so well harmonized in the lights, flesh-colours, tints, shadows, and every other thing, that there is nothing better to be seen, nor any more beautiful work in a similar material. And it is in truth a great pity that this most excellent art of working in mosaic, with its beauty and everlasting life, is not more in use than it is, and that, by the fault of the Princes who have the power, no attention is given to it. [Footnote 9: Zuccati.] In addition to those named above, there has worked in mosaic at S. Marco, in competition with the Zuccheri, one Bartolommeo Bozzato, who also has acquitted himself in his works in such a manner as to deserve undying praise. But that which has been of the greatest assistance to all in this art, is the presence and advice of Tiziano; of whom, besides the men already named and many more, another disciple, helping him in many works, has been one Girolamo, whom I know by no other name than Girolamo di Tiziano. JACOPO SANSOVINO DESCRIPTION OF THE WORKS OF JACOPO SANSOVINO[10] SCULPTOR OF FLORENCE [Footnote 10: After the death of Jacopo Sansovino in 1570, Vasari published a separate Life of him, containing an account of his death and other additional information. Such passages as contain information that is new or expressed differently from that of the Edition of 1568 will be found in the notes at the end of this Life.] The while that Andrea Contucci, the sculptor of Monte Sansovino, having already acquired in Italy and Spain the name of the most excellent sculptor and architect that there was in art after Buonarroti, was living in Florence in order to execute the two figures of marble that were to be placed over that door of the Temple of S. Giovanni which faces towards the Misericordia, a young man was entrusted to him to be taught the art of sculpture, the son of Antonio di Jacopo Tatti, whom Nature had endowed with a great genius, so that he gave much grace to the things that he did in relief. Whereupon Andrea, having recognized how excellent in sculpture the young man was destined to become, did not fail to teach him with all possible care all those things which might make him known as his disciple. And so, loving him very dearly, and doing his best for him with much affection, and being loved by the young man with equal tenderness, people judged that the pupil would not only become as excellent as his master, but would by a great measure surpass him. And such were the reciprocal friendliness and love between these two, as it were between father and son, that Jacopo in those early years began to be called no longer Tatti, but Sansovino, and so he has always been, and always will be. Now, Jacopo beginning to exercise his hand, he was so assisted by Nature in the things that he did, that, although at times he did not use much study and diligence in his work, nevertheless in what he did there could be seen facility, sweetness, grace, and a certain delicacy very pleasing to the eyes of craftsmen, insomuch that his every sketch, rough study, and model has always had a movement and a boldness that Nature is wont to give to but few sculptors. Moreover, the friendship and intercourse that Andrea del Sarto and Jacopo Sansovino had with each other in their childhood, and then in their youth, assisted not a little both the one and the other, for they followed the same manner in design and had the same grace in execution, one in painting and the other in sculpture, and, conferring together on the problems of art, and Jacopo making models of figures for Andrea, they gave one another very great assistance. And that this is true a proof is that in the altar-piece of S. Francesco, belonging to the Nuns of the Via Pentolini, there is a S. John the Evangelist which was copied from a most beautiful model in clay that Sansovino made in those days in competition with Baccio da Montelupo; for the Guild of Por Santa Maria wished to have a bronze statue of four braccia made for a niche at the corner of Orsanmichele, opposite to the Wool-Shearers, for which Jacopo made a more beautiful model in clay than Baccio, but nevertheless it was allotted to Montelupo, from his being an older master, rather than to Sansovino, although his work, young as he was, was the better. That model, which is a very beautiful thing, is now in the possession of the heirs of Nanni Unghero; for which Nanni, being then his friend, Sansovino made some models of large boys in clay, and the model for a figure of S. Nicholas of Tolentino, which were all executed of the size of life in wood, with the assistance of Sansovino, and placed in the Chapel of that Saint in the Church of S. Spirito. Becoming known for these reasons to all the craftsmen of Florence, and being considered a young man of fine parts and excellent character, Jacopo was invited by Giuliano da San Gallo, architect to Pope Julius II, to Rome, vastly to his satisfaction; and then, taking extraordinary pleasure in the ancient statues that are in the Belvedere, he set himself to draw them. Whereupon Bramante, who was likewise architect to Pope Julius, holding the first place at that time and dwelling in the Belvedere, having seen some drawings by this young man, and a nude recumbent figure of clay in full-relief, holding a vessel to contain ink, which he had made, liked them so much that he took him under his protection and ordered him that he should make a large copy in wax of the Laocoon, which he was having copied also by others, in order to take a cast in bronze--namely, by Zaccheria Zacchi of Volterra, the Spaniard Alonzo Berughetta, and Vecchio of Bologna. These, when all were finished, Bramante caused to be seen by Raffaello Sanzio of Urbino, in order to learn which of the four had acquitted himself best; whereupon it was judged by Raffaello that Sansovino, young as he was, had surpassed the others by a great measure. Then, by the advice of Cardinal Domenico Grimani, orders were given to Bramante that he should have Jacopo's copy cast in bronze; and so the mould was made, and the work, being cast in metal, came out very well. And afterwards, having been polished, it was given to the Cardinal, who held it as long as he lived not less dear than if it had been the antique; and when he came to die, he left it as a very rare thing to the most Serene Signoria of Venice, which, after having kept it many years in the press of the Hall of the Council of Ten, finally in the year 1534 presented it to the Cardinal of Lorraine, who took it to France. [Illustration: S. JAMES (_After =Jacopo Sansovino=. Florence: Duomo_) _Alinari_] While Sansovino was acquiring greater fame every day in Rome with his studies in art, being held in much consideration, Giuliano da San Gallo, who had been keeping him in his house in the Borgo Vecchio, fell ill; and when he departed from Rome in a litter, in order to go to Florence for a change of air, a room was found for Jacopo by Bramante, likewise in the Borgo Vecchio, in the Palace of Domenico della Rovere, Cardinal of San Clemente, where Pietro Perugino was also dwelling, who at that time was painting for Pope Julius the vaulting of the chamber in the Borgia Tower. Whereupon Pietro, having seen the beautiful manner of Sansovino, caused him to make many models in wax for himself, and among them a Christ taken down from the Cross in the round, with many ladders and figures, which was a very beautiful thing. This and other things of the same sort, and models of various fantasies, were all collected afterwards by M. Giovanni Gaddi, and they are now in his house on the Piazza di Madonna in Florence. And these works were the reason that Sansovino became very intimately associated with Maestro Luca Signorelli, the painter of Cortona, with Bramantino da Milano, with Bernardino Pinturicchio, with Cesare Cesariano, who was in repute at that time for his commentaries on Vitruvius, and with many other famous and beautiful intellects of that age. Bramante, then, desiring that Sansovino should become known to Pope Julius, arranged to have some antiques restored by him; whereupon Jacopo, setting to work, displayed such diligence and so much grace in restoring them, that the Pope and all who saw them judged that nothing better could be done. These praises so spurred Sansovino to surpass himself, that, having given himself beyond measure to his studies, and being, also, somewhat delicate in constitution and suffering from some excess such as young men commit, he became so ill that he was forced for the sake of his life to return to Florence, where, profiting by his native air, by the advantage of his youth, and by the diligence and care of the physicians, in a short time he completely recovered. Now Messer Piero Pitti was arranging at that time to have a Madonna of marble made for that façade of the Mercato Nuovo in Florence where the clock is, and it appeared to him, since there were in Florence many young men of ability and also old masters, that the work should be given to that one among them who might make the best model. Whereupon one was given to Baccio da Montelupo to execute, one to Zaccheria Zacchi of Volterra, who had likewise returned to Florence the same year, another to Baccio Bandinelli, and yet another to Sansovino; and when these were placed in comparison, the honour and the work were given by Lorenzo di Credi, an excellent painter and a person of judgment and probity, and likewise by the other judges, craftsmen, and connoisseurs, to Sansovino. But, although the work was therefore allotted to him, nevertheless so much delay was caused in procuring and conveying the marble for him, by the envious machinations of Averardo da Filicaia, who greatly favoured Bandinelli and hated Sansovino, that he was ordered by certain other citizens, having perceived that delay, to make one of the large Apostles in marble that were going into the Church of S. Maria del Fiore. Wherefore, having made the model of a S. James (which model, when the work was finished, came into the possession of Messer Bindo Altoviti), he began that figure and, continuing to work at it with all diligence and study, he carried it to completion so perfectly, that it is a miraculous figure and shows in all its parts that it was wrought with incredible study and care, the draperies, arms, and hands being undercut and executed with such art and such grace, that there is nothing better in marble to be seen. Thus, Sansovino showed in what way undercut draperies should be executed, having made these so delicate and so natural, that in some places he reduced the marble to the thickness that is seen in real folds and in the edges and hems of the borders of draperies; a difficult method, and one demanding much time and patience if you wish that it should so succeed as to display the perfection of art. That figure remained in the Office of Works from the time when it was finished by Sansovino until the year 1565, at which time, in the month of December, it was placed in the Church of S. Maria del Fiore to do honour to the coming of Queen Joanna of Austria, the wife of Don Francesco de' Medici, Prince of Florence and Siena. And there it is kept as a very rare work, together with the other Apostles, likewise in marble, executed in competition by other craftsmen, as has been related in their Lives. [Illustration: BACCHUS (_After =Jacopo Sansovino=. Florence: Museo Nazionale_) _Alinari_] At this same time he made for Messer Giovanni Gaddi a Venus of marble on a shell, of great beauty, as was also the model, which was in the house of Messer Francesco Montevarchi, a friend of these arts, but came to an evil end in the inundation of the River Arno in the year 1558. He also made a boy of tow and a swan as beautiful as could be, of marble, for the same M. Giovanni Gaddi, together with many other things, which are all in his house. For Messer Bindo Altoviti he had a chimney-piece of great cost made, all in grey-stone carved by Benedetto da Rovezzano, which was placed in his house in Florence, and Messer Bindo caused Sansovino to make a scene with little figures for placing in the frieze of that chimney-piece, with Vulcan and other Gods, which was a very rare work; but much more beautiful are two boys of marble that were above the crown of the chimney-piece, holding some arms of the Altoviti in their hands, which have been removed by Signor Don Luigi di Toledo, who inhabits the house of the above-named Messer Bindo, and placed about a fountain in his garden, behind the Servite Friars, in Florence. Two other boys of extraordinary beauty, also of marble and by the same hand, who are likewise holding an escutcheon, are in the house of Giovan Francesco Ridolfi. All these works caused Sansovino to be held by the men of art and by all Florence to be a most excellent and gracious master; on which account Giovanni Bartolini, having caused a house to be built in his garden of Gualfonda, desired that Sansovino should make for him a young Bacchus in marble, of the size of life. Whereupon the model for this was made by Sansovino, and it pleased Giovanni so much, that he had him supplied with the marble, and Jacopo began it with such eagerness, that his hands and brain flew as he worked. This work, I say, he studied in such a manner, in order to make it perfect, that he set himself to portray from the life, although it was winter, an assistant of his called Pippo del Fabbro, making him stand naked a good part of the day. Which Pippo would have become a capable craftsman, for he was striving with every effort to imitate his master; but, whether it was the standing naked with the head uncovered at that season, or that he studied too much and suffered hardships, before the Bacchus was finished he went mad, copying the attitudes of that figure. And this he showed one day that it was raining in torrents, when, Sansovino calling out "Pippo!" and he not answering, the master afterwards saw him mounted on the summit of a chimney on the roof, wholly naked and striking the attitude of his Bacchus. At other times, taking a sheet or other large piece of cloth, and wetting it, he would wrap it round his naked body, as if he were a model of clay or rags, and arrange the folds; and then, climbing up to some extraordinary place, and settling himself now in one attitude and now in another, as a Prophet, an Apostle, a soldier, or something else, he would have himself portrayed, standing thus for a period of two hours without speaking, not otherwise than as if he had been a motionless statue. Many other amusing follies of that kind poor Pippo played, but above all he was never able to forget the Bacchus that Sansovino had made, save only when he died, a few years afterwards. [Illustration: MARS AND NEPTUNE (_After =Jacopo Sansovino=. Venice: Ducal Palace_) _Alinari_] But to return to the statue; when it was carried to completion, it was held to be the most beautiful work that had ever been executed by a modern master, seeing that in it Sansovino overcame a difficulty never yet attempted, in making an arm raised in the air and detached on every side, which holds between the fingers a cup all cut out of the same marble with such delicacy, that the attachment is very slight, besides which the attitude is so well conceived and balanced on every side, and the legs and arms are so beautiful and so well proportioned and attached to the trunk, that to the eye and to the touch the whole seems much more like living flesh; insomuch that the fame that it has from all who see it is well deserved, and even more. This work, I say, when finished, while Giovanni was alive, was visited in that courtyard in the Gualfonda by everyone, native and stranger alike, and much extolled. But afterwards, Giovanni being dead, his brother Gherardo Bartolini presented it to Duke Cosimo, who keeps it as a rare thing in his apartments, together with other most beautiful statues of marble that he possesses. For the same Giovanni Sansovino made a very beautiful Crucifix of wood, which is in their house in company with many works by the ancients and by the hand of Michelagnolo. In the year 1514, when festive preparations of great richness were to be made in Florence for the coming of Pope Leo X, orders were given by the Signoria and by Giuliano de' Medici that many triumphal arches of wood should be made in various parts of the city. Whereupon Sansovino not only executed the designs for many of these, but himself undertook in company with Andrea del Sarto to construct the façade of S. Maria del Fiore all of wood, with statues, scenes, and architectural orders, exactly in the manner wherein it would be well for it to be in order to remove all that there is in it of the German order of composition. Having therefore set his hand to this (to say nothing in this place of the awning of cloth that used to cover the Piazza of S. Maria del Fiore and that of S. Giovanni for the festival of S. John and for others of the greatest solemnity, since we have spoken sufficiently of this in another place), beneath that awning, I say, Sansovino constructed the said façade in the Corinthian Order, making it in the manner of a triumphal arch, and placing upon an immense base double columns on each side, and between them certain great niches filled with figures in the round that represented the Apostles. Above these were some large scenes in half-relief, made in the likeness of bronze, with stories from the Old Testament, some of which are still to be seen in the house of the Lanfredini on the bank of the Arno; and over them followed architraves, friezes, and cornices, projecting outwards, and then frontispieces of great beauty and variety; and in the angles of the arches, both in the wide parts and below, were stories painted in chiaroscuro by the hand of Andrea del Sarto, and very beautiful. In short, this work of Sansovino's was such that Pope Leo, seeing it, said that it was a pity that the real façade of that temple was not so built, which was begun by the German Arnolfo. The same Sansovino made among these festive preparations for the coming of Leo X, besides the said façade, a horse in the round all of clay and shearings of woollen cloth, in the act of rearing, and under it a figure of nine braccia, upon a pedestal of masonry. Which work was executed with such spirit and force, that it pleased Pope Leo and was much extolled by him; wherefore Sansovino was taken by Jacopo Salviati to kiss the feet of the Pope, who showed him many marks of affection. The Pope departed from Florence, and had a conference at Bologna with King Francis I of France; and then he resolved to return to Florence. Whereupon orders were given to Sansovino that he should make a triumphal arch at the Porta S. Gallo, and he, not falling back in any way from his own standard, executed it similar to the other works that he had done--namely, beautiful to a marvel, and full of statues and painted pictures wrought excellently well. His Holiness having then determined that the façade of S. Lorenzo should be executed in marble, the while that Raffaello da Urbino and Buonarroti were expected from Rome, Sansovino, by order of the Pope, made a design for it; which giving much satisfaction, Baccio d'Agnolo was commissioned to make a model of it in wood, which proved very beautiful. Meanwhile, Buonarroti had made another, and he and Sansovino were ordered to go to Pietrasanta; where, finding much marble, but difficult to transport, they lost so much time, that when they returned to Florence they found the Pope departed for Rome. Whereupon, both following after him with their models, each by himself, Jacopo arrived at the very moment when Buonarroti's model was being shown to his Holiness in the Torre Borgia; but he did not succeed in obtaining what he hoped, because, whereas he believed that he would at least make under Michelagnolo part of the statues that were going into that work, the Pope having spoken of it to him and Michelagnolo having given him so to understand, he perceived on arriving in Rome that Buonarroti wished to be alone in the work. Nevertheless, having made his way to Rome and not wishing to return to Florence without any result, he resolved to remain in Rome and there give his attention to sculpture and architecture. And so, having undertaken to execute for the Florentine Giovan Francesco Martelli a Madonna in marble larger than life, he made her most beautiful, with the Child in her arms; and this was placed upon an altar within the principal door of S. Agostino, on the right hand as one enters. The clay model of this statue he presented to the Priore de' Salviati, in Rome, who placed it in a chapel in his palace on the corner of the Piazza di S. Pietro, at the beginning of the Borgo Nuovo. After no long lapse of time he made for the altar of the chapel that the very reverend Cardinal Alborense had caused to be built in the Church of the Spaniards in Rome, a statue in marble of four braccia, worthy of no ordinary measure of praise, of a S. James, which has a movement full of grace and is executed with judgment and perfect art, so that it won him very great fame. And the while that he was executing these statues, he made the ground-plan and model, and then began the building, of the Church of S. Marcello for the Servite Friars, a work of truly great beauty. Continuing to be employed in matters of architecture, he built for Messer Marco Coscia a very beautiful loggia on the road that leads to Rome, at Pontemolle on the Via Appia.[11] For the Company of the Crocifisso, attached to the Church of S. Marcello, he made a Crucifix for carrying in procession, a thing full of grace; and for Cardinal Antonio di Monte he began a great fabric at his villa without Rome, on the Acqua Vergine. And by the hand of Jacopo, perhaps, is a very beautiful portrait in marble of that elder Cardinal di Monte which is now in the Palace of Signor Fabiano at Monte Sansovino, over the door of the principal chamber off the hall. He directed, also, the building of the house of Messer Luigi Leoni, a most commodious edifice, and in the Banchi a palace beside the house of the Gaddi, which was bought afterwards by Filippo Strozzi--certainly a commodious and most beautiful fabric, with many ornaments. [Footnote 11: Via Flaminia.] At this time, with the favour of Pope Leo, the Florentine colony had bestirred itself out of emulation of the Germans, Spaniards, and Frenchmen, who had either begun or finished the churches of their colonies in Rome, and had begun to perform their solemn offices in those already built and adorned; and the Florentines had sought leave likewise to build a church for themselves. For which the Pope having given instructions to Lodovico Capponi, the Consul of the Florentine colony at that time, it was determined that behind the Banchi, at the beginning of the Strada Giulia, on the bank of the Tiber, an immense church should be built, to be dedicated to S. John the Baptist; which might surpass in magnificence, grandeur, cost, ornamentation, and design, the churches of all the other colonies. There competed, then, in making designs for this work, Raffaello da Urbino, Antonio da San Gallo, Baldassarre da Siena, and Sansovino; and the Pope, when he had seen all their designs, extolled as the best that of Sansovino, because, besides other things, he had made at each of the four corners of that church a tribune, and a larger tribune in the centre, after the likeness of the plan that Sebastiano Serlio placed in his second book on Architecture. Whereupon, all the heads of the Florentine colony concurring with the will of the Pope, with much approval of Sansovino, the foundations were begun for a part of that church, altogether twenty-two canne[12] in length. But, there being not enough space, and yet wishing to make the façade of the church in line with the houses of the Strada Giulia, they were obliged to stretch out into the stream of the Tiber at least fifteen canne; which pleasing many of them, because the grandeur as well as the cost was increased by making the foundations in the river, work was begun on this, and they spent upon it more than forty thousand crowns, which would have been enough to build half the masonry of the church. [Footnote 12: A "canna" is equal to about four braccia.] In the meantime Sansovino, who was the head of this fabric, while the foundations were being laid little by little, had a fall and suffered a serious injury; and after a few days he had himself carried to Florence for treatment, leaving the charge of laying the rest of the foundations, as has been related, to Antonio da San Gallo. But no long time passed before the Florentine colony, having lost by the death of Leo so great a support and so splendid a Prince, abandoned the building for the duration of the life of Pope Adrian VI. Then, Clement having been elected, it was ordained, in order to pursue the same order and design, that Sansovino should return and carry on that fabric in the same manner wherein he had first arranged it; and so a beginning was made once more with the work. Meanwhile, Sansovino undertook to make the tomb of the Cardinal of Arragon and that of Cardinal Aginense; and he had caused work to be begun on the marbles for the ornaments, and had made many models for the figures, and already Rome was in his hands, and he was executing many works of the greatest importance for all those lords, when God, in order to chastise that city and abate the pride of the inhabitants of Rome, permitted that Bourbon should come with his army on the 6th of May, 1527, and that the whole city should be sacked and put to fire and sword. In that ruin, besides many other beautiful intellects that came to an evil end, Sansovino was forced to his great loss to depart from Rome and to fly to Venice, intending from there to pass into France to enter the service of the King, whither he had been already invited. But, halting in that city in order to make himself ready and provide himself with many things, for he was despoiled of everything, it was announced to the Prince Andrea Gritti, who was much the friend of every talent, that Jacopo Sansovino was there. Whereupon there came to Gritti a desire to speak with him, because at that very time Cardinal Domenico Grimani had given him to understand that Sansovino would have been the man for the cupolas of S. Marco, their principal church, which, because of age and of weak foundations, and also from their being badly secured with chains, were all opening out and threatening to fall; and so he had him summoned. After many courtesies and long discussions, he said to Sansovino that he wished, or rather, prayed him, that he should find a remedy for the ruin of those tribunes; which Sansovino promised to do, and to put it right. And so, having agreed to do the work, he caused it to be taken in hand; and, having contrived all the scaffoldings in the interior and made supports of beams after the manner of stars, he propped in the central hollow of woodwork all the timbers that sustained the vault of each tribune, and encircled them on the inner side with curtains of woodwork, going on then to bind them on the outer side with chains of iron, to flank them with new walls, and to make at the foot new foundations for the piers that supported them, insomuch that he strengthened them vastly and made them for ever secure. By doing which he caused all Venice to marvel, and not only satisfied Gritti, but also--which was far more--rendered his ability so clearly manifest to that most illustrious Senate, that when the work was finished, the Protomaster to the Lords Procurators of S. Mark being dead, which is the highest office that those lords give to their architects and engineers, they gave it to him with the usual house and a passing handsome salary. Whereupon Sansovino, having accepted it most willingly and freed his mind of all doubt, became the head of all their fabrics, with honour and advantage for himself. [Illustration: THE LIBRARY OF S. MARCO (_After =Jacopo Sansovino=. Venice_) _Alinari_] First, then, he erected the public building of the Mint, which he designed and distributed in the interior with so much order and method, for the convenience and service of the many artificers, that in no place is there a Treasury ordered so well or with greater strength than that one, which he adorned altogether in the Rustic Order, very beautifully; which method, not having been used before in Venice, caused no little marvel in the men of that city. Wherefore, having recognized that the genius of Sansovino was equal to their every need in the service of the city, they caused him to attend for many years to the fortifications of their State. Nor did any long time pass before he took in hand, by order of the Council of Ten, the very rich and beautiful fabric of the Library of S. Marco, opposite to the Palazzo della Signoria, with such a wealth of carvings, cornices, columns, capitals, and half-length figures over the whole work, that it is a marvel; and it is all done without any sparing of expense, so that up to the present day it has cost one hundred and fifty thousand ducats. And it is held in great estimation in that city, because it is full of the richest pavements, stucco-work, and stories, distributed among the halls of the building, with public stairs adorned by various pictures, as has been related in the Life of Battista Franco; besides many other beautiful appurtenances, and the rich ornaments that it has at the principal door of entrance, which give it majesty and grandeur, making manifest the ability of Sansovino. This method of building was the reason that in that city, into which up to that time there had never entered any method save that of making their houses and palaces with the same order, each one always continuing the same things with the same measure and ancient use, without varying according to the sites as they found them or according to convenience--this, I say, was the reason that buildings both public and private began to be erected with new designs and better order. The first palace that he built was that of M. Giorgio Cornaro, a most beautiful work, erected with all proper appurtenances and ornaments at a cost of seventy thousand crowns. Moved by which, a gentleman of the Delfino family caused Sansovino to build a smaller one, at a cost of thirty thousand crowns, which was much extolled and very beautiful. Then he built that of Moro, at a cost of twenty thousand crowns, which likewise was much extolled; and afterwards many others of less cost in the city and the neighbourhood. Wherefore it may be said that at the present day that magnificent city, in the quantity and quality of her sumptuous and well-conceived edifices, shines resplendent and is in that respect what she is through the ability, industry, and art of Jacopo Sansovino, who therefore deserves the highest praise; seeing that with those works he has been the reason that the gentlemen of Venice have introduced modern architecture into their city, in that not only has that been done there which has passed through his hands, but also many--nay, innumerable--other works which have been executed by other masters, who have gone to live there and have achieved magnificent things. Jacopo also built the fabric of the loggia in the Piazza di S. Marco, in the Corinthian Order, which is at the foot of the Campanile of the said S. Marco, with a very rich ornamentation of columns, and four niches, in which are four figures the size of life and in bronze, of supreme beauty. And that work formed, as it were, a base of great beauty to the said campanile, which at the foot has a breadth, on one of the sides, of thirty-five feet, which is about the extent of Sansovino's ornamentation; and a height from the ground to the cornice, where are the windows of the bells, of one hundred and sixty feet. From the level of that cornice to the other above it, where there is the corridor, is twenty-five feet, and the other dado above is twenty-eight feet and a half high; and from that level of the corridor to the pyramid, spire, or pinnacle, whatever it may be called, is sixty feet. At the summit of that pinnacle the little square, upon which stands the Angel, is six feet high, and the said Angel, which revolves, is ten feet high; insomuch that the whole height comes to be two hundred and ninety-two feet. He also designed and executed for the Scuola, or rather, Confraternity and Company of the Misericordia, the fabric of that place, an immense building which cost one hundred and fifty thousand crowns; and he rebuilt the Church of S. Francesco della Vigna, where the Frati de' Zoccoli have their seat, a vast work and of much importance. [Illustration: LOGGETTA (_After =Jacopo Sansovino=. Venice: Piazza di S. Marco_) _Anderson_] Nor for all this, the while that he has been giving his attention to so many buildings, has he ever ceased from executing every day for his own delight great and beautiful works of sculpture, in marble and in bronze; and over the holy-water font of the Friars of the Cà Grande there is a statue executed in marble by his hand, representing a S. John the Baptist, very beautiful and much extolled. At Padua, in the Chapel of the Santo, there is a large scene in marble by the same hand, with very beautiful figures in half-relief, of a miracle of S. Anthony of Padua; which scene is much esteemed in that place. For the entrance of the stairs of the Palace of S. Marco he is even now executing in marble, in the form of two most beautiful giants, each of seven braccia, a Neptune and a Mars, signifying the power that is exercised both on land and on sea by that most illustrious Republic. He made a very beautiful statue of a Hercules for the Duke of Ferrara; and for the Church of S. Marco he executed four scenes of bronze in half-relief, one braccio in height and one and a half in length, for placing around a pulpit, and containing stories of that Evangelist, which are held in great estimation for their variety. Over the door of the same S. Marco he has made a Madonna of marble, the size of life, which is held to be a very beautiful thing, and at the entrance of the sacristy in that place there is by his hand the door of bronze, divided into two most beautiful parts, with stories of Jesus Christ all in half-relief and wrought excellently well; and over the door of the Arsenal he has made a very lovely Madonna of marble, who is holding her Son in her arms. All which works not only have given lustre and adornment to that Republic, but also have caused Sansovino to become daily more known as a most excellent craftsman, and to be loved by those Signori and honoured by their magnificent liberality, and likewise by the other craftsmen; for every work of sculpture and architecture that has been executed in that city in his time has been referred to him. And in truth the excellence of Jacopo has well deserved to be held in the first rank in that city among the craftsmen of design, and his genius is rightly loved and revered by all men, both nobles and plebeians, for the reason that, besides other things, he has brought it about, as has been said, with his knowledge and judgment, that that city has been almost entirely made new and has learned the true and good manner of building. But, if she has received from him beauty and adornment, he, on the other hand, has received many benefits from her. Thus, in addition to other things, he has lived in her, from the time when he first went there to the age of seventy-eight years, full of health and strength; and the air and that sky have done so much for him, that he does not seem, one might say, more than forty. He has had, and still has, from a most talented son--a man of letters--two grandchildren, one male and the other female, both of them pictures of health and beauty, to his supreme contentment; and, what is more, he is still alive, full of happiness and with all the greatest conveniences and comforts that any man of his profession could have. He has always loved his brother-craftsmen, and in particular he has been very much the friend of the excellent and famous Tiziano, as he also was of M. Pietro Aretino during his lifetime. For all these reasons I have judged it well to make this honourable record of him, although he is still living, and particularly because now he is by way of doing little in sculpture. Sansovino had many disciples in Florence: Niccolò, called Tribolo, as has been related, and Solosmeo da Settignano, who finished with the exception of the large figures the whole of the tomb in marble that is at Monte Casino, wherein is the body of Piero de' Medici, who was drowned in the River Garigliano. His disciple, likewise, was Girolamo da Ferrara, called Lombardo, of whom there has been an account in the Life of Benvenuto Garofalo of Ferrara; which Girolamo has learned his art both from the first Sansovino and from this second one in such a manner, that, besides the works at Loreto of which we have spoken, both in marble and in bronze, he has executed many works in Venice. This master, although he came under Sansovino at the age of thirty and knowing little of design, being rather a man of letters and a courtier than a sculptor, although he had previously executed some works in sculpture, nevertheless applied himself in such a manner, that in a few years he made the proficience that may be perceived in his works in half-relief that are in the fabrics of the Library and the Loggia of the Campanile of S. Marco; in which he acquitted himself so well, that he was afterwards able to make by himself alone the statues of marble and the Prophets that he executed, as has been related, at the Madonna of Loreto. [Illustration: THE MIRACLE OF S. ANTHONY (_After the relief by =Jacopo Sansovino=. Padua: S. Antonio_) _Alinari_] A disciple of Sansovino, also, was Jacopo Colonna, who died at Bologna thirty years ago while executing a work of importance. This Jacopo made for the Church of S. Salvadore in Venice a nude S. Jerome of marble, still to be seen in a niche near the organ, which was a beautiful figure and much extolled, and for S. Croce della Giudecca he made a Christ also nude and of marble, who is showing His Wounds, a work of beautiful artistry; and likewise for S. Giovanni Nuovo three figures, S. Dorothy, S. Lucia, and S. Catharine. In S. Marina may be seen a horse with an armed captain upon it, by his hand; and all these works can stand in comparison with any that are in Venice. In Padua, for the Church of S. Antonio, he executed in stucco the said Saint and S. Bernardino, clothed. Of the same material he made for Messer Luigi Cornaro a Minerva, a Venus, and a Diana, larger than life and in the round; in marble a Mercury, and in terra-cotta a nude Marzio as a young man, who is drawing a thorn from his foot, or rather, showing that he has drawn it out, he holds the foot with one hand, looking at the wound, and with the other hand seems to be about to cleanse it with a cloth; which last work, because it is the best that Jacopo ever did, the said Messer Luigi intends to have cast in bronze. For the same patron he made another Mercury of stone, which was afterwards presented to Duke Federigo of Mantua. Another disciple of Sansovino was Tiziano da Padova, a sculptor, who carved some little figures of marble in the Loggia of the Campanile of S. Marco at Venice; and in the Church of the same S. Marco there may be seen, likewise fashioned and cast in bronze by him, a large and beautiful cover for a basin in bronze, in the Chapel of S. Giovanni. This Tiziano had made a statue of S. John, with which were the four Evangelists and four stories of S. John, wrought with beautiful artistry for casting in bronze; but he died at the age of thirty-five, and the world was robbed of an excellent and valiant craftsman. And by the same hand is the vaulting of the Chapel of S. Antonio da Padova, with a very rich pattern of compartments in stucco. He had begun for the same chapel a grating of five arches in bronze, which were full of stories of that Saint, with other figures in half-relief and low-relief; but this, also, by reason of his death and of the disagreement of those who had the charge of having it done, remained unfinished. Many pieces of it had already been cast, which turned out very beautiful, and many others were made in wax, when he died, and for the said reasons the whole work was abandoned. The same Tiziano, when Vasari executed the above-described decorations for the gentlemen of the Company of the Calza in Canareio, made for that work some statues in clay and many terminal figures. And he was employed many times on ornaments for scenic settings, theatres, arches, and other suchlike things, whereby he won much honour; having executed works all full of invention, fantasy, and variety, and above all with great rapidity. Pietro da Salò, also, was a disciple of Sansovino; and after having toiled at carving foliage up to the age of thirty, finally, assisted by Sansovino, who taught him, he set himself to make figures of marble. In which he so delighted, and studied in such a manner, that in two years he was working by himself; to which witness is borne by some passing good works by his hand that are in the tribune of S. Marco, and the statue of a Mars larger than life that is in the façade of the Palazzo Pubblico, which statue is in company with three others by the hands of good craftsmen. He also made two figures for the apartments of the Council of Ten, one male and the other female, in company with two others executed by Danese Cattaneo, a sculptor of highest renown, who, as will be related, was likewise a disciple of Sansovino; which figures serve to adorn a chimney-piece. Pietro made, in addition, three figures that are at S. Antonio, in the round and larger than life; and these are a Justice, a Fortitude, and a statue of a Captain-General of the Venetian forces, all executed with good mastery. He also made a statue of Justice in a beautiful attitude and with good design, which was placed upon a column in the Piazza of Murano, and another in the Piazza del Rialto in Venice, as a support for that stone where public proclamations are made, which is called the Gobbo[13] di Rialto; and these works have made him known as a very good sculptor. For the Santo, in Padua, he made a very beautiful Thetis; and a Bacchus who is squeezing a bunch of grapes into a cup, which figure, the most difficult that he ever executed, and the best, he left at his death to his children, who have it still in their house, seeking to sell it to him who shall best recognize and reward the labour that their father endured for it. [Footnote 13: Hunchback.] Likewise a disciple of Jacopo was Alessandro Vittoria of Trento, a most excellent sculptor and much the friend of study, who with a very beautiful manner has shown in many works that he has executed, as well in stucco as in marble, that he has a ready brain and a lovely style, and that his labours are worthy to be held in estimation. By the hand of this Alessandro, in Venice, at the principal door of the Library of S. Marco, are two great women of stone, each ten palms high, which are full of grace and beauty and worthy to be much extolled. He has made four figures for the tomb of the Contarini in the Santo of Padua, two slaves, or rather, captives, with a Fame and a Thetis, all of stone; and an Angel ten feet high, a very beautiful statue, which has been placed upon the Campanile of the Duomo in Verona. And to Dalmatia he sent four Apostles also of stone, each five feet high, for the Cathedral of Traù. He made, also, some figures in silver for the Scuola of S. Giovanni Evangelista in Venice, which were all in full-relief and rich in grace, and a S. Teodoro of two feet in silver, in the round. For the Chapel of the Grimani, in S. Sebastiano, he wrought two figures in marble, each three feet high; and then he made a Pietà, with two figures of stone, held to be good, which are at S. Salvadore in Venice. He made a Mercury, held to be a good figure, for the pulpit of the Palazzo di S. Marco, which looks out over the Piazza; and for S. Francesco della Vigna he made three figures large as life--S. Anthony, S. Sebastian, and S. Rocco--all of stone and full of beauty and grace, and well wrought. For the Church of the Crocicchieri he made in stucco two figures each six feet high, very beautiful, which are placed on the high-altar; and of the same material he made, as has been already told, all the ornaments that are in the vaulting of the new staircase of the Palazzo di S. Marco, with various patterns of compartments in stucco, where Battista Franco afterwards painted in the spaces the scenes, figures, and grotesques that are there. In like manner, Alessandro executed the ornaments of the staircase of the Library of S. Marco, all works of great mastery; and a chapel for the Friars Minors, and in the altar-piece of marble, which is very large and very beautiful, the Assumption of Our Lady in half-relief, with five great figures at the foot which have in them something of the grand and are made with a beautiful manner, a lovely and dignified flow of draperies, and much diligence of execution; which figures of marble--S. Jerome, S. John the Baptist, S. Peter, S. Andrew, and S. Leonardo--each six feet high, are the best of all the works that he has done up to the present. And as a crown to that chapel, on the frontispiece, are two figures likewise of marble, each eight feet high and very graceful. The same Vittoria has executed many portraits in marble and most beautiful heads, which are good likenesses, such as that of Signor Giovan Battista Feredo, placed in the Church of S. Stefano, that of Camillo Trevisano, the orator, placed in the Church of SS. Giovanni e Polo; the most illustrious Marc'Antonio Grimani, likewise placed in the Church of S. Sebastiano; and in S. Gimignano, the rector of that church. He has also portrayed Messer Andrea Loredano. M. Priano da Lagie, and two brothers of the Pellegrini family--M. Vincenzio and M. Giovan Battista--both orators. And since Vittoria is young and a willing worker, talented, amiable, desirous of acquiring name and fame, and, lastly, very gentle, we may believe that if he lives, we are destined to see most beautiful works come from him from day to day, worthy of his name of Vittoria, and that, if his life endures, he is like to be a most excellent sculptor and to win the palm from all the others of that country. There is also one Tommaso da Lugano, a sculptor, who likewise has been many years with Sansovino, and has made with the chisel many figures in the Library of S. Marco, very beautiful, in company with others. And then, having left Sansovino, he has made by himself a Madonna with the Child in her arms, and at her feet a little S. John, which are all three figures of such beautiful form, attitude, and manner, that they can stand among all the other beautiful modern statues that are in Venice; which work is placed in the Church of S. Bastiano. And a portrait of the Emperor Charles V, which he made from the breast upwards, of marble, has been held to be a marvellous thing, and was very dear to his Majesty. And since Tommaso has delighted to work rather in stucco than in marble or bronze, there are innumerable most beautiful figures by his hand and works executed by him in that material in the houses of various gentlemen of Venice. But it must suffice to have said this much of him. Of the Lombards, finally, it remains for us to make record of Jacopo Bresciano, a young man of twenty-four, who has not long parted from Sansovino. He has given proof at Venice, in the many years that he has been there, of being talented and likely to prove excellent, as he has since shown in the works that he has executed in his native Brescia, and particularly in the Palazzo Pubblico, and if he lives and studies, there will be seen from his hand, also, things greater and better, for he has a fine spirit and most beautiful gifts. Of our Tuscans, one of the disciples of Sansovino has been the Florentine Bartolommeo Ammanati, of whom record has already been made in many places in this work. This Bartolommeo, I say, worked under Sansovino in Venice; and then in Padua for Messer Marco da Mantova, a most excellent doctor of medicine, in whose house he made an immense giant from more than one piece of stone for his court, and his tomb, with many statues. Afterwards, Ammanati having gone to Rome in the year 1550, there were allotted to him by Giorgio Vasari four statues of marble, each of four braccia, for the tomb of the old Cardinal di Monte, which Pope Julius III had allotted to Giorgio himself in the Church of S. Pietro a Montorio, as will be related; which statues were held to be very beautiful. Wherefore Vasari, having conceived an affection for him, made him known to the said Julius III, who, having ordained what he wanted done, caused him to be set to work; and so both of them, Vasari and Ammanati, worked together for a time at the Vigna. But not long afterwards, when Vasari had gone to serve Duke Cosimo in Florence, the above-named Pope being dead, Ammanati, who found himself without work and badly recompensed by that Pontiff for his labours in Rome, wrote to Vasari, praying him that, even as he had assisted him in Rome, so he should assist him in Florence with the Duke. Whereupon Vasari, occupying himself with fervour in this matter, introduced him into the service of the Duke, for whom he has executed many statues in marble and in bronze that are not yet in position. For the garden of Castello he has made two figures in bronze larger than life--namely, a Hercules who is crushing Antæus, from which Antæus, in place of his spirit, there issues from the mouth water in great abundance. Finally, Ammanati has executed in marble the colossal figure of Neptune that is in the Piazza, ten braccia and a half in height; but since the work of the fountain, in the centre of which the said Neptune is to stand, is not finished, I shall say nothing more of it. The same Ammanati, as architect, is giving his attention with much honour and praise to the fabric of the Pitti, in which work he has a great opportunity to show the worth and grandeur of his mind, and the magnificence and great spirit of Duke Cosimo. I could tell many particulars of this sculptor, but since he is my friend, and another, so I hear, is writing his history, I shall say no more, in order not to set my hand to things that may be related by another better than I perhaps might be able. It remains for us to make mention, as the last of Sansovino's disciples, of Danese Cattaneo, the sculptor of Carrara, who was already with him in Venice when still a little boy. Parting from his master at the age of nineteen, he made by himself a boy of marble for S. Marco, and a S. Laurence for the Church of the Friars Minors; for S. Salvadore another boy in marble, and for SS. Giovanni e Polo the statue of a nude Bacchus, who is grasping a bunch of grapes from a vine which twines round a trunk that he has behind his legs, which statue is now in the house of the Mozzenighi at S. Barnaba. He has executed many figures for the Library of S. Marco and for the Loggia of the Campanile, together with others of whom there has been an account above; and, in addition to those named, the two that have been mentioned already as being in the apartments of the Council of Ten. He made portraits in marble of Cardinal Bembo and Contarini, the Captain-General of the Venetian forces, which are both in S. Antonio at Padua, with rich and beautiful ornaments about them. And in the same city of Padua, in S. Giovanni di Verdara, there is by the same hand the portrait of Messer Girolamo Gigante, a most learned jurist. And for S. Antonio della Giudecca, in Venice, he has made a very lifelike portrait of Giustiniano, the Lieutenant of the Grand Master of Malta, and that of Tiepolo, who was three times General; but these have not yet been set in their places. But the greatest work and the most distinguished that Danese has ever executed is a rich chapel of marble, with large figures, in S. Anastasia at Verona, for Signor Ercole Fregoso, in memory of Signor Jano, once Lord of Genoa, and then Captain-General of the Venetians, in whose service he died. This work is of the Corinthian Order, in the manner of a triumphal arch, and divided by four great columns, round and fluted, with capitals of olive-leaves, which rest upon a base of proportionate height, making the space in the centre as wide again as one of those at the sides; with an arch between the columns, above which there rest on the capitals the architrave and cornice, and in the centre, within the arch, a very beautiful decoration of pilasters, with cornice and frontispiece, and with a ground formed by a tablet of most beautiful black basanite, where there is the statue of a nude Christ, larger than life and in the round, a very good figure; which statue stands in the act of showing the Wounds, with a piece of drapery bound round the flanks and reaching between the legs to the ground. Over the angles of the arch are Signs of His Passion, and between the columns that are on the right side there stands upon a pedestal a statue in the round representing Signor Jano Fregoso, fully armed after the antique save that he shows the arms and legs nude, and he has the left hand upon the pommel of the sword at his girdle, and with the right hand he holds the general's baton; having behind him as a pendant, within the space between the columns, a Minerva in half-relief, who, poised in the air, holds with one hand a Ducal staff, such as that of the Doges of Venice, and with the other a banner containing the device of S. Mark. Between the two other columns, as the other pendant, is Military Valour in armour, on her head the helmet-crest with the house-leek upon it, and on her cuirass the device of an ermine that stands upon a rock surrounded by mire, with letters that run--"Potius mori quam foedari," and with the device of the Fregosi; and above is a Victory, with a garland of laurel and a palm in the hands. Above the columns, architrave, frieze and cornice, is another range of pilasters, upon the crowns of which stand two figures of marble in the round, and two trophies likewise in the round and of the same size as the figures. Of these two statues, one is Fame in the act of taking flight, pointing with the right hand to Heaven, and with a trumpet that she is sounding; and this figure has light and most beautiful draperies about the body, and all the rest nude. The other, representing Eternity, is clothed in heavier vestments, and stands in majesty, holding in the left hand a round on which she is gazing, and with the right hand she grasps a hem of her garment wherein are globes that signify the various ages, with the celestial sphere encircled by the serpent that seizes the tail in the mouth. In the central space above the great cornice, which forms and separates those two other spaces, are three steps upon which are seated two large nude boys, who hold a great shield with the helmet above it, containing the devices of the Fregosi; and below those steps is an epitaph of basanite with large gilded letters. That whole work is truly worthy to be extolled, for Danese executed it with great diligence, and gave beautiful proportion and grace to the composition, and made each figure with great study. And Danese is not only, as has been described, an excellent sculptor, but also a good and much extolled poet, as his works clearly demonstrate, on which account he has always had intercourse and strait friendship with the greatest men and choicest spirits of our age; and of this may serve as a proof the work described above, executed by him with much poetic feeling. By the hand of Danese is the nude statue of the Sun above the ornament of the well in the courtyard of the Mint, at Venice; in place of which those Signori desired a Justice, but Danese considered that in that place the Sun is more appropriate. This figure has a bar of gold in the left hand, and in the right hand a sceptre, at the end of which he made an eye, and about the head the rays of the sun, and above all the globe of the world encircled by the serpent that holds the tail in the mouth, with some little mounds of gold about the globe, generated by him. Danese would have liked to make two other statues, that of the Moon for silver and another for copper, with that of the Sun for gold; but it was enough for those Signori that there should be that of gold, as the most perfect of all the metals. The same Danese has begun another work in memory of Prince Loredano, Doge of Venice, wherein it is hoped that in invention and fantasy he is to surpass by a great measure all his other labours; which work is to be placed in the Church of SS. Giovanni e Polo in Venice. But, since this master is alive and still constantly at work for the benefit of the world and of art, I shall say nothing more of him; nor of other disciples of Sansovino. I will not omit, however, to speak briefly of some other excellent craftsmen, sculptors and painters, from that dominion of Venice, taking my opportunity from those mentioned above, in order to make an end of speaking of them in this Life of Sansovino. [Illustration: PALAZZO CHIERICATI (_After =Andrea Palladio=. Vicenza_) _Alinari_] Vicenza, then, has likewise had at various times sculptors, painters, and architects, of some of whom record was made in the Life of Vittore Scarpaccia, and particularly of those who flourished in the time of Mantegna and learned to draw from him; and such were Bartolommeo Montagna, Francesco Verbo, and Giovanni Speranza, all painters, by whose hands are many pictures that are dispersed throughout Vicenza. Now in the same city there are many sculptures by the hand of one Giovanni, a carver and architect, which are passing good, although his proper profession has been to carve foliage and animals, as he still does excellently well, although he is old. In like manner, Girolamo Pironi of Vicenza has executed praiseworthy works of sculpture and painting in many places in his city. But among all the masters of Vicenza he who most deserves to be extolled is the architect Andrea Palladio, from his being a man of singular judgment and brain, as many works demonstrate that were executed by him in his native country and elsewhere, and in particular the Palazzo della Comunità, a building much renowned, with two porticoes composed in the Doric Order with very beautiful columns. The same Palladio has erected a palace, beautiful and grand beyond all belief, with an infinity of the richest ornaments, for Count Ottavio de' Vieri, and another like it for Count Giuseppe di Porto, which could not be more beautiful or magnificent, nor more worthy than it is of no matter how great a Prince; and another is being built even now for Count Valerio Chiericati under the direction of the same master, very similar in majesty and grandeur to the ancient buildings so much extolled. For the Counts of Valmorana, likewise, he has now carried almost to completion another most superb palace, which does not yield in any particular to any of those mentioned above. In the same city, upon the piazza commonly called the Isola, he has built another very magnificent fabric for Signor Valerio Chiericati; and at Pugliano, a place in the Vicentino, a most beautiful house for the Chevalier, Signor Bonifazio Pugliana. In the same territory of Vicenza, at Finale, he has erected another fabric for Messer Biagio Saraceni; and one at Bagnolo for Signor Vittore Pisani, with a large and very rich court in the Doric Order with most beautiful columns. Near Vicenza, at the township of Lisiera, he has constructed for Signor Giovan Francesco Valmorana another very rich edifice, with four towers at the corners, which make a very fine effect. At Meledo, likewise, for Count Francesco Trissino and Lodovico his brother, he has begun a magnificent palace upon a hill of some eminence, with many ranges of loggie, staircases, and other appurtenances of a villa. At Campiglia, likewise in the Vicentino, he is making for Signor Mario Ropetta another similar habitation, with so many conveniences, rich apartments of rooms, loggie, staircases, and chambers dedicated to various virtues, that it will be, when once carried to completion, an abode rather for a King than for a nobleman. At Lunedo he has built another, in the manner of a villa, for Signor Girolamo de' Godi; and at Angarano another for Count Jacopo Angarano, which is truly most beautiful, although it appears a small thing to the great mind of that lord. At Quinto, also, near Vicenza, he erected not long ago another palace for Count Marc'Antonio Tiene, which has in it more of the grand and the magnificent than I could express. In short, Palladio has constructed so many vast and lovely buildings within and without Vicenza, that, even if there were no others there, they would suffice to make a very handsome city with most beautiful surroundings. In Venice the same Palladio has begun many buildings, but one that is marvellous and most notable among them all, in imitation of the houses that the ancients used to build, in the Monastery of the Carità. The atrium of this is forty feet wide and fifty-four feet long, which are exactly the diameters of the quadrangle, the wings being one-third and a half of the length. The columns, which are Corinthian, are three feet and a half in thickness and thirty-five feet high. From the atrium one goes into the peristyle, that is, into a clauster (for thus do the friars call their courts), which on the side towards the atrium is divided into five parts, and at the flanks into seven, with three orders of columns one above the other, of which the Doric is at the foot, and above it the Ionic and the Corinthian. Opposite to the atrium is the refectory, two squares in length, and as high as the level of the peristyle, with its officines around it, all most commodious. The stairs are spiral, in the form of an oval, and they have neither wall nor column, nor any part in the middle to support them; they are thirteen feet wide, and the steps by their position support one another, being fixed in the wall. This edifice is all built of baked stone, that is, of brick, save the bases of the columns, the capitals, the imposts of the arches, the stairs, the surface of the cornices, and the whole of the windows and doors. The same Palladio has built for the Black Friars of S. Benedict, in their Monastery of S. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, a very large and most beautiful refectory with its vestibule in front, and has begun to found a new church, with such beautiful ordering, according as the model shows, that, if it is carried to completion, it will prove a stupendous and most lovely work. Besides this, he has begun the façade of the Church of S. Francesco della Vigna, which the very reverend Grimani, Patriarch of Aquileia, is causing to be made of Istrian stone, with a most magnificent disregard of expense; the columns are four palms thick at the foot, forty palms high, and in the Corinthian Order, and already the whole basement at the foot is built. At Gambaraie, a place seven miles distant from Venice, on the River Brenta, the same Palladio has made a very commodious habitation for M. Niccolò and M. Luigi Foscari, gentlemen of Venice. Another he has built at Marocco, a place in the Mestrino, for the Chevalier Mozzenigo; at Piombino one for M. Giorgio Cornaro, one at Montagnana for the Magnificent M. Francesco Pisani, and another at Cicogna in the territory of Padua for Count Adovardo da Tiene, a gentleman of Vicenza. At Udine, in Friuli, he has built one for Signor Floriano Antimini; at Motto, a township likewise in Friuli, one for the Magnificent M. Marco Zeno, with a most beautiful court and porticoes all the way round; and at Fratta, a township in the Polesine, a great fabric for Signor Francesco Badoaro, with some very beautiful and fantastic loggie. In like manner, near Asolo, a place in the territory of Treviso, he has erected a most commodious habitation for the very reverend S. Daniello Barbaro, Patriarch-Elect of Aquileia, who has written upon Vitruvius, and for the most illustrious M. Marc'Antonio, his brother, with such beautiful ordering, that nothing better or greater can ever be imagined. Among other things, he has made there a fountain very similar to that which Pope Julius caused to be made at his Vigna Giulia in Rome; with ornaments of stucco and paintings everywhere, executed by excellent masters. In Genoa M. Luca Giustiniano has erected a building with the design of Palladio, which is held to be very beautiful, as are also all those mentioned above; but it would have made too long a story to seek to recount the many particulars of the strange and lovely inventions and fantasies that are in them. But, since there is soon to come into the light of day a work of Palladio, in which will be printed two books of ancient edifices and one book of those that he himself has caused to be built, I shall say nothing more of him, because this will be enough to make him known as the excellent architect that he is held to be by all who see his beautiful works; besides which, being still young and attending constantly to the studies of his art, every day greater things may be expected of him. Nor will I omit to say that he has wedded to such gifts a nature so amiable and gentle, that it renders him well-beloved with everyone; wherefore he has won the honour of being accepted into the number of the Academicians of Design in Florence, together with Danese, Giuseppe Salviati, Tintoretto, and Battista Farinato of Verona, as will be told in another place, speaking of the said Academicians. Bonifazio, a Venetian painter, of whom I have never before received any information, is also worthy to be numbered in the company of these many excellent craftsmen, being a well-practised and able colourist. This master, besides many pictures and portraits that are dispersed throughout Venice, has executed for the altar of the Relics in the Church of the Servites, in the same city, an altar-piece wherein is a Christ with the Apostles about Him, and Philip who appears to be saying, "Domine, ostende nobis patrem," which is painted with a very good and beautiful manner. And for the altar of the Madonna in the Church of the Nuns of the Spirito Santo, he has executed another most beautiful altar-picture with a vast number of men, women, and children of every age, who in company with the Virgin are adoring a God the Father who is in the air with many Angels about Him. Another painter of passing good name in Venice is Jacopo Fallaro, who has painted on the doors of the organ in the Church of the Ingesuati the Blessed Giovanni Colombini receiving his habit in the Consistory from the Pope, with a good number of Cardinals. Another Jacopo, called Pisbolica, has executed an altar-piece for S. Maria Maggiore in Venice, wherein is Christ in the air with many Angels, and below Him Our Lady with the Apostles. And one Fabrizio Viniziano has painted on the façade of a chapel in the Church of S. Maria Sebenico the Consecration of the baptismal font, with many portraits from life executed with beautiful grace and a good manner. NOTES. I., line 1, p. 187. The family of the Tatti in Florence is recorded in the books of the Commune from the year 1300, because, having come from Lucca, a very noble city of Tuscany, it was always abundant in industrious and honoured men, and they were most highly favoured by the House of Medici. Of this family was born Jacopo, of whom we are writing in this place; and he was born from Antonio, a most excellent person, and from his wife Francesca, in the month of January, 1477. In the first years of his boyhood he was set, as is usual, to learn his letters; and, after beginning to show in these vivacity of brain and readiness of spirit, not long afterwards he applied himself of his own accord to drawing, giving evidence in a certain sort that nature was inclining him much more to this kind of work than to letters, for the reason that he went very unwillingly to school and learned much against his will the scabrous rudiments of grammar. His mother, whom he resembled strongly, perceiving this and fostering his genius, gave him assistance, causing him to be taught design in secret, because she loved the thought that her son should be a sculptor, perchance in emulation of the then rising glory of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, who at that time was still quite young; and also moved by a certain fateful augury, in that Michelagnolo and this Jacopo had been born in one and the same street, called Via S. Maria, near the Via Ghibellina. Now the boy, after some time, was placed to learn the trade of a merchant; in which delighting even less than in letters, he did and said so much, that he obtained leave from his father to attend without hindrance to that towards which he was urged by nature. There had come to Florence at that time Andrea Contucci of Monte Sansovino, a township near Arezzo, risen to great fame in our days from having been the birthplace of Pope Julius III; which Andrea, having acquired in Italy and in Spain the name of the best sculptor and architect that there was in art after Buonarroti, was staying in Florence in order to execute two figures of marble. Etc. II., line 18, p. 197. (And he was executing many works of the greatest importance for all those lords), having been recognized by three Pontiffs, and especially by Pope Leo, who presented him with a Knighthood of S. Pietro, which he sold during his illness, doubting lest he might die; (when God, etc.). III., line 22, p. 198. Having then entered on that office, he began to occupy himself with every care, both with regard to buildings and in the management of the papers and of the books that he held by virtue of his office, acquitting himself with all possible diligence in the affairs of the Church of S. Marco, of the Commissions, which are a great number, and of the many other matters that are in the charge of those Procurators; and he showed extraordinary lovingness towards those Signori, in that, having turned his whole attention to benefiting them and to directing their affairs to the aggrandizement, embellishment, and ornamentation of the church, the city, and the public square (a thing never yet done by any other in that office), he provided them with various advantages, profits, and revenues by means of his inventions, with his ingenuity of brain and readiness of spirit, yet always with little or no expense to the Signori themselves. Among which benefits, one was this; in the year 1529 there were between the two columns in the Piazza some butchers' stalls, and also between the one column and the other many wooden cabins to accommodate persons in their natural necessities--a thing most filthy and disgraceful, both for the dignity of the Palace and of the Piazza Pubblica, and for the strangers who, coming into Venice by way of S. Giorgio, saw first of all on arrival that filthiness. Jacopo, after demonstrating to the Prince Gritti the honourable and profitable nature of his design, caused those stalls and cabins to be removed; and, placing the stalls where they now are and making certain places for the sellers of herbs, he obtained for the Procurators an additional revenue of seven hundred ducats, embellishing at the same time the Piazza and the city. Not long afterwards, having perceived that in the Merceria (on the way to the Rialto, near the Clock), by removing a house that paid a rent of twenty-six ducats, a street could be made leading into the Spadaria, whereby the rent of the houses and shops all around would be increased, he threw down that house and increased their revenues by one hundred and fifty ducats a year. Besides this, by placing on that site the hostelry of the Pellegrino and another in the Campo Rusolo, he brought them in another four hundred ducats. He obtained for them similar benefits by the buildings in the Pescaria, and, on divers other occasions, by many houses and shops and other places belonging to those Signori, at various times; insomuch that the Procurators, having gained by his care a revenue of more than two thousand ducats, have been rightly moved to love him and to hold him dear. Not long afterwards, by order of the Procurators, he set his hand to the very rich and beautiful building of the Library opposite to the Palazzo Pubblico, with such a variety of architecture (for it is both Doric and Corinthian), and such a wealth of carvings, cornices, columns, capitals, and half-length figures throughout the whole work, that it is a marvel; and all without any sparing of expense, since it is full of the richest pavements, stucco-work and scenes throughout the halls of that place, and public staircases adorned with various pictures, as has been related in the Life of Battista Franco, not to speak of the appurtenances and rich ornaments that it has at the principal door of entrance, which give it majesty and grandeur, demonstrating the ability of Sansovino. Which method of building was the reason that in that city, into which there had not entered up to that time any other method but that of building their houses and palaces in one and the same order, each man always continuing the same things with the same measurements and ancient use, without varying according to the sites as they found them, or according to convenience; it was the reason, I say, that buildings both public and private began to be erected with new designs and better order, and according to the ancient teaching of Vitruvius; and that work, in the opinion of those who are good judges and have seen many parts of the world, is without any equal. He then built the Palace of Messer Giovanni Delfino, situated on the Grand Canal on the other side from the Rialto, opposite to the Riva del Ferro, at a cost of thirty thousand ducats. He built, likewise, that of Messer Leonardo Moro at S. Girolamo, a work of great cost, which has almost the appearance of a castle. And he erected the Palace of Messer Luigi de' Garzoni, wider by thirteen paces in every direction than is the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, with so many conveniences, that water runs through the whole fabric, which is adorned with four most beautiful figures by Sansovino; which palace is at Ponte Casale, in the neighbourhood of Venice. But the most beautiful is the Palace of Messer Giorgio Cornaro on the Grand Canal, which, without any doubt surpassing the others in convenience, majesty, and grandeur, is considered perhaps the finest that there is in Italy. He also built (to have done with speaking of private edifices) the Scuola or Confraternity of the Misericordia, a vast work costing one hundred and thirty thousand crowns, which, when carried to completion, will prove to be the most superb edifice in Italy. And his work, also, is the Church of S. Francesco della Vigna, where the Frati de' Zoccoli have their seat, a work of great size and importance; but the façade was by another master. The Loggia about the Campanile of S. Marco, in the Corinthian Order, was from his design, with a very rich ornament of columns, and with four niches, in which are four supremely beautiful figures in bronze, little less than the size of life, which are by his hand, together with various scenes and figures in low-relief. That work makes a most beautiful base to the said campanile, which has a thickness, on one of the sides, of thirty-five feet, which is about the extent of Sansovino's ornamentation. In height, from the ground to the cornice where are the windows of the bells, it is one hundred and sixty feet; from the level of that cornice to the other above it, where the corridor is, twenty-five feet; and the other dado above has a height of twenty-eight feet and a half. From that level of the corridor up to the pyramid is sixty feet; at the summit of which spire, the little square, upon which rests the Angel, is six feet high, and the said Angel, which turns with every wind, is ten feet high; insomuch that the whole height comes to be two hundred and ninety-two feet. But the finest, richest, and strongest of his edifices is the Mint of Venice, all of iron and stone, for there is not in it one single piece of wood, in order to render it absolutely safe from fire. And the interior is distributed with such order and convenience for the sake of the many artificers, that there is not in any part of the world a treasury better ordered, or with greater strength, than that one, which he built entirely in the Rustic Order and very beautiful; which method, not having been used before in that city, caused the inhabitants to marvel not a little. By his hand, also, may be seen the Church of S. Spirito on the lagoons, of a very delicate and pleasing workmanship; and in Venice there is the façade of S. Gimignano, which gives splendour to the Piazza, in the Merceria the façade of S. Giuliano, and in S. Salvadore the very rich tomb of the Prince Francesco Veniero. He also erected in the Rialto, on the Grand Canal, the new fabrics of the vaults, with such good design, that almost every day there assembles there a very convenient market of townsmen and of other persons who flock to that city. And a very marvellous thing and new was that which he did for the Tiepoli at the Misericordia, in that, they having on the canal a great palace with many regal chambers, and the whole building being badly founded in the water, so that it was likely enough that in a few years the edifice would fall to the ground, Sansovino rebuilt all the foundations in the canal below the palace with very large stones, maintaining the house on its feet with a marvellous support of props, while the owners lived in their house with perfect security. Nor for all this, while he has given his attention to so many buildings, has he ever ceased to occupy himself every day for his own delight with vast and beautiful works of sculpture, in marble and in bronze. Over the holy-water font of the Friars of the Cà Grande there is by his hand a statue made of marble, representing S. John the Baptist, which is very beautiful and highly extolled. At Padua, in the Chapel of the Santo, there is a large scene in marble by the same hand, with very beautiful figures in half-relief, of a miracle of S. Anthony of Padua; which is much esteemed in that place. For the entrance of the stairs of the Palace of S. Marco he is even now executing in marble in the forms of two very beautiful giants, each of seven braccia, a Neptune and a Mars, signifying the power which that most illustrious Republic has on land and sea. He made a most beautiful statue of Hercules for the Duke of Ferrara; and for the Church of S. Marco he made six scenes of bronze in half-relief, one braccio high and one and a half long, for placing on a pulpit, with stories of that Evangelist, which are held in much estimation for their variety. Over the door of the same S. Marco he made a Madonna of marble, the size of life, which is held to be a very beautiful thing; and at the entrance to the sacristy of that place there is by his hand the door of bronze divided into two most beautiful parts, with stories of Jesus Christ all in half-relief and wrought excellently well. And over the door of the Arsenal he made a very beautiful Madonna, who is holding her Son in her arms, of marble. All which works not only have given lustre and adornment to that Republic, but also have caused Sansovino to be better known every day as a most excellent craftsman, and loved and honoured by the magnificent liberality of those Signori, and likewise by the other craftsmen, every work of sculpture and architecture that has been executed in that city in his time being referred to him. And in truth the excellence of Jacopo has well deserved that he should be held in the first rank among the craftsmen of design in that city, and that his talents should be loved and revered by all without exception, both nobles and plebeians, for the reason that, besides other things, as has been told, with his judgment and knowledge he has brought it about that the city has been made almost entirely new and has learned the true and good method of building. Three most beautiful figures in stucco by his hand, also, may be seen in the possession of his son, one a Laocoon, another a Venus standing, and the third a Madonna with many children about her; which figures are so rare, that in Venice there is seen nothing to equal them. The said son also has in drawing sixty plans of temples and churches of Sansovino's invention, which are so excellent that from the days of the ancients to our own there have been seen none better conceived or more beautiful. These I have heard that the son will publish for the benefit of the world, and already he has had some pieces engraved, accompanying them with designs of the numberless labours that have been carried into execution by Sansovino in various parts of Italy. For all this, although occupied, as has been related, with the management of so many things both public and private, and both in the city and abroad (for strangers, also, ran to him for models and designs of buildings, for figures, or for counsel, as did the Duke of Ferrara, who obtained a Hercules in the form of a giant, the Duke of Mantua, and the Duke of Urbino), he was always very zealous in the private and particular service of each of his own Lords Procurators, who, availing themselves of him both in Venice and elsewhere, and not doing a single thing without his assistance or counsel, kept him continually at work not only for themselves, but also for their friends and relatives, without any reward, he consenting to endure any inconvenience and fatigue in order to satisfy them. But above all he was greatly loved and held in infinite price by the Prince Gritti, who delighted in beautiful intellects, by Messer Vettorio Grimani, brother of the Cardinal, and by Messer Giovanni da Legge the Chevalier, all Procurators, and by Messer Marc'Antonio Justiniano, who became acquainted with him in Rome. For these illustrious men, exalted in spirit and truly regal in mind, being conversant with the affairs of the world and well informed in the noble and excellent arts, soon recognized his merit and how worthy he was to be cherished and esteemed, and availed themselves of him in due measure; and they used to say, in accord with the whole city, that the Procurators never had and never would have at any time another equal to him, for they knew very well how celebrated and renowned his name was with the men and princes of intellect in Florence and Rome and throughout all Italy, and every one held it as certain that not he only but also his descendants and all his posterity deserved to be endowed for ever in return for his singular genius. Jacopo was in body of ordinary stature, without any fat, and he walked with the person upright. He was white in complexion, with the beard red; and in his youth he was very graceful and handsome, and therefore much beloved by various women of some importance. After he became old, he had a venerable presence, with a beautiful white beard, and walked like a young man, insomuch that, having come to the age of ninety-three, he was still very strong and healthy and could see every least thing, however distant it might be, without spectacles, and when writing he kept his head erect, not bending over at all as is done by others. He delighted to dress handsomely, and was always very neat in his person; and he always took pleasure in women down to extreme old age, and much loved to talk of them. In his youth, by reason of his excesses, he was not very robust; but when he had become old he never suffered any illness, insomuch that for a period of fifty years, although at times he felt indisposed, he would never avail himself of any physician; nay, having had an apoplectic stroke for the fourth time at the age of eighty-four, he recovered by staying only two months in bed in a very dark and warm place, despising medicines. He had so good a stomach, that he was not afraid of anything, making no distinction between food that might be good and food that might be harmful; and in summer he lived almost entirely on fruits, eating very often as many as three cucumbers at a time, and half a citron, in his extreme old age. As for his qualities of mind, he was very prudent and foresaw future events in the matters of the present, weighing them against the past; and he was zealous in his affairs, not considering any fatigue, and never left his business to follow pleasures. He discoursed well and with many words upon no matter what subject that he understood, giving many illustrations with much grace; on which account he was very dear both to the great and to the small, and to his friends. And in his last years he had a memory still very fresh, and remembered in detail his childhood, the sack of Rome, and many things, fortunate or unfortunate, that he experienced in his time. He was courageous, and from his youth took delight in contending with those greater than himself, because, he used to say, by contending with the great a man advances, but against the little he lowers himself. He esteemed honour above everything in the world, wherefore in his affairs he was most loyal and a man of his word, and so pure in heart, that no offer, however great, could have corrupted him, although he was put to the test several times by his Signori, who for this and for other qualities regarded him not as their protomaster or minister, but as a father and brother, honouring him for his goodness, which was in no way feigned, but real. He was liberal with every man, and so loving towards his relatives, that he deprived himself of many comforts in order to assist them; although he lived always in repute and honour, as one who was observed by everyone. At times he let himself be overcome by anger, which was very great in him, but it soon passed; and very often with a few humble words you could make the tears come to his eyes. He had a surpassing love for the art of sculpture; such a love, indeed, that, to the end that it might be dispersed widely in various parts, he formed many disciples, making as it were a seminary of that art in Italy. Among these, very famous were Niccolò Tribolo and Solosmeo, Florentines; Danese Cattaneo of Carrara, a Tuscan, of supreme excellence in poetry as well as in sculpture; Girolamo da Ferrara, Jacopo Colonna of Venice, Luca Lancia of Naples, Tiziano da Padova, Pietro da Salò, Bartolommeo Ammanati of Florence, at the present day sculptor and protomaster to the great Duke of Tuscany, and, finally, Alessandro Vittoria of Trento, a rare master in portraits of marble, and Jacopo de' Medici of Brescia; who, reviving the memory of the excellence of their master, have employed their talents on many honoured works in various cities. Sansovino was much esteemed by Princes, among whom Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence, sought his judgment in building the Citadel of that city. And Duke Cosimo in the year 1540, Sansovino having gone on his affairs to his native city, not only sought his counsel in the matter of that fortress, but also strove to engage him in his service, offering him a good salary; and on his return from Florence Duke Ercole of Ferrara detained him about his person and proposed various conditions to him, making every effort to keep him in Ferrara. But he, being used to Venice, and finding himself comfortable in that city, where he had lived a great part of his life, and having a singular love for the Procurators, by whom he was so much honoured, would never listen to any of them. He was also invited by Pope Paul III, who wished to advance him to the charge of S. Pietro in the place of Antonio da San Gallo, and with this Monsignor della Casa, who was then Legate in Venice, occupied himself much; but all was in vain, because he said that he was not minded to exchange the manner of life of a republic for that of living under an absolute Prince. And King Philip of Spain, on his way to Germany, showed him much kindness at Peschiera, whither Jacopo had gone to see him. He had an immoderate desire of glory, and by reason of that used to spend his own substance on others (not without notable harm to his descendants), in the hope that there might remain some memory of him. Good judges say that although he had to yield to Michelagnolo, yet in certain things he was his superior. Thus in the fashioning of draperies, in children, and in the expressions of women, Jacopo had no equal, for the reason that his draperies in marble were very delicate and well executed, with beautiful folds and curves that revealed the nude beneath the vestments; his children he made tender and soft, without those muscles that adults have, and with their little arms and legs as if of flesh, insomuch that they were in no way different from the life; and the expressions of his women were sweet and pleasing, and as gracious as could be, as is clearly seen from various Madonnas made by him in many places, of marble and in low-relief, and from his statues of Venus and other figures. Now this man, having thus become celebrated in sculpture and in architecture a master without a rival, and having lived in the grace of mankind and also of God, who bestowed upon him the genius that made him illustrious, as has been related, when he had come to the age of ninety-three, feeling somewhat weary in body, took to his bed in order to rest; in which having lain without any kind of suffering, although he strove to rise and dress himself as if well, for a period of a month and a half, failing little by little, he asked for the Sacraments of the Church, which having received, while still hoping to live a few years, he sank gradually and died on the 2nd of November in the year 1570; and although in his old age he had run the whole course of nature, yet his death was a grief to all Venice. He left behind him his son Francesco, born at Rome in the year 1521, a man learned both in the law and in the humanities, from whom Jacopo saw three grandchildren born; a male child called, like his grandfather, Jacopo, and two female, one called Fiorenza, who died, to his infinite grief and sorrow, and the other Aurora. His body was borne with much honour to his chapel in S. Gimignano, where there was erected to his memory by his son the marble statue made by Jacopo himself while he was alive, with the epitaph given below in memory of his great worth: JACOBO SANSOVINO FLORENTINO QUI ROMÆ JULIO II, LEONI X, CLEMENTI VII, PONT. MAX., MAXIME GRATUS, VENETIIS ARCHITECTURÆ SCULPTURÆQUE INTERMORTUUM DECUS PRIMUS EXCITAVIT, QUIQUE A SENATU OB EXIMIAM VIRTUTEM LIBERALITER HONESTATUS, SUMMO CIVITATIS MOERORE DECESSIT, FRANCISCUS F. HOC MON. P. VIXIT ANN. XCIII. OB. V. CAL. DEC. MDLXX. His obsequies were likewise celebrated publicly at the Frari by the Florentine colony, with no slight pomp, and the oration was delivered by Messer Camillo Buonpigli, an excellent man. LEONE LIONI OF AREZZO OF LEONE LIONI OF AREZZO, AND OTHER SCULPTORS AND ARCHITECTS Since that which has been said above, here and there, of the Chevalier Leone, a sculptor of Arezzo, has been said incidentally, it cannot but be well to speak here in due order of his works, which are truly worthy to be celebrated and to pass into the memory of mankind. This Leone, then, having applied himself in the beginning to the goldsmith's art, and having made in his youth many beautiful works, and in particular portraits from life in dies of steel for medals, became in a few years so excellent, that he came to the knowledge of many great men and Princes, and particularly of the Emperor Charles V, by whom, having recognized his talents, he was set to works of greater importance than medals. Thus, not long after he became known to his Majesty, he made a statue of that Emperor in bronze, larger than life and in the round, which he then furnished with a very delicate suit of armour formed of two very thin shells, which can be put on and taken off with ease, and all wrought with such grace, that whoever sees the statue when covered does not notice it and can scarcely believe that it is nude below, and when it is nude no one would believe without difficulty that it could ever be so well clad in armour. This statue rests on the left leg, and with the right foot tramples on Fury, which is a recumbent figure bound in chains, with the torch beneath it and arms of various kinds. On the base of this work, which is now in Madrid, are these words: CÆSARIS VIRTUTE FUROR DOMITUS. After these statues Leone made a great die for striking medals of his Majesty, and on the reverse the Giants being slain by Jove with thunderbolts. For all which works the Emperor gave to Leone a pension of one hundred and fifty ducats a year on the Mint of Milan, with a very commodious house in the Contrada de' Moroni, and made him a Chevalier and of his household, besides giving him many privileges of nobility for his descendants. And while Leone was with his Majesty in Brussels, he had his rooms in the palace of the Emperor himself, who at times would go for recreation to see him at work. Not long afterwards he made another statue of the Emperor, in marble, and also those of the Empress and King Philip, and a bust of the same Emperor for placing on high between two panels in bronze. He made, likewise in bronze, the head of Queen Maria, that of Ferdinand, at that time King of the Romans, that of Maximilian his son, now Emperor, and that of Queen Leonora, with many others, which were placed in the Gallery of the Palace of Binche by Queen Maria, who had caused them to be made. But they did not stay there long, because King Henry of France set fire to the building by way of revenge, leaving written there these words, "Vela fole Maria";[14] I say by way of revenge, because a few years before that Queen had done the same to him. However it may have been, the work of that gallery did not proceed, and those statues are now partly in the Palace of the Catholic King at Madrid, and partly at Alicante, a sea-port, from which her Majesty intended to have them conveyed to Granada, where are the tombs of all the Kings of Spain. On returning from Spain, Leone brought with him two thousand crowns in cash, besides many other gifts and favours that were bestowed upon him by that Court. [Footnote 14: The story runs that in the year 1533 Queen Maria attacked and destroyed the Castle of Folembrai, and that in the following year King Henry of France, out of revenge, destroyed the fortress of Binche in Upper Hainault, leaving on the ruined walls the words "Voilà Folembrai"; which in the Italian have been corrupted into "Vela fole Maria."] [Illustration: TOMB OF GIAN JACOPO MEDICI (_After =Leone Lioni=. Milan: Duomo_) _Alinari_] For the Duke of Alva Leone has executed a head of the Duke, one of Charles V, and another of King Philip. For the very reverend Bishop of Arras, now Grand Cardinal, called Granvella, he has made some pieces in bronze of an oval form, each of two braccia, with rich borders, and containing half-length statues; in one is Charles V, in another King Philip, and in the third the Cardinal himself, portrayed from life, and all have bases with little figures of much grace. For Signor Vespasiano Gonzaga he has made in a great bust of bronze the portrait of Alva, which Gonzaga has placed in his house at Sabbionetto. For Signor Cesare Gonzaga he has executed, likewise in metal, a statue of four braccia, which has beneath it another figure that is entwined with a Hydra, in order to denote his father Don Ferrante, who by his worth and valour overcame the vicious envy that had sought to bring him into disgrace with Charles V in the matter of the government of Milan. This statue, which is clad in a toga and armed partly in the ancient and partly in the modern fashion, is to be taken to Guastalla and placed there in memory of that Don Ferrante, a most valorous captain. The same Leone has made, as has been told in another place, the tomb of Signor Giovanni Jacopo Medici, Marquis of Marignano and brother of Pope Pius IV, which stands in the Duomo of Milan, about twenty-eight palms in length and forty in height. This tomb is all of Carrara marble, and adorned with four columns, two of them black and white, which were sent by the Pope as rare things from Rome to Milan, and two others, larger, which are of a spotted stone similar to jasper; which are all accommodated under one and the same cornice, an unusual contrivance, by the desire of that Pope, who caused the whole work to be executed after the directions of Michelagnolo, excepting only the five figures of bronze that are there, which are by the hand of Leone. The first of these, the largest of them all, is the statue of the Marquis himself, standing upright and larger than life, which has in the right hand the baton of a General, and the left hand resting on a helmet that is on a very richly adorned trunk. On the left of this is a smaller statue, representing Peace, and on the right another signifying Military Virtue; and these are seated, and in aspect all sad and sorrowing. Of the other two, which are on high, one is Providence and the other Fame; and between them, on the same level, is a most beautiful Nativity of Christ in bronze, in low-relief. At the summit of the whole work are two figures of marble, which support that lord's escutcheon of balls. For this work seven thousand and eight hundred crowns were paid, according to the agreement made in Rome by the most illustrious Cardinal Morone and Signor Agabrio Scierbellone. The same master has made for Signor Giovan Battista Castaldo a statue likewise in bronze, which is to be placed in I know not what monastery, with some ornaments. For the above-named Catholic King he has executed a Christ in marble, more than three braccia high, with the Cross and with other Mysteries of the Passion, which is much extolled. Finally, he has in hand the statue of Signor Alfonso Davalos, the Marchese del Vasto of famous memory, which was entrusted to him by the Marchese di Pescara, his son; four braccia high, and likely to prove an excellent figure when cast, by reason of the diligence that he is devoting to its execution, and the good fortune that Leone has always had in his castings. Leone, in order to display the greatness of his mind, the beautiful genius that he has received from Nature, and the favour of Fortune, has built at great expense and with most beautiful architecture a house in the Contrada de' Moroni, so full of fantastic inventions, that there is perhaps no other like it in all Milan. In the distribution of the façade there are upon pilasters six captives each of six braccia and all of pietra viva, and between these, in certain niches, Fates in imitation of the antique, with little terminal figures, windows, and cornices all different from the common use and very graceful; and all the parts below correspond with beautiful order to those above, and the frieze-ornaments are all of various instruments of the arts of design. From the principal door one enters by a passage into a courtyard, in the centre of which, upon four columns, is the horse with the statue of Marcus Aurelius, cast in gesso from the original which is in the Campidoglio. By means of that statue he has intended that his house should be dedicated to Marcus Aurelius; and as for the captives, that fancy is interpreted by various persons in various ways. Besides the horse, he has in that beautiful and most commodious habitation, as has been told in another place, as many casts in gesso as he has been able to obtain of famous works in sculpture and casting, both ancient and modern. A son of Leone, called Pompeo, who is now in the service of King Philip of Spain, is in no way inferior to his father in executing dies of steel for medals and in casting figures that are marvellous. Wherefore at that Court he has been a competitor of Giovan Paolo Poggini, a Florentine, who also works in the service of that King and has made most beautiful medals. But Pompeo, having served that King many years, intends to return to Milan in order to enjoy his Aurelian house and the other labours of his excellent father, the loving friend of every man of talent. And now to say something of medals, and of the steel dies with which they are made. I believe that it may be affirmed with truth that our modern intellects have achieved as much as the ancient Romans once did in the excellence of the figures, and that in the lettering and in other parts they have surpassed them. Which may be seen clearly in twelve reverses--besides many others--that Pietro Paolo Galeotto has executed recently in the medals of Duke Cosimo, and they are these; Pisa restored almost to her pristine condition by means of the Duke, he having drained the country round and dried the marshy places, and having made many other improvements; the waters conducted to Florence from various places, the ornate and magnificent building of the Magistrates erected for the public convenience, the union of the States of Florence and Siena, the building of a city and two fortresses in Elba, the column conveyed from Rome and placed on the Piazza di S. Trinita in Florence, the preservation, completion and enlargement of the Library of S. Lorenzo for the public good, the foundation of the Order of the Knights of S. Stephen, the resignation of the government to the Prince, the fortifying of the State, the militia or trained companies of his dominion, and the Pitti Palace with its gardens, waters, and buildings, a work of such regal magnificence; of which reverses I do not give here either the lettering that they have around them, or their explanation, having to treat of them in another place. All these twelve reverses are beautiful to a marvel and executed with much diligence and grace, as is also the head of the Duke, which is of perfect beauty; and medals and other works in stucco, likewise, as I have said on another occasion, are being made of absolute perfection at the present day. And recently Mario Capocaccia of Ancona has executed with coloured stucco, in little cases, heads and portraits that are truly most beautiful; such as a portrait of Pope Pius V, which I saw not long since, and that of Cardinal Alessandrino. I have seen, also, portraits of the same kind by the hands of the sons of Polidoro, a painter of Perugia, which are very beautiful. But to return to Milan; looking again a year ago over the works of the sculptor Gobbo, of whom mention has been made in another place, I did not see anything that was otherwise than ordinary, excepting an Adam and Eve, a Judith, and a S. Helena, in marble, which are about the Duomo; with two other statues of dead persons, representing Lodovico, called Il Moro, and Beatrice his wife, which were to be placed upon a tomb by the hand of Giovan Jacomo della Porta, sculptor and architect to the Duomo of Milan, who in his youth executed many works under the said Gobbo; and those named above, which were to go on that tomb, are wrought with a high finish. The same Giovan Jacomo has executed many beautiful works for the Certosa of Pavia, and in particular on the tomb of the Conte di Virtù and on the façade of the church. From him one his nephew learned his art, by name Guglielmo, who in Milan, about the year 1530, applied himself with much study to copying the works of Leonardo da Vinci, which gave him very great assistance. Whereupon he went with Giovan Jacomo to Genoa, when in the year 1531 the latter was invited to execute the sepulchre of S. John the Baptist, and he devoted himself with great study to design under Perino del Vaga; and, not therefore abandoning sculpture, he made one of the sixteen pedestals that are in that sepulchre, on which account, it being seen that he was acquitting himself very well, he was commissioned to make all the others. Next, he executed two Angels in marble, which are in the Company of S. Giovanni; and for the Bishop of Servega he made two portraits in marble, and a Moses larger than life, which was placed in the Church of S. Lorenzo. And then, after he had made a Ceres of marble that was placed over the door of the house of Ansaldo Grimaldi, he executed for placing over the Gate of the Cazzuola, in that city, a statue of S. Catharine of the size of life; and after that the three Graces, with four little boys, of marble, which were sent into Flanders to the Grand Equerry of the Emperor Charles V, together with another Ceres of the size of life. [Illustration: EVE (_After =Cristofano Solari=. Milan: Duomo_) _Brogi_] Having executed these works in six years, Guglielmo in the year 1537 made his way to Rome, where he was much recommended by his uncle Giovan Jacomo to the painter Fra Sebastiano Viniziano, his friend, to the end that he might recommend him, as he did, to Michelagnolo Buonarroti. Which Michelagnolo, seeing Guglielmo to be spirited and very assiduous in labouring, began to conceive an affection for him, and, before any other thing, caused him to restore some antique things in the Farnese Palace, in which he acquitted himself in such a manner, that Michelagnolo put him into the service of the Pope. Another proof of his powers had been seen already in a tomb that he had executed at the Botteghe Scure, for the most part of metal, for Bishop Sulisse, with many figures and scenes in low-relief--namely, the Cardinal Virtues and others, wrought with much grace, and besides these the figure of the Bishop himself, which afterwards went to Salamanca in Spain. Now, while Guglielmo was engaged in restoring the statues, which are now in the loggia that is before the upper hall in the Farnese Palace, there took place in the year 1547 the death of Fra Sebastiano Viniziano, who, as has been told, had administered the office of the Piombo. Whereupon Guglielmo, with the favour of Michelagnolo and of others, so wrought upon the Pope, that he obtained the said office of the Piombo, with the charge of executing the tomb of Pope Paul III, which was to be placed in S. Pietro. For this he availed himself in the model, with better design, of the scenes and figures of the Theological and Cardinal Virtues that he had made for the above-named Bishop Sulisse, placing at the corners four children in four partitions, and four cartouches, and making in addition a bronze statue of the said Pontiff seated, giving the benediction; which statue was seventeen palms high. But doubting, on account of the size of the casting, lest the metal might grow cold and the work therefore not succeed, he placed the metal in the vessel below, in such a way that it might be gradually sucked upwards. And with this unusual method that casting came out very well, and as clean as the wax, so that the very surface that came from the fire had no need at all to be polished, as may be seen from the statue itself, which was placed below the first arches that support the tribune of the new S. Pietro. On this tomb, which according to a design by his hand was to be isolated, were to be placed four figures, which he executed in marble with beautiful inventions according as he was directed by M. Annibale Caro, who had the charge of this from the Pope and Cardinal Farnese. One was Justice, which is a nude figure lying upon some draperies, with the belt of the sword across the breast, and the sword hidden; in one hand she has the fasces of consular jurisdiction, and in the other a flame of fire, and she is young in countenance, and has the hair plaited, the nose aquiline, and the aspect full of expression. The second was Prudence in the form of a matron, young in aspect, with a mirror in the hand, and a closed book, and partly nude, partly draped. The third was Abundance, a young woman crowned with ears of corn, with a horn of plenty in one hand and the ancient corn-measure in the other, and clothed in such a manner as to show the nude beneath the draperies. The fourth and last was Peace, who is a matron with a boy that has lost his eyes, and with the Caduceus of Mercury. He made, likewise, a scene also of metal and after the directions of the above-named Caro, which was to be placed in the work, with two River Gods, one representing a lake and the other a river that is in the domains of the Farnesi; and, besides all these things, there was to be there a mount covered with lilies, and with the rainbow of Iris. But the whole was not afterwards carried into execution, for the reasons that have been given in the Life of Michelagnolo. It may be believed that even as these parts are in themselves beautiful and wrought with much judgment, so they would have succeeded as a whole together; and yet it is the air of the piazza[15] which gives the true light and enables us to form a correct judgment of a work. [Footnote 15: See last line on p. 112.] [Illustration: TOMB OF POPE PAUL III (_After =Guglielmo della Porta=. Rome: S. Peter's_) _Alinari_] The same Fra Guglielmo has executed during a period of many years fourteen stories of the life of Christ, for casting in bronze; each of which is four palms in breadth and six in height, excepting only one, which is twelve palms high and six broad, wherein is the Nativity of Jesus Christ, with most beautiful fantasies of figures. In the other thirteen are, Mary going with the Infant Christ on the ass to Jerusalem, with two figures in strong relief, and many in half-relief and low-relief; the Last Supper, with thirteen figures well composed, and a very rich building; the Washing of the Disciples' feet; the Prayer in the Garden, with five figures, and at the foot a multitude of great variety; Christ led before Annas, with six large figures, many lower down, and one in the distance; the Scourging at the Column, the Crowning with Thorns, the "Ecce Homo," Pilate washing his hands; Christ bearing the Cross, with fifteen figures, and others in the distance, going to Mount Calvary; Christ Crucified, with eighteen figures; and Christ taken down from the Cross. All which scenes, if they were cast, would form a very rare work, seeing that they have been wrought with much study and labour. Pope Pius IV had intended to have them executed for one of the doors of S. Pietro, but he had not time, being overtaken by death. Recently Fra Guglielmo has executed models in wax for three altars in S. Pietro; Christ taken down from the Cross, Peter receiving the Keys of the Church, and the Coming of the Holy Spirit, which would all be beautiful scenes. In short, this man has had, and still has, the greatest opportunities to exert himself and to execute works, seeing that the office of the Piombo gives such a revenue that the holder can study and labour for glory, which he who has not such advantages is not able to do; and yet Fra Guglielmo has executed no finished work between 1547 and this year of 1567. But it is the characteristic of those who hold that office to become sluggish and indolent; and that this is true, a proof is that this Guglielmo, before he became Friar of the Piombo, executed many heads in marble and other works, besides those that we have mentioned. It is true, indeed, that he has made four great Prophets in stucco, which are in the niches between the pilasters of the first great arch of S. Pietro. He also occupied himself much with the cars for the feast of Testaccio and other masquerades, which were held now many years ago in Rome. A pupil of this master has been one Guglielmo Tedesco, who, among other works, has executed a very rich and beautiful ornamentation of little statues in bronze, imitated from the best antiques, for a cabinet of wood (so it is called) which the Count of Pitigliano presented to the Lord Duke Cosimo. Which little figures are these; the horse of the Campidoglio, those of Monte Cavallo, the Farnese figures of Hercules, the Antinous and the Apollo of the Belvedere, and the heads of the Twelve Emperors, with others, all well wrought and very similar to the originals. Milan has also had another sculptor, dead this year, called Tommaso Porta, who worked marble excellently well, and in particular counterfeited antique heads in marble, which have been sold as antiques; and masks he made so well that in them no one has equalled him, of which I have one in marble by his hand, placed on the chimney-piece of my house at Arezzo, which everyone takes for an antique. This Tommaso made the heads of the Twelve Emperors in marble, the size of life, which were the rarest things. These Pope Julius III took, making him a present of an office of a hundred crowns a year in the Segnatura; and he kept the heads I know not how many months in his chamber, as choice things. But by the agency (so it is believed) of the above-named Fra Guglielmo and others who were jealous of him, such measures were taken against him, that, with no regard for the dignity of the gift bestowed upon him by that Pontiff, they were sent back to his house; where they were afterwards bought from him on better terms by merchants, and then sent to Spain. Not one of our imitators of antiques was superior to this Tommaso, of whom it has seemed to me right that record should be made, and the rather as he has passed to a better life, leaving name and fame for his ability. Many works, likewise, have been executed in Rome by one Leonardo, a Milanese, who has made recently two statues of marble, S. Peter and S. Paul, for the Chapel of Cardinal Giovanni Riccio da Montepulciano, which are much extolled and held to be good and beautiful figures. And the sculptors Jacopo and Tommaso Casignuola have made in the Chapel of the Caraffi, in the Church of the Minerva, the tomb of Pope Paul IV, and, besides other ornaments, a statue formed of pieces which represents that Pope, with a mantle of veined brocatello marble, and the trimming and other things of veined marbles of various colours, which render it marvellous. And so we see added to the other industries of our modern intellects this new one, and that sculptors proceed with colours in their sculpture to imitate painting. Which tomb has been executed by means of the great saintliness, goodness and gratitude of Pope Pius V, a Pontiff and Holy Father truly most saintly, most blessed, and most worthy of long life. Of Nanni di Baccio Bigio, a Florentine sculptor, besides what has been said of him in other places, I have to record that in his youth, under Raffaello da Montelupo, he applied himself in such a manner to sculpture, that in some little things that he did in marble he gave great promise that he would prove to be an able man. And having gone to Rome, under the sculptor Lorenzetto, while he gave his attention as his father had done also to architecture, he executed the statue of Pope Clement VII, which is in the choir of the Minerva, and a Pietà of marble, copied from that of Michelagnolo, which was placed in S. Maria de Anima, the Church of the Germans, as a work that is truly very beautiful. Another like it he made not long afterwards for Luigi del Riccio, a Florentine merchant, which is now in S. Spirito at Florence, in a chapel of that Luigi, who is no less extolled for such piety towards his native city than is Nanni for having executed the statue with much diligence and love. Nanni then applied himself under Antonio da San Gallo with more study to architecture, and gave his attention, while Antonio was alive, to the fabric of S. Pietro; where, falling from a staging sixty braccia high, and shattering himself, he escaped with his life by a miracle. Nanni has erected many edifices in Rome and in the country round, and has sought to obtain even more, and greater, as has been told in the Life of Michelagnolo. His work, also, is the Palace of Cardinal Montepulciano on the Strada Giulia, and a gate at Monte Sansovino built by order of Julius III, with a reservoir for water that is not finished, and a loggia and other apartments of the palace formerly built by the old Cardinal di Monte. And a work of Nanni, likewise, is the house of the Mattei, with many other buildings that have been erected or are still being constructed in Rome. A famous and most celebrated architect, also, among others of the present day, is Galeazzo Alessi of Perugia, who, serving in his youth the Cardinal of Rimini, whose chamberlain he became, executed among his first works, at the desire of that lord, the rebuilding of the apartments in the Fortress of Perugia, with so many conveniences and such beauty, that for a place so small it was a marvel, and many times already they have accommodated the Pope with all his Court. Then, after many other works that he executed for the said Cardinal, he was invited by the Genoese with much honour into the service of that Republic, for which the first work that he did was to restore and fortify the port and the mole; nay rather, to make it almost entirely different from what it was before. For, reaching out over a good space into the sea, he caused to be constructed a great and most beautiful port, which lies in a semicircle, very ornate with rustic columns and with niches about them, at the extremities of which semicircle there meet two little bastions, which defend that great port. On the piazza, then, above the mole and at the back of the great port, towards the city, he made a very large portico of the Doric Order, which accommodates the Guard, and over it, comprising all the space that it covers and likewise the two bastions and the gate, there is left a platform arranged for the operations of artillery, which commands the mole in the manner of a cavalier and defends the port both within and without. And besides this, which is finished, arrangements are being made for the enlargement of the city after his design, and his model has already been approved by the Signoria; and all with much praise for Galeazzo, who in these and other works has shown himself to be a most ingenious architect. The same Galeazzo has executed the new street of Genoa, with so many palaces built in the modern manner after his designs, that many declare that in no other city of Italy is there to be found a street more magnificent and grand than that one, nor one more full of the richest palaces, all built by those Signori with the persuasion and directions of Galeazzo, to whom all confess that they owe a very great obligation, in that he has been the inventor and executor of works which render their city, with regard to edifices, incomparably more grand and magnificent than it was before. The same master has built other streets without Genoa, and among others that which starts from Ponte Decimo on the way to Lombardy. He has restored the walls of the city towards the sea, and the fabric of the Duomo, making therein the tribune and the cupola; and he has built, also, many private edifices, such as the country palace of Messer Luca Giustiniano, that of Signor Ottaviano Grimaldi, the Palaces of two Doges, one for Signor Battista Grimaldi, and many others of which there is no need to speak. [Illustration: PALAZZO GRIMALDI (_After =Galeazzo Alessi=. Genoa_) _Alinari_] Now I will not omit to say that he has made the lake and island of Signor Adamo Centurioni, abounding in waters and fountains contrived in various beautiful and fantastic ways, and also the fountain of the Captain Larcaro, near the city, which is a most remarkable work; but beyond all the different kinds of fountains that he has made for many persons, most beautiful is the bath that he has made in the house of Signor Giovan Battista Grimaldi at Bisagno. This bath, which in form is round, has in the centre a little basin wherein eight or ten persons can bathe without inconvenience; which basin has hot water from four heads of sea-monsters that appear as if issuing from it, and cold water from as many frogs that are over those heads of monsters. Around that basin, to which one descends by three circular steps, there curves a space wide enough for two persons to walk in comfort. The circular wall of the whole bath is divided into eight spaces, in four of which are four great niches, each of which contains a round basin that is raised a little from the ground, half being within the niche and half remaining without; and in the centre of each basin a man can bathe, hot and cold water coming from a great mask that pours it through the horns and draws it in again when necessary by the mouth. In one of the other four spaces is the door, and in the other three are windows and places to sit; and all the eight spaces are separated by terminal figures, which support the cornice upon which rests the round vaulting of the whole bath. From the centre of that vaulting hangs a great ball of crystal-glass, on which is painted the sphere of the heavens, and within it the globe of the earth, from certain parts of which, when one uses the bath at night, comes a brilliant light that renders the place as light as if it were mid-day. I forbear to speak of the anteroom, the dressing-room, and the small bath, which are full of stucco-ornaments, and of the pictures that adorn the place, so as not to be longer than is needful; let it suffice to say that they are in no way unworthy of so great a work. In Milan, under the direction of the same Galeazzo, has been built the Palace of Signor Tommaso Marini, Duke of Terranuova; and also, possibly, the façade of the fabric of S. Celso that is now being built, the auditorium of the Cambio, which is round in form, the already begun Church of S. Vittore, and many other edifices. He has also sent designs over all Italy and abroad, wherever he has not been able to be in person, of many edifices, palaces, and temples, of which I shall say no more; this much being enough to make him known as a talented and most excellent architect. I will not omit--seeing that he is one of our Italians, although I do not know any particulars of his works--that in France, so I am informed, a most excellent architect, and particularly in the work of fortification, is Rocco Guerrini of Marradi, who in the recent wars of that kingdom, to his great profit and honour, has executed many ingenious and laudable works. And so in this last part, in order not to defraud any man of the proper credit of his talent, I have discoursed of some sculptors and architects now living, of whom hitherto I had not had a convenient occasion to speak. DON GIULIO CLOVIO OF DON GIULIO CLOVIO MINIATURIST There has never been, nor perhaps will there ever be for many centuries, a more rare or more excellent miniaturist, or we would rather say painter of little things, than Don Giulio Clovio, in that he has surpassed by a great measure all others who have ever been engaged in that kind of painting. This master was born in the province of Sclavonia, or rather, Croatia, at a place called Grisone, in the diocese of Madrucci, although his elders, of the family of the Clovi, had come from Macedonia; and the name given to him at baptism was Giorgio Giulio. As a child he gave his attention to letters; and then, by a natural instinct, to design. And having come to the age of eighteen, being desirous to make proficience, he came to Italy and placed himself in the service of Cardinal Marino Grimani, with whom for a period of three years he applied himself in such a manner to drawing, that he achieved a much better result than perhaps up to that time had been expected of him; as was seen in some designs of medals and their reverses that he made for that lord, drawn with the pen most minutely, with extreme and almost incredible diligence. Whereupon, having seen that he was more assisted by nature in little things than in great, he resolved, and wisely, that he would give his attention to miniature, since his works in that field were full of grace and beautiful to a marvel; being urged to this, also, by many friends, and in particular by Giulio Romano, a painter of bright renown, who was the man who before any other taught him the method of using tints and colours in gum and in distemper. [Illustration: THE DEPOSITION (_After the painting upon parchment by =Giulio Clovio=. Florence: Pitti, No. 241_) _Mansell_] Among the first works that Clovio coloured was a Madonna, which, as a man of ingenious and beautiful spirit, he copied from the book of the Life of the Virgin; which Madonna was printed in wood-engraving among the first sheets of Albrecht Dürer. Whereupon, having acquitted himself well in that his first work, he made his way by means of Signor Alberto da Carpi, who was then serving in Hungary, into the service of King Louis and of Queen Maria, the sister of Charles V; for which King he executed a Judgment of Paris in chiaroscuro, which much pleased him, and for the Queen the Roman Lucretia killing herself, with some other things, which were held to be very beautiful. The death of that King then ensuing, and the ruin of everything in Hungary, Giorgio Giulio was forced to return to Italy; where he had no sooner arrived than the old Cardinal Campeggio took him into his service. Thereupon, being settled to his liking, he executed a Madonna in miniature for that lord, and some other little things, and disposed himself to attend at all costs with greater study to the matters of art; and so he set himself to draw, and to seek with every effort to imitate the works of Michelagnolo. But this fine resolution was interrupted by the unhappy sack of Rome in the year 1527, when the poor man, finding himself the prisoner of the Spaniards and maltreated, in his great misery had recourse to divine assistance, making a vow that if he escaped safely from that miserable ruin and out of the hands of those new Pharisees, he would straightway become a friar. Wherefore, having escaped by the grace of God and made his way to Mantua, he became a monk in the Monastery of S. Ruffino, a seat of the Order of Canons Regular of Scopeto; having been promised, besides peace and quiet of mind and tranquil leisure in the service of God, that he would have facilities for attending at times, as it were by way of pastime, to the work of miniature. Having thus taken the habit and the name of Don Giulio, at the end of a year he made his profession; and then for a period of three years he stayed peacefully enough among those fathers, changing from one monastery to another according to his pleasure, as has been related elsewhere, and always working at something. During that time he completed a great choir-book with delicate illuminations and most beautiful borderings, making in it, among other things, a Christ appearing to the Magdalene in the form of a gardener, which was held to be a rare thing. Wherefore, growing in courage, he depicted--but in figures much larger--the Adulterous Woman accused by the Jews before Christ, with a good number of figures; all which he copied from a picture that had been executed in those days by Tiziano Vecelli, that most excellent painter. Not long afterwards it happened that Don Giulio, in transferring himself from one monastery to another, as monks or friars do, by misfortune broke a leg. Being therefore conveyed by those fathers to the Monastery of Candiana, that he might be better attended, he lay there some time without recovering, perhaps having been wrongly treated, as is common, no less by the fathers than by the physicians. Which hearing, Cardinal Grimani, who much loved him for his excellence, obtained from the Pope the power to keep him in his service and to have him cured. Whereupon Don Giulio, having thrown off the habit, and his leg being healed, went to Perugia with the Cardinal, who was Legate there; and, setting to work, he executed for him in miniature these works; an Office of Our Lady, with four most beautiful stories, and in an Epistolar three large stories of S. Paul the Apostle, one of which was sent not long afterwards to Spain. He also made for him a very beautiful Pietà, and a Christ Crucified, which after the death of Grimani came into the hands of Messer Giovanni Gaddi, Clerk of the Chamber. All these works caused Don Giulio to become known in Rome as an excellent craftsman, and were the reason that Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who has always assisted, favoured, and desired to have about him rare and gifted men, having heard his fame and seen his works, took him into his service, in which he has remained ever since and still remains, old as he is. For that lord, I say, he has executed an infinite number of the rarest miniatures, of which I shall mention here only a part, because to mention them all is almost impossible. In a little picture he has painted Our Lady with her Son in her arms, with many Saints and figures around, and Pope Paul III kneeling, portrayed from life so well, that for all the smallness of that miniature he seems as if alive; and all the other figures, likewise, appear to lack nothing save breath and speech. That little picture, as a thing truly of the rarest, was sent to Spain to the Emperor Charles V, who was amazed by it. After that work the Cardinal caused him to set his hand to executing in miniature the stories in an Office of Our Lady, written in lettering shaped by Monterchi, who is a rare master in such work. Whereupon Don Giulio, resolving that this work should be the highest flight of his powers, applied himself to it with so much study and diligence, that no other was ever executed with more; wherefore he has achieved with the brush things so stupendous, that it does not appear possible to go so far with the eye or with the hand. Don Giulio has divided this labour into twenty-six little scenes, each two sheets being next to one another, the figure and the prefiguration, and every little scene has around it an ornament different from the other, with figures and fantasies appropriate to the story that it represents. Nor do I wish to grudge the labour of describing them briefly, for the reason that everyone is not able to see them. On the first page, where Matins begin, is the Angel bringing the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, and in the ornament a border full of little children that are marvellous; and in the other scene Isaiah speaking with King Ahaz. In the second, for Lauds, is the Visitation of the Virgin to Elizabeth, which has an ornament in imitation of metal; and in the opposite scene are Justice and Peace embracing one another. For Prime is the Nativity of Christ, and opposite, in the Earthly Paradise, Adam and Eve eating the Fruit; both the one and the other with ornaments full of nudes and other figures and animals, portrayed from nature. For Terce he has painted the Shepherds with the Angel appearing to them, and in the opposite scene the Tiburtine Sibyl showing to the Emperor Octavian the Virgin with Christ her Son in Heaven; both the one and the other with ornaments of various borders and figures, all coloured, and containing the portrait of Alexander the Great and of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. For Sext there is the Circumcision of Christ, where Pope Paul III is portrayed for Simeon, and in the scene are portraits of Mancina and Settimia, gentlewomen of Rome, who were of surpassing beauty; and around it a border well adorned, which likewise encloses with the same design the other story that is beside it, wherein is S. John the Baptist baptizing Christ, a scene full of nudes. For Nones he has made there the Magi adoring Christ, and opposite to that Solomon adored by the Queen of Sheba, both one and the other with borders rich and varied, and at the foot of this the whole Feast of Testaccio executed with figures smaller than ants, which is a marvellous thing to see, that a work so small should have been executed to perfection with the point of a brush; this is one of the greatest things that mortal hand could do or mortal eye could behold, and in it are all the liveries that Cardinal Farnese devised at that time. For Vespers there is Our Lady flying with Christ into Egypt, and opposite is the Submersion of Pharaoh in the Red Sea; with varied borders at the sides. For Complines there is the Coronation of Our Lady in Heaven, with a multitude of Angels, and in the other scene opposite is Ahasuerus crowning Esther; with appropriate borders. For the Mass of the Madonna he has placed first, in a border in imitation of cameos, the Angel Gabriel announcing the Word to the Virgin; and the two scenes are Our Lady with Jesus Christ in her arms and God the Father creating Heaven and Earth. Before the Penitential Psalms is the Battle in which Uriah the Hittite was done to death by command of King David, wherein are horses and warriors wounded or dead, all marvellous; and opposite, in the other scene, David in Penitence; with ornaments and also little grotesques. But he who would sate himself with marvelling, let him look at the Litanies, where Don Giulio has woven a maze with the letters of the names of the Saints; and there in the margin above is a Heaven filled with Angels around the most holy Trinity, and one by one the Apostles and the other Saints; and on the other side the Heaven continues with Our Lady and all the Virgin Saints. On the margin below he has depicted with the most minute figures the procession that Rome holds for the solemn office of the Corpus Christi, thronged with officers with their torches, Bishops, and Cardinals, and the most Holy Sacrament borne by the Pope, with the rest of the Court and the Guard of Halberdiers, and finally Castel S. Angelo firing artillery; all such as to cause every acutest wit to marvel with amazement. At the beginning of the Office for the Dead are two scenes; Death triumphing over all mortals, mighty rulers of States and Kingdoms and the common herd alike, and opposite, in the other scene, the Resurrection of Lazarus, and also Death in combat with some on horseback. For the Office of the Cross he has made Christ Crucified, and opposite is Moses with the rain of serpents, and the same Moses placing on high the serpent of brass. For that of the Holy Spirit is that same Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles, and opposite is the Building of the Tower of Nimrod. That work was executed by Don Giulio in a period of nine years with so much study and labour, that in a manner of speaking it would never be possible to pay for the work with no matter what price; nor is one able to see any more strange and beautiful variety than there is in all the scenes, of bizarre ornaments and various movements and postures of nudes both male and female, studied and well detailed in every part, and placed appropriately all around in those borders, in order to enrich the work. Which diversity of things infuses such beauty into that whole work, that it appears a thing divine and not human, and above all because with his colours and his manner of painting he has made the figures, the buildings and the landscapes recede and fade into the distance with all those considerations that perspective requires, and with the greatest perfection that is possible, insomuch that, whether near or far, they cause everyone to marvel; not to speak of the thousand different kinds of trees, wrought so well that they appear as if grown in Paradise. In the stories and inventions may be seen design, in the composition order and variety, and richness in the vestments, which are executed with such beauty and grace of manner, that it seems impossible that they could have been fashioned by the hand of man. Wherefore we may say, as we said at the beginning, that Don Giulio has surpassed in this field both ancients and moderns, and that he has been in our times a new, if smaller, Michelagnolo. The same master once executed a small picture with little figures for the Cardinal of Trent, so pleasing and so beautiful, that that lord made a present of it to the Emperor Charles V; and afterwards, for the same lord, he painted another of Our Lady, and with it the portrait of King Philip, which were very beautiful and therefore presented to the said Catholic King. For the above-named Cardinal Farnese he painted a little picture of Our Lady with her Son in her arms, S. Elizabeth, a young S. John, and other figures, which was sent to Ruy Gomez in Spain. In another, which the above-named Cardinal now has, he painted S. John the Baptist in the Desert, with landscapes and animals of great beauty, and another like it he executed afterwards for the same lord, for sending to King Philip; and a Pietà, which he painted with the Madonna and many other figures, was presented by the same Farnese to Pope Paul IV, who as long as he lived would always have it beside him. And a scene in which David is cutting off the head of the giant Goliath, was presented by the same Cardinal to Madama Margherita of Austria, who sent it to King Philip, her brother, together with another which that most illustrious lady caused Don Giulio to execute as a companion to it, wherein was Judith severing the head of Holofernes. Many years ago Don Giulio stayed many months with Duke Cosimo, and during that time executed some works for him, part of which were sent to the Emperor and other lords, and part remained with his most illustrious Excellency, who, among other things, caused him to copy a little head of Christ from one of great antiquity that his Excellency himself possesses, which once belonged to Godfrey of Bouillon, King of Jerusalem; which head, they say, is more like the true image of the Saviour than any other that there may be. Don Giulio painted for the said Lord Duke a Christ on the Cross with the Magdalene at the foot, which is a marvellous thing, and a little picture of a Pietà, of which we have the design in our book together with another, also by the hand of Don Giulio, of Our Lady standing with her Son in her arms, dressed in the Jewish manner, with a choir of Angels about her, and many nude souls in the act of commending themselves to her. But to return to the Lord Duke; he has always loved dearly the excellence of Don Giulio, and sought to obtain works by his hand; and if it had not been for the regard that he felt for Farnese, he would not have let him go when he stayed some months, as I have said, in his service in Florence. The Duke, then, besides the works mentioned, has a little picture by the hand of Don Giulio, wherein is Ganymede borne to Heaven by Jove transformed into an Eagle, copied from the one that Michelagnolo once drew, which is now in the possession of Tommaso de' Cavalieri, as has been told elsewhere. In like manner, the Duke has in his study a S. John the Baptist seated upon a rock, and some portraits by the same hand, which are admirable. Don Giulio once executed a picture of a Pietà, with the Maries and other figures around, for the Marchioness of Pescara, and another like it in every part for Cardinal Farnese, who sent it to the Empress, who is now the wife of Maximilian and sister of King Philip; and another little picture by the same master's hand he sent to his Imperial Majesty, in which, in a most beautiful little landscape, is S. George killing the Serpent, executed with supreme diligence. But this was surpassed in beauty and design by a larger picture that Don Giulio painted for a Spanish gentleman, in which is the Emperor Trajan as he is seen in medals with the Province of Judæa on the reverse; which picture was sent to the above-named Maximilian, now Emperor. For the same Cardinal Farnese he has executed two other little pictures; in one is Jesus Christ nude, with the Cross in His hands, and in the other is Christ led by the Jews and accompanied by a vast multitude to Mount Calvary, with the Cross on His shoulder, and behind Him Our Lady and the other Maries in attitudes full of grace, such as might move to pity a heart of stone. And in two large sheets for a Missal, he has painted for that Cardinal Jesus Christ instructing the Apostles in the doctrine of the Holy Evangel, and the Universal Judgment--a work so beautiful, nay, so marvellous, so stupendous, that I am confounded at the thought of it; and I hold it as certain that it is not possible, I do not say to execute, but to see or even imagine anything in miniature more beautiful. It is a notable thing that in many of these works, and particularly in the Office of the Madonna described above, Don Giulio has made some little figures not larger than very small ants, with all the members so depicted and distinguished, that more could not have been done in figures of the size of life; and that everywhere there are dispersed portraits from nature of men and women, not less like the reality than if they had been executed, large as life and very natural, by Tiziano or Bronzino. Besides which, in some ornaments of the borders there may be seen little figures both nude and in other manners, painted in the likeness of cameos, which, marvellously small as they are, resemble in those proportions the most colossal giants; such is the art and surpassing diligence that Don Giulio uses in his work. Of him I have wished to give to the world this information, to the end that those may know something of him who are not or will not be able to see any of his works, from their being almost all in the hands of great lords and personages. I say almost all, because I know that some private persons have in little cases most beautiful portraits by his hand, of various lords, their friends, or ladies loved by them. But, however that may be, it is certain that the works of men such as Don Giulio are not public, nor in places where they can be seen by everyone, like the pictures, sculptures, and buildings of the other masters of these our arts. At the present day Don Giulio, although he is old and does not study or attend to anything save to seeking the salvation of his soul by good and holy works and by a life wholly apart from the things of the world, and is in every way an old man, yet continues constantly to work at something, there where he lives well attended and in perfect peace in the Palace of the Farnesi, where he is most courteous in showing his work with much willingness to all who go to visit and see him, as they visit the other marvels of Rome. DIVERS ITALIAN CRAFTSMEN OF DIVERS ITALIAN CRAFTSMEN STILL LIVING There is now living in Rome one who is certainly very excellent in his profession, Girolamo Siciolante of Sermoneta, of whom, although something has been said in the Life of Perino del Vaga, whose disciple he was, assisting him in the works of Castel S. Angelo and in many others, nevertheless it cannot but be well to say also here so much as his great excellence truly deserves. Among the first works, then, that this Girolamo executed by himself, was an altar-piece twelve palms high painted by him in oils at the age of twenty, which is now in the Badia of S. Stefano, near his native town of Sermoneta; wherein, large as life, are S. Peter, S. Stephen, and S. John the Baptist, with certain children. After that altar-piece, which was much extolled, he painted for the Church of S. Apostolo, in Rome, an altar-piece in oils with the Dead Christ, Our Lady, S. John, the Magdalene, and other figures, all executed with diligence. Then in the Pace, in the marble chapel that Cardinal Cesis caused to be constructed, he decorated the whole vaulting with stucco-work in a pattern of four pictures, painting therein the Nativity of Jesus Christ, the Adoration of the Magi, the Flight into Egypt, and the Massacre of the Innocents; all which was a work worthy of much praise and executed with invention, judgment, and diligence. For that same church, not long after, the same Girolamo painted an altar-piece fifteen palms high, which is beside the high-altar, of the Nativity of Jesus Christ, which was very beautiful; and then in another altar-piece in oils, for the Sacristy of the Church of S. Spirito in Rome, the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, which is a work full of grace. In like manner, in the Church of S. Maria de Anima, the church of the German colony, he painted in fresco the whole of the Chapel of the Fugger family (for which Giulio Romano once executed the altar-piece), with large scenes of the Life of Our Lady. For the high-altar of S. Jacopo degli Spagnuoli he painted in a large altar-piece a very beautiful Christ on the Cross with some Angels about Him, Our Lady, and S. John, and besides this two large pictures that are one on either side of it, each nine palms high and with a single figure, S. James the Apostle and S. Alfonso the Bishop; in which pictures it is evident that he used much study and diligence. On the Piazza Giudea, in the Church of S. Tommaso, he painted in fresco the whole of a chapel that looks out over the court of the Cenci Palace, depicting there the Nativity of the Madonna, the Annunciation by the Angel, and the Birth of Our Saviour Jesus Christ. For Cardinal Capodiferro he painted a hall in his palace, which is very beautiful, with stories of the ancient Romans. And at Bologna he once executed for the Church of S. Martino the altar-piece of the high-altar, which was much commended. For Signor Pier Luigi Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, whom he served for some time, he executed many works, and in particular a picture that is in Piacenza, painted for a chapel, wherein are Our Lady, S. Joseph, S. Michael, S. John the Baptist, and an Angel, of eight palms. [Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF S. CATHARINE (_After the painting by =Sermoneta=. Rome: S. Maria Maggiore_) _Alinari_] After his return from Lombardy he painted in the Minerva, in the passage of the sacristy, a Christ on the Cross, and another in the church. Then he painted in oils a S. Catharine and a S. Agatha; and in S. Luigi he executed a scene in fresco in competition with Pellegrino Pellegrini of Bologna and the Florentine Jacopo del Conte. In an altar-piece in oils, sixteen palms high, executed not long since for the Church of S. Alò, opposite to the Misericordia, a Company of the Florentines, he painted Our Lady, S. James the Apostle, and the Bishops S. Alò and S. Martino; and in S. Lorenzo in Lucina, in the Chapel of the Countess of Carpi, he painted in fresco a S. Francis who is receiving the Stigmata. In the Hall of Kings, at the time of Pope Pius IV, as has been related, he executed a scene in fresco over the door of the Chapel of Sixtus; in that scene, which was much extolled, Pepin, King of the Franks, is presenting Ravenna to the Roman Church, and is leading as prisoner Astulf, King of the Lombards; and we have the design of it by Girolamo's own hand in our book, with many others by the same master. And, finally, he has now in hand the Chapel of Cardinal Cesis in S. Maria Maggiore, for which he has already executed in a large altar-piece the Martyrdom of S. Catharine on the wheel, which is a most beautiful picture, as are the others on which both there and elsewhere, with much study, he is continually at work. I shall not make mention of the portraits and other pictures and little works of Girolamo, because, besides that they are without number, these are enough to make him known as a valiant and excellent painter. Having said above, in the Life of Perino del Vaga, that the painter Marcello Mantovano worked many years under him at pictures that gave him a great name, I have to say in this place, coming more to particulars, that he once painted in the Church of S. Spirito the whole Chapel of S. Giovanni Evangelista and its altar-piece, with the portrait of a Knight Commander of the same S. Spirito, who built that church and constructed that chapel; which portrait is a very good likeness, and the altar-piece most beautiful. Whereupon a Friar of the Piombo, having seen his beautiful manner, caused him to paint in fresco in the Pace, over the door that leads from the church into the convent, Jesus Christ as a boy disputing with the Doctors in the Temple, which is a very lovely work. But since he has always delighted to make portraits and little things, abandoning larger works, he has executed an infinite number of these; and among them may be seen some of Pope Paul III, which are beautiful and speaking likenesses. In like manner, from the designs of Michelagnolo and from his works he has executed a vast number of things likewise small, and among these he has depicted in one of his works the whole façade of the Judgment, which is a rare thing and executed excellently well; and in truth, for small paintings, it would not be possible to do better. For which reason, finally, that most gentle Messer Tommaso de' Cavalieri, who has always favoured him, has caused him to paint after the design of Michelagnolo an altar-picture of the Annunciation of the Virgin, most beautiful, for the Church of S. Giovanni Laterano; which design by Buonarroti's own hand, imitated by this Marcello, Leonardo Buonarroti, the nephew of Michelagnolo, presented to the Lord Duke Cosimo together with some others of fortifications and architecture and other things of the rarest. And this must suffice for Marcello, who has been attending lately to working at little things, executing them with a truly supreme and incredible patience. Of Jacopo del Conte, a Florentine, who like those named above dwells in Rome, enough will have been said, what with this and other places, after certain other particulars have been given here. This Jacopo, then, having been much inclined from his earliest youth to portraying from the life, has desired that this should be his principal profession, although on occasions he has executed altar-pictures and works in fresco in some numbers, both in Rome and without. Of his portraits--not to speak of them all, which would make a very long story--I shall say only that he has portrayed all the Pontiffs that there have been from Pope Paul III to the present day, and all the lords and ambassadors of importance who have been at that Court, and likewise the military captains and great men of the house of Colonna and of the Orsini, Signor Piero Strozzi, and an infinite number of Bishops, Cardinals, and other great prelates and lords, not to speak of many men of letters and other men of quality; all which has caused him to acquire fame, honour, and profit in Rome, so that he lives honourably and much at his ease with his family in that city. From his boyhood he drew so well that he gave promise, if he should persevere, of becoming excellent, and so in truth he would have been, but, as I have said, he turned to that to which he felt himself inclined by nature. Nevertheless, his works cannot but be praised. By his hand is a Dead Christ in an altar-piece that is in the Church of the Popolo, and in another that he has executed for the Chapel of S. Dionigi in S. Luigi, with stories, is the first-named Saint. But the most beautiful work that he ever did was in two scenes in fresco that he once painted, as has been told in another place, in the Florentine Company of the Misericordia, with an altar-picture of Christ taken down from the Cross, with the Thieves fixed on their crosses, and the Madonna in a swoon, painted in oil-colours, all beautiful and executed with diligence and with great credit to him. He has made many pictures throughout Rome, and figures in various manners, and has executed a number of full-length portraits, both nude and draped, of men and women, which have proved very beautiful, because the subjects were not otherwise. He has also portrayed, according as occasions arose, many heads of noble ladies, gentlewomen and princesses who have been in Rome; and among others, I know that he once portrayed Signora Livia Colonna, a most noble lady, incomparable in her illustrious blood, her virtue, and her beauty. And let this suffice for Jacopo del Conte, who is still living and constantly at work. I might have made known, also, many from our Tuscany and from other parts of Italy, their names and their works, which I have passed over lightly, because many of them, being old, have ceased to work, and others who are young are now trying their hands and will become known better by their works than by means of writings. But of Adone Doni of Assisi, because he is still living and working, although I made mention of him in the Life of Cristofano Gherardi, I shall give some particulars of his works, such as are in Perugia and throughout all Umbria, and in particular many altar-pieces in Foligno. But his best works are in S. Maria degli Angeli at Assisi, in the little chapel where S. Francis died, wherein are some stories of the life of that Saint executed in oils on the walls, which are much extolled, besides which, he has painted the Passion of Christ in fresco at the head of the refectory of that convent, in addition to many other works that have done him honour; and his gentleness and courtesy have caused him to be considered liberal and courteous. In Orvieto there are two young men also of that same profession, one a painter called Cesare del Nebbia, and the other a sculptor, both well on the way to bringing it about that their city, which up to the present has always invited foreign masters to adorn her, will no longer be obliged, if they follow up the beginnings that they have made, to seek other masters. There is working at Orvieto, in S. Maria, the Duomo of that city, a young painter called Niccolò dalle Pomarancie, who, having executed an altar-piece wherein is Christ raising Lazarus, has given signs--not to speak of other works in fresco--of winning a name among the others named above. And now that we are come to the end of our Italian masters still living, I shall say only that no less service has been rendered by one Lodovico, a Florentine sculptor, who, so I am told, has executed notable works in England and at Bari; but, since I have not found here either his relatives or his family name, and have not seen his works, I am not able (as I fain would) to make any other record of him than this mention of his name. DIVERS FLEMINGS OF DIVERS FLEMINGS Now, although in many places mention has been made of the works of certain excellent Flemish painters and of their engravings, but without any order, I shall not withhold the names of certain others--for of their works I have not been able to obtain full information--who have been in Italy, and I have known the greater number of them, in order to learn the Italian manner; believing that no less is due to their industry and to the labour endured by them in our arts. Leaving aside, then, Martin of Holland, Jan van Eyck of Bruges, and Hubert his brother, who in 1510 invented and brought to light the method of painting in oil-colours, as has been told elsewhere, and left many works by his hand in Ghent, Ypres, and Bruges, where he lived and died in honour; after them, I say, there followed Roger van der Weyden of Brussels, who executed many works in several places, but principally in his native city, and for the Town Hall four most beautiful panel-pictures in oils, of things appertaining to Justice. A disciple of that Roger was Hans,[16] by whom, as has been told, we have in Florence the Passion of Christ in a little picture that is in the hands of the Duke. To him there succeeded the Fleming Louis of Louvain, Pieter Christus, Justus of Ghent, Hugo of Antwerp, and many others, who, for the reason that they never went forth from their own country, always adhered to the Flemish manner. And if Albrecht Dürer, of whom we have spoken at some length, did once come to Italy, nevertheless he kept always to one and the same manner; although he was spirited and vivacious, particularly in his heads, as is well known to all Europe. [Footnote 16: Hans Memling.] But, leaving these, and together with them Lucas of Holland and others, I became acquainted in Rome, in 1532, with one Michael Coxie, who gave no little study to the Italian manner, and executed many works in fresco in that city, and in particular two chapels in S. Maria de Anima. Having then returned to his own country and made himself known as an able man, I hear that among other works he executed for King Philip of Spain an altar-picture copied from one by the above-named Jan van Eyck that is in Ghent; and in that copy, which was taken into Spain, is the Triumph of the Agnus Dei. There studied in Rome, not long afterwards, Martin Heemskerk, a good master of figures and landscapes, who has executed in Flanders many pictures and many designs for copper-engravings, which, as has been related elsewhere, have been engraved by Hieronymus Cock, whom I came to know in Rome while I was serving Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici. And all these have been most beautiful inventors of stories, and close observers of the Italian manner. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A MAN (_After the painting by =Johannes Calcar=. Paris: Louvre, No. 1185_) _X phot._] In Naples, also, in the year 1545, I came to know Johann of Calcar, a Flemish painter, who became very much my friend; a very rare craftsman, and so well practised in the Italian manner, that his works were not recognized as by the hand of a Fleming. But he died young in Naples, while great things were expected of him; and he drew for Vessalio his studies in anatomy. Before him, however, there was much in repute one Dirk of Louvain, a good master in that manner; and also Quentin of the same place, who in his figures always followed nature as well as he was able, as also did a son of his called Johann. Joost van Cleef, likewise, was a great colourist and rare in making portraits from life, for which King Francis of France employed him much in executing many portraits of various lords and ladies. Famous painters of the same province, also, have been--and some of them still are--Jan van Hemessen, Matthys Cock of Antwerp, Bernard of Brussels, Jan Cornelis of Amsterdam, Lambert of the same city, Hendrik of Dinant, Joachim Patinier of Bouvignes, and Jan Scorel, Canon of Utrecht, who carried into Flanders many new methods of painting taken from Italy. Besides these, there have been Jean Bellegambe of Douai, Dirk of Haarlem, from the same place, and Franz Mostaert, who was passing skilful in painting landscapes in oils, fantasies, bizarre inventions, dreams, and suchlike imaginings. Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Brueghel of Breda were imitators of that Mostaert, and Lancelot Blondeel has been excellent in painting fires, nights, splendours, devils, and other things of that kind. Pieter Koeck has had much invention in stories, and has made very beautiful cartoons for tapestries and arras-hangings; with a good manner and practice in matters of architecture, on which account he has translated into the Teuton tongue the works on architecture of Sebastiano Serlio of Bologna. And Jean Gossart of Mabuse was almost the first who took from Italy into Flanders the true method of making scenes full of nude figures and poetical inventions; and by his hand is a large altar-piece in the Abbey of Middelburg in Zeeland. Of all these information has been received from Maestro Giovanni Strada of Bruges, a painter, and from Giovan Bologna of Douai, a sculptor; both Flemings and men of excellence, as we shall relate in the Treatise on the Academicians. As for those of the same province who are still living and in repute, the first among them, both for his works in painting and for his many copper-plate engravings, is Franz Floris of Antwerp, a disciple of the above-mentioned Lambert Lombard. This Floris, who is held to be most excellent, has worked in such a manner in every field of his profession, that no one, they say there, has expressed better the emotions of the soul, sorrow, gladness, and the other passions, and all with most beautiful and bizarre inventions; insomuch that, likening him to the Urbinate, they call him the Flemish Raffaello. It is true that this is not demonstrated to us fully by the printed sheets, for the reason that the engraver, be he ever so able, never by a great measure equals the originals or the design and manner of him who has drawn them. A fellow-disciple with Floris, learning under the discipline of the same master, has been Willem Key of Breda, and also of Antwerp, a temperate, serious, and judicious man, and a close imitator of the life and the objects of nature, and in addition passing fertile in invention, and one who more than any other executes his pictures with good gradation and all full of sweetness and grace; and although he has not the facility, boldness, and terrible force of his brother-disciple Floris, for all that he is held to be truly excellent. Michael Coxie, of whom I have spoken above, saying that he carried the Italian manner into Flanders, is much celebrated among the Flemish craftsmen for being profoundly serious and making his figures such that they have in them much of the virile and severe; wherefore the Fleming Messer Domenicus Lampsonius, of whom mention will be made in the proper place, discoursing of the two masters named above and of this Michael, likens them to a fine trio in music, in which each plays his part with excellence. Much esteemed, also, among the same men, is Antonius Moor of Utrecht in Holland, painter to the Catholic King, whose colours, they say, in portraying whatever he may choose from nature, vie with the reality and deceive the eye most beautifully. The same Lampsonius writes to me that Moor, who is a man of very gentle ways and much beloved, has painted a most beautiful altar-picture of Christ rising from the dead, with two Angels, S. Peter, and S. Paul, which is a marvellous thing. Marten de Vos, who copies excellently well from nature, is held to be good in invention and colouring. But in the matter of making beautiful landscapes, none are equal to Jakob Grimmer, Hans Bol, and others, all of Antwerp and able men, of whom, nevertheless, I have not been able to obtain particular information. Pieter Aertsen, called Long Peter, painted in his native city of Amsterdam an altar-picture with wing-panels, containing Our Lady and other Saints; which whole work cost two thousand crowns. They also celebrate as a good painter Lambert of Amsterdam, who dwelt many years in Venice, and had the Italian manner very well. This Lambert was the father of Federigo, of whom, from his being one of our Academicians, record will be made in the proper place. Pieter Brueghel of Antwerp, likewise, they celebrate as an excellent master, and Lambert van Noort of Amersfort in Holland, and as a good architect Gilis Mostaert, brother of the above-named Franz; and Pieter Pourbus, a mere lad, has given proof that he is destined to become an excellent painter. Now, that we may learn something of the miniaturists of those countries: they say that these have been excellent there, Marinus of Zierickzee, Lucas Horebout of Ghent, Simon Bening of Bruges, and Gerard; and likewise some women, Susanna, sister of the said Lucas, who was invited for that work into the service of Henry VIII, King of England, and lived there in honour all the rest of her life; Clara Skeysers of Ghent, who at the age of eighty died, so they say, a virgin; Anna, daughter of Meister Seghers, a physician; Levina, daughter of the above-named Meister Simon of Bruges, who was married by the said Henry of England to a nobleman, and held in estimation by Queen Mary, even as she is now by Queen Elizabeth; and likewise Catharina, daughter of Meister Jan van Hemessen, who went to Spain into the service of the Queen of Hungary, with a good salary. In short, many other women in those parts have been excellent miniaturists. In the work of glass and of making windows there have been many able men in the same province; Arthus van Noort of Nymwegen, Borghese of Antwerp, Dierick Jacobsz Vellaert, Dirk van Staren of Kampen, and Jan Haeck of Antwerp, by whom are the windows in the Chapel of the Sacrament in the Church of S. Gudule in Brussels. And here in Tuscany many very beautiful windows of fired glass have been made for the Duke of Florence by Wouter Crabeth and Giorgio, Flemings and able men, from the designs of Vasari. In architecture and sculpture the most celebrated Flemings are Sebastian van Oja of Utrecht, who served Charles V in some fortifications, and then King Philip; Willem van Antwerp; Willem Keur of Holland, a good architect and sculptor; Jan van Dalen, sculptor, poet and architect; and Jakob Breuck, sculptor and architect, who executed many works for the Queen Regent of Hungary, and was the master of Giovan Bologna of Douai, one of our Academicians, of whom we shall speak in a short time. Jan de Mynsheere of Ghent, also, is held to be a good architect, and Matthaeus Manemaker of Antwerp, who is with the King of the Romans, an excellent sculptor; and Cornelis Floris, brother of the above-named Franz, is likewise an excellent sculptor and architect, and the first who introduced into Flanders the method of making grotesques. Others who give their attention to sculpture, with much honour to themselves, are Willem Paludanus, a very studious and diligent sculptor, brother of the above-named Heinrich; Jan der Sart of Nymwegen, Simon van Delft, and Joost Janszoon of Amsterdam. And Lambert Suavius of Liège is a very good architect and master in engraving prints with the burin, wherein he has been followed by Joris Robyn of Ypres, Dirk Volkaerts and Philip Galle, both of Haarlem, Lucas van Leyden, and many others; who have all been in Italy in order to learn and to draw the antiquities, and to return home, as for the most part they have done, excellent masters. But greater than any of those named above has been Lambert Lombard of Liège, a man great in letters, judicious in painting, and excellent in architecture, the master of Franz Floris and Willem Key; of the excellencies of which Lambert and of others I have received much information in letters from M. Domenicus Lampsonius of Liège, a man well lettered and of much judgment in everything, who was the familiar confidant of Cardinal Pole of England during his lifetime, and now is secretary to Monsignor the Prince Bishop of Liège. That gentleman, I say, once sent me the life of the said Lambert written in Latin, and he has saluted me several times in the name of many of our craftsmen from that province; and a letter that I have by his hand, dated October 30, 1564, is written in this tenor: "For four years back I have had it constantly in mind to thank you, honoured Sir, for two very great benefits that I have received from you, although I know that this will appear to you a strange exordium from one whom you have never seen or known. And strange, indeed, it would be, if I had not known you, which has been from the time when my good fortune, or rather, our Lord God, willed that by His Grace there should come into my hands, I know not in what way, your most excellent writings concerning the architects, painters, and sculptors. But at that time I did not know one word of Italian, whereas now, thanks be to God, for all that I have never seen Italy, by reading your writings I have gained such little knowledge as has encouraged me to write you this letter. And to this desire to learn your tongue I have been attracted by your writings, which perhaps those of no other man could have done; being drawn to seek to understand them by a natural and irresistible love that I have borne from childhood to these three most beautiful arts, but above all to that most pleasing to every age, sex, and rank, and hurtful to none, your art of painting. In which art, although I was at that time wholly ignorant and wanting in judgment, now, by means of the frequently reiterated reading of your writings, I understand so much--little though it may be, and as it were nothing--as is yet enough to enable me to lead an agreeable and happy life; and this I value more than all the honours, comforts and riches of this world. By this little I mean only that I could copy with oil-colours, as with any kind of drawing-instrument, the objects of nature, and particularly nudes and vestments of every sort; but I have not had courage enough to plunge deeper, as for example, to paint things more hazardous which require a hand more practised and sure, such as landscapes, trees, waters, clouds, splendours, fires, etc. And although in these things, as also in inventions, up to a certain point, it is possible that in case of necessity I could show that I have made some little proficience by means of the reading I have mentioned, yet I have been content, as I have said, to confine myself to making only portraits, and the rather because the many occupations which my office necessarily involves do not permit me to do more. And in order to prove myself in some way appreciative and grateful for these benefits, that by your means I have learned a most beautiful tongue and the art of painting, I would have sent you with this letter a little portrait of my face, taken with a mirror, had I not doubted whether my letter would find you in Rome or not, since at the present moment you might perchance be living in Florence or your native city of Arezzo." This letter contains, in addition, many other particulars that are not here to the point. In others, since, he has prayed me in the name of many honourable gentlemen of those parts, who have heard that these Lives are being reprinted, that I should add to them three treatises on sculpture, painting, and architecture, with drawings of figures, by way of elucidation according to necessity, in order to expound the secrets of the arts, as Albrecht Dürer and Serlio have done, and Leon Battista Alberti, who has been translated by M. Cosimo Bartoli, a gentleman and Academician of Florence. Which I would have done more than willingly, but my intention has been only to describe the lives and works of our craftsmen, and not to teach the arts, with the methods of drawing the lines of painting, architecture, and sculpture; besides which, the work having grown under my hands for many reasons, it will be perchance too long, even without adding treatises. But it was not possible or right for me to do otherwise than I have done, or to defraud anyone of his due praise and honour, nor yet the world of the pleasure and profit that I hope may be derived from these labours. INDEX OF NAMES OF THE CRAFTSMEN MENTIONED IN VOLUME IX Abate, Niccolò dell' (Niccolò da Modena), 148 Adone Doni, 261 Aertsen, Pieter, 268 Agnolo, Baccio d', 40, 41, 194 Agnolo Bronzino, 118, 125, 128, 133, 137, 252 Agnolo di Donnino, 29, 30 Agresti, Livio (Livio da Forlì), 155 Aimo, Domenico (Vecchio), 189 Alberti, Leon Batista, 271 Albrecht Dürer, 163, 246, 265, 271 Alessandro Allori (Alessandro del Bronzino), 133, 138 Alessandro (Scherano da Settignano), 55 Alessandro Vittoria, 204-206, 223 Alessi, Galeazzo, 239-242 Alesso Baldovinetti, 182 Alfonso Lombardi, 167 Allori, Alessandro (Alessandro del Bronzino), 133, 138 Alonzo Berughetta, 20, 189 Ammanati, Bartolommeo, 69, 70, 73, 118, 125, 126, 129, 207, 208, 223 Amsterdam, Lambert of (Lambert Lombard), 266-268, 270 Andrea Calamech, 129 Andrea Contucci (Andrea Sansovino), 15, 40, 41, 187, 202, 216 Andrea del Minga, 131 Andrea del Sarto, 20, 43, 188, 193, 194 Andrea Mantegna, 211 Andrea Palladio, 211-214 Andrea Sansovino (Andrea Contucci), 15, 40, 41, 187, 202, 216 Anna Seghers, 269 Antonio Begarelli (Modena), 113 Antonio da San Gallo (the elder), 16, 40, 41 Antonio da San Gallo (the younger), 61-67, 196, 197, 224, 239 Antonio di Gino Lorenzi, 131 Antonio di Marco di Giano (Carota), 51 Antonio Mini, 47-51, 69, 81, 107, 109 Antonius Moor, 268 Antwerp, Hugo of, 265 Antwerp, Willem van, 269 Apelles, 133, 168 Arca, Niccolò dell', 11 Aretino, Leone (Leone Lioni), _Life_, 229-232. 95, 233 Aristotile (Bastiano) da San Gallo, 20, 29, 30 Arnolfo di Lapo, 194 Arthus van Noort, 269 Ascanio Condivi (Ascanio dalla Ripa Transone), 5, 107 Baccio Bandinelli, 20, 49, 126, 190 Baccio d'Agnolo, 40, 41, 194 Baccio da Montelupo, 55, 188, 190, 239 Bagnacavallo, Bartolommeo da, 147 Bagnacavallo, Giovan Battista da, 147, 148 Baldassarre Peruzzi, 65, 196 Baldovinetti, Alesso, 182 Bandinelli, Baccio, 20, 49, 126, 190 Bandini, Giovanni di Benedetto (Giovanni dell'Opera), 126, 130, 140, 141 Barbara de' Longhi, 155 Barbiere, Domenico del, 149 Barozzi, Jacopo (Vignuola), 102, 146, 147 Bartolommeo Ammanati, 69, 70, 73, 118, 125, 126, 129, 207, 208, 223 Bartolommeo Bozzato (Girolamo Bozza), 183 Bartolommeo da Bagnacavallo, 147 Bartolommeo Montagna, 211 Bartolommeo Passerotto, 156 Bartolommeo Suardi (Bramantino da Milano), 190 Bassano, Jacopo da, 175, 176 Bastiano (Aristotile) da San Gallo, 20, 29, 30 Battista del Cavaliere (Battista Lorenzi), 131, 140, 141 Battista del Cinque, 51 Battista del Tasso, 51 Battista di Benedetto Fiammeri, 126 Battista Farinato, 214 Battista Franco, 199, 205, 217 Battista Lorenzi (Battista del Cavaliere), 131, 140, 141 Battista Naldini, 134 Begarelli, Antonio (Modena), 113 Bellegambe, Jean, 266 Bellini, Giovanni, 159, 160, 162, 163 Benedetto da Rovezzano, 191 Bening, Levina, 269 Bening, Simon, 268 Benvenuto Cellini, 51, 118, 125 Benvenuto Garofalo, 202 Bernard of Brussels, 266 Bernardino Pinturicchio, 190 Bernardo Timante Buontalenti, 135-137 Bertoldo, 8 Berughetta, Alonzo, 20, 189 Bigio, Nanni di Baccio, 69, 76, 100, 101, 113, 239 Blondeel, Lancelot, 267 Bol, Hans, 268 Bologna, Giovan, 267, 269 Bologna, Ruggieri da, 147 Bolognese, Pellegrino (Pellegrino Pellegrini, or Tibaldi), 151-154, 258 Bonifazio (of Venice), 214 Bordone, Paris, 178-182 Borghese (of Antwerp), 269 Bosch, Hieronymus, 267 Bosco, Maso dal (Maso Boscoli), 55 Boscoli, Giovanni, 156 Boscoli, Maso (Maso dal Bosco), 55 Bozzato, Bartolommeo (Girolamo Bozza), 183 Bramante da Urbino, 27-29, 31, 65, 71, 188-190 Bramantino da Milano (Bartolommeo Suardi), 190 Bresciano, Jacopo (Jacopo de' Medici), 206, 207, 223 Breuck, Jakob, 269 Bronzino, Agnolo, 118, 125, 128, 133, 137, 252 Bronzino, Alessandro del (Alessandro Allori), 133, 138 Brueghel, Pieter, 267, 268 Brunelleschi, Filippo, 43, 44, 133 Brussels, Bernard of, 266 Bugiardini, Giuliano, 29, 30, 95 Buglioni, Santi, 132 Buonarroti, Michelagnolo, _Life_, 3-141. 145, 153, 162, 170, 171, 187, 193-195, 215, 216, 224, 231, 235, 236, 239, 246, 250, 251, 259 Buontalenti, Bernardo Timante, 135-137 Butteri, Giovan Maria, 131 Cadore, Tiziano da (Tiziano Vecelli), _Life_, 159-178. 48, 145, 153, 159-179, 182, 183, 201, 202, 247, 252 Calamech, Andrea, 129 Calamech, Lazzaro, 129 Calcagni, Tiberio, 83, 84, 98-100 Calcar, Johann of (Giovanni Fiammingo), 178, 266 Capocaccia, Mario, 233 Caravaggio, Polidoro da, 170 Carota (Antonio di Marco di Giano), 51 Carpaccio, Vittore (Vittore Scarpaccia), 210, 211 Carrara, Danese da (Danese Cattaneo), 176, 204, 208-210, 214, 223 Casignuola, Jacopo, 238 Casignuola, Tommaso, 238 Castel Bolognese, Giovanni da, 164 Castelfranco, Giorgione da, 159-162, 165, 179 Catharina van Hemessen, 269 Cattaneo, Danese (Danese da Carrara), 176, 204, 208-210, 214, 223 Cavaliere, Battista del (Battista Lorenzi), 131, 140, 141 Cavalori, Mirabello (Mirabello di Salincorno), 126 Cellini, Benvenuto, 51, 118, 125 Cesare Cesariano, 190 Cesare del Nebbia, 261 Cesariano, Cesare, 190 Christus, Pieter, 265 Ciappino, 51 Ciciliano, Jacopo, 98 Cimabue, Giovanni, 133 Cinque, Battista del, 51 Cioli, Valerio, 129, 140, 141 Clara Skeysers, 269 Cleef, Joost van, 266 Clovio, Don Giulio, _Life_, 245-253 Cock, Hieronymus, 266 Cock, Matthys, 266 Colonna, Jacopo, 202, 203, 223 Condivi, Ascanio (Ascanio dalla Ripa Transone), 5, 107 Conte, Jacopo del, 95, 152, 258, 260, 261 Contucci, Andrea (Andrea Sansovino), 15, 40, 41, 187, 202, 216 Cornelis Floris, 269 Cornelis, Jan, 266 Coxie, Michael, 266-268 Crabeth, Wouter, 269 Credi, Lorenzo di, 190 Cristofano Gherardi, 261 Cristofano Gobbo (Cristofano Solari), 14, 234 Cristofano Rosa, 177 Cristofano Solari (Cristofano Gobbo), 14, 234 Crocifissaio, Girolamo del (Girolamo Macchietti), 126 Dalen, Jan van, 269 Danese Cattaneo (Danese da Carrara), 176, 204, 208-210, 214, 223 Daniello Ricciarelli (Daniello da Volterra), 95, 100, 101, 103, 107, 121, 122 Dante, Girolamo (Girolamo di Tiziano), 183 Danti, Vincenzio, 128, 139 David Ghirlandajo, 5, 6, 182 Delft, Simon van, 269 Dierick Jacobsz Vellaert, 269 Dinant, Hendrik of, 266 Dirk of Haarlem, 266 Dirk of Louvain, 266 Dirk van Staren, 269 Dirk Volkaerts, 270 Domenico Aimo (Vecchio), 189 Domenico del Barbiere, 149 Domenico Ghirlandajo, 5-9, 182 Domenico Poggini, 131 Domenicus Lampsonius, 268, 270, 271 Don Giulio Clovio, _Life_, 245-253 Donato (Donatello), 8, 10, 111, 133, 138, 169 Doni, Adone, 261 Donnino, Agnolo di, 29, 30 Dosso Dossi, 163 Dürer, Albrecht, 163, 246, 265, 271 Eyck, Hubert van, 265 Eyck, Jan van, 265, 266 Fabbro, Pippo del, 192 Fabrizio Viniziano, 215 Faenza, Jacopone da, 154 Faenza, Marco da (Marco Marchetti), 155, 156 Fallaro, Jacopo, 214 Farinato, Battista, 214 Federigo Fiammingo (Federigo di Lamberto, or Del Padovano), 127, 268 Ferrarese, Girolamo (Girolamo Lombardi), 202, 223 Fiammeri, Battista di Benedetto, 126 Fiammingo, Federigo (Federigo di Lamberto, or Del Padovano), 127, 268 Fiammingo, Giorgio, 269 Fiammingo, Giovanni (Johann of Calcar), 178, 266 Fiesole, Simone da, 15, 16 Filippo Brunelleschi, 43, 44, 133 Filippo Lippi, Fra, 119, 133 Floris, Cornelis, 269 Floris, Franz, 267-270 Fontana, Prospero, 147, 148, 150-152 Forlì, Livio da (Livio Agresti), 155 Fra Filippo Lippi, 119, 133 Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli, 51, 117, 133 Fra Guglielmo della Porta, 68, 69, 234-238 Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del Piombo, 68, 106, 109, 111, 162, 235 Francesco del Tadda, 97 Francesco Francia, 26, 27 Francesco Granacci, 5, 6, 8, 20, 29, 30 Francesco Primaticcio, _Description of Works_, 145-150. 151, 156 Francesco Salviati, 133 Francesco Verbo (Verlo), 211 Francia, Francesco, 26, 27 Francia, Piero, 130 Franciabigio, 20 Franco, Battista, 199, 205, 217 Franz Floris, 267-270 Franz Mostaert, 266-268 Franzese, Giovanni, 88 Gaddi, Taddeo, 133 Galeazzo Alessi, 239-242 Galeotto, Pietro Paolo, 233 Galle, Philip, 270 Garofalo, Benvenuto, 202 Gerard, 268 Ghent, Justus of, 265 Gherardi, Cristofano, 261 Gherardo, 182 Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 114 Ghirlandajo, David, 5, 6, 182 Ghirlandajo, Domenico, 5-9, 182 Ghirlandajo, Michele di Ridolfo, 130 Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo, 20 Gian Maria Verdezotti, 178 Giano, Antonio di Marco di (Carota), 51 Gilis Mostaert, 268 Giorgio Fiammingo, 269 Giorgio Vasari. See Vasari (Giorgio) Giorgione da Castelfranco, 159-162, 165, 179 Giotto, 3, 119, 133, 182 Giovan Battista da Bagnacavallo, 147, 148 Giovan Bologna, 267, 269 Giovan Jacomo della Porta, 234, 235 Giovan Maria Butteri, 131 Giovan Paolo Poggini, 232, 233 Giovanni (of Vicenza), 211 Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli, Fra, 51, 117, 133 Giovanni Antonio Licinio (Pordenone), 160, 167, 168 Giovanni Bellini, 159, 160, 162, 163 Giovanni Boscoli, 156 Giovanni Cimabue, 133 Giovanni da Castel Bolognese, 164 Giovanni da Udine, 42, 51 Giovanni dell'Opera (Giovanni di Benedetto Bandini), 126, 130, 140, 141 Giovanni Fiammingo (Johann of Calcar), 178, 266 Giovanni Franzese, 88 Giovanni Pisano, 11 Giovanni Speranza, 211 Giovanni Strada (Jan van der Straet), 134, 135, 267 Girolamo Bozza (Bartolommeo Bozzato), 183 Girolamo da Sermoneta (Girolamo Siciolante), 152, 257-259 Girolamo Dante (Girolamo di Tiziano), 183 Girolamo del Crocifissaio (Girolamo Macchietti), 126 Girolamo di Tiziano (Girolamo Dante), 183 Girolamo Ferrarese (Girolamo Lombardi), 202, 223 Girolamo Macchietti (Girolamo del Crocifissaio), 126 Girolamo Miruoli, 156 Girolamo Pironi, 211 Girolamo Siciolante (Girolamo da Sermoneta), 152, 257-259 Giuliano Bugiardini, 29, 30, 95 Giuliano da San Gallo, 16, 29, 30, 188, 189 Giulio Clovio, Don, _Life_, 245-253 Giulio Romano, 146, 168, 245, 257, 258 Giuseppe Salviati (Giuseppe Porta), 214 Gobbo, Cristofano (Cristofano Solari), 14, 234 Gossart, Jean, 267 Granacci, Francesco, 5, 6, 8, 20, 29, 30 Grimmer, Jakob, 268 Guerrini, Rocco, 242 Guglielmo della Porta, Fra, 68, 69, 234-238 Guglielmo Tedesco, 237 Haarlem, Dirk of, 266 Haeck, Jan, 269 Hans Bol, 268 Hans Memling, 265 Heemskerk, Martin, 266 Heinrich Paludanus, 269 Hemessen, Catharina van, 269 Hemessen, Jan van, 266, 269 Hendrik of Dinant, 266 Hieronymus Bosch, 267 Hieronymus Cock, 266 Horebout, Lucas, 268 Horebout, Susanna, 268, 269 Hubert van Eyck, 265 Hugo of Antwerp, 265 Indaco, Jacopo L', 29, 30 Irene di Spilimbergo, 175 Jacopo Barozzi (Vignuola), 102, 146, 147 Jacopo Bresciano (Jacopo de' Medici), 206, 207, 223 Jacopo Casignuola, 238 Jacopo Ciciliano, 98 Jacopo Colonna, 202, 203, 223 Jacopo da Bassano, 175, 176 Jacopo da Pontormo, 20, 107, 110, 133, 134 Jacopo de' Medici (Jacopo Bresciano), 206, 207, 223 Jacopo del Conte, 95, 152, 258, 260, 261 Jacopo di Sandro, 29, 30 Jacopo Fallaro, 214 Jacopo L'Indaco, 29, 30 Jacopo Palma, 160 Jacopo Pisbolica, 214, 215 Jacopo Sansovino (Jacopo Tatti), _Life_, 187-202, 215-225. 20, 40, 41, 107, 145, 166, 170, 187-204, 206-208, 210, 215-225 Jacopo Tintoretto, 214 Jacopo Zucchi, 134 Jacopone da Faenza, 154 Jakob Breuck, 269 Jakob Grimmer, 268 Jan Cornelis, 266 Jan de Mynsheere, 269 Jan der Sart, 269 Jan Haeck, 269 Jan Scorel, 266 Jan van Dalen, 269 Jan van der Straet (Giovanni Strada), 134, 135, 267 Jan van Eyck, 265, 266 Jan van Hemessen, 266, 269 Janszoon, Joost, 269 Jean Bellegambe, 266 Jean Gossart, 267 Joachim Patinier, 266 Johann of Calcar (Giovanni Fiammingo), 178, 266 Johann of Louvain, 266 Joost Janszoon, 269 Joost van Cleef, 266 Joris Robyn, 270 Justus of Ghent, 265 Keur, Willem, 269 Key, Willem, 267, 268, 270 Koeck, Pieter, 267 Lambert Lombard (Lambert of Amsterdam), 266-268, 270 Lambert Suavius, 269, 270 Lambert Van Noort, 268 Lamberto, Federigo di (Federigo Fiammingo, or Del Padovano), 127, 268 Lampsonius, Domenicus, 268, 270, 271 Lancelot Blondeel, 267 Lancia, Luca, 223 Lapo, Arnolfo di, 194 Lastricati, Zanobi, 125, 132 Lazzaro Calamech, 129 Leon Batista Alberti, 271 Leonardo da Vinci, 15, 19, 234 Leonardo Milanese, 238 Leone Lioni (Leone Aretino), _Life_, 229-232. 95, 233 Levina Bening, 269 Leyden, Lucas van, 265, 270 Licinio, Giovanni Antonio (Pordenone), 160, 167, 168 Ligorio, Pirro, 84, 94, 95, 102 L'Indaco, Jacopo, 29, 30 Lioni, Leone (Leone Aretino), _Life_, 229-232. 95, 233 Lioni, Pompeo, 232, 233 Lippi, Fra Filippo, 119, 133 Livio Agresti (Livio da Forlì), 155 Lodovico (of Florence), 262 Lodovico Rosso, 182 Lombard, Lambert (Lambert of Amsterdam), 266-268, 270 Lombardi, Alfonso, 167 Lombardi, Girolamo (Girolamo Ferrarese), 202, 223 Longhi, Barbara de', 155 Longhi, Luca de', 154, 155 Lorenzetto, 20, 239 Lorenzi, Antonio di Gino, 131 Lorenzi, Battista (Battista del Cavaliere), 131, 140, 141 Lorenzo della Sciorina (Lorenzo Sciorini), 128 Lorenzo di Credi, 190 Lorenzo Ghiberti, 114 Lorenzo Sabatini, 151 Lorenzo Sciorini (Lorenzo della Sciorina), 128 Louis of Louvain, 265 Louvain, Dirk of, 266 Louvain, Johann of, 266 Louvain, Louis of, 265 Louvain, Quentin of, 266 Luca de' Longhi, 154, 155 Luca Lancia, 223 Luca Signorelli, 190 Lucas Horebout, 268 Lucas van Leyden, 265, 270 Lugano, Tommaso da, 206 Macchietti, Girolamo (Girolamo del Crocifissaio), 126 Manemaker, Matthaeus, 269 Mantegna, Andrea, 211 Marcello Mantovano (Marcello Venusti), 106, 259, 260 Marco da Faenza (Marco Marchetti), 155, 156 Marinus (of Zierickzee), 268 Mario Capocaccia, 233 Marten de Vos, 268 Martin Heemskerk, 266 Martin Schongauer (Martino), 7, 265 Masaccio, 10, 133 Maso dal Bosco (Maso Boscoli), 55 Matthaeus Manemaker, 269 Matthys Cock, 266 Maturino, 20 Medici, Jacopo de' (Jacopo Bresciano), 206, 207, 223 Memling, Hans, 265 Menighella, 114 Michael Coxie, 266-268 Michelagnolo Buonarroti, _Life_, 3-141. 145, 153, 162, 170, 171, 187, 193-195, 215, 216, 224, 231, 235, 236, 239, 246, 250, 251, 259 Michele di Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, 130 Milanese, Leonardo, 238 Milano, Bramantino da (Bartolommeo Suardi), 190 Minga, Andrea del, 131 Mini, Antonio, 47-51, 69, 81, 107, 109 Minio, Tiziano (Tiziano da Padova), 203, 223 Mirabello di Salincorno (Mirabello Cavalori), 126 Miruoli, Girolamo, 156 Modena (Antonio Begarelli), 113 Modena, Niccolò da (Niccolò dell'Abate), 148 Montagna, Bartolommeo, 211 Montelupo, Baccio da, 55, 188, 190, 239 Montelupo, Raffaello da, 51, 55, 69, 239 Montorsoli, Fra Giovanni Agnolo, 51, 117, 133 Moor, Antonius, 268 Mosca, Simone, 69 Mostaert, Franz, 266-268 Mostaert, Gilis, 268 Mynsheere, Jan de, 269 Naldini, Battista, 134 Nanni di Baccio Bigio, 69, 76, 100, 101, 113, 239 Nanni Unghero, 188 Nebbia, Cesare del, 261 Niccolò (Tribolo), 20, 51, 77, 78, 202, 223 Niccolò da Modena (Niccolò dell'Abate), 148 Niccolò dalle Pomarancie, 261 Niccolò dell'Abate (Niccolò da Modena), 148 Niccolò dell'Arca, 11 Noort, Arthus van, 269 Noort, Lambert van, 268 Oja, Sebastian van, 269 Opera, Giovanni dell' (Giovanni di Benedetto Bandini), 126, 130, 140, 141 Orazio Sammacchini, 154 Orazio Vecelli, 171 Padova, Tiziano da (Tiziano Minio), 203, 223 Padovano, Federigo del (Federigo di Lamberto, or Fiammingo), 127, 268 Palladio, Andrea, 211-214 Palma, Jacopo, 160 Paludanus, Heinrich, 269 Paludanus, Willem, 269 Paolo Ponzio, 149 Paolo Uccello, 133 Paris Bordone, 178-182 Parrhasius, 133 Passerotto, Bartolommeo, 156 Patinier, Joachim, 266 Pellegrino Bolognese (Pellegrino Pellegrini or Tibaldi), 151-154, 258 Perino del Vaga, 20, 61, 151, 234, 257, 259 Perugino, Pietro, 189 Peruzzi, Baldassarre, 65, 196 Peruzzi, Salustio, 82 Philip Galle, 270 Pieri, Stefano, 137 Piero Francia, 130 Pieter Aertsen, 268 Pieter Brueghel, 267, 268 Pieter Christus, 265 Pieter Koeck, 267 Pieter Pourbus, 268 Pietro da Salò, 204, 223 Pietro Paolo Galeotto, 233 Pietro Perugino, 189 Pietro Urbano, 44, 107 Piloto, 42, 43, 47, 48 Pinturicchio, Bernardino, 190 Piombo, Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del, 68, 106, 109, 111, 162, 235 Pippo del Fabbro, 192 Pironi, Girolamo, 211 Pirro Ligorio, 84, 94, 95, 102 Pisano, Giovanni, 11 Pisbolica, Jacopo, 214, 215 Poggini, Domenico, 131 Poggini, Giovan Paolo, 232, 233 Polidoro (of Perugia), 234 Polidoro da Caravaggio, 170 Pomarancie, Niccolò dalle, 261 Pompeo Lioni, 232, 233 Pontormo, Jacopo da, 20, 107, 110, 133, 134 Ponzio, Paolo, 149 Pordenone (Giovanni Antonio Licinio), 160, 167, 168 Porta, Fra Guglielmo della, 68, 69, 234-238 Porta, Giovan Jacomo della, 234, 235 Porta, Giuseppe (Giuseppe Salviati), 214 Porta, Tommaso, 238 Pourbus, Pieter, 268 Praxiteles, 133 Primaticcio, Francesco, _Description of Works_, 145-150. 151, 156 Prospero Fontana, 147, 148, 150-152 Quentin of Louvain, 266 Raffaello da Montelupo, 51, 55, 69, 239 Raffaello Sanzio (Raffaello da Urbino), 20, 27, 28, 30, 31, 40, 41, 65, 162, 165, 170, 189, 194, 196, 267 Ricciarelli, Daniello (Daniello da Volterra), 95, 100, 101, 103, 107, 121, 122 Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, 20 Ripa Transone, Ascanio dalla (Ascanio Condivi), 5, 107 Robyn, Joris, 270 Rocco Guerrini, 242 Roger van der Weyden, 265 Romano, Giulio, 146, 168, 245, 257, 258 Rosa, Cristofano, 177 Rosa, Stefano, 177 Rosso, 20, 107, 146, 147 Rosso, Lodovico, 182 Rovezzano, Benedetto da, 191 Ruggieri da Bologna, 147 Sabatini, Lorenzo, 151 Salincorno, Mirabello di (Mirabello Cavalori), 126 Salò, Pietro da, 204, 223 Salustio Peruzzi, 82 Salviati, Francesco, 133 Salviati, Giuseppe (Giuseppe Porta), 214 Sammacchini, Orazio, 154 San Friano, Tommaso da, 137 San Gallo, Antonio da (the elder), 16, 40, 41 San Gallo, Antonio da (the younger), 61-67, 196, 197, 224, 239 San Gallo, Aristotile (Bastiano) da, 20, 29, 30 San Gallo, Giuliano da, 16, 29, 30, 188, 189 Sandro, Jacopo di, 29, 30 Sansovino, Andrea (Andrea Contucci), 15, 40, 41, 187, 202, 216 Sansovino, Jacopo (Jacopo Tatti), _Life_, 187-202, 215-225. 20, 40, 41, 107, 145, 166, 170, 187-204, 206-208, 210, 215-225 Santi Buglioni, 132 Santi Titi, 135 Sanzio, Raffaello (Raffaello da Urbino), 20, 27, 28, 30, 31, 40, 41, 65, 162, 165, 170, 189, 194, 196, 267 Sart, Jan der, 269 Sarto, Andrea del, 20, 43, 188, 193, 194 Scarpaccia, Vittore (Vittore Carpaccio), 210, 211 Scherano da Settignano (Alessandro), 55 Schongauer, Martin (Martino), 7, 265 Sciorini, Lorenzo (Lorenzo della Sciorina), 128 Scorel, Jan, 266 Sebastian van Oja, 269 Sebastiano Serlio, 196, 267, 271 Sebastiano Viniziano del Piombo, Fra, 68, 106, 109, 111, 162, 235 Seghers, Anna, 269 Serlio, Sebastiano, 196, 267, 271 Sermoneta, Girolamo da (Girolamo Siciolante), 152, 257-259 Settignano, Scherano da (Alessandro), 55 Settignano, Solosmeo da, 202, 223 Siciolante, Girolamo (Girolamo da Sermoneta), 152, 257-259 Signorelli, Luca, 190 Simon Bening, 268 Simon van Delft, 269 Simone da Fiesole, 15, 16 Simone Mosca, 69 Skeysers, Clara, 269 Solari, Cristofano (Cristofano Gobbo), 14, 234 Solosmeo da Settignano, 202, 223 Speranza, Giovanni, 211 Spilimbergo, Irene di, 175 Staren, Dirk van, 269 Stefano Pieri, 137 Stefano Rosa, 177 Strada, Giovanni (Jan van der Straet), 134, 135, 267 Suardi, Bartolommeo (Bramantino da Milano), 190 Suavius, Lambert, 269, 270 Susanna Horebout, 268, 269 Tadda, Francesco del, 97 Taddeo Gaddi, 133 Tasso, Battista del, 51 Tatti, Jacopo (Jacopo Sansovino), _Life_, 187-202, 215-225. 20, 40, 41, 107, 145, 166, 170, 187-204, 206-208, 210, 215-225 Tedesco, Guglielmo, 237 Tibaldi, Pellegrino (Pellegrino Pellegrini or Bolognese), 151-154, 258 Tiberio Calcagni, 83, 84, 98-100 Tintoretto, Jacopo, 214 Titi, Santi, 135 Tiziano, Girolamo di (Girolamo Dante), 183 Tiziano da Cadore (Tiziano Vecelli), _Life_, 159-178. 48, 145, 153, 159-179, 182, 183, 201, 202, 247, 252 Tiziano da Padova (Tiziano Minio), 203, 223 Tiziano Vecelli (Tiziano da Cadore), _Life_, 159-178. 48, 145, 153, 159-179, 182, 183, 201, 202, 247, 252 Tommaso Casignuola, 238 Tommaso da Lugano, 206 Tommaso da San Friano, 137 Tommaso Porta, 238 Topolino, 114, 115 Torrigiano, 8, 10, 116 Tribolo (Niccolò), 20, 51, 77, 78, 202, 223 Uccello, Paolo, 133 Udine, Giovanni da, 42, 51 Unghero, Nanni, 188 Urbano, Pietro, 44, 107 Urbino, Bramante da, 27-29, 31, 65, 71, 188-190 Urbino, Raffaello da (Raffaello Sanzio), 20, 27, 28, 30, 31, 40, 41, 65, 162, 165, 170, 189, 194, 196, 267 Vaga, Perino del, 20, 61, 151, 234, 257, 259 Valerio Cioli, 129, 140, 141 Valerio Zuccati, 182, 183 Vasari, Giorgio-- as art-collector, 6, 16, 104, 149, 152, 156, 238, 251, 258, 259 as author, 4-8, 22, 27, 30, 32, 35, 46, 47, 55, 56, 60, 61, 63, 65, 68-88, 91, 93-97, 102-104, 107, 109-112, 114-118, 122-125, 128, 130, 134, 135, 137-140, 145, 147-151, 154-156, 160, 162, 169-172, 177, 178, 182, 183, 187, 192, 193, 199, 202, 206-208, 210, 212, 214, 215, 218, 221, 230, 232-234, 238, 239, 241, 242, 245, 247, 248, 250-253, 259-262, 265-272 as painter, 23, 32, 43, 95, 96, 107, 117, 118, 134, 138, 148, 151, 155, 156, 170, 203, 269-271 as architect, 68-73, 77-79, 95, 96, 107, 117, 140, 207 Vecchio (Domenico Aimo), 189 Vecelli, Orazio, 171 Vecelli, Tiziano (Tiziano da Cadore), _Life_, 159-178. 48, 145, 153, 159-179, 182, 183, 201, 202, 247, 252 Vellaert, Dierick Jacobsz, 269 Venusti, Marcello (Marcello Mantovano), 106, 259, 260 Verbo (Verlo), Francesco, 211 Verdezotti, Gian Maria, 178 Verlo (Verbo), Francesco, 211 Vignuola (Jacopo Barozzi), 102, 146, 147 Vincenzio Danti, 128, 139 Vincenzio Zuccati, 182, 183 Vinci, Leonardo da, 15, 19, 234 Viniziano, Fabrizio, 215 Vitruvius, 44, 113, 190, 213, 218 Vittore Scarpaccia (Vittore Carpaccio), 210, 211 Vittoria, Alessandro, 204-206, 223 Volkaerts, Dirk, 270 Volterra, Daniello da (Daniello Ricciarelli), 95, 100, 101, 103, 107, 121, 122 Volterra, Zaccheria da (Zaccheria Zacchi), 189, 190 Vos, Marten de, 268 Weyden, Roger van der, 265 Willem Keur, 269 Willem Key, 267, 268, 270 Willem Paludanus, 269 Willem van Antwerp, 269 Wouter Crabeth, 269 Zaccheria Zacchi (Zaccheria da Volterra), 189, 190 Zanobi Lastricati, 125, 132 Zeuxis, 133 Zuccati, Valerio, 182, 183 Zuccati, Vincenzio, 182, 183 Zucchi, Jacopo, 134 END OF VOL. IX. PRINTED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF CHAS. T. JACOBI OF THE CHISWICK PRESS, LONDON. THE COLOURED REPRODUCTIONS ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY HENRY STONE AND SON, LTD., BANBURY 
38154	----	Transcriber's Note: Bold text will be displayed using the equals sign: =This is bold text.= These books were planned in a series of conferences and consultations with leading art teachers and educators, among whom were the following: Miss Bonnie E. Snow, Formerly Director of Art, Public Schools, Minneapolis, Minn. Miss Wilhelmina Seegmiller, Director of Art, Public Schools, Indianapolis, Ind. Miss Harriette L. Rice, Director of Art, Public Schools, Providence, R. I. Mr. Walter Scott Perry, Director of the Art Department, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y. Mrs. M. E. Riley, Director of Art, Public Schools, St. Louis, Mo. Dr. Hugo Münsterberg, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University. Mrs. Alice W. Cooley, Department of Education, University of North Dakota. Mr. John S. Clark, Boston, Mass. TEXT BOOKS OF ART EDUCATION BOOK IV. FOURTH YEAR BY HUGO B. FROEHLICH FORMERLY INSTRUCTOR IN PRATT INSTITUTE BROOKLYN, N.Y. AND BONNIE E. SNOW FORMERLY SUPERVISOR OF DRAWING IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. [Illustration] THE PRANG EDUCATIONAL COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO Copyright, 1904, By THE PRANG EDUCATIONAL COMPANY Copyright, 1906, By THE PRANG EDUCATIONAL COMPANY Preface. In presenting to the public the series of Text Books of Art Education, of which this volume is a part, it is desired to state briefly the aims and purposes of the plan upon which the series is based. It is not necessary to review the history of art education in public schools, nor to present argument for the introduction or retention of drawing as an important study. These questions have been exhaustively treated, and need no fresh discussion. The school that does not offer to its community some kind of systematic art instruction is today an exception. Education along specific lines should conform to the philosophy which is accepted as fundamental in general educational work. The educational principles adhered to in these books are, therefore, in accord with the psychological laws of child development which are endorsed by the leading educators of the present time, and the effort has been made to work out in these books a series of lessons that shall be not only educationally sound and artistically correct, but at the same time adapted in the different stages to the child's ability to comprehend and his power to express. With this end in view, the lessons in the Text Books of Art Education have been divided into three groups which may be known as the Observational or Objective Group, in which the study of things is the aim; the Subjective Group, in which the study of principles or laws of beauty is the aim; and the Creative Group, in which the application of accumulated knowledge and ability is the aim. In furthering the work of the first group, the topics so familiar to the art teacher of our modern schools are treated--landscape, plants, life, and still life. In the second group are presented the principles of perspective, of industrial drawing, of color harmony, and most important of all, the principles of pure design. In the third group are placed creative exercises in composition, in decorative design, and in many forms of manual training. While the same division of work is kept throughout the course, the manner of presentation differs greatly in the different years. In the primary grades, the work is largely objective in its character. Children are taught to see and to do. In the intermediate grades, the children are introduced to the principles of arrangement, Balance, Rhythm, and Harmony, which have been adopted as the working basis of this series of books, and in the light of which the subjective and creative work of the upper grades is planned. As the work progresses through the different years, the subjective and creative sides are more and more emphasized, and the study of objects is felt to be merely a means necessary to an end. All through the series, there is a definite, logical progression, so that in schools where these ideas are put into practice, there should be no ground for the complaint that the work of the intermediate and grammar grades falls below the work of the primary grades, in general excellence. These books are the outgrowth of years of experience in practical fields of work. They have been prepared with a keen appreciation of the obstacles which have confronted the art teacher in public education, and with an intimate knowledge of the child mind, in its various stages of development. Never before has an attempt been made to put into the hands of children a text of lessons in art. The illustrations serve the double purpose of illuminating the text and of furnishing the children with standards of work in the various mediums. For the Theory of Color Relations used in these books, special acknowledgment is due to Dr. Denman W. Ross, of Harvard University. The lessons in design are preparatory to the fuller exposition in the upper books of Dr. Ross's principles of arrangement--Balance, Rhythm, and Harmony. We are indebted to Messrs. Little, Brown, and Company, for permission to use Miss Dickinson's poem, "The Railway Train," on page 58, and to Mr. Charles G. Blanden for the lines from his poem, "Plea of the Poets," used on the page facing page 1. The lines used on page 16 are from James Russell Lowell's "Epistle to George William Curtis," and the verses on page 30 are from "A Boy's Song," by James Hogg. Contents PAGE OUT OF DOORS (Landscape) 1 Use of a Finder in Selecting Material for Landscapes; Autumn, Winter and Spring Effects in Color and in Value; The Same Landscape Expressed in Different Arrangements of Values; Trees in Foliage and with Bare Branches; Pictures from our Surroundings; Study of a Masterpiece; Home Exercises. GROWTH, BLOSSOM, FRUIT (Flowers and Plants) 16 Bittersweet, Iris, and Geranium in Color; Use of the Finder in Sketching most Interesting Part of a Growth for a Sketch; Flowers and Leaves in Different Positions; Growth of Stems, Joints, Buds, Leaves, and Sprays; Root Growths; Use of the Accented Outline; Composition from Plant Forms. LIFE AND ACTION (The Human Figure, Animals, and Birds) 30 Brush Studies in Color from Pose; The Same Pose in Different Positions; Different Steps in Pose Drawing; Proportion and Action Shown in Leading Lines or "Skeleton" Figures; Hands and Feet; Dog and Pigeon in Leading Lines, in Outline and in Values; Study of a Masterpiece; Home Exercises. BEAUTY IN COMMON THINGS (Still Life) 44 Beauty in Common Objects; A Bowl in Four Different Mediums; Principles of Grouping; The Accented Outline in Object Drawing; Japanese Lanterns Studied in Values; Use of the Finder in Making Beautiful Compositions; Home Exercises. APPARENT DIRECTION OF EDGES AND OUTLINES (Perspective) 58 The Circle in Three Positions; Foreshortened Surfaces in Common Objects; How to Test Foreshortened Surfaces and Converging Lines; Foreshortened Circle seen in Beautiful Historic Baptismal Font. MEASURING AND PLANNING (Geometry) 66 Making Simple Tools with which to Measure and Plan; Drawing and Dividing Circular, Square, Oblong, and Triangular Spaces; How to Place Decorations within these Divisions; Planning of Patterns for Portfolio, Box, Envelopes, and Pocket-book; Making Case for Newspaper Clippings; a Simple Alphabet and How to Draw its Plan; Initial Letters. DESIGN 76 The Color Chart Related to the Scale of Values; Colors in Full Intensity; the Neutral Value Scale, Showing Seven Steps Between Black and White; Dividing a Space into Large and Small Areas; Use of Values in Expressing Light and Dark Effects; Space Divisions to Form Plaids; Design Motives from Nature, and Their Application in Simple Rhythms and Balanced Designs; Color Schemes from Nature, and their Application; a Portfolio whose Beauty Depends on Arrangement and Proportion of Values; Pottery Forms. "_Makers of song, did you say? Finders of song, be it told: The music we fashion today Is centuries old._ _Only we look and we see, Only we hear and we sing: Only we find in the tree And we find in the spring The beautiful thing._" OUT OF DOORS [Illustration] HE OWNS THE BIRD SONGS OF THE HILLS; THE LAUGHTER OF THE APRIL RILLS; AND HIS ARE ALL THE DIAMONDS SET IN MORNING'S DEWY CORONET,-- AND HIS THE DUSK'S FIRST MINTED STARS THAT TWINKLE THROUGH THE PASTURE-BARS AND LITTER ALL THE SKIES AT NIGHT WITH GLITTERING SCRAPS OF SILVER LIGHT; THE RAINBOW'S BAR, FROM RIM TO RIM IN BEATEN GOLD, BELONGS TO HIM. JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. [Illustration] The Out-of-Door World in Autumn. Have you ever been in the country, or in a city park, after the green of the maple-trees has turned to scarlet and gold? If you have noticed the trees in their gorgeous hues, you have probably found that the grass, also, shows patches of color not seen in the summer-time. The sky is often very blue, and its color is reflected in the quiet water of a lake or pool, or in a gently flowing stream. A smoky haze hangs over the distant trees, and softens, though it does not hide, their brilliant coloring. Study the sketch on this page. Then paint an autumn picture. Show a bright blue sky, a field or hillside,--once green, but now touched with russet and brown,--a path or a pool of water, distant foliage, and one large tree. Save your picture to use in another lesson. [Illustration] Making and Using a Finder. If you look on page 4 you will see three little pictures that seem quite complete in themselves, and yet look like parts of the picture on page 2. The upper sketch shows the same big tree by the stream, and the lower right sketch has been taken from the left side of the large picture. A small part near the middle of the large picture was then selected, and this part was enlarged to make the third sketch shown. You can often find some parts of your large sketches that are more interesting than others. On this page are some drawings of a little device which will help you to do this. It is called a finder, and is simply an oblong opening cut from a piece of paper so as to leave all around it a margin an inch or two wide. It looks like a little mat for a picture, or like a window-frame. Two square corners or L-shaped pieces of paper can be placed together so that the size of the opening can be changed by pushing the uprights nearer together or by pulling them farther apart. An adjustable finder like this (shown in the right sketch) can be used in a number of ways. Draw on a sheet of 9 x 12 paper, an oblong seven inches high and three, four, or five inches wide. Around the oblong, which is to be cut out, leave a margin of at least an inch. Slip this large finder over the autumn sketch you made in the lesson on page 2, until you have found the part you like best. Cut this part out, and mount it on a large sheet of fresh paper, leaving a pleasing margin. The class sketches will make a fine exhibition. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] Shapes and Growth of Trees. No one can study out-of-door pictures without wishing to know how to draw trees. This can best be done by observing from a distance some tree as it grows. The pictures on this page tell you plainly that the willow and the sycamore, or buttonwood tree, were chosen for the sketches, yet not a single leaf is shown as you would see it if you held it in your hand. What is it, then, that tells the story? It is the truthful drawing of the big things--the shape of the mass of foliage, the height and width of the trunk below the boughs, the size and direction of the branches, and the way they grow from the trunk. In the sketch of the willow, the many small branches are plainly seen, and you can easily understand why it is that the willow bends and sways so gracefully in the wind. The brush strokes show something of the slender, pointed character of the leaves. The sycamore is not round and regular like the willow, but shows patches of foliage and stretches of bare branches in a ragged and uneven way. Its shape is very different from the shape of the willow. Make a large drawing with ink or crayon, from some tree out of doors. [Illustration] Shapes of Bare Trees. Winter is the best time in all the year to study the growth of trees. Although the leaves are gone and the branches are bare, the trees themselves are beautiful. It is well to study a tree that is at some distance from you, so that its dark branches may be seen against the light sky. The willow and the sycamore are shown without their leaves on this page, and their shapes stand out clearly. You can see the strong trunk, and the branches that spring from it. The trunk of the sycamore becomes smaller as it throws off its boughs, and all the branches and twigs taper at the end. Measure the height of the sycamore tree in the sketch,--from the topmost twig to the ground,--and see what part of the whole height the trunk below the foliage measures. Is it half as high, or only a fourth or a third? Notice trees out of doors and see how much of their height is above the trunk. Children sometimes draw trees with tall, stiff trunks and short, stunted tops. Study and draw a beautiful tree without leaves. Make it of large size and use brush or crayon. Try to tell in your picture just what tree you studied. [Illustration] What fun it is to gather nuts in the fall! See the children in the picture. One boy "clubs" the tree until the nuts come rattling down and are half hidden in the grass and dry leaves. Recall some pleasant time you have had gathering nuts or apples. Draw a picture showing where you were, what you gathered, and the kind of a tree on which the fruit grew. Show distant bushes and trees, and place the main tree so that its branches rise against the sky. Make your picture tell an interesting story. [Illustration] Sunset in Winter. When you painted autumn landscapes, you thought, no doubt, that the world was more beautiful in October than at any other season. Perhaps it seemed to you that the cold, snow-covered earth could never be so interesting to paint. Look at this winter picture. The sky is bright and the distant trees look violet. Did you ever notice that the snow at sunset does not seem to be white as you look across it to the horizon? If you hold a sheet of white paper in your hand and glance from that across the snow-covered fields at sunset, you will see that the whiteness of the snow has changed to violet-gray. Sometimes, too, the snow seems to be tinted by the rosy light of the sunset. As you study out-of-door objects, you will find that their colors appear different at different times of the day, or as they are near you or far away. Paint a winter sunset. Try to see and to paint truthfully the color of distant trees, snow-covered ground, a far-off steeple or tower, or a tree near at hand. [Illustration] A Sunset Picture in Values. We can show with black crayons, with charcoal, or with brush and ink many pictures of out-of-doors that are rich in color. Even a sunset sky can be shown in grays, so that we will think of the lovely colors that the grays, or values, express. Here is our winter sunset, shown in values. You will remember that by values we mean the different degrees of light and dark used to express color. Compare the two sunset pictures. The light gray-violet of the snow is shown in a light gray or neutral value in the picture on this page. The trees are very much darker, and the sky is neither as light as the snow nor as dark as the trees. The little rabbit makes a dark spot in the snow, and the foreground--that part of the picture that seems to be nearest--is white. You see that it has taken about four values to express the colors seen. Draw in values the sunset picture you painted in the lesson on page 8. Which of all the colors used do you think should be shown in darkest value? Which in lightest? Make your picture large, and use charcoal, crayon, or brush and ink. Then with your finder select that part of your picture which you like best. Cut out this part, and mount it neatly. [Illustration] A Different Arrangement of Values. "O Moon! in the night I have seen you sailing, And shining so round and low!" When you are out of doors or are looking through a window at some of nature's pictures, think how you would paint or draw in values the different things you see. Notice which objects appear darkest, which lightest, and which might be expressed by a "half-way" gray, or middle value. If you learn to see these light and dark effects in the world about you, pictures, photographs, and out-of-door scenes will become matters of great interest to you. On this page is the same little piece of the world we saw under sunset skies. The sun has gone to rest, and the bright colors in the sky have given place to darkness. But in the midst of the darkness the moon rises, and sheds its white light over the sleeping world. How beautiful "out-of-doors" is now! See the darker value of the sky at night, and the pleasing contrast made by the big white moon. A soft gray shadow is over all the snow. The moonlight on the snow does not dazzle our eyes, as the sunshine does by day. Paint with ink or draw with crayon a moonlight picture. [Illustration] A Beautiful Composition. In painting or drawing a picture, it is not enough to put down a number of shapes or lines without regard to their relation to each other. We must arrange or compose them, just as we arrange furniture in a room. We must study to place things where they will best satisfy our idea of beauty. In the picture on this page, painted by Alexander Harrison, an American artist, the horizon line is placed above the middle, so that the artist might show how the waves broke on the shore, and sent rippling, flowing lines of water along the shining sand. The motion of the water is as regular as if it were keeping time to music. Can you see how the big curves seem to mark the beats? Notice, too, the arrangement of values--the light foam, the darker sky and ocean, the wet sand, and the solid mainland. Only four things are shown--sky, moon, sea, and shore--but they are so drawn as to give the necessary variety. Pictures from Our Own Surroundings. =Out of Doors in the City.= If all the beauty of out-of-doors were in the country, what a sad thing it would be for the boys and girls who spend their lives in cities and towns! It is true that we think of the country when we speak of the landscape, and many artists go there when they wish to gather material for pictures. But often the things you see out of doors in a city or town are as interesting to sketch as country landscapes. =Keeping a Journal.= Did you ever hear of a person who kept a journal, and wrote in it the interesting things that happened from day to day? Have you ever tried it yourself? You need not think your life dull because you do not take journeys or see great sights or do unusual deeds. Some of the best journals we know about have been kept by people who lived quiet lives. They wrote about the little things they saw and heard and did. It was the way in which they told these things that made their journals as interesting as storybooks. =An Artist's Journal.= Artists and people who love to make pictures keep a kind of journal that they call a sketch-book. They are always on the lookout for material for pictures. They see much more than people do who are not trained to observe. =Some Leaves from a Sketch-book.= Look at the sketches on page 13. They are leaves from an artist's sketch-book. He tells of a shady road winding by a little church in a village; of freight-boats on a canal or river; of a view from a high window in a city office building; of a fine stone arch, and beyond it a bridge with a railroad train rushing across it; of a fountain in a city park, and of a grimy, noisy factory, with its long low roofs, its smoke-stacks, and its line of waiting cars. Have you thought of looking for pictures in places like these? =Pictures in Your Own Town.= Where are the interesting places in the town in which you live? Is the town near the water? Then there are boats and bridges. Is there a machine shop, a mill, or a quarry? Then you will find something to draw, as interesting as the factory in the artist's sketch. Does a railroad run through the place? There is the station, the switch tower, the engines and the freight cars. Or, perhaps there is a blacksmith shop or a trolley car. Keep your eyes open, and find the things in your town that show the life of the people. Tomorrow, bring a sketch showing some picture you have seen in the place where you live. [Illustration] [Illustration] The Colors of Springtime. One of the earliest shrubs that blossoms in the springtime is the forsythia. Its blossoms cover the whole bush before the leaves come, making a mass of yellow in the midst of the green grass. Yellow and green are favorite colors of springtime. Choose some flowering tree or shrub to paint in a picture. In painting a landscape like the one on this page, one good way is first to draw with a brush line and very light violet color, the shapes that must be carefully placed. Then add the sky and foreground washes and drop on the damp paper the colors you see in the bush or tree. Draw the trunk of the tree, or the branches of the shrub, in dark gray-violet. A path or road may be wiped out of the foreground with the nearly dry brush, and a little red and yellow added to give the color of sandy ground. Paint a spring landscape, not like the one in the book. Home Exercises. 1. Draw an elm-tree as it looks in winter. 2. Paint a maple-tree as it looks in October. 3. Use a large finder on one or both of your tree sketches. Decide in which space the tree looks best. Then cut out this selection and mount your picture neatly. 4. Show a snow man in a winter landscape. 5. Paint a sunset on the lake or river. 6. Show in a picture the time of year you like best. 7. Make a brush drawing to illustrate: "'Lady Moon, Lady Moon, where are you roving?' 'Over the sea.' 'Lady Moon, Lady Moon, whom are you loving?' 'All who love me.'" [Illustration] [Illustration: GROWTH · BLOSSOM · FRUIT "I know the charm of hillside, field, and wood, Of lake and stream and the sky's downy brood, Of roads sequestered rimmed with sallow sod, But friends with hardhack, aster, goldenrod, These were my earliest friends, and latest, too, Still unestranged, whatever fate may do." ] [Illustration] Green Things Growing. Oh, the green things growing, the green things growing, The faint sweet smell of the green things growing! I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve, Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing. Oh, the fluttering and the pattering of those green things growing! How they talk, each to each, when none of us are knowing; In the wonderful white of the weird moonlight Or the dim dreamy dawn when the cocks are crowing. I love, I love them so,--my green things growing! And I think that they love me, without false showing; For by many a tender touch, they comfort me so much, With the soft mute comfort of green things growing. Dinah Maria Mulock. [Illustration] Brush Studies of Grasses. Grasses and sedges are some of the "green things" that need but little encouragement. In fact, they grow to greatest size in some neglected fence corner or in places so wet that other plants do not flourish. Grasses lack the bright colors of flowers, but they are fine studies to draw, because of their simple, direct growth and the interesting shapes of their leaves and heads. You will enjoy brush drawings, using color or ink, of different kinds of grasses. Select three or four of large size and place them in a bottle. They will then fall gracefully into a natural position. Behind the bottle place a tall background of some kind, so that the shapes of the grasses will be clearly seen. Use paper large enough to show in life size the grass heads and part of the leaves and stems. Before beginning the study, practice drawing grass leaves with one stroke of the brush, without first outlining their shapes. Then draw from the arrangement before you, working freely with the brush. In studying the leaves, notice where the greatest width is seen. Observe the size and direction of the stems, and draw them so that they express the upright growth and the grace of the plant. Grass stems are not like the stems of flowering plants or vines. Try to see and express the difference. Selecting with a Finder the Most Interesting Part of a Sketch. [Illustration] Do you see what has been done with the drawing of grasses? A finder was moved about on the sketch until a pleasing arrangement of shapes appeared within the opening. You will notice it was not necessary to show the whole of each leaf and head. The sketch on this page would be quite satisfactory, if it were cut out along the inner edges of the finder and mounted upon another sheet of paper. Brush drawings of grasses and common weeds are beautiful when drawn in color upon a tinted background. You can tint paper with water-color in much the same way that you put on landscape washes. Dampen a sheet of paper, and then apply a very little red, blue, and yellow, washing the three colors down the sheet. A little practice will teach you how to use the color to get a green-gray, a yellow-gray, or a blue-gray tint. Tint several sheets at one lesson. Using a sheet of your tinted paper, make a brush drawing in color, from a growth of grass or sedge. Draw in large size, and make a "finder" picture from your sketch. [Illustration] Autumn Leaves and Berries. If you have never seen the bitter-sweet vine growing over a dead tree, you have missed a beautiful sight. In the fall its bright berries hang in graceful clusters, and stay on the vine long after its leaves have fallen. The real berry is held in the close grasp of a several-parted case until a sharp frost bursts the outer covering and shows the scarlet fruit within. The sketch on this page is from a spray of bittersweet before the leaves have dropped. You can see that in the leaves more yellow than is usual was used, because their color is decidedly yellow-green. Most of the berries are shown, still held in their orange-colored cases. Can you tell what two colors were used in painting the berries? Sometimes yellow and green alone do not give you the green you may desire; if you add a little red it will soften, or make gray, a green that seems too bright. Choose a bright spray of autumn leaves and place it against a background. Study the growth, the different shapes of leaves and berries, and the color. Paint in life size just what you see. A Flower and Its Growth Expressed in Color. [Illustration] Members of the iris family are found in many places. The dwarf garden iris blossoms very early in the spring, and has short, stout stems, bearing several flowers. The common blue flag found in wet places is a country cousin of the garden iris. Both are related to the flower-de-luce, the stately lily of France. They are unlike other flowers in shape, and are beautiful in color, with sword-shaped leaves. The sketch on this page shows two different colors of the iris. If you cannot find flowers like them, choose a stalk of blue flag or early garden iris. Flowers of all kinds must be painted with fresh, clean colors, used directly from the box. Do not mix or stir color in the palette. Colors that are "handled" too much become muddy and dead. One color may be dropped in another, allowing them to blend on the paper. You have made stained glass effects in this way. Sometimes two colors may be taken in the brush at once. They will flow together as you draw. For instance, if you fill your brush with yellow and dip it lightly in blue, you can make a brush stroke of green. In painting the violet iris, red may be dropped in blue. Before painting your flower study, practice drawing leaves and large petals in this direct way. [Illustration] A Flower in Different Positions. Suppose that in the sketch on page 20, each leaf had been of the same size and shape. Would you have liked the picture as well? Plants that are regular in their growth, like the fern or the ivy, are seldom chosen for sketches. We like to see a variety of shapes and sizes. Even when the leaves of a plant have the same general shape, their positions make their shapes appear unlike. So it is with flowers. On this page are three different drawings of the same flower. Can you tell why they are not alike? It is because the flower was held in three different positions. When the flower-head is turned toward you, as in the first sketch, its shape is quite like a circle. In the second sketch, the shape is much narrower from front to back, and some of the petals appear shorter. Can you tell how it was held? The third sketch shows the back or under side of the flower, and the shape is again different. You see, then, that every flower you draw must be studied carefully, to find the shape as it really appears to you. Take a large flower, like the brown-eyed Susan or the sunflower, and draw it in different positions. Use brush or crayon for your sketches. [Illustration: SILVER POPLAR BALM OF GILEAD DOGWOOD HORSE CHESTNUT LILAC] Growth and Shapes of Tree Buds. In the bright days of February or early March, before spring has really come, place some branches of common trees and shrubs in water, and keep them near a sunny window in the house. You can then watch the buds swell, as they waken from their long winter sleep. Every day will show some change in their shape and size. You will enjoy making sketches of the twigs, from day to day, as the buds grow and the little leaves appear. On this page are some drawings that show us different forms of growth, and the different ways in which Mother Nature protects her tender baby leaves. Make some sketches from the beautiful tree buds of early spring. [Illustration] A Study of the Geranium. In any window box of growing plants, you will be almost sure to see the geranium. It lifts its bright blossoms among the green leaves, and grows thrifty and strong, if its simple needs are supplied. The sketch shows you a stalk of geranium. The leaves were very similar in shape as they grew, but in the sketch their position has given them four different shapes. When you study your own stalk, see if the leaves show you the same interesting variety. Do you notice that the flower-head does not show each blossom, separate and distinct? The shape of the whole cluster is expressed, with a few petals showing more plainly near the outside of the cluster. A good way to get the bright scarlet of the flower cluster is to paint it in with a yellow wash; then drop in red. You will need red to soften the green of the leaves, and probably you will see a rosy color in some parts of the stalk and stems. Paint a stalk of geranium against a background, at some distance from you. [Illustration] Root Growths of Spring. On your walks through the woods in the early spring days, you surely have discovered these plant growths from roots which have lived all winter. They are the bloodroot, the hepatica, and the fern. The hepatica comes first, with its pale violet blossoms nearly hidden under a thick covering of the dead leaves of the forest. Its little buds seem to be protected from the cold by soft garments of fur. All winter long the spotted leaves of last autumn have stayed on the plant. They are beautiful now, in shape and in color. The bloodroot has a large round leaf which folds close about the flower-bud until the snow-white blossoms open. Its root is a sort of underground stem, and has a bright orange or red juice, from which the plant is named. Find some of the root growths of early spring. Dig them up carefully, without shaking the earth from the roots, and place them where their whole growth can be seen. Make charcoal or brush drawings of the whole plant. [Illustration] The Growth of Leaves. There are certain forms of growth that belong to different plant families. In drawing from flowers and plants, these family likenesses must always be truthfully shown. A rose leaf does not grow like the leaf of a thistle, and a pine needle is not at all like the thick, round pad of a water-lily. On this page are shown different growths from trees and plants that you know. Find the sketch of the slender leaves of the pine; the palmate or hand-like leaves of the horse-chestnut, with its seven leaflets growing from one footstalk; the honeysuckle, whose leaves sit closely on the stem; the familiar clover, with its three-parted leaf; the rose, and the wandering jew, or joint plant. Study the ways in which these different growths are expressed. Bring twigs or sprays of different trees and plants, and draw them carefully with pencil. These are good studies for your sketch-book. Interesting Growth of a Vegetable. [Illustration: TOMATO] Vegetables from the garden make fine studies to draw and to paint. Almost any fruit or vegetable is more interesting if studied as it grows. We do not often choose to paint or draw a single flower without its stem, leaves, buds, and all of the parts that are included when we speak of its growth. It is the presence of all of these shapes that gives variety to a drawing. Do you not think the sketch of the tomato is much more interesting because it shows the growth of the plant? The leaves, stems, stalks, and the large and small tomatoes make an attractive arrangement of shapes. They were first drawn just as they appeared, and then the finder was moved about upon the sketch, to find its most beautiful part. [Illustration] Beans, peas, beets, turnips, radishes, and many other vegetables may be brought from the school garden or from the garden at home, to use in a drawing lesson. A growth of cucumber vine would be an interesting study. Make a brush or charcoal drawing from something of this kind, and then use your finder to select the most interesting part. Cut out your "finder" picture and mount it neatly. The Growth of the Orange Tree. =A Familiar Fruit.= When you see the bright pyramids of oranges on fruit-stands or in store windows, do you wonder where the fruit comes from, or upon what kind of a tree it grows? In certain parts of our country there are a great many orange trees, and the children of Florida and Southern California know them as well as the children of the north know apple or cherry trees. =The Orange Tree.= Look at the picture of the tree, on page 29. It is not a tree that one would choose to put in a landscape, because it is not what is called picturesque--it is too trim, even, and regular. Its chief beauty is in its coloring. Its "spheres of golden sunshine" hang in the midst of glossy, dark green leaves, and sometimes the fruit stays on the tree until the buds and blossoms of a new crop appear. It is no uncommon sight to see an orange tree bearing leaves, buds, blossoms, and fruit, all at the same time. One of the sketches shows you a spray of orange blossoms. They are white and waxy, with a strong, sweet fragrance. =Gathering the Fruit.= Sometimes, the trees are so heavily laden with fruit that props are put under the branches to keep them from breaking off before the crop is ready to be gathered. The fruit is not allowed to fall from the tree, but when it is ripe an army of pickers, each one provided with a cutter and a canvas bag, comes to the grove. The pickers do not climb the tree and shake the boughs, as you would do if you were gathering nuts, but they mount ladders, carefully cut each orange from its twig, and put it in the bag. The bags, when filled, are emptied into boxes, which are carried to the packing house. There the oranges are sorted into lots, according to size, wrapped in tissue-paper--each orange by itself--and packed in boxes for shipment. You have seen them in their tissue wrapping, after they have reached their journey's end. =Designs from the Orange.= One of the sketches on page 29 shows the growth of some oranges with their leaves and twigs. Below is a design made by repeating the shapes of the orange, its leaves and stem. Any shape or group of shapes that is repeated in a design is called a unit. Do you know what suggested the unit shown in one of the small sketches above the tree? Sketch from the growth of any fruit you can get. Try to make from the shapes you find in your own study, a simple unit of design. [Illustration] [Illustration: LIFE AND ACTION "Where the pools are bright and deep, Where the gray trout lies asleep, Up the river and o'er the lea, That's the way for Billy and me." ] People and Animals. =An Out-of-door Picture.= On the opposite page is a picture that seems to invite you to close your books and go into the country for a picnic or for a day's fishing. You cannot look at the grassy meadow, the little river, the tall trees, the distant hills and woods, without wishing that you might be there. What fun it would be to sit on those big, flat stones and dabble your feet in the water while you ate your lunch, or to hold your fish-pole over one of the deep pools, "where the gray trout lies asleep!" =A New Interest.= If any one should ask you to tell what part of the picture interested you most, what would you say? Would you think first of the stream, its pleasant banks, the tall trees, the large stones, the distant hills and fields? Or would you say at once that it was the presence of the boys in the picture that first attracted you? You wonder where they came from, where they are going, what they are carrying over their shoulders and in their hands. You are glad that there are two boys instead of one in the picture, for in your own sports and games the pleasure is doubled if some one is with you. =Our Companions and Friends.= Suppose you were able to live in that part of the world that seems most beautiful to you. Do you think that the landscape alone, or the most interesting of plants and flowers would be enough to make you happy? No matter how much you enjoyed these things, or how much you might love the beautiful country, nothing could take the place of companions and friends. No books or toys or fine houses could keep you from being lonely if you had no one to talk to or to play with. Our brothers and sisters and friends are worth all the books and toys and fine houses in the world. =Our Friends among the Animals.= We have many good friends, too, among the animals. It is true they cannot talk with us, but some of them seem to understand what we say to them, and they show us in many ways what they think and how they feel. Do you not know when your dog is glad or sorry, thirsty or hungry, proud or ashamed? How does he tell you? =Drawing our Friends.= In the chapter that follows, you will study your playmates,--the boys and girls that you know and like,--and some of your friends among the animals. You will learn to draw them as they look, and to express their action just as you expressed what you discovered about flowers. "The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings!" [Illustration] Drawing from a Pose. Little children with their bright dresses and picturesque bonnets make delightful studies for us to draw and to paint. They are generally glad to "pose" for a few minutes, while having their pictures taken. The sketch of this little child was made from the pose, in a school-room. The little girl stood on a table in front of the pupils and held a string, which was fastened to a toy boat. The color and shape of her sunshade and of the color-mass of her dress, the position of her arm, the size and length of her legs and feet, were all carefully studied and drawn. The blue waters of the lake, the sail-boat, and the sandy shore, were added from memory to complete the picture. Make a pose drawing from your small brother or sister, or from some little friend. A pink or blue bonnet might be used as part of the costume, instead of a hat. Let the pose represent some character or occupation. Add a very simple landscape. Use water-color or colored crayons. [Illustration] Different Positions of the Same Pose. In your study of plants you found that the appearance of a leaf or flower depended upon its position. In making a picture of a daisy as it grows, we do not show the exact size and shape of leaves and petals, as they would look if we laid them on paper and traced around them. Such a drawing, while it might show certain facts of the plant, would not tell the truth about its appearance. In drawing from boys and girls, also, we must study appearances. We know that our model has two eyes and two ears, and that the nose is in the middle of the face. Yet the model may stand so that we do not see all or any of those features. Study the four drawings above, and tell how the girl is standing in each sketch. One of your schoolmates will pose while you make four five-minute sketches from four different positions of the same pupil. Make large drawings, using charcoal or crayon. Your model should not stand more than five minutes without resting. [Illustration] Three Steps in Pose Drawing. When you drew the shapes of trees, you found that if you made a mistake in the proportions of a tree you could not make the picture truthful by drawing the branches, the foliage, or the little twigs ever so perfectly. So it is in drawing from the figure. Suppose you plan a sketch that is ten inches from the top of the head to the foot. A good way to do would be to draw a light line or place two dashes, to indicate the height. Then decide how much of that height is needed for the head; for the waist; for the length of skirt or trousers; for the legs and feet. Next, think about the width and shape of these various parts, and sketch them in as lightly and brokenly as the lines are in the first sketch on this page. If your work is correct up to this point, you can finish the shapes a little more, as in the second sketch. You will now have studied the shapes and proportions of the things of most importance in the sketch. Then the masses of light and dark may be expressed. From the pose of one of your schoolmates, try one large sketch, done by the three stages shown above. Use charcoal or crayon. [Illustration: 1] [Illustration: 2] [Illustration: 3] [Illustration: 4] Some Proportions of the Human Figure. Although these skeleton figures are stiff and angular in appearance, from them you can learn something about the human figure that you will be glad to know. In each of them the thigh line is exactly half way between the top of the head and the foot. The knee-joint is half way between the thigh line and the foot. The shoulder line is placed at the base of the neck, and the elbow-joint is between two slanting lines that represent the lower and upper arm. A knowledge of these things will help you in drawing the garments or clothes of a pose. The waist is a little above the thigh line, and is so drawn in Figure 4. The bottom of the blouse in Figure 2 is a little below the waist line, but is still above the thigh line. Stand up and hold your arms close to your sides, and notice where the tip of the middle finger comes, in relation to the knee-joint. Be careful not to draw the arms too short or too long. Draw two skeleton figures like Figure 1. Make them at least four inches tall. On one skeleton draw the garments of a boy, carefully studying the clothes worn by a real boy. The other is to be dressed like a girl. [Illustration: 1] [Illustration: 2] [Illustration: 3] [Illustration: 4] Actions and Attitudes of the Human Figure. Action and attitude, as well as proportion, can be expressed by the simple line figures on this page. You do not need the second and fourth sketches to tell you of the action expressed in the first and third. In the figures on page 35, the lines were nearly all vertical and horizontal; the figures were standing still. In Figure 1 on this page, you notice that every line is slanting; the figure expresses action. Stand erect, and think of the direction of lines that your body takes. Then push hard with both hands against a wall. You can feel that your erect position is changed. The vertical lines become slanting, or oblique. Study the lines and their changed relations in Figure 3. Draw several line sketches that express a familiar action, such as walking, jumping, running, lying, or sitting. "Clothe" these action sketches. [Illustration] Hands and Feet. You have drawn from the figure long enough to find out that hands and feet are by no means the easiest things in the world to draw. Like almost everything else, they change their appearance with every change of position. We cannot learn to draw a hand or a foot so that we can use it in all kinds of poses. We can only learn to see the different sizes and shapes which each new position shows, and try to draw them as they appear. The sketches on this page are good studies for you to copy. When you can do this well, try to draw the hands or feet of one of your friends. Sometimes a pair of boots or rubbers may be placed in exactly the same position that they would be in were the pose actually standing. Practice drawing from studies like these until you are better able to see shapes, and to draw them truthfully. An Animal Pose. Have you a dog that will sit up and beg, or carry a basket? Perhaps he would not object to posing in school, with his master or mistress. [Illustration] If your teacher can arrange for a lesson of this kind, choose large paper, and sketch rapidly with charcoal or crayon. Begin with the dog, for he will change his position soon, and you must get quickly the main lines that will show his attitude and shape. Then you can sketch the figure of the boy or girl after the dog has grown tired. Do you notice in the picture, the fine arrangement of light and dark? The boy's light waist contrasts well with his dark trousers and cap. The little dog, too, is more attractive because of his white spotting. Finish your drawing by adding dark masses, as suggested by the pose. [Illustration] Actions and Attitudes of Animals. You will enjoy making skeleton sketches of animals. On this page are shown three different positions of a dog. Very few lines are used in Figure 1, yet they are so placed that you know at once the animal that is represented, its attitude, and its shape. Lines that tell the important facts about an object are called leading lines. The skeleton figures we have been studying show us the leading lines in certain attitudes of people and animals. If the leading lines of any object are correctly drawn, the finished sketch is almost sure to be good. From the pose of a dog, or of any other animal that you can study, make leading line sketches. Before you try to clothe these skeletons, study carefully the proportions expressed by your first drawing. If a mistake is there, correct it. Then study and draw the shapes and sizes of head, legs, tail, ears, etc. Sometimes parts of your leading lines can be used, as parts of the finished outline. Use pencil or charcoal for work of this kind. These are good studies for your sketch-book. [Illustration] The Spotting, or Light and Dark Values, of Animals. When you wish a more finished sketch of an animal, you should first study and draw the leading lines, just as you did in the lesson before this. The proportions and shapes of all parts of the sketch must be true, before any thought is given to the planning of eyes, ears, nose, or any other small feature. If you are able to express quickly, with a few lines, the most important facts, it will not matter so much if the pose moves about or changes position. We cannot expect a dog or a pigeon to keep one position until we have made a finished sketch. The quick use of eyes and pencil will enable you to make notes of something that you can work on after the pose has changed position. Study an animal pose, and plan to make a large sketch that will show its coloring, or values of light and dark. A black and white cat, or a spotted rabbit will do as well as a dog. Let the animal take a natural position on a table before the class. Sketch the leading lines that show this position. Then draw the shape of the head and body, the legs and tail. When all these shapes and proportions are truthfully expressed, add the dark masses that show the spotting of the animal. [Illustration] Study of a Pigeon. In the beautiful city of Venice is one of the most celebrated cathedrals in the world. It is called the Cathedral of St. Mark. The front of the building faces a large open space, which is surrounded on three sides by ancient palaces of marble. These old buildings, with their arches and towers, and the nooks and crannies of the cathedral, form fine nesting places for pigeons, and hundreds and thousands of them are found flying about the square. Years ago, the pigeons were fed at the city's expense, and any one who injured or killed one of them was fined or put in prison. The people thought that the pigeons brought peace and prosperity to their city, and kept it from being swallowed by the waves. If you should visit the square today, and should bring with you one of the little bags of corn that the street venders sell for a penny, you would be instantly surrounded by pigeons. Study a pet pigeon, which some one will bring to school. Notice the oval shape of the body, the beautiful curve of the wings, and the lovely spotting of light and dark values. The legs are set far back on the body, and they and the little feet are as red as a rose. Draw the leading lines with a brush stroke of light gray. Study carefully the proportions of head, body, wings, tail, legs, and feet. When these are correctly drawn, add the dark and middle values, to show spotting. [Illustration] "Life and Action" Shown in a Masterpiece. Of all pictures in the world probably none are more interesting to us than those which tell us of the lives of people; of their work, their times of rest, their joys and their sorrows. You probably know many of the pictures of Millet, who painted the simple country life of French peasants, as they worked in the fields, watched their flocks, or cared for their children at home. Millet's pictures make us feel great respect for a man or woman who works. The picture shown you on this page is from a painting called "Loading the Cart," by Anton Mauve, a native of Holland. He, like Millet, was a painter of quiet country landscapes and farm life. In this picture, notice how few are the shapes and masses he has cared to paint. He seems to have thought only of the big things--the sky, the ground, a clump of trees, a bending figure, a patient horse, a loaded cart. It is the artist's task to show us the beauty which lies in a simple country scene like this. Anton Mauve was born in 1848 and died in 1888. He made his first exhibition of paintings in America at Philadelphia in 1876. Home Exercises. 1. Paint from the pose of a little girl dressed as Red Riding Hood. 2. Make six brush drawings showing different positions of any pet animal that you have at home. 3. Make a "skeleton" drawing in illustration of the following: "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick." 4. Illustrate in a brush or outline drawing any one verse of "Old Mother Hubbard." 5. Show in a drawing the game you like best to play. 6. Show by a "skeleton" drawing the action expressed by the figure of the man in the picture on page 42. [Illustration] BEAUTY IN COMMON THINGS [Illustration] WE'RE MADE SO THAT WE LOVE FIRST WHEN WE SEE THEM PAINTED, THINGS WE HAVE PASSED PERHAPS A HUNDRED TIMES, NOR CARED TO SEE. FRA LIPPO LIPPI. ROBERT BROWNING. Learning to See Beauty. =How We See Things.= The best thing that our lessons in drawing and painting can do for us is to teach us to see. To truly see a thing means that eyes and brains must work together. Our eyes must look and our brains must think; that is what gives us the power to _see_. =Interesting Things Out of Doors.= When you were making a special study of landscape, you found that many things out of doors that you had not thought about before, became very interesting to you. You began to notice the colors of the sky and earth, the shapes of trees, the forms of clouds, the change from day to night. These things had always been around you, but you had not thought about them, and so you had not really _seen_ them. =Observing Our Surroundings.= Your lessons from flowers and plants, and from birds and animals help you to see and enjoy much more in nature than you did before. A walk in the country, or even along the city street, is never dull to one who is interested in what is going on around him, and whose eyes are trained to really see. =Beauty in Common Things.= Not all of the beauty of the world is out of doors. Things about us in our homes are often interesting in their character, and they should be beautiful as well. The picture on the opposite page shows you an old-fashioned kitchen fireside. The wide hearth, the logs of wood, the andirons, the pots and kettles hanging over the fire, all give you a sense of homely comfort and cheer. Would you not like to draw your chair close to the blazing logs on a cold winter night, and roast apples, or pop corn, while the wind howled and roared up the big chimney? There is real beauty in this picture of home and the common things of every-day use. =Finding and Expressing Beauty.= In the houses we live in nowadays, there may be no kitchen fireplaces like this; but the thought that we get from the picture is that beauty may be found in those things for which we sometimes care the least. Let us study the common dishes we cook with, the vegetables that come from market or garden, the furniture we use every day. Let us discover for ourselves whether these things are beautiful or ugly. If beauty is there, let us find it, and show it to others. If we enjoy those things which are really beautiful, we shall find them everywhere, and if we try, we ourselves shall be able to do something which will add, in some small way, to the beauty of the world in which we live. [Illustration] A Bowl in Charcoal Mass. The bowl from which this sketch was made is of common earthenware, not unlike the clay used in making flower-pots or tiles. Although this material is neither costly nor rare, articles made from it are beautiful, if they are pleasing in shape and proportion, tasteful in coloring, and well adapted to their uses. This little bowl was probably meant to hold short-stemmed flowers. Notice that it is low and broad, with a wide mouth or top. It will hold plenty of water for its purpose and will not easily be upset. The inner curve near the top suggests a vase or flower holder. A bowl designed for holding liquids or liquid food would probably be without this curve in its outline. The simple coloring of the bowl has also been carefully planned. It is not by accident that the glaze on the inside is in darker value than the outside color. This contrast of light and dark is one of the elements of beauty. Look for it in things about you, and try to show its effect in sketches that you make. Choose a bowl of simple form showing light and dark contrasts. Place it at some distance from you, so that you can see a little way into it. Draw the bowl in charcoal mass, using the flat side of a short piece of charcoal or crayon. [Illustration] A Wash-Drawing of the Bowl. The drawing on this page, the one on the page before this, and the two on pages 48 and 49, are all pictures of the same bowl. They do not look alike, because they are done with different materials, or, as we sometimes say, with different mediums. It is well for us to know how to draw with charcoal, brush and ink, pencil, crayons, and water-color, so that we can choose the medium or material that seems best suited to the particular object which we may wish to represent. A good workman understands the use of many tools. Drawings that are made with a brush and water mixed with ink or color are sometimes called wash-drawings. In such work, light and dark effects are shown, rather than actual color. Wash-drawings differ in character from drawings made with pencil, charcoal, or crayons. You can easily tell which sketches of the bowl were made with a wet medium and which with a dry medium. In the sketch on this page do you see that there are two values shown on the inside of the bowl? Although the inner glaze was everywhere the same color, the deep shadows in the bowl give the effect of a darker value. Make a wash-drawing of the bowl you studied in charcoal mass. Do not draw its outline first. Wash in the shape of the top, and then the mass for the front or outer surface. Notice the use made of the white line in suggesting the edge. [Illustration] The Bowl in Outline. You know that the true shape of the top of this bowl is a circle. But when the bowl is placed on a table in front of you, its top appears narrower from front to back than it does from left to right. The shape that you have often drawn to show this appearance is called an ellipse. In a circle, all diameters are equal. In an ellipse, one diameter is always longer than the other. Some ellipses are more beautiful in their proportions than others. If the bowl had been placed in a position where the width of the ellipse looked twice as great from front to back as it is shown here, the sketch would be less pleasing. Generally, a narrow ellipse is more beautiful than a wide one, and in arranging objects like the bowl for studies, we should be careful to place them so that the ellipses do not appear too wide from front to back. The beauty of the proportions of an ellipse has much to do with the beauty of the whole drawing. Make an outline drawing from a bowl, carefully studying its shape, and the proportions of the ellipse seen at the top. Sketch the ellipse first, beginning at the middle of the front edge, and drawing the shape with one stroke of the pencil. Try to draw the sides of the bowl just alike. Place a table-line in the proper place. A table-line suggests a surface on which an object may rest. [Illustration] The Bowl in Color. Artists and other people who draw and paint often speak of objects such as you have lately been studying as "still life." "Still life" means objects without life, like most of those studied in this chapter, although fruits and flowers are also frequently included. Mounted birds and insects or other animal forms from which life has gone are also classed as still life. It would be correct to speak of the drawing on this page as a study of still life. The group on page 50, the familiar objects shown on page 51, and the lanterns on page 54 are all examples of the kind of objects that are included under the head of still life. The little bowl appears again, now, perhaps, in its most attractive way. It is always a delight for us to see a beautiful bit of color. In studying the sketch, you can see how freely and simply the brush has done its work, showing the fresh, clear color of the bowl, the darker value of the inner lining, and the gray-violet shadow cast upon the table. Make a water-color painting of a simple piece of still life, choosing a color not too brilliant. Make the entire drawing with the brush, trying not to "work" your colors until the life and freshness are lost. [Illustration] A Group of Still Life. Here are two common articles that might be found in any kitchen. The dish is a sort of earthenware kettle, and shows that it was designed for cooking purposes. It is provided with short legs and a handle or bail. The legs serve as supports for the kettle, and keep its rounding surface from rocking, while the handle is useful in lifting the kettle and its contents from the fire. The kettle is simple in form, of pleasing proportions, and shows a good contrast of light and dark values. As you study the sketch, notice the drawing of the rim. Is it of the same thickness at every point? Study the appearance of rims in different bowls, and find out where they appear thickest. The beet is decidedly darker in value. It is less regular in shape, and its surface differs in quality from the hard, smooth surface of the kettle. Choose for a group two common objects of household use, that seem to belong together. In your group you should have something large and something small; something tall and something short; something light and something dark; something near and something far. Sketch your group lightly in outline, and finish in charcoal mass. [Illustration] [Illustration] A Growing Plant. Hyacinths and tulips grow easily indoors, and their bright blossoms fill the florists' windows just at the time when we are beginning to grow tired of winter and to look forward to the coming of spring. You can plant bulbs so that they will grow and blossom in the school-room. There is nothing more beautiful for a window decoration than a row of tulips, hyacinths, or daffodils. A growing plant of this kind is a fine study in still life. We enjoy looking at it, and we become much interested in trying to express its beauty. We are beginning to understand some of the elements or laws of beauty. Let us study the drawing on this page. We have found that a group of still life, a spray of plant growth, or a landscape should show variety in shapes, in sizes of shapes, and in light and dark, or values. Does the hyacinth show these contrasts? Notice the shape of the mass of bloom, as differing from the shapes of the long, slender leaves, the stem, and the flower-pot. You will also find large shapes and small in different parts of the sketch. The flower-pot and the mass of bloom are large in proportion to the leaves and stem. Contrast and variety in color you can easily see. Make a drawing with colored crayons or with water-colors from a growing plant, in bloom. Select one that shows simple growth, few leaves, and a bright mass of color in the blossom. The Plant in Values. [Illustration] It is often well to paint in grays a study that you have painted in color. On page 9 is a picture in values of the sunset scene on page 8. While we cannot express the actual color of objects with anything but color, we can show the light and dark effect of color with a gray medium, such as pencil or charcoal, ink or charcoal-gray water-color. In using a gray medium, we must try to keep our contrasts as well marked as though we were using the actual color itself. Suppose in this wash-drawing of the hyacinth, the flower, the leaves, and the flower-pot had all been of the same value. Can you not imagine how much such a picture would lose in interest? The difference in values, in the picture on this page, suggests to us the difference in color seen in the plant. If you look again at the drawing of the hyacinth on page 52, you will see that the darkest colors in it are the red-violet of the blossom and the red-gray of the flower-pot. These are represented in the wash-drawing by dark gray. The gray-green of the leaves is shown in a lighter gray value. In washing in the flower-pot, the flange, together with the ellipse for the top, should be drawn first. Then the base can be added, in a value which is deepened a little directly under the flange. Select a plant in bloom, from which to make a wash-drawing. A tulip or a daffodil would make a good study. Study its growth, the shapes and sizes of its different parts, the values of its blossom, leaves, and stems, and of the jar in which it grows. Show how beautiful a picture of a plant and its bright flower may be made, without the use of color. [Illustration: A] [Illustration: B] The Accented Line. Have you ever heard any one read aloud in an even tone of voice, without changing the pitch or giving what is called expression to the story? You soon grow tired of listening to such reading even though the words are distinctly spoken. The same thing read with the right accent and inflection will hold your attention. You will enjoy and remember what is well read, because more truth and beauty are brought out by beautiful expression. It is so in our drawing. We can make pictures of objects in a way that will give the facts of their forms and proportions, and still will not show the real beauty and character of those objects. Compare the two sketches of the barrel at the top of this page. Sketch B gives the facts of the barrel as well as Sketch A. But who would care for a picture that expressed so little of real interest? In Sketch A you feel the roundness or width of the barrel from back to front, and the quality of its rough and splintered surface. The line that is used to express all this is called an accented line. Such a line is varied in strength, being deepened in some places to express certain accents of form or color, and lightened in others. Sometimes it is broken off altogether, the eye seeming to continue the outline. It differs from the even, uniform line used in Sketch B just as the even, monotonous voice in reading differs from the voice that is full of expression and feeling. Select a basket, or a wooden box of somewhat rough surface, and make an outline sketch, using the accented line. [Illustration] Japanese Lanterns in Values. The wash-drawings on this page show some Japanese lanterns that are beautiful in their light and dark quality, as well as in their color. They are fine studies in values. The lantern on the left was red, with violet spots; the light one just behind was yellow, with blue and red spots; and the right lantern was a soft dark green at the top, blending to light green at the bottom. The dark bands and the wooden hangers provide sharp contrasts in values, and give character and accent to the picture. Choose two or three lanterns of contrasting colors, sizes, and shapes. Arrange them on a cord, hung across the corner of the room. It does not matter whether they hang above or below the level of your eyes. Paint them in values of ink or charcoal-gray. [Illustration] [Illustration] Selecting with a Finder an Interesting Arrangement of Shapes. You will remember that you used a finder upon certain sketches, in order to select parts that seemed more interesting than others. Any drawing looks much better if the space around it is carefully planned and adapted to the shapes shown in the drawing. This is the reason we use a finder on a sketch like that on page 55. Although the lantern on the right is well drawn and is a pleasing part of the whole sketch, it seems to have received added beauty in the left sketch on this page. It has been taken away from other interests, and placed within an enclosure which is well adapted to its shape, size, and color. The gray oblong at the bottom brings the eye to a part of the picture, not so important as the lantern. This oblong would be a good place for the initials or name of the artist, which should be as thoughtfully placed as any other part of the sketch. See what a different enclosure is used in the second selection. The two lanterns make a large dark mass which needs more space. The dark name-place on the right is placed just where it is most needed. Use a finder on the sketch of lanterns you made. Find a beautiful arrangement of shapes, adjusting the finder until you have found the enclosure and the shapes that suit you best. Cut out your selection and mount it neatly. Home Exercises. 1. Make an outline drawing of an empty flower-pot, standing upright. Carefully study the rim, and show where it appears thickest. 2. Draw in outline a plain glass dish, with three apples in it. 3. Make a wash-drawing of any cooking-bowl which shows light and dark values. 4. Find at home any one of the objects pictured on page 51. Group some other suitable object with it, and make a sketch in charcoal, showing light and dark effects. 5. Find five drawings in this book in which the accented line is used. 6. Make a large outline drawing of a boy's straw hat. Show the use of the accented line. [Illustration] APPARENT DIRECTION OF EDGES AND OUTLINES THE RAILWAY TRAIN. I LIKE TO SEE IT LAP THE MILES, AND LICK THE VALLEYS UP, AND STOP TO FEED ITSELF AT TANKS; AND THEN, PRODIGIOUS, STEP AROUND A PILE OF MOUNTAINS, AND, SUPERCILIOUS, PEER IN SHANTIES BY THE SIDES OF ROADS; AND THEN A QUARRY PARE TO FIT ITS SIDES, AND CRAWL BETWEEN, COMPLAINING ALL THE WHILE IN HORRID, HOOTING STANZA; THEN CHASE ITSELF DOWNHILL AND NEIGH LIKE BOANERGES; THEN, PUNCTUAL AS A STAR, STOP--DOCILE AND OMNIPOTENT-- AT ITS OWN STABLE DOOR. EMILY DICKINSON [Illustration] The Circle in Three Positions. In order to understand the sketches on this page, you must place a large bowl on a table in front of you, so that its top will be exactly opposite the level of your eyes. You can manage this by putting some books on the table for the bowl to rest upon, piling them up until just the right height is reached. Then sit directly in front of the bowl, and at some distance from it, as you would naturally do when making a sketch. Hold your pencil straight out in front, at arm's length, so as to hide the entire upper edge of the bowl. If the top of the bowl is exactly opposite your eyes, your pencil will be exactly horizontal when it hides the edge from you. You will not be able to see into the bowl, nor to find that the edge curves above or below the pencil. The appearance of the circular top, in this position, will be a horizontal line. If you lower the bowl a little, you will find that you can no longer hide the top with a horizontal pencil. The top looks more natural in this position. You have often drawn a narrow ellipse for the appearance of a circular shape seen slightly below the eye. If the bowl is lowered still more, the ellipse will appear wider from front to back. Make sketches from a bowl, in these three positions. [Illustration: 1] [Illustration: 2] [Illustration: 3] [Illustration: 4] [Illustration: 5] [Illustration: 6] The Foreshortened Circle. When a surface, because of its position, appears less wide than it really is, we say that it is foreshortened. The circular top of the bowl appears in three positions on page 59. In the first picture it is foreshortened to such an extent that its width from back to front has disappeared altogether. In the second, the foreshortened circle appears as a narrow ellipse. In the third, the ellipse is wider, because the bowl is seen further below the eyes. On this page are some sketches of a half-orange and a half-apple. Can you tell the positions in which they were held? Notice the foreshortened circle in Sketch 2. The sections of the orange are changed in appearance very much as the petals of the daisy are foreshortened, in the middle sketch on page 22. Read again the lesson on page 48. Then decide which sketch of the half-orange is most pleasing. Which picture of the half-apple do you like best? Draw a half-lemon in a position showing a foreshortened circle of pleasing proportions. [Illustration] The Foreshortened Square. Circular shapes are not the only ones that are foreshortened when they are seen under certain conditions. Figure 1 on this page is a picture of a square hat-box, showing the top and two sides. Not one of the three shapes is seen as it would actually measure. The top looks like a long narrow diamond. It is not so different from the shape of a narrow ellipse as you might at first suppose. If you changed the straight lines into curved lines, rounding off the four corners or angles of the diamond, you would have an ellipse. You could also place a box like this turned cornerwise, so that its top would look like a straight line. Where would the top be to look like that? The two sides of the box are also foreshortened in this position; they appear shorter from front to back than they really are. You can see that the two farther vertical edges or corners appear shorter than the nearer one, just as trees in the distance appear smaller than trees of equal size near you. The lines on the top and bottom of the box appear to slant upward, instead of keeping their actual direction, which is horizontal. Figure 2 shows the same box with the cover off. The inside was lined with colored paper and the dark value of the diamond-shaped mass adds interest to the picture. Place cornerwise, on a table in front of you, a large box with a square top. See if the three faces in sight are foreshortened. Notice if the edges appear changed, in direction and in length. Make a sketch in outline, showing just how the box appears to you. [Illustration] Measuring a Foreshortened Surface. A good way to prove to yourself that the appearance of a surface or shape differs from its reality, is to test it in some way. The girl in the picture is measuring the appearance of a book. She has put two books on the desk, with their backs facing her. Under the cover of the top book she has placed a string long enough to allow her to hold both ends of it in one hand, in such a way as to hide the two ends of the cover. She knows that in reality the ends of the cover do not slant; they are perfectly horizontal. But she finds that to hide the ends of the cover she must bring the lines made by the string toward each other. This proves that the ends of the book in this position must be represented by slanting lines. When the strings hide the ends of the cover, she finds that they meet directly opposite the eye. Holding the string tight, and keeping their meeting point exactly opposite the eye, she slips a horizontal pencil between the two lines, starting near the place where they meet, and moving down until the pencil hides the further edge of the cover. The appearance of the cover is shown in the space bounded by the horizontal pencil, the nearer edge of the cover, and the two slanting parts of the string seen between them. Arrange a large book on the desk in front of you. With a string, make the test that has been explained. Draw in values what you see. The Study of Perspective. =What a Picture may Show Us.= The pencil sketch on the next page would be quite difficult for you to draw, but it is not too difficult for you to understand and enjoy. It is one that will help you to use your eyes intelligently, in trying to find out of doors some of the things that are shown you in pictures. One of the best things that pictures can do for us is to help us to see in our own surroundings things that are interesting and beautiful. =Perspective.= The lessons in this chapter have helped you to see how surfaces and shapes change in appearance, as they are seen under different conditions. You have also found that certain edges and outlines appear to change their direction, when seen in different positions. There is a name given to the study of these things, which you will often hear used. It is perspective. Perspective is only another name for the study of appearances, as differing from facts. You will hear some one say, for instance, that a certain sketch or picture is good in perspective; you will understand that the picture shows, in some interesting way, the effect of distance and position, or how certain appearances differ from actual facts. =Perspective of the Railroad.= One of the best places in which to study perspective is on a bridge over a railroad track. You have noticed, no doubt, how the rails seem to come together as they stretch into the distance, and how the telegraph poles seem to grow shorter and shorter, until they disappear altogether. You know that the rails are just as far apart a mile away from you as they are at your feet, but a sketch drawn so would not be correct in perspective, because it would not show how the track looked. =Perspective Affecting Apparent Size.= The sketch on page 58 will interest you. Have you watched an engine grow from a mere speck in the distance to its full size as it rushes past you, and then grow smaller and smaller again as it hurries away, and finally disappears in the far-off horizon? =Perspective of a Street.= Do you see anything on page 64 that makes you think of the railroad? If you stand in the middle of the street and look down its length you will notice that the lines of the sidewalk seem to run together, that the trees and houses decrease in height as they are seen farther away, and that people in the distance appear smaller than people near you. When you can see these effects for yourself, you will begin to understand what the study of perspective means. [Illustration] [Illustration: FONT BAPTISTERY IN PARMA XIII. CENTURY.] A Beautiful Baptismal Font. In the fine old city of Parma, in northern Italy, is a beautiful cathedral, built hundreds of years ago. Near the cathedral is a building much smaller in size called a baptistery, a place where baptisms are made in connection with church services. This baptistery is built of red and gray marble, and is one of the finest in Italy. It contains but one room, and in the middle of its floor, under the beautiful dome, is a very large font, carved from one piece of yellowish red marble. In one corner of the room is a smaller font--the one shown you on this page. It is standing on a lion whose paws are set upon the head of a ram, and it is richly carved in foliage and in strange animal forms. To it are still brought for baptism all the children born in Parma. MEASURING AND PLANNING IF WE CARE TO CONTINUE THE SEARCH, WE MAY FIND AN ARC EXTENDED TO A SEMICIRCLE, A SPIRAL, OR EVEN TO A COMPLETE RING, ALMOST AS TRUE AS IF STRUCK WITH A COMPASS, AND WITH THE TELLTALE DROOPING OR BROKEN GRASS-BLADE STILL AT WORK WITH EVERY STIR OF THE BREEZE. "FAIRY RINGS" THE CHILDREN USED TO CALL THEM. I HAVE PICTURED BOTH THE RING AND THE FAIRY. WILLIAM HAMILTON GIBSON IN SHARP EYES. Some Tools With Which to Measure and Plan. By the time you have come to this chapter in your book, you will have drawn a great many pictures of objects. In doing this you have depended on your eyes and hand alone. You have not used a ruler to measure with, nor any tool that would tell you the exact length of a line or the exact size of any shape. [Illustration: I] But sometimes it is necessary that a line or shape should be of exact length or size. On this page are shown some very simple tools which you can make yourself, and which you will find useful in carrying out the lessons in this chapter on Measuring and Planning. Figure I is a "circle maker." It can be used in place of a compass. To make it, take a strip of cardboard seven inches long and one inch wide. Bisect its short edges and rule a line connecting these points. Upon this line, mark off, by measuring with a ruler, inch, half-inch, and quarter-inch spaces. Through these points draw lines, and pierce holes with a pin where they cross the center line. A pin placed through the first hole will act as a pivot. Push a sharp pencil through one of the other holes, just far enough to allow the lead to make a mark. The pin marks the center, and the pencil swings around it, as shown in the sketch at the top of page 68. The line drawn by the pencil is the circumference of the circle. The distance between the center and the circumference is the radius of a circle. We speak of one radius and of two or more _radii_ of a circle. [Illustration: II] Figure II is a little tool that will help you to draw square corners. Mark with a ruler upon an end and one side of the back of an envelope, the spaces for inches, and their divisions into halves and quarters. "Square corner" is another name for right angle. You will often wish to use this measure, called a test square, in squaring corners, and in drawing lines at right angles to each other. A No. 9 envelope will be a good size to use, as the long edge will serve as a ruler. You can make the drawings in this chapter with a ruler and compass, or you can use these simple tools, made by yourself. [Illustration] [Illustration: B] [Illustration: C] [Illustration: D] [Illustration: E] [Illustration: F] [Illustration: G] Dividing a Circular Space. There are many ways in which a circular shape may be divided and decorated. Sketch B shows two circles drawn around the same center, with different radii. Such circles are called concentric. Sketch C shows the circle divided into fourths. To do this, place the angle of your test square at the center of the circle and rule two radii. Repeat to secure four right angles at the center of the circle. Sketches D, F, and G show circles divided into sixths, by setting off the radius six times on the circumference, and drawing diameters connecting these points. Sketch E shows a circle divided into thirds. Set off the radius six times on the circumference; draw a radius from every other point. Draw concentric circles, and divide them into halves, fourths, thirds, and sixths. [Illustration: A] [Illustration: B] [Illustration: C] Some Divisions of Square Spaces. A square is said to be on its diameters when one of its diameters is vertical and the other horizontal; it is said to be on its diagonals when the diagonals are in this position. Sketch A shows the larger square on its diameters and the small inner square on its diagonals. To draw a square on its diameters, place your test square to locate the lower left corner of the square, and draw the two sides at right angles, extending the lines to the desired length. Use your test square in drawing all other corners of your square. For the diameters, bisect each side and connect the points of bisection. For a design plan like Sketch A, bisect the semi-diameters and connect these points. Diameters of a square bisect opposite sides; diagonals bisect opposite angles. In Sketch B, each side is quadrisected, or divided into fourths, and the opposite points connected. This division of a square may be used for a decorative plan in a number of ways, one of which is shown in the sketch. To draw a square in the position of Sketch C, use your test square, and draw the diagonals first, dividing them into inch spaces. Connect the ends of the diagonals to get a square. In the plan for the border design in Sketch C, connect the outer points on the diagonals to form the space for a border decoration. Draw two squares, one on its diameters, and one on its diagonals. Show by divisions made in each, some plan for a design. [Illustration: A] [Illustration: B] [Illustration: C] How an Oblong Space May be Divided. You can draw an oblong with your test square in the same way that you drew a square, measuring the sides to get the length you wish. In Sketch A the semi-diameters are bisected and the points connected, forming a diamond-shaped space, something like a square on its diagonals. In making the unit used in the upper half of this space, the lines of the triangle are changed very slightly, but this change makes an interesting decoration. In Sketch B the sides are quadrisected, and the space is divided by connecting some of the opposite points, making an oblong on its diameters for the middle space. In the upper half of this space a simple shape, very like a square, is used. It can be reversed, as can the triangular shape in Sketch A, to fill the lower half of the space. Sketch C shows a plan for dividing the oblong into many small squares. In each of these, or in every other one, a simple unit could be placed, to make an "all-over" pattern. Draw an oblong, and by dividing its sides, make a plan for a decorative design. Show how a decoration can be made by slightly changing the lines of an enclosing shape. [Illustration: A] [Illustration: C] [Illustration: B] [Illustration: D] The Equilateral Triangle. With the help of your circle maker or compass you can easily draw an equilateral triangle. Rule a horizontal line of any desired length, for the base of your triangle--that side upon which the triangle seems to rest. Place the pivot of your circle maker at one end of the line, and take a radius equal to its length. Draw above this line part of the circumference of a circle, called an arc. Then take as a center the other end of the horizontal line, and with the same radius, draw an intersecting arc. Rule lines from the intersecting arcs to each end of the line. You have drawn an equilateral triangle. Sketches A and B show you how an equilateral triangle may be divided. Sketch C shows how one line may divide the triangle into two shapes, whose outlines may be slightly changed or modified, to make a decoration. For a surface covering like Sketch D, construct one equilateral triangle and carry the base line across the paper. Rule a line parallel to this, passing through the apex of the triangle. Set off upon these lines lengths equal to one side of your triangle. Draw lines connecting these points, as shown in the sketch. Repeat this process for a surface covering. [Illustration: A CASE FOR CLIPPINGS] [Illustration: B] A Case for Newspaper Clippings. When you know how to measure accurately and can plan good proportions, you can make many simple articles, both useful and beautiful. To make the case for newspaper clippings shown on this page, cut an oblong of stiff manila paper, 8-1/2 x 9-1/2 inches. Use your test square in measuring all corners, to get right angles. Then cut an oblong 9-1/2 x 10-1/2 inches of "cover" paper, of some good color. Fit the manila oblong within this, in such a way as to leave an inch margin of colored paper all around it. Fold over this margin, pasting it down neatly. Cut an oblong 8-1/4 x 9-1/4 inches, of tinted paper of lighter weight. Lay this oblong as an inside lining to the cover, pasting to leave a narrow margin of the dark cover paper around the lining. Place the cover on your desk, with the long edges from left to right. Fold the nearer edge to meet the farther edge. Crease well. Bisect the crease, and place a point 3/8 of an inch up from the crease. Measure three inches from each end, and place points at these distances, 3/8 of an inch up from the crease. Within the folded cover, place six or eight No. 9 envelopes, the bottom edges of the envelopes touching the crease. Fit the envelopes within the cover, to leave an equal margin around the front and ends of the case. Holding the envelopes firmly within the cover, make holes with an eyelet punch at the points placed for them. Tie the envelopes in the case with raffia, tape, or cord. [Illustration: DESIGN FOR BOX] [Illustration: DESIGNS FOR ENVELOPES] [Illustration: DESIGN FOR PORTFOLIO] How to Draw Letters. =Before the Days of Printing.= There was once a time when all the books in the world were lettered by hand. This hand printing was done by men called monks, who lived in monasteries, away from the noise and bustle of the world, and who often devoted their whole lives to the lettering of religious books. They did this lettering on sheepskin or parchment instead of on paper, and they spared no pains in making these manuscripts as beautiful as possible. Color was often used for initials and for capital letters, and sometimes artistically designed borders were placed around the lettering, making each page in these manuscript books as beautiful as a picture. The great amount of time that was necessary to make one of these books made them very expensive, and only people of great wealth could own them. =Type and the Printing Press.= When type and the printing press were invented, the printer at first tried to make his pages look like the manuscript pages of the monks. For this reason, the earlier printing was artistic, although the letters were not as clear and perfect as type letters are now. The first books printed from type were also expensive, but little by little the process was made cheap, until at last type letters lost much of their beauty. Lately, however, printers have realized that single letters are like design units in an all-over pattern. The size of the letters, their shapes and thickness, the spaces between them, and the spaces between the lines are all of great importance. =A Simple Alphabet.= On the next page is a simple alphabet, planned on squared paper. You can print in this style, any title or words you may wish on a program or book-cover. Plan your printing on a separate piece of paper, marking the height of the space you intend to fill with the letters. Quadrisect this height and draw through these points horizontal lines. Lay off on the lower horizontal, distances equal to the quadrisection. From these points erect vertical lines, using your test square. Mark in a sketchy way the width of each letter in the word you are planning, making the thickness of each letter the width of a square, and leaving the same distance (the width of a square) between each letter. Be careful to keep uniform thickness in slanting lines and curves, as in K and C. Avoid angles in your curves. If you have more than one word in your line, leave three squares for the space between the words, and if more than one line of printing is used, guard against too much space between the lines. The width of two squares would be a safe distance in a style like this. [Illustration] =Transferring the Letters.= When your plan is complete, rub soft lead pencil evenly over the back of the paper, and place the plan exactly where you wish the lettering to go, on your book-cover or program, with the lead painting next to the cover. Then mark over the letters with a sharp point, and a faint tracing will appear on the under surface. You can then finish your lettering in ink or color, as you prefer. All lettering must be done with much care, with exactness, and with the greatest neatness. DESIGN [Illustration: King of two hands, he does his part In every useful toil and art; A heritage, it seems to me A king might wish to hold in fee. James Russell Lowell. ] [Illustration: WHAT NEED HAD YOU OF MONEY, MY BOY, OR THE PRESENTS MONEY CAN BRING, WHEN EVERY BREATH WAS A BREATH OF JOY? YOU OWNED THE WHOLE WORLD, WITH ITS HILLS AND TREES, THE SUN, AND THE CLOUDS, AND THE BRACING BREEZE, AND YOUR HANDS TO WORK WITH; HAVING THESE, YOU WERE RICHER THAN ANY KING. FROM "THE COUNTRY BOY" BY LUCY LARCOM. ] [Illustration: CHART-A] [Illustration: CHART-D] Colors in Full Intensity and their Neutral Values. =Light and Dark Colors.= When you painted an autumn scene like the one on page 2, you found that it could be done with three colors--yellow, red, and blue. Blue made the sky and water; blue and yellow the grass and the foliage of the smaller tree; blue and red the distance; yellow, red, and blue the tree trunks and the autumn colors of the large tree. Look again at the sketch. Do you see that the two trees are darker than the grass, that the water and the sky are of nearly the same value, and that the tree-trunks are the darkest colors in the picture? In the winter scene on page 8, and in the spring picture of the yellow bush, both dark and light colors have been used. The colored flower studies all show dark and light colors. Both light and dark colors are needed to express truth and beauty, just as in music we need both high and low tones for perfect melody. =An Orderly Arrangement of Colors.= In Chart A these colors are arranged in an orderly way. Yellow (Y) is the lightest color and is placed directly opposite violet (V), the darkest color in the circle. Yellow-orange (YO) and yellow-green (YG) come next to yellow on either side. Then orange (O) and green (G) follow, and next to them are red-orange (RO) and blue-green (BG). Next in the circle are red (R) and blue (B), and after them red-violet (RV) and blue-violet (BV). The colors in the chart are the strongest that your three colors can make. Colors of this strength are said to be in full intensity. =Expressing Colors in Neutral Values.= On page 4 are "finder" pictures taken from the autumn scene on page 2. These are done in gray washes that correspond to the colors in the autumn sketch. The trees are shown in grays that make them just as dark as the trees in the colored picture. When we make gray washes just as light and as dark as colors that we wish to represent, we say that we express those colors in neutral values. =The Neutral Value Scale.= In Chart D the scales are arranged to show the grays or neutral values that correspond to the different colors in their full intensity. In this chart yellow is as light as the gray wash called High Light (HL). Yellow-orange and yellow-green are of the same value as Light (L). Orange and green are of the same value as Low Light (LL). Red-orange and blue-green are of the same value as Middle (M). Red and blue equal the neutral value High Dark (HD). Red-violet and blue-violet are equal to Dark (D), and violet, the darkest color, is expressed by Low Dark (LD). Low Dark is almost black. The Neutral Value Scale. [Illustration: VALUE SCALE] A scale of neutral values, larger in size than that on page 78, is printed on this page. White and black are added. They do not correspond to any color, but they help us to see the many steps that may be taken between them. Only seven of these steps from black to white are shown in our scale. Of course there are other grays, not represented in the scale, just as there are tones of music not expressed in the musical scale or octave. The musical scale and this value scale are used to help locate all other notes and all other degrees of light and dark. You could make, for instance, other grays between High Light and White. But it is useful to know that certain grays have definite names, and definite places in the scale. With the aid of this larger scale, we can more easily compare the values of the colors of a landscape, a flower, or a still-life group with the same values in gray. Turn to pages 8 and 9. On page 8 the winter landscape is in color, and you see the same scene on page 9 in neutral values. In it the sky and part of the snow are of the same value, and they match the gray marked High Light in the scale. The distant hill is Low Light; the dark band of trees on the horizon is High Dark, and the tree in the foreground is Dark. In this way you can find in the scale the neutral values used in a picture. Name the values of the hyacinth, on page 53. What values were used in the moonlight picture on page 10? Make a little scale showing these values and giving their names. [Illustration: 1] [Illustration: 2] [Illustration: 3] [Illustration: 4] [Illustration: 5] [Illustration: 6] [Illustration: 7] Dividing a Space into Large and Small Spaces. Plaids are most attractive when seen in color. Before the color is added, however, definite spaces must be divided by lines into other spaces, making an interesting variety. In drawing from flowers, you found that a spray showing large and small shapes made a more interesting sketch than one in which leaves and flowers were of uniform shapes and sizes. Sketches 1 and 2 show how vertical and horizontal lines may divide a square into a variety of spaces. Either arrangement is more beautiful than sketch 3, where the spaces are more nearly alike. Look at the still-life group in sketch 4, where the three objects are so nearly of the same size. Do you think this group as pleasing as the group shown in sketch 5? Our designs, as well as our pictures, must show variety and good arrangement of shapes and spaces, in order to be interesting. Too much variety in a picture or design is as bad as not enough variety. Look at the number of lines and spaces in sketch 6. The design is crowded and "fussy," like an overtrimmed bonnet, or a room in which there is too much furniture. The still-life group in sketch 7 shows the same effect of too much variety. Draw four squares, each four inches on a side. Divide each into large and small spaces of pleasing variety by using vertical and horizontal lines, four inches in length. [Illustration: 1] [Illustration: 2] [Illustration] [Illustration: 3] [Illustration: 4] Large and Small Spaces in Two Values. One way of adding to the interest and beauty of large and small spaces is to show them in values. Compare Sketches 1 and 2 on this page with Sketches 1 and 2 on page 81. You will find the plaids which are shown in values more interesting than those which are made with lines only. The two values in each sketch on this page are chosen from the neutral value scale on page 80. In Sketch 1, High Light (HL) and Black (B) are used, and in Sketch 2, we find Middle (M) and Black (B). You see how different in effect the two plaids are. The same difference can be shown in landscape, flowers, or in any other picture or design, by changing the values. Sketches 3 and 4 show simple groups of still life, first drawn in outline from the objects, and then painted in values chosen from the value scale. Sketch 3 is painted in the same values as the plaid in Sketch 1, and Sketches 2 and 4 are alike in values. Choose two of your best plaid designs, done in the lesson on page 81, and paint the spaces in one, HL and B; in the other M and B. [Illustration: 1] [Illustration: 2] [Illustration: 3] [Illustration: 4] Pictures in Different Keys. In your study of music you have learned to sing in different keys. Some songs are pitched in high keys, and others in low. Or, the same song may be sung in several different keys. The tune or melody remains the same, but there is a difference in the sound. Pictures are sometimes spoken of as being painted in keys. If the darker values of the scale are used, the picture is said to be in low key. If the picture is full of light color, it is said to be in a high key. Sketches 1 and 2 show you how different the same design appears, when painted in different keys. Sketch 3 is a landscape in the same values used in Sketch 1. Sketch 4 shows the same scene in a lower key. The soft, silvery light of early morning has given place to the deeper tones of dusk. Draw two four-inch squares and divide them alike into large and small spaces. Using two values, paint one in a high key, and the other in a low key. Make a little scale under each sketch, naming the values you have used. [Illustration: GORDON] [Illustration: LOGAN OR MACLENNAN] Scotch Plaids. Long, long years ago, before the days of kings and queens, people lived together in great families or tribes. In Scotland these tribes were called clans, and the sign or badge of a clan was shown in the tartan plaid. This was a heavy piece of woolen cloth worn over the shoulders, as a protection from the weather. A sort of skirt, called a kilt, was made from the same plaid, and this costume was worn by both men and women of the clans in the Highlands of Scotland. The tartans were woven in bright colors, forming designs like those at the top of this page. They were often very beautiful in their arrangement of spaces and colors. Each different design received a name from the clan that wore it. Those at the top of this page are the Gordon and the Logan or MacLennan tartans. Copy in colors some good plaid design, that you can find in ginghams, in silk, or in woolen cloth. [Illustration] A Stained Glass Window. Some stained glass windows are as beautiful to look at as fine paintings. Their rich colors glow with light, and they show an interesting variety and arrangement of shapes. They are usually made of colored glass, held together by lead grooves. These are represented in the design on this page by the heavy black lines. You can make with water-colors an effect very much like stained glass. With pencil, draw an oblong ten inches long and about seven inches wide. Within this, draw another oblong, for the central piece of glass. The size of this inner oblong you must determine for yourself. Remember that its size fixes the width of the border. In the border space, draw some simple straight line design. Paint the smaller oblong, by wetting its surface evenly, and dropping in red, yellow, and blue. Let the colors blend as they will, and use the brush to carry color to the edges of the oblong. When this is dry, paint the shapes in the border in flat washes of any two colors. Last of all, paint strong, black lead lines. [Illustration] The Stained Glass Window in Values. The greater part of the illustrations which appear in books and magazines is done in neutral grays. All sorts of color effects are represented by grays in these different pictures, and this is done by people who understand just what neutral value is needed to represent a certain color, its tints, or its shades. You have often represented flowers, landscapes, figures, and still life in gray washes, or with pencil or charcoal. In Chart D you see that certain colors like yellow, yellow-orange, orange, yellow-green and green are represented in their full intensity by grays chosen from the upper end of the neutral value scale, and that the darker colors like red, red-violet, blue, blue-violet, and violet are represented in their full intensity by the grays below middle gray. Compare the colors you used in making your stained glass window design with Chart D on page 77. Draw the same plan that you used for your colored design. Cover the smaller oblong with a water wash and drop in charcoal-gray, in values to suit the light and dark colors in your stained glass window design. Fill the small oblongs in the border with flat washes of gray. Try to determine just what grays would represent the colors you used. Your lead lines should be of even thickness throughout. Draw them when the rest of the work is thoroughly dry. [Illustration: A] [Illustration: B] [Illustration: C] [Illustration: D] [Illustration: E] [Illustration: F] Several Ways of Decorating a Square Space. On pages 69, 70, and 71 you learned how to draw and divide certain shapes. You saw that by slightly changing the direction of construction lines, decorative designs could be made. Construction lines are lines used in drawing and dividing a shape. They may or may not be retained, after the design is finished. In Sketch A on this page the four sides of the square and the horizontal diameter may be taken as construction lines. By following these lines with a narrow pathway and slightly changing the direction of parts of them, designs can be made in great variety. In Sketch B diameters are drawn and in the center is a small square on its diagonals. Little pathways lead from the sides of the square to the center, resulting in a four-sided decoration. In Sketch C diagonals are drawn and pathways sent along them to the center. Sketches D, E, and F are like A, B, and C, except that curved lines have been used instead of straight lines. Draw six four-inch squares. Copy the construction lines and their modifications as shown in the six sketches on this page. Finish each design and strengthen the lines which will bring out the decoration. [Illustration: A] [Illustration: B] [Illustration: C] [Illustration: D] Decorating an Oblong Shape. The oblong is a favorite shape for book-covers, envelopes, card-cases, portfolios, and other articles that can be made in the school-room. Hundreds of objects about you in school and at home are also based, in their proportions, on the oblong. Think of the books, boxes, rugs, doors, and windows, that you constantly see. They are nearly always shaped like an oblong. You will be interested to know some of the ways in which decorations for these objects are planned. In a rug or a book-cover, for instance, we often wish a design similar to that shown in Sketch A. In planning for this, a smaller oblong was drawn within the larger one. The lines of the smaller one were used as construction lines, and these were modified in the same way as were the construction lines of the square on page 87. In Sketch D, the diameters of the oblong were drawn and the semi-diameters bisected. Then these points were connected. In both Sketch A and Sketch D, all construction lines not used in the design were erased. Draw two oblongs not less than eight inches high, and wide enough to make a panel of pleasing proportions. Plan and draw designs similar to, but not exactly like, those shown in Sketches A and D. [Illustration] [Illustration: A] [Illustration: B] [Illustration: C] [Illustration: D] [Illustration: E] How to Use Shapes from Nature in Design. If all our designs were like those which can be made by following the construction lines of certain definite shapes, we would very likely grow tired of seeing so much decoration of that kind. We may get many ideas of beautiful lines and shapes from a plant or a flower, and we may use these ideas in making designs, as the drawings on this page and the next will show. Look at the sketch of the marsh-marigold, and then at the small drawings at the right. A is a petal, B is a stamen, C is a side view of the flower, showing three petals and a stem, D is a leaf, and E a bud and stem. In these sketches the lines are even, the shapes are regular, and all "accidents of growth" are omitted. Sometimes the shapes were drawn larger than their true size, and sometimes the parts were separated, as in C and E. We need not copy just what we see, but we may modify shapes or change their size and arrangement to suit the spaces which they are to fill. Study a wild flower in this way. See how many design ideas you can get from one plant. [Illustration: A] [Illustration: B] [Illustration: C] Shapes from Nature in Borders and Other Decorations. Nature has suggested some of the most beautiful decorations we have. In the baptismal font on page 65, the carved decoration was evidently from the growth of a vine. The vine is not represented exactly as it grew. A decoration that showed the actual appearance of the plant would not have been adapted to the space. In the three oblongs on this page, the marsh-marigold shapes have been used in three ways. In Sketch A, the petals of the flower were used in a border design, and the size of the unit, or shape repeated, was carefully planned. If the petal shapes had been drawn larger, the border would have been too heavy for the size of the oblong. In Sketch B, two leaves and an arrangement of petal shapes suggesting the flower were used, and in Sketch C, the side view of the flower and a part of the stem form a unit which is used to "spot" the oblong. These spots are not crowded, but are placed with careful thought as to the best appearance of the oblong. No matter how beautiful a unit, a border, or a central group may be in itself, we must think of its effect upon the object to be decorated. Draw three oblongs four times the size of those on this page. Decorate these with a border, a central group, and by spotting. Use the design ideas you found in the lesson on page 89. A Simple Design for a Portfolio. [Illustration] Good proportion and the right arrangement of light and dark values will often make an object beautiful, without the addition of ornament. In the chapter on still life, the objects you studied were not decorated, but they were well designed in their beauty of proportions, their color, and their contrast in values. Many familiar objects such as envelopes, boxes, and book-covers, depend for beauty on these simple elements. The sketch of the portfolio on this page is beautiful because it has a fine proportion of parts, and because the gray values of these parts are harmonious. If the dark band of the back had been wider or narrower, if the space for the name had been placed differently, or if the size of the corner-pieces had been changed, the harmony of parts would have been disturbed, and the portfolio would not have been beautiful. Or, if the dark gray trimming had been black, there would have been too great a difference between the values used, and that again would disturb the harmonious effect of the whole. You can tell how large to make the parts, where to put them, and what arrangement of values to use, only by trying several ways, and then selecting the most beautiful. This portfolio may be made by pasting tinted paper or book linen over cardboards. The boards should be covered first with the material chosen for the outside. Then the corners and back should be added, and a lining of paper pasted across both boards on the inside. The space for a name on the outside should be carefully planned. Within this space should be drawn very carefully, the letters of any name you may wish to place on the portfolio. [Illustration] Color Schemes from Nature. In the world about you, every object that you see has color. From the bright colors you can so easily see in flowers, leaves, grasses, and the sunset sky, to the grayed colors of tree trunks, clouds, the ground, and buildings, there is the greatest variety and range. Even in the moonlight, objects though greatly changed in effect, still have color. If it were not for this, we could not see them. It is only in the darkest night, when we can see but a few feet ahead of us, that objects seem to lose their color. In our houses, too, everything has color--not the bright hues that we find in flowers and landscapes, but softer, grayed color. We would not like carpets and wall-paper of the bright color we find in poppies, for instance. The colors we use in our furnishings should not be glaring and intense, but quiet and restful. To find these color relations, and to train the eye to know and enjoy fine color harmonies, we study what artists have done, in paintings and other works of art. In nature, too, we find color suggestions in endless variety. In autumn the world is flooded with rich color. Even the common weed that is shown you on this page shows a combination of colors that would be safe to use in any work of our own. See how the colors in the plant have been arranged in a little scale. Such an arrangement is called a color scheme. Make a sketch in color from some plant or seedhead. Under the sketch, arrange in little oblongs the colors you found in the plant. Using one of Nature's Color Schemes. [Illustration] Nature's color schemes become most interesting to us when we use them in some work of our own. The brush-broom holder on this page shows in its coloring the scheme found in the plant growth on page 92. In making a holder of this kind, choose materials that will be strong, and that will look well together. Pasteboards should be cut in good proportions, of a size and shape to fit a particular broom. These should be covered on both sides in the same way that you covered the sides of your portfolio on page 91. The material for this covering may be stout paper, linen, plain gingham, or leather, colored to suit one of the colors in the scheme you have chosen. A simple design may be placed on the holder in another color chosen from your scheme. Then holes for lacing are to be punched in the sides. The cord for lacing should harmonize in quality and color with the rest of your design. The color of the broom itself may be brought into harmony with the holder by painting it with water-color, or by dipping it in a mixture of water-color that matches one of the colors in your scheme. A few Indian beads of bright color strung on the lacing strings will add greatly to the effect. A Raffia Basket. [Illustration] Many of the baskets made by the American Indians are so beautiful that they deserve to be classed as works of art. We wonder that a race of people so savage in their tastes and so wandering in their habits could have produced articles of so much beauty from the materials they found in the wilderness of nature. Many of these materials it is impossible for us to find or to use, but we can make with raffia and rattan, baskets that are something like those made by the Indians. The sketch on this page is from a "soft coil" basket, made entirely of raffia. The amount of raffia used depends entirely on the size of the basket. Before beginning the basket, make a sketch showing its height, the width of the top and bottom, the shape of its sides, and a simple decoration in color. The bottom of the basket is to be made first, beginning the coil at the center. The coil should measure about a quarter of an inch in diameter, and is to be made of a number of strands of raffia, placed with the large ends together, forming a blunt point. Wind the strands tightly together with a strand of raffia, one end of which is threaded through a large needle. Work back from the end until you have a firm coil about half an inch in length. Start the spiral with this end, doubling it back, and sewing it firmly in place. Wind the raffia strands with the strand carrying the needle, sewing the coil thus made to the center. After the first time around, the stitches should be made about a quarter of an inch apart, and should be fastened through the upper part of the last coil. Strands of raffia must be added to the coil, to keep it of uniform size. When a new needleful is taken, the end of the winding and sewing strand must be hidden in the coil. The stitch is the same throughout the basket. The bottom is kept perfectly flat, and the sides shaped to suit the design. Any decoration in color, such as is shown in the sketch, is wound in with colored raffia. When finishing the basket, the coil is to be cut, and the end tapered, wound, and sewed firmly down to the coil below. [Illustration: A] [Illustration: B] [Illustration: C] A Woven Cushion-Cover. Raffia is an artistic material which lends itself to many uses. The covers for the porch-pillow shown in the sketch on this page are woven with raffia, on a strong loom. The size of the loom determines the size of the woven cover. The cushion from which this sketch was made measured eighteen inches square without the fringe, and about two and a half pounds of raffia were used in the covers, the fringe, and the filling of the cushion. Sketch C shows the wooden needle used in carrying the strands of raffia over and under the warp. Raffia is used both for the warp and the woof of the weaving. In "stringing" the loom, fourteen to sixteen pieces of raffia should be used as one strand or thread of the warp, and these strands should be tied firmly to the ends of the loom. As many of these strands must be used as can be tied on the loom without crowding. They may touch, but not overlap. In weaving, the large needle is threaded with raffia to make a strand equal in size to the strands of the warp, and this strand is woven under and over the strands of the warp, making the familiar "basket weave." The ends of the strands used in this way form the fringe, which is trimmed to the desired length when the weaving is done. Stripes, plaids, or simple figures may be woven in with colored raffia. The two sides of the cushion may show different designs. Color Schemes from Man's Handiwork. [Illustration] Leaves, plants, flowers, insects, butterflies, shells, feathers, clouds, and countless other objects in nature can furnish us with many delightful color schemes. We can also learn much from the artistic work of people. In Indian pottery and weaving we often see fine combinations of color. The Indians understood how to make beautiful dyes from roots, berries, and other vegetable growths, and the colors obtained in this way have a peculiar quality and beauty, not found in many of the dyes in common use today. The picture on this page is from a fine specimen of Sikyatki pottery. Sikyatki was an Indian village in New Mexico, and was the home of a tribe of Pueblo Indians. When the Indians wished to send a written message they made use of picture-writing; that is, they made pictures so simple that they are called signs or symbols. Their symbol of a tree, for instance, would look much like the tree pictures made by very little children; three short vertical marks sometimes meant three warriors; a zigzag line stood sometimes for the lightning, sometimes for a serpent; and a wavy line extending in a horizontal direction was the symbol of a brook, a river, or the great ocean. From a good Indian bowl or basket make an exact copy, and place underneath it the scale of colors found in the object. Using Color Schemes in Pottery. [Illustration] In planning a bowl or vase like the one shown you on this page, a sketch of the front view should be made showing the diameter of the top and bottom of the bowl, its height, its shape, the color scheme, and the decoration. Such a drawing might be called a design for a bowl. After drawing such a design, the next step is to make the bowl of clay. For the bowl represented here, a lump of clay was rolled and patted into a low, roughly shaped cylinder. The thumbs were then thrust into the middle of the cylinder, and they, together with the fingers, pushed the clay outward to form the bottom and part of the sides of the bowl. The sides were finished by adding flat pieces of clay, their edges being carefully worked until the pieces added seemed a part of the form. The sides and bottom of the bowl were kept of uniform thickness. Then the bowl was allowed to stand about a day, or until it became what is called "leather hard." The border was then painted on with potter's colors, the lower part of the bowl was colored, and the inside glazed. The bowl was again allowed to dry, this time very thoroughly. It was then fired in a potter's kiln. Make a flower holder of clay. Use the color scheme you found in your Indian bowl or basket. If possible, fire the bowl in a kiln. [Illustration: 3 CANDLE STICK] [Illustration: STOPPER FOR INK WELL] [Illustration: 4 INK WELL] [Illustration: 1 JEWEL BOX] [Illustration: 2 MATCH SAFE] [Illustration: 5 BUTTON BOX] 
38500	----	[Illustration: "I am the Light of the World"] Holman Hunt. 1827- _"I am the Light of the World."_ THE GREAT PAINTERS' GOSPEL PICTURES representing scenes and incidents in the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ _With scriptural quotations, references and suggestions for comparative study_ By HENRY TURNER BAILEY W A WILDE COMPANY BOSTON MASS USA COPYRIGHT 1900 BY W. A. WILDE COMPANY All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS. Introductory. The Annunciation. "Hail Mary" Luke 1:28 TITIAN "Blessed art thou among women" Luke 1:28 HOFMANN "Thou hast found favor with God" Luke 1:28 RENI "How shall this be?" Luke 1:34 BAROCCIO "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee" Luke 1:35 DOSSO "Let it be unto me according to thy Luke 1:38 MÜLLER word" The Salutation. Mary saluting Elizabeth Luke 1:40 ALBERTINELLI The Birth of John. "His name is John" Luke 1:63 FRA ANGELICO Childhood. Nativity. "No room for them in the inn" Luke 2:7 MERSON "The angel of the Lord came upon them" Luke 2:9 PLÖCKHORST "Glory to God in the highest" Luke 2:14 HOFMANN "Found Mary and Joseph and the babe" Luke 2:16 LEROLLE "Wondered at those things" Luke 2:18 CORREGGIO BOUGUEREAU MÜLLER Presentation. "Now lettest thou thy servant depart Luke 2:29 FATTORINO in peace" "This child is set for the falling Luke 2:34 CHAMPAIGNE and rising up of many in Israel" "A sword shall pierce thine own soul" Luke 2:35 BORGOGNONE Anna coming up at that instant Luke 2:38 BOURDON BARTOLOMMEO Adoration of Magi. The star stood over the child Matt. 2:9 HOFMANN They came to the house Matt. 2:11 MALDINI And they worshipped the child Matt. 2:11 LUINI And gave unto him gifts Matt. 2:11 BONIFAZIO Flight into Egypt. An angel appeared to Joseph in a dream Matt. 2:13 CRESPI He arose and departed Matt. 2:14 FÜRST With the child and his mother Matt. 2:14 PLOCKHÖRST Guided by the angel HOFMANN Into Egypt Matt. 2:14 BENZ In Egypt MERSON Was there till the death of Herod Matt. 2:15 MORRIS Return to Nazareth. Mother and child MURILLO "Grace of God was upon him" Luke 2:40 MURILLO Daily life at Nazareth HOFMANN Youth. Visit to Jerusalem. "They went up to Jerusalem" Luke 2:42 MENGELBERG In the midst of the doctors Luke 2:46 HOFMANN LAFON "When they saw him they were amazed" Luke 2:48 DOBSON "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with Luke 2:48 HUNT us?" Silent Years at Home. The carpenter's son HUNT "Breaking home ties" PLOCKHÖRST [The youthful John] Luke 1:80 DEL SARTO [The forerunner] Matt. 3:1-4 TITIAN Manhood. Temptation. "Worship the Lord thy God" Matt. 4:10 SCHEFFER "Left him and behold angels came" Matt. 4:11 HOFMANN Beginning of Public Service. "Behold the Lamb of God" John 1:29 BIDA "Jesus as he walked" John 1:36 GRÜNEWALD A marriage in Cana John 2:1 VERONESE Early Judean Ministry. Cleansing the temple KIRCHBUCK "He drove them all out" John 2:15 HOFMANN Visit of Nicodemus John 3:1-21 UNKNOWN Return through Samaria. "Thou wouldst have asked of him" John 4:10 BILIVERTI "Worship the Father in spirit and John 4:23 DORÉ truth" "God is a Spirit" John 4:24 HOFMANN Call of the Four. "I will make you fishers of men" Matt. 4:19 ZIMMERMAN "Depart from me for I am a sinful man" Luke 5:8 RAPHAEL Early Galilean Ministry. "He healed all that were sick" Matt. 8:16 SCHÖNHERR HOFMANN MAX Calling of Matthew Matt. 9:9 CHIMENTI "Sitting at the receipt of custom" Matt. 9:9 PORDENONE "Follow me" Matt. 9:9 BIDA At Jerusalem Again. "Jesus saith unto him, 'Rise'" John 5:8 BIDA "He took up his bed and walked" John 5:9 VAN LINT "Afterward, Jesus findeth him" John 5:14 VAN DYCK Discussion in cornfield Matt. 12:1-8 DORÉ Sermon on the Mount. Christ preaching DORÉ Giving beatitudes Matt. 5:1-12 HOFMANN "Consider the lilies of the field" Matt. 6:28 LE JEUNE Prayer in secret Matt. 6:6 BIDA Second Tour of Galilee. The Centurion's servant Matt. 8:5-13 VERONESE Raising the widow's son Luke 7:11-17 HOFMANN Jesus in the house of Simon VERONESE "Kissed his feet" Luke 7:38 RUBENS "Thy sins are forgiven" Luke 7:48 HOFMANN "He entered into a boat" Mark 4:1 HOFMANN Parable of the sower Mark 4:3-9 ROBERT Stilling of the tempest Mark 4:35-41 DORÉ Raising of Jairus' daughter RICHTER "Taking the child by the hand" Mark 5:41 HOFMANN "Straightway she rose up" Mark 5:42 KELLER Death of John the Baptist. "The damsel gave it to her mother" Mark 6:28 RENI Feeding of the Five Thousand Blessing the food John 6:11 MURILLO Jesus Walking on the Water "Lord, save me" Matt. 14:30 SCHWARTZ "Wherefore didst thou doubt?" Matt. 14:31 PLOCKHÖRST Trip into Phoenicia. Canaanitish woman Matt. 15:21-28 VECCIO Peter's Confession. "I will give the keys of the kingdom Matt. 16:19 RENI of heaven" RAPHAEL Transfiguration. Transfiguration Matt. 17:1-8 RAPHAEL Demoniac Boy Matt. 17:14-20 RAPHAEL "He called to him a little child" Matt. 18:2 BALLHEIM At the Feast of Tabernacles. "Let him that is without sin cast John 8:7 HOFMANN the first stone" Jesus left alone with the woman John 8:19 SIGNOL "I am the light of the world" John 8:12 HUNT "I stand at the door and knock" Rev. 3:20 OVERBECK "I will give you rest" Matt. 11:28 PLOCKHÖRST Perean Ministry. The good Samaritan Luke 10:30-34 SIEMENROTH DORÉ Jesus in the home of Lazarus Luke 10:40 HOFMANN ALLORI Healing of the man born blind John 9:1-40 THEOTOCOPULI The good Shepherd John 10:1-21 PLOCKHÖRST Finding the lost sheep Luke 15:2 SCHÖNHERR MOLITOR Lost piece of money Luke 15:8 MILLAIS The prodigal son Luke 15:11-32 DUBUFE "Fell on his neck and kissed him" Luke 15:20 MOLITOR DORÉ Rich man and Lazarus Luke 16:19-31 DORÉ Raising of Lazarus John 11:1-46 BONIFAZIO PIOMBO RUBENS Pharisee and Publican Luke 18:9-14 DORÉ Christ blessing little children Mark 10:13-16 HOFMANN PLOCKHÖRST VOGEL Christ and the Young Ruler Matt. 9:16-22 HOFMANN Ambition of James and John Matt. 20:20-28 BONIFAZIO Passion Week. Triumphal entry Luke 19:29-44 DEGER Christ weeps over Jerusalem Luke 19:41 EASTLAKE Tribute money DORÉ "Whose image and superscription Mark 20:24 TITIAN hath it?" "Render to Caesar the things that Matt. 22:21 VAN DYCK are Caesar's" The widow's two mites Mark 12:41-44 DORÉ Parable of the virgins Matt. 25:1-13 POLOTY Conspiracy between Judas and Luke 22:3-6 BIDA Chief Priests The Last Supper VINCI "When he had washed their feet" John 13:12 BROWN "This is my body" Luke 22:19 BIDA "And he took a cup and gave thanks" Matt. 26:27 HOFMANN "Thy will be done" Matt. 26:42 HOFMANN "An angel from heaven Luke 22:43 DOLCI strengthening him" Kiss of Judas Matt. 26:49 SCHEFFER "Bound him and led him to Annas" John 18:12 HOFMANN Peter's denial before the John 18:17 WEST maid-servant Denial before soldiers Mark 14:54 HARRACH Trial before Pilate Luke 23:1-7 MUNKACSY "Hail, King of the Jews!" Matt. 27:29 RENI "Behold the man" John 19:5 HOFMANN CISERI Pilate's wife's dream Matt. 27:19 DORÉ The Crucifixion. "They led him away" Luke 23:26 HOFMANN "Weep not for me" Luke 23:28 THIERSCH "The people stood beholding" Luke 23:35 MUNKACSY The group near the cross John 19:25 MUNKASCY "Behold thy mother" John 19:27 HOFMANN Descent from the cross Mark 15:46 RUBENS Golgotha GEROME The deserted cross MORRIS The Burial. "They took the body of Jesus" John 19:40 CISERI "Laid him in a tomb" Mark 15:46 HOFMANN John with Mary DYCE DOBSON The Resurrection. "Mary was without weeping" John 20:11 HOFMANN "Tell me where thou hast laid him" John 20:15 DI CREDI "Touch me not" John 20:17 PLOCKHÖRST "Returning from the tomb" Luke 24:9 SCHEFFER After the Resurrection. "Jesus drew near and went with them" Luke 24:15 PLOCKHÖRST "Abide with us" Luke 24:29 HOFMANN "And he went to abide with them" Luke 24:29 FÜRST "He took the bread and blessed it" Luke 24:30 MULLER "And break and gave to them" Luke 24:30 DIETHE "And their eyes were opened" Luke 24:31 REMBRANDT "Reach hither thy hand" John 20:27 GUERCINO The Ascension Luke 24:51 HOFMANN REMBRANDT SUGGESTIONS. [Illustration: Capernaum] _Site of Capernaum, Sea of Galilee._ THE USE OF PICTURES IN TEACHING. PICTURES may hold a primary or secondary place in teaching, according to their nature and the aim of the teacher. _The text itself_ may be the supreme thing, and pictures become mere pictorial comments upon the text. Pictures when so used have the nature of _views_ or _illustrations_. The picture at the head of this page is a view. It is reproduced from a photograph taken directly from nature. Such pictures are of great value in building up in the mind clear images of objects or of scenes beyond the pupil's reach. A map means almost nothing to a person unfamiliar with the country, unless by means of numberless views the appearance of the country has been made known to the mind. Every teacher in Sunday-school should have a collection of photographic views of the historical sites of the Bible, of implements, household utensils, articles of dress, etc., which may be used to make clear the Biblical references to such things. Without such illustrations words may convey little or no meaning. The first picture upon the next page may be called an illustration. To a person unfamiliar with the text it might convey any meaning but the true one; but to one familiar with the story of Christ and the rich young ruler it is wonderfully graphic and satisfactory. The words of the text take on a deeper meaning as they are studied in the light of this picture. Because Hofmann is an artist, a man gifted with imagination, he sees more clearly, more vividly than the average person. Seen through his eyes what was before vague and unconvincing becomes definite and powerful. Before seeing the picture the pupil had heard the words:"Jesus, looking upon him, loved him." Now with the picture he _sees_ that Jesus loves him and is anxious to have him decide for life everlasting. Before "the poor" were abstract; now they become a concrete reality. Before the pupil had been told that the young man had "great possessions;" now he sees that he had also health and beauty and intelligence, greater possessions than land and gold. The Sunday-school teacher is fortunate who has at his command pictures which illustrate, which make luminous the text. Plates 11, 20, 34, 39, 47, 62, 70, 101, 106, 133, and 143 may be mentioned as notable examples of good illustrations to supplement the text. [Illustration: Christ and the Young Ruler.] Plate 112. _Christ and the Young Ruler._ H. Hofmann. 1824- The picture itself may be the object of study, and the text become a commentary upon the picture. For example, consider this picture by Holman Hunt. Every detail has something important to say to the pupil. The postures of these people and the costumes say "oriental." The profuse ornamentation both of the architecture and the various furnishings speak of extraordinary conditions. This is the temple which was the wonder of the age (see Mark 13:1), and these are the people who loved to go about in long clothing, and who "devoured widows' houses" to be rich. (Matt. 23:14.) This boy with his pure face and far-away-gazing eyes is he who had thoughts about "his Father's house." The look in the woman's face is appreciated in the light of what she is recorded as having said, "I have sought thee sorrowing." (Luke 2:48.) That she rather than her husband should speak to him is no surprise to one familiar with Matt. 1:18-25. The faces of these serious-looking men must be read in the light of the words, "And all that heard him were amazed at his understanding and answers." One man has an ornamental box in his hand. What is that for? Another has a similar box upon his forehead. Why? Deut. 6:6-8 and Matt. 23:5 will help answer those questions. A man is begging at the entrance. It is not extraordinary in the light of Acts 3:1, 2, and Mark 14:7. He begs in vain outside, while within a servant brings wine to refresh those who will not so much as lift a finger to help the burdened. (Matt. 23:4.) Beyond the beggar craftsmen are still at work upon the temple. Yes, because when this child Jesus first visited the temple it was not completed. "Forty and six years was this temple in building." (John 2:20.) Birds are flying in and out! "Yea, the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, . . . even thine altars, O Lord of Hosts." (Ps. 84:3.) The little boy with the fly-driver tells the season of the year, the light and the few worshippers and the idle musicians tell the time of day. Everything has a message, even the ornament upon wall and floor! That tells whence the Jews derived their art. This picture is more than a commonplace illustration of a single text: it is a graphic presentation of an era. The particular event is shown in its historical setting. The picture is a supreme work of art. [Illustration: Finding of Christ in the Temple.] Plate 35. _Finding of Christ in the Temple._ Holman Hunt. 1827- If pictures of this sort are to be studied, every pupil in the class should have a copy. The teacher's business is to direct the pupil to individual observation and inquiry. The perpetual questions should be, What do you see? What does it mean? Why is that here? What does it contribute to the total content of the picture? What does the picture as a whole have to say? Plates 8, 9, 18, 25, 29, 33, 40, 81, 89, 93, 110, 139, 153, 159, and 167, might be mentioned among those especially worthy of this analytical and exhaustive study. Occasionally pupils will find both interest and profit in the comparative study of a series of pictures. For example take the five plates of The Annunciation, pages 9 and 10. After the facts have been determined by a study of the text, the investigation may proceed as follows: What are the essential elements found in all the pictures alike? Which artist has told the story most simply and directly? The different artists have emphasized or given special attention to some one phase or phrase. Which has embodied more perfectly the first, or the second, or the third? Which has introduced elements of his own? Why? Do they help? Which has, on the whole, told the story most vividly? Which most beautifully? A study of this group of pictures in the light of such notes as will be found printed therewith, will enable any teacher to formulate for himself a plan for studying any other group of pictures. In such study it is essential that each pupil be supplied with a complete set of the pictures to be compared. [Illustration: Madonna of the Shop.] _Madonna._ Dagnan-Bouveret. But the picture itself is sometimes not a thing to be consciously analyzed and inventoried; it is simply a thing of beauty, "its own excuse for being;" it is something to be received as a whole with thankfulness, like the odor of wild grape vines, or the form of a calla lily, or the color of a sunrise, or the music of wind in pine trees. Such a picture is this Madonna of the Shop, by Dagnan-Bouveret. One may think for a moment now and then of how well the picture is composed, of how perfect a master of his art the man must be who can make spots of paint suggest wood and metal, linen and wool, soft flesh and softer light, but the mind returns again and again to the contemplation of the wondrous sweet face of the Virgin, whose deep eyes see unspeakable things. One comes to love such a picture as a dear familiar friend, and to yield to its gentle influence as to moonlight upon the sea. The contemplation of such pictures is one of the purest pleasures of life, a foretaste of the sight of "the King in his Beauty." THE GREAT PAINTERS' GOSPEL. THE GREAT PAINTERS' GOSPEL. [Illustration: The Annunciation.] _The Annunciation._ Titian. THE ANNUNCIATION. The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a virgin whose name was Mary. The angel said "Hail, Mary, highly favored, blessed art thou among women." (Luke 1:26-28.) Mary is supposed to have been in a house of worship at the time (like Hannah, 1 Sam. 1:9-18, and Zacharias, Luke 1:8-13), hence the beautiful surroundings; and to have been at prayer, as suggested by the kneeling posture and the book. The dove is a symbol of the Holy Ghost (Luke 3:22). The beam of light symbolizes the going forth of divine power (Hos. 6:5). The angel is borne upon a cloud (Ps. 104:3), and carries a rod or scepter, symbols of authority (Ex. 4:1-5, Esther 4:11). The lily is introduced as a symbol of perfection and purity (Song 2:2; compare also Num. 17:8). Titian has depicted the instant when the angel says "Hail, Mary." He has introduced emblems of the ideal woman (Prov. 31:13, 14, 26, etc.). [Transcriber's Note: As you may note, each plate is introduced with the artist's name and the plate number. In the original source, this text was bolded, not italicized.] _Hofmann, Plate 1,_ shows the moment when Gabriel says: "Blessed art thou among women." (Luke 1:28.) In this picture only, the angel approaches from behind. The picture recalls the experience of another Mary (John 20:14). _Guido Reni, Plate 2,_, has chosen the instant when Gabriel says, "Thou hast found favor with God." The infant angels represent, perhaps, "the spirits of love, intelligence and innocence," [1] and accompany the Divine Presence because of the words of Christ, when speaking of children, "Their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 18:10.) _Müller, Plate 3,_ seems to have shown the moment when Mary said, "Let it be unto me according to thy word." (Luke 1:38.) His figures and faces express less animation than any of the others. _Dosso, Plate 4,_ represents Gabriel as saying, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee" (Luke 1:35), for both the dove, symbol of the Holy Ghost, and the Highest himself, upon a cloud and accompanied with cherubs, are present. (Compare 2 Sam. 22:10-12.) _Baroccio, Plate 5,_ seems to have seized upon the moment when Mary has just asked "How shall this be?" (Luke 1:34). The angel is encouraging her faith by reference to Elisabeth. (Luke 1:36.) [1] Mrs. Jameson, "Sacred and Legendary Art," vi., p. 57. [Illustration: Annunciation to Mary.] Plate 1. _Annunciation to Mary._ H. Hofmann. 1824- [Illustration: Annunciation to Mary.] Plate 2. _Annunciation to Mary._ Guido Reni 1575-1642. [Illustration: Annunciation to Mary.] Plate 3. _Annunciation to Mary._ Franz Müller. [Illustration: Annunciation to Mary.] Plate 4. _Annunciation to Mary._ Dossi Dosso. 1479-1542. [Illustration: Annunciation to Mary.] Plate 5. _Annunciation to Mary._ F. Baroccio. 1528-1612. THE SALUTATION. "And in those days Mary arose and went into the hill country to a city of Judah, and entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elisabeth . . . and Elisabeth, filled with the Holy Ghost, said, Blessed art thou among women." (Luke 1:39-45.) _Albertinelli, Plate 6,_ has depicted the two women at the moment of meeting. [Illustration: Mary's Visit to Elisabeth.] Plate 6. _Mary's Visit to Elisabeth._ Albertinelli. 1474-1515. BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. Zacharias had been dumb since the moment when he doubted the prophecy of the angel. (Luke 1:20.) When the promised son was born the neighbors and friends of the mother, Elisabeth, objected to the name John. (Luke 1:57-61.) _Fra Angelico, Plate 7,_ has represented the moment when they appeal to the dumb father, and he writes upon a tablet the words "His name is John." (Luke 1:63.) The child, eight days old, is present to be named preparatory to circumcision. (Gen. 17:12.) [Illustration: Birth of John.] Plate 7. _Birth of John._ Fra Angelico. 1370-1450. THE NATIVITY. _Merson, Plate 8,_ has illustrated Luke 2:4-7. "And Joseph went up from Galilee into Judea unto the city of David, Bethlehem, to be enrolled, with Mary his espoused wife. And there was no room for them in the inn." Darkness covered the earth and gross darkness the people who refused lodging to such as Mary, but that night the glory of the Lord was revealed. (Is. 60:2.) [Illustration: Joseph and Mary, Arrival at Bethlehem.] Plate 8. _Joseph and Mary, Arrival at Bethlehem._ Olivier L. Merson. _Plockhörst, Plate 14,_ illustrates Luke 2:8-11. And in the same country were shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night. And the angel of the Lord came and said unto them, "Fear not, I bring you good tidings of great joy. Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord." The angel bears a palm branch, symbol of triumph. (John 12:13.) [Illustration: The Angel and the Shepherds.] Plate 14. _The Angel and the Shepherds._ B. Plockhörst, 1825- _Hofmann, Plate 13,_ shows a company of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." (Luke 2:14.) They are the first to visit the manger! [Illustration: Bethlehem.] Plate 13. _Bethlehem._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Lerolle, Plate 11,_ shows the shepherds who "came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger." (Luke 2:15-16.) The shepherds saw, evidently from some little distance; for we have no record of their speaking to Mary or Joseph, only to others outside, after the visit. (Luke 2:17-18.) [Illustration: The Arrival of the Shepherds.] Plate 11. _The Arrival of the Shepherds._ H. Lerolle. _Correggio, Plate 9,_ has expressed that surprise and wonder of the shepherds which they imparted to others when they told their story, "for all that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds." (Luke 2:18.) [Illustration: Holy Night.] Plate 9. _Holy Night._ Correggio. 1494-1534. _Bouguereau, Plate 10,_ adds to the story a dramatic touch. There are ominous shadows in the background. Mary seems troubled by the presence of the lamb, symbol of sacrifice. The angel had said "He shall save his people from their sins." (Matt. 1:21.) Does Mary seem already to behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world? (John 1:29.) One lamb is already slain, and lies in the foreground. The shepherd with the lamb in his arms may unconsciously illustrate the Christ (Is. 40:11), and the odd disk above the head of the older shepherd, catching the light from the child, may be prophetic of saintly glory. [Illustration: The Nativity.] Plate 10. _The Nativity._ (William) Adolphe Bouguereau. 1825- _Müller, Plate 12,_ gives us perhaps the prettiest, most sweetly human group of all. Some of the shepherds have arrived, others are coming; one with a lamb in his arms, another with his dogs, who seem to sympathize with their master's joyous haste. The rose of the hills, and the violet of the meadows are there as symbols of the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley (Cant. 2:1); "The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib," and in this case the humble representatives of Israel know also, and the people consider. (Is. 1:3.) [Illustration: The Nativity.] Plate 12._ The Nativity._ Carl Müller. 1839- THE PRESENTATION. His name was called Jesus, as the angel had commanded, and after forty days they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, and to offer a sacrifice, according to the ancient law. And Simeon, waiting for the consolation of Israel, came by the spirit into the temple when the parents brought in the child Jesus; and he took him up into his arms and blessed God and said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." (Luke 2:25-35.) And Anna, a prophetess of great age, coming up at that very hour, gave thanks to God and spake of him to all them that were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. (Luke 2:36-38.) _Bartolommeo, Plate 18,_ depicts the moment when Simeon says "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace"--the _Nunc Dimittis_ of the Latin Church (Luke 2:29). Joseph has the two doves for the offering (Lev. 12:6 and 8). In the distance the priest may be seen at the altar, his robe ornamented with the sacred fringe (Ex. 39:26) that there may be no mistaking him. Anna is present, and is, evidently, about to speak. The steps are of marble and the columns richly carved, because of the words of the artist-disciple recorded in Mark 13:1. [Illustration: Presentation at the Temple.] Plate 18. _Presentation at the Temple._ Bartolommeo Del Fattorino. 1475-1517. _Champaigne, Plate 15,_ has chosen the moment when Simeon says to Mary, "This child is set for the falling and rising up of many in Israel." (Luke 2:34.) [Illustration: Presentation at the Temple.] Plate 15. _Presentation at the Temple._ Champaigne. 1602-1674. _Borgognone, Plate 16,_ selects for his picture the last moment, when Simeon returns the child to the mother with the words "Yea, and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul, also." (Luke 2:35.) [Illustration: Presentation at the Temple.] Plate 16. _Presentation at the Temple._ Borgognone. 1445-1523. _Bourdon, Plate 17,_ represents the instant when Anna arrives (at the extreme left), "coming up at that very hour." (Luke 2:38.) [Illustration: Presentation at the Temple.] Plate 17. _Presentation at the Temple._ Sebastien Bourdon. 1616-1671. _Bartolommeo,_ again, _Plate 19,_ adds what he pleases to the original story. [Illustration: Presentation at the Temple.] Plate 19. _Presentation at the Temple._ Fra Bartolommeo. 1469-1517. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. Now when Jesus was born there came wise men from the east, guided by a star, which went before them till it stood over the place where the young child was. . . . And when they were come into the house they saw Jesus and Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him; and when they had opened their treasures they presented unto him gifts; gold, frankincense and myrrh. (Matt. 2:9-11.) _Hofmann, Plate 20,_ represents the arrival. The star stands above the head of the child. The tradition is that one wise man came from Europe, one from Asia and one from Africa (See _Ben-Hur_, Book I.); hence Hofmann has represented one with the oriental turban, one with a helmet having hanging side pieces like an Egyptian head dress, and one with the simple band, the white hair and flowing beard of the Druid. [Illustration: Worship of the Magi.] Plate 20. _Worship of the Magi._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Luini, Plate 21,_ following the same tradition, gives the African a dark complexion. [Illustration: Adoration of the Magi.] Plate 21. _Adoration of the Magi._ Luini. 1460-1530. _Maldini, Plate 23,_ also makes one of the Magi very dark, and adds an earring as a barbaric touch. Moreover he gives each a crown (as does Luini) because the Magi were supposed to have been Kings, in fulfilment of Is. 60:3. [Illustration: Adoration of the Kings.] Plate 23. _Adoration of the Kings_. Battista Maldini. 1537-1590. _Bonifazio, Plate 22,_ like Luini and Maldini, represents a large company of servants to show the importance of the Magi, and perhaps because of Is. 60:4-6. [Illustration: Adoration of the Magi.] Plate 22. _Adoration of the Magi._ Bonifazio Veronese. 1494-1563. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. _Crespi, Plate 24,_ has pictured Joseph's dream. An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. (Matt. 2:13.) [Illustration: Joseph's Dream.] Plate 24. _Joseph's Dream._ Daniele Crespi. _Fürst, Plate 26,_ illustrates the words "And he arose and took the young child and his mother, and departed." (Matt. 2:14.) [Illustration: Flight into Egypt.] Plate 26. _Flight into Egypt._ M. Fürst. _Plockhörst, Plate 27,_ shows the holy family passing through southern Judea, accompanied by cherubs, but unconscious of their presence. [Illustration: Flight into Egypt.] Plate 27. _Flight into Egypt._ B. Plockhörst. 1825- _Hofmann, Plate 25,_ shows them passing through the Wilderness of Shur, Joseph with his broad axe for protection, unconscious of the guardian angel who accompanied them, to keep them in all their ways. (Ps. 91:11.) "That old serpent" is already in the wilderness, waiting! His time has not yet come. [Illustration: Flight into Egypt.] Plate 25. _Flight into Egypt._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Benz, Plate 28,_ has taken as his subject the first moment of rest in a place "even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as thou comest into Zoar." (Gen. 13:10.) Joseph has a typical Egyptian water-jar upon his arm. The little child is pleased with the flowers, after his long journey through the desert, and holds a bunch of them in his hand. The place of rest seems to be just at the edge of the desert,--a secluded, well-watered spot, out of Herod's reach. [Illustration: Repose in Egypt.] Plate 28. _Repose in Egypt._ S. Benz. _Merson, Plate 29,_ is a poetic seer as well as an artist. The sphinx riddle was "What is man?" Merson has placed the answer before the sphinx at last. He who was himself the answer to the world-old question, propounded a new question which all must answer, "What think ye of Christ" (Matt. 22:42). [Illustration: Repose in Egypt.] Plate 29. _Repose in Egypt._ Olivier L. Merson. _Morris, Plate 30,_ gives us a glimpse of the life of the Holy Family during the sojourn in Egypt. Joseph is resting in the tent after his day's work, and Mary is teaching the child to walk. All are unconscious of the ominous shadow so evident now to us. The hatred which threatened the child, would not spare the man. The exile in Egypt is but the prophetic shadow of the coming event--crucifixion. The child's hands extend towards the cactus and the palm, symbols of suffering and of victory. [Illustration: Shadow of the Cross.] Plate 30. _Shadow of the Cross._ P. R. Morris. THE RETURN TO NAZARETH. When Herod was dead, Joseph, instructed by an angel, brought Mary and Jesus into the land of Israel, and made them a home in Nazareth. The mother with her divine child in this Nazareth home has ever been the favorite subject with painters. "Madonna" pictures have been multiplied into the thousands. The most famous are those which were painted by Raphael,--the Sistine Madonna, Madonna of the Chair, Madonna da Tempi, Madonna of the Goldfinch, etc.,--reproductions of which are familiar to everybody. Among other famous painters of the Madonna is _Murillo,_ who, in _Plate 32,_ represents the mother and child as the neighbors might have seen them in their humble home. The child is of course beautiful. (Luke 2:40.) In _Plate 33,_ the artist has emphasized the last phrase of Luke 2:40, "The grace of God was upon him." The Father in heaven is visibly present, and the grace descends upon the child in the form of a dove, as suggested by Luke 3:22. The action of all the accessory figures, the arrangement of the light, everything in the picture, is calculated to focus the attention upon the face of the child Christ. [Illustration: Madonna and Child.] Plate 32. _Madonna and Child._ Murillo. 1618-1682. [Illustration: Holy Family.] Plate 33. Louvre. _Holy Family._ Murillo. 1618-1682. _Hofmann, Plate 31,_ tells of the quiet days at Nazareth, when Joseph worked at his trade, and Mary sat near spinning and watching the wondrous lad who in his child-way could help Joseph by fetching a needed tool. It was a peaceful, happy life, like that of the chickens and the doves. The memories of those days furnished Jesus with the wonderful figure of speech recorded in Matt. 23:37, 38. Hofmann, like other artists, is fond of symbolism, hence the square and the measuring stick are upon the shoulder of the child (Is. 9:6) who was to lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet (Is. 28:17); and the tools take the form of the cross. Jesus was subject unto his parents (Luke 2:51), and, in a sense, took up his cross daily, as all his disciples must ever do (Matt. 16:24). Such service is healthful and profitable (Luke 2:52). [Illustration: Infancy of Christ.] Plate 31. _Infancy of Christ._ H. Hofmann. 1824- THE VISIT TO JERUSALEM. Joseph and Mary probably went every year to Jerusalem at the feast of the passover. (Deut. 16:16.) And when Jesus was twelve years old they went up as usual taking him with them. (Luke 2:41-42.) _Mengelberg, Plate 34,_ represents the holy family approaching the city. The temple with its smoking altars is seen in the distance. The artist has suggested the great company who went up every year to worship, and with which, returning, Joseph and Mary supposed Jesus to be. [Illustration: Jesus, Twelve Years Old, on his way to Jerusalem.] Plate 34. _Jesus, Twelve Years Old, on his Way to Jerusalem._ O. Mengelberg. _Hofmann, Plates 38 and 39,_ illustrates (Luke 2:46). Plate 38 is from the drawing in the artist's Life of Christ. Plate 39, from the famous painting in Dresden, is the more carefully finished. Hofmann has shown the seal of Solomon upon the "chair of philosophy," he has introduced the scroll of the prophets and suggested the rich stones of the temple, but the interest of all is upon the Boy, who came to fulfill the law and the prophets, and who was greater than the temple and greater than Solomon. (Matt. 5:17, John 2:19-20, Matt. 12:42). This picture has become a classic already, though Hofmann is still living. [Illustration: Christ Disputing with the Doctors.] Plate 38. _Christ Disputing with the Doctors._ H. Hofmann. 1824- [Illustration: In The Temple.] Plate 39. _In The Temple._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Lafon, Plate 36,_ has idealized his subject. He has placed Jesus "in Moses' seat" (Matt. 23:2), conferring upon him a distinction amply justified by subsequent events especially by the Sermon on the Mount. "It hath been said . . . but I say unto you . . ." these are the words which give Jesus a unique position as a teacher. [Illustration: Christ Among the Doctors.] Plate 36. _Christ Among the Doctors._ Émile J. Lafon. _Hunt, Plate 35,_ adds that truthfulness of detail, that literalness of statement made possible by the antiquarian and the archæologist. It is the moment described in Luke 2:48, when his mother speaks to Jesus, "Son, why hast thou dealt thus with us?" [Illustration: Finding of Christ in the Temple.] Plate 35. _Finding of Christ in the Temple._ Holman Hunt. 1827- _Dobson, Plate 37,_ shows the moment of discovery, the moment just before Mary speaks. Some of the kinsfolk and acquaintances have evidently returned with Joseph and Mary. A rabbi is telling them about this wondrous child. (Luke 2:47.) [Illustration: Christ Disputing in the Temple.] Plate 37. _Christ Disputing in the Temple._ W. C. T. Dobson. THE SILENT YEARS AT HOME. Tradition says that Joseph soon died, and that Jesus supported the family by working at his trade. _Hunt, Plate 40_, has invented an occasion to emphasize the prophetic words often applied to Mary, "Is any sorrow like unto my sorrow?" (Lam. 1:12.) Simeon had said "Yea and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul," and Mary, "pondering all these things in her heart," is startled, at the close of the day, by seeing the shadow of her son cast upon the wall, like the form of one upon a cross. [Illustration: Shadow of Death.] Plate 40. _Shadow of Death._ Holman Hunt. 1827- _Plockhörst, Plate 41,_ depicts the parting of Mother and Son,-- another pang for the saintly Mary. [Illustration: Christ taking leave of his Mother.] Plate 41. _Christ taking leave of his Mother._ B. Plockhörst. 1825- _Plate 42_ is Andrea del Sarto's famous the youthful John the Baptist, in the days before he came preaching in the of Judea. (Luke 1:80.) [Illustration: John the Baptist.] Plate 42. _John the Baptist._ Andrea del Sarto. 1488-1530. _Titian, Plate 43,_ shows John as he appeared a few years later upon the banks of Jordan, "his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins." (Matt. 3:1-4.) He seems to be saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." (John 1:29.) The river is introduced as a symbol (Luke 3:16), and the lamb also (John 1:35). Del Sarto seems to have studied this figure before painting his boy John. Compare the two faces, and the two arms and hands. Notice the two crosses also. [Illustration: John the Baptist Preaching.] Plate 43. _John the Baptist Preaching._ Titian. 1477-1576. THE TEMPTATION. _Scheffer, Plate 44,_ shows Jesus "upon an exceeding high mountain" and Satan offering him the world for one act of worship. Jesus is about to say, "Worship God." (Matt. 4:8-10.) _Hofmann, Plate 45,_ has selected the next moment when Satan retreats and an angel comes to minister to the famished man. (Matt. 4:11.) The serpent is present because of Rev. 12:9. [Illustration: Temptation of Christ.] Plate 44. _Temptation of Christ._ Ary Scheffer. 1795-1858. [Illustration: Temptation.] Plate 45. _Temptation._ H. Hofmann. 1824- THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC SERVICE. _Bida, Plate 46,_ illustrates John 1:35. "Behold the Lamb of God," said John to two of his disciples, who straightway left John and followed Jesus. _Grünewald, Plate 48,_ represents Jesus meditating as he walks by the sea alone, possibly before he had chosen his disciples, but more likely after the people threatened to make him a King (John 6:15), for it is evening near the sea of Galilee. [Illustration: Behold the Lamb of God.] Plate 46. _Behold the Lamb of God._ Alexandre Bida. 1813-1895. [Illustration: Jesus Walking by the Sea.] Plate 48. _Jesus Walking by the Sea._ M. Grünewald (was painting 1518). _Veronese, Plate 50,_ transforms the modest wedding at Cana into a gorgeous Venetian Feast, to which "Jesus also was bidden, and his disciples," "and the Mother of Jesus was there." (John 2:1-2.) They may all be discovered in the central part of the picture, but to the mind of Veronese the miracle of the wine seems to be of but secondary importance. [Illustration: The Marriage Feast.] Plate 50. _The Marriage Feast._ Paolo Veronese. 1528-1588. EARLY JUDEAN MINISTRY. _Kirchbuck, Plate 51,_ presents a general view of the event recorded in John 2:13-22. Jesus expels the desecrators by his presence merely, as he overthrew his enemies in Gethsemane. (John 18:6.) [Illustration: Christ casting out the Money-changers.] Plate 51. _Christ casting out the Money-changers._ F. Kirchbuck. _Hofmann, Plate 52,_ with his usual literalness, gives Jesus the whip of small cords, and represents him as actively aggressive. "The zeal of thine house shall eat me up," said the prophet, and as they watched Jesus the disciples remembered those words. (John 2:17.) [Illustration: Purification of the Temple.] Plate 52. _Purification of the Temple._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Plate 53,_ by an unknown artist, is an attempt to portray the discourse with Nicodemus. The incident is related in John 2:23-3:21. The moment is that when Jesus says, "If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things?" [Illustration: Nicodemus' Visit to Jesus.] Plate 53. _Nicodemus' Visit to Jesus._ Artist unknown. THE RETURN THROUGH SAMARIA. "He came to a town called Shechem, near the plot of land that Jacob gave his son Joseph. Jacob's Spring was there, and Jesus, being tired after his journey, sat down, just as he was, close to it. It was then about mid-day. A woman of Samaria came to draw water; so Jesus asked her to give him some to drink, his disciples having gone into the town to buy provisions." [*] [*] Twentieth Century New Testament _Biliverti, Plate 56,_ gives the woman a companion not mentioned in the text. The moment is that of John 4:10, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is asking you to give him some water, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." [Illustration: Jesus and the Woman of Samaria.] Plate 56. _Jesus and the Woman of Samaria._ Biliverti. _Doré, Plate 54,_ has selected a later moment, "Trust me," Jesus replied, "a time is coming when it will not be on this mountain or in Jerusalem that you will worship God the Father." [Illustration: Jesus and the Woman of Samaria.] Plate 54. _Jesus and the Woman of Samaria._ Gustave Doré. 1833-1883. _Hofmann, Plate 55,_ may have chosen to illustrate the twenty-fourth verse, "God is Spirit; and those who worship him must worship spiritually, with true insight." (John 4:24.) [Illustration: Jesus and the Woman of Samaria.] Plate 55. _Jesus and the Woman of Samaria._ H. Hofmann. 1824- THE CALL OF THE FOUR. Walking by the sea of Galilee one morning, Jesus saw two brethren, Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, . . . and two other brethren, James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, with their nets, for they were fishermen. And he called them: "Come ye after me and I will make you fishers of men." These four became his first disciples. (Matt. 4:18-22.) _Zimmermann, Plate 47,_ has seized upon the moment when Jesus makes that extraordinary statement. Peter and John are nearest Jesus, the other two in the background. "Fishers of men;" the phrase is mysterious; they cannot understand it. Nevertheless, they leave all and follow Him. [Illustration: Christ and the Fishermen.] Plate 47. _Christ and the Fishermen._ Zimmermann. 1832- Luke gives the account of a miracle between the morning sermon of Jesus to the crowd upon the beach, and this call of the four fishermen: "When he had finished speaking he said to Simon, Push off into deep water, and then all throw out your nets for a haul." "We have been hard at work all night, sir," Simon answered, "and have not caught anything, but as you say so, I will throw the nets out." They did so, and they enclosed such a great shoal of fish that their nets began to break. So they signalled to their mates in the other boat to come and help them; which they did, filling both the boats so full of fish that they were almost sinking. _Raphael, Plate 49,_ illustrates the moment, a little later, when Peter threw himself down at Jesus' knees, exclaiming: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." (Luke 5:8.) Raphael made this as a design for a tapestry for the Sistine Chapel, Rome. [Illustration: The Miraculous Draught of Fishes.] Plate 49. _The Miraculous Draught of Fishes._ Raphael. 1483-1520. EARLY GALILEAN MINISTRY. _Schönherr, Plate 69, Hofmann, Plate 70, Max, Plate 71,_ give different interpretations of Matt. 8:16-17. An evening at Capernaum, when the words of Isaiah (53:4) began to be fulfilled, "Himself took our infirmities and bare our diseases." [Illustration: Healing the Sick.] Plate 69. _Healing the Sick._ Karl Gottlieb Schönherr. 1824- [Illustration: Healing the Sick.] Plate 70. _Healing the Sick._ H. Hofmann. 1824- [Illustration: Healing the Sick Child.] Plate 71. _Healing the Sick Child._ Gabriel Max. 1840- The Call of Matthew has been represented variously. (Matt. 9:9-10.) _Pordenone, Plate 59,_ has Matthew "sitting at the place of toll." [Illustration: Calling of Matthew.] Plate 59. _Calling of Matthew._ Giovanni Pordenone. 1483-1539. _Bida, Plate 57,_ shows Jesus "as he passed by," and Matthew leaving his place of business to follow him. [Illustration: Calling of Matthew.] Plate 57. _Calling of Matthew._ Alexandre Bida. 1813-1895. _Chimenti, Plate 58,_ would have us believe that Jesus entered the great khan of the city where the customs were collected, and called Matthew from thence. [Illustration: Calling of Matthew.] Place 58. _Calling of Matthew._ Jacopo Chimenti. AT JERUSALEM AGAIN. After these things Jesus went up to Jerusalem to a Feast of the Jews, and visited the Pool of Bethesda. There he saw a man who had been infirm for thirty-eight years. After talking with him Jesus cured him, although it was Sabbath. (John 5:1-8.) _Van Lint, Plate 61,_ shows the man arising with his bed, verse 9. [Illustration: Healing of the Impotent Man.] Plate 61. _Healing of the Impotent Man._ Peter Van Lint. _Bida, Plate 60,_ represents the instant when Jesus is giving the command, but before the man has grasped its meaning. Both artists suggest the pool, with its colonnade, or porches. Perhaps a subsequent event is illustrated by _Van Dyck, Plate 62,_ for "Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold thou art made whole; sin no more lest a worse thing befall thee." (John 5:14.) [Illustration: Healing of the Impotent Man.] Plate 60. _Healing of the Impotent Man._ Alexandra Bida. 1813-1895. [Illustration: Talking with the Lame Man, Bethesda.] Plate 62. _Talking with the Lame Man, Bethesda._ Van Dyck. 1599-1641. _Doré, Plate 63,_ gives an interpretation of Matt. 12:1-8. The Pharisees are accusing the disciples of breaking the Sabbath by plucking the heads of wheat, and Jesus is excusing them. The Master seems to be saying, "Have ye not read what David did when he was an hungered, and they that were with him? . . . If ye had known ye would not have condemned the guiltless. The Son of man is lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27.) [Illustration: Jesus and His Disciples Going Through the Cornfield.] Plate 63. _Jesus and His Disciples Going Through the Cornfield._ Gustave Doré. 1833-1883. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT "And seeing the multitudes, he went up into the mountain, and when he had sat down, his disciples came unto him, and he opened his mouth and taught them." (Matt. 5:1, 2.) _Doré, Plate 65,_ has represented the scene as a whole. The instant might be almost any in the discourse. [Illustration: The Sermon on the Mount.] Plate 65. _The Sermon on the Mount._ Gustave Doré. 1833-1883. _Hofmann, Plate 64,_ seems to have depicted the giving of the beatitudes. The poor in spirit, the mourner, the meek, those who hunger for righteousness, the pure, and the persecuted, all seem to be represented in the audience. [Illustration: The Sermon on the Mount.] Plate 64. _The Sermon on the Mount._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Jeune, Plate 67,_ has selected the moment when Jesus says, "Consider the lilies how they grow. . . . If God so clothe the grass of the field, shall he not much more clothe you? . . . Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness." (Matt. 6:28-33.) [Illustration: Consider the Lilies.] Plate 67. _Consider the Lilies._ Henry Le Jeune. 1820. _Bida, Plate 66,_ illustrates one section of the Sermon on the Mount, viz.: Matt. 6:5-15. Here is the man in his inner chamber, having shut his door, praying to his Father who is in secret, and who will reward him. [Illustration: Prayer in Secret.] Plate 66. _Prayer in Secret._ Alexandra Bida. 1813-1895. EVENTS DURING THE SECOND TOUR OF GALILEE. _Veronese, Plate 68,_ represents the Centurion who came to Jesus at Capernaum, beseeching him to cure his servant. "I am not worthy," the Centurion is saying, "that thou shouldest come under my roof--only say the word and my servant shall be healed." (Matt. 8:8.) [Illustration: The Centurion's Servant.] Plate 68. _The Centurion's Servant._ Veronese. 1528-1588. _Hofmann, Plate 72,_ has illustrated the raising of the widow of Nain's son, as graphically as Luke has told it, in chapter 7, verses 11 to 16. "Every one was awe-struck and began praising God." [Illustration: Raising the Widow's Son.] Plate 72. _Raising the Widow's Son._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Veronese, Plate 73,_ gives another grand feast to his friends (compare plate 50). This time it is supposed to be in the house of Simon the Pharisee, as recorded in Luke 7:36-50. The woman, who bathed the Master's feet with tears, is in this case a beautiful and decorous person, a center of attraction. [Illustration: Jesus in the House of Simon.] Plate 73. _Jesus in the House of Simon._ Paolo Veronese. 1528-1588. _Rubens, Plate 74,_ has been more faithful to the story as recorded. The woman kisses the Master's feet and wipes them with her hair, v. 38. There is great consternation among the guests. [Illustration: Magdalen.] Plate 74. _Magdalen._ Rubens. 1577-1640. _Hofmann, Plate 75,_ shows the self-righteous Pharisee, with his hypocritical friends, more graphically than either of the other artists. His keen insight into character is reflected from every face. Hofmann, above many others, is true to the account, and true to human nature. "Thy sins are forgiven," Jesus is saying. (Verse 48.) [Illustration: Anointing Feet of Jesus.] Plate 75. _Anointing Feet of Jesus._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Hofmann, Plate 76,_ tells of Jesus preaching from the boat (Mark 4:1). Every face in the picture is worth studying. The world is present by representation--infancy, childhood, youth, maturity, old age; the healthy and the diseased, the workman and the scholar. "And he taught them many things in parables," among other things the truth about the Kingdom of God. (Luke 8:9-10.) [Illustration: Jesus Preaches from a Boat.] Plate 76. _Jesus Preaches from a Boat._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Robert, Plate 77,_ in four decorative panels, illustrates the parable of the Sower, which Jesus gave at this time. In the first the birds came and devoured the seed, in the second the stony ground offered no good opportunity for a harvest, in the third thorns and thistles and other worldly things, "the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things," symbolized by the short-lived mushrooms and daisies, and by the moths, choke the good seed. In the last is the abundant harvest. (Mark 4:1-34.) [Illustration: Parable of the Sower.] Plate 77. _Parable of the Sower._ H. L. Robert And when Jesus had finished these parables he departed to the other side of the lake. "And behold there arose a great tempest in the sea." _Doré, Plate 78,_ shows the disciples in fear, crying out, "Save, Lord; we perish." Jesus, awakened from a sound sleep, says calmly, "Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?" (Matt. 8:25-26.) "Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm." (Verse 26.) [Illustration: "Peace, Be Still."] Plate 78. _"Peace, Be Still."_ Gustave Doré. 1833-1883. By the time Jesus had re-crossed in the boat, a great number of people had gathered to meet him. Here Jairus came and entreated Jesus to cure his little daughter who was at the point of death. As they were going to the house, servants came saying that the child was dead: but they went on to the house of Jairus. Clearing the house of the mourners, Jesus takes the child's father and mother, Peter, James and John, and with them enters the room of death. (Mark 5:21, 24, 35-40.) _Richter, Plate 80,_ is true to the account in the number of witnesses, but not in the action of the Master. [Illustration: Christ Raising the Daughter of Jairus.] Plate 80. _Christ Raising the Daughter of Jairus._ Gustav Richter. 1823-1884. _Hofmann, Plate 79,_ is, as usual, more literal. "Taking the child by the hand" Jesus said, "Little girl, I am speaking to you, get up." (Mark 5:41.) [Illustration: Daughter of Jairus.] Plate 79. _Daughter of Jairus._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Keller, Plate 81,_ shows the next moment when the damsel arose and the people were "utterly astounded." (Verse 43 in Twentieth Century New Testament.) Keller is no doubt more accurate than either of the others in the matters of costume and other accessories. The face of the child is worth studying. [Illustration: Raising the Daughter of Jairus.] Plate 81. _Raising the Daughter of Jairus._ A. Keller. DEATH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. The account is given in Mark 6:14-29. _Reni, Plate 82,_ represents the daughter of Herodius bearing John's head to her mother. At Herod's command a soldier had brought it in a charger, and given it to the damsel. (Verse 28.) [Illustration: Head of John the Baptist in a Charger.] Plate 82. _Head of John the Baptist in a Charger._ Guido Reni. 1575- 1642. THE FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND. When Jesus heard of the death of John he withdrew into a desert place to rest. But the crowds followed him on foot from all the cities of Galilee. After a day spent in healing the sick and in teaching, the Master fed the multitude generously, with five loaves and two fishes. The account is given by Mark (6:30-46) and by all the other evangelists. _Murillo, Plate 83,_ has selected the moment when the multitude is being seated "by companies upon the green grass," and the disciples are procuring the loaves and fishes from the lad. (John 6:9.) Jesus is taking the loaves preparatory to giving thanks and distributing them. [Illustration: Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.] Plate 83. _Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes._ Bartolome Esteran Murillo. 1618-1682. The following night Jesus came to the disciples, walking upon the water. The most complete account is given by Matthew (14:24-36). Upon Peter's request Jesus gave him permission to come out upon the water. _Schwartz, Plate 85,_ shows the moment when Peter, sinking, cries out, "Lord, save me." (Matt. 14:30.) [Illustration: Christ and St. Peter.] Plate 85. _Christ and St. Peter._ A. Schwartz. _Plockhörst, Plate 84,_ gives the next instant when Jesus stretched forth his hand and took hold of him, saying, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" (Matt. 14:31.) [Illustration: Christ and St. Peter.] Plate 84. _Christ and St. Peter._ S. Plockhörst. 1825- THE TRIP INTO PHOENICIA. And Jesus went away into the borders of Tyre and Sidon. There a Canaanitish woman begged him to cure her daughter. The interesting dialogue which ensued is recorded by both Matthew and Mark. _Vecchio, Plate 86,_ gives the beginning of the dialogue. "I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Matt. 15:24.) [Illustration: The Canaanitish Woman.] Plate 86. _The Canaanitish Woman._ Palma Vecchio. 1475-1528. PETER'S CONFESSION. The event recorded in Matt. 16:13-20, and that recorded in John 21:15-23, have often been closely related in the minds of artists employed by the church during the middle ages. _Reni, Plate 87,_ gives a literal interpretation to Matt. 16:19. "I give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." [Illustration: Christ Giving Keys to St. Peter.] Plate 87. _Christ Giving Keys to St. Peter._ Guido Reni. 1575-1642. _Raphael, Plate 88,_ represents the later event, when Christ says, "Feed my sheep," but Peter has evidently just received the keys. The sheep are actually present, as symbols, to make clear the moment selected by the artist. (John 21:17.) [Illustration: Christ's Charge to St. Peter.] Plate 88. _Christ's Charge to St. Peter._ Raphael. 1483-1520. THE TRANSFIGURATION. _Raphael, Plate 89,_ has given upon one canvas, and that one of the most famous in the world, the Transfiguration, and that which took place at the same time at the foot of the mountain. (Luke 9:28-36, and Mark 9:14-29.) _Plate 90_ is a part of the same picture. Compare the details of both of these plates with the scriptural account! No artist ever packed more literal and spiritual truth into a single canvas. [Illustration: The Transfiguration.] Plate 89. _The Transfiguration._ Raphael. 1483-1520. [Illustration: The Demoniac Boy.] Plate 90. _The Demoniac Boy._ Raphael. 1483-1520. Shortly after the Transfiguration Jesus talked with his disciples about true greatness. By way of illustration "He took a little child in his arms and said unto them, Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Mark 9:36, Matt. 18:4.) _Ballheim, Plate 97,_ suggests this event. [Illustration: Jesus and the Child.] Plate 97. _Jesus and the Child._ H. Ballheim. AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. The Scribes and the Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman taken in adultery. _Hofmann, Plate 91,_ depicts the scene most graphically, at the moment when Jesus says, "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." [Illustration: Christ and the Sinner.] Plate 91. _Christ and the Sinner._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Signol, Plate 92,_ does not show the woman "in the midst" as did Hofmann, but after they had gone out one by one, when Jesus was left alone with the woman. The words, "Let him that is without sin," etc., are written upon the pavement because of verses 6 and 8, where it is said that Jesus wrote upon the ground. [Illustration: The Adulterous Woman.] Plate 92. _The Adulterous Woman._ Emile Signol. At this feast Jesus spoke of himself as the Light of the world. (John 8:12-30.) _Hunt, Plate 93,_ has idealized the words of Jesus, and added the thought expressed in Rev. 3:20, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." The picture shows also, without doubt, the influence of the well-known hymn, by Mrs. Stowe, "Knocking, knocking, who is there?" Every detail of this picture is symbolical, and most exquisitely painted. [Illustration: "I am the Light of the World."] Plate 93. _"I am the Light of the World."_ Holman Hunt. 1827- _Overbeck, Plate 94,_ emphasizes the thought in Rev. 3:20. [Illustration: "Behold, I stand at the Door and Knock."] Plate 94. _"Behold, I stand at the Door and Knock."_ Overbeck. 1789- 1869. _Plockhörst, Plate 99,_ has attempted to put into a single picture the wealth of meaning suggested by the wondrous words, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt, 11:28.) Humanity is symbolized by the pilgrim who needs comforting. [Illustration: Christ the Consoler.] Plate 99. _Christ the Consoler._ B. Plockhörst. 1825- THE PEREAN MINISTRY. During this part of his life Jesus gave some of his most famous parables. _Siemenroth, Plate 101,_ illustrates the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Priest and the Levite have passed by; the Samaritan is pouring oil and wine upon the wounds preparatory to binding them up. (Luke 10:30-34.) [Illustration: The Good Samaritan.] Plate 101. _The Good Samaritan._ K. Siemenroth. _Doré, Plate 100,_ shows the Samaritan bringing the wounded man to the inn, as described in verse 34. In both pictures the plains of Jericho are shown in the distance. It is interesting to note that one artist translates "beast" as an ass, and the other as a horse. [Illustration: The Good Samaritan.] Plate 100. _The Good Samaritan._ Gustave Doré. 1833-1883. The Perean ministry was interrupted by a visit to Bethany and Jerusalem. _Hofmann, Plate 114,_ has most beautifully drawn the group in the home of Lazarus,--Martha, "cumbered with much serving," (Luke 10:40), Mary, "who has chosen the good part," (verse 40), and for a reminder of Lazarus, who has not yet returned from work, his house-dog, asleep by the chair of Jesus. [Illustration: Bethany.] Plate 114. _Bethany._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Allori, Plate 113,_ gives Martha a maidservant drawing water, and a man-servant bringing in a sheep for dinner. Mary has her alabaster box close at hand! (Compare John 12:1-3.) About the time of the visit Jesus opened the eyes of the man born blind. (John 9.) [Illustration: Christ in the House of Mary and Martha.] Plate 113. _Christ in the House of Mary and Martha._ A. Allori. 1544- 1628. _Theotocopuli, Plate 115,_ represents Jesus performing the miracle, and the hypocritical Pharisees, shocked and offended that he should do such a thing on the Sabbath. Following this event was the discourse about "The Good Shepherd." (John 10:1-21.) [Illustration: Jesus Anoints the Blind Man's Eyes with Clay.] Plate 115. _Jesus Anoints the Blind Man's Eyes with Clay._ Theotocopuli. 1548-1625. _Plockhörst, Plate 116,_ has chosen to illustrate the phrase, "He goeth before them and the sheep follow him." Upon returning into Perea Jesus gave the "Three Parables of Grace." (Luke 15.) [Illustration: The Good Shepherd.] Plate 116. _The Good Shepherd._ B. Plockhörst. 1825- _Schönherr, Plate 117,_ and _Molitor, Plate 102,_ represent the good shepherd who leaves the ninety and nine on the moor and goes after the lost sheep until he finds it. (Luke 15:4.) [Illustration: The Good Shepherd.] Plate 117. The Good Shepherd. Carl Schönherr. [Illustration: The Lost Sheep.] Plate 102. _The Lost Sheep._ Franz Molitor. _Millais, Plate 103,_ illustrates the next parable, that of the lost coin. "If a woman lose a coin, does she not light a candle and search carefully until she finds it?" (Luke 15:8-10.) [Illustration: The Lost Piece of Money.] Plate 103. _The Lost Piece of Money._ Sir John Millais. 1829-1896. If the first parable of the group teaches the compassion of the Son, and the second the solicitude of the Spirit, the third teaches the enduring love of God the Father. _Molitor, Plate 105,_ has designed an almost abstract father and son--_a_ prodigal, perhaps, but not _the_ prodigal--to match his panel of the lost sheep. The parable is but faintly echoed in this picture. [Illustration: Prodigal Son.] Plate 105. _Prodigal Son._ Franz Molitor. The man who has painted the parable as a whole is _Dubufe, Plate 106._ The central panel in the triptych shows the young man wasting his substance in riotous living. "He squandered his property by his dissolute life," says one version. His feasts were such as that described by Isaiah 5:11, 12. The panel at the left shows the young man in want, feeding swine, when "no man gave unto him." (Luke 15:16.) In that at the right, he has returned to his father's house. [Illustration: The Prodigal Son.] Plate 106. _The Prodigal Son._ E. Dubufe. _Doré, Plate 104,_ is truer to the parable in the matter of the return, for "while he was yet a great way off his father saw him and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him." (Luke 15:20.) [Illustration: Prodigal Son.] Plate 104. _Prodigal Son._ Gustave Doré. 1833-1883. _Doré, Plate 107,_ illustrates the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, as recorded in Luke 16:19-31. He has added a dramatic touch by representing the servants ordering the beggar away, even with violence--a part of the "evil things" which Lazarus received during his life. (Luke 16:25.) [Illustration: The Rich Man and Lazarus.] Plate 107. _The Rich Man and Lazarus._ Gustave Doré. 1833-1883. Jesus was again called to visit Bethany by the death of the brother of Mary and Martha. None of the pictures here reproduced give an adequate representation of that which then occurred--the raising of Lazurus. Perhaps the event is too august to be put upon canvas. _Bonifazio, Plate 118,_ seems to take an almost childish delight in depicting the varying effects of a disagreeable odor! He has magnified the remark of Martha (John 11:39) into the motive for a picture! [Illustration: Raising of Lazarus.] Plate 118. _Raising of Lazarus._ Bonifazio II. 1494-1563. _Piombo, Plate 119,_ suggests the large company who witnessed the miracle, but ignores the statement that Lazarus was buried in a cave, and that he came forth without assistance. (Verses 38 and 44.) He has surpassed Bonifazio in one respect at least. Piombo's people are astonished and excited over what has occurred: they are not entirely witless because of Martha's suggestion. [Illustration: Raising of Lazarus.] Plate 119. _Raising of Lazarus._ Sebastian del Piombo. 1485-1547. _Rubens, Plate 120,_ has not included the crowd in his canvas; but his Lazarus comes forth vigorously and happily from his grave in the cave, to meet a master whose figure is charged with animation. The traditional characters of the sisters are not forgotten. Martha helps to remove the grave-clothes, while Mary, as usual, worships the Master. [Illustration: Raising of Lazarus.] Plate 120. _Raising of Lazarus._ Rubens. 1577-1640. _Doré, Plate 108,_ interprets the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. The Pharisee stands and prays "with himself" (Luke 18:11), while the tax-gatherer will not so much as "lift up his eyes to heaven," but says, "God be merciful to me a sinner." (Verse 13.) Jesus is represented as saying, "This man went down to his house justified." (Verse 14.) Doré makes it an actual event, not merely a parable. [Illustration: The Pharisee and Publican.] Plate 108. _The Pharisee and Publican._ Gustave Doré. 1833-1883. Christ blessing the children, has been a favorite subject with artists. _Hofmann, Plate 109,_ tells the story in his own charming way. How sweetly child-like is that offering of the little bouquet! He remembers that not only little children came; mothers brought their babies. (Luke 18:15.) [Illustration: Christ Blessing Little Children.] Plate 109. _Christ Blessing Little Children._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Plockhörst, Plate 110,_ is equally true to the account and to nature. Here a little child is asking to take her flowers to Jesus. Plockhörst loves symbolism. Sheep are present (Is. 40:11), and a little boy is about to offer Jesus a palm-branch in unconscious anticipation of his triumphal entry to Jerusalem. (Matt. 21:8, 9 and 15.) [Illustration: Christ Blessing Little Children.] Plate 110. _Christ Blessing Little Children._ B. Plockhörst. 1825- _Vogel, Plate 111,_ has introduced one or two children old enough to have some consciousness of a real need of such love and forgiveness as the Master offers to all. Their attitude is not that of naïve childhood. [Illustration: Christ Blessing Little Children.] Plate 111. _Christ Blessing Little Children._ Carlo Vogel. _Hofmann, Plate 112,_ has excelled himself in the portrayal of Christ and the rich young ruler, who asked how to obtain eternal life. (Matt. 19:16.) Jesus is saying; "If thou wouldest be perfect go sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." The decision of the young man is already made. He will presently go away sorrowful, and keep his great possessions. (Matt. 19:21, 22.) [Illustration: Christ and the Young Ruler.] Plate 112. _Christ and the Young Ruler._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Bonifazio, Plate 121,_ illustrates the account of Matthew relative to the ambitions of James and John. Their mother comes worshiping, and asking that her two sons may receive special honor in Christ's Kingdom. Jesus is saying, "My cup indeed ye shall drink; but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand it is not mine to give." (Matt. 20:20-28.) Peter is ready to add his word of condemnation. [Illustration: Christ and Zebedee's Children.] Plate 121. _Christ and Zebedee's Children._ Bonifazio. 1494-1563. AT JERUSALEM. PASSION WEEK. Jesus went on his way towards Jerusalem, and when he came within sight of the city he wept over it and said, "Would that you had learned, while there was time--yes, even you--the things that make for peace! But as it is, they have been hidden from your sight. For a time is coming for you when your enemies will surround you with earthworks, and encircle you, and hem you in on every side; they will trample you down and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not see that God was visiting you." (Twentieth Century N. T., Luke 19:42-44.) _Eastlake, Plate, 124,_ has not followed the scriptural account closely, but has designed a panel, with the text in mind, possibly influenced also by Matt. 23:37, "How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" [Illustration: Christ Weeps Over Jerusalem.] Plate 124. _Christ Weeps Over Jerusalem._ Sir Charles Eastlake. 1793- 1865. _Deger, Plate 123,_ represents the triumphal entry into Jerusalem as recorded in all the Gospels, but with most complete detail in Luke 19:29-44. The people threw their garments upon a colt, and set Jesus thereon, and accompanied him from Bethpage to Jerusalem, waving palm branches (John 12:13), and spreading garments and palms in the street (Matt. 21:8), and shouting "Hosanna, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." (Matt. 21:9.) The artist has allowed the mother of Jesus to witness this short lived triumph of her son; nor has he forgotten the children (Matt. 21:15). [Illustration: Triumphal Entry.] Plate 123. _Triumphal Entry._ Ernest Deger. 1809-1885. _Doré, Plates 125 and 127,_ gives two incidents of the early part of the week: the Herodians asking about tribute to Cæsar (Matt. 22:16- 22), and the poor widow giving her contribution to the temple treasury (Mark 12:41-44). [Illustration: Jesus and the Tribute Money.] Plate 125. _Jesus and the Tribute Money._ Gustave Doré. 1833-1883. [Illustration: The Widow's Mite.] Plate 127. _The Widow's Mite._ Gustave Doré. 1833-1883. _Titian, Plate 126,_ in dealing with the incident of the tribute to Cæsar, has selected the moment Doré selected, when Jesus asks, "Whose image and superscription hath it?" (Mark 20:24.) [Illustration: Tribute to Cæsar.] Plate 126. _Tribute to Cæsar._ Titian. 1477-1576. _Van Dyck, Plate 96,_ has chosen the moment when Jesus says, "Render therefore unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's" (Matt. 22:21). [Illustration: Tribute Money.] Plate 96. _Tribute Money._ A. Van Dyck. 1599-1641. Towards the close of his discourse about The Last Things, Jesus gave the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. (Matt. 25:1-13.) _Poloty, Plate 128,_ has attempted to illustrate this parable, and has chosen the moment when the foolish virgins discover that they are unprepared. (Verses 8 and 9.) Evidently the cry, "Behold the bridegroom cometh," was not heard, upon this occasion, "at midnight" (Verse 6.) [Illustration: Parable of the Virgins.] Plate 128. _Parable of the Virgins._ Carl Theodor von Poloty. 1826- 1886. THE LAST SUPPER. [Illustration: Conspiracy Against Jesus.] Plate 129. _Conspiracy Against Jesus._ Alexandre Bida. 1813-1895. When the disciples entered the upper room all had neglected to assume the office of servant in preparation for the meal. They were disputing as to who should be the greatest in the kingdom. (Luke 22:24.) Jesus therefore arose from the table and performed the act of cleansing. _Brown, Plate 133,_ has portrayed the incident wonderfully well. The dialogue with Peter is just finished. (John 13:6-10.) [Illustration: Jesus Washes the Disciples' Feet.] Plate 133. _Jesus Washes the Disciples' Feet._ Ford Madox Brown. 1821-1893. _Da Vinci, Plate 131,_ has excelled all others in rendering the effects of the announcement Jesus made shortly afterwards, when they were at table again, "One of you shall betray me." Some of the disciples wonder (John 13:22), some ask, "Is it I?" (Mark 14:19.) Peter whispers to John to inquire who it is. (John 13:24.) The face of Judas alone is in shadow and inscrutable. Presently Judas will go out to the conspiring chief priests. (John 13:27-30.) [Illustration: The Last Supper.] Plate 131. _The Last Supper._ Leonardo Da Vinci. 1452-1519. When Judas had departed, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of man glorified." (John 13:31.) "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed, and break it." _Bida, Plate 132,_ gives a graphic picture of the moment of blessing the bread. "This is my body which is given for you," he said (Luke 22:19). "This do in remembrance of me." [Illustration: The Last Supper.] Plate 132. _The Last Supper._ Alexandra Bida. 1813-1895. Bida shows the bent figure of Judas retreating into the darkness. _Hofmann, Plate 130,_ continues the story. "And he took a cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many unto remission of sins." (Matt. 26:27-28.) [Illustration: The Last Supper.] Plate 130. _The Last Supper._ H. Hofmann. 1824- No one has portrayed more clearly the characteristic attitudes of the disciples who heard these astonishing words. John is the only one who seems to appreciate the meaning of the sacrament. John only seems to have recalled distinctly what followed--the touching and comforting farewell discourses. Hofmann, as well as Bida, shows the retreating Judas, going out into the night. "And when they had sung a hymn, they went out unto the mount of Olives." (Mark 14:26.) "And they came unto a place which was named Gethesame; and he said unto his disciples, Sit ye here, while I go yonder and pray." (Mark 14:32, Matt. 26:36.) _Hofmann, Plate 136,_ reveals to us the Master in prayer, with Peter, James, and John in the distance. (Mark 14:33.) The moment is that when Jesus triumphs with the words, "Thy will be done." (Matt. 26:42.) [Illustration: Jesus in Gethsemane.] Plate 136. _Jesus in Gethsemane._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Dolci, Plate 135,_ shows the angel which came and strengthened him. (Luke 22:43.) The angel bears the cross and the cup as symbols, but the cup brought that which was sufficient to the occasion. (Compare II. Cor. 12:9.) [Illustration: Agony in the Garden.] Plate 135. _Agony in the Garden._ Carlo Dolci. 1616-1686. Jesus returned to the sleeping disciples. "Look," he said, "my betrayer is close at hand." He had hardly said the words when Judas came in sight with a crowd of people with swords and staffs. Judas came to Jesus and exclaimed, "I am glad to see you, Rabbi," and kissed him. (Twentieth Century N. T., Matt. 26:46-50.) _Scheffer, Plate 137,_ attempts to place the two characters, Jesus and Judas, in strong contrast before our eyes; but he hardly touches even the outside! [Illustration: Kiss of Judas.] Plate 137. _Kiss of Judas._ Ary Scheffer. _Hofmann, Plate 138,_ represents the captive Christ. Judas, smitten already with remorse, skulks along clutching his bag of silver. Mary is watching from a distance. John is weeping upon Peter's neck. "So the band and the chief captain and the officers of the Jews, seized Jesus, and bound him, and led him to Annas." (John 18:12-13.) Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus afar off, and managed to gain admittance to the court of the high priest's house. There Peter denied his Lord. [Illustration: Jesus Taken Captive.] Plate 138. _Jesus Taken Captive._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _West, Plate 140,_ represents Peter denying before the maid-servant (John 18:17), evidently the first time, for he was more violent the second time the maid questioned him. (Mark 14:70-71.) The painter has introduced the figure of Jesus to make the picture more intelligible. The maid seems to be asking Jesus if Peter has told the truth. [Illustration: Peter's Denial of Christ.] Plate 140. _Peter's Denial of Christ._ Benjamin West. 1738-1820. _Harrach, Plate 139,_ gives the denial of Peter before the soldiers in the presence of the maid-servant. (Mark 14:54 and 67.) As Peter denies, the cock, above in the branches of a vine, crows as Jesus had predicted. Harrach has seized upon the moment recorded by Luke alone. "And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter." (Luke 22:61.) And Peter remembered, and went out and wept bitterly. (Verse 6.) [Illustration: Peter's Denial of Christ.] Plate 139. _Peter's Denial of Christ._ Graf Harrach. In the morning the trial is continued before Pilate. Probably no one has painted that scene so well as has _Munkacsy, Plate 141._ The picture is true to the accounts of the evangelists, and is besides a great study of character. The face of Christ is about the only inadequate piece of representation in the whole picture. Munkacsy has evidently followed Luke's account. "And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this man perverting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar." The moment may be that after which Pilate says, "I find no fault in this man," and the accusers "become more urgent, saying, He stirreth up the people" (Luke 23:4, 5). [Illustration: Trial Before Pilate.] Plate 141. _Trial Before Pilate._ M'Haly Munkacsy. 1846- Then the soldiers took Jesus into the Pretorium, and stripped him, and scourged him, and plaited a crown of thorns, and gave him a scarlet robe, and put a reed in his hand. Smiting him again and again on the head, they offered him mock reverence. _Guido, Plate 142,_ portrays Jesus at this time (Matt. 27:27-30). Afterwards Pilate brings Jesus forth to the crowd and says, "Behold the Man." (John 19:5.) [Illustration: Ecce Homo.] Plate 142. _Ecce Homo._ Guido Reni. 1575-1642. _Ciseri, Plate 143,_ takes us upon the colonnade with Pilate and Jesus, and gives us a sense of the mad crowd below--immense, implacable--shouting "Crucify him! Crucify him!" (John 19:6.) [Illustration: Ecce Homo.] Plate 143. _Ecce Homo._ Antonio Ciseri. 1825- _Hofmann, Plate 144,_ shows "the man" to us, and says, Behold him! Hofmann too, suggests the angry crowd, and in the distance introduces the three Marys. Both these artists include Pilate's wife in the picture because of Matt. 27:19. [Illustration: Ecce Homo.] Plate 144. _Ecce Homo._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Doré, Plate 145,_ with his love of the extraordinary, has objectified such a dream as he supposes might have caused a Roman matron to 'suffer many things.' She sees the living and the dead, all heaven and hell attendant upon the Christ, and because of this fears for the welfare of her husband if he does not protect so august a person as this mysterious King, whose Kingdom is not of this world. [Illustration: Pilate's Wife's Dream.] Plate 145. _Pilate's Wife's Dream._ Gustave Doré. 1833-1883. THE CRUCIFIXION. Pilate at last delivered Jesus over to be crucified. "And he went out bearing the cross for himself." Through loss of sleep and loss of blood, worn out with the long agony, Jesus fainted, and fell beneath the load of the cross. They compelled a man whom they met coming in from the country, Simon the Cyrenean, to bear the cross for Jesus, and thus, accompanied by a crowd of people, they came at last to Calvary. The scene which followed has been painted hundreds of times, as a whole, and in detail, sometimes with almost revolting realism, sometimes with fascinating power. _Hofmann, Plate 146,_ represents Jesus carrying the cross to Calvary (John 19:17), and the women who bewailed and lamented him. (Luke 23:27.) The company is just going through the Damascus gate. [Illustration: Bearing the Cross.] Plate 146. _Bearing the Cross._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Thiersch, Plate 147,_ gives the tragic incident which occurred just outside the gate. Jesus has fallen. He is speaking to the women the words recorded in Luke 23:28-31. Calvary is seen in the distance where the crosses for the two thieves have already been placed. There they crucified him between the two thieves. [Illustration: Bearing the Cross.] Plate 147. _Bearing the Cross._ Ludwig Thiersch. _Munkacsy, Plate 149,_ gives us a picture of the retreating soldiers after the awful deed has been done. "The people stood beholding . . . the rulers scoffed at him, the chief priests mocked, the scribes said, He saved others; himself he cannot save." (Luke 23:35, Mark 15:31.) Darkness is coming upon the earth. In _Plate 150,_ John and the three Marys are at the foot of the cross. (John 19:25.) [Illustration: The Crucifixion.] Plate 149. _The Crucifixion._ M. Munkacsy. 1844- [Illustration: Christ on the Cross and the Three Marys.] Plate 150. _Christ on the Cross and the Three Marys._ M. Munkacsy. 1844- _Hofmann, Plate 148,_ has chosen a later moment. Jesus has committed his mother to the care of John (John 19:26-27), and with the word, "It is finished," has given up his spirit into his Father's hands. (Luke 23:46.) Amid rending rocks and opening tombs the Centurion is saying, "Truly this was the Son of God." (Matt. 27:54.) [Illustration: The Crucifixion.] Plate 148. _The Crucifixion._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Rubens, Plate 151,_ illustrates most graphically Mark 15:42-47. Joseph of Arimathæa went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. His request being granted, "he brought a linen cloth, and taking him down, wound him in the linen cloth." (Mark 15:46.) "And there came also Nicodemus, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes." So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths, with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. (John 19:39-40.) [Illustration: Descent from the Cross.] Plate 151. _Descent from the Cross._ Rubens. 1577-1640. _Gerome, Plate 153,_ has given the most weird and graphic representation of the deserted hill and the doomed city. The supernatural darkness is passing. A flood of lurid light pours upon Calvary, casting the ominous shadows of the crosses towards the retreating multitude. In the distance the livid temple marks the place of the rending veil. (Mark 15:38.) [Illustration: Golgotha.] Plate 153. _Golgotha._ J. L. Gerome. 1824- _Morris, Plate 152,_ has drawn the deserted cross. An unknown woman lifts her little boy that he may see that which was written above the head of Christ. "And there was written, Jesus of Nazareth, The King of the Jews . . . in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek." (John 19:19-22.) [Illustration: Whereon They Crucified Him.] Plate 152. _Whereon They Crucified Him._ P. R. Morris. THE BURIAL. _Ciseri, Plate 156,_ portrays, if not "The grandest funeral that ever passed on earth," certainly the greatest. Joseph of Arimathæa, Nicodemus, and John the beloved carry the dead Christ. His mother, Mary, the Wonderful, walks by his side. "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me." (Lam. 1:12.) Mary, the wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalene, and probably Mary of Bethany, are the other mourners. "Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb wherein was never man yet laid." (John 19:41.) [Illustration: Christ Borne to the Tomb.] Plate 156. _Christ Borne to the Tomb._ Antonio Ciseri. _Hofmann, Plate 155,_ represents the company entering the rock-hewn tomb. He composes his company differently. The four women are present in the background, but now two of Joseph's servants have arrived to assist the three men who had been carrying the body. There, in the tomb, the body of Jesus was laid (John 19:42). [Illustration: Entombment.] Plate 155. _Entombment._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Hofmann, Plate 154,_ adds a human touch not found in the records of the evangelists. The last to leave the body are John and the Lord's mother, Mary. [Illustration: In the Sepulchre.] Plate 154. _In the Sepulchre._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Dyce, Plate 158,_ shows John and Mary with the crown of thorns, on their way to John's own home. (John 19:27.) Joseph and Nicodemus are just leaving the garden, while Mary Magdalene and another Mary watch at the tomb. (Mark 15:47.) [Illustration: John and the Mother of Jesus.] Plate 158. _John and the Mother of Jesus._ Wm. Dyce. _Dobson, Plate 157,_ has attempted to express the sorrow of Mary and the solicitude of John as they continue the walk homeward. [Illustration: John and the Mother of Jesus.] Plate 157. _John and the Mother of Jesus._ W. C. T. Dobson. THE RESURRECTION. As it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, "there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it." (Matt. 28:1-2.) _Naack, Plate 159,_ has designed a panel which presents a synthesis of the various accounts of the resurrection, and adds the symbols of victory and triumph. Other artists have given more literal renderings of particular texts. For example: [Illustration: The Resurrection.] Plate 159. _The Resurrection._ A. Naack. _Hofmann, Plate 160,_ has Mary sitting upon the stone outside the tomb, weeping (John 20:11), and the risen Christ approaching her from behind. [Illustration: Easter Morning.] Plate 160. _Easter Morning._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Di Credi, Plate 162,_ has selected the instant when Mary, turning, appeals to "the gardener," as she supposes, to show her where the body of Jesus has been hidden. (John 20:14-15.) [Illustration: Christ Appearing to Magdalene.] Plate 162. _Christ Appearing to Magdalene._ Lorenzo Di Credi. 1459- 1537. _Plockhörst, Plate 161,_ expresses the joyful surprise of Mary when she recognizes her Lord. Jesus is directing her to go to his brethren and say, "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God." (John 20:17.) One hand is held as a warning to Mary not to touch him, the other points upward towards heaven. [Illustration: Risen Lord and Mary Magdalene.] Plate 161. _Risen Lord and Mary Magdalene._ B. Plockhörst. 1825- AFTER THE RESURRECTION. In the afternoon, after the resurrection, two disciples on the way to Emmaus found themselves accompanied by a stranger with wondrous power as an expositor of scripture. (Luke 24:13-27.) _Plockhörst, Plate 164,_ takes us along the road with the three. The speaker is asking, "Was not the Christ bound to undergo all this before entering upon his glory?" (Verse 26.) [Illustration: Walk to Emmaus.] Plate 164. _Walk to Emmaus._ B. Plockhörst. 1825- _Scheffer, Plate 163,_ shows Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and another woman who, after their vision at the sepulchre, are on their way to tell the disciples. (Luke 24:9-10.) These are the women whose words seemed to the disciples but idle tales unworthy of belief. (Verse 11.) [Illustration: Three Marys.] Plate 163. _Three Marys._ Ary Scheffer. 1795-1858. _Hofmann, Plate 166,_ shows the two urging the stranger to stop at Emmaus. (Verses 28, 29.) [Illustration: Walk to Emmaus.] Plate 166. _Walk to Emmaus._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Fürst, Plate 165,_ shows them inviting him into the house. (Verse 29.) [Illustration: Walk to Emmaus.] Plate 165. _Walk to Emmaus._ M. Fürst. _Müller, Plate 167,_ illustrates verse 30, "he took the bread and blessed it." [Illustration: Supper at Emmaus.] Plate 167. _Supper at Emmaus._ Carl Müller. 1839- _Diethe, Plate 168,_ shows him in the act of breaking the bread. [Illustration: Supper at Emmaus.] Plate 168. _Supper at Emmaus._ Alfred Diethe. 1836- In the picture of _Rembrandt, Plate 169,_ the glory appears, and the disciples recognize the Master "in the breaking of the bread." (Verses 31 and 35.) [Illustration: Supper at Emmaus.] Plate 169. _Supper at Emmaus._ Rembrandt 1607-1669. That very evening at Jerusalem, Jesus appeared to the disciples who were gathered in an upper room. Thomas, one of the twelve, was absent, and doubted when the others told him that they had seen the Lord. (John 20:24, 25.) Eight days later the disciples were again together, Thomas being with them. Suddenly Jesus stood in the midst. (John 20:26.) _Guercino, Plate 170,_ shows what followed. "Then said he to Thomas, reach hither thy finger and see my hand, and reach hither thy hand and put it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing." (John 20:27.) The painter has given Jesus a banner as a symbol of victory, a Christian symbol as old as the catacombs. [Illustration: "Thomas the Doubter."] Plate 170. _"Thomas the Doubter."_ Guercino. 1590-1666. THE ASCENSION. At the end of forty days Jesus appeared to the disciples once more, and after giving final instructions as to their future work, "he led them out until they were over against Bethany: and he lifted up his hands and blessed them." (Luke 24:50.) _Hofmann, Plate 171,_ illustrates the next verse. "And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven." In Acts the added information is given that "a cloud received him out of their sight." (Acts 1:9.) Luke says, "they worshipped him" (verse 52); but Hofmann has angels worshipping (the "two men" of Acts 1:10), for the disciples are too greatly astonished to worship just then. [Illustration: The Ascension.] Plate 171. _The Ascension._ H. Hofmann. 1824- _Rembrandt, Plate 172,_ emphasizes the glory of it all. The prayer of Christ (John 17:5), is answered, the promise of God (John 12:28), is fulfilled. The Spirit which appeared at the baptism of Jesus in the form of a dove, descending upon him as he began his ministry, here descends again as he enters the heavens where he ever liveth to make intercession for us. [Illustration: The Ascension.] Plate 172. _The Ascension._ Rembrandt. 1607-1666. And many other such pictures have been painted, which are not given in this book; but these are given that ye may be helped to see Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, and that seeing ye may believe and have life in his name. Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. HABAKKUK 2:2. INDEX BY TITLES OF PICTURES. Adoration of the Kings--MALDINI Adoration of the Magi--LUINI VERONESE Adulterous Woman--SIGNOL Agony in the Garden--DOLCI Angels and the Shepherds--PLOCKHÖRST Annunciation--TITIAN Annunciation to Mary--BAROCCIO DOSSO HOFMANN MÜLLER RENI Anointing Feet of Jesus--HOFMANN Arrival of the Shepherds--LEROLLE Ascension--HOFMANN REMBRANDT Bearing the Cross--HOFMANN THIERSCH Behold, I stand at the Door and Knock--OVERBECK Behold the Lamb of God--BIDA Bethany--HOFMANN Bethlehem--HOFMANN Birth of John--ANGELICO Calling of Matthew--BIDA CHIMENTI PORDENONE Canaanitish Woman--VECCHIO Centurion's Servant--VERONESE Christ among the Doctors--LAFON Christ and St. Peter--PLOCKHÖRST SCHWARTZ Christ and the Fishermen--ZIMMERMANN Christ and the Sinner--HOFMANN Christ and the Young Ruler--HOFMANN Christ and Zebedee's Children--BONIFAZIO Christ Appearing to Magdalene--DI CREDI Christ Blessing Little Children--HOFMANN PLOCKHÖRST VOGEL Christ Borne to the Tomb--CISERI Christ Casting out the Money-changers--KIRCHBUCK Christ Disputing in the Temple--DOBSON Christ Disputing with the Doctors--HOFMANN Christ Giving Keys to St. Peter--RENI Christ in the House of Mary and Martha--ALLORI Christ on the Cross and the Three Marys--MUNKACSY Christ Raising the Daughter of Jairus--RICHTER Christ's Charge to St. Peter--RAPHAEL Christ Taking Leave of His Mother--PLOCKHÖRST Christ the Consoler--PLOCKHÖRST Christ Weeps Over Jerusalem--EASTLAKE Consider the Lilies--LE JEUNE Conspiracy against Jesus--BIDA Crucifixion--HOFMANN MUNKACSY Daughter of Jairus--HOFMANN Demoniac Boy--RAPHAEL Descent from the Cross--RUBENS Easter Morning--HOFMANN Ecce Homo--CISERI HOFMANN RENI Entombment--HOFMANN Finding of Christ in the Temple--HUNT Flight into Egypt--FÜRST HOFMANN PLOCKHÖRST Golgotha--GEROME Good Samaritan--DORÉ SIEMENROTH Good Shepherd--PLOCKHÖRST SCHÖNHERR Head of John the Baptist in a Charger--RENI Healing of the Impotent Man--BIDA VAN LINT Healing the Sick--HOFMANN SCHÖNHERR Healing the Sick Child--MAX Holy Family--MURILLO Holy Night--CORREGGIO I am the Light of the World--HUNT Infancy of Christ--HOFMANN In the Sepulchre--HOFMANN In the Temple--HOFMANN Jesus and His Disciples Going through Cornfield--DORÉ Jesus and the Child--BALLHEIM Jesus and the Tribute Money--DORÉ Jesus and the Woman of Samaria--BILIVERTI DORÉ HOFMANN Jesus Anoints the Blind Man's Eyes--THEOTOCOPULI Jesus in Gethsemane--HOFMANN Jesus in the House of Simon--VERONESE Jesus on His Way to Jerusalem--MENGELBERG Jesus Preaches from a Boat--HOFMANN Jesus Taken Captive--HOFMANN Jesus Walking by the Sea--GRUNEWALD Jesus Washes the Disciples' Feet--BROWN John and the Mother of Jesus--DOBSON DYCE John the Baptist--SARTO John the Baptist Preaching--TITIAN Joseph and Mary; Arrival at Bethlehem--MERSON Joseph's Dream--CRESPI Kiss of Judas--SCHEFFER Last Supper--BIDA HOFMANN VINCI Lost Piece of Money--MILLAIS Lost Sheep--MOLITOR Madonna and Child--MURILLO Magdalen--RUBENS Marriage Feast--VERONESE Mary's Visit to Elizabeth--ALBERTINELLI Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes--MURILLO Miraculous Draught of Fishes--RAPHAEL Nativity--BOUGUEREAU MÜLLER Nicodemus' Visit to Jesus--UNKNOWN Parable of the Sower--ROBERT Parable of the Virgins--POLOTY Peace, be still--DORÉ Peter's Denial of Christ--HARRACH WEST Pharisee and Publican--DORÉ Pilate's Wife's Dream--DORÉ Prayer in Secret--BIDA Presentation at the Temple--BARTOLOMMEO BORGOGNONE BOURDON CHAMPAIGNE FATTORINO Prodigal Son--DORÉ DUBUFE MOLITOR Purification of the Temple--HOFMANN Raising of Lazarus--BONIFAZIO PIOMBO RUBENS Raising the Daughter of Jairus--KELLER Raising the Widow's Son--HOFMANN Repose in Egypt--BENZ MERSON Resurrection--NAACK Rich Man and Lazarus--DORÉ Risen Lord and Mary Magdalene--PLOCKHÖRST Sermon on the Mount--DORÉ HOFMANN Shadow of Death--HUNT Shadow of the Cross--MORRIS Supper at Emmaus--DIETHE MÜLLER REMBRANDT Talking with Lame Man, Bethesda--VAN DYCK Temptation--HOFMANN Temptation of Christ--SCHEFFER Thomas the Doubter--GUERCINO Three Marys--SCHEFFER Transfiguration--RAPHAEL Trial before Pilate--MUNKACSY Tribute Money--VAN DYCK Tribute to Caesar--TITIAN Triumphal Entry--DEGER Walk to Emmaus--FÜRST HOFMANN PLOCKHÖRST Whereon they Crucified Him--MORRIS Widow's Mite--DORÉ Worship of the Magi--HOFMANN --- NOTE.--The "Wilde Bible Pictures," from which are selected the pictures illustrating "The Great Painters' Gospel," are two-and-one-half times as large as the reduction herein used. A catalogue of these penny pictures will be furnished on application to the publishers. INDEX BY ARTISTS. Albertinelli. Mary's Visit to Elisabeth Allori. Christ in the house of Mary and Martha Angelico, Fra. Birth of John Ballheim. Jesus and the Child Baroccio. Annunciation to Mary Bartolommeo, Fra. Presentation at the Temple Benz, S. Repose in Egypt Bida, Alexandre. Behold the Lamb of God Calling of Matthew Conspiracy against Jesus Healing of the Impotent Man Last Supper Prayer in Secret Biliverti. Jesus and the Woman of Samaria Bonifazio. Christ and Zebedee's Children Raising of Lazarus Borgognone. Presentation at the Temple Bourdon, Sebastien. Presentation at the Temple Bouguereau, W. A. Nativity Brown, Ford Madox. Jesus Washes the Disciples' Feet Champaigne. Presentation at the Temple Chimenti, Jacopo. Calling of Matthew Ciseri, Antonio. Christ borne to the tomb Ecce Homo Correggio. Holy Night Crespi, Daniele. Joseph's Dream Deger, Ernest. Triumphal Entry Di Credi, Lorenzo. Christ appearing to Magdalene Diethe, Alfred. Supper at Emmaus Dobson, W. C. T. Christ disputing in the Temple John and the Mother of Jesus Dolci, Carlo. Agony in the Garden Doré, Gustave. Good Samaritan Jesus and His Disciples Going Through Cornfield Jesus and the Tribute Money Jesus and the Woman of Samaria Peace, Be Still Pharisee and Publican Pilate's Wife's Dream Prodigal Son Rich Man and Lazarus Sermon on the Mount Widow's Mite Dosso, Dossi. Annunciation to Mary Dubufe, E. Prodigal Son Dyce, William. John and the Mother of Jesus Eastlake, Sir Charles. Christ Weeps Over Jerusalem Fattorino, Bartolommeo Del. Presentation at the Temple Fürst, M. Flight into Egypt Walk to Emmaus Gerome, J. L. Golgotha Grünewald, M. Jesus Walking by the Sea Guercino. Thomas the Doubter Harrach, Graf. Peter's Denial of Christ Hofmann Anointing feet of Jesus Annunciation to Mary Ascension Bearing the Cross Bethany Bethlehem Christ and the Sinner Christ and the Young Ruler Christ Blessing Little Children Christ Disputing with the Doctors Crucifixion Daughter of Jairus Easter Morning Ecce Homo Entombment Flight into Egypt Healing the Sick Infancy of Christ In the Sepulchre In the Temple Jesus and the Woman of Samaria Jesus in Gethsemane Jesus Preaches from a Boat Jesus taken Captive Last Supper Purification of the Temple Raising the Widow's Son Sermon on the Mount Temptation Walk to Emmaus Worship of the Magi Hunt, Holman. Finding of Christ in the Temple I am the Light of the World Shadow of Death Keller, A. Raising the Daughter of Jairus Kirchbuch, F Christ Casting out the Money-changers Lafon, Émile, J. Christ among the Doctors Le Jeune, Henry. Consider the Lilies Lerolle, Henry. Arrival of the Shepherds Luini. Adoration of the Magi Maldini, Battista. Adoration of the Kings Max, Gabriel. Healing the Sick Child Mengleberg. Jesus, Twelve Years Old, on his Way to Jerusalem Merson, Oliver L. Joseph and Mary at Bethlehem Repose in Egypt Millais, Sir John. Lost Piece of Money Molitor, Franz. Lost Sheep Prodigal Son Morris, P. R. Shadow of the Cross Whereon they Crucified Him Müller, Carl. Nativity Supper at Emmaus Müller, Franz. Annunciation to Mary Munkacsy. Christ on the Cross and the Three Marys Crucifixion Trial before Pilate Murillo. Holy Family Madonna and Child Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes Naack, A. Resurrection Overbeck. Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock Piombo, Sebastian del. Raising of Lazarus Plockhörst. Angels and the Shepherds Christ and St. Peter Christ Blessing Little Children Christ Taking Leave of His Mother Christ the Consoler Flight into Egypt Good Shepherd Risen Lord and Mary Magdalene Walk to Emmaus Poloty, Theodore von Parable of the Virgins Pordenone, Giovanni. Calling of Matthew Raphael. Christ's Charge to St. Peter Demoniac Boy Miraculous Draught of Fishes Transfiguration Rembrandt. Ascension Supper at Emmaus Reni, Guido. Annunciation to Mary Christ Giving Keys to St. Peter Ecce Homo Head of John the Baptist in a Charger Richter, Gustav. Christ Raising the Daughter of Jairus Robert, H. L. Parable of the Sower Rubens. Descent from the Cross Magdalen Raising of Lazarus Sarto, Andrea del. John the Baptist Scheffer, Ary. Kiss of Judas Temptation of Christ Three Marys Schönherr, Karl. Good Shepherd Healing the Sick Schwartz. Christ and St. Peter Siemenroth, K. Good Samaritan Signol, Emile. Adulterous Woman Theotocopuli. Jesus Anoints the Blind Man's Eyes Thiersch, Ludwig. Bearing the Cross Titian. Annunciation John the Baptist Preaching Tribute to Caesar Unknown Artist. Nicodemus' Visit to Jesus Van Dyck. Talking with Lame Man, Bethesda Tribute Money Van Lint, Peter. Healing of the Impotent Man Vecchio, Palma. Canaanitish Woman Veronese, Bonifazio. Adoration of the Magi Veronese, Paolo. Centurion's Servant Marriage Feast Jesus in the House of Simon Vinci, Leonardo Da. Last Supper Vogel, Carlo. Christ Blessing Little Children West, Benjamin. Peter's Denial of Christ Zimmermann, Ernst K.G. Christ and the Fishermen 
40532	----	PORTRAIT MINIATURES TEXT BY Dr. GEORGE C. WILLIAMSON EDITED BY CHARLES HOLME MCMX 'THE STUDIO' LTD. LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK PREFATORY NOTE. The Author and Editor desire to express their grateful thanks to Fürst Franz Auersperg, Sir Charles Dilke, Bart., Dr. Figdor, Mr. E. M. Hodgkins, Lord Hothfield, Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, Lady Maria Ponsonby, Mr. J. Ward Usher, Gräfin Emma Wilczck-Emo-Capodilista, and the anonymous collector, who have so kindly placed their treasures at their disposal, and permitted them to be illustrated in these pages. _The copyright of all the illustrations in this volume is strictly reserved by the author on behalf of the respective owners of the miniatures._ ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR. Plate II. "Queen Elizabeth." By Nicholas Hilliard. " IV. "A son of Sir Kenelm Digby." By Isaac Oliver (1632). " " "Frederick, King of Bohemia." By Isaac Oliver. " " "Queen of Bohemia." By Isaac Oliver. " V. "The Duke of Buckingham." By John Hoskins, the Elder. " VIII. "Colonel Lilburne" (1618-1657). By Samuel Cooper. " " "Viscountess Fauconberg, daughter of Oliver Cromwell." By Samuel Cooper. " IX. "Miss Christian Temple." By or after Samuel Cooper. " " "Rachel Fane, Countess of Bath and later of Middlesex" (1612-1680). By David des Granges. " X. "John Milton." Artist unknown. " XI. "George, Prince of Denmark." By Christian Richter. " XIII. "Viscountess St. Asaph (_née_ Lady Charlotte Percy), second wife of George, Viscount St. Asaph, afterwards third Earl of Ashburnham." By Richard Cosway, R.A. " XV. "Lucy, wife of William H. Nassau, fourth Earl of Rochford." By Richard Cosway, R.A. " XVI. "H.R.H. Princess Charlotte of Wales" (1796-1817). By Richard Cosway, R.A. " XVII. "Henry Tufton, eleventh and last Earl of Thanet" (1775-1849). By Richard Cosway, R.A. " XIX. "The Hon. Edward Percival, second son of John, second Earl of Egmont" (1744-1824). By John Smart (1801). " " "The Hon. Mrs. Edward Percival." By John Smart. " XX. "Earl Beauchamp." By George Engleheart(1805). " XXII. "Mrs. Sainthill." By George Engleheart. " " "John Jelliard Brundish, M.A., Smith Prizeman and Senior Wrangler in 1773." By George Engleheart. XXV. "Elizabeth, Margaret Caroline, and Antoinette, daughters of John Ellis, Esq., of Hurlingham. Middlesex, and Jamaica." By Andrew Plimer. " XXVI. "Selina Plimer." By Andrew Plimer. " XXVII. "The Sisters Rushout." By Andrew Plimer. " XXVIII. "Mrs. Bailey, wife of Lieutenant Bailey, who was present at the storming of Seringapatam in 1799." By Andrew Plimer. " XXIX. "Sir Charles Kent, Bart., as a child." By Andrew Plimer (1786). " " "Mrs. Dawes." By Nathaniel Plimer (1798). " XXX. "Charlotte, Duchess of Albany, daughter of Charles Edward Stuart by Clementina, tenth daughter of John Walkenshaw" (1753-1789). By Ozias Humphry. " " "Mary, wife of the eighth Earl of Thanet" (ob. 1778). By Ozias Humphry. " XXXI. "Lieutenant Lygon." By John Smart, jun. (1803). " XXXII. "Lady Mary Elizabeth Nugent, afterwards Marchioness of Buckingham, and in her own right, Baroness Nugent" (ob. 1812). By Horace Hone. " " "The Rt. Hon. William Pitt." By Horace Hone. " XXXIII. "Miss Vincent." By Vaslet of Bath. " XXXIV. "The Countess of Jersey." By Sir George Hayter (1819). " XXXV. "Louis XIV." By Jean Petitot, the Elder. " XL. "The Empress Josephine." By Jean Baptiste Isabey. " " "The Empress Marie Louise." By Jean Baptiste Isabey. " XLI. "Catharine, Countess Beauchamp." By Jean Baptiste Isabey. " XLII. "Fürstin Katharina Bagration Skawronska." By Jean Baptiste Isabey (1812). " XLV. "Madame Récamier." By J. B. Jacques Augustin. " XLVI. "Marie Antoinette." By M. V. Costa. " XLVII. "Princess Pauline Borghese." By B. Anguissola. " XLVIII. "Prince Franz W. Hohenlohe." By Heinrich Friedrich Füger. " XLIX. "Portrait of a Lady--name unknown." By Heinrich Friedrich Füger (circa 1790). " L. "Empress Maria Theresia, second wife of the Emperor Francis I. of Austria." By Heinrich Friedrich Füger. " LI. "Marie Theresia, Countess von Dietrichstein." By Heinrich Friedrich Füger. " LII. "Fürstin Anna Liechtenstein-Khevenhuller." By Heinrich Friedrich Füger (circa 1795). " LIII. "Portrait of the Artist." By Giovanni Battista de Lampi. " LIV. "Gräfin Sophie Nariskine." By Moritz Michael Daffinger (circa 1835). " LV. "Portrait of a Lady--name unknown." By Emanuel Peter. " " "Gräfin Sidonie Potoçka-de Ligne." By Emanuel Peter (circa 1820). " LVI. "Portrait of the Artist" (1793-1865). By Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller. ILLUSTRATIONS IN MONOTONE. Plate I. "Mrs. Pemberton." By Hans Holbein. " III. "Mary, Queen of Scots." By Nicholas Hilliard. " " "Philip II., King of Spain." By Isaac Oliver. " " "Queen Anne of Denmark." By Isaac Oliver. " VI. "Queen Henrietta Maria." By John Hoskins, the Elder. " VII. "Charles II." By Samuel Cooper. " " "John, Earl of Loudoun." (1598-1662). By Samuel Cooper. " XII. "Madame du Barry " (1746-1793). By Richard Cosway, R.A. " XIV. "Lady Augusta Murray, wife of the Duke of Sussex." By Richard Cosway, R.A. " " "Henrietta, Lady Duncannon, afterwards Countess of Bessborough" (ob. 1821). By Richard Cosway, R.A. " XVIII. "Sir Charles Oakeley" (1751-1826). By John Smart. " " "Portrait of a Lady--name unknown." By John Smart. " XXI. "Miss Mary Berry." By George Engleheart. " XXIII. "Rebecca, Lady Northwick" (ob. 1818). By Andrew Plimer. " XXIV. "The Hon. Harriet Rushout" (ob. 1851). By Andrew Plimer. " " "The Hon. Anne Rushout" (ob. 1849). By Andrew Plimer. " " "The Hon. Elizabeth Rushout" (ob. 1862). By Andrew Plimer. " XXXVI. "Charles I." By P. Prieur. " " "Mary, Duchess of Richmond and Lenox" (1623-1685). By Jean Petitot, the Elder (1643). " XXXVII. "Madame Dupin" (ob. 1799). By Jean Marc Nattier. " " "The Countess Sophie Potoçki" (ob. 1822). By P. A. Hall. " " "La Princesse de Lamballe" (ob. 1792). By P. A. Hall. " XXXVIII. "Portrait of a Boy--name unknown." By Jean Honoré Fragonard. " " "Portrait of a Lady--name unknown." By Pierre Pasquier (1786). " XXXIX. "A Grand-daughter of Nattier, the Artist." By Louis Sicardi. " " "La Marquise de Villette" ("Belle et Bonne"). By Garriot. " XLIII. "La Princesse de Lieven (_née_ Dorothy Benckendorff)" (1784-1857). By E. W. Thompson. " " "Queen Hortense and her son, afterwards Napoleon III." (1808-1873). By Jean Baptiste Isabey. " XLIV. "Madame de Boufflers" (1725-1800). By J. B. Jacques Augustin. " " "The Father of Madame Seguin." By J. B. Jacques Augustin. PORTRAIT MINIATURES. By Dr. G. C. Williamson. A recent French writer, in referring to the art of portrait painting, exalted it to the highest rank, proclaiming it the greatest of all arts. He then proceeded, by a series of curious antithetical sentences, to set forth his opinion of portrait painting, stating that it was at once the oldest and the most modern of arts, the easiest and the most difficult, the simplest and the most abstruse, the clearest and the most subtle. His statement, it is clear, contained a definite basis of truth, coupled with a certain interesting extravagance of expression. It is quite true that to draw a portrait was the aim of the very earliest of draughtsmen, whether it was that of his companion or of one of the beasts of chase, and whether he carved it on a bone, or daubed it on the wall of his dwelling. The first endeavour, also, of a child, playing with a pencil, or a brush, is to draw a portrait, and the very simplest outline does occasionally reveal that an idea of portraiture is latent in the mind of the young artist. If only simplicity of line is desired, nothing can be more simple, while at the same time nothing is more perfect, than the outline or profile drawing of such a great artist as Holbein, or the work of some of the early French draughtsmen. At the same time, the subtlety of this draughtsmanship cannot be denied. For complexity and difficulty, portraiture takes a supreme place, and yet, on the other hand, as the Frenchman points out in his antithetical sentences, it is to a certain extent a simple art, and we all know artists who are able with a piece of chalk to suggest an even startling likeness which they would be quite unable to complete into the form of a perfect portrait. Many a painter thinks at first that portraiture is simple and easy, in fact he finds it so, but the older he grows, the more does he realise that the human features are complex in the extreme, and that the variations of expression make the difficulties in the task of portraying them enormous. From very early times, however, there has been a natural desire to have portraits of the persons about us, and to have these portraits in portable form; hence, after a long succession of vicissitudes, has come the miniature. It is perhaps as well, even though the statement has been made over and over again, to emphasize the fact that the actual word miniature has nothing whatever to do with the size of the portrait. We accept it, however, as implying that the portrait is of portable size, and we shall apply it to such a portrait as can lie in the palm of one's hand, ignoring the fact that the word was originally derived from "minium" or red lead, and has come down to us from the little portraits on illuminated manuscripts, outlined or bordered with lines of red. In two countries especially, the art of painting miniatures has flourished, England and France, and in these two countries there have been schools of miniature painters, and a succession of great exponents of the art, while in the other countries of Europe there have only been now and again painters who have devoted especial attention to this branch of their art, and have taken high position in it. It is more especially an English art, because, although for exquisite grace, charming colouring, and dainty conception, the works of the French miniature painters take a high rank, even they must yield the palm for representation of character to the greatest English painter of miniatures, Samuel Cooper. Moreover, in no country but England has there been such a long series of painters in miniature, extending from the sixteenth-century down to comparatively recent times. It has been the fashion to commence a survey of English miniature painters by reference to Holbein, and it is not altogether an unsatisfactory manner in which to start (although Holbein was not an Englishman), because so many of his best works were painted in this country. It must not, however, be forgotten that portrait painting was practised by native English artists in the early part, or at least in the middle, of the fifteenth-century, and although we know very little indeed about these English painters, yet we have many works remaining which must be attributed to them. It may, moreover, be stated generally that the predecessors and contemporaries of Holbein in miniature work were mostly of foreign extraction, although working in England; such, for example, as Lavina Terlinck and Gwillym Stretes. We know, however, that certain fourteenth-century manuscripts were actually executed in England, by an English artist, and as an example of such work, Mr. Lionel Cust, in his preface to the English Portraiture Exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, points out the Salisbury Lectionarium, with the portrait of Lord Lovell as its frontispiece, representing him receiving the book from its maker, John Siferwas. He refers also to the even better known portrait of Chaucer, painted by Occlive on the manuscript now in the British Museum. There is also no question that the actual art of portrait miniature, such as we understand it at the present day, arose from that of painting portraits on manuscripts, and, as we have already pointed out in another place, it may further be derived from the similar portraits attached to treaties and to documents handed over to ambassadors. The illumination of a portrait of Francis I. on the ratification of a treaty of peace with England, August 18th, 1527, is a case in point. It represents the French King in excellent fashion, delineating character as well as portraiture, and is the work of a painter of no mean skill and discernment. Similar portraits of Henry VIII., and Philip and Mary, dated 1543 and 1556, and painted in England, are not of such a high character as is the one of Francis, but still are sufficient to enable us to regard them as true portraits, representative of the monarchs as they were. Who first, says Mr. Cust, cut out the portrait in miniature from an illumination, and inserted it in a jewelled or ivory case or picture-box, it is impossible to surmise, but such a caprice, once started, was likely quickly to become popular. Who first gave up the use of vellum for such portraits, and found that a playing card in use at that day was a more convenient material on which to paint, we also do not know; nor who, again, stretched a very fine piece of vellum or chicken-skin upon the playing-card, and used that as his basis, but the earliest Elizabethan miniatures painted in England are done in one of these two methods. Prominent amongst the names of the Tudor painters stands out that of Hans Holbein the younger, and in the art of composition it is doubtful whether any successor has equalled him in consummate skill. The illustration which we are allowed to give from Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection, and which represents _Mrs. Pemberton_ (Plate I.), is one of the most astonishing works ever produced by a miniature painter. The figure is so perfectly composed, and so marvellously set within the small compass of the circle, while the modelling is so subtle and delicate, so refined, and distinguished by such perfection of line and economy of material that it is always a delight to regard it, and no portrait painter would be ashamed to say that he had learned many a lesson from the unerring skill with which this marvellous portrait is produced. It cannot be said that all Holbein's works are on as high a level as is this particular picture, but the two portraits in the possession of the Queen of Holland, one representing a young lady, and the other an older man; the portrait of the painter in the possession of the Duke of Buccleuch; the wonderful _Anne of Cleves_ in the collection of the late Mr. George Salting; and the companion one of Henry VIII, in Mr. Pierpont Morgan's cabinet, are all distinguished by the same perfection of draughtsmanship and skill of composition. In Holbein we have, therefore, a fitting master, from whom to start the long series of miniature painters, which in England extended away down to the beginning of the nineteenth century, or even perhaps a little later, and in his successor, Nicholas Hilliard, we find the first of the masters who was actually an Englishman born and bred. From whom Hilliard learned his art it is impossible to tell. It would be most interesting could we decide if he ever came into contact with Holbein, and hardly less so were we able to determine that any other master first gave him lessons in this fascinating art. That he began painting as quite a boy constitutes almost our first fact respecting him, and that is proved by his own portrait at the age of thirteen, signed with the young painter's initials in the usual conjoined form, and dated 1550. Of his history we know that Hilliard was the son of a man who was the High Sheriff of Exeter in 1560, Richard Hilliard by name, and that his mother was Laurence, the daughter of John Wall, a goldsmith of London. The statement that the father became High Sheriff is authorised by the inscription on the case belonging to Lord De L'Isle which at one time contained a portrait of the father executed by the son, and Walpole gives us the information respecting Hilliard's mother, corroborated by the fact that the painter named his son Laurence after his own mother. We also know that he married twice, as the portrait of his first wife Alicia Brandon at the age of twenty-two is in the Duke of Buccleuch's collection, and the inscription upon it, evidently added by the painter after his wife's death, tells us that he married again. Who his second wife was we do not know, but it seems probable that he survived her, because she is not mentioned in his will, and in it he constitutes his son Laurence his sole heir and executor. He was always spoken of with great respect by his contemporaries, is styled "Gentleman" or "Mr.", and his illness in 1610 is carefully referred to in the State Papers; while James I., when he gives him the Royal Warrant of painting, expressly styles him "our well-beloved Gentleman, Nicholas Hylliard." It seems probable that by trade he was originally a goldsmith, and his portraits show us that the craft of the goldsmith had exercised a great influence over his life. In his delicate miniature portraits Hilliard never forgot his original craft, and even went so far upon occasion as to introduce what was distinctly jeweller's work into the portraits themselves. There is, for example, an actual diamond, minute certainly, set in one of his portraits, and the raised work representing jewels in other portraits is wrought with such skill and delicacy that only a goldsmith could encompass it. We know that he took Holbein as his model, for he himself says so, but his work is very different from that of the great Swabian. It is ornamental and decorative, very delicate, and elaborate, but flat and shadowless, and altogether lacking in the marvellous subtle modelling which marks out the work of Holbein. It resembles, in fact, more nearly the work of the early illuminators. It seems probable that Hilliard was not only a skilful miniature painter, but also an actual working goldsmith, and responsible for many of the extraordinary frames in which his portraits were set. Miss Helen Farquhar has with great skill elaborated a theory which tends to prove this, and which appeared in a recent issue of the "Numismatic Chronicle." Certain jewels and miniature cases have been in the past attributed to the artist, and the result of Miss Farquhar's investigation is to make it more clear that such attribution has been accurate. Hilliard painted Queen Elizabeth many times, and amongst our illustrations will be found a portrait of the Queen (Plate II.) from the cabinet of a well-known collector, which sets forth the artist's peculiar technique. We also present an interesting example from Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection which has been called a portrait of _Mary Queen of Scots_ (Plate III., No. 2). It is dated 1581, and is certainly one of the few portraits which seems to stand the test of comparison with the well-known drawing and miniature of Mary Stuart attributed to Clouet. It is undoubtedly the work of Hilliard, and of remarkable excellence, and takes its place amongst the more or less mysterious portraits bearing the name of the ill-fated Queen. Hilliard died in 1619, and appears to have been succeeded in his royal appointments and his professional work by his son Laurence, whose paintings so closely resemble those of the father that it is not always easy to distinguish the work of the two men. Very few of Laurence Hilliard's works are signed; there are two belonging to Earl Beauchamp, and one in the collection of Mr. Pierpont Morgan. The main feature of the son's work consists in the beauty of the calligraphy in the inscriptions around the portraits. It is clearer than the more formal handwriting of the father, but florid, full of exquisite curves and flourishes, and very elaborate, while the colour scheme adopted by the son is distinctly richer and more varied than that used by the father, and the composition is not quite so rigid and hard as was that of Nicholas. The two Hilliards were, however, succeeded by two far greater men--the Olivers. One of them, Isaac, the father, was certainly Nicholas Hilliard's pupil, as the fact is mentioned more than once in Haydock's preface to his translation of Lomazzo. It seems to be possible that some of Isaac Oliver's works were copies of those of his master, and copies so accurately executed that it is not quite easy to determine respecting them. In the cabinet of Mr. Pierpont Morgan there is, for example, a miniature of Arabella Stuart which came from Walpole's collection. It has always borne the name of Hilliard, and Walpole himself was careful in the attributions he gave to his portraits, but in the Rijks Museum at Amsterdam there are two other portraits of the same lady, one of which is stated to be signed under the frame with the initials of Isaac Oliver, and there are two more, even more closely resembling it, in the collection at Sherborne Castle. The Morgan portrait is very characteristic of Hilliard, and the two in Amsterdam closely resemble it. Our suggestion for a solution of the difficulty is that the two Dutch portraits are early copies by Oliver from his master's work. Oliver was an extremely expert painter, and a far more clever man than Hilliard, for the pencil drawings of the painter and his wife, which belong to the Earl of Derby, reveal him as a draughtsman of consummate skill. He was probably of Huguenot descent, the son, it is believed, of a certain Peter Olivier (or Oliver), a native of Rouen, who was residing in London in 1571, and we may take it that his birth was in about 1566; his death occurred in 1617, and he was buried in the church of St. Anne's, Blackfriars. Amongst our colour plates are two delightful portraits by him representing _Frederick, King of Bohemia, and his Wife_, who was known in England as the "Queen of Hearts," signed miniatures from the collection of Sir Charles Dilke (Plate IV., Nos. 2 and 3). In the monotone illustrations there appear two remarkable works by this painter from the collection of Mr. Pierpont Morgan. One represents _Philip II., King of Spain_ (Plate III., No. 1), a fine portrait, set in an elaborate locket of rock-crystal and enamel work, upon the reverse of which is a representation of the Crucifixion in grisaille. This portrait has an interesting history, because it was given by the king to the Duke of Osuna, and acquired from the Osuna family, quite recently. It bears a motto which may roughly be translated "He who gives himself, gives not a little thing," words which are eminently characteristic of the pride of the Spanish monarch. The other portrait is of hardly less interest. It depicts _Queen Anne of Denmark_ (Plate III., No. 3), who was painted over and over again by Isaac Oliver, and who can always be readily distinguished by the jewels which she wore on her elaborate high collar or ruff. Amongst them invariably appears a representation of a sea-horse or a dolphin. This may perhaps have some allusion to her Scandinavian ancestry, but, in any case, it was a favourite jewel with the queen, and hardly one of her portraits appears without it. Here, again, the case containing the miniature is of extraordinary importance, because there is good evidence for attributing it to George Heriot, who was goldsmith and jeweller to Anne of Denmark, and was the founder of the great hospital and school which still bear his name in Edinburgh, while to the present generation he is perhaps better remembered as a character in Sir Walter Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel," in which delightful work he appears as "Jingling Geordie." There are portraits of Oliver himself in existence, and a delightful one of his son, while amongst the collection of the Queen of Holland there is one that is said to represent his wife. The most notable series of the works of this painter is perhaps that which is generally known as the Digby series. Walpole tells the story of the discovery of these miniatures. He says that they were in a garret in an old house in Wales, enclosed in ebony and ivory cases, and locked up in a wainscot box, in which they were as well preserved as though only just painted. He was greatly excited about them, and was able to secure the entire collection, first buying from one owner the greater part of the collection, and then securing by a second purchase the remainder from the lady who shared them with the other heir. They were all sold at his sale at Strawberry Hill, and some of the finest of the portraits passed into the collection of the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts, others went to Mr. Holford, and many back again to the Digby family, who would gladly have purchased the whole, but were unable to afford the prices paid by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, then Miss Angela Coutts. One little portrait was bought by Mr. Wentworth Dilke, and now belongs to Sir Charles Dilke, it represents one of the sons of Sir Kenelm Digby, and is a charmingly graceful little work, by the kind permission of its owner illustrated in these pages (Plate IV., No. 1). The work of Peter Oliver cannot readily be distinguished from that of the father, save for the signature, and is as worthy of praise in every respect, even if it is not more so. That of the father is a little sterner and more forcible than the work of the son, but Peter Oliver is not only known by his delightful miniatures, but also by the copies in miniature size and style which he prepared for Charles I., and which represented some of the great pictures in the King's collection. Several of these copies still remain at Windsor Castle, others are scattered in various collections, and in some instances they are of peculiar importance. For example, there is one in Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection, representing the marriage of St. Catherine, by a Venetian painter, probably Titian or Palma Vecchio, which is apparently the only record of a vanished painting at one time in the King's collection, but later on sold into Spain, and which there perished in a fire at Seville. A curious story is told by Horace Walpole concerning some miniatures by Peter Oliver. He says that Vertue handed down the information that Charles II. being very anxious to re-purchase the portraits which had been dispersed on the execution of his father, was told that the widow of Peter Oliver had taken back some of the miniatures, and had them in her possession. The King went to Isleworth to see her, disguising himself that he should not be known, and she showed him several works by her husband. He was pleased with them and tried to purchase them, but the lady stated that she was anxious to submit them to the King, and if he did not buy them, a price should be named for their disposal. The King then discovered himself to her, and at once she showed him many more miniatures which she had not shown to anyone else, and King Charles desired to acquire them all. She would not, however, quote a price to him, but promised to look over her husband's books, and let His Majesty know what prices had been paid to Peter Oliver by Charles I. The King took away the miniatures with him, and afterwards sent one of the grooms of the bedchamber to Mrs. Oliver, offering her a thousand pounds for them, or an annuity of £300 for her life. She chose the latter, but after some few years, hearing that a great many of the miniatures had passed out of the King's possession, and had been given by him to the various ladies at the Court, Mrs. Oliver, who was given to express herself in somewhat blunt language, said that if she had thought the King would have given the miniatures to his mistresses and illegitimate children he should never have had them. Her remark, which was couched in very strong language, was carried by someone to the Court. The poor woman's annuity was at once stopped, and she never again received it. Following Isaac and Peter Oliver in chronological survey, and necessarily omitting reference to some of the less important painters, we come to the name of a man of considerable eminence in his profession, John Hoskins. To a certain extent he has been overshadowed by the extraordinary merit of his nephew and pupil, Samuel Cooper, but Hoskins was a very great painter himself, and his work marks the beginning of the broader and more powerful English miniature portraiture, as distinguished from the minute work of the men who had been trained under the influence of illuminators, and whose miniatures were too full of detail to be entirely satisfactory. There is no doubt that, as Walpole says, the carnations used in the faces painted by Hoskins are too bricky in colour, but the whole effect of the portrait is simple and dignified, and there is, for the first time in English miniature portraiture, a nobility of treatment and a sober grandeur of effect, extraordinarily impressive. The portrait of the _Duke of Buckingham_ (Plate V.) from a well-known collection, illustrated in colour, well sets forth the dignity of Hoskins' works. It is an exceedingly fine miniature, quiet in colouring, and entirely satisfactory in composition. It is signed and dated, and, with respect to the signatures on miniatures by Hoskins, a few words must be said. It is well also to mark that in the works of Hoskins appears for the first time the division of the background, which is rather a notable feature in the portraits of Cooper, who evidently derived the idea from his uncle. The effect of this division on the lighting of the portrait is excellent, the sitter being placed near to a window, by which hangs a curtain, and the window commanding a view which in many cases was adapted by the artist to some event in the history of the sitter. As regards the signatures Hoskins adopted several methods of signing his miniatures, combining his two initials in different forms of monogram, or separating them with or without the addition of the abbreviation "fc." Until quite recently the statement made by Vertue that Hoskins had a son, was incapable of proof; although the fact that the contemporary inscriptions on some of the miniatures at Ham House speak of "Old Hoskins," implies that there must have been a younger man of the same name, and it was thought that the variety of signatures might help clear up the doubtful question, and that perhaps the father adopted a certain method of signing his portraits, and the son another form of signature. Fortunately, however, in the collection of Mr. Pierpont Morgan, there appears a portrait of the Duke of Berwick, signed with conjoined initials, and bearing upon it an inscription, stating not only who it represented, but actually when it was painted. This miniature proved to contain the missing link of evidence, because there was no question about its authenticity, its accurate attribution, or its signature, but as it was painted in 1700, while we know that the elder Hoskins was buried in 1664, we have in it definite information, not only of the existence of the son, but of the fact that he was painting miniatures thirty-six years after his father had died. The same notable collection contains many works by the elder Hoskins, but only this one which can be definitely attributed to his son. The collections at Ham House and Montagu House are very rich in works by Hoskins, those at the former place being distinguished by delightful contemporary inscriptions on the backs of almost every portrait, recording in many instances the price paid to the artist for it. Of the works at Montagu House, one of the finest represents Charles II. in his youth, and in the collection at Ham is perhaps the largest work which Hoskins ever painted. A particularly good example of the work of this master is the portrait of _Queen Henrietta Maria_ (Plate VI.) from the Pierpont Morgan collection, and this miniature is the more interesting because apparently it has never been re-framed, for not only is the metal frame the contemporary one, but it possesses its original bevelled glass, the oval divided into a series of curved segments, each of which has its polished bevelled edge. Waller, in 1625, spoke of the Queen in these words:-- "Such a complexion and such radiant eyes, Such lovely motions and such sharp replies, Beyond our reach, and yet within our sight, What envious power has placed this glorious light?" We need not, perhaps, accept the praises of the poet, but at least we may admire the quiet sweetness of the Queen's face in this charming portrait, and recognise the skill and dexterity with which it is delineated. Trained and educated by Hoskins was Samuel Cooper, preeminently the greatest miniature painter that England ever produced, and in the opinion of many critics the noblest miniature painter of Europe. We know comparatively little about Cooper's history, but there are few artists concerning whom it would be more desirable to have information. Fortunately, Pepys mentions him several times in his wonderful diary; especially with reference to the portrait of Mrs. Pepys which her husband commissioned. He was evidently a great admirer of the work of Cooper, although, as regards this particular portrait, he does not appear to have been perfectly satisfied with the likeness. He says he was not "satisfied in the greatness of the resemblance, nor in the blue garment, but it was most certainly a most rare piece of work as to the painting," and he tells us the exact price that Cooper charged him, and adds that he sent him the money that night that he might be out of debt. Aubrey calls Cooper "the prince of limners of his age." Ray the naturalist, in writing to Aubrey, refers to a miniature portrait presented to the Ashmolean Museum as "a noble present and a thing of great value." Evelyn calls him "the rare limner" and describes the visit which he paid to the King's private room, where he found Cooper at work painting the royal portrait, and had the honour to hold the candle while it was being done, as Cooper, he says, "chose the night and candle-light for better finding out the shadows." To all this chorus of praise Walpole adds his voice, and tells us that, in his opinion, Cooper's works were so fine that they were perfect nature, and that if "a glass could expand Cooper's pictures to the size of Vandyck's, they would appear to have been painted for that proportion," adding that "if the Cooper portrait of Cromwell could be so enlarged, I do not know but Vandyck would appear less great by the comparison." Even with this criticism, Walpole is careful not to be entirely eulogistic, and he points out with unerring discrimination that, although the heads in Cooper's portraits were so fine, he yet possessed a lack of skill in draughtsmanship where other portions of the body were concerned, and, especially as regards the hands, he had a curious want of grace and accuracy, His faces, however, are superb, and well deserve all the praise that can be given to them. They have been called noble and masterly, and the words are befitting. The two portraits representing _Charles II._ and _The Earl of Loudoun_, which we present from the Pierpont Morgan collection (Plate VII.), and the two in colour, depicting _Colonel Lilburne_ and _Lady Fauconberg_, from the collection of Mr. Hodgkins (Plate VIII.), will well set forth the dignity and power possessed by this great master. His largest miniature is the portrait of Charles I. at Goodwood, and there is a somewhat smaller replica by the master's own hand in the Rijks Museum at Amsterdam. The Earl of Exeter possesses one of his rare half-length portraits, depicting Elizabeth, Countess of Devonshire, as a girl, and in the Victoria and Albert Museum is a large square portrait of the painter, by himself. With these exceptions, the majority of Cooper's works are ovals, varying in size, representing the head and shoulders only, and almost all the great collections of miniatures possess examples by the painter. As a rule, his colours have stood extraordinarily well; in some instances, however, they have faded, but it has generally been owing to damp or to indifferent treatment on the part of the owners of the portraits. In Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection one miniature representing _Lord Loudoun_ (Plate VII., No. 2) is in extraordinarily perfect condition, but for a couple of generations it was lost sight of behind some oak panelling and has only recently come to light. Another very fine one, in the same collection, represents _Charles II._ (Plate VII., No. 1). Cooper's method of painting is very interesting, and as he has left behind several unfinished portraits, we are enabled to study it with considerable accuracy. It is clear that he commenced to draw the head and figure in brown, and, as a recent writer has pointed out, painted in the shadows with transparent sienna, and the half-tones with a pure grey blue. His work is executed upon vellum as a rule, but sometimes upon cardboard, and his flesh tints are nearly always transparent, although occasionally they are upon a white background, and in some few rare instances, where he desired special effect, he used opaque colours. Several of his portraits he has never carried beyond the early stages. They are only sketches, but such sketches as no one else could have done, exquisitely rendered, full of palpitating life. This is especially the case with the portrait of the Duke of Albemarle at Windsor, and with one in the same collection representing the Duke of Monmouth; with that of Oliver Cromwell, at Montagu House, and with an extraordinary little sketch, which we illustrate in colour, by permission of Sir Charles Dilke (Plate IX., No. 1). This also came from Strawberry Hill, where it was bought by the grandfather of its present owner, and it offers a bewildering problem to the student. Walpole declares, in an inscription on the back of it in his own handwriting, that it represents "Miss Temple, Maid of Honour to the Duchess of York, second wife of Charles Lyttelton," and that it was the work of Gervase Spencer, after an original painted by Cooper, in the possession of Lord Lyttelton, and Walpole ought to have known what he was talking about. It is quite possible that he is correct, but the original portrait from which this sketch is said to have been made is not now in the possession of the Lyttelton family, and the miniature itself bears such a striking resemblance to the work of Cooper that it is difficult to believe that it is a copy by anyone at all. We know how constantly Cooper's work was copied, one of the finest examples of such repetition being the well-known work at Montagu House by Mrs. Ross, a portrait of the Duke of Monmouth, but there is no example known to us of an eighteenth-century painter copying the work of Cooper with the exception or this one, if Walpole's statement is correct. Another curious circumstance about the inscription is that Walpole has made an error in the name. It was not Charles but Thomas Lyttelton who married Christian Temple. She was the daughter of Sir Richard Temple of Stowe, and the heir of Viscount Cobham; thus it was through her that the Viscounty and Barony of Cobham came to the family. As we have already written very fully in another place, we are quite unable to accept the series of unfinished miniatures at the Victoria and Albert Museum as being the work of Cooper. There is no external evidence whatever in favour of the tradition. They are painted on a very smooth cardboard, quite a different material to that used by Cooper, and on the back of one of the portraits is an inscription in the same handwriting as is the one on the copy by Mrs. Ross at Montagu House, and apparently signed by the same person. It is quite possible that in the collection the portrait of Lord Brooke (which was not contained in the pocket-book when the original purchase was made) may be a genuine work by Cooper, very likely acquired by Mrs. Ross, as a guide for her own work, but all the other portraits are, we are convinced, the work of this clever copyist, and must not be attributed to the master himself. In the course of our investigations concerning a missing portrait by Cooper, representing the Countess of Exeter, we came upon two interesting letters in the Duke of Rutland's collection at Belvoir Castle, which proved that this portrait was never finished. On the 9th April, 1672, Mr. Charles Manners wrote to Lord Roos in the following terms:--"I haesten on Mr. Cooper all I can to the finishing of my Lady Exester's picture, and hee will surely doe it, God willing; but at the present the King and the Duke have put severall things into his hands which take him off from all else." Then again, on the 4th May, Mr. Manners wrote again to Lord Roos respecting the same portrait, and he then stated that although Mr. Cooper had promised "with all imaginable respect and kindeness to finish it out of hand, and actually begun it, he just then fell dangerously sicke, and confyned to his bed, and I very much feare hee cannot possibly outlive three days." As a matter of fact, Cooper did not live a day after this letter had been sent, for from Mary Beale's diary we have the information that he died on the 5th May, the diarist writing as follows:--"Sunday, May 5th, 1672, Mr. Samuel Cooper, the most famous limner of the world for a face, dyed." The two letters from which these quotations are taken are to be found in facsimile in the catalogue of Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection of miniatures. Other odd facts concerning this great painter we learn from Pepys and certain contemporary records. We know that he was an excellent musician, playing well on the lute, and a clever linguist, speaking French with ease. He resided in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and frequented the Covent Garden coffee-house; he was a short, stout man of a ruddy countenance, was married and had one daughter. The Duke of Portland's collection at Welbeck contains the portrait of his wife Christina, and in another collection there is a portrait of his daughter, both fine paintings by the master himself. Christina Cooper was a Miss Turner, and her other sister, Edith, married the father of Alexander Pope. Mrs. Cooper was Pope's godmother and taught him his letters, and to her godson she bequeathed a "painted china dish with a silver pot and a dish to set it in," as well as the reversion of her books, pictures and medals, with Samuel Cooper's "grinding stone and muller," and some of his portrait sketches. It is not quite certain that Cooper was born in England; we know the date of his birth, 1609, but we have no certain evidence that he was an Englishman by birth, although there is every probability that this was the case. He was, however, for a while in France, and he was certainly in Holland, and possibly in Sweden also, where his brother, Alexander Cooper, also spent some time. It was in Sweden that we were able to discover a good deal of information respecting Alexander Cooper, and notably a statement concerning his account for certain royal portraits in his own handwriting. Samuel Cooper's appearance is known to us by the portraits in the Victoria and Albert Museum, but an even more interesting sketch of him is in the Pierpont Morgan collection, painted in sepia, on a piece of paper which has been twice folded. An inscription, which we believe to be in his own handwriting, is at the back of a portrait at Welbeck Abbey, and is to the effect that the picture in question, and one or two previous ones, were done for a Mr. Graham, but had not been paid for at the time the artist was writing. There is hardly a miniature by this eminent man which is not worth careful consideration, and in the power of delineating character and setting before us the actual feelings of his sitters, Cooper had no rival, while one of the great features of his work is its amazing variety. Moreover, the manner in which he adapted his technique, his colour scheme, and his ideas of composition to the special circumstances of the person whom he had to delineate, is very remarkable. His portraits of men are perhaps more attractive than those of women, although he was well able to convey the fascination of a woman's face; but the strong, rugged men of his period were portrayed by him with quite extraordinary power, and he created a method of portraiture entirely his own, and filled it with individual characteristics. Two splendid examples are amongst our illustrations in colour (Plate VIII.), _Lady Fauconberg_ and _Colonel Lilburne_, both from the collection of Mr. Hodgkins. Of his contemporaries it will suffice to mention one or two, and perhaps the best of them was David des Granges, whose work is represented in our illustrations in colour by a portrait of _Rachel Fane, Countess of Bath_, from the collection of Mr. Hodgkins (Plate IX., No. 2). Of this artist and his parentage we know a little, thanks to the researches of Mr. Lionel Cust in the registers of the Huguenot Church in London. It seems probable that Des Granges, although baptised in the Huguenot faith, did not continue in that communion, because in 1649 he is mentioned in some papers belonging to the French Dominicans as a Catholic, and he was a very close friend of the celebrated artist Inigo Jones, who was also a Catholic. The portrait of the architect by David des Granges, representing Inigo Jones at the age of 68, is at Welbeck Abbey, signed with the initials D.D.G., and is one of the best works by him with which we are acquainted. For the works of Faithorne or Loggan, Flatman or Lens, we must refer our readers to more elaborate books on miniature painting, and hasten forward towards the eighteenth century. Before we do so, however, it may be of interest that we should refer to an illustration in colour of a miniature which has not hitherto been represented in any book on this subject. It is a portrait which has been bequeathed through various owners as a likeness of _John Milton_ (Plate X.), and there is a good deal of evidence to support this very interesting attribution. It came from the Woodcock family, who state that it has been handed down in direct succession from Catherine Woodcock, whom Milton married as his second wife on the 12th of November 1656. She was the daughter of a Captain Woodcock, of Hackney, and the former owners of the miniature stated that their family home was in Hackney. Mrs. Milton had a baby girl on October 19th, 1657, and she and her child died in February 1658, when the miniature was given to her niece, who is stated to have been present at the confinement, and from her it came to its late owners, who only parted with it when actually compelled so to do. It therefore belonged to the Mrs. Milton who is immortalised by the poet in his twenty-third sonnet, where he speaks of her as "My late espousèd saint, Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave," And adds "... once more I trust to have Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint." He says she "Came vested all in white, pure as her mind Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined So clear, as in no face with more delight. But, oh! as to embrace me she inclined, I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night." If, as seems most probable, the attribution of this portrait is correct, it gives us a view of Milton at a period of his life of which we have no other portrait, for it must have been painted when he Was about 48, and it bears out Aubrey's remarks about him, in which he speaks of his reddish hair, of his "exceeding fayre complexion," of his oval face, and tells us that he was "a spare man." Apparently it was never engraved, and Deborah Milton seems to have known nothing about it, but as she was quite a child when her father's second wife died, and as the portrait passed away from the Milton family so quickly, it is very natural that we should have no other record of it than the miniature itself. We now come to the eighteenth century, and without referring in detail to the men who preceded the foundation of the Royal Academy, would just mention one of the prominent miniature painters of the early days of the century, Christian Richter by name. He was the son of a Swedish silversmith who came to England in the time of Queen Anne, and settled down with his brother, who was a medallist and a die-sinker. His work is luminous and distinguished, marked by rather an excessive brilliance of red in the carnations, but by a very handsome colour scheme as a rule; the example we give in our colour plates, the portrait of _Prince George of Denmark_, the consort of Queen Anne (Plate XI.) from the Hodgkins collection, setting forth his characteristics in a satisfactory fashion. The catalogues of the Royal Academy are full of the names of miniature painters. The period of its foundation was prolific in the number of limners it produced. Miniature painting was the fashion. There were half-a-dozen important painters, and two or three hundred lesser men. The greater men stand out distinctly. Of the lesser men, many are only names to us. Here and there we have scraps of information respecting their history, details concerning the place where they resided, a few dates, and now and again an inscription on the back of a miniature to guide us; but of the vast majority of those who exhibited at the early exhibitions we know little, and of many of them it is not necessary that we should know very much, as their work was neither especially remarkable, nor especially praiseworthy. In considering this period, however, one comment must be made. As a rule, each painter was individual and characteristic. He allowed the personal equation to take an important part in his work, and when the expert is once familiar with the characteristics of the painter, his miniatures can be found quite readily whether signed or not. It is this special personal quality which distinguishes the painters of the period from the host of miniature painters of the present day who have striven to revivify the art, but who in many cases have become mere copyists, and have not allowed personal characteristics to distinguish their work. With the names of the great painters many are familiar, Cosway, Plimer, Smart, Ozias Humphry, Engleheart, Edridge, and Grimaldi are all well known, and the collector is more or less familiar with the names of a few of the minor painters whose works are worth collecting, as, for example, Nathaniel and Horace Hone, Vaslet, and others. There is neither opportunity nor need, in an essay of this sort, to refer to them in detail, because we are not concerned here with anything more than a broad survey of the miniature art, and must not confine our attention to England only. The painters of the eighteenth-century offer a sharp contrast to those of the seventeenth, and comparison only makes the contrast the more evident. In the work of Cooper we have strength, power, dignity; in that of Cosway and of the artists of his period is refinement, dexterity, fascination, a spice of flippancy and at times a certain meretricious quality, but this latter is far less seen in Cosway himself than in the work of his followers and admirers. The public demanded something quite different from the artists of the eighteenth century from that which they asked of the earlier school; the work had to be done more quickly, and it must be more charming, sensitive, and radiant. In his skill for giving his sitters exactly what they wanted, and in setting forth on the ivory the dainty grace of the women of the eighteenth century, there was no one who could approach within measurable distance of Cosway himself; and there is a marvellous fascination about his exquisite work, an individuality which belongs exactly to the period and represents it in all its grace, lightness and flippancy. Undoubtedly the nearest in merit to Cosway was Andrew Plimer, and some of his works are fascinating in their beauty, but in charm they are never equal to those of Cosway, and the peculiar mannerisms of the artist prevent them from being altogether satisfactory. Plimer had very little power of composition, and he invariably over-accentuated the eyes of his sitters, and constantly repeated a favourite pose either of head or figure, while the extraordinary wiry manner in which he delineated the hair marks out his work at once. Quite as noticeable is his affection for the appearance of his own daughters, and the very shape of their necks and brilliance of their eyes can be seen repeated over and over again in his portraits of other sitters. Less than most of his contemporaries was he able to break away from a strong personal characteristic; and eventually it became a species of obsession with him, so that his female portraits strikingly resemble one another. John Smart was a painter of a different type, serious, solid, painstaking. His facial modelling is extraordinary in its accuracy, and his works, like those of Engleheart, appear to have been preferred by the more serious persons in society, whereas those of Cosway and Plimer were particularly appreciated by the gay and frivolous ladies of the Court circle, whose sun and centre was the Prince Regent. There are miniatures by Cosway which are of pre-eminent beauty, so lightly and with such exquisite skill are they floated upon the ivory. The quality of the material had, of course, an intimate connection with the art of the painter. The seventeenth-century artists knew nothing of the brilliant surface of ivory, although it is possible that one at least of them had an inkling that a more luminous material than vellum, cardboard, or chicken-skin, could be found. There are two miniatures in existence, one of which is in the possession of the author of these pages, the work of Cooper, which are not painted on any of the materials usually adopted by him. This latter is painted on what was at first thought to be a piece of ivory, but microscopic investigation has revealed the fact that it is polished mutton-bone, and the painter has so altered his technique to adapt it to this curious experiment, that for the first moment one would hardly believe the miniature to be by Cooper at all. Its pedigree is, however, unassailable, and a closer investigation reveals many of the master's characteristics, but it is painted with a very fine brush, quite different to the usual broad, full sweep of his work, and it stands out as an interesting experiment on the part of the great painter, who was searching for some material more suitable for a particular style of work. Ivory was not employed until the time of William III., and it seems probable that one of the Lens family was the first to make use of it; but, once adopted, its use became very general, and in the prolific period of the eighteenth century, almost universal. Cosway is said to have experimented in enamel, and certainly one enamel portrait, with his initials, is in existence. He drew very skilfully on paper, and a few of his miniatures are on that material. One of his works, signed and dated, is on silk, but all these were only experiments, and the greater number of his miniatures are on ivory, which material lends itself perfectly to his craft. In our opinion the finest miniature Cosway ever produced was his unfinished sketch of _Madame du Barry_, one of the greatest treasures of Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection, and by his kind permission illustrated here in monotone (Plate XII.). It was painted in 1791 on the occasion when Madame du Barry came over to England to recover her jewels, and on her third visit to this country in that year. From this portrait a stipple engraving was made by Condé in 1794, but the miniature itself came into the possession of the Vernons, having belonged to a Miss Caroline Vernon who was maid of honour to Queen Charlotte. It was sold in London in 1902, when it passed to its present owner, and in grace, sweetness, and fascination, is unrivalled, even amongst his wonderful treasures. Another delightful portrait from the same collection represents the oft-painted _Henrietta, Lady Duncannon_, who was afterwards Countess of Bessborough (Plate XIV., No. 2). She was sister to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and seems to have spent a great deal of her time in sitting for her portrait, all the artists of the day having painted her. This miniature is remarkable for the fact that it still remains in its original frame, a very magnificent one, richly set with superb diamonds. Yet another charming portrait by Cosway (Plate XIV., No. 1) came from the Truro collection to Mr. Morgan. It represents _Lady Augusta Murray_, the daughter of Lord Dunmore, who became the wife of the Duke of Sussex, the 6th son of George III. It was her marriage which, although twice performed, in Rome and at St. George's, Hanover Square, was declared null and void under the Royal Marriage Act (12 Geo. III. cap. 11). Her daughter was Lady Truro. Lady Augusta was only painted twice, and on both occasions by Cosway. Our coloured illustrations include three portraits of women by Cosway, _Viscountess St. Asaph_ (Plate XIII.), the _Countess of Rochford_ (Plate XV.) and _Princess Charlotte_ (Plate XVI.), all of them distinguished by Cosway's special method of painting the hair, and marked by that inimitable grace in which he excelled. We also illustrate from Lord Hothfield's collection one of Cosway's more serious portraits of men, _The Earl of Thanet_ (Plate XVII.), set upon the usual blue cloudy background, in this instance a trifle paler than usual, and painted with convincing force in a very remarkable colour scheme. Of the work of the more sedate painters, Smart and Engleheart, we are able to give many characteristic examples. From Lord Hothfield's collection come a splendid pair--_Mr. and Mrs. Percival_ (Plate XIX.), painted with that striking force which marks the best work of Smart, upon his usual greenish-grey background, and with very subtle but well-marked modelling in the features. His carnations were ever a little brick-dusty in tint, and he delighted in the ruddier tones of the face, but in depicting the shadows he had few rivals. Although there may be perhaps a certain want of inspiration in his somewhat quaker-like method of work, and in the very low tone of his colouring, yet there is an honesty and a straightforward quality about it which is very attractive, and perhaps that was the reason why Cosway in the words of praise he gave to a painter so different from himself, spoke of him as "honest John Smart." Engleheart's work has a certain resemblance to that of Reynolds, and the devotion which Engleheart felt towards the President of the Academy had an evidently strong effect upon his own art. He copied Sir Joshua's works over and over again, and gradually a good deal of the influence of the great master permeated the work of his follower. His miniatures were nobler, broader, and far better set upon the oval of the ivory than were those of many of his contemporaries, his draughtsmanship was excellent, and there was a brilliance about his painting of the eyes which is particularly attractive. The large portrait of _Earl Beauchamp_ (Plate XX.), from the collection of Lady Maria Ponsonby, is a fine specimen of his best work; but those of _Mrs. Sainthill_ and _Mr. Brundish_, from the collection of Lord Hothfield (Plate XXII.), are good examples of his smaller miniatures, possessing a great deal of charm and delightful in colour. His portrait of _Miss Mary Berry_, from Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection (Plate XXI.), is quite one of his finest portraits of women. He painted both these sisters, and for a long time the two portraits were in one case, facing one another, but they have now been separated, and lie side by side in the cabinet. The two ladies were well known as being the close friends of Horace Walpole, who treated them with the greatest tenderness and affection, addressed to them many of his most brilliant letters, and persuaded them to settle down near him at Strawberry Hill. To them he dedicated his catalogue of treasures, and bequeathed a considerable sum of money, and his works and letters were, after his death, edited by Mary Berry, one of the sisters, who lived down till 1852, and died at the advanced age of ninety. From the same collection we have selected two delightful works by Smart, those representing _Sir Charles Oakeley_ and a lady whose name is unknown (Plate XVIII.), both distinguished by the elaboration of flesh tints, so quietly and so accurately applied. The very brilliant, if somewhat flashy, work of Andrew Plimer is particularly well represented in Mr. Pierpont Morgan's famous collection, because it includes the notable series representing Rebecca, Lady Northwick, and her three daughters, all of which are given in our monotone illustrations (Plates XXIII. and XXIV.). Plimer was an adept at flattery, and in this particular case the mother looks hardly older than her daughters, and the three girls are so much alike that one has to look exceedingly closely to notice the position of the band round the head, or of the curl which falls upon the neck, before one girl can be distinguished from another. The same unfortunate mannerism belonging to this clever painter can be seen in _The Three Sisters Ellis_, brilliant works by Andrew Plimer from the collection of Lord Hothfield, and here illustrated in colour (Plate XXV.). When closely regarded it is quite evident that the three girls are very different from one another, but at the first glance we almost wonder how their parents could have known them apart. The painter himself has been led to make little changes in their costume in order that each girl's identity should be preserved, and our remark respecting the exaggeration of the eyes is exemplified in these three very beautiful portraits. By the same painter is the charming representation of _Selina Plimer_, the artist's youngest child, from the collection of the writer of this essay (Plate XXVI.). This miniature came from Plimer's own portfolio, and bears his handwriting upon it. It is very graceful and light in its treatment. The Rushout girls form the subject of the largest painting ever executed by Plimer. His well-known group showing these three girls in one miniature now belongs to Mr. George J. Gould, and is fully described in the life of Andrew Plimer. In Lord Hothfield's collection, however, is an interesting sketch (Plate XXVII.), a group of the three sisters, evidently his first idea, quite different both in composition and in execution to the finished picture. It came from Plimer's studio, is unmistakably his work, and particularly interesting as a fresh and original idea, even more charming in many ways than the finished picture. In the latter, the girls dress their hair quite differently to what they had it in the sketch, and very possibly the _esquisse_ was made on their first visit to the studio, as they stood together that the artist might get an idea of how they looked. Another example of Plimer's work illustrated here in colour is from the same collection, and represents _Mrs. Bailey_ (Plate XXVIII.). It is a pleasing picture, though the curious wiriness of hair to which we have drawn attention is very noticeable in it. One of the prettiest pictures that Plimer ever painted of a child is the one which we illustrate in reduced size from the collection of Lady Maria Ponsonby (Plate XXIX., No. 1). It represents _Sir Charles Kent as a Boy_, playing upon a drum, and is a bright, piquant little picture. Nathaniel Plimer's work is rarer than that of his brother, and we know very little indeed of the history of the artist. He was a curiously unequal painter. There were times when he could paint far better than his brother, but there are not perhaps more than two or three of his miniatures to which this high praise can be given. His general work is pleasing and agreeable, but does not betoken extraordinary skill. One of the best of his ordinary miniatures is in Lord Hothfield's collection (Plate XXIX., No. 2), and represents _Mrs. Dawes_. It is dated 1798, and is quite a fine picture, but not equal in high merit to two works by this master in the late Mr. Salting's collection, the finest examples of Nathaniel's work we have yet seen. Ozias Humphry was a greater man than Plimer, but his work in miniature is rare. His draughtsmanship was exceedingly good, his colouring quiet and restrained, and his technique so elaborate, with such fine stipple work, that it has a general resemblance to that of enamel, but differs from this latter because it is not hard in its execution; and there is, moreover, an atmospheric quality about it very attractive. One of Humphry's peculiarities is to be noticed in the elongated shape he gave to the eyes of his sitters, what has been well termed "a greyhound eye," affording a marked contrast to the exceedingly round, over-bold eye, which Plimer was so fond of accentuating. Humphry drew children exquisitely, and his portrait of the _Duchess of Albany_ as a child (Plate XXX., No. 1), in the possession of Lord Hothfield, is one of the most delightful miniatures with which we are acquainted. In it his accuracy of draughtsmanship is seen to perfection, and the modelling on the face is so dainty and delicate that the miniature is quite a little gem full of life and vivacity, while the child is represented with a demure, amused look, which is refreshing and natural. There is a very interesting history connected with this miniature. It was painted in Rome in 1773, when Humphry was there with Romney, and it eventually belonged to Horace Walpole, and was in his collection at Strawberry Hill. He is said to have received it from Sir Horace Mann, his great friend and correspondent, who was watching Prince Charles Edward (_de jure_ Charles III.), on behalf of the English Government. The other Humphry, which we illustrate from the same collection, represents the _Countess of Thanet_ (Plate XXX., No. 2), and is an excellent example of the manner in which Ozias painted a noble lady of a quiet, studious character. The colour scheme in this, again, is very pleasing. Time would fail to describe the host of minor men who exhibited at the Academy, and it would be impossible to illustrate works by even the chief of them. We have selected just a few; first, an example of the work of John Smart the younger, who is especially well known for his fine pencil work, and for some wonderful copies from drawings by Holbein. There are very few of his miniatures in existence; and the one of _Lieutenant Lygon_ (Plate XXXI.), in the collection of Lady Maria Ponsonby which is signed and dated, is a good, natural, life-like portrait, well drawn and composed. Then we would refer to Nathaniel Hone, who was an interesting person, and deserves to be remembered because he was the first artist in the eighteenth century to have what we now call a "one-man show." There is not a great deal of credit belonging to him for this adventure, because, had he not been a very sensitive and passionate man, and painted a picture which annoyed the Academy, the one-man show would never have come off. In a painting called "The Conjuror" Hone was considered to have made an attack upon the President and upon Angelica Kauffman. It was rejected by the Academy, and in 1775 Hone opened his exhibition at 70, St. Martin's Lane, issued a catalogue, to which he affixed a preface, telling the story of his discomfiture from his own point of view, and appealing to the people respecting the merits of his paintings. The result was not particularly satisfactory, because it was felt that he had been in the wrong. The catalogue is a very rare one, and the whole story is rather interesting in its details. A fine portrait by Horace Hone, the elder son of Nathaniel, representing William Pitt is in the collection of Lady Maria Ponsonby, and appears in our coloured illustrations (Plate XXXII., No. 2). Horace Hone was a better painter than his father. He excelled in enamel work, and his finest portraits are in that medium. He had a fine sense of colour and loved rich effects of velvet brocade, satin, or fur. Another of his miniatures is in Lord Hothfield's collection, and represents _Lady Mary Nugent_; it is signed and dated, and the owner has kindly permitted us to illustrate it in these pages (Plate XXXII., No. 1). Yet another miniature from Lord Hothfield's collection illustrates the work of Vaslet (Plate XXXIII.), of whom we know hardly anything, save that he lived in York and Bath and that he was a clever worker in pastel. He seems to have visited Oxford in 1779, 1780, and 1789, and there is a good collection of his pastel portraits on paper in the Warden's Lodge at Merton College, the portraits carefully signed and dated; on the majority of them the artist calls himself as L. Vaslet of Bath. There are other collectors in Oxford who have specimens of his work in pastel, but in miniature his paintings are very rare. They are distinguished by a cloudy, flocculent appearance, very much resembling pastel work, and making it evident that the artist was more at home in the use of that material than he was in water-colour. Our very brief survey of English miniature work must end with Sir George Hayter, by whom we illustrate a portrait of the _Countess of Jersey_, from the collection of Lady Maria Ponsonby (Plate XXXIV.). He was portrait painter to Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, but is better known for his historical paintings than for portraits, and he is almost the last of the nineteenth-century miniature painters whose work possesses any special attraction. After his time and that of his contemporaries Sir William Ross, J. D. Engleheart, Robertson, Newton, and Thorburn, the art of miniature painting died away until its revival in recent times. The painters who worked in enamel occupy a section of miniature work apart, although in many instances the best known enamellers painted portraits also on ivory or on vellum, but they are especially known for their works in enamel. There is little need for us here to do more than define enamel work as a vitreous glaze attached by fusion to a metallic ground, but only those who have attempted to paint portraits in enamel can have any idea of the enormous difficulty of this method of portraiture when fine results are desired. Of all the men who were successful in this most complicated process, Jean Petitot stands out supreme, and his portraits, as a rule excessively minute in size, are distinguished by a delicacy of detail, marvellous in its microscopic exactitude. When it is remembered that the colours were painted on to the panel of gold in the form of a powder, only slightly mingled with a medium, that they did not represent by their tint the colour they were to present when fused, and that the slightest error in the fusing would ruin the plate and cause the colours to run into one another, the marvel is but enhanced when the exquisite works produced by this incomparable artist are examined. The specimen from Mr. Ward Usher's collection (Plate XXXV.), which is illustrated in colour, is a good example of Petitot's portrait of _Louis XIV._ He painted the face of "_Le Roi Soleil_" so often that he must have become familiar with every detail of it, and there is hardly any collection of his works which cannot boast of one of these wonderful little enamels. The story of the painter himself is of considerable interest, and the details of his religious difficulties and of his return to Geneva are well set forth in a book about him written by E. Stroehlin, and published in Geneva in 1905; while some further special information more recently discovered can be found in an article by the writer of this essay in the "Nineteenth Century" for January 1908. He left behind him a wonderful little pocket-book containing his own and his wife's portraits, and a narrative of part of his career, written by him in beautiful handwriting. His own portrait belongs to the Earl of Dartrey, and there are some wonderful examples of his work in the Louvre; but the best of his portraits are in England, and there is no collection to rival that of South Kensington in this respect. Perhaps his most extraordinary work is the box belonging to Mr. Alfred de Rothschild, which has fourteen portraits upon it; but his largest, with one exception, is that of _Mary, Duchess of Richmond and Lenox_, which we illustrate from Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection (Plate XXXVI., No. 2). It is signed and dated 1643 and is 5-1/2 inches square, the only miniature exceeding it in size being that at Chatsworth, representing the Countess of Southampton, and dated 1642. The latter is, however, unfortunately damaged, whereas the one in Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection is quite perfect. With these two exceptions, almost all Petitot's miniatures are exceedingly tiny in size. The only other enameller whose work we illustrate was named Prieur, and he married, as her second husband, Marie, the only sister of Jean Petitot. Prieur was a wanderer; we find his work in Poland, Denmark, Russia, Spain, and especially in Denmark, where there are many of his portraits, and where he is believed to have died in 1677. He visited England charged with commissions from the King of Denmark, and, while there, painted a portrait of Charles II. and another of Lady Castlemaine, both from Cooper's miniatures. He was also responsible for a portrait of _Charles I._ (Plate XXXVI., No. 1), but whether contemporary or not we cannot say, for so little is known of Prieur's history, that he may have visited England before 1669, when we know he came over to paint Charles II. In all probability, however, this delightful work, which now belongs to Mr. Pierpont Morgan, is a copy by Prieur from the portrait of the King by Vandyck. Prieur executed several delightful enamel badges for the Danish Orders, and appears to have been in high repute at the courts both of Frederik III. and Christian V. We have now to deal briefly with the long range of foreign miniature painters, the chief of whom were resident in France, although not always natives of that country. There was a regular tradition of miniature painting in France, extending from the times of the Clouets down to those of the great painters Isabey and Augustin. The works by Jean Clouet were, of course, more of the nature of paintings in manuscripts, and if we are accurate in attributing one of the great gems of Mr. Morgan's collection to Jean Clouet himself, it adds one to the only other seven portraits which have been, with any amount of accuracy, given to this painter. All of the seven are illustrations in one manuscript volume, and probably this eighth was either executed for the same purpose, or has actually been removed from a contemporary work of that kind. When we come to the later Clouets, François especially, we have actual miniatures, and in several instances the drawings for the portraits exist, also enabling us to identify whom the miniatures represent. It would be impossible within the limits of this short essay to deal with all those who succeeded the sixteenth-century men, and we have to make a big jump to the eighteenth century, because it was during that time that the most notable of the French miniature painters flourished, and their works are by far the most important. Nattier began as a miniature painter, and his mother painted miniatures, and is said to have taught him his art. Later on, he became a well-known portrait painter, but speculating in the wild schemes of John Law, lost his fortune, and a good many of his friends. Once he took up with miniature painting to re-introduce himself to the clients he had lost when he neglected art for the excitement of finance, then dropped it again, and confined his attention down to the time of his death to portrait painting. We illustrate a delightful portrait of _Madame Dupin_ (Plate XXXVII., No. 1), the wife of a writer on finance, whose book was suppressed by the order of Madame de Pompadour; but we remember the fair lady who is set forth in this portrait more by reason of the fact that Rousseau was at one time her secretary, and was very much attached to her. The portrait shows her in the hey-day of beauty. By Hall, the Swede, who lived in Paris, and is generally regarded as a Frenchman, we illustrate a portrait of the _Countess Sophie Potoçki_ (Plate XXXVII., No. 2), the celebrated Greek beauty, who became a member of one of the noblest families of the Polish aristocracy. Her story is a strange one. She was born of Greek parents at Constantinople, purchased as a slave by the Russian general De Witte, who made her his mistress; but one night, losing a considerable sum of money at cards, when playing against Count Felix Potoçki, he received an offer from his opponent to waive all claims if the Russian general would pass over his slave to Count Felix. The offer was accepted, and Sophie Clavona became the property of the Polish Count, who was already deeply in love with her. Despite the expostulations of his friends, he promptly made her his second wife, and they lived happily together for many years, while her heritage of beauty has been handed down through succeeding generations. Her portrait was painted over and over again, and the example of it which we illustrate remained for a long time in the private gallery of the family at Warsaw, together with a replica which is still there. It was finally sold to a French dealer, from whom it passed into the hands of its present owner. The famous beauty is in a deep red costume, which wonderfully sets off the charm of her countenance. Another work by Hall from the same famous collection (Plate XXXVII., No. 3), represents the ill-fated _Princesse de Lamballe_, "beauty, goodness and virtue personified, but all her goodness and gentleness could not soften the hearts of those inhuman tigers who immolated her on the altar of Equality." Few scenes are more pitiable than that of the execution of this beautiful woman. She had never committed any action which could have incurred the hatred of the people, but she was the friend of the Queen, and the possessor of considerable wealth; reasons enough to bring upon her head the wrath of the tyrants who preached freedom to France. This miniature is particularly charming in its domestic quality. Madame de Lamballe is shown in her room, engaged in making a wreath of flowers, and every detail concerning her occupation, and the room in which she is seated, is delightfully rendered; but the whole composition is kept so well in hand that the details do not obtrude, nor in any way draw aside the attention from the fair countenance of the lady herself. The work of Pierre Pasquier is very rare, and not a single example of it is to be seen in the Louvre. He was born in 1731, and died in 1806. He worked largely in enamel, and a great many of his portraits appear on the wonderful snuff-boxes which were given to ministers or eminent diplomatists. Several of them are in Russia. He was distinguished by an unerring perfection of draughtsmanship, and this is especially set forth in his profile portraits, one of which, signed and dated, we illustrate from Mr. Morgan's collection (Plate XXXVIII., No. 2). It is probably the finest example of Pasquier's work in existence, and is little more than a sketch in black on ivory, with a steel-blue background, the ivory being left clear where the portrait appears. We do not know who it represents, but it was probably a study for an enamel left incomplete. It is dated 1786, and in its rigid economy of line, exquisite low-toned scheme of colour, and perfection of drawing, occupies an exceedingly high place in miniature painting, and leaves us only regretful that we are ignorant of the name of the sitter. The example we illustrate of the miniature work of Fragonard must also be anonymous (Plate XXXVIII., No. 1). It is a boy's portrait, and has been said, with a certain amount of evidence, to represent one of his own sons, it certainly does resemble a sketch of one of Fragonard's children, which the artist has named, but not sufficiently for us to be sure respecting the accuracy of the attribution. No one, however, but Fragonard could have painted it, the colour is so daintily placed upon the ivory as to give the effect of having been wafted upon the material, and resting upon it with a feathery lightness. There is generally a good deal of yellow in Fragonard's portraits, or else the colour scheme is mainly grey and white, and this portrait belongs to the second division we have mentioned. It is very pleasing, the face of a quiet, thoughtful child, charmingly represented, and a good example of the work of one of the greatest decorators France ever knew. Fragonard's miniatures are rare, we may add, very rare, and probably no one has such a collection of them as is to be found in the cabinets of Mr. Pierpont Morgan. By Garriot, a painter who was born in 1811 at Toulouse, studied at Madrid, and painted in Geneva, we illustrate from Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection a portrait of the _Marquise de Villette_ (Plate XXXIX., No. 2), better known as "Belle et Bonne," who was practically adopted as a daughter by Voltaire, and married to the Marquis de Villette at midnight, in November 1777, in the great man's chapel of Ferney, her six uncles being present on the occasion. Ferney had belonged to her and her six uncles, and Voltaire was the means of reclaiming it from the possession of certain of his neighbours into whose hands it had illegally passed in 1761. It was in the arms of "Belle et Bonne" that Voltaire passed away on the 30th of May 1778, when he was eighty-four years old. A very interesting miniature from the same collection is the one representing a granddaughter of Nattier the artist, painted by Louis Sicardi (Plate XXXIX., No. 1), one of the best miniaturists of the time of Louis XVI. Sicardi painted for over fifty years, produced a great many delightful works, and was responsible for the decoration and portraits that, set upon gold snuff-boxes, were such favourite presents at the French Court. The two greatest, however, of the painters of the French school were Isabey and Augustin, and Isabey, who was born in 1767, forms a curious link between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries. He painted Marie Antoinette, Buonaparte, the King of Rome, and the Empress Marie Louise; he also worked for Louis XVIII., received high distinctions from Charles X. and from Louis Philippe, and was appointed Commander of the Legion of Honour by Napoleon III.: moreover, he had a long conversation with the Empress Eugénie (who is still living) in 1854, the year in which he died at the advanced age of eighty-eight. He exhibited between 1793 and 1841, painting portraits of all the eminent persons in France during his long career. Of his earlier work we exhibit in colour two charming companion miniatures from the collection of Mr. Ward Usher, representing the _Empress Josephine_, and the _Empress Marie Louise_ (Plate XL.), while of his later, somewhat more florid work, almost invariably distinguished by the presence of a light gauzy scarf which he wound about his sitter, and which he painted to perfection, we give two portraits, one a portrait of _Catherine, Countess Beauchamp_, from the collection of Lady Maria Ponsonby (Plate XLI.), and the other depicting _Fürstin Katharina Bagration Shawronska_ (Plate XLII.), from the collection of Fürst Franz Auersperg. One of the loveliest miniatures Isabey ever painted is that representing _Queen Hortense and her son Napoleon III._, in the collection of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. It contains autograph information in the Emperor's handwriting attesting to its history, and is a lovely example of Isabey's easy, graceful, pleasing work. It is illustrated on Plate XLIII. An interesting feature of some of Isabey's miniatures is the fact that he worked in conjunction with two Dutch artists, the brothers Van Spaendonck. They were expert painters of flowers and fruit, often employed at the Sévres porcelain factories, one of them being as well a professor of natural history and lecturer on flowers in Paris, and the author of one or two books on flowers and flower-painting. There are several examples of the work of Isabey in which one or other of these brothers has supplied the floral decoration, or a group of fruit in the background. We now come to Jean Baptiste Jacques Augustin, one of the noblest of the miniature painters of France. He was born in 1759, upon the same day, although separated from him by an interval of ten years, as that on which the great Napoleon, whose portrait Augustin was afterwards to paint, came into the world. He came over to Paris as quite a boy, and lived in a house in that city to which he returned many years afterwards, bringing with him a bride, and where, as a married man, he resided for a considerable time. For a while he found life a hard struggle, but his rare merit soon brought him many clients, and from about 1790 onward until the close of his life, he seems to have had a succession of sitters, including all the notabilities of the day. He left behind him a wonderful collection of sketches, contained in various books, and a large number of unfinished miniatures. Some few years ago the members of the family, in whose possession this great collection had remained, desirous of portioning off two of their daughters, offered the collection for sale. The Directors of the Louvre very much desired to purchase it, as it included many works of great importance, but the whole collection passed into the hands of Mr. Pierpont Morgan, and fills one entire cabinet, giving a view of this artist's work altogether unrivalled. The illustrations which we give are of Augustin's later work rather than those of the early years, although with them is included a brilliant unfinished sketch, representing _The Father of Madame Seguin_ (Plate XLIV., No. 2). The one from Mr. Ward Usher's collection represented in colour is a portrait of _Madame Récamier_ (Plate XLV.), that from Mr. Morgan's collection in monotone, the famous _Madame de Boufflers_ (Plate XLIV., No. 1), the friend of David Hume, who introduced the historian to J. J. Rousseau, and is so frequently alluded to in Horace Walpole's letters. When she fled from France, Madame de Boufflers resided for some time in or near London, and Walpole spoke of her as the most agreeable and sensible woman he ever saw, but he was greatly amused at her want of appreciation of his house. She had never seen a printing press until she came to Strawberry Hill, and Walpole arranged that on the occasion of her visit his private press should print a few lines of French poetry in her praise. In one of his gossipy letters we are told that Madame de Boufflers informed Lord Onslow of the birth of Lord Salisbury two hours after his mother had come from the Opera House, and that from Lord Onslow Walpole himself heard the news. Of E. W. Thompson, an Englishman, who spent very much of his time in France, and is regarded by the French critics almost as one of themselves, we know very little, but the _Princess de Lieven_, whose portrait he painted (Plate XLIII.), was one of the great ladies of Europe in the nineteenth century. She was a personal friend of Count Metternich and afterwards of Guizot, and Madame de Lieven kept up a steady correspondence with both these statesmen, and exercised, without doubt, a very considerable influence upon European politics. Two artists of Italian parentage deserve mention, especially as we are able to illustrate, by the permission of their owner, Mr. Ward Usher, delightfully signed examples of their work. By Costa we show an interesting portrait of _Marie Antoinette_ (Plate XLVI.) which came from the Bentinck-Hawkins collection; and by Anguissola, the favourite miniature painter to the court of the great Napoleon, we illustrate, in reduced size, a fine portrait of the Emperor's sister, _Princess Pauline Borghese_ (Plate XLVII.). Special attention has been given in our illustrations to the work of the great Viennese miniature painter Füger, because very little is known of his work in England, and there are so few examples of it to be found in English collections. The Viennese collectors seem determined that all the finest works by Füger shall remain in their own city, and they are prepared to give high prices in order that they may carry out this desire. One of the chief collectors in Vienna is Dr. Figdor, and he has been exceedingly kind in allowing many miniatures from his collection to be illustrated for the purpose of this essay, amongst them, five by Füger, perhaps a rather large proportion; but it has been felt that, as the work of the painter is so little known in England, it was well in our illustrations to err on the right side, and give several examples of his delightful workmanship. For a long time the details of his life were buried in obscurity, and all sorts of mistakes were made respecting his work, which was confused with that of other painters, and in some instances not recognised at all. It was not until 1905, when Herr Doktor Ferdinand Laban published a very important article upon him, that Füger's true position was apparent, and Dr. Laban was able from family records to set right the errors of those writers, amongst whom we must include ourselves, who had gone astray from lack of the very material Dr. Laban was able to discover. Since then, Herr Eduard Leisching has added considerably to our information in a splendid book he published on Austrian miniature painters, and he has discovered many more examples of Füger's work, who can now be justly recognised as the greatest of the Continental eighteenth-century miniaturists. He has been called the Viennese Cosway, but the work of Füger has very little affinity with that of our English painter. It is far stronger and more severe, and his more graceful portraits are richer in their colour scheme, and far more elaborate in their decorative effect than anything ever painted by Cosway. There are two wonderful miniatures by Füger in Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection, one representing three sisters, the Countesses Thun-Hohenstein, and the other Madame Rousbaeck, a lady-in-waiting to the Empress Marie Theresa, but Dr. Figdor's illustrations set forth in excellent manner both the strength and the charm of this wonderful painter. Nothing can be more forcible than the sketch of _Prince Hohenlohe_ (Plate XLVIII.), and we realise the power and dignity of the sitter when we regard this marvellous delineation of character. For dainty grace it is difficult to excel the portrait of the anonymous lady (Plate XLIX.), for strength and gracious dignity that of the _Empress Maria_ (Plate L.), while the portrait of _Marie Theresia, Countess von Dietrichstein_ (Plate LI.) is that of a noble dignified lady of high position, splendid courage, and great charm, and that of _Princess Anna Liechtenstein_ (Plate LII.) shows us a thoughtful, learned, and musical lady, a portrait very decorative in colour scheme, and charmingly set upon its oval of ivory. Another painter whose work was exceedingly popular in Vienna, was Giovanni Battista de Lampi, an Italian born near Trent in 1751, a man very little known outside the narrow limits of the Viennese collectors. He was a wanderer for a few years, painting in Verona, and moving on until he reached St. Petersburg, but when in 1783 he came to Vienna, he was received with open arms, was welcomed by the court and the nobility to such an extent that practically for the rest of his life he resided either in Vienna, or in various towns of Poland from which he could easily reach the capital itself. It was in Vienna that he died at the age of eighty, universally respected and greatly beloved. His wife's portrait is in the gallery at Innsbrück, one of three replicas. The original Lampi retained for himself. His two sons each had replicas, and the remaining one went to his granddaughter, the Baroness Hell, who left it to the museum. One of the replicas which came into the possession of his sons is now a great treasure in Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection. The portrait from that of Dr. Figdor, which we illustrate in colour, represents Lampi himself (Plate LIII.), and is not only a fine example of the artist's work, serious, and almost solemn in its aspect, but also peculiarly interesting as showing us what the painter himself was like. Another Viennese miniature painter whose work we illustrate is Moritz Michael Daffinger, who has been called the Austrian Isabey, but these comparisons, like that applied to Füger, are of little significance. What is of special interest with regard to Daffinger is the fact that he adopted the manner of Sir Thomas Lawrence as his own. Lawrence visited Vienna in 1814, and was received with great honour. While there he painted some portraits. Daffinger admired his work immensely, and undoubtedly some of his best miniatures are reminiscent of Lawrence. Especially is this the case with a beautiful girl's portrait from the collection of another Viennese collector, Gräfin Emma Wilczek-Emo-Capodilista; and for permission to illustrate this delightful miniature (Plate LIV.) we are particularly grateful, as it is a charming specimen of the best work of the nineteenth century, a pleasing portrait, and very agreeable in its colour scheme. Daffinger had many pupils, and one of them, Emanuel Peter, exceeded all the rest in skill. We illustrate two clever portraits by him (Plate LV.), from Dr. Figdor's collection, in which the ladies are wearing very decorative head-dresses. It is suggested that the two fair sitters were relatives, probably cousins, and were painted for some exceptional occasion, perhaps a masquerade, as the custom to wear fantastic head-dresses for such special entertainments still prevails in Vienna. Finally we must mention Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, whose own portrait by himself appears on Plate LVI. He was one of Lampi's pupils, but, like Daffinger, a profound admirer of Sir Thomas Lawrence. His early days were one continual struggle, and he earned his living by painting bon-bon boxes, and by giving lessons in drawing in girls' schools, until his skill was recognised and he had won a position for himself in Vienna. He even went on the stage in a travelling troupe with his beautiful wife, who was an actress, but forced the attention of critics by his splendid portrait studies, and at length was appointed curator of the Lamberg Gallery, became a popular portrait painter, and died in 1865 justly esteemed for his skill and ability. Our survey of this fascinating art of the miniature painter has necessarily been brief. There is still a good deal of information to be gathered up concerning the eighteenth-century artists, and probably some of their descendants possess papers and records of vast interest, hidden away amongst family treasures. Perchance this essay may encourage some of them to make the necessary search, and so add to the information available on the lives and careers, especially of our English miniature painters. Of the earlier men there is not much chance of obtaining new information now, but there is always a possibility that letters or sketches by such a painter as Cooper may again come to light, and if such so fortunate a circumstance were to take place we should delight to learn more of the greatest of our British miniature painters, whose portraits were for so many years ignored in favour of the more brilliant, but far less important, works of the painters who exhibited in the early days of the Royal Academy. GEORGE C. WILLIAMSON. PLATE I [Illustration: MRS. PEMBERTON BY HANS HOLBEIN FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE II [Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH BY NICHOLAS HILLIARD FROM THE CABINET OF A WELL-KNOWN COLLECTOR] PLATE III [Illustration: PHILIP II., KING OF SPAIN BY ISAAC OLIVER MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS BY NICHOLAS HILLIARD QUEEN ANNE OF DENMARK BY ISAAC OLIVER ALL FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE IV [Illustration: A SON OF SIR KENELM DIGBY BY ISAAC OLIVER (1632) FREDERICK, KING OF BOHEMIA BY ISAAC OLIVER THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA BY ISAAC OLIVER ALL FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE RT. HON. SIR CHARLES DILKE, BART., M.P.] PLATE V [Illustration: THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM BY JOHN HOSKINS, THE ELDER FROM THE CABINET OF A WELL-KNOWN COLLECTOR] PLATE VI [Illustration: QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA BY JOHN HOSKINS, THE ELDER FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE VII [Illustration: CHARLES II BY SAMUEL COOPER JOHN, EARL OF LOUDOUN (1598-1662) BY SAMUEL COOPER BOTH FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE VIII [Illustration: COLONEL LILBURNE (1618-1657) BY SAMUEL COOPER VISCOUNTESS FAUCONBERG, DAUGHTER OF OLIVER CROMWELL BY SAMUEL COOPER BOTH FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. E. M. HODGKINS] PLATE IX [Illustration: MISS CHRISTIAN TEMPLE BY OR AFTER SAMUEL COOPER FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE RT. HON. SIR CHARLES DILKE, BART., M.P. RACHEL FANE, COUNTESS OF BATH AND LATER OF MIDDLESEX (1612-1680) BY DAVID DES GRANGES FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. E. M. HODGKINS] PLATE X [Illustration: JOHN MILTON ARTIST UNKNOWN FROM THE COLLECTION OF DR. G. C. WILLIAMSON] PLATE XI [Illustration: GEORGE, PRINCE OF DENMARK BY CHRISTIAN RICHTER FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. E. M. HODGKINS] PLATE XII [Illustration: MADAME DU BARRY (1746-1793) BY RICHARD COSWAY, R.A. FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE XIII [Illustration: VISCOUNTESS ST. ASAPH (_NÉE_ LADY CHARLOTTE PERCY) SECOND WIFE OF GEORGE, VISCOUNT ST. ASAPH, AFTERWARDS THIRD EARL OF ASHBURNHAM BY RICHARD COSWAY, R.A. FROM THE COLLECTION OF LORD HOTHFIELD] PLATE XIV [Illustration: LADY AUGUSTA MURRAY WIFE OF THE DUKE OF SUSSEX BY RICHARD COSWAY, R.A. HENRIETTA, LADY DUNCANNON AFTERWARDS COUNTESS OF BESSBOROUGH (Os. 1821) BY RICHARD COSWAY, R.A. BOTH FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE XV [Illustration: LUCY, WIFE OF WILLIAM H. NASSAU, FOURTH EARL OF ROCHFORD BY RICHARD COSWAY, R.A. FROM THE COLLECTION OF LORD HOTHFIELD] PLATE XVI [Illustration: H.R.H. PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES (1796-1817) BY RICHARD COSWAY, R.A. FROM THE COLLECTION OF LORD HOTHFIELD] PLATE XVII [Illustration: HENRY TUFTON, ELEVENTH AND LAST EARL OF THANET (1775-1849) BY RICHARD COSWAY, R.A. FROM THE COLLECTION OF LORD HOTHFIELD] PLATE XVIII [Illustration: SIR CHARLES OAKELEY (1751-1826) BY JOHN SMART PORTRAIT OF A LADY (NAME UNKNOWN) BY JOHN SMART BOTH FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE XIX [Illustration: THE HON. EDWARD PERCIVAL, SECOND SON OF JOHN, SECOND EARL OF EGMONT (1744-1824) BY JOHN SMART (1801) THE HON. MRS. EDWARD PERCIVAL BY JOHN SMART BOTH FROM THE COLLECTION OF LORD HOTHFIELD] PLATE XX [Illustration: EARL BEAUCHAMP BY GEORGE ENGLEHEART (1805) FROM THE COLLECTION OF LADY MARIA PONSONBY] PLATE XXI [Illustration: MISS MARY BERRY BY GEORGE ENGLEHEART FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE XXII [Illustration: MRS. SAINTHILL BY GEORGE ENGLEHEART JOHN JELLIARD BRUNDISH, M.A. SMITH PRIZEMAN AND SENIOR WRANGLER IN 1773 BY GEORGE ENGLEHEART BOTH FROM THE COLLECTION OF LORD HOTHFIELD] PLATE XXIII [Illustration: REBECCA, LADY NORTHWICK (Ob. 1818) BY ANDREW PLIMER FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE XXIV [Illustration: THE HON. HARRIET RUSHOUT (Ob. 1851) BY ANDREW PLIMER THE HON. ANNE RUSHOUT (Ob. 1849) BY ANDREW PLIMER THE HON. ELIZABETH RUSHOUT (Ob. 1862) BY ANDREW PLIMER ALL FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE XXV [Illustration: ELIZABETH, MARGARET CAROLINE AND ANTOINETTE, DAUGHTERS OF JOHN ELLIS, ESQ. OF HURLINGHAM, MIDDLESEX AND JAMAICA BY ANDREW PLIMER ALL FROM THE COLLECTION OF LORD HOTHFIELD] PLATE XXVI [Illustration: SELINA PLIMER BY ANDREW PLIMER FROM THE COLLECTION OF DR. G. C. WILLIAMSON] PLATE XXVII [Illustration: THE SISTERS RUSHOUT BY ANDREW PLIMER FROM THE COLLECTION OF LORD HOTHFIELD] PLATE XXVIII [Illustration: MRS. BAILEY, WIFE OF LIEUTENANT BAILEY, WHO WAS PRESENT AT THE STORMING OF SERINGAPATAM IN 1799 BY ANDREW PLIMER FROM THE COLLECTION OF LORD HOTHFIELD] PLATE XXIX [Illustration: SIR CHARLES KENT, BART., AS A CHILD BY ANDREW PLIMER (1786) FROM THE COLLECTION OF LADY MARIA PONSONBY MRS. DAWES BY NATHANIEL PLIMER (1798) FROM THE COLLECTION OF LORD HOTHFIELD] PLATE XXX [Illustration: CHARLOTTE, DUCHESS OF ALBANY, DAUGHTER OF CHARLES EDWARD STUART BY CLEMENTINA, TENTH DAUGHTER OF JOHN WALKENSHAW (1753-1789) BY OZIAS HUMPHRY MARY, WIFE OF THE EIGHTH EARL OF THANET (Ob. 1778) BY OZIAS HUMPHRY BOTH FROM THE COLLECTION OF LORD HOTHFIELD] PLATE XXXI [Illustration: LIEUTENANT LYGON BY JOHN SMART, JUN. (1803) FROM THE COLLECTION OF LADY MARIA PONSONBY] PLATE XXXII [Illustration: LADY MARY ELIZABETH NUGENT, AFTERWARDS MARCHIONESS OF BUCKINGHAM, AND IN HER OWN RIGHT, BARONESS NUGENT (Ob. 1812) BY HORACE HONE FROM THE COLLECTION OF LORD HOTHFIELD] [Illustration: THE RT. HON. WILLIAM PITT BY HORACE HONE FROM THE COLLECTION OF LADY MARIA PONSONBY] PLATE XXXIII [Illustration: MISS VINCENT BY VASLET OF BATH FROM THE COLLECTION OF LORD HOTHFIELD] PLATE XXXIV [Illustration: THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY BY SIR GEORGE HAYTER (1819) FROM THE COLLECTION OF LADY MARIA PONSONBY] PLATE XXXV [Illustration: LOUIS XIV BY JEAN PETITOT, THE ELDER FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. WARD USHER] PLATE XXXVI [Illustration: CHARLES I. BY P. PRIEUR MARY, DUCHESS OF RICHMOND AND LENOX (1623-1685) BY JEAN PETITOT THE ELDER (1643) BOTH FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE XXXVII [Illustration: MADAME DUPIN (Ob. 1799) BY JEAN MARC NATTIER THE COUNTESS SOPHIE POTOCKI (Ob. 1822) BY P. A. HALL LA PRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE (Ob. 1792) BY P. A. HALL ALL FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE XXXVIII [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A BOY (NAME UNKNOWN) BY JEAN HONORÉ FRAGONARD PORTRAIT OF A LADY (NAME UNKNOWN) BY PIERRE PASQUIER (1786) BOTH FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE XXXIX [Illustration: A GRAND-DAUGHTER OF NATTIER, THE ARTIST BY LOUIS SICARDI LA MARQUISE DE VILLETTE ("BELLE ET BONNE") BY GARRIOT BOTH FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE XL [Illustration: THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE BY JEAN BAPTISTE ISABEY THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE BY JEAN BAPTISTE ISABEY BOTH FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. WARD USHER] PLATE XLI [Illustration: CATHARINE, COUNTESS BEAUCHAMP BY JEAN BAPTISTE ISABEY FROM THE COLLECTION OF LADY MARIA PONSONBY] PLATE XLII [Illustration: FÜRSTIN KATHARINA BAGRATION SKAWRONSKA BY JEAN BAPTISTE ISABEY (1812) FROM THE COLLECTION OF FÜRST FRANZ AUERSPERG] PLATE XLIII [Illustration: LA PRINCESSE DE LIEVEN (_NÉE_ DOROTHY BENCKENDORFF) (1784-1857) BY E. W. THOMPSON QUEEN HORTENSE AND HER SON, AFTERWARDS NAPOLEON III (1808-1873) BY JEAN BAPTISTE ISABEY BOTH FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE XLIV [Illustration: MADAME DE BOUFFLERS (1725-1800) BY J. B. JACQUES AUGUSTIN THE FATHER OF MADAME SEGUIN BY J. B. JACQUES AUGUSTIN BOTH FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J PIERPONT MORGAN] PLATE XLV [Illustration: MADAME RÉCAMIER BY J. B. JACQUES AUGUSTIN FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. WARD USHER] PLATE XLVI [Illustration: MARIE ANTOINETTE BY M. V. COSTA FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. WARD USHER] PLATE XLVII [Illustration: PRINCESS PAULINE BORGHESE BY B. ANGUISSOLA FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. J. WARD USHER] PLATE XLVIII [Illustration: PRINCE FRANZ W. HOHENLOHE BY HEINRICH FRIEDRICH FÜGER FROM THE FIGDOR COLLECTION] PLATE XLIX [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A LADY--NAME UNKNOWN BY HEINRICH FRIEDRICH FÜGER (CIRCA 1790) FROM THE FIGDOR COLLECTION] PLATE L [Illustration: EMPRESS MARIA THERESIA, SECOND WIFE OF THE EMPEROR FRANCIS I OF AUSTRIA BY HEINRICH FRIEDRICH FÜGER FROM THE FIGDOR COLLECTION] PLATE LI [Illustration: MARIE THERESIA, COUNTESS VON DIETRICHSTEIN BY HEINRICH FRIEDRICH FÜGER FROM THE FIGDOR COLLECTION] PLATE LII [Illustration: FÜRSTIN ANNA LIECHTENSTEIN-KHEVENHÜLLER BY HEINRICH FRIEDRICH FÜGER (CIRCA 1795) FROM THE FIGDOR COLLECTION] PLATE LIII [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST BY GIOVANNI BATTISTA DE LAMPI FROM THE FIGDOR COLLECTION] PLATE LIV [Illustration: GRÄFIN SOPHIE NARISKINE BY MORITZ MICHAEL DAFFINGER (CIRCA 1835) FROM THE COLLECTION OF GRÄFIN EMMA WILCZEK-EMO-CAPODILISTA] PLATE LV [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A LADY--NAME UNKNOWN BY EMANUEL PETER GRÄFIN SIDONIE POTOCKA--DE LIGNE BY EMANUEL PETER FROM THE FIGDOR COLLECTION] PLATE LVI [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST (1793-1885) BY FERDINAND GEORG WALDMÜLLER FROM THE FIGDOR COLLECTION] +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Obvious punctuation and spelling errors repaired. | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ 
33203	----	[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected. Hyphenation and accentuation have been standardised, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained. Bold text is marked with =.] LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT PAINTERS SCULPTORS & ARCHITECTS BY GIORGIO VASARI: VOLUME X. BRONZINO TO VASARI & GENERAL INDEX 1915 NEWLY TRANSLATED BY GASTON Du C. DE VERE. WITH FIVE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS: IN TEN VOLUMES [Illustration: 1511-1574] PHILIP LEE WARNER, PUBLISHER TO THE MEDICI SOCIETY, LIMITED 7 GRAFTON ST. LONDON, W. 1912-15 CONTENTS OF VOLUME X PAGE ACADEMICIANS OF DESIGN, PAINTERS, SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS 3 DESCRIPTION OF THE FESTIVE PREPARATIONS FOR THE NUPTIALS OF THE PRINCE DON FRANCESCO OF TUSCANY 37 GIORGIO VASARI 171 INDEX OF NAMES 227 GENERAL INDEX, VOLUMES I TO X 233 ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME X PLATES IN MONOCHROME FACING PAGE AGNOLO BRONZINO Bartolommeo Panciatichi Florence: Uffizi, 159 4 AGNOLO BRONZINO Eleanora de Toledo and her Son Florence: Uffizi, 172 6 AGNOLO BRONZINO Christ in Limbo Florence: Uffizi, 1271 8 ALESSANDRO ALLORI Giuliano de' Medici Florence: Uffizi, 193 12 BENVENUTO CELLINI Perseus Florence: Loggia de' Lanzi 22 GIOVANNI BOLOGNA Fountain of Neptune Bologna 24 GIOVANNI BOLOGNA Mercury Florence: Museo Nazionale 26 VINCENZIO DANTI The Brazen Serpent Florence: Museo Nazionale 28 VINCENZIO DANTI Bronze Relief Florence: Museo Nazionale 30 GIORGIO VASARI Lorenzo the Magnificent and the Ambassadors Florence: Palazzo Vecchio 208 GIORGIO VASARI Fresco in the Hall of Lorenzo the Magnificent Florence: Palazzo Vecchio 214 OF THE ACADEMICIANS OF DESIGN, PAINTERS, SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS, AND OF THEIR WORKS, AND FIRST OF BRONZINO Having written hitherto of the lives and works of the most excellent painters, sculptors, and architects, from Cimabue down to the present day, who have passed to a better life, and having spoken with the opportunities that came to me of many still living, it now remains that I say something of the craftsmen of our Academy of Florence, of whom up to this point I have not had occasion to speak at sufficient length. And beginning with the oldest and most important, I shall speak first of Agnolo, called Bronzino, a Florentine painter truly most rare and worthy of all praise. Agnolo, then, having been many years with Pontormo, as has been told, caught his manner so well, and so imitated his works, that their pictures have been taken very often one for the other, so similar they were for a time. And certainly it is a marvel how Bronzino learned the manner of Pontormo so well, for the reason that Jacopo was rather strange and shy than otherwise even with his dearest disciples, being such that he would never let anyone see his works save when completely finished. But notwithstanding this, so great were the patience and lovingness of Agnolo towards Pontormo, that he was forced always to look kindly upon him, and to love him as a son. The first works of account that Bronzino executed, while still a young man, were in the Certosa of Florence, over a door that leads from the great cloister into the chapter-house, on two arches, one within and the other without. On that without is a Pietà, with two Angels, in fresco, and on that within is a nude S. Laurence upon the gridiron, painted in oil-colours on the wall; which works were a good earnest of the excellence that has been seen since in the works of this painter in his mature years. In the Chapel of Lodovico Capponi, in S. Felicita at Florence, Bronzino, as has been said in another place, painted two Evangelists in two round pictures in oils, and on the vaulting he executed some figures in colour. In the Abbey of the Black Friars at Florence, in the upper cloister, he painted in fresco a story from the life of S. Benedict, when he throws himself naked on the thorns, which is a very good picture. In the garden of the Sisters called the Poverine, he painted in fresco a most beautiful tabernacle, wherein is Christ appearing to the Magdalene in the form of a gardener. And in S. Trinita, likewise in Florence, may be seen a picture in oils by the same hand, on the first pilaster at the right hand, of the Dead Christ, Our Lady, S. John, and S. Mary Magdalene, executed with much diligence and in a beautiful manner. And during that time when he executed these works, he also painted many portraits of various persons, and other pictures, which gave him a great name. [Illustration: BARTOLOMMEO PANCIATICHI (_After the painting by =Angelo Bronzino=. Florence: Uffizi, 159_) _Alinari_] Then, the siege of Florence being ended and the settlement made, he went, as has been told elsewhere, to Pesaro, where under the protection of Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, besides the above-mentioned harpsichord-case full of figures, which was a rare thing, he executed the portrait of that lord and one of a daughter of Matteo Sofferoni, which was a truly beautiful picture and much extolled. He also executed at the Imperiale, a villa of the said Duke, some figures in oils on the spandrels of a vault; and more of these he would have done if he had not been recalled to Florence by his master, Jacopo Pontormo, that he might assist him to finish the Hall of Poggio a Caiano. And having arrived in Florence, he painted as it were by way of pastime, for Messer Giovanni de Statis, Auditor to Duke Alessandro, a little picture of Our Lady which was a much extolled work, and shortly afterwards, for Monsignor Giovio, his friend, the portrait of Andrea Doria; and for Bartolommeo Bettini, to fill certain lunettes in a chamber, the portraits of Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio, half-length figures of great beauty. Which pictures finished, he made portraits of Bonaccorso Pinadori, Ugolino Martelli, Messer Lorenzo Lenzi, now Bishop of Fermo, and Pier Antonio Bandini and his wife, with so many others, that it would be a long work to seek to make mention of them all; let it suffice that they were all very natural, executed with incredible diligence, and finished so well, that nothing more could be desired. For Bartolommeo Panciatichi he painted two large pictures of Our Lady, with other figures, beautiful to a marvel and executed with infinite diligence, and, besides these, portraits of him and his wife, so natural that they seem truly alive, and nothing is wanting in them save breath. For the same man he has painted a picture of Christ on the Cross, which is executed with much study and pains, insomuch that it is clearly evident that he copied it from a real dead body fixed on a cross, such is the supreme excellence and perfection of every part. For Matteo Strozzi he painted in fresco, in a tabernacle at his villa of S. Casciano, a Pietà with some Angels, which was a very beautiful work. For Filippo d' Averardo Salviati he executed a Nativity of Christ in a small picture with little figures, of such beauty that it has no equal, as everyone knows, that work being now in engraving; and for Maestro Francesco Montevarchi, a most excellent physicist, he painted a very beautiful picture of Our Lady and some other little pictures full of grace. And he assisted his master Pontormo, as was said above, to execute the work of Careggi, whereon the spandrels of the vaults he painted with his own hand five figures, Fortune, Fame, Peace, Justice, and Prudence, with some children, all wrought excellently well. Duke Alessandro being then dead and Cosimo elected, Bronzino assisted the same Pontormo in the work of the Loggia of Castello. For the nuptials of the most illustrious Lady, Leonora di Toledo, the wife of Duke Cosimo, he painted two scenes in chiaroscuro in the court of the Medici Palace, and on the base that supported the horse made by Tribolo, as was related, some stories of the actions of Signor Giovanni de' Medici, in imitation of bronze; all which were the best pictures that were executed in those festive preparations. Wherefore the Duke, having recognized the ability of this man, caused him to set his hand to adorning a chapel of no great size in the Ducal Palace for the said Lady Duchess, a woman of true worth, if ever any woman was, and for her infinite merits worthy of eternal praise. In that chapel Bronzino made on the vault some compartments with very beautiful children and four figures, each of which has the feet turned towards the walls--S. Francis, S. Jerome, S. Michelagnolo, and S. John; all executed with the greatest diligence and lovingness. And on the three walls, two of which are broken by the door and the window, he painted three stories of Moses, one on each wall. Where the door is, he painted the story of the snakes or serpents raining down upon the people, with many beautiful considerations in figures bitten by them, some of whom are dying, some are dead, and others, gazing on the Brazen Serpent, are being healed. On another wall, that of the window, is the Rain of Manna; and on the unbroken wall the Passing of the Red Sea, and the Submersion of Pharaoh; which scene has been printed in engraving at Antwerp. In a word, this work, executed as it is in fresco, has no equal, and is painted with the greatest possible diligence and study. In the altar-picture of this chapel, painted in oils, which was placed over the altar, was Christ taken down from the Cross, in the lap of His Mother; but it was removed from there by Duke Cosimo for sending as a present, as a very rare work, to Granvella, who was once the greatest man about the person of the Emperor Charles V. In place of that altar-piece the same master has painted another like it, which was set over the altar between two pictures not less beautiful than the altar-piece, in which pictures are the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin receiving from him the Annunciation; but instead of these, when the first altar-picture was removed, there were a S. John the Baptist and a S. Cosimo, which were placed in the guardaroba when the Lady Duchess, having changed her mind, caused the other two to be painted. [Illustration: ELEANORA DE TOLEDO AND HER SON (_After the painting by =Angelo Bronzino=. Florence: Uffizi, 172_) _Alinari_] The Lord Duke, having seen from these and other works the excellence of this painter, and that it was his particular and peculiar field to portray from life with the greatest diligence that could be imagined, caused him to paint a portrait of himself, at that time a young man, fully clad in bright armour, and with one hand upon his helmet; in another picture the Lady Duchess, his consort, and in yet another picture the Lord Don Francesco, their son and Prince of Florence. And no long time passed before he portrayed the same Lady Duchess once again, to do her pleasure, in a different manner from the first, with the Lord Don Giovanni, her son, beside her. He also made a portrait of La Bia, a young girl, the natural daughter of the Duke; and afterwards all the Duke's children, some for the first time and others for the second--the Lady Donna Maria, a very tall and truly beautiful girl, the Prince Don Francesco, the Lord Don Giovanni, Don Garzia, and Don Ernando, in a number of pictures which are all in the guardaroba of his Excellency, together with the portraits of Don Francesco di Toledo, Signora Maria, mother of the Duke, and Ercole II, Duke of Ferrara, with many others. About the same time, also, he executed in the Palace for the Carnival, two years in succession, two scenic settings and prospect-views for comedies, which were held to be very beautiful. And he painted a picture of singular beauty that was sent to King Francis in France, wherein was a nude Venus, with a Cupid who was kissing her, and Pleasure on one side with Play and other Loves, and on the other side Fraud and Jealousy and other passions of love. The Lord Duke had caused to be begun by Pontormo the cartoons of the tapestries in silk and gold for the Sala del Consiglio de' Dugento; and, having had two stories of the Hebrew Joseph executed by the said Pontormo, and one by Salviati, he gave orders that Bronzino should do the rest. Whereupon he executed fourteen pieces with the excellence and perfection which everyone knows who has seen them; but since this was an excessive labour for Bronzino, who was losing too much time thereby, he availed himself in the greater part of these cartoons, himself making the designs, of Raffaello dal Colle, the painter of Borgo a San Sepolcro, who acquitted himself excellently well. Now Giovanni Zanchini had built a chapel very rich in carved stone, with his family tombs in marble, opposite to the Chapel of the Dini in S. Croce at Florence, on the front wall, on the left hand as one enters the church by the central door; and he allotted the altar-piece to Bronzino, to the end that he might paint in it Christ descended into the Limbo of Hell in order to deliver the Holy Fathers. Agnolo, then, having set his hand to it, executed that work with the utmost possible diligence that one can use who desires to acquire glory by such a labour; wherefore there are in it most beautiful nudes, men, women, and children, young and old, with different features and attitudes, and portraits of men that are very natural, among which are Jacopo da Pontormo, Giovan Battista Gello, a passing famous Academician of Florence, and the painter Bacchiacca, of whom we have spoken above. And among the women he portrayed there two noble and truly most beautiful young women of Florence, worthy of eternal praise and memory for their incredible beauty and virtue, Madonna Costanza da Sommaia, wife of Giovan Battista Doni, who is still living, and Madonna Camilla Tedaldi del Corno, who has now passed to a better life. Not long afterwards he executed another large and very beautiful altar-picture of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which was placed in the Chapel of Jacopo and Filippo Guadagni beside the choir in the Church of the Servites--that is, the Nunziata. And at this same time he painted the altar-piece that was placed in the chapel of the Palace, whence there had been removed that which was sent to Granvella; which altar-piece is certainly a most beautiful picture, and worthy of that place. Bronzino then painted for Signor Alamanno Salviati a Venus with a Satyr beside her, so beautiful as to appear in truth Venus Goddess of Beauty. [Illustration: CHRIST IN LIMBO (_After the panel by =Angelo Bronzino=. Florence: Uffizi, 1271_) _Anderson_] Having then gone to Pisa, whither he was summoned by the Duke, he executed some portraits for his Excellency; and for Luca Martini, who was very much his friend, and not of him only, but also attached with true affection to all men of talent, he painted a very beautiful picture of Our Lady, in which he portrayed that Luca with a basket of fruits, from his having been the minister and proveditor for the said Lord Duke in the draining of the marshes and other waters that rendered unhealthy the country round Pisa, and for having made it in consequence fertile and abundant in fruits. Nor did Bronzino depart from Pisa before there was allotted to him at the instance of Martini, by Raffaello del Setaiuolo, the Warden of Works of the Duomo, the altar-picture for one of the chapels in that Duomo, wherein he painted a nude Christ with the Cross, and about Him many Saints, among whom is a S. Bartholomew flayed, which has the appearance of a true anatomical subject and of a man flayed in reality, so natural it is and imitated with such diligence from an anatomical subject. That altar-picture, which is beautiful in every part, was placed, as I have said, in a chapel from which they removed another by the hand of Benedetto da Pescia, a disciple of Giulio Romano. Bronzino then made for Duke Cosimo a full-length portrait of the dwarf Morgante, nude, and in two ways--namely, on one side of the picture the front, and on the other the back, with the bizarre and monstrous members which that dwarf has; which picture, of its kind, is beautiful and marvellous. For Ser Carlo Gherardi of Pistoia, who from his youth was a friend of Bronzino, he executed at various times, besides the portrait of Ser Carlo himself, a very beautiful Judith placing the head of Holofernes in a basket, and on the cover that protects that picture, in the manner of a mirror, a Prudence looking at herself; and for the same man a picture of Our Lady, which is one of the most beautiful things that he has ever done, because it has extraordinary design and relief. And the same Bronzino executed the portrait of the Duke when his Excellency was come to the age of forty, and also that of the Lady Duchess, both of which are as good likenesses as could be. After Giovan Battista Cavalcanti had caused a chapel to be built in S. Spirito, at Florence, with most beautiful variegated marbles conveyed from beyond the sea at very great cost, and had laid there the remains of his father Tommaso, he had the head and bust of the father executed by Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli, and the altar-piece Bronzino painted, depicting in it Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene in the form of a gardener, and more distant two other Maries, all figures executed with incredible diligence. Jacopo da Pontormo having left unfinished at his death the chapel in S. Lorenzo, and the Lord Duke having ordained that Bronzino should complete it, he finished in the part where the Deluge is many nudes that were wanting at the foot, and gave perfection to that part, and in the other, where at the foot of the Resurrection of the Dead many figures were wanting over a space about one braccio in height and as wide as the whole wall, he painted them all in the manner wherein they are to be seen, very beautiful; and between the windows, at the foot, in a space that remained there unpainted, he depicted a nude S. Laurence upon a gridiron, with some little Angels about him. In that whole work he demonstrated that he had executed his paintings in that place with much better judgment than his master Pontormo had shown in his pictures in the work; the portrait of which Pontormo Bronzino painted with his own hand in a corner of that chapel, on the right hand of the S. Laurence. The Duke then gave orders to Bronzino that he should execute two large altar-pictures, one containing a Deposition of Christ from the Cross with a good number of figures, for sending to Porto Ferraio in the Island of Elba, for the Convent of the Frati Zoccolanti, built by his Excellency in the city of Cosmopolis; and another altar-piece, in which Bronzino painted the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the new Church of the Knights of S. Stephen, which has since been built in Pisa, together with their Palace and Hospital, after the designs and directions of Giorgio Vasari. Both these pictures have been finished with such art, diligence, design, invention, and supreme loveliness of colouring, that it would not be possible to go further; and no less, indeed, was required in a church erected by so great a Prince, who has founded and endowed that Order of Knights. On some little panels made of sheet-tin, and all of one same size, the same Bronzino has painted all the great men of the House of Medici, beginning with Giovanni di Bicci and the elder Cosimo down to the Queen of France, in that line, and in the other from Lorenzo, the brother of the elder Cosimo, down to Duke Cosimo and his children; all which portraits are set in order behind the door of a little study that Vasari has caused to be made in the apartment of new rooms in the Ducal Palace, wherein is a great number of antique statues of marble and bronzes and little modern pictures, the rarest miniatures, and an infinity of medals in gold, silver, and bronze, arranged in very beautiful order. These portraits of the illustrious men of the House of Medici are all natural and vivacious, and most faithful likenesses. It is a notable thing that whereas many are wont in their last years to do less well than they have done in the past, Bronzino does as well and even better now than when he was in the flower of his manhood, as the works demonstrate that he is executing every day. Not long ago he painted for Don Silvano Razzi, a Camaldolite monk in the Monastery of the Angeli at Florence, who is much his friend, a picture about one braccio and a half high of a S. Catharine, so beautiful and well executed, that it is not inferior to any other picture by the hand of this noble craftsman; insomuch that nothing seems to be wanting in her save the spirit and that voice which confounded the tyrant and confessed Christ her well-beloved spouse even to the last breath; and that father, like the truly gentle spirit that he is, has nothing that he esteems and holds in price more than that picture. Agnolo made a portrait of the Cardinal, Don Giovanni de' Medici, the son of Duke Cosimo, which was sent to the Court of the Emperor for Queen Joanna; and afterwards that of the Lord Don Francesco, Prince of Florence, which was a picture very like the reality, and executed with such diligence that it has the appearance of a miniature. For the nuptials of Queen Joanna of Austria, wife of that Prince, he painted in three large canvases which were placed at the Ponte alla Carraia, as will be described at the end, some scenes of the Nuptials of Hymen, of such beauty that they appeared not things for a festival, but worthy to be set in some honourable place for ever, so finished they were and executed with such diligence. For the same Lord Prince he painted a few months ago a small picture with little figures which has no equal, and it may be said that it is truly a miniature. And since at this his present age of sixty-five he is no less enamoured of the matters of art than he was as a young man, he has undertaken recently, according to the wishes of the Duke, to execute two scenes in fresco on the wall beside the organ in the Church of S. Lorenzo, in which there is not a doubt that he will prove the excellent Bronzino that he has always been. This master has delighted much, and still delights, in poetry; wherefore he has written many capitoli and sonnets, part of which have been printed. But above all, with regard to poetry, he is marvellous in the style of his capitoli after the manner of Berni, insomuch that at the present day there is no one who writes better in that kind of verse, nor things more fanciful and bizarre, as will be seen one day if all his works, as is believed and hoped, come to be printed. Bronzino has been and still is most gentle and a very courteous friend, agreeable in his conversation and in all his affairs, and much honoured; and as loving and liberal with his possessions as a noble craftsman such as he is could well be. He has been peaceful by nature, and has never done an injury to any man, and he has always loved all able men in his profession, as I know, who have maintained a strait friendship with him for three-and-forty years, that is, from 1524 down to the present year, ever since I began to know and to love him in that year of 1524, when he was working at the Certosa with Pontormo, whose works I used as a youth to go to draw in that place. [Illustration: GIULIANO DE' MEDICI (_After the painting by =Alessandro Allori=. Florence: Uffizi, 193_) _Alinari_] Many have been the pupils and disciples of Bronzino, but the first (to speak now of our Academicians) is Alessandro Allori, who has been loved always by his master, not as a disciple, but as his own son, and they have lived and still live together with the same love, one for another, that there is between a good father and his son. Alessandro has shown in many pictures and portraits that he has executed up to his present age of thirty, that he is a worthy disciple of so great a master, and that he is seeking by diligence and continual study to arrive at that rarest perfection which is desired by beautiful and exalted intellects. He has painted and executed all with his own hand the Chapel of the Montaguti in the Church of the Nunziata--namely, the altar-piece in oils, and the walls and vaulting in fresco. In the altar-piece is Christ on high, and the Madonna, in the act of judging, with many figures in various attitudes and executed very well, copied from the Judgment of Michelagnolo Buonarroti. About that altar-piece, on the same wall, are four large figures in the forms of Prophets, or rather, Evangelists, two above and two below; and on the vaulting are some Sibyls and Prophets executed with great pains, study, and diligence, he having sought in the nudes to imitate Michelagnolo. On the wall which is at the left hand looking towards the altar, is Christ as a boy disputing in the midst of the Doctors in the Temple; which boy is seen in a fine attitude answering their questions, and the Doctors, and others who are there listening attentively to him, are all different in features, attitudes, and vestments, and among them are portraits from life of many of Alessandro's friends, which are good likenesses. Opposite to that, on the other wall, is Christ driving from the Temple those who with their buying and selling were making it a house of traffic and a market-place; with many things worthy of consideration and praise. Over those two scenes are some stories of the Madonna, and on the vaulting figures that are of no great size, but passing graceful; with some buildings and landscapes, which in their essence show the love that he bears to art, and how he seeks the perfection of design and invention. And opposite to the altar-piece, on high, is a story of Ezekiel, when he saw a great multitude of bones reclothe themselves with flesh and take to themselves their members; in which this young man has demonstrated how much he desires to master the anatomy of the human body, and how he has studied it and given it his attention. And, in truth, in this his first work of importance, as also in the nuptials of his Highness, with figures in relief and stories in painting, he has proved himself and given great signs and promise, as he continues to do, that he is like to become an excellent painter; and not in this only, but in some other smaller works, and recently in a small picture full of little figures in the manner of miniature, which he has executed for Don Francesco, Prince of Florence, a much-extolled work; and other pictures and portraits he has painted with great study and diligence, in order to become practised and to acquire a grand manner. Another young man, likewise a pupil of Bronzino and one of our Academicians, called Giovan Maria Butteri, has shown good mastery and much dexterity in what he did, besides many other smaller pictures and other works, for the obsequies of Michelagnolo and for the coming of the above-named most illustrious Queen Joanna to Florence. And another disciple, first of Pontormo and then of Bronzino, has been Cristofano dell' Altissimo, a painter, who, after having executed in his youth many pictures in oils and some portraits, was sent by the Lord Duke Cosimo to Como, to copy many pictures of illustrious persons in the Museum of Monsignor Giovio, out of the vast number which that man, so distinguished in our times, collected in that place. Many others, also, the Lord Duke has obtained by the labours of Vasari; and of all these portraits a list[1] will be made in the index of this book, in order not to occupy too much space in this discourse. In the work of these portraits Cristofano has exerted himself with such diligence and pains, that those which he has copied up to the present day, and which are in three friezes in a guardaroba of the said Lord Duke, as will be described elsewhere in speaking of the decorations of that place, are more than two hundred and eighty in number, what with Pontiffs, Emperors, Kings, Princes, Captains of armies, men of letters, and, in short, all men for some reason illustrious and renowned. And, to tell the truth, we owe a great obligation to this zeal and diligence of Giovio and of the Duke, for the reason that not only the apartments of Princes, but also those of many private persons, are now being adorned with portraits of one or other of those illustrious men, according to the country, family, and particular affection of each person. Cristofano, then, having established himself in this manner of painting, which is suited to his genius, or rather, inclination, has done little else, as one who is certain to derive from it honour and profit in abundance. [Footnote 1: Given in the original Italian edition of 1568.] Pupils of Bronzino, also, are Stefano Pieri and Lorenzo della Sciorina, who have so acquitted themselves, both the one and the other, in the obsequies of Michelagnolo and in the nuptials of his Highness, that they have been admitted among the number of our Academicians. From the same school of Pontormo and Bronzino has issued also Battista Naldini, of whom we have spoken in another place. This Battista, after the death of Pontormo, having been some time in Rome and having applied himself with much study to art, has made much proficience and become a bold and well-practised painter, as many works demonstrate that he has executed for the very reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, who has made great use of him and assisted him, together with Francesco da Poppi, a young man of great promise and one of our Academicians, who has acquitted himself well in the nuptials of his Highness, and other young men, whom Don Vincenzio is continually employing and assisting. Of this Battista, Vasari has made use for more than two years, as he still does, in the works of the Ducal Palace of Florence, where, by the emulation of many others who were working in the same place, he has made much progress, insomuch that at the present day he is equal to any other young man of our Academy; and that which much pleases those who are good judges is that he is expeditious, and does his work without effort. Battista has painted in an altar-picture in oils that is in a chapel of the Black Friars' Abbey of Florence, a Christ who is bearing the Cross, in which work are many good figures; and he has other works constantly in hand, which will make him known as an able man. Not inferior to any of these named above in talent, art, and merit, is Maso Manzuoli, called Maso da San Friano, a young man of about thirty or thirty-two years, who had his first principles from Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, one of our Academicians, of whom we have spoken in another place. This Maso, I say, besides having shown how much he knows and how much may be expected of him in many pictures and smaller paintings, has demonstrated this recently in two altar-pictures with much honour to himself and full satisfaction to everyone, having displayed in them invention, design, manner, grace, and unity in the colouring. In one of these altar-pieces, which is in the Church of S. Apostolo at Florence, is the Nativity of Jesus Christ, and in the other, which is placed in the Church of S. Pietro Maggiore, and is as beautiful as an old and well-practised master could have made it, is the Visitation of Our Lady to S. Elizabeth, executed with judgment and with many fine considerations, insomuch that the heads, the draperies, the attitudes, the buildings, and all the other parts are full of loveliness and grace. This man acquitted himself with no ordinary excellence in the obsequies of Buonarroti, as an Academician and very loving, and then in some scenes for the nuptials of Queen Joanna. Now, since not only in the Life of Ridolfo Ghirlandajo I have spoken of his disciple Michele and of Carlo da Loro, but also in other places, I shall say nothing more of them here, although they are of our Academy, enough having been said of them. But I will not omit to tell that other disciples and pupils of Ghirlandajo have been Andrea del Minga, likewise one of our Academicians, who has executed many works, as he still does; Girolamo di Francesco Crocifissaio, a young man of twenty-six, and Mirabello di Salincorno, both painters, who have done and continue to do such works of painting in oils and in fresco, and also portraits, that a most honourable result may be expected from them. These two executed together, now several years ago, some pictures in fresco in the Church of the Capuchins without Florence, which are passing good; and in the obsequies of Michelagnolo and the above-mentioned nuptials, also they did themselves much honour. Mirabello has painted many portraits, and in particular that of the most illustrious Prince more than once, and many others that are in the hands of various gentlemen of Florence. Another, also, who has done much honour to our Academy and to himself, is Federigo di Lamberto of Amsterdam, a Fleming, the son-in-law of the Paduan Cartaro, working in the said obsequies and in the festive preparations for the nuptials of the Prince, and besides this he has shown in many pictures painted in oils, both large and small, and in other works that he has executed, a good manner and good design and judgment. And if he has merited praise up to the present, he will merit even more in the future, for he is labouring constantly with much advantage in Florence, which he appears to have chosen as his country, that city being one where young men derive much benefit from competition and emulation. A beautiful genius, also, universal and abundant in fine fantasies, has been shown by Bernardo Timante Buontalenti, who had his first principles of painting in his youth from Vasari, and then, continuing, has made so much proficiency that he has now served for many years, and still serves with much favour, the most illustrious Lord Don Francesco de' Medici, Prince of Florence. That lord has kept him continually at work; and he has executed for his Excellency many works in miniature after the manner of Don Giulio Clovio, such as many portraits and scenes with little figures, painted with much diligence. The same Bernardo has made with a beautiful architectural design, by order of the said Prince, a cabinet with compartments of ebony and columns of heliotrope, oriental jasper, and lapis-lazuli, which have bases and capitals of chased silver; and besides this he has filled the whole surface of the work with jewels and most lovely ornaments of silver and beautiful little figures, within which ornaments are to be miniatures, and, between terminals placed in pairs, figures of silver and gold in the round, separated by other compartments of agate, jasper, heliotrope, sardonyx, cornelian, and others of the finest stones, to describe all which here would make a very long story. It is enough that in this work, which is near completion, Bernardo has displayed a most beautiful genius, equal to any work. Thus that lord makes use of him for many ingenious fantasies of his own of cords for drawing weights, of windlasses, and of lines; besides that he has discovered a method of fusing rock-crystal with ease and of purifying it, and has made with it scenes and vases of several colours; for Bernardo occupies himself with everything. This, also, will be seen in a short time in the making of vases of porcelain with all the perfection of the most ancient and most perfect; in which at the present day a most excellent master is Giulio da Urbino, who is in the service of the most illustrious Duke Alfonso II of Ferrara, and does stupendous things in the way of vases with several kinds of clay, and to those in porcelain he gives the most beautiful shapes, besides fashioning with the same earth little squares, octagons, and rounds, hard and with an extraordinary polish, for making pavements counterfeiting the appearance of variegated marbles; of all which things our Prince has the methods of making them. His Excellency has also caused a beginning to be made with the executing of a study-table with precious stones, richly adorned, as an accompaniment to another belonging to his father, Duke Cosimo. And not long ago he had one finished after the design of Vasari, which is a rare work, being of oriental alabaster all inlaid with great pieces of jasper, heliotrope, cornelian, lapis-lazuli, and agate, with other stones and jewels of price that are worth twenty thousand crowns. This study-table has been executed by Bernardino di Porfirio of Leccio in the neighbourhood of Florence, who is excellent in such work, and who made for Messer Bindo Altoviti an octagon of ebony and ivory inlaid likewise with jaspers, after the design of the same Vasari; which Bernardino is now in the service of their Excellencies. But to return to Bernardo: in painting, also, beyond the expectation of many, he showed that he is able to execute large figures no less well than the small, when he painted for the obsequies of Michelagnolo that great canvas of which we have spoken. Bernardo was employed, also, with much credit to him, for the nuptials of his and our Prince, in certain masquerades, in the Triumph of Dreams, as will be told, and in the interludes of the comedy that was performed in the Palace, as has been described exhaustively by others. And if this man, when he was a youth (although even now he is not past thirty), had given his attention to the studies of art as he gave it to the methods of fortification, in which he spent no little time, he would be perchance now at such a height of excellence as would astonish everyone; none the less, it is believed that he is bound for all that to achieve the same end, although something later, for the reason that he is all genius and art, to which is added this also, that he is continually employed and exercised by his sovereign, and in the most honourable works. Of our Academy, also, is Giovanni della Strada, a Fleming, who has good design, the finest fantasy, much invention, and a good manner of colouring; and, having made much proficience during the ten years that he has worked in the Palace in distemper, fresco, and oils, after the designs and directions of Giorgio Vasari, he can bear comparison with any of the many painters that the said Lord Duke has in his service. But at the present day the principal task of this man is to make cartoons for various arras-tapestries that the Duke and the Prince are having executed, likewise under the direction of Vasari, of divers kinds in accordance with the stories in painting that are on high in the rooms and chambers painted by Vasari in the Palace, for the adornment of which they are being made, to the end that the embellishment of tapestries below may correspond to the pictures above. For the chambers of Saturn, Ops, Ceres, Jove, and Hercules, he has made most lovely cartoons for about thirty pieces of tapestry; and for the upper chambers where the Princess has her habitation, which are four, dedicated to the virtues of woman, with stories of Roman, Hebrew, Greek, and Tuscan women (namely, the Sabines, Esther, Penelope, and Gualdrada), he has made, likewise, very beautiful cartoons for tapestries. In like manner, he has done the same for ten pieces of tapestry in a hall, in which is the Life of Man; and also for the five lower rooms where the Prince dwells, dedicated to David, Solomon, Cyrus, and others. And for twenty rooms in the Palace of Poggio a Caiano, for which the tapestries are even now being woven, he has made after the inventions of the Duke cartoons of the hunting of every kind of animal, and the methods of fowling and fishing, with the strangest and most beautiful inventions in the world; in which variety of animals, birds, fishes, landscapes, and vestments, with huntsmen on foot and on horseback, fowlers in various habits, and nude fishermen, he has shown and still shows that he is a truly able man, and that he has learned well the Italian manner, being minded to live and die in Florence in the service of his most illustrious lords, in company with Vasari and the other Academicians. Another pupil of Vasari, likewise, and also an Academician, is Jacopo di Maestro Piero Zucca, a young Florentine of twenty-five or twenty-six years, who, having assisted Vasari to execute the greater part of the works in the Palace, and in particular the ceiling of the Great Hall, has made so much proficience in design and in the handling of colours, labouring with much industry, study, and assiduity, that he can now be numbered among the first of the young painters in our Academy. And the works that he has done by himself alone in the obsequies of Michelagnolo, in the nuptials of the most illustrious Lord Prince, and at other times for various friends, in which he has shown intelligence, boldness, diligence, grace, and good judgment, have made him known as a gifted youth and an able painter; but even more will those make him known that may be expected from him in the future, doing as much honour to his country as has been done to her by any painter at any time. In like manner, among other young painters of the Academy, Santi Titi may be called ingenious and able, who, as has been told in other places, after having practised for many years in Rome, has returned finally to enjoy Florence, which he regards as his country, although his elders are of Borgo a San Sepolcro and of a passing good family in that city. This Santi acquitted himself truly excellently in the works that he executed for the obsequies of Buonarroti and the above-mentioned nuptials of the most illustrious Princess, but even more, after great and almost incredible labours, in the scenes that he painted in the theatre which he made for the same nuptials on the Piazza di S. Lorenzo, for the most illustrious Lord Paolo Giordano Orsino, Duke of Bracciano; wherein he painted in chiaroscuro, on several immense pieces of canvas, stories of the actions of various illustrious men of the Orsini family. But how able he is can be perceived best from two altar-pieces by his hand that are to be seen, one of which is in Ognissanti, or rather, S. Salvadore di Fiorenza (as it is now called), once the church of the Padri Umiliati, and now of the Zoccolanti, and contains the Madonna on high and at the foot S. John, S. Jerome, and other Saints; and in the other, which is in S. Giuseppe, behind S. Croce, in the Chapel of the Guardi, is a Nativity of Our Lord executed with much diligence, with many portraits from life. Not to speak of many pictures of Our Lady and various portraits that he has painted in Rome and in Florence, and pictures executed in the Vatican, as has been related above. There are also certain other young painters of the same Academy who have been employed in the above-mentioned decorations, some of Florence and some of the Florentine States. Alessandro del Barbiere, a young Florentine of twenty-five, besides many other works, painted for the said nuptials in the Palace, after the designs and directions of Vasari, the canvases of the walls in the Great Hall, wherein were depicted the squares of all the cities in the dominion of the Lord Duke; in which he certainly acquitted himself very well, and proved himself a young man of judgment and likely to achieve any success. In like manner, Vasari has been assisted in these and other works by many other disciples and friends; Domenico Benci, Alessandro Fortori of Arezzo, his cousin Stefano Veltroni, and Orazio Porta, both of Monte Sansovino, and Tommaso del Verrocchio. In the same Academy there are also many excellent craftsmen who are strangers, of whom we have spoken at length in various places above; and therefore it shall suffice here to make known their names, to the end that they may be numbered in this part among the other Academicians. These, then, are Federigo Zucchero; Prospero Fontana and Lorenzo Sabatini, of Bologna; Marco da Faenza, Tiziano Vecelli, Paolo Veronese, Giuseppe Salviati, Tintoretto, Alessandro Vittoria, the sculptor Danese, the painter Battista Farinato of Verona, and the architect Andrea Palladio. Now, to say something also of the sculptors in our Academy and of their works, although I do not intend to speak of them at any length, because they are alive and for the most part most illustrious in name and fame, I say that Benvenuto Cellini, a citizen of Florence, who is now a sculptor (to begin with the oldest and most honoured), had no peer in his youth when he was a goldsmith, nor perhaps had he for many years any equal in that profession and in making most beautiful figures in the round and in low-relief, and all the other works of that craft. He set jewels, and adorned them with marvellous collets and with little figures so well wrought, and at times so bizarre and fantastic that it is not possible to imagine anything finer or better. And the medals that he made in his youth, of silver and gold, were executed with incredible diligence, nor can they ever be praised enough. He made in Rome for Pope Clement VII a very beautiful morse for a pluvial, setting in it excellently well a pointed diamond surrounded by some children made of gold plate, and a God the Father marvellously wrought; wherefore, besides his payment, he received as a gift from that Pope an office of mace-bearer. Being then commissioned by the same Pontiff to make a chalice of gold, the cup of which was to be supported by figures representing the Theological Virtues, he carried it near completion with most marvellous artistry. In these same times there was no one who made the medals of that Pope better than he did, among the many who essayed it, as those well know who saw his medals and possess them; and since for these reasons he received the charge of making the dies for the Mint of Rome, no more beautiful coins have ever been seen than were struck in Rome at that time. Wherefore Benvenuto, after the death of Clement, having returned to Florence, likewise made dies with the head of Duke Alessandro for the coins of the Mint of Florence, so beautiful and wrought with such diligence, that some of them are now preserved as if they were most beautiful antique medals, and that rightly, for the reason that in these he surpassed himself. Having finally given himself to sculpture and to the work of casting, Benvenuto executed in France many works in bronze, silver, and gold, while he was in the service of King Francis in that kingdom. Then, having returned to his own country and entered the service of Duke Cosimo, he was first employed in some goldsmiths' work, and in the end was given some works of sculpture; whereupon he executed in metal the statue of the Perseus that has cut off the head of Medusa, which is in the Piazza del Duca, near the door of the Ducal Palace, upon a base of marble with some very beautiful figures in bronze, each about one braccio and a third in height. This whole work was carried to perfection with the greatest possible study and diligence, and set up in the above-named place as a worthy companion to the Judith by the hand of Donato, that famous and celebrated sculptor. And certainly it was a marvel that Benvenuto, after being occupied for so many years in making little figures, executed so great a statue with such excellence. The same master has made a Crucifix of marble, in the round and large as life, which of its kind is the rarest and most beautiful piece of sculpture that there is to be seen. Wherefore the Lord Duke keeps it, as a thing most dear to him, in the Pitti Palace, intending to place it in the chapel, or rather, little church, that he is building in that place; which little church could not have in these times anything more worthy of itself and of so great a Prince. In short, it is not possible to praise this work so much as would be sufficient. Now, although I could enlarge at much greater length on the works of Benvenuto, who has been in his every action spirited, proud, vigorous, most resolute, and truly terrible, and a person who has been only too well able to speak for himself with Princes, no less than to employ his hand and brain in matters of art, I shall say nothing more of him here, seeing that he has written of his own life and works, and a treatise on the goldsmith's arts, and on founding and casting in metal, with other things pertaining to such arts, and also of sculpture, with much more eloquence and order than I perchance would be able to use here; as for him, therefore, I must be content with this short summary of the rarest of his principal works. [Illustration: PERSEUS (_After the bronze by =Benvenuto Cellini=. Florence: Loggia de' Lanzi_) _Brogi_] Francesco di Giuliano da San Gallo, sculptor, architect, and Academician, and now a man seventy years of age, has executed many works of sculpture, as has been related in the Life of his father and elsewhere; the three figures of marble, somewhat larger than life, which are over the altar of the Church of Orsanmichele, S. Anne, the Virgin, and the Child Christ, figures which are much extolled; certain other statues, also in marble, for the tomb of Piero de' Medici at Monte Cassino; the tomb of Bishop de' Marzi, which is in the Nunziata, and that of Monsignor Giovio, the writer of the history of his own times. In architecture, likewise, the same Francesco has executed many good and beautiful works in Florence and elsewhere; and he has well deserved, both for his own good qualities and for the services of his father Giuliano, to be always favoured by the house of Medici as their protégé, on which account Duke Cosimo, after the death of Baccio d'Agnolo, gave him the place which that master had held as architect to the Duomo of Florence. Of Ammanati, who is also among the first of our Academicians, enough having been said of him in the description of the works of Jacopo Sansovino, there is no need to speak further here. But I will record that disciples of his, and also Academicians, are Andrea Calamech of Carrara, a well-practised sculptor, who executed many figures under Ammanati, and was invited to Messina after the death of the above-named Martino to take the position which Fra Giovanni Agnolo had once held, in which place he died; and Battista di Benedetto, a young man who has given promise of becoming, as he will, an excellent master, having demonstrated already by many works that he is not inferior to the above-named Andrea or to any other of the young sculptors of our Academy, in beauty of genius and judgment. Vincenzio de' Rossi of Fiesole, likewise a sculptor, architect, and Academician of Florence, is worthy to have some record made of him in this place, in addition to what has been said of him in the Life of Baccio Bandinelli, whose disciple he was. After he had taken leave of Baccio, then, he gave a great proof of his powers in Rome, although he was young enough, in the statue that he made for the Ritonda, of a S. Joseph with Christ as a boy of ten years, both figures wrought with good mastery and a beautiful manner. He then executed two tombs in the Church of S. Maria della Pace, with the effigies of those who are within them on the sarcophagi, and on the front without some Prophets of marble in half-relief and large as life, which acquired for him the name of an excellent sculptor. Whereupon there was allotted to him by the Roman people the statue of Pope Paul IV, which was placed on the Campidoglio; and he executed it excellently well. But that work had a short life, for the reason that after the death of the Pope it was thrown to the ground and destroyed by the populace, which persecutes fiercely one day the very men whom it has exalted to the heavens the day before. After that figure Vincenzio made from one block of marble two statues a little larger than life, a Theseus, King of Athens, who has carried off Helen and holds her in his arms in the act of knowing her, with a Troy beneath his feet; than which figures it is not possible to make any with more diligence, study, labour, and grace. Wherefore when Duke Cosimo de' Medici, having journeyed to Rome, and going to see the modern works worthy to be seen no less than the antiques, saw those statues, Vincenzio himself showing them to him, he extolled them very highly, as they deserved; and then Vincenzio, who is a gentle spirit, courteously presented them to him, and at the same time freely offered him his services. But his Excellency, having conveyed them not long afterwards to his Palace of the Pitti in Florence, paid him a good price for them; and, having taken Vincenzio himself with him, he commissioned him after no long time to execute the Labours of Hercules in figures of marble larger than life and in the round. On these Vincenzio is now spending his time, and already he has carried to completion the Slaying of Cacus and the Combat with the Centaur; which whole work, even as it is most exalted in subject and also laborious, so it is hoped that it will prove excellent in artistry, Vincenzio being a man of very beautiful genius and much judgment, and prodigal of thought in all his works of importance. Nor must I omit to say that under his discipline Ilarione Ruspoli, a young citizen of Florence, gives his attention with much credit to sculpture; which Ilarione, no less than his peers in our Academy, showed that he had knowledge, design, and a good mastery in the making of statues, when he had occasion together with the others in the obsequies of Michelagnolo and in the festive preparations for the nuptials named above. [Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF NEPTUNE (_After =Giovanni Bologna=. Bologna_) _Alinari_] Francesco Camilliani, a sculptor and Academician of Florence, who was a disciple of Baccio Bandinelli, after having given in many works proof of being a good sculptor, has consumed fifteen years in making ornaments for fountains; and of such there is one most stupendous, which the Lord Don Luigi di Toledo has caused to be executed for his garden in Florence. The ornaments about that garden are various statues of men and animals in divers manners, all rich and truly regal, and wrought without sparing of expense; and among other statues that Francesco has made for that place, two larger than life, which represent the Rivers Arno and Mugnone, are of supreme beauty, and particularly the Mugnone, which can bear comparison with no matter what statue by an excellent master. In short, all the architecture and ornamentation of that garden are the work of Francesco, who by the richness of the various fountains has made it such, that it has no equal in Florence, and perhaps not in Italy. And the principal fountain, which is even now being carried to completion, will be the richest and most sumptuous to be seen in any place, with its wealth of the richest and finest ornaments that can be imagined, and the great abundance of waters that will be there, flowing without fail at every season. Also an Academician, and much in favour with our Princes for his talents, is Giovan Bologna of Douai, a Flemish sculptor and a young man truly of the rarest, who has executed with most beautiful ornaments of metal the fountain that has been made recently on the Piazza di S. Petronio in Bologna, opposite to the Palazzo de' Signori, in which there are, besides other ornaments, four very beautiful Sirens at the corners, with various children all around, and masks bizarre and extraordinary. But the most notable thing is a figure that he has made and placed over the centre of that fountain, a Neptune of six braccia, which is a most beautiful casting and a statue studied and wrought to perfection. The same master--not to speak at present of all the works that he has executed in clay, terracotta, wax, and other mixtures--has made a very beautiful Venus in marble, and has carried almost to completion for the Lord Prince a Samson large as life, who is combating on foot with two Philistines. And in bronze he has made a statue of Bacchus, larger than life and in the round, and a Mercury in the act of flying, a very ingenious figure, the whole weight resting on one leg and on the point of the foot, which has been sent to the Emperor Maximilian, as a thing that is indeed most rare. But if up to the present he has executed many works, he will do many more in the future, and most beautiful, for recently the Lord Prince has had him provided with rooms in the Palace, and has commissioned him to make a statue of a Victory of five braccia, with a captive, which is going into the Great Hall, opposite another by the hand of Michelagnolo; and he will execute for that Prince large and important works, in which he will have an ample field to show his worth. Many works by his hand, and very beautiful models of various things, are in the possession of M. Bernardo Vecchietti, a gentleman of Florence, and Maestro Bernardo di Mona Mattea, builder to the Duke, who has constructed with great excellence all the fabrics designed by Vasari. [Illustration: MERCURY (_After the bronze by =Giovanni Bologna=. Florence: Museo Nazionale_) _Anderson_] Not less than this Giovan Bologna and his friends and other sculptors of our Academy, Vincenzio Danti of Perugia, who under the protection of Duke Cosimo has adopted Florence as his country, is a young man truly rare and of fine genius. Vincenzio, when a youth, worked as a goldsmith, and executed in that profession things beyond belief; and afterwards, having applied himself to the work of casting, he had the courage at the age of twenty to cast in bronze a statue of Pope Julius III, four braccia high, seated and giving the Benediction; which statue, a very creditable work, is now in the Piazza of Perugia. Then, having come to Florence to serve Duke Cosimo, he made a very beautiful model in wax, larger than life, of a Hercules crushing Antæus, in order to cast from it a figure in bronze, which was to be placed over the principal fountain in the garden of Castello, a villa of the said Lord Duke. But, having made the mould upon that model, in seeking to cast it in bronze it did not succeed, although he returned twice to the work; either by bad fortune, or because the metal was burnt, or for some other reason. Having then turned, in order not to subject his labours to the whim of chance, to working in marble, he executed in a short time from one single piece of marble two figures, Honour with Deceit beneath it, and with such diligence, that it seemed as if he had never done anything but handle the hammer and chisels; and on the head of Honour, which is beautiful, he made the hair curling and so well pierced through, that it seems real and natural, besides displaying a very good knowledge of the nude. That statue is now in the courtyard of the house of Signor Sforza Almeni in the Via de' Servi. And at Fiesole, for the same Signor Sforza, he made many ornaments in his garden and around certain fountains. Afterwards he executed for the Lord Duke some low-reliefs in marble and in bronze, which were held to be very beautiful, for in that manner of sculpture he is perhaps not inferior to any other master. He then cast, also in bronze, the grating of the chapel built in the new apartments of the Palace, which were painted by Giorgio Vasari, and with it a panel with many figures in low-relief, which serves to close a press wherein the Duke keeps writings of importance; and another panel one braccio and a half in height and two and a half in breadth, representing how Moses, in order to heal the Hebrew people from the bites of the serpents, placed one upon a pole. All these things are in the possession of that lord, by order of whom he made the door of the sacristy in the Pieve of Prato, and over it a sarcophagus of marble, with a Madonna three braccia and a half high, and beside her the Child nude, and two little children that are one on either side of a head in low-relief of Messer Carlo de' Medici, the natural son of the elder Cosimo, and once Provost of Prato, whose bones, after having long been in a tomb of brick, Duke Cosimo has caused to be laid in the above-named sarcophagus, thus giving him honourable sepulture; although it is true that the said Madonna and the head in low-relief (which is very beautiful), being in a bad light, do not show up by a great measure as they should. The same Vincenzio has since made, in order to adorn the residence of the Magistrates of the Mint, on the head-wall over the loggia that is on the River Arno, an escutcheon of the Duke with two nude figures, larger than life, on either side of it, one representing Equity and the other Rigour; and from hour to hour he is expecting the marble to make the statue of the Lord Duke himself, considerably larger than life, of which he has made a model; and that statue is to be placed seated over the escutcheon, as a completion to the work, which is to be built shortly, together with the rest of the façade, which Vasari, who is the architect of that fabric, is even now superintending. He has also in hand, and has carried very near completion, a Madonna of marble larger than life, standing with Jesus, a Child of three months, in her arms; which will be a very beautiful work. All these works, together with others, he is executing in the Monastery of the Angeli in Florence, where he lives quietly in company with these monks, who are much his friends, in the rooms that were once occupied there by Messer Benedetto Varchi, of whom the same Vincenzio is making a portrait in low-relief, which will be very beautiful. [Illustration: THE BRAZEN SERPENT (_After the bronze relief by =Vincenzo Danti=. Florence: Museo Nazionale_) _Alinari_] Vincenzio has a brother in the Order of Preaching Friars, called Fra Ignazio Danti, who is very excellent in matters of cosmography, and of a rare genius, insomuch that Duke Cosimo de' Medici is causing him to execute a work than which none greater or more perfect has ever been done at any time in that profession; which is as follows. His Excellency, under the direction of Vasari, has built a new hall of some size expressly as an addition to the guardaroba, on the second floor of the apartments in the Ducal Palace; and this he has furnished all around with presses seven braccia high, with rich carvings of walnut-wood, in order to deposit in them the most important, precious, and beautiful things that he possesses. Over the doors of those presses, within their ornaments, Fra Ignazio has distributed fifty-seven pictures about two braccia high and wide in proportion, in which are painted in oils on the wood with the greatest diligence, after the manner of miniatures, the Tables of Ptolemy, all measured with perfect accuracy and corrected after the most recent authorities, with exact charts of navigation and their scales for measuring and degrees, done with supreme diligence; and with these are all the names, both ancient and modern. His distribution of these pictures is on this wise. At the principal entrance of the hall, on the transverse surfaces of the thickness of the presses, in four pictures, are four half-spheres in perspective; in the two below is the Universe of the Earth, and in the two above is the Universe of the Heavens, with its signs and celestial figures. Then as one enters, on the right hand, there is all Europe in fourteen tables and pictures, one after another, as far as the centre of the wall that is at the head, opposite to the principal door; in which centre is placed the clock with the wheels and with the spheres of the planets that every day go through their motions, which is that clock, so famous and renowned, made by the Florentine Lorenzo della Volpaia. Above these tables is Africa in eleven tables, as far as the said clock; and then, beyond that clock, Asia in the lower range, which continues likewise in fourteen tables as far as the principal door. Above these tables of Asia, in fourteen other tables, there follow the West Indies, beginning like the others from the clock, and continuing as far as the same principal door; and thus there are in all fifty-seven tables. In the base at the foot, in an equal number of pictures running right round, which will be exactly in line with those tables, are to be all the plants and all the animals copied from nature, according to the kinds that those countries produce. Over the cornice of the presses, which is the crown of the whole, there are to be some projections separating the pictures, and upon these are to be placed such of the antique heads in marble as are in existence of the Emperors and Princes who have possessed those lands; and on the plain walls up to the cornice of the ceiling, which is all of carved wood and painted in twelve great pictures, each with four celestial signs, making in all forty-eight, and little less than lifesize, with their stars--there are beneath, as I have said, on those walls, three hundred portraits from life of distinguished persons for the last five hundred years or more, painted in pictures in oils (and a note will be made of them in the table of portraits, in order not to make too long a story here with their names), all of one size, and with one and the same ornament of carved walnut-wood--a very rare effect. In the two compartments in the centre of the ceiling, each four braccia wide, where there are the celestial signs, which open with ease without revealing the secret of the hiding-place, in a part after the manner of a heaven, will be accommodated two large globes, each three braccia and a half in height. In one of them will be the whole earth, marked distinctly, and this will be let down by a windlass that will not be seen, down to the floor, and will rest on a balanced pedestal, so that, when fixed, there will be seen reflected all the tables that are right round in the pictures of the presses, and they will have a countermark in the globe wherewith to find them with ease. In the other globe will be the forty-eight celestial signs arranged in such a manner, that it will be possible with it to perform all the operations of the Astrolabe to perfection. This fanciful invention came from Duke Cosimo, who wished to put together once and for all these things both of heaven and of earth, absolutely exact and without errors, so that it might be possible to see and measure them separately and all together, according to the pleasure of those who delight in this most beautiful profession and study it; of which, as a thing worthy to be recorded, it has seemed to me my duty to make mention in this place on account of the art of Fra Ignazio and the greatness of the Prince, who holds us worthy to enjoy such honourable labours, and also to the end that it may be known throughout the whole world. And now to return to the men of our Academy; although I have spoken in the Life of Tribolo of Antonio di Gino Lorenzi, a sculptor of Settignano, I must record here with better order, as in the proper place, that he executed under his master Tribolo the statue of Æsculapius described above, which is at Castello, and four children that are in the great fountain of that place; and since then he has made some heads and ornaments that are about the new fish-pond of Castello, which is high up there in the midst of various kinds of trees of perpetual verdure. Recently he has made in the lovely garden of the stables, near S. Marco, most beautiful ornaments for an isolated fountain, with many very fine aquatic animals of white and variegated marble; and in Pisa he once executed under the direction of the above-named Tribolo the tomb of Corte, a most excellent philosopher and physician, with his statue and two very beautiful children of marble. In addition to these, he is even now executing new works for the Duke, of animals and birds in variegated marble for fountains, works of the greatest difficulty, which make him well worthy to be in the number of these our Academicians. [Illustration: BRONZE RELIEF (_After =Vincenzo Danti=. Florence: Museo Nazionale_) _Alinari_] In like manner, a brother of Antonio, called Stoldo di Gino Lorenzi, a young man thirty years of age, has acquitted himself in such a manner up to the present in many works of sculpture, that he may now be numbered with justice among the first of the young men in his profession, and set in the most honourable place in their midst. At Pisa he has executed in marble a Madonna receiving the Annunciation from the Angel, which has made him known as a young man of beautiful judgment and genius; and Luca Martini caused him to make another very lovely statue in Pisa, which was presented afterwards by the Lady Duchess Leonora to the Lord Don Garzia di Toledo, her brother, who has placed it in his garden on the Chiaia at Naples. The same Stoldo has made, under the direction of Vasari, in the centre of the façade of the Palace of the Knights of S. Stephen at Pisa, over the principal door, a very large escutcheon in marble of the Lord Duke, their Grand Master, between two statues in the round, Religion and Justice, which are truly most beautiful and highly extolled by all those who are good judges. The same lord has since caused him to execute a fountain for his garden of the Pitti, after the likeness of the beautiful Triumph of Neptune that was seen in the superb masquerade which his Excellency held for the above-mentioned nuptials of the most illustrious Lord Prince. And let this suffice for Stoldo Lorenzi, who is young and is constantly working and acquiring more and more fame and honour among his companions of the Academy. Of the same family of the Lorenzi of Settignano is Battista, called Battista del Cavaliere from his having been a disciple of the Chevalier Baccio Bandinelli; who has executed in marble three statues of the size of life, which Bastiano del Pace, a citizen of Florence, has caused him to make for the Guadagni, who live in France, and who have placed them in a garden that belongs to them. These are a nude Spring, a Summer, and a Winter, which are to be accompanied by an Autumn; which statues have been held by many who have seen them, to be beautiful and executed with no ordinary excellence. Wherefore Battista has well deserved to be chosen by the Lord Duke to make the sarcophagus, with the ornaments, and one of the three statues that are to be on the tomb of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, which his Excellency and Leonardo Buonarroti are carrying out after the design of Giorgio Vasari; which work, as may be seen, Battista is carrying to completion excellently well, with certain little boys, and the figure of Buonarroti himself from the breast upwards. The second of these three figures that are to be on that sepulchre, which are to be Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, has been allotted to Giovanni di Benedetto of Castello, a disciple of Baccio Bandinelli and an Academician, who is executing for the Wardens of S. Maria del Fiore the works in low-relief that are going round the choir, which is now near completion. In these he is closely imitating his master, and acquitting himself in such a manner that an excellent result is expected of him; nor will it fall out otherwise, seeing that he is very assiduous in his work and in the studies of his profession. The third figure has been allotted to Valerio Cioli of Settignano, a sculptor and Academician, for the reason that the other works that he has executed up to the present have been such, that it is thought that the said figure must prove to be so good as to be not otherwise than worthy to be placed on the tomb of so great a man. Valerio, who is a young man twenty-six years of age, has restored many antique statues of marble in the garden of the Cardinal of Ferrara at Monte Cavallo in Rome, making for some of them new arms, for some new feet, and for others other parts that were wanting; and he has since done the same for many statues in the Pitti Palace, which the Duke has conveyed there for the adornment of a great hall. The Duke has also caused the same Valerio to make a nude statue of the dwarf Morgante in marble, which has proved so beautiful and so like the reality, that probably there has never been seen another monster so well wrought, nor one executed with such diligence, lifelike and faithful to nature. In like manner, he has caused him to execute the statue of Pietro, called Barbino, a gifted dwarf, well-lettered and a very gentle spirit, and a favourite of our Duke. For all these reasons, I say, Valerio has well deserved that there should be allotted to him by his Excellency the statue that is to adorn the tomb of Buonarroti, the one master of all these able men of the Academy. As for Francesco Moschino, a sculptor of Florence, enough having been spoken of him in another place, it suffices here to say that he also is an Academician, that under the protection of Duke Cosimo he is constantly at work in the Duomo of Pisa, and that among the festive preparations for the nuptials he acquitted himself excellently well in the decorations of the principal door of the Ducal Palace. Of Domenico Poggini, likewise, having said above that he is an able sculptor and that he has executed an infinity of medals very faithful to the reality, and some works in marble and in casting, I shall say nothing more of him here, save that he is deservedly one of our Academicians, that for the above-named nuptials he made some very beautiful statues, which were placed upon the Arch of Religion at the Canto della Paglia, and that recently he has executed a new medal of the Duke, very true to the life and most beautiful; and he is still continually at work. Giovanni Fancelli, or rather, as others call him, Giovanni di Stocco, an Academician, has executed many works in marble and stone, which have proved good sculptures; among others, much extolled is an escutcheon of balls with two children and other ornaments, placed on high over the two knee-shaped windows of the façade of Ser Giovanni Conti in Florence. And the same I say of Zanobi Lastricati, who, as a good and able sculptor, has executed and is still executing many works in marble and in casting, which have made him well worthy to be in the Academy in company with those named above; and, among his works, much praised is a Mercury of bronze that is in the court of the Palace of M. Lorenzo Ridolfi, for it is a figure wrought with all the considerations that are requisite. Finally, there have been accepted into the Academy some young sculptors who executed honourable and praiseworthy works in the above-named preparations for the nuptials of his Highness; and these were Fra Giovanni Vincenzio of the Servites, a disciple of Fra Giovanni Agnolo; Ottaviano del Collettaio, a pupil of Zanobi Lastricati, and Pompilio Lancia, the son of Baldassarre da Urbino, architect and pupil of Girolamo Genga; which Pompilio, in the masquerade called the Genealogy of the Gods, arranged for the most part, and particularly the mechanical contrivances, by the said Baldassarre, his father, acquitted himself in certain things excellently well. In these last pages we have shown at some length what kind of men, and how many and how able, have been gathered together to form so noble an Academy, and we have touched in part on the many and honourable occasions obtained by them from their most liberal lords, wherein to display their capacity and ability. Nevertheless, to the end that this may be the better understood, although those first learned writers, in their descriptions of the arches and of the various spectacles represented in those splendid nuptials, made it very well known, yet, since there has been given into my hands the following little work, written by way of exercise by a person of leisure who delights not a little in our profession, to a dear and close friend who was not able to see those festivities, forming the most brief account and comprising everything in one, it has seemed to me my duty, for the satisfaction of my brother-craftsmen, to insert it in this volume, adding to it a few words, to the end that it may be more easy, by thus uniting rather than separating it, to preserve an honourable record of their noble labours. OF THE ACADEMICIANS OF THE ACADEMICIANS DESCRIPTION OF THE FESTIVE PREPARATIONS FOR THE NUPTIALS OF THE PRINCE DON FRANCESCO OF TUSCANY DESCRIPTION OF THE PORTA AL PRATO We will describe, then, with the greatest clearness and brevity that may be permitted by the abundance of our material, how the intention in all these decorations was to represent by the vast number of pictures and sculptures, as if in life, all those ceremonies, effects, and pomps that appeared to be proper to the reception and the nuptials of so great a Princess, forming of them poetically and ingeniously a whole so well proportioned, that with judgment and grace it might achieve the result designed. First of all, therefore, at the Gate that is called the Porta al Prato, by which her Highness was to enter the city, there was built with dimensions truly heroic, which well showed ancient Rome risen again in her beloved daughter Florence, a vast, most ornate, and very ingeniously composed ante-port of Ionic architecture, which, surpassing by a good measure the height of the walls, which are there very lofty, presented a marvellous and most superb view not only to those entering the city, but even at a distance of several miles. And this arch was dedicated to Florence, who--standing between two figures, as it were her beloved companions, of Fidelity and Affection, virtues which she has always shown towards her Lords--in the form of a young and most beautiful woman, smiling and all adorned with flowers, had been set, as was her due, in the most important and most honourable place, nearest to the Gate, as if she sought to receive, introduce, and accompany her new Lady; having brought with her, as it were as her minister and companion, and as the symbol of those of her sons who in the art of war, among other arts, have rendered her illustrious, Mars, their leader and master, and in a certain sense the first father of Florence herself, in that under his auspices and by martial men, who were descended from Mars, was made her first foundation. His statue, dread and terrible, could be seen on the right in the part farthest from her, sword in hand, as if he sought to use it in the service of his new Lady; he likewise having as it were brought with him to accompany his Florence, in a very large and very beautiful canvas painted in chiaroscuro that was beneath his feet (very similar to the whitest marble, as were all the other works that were in these decorations), some of the men of that invincible Martian Legion so dear to the first and second Cæsar, her first founders, and some of those born from her, who afterwards followed her discipline so gloriously. Many of these could be seen issuing full of gladness from his temple, which is now dedicated to S. John in the name of the Christian religion; and in the farthest distance were placed those who were thought to have had a name only for bodily valour, in the central space those others who had become famous by their counsel and industry, such as commissaries or proveditors (to call them by their Venetian name), and in the front part nearest to the eye, in the most honourable places, as being the most worthy of honour, were painted the captains of armies and those who had acquired illustrious renown and immortal fame by valour of the body and mind together. Among these, as the first and perhaps the most honourable, could be seen on horseback, like many others, the glorious Signor Giovanni de' Medici portrayed from life, that rare master of Italian military discipline, and the illustrious father of the great Cosimo whom we honour as our excellent and most valorous Duke; and with him Filippo Spano, terror of the barbarous Turks, and M. Farinata degli Uberti, great-hearted saviour of his native Florence. There, also, was M. Buonaguisa della Pressa, who, at the head of the valiant youth of Florence, winning the first and glorious mural crown at Damiata, acquired so great a name; and the Admiral Federigo Folchi, Knight of Rhodes, who with his two sons and eight nephews performed so many deeds of prowess against the Saracens. There were M. Nanni Strozzi, M. Manno Donati, Meo Altoviti, and Bernardo Ubaldini, called Della Carda, father of Federigo, Duke of Urbino, that most excellent captain of our times. There, likewise, was the Great Constable, M. Niccola Acciaiuoli, he who it may be said preserved for Queen Joanna and King Louis, his Sovereigns, the troubled kingdom of Naples, and who always bore himself both there and in Sicily with such loyalty and valour. There were another Giovanni de' Medici and Giovanni Bisdomini, most illustrious in the wars with the Visconti, and the unfortunate but valorous Francesco Ferrucci; and among those more ancient were M. Forese Adimari, M. Corso Donati, M. Vieri de' Cerchi, M. Bindaccio da Ricasoli, and M. Luca da Panzano. Among the commissaries, not less faithfully portrayed from life, could be seen there Gino Capponi, with Neri his son, and Piero his grand-nephew, he who, tearing so boldly the insolent proposals of Charles VIII, King of France, to his immortal honour, caused the voice of a Capon (Cappon), as the witty poet said so well, to sound so nobly among so many Cocks (Galli). There were Bernardetto de' Medici, Luca di Maso degli Albizzi, Tommaso di M. Guido, now called Del Palagio, Piero Vettori, so celebrated in the wars with the Aragonese, and the so greatly and so rightly renowned Antonio Giacomini, with M. Antonio Ridolfi and many others of this and other orders, who would make too long a story. All these appeared to be filled with joy that they had raised their country to such a height, auguring for her, in the coming of that new Lady, increase, felicity, and greatness; which was expressed excellently well in the four verses that were to be seen written on the architrave above: Hanc peperere suo patriam qui sanguine nobis Aspice magnanimos heroas; nunc et ovantes Et laeti incedant, felicem terque quaterque Certatimque vocent tali sub Principe Floram. Not less gladness could be seen in the beautiful statue of one of the nine Muses, which was placed as a complement opposite to that of Mars, nor less, again, in the figures of the men of science in the painted canvas that was to be seen at her feet, of the same size and likewise as the complement of the men of Mars opposite, by which it was sought to signify that even as the men of war, so also the men of learning, of whom Florence had always a great abundance and in no way less renowned (in that, as all men admit, it was there that learning began to revive), had likewise been brought by Florence under the guidance of their Muse to receive and honour the noble bride. Which Muse, clad in a womanly, graceful, and seemly habit, with a book in the right hand and a flute in the left, seemed with a certain loving expression to wish to invite all beholders to apply their minds to true virtue; and on the canvas beneath her, executed, like all the others, in chiaroscuro, could be seen painted a great and rich Temple of Minerva, whose statue crowned with olive, with the shield of the Gorgon (as is customary), was placed without; and before the temple and at the sides, within an enclosure of balusters made as it were for a promenade, could be seen a great throng of grave and solemn men, who, although all rejoicing and making merry, yet retained in their aspect a certain something of the venerable, and these, also, were portrayed from life. For Theology and Sanctity there was the famous Fra Antonino, Archbishop of Florence, for whom a little Angel was holding the episcopal mitre, and with him was seen Giovanni Domenici, first Friar and then Cardinal; and with them Don Ambrogio, General of Camaldoli, and M. Ruberto de' Bardi, Maestro Luigi Marsili, Maestro Leonardo Dati, and many others. Even so, in another part--and these were the Philosophers--were seen the Platonist M. Marsilio Ficino, M. Francesco Cattani da Diacceto, M. Francesco Verini the elder, and M. Donato Acciaiuoli; and for Law there were, with the great Accursio, Francesco his son, M. Lorenzo Ridolfi, M. Dino Rossoni di Mugello, and M. Forese da Rabatta. The Physicians, also, had their portraits; and among them Maestro Taddeo Dino and Tommaso del Garbo, with Maestro Torrigian Valori and Maestro Niccolò Falcucci, had the first places. Nor did the Mathematicians, likewise, fail to be painted there; and of these, besides the ancient Guido Bonatto, were seen Maestro Paolo del Pozzo and the very acute, ingenious, and noble Leon Batista Alberti, and with them Antonio Manetti and Lorenzo della Volpaia, he by whose hand we have that first and marvellous clock of the planets, the wonder of our age, which is now to be seen in the guardaroba of our most excellent Duke. For Navigation, also, there was Amerigo Vespucci, most experienced and most fortunate of men, in that so great a part of the world, having been discovered by him, retains because of him the name of America. For Learning, various and elegant, there was Messer Agnolo Poliziano, to whom how much is owed by the Latin and Tuscan tongues, which began to revive in him, I believe is sufficiently well known to all the world. With him were Pietro Crinito, Giannozzo Manetti, Francesco Pucci, Bartolommeo Fonzio, Alessandro de' Pazzi, and Messer Marcello Vergilio Adriani, father of the most ingenious and most learned M. Giovan Battista, now called Il Marcellino, who is still living and giving public lectures with so much honour in our Florentine University, and who at the commission of their illustrious Excellencies has been writing anew the History of Florence; and there were also M. Cristofano Landini, M. Coluccio Salutati, and Ser Brunetto Latini, the master of Dante. Nor were there wanting certain Poets who had written in Latin, such as Claudian, and among the more modern Carlo Marsuppini and Zanobi Strada. Of the Historians, then, were seen M. Francesco Guicciardini, Niccolò Macchiavelli, M. Leonardo Bruni, M. Poggio, Matteo Palmieri, and, among the earliest, Giovanni and Matteo Villani and the very ancient Ricordano Malespini. All these, or the greater part, for the satisfaction of all beholders, had each his name or that of his most famous works marked on the scrolls or on the covers of the books that they held, placed there as if by chance; and with all of them, as with the men of war, to demonstrate what they were come there to do, the four verses that were painted on the architrave, as with the others, made it clearly manifest, saying: Artibus egregiis Latiæ Graiæque Minervæ Florentes semper quis non miretur Etruscos? Sed magis hoc illos ævo florere necesse est Et Cosmo genitore et Cosmi prole favente. Next, beside the statue of Mars, and somewhat nearer to that of Florence--and here it must be noted with what singular art and judgment every least thing was distributed, in that, the intention being to accompany Florence with six Deities, so to speak, for the potency of whom she could right well vaunt herself, the two hitherto described, Mars and the Muse, because other cities could perhaps no less than she lay claim to them, as being the least peculiar to her, were placed less near to her than the others; and so for the spacious vestibule or passage, as it were, formed before the gate by the four statues to follow, the two already described were used as wings or head-pieces, being placed at the entrance, one turned towards the Castle and the other towards the Arno, but the next two, which formed the beginning of the vestibule, for the reason that they are shared by her with few other cities, came to be placed somewhat nearer to her, even as the last two, because they are entirely peculiar to her and shared with no other city, or, to speak more exactly, because no other can compare with her in them (and may this be said without offence to any other Tuscan people, which, when it shall have a Dante, a Petrarca, and a Boccaccio to put forward, may perchance be able to come into dispute with her), were placed in close proximity to her, and nearer than any of the others--now, to go back, I say that beside the statue of Mars had been placed a Ceres, Goddess of Cultivation and of the fields, not less beautiful and good to look upon than the others; which pursuit, how useful it is and how worthy of honour for a well-ordered city, was taught in ancient times by Rome, who had enrolled all her nobility among the rustic tribes, as Cato testifies, besides many others, calling it the nerve of that most puissant Republic, and as Pliny affirms no less strongly when he says that the fields had been tilled by the hands of Imperatores, and that it may be believed that earth rejoiced to be ploughed by the laureate share and by the triumphant ploughman. That Ceres was crowned, as is customary, with ears of various kinds of corn, having in the right hand a sickle and in the left a bunch of similar ears. Now, how much Florence can vaunt herself in this respect, whoever may be in any doubt of it may enlighten himself by regarding her most ornate and highly cultivated neighbourhood, for, leaving on one side the vast number of most superb and commodious palaces that may be seen dispersed over its surface, it is such that Florence, although among the most beautiful cities of which we have any knowledge she might be said to carry off the palm, yet remains by a great measure vanquished and surpassed by it, insomuch that it may rightly claim the title of the garden of Europe; not to speak of its fertility, as to which, although it is for the most part mountainous and not very large, nevertheless the diligence that is used in it is such, that it not only feeds bountifully its own vast population and the infinite multitude of strangers who flock to it, but very often gives courteous succour to other lands both near and far. In the canvas (to return to our subject) which was to be seen in like fashion beneath her statue, in the same manner and of the same size, the excellent painter had figured a most beautiful little landscape adorned with an infinite variety of trees, in the most distant part of which was seen an ancient and very ornate little temple dedicated to Ceres, in which, since it was open and raised upon colonnades, could be perceived many who were offering religious sacrifices. On the other side, in a part somewhat more solitary, Nymphs of the chase could be seen standing about a shady and most limpid fount, gazing as it were in marvel and offering to the new bride of those pleasures and delights that are found in their pursuits, in which Tuscany is perhaps not inferior to any other part of Italy. In another part, with many countrymen bringing various animals both wild and domestic, were seen also many country-girls, young and beautiful, and adorned in a thousand rustic but graceful manners, and likewise come--weaving the while garlands of flowers and bearing various fruits--to see and honour their Lady. And the verses which were over this scene as with the others, taken from Virgil, to the great glory of Tuscany, ran thus: Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini, Hanc Remus et frater, sic fortis Etruria crevit, Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Flora, Urbs antiqua, potens armis atque ubere glebæ. Next, opposite to the above-described statue of Ceres, was seen that of Industry; and I do not speak merely of that industry which is seen used by many in many places in matters of commerce, but of a certain particular excellence and ingenious virtue which the men of Florence employ in everything to which they deign to apply themselves, on which account many, and in particular the Poet of supreme judgment (and rightly, as is evident), give them the title of Industrious. How great a benefit this industry has been to Florence, and in what great account it has always been held by her, is seen from this, that upon it she formed her body corporate, decreeing that none could become one of her citizens who was not entered under the name of some Guild, and thus recognizing that by that industry she had risen to no small power and greatness. Now Industry was figured as a woman in a light and easy habit, holding a sceptre, at the head of which was a hand with an eye in the centre of the palm, and with two little wings, whereby with the sceptre there was achieved a certain sort of resemblance to the Caduceus of Mercury; and in the canvas that was beneath her, as with the other statues, was seen a vast and most ornate portico or forum, very similar to the place where our merchants resort to transact their business, called the Mercato Nuovo, which was made even clearer by the boy that was to be seen striking the hours on one of the walls. And on one side, their particular Gods having been ingeniously placed there (in one part, namely, the statue of Fortune seated on a wheel, and in another part Mercury with the Caduceus and with a purse in the hand), were seen assembled many of the most noble artificers, those, namely, who exercise their arts with perhaps greater excellence in Florence than in any other place; and of such, with their wares in their hands, as if they were seeking to offer them to the incoming Princess, some were to be seen with cloth of gold or of silk, some with the finest draperies, and others with most beautiful and marvellous embroideries, and all with expressions of joy. Even so, in another part, some were seen in various costumes trafficking as they walked, and others of lower degree with various most beautiful wood-carvings and works in tarsia, and some again with balls, masks, and rattles, and other childish things, all in the same manner showing the same gladness and contentment. All which, and the advantage of these things, and the profit and glory that have come from them to Florence, was made manifest by the four verses that were placed above them, as with the others, saying: Quas artes pariat solertia, nutriat usus, Aurea monstravit quondam Florentia cunctis. Pandere namque acri ingenio atque enixa labore est Præstanti, unde paret vitam sibi quisque beatam. Of the two last Deities or Virtues, seeing that, as we have said, by reason of the number and excellence in them of her sons they are so peculiar to Florence that she may well consider herself glorious in them beyond any other city, there was placed on the right hand, next to the statue of Ceres, that of Apollo, representing that Tuscan Apollo who infuses Tuscan verse in Tuscan poets. Under his feet, as in the other canvases, there was painted on the summit of a most lovely mountain, recognized as that of Helicon by the horse Pegasus, a very spacious and beautiful meadow, in the centre of which rose the sacred Fount of Aganippe, likewise recognized by the nine Muses, who stood around it in pleasant converse, and with them, and in the shade of the verdant laurels with which the whole mount was covered, were seen various poets in various guise seated or discoursing as they walked, or singing to the sound of the lyre, while a multitude of little Loves were playing above the laurels, some of them shooting arrows, and some appeared to be throwing down crowns of laurel. Of these poets, in the most honourable place were seen the profound Dante, the gracious Petrarca, and the fecund Boccaccio, who with smiling aspect appeared to be promising to the incoming Lady, since a subject so noble had not fallen to them, to infuse in the intellects of Florence such virtue that they would be able to sing worthily of her; to which with the exemplar of their writings, if only there may be found one able to imitate them, they have opened a broad and easy way. Near them, as if discoursing with them, and all, like the rest, portrayed from life, were seen M. Cino da Pistoia, Montemagno, Guido Cavalcanti, Guittone d'Arezzo, and Dante da Maiano, who lived in the same age and were poets passing gracious for those times. In another part were Monsignor Giovanni della Casa, Luigi Alamanni, and Lodovico Martelli, with Vincenzio at some distance from him, and with them Messer Giovanni Rucellai, the writer of the tragedies, and Girolamo Benivieni; among whom, if he had not been living at that time, a well-merited place would have been given also to the portrait of M. Benedetto Varchi, who shortly afterwards made his way to a better life. In another part, again, were seen Franco Sacchetti, who wrote the three hundred Novelle, and other men, who, although at the present day they have no great renown, yet, because in their times they made no small advance in romances, were judged to be not unworthy of that place--Luigi Pulci, with his brothers Bernardo and Luca, and also Ceo and Altissimo. Berni, also, the inventor and father (and excellent father) of Tuscan burlesque poetry, with Burchiello, with Antonio Alamanni, and with Unico Accolti (who were standing apart), appeared to be showing no less joy than any of the others; while Arno, leaning in his usual manner on his Lion, with two children that were crowning him with laurel, and Mugnone, known by the Nymph that stood over him crowned with stars, with the moon on her brow, in allusion to the daughters of Atlas, and representing Fiesole, appeared likewise to be expressing the same gladness and contentment. All which conception described above was explained excellently well by the four verses that were placed in the architrave, as with the others, which ran thus: Musarum hic regnat chorus, atque Helicone virente Posthabito, venere tibi Florentia vates Eximii, quoniam celebrare hæc regia digno Non potuere suo et connubia carmine sacro. Opposite to this, placed on the left hand, and perhaps not less peculiar to the Florentine genius than the last-named, was seen the statue of Design, the father of painting, sculpture, and architecture, who, if not born in Florence, as may be seen in the past writings, may be said to have been born again there, and nourished and grown as in his own nest. He was figured by a statue wholly nude, with three similar heads for the three arts that he embraces, each holding in the hand some instrument, but without any distinction; and in the canvas that was beneath him was seen painted a vast courtyard, for the adornment of which were placed in various manners a great quantity of statues and of pictures in painting, both ancient and modern, which could be seen in process of being designed and copied by divers masters in divers ways. In one part was being prepared an anatomical study, and many could be seen observing it, and likewise drawing, very intently. Others, again, considering the fabric and rules of architecture, appeared to be seeking to measure certain things with great minuteness, the while that the divine Michelagnolo Buonarroti, prince and monarch of them all, with the three circlets in his hand (his ancient device), making signs to Andrea del Sarto, Leonardo da Vinci, Pontormo, Rosso, Perino del Vaga, Francesco Salviati, Antonio da San Gallo, and Rustici, who were gathered with great reverence about him, was pointing out with supreme gladness the pompous entrance of the noble Lady. The ancient Cimabue, standing in another part, was doing as it were the same service to certain others, at whom Giotto appeared to be smiling, having taken from him, as Dante said so well, the field of painting which he thought to hold; and Giotto had with him, besides the Gaddi, Buffalmacco and Benozzo, with many others of that age. In another part, again, placed in another fashion and all rejoicing as they conversed, were seen those who conferred such benefits on art, and to whom these new masters owed so much; the great Donatello, Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Fra Filippo, the excellent Masaccio, Desiderio, and Verrocchio, with many others, portrayed from life, whom, since I have spoken of them in the previous books, I will pass by without saying more about them, thus avoiding the tedium that might come upon my readers by repetition. Who they were, and what they were come thither to do, was explained, as with the others, by four verses written above them: Non pictura satis, non possunt marmora et æra Tuscaque non arcus testari ingentia facta, Atque ea præcipue quæ mox ventura trahuntur; Quis nunc Praxiteles cælet, quis pingat Apelles? Now in the base of all these six vast and most beautiful canvases was seen painted a gracious throng of children, each occupying himself in the profession appropriate to the canvas placed above, who, besides the adornment, were seen to be demonstrating with great accuracy with what beginnings one arrived at the perfection of the men painted above; even as with much judgment and singular art the same canvases were also divided and adorned by round and very tall columns and by pilasters, and by various ornaments of trophies all in keeping with the subjects to which they were near. But, above all, graceful and lovely in appearance were the ten devices, or, to speak more precisely, the ten reverses (as it were) of medals, partly long established in the city and partly newly introduced, which were painted in the compartments over the columns, serving to divide the statues already described, and accompanying very appropriately their inventions; the first of which was the Deduction of a Colony, represented by a bull and a cow together in a yoke, and behind them the ploughman with the head veiled, as the ancient Augurs are depicted, with the crooked lituus in the hand, and with a motto, which said: COL. JUL. FLORENTIA. The second--and this is very ancient in the city, and the one wherewith public papers are generally sealed--was Hercules with the Club and with the skin of the Nemæan Lion, but without any motto. The third was the horse Pegasus, which with the hind feet was smiting the urn held by Arno, in the manner that is told of the Fount of Helicon; whence were issuing waters in abundance, which formed a river, crystal-clear, that was all covered with swans; but this, also, was without any motto. So, likewise, was the fourth, which was composed of a Mercury with the Caduceus in the hand, the purse, and the cock, such as is seen in many ancient cornelians. But the fifth, in accord with that Affection which, as was said at the beginning, was given to Florence as a companion, was a young woman receiving a crown of laurel from two figures, one on either side of her, which, clad in the military paludament and likewise crowned with laurel, appeared to be Consuls or Imperatores; with words that ran: GLORIA POP. FLOREN. So also the sixth, in like manner in accord with Fidelity, likewise the companion of Florence, was also figured by a woman seated, with an altar near her, upon which she was seen to be laying one of her hands, and with the other uplifted, holding the second finger raised in the manner wherein one generally sees an oath taken, she was seen to declare her intention with the inscription: FIDES. POP. FLOR. This, also, did the picture of the seventh, without any inscription; which was the two horns of plenty filled with ears of corn intertwined together. And the eighth, likewise without any inscription, did the same with the three Arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, which, after the manner of the three Graces, with hands linked to denote the interdependence of one art with another, were placed no less gracefully than the others upon a base in which was seen carved a Capricorn. And so, also, did the ninth (placed more towards the Arno), which was the usual Florence with her Lion beside her, to whom various boughs of laurel were offered by certain persons standing around her, as it were showing themselves grateful for the benefits received from her, in that there, as has been told, letters began to revive. And the tenth and last did the same with its inscription that ran thus, TRIBU SCAPTIA, written upon a shield held by a Lion; which tribe was that of Augustus, her founder, and the one in which in ancient times Florence used to be enrolled. But the finest ornament--besides the beautiful shields on which were the arms of their Excellencies, both the one and the other, and of the most illustrious Princess, and the device of the city, and besides the great Ducal crown of gold, which Florence was in the act of presenting--was the principal device, set over all the shields, and placed there in allusion to the city; which was composed of two halcyons making their nest in the sea at the beginning of winter. This was made clear by the part of the Zodiac that was painted there, wherein the Sun was seen at the point of entering into the Sign of Capricorn, with a motto that said, HOC FIDUNT, signifying that even as the halcyons, by the grace of Nature, at the time when the Sun is entering into the said Sign of Capricorn, which renders the sea smooth and tranquil, are able to make their nests there in security (whence such days are called "halcyon days"), so also Florence, with Capricorn in the ascendant, which is therefore the ancient and most honourable device of her excellent Duke, is able in whatever season the world may bring her to flourish in the greatest felicity and peace, as she does right well. And all this, with all the other conceptions given above, was declared in great part by the inscription which, addressed to the exalted bride, was written appropriately in a most ornate and beautiful place, saying: INGREDERE URBEM FELICISSIMO CONJUGIO FACTAM TUAM, AUGUSTISSIMA VIRGO, FIDE, INGENIIS, ET OMNI LAUDE PRÆSTANTEM; OPTATAQUE PRÆSENTIA TUA, ET EXIMIA VIRTUTE, SPERATAQUE FECUNDITATE, OPTIMORUM PRINCIPUM PATERNAM ET AVITAM CLARITATEM, FIDELISSIMORUM CIVIUM LÆTITIAM, FLORENTIS URBIS GLORIAM ET FELICITATEM AUGE. OF THE ENTRANCE TO BORG' OGNISSANTI. Proceeding, then, towards Borg' Ognissanti, a street, as everyone knows, most beautiful, spacious, and straight, there were at the entrance two very large colossal figures, one representing Austria, as a young woman in full armour after the antique, with a sceptre in the hand, signifying her military power as embodied in the Imperial dignity, which now has its residence in that nation and appears to be entirely concentrated there; and the other representing Tuscany, apparelled in religious vestments and with the sacerdotal lituus in the hand, which in like manner demonstrated the excellence that the Tuscan nation has always displayed from the most ancient times in the Divine cult, insomuch that even at the present day it is seen that the Pontiffs and the Holy Roman Church have chosen to establish their principal seat in Tuscany. Each of these had at her side a nude and gracious little Angel, one of whom was seen guarding the Imperial crown, and the other the crown that the Pontiffs are wont to use; and one figure was shown offering her hand most lovingly to the other, almost as if Austria, with her most noble cities (which were depicted under various images in the vast canvas that was as an ornament and head-piece, at the entrance to that street, facing towards the Porta al Prato), wished to signify that she was come parentally to take part in the rejoicings and festivities in honour of the illustrious bridal pair, and to meet and embrace her beloved Tuscany, thus in a certain sort uniting together the two most mighty powers, the spiritual and the temporal. All which was declared excellently well in the six verses that were written in a suitable place, saying: Augustæ en adsum sponsæ comes Austria; magni Cæsaris hæc nata est, Cæsaris atque soror. Carolus est patruus, gens et fæcunda triumphis, Imperio fulget, regibus et proavis. Lætitiam et pacem adferimus dulcesque Hymeneos Et placidam requiem, Tuscia clara, tibi. Even as on the other side Tuscany, having yielded the first place at the first Gate to Florence, her Lady and her Queen, was seen with an aspect all full of joy at receiving so great a Princess; having likewise in company with her, in a similar painted canvas beside her, Fiesole, Pisa, Siena, and Arezzo, with the most famous of her other cities, and with the Ombrone, the Arbia, the Serchio, and the Chiana, all depicted in various forms according to custom; and expressing her contentment in the six following verses, written in a way similar to the others, and in a suitable place: Ominibus faustis et lætor imagine rerum, Virginis aspectu Cæsareæque fruor. Hæ nostræ insignes urbes, hæc oppida et agri, Hæc tua sunt; illis tu dare jura potes. Audis ut resonet lætis clamoribus æther, Et plausu et ludis Austria cuncta fremat? OF THE PONTE ALLA CARRAIA. And to the end that the splendid nuptials might be celebrated with all the most favourable auspices, at the Palazzo de' Ricasoli, which, as everyone knows, is situated at the beginning of the Ponte alla Carraia, there was erected in the Doric Order of composition the third ornament, dedicated to Hymen, their God; and this consisted--in addition to a head-piece of singular beauty, on which the eyes of all who came through Borg' Ognissanti feasted with marvellous delight--of two very lofty and most magnificent portals, between which it stood, and over one of these, which gave access to those passing into the street called La Vigna, was placed with much judgment the statue of Venus Genetrix, perhaps alluding to the House of the Cæsars, which had its origin from Venus, or perchance auguring generation and fecundity for the bridal pair; with a motto taken from the Epithalamium of Theocritus, saying: [Greek: Kypris de, Thea Kypris, ison erasthai allalôn.] And over the other, giving access along the bank of the Arno, through which the procession passed, was the statue of the Nurse Latona, perchance to ward off sterility or the jealous interference of Juno, and likewise with a motto that ran: [Greek: Latô men doiê, Latô kourotrophos ymmin euteknian.] As a complement to these, executed with singular artistry, upon a great base attached to one of the portals, there was seen on one side, as it were newly issued from the water, and in the form of a most beautiful giant with a garland of lilies, the River Arno, who, as if he wished to give an example of nuptial bliss, was locked in embrace with his Sieve, who had likewise a garland of leaves and apples; which apples, alluding to the balls of the Medici, of which they were the origin, would have been rosy, if the colour had been in keeping with the white marble. And Arno, all rejoicing, was shown speaking to his new Lady in the manner expressed by the following verses: In mare nunc auro flaventes Arnus arenas Volvam, atque argento purior unda fluet. Etruscos nunc invictis comitantibus armis Cæsareis, tollam sidera ad alta caput. Nunc mihi fama etiam Tibrim fulgoreque rerum Tantarum longe vincere fata dabunt. And on the other side, as a complement to Arno, on a similar base attached in a similar way to the other portal (the two being turned, as it were, like wings one towards the other), and almost in the same form, were seen the Danube and the Drava likewise in a close embrace, and, even as the others had the Lion, so they had the Eagle as emblem and support; and these, crowned also with roses and with a thousand varieties of little flowers, were shown speaking to Florence, even as the others were speaking to themselves, the following verses: Quamvis Flora tuis celeberrima finibus errem, Sum septemgeminus Danubiusque ferox; Virginis Augustæ comes, et vestigia lustro, Ut reor, et si quod flumina numen habent, Conjugium faustum et foecundum et Nestoris annos, Tuscorum et late nuntio regna tibi. Then at the summit of the head-piece, in the place of honour, and with a close resemblance to the whitest marble, was seen the statue of the young Hymen, with a garland of flowering marjoram and the torch and veil, and at his feet this inscription: BONI CONJUGATOR AMORIS. On one side of him was Love, who lay all languid under one of his flanks; and on the other side was Conjugal Fidelity, who was holding one arm supported under the other; which was all so pleasing, so full of charm, so beautiful, and so well distributed before the eyes of all beholders, that in truth it is not to be expressed in words. As the principal crown of that ornament--for on them all there was placed a principal crown and a principal device--there were formed in the hands of the Hymen described above two garlands of the same marjoram that crowned his head, which, as he held them, he appeared to be about to present to the happy pair. But most lovely and beautiful of all, and best executed, were the three spacious pictures, separated by double columns, into which the whole of that vast façade was divided, placed with supreme beauty at the feet of Hymen; for in them were depicted all the advantages, all the delights, and all the desirable things that are generally found in nuptials; those displeasing and vexatious being driven away from them with a certain subtle grace. And thus in one of these, that in the centre namely, were seen the Three Graces painted in the manner that is customary, all full of joy and gladness, who appeared to be singing with a certain soft harmony the verses written over them, saying: Quæ tam præclara nascetur stirpe parentum Inclita progenies, digna atavisque suis? Etrusca attollet se quantis gloria rebus Conjugio Austriacæ Mediceæque Domus? Vivite felices; non est spes irrita, namque Divina Charites talia voce canunt. These had on one side, forming as it were a choir about them, and coupled becomingly together, Youth and Delight, and Beauty with Contentment in her embrace, and on the other side, in like fashion, Gladness with Play, and Fecundity with Repose, all in attitudes most graceful and in keeping with their characters, and so well distinguished by the able painter, that they could be recognized with ease. In the picture that was on the right of that one, there were seen, besides Love and Fidelity, the same Gladness, Contentment, Delight, and Repose, with lighted torches in their hands, who were chasing from the world and banishing to the nethermost abyss Jealousy, Contention, Affliction, Sorrow, Lamentation, Deceit, Sterility, and other vexatious and displeasing things of that kind, which are wont so often to disturb the minds of human creatures. And in the other, on the left hand, were seen the same Graces in company with Juno, Venus, Concord, Love, Fecundity, Sleep, Pasithea, and Thalassius, setting the genial bed in order with those ancient religious ceremonies of torches, incense, garlands, and flowers, which were customary; of which last a number of little Loves, playing in their flight, were scattering no small quantity over the bed. Above these, then, were two other pictures distributed in very beautiful compartments, one on either side of the statue of Hymen, and somewhat smaller than those described; in one of which, in imitation of the ancient custom so well described by Catullus, was seen the illustrious Princess portrayed from life in the midst of a gracious little company of most beautiful maidens in virginal dress, all crowned with flowers, and with lighted torches in their hands, who were pointing towards the Evening Star, which was seen appearing, and, as if set in motion by them, seemed in a certain gracious manner to move and to advance towards Hymen; with the motto: O DIGNA CONJUNCTA VIRO. Even as in the other picture, on the other side, was seen the excellent Prince in the midst of many young men likewise crowned with garlands and burning with love, not less eager than the maidens in lighting the nuptial torches, and pointing no less towards the newly-appeared star, and giving signs, in advancing towards it, of equal or even greater desire; likewise with a motto that said: O TÆDIS FELICIBUS AUCTE. Above these, arranged in a very graceful manner, there was seen as the principal device, which, as has been told, was placed over all the arches, a gilded chain all composed of marriage-rings with their stones, which, hanging down from Heaven, appeared to be sustaining this terrestrial World; alluding in a certain sense to the Homeric Chain of Jove, and signifying that by virtue of nuptials, the heavenly causes being wedded with terrestrial matter, Nature and the aforesaid terrestrial World are preserved and rendered as it were eternal; with a motto that said: NATURA SEQUITUR CUPIDE. And then a quantity of little Angels and Loves, all gracious and merry, and all set in fitting places, were seen dispersed among the bases, the pilasters, the festoons, and the other ornaments, which were without number; and all, with a certain gladness, appeared to be either scattering flowers and garlands, or sweetly singing the following ode, from among the spaces between the double columns that divided, as has been told, the great pictures and the great façade, which was arranged in a lovely and gracious manner: Augusti soboles regia Cæsaris, Summo nupta viro Principi Etruriæ, Faustis auspiciis deseruit vagum Istrum regnaque patria. Cui frater, genitor, patruus, atque avi Fulgent innumeri stemmate nobiles Præclaro Imperii, prisca ab origine Digno nomine Cæsares. Ergo magnanimæ virgini et inclytæ Jam nunc Arne pater suppliciter manus Libes, et violis versicoloribus Pulchram Flora premas comam. Assurgant proceres, ac velut aureum Et cæleste jubar rite colant eam. Omnes accumulent templa Deum, et piis Aras muneribus sacras. Tali conjugio Pax hilaris redit, Fruges alma Ceres porrigit uberes, Saturni remeant aurea sæcula, Orbis lætitia fremit. Quin diræ Eumenides monstraque Tartari His longe duce te finibus exulant. Bellorum rabies hinc abit effera, Mavors sanguineus fugit. Sed jam nox ruit et sidera concidunt; Et nymphæ adveniunt, Junoque pronuba Arridet pariter, blandaque Gratia Nudis juncta sororibus. Hæc cingit niveis tempora liliis, Hæc e purpureis serta gerit rosis, Huic molles violæ et suavis amaracus Nectunt virgineum caput. Lusus, læta Quies cernitur et Decor; Quos circum volitat turba Cupidinum, Et plaudens recinit hæc Hymeneus ad Regalis thalami fores. Quid statis juvenes tam genialibus Indulgere toris immemores? Joci Cessent et choreæ; ludere vos simul Poscunt tempora mollius. Non vincant hederæ bracchia flexiles, Conchæ non superent oscula dulcia, Emanet pariter sudor et ossibus Grato murmure ab intimis. Det summum imperium regnaque Juppiter, Det Latona parem progeniem patri; Ardorem unanimem det Venus, atque Amor Aspirans face mutua. OF THE PALAZZO DEGLI SPINI. And to the end that no part of either dominion might be left without being present at those happy nuptials, at the Ponte a S. Trinita and also at the Palazzo degli Spini, which is to be seen at the beginning of that bridge, there was the fourth ornament, of an architecture not less magnificent in composition, and consisting of a head-piece with three façades, one of which, turning to face towards the Ponte alla Carraia, became joined to that in the centre, which was somewhat bent and likewise attached to that which in like manner turned to face towards the Palazzo degli Spini and S. Trinita; whence it appeared to have been contrived principally for the point of view both from the one street and from the other, insomuch that both from the one and from the other it presented itself complete to the eyes of all beholders--a thing of singular artifice for him who well considers it, which rendered that street, which is in itself as imposing and magnificent as any other that is to be found in Florence, even more imposing and more beautiful than could be believed. In the façade that came in the centre, there had been formed upon a great base two Giants, immense and most superb to behold, supported by two great monsters and by other extravagant fishes that appeared to be swimming in the sea, and accompanied by two sea-nymphs. These represented, one the great Ocean and the other the Tyrrhenian Sea, and, half reclining, they appeared to be seeking to present to the most illustrious pair, with a certain affectionate liberality, not only many most beautiful branches of coral and immense shells of mother-of-pearl, and others of their sea-riches that they held in their hands, but also new islands, new lands, and new dominions, which were seen led thither in their train. Behind them, making that whole ornament lovely and imposing, were seen rising little by little, from their socles that rested upon the base, two vast half-columns, upon which rested cornice, frieze, and architrave, leaving behind the Sea-Gods already described, almost in the form of a triumphal arch, a very spacious square; and over the two columns and the architrave rose two very well-formed pilasters covered with creepers, from which sprang two cornices, forming at the summit a superb and very bold frontispiece, at the top of which, and above the creepers of the pilasters already described, were seen placed three very large vases of gold, all filled to overflowing with thousands and thousands of different riches of the sea; and in the space that remained between the architrave and the point of the frontispiece, there was seen lying with rare dignity a masterly figure of a Nymph, representing Tethys, or Amphitrite, Goddess and Queen of the Sea, who with a very grave gesture was presenting as the principal crown of that place a rostral crown, such as was generally given to the victors in naval battles, with her motto, VINCE MARI, and as it were adding that which follows: JAM TERRA TUA EST. Even as in the picture and the façade behind the Giants, in a very large niche that had the appearance of a real and natural cavern or grotto, there was painted among many other monsters of the sea the Proteus of Virgil's Georgics, bound by Aristæus, who, pointing with his finger towards the verses written above him, appeared to wish to announce in prophecy to the well-united pair good fortune, victories, and triumphs in maritime affairs, saying: Germana adveniet felici cum alite virgo, Flora, tibi, adveniet soboles Augusta, Hymenei Cui pulcher Juvenis jungatur foedere certo Regius Italiæ columen, bona quanta sequentur Conjugium? Pater Arne tibi, et tibi Florida Mater, Gloria quanta aderit? Protheum nil postera fallunt. And since, as has been told, this façade of the cavern stood between the two other façades, one of which was turned towards S. Trinita and the other towards the Ponte alla Carraia, both these, which were of the same size and height, were likewise bordered in a similar manner by two similar half-columns, which in like manner supported their architrave, frieze, and cornice in a quarter-round, upon which, both on the one side and on the other, were seen three statues of boys on three pedestals, who were upholding certain very rich festoons of gold, composed in a most masterly fashion of conches, shells, coral, sword-grass, and sea-weed, by which a no less graceful finish was given to the whole structure. But to return to the space of the façade which, turning from the straight, was supported against the Palazzo degli Spini. In it was seen, painted in chiaroscuro, a Nymph all unadorned and little less than nude, placed between many new kinds of animals, who stood for the new land of Peru, with the other new West Indies, discovered and ruled for the most part under the auspices of the most fortunate House of Austria. She was turned towards a figure of Jesus Christ Our Lord, who, painted all luminous in a Cross in the air (alluding to the four exceeding bright stars which form the semblance of a Cross, newly discovered among those peoples), appeared in the manner of a Sun piercing some thick clouds with most resplendent rays, for which she seemed in a certain sense to be rendering much thanks to that house, in that by their means she was seen converted to the Divine worship and to the true Christian Religion, with the verses written below: Di tibi pro meritis tantis, Augusta propago, Præmia digna ferant, quæ vinctam mille catenis Heu duris solvis, quæ clarum cernere solem E tenebris tantis et Christum noscere donas. Even as on the base which supported that whole façade, and which, although on a level with that of the Giants, yet did not like that one project outwards, there was seen, painted as it were by way of allegory, the fable of Andromeda delivered by Perseus from the cruel Monster of the sea. And in that which, turning, faced towards the Arno and the Ponte alla Carraia, there was seen in like manner painted the small but famous Island of Elba, in the form of an armed warrior seated upon a great rock, with the Trident in her right hand, having on one side of her a little boy who was seen sporting playfully with a dolphin, and on the other side another like him, who was upholding an anchor, with many galleys that were shown circling about her port, which was painted there. At her feet, on her base, and corresponding in like manner to the façade painted above, was seen likewise the fable that is given by Strabo, when he relates that the Argonauts, returning from the acquisition of the Golden Fleece, and arriving with Medea in Elba, raised altars there and made sacrifice to Jove upon them; perhaps foreseeing or auguring that at another time our present glorious Duke, being as it were of their company by virtue of the Order of the Golden Fleece, was to fortify that island and to safeguard distressed mariners, thus reviving their ancient and glorious memory. Which was expressed excellently well by the four verses written there in a suitable place, saying: Evenere olim Heroes qui littore in isto Magnanimi votis petiere. En Ilva potentis Auspiciis Cosmi multa munita opera ac vi; Pacatum pelagus securi currite nautæ. But the most beautiful effect, the most bizarre, the most fantastic, and the most ornate--besides the various devices and trophies, and Arion, who was riding pleasantly through the sea on the back of the swimming dolphin--came from an innumerable quantity of extravagant fishes of the sea, Nereids, and Tritons, which were distributed among the friezes, pedestals, and bases, and wherever a space or the beauty of the place required them. Even as at the foot of the great base of the Giants there was another gracious effect in the form of a most beautiful Siren seated upon the head of a very large fish, from whose mouth at times, at the turning of a key, not without laughter among the expectant bystanders, a rushing jet of water was seen pouring upon such as were too eager to drink the white and red wine that flowed in abundance from the breasts of the Siren into a very capacious and most ornate basin. And since the bend of the façade where Elba was painted was the first thing to strike the eyes of those who came, as did the procession, from the Ponte alla Carraia along the Arno towards the Palazzo degli Spini, it seemed good to the inventor to hide the ugliness of the scaffolding and woodwork that were necessarily placed behind, by raising to the same height another new façade similar to the three described, which might, as it did, render that whole vista most festive and ornate. And in it, within a large oval, it appeared to him that it was well to place the principal device, embracing the whole conception of the structure; and to that end, therefore, there was seen figured a great Neptune on his usual Car, with the usual Trident, as he is described by Virgil, chasing away the troublesome winds, and using as a motto the very same words, MATURATE FUGAM; as if he wished to promise to the fortunate pair happiness, peace, and tranquillity in his realm. OF THE COLUMN. Opposite to the graceful Palace of the Bartolini there had been erected a short time before, as a more stable and enduring ornament, not without singular ingenuity, that ancient and immense column of oriental granite which had been taken from the Baths of Antoninus in Rome, and granted by Pius IV to our glorious Duke, and by him conveyed, although at no little expense, to Florence, and magnanimously presented to her as a courteous gift for her public adornment. Upon that column, over its beautiful capital, which had, like the base, the appearance of bronze, and which is now being made of real bronze, there was placed a statue (of clay, indeed, but in the colour of porphyry, because even so it is to be), very large and very excellent, of a woman in full armour, with a helmet on the head, and representing, by the sword in the right hand and by the scales in the left, an incorruptible and most valorous Justice. OF THE CANTO DE' TORNAQUINCI. The sixth ornament was erected at the Canto de' Tornaquinci; and here I must note a thing which would appear incredible to one who had not seen it--namely, that this ornament was so magnificent, so rich in pomp, and fashioned with so much art and grandeur, that, although it was conjoined with the superb Palace of the Strozzi, which is such as to make the greatest things appear as nothing, and although on a site altogether disastrous by reason of the uneven ends of the streets that run together there, and certain other inconvenient circumstances, nevertheless such was the excellence of the craftsman, and so well conceived the manner of the work, that it seemed as if all those difficulties had been brought together there for the purpose of rendering it the more admirable and the more beautiful; that most lovely palace being so well accompanied by the richness of the ornaments, the height of the arches, the grandeur of the columns, all intertwined with arms and trophies, and the great statues that towered over the summit of the whole structure, that anyone would have judged that neither that ornament required any other accompaniment than that of such a palace, nor such a palace required any other ornament. And to the end that all may be the better understood, and in order to show more clearly and distinctly in what manner the work was constructed, it is necessary that some measure of pardon should be granted to us by those who are not of our arts, if for the sake of those who delight in them we proceed, more minutely than might appear proper to the others, to describe the nature of the sites and the forms of the arches; and this in order to demonstrate how noble intellects accommodate ornaments to places and inventions to sites with grace and beauty. We must relate, then, that since the street which runs from the Column to the Tornaquinci is, as everyone knows, very wide, and since it was necessary to pass from there into the street of the Tornabuoni, which by its narrowness brought it about that the eyes of those thus passing fell for the most part on the not very ornate Tower of the Tornaquinci, which occupies more than half the street, it was thought expedient, in order to obviate that difficulty and to make the effect more pleasing, to construct in the width of the above-named street, in a Composite Order, two arches divided by a most ornate column, one of which gave free passage to the procession, which proceeded through the said street of the Tornabuoni, and the other, concealing the view of the tower, appeared, by virtue of an ingenious prospect-scene that was painted there, to lead into another street similar to the said street of the Tornabuoni, wherein with most pleasing illusion were seen not only the houses and windows adorned with tapestries and full of men and women who were all intent on gazing at the spectacle, but also the gracious sight of a most lovely maiden on a white palfrey, accompanied by certain grooms, who appeared to be coming from there towards those approaching, insomuch that both on the day of the procession and all the time afterwards that she remained there, she roused in more than one person, by a gracious deception, a desire either to go to meet her or to wait until she should have passed. These two arches, besides the above-mentioned column that divided them, were bordered by other columns of the same size, which supported architraves, friezes, and cornices; and over each arch was seen a lovely ornament in the form of a most beautiful picture, in which were seen painted, likewise in chiaroscuro, the stories of which we shall speak in a short time. The whole work was crowned above by an immense cornice with ornaments corresponding to the loveliness, grandeur, and magnificence of the rest, upon which, then, stood the statues, which, although they were at a height of a good twenty-five braccia from the level of the ground, nevertheless were wrought with such proportion that the height did not take away any of their grace, nor the distance any of the effect of any detail of their adornment and beauty. There stood in the same manner, as it were as wings to those two main arches, on the one side and on the other, two other arches, one of which, attached to the Palace of the Strozzi, and leading to the above-mentioned Tower of the Tornaquinci, gave passage to those who wished to turn towards the Mercato Vecchio, even as the other, placed on the other side, did the same service to those who might desire to go towards the street called La Vigna; wherefore the Via di S. Trinita, which, as has been told, is so broad, terminating thus in the four arches described, came to present such loveliness and a view so beautiful and so heroic, that it appeared impossible to afford greater satisfaction to the eyes of the spectators. And this was the front part, composed, as has been described, of four arches; of two main arches, namely, one false, and one real, which led into the Via de' Tornabuoni, and of two others at the sides, in the manner of wings, which were turned towards the two cross-streets. Now since, entering into the said street of the Tornabuoni on the left side, beside the Vigna, there debouches (as everyone knows) the Strada di S. Sisto, which likewise of necessity strikes the flank of the same Tower of the Tornaquinci, it was made to appear, in order to hide the same ugliness in a similar manner with the same illusion of a similar prospect-scene, that that side also passed into a similar street of various houses placed in the same way, with an ingenious view of a very ornate fountain overflowing with crystal-clear waters, from which a woman with a child was represented as drawing some, so that one who was at no great distance would certainly have declared that she was real and by no means simulated. Now these four arches--to return to those in front--were supported and divided by five columns adorned in the manner described, forming as it were a rectangular piazza; and in a line with each of those columns, above the final cornice and the summit of the edifice, there was a most beautiful seat, while in the same manner four others were placed over the centre of each arch, which in all came to the number of nine. In eight of these was seen seated in each a statue of most imposing appearance, some shown in armour, some in the garb of peace, and others in the imperator's paludament, according to the characters of those who were portrayed in them; and in place of the ninth seat and the ninth statue, above the column in the centre, was seen placed an immense escutcheon, supported by two great Victories with the Imperial Crown of the House of Austria, to which that structure was dedicated; which was made manifest by a very large epitaph, which was seen placed with much grace and beauty below the escutcheon, saying: VIRTUTI FELICITATIQUE INVICTISSIMÆ DOMUS AUSTRIÆ, MAJESTATIQUE TOT ET TANTORUM IMPERATORUM AC REGUM, QUI IN IPSA FLORUERUNT ET NUNC MAXIME FLORENT, FLORENTIA AUGUSTO CONJUGIO PARTICEPS ILLIUS FELICITATIS, GRATO PIOQUE ANIMO DICAT. The intention had been, after bringing to those most splendid nuptials the Province of Austria, with her cities and rivers and with her ocean-sea, and after having caused her to be received by Tuscany with her cities, the Arno, and the Tyrrhenian Sea, as has been related, to bring then her great and glorious Cæsars, all magnificent in adornment and pomp, as is the general custom in taking part in nuptials; as if they, having conducted thither with them the illustrious bride, were come before to have the first meeting of kinsmen with the House of Medici, and to prove of what stock, and how glorious, was the noble virgin that they sought to present to them. And so, of the eight above-mentioned statues placed upon the eight seats, representing eight Emperors of that august house, there was seen on the right hand of the above-named escutcheon, over the arch through which the procession passed, that of Maximilian II, the present magnanimous and excellent Emperor, and brother of the bride; below whom, in a very spacious picture, there was seen painted with most beautiful invention his marvellous assumption to the Empire, himself being seated in the midst of the Electors, both spiritual and temporal, the first being recognized--besides their long vestments--by a Faith that was to be seen at their feet, and the others by a Hope in a like position. In the air, also, over his head, were seen certain little Angels that seemed to be chasing many malign spirits out of certain thick and dark clouds; these being intended either to suggest the hope which is felt that at some time, in that all-conquering and most constant nation, men will contrive to dissipate and clear away the clouds of those many disturbances that have occurred there in matters of religion, and restore her to her pristine purity and serenity of tranquil concord; or rather, that in that act all dissensions had flown away, and showing how marvellously, and with what unanimous consent of all Germany, amid that great variety of minds and religions, that assumption had taken place, which was explained by the words that were placed above, saying: MAXIMILIANUS II SALUTATUR IMP. MAGNO CONSENSU GERMANORUM, ATQUE INGENTI LÆTITIA BONORUM OMNIUM, ET CHRISTIANÆ PIETATIS FELICITATE. Then, next to the statue of the said Maximilian, in a place corresponding to the column at the corner, was seen that of the truly invincible Charles V; even as over the arch of that wing, which commanded the Via della Vigna, there was that of the second Albert, a man of most resolute valour, although he reigned but a short time. Above the column at the head was placed that of the great Rudolph, who, the first of that name, was also the first to introduce into that most noble house the Imperial dignity, and the first to enrich her with the great Archduchy of Austria; when, having reverted to the Empire for lack of a successor, he invested with it the first Albert, his son, whence the House of Austria has since taken its name. All which, in memory of an event so important, was seen painted in a most beautiful manner in the frieze above that arch, with an inscription at the foot that said: RODULPHUS PRIMUS EX HAC FAMILIA IMP. ALBERTUM PRIMUM AUSTRIÆ PRINCIPATU DONAT. But to return to the part on the left, beginning with the same place in the centre; beside the escutcheon, and over the false arch that covered the Tower of the Tornaquinci, was seen the statue of the most devout Ferdinand, father of the bride, beneath whose feet was seen painted the valorous resistance made by his efforts in the year 1529 in the defence of Vienna against the terrible assault of the Turks; demonstrated by the inscription written above, which said: FERDINANDUS PRIMUS IMP., INGENTIBUS COPIIS TURCORUM CUM REGE IPSORUM PULSIS, VIENNAM NOBILEM URBEM FORTISSIME FELICISSIMEQUE DEFENDIT. Even as at the corner there was the statue of the first and most renowned Maximilian, and over the arch that inclined towards the Palace of the Strozzi that of the pacific Frederick, father of that same Maximilian, leaning against an olive-trunk. Above the last column, which was attached to the above-named Palace of the Strozzi, was seen that of the first Albert mentioned above, who, as has been told, was first invested by his father Rudolph with the sovereignty of Austria, and gave to that most noble house the arms that are still to be seen at the present day. Those arms used formerly to be five little larks on a gold ground, whereas the new arms, which, as everyone may see, are all red with a white band that divides them, are said to have been introduced by him in that form because, as was seen painted there in a great picture beneath his feet, he found himself not otherwise in that most bloody battle fought by him with Adolf, who had been first deposed from the Imperial throne, when the said Albert was seen to slay Adolf valorously with his own hand and to win from him the Spolia Opima; and since, save for the middle of his person, which was white on account of his armour, over all the rest he found himself on that day all stained and dabbled with blood, he ordained that in memory of that his arms should be painted in the same manner both of form and colour, and that they should be preserved gloriously after him by his successors in that house; and beneath the picture, as with the others, there was to be read a similar inscription that said: ALBERTUS I IMP. ADOLPHUM, CUI LEGIBUS IMPERIUM ABROGATUM FUERAT, MAGNO PROELIO VINCIT ET SPOLIA OPIMA REFERT. And since each of the eight above-mentioned Emperors, besides the arms common to their whole house, also used during his lifetime arms private and peculiar to himself, for that reason, in order to make it more manifest to the beholders which Emperor each of the statues represented, there were also placed beneath their feet, on most beautiful shields, the particular arms that each, as has been told, had borne. All which, together with some pleasing and well-accommodated little scenes that were painted on the pedestals, made a magnificent, heroic, and very ornate effect; even as not less was done, on the columns and in all the parts where ornaments could be suitably placed, in addition to trophies and the arms, by the Crosses of S. Andrew, the Fusils, and the Pillars of Hercules, with the motto, PLUS ULTRA, the principal device of that arch, and many others like it used by the men of that Imperial family. Such, then, was the principal view which presented itself to those who chose to pass by the direct way with the procession; but for those who came from the opposite direction, from the Via de' Tornabuoni towards the Tornaquinci, there appeared, with an ornamentation perhaps not less lovely, in so far as the narrowness of the street permitted, a similar spectacle arranged in due proportion. For on that side, which we will call the back, there was formed, as it were, another structure similar to that already described, save that on account of the narrowness of the street, whereas the first was seen composed of four arches, the other was of three only; one of which being joined with friezes and cornices to that upon which, as has been told, was placed the statue of the second Maximilian, now Emperor, and thus making it double, and another likewise attached to the above-described prospect-scene which concealed the tower, brought it about that the third, leaving also behind it a little quadrangular piazza, remained as the last for one coming with the procession, and appeared as the first for one approaching, on the contrary, from the street of the Tornabuoni; and upon that last, which was in the same form as those described, even as upon them were the Emperors, so upon it were seen towering, but standing on their feet, the two Kings Philip, one the father and the other the son of the great Charles V, the first Philip, namely, and also the second, so filled with liberality and justice, whom at the present day we honour as the great and puissant King of so many most noble realms. Between him and the statue of his grandfather there was seen painted in the circumambient frieze that same Philip II seated in majesty, and standing before him a tall woman in armour, recognized by the white cross that she had on the breast as being Malta, delivered by him through the valour of the most illustrious Lord Don Garzia di Toledo, who was portrayed there, from the siege of the Turks; and she appeared to be seeking, as one grateful for that great service, to offer to him the obsidional crown of dog's grass, which was made manifest by the inscription written beneath, which said: MELITA, EREPTA E FAUCIBUS IMMANISSIMORUM HOSTIUM STUDIO ET AUXILIIS PIISSIMI REGIS PHILIPPI, CONSERVATOREM SUUM CORONA GRAMINEA DONAT. And to the end that the part turned towards the Strada della Vigna might have likewise some adornment, it was thought a fitting thing to declare the conception of the whole vast structure by a great inscription between the final cornice, where the statues stood, and the arch, which was a large space, saying: IMPERIO LATE FULGENTES ASPICE REGES; AUSTRIACA HOS OMNES EDIDIT ALTA DOMUS. HIS INVICTA FUIT VIRTUS, HIS CUNCTA SUBACTA, HIS DOMITA EST TELLUS, SERVIT ET OCEANUS. Even as was done in the same manner and for the same reason towards the Mercato Vecchio, in another inscription, saying: IMPERIIS GENS NATA BONIS ET NATA TRIUMPHIS, QUAM GENUS E COELO DUCERE NEMO NEGET; TUQUE NITENS GERMEN DIVINÆ STIRPIS ETRUSCIS TRADITUM AGRIS NITIDIS, UT SOLA CULTA BEES; SI MIHI CONTINGAT VESTRO DE SEMINE FRUCTUM CARPERE ET IN NATIS CERNERE DETUR AVOS, O FORTUNATAM! VERO TUNC NOMINE FLORENS URBS FERAR, IN QUAM FORS CONGERAT OMNE BONUM. OF THE CANTO DE' CARNESECCHI. Now it appeared a fitting thing, having brought the triumphant Cæsars to the place described above, to bring the magnanimous Medici, also, with all their pomp, to the corner that is called the Canto de' Carnesecchi, which is not far distant from it; as if, reverently receiving the Cæsars, as is the custom, they were come to hold high revel and to do honour to the new-come bride, so much desired. And here, no less than in some of the passages to follow, it will be necessary that I should be pardoned by those who are not of our arts for describing minutely the nature of the site and the form of the arches and other ornaments, for the reason that it is my intention to demonstrate not less the excellence of the hands and brushes of the craftsmen who executed the works, than the fertility and acuteness of brain of him who was the author of the stories and of the whole invention; and particularly because the site in that place was perhaps more disastrous and more difficult to accommodate than any of the others described or about to be described. For there the street turns towards S. Maria del Fiore, inclining to somewhat greater breadth, and comes to form the angle that by those of our arts is called obtuse; and that was the side on the right. Opposite, and on the left-hand side, there is a little piazza into which two streets lead, one that comes from the great Piazza di S. Maria Novella, and the other likewise from another piazza called the Piazza Vecchia. In that little piazza, which is in truth very ill proportioned, there was built over all the lower part a structure in the form of an octagonal theatre, the doors of which were rectangular and in the Tuscan Order; and over each of them was seen a niche between two columns, with cornices, architraves, and other ornaments, rich and imposing, of Doric architecture, and then, rising higher, there was formed the third range, wherein was seen above the niches, in each space, a compartment with most beautiful ornaments in painting. Now it is but proper to remark that although it has been said that the doors below were rectangular and Tuscan, nevertheless the two by which the principal road entered and issued forth, and by which the procession was to pass, were made in the semblance of arches, and projected for no small distance in the manner of vestibules, one towards the entrance and the other towards the exit, both the one and the other having been made as rich and ornate on the outer façade as was required for the sake of proportion. Having thus described the general form of the whole edifice, let us come down to the details, beginning with the front part, which presented itself first to the eyes of passers-by and was after the manner of a triumphal arch, as has been told, in the Corinthian Order. That arch was seen bordered on one side and on the other by two most warlike statues in armour, each of which, resting upon a graceful little door, was seen likewise coming forth from the middle of a niche placed between two well-proportioned columns. Of these statues, that which was to be seen on the right hand represented Duke Alessandro, the son-in-law of the most illustrious Charles V, a Prince spirited and bold, and of most gracious manners, holding in one hand his sword, and in the other the Ducal baton, with a motto placed at his feet, which said, on account of his untimely death: SI FATA ASPERA RUMPAS, ALEXANDER ERIS. On the left hand was seen, portrayed like all the others from life, the most valorous Signor Giovanni, with the butt of a broken lance in the hand, and likewise with his motto at his feet: ITALUM FORTISS. DUCTOR. And since over the architraves of those four columns already described there were placed very spacious friezes in due proportion, in the width covered by the niches there was seen above each of the statues a compartment between two pilasters; in that above Duke Alessandro was seen in painting the device of a rhinoceros, used by him, with the motto: NON BUELVO SIN VENCER; and above the statue of Signor Giovanni, in the same fashion, his flaming thunderbolt. Above the arch in the centre, which, being more than seven braccia in width and more than two squares in height, gave ample room for the procession to pass, and above the cornice and the frontispieces, there was seen seated in majestic beauty that of the wise and valorous Duke Cosimo, the excellent father of the fortunate bridegroom, likewise with his motto at his feet, which said: PIETATE INSIGNIS ET ARMIS; and with a She-Wolf and a Lion on either side of him, representing Siena and Florence, which, supported and regarded lovingly by him, seemed to be reposing affectionately together. That statue was seen set in the frieze, exactly in a line with the arch, and between the pictures with the devices described; and in that same width, above the crowning cornice, there rose on high another painted compartment, with pilasters in due proportion, cornice, and other embellishments, wherein with great fitness, alluding to the election of the above-named Duke Cosimo, was seen represented the story of the young David when he was anointed King by Samuel, with his motto: A DOMINO FACTUM EST ISTUD. And then, above that last cornice, which was raised a very great distance from the ground, was seen the escutcheon of that most adventuresome family, which, large and magnificent as was fitting, was likewise supported, with the Ducal Crown, by two Victories also in imitation of marble; and over the principal entrance of the arch, in the most becoming place, was the inscription, which said: VIRTUTI FELICITATIQUE ILLUSTRISSIMÆ MEDICEÆ FAMILIÆ, QUÆ FLOS ITALIÆ, LUMEN ETRURIÆ, DECUS PATRIÆ SEMPER FUIT, NUNC ASCITA SIBI CÆSAREA SOBOLE CIVIBUS SECURITATEM ET OMNI SUO IMPERIO DIGNITATEM AUXIT, GRATA PATRIA DICAT. Entering within that arch, one found a kind of loggia, passing spacious and long, with the vaulting above all painted and embellished with the most bizarre and beautiful ornaments and with various devices. After which, in two pilasters over which curved an arch, through which was the entrance into the above-mentioned theatre, there were seen opposite to one another two most graceful niches, as it were conjoined with that second arch; between which niches and the arch first described there were seen on the counterfeit walls that supported the loggia two spacious painted compartments, the stories of which accompanied becomingly each its statue. Of these statues, that on the right hand was made to represent the great Cosimo, called the Elder, who, although there had been previously in the family of the Medici many men noble and distinguished in arms and in civil actions, was nevertheless the first founder of its extraordinary greatness, and as it were the root of that plant which has since grown so happily to such magnificence. In his picture was seen painted the supreme honour conferred upon him by his native Florence, when he was acclaimed by the public Senate as Pater Patriæ; which was declared excellently well in the inscription that was seen below, saying: COSMUS MEDICES, VETERE HONESTISSIMO OMNIUM SENATUS CONSULTO RENOVATO, PARENS PATRIÆ APPELLATUR. In the upper part of the same pilaster in which was placed the niche, there was a little picture in due proportion wherein was portrayed his son, the magnificent Piero, father of the glorious Lorenzo, likewise called the Elder, the one and true Mæcenas of his times, and the magnanimous preserver of the peace of Italy, whose statue was seen in the other above-mentioned niche, corresponding to that of the Elder Cosimo. In the little picture, which he in like manner had over his head, was painted the portrait of his brother, the magnificent Giuliano, the father of Pope Clement; and in the large picture, corresponding to that of Cosimo, was the public council held by all the Italian Princes, wherein was seen formed, by the advice of Lorenzo, that so stable and so prudent union by which, as long as he was alive and it endured, Italy was seen brought to the height of felicity, whereas afterwards, Lorenzo dying and that union perishing, she was seen precipitated into such conflagrations, calamities, and ruin; which was demonstrated no less clearly by the inscription that was beneath, saying: LAURENTIUS MEDICES, BELLI ET PACIS ARTIBUS EXCELLENS, DIVINO SUO CONSILIO CONJUNCTIS ANIMIS ET OPIBUS PRINCIPUM ITALORUM ET INGENTI ITALIÆ TRANQUILLITATE PARTA, PARENS OPTIMI SÆCULI APPELLATUR. Now, coming to the little piazza in which, as has been told, was placed the octagonal theatre, as I shall call it, and beginning from that first entrance to go round on the right hand, let me say that the first part was occupied by that arch of the entrance, above which, in a frieze corresponding in height to the third and last range of the theatre, were seen in four ovals the portrait of Giovanni di Bicci, father of Cosimo the Elder, and that of his son Lorenzo, brother of the same Cosimo, from whom this fortunate branch of the Medici now reigning had its origin; with that of Pier Francesco, son of the above-named Lorenzo, and likewise that of another Giovanni, father of the warlike Signor Giovanni mentioned above. In the second façade of the octagon, which was joined to the entrance, there was seen between two most ornate columns, seated in a great niche, with the royal staff in the hand, a figure in marble, like all the other statues, of Caterina, the valorous Queen of France, with all the other ornaments that are required in architecture both lovely and heroic. And in the third range above, where, as has been said, the painted compartments came, there was figured for her scene the same Queen seated in majesty, who had before her two most beautiful women in armour, one of whom, representing France, and kneeling before her, was shown presenting to her a handsome boy adorned with a royal crown, even as the other, who was Spain, standing, was shown in like manner presenting to her a most lovely girl; the boy being intended for the most Christian Charles IX, who is now revered as King of France, and the girl the most noble Queen of Spain, wife of the excellent King Philip. Then, about the same Caterina, were seen standing with much reverence some other smaller boys, representing her other most gracious little children, for whom a Fortune appeared to be holding sceptres, crowns, and realms. And since between that niche and the arch of the entrance, on account of the disproportion of the site, there was some space left over, caused by the desire to make the arch not ungracefully awry, but well-proportioned and straight, for that reason there was placed there, as it were in a niche, a painted picture wherein by means of a Prudence and a Liberality, who stood clasped in a close embrace, it was shown very ingeniously with what guides the House of Medici had come to such a height; having above them, painted in a little picture equal in breadth to the others of the third range, a Piety humble and devout, recognized by the stork that was beside her, round whom were seen many little Angels that were showing to her various designs and models of the many churches, monasteries, and convents built by that magnificent and religious family. Now, proceeding to the third side of the octagon, where there was the arch by which one issued from the theatre, over the frontispiece of that arch was placed, as the heart of so many noble members, the statue of the most excellent and amiable Prince and Spouse, and at his feet the motto: SPES ALTERA FLORÆ. In the frieze above--meaning, as before, that this came to the height of the third range--to correspond to the other arch, where, as has been told, four portraits had been placed, in that part, also, were four other similar portraits of his illustrious brothers, accommodated in a similar manner; those, namely, of the two very reverend Cardinals, Giovanni of revered memory and the most gracious Ferdinando, and those of the handsome Signor Don Garzia and the amiable Signor Don Pietro. Then, to go on to the fourth face, since the corner of the houses that are there, not giving room for the hollow of any recess, did not permit of the usual niche being made there, in its stead was seen accommodated with beautiful artifice, corresponding to the niches, a very large inscription that said: HI, QUOS SACRA VIDES REDIMITOS TEMPORA MITRA PONTIFICES TRIPLICI, ROMAM TOTUMQUE PIORUM CONCILIUM REXERE PII; SED QUI PROPE FULGENT ILLUSTRI E GENTE INSIGNES SAGULISVE TOGISVE HEROES, CLARAM PATRIAM POPULUMQUE POTENTEM IMPERIIS AUXERE SUIS CERTAQUE SALUTE. NAM SEMEL ITALIAM DONARUNT AUREA SÆCLA, CONJUGIO AUGUSTO DECORANT NUNC ET MAGE FIRMANT. Above it, in place of scene and picture, there were painted in two ovals the two devices, one of the fortunate Duke, the Capricorn with the seven Stars and with the motto, FIDUCIA FATI; and the other of the excellent Prince, the Weasel, with the motto, AMAT VICTORIA CURAM. Then in the three niches that came in the three following façades were the statues of the three Supreme Pontiffs who have come from that family; all rejoicing, likewise, to lend their honourable presence to so great a festival, as if every favour human and divine, every excellence in arms, letters, wisdom, and religion, and every kind of sovereignty, were assembled together to vie in rendering those splendid nuptials august and happy. Of those Pontiffs one was Pius IV, departed a short time before to a better life, over whose head, in his picture, was seen painted how, after the intricate disputes were ended at Trent and the sacrosanct Council was finished, the two Cardinal Legates presented to him its inviolable decrees; even as in that of Leo X was seen the conference held by him with Francis I, King of France, whereby with prudent counsel he bridled the vehemence of that bellicose and victorious Prince, so that he did not turn all Italy upside down, as he might perchance have done, and as he was certainly able to do; and in that of Clement VII was the Coronation, performed by him in Bologna, of the great Charles V. But in the last façade, which hit against the acute angle of the houses of the Carnesecchi, by which the straight line of that façade of the octagon was no little interrupted, nevertheless there was made with gracious and pleasing artifice another masterly inscription, after the likeness of the other, but curving somewhat outwards, which said: PONTIFICES SUMMOS MEDICUM DOMUS ALTA LEONEM, CLEMENTEM DEINCEPS, EDIDIT INDE PIUM. QUID TOT NUNC REFERAM INSIGNES PIETATE VEL ARMIS MAGNANIMOSQUE DUCES EGREGIOSQUE VIROS? GALLORUM INTER QUOS LATE REGINA REFULGET, HÆC REGIS CONJUNX, HÆC EADEM GENITRIX. Such, as a whole, was the interior of the theatre described above; but although it may appear to have been described minutely enough, it is none the less true that an infinity of other ornaments, pictures, devices, and a thousand most bizarre and most beautiful fantasies which were placed throughout the Doric cornices and many spaces according to opportunity, making a very rich and gracious effect, have been omitted as not being essential, in order not to weary the perhaps already tired reader; and anyone who delights in such things may imagine that no part was left without being finished with supreme mastery, consummate judgment, and infinite loveliness. And a most pleasing and beautiful finish was given to the highest range by the many arms that were seen distributed there in due proportion, which were Medici and Austria for the illustrious Prince, the bridegroom, and her Highness; Medici and Toledo for the Duke, his father; Medici and Austria again, recognized by the three feathers as belonging to his predecessor Alessandro; Medici and Boulogne in Picardy for Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino; Medici and Savoy for Duke Giuliano; Medici and Orsini for the double kinship of the Elder Lorenzo and his son Piero; Medici and the Viper for the above-named Giovanni, husband of Caterina Sforza; Medici and Salviati for the glorious Signor Giovanni, his son; France and Medici for her most serene Highness the Queen; Ferrara and Medici for the Duke, with one of the sisters of the most excellent bridegroom; and Orsini and Medici for the other most gentle sister, married to the illustrious Signor Paolo Giordano, Duke of Bracciano. It now remains for us to describe the last part of the theatre and the exit, which, corresponding in size, in proportion, and in every other respect to the entrance already described, there will be little labour, I believe, in making known to the intelligent reader; save only that the arch which formed the façade there, facing towards S. Maria del Fiore, had been constructed, as a part less important, without statues and with somewhat less magnificence, and in their stead there had been placed over that arch a very large inscription, which said: VIRTUS RARA TIBI, STIRPS ILLUSTRISSIMA, QUONDAM CLARUM TUSCORUM DETULIT IMPERIUM; QUOD COSMUS FORTI PRÆFUNCTUS MUNERE MARTIS PROTULIT ET JUSTA CUM DITIONE REGIT: NUNC EADEM MAJOR DIVINA E GENTE JOANNAM ALLICIT IN REGNUM CONCILIATQUE TORO. QUÆ SI CRESCET ITEM VENTURA IN PROLE NEPOTES, AUREA GENS TUSCIS EXORIETUR AGRIS. In the two pilasters that were at the beginning of the passage, or vestibule, as we have called it (over which pilasters rose the arch of the exit, upon which was the statue of the illustrious bridegroom), were seen two niches, in one of which was placed the statue of the most gentle Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, the younger brother of Leo and Gonfalonier of Holy Church, who had likewise in the little picture that was above him the portrait of the magnanimous Cardinal Ippolito, his son, and, in the picture that stretched towards the exit, the scene of the Capitoline Theatre, dedicated to him by the Roman people in the year 1513, with an inscription to make this known, which said: JULIANUS MEDICES EXIMIÆ VIRTUTIS ET PROBITATIS ERGO SUMMIS A POP. ROM. HONORIBUS DECORATUR, RENOVATA SPECIE ANTIQUÆ DIGNITATIS AC LÆTITIÆ. In the other niche, corresponding to the first statue, and, like it, standing and in armour, was seen the statue of Lorenzo the Younger, Duke of Urbino, with a sword in the hand; and in the little picture above him he had the portrait of his father Piero, and in the other picture the scene when the general's baton was given to him with such happy augury by his native Florence, likewise with an inscription to explain it, which said: LAURENTIUS MED. JUNIOR MAXIMA INVICTÆ VIRTUTIS INDOLE, SUMMUM IN RE MILITARI IMPERIUM MAXIMO SUORUM CIVIUM AMORE ET SPE ADIPISCITUR. OF THE CANTO ALLA PAGLIA. At the corner which from the straw that is constantly sold there is called the Canto alla Paglia, there was made another arch of great beauty and not less rich and imposing than any of the others. Now it may perchance appear to some, for the reason that all or the greater part of those ornaments have been extolled by us as in the highest rank of beauty and excellence of artistry, pomp, and richness, that this has been done by reason of a certain manner of writing inclined to overmuch praise and exaggeration. But everyone may take it as very certain that those works, besides leaving a long way behind them all things of that kind as were ever executed in that city, and perhaps in any other place, were also such, and ordained with such grandeur, magnificence, and liberality by those magnanimous Lords, and executed in such a manner by the craftsmen, that they surpassed by a great measure every expectation, and took away from no matter what writer all force and power to attain with the pen to the excellence of the reality. Now, to return, I say that in that place--in that part, namely, where the street that leads from the Archbishop's Palace into the Borgo S. Lorenzo, dividing the above-named Strada della Paglia, forms a perfect crossing of the ways, was made the ornament already mentioned, much after the likeness of the ancient four-fronted Temple of Janus; and, for the reason that from there the Cathedral Church could be seen, it was ordained by those truly religious Princes that it should be dedicated to sacrosanct Religion, in which how eminent all Tuscany, and Florence in particular, has been at all times, I do not believe that it is necessary for me to take much pains to demonstrate. And therein the intention was that since Florence had brought with her, as was told at the beginning, as her handmaids and companions, to give the first welcome to the new bride, some of the virtues or attributes that had raised her to greatness, and in which she could well vaunt herself, the intention, I say, was to show that there also, for a no less necessary office, she had left Religion, that she, awaiting the bride, might in a certain manner introduce her into the vast and most ornate church so near at hand. That arch, then, which was in a very broad street, as has been told, was seen formed of four very ornate façades, the first of which presented itself to the eyes of one going in the direction of the Carnesecchi, and another, following the limb of the cross, faced towards S. Giovanni and the Duomo of S. Maria del Fiore, leaving two other façades on the cross-limb of the cross, one of which looked towards S. Lorenzo and the other towards the Archbishop's Palace. And now, to describe in order and with as much clearness as may be possible the composition and the beauty of the whole, I say--beginning again with the front part, to which that at the back was wholly similar in the composition of the ornaments, without failing in any point--that in the centre of the wide street was seen the very broad entrance of the arch, which rose to a beautifully proportioned height, and on either side of it were seen two immense niches bordered by two similar Corinthian columns, all painted with sacred books, mitres, thuribles, chalices, and other sacerdotal instruments, in place of trophies and spoils. Above these, and above the regular cornices and friezes, which projected somewhat further outwards than those which came over the arch in the centre, but were exactly equal to them in height, was seen another cornice, as of a door or window, curving between the one column and the other in a quarter-round, which, seeming to form a separate niche, made an effect as graceful and lovely as could well be imagined. Above that last cornice, then, rose a frieze of a height and magnificence in accord with the proportions of so great a beginning, with certain great consoles, carved and overlaid with gold, which came exactly in perpendicular lines with the columns already described; and upon them rested another magnificent and very ornate cornice, with four very large candelabra likewise overlaid with gold and, like all the columns, bases, capitals, cornices, architraves, and every other thing, picked out with various carvings and colours, and also standing in line with the great consoles and the columns above described. Now in the centre, springing above the said consoles, two cornices were seen rising, and little by little forming an angle, and finally uniting as a frontispiece, over which, upon a very rich and beautiful base, was seated an immense statue with a Cross in the hand, representing the most holy Christian Religion, at whose feet, one on either side of her, were seen two other similar statues which seemed to be lying upon the cornice of the above-named frontispiece, one of which, that on the right hand, with three children about her, represented Charity, and the other Hope. Then in the space, or, to speak more precisely, in the angle of the frontispiece, there was seen as the principal device of that arch the ancient Labarum with the Cross, and with the motto, IN HOC VINCES, sent to Constantine; beneath which was seen set with beautiful grace a very large escutcheon of the Medici with three Papal crowns, in keeping with the idea of Religion, for the three Pontiffs whom she has had from that house. And on the first level cornice, on either side, was seen a statue corresponding to the niche already described which came between the two columns; one of which, that on the right hand, was a most beautiful young woman in full armour, with the spear and shield, such as Minerva used to be represented in ancient times, save that in place of the head of Medusa there was seen a great red cross on her breast, which caused her to be recognized with ease as the new Order of S. Stephen, founded so devoutly by our glorious and magnanimous Duke. The other on the left hand was seen all adorned with sacerdotal and civil vestments in place of arms, and with a great cross in the hand in place of a spear; and these, towering over the whole structure in most beautiful accord with the others, made a very imposing and marvellous effect. Next, in the frieze that came between that last cornice and the architrave that rested upon the columns, where according to the order of the composition there came three compartments, were seen painted the three kinds of true religion that have been from the creation of the world down to the present day. In the first of these, which came on the right hand beneath the armed statue, was seen painted that kind of religion which reigned in the time of natural law, in those few who had it true and good, although they had not a perfect knowledge of God, wherefore there was seen figured Melchizedek offering bread and wine and other fruits of the earth. Even so, in the picture on the left hand, which came in like manner beneath the statue of peaceful Religion, was seen the other religion, ordained by God through the hands of Moses, and more perfect than the first, but all so veiled with images and figures, that these did not permit the final and perfect clearness of Divine worship to be fully revealed; to signify which there were seen Moses and Aaron sacrificing the Paschal Lamb to God. But in the central picture, which came exactly beneath the large and above-described statues of Religion, Charity, and Hope, and over the principal arch, and which in proportion with the greater space was much larger, there was seen figured an altar, and upon it a Chalice with the Host, which is the true and evangelic Sacrifice; about which were seen some figures kneeling, and over it a Holy Spirit in the midst of many little Angels, who were holding in their hands a scroll in which was written, IN SPIRITU ET VERITATE; so that it appeared that they were repeating those words in song, Spiritus meaning all that concerns the sacrifice natural and corporeal, and Veritas all that appertains to the legal; which was all by way of image and figure. Beneath the whole scene was a most beautiful inscription, which, supported by two other Angels, rested on the cornice of the central arch, saying: VERÆ RELIGIONI, QUÆ VIRTUTUM OMNIUM FUNDAMENTUM, PUBLICARUM RERUM FIRMAMENTUM, PRIVATARUM ORNAMENTUM, ET HUMANÆ TOTIUS VITÆ LUMEN CONTINET, ETRURIA SEMPER DUX ET MAGISTRA ILLIUS HABITA, ET EADEM NUNC ANTIQUA ET SUA PROPRIA LAUDE MAXIME FLORENS, LIBENTISSIME CONSECRAVIT. But coming to the lower part, and returning to the niche which came on the right hand, between the two columns and beneath the armed Religion, and which, although in painting, by reason of the chiaroscuro appeared as if in relief; there, I say, was seen the statue of our present most pious Duke in the habit of a Knight of S. Stephen, with the cross in his hand, and with the following inscription, which had the appearance of real carving, over his head and above the niche, saying: COSMUS MEDIC. FLOREN. ET SENAR. DUX II, SACRAM D. STEPHANI MILITIAM CHRISTIANÆ PIETATIS ET BELLICÆ VIRTUTIS DOMICILIUM FUNDAVIT, ANNO MDLXI. Even as on the base of the same niche, between the two pedestals of the columns, which were fashioned in the Corinthian proportions, there was seen painted the Taking of Damiata, achieved by the prowess of the valiant knights of Florence; as it were auguring for those his new knights similar glory and valour. And in the lunette or semi-circle which came above the two columns, there was seen his private and particular escutcheon of balls, which, by the red cross that was added to it with beautiful grace, made it clearly manifest that it was that of the Grand Master and Chief of the Order. Now, for the public and universal satisfaction, and in order to revive the memory of those who, born in that city or that province, became illustrious for integrity of character and for sanctity of life, and founders of some revered Order, and also to kindle the minds of all beholders to imitation of their goodness and perfection, it was thought right and proper, since there had been placed on the right hand, as has been related, the statue of the Duke, founder of the holy military Order of S. Stephen, to set on the other side that of S. Giovanni Gualberto, who was likewise a knight of the household, according to the custom of those times, and the first founder and father of the Order of Vallombrosa. Most fittingly, even as the Duke was beneath the armed statue, in like manner he was seen standing beneath the sacerdotal statue of Religion, in the habit of a knight, pardoning his enemy; having in the frontispiece over the niche a similar escutcheon of the Medici, with three Cardinal's hats, and on the base the story of the miracle that took place at Badia di Settimo, when the friar, by the command of the above-named S. Giovanni Gualberto, to the confusion of the heretics and simonists, passed with his benediction and with a cross in his hand through the midst of a raging fire; with the inscription likewise in a little tablet above him, which made all that manifest, saying: JOANNES GUALBERTUS, EQUES NOBILISS. FLOREN., VALLIS UMBROSÆ FAMILIÆ AUCTOR FUIT, ANNO MLXI. With which was terminated that most ornate and beautiful principal façade. Entering beneath the arch, one saw there a passing spacious loggia, or passage, or vestibule, whichever we may choose to call it; and in exactly the same manner were seen formed the three other entrances, which, being joined together at the intersection of the two streets, left in the centre a space about eight braccia square. There the four arches rose to the height of those without, and the pendentives curved in the manner of a vault as if a little cupola were to spring over them; but when these had reached the cornice curving right round, at the point where the vault of the cupola would have had to begin to rise, there sprang a gallery of gilded balusters, above which was seen a choir of most beautiful Angels, dancing most gracefully in a ring and singing in sweetest harmony; while for greater grace, and to the end that there might be light everywhere beneath the arch, in place of a cupola there was left the free and open sky. And in the spaces or spandrels, whichever they may be called, of the four angles, which of necessity, narrow at their springing, opened out as they rose nearer to the cornice in accordance with the curve of the arch, were painted with no less grace in four rounds the four beasts mystically imagined by Ezekiel and by John the Divine for the four writers of the holy Evangel. But to return to the first of those four loggie or vestibules, as we have called them; the vaults there were seen distributed with very graceful and lovely divisions, and all adorned and painted with various little scenes and with the arms and devices of those religious Orders which were above or beside them, and in whose service, principally, they were there. Thus on the façade of that first one on the right hand, which was joined to the Duke's niche, there was seen painted in a spacious picture the same Duke giving the habit to his knights, with those observances and ceremonies that are customary with them; in the most distant part, which represented Pisa, could be perceived the noble building of their palace, church, and hospital, and on the base, in an inscription for the explanation of the scene, could be read these words: COSMUS MED. FLOR. ET SENAR. DUX II, EQUITIBUS SUIS DIVINO CONSILIO CREATIS MAGNIFICE PIEQUE INSIGNIA ET SEDEM PRÆBET LARGEQUE REBUS OMNIBUS INSTRUIT. Even as in the other on the opposite side, attached to the niche of S. Giovanni Gualberto, was seen how that same Saint founded his first and principal monastery in the midst of the wildest forests; with an inscription likewise on the base, which said: S. JO. GUALBERTUS IN VALLOMBROSIANO MONTE, AB INTERVENTORIBUS ET ILLECEBRIS OMNIBUS REMOTO LOCO, DOMICILIUM PONIT SACRIS SUIS SODALIBUS. Now, having despatched the front façade, and passing to that at the back, and describing it in the same manner, the less to hinder a clear understanding, we shall say, as has also been said before, that in height, in size, in the compartments, in the columns, and, finally, in every other ornament, it corresponded completely to that already described, save that whereas the first had on the highest summit in the centre the three great statues described above, Religion, Charity, and Hope, the other had in place of these only a most beautiful altar all composed and adorned after the ancient use, upon which, even as one reads of Vesta, was seen burning a very bright flame. On the right hand, towards S. Giovanni, there was seen standing a great statue in becoming vestments and gazing intently on Heaven, representing the Contemplative Life, which came exactly in a perpendicular line over the great niche between the two columns, as has been described in the other façade; and on the other side another great statue like it, but very active, with the arms bare and with the head crowned with flowers, representing the Active Life; in which statues were comprised very fittingly all the qualities that appertain to the Christian Religion. In the frieze between the one cornice and the other, which corresponded to that of the other part, and which was likewise divided into three compartments, there were seen in the largest, which was in the centre, three men in Roman dress presenting twelve little children to some old and venerable Tuscans, to the end that these, being instructed by them in their religion, might demonstrate in what repute the Tuscan religion was held in ancient times among the Romans and all other nations: with a motto to explain this, taken from that perfect law of Cicero, which said: ETRURIA PRINCIPES DISCIPLINAM DOCETO. Beneath which was the inscription, similar and corresponding to that already given from the other façade, which said: FRUGIBUS INVENTIS DOCTÆ CELEBRANTUR ATHENÆ, ROMA FEROX ARMIS IMPERIOQUE POTENS. AT NOSTRA HÆC MITIS PROVINCIA ETRURIA RITU DIVINO ET CULTU NOBILIORE DEI, UNAM QUAM PERHIBENT ARTES TENUISSE PIANDI NUMINIS, ET RITUS EDOCUISSE SACROS; NUNC EADEM SEDES VERÆ EST PIETATIS, ET ILLI HOS NUMQUAM TITULOS AUFERET ULLA DIES. In one of the two smaller pictures, that which came on the right hand, since it is thought that the ancient religion of the Gentiles (which not without reason was placed on the west) is divided into two parts, and consists, above all, of augury and sacrifice, there was seen painted according to that use an ancient priest who with marvellous solicitude was standing all intent on considering the entrails of the animals sacrificed, which were placed before him in a great basin by the ministers of the sacrifice; and in the other picture an augur like him with the crooked lituus in the hand, drawing in the sky the regions proper for taking auguries from certain birds that were shown flying above. Now, descending lower, and coming to the niches; in that, I say, which was on the right hand, was seen S. Romualdo, who in this our country, a land set apart, as it were, by Nature for religion and sanctity, founded on the wild Apennine mountains the holy Hermitage of Camaldoli, whence that Order had its origin and name; with the inscription over the niche, which said: ROMUALDUS IN HAC NOSTRA PLENA SANCTITATIS TERRA, CAMALDULENSIUM ORDINEM COLLOCAVIT ANNO MXII. And on the base the story of the sleeping hermit who saw in a dream the staircase similar to that of Jacob, which, passing beyond the clouds, ascended even to Heaven. On the façade which was joined to the niche, and which passed, as was said of the other, under the vestibule, was seen painted the building of the above-named hermitage in that wild place, carried out with marvellous care and magnificence; with the inscription, which in explanation said: SANCTUS ROMUALDUS IN CAMALDULENSI SYLVESTRI LOCO, DIVINITUS SIBI OSTENSO ET DIVINÆ CONTEMPLATIONI APTISSIMO, SUO GRAVISSIMO COLLEGIO SEDES QUIETISSIMAS EXTRUIT. In the niche on the left hand was seen the Blessed Filippo Benizi, one of our citizens, who was little less than the founder of the Servite Order, and without a doubt its first ordinator; and he, although he was accompanied by seven other noble Florentines, the one niche not being large enough to contain them all, was placed therein alone, as the most worthy; with the inscription above, which said: PHILIPPUS BENITIUS CIVIS NOSTER INSTITUIT ET REBUS OMNIBUS ORNAVIT SERVORUM FAMILIAM, ANNO MCCLXXXV. With the story of the Annunciation, likewise, on the base, wherein was the Virgin supported by many little Angels, with one among them who was shown scattering a beautiful vase of flowers over a vast multitude that stood there in supplication; representing the innumerable graces that are seen bestowed daily by her intercession on the faithful who with devout zeal commend themselves to her. In the other scene, in the great picture that came in the passage below, were the same S. Filippo and the seven above-mentioned noble citizens throwing off the civil habit of Florence and assuming that of the Servite Order, and shown all occupied with directing the building of their beautiful monastery, which is now to be seen in Florence, but was then without the city, and the venerable and most ornate Church of the Annunziata, so celebrated throughout the whole world for innumerable miracles, which has been ever since the head of that Order; with the inscription, which said: SEPTEM NOBILES CIVES NOSTRI IN SACELLO NOSTRÆ URBIS, TOTO NUNC ORBE RELIGIONIS ET SANCTITATIS FAMA CLARISSIMO, SE TOTOS RELIGIONI DEDUNT ET SEMINA JACIUNT ORDINIS SERVORUM D. MARIÆ VIRG. There remain the two façades which formed as it were arms, as has been told, to the straight limb of the cross. These were smaller than those already described, which was caused by the narrowness of the two streets that begin there; wherefore, since less space came to be left for the magnificence of the work, in order consequently not to depart from the due proportion of height in their much smaller size, with much judgment the arch which gave passage there had on either side not a niche but a single column; over which rose a frieze in due proportion, in the centre of which was a painted picture that crowned the ornamentation of that façade, but not without an infinity of such other embellishments, devices, and pictures as were thought to be proper in such a place. Now, that whole structure being dedicated to the glory and power of the true Religion and to the memory of her glorious victories, they chose the two most noble and most important victories, won over two most powerful and particular adversaries, human wisdom namely, under which are comprised philosophers and heretics, and worldly power: and on the part facing towards the Archbishop's Palace was seen depicted how S. Peter and S. Paul and the other Apostles, filled with the divine spirit, disputed with a great number of philosophers and many others full of human wisdom, some of whom, those most confused, were seen throwing away or tearing up the books that they held in their hands, and others, such as Dionysius the Areopagite, Justinus, Pantænus, and the like, were coming towards them, all humble and devout, in token of having recognized and accepted the Evangelic truth; with the motto in explanation of this, which said: NON EST SAPIENTIA, NON EST PRUDENTIA. In the other scene towards the Archbishop's Palace, on the other side from the first, were seen the same S. Peter and S. Paul and the others in the presence of Nero and many of his armed satellites, boldly and freely preaching the truth of the Evangel; with the motto--NON EST FORTITUDO, NON EST POTENTIA, referring to that which follows in Solomon, whence the motto is taken--CONTRA DOMINUM. Of the façades which came under the two vaults of those two arches, in one, on the side towards the Archbishop's Palace, was seen the Blessed Giovanni Colombini, an honoured citizen of Siena, making a beginning with the Company of the Ingesuati by throwing off the citizen's habit on the Campo di Siena and assuming that of a miserable beggar, and giving the same habit to many who with great zeal were demanding it from him; with the inscription, which said: ORIGO COLLEGII PAUPERUM, QUI AB JESU COGNOMEN ACCEPERUNT; CUJUS ORDINIS PRINCEPS FUIT JOANNES COLOMBINUS, DOMO SENENSIS, ANNO MCCCLI. And in the other, on the opposite side, were seen other gentlemen, likewise of Siena, before Guido Pietramalesco, Bishop of Arezzo, to whom a commission had been given by the Pope that he should inquire into their lives; and they were all intent on making manifest to him the wish and desire that they had to create the Order of Monte Oliveto, which was seen approved by that Bishop, exhorting them to put into execution the building of that vast and most holy monastery, which they erected afterwards at Monte Oliveto in the district of Siena, and of which they were shown to have brought thither a model; with the inscription, which said: INSTITUITUR SACER ORDO MONACORUM QUI AB OLIVETO MONTE NOMINATUR, AUCTORIBUS NOBILIBUS CIVIBUS SENENSIBUS, ANNO MCCCXIX. On the side towards S. Lorenzo was seen the building of the most famous Oratory of La Vernia, at the expense in great part of the devout Counts Guidi, at that time lords of that country, and by the agency of the glorious S. Francis, who, moved by the solitude of the place, made his way thither, and was visited there by Our Lord the Crucified Jesus Christ and marked with the Stigmata; with the inscription that explained all this, saying: ASPERRIMUM AGRI NOSTRI MONTEM DIVUS FRANCISCUS ELEGIT, IN QUO SUMMO ARDORE DOMINI NOSTRI SALUTAREM NECEM CONTEMPLARETUR, ISQUE NOTIS PLAGARUM IN CORPORE IPSIUS EXPRESSIS DIVINITUS CONSERVATUR. Even as on the opposite side was seen the Celebration held in Florence of the Council under Eugenius IV, when the Greek Church, so long at discord with the Latin, was reunited with her, and the true Faith, it may be said, was restored to her pristine clearness and purity; which was likewise made manifest by the inscription, saying: NUMINE DEI OPTIMI MAX. ET SINGULARI CIVIUM NOSTRORUM RELIGIONIS STUDIO, ELIGITUR URBS NOSTRA IN QUA GRÆCIA, AMPLISSIMUM MEMBRUM A CHRISTIANA PIETATE DISJUNCTUM, RELIQUO ECCLESIÆ CORPORI CONJUNGERETUR. OF S. MARIA DEL FIORE. As for the Cathedral Church, the central Duomo of the city, although it is in itself stupendous and most ornate, nevertheless, since the new Lady was to halt there, met by all the clergy, as she did, it was thought well to embellish it with all possible pomp and show of religion, and with lights, festoons, shields, and a vast and very well distributed quantity of banners. At the principal door, in particular, there was made in the Ionic Order of composition a marvellous and most graceful ornament, in which, in addition to the rest, which was in truth excellently well conceived, rich and rare beyond all else appeared ten little stories of the actions of the glorious Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, executed in low-relief, which, since they were judged by all who saw them to be of admirable artistry, it is hoped that some day they may be seen in bronze in competition with the marvellous and stupendous gates of the Temple of S. Giovanni, and even, as in a more favoured age, more pleasing and more beautiful; but at that time, although of clay, they were seen all overlaid with gold, and were let in a graceful pattern of compartments into the wooden door, which likewise had the appearance of gold. Above which, besides an immense escutcheon of the Medici with the Papal Keys and Crown, supported by Operation and Grace, were seen painted in a very beautiful canvas all the tutelary Saints of the city, who, turned towards a Madonna and the Child that she was holding in her arms, appeared to be praying to her for the welfare and felicity of Florence; even as over all, as the principal device, and with most lovely invention, was seen a little ship which, with the aid of a favourable wind, appeared to be speeding with full sail towards a most tranquil port, signifying that Christian actions are in need of the divine grace, but that it is also necessary on our part to add to them, as not being passive, good disposition and activity. Which was likewise made clearly manifest by the motto, which said, [Greek: Syn Theô]; and even more by the very short inscription that was seen beneath, saying: CONFIRMA HOC DEUS QUOD OPERATUS ES IN NOBIS. OF THE HORSE. On the Piazza di S. Pulinari, not in connection with the tribunal that was near there, but to the end that the great space between the Duomo and the next arch might not remain empty, although the street is very beautiful, there was made with marvellous artistry and subtle invention the figure of an immense, very excellent, very fiery and well-executed horse, more than nine braccia in height, which was rearing up on the hind-legs; and upon it was seen a young hero in full armour and in aspect all filled with valour, who had just wounded to death with his spear, the butt of which was seen at his feet, a vast monster that was stretched all limp beneath his horse, and already he had laid his hand on a glittering sword, as if about to smite him again, and seemed to marvel to what straits the monster had been reduced by the first blow. That hero represented the true Herculean Virtue, which, as Dante said so well, chased through every town and banished to Hell the dissipatrix of kingdoms and republics, the mother of discord, injury, rapine, and injustice, that evil power, finally, that is commonly called Vice or Fraud, hidden under the form of a woman young and fair, but with a great scorpion's tail; and, slaying her, he seemed to have restored the city to the tranquillity and peace in which she is seen at the present day, thanks to her excellent Lords, reposing and flourishing so happily. Which was demonstrated in a manner no less masterly by the device, placed fittingly on the great base, in which, in the centre of an open temple supported by many columns, upon a sacred altar, was seen the Egyptian Ibis, which was shown tearing with the beak and with the claws some serpents that were wound round its legs; with a motto that said aptly: PRÆMIA DIGNA. OF THE BORGO DE' GRECI. Even so, also, at the corner of the Borgo de' Greci, to the end that in the turn that was made in going towards the Dogana, the eyes might have something on which to feast with delight, it was thought well to form a little closed arch of Doric architecture, dedicating it to Public Merriment; which was demonstrated by the statue of a woman crowned with a garland and all joyous and smiling, which was in the principal place, with a motto in explanation, saying: HILARITAS P.P. FLORENT. Below her, in the midst of many grotesques and many graceful little stories of Bacchus, were seen two most charming little Satyrs, which with two skins that they held on their shoulders were pouring into a very beautiful fountain, as was done in the other, white and red wine; and as in the other the fish, so in this one two swans that were under the boys, played a trick on him who drank too much by means of jets of water that at times spurted with force from the vase; with a graceful motto that said: ABITE LYMPHÆ VINI PERNICIES. Above and around the large statue were seen many others, both Satyrs and Bacchanals, who, shown in a thousand pleasing ways drinking, dancing, singing, and playing all those pranks that the drunken are wont to play, seemed as if chanting the motto written above them: NUNC EST BIBENDUM, NUNC PEDE LIBERO PULSANDA TELLUS. OF THE ARCH OF THE DOGANA. It appeared, among the many prerogatives, excellences, and graces with which fair Florence adorned herself, distributing them over various places, as has been shown, to receive and accompany her illustrious Princess, it appeared, I say, that the sole sovereign and head of them all, Civil Virtue or Prudence, queen and mistress of the art of ruling and governing well peoples and states, had been passed over up to this point without receiving any attention; as to which Prudence, although to the great praise and glory of Florence it could be demonstrated amply in many of her children in past times, nevertheless, having at the present time in her most excellent Lords the most recent, the most true, and without a doubt the most splendid example that has ever been seen in her up to our own day, it was thought that their magnanimous actions were best fitted to express and demonstrate that virtue. And with what good reason, and how clearly without any taint of adulation, but only by the grateful minds of the best citizens, this honour was paid to them, anyone who is not possessed by blind envy (by whose venomous bite whoever has ruled at any time has always been molested), may judge with ease, looking not only at the pure and upright government of their happily adventuresome State and at its preservation among difficulties, but also at its memorable, ample, and glorious increase, brought about certainly not less by the infinite fortitude, constancy, patience, and vigilance of its most prudent Duke, than by the benign favour of prosperous Fortune. All which came to be expressed excellently well in the inscription set with most beautiful grace in a fitting place, embracing the whole conception of the whole ornament, and saying: REBUS URBANIS CONSTITUTIS, FINIB. IMPERII PROPAGATIS, RE MILITARI ORNATA, PACE UBIQUE PARTA, CIVITATIS IMPERIIQUE DIGNITATE AUCTA, MEMOR TANTORUM BENEFICIORUM PATRIA PRUDENTIÆ DUCIS OPT. DEDICAVIT. At the entrance of the public and ducal Piazza, then, and attached on one side to the public and ducal Palace, and on the other to those buildings in which salt is distributed to the people, there was dedicated well and fittingly to that same Civil Virtue or Prudence an arch marvellous and grand beyond all the others, similar and conforming in every part, although more lofty and more magnificent, to that of Religion already described, which was placed on the Canto alla Paglia. In that arch, above four vast Corinthian columns, in the midst of which space was left for the procession to pass, and above the usual architrave, cornice, and frieze of projections--as was said of the other--divided into three compartments, and upon a second great cornice that crowned the whole work, there was seen in grave and heroic majesty, seated in the semblance of a Queen with a sceptre in the right hand and resting the left on a great globe, an immense woman adorned with a royal crown, who could be recognized with ease as being that Civil Virtue. There remained below, between one column and another, as much space as accommodated without difficulty a deep and spacious niche, in each of which was demonstrated very aptly of what other virtues that Civil Virtue is composed; and, rightly giving the first place to the military virtues, there was seen in the niche on the right hand, with heroic and most beautiful composition, the statue of Fortitude, the first principle of all magnanimous and generous actions, even as on the left hand in like manner was seen placed that of Constancy, who best guides and executes them. And since between the frontispieces of the two niches and the cornice that went right round there was left some space, to the end that the whole might be adorned, there were counterfeited there two rounds in the colour of bronze, in one of which was depicted with a fine fleet of galleys and other ships the diligence and solicitude of our most shrewd Duke in maritime affairs, and in the other, as is often found in ancient medals, was seen the same Duke going around on horseback to visit his fortunate States and to provide for their wants. Next, over the crowning cornice, where, as has been told, the masterly statue of Civil Prudence was seated, continuing to show of what parts she is composed, and exactly in a line with the Fortitude already described, and separated from her by some magnificent vases, was seen Vigilance, so necessary in every human action; even as above Constancy was seen in like manner Patience, and I do not speak of that patience to which meek minds, tolerating injuries, have given the name of virtue, but of that which won so much honour for the ancient Fabius Maximus, and which, awaiting opportune moments with prudence and mature reflection, and void of all rash vehemence, executes every action with reason and advantage. In the three pictures, then, into which, as was said, the frieze was divided, and which were separated by medallions and pilasters that sprang in a line with the columns and extended with supreme beauty as far as the great cornice; in that in the centre, which came above the portal of the arch and beneath the Sovereign Prudence, was seen painted the generous Duke with prudent and loving counsel handing over to the worthy Prince the whole government of his spacious States, which was expressed by a sceptre upon a stork, which he was shown offering to his son, and it was being accepted with great reverence by the obedient Prince; with a motto that said: REGET PATRIIS VIRTUTIBUS. Even as in that on the right hand was seen the same most valiant Duke with courageous resolution sending forth his people, and the first fort of Siena occupied by them--no slight cause, probably, of their victory in that war. And in that on the left hand, in like manner, was painted his joyful entry into that most noble city after the winning of the victory. But behind the great statue of Sovereign Prudence--and in this alone was that front part dissimilar to the Arch of Religion--was seen raised on high a base beautifully twined with cartouches and square, although at the foot, not without infinite grace, it was something wider than at the top; upon which, reviving the ancient use, was seen a most beautiful triumphal chariot drawn by four marvellous coursers, not inferior, perchance, to any of the ancient in beauty and grandeur. In that chariot was seen held suspended in the air by two lovely little Angels the principal crown of the arch, composed of civic oak, and, in the likeness of that of the first Augustus, attached to two tails of Capricorns; with the same motto that was once used with it by him, saying: OB CIVES SERVATOS. And in the spaces that remained between the pictures, statues, columns, and niches, all was filled up with richness and grace by an infinite wealth of Victories, Anchors, Tortoises with the Sail, Diamonds, Capricorns, and other suchlike devices of those magnanimous Lords. Now, passing to the part at the back, facing towards the Piazza, which we must describe as being in every way similar to the front, excepting that in place of the statue of Sovereign Prudence, there was seen in a large oval corresponding to the great pedestal that supported the great chariot described above, which, with ingenious artifice, after the passing of the procession, was turned in a moment towards the Piazza; there was seen, I say, as the principal device of the arch, a celestial Capricorn with its stars, which was shown holding with the paws a royal sceptre with an eye at the top, such as it is said that the ancient and most just Osiris used once to carry, with the ancient motto about it, saying: NULLUM NUMEN ABEST; as if adding, as the first author said: SI SIT PRUDENTIA. In the lower part, we have to relate as a beginning--because that façade was made to represent the actions of peace, which are perhaps no less necessary to the human race--that in the niche on the right hand, as with those of the other façade already described, there was seen placed a statue of a woman, representing Reward or Remuneration, and called Grace, such as wise Princes are wont to confer for meritorious works upon men of excellence and worth, even as on the left hand, in a threatening aspect, with a sword in the hand, in the figure of Nemesis, was seen Punishment, for the vicious and criminal; with which figures were comprised the two principal pillars of Justice, without both which no State ever had stability or firmness, or was anything but imperfect and maimed. In the two ovals, then, always corresponding to those of the other façade, and like them also counterfeited in bronze, in one were seen the fortifications executed with much forethought in many places by the prudent Duke, and in the other his marvellous care and diligence in achieving the common peace of Italy, as has been seen in many of his actions, but particularly at that moment when by his agency was extinguished the terrible and so dangerous conflagration fanned with little prudence by one who should rather have assured the public welfare of the Christian people; which was represented by various Fetiales, altars, and other suchlike instruments of peace, and by the words customary in medals placed over them, saying: PAX AUGUSTA. Over these, and over the two above-described statues of the niches, similar to those of the other side, were seen on the right hand Facility and on the left Temperance or Goodness, as we would rather call her; signifying by the first an external courtesy and affability in deigning to listen and hearken and answer graciously to everyone, which keeps the people marvellously well contented, and by the other that temperate and benign nature which renders the Prince amiable and loving with his confidants and intimates, and with his subjects easy and gracious. In the frieze, corresponding to that of the front part, and like it divided into three pictures, was likewise seen in that of the centre, as the thing of most importance, the conclusion of the happy marriage contracted between the most illustrious Prince and the most serene Queen Joanna of Austria, with so much satisfaction and benefit to his fortunate people, and bringing peace and repose to everyone; with a motto saying: FAUSTO CUM SIDERE. Even as in another, on the right hand, was seen the loving Duke holding by the hand the excellent Duchess Leonora, his consort, a woman of virile and admirable worth and wisdom, with whom while she was alive he was joined by such a love, that they could well be called the bright mirror of conjugal fidelity. On the left hand was seen the same gracious Duke listening with marvellous courtesy, as he has been wont always to do, to many who were shown seeking to speak with him. And such was all that part which faced towards the Piazza. Beneath the spacious arch and within the wide passage through which the procession passed, on one of the walls that supported the vaulting, was seen painted the glorious Duke in the midst of many venerable old men, with whom he was taking counsel, and he appeared to be giving to many various laws and statutes written on divers sheets, signifying the innumerable laws so wisely amended or newly decreed by him; with the motto: LEGIBUS EMENDES. Even as in the other, demonstrating his most useful resolve to set in order and increase his valorous militia, was seen the same valiant Duke standing upon a military tribune and engaged in addressing a great multitude of soldiers who stood around him, as we see in many ancient medals; with a motto above him that said: ARMIS TUTERIS. And so on the great vault, which was divided into six compartments, there was seen in each of these, in place of the rosettes that are generally put there, a device, or, to speak more correctly, the reverse of a medal in keeping with the two above-described scenes of the walls. In one of these were painted various curule chairs with various consular fasces, and in another a woman with the balance, representing Equity; these two being intended to signify that just laws must always unite with the severity of the supreme power the equity of the discerning judge. The next two were concerned with military life, demonstrating the virtues of soldiers and the fidelity incumbent on them; for the first of these things there was seen painted a woman armed in the ancient fashion, and for the other many soldiers who, laying one hand upon an altar, were shown presenting the other to their captain. In the two that remained, representing the just and desired fruits of all these fatigues, namely, Victory, the whole was seen fully expressed, as is customary, by the figures of two women, one standing in one of the pictures upon a great chariot, and the other in the other picture upon a great ship's beak; and both were seen holding in one of the hands a branch of glorious palm, and in the other a verdant crown of triumphal laurel. And in the encircling frieze that ran right round the vaulting, the front and the back, there followed the third part of the motto already begun, saying: MORIBUS ORNES. OF THE PIAZZA, AND OF THE NEPTUNE. Next, all the most noble magistrates of the city, distributing themselves one by one over the whole circuit of the great Piazza, each with his customary devices and with very rich tapestries divided evenly by most graceful pilasters, had rendered it all magnificently imposing and ornate; and there in those days great care and diligence were devoted to hastening the erecting in its place, at the beginning of the Ringhiera, of that Giant in the finest white marble, so marvellous and so stupendous in grandeur, in beauty, and in every part, which is still to be seen there at the present day; although it had been ordained as a permanent and enduring ornament. That Giant is known by the trident that he has in the hand, by the crown of pine, and by the Tritons that are at his feet, sounding their trumpets, to be Neptune, God of the sea; and, riding in a graceful car adorned with various products of the sea and two ascendant Signs, Capricorn for the Duke and Aries for the Prince, and drawn by four Sea-horses, he appears in the guise of a benign protector to be promising tranquillity, felicity, and victory in the affairs of the sea. At the foot of this, in order to establish it more securely and more richly, there was made at that time in a no less beautiful manner an immense and most lovely octagonal fountain, gracefully supported by some Satyrs, who, holding in their hands little baskets of various wild fruits and prickly shells of chestnuts, and divided by some little scenes in low-relief and by some festoons in which were interspersed sea-shells, crabs, and other suchlike things, seemed as they danced to be expressing great joy in their new Lady; even as with no less joy and no less grace there were seen lying on the sides of the four principal faces of the fountain, likewise with certain great shells in their hands and with some children in their arms, two nude women and two most beautiful youths, who in a certain gracious attitude, as if they were on the sea-shore, appeared to be playing and sporting gracefully with some dolphins that were there, likewise in low-relief. OF THE DOOR OF THE PALACE. Now, having caused the serene Princess to be received, as has been told in the beginning of this description, by Florence, accompanied by the followers of Mars, of the Muses, of Ceres, of Industry, and of Tuscan Poetry and Design, and then triumphant Austria by Tuscany, and the Drava by Arno, and Ocean by the Tyrrhenian Sea, with Hymen promising her happy and prosperous nuptials, and the parental meeting of her august and glorious Emperors with the illustrious Medici, and then all passing through the Arch of Sacrosanct Religion and fulfilling and accomplishing their vows at the Cathedral Church, and having seen Heroic Virtue in triumph over Vice, and with what public rejoicing her entry was celebrated by Civil Virtue, and how, finally, she was welcomed by the magistrates of the city, with Neptune promising her a tranquil sea, it was determined judiciously to bring her at the last into the port of peaceful Security, who was seen figured over the door of the Ducal Palace, in a place marvellously appropriate, in the form of a very tall, most beautiful, and most joyous woman crowned with laurel and olive, who was shown seated in an easy attitude upon a stable pedestal and leaning against a great column; demonstrating by means of her the desired end of all human affairs, deservedly acquired for Florence, and in consequence for the happy bride, by the sciences, arts, and virtues of which we have spoken above, but particularly by her most prudent and most fortunate Lords, who had prepared to receive and accommodate her there as in a place secure beyond all others, wherein she might enjoy unceasingly in glory and splendour the benefits human and divine displayed before her in the ornaments that she had passed; which was explained very aptly both by the inscription that came with most beautiful grace over the door, saying: INGREDERE OPTIMIS AUSPICIIS FORTUNATAS ÆDES TUAS AUGUSTA VIRGO, ET PRÆSTANTISSIMI SPONSI AMORE, CLARISS. DUCIS SAPIENTIA, CUM BONIS OMNIBUS DELICIISQUE SUMMA ANIMI SECURITATE DIU FELIX ET LÆTA PERFRUERE, ET DIVINÆ TUÆ VIRTUTIS, SUAVITATIS, FECUNDITATIS FRUCTIBUS PUBLICAM HILARITATEM CONFIRMA. And also by the principal device, which was seen painted in a great oval in the highest part, over the statue of Security already described; and this was the military Eagle of the Roman Legions upon a laureate staff, which was shown to have been planted firmly in the earth by the hand of the standard-bearer; with the motto of such happy augury from Livy, from whom the whole device is taken, saying: HIC MANEBIMUS OPTUME. The ornament of the door, which was attached to the wall, was contrived in such a manner, and conceived so well, that it would serve excellently well if at any time, in order to adorn the simple but magnificent roughness of past ages, it were determined to build it in marble or some other finer stone as more stable and enduring, and more in keeping with our more cultured age. Beginning with the lowest part, I say, upon two great pedestals that rested on the level of the ground and stood one on either side of the true door of the Palace, were seen two immense captives, one male, representing Fury, and one female, with vipers and horned snakes for hair, representing Discord, his companion; which, as it were vanquished, subjugated, and bound with chains, and held down by the Ionic capital and by the architrave, frieze, and cornice that pressed upon them from above, seemed in a certain sort to be unable to breathe by reason of the great weight, revealing only too well in their faces, which were most beautiful in their ugliness, Anger, Rage, Venom, Violence, and Fraud, their peculiar and natural passions. Above that cornice was seen formed a frontispiece, in which was placed a very rich and very large escutcheon of the Duke, bordered by the usual Fleece, with the Ducal Mazzocchio supported by two very beautiful boys. And lest this single ornament, which exactly covered the jambs of the true door, might have a poor effect in so great a palace, it was thought right to place on either side of it four half-columns set two on one side and two on the other, which, coming to the same height, and furnished with the same cornice and architrave, should form a quarter-round which the other frontispiece, pointed but rectilinear, might embrace, with its projections and with all its appurtenances set in the proper places. And above this was formed a very beautiful base, where there was seen the above-described statue of Security, set in position, as has been told, with most beautiful grace. But to return to the four half-columns below; for the sake of greater magnificence, beauty, and proportion, I say, there had been left so much space at either side, between column and column, that there was ample room for a large and beautiful picture painted there in place of a niche. In one of these, that which was placed nearest to the divine statue of the gentle David, were seen in the forms of three women, who were shown full of joy advancing to meet their desired Lady, Nature, with her towers on her head, as is customary, and with her many breasts, signifying the happy multitude of her inhabitants, and Concord with the Caduceus in her hand, even as in the third was seen figured Minerva, the inventress and mistress of the liberal arts and of civil and refined customs. In the other, which faced towards the proud statue of Hercules, was seen Amaltheia, with the usual horn of plenty, overflowing with fruits and flowers, in her arms, and at her feet the corn-measure brimming and adorned with ears of corn, signifying the abundance and fertility of the earth; there, also, was Peace crowned with flowered and fruitful olive, with a branch of the same in the hand, and finally there was seen, with an aspect grave and venerable, Majesty or Reputation; demonstrating ingeniously with all these things how in well-ordered cities, abundant in men, copious in riches, adorned by arts, filled with sciences, and illustrious in majesty and reputation, one lives happily and in peace, quietness, and contentment. Then in line with the four half-columns already described, above the cornice and frieze of each, was seen fixed in a manner no less beautiful a socle with a pedestal in proportion, upon which rested some statues; and since the two in the centre embraced also the width of the two terminals described, upon each of these were placed two statues embracing one another--Virtue, namely, who was shown holding Fortune in a strait and loving embrace, with a motto on the base saying, VIRTUTEM FORTUNA SEQUETUR; as if to demonstrate that, whatever many may say, where virtue is fortune is never wanting; and upon the other Fatigue or Diligence, who in like manner was shown in the act of embracing Victory, with a motto at her feet saying: AMAT VICTORIA CURAM. And above the half-columns that were at the extremities, and upon which the pedestals were narrower, adorning each of them with a single statue, on one there was seen Eternity as she is figured by the ancients, with the heads of Janus in her hands, and with the motto, NEC FINES NEC TEMPORA; and on the other Fame figured in the usual manner, likewise with a motto saying: TERMINAT ASTRIS. Between one and the other of these, there was placed with ornate and beautiful composition, so as to have the above-named escutcheon of the Duke exactly in the middle, on the right hand that of the most excellent Prince and Princess, and on the other that which the city has been accustomed to use from ancient times. OF THE COURT OF THE PALACE. I thought, when I first resolved to write, that it would take much less work to bring me to the end of the description given above, but the abundance of the inventions, the magnificence of the things done, and the desire to satisfy the curiosity of craftsmen, for whose particular benefit, as has been told, this description is written, have in some way, I know not how, carried me to a length which might perchance appear to some to be excessive, but which is nevertheless necessary for one who proposes to render everything distinct and clear. But now that I find myself past the first part of my labours, although I hope to treat with more brevity, and with perhaps no less pleasure for my readers, the remainder of the description of the spectacles that were held, in which, no less than the liberality of our magnanimous Lords, and no less than the lively dexterity of the ingenious inventors, there appeared rare and excellent the industry and art of the same craftsmen, yet it should not be thought a thing beside the mark or altogether unworthy of consideration, if, before going any further, we say something of the aspect of the city while the festivities for the nuptials were being prepared and after they were finished, for the reason that in the city, to the infinite entertainment of all beholders, were seen many streets redecorated both within and without, the Ducal Palace (as will be described) embellished with extraordinary rapidity, the fabric of the long corridor (which leads from that Palace to that of the Pitti) flying, as it were, with wings, the column, the fountain, and all the arches described above springing in a certain sense out of the ground, and all the other festive preparations in progress, but in particular the comedy, which was to appear first, and the two grand masquerades, which had need of most labour, and, finally, all the other things being prepared according to the time at which they were to be represented, some quickly and others more slowly; the two Lords, Duke and Prince, after the manner of the ancient Ædiles, having distributed them between themselves, and having undertaken to execute each his part in generous emulation. Nor was less solicitude or less rivalry seen among the gentlemen and ladies of the city, and among the strangers, of whom a vast number had flocked thither from all Italy, vying one with another in the pomp of vestments, and not less in their own than in the liveries of their attendants, male and female, in festivals private and public, and in the sumptuous banquets that were given in constant succession, now in one place and now in another; so that there could be seen at one and the same moment leisure, festivity, delight, spending, and pomp, and also commerce, industry, patience, labour, and grateful gain, with which all the craftsmen named above were filled, all working their effect in liberal measure. Now, to come to the court of the Ducal Palace, into which one entered by the door already described; in order not to pass it by without saying anything about it, we must relate that, although it seemed dark and inconvenient, and almost incapable of receiving any kind of ornamentation, nevertheless with marvellous novelty and with incredible rapidity it was carried to that perfection of beauty and loveliness in which it may be seen by everyone at the present day. In addition to the graceful fountain of hardest porphyry that is placed in the centre, and the lovely boy that pours water into it from the dolphin held in his arms, in an instant the nine columns were fluted and shaped in a most beautiful manner in the Corinthian Order, which surround the square court named above, and which support on one side the encircling loggie constructed very roughly of hard-stone, according to the custom of those times; overlaying the ground of those columns almost entirely with gold, and filling them with most graceful foliage over the flutings, and shaping their bases and capitals together according to the good ancient custom. Within the loggie, the vaults of which were all filled and adorned with most bizarre and extravagant grotesques, there were seen represented, as in many medallions made for the same purpose, some of the glorious deeds of the magnanimous Duke, which--if smaller things may be compared with greater--I have considered often in my own mind to be so similar to those of the first Octavianus Augustus, that it would be difficult to find any greater resemblance; for the reason that--not to mention that both the one and the other were born under one and the same ascendant of Capricorn, and not to mention that both were raised almost unexpectedly to the sovereignty at the same immature age, and not to speak of the most important victories gained both by the one and by the other in the first days of August, and of their having similar constitutions and natures in their private and intimate lives, and of their singular affection for their wives, save that in his children, in the election to the principality, and perhaps in many other things, I believe that our fortunate Duke might be esteemed more blessed than Augustus--is there not seen both in the one and in the other a most ardent and most extraordinary desire to build and embellish, and to contrive that others should build and embellish? Insomuch that, if the first said that he found Rome built of bricks and left her built of solid stone, the second will be able to say not less truthfully that he received Florence already of stone, indeed, ornate and beautiful, but leaves her to his successors by a great measure more ornate and more beautiful, increased and magnified by every kind of convenient, lovely, and magnificent adornment. To represent these matters, in each lunette of the above-named loggie there was seen an oval accommodated with suitable ornaments, and with singular grace; in one of which there could be seen the fortification of Porto Ferrajo in Elba, a work of such importance, with many ships and galleys that were shown lying there in safety, and the glorious building of the city in the same place, called after its founder Cosmopolis; with a motto within the oval, saying: ILVA RENASCENS; and another in the encircling scroll, which said: TUSCORUM ET LIGURUM SECURITATI. Even as in the second was seen that most useful and handsome building wherein the greater part of the most noble magistrates are to be accommodated, which is being erected by his command opposite to the Mint, and which may be seen already carried near completion; and over it stretches that long and convenient corridor of which mention has been made above, built with extraordinary rapidity in these days by order of the same Duke; likewise with a motto that said: PUBLICÆ COMMODITATI. And so, also, in the third was seen Concord, with the usual horn of plenty in the left hand, and with an ancient military ensign in the right, at whose feet a Lion and a She-Wolf, the well-known emblems of Florence and Siena, were shown lying in peaceful tranquillity; with a motto suited to the matter, and saying: ETRURIA PACATA. In the fourth was seen depicted the above-described oriental column of granite, with Justice on the summit, which under his happy sceptre may well be said to be preserved inviolate and impartial; with a motto saying: JUSTITIA VICTRIX. Even as in the fifth was seen a ferocious bull with both the horns broken, intended to signify, as has been told already of the Achelous, the straightening of the River Arno in many places, carried out with such advantage by the Duke; with the motto: IMMINUTUS CREVIT. In the sixth, then, was seen that most superb palace which was begun formerly by M. Luca Pitti with a magnificence so marvellous in a private citizen, and with truly regal spirit and grandeur, and which at the present day our most magnanimous Duke is causing with incomparable artistry and care to be not only carried to completion, but also to be increased and beautified in a glorious and marvellous manner, with architecture heroic and stupendous, and also with very large and very choice gardens full of most abundant fountains, and with a vast quantity of most noble statues, ancient and modern, which he has caused to be collected from all over the world; which was explained by the motto, saying: PULCHRIORA LATENT. In the seventh, within a great door, were seen many books arranged in various manners, with a motto in the scroll, saying, PUBLICÆ UTILITATI; intended to signify the glorious solicitude shown by many of the Medici family, and particularly by our most liberal Duke, in collecting and preserving with such diligence a marvellous quantity of the rarest books in every tongue, recently placed in the beautiful Library of S. Lorenzo, which was begun by Clement VII and finished by his Excellency. Even as in the eighth, under the figure of two hands that appeared to become more firmly bound together the more they strove to undo a certain knot, there was denoted the abdication lovingly performed by him in favour of the most amiable Prince, and how difficult, or, we should rather say, how impossible it is for one who has once set himself to the government of a State, to disengage himself; which was explained by the motto, saying: EXPLICANDO IMPLICATUR. In the ninth was seen the above-described Fountain of the Piazza, with that rare statue of Neptune, and with the motto, OPTABILIOR QUO MELIOR; signifying not only the adornment of the immense statue and fountain named above, but also the profit and advantage that will accrue in a short time to the city from the waters that the Duke is constantly engaged in bringing to her. In the tenth, then, was seen the magnanimous creation of the new Order of S. Stephen, represented by the figure of the same Duke in armour, who was shown offering a sword with one hand over an altar to an armed knight, and with the other one of their crosses; with a motto saying: VICTOR VINCITUR. And in the eleventh, likewise under the figure of the same Duke, who was addressing many soldiers according to the ancient custom, there was represented the militia so well ordained and preserved by him in his valorous companies; with a motto that explained it, saying: RES MILITARIS CONSTITUTA. In the twelfth, with the sole words, MUNITA TUSCIA, and without any further representation, were demonstrated the many fortifications made by our most prudent Duke in the most important places in the State; adding in the scroll, with fine morality: SINE JUSTITIA IMMUNITA. Even as in the thirteenth, in like manner without any other representation, there could be read, SICCATIS MARITIMIS PALUDIBUS; as may be seen to his infinite glory in many places, but above all in the fertile country of Pisa. And in order not to pass over completely in silence the praise due to him for having brought back and restored so gloriously to his native Florence the artillery and the ensigns lost at other times, in the fourteenth and last were seen some soldiers returning to him laden with these, all dancing and joyful; with a motto in explanation, which said: SIGNIS RECEPTIS. And then, for the satisfaction of the strangers, and particularly the many German lords who had come thither in vast numbers in honour of her Highness, with the most excellent Duke of Bavaria, the younger, her kinsman, there were seen under the above-described lunettes, beautifully distributed in compartments and depicted with all the appearance of reality, many of the principal cities of Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, the Tyrol, and the other States subject to her august brother. OF THE HALL, AND OF THE COMEDY. Now, ascending by the most commodious staircase to the Great Hall, where the principal and most important festivities and the principal banquet of the nuptials were celebrated (forbearing to speak of the magnificent and stupendous ceiling, marvellous in the variety and multitude of the rare historical paintings, and marvellous also in the ingenuity of the inventions, in the richness of the partitions, and in the infinite quantity of gold with which the whole is seen to shine, but most marvellous in that it has been executed in an incredibly short time by the industry of a single painter; and treating of the other things pertaining only to this place), I must say that truly I do not believe that in these our parts we have any information of any other hall that is larger or more lofty; but to find one more beautiful, more rich, more ornate, or arranged with more convenience than that hall as it was seen on the day when the comedy was performed, that I believe would be absolutely impossible. For, in addition to the immense walls, on which with graceful partitions, and not without poetical invention, were seen portrayed from the reality the principal squares of the most noble cities of Tuscany, and in addition to the vast and most lovely canvas painted with various animals hunted and taken in various ways, which, upheld by a great cornice, and concealing the prospect-scene, served so well as one of the end-walls, that the Great Hall appeared to have its due proportions, such, in addition, and so well arranged, were the tiers of seats that ran right round, and so lovely on that day the sight of the handsome ladies who had been invited there in great numbers from among the most beautiful, the most noble, and the richest, and of the many lords, chevaliers, and other gentlemen who had been accommodated above them and throughout the rest of the room, that without a doubt, when the fantastic lights were lit, at the fall of the canvas described above, the luminous prospect-scene being revealed, it appeared in truth as if Paradise with all the Choirs of the Angels had been thrown open at that instant; which illusion was increased marvellously by a very soft, full, and masterly concert of instruments and voices, which very soon afterwards was heard to come forth from that direction. In that prospect-scene the most distant part was made to recede most ingeniously along the line of the bridge, terminating in the end of the street that is called the Via Maggio, and in the nearest part was represented the beautiful street of S. Trinita; and when the eyes of the spectators had been allowed to sate themselves for some time with that and the many other marvellous things, the desired and welcome beginning was made with the first interlude of the comedy, which was taken, like all the others, from that touching story of Psyche and Cupid so delicately narrated by Apuleius in his Golden Ass. From it were taken the parts that appeared the most important, and these were accommodated with the greatest possible dexterity to the comedy, so that, having made, as it were, an ingenious composition from the one fable and the other, it might appear that what the Gods did in the fable of the interludes was done also by mankind in the fable of the comedy, as if constrained by a superior power. In the hollow sky of the above-named prospect-scene, which opened out all of a sudden, there was seen to appear another sky contrived with great artifice, from which was seen issuing little by little a white and very naturally counterfeited cloud, upon which, with an effect of singular beauty, a gilded and jewelled car appeared to be resting, recognized as that of Venus, because it was drawn by two snow-white swans, and in it, as its mistress and guide, could be perceived likewise that most beautiful Goddess, wholly nude and crowned with roses and myrtle, seated with great majesty and holding the reins. She had in her company the three Graces, likewise recognized by their being shown wholly nude, by their blonde tresses, which fell all loose over their shoulders, and even more by the manner in which they were standing linked hand to hand; and also the four Hours, who had the wings all painted after the likeness of butterflies, and, not without reason, were distinguished in certain particulars according to the four seasons of the year. Thus one of them, who had the head and the buskins all adorned with various little flowers, and the dress of changing colours, was intended to represent the varied and flowering Spring; even as the second, with the garland and the buskins woven of pale ears of corn, and the yellow draperies wherewith she was adorned, was intended to signify the heat of Summer, and the third, representing Autumn, and all clothed in red draperies, signifying the maturity of fruits, was seen likewise all covered and adorned with those same fruits, vine-leaves, and grapes; and the fourth and last, who represented the white and snowy Winter, besides her dress of turquoise-blue all sprinkled with flakes of snow, had the hair and the buskins likewise covered with similar snow, hoar-frost, and ice. And all, as followers and handmaidens of Venus, being grouped around the car on the same cloud with singular artistry and most beautiful composition, were seen--leaving behind them Jove, Juno, Saturn, Mars, Mercury, and the other Gods, from whom appeared to be issuing the soft harmony described above--to sink gradually with most beautiful grace towards the earth, and by their coming to fill the scene and the whole hall with a thousand sweet and precious odours; while from another part, with an aspect no less gracious, but appearing to walk on earth, was seen to come the nude and winged Cupid, likewise accompanied by those four Passions that seem so often to be wont to disturb his unrestful kingdom; Hope, namely, all clothed in green, with a little flowering branch on the head; Fear, recognized, in addition to his pale garment, by the rabbits that he had on his hair and his buskins; Joy, likewise clothed in white and orange and a thousand glad colours, and with a plant of flowering borage on the hair, and Sorrow, all in black and in aspect all weeping and sad; of whom, as his ministers, one carried the bow, another the quiver and the arrows, another the nets, and yet another the lighted torch. And while the above-described Hours and Graces, having descended from the cloud, went slowly towards their mother's car, now arrived on earth, and, having grouped themselves reverently in a most graceful choir around the lovely Venus, seemed all intent on singing in harmony with her, she, turning towards her son with rare and infinite grace, and making manifest to him the cause of her displeasure, when those in Heaven were silent, sang the two following stanzas, the first of the ballad, saying: A me, che fatta son negletta e sola, Non più gli altar nè i voti, Ma di Psiche devoti A lei sola si danno, ella gl' invola; Dunque, se mai di me ti calse o cale, Figlio, l' armi tue prendi, E questa folle accendi Di vilissimo amor d' uomo mortale. Which being finished, and each of her handmaidens having returned to her own place, while they kept continually throwing down various delicate and lovely garlands of flowers upon the assembled spectators, the cloud and the car, as if the beautiful guide had satisfied her desire, were seen to move slowly and to go back towards the heaven; and when they had arrived there, and the heaven was closed again in an instant, without a single sign remaining from which one might have guessed by which part the cloud and so many other things had come forth and returned, everyone, it appeared, was left all amazed with a sort of novel and pleasing marvel. But the obedient Cupid, while that was being done, making a sign, as it were, to his mother that her command would be fulfilled, and crossing the stage, continued--with his companions, who were presenting him his arms, and who, likewise singing, kept in harmony with him--the following stanza, the last, saying: Ecco madre, andiam noi; chi l' arco dammi? Chi le saette? ond' io Con l' alto valor mio Tutti i cor vinca, leghi, apra, ed infiammi. And he, also, as he sang this, kept shooting arrows, many and various, at those listening to him, whereby he gave reason to believe that the lovers who were about to perform their parts, stung, as it were, by them, were giving birth to the comedy about to follow. SECOND INTERLUDE. The first act being finished, and Cupid having been taken in his own snare--at the moment when he thought to take the lovely Psyche--by reason of her infinite beauty, it became necessary to represent those mysterious voices which, as may be read in the fable, had been intended by him to serve her; and so there was seen to issue by one of the four passages that had been left on the stage for the use of the performers, first a little Cupid who was carrying in his arms what seemed to be a graceful swan, with which, since it concealed an excellent bass-viol, while he appeared to be diverting himself with a wand of marsh-grass that served him as a bow, he proceeded to play most sweet airs. After him, four others were seen to come at one and the same moment by the four passages of the stage already described; by one the amorous Zephyr, all merry and smiling, who had wings, garments, and buskins woven of various flowers; by another Music, known by the tuning instrument that she had on the head, by her rich dress covered with her various instruments and with various scrolls wherein were marked all her notes and all her times, and even more because she likewise was seen playing with most sweet harmony upon a great and beautiful lyra-viol; and by the other two, also, Play and Laughter were seen to appear in the form of two little Cupids, playing and laughing. After these, while they were going on their way to their destined places, four other Cupids were seen to issue by the same passages, in the same guise, and at the same time, and to proceed likewise to play most graciously on four most ornate lutes; and after them four other similar little Cupids, two of whom, with fruits in their hands, were seen playing together, and two seemed to be seeking to shoot one another in the breast with their bows and arrows, in a quaint and playful fashion. All these gathered in a graceful circle, and, singing in most harmonious concert the following madrigal, with the lutes and with many other instruments concealed within the scenery accompanying the voices, they appeared to make this whole conception manifest enough, saying: O altero miracolo novello! Visto l' abbiam! ma chi sia che cel creda? Ch' amor, d' amor ribello, Di se stesso e di Psiche oggi sia preda? Dunque a Psiche conceda Di beltà pur la palma e di valore Ogn' altra bella, ancor che pel timore Ch' ha del suo prigionier dogliosa stia; Ma seguiam noi l' incominciata via, Andiam Gioco, andiam Riso, Andiam dolce armonia di Paradiso, E facciam che i tormenti Suoi dolci sien co' tuoi dolci concenti. THIRD INTERLUDE. Not less festive was the third Interlude, because, as is narrated in the fable, Cupid being occupied with the love of his beautiful Psyche, and not caring any more to kindle the customary flames in the hearts of mortals, and using with others, as others with him, fraud and deceit, it was inevitable that among those same mortals, who were living without love, there should arise at the same time a thousand frauds and a thousand deceits. And therefore it was made to appear that the floor of the stage swelled up, and finally that it was changed into seven little mounds from which there were seen to issue, as things evil and hurtful, first seven Deceits, and then seven others, which could be recognized as such with ease, for the reason that not only the bust of each was all spotted, after the likeness of a leopard, and the thighs and legs like serpents, but their locks were seen all composed of malicious foxes in most fantastic forms and very beautiful attitudes; and in their hands, not without laughter from the bystanders, some were holding traps, some hooks, and others guileful crooks and grapnels, under which had been concealed with singular dexterity some musical serpents, for the sake of the music that they had to make. These, expressing thus the conception described above, after they had first most sweetly sung, and then sung and played, the following madrigal, went with very beautiful order (providing material for the deceptions of the comedy) their several ways along the four above-mentioned passages of the stage: S' amor vinto e prigion, posto in oblio L' arco e l' ardente face, Della madre ingannar nuovo desio Lo punge, e s' a lui Psiche inganno face, E se l' empia e fallace Coppia d' invide suore inganno e froda Sol pensa, or chi nel mondo oggi più sia Che 'l regno a noi non dia? D' inganni dunque goda Ogni saggio, e se speme altra l' invita Ben la strada ha smarrita. FOURTH INTERLUDE. Now, deceits giving rise to affronts, and affronts to dissensions and quarrels and a thousand other suchlike evils, since Cupid, by reason of the hurt received from the cruel lamp, was not able to attend to his customary office of inflaming the hearts of living mortals, in the fourth interlude, in place of the seven mounds that had been shown on the stage the time before, there were seen to appear in this one (to give material for the disturbances of the comedy) seven little abysses, from which there first came a black smoke, and then, little by little, was seen to appear Discord with an ensign in the hand, recognized, besides her arms, by the torn and varied dress and by the tresses, and with her Rage, also recognized, besides the arms, by the buskins in the form of claws, and by the bear's head in place of a helmet, from which poured a constant stream of smoke and flame; and Cruelty, with the great scythe in her hand, known by the helmet in the likeness of a tiger's head and by the buskins after the manner of the feet of a crocodile; and Rapine, also, with the pruning-hook in her hand, with the bird of prey on the helmet, and with the feet in the likeness of an eagle; and Vengeance, with a bloody scimitar in the hand, and with buskins and helmet all woven of vipers; and two Anthropophagi, or Lestrigonians, as we would rather call them, who, sounding two trombones in the form of ordinary trumpets, appeared to be seeking with a certain bellicose movement (besides the sound) to excite the audience of bystanders to combat. Each of these was between two Furies, horrible companions, furnished with drums, whips of iron, and various arms, beneath which with the same dexterity had been hidden various musical instruments. The above-named Furies could be recognized by the wounds wherewith their whole persons were covered, from which were seen pouring flames of fire, by the serpents with which they were all encircled and bound, by the broken chains that hung from their legs and arms, and by the fire and smoke that issued from their hair. And all these, having sung the following madrigal all together with a certain fiery and warlike harmony, performed in the manner of combatants a novel, bold, and most extravagant Moorish dance; at the end of which, running here and there in confusion about the stage, they were seen finally to take themselves in a horrible and fearsome rout out of the sight of the spectators: In bando itene, vili Inganni; il mondo solo ira e furore Sent' oggi; audaci voi, spirti gentili, Venite a dimostrar vostro valore; Che se per la lucerna or langue amore, Nostro convien, non che lor sia l' impero. Su dunque ogni più fero Cor surga; il nostro bellicoso carme Guerra, guerra sol grida, e solo arm', arme. FIFTH INTERLUDE. Poor simple Psyche, having (as has been hinted in the last interlude) injured her beloved spouse with the torch by her rash and eager curiosity, and being abandoned by him, and having finally fallen into the hands of angry Venus, provided most convenient material for the fifth and most sorrowful interlude, accompanying the sadness of the fourth act of the comedy; for it was feigned that she was sent by that same Venus to the infernal Proserpine, whence she should never be able to return among living creatures. And so, wrapped in despair and very sad, she was seen approaching by one of the passages, accompanied by hateful Jealousy, who had an aspect all pallid and afflicted, like her other followers, and was known by the four heads and by the dress of turquoise-blue all interwoven with eyes and ears; by Envy, known likewise by the serpents that she was devouring; by Thought, Care, or Solicitude, whichever we may choose to call her, known by the raven that she had on the head, and by the vulture that was tearing her entrails; and by Scorn, or Disdain (to make it a woman's name), who could be recognized not only by the owl that she had on the head, but also by the ill-made, ill-fitting and tattered dress. When these four, beating and goading her, had made their way near the middle of the stage, in an instant the ground opened in four places with fire and smoke, and they, as if they sought to defend themselves, seized hold of four most horrible serpents that were seen without any warning to issue from below, and struck them a thousand different blows with their thorny staves, under which were concealed four little bows, until in the end, after much terror in the bystanders, it appeared that the serpents had been torn open by them; and then, striking again in the blood-stained bellies and entrails, all at once there was heard to issue--Psyche singing the while the madrigal given below--a mournful but most delicate and sweet harmony; for in the serpents were concealed with singular artifice four excellent bass-viols, which, accompanying (together with four trombones that sounded behind the stage) the single plaintive and gracious voice of Psyche, produced an effect at once so sad and so sweet, that there were seen drawn from the eyes of more than one person tears that were not feigned. Which finished, and each figure having taken her serpent on her shoulders, there was seen, with no less terror among the spectators, a new and very large opening appearing in the floor, from which issued a thick and continuous stream of flame and smoke, and an awful barking was heard, and there was seen to issue from the hole the infernal Cerberus with his three heads, to whom, in accordance with the fable, Psyche was seen to throw one of the two flat cakes that she had in her hand; and shortly afterwards there was seen likewise to appear, together with various monsters, old Charon with his customary barque, into which the despairing Psyche having entered, the four tormentors described above kept her unwelcome and displeasing company. Fuggi, speme mia, fuggi, E fuggi per non far più mai ritorno; Sola tu, che distruggi Ogni mia pace, a far vienne soggiorno, Invidia, Gelosia, Pensiero e Scorno Meco nel cieco Inferno Ove l' aspro martir mio viva eterno. LAST INTERLUDE. The sixth and last interlude was all joyous, for the reason that, the comedy being finished, there was seen to issue in an instant from the floor of the stage a verdant mound all adorned with laurels and different flowers, which, having on the summit the winged horse Pegasus, was soon recognized to be the Mount of Helicon, from which were seen descending one by one that most pleasing company of little Cupids already described, and with them Zephyr, Music, and Cupid, all joining hands, and Psyche also, all joyful and merry now that she was safe returned from Hell, and that by the prayers of her husband Cupid, at the intercession of Jove, after such mighty wrath in Venus, there had been won for her grace and pardon. With these were Pan and nine other Satyrs, with various pastoral instruments in their hands, under which other musical instruments were concealed; and all descending from the mound described above, they were seen bringing with them Hymen, God of nuptials, in whose praise they sang and played, as in the following canzonets, and performed in the second a novel, most merry and most graceful dance, giving a gracious conclusion to the festival: Dal bel monte Elicona Ecco Imeneo che scende, E già la face accende, e s' incorona; Di persa s' incorona. Odorata e soave, Onde il mondo ogni grave cura scaccia. Dunque e tu, Psiche, scaccia L' aspra tua fera doglia, E sol gioia s' accoglia entro al tuo seno. Amor dentro al suo seno Pur lieto albergo datti, E con mille dolci atti ti consola. Nè men Giove consola Il tuo passato pianto, Ma con riso e con canto al Ciel ti chiede. Imeneo dunque ognun chiede, Imeneo vago ed adorno, Deh che lieto e chiaro giorno, Imeneo, teco oggi riede! Imeneo, per l' alma e diva Sua Giovanna ogn' or si sente Del gran Ren ciascuna riva Risonar soavemente; E non men l' Arno lucente Pel gratioso, inclito e pio Suo Francesco aver desio D' Imeneo lodar si vede. Imeneo ecc. Flora lieta, Arno beato, Arno umil, Flora cortese, Deh qual più felice stato Mai si vide, mai s' intese? Fortunato almo paese, Terra in Ciel gradita e cara, A cui coppia così rara Imeneo benigno diede. Imeneo ecc. Lauri or dunque, olive e palme E corone e scettri e regni Per le due sì felici alme, Flora, in te sol si disegni; Tutti i vili atti ed indegni Lungi stien; sol pace vera E diletto e primavera Abbia in te perpetua sede. And all the rich vestments and all the other things, which one might think it impossible to make, were executed by the ingenious craftsmen with such dexterity, loveliness and grace, and made to appear so natural, real, and true, that it seemed that without a doubt the real action could surpass the counterfeited spectacle by but a little. OF THE TRIUMPH OF DREAMS AND OTHER FESTIVITIES. Now after this, although every square and every street, as has been told, resounded with music and song, merriment and festivity, our magnanimous Lords, distributing everything most prudently, to the end that excessive abundance might not produce excessive satiety, had ordained that one of the principal festivals should be performed on each Sunday, and for this reason, and for the greater convenience of the spectators, they had caused the sides of the most beautiful squares of S. Croce and S. Maria Novella to be furnished after the likeness of a theatre, with very strong and very capacious tribunes. And since within these there were held games, in which the young noblemen played a greater part by their exercises than did our craftsmen by attiring them, I shall treat of them briefly, saying that on one occasion there was presented therein by our most liberal Lords, with six companies of most elegant cavaliers, eight to a company, the play of the canes and the carousel, so celebrated among the Spaniards, each of the companies, which were all resplendent in cloth of gold and silver, being distinguished from the rest, one in the ancient habit of the Castilians, another in the Portuguese, another in the Moorish, a fourth in the Hungarian, a fifth in the Greek, and the last in the Tartar; and finally, after a perilous combat, partly with assegais and horses likewise in the Spanish manner, and partly with men on foot and dogs, some most ferocious bulls were killed. Another time, renewing the ancient pomp of the Roman chase, there was seen a beautifully ordered spectacle of certain elegant huntsmen and a good quantity of various dogs, chasing forth from a little counterfeited wood and slaying an innumerable multitude of animals, which came out in succession one kind after another, first rabbits, hares, roebucks, foxes, porcupines, and badgers, and then stags, boars, and bears, and even some savage horses all burning with love; and in the end, as the most noble and most superb chase of all, after they had sought several times by means of an immense turtle and a vast and most hideous mask of a monster, which were full of men and were made to move hither and thither with various wheels, to incite a most fierce lion to do battle with a very valiant bull; finally, since that could not be achieved, both the animals were seen struck down and slain, not without a long and bloody struggle, by the multitude of dogs and huntsmen. Besides this, every evening the noble youth of the city exercised themselves with most elegant dexterity and valour, according to their custom, at the game of football, the peculiar and particular sport of that people, with which finally there was given on one of those Sundays one of the most agreeable and most graceful spectacles that anyone could ever behold, in very rich costumes of cloth of gold in red and green colours, with all the rules, which are many and beautiful. But since variety seems generally to enhance the pleasure of most things, another time the illustrious Prince sought with a different show to satisfy the expectant people by means of his so much desired Triumph of Dreams. The invention of this, although, since he went to Germany to see his exalted bride and to do reverence to the most august Emperor Maximilian and to his other illustrious kinsmen, it was arranged and composed by others with great learning and diligence, may yet be said to have been born in the beginning from his most noble genius, so competent in no matter how subtle and exacting a task; and with it he who afterwards executed the work, and was the composer of the song, sought to demonstrate that moral opinion expressed by Dante when he says that innumerable errors arise among living mortals because many are set to do many things for which they do not seem to have been born fitted by nature, deviating, on the other hand, from those for which, following their natural inclination, they might be very well adapted. This he also strove to demonstrate with five companies of masks led by five of those human desires that were considered by him the greatest; by Love, namely, behind whom followed the lovers; by Beauty, figured under the form of Narcissus, and followed by those who strive too much to appear beautiful; by Fame, who had as followers those too hungry for glory; by Pluto, signifying Riches, behind whom were seen those eager and greedy for them, and by Bellona, who was followed by the men enamoured of war; contriving that the sixth company, which comprised all the five described above, and to which he wished that they should all be referred, should be guided by Madness, likewise with a good number of her followers behind her, signifying that he who sinks himself too deep and against the inclination of Nature in the above-named desires, which are in truth dreams and spectres, comes in the end to be seized and bound by Madness. And then this judgment, turning, as a thing of feast and carnival, to the amorous, announces to young women that the great father Sleep is come with all his ministers and companions in order to show to them with his matutinal dreams, which are reputed as true (comprised, as has been told, in the first five companies), that all the above-named things that are done by us against Nature, are to be considered, as has been said, as dreams and spectres; and therefore, exhorting them to pursue that to which their nature inclines them, it appears that in the end he wishes, as it were, to conclude that if they feel themselves by nature inclined to be loved, they should not seek to abstain from that natural desire; nay, despising any other counsel as something vain and mad, they should dispose themselves to follow the wise, natural, and true. And then, around the Car of Sleep and the masks that were to express this conception, were accommodated and placed as ornaments those things that are judged to be in keeping with sleep and with dreams. There was seen, therefore, after two most beautiful Sirens, who, blowing two great trumpets in place of two trumpeters, preceded all the rest, and after two extravagant masks, the guides of all the others, by which, mingling white, yellow, red, and black over their cloth of silver, were demonstrated the four humours of which bodies are composed, and after the bearer of a large red ensign adorned with various poppies, on which was painted a great gryphon, with three verses that encircled it, saying: Non solo aquila è questo, e non leone, Ma l' uno e l' altro; così 'l Sonno ancora Ed humana e divina ha condizione. There was seen coming, I say, as has been told above, the joyous Love, figured as is customary, and accompanied on one side by ever-verdant Hope, who had a chameleon on the head, and on the other by pallid Fear, with the head likewise adorned by a timorous deer; and he was seen followed by the lovers, his captives and slaves, dressed for the most part with infinite grace and richness in draperies of flaming gold, for the flames wherewith they are ever burning, and all girt and bound with most delicate gilded chains. After these (to avoid excessive minuteness) there was seen coming, to represent Beauty, in a graceful habit of turquoise-blue all interwoven with his own flowers, the beautiful Narcissus, likewise accompanied, as was said of Love, on one side by Youth adorned with flowers and garlands, and dressed all in white, and on the other by Proportion, adorned with draperies of turquoise-blue, and recognized by the spectators by an equilateral triangle that was upon the head. After these were seen those who seek to be esteemed for the sake of their beauty, and who appeared to be following their guide Narcissus; and they, also, were of an aspect youthful and gracious, and had the same narcissus-blooms most beautifully embroidered upon the cloth of silver wherein they were robed, with their blonde and curly locks all crowned in lovely fashion with the same flowers. And after them was seen approaching Fame, who seemed to be sounding a great trumpet that had three mouths, with a globe on her head that represented the world, and with immense wings of peacock's feathers; having in her company Glory, who had a head-dress fashioned likewise of a peacock, and Reward, who in like manner carried a crowned eagle on the head; and her followers, who were divided into three companies, Emperors, Kings, and Dukes, although they were all dressed in gold with the richest embroideries and pearls, and although they all presented an aspect of singular grandeur and majesty, nevertheless were distinguished very clearly one from another by the forms of the different crowns that they wore on their heads, each in accord with his rank. Then the blind Pluto, the God (as has been told) of Riches, who followed after these with rods of gold and silver in the hands, was seen, like the others, accompanied on either side by Avarice dressed in yellow, with a she-wolf on the head, and by Rapacity robed in red draperies, who had a falcon on the head to make her known; but it would be a difficult thing to seek to describe the quantity of gold, pearls, and other precious gems, and the various kinds of draperies with which his followers were covered and adorned. And Bellona, Goddess of War, most richly robed in many parts with cloth of silver in place of arms, and crowned with a garland of verdant laurel, with all the rest of her habit composed in a thousand rich and gracious ways, was seen likewise coming after them with a large and warlike horn in the hand, and accompanied, like the others, by Terror, known by the cuckoo in the head-dress, and by Boldness, also known by the lion's head worn in place of a cap; and with her the military men in her train were seen following her in like manner with swords and iron-shod maces in their hands, and draperies of gold and silver arranged most fancifully in the likeness of armour and helmets. These and all the others in the other companies had each, to demonstrate that they represented dreams, a large, winged, and very well fashioned bat of grey cloth of silver fitted on the shoulders, and forming a sort of little mantle; which, besides the necessary significance, gave to all the companies (which, as has been shown, were all different) the necessary unity, and also grace and beauty beyond measure. And all this left in the minds of the spectators a firm belief that there had never been seen in Florence, and perhaps elsewhere, any spectacle so rich, so gracious, and so beautiful; for, in addition to all the gold, the pearls, and the other most precious gems wherewith the embroideries, which were very fine, were made, all the dresses were executed with such diligence, design, and grace, that they seemed to be costumes fashioned not for masquerades, but enduring and permanent, and worthy to be used only by great Princes. There followed Madness, the men of whose company alone, for the reason that she had to be shown not as a dream but as real in those who sought against the inclination of nature to pursue the things described above, were seen without the bat upon the shoulders; and she was dressed in various colours, but all put together most inharmoniously and without any manner of grace, while upon her dishevelled tresses, to demonstrate her disordered thoughts, were seen a pair of gilded spurs with the rowels turned upwards, and on either side of her were a Satyr and a Bacchante. Her followers, then, in the semblance of lunatics and drunkards, were seen dressed most extravagantly in cloth of gold, embroidered with varied boughs of ivy and vine-leaves with their little bunches of ripe grapes. And these and all the others in the companies already described, besides a good number of grooms, likewise very richly and ingeniously dressed according to the company wherein they were serving, had horses of different colours distributed among them, a particular colour to each company, so that one had dappled horses, another sorrel, a third black, a fourth peach-coloured, another bay, and yet another of a varied coat, according as the invention required. And to the end that the above-described masques, which were composed almost entirely of the most noble lords, might not be constrained to carry the customary torches at night, forty-eight different witches--who during the day preceded in most beautiful order all those six companies, guided by Mercury and Diana, who had each three heads to signify their three powers; being themselves also divided into six companies, and each particular company being ruled by two dishevelled and barefooted priestesses--when night came, went in due order on either side of the particular company of dreams to which they were assigned, and, with the lighted torches which they and the grooms bore, rendered it abundantly luminous and clear. These witches, besides their different faces, all old and hideous, and besides the different colours of the rich draperies wherewith they were clothed, were known in particular, and one company distinguished from another, by the animals that they had upon their heads, into the shapes of which, so men say and believe, they transform themselves often by their incantations; for some had upon the cloth of silver that served as kerchief for their heads a black bird, with wings and claws outspread, and with two little phials about the head, signifying their maleficent distillations; and some had cats, others black and white dogs, and others, by their false blonde tresses and by the natural white hair that could be seen, as it were against their will, beneath them, betrayed their vain desire to appear young and beautiful to their lovers. The immense car, drawn by six large and shaggy bears crowned with poppies, which came at the end after all that lovely train, was without a doubt the richest, the most imposing, and the most masterly in execution that has ever been seen for a long time back. That car was guided by Silence, a figure adorned with grey draperies and with the customary shoes of felt upon the feet, who, placing a finger on the mouth, appeared to be making sign to the spectators that they should be silent; and with him were three women, representing Quiet, plump and full in countenance, and dressed in rich robes of azure-blue, and each with a tortoise upon the head, who appeared to be seeking to assist that same Silence to guide those bears. The car itself, resting upon a graceful hexagonal platform, was shaped in the form of a vast head of an elephant, within which, also, there was represented as the house of Sleep a fantastic cavern, wherein the great father Sleep was likewise seen lying at his ease, fat and ruddy, and partly nude, with a garland of poppies, and with his cheek resting upon one of his arms; having about him Morpheus, Icelus, Phantasus, and his other sons, figured in various extravagant and bizarre forms. At the summit of the same cavern was seen the white, luminous, and beautiful Dawn, with her blonde tresses all soft and moist with dew; and at the foot of the cavern, with a badger that served her for a pillow, was dark Night, who, being held to be the mother of true dreams, was thought likely to lend no little faith to the words of the dreams described above. For the adornment of the car, then, were seen some most lovely little stories, accommodated to the invention and distributed with so much diligence, delicacy, and grace, that it appeared impossible for anything more to be desired. In the first of these was seen Bacchus, the father of Sleep, upon a car wreathed in vine-leaves and drawn by two spotted tigers, with a verse to make him known, which said: Bacco, del Sonno sei tu vero padre. Even as in another was seen Ceres, the mother of the same Sleep, crowned with the customary ears of corn, and likewise with a verse placed there for the same reason, which said: Cerer del dolce Sonno è dolce madre. And in a third was seen Pasithea, wife of the same Sleep, who, seeming to fly over the earth, appeared to have infused most placid sleep in the animals that were dispersed among the trees and upon the earth; likewise with her motto which made her known, saying: Sposa del Sonno questa è Pasitea. On the other side was seen Mercury, president of Sleep, infusing slumber in the many-eyed Argus; also with his motto, saying: Creare il sonno può Mercurio ancora. And there was seen, to express the nobility and divinity of the same Sleep, an ornate little temple of Æsculapius, in which many men, emaciated and infirm, sleeping, appeared to be winning back their lost health; likewise with a verse signifying this, and saying: Rende gl' uomini sani il dolce Sonno. Even as in another place there was seen Mercury pointing towards some Dreams that were shown flying through the air and speaking in the ears of King Latinus, who was asleep in a cave; his verse saying: Spesso in sogno parlar lece con Dio. Orestes, then, spurred by the Furies, was seen alone taking some rest amid such travail by the help of the Dreams, who were shown driving away those Furies with certain bunches of poppies; with his verse that said: Fuggon pel sonno i più crudi pensieri. And there was the wretched Hecuba likewise dreaming in a vision that a lovely hind was rapt from her bosom and strangled by a fierce wolf; this being intended to signify the piteous fate that afterwards befell her hapless daughter; with a motto saying: Quel ch' esser deve, il sogno scuopre e dice. Even as in another place, with a verse that said: Fanno gli Dei saper lor voglie in sogno, there was seen Nestor appearing to Agamemnon, and revealing to him the will of almighty Jove. And in the seventh and last was depicted the ancient usage of making sacrifice, as to a revered deity, to Sleep in company with the Muses, represented by an animal sacrificed upon an altar; with a verse saying: Fan sacrifizio al Sonno ed alle Muse. All these little scenes were divided and upheld by various Satyrs, Bacchants, boys, and witches, and rendered pleasingly joyous and ornate by divers nocturnal animals and festoons of poppies, not without a beautiful medallion set in place of a shield in the last part of the car, wherein was seen painted the story of Endymion and the Moon; everything, as has been said, being executed with such delicacy and grace, patience and design, that it would entail too much work to seek to describe every least part with its due praise. But those of whom it has been told that they were placed as the children of Sleep in such extravagant costumes upon the above-described car, singing to the favourite airs of the city the following canzonet, seemed truly, with their soft and marvellous harmony, to be seeking to infuse a most gracious and sweet sleep in their hearers, saying: Or che la rugiadosa Alba la rondinella a pianger chiama, Questi che tanto v' ama, Sonno, gran padre nostro e dell' ombrosa Notte figlio, pietosa E sacra schiera noi Di Sogni, o belle donne, mostra a voi; Perchè il folle pensiero Uman si scorga, che seguendo fiso Amor, Fama, Narciso E Bellona e Ricchezza il van sentiero La notte e il giorno intero S' aggira, al fine insieme Per frutto ha la Pazzia del suo bel seme. Accorte or dunque, il vostro Tempo miglior spendete in ciò che chiede Natura, e non mai fede Aggiate all' arte, che quasi aspro mostro Cinto di perle e d' ostro Dolce v' invita, e pure Son le promesse Sogni e Larve scure. OF THE CASTLE. By way of having yet another different spectacle, there was built with singular mastery on the vast Piazza di S. Maria Novella a most beautiful castle, with all the proper appurtenances of ramparts, cavaliers, casemates, curtains, ditches and counterditches, secret and public gates, and, finally, all those considerations that are required in good and strong fortifications; and in it was placed a good number of valorous soldiers, with one of the principal and most noble lords of the Court as their captain, a man determined on no account ever to be captured. That magnificent spectacle being divided into two days, on the first day there was seen appearing in most beautiful order from one side a fine and most ornate squadron of horsemen all in armour and in battle-array, as if about to meet real enemies in combat, and from the other side, with the aspect of a massive and well-ordered army, some companies of infantry with their baggage, waggons of munitions, and artillery, and with their pioneers and sutlers, all drawn close together, as is customary amid the dangers of real wars; these likewise having a similar lord of great experience and valour as captain, who was seen urging them on from every side, and fulfilling his office most nobly. And after the attackers had been reconnoitred several times and in various ways, with valour and artifice, by those within the castle, and various skirmishes had been fought, now by the horsemen and now by the infantry, with a great roar of musketry and artillery, and charges had been delivered and received, and several ambuscades and other suchlike stratagems of war had been planned with astuteness and ingenuity; finally the defenders were seen, as if overcome by the superior force, to begin little by little to retire, and in the end it seemed that they were constrained to shut themselves up completely within the castle. But the second day, after they had, as it were during the night, constructed their platforms and gabionade and planted their artillery, there was seen to begin a most terrible bombardment, which seemed little by little to throw a part of the walls to the ground; after which, and after the explosion of a mine, which in another part, in order to keep the attention of the defenders occupied, appeared to have made a passing wide breach in the wall, the places were reconnoitred and the cavalry drew up in most beautiful battle-array, and then was seen now one company moving up, and now another, some with ladders and some without, and many valorous and terrible assaults delivered in succession and repeated several times, and ever received by the others with skill, boldness, and obstinacy, until in the end it was seen that the defenders, weary, but not vanquished, made an honourable compact with the attackers to surrender the place to them, issuing from it, with marvellous satisfaction for the spectators, in military order, with their banners unfurled, their drums, and all their usual baggage. THE GENEALOGY OF THE GODS. We read of Paulus Emilius, that first captain of his illustrious age, that he caused no less marvel by his wisdom and worth to the people of Greece and of many other nations who had assembled in Amphipolis to celebrate various most noble spectacles there after the victory that he had won, than by the circumstance that first, vanquishing Perseus and subjugating Macedonia, he had borne himself valiantly in the management of that war, which was in no small measure laborious and difficult; he having been wont to say that it is scarcely less the office of a good captain, requiring no less order and no less wisdom, to know how to prepare a banquet well in time of peace, than to know how to marshal an army for a deed of arms in time of war. Wherefore if our glorious Duke, born to do everything with noble worth and grandeur, displayed the same wisdom and the same order in those spectacles, and, above all, in that one which I am about to describe, I believe that he will not take it amiss that I have been unwilling to refrain from saying that he was in every part its inventor and ordinator, and in a certain sense its executor, preparing all the various things, and then representing them, with so much order, tranquillity, wisdom, and magnificence, that among his many glorious actions this one also may be numbered to his supreme glory. Now, yielding to him who wrote of it in those days with infinite learning, before me, and referring to that work those who may seek curiously to see how every least thing in this masquerade, which had as title the Genealogy of the Gods, was figured with the authority of excellent writers, and passing over whatever I may judge to be superfluous in this place, let me say that even as we read that some of the ancient Gods were invited to the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis in order to render them auspicious and fortunate, so to the nuptials of this new and most excellent bridal pair it appeared that there had come for the same reason not some only of these same Gods, but all, and not invited, but seeking to introduce themselves and by their own wish, the good auguring them the same felicity and contentment, and the harmful assuring them that they would do them no harm. Which conception appeared gracefully expressed in the following fashion by four madrigals that were sung at various times in the principal places by four very full choirs, even as has been told of the Triumph of Dreams; saying: L' alta che fino al ciel fama rimbomba Della leggiadra Sposa, Che in questa riva erbosa D' Arno, candida e pura, alma colomba Oggi lieta sen vola e dolce posa, Dalla celeste sede ha noi qui tratti, Perchè più leggiadri atti E bellezza più vaga e più felice Veder già mai non lice. Nè pur la tua festosa Vista, o Flora, e le belle alme tue dive Traggionne alle tue rive, Ma il lume e 'l sol della novella Sposa, Che più che mai gioiosa Di suo bel seggio e freno Al gran Tosco divin corcasi in seno. Da' bei lidi, che mai caldo nè gielo Discolora, vegnam; nè vi crediate Ch' altrettante beate Schiere e sante non abbia il Mondo e il Cielo; Ma vostro terren velo E lor soverchio lume, Questo e quel vi contende amico nume. Ha quanti il Cielo, ha quanti Iddii la Terra e l' Onda al parer vostro; Ma Dio solo è quell' un che il sommo chiostro Alberga in mezzo a mille Angeli santi, A cui sol giunte avanti Posan le pellegrine E stanche anime al fine, al fin del giorno, Tutto allegrando il Ciel del suo ritorno. I believe I can affirm most surely that this masquerade--a spectacle only to be arranged by the hand of a wise, well-practised, great, and valiant Prince, and in which almost all the lords and gentlemen of the city, and many strangers, took part--was without a doubt the greatest, the most magnificent, and the most splendid which can be remembered to have been held in any place for many centuries down to our own times, for the greater part of the vestments were not only made of cloth of gold and silver and other very rich draperies, and, when the place required it, of the finest skins, but, what is more (art surpassing the materials), composed with rare and marvellous industry, invention, and loveliness; and to the end that the eyes of the spectators, as they gazed, might be able with greater satisfaction to recognize one by one which of the Gods it was intended to represent, it was thought expedient to proceed to divide them into twenty-one distinct companies, placing at the head of each company one that should be considered as the chief, and causing each of these, for greater magnificence and grandeur, and because they are so figured by the ancient poets, to be drawn upon appropriate cars by their appropriate and particular animals. Now in these cars, which were beautiful, fantastic, and bizarre beyond belief, and most splendid with silver and gold, and in representing as real and natural the above-named animals that drew them, without a doubt the dexterity and excellence of the ingenious craftsmen were such, that not only they surpassed all things done up to that time both within and without the city, which at all times has had a reputation for rare mastery in such things, but they also (infinite marvel!) took away from everyone all hope of ever being able to see another thing so heroic or so lifelike. Beginning, then, with those Gods who were such that they were reputed to be the first causes and the first fathers of the others, we will proceed to describe each of the cars and of the companies that preceded them. And since the representation was of the Genealogy of the Gods, making a beginning with Demogorgon, the first father of them all, and with his car, we have to say that after a graceful, lovely, and laurel-crowned Shepherd, representing the ancient poet Hesiod, who, singing of the Gods in his Theogony, first wrote their genealogy, and who, as guide, carried in his hand a large, square, and ancient ensign, wherein were depicted in divers colours Heaven and the four Elements, and in the centre was painted a large Greek O, crossed with a serpent that had the head of a hawk; and after eight trumpeters who were gesticulating in a thousand graceful and sportive ways, representing those tibicines who, having been prevented from eating in the temple, fled in anger to Tibur, but were made drunk and put to sleep by deceit, and brought back with many privileges to Rome; beginning, I say, with Demogorgon, there was seen his car in the form of a dark and double cavern drawn by two awful dragons, and for Demogorgon was seen a figure of a pallid old man with the hair ruffled, all wrapped in mist and dark fog, lying in utter sloth and negligence in the front part of the cavern, and accompanied on one side by youthful Eternity adorned (because she never grows old) with verdant draperies, and on the other side by Chaos, who had the appearance, as it were, of a mass without any shape. Beyond that cavern, which contained the three figures described, rose a graceful little mound all covered and adorned with trees and various plants, representing Mother Earth, at the back of which was seen another cavern, but darker and deeper than that already described, wherein Erebus was shown likewise lying in the guise that has been told of his father Demogorgon, and in like manner accompanied on one side by Night, the daughter of Earth, with two children in her arms, one white and the other dark, and on the other side by Æther, the child of the aforesaid Night and Erebus, who must be figured, so it appeared, as a resplendent youth with a ball of turquoise-blue in the hand. At the foot of the car, then, was seen riding Discord, who separates things confused and is therefore held by philosophers to preserve the world, and who is regarded as the first daughter of Demogorgon; and with her the three Fates, who were shown spinning various threads and then cutting them. And in the form of a youth all robed in draperies of turquoise-blue was seen Polus, who had a terrestrial globe in the hand, and over him, alluding to the fable that is related of him, many sparks appeared to have been scattered from a vase of glowing coals that was beneath him; and there was seen Python, also the son of Demogorgon, all yellow and with a mass of fire in the hand, who seemed to have come in the company of his brother Polus. After them, then, came Envy, the daughter of Erebus and Night, and with her Timidity, her brother, in the form of a pallid and trembling old man, who had the head-dress and all the other vestments made from skins of the timid deer. And after these was seen Obstinacy, who is born from the same seed, all in black, with some boughs of ivy that seemed to have taken root upon her; and with the great cube of lead that she had on the head she gave a sign of that Ignorance wherewith Obstinacy is said to be joined. She had in her company Poverty, her sister, who was seen all pale and raging, and negligently covered rather than clothed in black; and with them was Hunger, born likewise from the same father, who was seen feeding the while on roots and wild herbs. Then Complaint or Querulousness, their sister, covered with tawny draperies, and with the querulous solitary rock-thrush, which was seen to have made her nest in her head-dress, was shown walking in profound melancholy after them, having in her company the sister common to them, called Infirmity, who by her meagreness and pallor, and by the garland and the little stalk of anemone that she held in her hand, made herself very well known to the spectators for what she was. And on her other side was the other sister, Old Age, with white hair and all draped in simple black vestments, who likewise had, not without reason, a stalk of cress in the hand. The Hydra and the Sphinx, daughters of Tartarus, in the guise wherein they are generally figured, were seen coming behind them in the same beautiful order; and after these, to return to the other daughters of Erebus and Night, was seen License, all nude and dishevelled, with a garland of vine-leaves on the head, and keeping the mouth open without any restraint, and in her company was Falsehood, her sister, all covered and wrapped in various draperies of various colours, with a magpie on the head for better recognition, and with a cuttle-fish in the hand. These had Thought walking on a level with them, represented as an old man, likewise all dressed in black, with an extravagant head-dress of peach-stones on the head, and showing beneath the vestments, which at times fluttered open with the wind, the breast and the whole person pricked and pierced by a thousand sharp thorns. Momus, then, the God of censure and of evil-speaking, was seen coming after them in the form of a bent and very loquacious old man; and with them, also, the boy Tages, all resplendent, although he was the son of Earth, figured in such a manner because he was the first inventor of the soothsayer's art, in token of which there was hung from his neck a lamb split down the middle, which showed a good part of the entrails. There was seen, likewise, in the form of an immense giant, the African Antæus, his brother, who, clothed in barbaric vestments, with a dart in the right hand, appeared to wish to give on that day manifest signs of his vaunted prowess. And following after him was seen Day, also the son of Erebus and Night, represented in like manner as a resplendent and joyous youth, all adorned with white draperies and crowned with ornithogal, in whose company was seen Fatigue, his sister, who, clothed in the skin of an ass, had made herself a cap from the head of the same animal, with the ears standing erect, not without laughter among the spectators; to which were added two wings of the crane, and in her hands were placed also the legs of the same crane, because of the common opinion that this renders men indefatigable against all fatigue. And Jurament, born of the same parents, in the form of an old priest all terrified by an avenging Jove that he held in the hand, and bringing to conclusion the band attributed to the great father Demogorgon, was the last in their company. And here, judging that with these deities the origins of all the other Gods had been made sufficiently manifest, the followers of the first car were brought to an end. SECOND CAR, OF HEAVEN. In a second car of more pleasing appearance, which was dedicated to the God Heaven, held by some to be the son of the above-named Æther and Day, was seen that jocund and youthful God clothed in bright-shining stars, with a crown of sapphires on the brow, and with a vase in the hand that contained a burning flame, and seated upon a ball of turquoise-blue all painted and adorned with the forty-eight celestial signs; and in that car, which was drawn by the Great and the Little Bear, the one known by the seven and the other by the twenty-one stars with which they were all dotted, there were seen painted, in order to render it ornate and rich in pomp, with a most beautiful manner and a graceful distribution, seven of the fables of that same Heaven. In the first was figured his birth--in order to demonstrate, not without reason, the other opinion that is held of it--which is said to have been from Earth; even as in the second was seen his union with the same Mother Earth, from which were born, besides many others, Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, who, it is believed, had each a hundred hands and fifty heads; and there were born also the Cyclopes, so called from the single eye that they had on the brow. In the third was seen how he imprisoned their common children in the caverns of that same Earth, that they might never be able to see the light; even as in the fourth their Mother Earth, seeking to deliver them from such oppression, was seen exhorting them to take a rightful vengeance on their cruel father; wherefore in the fifth his genital members were cut off by Saturn, when from their blood on one side it appeared that the Furies and the Giants were born, and on the other, from the foam that was shown fallen into the sea, was seen a different birth, from which sprang the beautiful Venus. In the sixth was seen expressed the anger that he showed against the Titans, because, as has been told, they had allowed his genitals to be cut off; and in the seventh and last, likewise, was seen the same God adored by the Atlantides, with temples and altars devoutly raised to him. Now at the foot of the car (as with the other already described) was seen riding the black, old, and blindfolded Atlas, who has been reputed to have supported Heaven with his stout shoulders, on which account there had been placed in his hands a great globe of turquoise-blue, dotted with stars. After him was seen walking in the graceful habit of a huntsman the young and beautiful Hyas, his son, in whose company were his seven sisters, also called Hyades, five of whom, all resplendent in gold, were seen to have each on the head a bull's head, for the reason that they are said to form an ornament to the head of the Heavenly Bull; and the two others, as being less bright in the heavens, it was thought proper to clothe in grey cloth of silver. After these followed the seven Pleiades, daughters of the same Atlas, figured as seven other similar stars; one of whom, for the reason that she shines with little light in the heavens, it was thought right and proper to adorn only with the same grey cloth, whereas the six others, because they are resplendent and very bright, were seen in front glittering and flashing with an infinite abundance of gold, but at the back they were clothed only in vestments of pure white, that being intended to signify that even as at their first appearance the bright and luminous summer seems to have its beginning, so at their departure it is seen that they leave us dark and snowy winter; which was also expressed by the head-dress, which had the front part woven of various ears of corn, even as the back appeared to be composed of snow, ice, and hoar-frost. There followed after these the old and monstrous Titan, who had with him the proud and audacious Iapetus, his son. And Prometheus, who was born of Iapetus, was seen coming after them all grave and venerable, with a little statue of clay in one of his hands, and in the other a burning torch, denoting the fire that he is said to have stolen from Jove out of Heaven itself. And after him, as the last, to conclude the company of the second car, there were seen coming, with a Moorish habit and with a sacred elephant's head as a cap, likewise two of the Atlantides, who, as has been told, first adored Heaven; and, in addition, in token of the things that were used by them in their first sacrifices, there were in the hands of both, in a great bundle, the ladle, the napkin, the cleaver, and the casket of incense. THIRD CAR, OF SATURN. Saturn, the son of Heaven, all white and old, who was shown greedily devouring some children, had the third car, no less ornate than the last, and drawn by two great black oxen; and to enhance the beauty of that car, even as in the last there were seven fables painted, so in that one it was thought proper that five of his fables should be painted. For the first, therefore, was seen this God surprised by his wife Ops as he lay taking his pleasure of the gracious and beautiful Nymph Philyra, on which account being constrained to transform himself into a horse in order not to be recognized by her, it was shown how from that union there was born afterwards the Centaur Cheiron. Even as in the second was seen his other union with the Latin Entoria, from which sprang at one and the same birth Janus, Hymnus, Felix, and Faustus, by whom the same Saturn distributed among the human race that so useful invention of planting vines and making wine; and there was seen Janus arriving in Latium and there teaching his father's invention to the ignorant people, who, drinking intemperately of the new and most pleasing liquor, and therefore sinking little by little into a most profound sleep, when finally they awakened, thinking that they had been poisoned by him, were seen rushing impiously to stone and slay him; on which account Saturn, moved to anger, chastised them with a most horrible pestilence; but in the end it was shown how he was pacified and turned to mercy by the humble prayers of the miserable people and by the temple built by them upon the Tarpeian rock. In the third, then, was seen figured how, Saturn seeking cruelly to devour his son Jove, his shrewd wife and compassionate daughters sent to him in Jove's stead the stone, which he brought up again before them, being left thereby in infinite sorrow and bitterness. Even as in the fourth was painted the same fable of which there has been an account in speaking of the above-described car of Heaven--namely, how he cut off the genitals of the above-named Heaven, from which the Giants, the Furies, and Venus had their origin. And in the last, likewise, was seen how, after he was made a prisoner by the Titans, he was liberated by his compassionate son Jove. And then, to demonstrate the belief that is held by some, that history first began to be written in the time of Saturn, there was seen figured with the authority of an approved writer a Triton blowing a sea-conch, with the double tail as it were fixed in the earth, closing the last part of the car; at the foot of which (as has been told of the others) was seen a pure maiden, representing Pudicity, adorned with green draperies and holding a white ermine in her arms, with a gilded topaz-collar about the neck. She, with the head and face covered with a yellow veil, had in her company Truth, likewise figured in the form of a most beautiful, delicate, and pure young woman, clothed only in a few white and transparent veils; and these, walking in a manner full of grace, had between them the happy Age of Gold, also figured as a pure and gracious virgin, wholly nude, and all crowned and adorned with those first fruits produced by herself from the earth. After them followed Quiet, robed in black draperies, in the aspect of a young but very grave and venerable woman, who had as head-dress a nest composed in a most masterly manner, in which was seen lying an old and featherless stork, and she walked between two black priests, who, crowned with fig-leaves, and each with a branch of the same fig in one hand, and in the other a basin containing a flat cake of flour and honey, seemed to wish to demonstrate thereby that opinion which is held by some, that Saturn was the first discoverer of grain-crops; for which reason the Cyrenæans (and even such were the two black priests) are said to have been wont to offer him sacrifices of those things named above. These were followed by two Roman priests, who appeared likewise to be about to sacrifice to him some waxen images, as it were after the more modern use, since they were seen delivered by means of the example of Hercules, who used similar waxen images, from the impious custom of sacrificing men to Saturn, introduced into Italy by the Pelasgians. These, like the others with Quiet, had likewise between them the venerable Vesta, daughter of Saturn, who, very narrow in the shoulders and very broad and full in the flanks, after the manner of a round ball, and dressed in white, carried a lighted lamp in the hand. And after them, as the last, closing the third company, was seen coming the Centaur Cheiron, the son, as has been told, of Saturn, armed with sword, bow, and quiver; and with him another of the sons of the same Saturn, holding the crooked lituus (for the reason that he was an augur) in the hand, and all robed in green draperies, with a bird, the woodpecker, on the head, because into such a bird, according as the fables tell, it is believed that he was transformed by Cheiron. FOURTH CAR, OF THE SUN. To the resplendent Sun was dedicated the fourth car, all glittering, gilded, and jewelled, which, drawn according to custom by four swift and winged coursers, was seen to have Velocity, with a head-dress of a dolphin and a sail on the head, as charioteer; and in it were painted (as has been told of the others), but with a different distribution, and as pleasing and gracious as could well be imagined, seven of his fables. For the first of these was seen the fate of the too audacious Phaëthon, who contrived so ill to guide that same car, even as for the second was seen the death of the serpent Python, and for the third the chastisement inflicted on the rash Marsyas. In the fourth was seen how the Sun deigned for a time to lead a humble pastoral life, grazing the flocks of Admetus; even as in the fifth was seen how, flying from the fury of Typhoeus, he was constrained to change himself into a raven. In the sixth were likewise depicted his other transformations, first into a lion and then into a hawk; and as the last was seen his love received so ill by the timid Daphne, who finally, as is very well known, was changed by the compassion of the Gods into laurel. At the foot of the car, then, were seen riding, all winged and of different ages and colours, the Hours, the handmaids and ministers of the Sun, each of whom, in imitation of the Egyptians, carried a hippopotamus in the hand, and was crowned with flowers of the lupine; and behind them, likewise following the Egyptian custom, in the form of a young man all dressed in white, with two little horns on the head that were turned towards the ground, and with a garland of oriental palm, was seen walking the Month, carrying in the hand a calf which, not without reason, had only one horn. And after him was seen likewise walking the Year, with the head all covered with ice and snow, the arms wreathed in flowers and garlands, and the breast and stomach all adorned with ears of corn, even as the thighs and legs, also, were seen to be all wet and stained with must, while in one hand he carried, as a symbol of his circling course, a circle formed by a serpent that appeared to be seeking to devour the tail with the mouth, and in the other hand a nail, such as the ancient Romans used, so we read, to keep count of the years in their temples. Then came rosy Aurora, all pleasing, fair, and lissom, with a little yellow mantle, and with an ancient lamp in the hand, seated with most beautiful grace upon the horse Pegasus. In her company was seen the physician Æsculapius, in the habit of a priest, with a knotted stick and a ruddy serpent in the hands, and a dog at his feet; and with them the young Phaëthon, also (like Æsculapius) the child of the Sun, who, all burning, to recall the memory of his unhappy fate, appeared to wish to transform himself into even such a swan as he carried in his hand. Orpheus, next, their brother, was seen walking behind them, young and much adorned, but of a presence grave and venerable, with the tiara on his head, and seeming to play a most ornate lyre; and with him was seen the enchantress Circe, likewise the daughter of the Sun, with a band around the head, which was a sign of her sovereignty, and in the habit of a matron, and she was shown holding in the hand, in place of a sceptre, a little branch of larch and another of cedar, with the fumes of which it is said that she used to contrive the greater part of her enchantments. And the nine Muses, walking in gracious order, formed a most beautiful finish to the last part of the lovely company just described; who were seen figured in the forms of most graceful Nymphs, crowned with feathers of the magpie in remembrance of the Sirens vanquished by them, and with feathers of other kinds, and holding various musical instruments in the hands, while among the last of them, who held the most honourable place, was set Memory, mother of the Muses, adorned with rich black draperies, and holding in the hand a little black dog, signifying the marvellous memory which that animal is said to have, and with the head-dress fantastically composed of the most different things, denoting the so many and so different things that the memory is able to retain. FIFTH CAR, OF JOVE. The great father of mankind and of the Gods, Jove, the son of Saturn, had the fifth car, ornate and rich in pomp beyond all the others; for, besides the five fables that were seen painted there, as with the others, it was rendered rich and marvellous beyond belief by three statues that served as most imposing partitions to those fables. By one of these was seen represented the image, such as it is believed to have been, of the young Epaphus, the son of Io and Jove, and by the second that of the lovely Helen, who was born from Leda at one birth with Castor and Pollux; even as by the last was represented that of the grandfather of the sage Ulysses, called Arcesius. For the first of the fables already mentioned was seen Jove transformed into a Bull, conveying the trusting Europa to Crete, even as for the second was seen his perilous rape as he flew to Heaven in the form of an Eagle with the Trojan Ganymede, and for the third his other transformation into fire when he wished to lie with the beautiful Ægina, daughter of Asopus. For the fourth was seen the same Jove, changed into a rain of gold, falling into the lap of his beloved Danaë; and in the fifth and last he was seen delivering his father Saturn, who, as has been told above, was unworthily held prisoner by the Titans. In such and so adorned a car, then, and upon a most beautiful throne composed of various animals and of many gilded Victories, with a little mantle woven of divers animals and plants, the above-named great father Jove was seen seated in infinite majesty, with a garland of leaves similar to those of the common olive, and in the right hand a Victory crowned with a band of white wool, and in the left hand a royal sceptre, at the head of which was shown poised the imperial Eagle. At the foot of the throne, to render it more imposing and pompous, was seen on one side Niobe, with her children, dying by the shafts of Apollo and Diana, and on the other side seven men in combat, who were seen to have in their midst a boy with the head bound with white wool, even as in another place could be seen Hercules and Theseus, who were shown in combat with the famous Amazons. And at the foot of the car, which was drawn by two very large and very naturally figured eagles, there was seen walking (as has been told of the others) Bellerophon adorned with a royal habit and a royal diadem, in allusion to whose fable there was seen over that diadem the Chimera slain by him; having in his company the young Perseus, born from Jove and Danaë, with the usual head of Medusa in his hand, and the usual knife at his flank; and with them was the above-named Epaphus, who had as a cap the head of an African elephant. Hercules, the son of Jove and Alcmena, with the customary lion's skin and the customary club, was seen coming after them; and in his company he had Scythes, his brother (although born from a different mother), the first inventor of bow and arrows, on which account his hands and his flank were seen furnished with these. After them were seen the two gracious Twins, Castor and Pollux, riding with an air of no less beauty upon two milk-white and spirited coursers, and dressed in military habit; each having upon the helmet, one of which was dotted with eight stars and the other with ten, a brilliant little flame as helmet-crest, in allusion to that salutary light, now called S. Elmo's Fire, which is wont to appear to mariners as a sign that the tempest has passed; the stars being intended to signify how they were placed in Heaven by Jove as the sign of the Twins. Then Justice was seen coming after these, a beautiful maiden, who was beating with a stick and finally strangling a woman ugly and deformed, and in her company were four of the Gods Penates, two male and two female, these demonstrating--although in barbaric and extravagant dress, and although they had on the head a pediment which, with the base turned upwards, supported the heads of a young man and an old--by the gilded chain with a heart attached that they had about the neck, and by their long, ample, and pompous vestments, that they were persons of great weight and of great and lofty counsel; which was done with much reason, seeing that they were reputed by the ancient writers to be the counsellors of Jove. After them were seen walking the two Palici, born of Jove and Thaleia, adorned with draperies of tawny hue, and crowned with various ears of corn, and each with an altar in the hand; and in their company was Iarbas, King of Gætulia, the son of the same Jove, crowned with a white band, and with the head of a lion surmounted by a crocodile as a cap, and his other garments interwoven with leaves of cane and papyrus and various monsters, and with the sceptre and a burning flame of fire in the hands. Behind these were seen coming Xanthus, the Trojan River, likewise the son of Jove, in human form, but all yellow, all nude, and all shorn, with the overflowing vase in his hands, and Sarpedon, King of Lycia, his brother, in a most imposing garb, and in his hand a little mound covered with lions and serpents. And the last part of that great company, concluding the whole, was formed of four armed Curetes, who kept clashing their swords one against another, thus reviving the memory of Mount Ida, where Jove was saved from the voracious Saturn by their means, drowning by the clash of their arms the wailing of the tender babe; among whom, with the last couple, for greater dignity, as Queen of all the others, winged and without feet, and with much pomp and grandeur, proud Fortune was seen haughtily approaching. SIXTH CAR, OF MARS. Mars, the proud and warlike God, covered with brightly-shining armour, had the sixth car, adorned with no little richness and pomp, and drawn by two ferocious wolves very similar to the reality; and therein his wife Neriene and his daughter Evadne, figured in low-relief, served to divide three of his fables, which (as has been told of the other cars) were painted there. For the first of these, he was seen slaying the hapless son of Neptune, Halirrhotius, in vengeance for the violation of Alcippe, and for the second he was seen in most amorous guise lying with Rea Silvia, and begetting by her the two great founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus; even as for the third and last he was seen miserably reduced to captivity (as happens often enough to his followers) in the hands of the impious Otus and Ephialtes. Then before the car, as the first figures, preceding it on horseback, were seen two of his priests, the Salii, with their usual shields, the Ancilia, and clad and adorned with their usual armour and vestments, and wearing on their heads, in place of helmets, two caps in the likeness of cones; and they were seen followed by the above-named Romulus and Remus in the guise of shepherds, covered in rustic fashion with skins of wolves, while, to distinguish the one from the other, Remus had six vultures placed in his head-dress, and Romulus twelve, in memory of his more happy augury. After them came Oenomaus, King of the Greek Pisa, and also the son of Mars, who held in one hand, as King, a royal sceptre, and in the other a little chariot all broken, in memory of the treachery shown against him by the charioteer Myrtilus in his combat for his daughter Hippodameia against Pelops, her lover. And after him were seen coming Ascalaphus and Ialmenus, likewise sons of Mars, adorned with a rich military habit; recalling by the ships that they had in the hand, one for each, the weighty succour brought by them with fifty ships to the besieged Trojans. These were followed by the beautiful Nymph Britona, daughter likewise of Mars, with a net in her arms, in memory of her miserable fate; and by the not less beautiful Harmonia, who was born of the same Mars and lovely Venus, and became the wife of Theban Cadmus. To her, it is said, Vulcan once presented a most beautiful necklace, on which account she was seen with that necklace about her neck; and in the upper parts she had the semblance of a woman, but in the lower parts--denoting that she was transformed, together with her husband, into a serpent--she was seen all covered with serpent's skin. These had behind them, with a bloody knife in the hand and across the shoulders a little kid split open, and very fierce in aspect, Hyperion, born from the same father, by whom it is said that men were first taught to kill brute-animals, and with him the no less fierce Ætolus, likewise the offspring of Mars; and between them was seen walking blind Rage, adorned with a red habit all picked out with black embroidery, with foaming mouth, and with a rhinoceros on the head and a cynocephalus upon the back. After these walked Fraud, with the face of a human creature and with the other parts as they are described by Dante in the Inferno, and Menace, truly threatening in aspect with the sword and the staff that she had in the hands, covered with grey and red draperies, and with the mouth open; and they were seen to have behind them Fury, the great Minister of Mars, and Death, pallid and not less in harmony with the same Mars; the first all draped and tinted in dark red, with the hands bound behind the back, and seeming to be seated, all threatening, upon a great bundle of various arms, and the second all pallid, as has been said, and covered with black draperies, with the eyes closed, and with a presence no less awful and no less horrible. Spoils, then, in the form of a woman adorned with a lion's skin, with an ancient trophy in the hand, was seen coming after these, and she appeared as if desirous to exult over two prisoners, wounded and bound, who were on either side of her; having behind her, as the last line of so terrible a company, a woman of a very stalwart presence, with two bull's horns on the head and with an elephant in the hand, representing Force, to whom Cruelty, all red and likewise awful, killing a little child, seemed to make a true and fit companion. SEVENTH CAR, OF VENUS. Very different was the aspect of the charming, graceful, elegant, and gilded car of benign Venus, which was seen coming after the last in the seventh place, drawn by two most peaceful, snow-white, and amorous doves; wherein were not wanting four scenes executed with great mastery, to render it pleasing, gladsome, and rich in pomp. For the first of these was seen the lovely Goddess transforming herself into a fish, to escape from the fury of the Giant Typhoeus, and for the second, likewise, she was seen praying the great father Jove most piteously that he should deign to make an end at last of the many labours of her much-enduring son Æneas. In the third was seen the same Venus caught by her husband Vulcan with the net, while lying with her lover Mars; even as in the fourth and last she was seen, no less solicitous for her same son Æneas, coming into accord with the so inexorable Juno to unite him with the snares of love to the chaste Queen of Carthage. The beautiful Adonis, as her dearest lover, was seen walking first before the car, in the gracious habit of a huntsman, and with him appeared as his companions two charming little Loves, with painted wings and with bows and arrows. These were followed by the marital Hymeneus, young and beautiful, with the customary garland of marjoram, and in his hand the lighted torch; and by Thalassius with the spear and shield, and the little basket full of wool. And after them was seen coming Peitho, the Goddess of Persuasion, robed in the habit of a matron, with a great tongue upon the head (after the Egyptian custom) containing a bloody eye, and in the hand another similar tongue which was joined to another counterfeited hand; and with her the Trojan Paris in the habit of a shepherd, who was seen carrying in memory of his fable that for him so unlucky apple. Even as Concord, in the form of a grave and beautiful woman crowned with a garland, with a cup in one hand and in the other a sceptre wreathed in flowers, could be seen following these; and with her, likewise, appeared as a companion Priapus, the God of orchards, with the usual sickle and with the lap all full of fruits; and with them, with a cube in the hand and another upon the head, Manturna, who was always invoked most devoutly by brides on the first night that they were joined with their husbands, believing that firmness and constancy could be infused by her into inconstant minds. Extravagantly figured, next, was Friendship, who came after these, for, although in the form of a young woman, she was seen to have the bare head crowned with leaves of pomegranate and myrtle, wearing a rough dress, upon which could be read, MORS ET VITA; with the breast open, so that the heart could be perceived, and there, likewise, were to be read these words written, LONGE ET PROPE; and she carried in the hand a withered elm-trunk entwined with a fresh and fertile vine. In her company was Pleasure, both the seemly and the unseemly, likewise extravagantly figured in the form of two young women that were shown attached to one another by the back; one white, and, as Dante said, cross-eyed and with the feet distorted, and the other, although black, yet of a seemly and gracious form, girt with beautiful consideration by the jewelled and gilded cestus, with a bit and a common braccio for measuring in the hands. And she was followed by the Goddess Virginensis, who used also to be invoked in ancient nuptials, that she might aid the husband to loose the virgin zone; on which account, all robed in draperies of white linen, with a crown of emeralds and a cock upon the head, she was seen walking with the above-named zone and with a little branch of agnus-castus in the hands. In her company was Beauty, desired so much and by so many, in the form of a gracious virgin wreathed in flowers, and all crowned with lilies; and with them was Hebe, the Goddess of Youth, likewise a virgin, and likewise dressed with much richness and infinite grace, and crowned with the ornament of a lovely gilded garland, and carrying in the hand a beautiful little branch of flowering almond. Finally, that most lovely company was concluded by Joy, likewise a virgin, gracious and crowned with a garland, who in similar guise carried in the hand a thyrsus all woven of garlands and various leaves and flowers. EIGHTH CAR, OF MERCURY. To Mercury, who had the caduceus, the cap, and the winged sandals, was given the eighth car, drawn by two most natural storks, and likewise enriched and adorned with five of his fables. For the first of these he was seen appearing upon the new walls of Carthage, as the Messenger of Jove, to the enamoured Æneas, and commanding him that he should depart thence and set out on the way to Italy; even as for the second was seen the unhappy Agraulos converted by him into stone, and for the third he was seen likewise at the command of Jove binding the too audacious Prometheus to the rocks of Mount Caucasus. In the fourth, again, he was seen converting the ill-advised Battus into that stone that is called basanite; and in the fifth and last was his slaying, so cunningly achieved, of the many-eyed Argus. For clearer demonstration, that same Argus was seen walking first before the car, in a pastoral habit all covered with eyes; and with him was seen as his companion Maia, the mother of the above-named Mercury and daughter of Faunus, in the very rich habit of a young woman, with a vine upon the head and a sceptre in the hand, having some serpents tame in appearance that were following her. After these was seen coming Palæstra, daughter of Mercury, in the semblance of a virgin wholly nude, but stalwart and proud to a marvel, and adorned with various leaves of olive over the whole person, with the hair cut short, to the end that when fighting, as it was her custom always to do, it might not give a grip to the enemy; and with her was Eloquence, also the daughter of Mercury, robed in the dignified and decorous habit of a matron, with a parrot upon the head, and with one of the hands open. Next were seen the three Graces, with the hands linked in the usual manner, and draped in most delicate veiling; and after them were seen coming the two Lares, dressed in the skins of dogs, with whom there appeared as their companion Art, also in the habit of a matron, with a great lever and a great flame of fire in the hands. These were followed by Autolycus, that most subtle thief, the son of Mercury and of the Nymph Chione, with shoes of felt and a closed cap that hid his face, having both his hands occupied with such a lantern as is called a thieves' lantern, various picklocks, and a rope-ladder. And finally, Hermaphroditus, the offspring of the same Mercury and of Venus, figured in the usual manner, was seen bringing up the rear of that little company. NINTH CAR, OF THE MOON. The ninth car, all silvered, of the Moon, drawn by two horses, one black and the other white, was seen passing in no less lovely fashion after the last; the Moon, draped, as is customary, in a white and delicate veil, guiding the silver reins with grace most gracious; and, like the others, it was seen adorned with no less beauty and pomp by four of her fables. For the first of these that most gentle Goddess, flying from the fury of Typhoeus, was seen constrained to transform herself into a cat; even as in the second she was seen fondly embracing and kissing beautiful Endymion as he lay asleep, and in the third she was seen, won over by a delicate fleece of white wool, making her way into a dark forest, there to lie with the enamoured Pan, the God of Shepherds. In the fourth was seen how the same Endymion named above, for the grace acquired with her, was given pasture for his white flock; and for a better representation of him who was so dear to the Moon, he was then seen walking first before the car, crowned with dittany, and in his company a fair-haired child, with a serpent in the hand, and also crowned with leaves of the plane, representing the Good Genius, and a great black man, awful in aspect, with the beard and hair all dishevelled and with an owl in the hand, representing the Evil Genius. These were followed by the God Vaticanus, who is believed to be able to bring succour to the wailing of little infants, robed in a handsome tawny habit, and with an infant in his arms; and with him was likewise seen coming, in a splendid and well-varied dress, with a key in the hand, the Goddess Egeria, who is also invoked in aid of pregnant women; and with them the other Goddess, Nundina, who likewise protects the names of little babes, in a venerable habit, with a branch of laurel and a sacrificial vase in the hands. Then after these Vitumnus was seen walking, who was reputed to breathe the soul into children at their birth, figured after the Egyptian custom, and with him Sentinus, who likewise was believed by the ancients to give to the newly-born the power of the senses, on which account, he himself being all white, there were seen in his head-dress the heads of those five animals that are believed to have the five senses more acute than any of the others; that of an ape, namely, that of a vulture, that of a wild-boar, that of a lynx, and that--or rather, the whole body--of a little spider. Then Edusa and Potina, who preside over the nourishment of those same infants, were seen riding in the same fashion as the others, in the habit of nymphs, but with breasts very long and very full, one holding a basin containing white bread, and the other a most beautiful vase that seemed to be full of water; and with them, concluding the last part of the company, was Fabulinus, who presides over the first speech of the same infants, robed in various colours, with the head all crowned with wagtails and singing chaffinches. TENTH CAR, OF MINERVA. Minerva, clad in armour, with the spear and the shield of the Gorgon, as she is generally figured, had the tenth car, composed in a triangular form and in the colour of bronze, and drawn by two very large and most bizarre owls, of which I cannot forbear to say that although it would be possible to relate singular and even incredible marvels of all the animals that drew the cars, yet these, beyond all the others, were figured so lifelike and so natural, and their feet, wings, and necks were made to move, and even the eyes to open and shut so well, and with a resemblance so close to the reality, that I know not how I could ever be able to convince of it those who never saw them. However, ceasing to speak of these, I must relate that of the three sides of which the triangular car was composed, there was seen painted in one the miraculous birth of the Goddess from the head of Jove, even as in the second Pandora was seen adorned by her with all those countless ornaments, and in the third, likewise, she was seen converting the hair of the wretched Medusa into snakes. Then on one part of the base there was painted the contest that she had with Neptune over the name that was to be given to Athenæ (before she had such a name), when, he producing the fiery horse and she the fruitful olive, she was seen to win thereby a glorious and memorable victory; and on the other she was seen in the form of a little old woman, striving to persuade the overbold Arachne, before she had transformed her into the animal of that name, that she should consent, without putting the matter to the proof, to yield her the palm in the art of embroidery; even as in the third and last part, with a different aspect, she was seen valorously slaying the proud Typhon. Before the car was seen walking Virtue, in the form of a young and stalwart woman, with two great wings, and in an easy, chaste, and becoming habit, having as a worthy companion the venerable Honour, crowned with palm and resplendent in purple and gold, with the shield and spear in the hands, who was shown supporting two temples, into one of which (namely, that dedicated to the same Honour) it appeared impossible to pass save by way of that dedicated to Virtue; and to the end that a noble and worthy companion might be given to those masks, it seemed right that Victory, crowned with laurel and likewise with a branch of palm in the hand, should be added to the same line. These were followed by Good Fame, figured in the form of a young woman with two white wings, sounding a great trumpet, and after her, with a little white dog in her arms, came Faith, likewise all white, with a luminous veil that was seen covering her arms, head, and face; and with them Salvation, holding in the right hand a cup that she seemed to be seeking to offer to a serpent, and in the other a thin and straight wand. After these, then, was seen coming Nemesis, the daughter of Night, who rewards the good and chastises the wicked, virginal in aspect, and crowned with little stags and little victories, with a spear of ash and a similar cup in the hands; with whom appeared as her companion Peace, also a virgin, but of a kindly aspect, with a branch of olive in the hand and a blind boy, representing the God of riches, in the arms; and with them, carrying in the hand a drinking-vessel in the form of a lily, and in similar guise, was seen likewise coming ever-verdant Hope, followed by Clemency, who was riding upon a great lion, with a spear in one hand and in the other a thunderbolt, which she was making as if not to hurl furiously, but to throw away. Then were seen likewise coming Opportunity, who had a little behind her Penitence, by whom she seemed to be continually smitten, and Felicity, upon a commodious throne, with a caduceus in one hand and a horn of plenty in the other. And these were seen followed by the Goddess Pellonia, whose office it is to keep enemies at a distance, in full armour, with two great horns upon the head, and in the hand a vigilant crane, who was seen poised upon one foot, as is their custom, and holding in the other a stone; and with her, closing the last part of the glorious company, was Science, figured in the form of a young man, who was shown carrying in the hand a book and upon the head a gilded tripod, to denote his constancy and firmness. ELEVENTH CAR, OF VULCAN. Vulcan, the God of fire, old, ugly, and lame, with a cap of turquoise-blue upon the head, had the eleventh car, drawn by two great dogs; and in it was figured the Isle of Lemnos, where it is said that Vulcan, thrown down from Heaven, was nursed by Thetis, and began to fashion there the first thunderbolts for Jove. Before it were seen walking, as his ministers and servants, three Cyclopes, Brontes, Steropes, and Pyracmon, of whose aid he is said to have been wont to avail himself in making those thunderbolts. After them was seen coming Polyphemus, the lover of the beautiful Galatea and the first of all the Cyclopes, in the garb of a shepherd, with a great pipe hanging from his neck and a staff in the hand; and with him, crowned with seven stars, the deformed but ingenious Ericthonius, born with serpent's feet from Vulcan's attempt to violate Minerva, to conceal the ugliness of which it is believed that he invented the use of chariots, on which account he walked with one of these in the hand. He was seen followed by the savage Cacus, also the son of Vulcan, spouting a stream of sparks from the mouth and nose; and by Cæculus, likewise the son of Vulcan, and likewise in pastoral garb, but adorned with the royal diadem, and in one of his hands, in memory of the building of Præneste, was seen a city placed upon a hill, and in the other a ruddy and burning flame. After these was seen coming Servius Tullius, King of Rome, who is also believed to have been born of Vulcan, and upon his head, even as in the hand of Cæculus, in token of his happy augury, a similar flame was seen to form in marvellous fashion a splendid and propitious garland. Then was seen the jealous Procris, daughter of the above-named Ericthonius, and wife of Cephalus, who, in memory of the ancient fable, seemed to have the breast transfixed by a javelin; and with her was seen Oreithyia, her sister, in a virginal and lovely habit, and in the centre between them was Pandion, King of Athens, born with them of the same father, adorned with the vestments of a Grecian King. After him came Procne and Philomela, his daughters, one dressed in the skin of a deer, with a spear in the hand and upon the head a little chattering swallow, and the other carrying in the same place a nightingale, and likewise having in the hand a woman's embroidered mantle, in allusion to her miserable fate; and she appeared to be following her beloved father all filled with sorrow, although adorned with a rich vestment. And with them, to conclude the last part of the company, was Caca, the sister of Cacus, adored by the ancients as a Goddess for the reason that, laying aside her love for her brother, she is said to have revealed to Hercules the secret of the stolen cattle. TWELFTH CAR, OF JUNO. When Vulcan had passed, Queen Juno, adorned with a rich, superb, and royal crown, and with vestments transparent and luminous, was seen coming in much majesty upon the twelfth car, which was not less pompous than any of the others, and drawn by two most lovely peacocks; and between the five little stories of her actions that were seen painted therein, were Lycorias, Beroë, and Deiopea, her most beautiful and most favoured Nymphs. For the first of these stories was seen the unhappy Callisto transformed by her into a bear, who was placed afterwards by compassionate Jove among the principal stars in the heavens; and in the second was seen how, having transformed herself into the likeness of Beroë, she persuaded the unsuspecting Semele to beseech Jove that he should deign in his grace to lie with her in the guise wherein he was wont to lie with his wife Juno; on which account the unhappy mortal, not being able to sustain the force of the celestial splendour, was consumed by fire, and Jove was seen to take Bacchus from her belly and place him in his own, preserving him for the full time of birth. In the third, likewise, she was seen praying Æolus that he should send his furious winds to scatter the fleet of Trojan Æneas; even as in the fourth she was seen in like manner, filled with jealousy, demanding from Jove the miserable Io transformed into a cow, and giving her, to the end that she might not be stolen from her by Jove, into the custody of the ever-vigilant Argus, who, as has been told elsewhere, was put to sleep and slain by Mercury; and in the fifth picture was seen Juno sending after most unhappy Io the pitiless gad-fly, to the end that he might keep her continually pricked and stung. At the foot of the car, then, were seen coming a good number of those phenomena that are formed in the air, among which could be seen as the first Iris, regarded by the ancients as the messenger of the Gods, and the daughter of Thaumas and Electra; all lissom and free, and dressed in vestments of red, yellow, blue, and green, signifying the rainbow, with two hawks' wings upon the head that denoted her swiftness. In her company, then, in a red habit, with the hair ruddy and dishevelled, was the Comet, figured as a young woman who had a large and shining star upon the brow; and with them came Clear Sky, in the aspect of a virgin, who was seen with the countenance of turquoise-blue, and turquoise-blue all the wide and ample dress, not without a white dove likewise upon the head, to signify the sky. After these were seen Snow and Mist, coupled together; the first dressed in tawny-coloured draperies, upon which were shown lying many trunks of trees all sprinkled with snow, and the other was seen walking, as if she had no shape, as it were in the semblance of a great white mass; having with them verdant Dew, figured in that same colour, to denote the green plants upon which she is generally seen, and having a round moon upon the head, signifying that in the time of the moon's fulness, above all, dew is wont to fall from the heavens upon green herbage. Then there followed Rain, dressed in a white but somewhat soiled habit, upon whose head seven stars, partly bright and partly dim, formed a garland representing the seven Pleiades, even as the seventeen that blazed upon her breast appeared to denote the sign of rainy Orion. There followed, likewise, three virgins of different ages, attired in white draperies and also crowned with olive, representing the three classes of virgins that used to run races in the ancient games of Juno; having with them, for the last, the Goddess Populonia in the rich habit of a matron, with a garland of pomegranate and balm-mint upon the head, and with a little table in the hand, by whom the airy company above described was seen graciously concluded. THIRTEENTH CAR, OF NEPTUNE. Fanciful, bizarre, and beautiful beyond all the others appeared the thirteenth car, of Neptune, which was composed of an immense crab, such as the Venetians are wont to call Grancevola, which rested upon four great dolphins, having about the base, which resembled a real and natural rock, a vast number of sea-shells, sponges, and corals, which rendered it most lovely and ornate, and being drawn by two sea-horses; and upon it was seen standing Neptune, in the customary form and with the customary trident, having at his feet, as a companion, his spouse Salacia, in the form of a snow-white nymph all covered with foam. Before the car, then, was seen walking the old and bearded Glaucus, all dripping and all covered with sea-weed and moss, whose person from the waist downwards was seen in the form of a swimming fish. About him circled many halcyon-birds, and with him was seen the much-changing and deceitful Proteus, likewise old, all dripping, and covered with sea-weed; and with them proud Phorcys, with a royal band of turquoise-blue about the head, and with beard and hair long and flowing beyond measure, and carrying in the hand the famous Pillars of Hercules, as a sign of the empire that he once had. Then followed two Tritons with the customary tails, sounding their trumpets, and in their company appeared old Æolus, likewise holding in the hands a royal sceptre and a sail, and having upon the head a burning flame of fire. And he was followed by four of his principal Winds; by young Zephyrus, with the locks and the varied wings adorned with various little flowers, by dark and parching Eurus, who had a radiant sun upon the head; by cold and snowy Boreas; and, finally, by the soft, cloudy, and proud Auster; all figured, according as they are generally painted, with swelling cheeks and with the large and swift wings that are customary. After these, in due place, were seen coming the two giants, Otus and Ephialtes, all wounded and transfixed by various arrows, in memory of their having been slain by Apollo and Diana; and with them, not less appropriately, were seen coming likewise two Harpies, with the customary maiden's face and the customary rapacious claws and most hideous belly. There was seen also the Egyptian God Canopus, in memory of the astuteness formerly used by the priest against the Chaldæans, figured as very short, round, and fat; and likewise, young and lovely, winged Zetes and Calais, the sons of Boreas, by whose valour it is related that once upon a time those foul and ravenous Harpies were driven from the world. And with them were seen, at the last, the beautiful Nymph Amymone, beloved by Neptune, with a gilded vase, and the young Greek Neleus, son of the same Neptune, who, with royal sceptre and habit, was seen to conclude the last part of the company described above. FOURTEENTH CAR, OF OCEANUS AND OF TETHYS. There followed in the fourteenth company, with Tethys, the great Queen of the sea, the great father Oceanus, her husband, the son of Heaven, who was figured in the form of a tall and cerulean old man, with a great beard and long hair all wet and dishevelled, and covered all over with sea-weed and various sea-shells, with a horrible seal in the hand, while she was represented as a tall and masterful matron, resplendent, old, and white, and holding in the hand a great fish; and they were both seen upon a most fantastic car in the semblance of a rock, very strange and bizarre, drawn by two immense whales. At the foot of the car was seen walking Nereus, their son, old, venerable, and covered with foam, and with him Thetis, daughter of that Nereus and of Doris, and mother of great Achilles, who was shown riding upon a dolphin; and she was seen followed by three most beautiful Sirens figured in the usual manner, who had behind them two very beautiful, although white-haired, Nymphs of the sea, called Graeæ, likewise daughters of the Sea-God Phorcys and of the Nymph Ceto, clothed most pleasingly in various graceful draperies. Behind these, then, were seen coming the three Gorgons with their snaky locks, daughters of the same father and mother, who made use of a single eye, with which alone, lending it to one another, they were all three able to see; and there was likewise seen coming the cruel Scylla, with the face and breast of a maiden and with the rest of the person in the form of a fish, and with her the old, ugly, and voracious Charybdis, transfixed by an arrow in memory of her well-deserved punishment. And behind these, in order to leave the last part of the company more gladsome in aspect, there was seen coming for the last, all nude, the beautiful and pure-white Galatea, beloved and gracious daughter of Nereus and Doris. FIFTEENTH CAR, OF PAN. In the fifteenth car, which had the natural and true appearance of a shady forest counterfeited with much artifice, and was drawn by two great white he-goats, was seen coming the rubicund Pan, the God of forests and of shepherds, in the form of an old and horned Satyr, crowned with foliage of the pine, with the spotted skin of a panther across the body, and in the hands a great pipe with seven reeds and a pastoral staff. At the foot of the car were seen walking some other Satyrs and some old Sylvan Gods, crowned with fennel and lilies, and holding some boughs of cypress in memory of the beloved Cyparissus. After these, likewise, were seen coming two Fauns crowned with laurel, and each with a cat upon the right shoulder; and behind them the wild and beautiful Syrinx, beloved by Pan, who, flying from him, is said to have been transformed by the Naiad sisters into a tremulous and musical reed. Syrinx had in her company the other Nymph, Pitys, likewise beloved by Pan; but since the wind Boreas was also and in like manner enamoured of her, it is believed that out of jealousy he hurled her over a most cruel rock, whereupon, being all shattered, it is said that out of pity she was transformed by Mother Earth into a beautiful pine, from the foliage of which her lover Pan used, as has been shown above, to make himself a gracious and well-beloved garland. Then after these was seen coming Pales, the revered custodian and protectress of flocks, dressed as a gentle shepherdess, with a great vessel of milk in the hands, and a garland of medicinal herbs; and with her the protectress of herds, by name Bubona, in a similar pastoral dress, with an ornate head of an ox that made a cap for her head; and Myiagrus, the God of flies, dressed in white, with an infinite multitude of those importunate little creatures about his head and his person, with a garland of spondyl, and with the club of Hercules in his hand; and Evander, who first taught men in Italy to make sacrifices to Pan, adorned with royal purple and the royal head-band, and with the royal sceptre in his hand, concluded with gracious pomp the last part of that pastoral, indeed, yet pleasing and most fair company. SIXTEENTH CAR, OF PLUTO AND OF PROSERPINE. Then followed infernal Pluto with Queen Proserpine, all nude, awful, and dark, and crowned with funeral cypress, holding a little sceptre in one of his hands as a sign of his royal power, and having at his feet the great, horrible, and triple-throated Cerberus; but Proserpine, who was seen with him (accompanied by two Nymphs, one holding in the hand a round ball, and the other a great and strong key, denoting that one who has once come into that kingdom must abandon all hope of return), was shown clothed in a white and rich dress, ornate beyond belief. And both were in the usual car, drawn by four jet-black horses, whose reins were seen guided by a most hideous and infernal monster, who had with him, as worthy companions, the three likewise infernal Furies, bloody, foul, and awful, with the hair and the whole person entwined with various venomous serpents. Behind these were seen following the two Centaurs, Nessus and Astylus, with bows and arrows, and besides these arms Astylus carried in the hand a great eagle; and with them the proud giant Briareus, who had a hundred hands armed with sword and buckler, and fifty heads, from which a stream of fire was seen spouting through the mouth and nostrils. These were followed by turbid Acheron, pouring water and sand, livid and stinking, from a great vase that he carried in his hands, and with him was seen coming the other infernal river, Cocytus, likewise pallid and dark, and likewise pouring from a similar vase a similar fetid and turbid stream; having with them the horrible and sluggish Styx, daughter of Oceanus, so much feared by all the Gods, who was dressed in a nymph's habit, but dark and foul, and carried a similar vase, and seemed to be encompassed by the other infernal river, Phlegethon, whose whole person, with his vase and the boiling waters, was tinted with a dark and fearful redness. Then followed old Charon, with the oar, and with the eyes (as Dante said) of glowing coal; accompanied, to the end that not one of the infernal rivers might be absent, by the pallid, meagre, emaciated, and oblivious Lethe, in whose hand was seen a similar vase, which likewise poured from every side turbid and livid water; and following behind them were the three great judges of Hell, Minos, Æacus, and Rhadamanthus, the first being figured in royal form and habit, and the second and third attired in dark, grave, and venerable vestments. After these was seen coming Phlegyas, the sacrilegious King of the Lapithæ, recalling, by an arrow that transfixed his breast, the memory of the burned temple of Phoebus and the chastisement received from him, and, for clearer demonstration, carrying that temple all burning in one of his hands. Next was seen the afflicted Sisyphus under the great and ponderous stone, and with him the famished and miserable Tantalus, who was shown with the fruits so vainly desired close to his mouth. And then were seen coming, but in more gracious aspect, as if setting out from the glad Elysian Fields, with the comet-like star on the brow, and wearing the imperial habit, the divine Julius and the happy Octavianus Augustus, his successor; the terrible and dreadful company being finally concluded in most noble fashion by the Amazon Penthesileia, adorned with the spear, the half-moon shield, and the royal band upon the head, and by the widowed Queen Tomyris, who likewise had the hands and side adorned with the bow and barbaric arrows. SEVENTEENTH CAR, OF CYBELE. After these was seen coming Cybele, the great mother of the Gods, crowned with towers, and, for the reason that she is held to be Goddess of the Earth, robed in a vestment woven of various plants, with a sceptre in the hand, and seated upon a quadrangular car, which contained many other empty seats besides her own, and was drawn by two great lions; and for the adornment of the car were painted with most beautiful design four of her stories. For the first of these was seen how, when she was conveyed from Pessinus to Rome, the ship that was carrying her being stuck fast in the Tiber, she was drawn miraculously to the bank by the Vestal Claudia with only her own simple girdle, to the rare marvel of the bystanders; even as for the second she was seen taken by command of her priests to the house of Scipio Nasica, who was judged to be the best and most holy man to be found in Rome at that time. For the third, likewise, she was seen visited in Phrygia by the Goddess Ceres, after she thought to have hidden her daughter Proserpine safely in Sicily; and for the fourth and last she was seen flying from the fury of the Giants into Egypt, as the poets relate, and constrained to transform herself into a blackbird. At the foot of the car, then, were seen riding ten Corybantes, armed after the ancient fashion, who were making various extravagant gestures of head and person; after whom were seen coming two Roman matrons in Roman dress, with the head covered by a yellow veil, and with them the above-named Scipio Nasica and the Vestal Virgin Claudia, who had over the head a square white kerchief with a border all around, which was fastened under the throat. And for the last, to give a gracious conclusion to the little company, there was seen coming with an aspect of great loveliness the young and beautiful Atys, beloved most ardently, as we read, by Cybele; who, besides the rich, easy, and charming costume of a huntsman, was seen most gracefully adorned by a very beautiful gilded collar. EIGHTEENTH CAR, OF DIANA. In the eighteenth and incredibly beautiful car, drawn by two white stags, there was seen coming, with the gilded bow and gilded quiver, the huntress Diana, who was shown seated with infinite grace and loveliness upon two other stags, which with their hindquarters made for her, as it were, a most fanciful seat; the rest of the car being rendered strangely gracious, lovely, and ornate by nine of her most pleasing fables. For the first of these was seen how, moved by pity for the flying Arethusa, who was seen pursued by the enamoured Alpheus, the Goddess converted her into a fountain; even as for the second she was seen praying Æsculapius that he should consent to restore to life for her the dead but innocent Hippolytus; which being accomplished, she was then seen in the third ordaining him guardian of her temple and her sacred wood in Aricia. For the fourth she was seen chasing Cynthia, violated by Jove, from the pure waters where she used to bathe with her other virgin Nymphs; and for the fifth was seen the deceit practised by her on the above-named Alpheus, when, seeking presumptuously to obtain her as his wife, he was taken by her to see her dance, and there, having smeared her face with mire in company with the other Nymphs, she constrained him, not being able to recognize her in that guise, to depart all derided and scorned. For the sixth, then, she was seen in company with her brother Apollo, chastising proud Niobe and slaying her with all her children; and for the seventh she was seen sending the great and savage boar into the Calydonian forest, which laid all Ætolia waste, having been moved to just and righteous wrath against that people because they had discontinued her sacrifices. Even as for the eighth she was seen not less wrathfully converting the unhappy Actæon into a stag; but in the ninth and last, moved on the contrary by pity, she was seen transforming Egeria, weeping for the death of her husband, Numa Pompilius, into a fountain. At the foot of the car, then, were seen coming eight of her huntress Nymphs, with their bows and quivers, dressed in graceful, pleasing, loose, and easy garments, composed of skins of various animals as it were slain by them; and with them, as the last, concluding the small but gracious company, was young Virbius, crowned with spotted-leaf myrtle, and holding in one hand a little broken chariot, and in the other a bunch of tresses virginal and blonde. NINETEENTH CAR, OF CERES. In the nineteenth car, drawn by two great dragons, coming in no less pomp than the others, was seen Ceres, the Goddess of grain-crops, in the habit of a matron, with a garland of ears of corn and with ruddy locks; and with no less pomp that car was seen adorned by nine of her fables, which had been painted there. For the first of these was seen figured the happy birth of Pluto, the God of Riches, born, as we read in certain poets, from her and from the hero Iasius; even as for the second she was seen washing with great care and feeding with her own milk the little Triptolemus, son of Eleusis and Hyona. For the third was seen the same Triptolemus flying by her advice upon one of the two dragons that had been presented to him by her, together with the car, to the end that he might go through the world piously teaching the care and cultivation of the fields; the other dragon having been killed by the impious King of the Getæ, who sought with every effort likewise to slay Triptolemus. For the fourth was seen how she hid her beloved daughter Proserpine in Sicily, foreseeing in a certain sense that which afterwards befell her; even as in the fifth, likewise, she was seen after that event, as has been told elsewhere, going to Phrygia to visit her mother Cybele; and in the sixth, as she was dwelling in that place, the same Proserpine was seen appearing to her in a dream, and demonstrating to her in what a plight she found herself from Pluto's rape of her; on which account, being all distraught, she was seen in the seventh returning in great haste to Sicily. For the eighth, likewise, was seen how, not finding her there, in her deep anguish she kindled two great torches, being moved to the resolution to seek her throughout the whole world; and in the ninth and last she was seen arriving at the well of Cyane, and there coming by chance upon the girdle of her stolen daughter, a sure proof of what had befallen her; whereupon in her great wrath, not having aught else on which to vent it, she was seen turning to break to pieces the rakes, hoes, ploughs, and other rustic implements that chanced to have been left there in the fields by the peasants. At the foot of the car, then, were seen walking figures signifying her various sacrifices; first, for those that are called the Eleusinia, two little virgins attired in white vestments, each with a gracious little basket in the hands, one of which was seen to be all filled with various flowers, and the other with various ears of corn. After which, for those sacrifices that were offered to Ceres as Goddess of Earth, there were seen coming two boys, two women, and two men, likewise all dressed in white, and all crowned with hyacinths, who were leading two great oxen, as it were to sacrifice them; and then, for those others that were offered to Ceres the Law-giver, called by the Greeks Thesmophoros, were seen coming two matrons only, very chaste in aspect, likewise dressed in white, and in like manner crowned with ears of corn and agnus-castus. And after these, in order to display in full the whole order of her sacrifices, there were seen coming three Greek priests, likewise attired in white draperies, two of whom carried in the hands two lighted torches, and the other an ancient lamp, likewise lighted. And, finally, the sacred company was concluded by the two heroes so much beloved by Ceres, of whom mention has been made above--Triptolemus, namely, who carried a plough in the hand and was shown riding upon a dragon, and Iasius, whom it was thought proper to figure in the easy, rich, and gracious habit of a huntsman. TWENTIETH CAR, OF BACCHUS. Then followed the twentieth car, of Bacchus, likewise shaped with singular artistry and with novel and truly most fanciful and bizarre invention; and it was seen in the form of a very graceful little ship all overlaid with silver, which was balanced in such wise upon a great base that had the true and natural appearance of the cerulean sea, that at the slightest movement it was seen, with extraordinary pleasure for the spectators, to roll from side to side in the very manner of a real ship upon the real sea. In it, besides the merry and laughing Bacchus, attired in the usual manner and set in the most commanding place, there were seen in company with Maron, King of Thrace, some Bacchantes and some Satyrs all merry and joyful, sounding various cymbals and other suchlike instruments; and since, as it were, from a part of that happy ship there rose an abundant fount of bright and foaming wine, they were seen not only drinking the wine very often from various cups, with much rejoicing, but also with the licence that wine induces inviting the bystanders to drink and sing in their company. In place of a mast, also, the little ship had a great thyrsus wreathed in vine-leaves, which supported a graceful and swelling sail, upon which, to the end that it might be gladsome and ornate, were seen painted many of those Bacchantes who, so it is said, are wont to run about, drinking and dancing and singing with much licence, over Mount Tmolus, father of the choicest wines. At the foot of the car, then, was seen walking the beautiful Syce, beloved by Bacchus, who had upon the head a garland, and in the hand a branch, of fig; and with her, likewise, was the other love of the same Bacchus, Staphyle by name, who, besides a great vine-branch with many grapes that she carried in the hand, was also seen to have made in no less lovely fashion about her head, with vine-leaves and bunches of similar grapes, a green and graceful garland. After these came the fair and youthful Cissus, also beloved by Bacchus, who, falling by misfortune, was transformed by Mother Earth into ivy, on which account he was seen in a habit all covered with ivy in every part. And behind him was seen coming old Silenus, all naked and bound upon an ass with various garlands of ivy, as if by reason of his drunkenness he were unable to support himself, and carrying attached to his girdle a great wooden cup all worn away; and with him, likewise, came the God of Banquets, called by the ancients Comus, represented in the form of a ruddy, beardless, and most beautiful youth, all crowned with roses, but in aspect so somnolent and languid, that it appeared almost as if the huntsman's boar-spear and the lighted torch that he carried in the hands might fall from them at any moment. There followed with a panther upon the back the old and likewise ruddy and laughing Drunkenness, attired in a red habit, with a great foaming vessel of wine in the hands, and with her the young and merry Laughter; and behind these were seen coming in the garb of shepherds and nymphs two men and two women, followers of Bacchus, crowned and adorned in various ways with various leaves of the vine. And Semele, the mother of Bacchus, all smoky and scorched in memory of the ancient fable, with Narcæus, the first ordinator of the sacrifices to Bacchus, who had a great he-goat upon his back, and was adorned with antique and shining arms, appeared to form a worthy, appropriate, and gracious end to that glad and festive company. TWENTY-FIRST AND LAST CAR. The twenty-first and last car, representing the Roman Mount Janiculum, and drawn by two great white rams, was given to the venerable Janus, figured with two heads, one young and the other old, as is the custom, and holding in the hands a great key and a thin wand, to demonstrate the power over doors and streets that is attributed to him. At the foot of the car was seen coming sacred Religion, attired in white linen vestments, with one of the hands open, and carrying in the other an ancient altar with a burning flame; and on either side of her were the Prayers, represented, as they are described by Homer, in the form of two wrinkled, lame, cross-eyed, and melancholy old women, dressed in draperies of turquoise-blue. After these were seen coming Antevorta and Postvorta, the companions of Divinity, of whom it was believed that the first had power to know whether prayers were or were not to be heard by the Gods; and the second, who rendered account only of the past, was able to say whether prayers had or had not been heard; the first being figured in the comely aspect and habit of a matron, with a lamp and a corn-sieve in the hands, and a head-dress covered with ants upon the head; and the second, clothed in front all in white, and figured with the face of an old woman, was seen to be attired at the back in heavy black draperies, and to have the hair, on the contrary, blonde, curling, and beautiful, such as is generally seen in young and love-compelling women. Then followed that Favour which we seek from the Gods, to the end that our desires may have a happy and fortunate end; and he, although shown in the aspect of a youth, blind and with wings, and with a proud and haughty presence, yet at times appeared timid and trembling because of the rolling wheel upon which he was seen standing, doubting that, as is often seen to happen, at every least turn he might come with great ease to fall from it; and with him was seen Success, or, as we would rather say, the happy end of our enterprises, figured as a gay and lovely youth, holding in one of the hands a cup, and in the other an ear of corn and a poppy. Then there followed, in the form of a virgin crowned with oriental palm, with a star upon the brow and with a branch of the same palm in the hand, Anna Perenna, revered by the ancients as a Goddess, believing that she was able to make the year fortunate, and with her were seen coming two Fetiales with the Roman toga, adorned with garlands of verbenæ and with a sow and a stone in the hands, to denote the kind of oath that they were wont to take when they made any declaration for the Roman people. Behind these, then, following the religious ceremonies of war, was seen coming a Roman Consul in the Gabinian and purple toga, and with a spear in the hand, and with him two Roman Senators likewise in the toga, and two soldiers in full armour and with the Roman javelin. And finally, concluding that company and all the others, there followed Money, attired in draperies of yellow, white, and tawny colour, and holding in the hands various instruments for striking coins; the use of which, so it is believed, was first discovered and introduced, as a thing necessary to the human race, by Janus. Such were the cars and companies of that marvellous masquerade, the like of which was never seen before, and, perchance, will never be seen again in our day. And about it--leaving on one side, as a burden too great for my shoulders, the vast and incomparable praises that would be due to it--there had been marshalled with much judgment six very rich masks in the guise of sergeants, or rather, captains, who, harmonizing very well with the invention of the whole, were seen, according as necessity demanded, running hither and thither and keeping all that long line, which occupied about half a mile of road, advancing in due order with decorum and grace. Now, drawing near at length to the end of that splendid and most merry Carnival, which would have been much more merry and celebrated with much more splendour, if the inopportune death of Pius IV, which happened a short time before, had not incommoded a good number of very reverend Cardinals and other very illustrious lords from all Italy, who, invited to those most royal nuptials, had made preparations to come; and leaving on one side the rich and lovely inventions without number seen in the separate masks, thanks to the amorous young men, not only in the innumerable banquets and other suchlike entertainments, but wherever they broke a lance or tilted at the ring, now in one place and now in another, and wherever they made similar trial of their dexterity and valour in a thousand other games; and treating only of the last festival, which was seen on the last day, I shall say that although there had been seen the innumerable things, so rare, so rich, and so ingenious, of which mention has been made above, yet this festival, from the pleasing nature of the play, from the richness, emulation and competence shown in it by our craftsmen (some of whom, as always happens, considered themselves surpassed in the things accomplished), and from a certain extravagance and variety in the inventions, some of which appeared beautiful and ingenious, and others ridiculous and clumsy, this one, I say, also displayed an extraordinary and most charming beauty, and likewise gave to the admiring people, amid all that satiety, a pleasure and a delight that were marvellous and perhaps unexpected; and it was a buffalo-race, composed of ten distinct companies, which were distributed, besides those that the Sovereign Princes took for themselves, partly among the lords of the Court and the strangers, and partly among the gentlemen of the city and the two colonies of merchants, the Spanish and the Genoese. First, then, upon the first buffalo that appeared in the appointed place, there was seen coming Wickedness, adorned with great art and judgment, who was shown being chased, goaded and beaten by six cavaliers likewise figured most ingeniously as Scourging, or rather, Scourges. After that, upon the second buffalo, which had the appearance of a lazy ass, was seen coming the old and drunken Silenus, supported by six Bacchants, who were seen striving at the same time to goad and spur the ass; even as upon the third, which had the form of a calf, there was likewise seen coming the ancient Osiris, accompanied by six of the companions or soldiers with whom, it is believed, that Deity travelled over many parts of the world and taught to the still new and barbarous races the cultivation of the fields. Upon the fourth, without any disguise, was placed as on horseback Human Life, likewise chased and goaded by six cavaliers who represented the Years; even as upon the fifth, also without any disguise, was seen coming Fame with the many mouths and with the great wings of desire that are customary, also chased by six cavaliers who resembled Virtue, or the Virtues; which Virtues, so it was said, chasing her, were aspiring to obtain the due and well-deserved reward of honour. Upon the sixth, then, was seen coming a very rich Mercury, who was shown being goaded and urged on no less than the others by six other similar figures of Mercury; and upon the seventh was seen the nurse of Romulus, Acca Laurentia, with six of her Fratres Arvales, who were not only urging her lazy animal to a run with their goads, but seemed almost to have been introduced to keep her company with much fittingness and pomp. Upon the eighth, next, was seen coming with much grace and richness a large and very natural owl, with six cavaliers in the form of bats most natural and marvellously similar to the reality, who with most dexterous horses, goading the buffalo now from one side and now from another, were seen delivering a thousand joyous and most festive assaults. For the ninth, with singular artifice and ingenious illusion, there was seen appearing little by little a Cloud, which, after it had held the eyes of the spectators for some time in suspense, was seen in an instant as it were to part asunder, and from it issued the seafaring Misenus seated upon the buffalo, which at once was seen pursued and pricked by six Tritons adorned in a very rich and most masterly fashion. And for the tenth and last there was seen coming, almost with the same artifice, but in a different and much larger form and in a different colour, another similar Cloud, which, parting asunder in like manner at the appointed place with smoke and flame and a horrible thunder, was seen to have within it infernal Pluto, drawn in his usual car, and from it in a most gracious manner was seen to come forth in place of a buffalo a great and awful Cerberus, who was chased by six of those glorious ancient heroes who are supposed to dwell in peace in the Elysian Fields. All those companies, when they had appeared one by one upon the piazza, and presented the due and gracious spectacle, and after a long breaking of lances, a great caracoling of horses, and a thousand other suchlike games, with which the fair ladies and the multitude of spectators were entertained for a good time, finally made their way to the place where the buffaloes were to be set to race. And there, the trumpet having sounded, and each company striving that its buffalo should arrive at the appointed goal before the others, and now one prevailing and now another, all of a sudden, when they were come within a certain distance of the place, all the air about them was seen filled with terror and alarm from the great and deafening fires that smote them now on one side and now on another, in a thousand strange fashions, insomuch that very often it was seen to happen that one who at the beginning had been nearest to winning the coveted prize, the timid and not very obedient animal taking fright at the noise, the smoke, and the fires above described, which, in proportion as one went ahead, became ever greater and assailed that one with ever greater vehemence, so that the animals turned in various directions, and very often took to headlong flight--it was seen many times, I say, that the first were constrained to return among the last; while the confusion of men, buffaloes, and horses, and the lightning-flashes, noises, and thunderings, produced a strange, novel, and incomparable pleasure and delight. And thus with that spectacle was finally contrived a splendid, although for many perhaps disturbing, conclusion of the joyous and most festive Carnival. In the first and holy days of the following Lent, with the thought of pleasing the most devout bride, but also with truly extraordinary pleasure for the whole people, who, having been deprived of such things for many years, and part of the fragile apparatus having been lost, feared that they would never be resumed, there was held the festival, so famous and so celebrated in olden days, of S. Felice, so-called from the church where it used formerly to be represented. But this time, besides that which their Excellencies, our Lords, themselves deigned to do, it was represented at the pains and expense of four of the principal and most ingenious gentlemen of the city in the Church of S. Spirito, as a place more capacious and more beautiful, with a vast apparatus of machinery and all the old instruments and not a few newly added. In it, besides many Prophets and Sibyls who, singing in the simple ancient manner, announced the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, very notable--nay, marvellous, stupendous, and incomparable, from its having been contrived in those ignorant ages--was the Paradise, which, opening in an instant, was seen filled with all the hierarchies of the Angels and of the Saints both male and female, and with various movements representing its different spheres, and as it were sending down to earth the Divine Gabriel shining with infinite splendour, in the midst of eight other little Angels, to bring the Annunciation to the Glorious Virgin, who was seen waiting in her chamber, all humble and devout; all being let down (and reascending afterwards), to the rare marvel of everyone, from the highest part of the cupola of that church, where the above-described Paradise was figured, down to the floor of the chamber of the Virgin, which was not raised any great height from the ground, and all with such security and by methods so beautiful, so facile, and so ingenious, that it appeared scarcely possible that the human brain was able to go so far. And with this the festivities all arranged by our most excellent Lords for those most royal nuptials had a conclusion not only renowned and splendid, but also, as was right fitting for true Christian Princes, religious and devout. Many things, also, could have been told of a very noble spectacle presented by the most liberal Signor Paolo Giordano Orsino, Duke of Bracciano, in a great and most heroic theatre, all suspended in the air, which was constructed by him of woodwork in those days with royal spirit and incredible expense; and in it, with very rich inventions of the Knights Challengers, of whom he was one, and of the Knights Adventurers, there was fought with various arms a combat for a barrier, and there was performed with beautifully trained horses, to the rare delight of the spectators, the graceful dance called the Battaglia. But this, being hindered by inopportune rains, was prolonged over many days; and since, seeking to treat of it at any length, it would require almost an entire work, being now weary, I believe that I may be pardoned if without saying more of it I bring this my long--I know not whether to call it tedious--labour, at length to an end. GIORGIO VASARI DESCRIPTION OF THE WORKS OF GIORGIO VASARI PAINTER AND ARCHITECT OF AREZZO Having discoursed hitherto of the works of others, with the greatest diligence and sincerity that my brain has been able to command, I also wish at the end of these my labours to assemble together and make known to the world the works that the Divine Goodness in its grace has enabled me to execute, for the reason that, if indeed they are not of that perfection which I might wish, it will yet be seen by him who may consent to look at them with no jaundiced eye that they have been wrought by me with study, diligence, and loving labour, and are therefore worthy, if not of praise, at least of excuse; besides which, being out in the world and open to view, I cannot hide them. And since perchance at some time they might be described by some other person, it is surely better that I should confess the truth, and of myself accuse my imperfection, which I know only too well, being assured of this, that if, as I said, there may not be seen in them the perfection of excellence, there will be perceived at least an ardent desire to work well, great and indefatigable effort, and the extraordinary love that I bear to our arts. Wherefore it may come about that, according to the law, myself confessing openly my own deficiencies, I shall be in great part pardoned. To begin, then, with my earliest years, let me say that, having spoken sufficiently of the origin of my family, of my birth and childhood, and how I was set by Antonio, my father, with all manner of lovingness on the path of the arts, and in particular that of design, to which he saw me much inclined, with good occasions in the Life of Luca Signorelli of Cortona, my kinsman, in that of Francesco Salviati, and in many other places in the present work, I shall not proceed to repeat the same things. But I must relate that after having drawn in my first years all the good pictures that are about the churches of Arezzo, the first rudiments were taught to me with some method by the Frenchman Guglielmo da Marcilla, whose life and works we have described above. Then, having been taken to Florence in the year 1524 by Silvio Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, I gave some little attention to design under Michelagnolo, Andrea del Sarto, and others. But the Medici having been driven from Florence in the year 1527, and in particular Alessandro and Ippolito, with whom, young as I was, I had a strait attachment of service through the said Cardinal, my paternal uncle Don Antonio made me return to Arezzo, where a short time before my father had died of plague; which Don Antonio, keeping me at a distance from the city lest I might be infected by the plague, was the reason that I, to avoid idleness, went about exercising my hand throughout the district of Arezzo, near our parts, painting some things in fresco for the peasants of the countryside, although as yet I had scarcely ever touched colours; in doing which I learned that to try your hand and work by yourself is helpful and instructive, and enables you to gain excellent practice. In the year afterwards, 1528, the plague being finished, the first work that I executed was a little altar-picture for the Church of S. Piero, of the Servite Friars, at Arezzo; and in that picture, which is placed against a pilaster, are three half-length figures, S. Agatha, S. Rocco, and S. Sebastian. Being seen by Rosso, a very famous painter, who came in those days to Arezzo, it came about that he, recognizing in it something of the good taken from Nature, desired to know me, and afterwards assisted me with designs and counsel. Nor was it long before by his means M. Lorenzo Gamurrini gave me an altar-picture to execute, for which Rosso made me the design; and I then painted it with all the study, labour, and diligence that were possible to me, in order to learn and to acquire something of a name. And if my powers had equalled my good will, I would have soon become a passing good painter, so much I studied and laboured at the things of art; but I found the difficulties much greater than I had judged at the beginning. However, not losing heart, I returned to Florence, where, perceiving that I could not save only after a long time become such as to be able to assist the three sisters and two younger brothers left to me by my father, I placed myself with a goldsmith. But not for long, because in the year 1529, the enemy having come against Florence, I went off with the goldsmith Manno, who was very much my friend, to Pisa, where, setting aside the goldsmith's craft, I painted in fresco the arch that is over the door of the old Company of the Florentines, and some pictures in oils, which were given to me to execute by means of Don Miniato Pitti, at that time Abbot of Agnano without the city of Pisa, and of Luigi Guicciardini, who was then in that city. Then, the war growing every day more general, I resolved to return to Arezzo; but, not being able to go by the direct and ordinary road, I made my way by the mountains of Modena to Bologna. There, finding that some triumphal arches were being decorated in painting for the coronation of Charles V, young as I was I obtained some work, which brought me honour and profit; and since I drew passing well, I would have found means to live and work there. But the desire that I had to revisit my family and other relatives brought it about that, having found good company, I returned to Arezzo, where, finding my affairs in a good state after the diligent care taken of them by the above-named Don Antonio, my uncle, I settled down with a quiet mind and applied myself to design, executing also some little things in oils of no great importance. Meanwhile the above-named Don Miniato Pitti was made Abbot or Prior, I know not which, of S. Anna, a monastery of Monte Oliveto in the territory of Siena, and he sent for me; and so I made for him and for Albenga, their General, some pictures and other works in painting. Then, the same man having been made Abbot of S. Bernardo in Arezzo, I painted for him two pictures in oils of Job and Moses on the balustrade of the organ. And since the work pleased those monks, they commissioned me to paint some pictures in fresco--namely, the four Evangelists--on the vaulting and walls of a portico before the principal door of the church, with God the Father on the vaulting, and some other figures large as life; in which, although as a youth of little experience I did not do all that one more practised would have done, nevertheless I did all that I could, and work which pleased those fathers, having regard for my small experience and age. But scarcely had I finished that work when Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, passing through Arezzo by post, took me away to Rome to serve him, as has been related in the Life of Salviati; and there, by the courtesy of that lord, I had facilities to attend for many months to the study of design. And I could say with truth that those facilities and my studies at that time were my true and principal master in my art, although before that those named above had assisted me not a little; and there had not gone from my heart the ardent desire to learn, and the untiring zeal to be always drawing night and day. There was also of great benefit to me in those days the competition of my young contemporaries and companions, who have since become for the most part very excellent in our art. Nor was it otherwise than a very sharp spur to me to have such a desire of glory, and to see many who had proved themselves very rare, and had risen to honour and rank; so that I used to say to myself at times: "Why should it not be in my power to obtain by assiduous study and labour some of that grandeur and rank that so many others have acquired? They, also, were of flesh and bones, as I am." Urged on, therefore, by so many sharp spurs, and by seeing how much need my family had of me, I disposed myself never to shrink from any fatigue, discomfort, vigil, and toil, in order to achieve that end; and, having thus resolved in my mind, there remained nothing notable at that time in Rome, or afterwards in Florence, and in other places where I dwelt, that I did not draw in my youth, and not pictures only, but also sculptures and architectural works ancient and modern. And besides the proficience that I made in drawing the vaulting and chapel of Michelagnolo, there remained nothing of Raffaello, Polidoro, and Baldassarre da Siena, that I did not likewise draw in company with Francesco Salviati, as has been told already in his Life. And to the end that each of us might have drawings of everything, during the day the one would not draw the same things as the other, but different, and then at night we used to copy each other's drawings, so as to save time and extend our studies; not to mention that more often than not we ate our morning meal standing up, and little at that. After which incredible labour, the first work that issued from my hands, as from my own forge, was a great picture with figures large as life, of a Venus with the Graces adorning and beautifying her, which Cardinal de' Medici caused me to paint; but of that picture there is no need to speak, because it was the work of a lad, nor would I touch on it, save that it is dear to me to remember still these first beginnings and many upward steps of my apprenticeship in the arts. Enough that that lord and others gave me to believe that there was in it a certain something of a good beginning and of a lively and resolute spirit. And since among other things I had made therein to please my fancy a lustful Satyr who, standing hidden amid some bushes, was rejoicing and feasting himself on the sight of Venus and the Graces nude, that so pleased the Cardinal that he had me clothed anew from head to foot, and then gave orders that I should paint in a larger picture, likewise in oils, the battle of the Satyrs with the Fauns, Sylvan Gods, and children, forming a sort of Bacchanal; whereupon, setting to work, I made the cartoon and then sketched in the canvas in colours, which was ten braccia long. Having then to depart in the direction of Hungary, the Cardinal made me known to Pope Clement and left me to the protection of his Holiness, who gave me into the charge of Signor Jeronimo Montaguto, his Chamberlain, with letters authorizing that, if I might wish to fly from the air of Rome that summer, I should be received in Florence by Duke Alessandro; which it would have been well for me to do, because, choosing after all to stay in Rome, what with the heat, the air, and my fatigue, I fell sick in such sort that in order to be restored I was forced to have myself carried by litter to Arezzo. Finally, however, being well again, about the 10th of the following December I came to Florence, where I was received by the above-named Duke with kindly mien, and shortly afterwards given into the charge of the magnificent M. Ottaviano de' Medici, who so took me under his protection, that as long as he lived he treated me always as a son; and his blessed memory I shall always remember and revere, as of a most affectionate father. Returning then to my usual studies, I received facilities by means of that lord to enter at my pleasure into the new sacristy of S. Lorenzo, where are the works of Michelagnolo, he having gone in those days to Rome; and so I studied them for some time with much diligence, just as they were on the ground. Then, setting myself to work, I painted in a picture of three braccia a Dead Christ carried to the Sepulchre by Nicodemus, Joseph, and others, and behind them the Maries weeping; which picture, when it was finished, was taken by Duke Alessandro. And it was a good and auspicious beginning for my labours, for the reason that not only did he hold it in account as long as he lived, but it has been ever since in the chamber of Duke Cosimo, and is now in that of the most illustrious Prince, his son; and although at times I have desired to set my hand upon it again, in order to improve it in some parts, I have not been allowed. Duke Alessandro, then, having seen this my first work, ordained that I should finish the ground-floor room in the Palace of the Medici which had been left incomplete, as has been related, by Giovanni da Udine. Whereupon I painted there four stories of the actions of Cæsar; his swimming with the Commentaries in one hand and a sword in the mouth, his causing the writings of Pompeius to be burned in order not to see the works of his enemies, his revealing himself to a helmsman while tossed by fortune on the sea, and, finally, his triumph; but this last was not completely finished. During which time, although I was but little more than eighteen years of age, the Duke gave me a salary of six crowns a month, a place at table for myself and a servant, and rooms to live in, with many other conveniences. And although I knew that I was very far from deserving so much, yet I did all that I could with diligence and lovingness, nor did I shrink from asking from my elders whatever I did not know myself; wherefore on many occasions I was assisted with counsel and with work by Tribolo, Bandinelli, and others. I painted, then, in a picture three braccia high, Duke Alessandro himself in armour, portrayed from life, with a new invention in a seat formed of captives bound together, and with other fantasies. And I remember that besides the portrait, which was a good likeness, in seeking to make the burnished surface of the armour bright, shining, and natural, I was not very far from losing my wits, so much did I exert myself in copying every least thing from the reality. However, despairing to be able to approach to the truth in the work, I took Jacopo da Pontormo, whom I revered for his great ability, to see it and to advise me; and he, having seen the picture and perceived my agony, said to me lovingly: "My son, as long as this real lustrous armour stands beside the picture, your armour will always appear to you as painted, for, although lead-white is the most brilliant pigment that art employs, the iron is yet more brilliant and lustrous. Take away the real armour, and you will then see that your counterfeit armour is not such poor stuff as you think it." That picture, when it was finished, I gave to the Duke, and the Duke presented it to M. Ottaviano de' Medici, in whose house it has been up to the present day, in company with the portrait of Caterina, the then young sister of the Duke, and afterwards Queen of France, and that of the Magnificent Lorenzo, the Elder. And in the same house are three pictures also by my hand and executed in my youth; in one is Abraham sacrificing Isaac, in the second Christ in the Garden, and in the third His Supper with the Apostles. Meanwhile Cardinal Ippolito died, in whom was centred the sum of all my hopes, and I began to recognize how vain generally are the hopes of this world, and that a man must trust mostly in himself and in being of some account. After these works, perceiving that the Duke was all given over to fortifications and to building, I began, the better to be able to serve him, to give attention to matters of architecture, and spent much time upon them. But meanwhile, festive preparations having to be made in Florence in the year 1536 for receiving the Emperor Charles V, the Duke, in giving orders for that, commanded the deputies charged with the care of those pomps, as has been related in the Life of Tribolo, that they should have me with them to design all the arches and other ornaments to be made for that entry. Which done, there was allotted to me for my benefit, besides the great banners of the castle and fortress, as has been told, the façade in the manner of a triumphal arch that was constructed at S. Felice in Piazza, forty braccia high and twenty wide, and then the ornamentation of the Porta a S. Piero Gattolini; works all great and beyond my strength. And, what was worse, those favours having drawn down upon me a thousand envious thoughts, about twenty men who were helping me to do the banners and the other labours left me nicely in the lurch, at the persuasion of one person or another, to the end that I might not be able to execute works so many and of such importance. But I, who had foreseen the malice of such creatures (to whom I had always sought to give assistance), partly labouring with my own hand day and night, and partly aided by painters brought in from without, who helped me secretly, attended to my business, and strove to conquer all such difficulties and treacheries by means of the works themselves. During that time Bertoldo Corsini, who was then proveditor-general to his Excellency, had reported to the Duke that I had undertaken to do so many things that it would never be possible for me to have them finished in time, particularly because I had no men and the works were much in arrears. Whereupon the Duke sent for me, and told me what he had heard; and I answered that my works were well advanced, as his Excellency might see at his pleasure, and that the end would do credit to the whole. Then I went away, and no long time passed before he came secretly to where I was working, and, having seen everything, recognized in part the envy and malice of those who were pressing upon me without having any cause. The time having come when everything was to be in order, I had finished my works to the last detail and set them in their places, to the great satisfaction of the Duke and of all the city; whereas those of some who had thought more of my business than of their own, were set in place unfinished. When the festivities were over, besides four hundred crowns that were paid to me for my work, the Duke gave me three hundred that were taken away from those who had not carried their works to completion by the appointed time, according as had been arranged by agreement. And with those earnings and donations I married one of my sisters, and shortly afterwards settled another as a nun in the Murate at Arezzo, giving to the convent besides the dowry, or rather, alms, an altar-picture of the Annunciation by my hand, with a Tabernacle of the Sacrament accommodated in that picture, which was placed within their choir, where they perform their offices. Having then received from the Company of the Corpus Domini, at Arezzo, the commission for the altar-piece of the high-altar of S. Domenico, I painted in it Christ taken down from the Cross; and shortly afterwards I began for the Company of S. Rocco the altar-picture of their church, in Florence. Now, while I was going on winning for myself honour, name, and wealth under the protection of Duke Alessandro, that poor lord was cruelly murdered, and there was snatched away from me all hope of that which I was promising to myself from Fortune by means of his favour; wherefore, having been robbed within a few years of Clement, Ippolito, and Alessandro, I resolved at the advice of M. Ottaviano that I would never again follow the fortune of Courts, but only art, although it would have been easy to establish myself with Signor Cosimo de' Medici, the new Duke. And so, while carrying forward in Arezzo the above-named altar-picture and the façade of S. Rocco, with the ornament, I was making preparations to go to Rome, when by means of M. Giovanni Pollastra--and by the will of God, to whom I have always commended myself, and to whom I attribute and have always attributed my every blessing--I was invited to Camaldoli, the centre of the Camaldolese Congregation, by the fathers of that hermitage, to see that which they were designing to have done in their church. Arriving there, I found supreme pleasure in the Alpine and eternal solitude and quietness of that holy place; and although I became aware at the first moment that those fathers of venerable aspect were beside themselves at seeing me so young, I took heart and talked to them to such purpose, that they resolved that they would avail themselves of my hand in the many pictures in oils and in fresco that were to be painted in their church of Camaldoli. Now, while they wished that before any other thing I should execute the picture of the high-altar, I proved to them with good reasons that it was better to paint first one of the lesser pictures, which were going in the tramezzo,[2] and that, having finished it, if it should please them, I would be able to continue. Besides that, I would not make any fixed agreement with them as to money, but said that if my work, when finished, were to please them, they might pay me for it as they chose, and, if it did not please them, they might return it to me, and I would keep it for myself most willingly; which condition appearing to them only too honest and loving, they were content that I should set my hand to the work. They said to me, then, that they wished to have in it Our Lady with her Son in her arms, and S. John the Baptist and S. Jerome, who were both hermits and lived in woods and forests; and I departed from the hermitage and made my way down to their Abbey of Camaldoli, where, having made a design with great rapidity, which pleased them, I began the altar-piece, and in two months had it completely finished and set in place, to the great satisfaction of those fathers, as they gave me to understand, and of myself. And in that period of two months I proved how much more one is assisted in studies by sweet tranquillity and honest solitude than by the noises of public squares and courts; I recognized, I say, my error in having in the past placed my hopes in men and in the follies and intrigues of this world. That altar-picture finished, then, they allotted to me straightway the rest of the tramezzo[3] of the church--namely, the scenes and other things in fresco-work to be painted there both high and low, which I was to execute during the following summer, for the reason that in the winter it would be scarcely possible to work in fresco at that altitude, among those mountains. [Footnote 2: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.] [Footnote 3: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.] Meanwhile I returned to Arezzo and finished the altar-picture for S. Rocco, painting in it Our Lady, six Saints, and a God the Father with some thunderbolts in the hand, representing the pestilence, which He is in the act of hurling down, but S. Rocco and other Saints make intercession for the people. And in the façade are many figures in fresco, which, like the altar-picture, are no better than they should be. Then Fra Bartolommeo Gratiani, a friar of S. Agostino in Monte Sansovino, sent to invite me to Val di Caprese, and commissioned me to execute a great altar-piece in oils for the high-altar of the Church of S. Agostino in that same Monte Sansovino. And after we had come to an agreement, I made my way to Florence to see M. Ottaviano, where, staying several days, I had much ado to prevent myself from re-entering the service of the Court, as I was minded not to do. However, by advancing good reasons I won the battle, and I resolved that by hook or by crook, before doing anything else, I would go to Rome. But in that I did not succeed until I had made for that same Messer Ottaviano a copy of the picture in which formerly Raffaello da Urbino had portrayed Pope Leo, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, and Cardinal de' Rossi, for the Duke was claiming the original, which was then in the possession of Messer Ottaviano; and the copy that I made is now in the house of the heirs of that lord, who on my departure for Rome wrote me a letter of exchange for five hundred crowns on Giovan Battista Puccini, which he was to pay me on demand, and said to me: "Use this money to enable you to attend to your studies, and afterwards, when you find it convenient, you can return it to me either in work or in cash, just as you please." Arriving in Rome, then, in February of the year 1538, I stayed there until the end of June, giving my attention in company with Giovan Battista Cungi of the Borgo, my assistant, to drawing all that I had left not drawn the other times that I had been in Rome, and particularly everything that was in the underground grottoes. Nor did I leave anything either in architecture or in sculpture that I did not draw and measure, insomuch that I can say with truth that the drawings that I made in that space of time were more than three hundred; and for many years afterwards I found pleasure and advantage in examining them, refreshing the memory of the things of Rome. And how much those labours and studies benefited me, was seen after my return to Tuscany in the altar-picture that I executed at Monte Sansovino, in which I painted with a somewhat better manner the Assumption of Our Lady, and at the foot, besides the Apostles who are about the sepulchre, S. Augustine and S. Romualdo. Having then gone to Camaldoli, according as I had promised those eremite fathers, I painted in the other altar-piece of the tramezzo[4] the Nativity of Jesus Christ, representing a night illumined by the Splendour of the newborn Christ, who is surrounded by some Shepherds adoring Him; in doing which, I strove to imitate with colours the rays of the sun, and copied the figures and all the other things in that work from Nature and in the proper light, to the end that they might be as similar as possible to the reality. Then, since that light could not pass above the hut, from there upwards and all around I availed myself of a light that comes from the splendour of the Angels that are in the air, singing Gloria in Excelsis Deo; not to mention that in certain places the Shepherds that are around make light with burning sheaves of straw, and also the Moon and the Star, and the Angel that is appearing to certain Shepherds. For the building, then, I made some antiquities after my own fancy, with broken statues and other things of that kind. In short, I executed that work with all my power and knowledge, and although I did not satisfy with the hand and the brush my great desire and eagerness to work supremely well, nevertheless the picture has pleased many; wherefore Messer Fausto Sabeo, a man of great learning who was then custodian of the Pope's Library, and some others after him, wrote many Latin verses in praise of that picture, moved perhaps more by affectionate feeling than by the excellence of the work. Be that as it may, if there be in it anything of the good, it was the gift of God. That altar-picture finished, those fathers resolved that I should paint in fresco on the façade the stories that were to be there, whereupon I painted over the door a picture of the hermitage, with S. Romualdo and a Doge of Venice who was a saintly man on one side, and on the other a vision which the above-named Saint had in that place where he afterwards made his hermitage; with some fantasies, grotesques, and other things that are to be seen there. Which done, they ordained that I should return in the summer of the following year to execute the picture of the high-altar. [Footnote 4: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.] Meanwhile the above-named Don Miniato Pitti, who was then Visitor to the Congregation of Monte Oliveto, having seen the altar-picture of Monte Sansovino and the works of Camaldoli, and finding in Bologna the Florentine Don Filippo Serragli, Abbot of S. Michele in Bosco, said to him that, since the refectory of that honoured monastery was to be painted, it appeared to him that the work should be allotted to me and not to another. Being therefore summoned to go to Bologna, I undertook to do it, although it was a great and important work; but first I desired to see all the most famous works in painting that were in that city, both by Bolognese and by others. The work of the head-wall of that refectory was divided into three pictures; in one was to be when Abraham prepared food for the Angels in the Valley of Mamre, in the second Christ in the house of Mary Magdalene and Martha, speaking with Martha, and saying to her that Mary had chosen the better part, and in the third was to be S. Gregory at table with twelve poor men, among whom he recognized one as Christ. Then, setting my hand to the work, I depicted in the last S. Gregory at table in a convent, served by White Friars of that Order, that I might be able to include those fathers therein, according to their wish. Besides that, I made in the figure of that saintly Pontiff the likeness of Pope Clement VII, and about him, among many Lords, Ambassadors, Princes, and other personages who stand there to see him eat, I portrayed Duke Alessandro de' Medici, in memory of the benefits and favours that I had received from him, and of his having been what he was, and with him many of my friends. And among those who are serving the poor men at table, I portrayed some friars of that convent with whom I was intimate, such as the strangers' attendants who waited upon me, the dispenser, the cellarer, and others of the kind; and so, also, the Abbot Serragli, the General Don Cipriano da Verona, and Bentivoglio. In like manner, I copied the vestments of that Pontiff from the reality, counterfeiting velvets, damasks, and other draperies of silk and gold of every kind; but the service of the table, vases, animals, and other things, I caused to be executed by Cristofano of the Borgo, as was told in his Life. In the second scene I sought to make the heads, draperies, and buildings not only different from the first, but in such a manner as to make as clearly evident as possible the lovingness of Christ in instructing the Magdalene, and the affection and readiness of Martha in arranging the table, and her lamentation at being left alone by her sister in such labours and service; to say nothing of the attentiveness of the Apostles, and of many other things worthy of consideration in that picture. As for the third scene, I painted the three Angels--coming to do this I know not how--within a celestial light which seems to radiate from them, while the rays of the sun surround the cloud in which they are. Of the three Angels the old Abraham is adoring one, although those that he sees are three; while Sarah stands laughing and wondering how that can come to pass which has been promised to her, and Hagar, with Ishmael in her arms, is departing from the hospitable shelter. The same radiance also gives light to some servants who are preparing the table, among whom are some who, not being able to endure that splendour, place their hands over their eyes and seek to shade themselves. Which variety of things, since strong shadows and brilliant lights give greater force to pictures, caused this one to have more relief than the other two, and, the colours being varied, they produced a very different effect. But would I had been able to carry my conception into execution, even as both then and afterwards, with new inventions and fantasies, I was always seeking out the laborious and difficult in art. This work, then, whatever it may be, was executed by me in eight months, together with a frieze in fresco, architectural ornaments, carvings, seat-backs, panels, and other adornments over the whole work and the whole refectory; and the price of all I was content to make two hundred crowns, as one who aspired more to glory than to gain. Wherefore M. Andrea Alciati, my very dear friend, who was then reading in Bologna, caused these words to be placed at the foot: OCTONIS MENSIBUS OPUS AB ARETINO GEORGIO PICTUM, NON TAM PRECIO QUAM AMICORUM OBSEQUIS ET HONORIS VOTO, ANNO 1539 PHILIPPUS SERRALIUS PON. CURAVIT. At this same time I executed two little altar-pictures, of the Dead Christ and of the Resurrection, which were placed by the Abbot Don Miniato Pitti in the Church of S. Maria di Barbiano, without San Gimignano in Valdelsa. Which works finished, I returned straightway to Florence, for the reason that Treviso, Maestro Biagio, and other Bolognese painters, thinking that I was seeking to establish myself in Bologna and to take their works and commissions out of their hands, kept molesting me unceasingly; but they did more harm to themselves than to me, and their envious ways moved me to laughter. In Florence, then, I copied for M. Ottaviano a large portrait of Cardinal Ippolito down to the knees, and other pictures, with which I kept myself occupied until the insupportable heat of summer. Which having come, I returned to the quiet and freshness of Camaldoli, in order to execute the above-mentioned altar-piece of the high-altar. In that work I painted a Christ taken down from the Cross, with the greatest study and labour that were within my power; and since, in the course of the work and of time, it seemed necessary to me to improve certain things, and I was not satisfied with the first sketch, I gave it another priming and repainted it all anew, as it is now to be seen, and then, attracted by the solitude and staying in that same place, I executed there a picture for the same Messer Ottaviano, in which I painted a young S. John, nude, among some rocks and crags that I copied from Nature among those mountains. And I had scarcely finished these works when there arrived in Camaldoli Messer Bindo Altoviti, who wished to arrange a transportation of great fir-trees to Rome by way of the Tiber, for the fabric of S. Pietro, from the Cella di S. Alberigo, a place belonging to those fathers; and he, seeing all the works executed by me in that place, and by my good fortune liking them, resolved, before he departed thence, that I should paint an alter-picture for his Church of S. Apostolo in Florence. Wherefore, having finished that of Camaldoli, with the façade of the chapel in fresco (wherein I made the experiment of combining work in oil-colours with the other, and succeeded passing well), I made my way to Florence, and there executed that altar-picture. Now, having to give a proof of my powers in Florence, where I had not yet executed such a work, and having many rivals, and also a desire to acquire a name, I resolved that I would do my utmost in that work and put into it all the diligence that I might find possible. And in order to be able to do that free from every vexatious thought, I first married my third sister and bought a house already begun in Arezzo, with a site for making most beautiful gardens, in the Borgo di S. Vito, in the best air of that city. In October, then, of the year 1540, I began the altar-picture for Messer Bindo, proposing to paint in it a scene that should represent the Conception of Our Lady, according to the title of the chapel; which subject presenting no little difficulty to me, Messer Bindo and I took the opinions of many common friends, men of learning, and finally I executed it in the following manner. Having depicted the Tree of the Primal Sin in the middle of the picture, I painted at its roots Adam and Eve naked and bound, as the first transgressors of the commandment of God, and then one by one, bound to the other branches, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, David, and the other Kings in succession, according to the order of time; all, I say, bound by both arms, excepting Samuel and John the Baptist, who are bound by one arm only, because they were blessed in the womb. I painted there, also, with the tail wound about the trunk of the Tree, the Ancient Serpent, who, having a human form from the middle upwards, has the hands bound behind; and upon his head, treading upon his horns, is one foot of the glorious Virgin, who has the other on a Moon, being herself all clothed with the Sun, and crowned with twelve stars. The Virgin, I say, is supported in the air, within a Splendour, by many nude little Angels, who are illumined by the rays that come from her; which rays, likewise, passing through the leaves of the Tree, shed light upon those bound to it, and appear to be loosing their bonds by means of the virtue and grace that they bring from her from whom they proceed. And in the heaven, at the top of the picture, are two children that are holding certain scrolls, in which are written these words: QUOS EVÆ CULPA DAMNAVIT, MARIÆ GRATIA SOLVIT. In short, so far as I can remember, I had not executed any work up to that time with more study or with more lovingness and labour; but all the same, while I may perhaps have satisfied others, I did not satisfy myself, although I know the time, study, and labour that I devoted to it, particularly to the nudes and heads, and, indeed, to every part. For the labours of that picture Messer Bindo gave me three hundred crowns of gold, besides which, in the following year, he showed me so many courtesies and kindnesses in his house in Rome, where I made him a copy of the same altar-piece in a little picture, almost in miniature, that I shall always feel an obligation to his memory. At the same time that I painted that picture, which was placed, as I have said, in S. Apostolo, I executed for M. Ottaviano de' Medici a Venus and a Leda from the cartoons of Michelagnolo, and in a large picture a S. Jerome in Penitence of the size of life, who, contemplating the death of Christ, whom he has before him on the Cross, is beating his breast in order to drive from his mind the thoughts of Venus and the temptations of the flesh, which at times tormented him, although he lived in woods and places wild and solitary, as he relates of himself at great length. To demonstrate which I made a Venus who with Love in her arms is flying from that contemplation, and holding Play by the hand, while the quiver and arrows have fallen to the ground; besides which, the shafts shot by Cupid against that Saint return to him all broken, and some that fall are brought back to him by the doves of Venus in their beaks. All these pictures, although perhaps at that time they pleased me, and were made by me as best I knew, I know not how much they please me at my present age; but, since art in herself is difficult, it is necessary to take from him who paints the best that he can do. This, indeed, I will say, because I can say it with truth, that I have always executed my pictures, inventions, and designs, whatever may be their value, I do not say only with the greatest possible rapidity, but also with incredible facility and without effort; for which let me call to witness, as I have mentioned in another place, the vast canvas that I painted in six days only, for S. Giovanni in Florence, in the year 1542, for the baptism of the Lord Don Francesco de' Medici, now Prince of Florence and Siena. Now although I wished after these works to go to Rome, in order to satisfy Messer Bindo Altoviti, I did not succeed in doing it, because, being summoned to Venice by Messer Pietro Aretino, a poet of illustrious name at that time, and much my friend, I was forced to go there, since he much desired to see me. And, moreover, I did it willingly, in order to see on that journey the works of Tiziano and of other painters; in which purpose I succeeded, for in a few days I saw the works of Correggio at Modena and Parma, those of Giulio Romano at Mantua, and the antiquities of Verona. Having finally arrived in Venice, with two pictures painted by my hand from cartoons by Michelagnolo, I presented them to Don Diego di Mendoza, who sent me two hundred crowns of gold. Nor had I been long in Venice, when at the entreaty of Aretino I executed for the gentlemen of the Calza the scenic setting for a festival that they gave, wherein I had as my companions Battista Cungi and Cristofano Gherardi of Borgo a San Sepolcro and Bastiano Flori of Arezzo, men very able and well practised, of all which enough has been said in another place; and also the nine painted compartments in the Palace of Messer Giovanni Cornaro, which are in the soffit of a chamber in that Palace, which is by S. Benedetto. After these and other works of no little importance that I executed in Venice at that time, I departed, although I was overwhelmed by the commissions that were coming to me, on the 16th of August in the year 1542, and returned to Tuscany. There, before consenting to put my hand to any other thing, I painted on the vaulting of a chamber that had been built by my orders in my house which I have already mentioned, all the arts that are subordinate to or depend upon design. In the centre is a Fame who is seated upon the globe of the world and sounds a golden trumpet, throwing away one of fire that represents Calumny, and about her, in due order, are all those arts with their instruments in their hands; and since I had not time to do the whole, I left eight ovals, in order to paint in them eight portraits from life of the first men in our arts. In those same days I executed in fresco for the Nuns of S. Margherita in the same city, in a chapel of their garden, a Nativity of Christ with figures the size of life. And having thus passed the rest of that summer in my own country, and part of the autumn, I went to Rome, where, having been received by the above-named Messer Bindo with many kindnesses, I painted for him in a picture in oils a Christ the size of life, taken down from the Cross and laid on the ground at the feet of His Mother; with Phoebus in the air obscuring the face of the Sun, and Diana that of the Moon. In the landscape, all darkened by that gloom, some rocky mountains, shaken by the earthquake that was caused by the Passion of the Saviour, are seen shivered into pieces, and certain dead bodies of Saints are seen rising again and issuing from their sepulchres in various manners; which picture, when finished, was not displeasing to the gracious judgment of the greatest painter, sculptor, and architect that there has been in our times, and perchance in the past. By means of that picture, also, I became known to the most illustrious Cardinal Farnese, to whom it was shown by Giovio and Messer Bindo; and at his desire I made for him, in a picture eight braccia high and four broad, a Justice who is embracing an ostrich laden with the twelve Tables, and with the sceptre that has the stork at the point, and the head covered by a helmet of iron and gold, with three feathers of three different colours, the device of the just judge. She is wholly nude from the waist upwards, and she has bound to her girdle with chains of gold, as captives, the seven Vices that are opposed to her, Corruption, Ignorance, Cruelty, Fear, Treachery, Falsehood, and Calumny. Above these, upon their shoulders, is placed Truth wholly nude, offered by Time to Justice, with a present of two doves representing Innocence. And upon the head of that Truth Justice is placing a crown of oak, signifying fortitude of mind; which whole work I executed with all care and diligence, according to the best of my ability. At this same time I paid constant attention to Michelagnolo Buonarroti, and took his advice in all my works, and he in his goodness conceived much more affection for me; and his counsel, after he had seen some of my designs, was the reason that I gave myself anew and with better method to the study of the matters of architecture, which probably I would never have done if that most excellent man had not said to me what he did say, which out of modesty I forbear to tell. At the next festival of S. Peter, the heat being very great in Rome, where I had spent all that winter of 1543, I returned to Florence, where in the house of Messer Ottaviano de' Medici, which I could call my own, I executed in an altar-piece for M. Biagio Mei of Lucca, his gossip, the same conception as in that of Messer Bindo in S. Apostolo, although I varied everything with the exception of the invention; and that picture, when finished, was placed in his chapel in S. Piero Cigoli at Lucca. In another of the same size--namely, seven braccia high and four broad--I painted Our Lady, S. Jerome, S. Luke, S. Cecilia, S. Martha, S. Augustine, and S. Guido the Hermit; which altar-picture was placed in the Duomo of Pisa, where there were many others by the hands of excellent masters. And I had scarcely carried that one to completion, when the Warden of Works of that Duomo commissioned me to execute another, in which, since it was to be likewise of Our Lady, in order to vary it from the other I painted the Madonna with the Dead Christ at the foot of the Cross, lying in her lap, the Thieves on high upon their crosses, and, grouped with the Maries and Nicodemus, who are standing there, the titular Saints of those chapels, all forming a good composition and rendering the scene in that picture pleasing. Having returned again to Rome in the year 1544, besides many pictures that I executed for various friends, of which there is no need to make mention, I made a picture of a Venus from a design by Michelagnolo for M. Bindo Altoviti, who took me once more into his house; and for Galeotto da Girone, a Florentine merchant, I painted an altar-picture in oils of Christ taken down from the Cross, which was placed in his chapel in the Church of S. Agostino at Rome. In order to be able to paint that picture in comfort, together with some works that had been allotted to me by Tiberio Crispo, the Castellan of Castel S. Angelo, I had withdrawn by myself to that palace in the Trastevere which was formerly built by Bishop Adimari, below S. Onofrio, and which has since been finished by the second Salviati; but, feeling indisposed and wearied by my infinite labours, I was forced to return to Florence. There I executed some pictures, and among others one in which were Dante, Petrarca, Guido Cavalcanti, Boccaccio, Cino da Pistoia, and Guittone d'Arezzo, accurately copied from their ancient portraits; and of that picture, which afterwards belonged to Luca Martini, many copies have since been made. In that same year of 1544 I was invited to Naples by Don Giammateo of Aversa, General of the Monks of Monte Oliveto, to the end that I might paint the refectory of a monastery built for them by King Alfonso I; but when I arrived, I was for not accepting the work, seeing that the refectory and the whole monastery were built in an ancient manner of architecture, with the vaults in pointed arches, low and poor in lights, and I doubted that I was like to win little honour thereby. However, being pressed by Don Miniato Pitti and Don Ippolito da Milano, my very dear friends, who were then Visitors to that Order, finally I accepted the undertaking. Whereupon, recognizing that I would not be able to do anything good save only with a great abundance of ornaments, dazzling the eyes of all who might see the work with a variety and multitude of figures, I resolved to have all the vaulting of the refectory wrought in stucco, in order to remove by means of rich compartments in the modern manner all the old-fashioned and clumsy appearance of those arches. In this I was much assisted by the vaults and walls, which are made, as is usual in that city, of blocks of tufa, which cut like wood, or even better, like bricks not completely baked; and thus, cutting them, I was able to sink squares, ovals, and octagons, and also to thicken them with additions of the same tufa by means of nails. Having then reduced those vaults to good proportions with that stucco-work, which was the first to be wrought in Naples in the modern manner, and in particular the façades and end-walls of that refectory, I painted there six panels in oils, seven braccia high, three to each end-wall. In three that are over the entrance of the refectory is the Manna raining down upon the Hebrew people, in the presence of Moses and Aaron, and the people gathering it up; wherein I strove to represent a variety of attitudes and vestments in the men, women, and children, and the emotion wherewith they are gathering up and storing the Manna, rendering thanks to God. On the end-wall that is at the head is Christ at table in the house of Simon, and Mary Magdalene with tears washing His feet and drying them with her hair, showing herself all penitent for her sins; which story is divided into three pictures, in the centre the supper, on the right hand a buttery with a credence full of vases in various fantastic forms, and on the left hand a steward who is bringing up the viands. The vaulting, then, was divided into three parts; in one the subject is Faith, in the second Religion, and in the third Eternity, and each of these forms a centre with eight Virtues about it, demonstrating to the monks that in that refectory they eat what is requisite for the perfection of their lives. To enrich the spaces of the vaulting, I made them full of grotesques, which serve as ornaments in forty-eight spaces for the forty-eight celestial signs; and on six walls down the length of that refectory, under the windows, which were made larger and richly ornamented, I painted six of the Parables of Jesus Christ which are in keeping with that place; and to all those pictures and ornaments there correspond the carvings of the seats, which are wrought very richly. And then I executed for the high-altar of the church an altar-picture eight braccia high, containing the Madonna presenting the Infant Jesus Christ to Simeon in the Temple, with a new invention. It is a notable thing that since Giotto there had not been up to that time, in a city so great and noble, any masters who had done anything of importance in painting, although there had been brought there from without some things by the hands of Perugino and Raffaello. On which account I exerted myself to labour in such a manner, in so far as my little knowledge could reach, that the intellects of that country might be roused to execute great and honourable works; and, whether that or some other circumstance may have been the reason, between that time and the present day many very beautiful works have been done there, both in stucco and in painting. Besides the pictures described above, I executed in fresco on the vaulting of the strangers' apartment in the same monastery, with figures large as life, Jesus Christ with the Cross on His shoulder, and many of His Saints who have one likewise on their shoulders in imitation of Him, to demonstrate that for one who wishes truly to follow Him it is necessary to bear with good patience the adversities that the world inflicts. For the General of that Order I executed a great picture of Christ appearing to the Apostles as they struggled with the perils of the sea, and taking S. Peter by the arm, who, having hastened towards Him through the water, was fearing to drown; and in another picture, for Abbot Capeccio, I painted the Resurrection. These works carried to completion, I painted a chapel in fresco for the Lord Don Pietro di Toledo, Viceroy of Naples, in his garden at Pozzuolo, besides executing some very delicate ornaments in stucco; and arrangements had been made to execute two great loggie for the same lord, but the undertaking was not carried into effect, for the following reason. There had been some difference between the Viceroy and the above-named monks, and the Constable went with his men to the monastery to seize the Abbot and some monks who had had some words with the Black Friars in a procession, over a matter of precedence. But the monks made some resistance, assisted by about fifteen young men who were assisting me in stucco-work and painting, and wounded some of the bailiffs; on which account it became necessary to get them out of the way, and they went off in various directions. And so I, left almost alone, was unable not only to execute the loggie at Pozzuolo, but also to paint twenty-four pictures of stories from the Old Testament and from the life of S. John the Baptist, which, not caring to remain any longer in Naples, I took to Rome to finish, whence I sent them, and they were placed about the stalls and over the presses of walnut-wood made from my architectural designs in the Sacristy of S. Giovanni Carbonaro, a convent of Eremite and Observantine Friars of S. Augustine, for whom I had painted a short time before, for a chapel without their church, a panel-picture of Christ Crucified, with a rich and varied ornament of stucco, at the request of Seripando, their General, who afterwards became a Cardinal. In like manner, half-way up the staircase of the same convent, I painted in fresco a S. John the Evangelist who stands gazing at Our Lady clothed with the sun and crowned with twelve stars, with her feet upon the moon. In the same city I painted for Messer Tommaso Cambi, a Florentine merchant and very much my friend, the times and seasons of the year on four walls in the hall of his house, with pictures of Sleep and Dreaming over a terrace where I made a fountain. And for the Duke of Gravina I painted an altar-picture of the Magi adoring Christ, which he took to his dominions; and for Orsanca, Secretary to the Viceroy, I executed another altar-piece with five figures around a Christ Crucified, and many pictures. But, although I was regarded with favour by those lords and was earning much, and my commissions were multiplying every day, I judged, since my men had departed and I had executed works in abundance in one year in that city, that it would be well for me to return to Rome. Which having done, the first work that I executed was for Signor Ranuccio Farnese, at that time Archbishop of Naples; painting on canvas and in oils four very large shutters for the organ of the Piscopio in Naples, on the front of which are five Patron Saints of that city, and on the inner side the Nativity of Jesus Christ, with the Shepherds, and King David singing to his psaltery, DOMINUS DIXIT AD ME, etc. And I finished likewise the twenty-four pictures mentioned above and some for M. Tommaso Cambi, which were all sent to Naples; which done, I painted five pictures of the Passion of Christ for Raffaello Acciaiuoli, who took them to Spain. In the same year, Cardinal Farnese being minded to cause the Hall of the Cancelleria, in the Palace of S. Giorgio, to be painted, Monsignor Giovio, desiring that it should be done by my hands, commissioned me to make many designs with various inventions, which in the end were not carried into execution. Nevertheless the Cardinal finally resolved that it should be painted in fresco, and with the greatest rapidity that might be possible, so that he might be able to use it at a certain time determined by himself. That hall is a little more than a hundred palms in length, fifty in breadth, and the same in height. On each end-wall, fifty palms broad, was painted a great scene, and two on one of the long walls, but on the other, from its being broken by windows, it was not possible to paint scenes, and therefore there was made a pendant after the likeness of the head-wall opposite. And not wishing to make a base, as had been the custom up to that time with the craftsmen in all their scenes, in order to introduce variety and do something new I caused flights of steps to rise from the floor to a height of at least nine palms, made in various ways, one to each scene; and upon these, then, there begin to ascend figures that I painted in keeping with the subject, little by little, until they come to the level where the scene begins. It would be a long and perhaps tedious task to describe all the particulars and minute details of those scenes, and therefore I shall touch only on the principal things, and that briefly. In all of them, then, are stories of the actions of Pope Paul III, and in each is his portrait from life. In the first, wherein are the Dispatchings, so to speak, of the Court of Rome, may be seen upon the Tiber various embassies of various nations (with many portraits from life) that are come to seek favours from the Pope and to offer him divers tributes; and, in addition, two great figures in great niches placed over the doors, which are on either side of the scene. One of these represents Eloquence, and has above it two Victories that uphold the head of Julius Cæsar, and the other represents Justice, with two other Victories that hold the head of Alexander the Great; and in the centre are the arms of the above-named Pope, supported by Liberality and Remuneration. On the main wall is the same Pope remunerating merit, distributing salaries, knighthoods, benefices, pensions, bishoprics, and Cardinal's hats, and among those who are receiving them are Sadoleto, Polo, Bembo, Contarini, Giovio, Buonarroti, and other men of excellence, all portrayed from life, and on that wall, within a great niche, is Grace with a horn of plenty full of dignities, which she is pouring out upon the earth, and the Victories that she has above her, after the likeness of the others, support the head of the Emperor Trajan. There is also Envy, who is devouring vipers and appears to be bursting with venom; and above, at the top of the scene, are the arms of Cardinal Farnese, supported by Fame and Virtue. In the other scene the same Pope Paul is seen all intent on his buildings, and in particular on that of S. Pietro upon the Vatican, and therefore there are kneeling before the Pope Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, who, having unfolded a design of the ground-plan of that S. Pietro, are receiving orders to execute the work and to carry it to completion. Besides these figures, there is Resolution, who, opening the breast, lays bare the heart; with Solicitude and Riches near. In a niche is Abundance, with two Victories that hold the effigy of Vespasian, and in the centre, in another niche that divides one scene from the other, is Christian Religion, with two Victories above her that hold the head of Numa Pompilius; and the arms that are above the scene are those of Cardinal San Giorgio, who built that Palace. In the other scene, which is opposite to that of the Dispatchings of the Court, is the universal peace made among Christians by the agency of Pope Paul III, and particularly between the Emperor Charles V and Francis, King of France, who are portrayed there; wherefore there may be seen Peace burning arms, the Temple of Janus being closed, and Fury in chains. Of the two great niches that are on either side of the scene, in one is Concord, with two Victories above her that are holding the head of the Emperor Titus, and in the other is Charity with many children, while above the niche are two Victories holding the head of Augustus; and over all are the arms of Charles V, supported by Victory and Rejoicing. The whole work is full of the most beautiful inscriptions and mottoes composed by Giovio, and there is one in particular which says that those pictures were all executed in a hundred days; which, indeed, like a young man, I did do, being such that I gave no thought to anything but satisfying that lord, who, as I have said, desired to have the work finished in that time for a particular purpose. But in truth, although I exerted myself greatly in making cartoons and studying that work, I confess that I did wrong in putting it afterwards in the hands of assistants, in order to execute it more quickly, as I was obliged to do; for it would have been better to toil over it a hundred months and do it with my own hand, whereby, although I would not have done it in such a way as to satisfy my wish to please the Cardinal and to maintain my own honour, I would at least have had the satisfaction of having executed it with my own hand. However, that error was the reason that I resolved that I would never again do any work without finishing it entirely by myself over a first sketch done by the hands of assistants from designs by my hand. In that work the Spaniards, Bizzerra and Roviale, who laboured much in it in my company, gained no little practice; and also Battista da Bagnacavallo of Bologna, Bastiano Flori of Arezzo, Giovan Paolo dal Borgo, Fra Salvadore Foschi of Arezzo, and many other young men. At that time I went often in the evening, at the end of the day's work, to see the above-named most illustrious Cardinal Farnese at supper, where there were always present, to entertain him with beautiful and honourable discourse, Molza, Annibale Caro, M. Gandolfo, M. Claudio Tolomei, M. Romolo Amaseo, Monsignor Giovio, and many other men of learning and distinction, of whom the Court of that Lord is ever full. One evening among others the conversation turned to the museum of Giovio and to the portraits of illustrious men that he had placed therein with beautiful order and inscriptions; and one thing leading to another, as happens in conversation, Monsignor Giovio said that he had always had and still had a great desire to add to his museum and his book of Eulogies a treatise with an account of the men who had been illustrious in the art of design from Cimabue down to our own times. Enlarging on this, he showed that he had certainly great knowledge and judgment in the matters of our arts; but it is true that, being content to treat the subject in gross, he did not consider it in detail, and often, in speaking of those craftsmen, either confused their names, surnames, birthplaces, and works, or did not relate things exactly as they were, but rather, as I have said, in gross. When Giovio had finished his discourse, the Cardinal turned to me and said: "What do you say, Giorgio? Will not that be a fine work and a noble labour?" "Fine, indeed, most illustrious Excellency," I answered, "if Giovio be assisted by someone of our arts to put things in their places and relate them as they really are. That I say because, although his discourse has been marvellous, he has confused and mistaken many things one for another." "Then," replied the Cardinal, being besought by Giovio, Caro, Tolomei, and the others, "you might give him a summary and an ordered account of all those craftsmen and their works, according to the order of time; and so your arts will receive from you this benefit as well." That undertaking, although I knew it to be beyond my powers, I promised most willingly to execute to the best of my ability; and so, having set myself down to search through my records and the notes that I had written on that subject from my earliest youth, as a sort of pastime and because of the affection that I bore to the memory of our craftsmen, every notice of whom was very dear to me, I gathered together everything that seemed to me to touch on the subject, and took the whole to Giovio. And he, after he had much praised my labour, said to me: "Giorgio, I would rather that you should undertake this task of setting everything down in the manner in which I see that you will be excellently well able to do it, because I have not the courage, not knowing the various manners, and being ignorant of many particulars that you are likely to know; besides which, even if I were to do it, I would make at the most a little treatise like that of Pliny. Do what I tell you, Vasari, for I see by the specimen that you have given me in this account that it will prove something very fine." And then, thinking that I was not very resolute in the matter, he caused Caro, Molza, Tolomei, and others of my dearest friends to speak to me. Whereupon, having finally made up my mind, I set my hand to it, with the intention of giving it, when finished, to one of them, that he might revise and correct it, and then publish it under a name other than mine. Meanwhile I departed from Rome in the month of October of the year 1546, and came to Florence, and there executed for the Nuns of the famous Convent of the Murate a picture in oils of a Last Supper for their refectory; which work was allotted to me and paid for by Pope Paul III, who had a sister-in-law, once Countess of Pitigliano, a nun in that convent. And then I painted in another picture Our Lady with the Infant Christ in her arms, who is espousing the Virgin-Martyr S. Catharine, with two other Saints; which picture M. Tommaso Cambi caused me to execute for a sister who was then Abbess of the Convent of the Bigallo, without Florence. That finished, I painted two large pictures in oils for Monsignor de' Rossi, Bishop of Pavia, of the family of the Counts of San Secondo; in one of these is a S. Jerome, and in the other a Pietà, and they were both sent to France. Then in the year 1547 I carried to completion for the Duomo of Pisa, at the instance of M. Bastiano della Seta, the Warden of Works, another altar-picture that I had begun; and afterwards, for my very dear friend Simon Corsi, a large picture in oils of Our Lady. Now, while I was executing these works, having carried nearly to completion the Book of the Lives of the Craftsmen of Design, there was scarcely anything left for me to do but to have it transcribed in a good hand, when there presented himself to me most opportunely Don Gian Matteo Faetani of Rimini, a monk of Monte Oliveto and a person of intelligence and learning, who desired that I should execute some works for him in the Church and Monastery of S. Maria di Scolca at Rimini, where he was Abbot. He, then, having promised to have it transcribed for me by one of his monks who was an excellent writer, and to correct it himself, persuaded me to go to Rimini to execute, with this occasion, the altar-picture and the high-altar of that church, which is about three miles distant from the city. In that altar-picture I painted the Magi adoring Christ, with an infinity of figures executed by me with much study in that solitary place, counterfeiting the men of the Courts of the three Kings in such a way, as well as I was able, that, although they are all mingled together, yet one may recognize by the appearance of the faces to what country each belongs and to which King he is subject, for some have the flesh-colour white, some grey, and others dark; besides which, the diversity of their vestments and the differences in their adornments make a pleasing variety. That altar-piece has on either side of it two large pictures, in which is the rest of the Courts, with horses, elephants, and giraffes, and about the chapel, in various places, are distributed Prophets, Sibyls, and Evangelists in the act of writing. In the cupola, or rather, tribune, I painted four great figures that treat of the praises of Christ, of His Genealogy, and of the Virgin, and these are Orpheus and Homer with some Greek mottoes, Virgil with the motto, IAM REDIT ET VIRGO, etc., and Dante with these verses: Tu sei colei, che l' umana natura Nobilitasti sì, che il suo Fattore Non si sdegnò di farsi tua fattura. With many other figures and inventions, of which there is no need to say any more. Then, the work of writing the above-mentioned book and carrying it to completion meanwhile continuing, I painted for the high-altar of S. Francesco, in Rimini, a large altar-picture in oils of S. Francis receiving the Stigmata from Christ on the mountain of La Vernia, copied from nature; and since that mountain is all of grey rocks and stones, and in like manner S. Francis and his companion are grey, I counterfeited a Sun within which is Christ, with a good number of Seraphim, and so the work is varied, and the Saint, with other figures, all illumined by the splendour of that Sun, and the landscape in shadow with a great variety of changing colours; all which is not displeasing to many persons, and was much extolled at that time by Cardinal Capodiferro, Legate in Romagna. Being then summoned from Rimini to Ravenna, I executed an altar-picture, as has been told in another place, for the new church of the Abbey of Classi, of the Order of Camaldoli, painting therein a Christ taken down from the Cross and lying in the lap of Our Lady. And at this same time I executed for divers friends many designs, pictures, and other lesser works, which are so many and so varied, that it would be difficult for me to remember even a part of them, and perhaps not pleasing for my readers to hear so many particulars. Meanwhile the building of my house at Arezzo had been finished, and I returned home, where I made designs for painting the hall, three chambers, and the façade, as it were for my own diversion during that summer. In those designs I depicted, among other things, all the places and provinces where I had laboured, as if they were bringing tributes, to represent the gains that I had made by their means, to that house of mine. For the time being, however, I did nothing but the ceiling of the hall, which is passing rich in woodwork, with thirteen large pictures wherein are the Celestial Gods, and in four angles the four Seasons of the year nude, who are gazing at a great picture that is in the centre, in which, with figures the size of life, is Excellence, who has Envy under her feet and has seized Fortune by the hair, and is beating both the one and the other; and a thing that was much commended at the time was that as you go round the hall, Fortune being in the middle, from one side Envy seems to be over Fortune and Excellence, and from another side Excellence is over Envy and Fortune, as is seen often to happen in real life. Around the walls are Abundance, Liberality, Wisdom, Prudence, Labour, Honour, and other similar things, and below, all around, are stories of ancient painters, Apelles, Zeuxis, Parrhasius, Protogenes, and others, with various compartments and details that I omit for the sake of brevity. In a chamber, also, in a great medallion in the ceiling of carved woodwork, I painted Abraham, with God blessing his seed and promising to multiply it infinitely; and in four squares that are around that medallion, I painted Peace, Concord, Virtue, and Modesty. And since I always adored the memory and the works of the ancients, and perceived that the method of painting in distemper-colours was being abandoned, there came to me a desire to revive that mode of painting, and I executed the whole work in distemper; which method certainly does not deserve to be wholly despised or abandoned. At the entrance of the chamber, as it were in jest, I painted a bride who has in one hand a rake, with which she seems to have raked up and carried away with her from her father's house everything that she has been able, and in the hand that is stretched in front of her, entering into the house of her husband, she has a lighted torch, signifying that where she goes she carries a fire that consumes and destroys everything. While I was passing my time thus, the year 1548 having come, Don Giovan Benedetto of Mantua, Abbot of SS. Fiore e Lucilla, a monastery of the Black Friars of Monte Cassino, who took infinite delight in matters of painting and was much my friend, prayed me that I should consent to paint a Last Supper, or some such thing, at the head of their refectory. Whereupon I resolved to gratify his wish, and began to think of doing something out of the common use; and so I determined, in agreement with that good father, to paint for it the Nuptials of Queen Esther and King Ahasuerus, all in a picture fifteen braccia long, and in oils, but first to set it in place and then to work at it there. That method--and I can speak with authority, for I have proved it--is in truth that which should be followed by one who wishes that his pictures should have their true and proper lights, for the reason that in fact working at pictures in a place lower or other than that where they are to stand, causes changes in their lights, shadows, and many other properties. In that work, then, I strove to represent majesty and grandeur; and, although I may not judge whether I succeeded, I know well that I disposed everything in such a manner, that there may be recognized in passing good order all the manners of servants, pages, esquires, soldiers of the guard, the buttery, the credence, the musicians, a dwarf, and every other thing that is required for a magnificent and royal banquet. There may be seen, among others, the steward bringing the viands to the table, accompanied by a good number of pages dressed in livery, besides esquires and other servants; and at the ends of the table, which is oval, are lords and other great personages and courtiers, who are standing on their feet, as is the custom, to see the banquet. King Ahasuerus is seated at table, a proud and enamoured monarch, leaning upon the left arm and offering a cup of wine to the Queen, in an attitude truly dignified and regal. In short, if I were to believe what I heard said by persons at that time, and what I still hear from anyone who sees the work, I might consider that I had done something, but I know better how the matter stands, and what I would have done if my hand had followed that which I had conceived in idea. Be that as it may, I applied to it--and this I can declare freely--study and diligence. Above the work, on a spandrel of the vaulting, comes a Christ who is offering to the Queen a crown of flowers; and this was done in fresco, and placed there to denote the spiritual conception of the story, which signified that, the ancient Synagogue being repudiated, Christ was espousing the new Church of his faithful Christians. At this same time I made the portrait of Luigi Guicciardini, brother of the Messer Francesco who wrote the History, because that Messer Luigi was very much my friend, and that year, being Commissary of Arezzo, had caused me out of love for me to buy a very large property in land, called Frassineto, in Valdichiana, which has been the salvation and the greatest prop of my house, and will be the same for my successors, if, as I hope, they prove true to themselves. That portrait, which is in the possession of the heirs of that Messer Luigi, is said to be the best and the closest likeness of the infinite number that I have executed. But of the portraits that I have painted, which are so many, I will make no mention, because it would be a tedious thing; and, to tell the truth, I have avoided doing them to the best of my ability. That finished, I painted at the commission of Fra Mariotto da Castiglioni of Arezzo, for the Church of S. Francesco in that city, an altar-picture of Our Lady, S. Anne, S. Francis, and S. Sylvester. And at this same time I drew for Cardinal di Monte, my very good patron, who was then Legate in Bologna, and afterwards became Pope Julius III, the design and plan of a great farm which was afterwards carried into execution at the foot of Monte Sansovino, his native place, where I was several times at the orders of that lord, who much delighted in building. Having gone, after I had finished these works, to Florence, I painted that summer on a banner for carrying in processions, belonging to the Company of S. Giovanni de' Peducci of Arezzo, that Saint on one side preaching to the multitude, and on the other the same Saint baptizing Christ. Which picture, as soon as it was finished, I sent to my house at Arezzo, that it might be delivered to the men of the above-named Company; and it happened that Monsignor Giorgio, Cardinal d'Armagnac, a Frenchman, passing through Arezzo and going to see my house for some other purpose, saw that banner, or rather, standard, and, liking it, did his utmost to obtain it for sending to the King of France, offering a large price. But I would not break faith with those who had commissioned me to paint it, for, although many said to me that I could make another, I know not whether I could have done it as well and with equal diligence. And not long afterwards I executed for Messer Annibale Caro, according as he had requested me long before in a letter, which is printed, a picture of Adonis dying in the lap of Venus, after the invention of Theocritus; which work was afterwards taken to France, almost against my will, and given to M. Albizzo del Bene, together with a Psyche gazing with a lamp at Cupid, who wakens from his sleep, a spark from the lamp having scorched him. Those figures, all nude and large as life, were the reason that Alfonso di Tommaso Cambi, who was then a very beautiful youth, well-lettered, accomplished, and most gentle and courteous, had himself portrayed nude and at full length in the person of the huntsman Endymion beloved by the Moon, whose white form, and the fanciful landscape all around, have their light from the brightness of the moon, which in the darkness of the night makes an effect passing natural and true, for the reason that I strove with all diligence to counterfeit the peculiar colours that the pale yellow light of the moon is wont to give to the things upon which it strikes. After this, I painted two pictures for sending to Ragusa, in one Our Lady, and in the other a Pietà; and then in a great picture for Francesco Botti Our Lady with her Son in her arms, and Joseph; and that picture, which I certainly executed with the greatest diligence that I knew, he took with him to Spain. These works finished, I went in the same year to see Cardinal di Monte at Bologna, where he was Legate, and, dwelling with him for some days, besides many other conversations, he contrived to speak so well and to persuade me with such good reasons, that, being constrained by him to do a thing which up to that time I had refused to do, I resolved to take a wife, and so, by his desire, married a daughter of Francesco Bacci, a noble citizen of Arezzo. Having returned to Florence, I executed a great picture of Our Lady after a new invention of my own and with more figures, which was acquired by Messer Bindo Altoviti, who gave me a hundred crowns of gold for it and took it to Rome, where it is now in his house. Besides this, I painted many other pictures at the same time, as for Messer Bernardetto de' Medici, for Messer Bartolommeo Strada, an eminent physician, and for others of my friends, of whom there is no need to speak. In those days, Gismondo Martelli having died in Florence, and having left instructions in his testament that an altar-picture with Our Lady and some Saints should be painted for the chapel of that noble family in S. Lorenzo, Luigi and Pandolfo Martelli, together with M. Cosimo Bartoli, all very much my friends, besought me that I should execute that picture. Having obtained leave from the Lord Duke Cosimo, the Patron and first Warden of Works of that church, I consented to do it, but on condition that I should be allowed to paint in it something after my own fancy from the life of S. Gismondo, in allusion to the name of the testator. Which agreement concluded, I remembered to have heard that Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, the architect of that church, had given a particular form to all the chapels to the end that there might be made for each not some little altar-piece, but some large scene or picture which might fill the whole space. Wherefore, being disposed to follow in that respect the wishes and directions of Brunelleschi, and paying regard rather to honour than to the little profit that I could obtain from that commission, which contemplated the painting of a small altar-picture with few figures, I painted in an altar-piece ten braccia in breadth, and thirteen in height, the story, or rather, martyrdom, of the King S. Gismondo, when he, his wife, and his two sons were cast into a well by another King, or rather, Tyrant. I contrived that the ornamental border of that chapel, which is a semi-circle, should serve as the opening of the gate of a great palace in the Rustic Order, through which there should be a view of a square court supported by pilasters and columns of the Doric Order; and I arranged that through that opening there should be seen in the centre an octagonal well with an ascent of steps around it, by which the executioners might ascend, carrying the two sons nude in order to cast them into the well. In the loggie around I painted on one side people gazing upon that horrid spectacle, and on the other side, which is the left, I made some soldiers who, having seized by force the wife of the King, are carrying her towards the well in order to put her to death. And at the principal door I made a group of soldiers that are binding S. Gismondo, who with his relaxed and patient attitude shows that he is suffering most willingly that death and martyrdom, and he stands gazing on four Angels in the air, who are showing to him palms and crowns of martyrdom for himself, his wife, and his sons, which appears to give him complete comfort and consolation. I strove, likewise, to demonstrate the cruelty and fierce anger of the impious Tyrant, who stands on the upper level of the court to behold his vengeance and the death of S. Gismondo. In short, so far as in me lay, I made every effort to give to all the figures, to the best of my ability, the proper expressions and the appropriate attitudes and spirited movements, and all that was required. How far I succeeded, that I shall leave to be judged by others; but this I must say, that I gave to it all the study, labour, and diligence in my power and knowledge. Meanwhile, the Lord Duke Cosimo desiring that the Book of the Lives, already brought almost to completion with the greatest diligence that I had found possible, and with the assistance of some of my friends, should be given to the printers, I gave it to Lorenzo Torrentino, printer to the Duke, and so the printing was begun. But not even the Theories had been finished, when, Pope Paul III having died, I began to doubt that I might have to depart from Florence before that book was finished printing. Going therefore out of Florence to meet Cardinal di Monte, who was passing on his way to the Conclave, I had no sooner made obeisance to him and spoken a few words, than he said: "I go to Rome, and without a doubt I shall be Pope. Make haste, if you have anything to do, and as soon as you hear the news set out for Rome without awaiting other advice or any invitation." Nor did that prognostication prove false, for, being at Arezzo for that Carnival, when certain festivities and masquerades were being arranged, the news came that the Cardinal had become Julius III. Whereupon I mounted straightway on horseback and went to Florence, whence, pressed by the Duke, I went to Rome, in order to be present at the coronation of the new Pontiff and to take part in the preparation of the festivities. And so, arriving in Rome and dismounting at the house of Messer Bindo, I went to do reverence to his Holiness and to kiss his feet. Which done, the first words that he spoke to me were to remind me that what he had foretold of himself had not been false. Then, after he was crowned and settled down a little, the first thing that he wished to have done was to satisfy an obligation that he had to the memory of Antonio, the first and elder Cardinal di Monte, by means of a tomb to be made in S. Pietro a Montorio; of which the designs and models having been made, it was executed in marble, as has been related fully in another place. And meanwhile I painted the altar-picture of that chapel, in which I represented the Conversion of S. Paul, but, to vary it from that which Buonarroti had executed in the Pauline Chapel, I made S. Paul young, as he himself writes, and fallen from his horse, and led blind by the soldiers to Ananias, from whom by the imposition of hands he receives the lost sight of his eyes, and is baptized; in which work, either because the space was restricted, or whatever may have been the reason, I did not satisfy myself completely, although it was perhaps not displeasing to others, and in particular to Michelagnolo. For that Pontiff, likewise, I executed another altar-picture for a chapel in the Palace; but this, for reasons given elsewhere, was afterwards taken by me to Arezzo and placed at the high-altar of the Pieve. If, however, I had not fully satisfied either myself or others in the last-named picture or in that of S. Pietro a Montorio, it would have been no matter for surprise, because, being obliged to be continually at the beck and call of that Pontiff, I was kept always moving, or rather, occupied in making architectural designs, and particularly because I was the first who designed and prepared all the inventions of the Vigna Julia, which he caused to be erected at incredible expense. And although it was executed afterwards by others, yet it was I who always committed to drawing the caprices of the Pope, which were then given to Michelagnolo to revise and correct. Jacopo Barozzi of Vignuola finished, after many designs by his own hand, the rooms, halls, and many other ornaments of that place; but the lower fountain was made under the direction of myself and of Ammanati, who afterwards remained there and made the loggia that is over the fountain. In that work, however, it was not possible for a man to show his ability or to do anything right, because from day to day new caprices came into the head of the Pope, which had to be carried into execution according to the daily instructions given by Messer Pier Giovanni Aliotti, Bishop of Forlì. During that time, being obliged in the year 1550 to go twice to Florence on other affairs, the first time I finished the picture of S. Gismondo, which the Duke went to see in the house of M. Ottaviano de' Medici, where I executed it; and he liked it so much, that he said to me that when I had finished my work in Rome I should come to serve him in Florence, where I would receive orders as to what was to be done. I then returned to Rome, where I gave completion to those works that I had begun, and painted a picture of the Beheading of S. John for the high-altar of the Company of the Misericordia, different not a little from those that are generally done, which I set in place in the year 1553; and then I wished to return, but I was forced to execute for Messer Bindo Altoviti, not being able to refuse him, two very large loggie in stucco-work and fresco. One of them that I painted was at his villa, made with a new method of architecture, because, the loggia being so large that it was not possible to turn the vaulting without danger, I had it made with armatures of wood, matting, and canes, over which was done the stucco-work and fresco-painting, as if the vaulting were of masonry, and even so it appears and is believed to be by all who see it; and it is supported by many ornamental columns of variegated marble, antique and rare. The other loggia is on the ground-floor of his house on the bridge, and is covered with scenes in fresco. And after that I painted for the ceiling of an antechamber four large pictures in oils of the four Seasons of the year. These finished, I was forced to make for Andrea della Fonte, who was much my friend, a portrait from life of his wife, and with it I gave him a large picture of Christ bearing the Cross, with figures the size of life, which I had made for a kinsman of the Pope, but afterwards had not chosen to present to him. For the Bishop of Vasona I painted a Dead Christ supported by Nicodemus and by two Angels, and for Pier Antonio Bandini a Nativity of Christ, an effect of night with variety in the invention. While I was executing these works, I was also watching to see what the Pope was intending to do, and finally I saw that there was little to be expected from him, and that it was useless to labour in his service. Wherefore, notwithstanding that I had already executed the cartoons for painting in fresco the loggia that is over the fountain of the above-named Vigna, I resolved that I would at all costs go to serve the Duke of Florence, and the rather because I was pressed to do this by M. Averardo Serristori and Bishop Ricasoli, the Ambassadors of his Excellency in Rome, and also in letters by M. Sforza Almeni, his Cupbearer and Chief Chamberlain. I transferred myself, therefore, to Arezzo, in order to make my way from there to Florence, but first I was forced to make for Monsignor Minerbetti, Bishop of Arezzo, as for my lord and most dear friend, a lifesize picture of Patience in the form that has since been used by Signor Ercole, Duke of Ferrara, as his device and as the reverse of his medal. Which work finished, I came to kiss the hand of the Lord Duke Cosimo, by whom in his kindness I was received very warmly; and while it was being considered what I should first take in hand, I caused Cristofano Gherardi of the Borgo to paint in chiaroscuro after my designs the façade of M. Sforza Almeni, in that manner and with those inventions that have been described at great length in another place. Now at that time I happened to be one of the Lords Priors of the city of Arezzo, whose office it is to govern that city, but I was summoned by letters of the Lord Duke into his service, and absolved from that duty; and, having come to Florence, I found that his Excellency had begun that year to build that apartment of his Palace which is towards the Piazza del Grano, under the direction of the wood-carver Tasso, who was then architect to the Palace. The roof had been placed so low that all those rooms had little elevation, and were, indeed, altogether dwarfed; but, since to raise the crossbeams and the whole roof would be a long affair, I advised that a series of timbers should be placed, by way of border, with sunk compartments two braccia and a half in extent, between the crossbeams of the roof, with a range of consoles in the perpendicular line, so as to make a frieze of about two braccia above the timbers. Which plan greatly pleasing his Excellency, he gave orders straightway that so it should be done, and that Tasso should execute the woodwork and the compartments, within which was to be painted the Genealogy of the Gods; and that afterwards the work should be continued in the other rooms. [Illustration: LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT AND THE AMBASSADORS (_After the fresco by =Giorgio Vasari=. Florence: Palazzo Vecchio_) _Brogi_] While the work for those ceilings was being prepared, having obtained leave from the Duke, I went to spend two months between Arezzo and Cortona, partly to give completion to some affairs of my own, and partly to finish a work in fresco begun on the walls and vaulting of the Company of Jesus at Cortona. In that place I painted three stories of the life of Jesus Christ, and all the sacrifices offered to God in the Old Testament, from Cain and Abel down to the Prophet Nehemiah; and there, during that time, I also furnished designs and models for the fabric of the Madonna Nuova, without the city. The work for the Company of Jesus being finished, I returned to Florence in the year 1555 with all my family, to serve Duke Cosimo. And there I began and finished the compartments, walls, and ceiling of the above-named upper Hall, called the Sala degli Elementi, painting in the compartments, which are eleven, the Castration of Heaven in the air. In a terrace beside that Hall I painted on the ceiling the actions of Saturn and Ops, and then on the ceiling of another great chamber all the story of Ceres and Proserpine; and in a still larger chamber, which is beside the last, likewise on the ceiling, which is very rich, stories of the Goddess Berecynthia and of Cybele with her Triumph, and the four Seasons, and on the walls all the twelve Months. On the ceiling of another, not so rich, I painted the Birth of Jove and the Goat Amaltheia nursing him, with the rest of the other most notable things related of him; in another terrace beside the same room, much adorned with stones and stucco-work, other things of Jove and Juno; and finally, in the next chamber, the Birth of Hercules and all his Labours. All that could not be included on the ceilings was placed in the friezes of each room, or has been placed in the arras-tapestries that the Lord Duke has caused to be woven for each room from my cartoons, corresponding to the pictures high up on the walls. I shall not speak of the grotesques, ornaments, and pictures of the stairs, nor of many other smaller details executed by my hand in that apartment of rooms, because, besides that I hope that a longer account may be given of them on another occasion, everyone may see them at his pleasure and judge of them. While these upper rooms were being painted, there were built the others that are on the level of the Great Hall, and are connected in a perpendicular line with the first-named, with a very convenient system of staircases public and private that lead from the highest to the lowest quarters of the Palace. Meanwhile Tasso died, and the Duke, who had a very great desire that the Palace, which had been built at haphazard, in various stages and at various times, and more for the convenience of the officials than with any good order, should be put to rights, resolved that he would at all costs have it reconstructed in so far as that was possible, and that in time the Great Hall should be painted, and that Bandinelli should continue the Audience-chamber already begun. In order, therefore, to bring the whole Palace into accord, harmonizing the work already done with that which was to be done, he ordained that I should make several plans and designs, and finally a wooden model after some that had pleased him, the better to be able to proceed to accommodate all the apartments according to his pleasure, and to change and put straight the old stairs, which appeared to him too steep, ill-conceived, and badly made. To which work I set my hand, although it seemed to me a difficult enterprise and beyond my powers, and I executed as best I could a very large model, which is now in the possession of his Excellency; more to obey him than with any hope that I might succeed. That model, when it was finished, pleased him much, whether by his good fortune or mine, or because of the great desire that I had to give satisfaction; whereupon I set my hand to building, and little by little, doing now one thing and now another, the work has been carried to the condition wherein it may now be seen. And while the rest was being done, I decorated with very rich stucco-work in a varied pattern of compartments the first eight of the new rooms that are on a level with the Great Hall, what with saloons, chambers, and a chapel, with various pictures and innumerable portraits from life that come in the scenes, beginning with the elder Cosimo, and calling each room by the name of some great and famous person descended from him. In one, then, are the most notable actions of that Cosimo and those virtues that were most peculiar to him, with his greatest friends and servants and portraits of his children, all from life; and so, also, that of the elder Lorenzo, that of his son, Pope Leo, that of Pope Clement, that of Signor Giovanni, the father of our great Duke, and that of the Lord Duke Cosimo himself. In the chapel is a large and very beautiful picture by the hand of Raffaello da Urbino, between a S. Cosimo and a S. Damiano painted by my hand, to whom that chapel is dedicated. Then in like manner in the upper rooms painted for the Lady Duchess Leonora, which are four, are actions of illustrious women, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Tuscan, one to each chamber. But of these, besides that I have spoken of them elsewhere, there will be a full account in the Dialogue which I am about to give to the world, as I have said; for to describe everything here would have taken too long. For all these my labours, continuous, difficult, and great as they were, I was rewarded largely and richly by the magnanimous liberality of the great Duke, in addition to my salaries, with donations and with commodious and honourable houses both in Florence and in the country, to the end that I might be able the more advantageously to serve him. Besides which, he has honoured me with the supreme magistracy of Gonfalonier and other offices in my native city of Arezzo, with the right to substitute in them one of the citizens of that place, not to mention that to my brother Ser Piero he has given offices of profit in Florence, and likewise extraordinary favours to my relatives in Arezzo; so that I shall never be weary of confessing the obligation that I feel towards that Lord for so many marks of affection. Returning to my works, I must go on to say that my most excellent Lord resolved to carry into execution a project that he had had for a long time, of painting the Great Hall, a conception worthy of his lofty and profound spirit; I know not whether, as he said, I believe jesting with me, because he thought for certain that I would get it off his hands, so that he would see it finished in his lifetime, or it may have been from some other private and, as has always been true of him, most prudent judgment. The result, in short, was that he commissioned me to raise the crossbeams and the whole roof thirteen braccia above the height at that time, to make the ceiling of wood, and to overlay it with gold and paint it full of scenes in oils; a vast and most important undertaking, and, if not too much for my courage, perhaps too much for my powers. However, whether it was that the confidence of that great Lord and the good fortune that he has in his every enterprise raised me beyond what I am in myself, or that the hopes and opportunities of so fine a subject furnished me with much greater faculties, or that the grace of God--and this I was bound to place before any other thing--supplied me with strength, I undertook it, and, as has been seen, executed it in contradiction to the opinion of many persons, and not only in much less time than I had promised and the work might be considered to require, but in less than even I or his most illustrious Excellency ever thought. And I can well believe that he was astonished and well satisfied, because it came to be executed at the greatest emergency and the finest occasion that could have occurred; and this was (that the cause of so much haste may be known) that a settlement had been concluded about the marriage which was being arranged between our most illustrious Prince and the daughter of the late Emperor and sister of the present one, and I thought it my duty to make every effort that on the occasion of such festivities that Hall, which was the principal apartment of the Palace and the one wherein the most important ceremonies were to be celebrated, might be available for enjoyment. And here I will leave it to the judgment of everyone not only in our arts but also outside them, if only he has seen the greatness and variety of that work, to decide whether the extraordinary importance of the occasion should not be my excuse if in such haste I have not given complete satisfaction in so great a variety of wars on land and sea, stormings of cities, batteries, assaults, skirmishes, buildings of cities, public councils, ceremonies ancient and modern, triumphs, and so many other things, for which, not to mention anything else, the sketches, designs, and cartoons of so great a work required a very long time. I will not speak of the nude bodies, in which the perfection of our arts consists, or of the landscapes wherein all those things were painted, all which I had to copy from nature on the actual site and spot, even as I did with the many captains, generals and other chiefs, and soldiers, that were in the emprises that I painted. In short, I will venture to say that I had occasion to depict on that ceiling almost everything that human thought and imagination can conceive; all the varieties of bodies, faces, vestments, habiliments, casques, helmets, cuirasses, various head-dresses, horses, harness, caparisons, artillery of every kind, navigations, tempests, storms of rain and snow, and so many other things, that I am not able to remember them. But anyone who sees the work may easily imagine what labours and what vigils I endured in executing with the greatest study in my power about forty large scenes, and some of them pictures ten braccia in every direction, with figures very large and in every manner. And although some of my young disciples worked with me there, they sometimes gave me assistance and sometimes not, for the reason that at times I was obliged, as they know, to repaint everything with my own hand and go over the whole picture again, to the end that all might be in one and the same manner. These stories, I say, treat of the history of Florence, from the building of the city down to the present day; the division into quarters, the cities brought to submission, the enemies vanquished, the cities subjugated, and, finally, the beginning and end of the War of Pisa on one side, and on the other likewise the beginning and end of the War of Siena, one carried on and concluded by the popular government in a period of fourteen years, and the other by the Duke in fourteen months, as may be seen; besides all the rest that is on the ceiling and will be on the walls, each eighty braccia in length and twenty in height, which I am even now painting in fresco, and hope likewise to discuss later in the above-mentioned Dialogue. And all this that I have sought to say hitherto has been for no other cause but to show with what diligence I have applied myself and still apply myself to matters of art, and with what good reasons I could excuse myself if in some cases (which I believe, indeed, are many) I have failed. [Illustration: FRESCO IN THE HALL OF LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT (_After =Giorgio Vasari=. Florence: Palazzo Vecchio_) _Brogi_] I will add, also, that about the same time I received orders to design all the arches to be shown to his Excellency for the purpose of determining the whole arrangement of the numerous festive preparations already described, executed in Florence for the nuptials of the most illustrious Lord Prince, of which I had then to carry into execution and finish a great part; to cause to be painted after my designs, in ten pictures each fourteen braccia high and eleven broad, all the squares of the principal cities of the dominion, drawn in perspective with their original builders and their devices; also, to have finished the head-wall of the above-named Hall, begun by Bandinelli, and to have a scene made for the other, the greatest and richest that was ever made by anyone; and, finally, to execute the principal stairs of that Palace, with their vestibules, the court and the columns, in the manner that everyone knows and that has been described above, with fifteen cities of the Empire and of the Tyrol depicted from the reality in as many pictures. Not little, also, has been the time that I have spent in those same days in pushing forward the construction, from the time when I first began it, of the loggia and the vast fabric of the Magistrates, facing towards the River Arno, than which I have never had built anything more difficult or more dangerous, from its being founded over the river, and even, one might say, in the air. But it was necessary, besides other reasons, in order to attach to it, as has been done, the great corridor which crosses the river and goes from the Ducal Palace to the Palace and Garden of the Pitti; which corridor was built under my direction and after my design in five months, although it is a work that one might think impossible to finish in less than five years. In addition, it was also my task to cause to be reconstructed and increased for the same nuptials, in the great tribune of S. Spirito, the new machinery for the festival that used to be held in S. Felice in Piazza; which was all reduced to the greatest possible perfection, so that there are no longer any of those dangers that used to be incurred in that festival. And under my charge, likewise, have been the works of the Palace and Church of the Knights of S. Stephen at Pisa, and the tribune, or rather, cupola, of the Madonna dell' Umiltà in Pistoia, which is a work of the greatest importance. For all which, without excusing my imperfection, which I know only too well, if I have achieved anything of the good, I render infinite thanks to God, from whom I still hope to have such help that I may see finished, whenever that may be, the terrible undertaking of the walls in the Hall, to the full satisfaction of my Lords, who already for a period of thirteen years have given me opportunities to execute vast works with honour and profit for myself; after which, weary, aged, and outworn, I may be at rest. And if for various reasons I have executed the works described for the most part with something of rapidity and haste, this I hope to do at my leisure, seeing that the Lord Duke is content that I should not press it, but should do it at my ease, granting me all the repose and recreation that I myself could desire. Thus, last year, being tired by the many works described above, he gave me leave that I might go about for some months to divert myself, and so, setting out to travel, I passed over little less than the whole of Italy, seeing again innumerable friends and patrons and the works of various excellent craftsmen, as I have related above in another connection. Finally, being in Rome on my way to return to Florence, I went to kiss the feet of the most holy and most blessed Pope Pius V, and he commissioned me to execute for him in Florence an altar-picture for sending to his Convent and Church of Bosco, which he was then having built in his native place, near Alessandria della Paglia. Having then returned to Florence, remembering the command that his Holiness had laid upon me and the many marks of affection that he had shown, I painted for him, as he had commissioned me, an altar-picture of the Adoration of the Magi; and when he heard that it had been carried by me to completion, he sent me a message that to please him, and that he might confer with me over some thoughts in his mind, I should go with that picture to Rome, but particularly for the purpose of discussing the fabric of S. Pietro, which he showed himself to have very much at heart. Having therefore made preparations with a hundred crowns that he sent me for that purpose, and having sent the picture before me, I went to Rome; and after I had been there a month and had had many conversations with his Holiness, and had advised him not to permit any alterations to be made in the arrangements of Buonarroti for the fabric of S. Pietro, and had executed some designs, he commanded me to make for the high-altar of that Church of Bosco not an altar-picture such as is customary, but an immense structure almost in the manner of a triumphal arch, with two large panels, one in front and the other behind, and in smaller pictures about thirty scenes filled with many figures; all which have been carried very near completion. At that time I obtained the gracious leave of his Holiness, who with infinite lovingness and condescension sent me the Bulls expedited free of charge, to erect in the Pieve of Arezzo a chapel and decanate, which is the principal chapel of that Pieve, under the patronage of myself and of my house, endowed by me and painted by my hand, and offered to the Divine Goodness as an acknowledgment (although but a trifle) of the great obligation that I feel to the Divine Majesty for the innumerable graces and benefits that He has deigned to bestow upon me. The altar-picture of that chapel is in form very similar to that described above, which has been in part the reason that it has been brought back to my memory, for it is isolated and consists likewise of two pictures, one in front, already mentioned above, and one at the back with the story of S. George, with pictures of certain Saints on either side, and at the foot smaller pictures with their stories; those Saints whose bodies are in a most beautiful tomb below the altar, with other principal reliques of the city. In the centre comes a tabernacle passing well arranged for the Sacrament, because it serves for both the one altar and the other, and it is embellished with stories of the Old Testament and the New all in keeping with that Mystery, as has been told in part elsewhere. I had forgotten to say, also, that the year before, when I went the first time to kiss the Pope's feet, I took the road by Perugia in order to set in place three large altar-pieces executed for a refectory of the Black Friars of S. Piero in that city. In one, that in the centre, is the Marriage of Cana in Galilee, at which Christ performed the Miracle of converting water into wine. In the second, on the right hand, is Elisha the Prophet sweetening with meal the bitter pot, the food of which, spoilt by colocynths, his prophets were not able to eat. And in the third is S. Benedict, to whom a lay-brother announces at a time of very great dearth, and at the very moment when his monks were lacking food, that some camels laden with meal have arrived at his door, and he sees that the Angels of God are miraculously bringing to him a vast quantity of meal. For Signora Gentilina, mother of Signor Chiappino and Signor Paolo Vitelli, I painted in Florence and sent from there to Città di Castello a great altar-picture in which is the Coronation of Our Lady, on high a Dance of Angels, and at the foot many figures larger than life; which picture was placed in S. Francesco in that city. For the Church of Poggio a Caiano, a villa of the Lord Duke, I painted in an altar-picture the Dead Christ in the lap of His Mother, S. Cosimo and S. Damiano contemplating Him, and in the air an Angel who, weeping, displays the Mysteries of the Passion of Our Saviour; and in the Church of the Carmine at Florence, in the Chapel of Matteo and Simon Botti, my very dear friends, there was placed about this same time an altar-picture by my hand wherein is Christ Crucified, with Our Lady, S. John and the Magdalene weeping. Then I executed two great pictures for Jacopo Capponi, for sending to France, in one of which is Spring and in the other Autumn, with large figures and new inventions; and in another and even larger picture a Dead Christ supported by two Angels, with God the Father on high. To the Nuns of S. Maria Novella of Arezzo I sent likewise in those days, or a little before, an altar-picture in which is the Virgin receiving the Annunciation from the Angel, and at the sides two Saints; and for the Nuns of Luco in the Mugello, of the Order of Camaldoli, another altar-piece that is in the inner choir, containing Christ Crucified, Our Lady, S. John, and Mary Magdalene. For Luca Torrigiani, who is very much my intimate and friend, and who desired to have among the many things that he possesses of our art a picture by my own hand, in order to keep it near him, I painted in a large picture a nude Venus with the three Graces about her, one of whom is attiring her head, another holds her mirror, and the third is pouring water into a vessel to bathe her; which picture I strove to execute with the greatest study and diligence that I was able, in order to satisfy my own mind no less than that of so sweet and dear a friend. I also executed for Antonio de' Nobili, Treasurer-General to his Excellency and my affectionate friend, besides his portrait, being forced to do it against my inclination, a head of Jesus Christ taken from the words in which Lentulus writes of His effigy, both of which were done with diligence; and likewise another somewhat larger, but similar to that named above, for Signor Mandragone, now the first person in the service of Don Francesco de' Medici, Prince of Florence and Siena, which I presented to his lordship because he is much affected towards our arts and every talent, to the end that he might remember from the sight of it that I love him and am his friend. I have also in hand, and hope to finish soon, a large picture, a most fanciful work, which is intended for Signor Antonio Montalvo, Lord of Sassetta, who is deservedly the First Chamberlain and the most trusted companion of our Duke, and so sweet and loving an intimate and friend, not to say a superior, to me, that, if my hand shall accomplish the desire that I have to leave to him a proof by that hand of the affection that I bear him, it will be recognized how much I honour him and how dearly I wish that the memory of a lord so honoured and so loyal, and beloved by me, shall live among posterity, seeing that he exerts himself willingly in favouring all the beautiful intellects that labour in our profession or take delight in design. For the Lord Prince, Don Francesco, I have executed recently two pictures that he has sent to Toledo in Spain, to a sister of the Lady Duchess Leonora, his mother; and for himself a little picture in the manner of a miniature, with forty figures, what with great and small, according to a very beautiful invention of his own. For Filippo Salviati I finished not long since an altar-picture that is going to the Sisters of S. Vincenzio at Prato, wherein on high is Our Lady arrived in Heaven and crowned, and at the foot the Apostles around the Sepulchre. For the Black Friars of the Badia of Florence, likewise, I am painting an altar-piece of the Assumption of Our Lady, which is near completion, with the Apostles in figures larger than life, and other figures at the sides, and around it stories and ornaments accommodated in a novel manner. And since the Lord Duke, so truly excellent in everything, takes pleasure not only in the building of palaces, cities, fortresses, harbours, loggie, public squares, gardens, fountains, villas, and other suchlike things, beautiful, magnificent, and most useful, for the benefit of his people, but also particularly in building anew and reducing to better form and greater beauty, as a truly Catholic Prince, the temples and sacred churches of God, in imitation of the great King Solomon, recently he has caused me to remove the tramezzo[5] of the Church of S. Maria Novella, which had robbed it of all its beauty, and a new and very rich choir was made behind the high-altar, in order to remove that occupying a great part of the centre of that church; which makes it appear a new church and most beautiful, as indeed it is. And because things that have not order and proportion among themselves can never be entirely beautiful, he has ordained that there shall be made in the side-aisles, between column and column, in such a manner as to correspond to the centres of the arches, rich ornaments of stone in a novel form, which are to serve as chapels with altars in the centre, and are all to be in one of two manners; and that then in the altar-pictures that are to go within these ornaments, seven braccia in height and five in breadth, there shall be executed paintings after the will and pleasure of the patrons of the chapels. Within one of those ornaments of stone, made from my design, I have executed for the very reverend Monsignor Alessandro Strozzi, Bishop of Volterra, my old and most loving patron, a Christ Crucified according to the Vision of S. Anselm--namely, with the Seven Virtues, without which we cannot ascend the Seven Steps to Jesus Christ--and with other considerations by the same Saint. And in the same church, within another of those ornaments, I have painted for the excellent Maestro Andrea Pasquali, physician to the Lord Duke, a Resurrection of Jesus Christ in the manner that God has inspired me, to please that Maestro Andrea, who is much my friend. And a similar work our great Duke has desired to have done in the immense Church of S. Croce in Florence;--namely, that the tramezzo[6] should be removed and that the choir should be made behind the high-altar, bringing that altar somewhat forward and placing upon it a new and rich tabernacle for the most holy Sacrament, all adorned with gold, figures, and scenes; and, in addition, that in the same manner that has been told of S. Maria Novella there should be made there fourteen chapels against the walls, with greater expense and ornamentation than those described above, because that church is much larger than the other. In the altar-pieces, to accompany the two by Salviati and Bronzino, are to be all the principal Mysteries of the Saviour, from the beginning of His Passion to the Sending of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles; which picture of the Sending of the Holy Spirit, having made the design of the chapels and ornaments of stone, I have in hand for M. Agnolo Biffoli, Treasurer-General to our Lords, and my particular friend, and I finished, not long since, two large pictures that are in the Magistracy of the Nine Conservadori, beside S. Piero Scheraggio; in one is the head of Christ, and in the other a Madonna. [Footnote 5: See p. 57, Vol. I.] [Footnote 6: See p. 57, Vol. I.] But since I should take too long if I sought to recount in detail the many other pictures, designs without number, models, and masquerades that I have executed, and because this much is enough and more than enough, I shall say nothing more of myself, save that however great and important have been the things that I have continually suggested to Duke Cosimo, I have never been able to equal, much less to surpass, the greatness of his mind. And this will be seen clearly in a third sacristy that he wishes to build beside S. Lorenzo, large and similar to that which Michelagnolo built in the past, but all of variegated marbles and mosaics, in order to deposit there, in tombs most honourable and worthy of his power and grandeur, the remains of his dead children, of his father and mother, of the magnanimous Duchess Leonora, his consort, and of himself; for which I have already made a model after his taste and according to the orders received from him by me, which, when carried into execution, will cause it to be a novel, most magnificent, and truly regal Mausoleum. This much, then, it must suffice to have said of myself, who am now come after so many labours to the age of fifty-five years, and look to live so long as it shall please God, honouring Him, ever at the service of my friends, and working in so far as my strength shall allow for the benefit and advantage of these most noble arts. THE AUTHOR TO THE CRAFTSMEN OF DESIGN Honoured and noble craftsmen, for whose profit and advantage, chiefly, I set myself a second time to so long a labour, I now find that by the favour and assistance of the Divine Grace I have accomplished in full that which at the beginning of this my present task I promised myself to do. For which result rendering thanks first to God and afterwards to my lords, who have granted me the facilities whereby I have been able to do this advantageously, I must then give repose to my weary pen and brain, which I shall do as soon as I shall have made some brief observations. If, then, it should appear to anyone that in my writing I have been at times rather long and even somewhat prolix, let him put it down to this, that I have sought as much as I have been able to be clear, and before any other thing to set down my story in such a manner that what has not been understood the first time, or not expressed satisfactorily by me, might be made manifest at any cost. And if what has been said once has been at times repeated in another place, the reasons for this have been two--first, that the matter that I was treating required it, and then that during the time when I rewrote and reprinted the work I broke off my writing more than once for a period not of days merely but of months, either for journeys or because of a superabundance of labours, works of painting, designs, and buildings; besides which, for a man like myself (I confess it freely) it is almost impossible to avoid every error. To those to whom it might appear that I have overpraised any craftsmen, whether old or modern, and who, comparing the old with those of the present age, might laugh at them, I know not what else to answer save that my intention has always been to praise not absolutely but, as the saying is, relatively, having regard to place, time, and other similar circumstances; and in truth, although Giotto, for example, was much extolled in his day, I know not what would have been said of him, as of other old masters, if he had lived in the time of Buonarroti, whereas the men of this age, which is at the topmost height of perfection, would not be in the position that they are if those others had not first been such as they were before us. In short, let it be believed that what I have done in praising or censuring I have done not with any ulterior object, but only to speak the truth or what I have believed to be the truth. But one cannot always have the goldsmith's balance in the hand, and he who has experienced what writing is, and particularly when one has to make comparisons, which are by their very nature odious, or to pronounce judgments, will hold me excused; and I know only too well how great have been the labours, hardships, and moneys that I have devoted over many years to this work. Such, indeed, and so many, have been the difficulties that I have experienced therein, that many a time I would have abandoned it in despair, if the succour of many true and good friends, to whom I shall always be deeply indebted, had not given me courage and persuaded me to persevere, they lending me all the loving aids that have been in their power, of notices, advices, and comparisons of various things, about which, although I had seen them, I was not a little perplexed and dubious. Those aids, indeed, have been such, that I have been able to lay bare the pure truth and bring this work into the light of day, in order to revive the memory of so many rare and extraordinary intellects, which was almost entirely buried, for the benefit of those who shall come after us. In doing which I have found no little assistance, as has been told elsewhere, in the writings of Lorenzo Ghiberti, Domenico Ghirlandajo, and Raffaello da Urbino; but although I have lent them willing faith, nevertheless I have always sought to verify their statements by a sight of the works, for the reason that long practice teaches a diligent painter to be able to recognize the various manners of craftsmen not otherwise than a learned and well-practised chancellor knows the various and diverse writings of his equals, or anyone the characters of his nearest and most familiar friends and relatives. Now, if I have achieved the end that I have desired, which has been to benefit and at the same time to delight, that will be a supreme satisfaction to me, and, even if it be otherwise, it will be a contentment for me, or at least an alleviation of pain, to have endured fatigue in an honourable work such as should make me worthy of pity among all choice spirits, if not of pardon. But to come at last to the end of this long discourse; I have written as a painter and with the best order and method that I have been able, and, as for language, in that which I speak, whether it be Florentine or Tuscan, and in the most easy and facile manner at my command, leaving the long and ornate periods, choice words, and other ornaments of learned speech and writing, to such as have not, as I have, a hand rather for brushes than for the pen, and a head rather for designs than for writing. And if I have scattered throughout the work many terms peculiar to our arts, of which perchance it has not occurred to the brightest and greatest lights of our language to avail themselves, I have done this because I could do no less and in order to be understood by you, my craftsmen, for whom, chiefly, as I have said, I set myself to this labour. For the rest, then, I having done all that I have been able, accept it willingly, and expect not from me what I know not and what is not in my power; satisfying yourselves of my good intention, which is and ever will be to benefit and please others. DIE 25 AUGUSTI, 1567. CONCEDIMUS LICENTIAM ET FACULTATEM IMPUNE ET SINE ULLO PRÆJUDICIO IMPRIMENDI FLORENTIÆ VITAS PICTORUM, SCULPTORUM, ET ARCHITECTORUM, TANQUAM A FIDE ET RELIGIONE NULLO PACTO ALIENAS, SED POTIUS VALDE CONSONAS. IN QUORUM FIDEM ETC. GUIDO SERVIDIUS, PRÆPOSITUS ET VICARIUS GENERALIS FLORENT. INDEX OF NAMES OF THE CRAFTSMEN MENTIONED IN VOLUME X Academicians, The, 37-167 Agnolo, Baccio d', 23 Agnolo Bronzino, _Life_, 3-12. 3-14, 219 Alberti, Leon Batista, 40 Alessandro Allori (Alessandro del Bronzino), 12, 13 Alessandro del Barbiere (Alessandro di Vincenzio Fei), 20 Alessandro del Bronzino (Alessandro Allori), 12, 13 Alessandro di Vincenzio Fei (Alessandro del Barbiere), 20 Alessandro Fortori, 20 Alessandro Vittoria, 20 Allori, Alessandro (Alessandro del Bronzino), 12, 13 Altissimo, Cristofano dell', 13, 14 Ammanati, Bartolommeo, 23, 206 Andrea Calamech, 23 Andrea del Minga, 15 Andrea del Sarto, 47, 172 Andrea Palladio, 20 Andrea Verrocchio, 47 Antonio da Correggio, 187 Antonio da San Gallo (the younger), 47 Antonio di Gino Lorenzi, 30 Apelles, 47, 200 Bacchiacca, Il (Francesco Ubertini), 8 Baccio Bandinelli, 23, 24, 31, 176, 210, 214 Baccio d'Agnolo, 23 Bagnacavallo, Giovan Battista da, 196 Baldassarre Lancia, 33 Baldassarre Peruzzi, 174 Bandinelli, Baccio, 23, 24, 31, 176, 210, 214 Bandini, Giovanni di Benedetto, 31, 32 Barbiere, Alessandro del (Alessandro di Vincenzio Fei), 20 Barozzi, Jacopo (Vignuola), 206 Bartolommeo Ammanati, 23, 206 Bastiano Flori, 187, 196 Battista Cungi, 181, 187 Battista del Cavaliere (Battista Lorenzi), 31 Battista del Tasso, 208, 210 Battista di Benedetto Fiammeri, 23 Battista Farinato, 20 Battista Lorenzi (Battista del Cavaliere), 31 Battista Naldini, 14, 15 Beceri, Domenico (Domenico Benci), 20 Benedetto Pagni (Benedetto da Pescia), 9 Benozzo Gozzoli, 47 Benvenuto Cellini, 21, 22 Bernardino di Porfirio, 17 Bernardo Timante Buontalenti, 16-18 Biagio Pupini, 184 Bizzerra, 196 Bologna, Giovan, 25, 26 Borgo, Giovan Paolo dal, 196 Bronzino, Agnolo, _Life_, 3-12. 3-14, 219 Bronzino, Alessandro del (Alessandro Allori), 12, 13 Brunellesco, Filippo di Ser, 47, 204 Buffalmacco, 47 Buonarroti, Michelagnolo, 12-17, 19, 24, 26, 31, 32, 46, 47, 172, 174, 175, 186-190, 194, 206, 215, 220, 222 Buontalenti, Bernardo Timante, 16-18 Butteri, Giovan Maria, 13 Cadore, Tiziano da (Tiziano Vecelli), 20, 187 Calamech, Andrea, 23 Camilliani, Francesco, 24, 25 Caravaggio, Polidoro da, 174 Carlo Portelli (Carlo da Loro), 15 Cattaneo, Danese, 20 Cavaliere, Battista del (Battista Lorenzi), 31 Cellini, Benvenuto, 21, 22 Cimabue, Giovanni, 3, 47, 196 Cioli, Valerio, 32 Clovio, Don Giulio, 16 Colle, Raffaello dal, 7 Collettaio, Ottaviano del, 33 Correggio, Antonio da, 187 Cristofano dell' Altissimo, 13, 14 Cristofano Gherardi, 183, 187, 208 Crocifissaio, Girolamo del, 15, 16 Cungi, Battista, 181, 187 Danese Cattaneo, 20 Danti, Fra Ignazio, 28-30 Danti, Vincenzio, 26-28 Desiderio da Settignano, 47 Domenico Beceri (Domenico Benci), 20 Domenico Ghirlandajo, 222 Domenico Poggini, 32, 33 Don Giulio Clovio, 16 Donato (Donatello), 22, 47 Faenza, Marco da (Marco Marchetti), 20 Fancelli, Giovanni (Giovanni di Stocco), 33 Farinato, Battista, 20 Federigo di Lamberto, 16 Federigo Zucchero, 20 Fei, Alessandro di Vincenzio (Alessandro del Barbiere), 20 Fiammeri, Battista di Benedetto, 23 Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, 47, 204 Filippo Lippi, Fra, 47 Flori, Bastiano, 187, 196 Fontana, Prospero, 20 Fortori, Alessandro, 20 Foschi, Fra Salvadore, 196 Fra Filippo Lippi, 47 Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli, 9, 23, 33 Fra Giovanni Vincenzio, 33 Fra Ignazio Danti, 28-30 Fra Salvadore Foschi, 196 Francesco Camilliani, 24, 25 Francesco da Poppi (Francesco Morandini), 14 Francesco da San Gallo, 22, 23 Francesco Morandini (Francesco da Poppi), 14 Francesco Moschino, 32 Francesco Salviati, 7, 47, 171, 174, 219 Francesco Ubertini (Il Bacchiacca), 8 Gaddi family, 47 Genga, Girolamo, 33 Gherardi, Cristofano, 183, 187, 208 Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 47, 222 Ghirlandajo, Domenico, 222 Ghirlandajo, Michele di Ridolfo, 15 Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo, 15 Giorgio Vasari. See Vasari, Giorgio Giotto, 47, 191, 221, 222 Giovan Battista da Bagnacavallo, 196 Giovan Bologna, 25, 26 Giovan Francesco Rustici, 47 Giovan Maria Butteri, 13 Giovan Paolo dal Borgo, 196 Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli, Fra, 9, 23, 33 Giovanni Cimabue, 3, 47, 196 Giovanni da Udine, 176 Giovanni della Strada (Jan van der Straet), 18, 19 Giovanni di Benedetto Bandini, 31, 32 Giovanni Fancelli (Giovanni di Stocco), 33 Giovanni Vincenzio, Fra, 33 Girolamo da Treviso, 184 Girolamo del Crocifissaio, 15, 16 Girolamo Genga, 33 Giuliano da San Gallo, 22, 23 Giulio Clovio, Don, 16 Giulio da Urbino, 17 Giulio Romano, 9, 187 Giuseppe Porta (Giuseppe Salviati), 20 Gozzoli, Benozzo, 47 Guglielmo da Marcilla, 172 Ignazio Danti, Fra, 28-30 Il Bacchiacca (Francesco Ubertini), 8 Il Rosso, 47, 172 Ilarione Ruspoli, 24 Jacopo Barozzi (Vignuola), 206 Jacopo da Pontormo, 3-5, 7-10, 12-14, 47, 176, 177 Jacopo Sansovino, 23 Jacopo Tintoretto, 20 Jacopo Zucchi, 19 Jan van der Straet (Giovanni della Strada), 18, 19 Lamberto, Federigo di, 16 Lancia, Baldassarre, 33 Lancia, Pompilio, 33 Lastricati, Zanobi, 33 Leon Battista Alberti, 40 Leonardo da Vinci, 47 Lippi, Fra Filippo, 47 Lorenzi, Antonio di Gino, 30 Lorenzi, Battista (Battista del Cavaliere), 31 Lorenzi, Stoldo di Gino, 30, 31 Lorenzo della Sciorina, 14 Lorenzo Ghiberti, 47, 222 Lorenzo Sabatini, 20 Loro, Carlo da (Carlo Portelli), 15 Luca Signorelli, 171 Manno, 173 Manzuoli, Maso (Maso da San Friano), 15 Marchetti, Marco (Marco da Faenza), 20 Marcilla, Guglielmo da, 172 Marco Marchetti (Marco da Faenza), 20 Martino (pupil of Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli), 23 Masaccio, 47 Maso Manzuoli (Maso da San Friano), 15 Michelagnolo Buonarroti, 12-17, 19, 24, 26, 31, 32, 46, 47, 172, 174, 175, 186-190, 194, 206, 215, 220, 222 Michele di Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, 15 Minga, Andrea del, 15 Mirabello di Salincorno, 15, 16 Montorsoli, Fra Giovanni Agnolo, 9, 23, 33 Morandini, Francesco (Francesco da Poppi), 14 Moschino, Francesco, 32 Naldini, Battista, 14, 15 Niccolò (Tribolo), 5, 30, 176, 177 Orazio Porta, 20 Ottaviano del Collettaio, 33 Pagni, Benedetto (Benedetto da Pescia), 9 Palladio, Andrea, 20 Paolo Veronese, 20 Parrhasius, 200 Perino del Vaga, 47 Perugino, Pietro, 192 Peruzzi, Baldassarre, 174 Pescia, Benedetto da (Benedetto Pagni), 9 Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, 15 Pieri, Stefano, 14 Pietro Perugino, 192 Poggini, Domenico, 32, 33 Polidoro da Caravaggio, 174 Pompilio Lancia, 33 Pontormo, Jacopo da, 3-5, 7-10, 12-14, 47, 176, 177 Poppi, Francesco da (Francesco Morandini), 14 Porfirio, Bernardino di, 17 Porta, Giuseppe (Giuseppe Salviati), 20 Porta, Orazio, 20 Portelli, Carlo (Carlo da Loro), 15 Praxiteles, 47 Prospero Fontana, 20 Protogenes, 200 Pupini, Biagio, 184 Raffaello dal Colle, 7 Raffaello Sanzio, 174, 180, 181, 192, 211, 222 Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, 15 Romano, Giulio, 9, 187 Rossi, Vincenzio de', 23, 24 Rosso, Il, 47, 172 Roviale, 196 Ruspoli, Ilarione, 24 Rustici, Giovan Francesco, 47 Sabatini, Lorenzo, 20 Salincorno, Mirabello di, 15, 16 Salvadore Foschi, Fra, 196 Salviati, Francesco, 7, 47, 171, 174, 219 Salviati, Giuseppe (Giuseppe Porta), 20 San Friano, Maso da (Maso Manzuoli), 15 San Gallo, Antonio da (the younger), 47 San Gallo, Francesco da, 22, 23 San Gallo, Giuliano da, 22, 23 Sandro, Pier Francesco di Jacopo di, 15 Sansovino, Jacopo, 23 Santi Titi, 19, 20 Sanzio, Raffaello, 174, 180, 181, 192, 211, 222 Sarto, Andrea del, 47, 172 Sciorina, Lorenzo della, 14 Settignano, Desiderio da, 47 Signorelli, Luca, 171 Stefano Pieri, 14 Stefano Veltroni, 20 Stocco, Giovanni di (Giovanni Fancelli), 33 Stoldo di Gino Lorenzi, 30, 31 Strada, Giovanni della (Jan van der Straet), 18, 19 Tasso, Battista del, 208, 210 The Academicians, 37-167 Tintoretto, Jacopo, 20 Titi, Santi, 19, 20 Tiziano Vecelli (Tiziano da Cadore), 20, 187 Tommaso del Verrocchio, 20 Treviso, Girolamo da, 184 Tribolo (Niccolò), 5, 30, 176, 177 Ubertini, Francesco (Il Bacchiacca), 8 Udine, Giovanni da, 176 Urbino, Giulio da, 17 Vaga, Perino del, 47 Valerio Cioli, 32 Vasari, Giorgio, _Life_, 171-220 as art-collector, 13 as author, 3, 8, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19-24, 29, 30, 32-34, 37, 41-44, 47, 61, 62, 67, 69, 72, 76-78, 80, 82-84, 90, 92-94, 97-102, 104, 105, 113, 116, 119, 127-129, 147, 162-164, 166, 167, 171-223 as painter, 12, 14, 16-20, 27, 105, 171-221, 223 as architect, 10, 26-28, 31, 171, 174, 177, 178, 181, 184, 189-193, 202, 206-216, 218-221 Vecelli, Tiziano (Tiziano da Cadore), 20, 187 Veltroni, Stefano, 20 Veronese, Paolo, 20 Verrocchio, Andrea, 47 Verrocchio, Tommaso del, 20 Vignuola (Jacopo Barozzi), 206 Vincenzio, Fra Giovanni, 33 Vincenzio Danti, 26-28 Vincenzio de' Rossi, 23, 24 Vinci, Leonardo da, 47 Vittoria, Alessandro, 20 Zanobi Lastricati, 33 Zeuxis, 200 Zucchero, Federigo, 20 Zucchi, Jacopo, 19 END OF VOL. X. GENERAL INDEX OF NAMES OF THE CRAFTSMEN MENTIONED IN VOLUMES I--X NOTE.--_To bring this Index within as reasonable a compass as possible cross-references, such as_ Agnolo Bronzino. See Bronzino, Agnolo, _are printed_ Agnolo _Bronzino_, _the italics indicating the name under which the page-numbers will be found._ Abacco, Antonio L', VI, 113, 114, 130, 136, 137; VIII, 167 Abate, Niccolò dell' (Niccolò da Modena), VIII, 37, 38; IX, 148 Abbot of S. Clemente (Don Bartolommeo della _Gatta_) Academicians, The, X, 37-167 Adone _Doni_ Aertsen, Pieter, IX, 268 Aglaophon, I, xxxix Agnolo (nephew of Montorsoli), VIII, 144, 147, 151 Agnolo (of Siena), _Life_, I, 97-105; I, 39, 97-105; II, 81, 94, 95; VIII, 53 Agnolo, Andrea d' (Andrea del _Sarto_) Agnolo, Baccio d' (Baccio Baglioni), _Life_, VI, 65-68; III, 12; IV, 101, 204, 267, 270; V, 91, 98, 102; VI, 65-69, 72; VII, 74; VIII, 116; IX, 40, 41, 194; X, 23 Agnolo, Battista d' (Battista d'_Angelo_, or del Moro) Agnolo, Domenico di Baccio d', VI, 68, 70, 72 Agnolo, Filippo di Baccio d', VI, 68, 70 Agnolo, Giuliano di Baccio d', _Life_, VI, 68-72; VII, 83-86, 88, 89, 102 Agnolo, Marco di Battista d', VI, 27, 28 Agnolo _Bronzino_ Agnolo di _Cristofano_ Agnolo di _Donnino_ Agnolo di _Lorenzo_ (Angelo di Lorentino) Agnolo di _Polo_ Agnolo _Gaddi_ Agobbio, Oderigi d', I, 79 Agostino (of Siena), _Life_, I, 97-105; I, 39, 97-105; II, 81, 94, 95; VIII, 53 Agostino _Busto_ (Il Bambaja) Agostino della _Robbia_ Agostino _Viniziano_ (Agostino de' Musi) Agresti, Livio (Livio da _Forlì_) Aholiab, I, xxxviii Aimo, Domenico (Vecchio of Bologna), V, 28; VI, 217; IX, 189 Alberti, Leon Batista, _Life_, III, 43-48; I, xli, 179; II, 227; III, 43-48; VI, 45; IX, 271; X, 40 Alberti, Michele, VIII, 205, 210, 211 Albertinelli, Biagio di Bindo, IV, 165 Albertinelli, Mariotto, _Life_, IV, 165-171; II, 190; IV, 151, 154, 165-171; V, 86, 212, 217; VII, 108, 148; VIII, 62 Albertino, Francesco d' (Francesco _Ubertini_, or Il Bacchiacca) Alberto, Antonio, V, 13 Alberto Monsignori (_Bonsignori_) Albrecht (Heinrich) _Aldegrever_ Albrecht _Dürer_ Aldegrever, Albrecht (Heinrich), VI, 119 Aldigieri (Altichiero) da _Zevio_ Alessandro (Scherano da _Settignano_) Alessandro _Allori_ (Alessandro del Bronzino) Alessandro Bonvicini Alessandro _Moretto_ Alessandro _Cesati_ (Il Greco) Alessandro del Barbiere (Alessandro di Vincenzio _Fei_) Alessandro del Bronzino (Alessandro _Allori_) Alessandro di Vincenzio _Fei_ (Alessandro del Barbiere) Alessandro _Falconetto_ Alessandro Filipepi (Sandro _Botticelli_, or Sandro di Botticello) Alessandro _Fortori_ Alessandro _Moretto_ (Alessandro Bonvicini) Alessandro _Vittoria_ Alessi, Galeazzo, IX, 239-242 Alesso _Baldovinetti_ Alfonso _Lombardi_ Allori, Alessandro (Alessandro del Bronzino), V, 127; IX, 133, 138; X, 12, 13 Alonzo _Spagnuolo_ (Alonzo Berughetta) Altichiero (Aldigieri) da _Zevio_ Altissimo, Cristofano dell', X, 13, 14 Altobello da _Melone_ Alunno, Niccolò, IV, 18, 19 Alvaro di _Piero_ Amalteo, Pomponio, V, 154, 155 Ambrogio _Lorenzetti_ Amico _Aspertini_ Ammanati, Bartolommeo, II, 228; IV, 274; VII, 95, 96, 99, 100, 203, 206; VIII, 91, 92, 99, 153, 220; IX, 69, 70, 73, 118, 125, 126, 129, 207, 208, 223; X, 23, 206 Amsterdam, Lambert of (Lambert _Lombard_) Andrea, Maestro, VII, 66 Andrea _Calamech_ Andrea _Contucci_ (Andrea Sansovino) Andrea d' Agnolo (Andrea del _Sarto_) Andrea da _Fiesole_ (Andrea Ferrucci) Andrea dal _Castagno_ (Andrea degli Impiccati) Andrea de' _Ceri_ Andrea degli Impiccati (Andrea dal _Castagno_) Andrea del _Gobbo_ Andrea del _Minga_ Andrea del _Sarto_ (Andrea d' Agnolo) Andrea della _Robbia_ Andrea di Cione _Orcagna_ Andrea di _Cosimo_ (Andrea di Cosimo Feltrini) Andrea Ferrucci (Andrea da _Fiesole_) Andrea _Luigi_ (L' Ingegno) Andrea _Mantegna_ Andrea _Palladio_ Andrea _Pisano_ Andrea _Riccio_ Andrea Sansovino (Andrea _Contucci_) Andrea _Schiavone_ Andrea _Sguazzella_ Andrea _Tafi_ Andrea _Verrocchio_ Angeli, Don Lorenzo degli (Don Lorenzo _Monaco_) Angelico, Fra (Fra Giovanni da Fiesole), _Life_, III, 27-39; I, 162; II, 190, 271; III, 27-39, 121; IV, 73, 154, 185; VI, 246 Angelo, Battista d' (Battista d' Agnolo, or del Moro), _Life_, VI, 27-28; IV, 61; VI, 27-28, 108; VII, 236; VIII, 41 Angelo, Lorentino d', III, 22, 23 Angelo _Ciciliano_ Angelo di Lorentino (Agnolo di _Lorenzo_) Anguisciuola, Anna, VIII, 48 Anguisciuola, Europa, VIII, 45, 48 Anguisciuola, Lucia, VIII, 45, 47, 48 Anguisciuola, Minerva, VIII, 45, 46 Anguisciuola, Sofonisba, V, 127, 128; VIII, 45-48, 261 Anichini, Luigi, VI, 85 Anna _Anguisciuola_ Anna _Seghers_ Annibale da _Carpi_ Annibale di Nanni di Baccio _Bigio_ Anselmi, Michelagnolo, VIII, 39, 44 Anselmo _Canneri_ Antignano, Segna d', II, 26 Antoine Lafrery (Antonio _Lanferri_) Antonello da _Messina_ Antonio (Antoniasso), IV, 6, 7 Antonio, Fra, VIII, 32 Antonio _Alberto_ Antonio _Bacchiacca_ Antonio _Begarelli_ (Il Modena) Antonio _Campo_ Antonio d' Andrea _Tafi_ Antonio da _Carrara_ Antonio da _Correggio_ Antonio da _Ferrara_ Antonio da _San Gallo_ (the elder) Antonio da _San Gallo_ (the younger) Antonio da _Trento_ (Antonio Fantuzzi) Antonio da _Verzelli_ Antonio del _Ceraiuolo_ Antonio del Rozzo (Antonio del _Tozzo_) Antonio di Donnino _Mazzieri_ (Antonio di Domenico) Antonio di Gino _Lorenzi_ Antonio di Giorgio _Marchissi_ Antonio di Giovanni (Solosmeo da _Settignano_) Antonio di Marco di Giano (Il _Carota_) Antonio di _Salvi_ Antonio Fantuzzi (Antonio da _Trento_) Antonio _Filarete_ Antonio _Fiorentino_ Antonio _Floriani_ Antonio l'_Abacco_ Antonio _Lanferri_ (Antoine Lafrery) Antonio _Mini_ Antonio _Montecavallo_ Antonio _Particini_ Antonio (or Vittore) _Pisanello_ Antonio _Pollaiuolo_ Antonio _Rossellino_ (Rossellino dal Proconsolo) Antonio _Salamanca_ Antonio _Scarpagni_ (Scarpagnino or Zanfragnino) Antonio _Viniziano_ Antonio _Vite_ Antonius _Moor_ Antwerp, Hugo of, IX, 265 Antwerp, Willem van, IX, 269 Apelles, I, xxviii, xxxix; II, 80, 120, 191; III, 36, 254, 286; IV, 82, 83, 105; V, 14; VIII, 28; IX, 133, 168; X, 47, 200 Apollodorus, I, xxxix Apollonio, I, 47, 49 Arca, Niccolò dell' (Niccolò Bolognese), II, 97; IX, 11 Ardices, I, xxxix Aretino, Geri, III, 263, 264 Aretino, Leone (Leone Lioni), _Life_, IX, 229-232; VI, 87; VIII, 56, 184; IX, 95, 229-233 Aretino, Marchionne, I, 17, 18 Aretino, Niccolò (Niccolò d' Arezzo, or Niccolò di Piero Lamberti), _Life_, II, 101-104; I, 130; II, 101-104, 145, 146, 159, 200; IV, 55 Aretino, Spinello, _Life_, II, 29-39; I, 67; II, 25, 26, 29-39, 67, 83, 179 Aretusi, Pellegrino degli (Pellegrino da _Modena_, or de' Munari) Arezzo, Niccolò d' (Niccolò _Aretino_, Niccolò di Piero Lamberti) Aristides, I, xli Aristotile (Bastiano) da _San Gallo_ Arnolfo di _Lapo_ (Arnolfo Lapi) Arrigo (Heinrich _Paludanus_) Arthus van _Noort_ Ascanio _Condivi_ (Ascanio dalla Ripa Transone) Asciano, Giovanni da, II, 5 Aspertini, Amico, _Life_, V, 209-211; V, 125, 207-211 Attavante (or Vante), III, 36-39, 209, 214, 215 Ausse (Hans _Memling_) Avanzi, Jacopo (Jacopo Davanzo), II, 104; IV, 51, 55 Avanzi, Niccolò, VI, 79, 80 Bacchiacca, Antonio, VIII, 20 Bacchiacca, Il (Francesco _Ubertini_, or d' Albertino) Baccio, Giovanni di (Nanni di Baccio _Bigio_) Baccio Baglioni (Baccio d' _Agnolo_) Baccio _Baldini_ Baccio _Bandinelli_ (Baccio de' Brandini) Baccio _Cellini_ Baccio d' _Agnolo_ (Baccio Baglioni) Baccio da _Montelupo_ Baccio de' Brandini (Baccio _Bandinelli_) Baccio della Porta (Fra Bartolommeo di _San Marco_) Baccio _Gotti_ Baccio _Pintelli_ Baccio _Ubertino_ Baglioni, Baccio (Baccio d' _Agnolo_) Baglioni, Raffaello, VIII, 116 Bagnacavallo, Bartolommeo da (Bartolommeo Ramenghi), _Life_, V, 207-209; IV, 237; V, 207-209; IX, 147 Bagnacavallo, Giovan Battista da, V, 201; VII, 129; IX, 147, 148; X, 196 Baldassarre da Siena (Baldassarre _Peruzzi_) Baldassarre _Lancia_ Baldassarre _Peruzzi_ (Baldassarre da Siena) Baldinelli, Baldino, III, 233 Baldini, Baccio, VI, 91 Baldini, Giovanni, VIII, 24, 25 Baldino _Baldinelli_ Baldovinetti, Alesso, _Life_, III, 67-70; I, 4, 48; II, 190; III, 59, 67-70, 101, 225; IV, 82; V, 88, 92; IX, 182 Bambaja, Il (Agostino _Busto_) Banco, Nanni d' Antonio di, _Life_, II, 113-115; II, 113-115, 253; III, 28 Bandinelli, Baccio (Baccio de' Brandini), _Life_, VII, 55-103; II, 127, 190; IV, 204, 274; V, 5, 27, 36, 57, 96-98, 135; VI, 69-71, 103, 105, 111; VII, 4, 27, 28, 42, 43, 55-103, 154, 187; VIII, 113, 141, 142, 146, 152, 163, 191; IX, 20, 49, 126, 190; X, 23, 24, 31, 176, 210, 214 Bandinelli, Clemente, VII, 77, 94, 95, 98 Bandini, Giovanni di Benedetto (Giovanni dell' Opera), IX, 126, 130, 140, 141; X, 31, 32 Barba, Jacopo della, VII, 71 Barbara de' _Longhi_ Barbiere, Alessandro del (Alessandro di Vincenzio _Fei_) Barbiere, Domenico del, V, 201; IX, 149 Barile, Gian (Giovan), IV, 238; VI, 177 Barile, Gian (of Florence), V, 86 Barlacchi, Tommaso, VI, 104, 113 Barocci, Federigo, VIII, 227 Baronino, Bartolommeo, VIII, 220 Barozzi, Jacopo (Vignuola), VI, 114; VIII, 220, 230, 237-240, 259; IX, 102, 146, 147; X, 206 Bartoli, Domenico, II, 63, 64 Bartoli, Taddeo, _Life_, II, 61-64 Bartolo di Maestro _Fredi_ Bartolommeo, Fra (Fra Carnovale da Urbino), IV, 138 Bartolommeo _Ammanati_ Bartolommeo _Baronino_ Bartolommeo _Bologhini_ Bartolommeo Bozzato (Girolamo _Bozza_) Bartolommeo _Clemente_ Bartolommeo _Coda_ Bartolommeo da _Bagnacavallo_ (Bartolommeo Ramenghi) Bartolommeo da _Castiglione_ Bartolommeo della _Gatta_, Don (Abbot of S. Clemente) Bartolommeo di Jacopo di _Martino_ Bartolommeo di _San Marco_ (Baccio della Porta), Fra Bartolommeo _Genga_ Bartolommeo _Miniati_ Bartolommeo _Montagna_ Bartolommeo _Neroni_ (Riccio) Bartolommeo _Passerotto_ Bartolommeo Ramenghi (Bartolommeo da _Bagnacavallo_) Bartolommeo _Ridolfi_ Bartolommeo _San Michele_ Bartolommeo Suardi (_Bramantino_) Bartolommeo _Torri_ Bartolommeo _Vivarini_ Bartoluccio _Ghiberti_ Basaiti, Marco (Il Bassiti, or Marco Basarini), IV, 52, 58 Bassano, Jacopo da, IX, 175, 176 Bassiti, Il (Marco _Basaiti_, or Basarini) Bastianello _Florigorio_ (Sebastiano Florigerio) Bastiani, Lazzaro (Lazzaro Scarpaccia, or Sebastiano Scarpaccia), IV, 52, 57, 58 Bastiano da _Monte Carlo_ Bastiano (Aristotile) da _San Gallo_ Bastiano _Flori_ Bastiano _Mainardi_ (Bastiano da San Gimignano) Battista, Martino di (Pellegrino da San Daniele, or Martino da _Udine_) Battista _Borro_ Battista _Botticelli_ Battista _Cungi_ Battista d'_Angelo_ (Battista d'Agnolo, or del Moro) Battista da _San Gallo_ (Battista Gobbo) Battista da Verona (Battista _Farinato_) Battista del Cavaliere (Battista _Lorenzi_) Battista del _Cervelliera_ Battista del _Cinque_ Battista del Moro (Battista d'_Angelo_, or d'Agnolo) Battista del _Tasso_ Battista della _Bilia_ Battista di Benedetto _Fiammeri_ Battista _Dossi_ Battista _Farinato_ (Battista da Verona) Battista _Franco_ (Battista Semolei) Battista Gobbo (Battista da _San Gallo_) Battista _Lorenzi_ (Battista del Cavaliere) Battista _Naldini_ Battista of Città di Castello, VII, 118, 119 Battista _Pittoni_ (Battista of Vicenza) Battista Semolei (Battista _Franco_) Battistino, V, 193, 194 Baviera, IV, 232, 233; V, 194; VI, 100, 101, 109, 209 Bazzi, Giovanni Antonio (Il Sodoma), _Life_, VII, 245-257; IV, 72, 218; V, 73; VI, 236-238, 247, 249; VII, 245-257; VIII, 197 Beatricio, Niccolò (Nicolas Beautrizet), VI, 114 Beccafumi, Domenico (Domenico di Pace), _Life_, VI, 235-251; II, 96; V, 74, 153, 163; VI, 108, 213, 215, 223, 235-251; VII, 252, 255, 256 Beceri, Domenico (Domenico Benci), IV, 283; VII, 141; X, 20 Begarelli, Antonio (Il Modena), VIII, 38; IX, 113 Beham, Hans, VI, 119 Bellegambe, Jean, IX, 266 Belli, Valerio de' (Valerio _Vicentino_) Bellini family, V, 262 Bellini, Gentile, _Life_, III, 173-184; III, 173-184, 280; IV, 57, 59, 109 Bellini, Giovanni, _Life_, III, 173-184; III, 173-184, 280, 286; IV, 57, 58, 82, 109; V, 145, 146, 260, 264; VI, 173; VIII, 33; IX, 159, 160, 162, 163 Bellini, Jacopo, _Life_, III, 173-175; III, 173-175, 280; VI, 11, 35 Bellini, Vittore (Belliniano), IV, 52, 59, 60 Bello, Raffaello, VIII, 114 Bellucci, Giovan Battista (Giovan Battista San Marino), _Life_, VII, 210-213; VII, 207, 210-213 Bembi, Bonifazio, VIII, 42, 43 Bembo, Giovan Francesco (Giovan Francesco Vetraio), V, 180 Benci, Domenico (Domenico _Beceri_) Benedetto (pupil of Giovanni Antonio Sogliani), V, 165 Benedetto _Buglioni_ Benedetto _Buonfiglio_ Benedetto (Giovan Battista) _Caporali_ Benedetto _Cianfanini_ Benedetto _Coda_ (Benedetto da Ferrara) Benedetto da _Maiano_ Benedetto da Pescia (Benedetto _Pagni_) Benedetto da _Rovezzano_ Benedetto _Diana_ Benedetto _Ghirlandajo_ Benedetto _Pagni_ (Benedetto da Pescia) Benedetto _Spadari_ Bening, Levina, IX, 269 Bening, Simon, IX, 268 Benozzo _Gozzoli_ Benvenuto _Cellini_ Benvenuto _Garofalo_ (Benvenuto Tisi) Bergamo, Fra Damiano da, VIII, 169, 237 Berna, _Life_, II, 3-5 Bernard of Brussels, IX, 266 Bernardetto di _Mona Papera_ Bernardi, Giovanni (Giovanni da Castel Bolognese), _Life_, VI, 76-79; IV, 111; VI, 76-79, 83, 84; IX, 164 Bernardino _Brugnuoli_ Bernardino da _Trevio_ (Bernardino Zenale) Bernardino del Lupino (Bernardino _Luini_) Bernardino di _Porfirio_ Bernardino _India_ Bernardino _Pinturicchio_ Bernardino Zenale (Bernardino da _Trevio_) Bernardo Timante _Buontalenti_ Bernardo _Ciuffagni_ Bernardo da _Vercelli_ Bernardo _Daddi_ Bernardo de' Gatti (Bernardo _Soiaro_) Bernardo del _Buda_ (Bernardo Rosselli) Bernardo di Cione _Orcagna_ Bernardo Nello di Giovanni _Falconi_ Bernardo Rosselli (Bernardo del _Buda_) Bernardo _Rossellino_ Bernardo _Soiaro_ (Bernardo de' Gatti) Bernardo _Vasari_ Bernazzano, Cesare, V, 141 Bersuglia, Gian Domenico, VII, 193 Bertano, Giovan Battista, VIII, 40, 41 Berto _Linaiuolo_ Bertoldo, II, 249, 253, 254; IV, 185; VII, 107; IX, 8 Berughetta, Alonzo (Alonzo _Spagnuolo_) Betti, Biagio (Biagio da Carigliano), VIII, 210 Bezaleel, I, xxxviii Biagio, Raffaello di, V, 231, 232 Biagio (pupil of Botticelli), III, 251, 252 Biagio _Betti_ (Biagio da Carigliano) Biagio _Bolognese_ (Biagio Pupini) Biagio da Carigliano (Biagio _Betti_) Biagio di Bindo _Albertinelli_ Biagio Pupini (Biagio _Bolognese_) Bianco, Simon, IV, 60 Bicci, Lorenzo di, _Life_, II, 67-73; III, 20, 213; V, 5; VII, 61 Bicci di _Lorenzo_ Bigio, Annibale di Nanni di Baccio, VIII, 188 Bigio, Nanni di Baccio (Giovanni di Baccio), VII, 81; IX, 69, 76, 100, 101, 113, 239 Bilia, Battista della, VII, 118 Bizzerra, VII, 129; VIII, 204; X, 196 Blondeel, Lancelot, IX, 267 Boccaccino, Boccaccio, _Life_, V, 58-60; VIII, 23, 24, 42-44 Boccaccino, Camillo, V, 59, 60; VIII, 43 Boccalino, Giovanni (Giovanni Ribaldi), V, 29 Boccardino (the elder), III, 215 Bol, Hans, IX, 268 Bologhini, Bartolommeo, I, 120 Bologna, Galante da, II, 51 Bologna, Giovan, VII, 100, 101; IX, 267, 269; X, 25, 26 Bologna, Orazio da (Orazio _Sammacchini_) Bologna, Pellegrino da (Pellegrino _Pellegrini_, or Tibaldi) Bologna, Ruggieri da, IX, 147 Bologna, Vecchio of (Domenico _Aimo_) Bolognese, Biagio (Biagio Pupini), V, 208, 211; VIII, 32, 33; X, 184 Bolognese, Franco, I, 79 Bolognese, Guido, III, 170 Bolognese, Marc' Antonio (Marc' Antonio Raimondi, or de' Franci), _Life_, VI, 95-96, 99-106; IV, 232, 233; VI, 95-96, 99-106, 108, 109, 120; VII, 65; VIII, 42 Bolognese, Niccolò (Niccolò dell' _Arca_) Boltraffio, Giovanni Antonio, IV, 105 Bonaccorso _Ghiberti_ Bonano, I, 15, 16 Bonasone, Giulio, VI, 114 Bonifazio (of Venice), IX, 214 Bonifazio _Bembi_ Bonsignori (Monsignori), Alberto, VI, 29 Bonsignori (Monsignori), Fra Cherubino, VI, 34 Bonsignori (Monsignori), Fra Girolamo, _Life_, VI, 34-35; VIII, 42 Bonsignori (Monsignori), Francesco, _Life_, VI, 29-35; III, 63; IV, 60; VI, 29-35 Bonvicini, Alessandro (Alessandro _Moretto_) Bordone, Paris, IX, 178-182 Borghese (of Antwerp), IX, 269 Borghese, Piero (Piero della _Francesca_, or Piero dal Borgo a San Sepolcro) Borgo, Giovan Paolo dal, X, 196 Borgo, Raffaello dal (Raffaello dal _Colle_) Borgo a San Sepolcro, Giovan Maria dal, VI, 256 Borgo a San Sepolcro, Piero dal (Piero della _Francesca_, or Borghese) Borro, Battista, IV, 262; VIII, 178 Bosch, Hieronymus, VI, 118; IX, 267 Bosco, Maso dal (Maso _Boscoli_) Boscoli, Giovanni, IX, 156 Boscoli, Maso (Maso dal Bosco), V, 6; IX, 55 Botticelli, Battista, VIII, 169 Botticelli, Sandro (Sandro di Botticello, or Alessandro Filipepi), _Life_, III, 247-254; II, 190; III, 86, 87, 188, 222, 247-254; IV, 3, 4, 82; VI, 91 Botticello, III, 247 Boyvin, René (Renato), VI, 115 Bozza, Girolamo (Bartolommeo Bozzato), IX, 183 Bozzacco (Brazzacco), VIII, 107 Bozzato, Bartolommeo (Girolamo _Bozza_) Bramante da _Milano_ Bramante da _Urbino_ Bramantino (Bartolommeo Suardi), III, 18, 19; IV, 217; VIII, 52, 53; IX, 190 Brambilari (Brambilla), Francesco, VIII, 55 Brandini, Baccio de' (Baccio _Bandinelli_) Brazzacco (_Bozzacco_) Brescia, Raffaello da (Raffaello _Brescianino_, or de' Piccinelli) Brescianino, Girolamo (Girolamo Mosciano, or Muziano), VI, 114; VIII, 50, 224 Brescianino, Raffaello (Raffaello da Brescia, or de' Piccinelli), VIII, 164 Bresciano, Gian Girolamo (Gian Girolamo Savoldo), VIII, 50 Bresciano, Jacopo (Jacopo de' Medici), IX, 206, 207, 223 Bresciano, Vincenzio (Vincenzio di Zoppa, or Foppa), II, 271; III, 5; IV, 51, 52, 56 Breuck, Jakob, IX, 269 Brini, Francesco, III, 214 Bronzi, Simone de' (Simone da _Colle_) Bronzino, Agnolo, _Life_, X, 3-12; IV, 179; V, 127, 163; VI, 118, 256; VII, 29, 31, 113, 149, 158, 160, 163, 167, 168, 171, 172, 175, 176, 178, 182, 201; VIII, 11, 12, 94, 153, 156, 179; IX, 118, 125, 128, 133, 137, 252; X, 3-14, 219 Bronzino, Alessandro del (Alessandro _Allori_) Brueghel, Pieter, IX, 267, 268 Bruges, Johann of (Jan van _Eyck_) Bruges, Roger of (Roger van der _Weyden_) Brugnuoli, Bernardino, VII, 226, 227, 233, 234 Brugnuoli, Luigi, VII, 229, 233 Brunelleschi, Filippo (Filippo di Ser Brunellesco), _Life_, II, 195-236; I, lii, 22, 23, 26, 48, 130; II, 84-86, 93, 95, 124, 139, 143-147, 150, 159, 161, 183, 185, 188, 190, 195-236, 240-243, 259, 260; III, 3, 12, 130, 196, 257, 271; IV, 137, 185, 266; VI, 68, 71; VII, 87, 88, 167, 226; VIII, 48; IX, 43, 44, 133; X, 47, 204 Bruno di _Giovanni_ Brusciasorzi, Domenico (Domenico del Riccio), VI, 82; VII, 236, 237; VIII, 40, 41 Brusciasorzi, Felice (Felice del Riccio), VII, 237 Brussels, _Bernard_ of Buda, Bernardo del (Bernardo Rosselli), V, 116 Buda, Girolamo del, VII, 56 Buffalmacco, Buonamico, _Life_, I, 135-151; I, 50, 51, 135-151, 170, 190, 191, 211; II, 68; X, 47 Buggiano, Il, II, 235 Bugiardini, Giuliano, _Life_, VII, 107-113; II, 138; IV, 154, 161, 170, 186; VI, 183; VII, 107-113; VIII, 121-123, 162; IX, 29, 30, 95 Buglioni, Benedetto, III, 276; IV, 155 Buglioni, Santi, III, 276; VII, 29; IX, 132 Buonaccorsi, Perino (Perino del _Vaga_, or de' Ceri) Buonaiuti, Corsino, II, 26 Buonarroti, Michelagnolo, _Life_, IX, 3-141; I, xxvi, xxxiv, 87; II, 159, 162, 187, 190, 191, 221, 255, 261; III, 86, 110, 140, 233; IV, 41, 43, 48, 65, 66, 74, 84, 85, 101, 104, 145, 157, 186, 187, 199, 201, 204, 209, 212, 215, 223, 224, 242-245, 259, 270; V, 5, 6, 23, 43-45, 58, 86, 111, 117, 128, 135, 165, 190, 194, 228, 245, 247, 261; VI, 57, 59, 60, 66, 68, 78, 79, 85, 92, 107, 111, 113, 114, 129, 135, 136, 139, 140, 167, 174-177, 183, 185, 191, 193, 195, 205, 218, 219, 222, 225, 236, 263; VII, 10, 11, 14, 16, 28, 32, 44, 46, 48, 49, 57, 58, 61, 66-68, 71, 72, 75, 77, 81, 98, 99, 107, 108, 110-113, 151, 172, 173, 179, 194, 235; VIII, 3-5, 16, 25, 61, 73, 79, 82, 89, 91, 92, 95, 96, 116, 128, 134, 136-138, 141, 146, 156, 162, 163, 170, 185, 188, 201-204, 206-209, 235, 259; IX, 3-141, 145, 153, 162, 170, 171, 187, 193-195, 215, 216, 224, 231, 235, 236, 239, 246, 250, 251, 259; X, 12-17, 19, 24, 26, 31, 32, 46, 47, 172, 174, 175, 186-190, 194, 206, 215, 220, 222 Buonconsigli, Giovanni, IV, 52, 60 Buonfiglio, Benedetto, IV, 17, 18 Buono, I, 14, 15 Buontalenti, Bernardo Timante, IX, 135-137; X, 16-18 Buschetto, I, liv, lvi; II, 80 Busto, Agostino (Il Bambaja), IV, 60; V, 42, 43; VIII, 54, 55 Butteri, Giovan Maria, IX, 131; X, 13 Caccianimici, Francesco, V, 201 Caccianimici, Vincenzio, V, 255, 256 Cadore, Tiziano da (Tiziano _Vecelli_) Calamech, Andrea, IX, 129; X, 23 Calamech, Lazzaro, IX, 129 Calamis, II, 80 Calandrino, I, 135 Calavrese, Giovan Piero, VIII, 216 Calavrese, Marco (Marco Cardisco), _Life_, V, 237-239; VIII, 91 Calcagni, Tiberio, VIII, 233; IX, 83, 84, 98-100 Calcar, Johann of (Jan Stephanus van Calcker, or Giovanni Fiammingo), VI, 116; IX, 178, 266 Caldara, Polidoro (Polidoro da _Caravaggio_) Caliari, Paolo (Paolo Veronese), VI, 22, 27; VII, 236-240; VIII, 41, 42, 102-104, 106, 107; X, 20 Callicrates, III, 55 Calzolaio, Sandrino del, V, 161, 165 Camicia, Chimenti, _Life_, III, 92-93 Camilliani, Francesco, X, 24, 25 Camillo _Boccaccino_ Camillo _Mantovano_ Cammei, Domenico de', VI, 76 Campagnola, Girolamo, II, 138; III, 279; IV, 51, 55, 56 Campagnola, Giulio, IV, 51, 56, 57 Campi, Fra Ristoro da, I, 59 Campo, Antonio, VIII, 44, 45 Campo, Galeazzo, VIII, 44 Campo, Giulio, VIII, 41, 44, 45, 48, 49 Campo, Vincenzio, VIII, 44, 45 Canachus, II, 80 Canneri, Anselmo, VI, 22 Capanna (of Siena), III, 208; V, 74 Capanna, Puccio, I, 85, 89-91 Caparra, Il (Niccolò _Grosso_) Capocaccia, Mario, IX, 233 Caporali, Benedetto (Giovan Battista), IV, 48, 75, 76 Caporali, Giulio, IV, 48 Caradosso, IV, 23, 144 Caraglio, Giovanni Jacopo, _Life_, VI, 109, 110; V, 194; VI, 109, 110, 209 Caravaggio, Polidoro da (Polidoro Caldara), _Life_, V, 175-185; IV, 83, 237; V, 175-185; VI, 177, 196; VIII, 17, 218, 219; IX, 170; X, 174 Cardisco, Marco (Marco _Calavrese_) Carigliano, Biagio da (Biagio _Betti_) Carlo _Portelli_ (Carlo da Loro) Carnovale da Urbino, Fra (Fra _Bartolommeo_) Carota, Il (Antonio di Marco di Giano), I, 125; VI, 213; VII, 152; IX, 51 Caroto, Giovan Francesco, _Life_, VI, 15-21; IV, 60; VI, 15-21, 37 Caroto, Giovanni, _Life_, VI, 21-22; VI, 15, 21-22; VII, 238 Carpaccio (Scarpaccia), Vittore, _Life_, IV, 51-61; IX, 210, 211 Carpi, Annibale da, VIII, 36 Carpi, Girolamo da (Girolamo da Ferrara), _Life_, VIII, 30-36; V, 154; VIII, 28-36 Carpi, Giulio da, VIII, 36 Carpi, Ugo da, IV, 233; VI, 106, 107 Carrara, Antonio da, V, 8 Carrara, Danese da (Danese _Cattaneo_) Carrucci, Jacopo (Jacopo da _Pontormo_) Carso, Giovanni dal, VIII, 227 Cartoni, Niccolò (Niccolò Zoccolo), IV, 9, 10 Caselli (_Castelli_), Cristofano Casentino, Jacopo di, _Life_, II, 23-26; I, 183, 185; II, 23-26, 29, 33, 83; VIII, 153 Casignuola, Jacopo, IX, 238 Casignuola, Tommaso, IX, 238 Castagno, Andrea dal (Andrea degli Impiccati), _Life_, III, 97-105; II, 190; III, 97-105, 109, 117, 173, 237, 239, 283; IV, 82; V, 116; VI, 182 Castel Bolognese, Giovanni da (Giovanni _Bernardi_) Castel della Pieve, Pietro da (Pietro _Perugino_, or Vannucci) Castelfranco, Giorgione da, _Life_, IV, 109-114; I, xxxii; III, 184; IV, 82, 109-114, 125; V, 149, 228, 262; VI, 23, 173, 174; VIII, 29, 73, 74; IX, 159-162, 165, 179 Castellani, Leonardo, V, 238 Castelli (Caselli), Cristofano, VIII, 39 Castiglione, Bartolommeo da, VI, 152 Castrocaro, Gian Jacopo da, V, 50 Catanei, Piero, VI, 250 Catena, Vincenzio, IV, 52, 58 Catharina van _Hemessen_ Cattaneo, Danese (Danese da Carrara), V, 135; VI, 26-28, 54; VII, 228; IX, 176, 204, 208-210, 214, 223; X, 20 Cavaliere, Battista del (Battista _Lorenzi_) Cavalieri, Giovan Battista de', VI, 113 Cavalieri, Tiberio, VII, 50 Cavallini, Pietro, _Life_, I, 161-164; I, 92, 161-164 Cavalori, Mirabello (Mirabello di _Salincorno_) Cavazzuola, Paolo (Paolo Morando), _Life_, VI, 39-42; VI, 15, 24, 25, 29, 39-42, 50 Cecca, _Life_, III, 193-200; III, 69, 193-200 Cecca, Girolamo della, III, 263 Cecchino del _Frate_ Cellini, Baccio, III, 92, 263 Cellini, Benvenuto, V, 135; VI, 86, 87; VII, 93, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100; VIII, 128; IX, 51, 118, 125; X, 21, 22 Cenni, Pasquino, II, 26 Cennini, Cennino di Drea, I, 177, 221, 222; II 109 Ceraiuolo, Antonio del, IV, 280; VIII, 65, 66 Ceri, Andrea de', VI, 190-192, 201 Ceri, Perino de' (Perino del _Vaga_, or Buonaccorsi) Cervelliera, Battista del, III, 12; VI, 214, 247, 248; VII, 256 Cesare _Bernazzano_ Cesare _Cesariano_ Cesare da _Sesto_ (Cesare da Milano) Cesare del _Nebbia_ Cesariano, Cesare, IV, 138; IX, 190 Cesati, Alessandro (Il Greco), _Life_, VI, 85 Cherubino _Bonsignori_ (Monsignori), Fra Chimenti _Camicia_ Christus, Pieter, IX, 265 Cianfanini, Benedetto, IV, 162 Ciappino, IX, 51 Cicilia, Il, V, 8 Ciciliano, Angelo, VIII, 55 Ciciliano, Jacopo, IX, 98 Cicogna, Girolamo, VI, 22 Cieco, Niccolò, III, 233 Cimabue, Giovanni, _Life_, I, 3-10; I, xxiv, xxxv, lix, 3-10, 20, 21, 29, 47, 50, 55, 56, 58, 63, 72, 74, 89, 94, 113, 117, 145, 174; II, 25, 82, 161, 202; III, 59; IV, 77; V, 177; IX, 133; X, 3, 47, 196 Cini, Simone, II, 36 Cinque, Battista del, VII, 12; IX, 51 Cinuzzi, Vanni, II, 26 Cioli, Simone, V, 30; VI, 133; VII, 9, 10, 189; VIII, 36 Cioli, Valerio, VIII, 35; IX, 129, 140, 141; X, 32 Cione, I, 103, 104 Ciuffagni, Bernardo, III, 7 Clara _Skeysers_ Claudio (of Paris), V, 201 Claudio, Maestro, IV, 254, 255 Cleanthes, I, xxxix Cleef, Joost van, IX, 266 Clemente, Bartolommeo, IV, 60 Clemente, Prospero, VIII, 38, 39 Clemente _Bandinelli_ Cleophantes, I, xxxix Clovio, Don Giulio, _Life_, IX, 245-253; VI, 51, 54, 111, 264; IX, 245-253; X, 16 Cock, Hieronymus, _Life_, VI, 116-120; VI, 108, 116-120; IX, 266 Cock, Matthys, IX, 266 Coda, Bartolommeo, III, 184 Coda, Benedetto (Benedetto da Ferrara), III, 184; V, 211, 212 Cola dalla _Matrice_ (Niccola Filotesio) Colle, Raffaello dal (Raffaello dal Borgo), V, 140, 195, 196; VI, 152, 169; VII, 117, 118, 120, 128, 129, 201; X, 7 Colle, Simone da (Simone de' Bronzi), II, 145, 146, 200 Collettaio, Ottaviano del, X, 33 Colonna, Jacopo, IX, 202, 203, 223 Como, Guido da, I, 48 Condivi, Ascanio (Ascanio dalla Ripa Transone), IX, 5, 107 Conigliano, Giovan Battista da, IV, 52, 58 Consiglio _Gherardi_ Conte, Jacopo del, V, 119; VIII, 95, 169, 181; IX, 95, 152, 258, 260, 261 Conti, Domenico, V, 115, 119; VII, 29; VIII, 11 Contucci, Andrea (Andrea Sansovino), _Life_, V, 21-31; III, 243; IV, 5, 144, 186, 223, 270; V, 21-31, 43, 88; VI, 66, 133; VII, 5, 9, 61, 62, 187, 189; VIII, 36, 114; IX, 15, 40, 41, 187, 202, 216 Cordegliaghi, Giovanetto, IV, 52, 58, 59 Coriolano, Cristofano, VI, 120 Cornelis, Jan, IX, 266 Cornelis _Floris_ Corniole, Giovanni delle, VI, 76, 84 Corniole, Nanni di Prospero delle, VIII, 162 Correggio, Antonio da, _Life_, IV, 117-122; IV, 83, 117-122, 125; VIII, 30, 31, 34, 37, 217; X, 187 Corsino _Buonaiuti_ Corso, Jacopo del, III, 105 Cortona, Luca da (Luca _Signorelli_) Cosimo, Andrea di (Andrea di Cosimo Feltrini), _Life_, V, 229-233; III, 189; IV, 129; V, 221, 228-233; VII, 13, 149-152 Cosimo, Piero di, _Life_, IV, 125-134; III, 189; IV, 125-134; V, 86; VII, 148 Cosimo (Jacopo) da _Trezzo_ Cosimo _Rosselli_ Cosini, Silvio (Silvio da Fiesole), V, 6-8; VI, 210; VIII, 55 Cosmè, II, 104; III, 136 Costa, Ippolito, VIII, 41 Costa, Lorenzo, _Life_, III, 161-164; III, 161-164, 167; VIII, 23, 25 Costa, Lorenzo (the younger), VIII, 228 Cotignola, Francesco da (Francesco de' Zaganelli) _Life_, V, 265-266 Cotignola, Girolamo da (Girolamo Marchesi), _Life_, V, 211-212; V, 207, 211-212 Cousin, Jean (Giovanni _Cugini_) Coxie, Michael (Michele), VI, 116, 178; IX, 266-268 Cozzerello, Jacopo, III, 130 Crabeth, Wouter, IX, 269 Credi, Lorenzo di, _Life_, V, 49-52; II, 190; III, 274; IV, 153, 186, 280; V, 49-52, 159; VIII, 42, 65, 66; IX, 190 Credi, Maestro, V, 49 Cremona, Geremia da, II, 236; VIII, 48 Crescione, Giovan Filippo, V, 238 Cristofano, II, 104; IV, 55 Cristofano, Agnolo di, V, 223; VII, 70 Cristofano _Castelli_ (Caselli) Cristofano _Coriolano_ Cristofano dell' _Altissimo_ Cristofano _Gherardi_ (Doceno) Cristofano Gobbo (Cristofano _Solari_) Cristofano Lombardi (Tofano _Lombardino_) Cristofano _Rosa_ Cristofano _Solari_ (Cristofano Gobbo) Crocifissaio, Girolamo del (Girolamo _Macchietti_) Cronaca, Il (Simone del Pollaiuolo), _Life_, IV, 265-275; III, 260; IV, 101, 265-275; V, 22; VI, 66, 70 Cugini, Giovanni (Jean Cousin), VI, 114 Cungi, Battista, VII, 121, 122, 124, 125; X, 181, 187 Cungi, Leonardo, VI, 225; VIII, 227 Cuticello (Giovanni Antonio _Licinio_, or Pordenone) Daddi, Bernardo, II, 25, 26 Dalen, Jan van, IX, 269 Dalmasi, Lippo, II, 51 Danese _Cattaneo_ (Danese da Carrara) Daniello da Parma (Daniello _Porri_) Daniello da Volterra (Daniello _Ricciarelli_) Daniello _Porri_ (Daniello da Parma) Daniello _Ricciarelli_ (Daniello da Volterra) Dante, Girolamo (Girolamo di Tiziano), IX, 183 Danti, Fra Ignazio, X, 28-30 Danti, Vincenzio, I, 36; VII, 100; IX, 128, 139; X, 26-28 Dario da _Treviso_ Davanzo, Jacopo (Jacopo _Avanzi_) Davanzo, Jacopo (of Milan), IV, 60 David _Fortini_ David _Ghirlandajo_ David _Pistoiese_ Delft, Simon van, IX, 269 Della Robbia family, V, 22 Dello, _Life_, II, 107-110; II, 107-110, 136 Dente, Marco (Marco da Ravenna), _Life_, VI, 102-103; IV, 233; VI, 102-103, 106; VII, 63 Desiderio da _Settignano_ Diacceto, VIII, 161 Diamante, Fra, III, 83, 85-87; IV, 3 Diana, Benedetto, IV, 52, 60 Diana _Mantovana_ (Sculptore) Dierick Jacobsz _Vellaert_ Dinant, Hendrik of, IX, 266 Dirk of _Haarlem_ Dirk of _Louvain_ Dirk van _Staren_ Dirk _Volkaerts_ Doceno (Cristofano _Gherardi_) Domenico, Antonio di (Antonio di Donnino _Mazzieri_) Domenico _Aimo_ (Vecchio of Bologna) Domenico _Bartoli_ Domenico _Beccafumi_ (Domenico di Pace) Domenico _Beceri_ (Domenico Benci) Domenico _Brusciasorzi_ (Domenico del Riccio) Domenico _Conti_ Domenico da Venezia (Domenico _Viniziano_) Domenico dal Lago di _Lugano_ Domenico dal _Monte Sansovino_ Domenico de' _Cammei_ Domenico del _Barbiere_ Domenico del Riccio (Domenico _Brusciasorzi_) Domenico del _Tasso_ Domenico di Baccio d'_Agnolo_ Domenico di _Mariotto_ Domenico di _Michelino_ Domenico di Pace (Domenico _Beccafumi_) Domenico di _Paris_ Domenico di _Polo_ Domenico _Ghirlandajo_ Domenico _Giuntalodi_ Domenico _Morone_ Domenico _Panetti_ Domenico _Pecori_ Domenico _Poggini_ Domenico _Pucci_ Domenico _Puligo_ Domenico _Romano_ Domenico _Viniziano_ (Domenico da Venezia) Domenicus _Lampsonius_ Don Bartolommeo della _Gatta_ (Abbot of S. Clemente) Don Giulio _Clovio_ Don _Jacopo_ Don Lorenzo _Monaco_ (Don Lorenzo degli Angeli) Don _Silvestro_ Donato (Donatello), _Life_, II, 239-255; I, 48, 130, 178; II, 72, 86, 93, 95, 101, 109, 113-115, 120, 121, 123, 126, 132, 133, 138-140, 143-147, 151, 161, 183, 185, 188, 197, 199-204, 213, 225, 239-255, 259, 260, 270; III, 3, 6, 73, 74, 117, 131, 144, 147, 148, 269, 270, 273; IV, 52, 152, 185; V, 23; VI, 220; VII, 30, 56, 57, 62; VIII, 113; IX, 8, 10, 111, 133, 138, 169; X, 22, 47 Doni, Adone, VII, 128; IX, 261 Donnino, Agnolo di, III, 189, 190; V, 38; IX, 29, 30 Donzello, Piero del, III, 13 Donzello, Polito del, III, 13, 14 Dossi, Battista, _Life_, V, 139-141; VII, 201; VIII, 25, 26 Dossi, Dosso, _Life_, V, 139-141; III, 164; V, 139-141; VII, 201; VIII, 25, 26, 33, 56; IX, 163 Duca Tagliapietra, III, 169 Duccio, _Life_, II, 9-11; III, 6; VI, 245 Durante del _Nero_ Dürer, Albrecht, _Life_, VI, 92-98; III, 214; IV, 232; V, 96; VI, 92-99, 102, 119, 165; VII, 163, 164, 166; IX, 163, 246, 265, 271 Eliodoro _Forbicini_ Enea _Vico_ Ercole _Ferrarese_ (Ercole da Ferrara) Erion, II, 80 Europa _Anguisciuola_ Eusebio _San Giorgio_ Eyck, Hubert van, IX, 265 Eyck, Jan van (Johann of Bruges), III, 60-62, 64; IX, 265, 266 Fabbro, Pippo del, VII, 5; IX, 192 Fabiano di Stagio _Sassoli_ Fabius, I, xl Fabriano, Gentile da, _Life_, III, 109-113; II, 187; III, 35, 109-113, 173 Fabrizio _Viniziano_ Facchino, Giuliano del, III, 239 Faenza, Figurino da, VI, 169 Faenza, Jacopone da, VIII, 217; IX, 154 Faenza, Marco da (Marco _Marchetti_) Faenza, Ottaviano da, I, 91 Faenza, Pace da, I, 91 Fagiuoli, Girolamo, V, 250; VI, 87, 276; VIII, 171 Falconetto, Alessandro, VI, 47, 48 Falconetto, Giovan Maria, _Life_, VI, 43-48; VI, 22, 29, 42-48 Falconetto, Giovanni Antonio (the elder), VI, 42 Falconetto, Giovanni Antonio (the younger), VI, 42, 43 Falconetto, Jacopo, VI, 42, 43 Falconetto, Ottaviano, VI, 47, 48 Falconetto, Provolo, VI, 47, 48 Falconi, Bernardo Nello di Giovanni, I, 197 Fallaro, Jacopo, IX, 214 Fancelli, Giovanni (Giovanni di Stocco), VII, 97; X, 33 Fancelli, Luca, II, 227; III, 47 Fancelli, Salvestro, III, 47 Fano, Pompeo da, VIII, 215 Fantuzzi, Antonio (Antonio da _Trento_) Farinato, Battista (Battista da Verona), VII, 237, 238; VIII, 107; IX, 214; X, 20 Farinato, Paolo, VII, 236, 240, 241; VIII, 41 Fattore, Il (Giovan Francesco _Penni_) Federigo _Barocci_ Federigo di _Lamberto_ (Federigo Fiammingo, or Del Padovano) Federigo _Zucchero_ Fei, Alessandro di Vincenzio (Alessandro del Barbiere), X, 20 Felice _Brusciasorzi_ (Felice del Riccio) Feliciano da _San Vito_ Feltrini, Andrea di Cosimo (Andrea di _Cosimo_) Feltro, Morto da, _Life_, V, 227-229; V, 227-230 Fermo _Ghisoni_ Ferrara, Antonio da, I, 221 Ferrara, Benedetto da (Benedetto _Coda_) Ferrara, Ercole da (Ercole _Ferrarese_) Ferrara, Girolamo da (Girolamo da _Carpi_) Ferrara, Stefano da, III, 285, 286; IV, 56 Ferrarese, Ercole (Ercole da Ferrara), _Life_, III, 167-170; III, 164, 167-170; IV, 82 Ferrarese, Galasso (Galasso _Galassi_) Ferrarese, Girolamo (Girolamo _Lombardo_) Ferrari, Gaudenzio, V, 81; VIII, 56 Ferrucci, Andrea (Andrea da _Fiesole_) Ferrucci, Francesco (Francesco del _Tadda_) Ferrucci, Francesco di Simone, III, 273; V, 3 Fiacco (or Flacco), Orlando, _Life_, VI, 28 Fiammeri, Battista di Benedetto, IX, 126; X, 23 Fiammingo, Federigo (Federigo di _Lamberto_, or Del Padovano) Fiammingo, Giorgio, IX, 269 Fiammingo, Giovanni (Johann of _Calcar_, or Jan Stephanus van Calcker) Fiesole, Andrea da (Andrea Ferrucci), _Life_, V, 3-8; V, 3-8, 11; VII, 4; VIII, 133 Fiesole, Fra Giovanni da (Fra _Angelico_) Fiesole, Maestro Giovanni da, VI, 210 Fiesole, Mino da (Mino di Giovanni,) _Life_, III, 153-157 Fiesole, Silvio da (Silvio _Cosini_) Fiesole, Simone da, IX, 15, 16 Figurino da _Faenza_ Filarete, Antonio, _Life_, III, 3-7; II, 159, 270; III, 3-7, 47, 92; IV, 56; VIII, 48 Filipepi, Alessandro (Sandro _Botticelli_, or di Botticello) Filippino (Filippo _Lippi_) Filippo _Brunelleschi_ (Filippo di Ser Brunellesco) Filippo di Baccio d'_Agnolo_ Filippo di Ser Brunellesco (Filippo _Brunelleschi_) Filippo _Lippi_ (Filippino) Filippo _Lippi_, Fra Filippo _Negrolo_ Filotesio, Niccola (Cola dalla _Matrice_) Finiguerra, Maso, III, 238; VI, 91 Fiorentino, Antonio, II, 236 Fiorentino, Francesco, II, 58 Fiorentino, Niccolò, II, 236 Fiorini, Giovan Battista, VIII, 229 Fivizzano, IV, 29 Flacco (or _Fiacco_), Orlando Flore, Jacobello de, IV, 51, 55 Flori, Bastiano, X, 187, 196 Floriani, Antonio, V, 148, 149 Floriani, Francesco, V, 148, 149 Florigorio, Bastianello (Sebastiano Florigerio), V, 148 Floris, Cornelis, IX, 269 Floris, Franz (Franz de Vrient), VI, 119, 120; IX, 267-270 Foccora, Giovanni, III, 7 Fontana, Prospero, V, 213; VIII, 220; IX, 147, 148, 150-152; X, 20 Fonte, Jacopo della (Jacopo della _Quercia_) Foppa, Vincenzio (Vincenzio di Zoppa, or Vincenzio _Bresciano_) Forbicini, Eliodoro, VII, 237 Forlì, Francesco da (Francesco _Menzochi_) Forlì, Guglielmo da, I, 92 Forlì, Livio da (Livio Agresti), VIII, 188, 229; IX, 155 Forlì, Melozzo da, III, 124 Fortini, David, VII, 37 Fortori, Alessandro, X, 20 Forzore di _Spinello_ Foschi, Fra Salvadore, X, 196 Fra _Angelico_ (Fra Giovanni da Fiesole) Fra _Antonio_ Fra _Bartolommeo_ (Fra Carnovale da Urbino) Fra Bartolommeo di _San Marco_ (Baccio della Porta) Fra Carnovale da Urbino (Fra _Bartolommeo_) Fra Cherubino _Bonsignori_ (Monsignori) Fra Damiano da _Bergamo_ Fra _Diamante_ Fra Filippo _Lippi_ Fra _Giocondo_ Fra _Giovanni_ Fra Giovanni Agnolo _Montorsoli_ Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (Fra _Angelico_) Fra Giovanni da _Verona_ Fra Giovanni _Vincenzio_ Fra Girolamo _Bonsignori_ (Monsignori) Fra Guglielmo della _Porta_ (Guglielmo Milanese) Fra Ignazio _Danti_ Fra Jacopo da _Turrita_ Fra Paolo _Pistoiese_ Fra Ristoro da _Campi_ Fra Salvadore _Foschi_ Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del _Piombo_ (Sebastiano Luciani) Francesca, Piero della (Piero Borghese, or Piero dal Borgo a San Sepolcro), _Life_, III, 17-23; III, 17-23, 51, 52, 101, 135; IV, 71, 82, 216; VIII, 52 Francesco, Maestro, IV, 142 Francesco, Mariotto di, V, 231-233 Francesco (called di Maestro Giotto), I, 91 Francesco _Bonsignori_ (Monsignori) Francesco _Brambilari_ (Brambilla) Francesco _Brini_ Francesco _Caccianimici_ Francesco _Camilliani_ Francesco da _Cotignola_ (Francesco de' Zaganelli) Francesco da Forlì (Francesco _Menzochi_) Francesco da _Melzo_ Francesco da Poppi (Francesco _Morandini_) Francesco da _San Gallo_ Francesco da _Siena_ Francesco da _Volterra_ Francesco dai _Libri_ (the elder) Francesco dai _Libri_ (the younger) Francesco d' Albertino (Francesco _Ubertini_, or Il Bacchiacca) Francesco de' Rossi (Francesco _Salviati_) Francesco de' Zaganelli (Francesco da _Cotignola_) Francesco del _Tadda_ (Francesco Ferrucci) Francesco della _Luna_ Francesco dell' _Indaco_ Francesco di _Giorgio_ Francesco di Girolamo dal _Prato_ Francesco di _Mirozzo_ (Melozzo) Francesco di Pesello (Francesco _Peselli_, or Pesellino) Francesco di Simone _Ferrucci_ Francesco di _Valdambrina_ Francesco Ferrucci (Francesco del _Tadda_) Francesco _Fiorentino_ Francesco _Floriani_ Francesco _Francia_ Francesco _Giamberti_ Francesco _Granacci_ (Il Granaccio) Francesco _Marcolini_ Francesco _Masini_, Messer Francesco _Mazzuoli_ (Parmigiano) Francesco _Menzochi_ (Francesco da Forlì) Francesco Monsignori (_Bonsignori_) Francesco _Morandini_ (Francesco da Poppi) Francesco _Morone_ Francesco _Moschino_ Francesco of Orleans, V, 201 Francesco _Peselli_ (Francesco di Pesello, or Pesellino) Francesco _Primaticcio_ Francesco _Ricchino_ Francesco _Salviati_ (Francesco de' Rossi) Francesco _Sant' Agnolo_ Francesco _Traini_ Francesco _Turbido_ (Il Moro) Francesco _Ubertini_ (Francesco d'Albertino, or Il Bacchiacca) Francesco _Verbo_ (Verlo) Franci, Marc' Antonio de' (Marc' Antonio _Bolognese_, or Raimondi) Francia (_Franciabigio_) Francia, Francesco, _Life_, IV, 23-29; IV, 23-29, 82; VI, 95; VIII, 23; IX, 26, 27 Francia, Piero, IX, 130 Franciabigio (Francia), _Life_, V, 217-223; II, 190; IV, 170; V, 86-89, 91, 93, 101, 103, 104, 217-223, 231, 232; VII, 70, 157, 171; VIII, 5; IX, 20 Francione, IV, 191, 192 Franco, Battista (Battista Semolei), _Life_, VIII, 89-101; VI, 108, 114, 156; VII, 28, 29, 203; VIII, 12, 67, 68, 89-101, 181, 219, 230; IX, 199, 205, 217 Franco _Bolognese_ Francucci, Innocenzio (Innocenzio da _Imola_) Franz _Floris_ (Franz de Vrient) Franz _Mostaert_ Franzese, Giovanni, IX, 88 Frate, Cecchino del, IV, 162 Fredi, Bartolo di Maestro, II, 61 Fuccio, I, 30, 31 Gabriele _Giolito_ Gabriele _Rustici_ Gabriello _Saracini_ Gaddi family, X, 47 Gaddi, Agnolo, _Life_, I, 217-223; I, 185, 186, 217-223; II, 15, 25; IV, 52, 54 Gaddi, Gaddo, _Life_, I, 55-58; I, 50, 55-58, 177, 186, 217, 219, 221 Gaddi, Giovanni, I, 185, 186, 217, 221 Gaddi, Taddeo, _Life_, I, 177-186; I, 57, 58, 81, 88, 89, 129, 177-186, 217, 218, 221, 222; II, 23, 56, 83, 199, 240; IX, 133 Gaddo _Gaddi_ Galante da _Bologna_ Galassi, Galasso (Galasso Ferrarese), _Life_, III, 135-136; II, 104; III, 135-136; IV, 55 Galasso (of Ferrara), VIII, 36 Galeazzo _Alessi_ Galeazzo _Campo_ Galeazzo _Mondella_ Galeotto, Pietro Paolo, VI, 87; VII, 152; IX, 233 Galieno, IV, 179 Galle, Philip, IX, 270 Gambara, Lattanzio, VIII, 42, 45, 49, 50 Garbo, Raffaellino del, _Life_, IV, 175-179; IV, 6, 9, 175-179 Garofalo, Benvenuto (Benvenuto Tisi), _Life_, VIII, 24-29; VIII, 24-30, 33, 34; IX, 202 Gasparo _Misuroni_ (Misceroni) Gatta, Don Bartolommeo della (Abbot of S. Clemente), _Life_, III, 203-209; III, 188, 203-209; IV, 41, 82, 216, 217; VI, 255 Gatti, Bernardo de' (Bernardo _Soiaro_) Gaudenzio _Ferrari_ Genga, Bartolommeo, _Life_, VII, 206-210; VII, 203, 204, 206-210; VIII, 92, 96-98 Genga, Girolamo, _Life_, VII, 199-206; V, 15, 16, 140; VII, 199-208, 210, 211; VIII, 140, 171; X, 33 Gensio _Liberale_ Gentile _Bellini_ Gentile da _Fabriano_ Georg _Pencz_ Gerard, IX, 268 Geremia da _Cremona_ Geri _Aretino_ Gerino _Pistoiese_ (Gerino da Pistoia) Ghent, Justus of, IX, 265 Gherardi, Consiglio, II, 26 Gherardi, Cristofano (Doceno), _Life_, VII, 117-143; IX, 261; X, 183, 187, 208 Gherardo (of Florence), _Life_, III, 213-215; III, 209, 213-215, 232; IV, 36; VI, 92; IX, 182 Gherardo _Starnina_ Ghiberti, Bartoluccio, II, 144-146, 155, 161, 162; III, 237, 238 Ghiberti, Bonaccorso, II, 160 Ghiberti, Lorenzo (Lorenzo di Bartoluccio Ghiberti, or Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti), _Life_, II, 143-162; I, 87, 112, 127, 130; II, 4, 9, 86, 95, 143-162, 165, 171, 183, 200, 201, 204, 213-218, 234; III, 3, 237, 238, 269, 270; IX, 114; X, 47, 222 Ghiberti, Vittorio, II, 160, 162 Ghirlandajo, Benedetto, _Life_, VIII, 59-60; III, 222, 229, 233; VI, 57; VIII, 59-60 Ghirlandajo, David, _Life_, VIII, 59-60; III, 222, 225, 229-231, 233; VI, 57; VIII, 59-60, 63, 64; IX, 5, 6, 182 Ghirlandajo, Domenico, _Life_, III, 219-233; I, 112, 126, 189; II, 190; III, 69, 70, 188, 213, 215, 219-233, 248; IV, 36, 65, 82, 279; VI, 57, 58, 191; VII, 108, 147; VIII, 59-61, 63, 64, 66; IX, 5-9, 182; X, 222 Ghirlandajo, Michele di Ridolfo, V, 165; VII, 28; VIII, 66-69, 153, 156; IX, 130; X, 15 Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo, _Life_, VIII, 60-69; I, 125; II, 185, 190; III, 233; IV, 169, 212, 216, 279-281; V, 220, 231; VI, 191, 192; VII, 28, 31, 155, 156; VIII, 3, 5, 60-69, 93-95; IX, 20; X, 15 Ghirlandajo, Tommaso, III, 219 Ghisi (Mantovano), Giorgio, VI, 113, 118 Ghisoni, Fermo, III, 164; VI, 34, 167, 169; VIII, 40-42 Giacomo _Marzone_ Giamberti, Francesco, IV, 134, 191 Gian (Giovan) _Barile_ Gian _Barile_ (of Florence) Gian Cristoforo, III, 92 Gian Domenico _Bersuglia_ Gian Girolamo _Bresciano_ (Gian Girolamo Savoldo) Gian Girolamo _San Michele_ Gian Girolamo Savoldo (Gian Girolamo _Bresciano_) Gian Jacopo da _Castrocaro_ Gian Maria da _Milano_ Gian Maria _Verdezotti_ Gian Niccola, IV, 47, 48 Giannuzzi, Giulio Pippi de' (Giulio _Romano_) Giannuzzi, Raffaello Pippi de', VI, 168 Giano, Antonio di Marco di (Il _Carota_) Gilis _Mostaert_ Giocondo, Fra, _Life_, VI, 3-11; IV, 145; VI, 3-11, 28, 47, 126 Giolfino, Niccolò (Niccolò Ursino), VII, 240 Giolito, Gabriele, VI, 115 Giomo del _Sodoma_ Giorgio, Francesco di, _Life_, III, 129-131; II, 10, 85; III, 129-131 Giorgio _Fiammingo_ Giorgio Mantovano (_Ghisi_) Giorgio _Vasari_ Giorgio _Vasari_ (son of Lazzaro Vasari, the elder) Giorgione da _Castelfranco_ Giottino, Tommaso (or Maso), _Life_, I, 203-208; I, 112, 203-208; II, 83 Giotto, _Life_, I, 71-94; I, 7-9, 25, 39, 50, 51, 57, 63, 71-94, 99, 109, 111-113, 117, 118, 123-127, 161, 162, 168, 170, 174, 177, 178, 180, 182, 184-186, 190, 203-205, 222; II, 23, 30, 35, 37, 73, 80-83, 86, 120, 131, 139, 147, 150, 161, 162, 166, 171, 195, 202, 250, 262; III, 59, 259; IV, 80; V, 21; VI, 114, 202, 219, 220, 235; VIII, 82, 153; IX, 3, 119, 133, 182; X, 47, 191, 221, 222 Giovan (Gian) _Barile_ Giovan Battista _Bellucci_ (Giovan Battista San Marino) Giovan Battista _Bertano_ Giovan Battista (Benedetto) _Caporali_ Giovan Battista da _Bagnacavallo_ Giovan Battista da _Conigliano_ Giovan Battista de' _Cavalieri_ Giovan Battista de' Rossi (Il _Rosso_) Giovan Battista _Fiorini_ Giovan Battista _Grassi_ Giovan Battista _Ingoni_ Giovan Battista _Mantovano_ (Sculptore) Giovan Battista _Peloro_ Giovan Battista _Rosso_ (or Rosto) Giovan Battista San Marino (Giovan Battista _Bellucci_) Giovan Battista Sculptore (_Mantovano_) Giovan Battista _Sozzini_ Giovan _Bologna_ Giovan Filippo _Crescione_ Giovan Francesco _Bembo_ (or Vetraio) Giovan Francesco _Caroto_ Giovan Francesco da _San Gallo_ Giovan Francesco _Penni_ (Il Fattore) Giovan Francesco _Rustici_ Giovan Francesco Vetraio (or _Bembo_) Giovan Jacomo della _Porta_ Giovan Maria _Butteri_ Giovan Maria dal _Borgo a San Sepolcro_ Giovan Maria _Falconetto_ Giovan Maria _Pichi_ Giovan Paolo dal _Borgo_ Giovan Paolo _Poggini_ Giovan Paolo _Rossetti_ Giovan Piero _Calavrese_ Giovanetto _Cordegliaghi_ Giovanni (Lo Spagna), IV, 46, 47 Giovanni (of Vicenza), IX, 211 Giovanni (the Fleming), VIII, 74 Giovanni, Antonio di (Solosmeo da _Settignano_) Giovanni, Bruno di, I, 135, 145, 147, 148, 191 Giovanni, Fra, I, 59 Giovanni, Maestro, IV, 260 Giovanni, Mino di (Mino da _Fiesole_) Giovanni Agnolo _Montorsoli_, Fra Giovanni Antonio _Bazzi_ (Il Sodoma) Giovanni Antonio _Boltraffio_ Giovanni Antonio de' _Rossi_ Giovanni Antonio _Falconetto_ (the elder) Giovanni Antonio _Falconetto_ (the younger) Giovanni Antonio _Lappoli_ Giovanni Antonio _Licinio_ (Cuticello, or Pordenone) Giovanni Antonio _Sogliani_ Giovanni _Baldini_ Giovanni Battista _Veronese_ Giovanni _Bellini_ Giovanni _Bernardi_ (Giovanni da Castel Bolognese) Giovanni _Boccalino_ (Giovanni Ribaldi) Giovanni _Boscoli_ Giovanni _Buonconsigli_ Giovanni _Caroto_ Giovanni _Cimabue_ Giovanni _Cugini_ (Jean Cousin) Giovanni da _Asciano_ Giovanni da Castel Bolognese (Giovanni _Bernardi_) Giovanni da Fiesole, Fra (Fra _Angelico_) Giovanni da _Fiesole_, Maestro Giovanni da _Lione_ Giovanni da _Milano_ Giovanni da _Nola_ Giovanni da _Pistoia_ Giovanni da _Rovezzano_ Giovanni da Santo Stefano a Ponte (Giovanni dal _Ponte_) Giovanni da _Udine_ (Giovanni Martini) Giovanni da _Udine_ (Giovanni Nanni, or de' Ricamatori) Giovanni da _Verona_, Fra Giovanni dal _Carso_ Giovanni dal _Ponte_ (Giovanni da Santo Stefano a Ponte) Giovanni de' Ricamatori (Giovanni da _Udine_, or Nanni) Giovanni de' _Santi_ Giovanni dell' Opera (Giovanni di Benedetto _Bandini_) Giovanni della _Robbia_ Giovanni delle _Corniole_ Giovanni di Baccio (Nanni di Baccio _Bigio_) Giovanni di Benedetto _Bandini_ (Giovanni dell' Opera) Giovanni di _Goro_ Giovanni _Fancelli_ (Giovanni di Stocco) Giovanni Fiammingo (Johann of _Calcar_, or Jan Stephanus van Calcker) Giovanni _Foccora_ Giovanni _Franzese_ Giovanni _Gaddi_ Giovanni Jacopo _Caraglio_ Giovanni _Mangone_ Giovanni _Mansueti_ Giovanni Martini (Giovanni da _Udine_) Giovanni Nanni (Giovanni da _Udine_, or de' Ricamatori) Giovanni _Pedoni_ Giovanni _Pisano_ Giovanni Ribaldi (Giovanni _Boccalino_) Giovanni _Rosto_ (or Rosso) Giovanni _San Michele_ Giovanni _Speranza_ Giovanni Strada (Jan van der _Straet_) Giovanni _Tossicani_ Giovanni _Turini_ Giovanni _Vincenzio_, Fra Girolamo, V, 60 Girolamo _Bonsignori_ (Monsignori), Fra Girolamo _Bozza_ (Bartolommeo Bozzato) Girolamo _Brescianino_ (Girolamo Mosciano, or Muziano) Girolamo _Campagnola_ Girolamo _Cicogna_ Girolamo da _Carpi_ (Girolamo da Ferrara) Girolamo da _Cotignola_ (Girolamo Marchesi) Girolamo da Ferrara (Girolamo da _Carpi_) Girolamo da Sermoneta (Girolamo _Siciolante_) Girolamo da _Treviso_ (Girolamo Trevigi) Girolamo dai _Libri_ Girolamo dal _Prato_ Girolamo _Dante_ (Girolamo di Tiziano) Girolamo del _Buda_ Girolamo del Crocifissaio (Girolamo _Macchietti_) Girolamo del _Pacchia_ Girolamo della _Cecca_ Girolamo della _Robbia_ Girolamo di Tiziano (Girolamo _Dante_) Girolamo _Fagiuoli_ Girolamo Ferrarese (Girolamo _Lombardo_) Girolamo _Genga_ Girolamo _Lombardo_ (Girolamo Ferrarese) Girolamo _Macchietti_ (Girolamo del Crocifissaio) Girolamo Marchesi (Girolamo da _Cotignola_) Girolamo _Mazzuoli_ Girolamo _Miruoli_ Girolamo _Misuroni_ (Misceroni) Girolamo Mocetto (or _Moretto_) Girolamo Monsignori (_Bonsignori_), Fra Girolamo _Moretto_ (or Mocetto) Girolamo Mosciano (Girolamo Muziano, or _Brescianino_) Girolamo _Padovano_ Girolamo _Pironi_ Girolamo _Romanino_ Girolamo _Santa Croce_ Girolamo _Siciolante_ (Girolamo da Sermoneta) Girolamo Trevigi (Girolamo da _Treviso_) Giromin _Morzone_ Giugni, Rosso de', VI, 87 Giuliano _Bugiardini_ Giuliano da _Maiano_ Giuliano da _San Gallo_ Giuliano del _Facchino_ Giuliano del _Tasso_ Giuliano di Baccio d'_Agnolo_ Giuliano di Niccolò _Morelli_ Giuliano _Leno_ Giulio _Bonasone_ Giulio _Campagnola_ Giulio _Campo_ Giulio _Caporali_ Giulio _Clovio_, Don Giulio da _Carpi_ Giulio da _Urbino_ Giulio _Mazzoni_ Giulio _Romano_ (Giulio Pippi de' Giannuzzi) Giuntalodi, Domenico, VI, 273-279 Giuseppe del Salviati (Giuseppe _Porta_) Giuseppe Niccolò (Joannicolo) _Vicentino_ Giuseppe _Porta_ (Giuseppe del Salviati) Giusto, III, 11 Giusto (of Padua), IV, 51, 56 Gobbo, Andrea del, IV, 122 Gobbo, Battista (Battista da _San Gallo_) Gobbo, Cristofano (Cristofano _Solari_) Goro, Giovanni di, VI, 206; VII, 69 Gossart, Jean, IX, 267 Gotti, Baccio, IV, 280 Gozzoli, Benozzo, _Life_, III, 121-125; III, 35, 121-125, 161; VI, 246; X, 47 Grà, Marco da, VIII, 55 Graffione, III, 70 Granacci, Francesco (Il Granaccio), _Life_, VI, 57-61; II, 190; III, 233; IV, 4, 169, 186; V, 97, 98, 231; VI, 57-61, 66; VII, 108; VIII, 5, 59, 60, 121; IX, 5, 6, 8, 20, 29, 30 Grassi, Giovan Battista, V, 148 Greco, Il (Alessandro _Cesati_) Grimmer, Jakob, IX, 268 Grosso, Nanni, III, 273 Grosso, Niccolò (Il Caparra), IV, 268, 269 Gualtieri (the Fleming), VIII, 231 Guardia, Niccolò della, III, 92 Guazzetto, Il (Lorenzo Naldino), V, 201; VIII, 119, 127-129 Gucci, Lapo, II, 26 Guerriero da _Padova_ Guerrini, Rocco, IX, 242 Guglielmo, I, 15, 31 Guglielmo da _Forlì_ Guglielmo da _Marcilla_ (Guillaume de Marcillac) Guglielmo della _Porta_, Fra (Guglielmo Milanese) Guglielmo _Tedesco_ Guido _Bolognese_ Guido da _Como_ Guido del _Servellino_ Guido _Mazzoni_ (Modanino da Modena) Guillaume de Marcillac (Guglielmo da _Marcilla_) Gyges the Lydian (fable), I, xxxix Haarlem, Dirk of, IX, 266 Haeck, Jan, IX, 269 Hans _Beham_ Hans _Bol_ Hans _Liefrinck_ Hans _Memling_ (Ausse) Heemskerk, Martin, VI, 116; VIII, 90, 91; IX, 266 Heinrich (Albrecht) _Aldegrever_ Heinrich _Paludanus_ (Arrigo) Hemessen, Catharina van, IX, 269 Hemessen, Jan van, IX, 266, 269 Hendrik of _Dinant_ Hieronymus _Bosch_ Hieronymus _Cock_ Holland, Lucas of (Lucas van _Leyden_) Horebout, Lucas, IX, 268 Horebout, Susanna, IX, 268, 269 Hubert van _Eyck_ Hugo of _Antwerp_ Ignazio _Danti_, Fra Il Bacchiacca (Francesco _Ubertini_, or d'Albertino) Il Bambaja (Agostino _Busto_) Il Bassiti (Marco _Basaiti_, or Basarini) Il _Buggiano_ Il Caparra (Niccolò _Grosso_) Il _Carota_ (Antonio di Marco di Giano) Il _Cicilia_ Il _Cronaca_ (Simone del Pollaiuolo) Il Fattore (Giovan Francesco _Penni_) Il Granaccio (Francesco _Granacci_) Il Greco (Alessandro _Cesati_) Il _Guazzetto_ (Lorenzo Naldino) Il Modena (Antonio _Begarelli_) Il Moro (Francesco _Turbido_) Il _Pistoia_ (Leonardo) Il _Rosso_ (Giovan Battista de' Rossi) Il Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio _Bazzi_) Ilarione _Ruspoli_ Imola, Innocenzio da (Innocenzio Francucci), _Life_, V, 212-213; IV, 170; V, 207, 209, 212-213 Impiccati, Andrea degli (Andrea dal _Castagno_) Indaco, Francesco dell', IV, 66, 67; VI, 126; VIII, 202 Indaco, Jacopo dell', _Life_, IV, 65-67; III, 233; IV, 65-67; IX, 29, 30 India, Bernardino, VII, 237 Ingoni, Giovan Battista, VIII, 37, 38 Innocenzio da _Imola_ (Innocenzio Francucci) Ippolito _Costa_ Irene di _Spilimbergo_ Jacobello, I, 105 Jacobello de _Flore_ Jacomo _Melighino_ (Jacopo Melighini) Jacone (Jacopo), V, 119; VII, 176; VIII, 16-19 Jacopo (pupil of Sandro Botticelli), III, 251, 252 Jacopo, Don, II, 57 Jacopo _Avanzi_ (Jacopo Davanzo) Jacopo _Barozzi_ (Vignuola) Jacopo _Bellini_ Jacopo _Bresciano_ (Jacopo de' Medici) Jacopo Carrucci (Jacopo da _Pontormo_) Jacopo _Casignuola_ Jacopo _Ciciliano_ Jacopo _Colonna_ Jacopo _Cozzerello_ Jacopo da _Bassano_ Jacopo da _Montagna_ Jacopo da _Pontormo_ (Jacopo Carrucci) Jacopo da _Trezzo_ Jacopo (Cosimo) da _Trezzo_ Jacopo da _Turrita_, Fra Jacopo Davanzo (Jacopo _Avanzi_) Jacopo _Davanzo_ (of Milan) Jacopo de' Medici (Jacopo _Bresciano_) Jacopo del _Conte_ Jacopo del _Corso_ Jacopo del _Sellaio_ Jacopo del _Tedesco_ Jacopo della _Barba_ Jacopo della _Quercia_ (Jacopo della Fonte) Jacopo dell' _Indaco_ Jacopo di _Casentino_ Jacopo di Cione _Orcagna_ Jacopo di _Sandro_ Jacopo _Falconetto_ Jacopo _Fallaro_ Jacopo _Lanfrani_ Jacopo Melighini (Jacomo _Melighino_) Jacopo _Palma_ (Palma Vecchio) Jacopo _Pisbolica_ Jacopo Robusti (Jacopo _Tintoretto_) Jacopo _Sansovino_ (Jacopo Tatti) Jacopo _Squarcione_ Jacopo Tatti (Jacopo _Sansovino_) Jacopo _Tedesco_ (Lapo) Jacopo _Tintoretto_ (Jacopo Robusti) Jacopo _Zucchi_ Jacopone da _Faenza_ Jakob _Breuck_ Jakob _Grimmer_ Jan _Cornelis_ Jan de _Mynsheere_ Jan der _Sart_ Jan _Haeck_ Jan _Scorel_ Jan Stephanus van Calcker (Johann of _Calcar_, or Giovanni Fiammingo) Jan van _Dalen_ Jan van der _Straet_ (Giovanni Strada) Jan van _Eyck_ (Johann of Bruges) Jan van _Hemessen_ Janszoon, Joost, IX, 269 Jean _Bellegambe_ Jean Cousin (Giovanni _Cugini_) Jean _Gossart_ Joachim _Patinier_ Joannicolo (Giuseppe Niccolò) _Vicentino_ Johann of Bruges (Jan van _Eyck_) Johann of _Calcar_ (Jan Stephanus van Calcker, or Giovanni Fiammingo) Johann of _Louvain_ Joost _Janszoon_ Joost van _Cleef_ Joris _Robyn_ Justus of _Ghent_ Keur, Willem, IX, 269 Key, Willem, IX, 267, 268, 270 Koeck, Pieter, IX, 267 Lafrery, Antoine (Antonio _Lanferri_) Lambert _Lombard_ (Lambert of Amsterdam) Lambert _Suavius_ (Lamberto Suave, or Lambert Zutmann) Lambert van _Noort_ Lamberti, Niccolò di Piero (Niccolò d'Arezzo, or _Aretino_) Lamberto, Federigo di (Federigo Fiammingo, or Del Padovano), IX, 127, 268; X, 16 Lamberto (the Fleming), VIII, 231 Lamberto Suave (Lambert _Suavius_, or Lambert Zutmann) Lampsonius, Domenicus, IX, 268, 270, 271 Lancelot _Blondeel_ Lancia, Baldassarre, VII, 206; X, 33 Lancia, Luca, IX, 223 Lancia, Pompilio, X, 33 Lanferri, Antonio (Antoine Lafrery), VI, 113 Lanfrani, Jacopo, I, 104, 105 Lanzilago, Maestro, IV, 6, 7 Lapo, Arnolfo di (Arnolfo Lapi), _Life_, I, 20-26; I, 8, 13, 14, 20-26, 29, 30, 33, 39, 65, 113, 126, 170, 174, 180; II, 80, 202, 203, 262, 264, 265; IX, 194 Lapo (Jacopo _Tedesco_) Lapo _Gucci_ Lappoli, Giovanni Antonio, _Life_, VI, 255-265; V, 196-198; VI, 255-265; VII, 158, 159 Lappoli, Matteo, III, 206, 207; VI, 255 Lastricati, Zanobi, VII, 45; IX, 125, 132; X, 33 Lattanzio _Gambara_ Lattanzio _Pagani_ Laurati, Pietro (Pietro Lorenzetti), _Life_, I, 117-120; I, 92, 117-120; II, 18; III, 55 Laureti, Tommaso (Tommaso Siciliano), VI, 186 Lazzaro _Calamech_ Lazzaro Scarpaccia (Sebastiano Scarpaccia, or Lazzaro _Bastiani_) Lazzaro _Vasari_ (the elder) Lazzaro _Vasari_ (the younger) Lendinara, Lorenzo da, III, 285 Leno, Giuliano, IV, 147; VI, 130, 150; VIII, 4 Leon Battista _Alberti_ Leonardo (Il _Pistoia_) Leonardo _Castellani_ Leonardo _Cungi_ Leonardo da _Vinci_ Leonardo del _Tasso_ Leonardo di _Ser Giovanni_ Leonardo _Milanese_ Leonardo _Ricciarelli_ Leonardo (the Fleming), V, 201 Leone _Aretino_ (Leone Lioni) Levina _Bening_ Leyden, Lucas van (Lucas of Holland), _Life_, VI, 96-99; IX, 265, 270 Liberale, _Life_, VI, 11-15; IV, 54; VI, 11-15, 23, 24, 35, 36, 49 Liberale, Gensio, V, 149 Libri, Francesco dai (the elder), _Life_, VI, 49; VI, 29, 49 Libri, Francesco dai (the younger), _Life_, VI, 52-54 Libri, Girolamo dai, _Life_, VI, 49-52; VI, 29, 37, 49-52, 54 Licinio, Giovanni Antonio (Cuticello, or Pordenone), _Life_, V, 145-155; VI, 213, 244, 247; VIII, 43, 44, 103; IX, 160, 167, 168 Liefrinck, Hans, VI, 117 Ligorio, Pirro, VIII, 181, 184, 186, 227; IX, 84, 94, 95, 102 Linaiuolo, Berto, III, 92 L'Ingegno (Andrea _Luigi_) Lino, I, 43 Lione, Giovanni da, VI, 152, 169 Lioni, Leone (Leone _Aretino_) Lioni, Pompeo, IX, 232, 233 Lippi, Filippo (Filippino), _Life_, IV, 3-10; II, 189, 190; III, 83, 87, 259; IV, 3-10, 44, 82, 99, 100, 176, 177; V, 87; VI, 66 Lippi, Fra Filippo, _Life_, III, 79-88; II, 187, 190; III, 79-88, 117, 118, 161, 247; IV, 3, 5, 9, 185; VI, 246; VII, 57; IX, 119, 133; X, 47 Lippi, Ruberto di Filippo, VIII, 118, 119 Lippo, _Life_, II, 49-51; I, 48, 208; II, 49-51, 83 Lippo _Dalmasi_ Lippo _Memmi_ Livio da _Forlì_ (Livio Agresti) Lo Spagna (_Giovanni_) Lodovico (of Florence), IX, 262 Lodovico _Malino_ (or Mazzolini) Lodovico _Marmita_ Lodovico Mazzolini (or _Malino_) Lodovico _Rosso_ Lombard, Lambert (Lambert of Amsterdam), IX, 266-268, 270 Lombardi, Alfonso, _Life_, V, 131-136; V, 131-136, 210; VII, 77; IX, 167 Lombardino, Tofano (Cristofano Lombardi), VI, 167; VIII, 45, 55 Lombardo, Girolamo (Girolamo Ferrarese), V, 24, 28-30; VII, 9, 10, 189; VIII, 36, 37; IX, 202, 223 Lombardo, Tullio, IV, 60 Longhi, Barbara de', IX, 155 Longhi, Luca de', IX, 154, 155 Lorentino, Angelo di (Agnolo di _Lorenzo_) Lorentino d'_Angelo_ Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, _Life_, I, 155-157 Lorenzetti, Pietro (Pietro _Laurati_) Lorenzetto (Lorenzo) _Lotti_ Lorenzi, Antonio di Gino, VII, 24; IX, 131; X, 30 Lorenzi, Battista (Battista del Cavaliere), IX, 131, 140, 141; X, 31 Lorenzi, Stoldo di Gino, X, 30, 31 Lorenzo (father of Piero di Cosimo), IV, 125 Lorenzo, Agnolo di (Angelo di Lorentino), I, 208; III, 209 Lorenzo, Bicci di, II, 72 Lorenzo, Neri di, II, 72, 73 Lorenzo _Costa_ Lorenzo _Costa_ (the younger) Lorenzo da _Lendinara_ Lorenzo degli Angeli, Don (Don Lorenzo _Monaco_) Lorenzo della Sciorina (Lorenzo _Sciorini_) Lorenzo di _Bicci_ Lorenzo di _Credi_ Lorenzo _Ghiberti_ (Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti, or Lorenzo di Bartoluccio Ghiberti) Lorenzo (Lorenzetto) _Lotti_ Lorenzo _Lotto_ Lorenzo _Marignolli_ Lorenzo _Monaco_, Don (Don Lorenzo degli Angeli) Lorenzo Naldino (Il _Guazzetto_) Lorenzo of Picardy, V, 201 Lorenzo _Sabatini_ Lorenzo _Sciorini_ (Lorenzo della Sciorina) Lorenzo _Vecchietto_ Loro, Carlo da (Carlo _Portelli_) Lotti, Lorenzetto (Lorenzo), _Life_, V, 55-58; III, 273; IV, 240; V, 55-58; VII, 78; IX, 20, 239 Lotto, Lorenzo, _Life_, V, 261-264 Louis of _Louvain_ Louvain, Dirk of, IX, 266 Louvain, Johann of, IX, 266 Louvain, Louis of, IX, 265 Louvain, Quentin of, IX, 266 Luca da Cortona (Luca _Signorelli_) Luca de' _Longhi_ Luca della _Robbia_ Luca della _Robbia_ (the younger) Luca di _Tomè_ Luca _Fancelli_ Luca _Lancia_ Luca _Monverde_ Luca _Penni_ Luca _Signorelli_ (Luca da Cortona) Lucas _Horebout_ Lucas van _Leyden_ (Lucas of Holland) Lucia _Anguisciuola_ Luciani, Sebastiano (Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del _Piombo_) Lucrezia, Madonna, V, 127 Lugano, Domenico dal Lago di, II, 236 Lugano, Tommaso da, IX, 206 Luigi, Andrea (L' Ingegno), IV, 47 Luigi _Anichini_ Luigi _Brugnuoli_ Luigi _Vivarino_ Luini, Bernardino (Bernardino del Lupino), V, 60; VIII, 56 Luna, Francesco della, II, 223, 232 Lunetti, Stefano (_Stefano_ of Florence) Lunetti, Tommaso di Stefano, V, 51, 52, 164, 231 Lupino, Bernardino del (Bernardino _Luini_) Luzio _Romano_ Lysippus, I, xl Macchiavelli, Zanobi, III, 125 Macchietti, Girolamo (Girolamo del Crocifissaio), IX, 126; X, 15, 16 Madonna _Lucrezia_ Madonna Properzia de' _Rossi_ Maestro _Andrea_ Maestro _Claudio_ Maestro _Credi_ Maestro _Francesco_ Maestro _Giovanni_ Maestro Giovanni da _Fiesole_ Maestro _Lanzilago_ Maestro _Mino_ (Mino del Regno, or del Reame) Maestro _Niccolò_ Maestro _Salvestro_ Maestro _Zeno_ Maglione, I, 34 Maiano, Benedetto da, _Life_, III, 257-264; I, 94; III, 13, 14, 149, 257-264; IV, 36, 151, 266, 267; V, 5; VI, 66 Maiano, Giuliano da, _Life_, III, 11-14; III, 11-14, 74, 257-259; IV, 197; VI, 131 Mainardi, Bastiano (Bastiano da San Gimignano), III, 225, 230-233 Maini (Marini), Michele, V, 3, 4 Malino, Lodovico (or Mazzolini), III, 164 Manemaker, Matthaeus, IX, 269 Mangone, Giovanni, V, 5 Manno, VI, 78; VIII, 164, 190; X, 173 Mansueti, Giovanni, IV, 52, 59; V, 260 Mantegna, Andrea, _Life_, III, 279-286; II, 138; III, 162, 279-286; IV, 24, 55, 82; VI, 15, 29, 30, 91; VIII, 23; IX, 211 Mantovana (Sculptore), Diana, VIII, 42 Mantovano, Camillo, VII, 201; VIII, 171 Mantovano (_Ghisi_), Giorgio Mantovano (Sculptore), Giovan Battista, VI, 110, 111, 157, 164, 165, 169; VIII, 42 Mantovano, Marcello (Marcello _Venusti_) Mantovano, Rinaldo, VI, 155, 156, 160, 161, 169; VIII, 41 Manzuoli, Maso (Tommaso da San Friano), IX, 137; X, 15 Marc' Antonio _Bolognese_ (Marc' Antonio Raimondi, or de' Franci) Marcello Mantovano (Marcello _Venusti_) Marchesi, Girolamo (Girolamo da _Cotignola_) Marchetti, Marco (Marco da Faenza), IX, 155, 156; X, 20 Marchino, III, 105 Marchionne _Aretino_ Marchissi, Antonio di Giorgio, IV, 36; V, 4; VI, 126 Marcilla, Guglielmo da (Guillaume de Marcillac), _Life_, IV, 253-262; III, 53; IV, 253-262; VIII, 162; X, 172 Marco, Tommaso di, I, 197 Marco _Basaiti_ (Il Bassiti, or Marco Basarini) Marco _Calavrese_ (Marco Cardisco) Marco da Faenza (Marco _Marchetti_) Marco da _Grà_ Marco da _Montepulciano_ Marco da Ravenna (Marco _Dente_) Marco da _Siena_ (Marco del Pino) Marco del _Tasso_ Marco _Dente_ (Marco da Ravenna) Marco di Battista d'_Agnolo_ Marco _Marchetti_ (Marco da Faenza) Marco _Oggioni_ Marco _Palmezzani_ (Marco Parmigiano) Marco (son of Giovanni Rosto), VIII, 20 Marco _Zoppo_ Marcolini, Francesco, VI, 115 Marcone, Piero di, VIII, 172, 173 Margaritone, _Life_, I, 63-67; I, 38, 63-67, 118 Mariano da _Perugia_ Mariano da _Pescia_ Marignolli, Lorenzo, VII, 46 Marini (_Maini_), Michele Marinus (of Zierickzee), IX, 268 Mario _Capocaccia_ Mariotto, I, 198 Mariotto, Domenico di, III, 12 Mariotto _Albertinelli_ Mariotto di _Francesco_ Marmita, VI, 84 Marmita, Lodovico, VI, 84 Marten de _Vos_ Martin _Heemskerk_ Martin _Schongauer_ (Martino) Martini, Giovanni (Giovanni da _Udine_) Martini, Simone (Simone _Memmi_, or Sanese) Martino (Martin _Schongauer_) Martino (pupil of Montorsoli), VIII, 144, 147, 151, 156; X, 23 Martino, Bartolommeo di Jacopo di, VII, 147 Martino da _Udine_ (Pellegrino da San Daniele, or Martino di Battista) Marzone, Giacomo, III, 184 Masaccio, _Life_, II, 183-191; II, 86, 87, 133, 183-191, 198; III, 79, 80; IV, 3, 185, 215; VI, 202, 203; IX, 10, 133; X, 47 Masini, Messer Francesco, IV, 227 Maso _Boscoli_ (Maso dal Bosco) Maso _Finiguerra_ Maso (or Tommaso) _Giottino_ Maso _Manzuoli_ (Tommaso da San Friano) Maso (Tommaso) _Papacello_ Maso _Porro_ Masolino da _Panicale_ Matrice, Cola dalla (Niccola Filotesio), V, 238, 239 Matteo (brother of Cronaca), IV, 275 Matteo (of Lucca), II, 96, 97 Matteo dal _Nassaro_ Matteo _Lappoli_ Matteo _San Michele_ Matthaeus _Manemaker_ Matthys _Cock_ Maturino, _Life_, V, 175-185; IV, 83; V, 175-185; VI, 177, 196; VIII, 17, 218; IX, 20 Mazzieri, Antonio di Donnino (Antonio di Domenico), V, 223; VII, 29; VIII, 12 Mazzingo, III, 239 Mazzolini, Lodovico (or _Malino_) Mazzoni, Giulio, VIII, 210, 211 Mazzoni, Guido (Modanino da Modena), III, 14; VIII, 38 Mazzuoli, Francesco (Parmigiano), _Life_, V, 243-256; IV, 83; V, 243-256; VI, 107-109, 114, 259; VIII, 34, 39, 40, 217 Mazzuoli, Girolamo, V, 244, 245, 254, 255; VIII, 39, 41, 42 Medici, Jacopo de' (Jacopo _Bresciano_) Melighino, Jacomo (Jacopo Melighini), V, 72, 73; VI, 139, 140; VIII, 237 Melone, Altobello da, VIII, 24, 43 Melozzo (_Mirozzo_), Francesco di Melozzo da _Forlì_ Melzo, Francesco da, IV, 99 Memling, Hans (Ausse), III, 61; IX, 265 Memmi, Lippo, I, 172-174 Memmi, Simone (Simone Martini, or Sanese), _Life_, I, 167-174; I, 10, 25, 89, 92, 167-174, 183; II, 16, 37, 83; III, 183 Menighella, IX, 114 Menzochi, Francesco (Francesco da Forlì), VII, 201, 204-206; VIII, 171 Menzochi, Pietro Paolo, VII, 205, 206 Messina, Antonello da, _Life_, III, 59-64 Metrodorus, I, xxxix, xl Michael (Michele) _Coxie_ Michelagnolo _Anselmi_ Michelagnolo _Buonarroti_ Michelagnolo da _Siena_ Michelagnolo di _Viviano_ Michele (Michael _Coxie_) Michele _Alberti_ Michele da _Milano_ Michele di Ridolfo _Ghirlandajo_ Michele _Maini_ (Marini) Michele _San Michele_ Michelino, I, 208 Michelino, VI, 76 Michelino, Domenico di, III, 35 Michelozzo Michelozzi, _Life_, II, 259-271; II, 241, 259-271 Milanese, Guglielmo (Fra Guglielmo della _Porta_) Milanese, Leonardo, IX, 238 Milano, Bramante da, III, 18 Milano, Cesare da (Cesare da _Sesto_) Milano, Gian Maria da, VIII, 198 Milano, Giovanni da, I, 182, 183, 185; II, 23 Milano, Michele da, I, 221 Minerva _Anguisciuola_ Minga, Andrea del, VII, 97; IX, 131; X, 15 Mini, Antonio, V, 165; VIII, 128; IX, 47-51, 69, 81, 107, 109 Miniati, Bartolommeo, V, 201 Minio, Tiziano (Tiziano da Padova), VI, 47; IX, 203, 223 Mino, Maestro (Mino del Regno, or del Reame), _Life_, III, 91-92; III, 91-92, 155 Mino da _Fiesole_ (Mino di Giovanni) Mino del Regno (Maestro _Mino_, or Mino del Reame) Mino di Giovanni (Mino da _Fiesole_) Minore, III, 11 Mirabello di _Salincorno_ (Mirabello Cavalori) Mirozzo (Melozzo), Francesco di, V, 140 Miruoli, Girolamo, IX, 156 Misuroni (Misceroni), Gasparo, IV, 60; VI, 86 Misuroni (Misceroni), Girolamo, IV, 60; VI, 86 Moccio, II, 4, 10, 11, 101 Mocetto (or _Moretto_), Girolamo Modanino da Modena (Guido _Mazzoni_) Modena, Il (Antonio _Begarelli_) Modena, Modanino da (Guido _Mazzoni_) Modena, Niccolò da (Niccolò dell' _Abate_) Modena, Pellegrino da (Pellegrino degli Aretusi, or de' Munari), _Life_, V, 80-81; IV, 237; V, 80-81, 176; VI, 125 Mona Papera, Bernardetto di, II, 248 Monaco, Don Lorenzo (Don Lorenzo degli Angeli), _Life_, II, 55-58; II, 55-58, 171; III, 203 Mondella, Galeazzo, VI, 42, 80 Monsignori (_Bonsignori_), Alberto Monsignori (_Bonsignori_), Fra Cherubino Monsignori (_Bonsignori_), Fra Girolamo Monsignori (_Bonsignori_), Francesco Montagna, Bartolommeo, IV, 52, 60; IX, 211 Montagna, Jacopo da, III, 183 Monte Carlo, Bastiano da, IV, 179 Monte Sansovino, Domenico dal, V, 30 Montecavallo, Antonio, IV, 140 Montelupo, Baccio da, _Life_, V, 41-45; III, 148; IV, 186; V, 41-45, 97; VII, 155; VIII, 54; IX, 55, 188, 190, 239 Montelupo, Raffaello da, _Life_, V, 41-45; V, 27, 41-45, 119; VI, 133, 222; VII, 9-11, 27, 62, 81, 189, 191, 192, 194, 195; VIII, 89, 91, 137, 147; IX, 51, 55, 69, 239 Montepulciano, Marco da, II, 72, 179 Montepulciano, Pasquino da, III, 7 Montevarchi, IV, 46 Montorsoli, Fra Giovanni Agnolo, _Life_, VIII, 133-157; VII, 10, 11, 81, 82; VIII, 91, 133-157; IX, 51, 117, 133; X, 9, 23, 33 Monverde, Luca, V, 147 Moor, Antonius, IX, 268 Morandini, Francesco (Francesco da Poppi), X, 14 Morando, Paolo (Paolo _Cavazzuola_) Morelli, Giuliano di Niccolò, I, 221; V, 73; VI, 251 Moreto, Niccolò, IV, 57 Moretto, Alessandro (Alessandro Bonvicini), IV, 60; VIII, 49, 50 Moretto (or Mocetto), Girolamo, III, 180 Moro, Battista del (Battista d'_Angelo_, or d'Agnolo) Moro, Il (Francesco _Turbido_) Morone, Domenico, _Life_, VI, 35-36; VI, 29, 35, 36, 38 Morone, Francesco, _Life_, VI, 36-39; VI, 29, 36-39, 40, 41, 50 Morto da _Feltro_ Morzone, Giromin, IV, 55, 56 Mosca, Simone, _Life_, VII, 185-195; V, 44; VI, 133; VII, 9, 10, 185-195; VIII, 224; IX, 69 Moschino, Francesco, VII, 192, 194, 195; X, 32 Mosciano, Girolamo (Girolamo Muziano, or _Brescianino_) Mostaert, Franz, IX, 266-268 Mostaert, Gilis, IX, 268 Munari, Pellegrino de' (Pellegrino da _Modena_, or degli Aretusi) Murano, Natalino da, VIII, 104 Musi, Agostino de' (Agostino _Viniziano_) Muziano, Girolamo (Girolamo Mosciano, or _Brescianino_) Mynsheere, Jan de, IX, 269 Myrmecides, III, 55 Myron, II, 80 Naldini, Battista, VII, 181, 182; VIII, 233; IX, 134; X, 14, 15 Naldino, Lorenzo (Il _Guazzetto_) Nanni, Giovanni (Giovanni da _Udine_, or de' Ricamatori) Nanni d' Antonio di _Banco_ Nanni di Baccio _Bigio_ (Giovanni di Baccio) Nanni di Prospero delle _Corniole_ Nanni _Grosso_ Nanni _Unghero_ Nannoccio da _San Giorgio_ Nassaro, Matteo dal, _Life_, VI, 79-82; VI, 76, 79-82 Natalino da _Murano_ Navarra, Pietro, VI, 126 Nebbia, Cesare del, IX, 261 Negrolo, Filippo, VI, 86 Neri di _Lorenzo_ Nero, Durante del, VIII, 227 Neroccio, I, 172 Neroni, Bartolommeo (Riccio), V, 73; VII, 257 Niccola Filotesio (Cola dalla _Matrice_) Niccola _Pisano_ Niccola _Viniziano_ Niccolaio, VIII, 59 Niccolò (goldsmith to Pope Innocent VIII), III, 281 Niccolò (of Florence), III, 7 Niccolò (_Tribolo_) Niccolò, Maestro, VI, 164; VII, 177 Niccolò _Alunno_ Niccolò _Aretino_ (Niccolò d'Arezzo, or Niccolò di Piero Lamberti) Niccolò _Avanzi_ Niccolò _Beatricio_ (Nicolas Beautrizet) Niccolò Bolognese (Niccolò dell' _Arca_) Niccolò _Cartoni_ (Niccolò Zoccolo) Niccolò _Cieco_ Niccolò d'Arezzo (Niccolò _Aretino_, or Niccolò di Piero Lamberti) Niccolò da Modena (Niccolò dell' _Abate_) Niccolò dalle _Pomarancie_ Niccolò dell' _Abate_ (Niccolò da Modena) Niccolò dell' _Arca_ (Niccolò Bolognese) Niccolò della _Guardia_ Niccolò di Piero Lamberti (Niccolò d'Arezzo, or _Aretino_) Niccolò _Fiorentino_ Niccolò _Giolfino_ (Niccolò Ursino) Niccolò _Grosso_ (Il Caparra) Niccolò _Moreto_ Niccolò _Pizzolo_ Niccolò Rondinello (Rondinello da _Ravenna_) Niccolò _Soggi_ Niccolò Ursino (Niccolò _Giolfino_) Niccolò Zoccolo (Niccolò _Cartoni_) Nicolas Beautrizet (Niccolò _Beatricio_) Nicomachus, II, 80 Nicon, III, 209 Nino _Pisano_ Nola, Giovanni da, V, 137-139 Noort, Arthus van, IX, 269 Noort, Lambert van, IX, 268 Nunziata, VIII, 61, 62 Nunziata, Toto del, II, 190; IV, 280; VI, 191, 196; VIII, 66 Oderigi d' _Agobbio_ Oggioni, Marco, IV, 105; VIII, 56 Oja, Sebastian van, IX, 269 Opera, Giovanni dell' (Giovanni di Benedetto _Bandini_) Orazio da Bologna (Orazio _Sammacchini_) Orazio di _Paris_ Orazio _Pianetti_ Orazio _Porta_ Orazio _Sammacchini_ (Orazio da Bologna) Orazio _Vecelli_ Orcagna, Andrea di Cione, _Life_, I, 189-199; II, 91; III, 223 Orcagna, Bernardo di Cione, I, 189, 190, 193-195, 197 Orcagna, Jacopo di Cione, I, 194, 197, 198 Orlando _Fiacco_ (or Flacco) Orsino, III, 275, 276 Ottaviano da _Faenza_ Ottaviano del _Collettaio_ Ottaviano della _Robbia_ Ottaviano _Falconetto_ Ottaviano _Zucchero_ Pacchia, Girolamo del, VII, 252 Pace, Domenico di (Domenico _Beccafumi_) Pace da _Faenza_ Pacuvius, I, xxxix Padova, Guerriero da, IV, 51, 56 Padova, Tiziano da (Tiziano _Minio_) Padova, Vellano da, _Life_, III, 73-75; II, 253; III, 73-75, 272 Padovano, Federigo del (Federigo di _Lamberto_, or Fiammingo) Padovano, Girolamo, III, 209 Pagani, Lattanzio, V, 212; VII, 128 Pagni, Benedetto (Benedetto da Pescia), VI, 152, 154-156, 169; X, 9 Pagno di Lapo _Partigiani_ Palladio, Andrea, VI, 28, 48; VIII, 233, 234; IX, 211-214; X, 20 Palma, Jacopo (Palma Vecchio), _Life_, V, 259-261; IX, 160 Palmezzani, Marco (Marco Parmigiano), VII, 204, 205 Paludanus, Heinrich (Arrigo), VIII, 38; IX, 269 Paludanus, Willem, IX, 269 Panetti, Domenico, VIII, 24 Panicale, Masolino da, _Life_, II, 165-167; II, 46, 159, 165-167, 171, 185, 187-189; IV, 3; VI, 203 Paolo, I, 103 Paolo _Caliari_ (Paolo Veronese) Paolo _Cavazzuola_ (Paolo Morando) Paolo da _Verona_ Paolo _Farinato_ Paolo _Pistoiese_, Fra Paolo _Ponzio_ Paolo _Romano_ Paolo _San Michele_ Paolo _Schiavo_ Paolo _Uccello_ Paolo Veronese (Paolo _Caliari_) Papacello, Tommaso (or Maso), IV, 76; VI, 152; VII, 128 Papino della _Pieve_ Paris, Domenico di, IV, 47; V, 195 Paris, Orazio di, IV, 47 Paris _Bordone_ Parma, Daniello da (Daniello _Porri_) Parmigiano (Francesco _Mazzuoli_) Parmigiano, Marco (Marco _Palmezzani_) Parrhasius, IX, 133; X, 200 Parri _Spinelli_ Particini, Antonio, VIII, 16 Partigiani, Pagno di Lapo, II, 269, 270 Pasquino _Cenni_ Pasquino da _Montepulciano_ Passerotto, Bartolommeo, IX, 156 Pastorino da _Siena_ Patinier, Joachim, 266 Pecori, Domenico, III, 207-209; IV, 257; VI, 255, 258, 271 Pedoni, Giovanni, VIII, 48 Pellegrini, Pellegrino (Pellegrino da Bologna, or Tibaldi), VIII, 34, 204; IX, 151-154, 258 Pellegrino da _Modena_ (Pellegrino degli Aretusi, or de' Munari) Pellegrino da San Daniele (Martino da _Udine_, or di Battista) Pellegrino _Pellegrini_ (Pellegrino da Bologna, or Tibaldi) Peloro, Giovan Battista, V, 73 Pencz, Georg, VI, 119 Penni, Giovan Francesco (Il Fattore), _Life_, V, 77-80; IV, 237, 247; V, 77-80, 201; VI, 146-148, 150, 151, 153, 177, 193, 194, 207, 216 Penni, Luca, V, 79, 201; VI, 115 Perino del _Vaga_ (Perino Buonaccorsi, or de' Ceri) Perugia, Mariano da, V, 263 Perugia, Piero da, I, 221 Perugino, Pietro (Pietro Vannucci, or Pietro da Castel della Pieve), _Life_, IV, 33-48; II, 190; III, 23, 188, 204, 273; IV, 13, 15, 18, 33-48, 82, 159, 169, 210-212, 236, 242, 243; V, 49, 50, 87, 230; VI, 235, 269; VII, 199, 248, 249; VIII, 3; IX, 189; X, 192 Peruzzi, Baldassarre (Baldassarre da Siena), _Life_, V, 63-74; IV, 145, 146, 200; V, 57, 63-74, 136, 170, 176, 208; VI, 107, 167, 174, 177, 239; VII, 253; VIII, 167, 168, 197, 205, 218; IX, 65, 196; X, 174 Peruzzi, Salustio, VIII, 205; IX, 82 Pesarese, I, 105 Pescia, Benedetto da (Benedetto _Pagni_) Pescia, Mariano da, VIII, 66 Pescia, Pier Maria da, VI, 76 Peselli, Francesco (Francesco di Pesello, or Pesellino), _Life_, III, 117-118; III, 86, 117-118 Pesello, _Life_, III, 117-118; III, 59, 117-118; IV, 82 Pesello, Francesco di (Francesco _Peselli_, or Pesellino) Pheidias, I, xl; II, 120; IV, 105 Philip _Galle_ Philocles, I, xxxix Pianetti, Orazio, VIII, 206, 207 Piccinelli, Raffaello de' (Raffaello da Brescia, or _Brescianino_) Pichi, Giovan Maria, VII, 158 Pier Francesco da _Viterbo_ Pier Francesco di Jacopo di _Sandro_ Pier Maria da _Pescia_ Pieri, Stefano, IX, 137; X, 14 Pierino (Piero) da _Vinci_ Piero, Alvaro di, II, 64 Piero _Catanei_ Piero da _Perugia_ Piero da _Sesto_ Piero (Pierino) da _Vinci_ Piero da _Volterra_ Piero del _Donzello_ Piero della _Francesca_ (Piero dal Borgo a San Sepolcro, or Borghese) Piero di _Cosimo_ Piero di _Marcone_ Piero _Francia_ Piero _Pollaiuolo_ Pieter _Aertsen_ Pieter _Brueghel_ Pieter _Christus_ Pieter _Koeck_ Pieter _Pourbus_ Pietrasanta, Ranieri da, VII, 9, 10 Pietrasanta, Stagio da, V, 162; VI, 214; VII, 7, 195 Pietro, I, 103 Pietro _Cavallini_ Pietro da Castel della Pieve (Pietro _Perugino_, or Vannucci) Pietro da _Salò_ Pietro da _San Casciano_ Pietro di _Subisso_ Pietro _Laurati_ (Pietro Lorenzetti) Pietro _Navarra_ Pietro Paolo, I, 105 Pietro Paolo da _Todi_ Pietro Paolo _Galeotto_ Pietro Paolo _Menzochi_ Pietro _Perugino_ (Pietro da Castel della Pieve, or Vannucci) Pietro _Rosselli_ Pietro _Urbano_ Pietro Vannucci (Pietro _Perugino_, or Pietro da Castel della Pieve) Pieve, Papino della, VI, 272 Piloto, VI, 201, 205, 207; VII, 56, 58, 69; VIII, 18; IX, 42, 43, 47, 48 Pino, Marco del (Marco da _Siena_) Pintelli, Baccio, III, 93-94 Pinturicchio, Bernardino, _Life_, IV, 13-19; IV, 13-19, 46, 65, 211, 212; V, 227; VI, 195; IX, 190 Piombo, Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del (Sebastiano Luciani), _Life_, VI, 173-186; IV, 84, 114, 240; V, 66; VI, 108, 139, 148, 173-186, 217, 259; VII, 110, 111; VIII, 82, 84, 92, 182, 201; IX, 68, 106, 109, 111, 162, 235 Pippo del _Fabbro_ Pironi, Girolamo, IX, 211 Pirro _Ligorio_ Pisanello, Vittore or Antonio, _Life_, III, 109-113; II, 187; III, 105, 109-113; VI, 35 Pisano, Andrea, _Life_, I, 123-131; I, 123-131, 189; II, 50, 81, 83, 91, 93, 120, 145, 147, 154, 160, 200; VII, 30 Pisano, Giovanni, _Life_, I, 35-44; I, 29, 35-44, 76, 97, 98, 220; IV, 142; IX, 11 Pisano, Niccola, _Life_, I, 29-37; I, lvi, 29-37, 40, 41, 43, 44, 76, 97; II, 97; IV, 142 Pisano, Nino, I, 127, 130, 131; II, 81, 83 Pisano, Tommaso, I, 130 Pisbolica, Jacopo, IX, 214, 215 Pistoia, Gerino da (Gerino _Pistoiese_) Pistoia, Giovanni da, I, 164 Pistoia, Il (Leonardo), V, 79, 80 Pistoiese, David, III, 263 Pistoiese, Fra Paolo, IV, 162 Pistoiese, Gerino (Gerino da Pistoia), IV, 18, 46 Pittoni, Battista (Battista of Vicenza), VI, 108 Pizzolo, Niccolò, III, 280 Plautilla, V, 126 Poggini, Domenico, VI, 87; IX, 131; X, 32, 33 Poggini, Giovan Paolo, IX, 232, 233 Poggini, Zanobi, V, 106; VIII, 61 Poggino, Zanobi di, V, 165 Polidoro (of Perugia), IX, 234 Polidoro da _Caravaggio_ (Polidoro Caldara) Polito del _Donzello_ Pollaiuolo, Antonio, _Life_, III, 237-243; I, xxxiv; II, 159; III, 237-243, 248, 285; IV, 4, 81, 265; V, 21; VI, 182, 246; VIII, 64 Pollaiuolo, Piero, _Life_, III, 237-243; III, 105, 237-243, 248; VI, 182, 246 Pollaiuolo, Simone del (Il _Cronaca_) Polo, Agnolo di, III, 273, 274 Polo, Domenico di, V, 135; VI, 84 Polycletus, I, xl, 167; II, 80, 160 Polygnotus, I, xxxix; II, 80 Pomarancie, Niccolò dalle, IX, 261 Pompeo da _Fano_ Pompeo _Lioni_ Pompilio _Lancia_ Pomponio _Amalteo_ Ponte, Giovanni dal (Giovanni da Santo Stefano a Ponte), _Life_, I, 211-213; I, 208, 211-213 Pontormo, Jacopo da (Jacopo Carrucci), _Life_, VII, 147-182; II, 190; IV, 179, 246, 260; V, 93, 98, 104, 118, 135, 190, 221, 222, 231, 232; VI, 60, 255-257, 273; VII, 31, 147-182, 201; VIII, 18, 65, 92, 154, 179, 180; IX, 20, 107, 110, 133, 134; X, 3-5, 7-10, 12-14, 47, 176, 177 Ponzio, Paolo, IX, 149 Poppi, Francesco da (Francesco _Morandini_) Pordenone (Giovanni Antonio _Licinio_, or Cuticello) Porfirio, Bernardino di, X, 17 Porri, Daniello (Daniello da Parma), VIII, 217 Porro, Maso, IV, 262 Porta, Baccio della (Fra Bartolommeo di _San Marco_) Porta, Fra Guglielmo della (Guglielmo Milanese), VI, 217; VIII, 84; IX, 68, 69, 234-238 Porta, Giovan Jacomo della, IX, 234, 235 Porta, Giuseppe (Giuseppe del Salviati), VI, 115; VIII, 106, 192, 193, 229, 230; IX, 214; X, 20 Porta, Orazio, X, 20 Porta, Tommaso, IX, 238 Portelli, Carlo (Carlo da Loro), VIII, 11, 69, 170, 179; X, 15 Pourbus, Pieter, IX, 268 Prato, Francesco di Girolamo dal, V, 135; VII, 72, 73; VIII, 162, 173, 190-192 Prato, Girolamo dal, VIII, 190, 191 Praxiteles, I, xxvi, xl, xli; IX, 133; X, 47 Primaticcio, Francesco, _Description of Works_, IX, 145-150; V, 200, 201, 203; VI, 115, 157; VIII, 37, 183, 237, 238; IX, 145-151, 156 Proconsolo, Rossellino dal (Antonio _Rossellino_) Prometheus (fable), I, xxxix Properzia de' _Rossi_, Madonna Prospero _Clemente_ Prospero _Fontana_ Protogenes, II, 80; X, 200 Provolo _Falconetto_ Pucci, Domenico, II, 26 Puccio _Capanna_ Puligo, Domenico, _Life_, IV, 279-283; V, 109; VIII, 119, 120 Pupini, Biagio (Biagio _Bolognese_) Pygmalion, I, xxviii, xl Pyrgoteles, I, xl Pythias, I, xxxix Quentin of _Louvain_ Quercia, Jacopo della (Jacopo della Fonte), _Life_, II, 91-97; I, 130; II, 86, 87, 91-97, 145, 146, 151, 200; III, 131, 188; VII, 245 Raffaellino del _Garbo_ Raffaello _Baglioni_ Raffaello _Bello_ Raffaello _Brescianino_ (Raffaello da Brescia, or de' Piccinelli) Raffaello da _Montelupo_ Raffaello da Urbino (Raffaello _Sanzio_) Raffaello dal _Colle_ (Raffaello dal Borgo) Raffaello de' Piccinelli (Raffaello da Brescia, or _Brescianino_) Raffaello delle _Vivole_ Raffaello di _Biagio_ Raffaello Pippi de' _Giannuzzi_ Raffaello _Sanzio_ (Raffaello da Urbino) Raggio, IV, 4 Raimondi, Marc' Antonio (Marc' Antonio _Bolognese_, or de' Franci) Ramenghi, Bartolommeo (Bartolommeo da _Bagnacavallo_) Ranieri da _Pietrasanta_ Ravenna, Marco da (Marco _Dente_) Ravenna, Rondinello da (Niccolò Rondinello), _Life_, V, 264-265; III, 183, 184; V, 264-266; VII, 204, 205 Reggio, Sebastiano da, VI, 165 Regno, Mino del (Maestro _Mino_, or Mino del Reame) René _Boyvin_ (Renato) Ribaldi, Giovanni (Giovanni _Boccalino_) Ricamatori, Giovanni de' (Giovanni da _Udine_, or Nanni) Ricchino, Francesco, VIII, 50 Ricciarelli, Daniello (Daniello da Volterra), _Life_, VIII, 197-211; VI, 113, 219, 224; VIII, 184-186, 197-211, 228, 235; IX, 95, 100, 101, 103, 107, 121, 122 Ricciarelli, Leonardo, VIII, 207 Riccio, Andrea, III, 64 Riccio (Bartolommeo _Neroni_) Riccio, Domenico del (Domenico _Brusciasorzi_) Riccio, Felice del (Felice _Brusciasorzi_) Ridolfi, Bartolommeo, VI, 48 Ridolfo _Ghirlandajo_ Rinaldo _Mantovano_ Ripa Transone, Ascanio dalla (Ascanio _Condivi_) Ristoro da _Campi_, Fra Robbia, Agostino della, II, 123-125 Robbia, Andrea della, II, 125-127, 175; III, 276; V, 90 Robbia, Giovanni della, II, 126; VIII, 116 Robbia, Girolamo della, II, 126, 127; V, 90 Robbia, Luca della, _Life_, II, 119-128; II, 119-128, 175, 213 Robbia, Luca della (the younger), II, 126, 127; IV, 237; V, 90 Robbia, Ottaviano della, II, 123-125 Robetta, VIII, 119, 120 Robusti, Jacopo (Jacopo _Tintoretto_) Robyn, Joris, IX, 270 Rocco _Guerrini_ Rocco _Zoppo_ Roger van der _Weyden_ (Roger of Bruges) Romanino, Girolamo, IV, 60; VIII, 49 Romano, Domenico, VIII, 193 Romano, Giulio (Giulio Pippi de' Giannuzzi), _Life_, VI, 145-169; III, 19; IV, 76, 84, 119, 232, 237, 247; V, 55, 77-79, 108, 109, 195; VI, 20, 24, 103-105, 110, 114, 145-169, 177, 193, 194, 207, 216, 221, 259; VII, 117, 236; VIII, 29, 39-42, 55, 138, 172; IX, 146, 168, 245, 257, 258; X, 9, 187 Romano, Luzio, VI, 212, 222 Romano, Paolo, _Life_, III, 91-92; V, 57 Romano, Virgilio, V, 73 Rondinello da _Ravenna_ (Niccolò Rondinello) Rosa, Cristofano, VIII, 50, 51, 104; IX, 177 Rosa, Stefano, VIII, 50, 51, 104; IX, 177 Rosselli, Bernardo (Bernardo del _Buda_) Rosselli, Cosimo, _Life_, III, 187-190; IV, 82, 125, 126, 151, 165; V, 88, 229 Rosselli, Pietro, IV, 159; VII, 68, 69 Rossellino, Antonio (Rossellino dal Proconsolo), _Life_, III, 139-144; II, 253; III, 44, 139-144, 253; IV, 275 Rossellino, Bernardo, _Life_, III, 139-144; III, 44, 139-144, 268 Rossellino dal Proconsolo (Antonio _Rossellino_) Rossetti, Giovan Paolo, VIII, 204, 210 Rossi, Francesco de' (Francesco _Salviati_) Rossi, Giovan Battista de' (Il _Rosso_) Rossi, Giovanni Antonio de', VI, 86 Rossi, Madonna Properzia de', _Life_, V, 123-128; VIII, 45 Rossi, Vincenzio de', VII, 94, 98, 101; VIII, 153; X, 23, 24 Rosso (or Rosto), Giovan Battista, VI, 164 Rosso (or _Rosto_), Giovanni Rosso, Il (Giovan Battista de' Rossi), _Life_, V, 189-203; II, 190; IV, 84; V, 97, 189-203; VI, 109, 111, 115, 257-261, 273, 274; VII, 58, 59, 117, 118, 149, 188; VIII, 167, 183; IX, 20, 107, 146, 147; X, 47, 172 Rosso, Lodovico, IX, 182 Rosso de' _Giugni_ Rosto (or _Rosso_), Giovan Battista Rosto (or Rosso), Giovanni, IV, 46; VII, 177; VIII, 20, 179 Rovezzano, Benedetto da, _Life_, V, 35-38; IV, 155; V, 35-38; VII, 4, 63, 64, 187; IX, 191 Rovezzano, Giovanni da, III, 105 Roviale, VII, 129; VIII, 190; X, 196 Rozzo, Antonio del (Antonio del _Tozzo_) Ruberto di Filippo _Lippi_ Ruggieri da _Bologna_ Ruspoli, Ilarione, X, 24 Rustici, Gabriele, IV, 162 Rustici, Giovan Francesco, _Life_, VIII, 111-129; IV, 105, 186; VII, 57, 66; VIII, 111-129; X, 47 Sabatini, Lorenzo, IX, 151; X, 20 Salai, IV, 99 Salamanca, Antonio, VI, 276 Salincorno, Mirabello di (Mirabello Cavalori), IX, 126; X, 15, 16 Salò, Pietro da, IX, 204, 223 Salustio _Peruzzi_ Salvadore _Foschi_, Fra Salvestro, Maestro, VI, 87 Salvestro _Fancelli_ Salvi, Antonio di, III, 239 Salviati, Francesco (Francesco de' Rossi), _Life_, VIII, 161-193; III, 258, 262; V, 119; VI, 108, 111, 177; VII, 178, 205; VIII, 11, 12, 44, 84, 90, 91, 95, 161-193, 208, 209, 228, 229, 231, 232, 235; IX, 133; X, 7, 47, 171, 174, 219 Salviati, Giuseppe del (Giuseppe _Porta_) Sammacchini, Orazio (Orazio da Bologna), VIII, 188, 228, 229; IX, 154 San Casciano, Pietro da, VII, 15, 16, 19 S. Clemente, Abbot of (Don Bartolommeo della _Gatta_) San Daniele, Pellegrino da (Martino da _Udine_ or di Battista) San Friano, Tommaso da (Maso _Manzuoli_) San Gallo, Antonio da (the elder), _Life_, IV, 191-205; IV, 145, 191-205, 254; V, 97; VI, 66, 123, 272; VII, 74; VIII, 3; IX, 16, 40, 41 San Gallo, Antonio da (the younger), _Life_, VI, 123-141; I, 32; V, 29, 43, 58, 72; VI, 123-141, 167, 197, 198, 219, 220, 222; VII, 9, 78, 119, 186, 189, 190, 193, 217, 218; VIII, 13, 89, 136, 168, 202; IX, 61-67, 196, 197, 224, 239; X, 47 San Gallo, Aristotile (Bastiano) da, _Life_, VIII, 3-20; IV, 212; V, 97; VII, 29; VIII, 3-20, 119, 126; IX, 20, 29, 30 San Gallo, Battista da (Battista Gobbo), VI, 133, 140; VIII, 169 San Gallo, Francesco da, IV, 134, 203, 204; V, 27; VI, 133, 173; VII, 9, 10, 189; VIII, 153, 155, 156; X, 22, 23 San Gallo, Giovan Francesco da, VIII, 4 San Gallo, Giuliano da, _Life_, IV, 191-205; IV, 101, 134, 145, 191-205, 270; V, 97; VI, 6, 66, 123, 124, 126; VIII, 3; IX, 16, 29, 30, 188, 189; X, 22, 23 San Gimignano, Bastiano da (Bastiano _Mainardi_) San Gimignano, Vincenzio da (Vincenzio Tamagni), _Life_, V, 11-17; IV, 237; V, 11-17; VIII, 218 San Giorgio, Eusebio, IV, 47 San Giorgio, Nannoccio da, V, 119; VIII, 162-164 San Marco, Fra Bartolommeo di (Baccio della Porta), _Life_, IV, 151-162; II, 190, 249; IV, 82, 151-162, 165-167, 215, 244, 272; V, 159, 160, 194; VI, 66; VII, 108, 109, 148; VIII, 61 San Marino, Giovan Battista (Giovan Battista _Bellucci_) San Michele, Bartolommeo, VII, 217 San Michele, Gian Girolamo, VII, 219, 220, 222, 230-234 San Michele, Giovanni, VII, 217 San Michele, Matteo, VII, 219 San Michele, Michele, _Life_, VII, 217-235; III, 111; VI, 25, 26, 47, 130; VII, 127, 191, 217-235, 237, 241; VIII, 102 San Michele, Paolo, VII, 227, 230, 232 San Vito, Feliciano da, VIII, 210, 211 Sandrino del _Calzolaio_ Sandro, Jacopo di, V, 97; IX, 29, 30 Sandro, Pier Francesco di Jacopo di, V, 118, 119; VI, 257; VII, 29, 176; VIII, 11, 156; X, 15 Sandro _Botticelli_ (Sandro di Botticello, or Alessandro Filipepi) Sanese, Simone (Simone _Memmi_, or Martini) Sanese, Ugolino (Ugolino da Siena), _Life_, I, 113; II, 62 Sansovino, Andrea (Andrea _Contucci_) Sansovino, Jacopo (Jacopo Tatti), _Life_, IX, 187-202, 215-225; II, 127; V, 5, 31, 35, 36, 80, 88, 92, 93, 97, 98, 180, 218, 231, 247; VI, 47, 125, 127, 199; VII, 4, 5, 58; VIII, 100, 126, 192; IX, 20, 40, 41, 107, 145, 166, 170, 187-204, 206-208, 210, 215-225; X, 23 Sant' Agnolo, Francesco, VIII, 215-217 Santa Croce, Girolamo, _Life_, V, 137-138 Santi, IV, 261 Santi, Giovanni de', IV, 46, 210, 213, 249 Santi _Buglioni_ Santi _Titi_ Sanzio, Raffaello (Raffaello da Urbino), _Life_, IV, 209-250; I, 86; II, 126, 190; III, 18, 19; IV, 13, 28, 29, 44-47, 82, 83, 143, 145, 146, 155-158, 200, 201, 203, 209-250, 255; V, 11-15, 55, 56, 66, 72, 77-81, 107-109, 117, 126, 169, 175, 191, 194, 201, 207, 208, 213, 222, 245, 247; VI, 6, 38, 66, 69, 99-104, 106-108, 114, 120, 126, 127, 130, 145-148, 153, 156, 165, 174-178, 181, 183, 193-195, 207, 209, 218, 221, 236, 269; VII, 111, 117, 148, 174, 199, 249; VIII, 4, 5, 25, 26, 28, 31, 32, 41, 49, 61, 73-76, 78, 80, 81, 85, 97, 167, 216, 219, 226, 236; IX, 20, 27, 28, 30, 31, 40, 41, 65, 162, 165, 170, 189, 194, 196, 267; X, 174, 180, 181, 192, 211, 222 Saracini, Gabriello, II, 36 Sart, Jan der, IX, 269 Sarto, Andrea del (Andrea d' Agnolo), _Life_, V, 85-120; II, 190; IV, 83, 129, 134, 281, 283; V, 85-120, 164, 194, 217-221, 231; VI, 60, 106, 255-257, 272, 273; VII, 4, 58, 59, 148-150, 152, 156, 157, 171, 188; VIII, 5, 6, 11, 16, 17, 19, 113, 119, 120, 122, 126, 135, 163, 164; IX, 20, 43, 188, 193, 194; X, 47, 172 Sassoli, Fabiano di Stagio, III, 54; IV, 256, 257 Sassoli, Stagio, IV, 73, 257; VI, 272 Savoldo, Gian Girolamo (Gian Girolamo _Bresciano_) Scarpaccia, Lazzaro (Lazzaro _Bastiani_, or Sebastiano Scarpaccia) Scarpaccia (_Carpaccio_), Vittore Scarpagni, Antonio (Scarpagnino, or Zanfragnino), VI, 10 Scheggia, VIII, 61 Scherano da _Settignano_ (Alessandro) Schiavo, Paolo, II, 166 Schiavone, Andrea, VIII, 107, 108, 231 Schizzone, V, 12 Schongauer, Martin (Martino), _Life_, VI, 91-92; III, 214; VI, 91-92; IX, 7, 265 Sciorini, Lorenzo (Lorenzo della Sciorina), IX, 128; X, 14 Scorel, Jan, IX, 266 Sculptore (_Mantovana_), Diana Sculptore (_Mantovano_), Giovan Battista Sebastian van _Oja_ Sebastiano da _Reggio_ Sebastiano Florigerio (Bastianello _Florigorio_) Sebastiano Luciani (Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del _Piombo_) Sebastiano Scarpaccia (Lazzaro _Bastiani_, or Scarpaccia) Sebastiano _Serlio_ Sebastiano Viniziano del _Piombo_, Fra (Sebastiano Luciani) Sebeto da _Verona_ Seghers, Anna, IX, 269 Segna d' _Antignano_ Sellaio, Jacopo del, III, 86 Semolei, Battista (Battista _Franco_) Ser Giovanni, Leonardo di, I, 104; II, 119 Serlio, Sebastiano, V, 72; VI, 113; IX, 196, 267, 271 Sermoneta, Girolamo da (Girolamo _Siciolante_) Servellino, Guido del, III, 12 Sesto, Cesare da (Cesare da Milano), V, 65, 141; VIII, 56 Sesto, Piero da, VIII, 18 Settignano, Desiderio da, _Life_, III, 147-149; II, 253; III, 147-149, 154, 156, 260; X, 47 Settignano, Scherano da (Alessandro), VIII, 168; IX, 55 Settignano, Solosmeo da (Antonio di Giovanni), V, 118; VII, 5, 79, 80; VIII, 119; IX, 202, 223 Sguazzella, Andrea, V, 100, 118 Siciliano, Tommaso (Tommaso _Laureti_) Siciolante, Girolamo (Girolamo da Sermoneta), VI, 221, 222, 225; VIII, 99, 188, 229; IX, 152, 257-259 Siena, Baldassarre da (Baldassarre _Peruzzi_) Siena, Francesco da, V, 71, 73 Siena, Marco da (Marco del Pino), VI, 223; VIII, 204, 210 Siena, Michelagnolo da, _Life_, V, 136-137; V, 69, 136-137 Siena, Pastorino da, IV, 262; VI, 87, 219 Siena, Ugolino da (Ugolino _Sanese_) Signorelli, Luca (Luca da Cortona), _Life_, IV, 71-76; III, 20, 23, 31, 52, 188, 204; IV, 71-76, 82, 216, 261; VI, 246; VII, 199, 246; IX, 190; X, 171 Silvestro, Don, II, 57 Silvio _Cosini_ (Silvio da Fiesole) Simon _Bening_ Simon _Bianco_ Simon van _Delft_ Simone, II, 104; IV, 55 Simone (brother of Donatello), _Life_, III, 3-7; II, 251; III, 3-7 Simone (pupil of Filippo Brunelleschi), II, 236 Simone _Cini_ Simone _Cioli_ Simone da _Colle_ (Simone de' Bronzi) Simone da _Fiesole_ Simone del Pollaiuolo (Il _Cronaca_) Simone _Memmi_ (Simone Martini, or Sanese) Simone _Mosca_ Simone of Paris, V, 201 Simone Sanese (Simone _Memmi_, or Martini) Skeysers, Clara, IX, 269 Sodoma, Giomo del, VII, 257 Sodoma, Il (Giovanni Antonio _Bazzi_) Sofonisba _Anguisciuola_ Soggi, Niccolò, _Life_, VI, 269-279; IV, 186; V, 109, 110, 196; VI, 261, 269-279; VIII, 114 Sogliani, Giovanni Antonio, _Life_, V, 159-166; V, 51, 159-166; VI, 214, 215, 247, 248; VII, 256; VIII, 20 Soiaro, Bernardo (Bernardo de' Gatti), VIII, 39, 40, 43, 44 Solari, Cristofano (Cristofano Gobbo), VIII, 55; IX, 14, 234 Sollazzino, I, 193 Solosmeo da _Settignano_ (Antonio di Giovanni) Sozzini, Giovan Battista, VI, 87 Spadari, Benedetto, IV, 262; V, 195, 196 Spagna, Lo (_Giovanni_) Spagnuolo, Alonzo (Alonzo Berughetta), II, 190; IV, 8; VII, 58; IX, 20, 189 Speranza, Giovanni, IX, 211 Spilimbergo, Irene di, IX, 175 Spillo, VIII, 119, 120 Spinelli, Parri, _Life_, II, 171-179; II, 36, 39, 83, 125, 159, 171-179; III, 54 Spinello, Forzore di, I, 104; II, 39, 177 Spinello _Aretino_ Squarcione, Jacopo, III, 279-281, 285; IV, 56 Stagio da _Pietrasanta_ Stagio _Sassoli_ Staren, Dirk van, IX, 269 Starnina, Gherardo, _Life_, II, 43-46; II, 20, 43-46, 58, 83, 165 Stefano, _Life_, I, 109-114; I, 92, 109-114, 203, 204; II, 83 Stefano, Vincenzio di, VI, 11 Stefano da _Ferrara_ Stefano da Zevio (Stefano _Veronese_) Stefano of Florence (Stefano Lunetti), III, 215; V, 51 Stefano _Pieri_ Stefano _Rosa_ Stefano _Veltroni_ Stefano _Veronese_ (Stefano da Zevio) Stocco, Giovanni di (Giovanni _Fancelli_) Stoldo di Gino _Lorenzi_ Straet, Jan van der (Giovanni Strada), VIII, 233; IX, 134, 135, 267; X, 18, 19 Strozzi, Zanobi, III, 35 Suardi, Bartolommeo (_Bramantino_) Suavius, Lambert (Lamberto Suave, or Lambert Zutmann), VI, 110; IX, 269, 270 Subisso, Pietro di, VII, 187, 188 Susanna _Horebout_ Tadda, Francesco del (Francesco Ferrucci), VII, 9, 10, 49; VIII, 133, 140, 142; IX, 97 Taddeo _Bartoli_ Taddeo _Gaddi_ Taddeo _Zucchero_ Tafi, Andrea, _Life_, I, 47-51; I, 47-51, 55, 56, 58, 135, 136, 145, 219; III, 69 Tafi, Antonio d' Andrea, I, 51 Tagliapietra, Duca, III, 169 Tamagni, Vincenzio (Vincenzio da _San Gimignano_) Tasso, Battista del, VI, 213; VII, 13, 30, 31, 34, 35, 137; VIII, 18, 164, 173, 176; IX, 51; X, 208, 210 Tasso, Domenico del, III, 200, 262 Tasso, Giuliano del, III, 200, 262; V, 97 Tasso, Leonardo del, V, 31 Tasso, Marco del, III, 200, 262; VII, 156 Tatti, Jacopo (Jacopo _Sansovino_) Tedesco, Guglielmo, IX, 237 Tedesco, Jacopo (Lapo), I, 14, 18-20, 23, 24, 65, 174 Tedesco, Jacopo del, III, 233; VIII, 59, 60 Telephanes, I, xxxix The _Academicians_ Tibaldi, Pellegrino (Pellegrino da Bologna, or _Pellegrini_) Tiberio _Calcagni_ Tiberio _Cavalieri_ Timagoras, I, xxxix Timanthes, II, 80 Timoteo da _Urbino_ (Timoteo della Vite) Tintoretto, Jacopo (Jacopo Robusti), VIII, 101-106; IX, 214; X, 20 Tisi, Benvenuto (Benvenuto _Garofalo_) Titi, Santi, V, 160; VIII, 227; IX, 135; X, 19, 20 Tiziano, Girolamo di (Girolamo _Dante_) Tiziano da Cadore (Tiziano _Vecelli_) Tiziano _Minio_ (Tiziano da Padova) Tiziano _Vecelli_ (Tiziano da Cadore) Todi, Pietro Paolo da, III, 92 Tofano _Lombardino_ (Cristofano Lombardi) Tomè, Luca di, II, 5 Tommaso, IV, 76 Tommaso _Barlacchi_ Tommaso _Casignuola_ Tommaso da _Lugano_ Tommaso da San Friano (Maso _Manzuoli_) Tommaso del _Verrocchio_ Tommaso di _Marco_ Tommaso di Stefano _Lunetti_ Tommaso _Ghirlandajo_ Tommaso (or Maso) _Giottino_ Tommaso _Laureti_ (Tommaso Siciliano) Tommaso _Papacello_ Tommaso _Pisano_ Tommaso _Porta_ Tommaso Siciliano (Tommaso _Laureti_) Topolino, IX, 114, 115 Torri, Bartolommeo, VI, 264, 265 Torrigiano, _Life_, IV, 183-188; IX, 8, 10, 116 Tossicani, Giovanni, I, 208 Toto del _Nunziata_ Tozzo, Antonio del (Antonio del Rozzo), V, 73 Traini, Francesco, I, 198, 199 Trento, Antonio da (Antonio Fantuzzi), V, 249, 250; VI, 108 Trevigi, Girolamo (Girolamo da _Treviso_) Trevio, Bernardino da (Bernardino Zenale), IV, 138; VIII, 54 Treviso, Dario da, III, 280, 285 Treviso, Girolamo da (Girolamo Trevigi), _Life_, V, 169-171; V, 68, 169-171; VI, 211, 212, 244; X, 184 Trezzo, Jacopo da, VI, 86 Trezzo, Jacopo (Cosimo) da, VI, 86 Tribolo (Niccolò), _Life_, VII, 3-37; V, 6, 28, 136, 233; VI, 133; VII, 3-37, 43-45, 81, 112, 176, 189; VIII, 10, 36, 142; IX, 20, 51, 77, 78, 202, 223; X, 5, 30, 176, 177 Tullio _Lombardo_ Turbido, Francesco (Il Moro), _Life_, VI, 22-28; IV, 61; VI, 14, 15, 21, 22-28, 40, 50, 164 Turini, Giovanni, III, 239 Turrita, Fra Jacopo da, I, 49, 50, 56 Ubertini, Francesco (Francesco d' Albertino, or Il Bacchiacca), IV, 46; V, 222; VI, 60; VII, 29; VIII, 10, 11, 16, 18-20; X, 8 Ubertino, Baccio, IV, 46 Uccello, Paolo, _Life_, II, 131-140; II, 20, 110, 131-140, 159, 183, 184, 253; III, 257; IV, 185, 246; VIII, 63; IX, 133 Udine, Giovanni da (Giovanni Martini), V, 145-147 Udine, Giovanni da (Giovanni Nanni, or de' Ricamatori), _Life_, VIII, 73-85; IV, 237, 239; V, 77, 155, 175, 229, 238, 246; VI, 147, 148, 180, 194-196; VII, 118; VIII, 73-85, 171; IX, 42, 51; X, 176 Udine, Martino da (Pellegrino da San Daniele, or Martino di Battista), V, 145-150 Ugo da _Carpi_ Ugolino _Sanese_ (Ugolino da Siena) Unghero, Nanni, VII, 4; IX, 188 Urbano, Pietro, IX, 44, 107 Urbino, Bramante da, _Life_, IV, 137-148; I, 32; III, 155; IV, 137-148, 199-202, 216, 217, 223, 232, 237, 254; V, 26, 28, 29, 65, 68, 69; VI, 6, 124, 126, 136, 138; VII, 249; VIII, 5, 40, 53, 54, 75; IX, 27-29, 31, 65, 71, 188-190 Urbino, Fra Carnovale da (Fra _Bartolommeo_) Urbino, Giulio da, X, 17 Urbino, Raffaello da (Raffaello _Sanzio_) Urbino, Timoteo da (Timoteo della Vite), _Life_, V, 11-17; VII, 200 Ursino, Niccolò (Niccolò _Giolfino_) Vaga, VI, 191, 192 Vaga, Perino del (Perino Buonaccorsi, or de' Ceri), _Life_, VI, 189-225; II, 190; IV, 84, 237, 254; V, 7, 77-79, 153, 162; VI, 78, 109, 125, 129, 139, 148, 177, 189-225, 244, 257-259; VIII, 14, 15, 82, 197-199, 202, 215, 232; IX, 20, 61, 151, 234, 257, 259; X, 47 Valdambrina, Francesco di, II, 145, 146, 200 Valerio _Cioli_ Valerio _Vicentino_ (Valerio de' Belli) Valerio _Zuccati_ Valverde, VI, 116 Vanni _Cinuzzi_ Vannucci, Pietro (Pietro _Perugino_, or Pietro da Castel della Pieve) Vante (or _Attavante_) Varrone (of Florence), III, 7 Vasari, Bernardo, III, 55 Vasari, Giorgio, _Life_, X, 171-220 I, as art-collector, xvii, xviii, lix, 10, 58, 79, 92, 94, 111, 120, 126, 138, 157, 173, 174, 199, 208, 213, 223 as author, xiii-xix, xxi, xxiii, xxiv, xxxi, xxxiii-xxxvii, xlii, xliii, xlvii, xlix, l, lv-lix, 7, 9, 10, 13-16, 23-25, 29, 44, 47-49, 51, 57-59, 66, 75, 79, 80, 86, 87, 89, 91, 92, 94, 97, 99, 103, 105, 109, 112, 113, 124, 126, 127, 140, 141, 146, 150, 163, 164, 170, 181, 183, 191, 192, 198, 217, 222 as painter, xlii, 67, 86, 119, 120, 147, 208 as architect, 25, 31, 38, 39, 119, 120 II, as art-collector, 5, 20, 26, 39, 46, 51, 58, 64, 96, 104, 109, 110, 128, 135, 139, 162, 178, 179, 227, 253 as author, 3, 5, 10, 31, 55, 57, 71-73, 77-87, 94-96, 104, 113, 119, 125-127, 136, 138, 139, 147, 160-162, 165, 166, 172, 178, 184, 187, 188, 190, 202, 208, 228, 229, 234, 250, 252-254, 263, 264 as painter, 32, 39 as architect, 173, 233, 264, 265 III, as art-collector, 12, 48, 52, 54, 68, 88, 113, 124, 140, 149, 157, 164, 170, 189, 198, 209, 214, 221, 238, 242, 254, 263, 270, 284 as author, 5, 6, 14, 18, 19, 30, 33, 34, 36, 39, 48, 51-56, 59, 64, 74, 75, 91-93, 97, 110, 112, 113, 123, 136, 142-144, 149, 157, 163, 164, 174, 175, 178-180, 198, 199, 209, 215, 221, 225, 242, 249, 259, 262, 273, 280, 283 as painter, 56, 209 as architect, 55 IV, as art-collector, 6, 13, 46, 58, 67, 90, 91, 95, 113, 118, 132, 138, 143, 161, 170, 175, 187, 262 as author, 7, 9, 17, 19, 26, 28, 33, 36, 38, 39, 46, 48, 51, 52, 54-56, 61, 66, 67, 71, 74-77, 79, 82-85, 91, 98, 99, 111-114, 117, 118, 121, 126-132, 134, 137, 145, 151, 154, 155, 159, 162, 170, 176, 177, 185, 186, 204, 214, 219, 222, 223, 227, 229-231, 233, 236, 242, 244-248, 257, 260, 262, 269, 271, 274, 280, 281 as painter, 231, 262, 273, 274 as architect, 148, 231, 273, 274 V, as art-collector, 17, 22, 24, 38, 45, 49, 74, 77, 79, 104, 118, 126, 128, 165, 196, 197, 201, 209, 213, 219, 250-252, 256 as author, 3-5, 7, 11, 12, 17, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 35, 45, 63, 66, 69, 73, 91, 96, 98, 108, 112, 114, 120, 126, 128, 132, 134, 135, 139, 145, 146, 148, 155, 177, 182, 185, 192, 194, 199, 201, 210-213, 223, 230, 232, 238, 247, 250, 251, 253-255, 259, 260, 264 as painter, 36, 80, 119, 135, 163, 232, 233, 265 as architect, 233, 250, 251 VI, as art-collector, 3, 22, 54, 60, 120, 157, 175, 225, 230, 250, 256, 260, 263 as author, 3, 6, 10, 11, 13, 15, 22, 23, 27, 28, 32, 35, 39, 42, 46, 48, 53, 54, 57-59, 65, 75, 76, 79, 82, 84-87, 91, 93-95, 105-107, 112, 113, 120, 123, 133, 152, 153, 159, 161, 165-167, 175, 176, 178, 190, 194, 196, 202, 204, 207, 210-213, 215, 217, 221, 223, 229-231, 235, 239, 246, 248-250, 258, 261, 264, 269, 273 as painter, 22, 72, 120, 215, 221, 263, 264, 276 as architect, 70, 139, 278 VII, as art-collector, 11, 99, 253 as author, 3, 11, 12, 14, 16, 21, 24, 25, 28, 31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 41, 79, 95, 96, 99-101, 103, 109, 117-125, 127-132, 137-139, 141, 142, 147, 155, 157-160, 167, 168, 172, 173, 175, 178-180, 186, 190, 202, 209, 210, 217, 225, 226, 230, 231, 234-236, 239, 240, 253, 254, 257 as painter, 13, 31, 95, 118-132, 137-139, 141-143, 188, 189, 206, 229, 230, 235 as architect, 35, 37, 85, 91, 95, 101, 102, 119, 137, 193, 194, 206 VIII, as art-collector, 16, 29, 112, 128, 164, 165, 170, 181, 192, 211, 230, 231 as author, 3, 4, 8-10, 14-17, 19, 23, 24, 26, 29, 31, 34-37, 39-42, 45, 48-54, 59, 65-68, 77, 80, 81, 84, 90, 92, 94, 98, 101, 103, 105, 107, 108, 113, 119, 122-124, 127, 128, 133, 144, 145, 147, 150, 153-157, 161-167, 170, 171, 177, 180, 183-189, 193, 203, 206, 211, 216, 220, 226, 228-230, 233, 237, 238, 240, 245, 259, 260 as painter, 8, 14, 20, 23, 52, 68, 80, 91, 98, 162-164, 166, 167, 170, 180, 183, 185, 186, 189, 203, 206, 207, 210, 229, 233 as architect, 206, 207, 220 IX, as art-collector, 6, 16, 104, 149, 152, 156, 238, 251, 258, 259 as author, 4-8, 22, 27, 30, 32, 35, 46, 47, 55, 56, 60, 61, 63, 65, 68-88, 91, 93-97, 102-104, 107, 109-112, 114-118, 122-125, 128, 130, 134, 135, 137-140, 145, 147-151, 154-156, 160, 162, 169-172, 177, 178, 182, 183, 187, 192, 193, 199, 202, 206-208, 210, 212, 214, 215, 218, 221, 230, 232-234, 238, 239, 241, 242, 245, 247, 248, 250-253, 259-262, 265-272 as painter, 23, 32, 43, 95, 96, 107, 117, 118, 134, 138, 148, 151, 155, 156, 170, 203, 269-271 as architect, 68-73, 77-79, 95, 96, 107, 117, 140, 207 X, as art-collector, 13 as author, 3, 8, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19-24, 29, 30, 32-34, 37, 41-44, 47, 61, 62, 67, 69, 72, 76-78, 80, 82-84, 90, 92-94, 97-102, 104, 105, 113, 116, 119, 127-129, 147, 162-164, 166, 167, 171-223 as painter, 12, 14, 16-20, 27, 105, 171-221, 223 as architect, 10, 26-28, 31, 171, 174, 177, 178, 181, 184, 189-193, 202, 206-216, 218-221 Vasari, Giorgio (son of Lazzaro Vasari, the elder), III, 52, 54-56 Vasari, Lazzaro (the elder), _Life_, III, 51-56; IV, 71, 82 Vasari, Lazzaro (the younger), III, 55 Vecchietto, Lorenzo, _Life_, III, 129-131; II, 151; III, 129-131 Vecchio, Palma (Jacopo _Palma_) Vecchio of Bologna (Domenico _Aimo_) Vecelli, Orazio, VIII, 102; IX, 171 Vecelli, Tiziano (Tiziano da Cadore), _Life_, IX, 159-178; III, 179, 183; IV, 114; V, 66, 133, 134, 152, 153; VI, 109, 111, 114, 161, 183, 222; VII, 237; VIII, 29, 33, 51, 56, 92, 102; IX, 48, 145, 153, 159-179, 182, 183, 201, 202, 247, 252; X, 20, 187 Vellaert, Dierick Jacobsz, IX, 269 Vellano da _Padova_ Veltroni, Stefano, VII, 120, 123, 124, 129; VIII, 220; X, 20 Venezia, Domenico da (Domenico _Viniziano_) Ventura, IV, 147, 148 Venusti, Marcello (Marcello Mantovano), VI, 220, 225; IX, 106, 259, 260 Verbo (Verlo), Francesco, IX, 211 Vercelli, Bernardo da, V, 151 Verchio, Vincenzio, IV, 60 Verdezotti, Gian Maria, IX, 178 Verese, VI, 118 Verlo (_Verbo_), Francesco Verona, Battista da (Battista _Farinato_) Verona, Fra Giovanni da, IV, 222; VI, 38, 39, 51, 218 Verona, Paolo da, III, 243; IV, 179 Verona, Sebeto da, IV, 51, 55 Veronese, Giovanni Battista, VI, 13 Veronese, Paolo (Paolo _Caliari_) Veronese, Stefano (Stefano da Zevio), I, 221; IV, 51-54; VI, 35, 42 Verrocchio, Andrea, _Life_, III, 267-276; II, 190, 243, 248; III, 75, 223, 267-276; IV, 35, 39, 81, 90, 92, 112; V, 49, 50, 55; VII, 56; VIII, 111; X, 47 Verrocchio, Tommaso del, X, 20 Verzelli, Antonio da, II, 218 Vetraio, Giovan Francesco (Giovan Francesco _Bembo_) Vicentino, Joannicolo (Giuseppe Niccolò), VI, 108 Vicentino, Valerio (Valerio de' Belli), _Life_, VI, 82-84; V, 247; VI, 76, 79, 82-84; VIII, 52 Vicenza, Battista of (Battista _Pittoni_) Vicino, I, 50, 57, 58 Vico, Enea, _Life_, VI, 111-112; VIII, 180 Vignuola (Jacopo _Barozzi_) Vincenzio, Fra Giovanni, X, 33 Vincenzio _Bresciano_ (Vincenzio di Zoppa, or Foppa) Vincenzio _Caccianimici_ Vincenzio _Campo_ Vincenzio _Catena_ Vincenzio da _San Gimignano_ (Vincenzio Tamagni) Vincenzio _Danti_ Vincenzio de' _Rossi_ Vincenzio di _Stefano_ Vincenzio di Zoppa (Vincenzio Foppa, or _Bresciano_) Vincenzio Tamagni (Vincenzio da _San Gimignano_) Vincenzio _Verchio_ Vincenzio _Zuccati_ Vinci, Leonardo da, _Life_, IV, 89-105; I, xxxiv; II, 190; III, 270, 271, 273, 286; IV, 44, 82, 85, 89-105, 109, 127, 138, 151, 156, 196, 212, 215, 242, 270; V, 49, 50, 86, 228, 261; VII, 41-44, 57, 58, 60, 148, 152; VIII, 42, 56, 111, 112, 114, 115; IX, 15, 19, 234; X, 47 Vinci, Pierino (Piero) da, _Life_, VII, 41-51 Viniziano, Agostino (Agostino de' Musi), _Life_, VI, 102-103; V, 97; VI, 102-103, 106; VII, 60, 63 Viniziano, Antonio, _Life_, II, 15-20; II, 15-20, 37, 43, 83; III, 176; VIII, 233 Viniziano, Domenico (Domenico da Venezia), _Life_, III, 97-105; III, 19, 63, 97-105, 173; VI, 182 Viniziano, Fabrizio, IX, 215 Viniziano, Niccola, VI, 209 Virgilio _Romano_ Visino, IV, 170, 171; V, 223 Vite, Antonio, II, 45, 58 Vite, Timoteo della (Timoteo da _Urbino_) Viterbo, Pier Francesco da, VI, 130, 132; VII, 119, 202 Vitruvius, IV, 48, 75, 138, 205, 266; V, 68, 71; VI, 5, 45, 140; VII, 211; VIII, 40, 237; IX, 44, 113, 190, 213, 218 Vittore _Bellini_ (Belliniano) Vittore _Carpaccio_ (Scarpaccia) Vittore (or Antonio) _Pisanello_ Vittore Scarpaccia (_Carpaccio_) Vittoria, Alessandro, V, 247; VII, 228; VIII, 100; IX, 204-206, 223; X, 20 Vittorio _Ghiberti_ Vivarini, Bartolommeo, IV, 52, 59 Vivarino, Luigi, III, 178, 179; IV, 52 Viviano, Michelagnolo di, VII, 55-57, 60, 66, 73, 98, 99 Vivole, Raffaello delle, VII, 152 Volkaerts, Dirk, IX, 270 Volterra, Daniello da (Daniello _Ricciarelli_) Volterra, Francesco da, VIII, 41 Volterra, Piero da, V, 64 Volterra, Zaccaria da (Zaccaria Zacchi), V, 45, 132; IX, 189, 190 Vos, Marten de, IX, 268 Vrient, Franz de (Franz _Floris_) Weyden, Roger van der (Roger of Bruges), III, 61; IX, 265 Willem _Keur_ Willem _Key_ Willem _Paludanus_ Willem van _Antwerp_ Wouter _Crabeth_ Zaccaria da _Volterra_ (Zaccaria Zacchi) Zaganelli, Francesco de' (Francesco da _Cotignola_) Zanfragnino (Antonio _Scarpagni_, or Scarpagnino) Zanobi di _Poggino_ Zanobi _Lastricati_ Zanobi _Macchiavelli_ Zanobi _Poggini_ Zanobi _Strozzi_ Zenale, Bernardino (Bernardino da _Trevio_) Zeno, Maestro, IV, 60 Zeuxis, I, xxxix; II, 80; III, 209; IV, 82, 83; VI, 239; IX, 133; X, 200 Zevio, Aldigieri (Altichiero) da, IV, 51, 54, 55 Zevio, Stefano da (Stefano _Veronese_) Zoccolo, Niccolò (Niccolò _Cartoni_) Zoppa, Vincenzio di (Vincenzio Foppa, or _Bresciano_) Zoppo, VI, 81 Zoppo, Marco, III, 279, 280, 285 Zoppo, Rocco, IV, 46 Zuccati, Valerio, IX, 182, 183 Zuccati, Vincenzio, IX, 182, 183 Zucchero, Federigo, VIII, 101, 106, 218-221, 223-228, 230, 231, 233-236, 259; X, 20 Zucchero, Ottaviano, VIII, 215, 218, 219 Zucchero, Taddeo, _Life_, VIII, 215-236, 240-261; VIII, 182, 188, 215-236, 240-261 Zucchi, Jacopo, VIII, 233; IX, 134; X, 19 Zutmann, Lambert (Lambert _Suavius_, or Lamberto Suave) PRINTED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF CHAS. T. JACOBI OF THE CHISWICK PRESS, LONDON. THE COLOURED REPRODUCTIONS ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY HENRY STONE AND SON, LTD., BANBURY 
40604	----	produced from images available at the Internet Archive.) [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A LADY.--[JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY.]] ART IN AMERICA A CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL SKETCH BY S. G. W. BENJAMIN AUTHOR OF "CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE" "WHAT IS ART" &c. _ILLUSTRATED_ [Illustration] NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS FRANKLIN SQUARE 1880 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. ERRATUM. The cut on page 28, attributed to Rembrandt Peale, should be credited to John T. Peele. PREFACE. The aim of this book has been to give a historical outline of the growth of the arts in America. But while this has been the dominating idea in the mind of the writer, criticism has necessarily entered, more or less, into the preparation of the work, since only by weighing the differences or the comparative merits of those artists who seemed best to illustrate the various phases of American art has it been possible to trace its progress from one step to another. It is from no lack of appreciation of their talents that the author has apparently neglected mention of the American artists resident in foreign capitals--like Bridgman, Duveneck, Wight, Neal, Bacon, Benson, Ernest Parton, Millet, Whistler, Dana, Blashfield, Miss Gardner, Miss Conant, and many others who have done credit to American æsthetic culture. But it was necessary to draw the line somewhere; and to discuss what our artists are painting abroad would have at once enlarged the scope of the work beyond the limits of the plan adopted. An exception has been made in the case of our sculptors, because they have so uniformly lived and wrought in Europe, and so large a proportion of them are still resident there, that, were we to confine this branch of the subject only to the sculptors now actually in America, there would be little left to say about their department of our arts. The author takes this occasion cordially to thank the artists and amateurs who have kindly permitted copies of their paintings and drawings to be engraved for this volume. CONTENTS. PAGE I. EARLY AMERICAN ART 13 II. AMERICAN PAINTERS (1828-1878) 39 III. AMERICAN PAINTERS (1828-1878) 66 IV. AMERICAN PAINTERS (1828-1878) 97 V. SCULPTURE IN AMERICA 134 VI. PRESENT TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN ART 164 ILLUSTRATIONS. SUBJECT. ARTIST. PAGE. PORTRAIT OF A LADY _John Singleton Copley_ _Frontispiece_ FAMILY OF BISHOP BERKELEY _John Smybert_ 16 DEATH ON THE PALE HORSE _Benjamin West_ 19 DEATH OF MONTGOMERY _John Trumbull_ 23 GENERAL KNOX _Gilbert Stuart_ 25 "BEGGAR'S OPERA" _G. Stuart Newton_ 27 "BABES IN THE WOOD" _Rembrandt Peale_ 28 FANNY KEMBLE _Thomas Sully_ 29 ARIADNE _John Vanderlyn_ 30 THE HOURS _E. G. Malbone_ 32 JEREMIAH _Washington Allston_ 34 DYING HERCULES _Samuel F. B. Morse_ 35 "MUMBLE THE PEG" _Henry Inman_ 40 PORTRAIT OF PARKE GODWIN _Thomas Le Clear_ 43 PORTRAIT OF FLETCHER HARPER _C. L. Elliott_ 45 AN IDEAL HEAD _G. A. Baker_ 48 THE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS _Henry Peters Grey_ 50 MIRANDA _Daniel Huntington_ 53 A SURPRISE _William Sidney Mount_ 55 TAKING THE VEIL _Robert Weir_ 57 DESOLATION. FROM "THE COURSE OF EMPIRE"_Thomas Cole_ 59 A STUDY FROM NATURE _A. B. Durand_ 61 NOON BY THE SEA-SHORE.--BEVERLY BEACH _J. F. Kensett_ 63 ALTORF, BIRTH-PLACE OF WILLIAM TELL _George L. Brown_ 64 BROOK IN THE WOODS _Worthington Whittredge_ 67 LANDSCAPE COMPOSITION _R. W. Hubbard_ 70 "THE VASTY DEEP" _William T. Richards_ 72 HIGH TORN, ROCKLAND LAKE _Jasper F. Cropsey_ 74 THE PARSONAGE _A. F. Bellows_ 75 LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE _James Hart_ 77 SUNSET ON THE HUDSON _Sandford R. Gifford_ 80 A COMPOSITION _Frederick E. Church_ 82 A WINTER SCENE _Louis R. Mignot_ 84 SHIP OF "THE ANCIENT MARINER" _James Hamilton_ 85 "WHOO!" _William H. Beard_ 87 LAFAYETTE IN PRISON _E. Leutze_ 89 PORTRAIT OF A LADY _William Page_ 91 THE REFUGE _Elihu Vedder_ 93 CARTOON SKETCH: CHRIST AND NICODEMUS _John Lafarge_ 95 VIEW ON THE KERN RIVER _A. Bierstadt_ 99 THE YOSEMITE _Thomas Hill_ 100 THE BATHERS _Thomas Moran_ 101 LANDSCAPE _Jervis M'Entee_ 104 COUNTY KERRY _A. H. Wyant_ 105 THE ADIRONDACKS _Homer Martin_ 107 A LANDSCAPE _J. W. Casilear_ 109 SHIP ASHORE _M. F. H. De Haas_ 111 A FOGGY MORNING _W. E. Norton_ 112 A MARINE _Arthur Quartley_ 114 ARGUING THE QUESTION _T. W. Wood_ 116 THE ROSE _B. F. Mayer_ 118 DRESS PARADE _J. G. Brown_ 120 A BED-TIME STORY _S. J. Guy_ 121 THE MOTHER _Eastman Johnson_ 123 SAIL-BOAT _Winslow Homer_ 124 THE SCOUT _Wordsworth Thompson_ 126 ON THE OLD SOD _William Magrath_ 127 "A MATIN SONG" _Fidelia Bridges_ 129 STUDY OF A DOG _Frank Rogers_ 130 LOST IN THE SNOW _A. F. Tait_ 132 EVE BEFORE THE FALL _Hiram Powers_ 135 ORPHEUS _Thomas Crawford_ 137 COLUMBUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL. } FROM THE BRONZE DOOR } _Randolph Rogers_ 139 OF THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON } THE GHOST IN "HAMLET" _Thomas R. Gould_ 141 GEORGE WASHINGTON _J. Q. A. Ward_ 143 MEDEA _William Wetmore Story_ 146 THE PROMISED LAND _Franklin Simmons_ 147 LATONA AND HER INFANTS _W. H. Rinehart_ 150 ZENOBIA _Harriet Hosmer_ 152 EVENING _E. D. Palmer_ 153 BUST OF WILLIAM PAGE _William R. O'Donovan_ 155 ABRAHAM PIERSON _Launt Thompson_ 157 THE CHARITY PATIENT _John Rogers_ 158 THE WHIRLWIND _J. S. Hartley_ 159 ADORATION OF THE CROSS BY} ANGELS. ST. THOMAS'S } _Augustus St. Gaudens_ 160 CHURCH, NEW YORK } THOMAS JEFFERSON'S IDEA OF A MONUMENT 162 THE MOWING _Alfred Fredericks_ 165 BIRDS IN THE FOREST _Miss Jessie Curtis_ 169 REPRESENTING THE MANNER OF PETER'S COURTSHIP _Howard Pyle_ 171 SOME ART CONNOISSEURS _W. Hamilton Gibson_ 173 WASHINGTON OPENING THE BALL _C. S. Reinhart_ 175 MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON 178 THE ASTONISHED ABBÉ _E. A. Abbey_ 181 A CHILD'S PORTRAIT _B. C. Porter_ 184 A BIT OF VENICE _Samuel Colman_ 185 THE OLD ORCHARD _R. Swain Gifford_ 187 A LANDSCAPE _George Inness_ 188 LA MARGUERETTE--THE DAISY _William M. Hunt_ 189 MOONLIGHT _John J. Enneking_ 191 HAVING A GOOD TIME _Louis C. Tiffany_ 192 SOUTHAMPTON, LONG ISLAND _C. H. Miller_ 193 A STUDY _Frederick Dielman_ 195 THE BURGOMASTER _H. Muhrman_ 197 BURIAL OF THE DEAD BIRD _J. Alden Wier_ 200 THE APPRENTICE _William M. Chase_ 201 THE PROFESSOR _Thomas Eakins_ 204 THE GOOSE-HERD _Walter Shirlaw_ 205 A SPANISH LADY _Mary S. Cassatt_ 208 STUDY OF A BOY'S HEAD _W. Sartain_ 209 ART IN AMERICA. I. _EARLY AMERICAN ART._ The art of a nation is the result of centuries of growth; its crowning excellence does not come except when maturity and repose offer the occasion for its development. But while, therefore, it is yet too soon to look for a great school of art in America, the time has perhaps arrived to note some of the preliminary phases of the art which, we have reason to hope, is to dawn upon the country before long. As the heirs of all the ages, we had a right to expect that our intellectual activity would demand art expression; while the first efforts would naturally be imitative rather than original. The individuality which finds vent in the utterance of truth under new conditions is not fully reached until youth gives place to the vigorous self-assertion of a manhood conscious of its resources and power. Such we find to have been the case in the rise of the fine arts in this country, which up to this time have been rather an echo of the art of the lands from which our ancestors came, than distinctively original. Our art has been the result of affectionate remembrance of foreign achievement more than of independent observation of nature; and while the number of artists has been sufficiently large, very few of them stand forth as representatives or types of novel methods and ideas; and those few, coming before their time, have met with little response in the community, and their influence has been generally local and moderate, leading to the founding of nothing like a school except in one or two isolated cases. But many of them, especially in the first period of our art, have shared the strong, active character of their time; and, like the heroes of the Revolution, presented sturdy traits of character. And thus, while the society in which they moved was not sufficiently advanced to appreciate the quality of their art, they were yet able to stamp their names indelibly upon the pages of our history. But within the last few years the popular interest in art has grown so rapidly in the country--as indicated by the establishment of numerous art schools and academies, art galleries, and publications treating exclusively of art subjects, together with many other significant proofs of concern in the subject--that it seems safe to assume that the first preparatory period of American art, so brilliant in many respects, is about closing, and that we are now on the threshold of another, although it is only scarcely three centuries since the first English colonists landed on our shores. The first professional artist of whom there seems to be any record in our colonial history was possessor of a title that does not often fall to the lot of the artist: he was a deacon. This fact indicates that Deacon Shem Drowne, of Boston town, was not only a cunning artificer in metals and wood-carving, as the old chronicles speak of him, but also a man addicted to none of the small vices that are traditionally connected with the artistic career; for people were very proper in that vicinage in those days of austere virtue and primness, and deacons were esteemed the very salt of the earth. During the first century of our colonial existence local painters, often scarcely deserving the name, are also known to have gained a precarious livelihood by taking meagre portraits of the worthies of the period, in black and white or in color. We should know this to have been the fact by the portraits--quaint, and often rude and awkward--which have come down to us, without anything about them to indicate who the artists could have been who painted them. Occasionally a suggestion of talent is evident in those canvases from which the stiff ruffles and bands of the Puritans stare forth at us. Cotton Mather also alludes to a certain artist whom he speaks of as a limner. But in those times there was, however, at best no art in this country, except what was brought over occasionally in the form of family portraits, painted by Vandyck, Rembrandt, Lely, or Kneller. These precious heirlooms, scarcely appreciated by the stern theologians of the time, were, however, not without value in advancing the cause of civilization among the wilds of the Western world. Unconsciously the minds of coming generations were influenced and moulded by these reminders of the great art of other lands and ages. No human effort is wasted; somewhere, at some time, it appears, as the seed sown in October comes forth anew in April, quickened into other forms, to sustain life under fresh conditions. The first painter in America of any decided ability whose name has survived to this day was John Watson, who executed portraits in Philadelphia in 1715. He was a Scotchman. It is to another Scotchman, who married and identified himself with the rising fortunes of the colonies, that we are perhaps able to assign the first distinct and decided art impulse in this country. And for this we are directly indebted to Bishop Berkeley, whose sagacious eye penetrated so far through the mists of futurity, and realized the coming greatness of the land. [Illustration: FAMILY OF BISHOP BERKELEY.--[JOHN SMYBERT.]] Berkeley is associated with the literature and arts of America in several ways. He aided the advance of letters by a grant of books to Yale College, and by founding the nucleus of what later became the Redwood Library at Newport; thus indirectly suggesting architectural beauty to a people without examples of it, for in 1750 a building was erected for the library that sprang from his benefactions. The design was obtained from Vanbrugh, one of the greatest architects of modern times; and although the little library is constructed only of wood and mortar, its plan is so pleasing, tasteful, and harmonious, that it long remained the most graceful structure in the colonies; and even at this day is scarcely equalled on the continent as a work of art by many far more costly and ambitious constructions after the Renaissance order. And, finally, we owe to Bishop Berkeley the most notable impulse which the dawning arts received in this country when he induced John Smybert, the Scotchman, to leave London in 1725 and settle in Boston, where he had the good fortune to marry a rich widow, and lived prosperous and contented until his death, in 1751. Smybert was not a great painter. If he had remained in Europe his position never would have been more than respectable, even at an age when the arts were at a low ebb. But he is entitled to our gratitude for perpetuating for us the lineaments of many worthies of the period, and for the undoubted impetus his example gave to the artists who were about to come on the scene and assert the right of the New World to exercise its energies in the encouragement of the fine arts. It is by an apparently unimportant incident that the influence of Smybert to our early art is most vividly illustrated. He brought with him to America an excellent copy of a Vandyck, executed by himself; and several of our artists, including Allston, acknowledged that a sight of this copy affected them like an inspiration. The most important work of Smybert in this country is a group representing the family of Bishop Berkeley, now in the art gallery at New Haven. A flock of foreign portrait-painters, following the example of Smybert, now came over to this country, and rendered good service in perpetuating the faces of the notable characters and beauties of the time; but none of them were of special moment, excepting, perhaps, Blackburn and Alexander. But their labor bore fruit in preparing the way for the successes of Copley. The first native American painter of merit of whom there is any authentic record was Robert Feke, who was of Quaker descent, and settled in Newport, where portraits of his are still to be seen, notably that of the beautiful wife of Governor Wanton, which is preserved in the Redwood Library. What little art-education he received resulted from his being taken prisoner at sea and carried to Spain, where he contrived to acquire a few hints in the use of pigments. Feke was a man of undoubted ability; and the same may be said of Matthew Pratt, of Philadelphia, who was born in 1734, in respect of age antedating both Copley and West, although not known until after they had acquired fame, because for many years he contented himself with the painting of signs and house decorations. But the latent æsthetic capacity of the colonies displayed itself suddenly when John Singleton Copley, at the early age of seventeen, after only the most rudimentary instruction, adopted art as a profession. But, although a professional and successful artist at so early an age, Copley seems to have been preceded in assuming the calling of artist by a Quaker lad of Pennsylvania, one year his junior, but evincing a turn for art at an earlier age, when hardly out of the cradle. The birth of a national art has scarcely ever been more affecting or remarkable than that recorded in the first efforts of Benjamin West. He was born at Springfield, Pennsylvania, in 1738, a year after Copley. The scientist of the future may perhaps show us that it was something more than a coincidence that the six leading painters of the first period of American art came in pairs: Copley and West in 1737 and 1738; Stuart and Trumbull were born in 1756; Vanderlyn arrived in 1776; and Allston followed only three years later. The descendants of the iconoclasts who had beaten down statues and burned masterpieces of art, who had cropped their hair and passed sumptuary laws to fulfil the dictates of their creed, and had sought a wilderness across the seas where they could maintain their rigid doctrines unmolested, were now about to vindicate the character of their fathers. They were now to prove that the love of beauty is universal and unquenchable, and that sooner or later every people, kindred, and tongue seeks to utter its aspirations after the ideal good by art forms and methods; and that the sternness of the Puritans had been really directed, not so much against art and beauty legitimately employed, as against the abuse of the purest and noblest emotions of the soul by a debasing art. As if to emphasize the truth of these observations, as well as of the famous prophecy of Bishop Berkeley, the artist to whom American art owes its rise, and for many years its greatest source of encouragement, was named West, and was of Quaker lineage. Such was the rude condition of the arts in the neighborhood at that time that the first initiation of West into art was as simple as that of Giotto. At nine years of age he drew hairs from a cat's tail and made himself a brush. Colors he obtained by grinding charcoal and chalk, and crushing the red blood out from the blackberry. His mother's laundry furnished him with indigo, and the friendly Indians who came to his father's house gave him of the red and yellow earths with which they daubed their faces. With such rude materials the lad painted a child sleeping in its cradle; and in that first effort of precocious genius executed certain touches which he never surpassed, as he affirmed long after, when at the zenith of his remarkable career. How, from such primitive efforts, the Quaker youth gradually worked into local fame, went to Italy and acquired position there, and then settled in England, became the favorite _protégé_ of the king for forty years, and the President of the National Academy of Great Britain--these are all matters of history, and, as West never forgot his love for his native land, entitle him to the respectful remembrance not only of artists, but of all his countrymen. American art has every reason, also, to cherish his memory with profound gratitude, for no painter ever conducted himself with greater kindness and generosity to the rising, struggling artists of his native land. No sooner did our early painters reach London but they resorted, for aid and guidance, to West, and found in him a friend who lent them his powerful influence without grudging, or allowed them to set up their easels in his studio, and gave them all the instruction in his power. Trumbull, Stuart, Dunlap, and many others, long after they had forgotten the natural foibles of West, had reason to remember how great had been the services he had rendered to the aspiring artists of his transatlantic home. Since the death of West--whom we must consider one of the greatest men our country has produced--it has become the fashion to decry his art and belittle his character. This seems to be a mistake which reflects discredit upon his detractors. Men should be judged not absolutely, but relatively; not compared with perfection, but with their contemporaries and their opportunities. In estimating men of the past, also, we need to put ourselves in their places, rather than to regard them by the standard of the age in which we live. In no pursuit are men more likely to be misjudged than in art; for artists are liable to be guided by impulse rather than judgment, and the very vehemence of their likes and dislikes renders their opinions intense rather than broad and charitable. Benjamin West appears to have been born with great natural powers, which matured rapidly, and early ceased to develop in excellence proportionate to his extraordinary industry and fidelity to art. [Illustration: "DEATH ON THE PALE HORSE."--[BENJAMIN WEST.]] But while a general evenness of quality rather than striking excellence in any particular works was the characteristic of the art of West, together with a certain brick-red tone in his colors not always agreeable, yet a share of genius must be granted to the artist who painted the "Departure of Regulus," "Death on the Pale Horse," and "The Death of Wolfe." It unquestionably implied daring and consciousness of power to brave the opposition of contemporary opinions and abandon classic costume in historical compositions as he did; to win to his side the judgment of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and create a revolution in certain phases of art. Notwithstanding this, however, West was emphatically a man of his time, moulded by it rather than forming it, and inclined to conventionalism. When he entered the arena, art was in a depressed condition both in Italy, where he studied, and in England. But while Reynolds and Gainsborough gave a fresh impulse to art, West's genius, ripening precociously, early became incapable of achieving further progress. West established himself as a portrait-painter at the age of fifteen; and in the following year--1755--Copley also engaged in the same pursuit, when only seventeen. The former lived to be seventy-nine; the latter was seventy-eight at his death. The art-life of Copley must be considered the most indigenous and strictly American of the two. Although receiving some early instruction from his step-father, Pelham, and enjoying opportunities denied to West, of studying portraits by foreign artists, yet Copley's advantages were excessively meagre; and whatever successes he achieved with his brush, until he finally settled in England at the age of thirty-nine, were entirely his own, and can be proudly included among the most valued treasures of our native art. So highly were the abilities of Copley esteemed in his day, that years before he crossed the Atlantic his reputation had preceded him, and assured him ready patronage in London. It is said that Copley was a very slow and laborious worker. The elaboration he gave to the details of costume doubtless required time. But if the popular opinion was correct, we must assume that many of the paintings now reputed to be by his hand are spurious. It is a common saying that a Copley in a New England family is almost equivalent to a title of nobility; and this very fact would lead many to attribute to him family portraits by forgotten artists, who had, perhaps, caught the trick of his style. But there yet remain enough well authenticated portraits by this great painter, in excellent preservation, to render the study of his works one of great interest to the art student. There is no mistaking the handling of Copley. Self-taught, his merits and defects are entirely his own. His style was open to the charge of excessive dryness; the outlines are sometimes hard, and the figures stiff almost to ungracefulness. The last fault was, however, less noticeable in the formal, stately characters and costumes of the time than it would be under different conditions. In Copley's best compositions these errors are scarcely perceptible. He was far superior to West as a colorist, and was especially felicitous in catching the expression of the eye, and reproducing the elegant dress of the period; while we have had no artist who has excelled him in perceiving and interpreting the individuality and character of the hand. A very fine example of his skill in this respect is seen in the admirable portrait of Mrs. Relief Gill, taken when she was eighty years old. Gilbert Stuart remarked of the hand in the portrait of Colonel Epes Sargent, "Prick that hand, and blood will spurt out." It is indeed a masterpiece. No painter was ever more in sympathy with his age than Copley; and thus, when we look at the admirable portraits in which his genius commemorated the commanding characters of those colonial days, in their brilliant and massive uniforms, their brocades and embroidered velvets, and choice laces and scarfs, the imagination is carried back to the past with irresistible force, while, at the same time, we are astonished at the ability which, with so little training, could give immortality both to his contemporaries and his own pencil. While the fame of Copley will ultimately rest on the masterly portraits which he bequeathed to posterity, yet it will not be forgotten that he was one of the ablest historical painters of his time. The compositions entitled the "Boy and the Squirrel," painted in Boston, the "Death of Major Pierson," and the "Death of Chatham," will contribute for ages to the fame of one of the most important American artists of the last century. Charles Wilson Peale, the next artist of reputation in the colonies, owes his celebrity partly to accidental circumstances. Of course a certain degree of ability is implied in order that one may know how to turn the winds of fortune to the best account when they veer in his favor. But in some cases, as with Copley and West, man seems to wrest fate to his advantage; while in others she appears actually to throw herself in his way, and offer him opportunities denied to others. At any rate it seems no injustice to ascribe the continued fame of Charles Wilson Peale to the fact that he was enabled to associate his art with the name of Washington: and that his son, Rembrandt, by also following art pursuits, was able to emphasize the fame of the family name. Peale the elder was not a specialist; he was rather, like so many born in America, gifted with a general versatility that enabled him to succeed moderately well in whatever he undertook, without achieving the highest excellence in any department. Inclining alternately to science and mechanics, he finally drifted into art, went over to England and studied with West, and returned to America in time to enter the army and rise to the rank of colonel. His versatile turn of mind is well illustrated by one who says that "he sawed his own ivory for his miniatures, moulded the glasses, and made the shagreen cases." It was the good fortune of Peale to paint several excellent portraits of Washington, representing him during the military part of his career, both before and during the Revolution. Lacking many of the qualities of good art, these portraits are yet faithful and characteristic likenesses of the Father of his Country, and as such are of great interest and value. It is to another Revolutionary soldier of superior natural ability, Colonel John Trumbull, that the country is indebted for a proof of the national turn for the fine arts. The son of Jonathan Trumbull, Colonial Governor of Connecticut, he received a classical education at Harvard University. But here, again, observe the far-reaching influence of one act. That copy, already alluded to, which was executed by Smybert after a work of Vandyck--the great painter who was welcomed to the banqueting halls of merry England by Charles I. and Henrietta Maria--was again to bear fruit. It inspired the genius of Trumbull with a passion for color while yet in his youth, and ultimately led to his becoming a great historical painter. But first he had to undergo the discipline of war, which gave him that experimental knowledge of which he afterward made such good use. Of a high spirit and proud, irascible temper, Trumbull served with distinction; first as aid to Washington, then as major at the storming of the works of Burgoyne at Saratoga; and he had reached a colonelcy, when he threw up his commission and went over to England, and became a student of West, whose style is perceptible in many of the works of the younger artist. If inequality is one sign of genius, then Trumbull possessed it to a marked degree. The difference in merit between his best paintings, which were chiefly composed in England, and those he executed in this country, in the later years of his life, is remarkable. This probably was due in part to the lack of any appreciable art influences or patronage in his own country to stimulate the artistic afflatus. The talents of Trumbull were conspicuous in portraiture and historical painting. The energy of his nature is illustrated in such powerful portraits as those of Washington and Hamilton. Deficient in drawing, and unlike in details of feature, they are life-like in their general resemblance, and seem to thrill with the spirit of the original. We see before us the heroes who conducted the struggling colonies successfully to military independence and political freedom. Trumbull's miniatures in oil of many of the men who were prominent in the Revolution are also very spirited and characteristic, and of inestimable historic value. He was less successful in the representation of feminine beauty. His talents moved within a limited range, but within that narrow circle displayed certain excellences quite rare in the Anglo-Saxon art of that period, exhibiting a correct feeling for color, keen perception of character, and great force of expression. But let him stray beyond the compass of his powers, as in the representation of woman, and his coloring becomes unnatural and his drawing inexpressive. The art of this great painter, for so we must call him in view of some of his works, culminated in the historical compositions entitled "The Signing of the Declaration of Independence," "The Siege of Gibraltar," and the immortal compositions representing the "Death of Montgomery" and the "Battle of Bunker Hill." The last two were not surpassed by any similar works in the last century, and thus far stand alone in American historical painting. [Illustration: DEATH OF MONTGOMERY.--[JOHN TRUMBULL.]] Cabinet in size, they combine breadth and detail to an unusual degree. The faces are in miniature, in many cases portraits from life. They could be cut out and framed as portraits; each also is stamped with the individual passions of that terrible hour--hate, exultation, pain, courage, sorrow, despair. And yet with all this truth of detail the general spirit and effort of the scene is preserved. The onward movement, the rush, the onset of war, the harmony of lines, the massing of _chiaro-oscuro_, the brilliance and truth of color, are all there. One first gazes astonished at the skill of the artist, and ends by feeling his heart stirred and his emotions shaken as the leaves of the forest are blown by the winds of October, and his sympathies carried away by the grandeur and the terror of battle. Yes, when John Trumbull painted those two pictures, he was inspired by the fires of genius for once in his life. His later historical works are so inferior in all respects as scarcely to seem to be by the same hand. Trumbull lived to see a taste for the arts growing up among his fellow-countrymen, and the awakening of the first feeble attempts to furnish art instruction in his native land to the artists of the future. He was President of the Academy of Fine Arts, of which he was one of the founders. In the same year with Trumbull was born the greatest colorist and portrait-painter we have seen on this side of the Atlantic, Gilbert Stuart. The town of Narragansett, in the little State of Rhode Island, was the birth-place of this painter, who came of Scotch and Welsh descent, an alliance of blood whose individual traits were well illustrated in the life and character of the painter. Fortune was becoming a little kinder to our artists. Stuart's dawning genius was directed at Newport by Cosmo Alexander, a Scotch portrait-painter of some merit, who took his pupil to Scotland and placed him in charge of Sir George Chambers. After various vicissitudes, comprising, as with so many of our early painters, an art apprenticeship in the studio of West, the young American artist settled for awhile abroad, and acquired such repute that he rivalled Sir Joshua Reynolds in the popular esteem: his brush was in demand by the first in the land; and the unfortunate Louis XVI. was included among his sitters. After this, in 1793, Stuart returned to America, painted the portraits of the leading citizens in our chief cities, and finally settled in Boston. The most important works he executed in this country were his well-known portraits of Washington, including the famous full-length painting, which represents the great man, not in the prime of his active days, as represented by Peale and Trumbull, but when, crowned with glory and honor in the majesty of a serene old age, he was approaching the sunset of life. The character of Stuart was one of marked peculiarities, and offers points of interest scarcely equalled by that of any other American artist. The canny shrewdness and penetrating perception of the Scotchman was mellowed almost to the point of inconsistency by the warm and supple traits of his Welsh ancestry. An admirable story-teller himself, he in turn gave rise, by his oddities, to many racy anecdotes, some of which have been treasured up and well told by Dunlap, who, although inferior as a painter, deserves to be cordially remembered for his discursive but valuable book on early American painting. [Illustration: GENERAL KNOX.--[GILBERT STUART.]] As regards the art of Stuart, it can be safely affirmed that America has produced no painter who has been more unmistakably entitled to rank among men of genius as distinguished from those of talent. We assume that the difference between the two is not one of degree, but of kind. In the intellectual progress of the world the first leads, the other follows. One may have great talents, and yet really not enrich the world with a single new idea. He simply assents to the accepted, and lends it the aid of his powers. But genius, not content with things as they are, either gives us new truths or old truths in a new form. The greatest minds--Cæsar, Shakspeare, Goethe, Franklin--present us with a just combination of genius and talent: they both create and organize. Now, one may have great or little genius, but so far as he tells us something worth knowing in his own way, it is genius as distinguished from talent. And this is why we say that Stuart had genius. He followed no beaten track, he gave in his allegiance to no canons of the schools. His eagle eye pierced the secrets of nature according to no prescribed rules. Not satisfied with surfaces or accessories, he gave us character as well. Nor did he rest here. In the technical requirements of his art he stands original and alone. That seemingly hard, practical Scotch nature of his was yet attuned like a delicate chord to the melody of color. Few more than he have felt the subtle relation between sound and color--for he was also a musician. In the handling of pigments, again, he stands pre-eminent among the artists of his generation. Why is it that his colors are as brilliant, as pure, as forcible, as harmonious, to-day as when he laid them on the canvas nearly a century ago? If you carefully examine his pictures you shall see one cause of the result explained. He had such confidence in his powers, and such technical mastery, that he needed not to experiment with treacherous vehicles; and, rarely mixing tints on the palette, laid pure blues, reds, or yellows directly on the canvas, and slightly dragged them together. Thus he was able to render the stippled, mottled semblance of color as it actually appears on the skin; to suggest, also, the prismatic effect which all objects have in nature; and, at the same time, by keeping the colors apart, to insure their permanence. Stuart generally painted thinly, on large-grained canvas, which gave the picture the softness of atmosphere. But sometimes, as in the case of the powerful portrait of General Knox, he loaded his colors. But even in that work he did not depart from his usual practice in rendering the flesh tints. It has been alleged by some that Stuart was unable to do justice to the delicate beauty of woman, especially the refined type which is characteristic of the United States. He may have more often failed in this regard than in other efforts; but the force of the accusation disappears when one observes the extraordinary loveliness of such portraits as that of Mrs. Forrester, the sister of Judge Story, at Salem. But, indeed, it seemed to make little difference to him who the sitter happened to be. He entered into the nature of the individual, grasped the salient traits of his character, and, whether it was a seaman or a statesman, a triumphant general or a reigning belle, his unerring eye and his matchless brush rendered justice to them all. Gilbert Stuart Newton, the nephew of Stuart, is a painter well known in England, where he early established himself; and, having been born at Halifax, and always remained a British subject, he more properly belongs to foreign art. But his education was gained in the studio of his uncle in Boston, and his style shows unmistakable traces of the teacher's methods. Newton executed some good portraits before abandoning his native land, including one of John Adams, which is in the Massachusetts Historical Society. He is known abroad chiefly as a _genre_ painter of semi-literary compositions. [Illustration: "BEGGAR'S OPERA.--[G. STUART NEWTON.]] James Frothingham was also a pupil, and in some degree an imitator, of Stuart, who possessed unusual ability in portraiture, but it was confined to the painting of the head. Whether from the lack of early advantages--which was so remarkable that he had not even seen a palette when, self-taught, he was able to execute a very tolerable likeness--or because of natural limitation of power, Frothingham's talent seemed to stop with the neck of the sitter. The face would perhaps be reproduced with a force, a beauty of color, and a truth of character that oftentimes suggested the art of Stuart; while the hands or shoulders were almost ludicrously out of drawing and proportion. [Illustration: "BABES IN THE WOOD."--[REMBRANDT PEALE.]] Besides Frothingham, there were a number of American painters of celebrity, contemporaries of Stuart, but of unequal merit. Colonel Sargent acquired a repute in his time which it is difficult to understand at present. He seems to have been more of an amateur than a professional artist. His ablest work is the "Landing of the Pilgrims," of which a copy is preserved at Plymouth. Rembrandt Peale obtained a permanent reputation for his very able and truthful portrait of Washington. He bestowed upon it the best efforts of his mature years, and it received the compliment of being purchased by Congress for $2000--a large sum for an American painting in those days, when the purchasing power of money was greater than it is now. His "Court of Death" is a vast composition, that must candidly be considered more ambitious than successful. In such works as the "Babes in the Wood," Peale seems to foreshadow the _genre_ art which has been so long coming to us. John Wesley Jarvis, a native of England, also enjoyed at one time much popularity as a portrait-painter. He was possessed of great versatility; was eccentric; a _bon vivant_, and excelled at telling a story. It is melancholy to record that, after many vicissitudes, he ended his days in poverty. Thomas Sully was also a native of England, who came to this country in childhood, and lived to such a great age that it is difficult to realize that he was the contemporary of Trumbull and Stuart. Sully had great refinement of feeling, and reminds us sometimes of Sir Thomas Lawrence. This is shown in a certain favorite ideal head of a maiden which he reproduced in various compositions. One often recognizes it in his works. His portraits are also pleasing; but in the treatment of a masculine likeness the feebleness of his style and its lack of originality or strength are too often apparent. John Naegle, of Philadelphia, was a pupil of Sully, but first began his art career as apprentice to a coach-painter. Like many of our artists of that time, he tried his hand at a portrait of Washington; but he will be longest and best remembered by his vivid and characteristic painting of Patrick Lyon, the blacksmith, at his forge. This picture now hangs in the elegant gallery of the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, where several of the masterpieces of our early painters may be seen hanging in company with it, among them West's "Christ Rejected," Vanderlyn's "Ariadne," and Allston's "Dead Man Restored to Life." [Illustration: FANNY KEMBLE.--[THOMAS SULLY.]] Born the year of the Declaration of Independence, John Vanderlyn, like most of the leading artists of this period of whom we are writing, lived to old age. His days were filled with hardships and vicissitudes: and, unless he has since become aware of the fame he left behind, he was one of many to whom life has been a very questionable boon. [Illustration: ARIADNE.--[JOHN VANDERLYN.]] Vanderlyn was a farmer's boy on the Hudson River. It was one of those curious incidents by which Destiny sometimes makes us think there may be, after all, something more than blind action in her ways, that Aaron Burr, passing by his father's house, saw some rude sketches of the rustic lad with that keen eye of his. Burr discerned in them signs of promise, and invited him to come to New York. When Vanderlyn arrived Burr treated him kindly. Eventually the painter made a portrait of Theodosia, the beautiful and ill-fated daughter of his benefactor; and when Burr was under a cloud and found himself destitute in Europe, it was Vanderlyn who received and gave him shelter. Much of the art-life of this painter was passed at Rome and in Paris. His varied fortunes, and the constant adversity that baffled him at every step, obliged him to resort to many a pitiful shift to keep soul and body together. It is owing to this cause that he so rarely found opportunity to do justice to the undoubted ability he possessed. But Vanderlyn left at least two important creations, marked by genuine artistic feeling and beauty, that will long entitle him to a favorable position among American painters. "Marius Among the Ruins of Carthage" I have never seen, and can only speak of it by report; but that it is a work deserving to rank high in the art of the time seems to be proven not only by the applause it received at Rome, but also by the fact that it carried off the gold medal at the Salon in Paris. Such is the irony of fate that the artist was twice forced to pawn this medal. The second time he was unable to redeem it. The "Ariadne" has unfortunately begun to show signs of age, and the browns into which the flesh tints are painted are commencing to discolor the delicate grays. An oil-painting, if properly executed, should hold its qualities for a longer time; but unhappily the works of too many good artists are affected in the same way. The "Ariadne" is, however, a noble composition, quite in classic style; and if not strikingly original, is a most creditable work for the early art of a young people. Newport, Rhode Island's charming little city by the sea, once a thriving commercial centre, but now a favorite resort of culture and gayety and wealth, but always opulent in delightful Colonial and Revolutionary associations, and doubly attractive for the artistic memories that cling to it, and the treasures of our art which it contains--this was the birth-place of Edward G. Malbone, who, after a successful art-life in his native town and at Charleston, died at Newport, in 1807, at the early age of thirty-two. Miniature-painting was a favorite pursuit of our early artists. Some of our best portraits have been done by that means; but among all who have followed it in the United States none have excelled Malbone, although some, like John Fraser, of South Carolina, have been very clever at it. He succeeded in giving character to his faces to a degree unusual in miniature; while the coloring was rendered at once with remarkable delicacy, purity, and fidelity. His best works are probably the likeness of Ray Green, and the exquisitely beautiful group called the "Hours," which is carefully preserved in the Athenæum at Providence. With the general public the name of no American artist of that time is probably more widely known than that of Washington Allston. He owes this in part, doubtless, to the fact that as a writer he also became identified with the literary circle at that time prominent in Eastern Massachusetts. He was born in 1779, at Waccamaw, South Carolina. Sent at seven years of age to Newport, both for health and instruction, he lived there ten years; and very likely associated with Malbone, and perhaps met Stuart there. [Illustration: "THE HOURS."--[E. G. MALBONE.] ORIGINAL SIZE.] Subsequently Allston visited Italy, and then settled in London, where his talents received such ample recognition as to gain him the position of Academician. The mistake of his art-life--although it was perhaps advantageous to his fame at home--was probably his return to the United States while yet in his prime. The absence of influences encouraging to art growth, and of that sympathy and patronage so essential to a sensitive nature like that of Allston's, had a blighting effect on his faculties; and the many years he passed in Boston were years of aspiration rather than achievement. Allston has suffered from two causes. Overrated as an artist in his day, his reputation is now endangered from a tendency to award him less than justice. The latter may be due in part to the fact that Allston himself adopted a course of action that tended to repress rather than develop his art powers. In his desire to give intellectual and moral value and permanent dignity to his productions, and in his aversion to sensationalism in art, he treated his subjects with a deliberate severity which takes away from them all the feeling of spontaneity which is so delightful and important in works of the imagination. If his genius had been of the high order claimed by some, such a result would have been impossible. The emotional element would have sometimes asserted itself, and given to his finished works that warmth and attraction the lack of which, while they are intellectually interesting and worthy of great respect, prevents them from inspiring and winning our hearts, and has impaired the influence they might have had in advancing the progress of art in America. That Allston might have produced paintings of more absolute power, seems evident from his numerous crayon sketches and studies for paintings, which are full of fire, energy, and beauty, delicate fancy, and creative power. One cannot wholly understand Allston's ability until he has seen those studies; and it cannot be too much regretted that he did not allow a freer rein to his brush when composing the works upon which he desired to establish his fame. When he did so far forget himself, we get a glimpse of the fervor and grandeur of the imagination that burned in that brain, whose thoughts were greater than its capacity for expression. It must also be granted that the works of Allston have the quality peculiar to the productions of original minds: it is not until they have been seen repeatedly that they reveal all that is in them. "Uriel in the Sun," "Jeremiah," and "The Dead Man Restored to Life," are probably the best of the finished works by which the solemn, mysterious, and impressive imagination of Allston can be best estimated. Without giving us new revelations regarding the secrets of color, as he was rather an imitator of the Venetian school than an originator, Allston can be justly considered one of the most agreeable colorists America has produced. [Illustration: "JEREMIAH."--[WASHINGTON ALLSTON.]] [Illustration: "DYING HERCULES."--[SAMUEL F. B. MORSE.]] Few of those who recognize the late Samuel F. B. Morse as the inventor of our telegraphic system are aware that in early life he was an artist, and gave evidence of succeeding both in sculpture and painting. Although his preference was for the latter, we are inclined to think that he was best fitted to be a sculptor. He became the pupil of Allston in London, and modelled at that time a statue called the "Dying Hercules," which won the prize of a gold medal offered by the Adelphi Society of Arts for the best single figure. From that statue he afterward composed a painting of the same subject, which is now in New Haven, a work of unquestioned power, showing thorough anatomical knowledge and a creative imagination. But, while there was reason to predict an interesting art career for the young American, circumstances beyond his control drifted him away from the chosen pursuit of his youth, and his fame and fortune were eventually achieved in the paths of science. It is interesting in this connection to read the words which Morse, suffering from the pangs of disappointment, wrote to one who asked his advice about becoming a painter: "My young friend, if you have determined to try the life of an artist, I wish you all success; but as you have asked my honest opinion, I must say that, if you can find employment in any other calling, I advise you to let painting alone. I have known so many young men--some of them of decided talent, too--who, after repeated trials and failures, became discouraged, gave up further effort, and went to ruin." Notwithstanding that such were his views when he abandoned art, did not Morse, in the prosperous hours of his life, sometimes look back to his early art with a pang of regret? But while he continued in the profession of art, his activity was such that the National Academy of Design owes its origin to him, and with him closed the first period of art in the United States. We see that this division of our pictorial art--with the exception of Thomas Birch, of Philadelphia, a marine painter of some repute, and a few others of less note--was devoted to the figure; and, if sometimes feeble in result, was inspired by lofty motives. In historical art and portraiture it was, if not strictly original, yet often very able, and fairly maintained itself on a level with the contemporary art of Europe. Owing to the entire want of opportunities for professional education at home, our leading artists, with few exceptions, were forced to pass a good part of their lives in foreign studios. We also find that a feeling for the beauty of form, as indicated in black and white, or in sculpture, was scarcely perceptible in this stage of our art. With the exception of Shem Drowne and Patience Wright, who modelled skilfully in wax, the sense for plastic art was altogether dormant in the country; while any progress in architecture, until in recent years, was hopelessly ignored. It is true that the active, restless intellect of Thomas Jefferson sought to endow the nation with a sixth order of architecture, called the Columbian, and patriotically resembling a stalk of Indian-corn. The small pillars made after this design are in one of the vestibules of the basement of the Capitol at Washington, where the ardent patriot may visit them, and see for himself the beginning and the end of the only order of architecture ever attempted in this country. Through much tribulation, much earnest faith, and enthusiasm for art, our early painters prepared the way for the national art of the future. They met only moderate appreciation in their native land at that time. But we owe much to them; and in our preference for present methods--which must in turn be superseded by others--let us not forget the honor due to the pioneers of American art. In the first articulate utterances of a child, or in the dialect of an aboriginal tribe, lie the rudiments of a national tongue eventually carried to a high degree of culture; and the first rude art or poesy of a young people sometimes possesses touches of freshness, charming simplicity, or virile force which are too liable to be softened away beyond recall by the refinements of a later civilization. II. _AMERICAN PAINTERS._ 1828-1878. The generation immediately succeeding the American Revolution was devoted by the people of the young republic to adjusting its commercial and political relations at home and abroad. Early in this century, however, numerous signs of literary and art activity became apparent, and in 1815 the _North American Review_ was founded. We mention this fact, although a literary event, as indicating the point in time when the nebulous character of the various intellectual influences and tendencies of the nation began to develop a certain cohesive and tangible form. It was about the same time that our art, subject to similar influences, began to assume a more definite individuality, and to exhibit rather less vagueness in its yearnings after national expression. Gilbert Stuart, one of the most remarkable colorists of modern time, died in the year 1828. In the same year the National Academy of Design was founded. These two events, occurring at the same time, seem properly to mark the close of one period of our art history and the dawn of its successor; for notwithstanding the excellence of Stuart's art, and the virile character of the art of some of his contemporaries, yet their efforts had been spasmodic and unequal; much of it had been done abroad under foreign influences; and there was no sustained patronage or art organization at home which could combine their efforts toward a practical and common end. The first president of the new institution was Samuel F. B. Morse. The National Academy of Design superseded a similar but less wisely organized society, which had led a precarious existence since 1801. With the new institution was collected the nucleus of a gallery of paintings and casts; and from the outset the idea suggested by its name was carried out, by furnishing the most thorough opportunities for art-instruction the country could afford. [Illustration: "MUMBLE THE PEG."--[HENRY INMAN.]] Although seemingly fortuitous, the establishment of the Academy of Design really marks the opening of a distinct era in the history of American art; during which it has developed into a rounded completeness to a degree that enables us, with some measure of fairness, to note the causes which led to it, which have nourished its growth, and which have made it a worthy forerunner of new methods for expressing the artistic yearnings of those who are to follow in years to come. It has indicated a notable advance in our art; it has, in spite of its weakness or imitation of foreign conventionalisms, possessed certain traits entirely and distinctively native; and has been distinguished by a number of artists of original and sometimes unusual ability, whose failure to accomplish all they sought was due rather to unfortunate circumstances than to the lack of genuine power, which in another age might have done itself more justice. It is interesting to observe at this juncture that our art was influenced by exactly the same causes as our literature of the same period; and, like our national civilization, presents a singular reaching after original expression, modified sometimes by an unconscious imitation of foreign thought and methods. There is one fact connected with the early growth of our art which is entirely contrary to the laws which have elsewhere governed the progress of art, and is undoubtedly due to the new and anomalous features of our social economy. Elsewhere the art-feeling has undeviatingly sought expression first in earthen-ware or plastic art, then in architecture and sculpture, and finally in painting. We have entirely reversed this order. The unsettled character of the population--especially at the time when emigration from the Eastern to the Western States caused a general movement from State to State--together with the abundance of lumber at that time, evidently offered no opportunity or demand for any but the rudest and most rapidly constructed buildings, and anything like architecture and decorative work was naturally relegated to a later period; and for the same reason, apparently, the art of sculpture showed little sign of demanding expression here until after the art of painting had already formulated itself into societies and clubs, and been represented by numerous artists of respectable abilities. The art-feeling, which made itself apparent, vaguely and abortively, during our colonial period, began to demand freer and fuller expression soon after the new Republic had declared its independence; and, with scarce any patronage from the Government, assumed a degree of excellence surprising under the circumstances, and rarely reached by a nation in so short a time. We recall no art of the past the order and conditions of whose growth resemble those of ours, except that of Holland after its wars of independence with Spain. The bane and the blessing of our art have been in the enormous variety of influences which have controlled its action. This has been a bane, because it has, until recently, prevented the concentration of effort which might lead to grand results and schools. It has been a blessing, because individual expression has thus found a vent, and mannerism has not yet become a conventional net, so thrown around our art as to prevent free action and growth. The American art of the last two generations has resembled the restless activity of a versatile youth, who seeks in various directions for the just medium by which to give direction to his life-work. If there has been, on the whole, a national bias in one direction more than another, it has been for landscape-painting. Our intellectual state has also resembled the many-sided condition of Germany in the Middle Ages, waking up from the chaos of the Dark Ages, but broken up into different States, and representing different religions and races. But our position has been even more agitated and diverse; a general restlessness has characterized the community--a vast intellectual discontent with the present. Although strongly moved by pride of country, we have also been keenly sensitive to foreign influences, and have received impressions from them with the readiness of a photographic plate, although until recently the result has been assimilation rather than imitation; while internally we have been trying to harmonize race and sectional differences, which as yet are far from reaching homogeneity. Together with all these individual influences must be included one of general application, to which nearly all our artists, of whatever race or section, have been subject in turn. In other countries the people have, by a long preparation, become ready to meet the artist half-way in appreciating and aiding him in his mission, either from the promptings of the religious sentiment to which his art has given ocular demonstration, or from a dominating and universal sense of beauty. With us it has been quite otherwise; for the artists have been in advance of public sentiment, and have had the misfortune to be forced to wait until the people could come up to them. In addition to the fact that in New England Puritan influences were at first opposed to art, the restless, surging, unequal, widely differing character of our people, brought face to face with the elementary problems of existence, founding new forms of government, and welding incongruous factors into one race and nation--in a word, wresting from fate our right to be--made us indifferent to the ideal, except in sporadic and individual cases, which indicated here and there that below the surface the poetic sentiment was preparing to assert itself; and that we, in turn, were preparing to acknowledge the great truth that art is an instinctive yearning of the race to place itself in accord with the harmony which rules the universe. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF PARKE GODWIN.--[THOMAS LE CLEAR.]] The result has been that a very large proportion of the artists of this period of our history have been compelled to endure far more than the traditionary hardships of the profession. They have been obliged to devote some of the best years of their lives to trade, and have not been able to take up art until late. To accuse American artists, as a class, of being mercenary--a charge made quite too often--is really something akin to irony, so much more successful pecuniarily would the majority of them have been in mercantile pursuits. The heroism of our early painters, struggling, in obscure corners of the country, for opportunities to express their yearning after the ideal, without instruction, without art-influences, meeting little or no sympathy or encouragement, and in spite of these obstacles often achieving a respectable degree of excellence, is one of the most interesting, instructive, and sublime episodes in the history of art. Growing out of this hesitating condition of our early art may be discerned a secondary cause, which occurred in so many cases as to be justly considered one of the forces which formed the careful, minute, painstaking style of much of our landscape art. We refer to the fact that many of the best of our early painters were first engravers on wood and steel. This gave them a minute, formal, and precise method of treatment, which led them to look at details rather than breadth of effect. When we turn to the influences from abroad which stimulated American art during this period, we find that, while they fostered the growth of a certain æsthetic feeling, they at the same time instilled conventional methods and principles that deferred the development of a higher kind of art. It is greatly to be regretted that, notwithstanding the friendly relations between the United States and France, our art, when it was first looking to Europe for direction, should not have come in contact with that of France, which at that time, led by Gericault, Rousseau, Troyon, Delacroix, and other rising men, was becoming the greatest pictorial school since the Renaissance. But Italian art at that time was sunk to the lowest depths of conventionalism; while the good in the English art of the time was represented less by a school than by a few individuals of genius--Turner, Wilkie, Constable--who were so original that they failed to attract students whose first art ideas had been obtained in Italy. The influence of Italy on our early art was shown by the tendency of our painters in that direction--as now they go to France and Germany--and this was due primarily to Allston and Vanderlyn. The latter, when at Rome, occupied the house of Salvator Rosa--apparently a trivial incident, but if we could trace all the influence it may have had on the fancy and tastes of the young American artist, we might find it was a powerful contributor to the formation of the early style of the landscape artists who followed him to Italy. This bias was also greatly assisted by the many paintings imported at that time from the Italian peninsula, which were either originals, bought cheaply during the disturbances which then convulsed Europe, or copies of more or less merit. These works made their way gradually over our country, from Boston to New Orleans; and, with the rapidly shifting fortunes of our families, have often been so completely placed out of sight and forgotten, that it is not an unfrequent instance for one to be unearthed in a remote country village, or farm-house that would never be suspected of harboring high art. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF FLETCHER HARPER--[C. L. Elliott]] The larger portion of these foreign works came first to Boston, and were hidden away somewhere in that vicinity, as in the case of the collection bequeathed to Bowdoin College by its founder; whose best specimens were eventually sold and scattered for a mere song by a faculty who were ignorant of their value, and thought they might at the same time aid morality and add an honest penny to the funds of the institution by selling its precious nudities, and thus remove them from the student's eye. As Allston and Stuart, who were colorists, also settled in Boston, after years of foreign study, these two circumstances contributed to make the Boston school from the first one of color--a fact less pronounced in the early art of New York. It is to West and Allston and Trumbull that we are to attribute the English element in our arts. The prominent position they then occupied before the American public made their example and opinions of great importance with their countrymen, and undoubtedly contributed to suggest one of the most characteristic traits of American art, that is, the tendency to make art a means for telling a story, which has always been a prominent feature of English art. May we not also trace to English literature the bias which unconsciously led our painters to turn their attention to landscape with a unanimity that has until recently made our pictorial art distinctively a school of landscape painting? Cowper, Byron, and Wordsworth introduced landscape into poetry, and undoubtedly impelled English art in the same direction; and it was exactly at that time that our own poet, Bryant, undoubtedly influenced at the turning-point of his character by Wordsworth's solemn worship of nature, was becoming the pioneer of American descriptive poetry; while Irving was introducing the picturesque into our literature; and Cooper, with his vivid descriptions of our forests, was, like Irving, creating a whole class of subjects that were to be illustrated by the American artists of this period. The influences cited as giving direction to the struggling efforts of art in our country during the early part of this century are illustrated with especial force by five portrait, figure, and landscape-painters, who may almost be considered the founders of this period of our art--Harding, Weir, Cole, Doughty, and Durand. [Illustration: AN IDEAL HEAD.--[G. A. BAKER.]] Chester Harding was a farmer's son, who, after an apprenticeship in agriculture, took up the trade of chair-maker at twenty-one, the time when the young Parisian artist has already won his _Prix de Rome_. After this he tried various other projects, including those of peddling and the keeping of a tavern; and then took his wife and child and floated on a flat-boat down the Alleghany to Pittsburgh--at that time a mere settlement--in search of something by which to earn a bare living. There he took to sign-painting; and it was not until his twenty-sixth year that the idea of becoming a professional artist entered his head. An itinerant portrait-painter coming to the place first suggested the idea to Harding, who engaged him to paint the portrait of Mrs. Harding, and took his first art-lesson while looking over the artist's shoulder; and his first crude attempts so fascinated him that he at once adopted art as a profession, and in six months painted one hundred likenesses, such as they were, at twenty-five dollars each, and then settled in Boston, where he seems to have been taken up with characteristic enthusiasm. On going to England, Harding, notwithstanding the few advantages he had enjoyed, seemed to compare so favorably with portrait-painters there that he was patronized by the first noblemen of the land. Although belonging also to the latter part of the period immediately preceding that now under consideration, yet Harding was, on the whole, an important factor in the art which dates from the founding of the National Academy, and was one of the strongest of the group of portrait-painters naturally associated with him, such as Alexander, Waldo, Jarvis, and Ingham. There was something grand in the personality of Harding, not only in his almost gigantic physique but also his sturdy, frank, good-natured, but earnest and indomitable character, which causes him to loom up across the intervening years as a type of the people that have felled forests, reclaimed waste places, and given thews and sinews to the Republic that in a brief century has placed itself in the front rank of nations. While Harding, with all his artistic inequalities, fairly represented the portrait art of Boston at that, period, Henry Inman may be considered as holding a similar position in New York. As a resident of that city and a pupil of Jarvis, he enjoyed advantages of early training superior to those of most of our painters of that day. Exceedingly versatile, and excelling in miniature, and doing fairly well in _genre_ and landscape, Inman will be best known in future years by his admirable oil portraits of some of the leading characters of the time. He was a man of great strength and symmetry of character, who would have won distinction in any field, and his early death was a misfortune to the country. New York became the centre for a number of excellent and characteristic portrait-painters soon after Inman established his reputation--such as Charles Loring Elliott, Baker, Hicks, Le Clear, Huntington, and Page, the contemporaries of Healy, Ames, Hunt, and Staigg, of Boston, and Sully, of Philadelphia--all artists of individual styles and characteristic traits of their own. Sully, owing to his great age, really belonged also to the preceding period of our art. [Illustration: "THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS."--[HENRY PETERS GREY.]] In Elliott we probably find the most important portrait-painter of this period of American art. It was a peculiarity of his intellectual growth that only by degrees did he arrive at the point of being able to seize a simple likeness. But it is not at all uncommon for genius to falter in its first attempts; and Elliott was one of the few artists we have produced who could be justly ranked among men of genius, as distinguished from those of talents, however marked. Stuart excelled all our portrait-painters in purity and freshness of color and masterly control of pigments; but he was scarcely more vigorous than Elliott in the wondrous faculty of grasping character. Herein lay this artist's strength. He read the heart of the man he portrayed, and gave us not merely a faithful likeness of his outward features, but an epitome of his intellectual life and traits, almost clutching and bringing to light his most secret thoughts. In studying the portraits of Elliott we learn to analyze and to discern the essential and irreconcilable difference between photography and the highest order of painting. The sun is a great magician, but he cannot reproduce more than lies on the surface--he cannot suggest the soul. He is like a truthful but unwilling witness, who gives only part, and not always the best part, of the truth. But then the genius of the great artist steps in, completes the testimony, and presents before us suggestions of the immortal being that shall survive when the mortal frame and the sun which photographs it have alike passed away. Baker, on the other hand, has excelled in rendering the delicate color and loveliness of childhood, and the splendor of the finest types of American feminine beauty. The miniatures of Staigg are also among the most winning works of the sort produced by our art. Among other excellent miniature-painters of this period was Miss Goodrich, of whose personal history less is known than of any other American artist. William Page occupies a phenomenal position in the art of this period, because, unlike most of our painters, he has not been content to take art methods and materials as he found them, but has been an experimentalist and a theorist as well, and therefore belongs properly to more recent phases of our art. Thus, while he has achieved some singularly successful works in portraiture and historical painting, he has done much that has aroused respect rather than enthusiasm. If less refined in aim and treatment than Page in his rendering of female beauty, Henry Peters Grey, who was also an earnest student of Italian Renaissance art, succeeded sometimes to a degree which, if far below that of the masters whom he studied, was yet in advance of most of such art as has been executed by American painters, at least until very recently. "The Judgment of Paris" is certainly a clever if not wholly original work, and the figure of Venus a fine piece of form and color. Daniel Huntington, the third president of the National Academy of Design, is a native of New York city, and has enjoyed advantages and successes experienced by very few of our early artists. A pupil of Morse and Inman, he is better known by the men of this generation as a pleasing portrait-painter; but the most important of his early efforts were in what might be called a semi-literary style in _genre_ and historical and allegorical or religious art, in which departments he has won a permanent place in our annals by such compositions as "Mercy's Dream," "The Sibyl," and "Queen Mary Signing the Death-warrant of Lady Jane Grey." While portraiture has been the field to which most of our leading painters of the figure have directed their attention during this period, _genre_ has been represented by several artists of decided ability, who, under more favorable art auspices, might have achieved superior results. Inman was one of the first of our artists to make satisfactory attempts in _genre_. If circumstances had allowed him to devote himself entirely to any one of the three branches he pursued, he might have reached a higher position than he did. But the most important _genre_ artist of the early part of this period was William Sidney Mount, the son of a farmer on Long Island. Associated first with his brother as a sign-painter, he eventually, in 1828, took up _genre_ painting. Mount lacked ambition, as he himself confessed; he was too easily influenced by the rapidly won approval of the public to cease improving his style, and early returned to his farm on Long Island. Mount was not remarkable as a colorist, although it is quite possible he might have succeeded as such with superior advantages; but he was in other respects a man of genius, who as such has not been surpassed by the numerous _genre_ artists whom he preceded, and to whom he showed by his example the resources which our native domestic life can furnish to the _genre_ painter. This American Wilkie had a keen eye for the humorous traits of our rustic life, and rendered them with an effect that sometimes suggests the old Dutch masters. "The Long Story" and "Bargaining for a Horse" are full of inimitable touches of humor and shrewd observations of human nature. F. W. Edmonds, who was a contemporary of Mount, although a bank cashier, found time from his business to produce many clever _genre_ paintings, showing a keener eye for color, but less snap in the drawing and composition, than Mount. [Illustration: "MIRANDA."--[DANIEL HUNTINGTON.]] In other departments of the figure at this period of our art, Robert W. Weir holds a prominent position as one of our pioneers in the distinctive branch called historical painting. Of Huguenot descent, and gaining his artistic training in Italy, after severe struggles at home, his career illustrates several of the influences which have been most apparent in forming American art. Although not a servile imitator of foreign and classic art, and showing independence of thought in his practice and choice of subjects, Weir's style is pleasing rather than vigorous and original. It shows care and loving patience, as of one who appreciates the dignity of his profession, but no marked imaginative force, nor does he introduce or suggest any new truths. Such a massive composition, however, as the "Sailing of the Pilgrims," while it scarcely arouses enthusiasm, causes us to wonder that we should so early have produced an art as conscientious and clever as this. The portrait of Red Jacket, and the elaborate painting called "Taking the Veil," are also works of decided merit. Enjoying a serene old age, this revered painter yet survives, still wielding his brush, and annually exhibiting creditable pictures in the Academy. [Illustration: "A SURPRISE."--[WILLIAM SIDNEY MOUNT.]] In the works of the figure-painters we have spoken of there is evident an earnest pursuit of art, attended sometimes with very respectable results; but, with the exception of here and there a portrait-painter of real genius, we do not discover in their paintings much that is of value in the history of art, except as indicating the existence of genuine æsthetic feeling in the country demanding expression in however hesitating and abortive a manner. But when we come to the subject of landscape-painting, we enter upon a field in which originality of style is apparent, and a certain consistency and harmony of effort. Minds of large reserve power meet us at the outset, moved by strong and earnest convictions, and often expressing their thoughts in methods entirely their own. Thoroughly, almost fanatically, national by nature, even when their art shows traces of foreign influence, and drawing their subjects from their native soil, they have created an art which can fairly claim to be ranked as a school, whatever be the position assigned to it in future ages. English, French, Irish, African, and Spaniard have alike vied in painting the scenery of this beautiful country, and mingling their fame and identifying their lives with "its hills, rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun," its mountain streams and meadow lands, its primeval forests, and the waves that break upon its granite shores. It is to three artists of great natural ability that the origin of American landscape-painting can be traced--Cole, Doughty, and Durand. Although the youngest of the three, the first seems to have antedated Doughty by a few months in adopting this branch of art professionally; while Durand, older than Cole by several years, yet did not take up landscape-painting until some years after him. Thomas Cole died in the prime of life, at the age of forty-seven, but there are few characters in the history of the country that have made a deeper impression. Singularly versatile, inspired by a powerful imagination, possessing a pure and lofty character, and animated by the noblest of sentiments, we feel before his greatest works--through all the imperfections of his art, through all the faltering methods with which his genius sought to express itself--that a vast mind here sought feebly to utter great thoughts (which he has doubtless already learned to utter with more truth in another world); we see that unmistakable sign of all minds of a high order, the evidence that the man was greater than his works. It is not dexterity, technique, knowledge, that impresses us in studying the works of Cole, so much as character. One feels that in them is seen the handwriting of one of the greatest men who have ever trod this continent. [Illustration: "TAKING THE VEIL"--[ROBERT WEIR]] Thomas Cole, the first artist who ever painted landscape professionally in America--unless we except the few faltering landscape-paintings of John Frazer, the miniature artist of the previous century--was born in England, but he was of American ancestry, and his parents returned to this country in his childhood. The difficulties with which he had to contend at the outset of his art career form an affecting picture. From infancy he had been fond of the pencil; and the tinting of wall-paper in his father's factory at Steubenville, Ohio, gave him a slight practice in the harmony of colors. In the mean time he took up engraving, but was diverted from this pursuit by a travelling German portrait-painter, who gave him a few lessons in the use of oil-colors. He began with portraiture, and resolved to be an artist, although the failure of his father's business brought the whole family on him for support. The struggles through which the youth now passed make a long and painful story. Through it all he retained his bias for art, and at twenty-two began to draw scenery, from nature, along the banks of the Monongahela. Dunlap has well said, "To me the struggles of a virtuous man endeavoring to buffet fortune, steeped to the very lips in poverty, yet never despairing, or a moment ceasing his exertions, is one of the most sublime objects of contemplation." After several years of this severe hardship, Cole finally drifted to New York, and eventually attracted notice. When the National Academy of Design was founded in 1828, Cole and Doughty were simultaneously winning success, and giving a permanent character to the art which for half a century was destined to be most prominent on the walls of the Academy. So far as foreign technical influences can be traced in the compositions of Cole, they are those of Claude and Salvator Rosa. He revisited England at the time when Turner and Constable were establishing their fame, and producing such an influence on the great school of French landscape art which has since succeeded. It is interesting to think what would have been the character of our landscape art if Cole had been favorably impressed by the broad and vigorous style of these painters. But he does not seem to have been ripe for the audacious and sometimes more truthful methods of modern landscape, and expressed himself with warmth regarding what he considered the extravagances of Turner. The art of Cole was however, largely biassed by the literature of England. The influence of both Bunyan and Walter Scott can be traced in his works; while the serious turn of his mind gave a solemn majesty and a religious fervor to his compositions, which command our deep respect, even when we fail altogether to concede complete success to his artistic efforts. For this reason Cole has wielded, more than most of our artists, a powerful influence outside of his art with a people which, with all its volatility, yet maintains the traditions of a deeply religious ancestry. It was in this many-sidedness of his genius, that brought him into contact with widely varied sympathies, that Cole's chief power consisted; for if we look at his work from the art point of view alone, we are impressed with its inequality, the lack of early art influences which it exhibits, and an attempt sometimes at dramatic force which occasionally lapses into mere sensationalism. But in all his compositions there are evident a rapturous love of nature, and the energy and yearning of a mind seeking to find expression for a vast ideal. Cole was what very few of our artists have been--an idealist. The work by which he will be longest and best remembered in the art of his country is the noble series called the "Course of Empire," consisting of five paintings, representing a nation's rise, progress, decline, and fall, and the change which comes over the abandoned scenery as the once superb capital returns to the wildness and solitude of nature. The last of the series, entitled "Desolation"--a gray silent waste, haunted by the bittern, with here and there a crumbling column reflected in the deserted harbor, where gleaming fleets once floated, and imperial pageants were seen in the pavilions along the marble piers--is one of the most remarkable productions of American art. But with all the enthusiasm which Cole aroused among his contemporaries, his influence seems to have been to give dignity to landscape art rather than to impress his thoughts and methods on other artists. It is true that he seized the characteristics of our scenery with a truth which came not only from close study, but also from deep affection for the land whose mountains and lakes he painted, and thus led our first landscapists to observe the great variety and beauty of their own country. But, on the other hand, a certain hardness in his technique probably rendered him less influential as a leader than Doughty and Durand. The former, if inferior in general capacity to Cole, was more emphatically the artist by nature. [Illustration: "DESOLATION."--[FROM "THE COURSE OF EMPIRE," BY THOMAS COLE.]] Thomas Doughty was in the leather business until his twenty-eighth year, when, without any previous training, he threw up the trade, and adopted the profession of landscape-painter. There is an audacity, a self-confidence, in the way our early painters entered on the art career, without instruction in the theory and practice of their art, which is charming for the simplicity it shows, but would tend to bring the efforts of these artists into contempt if the results had not often justified their audacity, for they were sometimes men of remarkable ability. There have been many greater landscape-painters than Doughty, but few who have done so well with such meagre opportunities for instruction. He seems, also, to have been successful in attracting favorable notice in England as well as here, although at a time when English landscape art was at its zenith. The soft, poetic traits, the tender, silvery tones, that distinguished Doughty's style, were entirely original with him, and have undoubtedly had much influence in forming the style of some of the landscapists who succeeded him. In Asher B. Durand, a Huguenot by descent, and the only one of the three founders of American landscape-painting who survives to our time to enjoy a green old age, we find a nature as strong as that of Cole. The equal of that artist in the sum of his intellectual powers, we discover in him a different quality of mind. Similar as they are in high moral purpose and a profound reverence for the Creator, as represented in his works, Cole was the most imaginative and inspirational of the two, stirred more by the fire of genius; while Durand, with a more equable temperament and a larger experience, produced results that are more satisfactory from an art point of view. [Illustration: A STUDY FROM NATURE.--[A. U. DURAND.]] Few artists have shown greater capacity than Durand in successfully following entirely distinct branches of art. As a steel-engraver, who in this century has produced work that is much superior to his superb engraving of Vanderlyn's "Ariadne?" Who of our artists has been able both to design and to engrave such a work as his "Musidora?" After employing the burin so admirably, he took up portrait-painting, and by such portraits as his head of Bryant placed himself by the side of our leading portrait-painters. Still unsatisfied with the success won thus far, Durand, in his thirty-eighth year, directed his efforts to landscape-painting, and at once became not only a pioneer but a master in this department. The care he had been obliged to give to engraving was undoubtedly of great assistance to him in enabling him to render the lines of a composition with truth; while his practice of studying character in portraiture gave him insight into the individuality of trees--he invested them with a humanity like that which the ancient Greeks gave to their forests when they made them the haunt of the dryads. It is to this that we doubtless owe the massive handling, the fresh and vigorous treatment of trees in such solemn and majestic landscapes as "The Edge of the Forest," in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington. The art of Durand is wholly national: few of our painters owe less to foreign inspiration. Here he learned the various arts that gave him a triple fame, here he found the subjects for his compositions, and his name is destined to endure as long as American art shall endure. [Illustration: "NOON BY THE SEA-SHORE."--BEVERLY BEACH.--[J. F. KENSETT.]] Among the most prominent of the landscape-painters who succeeded the founders of the art among us, and were, like them, inspired by a reverent spirit and lofty poetic impulses, John F. Kensett holds a commanding position. Like Durand, he began his career with the burin, and after working for the American Bank-note Company, drifted into painting. Circumstances seem to have favored him beyond many of his compeers, and he was early permitted to visit England and the Continent, and spent seven years abroad. Notwithstanding so long an association with foreign schools, especially the Italian, we find very little evidence of foreign art in the style of Kensett. He was fully as original as Durand, and saw and represented nature in his own language. His methods of rendering a bit of landscape were tender and harmonious, and entirely free from any attempt at sensationalism. So marked was the latter characteristic especially, that before the great modern question of the values began to arouse much attention in the ateliers of Paris, Kensett had already grasped the perception of a theory of art practice which has since become so prominent in foreign art; although, naturally, it is not in all his canvases that this attempt to interpret the true relations of objects in nature is equally evident. We see it brought out most prominently in some of his quiet, dreamy coast scenes, in which it is not so much things as feelings that he tries to render or suggest. In them also is most apparent an endeavor after breadth of effect, which is a sign of mastery when successfully carried out. Mr. Kensett's art consisted in a certain inimitably winning tenderness of tone--a subtle poetic suggestiveness. His small compositions, as a rule, are more satisfying than his larger pictures, in which the thinness of his technique is sometimes too prominent. The career of Kensett, who died but a few years ago, is one of the most complete and symmetrical in our art history. [Illustration: "ALTORF, BIRTH-PLACE OF WILLIAM TELL."--[GEORGE L. BROWN.]] A contemporary of Kensett, but still surviving him, George L. Brown, of Boston, struggled heroically and successfully with the early difficulties of his life; and, yielding to the seductive influences of Italian scenery, devoted his art to representing it, with results that entitle him to an honorable position. The effects he has sought are luminousness and color. Mr. Brown's method of using colors was formed, to a certain extent, on that of the Italian landscape art of the time; and, while often brilliant and poetic, reminds us sometimes of the studio rather than of the free, pure, magical opulence of the atmosphere and sunlight of the scenery he portrayed. It can be frankly conceded, however, that he has been no slavish copyist of a style; but while acknowledging the force of foreign influences, has yet given abundant evidence of a personality of his own: and in such works as his "Bay of New York," which is owned by the Prince of Wales, and some of his views among the liquid streets of Venice lined with mouldering palaces, and skimmed by gondolas darting hither and thither like swallows, he has shown himself to be a true poet and an admirable painter. III. _AMERICAN PAINTERS._ 1828-1878. No school of art ever came more rapidly into being than the landscape school which owes its rise to Cole, Doughty, and Durand. Up to this time portraiture had been the field in which American painters had achieved their most signal successes. But now the majority of our artists of ability turned their attention to the representation of scenery; and for forty years a long list of painters have made the public familiar with their native land, and have thus, at the same time, stimulated a popular interest in art. It is impossible to mention here more than a few of those who, as landscape-painters, have won a local or national reputation among us. Nor is it essential, while recognizing the great importance and undoubted merit of our landscape art, to exaggerate its relative value and position. While it has, in most cases, been the result of a true artistic feeling and a genuine, if not very demonstrative, enthusiasm for nature on the part of the artists who have devoted their lives to its pursuit, and while it has given us much that is pleasing, much that is improving, much that is poetic, and occasionally some examples of a high order of landscape-painting--yet, as a whole, our school of landscape seems scarcely to be entitled to the highest rank. The wonder is that it has been of such average excellence, for the environing conditions have apparently not been favorable. The influences among which it sprung have been so often prosaic or uninspiring, that, notwithstanding its fertility, we find the result to lean to quantity rather than quality. The ideal and emotional elements in art have not been sufficiently dominant; while the topographical and the mechanical notions regarding the end of landscape art have prevailed. [Illustration: "BROOK IN THE WOODS."--[WORTHINGTON WHITTREDGE.]] Until recently this school has contented itself with the superficial aspect of nature rather than with the subtle suggestions by which it appeals to the soul. An absence of imaginative power has been too apparent, and a lack of the energy and earnestness born of large natures and absorbing enthusiasm; and the abundant variety or individuality of style, while indicating self-reliant, independent action, sometimes has also been a result of the want of solid training, or failure to grasp the accepted principles which underlie art practice. There has been a general average of native ability in the artists--a certain dead level of excellence in the quality of the works offered at our annual exhibitions--which was good as far as it went; but, except on rare occasions, it seldom arrested and enchained attention by the expression of daring technique or imaginative power, as the outcome of concerted influences exerted in one direction, and resulting in typical representative minds of vast resources, bounding into the arena and challenging the admiration of the world. Artists we have undoubtedly had occasionally, during this period, who have been endowed with genius to win renown; but they have, like Cole, either lacked the training and influences--the long succession of national heredity in art practice which are well-nigh indispensable to the highest success; or, like Church, yielding to the impulse of a prosaic environment, they have stopped short of the highest flights of art, and their imagination has been curbed to the subordinate pursuit of rendering the actual rather than the ideal. In technique, also--if we may be permitted modestly to express an opinion on the subject--this school has seemed to be, on the whole, weak and vacillating, being impelled by no definite aim. It has dealt with detail rather than masses; it has concerned itself with parts rather than general effect. Thus, while the rendering of details has sometimes been given with great fidelity, the spirit of the scene has eluded the artist, and a work which dazzles us at first, fails, therefore, to hold the imagination of the observer, and becomes flat and insipid on repeated inspection. The reverse is the case with works of art of the first order. We also find in the art of this school weakness in a knowledge of--or at least in the power of appreciating--the vast significance of the line in art. Too many American paintings, which have been clever in color, have been almost ruined by the palpable ignorance they display of the elements of drawing. Inability to compose effectively--or, in other words, to perceive the harmony which is the dominant idea of true art--has also been too frequent a characteristic of this school. While in the application of colors a lack of nerve has been exhibited which gives to many of these works an appearance of thinness, that becomes painfully apparent when they have been painted a few years. These observations apply no less to the figure-painting than the landscape art of this period of American art; and a general absence of warmth and earnestness is the impression which a survey of the field leaves upon the mind of the candid observer. [Illustration: LANDSCAPE COMPOSITION.--[R. W. HUBBARD.]] There is nothing in this to surprise or to discourage, if we frankly consider the surrounding circumstances. Great art is the child of repose; the restlessness, the feverish activity of the country, eminently encouraging to some pursuits, is, if not fatal to the arts, at least opposed to their highest development; the vast multiplicity of aims agitating the people has thus far prevented that concentration of effort which meets with a response in the enthusiasm of artistic genius. Instead of being discouraged, therefore, by the quality of the art we have already produced, we accept it as strong evidence that the American people have a decided natural turn for the arts, which only awaits a more favorable condition of the nation to reach a higher plane of excellence. Nor does the general absence of imaginative power in our art seem to us proof that we are by nature destined to remain a prosaic people. Aside from the fact that already years ago we had such imaginative artists as Hamilton, Lafarge, Vedder, and others, we consider that the wonderful inventive quality of the American mind toward scientific and mechanical discovery argues a highly creative imagination. Herbert Spencer it is who proves somewhere that imagination must enter into the working out of the problems of inventive science. Hitherto the nation's needs have stimulated the imagination in that direction; but under new conditions there is little reason to doubt that the same faculty will become subservient to the creation of an original and powerful school of art in America. But while admitting the weak points of our landscape art, and that the highest flights of which landscape-painting is capable have not always been reached by our artists, we should be careful, on the other hand, lest we fail to award them the merit which is justly their due for persevering endeavor, and frequently for great natural ability. Let us, in justice, ungrudgingly allow the discriminating praise that some out of a large number are undoubtedly entitled to claim. If we mention them individually rather than by the classification of schools, it is simply because, for the reasons already stated, scarce any of our artists have founded schools; although we may, perhaps, without inconsistency, speak of the efforts of artists of altogether different styles, but treating the same class of subjects, as a school. It is in this sense that we allude to our school of landscape. With certain important exceptions, to be noted in another chapter, the American art of this period has, on the whole, been concerned chiefly with the objective; and it could not have well been otherwise, for any other form of art at such a time would have utterly failed to carry the people with it, and thus missed of producing that gradual æsthetic education which is the province of a national art. Not only for this reason has our school of landscape art vindicated its right to be, and established its claim on our respectful attention, but also because it has owed little to foreign influences--springing rather from environing circumstances, as naturally as the flowers of May follow the departure of winter. [Illustration: "THE VASTY DEEP."--[WILLIAM T. RICHARDS.]] And thus, as after a long winter a few warm spring days cover the orchard with an affluence of blossoms, so at this time from many quarters of the land artists appeared, especially in the field of landscape art; and one can hardly believe that where, but a few years before, the Indian and the buffalo and the wolf had roamed at their own wild will, artists now arose, armed with an ability to discern the beauties of their native land, to direct the prosaic thoughts of the pioneer to the loveliness of the nature which surrounded him, and to make for themselves an enduring name. Ohio, the Massachusetts of the West, for example, which became a State as late as 1800, was in the early part of this period especially prolific in artists, who, if they did not find instruction or a public on the spot, were at least enabled, with the increasing means of communication, to go to New York and Boston, or to wander over to the studios and art wealth of Europe. In other lands and ages the poetic sentiment has first found a vent in lyrics and idyls; but with us the best poetry has been in the landscape-painting which was created by the sons of those whose ploughs first broke the soil of this continent with a Christian civilization. At this period, also, we note the advent of an influence which doubtless aided to promote a more rapid pursuit of the new art impulse of the nation. Steam, the mighty magician which drives the locomotive and the steamship, is in bad repute with the conservatives who are not in sympathy with the progressive movements of the age; and yet among all the other results of which it has been the wonderful agent, we must ascribe its patronage of art. It is undoubtedly to the far greater facilities for going from place to place, which followed the introduction of steam, that we must partly attribute the rapid success of many of the artists who appeared in our country at that time in such unexpected numbers. It was in 1841 that Leutze went to Düsseldorf to study, and thus introduced a new influence into our art, which hitherto, so far as it had acknowledged foreign influences, had been swayed by the schools of Italy and Britain. The effect was evident when, a few years later, Worthington Whittredge, a native of Ohio, went to Düsseldorf, and studied under the guidance of Achenbach. Very naturally his style showed for a time the effect of foreign methods; but he was guided by a native independence of action that enabled him in the end to assimilate rather than to imitate, like most of our artists at this time, and his later landscapes are thoroughly individual and American, although doubtless improved by foreign discipline. As a faithful delineator of the various phases of American wood interiors, Mr. Whittredge has deservedly won a permanent place in the popular favor. Some of his landscapes, representing the scenery of the great West, have also been large in treatment and effective in composition; but his skies sometimes lack atmosphere and ideality. Like his master, Durand, J. W. Casilear began his career as an engraver; and the success he achieved in this department is attested by his very clever engraving of Huntington's "Sibyl." Since he drifted into landscape-painting, Casilear has produced many delicately finished and poetic scenes, distinguished by elegance and refinement rather than dash or originality; and somewhat the same observations would apply to the tender landscapes of James A. Saydam. In such dreamy, pleasant, but not very vigorous paintings as that of his "Valley of the Pemigewasset," Samuel L. Gerry has also attracted favorable attention. [Illustration: "HIGH TORN, ROCKLAND LAKE."--[JASPER F. CROPSEY.]] The work of a genuine poet is apparent in the canvases of R. W. Hubbard. Repose and pensive harmoniousness of treatment characterize his simple and winsome, if not stirring, transcripts of the more familiar phases of our scenery. They are idyls in color. What Hubbard has done for New England landscape, J. R. Meeker, of St. Louis, has attempted for the "lakes of the Atchafalaya, fragrant and thickly embowered with blossoming hedges of roses," and the live-oaks spreading their vast arms, like groined arches of Gothic cathedrals, festooned with the mystically trailing folds of the Spanish moss, along the lagoons of the South-west, where the sequestered shores are haunted by the pelican and the gayly colored crane, and the groves are melodious with the rapturous lyrics of the mockingbird, the improvisatore of the woods. If not always successful in the tone of his pictures, it may be conceded that Mr. Meeker has approached his subject with a reverent and poetic spirit, and has often rendered these scenes with much feeling and truth. Still another aspect of our scenery has been reproduced with fidelity by W. T. Richards, of Philadelphia. We refer to the long reaches of silvery shore and the sand-dunes which are characteristic of many parts of our Atlantic coast. He has often painted woodland scenes with great patience, but, as it seems to us, with too much detail, and with greens which are open to a charge of being crude and violent. But in his beach effects Mr. Richards maintains an important position; and if slightly mannered, has yet developed a style of subject and treatment which very effectively represents certain distinguishing features of our solemn coasts. Some of his water-color paintings have scarcely been surpassed, as, for example, the noble representations of the bleak, snow-like, cedar-tufted dunes along the Jersey shore. [Illustration: "THE PARSONAGE"--[A. F. BELLOWS]] The extraordinary variety of the effects of American landscape is again shown by the gorgeousness of our autumnal foliage. It has been objected by some that it is too vivid for art purposes. We consider this a matter of individual taste. There is nothing more absurd in trying to render the effects of sunset, or the scarlet and gold of an American forest in the dreamy days of the Indian summer, than in undertaking to paint the splendor of many-colored drapery in an Oriental crowd, which is considered a legitimate subject for the artist who has a correct eye for color. It is not in the subject, but in the artist, that the difficulty lies. Some of our painters have seized these autumnal displays with fine feeling and excellent judgment. Kensett is an example; another is J. F. Cropsey, who, beginning life as an architect, became eventually an agreeable delineator of our autumnal scenery, and at one time executed a number of paintings remarkable for their truth and artistic beauty. His later work has scarcely sustained the early reputation he justly acquired. At its best, his style was crisp, strong in color, and sometimes very bold in composition. Mr. C. P. Cranch, who was associated with Cropsey in Italy, and who is well known as a writer, has exhibited in his Venetian landscapes a correct perception of color, while his method lacks firmness of drawing, and shows traces of foreign influence more than that of many of our artists who studied abroad at this time. R. H. Fuller, who was a night-watchman on the police force of Chelsea, Massachusetts, and died in 1871, was an artist whose educational opportunities were excessively meagre. But he had a fine eye for color and atmospheric effect, and some of his landscapes are painted with a full brush, and are tender and beautiful. F. D. Williams, before he left Boston for Paris, also developed a strong scheme of handling and color which was at once pleasing and original. F. H. Shapleigh has likewise shown an excellent feeling for some of nature's more quiet effects, and his coast scenes are attractive, although lacking somewhat in force. [Illustration: LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE.--[JAMES HART.]] As one considers this field of American art, he is increasingly astonished to find how strikingly it exemplifies one of the leading traits of a national school in the entire originality and individuality with which each of our prominent landscapists of this period interprets nature, even when he has studied more or less in Europe. Whatever may be the general defect of refinement rather than strength, and other weaknesses characteristic of our school of landscape art, it must be admitted that its representative artists have been often sturdily independent, and that their merits as well as their defects are entirely their own. What difference there is between the carefully finished but rich, massive foliage of David Johnson, suggesting the strength of the old English masters of landscape, and the dreamy, mellow pastoral meadow lands, wooded slopes, and dimpling lakes of our Green Mountains, veiled by a luminous haze and steeped in repose, which are so delicately portrayed by the brush of J. B. Bristol! Few of the landscape-painters of this school have produced more agreeable results with their brush. What points of divergence there are, again, between the landscapes of W. L. Sonntag and A. F. Bellows!--the one adopting a scheme of tone and color apparently out of the focus of nature, yet so using it in rendering ideal compositions as to achieve results which place him by the side of our leading poets of nature. To him landscape-painting seems to be not so much a means to give faithful transcripts of actual scenes as to represent the ideals of his fancy; and as such we accept them with thankfulness, for they not only serve to give us pleasure, but also to illustrate the many-sided phases of art. Bellows, on the other hand, both in oil and _aquarelle_, has attempted minute reproductions of nature; and, while sometimes suggesting the impression of labor rather more than is consistent with breadth of effect, has faithfully and charmingly interpreted the idyllic side of our rural life. If he had not been a poet in color, we might have expected of him pastoral lyrics imbued with the spirit of Cowper or Thompson. Early study at the school of Antwerp, and the pursuit of _genre_ for some years, have enabled Mr. Bellows skilfully to diversify his attractive village pictures and representations of our noble New England elms with groups of figures. He is justly entitled to be called the American Birket Foster. It is instructive, in this connection, to observe the first landscapes of George Inness, which properly belong in style to the early and distinctively American school of landscape, while his recent method has identified him with the later graduates of the ateliers of Paris. Samuel Colman is another landscape-painter whose art is identified both with this school and with that of the period on which we are now entering. Educated here, and influenced by a fine eye for color, foreign travel has broadened his sympathies, modified his technique, and led him to look with favor upon later methods. The landscapes of William and James Hart represent still another phase of our art. Both began life as apprentices to a coach-painter, but gradually identified themselves with the great throng of all ages who have become the votaries of nature. There is cleverness and dexterity in their work, a fine perception of the external beauty of the slopes and vales and woods of our land, and brilliant color; but it is sometimes marred by hardness of handling, and lack of juiciness or warmth of feeling; in other words, it is too exclusively objective, as if only the physical and not also the mental eye had been concerned in the painting of their works. James Hart has of late years added cattle to his landscapes with excellent success, and holds a prominent position among the very few respectable painters of animal life whom the American art of this period can justly claim. [Illustration: "SUNSET ON THE HUDSON."--[SANDFORD R. GIFFORD.]] Mr. Horace Robbins, successful in seizing certain aspects of mountain scenery, with a fine feeling for atmospheric grays, and Mr. Arthur Parton, who very pleasingly renders trees, and some of the sober effects of our dim November days, although among our younger painters, justly belong to this period, as do also Messrs. James and George Smillie, who have been equally happy in water and oil colors. The former is another of our many landscape-painters who began as engravers on steel. The later style of these talented brothers has been evidently modified with advantage by the influence of foreign technique, although they have studied wholly in this country; and they now display an attractive vigor and freshness in their landscape pieces, and a somewhat original choice of subjects. The style of each of the artists we have mentioned can be distinguished at once. Individuality of expression is stamped upon the canvas of all; but among them there is no one more thoroughly original than Sanford R. Gifford, who, if he had lived in Persia or Peru two thousand years ago, might well have been an enthusiastic fire-worshipper, or daily welcomed the rising sun with reverent adoration. To him landscape-painting, whether of scenes in our own Far West, or on the legendary Hudson, or in the gorgeous East, has been alike the occasion for giving expression to his feeling for glowing atmospheric effects, for lyrics which on canvas reproduce the splendor of the sunset sky. But it would be a mistake to suppose that Mr. Gifford's poetic sense has been confined to the contemplation of serene and glowing atmospheres: he has also successfully rendered the lazy mist, the trailing vapor of morning enmeshed in dusky woodlands by the silent lake. His style combines to a remarkable degree deliberation and inspiration--a happy union of the analytical and emotional elements in art. The objective school of American landscape-painting has found its culminating excellence, as it seems to us, in the art of Frederick K. Church. In his art-life the tendencies and aims of the chief national school we have produced during the last half century have been typically represented. In his works the technical weakness of this school is apparent, and, at the same time, its noble sympathy with nature, and its love for the grander aspects of the external world. It also represents the restless, unsatisfied genius of our people during this period, ever reaching out and beyond, and yearning, Venice-like, to draw to itself the spoils, the riches, the splendors, of the whole round globe. To our art the paintings of Mr. Church are what the geographic cantos of "Childe Harold" have been to the poesy of England, or the burning descriptions of St. Pierre and Châteaubriand to the literature of France. If such a topic is permissible in letters, may it not also be allowed sometimes in painting? Whether the one is as lofty as epic poetry, or the other as great as historical painting or subjective landscape, is a question which we do not need here to analyze. It is sufficient that each holds an important position; and to carry off the palm in either can only be the result of consummate genius. Yes! what "Childe Harold" did for the scenery of the Old World, the art of Church has done for that of the New. The vastness and the glory of this continent were yet unrevealed to us. With the enthusiasm of a Raleigh or a Balboa he has explored land and sea, combining the characteristics of the explorer and the artist. A pupil of Cole, he has carried to its full fruition the aspirations of his master, first gaining inspiration along the magical shores of the Hudson, and amidst the ideally beautiful ranges of the legendary Catskills. Our civilization needed exactly this form of art expression at this period, and the artist appeared who should teach the people to love beauty, and to find it among the regions which first rang with the axe of our pioneers. [Illustration: A COMPOSITION.--[FREDERICK E. CHURCH.]] But, although dealing not so much with nature, as such, as with some of her little known and more remarkable and startling effects, there is a very noteworthy absence of sensationalism or staginess in the paintings of Church; while, on the other hand, the somewhat too careful reproduction of details has not prevented them from possessing a grand massing of effect and a thrilling beauty and sublimity. "Cotopaxi," the "Heart of the Andes," or "Niagara," may transgress many rules laid down by the schools, but the magnificent ability with which they are represented disarms criticism. Church's first painting of Niagara occupies the culminating point in the objective art of this period of our history, executed by an artist who up to that time had never crossed the Atlantic, and whose merits and defects were entirely his own. Mr. Church's "Niagara" is doubtless familiar to many through the fine chromo-lithographic copy made from it; but those who have not seen the original have only an incomplete idea of the grandeur of this great painting. It grows on acquaintance somewhat as does the cataract itself, until we seem to hear even the roar of the mighty waters that rushed over those tremendous cliffs ages before this continent was trodden by man, symbolizing the endless, remorseless, and irresistible sweep of time. The green flood pouring evermore into the appalling abyss veiled by mist wreathing up from the surging vortex below; the distant shore lined with foliage, touched by the burning tints of October; the rosy gray sky over-arching the scene, and the ethereal bow uniting heaven and earth with its elusive band of colors--all are there, rendered with matchless art. The subjects of Mr. Church's more recent works have been taken from the storied shores of the Mediterranean. We perceive in them no sign of failing power, but more breadth and less opulence of detail. The artist has treated the splendors of classic lands with the dignified reserve of matured strength and a higher sense of the ideal. The melancholy grandeur of the Parthenon in ruins has been painted with a stately reticence in consonance with the character of the subject; and the magnificent composition called the "Ægean" may well hold its own by the side of some of the superb Italian canvases of Turner. A landscape-painter who chose a range of subjects similar to those of Church, and accompanied him in one of his South American trips, was Louis R. Mignot, of South Carolina, who died in London some eight years ago. He was inspired by a rapturous enthusiasm alike for the tender and the brilliant aspects of nature, and appears to us to have been one of the most remarkable artists of our country. He can be justly ranked with the pioneers who first awoke the attention of the nation to a consciousness of the beauty, glory, and inexhaustible variety of the scenery of this continent, which had fallen to them as a heritage such as no other people have yet acquired. Mignot was at once a fine colorist and one of the most skilled of our painters in the handling of materials; his was also a mind fired by a wide range of sympathies; and whether it was the superb splendor of the tropical scenery of the Rio Bamba, in South America, the sublime maddening rush of iris-circled water at Niagara, or the fairy-like grace, the exquisite and ethereal loveliness of new-fallen snow, he was equally happy in rendering the varied aspects of nature. It is greatly to be regretted that the most important works of this artist are owned in England, whither he resorted at the opening of the civil war. "Snow in Hyde Park," which he painted not long before his death, is one of the noblest productions of American landscape-painting. [Illustration: "A WINTER SCENE."--[LOUIS R. MIGNOT.]] The American marine art of this period has been represented by a number of artists, although they have been by no means so numerous or capable as the maritime character of our people would have led us to expect. William Bradford, by origin a Quaker, has made to himself a name for his enterprise in going repeatedly to Labrador to study icebergs, and has executed some effective compositions, which have won him fame at home and abroad. Some of his coast scenes are also spirited, although open to the charge of technical errors. Charles Temple Dix, who unfortunately died young, painted some dashing, imaginative, and promising compositions; and Harry Brown, of Portland, has successfully rendered certain coast effects. But our ablest marine-painter of this period seems to have been James Hamilton, of Philadelphia, who was beyond question an artist of genius. His color was sometimes harsh and crude; but he handled pigments with mastery, and composed with the virile imagination of an improvisatore. Errors can doubtless be found in his ships, or the forms of his waves; but he was inspired by a genuine enthusiasm for the sea, and rendered the wildest and grandest effects of old ocean with breadth, massiveness, and power. We have had no marine-painter about whose works there is more of the raciness and flavor of blue water. When we turn to the department of animal-painting, we discover what has been hitherto the weakest feature of American art, both in the number and quality of the artists who have pursued this branch of the profession. T. H. Hinckley at one time promised well in painting cattle and game, but his efforts rarely went beyond giving us Denner-like representations of stuffed foxes with glass eyes. The hairs were all there, the color was well enough, although perhaps a little foxy--if one may be permitted the term in this connection; but there was no life, no characterization, there. William Hayes showed decided ability in his representations of bisons and prairie-dogs and other dogs. Weak in color, he yet succeeded in giving spirit and character to the groups he painted, and holds among our animal-painters a position not dissimilar to that of Mount in _genre_. [Illustration: "SHIP OF 'THE ANCIENT MARINER.'"--[JAMES HAMILTON.]] Walter M. Brackett, who has been able rarely well to enjoy the triple pleasure of catching, painting, and eating the same fish on a summer's morning by the limpid brooks of New Hampshire, has justly won a reputation as an artistic Walton. If he would but paint his rocks and trees as cleverly as he renders the speckled monarch of the stream, his compositions would leave little to be desired. Henry C. Bispham has given us some spirited but sometimes badly drawn paintings of cattle and horses; and Colonel T. B. Thorpe, an amateur with artistic tastes, in such semi-humorous satires as "A Border Inquest," representing wolves sitting on the carcass of a buffalo, struck a vein peculiarly American in its humor, and carried to a high degree of excellence by William H. Beard, whose brother, James Beard, can also be justly ranked as an animal-painter of respectable attainments. Mr. Beard, although remarkably versatile, has made a specialty, if it may be so termed, of exposing the failings and foibles of our sinful humanity by the medium of animal _genre_. Monkeys, bears, goats, owls, and rabbits are in turn impressed into the benevolent service of taking us off, and repeating for us the old Spartan tale of the slave made drunk by his master as a warning to his son. Of the skill which Mr. Beard has exhibited in this novel line there can be no question. The "Dance of Silenus," the pertinacious, iterative, pragmatic ape called "The Bore," and "Bears on a Bender," are masterly bits of characterization. There is also a deal of comic satire in "The Bulls and Bears of Mammon's Fierce Zoology," which, with a multitude of struggling fighting figures, takes off the eccentricities of the Stock-exchange. Beard can justly be called the American Æsop. It is asserted by many that this is not art. The fact is that it is exceedingly difficult to draw the line, and to prescribe what subjects an artist shall choose. In art the result justifies the means. And this certainly seems as legitimate a subject for the brush of the artist as the graphic pictorial satires of Hogarth, or the mildly comical genres of Erskine Nicol. [Illustration: "WHOO!"--[WILLIAM H. BEARD.]] In a previous chapter we alluded to some of the figure, historical, and _genre_ painters of this period. William Mount was the precursor of a number of _genre_ artists of more or less ability, among whom may be mentioned Thomas Hicks, a pupil of Couture, and one of the first of our painters who studied at Paris. In this admirable school Mr. Hicks became an excellent colorist, although of late his art has appeared to lose some of this quality. He has painted landscape and _genre_, meeting with respectable success in the latter, but portraiture has chiefly occupied his attention. His portrait of General Meade is a striking and satisfactory work. Then there was Richard Caton Woodville, who followed Whittredge to Düsseldorf, and promised much in _genre_. His paintings show very decided traces of German influence, but behind it all was a strong individuality that seemed destined to assert itself, and to place him among our foremost painters. But he died young, and (shall we not say?) happily for him, since little fame and less appreciation are destined to the artists who come ere the people are ripe for their art. George B. Flagg at one time promised well for our _genre_ art, but his abilities were too precocious, and unfortunately the splendid opportunities he enjoyed as a pupil of Allston, and as a long resident in London, do not seem to have been sufficient to give growth or permanence to his talents. About this time our frontier life was coming more prominently into view, and that picturesque border line between civilization and barbarism was becoming a subject for the pen of our leading writers. Irving, Cooper, and Kennedy, Street, Whittier, and Longfellow, were tuning the first efforts of their Muse to celebrate Indian life and border warfare in prose and verse, while the majestic measures of Bryant's "Prairies" seemed a prophetic prelude to the march of mankind toward the lands of the setting sun. "Evangeline," the most splendid result of our poetic literature, attracted not less for its magnificent generalizations of the scenery of the West than for the constancy of the heroine, and the artistic mind responded in turn to the unknown mystery and romance of that vast region, and gave us graphic pictures of the rude humanity which lent interest and sentiment to its unexplored solitudes. It is greatly to be regretted that the work of these pioneers in Western _genre_ was not of more artistic value; from a historical point of view, too much importance cannot be attached to the enterprise and courage of men like Catlin, Deas, and Ranney, who, imbued with the spirit of adventure, identified themselves with Indian and border life, and rescued it from oblivion by their art enthusiasm, which, had it been guided by previous training, would have been of even greater value. As it is, they have with the pencil done a service for the subjects they portrayed similar to what Bret Harte has accomplished in giving immortality with the pen to the wild, picturesque, but evanescent mining scenes of the Pacific slope. In this connection the fact is worth recording that the important mutual life-insurance association called the Artists' Funding Society took its origin in a successful effort to contribute to the support of the family of Ranney after his death. Our historical painters of this period rarely created any works deserving of note or remembrance. Here and there a painting like that of Huntington's "Republican Court" was produced, which is a graceful and elegant composition, and one of the best of the kind in American art. Peter F. Rothermel, the able portrait-painter of Philadelphia, also composed a number of historical works, of which the last is probably of most value. His "Battle of Gettysburg" is a bold and not ineffective representation of one of the critical moments in the world's history, although open in parts to severe criticism. J. G. Chapman, well known at one time as a skilful wood-engraver and _genre_ painter, also aspired to the difficult field of historical painting; but it is to an artist of German extraction, Emmanuel Leutze, that we owe our best historical art previous to 1860, excepting perhaps some of the compositions of Copley and West and two or three of the battle-pieces of Trumbull. Although born abroad, Leutze may be justly claimed as an American painter, for he was taken to Philadelphia in childhood, and remained in this country until thoroughly imbued with a patriotic love for the land and its history and the spirit of its institutions; and although he subsequently passed a number of years at Düsseldorf, whither he went at twenty-seven, the last ten years of his life were here; here he died, and the subjects of his art were almost entirely inspired by American scenes, and have become incorporated with the growth of our civilization. [Illustration: "LAFAYETTE IN PRISON."--[E. LEUTZE.]] Leutze was a man who was cast in a large mould, capable of a grand enthusiasm, and aspiring to grasp soaring ideals. Although his art was often at fault, it makes us feel, notwithstanding, that in contemplating his works we are in the presence of a colossal mind which, under healthier influences, would have better achieved what he aspired to win. He drew from wells of seemingly inexhaustible inspiration. He was Byronic in the impetus of his genius, the rugged incompleteness of his style, the magnificent fervor and rush of his fancy, the epic grandeur and energy, dash and daring, of his creations. It is easy to say that he was steeped in German conventionalism, that he pictured the impossible, that he was sometimes harsh in his color and technique; and so he was at times, but, with it all, he left the impression of vast intellectual resources. We would not be understood as saying that all the works of Leutze are worthy of unqualified acceptance; we refer rather to their general character. His art was very prolific, and as a pupil of Lessing and Schadow it bore the unmistakable stamp of Düsseldorf. Much of his work, partaking also of the grandiose style of Kaulbach, was of a semi-decorative character, like the "Landing of the Norsemen," which represents two fresh, sturdy Scandinavian rovers stepping out of an impossible ship, bearing aloft a noble princess, and in the very act of landing snatching the grapes "hanging wanton to be plucked." Spirited as it is, the manifest absurdity of the composition as a representation of reality yet requires us to accept it as decorative in design. "Godiva" is a somewhat coarse but characteristic work of Leutze, and the "Iconoclast" one of his most interesting and artistic works. In America, Leutze will be remembered longest by his large and magnificent painting of "Washington at Princeton," his "Emigration to the West" (a decorative composition in one of the panels of the stairway of the Capitol at Washington), and his "Washington Crossing the Delaware." The latter was executed at Düsseldorf, and the ice was painted from an unusual mass of shattered ice floating down the Rhine on the breaking up of the winter. It is another illustration of the apparent caprice with which man is treated by destiny, that scarcely had Leutze closed his eyes in his last sleep, at the early age of fifty-one, when a letter arrived from Germany bringing official tidings that he had just been elected to succeed Lessing as president of the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A LADY.--[WILLIAM PAGE.]] While we find in Leutze the qualities we have described, it cannot be said that he sought out any new methods of expression, or that he undertook to suggest the deeper and more subtle traits of human nature; he was content to work after the manner of the school in which he studied. It is to another painter (already referred to), of great intellectual resource and a thoroughly American discontent with the actual, that we turn for aspirations after a higher form of art. William Page, a native of Albany, who studied law, and for a time also theology, at Andover Seminary, was from the first biassed in favor of art. His mind presents a combination of the speculative and the practical, and it is the union of these antithetical qualities which has alternately aided or hindered the success of Page's efforts and experiments. He is deliberate rather than inspirational, guided by an exquisite feeling for color and an admirable sense of form, but too often unduly controlled by the logical and analytical faculty. Had his fancy only been more childlike, and been left more to the guidance of its own natural and correct instincts, Mr. Page's works would have oftener moved us by their beauty rather than by the dexterity of the technique. Still, it is by the aid of a few such questioning minds that art makes its advances, and interprets the secrets of nature. As a portrait painter, Page has placed himself among the first artists of the age. We see in his portraits a dignity and repose, a grasp of character, and a harmonious richness of color that are wonderfully impressive. In attempting to represent the beauty of the feminine figure Mr. Page has been influenced by great delicacy and refinement of motive, although in the celebrated painting of "Venus Rising from the Sea," he gave cause for much discussion as to the merits of his theories. [Illustration: "THE REFUGE."--[ELIHU VEDDER.]] When Page was in his prime, our literature had already become distinguished by several writers of thoroughly original and mystically creative imagination, native to the soil, and drawing sustenance from native inspiration: they were Charles Brockden Brown, Judd, Hawthorne, and Poe. In point of originality in conceiving of scenes powerfully weird and imaginative, these writers have had no superiors in this century. With a style essentially individual, they analyzed the workings of the human heart, and dealt with the great problems of destiny. Their genius was cosmopolitan, and for all ages. Our pictorial art, in a less degree, began soon after to be prompted by a similar tendency. Most prominent among these artists whose faltering efforts have most distinctly articulated the language and aspirations of the soul are Elihu Vedder and John Lafarge. It cannot be said that either of these artists has yet accomplished with complete success the end he has sought; but their efforts have been in the right direction, and as such are highly interesting, hopeful, and suggestive. Mr. Vedder's early _genre_ and landscape compositions are full of subtle attempts at psychology in color. Outward nature with him is but a means for more effectively conveying the impressions of humanity; and his faces are full of vague, mystic, far-off searching after the infinite, and the why and the wherefore of this existence below. Since Mr. Vedder took up his residence permanently in Italy, he has improved in technique, and there is less dryness in his method of using color, as witnessed by his remarkable painting called a "Venetian Dancing Girl, or 'La Regina;'" but he has not in recent years produced anything so marvellously imaginative as his "Lair of the Sea-Serpent," or so grand and desolate as his "Death of Abel." The man who painted the "Lost Mind," the "Death of Abel," and the "Lair of the Sea-Serpent," did not need to borrow from the ancients--at least so far as regards forms of expression. The vast, solemn, appalling solitude of the primeval world, the terrific sublimity of its first tragedy, are rendered in Mr. Vedder's painting with the sombre grandeur of Dante; while as a work of imaginative art, the steel-colored monster reposing his gigantic folds on the dry grass of a desolate shore by the endless seas, is a composition of wonderful simplicity and mysterious power, a creation of pure genius. [Illustration: CARTOON SKETCH: CHRIST AND NICODEMUS.--[JOHN LAFARGE.]] Mr. Lafarge is by nature a colorist; to color, the emotional element of art, his sensitive nature vibrates as to well-attuned harmonies of music. For form he has less feeling; his drawing is often very defective, and the lines are hesitating, uncertain, and feeble. But we have had no artist since Stuart who has shown such a natural sympathy for the shades and modulations of chromatic effects. But, while his drawing is open to criticism, this artist is inspired by the general meaning of form, and has sometimes produced some very weird and startling compositions entirely in black and white, or camaieu. But whether it be form or color, the various elements of art are regarded by Lafarge not so much for what they are as for what they suggest; he is less concerned with the external than with the hidden meaning it has for the soul. It is because of his subtle way of regarding the beauty of this world that he has given us such thoughtful landscapes as "Paradise at Newport," and such exquisitely painted flowers, rendered with a tender harmony of color that thrills us like a lyric of Keats or of Tennyson. It is this serious, reflective turn which has given a religious hue to his art, and has enabled him to succeed so well in the most ambitious attempt at decorative-painting yet undertaken in this country--the frescoes of Trinity Church, in Boston; in which, it should be added, he was ably assisted by Mr. Lathrop. In these compositions we see the results of a highly ideal and reverent nature, nourished by the most abundant art opportunities the age could afford. It is not difficult to find in them points fairly open to attack; but the promise they show is so hopeful a sign in our art, the success actually achieved in them in a direction quite new in this country is so marked, that we prefer to leave to others any unfavorable criticism they may suggest. IV. _AMERICAN PAINTERS._ 1828-1878. The discovery of the gold mines of California was a signal for enterprise, daring, and achievement, not only to our commerce and the thrift of our shifting millions of uneasy settlers, but also to the literature and landscape-art of the United States. "To the kingdom of the west wind" hied artist and author alike; and the epic of the settlement of California, of the scaling of the Rocky Mountains, of the glory of the Columbia River, and the stupendous horrors of the Yellowstone was pictured on the canvas of the artist. Taylor and Scott conquered the Pacific slope; Fremont pointed out the pathway over the swelling ranges of the Sierras; and our painters revealed to us the matchless splendor of a scenery which shall arouse increasing astonishment and reverential awe and rapture in the hearts of generations yet to be. In the gratitude we owe to these landscape-painters who dared, discovered, and delineated for us the scenery of which we were hitherto the ignorant possessors, criticism is almost left in abeyance, for the service done the people has been a double one--in leading them to the observation of paintings, and informing them of the attractions of a little known possession. If the art of these paintings of our Western scenery had been in all respects equal to the subject, the country would have been rich indeed. Among the artist explorers to whom we are most indebted, Messrs. Bierstadt, Hill, and Moran are the most famous. The former, by his great composition entitled the "Rocky Mountains," threw the people into an ecstasy of delight, which at this time it is difficult to understand, and bounded at one step to celebrity. Albert Bierstadt is a native of Düsseldorf, but came to this country in infancy. Subsequently he studied at Düsseldorf and Rome. On returning to America, he accompanied the exploring expedition of General Lander that went over the plains in 1858. Fitz Hugh Ludlow, the well-known _littérateur_, was associated with him in a subsequent trip, and several graphic articles in which he afterward described the journey undoubtedly helped to bring Mr. Bierstadt into notice. The "Rocky Mountains" is not the representation of an actual scene, but a typical composition, and, thus regarded, is an interesting work, although it seems to us somewhat too theatrical, and scarcely true in some of the details. Local truth is desirable in topographical art, although of quite secondary importance in compositions of a more ideal character. Since then this artist has executed a number of similarly ambitious paintings of our Western scenery, including a colossal painting of the gorge of the Yosemite Valley. All of them are characterized by boldness of treatment, but sometimes they are crude in color and out of tone. Of these we prefer, as least sensational and most artistically correct, the painting of a storm on Mount Rosalie. Bierstadt's smaller California scenes are generally more valuable than his large ones for artistic quality: one of the best compositions we have seen from his easel is a war sketch representing Federal sharp-shooters on the crest of a hill behind some trees. This is an excellent piece of work, fresh, original, and quite free from the Düsseldorf taint; and confirms us in the opinion that Mr. Bierstadt is naturally an artist of great ability and large resources, and might easily have maintained a reputation as such if he had not grafted on the sensationalism of Düsseldorf a greater ambition for notoriety and money than for success in pure art. [Illustration: "VIEW ON THE KERN RIVER"--[A. BIERSTADT.]] Some of the qualities we have learned to look for in vain in the canvases of Bierstadt we find emphasized in the paintings of Thomas Hill, who succeeded him as court painter to the monarch of the Rocky Mountains. Hill began life as a coach-painter at Taunton, Massachusetts. After deciding on a professional art career, he visited Europe, and benefited by observation in foreign studios, especially of France, although his style is essentially his own. His method of using pigments is sometimes open to the accusation of hardness; there is too often a lack of juiciness--a dryness that seems to remind us of paint rather than atmosphere, which may be owing to the fact, as I have been informed, that he uses little or no oil in going over a painting the second time. But Mr. Hill is a good colorist, bold and massive in his effects, and a very careful, conscientious student of nature. He has been happy in the rendering of wood interiors, as, for example, bits from the Forest of Fontainebleau. One of his most remarkable New England landscapes represents the avalanche in the Notch of the White Mountains, which was attended with such disastrous results to the dwellers in the valley. But Mr. Hill will be identified in future with California, where he has become a resident, and has devoted his energies to painting some of the magnificent scenery of that marvellous region, where the roar of the whirlwind and the roll of the thunder reverberate like the tread of the countless millions who evermore march to the westward. As he sat on the edge of the precipice, the forerunner of coming ages, and painted the sublime, solitary depths of the Yosemite, did the artist realize that with every stroke of the brush he was aiding the advance guard of civilization, and driving away the desolation which gave additional grandeur to one of the most extraordinary spots on the planet? In his great painting of the Yosemite he seems to have been inspired by a reverential spirit; he has taken no liberties with his subject, but has endeavored with admirable art to convey a correct impression of the scene; and the work may be justly ranked with the best examples of the American school of landscape-painting. [Illustration: "THE YOSEMITE."--[THOMAS HILL.]] [Illustration: "THE BATHERS."--[THOMAS MORAN.]] The first fever of the California rush had subsided when the uneasy explorer again stirred the enthusiasm of adventurous artists by thrilling descriptions of the Yellowstone River, its Tartarean gorges, and the lurid splendor of its sulphurous cliffs and steaming geysers. Once more the landscape artist of the country was moved to go forth and make known to us those unrevealed wonders; and Thomas Moran, "taking his life in his hands," in the language of religious cant, aspired to capture the bouquet, the first bloom, from this newly-opened draught of inspiration. We all know the result. Who has not seen his splendid painting of the "Gorge of the Yellowstone," now in the Capitol at Washington? Granting the fitness of the subject for art, it can be frankly conceded that this is one of the best paintings of the sort yet produced. The vivid local colors of the rocks, which there is no reason to doubt have been faithfully rendered--for Mr. Moran is a careful and indefatigable student of certain phases of nature--appear, however, to give such works a sensational effect. This seems to us to be the most valuable of the numerous paintings of Western subjects produced by this artist. It would be a mistake, however, to judge him wholly by the more ambitious compositions suggested by tropical or Western scenery. Some of his ideal paintings are very clever, and show us an ardent student of nature, and a mind inspired by a fervid imagination. But while conceding thus much to the talents of this artist--who belongs to an artistic family, two of his brothers being also well-known painters, one in marine, the other in cattle painting--we can not accord him great original powers. He has studied the technique of his calling most carefully, and has bestowed great attention to the methods of several celebrated artists; but we are too often conscious, in looking at his works, that his style has leaned upon that of certain favorite painters. There is great cleverness, but little genius, apparent in the landscapes of Mr. Moran, for the imitative faculty has been too much for him. [Illustration: LANDSCAPE.--[JERVIS M'ENTEE.]] Contemporary with our school of grand nature, if we may so call it, and represented by artists native in thought and education, we find evidences of another beginning to assert itself, of altogether a different character. The former deals wholly with externals, and the subject is the first end sought; it concerns itself altogether with objects, and not with any ulterior thoughts which they may suggest to the sensitive imagination. The latter, on the other hand, searches out the mystery in nature, and analyzes its human aspects. It is the vague suggestions seen in hills and skies, in sere woods and lonely waters, and moorlands fading away into eternity--it is their symbolism and sympathy with the soul that an artist like Mr. Jervis M'Entee seeks to represent on canvas. This is, in a word, the subjective art to which we have already alluded. To him the voice of nature is an elegy; the fall of the leaves in October suggests the passing away of men to the grave in a countless and endless procession; and whenever he introduces the agency of man into his pictures, it is as if he were fighting with an unseen and remorseless destiny. Exquisitely poetic and beautiful are the autumnal scenes of this artist, the reaches of russet woodlands, the expanses of skurrying clouds, gray, melancholy, wild. His art sings in a low minor key that finds response in the heart of multitudes who have suffered, to whom the world has been a battle-field, where the losses have outweighed the gains, and have left them gazing into the mysterious future like one who at midnight stands on the brink of a tremendous abyss into which he must be hurled, but knows not what are the shuddering possibilities that await the inevitable plunge. A young artist of Boston died in Syria, four years ago, at the early age of twenty-five, before he had acquired more than local repute, who gave promise of standing among the foremost of American landscape-painters. I refer to A. P. Close. Certainly no artist we have produced has evinced more abundant signs of genius at so early an age. Nor was he wholly a landscape-painter; the figure was also one aim of his art, and it was in the combination of the two that he excelled. He also had an eye for color that has not been too common in our art; and, wholly untaught, expressed his moods and fancies with a force that, even in its immaturity, suggested the master. But the one point in which he surpassed most of our artists up to this time was in the singular and inexhaustible activity of the imaginative faculty. It is strange that one so young should have so early manifested in his art a serious, almost morbid, view of life. It may have been because he found himself, before the age of twenty, forced to provide for a fatherless family, and to devote the greater part of his energies to what was to him the uncongenial work of drawing on wood. [Illustration: "COUNTY KERRY."--[A. H. WYANT.]] Less subjective and morbid, but moved by a similar feeling for the suggestions of nature, A. H. Wyant displays a sympathy with scenery and a masterful skill in reaching subtle effects which place him among the first landscape-painters of the age. In the suggestive rendering of space and color, of the manifold phases of a bit of waste land, or mountain glen, or sedgy brook-side, simple enough at first sight, but full of an infinitude of unobtrusive beauty, he works with the magic of a high-priest of nature; his style is broad in effect, without being slovenly and careless, and gives a multitude of details while really dealing chiefly with one central and prevailing idea. Mr. Wyant's work occasionally shows traces of foreign influences; but he is an artist of too much original power to be under any necessity to stunt himself by the imitation of the style of any other artist, however great. Homer Martin is another painter who views nature for the sentiment it suggests, while he is impressed chiefly by color and light; for form he seems to have less feeling. But he is a lyrist with the brush, and his sympathy with certain aspects of nature is akin to idolatry. With a few intense and telling strokes, he brings before us the splendors of sunset or the quietude of twilight, the gray vapors of morning creeping over dank woodlands or the sublime pathos of lonely sands, haunted by wild fowl and beaten by the hollow seas. But we have no painter whose art is so unequal: in all his works there is absolute freedom, freshness, and originality; his scheme of color is altogether his own, full of luminousness and purity; but he is weak in technique, and thus he alternately startles us by the brilliance, beauty, and suggestiveness of one painting, and the palpable failure to reach the desired end in another. However, this very irregularity in achievement shows that he is subject to inspirations, and thus partakes of the character of genius, which, if it were of a higher order, would be more often successful in its attempts. In the works of these painters we see abundant reason to believe in the permanent vitality of American landscape art, and evidence that it is not inclined to run in a conventional groove. Just so long as the artists who represent it continue to assert their individuality with such nerve and keen perception of the essential truths of nature, art is in a healthy and progressive condition. If further evidence of this were needed, we might cite the landscapes of J. Appleton Brown, who, after a rather discouraging servitude to Corôt, is at last beginning to show us the reserve power of which he is capable when he is more concerned with nature than with imitating the style and thoughts of another. Ernest Longfellow, a son of the poet, is another exemplar of the sturdy and healthful personality which everywhere crops out in our landscape art. While it cannot be said that his paintings suggest greatness, they breathe a true spirit, and possess a purity of color that is very attractive. D. W. C. Boutelle, long resident at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and rarely exhibiting in public in late years, is well known by such works as "The Trout Brook Shower" and engravings of other paintings by him, as an artist of originality and force, who seems to combine in his style some of the best traits of the American School of landscape-painting. [Illustration: "THE ADIRONDACKS."--[HOMER MARTIN.]] E. M. Bannister, of Providence, is also a man of genius. In the matter of drawing he is weak; but, although he has never been abroad, we recognize in his treatment of masses, and the brilliance of his method of managing light and color, the progressive transition through which our landscape art is passing, even when it does not pay allegiance to foreign influences. [Illustration: A LANDSCAPE.--[J. W. CASILEAR.]] Our marine art of the last fifteen years has shown that the illimitable aspects of the sea are also receiving increased attention, and are calling forth some of the best art talent of the country. It may be partly due to the advent of M. F. H. De Haas, who came here from Holland already an accomplished artist, who had done so well in his native land as to be appointed court painter to the queen. An artist of brilliant parts, although sometimes inclined to sensationalism, he has undoubtedly created some splendid compositions; and his influence must have been of decided importance during this period. While he has been working in New York, two marine painters of Boston have also executed some striking and beautiful works. I refer to John E. C. Petersen and William E. Norton. The former died young, in 1876. He was by birth a Dane, and in personal appearance a viking: tall, handsome, tawny-haired, with a clear, sharp blue eye, and a bearing that reminded one of an admiral on the quarter-deck of his frigate swooping down with flying sheets across the enemy's bow and pouring in a raking fire. Those who have seen him will never forget the grand figure of Petersen, the very impersonation of a son of the sea. When he first began to paint in Boston his pictures were weak in color and rude in drawing. But he improved with marvellous rapidity, and at the time of his death had few peers in marine art. Every inch a sailor, to him a ship was no clumsy mass laid awkwardly on the top of the water, as too many painters represent it, but a thing of life, with an individuality of its own, graceful as a queen, and riding the waves like a swan. "Making Sail after a Storm," representing a clipper ship shaking out her top-sails in the gray gloom that succeeds a storm, and rising massively but easily against the sky on the crest of the weltering seas, is a very strong picture. So also is his "After the Collision," and "A Ship Running before a Squall." When shall we see his like again? Mr. Norton began life as a house-painter, and is related to a family of ship-builders. He has himself made several voyages before the mast, and is therefore well equipped, so far as observation goes. He has painted many works, sometimes with more rapidity than comports with artistic success; and his style is occasionally hard, mannered, and mechanical. But he is an enthusiast for his art, and sometimes a happy inspiration enables him to turn off a painting that entitles him to a high rank among the marine painters of the age. He has been most happy in quiet effects and fog scenes, and a composition called the "Fog-Horn," representing two men in a dory blowing a horn to warn away a steamer that is stealthily approaching them out of the fog, is a very interesting work. "Crossing the Grand Banks" is the title of another painting by this artist, in which the luminous haze of a midday fog and a large ship threading her way through a fleet of fishing-schooners, are rendered with a truth of color and majesty of form that give this work an important position in contemporary American art. [Illustration: "SHIP ASHORE."--[M. F. H. DE HAAS.]] Inferior to these artists as a draughtsman or in knowledge of ships, Arthur Quartley has, however, won a rapid and deserved reputation for coast scenes and effects of shimmering light on still water. Prettiness rather than beauty is sometimes too evident in his work; but he composes with decided originality, showing a real passion for the effects after which he strives, and his skies are often very strong. A "Storm off the Isles of Shoals" is one of his most important compositions. Mr. Lansil, of Boston, seems to be practically ignorant of the first principles of drawing and perspective, but he has shown a feeling for color and light, and we have at present few artists who equal him in painting still harbor scenes, marbled with reflections wavering on a glassy surface. Among our more clever coast painters we cannot omit the mention of A. T. Bricher, who renders certain familiar scenes of the Atlantic shore with much realistic force, but little feeling for the ideal. J. C. Nicoll seems to show more promise in this direction. The color and technique of his pictures are very clever and interesting, and well illustrate the sea as it looks to a landsman from _terra firma_. Both of these artists have painted extensively in _aquarelle_, in which medium they have achieved some important results; which may justly be added regarding the marine paintings of F. A. Silva. As a water-colorist Mr. Nicoll is not excelled by any of our artists now concerned with coast scenes; and some of his landscapes in _aquarelle_ sometimes rival his marines. What we observe in most of our marine-painters, however, is weakness in the matter of original composition. One would think that no object in nature would stimulate the imagination and expand the mind more than the sea. But it does not seem to have that effect in our marine art as yet, excepting here and there a solitary instance. [Illustration: "A FOGGY MORNING."--[W. E. NORTON.]] No fact better attests the active and prosperous character of American art than the rapid success which the culture of water-colors has achieved among us. In 1865 a collection of English water-color paintings was brought to this country, and exhibited in New York. It attracted much attention; and although a few artists, like Messrs. Parsons and Falconer, had already used this medium here, generally as amateurs, this seems to have been the first occasion that stimulated our artists to follow the art of water-color painting seriously. A society, headed by such men as Messrs. Samuel Colman, G. Burling, well known notwithstanding his early death, as a painter of game birds, J. M. Falconer, and R. Swain Gifford, was formed within a year; Mr. Colman was the first president, and the first annual exhibition was held in the halls of the Academy of Design in 1867. Twelve exhibitions have now been held, and Messrs. James Smillie and T. W. Wood have in turn succeeded Mr. Colman in the presidency. A numerous school of artists has sprung up, finding expression wholly in water-colors, like Miss Susan Hale or Henry Farrar, the able landscape-painter; while many of our leading artists in landscape and _genre_ have learned in this short period to work with equal success in _aquarelle_ and oil. The later exhibitions have been characterized by an individuality and strength that compare most favorably with the exhibitions of the older societies of London. Another interesting feature of the last part of the period under consideration is the increasing attention bestowed on the drawing of the figure. The number of _genre_ artists has notably increased; and the quality of their work has, on the whole, been on a higher plane. The war gave an impetus to this department, with its many sad or comic situations, and the increasing immigration of the peasantry of Europe, and the growing variety of our national types and street scenes, have all contributed to attract and stimulate the artistic eye and fancy. To mention all the artists among us who have, especially of late, achieved more or less success in this line, would be to enumerate a long catalogue, and we must content ourselves with the brief mention of a few who seem, perhaps, to be the most noteworthy, and, at the same time, indigenous in their style. [Illustration: "A MARINE."--[ARTHUR QUARTLEY.]] J. B. Irving, who has but recently passed away, executed some very clever cabinet compositions, delicately drawn and painted, somewhat in the modern French style, generally interiors, with figures in old-time costume. A very favorable specimen of his work is represented in a painting entitled "The End of the Game." B. F. Mayer, of Annapolis, has also devoted himself to a similar class of subjects successfully. He is, however, very versatile, and gives us at will a gentleman in Louis Quatorze costume, elaborately painted, or a bluff tar on the forecastle on the lookout, or aloft tarring down the rigging, or a religious ceremonial in the wigwams of the North-west. Marcus Waterman, of Providence, has displayed much dash in _genre_ combined with landscape, and is fresh and vigorous in style; while such a carefully executed work as his "Gulliver at Lilliput" is highly creditable to our art. J. W. Champney studied abroad under Frère, and also at Antwerp, and is one of the most broad-minded of our younger artists; indeed, it is refreshing to meet an artist so unbiassed by prejudice. His foreign studies have in no wise narrowed his intellectual sympathies. His small _genre_ compositions, especially of child life, often together with landscape, have been carefully finished--latterly with an especial regard to the values. Professor John F. Weir, who comes of an artistic family, and is Superintendent of the Academy of Art at New Haven, has shown capacity and nerve in his well-known painting called "Forging the Shaft," forcibly representing one of the most striking incidents in a foundry; and A. W. Willard, of Cincinnati, has struck out in a similar vein. Energy of action, and an effort after effect verging on exaggeration and caricature, are the characteristics of the style with which he has attempted such novel compositions as "Yankee Doodle" and "Jim Bludsoe." They suggest in color the literature of Artemus Ward and Walt Whitman. At the same time, we recognize in such thorough individuality a very promising attempt to assert the possibilities of certain phases of our national _genre_. These traits have been treated with less daring but with more artistic success by two of our best-known _genre_ painters--T. W. Wood and J. G. Brown. Mr. Wood, who is president of the Water-color Society, and employs both oil and water colors, spent several of the first years of his career at the South, and discovered of what importance our colored citizens might prove in our art--their squalor, picturesqueness, broad and kindly humor, and the pathos which has invested their fate with unusual interest. This artist's first successful venture in _genre_ was with a painting of a quaint old negro at Baltimore; and since then he has given us many characteristic compositions suggested by the lot of the slave, although he has not confined himself to this subject, but has also picked up excellent subjects among the newsboys in our streets, and amidst the homespun scenes of rural life. Mr. Wood's style is notable for _chiar-oscuro_, and his drawing is generally careful, correct, and forcible, and his compositions harmonious. Mr. Brown has also found that success and fame in _genre_ can be obtained without going abroad to seek for subjects. To him the _gamins_ of our cities are as artistically attractive as those of Paris, and a girl wandering by our sea-shore as winsome as if on the beach at Nice or Scheveningen, and an old fisherman at Grand Menan as pictorial as if he were under the cliffs at Etretât. Fault is sometimes found with the fact that the street lads painted by Mr. Brown have always washed their faces before posing, which is according to the commands of St. Paul, but not of art canons, if we accept Mr. Ruskin's dictum regarding the artistic value of dirt. Bating this apparently trifling difficulty, however, it must be admitted that he often offers us a very characteristic and successful bit of _genre_. Gilbert Gaul and J. Burns, pupils of Mr. Brown, merit a word of praise in this connection, for giving us reason to hope in time for some satisfactory work from their easels. Child life finds a warm friend and delineator in S. J. Guy, who has made many friends by the kindly way in which he has treated the simple pathos and humor of childhood. He is an admirable draughtsman, and finishes his work with great nicety--sometimes to a degree that seems to rob the picture of some of its freshness and piquancy; but it cannot be denied that Mr. Guy has often struck a chord in the popular heart, not merely by his choice of subjects, but by legitimately earned success in his art as well. Scenes of domestic life have also been treated sometimes very interestingly by Messrs. B. F. Reinhart, Ehninger, Blauvelt, Satterlee, Howland, Wilmarth, and Virgil Williams. Oliver J. Lay, although a slow, careful artist, has executed some thoughtful and refined in-door scenes, taken from domestic life, which show a thorough appreciation of the fact that art, for itself alone, is the only aim the true artist should pursue. E. L. Henry surprises one by the elaboration of his work, and is open to the charge of crudeness in color and hardness in outline; but occasionally he gives us a well-balanced composition, like the beach scene, with horses and a carry-all in the foreground, entitled "Waiting for the Bathers." [Illustration: "ARGUING THE QUESTION."--[T. W. WOOD.]] But it is in the works of Messrs. Eastman Johnson and Winslow Homer that we find the most successful rendering of American _genre_ of the present day as distinguished from that which bears unmistakable evidence of foreign inspiration. Mr. Johnson, as a student at Düsseldorf and other art centres of Europe, might be expected to show the fact in his art; but, instead of doing so, we have no painter who has a more individual style. There is uncertainty in his drawing sometimes, but his color and composition are generally excellent, and the choice of subjects are at the same time popular and artistic. We have had no painter since Mount who has done more to elevate the character of _genre_ art in the community. Successful in portraiture and ideal heads, Mr. Johnson has achieved his best efforts in the homely scenes of rustic negro life, or from a thorough sympathy with the simplicity and beauty of childhood. None who have seen his painting called the "Old Stage-Coach," representing a rollicking group of boys and girls playing on the rusty wreck of an abandoned mail-carriage, can ever doubt again the possibilities of _genre_ art in this country, although some of his simpler compositions are more to our liking. There is, however, nothing startling or especially novel in the style of Mr. Johnson. It is quiet and unsensational. It is to the eccentric and altogether original compositions of Winslow Homer that we turn for a more decided expression of the growing weariness of our people with the conventional, and a vague yearning after an original form of art speech. The freshness, the crudity, and the solid worth of American civilization are well typified in the thoroughly native art of Mr. Homer. No artist has shown more versatility and inventiveness in choice of subject, and greater impatience with accepted methods. Impatience, irritability, is written upon all his works--he is evidently striving after the unknown. But the key-note of his art seems to be a realistic endeavor to place man and nature, landscape and _genre_, in harmonious juxtaposition; never one alone, but both aiding each other, they are ever the themes of his brush. His figures are often stiff or posed in awkward attitudes, and yet they always arrest the attention, for they are inspired by an active, restless brain, that is undoubtedly moved by the impulse of genius. It is the values, or true relations of objects as they actually appear in nature, that this artist also seeks to render; while in his reach after striking subjects or compositions he not rarely borders on the sensational. But in some of his masterly water-color sketches, which are almost impressionist in treatment, or such more finished works as "The Cotton Pickers," a scene from Southern plantation life, Mr. Homer asserts his right to be considered the founder of a new school of _genre_ painting. The repose which is lacking in his style at present may come to him later, or be grafted upon it by those who come after him. George Fuller, of Boston, is another artist in whose works we see an additional proof of the growing importance attached to the painting of the figure in our art. His paintings indicate the presence among us of a vigorous, original personality, that is, of a genius striving for utterance. They are incomplete, rarely altogether satisfactory; but we feel, in the presence of such a subtle, suggestive, mysterious composition as the "Rommany Girl," vaguely thrilling us with the deep meaning of her weirdly glancing eyes, and weaving a mystic spell over our fancy, that a mind akin to that of Hawthorne is here striving for utterance, and unconsciously infusing new vitality into our _genre_ art. [Illustration: "THE ROSE."--[D. F. NAYER.]] As an influence in the same direction, the compositions of William Magrath command sincere attention. It is not so many years ago since he was painting signs in New York, and now we see him one of the strongest artists in _genre_ on this side of the Atlantic. Mr. Magrath generally paints single figures, associated with rural life--a milkmaid, or a farmer. Naturally there is inequality in the results achieved, and sometimes manifest weakness. But we note a constant progress in the quality of his art, and an evidence of imagination which has been unfortunately too rare in American _genre_ since the days of William Mount. By this we mean the identification of the artist with his subject, which renders it dramatic, and inspires it with that touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. In this respect he occasionally suggests the inimitable humanity which is the crowning excellence of the paintings of Jean François Millet. It is with additional pleasure that we note the works of some of our more recent native _genre_ artists, because we see indicated in them a growing perception of the fact that abundant subjects may be found at our own doors to occupy the pencil of the ablest minds. It is not uncommon to hear young artists who have studied in the ateliers of Paris and Munich, and who have returned here to work, complaining that they find no sources of inspiration here, no subjects to paint at home. This dearth of subjects certainly would be a very grave obstacle to the ultimate development of a great American school of art, if it actually existed. But on examining the question, it seems to us that the difficulty lies not in the lack of subjects, but in the way the artist has learned to look at things, and the range of sympathies to which he has become accustomed by his foreign experiences. The artist who is the man of his time and his country never yet lacked material for inspiration in the every-day life and every-day objects around him. Goethe has said that the truest poetry is that woven out of the suggestions gained from simple things. There has never yet been such a state of society or such an order of scenery that the artist who was in sympathy with it could not find some poetry, some color, some form or light or shade in it that would stir the finer elements of his genius, stimulate his fancy, and arouse his inventive powers. Some quality of beauty is there, concealed like the water in the rock; the magician comes whose rod can evoke the imprisoned element, and others then see what he had first seen. As we stroll, for example, through the streets and squares of New York's metropolis, by its teeming wharves, and among its dilapidated avenues of trade, we are astounded to think that any one could ever look on this seething mass of humanity, these various types of man, and the various structures he has erected here, and find in them no inspiration for his brush or his pen. What if there are no feluccas or painted sails in our harbor; one has but to cross the river on the ferry-boat at sunrise or sunset to see wonderful picturesqueness and beauty in our sloops and schooners, our shipping thronging the piers, all smitten by the glory of the rosy light, or over-canopied by scowling gray masses of storm-driven scud. Or if one saunters up our streets and gazes on the long vista of Broadway toward nightfall, as the lazy mist gradually broods over the roofs and delicately tones and softens the receding rows of buildings, he shall see effects almost as entrancing and poetic as those which charm the enthusiast who beholds the sun, a crimson disk, couching in a gray bank of smoke at the end of the boulevards of Paris, on an evening in October. Is there nothing picturesque and artistic in the Italian fruit venders at the street corners, especially when after dark they light their smoking torches, that waver with ruddy glow over brilliant masses of oranges and apples? [Illustration: "DRESS PARADE."--[J. G. BROWN.]] There is yet another scene which we often encounter, especially early in the morning, at a time when perhaps most artists are yet wrapped in dreams. We refer to the groups of horses led through the streets to the horse-market. Untrimmed, unshorn, massively built, and marching in files by fours and fives with clanging tread, sometimes thirty or forty together, they present a stirring and powerful effect, which would thrill a Bonheur or a Schreyer. Why have none of our artists attempted to paint them? Have we none with the knowledge or the power to render the subject with the vigor it demands? [Illustration: "A BED-TIME STORY."--[S. J. GUY.]] [Illustration: THE MOTHER.--[EASTMAN JOHNSON.]] No, we lack not subjects for those who know how to see them; while nothing is more certain than the truth that a national art can only be founded and sustained by those who are wholly in sympathy with the influences of the land whose art they are aiding to establish. Those who are familiar with American art will easily recall a number of our artists, educated both at home and abroad, who have no difficulty in finding material around home, and at the same time take the lead among us in point of artistic strength. While indicating, however, some of the many subjects which address one at every turn in our land, and render it unnecessary for artists to go abroad for a supply of fuel for their fancy, we would not, on the other hand, imply that an artist should, in order to be an exponent or leader of a native art, be confined exclusively to one class of subjects. Although it is one of the most remarkable and indisputable laws in literature and art that those who are identified with nature and human nature, as it appears in their native country, are at the same time most cosmopolitan, still it is, after all, not so much in the subjects as in the treatment that the individuality of a national art is best demonstrated. It is when the artist is so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the institutions of his native land that it appears in his art, whatever be the subject--it is then that he is most national. We hear a great deal about the French school and the English school; but it is not because each school finds its subjects invariably at home that it possesses an individuality of its own, but because we see unconsciously reflected in it the influences of the land that gave it birth. For this reason, if an English and a French painter shall each take the same scene, and that a wholly foreign one, say an Oriental group, although the subject be a foreign subject and identical in each canvas, you can discern at once that one picture is English, the other French in treatment. Each artist has stamped upon his work the impression of the influences of the people to which he belongs. [Illustration: SAIL-BOAT.--[WINSLOW HOMER.]] Patriotism, a wholesome enthusiasm for one's own country, seems, then, in some occult way to lie at the basis of a native art, and native art founded on knowledge is therefore always the truest art; while the artist who is thus inspired will generally find material enough to call forth his æsthetic yearnings and arouse his creative faculties at his own door. In passing from _genre_ to our later portraiture we do not find the same proportionate activity and intelligent progress that we see in other departments of our art, although some creditable painters in this department can be mentioned. Harvey A. Young, of Boston, has shown a good eye for color, and seizes a likeness in a manner that is artistically satisfactory, while he does not so often grasp the character of the sitter as his external traits. Mr. Custer, of the same city, charmingly renders the infantile beauty of childhood, its merry blue eyes, the dimpled roses of the cheeks, and the flaxen curls that ripple around the shoulders. There is, however, too much sameness in his work--a too apparent tendency to mannerism. Mrs. Henry Peters Grey has a faculty of making a pleasing likeness. She has executed some portrait plaques in majolica that are remarkable evidences of the progress ceramic art is now making in the United States. Mrs. Loop is one of our successful portrait-painters. Her works are not strikingly original, but they are harmonious in tone and color, and poetical in treatment. Henry A. Loop has also executed some pleasing portraits and ideal compositions; of the latter, his "Echo" is perhaps the most successful rendering of female beauty he has attempted. George H. Story should be included among the most important portrait-painters of this period. His work is characterized by vigor of style and pleasing color; he seizes a likeness without any uncertainty in technique. His _genre_ compositions and ideal heads are also inspired by a refined taste and correct perception of the principles of art. William Henry Furness, of Philadelphia, who died in 1867, just as he reached his prime, was allied in genius to the great masters of portraiture of the early stages of our art. He matured slowly. His first efforts showed only small promise; but he had the inestimable quality of growth, and has been equalled by few of our painters in the study and rendering of character. When he had a sitter he would give days to a preliminary and exhaustive study of his mental and moral traits. In Darius Cobb, of Boston, great earnestness is apparent in the pursuit of art, together with an exalted opinion of what should be the aims of æsthetic culture. Mr. Cobb has attempted sculpture, monumental art, portraiture, and the painting of religious compositions. We consider it a promising sign to see an artist of such energy seeking to exalt the character of his pursuit. His works seem, however, to show the lack of a systematic course of training in the rudiments of technique; but in such strong and characteristic portraits as that of Rufus Choate he has exhibited decided ability. [Illustration: "THE SCOUT."--[WORDSWORTH THOMPSON.]] The historic art of the period has been neither prolific nor attractive, with a few exceptions. The late war has given rise to some important works, like Winslow Homer's notable "Prisoners to the Front;" and Julian Scott has been measurably successful in such paintings as "In the Cornfield at Antietam," representing a charge in that memorable battle, which belongs to a class of pictures of which we hope to have more in the future. There is a striving after originality in his paintings that is in the right direction. Mrs. C. A. Fassett, who has executed some excellent portraits, has also recently composed an important painting of the "Electoral Commission," of whose merits the writer can only speak by report. [Illustration: "ON THE OLD SOD."--[WILLIAM MAGRATH.]] In Wordsworth Thompson we find an artist who seems to realize the possibilities of American historical art. Although a pupil of Gleyre, and for a number of years a resident abroad, there is no evidence of servile subserviency to any favorite school or method in the style of Mr. Thompson. He is an excellent draughtsman, his color is a happy medium between the high and low keys of different schools--fresh, cool, and crisp--and his work is thoroughly finished, and yet broad in effect. He evidently has no hobbies to ride. As a designer of horses he has few equals in this country. If we have a fault to find with him, it is in a certain lack of snap, of warmth, of enthusiasm in the handling of a subject, which renders it less impressive than it might otherwise be. [Illustration: "A MATIN SONG."--[FIDELIA BRIDGES.]] Mr. Thompson, in his Mediterranean wanderings, gathered material for a number of attractive coast scenes, effective in atmosphere and in the rendering of figures, feluccas, and waves, all tending to illustrate his versatility. But he deserves to be most widely known on account of scenes taken from Southern life, and historic compositions suggested by the late war, or illustrating notable events of the Revolution. For pictures of this description Mr. Thompson seems to us to rank next to Trumbull, whose masterly paintings of the "Death of Montgomery" and the "Battle of Bunker Hill," now at New Haven, have hitherto been by far the most remarkable military paintings produced by an American artist. There is less action, fire, and brilliance of color in Mr. Thompson's works, but they possess many admirable qualities that entitle them to much respect. Among the most notable is an elaborate composition representing the Continental army defiling before General Washington and his staff at Philadelphia. The group of officers and horses in the foreground is one of the best pieces of artistic work recently painted by an American. [Illustration: STUDY OF A DOG.--[FRANK ROGERS.]] When we come to a consideration of animal painting in this period of our æsthetic culture, we find that it is the most barren of good results of any branch of our art. We are at a loss to account for this, especially as the evidences of promise are also less prominent than in landscape and _genre_. Not only has the number of the artists who have pursued this department been proportionately small, but the quality of their work has been of a low average, and lacking in the originality elsewhere apparent. In the painting of pastoral scenes, with cattle, Peter Moran, of Philadelphia, probably shows the most originality and force; and Thomas Robinson, of Boston, has displayed exceptional vigor in painting the textures of cattle, but without much invention in composition. James Hart for the past twelve years has made a specialty of introducing groups of cattle into his idyllic landscapes. They are often well drawn and carefully painted, and are in general effect commendable, although, like most of our animal painters, Mr. Hart does not seem to have got at the character of the animal as Snyders, Morland, or Landseer would have done. Mr. Dolph has painted some creditable cats and pugs in combination with interiors; and two young artists, Messrs. George Inness, Jun., and J. Ogden Brown, have executed some promising cattle pieces. Miss Bridges must be credited with developing a charming and original branch of art, of which thus far she seems to enjoy a monopoly. There is exquisite fancy, as well as capital art, in the method in which, with water-colors, she composes stalks of grain or wild-flowers in combination with field birds, meadow-larks, linnets, bobolinks, sparrows, or sand-pipers, balancing on the apex of a wavering stalk, or flying over the wheat or by the sands of the sea-beat shore. Mr. Frank Rogers, who is still a very young man, takes especial interest in painting dogs, although not intending to confine himself to that branch of animal life, and has already achieved considerable success in his attempts to represent canine traits. He has trained several dogs to pose for him for ten to fifteen minutes at once. In the decided ability and success already shown by Mr. Rogers we can see that it is now possible for our artists, availing themselves of influences already at work here, combined with an intense love of nature and the ideal, to do strong original work without devoting half their lives to foreign study, and thus carry on to a higher stage the national art for which so many clamor unreasonably, not considering that new schools of art are not born in a day, nor evolved without the conditions which have invariably prepared the way for the national art of other people. Art travels by no royal road. [Illustration: "LOST IN THE SNOW."--[A. F. TAIT.]] Our continent is not so plentifully stocked with wild beasts and game as some parts of the Old World, but we yet have the panther and the bison, although now fast fading into a mere traditionary existence before the rifle of the pioneer. R. M. Shurtleff has a pleasant fancy for catamounts and deer, and has been a careful student of their habits, of which the results appear in dramatic bits of the wild life of the woods introduced into effective paintings of forest scenery; "A Race for Life" is the title of a weird, savage, and powerful composition by this artist, representing a flock of ravening wolves pursuing their victim over fields of frozen snow, behind which the low red sun is setting; and A. F. Tait has also devoted his life to rescuing from oblivion species which are rapidly becoming extinct, unless our game-laws are better enforced than they have been hitherto. There is often too finished a touch to the style of Mr. Tait, which deprives it of the force it might otherwise have; but he has, on the other hand, painted both game and domestic animals with remarkable truth, and he brings to the subject an inventive fancy that greatly adds to the variety and interest of his works. We might add in this connection an allusion to the ingenious carvings of Alexander Pope, a young artist who not only cuts out groups of game from a block of wood with much cleverness, but also truthfully colors the grouse and teal his skilful knife carves out of pine. There is a branch of art which latterly has attracted much attention in this country. We refer to still-life. George H. Hall, who is also known as a _genre_ painter, justly earned a reputation years ago for effective painting of fruit and flowers, in which he has hitherto had few equals in this country; and M. J. Heade has devoted his attention successfully to the rendering of the wonderful gorgeousness of tropical vegetation. The ideal flower-painting of Mr. Lafarge we have already mentioned. Miss Robbins, of Boston, is at present one of the most prominent artists we have in this department. She composes with great taste, and lays on her colors with superb effect. Some of her paintings suggest the rich, massive coloring of Van Huysams. Messrs. Seavey, of Boston, Way, of Baltimore, and Lambdin, of Philadelphia, have produced some interesting results in this direction; and Miss Dillon and Mrs. Henshaw must be credited with some very beautiful floral compositions. The list of ladies who have been measurably successful in realistic flower-painting is very large, and indicates the strong tendency toward decorative art in the country, which must result ere long in a distinctly national type of that branch of æesthetic culture. In arriving at the close of the second period of American painting, we are encouraged by abundant evidences of a healthy activity. While some phases of our art, after a growth of half a century, are passing through a transition period, and new methods and theories are grafting themselves upon the old, there is everywhere apparent a deeper appreciation of the supreme importance of the ideal, and a gathering of forces for a new advance against the strongholds of the materialism that wars against the culture of the ideal, combined with a rapidly spreading consciousness on the part of the people of the ethical importance of art, and a disposition to co-operate in its healthful development. At the same time new influences are entering into the national culture of æsthetics, and branches which have hitherto received little attention from our artists are coming rapidly into prominence, suggesting that we are about entering upon a third stage of American art. V. _SCULPTURE IN AMERICA._ It is a generally conceded fact that since the death of Michael Angelo the art of sculpture has made little progress in the expression of the ideal. It has rather indicated, until recently, a lack of steadiness of purpose, and a want of freshness and intellectual grasp that place the plastic art of the last three centuries in a lower rank than that of the Classic and the Middle Ages. It is, therefore, a matter of surprise that in a people apparently so unideal as our own, and engaged in struggling to win for itself a right to exist among the wilds of a new world, that we find that so much evidence has already been shown of an appreciation for sculpture. It is true that we have not yet produced any masterpieces that can rank with those of antiquity; but, on the other hand, some of our plastic art compares favorably with the best that has been created in modern times. But what might have been expected under the circumstances has proved to be the case. Originality has been the exception and not the rule, even with our best sculptors. Naturally led to study the antique in Europe, and also to master there the technical elements of the art of sculpture, owing to the entire absence of facilities for art education here, it was only to be expected that they would at first yield to the art influences whose guidance they sought. It was not their fault that, until recently, those influences were conventional, and based upon a false perception of the principles of art. [Illustration: "EVE BEFORE THE FALL."--[HIRAM POWERS.]] Some of our most successful sculptors have never been abroad, or at least have not systematically placed themselves under the tuition of a foreign master; while a number of them have indicated in their tendencies a natural sympathy with the later movement of modern sculpture, which is rather in the direction of allegory, portraiture, and _genre_ suggested by domestic life. When the ancients represented Venus or Jove in marble, they sculptured a being in whose actual existence they believed, and thus a profound reverence inspired the work of the master. When the sculptor of the Middle Ages carved the deeds of the Saviour, or the saints, or represented the Last Judgment, he was moved by deep love or reverential awe, and an unquestioning belief in the events he was commemorating. But when the sculptor of this century undertakes to revive classical subjects and modes of thought, he encounters an insurmountable obstacle at the outset, which checks all progress, and relegates his art to a secondary rank, without even the benefit of a doubt in his favor. The laws and limitations of mind make it impossible for an art to be of the first order which depends upon the imitation of other art. It is only by copying nature directly, under the inspirations of its own age and country, that a school of art has the slightest chance of immortality. Thorwaldsen, the greatest sculptor since Michael Angelo, exemplified this truth to a remarkable degree. Moved by a realization of classic art which no other modern sculptor except Flaxman has approached, we yet find his classical subjects inferior to those allegorical subjects in which he gave expression to the impulses of his own times. A slowly dawning consciousness that art cannot by any force of will or free agency escape from these limitations of growth is becoming at last evident in recent sculpture, especially in the emotional and sometimes sensational sculpture of France. Lacking repose, it is yet fresh and original, and is destined by continued self-assertion to reach a high rank. It is in imitations of the antique or in allegory, and portraiture, that our sculpture has exerted its best efforts, until within a few years. General Washington has also proved a sort of Jupiter Tonans to our sculptors. Elevated to a semi-apotheosis by the people, he has hitherto been the most prominent subject of the plastic art of the West, and has thus afforded a fair standard of comparison between the merits of different artists, since very few of them but have tried their hand with the national hero. As regards popular appreciation or pecuniary reward, it must be admitted that our sculptors have relatively little cause for complaint. The art of sculpture was by no means unknown here when the white man first stepped foot on our shores. The pipe-stone quarries of the West are an evidence of what had already been attempted by the aboriginal savages. Tobacco, so much maligned by certain zealous philanthropists, was at least an innocent cause of some of the earliest attempts at sculpture made on this continent. The writer has in his possession an Indian pipe carved out of flint, which represents a man sitting with hands clasped across his knees. Simple as it is, it indicates good skill in stone-carving, and considerable observation of race characteristics and anatomy. Evidences of great technical skill in the plastic arts, but with an unformed perception of beauty, are being constantly discovered among the relics of the extinct Mound-builders of the West and South. [Illustration: "ORPHEUS."--[THOMAS CRAWFORD.]] Before the Revolution, however, excepting in the carving of figure-heads, plastic art, unlike painting, seems to have been hardly known in the United States. And so little sign was there of its dawn that John Trumbull declared to Frazee, as late as 1816, that sculpture "would not be wanted here for a century." But even then the careful observer might have noticed indications that a genius for glyptic art was awakening in the new republic. In the early part of the last century Deacon Drowne made a vane for Faneuil Hall, and one for the Province House, in Boston, which appear to have gained him great repute in his day in New England. The latter work, although turning with the wind on an iron spindle, was a life-size statue of an Indian sachem holding a bow and arrow in the act of aiming. It was hollow, and of copper, and would seem, from the impression it made, to have been a work of some merit. Somewhat later, Patience Wright, of Bordentown, New Jersey, displayed considerable cleverness in modelling miniature wax heads in relief, and by this process succeeded in making likenesses of Washington and Franklin, among the celebrities of her time. William Rush, who was born some twenty years before the Revolution, had also shown already that even in ship-carving the sculptor may find scope for fancy and skill, as Matthew Pratt, in the previous generation, had proved that even in the painting of signs genius can find vent for its inspirations. Rush was undoubtedly a man of genius; for, although all the art education he ever had was confined to an apprenticeship with a ship-carver, his figure-heads of Indians or naval heroes added a singular merit to the beauty of the merchant marine which first carried our flag to the farthest seas, and the men-of-war that wrested victory in so many a hard-fought battle. Hush worked only in wood or clay; but original strength and talent, which under better circumstances might have achieved greater results, are evident in some of his portrait busts, and in a statue of a nymph at Fairmount. A bust of himself, carved out of a block of pine, is remarkable for a realistic force and character that entitle it to a permanent place in the records of American sculpture. Sculpture, however, was much more backward in gaining a foothold in the country than the sister arts; for it was not until 1824 that the first portrait in marble by a native was executed--that of John Wells, by John Frazee, a stone-cutter, whose sole art education was obtained during an apprenticeship in a yard where rude monumental work was turned out for the bleak cemeteries in use before such sumptuous retreats as Greenwood and Mount Auburn were planned. There was a feeling after the ideal in the nature of this unassisted artist which enabled him to be potential in influencing younger artists; while his opportunities were unfavorable to the just development of his own abilities. Rush began to model in clay in 1789, and at that time not one of the artists who have since given celebrity to our native sculpture had seen the light. Frazee was born in 1790; and Hezekiah Augur, of New Haven, in 1791. The latter was engaged in the grocery trade, and failing in that, took up modelling and wood-carving, without any guide except his natural instincts. Like many of our first sculptors, his efforts are interesting rather as evidences of what talent entirely uninstructed and untrained can accomplish, than for any intrinsic value in his work. Many of the artists who have succeeded him have also begun life in some trade or profession altogether at variance with the art to which they afterward consecrated their lives. It was not till the year 1805, long after Copley, West, Malbone, Allston, and Stuart had demonstrated our capacity for pictorial art, that the genius of the country seemed inclined to allow us a plastic art of our own. In that year Hiram Powers was born, one of the best known sculptors of the century. The same year witnessed the birth of Horatio Greenough. In the remote wilds of Kentucky, still harried by the Indians, Hart was born in 1810; and Clevenger, Crawford, and Mills followed in 1812, 1813, and 1815--all artists of note, even if of unequal merits, and important as pioneers in the art rather than the creators of a great school of sculpture. Thus we see that without any apparent previous preparation a strong impulse toward glyptic art and the men to direct and give it strength simultaneously sprung up in the land. When one considers the disadvantages under which they labored, and that, so far as can be known, they were not even aided by any heredity of genius in this direction, criticism is tempered by surprise that they achieved the results they did, and that two of them at least--Powers and Crawford--succeeded in winning for themselves a European renown which made them almost the peers of some of the leading foreign sculptors of the age, who were born amidst the trophies of classic and Renaissance art. [Illustration: "COLUMBUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL."--[FROM THE BRONZE DOOR OF THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON.--RANDOLPH ROGERS.]] Hiram Powers must always be assigned a commanding position in our Western art, even by those who are not enthusiastic admirers of his works. A farmer's boy of the Green Mountains, he early exchanged Vermont for the bustling streets of Cincinnati, where an ampler scope was offered to the aspiring energies of the founder of American sculpture. Like many of our sculptors, a turn for mechanics, characteristic of the inventive mind of the people, was combined in him with a capacity for art, and this, which at first found vent in a study of the inventions of the time, enabled him in maturer life to facilitate the means of art expression by valuable inventions. Palmer and several other American sculptors have also aided the art in a similar way. From modelling in wax, which aroused great local interest, young Powers proceeded to modelling in plaster, under the tuition of a German artist resident in Cincinnati, and, aided by the generous patronage of Mr. Longworth--to whose liberality toward our artists American art is greatly indebted--he soon received numerous commissions for portrait busts of some of our most notable public men, such as Webster, Jackson, Marshall, and Calhoun. Notwithstanding his lack of training and art associations, Powers executed some of these portraits with a vigor worthy of the subjects, and scarcely equalled by any of his subsequent work. In 1837 Powers decided to go to Italy, whither Greenough had already preceded him, led thither, like many since, by superior art advantages and economical reasons, which still sway our sculptors at a time when it would seem that it would be more profitable, so far as native art is concerned, for them to remain here. Several of our sculptors have acknowledged to the writer that the time has come for their art to grow up under the home influences which are to regulate the art of the future, but that the question of economy forces them to live in Florence and Rome. Residing in Florence until his death, Powers devoted his long career to the creation of many works of high finish, and occasionally of a merit comparing well with the works of an age whose plastic arts were conventional. Who has not seen the famous "Greek Slave," inspired by the enthusiasm for the Greeks struggling with the Turk for existence? The "Penseroso," "Fisher Boy," and "Proserpine" are also among the most pleasing works of this artist. The "California," a nude, symbolical female figure, is less satisfactory in conception, and is also open to criticism as to its proportions. In these works we see expressed the thoughts of an artist skilled in the technical requirements of the art, and moved by a lofty ideal, but marked by tender sentiment rather than force, and suggesting sometimes a dryness of style and a coldness or reticence of emotion inherited from the undemonstrative people of New England, as if when the artist was executing them the stern genius of Puritanism, jealous of the voluptuous or the passionate in art, had stood Mentor-like at his side and said, "There, that will do; beware lest your love of beauty lead you to forget that you are an American citizen, to whom duty, principle, example, are the watchwords of life." But sometimes genius proved superior to tradition even with Powers, as when he composed the two great ideal statues of Eve before and after the fall. By these noble works, inspired by true, untrammelled artistic feeling--which we must consider his best ideal compositions--he earned a rank very near to that of Gibson and Canova, and rendered his art worthy of lasting remembrance. [Illustration: "THE GHOST IN HAMLET."--[THOMAS R. GOULD.]] The art of Powers was best exemplified in his portrait busts. His imagination was not prolific or active, as one may infer from the following expressions of his own: "I could never satisfy myself with an ideal in a hurry. The human form is infinite. It is the image of God. I have found that, do my best, there was always a _better_ in nature. Once knowing this, I have hesitated and sought to find it, and this is the way to fame. One may fail with all his care and labor, but it is the only way. Not they who have produced the most, but they who have done the best, stand foremost in the end. I never felt that I had the power to charge a hundred statues. I exhaust myself on a few. This accounts for the fact that I found it necessary to give nearly a year's time, in all, to the model of your statue of 'Paradise Lost.'" The early educational advantages of Horatio Greenough were superior to those of Powers; and as one of the first in our country to assert himself in marble, he won a name which we are reluctantly obliged to consider in excess of his merits as an artist. He impresses one as a man of intellectual force and culture, but without any special calling to sculpture. The work by which he will be known the longest is the Bunker Hill Monument, whose stately proportions he designed. Greenough executed a number of vigorous and striking busts, like those of Lafayette and Fenimore Cooper, which deserve favorable mention. But in venturing after ideal expression he cannot be said to have accomplished satisfactory results. The elaborate group called "The Rescue," on the portico of the Capitol at Washington, is ambitious, but leaves one to regret that so prominent a position could not have been more appropriately decorated. Few statues have ever given rise to more conflicting criticisms than Greenough's "Washington" in the grounds of the Capitol. Colossal in size and on a massive throne, seated half nude and holding out a Roman sword in his left hand, some one has jocularly observed that the august hero of the republic seems to say, "Here is my sword; my clothes are in the Patent-office yonder." It certainly seems an absurdity in this age to represent so recent a character in a garb in which he was so rarely seen by the public, or so closely and incongruously to imitate the style of the antique. Benjamin West showed more originality and courage when, in the last century, and in defiance of the opinion of such men as Sir Joshua Reynolds, he dared to break loose from the conventional, and created a revolution in historical art by permitting General Wolfe to die in the clothes in which he went to battle. But in justice to Greenough, whose statue is in some respects meritorious and important, especially in the bass-reliefs on the elegant chair, it should be said that he never designed to have this statue placed in its present position, but under the dome of the Rotunda, where it would undoubtedly be far more impressive, and being sheltered from the winter snows, its nudity would be less incongruous. [Illustration: GEORGE WASHINGTON.--[J. Q. A. WARD.]] Last year a sculptor died at Florence who was born in Kentucky nearly seventy years ago. His education was confined to three months in a district school, and his first occupation was chimney-building. James Hart, although successful in portraiture, was also an idealist, who, after settling in Italy, produced numerous pleasing works, like his "Angelina" and "Woman Triumphant." There is a delicate, winning sense of beauty and a refined emotional tendency in his art, which pleases while it fails to master us, because it was a facile fancy rather than a lofty imagination that conceived his creations. Shobal V. Clevenger, a stone-cutter of Ohio, presents another instance of the sudden yearning toward the plastic art which early in the century sought vent in various parts of the country. Like so many others, he turned his face to Italy to find the knowledge which it was impossible for his native land to give him at that time. The nation owes a debt of gratitude to him, as to several of our early sculptors, for many truthfully realistic portraits of our leading statesmen and poets. In point of date as well as in ability we find that Thomas Crawford, a native of New York State, was one of the first of our sculptors. If Powers was remarkable for the refinement of his work, in the sculpture of Crawford we find a certain grandiose style not too common in our art, and at the same time so harmoniously rendered as to avoid exaggeration. Crawford occupies among our sculptors a position corresponding to that of Allston among our early painters. There is a classic majesty about his works, a sustained grandeur that is warmed by a sympathetic nature, and brought within the range of the throes and aspirations of this tumultuous century. He had what most of our sculptors have lacked--genius. Were he alive to-day, when a new order of sculpture is bursting its bonds, he would have few peers. Among his most important works are the impressive equestrian statue of Washington at Richmond, and the colossal statue of Beethoven in the Music Hall at Boston. They were cast in the foundries of Müller at Munich, and were hailed by all, artists and sovereign alike, with a dramatic enthusiasm which speaks eloquently for the estimate placed upon them in one of the most notable art tribunals of Europe. The bronze door of the Capitol at Washington, containing panel groups illustrative of the American Revolution, has been considered by some to be a masterpiece of Crawford, and it certainly indicates imagination and technical skill unusual among us until recently; but the statue of Orpheus descending into Tartarus in search of his wife Eurydice seems, on the whole, to be the most symmetrical and just representative work of this great sculptor. His stately and graceful statue of "Liberty" on the dome of the Capitol is also entitled to high consideration, but one can hardly think of it without indignation, for certainly nothing was ever devised quite so absurd as to create a work of imagination like this, and then to perch it up in the air three hundred feet above the ground, where it is a mere shapeless spot against the sky, its beauty almost as completely snatched away from human ken as if it were buried as far beneath the surface of the earth. [Illustration: "MEDEA."--[WILLIAM WETMORE STORY.]] The art of the Capitol at Washington presents, indeed, a most extraordinary farrago of excellence and eccentricity and ignorance. Some of the alto-relievos in the Rotunda are of such exceptional uncouthness that one is astounded to think that some of the men are still living who permitted them to be placed there. They might easily be passed off for rude Aztec relics. The Sculpture Hall adjoining displays the same amazing incongruity. Its existence suggests a dim perception in the builders that at some future time we should need a national gallery of statuary; while the inequality in the merit of the sculptures already placed there would indicate that they had been chosen entirely by lot rather than by deliberate selection. Not until a permanent national art commission like that of France is appointed can we hope, in the present unæsthetic condition of Congress, to have such art collected at the national capital as will be entirely creditable to the country. Such a commission, owing to the frailty of human nature, might perhaps show partiality at times toward a favorite school; but what it did admit would at least be of a higher average merit, and mere tyros in art would have no chance to storm the public Treasury by the sheer force of lobbying. [Illustration: "THE PROMISED LAND."--[FRANKLIN SIMMONS.]] It is to the then absolute ignorance of art on the part of the people that we owe the equestrian statues of Clark Mills--a contemporary of Crawford--of which the most noted is probably the statue of General Jackson opposite the White House, and the one of George Washington, for which he received $50,000. The former is chiefly notable for the mechanical dexterity which so balanced the weights that the prancing steed is actually able to stand in that position without other support than its own ponderosity. That Mr. Mills has ability is unquestioned, for it is said that before ever he had seen a statue he was able to take a portrait bust of Calhoun which is pronounced a striking likeness; but it is dexterity and talent rather than genius which he possesses. There is little evidence of art feeling in his works, and the prominence that has been given to them is a just cause of regret to the lover of art. It is pleasant among so much poor art to find here and there works like those of Crawford, Ward, Brown, Randolph Rogers, and Ball, which indicate an earnest striving after a lofty art ideal. Henry K. Browne, one of our earliest sculptors, will probably be best known by his two equestrian statues--of General Washington, in Union Square, New York, and General Scott, at the capital. It is extremely difficult to tell what it is which makes such monuments so rarely satisfactory. If the horse is anatomically correct, it is, perhaps, ungraceful; or if pleasing in that respect, then the horse-fancier comes along, who tells you that it cannot be justly admired, for it is incorrect in the details. Between these two objections one is often at a loss to give an opinion; and in point of fact the famous statue of Colleoni by Verrochio, made in the Middle Ages, seems thus far to be almost the only wholly acceptable equestrian work since the classic times, so thoroughly does it seem in its firm, massive, yet energetic lines to embody the description of the war-horse given in the Book of Job, and so nobly does his mailed rider bestride him. The cause of the difficulty appears to be the same as in marine painting. To paint a ship one should love it intensely, and if he does, he is likely to comprehend the action; to design a horse in motion one should love horses, and in such case the study of them begins instinctively in childhood. But most sculptors have no natural equine bias, and, after accepting a commission for an equestrian statue, they begin to study the horse for the purpose of information, rather than from sympathetic, enthusiastic feeling. [Illustration: "LATONA AND HER INFANTS."--[W. H. RINEHART.]] Mr. Browne has struggled with these difficulties with very creditable success. Neither of the statues mentioned above gives complete satisfaction, but they are doubtless among the best yet exhibited in our country. That of Scott represents the finest horse, and very graceful and interesting it is, although the proportions are rather those of an Arab steed than of an American war-horse; while that of Washington is the most spirited and attractive. It is heroic and impressive in its general effect. This artist, who still resides at Newburgh, enjoying a green old age after a successful career, has accomplished much ideal work, like the pleasing statue of "Ruth," and has shown a fine artistic feeling in his conceptions, although hardly entitled to a foremost rank in this branch of the art. Thomas Ball, who was originally a portrait-painter, and who continues to adorn our public squares with meritorious sculptures, is another artist to whom we are indebted for one of the most spirited and correct equestrian statues in the country. We refer to his "Washington," in the Public Garden in Boston. Pleasing when regarded artistically, cavalrymen also like it for its truth to nature. The group called "Emancipation," in Lincoln Park, at Washington, is also by Mr. Ball. An equestrian statue that is destined to occupy a high position in our native art is that of General Thomas, by J. Q. A. Ward. It is of colossal size, and has been cast in bronze at Philadelphia. There is a force in the action, an originality in the pose, a justness in the proportions of both horse and rider, that render it exceptionally excellent. In Mr. Ward we see one of the most vigorous and individual sculptors of the age. As an influence in our art his example is of great importance, because while placing at its true value the good that may be obtained by familiarity with the models of classic art, whether by the study of casts at home or abroad, he recognizes the basal principle of all true art--that its originating force must proceed from within, and that culture can only supplement, but cannot supply the want of, genius in the artist or the people. And thus, while thoroughly conversant with foreign and antique art, Mr. Ward has worked at home, and drawn the sources of his inspiration from native influences. He has a mind overflowing with resources; his fancy is never still; he is ever delighting to sketch in clay, if the term may be so used. Many are familiar with the noble statue of Shakspeare and the "Indian Hunter" in the Central Park. The latter, although not in all respects anatomically correct, is in spirit and design one of the most notable works produced by American plastic art. But the bronze statue of Washington recently set up at Newburyport is, perhaps, the best existing specimen of Mr. Ward's skill. The subject is not a new one; in fact, it has been treated so many hundred times in one form or another that especial originality was needed to render it again with any degree of freshness and interest. But the effort has been crowned with success. There is in this statue, which is of colossal size, a sustained majesty, dignity, and repose, and a harmony of design rarely attained in modern sculpture. Among the foremost of American sculptors in point of native ability we must accord a place to Benjamin Paul Akers, of Portland. He was indeed a man of genius, of a finely organized temperament; but he died before the maturity of his powers, ere he was able to achieve little more than a promise of immortality. His "Pearl Diver," which is indeed an exquisite creation, original, and tenderly beautiful, represents a youth whose corpse the tide has washed on the rocks, where it lies wrapped by the sea-weed, and tranquil in the repose of death. The anatomy and composition of this work are evidently the offspring of a finely-organized mind well grounded in the principles of his art, and inspired by tender sympathies and a strongly creative imagination; and his "St. Elizabeth" is also a lovely piece of sculpture. The noble ideal bust of Milton, and the "Pearl Diver," are grandly described by Hawthorne in the "Marble Faun." The admirable description of Kenyon, the young sculptor mentioned in that weird romance, is intended for a likeness of Akers. Edward S. Bartholomew, of Connecticut, who died in his thirty-sixth year, was another of our most gifted sculptors. There was an affluence of fancy in his art, rare in our sculpture, which needed pruning rather than urging by foreign study. Naturally his works are unequal in merit; but the "Eve Repentant," "Ganymede," and "Hagar and Ishmael" will long perpetuate his fame. It is a noteworthy circumstance that Bartholomew was totally color-blind. This, in the opinion of many, is no disqualification in a sculptor; but some sculptors not only think otherwise, but are also conscious of a sense of color when creating a work. [Illustration: "ZENOBIA."--[HARRIET HOSMER.]] [Illustration: "EVENING."--[E. D. PALMER.]] Italy, which has been the home and second mother to most of the artists we have named, has long given a home to and inspired the art of a number of our most prominent sculptors, who are now permanently residing in Florence and Rome--Randolph Rogers, Story, Rinehart, Meade, Gould, Thompson, Miss Hosmer, and several others, all of whom merit more than a passing notice. Rogers, who has executed many exquisite works indicating fine sentiment and fancy, is most favorably known for the bronze doors in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. Eight panels, representing scenes in the history of Columbus, have afforded abundant scope for the exhibition of a genius which, while it borrowed the idea from Ghiberti, had yet ability sufficient to give us an original work. The "Angel of the Resurrection," for the monument of Colonel Colt at Hartford, is also an important and beautiful creation by this artist. Larkin J. Meade, of Vermont, has justly won a wide reputation for portrait and monumental works, like that to Abraham Lincoln at Springfield, Illinois. It is of colossal dimensions, costing nearly $300,000, and in size and importance ranks with the majestic monument at Plymouth designed by Hammatt Billings. One of the noblest art opportunities of the century was offered when that monument was proposed. If Mr. Billings's original design had been fully carried out a work would have been erected of which the country might justly be proud. Lack of funds and a pitiful lack of enthusiasm resulted in reducing the dimensions of the work by half. Martin Milmore has also executed some very important civic monuments, and has turned the late war to account by numerous military memorials erected to our dead heroes. The one recently finished at Boston is the most noteworthy. The art represented in these works is, however, not of a high order, perhaps because such subjects are so trite that even an artist of very unusual ability would be staggered in treating them. Franklin Simmons, whose abilities have been chiefly devoted to a similar class of works with those of Meade and Milmore, often exhibits true art feeling, and a sense of the beautiful that makes his art exceptionally attractive. The monument to the Army and Navy, at Washington, which he has designed, is not wholly satisfactory, but it contains some effective points. One of his best works is the statue of Roger Williams. Another Americo-Florentine artist who has created some remarkable and beautiful ideal works is Thomas R. Gould. Among these may be mentioned "The Ascending Spirit," at Mount Auburn, "The Ghost in _Hamlet_," and "The West Wind." The latter is fascinating rather for the delicate fancy it shows than for technic knowledge, for it is open to criticism in the details; the drapery, for example, is so full as to draw away the attention from the figure. This is a blemish quite too common even in our best sculpture. Mr. Gould has also been very successful in portraiture, and is now engaged on a full-sized statue of Kamehameha, late King of the Sandwich Islands. In the ideals of this artist we notice a powerful originality, and an attempt to render in marble effects usually left to the higher orders of pictorial art. Allegory he treats with marked power, and such ideal conceptions as the heads of Christ and of Satan suggest possibilities scarcely yet touched by sculpture. Another of our sculptors, working near the quarries whence comes the marble into which he stamps immortality, was W. H. Rinehart, of Baltimore, one of the truest idealists whom this country has produced. Criticism is almost disarmed as one gazes at his "Sleeping Babes," or the tender grace of "Latona and her Infants." [Illustration: BUST OF WILLIAM PAGE.--[WILLIAM R. O'DONOVAN.]] In all these artists we find more or less dexterity of execution and delicacy of sentiment, but are rarely impressed by a sense that any of them indicate great reserve force. In William W. Story this idea is more clearly conveyed. No American in the art world now occupies a more prominent position or shows greater versatility. Possessed of an ample fortune, and originally a lawyer, and preparing legal tomes, he then devoted himself to poetry, the drama, and general literature, and has succeeded as a sculptor to a degree which has caused a leading London journal to call him the first sculptor of the Anglo-Saxon race since the death of Gibson. He certainly occupies a commanding place, fairly won, among the prominent men of the age. But here our praise must be qualified; for it may be seriously questioned whether we are not dazzled by the sum of his abilities rather than by any exceptional originality and daring in anything Story has done. Of his sculpture it may be said that it indicates the work of a rich and highly cultivated mind; it is thoughtful, thoroughly finished, and classically severe. But it commands our respect rather than our enthusiasm. There is in it nothing inspirational. It is talent, not genius, which wrought those carefully executed marbles--talent of a high order, it is true. "Jerusalem Lamenting," "The Sibyl," and "Cleopatra" and "Medea," are works so noble, especially the first, that one is impatient with himself because he can gaze upon them so unmoved. The "Salome" is, perhaps, the most perfect work of this sculptor, who might have done greater things if he had not depended so exclusively upon foreign inspiration. Miss Hosmer, who has resided in Italy ever since she took up art, has achieved a fame scarcely less than that of Mr. Story. This has doubtless been owing in part to her sex, for from the time of Sabina Von Steinbach until this century it has been exceedingly rare to see a woman modelling clay. But Miss Hosmer has a strong personality, and if her creations are not always thoroughly successful as works of art, they bear the vigorous impress of individual thought and imagination. She is best known in such versatile works as "Puck," "The Sleeping Sentinel," "The Sleeping Faun," and "Zenobia," in whose majestic proportions the artist has sought to express her ideal of a woman and a queen. Miss Hosmer took her first lessons in sculpture with Peter Stephenson, an artist who died too early to achieve a national reputation, although not too soon to be esteemed by his fellow-artists for his abilities. He studied awhile at Rome, and left a number of portrait busts, and a group of "Una and the Lion," which indicate undoubted talent. Other ladies who have essayed sculpture with success are Miss Stebbins, the biographer of Charlotte Cushman, and Mrs. Freeman, of Philadelphia, who has executed some beautiful works. Miss Whitney, who studied abroad for a time, but has wisely concluded to continue her work in this country, has shown a careful, thoughtful study of the figure, and is moved by a lofty idea of the position of sculpture among the arts. Among her more important works is an impressive statue of "Rome," in her decadence, mourning over her past glory; a statue of "Africa;" and one of Samuel Adams, in the Capitol at Washington. [Illustration: ABRAHAM PIERSON.--[LAUNT THOMPSON.]] [Illustration: "THE CHARITY PATIENT."--[JOHN ROGERS.]] There are other American sculptors deserving more than mere allusion, like Dexter, Richard Greenough, Barbee, Volk, Edmonia Lewis, Van Wart, Ives, Macdonald, Kernys, Ezekiel, Calverly, and Haseltine, who in portraiture or the ideal have won a more than respectable position; but our space limits us to a notice of several artists who, like Ward, combine great natural ability with traits distinctively American. One of these is Erastus D. Palmer, of Albany, who has won transatlantic fame by the purity and originality of his art. The son of a farmer, and exercising the calling of a carpenter until nearly thirty, Palmer did not yield to the artistic yearnings of his nature until comparatively late in life. When he at last took up the pursuit of art, it was in his own town that he studied and sought fame, and his success was rapid and entirely deserved. Few of our sculptors have been such true votaries of the ideal, few have been able better to give it expression, and none have shown a type of beauty so national, or have more truly interpreted with an exquisite poetic sense the distinctive domestic refinement or religious thought of our people. It is beauty rather than power that we see expressed in the works of this true poet--moral beauty identified with a type of physical grace wholly native. It is an art which finds immediate response here, for it is of our age and our land. Among the notable works of Palmer are his "Indian Captive," "Spring," "The White Slave," and "The Angel of the Sepulchre;" but we prefer to these the exquisitely beautiful bass-reliefs in which he has embodied with extreme felicity the domestic sentiments or the yearnings and aspirations of the Christian soul. The radical fault of Palmer's art is that he has depended more on his fancy than upon a direct study of nature for his compositions. The natural result has been that he soon began to lapse into mannerism, which has become more and more prominent in his later works. Another sculptor of great ability owes his first instruction in the plastic art to Palmer--Launt Thompson. He was a poor lad who early showed art instincts, but was employed in the office of Dr. Armsby, until Palmer stated one day that he was in search of an assistant, and asked Dr. Armsby if he could recommend any one. The doctor suggested Thompson (who was in the room) as a youth who had a turn that way, but had been unable to find opportunity to gratify his art cravings. Thus began the career of one of our strongest portrait sculptors. In the modelling both of the bust and the full figure, Thompson has been equalled by very few American sculptors. Among many successful works may be mentioned his Napoleon, Edwin Booth, General Sedgwick, at West Point, and President Pierson, at Yale College. It is a cause for just regret that, after having achieved such success at home, Thompson should have deemed it necessary to take up his residence permanently in Italy. [Illustration: "THE WHIRLWIND."--[J. S. HARTLEY.]] [Illustration: "ADORATION OF THE CROSS BY ANGELS." ST. THOMAS'S CHURCH, NEW YORK.--[ST. GAUDENS.]] Another artist whose work is entirely native to the soil is John Rogers, whose numerous statuette groups in clay have made him more widely known in the country than any other of our sculptors. A native of Salem, Massachusetts, and for awhile engaged in mechanical pursuits, this artist was at last able to turn his attention to plastic art, and went to Europe, where he seems to have gained suggestions from the realistic and impressional school of the later French sculptors; but this was rather as a suggestion than an influence, and, finding his mind more in sympathy with home life, he soon returned, and has ever since worked here, and from subjects of homely every-day _genre_ around him. The late war has also furnished Rogers with material for many interesting groups. The art of Rogers is to the last degree unconventional, and in no sense appertains to what is called high art, but it springs from a nature moved by correct impulses, beating in unison with the time, and occupying the position of pioneer in the art of the future, because he has been true to himself and his age. Daniel C. French, a pupil of Ward and Ball, is a young sculptor who, like Rogers, finds inspiration for his ideals in his native land, and gives promise of holding a prominent position in the field of American sculpture. He made a sudden and early strike for fame when, with scarce any instruction, he modelled the spirited and original, although anatomically imperfect, statue called the "Minute Man," which is at Concord. Another strong representative of the new realistic school of sculpture that is gradually springing up in the community is W. R. O'Donovan, of Richmond, Virginia. Fighting sturdily on the side of the South during the late war, he as earnestly gives himself now to the pursuit of the arts of peace. He is not a rapid worker, but handles the clay with thoughtful mastery, and the results are stamped with the freshness and individuality of genius. Mr. O'Donovan's efforts have been most successful in portraiture, of which a striking example is given in the bronze bust of Mr. Page, the artist. Another bust, of a young boy, is as full of _naïve_ beauty and refined sentiment and character as this is vigorous and almost startling in its grasp of individual traits. [Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON'S IDEA OF A MONUMENT.] The transition stage through which our plastic art is passing is also indicated by the stirring, realistic, and sometimes sensational art of a number of earnest and original young sculptors who have studied abroad, but have wisely concluded to return home, and to found, and grow up with, a new and progressive school of sculpture. One of these was the late Frank Dengler, of Cincinnati, who had studied at Munich, and was professor of sculpture at Boston; and others are Olin M. Warner, of New York, and Howard Roberts, of Philadelphia, who made the singularly bold statues of "Hypatia" and "Lot's Wife." To these may be added J. S. Hartley, who was recently Professor of Anatomy at the Art Students' League, and is now president of that flourishing institution. He began his career in Palmer's studio, and afterward studied in London and Paris. The art of these young sculptors is still immature and highly emotional or lyrical, and often verges on the picturesque rather than the severely classic. But if it lacks repose, on the other hand it is imaginative and powerful; its faults are those of an exuberant fancy that teems with thought; and these artists are undoubtedly the forerunners, if not the creators, of a thoroughly national school of sculpture. Superior in technic skill, moved by a genius thoroughly trained in the best modern school of plastic art, that of Paris, St. Gaudens, a native of New York, has given us, in the exquisite groups called "The Adoration of the Cross by Angels," in St. Thomas's Church, New York, one of the most important and beautiful works in the country. The Astor Reredos behind the altar at Trinity Church, designed by Mr. Withers, and partly executed here, is also a very rich addition to our plastic art, and is another sign that it is taking a direction little followed heretofore on this side the Atlantic. Dr. William Rimmer, who has recently died, powerful in modelling, a master of art anatomy, and author of a valuable work on that subject, also exerted an important influence in directing the studies of our rising sculptors. Having little sense of beauty, he understood art anatomy profoundly, and modelled with energy if not with grace. His statue of "The Gladiator" aroused astonishment in Paris; for as it is impossible for a living man to keep a falling position long enough for a cast to be taken, this masterly composition was necessarily a creation of the imagination based upon exhaustive knowledge of the figure. Wood and stone carving and monumental work, and the decoration of churches and civic structures, have rarely been satisfactorily attempted here until recently. A curious paper and design left by Thomas Jefferson, of which we give a reduced fac-simile, is one of the earliest attempts at original monumental art in the United States. Here and there one of our sculptors has executed some good work in this field, but costly monuments have too often been erected in the country without much pretension to art. The increasing attention given to wood and stone carving, as in the new Music Hall at Cincinnati, the State Capitols at Albany and Hartford, and in some of our later churches, is a favorable sign that a broader field is opening at last for the fitting utterance of the rising genius of sculpture; while the numerous schools for instruction in this art that have been founded within the last decade, and the well-stored galleries of casts of the masterpieces of antiquity, are increasing the facilities for the growth of a home art. Enough has been said in this brief sketch to show that sculpture, if one of the latest of the arts to demand expression in the United States, has yet found a congenial soil in the New World. VI. _PRESENT TENDENCIES OF AMERICAN ART._ At the close of the fourth chapter of this volume it was briefly stated that new influences and forms of art expression have recently become prominent in our art, and are rapidly asserting their growing importance. With perhaps one or two exceptions, these new influences so gradually shade out of our former art that it is difficult to tell the exact moment when they assume an individuality of their own, and appear as new and distinct factors in the æsthetic culture of our people. It is only when we take a retrospect of the whole field, and compare one generation with another, that we discern the vanishing point of one set of influences and the genesis of new schools, with the introduction of new branches of art culture in the community. Considering the progress of American art from this point of view, we find it divided most decidedly into periods, advancing with regular pace from one phase to another like the tints of a rainbow, shading off at the edges, but gradually becoming more intense. Thus we are able to trace in geometrical ratio the progress from primitive silhouettes and rude carvings up to the present comparatively advanced condition of the arts in this country. And yet a closer inspection into the history of American art enables us to detect in its growth the same rapid spasmodic action, when once a start is made in a certain direction, as in other traits of our national development. There is a tropical vivacity in the manner in which with us bloom and fruition suddenly burst forth after a period of apparently unpromising barrenness. Thus West and Copley appeared almost full-fledged in art genius and capacity to adapt themselves to occupy prominent positions in Europe, and yet there were but few premonitory signs to indicate that the country was prepared for the advent of such artists. [Illustration: "THE MOWING."--ALFRED FREDERICKS.] Until recently, also, owing to some cause yet unsolved, we have not seemed able to develop more than one or two forms of art at once. At one period it was historic painting and portraiture; then portraiture, including for a time very marked success in miniature painting, headed by Fraser and Malbone, and continued by such able artists as T. S. Cummings, J. H. Brown, Miss Goodrich, and Mrs. Hall; then, all at once, landscape-painting made its appearance, and almost at a bound reached a good degree of merit. Hand in hand with landscape art came remarkable facility in line engraving. How rapidly excellence in this art was achieved in this country may be judged from the fact that in 1788 the editor of the _American Magazine_ said apologetically, in presenting an incredibly rude plate of a dredging-machine in the magazine, "The editor has given the plate of the new machine for clearing docks, etc., because he had promised it. The want of elegant plates in a work of this kind is extremely regretted, and will, if possible, be supplied. If it cannot, the editor flatters himself that the infancy of the arts in America will be accepted as an apology for the defect." And yet not twenty years from that time Peter Maverick was doing good steel-engraving in New York; and scarce ten years later Durand was executing the masterly engravings of Trumbull's "Declaration of Independence" and Vanderlyn's "Ariadne." And from that time until recently engravers like James Smillie, senior, A. H. Ritchie, and John Marshall have carried this art to a high degree of excellence; while John Sartain has attained celebrity in mezzotint. Strange as it may seem, while portraiture, landscape, and steel engraving were pursued with such success by our artists, a feeling for the other arts could hardly be said to exist. A sympathy with form, generally the earliest art instinct to show itself, was long in awakening, as proved by the tardiness of the plastic arts to demand expression among us; while to the resources of black and white, or _camieu_, or a perception of the matchless mystery and suggestiveness of _chiaro-oscuro_, the people have, until within a very short time, seemed altogether blind. Water-colors, also, were almost hooted at; wood-engraving was for long in a pitiful condition; and as for architecture and the decorative arts, nothing worthy of the name, and scarcely a sign of a perception of their meaning, could be said to exist on this side of the Atlantic. Some years ago W. J. Linton, one of the most distinguished wood-engravers of the century, came to this country to live. Whether that had anything to do with the very rapid development of wood-engraving here since that time cannot be stated with certainty; but, judging from analogy, we should say that he has exerted a marked influence in stimulating the remarkable progress already reached by our engravers within a very few years. A.V.S. Anthony was one of the first to respond to the awakening demand for good wood-engraving here, and has shown great delicacy and skill in interpreting the drawings of our very clever artists in black and white. Charles Marsh is also an engraver of remarkable character and originality of style. In the rendering of a decorative or highly ideal class of subjects he brings to his aid an artistic genius not surpassed by any engraver we have produced. Messrs. Morse, Davis, Hoskin, Wolf, Annin, Juengling, Kingsley, Müller, Cole, Smithwick and French, Kreul, Dana, Andrew, and King, among a number who have distinguished themselves in this art, are especially noteworthy, not only for correct rendering of the spirit of a drawing, but often for individuality of style. One of the most interesting phases of the development of wood-engraving in this country has been the discussion as to its position among the arts, and the merits of the recent method of engraving drawings or paintings photographed directly on the wood. This discussion has been interesting and valuable as another evidence of the activity and importance which the art question has already assumed in the community. That engraving is an art, one would think could never be disputed, if the question had not already been raised with a certain degree of acrimony on the part--strange as it may seem--of those who are often dependent upon the genius of the engraver for the recognition of their abilities by the public--the artists themselves. It seems to us to be sufficient answer to those who consider it purely a mechanical pursuit, that the simple fact that the higher the artistic perceptions of the engraver the better is the engraving he does, proves it to be a work of art. [Illustration: "BIRDS IN THE FOREST."--[MISS JESSIE CURTIS.]] On the other hand, it appears that the engraver may in turn assume too much when he claims to improve upon an illustration, or objects _per se_ to cutting photographs on wood. While granting to engraving the rank of art, it cannot justly be forgotten that it is, after all, a means to an end,--an art, it is true, but an art subordinate to other arts which it is designed to interpret. Once this is allowed, it follows, as a matter of course, that it is the duty of the engraver to render faithfully the drawing or painting that is to be cut; and to magnify himself not at the expense of the artist who made the drawing, but by rendering, as nearly as possible, a fac-simile of the original picture. If this be granted, then is it not clear that, instead of opposing, he should hail with satisfaction any new process which enables him to give on wood or any other material a closer copy of the style and spirit of the artist whom he is interpreting. That this can be done by a clever engraver by photographing a pen-and-ink drawing or painting directly on the wood, and then studying also the original work as he cuts it, seems to be no longer an open question. It has been demonstrated by too many excellent engravers within the last five years. Another advantage of what we cannot but consider an advance in this art is, that it admits of a larger variety of styles, and a freer expression of the designer's methods of thought and feeling, and also enables many who do not care to work in the cramped limits of a block of wood to make a large composition in black and white, whether with Indian-ink or monochrome in oil, which is then photographed on the wood. In this way far greater freedom and individuality of handling is obtained, and a nobler utterance of the truths of nature. Can there be any question that a process which allows of such variety of expression must inure to art progress, and still more to the instruction of the people, who are directly benefited by the illustrations which are brought to their own doors, and placed in the hands of the young at the time when their tastes and characters are forming, and their imagination is most plastic and impressionable? It would seem as if the art of wood-engraving had received in the most direct manner the action of some unseen hand, impelling it suddenly forward in this country by concerted action with the genius of illustration; for apparently by secret agreement that branch of art has within the last decade developed a comparative excellence yet reached by none of the sister arts in the land. And this turn for illustration has naturally been accompanied by an active movement in black and white drawing, particularly in crayon. Samuel W. Rowse was one of the first to give an impetus to crayon drawing by a style of portraiture especially his own. As such he ranks with our leading portrait-painters; while the fact that he employed crayon as a medium for a time gave him a position almost entirely alone in this country. There is a wonderful subtlety in his power of seizing character and the rendition of soul in the faces he portrays. Equally happy in all the subjects he treats, he will be longest remembered, perhaps, for the many beautiful children's portraits he has executed. The success of Rowse naturally led to similar attempts by other artists; and in all our leading cities one may now find crayon artists who are more or less successful in the department of portraiture, among whom may be mentioned B. C. Munzig and Frederick W. Wright. Out of this has grown a school of landscape-artists employing charcoal--a medium that Lalanue and Allongé had already used with magical results. John R. Key, who is well known as a painter in oil, has, however, done his best work, as it seems to us, in charcoal. There is great tenderness in his treatment of light and shade, together with harmonious composition. J. Hopkinson Smith, known as a water-colorist, also handles charcoal like a master. He seizes his effects with the rapidity of improvisation, treats them in masses, and shows a feeling for _chiaro-oscuro_ that is almost unique in our art. [Illustration: Representing the manner of PETER'S Courtship. [Howard Pyle.]] When we come to the book illustrators we encounter a number of artists of merit, and occasionally of genius, who are so numerous that we can select only here and there a few of the most prominent names. Felix O. C. Darley was one of the first to show the latent capacity of our art in this branch. His style soon became very mannered, but, at the same time, undoubtedly showed great originality and invention in seizing striking characteristics of our civilization, and a refined fancy in representing both humor and pathos. His linear illustrations to "Rip Van Winkle" and Judd's "Margaret" placed him, until recently, among our first two or three _genre_ artists. Less versatile and inventive, Augustus Hoppin has, however, earned an honorable position among our earlier illustrators. Louis Stephens also won distinction for an elegant rendering of humorous subjects. Then followed a group of landscape illustrators, among whom Harry Fenn holds a high position for poetically rendering the illimitable aspects of nature and the picturesqueness of rustic or Old World scenery and ruins. Under the guidance of his facile pencil how many have been instructed in art, and learned of the varied loveliness of this beautiful world! Thomas Moran ranks with Mr. Fenn as a master in this field. It appears to us that in this branch he displays more originality and imagination than in the elaborate paintings by which he is best known. Within a very few years--so recently, in fact, that it is difficult to see where they came from--a school of _genre_ illustrators have claimed recognition in our art, educated altogether in this country, and yet combining more art qualities in their works than we find in the same number of artists in any other department of American art. It is a little singular that, notwithstanding the recent interest in black and white in this country, the _genre_ artists who represent it should at once have reached an excellence which commands admiration on both sides of the Atlantic, while our painters in the same department have rarely achieved more than a secondary rank. [Illustration: SOME ART CONNOISSEURS.--[W. HAMILTON GIBSON.]] Alfred Fredericks has distinguished himself by combining landscape and figure in a most graceful, airy style; and Miss Jessie Curtis, in the delineation of the simplicity and beauty of child life, has delightfully treated one of the most winsome subjects which can attract the pencil of the poetic artist. Miss Humphreys, in the choice of a somewhat similar class of subjects, has yet developed individuality of method marked by breadth of effect and forcible treatment. Of the ladies who have found scope for their abilities in the field of illustration perhaps none have excelled Mrs. Mary Halleck Foote. We cannot always find her style of composition agreeable, and in invention or lightness of fancy she seems deficient, while her manner is strong rather than graceful. But she is a most careful student of nature, and the effects she aims at, and sometimes reaches, are inspired by an almost masculine nerve and power, and show knowledge and reserve force. Some of her realistic landscapes are almost as true and intense in black and white as the daring realisms of Courbet in color, but showing fine technical facility rather than imagination. Miss Annette Bishop, who died too early to win a general recognition of her talents, was gifted with a most delicate poetic fancy, and singular facility in giving expression to its dreams. F. S. Church is an artist of imagination, painting in oil and water-colors, but perhaps best known for striking and weird compositions in black and white, often treating of animal or bird life. He is an artist whose advent into our art we hail with pleasure, not because his style is wholly matured or always quite satisfactory, for it is neither, but because it is inspired by a genuine art feeling, and yet more because it shows him to be--what so few of our artists have been--an idealist. What is art but a reaching out after the ideal, the most precious treasure given to man in this world? It includes faith, hope, and charity. To search after the ideal good, to live in an ideal world, to yearn after and try to create the harmony of the ideal, is the one boon left to man to give him a belief in immortality and a higher life. The more of an idealist the poet or the artist, the nearer he comes to fulfilling his mission. The idealist is the creator, the man of genius; and therefore we hail with joy the appearance of every idealist who enters our art ranks, and infuses vitality into the prose of technical art, and inspiration into the dogmas of the schools. The most hopeless feature of American art has always been hitherto, as with our literature, the too evident absence of imagination; and wherever we recognize an idealist, we set him down as another mile-stone to mark the progress in art. It is through the idealists that Heaven teaches truth to man; and hence another reason why we regard with such importance the present school of artists in black and white. In no department is there more scope for the imagination than in the drawing of the pure line or in the suggestions of _chiaro-oscuro_. Therein lies the enormous power of the art of Rembrandt. He dealt with that seemingly simple but really inexhaustible medium, light and shade: in the hands of a master, potent as the wand of a magician to evolve worlds out of chaos. [Illustration: "WASHINGTON OPENING THE BALL."--[C. S. REINHART.]] Barry, Bensell, Shepherd, Davis (who is also known as a decorative artist), T. A. Richards, Eytinge, Frost, Merrill, Ipsen, Shirlaw, Lathrop, Lewis, Perkins, and Davison are other artists who have justly acquired repute for success in the department of black and white, or book illustration. Kelley has a sketchy style that is very effective, and of which the correct rendering on wood would have been well-nigh impossible with the old processes; but there is danger of carrying it to the verge of sensationalism. The facilities afforded by photographing a design on wood has seemed to be the occasion for aiding the development of a class of artist-authors who both write and illustrate their own articles for the magazines. How remarkably well this can be done is proved by such clever artists as Howard Pyle and W. Gibson, who display at once fertility of imagination and technical facility as draughtsmen. C. S. Reinhart has become widely known as one of the most versatile illustrators we have produced. Excelling as a draughtsman, he brings to his aid an active fancy that enables him vividly to realize the scenes he undertakes to represent; and he seems equally at home in the portrayal of quaint old-time scenes, or the brilliant costumes and characters of the present day, combined with forcible delineations of scenery. The Puritan damsel or the belle of Newport may alike be congratulated when Mr. Reinhart ushers them before us with the grace of a master. The success of this school of artists, who have made their mark in the department of illustration, has doubtless been due in part to the increasing study of the figure in this country, and the greater facilities afforded for drawing from the life. Most of these artists are young men, whose abilities have been vastly assisted by their studies in life schools, which it would have been well-nigh impossible for them to find in the earlier periods of our art. Although perhaps better noticed under the head of Ethics rather than of Æsthetics, we may allude to the surprising growth and influence of caricature-drawing in this country, represented by such able artists as Nast, Bellew, Kepler, or Cusack, as associated with the development of our black and white art. An artist who seems to combine the qualities we see more or less represented by other artists in black and white, who has already accomplished remarkable results, and gives promise of even greater successes, we find in E. A. Abbey. It must be taken into consideration that he is still very young; that he now for the first time visits the studios and galleries of Europe; that his advantages for a regular art education have been very moderate, and that he is practically self-educated. And then compare with these disadvantages the amount and the quality of the illustrations he has turned out, and we see represented in him genius of a high order, combining almost inexhaustible creativeness, clearness and vividness of conception, a versatile fancy, a poetic perception of beauty, a quaint, delicate humor, a wonderful grasp of whatever is weird and mysterious, and admirable _chiaro-oscuro_, drawing, and composition. When we note such a rare combination of qualities, we cease to be surprised at the cordial recognition awarded his genius by the best judges, both in London and Paris, even before he had left this country. If I have spoken strongly in favor of our school of illustrators, it is because I think such commendation has been rightly earned, and to withhold it when merited would be as unjust as to give censure when undeserved. Criticism need not necessarily be the essence of vitriol and gall, as some critics seem to imagine it to be. A jury is as much bound to approve the innocent as to condemn the guilty. [Illustration: MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON.] In another department of our arts we also feel called to award praise to a degree that has never before been possible in the history of American art. I refer to the department of architecture. It is difficult to say exactly when the new movement toward a fuller expression of beauty in our civic and domestic building began; but we are conscious that about ten years ago what was for a time a mere vague feeling after more agreeable examples of architecture shaped itself into a definite and almost systematic impulse. The Chicago fire, and more especially the great fire in Boston, accelerated the action of the forces that already directed the people to demand nobler forms and types in the constructions that were henceforth to be erected in our growing cities. The advance of landscape-gardening, as evidenced in the Central Park of New York, and the public parks of other cities, doubtless aided to increase the yearning for material beauty. But whatever the influences at work, there is no question as to the results already apparent. I would not be understood as approving all the buildings of importance that have recently been put up in this country--very far from it. But, on the other hand, one cannot avoid seeing that the general tendency is toward improved styles, and that here and there groups of buildings or single structures have been erected which are at once elegant, commodious, and artistic; and, if not strictly offering new orders of architecture, presenting at least graceful adaptations of old orders to new climatic and social conditions in a way that gives them the merit of originality. So prominent has this improvement in architecture already become in American cities, that already their external aspect or profile has begun to partake of the picturesque character hitherto supposed to belong only to the Old World, and to present that massing of effect so dear to the artistic eye. We can illustrate this by mentioning only two or three examples among many. One who looks toward Philadelphia from the railway station on the east side of the Schuylkill, may see a cluster of spires and domes centering around the Academy of Fine Arts, which is so agreeably composed that one would almost imagine the position of each to be the deliberate choice of a master in composition. Twenty years ago one would have looked in vain for any such harmonious outline of structural beauty in this country. The small, quaint fishing-port of Marblehead has also found itself suddenly transformed into one of the most pleasing cities of the Union, as viewed from the Neck across the harbor; for on the very crest of the hills upon which the place is built a town-hall has been erected, of brick, neatly faced with stone, and surmounted by an elegant tower. At once the old town has emerged from the commonplace into the region of the picturesque. The new structure has given character and symmetrical outline to the city by producing convergence to a central point of effect; and when the sun sets behind it, and brings its outline into bold but harmonious relief against a golden background, while a mist of glowing rays glazes the whole into tone, the view is in the highest degree artistic, and so resembles some of the scenes one so often sees in the Old World that he can hardly believe he is gazing at an American prospect. We find a somewhat similar effect, but on a much larger scale, presented by the new Capitol, or State-house, at Albany. This city, as beheld from the opposite banks of the Hudson at Greenbush, has always been one of the most pleasing of American cities, situated as it is on several lofty hills, divided by ravines in which purple shadows linger when night is approaching; but the addition of the vast structure now in course of completion there adds greatly to the glory of the spectacle. It dominates over the city of eighty thousand inhabitants with superb dignity; and the whole place borrows beauty from it, and is elevated above prose into poetry. Again one is reminded of the cathedral towns of Europe, where some lofty, venerable minster guards through the ages the roofs that cluster below. Not that this pile, which is rather hybrid in its style, is to be considered equal to the masterpieces of old-time architecture; but it is a long step in advance compared with the civic buildings formerly erected and admired in our cities, and its presence at the capital of a great State cannot but have an ennobling and educational influence upon rising generations. The styles, whether pure or modified, that are most employed by our architects in this new movement have been chiefly the Romanesque, the Palladian Renaissance, the French Renaissance of Mansard and Perrault, and the later Elizabethan or Jacobean. The first two have entered chiefly into the construction of civic buildings; the second has been followed in religious edifices; while the last has been used with excellent effect in domestic architecture. A fine example of the success achieved in the employment of the Romanesque is seen in the new Trinity Church on the Back Bay lands, in Boston, designed by Gambrel and Richardson. This is one of the most conscientious and meritorious buildings erected on this continent, although less imposing than it would have been if the original design had been fully carried out. There is, also, an affectation of strength in the massive blocks of undressed stone under the windows, in a part where such strength is disproportionate to that employed in other portions of the building. But the general effect is excellent, and the covered approaches or cloisters are quite in the spirit of true architecture. Color enters judiciously into the selection of the stone used to aid the general effect; and the same observation may be applied to the very elegant tower of the new Old South Church, close at hand, designed by Peabody and Robinson, in the Italian Gothic style, and which for grace, beauty, and majesty has not been surpassed on this side of the Atlantic. The church edifice to which it is attached, although sufficiently ornate--perhaps too much so--is lacking in that repose of outline or just proportions that are required to bring it into harmony with the campanile. [Illustration: "THE ASTONISHED ABBE."--[E. A. ABBEY.]] Other towers and churches are clustered in that neighborhood, erected within ten years, which present an effect that is really intrinsically beautiful, without taking at all into question the rapidity of the transformation which has come over the spirit of our architecture. And the effect is heightened, to a degree never before attained on this continent since the Mound-builders passed away, by the excellence of the domestic architecture which has entered into the construction of the dwellings of that vicinage, especially on Boylston Street and the adjacent avenues. Beauty, taste, and comfort are there found combined to a degree that promises much for the future of architecture in our country. The gargoyles, gables, cornices, and carvings one meets at every turn carry one quite back to the Middle Ages. It is interesting to observe that the sham cornices formerly so common here are gradually being discarded, together with all the other trumpery decoration so much in vogue. Good honest work is shown in external decoration, together with a feeling for color that is adding much to the cheerfulness of our cities. Brick is made to do service for ornamentation as well as for mere dead walls, and string courses, or bands of colored tiles or terra-cotta carvings, all of an enduring character, enter into the external decorations of private dwellings. [Illustration: A CHILD'S PORTRAIT.--[B. C. PORTER.]] Not only is the love of beauty shown in domestic architecture, but it is found displayed in the construction of banks and stores; and it is again in Boston that we find whole streets of buildings of rich and elegant design, and conscientiously constructed, devoted wholly to business purposes. But a building which, perhaps, more than any other is typical of the architectural movement now passing over the country is the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It is not so much after any one style as a choice from different schools of later Gothic adapted to modern conditions. The terra-cotta groups in relievo in the façade, temper what would be otherwise too large an expanse of warm color, for it is built of red brick. The grouped arches, turrets, and oriel windows, and the numerous terra-cotta decorations at the angles and on the gables, are elegant, but perhaps so generally distributed as to be a little confusing. The effect is scattered, and thus weakened, instead of being massed at one or two central or salient points. This is the most glaring error we discover in the present importation or adaptation of foreign and ancient styles to our needs here. It is an error which we share with the modern British architect, and was forcibly illustrated in the new Houses of Parliament, by Sir Charles Barry. No buildings of this century are so profusely ornate as some of the magnificent cathedrals and town-halls of the Middle Ages; but at the same time all this sumptuousness of decoration was massed upon one or two effective spots, surrounded by large spaces comparatively simple and free of embellishment. Thus grandeur and nobility of outline were preserved, while extraordinary beauty in color and sculpture could be added without disturbing the general effect or cloying the imagination. But our architects, not having yet fully grasped the ideas after which they are searching, scatter instead of concentrating the external decorations of their buildings. [Illustration: A BIT OF VENICE.--[SAMUEL COLMAN.]] Interior decoration has also naturally assumed importance as the quality of our architecture has advanced. Elaborate wood-carvings are entering into the decorations of the houses of our citizens, and painting is called in to adorn the walls of private and civic buildings, sometimes with more affectation or extravagance than taste; although it can be conceded without hesitation that a remarkable and decided improvement is noticeable within a very few years in the decoration of interiors in this country. M. Brumidi made a beginning, some twenty years ago, in the frescoes of the Capitol at Washington; and quite recently Mr. Lafarge has beautified the interior of Trinity Church, Boston, and other public buildings, with sacred designs in fresco, and other decorative work in gold and red, which are very interesting. Among the last, and probably the most important, works of the late William M. Hunt were the mural paintings in oil for the new State-house at Albany. Other artists who have shown promise in this department are Francis Lathrop and Frank Hill Smith. It is not surprising to find that this advance in decorative art, together with the increasing luxury accompanying it, should create a demand and develop a talent for toreutic art, or art in metal-work, especially the precious metals; and such we find to be the case. The success achieved in this department is, perhaps, the most remarkable yet attained in American art, excepting possibly that of some of our artists in black and white, and has justly merited and obtained unqualified applause abroad as well as at home. It is to such designers as Messrs. Grosjean, Perring, Wilkinson, and Moore, assisted by the most skilled artisans of the age, that our toreutic art is indebted for the recognition it received at the French Exposition. Another sign of the rapidly increasing activity of the interest taken in the art question in America is presented by the art museums or galleries which have almost simultaneously arisen in Boston, New Haven, New York, and Washington, founded at considerable expense, and entirely without State aid. With the former two are connected important schools for art instruction, combined with fine casts of the masterpieces of ancient plastic art. Another evidence of the awakening art feeling of a great nation is the demand for art education--a want which has been met by the establishment of numerous schools or academies of art in our leading cities all over the land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is true that in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York academies were founded early in the century, and the last especially had become a very important factor in stimulating the latent love for art in our people. The Massachusetts Normal Art School, under the able direction of Mr. Walter Smith, while devoted chiefly to the advancement of industrial art, has also by its example greatly assisted the growth of the art feeling in the popular mind. While much may be urged with reason against compulsory instruction of art in the public schools, it would seem that few could be found to object to the education of art instructors, and the addition of an optional art branch to the State schools for the benefit of those who are desirous of art instruction, but are too poor to avail themselves of the advantages offered by such admirable art schools as those of the Cooper Institute and Artists' League in New York, the National Academy or the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, or the Academy in Philadelphia. It may, then, be conceded that the founding of the Massachusetts Normal Art School is not only a strong indication of a growing demand, but that it has also been a very powerful agent in the diffusion of art knowledge in the United States. [Illustration: "THE OLD ORCHARD."--[R. SWAIN GIFFORD.]] Thus we see that by a cumulative effort the arts are making sudden and rapid progress in America. And there is still another movement which strikingly indicates this. Slow to be recognized, and meeting in some quarters with but cold welcome, it is yet by no means the least significant indication out of many that we are in the full tide of æsthetic progress, and have fairly entered on the third period of American art. From the time of West it has been not uncommon for our painters to go to Europe for study and observation; but they either had the misfortune to form their style after that of schools already conventional and on the wane, or they were not yet sufficiently advanced to accept the methods and principles of new masters and schools. A possible explanation, that is more philosophical, but which some may decline to accept, may be found in the general laws directing human progress, that obliged us, unconsciously, falteringly to tread one after the other the successive steps which others have followed before us. For the same reason, when an artist of unusual ability, like Stuart, appeared in the country, he had little or no following, because he came before his time. [Illustration: A LANDSCAPE.--[GEORGE INNESS.]] But it has been evident for some years that a new element was entering our art ranks and demanding expression, which has at last reached a degree of vigor and organized strength that challenges respectful attention, if not unqualified acceptance. By associations, schools, and exhibitions of its own, it has thrown down the gauntlet to conservatism and conventionalism, and the time has arrived when we can no longer shut our eyes to the fact that a new force is exerting itself with iconoclastic zeal to introduce a different order of things into American art. We cannot justly consider this movement in the light of reform, for up to this time our art has been very creditable, and, considering the environing circumstances, full as advanced proportionally as the other factors of American civilization. We regard it simply as another stage in our art progress, destined, when it has accomplished its end, to be in turn succeeded by yet higher steps in the scale of advance; for, notwithstanding the somewhat demonstrative assumptions of some of its promoters, the new movement does not comprehend within itself, more than any other school, all the qualities of great art. To no school of art has it yet been given to demonstrate and include in itself all the possibilities of art, or to interpret all the truths of nature and man. Perhaps some future school may arise, with all the knowledge of the ages to choose from, which may comprehend the whole sphere of art in its compass. But they are probably not yet born who shall see it, or give to it the symmetry of perfection. Until that time, it behooves those neophytes and disciples, who proclaim that their art includes all that art has to tell, to be modest in their claims, and to be satisfied if they have been able by fasting and prayer to enrich the world of art with one or two new truths. Nowhere is humility more becoming than in art; arrogance and assumption dig its grave sooner or later; while humility is by no means incompatible with earnestness, zeal, and progress. [Illustration: "LA MARGUERETTE--THE DAISY."--[WILLIAM M. HUNT.]] The ripeness of our art for a change before the new movement actually assumed definite shape had already been suggested and welcomed in advance by such artists as Eastman Johnson, Homer Martin, and Samuel Colman, the admirable painter in oil and water colors, strong in _chiaro-oscuro_, brilliant in color, and, although without academic training abroad, of a most excellent catholic spirit in all matters relating to art, ready to accept the good of whatever school, and to aid progress in the arts of his native land by whomsoever promoted. Benjamin C. Porter, whose massive characterizations in portraiture, broadly treated and admirably colored, have been among the most important achievements in recent American art, and Winslow Homer, A. H. Wyant, and E. M. Bannister are also among the artists whose sympathies are naturally with the new movement, although receiving their art training chiefly in this country, and who have thus indicated and prepared the way for the assertion of new influences in our art. R. Swain Gifford should be added to the list of the noteworthy landscape-painters who have thrown the weight of their influence in advance to welcome to our shores new elements of progress and change whereby to quicken American art to fresh conquests. This artist at one time devoted his efforts to marine-painting, in which he did and still does some creditable work, his knowledge of ships being sufficiently technical to satisfy the nautical eye; but since his sojourn in Algeria, and the observations made in the Continental galleries and studios, he has devoted himself to landscape, and adopted a bolder style and a truer scheme of color. The influence of French art is perceptible in his later methods, but altogether as an influence, and in no sense as an imitation, for in his works there is always evident a sturdy self-assertion, whether in subject or treatment. In catching the gray effects of brooding skies receding in diminishing ranks through an aërial perspective of great distance and space, and giving with fine feeling the Druid-like spirit of clumps of sombre russet-hued cedars moaning by the granite shore of old Massachusetts, and identifying himself with the mysterious thoughts they suggest, Mr. Gifford has no superior on this side of the Atlantic. As a professor in the Cooper Institute, his influence is of great importance to the future of American pictorial art. [Illustration: MOONLIGHT.--[JOHN J. ENNEKING.]] George Inness is another painter who, although without training in foreign studios, should be included with the artists just named, whose sympathies have gradually led him to exemplify in his works some of the most characteristic traits of later Continental methods. At first his style was not unlike the prevailing style of our middle school of landscape-painting; like that, giving careful attention to the reproduction of details. But his emotional nature, and intense reflection upon the philosophical principles of art, gradually led him to a broader style and a more free expression of the truths of nature, dealing with masses rather than with details, and handling his subjects--especially atmospheric effects--with a daring and an insight that has never been surpassed in our landscape art. To these he has added a feeling for light and color that place him, at his best, among the masters of the art. But there is inequality in his works, and sometimes a conflict of styles, as when he dashes off a composition, in two or three sittings, that is full of fire and suggestion; and then, perhaps with a relic of his first method still lingering in his memory like a habit, goes over it again, and smooths away some of those bold touches which, to an imaginative observer, gave it additional force. [Illustration: "HAVING A GOOD TIME."--[LOUIS C. TIFFANY.]] In his latest works Mr. Inness has shown a disposition to yield more and more to a style at present called impressionist. Impressionism pure and simple, as represented by its most extravagant supporters, is like trying to represent the soul without the body. This may be well enough in another world; but in this a material body is needed to give it support. But, philosophically considered, there is no question that impressionism--or the attempt to represent nature according to the impressions it makes upon the mind's eye, rather than the mere reflections left on the material eye--undoubtedly presents the quintessence of the spirit of art; and therefore all good art must have in it more or less evidence of subjective influence. But just so long as art finds expression with material means, the artist must make concessions to the limitations of substance. Naturally, of all the arts, music comes nearest to the ideal which the impressionist is seeking to grasp. It is useless to deny that, extravagant as some of the works of the contemporary impressionists appear to many, they undoubtedly present a keen appreciation of aërial chromatic effects, and for this reason are worthy of careful attention. That they are not carried nearer to completion, however, indicates a consciousness on the part of the artist that he is as yet unable to harmonize the objective and subjective, the material and the spiritual phases of art. A perfect work of art combines the two; but, alas! such achievements are as yet rare, although that is the ideal which the artist should keep in view. The artist who gives us what is called a finished painting is so far right. He represents what appears to the material eye. In proportion as he combines with this a suggestion of the intellectual impression also made on his mental vision, he approaches the ideal in art execution. On the other hand, the artist who is impatient of details, and deals wholly with a broad, and sometimes, we regret to say, dauby and slovenly interpretation of nature, is yet so far right, because he is endeavoring to interpret the wholly imaginative and intellectual side of art. When to this bias he adds the balance of power which enables him to give something of the other phase of art, he in turn approaches the ideal aim of art. Turner was an impressionist; so was Corot; so, to go farther back, was Velasquez; so, also, are the Japanese. But these artists, especially Turner and Velasquez, had the supreme faculty of uniting the two opposite poles in art in their best works, and hence the commanding position which they hold, and always will hold, in the art world. [Illustration: SOUTHAMPTON, LONG ISLAND.--[C. H. MILLER.]] So far as can be ascertained, it is to the late William M. Hunt that we must ascribe the initiation of the third period in our pictorial art, and perhaps, in a secondary manner, the general impulse toward foreign styles now modifying the arts of design in this country. When Mr. Hunt went to Düsseldorf to study, in 1846, he did no more than many of our artists had already done. But when, dissatisfied with the conventionalism of that school, he turned his steps to Paris, and became a pupil of Couture, and was one of the first to discover, to admire, and to emulate the art methods of Millet, then, unconsciously, he became a power, destined by his somewhat narrow but intense personality to influence the destinies of our art--especially by returning to Boston, a city easily brought under the magnetism of a strong individuality, and more ready than any other city in the land to surrender the guidance of its opinions to those whom it condescends to admire. The going of Mr. Hunt to Paris meant that technical knowledge and the perception of the underlying principles of art were now, as never before, to be systematically mastered and imported to America by our artists, together with the most advanced theories, truths, or discoveries in the technical part of the subject. It did not mean that all our artists who went abroad to study would necessarily be great, or that any of them would be especially original, but that there would be a general harmony of action toward improving the means of art education in America. Regarded in this light, Mr. Hunt must be considered to have been a most important promoter of the development of art in America. He was probably not a man of genius--unless great force of character be considered as such--but he had a true perception of the character and aims, the limitations and possibilities of art; and the intolerance he sometimes exhibited was not unusual in those who are introducing new methods, and have to create a circle of influence. In his own works, as a landscape, portrait, _genre_, and decorative painter, it cannot be said that he added greatly to the sum of the world's art by anything strikingly original; but he exhibited a true perception of the importance of the ideal in art; and one feels, in contemplating his works, that he was ever striving to overcome the difficulties of material means of expressing the ideal. Moved, like most leading American painters, by a feeling for color rather than for form, yet, in such compositions as "The Bathers," representing a boy about to dive from the shoulders of another, who is half immersed in a pool, vanishing into the green gloom of the wooded banks, we have an admirable example of the manner in which this artist sometimes combined form, _chiaro-oscuro_, and color, with a delicacy, force, and suggestion of outline and tint, to a degree rarely equalled before by American art; with a technique essentially that of the later French school, yet modified by individual feeling. [Illustration: A STUDY.--[FREDERICK DIELMAN]] But the life-work of Mr. Hunt was, after all, not more in his paintings than in that influence by which he gathered about him a school of admirers and disciples who disseminated his opinions and imitated his style, although rarely with his success. Among those who directly profited by his style and influence may be mentioned Mrs. Darrah, who effectively paints gray coast scenes and landscapes in a low, minor key; Miss Helen M. Knowlton; Miss Bartol; F. P. Vinton; and S. S. Tuckerman, the marine painter. The power of Mr. Hunt was still more widely felt in directing a large number of young art-students to visit Paris, and eventually also Munich, at each of which the tendency has been for some years toward bolder methods in the technics of art. The result has been to introduce to this country a truer perception of the vital importance of style in the present stage of our art, and to emphasize the truth that he who has anything to say will make it much more effective if he knows how to give it adequate utterance. Of the many Boston artists who have profited by foreign study and are now resident in that city, we can mention but three or four. John J. Enneking, a graduate of the studios of Munich and Paris, can hardly be called an idealist. There is little evidence of imagination in his canvases; but in seizing the effects of the brilliant lights of sunset, or the varied grays of a lowering sky on a cloudy day, he shows himself equally happy in color, _chiaro-oscuro_, and technical skill in handling pigments. His versatility is remarkable. He can render the figure from life with a vigor and freshness scarcely less than that of his landscapes. There is, unfortunately, an evidence of haste in too many of his works, which cannot be too much regretted, for he thus fails to do justice to the very decided ability he possesses. Having studied both in Munich and Paris, and given careful attention to all the European schools of art, and adding to this knowledge sturdy independence of opinion and great earnestness and energy, Mr. Enneking ought to be strongly influential in the present stage of American art. We find much that is interesting in the paintings of E. L. Weeks. They are marked by a powerful individuality, which delights in glowing effects of light, and revels in the brilliant coloring of tropical scenery or the varied splendor of Oriental architecture and costumes. There is something Byronic in the fervor of this artist's enthusiasm for the East, and the easy adaptability that has enabled a son of New England to identify himself with the life and scenery of lands so exactly the opposite of his own. Although a pupil of Bonnât, and an ardent admirer of the excessive realism now affected by some of the followers of the later French school, Mr. Weeks is, in spite of himself, an idealist, and no imitator of any style. This has, perhaps, been an injury to him, for he finds difficulty in mastering the technical or mechanical problems of his profession. A lack of knowledge or feeling for form, a weakness in drawing which is too often perceptible in his works, and sometimes an apparent opaqueness in his pigments, impair the quality of compositions which are inspired by the fire of genius. [Illustration: "THE BURGOMASTER."--[H. MUHRMAN.]] J. M. Stone, who is one of the professors at the Museum of Fine Arts, and a graduate of the Munich schools, indicates considerable force in rendering the figure, both in color and drawing, and a touch of genius in the painting of dogs and horses. His service in the army during the war intensified his interest in equine art, and will probably result in important compositions suggested by that conflict. C. R. Grant has a delicate poetic feeling for color and form, and a pleasant fancy tinged with quaintness; and in his choice of treatment and subject suggests the works of G. H. Boughton. In T. W. Dewing, a pupil of Lefévre, who has recently settled in Boston, we find much promise in figure-painting, but altogether after the clear-cut, well-drawn, but somewhat dry method of Gérôme. J. Foxcroft Cole, who has been a careful student of the best phases of French landscape art, but has formed, at the same time, a sufficiently individual style of his own, is an artist whose works command a growing esteem. Although adding groups of cattle to his compositions, he is essentially a landscape-painter. We receive from a study of his works an impression of sameness, like that conveyed by the landscapes of Corot, chiefly because they are generally on one key, and refer to a class of subjects so quiet and undemonstrative that only he who observes them repeatedly and reflectively discovers that each work is the result of a distinct inspiration, and possesses suggestions and qualities of its own. Exquisite feeling for space and atmosphere, for the peaceful effects of pastoral life, and the more subtle aspects of nature, especially in color, are the characteristics of the style of Mr. Cole. In reviewing the Boston school, we note in its development much activity and earnestness, too often combined, however, with crudeness; while the foreign influence that is, on the whole, most evident in it is that of the contemporary French school. As Boston is intense rather than broad in its intellectual traits, and is inclined to follow the lead of its own first thinkers and artists, it is the more unfortunate that one influence should predominate, because in such a case the errors as well as the good qualities of a style are liable to receive too much attention; while free growth depends on the catholic eclecticism which supplements the study of nature by culling the good from different schools, and correcting one by comparison with another, thus enabling the artist to arrive at a more just and profound view of a question that proceeds upon irreversible laws. The mind thus educated learns by balancing the merits of different schools, and the results are not so much imitation as assimilation, yielding healthy growth and development. [Illustration: "BURIAL OF THE DEAD BIRD."--[J. ALDEN WIER.]] In New York there seems to be, with no less activity than that of Boston, an art movement which is based on broader grounds, and offers more encouragement for the future of our art. The artists who are the most influential in this advance are more equally divided between the French and the German schools than those of Boston, and indicate more breadth of sympathy and art culture, together with a cosmopolitan love for the good in the art of all schools, which is one of the most encouraging of signs in a dawning intellectual reform. So decided had the tendency toward Munich become soon after 1870, that the colony of American art students in Munich soon grew sufficiently large to establish an art association, having stated days of meeting, at which contributed paintings were exhibited and discussed, and carefully prepared papers on art topics were read. Opinions were exchanged in this manly, earnest, sympathetic manner, and breadth and catholicity were reached in the consideration of the great question in which all were so profoundly interested. Thus were gained many of the influences which are destined to affect American art for ages to come. [Illustration: "THE APPRENTICE."--[WILLIAM M. CHASE.]] The writer regards as among the most improving and delightful evenings he has enjoyed those passed with some of these talented and enthusiastic art students at the table where a number regularly met to dine--at the Max Emanuel café in Munich. Dinner over, huge flagons of beer were placed before each one, and pipes were lit, whose wreaths of upward-curling smoke softened the gleam of the candles, and gave a poetic haze to the dim nooks of the hall that was highly congenial to the hour and the topics discussed. The leonine head of Duveneck, massively set on his broad shoulders, as from time to time behind a cloud of smoke he gave forth an opinion, lent much dignity to the scene; while the grave, thoughtful features of Shirlaw, and the dreamy, contemplative face of Chase, occasionally lit by a flash of impetuous emotion, aided by an eloquent gesture, made the occasion one of great interest. Others there were around the board whose sallies of humor or weighty expressions of opinion made an indelible impression. Among the resident artists of New York who have recently studied abroad, Louis C. Tiffany, a follower of the French school, holds a prominent position. He has done some very clever things in landscape and _genre_ from subjects suggested by his trip to the East, and has succeeded equally in oil and water colors, and is now giving a preference to American subjects, and also turning his attention to the pursuit of decorative art. He is essentially a colorist, to whom the radiant tints of the iris seem like harmoniously chorded strains of music. William Sartain, a pupil of Bonnât and Yvon, has also proved himself an excellent colorist, and shows vigor and truth of drawing both in figure and architectural perspective, as well as pleasing composition in work which he has done abroad. The new phase into which our landscape art is passing under foreign influence is well indicated by the paintings of Charles Miller, a graduate of the Munich school, who is inspired by a stirring, breezy love for nature, especially for her more intense and vivid effects, strong contrasts of light and shade, glowing sunsets, and masses of dun gray clouds rolling up in thunderous majesty and gloom over landscapes fading off into the infinite distance. As a draughtsman Mr. Miller is less interesting than in rendering such effects as we have suggested with broad, free handling, in which he is often very successful. He is a poet moved by a powerful imagination, idealizing what he sees, and possessed of a memory similar to that of Turner; and thus some of his most striking canvases are the result of a tenacious memory allied to a vigorous observation. Some of his canvases suggest the landscapes of Constable. [Illustration: "THE PROFESSOR."--[THOMAS EAKINS.]] [Illustration: "THE GOOSE-HERD."--[WALTER SHIRLAW.]] Frederick Dielman, who has pursued his studies in Munich, is destined to make his mark in _genre_. In color and tone, and especially in drawing, he has already shown decided ability, and some of his compositions are very promising. Messrs. Weir and Muhrman, both young artists of much promise, and both figure-painters, represent the influence of two different schools. The former comes from an artistic family, his father being Robert W. Weir, one of our oldest painters. Young J. Alden Weir studied in Paris. In portraiture he has a remarkable faculty for seizing character, painting the eye with a truth and life wholly original. In _genre_ he is sometimes quite successful, although inclined to mannerism. Mr. Muhrman is from Cincinnati, and has spent two years in Munich. While there, he placed himself under no master, but observed keenly, and devoted himself wholly to water-colors. Avoiding the use of body color, he yet shows dash and originality in technique, and a fine eye for form and color. The realistic vigor of his work is quite exceptional among our water-color painters. The brilliance and purity of his colors, and the delicious _abandon_ with which he handles the brush to such admirable result, seem to promise that he will become a master in this art. Frank Waller, Wyatt Eaton, W. A. Low, A. P. Ryder, J. H. Twachtman, J. C. Beckwith, A. F. Bunner, Miss Helena De Kay, and Miss M. R. Oakey are among the leading artists who are aiding the new art movement in New York. But among the later influences which have entered into our art and promise striking results, there is none more worthy of our consideration than the return of Messrs. Shirlaw and Chase from a thorough course of study in Germany. One of the points of most importance in this connection is that whereas our art for the last thirty years has been in the direction of landscape, its tendencies are now rather toward the painting of the figure, and this is strikingly illustrated by the circumstance that both of these artists have done their strongest work in this department, and their influence will undoubtedly give a fresh impulse to figure-painting. Mr. Shirlaw was for a year professor in the Students' League, but has now abandoned teaching in order that nothing may interfere with original work. Trained in the school which has produced such artists as Defregger, Diez, Braith, and Brandt, he has mastered all the technical knowledge which Munich can give an artist in _genre_ in our day. There is no uncertainty or weakness in his method of handling color; his lines are clearly and carefully drawn, and he undoubtedly achieves excellent results when he attempts simple compositions. One of Mr. Shirlaw's best known compositions, representing a sheep-shearing in Bavaria, has attracted favorable attention at home and abroad. In compositions which include animals, dogs, and birds, he has been especially happy. His inclinations to delineate the characteristics of bird-life are akin to those of the artists of Japan. [Illustration: "A SPANISH LADY."--[MISS MARY S. CASSATT.]] The genius of Mr. Chase is rather for single figures than elaborate compositions; and his independence of action is shown by the fact that, although he studied with Piloty, the master whom he made his model of excellence was Velasquez. A noble sense of color is perceptible in all his works, whether in the subtle elusive tints of flesh, or in the powerful rendering of a mass of scarlet, as in his notable painting of the "Court Jester." In the painting of a portrait he endeavors, sometimes very successfully, to seize character, although occasionally rather too impressionist in style. His art-life is fired by a lively enthusiasm, which must result in genuine and exalted art. "Waiting for the Ride" is a fine, thoughtful ideal figure of a lady by this artist. [Illustration: STUDY OF A BOY'S HEAD.--[W. SARTAIN.]] In Philadelphia the new movement has some powerful allies, among whom should be prominently mentioned Thomas Eakins, a pupil of Gérôme, and at present professor in the Philadelphia Academy of Art. One of Mr. Eakins's most ambitions paintings represents a surgical operation before a class in anatomy. It is characterized by so many excellent artistic qualities, that one regrets that the work as a whole fails to satisfy. Admirable draughtsman as this painter is, one is surprised that in the arrangement of the figures the perspective should have been so ineffective that the mother is altogether too small for the rest of the group, and the figure of the patient so indistinct that it is difficult to tell exactly the part of the body upon which the surgeon is performing the operation. The monochromatic tone of the composition is, perhaps, intentional, in order to concentrate the effect on the bloody thigh and the crimson finger of the operating professor. But as it is, the attention is at once and so entirely directed on that reeking hand as to convey the impression that such concentration was the sole purpose of the painting. In similar paintings by Ribeira, Regnault, and other artists of the horrible, as vivid a result is obtained without sacrificing the light and color in the other parts of the picture; and the effect, while no less intense, is, therefore, less staring and loud. As to the propriety of introducing into our art a class of subjects hitherto confined to a few of the more brutal artists and races of the Old World, the question may well be left to the decision of the public. In color Mr. Eakins effects a low tone that is sometimes almost monochromatic, but has very few equals in the country in drawing of the figure. Some of his portraits are strongly characteristic, and give remarkable promise. Miss Emily Sartain is devoting herself with good success to _genre_ and portraiture; and Miss Mary Cassatt merits more extended notice and earnest praise for the glory of color and the superb treatment and composition of some of her works. When we review the various forces now actively at work to hasten forward the progress of American art, we see that they are, with one or two exceptions, still immature; while, on the other hand, the sum of their influence is such as to prove that they are already sufficiently well established to give abundant promise of vitality, and of a career of success that seems destined to carry the arts to a degree of excellence never before seen in America. While the ideal is a more prominent feature of our art than formerly, the tide also sets strongly toward realism, together with a clearer practical knowledge of technique. And while we do not discover marked original power in the artists who represent the new movement, we find in them a self-reliance and a sturdiness of purpose which renders them potential in establishing the end they have in view. It is to their successors that we must look for the founding of a school that shall be at once native in origin, and powerful in the employment of the material to express the ideal. INDEX. Abbey, E. A., 177. Academy of Fine Arts (of New York), 24. Akers, Benjamin Paul, 151. Alexander, Cosmo, 16, 24. Alexander, Francis, 49. Allston, Washington, 16, 29, 31, 44, 47. American Art Students' Association, Munich, 200. Ames, Joseph, 49. Andrew, John, 168. Annin, P., 168. Anthony, A. V. S., 168. Architecture, 178. Art Education, 186. Artists' Funding Society, 88. Artists' League, 186. Athenæum, Providence, 31. Augur, Hezekiah, 138. Bacon, Henry, 7. Baker, George A., 49. Ball, Thomas, 149, 150. Bannister, E. M., 106, 190. Barry, Charles A., 174. Bartholomew, Edward S., 152. Bartol, E. H., 195. Beard, James, 86. Beard, William H., 86. Beckwith, J. C., 207. Bellew, Frank H. T., 177. Bellows, A. F., 79. Bensell, E. B., 174. Benson, Eugene, 7. Berkeley, Bishop, 15, 17. Bierstadt, Albert, 97. Birch, Thomas, 37. Bishop, Annette, 174. Bispham, Henry C., 86. Blackburn, 16. Blashfield, Edwin H., 7. Blauvelt, C. F., 115. Boutelle, D. W. C., 106. Bowdoin College, paintings of, 47. Brackett, Walter M., 85. Bradford, William, 84. Bricher, A. T., 111. Bridgman, Frederick A., 7. Bridges, Fidelia, 131. Bristol, John B., 76. Brown, George L., 64. Brown, Harry, 84. Brown, J. Appleton, 106. Brown, J. G., 115. Brown, J. H., 167. Brown, J. Ogden, 131. Browne, Henry K., 149. Brumidi, M., 185. Bunner, A. F., 207. Burling, Gilbert, 112. Burns, J., 115. Calverly, Charles, 156. Casilear, John W., 73. Cassatt, Mary, 210. Catlin, George, 88. Champney, J. W., 113. Chapman, J. G., 88. Chase, William M., 203, 207. Church, Frederick E., 81. Church, F. S., 174. Cincinnati, Music Hall of, 163. Clevenger, Shobal Vail, 138, 145. Close, A. P., 104. Cobb, Darius, 125. Cole, J., 168. Cole, J. Foxcroft, 199. Cole, Thomas, 47, 66. Conant, Cornelia W., 7. Colman, Samuel, 79, 112, 190. Copley, John Singleton, 16, 17, 88, 138, 164. Cooper Institute, 186. Cranch, Christopher P., 76. Crawford, Thomas, 138, 145, 149. Cropsey, Jasper F., 76. Cummings, T. S., 167. Curtis, Jessie, 172. Cusack, S., 177. Custer, E. L., 125. Dana, W. P. W., 7. Dana, William J., 168. Darley, Felix O. C., 171. Darrah, Mrs. S. T., 195. Davis, J. P., 168. Davis, T. R., 174. Davidson, Julian O., 174. Deas, Charles, 88. Decorative Art, 186. De Haas, M. F. H., 109. De Kay, Helena, 207. Dengler, Frank, 161. Dewing, T. W., 199. Dexter, Henry, 156. Dielman, Frederick, 204. Dillon, Julia, 133. Dix, Charles Temple, 84. Dolph, J. H., 131. Doughty, Thomas, 47, 56, 59, 66. Drowne, Shem, 14, 37, 136. Dunlap, William, 18. Durand, Asher B., 47, 56, 59, 66, 167. Duveneck, F., 7, 203. Eakins, Thomas, 208. Eaton, Wyatt, 207. Edmonds, F. W., 52. Ehninger, John W., 115. Elliott, Charles Loring, 49, 50. Enneking, John J., 196. Eytinge, Sol, 174. Ezekiel, Moses J., 156. Falconer, John M., 112. Farrar, Henry, 113. Fassett, Mrs. C. A., 127. Feke, Robert, 16. Fenn, Harry, 172. Flagg, George B., 87. Foote, Mrs. Mary Halleck, 172. Fraser, John, 31, 56, 167. Frazee, John, 136, 138. Fredericks, Alfred, 172. Freeman, Mrs. J. E., 156. French, Daniel C., 161. Frost, Arthur B., 174. Frothingham, James, 27. Fuller, George, 117. Fuller, R. H., 76. Furness, William Henry, 125. Gardner, Elizabeth I., 7. Gaul, Gilbert, 113. Gerry, Samuel L., 74. Gibson, W., 177. Gifford, R. Swain, 112, 190. Gifford, Sanford R., 80. Goodrich, Sarah, 51, 167. Gould, Thomas R., 152, 154. Grant, C. R., 199. Greenough, Horatio, 138, 142. Greenough, Richard, 156. Grey, Henry Peters, 51. Grey, Mrs. Henry Peters, 125. Grosjean, Charles T., 186. Guy, S. J., 115. Hale, Susan, 113. Hall, Mrs., 167. Hall, George H., 133. Hamilton, James, 71, 84. Harding, Chester, 47, 49. Hart, James, 79, 130. Hart, William, 79. Hart, Joel T., 138, 145. Hartley, J. S., 161. Haseltine, H. J., 156. Hayes, William, 85. Heade, M. J., 133. Healy, G. P. A., 49. Henry, E. L., 115. Henshaw, Mrs., 133. Hicks, Thomas, 49, 86. Hill, Thomas, 97, 98. Hinckley, T. H., 85. Homer, Winslow, 117, 190. Hoppin, Augustus, 172. Hoskin, Robert, 168. Hosmer, Harriet, 152, 156. Howland, A. C., 115. Hubbard, R. W., 74. Humphrey, L. B., 172. Hunt, William M., 49, 185, 193. Huntington, Daniel, 49, 51, 88. Impressionism in Art, 192. Ingham, C. C., 49. Inman, Henry, 49, 51. Inness, George, 79, 190. Inness, George, Jun., 131. Ipsen, L. S., 174. Irving, J. B., 113. Ives, C. B., 156. Jarvis, John Wesley, 28, 49. Johnson, David, 76. Johnson, Eastman, 116, 189. Juengling, F., 168. Kelley, J. E., 174. Kensett, John F., 63, 76. Kepler, Joseph, 177. Key, John R., 170. King, F. S., 168. Kingsley, E., 168. Knowlton, Helen M., 195. Kreul, G., 168. Lafarge, John, 71, 94, 133, 185. Lambdin, George C., 133. Lansil, Walter F., 111. Lathrop, Francis, 96, 174, 186. Lay, Oliver I., 115. Le Clear, Thomas, 49. Leutze, Emmanuel, 73, 88. Lewis, Robert, 174. Linton, W. J., 167. Longfellow, Ernest, 106. Longworth, Nicholas, 140. Loop, Henry A., 125. Loop, Mrs. Henry A., 125. Low, Will H., 207. Macdonald, J. W. A., 156. M'Entee, Jervis, 103. Magrath, William, 117. Malbone, Edward G., 31, 32, 167. Marsh, Charles, 168. Marshall, John, 167. Martin, Homer, 106. Mather, Cotton, 14. Maverick, Peter, 167. Mayer, B. F., 113. Meade, Larkin J., 152, 153. Meeker, J. R., 74. Mignot, Louis R., 83. Miller, Charles, 203. Millet, Francis D., 7. Mills, Clark, 138, 149. Milmore, Martin, 154. Moore, E. C., 186. Moran, Edward, 103. Moran, Peter, 103, 130. Moran, Thomas, 97, 100, 172. Morse, Samuel F. B., 33, 39, 51. Morse, W. H., 168. Mount, William Sidney, 52, 86, 117. Muhrman, William H., 207. Müller, R. A., 168. Munzig, B. C., 170. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 186. Naegle, John, 29. Nast, Thomas, 177. National Academy of Design, 37, 39, 49, 51, 58, 186. Neal, David, 7. Newton, Gilbert Stuart, 27. Nicoll, J. C., 111. Normal Art School of Massachusetts, 186, 187. Norton, William E., 110. Oakey, Maria R., 207. O'Donovan, W. R., 161. Page, William, 49, 51, 90. Palmer, Erastus D., 140, 156, 161. Parsons, Charles, 112. Parton, Arthur, 80. Parton, Ernest, 7. Peale, Charles Wilson, 21. Peale, Rembrandt, 28. Pelham, 20. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 29, 187. Perkins, Charles, 174. Perring, 186. Petersen, John E. C., 110. Pope, Alexander, 132. Porter, Benjamin C., 190. Powers, Hiram, 138. Pratt, Matthew, 16, 137. Pyle, Howard, 177. Quartley, Arthur, 111. Ranney, William S., 88. Redwood Library, Newport, 15. Reinhart, B. F., 115. Reinhart, C. S., 177. Reynolds, Joshua, 19. Richards, T. Addison, 174. Richards, William T., 74. Rimmer, William, 163. Rinehart, William Henry, 152, 154. Ritchie, A. H., 167. Robbins, Ellen, 133. Robbins, Horace, 80. Roberts, Howard, 161. Robinson, Thomas, 130. Rogers, Frank, 131. Rogers, John, 159. Rogers, Randolph, 149, 152. Rothermel, Peter F., 88. Rowse, Samuel W., 170. Rush, William, 138. Ryder, A. P., 207. St. Gaudens, Augustus, 163. Sargent, Colonel Henry, 28. Sartain, Emily, 210. Sartain, John, 167. Sartain, William, 203. Satterlee, Walter, 115. Seavey, G. W., 133. Shapleigh, F. H., 76. Shirlaw, Walter, 174, 203, 207. Shurtleff, R. M., 131. Silva, Francis A., 111. Simmons, Franklin, 154. Smilie, George, 80. Smilie, James, 167. Smilie, James, Jun., 80, 113. Smith, Frank Hill, 186. Smith, J. Hopkinson, 171. Smith, Walter, 186. Smithwick and French, 168. Smybert, John, 15, 22. Sonntag, W. L., 79. Staigg, Richard M., 49, 51. Stebbins, Emma, 156. Stephens, Louis, 172. Stephenson, Peter, 156. Stone, J. M., 196. Story, George H., 118. Story, William W., 152, 154. Stuart, Gilbert, 17, 20, 24, 39, 47, 49, 187. Sully, Thomas, 28, 49. Suydam, James A., 73. Tait, A. F., 132. Thompson, Launt, 152, 159. Thompson, Wordsworth, 128. Thorpe, T. B., 86. Tiffany, Louis C., 203. Trumbull, Colonel John, 17, 21, 47, 88, 130, 136. Tuckerman, S. S., 195. Twachtman, J. H., 207. Vanderlyn, John, 17, 29, 44. Vandyck, Sir Anthony, 14. Van Wart, Ames, 156. Vedder, Elihu, 71, 94. Volk, Leo W., 156. Waldo, Samuel, 49. Waller, Frank, 207. Ward, J. Q. A., 149, 151. Warner, Olin M., 161. Water-Color Society, 112. Waterman, Marcus, 113. Watson, John, 15. Way, A. J. H., 133. Weeks, E. L., 196. Weir, J. Alden, 204. Weir, John F., 114. Weir, Robert W., 47, 52. West, Benjamin, 17, 29, 138, 142, 164. Whistler, J. A. McN., 7. Whitney, Anne, 156. Whittredge, Worthington, 73, 86. Wight, Moses, 7. Wilkinson, George, 186. Willard, A. W., 114. Williams, F. D., 76. Williams, Virgil, 115. Wilmarth, Lemuel E., 115. Wolf, H., 168. Wood, T. W., 114. Woodville, Richard Caton, 86. Wright, Frederick W., 170. Wright, Patience, 37, 136. Wyant, A. H., 105, 190. Young, Harvey A., 125. THE END. * * * * * TIMELY AND IMPORTANT BOOKS ON ANCIENT AND MODERN ART. American Art. By S. G. W. BENJAMIN. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $4 00. Contemporary Art in Europe. By S. G. W. BENJAMIN. Copiously Illustrated. Square 8vo, Cloth, Illuminated and Gilt, $3 50; Half Calf, $5 75. Art Education Applied to Industry. By GEORGE WARD NICHOLS. Illustrated. Square 8vo, Cloth, Illuminated and Gilt, $4 00. Art Decoration Applied to Furniture. By HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. Illustrated. Square 8vo, Cloth, Illuminated and Gilt, $4 00; Half Calf, $6 25. Cyprus: its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples. A Narrative of Researches and Excavations during Ten Years' Residence in that Island. By General LOUIS PALMA DI CESNOLA. With Portrait, Maps, and 400 Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, Extra, Gilt Tops and Uncut Edges, $7 50. Pottery and Porcelain. Of All Times and Nations. With Tables of Factory and Artists' Marks, for the Use of Collectors. By WILLIAM C. PRIME, LL.D. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Tops, $7 00; Half Calf, $9 25. (In a Box.) Caricature and other Comic Art. In All Times and Many Lands. By JAMES PARTON. With 203 Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, Gilt Tops and Uncut Edges, $5 00; Half Calf, $7 25. The Ceramic Art: A Compendium of the History and Manufacture of Pottery and Porcelain. By JENNIE J. YOUNG. With 464 Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00. Modern Dwellings in Town and Country. Adapted to American Wants and Climate. In a Series of One Hundred Original Designs, comprising Cottages, Villas, and Mansions. With a Treatise on Furniture and Decoration. By H. HUDSON HOLLY. 8vo, Cloth, $4 00. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. ==>HARPER & BROTHERS _will send any of the above works by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price_. 
42371	----	Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). The Augustan Reprint Society JOHN ROBERT SCOTT DISSERTATION ON THE PROGRESS OF THE FINE ARTS With an Introduction by Roy Harvey Pearce Publication Number 45 Los Angeles William Andrews Clark Memorial Library University of California 1954 * * * * * GENERAL EDITORS RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_ RALPH COHEN, _University of California, Los Angeles_ VINTON A. DEARING, _University of California, Los Angeles_ LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL, _Clark Memorial Library_ ASSISTANT EDITOR W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_ ADVISORY EDITORS EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_ BENJAMIN BOYCE, _Duke University_ LOUIS BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_ JOHN BUTT, _King's College, University of Durham_ JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_ ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_ EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_ LOUIS A. LANDA, _Princeton University_ SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_ ERNEST C. MOSSNER, _University of Texas_ JAMES SUTHERLAND, _University College, London_ H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_ CORRESPONDING SECRETARY EDNA C. DAVIS, _Clark Memorial Library_ * * * * * INTRODUCTION Scott's "Dissertation on the Progress of the Fine Arts" embodies what we can now see as a final development in his century's deep concern to understand why what it so often admitted was the greatest art had somehow not been forthcoming in what it as often claimed was the greatest century. The "Dissertation" is in no way an original work; rather--and this is its primary value for us--its author takes a belief which his culture has given him and, like others before him, tries to clarify one of its implications. The belief is in the idea of a universal progress marred, if it in the end can be said to be marred, only by an esthetic primitivism; the implication is that that esthetic primitivism can be not only comprehended but surmounted. Scott accepts the century's commonplace that art of power and significance has been necessarily produced only in societies markedly simpler than his own; and he accepts too the fact (for such it was when men believed in it and judged according to the principles generated by it) that in all forms of culture excepting art, his own richly complex society has produced something far surpassing anything produced in the "simpler" society of classical Greece or of the Italian Renaissance. Scott's uniqueness is that, unlike those of his predecessors who had worked with the same belief, he does not try to establish an historical rationale for this _status quo_. He goes so far as to envisage--perhaps it would be truer to his state of mind to say posit--an enlightened modern society which will at once remain what it is and yet so change itself as to make possible the production of major art. The main interest for us in the "Dissertation," then, lies in Scott's notions of the kind of society needed to produce major art, and beyond that, in what is entailed in holding fast to that notion, developing it into a doctrine, and even hoping to make it a reality in his own time. He outlines the doctrine in great detail, simply by describing what he takes to be the sociocultural situation of the classical Greek artist (and incidentally, that of the artist of the Italian Renaissance). He chooses to write almost entirely of the fine arts (for him in this case, sculpture), although he conceives, as the student of his age would expect him to, that what holds for the fine arts will also hold for poetry. In the immediacy of appeal of sculpture, he finds a quality which, when its working and expression are analysed, will let him see just how the artist and his work have been ideally related to the society in which they have flourished. Scott's description of the artist and his place in Greek society is one which, in general, is familiar to students of eighteenth-century critical theory. Equally familiar is his concern to establish the fact that, as he puts it, "the connate temper of the times" made possible the production of great art. He sees Greek art as being authentically marked by the "rich raciness of the native soil." And he sees Greek society as in all departments making the work of the artist possible. In small, free, uncentralized states; in states where art has a public, memorial function; in states where, because so many games and rituals are performed naked, the artist is always directly and overwhelmingly aware of the possibility of beauty in the human body--in such states, owing to such "natural causes," art must necessarily flourish. Above all, art is of the people and their artists as they form a vital community; it is not borrowed; it is fresh and original. Finally, such a cultural situation, and therefore such an art, is found obviously to be lacking in his own time. Now this argument, carried up to this point, had been more or less held to by many critics and literary theorists before Scott.[1] True enough, they had mainly concerned themselves with poetry; yet they found the source of major poetry to be ultimately in a nakedness of language--made possible by what was taken to be the simplicity, spontaneity, and cohesion of Greek life--comparable to Scott's notion of nakedness of body. They differ from Scott in this: that almost uniformly, so far as my reading goes, all had been willing to admit that there was absolutely no hope for comparable artistic achievement in their own time; that such art could be produced only in simpler, earlier societies than their own; that, indeed, a characteristic of a mature society was that it had grown up beyond the young, crude, exuberant stage in which conditions were ideal for the cultivation of the esthetic sensibilities. The ideal time for the production of major art, they tended to conclude, was at that point in the history of a society when it was moving from the savage into the civilized. They were thus not absolute esthetic primitivists; but they were concerned nonetheless to tie art to its primitive origins, as for the most part they were concerned equally to celebrate their triumph over the limitations of such origins. So, to take one example, Thomas Blackwell, meditating Homer's achievement in his _Enquiry_, had written in 1735 that it does not "seem to be given to one and the same Kingdom, to be thoroughly civilized, and afford proper Subjects for Poetry"; and in the same work he later declared that he hoped "_That we may never be a proper Subject of an Heroic Poem_." Only by being a "Subject" for a heroic poem could the poet write one; for only then would he have available to him the living language--and thus the techniques--adequately to express that "Subject." This was to be a dominant refrain--matched, to be sure, by a counter-refrain, treatment of which is not immediately relevant here[2]--through the century. A significant number of critics and literary theorists would be willing to resign themselves to having a lesser art, if such resignation would mean that they could adequately celebrate the enlightened achievements of their own century. They worked out a method of historical analysis whereby they might construct "conjectural histories" of civilization which would allow them to place poetry and the fine arts in the long line of the evolution of culture toward their own time and to demonstrate, moreover, that even as the arts had come early, so philosophy, proper religion, the sciences, and all the highest forms of civilization had come late. Thus they could announce triumphantly that if they had lost something, they had gained much more. But still the greatness of the art which they did not have moved and attracted them. Their work is perhaps a measure of their attempts to rationalize out of existence a longing for the art which they felt their time was not giving them. Perhaps that is why Scott, in the 1790's--his mind, so it seems to us, not only informed but made by the critical formulae of his time--tried to face squarely up to the fact that somehow greet art had to be made possible for even his enlightened century. Yet his mind was so simple and simplifying that he thought that merely by denying his predecessors carefully worked out conjecture of the necessary connection between an "early" society and great art, he could prove that such was possible in his time. For the artist envisaged in the "Dissertation" is still, in spite of his obvious attempts to have it otherwise, the artist as conceived of by Blackwell and the rest of Scott's predecessors. Scott glories in the civilized achievements of his own age, yet somehow hopes that the same "liberal public encouragement" that obtained in Greece will come again and make for such labor, pains, and study as will create in England art as great as Greece's. Such a condition, he feels, is not impossible; yet he says nothing of the kind of social structure and character which he has already shown to be requisite to the development of "liberal public encouragement." The argument, such as it is, is left hanging. That is to say, there is no evidence in the essay that Scott could really think through to the possibility of the major artist's being immediately present in an eighteenth-century society re-made, so far as its artistic life was concerned, in a primitivistic pattern. He remains purely a theoretical possibility in Scott's scheme of things, as does the society in which he might flourish. Likewise, in the other essays[3] which Scott collected and published along with the "Dissertation," there is no evidence that he really understood what was involved in taking the stand he did. In the most interesting of these pieces, "An Essay on the Influence of Taste on Morals," he denies the existence of a Hutchesonian moral sense, absolutely separates esthetic taste from morals, holds that art will have an influence toward immorality unless it is kept in check with a moral system properly inculcated by revealed religion. What he is entirely unaware of is the possible radical implications of such a separation of art and morality. As in the "Dissertation," he accepts a conventional notion and is satisfied to push it as far as he can, never exploring its possible ambiguities. The ambiguities are those, of course, which led to that transformation of critical theory and artistic practice which we associate with the romantic movement. In this light, it is interesting to note that just fourteen years after the first publication of the "Dissertation" William Hazlitt could take a stand almost identical in gross characteristics with that of Scott and the others--this in his "Why the Arts are Not Progressive."[4] For Hazlitt, because "the arts unlike the sciences and the forms of high civilization in general hold immediate communication with nature," they develop best soon after their "birth" and thrive "in a state of society which [is], in other respects, comparatively barbarous." He goes so far as to instance Homer, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Dante, Ariosto, Raphael, Titian, Michaelangelo, Correggio, Cervantes, and Boccaccio. In all its extremity, in its inclusive view of what constitutes a barbarous society and its peculiar cultural virtues, this is but the conventional doctrine of Scott and all those who came before him. But it is, in Hazlitt, transformed into a statement, not, as in Scott's predecessors, of a rationale for the weakness of art in their time, nor, as in Scott himself, of a dimly espoused hope of art in his time. It becomes a frank, "sympathetic" statement of a fact of life which, when granted, will enable men to enjoy and comprehend great art of all ages. The doctrine is focussed on the work of art, not on the culture which lacks it; it has been crucially transformed from a historical into a heuristic principle. Scott's "Dissertation" embodies the doctrine just before its transformation--a neoclassical strain, we can say, just before it had became a romantic strain. Scott almost takes his stand with Hazlitt; but he is not quite there. And not being quite there, he is a whole world away. Roy Harvey Pearce Ohio State University NOTES [Footnote 1: Among the works that I have seen which specifically develop this argument are: Thomas Blackwell, _An Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer_ (1735); Richard Hurd, _The Third [Elizabethan] Dialogue_ (1759) and _Letters on Chivalry and Romance_ (1762); John Ogilvie, "An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients," in _Poems on Several Subjects_ (1762); John Brown, _A Dissertation of the Rise, Union, and Power, the Progressions, Separations, and Corruptions of Poetry and Music_ (1763) and a shorter version of the _Dissertation, The History of the Rise and Progress of Poetry_ (1764); Hugh Blair, _A Critical Dissertation on the Poems_ of Ossian (1763); William Duff, _An Essay on Original Genius_ (1767); Robert Wood, _An Essay on the Original Genius and Writings of Homer_ (1767, enlarged version 1769); Thomas Pownall, _A Treatise on the Study of Antiquities_ (1782). Such a list, however, if it were to indicate the scope and ramifications of the argument would have to be expanded to include more general eighteenth-century studies of the evolution of cultural forms; for the argument on the nature of art and its relation to "primitive" societies is part of a larger one centering on the whole idea of progress. Treatment of the whole subject has never been fully integrated into a study of the nature (or natures) of eighteenth-century criticism and critical theory--although a start has been made on study of it in and of itself. The basic treatment remains Lois Whitney's _Primitivism and the Idea of Progress_ (Baltimore, 1934) and her two essays "English Primitivistic Theories of Epic Origins," _MP_, XXI (1924), 337-378 and "Thomas Blackwell, a Disciple of Shaftesbury," _PQ_, _V_ (1926), 196-211. These are to be considerably qualified in their general, sociological orientation by Gladys Bryson's _Man and Society: The Scottish Inquiry of the Eighteenth Century_ (Princeton, 1945). They are further to be qualified in their literary-critical orientation by my "The Eighteenth-Century Scottish Primitivists: Some Reconsiderations," _ELH_, XII (1945), 203-220, which is in turn somewhat expanded upon and generalized in the appendix to Ernest Tuveson's _Millenium and Utopia: A Study in the Background of the Idea of Progress_ (Berkeley, 1949).] [Footnote 2: See, for example, Donald Foerster, "Scottish Primitivism and the Historical Approach," _PQ_, XXIX (1950), 307-323.] [Footnote 3: The essay was republished in 1804 as part of Scott's _Dissertations, Essays, and Parallels_. These pieces range from college premium compositions of the 1770's to the "Dissertation" of 1800.] [Footnote 4: The essay is handily available in W. J. Bate's anthology, _Criticism: The Major Texts_ (New York, 1952), pp. 292-295.] DISSERTATIONS, Essays, AND PARALLELS. BY _JOHN ROBERT SCOTT, D. D._ LONDON: _Printed by T. Bensley, Bolt Court_, AND SOLD BY J. JOHNSON, 72, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD; AND MESS. C. & R. BALDWIN, NEW BRIDGE STREET, BLACKFRIARS. 1804. CONTENTS. PAGE. A Dissertation on the Influence of Religion on Civil Society 1 A Dissertation on the Expulsion of the Moors from Spain, and the Protestants from France and the Low Countries 33 A Dissertation on the first Peopling of America 75 A Dissertation on the Progress of the Fine Arts 125 A Dissertation on National Population 181 An Essay on Writing History 219 An Essay on the Question, Was Eloquence beneficial to Athens? 245 An Essay on the Influence of Taste on Morals 269 Comparison between William III, of England and Henry IV, of France 303 Comparison of Cardinal Ximenes and Cardinal Richelieu 323 Comparison between Augustus Cæsar and Lewis XIV 343 Comparison of Maximilian de Bethune, Duke of Sully, and William Pitt, Earl of Chatham 361 PREFACE. Most of the following compositions were written several years ago, when the Author was a student in the distinguished University of Dublin; whose acknowledged excellence in classical literature, and in every branch of scientific learning, needs not the celebration of his feeble praise: and by it the first and second Dissertations, and one of the Essays, were honoured with the first literary rewards in the power of that learned body to bestow. Written at first with an honest desire of acquiring fair reputation by praise-worthy exertions, they are now submitted to the public eye from a wish to contribute to the liberal amusement, and perhaps to the improvement, of the minds of his fellow-creatures; with all the natural anxieties of an author addressing a public, to whom he is little known; but without any unmanly dread or humiliating deprecation of just and candid criticism. Should they drop still-born from the press, as it may be has been the fate of as meritorious compositions, the author (as becomes him) will submit without murmuring to the general verdict. Should they, on the contrary, be graced with a favourable reception, he shall deem himself honoured by such notice; and will endeavour to render some larger works of his, shortly to be submitted to the same respectable tribunal, as worthy as his abilities will permit of its approving judgment. Gloucester Street, Queen Square, 1804. DISSERTATION ON THE _PROGRESS OF THE FINE ARTS_. (Published in 1800.) TO BENJAMIN WEST, ESQ. PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, WHOSE TALENTS DIGNIFY, AND WHOSE MANNERS ORNAMENT HIS ELEVATED SITUATION AS HEAD OF THAT HONOURABLE AND USEFUL INSTITUTION, THE FOLLOWING DISSERTATION ON THE PROGRESS OF THE FINE ARTS IS DEDICATED, WITH SINCERE RESPECT AND ALL DUE DEFERENCE, BY HIS OBLIGED AND FAITHFUL HUMBLE SERVANT, _JOHN ROBERT SCOTT_. 28, Gloucester Street, Queen Square, April, 1800. A DISSERTATION, &c. The natural feelings of man, when he enters into society with his fellow-creatures, first induce him to improve by the means thence acquired the arts necessary to his existence and well-being: whose want he every day felt in his separate and detached state, and for whose melioration he has just reason to hope from the union of combined force, and from the co-operation of confederated talents. Presst incessantly by the demands for the sustenance of animal life, to supply them plentifully is not only his first care, but also that of the community with which he has associated, if it is even one degree removed from the savage state: and hence, in this early period of growing civilization, the tending of flocks and the tilling of fields, Pasturage and Agriculture, are deemed not only necessary but honourable occupations; the simplicity of untutored man ever leading him to estimate that to be most laudable which he finds to be most useful. These being advanced to a certain degree of excellence, which, though far inferior to what they are obviously capable of attaining, is yet sufficient not only for the comfortable but for the indulgent enjoyment of life, new desires arise, new wants spring up; and their gratification is pursued with an eagerness correspondent to the novelty of their origin, and the untried force of their impression. The cravings of our animal nature being amply provided for by the ingenuity of the inhabitants, by the fertility of the soil, or by the conjoint operation of both, the imagination begins in the luxuriance of abundance to picture to itself new sources of delight, and spurning, not without some contempt, the mere provision for existence, to fancy ideal pleasures, and to search out with anxious care and laboured pains those objects which may gratify them. And man, finding himself possessed of more than a sufficiency to supply all his wants, is willingly inclined to impart some share of that redundance to those who will contribute to his convenience and satisfaction; to those who will render his comforts at all times more comfortable, who will relieve the languors of his lassitude, and fill up the vacuities of his leisure with amusement. As there always were some to whom labour had no charms, other more agreeable means of acquiring support were quickly sought out, and the inventive powers of the mind were stretched to form those imagined pleasures whose want was felt, and whose reward was ready. Hence Architecture, Painting, and Statuary, (with strict propriety denominated the fine arts) primarily arose; hence they derived their most assiduous cultivation, and hence the utmost perfection to which they have yet attained. Unsatisfied with the hut that merely protected from the inclemencies of the elements, and, in the moments of repose, from the unwarned attacks of the savages of the forest, man soon sought out for more permanent, more pleasing habitations: to which experience first joined increased conveniences, and then his inventive faculties, sometimes aided by fortunate chance, sometimes led on by correct fancy, added those ornaments that have stood the test of ages, and fixed those proportions that have uniformly approved themselves to all the judicious through the revolving course of various centuries. The ingenuity of love taught the fair nymph to portray the shadow of that favoured youth whose merits had won her heart, that even in his absence she might feast her mind with beholding some similitude of his form: and hence the imagination, impregnated by the nascent thought, conceived those possibilities of excellence in painting, and that source of intellectual enjoyment thence arising, which Zeuxis and Parrhasius exhibited to the admiring eyes of Greece, and which Raphael and Michael Angelo have displayed to the enraptured contemplation of the modern world. Poetry, it is true, early indeed enabled mankind, by the fascinating power of its melodious sounds and its persuasive numbers, to "raise monuments[e] more durable than brass," and to consecrate to immortality those illustrious persons who had entitled themselves to lasting fame by their deserts. But, even long antecedent to that period, the desire of having some representative form of reverenced or beloved individuals had taught men to make some likenesses of them in rude sculptures of stone or ivory: though destitute of the advantage of colouring, yet more impressively striking to the senses than the productions of painting, had they then existed (which may be doubted), and, from the nature of their materials, less liable to the injuries of the weather. These, we acknowledge, were cold, inanimate, and destitute of all appearance of motion; till Dædalus contrived to give expression to the countenance and action to the limbs; on which succeeding artists improving, each rivalling and then surpassing his predecessor, at length produced those "works to wonder at," the exquisite, the unmatched, the divine dignity of the Apollo Belvedere, the energy, the athletic force of the Borghese combatant, the agonized expression of the Laocoon, and the tearful sorrows of the Niobe. [Footnote e: Exegi monumentum ære perennius. Horatii Carmi. Lib. iii. Ode 30.] The expectations formed of the enjoyments to be derived from the masterly productions of these Arts have in no one instance been disappointed; but, we may assert without fear of contradiction, have in every case been greatly exceeded: for though the emanations of the arts, with the single exception of the Apollo Belvedere, may have fallen short of that ideal excellence which forms their standard in each duly cultivated mind, as, in the department of literature, the great Roman orator states to have been the case with his own admirable compositions, they have yet confessedly arrived at a degree of beauty, a splendor of effect, and a power of impression, hardly to be hoped, and not easily to be conceived. Should it then be demanded, what causes produced this transcendent beauty, this unrivalled grace, this combination of pleasing form and perfect utility? They will be found, not in any fortuitous concurrence of accidents, not in any benign aspect of the planets, not in any genial influence of the atmosphere, as has been weakly imagined and absurdly asserted by certain self-denominated Philosophers of the continent; but to have been the effects of much labour and much pains, of much study and much industry, of great national encouragement, and of the peculiar situation of that fortunate land wherein they were advanced from their salient principle to their matured perfection. To confine ourselves to Greece, with which and its history, by means of its incomparable writers, we are best acquainted: the first striking circumstance in their favour was, that in it they were not borrowed, nor imported, nor caused by foreign imitation, but were the home-bred produce of the country; and therefore, however cultivated and improved, always retained the rich raciness of a native soil. Successive generations of artists arose, each excelling the other in merit, and each of these had a correspondent race of their countrymen ready to admire, and prepared to applaud them. No fastidious delicacy, no affected superiority of discernment or skill, repressed their talents, or curbed their genius: but free scope was given to the boldest of their flights, and, when they happened to succeed, the praise of their own age was their sure and adequate reward. The productions of the earlier periods would not have, indeed, pleased in the polished age of Pericles, unless as illustrative of the progress of the arts; for then more captivating models were every day produced, more enchanting examples were every day exhibited to the view. But in their own age, and their own time, being superior to all that had been seen before, they were thought matchless performances, and so received with undisputed plaudits the highest estimation. This connate temper of the times (if I may use the expression) proved a most powerful incentive to the abilities of the artists, and ensured to them, if surpassing in merit their predecessors, honourable regard, and that fame[f] which above all other considerations was dear to a Grecian heart. Hence labour and pains, assiduity and exertion, were unremittingly applied to advance their peculiar art, to smooth its asperities, to ornament its nakedness, to improve whatever of excellent existed in it, and to aim at still farther capabilities of excellence. Certain of the approbation of their contemporaries, repressed by no ideas of unattainable perfection, which were the growth of latter times and of the greatest refinement, they daily added something to the common stock; and though that something was in itself, perhaps, inconsiderable, it yet raised its possessor to no common degree of celebrity. Thus the arts advanced, proceeding from strength to strength, constantly receiving accessions of improvement, which were favoured by many conspiring, and retarded by no unpropitious circumstances: and, being native to the country, the abilities of the artists in a great measure formed the taste of the age, as its fostering admiration constituted their most flattering reward. [Footnote f: Præter laudem nullius avaris. Horatius De Arte Poetica.] From a situation perfectly dissimilar, though the Romans long and sedulously cultivated the arts, yet their noblest efforts never equalled the best works of the Grecian school; of which the sacred remnants still remain unrivalled and unmatched. For amongst them they were not indigenous, but introduced as it were by violence; by the power of the conquering sword, and by the plundering of insatiable rapacity: each of the Roman generals, however ignorant or unpolished himself, yet pillaging vanquished Greece of the choicest works of her happier days. Thus, indeed, exquisite models and patterns of consummate beauty were procured for the rustic Latians,[g] on which they wrought with assiduity, and attempted to emulate: but their redundancy was rather oppressive than co-operative, and their very perfection tended to prevent an encouraging esteem of the rising artists. For the judgment, or what we call the Taste, of the public being formed not gradually, and by progressive steps of improving art, but all at once, and (as it were) at a bound, assumed a squeamish delicacy which nothing imperfect would please, and which delighted more in finding faults than in discovering beauties. And this cause, whose operation is alike powerful and general, contributed more to keep down the Roman arts, and to prevent them from equalling the Greek, than any inferiority of talents, or than any want of continued application and culture. [Footnote g: - - - - - - artes Intulit agresti Latio. Horatii Epis. Lib. ii. Ep. 1.] The case has been the same in the modern world, and it will be found universally true, that where the arts have arisen from natural, or nearly natural causes, and have thence proceeded by gradual advances to higher degrees of perfection, the judgment or taste of the nation similarly meliorating with their improvement, they have attained, and will attain, the utmost excellence which the abilities of the artists can give them: but when brought forward among a people by extraneous circumstances, such as the force of conquests, the commanding influence of supreme power, or the efforts of affected imitation, though they may bloom and flourish for a season, that they never will arrive at that richness of maturity they have been seen to possess elsewhere, nor will enjoy that vigour of growth which native juices infuse; but, like hothouse plants, though fairly seeming, are yet vapid to the sense, and when bereft of their borrowed heat, quickly sink, rot, and die. The progress of the arts in the ancient world, with the astonishing excellence to which they were carried, was also much aided by the manners and customs there prevailing, and in constant and daily practice. To games and vigorous exercises the ancients were remarkably addicted, regarding them both as liberal amusements and as a preparatory discipline for the active occupations of war, in which each freeman of the state knew himself obliged to engage at a certain period of his life, and which he could not avoid without being damned to never-ceasing infamy. Now all these were performed _naked_, as well on account of the warmth of the atmosphere as to preclude all unequal advantages, and to habituate the mind fearlessly to expose the person to the assaults of incumbent danger. Hence the human figure was hourly exhibited to the inspecting view of the attentive beholder, whether sculptor or painter, in all its various forms of grace and elegance, of strength and force, or of agony and torture: and these not the assumed appearances of fictitious feeling, but the vivid effects of actual endurance, and glowing from the mint of present impression. These were not to be sought in Schools and Academies, they were not the lifeless colourings of mercenary hirelings, but the energies of men emulous of fame, and conscious that their characters with their countrymen would be materially influenced by their performances in these favourite contests. Contests which as amusements were the delight of all, which as exercises were the duty of multitudes; which hoary age beheld with rapture, as recalling the remembrance of the days of their prime, and which unfledged youth gazed on with transport, as picturing those deeds whereby they panted soon to be distinguished. Thus nothing but the most careless inattention could avoid noting the distinctive marks of the various passions and affections, which nature writes in very legible characters: and as all from repeated observation were equally well acquainted with them, in their representation by the artist nothing short of the most exact and accurate likeness could hope for tolerance, much less for approbation. Their scientific knowledge of anatomy, as applicable and subservient to medical purposes, was perhaps inferior to ours, for they appear not to have enjoyed the advantage in their principal cities of such men as the Hunters[h] and Cleghorn:[i] but that inferiority proved not injurious to the artist, who chiefly engaged in imitating the prominent features of the human frame when thrown into action, amply compensated for his ignorance of the theory of muscular motion, of the nervous system, and of osteology, by the effects of observation incessantly repeated on the most striking objects, and, it may be, the more impressive from coming unsought and uninculcated. In fact they could scarcely avoid making this observation: it was presst on them from every quarter; it was urged on them by every incident. If they attended their morning exercises, it was excited there; if they resorted to their evening amusements, it was roused there also. In the retirement of the country it was not allowed to sleep; in the bustle of the city it was awakened to all its vivacity. From private enjoyment, from public security; from the recreations of peace, from the toils of war; from the vacuities of idleness, and from the labours of industry it alike received nurture, support, and aliment. Thus reiteratedly enforced, its effects became, like those of a second nature, interwoven with the habitudes of the mind, and called forth into action, when the occasion required, with readiness and facility, without effort and without premeditation. Hence the wonders that we are told of the astonishing power of their paintings, limited as we know they were in the number of their colours; of which though we are deprived of the sight by the lapse of time, yet are they rendered credible, nay, fully verified, to us by the matchless remains of their statues; whose transcendent merit we have ocular demonstration that neither prejudice had praised nor ignorance had extolled beyond their real deserts. Hence the truth of nature in the Laocoon, where the expression of suffering is not confined to the agitated visage, but is as forcibly marked in the agonized foot as in the distorted countenance. Hence every muscle moves, every sinew is stretched, every atom of the figure conspires to the general effect in the Borghese combatant:[k] and hence each particular part of the Farnesian Hercules represents, as forcibly as the entire statue, that character of superior manly strength and resistless might, which ancient tales have taught us to connect with the idea of the person of that fabled hero. [Footnote h: Dr. William Hunter and Mr. John Hunter, the late celebrated anatomists of London.] [Footnote i: Dr. George Cleghorn, the late excellent and deservedly famous Professor of Anatomy in the university of Dublin: a man of whom it can be truly said that the excellent qualities of his heart were as estimable as his superior professional talents were conspicuous.] [Footnote k: This statue, which forms one of the most valuable possessions in the superb Borghese collection, is commonly called _the fighting Gladiator_; but, we apprehend, very erroneously: as the whole of that admirable figure bespeaks a character greatly superior to that of those degraded and despised beings, whose mercenary services contributed to the amusements of the Roman amphitheatre.] It cannot be inferred from what has been here said that there is intended any unqualified approbation of the custom of appearing naked; which so generally prevailed among the ancients, and more especially among the Greeks. Surely no: for its indecency is obvious; it smoothed the path to many immoralities, and doubtless tended in no slight degree to inflame, if not kindle, some notorious vices to which they were eminently addicted. But it has been merely considered with respect to its subserviency to promote the arts of painting and sculpture: and its powerful and salutary influence on them seems so apparent as to be nearly incontestible. It co-operated with other causes, yet to be mentioned, to give them that superlative excellence which, through a long succession of centuries, has excited uniform admiration; and which yet, superlative as it was, fell short of the ideas of it entertained and cherished by the artists. The peculiar situation of Greece, from the first beginnings of the arts to their most flourishing period, contributed also materially to their improvement and perfection. In its utmost extent not a country of large dimensions, it was yet divided and subdivided into a number of independent states; each eager for distinction, each emulous of fame, each jealous of all superiority in their neighbours. Never for any length of time subject to the dominion of masters, till the overwhelming influence of the Macedonian sunk them all into common slavery, their constitutions were free, or what they regarded as free: in which each citizen felt himself equally interested with any other to extend the reputation, to exalt the glory, and to enlarge the consequence of the state. And when the pre-eminence of power had assigned to Sparta, and afterwards to Athens, that preponderance of authority and weight of consequence necessary to a leading state, first among its equals; still, from national spirit and from deep-rooted habits, an emulation every where prevailed of rivalling in the first rank of reputation each of their neighbours, although they had conceded to one of them the dignity of command. With the single exception of Sparta, where the stern discipline of Lycurgus effectually prevented their progress, as after the arts had began to arise their cultivation was diffused and eagerly pursued throughout all Greece; the praise of excellence in them early became and long continued an object of the first importance with all its various states. They regarded them not only as a means of internal ornament, in which yet they much prided themselves, but also of external character; a means which might raise to higher fame than the most celebrated their favoured district, however inferior to them in political power. Hence the possession of an artist of distinguished abilities and superior talents was considered as a national concern: and the esteem wherein he was held, the popularity he acquired, and the dignified stations to which with fair prospects of success he might aspire, were answerable to the consequence which his genius was thought to confer on his native land. As this sentiment was universal, animating the minds and guiding the conduct of all the different states, its influence on the improvement of the arts, and on the exertions of their professors, was powerful in the extreme. They were not deemed the lucrative trades of mechanical men, by which some fame and much money might be procured; but the ennobling occupations of the best-deserving citizens, anxiously labouring to exalt the reputation of their country, and to raise her to a more envied eminence among the surrounding and rival republics. And the citizens thus employed were conscious, in addition to the common motives of rivalry generally prevalent at all times among men of spirit engaged in the same pursuits, that not only their individual character, but the fame of their nation, was implicated in their labours; and fired by the warm energy of that recollection, they wrought with a glowing heat, with an ardour of enthusiasm that, in repeated instances, burst forth in the brightest blaze of excellence. For their exertions in their particular arts were not thought, either by themselves or by the public, the mere efforts of competition of sculptors, painters, or architects, with their fellow artists; but trials of merit between adjacent communities, each vain of their present character, each aiming at higher distinction, each hoping for the pre-eminence: to which trials the eminent artists stept forwards the champions of a people, not the combatants in a private contest. Hence with unremitting zeal beauty and grace, strength and spirit, truth and nature, were investigated through all their different forms, were examined with minute attention, were applied with scrupulous accuracy. It little weighed with the professor what his own countrymen, however polished, judged of his work, what impression it made on them, or what plaudits of theirs it called forth: but how it would be received at the Olympic or Isthmian games, at the general assembly of all Greece; where each skilful eye and each intelligent mind would be employed in scrutinizing it without favour or affection, and would compare it as well with the best productions of similar art then known as with the elaborate essays of contemporary artists. Thus whatever of genius, or talents, or skill, or judgment, or industry, each man possessed, was called forth into action by motives the most operative on the human mind, whose power is known and confessed: and the consequence was the rapid and unequalled improvement of the Arts. Improvement which still astonishes, and which we are sometimes inclined to imagine the effort of a superior race of beings to those with whom we converse: but which arose from causes strong and cogent indeed, but natural, and without difficulty discoverable. Something not unlike this happened at the revival of the arts in Europe, and contributed materially to their advancement. For Italy, which was their cradle, was then broken into a number of independent states, mostly free, and rivalling each other in every praise of prowess and policy. Hence, when the revival of the arts furnished a new source of fame, it was pursued with avidity; and the various schools formed in its different cities vied with each other for superiority, and by their laudable rivalry promoted the progress of the arts with extraordinary celerity. And though, perhaps, these schools, which soon became distinguished by peculiar merits, may not finally have contributed to the perfection of the arts, as leading their respective students rather to pursue the attainment of that one distinct merit than to aim at the acquisition of universal excellence; yet, at the close of the fifteenth and in the sixteenth century, by their praiseworthy emulation and vigorous exertions, they were singularly useful, and essentially tended to the rapid improvement of the reviving arts. Their fame added much to the splendor and reputation of the cities wherein they were settled, and that circumstance proved a very perceptible incentive to invigorate their talents and to animate their exertions; and so produced, though in an inferior degree, not a little of that spirited labour, of that enthusiastic devotion to their profession, which had aided so considerably the progress of the arts in Greece. We say _in an inferior degree_; because the Italian cities, though sensible of their worth, and persuaded of their public utility, never bestowed on individual professors such extraordinary marks of attention and reverence as the Grecian states were in the habit of lavishing on their more illustrious artists; and, consequently, the cause being lessened, the effect must have been proportionably diminished. In truth this species of rivalry, in which states or nations, however small, feel themselves interested, has ever proved one of the strongest stimulatives that could be applied to abilities; as it combines the patriotic affections of the worthy citizen with the natural ambition of the artist, and alike operates on some of the most powerful public and private springs of action. But the labour and pains, the study and industry early employed and long continued, in the cultivation of the arts, naturally and necessarily advanced their progress in a striking manner: raising them to such a height of perfection as we weakly think unattainable, because we will not use the adequate means of endeavouring to attain it. Labour is to man, from his constitution and his frame, the real price of every truly valuable acquisition; which, though indolence spurns and idleness rejects, always brings its own reward with it, whether we are ultimately successful or not, in the consciousness of having acted a manly part, and in the vigour of mind and health of body which it, and it alone, invariably confers. Some fortuitous instances may be mentioned of those who have possessed both without its aid; of those who, nursed on the lap of indolence, and folded in the arms of idleness, have enjoyed that first of human blessings, a sound mind in a sound body: but they are instances to astonish, not examples to incite. This is even more strictly and peculiarly true as it regards the arts, than it is in several other cases. For the great merit of painting and sculpture consisting in their exact and captivating copies of nature, and of architecture in its combination of beauty with grandeur, of convenience with magnificence, it is obvious that these qualities are never the casual effects of chance and accident, of lucky hits and fortunate events; but the steady results of pains and care, of study and attention. Of this truth the professors of the arts in Greece were quickly and fully convinced; and applied that conviction to its only proper purpose, to an unremitting labour on their own appropriate pursuit: a labour which, paramount over each other object, neither pleasure prevented, nor politics precluded, nor the calls of animal life hindered. To excel in their art, to surpass their predecessors, to outstrip their competitors, to be the conspicuous subject of Grecian admiration, were the objects of their daily thoughts and of their nightly dreams: objects which scarce for a moment retired from their view, or, if for a moment retiring, it was only that they might recur again with renovated force. The[l] _multa dies et multa litura_ which the Roman poet ascribes to the Grecian writers, and to which he truly attributes their superior merit, were still more eminently true of their artists; who applied to the completion of their various works a severity of study and a perseverance of labour that to us, habituated to very different manners indeed, seem surprizing; but of which the authenticated accounts cannot be disputed. As exalted character, not the mere making of money, was the aim to which their thoughts were directed, it was pursued with that eagerness which honest ambition ever creates: and though, incidentally, fortune frequently followed their fame, as it came unsought for, none of its degrading motives swayed their conduct. [Footnote l: Horatius.] It was not the idea of the[m] hundred talents which he received, great as that sum was (for not one _drachma_ of it would he have received had not his work been approved), that inspirited the genius of Phidias when he was sculpturing the Olympian Jupiter; but the reflection that by his skill the rude block was to be transformed into the representative likeness of the father of gods and men, to be the admiration and adoration of his enraptured countrymen: and hence profound study, exquisite pains, and incessant labour, were employed to produce that statue, which thence became afterwards the wonder of the world. Under the impulse of such impressions must the Apollo Belvedere have come from the hands of its unequalled sculptor: for though we know not the history of that incomparable statue, yet its expression of dignity more than human, its unforced graceful ease which nature can but faintly copy, its perfect symmetry, and union of complete beauty with full bodily strength, tell more than a thousand witnesses the pains, the study, and the labour that must have been unremittingly exerted to produce it. [Footnote m: 19,375 l.] It would argue a silly prejudice, not a due sense of the merits of the ancients, to attempt to insinuate that this labour and study, to which we are inclined to attribute so much, was universal. No; for in Greece then, as with ourselves now, there were among the artists (what in the modern phrase we call) _fine gentlemen_: persons of too sublime a genius to condescend to study, and of too delicate a frame to submit to labour. The character of the species has been preserved, though the names of its individuals have long, long since been forgotten. But they never promoted the progress, never advanced the improvement of any art: but, like their _amiable_ successors, followed a trade for support, and did not cultivate a profession with dignity. But the persons of whom we speak, as distinguished by these qualities, were those worthy citizens who addicted themselves to no art without adorning and improving it; whose names ennobled the age in which they lived; who then were never mentioned without reverence, nor yet, at this far distant period, are ever thought on without respect. By their studies and their labours, vigorously and undeviatingly exerted, was the progress of the arts promoted, their improvement accelerated, and their near approximation to perfection effected: they thus experimentally proving the energetic power of these valuable qualities, and leaving examples to fire the emulation of the spirited and the active in each future age. In addition to the circumstances already mentioned, whose power and efficiency on the progress of the arts we have endeavoured to point out, there must be called to mind the great national encouragement which they received in Greece, and the extraordinary influence which it must have had on the warm imaginations of its gay and high-spirited inhabitants. The desire of distinction and honour is a principle interwoven in the constitution of our nature; and though, like most others we possess, it is liable to perversion, is in itself not only blameless but laudable; inciting the best exertions of talents where they are, and often supplying their place where it finds them not. There are no countries, however adverse the regent of the day may have yoked his horses from them, where its operation is not more or less felt: and in exact proportion to the civilization and mental improvement of each country, its ascendency has ever been found to be high, its dominion to be great. This is strictly true even with regard to the estimation of private individuals: but the applause of a whole people has invariably been deemed the most just meed of the most exceeding merit, ever since nations have assumed a fixed and stable form. Now this applause formed an important part of the great national rewards by which Greece fostered the arts; and it was a part that peculiarly came home both to the business and bosoms of each worthy citizen, and caused every pulse of a Grecian heart to vibrate to its impression. Their characteristic fondness of fame is known and acknowledged; but this applause, though by them in itself extravagantly valued, was not a mere empty, flattering sound: for, from the constitutions prevailing in nearly every state of Greece, it was the sure conductor to domestic dignity, to political power, and to commanding sway in the public deliberations. The first offices of the state, and the prime trusts of the government, were open to that distinguished artist whose admired performances had secured the universal suffrage. They were often without seeking offered by popular gratitude to his acceptance; nay, sometimes with honest violence forced on his unwilling reception. Thus the principles of interest, ambition, popularity, confessedly some of the most powerful that guide the conduct of mankind, were called forth in aid of that natural bent or disposition which had induced the man to cultivate any particular art: and the consequence was such as might be expected from the efficiency of such operative motives, surpassing merit and supreme excellence. Another species of national encouragement, nearly connected with this, was the certainty which the eminent artist enjoyed that, whenever the occasion offered, his talents would be employed to erect, or to decorate with the labours of his pencil or his chissel, the temples, the theatres, the porticoes, the places of public assembling of the cities of Greece; where his works, contributing amply to his fortune from their munificent reward, would contribute more to his fame when exposed to the scrutinizing view of that intelligent people. He had no cause to fear that his abilities would be overlooked or buried in obscurity by prepossession, partiality, or prejudice: he had no apprehensions to dread from the effects of interested relationship, of commanding influence, of narrow local attachment, or of proud and presuming ignorance. If his merit was acknowledged his employment was sure; and he was even courted by the general voice to exert his talents for the public credit, not depressed in their exertion by mean and base affections. He was not obliged to solicit for employment with humiliating applications, and, when employed, to labour under the multiplied disadvantages of deficient or stinted means, of complying with vitiated judgments, of submitting to the senseless whims of folly and caprice. Full scope was given to the fertility of his imagination, to the extent of his genius, to the vigour of his fancy: whilst all the powers of his mind and all the vigour of his body, all the ingenuity of his head and all the dexterity of his hands, were impelled to their best performances by the consciousness that all deficiencies would be imputable solely to himself, the public being free from the slightest suspicion of having either curbed or confined his abilities. As no elevation of genius made him giddy, hence grace and beauty, strength and vigour, expression and passion, respectively marked his performances; and his fame became connected with the edifices, the statues, the paintings, that ornamented the country, which struck every eye, and which none beheld without recollecting with respect the able artist whose workmanship had produced them. The effect of this kind of encouragement on the arts was great, is manifest, and need be but slightly mentioned: yet, perhaps, may appear the more striking from contrasting it with some practices of more modern times. In them the first city in the world has disgraced itself with all who have eyesight, by employing to erect its most expensive building[n] an architect _because the man was a citizen_: and, in more countries of Europe than one, statues and paintings are exhibited as commemorative of illustrious public deeds, where contorsion and extravagance, where flutter and glare, form the predominant characters; but they dishonour those countries, on account of the artists engaged to execute them being employed because they were the favourites of despots, the flatterers of titled harlots, or the relations of directors; whilst men of the first talents and merit in their profession were pining in indigence and obscurity, unnoticed and unfriended. The consequences of this latter conduct none will say that we have reason to boast of from the superlative excellence of modern art; but what has been felt from it may readily induce us to believe how essentially its direct opposite must have promoted the progress of the arts in Greece. [Footnote n: The Mansion House of London.] The vast sums expended by the Grecian states on their public monuments and their public works (vast, indeed, when the comparative value of money then and now is considered), tended much to assist the progress of the arts, and to aid their high improvement. For, though we have unquestionable reason to believe that the sordid motive of private profit was not the first principle in the minds of those great artists who have immortalized their names by their works, yet without a certain liberality of expence their ideas could not have been realized, their works could not have been executed; and that liberality they found limited commonly by nothing but the public means, and often not even by them. We know from the gravest and clearest authorities with what lavish expenditure scenic representations were exhibited at Athens, with what unbounded magnificence her temples, her tribunals, her porticoes were decorated: we equally well know the splendor of Corinth, a near neighbouring city; the incalculable price of its paintings, the inestimable value of its statues, and that from the coalesced mass of its molten metals there arose, at its destruction, a compound more highly prized by the Romans than gold. The other principal cities were alike studious of embellishment, alike emulous of ornament, and in various proportions enjoyed them according to the circumstances of time and situation: but Delphi and Olympia, the grand seats of the national religion and the national games, concentered in themselves each choicest production of genius, each happiest effort of art, each transcendent display of excellence; amassed with a judgment that delighted, with a profusion that surprized, and with an expence that astonished. This generous spirit in carrying on and completing public works which, though it may sometimes be pushed to an excess (as, perhaps, was the case in Greece), is so truly honourable to any people, had, and obviously must have had, the most decided influence in advancing and improving the arts, and in giving them that degree of perfection which has never yet been exceeded, nor even equalled. It excited exertion, by the security that its efforts would not be suffered to remain undisplayed, but would be invited to add loveliness to the beautiful, and splendor to the magnificent; it roused the full force of emulation, by the certainty that superior merit would receive superior rewards, and neither be permitted to languish in privacy nor to pine in poverty; and it invigorated the boldest flights of genius, by the firm assurance that there was a prevalent spirit ready to countenance, prepared to adopt, and anxious to encourage them. It would be no small absurdity to affirm that fortune, as well as fame, had not attractions for a Grecian artist; for it must ever be absurd to affirm generally the absence of the operation of general principles: and therefore the great pecuniary recompences which their talents procured had, doubtless, a proportionate influence on all their labours to improve their art; though, it may be, less in that region than in many other countries. And from the combined efficacy of these several kinds of national encouragement, which, like different branches of the same tree, spring all from the same root, the progress of the arts was furthered so essentially, was advanced so highly, as we have heard of with wonder, and have seen with amazement. So complex having been the causes, so slow and progressively gradual the progress of the Fine Arts, highly grateful must it be to every truly British breast to consider the rapid advances they have made in this favoured Isle within the last fifty years: advances certainly unmatched in their former history, as in that period they have arisen from the utmost imbecility of infantine weakness (indeed almost from _non-entity_) to a vigorous maturity that leaves far behind them the emasculate efforts and puny productions of all other contemporary European nations. The causes of this unequalled improvement have notoriously been the countenance and fostering protection of his present Majesty, an admirer and intelligent judge of their merit, and the ardent spirit of emulation excited among the artists themselves by such exalted and distinguishing notice. These co-operating have produced an exertion of talents, a display of abilities, and emanations of genius that always wore in existence, but which required concurring circumstances to bring them into full action, and to cause them to expand their latent energies. And had the general patronage been correspondent to these fortunate incidents, had not the fashionable jargon of presumptuous, self-created, arbiters of taste, affecting to despise National art, vitiated the public mind, or rather strengthened an ancient prejudice there floating, it is not easy to conceive how much greater still would have been their progress. It is at least certain that our ingenious young artists would have been amply encouraged to exert themselves, and not suffered, after the most promising exhibitions of dawning talents, to pine in indigence and wretchedness, to sink into obscurity and oblivion, or (like the illfated, but most meritorious Proctor[o]) to hasten, in the very opening of life, the termination of mortal existence from the excruciating pressure of continued penury and misery. [Footnote o: The fate of this ingenious youth deserves to be distinctly recorded. Born of humble parentage in one of the more distant counties, he had early manifested an admiration of the Arts, and, being admitted a student of the Royal Academy, eminently distinguished himself there by his abilities and his industry. Applying peculiarly to Sculpture, soon after the termination of his studies in the Academy he exhibited, at its annual Exhibition in Somerset-place, two models of unrivalled excellence, which might, without fear of deterioration, have been placed in competition with the happiest productions of the best days of Grecian art, and which at the time met with their well-earned applause. But, alas! applause was his only reward: no wealthy patron took him by the hand, no affluent lover of the Arts enquired into, or assisted, his circumstances; and his means being very confined, misery was his portion. He had however the soul of an Artist, and for a length of time bore up with manly fortitude against his distresses. The present worthy President of the Royal Academy, suspecting his situation, with the aid of the Council obtained for him from the Academy an annuity of 100l. a year, to enable him to go to Italy, and improve himself there: but the unhappy youth had unavoidably contracted some trifling debts, which he was utterly unable to discharge, and his mind was too delicately alive to every finer feeling to bear the thought of leaving this country without paying them. This circumstance, preying on his agitated spirits, and on a frame emaciated by the severest distress, caused his speedy dissolution, to the irreparable injury of the Arts. After his death it was discovered that, for the last two years of his life, he had resided in a miserable cock-loft in the worst house in Clare market, which he had rented for a shilling a week; and that his daily sustenance for that time had been _only two dry biscuits with a draft of water from the market pump_.] Thus having attempted to investigate the progress of the arts, and to what was owing that supreme excellence which they formerly attained, we seem to have reasonable grounds to conclude that it flowed from such natural and moral causes as, at all times and in all cases, are known powerfully to affect the feelings and to actuate the conduct of man. No whimsical refinements, no marvellous mysteries, no imaginary and fantastic theories have been had recourse to: but lighted on our way by the irradiating torch of authentic history, and unseduced by the false glare of lying legends, we have not dared so much to affirm what, in certain situations, our fellow-creatures MUST do, as to detail with some care what in fact they DID do. If what we have here advanced has not the attraction of novelty to allure, it is hoped that it is not deficient in the recommendation of truth to convince. It has not been thought necessary formally to refute the sentiments of those profound Philosophers, who have sagaciously discovered the causes of the inferiority of the arts in some countries and of their superiority in others, and consequently the perfection to which they arrived in Greece, in the power of the solar beams in certain latitudes, in the influences of the atmosphere, and in those of terrestrial and celestial vapours: for if the causes here assigned appear fully adequate to the end produced, as we conceive they do, it must be idle to shew the inutility of others, gratuitously brought forth from the inexhaustible storehouse of fancy, and supported by any thing rather than solid reasoning. It must be allowed that they very roundly assert, but as fallaciously argue, whenever they deign to argue on this subject: for mere assertions, positive, pompous, presuming, but assertions still, are the commonest weapons of their warfare. And, possibly, it would neither be reputable to contest the specious subtilty of the sophisms of even such sages, nor honourable to conquer the powerless imbecility of their assertions. It is but fair to avow that this enquiry into the progress of the arts has not been entered on for the sole purpose of ascertaining, as far as we were able, the causes of the surpassing excellence to which they were carried in Greece, without at the same time intimating, with due deference to superior judgments and to superior authority, the efficacy of the same causes, at all times and in all countries, in improving and exalting them. As human nature is the same at all periods, though diversified in its exterior shew by the various customs, modes, and manners, that variously prevail, it cannot be seriously doubted but that those principles, which have been found by experience in one country to powerfully sway its conduct, and to incite its efforts in the Arts to their noblest productions, would be equally efficient and equally successful elsewhere, were they fairly applied, and as vigorously exerted. We have no satisfactory reason for believing that either the mental or corporeal powers of man have degenerated in the succession of ages: and we well know that, by the benefits of experience and invention, considerable aids have been added to both, to methodize their motions and to facilitate their operations. Our profounder and better-studied knowledge of Metaphysics, our improved skill in Natural Philosophy and Mechanics, and our more accurate acquaintance with the principles of colours, with their combinations and their shades, all confessedly tend to these points. Should then the same liberal public encouragement be displayed, by those possessed of the power of displaying it, as dignified the best days of Greece; should the same labour, the same pains, the same study, the same industry, be used by modern artists as distinguished their truly illustrious predecessors; we might not vainly hope to see the arts carried to still greater perfection than they have ever yet attained; we might expect to behold their deficiencies supplied, their utilities increased, their energies enlarged, and their beauties augmented. On national encouragement it becomes not the mediocrity of our talents and station to presume to decide; yet, possibly, it will not be judged too vauntingly confident to say that it should in all cases be spirited, generous, impartial, and should not be subjected to the caprices of power, to the varying humours of the transient depositaries of the public confidence, nor to the inconstant and ever-mutable gusts of popular phrenzy. What effect such encouragement would have on the artists themselves can, indeed, be only conjectured; for such encouragement has never yet been exhibited in the modern world: but that conjecture is neither vague nor random, as it is guided by permanent principles, and directed by the known influence of steady affections on the human heart. It may be affirmed then, with some assurance, that it would inspirit their labours, that it would multiply their pains, that it would invigorate their studies, that it would augment their industry: for such were heretofore its experienced consequences in similar cases, and therefore they are reasonably to be expected again. They would not waste their youth in the riot of lawless pleasure, and so treasure up sickness and sorrow for the days of their prime: they would not spend their hours in the ceaseless pursuit of the intoxicating amusements of some great capital: they would not lay out their whole attention on the low and subordinate, but gainful, branches of their _trade_, in contempt of the superior features of their ART, and of its possible improvement: but concentring all their powers, all their abilities, all their faculties, in the advancement of their peculiar pursuit, would rapidly raise themselves from the drudgery of mechanical workmanship to the proud elevation of professional exertion. Thus the arts, advanced by so conspicuous a change of manners in their cultivators, and by an encouragement differing so widely from the paltry private patronage pretending to that name, would attain that state of perfection to which their admirers fondly wish to see them carried; but which they must wish in vain till something like the changes here etched out shall have taken place. And that what depends on the artists has not been too sanguinely supposed, nor too strongly pictured, will surely not be asserted: for it has only been supposed that they are men of common sense and natural feelings; that they are not insensible to the allurements of each dignified distinction in life; that they have hearts that can be warmed and minds that can be roused. That much higher ideas might justly be formed of some artists we can positively affirm from personal knowledge; as we know some who have really the souls of Artists; who, even in present circumstances, instead of grovelling all their lives in mean and sordid occupations, adventurously dare to soar into the immense void of possible excellence; and whose characters it would be highly grateful to portray, were not the desire restrained by the consciousness of inability to do justice to their merits. Such men, indeed, by the vigour of their genius, counteract the disadvantages to which they may be exposed, and, bursting the barriers of opposing obstacles with spirit all their own, impart to the arts whatever of addition or improvement they receive; elucidating their obscurities, polishing their asperities, and lopping their luxuriancies: and their number might be increased to any given amount. But until that halcyon period shall arrive, if it ever shall arrive, when the arts shall be considered as real national objects, and receive _real_ national encouragement (without which, it must be confessed, all extraordinary progress in them is not _generally_ to be expected), their beauty, their grace, their grandeur, depend on these men alone. And conscious of the high ground whereon they stand, as the champions of truth and nature against fashion and futility, and caprice and extravagance, and of the possible benefits resulting from their labours in giving passion to the mute canvas, expression to the inanimate block, and magnificence to utility in each public edifice; they will not suffer themselves to be discouraged by temporary neglect, nor to be disheartened by temporary preferences of the incapable and undeserving. They will strengthen their minds to encounter the provoking criticisms of pert and petulant presumption; they will scorn the contempts of self-conceited and ignorant folly, however highly seated; and they will meet with firm dignity the misjudging decisions of purse-proud affluence. And conscious worth shall crown them with a wreath of honour, greener than ever bloomed on the brow of an Olympic conqueror; their own hearts shall applaud them; their works shall form a lasting monument to the immortality of their names; and their fame shall float down the current of future ages with daily increasing strength, with daily augmented splendor. The final result then of our enquiry on this amusing and interesting subject is, that we have the best grounds for concluding the progress of the arts originally, and the great perfection to which they were carried in Greece, to have arisen from natural and moral causes of confessed efficacy, and not from any casual circumstances, extraneous to and independent of man: and we deem it reasonable to think that the same causes, operating as uncontroledly any where else within the extent of the temperate climates, would most probably again produce the same effects. Far from indulging any licence of imagination, or from giving wing to its flights, it has been endeavoured rather carefully to detail facts than wantonly to invent systems. Of the evidence, which to us has appeared convincing, the public will judge: of the rectitude of our intention in producing it we are sure, for it is only to incite public reward, to encourage study, and labour, and industry. William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: University of California THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY _General Editors_ R. C. BOYS University of Michigan VINTON A. DEARING University of California, Los Angeles RALPH COHEN University of California, Los Angeles LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL Wm. Andrews Clark Memorial Library _Corresponding Secretary_: Mrs. EDNA C. DAVIS, Wm. Andrews Clark Memorial Library The Society exists to make available inexpensive reprints (usually facsimile reproductions) of rare seventeenth and eighteenth century works. The editorial policy of the Society remains unchanged. As in the past, the editors welcome suggestions concerning publications. All income of the Society is devoted to defraying cost of publication and mailing. All correspondence concerning subscriptions in the United States and Canada should be addressed to the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2205 West Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles 18, California. Correspondence concerning editorial matters may be addressed to any of the general editors. The membership fee is $3.00 a year for subscribers in the United States and Canada and 15/- for subscribers in Great Britain and Europe. British and European subscribers should address B. H. Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England. * * * * * Publications for the eighth year [1953-1954] (At least six items, most of them from the following list, will be reprinted.) JOHN BAILLIE: _An Essay on the Sublime_ (1747). Introduction by Samuel H. Monk. Contemporaries of the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_. Introduction by Richmond P. Bond. _John Dart and George Ogle on Chaucer._ Introduction by William L. Alderson. JOHN T. DESAGULIERS: _The Newtonian System of the World the Best Model of Government_ (1728). Introduction by Marjorie H. Nicolson. _Sale Catalogue of Mrs. Piozzi's Effects_ (1816). Introduction by John Butt. M. C. SARBIEWSKI: _The Odes of Casimire_ (1646). Introduction by Maren-Sofie Roestvig. _Selections from Seventeenth-Century Songs._ Introduction by Jennifer W. Angel. _A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul_ (1745). [Probably by Samuel Johnson]. Introduction by James L. Clifford. Publications for the first seven years (with the exception of Nos. 1-6, which are out of print) are available at the rate of $3.00 a year. Prices for individual numbers may be obtained by writing to the Society. * * * * * THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY _WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY_ 2205 WEST ADAMS BOULEVARD, LOS ANGELES 18, CALIFORNIA Make check or money order payable to THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. PUBLICATIONS OF THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY FIRST YEAR (1946-1947) Numbers 1-6 out of print. SECOND YEAR (1947-1948) 7. John Gay's _The Present State of Wit_ (1711); and a section on Wit from _The English Theophrastus_ (1702). 8. Rapin's _De Carmine Pastorali_, translated by Creech (1684). 9. T. Hanmer's (?) _Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet_ (1736). 10. Corbyn Morris' _Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, etc._ (1744). 11. Thomas Purney's _Discourse on the Pastoral_ (1717). 12. Essays on the Stage, selected, with an Introduction by Joseph Wood Krutch. THIRD YEAR (1948-1949) 13. Sir John Falstaff (pseud.), _The Theatre_ (1720). 14. Edward Moore's _The Gamester_ (1753). 15. John Oldmixon's _Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley_ (1712); and Arthur Mainwaring's _The British Academy_ (1712). 16. Nevil Payne's _Fatal Jealousy_ (1673). 17. Nicholas Rowe's _Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespeare_ (1709). 18. "Of Genius," in _The Occasional Paper_, Vol. III, No. 10 (1719); and Aaron Hill's Preface to _The Creation_ (1720). FOURTH YEAR (1949-1950) 19. Susanna Centlivre's _The Busie Body_ (1709). 20. Lewis Theobold's _Preface to The Works of Shakespeare_ (1734). 21. _Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela_ (1754). 22. Samuel Johnson's _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749) and Two _Rambler_ papers (1750). 23. John Dryden's _His Majesties Declaration Defended_ (1681). 24. Pierre Nicole's _An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in Which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams_, translated by J. V. Cunningham. FIFTH YEAR (1950-1951) 25. Thomas Baker's _The Fine Lady's Airs_ (1709). 26. Charles Macklin's _The Man of the World_ (1792). 27. Frances Reynolds' _An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of Our Ideas of Beauty, etc._ (1785). 28. John Evelyn's _An Apologie for the Royal Party_ (1659); and _A Panegyric to Charles the Second_ (1661). 29. Daniel Defoe's _A Vindication of the Press_ (1718). 30. Essays on Taste from John Gilbert Cooper's _Letters Concerning Taste_, 3rd edition (1757), & John Armstrong's _Miscellanies_ (1770). SIXTH YEAR (1951-1952) 31. Thomas Gray's _An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard_ (1751); and _The Eton College Manuscript_. 32. Prefaces to Fiction; Georges de Scudéry's Preface to _Ibrahim_ (1674), etc. 33. Henry Gally's _A Critical Essay_ on Characteristic-Writings (1725). 34. Thomas Tyers' A Biographical Sketch of Dr. Samuel Johnson (1785). 35. James Boswell, Andrew Erskine, and George Dempster. _Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch_ (1763). 36. Joseph Harris's _The City Bride_ (1696). SEVENTH YEAR (1952-1953) 37. Thomas Morrison's _A Pindarick Ode on Painting_ (1767). 38. John Phillips' _A Satyr Against Hypocrites_ (1655). 39. Thomas Warton's _A History of English Poetry_. 40. Edward Bysshe's _The Art of English Poetry_ (1708). 41. Bernard Mandeville's "_A Letter to Dion_" (1732). 42. Prefaces to Four Seventeenth-Century Romances. * * * * * Transcriber's note: Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical error: "... joined increased (conveniencies->) conveniences" "... which nothing imperfect (eould->) would please," Footnotes interrupting paragraphs have been moved to the end of the respective paragraphs. 
43602	----	[Illustration: FIG. 1.--THE PYRAMIDS OF GHIZEH.] A HISTORY OF ART FOR BEGINNERS AND STUDENTS PAINTING--SCULPTURE--ARCHITECTURE WITH _COMPLETE INDEXES AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS_ BY CLARA ERSKINE CLEMENT AUTHOR OF "HANDBOOK OF LEGENDARY AND MYTHOLOGICAL ART," "PAINTERS, SCULPTORS, ENGRAVERS, ARCHITECTS AND THEIR WORKS," "ARTISTS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," ETC. [Illustration] NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY MDCCCXCI COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES, SUCCESSOR TO WHITE, STOKES, & ALLEN. [Illustration] CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE ANCIENT OR HEATHEN ARCHITECTURE. 3000 B.C. TO A.D. 328, 1 EGYPT, 2 ASSYRIA, 20 BABYLON, 29 PERSIA, 34 JUDEA, 44 GREECE, 46 ETRURIA, 71 ROME, 74 CHAPTER II. CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. A.D. 328 TO ABOUT 1400, 87 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE, 93 BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE, 117 SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE, 123 CHAPTER III. MODERN ARCHITECTURE. A.D. 1400 TO THE PRESENT TIME, 133 ITALY, 134 SPAIN, 145 FRANCE, 153 ENGLAND, 166 GERMANY, 172 THEATRES AND MUSIC HALLS, 179 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 181 GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS, 191 INDEX, 195 [Illustration] LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE The Pyramids of Ghizeh, _Frontispiece_ The Ascent of a Pyramid, 4 View of Gallery in the Great Pyramid, 5 Poulterer's Shop, 6 Rock-cut Tomb (Beni-Hassan), 6 The Hall of Columns at Karnak, 10 Pillar from Thebes (showing the Three Parts), 11 Sculptured Capital, 12 Palm Capital, 12 Pillar from Sedingæ, 12 The Great Sphinx, 13 Cleopatra's Needles, 15 Pavilion at Medinet Habou, 17 Temple on the Island of Philæ, 18 Gateways in Walls of Khorsabad, 21 Entrance to Smaller Temple (Nimrud), 22 Pavement Slab (from Koyunjik), 23 Remains of Propylæum, or Outer Gateway (Khorsabad), 24 Plan of Palace (Khorsabad), 25 Relief from Khorsabad. A Temple, 26 Restoration of an Assyrian Palace, 28 Elevation of the Temple of the Seven Spheres at Borsippa, 31 Birs-i-Nimrud (near Babylon), 33 Masonry of Great Platform (Persepolis), 36 Parapet Wall of Staircase. _Persepolis._ (Restored), 37 Ruins of the Palace of Darius (Persepolis), 38 Gateway of Hall of a Hundred Columns, 39 Double-horned Lion Capital, 40 Complex Capital and Base of Pillars (Persepolis), 40 Base of Another Pillar (Persepolis), 40 Ground-plan (Restored) of Hall of Xerxes (Persepolis), 41 Part of a Base of the Time of Cyrus (Pasargadæ), 42 The Tomb of Cyrus, 43 Roof of One of the Compartments of the Gate Huldah, 45 Temple of Diana (Eleusis), 48 Gravestone from Mycenæ (Schliemann), 49 Small Temple at Rhamnus, 50 The Parthenon. _Athens._ (Restored), 51 Plan of Temple of Apollo (Bassæ), 52 From the Parthenon (Athens), 53 Ionic Architecture, 55 Ionic Base, 55 Attic Base, 55 Base from Temple of Hera (Samos), 56 Ionic Capital (front view), 56 Ionic Capital (side view), 56 From Monument of Lysicrates (Athens), 57 Corinthian Order, 58 Caryatid, 59 Stool, or Chair (Khorsabad), 59 The Acropolis. _Athens._ (Restored), 63 The Erechtheium. _Athens._ (Restored), 66 Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. _Athens_, 68 The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Restored), 69 Tombs at Castel d'Asso, 71 Principal Chamber of the Regulini-Galeassi Tomb, 72 Arch at Volterra, 73 Gateway (Arpino), 73 Arch of Cloaca Maxima (Rome), 74 Composite Order, from the Arch of Septimius Severus (Rome), 75 Doric Arcade, 76 Ground-plan of Pantheon (Rome), 77 Interior of the Pantheon, 78 Longitudinal Section of Basilica of Maxentius, 79 Arch of Constantine (Rome), 82 Arch of Trajan (Beneventum), 83 Tomb of Cecilia Metella, 84 Columbarium near the Gate of St. Sebastian (Rome), 85 Interior of Basilica of St. Paul's (Rome), 88 The Cathedral of Chartres, 91 Church of St. Nicholas (Caen), 95 Façade of Cathedral of Notre Dame (Paris), 96 Clustered Pillar, 97 Buttress, 97 Hinge, 97 Iron-work, 97 Gargoyle, 97 Nail-head, 98 Scroll, 98 Section of Church (Carcassone). With Outer Aisles Added in Fourteenth Century, 99 Spires of Laon Cathedral, 100 Portal of the Minorites' Church (Vienna), 101 External Elevation, Cathedral of Paris, 102 Wheel Window, from Cathedral (Toscanella), 103 Collegiate Church. _Toro._ (From Villa Amil), 105 St. Paul, Saragossa, 106 Cloister (Tarazona), 107 Rood-screen, from the Madeleine (Troyes), 108 Palace of Wartburg, 109 Tower of Cremona, 111 St. Mark's Cathedral (Venice), 113 Section of San Miniato (near Florence), 115 San Giovanni degli Eremiti (Palermo), 116 Church of St. Sophia. _Constantinople._ (Exterior View), 118 Lower Order of St. Sophia, 119 Upper Order of St. Sophia, 120 Interior View of Church of St. Sophia, 121 Mosque of Kaitbey, 124 The Call to Prayer, 125 Exterior of the Sanctuary in the Mosque of Cordova, 127 Court of the Lions (Alhambra), 131 The Cathedral of Florence and Giotto's Campanile, 135 View of St. Peter's (Rome), 137 Section of St. Peter's, 139 East Elevation of Library of St. Mark, 141 The Doge's Palace (Venice), 143 Great Court of the Hospital of Milan, 144 The Escurial (near Madrid), 147 Façade of the Church of St. Michael (Dijon), 155 Façade of the Dome of the Invalides (Paris), 156 The Pantheon (Paris), 157 The Madeleine (Paris), 159 Pavilion de l'Horloge and Part of the Court of the Louvre, 161 Château of Chambord, 163 Porte St. Denis (Paris), 164 Arc de l'Étoile (Paris), 165 East Elevation of St. Paul's (Covent Garden), 167 St. Paul's, London (from the West), 168 St. George's Hall (Liverpool), 169 Windsor Castle, 170 The Houses of Parliament (London), 171 The Brandenburg Gate (Berlin), 174 The Basilica at Munich, 175 The Ruhmeshalle (near Munich), 176 The Museum (Berlin), 177 The Walhalla, 178 The New Opera House (Paris), 180 The United States Capitol (Washington), 182 State Capitol (Columbus, Ohio), 183 Sir William Pepperell's House (Kittery Point, Maine), 185 Old Morrisania (Morrisania, New York), 187 Residence at Irvington, New York, 189 [Illustration] ARCHITECTURE. CHAPTER I. ANCIENT OR HEATHEN ARCHITECTURE. 3000 B.C. TO A.D. 328. Architecture seems to me to be the most wonderful of all the arts. We may not love it as much as others, when we are young perhaps we cannot do so, because it is so great and so grand; but at any time of life one can see that in Architecture some of the most marvellous achievements of men are displayed. The principal reason for saying this is that Architecture is not an imitative art, like Painting and Sculpture. The first picture that was ever painted was a portrait or an imitation of something that the painter had seen. So in Sculpture, the first statue or bas-relief was an attempt to reproduce some being or object that the sculptor had seen, or to make a work which combined portions of several things that he had observed; but in Architecture this was not true. No temples or tombs or palaces existed until they had first taken form in the mind and imagination of the builders, and were created out of space and nothingness, so to speak. Thus Painting and Sculpture are imitative arts, but Architecture is a constructive art; and while one may love pictures or statues more than the work of the architect, it seems to me that one must wonder most at the last. We do not know how long the earth has existed, and in studying the most ancient times of which we have any accurate knowledge, we come upon facts which prove that men must have lived and died long before the dates of which we can speak exactly. The earliest nations of whose Architecture we can give an account are called heathen nations, and their art is called Ancient or Heathen Art, and this comes down to the time when the Roman Emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity, and changed the Roman Capitol from Rome to Constantinople in the year of our Lord 328. The buildings and the ruins which still remain from these ancient times are in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Judea, Asia Minor, Greece, Etruria, and Rome. Many of these have been excavated or uncovered, as, during the ages that have passed since their erection, they had been buried away from sight by the accumulation of earth about them. These excavations are always going on in various countries, and men are ever striving to learn more about the wonders of ancient days; and we may hope that in the future as marvellous things may be revealed to us as have been shown in the past. EGYPT. As we consider the Architecture of Egypt, the Great Pyramid first attracts attention on account of its antiquity and its importance. This was built by Cheops, who is also called Suphis, about 3000 years before Christ. At that distant day the Egyptians seem to have been a nation of pyramid-builders, for even now, after all the years that have rolled between them and us, we know of more than sixty of these mysterious monuments which have been opened and explored. Of all these the three pyramids at Ghizeh (Fig. 1) are best known, and that of Cheops is the most remarkable among them. Those of you who have studied the history of the wars of Napoleon I. will remember that it was near this spot that he fought the so-called Battle of the Pyramids, and that in addressing his soldiers he reminded them that here the ages looked down upon them, thus referring to the many years during which this great pyramid had stood on the border of the desert, as if watching the flight of Time and calmly waiting to see what would happen on the final day of all earthly things. There have been much speculation and many opinions as to the use for which these pyramids were made, but the most general belief is that they were intended for the tombs of the powerful kings who reigned in Egypt and caused them to be built. The pyramid of Cheops was four hundred and eighty feet and nine inches high, and its base was seven hundred and sixty-four feet square. It is so difficult to understand the size of anything from mere figures, that I shall try to make it plainer by saying that it covers more than thirteen acres of land, which is more than twice as much as is covered by any building in the world. Its height is as great as that of any cathedral spire in Europe, and more than twice that of the monument on Bunker Hill, which is but two hundred and twenty feet, and yet looks very high. [Illustration: FIG. 2.--THE ASCENT OF A PYRAMID.] When it was built it was covered with a casing of stone, the different pieces being fitted together and polished to a surface like glass; but this covering has been torn away and the stones used for other purposes, which has left the pyramid in a series of two hundred and three rough and jagged steps, some of them being two feet and a half in height, growing less toward the top, but not diminishing with any regularity. The top is now a platform thirty-two feet and eight inches square. Each traveller who ascends this pyramid has from one to four Fellahs or Arabs, who pull him forward or upward by his arms, or push him and lift him from behind, and finally drag him to the top (Fig. 2). When he thinks of all the weary months and days of the twenty years during which it is said that those who built it worked, cutting out the stone in the quarries, moving it to the spot where it was required, and then raising it to the great heights and fitting it all in place, he regards his fatigue in its ascent as a little thing, though at the time it is no joke to him. [Illustration: FIG. 3.--VIEW OF GALLERY IN THE GREAT PYRAMID.] Many of the pyramids were encased in stone taken from the Mokattam Mountains, which were somewhat more than half a mile distant; but the pyramid of Cheops was covered with the red Syenite granite, which must have been quarried in the "red mountain," nearly five hundred miles away, near to Syene, or the modern Assouan. The interior of the pyramid is divided into chambers and passages (Fig. 3), which are lined with beautiful slabs of granite and constructed in such a way as to prove that at the remote time in which the pyramids were built Egyptian architects and workmen were already skilled in planning and executing great works. Of the seventy pyramids known to have existed in those early days, sixty-nine had the entrance on the north side, leaving but a single exception to this rule; all of them were situated on the western side of the River Nile, just on the edge of the desert, beyond the strip of cultivable ground which borders the river. [Illustration: FIG. 4.--POULTERER'S SHOP.] Near the pyramids there are numerous tombs, which are built somewhat like low houses, having several apartments with but one entrance from the outside. The walls of these apartments are adorned with pictures similar to this one of a poulterer's shop (Fig. 4); they represent the manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians with great exactness. [Illustration: FIG. 5.--ROCK-CUT TOMB, BENI-HASSAN.] The tombs at Beni-Hassan are among the most ancient ruins of Egypt, and are very interesting (Fig. 5). They were made between 2466 and 2266 B.C. They are on the eastern bank of the Nile, and are hewn out of the solid rock; they are ornamented with sculptures and pictures which are full of interest; it has been said that these tombs were built by the Pharaoh, or king, of Joseph's time, and one of the paintings is often spoken of as being a representation of the brethren of Joseph; but of this there is no proof. The colors of the pictures are fresh and bright, and they show that many of the customs and amusements of that long, long ago were similar to our own, and in some cases quite the same. The manufactures of glass and linen, cabinet work, gold ornaments, and other artistic objects are pictured there; the games of ball, draughts, and _morra_ are shown, while the animals, birds, and fishes of Egypt are all accurately depicted. An interesting thing to notice about these tombs is the way in which the epistyle--the part resting upon the columns--imitates squarely-hewn joists, as if the roof were of wood supported by a row of timbers. When we come to the architecture of Greece we shall see that its most important style, the Doric, arose from the imitation in stone of the details of a wooden roof, and from a likeness between these tombs and the Doric order, this style has been named the Proto-Doric. The tombs near Thebes which are called the "Tombs of the Kings," and many other Egyptian tombs, are very interesting, and within a short time some which had not before been observed have been opened, and proved to be rich in decorations, and also to contain valuable ornaments and works of art, as well as papyri, or records of historical value. The most magnificent of all the Egyptian tombs is that of King Seti I., who began to reign in 1366 B.C. He was fond of splendid buildings, and all the architects of his time were very busy in carrying out his plans. His tomb was not discovered until 1817, and was then found by an Italian traveller, whose name, Belzoni, has been given to the tomb. The staircase by which it is entered is twenty-four feet long, and opens into a spacious passage, the walls of which are beautifully ornamented with sculptures and paintings. This is succeeded by other staircases, fine halls, and corridors, all of which extend four hundred and five feet into the mountain in which the tomb is excavated, making also a gradual descent of ninety feet from its entrance. It is a wonderful monument to the skill and taste of the architects who lived and labored more than three thousand years ago. The two principal cities of ancient Egypt were Memphis and Thebes. The first has been almost literally taken to pieces and carried away, for as other more modern cities have been built up near it, the materials which were first used in the old temples and palaces have been carried here and there, and again utilized in erecting new edifices. Thebes, on the contrary, has stood alone during all the centuries that have passed since its decline, and there is now no better spot in which to study the ancient Egyptian architecture, because its temples are still so complete that a good idea can be formed from them of what they must have been when they were perfect. The ruins at Thebes are on both banks of the Nile, and no description can do justice to their grandeur, or give a full estimate of their wonders; but I shall try to tell something of the palace-temple of Karnak, which has been called "the noblest effort of architectural magnificence ever produced by the hand of man." The word palace-temple has a strange sound to us because we do not now associate the ideas which the two words represent. Many palaces of more modern countries and times have their chapels, but the union of a grand temple and a grand palace is extremely rare, to say the least. Perhaps the Vatican and St. Peter's at Rome represent the idea and spirit of the Egyptian palace-temples as nearly as any buildings that are now in existence. The Egyptian religion controlled all the affairs of the nation. The Pharaoh, or king, was the chief of the religion, as well as of the State. When a king came to the throne he became a priest also, by being made a member of a priestly order. He was instructed in sacred learning; he regulated the service of the temple; on great occasions he offered the sacrifices himself, and, in fact, he was considered not only as a descendant of gods, but as a veritable god. In some sculptures and paintings the gods are represented as attending upon the kings, and after the death of a king the same sort of veneration was paid to him as that given to the gods. This explains the building of the palace and temple together, and shows the reason why the gods and the kings, and the affairs of religion and of government, could not be separated. As we study the arts of different countries we are constantly reminded that the religion of a people is the central point from which the arts spring forth. From its teachings they take their tone, and adapt their forms and uses to its requirements. I refer to this fact from time to time because it is important to remember that it underlies much of the art of the world. It may be said that all the art of Egypt was devoted to the service of its religion. Of course this is true of that used in the decoration of the temples; it is also true of all that did honor to the kings, because they were regarded as sacred persons, and all their wars and wonderful acts which are represented in sculpture and painting, and by statues and obelisks, are considered as deeds that were performed for the sake of the gods and by their aid. It was also the religious belief in the immortality of the soul that led the Egyptians to build their tombs with such care, and to provide such splendid places in which to lay the body, which was the house of the spirit. In the study of Architecture it will also be noted that a country which has no national religion--or one in which the government and the religion have no connection with each other--has no absolutely national architecture. It will have certain features which depend upon the climate, the building materials at command, and upon the general customs of the people; but here and there will be seen specimens of all existing orders of architecture, and buildings in some degree representing the art of all countries and periods; such architecture is known by the term composite, because it is composed of portions of several different orders, and has no absolutely distinct character. This palace-temple of Karnak is made up of a collection of courts and halls, and it is very difficult to comprehend the size of all these parts which go to make up the enormous whole. The entire space devoted to it is almost twice as large as the whole area of St. Peter's at Rome, and four times as great as any of the other cathedrals of Europe; a dozen of the largest American churches could be placed within its limits and there still be room for a few chapels. All this enormous space is not covered by roofs, for there were many courts and passages which were always open to the sky, and one portion was added after another, and by one sovereign and another, until the completion of the whole was made long after the Pharaoh who commenced it had been laid in one of the tombs of the kings. [Illustration: FIG. 6.--THE HALL OF COLUMNS AT KARNAK.] The most remarkable apartment of all is called the great Hypostyle Hall, which high-sounding name means simply a hall with pillars (Fig. 6). This hall and its two pylons, or entrances, cover more space than the great cathedral of Cologne, which is one of the largest and most famous churches of all Europe. This splendid hall had originally one hundred and thirty-four magnificent columns, of which more than one hundred still remain; they are of colossal size, some of them being sixty feet high without the base or capital, which would increase them to ninety feet, and their diameter is twelve feet. This large number of columns was necessary to uphold the roof, as the Egyptians knew nothing of the arch, and had no way of supporting a covering over a space wider than it was possible to cover by beams. The hall was lighted by making the columns down the middle half as high again as the others, so that the roof was lifted, and the light came in at the sides, which were left open. [Illustration: FIG. 7.--PILLAR FROM THEBES. Showing the three parts.] As I must speak often of columns, it is well to say here that the column or pillar usually consists of three parts--the base, the shaft, and the capital (Fig. 7). The base is the lowest part on which the shaft rests. Sometimes, as in the Grecian Doric order, the base is left out. The capital is the head of the column, and is usually the most ornamental part, giving the most noticeable characteristics of the different kinds of pillars. The shaft is the body of the pillar, between the base and capital, or all below the capital when the base is omitted. The Egyptian pillars seem to have grown out of the square stone piers which at first were used for support. The square corners were first cut off, making an eight-sided pier; then some architect carried the cutting farther, and by slicing off each corner once more gave the pillar sixteen sides. The advantage of the octagonal piers over the square ones was that the cutting off of sharp corners made it easier for people to move about between them, while the play of light on the sides was more varied and pleasant to the eye. The sixteen-sided pillar did not much increase the first of these advantages, while the face of its sides became so narrow that the variety of light and shade was less distinct and attractive. It is probable that the channelling of the sides of the shaft was first done to overcome this difficulty, by making the shadows deeper and the lights more striking; and we then have a shaft very like that of the Grecian Doric shown in the picture in Fig. 40, or the Assyrian pillars in Figs. 29 and 30. In the Egyptian pillars it was usual to leave one side unchannelled and ornament it with hieroglyphics. In time the forms of the Egyptian pillars became very varied, and the richest ornaments were used upon them. The columns in the hall at Karnak are very much decorated with painting and sculptures, as Fig. 6 shows. The capitals represent the full-blown flowers and the buds of the sacred lotus, or water-lily. In other cases the pillars were made to represent bundles of the papyrus plant, and the capitals were often beautifully carved with palm leaves or ornamented with a female head. (See Figs. 8, 9, and 10). [Illustration: FIG. 8.--SCULPTURED CAPITAL.] [Illustration: FIG. 9.--PALM CAPITAL.] [Illustration: FIG. 10.--PILLAR FROM SEDINGA.] The whole impression of grandeur made by the Temple of Karnak was increased by the fact that the Temple of Luxor, which is not far away, is also very impressive and beautiful, and was formerly connected with Karnak by an avenue bordered on each side with a row of sphinxes cut out of stone. These were a kind of statue which belonged to Egyptian art, and originated in an Egyptian idea, although a resemblance to it exists in the art of other ancient countries (Fig. 11). [Illustration: FIG. 11.--THE GREAT SPHINX.] Before the Temple of Luxor stood Colossi, or enormous statues, of Rameses the Great, who built the temple, and not far distant were two fine obelisks, one of which is now in Paris. There was much irregularity in the lines and plan of Egyptian palaces and temples. It often happens that the side walls of an apartment or court-yard are not at right angles; the pillars were placed so irregularly and the decorations so little governed by any rule in their arrangement, that it seems as if the Egyptians were intentionally regardless of symmetry and regularity. The whole effect of the ancient Thebes can scarcely be imagined; its grandeur was much increased by the fact that its splendid buildings were on both banks of the Nile, which river flowed slowly and majestically by, as if it borrowed a sort of dignity from the splendid piles which it reflected, and which those who sailed upon its bosom regarded with awe and admiration. There are many other places on the Nile where one sees wonderful ruins of ancient edifices, but we have not space to describe or even to name them, and Thebes is the most remarkable of all. "Thebes, hearing still the Memnon's mystic tones, Where Egypt's earliest monarchs reared their thrones, Favored of Jove! the hundred-gated queen, Though fallen, grand; though desolate, serene; The blood with awe runs coldly through our veins As we approach her far-spread, vast remains. Forests of pillars crown old Nilus' side, Obelisks to heaven high lift their sculptured pride; Rows of dark sphinxes, sweeping far away, Lead to proud fanes and tombs august as they. Colossal chiefs in granite sit around, As wrapped in thought, or sunk in grief profound. "The mighty columns ranged in long array, The statues fresh as chiselled yesterday, We scarce can think two thousand years have flown Since in proud Thebes a Pharaoh's grandeur shone, But in yon marble court or sphinx-lined street, Some moving pageant half expect to meet, See great Sesostris, come from distant war, Kings linked in chains to drag his ivory car; Or view that bright procession sweeping on, To meet at Memphis far-famed Solomon, When, borne by Love, he crossed the Syrian wild, To wed the Pharaoh's blooming child." The obelisks of ancient Egypt have a present interest which is almost personal to everybody, since so many of them have been taken away from the banks of the Nile and so placed that they now overlook the Bosphorus, the Tiber, the Seine, the Thames, and our own Hudson River; in truth, there are twelve obelisks in Rome, which is a larger number than are now standing in all Egypt. [Illustration: FIG. 12.--CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLES.] The above cut (Fig. 12) shows the two obelisks known as Cleopatra's Needles, as they were seen for a long time at Alexandria. They have both crossed the seas; one was presented to the British nation by Mehemet Ali, and the other, which now stands in Central Park, was a gift to America from the late Khedive of Egypt, Ismail Pasha. The obelisks were usually erected by the kings to express their worship of the gods, and stood before the temple bearing dedications of the house to its particular deity; they were covered with the quaint, curious devices which served as letters to the Egyptians, which we call hieroglyphics, and each sovereign thus recorded his praises, and declared his respect for the special gods whom he wished to honor. They were very striking objects, and must have made a fine effect when the temples and statues and avenues of sphinxes, and all the ancient grandeur of the Egyptians was at its height; and these grave stone watchmen looked down upon triumphal processions and gorgeous ceremonials, and kings and queens with their trains of courtiers passed near them on their way to and from the temple-palaces. It is always interesting to study the houses and homes of a people--domestic architecture, as it is called; but one cannot do that in Egypt. It may almost be said that but one ancient home exists, and as that probably belonged to some royal person, we cannot learn from it how the people lived. There were many very rich Egyptians outside of the royal families, and they dwelt in splendor and luxury; on the other hand, there were multitudes of slaves and very poor people, who had barely enough to eat to keep them alive and enable them to do the work which was set them by their task-masters. The house of which we speak is at Medinet Habou, on the opposite side of the Nile from Karnak (Fig. 13). It has three floors, with three rooms on each floor, and is very irregular in form. But if we have no ancient houses to study in Egypt, we can learn much about them from the paintings which still exist, and we may believe that the cities which surrounded the old temples fully displayed the wealth and taste of the inhabitants. These pictures show the houses in the midst of gardens laid out with arbors, pavilions, artificial lakes, and many beautiful objects, such as we see in the fine gardens of our own day. [Illustration: FIG. 13.--PAVILION AT MEDINET HABOU.] After about 1200 B.C. there was a long period of decline in the architecture of Egypt; occasionally some sovereign tried to do as the older kings had done, but no real revival of the arts occurred until the rule of the Ptolemies was established; this was after 332 B.C., when Alexander the Great conquered the Persians, who had ruled in Egypt about one hundred and ninety-five years. Under the Ptolemies Egypt was as prosperous as she had been under the Pharaohs, but the arts of this later time never reached such purity and greatness as was shown in the best days of Thebes; the buildings were rich and splendid instead of noble and grand, or, as we might say, "more for show" than was the older style. It is singular that, though the Egypt of the Ptolemies was under Greek and Roman influence, it still remained essentially Egyptian. It seems as if the country had a sort of converting effect upon the strangers who planned and built the temples of Denderah, and Edfou, and beautiful Philæ, and made them try to work and build as if they were the sons of the pure old Egyptians instead of foreign conquerors. So true is this that before A.D. 1799, when scholars began to read hieroglyphics, the learned men of Europe who studied art believed that these later temples were older than those of Thebes. Outside of Thebes there is no building now to be seen in Egypt which gives so charming an impression of what Egypt might be as does the lovely temple on the island of Philæ (Fig. 14). Others are more sublime and imposing, but none are so varied and beautiful. [Illustration: FIG. 14.--TEMPLE ON THE ISLAND OF PHILÆ.] There is no more attractive spot in Egypt than this island, and when we know that the priests who served in the Temple of Isis here were never allowed to leave the island, we do not feel as if that was a misfortune to them. It was a pity, however, that none but priests were allowed to go there, and in passing I wish to note the fact that this was the most ancient monastery of which we know; for that it was in simple fact, and the monks lived lives of strict devotion and suffered severe penance. The buildings at Philæ, as well as most of those of the Ptolemaic age, had the same irregularity of form of which we have spoken before; their design, as a whole, was fine, but the details were inferior, and it often happens that the sculpture and painting which in the earlier times improved and beautified everything, lost their effect and really injured the appearance of the whole structure. At first thought one would expect to be able to learn much more about the manners and customs of the later than of the earlier days of Egypt, and to find out just how they arranged their dwellings. But this is not so, for history tells us of nothing save the superstitious religious worship of the conquerors of Egypt. There are no pictures of the houses, or of the occupations and amusements of the people; no warlike stories are told; we have no tombs with their instructive inscriptions; not even the agricultural and mechanical arts are represented in the ruins of this time. The fine arts, the early religion, the spirit of independence and conquest had all died out; in truth, the wonderful civilization of the days of the pyramid-builders and their descendants was gone, and when Constantine came into power Egypt had lost her place among the nations of the earth, and her grandeur was as a tale that is told. The weakness of Egyptian architecture lay in its monotony or sameness. Not only did it not develop historically, remaining very much the same as long as it lasted, but the same forms are repeated until, even with all their grandeur, they become wearisome. The plan of the temples varies little; the tendency toward the shape of the pyramid appears everywhere; while the powerful influence of the ritual of the Egyptian religion gives a strong likeness among all the places of worship. The Greeks performed the most important parts of their service in the open air before their temples, and almost all their care was lavished on exteriors; the Egyptians, on the other hand, elaborated the interior with great abundance of ornaments, yet without that power of adaptation which gave so great an air of variety and grace to Grecian art. A second and even more serious fault in Egyptian architecture is a want of proportion. In natural organized objects there is always a fixed proportion between the parts, so that if a naturalist is given a single bone of an animal he can reproduce with considerable exactness the entire beast. In art it is necessary to follow this principle of adapting one part to another, and without this both grace and refinement are wanting. The Egyptian temples are often too massive, so that they impress by their size simply, and not by any beauty of plan or arrangement. Yet for grandeur and impressiveness no nation has ever excelled the Egyptians as builders. One may prefer the style and the ornamentation of the Greeks, or the forms and arrangement of the Gothic order; but, taken as a whole, the combination of architecture, sculpture, painting, and hieroglyphics which goes to make up an Egyptian temple, with the addition of the obelisks, the avenues of sphinxes and the Colossi, which all seemed to belong together--these, one and all, result in a whole that has never been surpassed in effect during the thirty centuries that have rolled over the earth since Cheops built his magnificent tomb on the great desert of Egypt. ASSYRIA. Our knowledge of Egyptian history is more exact than that of some other ancient nations, because scholars have been able to read Egyptian hieroglyphics for a much longer time than they have read the cuneiform or arrow-headed inscriptions which are found in Assyria, Babylon, and Persia. But we know a great deal about the ruins of Assyria, and especially of the cities of Nineveh and Khorsabad, where there are wonderful architectural remains. [Illustration: FIG. 15.--GATEWAYS IN WALLS OF KHORSABAD.] The walls which surrounded Nineveh are an important part of its ruins. It is said that in the days of the earliest sovereign these walls were one hundred feet high, and so broad that three chariots could drive abreast on their top. This story does not seem unreasonable, for all the years that have passed, and all the dust and deposit of these ages that are collected about the foot of the walls, still leave some places where they are forty-six feet high and from one to two hundred feet wide. The lower portion was of limestone, and the upper of sun-dried bricks; the blocks of stone were neatly hewn out and smoothly polished. The walls surrounded the city, which was so large that one hundred and seventy-five thousand people could live there, and we know that its inhabitants were very numerous. The gates which opened through the walls were surmounted by lofty towers, and it is supposed that shorter towers were built upon the walls between the gateways (Fig. 15). The above plans show the arrangement of gateways which have been excavated. It seems that there were four separate gates, and between them large chambers which may have been used by soldiers or guards. The two outer gates were ornamented by sculptured figures of colossal bulls with human heads and other strange designs; but the inner gates had a plain finish of alabaster slabs. It is thought that arches covered these gateways like some representations of gates which are seen on Assyrian bas-reliefs. Within the gates there is a pavement of large slabs, in which the marks worn by chariot wheels are still plainly seen. [Illustration: FIG. 16.--ENTRANCE TO SMALLER TEMPLE, NIMRUD.] We learn that the Assyrians made their religion a prominent part of their lives. The inscriptions of the kings begin and end with praises and prayers to their gods, and on all occasions religious worship is spoken of as a principal duty. We know that the monarchs devoted much care to the temples, and built new ones continually; but it also appears from the excavations that have been made that they devoted the best of their art and the greatest sum of their riches to the palaces of their kings. The temple was far less splendid than the palace to which it was attached as a sort of appendage. This was undoubtedly due to the fact that the Assyrian kings received more than the monarchs of any other ancient people divine honors while still living; so that the palace was regarded as the actual dwelling of a god. The inner ornamentation of the temples was confined to religious subjects represented on sculptured slabs upon the walls, but no large proportion of the wall was decorated, and the rest was merely plastered and painted in set figures. The gateways and entrances were guarded by sacred figures of colossal bulls, or lions (Fig. 16), and covered with inscriptions; there was a similarity between the palace entrances and those of the temples. [Illustration: FIG. 17.--PAVEMENT SLAB FROM KOYUNJIK.] The palaces were always built on artificial platforms, which were made of solid brick or stone, or else the outside walls of the platforms were built of these substances and the middle part filled in with dirt and rubbish. Sometimes the platforms, which were from twenty to thirty feet high, were in terraces and flights of steps led up and down from one to another. It also happened that more than one palace was erected on the same platform; thus the size and form of the platforms was much varied, and when palaces were enlarged the platforms were changed also, and their shape was often very irregular. The tops of the platforms were paved with stone slabs or bricks, the last being sometimes as much as two feet square; the pavements were frequently ornamented with artistic designs (Fig. 17), and inscriptions are also found upon them. [Illustration: FIG. 18.--REMAINS OF PROPYLÆUM, OR OUTER GATEWAY, KHORSABAD.] At the lower part of the platform there was a terrace on which several small buildings were usually placed, and near by was an important gateway, or, more properly, a propylæum, through which every one must pass who entered the palace from the city. The next cut (Fig. 18) shows one of these grand entrances decorated with the human-headed bulls and the figure of what is believed to be the Assyrian Hercules, who is most frequently represented in the act of strangling a lion. Much rich ornament was lavished on these portals, and the entrance space was probably protected by an arch. Below these portals, quite down on a level with the city, there were outer gateways, through which one entered a court in front of the ascent to the lower terrace. [Illustration: FIG. 19.--PLAN OF PALACE, KHORSABAD.] The principal apartments of the palaces were the courts, the grand halls, and the small, private chambers. The fine palaces had several courts each; they varied from one hundred and twenty by ninety feet, to two hundred and fifty by one hundred and fifty feet in size, and were paved in the same way as the platforms outside (Fig. 19). The grand halls were the finest portions of these splendid edifices; here was the richest ornament, and the walls were lined with sculptured slabs, while colossal bulls, winged genii, and other figures were placed at the entrances. Upon the slabs the principal events in the lives of the monarchs were represented, as well as their portraits, and religious ceremonies, battles, and many incidents of interest to the nation (Fig. 20). [Illustration: FIG. 20.--RELIEF FROM KHORSABAD. A TEMPLE.] The slabs rested on the paved floors of the halls and reached a height of ten or twelve feet; above them the walls were of burnt brick, sometimes in brilliant colors; the whole height of the walls was from fifteen to twenty feet. The smaller chambers surrounded these grand halls, and the number of rooms was very large; in one palace which has been but partially explored there are sixty-eight apartments, and it is not probable that any Assyrian palace had less than forty or fifty rooms on its ground floor. Of all the palaces which have been examined that of Khorsabad is best known and can be most exactly described. It is believed that Sargon, a son of Sennacherib, built it, and it is very splendid. After entering at the great portal one passes through various courts and corridors; these are all adorned with sculptures such as have been described above; at length one reaches the great inner court of the palace, which was a square of about one hundred and fifty feet in size. This court had buildings on two sides, and the other sides extended to the edge of the terrace of the platform on which the palace was built, and commanded broad views of the open country. On one side the buildings contained the less important apartments of the officers of the court; the grand state apartments were on the other side. There were ten of these at Khorsabad; five were large halls, four were smaller chambers, and one a long and narrow room. Three of the large halls were connected with one another, and their decorations were by far the most splendid of any in the palace. In one of them the sculptures represented the king superintending the reception and chastisement of prisoners, and is called the "Hall of Punishment." The middle hall has no distinguishing feature, but the third opened into the "Temple Court," on one side of which the small temple was situated. The lower sculptures of the middle and third halls represented the military history of Sargon, who is seen in all sorts of soldier-like positions and occupations; some of the upper sculptures represent religious ceremonies. On one side of the Temple Court there were several chambers called Priests' Rooms, but the temple itself and the portions of the palace connected with it are not as well preserved as the other parts, and have nothing about them to interest us in their study. The palaces of Nineveh are much less perfect than the palace-temples of Thebes, and cannot be described with as much exactness. There is no wall of them still standing more than sixteen feet above the ground, and we do not even know whether they had upper stories or not, or how they were lighted--in a word, nothing is positively known about them above the ground floors, and it is very strange that the sculptures nowhere represent a royal residence. But what we do know of the Assyrians proves that they equalled and perhaps excelled all other Oriental nations as architects and designers, as well as in other departments of art and industry. [Illustration: FIG. 21.--RESTORATION OF AN ASSYRIAN PALACE.] This representation of an Assyrian palace (Fig. 21) is a restoration, as it is called, being made up by a careful study of the remains and such facts as can be learned from bas-reliefs, and cannot be wholly unlike the dwellings of the king-gods. It is pleasing in general appearance, and for lightness and elegance is even to be preferred to Egyptian architecture, though it is far inferior in dignity and impressiveness. The Assyrians knew the use of both column and arch, but never developed either to any extent. They also employed the obelisk, and it is noticeable that instead of terminating it with a pyramid, as was the case in Egypt, they capped it with the diminishing terraces, which is the fundamental form which underlies all the architecture of the country, as the smooth pyramid is the most prominent element in the architecture of Egypt. BABYLON. It is probable that Babylon was the largest and finest of all the ancient cities. The walls which surrounded it, together with its hanging gardens, were reckoned among the "seven wonders of the world" by the ancients. Its walls were pierced by a hundred gates and surmounted by two hundred and fifty towers; these towers added much to the grand appearance of the city; they were not very high above the walls, and were probably used as guard-rooms by soldiers. The River Euphrates ran through the city. Brick walls were built upon its banks, and every street which led to the river had a gateway in these walls which opened to a sloping landing which extended down to the water's edge; boats were kept at these landings for those who wished to cross the stream. There was also a foot-bridge across the river that could be used only by day, and one writer, Diodorus, declares that a tunnel also existed which joined the two sides of the river, and was fifteen feet wide and twelve feet high in the inside. The accounts of the "Hanging Gardens" make it seem that they resembled an artificial terraced mountain built upon arches of masonry and covered with earth, in which grew trees, shrubs, and flowers. It is said by some writers that this mountain was at least seventy-five feet high, and occupied a square of four acres; others say that in its highest part it reached three hundred feet; but all agree that it was a wonderful work and very beautiful. In the interior of the structure machinery was concealed which raised water from the Euphrates and filled a reservoir at the summit, from which it was taken to moisten the earth and nourish the plants. Flights of steps led up to the top, and on the way there were entrances to fine apartments where one could rest. These rooms, built in the walls which supported the structure, were cool and pleasant, and afforded fine views of the city and its surroundings. The whole effect of the gardens when seen from a distance was that of a wooded pyramid. It seems a pity that it should have been called a "Hanging Garden," since, when one knows how it was built, this name is strangely unsuitable, and carries a certain disappointment with it. The accounts of the origin of this garden are interesting. One of them says that it was made by Semiramis, a queen who was famous for her prowess as a warrior, for having conquered some cities and built others, for having dammed up the River Euphrates, and performed many marvellous and heroic deeds. It is not probable that any woman ever did all the wonders which are attributed to Semiramis, but we love to read these tales of the old, old time, and it is important for us to know them since they are often referred to in books and in conversation. Another account relates that the gardens were made by Nebuchadnezzar to please his Median queen, Amytis, because the country round about Babylon seemed so barren and desolate to her, and she longed for the lovely scenery of her native land. What we have said will show that the Babylonians were advanced in the science of such works as come more properly under the head of engineering; their palaces were also fine, and their dwelling-houses lofty; they had three or four stories, and were covered by vaulted roofs. But the Babylonians, like the Egyptians, lavished their best art upon their temples. The temple was built in the most prominent position and magnificently adorned. It was usually within a walled inclosure, and the most important temple at Babylon, called that of Belus, is said to have had an area of thirty acres devoted to it. The chief distinguishing feature of a Babylonish temple was a tower built in stages (Fig. 22). [Illustration: FIG. 22.--ELEVATION OF THE TEMPLE OF THE SEVEN SPHERES AT BORSIPPA.] The number of the stages varied, eight being the largest. At the summit of the tower there was a chapel or an altar, and the ascent was by steps or an inclined plane which wound around the sides of the tower. The Babylonians were famous astronomers, and it is believed that these towers were used as observatories as well as for places of worship. At the base of the tower there was a chapel for the use of those who could not ascend the height, and near by, in the open air, different altars were placed, for the worship of the Babylonians included the offering of sacrifices. Very ancient writers describe the riches of the shrines at Babylon as being of a value beyond our belief. They tell of colossal images of the gods of solid gold; of enormous lions in the same precious metal; of serpents of silver, each of thirty talents' weight (a talent equalled about two thousand dollars of our money), and of golden tables, bowls, and drinking-cups, besides magnificent offerings of many kinds which faithful worshippers had devoted to the gods. These great treasures fell into the hands of the Persians when they conquered Babylon. The Birs-i-Nimrud has been more fully examined than any other Babylonish ruin, and a description of it can be given with a good degree of correctness. As it now stands, every brick in it bears the name of Nebuchadnezzar; it is believed that he repaired or rebuilt it, but there is no reason to think that he changed its plan. Be this as it may, it is a very interesting ruin (Fig. 23). It was a temple raised on a platform and built in seven stages; these stages represented the seven spheres in which the seven planets moved (according to the ancient astronomy), and a particular color was assigned to each planet, and the stages colored according to this idea. That of the sun was golden; the moon, silver; Saturn, black; Jupiter, orange; Mars, red; Venus, pale yellow, and Mercury, deep blue. [Illustration: FIG. 23.--BIRS-I-NIMRUD, NEAR BABYLON.] It is curious to know how the various colors were obtained. The lower stage, representing Saturn, was covered with bitumen; that of Jupiter was faced with bricks burned to an orange color; that of Mars was made of bricks from a bright red clay and half burned, so that they had a blood-red tint; the stage dedicated to the sun was probably covered with thin plates of gold; that of Venus had pale yellow bricks; that of Mercury was subjected to intense heat after it was erected, and this produced vitrification and gave it a blue color; and the stage of the moon was coated in shining white metals. Thus the tower rose up, all glowing in colors and tints as cunningly arranged as if produced by Nature herself. The silvery, shining band was probably the highest, and had the effect of mingling with the bright sky above. We can scarcely understand how glorious the effect must have been, and when we try to imagine it, and then think of the present wretched condition of these ruins, it gives great force to the prophecies concerning Babylon which foretold that her broad walls should be utterly broken down, her gates burned with fire, and the golden city swept with the besom of destruction. We know so little of the arrangement of the palaces of Babylon that we cannot speak of them in detail. They differed from those of Assyria in two important points: they are of burnt bricks instead of those dried in the sun which the Assyrians used, and at Babylon in the decoration of the walls colored pictures upon the brick-work took the place of the alabaster bas-reliefs which were found in the palaces of Nineveh. These paintings represented hunting scenes, battles, and other important events, and were alternated with portions of the wall upon which were inscriptions painted in white on a blue ground, or spaces with a regular pattern of rosettes or some fixed design in geometrical figures. A sufficient number of these decorations have been found in the ruins of Babylon to prove beyond a doubt that this was the customary finish of the walls. We also know that the houses of Babylon were three or four stories in height, but were rudely constructed and indicate an inferior style of domestic architecture. PERSIA. The Persians were the pupils of the Assyrians and Babylonians in Art, Learning, and Science, and they learned their lessons so well that they built magnificent palaces and tombs. Temples seem to have been unimportant to them, and we know nothing of any Persian temple remains that would attract the attention of travellers or scholars. The four most important Persian palaces of which we have any good degree of knowledge are that of Ecbatana, the ruins of which are very imperfect; a second at Susa, of which the arrangement is known; a third at Persepolis, which is not well enough preserved for any exact description to be given; and a fourth, the so-called Great Palace, near Persepolis, in which the latest Persian sovereigns lived. This magnificent palace was burned by Alexander the Great before he or his soldiers had seen its splendor. The story is that he made a feast at which Thais, a beautiful and wicked woman, appeared, and by her arts gained such power over Alexander that he consented to her proposal to fire the palace, and the king, wearing a crown of flowers upon his head, seized a torch and himself executed the dreadful deed, while all the company followed him with acclamations, singing, and wild shouts. At last they surrounded and danced about the dreadful conflagration. The poet Dryden wrote an ode upon "Alexander's Feast" in 1697 which has a world-wide reputation. I quote a few lines from it: "'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won By Philip's warlike son: Aloft, in awful state, The godlike hero sate On his imperial throne; His valiant peers were placed around, Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound (So should desert in arms be crowned); The lovely Thais by his side Sate, like a blooming Eastern bride, In flower of youth and beauty's pride. Happy, happy, happy pair! None but the brave, None but the brave, None but the brave deserves the fair. "Behold how they toss their torches on high, How they point to the Persian abodes, And glittering temples of their hostile gods! The princes applaud with a furious joy, And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy; Thais led the way To light him to his prey, And, like another Helen, fired another Troy." Much study and time has been given to the examination of the ruins of Persepolis, and the whole arrangement of the city has been discovered and is made plain to the student of these matters by means of the many charts, plans, and photographs of it which now exist. I shall try to tell you something of the Great Palace of Persepolis, and the other palaces near it and on the platform with it, for the Persians, like the Assyrians and Babylonians, built their palaces upon platforms. This one of which we speak was distinct from the city, but quite near it, and is in almost perfect condition. [Illustration: FIG. 24.--MASONRY OF GREAT PLATFORM, PERSEPOLIS.] It is composed of large masses of hewn stone held together by clamps of iron or lead. Many of the blocks in this platform wall are so large as to make their removal from the quarries and their elevation to the required height a difficult mechanical task, which could only have been performed by skilled laborers with good means for carrying on their work. The wall was not laid in regular blocks, but was like this plate (Fig. 24). The platform was not of the same height in all its parts, and seems to have been in several terraces, three of which can still be seen. The buildings were on the upper terrace, which is about forty-five feet above the plain and very large; it is seven hundred and seventy feet long and four hundred feet wide. The staircases are an important feature of these ruins, and when all the palaces were in perfection these broad steps, with their landings and splendid decorations, must have made a noble and magnificent effect. The ascent of the staircases was so gradual and easy that men went up and down on horseback, and travellers now ascend and descend in this way. There is little doubt that the staircases of Persepolis were the finest that were ever built in any part of the world, and on some of them ten horsemen could ride abreast. The broadest, or platform staircase, is entirely without ornament; another which leads from the platform up to the central or upper terrace is so elaborately decorated that it appears to be covered with sculptures. There are colossal representations of lions, bulls, Persian guardsmen, rows of trees, and continuous processions of smaller figures. In some parts the sculptures represent various nations bringing tributes to the Persian monarch; in other parts all the different officers of the court and those of the army are seen, and the latter appear to be guarding the stairs. (See Fig. 25.) [Illustration: FIG. 25.--PARAPET WALL OF STAIRCASE, PERSEPOLIS (RESTORED).] In a conspicuous position on this ornamental staircase there are three slabs; on two there is no design of any sort; on the third an inscription says that this was the work of "Xerxes, the Great King, the King of Kings, the son of King Darius, the Achæmenian." This inscription is in the Persian tongue, and it is probable that it was the intention to repeat it on the slabs which are left plain in some other languages, so that it could easily be read by those of different nations; it was customary with the ancients to repeat inscriptions in this way. The other staircases of this great platform are all more or less decorated with sculptures and resemble that described; they lead to the different palaces, of which there are three. The palaces are those of Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes Ochus, and besides these there are two great pillared halls; one of these is called the "Hall of One Hundred Columns," and the other _Chehl Minar_, or the "Great Hall of Audience." This view of the palace of Darius gives an idea of the appearance of all these buildings. A description of them would be only a wordy repetition of the characteristics of one apartment and hall after another, and I shall leave them to speak of the magnificent halls which are the glory of the ruins of Persepolis, and the wonders of the world to those who are acquainted with the architectural monuments of the Turkish, Greek, Roman, Moorish, and Christian nations. (See Fig. 26.) [Illustration: FIG. 26.--RUINS OF THE PALACE OF DARIUS, PERSEPOLIS.] The Hall of a Hundred Columns was very splendid, as one may judge from this picture of its gateway (Fig. 27); but the _Chehl Minar_, or Great Hall of Audience, which is also called the Hall of Xerxes, was the most remarkable of all these edifices. Its ruins occupy a space of almost three hundred and fifty feet in length and two hundred and forty-six feet in width, and consist principally of four different kinds of columns. One portion of this hall was arranged in a square, in which there were six rows of six pillars each, and on three sides of this square there were magnificent porches, in each of which there were twelve columns; so that the number of pillars in the square was thirty-six, and that of those in the three porches was the same. These porches stood out boldly from the main building and were grand in their effect. [Illustration: FIG. 27.--GATEWAY OF HALL OF A HUNDRED COLUMNS.] The columns which remain in various parts of this hall are so high that it is thought that they must originally have measured sixty-four feet throughout the whole building. The capitals of the pillars were of three kinds: the double Horned Lion capital (Fig. 28) was used in the eastern porch, and was very simple; in the western porch was the double Bull capital, which corresponded to the first in size and general form, the difference being only in the shape of the animal. [Illustration: FIG. 28.--DOUBLE HORNED LION CAPITAL.] The north porch faced the great sculptured staircase, and was the real front of the hall. On this side the columns were much ornamented. The following plates show the entire design of them, and it will be seen that the bases were very beautiful (Figs. 29 and 30). [Illustration: FIG. 29.--COMPLEX CAPITAL AND BASE OF PILLARS, PERSEPOLIS.] [Illustration: FIG. 30.--BASE OF ANOTHER PILLAR, PERSEPOLIS.] The capitals have three distinct parts; at the bottom is a sort of bed of lotus leaves, part of which are turned down, and the others standing up form a kind of cup on which the next section above rests. The middle section is fluted and has spiral scrolls or volutes, such as are seen in Ionic capitals, only here they are in a perpendicular position instead of the customary horizontal one. The upper portion had the same double figures of bulls as were on the columns of the western colonnade. The decoration on the bases was made of two or three rows of hanging lotus leaves, some round and others pointed in form. The shafts of these pillars were formed of different blocks of stone joined by iron cramps; they were cut in exact and regular flutings, numbering from forty-eight to fifty-two on each pillar. [Illustration: FIG. 31.--GROUND PLAN (RESTORED) OF HALL OF XERXES, PERSEPOLIS.] This plan of the Hall of Audience will help you to understand its arrangement more clearly (Fig. 31). The square with the thirty-six columns, and the three porches with twelve columns each, are distinctly marked. The most ornamental pillars were on the side with the entrance or gateway. The two small rooms on the ends of the main portico may have been guard-rooms. We can only regret that, while we know certain things about this hall, there is still much of which we know nothing. However, there are many theories concerning it. Some authorities believe that it was roofed, while others think that it was open and protected only by curtains and hangings, of which the Persians made much use. As we cannot know positively about it, and Persepolis was the spring residence of the Persian kings, it is pleasant to fancy that this splendid pillared hall was a summer throne-room, having beautiful hangings that could be drawn aside at will, admitting all the spicy breezes of that sunny land, and realizing the description of the palace of Shushan in the Book of Esther, which says, "In the court of the garden of the king's palace; where were white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble; the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble." Here the king could receive all those who sought him; the glorious view of the plains of Susa and Persepolis, the breezes which came to him laden with the odors of the choicest flowers would soothe him to content, and realize his full desire for that deep breath from open air which gives a sense of freedom and power. We know that no Oriental, be he monarch or slave, desires to live beneath a roof or within closed doors. [Illustration: FIG. 32.--PART OF A BASE OF THE TIME OF CYRUS, PASARGADÆ.] The column was in Persia developed with a good deal of originality and much artistic feeling; and one fine base of the time of Cyrus is especially interesting for its close resemblance to the base of certain Ionic pillars afterward made in Greece (Fig. 32). The tombs of the royal Persians were usually hewn out of the solid rock; the tomb of Cyrus, only, resembles a little house; this plate gives a representation of it (Fig. 33). [Illustration: FIG. 33.--THE TOMB OF CYRUS.] The one apartment in this tomb is about eleven feet long, seven feet broad, and seven feet high; it has no window, and a low, narrow doorway in one of the end walls is the only entrance to it. Ancient writers say that the body of Cyrus in a golden coffin was deposited in this tomb. Seven other tombs have been explored; they are excavations in the sides of the mountains high enough to be prominent objects to the sight, and yet difficult of approach. The fronts of these tombs are much ornamented, and the internal chambers are large; there are recesses for the burial-cases, and these vary in number, some having only space for three bodies. The tomb of Darius had three recesses, in each of which there were three burial-cases; but this was an unusually large number. The tombs near Persepolis are the finest which have yet been examined. The most noticeable characteristic of Persian architecture is its regularity. The plans used are simple, and only straight lines occur in them; thus, all the angles are right angles. The columns are regularly placed, and the two sides of an apartment or building correspond to each other. The magnificent staircases, and the abundance of elegant columns which have been called "groves of pillars" by some writers, produced a grand and dignified effect. The huge size of the blocks of stone used by Persian builders gives an impression of great power in those who planned their use, and demands for them the respect of all thoughtful students of these edifices. The faults of this architecture lay in the narrow doorways, the small number of passages, and the clumsy thickness of the walls. But these faults are insignificant in comparison with its beauties, and it is all the more to be admired that it was invented by the Persians, not copied from other nations, and there is little doubt that the Greeks profited by its study to improve their own style, and through this study substituted lightness and elegance for the clumsy and heavy effect of the earliest Grecian architecture. JUDEA. There is so much of religious, historical, romantic, and poetical association with the land of Judea, that it is a disappointment to know that there are no remains of Judean architecture from which to study the early art-history of that country; it is literally true that nothing remains. The ruins of Jerusalem, Baalbec, Palmyra, Petra, and places beyond the Jordan are not Jewish, but Roman remains. The most interesting remnant is a passage and gateway which belonged to the great temple at Jerusalem. This passage is situated beneath the platform of the temple; it is called "The Gateway Huldah." The width of it is forty-one feet, and at one point there is a magnificent pillar, called a monolith, because it is cut from a single stone. This pillar supports four arches, which divide the passage into as many compartments, each one of which has a flat dome. On these domes or roofs there were formerly beautiful ornamental designs, one of which remains, and is like this picture (Fig. 34). Its combination of Oriental and Roman design proves that it cannot be very old, but must have been made after the influence of the Romans had been felt in Judea. [Illustration: FIG. 34.--ROOF OF ONE OF THE COMPARTMENTS OF THE GATE HULDAH.] Since the excavations in Assyria, and through the use of the knowledge obtained there and in other ancient countries, and by comparing this with the descriptions of the Bible and the works of Josephus, some antiquarians have made plans and drawings of what they believe that the temple at Jerusalem must have been at the time of the Crucifixion. The result of this work has little interest, for two reasons: first, because we do not know that it is correct; second, because even at the time to which it is ascribed, it was not the ancient temple of Solomon. That had been destroyed, and after the return of the Jews from the Captivity, was rebuilt; again, it had been changed and restored by the Romans under Herod, so that it had little in reality, or by way of association, to give it the sacred and intense interest for us which would belong to the true, ancient temple at Jerusalem. "Lost Salem of the Jews, great sepulchre. Of all profane and of all holy things, Where Jew and Turk and Gentile yet concur To make thee what thou art, thy history brings Thoughts mixed of joy and woe. The whole earth rings With the sad truth which He has prophesied, Who would have sheltered with his holy wings Thee and thy children. You his power defied; You scourged him while he lived, and mocked him as he died! "There is a star in the untroubled sky, That caught the first light which its Maker made,-- It led the hymn of other orbs on high; 'Twill shine when all the fires of heaven shall fade. Pilgrims at Salem's porch, be that your aid! For it has kept its watch on Palestine! Look to its holy light, nor be dismayed, Though broken is each consecrated shrine, Though crushed and ruined all which men have called divine." GREECE. The earliest history of Greece is lost in what we may call the Age of Legend. From that period have come to us such marvellous stories of gods and goddesses, and all sorts of wonderful happenings and doings, that even the most serious and wise scholars can learn little about it, and it remains to all alike a kind of delightful fairy-land. Back to that remote age one can send his fancy and imagination to feast upon the tales of wondrous bravery, passionate love, dire revenge, and supernatural occurrences of every sort until he is weary of it all. Then he is glad to come back to his actual life, in which cause and effect are so much more clearly seen, and which, if more matter-of-fact, is more comfortable than the hap-hazard existence of those remarkable beings who were liable to be changed into beasts, or trees, or almost anything else at a moment's notice, or to be whisked away from the midst of their families and friends and set down to starve in some desolate place where there was nothing to eat, and no one to listen to complaints of sorrow or hunger. This legendary time in Grecian history begins nobody knows when, and ends about one thousand years before the birth of Christ. Our only knowledge of it comes from the mythology which we have inherited from the past, and the two poems of Homer, called the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey." The "Iliad" recounts the anger of Achilles and all that happened in the Trojan War; the "Odyssey" relates the wonderful adventures of Ulysses. Probably Homer never thought of such a thing as being an historian--he was a poet--much less did he dream of being the only historian of any certain time or age; but since, in the course of his poems, he refers to the manners and customs of the years that had preceded him, and gives accounts of certain past events, he is, in truth, the prime source from which we learn the little that we know of the prehistoric days in Greece. It is believed that Homer wrote about 850 B.C., and after that date we have nothing complete in Greek literature until the time of Herodotus, who is called the "Father of History" and was born in 484 B.C. Thus four centuries between Homer and Herodotus are left with no authoritative writings. The legendary or first period of Greek history was followed by five hundred years more of which we have no continuous history; but facts have been gathered here and there from the works of various authors which make it possible to give a reliable account of the Greece of that time. For our purpose in this book we go on to a still later time, or a third period, which began about 500 B.C., in which the architecture and art which we have in mind, when we use the general term Greek Art, originated. It is true that before this temples had been erected of which we have some knowledge, and the elegant and ornate articles which Dr. Schliemann has found in his excavations at Troy and Mycenæ prove that the art of that remote time reached a high point of excellence. The temples and other buildings of which we know anything, and which belonged to the second period, were clumsy and rude when compared with the perfection of the time which we propose to study. Before we speak of any one edifice it is best to understand something of the various orders of Greek architecture, more especially as the terms which belong to it and had their origin in it are now used in speaking of architecture the world over, and from being first applied to Greek art have grown to be general in their application. [Illustration: FIG. 35.--GRAVESTONE FROM MYCENÆ (SCHLIEMANN).] In the most ancient days of Greece the royal fortresses were the finest structures, but in later days the temple became the supreme object upon which thought and labor were lavished. The public buildings which served the uses of the whole people were second in consideration, while the private dwellings were of the least importance of all. The Greek temple was built upon a raised structure like those of Assyria and other Oriental nations, but the Greek temple was much smaller, and by a dignified and simple elegance in detail, and a harmony in all its parts, it expressed a more noble religious sentiment than could be conveyed by all the vast piles of massive confusion that had abounded in more Eastern lands. [Illustration: FIG. 36.--TEMPLE OF DIANA, ELEUSIS.] The earliest and simplest Greek temples were merely small, square chambers made to contain an image of a god, and in later times, when the temples came to be splendid and grand, the apartment containing the sacred image was still called the _cella_ or cell, as it had been named from the first. The simplest form of temple was like the little cut (Fig. 36), and had two pillars in the centre of the front and two square pilasters at the front end of the side walls. These pilasters are called _antæ_, and the whole style of the building is called _distyle in antis_; the word distyle denotes the two pillars, and the expression means two pillars with antæ. [Illustration: FIG. 37.--SMALL TEMPLE AT RHAMNUS.] The above picture shows the next advance that was made in form (Fig. 37). A porch was added to the cell, the two parts being separated by a wall with a doorway in it. After a time the number of pillars in front was increased to six, and the two outer ones were the first of a row which extended along the entire length of the sides of the temple, thus forming a peristyle, or a row of columns entirely around the cell; the cell itself remained, according to the original plan, in the centre of the building. The ground plan of such a temple is given in the next wood-cut (Fig. 38). [Illustration: FIG. 38--PLAN OF TEMPLE OF APOLLO, BASSÆ.] A large proportion of the Greek temples were built in this manner, and were called _hexastyle_ from the six columns on the front. The different orders of ancient Greek architecture are called the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian. The Greeks were very fond of the Doric order, and used it so extensively as to make it almost exclusively their own. The picture of the Parthenon will help you to understand the explanations of the characteristics of the Doric order (Fig. 39). [Illustration: FIG. 39--THE PARTHENON. _Athens_. (RESTORED.)] As you see, the pillars had no base, but rested directly on the upper plinth of the foundation of the building. The shaft of the column is cut in flutings, and the number of them varies from sixteen to twenty; the latter number being most frequently used. The capital of the column is divided into two portions; the lower one is called the _echinus_, and projects beyond the shaft and supports a square tile or block which is called the _abacus_, and this is the architectural name for the upper member of all capitals to columns. The _architrave_ or principal beam above these columns rests directly on the capitals and runs around the building. This architrave is made of separate blocks of marble or stone, and is finished at the top by a small strip of the same materials, which is called a _tenia_. This cut, which gives a section of the Parthenon on a larger scale than the last picture, will enable you to find the different portions more easily (Fig. 40). [Illustration: FIG. 40.--FROM THE PARTHENON, ATHENS.] Above the architrave and resting on it is the _frieze_; this is ornamented with fluted spaces called _triglyphs_, because they are cut in three flutings. The spaces between the triglyphs are called _metopes_, and sometimes left plain, and sometimes ornamented with sculptures, as is the case in the frieze of the Parthenon. Under the triglyphs six little blocks, or drops, are placed so that they lay over the architrave. Above the frieze there is another narrow strip, or tenia, like that upon the architrave. Above all this rests the _cornice_, and underneath the cornice are one or more rows of the small, drop-like blocks such as make the lower finish of the triglyphs; in the lower band of the cornice separate blocks are placed over each triglyph and each metope, with a small space between. It is important to know that the architrave, frieze, and cornice, all taken together, form what is called the _entablature_; and the entablature occupies the whole of the broad space between the top of the capitals of the pillars and the lower edge of the roof. The triangular space formed by the sloping of the roof upon the ends of a building is called the _pediment_, and, as you will see in the picture of the Parthenon, its pediment was ornamented with elaborate sculptures which are spoken of in the volume of this series which is devoted to that art. It was customary to thus ornament the pediment and to paint the walls of the cella and other portions of the building, so that while the pure Doric style seems at first sight to be stiff and straight in its effect, it becomes rich and ornamental by the use of sculpture and painting, and yet remains solid and stable. The Doric style may be regarded as a native growth in Greece, as almost every detail of its construction and its ornaments may be traced back to the early wooden buildings of the people, as the architecture of the tombs of Beni-Hassan had been. The triglyphs, for instance, represent the ends of the beams upon which the rafters rested, while the bas-reliefs between took the place of the votive offerings which in the primitive temples were placed in the open spaces between the beams. It is not necessary here to go into all the particulars of this resemblance, which perhaps learned men have sometimes carried too far, and which are rather difficult to understand; it is enough to say that there are excellent reasons for regarding the theory as, upon the whole, sound, although, of course, the Grecian architects modified and enriched the forms which the simple timber work had suggested. [Illustration: FIG. 41.--IONIC ARCHITECTURE.] [Illustration: FIG. 42.--IONIC BASE, FROM PRIENE.] [Illustration: FIG. 43.--ATTIC BASE.] The next great order was called the Ionic, and has a close relation with certain forms found in Asia Minor. This picture of an Ionic capital and entablature is taken from the Temple of Athena at Priene (Fig. 41). Its scroll-like capital recalls those of the pillars in the Great Hall of Xerxes at Persepolis, shown in Figs. 28 and 29, and many examples of even closer resemblance might be given. The order differed from the Doric principally in the ornamentation of its capitals and in the fact that the columns have bases. These cuts show different kinds of bases belonging to the Ionic order. The first is from the temple at Priene (Fig. 42), and the second is the form known as the Attic base (Fig. 43). The third is especially interesting from its close resemblance to the ancient Persian base shown in Fig. 32, and is another illustration of the Eastern origin of this order (Fig. 44). [Illustration: FIG. 44.--BASE FROM TEMPLE OF HERA, SAMOS.] The Ionic capital is very easily recognized by its spiral projections, or scrolls, which are called volutes (Fig. 45). These are so placed that they present a flat surface on the opposite sides of the capital, like the picture below (Fig. 46); sometimes the volutes are finished by a rosette in the centre. [Illustration: FIG. 45.--IONIC CAPITAL (FRONT VIEW).] [Illustration: FIG. 46.--IONIC CAPITAL (SIDE VIEW).] The shaft of the Ionic column is sometimes plain and sometimes fluted; the flutings number twenty-four, and are separated by a narrow, plain band or fillet. In some ancient examples of the Ionic order the entire entablature is left plain, but in many instances there are bands of carvings, as in the first Ionic example given above; in some modern Italian architecture even more ornament has been added. The three, or sometimes two, layers or bands of stone which form the Ionic architrave project a little, each one more than the other, and the ornamented band above it serves to separate it from the frieze so as to make these two portions of the entablature quite distinct from each other. The frieze is never divided into set spaces as in the Doric order, but when ornamented has a continuous design in relief. The lower part of the cornice is frequently cut in little pieces or dentals which form what is called the "tooth-like ornament;" these have the effect of hanging from underneath the cornice. There is a certain pleasing effect in Ionic architecture which, perhaps, appeals to our taste at first sight more forcibly than does the severe elegance of the Doric order. Nevertheless, the latter is a higher type of art, and it is not probable that it can ever be superseded by any new invention or lose the prestige which it has held so long. [Illustration: FIG. 47.--FROM MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES, ATHENS.] That which is called the Corinthian order differs very little from the Ionic except in the capital, but as this was so prominent a member of the Ionic style, the difference seems greater than it really is. It is therefore not necessary to speak of its parts in detail. The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates at Athens is as good a specimen of the order as remains at this time, and of this we give an illustration (Fig. 47). [Illustration: FIG. 48.--CORINTHIAN ORDER.] The Corinthian order of architecture does not belong to the early period of art in Greece. It came after the influence of Oriental architecture had been shown in the Ionic style; and perhaps the beautiful Corinthian capital may have been suggested by the palm-leaf and lotus capitals of Egypt. What has been said of other orders will help you in understanding this; but I shall tell you especially about its capital, as that is its distinguishing feature. The form of the capital may be called bell-shaped, and it is set round with two rows of leaves, eight in each row; above these is a third row of leaves, or of a sort of small twisted husks, which supports eight small volutes. The abacus or top portion of the capital is cut out at the corners so that sharp projections are made, called horns, and one volute comes directly under each horn of the abacus. This cut (Fig. 48) gives a more distinct idea of the capital than does that above, and you will see that four of the volutes really form the upper corners of the capital. The four other volutes meet on two opposite sides of the capital; sometimes they are interwoven, and a flower, or rosette, or some other ornament is placed above them and lays up over the abacus. Different kinds of leaves are used in making this capital; olive, water plant, and acanthus are all thus employed; there is a very pretty legend as to its origin which makes the acanthus seem to be the only one which belongs to it, and is as follows: It was the custom in Greece to place a basket upon the new-made graves in which were the viands which those there buried had preferred when in life. About 550 B.C. a lovely virgin died at Corinth, and her nurse arranged the basket with care and covered it with a tile. It happened that the basket was set directly over a young acanthus plant, and the leaves grew up about it in such a manner that the sculptor Callimachus was attracted by its grace and beauty, and conceived the idea of using it as a model for a new capital in architecture. I have always been sorry that it was not named for the beautiful maiden rather than for the city in which she was buried. [Illustration: FIG. 49.--CARYATID.] Another feature of Greek architecture is the use of the Caryatid, or a human figure standing upon a base and supporting the capital of a column upon the head, or, to put it more plainly, a human figure serving as the shaft to a column. These figures are usually females, and this picture of one from the Erechtheium at Athens shows how they are placed (Fig. 49). Sometimes the figures of giants, called _Telamones_, were used in the same way. [Illustration: FIG. 50.--STOOL, OR CHAIR, KHORSABAD.] In Oriental art such figures are numerous; they are used to support platforms and the thrones of kings; their position is sometimes varied by making the uplifted hands bear the weight instead of the head (Fig. 50). In any case this feature in architecture is tiresome, and its use is certainly questionable as a matter of good taste. Having given a general outline of the characteristics of Greek architecture, I will speak of some remarkable edifices which are beautiful in themselves and have an interest for us on account of their associations with the history of the world, as well as with that of art. The Temple of Diana at Ephesus, of which nothing now remains, was the largest and most splendid of all the Greek temples. It was four hundred and twenty-five feet long by two hundred and twenty wide. The ancients counted this temple as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and when we know that its pillars were sixty feet high, and that the beams of the architrave which had to be lifted up above the pillars to be put in place were each thirty feet long, we can readily understand that the building of it was a wonderful work. This was not the first temple that had stood on the same spot, for we know that one had been burned on the night in which Alexander the Great was born, 356 B.C. It was set on fire by Herostratus; he was tried for this crime and was put to the torture to make him declare his motive for doing such a dreadful deed; he gave as his only reason his desire to have his name handed down through all ages, and he believed that by burning the temple he should accomplish his object--as, indeed, he did, for every historian repeats the story of his crime, and his name stands as a synonym for wicked ambition. After this destruction the temple was rebuilt on a most magnificent scale, and was not finished until two hundred and twenty years had passed. Diana was a great and powerful goddess, and all the nations of Asia united in gifts for the adornment of her shrine; the women even gave their personal ornaments to be sold to increase the fund to be spent upon it. This temple was four times as large as the Parthenon at Athens, and had one hundred and twenty-seven splendid columns, thirty-six of which were finely carved and were the gifts of various sovereigns. The grand staircase was made from the wood of a single Cyprian vine. But great as was the temple itself, its adornments of statues by the sculptor Praxiteles, and the vast treasures of ornaments and rare objects by which it was enriched made it even more famous. The Temple of Diana was robbed by Nero and burned by the Goths, but its final destruction probably occurred after A.D. 381, when the Emperor Theodosius I. issued an edict forbidding all the ceremonies of the pagan worship. Many beautiful objects were taken away to adorn the mediæval churches of other religions than that of the Ephesians. Some of its green jasper columns were used to support the dome of St. Sophia at Constantinople, and other parts of it are seen in the cathedrals of Italy. There is scarcely a more desolate spot in the world than is the Ephesus of to-day. No remaining ruins are so preserved as to afford the visitor any satisfaction. The marbles and stone have been used to build other towns, which in their turn have been destroyed. The inhabitants are a handful of poor Greek peasants; wolves and jackals from the neighboring mountains roam about; and though an abundance of myrtle and some lovely groves relieve the gloominess of the scene, it is impossible when there to re-create in imagination the splendid Ephesian city, with its wharves and docks, its temples, theatres, and palaces, which were so famous as to cause it to be spoken of with wonder throughout the ancient world. We often hear of the glory of the Periclean age at Athens, and it is true that under the leadership of Pericles Athens reached its greatest prosperity. This picture shows the Acropolis as it appeared at that time (Fig. 51). [Illustration: FIG. 51.--THE ACROPOLIS. _Athens._ (RESTORED.)] In these best days of Athens the whole Acropolis was consecrated to religious worship and ceremonials, and its entire extent was occupied by temples and statues of the gods. The fact that I have before mentioned, that the religion of a country moulds its art, is especially true of the art of Greece; figures of the gods and bas-reliefs of the ceremonies of the Grecian worship form a large and most important part of the work of the Greek artists, and the splendid temples were raised to be the sacred homes of the statues of the great gods, to which the people could come with offerings and prayers. The Acropolis was also a sort of fortress, because it was an eminence, and its sides of craggy rock allowed of but one ascent; thus it could be easily defended. Then, when all the wonders and riches of art had been collected there, the pure white marble, the sculpture and painting, and the ornaments of shining metals which glistened in the sun, while brilliant colors added their rich effect, it might be called a gorgeous museum, such as has never since been equalled in the history of the world. It is important to know that the Athenians worshipped three different goddesses, all called by the one name of Athene or Athena. The most ancient and most sacred of these was Athena Polias, whose statue, made of olive-wood, was believed to have fallen from heaven. The Erechtheium was dedicated to this goddess, and there this holy, heaven-sent figure was kept, with other sacred objects of which I shall speak in their place. The Athena next in importance was the goddess of the Parthenon, or the "House of the Virgin," as the word signifies, for this Athena Parthenos is the same as the goddess Minerva, who is said never to have married or known the sentiment of love; she was the goddess of war, prudence, and wisdom. The third Athena was called Promachos, which means the champion. Phidias made of her one of his splendid statues, standing erect, with helmet, spear, and shield. In describing the Acropolis we shall begin with the Propylæa, or the entrances, which occupy the centre of our picture and to which the steps lead, showing the passage between the pillars, three being left on each side. This magnificent series of entrances--as the whole ascent from the outer gate in the wall, up the steps, and through the passage between the pillars may be called--was erected about 437 B.C., and cost two thousand talents of gold, which is equal to about two millions of our dollars. The fame of the Propylæa was world-wide, and together with the Parthenon it was considered the architectural glory of the Periclean age. The style in which they are built is a splendid example of the combination of the Doric and the Ionic orders, for while the exterior is almost pure Doric, the interior is made more cheerful by the use of the Ionic columns and ornamentation. High up at the right of the picture stands the Parthenon. Its architecture, which is Doric, has been described. We do not know when this temple was begun, but it is probably on the site of an older one. It was finished 438 B.C., and the general care of its erection was given to Phidias, the most famous of all sculptors. The marble of which the Parthenon was built was pure Pentelic, and as it rested on a rude basement of limestone the contrast between the two made the marble of the temple seem all the finer. Within and without this temple abounded in magnificent sculptures executed by Phidias himself or under his orders. The Erechtheium, which is only partly visible at the back on the left of the picture, was the most sacred temple of Athens. It was the burial-place of Erechtheus, who was regarded not only as the founder of this temple, but also of the religion of Athena in Athens. Beside the heaven-descended statue of Athena Polias which was kept here, there was the sacred olive-tree which Athena had called forth from the earth when she was contending for the possession of Attica; here, too, was the well of salt water which Poseidon (or Neptune) made by striking the spot with his trident, and several other sacred objects (Fig. 52). [Illustration: FIG. 52.--THE ERECHTHEIUM. _Athens._ (RESTORED.)] This beautiful temple was built in the Ionic style, and is very interesting because it is so different in form from every other Greek temple of which we know. This is partly due to the fact that it was built where the ground was not level, one portion of it being eight feet higher than another. A second reason for its irregularity may be that it required to be divided into more cells or apartments than other Greek temples in order to arrange the different sacred objects within its walls. A very considerable portion of this temple is still standing. The frieze, of which but little remains, was of black marble, upon which there were figures in white marble. The Erechtheium is certainly a splendid example of the Attic-Ionic style, and the eye rests upon it with admiration; but its half-pillars and caryatides, its various porches and luxuriant detail of form and ornament, are less effective as a whole than is the Parthenon in its pure Doric architecture. An interesting fact about Greek architecture is that the marbles used were painted in high colors. There is a theory, which may or may not be true, that the custom first arose in the same way as the shape of the Doric entablature, from the imitation of wooden buildings. The wood was painted to preserve it, and when stone began to be substituted, the architects, accustomed to bright effects, colored the marbles to look like wood. Whether this is the true origin of the custom or not, it is certain that the custom prevailed. The lower parts of the pillars of a Doric temple were usually stained a light golden-brown tint; the triglyphs and the mutules, or brackets beneath the cornices, were a rich blue; the trunnels, or wooden pins, were red or gilded; the metopes had a dark red background, against which the bas-reliefs with which they were ornamented stood out in strong contrast, while the frieze and cornice were richly painted with garlands and leaves. So highly colored a building would seem less out of place amid the varied landscape of Greece than under our colder skies, and it is difficult for us to form any just idea of the splendid appearance it must have presented. One of the most wonderful things about Greek architecture is the way in which allowance was made for the deception of the eye by certain forms and lines. It is not easy to explain this fully, but it is too remarkable to be wholly passed over. If a column were cut so as to diminish regularly from the bottom to the top it would seem to the eye to hollow in, and to correct this the clever Greek architect made his columns swell out a little at the middle. This is called _entasis_, and is the best known of the means taken to make forms look as they should. Another case is that of long horizontal lines. If they are really level they appear to sag at the centre, therefore in Greek temples they are delicately rounded up a little, and so have the effect of being perfectly straight. These two examples may serve to show what I mean by saying that architectural forms were made one way so as to look another, and in nothing did the Greek architecture show more marvellous skill and taste than in this. In other Grecian cities the architecture differed but little from that of Athens, and, indeed, the influence of Athenian art and artists was felt all over the Eastern world; it is therefore not necessary for our purpose to speak further of Greek temples. Next in importance were the municipal buildings, of which we find but few traces at Athens. The monument of Lysicrates is so beautiful that it gives us a most exalted idea of what the taste in such edifices must have been (Fig. 53). [Illustration: FIG. 53.--CHORAGIC MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES. _Athens._] This monument was erected in the year 334 B.C. when Lysicrates was _choragus_; this officer provided the chorus for the plays represented at Athens for the year. It was expensive to hold this position, and its duties were arduous; the choragus had to find the men for the chorus, bring them together, and have them instructed in the music, and also provide proper food for them while they studied. It was customary to present a tripod to the _choragus_ who provided the finest musical entertainment, and also to build a monument upon which the tripod was placed as a lasting honor to him who had received it. There was a street at Athens called the "Street of the Tripods" because it passed a line of choragic monuments. These monuments were dedicated to different gods; this of Lysicrates was devoted to Bacchus, and was decorated with sculptures representing scenes in the story of that god, who was regarded as the patron of plays and theatres; indeed, the Greek drama originated in the choruses which were sung at his festivals. The Greek theatres were very large and fine; the seats were ranged in a half circle, but as none remain in a sufficient state of preservation to afford a satisfactory picture, it would be impossible to give a clear description of them here. [Illustration: FIG. 54.--THE MAUSOLEUM AT HALICARNASSUS (RESTORED).] The ancient Greeks were not tomb-builders, and we know little of their burial-places. However, the Mausoleum built at Halicarnassus by Artemisia, in memory of her husband, Mausolus, was so important as to be numbered among the seven wonders of the world (Fig. 54). Mausolus was the King of Caria, of which country Halicarnassus was the chief city. He died about 353 B.C., and his wife, Artemisia, gradually faded away with sorrow at his death, and survived him but two years. But during this time she had commenced the erection of the Mausoleum, and the artists to whom she intrusted the work were as faithful in completing it as though she had lived, for the sake of their own fame as artists. This magnificent tomb may be described as an example of architecture as a fine art exclusively, for it cannot be said to have been useful, since the body of Mausolus was burned according to custom, and certainly a much smaller tomb would have been sufficient for the remaining ashes. The whole height of the Mausoleum was one hundred and forty feet; the north and south aisles were sixty-three feet long, and the others a little less. The burial vault was at the base, and the whole mass above it was ornamented with magnificent designs splendidly executed. Above the whole was a quadriga, or four-horse chariot, in which it is said that a figure of Mausolus was placed so that from land or sea it could be seen at a great distance. It is not strange that this tomb was called a wonder in its day, and from it we still take our word "mausoleum" for all burial-places which merit so distinguished a name. Writers of the twelfth century speak of the beauty of this tomb, but in A.D. 1402, when the Knights of St. John took possession of Halicarnassus, it no longer remained, and a castle was built upon its site. The tomb had been buried, probably by an earthquake, and the name of the place was then changed to Boodroom. In the year 1522 some sculptures were found there, but it was not until 1856 that Mr. Newton, an Englishman, discovered that these remains had belonged to the Mausoleum. A large collection of reliefs, statues, and other objects, more or less imperfect, was taken to London and placed in the British Museum, where they are known as the "Halicarnassus Sculptures." As other temples were influenced by the example of the Athenian builders, so many other tombs resembled that of Mausolus in greater or less degree, although none approached it in grandeur and magnificence. Of the domestic architecture of the Greeks we know very little. Almost all that is said of it is chiefly speculation, as even the descriptions of Grecian palaces and houses which are given by the classic writers are imperfect. The life of the Greek was passed largely in public, at the temple, the theatre, or the baths, or at least in the open air, and comparatively little attention was given to the building of the private houses; but in the ruins of the temples and other monuments which still exist we have sufficient proof that no art has surpassed that of ancient Greece in purity, elegance, and grandeur of style. ETRURIA. Since the Etruscans were an earlier Italian nation than the Romans, and Rome, in her primal days, was ruled by Etruscan kings, it is here fitting to speak of this remarkable old people. As Rome increased the Etruscans disappeared, and the younger power came to have so mighty an influence in the world that it absorbed the consideration of all nations as much as if no other had ever ruled in Italy. No Etruscan temple now remains, but we know that they were not splendid like those of Greece. They were of two forms, one being circular and dedicated to a single deity, while others were devoted to three gods and had three cells; their walls were built at right angles, thus making their shape regular. The theatres and amphitheatres of the Etruscans were nearly circular and much like those of the later Italians, but not one remains except that at Sutri, which, being cut in the rock, does not afford a good example of the usual arrangement of these edifices. [Illustration: FIG. 55.--TOMBS AT CASTEL D'ASSO.] In fact, the only important remains of Etruscan architecture are the tombs, of which there are many. These are of two kinds; the first are cut in the rocks and resemble the Egyptian tombs at Beni-Hassan, reminding one of little houses (Fig. 55). [Illustration: FIG. 56.--PRINCIPAL CHAMBER IN REGULINI-GALEASSI TOMB.] The second and most numerous class are mounds of earth raised above a wall at the base. These were called "Tumuli," and some of them had fine, well-furnished apartments in their midst. The next cut shows such a room as it appeared when first opened; in it were found bedsteads, biers, shields, arrows, a variety of vessels, and several kinds of useful utensils (Fig. 56). [Illustration: FIG. 57.--ARCH AT VOLTERRA.] These tombs are in truth more connected with other arts than with architecture, and many beautiful articles have been found in them. The most interesting feature of Etruscan architecture is the arch, which was first brought into general use by the Romans, but is found in Etruscan remains (Fig. 57), both in the semi-circular and pointed forms. The principle of the arch had been known to several Oriental nations, but it had been applied only to short spaces and comparatively unimportant uses, such as windows and doorways (Fig. 58). [Illustration: FIG. 58.--GATEWAY. _Arpino._] There is no doubt that many of the earliest works of the Romans were executed under the direction of Etruscan architects. Among these was the great Cloaca Maxima, or principal drain of ancient Rome. This was a wonderful achievement; it is probable that the oldest arch in Europe is that of this sewer, and the fact of its still remaining proves how well it must have been built in order to last so long (Fig. 59). [Illustration: FIG. 59.--ARCH OF CLOACA MAXIMA. _Rome._] ROME. The early works of Rome, which were largely executed by the Etruscans, were principally those useful, semi-architectural objects necessary in the making of a city, such as aqueducts and bridges. These belong quite as much to civil engineering as to architecture, and we shall not speak of them. In studying Roman architecture one is surprised at the number of uses to which it was applied, for not only do the temples, tombs, theatres, and monuments such as we have found in other countries exist in Rome, but there are also basilicas, baths, palaces, triumphal arches, pillars of victory, fountains, and various other objects suited to the wants of a great people. [Illustration: FIG. 60.--COMPOSITE ORDER, FROM THE ARCH OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. _Rome._] No truly pure, national order of architecture existed at Rome. The union of the arch of the Etruscans with the columns of the Greeks enabled the Romans to change the forms of their edifices and to produce a great variety in them. They employed the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders, but they rarely used one of these alone; they united them in endless combinations, and introduced a capital of the order which is called the Composite (Fig. 60). It consists of the lower part of the Corinthian and the upper part of the Ionic capital; this was very rich in ornament, but the line where the two orders were joined was always a defect, and it never came into general favor. The Romans also introduced what is called the Tuscan order, which is usually mentioned with the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite, as being one of the five classic orders of architecture, although it is really little more than a variety of the Doric, as the Composite is of the Corinthian order. It differed from the Doric in having a base, while its frieze was simple and unadorned, the cornice also being very plain. The shaft of the Tuscan column was never fluted. [Illustration: FIG. 61.--DORIC ARCADE.] The Romans also used an arcade which was a combination of Greek and Etruscan art, like this cut (Fig. 61); thus showing a power of adapting forms which already existed in new combinations and for new purposes, rather than an originative genius. A very important advance made by the Romans was the improvement of interior architecture. The halls and portions of edifices to be used were more cared for than ever before; this was sometimes done at the expense of the exteriors, to which the Greeks had devoted all their thought. In fact, many ancient Roman temples were inferior to other edifices which they built. The Pantheon is the only one existing in such a state as to be spoken of with satisfaction. [Illustration: FIG. 62.--GROUND-PLAN OF PANTHEON. _Rome._] This ground-plan (Fig. 62) shows that the Pantheon is circular with a porch. Taken separately, the rotunda and the porch are each fine in their own way, but the joining of the circular and angular forms has an effect of unfitness which one cannot forget even when looking at that which we regard with reverent interest. The central portion was at first a part of the Baths of Agrippa, but on account of its great beauty it was changed by Agrippa himself into a temple, by the addition of a row of Corinthian columns around the interior. (See Fig. 63.) [Illustration: FIG. 63.--INTERIOR OF THE PANTHEON.] Taken all in all, the effect of the Pantheon is that of grandeur and simplicity. When we remember that sixteen hundred and eighty-eight years have passed since it was repaired by Septimius Severus, we wonder at its good preservation, though we know that it has been robbed of its bronze covering and other fine ornaments. An inscription still remaining on its portico states that Marcus Aurelius and Septimius Severus repaired this temple; history says that Hadrian restored it after a fire, probably about the year 117, and it is even said that Agrippa, who died A.D. 13, added the portico to a rotunda which existed before his time. The objects now in the interior of the Pantheon are so largely modern that they do not belong to this portion of our subject, but there is much interest associated with this spot, and it is dear to all the world as the burial-place of Raphael, Annibale Caracci, and other great artists. Next to the temples of Rome came the Basilicas, of which there were many before the time of Constantine. The word basilica means the royal house, and these edifices were first intended for a court-room in which the king administered his laws; later they became markets, or places of exchange, where men met for business transactions. The ruins of the Basilicas of Trajan and Maxentius, two of the finest of these edifices, are in such condition that their plans can be understood (Fig. 64). They were large, and divided into aisles by rows of columns; at one end there was a semi-circular recess or apse, in which was a raised platform, approached by steps, also semi-circular in form. Upon this platform the king or other exalted officer had his place, while those of lesser rank were on the steps below, on either side. Fronting the apse was an altar upon which sacrifices were offered before commencing any important business. [Illustration: FIG. 64.--LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF BASILICA OF MAXENTIUS.] The principal reason for speaking of basilicas is that by the above cut you may see the great change made in architecture about this time by the use of columns, only half the height of the building, which were united by arches. This was a very important step, and is, in truth, one of the principal features that mark the progress of the change from ancient to Gothic architecture--a change not fully developed until the twelfth century. I shall not say much of the theatres, amphitheatres, and baths of ancient Rome, because it is not easy to treat them in the simple manner suited to this book; they were magnificent and costly, and made an important part of Roman architecture; they were probably copied from the public buildings of the Etruscans. Marcus Scaurus built a theatre in 58 B.C. which held eighty thousand spectators; it had rich columns and statues, and was decorated with gold, silver, and ivory. The first stone theatre in Rome was built in 55 B.C., and was only half the size of that of Marcus Scaurus. Parts of the theatre of Marcellus still remain in the present Orsini Palace in Rome, and serve to give an idea of the architecture of the period immediately before the birth of Christ. The Emperor Augustus boasted that he had found a city of brick and had changed it to one of marble, but after his time architecture suffered a decline, and its second flourishing period may be dated from A.D. 69. To this time belongs the Colosseum, also called the Flavian Amphitheatre; it covers about five acres of ground, and is sufficiently well preserved for a good idea to be formed of what it must have been when in its best estate. The enormous size of these ancient Roman edifices is almost too much for us to imagine, and the most extensive of them all were the _Thermæ_, or public baths. The Baths of Diocletian, built A.D. 303, were the largest of all; they had seats for twenty-four hundred bathers. These baths were in reality a group of spacious halls of varied forms, but all magnificent in size. The great hall of the Baths of Diocletian was three hundred and fifty feet long by eighty feet in width and ninety-six feet high; it was converted into a church by Michael Angelo and is called S. Maria Degli Angeli, or Holy Mary of the Angels. Many splendid pictures which were once in St. Peter's are now in this church, and copies of them made in mosaic fill the places where they were originally hung. The Baths of Caracalla were built in A.D. 217, and though they had seats for but sixteen hundred bathers, they were much more splendid than the Baths of Diocletian. They were surrounded by pleasure gardens, porticoes, and a stadium or race-course, where all sorts of games were held. Some beautiful mosaic pavements have been taken from these baths, and are now in the Lateran and the Villa Borghese palaces; there was a Pinacotica, or Fine Art Gallery here, in which were some of the greatest art treasures of the world, such as the Farnese Hercules, the Farnese Bull, the two Gladiators, and other famous statues, besides cameos, bronzes, and sculptures, almost without end. The granite basins in the Piazza Farnese, and some green basalt urns now in the Vatican Museum, were taken from the Baths of Caracalla, and, indeed, all over Rome there are objects of more or less beauty which were found here. Formerly the site of these baths was like a beautiful Eden where Nature made herself happy in luxuriant growths of all lovely things. The poet Shelley was very fond of going there, and wrote of it, "Among the flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees, which are extended in ever-winding labyrinths upon its immense platforms and dizzy arches suspended in the air," by which we know that the ruins were covered with a soil which was fruitful in flowers, vines, and trees; but all these have been torn away in order to make the excavations which were necessary for the exploration of these wonderful baths, and now the parts which remain stand fully exposed to the view of the curious traveller. The Roman Triumphal Arches were one of the characteristic outgrowths of the Imperial period. These splendid works were designed to perpetuate the fame of the emperors and to recall to the people the important acts of their lives. The arch of Constantine given below is one of the most famous arches in Rome (Fig. 65). It is believed that parts of it were in an arch of Trajan's time, and some even go so far as to say that it was originally dedicated to the earlier emperor and adopted by Constantine as his own. It is remarkably well preserved, and this is undoubtedly due to the fact of its being dedicated to the first Christian sovereign of Rome. The other most famous arches in the city are that of Titus, which dates from A.D. 81, and that of Septimius Severus, which was erected in honor of him and of his wife, Julia, by the silversmiths and merchants of the Forum Boarium, in which spot the arch was raised. [Illustration: FIG. 65.--ARCH OF CONSTANTINE. _Rome._] These triumphal arches existed in all the countries where Rome held sway, and, indeed, this is true of all kinds of Roman architectural works. This Arch of Beneventum was erected in the second century after Christ, by Trajan, when he repaired the Appian Way. It is one of the most graceful and best preserved of all the arches of Italy (Fig. 66). [Illustration: FIG. 66.--ARCH OF TRAJAN. _Beneventum._] All these arches had originally groups of statuary upon them, for which they served merely as the pedestals. Their taking the form of an arch was due to their being placed in the public way, where it was necessary to leave a passage for the street. Sometimes they were placed where two roads met, and a double arch was then made. Elaborate as the arches often were, you must keep in mind that they are only a part of the entire design, and that the least important part; the statuary, which has been destroyed by time, being really the more striking feature of the whole. [Illustration: FIG. 67.--TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA.] The tombs of Rome were very numerous, and were an important element in Roman architecture. The tomb of Cecilia Metella is of importance because it is the oldest remaining building of Imperial Rome and the finest tomb which has been preserved (Fig. 67). As you see, the tomb is a round tower. In the thirteenth century it was turned into a fortress, and so much dust has been deposited on its summit in the passing of time that bushes and ivy now grow there. Many writers describe it, and Byron in his "Childe Harold" spoke of it in some verses, of which the following is the beginning: "There is a stern round tower of other days, Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, Such as an army's baffled strength delays, Standing with half its battlements alone, And with two thousand years of ivy grown, The garland of eternity, where wave The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown;-- What was this tower of strength? within its cave What treasure lay so lock'd, so hid?--a woman's grave." The tomb of Hadrian, now known as the Castle of St. Angelo, is very interesting, and is one of the most prominent and familiar objects in Rome at the present day. But the tombs called Columbaria were much in use in ancient Rome, and differed essentially from those of which we have spoken, inasmuch as they were usually below the ground, and externally had no architecture. They consisted of oblong or square apartments, the sides of which were filled with small apertures of the proper size to hold an urn which contained the ashes that remained after a body had been burned, according to the Roman custom. Some of these apartments, especially when they belonged to private families, were adorned with pilasters and decorated with colors. (See Fig. 68.) [Illustration: FIG. 68.--COLUMBARIUM NEAR THE GATE OF ST. SEBASTIAN. _Rome._] The sepulchres of Rome were gradually enlarged, until, in the days of Constantine, they were frequently built like small temples above the ground, with crypts or vaults beneath them. So little now remains of the ancient domestic architecture of Rome that one is forced to study this subject from written descriptions collected from the works of various historians, poets, and other writers. But from what we know we may conclude that the villas and country-houses were so constructed as to be full of comfort, and suited to the uses for which they were built, without too much regard to the symmetry of the exteriors. The interior convenience was the chief thing to be considered, and when finished they must have often resembled a collection of buildings all joined together, of various heights and shapes; but within they were adapted to the different seasons, as some rooms were made for being warm, while others were arranged for coolness; the views from the windows were also an important feature, and, in short, the pleasure of the people living in them was made the first point to be gained, rather than the impression upon the eye of those who saw them from without. There was great luxury and elegance in the palaces of the noble classes in ancient Rome. The home of Diocletian at Spalatro was one of the most famous Roman palaces, and its ruins show that it was once magnificent. This palace was divided by four streets which ran through it at right angles with each other and met in its centre. Its entrances were called the Golden, Iron, and Brazen Gates. Its exterior architecture was simple and massive, as it was necessary that it should serve as a fortress in case of an attack. Its principal gallery overlooked the sea; it was five hundred and fifteen feet long and twenty-four feet wide, and was famous for its architectural beauty and for the views which it commanded. [Illustration] CHAPTER II. CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. A.D. 328 TO ABOUT 1400. I have written more in detail concerning Ancient architecture than I shall do of that of later times, because it is best to be thorough in studying the beginnings of things; then we can make an application of our knowledge which helps us to understand the results of what has gone before, just as we are prepared for the full-blown rose after we have seen the bud. Or, to be more practical, just as we use the simplest principles of arithmetic to help us to understand the more difficult ones; sometimes we scarcely remember that in the last lessons of the book we unconsciously apply the first tables and rules which were so difficult to us in the beginning. I shall not try, because I have not space, to give a connected account of Christian architecture, but I shall endeavor to give such an outline of its rise and progress in various countries as will make a good foundation for the knowledge you will gain from books which you will read in future. The architecture of Italy in the period which followed the conversion of the Emperor Constantine is called the Romanesque order. As the Christians were encouraged under Constantine and became bold in their worship, many basilicas were given up for their use. The bishops held the principal place upon the platform formerly occupied by the king and his highest officers, and the priests of the lower orders were ranged around them. The same altars which had served for the heathen sacrifices were used for the worship of the true God, and from this cause the word basilica has come to signify a large, grand church, in the speech of our time. [Illustration: FIG. 69.--INTERIOR OF BASILICA OF ST. PAUL'S. _Rome._] Among the early basilicas of Rome which still remain none are more distinguished than that of _San Paolo fuori della Mura_, or St. Paul's without the Walls. It was ancient, and splendid in design and ornament. In 1823 it was burned, and has been rebuilt with great magnificence, but the picture above shows it as it was before the fire (Fig. 69). It was built about 386 A.D. under the Emperors Valentinian II. and Theodosius. This basilica had four rows of Corinthian columns, twenty in each row; many of these pillars were taken from more ancient edifices, and were composed of very beautiful marbles, forming by far the finest collection of columns in the world. The bronze gates were cast at Constantinople; the fine paintings and magnificent mosaics with which it was decorated added much to its splendor. Tradition taught that the body of St. Paul was buried beneath the high altar. Before the Reformation the sovereigns of England were protectors of this basilica just as those of France were of St. John Lateran; this gives it a peculiar interest for British people, and the symbol of the Order of the Garter is still seen among its decorations. On account of its associations, San Paolo was the most interesting, if not the most beautiful, of the oldest Christian edifices in Rome. In the early days there were many circular churches throughout Italy; some of these had been built at first for tombs. The Christians used churches of this form for baptisms, for the sacrament for the dying, burials, and sometimes for marriage. The circular temple of Vesta is very beautiful. It had originally twenty Corinthian columns; nineteen of which still remain. This temple is not older than the time of Vespasian, and is not the famous one mentioned by Horace and other ancient writers, in which the Palladium was preserved--that temple no longer exists. It is probable that many of the earliest churches built by Christians in Italy were circular in form, and numbers of these still remain in various Italian cities; but they differed from the ancient temples of this form in their want of exterior decoration. The ancient Romans had used columns, peristyles, and porticoes; the Christians used the latter only in a few instances, but even these were soon abandoned. The beautiful Baptistery at Florence was originally the cathedral of the city. It is octagonal, or eight-sided, and this form is not infrequent in buildings of the fourth and following centuries. It is said that this Baptistery was built by Theodolinda, who married Autharis, King of the Lombards in 589. This king had proposed to Garibald, King of Bavaria, for the hand of his daughter, and had been accepted. Autharis grew impatient at the ceremonies of the wooing, and escaping from his palace joined the embassy to the King of Bavaria. When they reached the court of Garibald and were received by that monarch, Autharis advanced to the throne and told the old king that the ambassador before him was indeed the Minister of State at the Lombard Court, but that he was the only real friend of Autharis, and to him had been given a charge to report to the Italian king concerning the charms of Theodolinda. Garibald summoned his daughter, and after an admiring gaze the stranger hailed her Queen of Italy and respectfully asked that she should, according to custom, give a glass of wine to the first of her future subjects who had tendered her his duty. Her father commanded her to give the cup, and as Autharis returned it to her he secretly touched her hand and then put his finger on his own lips. At evening Theodolinda told this incident to her nurse, who assured her that this handsome and bold stranger could have been none other than her future husband, since no subject would venture on such conduct. [Illustration: FIG. 70.--THE CATHEDRAL OF CHARTRES.] The ambassadors were dismissed, and some Bavarians accompanied the Lombards to the Italian frontier. Before they separated Autharis raised himself in his stirrups and threw his battle-axe against a tree with great skill, exclaiming, "Such are the strokes of the King of the Lombards!" Then all knew the rank of this gallant stranger. The approach of a French army compelled Garibald to leave his capital; he took refuge in Italy, and Autharis celebrated his marriage in the palace of Verona; he lived but one year, but in that time Theodolinda had so endeared herself to the people that she was allowed to bestow the Italian sceptre with her hand. She had converted her husband to the Catholic faith. She also founded the cathedral of Monza and other churches in Lombardy and Tuscany, all of which she dedicated to St. John the Baptist, who was her patron saint. The cathedral of Monza is very interesting from its historical associations. Here is deposited the famous iron crown which was presented to Theodolinda by Pope Gregory I. This crown is made of a broad band of gold set with jewels, and the iron from which it is named is a narrow circlet inside, said to have been made from one of the nails used in the crucifixion of Christ, and brought from Jerusalem by the Empress Helena. This crown is kept in a casket which forms the centre of the cross above the high altar in the cathedral of Monza; it was carried away in 1859 by the Austrians; at the close of the Italo-Prussian war, in 1866, the Emperor of Austria gave it to Victor Emmanuel, then King of Italy. This crown has been used at the coronation of thirty-four sovereigns; among them were Charlemagne, Charles V., and Napoleon I. The latter wore it at his second coronation as King of the Lombards in 1805. He placed it on his head himself, saying, "God has given it to me, woe to him who touches it!" There are few secular buildings of this period remaining in Italy, and Romanesque architecture endured but a short time, for it was almost abandoned at the time of the death of Gregory the Great, in 604. During the next four and a half centuries the old styles were dying out and the Gothic order was developing, but cannot be said to have reached any high degree of perfection before the close of the eleventh century. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. It is difficult to speak concisely of Gothic architecture because there is so much that can be said of its origin, and then it has so extended itself to all parts of the world as to render it in a sense universal. Perhaps Fergusson makes it as simple as it can be made when he divides Europe by a line from Memel on the shores of the Baltic Sea to Spalatro on the Adriatic, and then carries the line westward to Fermo and divides Italy almost as the forty-third parallel of latitude divides it. He then says that during the Middle Ages, or from about the seventh to the fifteenth centuries, the architecture north and west of these lines was Gothic; south and east it was Byzantine, with the exception of Rome, which always remained individual, and a rule unto herself. There was a very general belief in all Christian lands that the world would end in the year 1000 A.D., and when this dreaded period had passed without that event happening, men seem everywhere to have been seized with a passion for erecting stone buildings. An old chronicler named Rodulphe Glaber, who died in 1045 A.D., relates that as early as the year 1003 A.D. so many churches and monasteries of marble were being erected, especially in France and Italy, "that the world appeared to be putting off its old dingy attire and putting on a new white robe. Then nearly all the bishops' seats, the churches, the monasteries, and even the oratories of the villages were changed for better ones." Such a movement could not fail to have a great influence upon architecture, and it was at this time that the Gothic style began to be rapidly developed; and, indeed, so far as any particular time may be fixed for the beginning of the Gothic order, it would fall in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The classic forms, with their horizontal cornices and severe regularity, were then laid aside, and a greater freedom and variety than had ever obtained before began to make itself felt in all architectural designs. We must first try to understand what are the distinguishing features of Gothic architecture. Perhaps the principal one may be called constructiveness; which is to say, that in Gothic architecture there is far greater variety of form, and the power to make larger and more complicated buildings than had been possible with the orders which preceded it. During the Middle Ages the aim was to produce large edifices, and to build and ornament them in a way that would make them appear to be even larger than they were. The early Gothic buildings are so massive as to have a clumsy effect, because the architects had not yet learned how to make these enormous masses strong and enduring, and yet so arranged as to be light and graceful in their appearance. A second striking difference between the ancient orders and the Gothic, is that in the former enormous blocks of stone or marble were used and great importance was attached to this. Many ancient works are called Cyclopean for this reason. It does not make a building more beautiful to have it massive, but it does make it grand. Even in a less colossal mode of building a column is more effective when it is a monolith, and an architrave more beautiful when its beams are not joined too frequently. But in the Gothic order the use of massive blocks is largely given up, and the endeavor is to so arrange smaller materials as to display remarkable constructive skill. [Illustration: FIG. 71.--CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS. _Caen._] A third and a very important feature of the Gothic order is the use of the arch. The much-increased constructive power of which we have spoken depended very largely upon this. The ancients knew the use of the arch, but did not like it because they thought that it took away from the repose of a building. Even now the Hindoos will not use it; they say, "An arch never sleeps," and though the Mohammedan builders have used it in their country, the Hindoos cannot overcome their dislike of it. In the Gothic order, however, the use of arches, both round and pointed, is unending. The results are very much varied, and range all the way from a grand and impressive effect to a sort of toy-like lightness which seems more suited to the block-houses made by children than to the works of architects. The earlier Gothic arches were round, although pointed arches are occasionally found in very ancient buildings. The picture (Fig. 71), however, gives a just idea of the form of arch most used until the introduction of the pointed arch, which occurred in France during the twelfth century. Of this form the doorways of the next cut present a fine example (Fig. 72). [Illustration: FIG. 72.--FAÇADE OF CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME. _Paris._] [Illustration: FIG. 73.--CLUSTERED PILLAR.] [Illustration: FIG. 74.--BUTTRESS.] [Illustration: FIG. 75.--HINGE.] [Illustration: FIG. 77.--IRON-WORK.] [Illustration: FIG. 78.--GARGOYLE.] [Illustration: FIG. 76.--NAIL-HEAD.] [Illustration: FIG. 79.--SCROLL.] An important characteristic of Gothic architecture was the fact that every part of the building was so made as to show its use. Instead of hiding the supports they were made prominent. If a pier or buttress was to stand a perpendicular strain, even the lines of decoration were generally made to run in that direction; if extra supports were needed, they were not concealed, but built in so as to show, and even to be prominent. In the details the same feeling was often shown in a very marked degree; the hinges and nails and locks of Gothic buildings were made to be seen, and whatever was needed for use was treated as if it were of value as an ornament. The spouts by which the water was carried over the eaves were made bold and comparatively large, and carved into those curious shapes of animals and monsters called gargoyles, which are seen on so many mediæval edifices. Many of these details of Gothic buildings are very elegant, and serve to-day as models for modern workmen. (See Figs. 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79.) Among the inventions of Gothic architects the division of the interior into three aisles, with the centre one much the highest, was very important. By this arrangement the space was made to appear longer and higher than it really was, and what was lost in the effect of width was more than made up in a certain elegance of form which is very pleasing. The three central aisles of the next cut illustrate this arrangement (Fig. 80). [Illustration: FIG. 80.--SECTION OF CHURCH. _Carcassone._ WITH OUTER AISLES ADDED IN FOURTEENTH CENTURY.] The Gothic builders gave loftiness to their edifices by the use of spires and towers. They became very skilful in constructing them with buttresses below and pinnacles above, so that the spires should not detract from the apparent size of the buildings to which they were attached (Fig. 81). [Illustration: FIG. 81.--SPIRES OF LAON CATHEDRAL.] In the matter of design in ornament the Gothic order had no fixed method, except so far as its forms were symbolic. Every form of vegetable design was employed; vines and leaves were abundant. As a rule the use of human forms or animals as supports to columns or other weights was avoided. If they were introduced the animals were not reproductions of such as exist, but the imaginary griffin or other monster, and at times dwarfs or grotesque human beings, were represented as if for caricatures. Sculptured figures were usually placed upon a pedestal either with or without niches for them, and were not made to appear to be a part of the building itself. The deep recesses of Gothic portals, the pinnacles and niches gave opportunities to display exterior sculpture to great advantage (Fig. 82). The interiors were also appropriate for any amount of artistic ornament in bas-reliefs or figures that could be lavished upon them. [Illustration: FIG. 82.--PORTAL OF THE MINORITES' CHURCH. _Vienna._] The most original and effective feature of ornament, however, which was introduced by Gothic architects is that of painted glass. To this they devoted their best talent. It is not necessary to say how beautiful and decorative it is; we all know this, and our only wonder is that it was left for the Gothic architects to apply it to architectural uses. We do not know precisely when stained or painted glass was invented, but we know that it existed as early as 800, and came into very general use in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. [Illustration: FIG. 83--EXTERNAL ELEVATION, CATHEDRAL OF PARIS.] Before painted glass was used windows were made very small, and it was some time before the large, rich style was adopted. The following cut from Notre Dame, at Paris, gives the three stages of the change, and it is interesting to see them thus in one church (Fig. 83). On the left are the undivided windows without mullions or dividing supports; next, at the right, the upper window shows the form with one perpendicular mullion and a circular or rose window above the centre; lastly, on the right of the lower story we see a full traceried window. The window became one of the most important and characteristic features of Gothic buildings. These large open spaces gave opportunity for elegant shapes and splendid colors, both the form of the opening and the dividing ribs, or tracery, as it was called, being made with the utmost beauty and grace. The round windows, called rose windows and wheel windows, were often exquisitely designed, as the following example shows (Fig. 84). [Illustration: FIG. 84.--WHEEL WINDOW, FROM CATHEDRAL. _Toscanella._] The window is illustrative of the influence which climate may have on the development of architectural style. In warm countries where spaces were left open, window forms and painted glass were, of course, never employed; but in more northern lands they became one of the most marked features in important edifices. A whole book might be written about these windows and be very interesting also, but we can give no more space to them here. Gothic architecture gradually extended from the centre of Italy to the most northern bounds of civilization, and though practised by so many nations, was as much the architectural expression of a religion as the architecture of a single ancient nation had been the outgrowth of its peculiar religious belief. During the Middle Ages the priests and monks preserved learning in the midst of general darkness and ignorance, and were the chief patrons of all art which survived the decline of the time. They built up the Christian faith by every means in their power. The monks were missionaries. They went to various countries, and selecting favorable spots they founded abbeys; around these abbeys a poor population settled; gradually churches were built, and it frequently happened that the monks not only planned the work to be done, but also executed it with their own hands. Many of them were masons and builders, and several bishops were architects. St. Germain, Bishop of Paris, designed the church in that city now called by his name, and was also sent to Angers to build another church, and to Mans to erect a monastery. The finest buildings being thus made for religious purposes and under the direction of the clergy, they must have been as full an expression of Christianity as were the temple-palaces of Egypt an expression of the religion of Osiris and Isis, when the kings were both priests and sovereigns, and dwelt in these palaces. And this was true as long as Gothic art was in the hands of the clergy and used almost entirely for religious purposes. Later on, when it was employed for civic edifices erected under the direction of laymen, it became an expression of political independence also. The freedom of thought which came with the decline of the feudal system inspired new aspirations and imaginations in the hearts and minds of men, and these found expression in all the arts, and very especially in architecture. If we cannot always admire the manner in which Gothic art was made to express these lofty desires, we can fully sympathize with the sentiment which was behind it. The Gothic order held undisputed sway west and north of the geographical line of which we have spoken until the fifteenth century. Then a revival of classical literature took place, and with this there arose also a revival of classic art and architecture; this revival is known as the Renaissance, or the new birth, and the period of time is spoken of as that of the Renaissance. The effect of this classic reaction was very great upon all the educated classes of Europe, and its influence may be said to have endured through about three centuries. Again, during the eighteenth century, Gothic art was revived. A reverence has grown up for the good that wrestled with the darkness of the Middle Ages and survived all their evils. The rough, strong manhood of that time is now justly appreciated. Perhaps the feeling in this direction is too much exaggerated. While our regard for a rude and weather-stained monument of the spirit and architecture of the past may be natural and proper, the imitation of it which is made in our day may easily become absurd, and is very rarely suited to our purposes. Spain is one of the countries which are on the Gothic side of the geographical line we have drawn, and among the many splendid edifices in that country some of the finest are of the Gothic order. There is no national architecture there, for though the Spaniards love art and its expression passionately, they have themselves invented almost nothing which is artistic. [Illustration: FIG. 85.--COLLEGIATE CHURCH, TORO. _From Villa Amil._] But while it is true that the Spaniards invented no styles, they did modify those which they adopted, and there are peculiarities in the Spanish use and arrangement of the Gothic order which give it new elements in the eyes of those who understand architecture scientifically. To the uneducated also it appears to have a personality of its own, something that is suited to Spain and the Spaniards; so that, while we know that Spanish Gothic architecture was borrowed from France and Germany, we yet feel that if the cathedrals of Paris and Cologne were to be put down in Valencia or Madrid they would look like strangers, and not at all well-contented ones at that; and if the churches of Toledo or Burgos were copied precisely in any other country, they would have an air of being quite out of keeping with everything around them (Fig. 85). We call the architecture of Spain before 1066 the "Early Spanish," and from that time the Gothic order prevailed during nearly three centuries. [Illustration: FIG. 86.--ST. PAUL. _Saragossa._] Meantime in the south of Spain the Moresco or Moorish order had sprung up, of which Fig. 86 gives an example. It was gradually adopted to a limited extent, until finally some specimens of it existed in almost every province of the country. The Gothic order was affected by it, inasmuch as the richness of ornament of the Moorish order so pleased the taste of the Spaniards that their architects allowed themselves to indulge in a certain Moorish manner of treating the Gothic style. We cannot describe these differences in words, but Figs. 86 and 87 will make it plain. [Illustration: FIG. 87.--CLOISTER. _Tarazona._] As has been said, the interior decoration of all Gothic churches was very rich and abundant. It is also true that all church furniture was made with great care; the matter of symbolism was carefully considered, and each design made to indicate the use of the article for which it was intended. No altar, preaching-desk, stall, chair, or screen was made without due attention to every detail, and the endeavor to have it in harmony with its use and its position in the church. The following cut shows a rood-screen, which was the kind of screen that was placed before the crucifixion over the high altar (Fig. 88). [Illustration: FIG. 88.--ROOD-SCREEN, FROM THE MADELEINE. _Troyes._] The fantastic sculptures and wealth of ornament in Gothic decorations produce a confusing effect on the brain and the eye if we look at the whole carelessly; but when we remember that each separate design has its especial meaning we are interested to examine them, and we find that the variety of forms is almost innumerable. Where there are trailing vines and lions, faith is indicated; roses and pelicans are the symbols of mercy and divine love; dogs and ivy, of truth; lambs, of gentleness, innocence, and submission; fishes are an emblem of water and the rite of baptism; the dragon, of sin and paganism; a serpent, too, typifies sin, and when wound around a globe it indicates the power of evil over the whole world; a hind or hart signifies solitude; the dove, purity; the olive, peace; the palm, martyrdom; the lily, purity and chastity; the lamp, lantern, or taper, piety; fire and flames, zeal and the sufferings of martyrdom; a flaming heart, fervent piety and spiritual love; a shell, pilgrimage; a standard or banner, victory; and so on, and on, we find that meaning and thought were worked out in every bit of Gothic ornament, and that what at first appears so wild and hap-hazard is full of a method which well repays one for the study of it. The Gothic order was also used in building municipal edifices, palaces, and even for the purposes of domestic architecture. The finest remains of this kind are in Germany, the most interesting of them all being the castle on the Wartburg. This castle is large, grand, and imposing. It is also well preserved. A few years ago it was discovered that many windows and arched galleries, of very beautiful style, had been filled up, and that frescoes and other decorations had been covered. The Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar caused its restoration, and the ancient halls are now quite in their original state. (See Fig. 89.) [Illustration: FIG. 89.--PALACE OF WARTBURG.] There are very interesting legends and historical facts connected with this castle of Wartburg. As early as 1204 to 1208, when Hermann, Count of Thuringia, dwelt there with his wife, the Countess Sophia, it is related that the "War of the Minstrels" occurred. This was a contest between several of the wandering minstrels or Minnesingers of that time as to who should excel, and he who failed was to suffer death. The penalty fell on Henry of Ofterdingen; in his despair he begged the Countess to gain him a respite so that he could go for his master, Klingsor. Her prayer was granted, and in the end Henry of Ofterdingen saved his head, though the legend says that Satan aided him. This story is without doubt founded on truth, but has much of fancy mingled with it. The next remarkable story connected with Wartburg is the residence here of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, as she is called. This wonderful woman was the daughter of the King of Hungary, and when four years old she was betrothed to Prince Louis, son of Count Hermann, mentioned above. At this tender age she was given to his family. Her life at Wartburg was very remarkable, and I advise you to read about it, for it is too long to be given here. At last, her husband having died in Jerusalem, where he had gone with the Crusaders, his brother Henry drove her out with her children to seek a home where she could. She suffered much, and supported herself by spinning wool. But when the knights who had gone with her husband returned, they obliged Henry to give the son of Elizabeth his rights. She received the city of Marburg as her dower, but she did not live long. Miraculous things are told of her, and she is often represented by painters and sculptors. Again, Wartburg was the residence of a remarkable person; for Luther dwelt there after escaping from the Diet at Worms. He was called Ritter George, and the room where he wrote and spent much of his time is shown to travellers who visit the castle. We come back now to Italy, the country we left when we passed from the Romanesque to Gothic architecture. In the north of Italy where the Gothic order had prevailed after the eleventh century, it had been modified by the Romanesque influences and Roman traditions, in some such degree as the Moors had influenced the Gothic order in Spain. But, on the whole, the mediæval buildings of Northern Italy were Gothic in style. Rome, as we said, was individual, and her art remained Roman or Romanesque up to the date of the Renaissance. In Southern Italy, as we shall see, the architecture was of the Byzantine order. Among the most interesting edifices of the Middle Ages are the Italian towers. They were frequently quite separate from the churches and were built for various purposes. Some of them were bell towers, and such a tower was called a _campanile_. Others were in some way associated with the civic power of the cities which built them; but the largest number were for religious uses. The _campanile_ is always square at the bottom and for some distance up, and then is frequently changed to an octagonal or circular form and finished with a slender spire or ornamental design. [Illustration: FIG. 90.--TOWER OF CREMONA.] Fig. 90 shows one of the finest square towers in all Italy. It was built in 1296 to commemorate a peace after a long war. It is three hundred and ninety-six feet high. It has little beauty in the lower two thirds; above that it is more pleasing, but the two parts do not look as if they belonged together. The tower of Italy, however, which is most beloved and most famous is that of Giotto, beside the cathedral of Florence. (See Fig. 102.) Another striking feature of Gothic art in Northern Italy is seen in the porches attached to the churches. They are commonly on the side, and as they were usually added after the rest of the church was finished, and frequently do not correspond to the rest in style, they look as if they were parts of some other churches and had come on a visit to those beside which they stand. In Italy the main portion of these porches always rested on lions. A porch at Bergamo is one of the finest, and certainly its details are exquisite, and the whole structure is beautiful when it is considered separately; but as a part of the church it loses its effect, and seems to be pushed against it as a chair is placed beside the wall of a room. Some of the mediæval town-halls are still well preserved, and a few of them are truly beautiful. Perhaps the Broletto at Como is as fine a remnant of civic architecture as exists in Northern Italy. It is not very large and is faced with party-colored marbles. The architecture of Venice and the Venetian Province must be treated almost as if it were outside of Italy, because it differs so much from that of other portions of that country. During the Middle Ages it was the most prosperous portion of Italy. Its architecture was influenced by the Byzantine and Saracenic orders, but is not like them; neither is it like that of Northern Italy; in fact, it is Venetian, being Gothic in principle, but treated with Eastern feeling and decorated in Oriental taste; and this was quite natural since the Venetians had extensive traffic and intercourse with the nations of the East. [Illustration: FIG. 91.--ST. MARK'S CATHEDRAL. _Venice._] There are few places in the world, of no greater extent, about which so many interesting associations cluster as about the Piazza of St. Mark's in Venice. On one side stands the great basilica, and not far away are the _campanile_ and the clock-tower; the ancient Doge's Palace, and the beautiful Library of St. Mark, of later date, are near by, with their treasures of art and literature to increase the value of the whole. It is a spot dear to all, and especially so to English-speaking people, since the poetry of Shakespeare has given them a reason for personal interest in it under all its varying aspects. At some hours of the day St. Mark's seems as if it were the very centre of the earth, to which men of all nations are hastening; again this bustle dies away, and one could fancy it to be forgotten and deserted of all mankind, though its silence is eloquent in its power to recall the great events of the Venice of the past. (See Figs. 91, 105, and 106.) St. Mark's Basilica is called Byzantine in its order, and in a general way the term is applicable to it; but on careful examination there are so many differences between it and a purely Byzantine church that it would be more properly described by the name Italian or Venetian Byzantine. Its five domes were added to its original form late in the Middle Ages, and though there are many Eastern mosques with this number, they are not arranged like those of St. Mark's, and so have quite a different appearance. The portico with its five entrances is not European in form, but the details of these deep recesses are more like the Norman architecture than like anything Byzantine. It is scarcely profitable to carry this examination farther, for, in a word, the whole effect of St. Mark's is very impressive from the exterior, and the interior is so beautiful in its subdued light and shadow that one is satisfied to enjoy it without criticising it, and many critics consider it one of the finest interiors of Western Europe. The same difficulty which one finds in defining or classing the architecture of Venice is met in that of Southern Italy, which is Byzantine and not Byzantine, but, in fact, is that order so changed that the name of Byzantine-Romanesque seems better suited to it than any other term could be. We shall mention but a single example of this order, and pass to the true Byzantine style. [Illustration: FIG. 92.--SECTION OF SAN MINIATO. _Near Florence._] The church of San Miniato, which overlooks the city of Florence, was built in 1013, and is one of the most perfect as well as one of the earliest of the churches of the Byzantine-Romanesque order in Italy. It is not large, but the proportions are so good as to make it very pleasing; the pillars are so nearly classic in design that they were probably taken from some earlier building, and the effect of colored panelling both within and without is very satisfactory to the eye. (See Fig. 92.) [Illustration: FIG. 93.--SAN GIOVANNI DEGLI EREMITI. _Palermo._] There arose in Sicily in the eleventh century, and after the Norman Conquest, a remarkable style of architecture. It belongs to Christian art because it was used by Christians to construct places of Christian worship; but, in truth, it was a combination of Greek spirit with Roman form and Saracenic ornament. It makes an interesting episode in the study of architecture. I shall give one picture of a church built by King Roger for Christian use as late as 1132, which, except for the tower, might well be mistaken for a purely Oriental edifice (Fig. 93). BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. This term strictly belongs to the order which arose in the East after Constantinople was made the Roman capital. It is especially the order of the Greek Church as contrasted with the Latin or Roman Church. It would make all architectural writing and talking much clearer if this fact were kept in mind; but, unfortunately, wherever some special bit of carving in an Oriental design or a little colored decoration is used--as is frequently done in the modern composite styles of building--the term Byzantine is carelessly applied, until it is difficult for one not learned in architecture to discover what the Byzantine order is, or where it belongs. We have spoken of its influence and partial use in Italy. Now we will consider it in its home and its purity. Before the time of Constantine the architecture used at Rome was employed at Jerusalem, Constantinople, and other Eastern cities which were under Roman rule and influence. Between the time of Constantine and the death of Justinian, in A.D. 565, the true ancient Byzantine order was developed. The church of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, was the greatest and the last product of the pure old Byzantine style. From that time the order employed may be called the Neo-Byzantine. This was a decline of art as much as the history of Greece and the Eastern Empire during the same period (about 600 to 1453) was the history of the decline and extinction of a power that had once been as great among governments as St. Sophia (Fig. 94) was among churches. [Illustration: FIG. 94.--CHURCH OF ST. SOPHIA. _Constantinople. Exterior View._] The chief characteristic of Byzantine architecture is the use of the dome, which is the most important part of its design. A grand central dome rises over the principal portion of the edifice, and just as in other orders courts and colonnades were added to the simpler basilica form in the ground plan of the churches, so in the Byzantine order lesser domes and cupolas were added above until almost any number of them was admissible, and they were placed with little attention to regularity or symmetry of arrangement. [Illustration: FIG. 95.--LOWER ORDER OF ST. SOPHIA.] As domes were the chief exterior feature, so the profuse ornamentation was most noticeable in the interior. The walls were richly decorated with variegated marbles; the vaulted ceilings of the domes and niches were lined with brilliant mosaics; the columns, friezes, cornices, door and window-frames, and the railings to galleries were of marbles, and entirely covered with ornamental designs (Figs. 95 and 96). [Illustration: FIG. 96.--UPPER ORDER OF ST. SOPHIA.] The historian Gibbon describes the building of St. Sophia and its decorations. He tells us that the emperor went daily, clad in a linen tunic, to oversee the work. The architect was named Anthemius; he employed ten thousand workmen, and they were all paid each evening. When it was completed and Justinian was present at its consecration, he exclaimed, "Glory be to God, who hath thought me worthy to accomplish so great a work; I have vanquished thee, O Solomon!" Paul Silentiarius was a poet; he saw St. Sophia in all its glory and describes it with enthusiasm. It was very rich in variegated marbles. He mentions the following: 1. _The Carystian_, pale with iron veins. 2. _The Phrygian_, two sorts, both of a rosy hue; one with a white shade, the other purple with silver flowers. 3. _The Porphyry of Egypt_, with small stars. 4. _The green marble of Laconia._ 5. _The Carian_, from Mount Iassis, with oblique veins, white and red. 6. _The Lydian_, pale, with a red flower. 7. _The African or Mauritanian_, of a gold or saffron hue. 8. _The Celtic_, black, with white veins. 9. _The Bosphoric_, white, with black edges. There were also the _Proconnesian_, which made the pavement; and the _Thessalian_ and _Molossian_ in different parts. This array of marbles was made even more effective by the beautiful columns brought from older temples. The mosaics were rich in color, and numerous, and many parts of the church were covered with gold, so that the effect was dazzling. Those objects that were most sacred were of solid gold and silver, while such as were less important were only covered with gold-leaf. In the sanctuary there was altogether forty thousand pounds of silver; the vases and vessels used about the altar were of pure gold and studded with gems. Its whole cost was almost beyond belief. At the close of his description Gibbon says: "A magnificent temple is a laudable monument of taste and religion, and the enthusiast who entered the dome of St. Sophia might be tempted to suppose that it was the residence or even the workmanship of the Deity. Yet how dull is the artifice, how insignificant is the labor, if it be compared with the formation of the vilest insect that crawls upon the surface of the temple!" Of course, individual taste must largely influence the opinion regarding the beauty of any work of art, but to me St. Sophia, which is the chief example of Byzantine architecture, is far less beautiful and less grand than the finest Gothic cathedrals. Comparatively little attention was paid to the elegance and decoration of the exterior in the Eastern edifices, while the interiors, in spite of all their riches, have a flat and unrelieved effect. Probably the chief reason for this is that color is substituted for relief--that is to say, in Gothic architecture heavy mouldings and panellings, though of the same color as the walls themselves, yet produce a marvellous effect of light and shadow, and even lend an element of perspective to various parts of the building. In the place of these mouldings flat bands of color are often used in the Byzantine order, and the whole result is much weakened, though a certain gorgeousness comes from the color. Another cause of disappointment in St. Sophia is the absence of painted glass. At the same time, and in spite of these defects, St. Sophia is grand and beautiful--but not solemn and impressive in comparison with the dim cathedral aisles of many Gothic churches in other parts of the world. (See Fig. 97.) [Illustration: FIG. 97.--INTERIOR VIEW OF CHURCH OF ST. SOPHIA.] The Romanesque and Byzantine styles came at last to be so mingled that it would be folly to attempt to separate their influence, but the Byzantine had much more originality, and left a far wider mark. Among the most noted examples of the latter style, beside St. Sophia and St. Mark's, are the church of St. Vitale at Ravenna, the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle, supposed to have been built by Charlemagne about 800 A.D., and the church of the Mother of God at Constantinople. SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE. In speaking of Saracenic architecture I will first explain that it is one with the Moresco or Moorish order of which I spoke in connection with Spain. The only difference is that the earliest Mohammedan conquerors of Spain are said to have come from ancient Mauri or Mauritania and were called Moors, while the name of _Saraceni_, which means "the Easterns," was also given to them. Thus the Mohammedan architecture in Spain is called both Moresco, or Moorish, and Saracenic. Again, it is also called Arabian, but I think this is the least correct, since the Easterns who went to Spain were not so universally Arabian as to warrant this name. When we speak of Moresco or Moorish architecture we speak of Spain; but the term Saracenic is used for Mohammedan architecture in all countries where it is found, and is a just term, for they are Eastern or Oriental lands. In absolute fact, Saracenic architecture is that of the followers of "the Prophet," as Mohammed is called, and would be more suitably named if it were called Mohammedan architecture, or the architecture of Islam. Mohammed was born at Mecca A.D. 570, but it was not until 611 that he was commissioned, as he believed, to build up a new faith and a new church. At first his followers were so few and so mingled with other sects and tribes in their outward life that they had no distinctive art. It was not until A.D. 876, when the ruler Ibn-Touloun commenced his splendid mosque at Cairo, that the Mohammedans could claim any architecture as their own. It is very interesting to know that there were pointed arches in this mosque, probably two centuries, at least, earlier than they were used in England, for it is generally believed that they were first used there in the rebuilding of Canterbury Cathedral after it was burned in 1174. When, however, the Saracenic order was fully established it was so individual and so different from all other architecture that there is no mistaking it for that of any other religion or nation than that of Mohammed and his followers. The picture of the mosque of Kaitbey shows one of the finest and most elegant mosques of the East. It is just outside the walls of Cairo, and is quite modern, having been built in 1463. This view of it gives an excellent idea of the appearance of a fine mosque and shows the minaret or tower, which is so important in a mosque, to good advantage (Fig. 98). [Illustration: FIG. 98.--MOSQUE OF KAITBEY.] These minarets are constantly used for the many calls to prayer which are made throughout the day and night. The person who makes these calls is styled "the Muezzin," and is usually blind. Several times during the day he ascends the minaret and calls out in a loud and melodious tone, "God is most great; there is no God but Allah, and I testify that Mohammed is Allah's prophet! Come to prayer! Come to security! Prayer is better than sleep!" This is several times repeated and is called the _Adan_. The form of words used for the night varies a little, ending, "There is no God but Allah. He has no companion! To Him belongs dominion, etc.;" this is called the _Ula_. The call made an hour before day is the _Ebed_, and praises the perfection of God. When one is sleeping near enough to a minaret to hear the muezzin's voice it is a pleasant sound and helps one to realize that the care of God is ever about him; the clear, Christian bell can be heard by more people, and this was originally intended as a call to prayer. (See Fig. 99.) [Illustration: FIG. 99.--THE CALL TO PRAYER.] The principal homes of Saracenic architecture are Syria, Egypt, Mecca, Barbary, Spain, Sicily, Turkey, Persia, and India. There are many very interesting mosques and minarets that might be mentioned had we space, but I can speak only of the mosque of Cordova, which is universally admitted to be the finest Saracenic edifice in the world (Fig. 100), and shall quote a part of the interesting description of it given by De Amicis in his delightful book called "Spain and the Spaniards." [Illustration: FIG. 100.--EXTERIOR OF THE SANCTUARY IN THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA.] This mosque was commenced by the Caliph Abd-er-Rahman in 786, and was completed by his son Heshâm, who died 796. The great Caliph declared that he would build a mosque which should exceed all others in the world and be the Mecca of the West. De Amicis, after describing the garden which surrounds the mosque, enters, and then goes on as follows: "Imagine a forest, fancy yourself in the thickest portion of it, and that you can see nothing but the trunks of trees. So, in this mosque, on whatever side you look, the eye loses itself among the columns. It is a forest of marble whose confines one cannot discover. You follow with your eye, one by one, the very long rows of columns that interlace at every step with numberless other rows, and you reach a semi-obscure background, in which other columns still seem to be gleaming. There are nineteen naves, which extend in every direction, traversed by thirty-three others, supported (among them all) by more than nine hundred columns of porphyry, jasper, breccia, and marbles of every color. Each column upholds a small pilaster, and between them runs an arch (see plate above), and a second one extends from pilaster to pilaster, the latter placed above the former, and both of them in the shape of a horseshoe; so that, in imagining the columns to be the trunks of so many trees, the arches represent the branches, and the similitude of the mosque to a forest is complete.... How much variety there is in that edifice which at first sight seems so uniform! The proportions of the columns, the designs of the capitals, the forms of the arches change, one might say, at every step. The majority of the columns are old, and were taken from the Arabs of Northern Spain, Gaul, and Roman Africa, and some are said to have belonged to a temple of Janus, on the ruins of which was built the church that the Arabs destroyed in order to erect the mosque. Above several of the capitals one can still see traces of the crosses that were cut on them, which the Arabs broke with their chisels.... I stopped for a long time to look at the ceiling and walls of the principal chapel, the only part of the mosque that is quite intact. It is a dazzling gleam of crystals of a thousand colors, a network of arabesques, which puzzles the mind, and a complication of bas-reliefs, gildings, ornaments, minutiæ of design and coloring, of a delicacy, grace, and perfection sufficient to drive the most patient painter distracted.... You might turn a hundred times to look at it, and it would only seem to you, in thinking it over, a mingling of blue, red, green, gilded and luminous points, or a very intricate embroidery changing continually, with the greatest rapidity, both design and coloring. Only from the fiery and indefatigable imagination of the Arabs could such a perfect miracle of art emanate.... Such is the mosque of to-day. But what must it have been in the time of the Arabs? It was not surrounded by a wall, but open, so that one could catch a glimpse of the garden from every part of it; and from the garden one could see to the end of the long naves, and the air was full of the fragrance of oranges and flowers. The columns which now number less than a thousand were then fourteen hundred; the ceiling was of cedar-wood and larch, sculptured and enamelled in the finest manner; the walls were trimmed with marble; the light of eight hundred lamps, filled with perfumed oil, made all the crystals in the mosaics gleam, and produced on the pavements, arches, and walls a marvellous play of color and reflection. 'A sea of splendors,' sang a poet, 'filled this mysterious recess; the ambient air was impregnated with aromas and harmonies, and the thoughts of the faithful wandered and lost themselves in the labyrinth of columns which gleamed like lances in the sun.'" The famous palace of the Alhambra is so well known that I cannot leave this part of our subject without one picture and one bit of description of it from the same author, De Amicis. The Alhambra was built about four centuries ago, and the wall which inclosed it was four thousand feet long by twenty-two hundred feet wide. Within this there were gardens, fountains, kiosks, and many beautiful, fanciful structures, all of which doubtless cost as much as the more necessary parts of the edifice. The roofs of the different parts of the palace were supported by forty-three hundred columns of precious marbles; eleven hundred and seventy-two of these were presented to Abd-er-Rahman (for he was also the founder of the Alhambra) by sovereigns of other countries, or else brought by him from distant shores for the decoration of this splendid, fairy-like place. All the pavements were of beautiful marbles; the walls, too, were of the same material, with friezes arranged in splendid colors; the ceilings were of deep blue color, with figures in gilding and interlacing designs running over all. In truth, nothing that could be imagined or wealth buy to make this palace beautiful was left out; and yet we are told that the palace of Zahra which was destroyed was still finer. All this leads one to almost believe that the "Arabian Nights" are no fanciful tales, but quite as true as many more serious sounding stories. The Court of the Lions is called "the gem of Arabian art in Spain," and of this our author says: "It is a forest of columns, a mingling of arches and embroideries, an indefinable elegance, an indescribable delicacy, a prodigious richness, a something light, transparent, and undulating like a great pavilion of lace; with almost the appearance of a building which must dissolve at a breath; a variety of lights, views, mysterious darkness, a confusion, a capricious disorder of little things, the majesty of a palace, the gayety of a kiosk, an amorous grace, an extravagance, a delirium, the fancy of an imaginative child, the dream of an angel, a madness, a nameless something--such is the first effect produced by the Court of the Lions!" (Fig. 101.) [Illustration: FIG. 101.--COURT OF THE LIONS. ALHAMBRA.] This court is not large; the ceiling is high, and a light portico runs round it upheld by white marble columns in clusters of two, three, or more, so arranged as to resemble trees coming up from the ground. Above the columns the designs almost resemble curtains, and there are little graceful suggestions like ribbons and waving flowers. "From the middle of the shortest sides advance two groups of columns, which form two species of square temples of nine arches each (see cut) surmounted by as many colored cupolas. The walls of these little temples and the exterior of the portico are a real lace-work of stucco, embroideries, and hems, cut and pierced from one side to the other, and as transparent as net-work, changing in design at every step. Sometimes they end in points, in crimps, in festoons, sometimes in ribbons waving round the arches, in kinds of stalactites, fringes, trinkets, and bows which seem to move and mingle with each other at the slightest breath of air. Large Arabic inscriptions run along the four walls, over the arches, around the capitals, and on the walls of the little temples. In the centre of the court rises a great marble basin, upheld by twelve lions (see cut), and surrounded by a little paved canal.... At every step one takes in the court that forest of columns seems to move and change place, to form again in another way; behind one column, which seems alone, two, three, or a row will spring out; others separate, unite, and separate again.... We remained for more than an hour in the court, and it passed like a flash; I, too, did what almost all people do, be they Spanish or strangers, men or women, poets or not. I ran my hand along the walls, touched all the little columns, and passed my two hands around them, one by one, as around the waist of a child; I hid among them, counted them, looked at them on a hundred sides, crossed the court in a hundred ways, tried if it were true that in saying a word, _sotto voce_, into the mouth of one lion, one could hear it distinctly from the mouths of all the others; I looked on the marbles for the spots of blood of poetic legends, and wearied both brain and eye over the arabesques.... In all my life I have never thought, nor said, nor shall I say, so many foolish, stupid, pretty, senseless things as I said and thought in that hour." The study of Saracenic architecture in Turkey, Persia, and India is very interesting, but our space warns us that we must hasten to leave this dreamy, fairy-like part of our subject and come down to later times and more realistic matters. [Illustration] CHAPTER III. MODERN ARCHITECTURE. 1400 A.D. TO THE PRESENT TIME. All Architecture since the time of the Renaissance is called Modern Architecture; this term, therefore, embraces all edifices erected during nearly four centuries. When I first spoke of Architecture I said that it was a constructive art, and not imitative like Painting and Sculpture. In its earlier history this was true, but the time came when it also became an imitative art and had no true or original style. The Gothic order was the last distinct order which arose, and since its decline, at the beginning of the Renaissance, all architecture has been an imitation because it is a reproduction of what existed before; at times some one of the older orders has been in favor and closely imitated, and again, parts of several orders are combined in one edifice. Since the time of the Reformation it has been true, almost without exception, that every building of any importance has been copied from something belonging to a country and a people foreign to the land in which it was erected. When the revival of Classic Literature began, Rome was the first to feel its influence. It was welcomed there with open arms, just as we might receive the early history and literature of our country if it had all been lost and was found again; for this was precisely what it meant to the Romans, when, after the Dark Ages, the works of Livy, Tacitus, and Cæsar were in their hands, and they read of the history, art, and literature of their past. They were enthusiastic, and their feeling soon spread over all Italy. France was the next to adopt the newly-revived ideas, for that country looked to Rome as the source of true religion, and a model in all things. Spain was then in an unsettled state, and welcomed the revival of classic art as heartily as it had already embraced the Church of Rome. In Germany the love of the classics was enthusiastic, but that nation was more taken up with literature and slower in adopting the revival of the arts than were the more southern peoples, and the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are a barren period in the history of German architecture. In England, too, the Renaissance made slow progress. It was not until the time of Charles I. that any influence was felt in Great Britain from the revival of classic taste which was so well established on the Continent. As it is true that no new order of Architecture has arisen since the time of those of which I have already told you, I shall try to make you understand something of Modern Architecture by speaking of certain important edifices in one country and another, with no attempt at any more detailed explanation of it. ITALY. We cannot say that the art of the Renaissance originated in one city or another, because the movement in the revival of art was so general throughout Italy; but Florence has a strong claim to our first consideration from the fact that Filippo Brunelleschi was a Florentine and did his greatest work in his native city, and on account of it has been called "the father of the Art of the Renaissance." He was born in 1377, and from his early boyhood was inclined to be an architect. The cathedral of Florence (Fig. 102), which is also called the church of Sta. Maria del Fiore, had been built long before, but had never been finished by a roof or dome. [Illustration: FIG. 102.--THE CATHEDRAL OF FLORENCE AND GIOTTO'S CAMPANILE.] Brunelleschi was possessed with but one desire, which was to complete this cathedral. He went to Rome and diligently studied the remains of classic art which he found there, and especially the dome of the Pantheon. Returning to Florence he took measures to bring his plans before the superintendents of the cathedral works; he was ridiculed and discouraged on every hand, but he never gave up his hopes nor lessened his study of the ways and means by which the dome could be built. Thus many weary years passed by; Brunelleschi made drawings in secret, and from these he constructed models in order to convince himself of what he could do. At last those who had authority in the matter were ready to act, and a convention was called, before which the architects of different nations appeared and were requested to explain their theories of what could be done to cover the cathedral. Many artists were assembled and various plans were shown, but after all had been examined the work was given to Brunelleschi, and he was happy in finding that the years he had devoted to the study of the dome had not been spent in vain. It was on this occasion that Brunelleschi refused to show his models, and when the other architects blamed him for this he asked that some eggs should be brought, and proposed that he who could make an egg stand upright on a smooth piece of marble should be the builder of the dome. The others tried to do this and failed; at last Brunelleschi brought his egg down on the marble with a sharp tap and left it standing erect. Then all exclaimed, "Oh, we could have done that if we had known that was the way," to which Brunelleschi replied, "So you could have built a dome if I had shown you my models." This story is often told of Columbus, but as Brunelleschi was much older than Columbus, and the fact is related by Florentine writers of his time, it is probable that Columbus had heard of it from the geographer Toscanelli, who was a great admirer of Brunelleschi and a friend of Columbus also. In building the dome, Brunelleschi encountered great difficulties, but he lived to be assured of his success, for at his death, in 1444, it lacked but little of completion, and all the parts essential to its perfection and durability were finished. This is the largest dome in the world, for though the cross on the top of St. Peter's is farther from the ground than that of Florence, the dome itself above the church is not as large as the dome of Sta. Maria del Fiore. This work made Brunelleschi's greatest fame, but he was the architect of many other fine churches and of secular buildings also; among the last the Pitti Palace, in which is the famous Pitti Gallery, is one of the most important. When you go to Florence you will see a statue of Filippo Brunelleschi, which is very interesting, on account of the way in which it is represented and the position in which it is placed. It is on one side of the Piazza of the cathedral; he is calmly sitting there with a plan of the church spread before him on his lap, while he lifts his head to look at the great dome as it stands out against the sky, the realization of all his thought and labor during so many years. [Illustration: FIG. 103.--VIEW OF ST. PETER'S. _Rome._] The church of St. Peter's at Rome, which is the largest and most magnificent of all Christian temples, was begun about 1450, and was not brought into its present form until about 1661, or more than two centuries later (Fig. 103). The history of its building is largely a story of contentions and troubles between popes, architects, and artists of different kinds. As it now stands it is as much the work of Michael Angelo as of any one man, but several other architects left their imprint upon it, both before and after his time; and all who aided in its construction were eminent men, in their way. Michael Angelo was in his seventy-second year when he took up the task of completing St. Peter's. Bramante, Raphael, and Peruzzi had preceded him as architects of the church; Michael Angelo designed the dome, and when he was ninety it was nearly finished; the models for its completion which he made were not followed after his death; his plan would have made the church more harmonious with the dome, in size, than it now is. Money was sent in large sums, from all Europe, to carry on this work; the finest materials were used in building it, and the most gifted artists were employed in its decoration; it is now the vast home of multitudes of treasures. "I have hung the Pantheon in the air!" Michael Angelo is said to have exclaimed, while looking at the splendid dome of St. Peter's; and no dome in the world has a more imposing effect, although its harmony with the rest of the building is injured by the change of the plan from that of a Greek cross which was made after his death.[A] [A] The interior diameter of the dome of St. Peter's is one hundred and thirty-nine feet; that of St. Sophia, one hundred and fifteen feet, and that of Sta. Maria del Fiore, at Florence, one hundred and thirty-eight feet, six inches. In spite of all this the critics of architecture are never weary of pointing out the defects of St. Peter's; but to those who cannot apply to it the test of strictly scientific rules, its interior is sublime in its effect, and has few rivals--perhaps but one--in the world, and that is the great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, of which we spoke when writing of Egyptian architecture. But even here the difference is almost too great to admit of comparison; the spirit of the two is so unlike--St. Peter's is complete and Karnak is a ruin--so, after all, it must be admitted that the interior of St. Peter's is superior to all other edifices of which we know (Fig. 104). [Illustration: FIG. 104.--SECTION OF ST. PETER'S.] From the time of the beginning of the Renaissance, about 1420, to about 1630, the architecture of Venice was going through a change, and finally reached such perfection that during the next half century the most magnificent style of architecture prevailed which has ever been known there. We mean to say that the whole effect was the grandest, for, while it is true that the edifices of that time are stately and striking in their appearance, it is equally true that their form and ornamentation are not as much in keeping with their use as they had been in older edifices. Sansovino, who lived from 1479 to 1570, was an important architect and had great influence upon modern Venetian architecture. His masterpiece was the Library of St. Mark, of which the preceding cut gives one end (Fig. 105). It is a very beautiful structure, and is made more interesting from the fact that it stands directly opposite to the Doge's Palace, and in the midst of all the interest which centres about the Piazza of St. Mark. [Illustration: FIG. 105.--EAST ELEVATION OF LIBRARY OF ST. MARK. _Venice._] The Ducal Palace at Venice is called by John Ruskin, the great English critic, "the central edifice of the world." It is divided into three stories, of which the uppermost occupies rather more than half the height of the building. The two lower stories are arcades of low, pointed arches, supported on pillars, the one beneath being bolder and heavier in character than the second. The capitals of the columns are greatly varied, no two in the upper arcade being exactly alike. Above the arches of the middle story was a row of open-work spaces, of the form called quatrefoil; while the third story is faced with alternating blocks of rose-colored and white marble, and is pierced with a few large pointed windows. The whole front, or façade, is crowned by an open parapet made up of blocks of stone carved into lily-like forms alternating with lance-shaped leaves. The whole effect is one of great richness and beauty, especially since time has mellowed its color, and softened without destroying the whiteness of its marbles (Fig. 106). [Illustration: FIG. 106.--THE DOGE'S PALACE. _Venice._] During the time of the Renaissance there were churches, palaces, museums, hospitals, and other large buildings erected in all the important cities of Italy. There are but few of these which have such special features as entitle them to be selected for description here. The reason for this has been given already--viz.: there was nothing new in them; they were all repetitions of what has been described in one form or another. Perhaps the next cut gives as good an example of secular architecture in this age as any that could be selected (Fig. 107). [Illustration: FIG. 107.--GREAT COURT OF THE HOSPITAL OF MILAN.] Indeed, it is one of the most remarkable buildings of its class in any age. It was commenced by Francesco Sforza and his wife, Bianca, in 1456. They died long before its completion, and one part and another have been changed from time to time, but its great court, which was designed by Bramante, still remains, the finest thing of its kind in all Italy. I shall now leave Italy with saying that the early days of the Renaissance were the best days of Italian Architecture, and, indeed, of Italian Art. The period made sacred by the genius and works of Michael Angelo, Bramante, Sangallo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael was a golden era, and still sheds its lustre over the land of their nativity. These artists followed the highest ideal of Art, and their errors were superior to the so-called successes of less gifted men. The Italian Art of the fifteenth century was individual and grand; in the sixteenth century it became formal and elegant; in the seventeenth century it was bizarre, over-ornamented, and uncertain in its aim and execution; since then it has been comparatively unimportant, and its architecture scarcely merits censure, and certainly cannot be praised. SPAIN. From the time of the fall of Granada, in 1492 to 1558, Spain was the leading nation of Europe. The whole country had been united under Ferdinand and Isabella, and their reign was a glorious period for their country. The importance of the nation was increased by the discovery of the New World, and so many great men were in her councils that her eminence was sure, and almost undisputed. Thus it followed that during the first half of the sixteenth century the Architecture of Spain gave expression to the spirit by which the nation was then animated. This did not long continue, however, for the iron, practical rule of Philip II. crushed out enthusiasm and was fatal to artistic inspiration. This sovereign desired only to extend his kingdom; the priests, who acquired almost limitless power under his reign, aimed only to strengthen their authority, while the people were wildly pursuing riches in the New World which opened up to them a vast and attractive field. Thus no place or time was left to the cultivation of Art, and the only noteworthy period of Spanish Architecture since the beginning of the Renaissance was the sixty years which we have mentioned. The Modern Architecture of Spain has been divided into three eras, each of which was distinguished by its own style. The first extends from the beginning of the Renaissance down to that of the abdication of the great Emperor Charles V. in 1555; the manner of this period is called Platerisco, or the silversmith's style, on account of the vast amount of fine, filigree ornament which was used. The second period is from the above date to about 1650, and its art is called the Græco-Roman style because it is an attempt to revive the Classic Art of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The third period comes from 1650 to about a century later, and the Spaniards call its manner the Churrigueresque, which difficult name they take from that of Josef de Churriguera, the architect who invented this style. Since 1750 we may almost say that no such thing as Spanish Architecture has existed. The cathedrals of Granada, Jaen, and Valladolid, and the churches of Malaga and Segovia, with many other ecclesiastical edifices, are among the chief monuments of Spanish Renaissance Architecture, but we shall pass on to a little later period and speak of but one great achievement, the famous Escurial, which is of much historic interest. This combination of basilica, palace, monastery, and college was begun in 1563 by Philip II., in accordance with a vow which he made to St. Lawrence at the battle of St. Quentin. This battle was fought in 1557 under the walls of the French town of St. Quentin, by the French and the Spaniards, and the latter were completely victorious. This cut gives an idea of how grand and impressive this collection of walls, towers, courts, and edifices must be, all crowned with the dome of the basilica. It is almost like a city by itself, and all who visit it agree that it is a gloomy and depressing place in spite of its grandeur (Fig. 108). [Illustration: FIG. 108.--THE ESCURIAL. _Near Madrid._] The front has three imposing entrances, with towers at the corner angles. Within the inclosure are a college, monastery, palace with state apartments, the church, numerous courts, gardens, and fountains. The front is injured by the great number of small windows, which divide it into such numberless sections as to become very tiresome to the eye, while they take away the noble elegance of larger spaces and the air of repose which such spaces give. The angle towers are not as rich in effect as they should be, and the side walls have been compared to those of a Manchester cotton-mill; thus the exterior, which is effective from its size and general air, has not the beauty of detail which satisfies a close observer. The effect of the interior, as one goes in by the central entrance, is all that can be desired. The court leads directly to the square before the church; as one passes to it he has the college on one side, the monastery on the other, farther on the palace, with the whole culminating in the grand state apartments and the basilica. The various courts are striking in their arrangement, and the church with its dome and towers gives a supreme glory to the whole. Gardens, fountains, and many other fine objects add their effect to the richness and beauty of the whole; but all are insignificant beside the basilica, which merits a place in the foremost rank of the churches of the Renaissance. Indeed, the Escurial is a marvellous place, and is often called "the eighth wonder of the world." The richest marbles, splendid pictures, and many magnificent objects help to make it one of the grandest works of modern architecture. It is also true that it is one of the gloomiest places visited by travellers, and I shall quote a few lines from De Amicis to show the depressing effect which it has upon those who go there. "The first feeling is that of sadness; the whole building is of dirt-colored stone, and striped with white between the stones; the roofs are covered with strips of lead. It looks like an edifice built of earth. The walls are very high and bare, and contain a great number of loopholes. One would call it a prison rather than a convent.... The locality, the forms, the colors, everything, in fact, seems to have been chosen by him who founded the edifice with the intention of offering to the eyes of men a sad and solemn spectacle. Before entering you have lost all your gayety; you no longer smile, but think. You stop at the doors of the Escurial with a sort of trepidation, as at the gates of a deserted city; it seems to you that, if the terrors of the Inquisition reigned in some corner of the world, they ought to reign among those walls. You would say that therein one might still see the last traces of it and hear its last echo.... The royal palace is superb, and it is better to see it before entering the convent and church, in order not to confuse the separate impressions produced by each. This palace occupies the northeast corner of the edifice. Several rooms are full of pictures, others are covered from floor to ceiling with tapestries, representing bull-fights, public balls, games, fêtes, and Spanish costumes, designed by Goya; others are regally furnished and adorned; the floor, the doors, and the windows are covered with marvellous inlaid work and stupendous gilding. But among all the rooms the most noteworthy is that of Philip II.; it is rather a cell than a room, is bare and squalid, with an alcove which answers to the royal oratory of the church, so that, from the bed, by keeping the doors open, one can see the priest who is saying mass. Philip II. slept in that cell, had his last illness there, and there he died. One still sees some chairs used by him, two little stools upon which he rested the leg tormented with gout, and a writing-desk. The walls are white, the ceiling flat and without any ornament, and the floor of brick.... In the court-yard of the kings you can form a first idea of the immense frame-work of the edifice. The court is inclosed by walls; on the side opposite the doors is the façade of the church. On a spacious flight of steps there are six enormous Doric columns, each of which upholds a large pedestal, and every pedestal a statue. There are six colossal statues, by Battiste Monegro, representing Jehoshaphat, Ezekiel, David, Solomon, Joshua, and Manasseh. The court-yard is paved, scattered with bunches of damp turf. The walls look like rocks cut in points; everything is rigid, massive, and heavy, and presents the fantastic appearance of a Titanic edifice, hewn out of solid stone, and ready to defy the shocks of earth and the lightnings of heaven. There one begins to understand what the Escurial really is. "One ascends the steps and enters the church. The interior is sad and bare.... Beside the high altar, sculptured and gilded in the Spanish style, in the inter-columns of the two royal oratories, one sees two groups of bronze statues kneeling, with their hands clasped toward the altar. On the right Charles V. and the Empress Isabella, and several princesses; on the left, Philip II. with his wives.... In a corner, near a secret door, is the chair which Philip II. occupied. He received through that door letters and important messages, without being seen by the priests who were chanting in the choir. This church, which, in comparison with the entire building, seems very small, is nevertheless one of the largest in Spain, and although it appears so free from ornamentation, contains immense treasures of marble, gold, relics, and pictures, which the darkness in part conceals, and from which the sad appearance of the edifice distracts one's attention.... But every feeling sinks into that of sadness. The color of the stone, the gloomy light, and the profound silence which surrounds you, recall your mind incessantly to the vastitude, unknown recesses, and solitude of the building, and leave no room for the pleasure of admiration. The aspect of the church awakens in you an inexplicable feeling of inquietude. You would divine, were you not otherwise aware of it, that those walls are surrounded, for a great distance, by nothing but granite, darkness, and silence; without seeing the enormous edifice, you feel it; you feel that you are in the midst of an uninhabited city; you would fain quicken your pace in order to see it rapidly, to free yourself from the weight of that mystery, and to seek, if they exist anywhere, bright light, noise, and life.... One goes to the convent, and here human imagination loses itself; ... you pass through a long subterranean corridor, so narrow that you can touch the walls with your elbows, low enough almost to hit the ceiling with your head, and as damp as a submarine grotto; you reach the end, turn, and you are in another corridor. You go on, come to doors, look, and other corridors stretch away before you as far as the eye can reach. At the end of some you see a ray of light, at the end of others an open door, through which you catch a glimpse of a suite of rooms.... You look through a door and start back alarmed; at the end of that long corridor, into which you have glanced, you have seen a man as motionless as a spectre, who was looking at you. You proceed, and emerge on a narrow court, inclosed by high walls, which is gloomy, overgrown with weeds, and illumined by a faint light which seems to fall from an unknown sun, like the court of the witches described to us when we were children.... You pass through other corridors, staircases, suites of empty rooms, and narrow courts, and everywhere there is granite, a pale light, and the silence of a tomb. For a short time you think you would be able to retrace your steps; then your memory becomes confused, and you remember nothing more; you seem to have walked ten miles, to have been in that labyrinth for a month, and not to be able to get out of it. You come to a court and say, 'I have seen it already!' but you are mistaken; it is another.... You seem to be dreaming; catch glimpses of long frescoed walls ornamented with pictures, crucifixes, and inscriptions; you see and forget; and ask yourself, 'Where am I?'... On you go from corridor to corridor, court to court; you look ahead with suspicion; almost expect to see suddenly, at the turning of a corner, a row of skeleton monks, with their hoods drawn over their eyes and their arms folded; you think of Philip II., and seem to hear his retreating step through dark hallways; you remember all that you have read of him, of his treasures, the Inquisition, and all becomes clear to your mind's eye; you understand everything for the first time; the Escurial _is_ Philip II., he is still there, alive and frightful, and with him the image of his terrible God.... The Escurial surrounds, holds, and overwhelms you; the cold of its stones penetrates to your marrow; the sadness of its sepulchral labyrinths invades your soul; if you are with a friend you say, 'Let us leave;' if you were alone you would take to flight. At last you mount a staircase, enter a room, go to the window, and salute with a burst of gratitude the mountains, sun, freedom, and the great and beneficent God who loves and pardons. What a long breath one draws at that window! "An illustrious traveller said that after having passed a day in the convent of the Escurial, one ought to feel happy throughout one's life, in simply thinking that one might still be among those walls, but is no longer there. This is almost true. Even at the present day, after so great a lapse of time, on rainy days, when I am sad, I think of the Escurial, then look at the walls of my room, and rejoice!" During the sixteenth century there were many palaces erected in Spain, but nothing can be added to the impressions you will get from the descriptions we have quoted of the cheerful, gay Alhambra, and the gloomy, sad Escurial. The domestic architecture of Spain is unattractive. There are no fine _châteaux_, as in France, or elegant parks, as in England. Ford compares the front of the residence of the Duke of Medina to "ten Baker-street houses put together," and this is true of many so-called palaces. This state of modern Spanish architecture is fully accounted for by the following quotation from Fergusson, the learned writer on architecture: "On the whole, perhaps, we should not be far wrong in assuming that the Spaniards are among the least artistic people in Europe. Great things have been done in their country by foreigners, and they themselves have done creditable things in periods of great excitement, and under the pressure of foreign example; but in themselves they seem to have no innate love of Art, no real appreciation for its beauties, and, when left to themselves, they care little for the expression of beauty in any of the forms in which Art has learned to embody itself. In Painting they have done some things that are worthy of praise; in Sculpture they have done very little; and in Architectural Art they certainly have not achieved success. Notwithstanding that they have a climate inviting to architectural display in every form; though they have the best of materials in infinite abundance; though they had wealth and learning, and were stimulated by the example of what had been done in their own country, and was doing by other nations--in spite of all this, they have fallen far short of what was effected either in Italy or France, and now seem to be utterly incapable of appreciating the excellencies of Architectural Art, or of caring to enjoy them." FRANCE. After the reigns of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. the French people became somewhat familiar with Italian Art, and at length, during the reign of Francis I., from 1515 to 1546, everything Italian was the fashion in France. Francis invited such artists as Leonardo da Vinci, Benvenuto Cellini, Primaticcio, and Andrea del Sarto to come to France and aid him in his works at Fontainebleau and elsewhere. It was not long before the Gothic architecture which had been so much used and improved in France was thought to be inferior in beauty to the Italian architecture as it existed in the sixteenth century, and very soon the latter style was adopted and considered as the only one worthy of admiration. But the French architects had been so trained to the Gothic order that it was not easy for them to change their habits of design, and the result was that new edifices were largely of the Gothic form, but were finished and ornamented like the Italian buildings; by this means the effect of the whole, when completed, was such as is seen in this picture of the church of St. Michael at Dijon (Fig. 109). In these days no one approves of this union of Gothic design and Italian decoration, but when it was the fashion it was thought to be very beautiful by French architects. [Illustration: FIG. 109.--FAÇADE OF THE CHURCH OF ST. MICHAEL. _Dijon._] Francis I., who was so anxious to introduce Italian art into France, erected edifices of a very different sort from those which he attempted to imitate. In Italy, the principal buildings of the Renaissance were churches or convents, or such as were in some way for religious uses. Francis I. built palaces like that of Fontainebleau, and splendid châteaux like those of Chambord, or Chenonceaux, and the Italian style of architecture could not be readily adapted to the lighter uses of the French kings. The splendid massive Pitti Palace, built after the design of the great Brunelleschi, would scarcely have harmonized with the river banks and the lovely undulating meadows around a country villa or château. So it gradually happened that French Architecture was more graceful, light, and elegant than the architecture of the churches, monasteries, and other religious edifices of Italy, and at the same time the Italian feeling and influence can easily be traced in the French buildings of the time of which we speak. In Italy the Pope and the Church governed in Art, and considered it only as a religious means of glorifying the Church and impressing its doctrines upon the whole people. In France the sovereigns held the leading place, and in the midst of their ambitions and their gayeties they found little time to consider the matter of church architecture. Though the church of St. Eustache was erected at Paris, and other churches were restored, it was not until 1629, when Cardinal Richelieu ordered the building of the church of the Sarbonne, that an example was given of the full effects upon French church architecture of the change from the Gothic, or Mediæval style, to that of the Renaissance, or the Classic style. Perhaps the church of the Invalides is the most remarkable building of the seventeenth century in France. It was designed and superintended by Jules Hardouin Mansard, a skilful architect, who was born in 1647, and died in 1708. The erection of the dome of the Invalides occupied him from 1680 to 1706. It is a fashion to criticise this as well as all famous buildings, but if it is remembered that the dome was intended to be _the feature_ of the edifice, and that it was therefore necessary to sacrifice something to it, in the construction of the whole, we must admit that what its admirers claim for it is true--namely, that it is one of the finest domical edifices in Europe, and a most satisfactory example of the architecture of its class (Fig. 110). [Illustration: FIG. 110.--FAÇADE OF THE DOME OF THE INVALIDES. _Paris._] Directly underneath this dome is the crypt in which is the sarcophagus which contains the remains of Napoleon Bonaparte. On the door which leads to the crypt are inscribed the following words, taken from the will of the exile at St. Helena: "I desire that my ashes may rest on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people whom I have loved so well." This tomb is said to have cost nearly two millions of dollars, and though it is beautiful, and in good taste in its details, yet one can but regret that all this expense should not have erected a splendid mausoleum, such as would have dignified the monumental art of France. The church of St. Genevieve, or the Pantheon, as it is usually called, is a very important architectural work. It was twenty-six years in building, and was not completed until after the death of its architect, Soufflot, which occurred in 1781 (Fig. 111). [Illustration: FIG. 111.--THE PANTHEON. _Paris._] It is said that this church was begun as the fulfilment of a vow made by King Louis XV. when he was ill, but as the French Revolution was in progress when it was completed, it was dedicated to the "_Grands Hommes_," or the great men of France, and not to God or the sweet St. Genevieve, who was one of the patron saints of Paris. The dome of the Pantheon is elegant and chaste, but not great in design or effect, and the whole appearance of the church is weakened by the extreme width of the spaces between the front columns; this makes the entablature appear weak, and is altogether a serious defect. Another striking fault is the way in which a second column is placed outside at each end of the portico; one cannot imagine a reason for this, and it is confusing and unmeaning in the extreme. The interior of the Pantheon is superior to the exterior, and many authorities name it as the most satisfactory of all modern, classical church interiors; when it was built it was believed to be as perfect an imitation of antique classical architecture as could be made, and all the world may be grateful that it escaped the fate prepared for it by the Communists. This was averted by the discovery and cutting of the fuse which they had prepared for its destruction on May 24th, 1871; the fuse led to the crypts beneath the church, where these reckless men had placed large quantities of powder. In the beginning of the present century French architects believed it best to reproduce exactly ancient temples which had been destroyed. According to this view the church of the Madeleine was begun in 1804, after the designs of Vignon. Outwardly it is a temple of the Corinthian order, and is very beautiful, though its position greatly lessens its effect. If it were on a height, or standing in a large square by itself, it would be far more imposing (Fig. 112). [Illustration: FIG. 112.--THE MADELEINE. _Paris._] The church of the Trinity and that of the Augustines, at Paris, are important church edifices of the present day, but though much thought and time have been lavished on them, they are not as attractive as we could wish the works of our own time to be; and they seem almost unworthy of attention when we remember that in the same city there are so many examples of architecture that have far more artistic beauty, as well as the additional charms of age and the interest of historical associations. We have already spoken of the sort of building in which Francis I. delighted. Of all his undertakings the rebuilding of the Louvre was the most successful. Its whole design was fine and the ornaments beautiful; many of these decorations were made after the drawings of Jean Goujon, who was an eminent master in such sculptures. The court of the Louvre has never been excelled in any country of Europe; it is a wonderful work for the time in which it was built, and satisfies the taste of the most critical observers (Fig. 113). [Illustration: FIG. 113.--PAVILION DE L'HORLOGE AND PART OF THE COURT OF THE LOUVRE.] We cannot give space to descriptions of the châteaux built by Francis I., but this picture of that of Chambord affords a good example of what these buildings were (Fig. 114). [Illustration: FIG. 114.--CHÂTEAU OF CHAMBORD.] From the time of the reign of Charles IX. (1560) to the close of the reign of Louis XIII., the style of architecture which was used in France was called the "style of Henry IV.;" this last-named king ruled before Louis XIII., and during his time architecture sank to a very low plane--there was nothing in it to admire or imitate. Under Louis XIII. it began to improve, and in the days of Louis XIV., who is called the "_Grand Monarque_," all the arts made great progress and received much patronage from the king, and all the people of the court, for whom the king was a model. Louis XIV. began a revival of Roman classical architecture, and there is no doubt that he believed that he equalled, or perhaps excelled, Julius Cæsar and all other Roman emperors as a patron of the Fine Arts. But we know that this great monarch was deceived by his self-love and by the flatteries of those who surrounded him and wished to obtain favors from him. His architectural works had so many faults that it is very tiresome to read what is written about them, and in any case it is pleasanter to speak of virtues than of faults. The works of Louis XIV. were certainly herculean, and when we think of the building of the palace of Versailles, the completion of the Louvre, and the numberless hôtels, châteaux, and palaces which belong to his reign, we feel sure that if only the vastness of the architectural works of his time is considered, he well merits the title of the Great Monarch. But these important edifices require more time and space if spoken of in detail than we can give, and I pass to some consideration of the works of our own time. The architecture of the reign of Napoleon III. requires the space of a volume, at least, were it to be clearly described, for during that reign there was scarcely a city of France that did not add some important building to its public edifices. First, the city of Paris was remodelled and rebuilt to a marvellous extent, and as in other matters Paris is the leader, so its example was followed in architecture. The new Bourse in Lyons, the Custom House at Rouen, and the Exchange at Marseilles are good specimens of what was done in this way outside the great metropolis. During the reign of Louis Philippe, and a little later, French domestic architecture was vastly improved, and since then much more attention has been given by Frenchmen to the houses in which they live. The appearance of the new Boulevards and streets of Paris is picturesque, while the houses are rich and elegant. Many portions of this city are more beautiful than any other city of Europe; and yet it is true that the architecture of forty years or so ago was more satisfactory than that of the present time. [Illustration: FIG. 115.--PORTE ST. DENIS. _Paris._] The French are an enthusiastic people, and have been very fond of erecting monuments in public places which would remind them continually of the glories of their nation, the conquests of their armies, and the achievements of their great men. Triumphal Arches and Columns of Victory are almost numberless in France; many of them are impressive, and some are really very fine in their architecture. Since the Porte St. Denis was (Fig. 115) erected, in 1672, almost every possible design has been used for these monuments, in one portion of France or another, until, finally, the Arc de l'Étoile (Fig. 116) was built at the upper end of the Champs Elysées, at Paris. This is the noblest of all modern triumphal arches, as well as one of the most splendid ornaments in a city which is richly decorated with architectural works of various styles and periods--from that of the fine Renaissance example seen in the west front of the Louvre, built in 1541, down to the Arc de l'Étoile, the Fontaine St. Michel, and the Palais du Trocadéro of our own time. [Illustration: FIG. 116.--ARC DE L'ÉTOILE. _Paris._] The French architecture of the present century is in truth a classic revival; its style has been called the _néo-Grec_, or revived Greek, and the principal buildings of the reign of Napoleon III. all show that a study of Greek art had influenced those who designed these edifices. ENGLAND. We may say that England has never had an architecture of its own, since it has always imitated and reproduced the orders which have originated in other countries. The Gothic order is more than any other the order of England, and, in truth, of Great Britain. All English cathedrals, save one, and a very large proportion of the churches, in city and country, are built in this style of architecture. It is also true that during the Middle Ages, when the Roman Catholics were in power in England and made use of Gothic architecture, they built so many churches, that, during several later centuries, it might be truly said that England had no church architecture, because so few new churches were required or built. It is so difficult to trace the origin and progress of the Classical or Renaissance feeling in English architecture that I shall leave it altogether, and passing the transition style and period, speak directly of the first great architect of the Renaissance in England, Inigo Jones, who was born in 1572 and died in 1653. He studied in Italy and brought back to his native country a fondness for the Italian architecture of that day. He became the favorite court architect, and there are many important edifices in England which were built from his designs. His most notable work was the palace of Whitehall, though his design was never fully carried out in it; had it been, this palace would have excelled all others in Europe, either of earlier or later date. Among the churches designed by Inigo Jones that of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, is interesting because it is probably the first important Protestant church erected in England which still exists. It is small and simple, being almost an exact reproduction of the early Greek temples called _distyle in antis_, such as I described when speaking of Greek architecture (Fig. 117). [Illustration: FIG. 117.--EAST ELEVATION OF ST. PAUL'S. _Covent Garden._] Inigo Jones made many designs for villas and private residences, and perhaps he is more famous for these works than for any others. Among them are Chiswick and Wilton House, and many others of less importance. After Jones came Sir Christopher Wren, who was the architect of some of the finest buildings in London. He was born in 1632 and died in 1723. The great fire, in 1666, when he was thirty-four years old, gave him a splendid opportunity to show his talents. Only three days after this fire he presented to the king a plan for rebuilding the city, which would have made it one of the most convenient as well as one of the most beautiful cities of the world. Sir Christopher Wren is most frequently mentioned as the architect of St. Paul's Cathedral. This was commenced nine years after the great fire, and was thirty-five years in building. St. Paul's is the largest and finest Protestant cathedral in the world, and among all the churches of Europe that have been erected since the revival of Classical architecture, St. Peter's, at Rome, alone excels it (Fig. 118). [Illustration: FIG. 118.--ST. PAUL'S, LONDON. _From the West._] Although so many years were consumed in the building of St. Paul's, Sir Christopher Wren lived to superintend it all, and had the gratification of placing the topmost stone in the lantern of this splendid monument to his genius. The western towers of Westminster Abbey are said to have been built after a design by Wren, but of this there is a doubt. Among his other works in church architecture are the steeple of Bow Church, London; the church of St. Stephen's, Walbrook; St. Bride's, Fleet Street, and St. James's, Piccadilly. The royal palaces of Winchester and Hampton were designed by Wren, and many other well-known edifices, among which is Greenwich Hospital. He made some signal failures, but it is great praise to say, what is undoubtedly true, that, though he was a pioneer in the Renaissance architecture of England, and died a century and a half ago, no one of his countrymen has surpassed him, and we may well question whether any other English architect has equalled him. [Illustration: FIG. 119.--ST. GEORGE'S HALL. _Liverpool._] Churches, palaces, university buildings, and fine examples of municipal and domestic architecture are so numerous in England and other portions of Great Britain that we cannot speak of them in detail. The culmination of the taste for the imitation of Classical architecture was reached about the beginning of the present century, and among the most notable edifices in that manner are the British Museum, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and St. George's Hall, Liverpool (Fig. 119). A revival of Gothic Architecture has taken place in England in our own time. The three most prominent secular buildings in this style are Windsor Castle, the Houses of Parliament, and the New Museum, at Oxford. Of course, in the case of Windsor Castle, the work was a remodelling, but the reparations were so extensive as to almost equal a rebuilding. Sir Jeffry Wyatville had the superintendence of it, and succeeded in making it appear like an ancient building refitted in the nineteenth century--that is to say, it combines modern luxury and convenience in its interior with the exterior appearance of the castellated fortresses of a more barbarous age (Fig. 120). [Illustration: FIG. 120.--WINDSOR CASTLE.] In the Houses of Parliament there was an attempt to carry out, even to the minutest detail, the Gothic style as it existed in the Tudor age, when there was an excess of ornament, most elaborate doorways, and the fan-tracery vaultings were decorated with pendent ornaments which look like clusters of stalactites. Sir Charles Barry was its architect. The present school of artists in England are never weary of abusing it; they call it a horror and declare its style to be obsolete. In fact, it is not the success at which Barry aimed; but it excels the other efforts to revive the Gothic in this day, not only in England, but in all Europe, and has many points to be admired in its plan and its detail, while the beauty of its sky-line must be admitted by all (Fig. 121). [Illustration: FIG. 121.--THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. _London._] In the New Museum of Oxford, the Gothic is that of Lombardy, rather than the Early English. It is an example of the result of the teaching of Mr. Ruskin. It does not realize the expectations of those who advocated this manner of building, and has proved a great disappointment to the advanced theorists of a quarter of a century ago. English architecture of the present day may be concisely described by saying that it is Gothic for churches, parsonage-houses, school-houses, and all edifices in which the clergy are interested or of which they have the oversight. On the other hand, palaces, town-halls, municipal buildings, club-houses, and such structures as come within the care of the laity, are almost without exception in the Classic style. Neither of these orders seems to be exactly suited to the climate of England or to the wants of its people; therefore, neither would satisfy the demands of the ancients, who taught that the architecture of a nation should be precisely adapted to its climate and to the purposes for which the edifices are intended. In fact, the ancients carried their ideas of fitness so far that one could tell at a glance the object for which a structure had been designed; we know that it is not possible to comply with this law in this day, although it is doubtless in accord with the true ideal of what perfect architecture should be. At the present day there is little doubt that the edifices of the Church and clergy are far more praiseworthy and true architecturally than are those for secular and domestic uses. GERMANY. I shall not speak of the period of the Renaissance in Germany, but shall go forward to the time of the Revival of Classic Architecture, which dated about 1825. During the eighteenth century the discoveries which were made in Greece were of great interest to all the world, and the drawings which were made of the temples and monuments, as well as of the lesser objects of art which existed there, were sent all over Europe, and had such an effect upon the different nations, that with one accord they began to adopt the Greek style of architecture, whenever any important work was to be done. This effect was very marked in Germany, and the German architects tried to copy every detail of Greek architecture with great exactness. When we begin to speak of modern German architecture at this point, we do not omit anything important, for the struggles of the Reformation, and the results of the Thirty Years' War were such, that no great architectural advances were attempted for a long time. Again, the division of Germany into many small principalities, and the establishment of many little courts so divided the wealth of the German people into small portions, that no one was rich enough to undertake large buildings. There was no one great central city as in France and England, and no one sovereign was rich enough to adorn his capital with splendid edifices or to be a magnificent patron of art and artists after the fashion of the "_Grand Monarque_" in France. Before taking up the Revival, however, I wish, for two reasons, to give a picture of the Brandenburg Gate, at Berlin. This gate was erected between 1784 and 1792. It is important because such monuments are more rare in Germany than in other European countries, especially of the time in which this was built, and because it is one of the best imitations of Greek art that exists in any nation (Fig. 122). [Illustration: FIG. 122.--THE BRANDENBURG GATE. _Berlin._] It is interesting to remember that when Napoleon entered Berlin as a conqueror, after the Battle of Jena, he sent the Car of Victory, which surmounts this gate, to Paris, as a trophy of his prowess. After his abdication it was returned to its original position. The effect of the German revival of Greek art is more plainly seen in Munich than in any other city. It is the capital of Bavaria, and one of its kings, Louis I., while he was young and had not yet become king, resided at Rome; he was a passionate lover of art, and he resolved that when he came to the throne he would make his capital famous for beautiful things. Above all, he desired to imitate all that he had most admired in the countries he had visited, and also the art of the ancients as he knew it from models and pictures. For this reason it happens that Munich is a collection of copies of buildings which have existed in other countries and in past ages, and as these buildings, which were first made in marble and stone, are mostly copied in plaster in Munich, much of their beauty is lost; and since these copied buildings are not used for the same purposes for which the ancient ones were intended, the whole effect of them is very far from pleasing or satisfactory. In fact, the result is just such as must always follow the imitation of a beautiful object, when no proper regard is paid to the use to be made of it. If, for example, a fine copy of a light and airy Swiss châlet should be made in the United States of America, and placed on some business street in one of our cities, and used for a bank building, we could not deny that it was an exact copy of a building which is good in its way; but it would be so unsuited to its position and its uses, that the man who built it there would be counted as insane or foolish. And this is the effect of the modern architecture of Munich; it seems as if King Louis must have been a madman to expend so much time and money in this absurd kind of imitative architecture, and yet it is very interesting to visit this city and see these edifices. Of the Munich churches erected under Louis I. that of St. Ludwig is in the Byzantine order; the Aue-Kirche is in the pointed German Gothic, and the Basilica is like a Roman basilica of the fifth century. It resembles that of St. Paul's-without-the-Walls; it was begun in 1835 and completed in 1850. In a vault beneath this basilica Louis and his Queen, Theresa, are buried. The picture given here shows its extreme simplicity; its whole effect is solemn and satisfactory; still one must regret that since it is so fine up to a certain point, it should not have been made still finer (Fig. 123). [Illustration: FIG. 123.--THE BASILICA AT MUNICH.] The Ruhmeshalle, or Hall of Fame, at Munich, is an interesting and somewhat unique edifice. It is a portico of marble with forty-eight Doric columns, each twenty-six feet high. Against the walls are brackets holding busts of celebrated Germans who have lived since 1400. In front of the portico stands the colossal bronze statue of Bavaria. She is represented as a protectress with a lion by her side; in the right hand she holds a sword, and a chaplet in the left; it is sixty-one and a half feet high, and the pedestal raises it twenty-eight and a half feet more; inside, a staircase leads up into the head, where there are seats for eight persons. The view from the top of this statue is fine, and so extensive that in a favorable atmosphere the heights of the Alps can be discerned. The hill upon which the Ruhmeshalle is built is to the south of Munich, and is called the Theresienhöhe. The grand statue is intended to be the principal object of interest here, and the portico is made so low as to throw the figure out and show it off to advantage; altogether it is one of the most successful architectural works in Munich (Fig. 124). [Illustration: FIG. 124.--THE RUHMESHALLE. _Near Munich._] The Glyptothek, or Sculpture Gallery, the Pinakothek, or Picture Gallery, the Royal Palace, the Public Library, the War Office, the University, Blind School, other palaces and secular buildings, all belong to the time of the Revival in Germany. The Ludwig Strasse, which King Louis fondly hoped to make one of the most beautiful avenues in the world, is--with its Roman arch at one end, and a weak copy of the Loggia dei Lanzi at the other--a tiresome, meaningless, architectural failure. [Illustration: FIG. 125.--THE MUSEUM. _Berlin._] The Museum of Berlin is a striking result of the same Revival of Classic architecture, and is far more splendid than anything in Munich (Fig. 125). In Dresden the most important works in this style are the New Theatre and Picture Gallery. The last is almost an exact reproduction of the Pinakothek of Munich. All over Germany the effects of this Revival are more or less prominent, but I shall speak of but one other edifice, the Walhalla (Fig. 126). [Illustration: FIG. 126.--THE WALHALLA.] This is also a Temple of Fame, and is situated about six miles from Ratisbon. It overlooks the River Danube from a height of more than three hundred feet. It was begun in 1830, and was twelve years in building, costing eight millions of florins. It is of white marble, and on the exterior is an exact reproduction of the Parthenon at Athens. The interior is divided into two parts by an entablature, which supports fourteen caryatides, made from colored marbles. These figures in turn support a second entablature, on which is a frieze in eight compartments, on which is sculptured scenes representing the history of Germany from its early days to the time of the introduction of Christianity. Along the lower wall there are one hundred busts of illustrious Germans who had lived from the earliest days of Germany down to those of the poet Goethe. The grounds about the Walhalla are laid out in walks, and from them there are fine, extensive views. Taken by itself there is much to admire in the Walhalla. The sculptures arouse an enthusiasm about Germany, her history, and the men who have helped to make it, in spite of the strange unfitness with which the artists have mingled Grecian myths and German sagas. But aside from this sort of interest the whole thing seems incongruous and strangely unsuited to its position; one writer goes so far as to say of it that "Minerva, descending in Cheapside to separate two quarrelling cabmen, could hardly be more out of place." And yet it is true that the Walhalla is the only worthy rival to St. George's Hall, Liverpool, as an example of the possible adaptability of Greek or Roman Architecture to the needs and uses of our own days. THEATRES AND MUSIC HALLS. In speaking of theatres I will first give a list of the most important ones in Europe, as they are given by Fergusson in his "History of Modern Architecture." ----------------------------+----------------------+---------- | Depth from Curtain | Depth of | to back of Boxes. | Stage. ----------------------------+----------------------+---------- | feet. | feet. La Scala, Milan | 105 | 77 San Carlo, Naples | 100 | 74 Carlo Felice, Genoa | 95 | 80 New Opera House, Paris | 95 | 98 Opera House, London (old) | 95 | 45 Turin Opera House | 90 | 110 Covent Garden, London | 89 | 89 St. Petersburg, Opera | 87 | 100 Académie de Musique, Paris | 85 | 82 Parma, Opera | 82 | 76 Fenice, Venice | 82 | 48 Munich Theatre | 80 | 87 Madrid Theatre | 79 | 55 ----------------------------+----------------------+---------- The Opera House of La Scala, at Milan, is generally said to be the finest of all for seeing and hearing what goes on upon the stage: it was begun in 1776 and finished two years later. San Carlo, Naples, holds the second place, and was first erected in 1737, but was almost destroyed by fire in 1816, and was afterward thoroughly rebuilt. The new Opera House of Paris is interesting to us because it has been built so recently and so much written and said of it that we are familiar with it. Any description that would do it justice would occupy more space than we can afford for it, but this cut (Fig. 127) gives an excellent idea of its size and exterior appearance. It is distinguished by great richness of material and profusion of ornament, its interior decorations being especially splendid. It has been criticised as lacking repose and dignity, but its elegance and magnificence compel admiration. [Illustration: FIG. 127.--THE NEW OPERA HOUSE. _Paris._] Music halls are only another sort of theatre, and have come into great favor in recent days, especially in England. The Albert Hall, South Kensington, is the finest music hall that has been erected. It seats eight thousand people, besides accommodating an orchestra of two hundred and a chorus of one thousand singers; it is one hundred and thirty-six feet from the floor to the highest part of the ceiling. This hall has some defects, but is so far successful as to prove that a theatre or music hall could be so constructed as to seat ten thousand persons and permit them to hear the music as distinctly as it is heard in many halls where only two or three thousand can be comfortable. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. When we remember that we have been able to give some account of architecture as it existed thousands of years before Christ, and to speak of the temples and tombs of the grand old nations who laid the foundation of the arts and civilization of the world--and then, when we remember the little time that has passed since the first roof was raised in our own land, we may well be proud of our country as it is--and at the same time we know that its architecture may in truth be said to be a thing of the future. It is but a few years, not more than seventy, since any building existed here that could be termed architectural in any degree. To be sure, there were many comfortable, generous-sized homes scattered up and down the land, but they made no claim to architectural design, and were not such edifices as one considers when speaking or writing of architecture. The first buildings to which much attention was given in the United States were the Capitols, both State and National, and until recently they were in what may be called a Classic style, because they had porticoes with columns and certain other features of ancient orders; but when the cella, as is the case in America, is divided into two or more stories, with rows of prosaic windows all around, and chimneys, and perhaps attics also added, the term Classic Architecture immediately becomes questionable, and it is difficult to find a name exactly suited to the needs of the case; for it is still true that from a distance, and in answer to a general glance, they are nearer to the Classic orders than to anything else. [Illustration: FIG. 128.--THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL. _Washington._] The National Capitol at Washington, which is the principal edifice in the United States, was begun in 1793, when General Washington laid the foundation-stone; the main portion was completed in 1830; two wings and the dome have since been added, and its present size is greater than that of any other legislative building in the world, except the British Houses of Parliament (Fig. 128). The dome, and the splendid porticoes, with the magnificent flights of steps leading up to them, are the fine features of the Capitol. The dome compares well with those that are famous in the world, and taken all in all the Washington Capitol is more stately than the Houses of Parliament, and is open to as little criticism as buildings of its class in other lands. Several of the State Capitols illustrate the manner of building which I described above. This cut of the Capitol of Ohio is an excellent example of it (Fig. 129). [Illustration: FIG. 129--STATE CAPITOL. _Columbus, Ohio._] In domestic architecture, while there has been no style so original and absolutely defined as to be definitely called American, we may roughly classify three periods--the Colonial, the Middle, and the Modern. These terms have no close application, and you must understand that I use them rather for convenience than because they accurately, or even approximately, indicate particular styles. The mansions of the Colonial period are, perhaps, most easily recognized, and in some respects were the frankest and most independent class of houses ever built in this country. The early settlers took whatever suited them from all styles, and instead of imitating the English, the Dutch, or the French manner of building, mingled parts of all, with especial reference to the needs of their climate and surroundings. [Illustration: FIG. 130.--SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL'S HOUSE. _Kittery Point, Maine._] This fine old house (Fig. 130) shows the plain, homely, yet quaint style of many of the mansions of the Colonial period. It was built near the beginning of the last century, and occupied by Sir William Pepperell until his death. Its interior, with heavy wainscoting of solid mahogany, was more imposing by far than the exterior. The Van Rensselaer homestead at Albany is an excellent example of a more stately house, possessing much dignity and impressiveness. The Middle period was a time when domestic architecture, still without any originality and losing much of the independence of the Colonial, copied more closely from foreign models. Some fine old mansions belong to this period, which covered the last years of the last century and the first half of this. The celebrated Cragie House at Cambridge, occupied by the poet Longfellow; "Elmwood," the home of James Russell Lowell; "Bedford House," in Westchester County, New York, the home of the Hon. John Jay, are to be referred to this period; and so is the imposing "Old Morrisania," at Morrisania, New York, the old Morris mansion (Fig. 131). [Illustration: FIG. 131.--"OLD MORRISANIA." _Morrisania, New York._] It is modelled after a French château, and was erected by General Morris after his return from France in 1800. It is one of the most striking among the mansions of its time, and both its interior and exterior are highly interesting. These views serve to illustrate the want of anything like a regular style, of which I spoke above; but they show how many different forces were at work to influence building in the Modern period. This division is meant to extend to and include the present time, and so great is the diversity of styles now employed that in a work like this it would be idle to attempt anything like an enumeration of them, and still less to try and determine their origin and importance. I can only give you one example of the handsome and costly homes which are being built to-day, and leave you to observe others as you now see them everywhere about the country (Fig. 132). A modern writer on American architecture claims that in private dwellings an American order is gradually being developed by the changes made to adapt foreign forms to our climate, and especially to the brilliancy of the sunlight here. All this is so difficult to define, however, that it would be impossible to show it clearly in the limits of a book like this, even if it exists. [Illustration: FIG. 132.--RESIDENCE AT IRVINGTON, NEW YORK.] What is called the "Queen Anne" style, modelled upon the English fashion of the time of that monarch, is very widely used in country houses at the present time, sometimes in conjunction with the Colonial, which also exists as an independent style. The tendency of domestic architecture is to make everything quaint and picturesque, though this is not so far carried to extremes as was the case a few years since. In public buildings many splendid edifices have been erected of late years. The imitation of classic forms which was formerly the fashion, and which is so strikingly exhibited by Girard College, Philadelphia, is now almost entirely laid aside. A lighter, less constrained style, which may be called eclectic--which means selecting--because it takes freely from any and all styles whatever suits its purpose, is arising; and as this selecting is being every year more and more intelligently done, and as original ideas are constantly being incorporated with those chosen, the prospects for architecture are more promising than ever before in this country. The Casino, at Newport, is a fine example of a modern building; and the still more recent Casino in New York shows a fine example of the adapting of ideas from Saracenic architecture to American uses. The Capitol at Albany has many fine features, but it is the work of several designers who did not harmonize. Memorial Hall, at Cambridge, is one of the more striking of modern American buildings, but its sky-line--that is, its outline as seen against the sky--lacks simplicity and repose. The churches in this country exhibit the widest variety of style. Trinity Church in New York was the first Gothic church erected in America, and Trinity Church in Boston, one of the latest churches of importance, is also Gothic, though of the variety called Norman Gothic, and considerably varied. The Roman Catholic Cathedral of New York, and many others of less magnitude, might be cited as a proof that American architecture is advancing, and that we may speak hopefully of its future. Railroad depots and school-houses of certain types are among the most distinctive and characteristic American edifices. The first, especially, are being constructed more nearly in accordance with the ancient principle of suiting the structure to its uses than are any other buildings that are worthy to be considered architecturally. Art museums and public libraries, too, now form an important feature in both town and country, and, in short, the beginning of American architecture, for that is all that can be claimed for what as yet exists, is such as would be the natural outcome of a nation such as ours--varied, restless, bold, ugly, original, and progressive. All these terms can be applied to American art, but in and through it all there is a promise of something more. As greater age will bring repose and dignity of bearing to our people, so our Fine Arts will take on the best of our characteristics; as we outgrow our national crudities the change will be shown in our architecture, and we may well anticipate that in the future we shall command the consideration and assume the same importance in these regards that our excellence in the Useful Arts has already won for us in all the world. [Illustration] GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS. _Abacus._--The uppermost portion of the capital of a column, upon which rested the weight above. _Aisle._--The lateral divisions of a church; more properly, the side subdivisions. _Amphitheatre._--A round or oval theatre. _Apse._--The semi-circular or polygonal termination to the choir or aisles of a church. _Arcade._--A series of arches supported on piers or columns. _Arch._--A construction of wedge-shaped blocks of stone or of bricks, of curved outline, spanning an open space. _Architrave._--(1) The lowest division of the entablature, in Classic architecture resting on the abacus. (2) The moulding used to ornament the margin of an opening. _Base._--The foot of a column or wall. _Basilica._--Originally a Roman hall of justice; afterward an early Christian church. _Buttress._--A projection built from a wall for strength. _Byzantine._--The Christian architecture of the Eastern church, sometimes called the round arched; named from Byzantium (Constantinople). _Capital._--The head of a column or pilaster. _Caryatid._--A statue of a woman used as a column. _Cathedral._--A church containing the seat of a bishop. _Cella._--That part of the temple within the walls. _Chamfer._--A slope or bevel formed by cutting off the edge of an angle. _Column._--A pillar or post, round or polygonal; the term includes the base, shaft, and capital. _Composite Order._--See _Order_. _Corinthian Order._--See _Order_. _Cornice._--The horizontal projection crowning a building or some portion of a building. Each classic order had its peculiar cornice. _Crypt._--A vault beneath a building. _Dome._--A cupola or spherical convex roof. _Doric Order._--See _Order_. _Entablature._--In classic styles all the structure above the columns except the gable. The entablature had three members, the architrave or epistyle, the frieze, and the cornice. _Entasis._--The swelling of a column near the middle to counteract the appearance of concavity caused by an optical delusion. _Epistyle._--See _Architrave_. _Façade._--The exterior face of a building. _Frieze._--The middle member of an entablature. _Gable._--The triangular-shaped wall supporting the end of a roof. _Gargoyle._--A projecting water-spout carved in stone or metal. _Hexastyle._--A portico having six columns in front. _Intercolumniation._--The clear space between two columns. _Ionic Order._--See _Order_. _Metope._--The space between the triglyphs in the frieze of the Doric Order. _Minaret._--A slender tower with balconies from which Mohammedan hours of prayer are called. _Mosaic._--Ornamental work made by cementing together small pieces of glass, stone, or metal in given designs. _Nave._--The central aisle of a church; the western part of the church occupied by the congregation. _Obelisk._--A quadrangular monolith terminating in a pyramid. _Order._--An entire column with its appropriate entablature. There are usually said to be five orders: Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite; the first and last are, however, only varieties of the Doric and Corinthian developed by the Romans. The peculiarities of the orders have been described in the body of the book. When more than one order was used in a building, the heavier and plainer, the Doric and Tuscan, are placed beneath the others. _Pediment._--In classic architecture what the gable (which see) was in later styles. _Peristyle._--A court surrounded by a row of columns; also the colonnade itself surrounding such a space. _Pier._--A solid wall built to support a weight. _Pilaster._--A square column, generally attached to the wall. _Pillar._--See _Column_. _Plinth._--A square member forming the lower division of the base of a column. _Polychrome._--Many-colored; applied to the staining of walls or architectural ornaments. _Quatrefoil._--A four-leaved ornament or opening. _Shaft._--The middle portion of a column, between base and capital. _Story._--The portion of a building between one floor and the next. _Triglyph._--An ornament upon the Doric frieze consisting of three vertical, angular channels separated by narrow, flat spaces. [Illustration] INDEX. Abacus, 52 Abd-er-Rahman, Caliph, 126 Acropolis, 61, 62 Adan, the, 126 Age of Legend (Greece), 46 Agrippa, 76 Albert Hall, South Kensington, 181 Alexander the Great; 17; and Thais, 34 Alexandria, obelisks at, 15 Alhambra; 129; described by De Amicis, 129, 130 American architecture; youth of, 181; domestic, 183, 184; periods of, 184; modern writer on, 186; promise of, 188, 190 (and _see_ United States) Amytis, 30 Ancient or heathen art, 2 Ancient architecture; 87; change from, to Gothic, 79; adapted to climate and use, 172 Andrea del Sarto, 153 Angers, church at, 103 Antæ. _See_ pilasters Arabs, 128 Arcades; combined from Greek and Etruscan art, 76; of Ducal Palace, Venice, 142 Arc de l'Étoile (Paris), 165 Arch; knowledge of principle of, 73; found in Etruscan ruins, 73; oldest in Europe (of Cloaca Maxima), 74; the Roman triumphal, 81; of Titus, 82; of Septimius Severus, 82; of Beneventum, 82, 83; Roman, 83; (Gothic) unending use of, 95; French use of pointed, 96; early use of pointed, 123; examples of, in Court of the Lions, 130; examples of, in Ducal Palace, 142; triumphal, in France, 164 Architecture _in general_, 1 Architrave, 52, 56 Art; as effected by Athenian influence, 67; (Gothic) religious use of, 103; (Gothic) revival of, 104; (Gothic) applied to civic edifices, 104; of Renaissance, and Filippo Brunelleschi, 134-138; (Italian) 145; (Italian) as a means of religion, 154 Artaxerxes Ochus, palace of, 38 Artemisia, 68, 69 Assouan. _See_ Syene Assyria; ruins of, 21; cuneiform inscriptions found in, 21; religious influence in, 22; bas-reliefs of, 22; palaces of, described, 23-26; Hercules of, 24; excelling in architects and designers, 28; obelisk of, 28, 29 Assyrian pillars, shaft of, 12 Assyrians, Persians taught by, 34 Astronomy, and Birs-i-Nimrud, 32 Athena; Parthenos, 62; Polias; statue of, 62, 64; Promachos, 62 (and _see_ Minerva) Athens; Choragic Monument of Lysicrates at, 57; Erechtheium at, 59; Acropolis of, 61; municipal buildings of, 67 Attic base, 55 Attic-Ionic style, the Erechtheium an example of, 65 Aue-Kirche (Munich), 175 Augustines, church of the (Paris), 160 Augustus (Emperor), boast of, 80 Autharis, 90 Avenue of Sphinxes, 13 Babylon; inscriptions of, 21; hanging gardens of, 29; temples of, 30; temple of Belus at, 31; prophecies concerning, 33 Babylonians; knowledge of, as builders, 30; Persians taught by, 34 Bacchus, monument of Lysicrates dedicated to, 68 Baptistery at Florence, 90 Barry, Sir Charles, 171 Base; Grecian Doric, 11; decorations on, at Persepolis, 41; Attic, 55; Ionic, 55; Tuscan order of, 76; Composite, 76 Basilica; of St. Paul's (Rome), 88; of the Escurial, 146, 148; near St. Mark's, 114; at Munich, 175 Basilicas; of Rome, 78; of Trajan and Maxentius, 79; columns of, 79; given up to Christians, 87 Bas-reliefs, of Assyria, 22 Baths; of Agrippa, 76; of Diocletian, 80; of Caracalla, 80 Battiste Monegro, statues of Escurial by, 149 Bavaria, bronze statue of, 176 Bedford House, 184 Belus, temple of (Babylon), 31 Belzoni, and tomb of Seti I., 7 Beneventum, arch of, 82, 83 Beni-Hassan, tombs at, 5 Benvenuto Cellini, 153 Bergamo, porch at, 112 Berlin; Brandenburg Gate at, 173; New Museum at, 177 Bianca, wife of Francesco Sforza, 144 Birs-i-Nimrud, 32 Bishop of Paris, St. Germain, 173 Boodroom, name of Halicarnassus changed to, 70 Boulevards (Paris), 164 Bourse (Lyons), 162 Bow Church (London), steeple of, 168 Bramante; 140; great court (Milan), designed by, 144 Brandenburg Gate (Berlin), 173 British Museum, 169 Broletto at Como, 112 Brunelleschi, Filippo; 134; and story of Columbus and the egg, 138; statue of (Florence), 138; architect of Pitti Palace, 138, 154 Byzantine order, the; geographical boundaries of, 93; in Southern Italy, 111, 115; and Constantinople, 117; the dome the chief characteristic of, 117; and the Greek Church, 117; decline of, 117; exterior and interior of, 119 Byzantine-Romanesque, 115, 122 Cæsar, works of, 134 Cairo; mosque at, 123; mosque near, 125 Caliph Abd-er-Rahman, 126 Callimachus (sculptor), and Corinthian capital, 58, 59 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam College at, 169 Campaniles, 112, 114 (and _see_ Clock-tower). Canterbury Cathedral, and pointed arches, 124 Capital; definition of, 11; varieties of in Great Hall of Karnak, 40; Grecian, 52; Ionic, 55; of Corinthian order, 57, 58; of Roman Composite order, 75; variety of in mosque of Cordova, 128; in Ducal Palace, 142 Capitol; State and National, 181; at Washington, 182, 183; of Ohio, 183; at Albany, 188 Car of Victory, and Napoleon, 173 Cardinal Richelieu, 154 Caria, King of, 69 Caryatides; 59; of the Walhalla, 178 Casino; at Newport, 188; at New York, 188 Castle of Wartburg, 109, 110 Cathedral; at Aix-la-Chapelle, 123; at Florence, 136, 138; at Jaen, 146; at Valladolid, 146; of St. Paul's London, 167; at New York, 188 Cecilia Metella, tomb of, 84 Cella, 51 Central Park, New York, obelisk in, 16 Chambord, château of, 154, 161 Champs Elysées, Arc de l'Étoile in (Paris), 165 Charlemagne, 123 Charles I. of England and classic art, 134 Charles V. of Spain, abdication of, 146 Charles IX. of France, 161 Chehl Minar, 38 (and _see_ Great Hall of Audience) Chenonceaux, châteaux of, 154 Cheops. _See_ Pyramids Chiswick House, Inigo Jones designer of, 167 Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (Athens), 57 Choragus, 67 Christians; art of, in Sicily, 116; under Constantine, 87; rise and progress of architecture of, 87; influence of belief of, 93 Church; of San Miniato, 115; of Mother of God (Constantinople), 123; of St. Vitale (Ravenna), 123; of the Escurial, 155; of the Sarbonne, 156; of St. Genevieve, 158 (and _see_ Pantheon); of the Invalides (Paris), 156-158; of the Trinity (Paris), 160; of the Madeleine (Paris), 160; of the Augustines (Paris), 160; of St. Paul's (Covent Garden), 166; of St. Stephen's (Walbrook), 168; of St. Ludwig (Munich), 175 Churches; early forms of, in Italy, 89; (Gothic) interiors of, 98, rood-screens of, 107; of Burgos, 105; of Toledo, 105; of Malaga and Segovia, 146 Churriguera, Josef de, 146 Churrigueresque style, 146 Civic order, Broletto at Como, 112 Classic style, revival of, in Germany, 172 Classic literature of Rome, influence of, 153 Cleopatra's Needles, 15 Cloaca Maxima (Rome), 74 Clock-tower; near St. Mark's (Venice), 114 (and _see_ Campanile) Cologne, great cathedral of, 10 Colonial period (America), 184 Colosseum, 80 Colossi, 13 (and _see_ Rameses the Great) Columbaria, 84, 85 Columns; 11; of Hypostyle Hall (Karnak), 11; Assyrian knowledge of, 28; of Great Hall of Audience, 39, 40; Persian development of, 42; Grecian, 52; Ionic, 56; of temple of Diana (Ephesus), 60; of green jasper at St. Sophia, 61; Tuscan order of, 76; of basilicas, 79; of St. Paul's (Rome), 89; of St. Sophia, 120; of mosque of Cordova, 127, 128; of the Alhambra, 129, 130; in court-yard of the Escurial, 149; of the Pantheon, 158; of Victory, in France, 164; of portico of Ruhmeshalle, 176 (and _see_ "Groves of Pillars" and Pillars) Composite order, 75 Constantine, Emperor; 2; Egypt in time of, 19; arch of, 81; Christians under, 87, 117 Constantinople; St. Sophia at, 61; and Byzantine order, 117 Convent of Escurial, 150, 151 Cordova, mosque at, 126 Corinthian capital, 58, 59 Corinthian order; 52; 57; capital of, 57, 58; shown in the Madeleine (Paris), 160 Cornice, 53, 76 Count of Thuringia, 110 Court of the Lions, 129, 130 Cragie House (Cambridge), 184 Crown, iron, of Theodolinda, 92 Crypt of the Invalides, 158 Custom House at Rouen, 162 Cyrus, tomb of, 42, 43 Darius; palace of, 38; tomb of, 43 Dark Ages, 134 De Amicis; quoted concerning the mosque of Cordova, 126; quoted concerning the Escurial, 148-152 Diana, 60 Diocletian, palace of (Spalatro), 86 Distyle in Antis, 51 Doge's Palace (Venice), 114 (and _see_ Ducal Palace) Dome; chief characteristic of Byzantine architecture, 117; 119; of the cathedral of Florence, 138; of St. Peter's (Rome), 138; of the Invalides, 157; of the Pantheon (Paris), 158; of the Capitol (Washington), 183 Domes of St. Mark's (Venice), 114 Domestic architecture; Egyptian study of, 16; of Greece, 70; of Rome, 85; Gothic, 109; of Spain, 152; of France, 162; examples of, in Great Britain, 169; of America, 183, 184 Doric order; imitated old Egyptian tombs, 7; characteristics of, 52-54; traced back, 54; and Ionic order, compared, 57; Propylæa and Parthenon as examples of, 64 Dresden, new theatre and picture gallery of, 177 Ducal Palace (Venice), and John Ruskin, 142 (and _see_ Doge's Palace) "Easterns," the, 123 (and _see_ Saracens) Ebed, the, 126 Ecbatana, palace of, 34 Echinus, 52 Eclectic style, 188 Edfou, temple of, 17 'Early Spanish' architecture, 106 Egypt, tombs and ruins of, 2-20; religion of, influencing art, 8; pillars of, 11; hieroglyphics on pillars of, 12; irregular plans of palaces and temples of, 13; obelisks of, removed, 15; ancient houses of, 16; domestic architecture of, 16; under the Ptolemies, 17; decline of arts of, in later days, 19; in time of Constantine (Emperor), 19; present knowledge of history of, 20 Elmwood, 184 England; imitation of other styles of architecture in, 166; Gothic order in, 166; examples of various architectural styles in, 169; art of, at the present time, 172; revival of Gothic art in, 170 Entablature; definition of, 54; of Walhalla, 178 Entasis, 67 Ephesus; temple of Diana at, 60; desolation at, 61 Epistyle, 7 Erechtheium (Athens); 59; and Athena Polias, 62; burial-place of Erechtheus, 64; founded by Erechtheus, 64; example of Attic-Ionic style, 65 Erechtheus, founder of the Erechtheium, 65 Escurial (near Madrid), 146-152; combination forming, 146; dome of basilica of, 146; palace of, 147; De Amicis's description of, 148-152; statues of, by Battiste Monegro, 149; room of Philip II. in, 149; basilica of, 149; church of, 149; courtyard of the kings of, 149; convent of, 150, 151 Etruscans; 71; theatres and amphitheatres of, 72 Euphrates, 29 Exchange at Marseilles, 162 Façade of Ducal Palace, 142 "Farnese Bull," 81 "Farnese Hercules," 81 Ferdinand and Isabella, reign of, 145 Fergusson and Gothic architecture, 93 Filippo Brunelleschi and art of Renaissance, 134-138 Fine Art Gallery, near baths of Caracalla, 81 Fitzwilliam College (Cambridge), 169 Flavian Amphitheatre, 80 Florence, cathedral of, 134 Fontaine St. Michel, 165 Fontainebleau, palace of, 154 Fortress, the Acropolis as a, 62 Fortresses of ancient Greece, 48 Forum Boarium, 82 France; and revival of classic art, 134; and Gothic architecture, 153; sovereigns of, as influencing architecture, 154; change in style in, from Gothic to Renaissance, 156; style of Henry IV. in, 161; time of classic revival, 162; domestic architecture of, 162; _Neo-Grec_ style in, 165, 166; modern, 165, 166 Francesco Sforza, 144 Francis I., of France; and introduction of Italian art, 154; Louvre rebuilt by, 160 Frieze; definition of, 53; of Ionic order, 56; of Tuscan order, 76; of Walhalla, 178 Gargoyle, 98 Garibald, King of Bavaria, 90 Gateway Huldah of temple at Jerusalem, 44 Gateways; in walls of Nineveh, 21; in walls of Babylon, 29; golden, iron, and brazen, of palace of Diocletian, 86 Germany; and revival of classic art, 134; imitation of details of Greek architecture in, 173; modern architecture of, 173 Ghizeh, pyramids of, 3 Gibbon (historian) and St. Sophia, 122 Giotto's campanile, 112 Girard College (Philadelphia), 186 Glaber, Rodulphe, 93 Glyptothek at Munich, 177 Gothic order; Fergusson's location of, 93; extension and origin of, 93; invention of interior aisles in, 98; design of, in ornament, 99; painted glass applied to, 100; Spanish variation of, 105; modification of in Northern Italy, 111; combined with Eastern decoration in Venetian architecture, 114; last distinct order, 133; in France, 153; union of, with Italian design in France, 154; in England, 166; in the Tudor age, 170; and Houses of Parliament, 171 Goths, temple of Diana burned by, 61 Goujon, Jean, and the Louvre, 160 Goya, 149 Græco-Roman style, 146 Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, 110 "_Grand Monarque._" _See_ Louis XIV. "_Grands Hommes_," Pantheon dedicated to, 158 Great Hall of Audience; plan of, 41; theories concerning, 42 Great Hall of Baths of Diocletian, 80 Great Palace near Persepolis, 36-38 Grecian Doric order; shaft of, 12; domestic architecture of, 70 Greece; art of, as compared with that of Egypt, 20; prehistoric days of, 47; origin of architecture of, 48; coloring of marbles in, 65; skill in deceiving the eye, in architecture of, 67; theatres of, 68; origin of drama in, 68; effect in Germany of discoveries in, 173 Greenwich Hospital, 169 Gregory I. (Pope), 92 "Groves of Pillars," 44 Hadrian; 77; tomb of (castle of St. Angelo), 84 Halicarnassus; mausoleum at, 68; in possession of Knights of St. John, 70; name of, changed to Boodroom, 70; sculptures of, in British Museum, 70 Hall of Fame, 176 (and _see_ Ruhmeshalle) Hall of One Hundred Columns, 38 Hall of Xerxes, 38-41 (and _see_ Great Hall of Audience) Hampton, palace of (designed by Wren), 169 Hanging Gardens of Babylon; 29; interior structure of, 29, 30; and Semiramis, 30; and Nebuchadnezzar, 30 Henry of Ofterdingen, 110 "Hercules of Assyria," 24 Hermann, Count of Thuringia, 110 Herodotus, "Father of History," 47 Herostratus, 60 Heshâm, 126 Hexastyle, 52 Homer, "Iliad" and "Odyssey" of, 47 "House of the Virgin," 62 (and _see_ Parthenon) Houses of Parliament (London); 170; and Gothic revision, 171 Hypostyle Hall (Karnak); 11; compared with St. Peter's (Rome), 140 Ibn-touloun, mosque built by, 123 "Iliad," knowledge of Grecian history from, 47 Inigo Jones. _See_ Jones, Inigo Inscriptions, Arabic, 130 Invalides, church of the, 156-158 Ionic capital, 55, 56 Ionic order; 52-54; traced back, 55; capital of, 55, 56; architrave of, 56; columns of, 56; compared with Doric order, 57; combined with Doric in interior of the Parthenon, 64 Isabella and Ferdinand, reign of, 145 Isis, temple of, 18 Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, 16 Italy; architecture of; 87; Byzantine order in southern part of, 111; best days of architecture in, 144 Jaen (Granada); cathedral of, 146 Jay, Hon. John, home of, 184 Jerusalem, temple of; Gateway Huldah of, 44; design of, proving Roman influence, 45 Jones, Inigo (architect); 166; designer of Chiswick House, 167; designer of Wilton House, 167 Jordan, ruins beyond, 44 Josef de Churriguera, 146 Josephus, proving time of building temple of Jerusalem, 45 Judea; art-history of, 44; ruins of, at Jerusalem, Baalbec, Palmyra, and Petra, 44 Justinian (Emperor), and St. Sophia, 119 Kaitbey, mosque at, 125 Karnak, palace-temple of; 8-12; Hypostyle Hall in, 10 Khedive of Egypt, Ismail Pasha, 16 Khorsabad, palace of, 26 La Scala, Milan, 180 Lateran, palace of, 81 Leonardo da Vinci, 153 Library of St. Mark's (Venice), 142 Liverpool, St. George's Hall at, 169 Livy, works of, 134 Longfellow, home of, 184 Louis I. (Bavaria), and revival of Greek art, 173, 175 Louis XIII. (France), and classic architecture, 161 Louis XIV. (France), and revival of classic architecture, 162 Louis XV. (France), 158 Louis Philippe, 162 Louvre (Paris), 160 Lowell, James Russell, home of, 184 Ludwig Strasse (Munich), architectural failure, 177 Luther and castle of Wartburg, 111 Lyons, new Bourse in, 162 Lysicrates, monument of, 67 Madeleine, church of the, 160 Malaga, churches of, 146 Mans, monastery at, 103 Mansard, Jules Hardouin, 156 Marburg, 110 Marcus Scaurus, 80 Marseilles, exchange at, 162 Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, 68 Mausolus, 69, 70 Maxentius, basilica of, 79 Mecca, 123 Medinet Habou, house at, 16 Mehemet Ali, 15 Memorial Hall (Cambridge), 188 Memphis, ruins of, used in new buildings, 7 Metope, 53 Michael Angelo, and church of S. Maria Degli Angeli, 80; and St. Peter's (Rome), 138-140 Middle Ages; Italian towers of, 111; prosperity of architecture of (Venice), 114 Middle period in America, 184 Milan, La Scala of, 180 Minarets of mosques, 125 Minerva. _See_ Athena Modern architecture; imitative, 133; since Renaissance, 133; in Italy, 134; three eras of, in Spain, 146; in Germany, 173; diversity of style of, in United States, 186 Mohammed, 123 Mokattam Mountains, 4 Monks of Middle Ages, 102 Monolith of the Gateway Holdah, 44 Monuments in France, 164 Monza, cathedral of, 92 Moresco or Moorish order, 106, 123 Morris, General, and "Old Morrisania," 184 Morrisania, 184 Mosaics of St. Sophia, 120 Mosque; at Cairo, 123; minarets of same, 125; near Cairo, 125 Mosque of Cordova, 126; De Amicis, concerning, 126; naves of, 127; marbles of, 127; columns of, 127, 128 Mosque of Kaitboy, 125 Mother of God, church of (Constantinople), 123 Muezzin, the call of, 125, 126 Munich; modern architecture of, 173, 174; church of St. Ludwig at, 175; Ruhmeshalle at, 176; glyptothek of, 177 Museum; of Berlin, 177; at Oxford, 170, 171 Music halls, 180 Mutules, 65 Mycenæ, 48 Mythology, 47 Napoleon I.; and pyramids, 3; tomb of, 158; inscription from will of, 158; Car of Victory, trophy of, 173 Napoleon III., 162, 166 Nebuchadnezzar; and "Hanging Gardens," 30; and Birs-i-Nimrud, 32 Neo-Byzantine order, 117 Neo-Grec order, 166 Nero (Emperor), temple of Diana robbed by, 61 New museum at Oxford, 170, 171 New theatre, Dresden, 177 Newton, discoverer of sculptures at Halicarnassus, 70 New World, discovery of, 145 New York, Trinity Church in, 188 Nile, near Thebes, 14 Nineveh; walls of, 21; gateways of, 21; ornamentation of gateways of, 23; palaces of, 27 Norman Conquest, 116 Northern Spain, Arabs of, 128 Obelisk; now in Paris, 13; at Alexandria, 15; Cleopatra's Needles, 15; expressing worship, 16; in Central Park, New York, 16; the Assyrian, 28, 29 "Odyssey," knowledge of Grecian history from, 47 "Old Morrisania," 184 Opera House (Paris), 180 Order. _See_ Gothic, Moresco or Moorish, Civil, Neo-Byzantine, _Neo-Grec_, Romanesque, Byzantine, Saracenic Order of the Garter, symbol of, 89 Oriental art; characteristics of, 59; and the caryatid, 59 Oxford, new museum at, 170 Painted glass and Gothic architecture, 100 Palace; of Khorsabad, 27; of Ecbatana, 34; of Susa, 34; of Artaxerxes Ochus, 38; of Darius, 38; of Xerxes, 38; of Diocletian at Spalatro, 86; of the Escurial, 147, 149; of Versailles, 162; of Whitehall, 166; of Hampton, 169; of Winchester, 169 Palaces; of Assyria, 23-26; of Nineveh, 27 Palace-temples, Egyptian, 8 Palais du Trocadéro, 165 Pantheon (Rome); 76-78; rotunda and porch of, 76; preservation of, 77; inscription on portico of, 77; burial-place of Raphael and Annibale Caracci, 78 Pantheon (Paris), 158; and _see_ church of St. Genevieve Parapet of Ducal Palace, Venice, 142 Paris; rebuilt, 162; the boulevards of, 164; new opera house of, 180 Parthenon (Athens); 53, 54; built of Pentelic marble, 64; of Doric order of architecture, 64; erected under care of Phidias, 64; sculptures of, 64 Paul Silentiarius and description of St. Sophia, 120 Pediment, 54 Pepperell, Sir William, 184 Pericles at Athens, 61 Peristyle, 52 Persepolis; great palace near, 36-38; spring residence of Persian kings, 42 Persia; inscriptions found in, 21; palaces of, 34; taught by Assyria and Babylonia, 34; platforms of, 36; regularity of architecture of, 43; faults of architecture of, 44 Peruzzi, 140 Pharaoh, and tombs at Beni-Hassan, 6 Phidias; and Athena Promachos, 62; Parthenon erected under care of, 64; sculptures executed by, 64 Philæ; temple on island of, 18; buildings at, 19 Philip II. of Spain; and decline of Spanish art, 145; and the Escurial, 146; cell of, in the Escurial, 149; chair of, 150 Piazza of St. Mark (Venice), 142 Picture Gallery, Dresden, 177 Piers, Egyptian, 11 Pilasters, 52; 127; (and _see_ Antæ) Pillar of the Gateway Huldah, 44 Pillars; of Great Hall of Audience, 38-41; of Doric order, 52; of San Miniato, 116; of Ducal Palace, 142; (and _see_ Columns) Pinacotica, near Baths of Caracalla, 81 Pinakothek (Dresden), 177 Pitti Palace, gallery of, 138, 154 Platerisco, 146 Platforms, Persian, 36 Pope, the, and Italian art, 154 Porches of Northern Italy, 112 Porte St. Denis (Paris), 164 Portico; of basilica of St. Mark's, 115; of the Court of Lions, 130; the Ruhmeshalle, 176; of Capitol at Washington, 183 Praxiteles and temple of Diana, 60, 61 Priene, temple of Athena at, 55 Priests, patrons of art during Middle Ages, 102 Primaticcio, 153 Prince Louis of Thuringia, 110 Promachos (_see_ Athena), 62 Propylæa; Assyrian, 24; of Acropolis, 62, 64 Proto-Doric order, 7 Ptolemies, 17 Public Library of Munich, 177 Pyramids of Cheops; 2; size of, 3; interior of, 4 Pyramids of Ghizeh; 3; tombs near, 5 Quatrefoil, 142 "Queen Anne style" in America, 186 Rameses the Great. _See_ Colossi. Raphael, 140 Ratisbon, the Walhalla near, 178 Reformation, the, 133 Religion; influencing Egyptian art, 8; a factor in national architecture, 9 Renaissance; 104; 134; buildings erected in Italy during, 142; and Leonardo da Vinci, 145; and Michael Angelo, 145; and Raphael, 145; in England, 166 Richelieu (cardinal), 154 "Ritter George," 111 Roman theatre, first, 80 Romanesque order, 87 Romanesque and Byzantine orders mingled, 122 Rome; ruled by Etruscans, 71; acqueducts and bridges of, 74; earliest works of, directed by Etruscans, 74; growth of Composite order in, 75; temples of, 76; interior architecture of, 76; Pantheon of, 76-78; basilicas of, 78; decline of art in, 80; theatres of, 80; triumphal arches of, 81; tombs of, 83-86; domestic architecture of, 85; influence of classic literature in, 133; St. Peter's at, 138-140 Rood-screens, 107 Rose windows, 102 Rouen, custom house at, 162 Royal Palace at Munich, 177 Ruhmeshalle (Munich); columns of, 176; statue in front of, 176 Ruins; Assyrian, 21; Judean, 44; of temple of Diana, at Ephesus, 60 Ruskin, John; and Ducal Palace (Venice), 142; teaching of, 171 St. Bride's (Fleet Street), 168 St. Elizabeth of Hungary, 110 St. Eustache, church of (Paris), 154 St. Genevieve, church of (Paris), 158 St. George's Hall, Liverpool, 169 St. Germain; 103, 173 St. James's (Piccadilly), church of, 168 St. John Lateran, 89 St. Ludwig, church of (Munich), 175 St. Mark's (Venice), 114; piazza of, 114; portico of, 115 St. Mark's, Library of (Venice), 114 St. Paul's, cathedral of (London), 167 St. Paul's, Covent Garden, 166, 167 St. Paul's without the Walls; 88; bronze gates of, 89; columns of, 89 St. Peter's (Rome); as compared with palace-temple, 8; dome and cross of, 138; and Michael Angelo, 138-140; begun and finished, 138-140; criticised, 140 St. Quentin, battle of, 146 St. Sophia, church of (Constantinople); green jasper columns of, 61; 117; and Justinian, 119; Gibbon's description of, 119; Paul Silentiarius's description of, 120 St. Vitale, church of (Ravenna), 123 San Carlo, opera house of (Naples), 180 San Miniato, church of (Florence), 115, 116 San Paolo fuori della Mura. _See_ St. Paul's without the Walls Sansovino, 142 Sta. Maria del Fiore. _See_ cathedral of Florence Sta. Maria Degli Angeli, church of, and Michael Angelo, 80 Saraceni. _See_ "the Easterns" Saracenic architecture, 123, 124; principal homes of, 126; study of, 132 Sargon, 26 Scaurus, Marcus, 80 Schliemann, 48 Sculpture Gallery of Munich, 177 Sculptures; executed by Phidias, 64; Gothic use of, in decoration, 107 Segovia, churches of, 146 Semiramis (Queen), and "Hanging Gardens," 30 Sennacherib, 26 Septimius Severus; and Pantheon, 77; arch of, 82; wife of, 82 Sepulchres, 85 (and _see_ Tombs) Seti I., tomb of, 7 Sforza, Francesco, 144 Shaft of Tuscan column, 76 Shrines of Babylon, riches of, 31, 32 Shushan, 42 Sicilian architecture, remarkable style of, 116 Sicily, Christian art of, 116 Soufflot (architect), 158 Spain; and Gothic art, 104, 105; and Moorish architecture, 123; and classic art, 134; from time of fall of Granada, 145; modern architecture of, 146; domestic architecture of, 152; people of, as artists, and Fergusson, 152, 153 Sphinx, 13 Spires, 98 Staircase of temple of Diana (Ephesus), 60 Staircases of Persepolis, 36 Statue of Bavaria, 176 Statues of the Escurial, 149, 150 Street of the Tripods, 68 Suphis. _See_ Cheops Susa, palace of, 34 Sutri, 72 Syene, granite of, in pyramids, 4 Symbol of Order of the Garter, 89 Symbolism of Gothic ornament, 107, 108 Tacitus, 134 Tapestries of Escurial, 149 Temple; of Karnak, 13; of Luxor, 13; of Denderah, 17; of Philæ, 17; influenced by Egypt, in building, 17; of Birs-i-Nimrud, 32; of Jerusalem, 44, 45; earliest style of, in Greece, 48; of Athena at Priene, 55; of Diana at Ephesus, 60, and Praxiteles, 60, 61, and Theodosius I. (Emperor), 61, burned by Goths, 61, robbed by Nero, 61; the Erechtheium as a, 65; of Vesta, 89 Temple Court of palace of Khorsabad, 27 Temples; of Babylon, 30; of Rome, 76; in the Court of the Lions, 130 Tenia, 52 Thais, 34 Theatres; of Rome, 80; list of most important, 179 Thebes; "Tombs of the Kings" near, 7; grandeur of ruins of, 7,8 Theodolinda; 90; iron crown of, 92 Theodosius I., and temple of Diana, 61; and St. Paul's without the Walls, 88 Theresa, Queen of Louis I. of Bavaria, 176 Theresienhöhe, 177 Thermæ, 80 Titus, arch of, 82 Tomb; of Seti I., 7; of Cyrus, 42, 43; of Darius, 43; of Mausolus, 69, 70; of Hadrian, 84 Tombs; at Beni-Hassan, 5; near Pyramids, 5; "of the kings," near Thebes, 7; Persian, 42; exploration of Persian, 43; Etruscan, 73; of Rome, 83-86 Toscanelli, 138 Tower; of Birs-i-Nimrud, 32; of Giotto, 112 Towers; of Babylonish temples, 31; in Gothic architecture, 98; of Italy, in Middle Ages, 111; of Westminster Abbey, 168 (and _see_ Campanile) Trajan; basilica of, 79; and arch of Beneventum, 82 Triglyphs, 53 Trinity Church; Paris, 160; Boston, 188; New York, 188 Tripod, 68 Trojan war, 47 Troy, Schliemann's discoveries at, 48 Tudor age, Gothic style in, 170 Tumuli, 73 Tuscan order, 75, 76 Ula, the, 126 United States; capitols of, 181; first buildings of, 181; classic architecture and, 182; cella divided in, 182; characteristic types of edifices in, 188 University of Munich, 177 Valentinian II., 88 Valladolid, cathedral of, 146 Van Rensselaer homestead, 184 Vatican compared with palace-temple, 8 Venice, architecture of, 114 Versailles, palace of, 162 Vesta, temple of, 89 Vignon, 160 Villa Borghese, palace of, 81 Walhalla, 178, 179 Walls; of Nineveh, 21; of Babylon, 29 War office (Munich), 177 Wartburg, castle on, 109 Washington (U. S.), national capitol at, 182 Washington, George, and national capital, 182 Wren, Sir Christopher, 167, 168, 169 Wyatville, Sir Jeffrey, 170 Xerxes, 37, 38 Zahra, 129 Transcriber's Notes: Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical errors were corrected. Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved between paragraphs and some illustrations have been moved closer to the text that references them. Uncaptioned illustrations are decorative Headpieces or the publisher's logo on the Title page. Most Index entries that did not match the referenced text have been changed when the differences were hyphenation or accent marks. However, the Index entries for "Neo-Grec" have not been changed to "Néo-Grec". Index entries were not checked for accuracy. 
4390	----	None 
44334	----	Every attempt has been made to replicate the original as printed. Some typographical errors have been corrected; a list follows the text. Illustration markings have been moved from mid-paragraph for ease of reading. The printed French has not been corrected or modernized. (etext transcriber's note) CHANTILLY [Illustration: _Mary Stuart at the age of nine years from the drawing in the Musée Condé at Chantilly._] CHANTILLY IN HISTORY AND ART BY LOUISE M. RICHTER (MRS. J. P. RICHTER) WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1913 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO MY DEAR FRIEND MRS. LUDWIG MOND THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED PREFACE My first visit to Chantilly was in April 1904, when the Exhibition of the French Primitives at the Pavillon Marsan, following close on that at Bruges, raised interest and comment far outside the boundaries of France. I visited the Musée Condé with the intention of studying some more examples of the French fifteenth-and sixteenth-century art which had so much attracted me in Paris. The high expectations I had conceived were not disappointed, and the result was that my studies in that marvellous collection were prolonged. Weeks grew into months. The Limbourgs, Jean Fouquet, and the Clouets held me in their spell; the Château of Chantilly, with the history of its famous owners, aroused my interest more and more. Through the great courtesy of the late M. Anatol Gruyer and of M. Gustave Macon, Directors of the Musée Condé, I was given access to all the art-treasures within its walls and I was allowed to while away my time with the famous miniatures and drawings and with the pictures in which I was so much interested. Tranquil and undisturbed, often quite alone, meeting now and then only the furtive glance of one or other of the Museum attendants, who were always ready at hand to be of service, I was enabled to pursue my studies without interruption, owing to the great kindness of my friend M. Macon. The excellent Library, too, was at my disposal, as well as the manuscripts in the Cabinet des Livres. Nor was that all. When at the end of the day the Museum doors were closed I could walk in the vast park of the Château along its shady avenues and watch the swans gliding on the silent waters, whilst the autumn leaves were the sport of the varying breezes. In that unbroken solitude Time, now long past, brought before me once more kings and queens, courtiers and warriors, ladies of beauty and fame: and amid my reveries I seemed to recognise the well-known faces whose representations I had just left in the galleries within. For was it not here, in these woods and on these lakes, that they had lived and feasted in the manner recorded in the chronicles of their time? Thus, irresistibly attracted by degrees, I conceived the idea of writing about the history and the art at Chantilly: and I undertook a task which grew gradually in my hands to dimensions that at first I had not anticipated. My chief study, as mentioned above, was intended to be on the French fifteenth-and sixteenth-century artists which the Duc d'Aumale so successfully collected. To the Italian and the Northern Schools and the later French periods at the Musée Condé I have purposely given but a passing mention, since they are equally well or better represented in other galleries. The Bibliography which I have appended shows that much has been written on early French Art in France, especially during the last fifteen years; and I feel greatly indebted to authors such as Comte Leopold Delisle, Comte Paul Durrieu, MM. George Lafenestre, Anatol Gruyer, Louis Dimier, Gustave Macon, Moreau Nelaton, Sir Claude Phillips, Mr. Roger Fry and others, by whose works I have greatly profited, as also by my husband's expert knowledge. But no book exactly covering this ground has as yet been written in the English language. More than special acknowledgment and thanks are due to Mr. Robert H. Hobart Cust for his help and valuable suggestions. In the arduous task of revising the proofs of this book he was assisted by my son Mr. F. J. P. Richter. I have also great pleasure in expressing my deep gratitude to my dear friend Mrs. Ludwig Mond, whose constant encouragement was of inestimable value to me. I am indebted to Mr. Murray for the personal interest he has so kindly shown in the many details which this work entails. LOUISE M. RICHTER. _London, October 1913._ CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE.....vii AUTHORITIES CONSULTED.....xxv FIRST PART _CHANTILLY AND ITS HISTORY_ CHAPTER I CHANTILLY AND ITS OWNERS: THE MONTMORENCYS The Origin of Chantilly; the Gallo-Roman Cantillius; the Seigneurs of Senlis; the Orgemonts; the Montmorencys; the Great Constable of France; he builds the Petit-Château; the architects Jean Bullant and Pierre des Iles; the fair Charlotte de Montmorency; Henri IV madly in love with her; the last Montmorency condemned to the scaffold by Richelieu; Chantilly becomes the property of the French Crown.....3 CHAPTER II CHANTILLY AND THE CONDÉS The origin of the Condés; their adherence to the Protestant Faith; Eléonore de Roy, Princesse de Condé, a staunch Huguenot; the two brothers, Antoine de Navarre and Louis I de Bourbon Condé; Catherine de Medicis sides with Condé in order to counterbalance the ascendancy of the Guises; she succeeds in estranging him from his wife; severe censure of Calvin; premature death of the Prince de Condé; his son Henri de Bourbon succeeds to the title; he sends all his family jewels to Queen Elizabeth to help the Huguenot cause; Charlotte de la Trémoille his second wife; his death; his son Henri II is heir to the Crown until the birth of Louis XIII; he is imprisoned for political reasons by Richelieu; his release; Louis XIII on his deathbed gives back Chantilly to its rightful owners.....16 CHAPTER III THE GRAND CONDÉ The Duc d'Enghien; his _mariage de convenance_ with Claire-Clemence; his attachment to Marthe de Vigeau; Richelieu appoints him General of the French army; the Hero of Rocroy; after his father's death he assumes his title but is styled the Grand Condé; his victories at Fribourg, Nördlingen, and Lens; he puts down the Fronde and brings the boy-king Louis XIV back to Paris.....33 CHAPTER IV CLAIRE-CLEMENCE, PRINCESSE DE CONDÉ The enmity between Mazarin and Condé; the latter and his brother Conti are arrested; the courageous efforts made by Claire-Clemence to liberate her husband; her flight from Chantilly; Turenne escorts her to Bordeaux where she is received with great enthusiasm; Paris clamours for the release of Condé; the Queen is obliged to send Mazarin with an unconditional order for this purpose; his entry into Paris; he expresses his gratitude to the Princess his wife; new difficulties arise; Condé's alliance with Spain; he leaves France and goes over to the enemy.....47 CHAPTER V CONDÉ'S ALLIANCE WITH SPAIN Condé is defeated by Turenne at Dunkirk; the Peace of the Pyrenees is signed; Condé is reinstated in all his rights; he returns to Chantilly and lives there in retirement; Le Nôtre lays out the gardens and park; Condé invents a hydraulic machine to receive the waters of the Nonette; Mansart arrives at Chantilly and begins his alterations to the old feudal castle.....59 CHAPTER VI FESTIVITIES AT CHANTILLY The marriage of the Duc d'Enghien with Anne of Bavaria; Claire-Clemence is neglected by her husband; her health breaks down; a mysterious affair; she proclaims her innocence; she is banished to the fortress of Châteauroux; great festivities at Chantilly; Louis XIV and his Queen Maria Theresa visit Chantilly.....69 CHAPTER VII THE GRAND CONDÉ A WARRIOR ONCE MORE Louis XIV after the death of Philip IV of Spain asserts the Flemish rights of his wife; he suddenly declares war, and summons the Grand Condé and Turenne to lead the French army; Condé conquers Franche-Comté and the King makes Lille a French town; William of Orange inundates the whole of Holland to save it from invasion by the French; the Grand Condé is wounded; he returns to Chantilly; not yet recovered, he is summoned back by the King; Turenne is confronted by Montecucoli and meets his death near Salzburg; Condé by his brilliant operations preserves Turenne's army and shuts out Montecucoli from Alsace, thus terminating this great campaign; Madame de Sevigné, Bossuet, Corneille, Racine, and Molière at Chantilly; death of the Grand Condé.....78 CHAPTER VIII THE LAST CONDÉS Succession of Henri Jules de Bourbon; he carries out his father's wishes with regard to Chantilly; he is succeeded by his son Louis III, who outlives him but a short time; Louis Henri de Bourbon inherits the title when only eighteen; he builds the great stables; Louis XV visits Chantilly and is magnificently entertained; the Prince de Condé is made Prime Minister of France in 1723; influence of the Marquise de Prie over the Prince; after her death he marries a princess of Rhinfeld; the young châtelaine of Chantilly is greatly admired by Louis XV; he pays frequent visits to the Château; his death; the succession of the infant Louis Joseph de Bourbon in 1740; he marries Charlotte de Rohan-Soubise; their only son Louis Henri Joseph marries at the age of sixteen a Princess d'Orléans; Marie Antoinette visits Chantilly as Dauphine; the Comte and Comtesse du Nord at Chantilly; a famous hunting party; Princesse Louise de Condé and the Marquis de Gervaisais; an able speech in Parliament by the Duc d'Enghien when only sixteen years of age; the Revolution breaks out; the Condés leave France.....89 CHAPTER IX CHANTILLY DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION Chantilly deserted; the Château devastated and used as a prison for political offenders; the so-called Black Band razes the Grand Château to the ground; Chantilly becomes State property under Napoleon; the Prince de Condé head of the French emigrés; he and his regiment subsequently find refuge in Russia; his arrival in England; his simple home at Wanstead; the tragic death of the Duc d'Enghien; the collapse of the French Empire; the Prince de Condé returns to Chantilly; he restores his ancestral mansion, and dies; the last of the Condés selects his nephew, Prince Henri d'Orléans, as his heir.....106 CHAPTER X THE DUC D'AUMALE AND LORD OF CHANTILLY The Duc d'Aumale owner of Chantilly; Chantilly the French Epsom; the heir of the Condés at Algiers; his victory at La Smalah; his marriage with Princess Caroline de Bourbon, daughter of the Prince of Salerno; Chantilly the home of the newly married pair; their son and heir named Prince de Condé; Louis-Philippe pays a visit to Chantilly; the Duke takes the command of the French Army in Algeria; the Duc d'Aumale in exile; his home at Twickenham; death of his eldest son; death of the Duchess; the Duke returns to Chantilly after the fall of the Second Empire; sudden death of the Duc de Guise, his only surviving son; the architect Daumet undertakes to rebuild the Grand Château; visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to Chantilly; the Republic pronounces sentence of banishment on all claimants to the throne of France; the Duc d'Aumale included in this decree; he returns to England; his home at Wood Norton; he publicly announces his intention to leave Chantilly with all its forests, parks and art-treasures to the French nation; President Carnot signs a decree that France will welcome him back; he returns to Chantilly amid great rejoicings of the people; the sculptor Dubois is commissioned to erect his statue at Chantilly.....116 SECOND PART _THE MUSÉE CONDÉ_ CHAPTER XI THE ART TREASURES OF THE MUSÉE CONDÉ The Duc d'Aumale joins the ranks of the great European collectors; his pronounced taste as a bibliophile; he purchases the Standish Library in 1851; the _Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry_ are acquired in 1855; the Reiset Collection of 380 drawings is bought in 1861; an exhibition is organised at Orleans House; Disraeli's speech; the first French drawings acquired from the Utterson sale; the Pourtales Vase and the Minerva; the Madonna of the _Maison d'Orléans_; the Sutherland collection of French drawings is purchased; the portrait of _Antoine de Bourgogne_; the Carmontelle Collection is added; the Reiset Collection of paintings acquired; Victor Hugo addresses a letter to the Duc d'Aumale on his election as member of the Institut de France; Raphael's _Three Graces_ purchased from the Earl of Dudley; over 300 French drawings are acquired from Lord Carlisle; the Duc d'Aumale makes his last important acquisition--the forty miniatures by Fouquet from the _Book of Hours_ of Etienne Chevalier.....129 CHAPTER XII FRENCH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS AT CHANTILLY A note in the _Inventory_ of the Duc de Berry mentions Pol de Limbourg and his brothers as the authors of the _Très Riches Heures_; Fouquet mentioned by François Robertet, Secretary to Pierre de Beaujeu Duc de Bourgogne; the Cabinet des Livres of the Duc d'Aumale; the _Psalter_ of Queen Ingeburge; the _Breviary_ of Jeanne d'Evreux; the _Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry_ discovered at a villa near Genoa.....154 CHAPTER XIII THE _TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY_ This work marks an important epoch in the history of French Art; the _Calendar Months_ by Pol de Limbourg (the eldest brother); the scenes from the _Life of Christ_ joint work of the three brothers; _the Zodiac_; _the Plan of Rome_; the Duc de Berry a collector of medals; his sudden death interrupts the completion of his _Livre d'Heures_; Jean Colombe, half a century later, undertakes the painting of the remaining miniatures; his mediocre workmanship.....165 CHAPTER XIV JEAN FOUQUET OF TOURS Court-Painter to Charles VII and Louis XI; inspired by the work of the Limbourgs; a similar inclination for landscapes in his backgrounds; Etienne Chevalier, Treasurer of France, his patron; the forty miniatures by Fouquet at Chantilly; Fouquet well known in Italy as a painter; commissioned to make a portrait of _Pope Eugenius IV_; mentioned by Vasari; his impressions in Italy shown in the miniatures at Chantilly and in the MS. of the _Antiquitates Judæorum_; his strong individuality; his sense of humour and other characteristics.....179 CHAPTER XV JEAN PERRÉAL AND BOURDICHON Bourdichon's name found upon cartridge-cases made out of old accounts and contracts; the _Prayer-Book_ of Anne de Bretagne and its ornamentation of flowers; Perréal painter to the Duc Pierre de Bourbon; studies Fouquet's work at Moulins; the miniatures of the MS. of _St. Michel_ in the Bibliothèque Nationale attributed to Perréal by Durrieu; affinity between the angels in the MS. and those in the triptych at Moulins; why the original drawings of the _Preux de Marignan_ are likely to be by Jean Perréal rather than by Jean Clouet; the handwriting of Perréal identified on the back of a drawing attributed to him; the Tournois tapestries; Perréal mentioned in the Royal Accounts as Architect and Sculptor; his medals representing _Louis XII_ and _Anne de Bretagne_ in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and in the Wallace Collection.....196 CHAPTER XVI JEAN CLOUET Migrates to France; settles at Tours; marries Jeanne Boucault; his portrait of _Oronce Finé_ exists only in an engraving; his craftsmanship of a more elaborate nature than that of Perréal; the _Duc de Guise_ and the unknown man at Hampton Court; his portrait of _Francis I_ in the Louvre; _Queen Claude_ and her sister _Renée_; numerous drawings to be attributed to Jean Clouet; his characteristics.....211 CHAPTER XVII FRANÇOIS CLOUET AND HIS FOLLOWERS Favoured by Francis I; he adheres at first to parental teaching; _Mary Stuart_ in her girlhood by Germain le Mannier; _Mary Stuart_ as Dauphine and as Queen of France; _Francis II_; _Charles IX_ by François Clouet; his exquisite drawing of _Margot de France_ at Chantilly; portrait of _Pierre Quthe_ at the Louvre; the portrait of _Odet de Coligny_ at Chantilly; _Catherine de Medicis_ as a collector; her handwriting identified on the margins of drawings at Chantilly, and elsewhere; Corneille de Lyon and the _Dauphin François_; Jean de Court court-painter to Henri III; Carron and the brothers Lagneau; Daniel Dumoustier; his portrait of _Henri, Duc de Guise_; the Quesnels, court-painters to the first Bourbon Kings; the painting of Gabrielle d'Estrées and her two sons at Chantilly.....227 CHAPTER XVIII FROM NICOLAS POUSSIN TO COROT _Dr. Fagon_ by Mathias le Nain; Nicolas Poussin; his drawing of _Daphne_; Gaspar Poussin; Claude Lorraine; Mignard and his portrait of _Molière_; the portrait of _Louis XIV_ by Rigaud; Largillière and his portrait of a _friend of the Condés_; he painted _Liselotte as a Naiad_; the _Princesse de Condé_, wife of Louis Joseph, by Nattier; Desportes and Oudry; a copy by Boucher of a portrait of _Watteau_ by himself; the relations between Crozat and Watteau; Lancret adopts Watteau's style; _Madame Adelaide de France_ by Latour; the portrait of _Georgette_ by Greuze; the small portraits of the Royal Bourbons and of the _Bourbon Condés_ by Fragonard; Ingres; Delaroche and Eugène Delacroix; Descamps represented by no less than ten paintings; Fromentin's _Arab Chiefs hawking in the Sahara_; Meissonier and his great pupil Detaille; Corot and the Barbizon School; the tomb of the Duc d'Aumale by Dubois.....248 INDEX.....279 LIST OF PLATES PLATE I. MARY STUART IN HER GIRLHOOD _Frontispiece_ _Germain le Mannier, Musée Condé._ FACING PAGE II. GUILLAUME DE MONTMORENCY 4 _Attributed to Perréal, Musée Condé._ III. THE CHÂTEAU DE CHANTILLY 6 IV. ANNE DE MONTMORENCY 8 _François Clouet, Musée Condé._ V. HENRI II DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDÉ 12 _School of François Clouet, Musée Condé._ " GENEVIÈVE DE BOURBON 12 _Beaubrun, Musée Condé._ VI. ANTOINE DE BOURBON 16 " CHARLOTTE DE LA TRÉMOILLE 16 _School of Francois Clouet, Musée Condé._ VII. LOUIS I DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDÉ 18 " HENRI I DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDÉ 18 _School of François Clouet, Musée Condé._ VIII. FRANCIS II 20 _François Clouet, Bibliothèque Nationale._ IX. JEANNE D'ALBRET, QUEEN OF NAVARRE 22 _François Clouet, Musée Condé._ X. CATHERINE DE MEDICIS 26 _Attributed to Corneille de Lyon, Musée Condé._ " HENRI II 26 _François Clouet, Biblothèque Nationale._ XI. THE GRAND CONDÉ 36 _David Teniers, Musée Condé._ XII. THE VIRGIN AS PROTECTOR OF THE HUMAN RACE 42 _E. Charonton and Vilatte, Musée Condé._ " THE TOMB OF THE DUC AND DUCHESSE DE BRETAGNE IN THE CATHEDRAL AT NANTES 42 _Executed after Designs by Perréal._ XIII. CHANTILLY BEFORE 1687 50 XIII. CHANTILLY IN THE TIME OF THE GRAND CONDÉ 50 XIV. ANTOINE DE BOURGOGNE, CALLED LE GRAND BÂTARD 62 _Memling, Musée Condé._ XV. MOLIÈRE 84 _Mignard, Musée Condé._ XVI. CHARLOTTE DE ROHAN SOUBISE, PRINCESSE DE CONDÉ 96 _Nattier, Musée Condé._ XVII. LOUIS JOSEPH DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDÉ 104 _Madame de Tott, Musée Condé._ XVIII. LOUIS HENRI JOSEPH DE BOURBON, LAST PRINCE DE CONDÉ 114 _Danloux, Musée Condé._ XIX. HENRI D'ORLÉANS, DUC D'AUMALE 124 _Léon Bonnat, Musée Condé._ XX. THE "MINERVA" OF CHANTILLY 136 _Greek Bronze, Musée Condé._ XXI. THE "MADONNA" OF THE HOUSE OF ORLÉANS 140 _Raphael, Musée Condé._ XXII. A GAME OF CHESS 144 _Carmontelle, Musée Condé._ XXIII. THE MYSTIC MARRIAGE OF ST. FRANCIS 146 _Sassetta, Musée Condé._ " PORTRAIT OF SIMONETTA VESPUCCI 146 _Piero di Cosimo, Musée Condé._ XXIV. THE THREE GRACES 148 _Raphael, Musée Condé._ XXV. THE STORY OF ESTHER 150 _School of Sandro Botticelli, Musée Condé._ XXVI. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": PLAN OF ROME 152 _Pol de Limbourg and his Brothers, Musée Condé._ XXVII. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": JANUARY 154 _Pol de Limbourg, Musée Condé._ XXVIII. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": FEBRUARY 156 _Pol de Limbourg, Musée Condé._ XXIX. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": APRIL 158 _Pol de Limbourg, Musée Condé._ XXX. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": MAY 160 _Pol de Limbourg, Musée Condé._ XXXI. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": JUNE 162 _Pol de Limbourg, Musée Condé._ XXXII. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": JULY 164 _Pol de Limbourg, Musée Condé._ XXXIII. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": AUGUST 166 _Pol de Limbourg, Musée Condé._ XXXIV. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": OCTOBER 168 _Pol de Limbourg, Musée Condé._ XXXV. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": DECEMBER 170 _Pol de Limbourg, Musée Condé._ XXXVI. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": THE ZODIAC 172 _Pol de Limbourg and his Brothers, Musée Condé._ XXXVII. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": THE PROCESSION OF THE MAGI 174 _Pol de Limbourg and his Brothers, Musée Condé._ XXXVIII. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": THE FALL OF THE REBEL ANGELS 176 _Pol de Limbourg and his Brothers, Musée Condé._ XXXIX. THE "TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY": THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN 178 _Pol de Limbourg and his Brothers, Musée Condé._ XL. ETIENNE CHEVALIER AND HIS PATRON SAINT 180 _Jean Fouquet, Musée Condé._ XLI. THE VIRGIN WITH THE INFANT CHRIST 181 _Jean Fouquet, Musée Condé._ XLII. THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN 182 _Jean Fouquet, Musée Condé._ XLIII. THE ANNUNCIATION 184 _Jean Fouquet, Musée Condé._ XLIV. THE VISITATION 186 _Jean Fouquet, Musée Condé._ XLV. THE BIRTH OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST 188 _Jean Fouquet, Musée Condé._ XLVI. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 190 _Jean Fouquet, Musée Condé._ XLVII. THE ASCENSION 192 _Jean Fouquet, Musée Condé._ XLVIII. ALL SAINTS' DAY 194 _Jean Fouquet, Musée Condé._ XLIX. SEIGNEUR DE LA PALISSE 202 " COMTE DE LIGNY 202 _Attributed to Perréal, Musée Condé._ L. ERASMUS 204 " JUST DE TOURNON 204 _Attributed to Perréal, Musée Condé._ LI. FRANCIS I 206 _Perréal, Musée Condé._ " MINIATURES OF FRANCIS I AND CÆSAR 206 _After Perréal, British Museum._ LII. LOUIS XII 208 " ODET DE FOIX 208 _Attributed to Perréal, Musée Condé._ LIII. MEDALS OF LOUIS XII AND ANNE OF BRITTANY 210 _After Designs by Perréal, Victoria and Albert Museum._ " MEDAL OF JEAN CLOUET 210 _Victoria and Albert Museum._ LIV. THE DAUPHIN FRANÇOIS 212 _Jean Clouet, Antwerp._ LV. MONSIEUR DE NEVERS 214 _Jean Clouet, Musée Condé._ " DUC DE GUISE 214 _Jean Clouet, Musée Condé._ LVI. FRANCIS I 216 _Jean Clouet, Louvre._ LVII. QUEEN CLAUDE OF FRANCE 218 _Attributed to Perréal, Musée Condé._ " RÉNÉE DE FRANCE, DUCHESS OF FERRARA 218 _Attributed to J. Clouet, Musée Condé._ LVIII. THE DAUPHIN FRANÇOIS 220 " HENRI D'ORLÉANS 220 _Jean Clouet, Musée Condé._ LIX. MADAME VENDÔME D'ALENÇON 222 " JEANNE BOUCAULT 222 _Jean Clouet, Musée Condé._ LX. MADAME L'ESTRANGE 224 _Jean Clouet, Musée Condé._ LXI. JEANNE D'ALBRET IN HER GIRLHOOD 226 _Jean Clouet, Musée Condé._ " MADAME MARGUERITE, SISTER OF HENRI II 226 _Attributed to François Clouet, Musée Condé._ LXII. FRANCIS I 228 _Jean Clouet, Louvre._ " MARGUERITE, QUEEN OF NAVARRE, SISTER OF FRANCIS I 228 _Attributed to François Clouet, Musée Condé._ LXIII. CHARLES IX 230 _François Clouet, Vienna._ LXIV. MARY STUART AS QUEEN OF FRANCE 232 _François Clouet, Bibliothèque Nationale._ LXV. ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA, QUEEN OF FRANCE 234 _François Clouet, Bibliothèque Nationale._ " JOSSINE PISSELEU 234 _François Clouet, Musée Condé._ LXVI. PIERRE QUTHE 236 _François Clouet, Louvre._ LXVII. MARGOT OF FRANCE 238 _François Clouet, Musée Condé._ LXVIII. DIANE DE POITIERS 240 _François Clouet, Musée Condé._ LXIX. MARY TUDOR 242 _Copy after Perréal, Musée Condé._ " MADAME DE BOUILLON 242 _Attributed to J. Clouet, Musée Condé._ LXX. THE DAUPHIN FRANÇOIS AT THE AGE OF TWENTY 244 _Corneille de Lyon, Musée Condé._ LXXI. HENRI DE GUISE 246 _Dumoustier, Musée Condé._ " MARÉCHAL DE VIELVILLE 246 _François Clouet, British Museum._ LXXII. DAPHNE METAMORPHOSED INTO A LAUREL TREE 250 _Nicolas Poussin, Musée Condé._ LXXIII. LOUISE-HENRIETTE DE BOURBON CONTI 254 _J. M. Nattier, Musée Condé._ " A FRIEND OF THE CONDÉS 254 _Largillière, Musée Condé._ LXXIV. JOSEPH AND POTIPHAR'S WIFE 258 _Prud'hon, Musée Condé._ " THE GUITAR PLAYER 258 _Watteau, Musée Condé._ LXXV. YOUNG GIRL 262 _Greuze, Musée Condé._ LXXVI. ARAB CHIEFS HAWKING IN THE DESERT 272 _Eugène Fromentin, Musée Condé._ LXXVII. THE GRENADIERS AT EYLAU 274 _Détaille, Musée Condé._ LXXVIII. CONCERT CHAMPÊTRE 276 _Corot, Musée Condé._ LXXIX. TOMB OF THE DUC D'AUMALE 278 _P. Dubois, in the Cathedral at Dreux; cast at Chantilly._ AUTHORITIES CONSULTED DUC D'AUMALE: Histoire des Princes de Condé pendant le XVI et le XVII siècle. 7 vols. Paris: Calman Levy, éditeur; _Recueil Anglais Philobiblon Miscellanies_. BERENSON, BERNHARD: A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend, Stefano di Giovanni, called Sassetta, _Burlington Magazine_, 1903. Amico di Sandro, _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, 1899. The Study and Criticism of Italian Art. London: George Bell & Sons, 1901-1902. BOUCHOT, HENRI: Les Primitifs Français, Librairie de l'Art Ancien et Moderne. Les Clouets et Corneille de Lyon, Séries "Artistes Célèbres." COLVIN, SIR SIDNEY: Catalogue of Drawings at the British Museum. Selected Drawings by Old Masters in the University Galleries and in the Library at Christ-Church, Oxford. CUST, LIONEL: Some Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, _Studio_, 1897. Notes on the Authentic Portraits of Mary Queen of Scots. John Murray, 1903. The Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace and Windsor, with an Introduction and Descriptive Text. 1906. CUST, ROBERT H. HOBART: The Life of Benvenuto Cellini. A New Version. George Bell & Sons, 1910. DELISLE, COUNT LEOPOLD: Les Livres d'Heures du Duc de Berry, _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, 1884. Le Cabinet des Livres au Château de Chantilly, _Revue de l'Art Ancien et Moderne_, 1900. Les Heures du Connétable de Montmorency, etc. DILKE, LADY: French Painters of the Eighteenth Century. French Engravers and Draughtsmen. George Bell & Sons. DIMIER, LOUIS: French Paintings in the Sixteenth Century. London: Duckworth & Co. DURRIEU, COUNT PAUL: Heures de Turin avec 45 feuillets à Peintures des "Très Belles Heures." Paris: 1902. Les Débuts de Van Eyck, _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, 1903. Les Aventures de deux Splendides Livres d'Heures ayant appartenu au duc Jean de Berry, _Revue de l'Art Ancien et Moderne_, 1911. FRIEDLÄNDER, MAX: Die Votivtafel des Etienne Chevalier von Fouquet, _Jahrbuch der Königl_. _Preussischen Kunstsammlungen_, 1896. Die Brugger Leihaustellung, _Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft_. FRY, ROGER: The Exhibition of French Primitives, _Burlington Magazine_, 1904. French Painting in the Middle Ages, _Quarterly Review_, 1904. English Illuminated MSS. at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1908. GRUYER, ANATOLE: La Peinture au Château de Chantilly. Les Quarante Fouquet. LABORDE, MARQUIS LÉON: Renaissance des Arts à la Cour de France. Les ducs de Bourgogne. Études sur les Lettres, les Arts et l'Industrie pendant le XV Siècle. LAFENESTRE, GEORGE: Les Primitifs à Bruges et à Paris, 1900, 1902, 1904, _Librairie de l'Art Ancien et Moderne_. Jehan Fouquet, "Les Artistes de tous les temps." Séries B. MACON, GUSTAVE: Château de Chantilly et le Parc, _Revue de l'Art Ancien et Moderne_. Chantilly et le Musée Condé, _Librairie Renouard_. MANTZ, PAUL: La Peinture Française du IX Siècle à la fin du XVI; Alcide Picard and Kaan, éditeur. MAULDE, DE LA CLAVIÈRE: Jean Perréal; Ernest Leroux, éditeurs. MOREAU-NELATON, ETIENNE: Les Le Mannier, Peintres officiels à la cour des Valois, _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, 1901. Les Clouet, Peintres officiels des Rois de France. Le Portrait à la cour des Valois et les Crayons français du 16ième siècle conservés au Musée Condé à Chantilly, _Librairie des Beaux Arts_, rue Lafayette. NOLHAC, PIERRE DE, et ANDRÉ PÉRATÉ: Le Musée National de Versailles; Braun, Clément & Co. PHILLIPS, SIR CLAUDE: Impressions of the Bruges Exhibition, _Fortnightly Review_. Masterpieces of French Art in the Eighteenth Century in Possession of the Emperor of Germany. TURNER, P. M., and C. H. COLLINS-BAKER: Stories of the French Artists from Clouet to Delacroix. London: Chatto & Windus, 1909. WILLIAMS, H. NOEL: The Love-affairs of the Condés. Methuen & Co. FIRST PART _CHANTILLY AND ITS HISTORY_ CHAPTER I CHANTILLY AND ITS OWNERS THE MONTMORENCYS The Château of Chantilly, now known as the Musée Condé, the magnificent gift so generously bequeathed to the French nation by the late Duc d'Aumale, has experienced great changes and passed through many vicissitudes. At a very early date a Gallo-Roman, by name Cantillius, fixed his abode upon an isolated rock, in the midst of wild forest and marshland; hence the name of Chantilly. In the ninth century we find established here the Seigneurs of Senlis, who bore the name of _Bouteillers_, from their hereditary task of wine-controllers to the Kings of France--an honorary post which they held for some centuries. But the last scion of that sturdy race, having seen his castle pillaged during the Jacquerie of 1358, died without issue. After changing hands through three decades, Chantilly in 1386 became the property of Pierre d'Orgemont, Chancellor to Charles V of France, who laid the foundations of an imposing feudal fortress, flanked by seven stately towers. Several centuries later a change again occurred in the ownership of Chantilly. By default of male issue it passed into the possession of Jean II, Baron de Montmorency, who married Marguerite, sole heiress of the Orgemonts; and with this illustrious family Chantilly emerged from comparative obscurity into historical fame. Henceforth it became a favourite centre for the leading men of France, and within its hospitable walls kings and princes found sumptuous entertainment. Matrimonial alliance in the beginning of the seventeenth century brought the property into the family of the Condés, a younger branch of the Bourbons; and later still, by the marriage of the last Prince de Condé with Princesse Bathilde d'Orléans, and the tragic death of their only son, the Duc d'Enghien, Chantilly passed into the possession of its last private owner, Prince Henri d'Orléans, Duc d'Aumale. The family of the Montmorencys was well known and famous in France during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but became extinct under Richelieu, who, for reasons of state, sent the last scion of that race, Henri de Montmorency, to the scaffold. [Illustration: Plate II. Photo. Giraudon. GUILLAUME DE MONTMORENCY. Attributed to J. Perréal. Musée Condé.] Guillaume, son of Jean de Montmorency, who married the heiress of Chantilly, joined in an expedition to Italy under Charles VIII of France. There are portraits of him in the Louvre, and at Lyons, whilst a fine crayon drawing representing him in his younger days is to be found in the portfolios of the Musée Condé. He it was who, in 1515, constructed the Chapel of the Château, obtaining from Pope Leo X a bull for its foundation. He married Anne de Pot, and their eldest son was the famous Anne de Montmorency, known as the _Grand Connétable_. Queen Anne of Brittany held him at the baptismal font, conferring upon him her own name, and he was educated with the Duc d'Angoulême, afterwards King Francis I. Anne de Montmorency in early youth distinguished himself by artistic taste, probably acquired at the Court of Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I. No sooner had he succeeded his father as Lord of Chantilly than he endeavoured to create a mansion more in accordance with the refined taste of his time. Without demolishing the fortifications and the stately towers of the Orgemonts, he succeeded in introducing more light into the mediæval chambers by piercing their walls with large windows. He hung the interior of the castle with tapestries, and furnished it richly with the artistic spoils of his expeditions into Italy. He also commenced the formation of the famous Library, subsequently continued by the Condés until it reached the fame which it enjoyed under its latest owner, the Duc d'Aumale. Under the Grand Connétable's directions were executed the forty-four painted glass windows still at Chantilly. They illustrate the legend of _Cupid and Psyche_ after cartoons by the school of Raphael, and were produced in France about 1546 by Jean Mangin and Leonard Gautier. Montmorency's artistic tastes, however, did not prevent him from being the greatest warrior of his time. Together with his maternal uncles, Gouffier de Boissy and Gouffier de Bonnivet, he was numbered among the so-called _Preux_ who fought victoriously by the side of King Francis I, at the Battle of Marignan. He followed the King to Pavia, where he was made a prisoner with his Royal master, and in 1530 he was at Bayonne, to negotiate the release of the young Princes of Valois, who had been kept as hostages by the Emperor Charles V. After the Peace of Madrid he again fought against the Imperial troops in Picardy, and it was upon this occasion that he received the title of "Great Constable" of France. In spite, however, of his great prowess he fell into disgrace with the King through the intrigues of Madame d'Estampes. As in the case of the Connétable de Bourbon, Francis I, ever fickle in his friendships, became so jealous of Montmorency's fame that the latter was obliged at last to retire to Chantilly; where he employed his time in improving this favourite abode. He constructed on an island close to the older feudal castle, the fine Renaissance palace known as the Petit-Château, which by some miracle has remained almost intact to this day. It is probable that Jean Bullant, the architect of Ecouen, was consulted with regard to this Petit-Château at Chantilly, for the style of its architecture marks the transition between the mediæval Gothic and the period of the French Renaissance, and ranks it with buildings such as the châteaux of Chambord, Chenonceaux, d'Azay le Rideau, and Langeais.[1] [Illustration: PLATE III. THE CHÂTEAU DE CHANTILLY.] This style, according to Viollet-le-Duc, grew up like the beech-trees and the willows near the Loire, and--as in the case of Chantilly--is often found side by side with feudal castles of a much older period; the owners of which, apparently unwilling to demolish their ancestral homes, preferred at the same time to occupy more modern and commodious residences. The chief distinction between the French and Italian Renaissance is that the former is less conventional and offers less regularity of style in its building. It is a style that reached its climax in the châteaux of Blois and Chambord, each of which preserves some characteristics of the nobles who erected them, although the names of the actual architects, in spite of their undoubted creative skill, remain for the most part unknown. Such is the case with the Petit-Château of Chantilly. Anne de Montmorency was an intimate friend of Diane de Poitiers, the friend and mistress of Henri II. This lady was owner of the Château of Clemonceaux, which no doubt served as a model to Montmorency when erecting his own new palace. The complete absence of documents with regard to this structure is greatly to be regretted, but the supposition that Jean Bullant, who was in constant relation with Pierre des Iles, known as "Maçon" of Chantilly, had a hand in its erection, as stated above, is by no means unreasonable. It is an architectural gem, and provoked the admiration of Leonardo da Vinci and Benvenuto Cellini, who both enjoyed hospitality within its walls. Anne de Montmorency was created Duke by Henri II, and after the sudden death of that King he succeeded in securing the goodwill of Francis II and Charles IX. Queen Catherine de Medicis cordially disliked him, but nevertheless endeavoured to use him as a tool against the Huguenot Louis I de Bourbon, Prince de Condé. In 1562 he won the battle of Dreux against Condé and Coligny, and he routed them again in 1567 at Saint-Denis, though at the sacrifice of his own life; for he was severely wounded, and died shortly afterwards in Paris. Anne de Montmorency at various stages of his life is presented in a series of French drawings, dating from 1514, as a _Preux de Marignan_, down to his old age. There also exists a drawing of his wife Madeleine de Savoie. By a fortunate coincidence these drawings--of which we shall speak later on--have found their way back to Chantilly. In the stained-glass windows of the chapel, painted in 1544, may be seen portraits of his numerous children executed by Bardon after still-existing cartoons by Lechevallier Chevignard. In order to complete the family the Duc d'Aumale commissioned the artist Guifard to add on the walls of the same chapel portraits of the great Constable and his wife. [Illustration: Photo. Giraudon. ANNE DE MONTMORENCY. François Clouet. Musée Condé.] After the death of Anne de Montmorency, his eldest son François became Lord of Chantilly. He married Diane de France, whose portrait is also amongst the drawings in this collection. She was a natural daughter of Henri II, and widow, at the early age of eighteen, of Orazio Farnese, Duca di Castro. Brantôme says of her that it was not possible to see a lady mount on horseback like her, nor with better grace. The woods of Chantilly offered great opportunities to her passion for the chase, and it was probably for this reason that, in the company of her mother-in-law, Madeleine of Savoy, she made it her principal residence. Diane, so called after her godmother Diane de Poitiers, was a great favourite with her royal brothers, and after the death of her husband became known by the title of "Duchesse d'Angoulême." Since she was childless, François de Montmorency was succeeded by his brother Henri, who distinguished himself as one of the strongest opponents of the _Ligue_. He, too, was created Constable, and subsequently assisted Henri IV in the reconquest of his kingdom. His second wife, Louise de Budos, died at the early age of twenty-three, soon after giving birth to a son and heir, called Henri after his father. Their elder child, a daughter, Charlotte, was renowned for her beauty; and Lord Herbert of Cherbury--who in his _Memoirs_ describes Chantilly at that period--expressed a wish for her portrait in order that he might show it to the Queen of England. Invited by Henri de Montmorency to make a lengthened stay at Chantilly, he was so enchanted that he calls it "an incomparably fine residence, admired by the greatest princes of Europe." He relates that the Emperor Charles V was received by the first Duc de Montmorency, Anne, the _Grand Connétable_, whilst on his way across France from Spain to the Netherlands; and that after that monarch had examined the castle with its moats, bridges, and extensive forests, he was so overcome with admiration that he said he would gladly give one of his provinces in the Netherlands for this unsurpassable residence. Lord Herbert further discourses upon the hangings of silk adorned with gold, and of the pictures, statues, and works of art in the sumptuous chambers of the Château. He also mentions the huge carp and trout in the ponds, and the merry hunting parties attended along the avenues by packs of hounds. Another great admirer of Chantilly was Henri IV, who was on terms of intimate friendship with Henri de Montmorency. This King was even accustomed to visit Chantilly during the absence of its owner, and had his own apartments there and his own garden, the so-called _Jardin du Roy_, of which he enjoyed superintending the arrangements. There was, however, another reason for his numerous surprise visits: no less an object than Charlotte, Duke Henry's beautiful daughter. Bereft of her mother, as we have seen, at an early age, she was presented at the French Court by her aunt, the Duchesse d'Angoulême, and her beauty, as described by Bentivoglio, seems to have been of so irresistible a charm that it made a deep impression on the fancy of the gallant King. So great indeed was the admiration which he displayed for the young Charlotte de Montmorency that it became a matter of public notoriety, and throws a curious light upon the famous personages of that period and their morals. Although Charlotte had not yet attained her fifteenth year, a marriage had been arranged for her with the brilliant Bassompière, at that time a great favourite with the King. His Majesty had given his consent to the marriage; but he nevertheless one day made the following proposals to Bassompière: "Listen! I wish to speak to you as a friend. I am in love with Mademoiselle de Montmorency, and that even madly. If you marry her and she loves you, I should hate you; if she loved me, she would hate you. Now, for the sake of our mutual friendship, it would be better that this marriage should not take place, for I love you with real affection and inclination. I have therefore resolved to arrange a marriage between Mademoiselle de Montmorency and my nephew the Prince de Condé in order to keep her near me. She will thus be the consolation of my old age. To my nephew, who prefers the chase to the ladies, I shall give 100,000 francs a year and claim nothing for it in return but the affection of the newly-married couple!" After this confession, poor Bassompière understood that he had better comply with the King's wishes, and the fair Charlotte was therefore married to Henri II de Bourbon, third Prince de Condé. The wedding was celebrated at Chantilly with much pomp, and the King lavished splendid jewels and rich dresses upon his new niece, making no secret of the admiration he cherished for her. He spoke of it as only a fatherly affection; but in spite of his good intentions his fancy took the character of so violent a passion that he could not control it. Condé, not insensible to what was going on, purposely retired to his remotest country-seats so as to protect his wife from the gallantries of the King; but, unable to endure her absence, Henri appeared disguised as a falconer at one of the hunting parties, whereupon Charlotte, who was present, fainted on recognising him. His distress at being separated from his "_bel ange_" was so great that even the Queen, Marie de Medicis, took pity on him, and entreated Condé to return with his charming wife to Court, and Malesherbes sang the amours of the King in glowing love-poems. Condé, considering the honour of his young wife at stake, carried her off instead to the Netherlands, on a visit to his sister the Princess of Orange. When the King heard of this he was furious, and asserted that the charming Princess had been compelled to leave her country by force. He sent a captain of his own Guard to explain the matter to the Archduchess Isabella, at that time Governess of the Netherlands, whilst Chaussé, a police official, was ordered to follow up the fugitives and prevent their reaching Belgium. Chaussé actually overtook the Princess, who, having been obliged to leave her carriage near the River Somme, had broken down after a fifteen hours' ride on horseback. [Illustration: PLATE V. HENRI II DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDÉ. GENEVIÈVE DE BOURBON. _Musée Condé._] But we cannot digress here to pursue this love-affair of Henri IV and Charlotte de Montmorency. Suffice it to say that, transferred to foreign territory, it immediately became a _cause célèbre_, and even threatened for a time to create serious political disturbances between France and Spain. The fact that the Regent of the Netherlands, in order to please both parties, allowed the Princesse de Condé to prolong her visit to the Princess of Orange but at the same time ordered her husband to leave the Netherlands within three days, was severely commented upon by the Marchese Ambrogio di Spinola, at that time representative at Brussels of the Spanish Court. This valiant captain, originally a Genoese merchant, had equipped 9,000 men at his own cost, and with them had succeeded--where so many had failed--in confronting Prince Maurice of Nassau and terminating the siege of Ostend. Reduced after this exploit to comparative inactivity, he hailed an opportunity likely to bring about a conflict between personages of such importance as Henri IV of France and the King of Spain. There was, moreover, another motive for Spinola's pertinacity in retaining the Princesse de Condé in the Netherlands in spite of the most urgent entreaties of the gallant King. He himself was also suspected of having become enamoured of that dangerous beauty, and he alleged that it was quite against Spanish etiquette that Henri II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, a Prince of the Blood Royal of France, should not have received the honours due to his rank while passing through the Netherlands. Condé, who, leaving his young wife with the Princess of Orange, had already departed to Cologne, was therefore recalled. He saw his wife, and received a gracious welcome from the Archduchess and the Prince and Princess of Orange; and then, accompanied by his secretary, in a violent snowstorm and under Spanish escort, he left for Milan, secretly determined to seek the assistance of Philip II, King of Spain, against the grievous wrong done to him by Henri IV. The gallant King enjoyed the _rôle_ of Lancelot, and the fair Charlotte was rather proud of his attentions, so that their amours became a subject of discussion and comment throughout the whole of Europe. It was even alleged that Henri IV was preparing for war against the Netherlands to obtain by force the return of the Princesse de Condé, held in bondage by the Archduchess Isabella in Flanders. This, however, was in truth but a pretext on the part of the King; for in spite of the libertinism in which His Majesty indulged on this occasion, and which seemed for the moment to overcloud his sense of right and wrong, we must remember that Henri IV always proved himself a patriot, and one whose constant endeavour it was to advance the welfare of France. We may, therefore, surmise with the late Duc d'Aumale that it was chiefly his desire to liberate Europe from the Austrian yoke, and thus give to France the position he wished her to hold--not merely the _beaux yeux_ of the Princesse de Condé--which actually induced him to prepare for war. Nevertheless he so successfully frightened the Archduchess Isabella that she agreed to let the Princess depart at last. In the midst, however, of all these unsolved problems Henri IV was suddenly struck down by the hand of Ravaillac, and as soon as the news reached Condé, who was already on his way to Spain, he immediately returned to France and made a temporary truce with the Regent, Marie de Medicis. But to his wife he seemed unforgiving, requesting her father, Henri de Montmorency, to keep her at Chantilly. CHAPTER II CHANTILLY AND THE CONDÉS The family of Condé derived their origin from the French town Henegau, in Flanders, where a certain Godefroy de Condé owned part of the barony of Condé as early as 1200. In 1335 his great-granddaughter married Jacob de Bourbon, who in due course became the ancestor of the Royal branch of the Bourbons. His second son received for his inheritance the barony of Condé, and it was one of his descendants, Louis de Bourbon, who eventually took the title of "Prince de Condé." This Louis was one of the many sons of the Duc de Vendôme, only surviving brother of the famous Constable, Charles de Bourbon, who met a premature death at the Sack of Rome in 1527: a turbulent spirit who caused Henry VIII to say to Francis I, "_Mon frère de France a là un sujet dont je ne voudrais pas être le maître_." [Illustration: Plate VI. Photo. Giraudon. ANTOINE DE BOURBON. School of François Clouet. Photo. Giraudon. CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOILLE. School of François Clouet. Musée Condé _To face page 26._] The eldest brother Antoine de Bourbon, by his marriage with Jeanne d'Albret (daughter of Marguerite, sister of Francis I), became King of Navarre; and their son, Henri IV, succeeded to the throne of France on the death of Henri III de Valois. Louis de Bourbon, first Prince de Condé,[2] married Eleonore de Roye, granddaughter of Louise de Montmorency, a sister of the famous Constable Anne and mother of the Huguenot chief, Gaspard de Coligny. It was no doubt owing to the influence of his wife Eleonore--so named after the second wife of Francis I--that the Prince de Condé embraced the Protestant cause, and was thenceforward regarded by the Huguenots as one of their leaders. Eleonore was on terms of great intimacy with her sister-in-law, Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, who had herself become a Protestant; and one may fairly assert that if Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre, and his brother Louis de Condé, had in any way equalled their noble wives in pious sentiment and religious fervour, the Protestant Faith in France would never have been nipped in the bud, but would have become as firmly established there as it did in England and Germany. As it was, the Guises of Lorraine who embraced the Catholic cause gained considerable ground after the death of Henri II, through their cousin Mary Stuart, Queen of France; and with the ostensible object of furthering this cause, they also tried to supplant the Bourbon Princes, Antoine de Navarre and Louis de Bourbon Condé, who were by right nearer the throne. The latter during the reign of Francis II was thrown into prison for high treason, under a false accusation brought against him by the Guises, and condemned to death. In her despair, his unhappy wife, Eleonore, threw herself upon her knees before the King, imploring permission for a last interview. The young King was about to relent; but the Cardinal of Lorraine, fearing that she might attain her object, drove her roughly from the Royal presence. The unscrupulous Guises had even conceived a plan of making away with this Princess before her husband; for (as a contemporary writer tells us) they feared her intellect and courage in proclaiming her husband's innocence. They hoped to get rid, not only of her, but also of the King of Navarre and the Châtillons. But at this juncture a change occurred in political affairs. [Illustration: Plate VII. Photo. Giraudon. LOUIS I. DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDÉ. School of François Clouet. Photo. Giraudon. HENRI I. DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDÉ. School of François Clouet. Musée Condé. _To face page_] Francis II, whose health had always been delicate, suddenly showed alarming symptoms of decline. Catherine, the _Royne Mère_, cast about to get the Regency into her own hands; and in order to check the steadily growing power of the Guises, she resolved to recall the Bourbons, promising to save Condé from death if they would accept her as Regent. The King of Navarre, Antoine de Bourbon, consented to her proposition in order to save his brother. The terrified Guises entreated Catherine to keep Condé still in prison; since he would, if set at liberty, get the better of them all. It is characteristic to note that when the state of the King's health became desperate, the Guises were wholly without sympathy; though we read that Mary Stuart nursed her dying husband with tenderest solicitude. As soon as the King had breathed his last, Gaspard de Coligny addressed these memorable words to those who stood by: "_Messieurs, le roi est mort, çela nous apprend à vivre_." The death of Francis II opened Condé's prison doors; whereupon he insisted on proving his innocence, and claiming punishment for those who had caused his incarceration. The Guises began to tremble, and their friends trembled with them. Meantime, Catherine de Medicis, always intent on her own interests, tried to placate the Protestant nobility, and even showed toleration for the Protestant cult in various parts of France. She endeavoured to entice Condé to her Court through the charms of one of her Court ladies--the beautiful Isabelle de Limeuil--in order to make him an instrument for her own purposes. Brantôme, with reference to this, speaks of Louis de Bourbon as a man of corrupt morals. Nor could he resist the passion shown for him by Marguerite de Lustrac, widow of the Maréchal de Saint-André, from whom he accepted the magnificent château of Valery, with its vast appanage, originally intended as a dowry for Mademoiselle de Saint-André, the affianced bride of his own son Henri I de Bourbon, who had died young, poisoned, it is said, by her mother. Condé's irregular habits called for the severe rebuke of Calvin, and his noble wife Eleonore was broken-hearted over them. Antoine, King of Navarre, the eldest of the brothers, also became a puppet in the hands of the Queen-Mother and the Guises, who deliberately provoked the sanguinary conflicts at Vassy between the Huguenots and the Catholics. Jeanne d'Albret, who sided with the Protestants, left the Court in consequence, and to the great regret of Eleonore, retired to her kingdom of Navarre. Had the husbands of these two great ladies been equally desirous of keeping the peace the Massacre of St. Bartholomew would never have taken place. Indeed, when Eleonore de Roye died at the early age of twenty-eight the Protestants of France lost faith in Condé as their leader, believing that it was through her influence alone that he served their cause. When Eleonore felt her end approaching she sent a messenger for her husband and upon his hurrying to her bedside most generously forgave him for all his infidelities. Her eldest son, Henri I de Bourbon, who had shared all her anxieties and who had been her constant companion, listened with deep emotion to her exhortations to his father that he should remain true to the Protestant Faith; and the memory of this noble woman prevailed with Condé after her death. [Illustration: Plate VIII. Photo Giraudon. FRANÇOIS II. KING OF FRANCE. Francois Clouet. Bibl. Nar. Paris. _To face page 20._] The intriguing Catherine, after much wavering, then declared herself upon the Catholic side, and compelled Michel de l'Hôpital, who had tried to reconcile the two parties, to resign. The consequence of this decision was the bloody battle of Jarnac, where Condé died the death of a hero. No one could deny that he loved and honoured France, and that he was a great warrior. Even the Guises, his implacable enemies, endeavoured to conciliate him, and tried to arrange, after his wife's death, a marriage between him and Mary Stuart. How different, if this alliance had been accomplished, would have been the destinies of that ill-fated Queen![3] Henri I de Bourbon[4] succeeded his father as Prince de Condé, and secured the friendship of Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre; so that when the Huguenots, after the disaster of Jarnac, shut themselves up in La Rochelle, the widow of Antoine de Bourbon appeared in their midst and presented to them her son Henri de Béarn, together with his cousin the young Prince de Condé. Under the guidance of Gaspard de Coligny these two young Princes were received amongst the leaders of the Protestant army, at that time in a critical position and in great pecuniary straits. The young Prince de Condé disposed of most of his jewels, whilst Coligny and Jeanne d'Albret made similar sacrifices. These jewels were sent to Queen Elizabeth of England as security for a sum of money forwarded by her to the Protestant forces. Coligny seems to have thought highly of the abilities of the young Condé Prince, to whom he deputed the command in his absence. It is indeed remarkable that so fervent a Calvinist as Jeanne d'Albret should have consented to the engagement of her son to Margot de France, youngest daughter of Catherine de Medicis. It is true that the horrors of St. Bartholomew had not then taken place, nor had the close ties of relationship between the houses of Valois and Navarre at that date been loosened. At the same time a marriage was arranged by Jeanne d'Albret between Henri de Condé and Marie de Clève, daughter of the Duc de Nevers and Marguerite de Bourbon. This lady was rich, accomplished, and of rare beauty; and it was an open secret at the time that the Duc d'Anjou (afterwards King Henri III) was madly in love with her. [Illustration: Plate IX. Photo. Giraudon. JEANNE D'ALBRET, QUEEN OF NAVARRE. François Clouet. Musée Condé. _To face page 21._] The marriage of the Prince de Condé was an occasion for great rejoicing amongst the Protestant party, when all at once news arrived of the sudden death of Queen Jeanne d'Albret under suspicious circumstances. It was rumoured that Catherine de Medicis wished to remove her before the nuptials of her son Henri of Navarre and Margot de France. The _douce enfant_ (as Francis I called her, when Dauphine of France) had schooled herself well to the difficult position in which as a young wife she found herself with Diane de Poitiers; but as Queen-mother and Regent she developed into a false and ambitious woman, who actually planned the carnage of St. Bartholomew on the eve of her own daughter's marriage to the chief of the Huguenot party. It does not enter into our present work to describe the horrors for which she was responsible on that occasion, but it is sufficient to say that Gaspard de Coligny found his death, whilst the lives of Condé and of the King of Navarre were only spared on the condition that they abjured the Protestant Faith. Condé, however, at first persisted in a refusal, although his young wife obeyed. For this reason he was summoned before the boy King, Charles IX, who, advancing towards him, called out, "The Mass, Death, or the Bastille, Choose!" "God will not allow," said Condé quietly, "that I choose the first, my King! The two other alternatives are at your pleasure." In a fury, the King rushed upon him and would have slain him then and there, had not the Queen, Elizabeth of Austria--the only redeeming feature of this contemptible Court--thrown herself at the feet of her husband to prevent him. Finally, however, the two Bourbon Princes did attend Mass, and the Cardinal de Bourbon gave Condé and his bride the nuptial benediction in the church of St. Germain des Prés. But this was not enough; for both Navarre and Condé were forced to fight against those very Huguenots whose leaders they had been; and they were compelled to march under the command of the Duc d'Anjou against that same La Rochelle where Condé had passed so many years with his noble friend Gaspard de Coligny, engaged in furthering the Protestant cause. In 1574, however, upon the death of Charles IX, Condé and Henri of Navarre again joined the Protestant forces. Not so Marie de Clève, who was even trying to make this a plea for a separation when she died suddenly in giving birth to a daughter.[5] Twelve years later Condé contracted another marriage, with Charlotte Catherine de la Trémoille. We propose in this brief sketch of the Condé family, who eventually became Lords of Chantilly, to say something also regarding the lives of the Princesses de Condé, since some of them rank amongst the most noble and interesting women of their time. Charlotte de la Trémoille[6] was the daughter of the Duc de Thouars and Jeanne de Montmorency. She lived with her mother in the fortified castle of Taillebourg, and was of a romantic turn of mind and very handsome. Condé, presented by her brother, the young Duc de Thouars, whilst he chanced to be in the neighbourhood, paid a visit to the young lady; and although of the opposite party--for the Trémoilles were Catholics--he came unattended. He showed her more attention than was his usual custom, so that she fell in love with him. She was but seventeen years of age, whilst Condé was by that time thirty-three, but without an heir to his name. He had a fine head and well-cut features; his expression was pensive, and betrayed a delicate and nervous constitution. The fact of his being a Prince of the Blood Royal and of illustrious lineage stimulated, no doubt, Mademoiselle de la Trémoille's poetic imagination. When, after the disaster of Angers, Condé was compelled to go into hiding in Guernsey whilst vainly soliciting the help of Queen Elizabeth, he saw one morning two well-equipped ships approaching the harbour. The captain of the party presently sent one of his officers to the Prince, bearing a letter from Charlotte de la Trémoille begging him to make use of these, her ships. Condé, who had remained so long a helpless prisoner on the island, embarked at once, and upon his arrival at La Rochelle found the Princess awaiting him at that port. A few days later the wedding was celebrated quietly at the Château de Taillebourg: both the Princess and her brother having become adherents of the Reformed Faith before that event took place. In 1587 a daughter was born to Condé, named Eleonore after her noble grandmother, who subsequently married the Prince of Orange. * * * * * In that same year (1587) the eighth and last religious war broke out in France, known as the War of the Four Henris--Henri III, Henri de Guise, Henri of Navarre, and Henri de Bourbon Condé. The first battle was fought at Coutras, between the Duc de Joyeuse, who commanded 7,000 men for Henri III, and the joint forces of Henri of Navarre and Henri de Condé, who had between them but 5,000 men. The fight was a prolonged one and ended in a victory for the two Bourbons, who both greatly distinguished themselves, "_Messieurs_," cried Navarre, before the fight began, "_souvenez vous que vous êtes de la maison de Bourbon. Vive Dieu! Je vous ferai voir que je suis votre ainé!" "Et nous, vous montrerons des bons cadets_," replied Condé. But Duc Henri de Guise presently restored the fortunes of the Catholics by the victories of Vimory and Auneau, wherein no less than twenty thousand Protestants perished. Henri III, true Valois that he was, was not, however, grateful to the victor. Jealous of his success and growing popularity, he caused him to be foully murdered at the Château of Blois, whither he had summoned him from Paris. The Cardinal de Lorraine, his brother, shared his fate. Even Catherine de Medicis, then on her deathbed, was horrified at her son's treachery towards the Guises, who had fought so ably for the Catholic cause. "_Vous avez fait mourir le duc de Guise!_" she exclaimed; "_Dieu veuille que vous vous trouviez bien de l'action que vous venez de faire. Mais vous ne pouvez, je crois, vous en felicitez. Ce n'est pas tout de tailler, il faut savoir coudre._" [Illustration: Plate X. CATHERINE DE MEDICIS. Attributed to Corneille de Lyon. Musée Condé. HENRI II. François Clouet. Bibl. Nat. Paris. _To face page 26._] When the news of the murder of the two Guises became known in Paris, greatest public indignation was aroused; and the Sorbonne declared that France ought to strive earnestly against such a King. In order to save himself, the wretched King made overtures to Henri of Navarre, addressing him as "brother." A reconciliation took place between them, and together they laid siege to Paris with an army of 40,000 men. Before, however, the assault took place, Henri III was murdered by a fanatic monk, designating with his last breath Henri of Navarre as his successor to the throne of France, but imploring him at the same time to embrace the Catholic Faith. The crown thus devolved upon Henri de Bourbon, King of Navarre, as lineal descendant of Robert de Clermont, sixth son of Saint Louis; whilst Henri de Bourbon Condé, his cousin, became heir-presumptive. The health of the latter, however, began to fail, owing partly to an injury incurred by a fall from his horse, and partly to severe attacks of fever. Trusting to a partial recovery, he ventured too soon into the saddle, being, according to a contemporary writer, over-fond of riding, and in consequence suffered a relapse which ended fatally. Tifburn, the faithful custodian of the Château de Saint-Jean d'Angely, thus describes his unexpected death: "I was the person selected to report this sad mischance to the Princess, and I found her coming down the stairs of the large apartment to visit her husband. He had been ill, and had become worse since the day before, but none would have supposed the end was so near. When she saw me so downcast she pressed me to tell her what had occurred. When she heard the sad news she fainted, and had to be transported to her bed, where she sobbed and cried and would not be consoled." Henri IV, on hearing of this disaster, hastened to Saint-Jean d'Angely; but on the way information reached him that two of the Princesse de Condé's servants--her page, Belcastle, and a valet--had suddenly disappeared, and that they had fled on two horses, kept in readiness for them by one Brillant, known to be a procurer employed at the castle. On hearing this, he turned the bridle of his horse, unwilling to interview the widowed Princess. In a letter to la belle Corisande, Duchesse de Grammont, he writes regarding this incident as follows: "_Jeudy, le Prince de Condé ayant couru la bague, il soupa se portant bien. A minuit lui prit un vomissement très violent, qui luy dura jusqu'au matin. Tout le Vendredy il demeura au lit. Le soir il soupa, et ayant bien dormi, il se leva le Samedi matin, dina debout, et puis joua aux eschecs. Il se leva, se mit a promener par sa chambre, devisant avec l'un et avec l'autre. Tant d'un coup il dit: 'Baillez moi ma chaise, je sens une grande faiblesse.' Il n'y fut assis qu'il perdit sa parole, et soudain après il rendit l'âme, et les marques du poison sortirent soudainement._" When Brillant was interrogated, he denied everything, but under torture he made admissions which greatly compromised the widow of the dead Condé. Subsequent versions of the story stated first that the Catholic party had administered the poison; and later that the Prince had died a death in full accordance with the malady from which he was suffering. Nevertheless the poor Princess had to bear the burden of this terrible charge. She was allowed to remain in her own apartments only until she gave birth to a son, who was pronounced by all who saw him to greatly resemble the late Prince de Condé; and the fact that Henri ultimately consented to become godfather to the child destroyed all false accusations. For many years, however, she was kept under close guard at Saint-Jean d'Angely; and in the archives at Thouars there still exist some touching letters from her to her mother and to the Constable de Montmorency, asserting her innocence and imploring help. She also describes her straitened circumstances, her allowance being quite insufficient to supply the needs of her children, Eleonore and Henri. Throughout all her trials she behaved with singular fortitude, until at length, when her son Henri de Bourbon was recognised as the legitimate son of his father, and thenceforth held the position of heir-presumptive, she was allowed to return to Court. De Thou even obtained an order directing the French Parlement to come immediately to Saint-Germain to salute the Prince as heir to the throne until it should please God to give children to the King himself. Henri IV displayed considerable anxiety that his heir should receive the best possible education, and that he should embrace the Catholic Faith, as he himself had done. Thus the tradition of the Princes de Condé as Huguenot Princes was abruptly broken; and Charlotte Catherine de la Trémoille also abjured the Protestant Faith with great ceremony at Rouen. She then endeavoured to conciliate the Catholic party, but they never forgave her for the great services which she had rendered Condé at Guernsey. In the preceding chapter we have related the matrimonial adventures of this Prince, and how when Henri IV fell passionately in love with his young wife, the beautiful Charlotte de Montmorency, he fled with her to the Netherlands to seek the protection of Eleonore, Princess of Orange, until the death of the King.[7] On his return he became the principal factor in opposing the government of Richelieu, for he was highly dissatisfied that the Regency during the minority of Louis XIII had not passed to him, as premier Prince of the Blood, but had been seized upon by the Queen-Mother before he could reach France. The government of Berry was given to him with one and a half million of francs as a sort of compensation--which, however, did not satisfy him. Subsequently he was accused of having designs on the throne, and although this was not proved, Richelieu, in the name of the Regent, had him arrested. He was imprisoned in the Bastille and treated most rigorously as a State criminal. It is greatly to the credit of his wife that she volunteered to share his captivity. It was most touching how she arrived at the Bastille accompanied by her little dwarf, who refused to be separated from her. A journal[8] of that time states that the meeting of the Princess with her unfortunate husband was most affectionate, and that he repentantly asked her forgiveness for past wrongs. Owing to his precarious state of health he was soon after removed to the Château of Vincennes, where he was allowed more liberty, and there he could take exercise on the top of a thick wall built in the form of a gallery. The poor Princess, once so radiant in beauty, suffered cruelly; and at the birth of a still-born son her life was despaired of. At last, after nearly three years of imprisonment when her little daughter Geneviève de Bourbon was born, their prison-walls opened and they were free at last. But presently Henri de Montmorency, the Princess's brother, who had but recently succeeded his father as Lord of Chantilly, was thrown into a dungeon, whence he only emerged to be guillotined later at Toulouse. Unfortunately he had sided with Gaston, the King's brother, in a conspiracy against the mighty Cardinal. In vain his wife, Marie Felice Orsini, pleaded for her husband. She herself was imprisoned for two years for doing so; and when finally released, retired for the rest of her life to a convent at Moulins, where she was known and much beloved as "Sister Marie." The whole property of the last Montmorency, the last scion of so illustrious a race, was confiscated after his execution, and Chantilly fell to the Crown. A house called _La Cabotière_, bearing to this day the Royal coat-of-arms, marks this transition period; and not far from it is the so-called _Maison de Sylvie_, which recalls Marie Felice Orsini. It was there that she and her husband hid the poet Théophile de Viau, who had been condemned to death; and from this retreat he sang in charming verses the beauty and the noble qualities of the Princess under the name of "Sylvie." These cruelties against the Montmorencys and the Condés, Louis XIII in after-years never ceased to regret, and when on his deathbed he wished to atone for them he summoned Henri II, Prince de Condé, and told him that Chantilly should be restored to his wife, the Princess, as sister of the last Montmorency. Thus Chantilly came back to its rightful owners. CHAPTER III THE GRAND CONDÉ With Charlotte, wife of Prince Henri II de Condé, Chantilly passed into the possession of the Princes of Bourbon Condé, and its history from that date becomes part of the history of France. The son of Charlotte, Louis II de Bourbon, when barely twenty-two years of age, was already called the "Hero," in consequence of his victory at Rocroy (1643) over the German and Spanish armies. This famous descendant of Huguenot Princes was, at the age of four years, baptized a Roman Catholic, with great pomp, in the Cathedral at Bourges. Both Marie de Medicis, the Queen-Regent, and Charlotte de la Trémoille, the Dowager Princess de Condé, were present; and the infant Prince, though so young, recited his _Credo_ without a hitch. His education was subsequently placed in the hands of the Jesuit Fathers at Bourges, who commended his clear intellect and excellent memory. He received the title of "Duc d'Enghien," a title which became thereafter hereditary in the Condé family. His father, Prince Henri II de Condé, thought it wise, after the execution of his brother-in-law Henri de Montmorency and his own imprisonment, to contract a matrimonial alliance with the all-powerful Cardinal; especially as Richelieu was obsessed by the desire that one of his nieces should become a Royal Princess. A marriage was therefore arranged between the twelve-year-old Duc d'Enghien and the little Claire-Clemence, then barely five. This _mariage de convenance_ brought no happiness to the parties concerned, and ended in completely crushing the unloved wife. In a book recently published, "_Sur la femme du Grand Condé_,"[9] the excellent qualities of Claire-Clemence--so little appreciated during her lifetime--have been set out for us. At a court where women were chiefly given over to pleasure and amusement, it is but natural that soberer qualities such as hers should have passed unnoticed, or even have aroused opposition. Between her brilliant mother-in-law, Charlotte de Montmorency, and her beautiful but vain sister-in-law, Geneviève de Bourbon[10] (subsequently Madame de Longueville), to the courtiers of her time Claire-Clemence appeared to be lacking both in beauty and _savoir-faire_. A fall on the very day of her marriage, caused by her high heels when dancing a minuet which Anne of Austria had opened with the Duc d'Enghien, was recorded with great glee by the Grande Mademoiselle, daughter of Gaston d'Orléans. The prospects of this new establishment were not exactly promising, since Claire-Clemence received no support from her parents, whom she hardly knew. When her uncle, the Cardinal, decided to make an instrument of her to serve his purposes, he took her away from her egoistical and immoral father, the Maréchal de Brézé, and her sickly mother, who suffered from transitory attacks of madness. Claire-Clemence had been educated, therefore, in accordance with the high station for which she was intended. After her marriage Richelieu watched over her welfare and superintended arrangements by which she and her princely husband should have a suitable establishment in Paris; where, it was said, the young couple led _un train de Prince_. Presently, however, the sharp-eyed Cardinal became aware that the Duc d'Enghien was neglecting his young wife, and was constantly in the company of the charming Marthe de Vigeau, of whom he had become wildly infatuated and whom he constantly met at the house of his sister. His Eminence, therefore, decided to send the young Duke to Burgundy, of which province he was supposed to be the Governor; and for Claire-Clemence he arranged a temporary retirement in the convent of Saint-Denis, there to escape the intrigues which would, as he said, naturally arise round a young wife so completely neglected by her husband. She was accompanied to the convent by a small Court, consisting of Madame la Princesse Douarière de Condé, Madame d'Aiguillon, Madame de Longueville, and Mademoiselle de la Croix. This last was her constant companion, and wrote to Richelieu that Her Serene Highness did everything in the convent which His Eminence desired her to do. In very truth she soon became a great favourite at Saint-Denis, where she did a great deal of good among the sick and poor. [Illustration: PLATE XI. THE GRAND CONDÉ. _Musée Condé._ David Teniets.] Meanwhile the Duc d'Enghien, to annoy the Cardinal, led a very gay life in Burgundy, in obstinate defiance of the remonstrances of his father. Finally, he was compelled by Richelieu's orders to leave Burgundy and join the Minister at Narbonne. There is no doubt that the Duc d'Enghien, inordinately proud by nature, was suffering keenly under the tyranny of the haughty Cardinal, who, although wishing his nephew-in-law well, derived a certain amount of satisfaction from the spectacle of this proud-spirited young Duke submissive to his yoke. The following incident is an illustration of this. It was a long-accepted fact that Cardinal Richelieu, as Prime Minister to his Majesty the King, should claim precedence over the Princes of the Blood Royal. But that Mazarin, just created Cardinal, should on his return from Italy also have this privilege was--the young Duc d'Enghien thought--most improper. Richelieu, on hearing of this, took up the cause of Mazarin, and even asked d'Enghien to visit his brother, the Cardinal of Lyons. D'Enghien, fearing that this Cardinal would also claim precedence over him at Lyons, merely sent one of his attendants to salute him. Richelieu was furious at this, would accept no excuse, and desired the Duke to purge his fault at Lyons, on his way back. D'Enghien, compelled by his father, the Prince de Condé, to submit to Richelieu's demand, was greatly chagrined. Moreover, a message reached him immediately afterwards to join his wife at Paris, since she was ill. He was also informed that the details of his private life--in which he was the lover of many women but not the husband of the one woman who was his wife--were well known. So severe a reproof seemed at last to produce some effect upon him, and he returned to his wife, who quickly recovered her health and spirits when she found that her husband was kindly disposed towards her. Richelieu, who had watched d'Enghien since his childhood, remembered the distinctions he had acquired as student at Bourges, and was shrewd enough to see that the young man would more than fulfil the high expectations placed in him. He therefore knew what he was doing when he allied the young Condé to his own family, and selected him and Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne (known in history as Turenne) as Commanders-in-chief of the French Army. After the death of Richelieu, the King, Louis XIII, showed the high regard he cherished for his great minister by confirming and adhering to all the dispositions made by him before he passed away. Amongst these were the appointments of Condé and Turenne as Generals of the French troops sent to check the advancing forces of the Spaniards. It was a choice which showed the rare capacity of this remarkable minister in finding the right man for the right place. Turenne was thirty-one years of age, whilst Condé was but twenty-one. Marie de Medicis and her party thought Condé too young for so important a post, but Louis XIII was not to be dissuaded; and to Condé he gave the command of the army in Picardy. This war had been going on between France and Spain for more than ten years. It revolved around those frontier regions to the north, near the Somme and the Oise, which divide the original possessions of the Kings of France from those of the former Dukes of Burgundy; and in 1643 it was carried on with great ardour by the Spaniards under their General, Don Francisco Melo, and his lieutenants, Fountain and Beck. With them the Duc d'Enghien was confronted near Rocroy. On the night before the battle the future hero was asleep amongst his soldiers on the bare ground when all at once a French horseman who had taken service amongst the Spaniards presented himself and asked permission to speak to the General. In a subdued voice he told him that the Spaniards had prepared an attack for seven o'clock that very morning. On hearing this Condé at once called for his horse, his arms, and the traditional hat with the white plume, which, since the time of Henri IV, had become the special badge of a Commander-in-chief of the French Army. The Duc d'Aumale, in his "_Histoire des Princes de Condé_," relates with much spirit the issue of this battle. He tells us how Condé was at first repulsed by Isembourg, and then how, by a sudden change of tactics in attacking the rear, he reaped a complete victory. The King, tossing upon a sick-bed, was full of anxiety regarding the issue of this war. He had had a dream, or rather a vision, which he narrated to the Prince de Condé (father of the Duc d'Enghien) who sat near his bedside. "I have," he said in a faint voice, "seen your son advancing towards the enemy. The fight was sharp, and the victory was for a long time undecided; but at last it was ours." These are said to have been the last words of Louis XIII. A few days later, whilst the Requiem Mass for His Majesty was being sung at Saint-Denis, it became known that Louis de Bourbon, the Duc d'Enghien, had gained the battle of Rocroy, and from that time he bore the name of the "Grand Condé." The flag taken on this occasion from the Spaniards may still be seen at Chantilly in the gallery where paintings by Sauveur Lecomte record his famous deeds. It is now reckoned amongst the most precious trophies of France, since most of those preserved at the Invalides were destroyed in 1814. All Paris desired to see the Spanish flag taken at Rocroy, and it was therefore exhibited publicly at the Louvre, at Notre Dame, and on the Quai. Congratulations poured in upon the Condés, and the Duc d'Enghien was pointed out as the hero who had won the first battle for the new four-year-old King. His father, full of pride, wished him to return to Paris to receive the ovations of the people; but, like a true strategist, the Duke was anxious before all else to reap the advantages of his victory. In a characteristic letter to his father, who was urging him to come home, he explained that the enemy had invaded France, and that he felt that he must remain at the head of his regiment in order to serve his country, at least as long as their foes were on French soil. His next act was to attack Thionville on the Moselle, upon which occasion he succeeded in separating the troops commanded by Beck from the main army in the Netherlands, thus displaying a great example of military skill. It was, however, no longer from Louis XIII that he received his orders, but from Mazarin and the amiable but weak and irresolute Anne of Austria. Condé, in spite of his youth, had therefore to act on his own responsibility. In the spring of 1645 he won with Turenne the great battle of Nördlingen,[11] where he completely defeated the Austro-Spanish general Mercy. The Duc d'Aumale, a military man of great distinction himself, speaks of the three victorious battles of Rocroy, Thionville, and Nördlingen as most important in their results, unblemished by any sort of reverse. He attributes to the Grand Condé all the qualities necessary for a great general: foresight in his preparations and a supreme ability to vary his tactics according to circumstances; great boldness and sudden inspiration during action; prompt decision and a far-reaching political outlook to confirm the victory and reap its fruits. It is rare indeed to discover all these qualities united in one man, and to find Condé's equals we must look to men like Frederick the Great, Napoleon, and Wellington. After the battle of Nördlingen, Condé fell ill of a fever, which compelled him at length to return to Chantilly. His mother, the Princesse Charlotte de Condé, his sister Geneviève, and his wife Claire-Clemence, with her little son the Duc d'Albret, whom he had not yet seen, welcomed him home. The historical "_petite chambre_" which he had always occupied was made ready for him, and "_eau de Forges_" to fortify his impaired strength. There he was invited to repose after the excessive fatigues of camp-life. The attraction Condé had felt for Marthe de Vigeau when forced to marry the Cardinal's niece had by this time passed away; and his plans for divorce in order to marry the woman he had so passionately adored had been definitely abandoned since the birth of his son Henri Jules. But he could not bring himself to show any affection to Claire-Clemence, who, during the long absence of her husband, had retired into the Convent of the Carmelites. It was a marriage into which he had been forced--a fact that he could not get over. Meanwhile Marthe de Vigeau had burnt his letters; had even gone so far as to burn his portrait; and, to make the sacrifice complete, had taken the veil and was henceforth known as "Soeur Marthe" in the same Carmelite Convent. But the Court was teeming with intriguing women who all wished to approach the young hero, around whose forehead laurels were now so thickly wreathed. Strong as Condé was in the field, he proved weak in the hands of an intriguing woman. In this he resembled his ancestor Louis I de Bourbon, whose name he bore. It was his beautiful cousin, Isabelle de Montmorency, who exercised the most pernicious influence over him. She had become the wife of Dandelot de Coligny, who for her sake had abjured the Protestant Faith. Ambitious to the extreme, she strove, after the death of her husband, to attract Louis XIV whilst still a youth, and after vainly trying to marry Charles II of England, she ended by marrying the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. [Illustration: PLATE XII. THE VIRGIN AS PROTECTOR OF THE HUMAN RACE. Photo Giraudon. _Musée Condé._ Charonton and Vilatte.] [Illustration: THE TOMB OF THE DUC AND DUCHESSE DE BRETAGNE AT NANTES. Photo Giraudon. After Designs by Perréal.] Two other well-known women also contrived to attract the Grand Condé, and with them he contracted a lifelong friendship. These were Louise Marie de Gonzague of Cleves, afterwards Queen of Poland, and her sister Anne, known as the Princess Palatine on account of her marriage with the son of the Elector Frederic V. Their portraits, by Dumoustier, can be seen at Chantilly. These Princesses de Gonzague, before their marriages, lived at Paris. Princesse Louise Marie held her Court at the Hôtel Nevers, a majestic building between the Tours de Nesle and the Pont Neuf, which afterwards became the Hôtel Conti, and is now the Palais de Monnaie. The two sisters were in their time leaders of Parisian society and played an important part amongst the women of the Fronde. A letter, one of the last that Prince Henri II de Condé wrote to his son, refers to the neglect with which he treated his wife, and blames him severely for not writing to her upon the occasion of the sudden death of her only brother. It runs thus: "_Mon fils, Dieu vous bénisse. Guérissez vous, ou il vaut mieux vous poignarder vous même, que de faire la vie que vous faites; je rien sais ni cause ni raison, et je prie Dieu de me consoler; je vous écris au désespoir, et suis Monsieur votre bon père et ami._" Soon afterwards the old Prince de Condé died and his last words and wishes were for the Duc and Duchesse d'Enghien. He, who had always held so high the honour of his own wife, had been a great support to Claire-Clemence in her trials. The title of Prince de Condé devolved at his father's death upon the Grand Condé, whilst the little Duc d'Albret bore henceforth the title of Duc d'Enghien, rendered so celebrated by the victor of Rocroy. But the Grand Condé did not stop here. In that same year (1648) he again won the great battle of Lens against the Austrians. In that battle it was said that he charged twelve times in one hour, took eight flags and thirty-eight cannon, and made 5,000 prisoners. The Emperor Ferdinand III, after this, felt his powers of resistance at an end and decided at last to agree to the Peace of Westphalia, which was signed at Münster, and brought to an end the famous Thirty Years' War. By it France acquired the whole of Alsace except Strasbourg and Philipsbourg. Liberty of conscience, inaugurated by Henri IV, was also recognised throughout the rest of the world, and perfect equality of rights was enjoined between Roman Catholic and Protestant. Anne of Austria received the hero of Rocroy and Lens with open arms, calling him her third son, and Louis XIV, the boy King, caressed him constantly. He felt that he was in peril, and he trusted to Condé to help him out of his difficulties. In order to improve finances exhausted by the lavish expenditure of the Court, Mazarin had committed the great mistake of forcing taxation upon all merchandise entering Paris. Parlement had refused to conform to this kind of taxation; but the Cardinal thought that this was the moment to again bring forward this claim. Upon the very day when the _Te Deum_ was sung at Notre Dame for the victory of Lens, he chose to assail the leaders of the Parlement, amongst whom was the venerable Councillor Broussel. This was the signal for the breaking out of the _Fronde_, and a general rising of the people. Paul Gondi (subsequently known as Cardinal de Retz), at that time Archbishop of Paris, came in full state to entreat the Queen-Regent to appease the people. But Anne of Austria maintained that this was a revolt and that the King must enforce order, upon which the Archbishop himself joined the insurgents and even became one of their leaders. At last the Queen-Regent, frightened by the triumphs of Cromwell in England, gave in, and Broussel was released. To her intense chagrin, persons of the highest aristocracy had joined the Fronde; amongst them the Duchesse de Longueville, the Grand Condé's own sister, the Duchesse de Bouillon, and others--all more or less vain women seeking notoriety. They endeavoured to gain Condé over to their side, but he resisted proudly, answering, when asked to join the Frondeurs: "I belong to a race that cannot identify itself with the enemies of the Crown." Anne of Austria thought it wiser to leave Paris, and in great haste departed to Saint-Germain-en-Lay--an exodus which the Grande Mademoiselle has described in all its picturesqueness. On account of the suddenness of the departure no time had been given for the necessary preparations, and the young King and the Princesses de Condé, Charlotte de Montmorency, and Claire-Clemence, had to sleep on straw--an incident which Louis XIV never forgot. Condé, however, blockaded Paris, overthrew the Fronde, and on the evening of August 18, 1649 the young King with the Queen-Regent, Condé, and Mazarin entered Paris and reached the Palais-Royal in safety. When Condé prepared to take his leave, the Queen turned to him and said, "Sir, the service you have rendered the State is so great that the King and I would be most ungrateful should ever we forget it!" CHAPTER IV CLAIRE-CLEMENCE, PRINCESSE DE CONDÉ Mazarin with difficulty restrained his impatience at numerous Royal favours bestowed on Condé. Indeed, whilst the latter was engaged in keeping the Army loyal, he agitated against him and did his utmost to undermine the confidence placed in him by the Queen-Regent. In this way the warrior and the priest soon became open adversaries. If it was hard for Condé to submit to the tyranny of Richelieu, still less could he put up with the haughty insolence of the Italian, who stood between him and his own Royal relations. It was natural, therefore, that he should become bitter and think himself insufficiently recompensed for the great services he had rendered to the King. All those members of the aristocracy who were likewise irritated against Mazarin gradually crowded round Condé, and he who had defeated the so-called _Old Fronde_ now became the leader of the second, known as the _Young Fronde_. Mazarin, therefore, found an excuse for undermining the position of Condé and succeeded in making the Queen believe that the second Fronde, led on by Condé, was opposed to the Government. In order to counteract these false reports, the Prince came to the Palais-Royal to pay a formal visit to her Majesty, who was, however, ill in bed. His own mother (now the Dowager Princess), who had always been on terms of great intimacy with Anne of Austria, was then at her bedside. It was the last interview between Condé and his mother. Her Majesty seemed tired, and after a few words dismissed the Prince, who then proceeded to the Salle de Conseil, where Mazarin awaited him. There he found also his younger brother, Conti, and his brother-in-law, Monsieur de Longueville. Presently Mazarin under some pretext left the room, and no sooner had he gone than the captain of the Queen's body-guard, Captain Quitaut, entered, and making his way towards Condé and the others, said, not however without embarrassment, "Gentlemen, I have the Queen's orders to arrest you." Condé for a moment seemed thunderstruck. Was this her Majesty's gratitude for the victories he had gained against the enemies of France? Then, seeing that this arrest was intended in all seriousness, he addressed the group of councillors around him, saying, "Can you believe that I, who have always served the King so well, am now a prisoner?" For a space they all stood speechless. Presently someone offered to speak to the Queen, and all left the apartment. Then, since they did not return, Quitaut was compelled to carry out his orders. A door then was opened into a dark passage, and there appeared some of the King's men-at-arms. Condé, his brother Conti, and M. de Longueville were overcome with amazement. It was indeed true! Mazarin had triumphed. They were transported then and there to the donjon of Vincennes, that self-same prison wherein Henri II de Condé, with his wife the beautiful Charlotte, had been secluded for three years. The hour was past midnight when they reached the prison, and Condé found himself shut up in a cell whence little could be seen but a tiny patch of sky. He did not, however, lose his courage, and his spirit never seemed to forsake him, even though he was behind prison walls. One day he learned from the doctors who came to visit his sick brother Conti, that his wife Claire-Clemence was employing every effort she could to get him free. To while away his weary hours he took a fancy to cultivating flowers. "Is it not strange," he said to the doctor, "that I should be watering carnations, whilst my wife is fighting!" After her husband's unforeseen imprisonment, Claire-Clemence was permitted to join the Dowager Princesse de Condé at Chantilly, since Mazarin looked upon her as harmless. It was rather Condé's sister, Madame de Longueville, whom he feared, and whom he had intended to arrest with her husband. She, however, escaped in time, braving by night a terrible storm at sea, and joined Turenne, who helped her in her attempts to liberate the prisoners. Nor did Claire-Clemence remain inactive. She consulted with Lenet, a great friend of the Condé family, who had come to Chantilly, on what course to adopt to set her husband at liberty. Rumours reached her that she would be separated from her son, at which she was greatly alarmed. Taking Lenet aside, she declared to him emphatically that she would never be separated from her only child; but that she intended, on the contrary, to conduct him at the head of an army to deliver his father. This indomitable courage on the part of Condé's spouse was to be the first step in a course of action which later on contributed much to his eventual deliverance. Meanwhile spring had come, and, in spite of the great misfortune which had befallen the Grand Condé, Chantilly became the resort of a crowd of visitors, who flocked round its brilliant _châtelaine_, Charlotte de Montmorency, Dowager Princesse de Condé. The young Duc d'Enghien took his morning rides on his pony, anglers with rod and line repaired to the ponds, gay parties of pleasure-seekers roamed over the lawns and along the avenues, and the woods resounded with the winding of the huntsman's horn. In the evening the guests assembled in the splendid apartments of the castle to hear music, or listen to the many interesting tales related by the Dowager Princess, who loved above all else to dilate upon the attentions shown to her by Henri IV. [Illustration: PLATE XIII. CHANTILLY BEFORE 1687.] [Illustration: CHANTILLY IN THE TIME OF THE GRAND CONDE.] Soon, however, the visits to the Château of Lenet and of Madame de Châtillon, both of whom had played a prominent part in the Fronde, were reported at Court; and one day the Princesses were suddenly surprised by the sight of Swiss guards stationed around their dwelling, and Monsieur de Vauldy simultaneously arrived at the Château with special orders from the King himself. He first asked for the Dowager Princess and endeavoured to persuade her to leave Chantilly for Berry; which, however, she flatly declined to do. In despair, the envoy, who had orders from the King not to show force, then asked to see the Princesse Claire-Clemence. On being conducted into a bedchamber, a lady lying in bed was pointed out to him as the Princesse de Condé; and he was told that she was suffering from so severe a cold that she could not possibly leave Chantilly at once. Furthermore a child, also suffering in the same way, was shown to him as the young Duc d'Enghien. These persons were, however, in reality an English governess and the gardener's son, for the Princess herself, with her son in her arms, had made good her escape by a pathway that had by chance been left unguarded. Some of her ladies and gentlemen followed her at a distance until she safely reached a spot in the woods where she found a carriage, which had been kept always ready for emergencies. In this conveyance, after a fatiguing journey, she reached Montroux, an old country-seat of the Condés, where the hero of Rocroy had passed his early youth. Thence she wrote to the Queen, stating that she had undertaken this journey to show obedience to the Royal commands, since she had been desired to leave Chantilly. Anne of Austria took this communication good-humouredly enough, and admired the pluck of the young mother, whilst everybody was amused at Vauldy's discomfiture. At Montroux the Princess soon found herself surrounded by friends and partisans; and she succeeded in arousing enthusiasm by her easy and natural method of expression in speaking, which, upon occasions of importance, could rise to flights of real eloquence. In order to be of service to the State and to the Prince, she decided to push on in the company of Lenet and Coligny to Bordeaux, whence the Duc de Bouillon came out to meet her. The Princess, mounted on a splendid charger named "_Le Brézé_," which had come from her father's stables, was received with Royal honours by Turenne, who defrayed all her expenses and those of her escort as far as Bordeaux. Claire-Clemence and her supporters now decided to attack Mazarin openly for having imprisoned the Princes, but the Cardinal, getting wind of it, ordered the gates of Bordeaux to be shut in her face. The people of the city, however, revolted against such an injustice and opened the gates by force, crying, "_Vive le Roi, et point de Mazarin_." It may be remarked here that the citizens of Bordeaux had every reason to be grateful to Condé for his kindness to them when, upon a previous occasion, they had revolted against their hated Governor, the Duc d'Epéron. The Princesse de Condé decided to approach the city by water, and as soon as her ship came in sight, it was saluted by a cannonade from eighty vessels, whilst more than twenty thousand people welcomed her at the landing-stage. The streets were adorned with flowers, and public enthusiasm was so great that she was compelled to show herself on the balcony of her palace until midnight to receive the ovations of the populace. In order to secure the support of the Bordeaulese, Claire-Clemence resolved to present her petition before their Parlement in person. With great spirit, therefore, she made her way to the Chamber of the Councillors, accompanied by her son. "I come to demand justice of the King against the violence of Mazarin," she said imploringly, "and I place my person and that of my son in your hands." At the same time the little Duke, dropping on one knee, cried out: "Gentlemen, I implore you to assume the place of a father to me; since the Cardinal has deprived me of my own." The whole assembly was deeply touched, and after some deliberation, the members of the Parlement agreed to extend to her their protection to the suppliants. It would be superfluous to pursue here in full detail all the efforts made by Claire-Clemence at Bordeaux on behalf of her husband. The chief difficulty now was, however, that Mazarin, having treated Condé with such injustice and violence, was afraid to set him free; and he therefore even went so far as to entertain ideas of destroying him altogether. The Court, meanwhile, in spite of the events which were taking place at Bordeaux, had removed the Princes from the fortress of Vincennes to a prison at Havre; and at the same time ordered the Princess to leave Bordeaux and retire to Montroux. After distributing handsome gifts to all those who had befriended her, she departed with a numerous cortège, amid a shower of flowers; and on hearing that the Queen was at Bourg-sur-Mer, sought an interview with her. With her little son beside her, she fell upon her knees before Anne and begged for her husband's freedom. Her Majesty's answer was: "I am very glad, my cousin, that you at length recognise that you adopted a wrong course by which to get what you so intensely desire. But now that you seem to take another more fitting and more humble attitude I will see whether I can satisfy your request." To the united efforts of Claire-Clemence and of Condé's devoted friend Lenet, there was also now added the powerful help of Anne de Gonzague, Princess Palatine, whose influence extended from Paris to Warsaw and even to Stockholm. She persuaded no less a person than Queen Christina of Sweden to plead for the Grand Condé's liberty. Moreover, her sister, Marie de Gonzague, Queen of Poland, who had never ceased to be the hero's devoted friend, also came to his aid with considerable effect. Meanwhile France was rent by civil war, and Anne of Austria began to regret the loss of Condé's strong arm, which had done so much for her infant son, Louis XIV. The disorder, in fact, became so great and the clamour for Condé's liberation so imperative, that Mazarin was compelled to proceed to Havre with an order under the Queen-Regent's sign-manual for his unconditional release. The Cardinal entered the cell wherein the Princes were confined in his travelling attire and himself announced to them that their captivity was at an end. Whereupon compliments were exchanged and healths drunk; Mazarin even privately affirming to Condé that it was not to him that he owed his long imprisonment. A carriage was in waiting for the liberated prisoners, and Mazarin, taking his leave of them, bowed so low as to create unbounded mirth amongst those present. Then he himself departed into exile; whence, however, it was not very long ere he returned. All Paris turned out to welcome Condé, and no less than 5,000 cavaliers, the flower of the French aristocracy, went out to meet the Princes at Saint-Denis. They were conducted by Gaston d'Orléans to the Palais-Royal, where they were received by the Queen-Regent and the young King, who welcomed them with his accustomed warmth, as if nothing had occurred. In the evening a supper was given in their honour by Monsieur the King's uncle, and a ball by the Duchesse de Chevreuse. Next day a solemn session of the Parlement took place, and for several nights Paris was brilliantly illuminated. The young Princesse de Condé came from Montroux, accompanied by the Ducs de Bouillon and de Rochefoucauld, and the Prince, who appreciated to the full all that she had done for him, endeavoured to show his gratitude. He met her with a train of twenty carriages to accompany her entry into Paris; and nothing could have touched the Princess's heart more profoundly than to hear the crowds along the road repeat: "_Voici une femme fort chèrie de son mari_." It testified to the sympathy held by the public for this long-neglected wife. From Paris the reunited pair proceeded to Chantilly, where festivities and hunting-parties followed fast one upon another. Condé, however, felt bound to claim a certain amount of recompense for the great wrong which had been done to him. He demanded for himself the Governments of Burgundy and Champagne, besides other rewards for his friends de Rochefoucauld and Nemours. At first the Queen-Regent promised everything, but presently, upon the remonstrance of the exiled Mazarin, went back on her word. This was sufficient to enrage Condé once more, and a report spread that amid the rural charms of Chantilly he had opened negotiations with Spain. Gondi, Archbishop of Paris, anxious to obtain a scarlet hat for himself, went secretly to the Queen, and knowing that Her Majesty was lamenting Mazarin's absence, promised her that he and Gaston d'Orléans would bring the Cardinal back from exile if Condé were once more arrested. Condé, although his freedom was so recent, felt insecure and retired with his wife and son to Saint-Maur, where Madame de Longueville joined them; so that he was not present when Louis XIV was proclaimed King, but was holding council with his adherents at Chantilly. "_Il faut pousser M. le Prince_" was a stock saying of Mazarin and Gondi (now Cardinal de Retz), both of whom were endeavouring to goad Condé to his own destruction. Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, along with his many great qualities, had unfortunately inherited also all the faults of the Condés--faults which the Duchesse de Nemours (daughter-in-law of his sister, Madame de Longueville) describes as follows: "_Ils avaient des airs si moqueurs, et disaient des choses si offensentes que personne ne les pouvaient souffrir ... quand on leurs déplaisait ils poussaient les gens jusqu'a la dernière extremité, et ils n'etaient capable d'aucune reconnaissance pour les services qu'on leurs avait rendu_." These were the qualities which at this period of his life turned the scale against him. It was not against France or the King that Condé proposed to fight, but against the Italian Cardinal, the trusted confidant of Anne of Austria; and his grievance was that he had not only been deprived of his liberty, but that attempts had even been made upon his life. It was for that reason that Condé did not take part in any of the festive celebrations held at the King's Proclamation, and he made his excuses in a letter presented to the King by his brother, the Prince de Conti. This was unquestionably a great blunder, and was done against his wife's wishes, who had given such great proofs of devotion and courage. On September 13, 1651 Condé retired to Montroux, where his sister, Madame de Longueville, and the leaders of his party triumphed over his last scruples. It was then that he pronounced the famous words: "_Vous me forcez à tirer l'epée,--eh bien! soit! mais souvenez vous que je serai le dernier à la remettre dans le fourreau_." CHAPTER V CONDÉ'S ALLIANCE WITH SPAIN Condé's alliance with Spain against Mazarin was the immediate cause of another civil war in France. The Prince left his wife and son in Bordeaux, where, as we have said, they had already acquired much personal popularity. The history of this town and of its Parlement is of considerable interest. In 1653 the people of Bordeaux sent envoys to England to inquire into the details of the Revolution under Cromwell; whereby we may note what strong Liberal tendencies had already manifested themselves in this place, even at the beginning of the reign of Louis XIII. More than once the townspeople had shown a spirit of rebellion against the Government, and they had espoused, as we have seen, the cause of the Princes against Mazarin during the second Fronde. When the Princesse de Condé returned thither with her husband, she found, to her surprise, that a Republican spirit had developed amongst her former friends, and that they wished to see in Condé an ally rather than a chief. Nor did Condé, although a Prince of the Blood, and well known for his pride of birth, object to signing a Declaration before the Parlement of Bordeaux, whereby he promised not to lay down his arms until he had obtained for his country the following concession, namely: "That the supreme authority should in future be given to a representative of the people, chosen by free men, who were of age and entitled to the vote." Mazarin, at the head of a small army, had joined the King at Poitiers, whilst the city of Paris, left under the command of Gaston d'Orléans and the Paris Parlement, declared Condé guilty of high treason. On hearing this the Prince made a desperate effort to reach Paris, and with the help of the Grande Mademoiselle (Gaston's notorious daughter), who boldly opened the gates to him, he entered the town with his troops at the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, making himself for a moment master of the situation. Unfortunately, however, the bloodshed which took place on this occasion rendered his cause most unpopular, and, finding himself abandoned by the populace, he was soon obliged to retreat before Turenne. Whereupon the young King, accompanied by Mazarin, re-entered the capital and succeeded in controlling it. Bordeaux meanwhile continued to assert itself as a Republic. There were two parties fighting against one another--the rich _bourgeoisie_ struggling against the lower classes. Claire-Clemence, who was still resident amongst them, strove to make peace between these two parties, but in the middle of it all her health broke down and she was obliged to retire, leaving to Condé's brother Conti and to his sister, Madame de Longueville, the task of managing public affairs. On hearing, however, that the _Chapeau-Rouge_ party,--that is to say, the rich _bourgeoisie_,--had actually opened fire upon their rivals, she again made her appearance, accompanied by Lenet and Ormée, the head of the popular party and succeeded in bringing about a peaceful settlement. Shortly after this, on September 20, 1652, the Princesse de Condé gave birth to another son, to whom was given the name of Louis Bordeaux. The whole city was decorated to celebrate this auspicious event; and there still exists in the archives at Chantilly a letter of Condé's, wherein he writes as follows: "_J'ai une extrême joie de l'accouchement de ma femme; elle serait parfaite si elle se portait bien, et si j'étais assuré son enfant dût vivre_." Unfortunately, however, Claire-Clemence found herself unable to recover her former strength, and it was terrible news for her that her husband, alone and bereft of his adherents, had left Paris and had even accepted the post of General-in-Chief in the Spanish army. She had stood beside him in his fight against Mazarin and a treacherous and faithless Court; but Richelieu's niece could not get over the fact that the "Hero of Rocroy" had actually gone over to the enemy. To fill her cup of tribulation Condé found himself in terrible financial difficulties since he had to feed his own troops whilst receiving insufficient support from his allies, the Spaniards, who were themselves unable to offer him material aid. In despair he wrote to Lenet: "Have my silver and plate melted down, and tell my wife to pawn her jewellery. She will, I am sure, not object, nor will my sister refuse to do the same. Borrow wherever you can, and do not hesitate to pay high interest. I am so much in want of money that I do not know what to do.... Sell everything, even to my landed property." This was certainly bitter news for the wife of the Grand Condé, and, at the same time, she endured the heavy sorrow of losing her infant son, Louis Bordeaux. In order to provide her husband with necessary material help she ordered her own mode of living with strictest economy and reduced her household. But Madame de Longueville and Conti, realising that their brother was engaged in a hopeless cause, presently left Bordeaux; and the latter, becoming reconciled with Mazarin, not long after married one of his nieces. [Illustration: PLATE XIV. ANTOINE DE BOURGOGNE, CALLED _LE GRAND BÂTARD_. _Photo. Braun & Co._ _Musée Condé._ Memling.] A general amnesty was now offered to the people of Bordeaux if they would surrender to the King. To this they agreed; and a passport was granted to enable the Princesse de Condé to retire with her son wherever she might choose. Claire-Clemence, for a moment, was undecided whether to join her husband or to go to Flanders. She chose the latter course. She had to part, however, with her elder--now her only--son, the Duc d'Enghien, whose education was committed into the hands of the Jesuits at Antwerp. Broken in health and spirits, she left for Valenciennes, accompanied only by her secretary, the faithful Lenet, and a small suite. Nor was the news which she received from her husband of a nature to restore her health. The success which had hitherto always accompanied him when fighting for his country seemed to have entirely abandoned him since he raised his sword against France. Accused of high treason, abandoned with insufficient resources to meet his liabilities, and frequently prone upon a bed of sickness, we cannot but admire the man who succeeded in facing such terrible trials. More than once he had to rectify grave errors committed by the Spanish generals, even by Don Juan of Austria himself, who was regarded in Spain as a conquering hero. Mazarin, having succeeded in putting down the civil war, could now turn his attention to the struggle with Spain; and at length the two armies faced one another on the Dunes, near Dunkirk. The Spaniards were led by Condé, the French by Turenne. The hero of Rocroy, so famous for his own strategic powers, as he surveyed the two armies, was struck by the excellent dispositions of Turenne. Addressing himself to a young Englishman who was in his camp, he said, "Have you ever seen how a battle is lost?" "No," answered the youth. "Well, in less than half an hour you will see such an event," was Condé's grave response. His prediction was verified; and Dunkirk was captured by the French, although Condé, with great skill, succeeded in limiting the extent of his rival's victory. The result of this battle was the famous "Peace of the Pyrenees," signed at Münster on November 7, 1659 by Mazarin and Louis de Haros, minister of Philip IV. Amongst the more particular clauses of this Peace was a marriage contract, arranged between Louis XIV and the Infanta Maria Theresa, which had far-reaching consequences. Another stipulation made by Spain was that Condé should be allowed to return to France, and be reinstated in all his rights as a Prince of the Blood. His implacable enemy Mazarin opposed this at first, but through the prayers of his wife and his sister Geneviève de Bourbon the Grand Condé was finally allowed to return home. After having exercised so pernicious an influence over her brother during the second Fronde, and after having brought upon him so many disasters, Geneviève, on the death of her husband, the Duc de Longueville, turned her attention to religion, and retired to the convent at Moulins, where the widowed Marie Felice, last Duchesse de Montmorency, still mourned her dead spouse. Condé's letters, whereby he promised fidelity to the King and engaged to live on good terms with the Cardinal, preceded him. Madame de Longueville had, moreover, made great preparations for her brother's return to Court; whilst Conti, who, as already mentioned, had meantime married one of Mazarin's nieces, arranged the first meeting between the Prince and the powerful Minister. He was welcomed by the Queen, and presented his respects to the King; and on the following day the _Gazette de France_ announced that he had dined with His Eminence Cardinal Mazarin. That Condé was truly sorry for having raised his sword against his own country, is proved by the following remark: "When Mazarin had me imprisoned, I was innocent; but I came out of prison the most culpable of men." From Paris the Prince went straight to his residence at Saint-Maur to meet Turenne, who appeared at first embarrassed on seeing him. Condé, however, at once addressed his rival in a most friendly manner, and asked his advice regarding the repatriation of his soldiers, many of whom were Swiss and Germans who declined to enter the French army. When presently Louis XIV made his entry into Paris the Prince de Condé and the Duc d'Enghien appeared amongst the Royal retinue, whilst the Princesse de Condé sat in the State coach with the Queen. Yet, although established once more as a Prince of the Blood, with all the prerogatives and appurtenances of his rank--even his Government of Burgundy--many years had still to pass before Condé could regain the entire confidence of the King. Nor did Mazarin ever cease to distrust him. And when, before his death, the Minister presented him with a valuable diamond ring, assuring him of his sincere friendship, it was merely a proof of his own power of dissimulation; for, with his last breath, he warned the King to protect his crown from the insatiable ambition of the Grand Condé. If Condé had hoped to play a prominent part in the public affairs of France after the death of Mazarin, he was mistaken; for the young King, himself full of ambition, announced at the outset that he meant henceforth to rule alone. In accordance with his famous saying "_L'Etat c'est moi_" Louis now began to reign himself. For Condé retirement from public life had come too early. His sword which had rendered such great services to France was no longer needed; and he therefore retired to his Château at Chantilly. Here he almost immediately began to make extensive restorations, the completion of which occupied over twenty years, and greatly changed the aspect of the old place, so long abandoned and unoccupied. The financial difficulties in which he found himself on his return were happily overcome by Gourville, who acted energetically as his agent. The celebrated Le Nôtre was called in to lay out the gardens; the vast grounds were converted into parks, interspersed by the charming pieces of water which still exist. With great ingenuity a channel was dug to receive the waters of the streamlet Nonette, an affluent of the Oise, and a hydraulic machine invented by Condé himself--who was as skilled an engineer as he was a soldier--was constructed by Le Manse, under whom all these wonderful waterworks were kept in order. The courtyard which forms the present entrance to the Château dates from that time. Letters have come down to us in which Condé expresses to Le Nôtre the highest satisfaction with his work. The latter was quite overcome by the Prince's appreciation, and replied to him: "_Jamais l'Honneur que je receu d'embraser nostre Saint Pere, le pape, et de baiser sa mule ne m'a fait tant de bien ny donne tant de joie que celle que je ressenty par la bonté que vous avez eu de me donner le benefice que votre Altesse a refusé a tant de testes couronnees.... Je continueray a eslever mes pensées pour l'embellissement de vos parterres, fontaines, cascades de vostre grand jardin de Chantilly._" In 1684 Mansart was entrusted with the entire transformation of the interior of the Petit Château; the first floor being arranged for the use of the Grand Condé, whilst the ground floor was reserved for his son, the Duc d'Enghien. The exterior of this exquisite building was fortunately left intact, and has remained unchanged since the time of Anne de Montmorency. Nor has the interior changed since Mansart's alterations. When the visitor passes through these apartments to-day, he can feel that they are in the same state as when the Grand Condé dwelt there. The Grand Cabinet with its exquisite Beauvais tapestry, its Boulle table, and its Louis XVI consoles and lustres, and the Petit Cabinet where the victor of Rocroy came to rest from his labours, still exist, to recall their former owner. In an adjacent apartment we may admire a fine piece of furniture, companion to the famous Louis XV bureau in the Louvre, upon which is placed the Grand Condé's own despatch-box. Then there is the Long Gallery, where the painter Sauveur Lecomte has illustrated, under the hero's own directions, all his victories from the battles of Rocroy, Nördlingen, and Fribourg to the conquest of the Franche Comté, and the campaign and passage of the Rhine. Mansart, once installed at Chantilly, did not leave it for many years. He unfortunately attempted to tamper with the old feudal castle of the Orgemonts and the mediæval architecture which combined so well with Montmorency's Petit Château, creating an inordinately lofty building, with a straight line of innumerable windows and attics all precisely similar in form. It was this structure which was razed to the ground at the time of the Revolution, and which was reconstructed in a far more suitable style by the late Duc d'Aumale. CHAPTER VI FESTIVITIES AT CHANTILLY Since there was no prospect for Condé to take any prominent lead in the affairs of his own country his name was proposed as a possible successor to the throne of Poland. He declined, however, to accept a crown which had been the cause of so much misery to King Wladislav IV and to his brother Jean Casimir. There being no heir-apparent to that throne the eyes of Marie de Gonzague, Queen of Poland, turned upon the Duc d'Enghien, Condé's only surviving son, and it was in connection with this idea that a marriage was arranged between Henri Jules de Bourbon and Anne of Bavaria, eldest daughter of the Princess Palatine, sister to the Polish Queen. Claire-Clemence was not over-pleased at the idea of this marriage, since she did not share her husband's ambitions. The uneasy throne of Poland for her only son was a proposal which she could not face with equanimity. The union that she would have preferred was one with Mademoiselle d'Alençon, youngest daughter of Gaston d'Orléans, a Princess whom Henri Jules often saw and greatly admired, for the Orléans family at that time lived in the sumptuous Palais d'Orléans, not far from the Palais Condé, which was built on the site now occupied by the Odéon Théâtre. But the Princess could not prevail upon her masterful husband, who had not only taken his son's education, but also his entire future, into his own hands. The brave lady, who had played so important a part during the Fronde, and had shown so much courage and determination under her many difficulties and trials, had at this time completely broken down in health. She only appeared at Court festivities at long intervals, and although she was present at her son's marriage she did not join the young couple at Chantilly. The Grand Condé, surrounding himself with friends, lived there from choice; and there Anne de Gonzague paid him frequent visits, whilst Claire-Clemence was left neglected in Paris. Society soon followed suit; and such neglect and isolation told upon a constitution naturally delicate. This Princess, once so full of admiration for her hero, now began to cherish resentment against him; and she who for long years had, in spite of his neglect, never uttered one word of complaint, at last broke out into bitter recrimination. We gather from Condé's letters that she suffered from violent fits of passion, and that a secret fear lest he should make away with her became more and more a fixed idea. It is said, however, that when she appeared at the baptism of the Dauphin her attitude was full of dignity and commanded involuntary respect. Two years after this an unfortunate incident happened, never entirely explained, which reduced Claire-Clemence to imprisonment for the rest of her life. Condé had compelled her to dismiss a page, named Duval, who had been in her service. She had, however, promised him a pension which it seems was left unpaid. One day, whilst the rest of the servants were at their meals, he penetrated into the Princess's apartments to beg for his pension. His voice was heard by the page on duty in the next room, who at once entered the chamber in order to protect Her Highness from his importunities. A violent quarrel arose between the two men, and the Princess, in her endeavours to separate them, was severely wounded. When the rest of the servants, on hearing the noise, rushed into the apartment, Her Highness was found unconscious on the floor. This was the version put about in Paris; but Condé, on being informed of it, was beside himself with rage, and caused Duval to be arrested and condemned to the gallows. Condé, so magnanimous alike to friends and enemies, in this instance behaved most brutally to his wife, and availed himself of this opportunity to get rid of her. Instead of defending her against a scandal which increased day by day from its very mystery, he himself heaped calumny upon her. He immediately left Chantilly for Paris, and without visiting the Princess his wife, went straight to Louis XIV and demanded a _lettre de cachet_ against her. The King, however, with greater humanity, refused his request; upon which Condé returned to Chantilly in great wrath and contrived another scheme. He concocted a document under which the Princess consented to transfer all her property to her son during her lifetime; which deed he persuaded the Duke to present to his mother for signature. There was, however, a clause under which Her Highness was to retain a right of disposal over her jewels. By this scheme he proposed to induce her to retire altogether from the world without offering any defence. Abandoned by her husband, robbed by her own son--who actually did persuade her to sign the above-mentioned instrument--the unfortunate Princess found herself no longer the courageous woman that she once had been. Instead of rebutting the wicked calumnies which attacked her honour, she merely endeavoured to save the unworthy Duval from the guillotine--a wretch who, under torture, uttered confessions compromising the Princess, which were, however, considered by the Parlement as inconclusive. Condé, furious with his wife as the cause of all this scandal, again demanded of Louis XIV a _lettre de cachet_ and this time secured it. Her very generosity on behalf of the accused Duval was employed as a pretext for separation; and crushed and broken in health and spirits, she was transported one morning to the fortress of Châteauroux. In the presence of her son, the Duc d'Enghien, she said to the _curé_ of Saint-Sulpice, who was her confessor: "This is the last time that I shall be able to talk to you, for I shall never return from the place where the King is pleased to send me. Nevertheless the confession which I have made to you will always prove my innocence." Embracing her son for the last time, she fainted away; and in that state she was conveyed to the carriage which was to transport her to the distant castle of Châteauroux, where she was to be buried for the remainder of her life. No news of the outer world ever reached her, and even her only child never visited her. This barbarous treatment, this cruel seclusion, brought on hallucinations, during which it is said that she was haunted by the image of her husband. Châteauroux, a gloomy fortress with numerous towers, inspired her with terror; and there were even rumours that she was ill-treated by her gaolers. Madame de Longueville was the only member of the Condé family who showed any pity for this poor, forlorn woman, and she expressed a wish to visit her; but Condé, unrelenting, refused her permission. He sent, however, Père Tixier to ascertain whether she had all she needed, who reported that she seemed to be in constant terror lest the food offered to her might contain poison. Through many long years she dragged on a sad life in this cruel solitude; and not even the news of her husband's death, whom she outlived by several years, reached her. Unrelenting to the last, Condé is said to have written on his death-bed a private letter to Louis XIV, desiring him as a favour never to release Claire-Clemence. When at last death delivered her, she was buried in the little church of St. Martin, within the precincts of Châteauroux. Only a few Franciscan monks and some poor people of the neighbourhood, whom out of her own scanty resources she had continually assisted, attended at her funeral. Neither her son nor any of her relations were present. When, in 1793, this little church was restored, her remains were thrown to the winds, and not one of her descendants took the trouble to raise a protest. More than a century had to pass before even one voice was raised in defence of this cruelly wronged woman. Louis Joseph de Bourbon, the father of the last Condé, in his _Biography_ of his famous ancestor, could not refrain from a severe condemnation of the cruelty with which the "Hero" had treated the wife who had shown so much courage and loyalty on his behalf. The noble-minded Duc d'Aumale, in his _History of the Princes de Condé_, is also full of sympathy and appreciation for poor Claire-Clemence; although he endeavours to excuse the great Condé's conduct towards her by explaining the repugnance he must have felt for Richelieu's niece. A curious circumstance which seems still further to enhance the tragic fate which befell Claire-Clemence is the indifference shown to her by her own nearest relatives. At the very time when she was pining away in the fortress of Châteauroux, not only her husband but her son also seems to have felt no pity nor care for her. At Chantilly, where Anne de Gonzague reigned supreme, festivity followed festivity, and it was she who received the crowds of guests who thronged to visit that delectable resort. * * * * * The visits to Fontainebleau, where, after the death of the Regent, the King so often shut himself up for hours together, are described as being very tame compared with those to Chantilly, where the time passed far more agreeably. Turenne and the Maréchal de Grammont were frequently invited. Also such celebrated men of letters as Boileau, Racine, Corneille, La Fontaine, and Molière found their way thither; for Condé took a great personal interest in their works, and helped and encouraged them considerably. Boileau was a specially welcome guest at Chantilly. Once, however, during an animated conversation with the Prince, he contradicted him in some statement; but noticing an angry look upon His Highness's countenance, he became alarmed, and, making a profound bow, said: "_Je serais toujours de l'avis de M. le Prince, surtout quand il aura tort_"--a piece of tact which was much appreciated by his host, and disarmed his anger. Condé was also the first to recognise the greatness of Molière, and to protect him from his rivals. The _Precieuses Ridicules_ were first acted at Chantilly, and the players were lodged there for over a week. When Louis XIV fell so passionately in love with Madame de Montespan, Molière wrote his poem _Amphitryon_, wherein he advises husbands to offer to Jupiter a share of their nuptial love--a work which he dedicated to the Prince de Condé. It was Boileau who brought Racine to Chantilly, and his tragedies were often performed there. Moreover, the Court itself paid prolonged visits to the Grand Condé, and thither thronged all the most distinguished personages in Europe. Madame de Sévigné, in her famous _Letters_, describes the "_delices_" of Chantilly; and descriptions of festive gatherings of all kinds held there are frequently to be found throughout the records of the period. The _Gazette_ devoted many columns to details regarding pleasure and hunting parties and lunches at the Maison de Sylvie. In the month of April 1671 Chantilly opened its portals to receive Louis XIV and his bride, the Infanta Maria Theresa. The Château itself was reserved for the Royal party, whilst the courtiers and the officers of the suite were lodged throughout the neighbouring villages. Sixty tables were served three times a day; and it was during this Royal visit that Vatel, the _maître d'hôtel_, whose skill directed the whole, suddenly committed suicide because he was unable to provide the necessary fish on a fast-day. He was greatly mourned, especially by his master; but a substitute was soon found, who succeeded even better than his predecessor, so far eclipsing him, in fact, that his loss was soon forgotten. Louis XIV was so charmed with this visit that he is said to have been inspired by Chantilly to create Versailles. "_Mon cousin_" he jokingly said to Condé when leaving, "_il faut que vous me cédiez Chantilly_." To which Condé promptly replied, "_Chantilly est aux ordres du roi. J'espère que sa majesté me nommera son concierge._" CHAPTER VII THE GRAND CONDÉ A WARRIOR ONCE MORE Shortly after this memorable visit of the Court to Chantilly the Prince de Condé was summoned by the King to Paris to give his opinion upon a possible conquest of Holland. The truth was that the youthful monarch, thirsting for military glory, had but recently uttered the celebrated statement that the only way to conquer the Spanish Netherlands was to subdue and annihilate the Dutch. Upon the death of Philip IV of Spain the French King had immediately asserted the Flemish rights of his wife Maria Theresa, daughter of the late King of Spain by his first wife. According to the ancient Statutes of Brabant there was no doubt about her title to this inheritance, but, since the long-drawn-out negotiations regarding it led to nothing, Louis XIV suddenly declared war. His Majesty had not forgotten Condé's successes at Rocroy, Nördlingen and Lens, and his admiration for the Prince's skill in strategy and geography was unbounded. In the exuberance of his imagination he even contemplated, with the aid of so great a hero, the subjugation of the whole of Europe. It was in this spirit that Louis, accompanied by Turenne, marched into Flanders, and made Lille a French town; whilst Condé once more surprised the world by his conquest of the whole of Franche-Comté in less than a month. England, Holland, and Sweden, terrified at the young King's ambition and the success of the French arms, promptly entered into a Triple Alliance, which arrested the conquering hero in full career and brought about the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, whereby he was forced to be content with Flanders alone. But such terms were scarcely calculated to satisfy the ambitions of either the King, his generals, or the French nation. Hostilities were therefore soon resumed. With an army of thirteen thousand men commanded by Condé and Turenne Louis advanced on Holland. He crossed the Rhine, devastating and conquering everything before him. No less than ninety-five towns and villages capitulated in ten days. Holland, conscious of her inability to resist, begged for peace, but the French, encouraged by their successes, refused to lend an ear to her entreaties. It was then that William of Orange conceived the daring plan of submerging the whole of Holland by piercing the dykes. In this way the French were brought up short in their destructive course by an inundation which lasted over two years. Louis, obliged by these circumstances to postpone for a time the conquest of Holland, retired to Saint-Germain and left to Turenne the arduous task of remaining with the army. Condé, meanwhile, led the advance-guard with a rapidity which in less than nine days made him master of six strong fortresses on the Rhine; and it apparently only remained for him to cross the Yssel to where the young Prince of Orange was stationed. Once more he displayed remarkable military strategy in crossing this river at a point where he was unexpected: and two Dutch regiments ordered to oppose him were cut to pieces by overwhelming numbers, so that the French troops there and then crossed the Rhine without hindrance. Montbas, the Dutch General, accused of treason, was supplanted at the last moment by de Wirty, in order to shield William of Orange himself, who recognized his mistake too late. This easy victory, however, was marred by an event which proved most unfortunate in its consequences. When the French squadrons had reached the opposite bank of the river Condé, with his son and his nephew, the Duc de Longueville, also crossed immediately in a boat, followed by their men and horses. The Princes, on landing, promptly threw themselves into their saddles, and riding ahead fell in with a small body of Dutch soldiers, who begged for mercy. The young Duc de Longueville, without waiting for the decision of his chief, cried out: "_Pas de quartier_," and fired off his pistol. The Dutch promptly replied with a volley, one shot of which struck de Longueville and mortally wounded him, whilst another seriously injured Condé himself. The Prince and his dead nephew were immediately transported to a fisherman's hut. By a strange coincidence, the mourners were met by the Ambassador of Poland, who had come to offer the crown of the Jagellons--refused by Condé for his own son--to the unfortunate young Duke. Condé's wound changed the course of the whole campaign, since it incapacitated him at the supreme moment when he might have reaped the full advantages of his victory. The wound healed but slowly, and his son, Henri Jules, could not replace him at the head of his troops. Time lost to the French was time gained by William of Orange, who, as has been said, conceived the heroic plan of inundating Holland, whereby the French military operations became impossible. The auspicious moment for invading Holland being thus lost, Condé travelled slowly back to Chantilly, where he found a much-needed rest, and by degrees recovered his health. On his way back he had an interview at Port Royal with his sister, the Duchesse de Longueville, who, on hearing of her bereavement, gave way to long but silent grief; and, retiring from the world, passed her days in prayer and fasting for the repose of the soul of her dead son. Subsequently she became a devout Jansenist. Louis' ambitious plans to conquer Europe, frustrated for the moment, had now roused Spain, Denmark, and some of the German Princes to take up arms to prevent possible renewed attacks upon their territories; and two great soldiers came forward to keep guard upon the Rhine: William of Brandenburg (a hero himself and ancestor of heroes), and Montecucoli (so named after his feudal castle), who took the command of the Imperial troops. Condé, hardly yet recovered, was summoned by his sovereign, and was requested once more to operate in the Netherlands. William of Orange began by attacking the French army at Senef, and in spite of the "_fougue_" of Condé the battle remained undecided. Turenne, meanwhile, was manoeuvring on the Rhine against Montecucoli, who was marching on Alsace; he succeeded in repulsing the Imperial troops near the Neckar, taking Heidelberg and Mannheim, and forcing his way into the Palatinate. Suddenly, however, he had to change his tactics owing to the unexpected appearance of the Margrave of Brandenburg; and the French commander's plans terminated in a campaign in Alsace, where he was victorious at Mulhouse and Schletstadt. In that same year he was also confronted by Montecucoli, and unfortunately met his death at Salzbach before any decisive battle had been fought. His loss was a severe blow to his soldiers. Condé was immediately sent for; and, inspired by the memory of the dead general, followed his tactics, and succeeded without a single battle in driving the Imperial troops back across the Rhine. This was precisely what the King and his minister, Louvois, desired; for Montecucoli was thus shut out of Alsace, and obliged to take up his winter-quarters on the far side of the Rhine. By these brilliant operations Condé preserved Turenne's army, and terminated this great campaign, in which were engaged three of the most celebrated generals of the period: Montecucoli, the profound strategist, the sagacious Turenne, and the great Condé, who in the cause of France was always victorious. These were his last exploits, and he returned to Chantilly, there to pass a life of peaceful quiet until his death in 1687. Madame de Sévigné, who was repeatedly invited to the Château, says in her _Letters_ that Condé was quite admirable in his retreat, from which he only emerged occasionally to pay a visit to the King at Fontainebleau, Paris, or Versailles, where a splendid suite of apartments was always reserved for him. Chantilly at that time became a small Court in itself. Not only was it a resort for kings, princes, ambassadors, generals, and statesmen, who never omitted to pay their respects to the Grand Condé, but it was also a rallying-place for the most distinguished literary and scientific men of the day. Here Bossuet, Fénelon, and the philosopher Malebranche, the poets Corneille, Racine, and Molière discussed their works and their theories in that avenue in the park which to this day bears the name of "the Philosophers." The newest books and publications passed their first public ordeal at Chantilly; and at the theatrical representations which frequently took place there, the greatest actors of the day produced famous plays, or made their _début_. The Prince kept a special company of comedians in his own pay at Rouen for practice, so anxious was he that they should perform at Chantilly to the utmost perfection; and he himself distributed to them their various parts. His interest in scientific discoveries was also very great, and he studied all the latest books upon these subjects. The humorous letters addressed to him upon such matters by that fantastic personage Bourdelot still exist. The famous waterworks at Chantilly, imitated later at Versailles, were to a great extent, as we have already remarked, planned and carried out according to his own designs. Nor was he lacking in artistic interest, for he made important additions to the collection of manuscripts founded by his ancestors, the Montmorencys; and during his stay in Holland he collected many Dutch pictures and some fine furniture, which may still be seen in his own rooms at the Petit Château. For him Charles Le Brun and Mignard worked assiduously, and some of the paintings by Paul Veronese, Guido, Guercino, the Carraccis, Van Dyck, and Antonio Moro which now adorn the walls of the Musée Condé were acquired by him. His passion for the chase was notorious; and hunting and hawking in the woods of Chantilly were amongst his greatest pleasures. He revived the art of hawking, introduced into Europe from Arabia by the Crusaders, and he is said to have taken particular interest in his own hawks, conferring upon each of them individual names. [Illustration: PLATE XV. _Photo. Giraudon._ Molière. By Miguard. Musée Condé.] In concluding these notices on the life and character of the Grand Condé, we must not forget to mark a trait in his character which has perhaps not been hitherto so generally acknowledged: namely, a feeling that he owed it to family tradition to protect the Huguenots. When therefore Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, and thereby caused an exodus of some of the best amongst his subjects, Condé, wherever it was possible, protected the persecuted Protestants; and Chantilly itself became a shelter for Huguenot fugitives. Disappointed in his own son, Henri Jules de Bourbon--a man devoid of all ability, whose chief aim was to follow the Dauphin's hounds--Condé in his old age attempted to take in hand the education of his grandson, the young Duc de Bourbon, and of his favourite nephew, François, Prince de Conti, left orphaned by the early death of his father. By these means he hoped to restore the glory of the race: for François de Conti had displayed military talent and great valour during the famous day of Steinkerque, where two horses were killed under him, and where he contributed greatly to the victory achieved by French arms. For the benefit of these two young men, Condé invited to Chantilly La Bruyère, who had been introduced to him by Bossuet, and engaged him to undertake their education. But the Duke, like his father, was too much attracted by the Court of Louis XIV. At a very early age his father arranged an alliance for him with Mademoiselle de Nantes, a daughter of the King by Madame de Montespan, and contemporary chronicles are filled with references to this child-marriage, which was celebrated with the greatest pomp; the bride being but thirteen and the bride-groom seventeen years of age. After the nuptials, the two children took their places in a state bed, supported on either side by their respective mothers: but as soon as festivities were over they were separated and only permitted to see each other in the presence of their relations. The new Duchesse de Bourbon was extremely handsome; but her husband was rather small and of an unamiable disposition. His shortcomings were, however, compensated for by the brilliant valour which he displayed at a subsequent period. Bossuet himself was prevailed upon to give instruction to the young Duke. This famous prelate was always greatly admired by the Grand Condé. Upon one occasion we are told that he entered the Church of the Minimes, when the great philosopher happened to be preaching. Bossuet, who was arguing upon the vanity of the glories of this world to which Condé had sacrificed so much, suddenly perceived the hero among the audience. Whereupon, with his customary skill, on the spur of the moment he introduced an appropriate compliment by pointing out how the Prince de Condé, after having been so long the ornament of his century, was now also endeavouring to attain Eternal Life--an immortality more lasting than that which worldly fame affords. In early life Condé had been a member of a society of free-thinkers, to which the Princesses Marie and Anne de Gonzague had also belonged. He had studied Spinoza, and had approved of his pantheistic doctrines; then, gradually leaving Spinoza, he took up Descartes. Later the example of his sister, Madame de Longueville--who, from leading a worldly life, had become a pious Jansenist--made a deep impression upon him: as did also the death of Anne de Gonzague, who, after a life of wildest excitement, had before her end become a sincere and devout penitent. In his old age he often sought the company of a friend of his early youth and college-days at Bourges, who had distinguished himself as a brilliant orator. Shortly before his death, in company with this friend, Condé went to receive the Holy Communion at his parish church of Saint-Sulpice; and on leaving was met by the plaudits of the people of Paris. His own adherence to the Catholic Faith did not, however, change his friendly attitude towards the Huguenots, nor did it alter in any way his mode of living at Chantilly. Madame de Langeron at that time did the honours of his house, and the freedom of thought which reigned there so much appreciated by men like La Bruyère and Bossuet, was never interfered with. Saint-Évremond sang Condé's praise in the following characteristic verses: _À ta vertu, Condé, tu t'es enfin soumis_ _Tu n'étais pas encore au comble de ta gloire,_ _Senef, Lens, Fribourg et Nordlingen et Rocroi_ _N'étaient que des degrés pour monter jusqu'à toi._ _Le vainqueur s'est vaincu, c'est la grande victoire._ * * * * * _Tranquil et glorieux,_ _Il vit à Chantilly comme on vit aux cieux._ Bossuet has described the last moments of the hero: "Such as he was in his warrior days, resolute, quiet, always occupied, without anxiety for what had to be done, such was he in his last hour. Nor did death seem to him any more repulsive or terrible now than in the midst of battle and victory." Whilst his family and friends shed copious tears as his end approached, he continued to give all necessary orders; and he remembered everyone, from the highest to the lowest of his friends and attendants, showering gifts upon them all with a munificence fully in accordance with his high rank and generous heart. CHAPTER VIII THE LAST CONDÉS When Henri Jules de Bourbon succeeded to the Condé inheritance, he continued with filial piety to carry out all the improvements and additions to Chantilly which his father had planned. François Mansart, the most fashionable architect of the period, had by that time nearly completed those unfortunate alterations which transformed the ancient feudal fortress into a species of Versailles. This Prince also built the parish church on a site presented by the Grand Condé to the inhabitants of the hamlet which had begun to form itself around the castle. He completed the menagerie and by his orders Mansart built an orangery ending in a pavilion called by him _Le Pavillon d'Oronthée_. Statues of the Grand Condé, of Bossuet, of Molière, of Le Nôtre, and of La Bruyère, executed by the most famous sculptors of the day, were placed along the Terrasse du Connétable; whilst marble copies of celebrated antiques were set up in the gardens and park. He spoke of Chantilly as "_ses delices_" and was never weary of planning improvements there. He also directed that the famous deeds of his father should be recorded on canvas by Sauveur Lecomte in accordance with directions left by that hero himself. In 1688 the Prince de Condé entertained at Chantilly the Grand Dauphin, only son of Louis XIV, with whom he was on terms of great intimacy; and the apartments in the Petit Château occupied by that Prince were those once inhabited by the Grand Condé himself. A description of the entertainments given upon this occasion may be read in the _Mercure de France_ of that year, as follows: "A great _battue_ had been arranged, and the Dauphin appears to have been delighted by the enjoyment of such splendid sport. Luncheon was served on a big stone table in the middle of the forest.[12] On the centre of the table was placed a basket containing the most exquisite fruit, and during the repast mythological deities made their appearance whilst dances were performed to the sound of appropriate music. Every day--and the Dauphin remained for seven--some new diversion was contrived." As Henri Jules de Condé grew older he seldom left Chantilly. His temper became more and more violent and difficult; and during his last years he rarely appeared at Court. He died in 1709, leaving a legacy to the Hospital at Chantilly, which had been founded by his grandmother, Charlotte de Montmorency. The Duc de Bourbon, generally known as Louis III, Prince de Condé, died soon after his father. Louise Françoise, his wife, had presented him with six daughters and three sons; of whom the eldest, Louis Henri, succeeded to the title of Prince de Condé at the early age of eighteen.[13] He, like his predecessors, also spent great sums on the embellishment of Chantilly. By him were built the great stables--a monument unique of its kind--in which vast buildings more than two hundred horses and packs of hounds for fox, deer, and boar hunts, were housed. In the adjoining courtyards were lodged their numerous attendants--_piqueurs_, _chasseurs_, and stable-boys--and the carriages, coaches, etc., needed for such an establishment. The central cupola of this stupendous edifice was originally adorned with a statue of _La Renommée_, but this was destroyed by a cannon-ball during the Revolution of 1792. The famous Duchesse de Berry, daughter of the Regent and wife of the younger grandson of Louis XIV, passed a whole week at Chantilly as the guest of this Prince; and great magnificence was displayed for her entertainment. Saint-Simon in his _Mémoires_ relates an incident which happened during these festivities. On the farther side of the grand canal the Duke kept a very beautiful menagerie, full of rare animals and fine birds; and whilst the company were strolling about and playing games in the grounds a huge tiger escaped and prowled about the gardens to the terror of the gay revellers. After some time, however, and fortunately before any accident had occurred, the beast was captured and induced to return to his cage. In consequence of the numerous royal visits paid to him, Louis Henri entirely remodelled the interior of the Grand Château. The King's Apartment was over the Museum; it extended from the Chapel to the so-called North Tower, and was composed of guard-rooms, long galleries, and vast chambers. That of the Queen was over the present Entrance-Hall, and ran as far as the Treasury towers. From it one could penetrate into the Chapel, which at that time was situated where is now the splendid staircase leading to the Museum. During the time of this Prince the youthful Louis XV came to Chantilly from Reims. He arrived in the evening and the whole place was beautifully illuminated--so much so that "every detail of the building could be seen as if in broad daylight." The festivities on this occasion were many and various. The chase during the day and in the evening performances by an Italian comedy company engaged for the occasion, and by a famous ballet which lasted four-and-twenty hours. In 1723, after the death of the Regent, the Duc de Bourbon became Prime Minister of France. His wife, Anne Marie de Bourbon, had died and his mistress, the famous Marquise de Prie, reigned supreme--an even more fascinating, and certainly a more intelligent woman than the Montespans, Pompadours, and Du Barrys, who so completely succeeded in captivating the Bourbon Kings. She possessed a beautiful voice, with which she interpreted Italian music, learnt during her stay in Turin where her husband for many years had been ambassador. She also, like Madame de Pompadour, patronised art and had portraits of herself painted by Rosalba and Vanloo. Her house was furnished with exquisite taste, and she understood to perfection the arts of the toilet. At first she devoted herself to a life of pleasure, but she soon saw the wisdom of becoming her lover's adviser-in-chief. In order to shield him against the intrigues of the Orleans family--as long as the King remained unmarried and without a nearer heir--she persuaded the Prime Minister that the Spanish Infanta, daughter of Philip V, who had been educated at the French Court and was intended to be the future Queen-Consort of France--though she was still a child of not much more than ten years old--should be sent back to her father. When this had been accomplished a marriage was speedily arranged with Maria Leczinska of Poland, although she was several years older than the young King. This act led to an immediate rupture with Spain and brought no political advantage to France. But in order to understand to the full the game played here by Madame de Prie, we should note that Maria Leczinska had been at first intended for Monsieur le Duc; wherefore by making her Queen of France she not only hoped to keep her lover to herself, but also to get ascendancy over the King through a queen whom she had helped to raise to so exalted a position. Somewhat unexpectedly, however, she found an implacable enemy in Cardinal Fleury, who was to Louis XV what Richelieu and Mazarin had been to his predecessors. He had been the young King's preceptor and exercised a great influence over him. When it occurred to Fleury that he might become Prime Minister in place of the Duc de Bourbon the latter, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of Madame de Prie, was compelled to yield and to resign on the charge that he had confided affairs of State to unqualified persons. He retired to Chantilly with his mistress, where, the lady received a most discourteous welcome from Madame la Duchesse Douarière; and to the grief and dismay of the Duke a _lettre de cachet_ from the King presently commanded her to retire to a property in Normandy which belonged to her long-neglected husband. The Duc de Bourbon never ceased to regret her, because, as he asserted, he felt that she was so devoted to his interests as to have subordinated every other sentiment. She only survived her humiliation a few years; but it was some time after her death before the childless Duke thought of remarrying. His choice fell upon a young princess of Hesse Rhinfeld, whose eldest sister had married the King of Sardinia. The new Duchess, who was barely fifteen, was as beautiful and graceful as she was good. This marriage put an end to the disgrace into which the Duke had fallen at Court; and from that time Louis XV, who very much admired the young _châtelaine_ of Chantilly, never went to Compiègne without paying her a visit on the way. In memory of these Royal visits he sent her a beautiful spray of diamonds, which the Duc de Luignes in his _Mémoires_ values at seventy-two thousand francs. The same writer adds that in the month of August 1738 the King came to Chantilly for a stag-hunt; and that he arrived at the Château in a gondola, accompanied by four Court ladies. The Duke and Duchess received this gay party and supper was immediately served, but next morning the heat was so excessive that the stag-hunt had to be abandoned. At nine o'clock, however, His Majesty promenaded upon the terrace, while airs from well-known operas were sung to amuse him. The Queen, Maria Leczinska, also enjoyed strolling about the gardens and driving through the park, where all sorts of games were specially devised for her. In 1740 the Duc de Bourbon fell ill and died rather suddenly. His young wife survived him barely a year; and their only son, Louis Joseph, then but five years of age, was left to the charge of his grandmother. She presented him soon after to Louis XV as Prince de Condé, and it was then remarked that he was very fair and tall for his age. His uncle, the Comte de Charolais, meantime administered the property at Chantilly with great judgment and skill on behalf of his nephew and ward. The young Prince was taken to Chantilly by his uncle for the first time at the age of fourteen, and all sorts of amusements suitable for his age were prepared for his pleasure. He at once conceived a great affection for the place, which continued for the rest of his life. When he attained the age of seventeen his uncle Charolais considered it time for him to marry, and proposed to him several suitable matches. At one of the entertainments given to further this end the young Prince's choice fell on Charlotte de Rohan Soubise, a young lady renowned for her grace and beauty; and their marriage was celebrated at Versailles with great pomp. The young couple passed their honeymoon at Chantilly and, according to the chronicles of the old Château, they immediately commenced to display the traditional Condé taste for profuse hospitality. Balls, theatricals, garden-fêtes, etc., followed each other in quick succession for six weeks. [Illustration: PLATE XVI. CHARLOTTE, PRINCESSE DE CONDÉ, WIFE OF LOUIS JOSEPH DE BOURBON. _Musée Condé._ Jean M. Nattier.] In 1756 their son and heir was born. At first he was known as the Duc d'Enghien but this was afterwards changed to Duc de Bourbon. The second child was a daughter, Louise de Condé, subsequently famed for her great intelligence and beauty. The Princess Charlotte de Soubise was a general favourite at Court; but in spite of her many social engagements she never neglected her maternal duties and always showed herself a most devoted wife and mother. The Prince, notwithstanding his domestic felicity, considered it his duty to add a "sprig of laurel" to the trophies of his glorious ancestor, the Grand Condé. He therefore joined the army and greatly distinguished himself during the Seven Years' War. In 1762 he gained the victories of Grinningen and Johannesberg. The sudden death of his wife the Princesse de Condé from an attack of diphtheria put an end to his conjugal happiness; but to Chantilly he always returned after his campaigns, so as to be in the old home and with his children. A highly cultured gentleman, he took intense interest in literature and scientific research, enriching with numerous volumes the library of the Château and adding thereto mineralogical and physiological collections of great value. His only son, Louis Henri Joseph de Bourbon, when just fifteen was affianced to Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde d'Orléans, five years his senior and an intimate friend of his sister Louise. Even in those days of early marriages this union was considered abnormal, and it was at first arranged that the young couple should wait for a time. But the youthful pair threatened to elope unless they were allowed to marry that same year, so with "_un éclat de rire_" the King gave his consent. When Marie Antoinette as Dauphine visited Chantilly the grace and charm of the young Duchess, who presided over the brilliant fêtes given upon that occasion, were much admired. Louis Joseph, like the Grand Condé, was passionately devoted to the art of the stage, and his daughter-in-law, like so many great ladies of her time, was distinguished for her literary talents. She herself composed the comedies in which she, her husband, and her Royal guests took part. The theatre at Chantilly, celebrated for its elaborate decorations and beautiful scenery, was approached by a terrace adorned by forty-eight marble vases; whence a double staircase led through the Salon d'Apollon. Palm-trees formed an avenue before its entrance, and the back of the theatre opened upon the garden, where a statue of Diana surrounded by waterfalls stood in the background. Amongst the improvements in the gardens first introduced by this Prince was a "_Hameau_," which was erected long before that in the Petit Trianon at Versailles. From the time of Henri IV Chantilly, as we have seen, had been a favourite pleasure-resort for Royal personages. Louis XV used to combine excursions thither with his visits to Versailles. The King of Denmark, the hereditary Prince of Prussia, and Gustavus III, King of Sweden, were all entertained at the Château; and the latter presented to the Prince de Condé the magnificent cabinet containing many strange and curious minerals now at the Musée Condé. In 1782 the Comte du Nord, afterwards the Emperor Paul of Russia, with his wife, Dorothea of Wurtemberg, paid a long visit to Chantilly. One of the Russian ladies-in-waiting, the Baroness Oberkirch, gives the following description of their stay: "We joined the Prince at eleven o'clock, which was the dinner-hour. This dinner, which opened the fêtes of the day--we were a hundred and fifty at table--was splendid, and quite in accordance with the traditions of this princely house, so famous for its magnificent hospitality. When we left the dining-hall we found carriages waiting for us. The Prince and the Duke, his son, themselves drove us along the avenues, where a thousand surprises were prepared for us. The trees were hung with flags and decorated with the Russian colours. After the drive we went to the theatre. They played _The Friend of the House_, _The Supposed Poet_, and _The Fifteen-year-old Lover_. The latter piece told the love-story of the Duc and Duchesse de Bourbon and had been played on the eve of their wedding. It ended with a fine ballet. On coming out we found the gardens illuminated and fireworks blazing all round, while the façade of the Château was decorated with the heraldic bearings of the Emperor and Empress. Supper was served on the _Isle d'Amour_ and then followed a ball which was so gay and full of merriment that it seemed to us a quite exceptional thing, since this is not usually the case amongst princes. The next morning a hunting-party was arranged, a diversion of which the Condé princes and princesses are particularly fond. A stag was hunted for three hours, and when at last he went into the water he was followed by the whole pack of hounds. The sight was really superb." A picture representing this famous hunting-party was painted by Le Paon and presented to the Russian Emperor. It still hangs in one of the Imperial Palaces in St. Petersburg; but a copy was offered to the Duc d'Aumale by the Grand Duke Wladimir, which is now in the Musée Condé. Another day the magnificent stables were visited and dinner was served in the central hall beneath the cupola. Much admiration was expressed for the gorgeous hangings which divided this part of the building from the rest. When the Royal party left the table these hangings were lifted on both sides, so as to exhibit the two hundred and forty horses stabled in either wing. At that time two bronze horses stood beside the great fountain, which was completed in 1782. But they disappeared during the Revolution. The hostess upon this occasion was the Princesse Louise de Condé, for the Duchesse de Bourbon, after but a few years of married life, separated herself from her gay young husband. This Princess inherited her father's great qualities. She had been educated in the same convent where a relation of hers, Henriette de Bourbon Condé, was Abbess under the name of Madame de Vermandois--a lady of whom it was rumoured that she had refused to marry Louis XV and had preferred the life of a convent to that of Queen of France! Over the young Princesse de Condé she exercised great influence and Princesse Louise tells us that she looked upon her as a mother, since she had never known her own. Of her father she saw very little; but in her childhood he used to send the Surveyor of the Province to her every Sunday to ask whether she wanted anything. At the age of twelve she left this peaceful life for Paris, where she attached herself to her cousin Princesse Bathilde d'Orléans, who presently became her sister-in-law. These two Princesses had each a royal household of their own, with maids-of-honour and attendants; and they were permitted to receive the visits of relations and certain selected friends. The Duc de Bourbon, whose attachment to his sister was the one redeeming point in his otherwise unsatisfactory character, often came to see her, and it was during one of these visits that he first met his wife. The Princesse Louise de Condé at this time was presented at Court, where her beauty and grace created a great sensation; and she then received the title of "Mademoiselle." The Duc d'Artois, third son of the Grand Dauphin, was greatly attracted by her, and a marriage between them was much discussed in Court circles. It was even said that it was desired by the people; but Louis XV, wishing to revenge himself upon Louis Joseph for having opposed the "_pacte de famine_,"[14] insisted on his grandson marrying Marie Thérèse of Savoy. This bitter disappointment, coming to her in yet tender years, made a deep impression upon the Princess, and from thenceforth she preferred solitude to worldly pleasure. She continued to reside in the Convent, refusing all other proposals of marriage, and devoting herself to literature. Later on in life she indulged in a platonic friendship with the Marquis de Gervaisais, who is said to have collaborated with her in the drama of _Friendman_. They often made excursions together from the watering-place of Bourbon d'Archambault, where the Princess had gone for her health, to visit the old Château de Bourbon; and it was during these excursions, amid ruins clad with ivy "as with a Royal mantle," that the young poet wrote this drama (subsequently acted at Bourbon d'Archambault), wherein he hymned the praises of his adored Princess. "_L'âme n'a pas d'âge, comme elle n'a pas de sexe_" wrote her admirer. But Louise de Condé, who at first had given herself up entirely to the joy of meeting with a kindred soul, recoiled suddenly on finding that this friendship was on both sides fast approaching passionate love. At a period of history when princely personages rarely denied themselves anything that attracted their fancy, it is remarkable to find a Princess who held such a high moral standard, and this also at a time when Madame du Barry was the supreme ruler of the Kingdom of France. The Princess went so far as to force herself to give up this friendship, because she became aware that her sentiments towards the poet were after all not wholly platonic, and that she, as a Princess of the Blood, could not marry him. It is characteristic of the customs of the period that Louis Joseph looked very indulgently upon his daughter's friendship, and even proposed to secure for the Marquis de Gervaisais means for leaving his regiment at Saumur in order to come to Paris and thus be able to meet the Princess more freely. It was the lady herself who could not be induced to do aught that might bring a stain upon her name; and she wrote a most touching letter of farewell to Gervaisais, imploring him not to answer it, nor to try to meet her again, requests which his unbounded love for her induced him to accede to. The festivities given in honour of the Russian Grand Duke were the last of the entertainments held at Chantilly; for, although the Princesse Louise in the absence of the Duchesse de Bourbon made a charming hostess, the separation of her brother from his wife, who had returned to her own family, cast an inevitable gloom over Chantilly. The young heir, the Duc d'Enghien, however, became warmly attached to his aunt, who acted as a mother to him. He was highly gifted and very proud of his famous ancestor, the Grand Condé. On taking his seat in the Parlement at the early age of sixteen he made a most able speech; whereupon the President remarked that never before had three members of the Condé family honoured the House of Peers at the same time. This, alas! was not for long; for we now approach that fateful year 1789, and the horrors of the French Revolution. In July of that year, late in the evening, an adjutant of the Prince de Condé arrived breathless at the Château, bringing tidings of the terrible events which had just occurred in Paris. He told how a bullet aimed at the Royal carriage had killed a woman standing near; and how the King had been applauded when he appeared on the balcony bearing a "_cocarde tricolore_." On hearing this, the three Princes de Condé accompanied by Princess Louise departed next day for Versailles. Their advice to Louis XVI was "not to yield"--advice which the King was loth to follow. The three Condés, seeing that they could not prevail upon him to remain firm, determined to quit France so as to be able themselves to remain true to their Royalist principles. In taking leave of the King, Louis Joseph said that he would endeavour to serve the Monarchy abroad, since he could no longer serve it in France. [Illustration: PLATE XVII. LOUIS JOSEPH DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDE. _Musée Condé._ Madame de Tott.] The three Princes returned to Chantilly for one day only, and then left France for Germany. The youngest, the Duc d'Enghien, was destined never to see his ancestral home again. It must have been a touching spectacle to see the old Prince de Condé, accompanied by his daughter, his son the Duc de Bourbon, and his grandson the Duc d'Enghien, leaving the sumptuous abode of their ancestors, so full of glorious memories. The Comte d'Artois--afterwards Charles X--followed their example; and numerous French officers volunteered to make common cause with Prince Louis Joseph de Condé, whose name was associated so closely with the glories of France. There still exists a history of Condé's army written by Bittard des Portes, wherein is related in detail the courage and fortitude with which these French _emigrés_ endured their great privations. The Austrian General Würsmer, we are told, was deeply moved at the sight of Condé's regiment, which he styled "_la vielle France militaire_"; and Napoleon, in his _Memoirs_, when speaking of the Condés and their army abroad, wrote: "_La France donna la mort à leur action, mais des larmes à leur courage. Tout dévoûment est héroïque_." CHAPTER IX CHANTILLY DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION No sooner had Chantilly been deserted by its owners than a detachment of the National Guard of Paris was sent down to the Château. The twenty-seven cannons were first seized: then all the arms found were taken away; and finally the whole property was confiscated. Next a band of six hundred soldiers arrived, devastated the place, and removed what they pleased. Fortunately, the art-treasures did not attract them, as is proved by the _Inventory_ made in 1793 of the pictures and furniture then at Chantilly--a document which took forty days and cost 2,130 francs to draw up. Throughout the period of the Revolution the Château at Chantilly was used as a prison for political offenders; and the first arrivals were forty-one persons from Beauvais,[15] amongst whom were M. des Courtils de Merlemont, Knight of St. Louis, with his wife and son. On the road thither they were deliberately exposed to the insults of the mob, but they escaped the execution which they anticipated. Arriving at two o'clock in the morning, they were thrust into the Chapel, but later on they were lodged in the Château itself, which had been already demolished to such a degree that none of the rooms were wind or weather tight. The moats had been allowed to dry up, so that they began to exhale unwholesome odours; and the number of sick persons amongst the prisoners soon amounted to over three hundred. The corpse of a young woman, who was the first to die, was transported on the back of the concierge to one of the still-existing chapels on the Pelouse built by Madeleine de Savoie, wife of Anne de Montmorency. Amongst the prisoners was the Duchesse de Duras, daughter of Philippe de Noailles, who had defended to the last the person of Louis XVI, and who, in consequence, ended his life on the scaffold. In some notes descriptive of her misfortunes, her arrival at Chantilly is most dramatically related: "We were first locked up in the chapel, which was still elaborately gilded, and where in the days of the Condés I had often heard Mass. It was now filled with sacks of flour, on one of which I took my seat, whilst the Commissioner mounted upon the altar. He was accompanied by one Marchand, whom I recognised as the son of my aunt's chambermaid. This vulgar man concentrated all the insolence of the Committee of Public Safety. He derived much pleasure from saying rude and insulting things regarding the nobles and the clergy, and even expressed a wish that I should be lodged as uncomfortably as possible." Fortunately he departed soon after this speech and the Commissioner, more humane, apportioned to the Duchess one of the better rooms. From her window she could see into the courtyard, and she descried many of her acquaintances amongst the prisoners and their children there assembled. She describes the food as scanty and of very poor quality. They dined in the gallery, where she could remember the brilliant fêtes given by Prince Louis Joseph de Condé not so long before. The death-rate amongst the prisoners, to whom even the most necessary relief was denied, after a few months became so great that Chantilly had to be entirely evacuated; and it was then proposed that it should be used as a military hospital--a proposal which was, however, not carried out. Subsequently the Château d'Enghien[16] was converted into barracks, whilst Chantilly with its woods and parks found purchasers amongst the Black Band, who were then buying up the castles and palaces of the hated aristocrats with the sole purpose of demolishing them and profiting by just what could be got out of them as building material, etc. Of the so-called Grand Château, erected by Mansart during the time of the Grand Condé, nothing remained but the foundations; for it was razed entirely to the ground. The adjoining Petit Château of the Montmorencys, however, as already stated, miraculously escaped. Under Napoleon I, Chantilly in 1805 became the property of the State, but the revenue of its woods was assigned to Queen Hortense, who also figures upon the list of the owners of this famous estate. A military school was presently established in the Château d'Enghien, and the magnificent stables were once again devoted to their proper uses. Meanwhile Prince Louis Joseph de Condé since he left France had sojourned with the Elector at Worms, as Commander of the army of the French _emigrés_, whilst the Comte d'Artois had formed his camp at Coblenz. The former subsequently found a refuge for his family and his regiment with the Tsar Paul; but eventually, when he saw that he could no longer serve France and his King, he retired with his son to Wanstead House, near Wimbledon. Over the doorway of this most attractive abode the Seigneur of Chantilly inscribed the motto "_Parva domus magna quies_." Here he married as his second wife Marie Catherine de Brignole, the widowed Princess of Monaco, who had long been his constant and faithful friend, especially during his exile. She shared with him his literary and artistic interests, and she put her whole fortune at his disposition when he was in need. His daughter, Louise de Condé, after many vicissitudes, at last found quiet and rest in a Benedictine convent, where she took the veil. In 1807 she received a terrible shock when the news reached her of the tragic death of her beloved nephew, the Duc d'Enghien, and she felt it to be her duty to leave her seclusion and proceed at once to condole with her father and brother in their overwhelming sorrow. She started immediately for England, where she was received on landing with Royal honours: Pitt, Lord Moore, and the two surviving Condé Princes coming to meet her. The execution of the Duc d'Enghien has left a stain on Napoleon's character; it was not only a crime, but what was worse, it was a blunder; for d'Enghien at the time of his arrest was living in strictest seclusion at Ettenheim in Baden with the Princesse Charlotte de Rohan, to whom he was deeply attached, and, it was said, had married. He was therefore absolutely innocent of the conspiracy against the Republic, of which he was accused; and it is affirmed that it was only because Bonaparte could not get hold of the legitimate Princes--Artois and Berry--whose claims to the throne of France he grudged and feared, that he took his revenge upon the Duc d'Enghien. He had tried in vain to entrap these Princes, and failing committed this act of personal revenge on the eve of proclaiming himself Emperor, in order to frighten the Royalists, who, as he declared, were continually conspiring against him. When this dastardly murder became known there was a cry of indignation all over Europe. The Russian Court went into mourning, and Napoleon found it necessary to lay the blame upon Talleyrand and Murat. The grief of the unhappy father at the loss of his only son and the last scion of his race was so great that he became a prey to chronic melancholy; but Louis Joseph, the grandfather, strove bravely to live down his anguish. More than twelve years had still to elapse before their exile was ended, and then, for a brief period, on the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire, the Bourbon Monarchy was restored in France. At last, in 1815, the two Condés returned to Chantilly from England and found the old place, with the exception of the Petit Château, which they henceforth made their chief abode, a pile of ruins, and themselves almost strangers. The Princess of Monaco had died in England; and the Duc d'Enghien, upon whom all hope had centred, had been ruthlessly slain. In spite of all these misfortunes Louis Joseph remained faithful to the old home and began to repurchase his former possessions acre by acre. Some portions of the property had passed into alien hands; as, for instance, the site of the great waterfall, which had been separated from the original grounds by a wall. One of the alterations made at this time was the filling in of the moat, which hitherto had divided the smaller from the larger Château; and later the present Entrance-Hall was built on that site, whilst two new rooms decorated in the style of the period were added where the covered bridges had formerly stood. These new buildings gave access to the rooms formerly occupied by the Grand Condé, which, by a strange piece of luck, the Revolutionists had not demolished. The old Prince held these apartments in high honour; and they were the first to be redecorated and exquisitely panelled. During the four remaining years of his life he was continually occupied in restoring his ancestral palace to that dignity which he remembered so well in the past. He also succeeded in recovering the larger number of the works of art which the Montmorencys and the Condés had accumulated, not only at Chantilly but also at Ecouen and the Palais Bourbon in Paris. Most of these treasures had fortunately fallen into good hands, for during the worst horrors of the Revolution there had been men in France who had succeeded in preserving the art treasures belonging to the old family mansions which their proprietors had been compelled to abandon. Alexander Lenoir was one of these faithful guardians, and it is certainly due to his efforts that so many of these monuments and works of art in France were not destroyed. Conspicuous amongst them were the valuable collections at Chantilly. But after the long exile of the owners no more entertainments were held at Chantilly such as had been given so lavishly in happier days. After the great reverses which Louis Joseph and his son had undergone they seemed to indulge in one pleasure only, namely, that of the chase--the single luxury which they allowed themselves. They kept a splendid pack of hounds--the descendants of which still survive and are lodged in a corner of the great stables--and in spite of his great age the Prince himself appeared on horseback almost daily; often alone, but sometimes accompanied by his son, and hunted until quite late in the afternoon. Though past his eightieth year, he still had vigour enough, even on his return from a day's hunting, to shoot the wild duck which abounded in the moats. He died at Chantilly in his eighty-second year during the absence of both his son and his daughter, and was buried at Saint-Denis. As a true Condé he was very imperious and held strong opinions of his own: but he was tenaciously faithful in his friendships; and it was, no doubt, this fidelity to the Royal cause which characterised his conduct during the Revolution, and made him sacrifice everything rather than give up his Royalist principles. His son, the Duc de Bourbon, had not the iron nature of his father. He refused to take the title of Prince de Condé on his father's death, since he knew that this title must die with him. He, who had begun life under such happy auspices, long before his death became a broken man. His wife, the Duchesse de Bourbon, Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde of Orléans to whom he became reconciled after a long separation, died suddenly whilst attending a patronal festival at Saint-Geneviève. She fainted whilst at her devotions, and on being transported to the Sorbonne died before her husband could be summoned. Her favourite nephew, the Duc d'Orléans--afterwards King Louis Philippe--was the only member of her family present when she expired. It was at about that time that Louis Philippe's fifth son was born--a child who eventually became the last Seigneur of Chantilly. He was held at the baptismal font by the last Condé, who from this time formed a great affection for his godson. He used to walk with him in the grounds of Chantilly and narrate to him all the memorable events which had taken place in this ancestral abode; and Henri d'Orléans, then but seven years old, would listen with the greatest attention, and long after remembered the colloquies held with his princely sponsor and benefactor--the last of the line of Condé. He thus refers to him: "When recalling my childhood, I picture to myself M. le Duc de Bourbon, dressed in his habitual grey coat, white silk stockings, and light shoes, walking about in the grounds of Chantilly on cold December days. Leaning on his stick he would sometimes stand still and relate to me what had happened in years gone by at the old place; how he had known it in its splendour during his youth; and how all these sad changes had come upon it. He loved to recall also the grand festivities given by his father to King Louis XV, to Marie Antoinette, and to the Emperor and Empress Paul of Russia." [Illustration: PLATE XVIII. LOUIS HENRI JOSEPH DE BOURBON, LAST PRINCE DE CONDÉ. _Musée Condé._ Danloux] In 1830 Marie Amélie, Queen of Louis Philippe of France, visited Chantilly with her son, Prince Henri d'Orléans, and was received by the last of the Condés. A fortnight later the news was brought there that this princely line had come to an end. It has been alleged that the unfortunate liaison which the Duke had contracted with a heartless and low-born woman--one Sophie Dawes, the daughter of a fisherman in the Isle of Wight, and known as the Baronne de Feuchères--contributed greatly to embitter the last days of his life. After pocketing all she could, Madame de Feuchères on the death of the Duke left for England rather suddenly, and from that time was heard of no more. Louise, Princesse de Condé, died several years before her brother at the Temple as Prioress of the Benedictine Nuns. She had borne with much fortitude great trials; for during the Revolution she had to flee from place to place for safety, until she found at last a shelter within the walls of a convent--thus fulfilling the prophetic words of her friend, Gervaisais, "_C'est un front à porter une couronne ... ou un voile de religieuse_." CHAPTER X THE DUC D'AUMALE LORD OF CHANTILLY After the death of the last Condé, Chantilly was once more left desolate and abandoned, since Prince Henri d'Orléans, the heir, was still a child. In 1820 his eldest brother, the Duc d'Orléans, inaugurated at Chantilly the races which now rank as the French Derby, and which have continued every year up to the present day. In connection with these races the Duc d'Orléans, with the help of General Peel--a brother of Sir Robert Peel--successfully undertook to breed English racehorses in France; and Chantilly thus became a racing centre to which the _élite_ of French society thronged every year to attend a "Meeting" which speedily became one of the most famous in the annals of Sport. Residential accommodation was then very restricted, for only the Petit Château and the Château d'Enghien were available, the Grand Château not having yet been rebuilt. The theatre where Molière, Racine, and Corneille produced their plays had also vanished; a substitute was therefore improvised for these occasions by the Comédie Française on the site of the present Library. But Orléans Princes in those days had not so much leisure for mere recreation as had their predecessors. In that same year the Duc d'Orléans started for Algiers, taking with him the Duc d'Aumale, then only eighteen. In spite of his youth on the premature death of his elder brother he was entrusted with the command at Medea, where he distinguished himself greatly, and became so beloved that the tiny little Arab house which was his temporary residence there is still preserved by a grateful nation. Engaging in a variety of operations in Algeria, he brought this campaign to a brilliant ending in 1844 by a victory over Abdul Kader; by which he succeeded in capturing the concealed camp "La Smalah" where this chieftain and his staff had been residing. This victory was principally due to the young Duke's great energy and powers of endurance. In the Musée Condé there is a room called "La Smalah," where we may still see numerous paintings and sketches by Bellange and Horace Vernet illustrating this victorious African campaign. On the Duke's return from Algiers a marriage was arranged between him and Caroline Auguste de Bourbon, daughter of the Prince of Salerno and the Archduchess Marie Clementine, sister to Napoleon I's second wife, Marie Louise of Austria. The nuptials were celebrated at Naples, and a few days later the young pair left for France, where they were impatiently expected by Queen Amélie, who was overjoyed to welcome one of her own relatives as her son's bride. It had been agreed that Chantilly should be the home of the newly married pair; and in 1843 the architect Duban received instructions to execute the necessary alterations; whilst to Eugène Lami--the same artist who painted the portrait of the young Duchess which now hangs over one of the doors of the Salle Caroline--was entrusted the decoration of the various apartments. The ground-floor apartments of the Petit Château--the same suite which the Grand Condé had selected for his son Henri Jules and his children--were the rooms chosen for the personal occupation of the Duke and Duchess. In 1845 Louis Philippe paid a visit to his son at Chantilly, and made himself very popular on that occasion by telling his coachman to drive slowly across the Pelouse, because he had heard some ladies complain that if he drove so fast no one could see him. The title of Condé was conferred upon the Duc d'Aumale's eldest son, born at Saint-Cloud, in the hope that he would revive so illustrious a name. He was brought to Chantilly at the age of six months and remained there until the Duchess joined her husband at Algiers, where he had been nominated Governor. It was then proposed that extensive alterations at Chantilly should be carried out during the absence of the Duke and Duchess, and it was their intention to return thither in the following summer. Fate, however, decreed otherwise. In February 1848 Louis Philippe was compelled to abdicate in favour of his grandson, the Comte de Paris, then a mere child; and to avoid further difficulties the ex-King left immediately for England, and took up his residence at Claremont under the style of Comte de Neuilly. This unfortunate event obliged the Duc d'Aumale to resign his commission in the French army, to which he had rendered such signal service. He thenceforward resided with his family in England, chiefly at Twickenham, whither the larger part of the artistic furniture and works of art from Chantilly were transported. This was done at the special request of the Duchess, whose desire it was to reconstitute as far as possible her lost home in the land of their adoption. An Imperial Decree next commanded that all the properties of the Royal Family of France should be sold within a year. The sale of Chantilly--of course a fictitious one--was thereupon carried out by the English bankers Coutts & Co., who sent Colonel McCall, a representative of their own, to reside upon the estate. He dwelt in the Château d'Enghien, and administered the whole of the property on behalf of the Duke; whilst the Petit Château was let to Lord Cowley, who made it his summer residence. Later it was successively occupied by the Comte Dûchatel and the Duc de la Trémoille. Twenty-three years later, after the disaster at Sedan and the fall of the second Empire, the Duc d'Aumale was once more permitted to return to Chantilly. Many changes had occurred during this long interval. The Duchess, overcome with grief at the death of her eldest son, the Prince de Condé, had died in exile. That young Prince was the last to bear this illustrious name. He is said to have been highly gifted, and to have possessed great qualities. He had been educated chiefly in England, and had distinguished himself in his studies at Oxford, where he showed a remarkable talent for languages. It was, however, his noble and affectionate character that specially endeared him to his parents. Like his father he was filled with a passionate devotion for his native country. When the Crown of Greece was offered to the Duke, subject to a condition that the Heir-Apparent must change his religion and his nationality, although he had decided not to accept the honour, he thought it his duty to communicate the proposal to his son. Whereupon the lad wrote from Switzerland, where he was undergoing his military training, the following reply: "Having had the high fortune to be born a Frenchman and a Roman Catholic, I will ever remain French and Roman Catholic." Not long after this incident the young Prince started for a voyage round the world, but before its completion died of typhoid fever at Sydney in Australia. The Duc d'Aumale on his return to Chantilly was accompanied only by his younger son, the Duc de Guise, and it was not possible even then for him to obtain possession of it. The Château and the Pavillon d'Enghien were still occupied by Prussian officers, whilst in the town of Chantilly there was a garrison of German soldiers who were holding the Mayor and the Vicar as hostages. It was under such sad circumstances that the heir of the Condés saw once more the heritage from which he had parted so many years before. On attempting to enter the Park unobserved by a side gate his distinguished appearance awoke recognition in one of his old keepers who, bowing low and with tears in his eyes addressed him by name. Whereupon the Duke found it impossible to control his emotion. As soon, however, as the German troops had departed, His Royal Highness entered upon his property and, in spite of all the sorrows which had fallen upon him since he had left his beloved home, he yet felt happy at being once more on French soil, and able to educate his only surviving son in his native land. The young Duc de Guise was sent to a college in Paris, but spent his holidays at Chantilly; and father and son, as in the time of the last two Condés, were often seen riding and hunting together in the park and woods. From time to time also the Archduchess Marie Clementine, mother of the late Duchess, visited at the Château. In 1872 all the surviving members of the French Royal Family assembled at Chantilly to celebrate the wedding of Princesse Marguerite, daughter of the Duc de Nemours with Prince Ladislas Czartoysky; and on this occasion the great battle-pieces representing the military glories of the great Condé were replaced in the Gallery. In the early spring of that year, King Edward and Queen Alexandra--then Prince and Princess of Wales--paid a visit to the Duc d'Aumale; with whom they had contracted a warm friendship during his residence in England. But just when calm and happiness seemed to have at last returned to Chantilly, another heavy blow fell upon it. The young Duc de Guise was struck down by typhoid fever and died after a few days' illness. With his sudden death all plans for the improvement of the Château and estate came to an abrupt standstill, for the heart-broken father had now to realise that, as he himself mournfully put it, "_la dernière flamme de son foyer était éteinte_." A new scheme now took shape in the heart of the Lord of Chantilly: a scheme at first kept to himself, and which had revolved in his mind long before he made it public. He intended to take France by surprise. This scheme was a no less magnificent one than to bestow Chantilly with all its appurtenances and contents upon the French nation. Once more the long interrupted design of the architect Duban, made before the exile of the Duke and Duchess, was recommenced: this time by M. Daumet, who undertook also the difficult task of rebuilding the Grand Château. After years of labour there arose once more upon the vaults of this famous fortress the present building, destined to become the Musée Condé, a veritable palace of Literature and Art. Its architecture, in order to harmonise with that of Montmorency's Petit Château, is directly copied from sixteenth-century designs. But to erect the stately marble staircase with its splendid gilt iron railings, an undertaking which offered the greatest difficulties, it was necessary to pierce the solid rock. The Chapel, adorned by an elegant spire and full of valuable relics of the Montmorency and the Condé families, was also restored at this time. It contains an altar of Senlis marble, the joint work of Jean Bullant and Jean Goujon; and exquisite wood carvings, dated 1548, were brought from Écouen, an old seat of the Montmorency family. In the stained-glass windows (dated 1544) are represented the sons and daughters of Anne de Montmorency, whose effigy and that of his wife, Madeleine of Savoy, are painted on the wall by a modern painter from a cartoon by Lechevallier Chevignard.[17] The fine bronze monument to Henri II de Bourbon by Jacques Sarrazin has also found a permanent abode in this chapel. It was saved by Alexander Lenoir and presented to the Prince de Condé in 1815. During the execution of these works Chantilly was frequently the scene of very interesting family gatherings. Queen Christina of Denmark, on the occasion of the marriage of her youngest son Waldemar to Princesse Marie, eldest daughter of the Duc de Chartres, made a lengthy stay at Chantilly; and not long afterwards Princess Marie Amélie, daughter of the Comte de Paris, was betrothed here to the Duke of Braganza, afterwards King of Portugal. But in that same year Republican France suddenly pronounced a further sentence of banishment upon all claimants to the French Throne--Royalist and Imperialist; in which order the Duc d'Aumale was included. In his quality of a General in the French Army, he protested against this, but without avail; and once more Chantilly was deserted. But this time it was not for long; for on returning with a heavy heart to his English home at Woodnorton and feeling his end drawing near the Duke resolved to make known immediately the act of munificence upon which he had so long decided. He therefore made public his intention of leaving Chantilly with all its forests, parks and lakes, and all its art-treasures to the care of the Members of the Institut de France, in trust for the French Nation. This was his dignified answer to the French Republic; and it made a deep and lasting impression in France. Nor was this act of generosity without immediate consequences, for shortly after a Decree signed by President Carnot was sent to the Duke with the assurance that France would welcome him back. [Illustration: PLATE XIX. HENRI D'ORLÉANS, DUC D'AUMALE. _Musée Condé._ Léon Bonnat. _facing page_ 124] On March 9, 1889 he returned to Paris, and his first act was to present his thanks to the President, who seemed much touched by the words which he uttered upon this occasion. A hearty welcome greeted him from the people of Chantilly; and on his arrival at the station he was accompanied by a vast crowd to the door of the Château. A medal was cast in commemoration of this return, upon the obverse of which was a figure contemplating France from afar and the word "_Spes_"; upon the reverse a figure at the gates of the Château holding an olive-branch and the inscription "_À S.A.R. Monseigneur le Duc d'Aumale; en souvenir du 11 mars 1889, les habitants de Chantilly reconnaissants_." Subsequently an equestrian statue of the Duke was cast and placed near the entrance of the Château by the people of Chantilly, who regarded him and his ancestors as their benefactors. And it was here amongst his art treasures that he spent the last years of his eventful life. SECOND PART _THE MUSEE CONDE_ CHAPTER XI THE ART TREASURES OF THE MUSÉE CONDÉ AND HOW THEY WERE BROUGHT TOGETHER No sooner had the Duc d'Aumale resolved to bestow Chantilly with all its treasures as a gift to the French nation than he joined, with even more enthusiasm than he had previously done, the ranks of the great European collectors, and he frequently attended in person important sales in London, Paris, and elsewhere. During the long years of exile, passed chiefly in England, he usually resided either at Orleans House near Twickenham or at Woodnorton in Worcestershire (till recently the residence of his nephew, the present Duke of Orleans). It was, however, at the former place that all the valuable manuscripts, paintings, books, and objects of art brought from Chantilly were then housed. The first exhibition of his taste as a pronounced bibliophile was given by his acquiring the celebrated Standish Library, a collection originally bequeathed to Louis Philippe by the English collector Standish but sold by auction in 1851 on the death of that King. This remarkable collection contained numerous Aldine editions and hundreds of Italian and German _incunabula_. To this famous library the Duke next added that of M. Armand Cigongne, a collection composed almost exclusively of works in French--volumes of prose and poetry, exquisitely bound, and many of them still bearing the coats-of-arms and book-plates of former proprietors. The most important acquisition, however, (added in 1855), was the famous illuminated MS. known as _Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry_, an unique example of primitive French Art, to a description of which we shall return later on. In course of time other additions were made of great value and interest: such as, for instance, _Les Fables de Marie de France_, _Le Roman d'Aspremont_ (thirteenth century), a copious selection of ballads and songs of the fourteenth century, and many other works of note, amongst them being a copy in four volumes of the _Songs_ of Laborde, illustrated with original designs by Moreau. In the year 1861 the Duc d'Aumale, for the moderate sum of 14,000 francs, purchased from the well-known connoisseur M. Reiset a collection of no less than 380 drawings by Italian, Flemish, Dutch, and German masters. Amongst these may be specially noted: _A Reading Monk_, by Raphael (hung in the Galerie du Logis), and a design, dated approximately 1505, which approaches in execution the _St. Catherine_ in the Gallery of the Louvre.[18] Here are also drawings attributed to Verrocchio: a _Warrior on Horseback_, five studies of horses, and an interesting drawing of _A Man and Woman_, all in the style of Pisanello. _La Joconde_ (also in the Galerie du Logis), a cartoon for the picture attributed to Leonardo da Vinci at St. Petersburg, came from the Reiset Collection, as also did studies for Signorelli's _Last Judgment_ at Orvieto; studies for Michael Angelo's _Prophets_ in the Sixtine Chapel; and drawings by Fra Bartolomeo for his great composition in the Pitti. A fine group of eleven figures by Lucas van Leyden, illustrating _The Return of the Prodigal Son_, is one of the most important items in this series; and a study of a _Virgin_ by Dürer, an interesting _Portrait_ by Holbein the elder, a _Mountainous Landscape_ by Rembrandt, and certain studies of costume attributed to Pisanello, etc., are all worthy of more than a passing notice. Orléans House was soon found to be far too small to contain all these treasures, and an annexe was built to it. The Duc d'Aumale presently organised an exhibition, to which he invited the members of the Burlington Fine Arts Club. Disraeli, who was present, and was much struck by what he saw on that occasion, referred to him in his speech at the anniversary of the Foundation of the Royal Literary Fund in the following appropriate words: "Happy the prince who, though exiled from his palaces and military pursuits through no fault of his own, finds a consolation in books and an occupation in the rich domain of Art. Happy the prince who, whilst living on terms of equality with the people of a strange country, still distinguishes himself by the superiority of his noble mind and character. Happy the prince who in adverse circumstances can defy fate and make conquests in the kingdom of letters, which cannot, like dynastic authority, be taken away from him." The great statesman here alluded to the stupendous historical work in seven volumes on the _History of the Princes de Condé_ upon which the Duke was at that time occupied. It must be remembered that these more recent acquisitions were supplementary to the already existing collection which His Royal Highness had inherited as heir to the last Prince de Condé--a collection which comprised, amongst other things, two fine Van Dycks (the _Princesse de Barbançon_ and the _Comte de Berghe_), paintings by Christophe Huet, by Desportes and by Oudry, and precious Gobelins and Beauvais tapestries. Furthermore yet another collection came into the Duke's possession on the death of his father-in-law, the Prince of Salerno, and with it no less than seventy-two paintings, including works by Andrea del Sarto, Luca Longhi, Giulio Romano, Luca Penni, Perin del Vaga, Daniele di Volterra, Baroccio, Bronzino, Mazzola, Carracci, a _Portrait_ by Moroni, a Guido Reni, a Spada, an Albano, a _Portrait of Himself_ by Guercino, a fine _Madonna_ by Sassoferrato, two landscapes by Gaspar Dughet, and several paintings by Salvator Rosa. Examples of the Northern Schools in this same collection include portraits of _Elisabeth Stuart_, Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I of England, by Mierevelt and of the _Duke of Neubourg_ by Van Dyck. In the Salerno Collection is an interesting little work by Ingres representing _Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini_ in the ecstasy of their first kiss, and also a portrait of a _Young Woman_ by Van Loo and some fine mosaics from Herculaneum and Pompeii. Although this Salerno Collection is full of interest in itself, compared with later acquisitions it is but of secondary importance. It was French Art that chiefly attracted the Duke, and he consequently missed no opportunity of extending his purchases in that direction. From the well-known firm of Colnaghi in Pall Mall he bought portraits of members of the Valois family, such as, for instance, _Henri II_ as a child (attributed to Clouet), and as King by Primaticcio; the _Comte de Cossé Brissac_; _Madame and Mademoiselle de Longueville_, by Beauburn; and other portraits by Mignard, Largillière, etc. At the Bernal Sale in 1855 he acquired for 6,000 francs the much-discussed portrait of _Odet de Coligny_; portraits of _Queen Eleonore_, of _Henri II_, of _Henri III_, of _Elisabeth of Austria_, and of _Louis XIV_, the last named of these being by Hyacinthe Rigaud. At the famous Utterson Sale the Prince acquired some of those wonderful sixteenth-century French drawings which formed the nucleus of his unique collection of this branch of art; and at about the same period he also bought a number of engravings, amongst which were fine examples by Marc Antonio Raimondi and Rembrandt. From the collection of his brother the Duke of Orleans he bought _The Assassination of the Duc de Guise_ by Delaroche, and a painting by Descamps; and at the Lawrence Sale in 1856 secured a portrait of his ancestor _Philippe Egalité_ by Sir Joshua Reynolds. This was apparently a sketch for the life-size portrait commissioned by the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV) during the French Prince's exile in England. The larger picture, formerly at Carlton House, was destroyed by fire in 1820, which greatly enhances the value of the sketch at Chantilly. The portraits of _Mazarin_ and _Richelieu_ by Philippe de Champaigne, now at Chantilly, were formerly at Château d'Eu, and formed part of Louis Philippe's collection, as also did de Troy's _Déjeuner d'Huîtres_ and Lancret's _Déjeuner de Jambon_. From the same source came two splendid cabinets by Riesener and the Beauvais furniture now in one of the salons of the Petit Château. The Prince was evidently a great admirer of Poussin, for in 1854 he acquired for 9,175 francs the celebrated _Massacre of the Innocents_, and in 1860 another work by the same master, _Thésée découvrant l'épée de son père_, which is typical of that artist's particular style. At the Northwick Sale in 1859 yet another Poussin, _The Infancy of Bacchus_, was added; besides a large panel by Perugino, an early work, once in the Church of San Girolamo at Lucca. An interesting painting representing a _Dance of Angels_, probably by a Sienese master of the fifteenth century, came also from this same sale. Titian's _Ecce Homo_ was bought for 15,000 francs from the Averoldi family of Brescia, for whom it is said to have been painted.[19] _The Woman taken in Adultery_ (attributed to Giorgione), _The Martyrdom of St. Stephen_ by Annibale Carracci, and _Mars and Venus_ by Paolo Veronese were bought in London in 1860 from M. Nieuwenhuys; and in 1864 at a public sale in Paris the celebrated painting by Ingres representing _The Story of Antiochus and Stratonice_ fell, amid general applause, to the lot of the Duc d'Aumale for 92,100 francs. Rosa Bonheur's _A Shepherd in the Pyrenees_, presented by the Duke to his wife, was acquired next, together with Gérome's _Le Duel après le Bal_ and Protais' _Avant et après le Combat_. From the Soltykoff Sale in Paris, for the sum of 54,000 francs, came the four large portraits in Limoges enamel representing _Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre_, _Antoine de Bourbon_, _Louis de Bourbon_, and _Catherine de Lorraine_. [Illustration: PLATE XX. The Minerva of Chantilly. Greek Bronze.] In 1865 Baron Triqueti, who often represented the Prince at these sales, was sent to Paris to acquire the famous Pourtales vase, a Greek amphora with red figures of the time of Phidias. For this interesting work of art he paid 10,000 francs; whilst two small Greek bronzes--one representing _Jupiter_ and the other a statuette of _Minerva_--were knocked down to him for 8,000 and 19,300 francs respectively. Upon this occasion the Duke was bidding against the Louvre, the British Museum, and Monsieur Thiers. These two bronzes, which were found near Besançon, are of unequal merit; the _Jupiter_ is of only average workmanship; but the _Minerva_ statuette is considered one of the greatest treasures at Chantilly. Léon Heuzey places it in the late archaic period at a time when the Greeks were still endeavouring to ennoble and beautify their goddess before they finally arrived at the height of their ideal in the famous _Athena of Lemnos_. The fact that this statuette was found at Besançon indicates how highly Greek Art was valued, not only in Rome, but also in Cisalpine Gaul; for such small portable figures often accompanied their owners on their journeys, and who knows what great personage it may have been who brought this exquisite little _Minerva_ with him to Gaul? We know that Tiberius never travelled without his much-cherished _Amazon_ of the Vatican. A fragment of an antique sarcophagus representing _Bacchus and Ariadne_ was acquired for 7,200 francs at the Nolivos Sale and is exhibited now in the Salle Minerve along with the above-mentioned statuettes and some charming Tanagra figures. On the death of his mother, Queen Marie Amélie, the Duc d'Aumale inherited a great many family portraits and miniatures, the most noteworthy among these being a life-size portrait of _Gaston d'Orléans_ by Van Dyck, of which there is a replica in the Radnor Collection. This painting was given to Louis Philippe by George IV and was probably painted at the request of Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, who was a sister of the Royal sitter. There is not the slightest resemblance in his features to the good King Henri IV, his father. Treachery lurks in his mouth and eyes, and we cannot help being reminded that he was the direct cause of the execution of the last Montmorency. From the same source came a portrait of _Queen Marie Amélie_ herself, painted by Gérard in 1817, and likenesses of the same Queen and two of her daughters by Vigée Le Brun; a portrait of _Louis Philippe_ as Duc d'Orléans, when professor at Reichenau, by Winterhalter; and others of _Philippe Egalité_ and his charming wife, a daughter of the Duc de Penthièvre, and of the _Duc d'Aumale_ as a child by Robert Fleury. Most of the gems and miniatures are likewise from the collection of Queen Marie Amélie; and to the miniatures, in course of time, were added others of members of the Royal Family of France bought by the Duke himself, such as of _Anne de Bretagne_, _François I_, _Gabrielle d'Estrées_ and her two sons, _Henri II_, _Henri IV_, and _Sully_, the famous Minister of Finance; of the _Duc de Guise_ (_le Balafré_), _Marie de Medicis_, _Marie Thérèse_, Queen of Louis XIV, the _Grand Dauphin_ and his wife _Marie Anne of Bavaria_, and many more. In 1865 Mr. Colnaghi sold to the Duke Meissonier's _Les Dragons sous Louis XV_ and a landscape by S. W. Reynolds, who is best known as an engraver. The charming portrait of _Maria, Lady Waldegrave with her Daughter_ by Sir Joshua, was bequeathed to the Duke by Frances, Countess of Waldegrave; and Lord Holland in 1860 presented him with _Talleyrand's_ portrait by Ary Scheffer. From Sir Charles Robinson the Duc d'Aumale acquired some fine Italian manuscripts, and an interesting Rheno-Byzantine painting representing the _Emperor Otto I_ seated between two allegorical female figures, each holding a small globe signifying the vassal states of the Empire. This painting, which is of considerable historical value, is apparently a detached portion of a MS. illuminated for the Emperor about the year 1000. From the same source came another fragment, a _Resurrection_, dating from the fourteenth century and belonging to the Sienese School. This hangs in the Rotonde near a miniature of a _Christ on the Cross_ attributed to Giulio Clovio. In 1868, two years before his exile was suddenly terminated by the downfall of the second Empire, the Duc d'Aumale bought for the sum of 600,000 francs the collection of the Marquis Maison; and amongst the pictures which formed it were eight Descamps, three Marilhats, one Gros, four Watteaus, four Greuzes and two paintings by Prud'hon. After that followed the acquisition of one of Fromentin's finest works, _La Chasse au Faucon en Algérie_; whilst a sea-piece by Vandervelde together with the _Dunes at Scheveningen_ by Ruysdael were bought at the San Donato Sale. Presently there came the celebrated _Vierge de la Maison d'Orléans_ by Raphael, which the Duke acquired at the Delessert Sale for the sum of 160,000 francs--a fascinating picture supposed to be one of the two panels described by Vasari as having been painted for Guidobaldo di Montefeltro, and of which he says "that they were small but exceedingly beautiful examples of the master's second manner."[20] At one time in the possession of Gaston d'Orléans, this charming work passed from France into Flanders at the end of the sixteenth century, where it is supposed to have belonged to David Teniers the Younger. Passavant thought that it was then that the background was repainted and the shelf with the various pots and vases added--a supposition which has, however, since been refuted. The youthful Madonna is seated on a cushioned bench in a small homely room; and behind her hangs a light curtain of reddish grey. She bends tenderly over the Infant Christ, who gazes intently at the spectator with an expression full of feeling and inspiration. This is perhaps the most divine-looking of all Raphael's Infants. The Bridgewater _Madonna_, seated on a similar seat in a homely habitation, is closely analogous to the Virgin in this work, but instead of the shelf there is an arched window to the right. The lights in both pictures are subtle and extremely delicate, whilst the shadows are in strongly marked contrast. In the eighteenth century the Orléans _Madonna_ subsequently returned to France to the house of the well-known collector Crozat, from whence it passed into the Orléans Gallery and obtained thus its distinctive appellation. During the Revolution this entire collection was transported to Brussels, and the _Madonna_ changed hands several times before it finally entered the haven of the Musée Condé. * * * * * [Illustration: PLATE XXI. _Photo Giraudon._ The Virgin of the Maison d'Orléans. By Raphael. Musée Condé.] When the Duc d'Aumale returned to Chantilly after an absence of twenty years, he at once formed as we have seen a plan for erecting a museum upon the ruins of the old Château, with the further intention of presenting the mansion with all its contents to the French nation. Many years, however, elapsed before the building was complete and ready to receive all the treasures which it was destined to hold; but meanwhile the Duke continued to increase the collection by munificent and judicious purchases. At the Faure Sale in 1873, Delacroix's dramatic composition of _The Two Foscari_ was acquired; in 1877 there were added the four Tanagra figures which now adorn the case wherein the _Minerva_ is enshrined; and an exquisite example of Italian enamel, representing _Apollo guiding the Chariot of the Sun_ (attributed to Benvenuto Cellini), was bought from M. Cadard for 6,000 francs. In 1876 a very important acquisition was made in the shape of a collection of French portraits, once in the possession of Gaignières but subsequently belonging to Alexandre Lenoir, from whom it had passed into England and become the property of the then Duke of Sutherland. This collection, which was at Stafford House until the Duc d'Aumale acquired it, consists of no less than 69 painted portraits, 148 drawings in coloured chalk and several pastels. Amongst the most interesting of these portraits are: _Francis I_ (painted about 1515), his sister, _Marguerite d'Angoulême_, and her husband, _Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre_; _Jeanne d'Albret_; _Admiral de Coligny_, and his brother the _Cardinal_; _Catherine de Medicis_, _Diane de Poitiers_, _Charles IX_, _Henri III_, _the Duc d'Alençon_, and _the Duc de Nemours_ (all attributed to François Clouet); _Marguerite de France_, and _Madame de Lansac_ (attributed to Corneille de Lyon); _Philippe de Clève_, _Sieur de Ravenstein_; _Jean de Bugenhagen_ (attributed to Holbein); _Catherine de Bora_, the wife of Luther; _Charles V_; _the Count and Countess Hornes_; _Henri IV_ (by Pourbus), and an attractive likeness of his daughter _Elizabeth, Queen of Spain_; _Gabrielle d'Estrées au bain_; _the Duc de Retz_; _the Duc d'Aumont on horseback_; _Sully_ and _Charost_ (by Quesnel); _George I_; several portraits by Mignard, among them a magnificent likeness of _Molière_, another of _Mazarin_, and two pastels representing _Colbert_ and _Quinault_. From the same collection are the portraits of _Pope Benedict XIV_ by Subleyras and of _Marie Antoinette_ as _Hebe_ by Drouais. Another portrait which attracts much notice is that of Antoine de Bourgogne, the _Grand Bâtard_, the second of the nineteen illegitimate sons of Philippe le Bon. This painting was presented to the Duc d'Aumale by the Duke of Sutherland. It is an exquisite work of art which has been variously attributed to Memling, to Roger van der Weyden, and to Ugo van der Goes, but it is to the last-named artist that it can be assigned with greater probability. The _Grand Bâtard_[21] wears the Order of the Golden Fleece instituted by his father at Bruges in 1430, and appears to be about forty years of age, the period of life when he gained his great victory over the Moors at Ceuta. He was not only a valiant warrior, but also an arduous bibliophile and collector. His Château of La Roche contained many interesting illuminated manuscripts now dispersed, and of these the _Froissart_ at Breslau is amongst the most celebrated. Like all those that belonged to him, it bears his autograph "_ob de Bourgogne_" "ob" being an abbreviation of the Greek word _[Greek: obalós]_, which means _bâtard_.[22] The drawings of this Sutherland Collection, especially those belonging to the sixteenth century, are less important, many of them appearing to be copies by inferior hands; those, however, of the seventeenth century by Quesnel and Dumoustier are first-rate. Among the portraits in pastel may be noted likenesses of _Madame de Montespan_, _Louis XIII_, _Gaston d'Orléans_, _Louis de Haros_, and an interesting portrait of _Watteau_ designed by Boucher after an original by Watteau himself. In 1877 the Duc d'Aumale availed himself of another opportunity of restoring to France a French collection which had been brought to England, namely, that of M. Carmontelle, which comprised no less than 450 coloured sketches for portraits which date from the year 1757 to the year 1775. Carmontelle, as tutor to the Duc de Chartres, had plenty of opportunity during his leisure hours to sketch all the men and women with whom he came in contact, which he did merely for his own amusement, without any expectation of payment. The facility with which he executed these sketches astonished even Grimm, who remarked upon his skill. In about two hours each, with the greatest ease, he reproduced all the most noticeable figures in the life of the period, from the Dauphin and his courtiers, the Princes and Princesses of the House of Bourbon and Orléans, the officers, ladies and gentlemen, ecclesiastics, musicians and actors, down to the domestics, and even the floor-scrubber at Saint-Cloud. These sketches amounted at the time of his death to the number of 700, and in 1807 were bought _en bloc_ by his friend Richard de Ledans, who disposed of a good many of them. When he died in 1816 450 drawings only were left. These were at once bought by Pierre de la Mesangère, editor of _Le Journal des Dames et des Modes_, and they form an exceedingly valuable record of the fashions at the time of Louis XV. In 1831 the Carmontelle drawings reappeared in Scotland in the Duff-Gordon-Duff Collection, whence they were acquired by the Duc d'Aumale for the sum of 112,500 francs, to add to other examples of this artist's work, particularly a portrait of _Carmontelle_ himself, which he already possessed. They are now stored in large portfolios in the Salle Caroline at Chantilly, and, catalogued with comments and notes by the late Anatole Gruyer, afford great pleasure and amusement to those who have leisure to examine them. [Illustration: Plate XXII. Photo. Giraudon. A GAME OF CHESS. Carmontelle. Musée Condé.] The next acquisitions were a number of paintings collected by M. Reiset, who had already, as we have seen above, passed on his drawings to the indefatigable Duke. The price paid for these was 600,000 francs, and they include no less than twenty-five pictures of the Italian School, amongst which we may mention the following: a small panel representing the _Death of the Virgin_, attributed to Giotto (unfortunately much repainted); _The Coronation of the Virgin_, by Giovanni del Ponte di San Stefano; an allegorical figure representing _Autumn_, attributed to Botticelli[23]; an _Annunciation_ by Francia and a _Holy Family_ by Jacopo Palma; several Luinis and two small Filippo Lippis; and an exquisite little _Madonna holding the Infant Christ_ by Bissolo. _The Marriage of St. Francis of Assisi to Poverty_, by Sassetta (formerly assigned to his pupil Sano di Pietro) is one of the most attractive works by this master. It once formed part of an altarpiece at S. Severino, long since broken up and dispersed. Several smaller panels from the same altarpiece are to be found in the Chalendon Collection in Paris, and one belongs to M. le Comte Martel; whilst the central portion is in the possession of Mr. B. Berenson.[24] In the painting at Chantilly Sassetta may be seen at the height of his imaginative power.[25] An atmosphere of religious calm breathes over the landscape from which the three figures of Chastity, Humility and Poverty are floating upwards; the latter turning to wave a last friendly greeting to the Saint whom they are leaving on earth. It is full of the naïve sentiment for which this artist is so conspicuous. Another interesting painting which belonged to the Reiset Collection is the portrait of _Simonetta Vespucci_, formerly assigned to Pollaiuolo, but attributed by Dr. G. Frizzoni to Piero di Cosimo. Simonetta was a young Genoese lady renowned for her beauty, who came to Florence as the wife of a Cattini. Poliziano wrote sonnets upon her charms, and Giuliano dei Medici fell madly in love with her. Among the numerous likenesses of her by Botticelli and others, in the National Gallery, at Berlin, and elsewhere, this one in the Musée Condé seems to be the most lifelike. Reiset bought this portrait in 1841 from the last member of the Vespucci family. Attention may here be drawn to a fine sea-piece by Everdingen, the master of Ruysdael; to two small portraits of a _Husband and Wife_ of the Van Eyck School; and to a _Procession_ attributed to Dierick Bouts--all excellent examples of the Dutch School. An extremely interesting picture, now known to be of French origin, came also from the Reiset Gallery, namely, _The Virgin as Protector of the Human Race_[26]--a work executed in 1452 by Charonton and Vilatte for Jean Cadard and his wife, and of special importance in the history of French painting. [Illustration: Plate XXIII. Photo. Giraudon. THE MYSTIC MARRIAGE OF S. FRANCIS, BY SASSETTA. Photo. Giraudon. SIMONETTA VESPUCCIA, BY PIERRE DI COSIMO. Musée Condé. _To face page 146_] Five large Poussins, two Gaspar Dughets, a portrait of _Napoleon_ by Gerard; and no less than three works by Ingres came also from this same source: namely, the _Artist's own portrait as a youth_, a portrait of a _Madame Devançay_, and the painting of _Venus Anadyomene_, upon which he is known to have spent much time and thought throughout the last forty years of his life. Finally, to all these other treasures were added some drawings by Prud'hon. Then in 1882, from the Hamilton Palace Sale interesting portraits by Corneille de Lyon, and a small likeness of _Montaigne_ probably by a late pupil of that master; and at various subsequent London sales drawings were purchased by Botticelli, Canaletto, Tiepolo, Salomon Ruysdael, Dumoustier, Ingres, Van Loo, and Gericault, besides a great number of engravings. Whilst the Duke was making these important acquisitions he was at the same time gradually rebuilding the old Château of the Condés in order to house them adequately, and it is not to be wondered at that intellectual France took a great interest in this vast artistic enterprise. His Royal Highness was elected a Member of the Institut de France and invited to occupy the chair of M. de Cardaillac at the Académie des Beaux Arts. It was on this occasion that Victor Hugo, whom the Prince had referred to in his address of eulogy upon his predecessor, wrote him the following memorable letter: _Cher et Royal Confrère,_ _Je viens de lire vos nobles paroles sur moi. Je vous ecris emu. Vous êtes né prince et devenu homme. Pour moi votre royauté a cessé d'être politique et maintenant est historique; ma république ne s'en inquiète pas. Vous faites partie de la grandeur de la France. Et je vous aime._[27] It was, however, during the last years of his life that the Duke really made his most important acquisitions. In 1885, for the sum of £3,800, he bought from Mr. Fuller Russell the charming diptych painted in 1466 for Jeanne de France, daughter of Charles VII. This painting was formerly attributed to Memling, but Count Paul Durrieu now assigns it to Zanetto Bugatto of Milan, one of that master's greatest pupils in Italy. [Illustration: PLATE XXIV. _Photo. Giraudon._ The Three Graces. By Raphael. Musée Condé.] In the same year Raphael's picture of the _Three Graces_ was purchased for the sum of £30,000 from the executors of the Earl of Dudley--a panel so small as not to exceed the dimensions of a man's hand. The youthful Raphael in this composition was clearly inspired by the beautiful antique marble group at Siena; and we may observe how the genius of two great artists in two such diverse epochs can be happily blended together. The _Three Graces_ at Chantilly and _The Dream of a Knight_ at the National Gallery are not far apart and may probably both be dated at about 1500-1503; but around the former picture there seems to hang some unsolved problem. The Duc d'Aumale expresses himself about it in the following terms: "Are these really the _Three Graces_ whom we have here before us? Or was it not rather the intention of Raphael to represent the _Three Ages of Womanly Beauty_? To the left the virgin with a veil around her slender hips; to the right the woman in her prime wearing a necklace of coral; and in the centre, with her back turned to the spectator, the woman in her full maturity, merely exhibiting her fine profile. Does not this picture imply that Woman at all ages holds in her hand the Empire of the World?" This little panel, originally in the Borghese Gallery, passed successively into the collections of Reboul, Fabre, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Woodburn, and Lord Dudley whence it finally entered the sanctuary of the Musée Condé. Another important picture of the Italian School is the _cassone_ panel representing _King Ahasuerus and Esther_.[28] This was originally painted for the Torrigiani family of Florence and was formerly ascribed to Filippino Lippi; but modern art-criticism assigns it to the suppositious "Amico di Sandro," who, if he really did paint it, has almost surpassed Filippino in both beauty and grace. Another panel from the same _cassone_, representing the _Second Appearance of Esther before Ahasuerus_, is in the possession of Leopold Goldschmidt at Paris; whilst the two side panels of _Mordecai on Horseback_ and _Esther as Queen walking in her Garden_ are in the Lichtenstein Gallery at Vienna. One more Italian picture deserves notice. It is a replica of the famous composition which passed some years ago from the collection of Prince Chigi in Rome into that of Mrs. John Gardiner at Boston, U.S.A. It represents the _Virgin and the Holy Child_ attended by an angel who offers the latter roses. This picture has much of the charm of both Botticelli and Filippino but is by neither of them. It is the work of some unknown but unquestionably highly gifted artist. * * * * * [Illustration: PLATE XXV. _Photo. Giraudon._ The Story of Esther. School of Sandro Botticelli. Musée Condé.] In spite of these important purchases of Italian pictures the Duc d'Aumale never neglected an opportunity of acquiring French works of art, and he extended his collection as far as possible in that particular direction. So that from M. Destailleur, from the Comte de Fresnes, and from the Baron Seillier he acquired books that had been bound expressly for François I, for Henri II and for Marguerite de Valois. At the Hamilton Palace Sale he purchased for 12,375 francs a _Book of Hours_ of the fourteenth century which had been specially bound for its then owner, François de Guise. In 1892 the sumptuous _Psalter of Ingeburge of Denmark_, wife of Philippe Auguste, found its way into this ever-increasing collection; and this was quickly followed by the interesting _Breviary_ executed in the fourteenth century for Queen Jeanne d'Evreux. In 1889 more than 310 French drawings were acquired from Lord Carlisle, including original work by Jean Perréal, by Jean and François Clouet, by Corneille de Lyon and by the Dumoustiers. The artistic, iconographic and historical value of these drawings has been pronounced on all hands to be almost unique; more especially with regard to the portraits of celebrated personages living between the years 1514 and 1560. _Francis I_ with his Queens, his mistresses, his courtiers, and the ladies of his _petites bandes_; the famous _Preux de Marignan_, the great _Montmorency_ and the _Colignys_, _Henri II_ and his numerous sons and daughters; _Catherine de Medicis_ and _la belle Diane_--all these famous heroes and heroines of history are met together in effigy at Chantilly: a place they all knew so well and enjoyed so much during their lifetime. The question of how these drawings, so highly valued under the Valois _régime_, were ever allowed to leave France has never been satisfactorily solved. Horace Walpole possessed a similar collection, but it was of much less artistic importance. It was the collection once owned by Mariette and is now apparently in the possession of an English peer.[29] Gaignières also collected French drawings of the same type, but after his death they greatly depreciated in value and passed from the Bibliothèque Royale into the Bodleian Library at Oxford. But the Howard portfolio, the most important of all, and also the Salting Collection were discovered in Florence. It is certain that there is a common link between all of the sets, and similar handwritings are to be found upon the margins of most of them. We must, however, postpone further discussion on this interesting question until a later chapter. In 1889 the great painting by Meissonier, _Les Cuirassiers de 1805_, was bought at the Secrétan Sale for the sum of 190,000 francs; and soon after came Détaille's finest work, _Le Colonel Lepic à Eylau: "Haut les Têtes."_ In 1890 Corot's _Concert Champêtre_ cost the Duke 20,000 francs and proved how fully he appreciated the more recent art-movements in France. His Royal Highness made his last acquisition in 1891, perhaps the most important of all, and one which certainly procured for him immense satisfaction--namely, forty miniatures by the famous Jean Fouquet from the _Book of Hours_ of Étienne Chevalier. These unique treasures were purchased from Herr Brentano of Frankfurt for the sum of 250,000 francs and will be fully described presently. [Illustration: Plate XXVI. Photo. Giraudon. PLAN OF ROME. Pol de Limbourg and his Brothers. From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry."] The Musée Condé affords the most unique opportunities for the study of French art. The Wallace Collection may be richer in the work of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, but there is nothing in that collection which can compare with the examples of French fifteenth and sixteenth century art enshrined at the Musée Condé; for example, the exquisite miniatures of the Brothers Limbourg and of Jean Fouquet, or the precious pencil portraits by the Valois Court-Painters. It is to these that closer attention will be drawn in the following chapters. CHAPTER XII FRENCH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS AT CHANTILLY [Illustration: Plate XXVII. Photo. Giraudon. JANUARY Pol de Limbourg. From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 154._] The leading part taken by French Art in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was not continued in the same degree during the fourteenth and fifteenth. Nevertheless records have survived which afford sufficient information whence we may conclude that France was at that period not as entirely unproductive as has been hitherto supposed. It is true that, owing to the fact that the wall-decorations in the Hôtel St. Paul, the old Louvre, and the Hôtel de Savoisie in Paris, of the châteaux of Bicêtre and Vaudreuil in Normandy, and of the castles of the Comtesse d'Artois, have been almost entirely destroyed or demolished by fire, siege or climate, native works of art of that period have become extremely rare. Still those few which remain, such as the diptych belonging to the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton,[30] the _Parement de Narbonne_, now in the Louvre, the wall-paintings in the Cathedral at Cahors and in the Church of Saint-Savin at Poitiers, etc., testify amply to the importance of the work of that period. Moreover, the miniatures of that period have not shared the disastrous vicissitudes of the larger works. Thus the illuminated MSS. preserved at Chantilly offer a special interest and are of an almost unique value in the general history of Art. By a fortunate chance an _Inventory_ has come down to us, compiled in 1416, immediately after the death of the Duc de Berry, brother of King Charles V of France. This document contains a catalogue of all the art-treasures in his possession; but hardly any names of artists are mentioned except those of Pol Limbourg and his brothers. Among the entries the following is worth quoting: "_Plusiers cayers d'une Très Riches Heures qui faisoient Pol et ses frères, très richement historiez et enluminez_"--a note which refers without a doubt to the MS. of _Les Très Riches Heures_ now at Chantilly. Another document of no less importance is one drawn up by François Robertet, Secretary to the Duc de Bourbon, which informs us that several of the miniatures in the MS. of Josephus' _Antiquities_ are by Jehan Fouquet, Court-Painter to Louis XI. Thus it has been possible to identify the authentic work of the Limbourgs and of Fouquet, some of the finest examples of which are to be found in the Musée Condé. Unfortunately these flashes of light are very rare; and absence of record is no doubt one of the chief reasons why French paintings of this period were so little known and appreciated in France, and why the valuable collection bequeathed by Robert Gaignières to Louis XIV was but little valued by that monarch. Trusting to the advice of the ignorant critics of the time His Majesty reckoned them as of no importance and did not consider the collection worthy of a place in the Louvre; so that eventually, in 1717, it was scattered by public auction under the directions of the painter de Troy. Thus it happened that, whilst France was acquiring valuable antiques and important examples of the art of the Italian Renaissance, she was unable to estimate or retain the art which had sprung up on her own soil. To cite one example only: Fouquet's diptych from Melun has been lost to France for ever, one portion of it being at Antwerp, another at Berlin, whilst the beautiful enamelled frame has disappeared altogether. Fortunately, however, connoisseurs like Reiset and Mariette arose, who bequeathed French fifteenth and sixteenth century pictures to the Louvre; and later still this remarkable legacy from the Duc d'Aumale restored to France some of her own most valuable treasures. By means of these acquisitions this patriotic Prince has constructed a monument to French Art which is as interesting as it is unique. [Illustration: Plate XXVIII. Photo. Giraudon. FEBRUARY. Pol de Limbourg. From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 156._] The _Cabinet des Livres_ at Chantilly, still just as it was when occupied by the Duc d'Aumale, with his chair, his writing-table, his reading-lamp and half-burnt candle, contains no less than fourteen thousand manuscripts of the very highest importance. The most noteworthy amongst these are: the first ten books of St. Augustine's _Cité de Dieu_ (translated by Raoul de Presles); Aristotle's _Ethics_ (translated by Nicolas Oresmes); Livy's _Second Decade_ (translated by Pierre Bersuire); all of which at one time belonged to the Duc de Berry. Then there is the third volume of the _Gallic War_, a free translation of the Commentaries of Cæsar,[31] on the last page of which is the following inscription: _Albertus Pichius, auxilio Godofredi pictoris Batavi faciebat praecipiete Francisco Molinio mense novembris anno quinquimillesimo vigesimo_; whence we derive information regarding the date of its completion, the names of the artists who were entrusted with it and even the name of the man who commissioned it on behalf of Francis I. Most interesting are a selection of the _Table Ronde_ used by Gaston Paris in Vol. XXX of the _Histoire littéraire de la France_ and a copy of Dante's _Inferno_ with a _Commentary_ by Guido of Pisa. Furthermore a French translation of Cicero's _Rhetorics_ written in 1282 by Master Jean d'Antioch and commissioned by a monk called Guillaume de Saint-Etienne of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem: a MS. which throws interesting light on still more ancient translations and is ornamented with fine old miniatures; a French translation of _Valere Maxime_ (in two volumes), which belonged to the Cardinal George d'Amboise; a translation of _Diodorus Siculus_, with a frontispiece representing _King Francis and his Court_; and an illuminated manuscript, known to have been the _Book of Hours_ of Anne de Montmorency, offer more than ordinary interest. This last belongs to the sixteenth century and contains miniatures in the style of Jean Cousin. Next comes a _Legenda Aurea_, which once belonged to Charles V of France and which in its time has travelled back and forth between England and France (as was so often the case with old books and manuscripts); for on the last page we read in an unknown hand: _And yf my pen were better_ _Better shuld be my letter._ [Illustration: Plate XXIX. Photo. Giraudon. APRIL. Pol de Limbourg. From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 158._] Other extremely important MSS. acquired by the Duke himself are the MS. _de la Coche de Marguerite d'Angoulême_ and the _Psalter of Queen Ingeburge_, of which the Duke was particularly proud. It commences with a _Calendar_, followed by a series of paintings on gold backgrounds representing scenes from the Old and New Testaments, and dates from the thirteenth century. It belonged to Queen Ingeburge, the unhappy and neglected wife of Philippe Auguste and in it are entered the names of her father, Waldemar the Great, King of Denmark, of her mother, Queen Sophia, and of the Comtesse Eleanore de Vermandois, her faithful friend during long years of trial, thus proving unquestionably her ownership of this precious volume. She has, moreover, entered in it the date 1214, the year in which she was recognised as Queen of France. On the last page appears the following entry: "_Ce psaultier fut de Saint Loys_," showing that the MS. subsequently came into the possession of St. Louis, King of France, himself. In Charles V's _Inventory_, dated 1380, it is described as "_mon gros psaultier, nommé le Psaultier St. Loys, très richement enlumyne d'or et d'ancien ymages_," and we learn that in 1428 it was preserved in the Château of Vincennes. From that time, however, it disappeared for nearly two hundred years until it was found in England by Pierre de Bellièvre, who secured it and presented it in 1649 to Henri de Mesmes. The miniatures are similar in style to those found in English MSS. of the thirteenth century; the colours are luminous, black and blue being predominant, and the whole work is painted on a gold ground. The initial letters and the decorative caligraphy show skilful technique and were evidently designed at the period of which Dante speaks as "_L'onor di quell'arte ch'alluminare è chiamata in Parisi_."[32] It is very probable that this _Psalter of Queen Ingeburge_[33] served as the model for many other illuminated manuscripts. Another noteworthy royal MS. acquired by the Duc d'Aumale which is of special importance is the _Breviary_ of Jeanne d'Evreux. Amid the delicate decorations of the border around the illuminated text may be seen the coats-of-arms of France, Navarre, and Evreux; and it contains no less than one hundred and fourteen miniatures in _grisaille_ upon coloured and gold backgrounds. The Gothic attitudes and graceful figures recall the style of Jean Pucelle, which, dating from the years 1327-1350, had been introduced into Paris before the coming of Northern realism. Jeanne d'Evreux, wife of Charles IV, was well known as a connoisseur in illuminated books, and this exquisite work of art passed to Charles V, by whom it was kept at Vincennes in a coffer along with the _Breviary_ of Belleville. The small _Book of Hours_ belonging to M. Maurice de Rothschild (published in facsimile by Count Delisle), the _Missal of St. Denis_ in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the _Book of Hours_ designed for Jeanne de France, Queen of Navarre, in the Yates Thomson Collection, form a group of beautiful codices which have rightly been compared with this MS. of Queen Jeanne d'Evreux. [Illustration: Plate XXX. Photo. Giraudon. MAY. Pol de Limbourg. From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 160._] The greatest gem, however, of all these illuminated MSS. is unquestionably the precious volume known as _Les Très Riches Heures_ of the Duc de Berry. The Duc d'Aumale himself relates the history of its acquisition in 1855. On his way to visit his mother Queen Marie Amélie, then lying ill at Nervi, he visited the Villa Pallavicini at Pegli, near Genoa--at that time a boarding-school for young ladies--in order to examine a MS. to which his attention had been drawn by Sir Antonio Panizzi, Principal Librarian of the British Museum. Without any hesitation he arranged on the spot to purchase the work of art for a sum of 18,000 francs. On his return to Twickenham (where he was then residing), the Duchess herself carefully unfolded the newly acquired treasure from its "_cassetta foderato di velluto_" and every connoisseur of note at once hastened to examine the wonderful MS. which the Duke had been so fortunate as to acquire. As early as 1857 Waagen wrote about it with much detail; later Count de Laborde, Anatol Gruyer, and Leopold Delisle followed; and recently, and more exhaustively, Paul Durrieu also. But it was Delisle who made the important discovery that the _Très Riches Heures_ could be identified with the MS. described in the Inventory of the Duc de Berry: "_Item une layette plusiers cayers d'une 'Très Riches Heures' que faisoient Pol et ses frères, très richement historiez et enluminez_." The same writer also discovered that these leaflets were valued at 500 _livres tournois_ (about 20,000 francs), a very large price for that time, and one which showed the high value in which this manuscript was held even at that date. The death of the Duc de Berry brought these precious pages, begun under such brilliant auspices, to a sudden standstill; and in consequence of that prince's debts--which arose chiefly from his expensive artistic tastes--a sale of his property immediately took place. The Duc de Bourbon and the Comte d'Armagnac (the husbands of his two daughters and co-heiresses) were making war upon one another on account of the murder of the Duc d'Orléans by _Jean Sans Peur_--a war known in history as the War of the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. Amid these disturbances there was scarcely time to think of illuminated MSS.; for which reason the work of Pol de Limbourg and his brothers was suspended, and was not resumed until the year 1454, long after their death--unfortunately by a far inferior hand--that of Jean de Colombe. By that time the volume had come into the possession of Charles of Savoy and his wife Blanche of Monferrat. It is not difficult to explain how this _Breviary_ came into the House of Savoy--a fact which is proved by the armorial bearings and two miniature portraits of Charles--because both husband and wife were descendants in direct line from Bonne de Berry (one of the daughters of the Duc de Berry), who had first been married to a Count of Savoy. In 1501 the MS. passed to Margaret of Austria, wife of Philibert of Savoy, a Royal patroness of the Arts who corresponded with Jean Perréal regarding the tomb of her husband in the church at Brou. By her this MS. was provided with a velvet cover and a silver padlock; and she no doubt took it to Flanders with her after her husband's death. [Illustration: Plate XXXI. Photo. Giraudon. JUNE. Pol de Limbourg. From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 162._] Comte Paul Durrieu identifies the _Très Riches Heures_ with a MS. mentioned also in an _Inventory_ of 1523 as "_une grande heure escripte à la main_," whereby it can be explained how the _Grimani Breviary_,[34] executed about the end of the sixteenth century, and other Flemish MSS. have obviously taken this famous Codex as a model; and even in some points copied it very closely. When Margaret of Austria died in 1530 the volume passed into the hands of one of her executors, Jean Buffant, Treasurer to the Emperor Charles V; and from that time there occurs a gap which even Paul Durrieu has so far been unable to fill. The present binding of red morocco leather belongs to the eighteenth century and bears the coat-of-arms of the Spinola family, which points strongly to the probability that the volume also once belonged to the celebrated General Spinola, who captured the town of Breda--an historical event immortalised by Velasquez. From the Spinolas it came into the family of the Sèvres, a fact proved by another coat-of-arms amongst the illuminations; and from a member of that family it was acquired by the Duc d'Aumale, by whom it was deposited at Chantilly. From this amazing list of MSS. we may see that nearly all the important books and manuscripts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are represented at Chantilly. Some portions of the collection go back to the old Montmorency and Condé acquisitions; whilst the Duc d'Aumale himself has described the origin and vicissitudes of the articles gathered in by himself in his admirable work _The Philobiblon Miscellanies_, which will always remain the best guide to the _Cabinet des Livres_ at Chantilly. [Illustration: Plate XXXII. Photo. Giraudon. JULY. Pol de Limbourg. From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 164._] CHAPTER XIII _LES TRÈS RICHES HEURES DU DUC DE BERRY_ The Duc de Berry was one of those enlightened and enthusiastic patrons of Art who, by giving numerous commissions to the artists of his time created important centres of Art in Paris and Dijon. It was for him that Jaquemart de Hesdin and his school executed the famous _Très Belles Heures_ (now dispersed), fragments of which are to be found in the Louvre: in the collections of Baron Adolph de Rothschild in Paris; and of Prince Trivulzio at Milan: whilst the largest and most interesting portion, known as the _Hours of Turin_, once treasured in the Royal Library of that city, perished in a disastrous fire in 1904.[35] It was likewise for the Duc de Berry that the nephews of Malouel, Pol de Limbourg and his brothers, painted these famous _Très Riches Heures_ now at Chantilly. And that the Duke very greatly admired the work of these artists is proved by entries in old _Inventories_, wherein we find that he showered valuable presents upon them--pieces of gold (coins), rings, etc. He moreover presented Pol the eldest and most eminent of the brothers with a mansion at Bourges, where the artist and his wife resided until his death. The Duc de Berry was also one of those collectors whose taste rose above that of his time; and who, furthermore, proved to be one of the leading spirits in the development of the Art of that period. Besides famous painters he also employed the celebrated architect Guy de Damartin to build and restore his castles. The discovery of a MS. containing architectural sketches of various fortresses (probably drawn by the hand of this architect himself) proves that the Duke had a fancy to have his various castles introduced with the greatest precision into the backgrounds of the miniatures executed for him in this MS. No doubt it was by his express wish that the landscape details in the _Calendar_ of this famous _Book of Hours_ were copied direct from nature and not treated merely conventionally as hitherto. [Illustration: Plate XXXIII. Photo. Giraudon. AUGUST. Pol de Limbourg. From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 166._] This remarkable work marks an important epoch in the history of Primitive French Art, inasmuch as its influence extended not only over France, but also to Italy, Flanders, and the School of Cologne. It commences with a _Calendar_ delightfully decorated and illustrating minor passing events in the life of the period, with portraits of the Duke himself, his family, his friends and other personages. The Month of January[36] begins by showing us a banqueting scene. The Duc de Berry, attired in a richly brocaded mantle and a fur cap, is seated before a screen in conversation with a church dignitary--the only one among the company besides himself who is seated. Three elegantly dressed pages are busy serving a meal, whilst another is playing with some pet dogs; puppies being engaged in eating out of a plate upon the table. Two cup-bearers stand ready with wine and in a prominent position upon the board stands a _nef_. This beautiful example of the goldsmith's art was known as the _Salière du Pavillon_ and its design is attributed to Pol Limbourg himself.[37] In the background may be seen the Ducal guards and one of his castles. The face of the Duke appears to be an excellent likeness if we compare it with a Holbein drawing at the Bâle Museum, which is said to have been copied from a statue of this prince at Bourges. Above this miniature, in a blue and gold lunette, appears the _Chariot of the Sun_ drawn by winged horses--a design repeated several times in subsequent miniatures. The Month of February exhibits a bright wintry landscape, where a silent village[38] with a church tower lies beneath a mantle of white. The feeling of a cold wintry day is well expressed by the heaped-up masses of snow, against which the wool of sheep cowering in their folds is sharply contrasted. We can almost see the shivers of the man to the right, with his mantle drawn close around him. A haystack, bee-hives, birds picking up crumbs, a peasant girl warming her feet at an open fire, are so delightfully realistic, so free from convention, that we feel that the artist has here given free rein to his imagination. Then follows March: a peasant is ploughing, whilst behind rises the fortress of Lusignan, the cradle of the Plantagenets. The sky is blue and cloudless, and above one of the towers is a flying dragon, intended to symbolise the fair Melusine. A close copy of this miniature is in the _Grimani Breviary_.[39] In the Month of April,[40] with the Castle of Dourdan on the River Orge we find a scene characteristic of the period. An exchange of presents--presumably an engagement--is in process between a noble knight and a richly attired lady. The knight is the same personage who is represented in attendance upon the Duke in the banquet scene. Another pair of personages look on with sympathetic interest, whilst two young ladies gather flowers. [Illustration: Plate XXXIV. Photo. Giraudon. OCTOBER. Pol de Limbourg. From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 168._] The fifth miniature (which the Duc d'Aumale designates as _La Reine de Mai_)[41] is one of the most charming of the series, for May Day was at that time an occasion of much festivity at the Court of France. A gay cavalcade is passing through a wood, headed apparently by a Prince of the Blood--perhaps even the Sovereign himself--and amid those in attendance the knight of the last picture again appears, his head bound with a chaplet of bay-leaves. He is turning back to gaze at his bride, who rides beside him on a white horse. She wears the same ornaments as in the previous picture, and it is by these that we can identify her. In the background, silhouetted against the horizon, is the Castle of Riom, pleasantly situated in its park and gardens. This picture displays with much effect the gaiety of the persons represented, who all seem to be engaged in animated converse. Pol de Limbourg evidently approaches in this picture his highest capabilities; and becomes more and more independent of convention. In the Month of June[42] the Palais de Justice of Charles V with the Sainte-Chapelle are visible in the rear. The reapers shown in this composition and the two graceful peasant girls busy amid the fresh-cut grass have aroused great enthusiasm amongst modern connoisseurs; and we involuntarily recall the paintings of François Millet and the Barbizon School--a school which, after nearly four centuries, has revived the art of realistic landscape-painting in France. In the Month of July[43] the lofty towers of the Castle of Poitiers, which not long before had been restored by the Duc de Berry, appear in the background. And just as the winter landscape of the Month of February arouses the impression of winter's snow and ice, so this brilliant composition, in which the sunshine blazes upon the cornfields, makes one dream of the burning days of summer. The sheep, in February huddled together in their pens, are now grazing in a meadow, whilst a young peasant woman is busy plying her shears upon their fleecy coats and a youth watches her with marked interest. The Month of August[44] presents a hawking party. Two cavaliers mounted on richly appointed steeds, their ladies mounted on pillions behind them, are carrying hawks. One lady is, however, courageous enough to manage her own palfrey, and holds a hawk upon her left wrist. Behind, labourers are pursuing their toil and bathers are sporting in a stream. At the back rises the Château d'Estampes which the Duc de Berry had recently bought from his brother Louis of Anjou. The landscape is here treated with admirable freedom. The artist has painted what he saw, just as it really was, and the outlines of the château are represented with remarkable fidelity. The Castle of Saumur appears in the September miniature, where a vintage is proceeding with life and vigour. [Illustration: Plate XXXV. Photo. Giraudon. DECEMBER. Pol de Limbourg. From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 170._] October[45] brings with it ploughing, whilst a man scatters seed only to be devoured at once by flights of hungry birds. In the rear various groups of figures parade up and down upon a quay before the old Palace of the Louvre. The Month of November is a disappointment. It is conjectured that the artist intended to present the Tour de Nesle, the Duke's stately town-residence, but that through his sudden death the page was left unpainted until a century later, when Jean de Colombe undertook to fill it in. It represents a swineherd with his pigs who are grubbing for acorns; but the landscape is only a feeble attempt to imitate the earlier work. The lunette, however, was evidently painted by the Limbourgs. In December[46]--the last of the series--a hunting-scene is presented, with a pack of hounds careering through a spacious park, in the background of which is the Keep of Vincennes, the Duke's birthplace. This miniature, which somewhat differs in conception from the earlier ones, was probably executed by one of the brothers of Pol Limbourg. The fascinating landscapes and the graceful architecture of these _Calendar Months_ excite our keenest admiration; for we must remember that at this early date (1415) landscape-painting had hitherto been treated as mere decoration, without any attempt at reality or probability.[47] Their special charm lies very largely in their truthfulness to nature, and the Duc de Berry himself added still further to this element when he insisted upon the introduction of accurate representations of his own castles and their surroundings. Immediately after the _Months_ we come upon a strange miniature, which, since it also displays the escutcheon of the Duc de Berry, may be assigned to the years 1415-16 and is therefore presumably the work of the Limbourgs. Two nude figures, classical in conception, are presented propped back to back against one another. As in the case of the statue found at Porto d'Anzio, doubt has recently arisen with regard to their sex.[48] It has been suggested that these two figures were inspired by the _Three Graces_ of Siena; that they are not meant to represent the _Dioscuri_, as had been hitherto supposed; but that they are two tall slender women such as we find in early Renaissance Art inspired by Greek originals. Their tresses are arranged in the characteristic Greek knot and their slender bodies exhibit the Astrological and Horoscopical connection between the various members of the human organism and the Signs of the Zodiac. We do not find amongst the illustrations of the Middle Ages anything analogous to this curious painting, so that it may be reckoned amongst the many entirely original ideas peculiar to this interesting Codex. [Illustration: Plate XXXVI. Photo. Giraudon. THE ZODIAC. Pol de Limbourg and his Brothers. From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 172._] This curious design is followed by small but exquisite miniatures of the _Four Evangelists_ and of the _Tiburtine Sybil prophesying to Augustus_. Our attent ion is then drawn to a large design representing the _Terrestrial Paradise_. Four different scenes are shown on the same plane: _Eve receives the apple from the Serpent_; _she offers it to Adam_; _the Almighty interrogating the offenders_; and _their expulsion from Paradise_ through a Gothic gateway by a stern-looking angel with scarlet wings. This miniature, out of the entire number of not less than 206, is the only one which exhibits a marked Flemish influence and reminds us of the fact that the Limbourgs were nephews and pupils of Malouel, Court-Painter to the Duke of Burgundy. All the other miniatures in this Codex which can be assigned to these artists are pre-eminently French in feeling and sensitiveness, showing only occasionally a trace of the influence of Simone Martini: as, for example, _Christ bearing His Cross_. The scenes from the _Life of Christ_ commence after traditional fashion with the _Annunciation_ and end with the _Crucifixion_. The _Annunciation_ is perhaps one of the most attractive of the series. It no longer expresses merely Mediæval symbol but seems rather to simply represent a story; so that we feel that we are already on the threshold of the Renaissance. The Virgin kneels before a fald-stool in a Gothic chapel, whilst the Holy Dove hovers above her head. Smiling with gentle content, she welcomes the salutation of the Archangel--a handsome youth who bears in his hand a branch of lilies. Tastefully grouped around the central composition are angels singing and playing on musical instruments, and the whole is executed in most vivid colours. The armorial bearings of the Duke, a _fleur-de-lys_ displayed between a bear and a swan, have given rise to the canting word _Oursine (ours-cigne)_, which is said to have been the name of the Duke's favourite mistress. They occur frequently in this MS. The _Adoration of the Infant Saviour_, with choirs of rejoicing Angels around the roof of the stable and Joseph--an Oriental-looking personage with a long beard--in deep contemplation, is a representation full of novelty and charm. A shepherd, followed by his flock, draws near to gaze in awe upon the Divine Babe. On the next page a number of shepherds are pointing to a choir of angels who are singing and making melody in the air, whilst in the distance rises a majestic Gothic cathedral, probably intended to represent the Temple at Jerusalem. In the foreground is one of those conventional hillocks so often met with in old mosaics; but the fountain of running water which rises upon it and from which the sheep are drinking is realistically conceived. It is interesting, therefore, to note the admixture of symbolic tradition with realistic feeling. [Illustration: Plate XXXVII. Photo. Giraudon. THE PROCESSION OF THE MAGI. Pol de Limbourg and his Brothers. From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 174_.] The _Procession of the Magi_, again, is an example of the Limbourgs' facility in applying new forms to conventional conceptions; and it is worth observing how anxious they evidently were to study the special wishes of their patron the Duke. We learn from the _Inventory_ of this Prince that he was an ardent collector of medals, and that he had bought from a Florentine dealer a medal of the _Emperor Constantine_. The figure of the most prominent of these three Magi on the left of the scene appears to have been copied from this very medal.[49] In the background may be noticed the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and the Sainte Chapelle. Again two bears are introduced in allusion to the Ducal device. In the centre of the picture is a tabernacle of pure French Gothic style adorned with figures of prophets and saints. These tabernacles were used in the fourteenth century (the Duc d'Aumale observes), as halting-places between Paris and Saint-Denis and were called _Montjoies_. The _Fall of the Rebel Angels_[50] which comes next is one of the loveliest pages of the series. God the Father, surrounded by Cherubim and Seraphim, is enthroned above the golden rays of the Sun. From amongst the ranks of the Angels--who are seated around in a semicircle--the rebels are being cast headlong to Earth. As Lucifer in his fall strikes his handsome head and diadem upon the ground fire bursts from him, producing a marvellous colour-effect of gold, blue and green. Although this composition is otherwise entirely symbolical, a body of French soldiers clad in armour of that period, with long staves, are introduced striking down the angels as they fall from above. This wonderful little design, although not more than 10 inches wide, is so full of action that it has been compared to the Signorelli frescoes at Orvieto; and this not without reason, for these miniaturists have, even on so tiny a scale, produced very much the same forcible effect. In direct contrast to this awe-inspiring composition is _The Coronation of the Virgin_[51] shown here with a fine combination of grandeur and elegance in style. Our Lady's mantle is rainbow-hued and her dress of pure white is powdered with golden _fleur-de-lys_. Angels bearing her crown descend from above, whilst Our Lord Himself raises His hands in blessing. On the right are the Apostles and a group of female Saints, one of whom is said to be a portrait of _Oursine_ herself. On the left is a bishop attended by monks. This miniature seems to be a prototype of a painting by Enguerrand Charonton, executed about half a century later and now at Villeneuve les Avignon. [Illustration: Plate XXXVIII. Photo. Giraudon. THE FALL OF THE ANGELS. Pol de Limbourg and his Brothers From the "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 176._] _The Temptation of Our Lord_ deserves somewhat special attention. The scene is represented as taking place upon a conventional mountain-top; and Satan is pointing to a castle with three towers: none other than the Duke's celebrated Castle of Mehun-sur-Yèvre,[52] described by Froissart as the most beautiful place on earth. In the _Crucifixion_, in accordance with the Biblical text, the artists have endeavoured to represent eclipses of the Sun and of the Moon, thus creating for the first time, as early as 1415, that _chiaroscuro_ which later on was so much admired when employed by Rembrandt and Correggio. _The Miracle of the Loaves_, within its graceful frame, is also extremely interesting; and not less noteworthy is a _Plan of Rome_,[53] in which may be observed the old basilica of St. Peter, Santa Maria Maggiore, the Lateran, the Colosseum and the Capitol, the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, the aqueducts, etc. Nothing is to be seen of the Forum, for at that time no excavations had yet been made. In conclusion we must mention the exquisite miniature representing _Mont St. Michel_, with the dragon and St. Michael fighting in the air, a lake and sailing-boats below, and the effigy of the fair Oursine enshrined in the letter B. Attempts have been made from time to time to trace throughout these beautiful pages the different hands of the three brothers, but no definite conclusion has been arrived at. It is, however, certain that Pol, the greatest of the three, was the leading spirit, and that he was the sole author of the _Calendar Months_, except that of _November_, which, as has already been mentioned, was completed seventy years later by Jean Colombe. In this design, and likewise in that part of the book executed by this latter artist, the originality which fascinates us so much in the work of the Limbourgs suddenly vanishes and we find ourselves contemplating mediocrity. In the _Pietà_ (one of Jean Colombe's miniatures) kneeling figures of the Duke and Duchess of Savoy are introduced. We cannot help wondering what different results might have been achieved had Duke Charles of Savoy, on inheriting the _Très Riches Heures_, employed Bourdichon or Perréal to complete them--or perhaps Simon Marmion of Valenciennes, who at that very time was painting his celebrated altarpiece for St. Bertin. Unfortunately this prince was not a connoisseur like his august relative the Duc de Berry, and he was unable in consequence to distinguish great art from lesser achievements. [Illustration: Plate XXXIX. Photo. Girandon THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN. Pol de Limbourg and his Brothers From The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry." _To face page 178._] CHAPTER XIV JEAN FOUQUET OF TOURS It is reasonable to inquire with some misgiving whether the _Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry_[54], so far surpassing all other artistic creations of its period, are the only record of the labours of Pol de Limbourg and his brothers which has come down to us. This would seem to be almost the case, if we except the _Belles Heures de Jean de Berry_ (now in the possession of Baron Edmond de Rothschild,) which was the _livre de chevet_ of the Duke and is far smaller in dimensions than the _Très Riches Heures_. We can trace in the _Bible Moralisée_ (_MS. Français_ 166 Bibl. Nat.) miniatures strongly recalling the style of the Limbourgs, and if we proceed to compare some of its later pages, supposed to have been the work of the young Fouquet, with similar subjects as in the Chantilly Codex a distinct resemblance can be observed. For instance a representation of _Paradise_ in the _Bible Moralisée_ closely resembles the Limbourgs' treatment of the same subject in the _Très Riches Heures_. A few pages farther on the same scene appears, attributed once more and not without reason to Fouquet--probably an early work--which shows the decided influence of his predecessors and tends to suggest that Jean Fouquet of Tours must have been a follower of Pol de Limbourg. At any rate his taste for landscape-painting is already in evidence here, and from the first he appears to have clearly grasped the fact that his predecessors' greatness lay very largely in this branch of the art of painting, so that he specially laid himself out to make it his own also. The banks of the Loire and the country surrounding his native town of Tours were his favourite subjects, and his treatment of these provoked the fervent admiration of his Italian friend Florio. [Illustration: Plate XL. Photo. Giraudon. ETIENNE CHEVALIER AND HIS PATRON SAINT KNEELING BEFORE THE VIRGIN. Jean Fouquet. Musée Condé. _To face plate XLI._] Fouquet was born in 1415, and was already famous when Louis XI ascended the Throne of France, and made him his Court-Painter. He was, moreover, well known in Italy before 1443; for he was commissioned whilst in Rome to paint a portrait of _Pope Eugenius IV_ which is known to have been long preserved in the Sacristy of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, but which has only come down to us in a mediocre engraving. Filarete in his _Treatise on Architecture_, dedicated to Francesco Sforza, speaks of Fouquet as famous for portraits from life, and mentions this very portrait of the Pope, together with those of two members of his family. His name was still remembered in Italy in the sixteenth century (he died before 1480), for Vasari mentions him as _Giovanni Fochet assai lodato pitor_. And Jean de Maire of Belgium, who lived at the Court of that highly cultured patroness of the Arts, Margaret of Austria, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, recalls Fouquet with highest commendation. Indeed this princess, according to an _Inventory_ of 1516, seems to have owned a small _Madonna_ painted by this master: "_Un petit tableau de Notre Dame bien vieux de la main de Fouquet ayant etuy et couverture_." [Illustration: Plate XLI. Photo. Giraudon. THE VIRGIN AND CHILD RECEIVING HOMAGE Jean Fouquet. Musée Condé. _To face page 180._] We know that Fouquet painted the portraits of _Charles VII_ and of _Juvenal des Ursins_ in the Louvre, and also a recently acquired portrait of a _Man with a Glass of Wine_. The life-sized portraits of _Etienne Chevalier attended by his Patron Saint_ at Berlin and the powerful likeness of an _Unknown Personage_ in the Lichtenstein Gallery are by his hand. But although he won great fame as a portrait-painter during his lifetime it is upon his achievements as a worker in miniature that his highest reputation is based. [Illustration: Plate XLII. Photo. Giraudon. THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN. Jean Fouquet. Musée Condé. _To face page 182._] A very large number of the collections of miniatures have fortunately been spared to us, and they have come down to us in almost perfect condition. The most important may be enumerated as follows: the _Statutes of the Order of St. Michael_; the _Boccaccio_ at Munich; the _Book of Hours_ painted for Etienne Chevalier; the _Chronique de France_ in the Bibliothèque Nationale; some _MSS._ now in the possession of Mr. Yates Thomson; and, finest of all, the _Antiquitates Judæorum_ of Josephus. In the _Statutes of the Order of St. Michael_ (_MS._ 19819 Bibl. Nat.) Louis XI, as Founder of the Order, is portrayed surrounded by his thirty-six Knights. A similar miniature, but of somewhat greater dimensions, forms the frontispiece of the _Boccaccio_, which was executed for the Controleur Laurens Gyrart and is now in the Public Library at Munich. Count Paul Durrieu believes--and not without reason--that all the miniatures in this Codex are by Fouquet himself. On the frontispiece, a leaf not more than 20 inches square, Charles VII is depicted surrounded by about 150 dignitaries--judges, magistrates, etc.--passing judgment on Duc Jean d'Alençon. The scene is laid at the Castle of St. George in Vendôme, and amongst those present is Etienne Chevalier and the artist himself.[55] Most realistically conceived are the crowd of onlookers, some of whom, pushing forward, are being vigorously repressed by the guards. The _Chronique de France_ (_MS. Français_ 6465 Bibl. Nat.), in which fifty-five illustrations record events in the _Life of Philippe Augustus_, one of them showing the _Coronation of Charlemagne_ in the old Basilica of St. Peter at Rome, is another work by Fouquet which is full of points of interest. His illustrations to the French translation of the _Antiquitates Judæorum_ of Josephus--now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris--are usually reckoned as his _chef d'oeuvre_. The Duc de Berry had, in the first instance, commissioned André Beauneveu to execute this MS., but presently it came, by way of inheritance, into the hands of Jacques d'Armagnac, Duc de Nemours, who engaged Fouquet to complete the unfinished work. A note in the first volume of this MS. by François Robertet, secretary to Pierre de Beaujeu, Duc de Bourbon, records that the first three miniatures in that volume were by the Duc de Berry's artists, and the rest by Louis XI's "good painter and illuminator--Jean Fouquet of Tours." It is by this note that we are enabled to identify Fouquet's work. Subsequently the Codex became the property of Catherine, daughter of the murdered Duc de Nemours, who on her marriage to the Duc de Bourbon brought the treasure to the Court of Moulins. When, a century later, the last Duc de Bourbon, the famous Constable, was killed at the Sack of Rome, since he had no heirs and was an exile and fugitive from France, all his property, including this Codex, was confiscated and passed to the Crown. In course of time the second volume became separated from the first, and having strayed to England, eventually found its way into the Library of Colonel Townley, whence it was sold in 1814. At that time it still contained thirteen miniatures. It was not, however, until 1905 that it reappeared once more at a sale at Sotheby's when it contained but one miniature![56] Here it was secured by Mr. Yates Thomson, who recognised its author. Two years later Mr. Warner, Librarian of the Royal Library at Windsor, identified ten illuminated miniatures, then in the possession of King Edward VII, as the work of Fouquet and furthermore as belonging to the very MS. acquired by Mr. Yates Thomson. His Majesty graciously consented to unite his precious fragments with those of Mr. Yates Thomson, and the two owners agreed to present the whole work to President Fallières. Thus the two volumes were once more reunited after a separation of many centuries; but with two sheets still missing. The illuminations harmonise in every respect throughout, except that the designs in Volume I are somewhat superior to those in Volume II. Amongst them one representing the _Children of Israel led into Captivity by King Shalmaneser_ is most interesting and exhibits Fouquet at the zenith of his powers. We may specially notice the exquisitely beautiful landscape and the horses, which recall the art of Pisanello. Another scene labelled _Clementia_ shows the _Return from the Captivity_; and here we may observe a curious blending of classic architecture with the French domestic style of the painter's own day. This Codex of Fouquet's recalls the _Belles Heures_ of Ailly mentioned above, which is considered to be an early work of the Brothers Limbourg (_i.e._ circa 1403-13). [Illustration: Plate XLIII. Photo, Giraudon. THE ANNUNCIATION. Jean Fouquet. Musée Condé. _To face page 184._] But of all the MSS. illuminated by this artist the one which must most particularly attract our attention is the _Book of Hours_ executed for Etienne Chevalier, the greater part of which is now preserved at Chantilly. Almost all these miniatures are reminiscent of impressions received by Fouquet during residence in Florence and Rome. They were apparently executed during the years 1453 and 1460, soon after his return from Italy and immediately after the completion of the celebrated diptych of _Etienne Chevalier and his Patron Saint_ and the _Madonna and Child_ commissioned by this same Chevalier in 1453 for the Cathedral at Melun in memory of his wife Catherine Buti. One portion of this diptych (the _Madonna and Child_) is now, as mentioned above, in the Antwerp Museum, whilst the other has found its way into the Kaiser Friedrich Collection at Berlin. The miniatures at Chantilly, forty in number, represent, if not the greatest, at least the most fascinating period of the master's artistic career. Like the MS. of the _Antiquitates Judæorum_ they also suffered many vicissitudes before finally entering the haven of the Musée Condé. Nicolas, Baron of Navarre and Bearn, a descendant of Etienne Chevalier, in the year 1630, when at the point of death entreated his nephew, to whom he bequeathed his manuscripts, to preserve and augment them "_en faveur des gens doctes_." Howbeit that same nephew sold not only the _Boccaccio_ to Munich, but also his ancestor Etienne Chevalier's _Book of Hours_. Whilst the former remained intact the latter was mutilated by a dealer, who separated the text from the miniatures in order to sell them individually. It is interesting to note here that Gaignière in his _Receuils_ had copies made of the portraits of Etienne Chevalier and of Charles VII from this MS. and attached to them explanatory notes, as follows: "_Charles VII copié après une miniature dans une prière d'heures faite pour Etienne Chevalier, trésorier general de France sous ce Prince_"; and again, "_Copie d'après une miniature dans un livre d'heures qu'il avait fait faire_." We may therefore gather from these notes that as late as the seventeenth century the illustrations in this _Book of Hours_ had not been divided from the text. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, the portraits were again reproduced by Montfaucon; but this time they were not copied from the originals, proving that the learned Benedictine writer was then unable to discover their existence. Eventually in 1805 forty of these treasures were discovered at Bâle and bought by George Brentano la Roche of Frankfurt, whence in 1891 they passed to the Duc d'Aumale. Besides these forty, four more pages have been identified as belonging to this same book, as follows: one in the British Museum, which represents _David_ kneeling in prayer amid a beautiful landscape; a _Mariensippe (Genealogy of the Blessed Virgin)_ in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; a fragment in the Louvre representing _St. Margaret_ with a landscape background; and yet one more, _St. Martin dividing his mantle_, in the Conches Collection. [Illustration: Plate XLIV. Photo. Giraudon. THE VISITATION. Jean Fouquet. Musée Condé. _To face page 186._] The forty miniatures at Chantilly are hung upon the walls of the _Santuario_--so called by the Duc d'Aumale because it sheltered his greatest treasures--_i.e._ the forty Fouquets, Raphael's famous _Graces_, the beautiful painting of _Esther before Ahasuerus_ and the _Madonna_ of the Maison d'Orléans. The miniature representing _Etienne Chevalier with his Patron St. Stephen_[57] was intended as a frontispiece for this beautiful book. The powerful Lord High Treasurer of France is represented humbly kneeling, his eyes fixed steadily upon the Divine Mother, who, crowned and seated beneath a Gothic canopy, holds upon her lap the Holy Babe.[58] To the left angels are singing and playing upon musical instruments, whilst a band of children clad in white timidly adore their Infant Saviour. The architecture in the rear of the composition is of special interest, for Gothic niches enshrining figures of the Prophets are intermingled with panels in the style of the Italian Renaissance and Corinthian columns after the manner of Brunelleschi and Michelozzo. A rich display of gold in this miniature gives to it a strongly symbolic character, and may be likened to the dying rays of the sun of Mediæval Art, to which the artist desired to be not wholly indifferent. These exquisite designs clearly exhibit the genius of an artist who had been profoundly impressed by a sojourn in Italy, who had greatly profited thereby and who, by assimilating into his own individuality the fruit of his studies abroad, became a pioneer of pictorial art in his native land. The likeness of the donor himself is especially attractive, for it appears to have been taken direct from life, and, in spite of its smaller dimensions, is superior to the life-size portrait of the same person now at Berlin. It is this smaller presentation that Gaignières has copied in his Receuils. [Illustration: Plate XLV. Photo. Giraudon. THE BIRTH OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. Jean Fouquet. Musée Condé. _To face page 188._] _The Marriage of the Virgin_[59] is another scene of great interest. The high-priest, arrayed in mitre and vestments, places the hand of Mary in that of Joseph, the chosen suitor, who bears his budding rod. Like so many of the artists of that period, the painter has taken his scene from the _Legenda Aurea_ of Jacopo da Voragine, which tells us how Mary up to the age of fourteen years had lived in the Temple and had there taken a vow of virginity. Howbeit God commanded the High Priest Abiathar to assemble all the unmarried men of the House of David and to give to each a rod, upon which they were to inscribe their respective names. These rods were then placed upon the Altar and to the owner of the one which blossomed first the Blessed Virgin Mary was to be assigned. To this extremely solemn act Fouquet gives a semi-humorous note by the introduction of a realistic figure of Falstaffian proportions and a group of disappointed suitors. In the background behind the principal group St. Anne may be seen clad in exactly the same fashion as in the _Mariensippe_ in the Bibliothèque Nationale. The style of the Temple architecture gives the artist opportunity for introducing reminiscences of Rome. In the broad frieze of fighting warriors we can recognise part of Trajan's column; whilst the columns which flank the central arch record the gilt bronze columns once grouped around the _Confession of St. Peter_ in the old Basilica. These were, of course, in Fouquet's time still _in situ_ and they reappear in the miniatures of the _Antiquitates Judæorum_ in a scene where the victorious _Pompey enters the Temple in triumph_. As a strong contrast to this composition, where Renaissance and classic architecture are happily blended, the _Annunciation_[60] transports us to the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris; and we can recognise the long stained-glass windows, the bronze lustres and the shrine which in Fouquet's day was raised on pillars behind the high altar. Here all is pure French Gothic impressed with the spirit of St. Louis. The action takes place in the foreground; Mary, modest and girlish of mien, and the Archangel, a prototype of those heavenly beings who figure in Jean Perréal's triptych at Moulins. The scene of the _Visitation_[61] is a portico supported by marble columns, upon the frieze of which is inscribed the words "_Maistre Etienne Chevalier_." The graceful figure of Mary closely resembles that in the preceding illumination, while St. Elisabeth is presented in the garb of a Flemish housewife. An obviously French servant to the right, with dress tucked up and broom in hand, strikes once more that note of realism which attracts Fouquet so much. In the background is to be seen a well, around which children are playing. Next follows the _Birth of St. John_[62] in the chamber of a French home. To the left neighbours come to present their congratulations. Two women prepare the bath and the linen, whilst the new-born infant sits quietly upright upon the Virgin's lap, who gazes down upon him with tender affection. That this figure is intended to represent the Mother of God is indicated by the fact that her nimbus is unusually large. In the Ghirlandajo frescoes of this scene at Santa Maria Novella there is also a figure which appears to be intended for the Virgin Mary; but very few artists besides Fouquet have introduced her into their presentations of this episode. Zacharias is clad in the robes of a lawyer. Beneath the scene are two quadrangles, in the first of which is inscribed the letter D, and within it is a soldier holding a shield, which in turn bears the initials E. C. (_Etienne Chevalier_). These initials occur repeatedly in the frieze running round the page. In the second quadrangle, where should have been the first words of the _Magnificat_, there is painted a lamb and a tasteless wreath of roses, evidently an interpolation introduced by the same hand that separated the text from the miniatures, which we may observe again in no less than nineteen out of the forty miniatures now at Chantilly. This composition of the _Birth of St. John_ exhibits, perhaps more than any of the preceding, the freedom with which Fouquet treats these Biblical scenes. [Illustration: Plate XLVI. Photo. Giraudon. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. Jean Fouquet. Musée Condé. _To face page 190._] The same free tendency may be observed also in the _Nativity of Christ_ and in the _Adoration of the Magi_. This time and in both these scenes the artist has chosen neither the columns of a Gothic church nor a Roman temple, but remains faithful to tradition and presents the stable of Bethlehem. In the _Nativity_ we may perceive to the right the angel announcing to the shepherds the Birth of Christ. Hard by is a cavern, in which, according to the legend, the shepherds took shelter from a thunderstorm. The Infant Christ is extended upon the Madonna's blue mantle and St. Joseph kneels between the ox and the ass. A humorous note is again introduced by a shepherd playing on the bagpipes. The Magi in the next scene are personified by the French King, Charles VII himself, and his two sons--the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI, and his younger brother, the Duc de Berry, then a mere boy. The presence of the Royal Guard clad in white and wearing helmets, leaves no doubt as to who the personages were whom Fouquet intended to represent. The fortified castle in the background is the Château de Chinon, whither Charles VII retired during the English occupation of Paris and where he received Joan of Arc. Another illumination worthy of note is the _Betrayal_. The light which pierces the dark shadows and illuminates the scene itself is very remarkably treated. The _Crucifixion_ in this series does not attain to the high level of the similar episode in the _Très Riches Heures_. Its chief attraction lies in the landscape, wherein, however, instead of Jerusalem and the brook Cedron, Paris appears with the Sainte-Chapelle and the river Seine. In the background the death of Judas Iscariot is most dramatically represented. The _Crucifixion_ scene in the _Très Riches Heures_ is, as we have already remarked, a most powerful creation, and by the introduction of _chiaroscuro_ Pol Limbourg succeeded in producing an effect which Fouquet, however much he may have admired it, did not attempt to imitate. He laid greater stress upon the _Descent from the Cross_. Amongst the men and women grouped around the Dead Saviour the mourning figures of the Holy Mother and near her of SS. Mary Magdalene and John, are clearly indicated. Joseph of Arimathæa holds a vase of ointment, while a man with a peaked turban close at hand has been pointed out as Gamaliel, the teacher of St. Paul. [Illustration: Plate XLVII. Photo. Giraudon. THE ASCENSION. Jean Fouquet. Musée Condé. _To face page 192._] Fouquet's power reaches its climax in the _Ascension_. Our Lord, surrounded by angels, is borne to Heaven on a cloud, and beneath Him golden rays apparently assist in raising Him upwards. Amongst the disciples gazing Heavenwards may be singled out the powerful figure of St. Peter, its simple grandeur reminding us of the creations of Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence, which Fouquet must have seen and from which he seems to have drawn inspiration. The figure of the Virgin Mary is also most impressive. No longer the sorrowing Mother bowed down by grief as in the _Descent from the Cross_, she here appears as the Mother of Christ the King of Heaven, and she shares His victory over Hell and Death. In the _Descent of the Holy Ghost_ Our Lady is seated upon a golden throne and takes a more prominent part than is usually assigned to her in other representations of the same scene. Next to this comes the _Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin of her approaching death_; and in accordance with the _Legenda Aurea_ the Archangel Gabriel is presenting her with the palm of Paradise. This is a somewhat unusual scene,[63] and proves that Fouquet must have studied these legends with considerable care. In the next illumination, representing _Mary's Obsequies_, the same palm is borne by St. John, whilst St. Peter is one of the bearers of the bier. Fouquet's presentation of the _Coronation of the Virgin_ does not, as with the Limbourgs or Enguerrand Charonton, take place in Heaven, but in a hall richly decorated in the Renaissance style where the same Corinthian columns are introduced that appear in the _Frontispiece_. But one of the most remarkable compositions of the entire series is the _Enthronement of the_ _Virgin_, a scene which Bossuet describes as follows: "_Le ciel aussi bien que la terre a ses triomphes, et l'exaltation de la Sainte Vierge dans le trône que son fils lui destine doit faire un des beaux jours de l'éternité_." And Fouquet does indeed depict this scene in a glow of colour which affords a vivid idea of triumphant festivity. The Virgin, clothed in white, is seated beneath a Gothic canopy to the left of the Trinity. Above her are countless angels and below saints, priests and prophets who are praising God in concert. Anatol Gruyer speaks of this miniature as the most important of all: "What Dante so well described in the _Divina Commedia_ Fouquet painted with masterly hand. It is a painting which may be described as sublime." This wonderful series is brought to a close with a representation of _La Toussaint_.[64] Our Lord, surrounded by angels, is enthroned between the Virgin and the beloved disciple St. John. Below are seated apostles and saints, amongst whom we can again discover Etienne Chevalier clad in a red mantle beside his Patron Saint. On the opposite side kneels his wife, Catherine Buti. [Illustration: Plate XLVIII. Photo. Giraudon. ALL-SAINTS'-DAY. Jean Fouquet. Musée Condé. _To face page 194._] Hung separately in the _Santuario_ at Chantilly these forty miniatures of Fouquet form an important monument of French fifteenth-century Art and provide strong evidence that French works of the highest merit certainly existed at that time. Their present scarcity is no doubt due to vandalism and wilful destruction. In these miniatures are apparent all the qualities so characteristic of French Art, _i.e._ its exquisite grace, its adaptability to foreign elements without loss of its own individuality, its sense of humour, its restrained realism and its overmastering love for Nature. CHAPTER XV JEAN PERRÉAL AND BOURDICHON It is hardly conceivable that a master like Fouquet, so famous as a painter of miniatures and portraits, should really have left no followers. Indeed, it has been said that he ought to have been succeeded by a French Raphael. Unfortunately the adverse circumstances which surrounded French Art at that period prevented Fouquet's followers from arriving at the eminence achieved by their master. We hear of frescoes in the house of Joan of Arc, executed by some unknown artist in 1481 (the year of Fouquet's demise), which represented that great heroine and her noble deeds. Had they but survived an interesting page of history would have come down to us and we might have even possessed an authentic likeness of her. Montaigne, when passing through the country of Lorraine on his way to Italy, saw these paintings, and makes mention of them in his _Journal_[65] as follows: "_La maisonette où naquit Jeanne d'Arc est toutes peintes de ses gestes; mais l'orage en a fort corrompu la peinture_"--a further proof of the havoc played upon early French Art by time and neglect. A younger contemporary of Fouquet was Simon Marmion, who lived at Valenciennes and is chiefly known to us by his fine altarpiece at Saint-Bertin: a composition now divided between Berlin and London. Moreover, two of Fouquet's sons served their father as assistants and to them may be ascribed some of the works of his school--such, for instance, as a miniature representing an _Angelic Choir_ shown at the Exhibition of Illuminated MSS. arranged by the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1908. Bourdichon and Jean Perréal, Jean Payet and Jean Colombe may be considered as followers of Fouquet; yet documentary evidence is very scanty. It is true, however, that there exist some fragments of historical information which would seem to allude to their work; as, for example, the following fact. Some fifty years ago cartridges which had been made up during the time of the Revolution in default of other material out of old manuscripts and contracts were found in the arsenal of the Hôtel des Invalides; and it was to Comte de Laborde that the idea occurred of making a closer investigation of the composition of these cartridges. After a careful study of those time-worn and crumpled fragments he discovered upon one of them the name of Bourdichon and with it the additional facts that he resided in the town of Tours, where Fouquet was born; that his birth took place in 1457; that at the early age of twenty-one he was entrusted with the execution of certain frescoes in a chapel; and that he was Court-Painter to Charles VIII, whose portrait he painted, as well as that of his Queen, Anne de Bretagne. A small portrait of her son, _Prince Orlant_,[66] who died in childhood, has been attributed to Bourdichon; and a similar portrait, representing his younger brother _Charles_, which came to light only recently[67] and was acquired by the Louvre, is evidently by the same hand.[68] Bourdichon's skill can be traced with greater certainty in various _Books of Hours_[69]: _i.e._ the "_Heures d'Aragon_," a small volume adorned with graceful miniatures considered by M. E. Mâle to be one of his early works; while the _Prayer Book of Anne de Bretagne_, which is authenticated by a document dated 1508 (Bibl. Nat.), is a later and more finished achievement. Compared, however, with Fouquet's style, the work of Bourdichon seems like wine diluted with water, whilst the total absence of landscape from the backgrounds of his miniatures gives to his figures an unusually cold appearance. His _Madonna_ is distinguished-looking but rather rigid and devoid of expression; his _Magdalen_ though poetical seems lifeless; and as for the portrait of _Queen Anne_ herself and her companions on the _Frontispiece_ it is purely conventional without attempt at aiming at a likeness. Instead of the landscapes which form so fascinating a part of the work of his predecessors we find him introducing great masses of flowers on the margins of the illuminations. The Queen who commissioned the book evidently was devoted to flowers; and thus Bourdichon, probably at her express command, brought them in wherever he could. We must indeed give him credit for a vast amount of charm and delicacy in the execution of these lovely flowers and they form a very perfect and beautiful decoration. Although M. Bouchot mentions the name of Bourdichon more than once in reference to certain drawings at Chantilly there is nothing amongst the treasures of the Musée Condé which really can be attributed to him with any certainty. With Jean Perréal it is different. He is the artist who has been identified by some authorities with the mysterious _Maître de Moulins_. It was M. de Maulde and Henri Bouchot who first propounded this theory; and they were supported by Mr. Roger Fry and M. Hulin after the Exhibition of the French Primitifs in 1904, where a number of works supposed to be by this master were arranged in definite order for comparison purposes. We know that Perréal at the beginning of his career lived at Moulins, where he held the post of Court-Painter to Duc Pierre de Bourbon; and that there he had the opportunity of studying Fouquet's miniatures in the _Antiquitates Judæorum_, then an heirloom in the Ducal Library. Like Bourdichon Perréal appears to have had no taste for landscape, and it was chiefly portraiture that attracted him. This branch of art was, in fact, the prevailing interest of his time, and that so-called _inquiétude du portrait_ manifested itself more or less strongly in the miniature-painting of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries until it almost entirely superseded all landscape work. We find an excellent portrait, for instance, of _Charles V of France_ in the _Heures d'Anjou_[70] and another in the _Bible Historiée_[71]. The well-known portrait of _Jean le Bon_, father of Charles V of France, in the Bibliothèque Nationale is considered to be the prototype of French portraits, and it is therefore not inopportune to compare it with the later portraiture. It was discovered by Gaignières at Oyron, an old château of the Gouffier family, and was the only painting which the Regent in 1717 thought worth keeping out of the sale of this collector's treasures. It is ascribed to Girard d'Orléans, who is recorded as having assisted Jean de Coste to decorate the Château de Vaudreuil. Girard is also known to have accompanied the King to England, when the latter was held prisoner there after the Battle of Poitiers. It is not improbable that this portrait--which is one of a set of four--was painted during his captivity.[72] Executed in England it no doubt gave an impulse to English Art of the same kind; although it is an undisputed fact that at that period there already existed the paintings in St. Stephen's Chapel at Westminster,[73] through which England would appear to have a reason to claim--as suggested by Mr. Lionel Cust[74]--priority in time over France. On the other hand, there is nothing in England to compare with the exquisite miniature portrait of the _Duc de Berry_ in the _Très Riches Heures_ or with the work of Fouquet half a century later. The portrait in the _Très Riches Heures_ of the _Duc de Berry_--who, by the way, along with his brother Louis d'Anjou, shared their father's captivity in England--was most probably painted from life, since it has that note of realism which is so characteristic of all French Art. Another remarkable portrait is that of _Louis II of Anjou_, King of Sicily, also copied by Gaignières. Its date is 1415 and a miniature of it is to be found in the _Livre d'Heures_ which once belonged to King René.[75] We hear also of an artist whom Charles VI, when choosing a consort, sent to the various Courts of Europe to paint the portraits of eligible Princesses. The name of this artist has, unfortunately, not come down to us. [Illustration: Plate XLIX. Photo. Giraudon. SEIGNEUR DE PALISSE. Attributed to J. Perréal. (About 1515). Photo. Giraudon. COMTE DE LIGNY. Attributed to J. Perréal. (About 1505). Musée Condé. _To face page 202._] Fouquet, following in the steps of the Limbourgs, unquestionably gave fresh impetus to French portraiture and it is not unreasonable to suggest that the portraits of the so-called _Preux de Marignan_ at Chantilly are sufficiently similar to his style as to be attributable at least to the same school. Before, however, bringing forward the proposition that these drawings may reasonably be ascribed to Jean Perréal we must first refer to the _MS. de Saint Michel_,[76] which is assigned to that master by no less an authority than Comte Paul Durrieu. And here, at least, we have some historical proof on which to rely. The Dedication to the King on the first page shows that this manuscript was a present from the Duc de Bourbon to his young Sovereign; and it is unlikely that the Duke would have employed upon this occasion anyone else rather than his own Court-Painter whom he might perhaps have desired to bring under the King's notice. On one of the pages of this manuscript Charles VIII, who was delicate and small of stature, appears wrapped in a wide mantle which imparts to him an air of importance. As St. Michael, he stands between two courtiers and is surrounded by angels, who bear a strong resemblance to the floating angels in the triptych at Moulins attributed to Perréal. Moreover, in the same MS. there is a drawing of a head in profile which recalls a drawing at Chantilly attributed to Perréal, representing the _Comte de Ligny_, a patron of the artist and confidant of Charles VIII, whom he accompanied to Naples. It is not at all unlikely that de Ligny should have commissioned Perréal to paint his portrait, in which he is represented in a fur coat and cap, similar to that worn by his master the King in the well-known bust in the Museo Nationale at Florence. A drawing, also at the Musée Condé, representing _Lescueur_, _Bourdillon_, and another which, although supposed by Bouchot to be _Anne de Montmorency_, is apparently meant for _Louis XII_,[77] have decided affinity with this portrait of _de Ligny_ and with the profile-head in the _St. Michel_ manuscript assigned to Perréal. We must remark, however, that these drawings are inferior in craftsmanship to the supposed portrait of _Louis XII_. The supposition therefore arises that they may be merely copies from lost originals. The interesting drawing on which Moreau Nelaton[78] discovered the name of _Erasmus_ in the strange, almost illegible handwriting of Catherine de Medicis is most likely by the same hand, and this group of drawings all betray an unmistakeable relationship to another group likewise at Chantilly; namely, the well-known portraits of the _Preux de Marignan_ from which the miniatures in the second volume of the MS. of the _Gallic War_ are reproduced. Bouchot and also Dimier have tentatively ascribed both drawings and miniatures to Jean Clouet. But others, and amongst them both M. de Maulde and the present author,[79] assign the original drawings of the _Preux_ to Perréal. [Illustration: Plate L. ERASMUS. Attributed to J. Perréal. JUST DE TOURNON. Attributed to J. Perréal. (About 1515). Musée Condé. _To face page 204._] It is strange that Bouchot and Dimier, and also Maulde La Clavière, accept as a foregone conclusion that both drawings and miniatures must necessarily be by the same hand. Yet everything points to the fact that the miniatures in question were copied subsequently (about 1519-20) from these very same drawings by Godfroy le Battave, the author of the excellent _grisailles_ with which this manuscript is ornamented. It stands to reason that it was he who also reproduced the miniature of _Francis I_ on the frontispiece of the first volume of the MS. in question. To judge from the costumes and headgears of these heroes they cannot be dated later than 1514-15, a period anterior to Clouet. It is therefore quite plausible to suggest that Perréal, who at the time of the Battle of Marignan was Court-Painter, received from Francis I the commission to portray his famous comrades, _Artur_ and _Guillaume Gouffier_, _Just de Tournon_,[80] _Odet de Foix_,[81] _Fleuranges_, the _Seigneur de la Palisse_,[82] and _Anne de Montmorency_. It is a curious fact that all the numerous sixteenth-century French drawings at Chantilly and in other collections should have been formerly attributed indiscriminately to "Janet," a name employed to designate both the Clouets, Jean and François. Yet we know that Perréal was Court-Painter to Louis XII and that the latter was so enchanted with his work that when he was in Italy he sent for them "_pour monstrer aux dames de par deça_," and referred to him as a "_portraitiste de visages, qui peint de petits portraits sur parchemin, et sans rival en Italie_."[83] Some years later, after the death of his Queen, the aged monarch sent Perréal to England to paint a portrait of his affianced bride, _Mary Tudor_. He had previously been sent to Germany for a similar object, so that it was the most natural thing in the world for the young King Francis on ascending the throne to commission a painter, who had already been employed by his predecessor, to portray also himself and his warrior friends. Yet another drawing at Chantilly may be attributed to Perréal representing _Guillaume de Montmorency_,[84] father of the celebrated Anne. Judging by the age and the attire this portrait must necessarily be assigned to an artist working before Jean Clouet's time. After having adduced these proofs in support of our argument it would seem to be going purposely out of our way not to prefer Perréal as the author of the _Preux de Marignan_ rather than Jean Clouet; and especially as there are a vast number of drawings belonging to the period when Clouet was Court-Painter--1523-39--which clearly prove the greater elaboration of his style. [Illustration: PLATE LI. FRANCIS I. _Photo Braun & Co._ _Musée Condé._ Attributed to Jean Perréal. FRANCIS I. _British Museum._ CÆSAR. _British Museum._] As for the miniatures in the MS. of the _Gallic War_ there can be no doubt that they were reproduced from the original drawings at Chantilly, _not_ because the author of the _grisailles_ in that manuscript was unable to execute portraits himself--for he was evidently an excellent draughtsman--but because it was the fashion of the time to have such drawings taken from life and then reproduced in colour in order to spare their noble patrons the inconvenience of sitting so often. We have already stated that Godfroy le Battave reproduced in miniature on the frontispiece of the first volume of this MS. the effigy of _Francis I_. Beneath on the same page is a miniature of _Cæsar_, probably copied from an old cameo; whilst the miniature of the King can be traced to a painting now at Chantilly, attributed to Perréal, and formerly in the possession of Gaignières. It represents Francis I at the time of his accession and is so subtle in its representation of character that it fascinates by its obvious verisimilitude. Another circumstance in favour of our proposition is found in the notes with reference to an intended execution in colours inscribed upon the back of the drawing supposed to represent _Louis XII_.[85] These notes are in a handwriting closely resembling the handwriting of Perréal in the _Comptes de Lyon_ and in his autographs in the Bibliothèque Nationale, where he speaks of his "_croions qui n'est que demy couleurs_."[86] From the above arguments we are led to the conclusion that this delicate art of pencil drawing must have originated on French soil, and that it was apparently practised by Jean Fouquet,[87] Perréal, and probably also to a certain extent by Bourdichon, before Jean Clouet appeared in France. Nevertheless, the latter, when he came to Tours, adapted his style--till then more closely resembling that of Holbein--to French requirements; and his son, François Clouet, developed this art to its highest perfection, combining his father's methods with those of his French predecessors. It is to be hoped, since some examples of the work of the long-neglected Perréal have now come to light, that more proofs of his versatility and power may yet appear, and that we may arrive at something more definite regarding him. The portraits of _Charles VIII_ and _Anne de Bretagne_, discovered by Bouchot in a small MS. volume once the property of Gaignières, recall the drawings in the Musée Condé which we have assigned to Perréal; and so also does a small panel portrait of _Philip le Beau_ now in the Northbrook Collection. [Illustration: Plate LII. Photo. Giraudon. LOUIS XII. (ABOUT 1514). Attributed to Jean Perréal. Photo. Giraudon. ODET DE FOIX. Attributed to Jean Perréal. Musée Condé. _To face page 2_.] Furthermore, the so-called _Tournois_ tapestry, which may be assigned to the beginning of the sixteenth century, seems to reveal Jean Perréal's style. It is important to notice that documentary evidence proves that Perréal presided as Master of the Revels on the occasion of the State Entry into Lyons of Philip le Beau and his wife, Jeanne la Loca; on which occasion they were received with great pomp by Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne. We learn that he executed decorations for these festivities, and it is therefore not impossible that his designs may have been subsequently used for the tapestries in question, since they present to us _Louis XII_ and _Anne de Bretagne_ with their Royal guests and numerous suite. Thus historical record also would seem to favour the theory which we have endeavoured to establish--namely, that Jean Perréal as stated worked with pencil and chalk some time before the appearance upon the scene of Jean Clouet. In spite of the regrettable fact that most of his work has either been swept away by time or is still attributed to other artists enough evidence remains, if one will only accept it, of an activity which it is not easy to discount. Perréal is also mentioned in Royal Accounts as an architect and sculptor in the service of Anne de Bretagne, who entrusted to him the design for a tomb for her parents, François, Duc de Bretagne, and his wife Marguerite de Foix, at Nantes--a monument subsequently executed by Michel Colombe. The graceful angels who keep watch over the dead and the noble figures of Justice and Temperance are silent tokens of Perréal's ability. He was also consulted by that noble patroness of the Arts, Margaret of Austria, in connection with the tomb at Brou of her husband, Philibert of Savoy, and for this monument also some of his designs were used. Amongst the French medals (1476-1515) in the Metropolitan Museum (New York) there is a masterpiece which bears the portraits of _Louis XII_ and _Anne de Bretagne_. This fine work of art (of which there is another example in the Wallace Collection) is known to have been designed by Jean Perréal (draughtsman), modelled by Nicolas Leclerc and Jehan de Saint-Priest (sculptors) and cast by Jehan Lepère (goldsmith). It is considered to be one of the finest examples of this species of work executed during the French Renaissance and was struck on the occasion of the marriage of Louis XII with the widow of Charles VIII. It was formerly supposed to be of Italian origin but is now authoritatively assigned to Jean Perréal. Reproductions of these medals, but smaller in size, are at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It would seem that the artist's fame received a final recognition in the fact that immediately after his death in 1528 Francis I sent for Italian painters to decorate Fontainebleau _on account of the dearth of native talent_. [Illustration: Plate LIII. LOUIS XII. ANNE OF BRITTANY. Victoria and Albert Museum. JEAN CLOUET. _To face page 210._] CHAPTER XVI JEAN CLOUET The veil of oblivion which so undeservedly fell upon Perréal is gradually lifted as we approach the period of Jean Clouet. Even if we except some drawings which we are bound to assign to an earlier period there still remain a great number which, judging by the age and style of costume of the characters represented, must necessarily be reckoned as falling within his period and may be reasonably attributed to him. Mention is made of no less than four persons bearing the surname of Clouet: Jean the grandfather, who painted for the Duke of Burgundy at Brussels about 1485; Jean Clouet, Court-Painter to Francis I; and his two sons--Clouet of Navarre[88] and François, who brought to its zenith the art of drawing in sixteenth-century France. [Illustration: Plate LIV. THE DAUPHIN FRANCOIS, ELDEST SON OF FRANCIS I. Antwerp Museum. _To face page 212._] Jean Clouet,[89] also known as _Jeannet_, migrated to France and settled at Tours, where he presently married Jeanne Boucault, the daughter of a goldsmith. He first appears in the Royal Accounts in 1516 as receiving 160 livres per annum--a sum which, on the death of Bourdichon in 1522, was increased to 240 livres. Subsequently we find special references to several portraits by him, taken from life[90] which the King was so anxious to see that he sent for them by "diligence and post-horses." Again we read further on that his wife, Jeanne, travelled expressly from Paris[91] to Fontainebleau in order to convey to His Majesty portraits done by her husband: "_Pour apporter et monstrer au dict seigneur aucuns ouvrages du dict Jeannet_." After the death of Perréal in 1528 Jean Clouet remained practically without a rival. Only one artist--a certain Jean Champion who seems to have been in receipt of a very small salary--is mentioned besides him; but none of this man's work is actually recorded. Amongst the numerous works attributed to Jean Clouet absolute certainty may be given to a portrait of _Oronce Finé_, which, however, has only come down to us through a mediocre engraving in Thevet's series of _Hommes Illustres_. Thevet speaks of this portrait as an authentic work by Jean Clouet on the authority of the mathematician's own son but it is not easy to judge fairly the work of any artist by an engraving. We can, however, gather enough from it to justify us in concluding that Jean Clouet's craftsmanship was of a more elaborate nature than that which may be observed in the portraits of the _Preux de-Marignan_. The portrait of _Oronce Finé_, for example, bears far more resemblance to that of _Duc Claude de Guise_,[92] of which there is a drawing at Chantilly and a coloured copy in the Pitti Gallery at Florence, both executed at about the same time. Then again there is at Hampton Court an excellent portrait of an _Unknown Man_ holding a volume of Petrarch, which is attributed to Jean Clouet. The original drawing for this somewhat later and more artistic piece of work is also at Chantilly. Another drawing likewise at Chantilly (a capital example of the artist's methods) represents _Francis I_ after his reverses at Pavia, wherein His Majesty has lost that expression of youthful buoyancy so conspicuous in the oil-painting in the same collection. He wears his cap adorned with a white plume no longer close-set as formerly and straight on his forehead, but according to the fashion of the day with the hair projecting from underneath it and slightly tilted to the left. His beard has also been allowed to grow, in order, it is said, to hide a scar on his cheek. This drawing was unquestionably taken from life, and was used for the portrait in oils now in the Louvre; which serves to prove how much care and diligence Jean Clouet expended upon his portraits. Just as a sculptor uses the clay for his models, so with equal faithfulness the artist made his drawings serve for his final portraits in a heavier medium. This small painting,[93] now recognised as an original work, is infinitely superior to the larger portrait,[94] also in the Louvre, although both have evidently been copied from one and the same drawing. Both portraits were formerly at Fontainebleau, where tradition had always assigned them to Jean Clouet. This likeness of _King Francis_ seems to have been a very favourite one for we find numerous copies of it: for example, in the Méjanés Collection at Aix; in the _Recueil Marriette_; and in the _Recueil d'Orange_ in England.[95] There are no less than eight copies of it in St. Petersburg, and the one in Florence is said to have been made by Queen Catherine herself. A later portrait of this King, likewise at Chantilly, represents him in middle age, when years had already begun to tell upon him and the lines of his face had become heavy and drawn. The original drawing for this--perhaps also by Jean Clouet--is lost, but a copy survives in the _Recueil Lenoir_. A miniature in oil at Florence, in which the King is represented on horseback, seems to have been designed from this drawing; whilst another similar miniature in the Louvre (Collection Sauvageot) is generally considered to be the work of François Clouet, who had at that time just begun his artistic career under his father's direction. This is probably the last likeness of Francis designed by Jean Clouet. It appears to have been painted in 1539 and may be regarded as the official portrait of this King. It is certainly vastly superior to another even later portrait, of which there is a copy in the Louvre and a miniature in the _Recueil du Tillet_ (Bibliothèque Nationale), where His Majesty is shown to have greatly increased in girth. Another similar miniature is in the ante-room at Chantilly, the King being again represented on horseback after a fashion affected by the succeeding Valois Kings; and the same original reappears in the _Book of Hours_ of Catherine de Medicis, where Francis figures as _King David_; appearing to be older than he really was, for he was but fifty-three when he died. Both Thevet in his _Hommes Illustres_ and Gautier in his _Kings of France_ reproduce this same portrait. [Illustration: PLATE LV. MONSIEUR DE NEVERS. _Musée Condé._ Jean Clouet. DUC DE GUISE. _Musée Condé._ Jean Clouet.] The likeness of _Francis I_ at Hampton Court, though painted by some mediocre copyist, has a special interest, inasmuch as it once belonged to Henry VIII of England. This portrait is reproduced in pencil in the _Recueil d'Arras_, and another, though superior, presentation of this same King in the Tribune at Chantilly seems to be of the same type. The King is here shown in profile, a treatment copied repeatedly by Limousin, an example being in the Gallerie d'Apollon at the Louvre, where he is seen kneeling beside Queen Claude. The latest portrait of all of this monarch is a drawing at Chantilly taken full face, which seems to have been made as a _post-mortem_ effigy, such as, according to the Royal Accounts, François Clouet was commissioned to make. This again is only a copy; so that of these many and varied types of portrait few only can claim to be the original work of Jean Clouet. In this connection we should like to mention an exquisite drawing recently acquired by the British Museum which represents _Marguerite d'Angoulême_, sister of King Francis, in the bloom of her youth.[96] Portraits of _Queen Claude_[97] are as rare as those of her royal husband are numerous. There is a slight drawing at Chantilly representing the daughter of Louis XII: presumably taken soon after her marriage to the heir to the French throne (which under the Salic Law she could not ascend herself). This marriage took place after the death of her mother, Anne de Bretagne, whose dearest wish it had been that she should marry Charles V, a suitor to whom she had been affianced in infancy. According to Brantôme the shrewd Queen Anne foresaw that her timid little daughter could not have a particularly happy life between so fickle a husband as Francis and so ambitious a mother-in-law as Louise of Savoy; but King Louis thought otherwise and sacrificed his daughter to his patriotism. This drawing, albeit very slight, is not without considerable charm. It dates probably from the same period as the portrait of the young King at Chantilly and may perhaps be attributed to the same artist. It is nothing like so elaborately finished as the drawing of Queen Claude's sister _Renée_, which in craftsmanship recalls the drawing of _Duc Claude de Guise_ in the Musée Condé. Another far more finished and far more elaborate drawing, now in Florence, represents _Queen Claude_ some ten years later as Queen-Mother; and it bears upon it marginal notes in no less august a hand than that of Catherine de Medicis herself, which enhances its importance. Apparently this too is a copy of one of Jean Clouet's lost originals. [Illustration: PLATE LVI. FRANCIS I. _Photo Giraudon._ _Louvre._ Jean Clouet.] The next drawings of interest by this artist in the portfolios at Chantilly are likenesses of the two _Dauphins of France_[98] and of the other Royal Children: a portrait of the _Dauphin François_, which was repeated in colours in an exquisite little panel now at Antwerp,[99] with the slight difference that the Royal Child has exchanged his simple cap for a plumed hat; and likenesses of _Monsieur d'Orléans_ (afterwards the Dauphin Henri), and of the third son, _Charles_, so great a favourite with his aunt Marguerite. This latter Prince had the good fortune to be kept at home when his two elder brothers were given as hostages to the Emperor Charles V after the disastrous defeat at Pavia to be subjected by him to four years of most inhuman imprisonment. Bodin, who was sent by their Royal Father to attend upon his unfortunate sons, relates that he found them in a dark chamber seated upon small wooden chairs. The hardest of straw mattresses were provided for them, and they were not allowed to wear the plumed caps which he brought for them, for fear that by some exercise of necromancy they might perhaps contrive to fly away! According to Brantôme, the poor Dauphin had almost forgotten his native French, so that his younger brother had to assist him in making himself understood. The charming sketch at Chantilly of the _Dauphin François_ wearing a plumed hat was evidently made after his safe return to France. [Illustration: Plate LVII. Photo Giraudon. QUEEN CLAUDE OF FRANCE. Attributed to J. Perréal. About 1515. Photo Giraudon. RENEE OF FRANCE, DUCHESS OF FERRARA. Attributed to Jean Clouet. Musée Condé. _To face page 21_.] A slight sketch shows _Madeleine de Valois_ as a child. This princess was married at the age of seventeen to King James V of Scotland; and she is said to have been so delighted at the prospect of becoming a Queen that she soon consoled herself for having to leave _la douce France_ for so rigorous a climate. She was, however, extremely delicate and died six months later, to the unbounded grief of her husband, who for years could not be persuaded to remarry. Princess Marguerite, on hearing of her elder sister's untimely death, shut herself up in her own apartments and refused food to the great injury of her health; and it was only by the urgent persuasions of her aunt Marguerite d'Angoulême that she was induced to resume her morning walks in the gardens of Fontainebleau and so by degrees to recover. A variety of drawings at Chantilly present this young princess at different periods of her life; and in the earlier of these, as in the portraits of her sister and two brothers, we can trace the handiwork of Jean Clouet. A painted portrait of her (which formerly belonged to Gaignières) in the Tribune at Chantilly, is attributed to Corneille de Lyon, and on the margin is written "_Marg. de France, Duchesse de Berry_." She is represented with auburn hair and blue eyes like her brother the Dauphin, whose portrait hangs in the same room. The words "_Corneille fecit_" are written on the back of the frame by Gaignières himself, who in so doing settled its authorship. Whilst the Dauphin seems in his portrait to be but eighteen years of age his sister Marguerite looks thirty, so that we may conclude that she sat at a much later period. The numerous drawings that François Clouet made of this Princess[100] reveal that amiable disposition so much praised by Brantôme. He speaks of her as "_la bonté du monde, charitable, magnifique, liberale, sage, vertueuse, si accostayle et douce que rien plus_." She remained unmarried until she had reached the age of thirty-six, because she declined (it is said) to marry one of her brother's subjects and yet did not wish to leave her beloved France. When quite young she had accompanied her aunt Marguerite to Nice, where she fixed her choice upon the heir of the House of Savoy, to whom after twenty-one years' interval she was, when adverse political complications had finally passed away, eventually united. She was meanwhile much admired at the French Court for her learning. A Latin and Greek scholar of merit, she studied Aristotle's _Ethics_ and is reported to have sent to Paris for at least three different editions of Cicero. She had no special gift in the use of the pen like her versatile aunt,[101] the authoress of the _Heptameron_, although she occupied her mind with continual study and much careful reading. She patronised the poet Du Bellay, who translated for her Bembo and Naugerius and she induced him to assert that no century would ever extinguish the memory of Boccaccio and Petrarch. Moreover, she attracted to the French Court Baccio del Bene, of whom Ronsard said that he was the only Italian author worthy of earnest consideration at this period. Her learning acquired for her the _sobriquet_ of "Pallas"; her emblem was an olive-branch; and she was looked upon as the symbol of Platonism in its highest form. Her father, King Francis, paid but little attention to her; but her brother, Henri II, loved and esteemed her greatly and when she married ordered for her adornment magnificent robes, costly lace and jewels, and organised great festivities. It was on the occasion of these nuptials, however, that the terrible tragedy occurred which brought about His Majesty's death. Like her aunt Rénée at Ferrara Marguerite[102] in her home in Piedmont never ceased to long for her "sweet France"; and every Frenchman who passed through Turin, on presenting himself at her Court, was warmly welcomed and munificently entertained. With her enlightened views she was able to act as mediator in the religious differences which raged so violently in France during the sixteenth century, and which extended into the country of her adoption; and she protected, as far as she was able, the persecuted Waldenses. The last years of her life were devoted chiefly to the education of her son, Charles Emmanuel of Savoy; and Michel de l'Hôpital declared that this Prince owed the success of his career entirely to her. The French Ambassador at Constantinople left to her his entire fortune, and the poet Du Bellay on his death-bed wept bitterly because he was unable to take a last farewell of her. When she herself died there perished with her all that was best in the spirit of the neo-Platonism initiated by her aunt, the first Marguerite; so that it presently fell entirely to pieces under the influence of the third Marguerite, youngest daughter of Catherine de Medicis. [Illustration: Plate LVIII. THE DAUPHIN FRANCOIS, ELDEST SON OF FRANCIS I. Jean Clouet. Photo. Giraudon. HENRI D'ORLEANS, AFTERWARDS HENRI II. Attributed to Jean Clouet. Musée Condé. _To face page 220._] A likeness of _Rénée de France_[103] which bears some affinity to the portrait of her sister _Queen Claude_ is also to be found at Chantilly. It represents her at the time of her marriage to Ercole, Duke of Ferrara, son of Lucrezia Borgia: nuptials which were celebrated in the Sainte Chapelle at Paris. Like the other French princesses of her day she was extremely intelligent and studious, and during her time the Court of Ferrara became renowned as an intellectual centre to which French visitors were always warmly welcomed. To the complaints of her Italian courtiers that she spent too much money upon her compatriots she replied, "_Que voulez-vous? Ces sont pauvres Français de ma nation lesquelles si Dieu m'eut donné barbe au menton, et que je fusse homme, seraient maintenant tous mes sujets, et si cette méchante loi Salique ne me tenait trop de rigueur_." Rénée was a strong adherent of the Reformed Faith and welcomed Calvin to her Court, thereby giving serious annoyance to her husband, the Duke, whose policy it was to keep on good terms with the Pope. The poor Duchess therefore presently found herself compelled to part with all her French ladies-in-waiting on account of their Protestant views. Furthermore, her brother-in-law, Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, was sent to the French Court to discuss these matters with the King, upon which occasion those two connoisseurs and patrons of Art became fast friends.[104] After the death of her husband the Dowager Duchess was exiled by her son, Alfonso, to Montargis,[105] and there she was visited by the Cardinal--who, in spite of her heretical leanings, had never ceased to be on good terms with her. According to Brantôme she here provided shelter and food for 300 Huguenots who had been despoiled of their goods; and she even went so far as to remonstrate with her son-in-law, François de Guise, for his cruel treatment of the Prince de Condé; saying that "whoever had advised the King to take this course of action had done a great wrong." Notwithstanding her Calvinistic views she was always reckoned by the Royal Family as a true Daughter of France and was held in high honour by them. Her portraits, like those of her sister Queen Claude, are extremely rare. [Illustration: PLATE LIX. MADAME DE VENDÔME D'ALENÇON. _Photo Giraudon._ _Musée Condé._ Jean Clouet. JEANNE BOUCAULT. _Musée Condé._ Jean Clouet.] Besides the portraits of the Valois princes and princesses at Chantilly there are a great number of likenesses of other interesting historical personages. It would, however, lead us too far afield were we to attempt to enumerate them all. Amongst them, however, the most remarkable are as follows: _Madame Vendôme d'Alençon_,[106] mother of Antoine de Bourbon and of Louis I Prince de Condé (a drawing on a larger scale than most of the others); of the same size, _Madame l'Estrange_,[107] a lady renowned for her beauty and greatly beloved by the Dauphin François; _Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre_; _Chandus_, one of King Francis' most faithful officers; and various portraits of _Unknown Young Men_. All these are excellently drawn, may be assigned to Jean Clouet and are evidently taken from life. In some of the portraits we can detect a point of transition between the joint work of father and son: for example, in a drawing representing _Louis de Nevers_,[108] son of a Princesse de Bourbon and related to the Princes of the House of Cleves. This drawing is incorrectly designated _Saint Marsault_; but a copy supplies the right name. There is a copy of it in colours in the Lochis Collection at Bergamo, which long passed under the name of Holbein until Dr. G. Frizzoni assigned it to François Clouet, who evidently executed it from the drawing at Chantilly. In this same connection may be mentioned the _Sieur de Canaples_,[109] and the portrait of an _Unknown Lady_ of singular force of expression, very plainly clad and without ornaments, who may perhaps be _Jeanne Boucault_[110] of Tours, Jean Clouet's own clever and devoted wife. [Illustration: Plate LX. Photo. Giraudon. MADAME L'ESTRANGE. Attributed to Jean Clouet. About 1535. Musée Condé. _To face page 224._] Before we take leave of Jean Clouet and pass on to his brilliant son attention should be called to a fascinating portrait of a young girl inscribed "_la reine Jehanne de Navarre petite_,"[111] which, on account of its excellence, might well be attributed to the master himself. In this instance history comes to our aid, for we are informed that Princesse Jeanne (known as "_la mignonne de deux rois_" on account of the marked affection shown to her by both King Francis, her uncle, and King Henry of Navarre, her father) was in her fourth year removed from the charge of her own parents and transported to Plessis-le-Tours, a château on the Loire; where there was provided for her a suite consisting of a lady-in-waiting, a master of the horse, two chaplains and other attendants. The reason for this strange arrangement was political, inasmuch as Francis feared that Henry of Navarre would negotiate a marriage between this child and Philip of Spain, eldest son of Charles V. In vain the little Princess wept and implored her Royal uncle to allow her to rejoin her mother. Her wish was not to be granted until she had reached her twelfth year, and then only on condition that she should be betrothed at once to the Duke of Cleves, whose sister Anne was wife of King Henry VIII of England--a political scheme to unite the Protestant Princes of Germany and England against the Emperor Charles V. It was probably at the moment when the Princess was about to leave the lonely château on the Loire that Francis commissioned Jean Clouet to secure for him a likeness of his niece before her departure for Béarn. Jeanne, who was born at Fontainebleau in 1528, appears here to be about twelve years of age; so that the drawing may perhaps have been executed in 1539-40, and, since it was one of the artist's last works it gains greatly in interest. That François Clouet succeeded his father as Court-Painter in 1541 is proved by a document in the "_Trésor des Chartres_" which runs as follows: "_François par la grace de Dieu, roy de France, etc.... Savoir faisons ... que voulant reconnoistre envers nostre cher et bien aimé painctre et varlet de chambre ordinaire, François Clouet les bons et agréables services que feu M^{e} Jehannet Clouet, son père, aussi de son vivant nostre painctre et varlet de chambre, nous a durant son vivant faictz en son dict estat et art, auquel il estoit très expert et en quoy son dict fils la jà très bien imité, et espérons qu'il fera et continuera encores de bien en mieux cy après, a icelluy, François Clouet pour ces causes et affin que de ce faire il ayt meilleure voullonté, moïen et occasion, avons donné, octroïé, cedé et délaissé, tous et chacuns les biens meubles et immeubles qui furent et appartendrent au dict Me Jehannet Clouet, son père, à nous advenuy et escheuz, adjugez et declarez appartenir par droit d'aubène au moïen de ce que le dict deffunt estait estranger et non natif ne originaire des nostre royaume et n'avoit obtenu de nos predecesseurs roys ny de nous aucunes lettres de naturalité et congié de tester_" (published by E. de Freville, _Arch. de l'art Français_, t. iii, p. 98). From the above document we learn the following important facts, namely: (_a_) that Jean Clouet was not of French origin; (_b_) that he was highly esteemed by the King; and (_c_) that after his death François Clouet, his son, inherited all his privileges and favours. [Illustration: Plate LXI. Photo. Giraudon. JEANNE D'ALBRET, WHEN A CHILD. Attributed to Jean Clouet. MADAME MARGUERITE, SISTER OF HENRI II. Attributed to François Clouet. Musée Condé. _To face page 226._] CHAPTER XVII FRANÇOIS CLOUET AND HIS FOLLOWERS Francis I, King of France, survived Jean Clouet but a few years, so that the artistic career of his celebrated son, François, chiefly developed during the reigns of Henri II, Francis II and Charles IX. It is difficult to determine what effect Jean Clouet's death had upon his son, but we are led to suppose that at first he continued closely to adhere to parental teaching. Indeed from 1540 to 1545 it is scarcely possible to discern any of those differences of style so conspicuous a decade later. Two female portraits, still existing, seem to give weight to this argument. These likenesses, although in the style of the elder Clouet, from the age and the attire of the sitters can only have been drawn during the years 1544-5, by which date that artist had already vanished from the scenes and his son was at work alone. These drawings represent _Jossine Pisseleu_[112] (niece of the famous Duchesse d'Estampe), better known under the name of "Hegli," and the beautiful daughter of Diane de Poitiers, called "Brasseu."[113] Both of these portraits are rendered specially interesting by the fact that their respective names are written on the margin by Queen Catherine de Medicis. These two ladies, Hegli and Brasseu, are known to have belonged to that gay company known as _la petite bande_, of which the young Catherine herself, when Dauphine, was also a member. Francis I, thanks to his own great taste for Art, comprehended to the full the different talents of the artists in his employ; and whilst he commissioned Rosso and Primaticcio to execute the frescoes at Fontainebleau, the two Clouets were successively entrusted with such portrait painting as he required. At Chantilly there is an exquisite portrait of _Louise de Clermont, Duchesse d'Uzez_, another of the fair members of the _petite bande_ whom the King nicknamed "la Grenouille" on account of her husky voice and projecting eyes: a drawing which belongs to the same series already referred to; that is to say, an early work with which François Clouet was commissioned after his father's demise. A miniature taken from this drawing is preserved in the Louvre. [Illustration: PLATE LXII. _Photo. Hanfstaengl._ Francis I. Attributed to Jean Clouet. Louvre. _Photo. Giraudon._ Marguerite of Angoulême. (Sister of Francis I. and Queen of Navarre). Attributed to François Clouet. Musée Condé.] Henri II, whilst Dauphin, had apparently not much chance to employ either of the Clouets, since their time was almost entirely monopolised by the King; but there is evidence to prove that Catherine de Medicis' children were repeatedly painted by Germain le Mannier[114] and his brother Alois. There exist pencil sketches of _Francis II_ at the age of five, and again at eight years and five months; to which latter there is a pendant representing his _fiancée, Mary, Queen of Scots_, at the age of nine and a half. There is another of _Charles IX_ aged between four and five years. All of these were executed by this artist and are now in the portfolios at Chantilly. With reference to these drawings there is a letter still extant, written on June 1 1552 by Queen Catherine to M. Humières (who with his wife were in charge of the Royal nurseries at Saint-Germain-en-Laye), in which she expresses a desire to have all her children, sons and daughters, including _la Royne d'Ecosse_,[115] painted "_sans rien oublier de leur visages_." There is also a letter from Henri II, written on the eve of his accession, expressing a desire to recompense the painter Mannier. This, however, did not prevent him, as soon as he became King, from taking up François Clouet, whom he commissioned not only to make a _post-mortem_ effigy of the late King, but also to prepare an official representation of himself. His own portrait bears a note upon it, apparently in the artist's own handwriting, "_Le Roy Henry 2_"[116]: handwriting which bears close similarity to an existing quittance signed _F. Clouet_. This drawing, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, became very popular. A version completed in colours, is now in the Louvre: it was reproduced in miniature; and many copies were subsequently made by lesser hands. Contemporary with this portrait is a powerful likeness of the _Grand Connétable, Anne de Montmorency_,[117] evidently taken from life. In this drawing the individuality of the artist is very marked: more realistic in his tendencies than his father, he is on that account more French. This great warrior, the Lord of Chantilly, is shown here when at the height of his fame, in high favour with the King and with _l'amie du roi_, Diane de Poitiers.[118] This famous lady herself sat to François Clouet, and so apparently about the same time did Catherine de Medicis, and also Jeanne d'Albret,[119] Queen of Navarre. It is interesting to compare the likeness of this latter princess, so eloquent of a noble mind and a frank disposition, with that of Catherine de Medicis, past mistress in the art of dissimulation. [Illustration: Plate LXIII. _Photo. Hanfstaengl._ CHARLES IX. François Clouet. About 1569. Vienna Gallery. _To face page 230._] Drawings and portraits of Catherine as Dauphine and as Queen of France are comparatively rare. It is as a Queen-Dowager, growing old and well away on her career of dangerous intrigue, that we chiefly meet her in the Galleries of Europe. No small value can therefore be attached to the drawing in the British Museum which came to the nation through the Salting Bequest, inasmuch as it brings her before us at the period when her husband had just ascended the throne of France; and to another likeness at Chantilly, attributed to Corneille de Lyon, which is supposed to be the one executed when she passed through Lyons with Henri II in 1564. Brantôme relates that upon this occasion the great Diane de Poitiers received more homage than the Queen herself, and that portraits were drawn of all the royal ladies, amongst whom was the King's sister Marguerite (soon to become Duchess of Savoy). The writer further tells us how Catherine, when fifteen years later she revisited Lyons as Queen-Mother, displayed much amusement at the old-fashioned attire in which she and her Court ladies had then been portrayed. To the years between 1559 and 1570 belong the drawings in the Bibliothèque Nationale, which are considered as marking the height of this artist's power. Such, for instance, are the portraits of _Maréchal Strozzi_ (1567) and of _Maréchal de Vielville_[120] (1566), supposed to have been dated by the artist himself, a circumstance which greatly adds to their value. We are on certain ground with regard to the genuineness of the signed and dated portrait of _Charles IX_ now at Vienna; but, strange to say, the date has here clearly been tampered with. We can ascertain this from the fact that the young King in the portrait seems certainly only about twenty years of age, and since he was born in 1550 the date upon the picture ought to be 1569 instead of 1563. Furthermore, the original drawing (now at St. Petersburg) from which this finished painting was executed is dated 1569. There is also a miniature taken from it in the Louvre. It would lead us too far if we were to mention all the drawings which bear the stamp of this master's own hand, but there are some on which we ought to dwell as being examples of his finest work. Amongst these are the drawings in the Bibliothèque Nationale of the boy-King _Francis II_[121] and of his young and beautiful bride, _Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots_. In the delicate and subtle pencil drawing of the latter, more than in all her other portraits, we can detect traces of her world-renowned beauty; and this is how she must have looked when, with her young husband beside her, and surrounded by the great dignitaries of State, she entered the Cathedral of Notre Dame for her Coronation. Clouet has succeeded in conveying to us something of the sweetness of her smile, her wistful expression, and the thoughtful look in her eyes. In the miniature at Windsor, which is said to have been reproduced from this drawing, much of the refinement has been lost, and more attention has been paid to accessories, _i.e._ her dress and her ornaments.[122] [Illustration: _Mary Stuart as Dauphine of France From the drawing in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris._] A later drawing, in which the young Queen is represented in her _deuil blanc_ as a widow, is among the framed drawings at Chantilly: a portrait probably executed by François Clouet when she was on the point of leaving her beloved France. This is apparently a reproduction from a lost original, and it found its way to Chantilly with the Lenoir Collection. It is no doubt the last likeness of Mary Stuart made in France. The charm which Clouet so deftly imparted to the portraits of this unhappy Queen seems entirely absent from all the numerous likenesses subsequently made in England by other artists. How hard and set, for instance, do her features seem in the life-size oil-painting by Oudry at Hardwick Hall. All that we can perceive in it is the only too-evident havoc wrought by fate upon that beautiful face. François Clouet's highest capabilities may be traced in the water-colour sketch at Chantilly which represents _Margot de France_,[123] youngest daughter of Catherine de Medicis, in her girlhood. It is exhibited in the Psyche Gallery and is considered one of the gems of the collection. Since correct drawing from life was the artist's first thought this preparatory sketch is superior to the painting, also in all probability executed by the artist himself, which a rare chance has brought into the same gallery. This latter is supposed to be the actual portrait sent by Catherine to her daughter Elizabeth, wife of Philip II of Spain, which the Infante Don Carlos admired so much. Comparing the portrait with those of the other marriageable princesses of Europe, he exclaimed, "This little one is the prettiest of all"; whereat Elizabeth de Valois in a letter to her mother writes: "_Le Prince était demeuré en extase devant le miroir délicieuse de la mignonne_." Clouet has painted the little Princess in a robe of delicate silver tissue adorned with pearls; more pearls are round her neck and intertwined amid the tresses of her hair. Her expression displays that _joie de vivre_ which is known to have been one of her most marked characteristics throughout her whole life. It is, however, in the sketch that the high qualities of François Clouet as a portrait-painter specially assert themselves. Here he appears as a refined Holbein, endowed with graceful and elegant French qualities. Light and shadow are barely perceptible but are nevertheless sufficiently present to produce the necessary plastic feeling. The costume and the jewels, though reproduced with closest accuracy, do not mar the harmony, nor do they overpower the clearly defined features which retain their fullest importance and prominence. [Illustration: Plate LXV. Photo. Giraudon. ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA, QUEEN OF FRANCE. François Clouet (About 1567). Bibl. Nat. Paris. Photo. Giraudon. JOSSINE DE PISSELEU, NICKNAMED HEGLI. François Clouet (About 1542). Musée Condé. _To face page 234._] Another portrait by François Clouet, equalling this in excellence, is that of _la bonne petite reine, Elizabeth of Austria_ in the Louvre--the youthful consort of Charles IX, whose simple virtues shone out so conspicuously during a most degenerate period in the history of the French Court. The perfection of draughtsmanship in the delicate features is astonishing; and the colouring, of a pale rosy hue, is most effective. The hands, placed one over the other, have in their graceful movements been justly likened to the petals of a white lily. There is a copy of this picture at Chantilly, probably also by François Clouet, but the exquisite hands are absent. Nor are they to be found in the original drawing in the Bibliothèque Nationale, in the famous Lecurieur album which once belonged to François Clouet's own nephew, Benjamin Foulon. _Maréchal Strozzi_, _Madame de Retz_, _Albert de Gondi the Duc de Retz_, _Robert de la Marck_, _the Duc de Bouillon_, _Jeanne d'Albret in deep mourning_, and many others, have the same _provenance_ and all bear notes in Foulon's[124] handwriting. It has been suggested by Henri Bouchot that these admirable designs came to the nephew from his uncle who had preserved them in his studio in order to reproduce them subsequently in colour. We may presume then that these original pencil drawings were the immediate work of François Clouet, whilst the coloured portraits were reproduced from them either by himself (as in the case of the portraits of _Elizabeth of Austria_ in the Louvre and at Chantilly) or by the hands of his pupils. There is, however, one exception to this proposition in the case of the portrait of _Pierre Quthe_ recently acquired for the Louvre. It certainly appears to be a portrait painted direct from life and not reproduced from a drawing; and it reveals to us a new and more intimate characteristic of the artist; since he has here shown us one of his own personal friends, with whom he, no doubt, had many tastes in common. Had this not been so he would not have appended to the picture the following inscription: FR. JANETT OPUS PE. QUTTIO. AMICO SINGULARI ETATIS SVE XLIII, 1562. This portrait, therefore, when compared, for instance, with that of _Charles IX_ at Vienna, gives the impression of being less conventional and more sympathetic. It has the same bluish curtain in the background, and an open book lies on the table, in which may be seen representations of certain plants, alluding to the fact that the person represented was well known as a botanist. Since the discovery of the portrait of _Pierre Quthe_ we can have no hesitation in attributing to François Clouet another life-size portrait at Chantilly: namely, that of _Cardinal Odet de Coligny_, hitherto--though with some reserve--assigned to Primaticcio on account of a misleading signature evidently posterior to the painting. This portrait and that of _Henri II (Cabinet Clouet)_ (also attributed, and with much more reason, to Primaticcio), clearly exhibit the difference between the respective artists without need for any further comment. The curtain in the background, for which François had so decided a predilection, is also to be found in the portrait of _Odet_; and it appears to have been Clouet's latest work. It exhibits very decidedly his appreciation for Italian methods, more especially those affected by Morone and Moretto of Brescia, to whose work these two large portraits by François Clouet bear a marked analogy. [Illustration: PLATE LXVI. PIERRE QUTHE. _Louvre._ François Clouet.] Besides a fine drawing in red chalk of this same _Cardinal_, presented to the Musée Condé by M. Moreau Nélaton, there exist two other drawings, evidently preliminary sketches for the same picture. One of these is in the British Museum (Salting Bequest) and the other in the Albertina at Vienna. These form a further proof that the painting at Chantilly is by François Clouet and not by Primaticcio. Odet de Coligny, created a Cardinal by Clement VII at the early age of seventeen, was the eldest brother of Admiral Coligny and of Dandelot. In spite of the countless honours showered upon him by the Catholic party he all at once in 1561 astonished the world by openly confessing the Protestant Faith. Like his brothers he became a staunch supporter of Calvin, proceeded publicly to marry Elizabeth de Hauteville--to whom he had for many years previously been deeply attached--and presented her at Court, where she received the title of Comtesse de Beauvais. The scandalised Pope, Pius V, erased his name from the list of Cardinals, whilst Catherine de Medicis merely smiled. It suited her purpose on the death of Francis II to dismiss the Guises from her Court and to admit thereto the Calvinistic party, even to the extent of attending their sermons. This freak of hers did not, however, last long, but by it she enticed the Protestants into her net. Odet de Coligny subsequently retired to England, where in 1570, just when he was intending to return to France, he died suddenly at Hampton Court, not without suspicion of poison. * * * * * [Illustration: Plate LXVII. Photo. Giraudon. MARGOT OF FRANCE. François Clouet. Musée Condé. _To face page 238._] Before concluding this chapter on François Clouet attention should be directed to a specially interesting feature about these drawings. Upon the margins, and also on the reverse sides of most of them, are to be found annotations and legends of the utmost historical and iconographic value. Sometimes they appear to be in the handwriting of the artists themselves: often notes with regard to subsequent reproduction in colours; but more often they seem to be the remarks of the connoisseurs and collectors who at different times possessed the drawing--such as was Catherine de Medicis herself. Her handwriting is to be found upon at least sixteen of the drawings in the Musée Condé, easily identified by existing fragments of her letters in the archives at Chantilly and elsewhere. There is, for example, a drawing of _Erasmus_ which had hitherto passed unnoticed until Moreau Nélaton discovered that the Queen had written his name upon it in her own hand. Her autograph is clear enough also on the drawings which present her favourite ladies-in-waiting Hegli[125] and _Montchenu_ and _la Romène_; whilst she has also annotated the drawings representing _Monsieur de S. Valier_, "_le père de la Grande Senechalle_," and "_Monsieur de Nevers_," "_le père de Madame de Nevers_." Then upon a drawing of _Brissac_ (so celebrated for his good looks) she notes "_brassac depuis maréchal_." Again, "_le fu roy de Navarre, Henri_," "_Monsieur de Chateaubriand_," "_Monsieur de Voldemont_," and "_Chandu, capitaine de la porte du Roy_." Besides the sixteen drawings at Chantilly which so obviously bear the Queen's handwriting, there is as already mentioned in the Deligand Collection a likeness of "_Brasseu_," daughter of Diane de Poitiers, and in the Uffizi a drawing representing _Queen Claude_, "_mère du roi Henri_," on both of which we also find Her Majesty's angular writing. She has corrected, moreover, the title upon one pencil drawing wrongly entitled _Madame de Nevers d'Albret_ into _Madame de Vendôme d'Alençon_. Yet by far the larger number of the drawings bear notes in a variety of different handwritings: at Chantilly, the Bibliothèque Nationale, in the Uffizi and in the British Museum (Salting Bequest). M. Moreau Nélaton is strongly of opinion that these notes were all made either by the Queen herself or by secretaries written at her dictation. He is certainly right in regard to one of these, for we can trace the same handwriting in a private letter "_a ma cousine Madame la Connetable_" signed by the Queen; and again on the margin of the three drawings representing "_François Dauphin_," "_Marie Royne d'Ecosse_,"[126] and "_Charles Maximilian d'Orleans_" respectively. It is a well-formed caligraphy with a peculiar trick of abbreviating "_et_" into "_&_," which appears both in the letter and in the notes. There is no proof, however, as to who were the other annotators, whether Court secretaries or not. They may just as well, as M. Dimier[127] suggests, be other collectors through whose hands in the course of time the drawings have passed. This much, however, is quite certain: that all are posterior to the drawings themselves. The different handwritings--of which there are at least four, if not five (including that of the Queen), have puzzled Bouchot as much as Dimier and Moreau Nélaton, and all these authorities have their own special theories upon the subject. It is evident that in most cases the notes do identify the persons represented in the drawings upon which they are found, and they are thus of greatest historical value: and more especially is this the case with the drawings at Chantilly (many of which are stained with blotches of colour), since they are the originals from which were derived the copies and portraits found now in other collections. [Illustration: Plate LXVIII. DIANE DE POITIERS. François Clouet. About 1543. Musée Condé. _To face page 240._] There is ample evidence to prove how much interest was taken by Catherine de Medicis in French portrait-painting. A list has been found, bearing the heading of "_Les peintures qu'il faut_," of the pictures which she desired should be reproduced. Numerous "_gens de maîtres_" like Philibert Delormes, Jean Bullant, Scipion Bruisbal, and others were busily employed in making these copies from Clouet originals, in order to satisfy the great demand which then existed for them. After Catherine's death an _Inventory_ of not less than 476 paintings (amongst which were 341 portraits) was made at the Palais de Tournelle, where she habitually resided; whilst another _Inventory_ notes 39 small pictures executed in enamel, and 32 portraits in colour, 1 foot square each, of ladies and gentlemen of the Court. An original drawing of _Diane de Poitiers_ is preserved in the portfolios at Chantilly; and a portrait of the same lady executed in colour hangs in the next room (Cabinet Clouet). Similarly the Bethune and Destailleur albums at Chantilly, as well as the Ashmolean collection at Oxford, contain numerous copies from originals in the Musée Condé. Many of these copies were made by enamellers and goldsmiths for the purposes of their respective trades. These, however, are usually of inferior workmanship, although they have a certain value attached to them; especially when, as in the case of _Mary Tudor_, the original has been lost. In this connection the Mejanés album at Aix should not be forgotten; for it is no doubt the most important amongst the various albums which contain copies of these original drawings at Chantilly and elsewhere. This collection is supposed to have been copied by Madame de Berry, wife of Arthur de Gouffier, one of the _Preux de Marignan_. Francis I, whose own portrait is at the beginning of the album, when on a visit to this lady, is said to have composed the remarks which are written on the margins. They are suggestive and often witty; indeed none but the King himself would have dared to fling at Mary Tudor[128] of England the insulting words "_plus sale que royale_"; whilst Diane de Poitiers is greeted with the flattering remark, "_fair to see and virtuous to know_." Perhaps even more important especially, from an artistic point of view, is the Hagford album bequeathed to the British Museum by Mr. Salting, since it includes not only a number of old copies but also several very valuable originals. This collection was made by an English painter, Ignatius Hagford, who lived in Florence in the eighteenth century. He believed them to be the work of Holbein, as is indicated by the frontispiece; and he seems to have even bought also old copies of originals which he already owned. Part of his collection is now in the Pitti Palace; and seeing that the Howard Collection, now at Chantilly, was also originally acquired in Florence, there is strong reason to believe that probably these two collections were once united. [Illustration: Plate LXIX. MARY TUDOR, QUEEN OF FRANCE. Copy after Perréal. Photo. Giraudon. MADAME DE BOUILLON. Attributed to Jean Clouet. Musée Condé. _To face page 232._] Henri de Mesmes, a gentleman of whom Brantôme speaks as "_un très grand habile et subtil personnage d'état d'affaires de science et de toute gentillesse_," often acted as go-between for Catherine in her art dealings; and it was he who corresponded on her behalf with a certain Claude de Hery, who had been commissioned to make a new engraving from a portrait of _Charles IX_ on his accession to the throne. This artist had failed to satisfy the Queen-Mother and the King, in spite of the fact that his work had been fully approved of by no less a personage than François Clouet himself. One of the last works of François Clouet was a miniature of _Elizabeth of Austria_, executed in 1572 and destined for her sister-in-law, the Queen of Spain. The goldsmith Dugardin designed for it a golden frame; and here also Henri de Mesmes acted as medium, as is shown by a memorandum referring to it in the handwriting of Catherine de Medicis herself. It was in this same year (1572) that the artist died; a year which was also fatal to Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, who did not live to attend the nuptials of her son Henri IV with Margot de France. This took place shortly after her demise and not long before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; a terrible event which reveals Catherine de Medicis in a very different light from that of a connoisseur and collector of works of art. There is a portrait of her in the Cabinet Clouet at Chantilly which dates from about this period. From it the bloom of youth has fled, the face has grown heavier and the smile is more than ever fixed and conventional. The ablest contemporary and follower of the Clouets was Corneille de Lyon; but he in turn developed a decided individuality of his own. By him are those small portraits, painted upon light-green or light-blue backgrounds, which may be found scattered throughout the Galleries of Europe. As already mentioned, a likeness of the _Dauphin François_[129] at Chantilly (Tribune) has been attributed to him by Gaignières, to whom it once belonged. It is on the authority of this connoisseur that other portraits in the Musée Condé exhibiting the same style are by comparison assigned to him: such, for instance, as _Le Grand Ecuyer de Boisy, Marguerite de France_ (sister of Henri II), _Madame de Martigné Briant_, a portrait supposed to be of _Madame de Canaples_, and a portrait of a young woman, erroneously styled _Claude de Valois_. [An authentic portrait of this latter lady, attributed to Clouet himself, is at Munich.] _Madame d'Elboeuf_, presented to the Louvre by the late Rudolph Kahn, is a fine example of Corneille's skill. Another artist who followed the Clouet style was Jean de Court, Court Painter to Henri III, the last of the Valois Kings, whose portrait in the Cabinet Clouet at Chantilly is probably an example of his work. His talent is much praised by Desportes; and this likeness of _Henri III_ does not suffer in comparison with the portraits of _Charles IX_ attributed to François Clouet. The pencil drawing of _Marie Touchet_, Charles IX's mistress, in the Bibliothèque Nationale is also attributed to him. [Illustration: PLATE LXX. FRANÇOIS, DAUPHIN. _Photo Giraudon._ _Musée Condé._ Corneille de Lyon.] The painter who acquired the old Queen's special favour after the death of François Clouet was Carron, who made a series of designs (reproduced in tapestry) from the _History of Artemisia_, in which Catherine herself is represented mourning for Henri II in the guise of the Queen of Caria. A drawing by Carron representing the _Duc d'Alençon_, her youngest son, on horseback is in the passage of the Tribune at Chantilly. Pierre Gourdel, Dubois and Bussel, followers of François Clouet, are only known to us by mediocre engravings, but numerous drawings by the Brothers Lagneau have come down to us. These may be met with in the Louvre, in the portfolios at Chantilly and elsewhere. They suffer from an exaggerated taste for realism; and representations of old, wrinkled men and women seem to have been their favourite themes. A good example of their work is the portrait of an _Old Man_ at Dijon, where, however, it is erroneously assigned to Daniel Dumoustier. This latter artist, on the contrary (according to his own statement), took particular pleasure in representing his sitters as younger and more beautiful than they really were. By him there are at Chantilly portraits of _Louis XIII_ (in coloured chalk), of _Albert de Gondi Archdeacon of Paris_, of _Henri Duc de Guise_,[130] of the _Princess Palatine_ (the devoted friend of the Grand Condé), and an interesting portrait of _Henriette de France_ in her girlhood. Numerous other examples of his work are in the Louvre; and he is certainly the most important of the artists who followed François Clouet. In company with his sons Pierre and Nicolas he carried on the art of pencil drawing in France from the sixteenth well into the seventeenth century. Saint-Simon speaks of him as a man who was fond of books and knew both Italian and Spanish. He lived in the Louvre, and throughout his lifetime retained his hold upon public taste. There is yet one more artist-family to be mentioned: that of the Quesnels, who were held by the two first Bourbon Kings, Henri IV and Louis XIII, in the same high estimation as were the Clouets by the Valois. There are two portraits at Chantilly (Cabinet Clouet) which are attributed to François Quesnel: that of the _Duc de Sully_ and of his brother _Philippe de Bethune_. These paintings markedly display the strong tendencies to realism so characteristic of the Brothers Quesnel. [Illustration: Plate LXXI. HENRI DE GUISE. Dumoustier. Musée Condé. MARECHAL DE VIELVILLE. François Clouet. (Salting Collection). British Museum. _To face page 246._] Yet another French picture at Chantilly of the Clouet School has to be recorded, the authorship of which is uncertain. It represents _Gabrielle d'Estrées_, mistress of Henri IV, seated in her bath, with her infant sons (one being on the arm of his nurse) beside her. It is a composition which occurs frequently and seems to be rather meant for an allegory than for a portrait. Other versions of it are in the Louvre, at Doughty House Richmond, and in the Collections of Baron Pichon and the Viscomtesse de Zanzé. In this last example one of Gabrielle's sisters is also introduced. She turns her back to the spectator, whilst Gabrielle herself--her bare neck adorned with a string of fine pearls--faces full round. At the Musée Condé (Cabinet des Gemmes) there is a miniature representing _Gabrielle d'Estrées and her two Children_, which bears unmistakable likeness to this portrait. The late M. Gruyer in his _Catalogue Raisonnée_ of the Musée Condé justly points out that this composition testifies to the decadent turn taken by the late sixteenth-century French School; and we sadly miss the good taste and the refinement which are such marked qualities in the portraiture of François Clouet. CHAPTER XVIII FROM NICOLAS POUSSIN TO COROT French seventeenth-century Art does not offer any such difficult problems as those presented to us by the portrait-painters who lived and laboured during the period of the Clouets, for the artists of this latter period in most cases were accustomed to sign their names to at least a certain number of their works, whereby they can be easily identified. On the very threshold of this new Art-development we find the Brothers le Nain, who, choosing a totally different type of work, kept aloof from kings, princes and courtiers and devoted their attention chiefly to scenes of peasant life. _Le Repos des Paysans_ at the Louvre is one of their best and most characteristic works. So also are _La Forge_ and a portrait of _Henry II de Montmorency_, the last of his race, which ought to be at Chantilly. There is in the Cabinet Clouet at the Musée Condé a powerful portrait of _Dr. Fagon_, physician to Louis XIV, by Mathias le Nain. Chardin, who continued in their tradition a century later, is unfortunately not represented in the Musée Condé. Nicolas Poussin also adopted a style of his own, although it was of a different kind. He was greatly attracted by the antique and his heart was set on visiting Rome, whither, after long struggles in Paris, he at length found his way. There he received from the painter Domenichino the necessary training for the work which he desired to take up. The French sculptor Quesnoy befriended him, and the poet Marino introduced him to Cardinal Barberini, who commissioned from him two pictures: _The Death of Germanicus_ and _The Capture of Jerusalem_. When fame came to him France reclaimed him. He was greatly favoured by Richelieu and entrusted with the decoration of the Louvre. He found, however, a rival in this enterprise in the person of Simon Vouet; and difficulties arose, because Poussin claimed his right to carry out the whole work independently and on his own responsibility. Finding that he could not attain this object, he returned to Rome under the pretext of fetching his wife and never returned. He lived thenceforth in Italy; for, like the Brothers le Nain, he had no desire to become a Court Painter. His pictures were, nevertheless, greatly admired in France during his lifetime; and there are no less than nine large canvases by him in the Galerie des Peintures at the Musée Condé, besides numerous drawings. Amongst these may be noted: _The Infancy of Bacchus_; _Theseus finding his Father's Sword_ (with a striking architectural background); and _Numa Pompilius and the Nymph Egeria_, a composition wherein the artist displays to the full his skill in dealing with romantic landscape. A drawing of _Daphne[131] flying to her father's protection_ who transforms her into a laurel-bush, has special charm and shows those characteristics which he handed on to his brother-in-law and pupil Dughet, called after him "Gaspar Poussin." There are two landscapes by the latter at Chantilly (Galerie des Peintures): _An Alley in a Wood_, and _A View of the Roman Campagna_, a subject of which he never tired. His sunsets foreshadow those of Claude Lorraine, who in his power of rendering atmospheric effect and the rays of the sun was only equalled by Turner some centuries later. The National Gallery and the Louvre possess some of Claude's finest landscapes, while Chantilly has chiefly drawings, amongst which the most noteworthy are the _Castello di S. Angelo_ and the _Aqueducts of the Roman Campagna_.[132] [Illustration: PLATE LXXII. DAPHNE METAMORPHOSED INTO A LAUREL TREE. _Photo. Giraudon._ _Musée Condé._ Nicolas Poussin.] Philippe de Champaigne, who came in his youth to France from Brussels, was a college friend of Poussin at Laon in 1623; and shares with him that same sense of freedom in his work. Poussin reached his goal in Rome through classical work, whilst Philippe de Champaigne devoted himself to portraiture, in which class of work he was most assiduous. His portraits of _Cardinals Richelieu_ and _Mazarin_ in the Musée Condé came from the Gallery in the Palais-Royal and are magnificent examples of his methods. Another portrait-painter who deserves mention here is Jacques Stella, who painted the _Grand Condé_ as the Hero of Rocroy, at the age of twenty-two--a portrait which is singularly attractive and has a special historical interest. This painting, which was always highly prized by the Bourbon-Condé family, now hangs in the Galerie des Batailles. Another portrait of the same personage, painted after he had reaped further laurels at Fribourg and at Nördlingen, is by Beaubrun, the same artist who painted his only sister _Geneviève de Bourbon_. Both these pictures are in the Cabinet Clouet. A figure which stands out with some insistence amongst French artists of the seventeenth century is Charles Le Brun. He was first of all a pupil of Simon Vouet, but becoming acquainted with Nicolas Poussin and urged on by enthusiasm for his work, followed this master to Rome. Returning to Paris with an established reputation, he fell in with Colbert, who perceived in him the very person needed for the Gobelins Factory. Le Brun fully realised these expectations since he not only organised this great concern but subsequently, with the assistance of Van Meulen, furnished designs for a _History of the Kings of France_, which was presently reproduced in tapestry in those celebrated workshops. He was also the founder of the French Academy in Rome; and Louis XIV, who conferred on him the office of Court Painter, took him to Flanders during the campaign of 1676. The portrait at Chantilly of _Pomponne de Bellièvre_, first President of the Parlement of Paris (engraved by Van Schuppen), represents his skill as a painter of portraits. His work can, however, be more profitably studied in the Galerie d'Apollon at the Louvre. Eustache Le Sueur, another pupil of Simon Vouet, earned fame by his decorative work in the Hotel Lambert at Paris and by his _Scenes from the Life of St. Bruno_, now in the Louvre. He is represented at the Musée Condé by some fine drawings. When Colbert was supplanted by Louvois another painter came to the front in the person of Mignard, also a pupil of Vouet. He studied in Rome, where he copied a number of paintings in the Farnese Gallery for the Cardinal of Lyons, Richelieu's brother. He married the beautiful Anna Avolara, daughter of a Roman architect and model for his _Madonnas_, for which there was a great demand. No sooner had he acquired a certain amount of fame than the King of France commanded him to return home. On the way, however, he fell ill, and had to stop at Avignon. Here he first became acquainted with Molière; and the portrait which he painted of this great poet is beyond doubt his _chef d'oeuvre_.[133] It occupies a prominent position in the Tribune at Chantilly, where it commands much attention and admiration. The great esteem in which the author of _Tartuffe_ was held by the Grand Condé is well known and it is by a singular piece of good fortune that the best of all the existing portraits of Molière should have found its way into the Musée Condé. If Mignard--and not without reason--is sometimes accused of superficiality, this complaint must surely be modified by the evidence of this portrait, which displays an artist of very considerable power. There is at Chantilly another portrait by Mignard of special interest. It is that of _Madame Henriette d'Angleterre_, the beautiful and ill-fated daughter of Charles I, first wife of Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, the King's brother. He also repeatedly painted likenesses of the young King himself, including one sent to Spain to be shown to his intended bride the Infanta Marie Thérèse. At a maturer age Louis XIV was painted by Rigaud, a pupil of Le Brun. The portrait of him at Chantilly (Cabinet Clouet) is a smaller replica, signed by the painter himself, of the larger work executed in 1701 for his son, Philip V of Spain--a painting which was, however, kept back at Versailles and is now in the Louvre. Hyacinthe Rigaud was considered a great portrait-painter and many personages of note gave him commissions. There is also a fine portrait at Chantilly by his younger contemporary and follower, Largillière, of _Mademoiselle Duclos_, a celebrated _tragédienne_ who made her _début_ at the Comédie Française in 1683. She is here portrayed in the rôle of _Ariane_ (Salle Caroline), and her sumptuous robes are painted with all the care and minuteness so characteristic of this artist. These qualities are again displayed in a portrait of the _Princess Palatine, Charlotte Elizabeth_, second wife of Philippe d'Orléans and mother of the Regent. In this portrait Largillière shows his highest talents, and had it not been for the fact that "Liselotte" (although already middle-aged) followed the taste of her time by permitting herself to be painted as a Naiad this would perhaps have been one of the most faithful likenesses of this interesting princess. [Illustration: PLATE LXXIII. LOUISE-HENRIETTE DE BOURBON CONTI. _Photo Braun & Co._ J. M. Nattier. A FRIEND OF THE CONDÉS. _Photo Braun & Co._ Largillière.] Largillière resided for many years in England and studied for some time under Sir Peter Lely. On his return to Paris he was taken up by Charles Le Brun. His style belongs as much to the seventeenth as to the eighteenth century. Elegance and luxury, and a touch of serenity prevail in all his portraits. Mariette was greatly struck by his personal vigour and tells us that he went on working even up to his eighty-sixth year. Although too often over-exuberant he generally succeeded in imparting to his patrons great liveliness of aspect, and they _live_ still, clad in their most sumptuous apparel. Such is the portrait of the elegant "_Unknown_"[134] at Chantilly, once in the Collection at the Palais Bourbon; from which circumstance we may suppose that the sitter was some intimate friend of the Condé family. By Jean Marc Nattier there is at Chantilly a life-size portrait of _Mademoiselle Nantes_, daughter of Louis XIV by Madame de Montespan, and wife of the Duc de Bourbon, grandson of the Grand Condé. Her daughter Louise Henriette, who married the Prince de Bourbon Conti, was also painted by Nattier[135]; and by the same artist--one of his best works--is the above-mentioned portrait of _Charlotte Elizabeth Soubise_,[136] the young wife of Louis Joseph, Prince de Condé, represented plucking carnations in the gardens at Chantilly. Nattier's portraits of the Royal Family of Bourbon, both in the Louvre and at Versailles, are very numerous. He painted every one of Louis XV's daughters[137] and many other fair women, who, however, bear a strong general resemblance to one another, whereby his portraits are often rendered conventional and monotonous. It is therefore rather refreshing to turn from Jean Nattier to Desportes and Oudry, who both stand on the threshold of the eighteenth century and who revived realistic landscape painting--an art which had practically lain dormant since the days of Pol de Limbourg; for Claude Lorraine and the Poussins had directed it into wholly diverse channels. _Briados_ and _Balthazar_, two Spanish hounds formerly belonging to the House of Condé, are exquisitely painted by Desportes, who was highly thought of by all lovers of the chase and was a constant guest at the hunting-parties held in the various French châteaux. A painting by him in the Louvre representing a _Huntsman with his dog and bag of game_ standing in a fine landscape shows his skill at its very best. Oudry's compositions come very near those of Desportes: for example, his _Chasse du Loup_ and _Chasse du Renard_ at Chantilly, both of which are noted in the _Inventory_ of the Palais Bourbon. Oudry was encouraged by Largillière to take up decoration also, which he did with conspicuous success. He was admitted into the Academy in 1699, and being appointed to the Directorship of the Tapestry Factory at Beauvais instilled new life into that interesting branch of art, which had sadly decayed under the direction of Charles Le Brun's imitators. His graceful talent shows itself in certain exquisite designs from La Fontaine's _Fables_ executed in tapestry at this factory. His favourite abode was the forest around Chantilly; and there he spent much time in painting animals direct from nature. By insisting that his ideas should be accurately transcribed he trained the weavers at Beauvais with much care, thus preparing the way for Boucher, the decorative genius of the next generation. A splendid Gobelins tapestry, executed after a cartoon by Boucher, adorns one side of the Grand Staircase at Chantilly. It represents a young woman seated in a garden to whom a boy and girl are offering fruit and flowers. On the opposite wall there is another tapestry from the workshop of Audran, executed after de Troy. A copy in this collection (intended for the purposes of an engraving) by Boucher of a portrait of _Watteau_ by himself is not devoid of interest; but it is in the Louvre, at Versailles, and above all in the Wallace Collection, rather than at Chantilly, that we derive a clear idea of Boucher's light and graceful style. His _Sunrise_ and _Sunset_ on the staircase of Hertford House are considered to be among the finest of his creations. Madame de Pompadour, who was his enthusiastic patroness, frequently sat to him in a variety of attitudes; although his great talent was not portraiture, but decorative work, whereby he marks a decidedly new phase in French Art. * * * * * After an exceptionally long reign Louis XIV had at last passed away. He had asserted himself as strongly in Art as he had done in politics and it is worthy of note that, immediately after his death, artists were once more able to take their own independent courses. At this point, therefore, in the history of French Art we come upon a somewhat sudden change, visible also in the art of the cabinet-maker and the decorator. The later Bourbon Kings and Queens left their gorgeous salons and took refuge (with evident personal relief) in smaller and homelier chambers. These less imposing apartments, however, also required suitable decoration and serviceable furnishings: and it was here that Boucher found his opportunity. The boudoir with its delicate colouring and elegant upholstery played a significant rôle under the reigns of Maria Leczinska and Marie Antoinette, and the _petits appartements_ at Versailles became examples of a new style. Paintings on a smaller scale suitable for these graceful _bonbonnières_ were soon in demand; and from these it was but a step to the taste of Watteau, who is perhaps the most typical artist of this period. _Plaisir Pastoral_, _l'Amante Inquiète_, and _l'Amour Désarmé_ at Chantilly are fine examples of this artist's work. _Le Donneur des Sérénades_ in the Musée Condé, of which there is a similar composition at Buckingham Palace belongs to his later period, that is to say, to the last five years of his life. This work is said to represent Mezetin (one of the leading actors at the Comédie Italienne established at the Hôtel du Bourgogne) seated on a bench in a classic garden tuning his guitar. The _Amante Inquiète_, which forms a pendant to this picture, is of equal merit. Everything in these small paintings is refined and elegant, even to Nature herself--a style far more typical of Watteau, than the scenes of camp-life which mark his stay at Valenciennes in 1709. A study in red chalk of a _Warrior_, preserved in the Rotunda at Chantilly, recalls this period. In his sketches, of which a great number are in the Louvre, Watteau exhibits his talent as a draughtsman of the highest order and as a worthy pupil of Claude Gillot, the earliest creator of the style for which Watteau became so famous. His relations with Crozat, the famous financier and collector, who was the first to recognise his genius, began in 1612, and it was in his palace that he had an opportunity of studying paintings by the great Venetian masters and landscapes by Rubens, both of which so decidedly influenced his subsequent style. There are exquisite pictures by him in the Louvre and in the Wallace Collection. His _Ball under the Colonnade_ at Dulwich is very famous. [Illustration: Plate LXXIV. Photo. Giraudon. JOSEPH AND POTIPHAR'S WIFE. By Prud'hon. Photo. Giraudon. THE GUITARPLAYER. By Watteau. Musée Condé. _To face page 25_] Lancret was a younger contemporary of Watteau, and observing his success adopted his style; without, however, attaining to his eminence. His _Déjeuner de Jambon_ in the Galerie des Peintures at Chantilly presents a company of merry-makers on the point of becoming riotous; and opposite to it hangs a companion picture by de Troy entitled _Le Déjeuner d'Huîtres_. The host in this latter composition--a figure dressed in scarlet--is probably a Prince of the House of Orleans presiding at a feast in the Palais Royal. Many of the guests represented are said to be personages well known in their day: for King Louis Philippe was still able to distinguish them by name. They are certainly enjoying their oysters and iced champagne; and the satisfaction of the well-fed is clearly exhibited in their features and gestures. Together with this group of artists mention must be made of Christophe Huet, designer and decorator of the _Grande Chinoiserie_ at Chantilly. These decorations in a style so much in vogue in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were once attributed to Watteau, Gillot, Oudry, and others until an Account, dated 1741, was found in the Archives of Chantilly disclosing the name of Christophe Huet. They cover the panels of the so-called "Salon des Singes." Scenes and episodes from the chase and the tea-party, architectural effects and other subjects, all are carried out in a pseudo-Chinese style. Apes clad in Condé uniforms and carrying flags act as outriders or grooms under the direction of grim-looking mandarins robed in gorgeous Oriental apparel. Besides the decorations here there is on the ground floor of the Château a "Petite Singerie" decorated in very much the same style: humorous scenes, wherein female monkeys are riding or occupied with their toilet. Jean Baptiste Huet, son of this Christophe, was also repeatedly commissioned by Prince Louis Joseph de Condé to paint pictures of his favourite animals. The celebrated painter of pastels, Latour, is represented at Chantilly by a portrait of _Madame Adelaide de France_, daughter of Louis XV. His portraits, now recognised as even superior to those of Boucher and Lancret, are fine studies of character, but they are very rare. The pastel of the handsome _Marie Fel_, an opera-singer from Bordeaux by whom this artist was befriended, is very celebrated; and a group of portraits at St. Quentin place him in the foremost rank of French portrait-painters. His pre-eminent talents have been fully recognised by modern students of the French School. His contemporary, Peronneau--till recently known chiefly as an engraver of the works of Boucher, Van Loo, and others--is now known to be the artist who painted a charming _Portrait of a Girl_ in the Louvre and other pastels. Rosalba Carriera's great success in that medium is also well known. The young King Louis XV, the Regent, and many other important personages were painted by her, and in her time she put into the shade both Latour and Peronneau. Duplessis brings us to the time of the Revolution, when ruin fell upon so many of the artists of that day. His portrait of the _Duchesse de Chartres_, mother of Louis Philippe and grandmother of the Duc d'Aumale, is at Chantilly. She is seated in a garden, lost in profound sorrow at the departure of her husband to a naval engagement, symbolised by a ship disappearing in the distance: a refined and graceful presentation of a charming woman capable of winning the hearts of all around her. The portraits of _Louis XVI_ and of the _Comte de Provence_ by this painter in the Musée Condé are considered to be among the best likenesses of the last Bourbon Kings. Duplessis held the post of Administrator of the Galleries at Versailles. Greuze, like Watteau, marked out a special line of his own; and with him French bourgeois Art reappears once more. His domestic scenes were described by Diderot as follows: "_Cet artist est le premier entre nous qui se soit avisé de donner des murs dans l'art_." This remark applies to his _Malédiction Paternelle_, _l'Accordée du Village_, etc. [Illustration: PLATE LXXV. _Photo. Giraudon._ Young Girl. By Greuze. Musée Condé.] His charming _Portrait of a Young Girl in a little cap_ at Chantilly represents Georgette, daughter of his concierge in Paris; and she can be recognised again in the same artist's _l'Accordée du Village_ in the Louvre, and perhaps also in the painting of a _Young Girl winding Wool_, lately added to Mr. Pierpont Morgan's Collection. The pendant to _Georgette_ in the Musée Condé is a portrait of a _Young Boy_, her brother. These two paintings, together with _Le Tendre Desir_, belong to the artist's best period, whilst _La Surprise_ is a work of his old age. This last work exhibits to us the curious fact that a problem which had steadily pursued him throughout his long life--namely, how to paint the first awakenings of love in a maiden's mind--still puzzled him at the age of nearly eighty. It is certainly an irony of fate that after a romantic attachment to a young Italian Countess--whose portrait he painted, but whom he was prevented from marrying--he should have returned to Paris, to become the husband of a woman much older than himself, who presently made his life almost unendurable. It was perhaps the memory of this youthful idyll which induced him to paint so often those young maidens whose faces smile at us from the walls of so many Galleries throughout Europe. The _Young Woman in a Hat_ in the Wallace Collection is perhaps the most fascinating of them all, since nothing can surpass the grace and piquancy of expression in her lovely countenance. Greuze was in high favour with the Royal Family, and it is believed that he painted a portrait of the Dauphin at the Tuileries after the unfortunate flight to Varennes, and another of his elder sister, Madame Royale, when in the Temple. The great upheaval of the Revolution struck Greuze also, and as a painter he became no longer the fashion. His wife squandered his fortune and he died in poverty, slaving to the very last. The portraits at Chantilly of _Marie Antoinette_ (in 1795) and of _Madame de Pompadour_, two of the loveliest women of their day, are by Drouais, a pupil of Van Loo and Boucher. The happy days of Trianon were not yet over when these were painted, and the Dauphine of France, presented here as _Hebe_, seems to be at the height of her glory and charms. How different to the careworn and haggard woman whose portrait hangs in the Musée Carnevalet over the very bed occupied by her in the Temple before her execution! Madame Vigée Le Brun carried the style of Greuze, at one time her master, into the middle of the nineteenth century. She is represented in the Musée Condé (Cabinet Clouet) by several small portraits: _Marie Caroline, Queen of Naples_, painted in 1768, and her two daughters, _Marie Thérèse Caroline_, wife of Francis II Emperor of Austria, and _Marie Louise Josephine_, wife of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Whilst the first two of these appear to be copies of already existing pictures the portrait of _Marie Louise Josephine, Queen of Etruria_, shows special merits and seems to be taken directly from life, probably during one of Madame Le Brun's tours in Italy. A strong vitality is expressed in her beautiful face, forming a marked contrast to the portrait of her mother, the Queen of Naples. Madame Le Brun, who, in spite of her sex became a member of the French Academy, was one of Marie Antoinette's favourite painters. After the Revolution she established herself in St. Petersburg and did not return to Paris until 1801, when she was enthusiastically welcomed. She painted many of the most celebrated beauties of her day, but all these portraits seem to bear the mark of a period then fast disappearing. Louis Joseph de Bourbon, about 1787, commissioned Fragonard to paint small portraits of the Princes and Princesses of the Royal House[138] of Bourbon and the House of Bourbon Condé. Among these are portraits of the _Dauphin Louis_, son of Louis XVI, and of the _Duc d'Enghien_ by whose tragic death the Condé family became extinct. Fragonard was a pupil of both Boucher and Chardin. He went to Italy with the Prix de Rome and in 1765 was elected a member of the Academy. He excelled in every style of painting--_genre_, landscape, portraits, interiors, and historical subjects. When in 1765 he exhibited his _Callirhoé and Corésus_ (a subject taken from the poet Roy) Diderot and Grimm thought for a moment that he might resuscitate the art of historical painting in France. This picture was bought by King Louis XV but was never paid for, and Fragonard returned to his portrait-painting, which he accomplished with very great brilliance and rapidity. There is a series of these portraits in the La Caze section of the Louvre, chiefly representing the actors and actresses of his day. His remarkable talent for decorative painting reveals itself in certain designs destined for Madame Du Barry's pavilion, but stupidly condemned by her advisers. When the Revolution broke out, the artist fled to Grasse to escape imprisonment and the scaffold taking these paintings with him, and there completed the series by a fifth composition. The whole set are now in the collection of the late Mr. J. F. Pierpont Morgan. Fragonard in some of his work rose to the level of Watteau and he certainly surpassed Boucher: but, like Greuze, he suffered the humiliation of seeing himself pass out of fashion, supplanted by the rising sun of Louis David. It certainly is to be regretted that Fragonard was not also commissioned to paint the above-mentioned life-size portrait of _Louis Joseph de Bourbon_ at the Musée Condé. This privilege was given to a Madame de Tott, an artist quite unknown in the history of Art. She was a contemporary of Bartolozzi, who engraved her picture, and thus handed down her name to posterity; for we read upon it, "_Madame de Tott pinxit--Bartolozzi sculpsit_." Louis Petit, another indifferent painter of the same period, executed a portrait of the last _Prince de Conti_ in hunting costume. This Prince left France with his Orleans cousins during the Revolution and died in Spain. To the same artist is attributed the portrait of _Louis Henri de Bourbon, Duc d'Enghien_. He has an interesting face, recalling that of his ancestor the Great Condé, but there is a touch of melancholy in his expression, telling of adversity endured and apparently foreshadowing his tragic death. His father, the last Prince de Condé, who during the French Revolution lived chiefly in England, was painted by Danloux, a Frenchman who had also sought shelter on the hospitable shores of Great Britain. This Prince is here represented as leader of the Condé forces, that is, of the French _émigrés_; and we can detect the influence of Reynolds and Gainsborough in the light, harmonious colouring of the composition, which was bought by the Duc d'Aumale from a descendant of Robert Claridge, in whose house the last Condé lived during his exile. By Charles Vernet, son of the celebrated marine painter Joseph Vernet, there is at Chantilly a large landscape with a hunting scene. It was painted during the Directoire, and _Philippe Egalité_ and his son the _Duc de Chartres_ (afterwards _Louis Philippe_) may be distinguished in the foreground. Charles Vernet delighted in depicting horses and scenes of sport, a style rendered even more famous by his son Horace Vernet. There are no less than four pictures by the latter in the Musée Condé: _The Duc d'Orleans (Louis Philippe) asking for hospitality from the Monks of St. Bernard_; a portrait of _Louis Philippe_, while still Duc d'Orléans; _Le Parlementaire et le Medjeles_, in which the various Algerian types are represented in glowing colours; and _Louis Philippe entering the gates of Versailles attended by his sons_. This latter is a reduced copy by Perrault of the large original at Versailles, painted to commemorate the occasion when Louis Philippe handed over the Palace of Versailles, with all its treasures of art and historical reminiscences, to the French Nation as a Public Museum. We now come to an artist whose place is upon the threshold of the nineteenth century--namely, Pierre Prudhon. A sketch of a _Venus_ at Chantilly is a study for the picture _Venus and Adonis_, which made his name at the Salon of 1812. Most fascinating are _Le Sommeil de Psyché, Homage à Beauté_, and a sketch[139] of _Joseph and Potiphar's Wife_: elegant and graceful creations recalling the style of Greuze; who in point of fact admired his work greatly, and said of him, "This man will go farther than I have done." David and his set contemptuously designated him as the "_Boucher of to-day_"; but Napoleon commissioned him to paint portraits of both his Empresses, _Josephine_ and _Marie Louise_, and conferred upon him the Cross of the Legion of Honour. For his own portrait the Emperor chose his official painter, Gérard, who was at that time considered so great an exponent of this branch of art that he was styled "_the painter of kings_" and "_the king of painters_." Napoleon is represented by him as _First Consul_; and the expressive eyes, the mouth displaying power to command and the broad forehead partially concealed by a mass of hair, recall the great Roman whom he emulated and with whom he loved to be compared. The painter, no doubt, purposely accentuated in this portrait such facial resemblances as he was able. This commission was executed at the Tuileries in 1803. At the Fall of the Empire Gérard was presented by Talleyrand to Louis XVIII; and later still in 1820 Louis Philippe commissioned him to paint a portrait of the _Duchesse d'Orléans_ (afterwards Queen Marie Amélie) in a white robe adorned with pearls. This painting was highly treasured by the Duc d'Aumale, who out of filial affection hung it above his bed, where it still remains. Another portrait by Ary Scheffer of the same royal lady as a widow is also here. This was painted at Claremont during the exile of the Orleans family; and by the same artist is a portrait of the _Duc d'Orléans_, Louis Philippe's eldest son, who met with an untimely end in a carriage accident. But Ary Scheffer's _chef d'oeuvre_ at Chantilly is a portrait of _Talleyrand_, the most renowned and brilliant man of the Revolution,--a painting bequeathed to the Duc d'Aumale by his friend Lord Holland. Ary Scheffer's greatest pupil was Puvis de Chavannes, who far surpassed his master in the art of exquisite line--a characteristic especially noticeable in his painting of _Ste. Geneviève_ in the Pantheon, where he shows us the Patron Saint of Paris watching over her beloved city; and again in another painting of _St. Mary Magdalen_ at Frankfort. This artist is unfortunately not represented at Chantilly; nor is Jacques Louis David, whose vast canvases, the _Sacre et l'Intronisation de l'Empereur_ and _La Distribution des Aigles_, are so conspicuous in the Louvre. In spite of the comments of Diderot--who very wisely pointed out that the chief aim of the ancients was to reproduce Nature and that those who merely copied archaic painters were doing just the reverse of those whom they were trying to imitate,--public taste followed David and discarded their former favourites, Greuze and Watteau. Ingres, David's pupil, is represented at Chantilly by some of his finest work. There is in the first place _His Own Portrait_ painted at the age of twenty-four--a fine work, grand in its very simplicity--which Prince Napoleon always desired to possess and which the artist could hardly refuse to present to him. It passed thence into the possession of Reiset in 1868 and eventually in 1879 became the property of the Duc d'Aumale. A most impressive picture is _Stratonice_ (Tribune), painted for the Duc d'Orléans, who desired it as a pendant for Delaroche's _Assassination of the Duc de Guise_. It was painted at the Villa Medici in Rome, where it aroused great enthusiasm. His princely patron generously gave him 63,000 francs for it, which was double the price agreed upon. Another greatly admired composition by him at Chantilly is a _Venus Anadyomène_, which bears close affinity to the famous _La Source_ in the Louvre. The genius of Paul Delaroche brings us into the nineteenth century. His style has been characterised as the _juste milieu_; for he neither affected the manner of the Neo-Classics nor did he lean too much toward the Romantics. Never was a cowardly and dastardly murder better depicted than in his treatment of the _Assassination of Henri, Duc de Guise_. The King, Henri III, pale and trembling, emerges from behind a curtain to gaze upon his slaughtered victim, whilst the hired assassins gloat over their ghastly deed. This picture, which hangs in the Tribune, was painted by Delaroche specially for the Duc d'Orléans. We now come to Eugène Delacroix, who, in company with Gericault, is considered as the pioneer of Romanticism. His _Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders_ at Chantilly is a vividly composed representation of this important event. _The Two Foscari_ (Tribune) depicts one of the greatest tragedies in Venetian history. The Doge Francesco Foscari is shown to us sitting in judgment upon his own son, whom he is condemning to torture and banishment as a traitor to his country. The anguish of the son and the stern despair of the old father are suggested with wonderful skill. Delacroix's greatest efforts were, however, directed against the paralysing influences of Academism; and his paintings in the Palais Bourbon and in the Galerie d'Apollon in the Louvre prove him to have been the finest colourist of the later French School. Another artist of the Romantic School is Descamps, who is represented at Chantilly by no less than ten paintings and several water-colours. Amongst these a _Turkish Landscape_, painted during the artist's early period, is perhaps the most attractive. On one side of the picture all is mystery and darkness, whilst upon the other fall the rays of a golden sunset. The problems of light and shade, to which he devoted himself so earnestly up to the very end of his career, are here treated with great effect. The same idea pervades his painting of _Turkish Guards on their way from Smyrna to Magnesia_. A town with minarets is to be seen in the background; a dark blue sky flecked with luminous white clouds; camels and their riders; all breathing that dreamy oriental sensation which appealed to him so strongly, and which he was never weary of reproducing. Eugène Fromentin, who was as celebrated as a writer as he was as a painter, is represented in the Musée Condé by one of his finest landscapes. Transported to the Marshes of Medeah, a country so well described by him in his book _Un Éte dans le Sahara_, we see in the foreground three Bedouin chiefs, mounted on splendid Arab steeds, engaged in hawking. The atmosphere is transparent and clear, refreshed as it were by a recent shower, and the sky is flecked by white clouds. This artist, who died in 1876, was one of the most accomplished men of his time. By his contemporary Meissonier there are several paintings at Chantilly; the most important being _Les Cuirassiers de 1805 avant le Combat_. The moment is just before a projected attack; and the look of strained expectation upon the faces of the combatants is admirably expressed. Napoleon, surrounded by his staff, is easily recognised; and in the varying expressions of the long line of horsemen we perceive looks of determination to win or die. The reproach made by Mauclair to Meissonier that his style suffered from lack of originality and was copied from Dutch artists, if sometimes well founded, may at any rate be questioned by this picture. His _La Vedette des Dragons sous Louis XV_, though small in dimensions, is another important historical picture, whilst _Les Amateurs des Tableaux_ recalls a similar composition in the Wallace Collection. [Illustration: PLATE LXXVI. ARAB CHIEFS HAWKING IN THE DESERT. _Photo Giraudon._ _Musée Condé._ Eugène Fromentin.] Meissonier's best pupil was Jean Baptiste Detaille, the famous painter of battle-pieces. There is a picture of his at Chantilly entitled _Les Grenadiers à cheval à Eylau_,[140] where a gallant French officer with the cry "_Haut les Têtes_" leads his regiment on to victory. This is one of the _chef d'oeuvres_ of this artist, whose recent death is so much to be deplored. Of quite a different nature are the allegorical paintings of P. J. Aimé Baudry. The excellence of this master lies principally in decoration, as may be seen by his _Vision of St. Hubert_ in the Galerie des Cerfs; and he may be considered one of the most talented of the French artists who flourished during the second half of the nineteenth century. Winterhalter, who, although a native of Baden, acquired his artistic education in Paris and Rome, was one of the Court Painters to both Louis Philippe and Napoleon III. His portrait of the _Duc d'Aumale_ at the age of eighteen, as Commander of his regiment before his victorious campaign in Algiers, is at Chantilly; and there is here also a companion portrait of the _Duchesse_ as a young bride. She is clad in white, with a single rose in her fair hair, and her face is full of refinement and delicacy. Landscape-painting in France at the beginning of the nineteenth century had undeniably become conventional and tame; but quite suddenly this stagnant condition came to an end, and a revolution set in, caused by the exhibition of Constable's paintings _The Hay Wain_ and _A View near London_ in the Paris Salon of 1827. These pictures, purchased and exhibited in Paris by a French connoisseur, created intense interest in the French World of Art; and it is alleged that they were the immediate cause whereat French artists suddenly emerged from the studios wherein they had lingered so long and proceeding to the woods of Fontainebleau, began working from Nature herself. They awoke to recognise their own defects, already denounced by Chateaubriand, who had declared that French landscape-painters ignored Nature. Throughout the studios French artists warmly discussed the work of Constable, upon whom Charles X, at their special desire, conferred the Médaille d'Or; and it was suggested that the _Charette_ (_The Hay Wain_, now in the National Gallery) should be acquired by the French Nation. S. W. Reynolds, Constable's friend and pupil, whose exquisite little picture of the _Pont de Sèvres_ hangs in the Tribune at Chantilly, at this time also removed to Paris in order to satisfy the general demand for engravings of his master's works. But if the Barbizon School owed much to Constable, it is also certain that Constable and Wilson owed an equal debt to Claude Lorraine; and Turner perhaps even more so. By Corot there is but one painting at Chantilly, but it is one of his finest works. Everything in this picture breathes a spirit of peace and joy; the sky, the earth and the graceful young women--one of whom is playing a viola and another singing, whilst their companions listen or are plucking fruit--give a cheerful note to this vision of content. [Illustration: PLATE LXXVII. THE GRENADIERS AT EYLAU. _Photo Giraudon._ Détaille.] It is styled _Le Concert Champêtre_[141] and recalls his series of paintings entitled _Souvenir d'Italie_. Corot appears to have commenced his studies in the woods at Fontainebleau even before Millet, Rousseau and Diaz, so that he may fairly be styled the _doyen_ of the now famous Barbizon School. By his pupil A. P. C. Anastasi there are several landscapes at the Musée Condé, one of which represents _Amsterdam at Eventide_. That Millet is absent from this collection is much to be regretted; but by Theodore Rousseau there are several landscapes, small in point of size, but nevertheless exhibiting this artist at his best; as for example, _Le Crépuscule en Sologne_ and _Fermes en Normandie_. Ary Scheffer was the first artist to understand and befriend Rousseau when he started away on lines of his own, and it was through the kind offices of this painter that one of his first pictures was bought by the Duc d'Orléans. His landscapes in Auvergne are early works; and those painted at Barbizon--such as the pictures above named--are later and more finished achievements. Dupré, by whom there are three early works, _Port St. Nicholas_, _Paris_ and _Le Soleil Couchant_, accompanied Rousseau in 1841 to the neighbourhood of Monsoult, where they were frequently visited by Barye, Corot, and Daubigny. There is at Chantilly by this last artist a sketch of the _Château de St. Cloud_, a charming record of a spot full of memories, now no more. By Diaz de la Pena, the last of this group of painters, there is a wreath of flowers and birds painted in vivid colours upon the ceiling in the boudoir of the Petit Château once used by the Duchesse d'Aumale; and by Ziem (known as the "Painter of Venice") there is a landscape, _Les Eaux Douces d'Asie_, a subject magnificently treated by Diaz in a composition now in the Wallace Collection. Monticelli, Diaz's greatest pupil, the leading painter of the Second Empire and a great admirer of the Empress Eugenie, is unfortunately not represented here; nor are there any examples of the early French Impressionists. For here the Hand of Death intervened. [Illustration: PLATE LXXVIII. _Photo. Giraudon._ "Concert Champêtre." By Corot. Musée Condé.] With Léon Bonnat's fine portrait of the _Duc d'Aumale_ our description of the paintings at Chantilly comes to an end; but attention should yet be drawn to various pieces of sculpture exhibited in the apartments of the Château, on the terraces, in the gardens and in the Park. A fine figure of _Jeanne d'Arc_ by Chapu is in the Rotunda, whilst a group of _Pluto and Proserpine plucking daffodils_ by the same sculptor is on the Great Terrace. Here also is the equestrian statue of the _Grand Montmorency_ by Dubois; and not far from it a life-size figure of the _Grand Condé_ by Coysevox, surrounded by busts of _Bossuet_, _La Bruyère_, _Molière_ and _Le Nôtre_. Copies in marble from the antique and the renaissance adorn the niches and plinths of the mansion and the avenues of the Park. A figure of _St. Louis_ by Marqueste surmounts the roof of the Chapel and Jean Goujon's reliefs ornament the Altar within. The famous portrait in wax of _Henri IV_ is in the Galerie de Psyché; and busts in marble of the _Grand Condé_ and of _Turenne_ by Derbais, of _Richelieu_ and of the last Princes of the House of Bourbon-Condé, are placed in the Cabinet des Livres and in various other rooms. Fine bronzes by Barye, Mène, Fremiet and Cain, adorn the mantel-pieces and consoles; whilst some exquisite enamel portraits by Limousin are exhibited in the Salle des Gardes. Most interesting, and worthy of more than a passing notice, is the collection of Chantilly Porcelain, an industry founded in 1730 by the Duc de Bourbon. A set of porcelain made at that time was placed in the King's Bedroom.[142] In the centre of the Galerie des Peintures stands a fine bust of the _Duc d'Aumale_ by Dubois, and in the Marble Hall lies his recumbent figure in full uniform by the same artist, a cast[143] of the marble figure upon his tomb in the Cathedral at Dreux. And so with the death of the man his work came to a close. But his genius as a collector has furnished France with one of the finest Homes of Art in the World; and she does well to remember with gratitude this scion of the Bourbon race, who stretched out his hand to expiate much. Every lover of Art throughout the world, and every wayfarer who in his wanderings finds his way to Chantilly, may well stand amazed at this collection and praise its creator. Nor in passing out should he fail to give a last glance at the silent effigy: a glance in which gratitude should be mingled with that emotion which ever holds the thoughtful spectator of departed greatness. [Illustration: PLATE LXXIX. TOMB OF THE DUC D'AUMALE. _In the Cathedral at Dreux. Cast at Chantilly._ Paul Dubois.] INDEX Abdul Kader, Duc d'Aumale's victory over, 117 _Accordée du Village, Le_, by Greuze, 262 _Adoration of the Magi_, by Jean Fouquet, 190, 191 Ahasuerus. See King _Ailly, Heures de._ See Books of Hours Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of, 79 Albano, a work by, 132 Albret, Duc de. See Condé, fifth Prince de Albret, Henri de, King of Navarre, portraits of, 136, 141, 223 Albret, Jeanne de, Queen of Navarre, marriage, 16; a Protestant, 17; helps the Huguenots, 21; sudden death, 22, 243; portraits of, 22, 141, 224, 225, 226, 230, 235 Aldine editions in the Standish Library, 129 Alençon, Duc de, portraits of, 141, 182, 245 Alençon, Mme. Vendôme de, portraits of, 222, 223, 239 Alençon, Mlle. de, and Duc d'Enghien, 69 Alexandra, Queen, visits Chantilly, 122 _Alley in the Wood, An_, by Dughet, 250 Allori, Alexander. See Bronzino _All Saints' Day_, by Fouquet, 194 _Amante Inquiète_, by Watteau, 258 _Amateurs des Tableaux, Les_, by Meissonier, in the Wallace Collection, 272 _Amazon_ of the Vatican, a statuette, 137 Amboise, Cardinal George de, owner of _Valere Maxime_, 158 Ambrogio di Spinola, Marchese. See Spinola Amélie, Queen, and the Duc d'Aumale's marriage, 117 "Amico di Sandro," 149 _Amour Désarmé, Le_, by Watteau, 258 _Amphitryon_, poem by Molière, 75 _Amsterdam at Eventide_, by Anastasi, 275 Anastasi, A. P. C., 275 _Angelic Choir_, miniature by Simon Marmion, 197 Angers, disaster of, 25 Angleterre, Mme. Henriette de, portrait of, 253 Angoulême, Duc de. See Francis I Angoulême, Duchesse de (formerly Diane de France), marriage, 9; portrait of, 151 Angoulême, Marguerite (sister of Francis I), portraits of, 141, 216, 228; manuscript of, 158 Anjou, Duc de. See Henri III Anjou, Louis II of, King of Sicily, portrait of, 201 Anne of Austria, character, 40; and the Grand Condé, 44, 45, 47, 55, 56, 64; and Princesse de Condé, 52, 54 Anne of Bavaria, marriage of, 69 Anne de Bretagne (wife of Louis XII), miniature of, 138; Prayer Book of, 198; portrait of, 208; _Tournois_ tapestry, 208, 209; medal of, 210; her daughter's marriage, 216 _Annunciation_, by Francia, 145; by the Limbourgs, 173; by Jean Fouquet, 184, 189, 193 Antioch, Jean de, translates Cicero's _Rhetorics_, 157 _Antiochus and Stratonice, The Story of_, by Ingres, 135 _Antiquitates Judæorum_ of Josephus, miniatures by Jean Fouquet, 155, 181, 182, 185, 189, 200 _Arab Chiefs Hawking in the Desert_, by Fromentin, 272 _Architecture, Treatise on_, by Filarete, 180 _Ariane._ See Duclos Mille. Aristotle's _Ethics_, 157 Armagnac, Comte de, war with Duc de Bourbon, 162 _Arsenal_ MS., 159 _n._ _Artemisia, History of_, 244 Artois, Duc de (afterwards Charles X), marriage, 101, 102; leaves France, 104; at Coblenz, 109, 110 _Ascension, The_, by Jean Fouquet, 192 Ashmolean Collection at Oxford, 241 _Assassination of the Duc de Guise, The_, by Delaroche, 134, 269, 270 _Athena of Lemnos_, famous bronze, 136 Aumale, Duc de (Henri d'Orléans), Lord of Chantilly: _Histoire des Princes de Condé_, 38, 40, 74, 132; military success in Algiers, and marriage, 117; birth of a son, 118; an exile in England and return to Chantilly, 119-123; his scheme to bestow Chantilly on the French nation, 122-124; his second banishment, 124; return and welcome back to Chantilly, 124, 125; equestrian statue of, 125; portraits of, 126, 137, 177 _n._, 220, 273, 276, 277; collects the art treasures of the Musée Condé, 129-153; Victor Hugo's letter, 147; on Raphael's _Three Graces_, 149; French illuminated manuscripts at Chantilly, 154-164; the Cabinet des Livres, 156; _Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry_, 165-178; works of Jean Fouquet, 179-195; Jean Perréal, Bourdichon, and others, 196-210; Jean Clouet, 211-226; François Clouet, 225-247; from Nicholas Poussin to Corot, 248 _et seq._; tomb of, 278 Aumont, Duc de, portrait by Quesnel, 142 Auneau, Victory of, 26 Austria, Elizabeth of, portrait of, 234, 235; miniature of, 243 Austria, Margaret of, and the _Très Riches Heures_, 162, 163; and Jean Fouquet, 181; and Jean Perréal, 209 _Autumn_, by Botticelli, 145 _Avant et après le Combat_, by Protais, 135 Averoldi family, _Ecce Homo_ purchased from, 135 Ayr Collection, portrait of Prince Orlant, 198 _Bacchus and Ariadne_, antique sarcophagus, 137 Baccio del Bene, Italian author, 220 _Ball under the Colonnade_, by Watteau, 259 _Balthazar_, a Spanish hound, by Desportes, 255 Bandol, Johannes, painter, 200 Barbançon, Princesse de, by Van Dyck, 132 Barberini, Cardinal, and Quesnoy the sculptor, 249 Barbizon school, 274, 275 Bardon, M., painter, 8 Baroccio, Federigo, painter, 132 Bartolozzi, _Louis Joseph de Bourbon_, 265 Barye, bronzes by, 277 Bassompère, Maréchal de, his marriage, 11 Battave, Godfrey le, his work, 204 Baudrey, P. J. Aimé, allegorical painter, 273 Bavaria, Marie Anne of, portrait of, 138 Béarn, Henri de, and the Protestants, 21 Beaubrun, his portraits of _Comte de Cossé Brissac_, _Mme. and Mlle. de Longueville_, 12, 133; _the Grand Condé_, 251 Beaujeu, Anne de, and Jean Perréal, 207 _n._ Beaujeu, Pierre de, 183 Beauneveu, André, a _Book of Hours_, 177 _n._; _Antiquitates Judæorum_, 182 Bellay, Du, poet, and Marguerite de France, 220, 221 _Belles Heures de Jean de Berry_. See Book of Hours _Bellièvre_, _Pomponne de_, portrait of, 252 Benedict XIV, Pope, portrait by Subleyras, 142 Berenson, Bernard, _A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend_, 145 _n._ Berghe, Comte de, portrait by Van Dyck, 132 Bernal Sale, 133, 134 Berry, Duc de, _Les Très Riches Heures_, 130, 160, 161, 165 _et seq._; his illuminated manuscripts, 157; portrait of, 201 Berry, Duchesse de, at Chantilly, 91 Bersuire, Pierre, translator of Livy's _Second Decade_, 157 Bethune album, 241 Bethune, Philippe de, portrait by François Quesnel, 246 _Betrayal_, by Jean Fouquet, 191 _Bible Historiée_, 200 _Bible Moralisée_, 179 _Birth of St. John the Baptist_, by Jean Fouquet, 188, 190 Bissolo, _Madonna holding the Infant Christ_, 145 _Boccaccio_ at Munich, 181, 182, 185 Bodleian Library (Oxford), 151 Boileau, N., celebrated French poet, a guest at Chantilly, 75 Boissy, Gouffier de, Battle of Marignan, 6 Boisy, Le Grand Ecuyer de, portrait of, 244 Bonheur, Rosa, _A Shepherd in the Pyrenees_, 135 Bonnat, Léon, portrait of _Duc d'Aumale_, 126, 276 Bonnivet, Gouffier de, Battle of Marignan, 6 Book of Hours: (1) of fourteenth century, owned by François de Guise, 150 (2) of Anne de Beaujeu, 198 _n._ (3) of Anne de Montmorency, 158 (4) of Catherine de Medicis, 215 (5) of Étienne Chevalier, miniatures by Jean Fouquet, 152, 181 (6) belonging to Maurice de Rothschild, 160 (7) _Belles Heures de Jean de Berry_, also called _Heures d'Ailly_, by Limbourg brothers, 179, 184, 185 (8) _Heures d'Anjou_, 200 (9) _Heures d'Aragon_, by Bourdichon, 198 (10) Livres d'Heures, 202 (11) _Très Belles Heures_, or _Hours of Turin_, by Hesdin, 165, 177 _n_. Book of Hours--_Cont._ (12) _Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry_, by the Limbourg brothers, 130, 152, 154, 156, 158, 160, 162, 164 _et seq._ Bora, Catherine de, portrait by Pourbus, 142 Bordeaux, Claire-Clemence at, 52, 53; as a Republic, 59, 60; surrenders to the King, 62 Bossuet, Jacq., the famous Prelate, at Chantilly, 83; and the Grand Condé, 86-88; statue of, 89; on Fouquet's _Enthronement of the Virgin_, 194; bust of, 276 Botticelli, Sandro, _Autumn_, 145; _Simonetta Vespucci_, 146; other drawings, 147 Boucault, Jeanne, wife of Jean Clouet, 211, 224; portrait of, 222 Boucher, François, French painter, _Watteau_, 143, 257; cartoon by, 256 Bouchot, Henri, 199, 204, 208, 235 Bouillon, Duchesse, joins the Fronde, 45; portrait of, 242 Bourbon, Anne Marie de, death of, 92 Bourbon, Antoine de (afterwards King of Navarre); portraits of, 16, 136; and the Guises, 18, 20 Bourbon, Caroline Auguste de, marriage to the Duc d'Aumale, 117 Bourbon, Charles de, the famous Constable, death, 16 Bourbon, Duc de. See Bourbon, Louis Henry Joseph; Condé, sixth, seventh, and eighth Princes de Bourbon, Geneviève. See Longueville, Mme. de Bourbon, Henri I de. See Condé, second Prince de Bourbon, Henri II de. See Condé, third Prince de Bourbon, Henri de, King of Navarre. See Henri IV Bourbon, Henri Jules de. See Condé, fifth Prince de Bourbon, Jacob de, 16 Bourbon, Louis I de. See Condé, first Prince de Bourbon, Louis II de. See Condé, fourth Prince de Bourbon, Louis Henry Joseph de (Duc d'Enghien, son of eighth Prince de Condé, known as Duc de Bourbon, last of the Condés), birth, 96; early marriage, 97; at Chantilly, 98, 99; separated from his wife, 100; leaves France, 104, 105; return to Chantilly, 111; death of his father, 113; reconciliation with and death of his wife, 113; and his godson, 114; death, 114, 115; portraits of, 114, 266 Bourbon, Louis Joseph de. See Condé, eighth Prince de Bourdelot, Jean, and the Grand Condé, 84 Bourdichon, a follower of Jean Fouquet, 197, 207; his works, 198, 199 Bourdillon, Lescueur, portrait of, 203 Bourgogne, Antoine de, the _Grand Bâtard_, portraits of, 62, 142 Bouts, Dierick, _Procession_, 146 Braganza, Duc de (afterwards King of Portugal), betrothal, 124; assassination, 124 _n._ Brandenburg, William, Margrave of, guards the Rhine, 82 Brantôme, P. de: Diane de France, 9; Louis de Bourbon, 19; Duc d'Anjou, 24 _n._; the Dauphin, 217; Diane de Poitiers, 231; Henri de Mesmes, 242 "Brasseu," daughter of Diane de Poitiers, a member of _la petite band_, 228; portrait of, 239 Brentano, Herr, purchase and sale of forty miniatures by Jean Fouquet, 152, 186 Bretagne, Anne de. See Anne de Bretagne Bretagne, François, the Duke of, tomb of, 42, 209 _Breviary_, fourteenth century, 150, 151; of Belleville, 160; _Grimani_, sixteenth century, 162, 163, 168 Brézé, Maréchal de, 35 _Briados_, a Spanish hound, by Desportes, 255 Bridgewater _Madonna_, 140 Brignole, Marie Catherine de, the widowed Princess of Monaco, marries eighth Prince de Condé, 109 Brissac, Maréchal, portrait of, 238, 239 British Museum, the _Gallic War_, 157; _Book of Hours_, 186; Salting Collection, 230, 231, 242 Bronzes, 136, 277 Bronzino, Le (Alexander Allori), painter, 132 Broussel, Councillor, and Cardinal Mazarin, 44, 45 Bruges, Jean de, 200 _n._ Bruisbal, Scipion, 240 Brun, Charles Le, Court-painter to Louis XIV, 84; and the Gobelin Factory, 251, 252 Brun, Mme. Vigée Le, her works, 137, 263, 264 Bruyère, La, educates the Condés, 85; and Mme. de Langeron, 87; bust of, 276 Budos, Louis de, death of, 9 Buffant, Jean, once possessor of _Breviary Grimani_, 163 Bugato, Zanetta, 148 Bugenhagen, Jean de, portrait of, 142 Bullant, Jean, architect, 6, 240; altar of Senlis marble, 123 Bussel, a follower of François Clouet, 245 Buti, Catherine, in _La Toussaint_, 194 _Cabinet des Livres_ at Chantilly, 156 _Cabotière, La_, 32 Cæsar's Commentaries, 157 Cain, bronzes, 277 _Calendar_ of months in _Book of Hours_, 152, 154, 156, 158, 160, 162, 164, 166 _et seq._, 178 _Callirhoé and Corésus_, by Fragonard, 264 Canaletto, Antonio, 147 _Canaples, Mme. de_, portrait of, 244 _Canaples, Sieur de_, portraits of, 223 Cantillius, a Gallo-Roman, origin of name Chantilly, 3 _Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders_, by Delacroix, 270 _Capture of Jerusalem_, by Poussin, 249 Carlisle, Lord, his collection of French drawings, 151 Carmontelle, M., collection of, 143, 144; portrait of, 144 Carracci, Annibale, paintings in Musée Condé, 84, 132, 135 Carriera, Rosalba, 261 Carron, M., his designs from the _History of Artemisia_, 244 _Castello di S. Angelo_, by Claude, 250 Cellini, Benvenuto, _Apollo guiding the Chariot of the Sun_, 141; _Life of_, by R. H. Cust, 222 _n._ Champaigne, Philippe de, portraits of _Mazarin_ and _Richelieu_, 134; his work, 250 Champion, Jean, 212 Chandus, portrait of, 223 Chantilly, Château of (see also Musée Condé), owners of, 1 _et seq._; origin of name, 3; the Montmorencys, 3-15; improvements and restorations, 5, 66 _et seq._, 89, 90, 92, 118, 119, 121; windows, 5, 8; pictures of, 6, 50; the Petit-Château, 7; its beauty, 9, 10; and the Condés, 16 _et seq._; confiscation and restoration of, 32, 106, 109, 111, 112, 119, 121, 124, 125; the Grand Condé, 33-46; portraits, 42, 50; return of Prince and Princesse de Condé, 56; festivities at, 69-77, 90-92, 97, 99; illustrious visitors, 83, 90, 92, 97-99, 118, 121-123; famous waterworks at, 84; pictures, 84; used as a prison, 106, 108; during the French Revolution, 106 _et seq._; races at, 116; Duc d'Aumale, Lord of Chantilly, 116 _et seq._; Musée Condé erected, 122, 123; bequeathed to the nation, 124, 125; Grand Chinoiserie, 259 _Chapeau-Rouge_ party, 61 Chapu, _Jeanne d'Arc_, 276 _Chariot of the Sun_, 167 _Charlemagne, Coronation of_, 182 Charles IV of Germany, portrait of, 201 _n._ Charles V of France, portraits of, 142, 200; his _Inventory_, 159; imprisons the two Dauphins, 217 Charles VII, portraits by Fouquet, 181, 182, 185, 186, 191 Charles VIII, by Perréal, 203, 208 Charles IX and Prince de Condé, 23; death, 24; portraits by François Clouet, 141, 229, 230, 231, 244 Charles X confers the Médaille d'Or on Constable, 274 Charlotte, Elizabeth. See Princess Palatine Charolais, Count de, at Chantilly, 95, 96 Charonton, Enguerrand, works by, 42, 146, 176, 193 _Charost_, by Quesnel, 142 Chartres, Duc de (afterwards Louis Philippe), portrait by Charles Vernet, 266 Chartres, Duchesse de, portrait by Duplessis, 261 _Chasse au Faucon en Algérie, La_, by Fromentin, 139 _Chasse du Loup_ and _du Renard_, by Oudry, 256 _Château de St. Cloud_, by Daubigny, 275 _Chateaubriand, Monsieur de_, 239 Châteauroux, Castle of, Claire-Clemence exiled to, 73 Châtillon, Mme. de, 50 _Chaudin, capitaine de la porte du Roy_, 239 Chavannes, Puvis de, his works, 269 Chavignard, Lechevallier, cartoon by, 123 _Chess._ See _Game of_ Chevalier, Étienne, _Book of Hours_, executed for, 152, 184; portraits of, 180, 181, 182, 185, 187, 189, 194 Chevreuse, Duchesse de, 55 _Chiaroscuro_, introduction of, 177, 192 Chigi, Prince, collection of, 150 _Children of Israel led into Captivity by King Shalmaneser_, 184 Chinon, Château de, 191 _Christ, Life of_, scenes from, 173 _Christ on the Cross_, miniature, 139 Christina of Denmark, Queen, at Chantilly, 123 Christina of Sweden, Queen, and Claire-Clemence, 54 _Chronique de France_, 181, 182 Cicero's _Rhetorics_, 157 Cigongue, Armand, collection of, 130 _Cité de Dieu_, 157 Claire-Clemence (wife of the Grand Condé), early marriage and excellent qualities of, 34; retires to a convent, 35; with her son at Chantilly, 41; sudden departure, 45; her husband's imprisonment, 49; her escape, 51; at Bordeaux, 52, 53, 59, 60; obtains her husband's freedom, 54, 55; entry into Paris, 56; retirement to Saint-Maur, 57; birth of second son, 61; retires to Flanders, 62; return to France, 64, 75; and her son's marriage, 69; ill-health, 70; and the page Duval, 71; her husband's ill-treatment, 71, 72; exile and death, 73, 74 Claridge, Robert, and the Condés, 266 Claude, Queen (wife of Francis I), portraits of, 216, 217, 218, 239 _Clementia_, 184 Clermont, Louise de, portrait of, 228, 255 Clève, Marie de, marriage, 22; and Charles IX, 23; death, 24 Clève, Philippe de, portrait by Holbein, 142 Clouet, François, his works, 8, 20, 22, 26, 141, 151, 205, 208, 214, 215, 219, 223, 226-243, 246; succeeds his father as Court-painter to François I, 225, 226; his style of work, 227, 234, 238, 247; death, 243 Clouet, Jean, painter to the Duke of Burgundy, 211 Clouet of Tours, Jean (son of above), court-painter to Francis I, 151, 204-208; medal of, 210; marriage, 211; his methods and works, 212-226, 228, 242; death, 227 Clouet of Navarre (son of above), 211 Clovio, Giulio, _Christ on the Cross_, 139 _Coche de Marguerite, de la_, manuscript, 158 Codex with Fouquet's miniatures, 182-184 Colbert, pastel of, 142; and Le Brun, 251 Coligny, Admiral de, portrait of, 141 Coligny, Dandelot de, 42 Coligny, Gaspard, on the death of Francis II, 19; and the Condés, 21; death, 23 Coligny, Odet de, a Cardinal, portrait of, 133, 236; history of, 237 Colnaghi, Messrs., sell portraits and pictures to Duc d'Aumale, 133, 138 Colombe, Jean de, works of, 162, 171, 178, 197 Colombe, Michel, 209 _Colonel Lepic à Eylau_, by Détaille, 152 _Comptes de Lyon_, by Perréal, 207 _Concert Champêtre_, by Corot, 152, 275, 276 Conches Collection, 186 Condé family, the, 4, 16 _et seq._ Condé, first Prince de (Louis de Bourbon), 16; religion and marriage, 17; imprisonment, 17, 18; release, 19; infidelities, 19; death, 20; portraits of, 18, 136 Condé, second Prince de (Henri I de Bourbon), portrait of, 18; and Mlle. de Saint-André, 19; and his mother, 20; succeeds his father, 21; marriage, 22; and the Protestant faith, 23, 24; death of his wife, 24; second marriage, 24, 25; the War of the Four Henris, 25, 26; becomes heir-presumptive, 27; death, 28 Condé, third Prince de (Henri II de Bourbon), portrait of, 12; marriage and its result, 12-15, 30; imprisonment, 31; and Louis XIII, 32; death, 43; bronze monument of, 123 Condé, fourth Prince de (Louis II de Bourbon, Duc d'Enghien, the "Grand Condé"), baptism and education, 33; early marriage, 34; life in Burgundy, 35, 36; elected general, 37; victor of Rocroy, Thionville, and Nordlingen, 38-41; illness, 41; influence of women on, 42; death of his father, 43; victor of Lens, 43, 44; reception by the King, 44; puts down the Fronde, 45; Mazarin an implacable enemy, 47 _et seq._; imprisoned at Vincennes, 48, 49; removed to Havre, 54; his wife obtains his freedom, 55, 56; betrayed by his enemies, 57; his faults, 57; retires to Montroux, 58; alliance with Spain, 59 _et seq._; entry into and retreat from Paris, 60; financial difficulties, 61, 62; a lost battle, 63; returns to France, 64; his regrets, 65; retires to Chantilly, 66; improvements at Chantilly, 66, 67; refuses Crown of Poland, 69; cruel treatment to his wife, 70-73; her death, 73; illustrious visitors and festivities at Chantilly, 75-77, 83; war with Holland, 78 _et seq._; wounded, 81; return to Chantilly and death, 83; interest in scientific discoveries and passion for the chase, 84; protects the Huguenots, 85; and his grandson, 85; a free-thinker, 87; his death, 88; statues of, 89, 276; portraits of, 251; bust of, 277 Condé, fifth Prince de (Henri Jules de Bourbon, Duc d'Albret, Duc d'Enghien), son of the Grand Condé, 41; escapes with his mother, 50, 51; educated by Jesuits, 62; Louis XIV's entry into Paris, 65; at Chantilly, 67; marriage, 69; sad interview with his mother, 73; his mother's death, 73; his father wounded, 81; character, 81, 85, 90; death of his father, 87; succeeds and carries out his father's improvements at Chantilly, 89; violent temper and death, 90 Condé, sixth Prince de (Louis III, Duc de Bourbon), early marriage and education, 85, 86; death, 91 Condé, seventh Prince de (Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon), early succession, 91; improvements and illustrious visitors at Chantilly, 91, 95; Prime Minister of France, 92; death of his wife, 92; and the Marquise de Prie, 92-94; resignation, 94; second marriage, 94, 95; death, 95 Condé, eighth Prince de (Louis Joseph), condemns the Grand Condé's treatment of his wife, 74; early succession, 95; marriage and birth of a son, 96; gained victories of Grinningen and Johannesberg, 97; death of his wife, 97; illustrious visitors at Chantilly, 98-104; leaves France owing to Revolution, 104; at Worms, 109; retires to Wanstead House, Wimbledon, 109; second marriage, 109; returns to Chantilly, 111; restores Chantilly, 111, 112; death, 113; and Jean Baptiste Huet, 260; and Fragonard, 264; portrait of, 265 Condé, ninth Prince de. See Bourbon, Louis Henri Joseph, Duc de Condé, Henriette de Bourbon (Mme. de Vermandois), Abbess, 100 _Condé, Histoire des Princes de_, by Duc d'Aumale, 38, 74 Condé, Louise de (daughter of eighth Prince de Condé), birth, 96; life at Chantilly, 100, 101; and the Marquis de Gervaisais, 102, 103; the French Revolution, 104; retires to a convent, 109; tragic death of Duc d'Enghien, 109, 110; reception in England, 110; death, 115 Condé, Mme. la Princesse Douarière de, 35 Condé, Musée, erection of, 122, 123; bequeathed to the French nation, 124, 125; art treasures of, and how they were brought together, 129 _et seq._; French illuminated manuscripts at, 154-164; _Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry_, 165-178; works of Jean Fouquet of Tours, 179-195; of Jean Perréal and Bourdichon, 196-210; of Jean Clouet, 211-226; of François Clouet, 227-248; _Catalogue Raisonnée_ of, 247; works of painters from Nicolas Poussin to Corot, 248-278 _Condé, Sur la femme du Grand_, 34 _Confession of St. Peter_, 189 Constable, John, effect of his work on French painters, 273, 274 _Constantine, Emperor_, medal of, 175 Conti, Prince de, brother of the Grand Condé, 48; illness, 49; at Bordeaux, 60, 61; and Mazarin, 64 Conti, François, Prince, nephew of the Grand Condé, 85 Conti, Louise Henriette de Bourbon, portrait by Nattier, 254 Corneille de Lyon, his works, 26, 141, 147, 218, 231, 242, 244 Corneille, Pierre, the Poet at Chantilly, 75, 83 _Coronation of Charlemagne_, by Fouquet, 82 _Coronation of the Virgin, the._ See _Virgin_ Corot, Jean B. C., _Le Concert Champêtre_, 152, 274, 275, 276 Cosimo, Piero di, _Simonetta Vespucci_, 146 Coste, Jean de, the Château de Vaudreuil, 200 Court, Jean de, Court-painter to Henri III, 244 Courtils de Merlemont, M. des, Knight of St. Louis, imprisoned at Chantilly, 106 Coutras, Battle of, 26 Cowley, Lord, occupies Chantilly, 119 Coysevox, statue of the _Grand Condé_, 276 _Crépuscule en Sologne, Le_, by Rousseau, 275 Croix, Mlle. de la, 35 Crozat, M., the financier and collector, owned the Orleans _Madonna_, 140; and Watteau, 259 _Crucifixion, The_, in _Les Très Riches Heures_, 177, 192 _Cuirassiers, Les_, by Meissonier, 152, 272 _Cupid and Psyche_, in windows at Chantilly, 5 Cust, H. Hobart, _The Life of Benvenuto Cellini_, 222 _n._ Cust, Lionel, _History of Art in England_, 201 Czartoysky, Prince Ladislas, marriage, 121 Damartin, Guy de, architect, 166 _Dance of Angels_, 135 Danloux, M.; portraits by, 114, 266 Danté's _Inferno_ with _Commentary_ by Guido of Pisa, 157 _Daphne flying to her father's protection_, by Poussin, 250 Daumet, M., rebuilds the _Grand Château_, 122 Dauphin, the Grand (only son of Louis XIV.), at Chantilly, 90; portraits of, 138, 217 Dauphin François, portraits of, 212, 217, 218, 220, 239, 244 Dauphin Louis (son of Louis XVI), portrait of, 264 David, Jacques Louis, and Prud'hon, 267; his works, 269 Dawes, Sophie, known as Baronne de Feuchères, 115 _Death of Germanicus, The_, by Poussin, 249 _Déjeuner d'Huîtres_, by de Troy, 134, 259 _Déjeuner de Jambon_, by Lancret, 134, 259 Delacroix, Eugène, his works, 141, 270, 271 Delaroche, Paul, his works, 134, 269, 270 Delessert Sale, 139 Deligand Collection, 228 _n._, 239 Delisle, Count Leopold, 161 Delormes, Philibert, 240 Denmark and Louis XIV, 81 Derbais, M., his works, 277 Descamps, Jean Baptiste, painter, works of, 134, 139, 271 Descartes, René, and the Grand Condé, 87 _Descent from the Cross_, by Fouquet, 192, 193 _Descent of the Holy Ghost_, by Fouquet, 193 Desportes, P., poet, his works, 132, 255, 256; and Jean de Court, 244 Detaille, Jean Baptiste, his works, 272, 273, 274 Détaille, M., his finest work, 152; album, 241 _Devançay, Mme. de_, by Ingres, 147 Diane de France. See Angoulême, Duchesse de Diane de Poitiers. See Poitiers Diaz de la Pena, works of, 275, 276 Diderot, M., on Greuze, 261; on David, 269 Dimier, L., 204; _Bulletin de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France_, 240 _n._ Dinier, Louis, _Les Portraits peints de François I_, 151 _n._ _Diodorus Siculus_, translation of, 158 Disraeli, Benjamin, in praise of Duc d'Aumale, 131 _Distribution des Aigles, La_, by David, 269 _Divina Commedia_, by Dante, 194 Domenichino, Domenico, and Poussin, 249 Donato, San, Sale, 139 _Donneur des Sérénades, La_, by Watteau, 258 Dourdan, Castle of, in _Les Très Riches Heures_, 168 _Dragons sous Louis XV, Les_, 138 _Dream of a Knight, The_, by Raphael, 148 Drouais, M., portraits by, 142, 263 Duban, M., architect, 118, 122 Dubois, P., a follower of François Clouet, 245; statue of the _Grand Montmorency_, 276; bust and tomb of _Duc d'Aumale_, 277, 278 Duccio's famous altar-piece at Siena, 193 _n._ Dûchatel, Comte, at Chantilly, 119 _Duclos, Mlle._, portrait of, 254 Dudley, Earl of, owner at one time of _The Three Graces_, 148, 149 _Duel après le Bal, Le_, by Gérome, 135 Duff-Gordon-Duff Collection, 144 Dugardin, the goldsmith, frames the miniature of _Elizabeth of Austria_, 243 Dughet, Gaspar, works by, 133, 146, 250 Dumoustier, M., works by, 42, 143, 147, 151, 245, 246 _Dunes at Scheveningen_, by Ruysdael, 139 Duplessis, M., administrator of the galleries at Versailles, 261 Dupré, M., works by, 275 Duras, Duchesse de, a prisoner at Chantilly, 107 Dürer, Albert, celebrated artist, _Virgin_, 131 Durrieu, Comte Paul, 148; and the _Très Riches Heures_, 161, 163; made reproduction of _Hours of Turin_, 165; and the medal of _Emperor Constantine_, 175; and the Fouquet miniatures, 182; and the _MS. de Saint Michel_, 202 _Eaux Douces d'Asie, Les_, by Diaz, 276 _Ecce Homo_, by Titian, 135 Edward III, portrait of, 201 _n_. Edward VII, visits Chantilly when Prince of Wales, 122; presentation of Fouquet's miniatures to President Fallières, 184 _Elboeuf, Mme. de_, by Corneille, 244 _Eleonore, Queen_, portrait of, 133 _Elizabeth of Austria_, portraits of, 133, 234 Enghien, Duc de (see also Bourbon, Louis Henri Joseph), son of Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon, 103; the French Revolution, 104, 105; execution by Napoleon, 110; portrait of, 264 _Enthronement of the Virgin_, by Fouquet, 193, 194 Epéron, Duc de, the hated Governor of Bordeaux, 52 Erasmus, portrait of, 204 Estampes, Château de, in the _Calendar_ of Months, 170 Estampes, Duchesse de (mistress of Francis I), intrigues of, 6 Este, Cardinal Ippolito de, 222 _Esther as Queen, walking in her garden_, in the Lichtenstein Gallery at Vienna, 150, 151 _Estrange, Madame le_, portrait by Clouet of, 223, 224 Estrées, Gabrielle de (mistress of Henri IV), portraits of, 136, 142, 246, 247 Eugenius IV, Pope, portrait of, 180 _Eve and the Apple_, in _Les Très Riches Heures_, 173 Everdingen, the master of Ruysdael, 146 Evreux, Jeanne de (wife of Charles IV), _Breviary_ executed for, 151, 160 Eyck, Hubert Van, works by, 146, 165 _n._ _Fables de Marie de France, Les_, 130 Fabre Collection, 149 Fagon, Dr. (physician to Louis XIV), portraits of, 248 _Fall of the Rebel Angels_, 175, 176 Fallières, President, presentation of the Fouquet MSS. to, 184 Faure Sale, 141 Fel, Marie, opera singer, pastel of, 260 Fénélon, François, at Chantilly, 83 Ferdinand III, Emperor, Peace of Westphalia, 44 _Fermes en Normandie_, by Rousseau, 275 Ferrara, Ercole, Duc de, marriage, 221 Ferrara, Duchesse de. See Rénée de France Filarete, _Treatise on Architecture_, 180 Flanders, invaded by Louis XIV, 78 Fleuranges, Maréchal de, portrait of, 205 Fleury, Cardinal, and the Marquise de Prie, 94 Fleury, Robert, works by, 138 Foix, Odet de, portraits of, 205, 208 Fontaine, La, at Chantilly, 75; designs executed in tapestry from his _Fables_, 256 _Foscari, The Two_, by Delacroix, 141, 270, 271 Foulon, Benjamin, and the Lecurieur album, 235 Fouquet of Tours, Jean (Court-painter to Louis XI), his works, 152, 153, 155, 156, 179-195, 202, 207 _n._; early history of, 180 _Four Evangelists_, 173 Fragonard, J. Honoré, painter, his works, 264, 265 _France, Chronique de._ See Chronique France, Diane de. See Angoulême, Duchesse de France, Henriette de, portrait of, 245 _France, Histoire litteraire de la_, 157 _France, History of the Kings of_, 251, 252 France, Jeanne de (Queen of Navarre, daughter of Charles VII), 148; _Book of Hours_ designed for, 160 _France, Les Fables de Marie de_, 130 France, Margot de (daughter of Catherine de Medicis), engagement, 22; portraits of, 233, 234, 238; marriage, 243 France, Marguerite de (sister of Henri II), portraits of, 141, 218, 244; history of, 218-221; marriage, 219 France, Mme. Adelaide de, portrait of, 260 France, Rénée de. See Rénée France, war with Spain, 38 _et seq._; the Fronde rising, 44, 45; civil war, 55, 59; Peace of the Pyrenees, 64; invasion of Holland, 78-82; Revolution, 104, 105; gift of Musée Condé to the nation, 124 Francia, his _Annunciation_, 145 Francis I (formerly Duc d'Angoulême), Battle of Marignan, 6; jealous of Anne de Montmorency, 6; portraits of, 138, 141, 151, 158, 204, 206, 207, 213-215, 216, 228, 241; and Jean Perréal, 205; his daughter Marguerite de France, 220; Princesse Jeanne, 224 Francis II, imprisonment of Louis de Bourbon-Condé, 17, 18; illness, 18; death, 19; portraits of, 20, 229, 232 Fremiet, M., bronze by, 277 Fresnes, Comte de, 150 Frizzoni, Dr. G., 146 Froissart, Jean, French poet, manuscript, 143; description of the castle of Mehun-sur-Yevre, 177 Fromentin, Eugène (a celebrated writer and painter), his works, 139, 271, 272 Fronde, outbreak of the, 44, 45 Fry, Roger, and the _Maître de Moulins_, 199 Gaignière, Robert, collection of French drawings, 141, 151, 156; his _Receuils_, 185, 188, 201; discovers portrait of _Jean le Bon_, 200; miniatures, 207; portraits, 208, 218, 245 _Gallic War_, manuscript history of, 157, 204, 206 _Game of Chess, A_, by Carmontelle, 144 Gardiner, Mrs. John, owner of _The Virgin and the Holy Child_, 150 Gautier, Leonard, _Cupid and Psyche_, 6; _Kings of France_, 215 _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, 172, 198, 203 _n_. _Genealogy of the Blessed Virgin_, a _Mariensippe_, 186 George I, portrait of, 142 _Georgette_, by Greuze, 262 Gerard, François (styled "the painter of Kings" and "King of Painters"), _Queen Marie Amélie_, 137; _Napoleon_, 146, 268 Gericault, M., 147; a pioneer of Romanticism, 270 Gérome, M., _Le Duel après le Bal_, 135 Gervaisais, Marquis de, and Princess Louise de Condé, 102, 103 Ghirlandajo frescoes, 190 Gillott, Claude, earliest creator of the Watteau style, 258, 259 Giorgione, M., _The Woman taken in Adultery_, 135 Giotto's _Death of the Virgin_, 145 Giovanni del Ponte di San Stefano, _The Coronation of the Virgin_, 145 Gobelins tapestry, the, 132, 251, 256 Goes, Ugo Van der, the _Grand Bâtard_, 142 Goldschmidt, Leopold, 149, 150 Gondi, Albert de, portrait of, 235 Gondi, Henri, Archdeacon of Paris, portrait of, 245 Gondi, Paul (subsequently known as Cardinal Retz), Archbishop of Paris and the Fronde rising, 44; and the Queen Regent, 56, 57 Gonzague, Princesse Anne de (known as Princesse Palatine), and the Grand Condé, 42, 43, 54, 70; at Chantilly, 75; a free-thinker, 87; death, 87 Gonzague, Princesse Louise Marie de (afterwards Queen of Poland), and the Grand Condé, 42, 43, 54; and the Crown of Poland, 69; a free-thinker, 87 Gouffier, Artur and Guillaume, portraits of, 205 Goujon, Jean, the altar of Senlis marble, 123; his altar reliefs, 277 Gourdel, Pierre, a follower of François Clouet, 245 _Graces, The Three_, by Raphael, 148, 149, 187 Grammont, Duchesse de, on the death of Henri de Bourbon-Condé, 28 Grammont, Maréchal de, at Chantilly, 75 _Grenadiers à Cheval à Eylau, Les_, by Detaille, 272, 274 Greuze, J. B. (French painter), his style and works, 139, 261-263, 267 _Grimani._ See Breviary Grinningen, victory of, 97 Gros, Antoine Jean, Baron, painter, 139 Gruyer, M. F., a _Catalogue Raisonnée_ of the Musée Condé, 144, 247; on _Les Très Riches Heures_, 160; his works, 251 Guercino, works of, 84, 132 Guido of Pisa, _Commentary_, 157 Guido Reni, a celebrated Italian painter, 132 Guifard, M., 9 Guise, Duc de (son of Duc d'Aumale), at Chantilly, 120, 121; death, 122; portrait by Clouet, 214 Guise, Duc de (le Balafré), miniature of, 138 Guise, Duc Claude de, portrait of, 213 Guise, Henri, Duc de, the War of the Four Henris, 25, 26; death, 26, 27; _Assassination_ of, by Delaroche, 134, 269, 270; portrait by Dumoustier, 245, 246 Guises of Lorraine, the, 17 _Guitar Player, The_, by Watteau, 258 Hagford album, in Salting Bequest, 242 Hainau, Count, 165 _n._ "Hameau," a, at Chantilly, 98 Hamilton Palace Sale, 147, 150 Haros, Louis de (minister of Philip IV), Peace of the Pyrenees, 64; portrait of, 143 Hauteville, Elizabeth de (afterwards Comtesse de Beauvais), marries Cardinal Coligny, 237 Hawking, art revived by the Grand Condé, 84 _Hay Wain, The_, by Constable, 273 "Hegli," 6 Heidelberg, Capture of, 82 Henri I de Bourbon. See Condé, second Prince de Henri II creates Anne de Montmorency a Duke, 8; portraits of, 26, 133, 151, 236 Henri II de Bourbon. See Condé, third Prince de Henri III (formerly Duc d'Anjou), admiration for Marie de Clève, 22, 24; and the Huguenots, 23; battle at Coutras, 26; assassination of, 27; portraits of, 133, 141, 244 Henri IV (Henri de Bourbon, King of Navarre), admiration for Charlotte de Montmorency of Chantilly, 10, 11, 28; murder of, 15; marriage, 22, and the Protestant faith, 23, 24; War of the Four Henris, 25, 26; succeeds to the throne, 27; portraits of, 138, 142, 277 Henri, Duc de Guise. See Guise Henri of Navarre. See Henri IV Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, his _Memoirs_, 9 Hery, Claude de, 242 Hesdin, Jaquemart de, executes _Très Belles Heures_, 165, 177 _n._ Heseltine Collection, 207 _n._, 214 _n._ Heures d'Ailly. See Book of Hours Heures d'Anjou. See Book of Hours Heures d'Aragon. See Book of Hours Heuzey, Léon, on date of _Minerva_, 136 _Histoire des Princes de Condé_, by Duc d'Aumale, 38, 74 _Histoire litteraire de la France_, 157 _History of Art in England_, 201 _n._ Hoe, Robert, sale of his collection, 198 _n._ Holbein, Jean, portrait by, 131; _Jean de Bugenhagen_, 142; the Hagford Collection, 242 Holland submerged to stay the French advance, 79 Holland, Lord, presents _Talleyrand's_ portrait to Duc d'Aumale, 138 _Holy Family_, by Jacopo Palma, 145 _Hommes Illustres_, Thevet's, 212, 215 Hôpital, Michael de le, resignation of, 20 Hortense, Queen, owner of Chantilly, 109 _Hours of Anne de Beaujeu._ See Book of Hours _Hours of Turin._ See Book of Hours Howard Collection, 151, 152, 242 Huet, Christophe, works by, 132; designer and decorator of the _Grande Chinoiserie_ at Chantilly, 259, 260 Huet, Jean Baptiste (son of above), painter, 260 Hugo, Victor, his letter to the Duc d'Aumale, 147, 148 Huguenots, Prince de Condé one of their leaders, 17; religious wars, 20, 21, 23-26; protected by the Grand Condé, 85 Hulin, M., 199 _Huntsman with his dog and bag of game_, by Desporte, 256 _Husband and Wife_, 146 _Infancy of Bacchus_, by Poussin, 135, 249 _Inferno_, Dante's, 157 _Ingeburge, Psalter of Queen_, 158, 159 Ingres, Jean D. A., works by, 133, 135, 147; his pupil David, 269 _Inventory_ of Charles V, 159; of the Palais de Tournelle, 241 Isabella, Archduchess, and the Princesse de Condé, 14, 15 Italian enamel, 141 Italian manuscripts, 138 James V of Scotland, marriage, 218 Jarnac, Battle of, 20 Jean II, Baron de Montmorency, 4 Jean le Bon (father of Charles V of France), portrait of, 200 _Jeanne d'Arc_, by Chapu, 276 _Joconde, La_, Reiset Collection, 131 Johannesberg, Grand Condé's victory at, 97 Jones Collection in Victoria and Albert Museum, 232 _Joseph and Potiphar's Wife_, by Prud'hon, 258, 267 _Josephine_, portrait by Prud'hon, 267 Josephus, _Antiquitates Judæorum_ of, 155, 181, 182, 185, 189, 200 Jott, Madame de, portrait by, 104 Joyeuse, Duc de, battle of Coutras, 26 _Jupiter_, a bronze, 136 Just de Tournon. See Tournon _Juvenal des Ursins_, portrait of, 181 Kahn, Rudolph, presented _Madame d'Elboeuf_ to the Louvre, 244 Kaiser Friedrich Collection at Berlin, 185 _King Ahasuerus and Esther_, 149 _Kings of France._ See Gautier Laborde, Comte de, his discoveries, 197 Laborde, Jean de, _Songs_ of, 130; _La Renaissance_ and _Comptes des Bâtiments_, 212 _n._ Labruyère, Jean de, statue of, 89 Lagneau Brothers, their work, 245 Lami, Eugène (painter), his work, 118 _Lansac, Madame de_, portrait by Corneille, 141 Lancret, Nicolas, his _Déjeuner de Jambon_, 134, 259 Langeais, Châteaux of, bequeathed to the French nation, 7 Langeron, Mme. de, hostess at Chantilly, 87 Largillière, Nicolas, his works, 133, 254 _Last Judgment_, by Signorelli, 131 Latour, Maurice Quentin de (painter), his works, 260 Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 149 Leclerc, Nicolas, sculptor, 210 Lecomte, Sauveur, painter of the Grand Condé's famous deeds, 39, 68, 90 Lecurieur Album, the famous, 235 Leczinska of Poland, Maria, marriage with Louis XV, 93; at Chantilly, 95 _Legenda Aurea_ of Jacopo da Voragine, the property of Charles V of France, 158, 188, 193 Lenet accomplishes with Claire-Clemence the release of the Grande Condé, 49, 50, 52, 54; at Bordeaux, 61; financial difficulties of the Grand Condé, 62, 63 Lenoir, Alexander, a faithful guardian of French treasures during French Revolution, 112, 141 Lens, Battle of, 43 _Lepic à Eylau, Le Colonel_, by Détaille, 152 Leprieur, M., _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, 198 _n._ Lestrange, Madame, portrait by Clouet, 223, 224 Leyden, Lucas van, _The Return of the Prodigal Son_, 131 Lichtenstein Gallery at Vienna, 150, 181 Ligny, Comte, portraits by Perréal, 202, 203 Lille made a French town, 78 Limbourg, Pol, and his brothers, miniatures by, 153, 155, 172; illuminated manuscripts by, 162; _Très Riches Heures_, 152, 154, 156, 158, 160, 162, 164-179, 192, 193; _Belles Heures_, 184 Limeuil, Isabelle de, and the Grand Condé, 19 Limoges enamel, portraits in, 136 Limousin, M., painter, 215; enamel portraits by, 277 Lippi, Filippo, his works at Chantilly, 145; Filippino, 149 _Liselotte as a Maid_, by Largillière, 254 _Livres d'Heures._ See Book of Hours Livy's _Second Decade_ translated by Pierre Bersuire, 157 Lochis Collection at Bergamo, 223 Longhi, Luca (painter), 132 Longueville, Duc de, and Grand Condé's arrest, 48; death, 64 Longueville, Duc de (son of above), death 80 Longueville, Duchesse de (formerly Geneviève de Bourbon), portraits of, 12, 133, 251; birth, 31; beautiful but vain, 34; and Claire-Clemence, 34, 35, 73; joins the Fronde, 45; escape from Mazarin, 49; at Saint-Maur, 57; wins over her brother the Grand Condé to ally himself with Spain, 58; at Bordeaux, 61, 62; retires to a convent on death of her husband, 64; her son's death, 81; becomes a pious Jansenite, 87 Loo, Van, portraits by, 133, 147 Lorraine, Cardinal de, and Queen Mary Stuart, 21 _n._ Lorraine, Catherine de, portrait of, 136 Lorraine, Claude, his wonderful atmospheric effects, 250 Louis II of Anjou, King of Sicily, portrait of, 201 Louis XI, portrait as founder of the Order of St. Michael, 181; as one of the Magi, 191 Louis XII, portraits of, 203, 207-210; appoints Jean Perréal Court-painter, 205; _Tournois_ tapestry, 208; medal of, 210 _Louis XII, Lettres de_, by Just de Tournon, 205 Louis XIII regrets his cruelty to the Condé family, 32; and Richelieu, 37; last words and death, 39; portraits of, 143, 245 Louis XIV and Isabelle de Montmorency, 42; reception of the Grand Condé, 44, 64, 66; the Fronde rising, 45; proclaimed King, 57; recovers Paris, 60; entry into Paris, 65; refuses a _lettre de cachet_ against Claire-Clemence, 71; at Fontainebleau, 75; and Mme. de Montespan, 75; at Chantilly, 76, 77; war with Holland and Spain, 78-82; portrait of, 134; and the Gaignières bequest, 156; appoints Charles Le Brun Court-painter, 252; death, 257 Louis XV at Chantilly, 92, 95; intrigues of Mme. de Prie, 93, 94; and the Duchesse de Bourbon, 95; and the _pacte de famine_, 101; portrait of, 261 Louis XVI and the French Revolution, 104, 105, 107; portrait of, 261 Louis Bordeaux (son of the Grand Condé), rejoicings at his birth, 61; early death, 62 Louis Philippe. See Orléans, Duc de _Lucifer_, 175 Luignes, Duc de, his _Mémoires_, 95 Luini, Bernardino, his paintings at Chantilly, 145 Lusignan, Fortress in the _Calendar_ of Months, 168 Lustrac, Marguerite de, and Louis de Bourbon, 19 McCall, Colonel, administers the estate of Chantilly, 119 _Madonna_, by Sassoferrata, 133; the Maison d'Orléans, by Raphael, 140, 187; the Bridgewater, 140; by Bissolo, 145; by Fouquet, 181, 185; by Bourdichon, 198; by Mignard, 252 _Magdalen_, portrait by Mignard, 198 _Magi._ See Adoration and Procession of _Maison de Sylvie_, 32 Maison, Marquis, collection of, 139 _Maître de Moulins_, 199 Malatesta. See Paolo Malebranche, Nicolas, philosopher and theologian, 83 _Malediction Paternelle_, by Greuze, 262 Malonel, M., Court-painter to the Duke of Burgundy, 173 _Man and Woman, A_, 131 _Man with a Glass of Wine_, by Fouquet, 181 Mangin, Jean, _Cupid and Psyche_, 6 Mannheim, Capture of, 82 _Mannier, Les le_, by G. Moreau Nélaton, 229 Manuscripts, French illuminated, 154 _et seq._, 204 Marchand, insults the Duchesse de Duras, 107 Marck, Robert de la, portrait of, 235 Margot de France. See France, Margot de Marguerite, Princesse (daughter of Duc de Nemours), marriage, 121; portrait of, 226 Marie Amélie, Princesse (daughter of Comte de Paris), betrothal to Duke of Braganza, 124 Marie Amélie, Queen (wife of Louis Philippe), portrait by Gerard, 137; her collection, 138; visit from her son the Duc d'Aumale, 160 Marie Anne of Bavaria, portrait of, 138 Marie Antoinette (wife of Louis XVI), visits Chantilly, 97; portraits of, as _Hebe_, 142, 263 Marie Caroline, Queen of Naples, portrait by Mme. Vigée Le Brun, 263 Marie de Medicis, portrait of, 138 Marie Louise (wife of Napoleon), portrait by Prud'hon, 267 Marie Louise Josephine (wife of Grand Duke of Tuscany), portrait by Mme. Vigée le Brun, 263, 264 Marie Thérèse of Spain, Infanta, marriage to Louis XIV, 64; portrait of, 138 Marie Thérèse Caroline (wife of Francis II, Emperor of Germany), portrait by Mme. Vigée Le Brun, 263 _Mariensippe_, a, 186, 188 Mariette, M., his bequests to the Louvre, 156; on Largillière's personal vigour, 254 Marignan. See Preux de Marilhat, M., his works at Musée Condé, 139 Marmion, Simon, his fine altar-piece at Saint-Bertin, 178, 197 Marqueste, M., his figure of St. Louis, 276 _Marriage of St. Francis of Assisi to Poverty_, by Sassetta, 145 _Marriage of the Virgin, The_, 188 _Mars and Venus_, by Paolo Veronese, 135 Martel, M. le Comte, 145 _Martigné Briant, Madame de_, portrait of, 244 Martini, Simone, 173 _Martyrdom of St. Stephen, The_, by Carracci, 135 Mary Stuart, portraits of, Frontispiece, 229, 232, 241; King's insulting words to, 242 _Mary's Obsequies_, by Fouquet, 193 _Mary Tudor_, portrait of, 242 Masaccio, Tomaso, 171 _n._; his work in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence, 192 _Massacre of the Innocents_, by Poussin, 135 Maulde, M. de, and the _Maître de Moulins_, 199 _May Day_, miniature of, 168 Mazarin, Cardinal, created Cardinal, 36; an implacable enemy to the Grand Condé, 40, 47-49, 53, 55, 57, 59-66; his attempt to force taxation on merchandise, 44; his exile, 55, 56, 57; helps the King to recover Paris, 60; Peace of the Pyrenees, 63, 64; reconciliation with Grand Condé, 65; portraits of, 134, 142, 251 Mazzola, Giuseppe, his works in the Musée Condé, 132 Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Duke of, marriage, 42 Medici, Giuliano del, and Simonetta Vespucci, 146 Medicis, Queen Catherine de (wife of Henri II), her dislike for Anne de Montmorency, 8; appointed Regent, 18-20; her character, 22; her son's treachery, 26; portraits of, 26, 141, 151, 230; her _Book of Hours_, 215; and M. Humières, 229; and Cardinal Odet de Coligny, 237; as a collector and severe critic, 238-245 Medicis, Queen Marie de (wife of Henri IV of France), 12; murder of Henri IV, 15; and the Grand Condé, 38; miniature of, 138 Mehun-sur-Yèvre, Castle of, 177 Meissonier, Jean L. E., his works, 138, 152 Méjanés Collection at Aix, 214 Mely, M. de, _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, 172 _n._ Memling, painting by, 62 Mène, M., bronzes by, 277 _Mercure de France_, description of entertainments at Chantilly, 90 Mesangère, Pierre de la, his collection, 144 Mesmes, Henri de, _Psalter of Queen Ingeburge_ presented to, 159; and Catherine de Medicis, 242, 243 Meulen, Van, _History of the Kings of France_, 251 Michelangelo's _Slaves_, 276 Michel de l'Hôpital, resignation of, 20 Mierevelt's, _Elizabeth Stuart_, 133 Mignard, Pierre, and the Grand Condé, 84; portraits by, 84, 133, 142; life of, 252, 253 Millet, François, painter of the Barbizon School, 169, 275 _Minerva_, a famous bronze, 136, 137 _Miracle of the Loaves_, 177 _Missal of St. Denis_ in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 160 Molière, J., at Chantilly, 75, 83; his poem _Amphitryon_, 75; portraits of, 84, 142, 253; statues of, 89, 276 _Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft_, by Louise M. Richter, 204 _n._ Montaigne, Michel de, portrait of, 147; his _Journal du voyage_, 196 Montbas, the Dutch General, and William of Orange, 80 Montecucoli, Comte de, Austrian General, battle of Salzbach, 82 Montespan, Mme., mistress of Louis XIV, 75; her daughter's marriage, 85, 86; portrait of, 143 Montfaucon, Bernard de, and the _Book of Hours_, 186 Months. See Calendar Monticelli, painter of the Second Empire, 276 _Montjoies_, 175 Montmorency, Anne de (known as the _Grand Connétable_), history of, 5 _et seq._; his artistic taste, 5, 6; as a warrior, 6, 8; jealousy of Francis I, 6; Diane de Poitiers, 7; created Duke, and death, 8; portraits of, 8, 205, 230; and Emperor Charles V, 10; _Book of Hours_, 158; statue by Dubois, 276; bust, 277 Montmorency, Charlotte de (wife of third Prince de Condé), her beauty, 9; Henri IV's admiration for, 10-15; marriage and retirement to the country, 12; flight to the Netherlands and life there, 12-14; shares her husband's imprisonment, 30, 31; flight from Paris, 45; at Chantilly, 50 Montmorency, François de, succeeds Anne de Montmorency as Lord of Chantilly, and marriage, 9 Montmorency, Guillaume de, history of, 4, 5; portraits of, 4, 206 Montmorency, Henri II de, Lord of Chantilly, imprisonment and execution of, 4, 31; portrait of, 248 Montmorency, Isabelle de, her pernicious influence over the Grand Condé, 42 Montmorency, Jean de, 4 Montmorency, Jean II de, marriage, 4 Montroux, escape of Claire-Clemence to, 51, 52, 54 _Mordecai on Horseback_ in the Lichtenstein Gallery in Vienna, 150 Morgan, J. F. Pierpont, his collection, 262, 265 Moro, Antonio, his works in the Musée Condé, 84 Moroni, Giovanni, a portrait by, 132 _Moulins, Maître de_, 199, 200 Mulhouse, victory at, 82 Munich Public Library, works by Fouquet at, 181, 182 Musée Carnevalet, 263 Musée Condé. See Condé Museo Nationale at Florence, 203 _Mystic Marriage of St. Francis, The_, Gassetta, 146 Nain, Brothers le, their paintings, 248 Nantes, Edict of, 85 Nantes, Mlle. (daughter of Louis XIV), child marriage, 85, 86; portrait of, 255 Naples, Queen of. See Marie Caroline Napoleon I, his _Memoirs_, 105; Chantilly the property of the State, 109; portraits by Gérard, 146, 268; by Meissonier, 272; and Prud'hon, 267 National Gallery, Claude Lorraine's finest landscapes in, 250 _Nativity of Christ_, by Fouquet, 191 Nattier, Jean Marc, his paintings, 96, 254, 255 Navarre, Henri de. See Henri IV Navarre, King of. See Bourbon, Antoine de Navarre, Queen of. See Albret, Jeanne de Navarre, Nicholas Baron, his manuscripts, 185 Nélaton, Moreau, 203, 239; his drawing in red chalk of Cardinal Odet de Coligny, 237; _Erasmus_, 238; _Le Portrait à la cour des Valois_, 239 _n._ Nemours, Duc de, 56; portraits by Fouquet, 141; _Antiquitates Judæorum_, 183 Nemours, Duchesse de, her description of the Grand Condé, 57 Neubourg, Duc of, portrait by Van Dyck, 133 Nevers, Louis de, portraits of, 214, 223, 238 Nieuwenhuys, M., sells _Mars and Venus_, 135 Nolivos Sale, 137 Nord, Comte du (afterwards Emperor Paul of Russia), his visit to Chantilly, 98-100 Nördlingen, Battle of, 40 Northbrook Collection, 208 Northwick Sale, 135 Nôtre, André Le, lays out the Gardens at Chantilly, 66, 67; statues of, 89, 276 _Numa Pompilius and the Nymph Egeria_, by Poussin, 249 Oberkirch, Baroness, describes the visit of the Comte du Nord to Chantilly, 99, 100 Odet de Foix. See Foix. _Old Man_, by Brothers Lagneau, 245 Orgemont, Pierre de (Chancellor to Charles V of France), owned Chantilly, 3 Orlant, Prince, portrait of, 198 _Orléans, Charles Maximilian_, 239 Orléans, Duc de (afterwards King Louis Philippe), death of Louis Joseph de Condé, 113; breeds English racehorses in France, 116; visit to Chantilly, 118; abdication, 118, 119; portraits of, 137, 266, 267 Orléans, Duchesse de (wife of above), portrait by Gérard, 268 Orléans, Duc de (son of above), portrait of and death, 268 Orléans, Gaston, Duc de (brother of Louis XIII), and the Grand Condé, 55, 56, 57, 60; portraits of, 137, 143; owned _Vierge de la Maison d'Orléans_, 139 Orléans, Girard de, assists Jean de Coste to decorate the Château de Vaudreuil, 200 Orléans, Henri de. See Aumale, Duc de Orléans, Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde de, marriage, 97 Orme, Nicolas, translates Aristotle's _Ethics_, 157 _Oronce Finé_, portrait by Clouet of, 212, 213 Orsini, Marie Felice, pleads in vain for her husband Henri de Montmorency's life, 31, 32 Otto I, Emperor, portrait of, 138 Oudry, M., his works, 132, 256; _Mary Stuart_, 233; character of his work, 255, 256 _Oursine_, meaning of name, 174; portrait of, 176 Palatine, Princess. See Princess Palisse, Seigneur de la, portraits of, 202, 205 Pallavicini, villa at Pegli, illness of Queen Marie Amélie, 161 Palma, Jacopo, _Holy Family_, 145 Panizzi, Sir Antonio, Principal Librarian of the British Museum, 161 _Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini_, by Ingres, 133 Paon, Le, a hunting-scene by, 100 _Papal Legate_, by Fouquet, 207 _n._ _Parement de Narbonne_, now in the Louvre, 154 Paris, breaking out of the Fronde, and blockade of, 44, 45; welcome of the Grand Condé, 55; capture of Paris by the Grand Condé and retreat from, 60; entry of Louis XIV, 65; painting by Dupré, 275 Paris, Comte de. See Louis Philippe Paris, Comte de, abdication of his grandfather Louis Philippe in his favour, 119 Paris, Gaston, _Histoire litteraire de la France_, 157 Pazet, Jean, a follower of Fouquet, 197 Pembroke, Earl of, owner of the _Parement de Narbonne_, 154 Penni, Luca, his works in Musée Condé, 132 Peronneau, M., his works, 261 Perrault, M., 267 Perréal, Jean (Court-painter to Louis XII), his works, 4, 151, 189 _et seq._, 199-210, 218; a follower of Fouquet, 197; history of, 199, 202-210 Perugino, 135 Petit-Château, 6, 123 Philip II, King of Spain, and the Princesse de Condé, 14 Philip le Beau, portrait of, 208 Philippe Augustus, illustrations of events in his life in _Chronique de France_, 182 Philippe Egalité, portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 134; by Fleury, 137; by Vernet, 266 _Philobiblon Miscellanies_, The, 164 Pichius, Albertus, _The Gallic War_, 157 Pichon, Baron, his collection, 246 Pierre des Iles, known as "Macon" of Chantilly, 8 Pisanello, 131 Pisseleu, Jossine (niece of Duchesse d'Estampes), portraits of, 227, 234 Pitt, William, reception in England of Louise de Condé, 110 Pius V, Pope, and Cardinal Odet de Coligny, 237 _Plaisir Pastoral_, by Watteau, 258 _Pluto and Proserpine plucking Daffodils_, by Chapu, 276 Poitiers, Castle of, in _Calendar_ of Months, 170 Poitiers, Diane de (mistress of Henri II), intimate friend of Anne de Montmorency, 7, 230; portraits of, 141, 240, 241; her beautiful daughter "Brasseu," 228; reception at Lyons, 231 Poliziano, writer of sonnets on Simonetta Vespucci, 146 Pollaiuolo, Antonio, 146 Pompadour, Mme. de, and Boucher, 257; portraits of, 257, 263 _Pompey enters the Temple in Triumph_ in _Antiquitates Judæorum_, 189 _Pont de Sèvres_, by S. W. Reynolds, 274 Porcelain, collection of Chantilly, 277 _Port St. Nicholas_, by Dupré, 275 Pot, Anne de (mother of Anne de Montmorency), marriage, 5 Pourbus, portrait of _Henri IV_, 142 Pourtales vase, the famous, 136 Poussin, Nicolas, his works, 135, 146, 249, 250; history of, 249, 250; and Simon Vouet, 251 _Prayer Book of Anne de Bretagne_, 198 _Precieuses Ridicules, The_, acted at Chantilly, 75 Presler, Raoul de, translates St. Augustine's _Cité de Dieu_, 157 _Preux de Marignan_, 151, 157, 202, 204; painted by Perréal, 204, 206 Prie, Mme. de (mistress of the Duc de Bourbon), charms and machinations of, 93, 94; exile and death, 94 Primaticcio, Francesco, his portrait of Henri II, 133, 236; the frescoes at Fontainebleau, 228 Princess Palatine, Charlotte Elizabeth (devoted friend of the Grand Condé), portrait of, 245; Charlotte Elizabeth (second wife of Philippe d'Orléans), 254 _Procession, A_, by Bouts, 146; _of the Magi_, by the Limbourgs, 174, 201 _n._ _Prophets_, by Michael Angelo, 131 Protais, _Avant et après le Combat_, 135 Protestant cause in France, 17-19, 21, 23, 85; disaster at Vimory and Auneau, 26 Provence, Comte de, portrait by Duplessis, 261 Prud'hon, Pierre, works by, 139, 147, 258, 267; Napoleon confers the Legion of Honour on, 267 _Psalter of Queen Ingeburge of Denmark_, 150, 158 Pucelle, Jean, 160 Pyrenees, Peace of the, 64 Quesnel, Brothers, works by, 142, 143, 246 Quesnoy, M. (French sculptor), and Poussin, 249 Quitaut, Captain, arrests the Grand Condé, 48 Quthe, Pierre, portraits by François Clouet, 235, 236 Racine, Jean, at Chantilly, 75, 76, 83 Raimondi, Marc Antonio, works of, 134 Raphael, works by, 130, 139, 140, 148, 149 Ravaillac assassinates Henri IV, 15 _Reading Monk, A_, by Raphael, 130 Reboul's Collection, 149 _Recueils, Gaignière_, 185, 186; _Lenoir_, 214; _Marriette_, 214; _d'Orange_, 214; _du Tillet_, 215; _d'Arras_, 215 _Reine de Mai, La_, 168 Reiset Collection, 130, 144-146, 156, 269 Rembrandt, Paul, _Mountainous Landscape_, 131; other works, 134 Renaissance, distinction between French and Italian, 7; architecture, 187 _Renaissance, La_, by Laborde, 212 René, King, owned _Livre d'Heures_, 202 Rénée de France (Duchesse de Ferrara), her marriage, 221; portraits of, 218, 221 Reni, Guido, his work at Musée Condé, 132 _Repos des paysans, Le_, by Brothers le Nain, 248 _Resurrection_, 138 _Return from the Captivity_, 184 _Return of the Prodigal Son_, by Lucas van Leyden, 131 Retz, Cardinal de. See Gondi, Paul Retz, Duc de, portraits of, 142, 235 Retz, Mme. de, portrait of, 235 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, portraits of _Philippe Egalité_, 134; _Maria Lady Waldegrave with her daughter_, 138 Reynolds, S. W. (Constable's friend and pupil), works by, 138, 274 Rheno-Byzantine painting of _King Otto I_, 138 _Rhetorics._ See Cicero Richelieu, Cardinal, imprisonment of third Prince de Condé, 31; marries his niece to the Grand Condé, 34-36; selects the Grand Condé as Commander-in-Chief, 37; portraits of, 134, 250, 277 Richter, Louise M., _Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft_, 204 Riesener, M., a splendid cabinet at Chantilly by, 134 Rigaud, Hyacinthe, portrait painter, 134, 253 Riom, Castle of, 169 Robertet, François (secretary to Duc de Bourbon), on Josephus' _Antiquities_, 155, 183 Robinson, Sir Charles, sells Italian manuscripts to Duc d'Aumale, 138 Rochefoucauld, Duc de, 56 Rochelle, La, Huguenots' flight to, 21, 23 Rocroy, Battle of, 39 Rohan, Princesse Charlotte de, 110 _Roman Campagna, A View of_, by Dughet, 250 _Roman Campagna, Aqueducts of_, by Claude Lorraine, 250 Romano, Giulio, his works at Musée Condé, 132 _Rome, Plan of_, 152, 177 Rosa, Salvator, works by, 133 Rosso executes frescoes at Fontainebleau, 228 Rothschild, Baron Adolph de, his collection, 165 Rothschild, Baron Edmond de, owner of _Belles Heures de Jean de Berry_, 179 Rothschild, Maurice de, owner of _Book of Hours_, 160 Roye, Eleanore de (wife of first Prince de Condé), marriage and imprisonment of her husband, 17; his release, 19; her death, 20 Russell, Fuller, sells the Jean de France diptych to Duc d'Aumale, 148 Ruysdael, Jacob, _Dunes at Scheveningen_, 139; other works, 147 St. Augustine's _Cité de Dieu_, 157 St. Bartholomew, Massacre of, 20, 22, 243 St. Bertin, fine altarpiece at, 197 _St. Bruno, Scenes from the Life of_, by Le Sueur, 252 _St. Catherine_ on the Louvre, 130 St. Chapelle, 169, 189 St. Denis, Convent of, Claire-Clemence at, 35, 36 _St. Denis, Missal of_, in Victoria and Albert Museum, 160 St. Etienne, Guillaume de, a monk, 157 St. Evremond, his praise of the Grand Condé, 87, 88 _St. Francis._ See _Mystic Marriage of Ste. Geneviève_, by Chavannes, 269 _St. John, Birth of_, by Fouquet, 188, 190 _St. Louis_, by Marqueste, 276 _St. Margaret_, by Fouquet, 186 _St. Martin dividing his Mantle_, in the Conches Collection, 186 _St. Mary Magdalen_, at Frankfort, 269 St. Michel, Mont, 177 _St. Michel, MS. de_, 202 St. Priest, Jehan de, sculptor, 210 St. Simon's _Mémoires_, 91, 246 St. Stephen's Chapel at Westminster, paintings in, 201 _Sacre et l'Intronisation de l'Empereur_, by David, 269 Salerno, Prince de, his collection, 132, 133 _Salière du Pavillon_, by Pol Limbourg, 167 Salting Collection, in the British Museum, 152, 230, 231, 242 San Donato Sale, 139 _Santuario_ at Chantilly, 186 Sarcophagus, antique, _Bacchus and Ariadne_, 137 Sarrazin, Jacques, bronze monument of Henri II de Bourbon, 123 Sarto, Andrea del, his works at Chantilly, 132 Sassetta, _The Marriage of St. Francis of Assisi to Poverty_, 145, 146 Sassoferrato, Giambattista, _Madonna_, 133 Saumur, Castle of, in _Calendar_ of Months, 170 Sauvageot Collection, 214 Savoy, Charles of, owned _The Breviary_, 162 Savoy, Charles Emmanuel, education of, 221 Savoy, Philibert, and Perréal, 209 Scheffer, Ary, works by, 138, 268; his pupil Puvis de Chavannes, 269; and Rousseau, 275 Schlestadt, Battle of, 82 _Second Appearance of Esther before Ahasuerus_, 149 _Second Decade_, Livy's, translated by Pierre Bersuire, 157 Secretan Sale, 152 Seillier, Baron, 150 Senlis, Seigneurs of, also named _Bouteillers_, 3 Sévigné, Mme. de, _Letters of_, describes Chantilly, 76, 83 _Shepherd in the Pyrenees, A_, by Rosa Bonheur, 135 Sienese School, 139 _Sieur de Canaples_, portraits of, 223 Signorelli frescoes, 176 _Simonetta Vespucci_, portrait of, 146 Sixtine Chapel, 131 _Soleil Couchant_, by Dupré, 275 Soltykoff Sale, 136 _Sommeil de Psyche_, by Prud'hon, 267 Sotheby, auctioneer, sale of _Antiquitates Judæorum_, 183 Soubise, Princesse Charlotte de, marriage to sixth Prince de Condé, 96; portraits of, 96, 255; character and death, 97 _Souvenir d'Italie_, by Corot, 275 Spada, Lionello, his work at Musée Condé, 132 Spain, war with France, 38 _et seq._, 78; Grand Condé's alliance with, 61; a lost battle, 63; Peace of Pyrenees, 64 Spain, Elizabeth, Queen of, portrait, 142 Spain, Infanta of, 93 Spinola, General, the captor of Breda, 163 Spinola, Marchese Ambroglio di, history of, 13, 14 Spinoza, Benedict, his Pantheistic doctrines, 87 Standish Library, the famous, 129, 130 _Statutes of the Order of St. Michael, The_, 181 Stella, Jacques, his portrait of the _Grand Condé_, 251 _Stratonice_ (Tribune), by Ingres, 269 Strozzi, Maréchal, portraits of, 231, 235 Stuart, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, portrait of, 133 Stuart, Mary, Queen of Scots, 21 Sueur, Eustache le, his work, 252 Subleyras, M., his portrait of _Pope Benedict XIV_, 142 Sully, Maximilien, Duc de, Minister of Finance, portraits of, 138, 142, 246 _Sunrise and Sunset_, by Boucher, 257 _Surprise, La_, by Greuze, 262 Sutherland Collection, the, 141-143 _Table Ronde_, 157 Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles Maurice de, portraits of, 138, 268 Tanagra figures, four, 141 _Temptation of our Lord, The_, 176 _Tendre Desir, Le_, by Greuze, 262 Teniers, David, the younger, 36, 139 _Terrestrial Paradise_, 173 Thérèse, Marie, Queen of Louis XIV, portrait of, 138 _Thésée découvrant l'épée de son père_, by Poussin, 135, 249 Thevet's series of _Hommes Illustres_, 212, 215 Thionville, Battle of, 40 Thomson, Mr. Yates, his collection, 160, 181; _The Romance of a Book_, 183 _n._ Thouars, Duc de, 24 _Three Graces, The_, by Raphael, 148, 149, 187 _Tiburtine Sybil prophesying to Augustus_, 173 Tiepolo, his works at Musée Condé, 147 Titiens, Tiziano Vecelli, the celebrated painter, _Ecce Homo_, 135 Tixier, Père, and Claire-Clemence, 73 Tott, Mme. de, her portrait of _Louis Joseph de Bourbon_, 265 Touchet, Marie (mistress of Charles IX), portrait of, 244 Tour d'Auvergne, Henri de la. See Turenne Tournon, Just de, portraits by Perréal of, 204, 205 _Toussaint, La_, by Fouquet, 194 Trémoille, Charlotte Catherine de la, portrait of, 16; history and marriage of, 24, 25; her husband's death, 27; compromising conduct of, 28; imprisonment, and birth of a son, 29; abjures the Protestant faith, 30 Trémoille, Duc de la, occupies Chantilly, 119 _Très Belles Heures._ See Book of Hours _Très Riches Heures de Duc de Berry, Les._ See Book of Hours Triqueti, Baron, buys the famous Pourtales vase, 136 Trivulzio, Prince, his collection, 165 Troy, De, _Déjeuner d'Huîtres_, 134 Tudor, Mary, portrait by Perréal, 205 Turenne (Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne), Vicomte de, Commander-in-Chief, 37; war between France and Spain, 38; Battle of Rocroy, 39; Battle of Nördlingen, 40; imprisonment of the Grand Condé, 49; reception of Claire-Clemence at Bordeaux, 52; compels the Grand Condé to retreat from Paris, 60; defeats the Grand Condé in battle near Dunkirk, 63; Peace of the Pyrenees, 64; reception of the Grand Condé, 65; at Chantilly, 75; marches into Flanders, 78; advance on Holland, 79 _et seq._; his death, 82, 83; bust by Derbais of, 277 _Turkish Guards on their way from Smyrna to Magnesia_, by Descamps, 271 _Turkish Landscape_, by Descamps, 271 _Unknown Lady_, by Clouet, 223 _Unknown Young Men_, by Clouet, 223 Utterson Sale, 134 Vaga, Perin del, his works at Musée Condé, 132 _Valere Maxime_, French translation of, 157 Valier, De S., portrait of, 238 Valois, Claude de, portrait of, 244 Valois, Elizabeth de, 233 Valois, Madeleine de, history and portrait of, 218 Valois, Princes of, hostages in hands of the Emperor Charles V, 6 Van der Velde, sea-piece by, 139 Van Dyck, Sir Anthony, his works, 84, 132, 133, 137 Van Loo's portrait of a _Young Woman_, 133 Vâtel, the _maître d'hôtel_ at Chantilly, commits suicide, 76 Vaudreuil, Château de, 200 Vauldy, M. de, the escape of Claire-Clemence, 51, 52 _Vedette des Dragons sous Louis XV_, La, by Meissonier, 272 _Venus Anadyomène_, by Ingres, 147, 270 _Venus and Adonis_, by Prud'hon, 267 Vermandois, Comtesse Eleanore de, 158. Vermandois, Mme. de, 100 Vernet, Joseph, celebrated marine painter, 266 Vernet, Charles (son of above), his works at Musée Condé, 266 Vernet, Horace (son of above), his works at Musée Condé, 266, 267 Veronese, Paolo, his paintings, 84, 135 Verrochio, his drawings, 131 _Vespucci, Simonetta_, portrait of, 146 Victoria and Albert Museum, _Missal of St. Denis_, 160; _Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots_, 232 _n._; Chantilly porcelain, 277 _n._ Vielville, Maréchal de, portraits of, 231, 246 _Vierge de la Maison d'Orléans_, by Raphael, 139 _View near London, A_, by Constable, 273 Vilatte, M., painting by, 42, 146 Vimory, Battle of, 26 Vincennes, Château of, 159 _Virgin_, by Dürer, 131 _Virgin and the Holy Child_, 150 _Virgin as Protector of the Human Race, The_, 42, 146 _Virgin, Coronation of the_, by San Stefano, 145; by Limbourg Brothers, 178 _Virgin, Death of the_, by Giotto, 145 _Virgin, Marriage of the_, by Fouquet, 182, 188 _Virgin with the Infant Christ_, by Fouquet, 181 _Vision of St. Hubert_, by Baudry, 273 _Visitation, The_, by Fouquet, 186, 189 Voldemont, Monsieur de, portrait by François Clouet of, 239 Volterra, Daniele di, his works in Musée Condé, 132 Voragine, Jacopo da, _Legenda Aurea_, 188 Vouet, Simon, and the decoration of the Louvre, 249; Charles Le Brun his pupil, 251 Waagen, Dr. G. F., 161 _Waldegrave with her daughter, Maria Lady_, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 138 Wallace Collection, compared with Musée Condé, 152; _Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne_, medal by Jean Perréal, 209; Watteau's works, 257, 259; Greuze's works, 262; Meissonier's works, 272 Walpole, Horace, his collection, 151 Warner, Mr., Librarian of Royal Library of Windsor, and the _Antiquitates Judæorum_, 183 _Warrior, A_, by Watteau, 258 _Warrior on horseback_, 131 Watteau, Ant., his paintings, 139, 143, 257, 258 Westphalia, Peace of, 44 William of Orange submerges Holland to withstand attacks of France, 79, 81, 82 Winterhalter, F. (Court-painter to Louis Philippe and Napoleon III), _Louis Philippe_, 137; _Duc d'Aumale_, 273 Wirty, De, the Dutch General, 80 _Woman taken in Adultery, The_, by Giorgione, 135 Woodburn Collection, 149 Würmser, the Austrian General, and Condé's regiment, 105 Yates-Thomson. See Thomson _Young Boy_, by Greuze, 262 _Young Girl winding Wool_, by Greuze, 262 _Young Girl in a Cap_, by Greuze, 262 Zanzé, Vicomtesse de, collection of, 246 Ziem, the painter of Venice, _Les Eaux Douces d'Asie_, 276 _Zodiac, The_, in Très Riches Heures, 172 PRINTED BY HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBURY. * * * * * ERRATA (corrected in etext) Page 6, line 6. Boisy _instead of_ Boissy. " 7, " 5. Viollet le Duc _instead of_ Violet le Duc. " 25, " 8. Angers _instead of_ Angera. " 28, " 21. la bague _instead of_ la bagoc. " 105, " 9. Würmser _instead of_ Würmer. " 141, last line. Madame de Lansac _instead of_ Lançai. " 142, line 13. Subleyras _instead of_ Suleyras. " 152, " 11. Détaille _instead of_ Détailleur. " 155, " 8. 1416 _instead of_ 1516. " 157, " 4. Raoul de Presles _instead of_ Raoul de Presler. " " , " 5. Nicolas Oresmes _instead of_ Nicolas Orme. " 162, " 13. 1454 _instead of_ 1545. " 165, " 2 of _Note_. Hours _instead of_ Horus. " 275, " 23. Dupré _instead of_ Duprés. FOOTNOTES: [1] This last-named castle has also been bequeathed to the French nation by its owner. [2] The grandfather of Henri II de Bourbon, husband of the fair Charlotte de Montmorency. [3] When the Cardinal de Lorraine, her uncle, suggested to the young Queen this marriage as political salvation for himself, she exclaimed ironically, "Truly I am beholden to my uncle. So that it be well with him, he careth not what becometh of me." [4] See Plate VII. [5] According to Brantôme, the Duc d'Anjou was inconsolable after her death and for a long time wore deepest mourning for her. [6] See Plate VI. [7] See p. 10 _et seq._ [8] _Journal historique et anecdote de la Cour et de Paris._ [9] Octave Homberg et Fernand Jousselin. [10] See Plate V. [11] Called in Germany "Allerheim" to distinguish it from the battle of Nördlingen, where the Archduke Ferdinand was victorious over Bernard of Weimar in 1434. [12] This stone table is still used as a _rendezvous de chasse_ by the Duc and Duchesse de Chartres. [13] He, however, was generally known not as Prince de Condé but as Duc de Bourbon or Monsieur le Duc. [14] This brought enormous benefits to the Crown, but was the cause of the famine in 1768. [15] "_Histoire de Chantilly pendant la Revolution_," par M. Alexandre Sorel. [16] The Château d'Enghien, built in 1770, was chiefly used for the attendants and suites of the illustrious guests who came to Chantilly. [17] See p. 8. [18] A sketch for the well-known picture of that Saint in the National Gallery. [19] There is a certain affinity between this picture and the portrait in the National Gallery which is said to represent _Ariosto_. [20] The other is the _Madonna del Connestabile_ now in the Hermitage. [21] See Plate XIV. [22] _Der Breslauer Froissart_ von Arthur Lindner. (Berlin, 1912.) [23] A drawing of which is in the British Museum. [24] Bernhard Berenson, _A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend_. (_Burlington Magazine_, 1903). [25] See Plate XXIII. [26] See Plate XII. [27] DEAR AND ROYAL BROTHER, I have just read your appreciative words about me. I write to you with emotion. You are a prince by birth and have become a man. For me your Royalty has ceased to be political and is now historical; my Republican conviction is not disturbed by it. You have contributed to the greatness of France. And I love you. [28] See Plate XXV. [29] Louis Dimier, _Les Portraits peints de François I_. [30] This interesting picture was painted at Calais in 1396 on the occasion of the marriage between Richard II of England and Isabelle, daughter of the King of France. [31] The first volume of this MS. is in the British Museum, and the second with the miniatures of the _Preux de Marignan_ in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. [32] _Purgatorio_, canto II, v. 80. [33] Closely allied to the _Ingeburge Psalter_, and likewise showing English influence, is the _Arsenal_ MS., formerly at the Sainte-Chapelle, and executed for Blanche Castille, mother of St. Louis. [34] Cf. p. 168. [35] It was fortunate indeed that Comte Paul Durrieu had made a reproduction in phototype from the original _Hours of Turin_ before they were burnt; for they were by far the most interesting part of the MS. Some of the miniatures have been attributed to Hubert van Eyck--namely that portion which in 1417 belonged to Count Hainau, who is himself represented in one of them arriving with his train on the shores of the North Sea, where his daughter Jaqueline and her attendant ladies are awaiting him. [36] See Plate XXVII. [37] "_Une Salière d'agathe garnie d'or et de perles, laquelle salière l'artiste donna à monseigneur aux estraignes._"--Léon de Laborde, _Glossaire_, p. 367. [38] See Plate XXVIII. [39] Cf. p. 163. [40] See Plate XXIX. [41] See Plate XXX. [42] See Plate XXXI. [43] See Plate XXXII. [44] See Plate XXXIII. [45] See Plate XXXIV. [46] See Plate XXXV. [47] Masaccio (born in 1401), it is believed, could not have painted the frescoes at San Clemente before 1417; perhaps even, considering his age, rather later. [48] M. de Mely, _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, 1912. [49] Durrieu mentions that one of the _Kings_ seems to have been _inspired_ by this medal, but as a matter of fact he is _faithfully copied_ from it. [50] See Plate XXXVIII. [51] See Plate XXXIX. [52] It was in this castle that the Duc de Berry commissioned André Beauneveu, Pol Limbourg's predecessor, to prepare for him a _Book of Hours_, subsequently completed with the assistance of Jacquemart de Hesdin. This MS., which contains a very characteristic portrait of the _Duke_ himself, is now to be seen in the Library at Brussels. Beauneveu died in 1413, two years before the Brothers Limbourg appeared upon the horizon of French Art. [53] See Plate XXVI. [54] Also called _Heures d'Ailly_, after its former owners. [55] Probably the figure to the right drawn full face, for it bears an unmistakable resemblance to Fouquet's _Portrait of Himself_ in the Louvre, executed in enamel. [56] Cf. _The Romance of a Book_, by Yates Thomson (_Burlington Magazine_, 1906). [57] See Plate XL. [58] See Plate LXI. [59] See Plate XLII. [60] See Plate XLIII. [61] See Plate XLIV. [62] See Plate XLV. [63] We find this composition also in Duccio's famous altarpiece at Siena. [64] All Saints' Day. See Plate XLVIII. [65] _Journal du voyage de Michel Montaigne_, i. p. 17. [66] In the collection of Mr. Ayr in London. [67] M. Leprieur, _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, January 1911. [68] A contemporary monument in the Cathedral at Tours erected by Anne de Bretagne to the memory of these two little boys has assisted greatly in the identification of these portraits. [69] At the sale of the collection of Mr. Robert Hoe in New York there came to light another example of Bourdichon's skill in the _Hours of Anne de Beaujeu_. [70] _MS. 18014_, Bibl. Nat. Paris. [71] There is a portrait of the same monarch in a MS. at The Hague (copied for Gaignières) to which is attached a note giving its date and the name of the artist as a certain Jean de Bruges, who according to M. B. Prost seems to be identical with Johannes Bandol _pictor regis_. [72] The three others, representing _Edward III_, _Charles IV of Germany_, and _Charles, Duke of Normandy_ (afterwards Charles V of France), have unfortunately disappeared. [73] _The Magi with the Portraits of Edward III and Queen Philippa as Donors._ [74] _History of Art in England_ (Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, 1909). [75] Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. [76] A _chef d'oeuvre_ of French miniature-painting during the reign of Charles VIII (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris). [77] See Plate LII. [78] _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, June 1907. [79] Louise M. Richter, _Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft_, July 1909. [80] See Plate L. [81] See Plate LII. [82] See Plate XLIX. [83] _Lettres de Louis XII, Nouvelle citè de l'Heptameron._ [84] See Plate II. [85] See Plate LII. [86] _MS. Fr._ 20,490, fo. 6. These autographs display elegance in handwriting; and one of them refers to a mission with which Perréal was entrusted by Anne de Beaujeu, wife of Pierre de Bourbon, to fetch back the diamonds which she had deposited with Madame du Plessis Bourré during the Civil War. The Court of Moulins at that time was known as a centre of art and literature under the auspices of the cultured daughter of Louis XI. [87] Among the drawings attributed to Fouquet the _Papal Legate_, formerly in the Heseltine Collection, is the best known. [88] Called "of Navarre" because he worked for Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, sister of Francis I. The portrait of _Louis de Saint-Gelais_ in the Louvre (1513-39), of which a drawing is in the British Museum, is attributed to him. [89] See Plate LIII. [90] _Plusiers portraits et effigies au vif qu'il a faictes_, Laborde, _La Renaissance_, p. 15. [91] Laborde, _Comptes des Bâtiments_, III, p. 237. [92] See Plate LV. [93] See Plate LVI. [94] See Plate LXII. [95] Formerly in the Heseltine Collection. [96] I am indebted for this information to Sir Sidney Colvin. [97] See Plate LVII. [98] See Plate LVIII. [99] See Plate LIV. [100] See Plate LXI. [101] See Plate LXII. [102] See Plate LXI. [103] See Plate LVII. [104] Cf. _The Life of Benvenuto Cellini_. A new version by Robert H. Hobart Cust (London: George Bell & Sons, 1910). [105] A town which formed part of her own dowry. [106] See Plate LIX. [107] See Plate LX. [108] See Plate LV. [109] Admirable portraits of this same _Sieur de Canaples_, whose wife was one of the _Petite Bande_ of Francis I, are in the British Museum (Salting Collection) and at the Albertina, Vienna. [110] See Plate LIX. [111] See Plate LXI. [112] See Plate LXV. [113] Collection Deligand, Paris. [114] G. Moreau Nélaton, _Les Le Mannier_. [115] See Frontispiece. [116] See Plate X. [117] See Plate IV. [118] See Plate LXVIII. [119] See Plate IX. [120] See Plate LXXI, British Museum, Salting Collection. [121] See Plate VIII. [122] The painting in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Jones Collection) is also an echo of this same drawing. [123] See Plate LXVII. [124] The nephew of François Clouet, whose signature, _Fulonis fecit_, we find on some of the markedly weaker drawings of the Lecurieux album. [125] See Plate LXV. [126] See Frontispiece. [127] Dimier, _Bulletin de la Société Nationale de Antiquaires de France_. [128] See Plate LXIX. [129] See Plate LXX. [130] See Plate LXXI. [131] See Plate LXXII. [132] The late M. F. A. Gruyer recently presented to the Musée Condé a fine landscape by Claude Lorraine which hangs in the Salle de Minerve, and there are some excellent drawings by this master in the portfolios in the Salle Caroline. [133] See Plate XV. [134] See Plate LXXIII. [135] See Plate LXXIII. [136] See Plate XVI. [137] These may be seen at Versailles. [138] These are exhibited in one of the rooms of the Petit Château. [139] See Plate LXXIV. [140] See Plate LXXVII. [141] See Plate LXXVIII. [142] There are several examples of Chantilly porcelain in the Victoria and Albert Museum. [143] See Plate LXXIX. * * * * * Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: Revue de l'Art Ancienne et Moderne=> Revue de l'Art Ancien et Moderne {pg xxvi} Les Quarante Fouquets=> Les Quarante Fouquet {pg xxvi} Les Le Manniers, Peintres=> Les Le Mannier, Peintres {pg xxvii} Les Clouets, Peintres officiels des Rois de France=> Les Clouet, Peintres officiels des Rois de France {pg xxvii} portraist of, 137, 266, 267=> portraits of, 137, 266, 267 {pg 298} Paremont de Narbonne=> Parement de Narbonne {pg 299} in Tres Riches Heures=> in Très Riches Heures {pg 305} Horus of Turin=> Hours of Turin {pg 165 n.} the the teacher of St. Paul.=> the teacher of St. Paul. {pg 192} 
45744	----	CATALOGUE OF THE GALLERY OF ART OF THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEW YORK PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY 1915 OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY PRESIDENT, JOHN ABEEL WEEKES. FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT, WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE. SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT, WALTER LISPENARD SUYDAM. THIRD VICE-PRESIDENT, GERARD BEEKMAN. FOURTH VICE-PRESIDENT, FRANCIS ROBERT SCHELL. FOREIGN CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, ARCHER MILTON HUNTINGTON. DOMESTIC CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, JAMES BENEDICT. RECORDING SECRETARY, FANCHER NICOLL. TREASURER, FREDERIC DELANO WEEKES. LIBRARIAN, ROBERT HENDRE KELBY. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE FIRST CLASS--FOR ONE YEAR, ENDING 1916. ACOSTA NICHOLS, STANLEY W. DEXTER, FREDERICK TREVOR HILL. SECOND CLASS--FOR TWO YEARS, ENDING 1917. FREDERIC DELANO WEEKES, PAUL R. TOWNE, R. HORACE GALLATIN. THIRD CLASS--FOR THREE YEARS, ENDING 1918. RICHARD HENRY GREENE, JAMES BENEDICT, ARCHER M. HUNTINGTON. FOURTH CLASS--FOR FOUR YEARS, ENDING 1919. BENJAMIN W. B. BROWN, J. ARCHIBALD MURRAY. JAMES BENEDICT, _Chairman_. ROBERT H. KELBY, _Secretary_. [The President, Vice-Presidents, Recording Secretary, Treasurer, and Librarian are members of the Executive Committee.] PREFACE This catalogue describes the paintings in the Gallery of Art of The New York Historical Society, with two hundred and eighty-six miniatures, comprising the Marié Collection and seventy-six objects of Sculpture. The New York Gallery of Fine Arts, presented to the Society in 1858, with paintings donated to the Society at various times, are numbered 1 to 488 inclusive. Any notice of this collection would be deficient which should fail to commemorate the name of Luman Reed, Patron of American Art. In this connection the Society was chiefly indebted to the liberality and cordial coöperation of one of their most valued members, who was himself the chief promoter of the original design of the New York Gallery of Fine Arts, Mr. Jonathan Sturges. The Bryan Collection, presented to the Society in 1867 by the late Thomas J. Bryan, numbers three hundred and eighty-one paintings and are designated by the letter B. before each number. The Durr Collection, presented to the Society in 1882 by the executors of the late Louis Durr, numbers, with subsequent additions, one hundred and eighty-one paintings, which are designated by the letter D. before each number. Short biographical sketches of deceased artists represented in the above collections have been added, together with indexes to Artists, portraits and donors. The Marié Collection of miniatures is arranged alphabetically by subjects and is not included in the index of portraits. CONTENTS PAGES OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY v EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE vi PREFACE vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi SKETCH OF LUMAN REED 2 NEW YORK GALLERY OF FINE ARTS AND REED COLLECTION WITH PAINTINGS DONATED TO THE GALLERY OF THE SOCIETY 3-53 SKETCH OF THOMAS J. BRYAN 56 BRYAN COLLECTION OF PAINTINGS 57-100 SKETCH OF LOUIS DURR 102 DURR COLLECTION OF PAINTINGS 103-118 PETER MARIÉ COLLECTION OF MINIATURES 121-138 SCULPTURE 141-148 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF ARTISTS 151-205 INDEX OF PORTRAITS 209-213 INDEX OF SCULPTURE 214 INDEX OF ARTISTS 215-220 INDEX OF DONORS 221-223 PRESIDENTS OF THE SOCIETY 224 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE PORTRAIT OF ASHER B. DURAND, by Himself 42 PORTRAIT OF THOMAS J. BRYAN, by W. O. Stone 56 A VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH FOUR SAINTS, by Guido of Sienna 58 KNIGHTS AT A TOURNAMENT, by Giotto di Bondone 60 THE BIRTH OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, by Uccello 62 ADORATION OF THE INFANT CHRIST, by Macrino d'Alba 64 THE CRUCIFIXION, by Andrea Mantegna 66 PORTRAIT OF A JANSENIST, by Phillippe De Champagne 68 THE CRUCIFIXION, by Jan Van Eyck 72 PORTRAIT, by Paul Rembrandt 74 PORTRAIT OF A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, by Rubens 76 WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE (WILLIAM III), by Gerard Terburg 78 ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON, by Albrecht Dürer 80 PORTRAITS OF TWO LADIES, by Largillière 86 PORTRAIT OF JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, by Himself 90 PORTRAIT OF CHARLES WILSON PEALE, by Benjamin West 92 BUST OF LOUIS DURR, by Baerer 102 THE THREE MARYS, by Luini 116 THE NEW YORK GALLERY OF FINE ARTS AND REED COLLECTION WITH PAINTINGS DONATED TO THE GALLERY OF THE SOCIETY LUMAN REED Luman Reed was born in Green River, Columbia County, N. Y., in 1785, and died in 1836. He removed when a boy to Coxsackie, N. Y., where he was educated in an ordinary school at the expense of an uncle. Later he was employed in a country store and subsequently became the partner and brother-in-law of his employer. He made frequent trips to New York City on a sloop called the "Shakespeare," belonging to the firm, selling produce of the farms around Coxsackie and purchasing goods in New York for his country store. Later he became a merchant in New York and between the years 1815 and 1832 he gained a fortune. It was then that he began to gratify other instincts and art attracted his attention. He became the patron of American Art and sought the acquaintance of artists, interesting himself in their labors, giving them many commissions for work. Mr. Reed lived at 13 Greenwich Street, this city, the third story of which building he used as a picture gallery, to which visitors were admitted one day each week. This room was also a meeting place for the artists and literary men of the time. The paintings after Mr. Reed's death were purchased by his friends and subsequently constituted the New York Gallery of Fine Arts which, after an uncertain existence of about twelve years, was forced to close its affairs. Eighty of these paintings, presented in 1858, are now in the possession of this Society and known as the New York Gallery of Fine Arts. The death of Mr. Reed was greatly lamented by the artists of his time and his name has come down to this generation as the Patron of American Art. CATALOGUE OF THE GALLERY OF ART NO. SUBJECTS OF PAINTINGS. ARTISTS. 1-5. The Course of Empire. _Thomas Cole._ A series of five pictures, illustrating a nation's rise, progress, greatness, decline, and fall, and the consequent changes in the same landscape. NOTE.--The isolated rock, crowning a precipitous hill, in the distance, identifies the scenes in each of the series; but the observer's position varies in the several pictures. "First freedom, and then glory, when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption." (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) [FIRST OF THE SERIES.] 1. The "Savage State," or "Commencement of Empire." (61½X39.) The sun is rising from the sea, over a wild scene of rocks, forests, and mountains, dissipating the clouds and darkness of night. Man, attired in skins, is seen engaged in the wild dance and the chase--the characteristic occupations of the savage life. In the picture, we have the first rudiments of society. Men have banded together for mutual aid. The useful arts have commenced in the construction of the canoe, the weapon, and the hut; and we may imagine the germs of two of the fine arts, music and poetry, in the singing usually accompanying the dance of the savage. The empire is asserted, to a limited extent, over sea, land, and the animal kingdom. It is the season of Spring--the morning of the nation's existence. [SECOND OF THE SERIES.] 2. "The Arcadian," or "Pastoral State." (62½X39.) Ages have passed; a change has been wrought in the scene--man has subjugated "the untracked and rude." We now see the shepherd and his flocks; the ploughman upturning the soil, and the wafting sail; by the shore a village, and on the hill the ascending smoke of sacrifice. In this picture we have agriculture, commerce, and religion. In the aged man describing the mathematical figure, the rude attempt of the boy in drawing; in the female figure with the distaff, the vessel on the stocks; in the primitive temple, and the dance of the peasants to the music of the pipe, we have evidence of the advance made in science, in the useful and the fine arts. It is early Summer, and the sun has ascended midway to the meridian. [THIRD OF THE SERIES.] 3. "The Consummation of Empire." (75X50½.) The rude village has become a magnificent city. From the bay--now a capacious harbor, with _phari_ at the entrance, and thronged with war-galleys, and barks with silken sails--ascend piles of architecture, temples, domes, and colonnades. The massive bridge, the streets and squares, lined with palaces and adorned with statuary, clustered columns, and sparkling fountains, are crowded with gorgeous pageants and triumphal processions. It is a day of triumph--man has conquered man--nations have been subjugated. By wealth and power, knowledge, art, and taste, man has achieved the summit of human grandeur. The sun is near the meridian. [FOURTH OF THE SERIES.] 4. "Destruction." (62½X38½.) Ages have passed away since the scene of glory. Luxury has enervated, vice has debased, and the strength of the mighty nation has consumed away. A barbarous enemy sacks the city. The heavens are darkened by a tempest, and the storm of war rages beneath, amid falling walls and colonnades, and the flames of temples and palaces. [FIFTH OF THE SERIES.] 5. "Desolation." (61X39½.) The moon ascends the twilight sky, near where the sun rose in the first picture. The last rays of the departed sun illumine a lonely column of the once proud city, on whose capital the heron has built her nest. The shades of evening steal over shattered and ivy-grown ruins. The steep promontory, with its insulated rock, still rears against the sky, unmoved, unchanged; but violence and time have crumbled the works of man, and art is again resolving into elemental nature. The gorgeous pageant has passed; the roar of battle has ceased; the multitude has sunk in the dust; the empire is extinct. 6. Portrait of John Adams, (1735-1826.) (25X30.) _A. B. Durand._ From the original by STUART. (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 7. Portrait of John Quincy Adams, (1767-1848.) (25X30.) _A. B. Durand._ Taken from life, in 1834. (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 8. Portrait of James Monroe, (1758-1831.) (25X30.) _A. B. Durand._ From the original by STUART. (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 9. Portrait of Thomas Jefferson, (1743-1826.) (25X30.) _A. B. Durand._ From the original by STUART. (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 10. Portrait of James Madison, (1751-1836.) (25X30.) _A. B. Durand._ From the original, by STUART, at Bowdoin College, Maine. (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 11. Portrait of Andrew Jackson, (1767-1845.) (25X30.) _A. B. Durand._ Painted from life, in 1835. (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 12. The Chess-Players--Check Mate. (56X44.) _George W. Flagg._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 13. Marine View. (36X25.) _Thomas Birch._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 14. View from Froster Hill, Gloucestershire, England. (24X18.) _Andrew Richardson._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 15. The Goblet and Lemon. (27X32.) _W. Van Aelst._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 16. Falstaff enacting Henry IV. (29X36.) _George W. Flagg._ _Prince Henry._--Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon the particulars of my life. _Falstaff._--Shall I? Content:--this chair shall be my state, this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown. _King Henry IV._, Part i., Act ii., Scene 4. (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 17. An Allegory--Death and Immortality--Antique. (18½X14½.) _Italian School._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 18. Madonna and Infant. (16½X22½.) _German School._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 19. Landscape--Composition--Italian Scenery.(54X37.) _Thomas Cole._ "O, Italy! how beautiful thou art! Yet I could weep, for thou art lying, alas! Low in the dust, and they who come, admire thee As we admire the beautiful in death." _Rogers' Italy._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 20. Sleeping Female. (19X24.) _George W. Flagg._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 21. The Little Savoyard. (18X22.) _George W. Flagg._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 22. Rebecca. (16X20.) _George W. Flagg._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 23. The Truant Gamblers. (30X24.) _William S. Mount._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 24. Interior--Dutch Apothecary Shop.(24½X18.) _Roelof Pietersz._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 25. Pan and Midas. (24X28.) _Hubert Goltzius._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 26. The Pedlar displaying his Wares. (34X24.) _A. B. Durand._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 27. The Woodchopper's Boy. (25X30.) _George W. Flagg._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 28. Wrath of Peter Stuyvesant on learning the capture, by treachery, of Fort Casimir. (30X24.) _A. B. Durand._ "On receiving these direful tidings, the valiant Peter started from his seat--dashed the pipe he was smoking against the back of the chimney--thrust a prodigious quid of tobacco into his left cheek--pulled up his galligaskins, and strode up and down the room, humming, as was customary with him when in a passion, a hideous northwest ditty."--_Knickerbocker's New York_, Book vi. chap. 2. (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 29. Madonna, Infant, and St. Ann. (29X28.) _Italian School._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 30. The Match-Girl, (London.) (25X30.) _George W. Flagg._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 31. Moonlight. (32X24½.) _Thomas Cole._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 32. Portrait of George Washington, (1732-1799.) (25X30.) _A. B. Durand._ From the standard original, by STUART, in the gallery of the Boston Athenæum. (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 33. Lady and Parrot. (29X36.) _George W. Flagg._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 34. The Nun. (24X30.) _George W. Flagg._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 35. Wreath of Flowers, encircling Coat-of-Arms and Miniature of the Duke of Austria, 1658. (33X46.) _J. Marrel._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 36. Lady Jane Grey preparing for execution. (45X56.) _George W. Flagg._ "After uttering these words, she caused herself to be disrobed by her women; and with a _steady, serene countenance_ submitted herself to the executioner."--_Hume_, chap. xxxvi. (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 37. Assumption of the Virgin. (25X19.) _Annibale Caracci._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 38. Portrait of Martha Washington, (1732-1802.) (22X26.) _A. B. Durand._ From the original, by STUART, in the Boston Athenæum. (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 39. Portrait of a Young Lady, taken in 1608. (27X33.) _Flemish School._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 40. The Huntsman's Tent--Game and Dogs after a Hunt, (50X64.) _John Fyt._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 41. Mother Child, and Butterfly. (24X30.) _George W. Flagg._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 42. Autumn Scene--Conway Peak, White Mountains, N. H. (19½X14.) _Thomas Cole._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 43. Dogs Fighting. (20½X16.) _George Morland._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 44. View on Catskill Creek. (24X16.) _Thomas Cole._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 45. Landscape. (13X10.) _Dutch School._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 46. Summer Sunset. (19½X14.) _Thomas Cole._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 47. Old English Sportsman. (24X19.) _George Morland._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 48. Murder of the Princes. (44X56.) _George W. Flagg._ ENTER TYRRELL. "_Tyr._--The tyrannous and bloody act is done: The most arch deed of piteous massacre That ever yet this land was guilty of. Dighton and Forrest whom I did suborn To do this piece of ruthless butchery, Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs, Melting with tenderness and mild compassion, Wept like two children in their death's sad story. _O thus_, quoth Dighton, _lay the gentle babes_, _Which once_, quoth Forrest, _girdling one another_ _Within their alabaster innocent arms;_ _Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,_ _Which in their summer beauty, kiss'd each other._ _A book of prayers on their pillow lay:_ _Which once_, quoth Forrest, _almost changed my mind:_ _But O, the Devil_,--there the villain stopp'd." (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 49. Miniature. (3X2½.) Dutch Enamel. _A. B. Durand._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 50. Boors Gambling. (10X7.) _After Teniers._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 51. Wreath of Flowers, encircling Holy Family--Antique. (11X12.) _Italian School._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 52. The Old Fiddler. (10X8.) _After Teniers._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 53. Miniature. (3½X2½.) Dutch Enamel. _Italian School._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 54. A Magdalen. (18X14.) _After Correggio._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 55. View near Bridgeport, Connecticut. (19X13.) _Andrew Richardson._ (_Reed Collection._) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 56. Portrait of Luman Reed, (1785-1836.) (25X30.) _A. B. Durand._ Patron of American Art. Presented by the Artist. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 57. The Fortune-Teller. (52X42.) _William S. Mount._ The figures in this picture are portraits of Mrs. Amelia Longbotham, as fortune-teller, and the young girl, Edna Bostwick. Presented by the Artist. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 58. Landscape. (36X26.) _C. P. Cranch._ (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 59. Bargaining for a Horse. (30X24.) _William S. Mount._ "Seth suspended for a moment the whittling his twig, and there seemed a crisis in the argument--_a silent pause_--when a shrill voice from the front gate adjourned the meeting instanter. It was the voice of Aunt Nabby herself, breathing authority and hospitality:--_Joshua, come to dinner, and bring the folks along with you."--Jack Downing's Jour., N. Y. Gazette,_ Oct. 28, 1835. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 60. Portrait of Sir Charles L. Eastlake, Artist, (1793-1865.) (44X56.) _Daniel Huntington._ (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 61. Flora. (17½X22½) _Jean Raoux._ Presented by S. M. Chester. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 62. The Vale and Temple of Segestae, Sicily. (65½X44.) _Thomas Cole._ "Midway between Palermo and Segestae, the broad slopes of an ample valley lie before the traveller. In the depth is a river meandering among fragrant oleanders; on the left the valley is intersected by a range of distant mountains; on the right is a beautiful bay of the Mediterranean. Across the valley, the mountains form a green amphitheatre, and high in a remote part is seen the Temple of Segestae."--_Notes of the Artist made on a Tour in Sicily._ Presented by the Artist. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 63. A Venetian Senator. (25X30.) _Cornelius Ver Bryck._ (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 64. The Black Plume. (29X36.) _Charles C. Ingham._ Presented by the Artist. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 65. Portrait of Lafayette, (1757-1834.) (25X30.) _Charles C. Ingham._ Painted from life in 1825, and is the _original_ head from which was made the full-length portrait for the State, now in the State Department, Albany. Presented by the Artist. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 66. Landscape, Moonlight. (37X25.) _Tempesta._ From the collection of Cardinal Fesch. Presented by Miss Eliza Hicks. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 67. The Young Gourmand. (11X13.) _Frederick W. Philip._ (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 68. Portrait of Gevartius. (28X36.) From VAN DYCK. _John Trumbull._ (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 69. Portrait of Rembrandt. (25X33.) From the original. _John G. Chapman._ Presented by the Artist. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 70. Portrait of Pietro Aretino, the Satirist (31X37.) _John G. Chapman._ From the original, by TITIAN, in the Pitti Palace, Florence. Presented by the Artist. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 71. The Image-Pedler. (42X33.) _Francis W. Edmonds._ Presented by the Artist. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 72. The Dutch Bible. (22½X18.) _Cornelius Ver Bryck._ Presented by Daniel Huntington. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 73. Portrait of a Revolutionary Officer (Gen. E. Huntington?) (20X24.) _John Trumbull._ (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 74. Portrait of Dr. Maurice Swabey. (25X30.) _John Trumbull._ An Associate Commissioner with Col. Trumbull at London, 1796. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 75. Landscape--Composition. "The Old Oak." (48X36.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by the Artist. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 76. Portrait of Nicholas Fish, (1758-1833.) (25X30.) _James H. Shegogue._ From the original by INMAN. Presented by Mrs. Nicholas Fish. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 77. Portrait of a Lady, (fancy.) (39X59.) _George W. Flagg._ Presented by the Artist. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 78. A Window-Scene. (14X17½.) (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 79. View near Sandy Hill, New York. (20½x13½.) Water-color. _William G. Wall._ Presented by Grant Thorburn. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 80. Portrait of Macready in character as William Tell. (25X30.) _Thomas S. Cummings._ From the original by H. INMAN. Presented by the Artist. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts._) 81. Portrait of Egbert Benson, (1746-1833.) (22X26.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ From the original by STUART. Presented by the Artist. 82. Portrait of Egbert Benson, (1746-1833.) (25X30.) _Gilbert C. Stuart._ First President of the Society, 1805-1815. Painted from life in 1807, the original of No. 81. Presented by Robert Benson, Jr. 83. Dead Game. (26X32.) _Adéle Evrard._ Presented by John D. Clute. 84. Christ stilling the Tempest. (27X34.) _F. W. Philip._ 85. Landscape, with Figures. (24X20.) 86. Portrait of Rufus Wilmot Griswold, (1815-1857.) (20X24.) _Charles L. Elliott._ Bequest of Rufus W. Griswold, 1857. 87. Portrait of Daniel Seymour. (22X27.) _Thomas S. Cummings._ Presented by Robert Kelly. 88. Mountain Stream in Western Va. (12X14.) _William McLeod._ 89. Portrait of Christopher Colles, (1738-1821.) (10X12.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ 90. Portrait of James Kent, (1763-1847.) (25X30.) _Samuel F. B. Morse._ President of the Society, 1828-1831. Presented by John Delafield. 91. The Mammoth Cave. (37X48.) _Regis Gignoux._ 92. Landscape. (20X15.) 93. Lago Maggiore and the Borromean Islands. (111X147.) Presented by Lewis M. Rutherfurd. 94. Portrait of Gov. Daniel D. Tompkins, (1774-1823.) (58X90.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ Presented by Thomas E. Davis. 95. Portrait of Gen. Joseph Reed, (1741-1785.) (16X20.) _J. C. Hagen._ Copy from the original by C. W. PEALE. Presented by the Artist. 96. Portrait of Gilbert C. Stuart, (1755-1828.) (3X2½.) _Anson Dickinson._ Miniature on ivory. Presented by S. W. and V. M. Francis. 97. Portrait of Alexander J. Dallas, (1759-1817.) (23½X29.) _John W. Jarvis._ Purchased from the American Museum Collection, 1863. Presented by William D. Abbatt. 98. Storm at Sea. (32X19½.) 99. The Bay of New York from Castle Garden. (33½X24½.) 100. Portrait of the Artist. 1841. (9X10½.) _Jeremiah Nims._ This promising young Artist died at Kingston, Jamaica, W. I., March 6, 1842, aged 24 years and 2 months. Presented by Mrs. Charles A. Davis. 101. Bacchante and Satyr. (59X44.) _John Vanderlyn._ From the original by ANNIBALE CARACCI in the Pitti Palace. 102. Portrait of N. P. Willis, (1806-1867.) (28X36.) _William A. Wall._ Painted in Italy about 1833. 103. Portrait of Alexander Hamilton, (1757-1804.) (19X22.) _Charles Wilson Peale._ Presented by Duncan C. Pell. 104. Portrait of Alexander Hamilton, (1757-1804.) (9X11.) Crayon. _James Sharpless._ Presented by Dr. Samuel Akerly, November 12, 1816. 105. Portrait of Samuel L. Mitchell, M.D., (1764-1831.) (7X9.) Crayon. _James Sharpless._ Presented by Dr. Samuel Akerly, November 12, 1816. 106. Portrait of John Pintard, (1759-1818.) (25X30.) _John Trumbull._ Founder of the Society. Recording Secretary, 1805-1819; Librarian, 1810-1811; Treasurer, 1819-1827. Painted for the Society, 1817. 107. Portrait of John Pintard, (1759-1818.) (Miniature.) _John Ramage, 1787._ Presented by his grandson, George Hancock Servoss, February 6, 1906. 108. Portrait of Elizabeth (Brasher) Pintard, (1765-1838.) (Miniature.) _John Ramage, 1787._ Presented by her grandson, George Hancock Servoss, February 6, 1906. 109-110. Pair of wristlets worn by Mrs. John Pintard, one bearing portrait of John Pintard, and the other a painting representing "Justice." (Painted on ivory.) Presented by Henry C. Eno, M.D., February 18, 1909. 111. Portrait of Hernando Cortes. (19X25.) Copied from the original in the Florence Gallery. Presented by Mrs. Gouverneur Morris, January 14, 1817. 112. Portrait of Americus Vespucius. (19X25.) Copied from the original in the Florence Gallery. Presented by Mrs. Gouverneur Morris, January 14, 1817. 113. Portrait of Christopher Columbus, (1446-1506.) (19X25.) Copied from the original in the Florence Gallery. Presented by Mrs. Gouverneur Morris, January 14, 1817. 114. Portrait of Fernando Magalhaens. (19X25.) Copied from the original in the Florence Gallery. Presented by Mrs. Gouverneur Morris, January 14, 1817. 115. Portrait of Robert Morris, (1734-1806.) (24X29.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ From the original by STUART. Presented by Thomas Morris, September 9, 1817. 116. Portrait of John Jones, M.D., (1729-1791.) (3½X3½.) _Samuel Folwell._ Miniature, drawn at New York, May 25, 1790. Presented by David Hosack, M.D., October 7, 1817. 117. Portrait of Lafayette, (1757-1834.) (19½X24.) Oval. Painted 1791. Presented by General Ebenezer Stevens, October 7, 1817. 118. Portrait of Gouverneur Morris, (1752-1816.) (28X36.) _Ezra Ames._ First Vice President of the Society, 1810-1815, and President, 1816. Presented by Stephen Van Rensselaer, of Albany, November 11, 1817. 119. Portrait of Chief Justice John Jay, (1745-1829.) (25X30.) Joseph Wright. Painted 1786. Presented by John Pintard, November 11, 1817. 120. Portrait of Chief Justice John Jay, (1745-1829.) (40X50.) _Oliver Lay._ From the original by GILBERT C. STUART. Presented by Miss Elizabeth Clarkson Jay, October 1, 1889. 121. Portrait of John C. Kunze, D.D., (1744-1807.) (25X30.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ Copied for the Society from a picture in possession of Mrs. Kunze and presented by his family, July 14, 1818. 122. Portrait of Myles Cooper, D.D., (1735-1785), second President of Columbia College. Copy from COPLEY. (25X30.) Presented by Nicholas William Stuyvesant, May 9, 1820. 123. Portrait of Rev. Samuel Provoost, D.D., (1742-1815.) (28X36.) _Thomas S. Duché._ Presented by Mr. and Mrs. Cadwallader D. Colden, January 11, 1825. 124. Portrait of William Smith, (1728-1793), Historian of New York. (Miniature.) _H. Stubble._ Presented by David Hosack, M.D., 1828. 125. Portrait of Thomas Jefferson, (1743-1826.) (18½X26½.) Copy from original by STUART. Presented by David Hosack, M.D., November 11, 1828. 126. Portrait of Jesse Hawley, (1773-1842.) (3X3½.) _Ezra Ames._ Miniature on ivory. Presented by Jesse Hawley. 127. Portrait of Jesse Hawley, (1773-1842.) (25X30.) _Grove S. Gilbert._ Presented by Jesse Hawley, January 10, 1832. 128. Portrait of Elihu H. Smith, (1771-1798.) (7X9.) Crayon. _James Sharpless._ Painted 1797. Presented by David Hosack, February 19, 1833. 129. Portrait of Sebastian Cabot, (1477-1557?) (29X36.) _Cephas G. Thompson._ Painted at the request of the Society, 1841, from the supposed original by HANS HOLBEIN, which was the property of the late Richard Biddle, author of a Memoir of Cabot. A full account of the original portrait may be found in that work, pp. 317-320. It is supposed to have adorned the royal gallery at Whitehall. Presented by the Artist, January 5, 1841. 130. Portrait of Albert Gallatin, (1761-1849.) (25X30.) _William H. Powell._ President of the Society, 1843-1849. Painted from life in 1843. Presented by the Artist, February 6, 1844. 131. Portrait of John Quincy Adams, (1767-1848.) (25X30.) _Edward D. Marchant._ Presented by the Artist, October 1, 1844. 132. Portrait of Peter Van Schaack, (1747-1832.) (23½X28.) Presented by Frederic de Peyster, January 7, 1845. 133. Portrait of Lewis Morris, (1698-1762), Judge of the Vice Admiralty for N. Y., Conn. and N. J. (24X30.) Presented by one of his grand-daughters through William A. Whitehead, Newark, N. J., January 7, 1845. 134. Portrait of Lord Lyndhurst, (1772-1863.) (48X50.) _Samuel S. Osgood._ Sir John Singleton Copley, son of John Singleton Copley, Artist. Presented by the Artist, June 2, 1846. 135. Portrait of Philip Schuyler, (1695-1745.) (33X41.) Presented by Henry C. Van Schaack, Manlius, N. Y., January 26, 1847. 136. Portrait of Catalina Schuyler, (1705-1758.) (32X38.) Presented by Henry C. Van Schaack, Manlius, N. Y., January 26, 1847. 137. Portrait of Alexander H. Everett, (1792-1847.) (3½X4½.) _Washington Blanchard._ Miniature on ivory. Presented by the Artist, February 6, 1849. 138. Portrait of De Witt Clinton, (1769-1828.) (36X50.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ Second Vice President of the Society, 1810-1815; First Vice President, 1816; President, 1817-1819. Presented by the Heirs of Samuel S. Howland, November 7, 1854. 139. Portrait of De Witt Clinton, (1769-1828.) (49½X40.) _Charles Ingham._ Presented by Nelson Robinson, 1909. 140. View of a Seaport. (48X26½.) Presented by John MacGregor, M. P., October 5, 1855. "I purchased it at the sale of the late Lord Fitzgerald's collection; and as a precious historical painting, and not as a mere Landscape, although it is an admirable Picture."--_Extract from a letter of John MacGregor, M.P., to John Romeyn Brodhead, dated House of Commons, June 19, 1852._ 141. Portrait of Luther Bradish, (1783-1863.) (34X44.) _Thomas Hicks._ Vice President of the Society, 1845-1849, and President, 1850-1863. Presented by the Artist, March 4, 1856. 142. Portrait of the Earl of Carlisle, (1748-1825.) (44X56.) _Daniel Huntington._ Presented by the Artist, March 4, 1856. 143. Portrait of Fitz-Greene Halleck, (1790-1867.) (20X24.) Oval. _John G. Taggart._ From the original by C. L. ELLIOTT. Bequest of Rufus W. Griswold, 1857. 144. Portrait of Mrs. Mary E. Hewitt, (1818-.) (25X30.) _Samuel S. Osgood._ Presented by Mrs. Mary E. Hewitt Stebbins, April 15, 1861. 145. Portrait of Capt. John A. Sutter, (1803-1880.) (14½X18.) _Samuel S. Osgood._ Bequest of Rufus W. Griswold, 1857. 146. Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe, (1809-1849.) (22X26.) Oval. _Samuel S. Osgood._ Bequest of Rufus W. Griswold, 1857. 147. Portrait of Frances S. Osgood, (1811-1850.) (25X30.) _Samuel S. Osgood._ Bequest of Rufus W. Griswold, 1857. 148. Portrait of Alice Carey, (1820-1871.) (25X30.) Oval. _Samuel S. Osgood._ Bequest of Rufus W. Griswold, 1857. 149. Portrait of Thomas Campbell, (1777-1844.) (25X30.) _Samuel S. Osgood._ Bequest of Rufus W. Griswold, 1857. 150. Tobias and the Angel Gabriel. (75X53.) _Rembrandt School._ Thought to be by FERDINAND BOL, one of REMBRANDT'S pupils, and a very successful imitator of the style of his master. He was born at Dort, 1611; died 1681. This painting has been highly commended by connoisseurs and artists--among the latter may be mentioned the late lamented Thomas Cole. Presented by T. W. C. Moore, December 1, 1857. 151. Game, Fish, Fruit, Vegetables, etc. (77X59.) _Francis Snyders._ The two figures were probably put in by either RUBENS or JORDAENS. Presented by T. W. C. Moore, December 1, 1857. 152. The Artist showing his first Picture to his Parents. Group of Portraits, painted in 1788. (50X43.) _William Dunlap._ Presented by John Crumby, 1858. 153. Portrait of James Rivington (1724-1802.) (28X36.) Presented by Samuel C. Ellis, M.D., January 6, 1858. 154. Portrait of John Randolph of Roanoke, (1773-1833.) (22X27.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ Painted in Baltimore in 1811 from the original by JARVIS. Presented by Washington Irving, May 18, 1858. 155. Portrait of Gov. George Clinton, (1739-1812.) (41X53.) _Ezra Ames._ Presented by George Clinton Tallmadge, May 4, 1858. 156. Portrait of Rajah Rammohun Roy, (1773-1833.) (25X30.) _Rembrandt Peale._ Indian Scholar. Painted at London, in August, 1833, about six weeks before his death. Presented by J. K. Herrick, April 5, 1858. 157. Portrait of Thomas De Witt, D.D., (1791-1874.) (25X30.) _William Cogswell._ Second Vice President of the Society, 1840-1849; First Vice President, 1850-1869, and President, 1869-1871. Presented by the Artist. 158. Portrait of Thomas De Witt, D.D., (1791-1874.) (29X36.) _Samuel B. Waugh._ Presented by Theodore Cuyler, of Philadelphia, and Morris K. Jesup, of New York, October 5, 1858. 159. Portrait of Elisha Kent Kane, (1820-1857.) (51X42.) _Thomas Hicks._ Presented by several Ladies of New York, January 4, 1859. 160. Portrait of Aaron Burr, (1756-1836.) (8X10.) _John Vanderlyn._ Presented by ten members of the Society, June 7, 1859. 161. Wreck of the Medusa. (77X50½.) _Jean L. T. A. Gericault._ Bequest of Uriah P. Levy, 1862. 162. Vision of the Archbishop of Rouen. (44X57.) _C. A. Vanloo._ Bequest of Uriah P. Levy, 1862. 163. Peasants Dancing. (77X57.) _Carl Bruner._ Bequest of Uriah P. Levy, 1862. 164. Portrait of Cachasunghia, Osage Warrior. (15¼X21¼.) Crayon. _St. Memin._ Purchased June 5, 1860. 165. Portrait of an Osage Warrior. (15¼X21¼.) Crayon. _St. Memin._ Purchased June 5, 1860. 166. Portrait of Payouska, Chief of the Great Osages. (15¼X21¼.) Crayon. _St. Memin._ Purchased June 5, 1860. 167. Portrait of a Chief of the Little Osages. (15¼X21¼.) Crayon. _St. Memin._ Purchased June 5, 1860. 168. Portrait of an Osage Warrior. (15¼X21¼.) Crayon. _St. Memin._ Purchased June 5, 1860. 169. Portrait of an Indian of the "Iowas of the Missouri." (15¼X21¼.) Crayon. _St. Memin._ Purchased June 5, 1860. 170. Portrait of an Indian Girl of the "Iowas of the Missouri." (15¼X21¼.) Crayon. _St. Memin._ Purchased June 5, 1860. 171. Portrait of a Delaware Indian. (15¼X21¼.) Crayon. _St. Memin._ Purchased June 5, 1860. 172. Portrait of Charles Fenno Hoffman, (1806-1887.) (25X30.) _Cephas G. Thompson._ Presented by the Artist, November 6, 1860. 173. Portrait of Americus Vespucius. (30X40.) Copy from the original by PARMIGIANO in the Royal Gallery at Naples. Presented by R. K. Haight, November 6, 1860. 174. Portrait of Christopher Columbus (30X40.) Copy from the original by PARMIGIANO in the Royal Gallery at Naples. Presented by R. K. Haight, November 6, 1860. 175. Portrait of Henry Rutgers, (1745-1830.) (24X29.) _Henry Inman._ "Painted by the late HENRY INMAN, about the year 1828. The original I have in my possession, from which two copies were made by Mr. Inman and given to my uncle, Col. Rutgers; the one you have received, to his particular political friend, John Targee, and the other to the Rutgers College, at New Brunswick, N. J."--_Extract from letter of W. B. Crosby._ Presented by P. R. Bonnett, April 2, 1861. 176. Portrait of Seth Grosvenor. (25X30.) _John G. Taggart._ Founder of the Grosvenor Fund of the Society, 1858. Painted for the Society and received June 18, 1881. 177. Portrait of Gen. Anthony Wayne, (1745-1796.) (24X29.) Presented by George Folsom, June 18, 1861. 178. Portrait of Rip Van Dam, (1662-1736.) (26X29.) Oval. Presented by his great-great-granddaughter, Mrs. Emily Verplanck Goodwin, November 4, 1862. 179. Portrait of Mrs. Rip Van Dam, (Sarah Vanderspiegle.) (26X29.) Oval. Presented by her great-great-granddaughter, Mrs. Emily Verplanck Goodwin, November 4, 1862. 180. Portrait of Henry Abbott, M.D., (1812-1859.) (51X40.) _Thomas Hicks._ Founder of the Egyptian Museum. Painted for the Society, 1863. 181. Portrait of Peter Remsen. (26X33.) _Samuel L. Waldo._ Bequest of Edward A. Newton, February 3, 1863. 182. The Sibyl. (25X30.) _Daniel Huntington._ Presented by the American Art Union, April 7, 1863. 183. Portrait of Daniel Stanton. (25X30.) _Charles L. Elliott._ Presented by the American Art Union, April 7, 1863. 184. Portrait of Prosper M. Wetmore, (1798-1876.) (25X30.) _Charles L. Elliott._ Member of the Executive Committee of the Society, 1842-1848. Presented by the American Art Union, April 7, 1863. 185. Portrait of John Wakefield Francis, M.D., (1789-1861.) (25X30.) _Charles L. Elliott._ Librarian of the Society, 1812-1818, and Corresponding Secretary, 1817-1818. Presented by the American Art Union, April 7, 1863. 186. Portrait of John Wakefield Francis, M.D., (1789-1861.) (25X30.) Oval. _James Bogle._ Presented by the Artist, March 3, 1868. 187. Portrait of William Cullen Bryant, (1794-1878.) (25X30.) _Henry Peters Gray._ Foreign Corresponding Secretary of the Society, 1871-1872, and First Vice President, 1873-1878. Presented by the American Art Union, April 7, 1863. 188. Portrait of Clarkson Crolius, (1805-1887.) (24X30.) _Ezra Ames._ Painted 1825. Speaker of the House of Assembly, State of New York, 1825. Presented by his son, Clarkson Crolius, May 5, 1863. 189. Portrait of Mrs. Clarkson Crolius. (24X29½.) _Benjamin A. Wallace._ (Wife of the above.) Bequest of Clarkson Crolius, 1887. 190. Portrait of John Watts, (1749-1836.) (27X34.) _John W. Bolles._ Copied from the original by HENRY INMAN. Presented by his grandson, J. Watts de Peyster, October 10, 1863. 191. Portrait of John Stanford, D.D., (1754-1834.) (27X33½.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ Chaplain to the Humane and Criminal Institutions in the city of New York. Presented by Aaron B. Hays, March 1, 1864. 192. Portrait of Bryan Rossiter. (25X30.) _John Trumbull._ The first sergeant-at-arms of the N. Y. State Society of the Cincinnati, painted in the uniform of the Revolutionary Army. Deposited by the N. Y. State Society of the Cincinnati, March 1, 1864. 193. Portrait of Richard Bayley, M.D., (1745-1801.) (18X21½.) _J. H. Lazarus._ From the original by STUART. Presented by his grandson, the Rt. Rev. J. Roosevelt. Bayley, D.D., July 4, 1864. 194. Hector parting with his Wife and Child at the Scæan Gate. (42X48.) _Benjamin West._ Presented by William H. Webb, January 3, 1865. 195. Chryseïs returned to her father Chryses. (42X48.) _Benjamin West._ Presented by William H. Webb, January 3, 1865. 196. Portrait of Gen. William Irvine, (1741-1804.) (25X30.) _J. R. Lambdin._ From the original by ROBERT E. PINE. Presented by William A. Irvine, November 7, 1865. 197. Portrait of William L. Stone, (1792-1844.) (25X30.) _Edward D. Marchant._ Member of the Executive Committee of the Society, 1823-1824 and 1843. Presented by John B. Hall, October 2, 1866. 198. Portrait of Thomas J. Bryan, (1800-1870.) (25X30.) _William O. Stone._ Founder of the Bryan Collection. Painted for the Society, 1867. 199. Portrait of Roger Gerard Van Polanen, (1831.) (25X30.) _James Frothingham._ Minister Resident of the Batavian Republic, 1795-1802. Presented by S. Alofsen, June 18, 1867. 200. Portrait of Fitz-Greene Halleck, (1790-1867.) (13½X15½.) _G. W. Twibill, Jr._ From the original by HENRY INMAN. See No. 216. Presented by Mrs. Charles A. Davis, May 5, 1868. 201. Portrait of Fitz-Greene Halleck, (1790-1867.) (3½X5.) Pencil drawing, (1831.) _Henry Inman._ Presented by Mrs. Charles A. Davis, May 5, 1868. 202. View of the Falls of Niagara. (29X168½.) _John Trumbull._ Taken from under the Table Rock. Presented by Dr. Alexander E. Hosack, February 4, 1868. 203. View of the Falls of Niagara. (29X168½.) _John Trumbull._ Taken from the road two miles below Chippawa. Presented by Dr. Alexander E. Hosack, February 4, 1868. 204. Portrait of William Johnson, (1770-1848.) (25¾X31½.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ One of the original corporators of the Society. Painted in 1819. Presented by Horace Binney, Jr., April 7, 1868. 205. Portrait of George W. Bethune, D.D., (1805-1862.) (25X30.) Oval. _Rembrandt Peale._ Presented by John H. Brower, June 1, 1869. 206. Theodore Allen. (Cameo.) Executed in 1835. Son-in-law of Luman Reed. Presented by Jonathan Sturges, March 5, 1870. 207. Portrait of James Madison, (1751-1836.) (20X24.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by P. Kemble Paulding, January 4, 1870. 208. Portrait of James Madison, (1751-1836.) (Miniature.) Presented by Miss Mary Cruger, February 3, 1873. 209. Jacob's Dream. (70X51.) _Luther Terry._ Presented by Mr. Luther Terry, in the name of the late Mrs. Eliza Hicks Rieben, March 7, 1871. 210. Portrait of William W. Van Ness, (1776-1823.) (26½X33.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ Justice Supreme Court, New York. Presented by Marshall S. Bidwell, November 7, 1871. 211. Portrait of Ambrose Spencer, (1765-1848.) (25X30.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ Chief Justice Supreme Court, New York. Presented by Marshall S. Bidwell, November 7, 1871. 212. Fruit Piece--Strawberries, etc. (19½X23½.) _Nicholas Van Gelder._ Signed N. Van Gelder, 1674. Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 213. Fruit Piece--Grapes, etc. (19½X23½.) _Nicholas Van Gelder._ Signed N. Van Gelder, 1674. Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 214. Interior--Old Man eating. (11½X14½.) _Dominick Van Tol._ Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 215. Doctor and Bottle. (7¼X9½.) _Gerard Douw._ This picture was purchased in Paris in 1832 during the prevalence of the cholera; it is signed by the artist with his monogram in the left-hand corner. Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 216. Portrait of Fitz-Greene Halleck, (1790-1867.) (25X30.) _Henry Inman._ This picture was painted in the year 1828 for Gen. George P. Morris. Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 217. Female Head. (8½X11.) _Sir Thomas Lawrence._ Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 218. St. John in the Desert. (6X8.) _Juan de Valdez._ Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 219. St. Peter after denying Christ. (6X8.) _Juan de Valdez._ Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 220. La Toilette. (14½X18.) _Jean François De Troy._ A Lady preparing for a masked Ball. Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 221. Landscape. (14X16.) _Matthew Withoos._ Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 222. Assumption of the Virgin. (24X32.) _Don Juan Carrenno de Miranda._ Bought in Madrid, 1842. Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 223. Landscape--Monks at their Devotions. (45¼X33¼.) _Salvator Rosa._ Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 224. Music Party. (28½X20.) _Anthony Stevers (Palamedes)._ Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 225. Landscape--Gypsies crossing a Brook. (35X27¼.) _D. Brown._ Bought at Olmstead's sale, April, 1836, who sold it as a Morland, unaware perhaps that it was signed by Brown, who was one of his most successful imitators. Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 226. Portrait of Cinq Mars. (1620-1642.) (31½X41.) _Diego Velasquez._ This picture was bought in Paris, in the year 1827, of Le Court, a miniature painter, who had it from J. B. Le Prince, the well-known French artist; the latter said it was a portrait of Cinq Mars, and by Velazquez. Bequest of T. W. C. Moore, 1872. 227. Portrait of Frederic de Peyster, (1796-1882.) (29X36.) _G. Gerhard._ Recording Secretary of the Society, 1829-1837; Second Vice President, 1850-1863, and President, 1864-1866 and 1873-1882. Painted for the Society, and presented by Frederic de Peyster, October 1, 1872. 228. Landscape. (8½X7¾.) _Thomas Gainsborough._ Presented by Maria J. B. Browne, October 1, 1872. 229. Portrait of a Gentleman. (26X35.) Presented by Miss Elizabeth Richard, January 7, 1873. 230. Portrait of a Lady. (24X29.) Presented by Miss Elizabeth Richard, January 7, 1873. 231. Portrait of a Gentleman. (25X30.) Presented by Miss Elizabeth Richard, January 7, 1873. 232. Portrait of James Monroe, (1758-1831.) (Miniature.) Presented by Miss Mary Cruger, February 4, 1873. 233-246. The Incas of Peru. A collection of fourteen paintings in oil on canvas, bearing inscriptions designating the name and succession of each monarch. They are said to be the original pictures from which the portraits of the Incas were engraved for the work of Herrera--"_Historia general de los Hechos de los Castellanos_," etc., published at the beginning of the 17th century (1601-15), and reproduced in the edition by Barcia in 1726-30. This series of the Incas, as given by Herrera, differs from that of Garcilasso, in the addition of Vrco (241), who is said to have reigned only eleven days, and the omission of Yupanqui, the son of Pachacutec (242). Presented by Frederic de Peyster, April 1, 1873. 233. Manco Capac, First Inca. (21X23.) 234. Sinchi Roca, Second Inca. (21X23.) 235. Lloqui Yupanqui, Third Inca. (21X23.) 236. Mayta Capac, Fourth Inca. (21X23.) 237. Capac Yupanqui, Fifth Inca. (21X23.) 238. Inca Roca, Sixth Inca. (21X23.) 239. Yahuar Huacac, Seventh Inca. (21X23.) 240. Viracocha, Eighth Inca. (21X23.) 241. Vrco, Ninth Inca. (21X23.) 242. Pachacutec, Tenth Inca. (21X23.) 243. Tupac Yupanqui, Eleventh Inca. (21X23.) 244. Huayna Capac, Twelfth Inca. (21X23.) 245. Huascar, Thirteenth Inca. (21X23.) 246. Atahualpa, Fourteenth Inca, put to death by order of Pizarro, August 29, 1533. (21½X23½.) 247. Portrait of William Shaler, (1778-1833.) (22½X28½.) U. S. Consul at Algiers and Havana. Presented by Daniel P. Ingraham, April 7, 1874. 248. Portrait of Ezra L'Hommedieu, (1734-1811.) (27½X32½.) _James Earle._ Presented by Daniel P. Ingraham, April 7, 1874. 249. Portrait of Erastus C. Benedict, (1800-1880.) (31X39.) _William H. Powell._ Foreign Corresponding Secretary of the Society, 1879-1880; Second Vice President, 1871, and First Vice President, 1872. Presented by Erastus C. Benedict, May 5, 1874. 250. Portrait of Mrs. Estelle A. Lewis, (1824-1880.) (25X30.) _C. L. Elliott._ Presented by Mrs. Lewis, June 2, 1874. 251. Portrait of Rev. John Rodgers, D.D., (1727-1811.) (7X9.) Presented by Mrs. William Gerard, October 24, 1874. 252. Portrait of Henry Clay, (1777-1852.) (25X30.) _Samuel S. Osgood._ Presented by Alice Talbot Lancey, February 14, 1875. 253. The Cavalry Charge of Lt. Harry B. Hidden. (75X45.) _V. Nehlig._ This gallant charge was made near Sangster's Station, Va., March 9, 1862. Lieut. Hidden, with fourteen of the 1st N. Y. Cavalry, charged a rebel outpost of one hundred and fifty infantry, driving them back, killing three, wounding five, and capturing fourteen. Lieut. Hidden was killed in the early part of the action. Presented by William H. Webb, June 5, 1875. 254. Interior of the Park Theatre, New York City, November, 1822. (22½X31.) _John Searle._ This water-color drawing of the new Park Theatre was made for William Bayard by an amateur artist; it represents the stage as occupied by Charles Mathews in the character of Morbleu, and Miss Ellen A. Johnson as Madame Bellegarde in Moncrieffe's popular farce of "Monsieur Tonson." The body of the house was filled by the artist with portraits of many of the most prominent citizens of New York at that time. Presented by the heirs of Mrs. Harriet Bayard Van Rensselaer, October 5, 1875. 255. Portrait of Robert R. Livingston, (1718-1775.) (34X45.) _John Vanderlyn._ This portrait was painted at Paris, in 1804, and presented to the American Academy of Fine Arts in New York, July 6, 1805, where it remained until that institution was dissolved. Presented by Mrs. Thomson Livingstone, October 3, 1876. 256. Portrait of Col. Andrew Warner, (1806-1899.) (29X36.) _George A. Baker._ Recording Secretary of the Society, 1846-1849 and 1854-1899. Painted for the Society, 1877. 257. Portrait of Gen. Aaron Ogden, (1756-1839.) (25X30.) _A. B. Durand._ Governor of New Jersey, and President-General of the Society of the Cincinnati. Painted, 1834. Presented by several members of the Society, October 2, 1878. 258. Portrait of Gulian C. Verplanck, (1786-1870.) (25X30.) _Charles C. Ingham._ Second Vice President of the Society, 1868-1869, and First Vice President, 1870. Painted about 1830. Presented by several members of the Society, October 2, 1878. 259. Portrait of Antonio Lopez de Santa Aña, (1795-1876.) (25X30.) _Paul L'Ouvrier._ Painted from life, about 1858. Presented by Frederic De Peyster, October 2, 1878. 260. Portrait of John A. Dix, (1798-1879.) (40X50.) _Daniel Huntington._ Second Vice President of the Society, 1870. Painted for the Society, 1880. Presented by Charles O'Conor. 261. Vase of Flowers. (13X17.) Mary L. Baker. Presented by Richard E. Mount, February 3, 1880. 262. Portrait of Charles P. Daly, (1817-1899.) (25X30.) _William Page._ Founder of the "Charles P. Daly Fund" of the Society. Painted in 1848. Presented, June 7, 1881, by Mrs. Charles P. Daly. 263. Portrait of a Lady. (34X46.) Presented by Frederic De Peyster, February 7, 1882. 264. Portrait of a Gentleman. (34X46.) This and the preceding picture came from Castleton, Staten Island, N. Y., the former residence of the Colonial Governor, Colonel Thomas Dongan. They are portraits of members of the Dongan family, and were purchased from the collection of the Hon. Caleb Lyon, January, 1882. Presented by Frederic De Peyster, February 7, 1882. 265. Portrait of Cornelius Steenwyck, (-1684.) (9½X12½.) Presented by Mrs. Eliza M. Clarke, of the Locusts, near Shrewsbury, N. J., November 4, 1856, through G. de Haert Gillespie, Esq. 266. Portrait of Cornelius Steenwyck, (-1684.) (24½X13½.) _Jan Van Goosen._ Steenwyck was prominent in the early annals of New York as Burgomaster, etc., under the Dutch, and Member of the Assembly, Alderman, Member of the Council, and Mayor under the English rule. This picture is supposed to have been painted at Haarlem, Holland, 1667-1668, at which time Steenwyck was visiting his sister, the wife of the artist Van Goosen. It remained for more than a century in the family of Colonel Anthony White, from one of whose descendants--Miss Isabella J. Evans, of New Brunswick, N. J.--it came into the possession of the Society in December, 1882. The portrait is surmounted by the arms of Steenwyck, and below it is a view of the city of New Amsterdam, from a sketch made about 1656. The head of Steenwyck, No. 265 of this Catalogue, seems to have been copied from this picture. Presented by several members of the Society, December 5, 1882. 267. Portrait of Thomas Payne, (1717-1799.) (23X29.) _G. Vander Puyl._ Original of the portrait engraved for Dibdin's Decameron. 268. Portrait of John Payne. (25X30.) _Thomas G. Wainewright._ The two preceding portraits, of father and son, celebrated London booksellers, were obtained from Mr. J. T. Payne, grandson, by Mr. F. S. Ellis, of London, and by him presented to the Society, April 3, 1883. 269. Portrait of Richard Hildreth, (1807-1865.) (25X30.) _Robert M. Pratt._ Painted in 1858. Presented by Miss Eugenia C. Pratt, February 5, 1884. 270. Portrait of Nicholas P. Trist, (1800-1874.) (25X30.) _Robert M. Pratt._ Painted in 1852. Presented by Miss Eugenia C. Pratt, February 5, 1884. 271. Portrait of Roger Strong, (1762-1836.) (10X28½.) _John Vanderlyn._ Presented by his granddaughter, Miss Frances G. Mankin, May 5, 1885. 272. Portrait of Robert Benson, (1739-1823.) (24X30.) _John Trumbull._ Painted, 1804, when the subject was in his 65th year. Bequest of Robert Benson, Jr., May 5, 1885. 273. Portrait of Henry Benson, (1741-1823.) (25X30.) _John Vanderlyn._ Painted, 1823, when the subject was 82 years of age. Bequest of Robert Benson, Jr., May 5, 1885. 274. Portrait of John Lawrance, (1750-1810.) (Miniature.) _John Trumbull._ Judge-Advocate-General, War of the Revolution, Member of Congress, and U. S. Senator from New York, Judge U. S. District Court. Painted at Philadelphia, 1792. Presented by J. L. and G. C. McWhorter, January 5, 1886. 275. Portrait of Augustus Schell, (1812-1884.) (22X27.) _Eastman Johnson._ First Vice President of the Society, 1871, and President, 1872, 1883-1884. Painted, 1885. Presented by Mrs. Anna Schell, January 5, 1886. 276. Return of the 69th Regiment, N. Y. S. M., from the Seat of War. (140X87.) _Louis Lang._ This regiment returned to the city of New York, on the morning of the 27th of July, 1861, after three months' service in the South, when it received a popular ovation, which the artist has faithfully depicted. The picture represents the troops turning into Broadway from Battery Place, where they had landed. The faces are mainly studies from life. Presented by the Artist, October 5, 1886. 277. Portrait of Benjamin H. Field, (1814-1893.) (29X36.) _Daniel Huntington._ Treasurer of the Society, 1860-1877; Second Vice President, 1878-1884, and President, 1885-1886. Painted, 1875. Bequest of Mrs. Catharine M. Van Cortlandt Field, February 1, 1887. 278. Portrait of Caroline E. S. Norton, (1808-1877.) (40X50.) _Samuel S. Osgood._ Painted, 1839. Presented by Mrs. Samuel S. Osgood, November 1, 1887. 279. St. Peter's denial of Christ. (65X45.) _Samuel S. Osgood._ Presented by Mrs. Samuel S. Osgood, October 2, 1888. 280. Christ in the Prætorium. (38X50.) _Samuel S. Osgood._ Presented by Mrs. Samuel S. Osgood, October 2, 1888. 281. Portrait of Daniel Webster, (1782-1852.) (25X30.) _George P. A. Healy._ Painted in 1842. Presented by J. Pierpont Morgan, October 2, 1888. 282. Portrait of Lord Ashburton (Alexander Baring), (1774-1848.) (25X30.) _George P. A. Healy._ Painted in 1842. Presented by J. Pierpont Morgan, October 2, 1888. 283. Portrait of John Hampden Pleasants, (1797-1846.) (22X26.) Oval. Founder of the Richmond Whig, and its Editor for twenty-two years. Killed in a duel, February 27, 1846. Presented by Messrs. A. S. Buford, T. William Pemberton and Thomas Potts, 1889. 284. Portrait of John Alstyne, (1800-1869.) (33X41.) _Charles L. Elliott._ Painted in 1866. Presented by the Heirs of George P. Clapp, March 4, 1890. 285. Portrait of Henry Ten Broeck, (1754-1830.) (24X30.) _John Paradise._ Painted in 1814. Presented by Henry Ten Broeck Gamage, June 2, 1891. 286. Portrait of Capt. John Waddell, (-1762.) (28X35.) Presented by Edmond B. Southwick, December 1, 1891. 287. Portrait of Mrs. John Waddell (Anne Kirton), (1716-1773.) (28X35.) Presented by Edmond B. Southwick, December 1, 1891 288. Portrait of Maximilian I., Emperor of Mexico, (1832-1867.) (36X47.) Oval. Bequest of Mrs. Parthenia T. Norton, 1892. 289. Portrait of Carlota, Empress of Mexico. (36X47.) Oval. Bequest of Mrs. Parthenia T. Norton, 1892. 290. Portrait of John Alsop King, (1816-1900.) (38X45.) _Robert Hinckley._ President of the Society, 1887-1900. Painted for the Society, 1892. 291. Portrait of Rear-Admiral Samuel L. Breese, U. S. N., (1794-1870.) (25X30.) _Daniel Huntington._ Painted in 1872. Bequest of his widow, Mrs. E. L. Breese, 1892. 292. Portrait of Myron Holley, (1779-1841.) (24X29.) Presented by his daughter, Miss Sallie Holley, February 2, 1892. 293. Portrait of Col. Zachary Taylor, (1784-1850.) (20X24.) Presented by Daniel Parish, Jr., April 5, 1892. 294. Mrs. Martha J. Lamb, seated in her library, (1829-1893.) (24X15.) Author of the History of the City of New York. Bequest of Mrs. Martha J. Lamb, 1893. 295. Portrait of Sa-go-ye-wat-ha, or Red Jacket. (19X29.) _Robert W. Weir._ Painted from life in 1828 at New York City. Presented by Winthrop Chanler, February 7, 1893. 296. Portrait of John De Peyster, 1798. (25X30.) _Charles Wilson Peale._ Presented by his grandson, Christopher Champlin, June 5, 1894. 297. Portrait of Mrs. John De Peyster (Elizabeth Haring). (1743-1821.) (25X30.) _Charles Wilson Peale._ Painted in 1798. Presented by her grandson, Christopher Champlin, June 5, 1894. 298. Portrait of Mrs. Christopher Champlin, (1749-1823.) (23½X28.) Presented by her grandson, Christopher Champlin, June 5, 1894. 299. Portrait of Col. Johannes Knickerbacker, (1749-1827.) (21X25.) Commander of the 14th Albany Regiment in the War of the Revolution. Bequest of his grandson, the Rt. Rev. David B. Knickerbacker, 1895. 300. Portrait of Herman Knickerbacker, (1782-1855.) (22X29.) Bequest of his son, the Rt. Rev. David B. Knickerbacker, 1895. 301. Portrait of Capt. Daniel Delavan, (1757-1835.) (25X30.) _John Trumbull._ Captain of Light Horse, War of the Revolution. Presented by Marinus Willett Dominick, May 7, 1895. 302. Portrait of Commodore James Nicholson, U. S. N., (1737-1804.) (25X30.) Presented by the Count de Gallatin, June 4, 1895. 303. Portrait of Rev. Alexander McWhorter, D.D., (1734-1807.) Crayon. (8X10.) Presented by George C. McWhorter, October 1, 1895. 304. Portrait of Mrs. Alexander McWhorter (Mary Cumming). Crayon. (8X10.) Presented by George C. McWhorter, October 1, 1895. 305. Portrait of Mrs. Alexander N. Macomb (Julia Anna McWhorter). (3X3½.) _Benjamin Trott._ Miniature on ivory. Presented by George C. McWhorter, October 1, 1895. 306. Portrait of James H. Allen. (2X2½.) Grandson of Chief Justice Allen of Pennsylvania. Born 1768, died 1778. Miniature on ivory. Presented by George C. McWhorter, October 1, 1895. 307. Portrait of Mrs. George Ogilvie (Ann McWhorter). Crayon. (7½X10.) Presented by George C. McWhorter, October 1, 1895. 308. Portrait of John Lawrance, (1750-1810.) (8X9½.) Presented by George C. McWhorter, October 1, 1895. See No. 274. 309. Portrait of the Rev. Hooper Cumming. (25X30.) _Henry Inman._ Bequest of Mrs. Julia C. Van Arsdale Jones, 1896. 310. Portraits of Mrs. Hooper Cumming (Sophie Wright) and daughter Harriet, who married Edward A. Jee. (24X30.) _Rembrandt Peale._ Bequest of Mrs. Julia C. Van Arsdale Jones, 1896. 311. Portrait of Sir William Johnson, Bart, (1715-1774.) (25X30.) Copy from the original in the possession of his great-grandson. Presented by Edward F. de Lancey, October 6, 1896. 312. Portrait of Mrs. Augustus Jay (Anna Maria Bayard), (1670-.) (29½X37.) Presented by Edward F. de Lancey, October 6, 1896. 313. View in the Swiss Alps, 1845. (36X44.) _A. Castell._ Presented by Edward F. de Lancey, October 6, 1896. 314. Portrait of David Gelston, (1744-1828.) (27X33½.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ Presented by his granddaughter, Mrs. Henry R. Winthrop, January 5, 1897. 315. Seaport in Holland. (24½X17½.) _Adam Willaerts._ Signed and dated 1640. Presented by Mrs. Susan C. Warren, May 4, 1897. 316. View of the Yosemite Valley, 1865. (71X54.) _Thomas Hill._ Presented by Charles T. Harbeck, June 1, 1897. 317. Sepia Drawing of Trinity and Grace Churches, New York City. (36X25.) _William Strickland._ Presented by Daniel Parish, Jr., October 5, 1897. 318. Sepia Drawing of St. Paul's Church, New York City. (36X25.) _William Strickland._ Presented by Daniel Parish, Jr., October 5, 1897. 319. Portrait of Eugene Keteltas, (1802-1876.) (25X30.) _William O. Stone._ Bequest of Henry Keteltas, 1898. 320. Portrait of Eldad Holmes. (27X34.) First President of the Tradesmen's Bank of New York. Presented by the Bank, February 6, 1900. 321. Portrait of Preserved Fish, (1766-1846.) (33X42.) Fourth President of the Tradesmen's Bank of New York. Presented by the Bank, February 6, 1900. 322. Portrait of Edwin Smith. (28X34.) _Francisco Anelli._ Presented by Mr. Smith, May 1, 1900. 323. Portrait of George P. Morris, (1802-1864.) (21X24.) _Charles L. Elliott._ Poet and Journalist. Presented by Daniel Parish, Jr., November 7, 1900. 324. Portrait of William Kelby, (1841-1898.) (29X36.) _Robert Hinckley._ Assistant Librarian of the Society, 1857-1893, and Librarian, 1893, until his death, 1898. Painted for the Society, 1901. 325. Portrait of Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Keteltas, U. S. A., (1838-1896.) (37X60.) _Marietta Cotton._ Presented by his sister, Alice Keteltas, June 4, 1901. 326. Portrait of Colonel Peter R. Livingston, (1737-1794.) (28X36.) _William H. Powell._ Bequest of Mrs. William S. Livingston, 1901. 327. Portrait of William Walton, (1706-1768.) (25X29.) Presented by Dr. William Walton Verplanck. 328. Portrait of William Walton, (1706-1768.) (40X50.) Bequest of Theodora M. Storm, 1902. 329. Portrait of Mrs. William Walton (Cornelia Beekman), (1708-1786.) (40X50.) Bequest of Theodora M. Storm, 1902. 330. Portrait of The Very Rev. Eugene Augustus Hoffman, D.D., (1829-1902.) (40X60.) _Harry T. See._ Foreign Corresponding Secretary of the Society, 1896-1900, and President, 1901-1902. Painted for the Society, 1902. 331. Portrait of Samuel Verplanck Hoffman. (54X36.) _J. Carroll Beckwith._ President of the Society, 1903-1912. Painted for the Society, 1909. 332. Portrait of Samuel Verplanck Hoffman. (52X36.) _Rudolph Schmidt._ President of the Society, 1903-1912. Presented by the Artist, March 7, 1911. 333. Portrait of Zophar Mills, (1809-1887.) (36X42.) _Frank B. Carpenter._ Presented by his daughter, Adelaide Mills, November 24, 1902. 334. Portrait of David Grim, (1737-1826.) (28X36.) _Samuel L. Waldo._ Painted, 1812. Bequest of Sophie E. Minton, December 2, 1902. 335. Landscape. Sunset. (25X37.) _A. B. Durand._ The last picture painted by the Artist, 1878, aged 83 years. Presented by the children of the Artist, through John Durand, April 7, 1903. 336. Study from Nature. (10X14.) _A. B. Durand._ Made at Hoboken, N. J., before 1834. Presented by the children of the Artist, through John Durand, April 7, 1903. 337. Study from Nature. (11X14½.) _A. B. Durand._ Made at Hoboken, N. J., before 1834. Presented by the children of the Artist, through John Durand, April 7, 1903. 338. Ideal Head. A suggestion from life. (21½X27.) _A. B. Durand._ Painted, 1836. Presented by the children of the Artist, through John Durand, April 7, 1903. 339. Portraits, three children with landscape accessories. (29X37.) _A. B. Durand._ Painted about 1834. Presented by the children of the Artist, through John Durand, April 7, 1903. 340. Landscape. Sunday morning. (25X36.) _A. B. Durand._ Painted, 1839. Presented by the children of the Artist, through John Durand, April 7, 1903. 341. Il Pappagallo. (24X30.) _A. B. Durand._ Painted from a model in Rome, 1840. Presented by the children of the Artist, through John Durand, April 7, 1903. 342. A Dream of Arcadia. Study for original picture. (9X14.) _Thomas Cole._ Presented by the children of the late Asher B. Durand, through John Durand, April 7, 1903. 343. Portrait of Asher B. Durand, (1796-1886.) (15X19½.) _William Jewett._ Painted in 1825. Presented by the children of the late Asher B. Durand, through John Durand, April 7, 1903. 344. Portrait of Philip W. Engs, (1790-1875.) (22X27½.) Presented by his grandson, Henry A. Bostwick, April 7, 1903. 345. View of New York about 1753. (37½X60.) Presented, December 6, 1904, by Miss Cornelia LeRoy White in the name of Goldsborough Banyer, late a Fellow of the Society. 346. Sacrifice of Abraham. (37½X40.) _Dutch School._ Presented by Mrs. Peter Gerard Stuyvesant Ten Broeck, May 2, 1905. 347. Portrait of Peter Stuyvesant, (1592-1672.) (22½X17¾.) Painted from life. Director General of New Netherland, 1646-1664. Presented by his great-great-great-great-grandson, Robert Van Rensselaer Stuyvesant, February 2, 1909. 348. Portrait of Peter Stuyvesant. (25X30.) Copy from the original. Presented by Nicholas William Stuyvesant, January 9, 1829. 349. Portrait of Nicholas William Stuyvesant, (1648-1698.) (25X35.) Son of Peter Stuyvesant. Presented by his great-great-great-grandson, Robert Van Rensselaer Stuyvesant, June 6, 1905. 350. Portrait of Gerardus Stuyvesant, (1690-1777.) (25X30.) Son of Nicholas William Stuyvesant. Presented by his great-great-grandson, Robert Van Rensselaer Stuyvesant, June 6, 1905. 351. Portrait of Nicholas William Stuyvesant, (1722-1780.) (25X30.) Son of Gerardus Stuyvesant. Presented by his great-grandson, Robert Van Rensselaer Stuyvesant, June 6, 1905. 352. Portrait of Petrus Stuyvesant, (1727-1805.) (25X30.) _Gilbert C. Stuart._ Son of Gerardus Stuyvesant. Presented by his great-grandson, Robert Van Rensselaer Stuyvesant, June 6, 1905. 353. Portrait of Nicholas William Stuyvesant, (1769-1833.) (25X30.) Son of Petrus Stuyvesant. Presented by his grandson, Robert Van Rensselaer Stuyvesant, June 6, 1905. 354. Portrait of Peter Stuyvesant, (1796-1860.) (24X30.) Son of Nicholas William Stuyvesant. Presented by his son, Robert Van Rensselaer Stuyvesant, June 6, 1905. 355. View near Fort Montgomery, New York. (21X14.) Water Color. _William G. Wall._ Presented by Daniel Parish, Jr., July 19, 1905. 356. View of the Highlands looking South from Newburgh Bay. (21X14.) Water Color. _William G. Wall._ Presented by Daniel Parish, Jr., July 19, 1905. 357. Portrait of Peter Augustus Jay, (1776-1842.) (27X33.) _Charles F. Saltza._ From the original by A. B. DURAND. Second Vice President of the Society, 1823; First Vice President, 1824-1827; President, 1840-1842. Presented by his daughter, Mrs. Matthew Clarkson, June 6, 1905. 358. View of the Dongan Manor House. (1876.) (19X13.) _J. H. Wright._ West New Brighton, New York. Presented by Joseph T. Williamson, October 5, 1905. 359. "The Fight in the Air." (68X49½.) _Sigmund Lachenwitz._ Presented by Mrs. Fancher Nicoll, May 1, 1906. 360. Portrait of Henry Dexter, (1813-1910.) (40X52.) _Charles A. Whipple._ Patron. Painted for the Society, 1901. 361. Portrait of Orrando Perry Dexter, (1853-1903.) (24X30.) _Charles A. Whipple._ Presented by his father, Henry Dexter, July 30, 1906. 362. Portrait of James William Beekman, (1815-1877.) (22X27.) _Walter Satterlee._ From the original by THOMAS LECLEAR. Second Vice President of the Society, 1872-1877. Presented by his sons, Gerard and James William Beekman, December 4, 1906. 363. Portrait of John D. Jaques, M.D., (1772-1839.) (25X30.) _Henry Inman._ Presented by David Ralph Jaques, February 5, 1907. 364. Portrait of John S. Giles, (1799-1880.) (48X51.) _J. B. Stearns._ Painted 1858. Treasurer of the Widows and Orphans Fund, Volunteer Fire Department, New York City. Presented by his daughter, Mrs. Frances M. Gibson, June 4, 1907. 365. Lake George View of Black Mountain from the Harbor Islands. (60X32.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 366. Sepia Drawing of Primeval Forest. (58X48.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 367. Head of a Roman. (24½X19½.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 368. View at Milton, New York. (23X30.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 369. Portrait of J. W. Casilear, (1811-1893.) (30X25.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 370. Hudson River View of Fishkill Mountains. (32X46.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 371. Portrait of [Nephew of A. B. Durand]. Unfinished. (12X14.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 372. Portrait of Asher B. Durand, (1796-1886.) (30X24.) Painted by himself. Presented by his daughter, Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 373. Landscape--Sunset. (25X34.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 374. Study from Nature--Rocks and Trees. (21X16¾.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 375. Study from Nature--Factory Point, N. H. (18X24.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. [Illustration: 372. ASHER B. DURAND. _BY HIMSELF._] 376. View of Chappell Brook--Adirondack Mountains. (28X33.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 377. Portrait--Sister of the Artist. (25¾X20½.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 378. Portrait of Mrs. John Durand. (12X9¾.) _A. B. Durand._ Mother of the Artist. First portrait painted by DURAND, 1822. Presented by her daughter, Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 379. Portrait--Infant son of the Artist. (20X15¾.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 380. Portrait of a Lady. Unfinished. (14X12.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 381. Portrait of a Lady. Unfinished. (14X12.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 382. Head of a Roman. (29½X24¼.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 383. Head of a Roman. (24½X19¾.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 384. Study from Nature--Trees and Rocks upright. (16½X21.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 385. Trees. Pencil Sketch. (22¾X16¾.) _A. B. Durand._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 386. Ariadne--Enlarged copy for study. (87½X70.) _A. B. Durand._ From the original of JOHN VANDERLYN. Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 387. Landscape. (30X22½.) _J. W. Casilear._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 388. A Dream of Arcadia. (11½X13¾.) _Thomas Cole._ Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 389. Dutch Singers. (25½X19½.) Presented by Mrs. Lucy M. Durand Woodman, November 12, 1907. 390. Portrait of George Bruce, (1781-1866.) (29X36.) _Daniel Huntington._ Bequest of Matilda Wolfe Bruce, 1908. 391. Escape of the Constitution. (25X36.) _Thomas Birch._ Bequest of Matilda Wolfe Bruce, 1908. 392. Portrait of David Leavitt. (29X36.) _J. B. Flagg._ Painted, 1872. Presented by Mrs. James M. Lincoln, January 5, 1908. 393. Portrait of John B. Hall. (25X30.) Oval. _H. Inman._ Painted, 1839. Presented by the Misses Helen L. and Evelina S. Hale, January 5, 1908. 394. Portrait of Mrs. John B. Hall. (25X30.) Oval. _H. Inman._ Presented by the Misses Helen L. and Evelina S. Hale, January 5, 1908. 395. Portrait of Francis A. Hall. (13½X15½.) Oval. Presented by the Misses Helen L. and Evelina S. Hale, January 5, 1908. 396. Portrait of George Carpenter. (25X30.) Presented by the Misses Helen L. and Evelina S. Hale, January 5, 1908. 397. Portrait of Mrs. Maria Carpenter. (25X30.) Presented by the Misses Helen L. and Evelina S. Hale, January 5, 1908. 398. Original Sepia of New York, 1852. (51X29.) _J. W. Hill._ From which the View of New York in 1855 was engraved by C. Mottram and published by G. W. Smith. Presented by Daniel Parish, Jr., January 5, 1908. 399. Portrait of a young man--DePeyster Family. (41X50.) Painted in Flanders and brought to this country by Johannes DePeyster. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 400. Portrait of a young lady--DePeyster Family. (41X50.) Painted in Flanders and brought to this country by Johannes DePeyster. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 401. Portrait of a member of the DePeyster Family. (41X50.) Painted in Flanders and brought to this country by Johannes DePeyster. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 402. Portrait of Col. James DePeyster, (1726-1799.) (46X61.) _Gerard Beekman DePeyster._ Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 403. Portrait of Abraham DePeyster (1753-.) (22X27.) _Gerard Beekman DePeyster._ Son of James DePeyster. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 404. Portrait of Mrs. William Axtell. (40X50.) Daughter of Abraham DePeyster, 1st. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 405. Portrait of John Livingston, (1714-1788.) (25X30.) Son of Philip Livingston, 1st. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 406. Portrait of Mrs. John Livingston, (1724-.) (25X30.) Née Catharine DePeyster. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 407. Portrait of William Axtell DePeyster. (16½X20½.) Oval. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 408. Portrait of William Axtell DePeyster. (10X12.) Oval. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 409. Portrait of Mrs. William Axtell DePeyster, (1800-.) (10X12.) Oval. Née Mary Beekman. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 410. Portrait of Mrs. William Axtell DePeyster. (8X10.) Oval. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 411. Portrait of Stephen Van Cortlandt. (7X8½.) Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 412. Portrait of Mrs. Stephen Van Cortlandt. (7X8½.) Née Jane Beekman. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 413. Portrait. (Unknown figures.) (26X32.) Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 414. Portrait of a Navigator. (Unknown.) (26X32.) Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 415. Portrait of Benjamin West, (1738-1820.) (20X24.) Oval. _Abraham Delanoy, Jr._ Painted, 1776. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 416. Landscape. (2½X3½.) Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 417. Portrait of Mary DePeyster McKnight, (1832-.) Miniature. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 418. Portrait of Elizabeth Van Rensselaer DePeyster. Miniature. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 419. Portrait of Catherine Augusta DePeyster. Miniature. Founder of the "William Axtell DePeyster and Mary Beekman DePeyster Memorial Fund" of the Society. Bequest of Catherine Augusta DePeyster, 1908. 420. Portrait of John Divine Jones, (1814-1895.) (52X60.) _Daniel Huntington._ Founder of the John Divine Jones Fund of the Society. Presented by Louisa F. J. Thorn, in the name of Mrs. John Divine Jones, February 2, 1909. 421. Common Meadow Vole and Rice Field Mouse. (28X22½.) _J. J. Audubon._ Presented by Archer Milton Huntington, February 2, 1909. 422. Portrait of John Watts DePeyster, (1821-1908.) (34X48.) _E. S. Jacquin._ Painted, 1907. Presented by Mrs. Howard Townsend Martin, April 6, 1909. 423. Portrait of the Lincoln Family. (37X26.) _Frank B. Carpenter._ Presented by Warren C. Crane, April 6, 1909. 424. View of Donner Lake, California. (120X72.) _Albert Bierstadt._ Presented by Archer Milton Huntington, October 5, 1909. 425. Portrait of Matthais Bloodgood, (1803-1890.) (23½X20.) Oval. Presented by the family of Matthais Bloodgood, October 5, 1909. 426. Portrait of Mrs. Matthais Bloodgood (Maria Ackerman). (23½X20.) Presented by the family of Matthais Bloodgood, October 5, 1909. 427. Portrait of John Lawrance, (1750-1810.) (25½X33.) Presented by Anna McWhorter Thomas in the name of George C. McWhorter, 1909. 428. Portrait of John Lawrance, (1750-1810.) (Copy.) (24½X31½.) Presented by Anna McWhorter Thomas in the name of George C. McWhorter, 1909. 429. Portrait of a Lady. (Unknown.) (26X33½.) Presented by Anna McWhorter Thomas in the name of George C. McWhorter, 1909. 430. Portrait of John Alsop, (1724-1794.) (26X30.) Member of the Continental Congress from New York, 1774-1776. Bequest of Mary Rhinelander King, 1909. 431. Portrait of John Alsop King, (1816-1900.) (20½X25.) _Trumbull._ Painted about 1830. Bequest of Mary Rhinelander King, 1909. 432. The Genius of Painting. (29X29.) _Romanelli._ Bequest of Mary Rhinelander King, 1909. 433. Racing Horse "Eclipse." (30X25.) _E. Troye._ Painted 1834. Bequest of Mary Rhinelander King, 1909. 434. Racing Horse "Sir Henry." (30X25.) _E. Troye._ Painted 1834. Bequest of Mary Rhinelander King, 1909. 435. Landscape with Figures. (30½X38.) _Pannini._ Bequest of Mary Rhinelander King, 1909. 436. Little Boys Reaping--Gray and White. (59X24.) Bequest of Mary Rhinelander King, 1909. 437. Portrait of George Washington, (1732-1799.) (5X4.) _W. Grimaldi._ Painted for Rufus King. Bequest of Mary Rhinelander King, 1909. 438. Portrait of Matilda Hoffman, (1791-1809.) (Miniature.) Bequest of Mary Rhinelander King, 1909. 439. Portrait of Edward Bement, (1795-1866.) (Miniature.) Presented by his son, Edward Bement, February 8, 1910. 440. Autumn Woods. (54X84.) _Albert Bierstadt._ Presented by Mrs. Albert Bierstadt, March 1, 1910. 441. Marine View. (60X94.) _T. Gudin._ Presented by Mrs. Albert Bierstadt, March 1, 1910. 442. Bowling Green, New York, 1860. (33X48.) _David Johnson._ Purchased by the Society, 1910. 443. View of Upper New York from the East River. (28X40.) Presented by Samuel V. Hoffman, May 3, 1910. 444. New York City from Weehawken. (32X23½.) _N. Calyo._ Presented by Samuel V. Hoffman, May 3, 1910. 445. Fire of 1835. New York as seen from the Bay with Castle William in the Foreground. (20½X30.) Presented by Samuel V. Hoffman, May 3, 1910. 446. View of New York from the Navy Yard, Brooklyn. (20X29.) Presented by Samuel V. Hoffman, May 3, 1910. 447. Broadway at Grand Street, looking north, 1852. (21X17.) Presented by Samuel V. Hoffman, May 3, 1910. 448. Portrait of Morgan Lewis, (1754-1844.) (29X36.) _Charles C. Curran._ President of the Society, 1832-1835. From the original by JAMES HERRING. Presented by Maturin Livingston Delafield and John Ross Delafield, June 7, 1910. 449. Portrait of Mrs. Horatio Gates (Elizabeth Phillips). (2¾X2¾.) (Miniature.) Presented by John Austin Stevens, June 7, 1910. 450. Castle Garden, New York City, 1845. (28½X38½.) Presented by Samuel V. Hoffman, October 4, 1910. 451. Portrait of Peter Bryant, M.D., (4½X3.) (Miniature.) Father of William Cullen Bryant. Presented by Anna Fairchild, November 1, 1910. 452. Portrait of Mrs. Peter Bryant, (3½X3¼.) (Miniature.) Mother of William Cullen Bryant. Presented by Anna Fairchild, November 1, 1910. 453. Cameo Head and Bust of William Cullen Bryant, (1794-1878.) (1¾X1½.) Presented by Anna Fairchild, November 1, 1910. 454. Portrait of William Cullen Bryant, (1794-1878.) (4¼X4½.) (Miniature.) Painted, 1819. Foreign Corresponding Secretary of the Society, 1871-1872, and First Vice President, 1873-1878. Presented by Anna Fairchild, November 1, 1910. 455. Portrait of Mrs. William Cullen Bryant, (1797-1865.) (2¾X3¼.) (Miniature.) Presented by Anna Fairchild, November 1, 1910. 456. Portrait of Julia S. Bryant. (3X3¾.) (Miniature.) Daughter of William Cullen Bryant. Presented by Anna Fairchild, November 1, 1910. 457. Portrait of William Gilliland, (1734-1796.) (25X30.) _Ralph Earle._ Painted, 1789. Bequest of Charlotte E. Draper, 1910. 458. Portrait of David Hosack, M.D., (1769-1835.) (30X36.) _Augustus G. Heaton._ From the original by THOMAS SULLY. Corresponding Secretary of the Society, 1814-1816; Second Vice President, 1817; First Vice President, 1818; President, 1820-1827. Presented by the Artist, November 1, 1910. 459. Portrait of George Washington, (1732-1799.) (35½X29.) _Rembrandt Peale._ Bequest of Carolina Phelps Stokes, 1910. 460. Portrait of Martha Washington, (1732-1802.) (35½X29.) _Rembrandt Peale._ Bequest of Carolina Phelps Stokes, 1910. 461. Portrait of Commodore John H. Graham, (1794-1878.) (29X36.) _William H. Powell._ Bequest of Cornelia Graham Brett, 1911. 462. Portrait of Mrs. John H. Graham (née Milledoler). (36X29.) _William H. Powell._ Painted, 1839. Presented by Mrs. Herman Von Wechlinger Schulte, April 4, 1911. 463. Portrait of Jean Lazare Vaché, (1762-1833.) (Miniature.) Presented by his great-granddaughter, Isabella Vaché Cox, May 2, 1911. 464. Portrait of Maria Anne Vaché, (1769-1835.) (Miniature), on tortoise shell snuff box. Presented by her great-granddaughter, Isabella Vaché Cox, May 2, 1911. 465. Portrait of John B. Vaché, (1792-1813.) (Miniature.) Presented by his grand-niece, Isabella Vaché Cox, May 2, 1911. 466. Portrait of Jedediah Vincent Huntington, (1815-1862.) (25X30.) _Daniel Huntington._ Presented by his nephew, Charles R. Huntington, November 14, 1911. 467. Portrait of Henry Aaron Burr. (36½X29¼.) Presented by Mrs. Cornelius H. Van Ness, February 6, 1912. 468. Portrait of Mrs. Henry Aaron Burr. (36½X29½.) Presented by Mrs. Cornelius H. Van Ness, February 6, 1912. 469. Portrait of Emma Louisa Burr. (37X30.) Presented by Mrs. Cornelius H. Van Ness, February 6, 1912. 470. Portrait of Henry Burr. (24½X18½.) Presented by Mrs. Cornelius H. Van Ness, February 6, 1912. 471. Portrait of Julia Malvina Anderson. (2¾X2½.) _Alex. Anderson._ Painted, 1820. Presented by her daughter, Miss Mary E. Halsey, October 1, 1912. 472. Portrait of Franklin Pierce, (1804-1869.) (22X27.) Fourteenth President of the United States. Presented by Mrs. Frances M. Gibson, November 12, 1912. 473. Portrait of Benjamin B. Sherman, (1811-1885.) (25X30.) _George Gerhard._ Painted, 1885. Treasurer of the Society, 1878-1884. Presented, May, 1913, by his son, Charles A. Sherman. 474. Landscape. (14X23¼.) _John F. Kensett._ Bequest of the late Kate Warner, 1914. 475. The Cavalier's Return. (30X28½.) _R. C. Woodville._ Bequest of the late Kate Warner, 1914. 476. Children in Storm. (35X25.) Bequest of the late Kate Warner, 1914. 477. Portrait of a Welsh Prince. (44X32.) Bequest of the late Kate Warner, 1914. 478. View of Blackwell's Island, East River. (30X25.) _F. F. Palmer._ Presented by Daniel Parish, Jr., April 7, 1914. 479. Portrait of William Darlington, M.D., (1782-1863.) (6½X9.) Oval. _Jacob Eichholz._ Painted at Lancaster, Pa., October, 1810. Presented by Daniel Parish, Jr., April 7, 1914. 480. Portrait of Charles U. Combes. (14X17.) Water Color. _David E. Cronin._ Painted, 1891. Sergeant 1st New York Mounted Rifles. Presented by Daniel Parish, Jr., April 7, 1914. 481. Fight Between Union and Confederate Cavalrymen. (11X17.) Water Color. _David E. Cronin._ Presented by Daniel Parish, Jr., April 7, 1914. 482. Fugitive Slaves in the Dismal Swamp, Va. (17X14.) Water Color. _David E. Cronin._ Presented by Daniel Parish, Jr., April 7, 1914. 483. Portrait of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, (1813-1887.) (24X19.) (Crayon.) Presented by John H. Johnston, April 7, 1915. 484. Portrait of General Ebenezer Stevens, (1751-1823.) (36X27½.) Presented from the estate of Byam Kerby Stevens, in accordance with his wishes, April 30, 1915. 485. Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Va., Oct. 19, 1781. (40½X60.) _Marietta Minnigerode._ Painted in 1893. Copied from the original by TRUMBULL. Presented from the estate of Byam Kerby Stevens, in accordance with his wishes, April 30, 1915. 486. Portrait of Rev. Lazare Bayard. (45½X33.) Father-in-law of Gov. Peter Stuyvesant. Bequest of Cora V. R. Catlin, 1915, in the name of her brother, the late N. W. Stuyvesant Catlin, great-great-great-grandson of Governor Stuyvesant. 487. Portrait of Mrs. Lazare Bayard (Judith DeVos.) (45½X33.) Mother-in-law of Gov. Peter Stuyvesant. Bequest of Cora V. R. Catlin, 1915, in the name of her brother, the late N. W. Stuyvesant Catlin, great-great-great-grandson of Governor Stuyvesant. 488. Bayard Homestead at Alphen, Holland, with Portraits of Samuel Bayard and Anna Stuyvesant, his wife; sister of Gov. Stuyvesant. (36X47½.) Bequest of Cora V. R. Catlin, 1915, in the name of her brother, the late N. W. Stuyvesant Catlin, great-great-great-grandson of Governor Stuyvesant. The above three paintings were brought over by Governor Stuyvesant in 1647. THE BRYAN COLLECTION THOMAS J. BRYAN Thomas Jefferson Bryan was the son of Guy Bryan and Martha Matlock, his wife. He was born at "Spring Hill," Philadelphia, Pa., about 1800, and died at sea, May 14, 1870, on board the French steamship "Lafayette," while on his way to New York, four days out from Havre, France. Mr. Bryan graduated at Harvard University in 1823 and studied law, but he never practiced his profession, as he had an adequate inheritance. Much of his time was given to foreign travels in forming a valuable collection of paintings. For a time this collection, known as the Bryan Gallery of Christian Art, was displayed on the walls of a spacious room in a house on the corner of Broadway and Thirteenth Street, where an admission fee of twenty-five cents was charged to view the paintings, Mr. Bryan himself being the custodian in charge. He next deposited them in the Cooper Union, and in 1867 he deeded the entire collection to the New York Historical Society, which he catalogued, arranged and added to from time to time until his death in 1870. [Illustration: 198. THOMAS J. BRYAN. _WILLIAM O. STONE._ FOUNDER OF THE BRYAN COLLECTION. PAINTED FOR THE SOCIETY, 1867.] THE BRYAN COLLECTION BYZANTINE SCHOOL NO. SUBJECTS OF PAINTINGS. ARTISTS. B-1. Virgin and Child. (15X13.) The Virgin, clothed in a rich crimson drapery which covers the head, holds the infant CHRIST on her right arm. The child has a gilt globe in his hand. Over his head is seen the date of the picture, MXC. It was brought from the East by the celebrated artist, PAPETI, who was sent to Greece by the French Government. (_Bryan Collection._) B-2. Triptique. (8X20½.) A very remarkable and elaborate work; and of the highest interest in the history of art. (_Bryan Collection._) ITALIAN SCHOOL B-3. A Virgin and Child, with four Saints. (77½X39½.) _Guido of Siena._ This picture is in perfect condition, and is from the renowned collection of M. Artaud de Montor, in the account of which it was engraved. It is described in the work of Gault de St. Germain (p. 51). (_Bryan Collection._) B-4. Virgin and Child, with Saints. (17X9.) Oval Top. _Cimabue._ From the De Montor collection--engraved. (_Bryan Collection._) B-5. Knights at a Tournament. (24X24.) Round. _Giotto di Bondone._ The frame is as ancient as the picture itself, of which it forms a part. It bears the arms of the Medici family. From the De Montor collection--engraved. (_Bryan Collection._) B-6. Virgin and Child. (12½X8½.) _Simone Memmi._ The head of the Virgin presents the same type as that exhibited in the portrait of PETRARCH'S LAURA, painted by MEMMI, which is in the Library of the Vatican. From the De Montor collection--engraved. (_Bryan Collection._) B-7. The Last Judgment. (12½X8½.) _Simone Memmi._ "CHRIST, with the cruciform halo, and the elliptical aureola, bordered with cherubim, appears in the heavens. Above, two angels, strangely enough colored entirely blue, sound the trumpet; below, the Virgin and ST. JOHN kneel upon the ground, from which rises the cross, on which two angels are looking. On the left, the elect, wearing crowns of gold, mount towards the sky, under the protection of a pitying spirit; on the right, the damned, covered with blood, are delivered to the demons by a minister of divine vengeance. JESUS himself wears a terrible expression. MICHAEL ANGELO is, therefore, not the first to have given him this menacing aspect. The general color of the picture pleases the eye by its extreme fineness: the Virgin and ST. JOHN by the beauty of their types." To this just and graphic description from the pen of M. Michiels, which appeared in the _Gazette de France_, it is needless to add anything more. From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-8. The Crucifixion. (8X21.) _Taddeo Gaddi._ From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-9. St. Jerome, St. Dominic, and St. Francis of Assisi. (15X10.) Oval Top. _Taddeo Gaddi._ The three Saints stand side by side. There is dignity in the attitudes and the draperies, and harmony in the color of this picture. From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-10. Two Wings of a Tabernacle. (19X8½.) _Lorenzo il Monaco._ From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-11. A Tabernacle. (24X22.) _Giottino._ From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-12. St. Anthony. (12X9½.) Triangle. _Giottino._ From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) [Illustration: B-3. A VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH FOUR SAINTS. _GUIDO OF SIENNA._ (BRYAN COLLECTION)] B-13. St. Dominic. (12X9½.) Triangle. _Giottino._ From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-14. Crucifixion. (Half of a Triptique.) (14X10.) _Buonamico Buffalmacco._ From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-15. A Tabernacle. (21X20.) _Buonamico Buffalmacco._ From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) SCHOOL OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY B-16. A Tabernacle. (20½X18.) The carved arabesque work indicates the period of this picture, which has been much injured by the hand of time. From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) ANCIENT VENETIAN SCHOOL B-17. Virgin adoring the Infant Jesus. (18½X11.) The Virgin kneels before her Divine Son. Around are angels, and behind her is JOSEPH. Above is a company of angels; and, in the distant sky, one is seen appearing to the shepherds. The infant has a crimson, cruciform aureola. In this rudely-drawn picture the future glory of the Venetian School, its gorgeous color, is plainly indicated. (_Bryan Collection._) B-18. The Birth of John the Baptist. (24X24.) _Uccello._ From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-19. Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. (3½X3½.) _Castagno._ From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-20. Triumph of Julius Cæsar. (16X60½.) _Antonio Dello._ From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-21. The Crucifixion. (15X11.) _Botticelli._ From the De Montor collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-22. Adoration of the Infant Christ. (79½X5½.) _Perugino._ [_Macrino d'Alba._] The Virgin MARY, ST. JOHN the Baptist, ST. JEROME, ST. JOSEPH, ST. MICHAEL, and the Pope JULIUS II., are kneeling before the divine infant. Three small Angels, also kneeling, carry the nails and the Cross, emblems of the torture which the new-born should suffer. The CHRIST bears a striking resemblance to that of the little JESUS, so much admired, in a painting of the same artist, now placed in the Louvre, after having decorated the gallery of the King of Holland. ST. MICHAEL strikes the beholder by his noble air and his martial type. The head is evidently the portrait of GASTON DE FOIX, the model of the chivalry of the day. ST. JOHN is the lean prophet of the desert, the ascetic, and the eater of locusts and wild honey. At the top of the picture, three Angels play upon different instruments. In the background are seen the Capitol, the image of Roman power, and the vast ruins of the Coliseum. The head of JOSEPH, who stands behind ST. JOHN, must strike the considerate observer by its close resemblance to the type of JOSEPH which we find in the Holy Families of RAPHAEL. In the Cherub who holds the Cross, we also find great similarity to the little Angel who occupies so prominent a position in the famous Madonna of Foglino, from the same divine pencil. From the collection ERRARD. Signed and dated 1509. (_Bryan Collection._) B-23. St. John, Weeping. (20½X16½.) _Leonardo da Vinci._ For the authenticity of this picture, we have the high authority of Mr. Woodburn. (_Bryan Collection._) B-24. St. John. (13½X10½.) Oval. _Leonardo da Vinci._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-25. The Birth and Resurrection of Christ. (11X19½.) _Raphael._ In the centre of the upper compartment, CHRIST, draped in red, and bearing the emblematic banner of the Cross, rises from an open tomb. His hand is raised with an expression of command. On each side are two soldiers sleeping, and two starting away in fright. A slender tree also is seen upon each side of the tomb; in the distance is a large hill. In the lower compartment are eight figures, besides the infant CHRIST. Six kneel in a semicircle about the new-born Saviour, who lies in the middle of the foreground. Three of these, on the left, are shepherds. On the right are the Virgin mother and two Angels. Next to MARY sits JOSEPH; and on the extreme left, a fourth shepherd approaches. Two slender trees here also appear on each side of the composition. In the distance are heavily undulating hills. [Illustration: B-5. KNIGHTS AT A TOURNAMENT. _GIOTTO DI BONDONE._ (BRYAN COLLECTION)] Very few Raphaels of this period exist. Those which are in the Vatican and the Louvre, show, in style and handling, an exact similarity to these pictures, which is absolutely conclusive. The donor wishes it to be understood, that, in his opinion, and in that of some of the accomplished and practised experts in Europe, there is not the slightest doubt of the authenticity of these pictures. Only the inexperienced and the uncultivated fail to trace in them the pencil of the divine RAPHAEL. (_Bryan Collection._) B-26. Madonna and Child. (28X21½.) _Copy from Raphael._ An old and admirably executed copy of the Bridgewater Madonna. (_Bryan Collection._) B-27. Dance of Cupids. (7X10.) _Copy from Raphael._ Nine Cupids dance in a ring. On the left, one plays upon double pipes; on the right, another sits upon the ground. This copy is very fine, as it may well be, having been made by no less distinguished an artist than SASSOFERRATO himself. (_Bryan Collection._) B-28. St. George, and St. Anthony of Padua. (47X22½.) _Gaudenzio Ferrari._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-29. Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew. (17X28.) _Fra Bartolomeo._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-30. The Repose in Egypt. (29½X35.) _Giorgione._ No. B-17 is a specimen of the ancient Venetian style, which should be examined in connection with these productions of the glorious days of that school. (_Bryan Collection._) B-31. Prince of Palermo--in Disguise. (22X17½.) _Giorgione._ Similar to that in the Royal Gallery of Naples, it is distinguished by the Prince holding a flute, and not a staff, a ring on his finger and an amulet in his fur cap. From the collection of the Marquis Sommariva. (_Bryan Collection._) B-32. A Concert. (31X37½.) _Copy from Giorgione, by Watteau._ Two men and a naked female sit in the open air, diverting themselves with music. Another female figure peers at the group from the shrubbery, which is not in the original, but found only in Watteau's Pastiche, No. B-247. (_Bryan Collection._) B-33. The Repose in Egypt. (32½X41½.) _Titian._ This composition was repeated many times by TITIAN, and without great variation. This repetition is distinguished by the absence of some figures in the background, and the introduction of a rivulet in the foreground, and a butterfly upon a flower in the right corner. It has twice been found necessary to remove the picture from its canvas: the drapery of the Virgin has suffered somewhat from this and other causes; the other parts of the picture are somewhat injured. (_Bryan Collection._) B-34. Portrait of a Lady. (43X40.) _Style of Titian._ From the collection of R. W. Meade, of Philadelphia. (_Bryan Collection._) B-35. St. Jerome, in his Study. (39X29.) _School of Titian._ Probably a copy by ODVARDO FIALETTI, scholar of TINTORETTO. This is a large copy of a print by ALBRECHT DÜRER. Its color shows it evidently to be of the Venetian School. (_Bryan Collection._) B-36. Virgin and Child. (43X36.) Oval. _School of Titian._ This picture came from the Gallery of Louis Philippe, and on the back was written "_Dans la Chambre du Prince._" (_Bryan Collection._) B-37. Portrait of a Presbyter. (20½X16½.) _Tintoretto._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-38. St. Benedict. (91X54.) Oval Top. _Francesco Zucco._ The Saint is prostrate before an altar, receiving the black stole from the Virgin: the head of the Saint is worthy the palette of Titian. Signed and dated. Found in New York, by the donor. (_Bryan Collection._) B-39. Abraham discarding Hagar and Ishmael. (24½X19½.) _Paul Veronese._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-40. Portrait of Charles, Constable de Bourbon. (23½X19.) _Ludovico Brea._ From the collection of General D'Espinoy. (_Bryan Collection._) [Illustration: B-18. THE BIRTH OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. _UCCELLO._ (BRYAN COLLECTION)] B-41. Christ Shown to the Multitude. (45X40.) _Sebastiano del Piombo._ This picture, which is in very fine condition, and the principal figure in which much resembles that in the famous picture of _Christ looking into Hell_, in the Royal Gallery of Madrid, was purchased by the donor in Rome. (_Bryan Collection._) B-42. Virgin and Child, with Angels. (44X34½.) _Andrea del Sarto._ (_Bryan Collection._) EARLY FLORENTINE SCHOOL B-43. Virgin and Child, with St. John. (10X81.) It will be noticed that gold is used freely in the halos, and upon the draperies, which fall in somewhat stiff but ample and not unpleasing folds. This picture is from the collection of the Abbé GENOUDE, known as the translator of the Bible, by which he accumulated a fortune. (_Bryan Collection._) B-44. Adoration of the Shepherds. (35½X34.) This picture is from the collection of the Sylvestre family, and was once improperly attributed to RAPHAEL. It bears many of the marks of GAROFALO'S pencil. (_Bryan Collection._) B-45. The Crucifixion. (33X23.) _Andrea Mantegna._ Mr. Michiels, the distinguished critic employed by the Belgian Government to prepare a history of Flemish Art, says of this work: "The CHRIST has a nobility in his attitude which few painters have been able to give him; the expression of the good robber is also grave and dignified. The whole picture bears the impress of a serene imagination; the coloring is sombre; the attitudes are distinguished by an air of majesty. We feel that the artist had, at the commencement of his career, severely studied the ancients. Two cuirasses, and some of the draperies, are gilded; gold is mingled with the other costumes, in the form of _traits,_ designating the folds. We are particular about these details, because they indicate the primitive epoch in which the picture was painted, and the manner in which they passed from the use of gold grounds to the entire abandonment of that metal." It should be observed that the Jewish type is preserved in the heads of many of the figures, which is the case of the works of very few other masters. It will be observed that there are in this crowded canvas no two pieces of offensive or defensive armor alike. This is worthy of particular remark, as SQUARCIONI, the master of MAN TEGNA, had the largest and most varied collection of ancient arms which existed in his day. Aside from its intrinsic merit, this picture is of the greatest interest when considered in connection with the _St. Jerome_ (B-47) by CORREGGIO, the disciple of MANTEGNA. In the peculiar mode of introducing gold in the lights of that noble painting, we notice an unmistakable similarity to MANTEGNA'S use of the same material in the work before us; thus showing the direct connection between the manner of the two painters. It is impossible to overrate the historical importance of the juxtaposition of this work of MANTEGNA with that of CORREGGIO. There is afforded in no other gallery, public or private, in the world, a similar opportunity to study the master and scholar side by side in works of unquestionable authenticity and the highest intrinsic merit. (_Bryan Collection._) B-46. Adoration of the Kings. (19X14.) _Andrea Mantegna._ Found in Venice, 1859. (_Bryan Collection._) B-47. The Virgin and Child, Mary Magdalen, and St. Jerome (known as the St. Jerome). (19X14.) _Correggio._ Of this sketch M. Michiels remarks, that in it "burns in all its grace the talent of _Correggio_. Never has the Ecstasy of piety, or the fervor of religious affection, been better expressed." This picture differs from the large one at Parma, in the absence of the emblematic lion which stands in that by the side of ST. JEROME; and also in the color of some of the draperies, particularly in that of the canopy, which in this is striped, while in that it is of one color. In this, too, we find gold used in the halos and in the draperies, which is not the case in the other; a fact which points to the earlier production of this picture, and which also connects it in a remarkable manner with the _Crucifixion_ by _Mantegna_ (No. B-45). There can be no doubt that this picture is the finished sketch for the well-known _St. Jerome_, at Parma. The marked differences already alluded to in minor points, prove incontestably that it could not be the work of a copyist, who would, of course, reproduce his original with all possible fidelity. It is from the collection of Marshal Sebastiani, it having been nailed firmly to the wall in his bed-chamber. (_Bryan Collection._) B-48. Virgin and Child. (34X27.) _Correggio._ In support of the authenticity of this picture, we have the first authority in England,--that of Mr. Woodburn. The donor thinks it may be SCHIDONE. (_Bryan Collection._) [Illustration: B-22. ADORATION OF THE INFANT CHRIST. _ATTRIBUTED TO PERUGINO_ [_MACRINO D'ALBA_]] B-49. Virgin and Child. (10X8.) _Bernardino Luini._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-50. Virgin and Child, with St. John. (32X25½.) _Giulio Romano._ This picture was attributed to CÆSARI DA SESTO, but is now believed by the donor to be by GIULIO ROMANO. It is from the collection of Bishop Luscomb, Paris. (_Bryan Collection._) B-51. Portrait of a Princess of Florence. (52X41½.) _Agnolo Bronzino._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-52. Portrait of a Noble Florentine as St. Barbe. (35X30.) _Agnolo Bronzino._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-53. Portrait of a Venetian Lady as Mary Magdalen. (42X30.) _Copy from Palma._ (_Vecchio._) (_Bryan Collection._) B-54. Charity. (9X6½.) _Giuseppe Cesari d'Arpino._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-55. Virgin and Child. (8X6½.) _Annibale Caracci._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-56. St. Joseph holding the Infant Jesus. (8X6½.) _Annibale Caracci._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-57. St. Paul borne to Heaven by Angels. (19½X15.) _Domenichino._ "Three angels bear aloft the interpreter of the divine will: one has the form of infancy, another of youth, the third of adolescence. The minister of our Lord raises his hands to heaven, on which he gazes with an expression of burning hope. How he seeks to discover the first rays of the eternal light! How he longs for the moment in which he shall appear before the Almighty! What enthusiasm animates his countenance! I doubt if the ardor of faith could be better shown. The little angel has those brilliant eyes, and that expressive visage, which this master knew so well how to paint; it is certainly not inferior to those which we admire in the grand salon of the Louvre. The angel of the second age charms the eye by a grace and an easiness of attitude extremely remarkable; upon his countenance burn the veneration and the love with which the Apostle inspires him. The entire group seems actually to mount in the air. Mr. Bryan had the good taste to purchase it at the sale of M. Forbin-Janson." To this just and graphic description, from the pen of M. Michiels, which appeared in the _Gazette de France_, it is needless to add anything more. This picture was formerly in the gallery of the Cardinal Lambruschini, and afterwards in the collection of M. Forbin-Janson, Director of the Louvre, at whose sale it was purchased by the donor. (_Bryan Collection._) B-58. Christ Crowned with Thorns. (24½X20.) _Guido._ If not original, it is the best copy ever seen by the donor. (_Bryan Collection._) B-59. Magdalen in a Trance. (46½X36.) _School of Guido._ This picture is from the collection of Louis Philippe. The head of the Magdalen is evidently a reminiscence of the Niobe discovered at Rome at the epoch of the painter. (_Bryan Collection._) B-60. The Young Bacchus. (33X24.) Oval. _School of Carlo Dolci._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-61. Lucretia. (33X24.) Oval. _School of Carlo Dolci._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-62. Magdalen. (34X28.) Oval. _School of Carlo Dolci._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-63. St. Dorothea. (34X28.) Oval. _School of Carlo Dolci._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-64. Christ disputing with the Doctors. (39X54.) _Gentileschi._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-65. Portrait of Galileo Galilei. (30½X24½.) _Justus Sustermans._ From the collection of Louis Philippe. (_Bryan Collection._) B-66. Virgin and Child. (18½X15½.) _Sassoferrato._ Found at Rome. (_Bryan Collection._) B-67. Landscape, with Historical Figures. (48X79.) _Salvator Rosa._ (_Bryan Collection._) [Illustration: B-45. THE CRUCIFIXION. _ANDREA MANTEGNA._ (BRYAN COLLECTION)] B-68. Landscape. (38½X46.) _School of Salvator Rosa._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-69. Landscape. (24X38.) _School of Salvator Rosa._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-70. Landscape. (24X38.) _School of Salvator Rosa._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-71. Marine View, with Architecture. (34X50½.) _Canaletto._ Figures by TIEPOLO. (_Bryan Collection._) B-72. Autumn. (18½X24½.) Purchased of Mr. TERRY, artist, Rome. (_Bryan Collection._) B-73. Philip IV. of Spain. (26X21½.) Bought at Sienna. (_Bryan Collection._) B-74. Don John of Austria. (26X21½.) Bought at Sienna. (_Bryan Collection._) B-75. A Theologian Decorated with the Order of the Golden Fleece. (26X21½.) Bought at Sienna. (_Bryan Collection._) B-76. Portrait. (29X24.) Bought at Sienna. (_Bryan Collection._) B-77. Portrait. (29X24.) Bought at Sienna. (_Bryan Collection._) FLEMISH AND DUTCH SCHOOLS B-78. Landscape. (25½X33.) _Jacobus van Artois._ From the collection of Marshal Oudinot. (_Bryan Collection._) B-79. Landscape. (12½X17.) _Jan Asselyn._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-80. Landscape. (19½X15½.) _School of Asselyn._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-81. Marine View. (16½X24.) _Ludolf Bakhuysen._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-82. A large Marine View. (60X54.) _School of Bakhuysen._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-83. Marine View. (24X31.) _School of Bakhuysen._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-84. Winter Scene. (35½X52.) _Jan Beerestraten._ This is the finest specimen of the Master ever seen by the donor. It graced the collection of Cardinal Fesch. (_Bryan Collection._) B-85. Boors Regaling. (29X24.) _Cornelius Bega._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-86. Landscape. (33X44.) _Dirk van Bergen._ This is not a remarkable, though it is an authentic, specimen of the Master, and is signed. (_Bryan Collection._) B-87. Italian Scenery, and Figures in Italian Costume. (16X20.) _Nicholas Berghem._ Dated and signed "BERCHEM," his true signature, and a superb specimen of this Master. (_Bryan Collection._) B-88. Landscape, with Oxen at the Plough. (15X20½.) _Copy of Nicholas Berghem._ This picture was considered a BERGHEM by the Comte de Turenne, in the catalogue of his collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-89. Cattle and Herdsmen. (13½X11.) _Nicholas Berghem._ This little picture, though much injured, is unquestionably authentic. (_Bryan Collection._) B-90. Cattle Market. (29X38½.) _Petrus van Bloemen._ The ruined buildings near which the cattle are grouped, are the remains of the Palace of the Cæsars, Rome. (_Bryan Collection._) [Illustration: B-101. PORTRAIT OF A JANSENIST. _PHILLIPPE DE CHAMPAGNE._ (BRYAN COLLECTION)] B-91. Halt of Soldiers. (29X38½.) _Petrus van Bloemen._ These two pictures were engraved as the works of DE LAER, by an English engraver, in 1769; an error of names but not of appreciation at that time, when DE LAER was rated with WOUWERMANS. (_Bryan Collection._) B-92. Halt of Cavaliers. (10X11.) _Petrus van Bloemen._ This is in his Flemish style. (_Bryan Collection._) B-93. Landscape. (18½X24.) _Jan Both._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-94. Landscape. (15X12½.) _Jan Both._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-95. Italian Landscape: Sunrise. (21X27½.) _Jan Both._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-96. Italian Landscape: Sunset. (21X27.) _Jan Both._ B-95 and B-96 are companion pictures: the spirited figures are by LINGELBACH. (_Bryan Collection._) B-97. Interior of a Tavern. (15½X13.) _Renier Brakenburg._ It is signed both by BRAKENBURG and JAN STEEN, and bears everywhere marks of the careful assistance of the latter. (_Bryan Collection._) B-98. A Presentation to the Temple. (28X22½.) _Leonard Bramer._ Signed and dated. Bought from J. Vollmering in New York city. It is as fine as REMBRANDT'S best works. The senior of REMBRANDT, he appears to have led the way for him in his shades. (_Bryan Collection._) B-99. Robber examining Coin by Day-light. (9X6.) _Adrian Brower._ This Master was much respected by RUBENS. (_Bryan Collection._) B-100. Robber examining Coin by Candle-light. (8X6½.) _Adrian Brower._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-101. Portrait of a Jansenist. (41½X41½.) Round. _Phillippe de Champagne._ This picture is an excellent specimen of the Master. Collection of Mr. VIEN, artist. (_Bryan Collection._) B-102. St. Paul. (20X16.) _Phillippe de Champagne._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-103. Cattle in a Landscape. (15X13½.) _Albert Klomp._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-104. An Equestrian Portrait. (19X16.) _Gonzales Coques._ The picture gives but a feeble idea of the merit of the painter. (_Bryan Collection._) B-105. Cattle and Figures in a Landscape. (22X26½.) _Albert Cuyp._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-106. Portraits of the Burgomaster d'Eyselyhn of Rotterdam, and his family. (41X59.) _Jacob G. Cuyp._ The landscape is probably not by CUYP. (_Bryan Collection._) B-107. Landscape, with Figures. (24X20½.) _Guillam Dubois._ The similarity of many parts of this picture to the works of RUYSDAEL is so great, that some dealer, more keen than honest, had placed his signature over that of the actual painter. Upon cleaning the picture, the fictitious signature, of course, disappeared, and that of DUBOIS, with the date, 1652, was brought to light; and hence results the unmerited obscurity of a landscape painter of no mean powers who preceded RUYSDAEL, and whose works are important in the history of art, as showing the origin of that Master's style of treating foliage. (_Bryan Collection._) B-108. Landscape. (15½X21.) _John Renier de Vries._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-109. The Presentation at the Temple. (31X25½.) _Christian W. E. Dietrich._ This is the first picture bought by the donor, in Europe. (_Bryan Collection._) B-110. Abraham discarding Hagar. (28½X24.) _Christian W. E. Dietrich._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-111. The Crucifixion. (31½X20½.) _Anthony van Dyck._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-112. Portrait of a Lady. (42½X35½.) _Anthony van Dyck._ This picture belonged to General D'Espinoy's large and famous collection of portraits. It was covered with the dust of time; and the Cupid, which the donor found in perfect preservation, had been painted out by some sacrilegious hand. (_Bryan Collection._) B-113. Portrait of Charles I. (30½X39.) _Anthony van Dyck._ The monarch is represented on the same canvas in front, profile, and three-quarter view. The object in presenting such a picture was, as the reader will remember, to enable the Italian sculptor, BERNINI, who had not seen Charles, to model a bust. (_Bryan Collection._) B-114. The Artist in his Atelier. (12X15.) _Gerard Douw._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-115. The Continence of Scipio. (52X67.) _Gerbrandt vanden Eeckhout._ This is the most celebrated of the Master's compositions, and is cited by Descamps as his _chef d'oeuvre_. His pictures having been frequently changed into REMBRANDTS by picture-dealers, this specimen is the finest and purest which the donor has met with. (_Bryan Collection._) B-116. The Crucifixion. (15X14½.) _Jan van Eyck._ The cross upon which the dead CHRIST is suspended occupies the middle of the composition. On the left, ST. JOHN sustains the fainting Virgin, behind whom kneels the churchman for whom the picture was painted. His name, _Fr(ater) Aurelius de Emael_, is written in German-text across his figure. Behind him is a weeping female figure; on the left is a group of dignitaries and soldiers. A landscape, in which the towers of a distant city appear, closes the scene. Underneath the left arm of the cross appears the legend, _Vere Filius Dei erat iste_, in Roman characters of the epoch, which ceased to be used after the time when the painting in oil commenced. The forms in the CHRIST are somewhat meagre, but the anatomy is remarkably correct and particular. The expression in the faces of the several figures is marked. Modern art rarely shows us finer expression. The picture is slightly but admirably restored in the left arm of the cross, and a portion of the legend. It is of unquestionable authenticity and the extremest rarity. (_Bryan Collection._) B-117. Landscape, with Figures. (22X36.) _Jacques Fouquières._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-118. Landscape. (26X39½.) _Jan Glauber._ It is unrivalled by any production of the Master known to the donor, and is worthy of CLAUDE, to whom it has been attributed by some of the most distinguished experts of Europe. The figures are by GERARD DE LAIRESSE. (_Bryan Collection._) B-119. Castle and Seaport. (14X23.) _John van Goyen._ Bought in New York city. (_Bryan Collection._) B-120. Dogs and Game. (16X21.) _Anthony Griff._ This little picture is a fair specimen of the Master. (_Bryan Collection._) B-121. The Marriage of St. Catherine. (36X27½.) Oval Top. _Jan Memling._ The picture is in remarkably fine condition, and, aside from its intrinsic merit, is important in the history of Art. When purchased by the donor, its beauties were hidden beneath the accumulated blackness of ages; otherwise a private American fortune would have failed to obtain it, as the Director of the National Academy of Brussels, partly suspecting its value, was a competitor for its possession. It was purchased at the sale of the well-known _Collection Quedeville_. (_Bryan Collection._) B-122. The Annunciation. (17X17.) _Copy from Jan Memling._ This picture, as well as the preceding, is from the _Collection Quedeville_, and was supposed, for a long time, by some, to be an original; but a comparison of it with the "Marriage of St. Catherine," just noticed, will soon convince even the least practised eye of the error of this belief. (_Bryan Collection._) B-123. View of an old City on the Rhine. (18½X25.) _Jan van der Heyden._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-124. Landscape. (25X32½.) _School of Mindert Hobbema._ (_Bryan Collection._) [Illustration: B-116. THE CRUCIFIXION. _JAN VAN EYCK._ (BRYAN COLLECTION)] B-125. Landscape. (25½X30.) _Cornelius Huysmans, of Mechlin._ This is the finest easel-picture of this Master known to the donor. One inferior to it in every respect was placed by the side of a HOBBEMA at the exhibition of the British Institution, 1851, and sustained itself. (_Bryan Collection._) B-126. Portrait. (25X20.) _Karl du Jardin._ Portraits by this Master are very rare. (_Bryan Collection._) B-127. Landscape, with Figures. (24X21.) _Karl du Jardin._ The signature is in script, _K. du Jardin_; an unusual one for the Master, who almost always signed in Roman letters. (_Bryan Collection._) B-128. Landscape: Cattle and Figures. (14X21.) _Jan Kobell._ Purchased in New York city. (_Bryan Collection._) B-129. Portrait. (48½X39½.) _Sir Peter Lely._ This is the portrait of a sister to the Duke whose portrait, representing him holding an orange, is in the Louvre, and which was long attributed to VANDYKE; and the donor, with due deference, declares both portraits to be painted by the same artist--Sir PETER LELY. It is from the collection of DROLLING, artist. (_Bryan Collection._) B-130. Portrait. (17X13.) _Nicholas Maas._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-131. Virgin and Child, with Cherubs. (13½X10.) Oval Top. _Jan de Mabuse._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-132. Virgin and Child. (27½X22.) _Jan de Mabuse._ This picture in its composition and expression shows the influence of the painter's study in Italy. (_Bryan Collection._) B-133. A Triptique. (28X39½.) _Quintin Matsys._ Bodily rather than mental suffering is portrayed in this picture by a painter who sought expression alone. His Misers, in the English Queen's collection, is the connecting link between the early and the more modern Flemish art. (_Bryan Collection._) B-134. Boors regaling. (12½X9½.) _Jan Molenaer._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-135. Winter Scene. (31X44½.) _Nicholas Molenaer._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-136. Landscape. (14X18½.) _Frederick Moucheron._ This picture is signed by the artist. (_Bryan Collection._) B-137. Landscape. (18X21½.) _Frederick Moucheron._ Bought in New York City. (_Bryan Collection._) B-138. Portrait. (12X11.) _Jan van Neck._ This picture is from the gallery of Cardinal Fesch, at the sale of which it was purchased,--but not by the donor,--as by NETSCHER, the true signature being covered by the false one of NETSCHER. (_Bryan Collection._) B-139. Landscape by Moonlight. (24½X35.) _Arnold van der Neer._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-140. The Interior of a Cathedral. (14X18.) _Peter Neefs._ The figures are by Franck and the picture is signed by both masters. (_Bryan Collection._) B-141. Portrait of Madame de Montespan. (19½X15.) _Caspar Netscher._ The Duchess sits near a small table, playing upon the harp; at her feet sits her son, the Duc de Maine. The artist has intended to represent the lady as St. Cecilia. The anvil, hammers, and balance, introduced into the painter's design, are allusions to the discovery of the musical octave by Pythagoras, and also her sitting upon a celestial globe typical of the music of the spheres. (_Bryan Collection._) B-142. A Carnival Scene. Twelfth Night. (66½X92.) _Jacob van Oost._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-143. A Lady playing with a Dog. (37X30.) _Jacob van Ochterveldt._ (_Bryan Collection._) [Illustration: B-152. PORTRAIT. _PAUL REMBRANDT._ (BRYAN COLLECTION)] B-144. Portraits of the Painter's Wife and Child. (11½X10.) _Adrian Van Ostade._ From the collection of Cardinal Fesch. (_Bryan Collection._) B-145. Head of a Boor. (5X4½.) _School of Ostade._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-146. A Dutch School. (13X16.) _Isaac van Ostade._ From the Da Costa Collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-147. Landscape, with Figures. (6X7½.) _Cornelius Poelemburg._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-148. Portrait of Henri IV. (15X9½.) _Francis Porbus._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-149. A Nobleman and Lady. (14X11.) _Francis Porbus._ Leaving a chateau, to promenade in the garden. (_Bryan Collection._) B-150. A Waggoner, Horse, and Greyhound. (8X15½.) _School of Paul Potter._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-151. Battle-Piece. (20X23.) _Augustus Querfurt._ The group of Hercules and the Lion standing upon a Pedestal near the middle of the picture will remind one of RUBENS. (No. B-161). (_Bryan Collection._) B-152. Portrait. (27X21.) _Paul Rembrandt._ This portrait is signed with the R., the early signature of the Master. It was bought at the sale of the celebrated miniature painter SAINT, to whom it belonged, by Mr. Roehn, the celebrated connoisseur, and was sold by him as REMBRANDT'S to Mr. Jecker, the same who left his important collection of prints to the _Bibliothèque National_ at Paris. (_Bryan Collection._) B-153. Tobit and the Angel. (18X13.) _Copy from Paul Rembrandt._ Copied by SCHUERMAN from the original in the Louvre. (_Bryan Collection._) B-154. Holy Family. (15X12½.) _Copy from Paul Rembrandt._ The copy is also by SCHUERMAN, who died in 1847. (_Bryan Collection._) B-155. Portrait of an Abbé. (20X17.) _School of Paul Rembrandt._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-156. St. John preaching. (29½X42.) _Theodore Rombouts._ In a former catalogue this picture was classed among unknown artists. The donor has since discovered it to be by ROMBOUTS. From the collection of General Desport. (_Bryan Collection._) B-157. View of a Windmill on a Canal. (10½X12½.) _Theodore Rombouts._ Signed by the artist. Bought in New York city. (_Bryan Collection._) B-158. St. Catherine. (38½X28½.) _Peter Paul Rubens._ There are but six pictures of this quality of color by RUBENS, known to the donor. Three are in the Louvre, one is over the painter's tomb, one is the famous _Chapeau de Paille_, and the other is before us. It was brought from a church in the neighborhood of Brussels, by NIEUWEN-HUYSEN, the elder, and sold to the Count Perregeau. (_Bryan Collection._) B-159. Christ bearing the Cross. (59X24½.) _Peter Paul Rubens._ This picture is especially valuable for historical considerations, as being the only one which RUBENS is known to have painted on cedar panel. It formed one compartment of a triptique in the Cathedral of Antwerp. The centre compartment represented the Flagellation of Christ. The donor has the authority of Mr. HERIS for the authenticity of this picture, and the locality from which it was stolen. (_Bryan Collection._) B-160. Portrait of a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. (44X33.) _Peter Paul Rubens._ This picture is from the collection of Louis Philippe, King of the French, and was supposed to be by VANDYKE. (_Bryan Collection._) [Illustration: B-160. PORTRAIT OF A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE. _PETER PAUL RUBENS._ (BRYAN COLLECTION)] B-161. Hercules strangling the Nemean Lion. (80X67.) _Peter Paul Rubens._ Several persons, whose opinions the donor highly respects, have denied the authenticity of this picture; but he thinks that, on a careful examination, its wonderful energy and muscular movement can be attributed to no other hand, no other head, than that of RUBENS. It is the Belvidere Torso--that only acknowledged Master of MICHAEL ANGELO--put into action, and was doubtless painted in Italy. It is known that _Rubens_ attempted to draw the lion from nature, when he was irritated by his keeper. He made but a hasty sketch. (_Bryan Collection._) B-162. Landscape, with Figures. (12X16½.) _Peter Paul Rubens._ From an old chateau in Normandy. (_Bryan Collection._) B-163. Ascension of the Virgin. (10X8.) Oval. _Copy from Peter Paul Rubens._ This copy was made by CORNELIUS POELEMBURG. (_Bryan Collection._) B-164. Group of Christ, St. John, and two Angels. (10X11½.) _Copy from Peter Paul Rubens._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-165. Satyr and Nymphs. (13X18½.) _School of Rubens._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-166. Effect of Candle-light. (40½X31.) _School of Rubens._ Copied from a well-known etching of RUBENS. (_Bryan Collection._) B-167. Distant View of Haarlem. (19X27½.) _Jacob Ruysdael._ The figures in the foreground are by VANDEVELDE. (_Bryan Collection._) B-168. Marine View. (30½X43.) _Jacob Ruysdael._ The figures are by VANDEVELDE. (_Bryan Collection._) B-169. Landscape, with Cattle. (22X17.) _School of Ruysdael._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-170. Landscape. (14X21½.) _Solomon Ruysdael._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-171. Dogs Worrying a Cat. (55X72.) _Francis Snyders._ The landscape by WILDENS, the cat by OUDRY, by whom it was added, and to whom the picture belonged. From the collection of DROLLING, the artist. (_Bryan Collection._) B-172. Still Life. (44X64.) _Francis Snyders._ Collection of Marshal Oudinot. (_Bryan Collection._) B-173. Interior: Family Scene. (29X37.) _Jan Steen._ The patient is the painter's own wife; on the right are the VAN GOYENS, (her father and mother,) and JAN STEEN himself stands on her left, regarding the operation with interest. This picture, which is superior to the only specimen of the Master in the Louvre, was purchased from the Gallery of the Count De Turenne, the last of the family of the celebrated Marshal. (_Bryan Collection._) B-174. Landscape and Figures. (11½X14½.) _Jan Steen._ Signed by the artist, and bought in New York city. (_Bryan Collection._) B-175. Incantation Scene. (14½X20.) _David Teniers the Younger._ This picture is unsurpassed by any other of the Master; and if ever equalled, it is only by one in the Gallery of Madrid, representing TENIERS himself, painting the portrait of the Grand Duke Leopold and his family; a picture which makes painters wonder and despair. Collection Sylvestre. (_Bryan Collection._) B-176. Village Fête. (18½X28½.) _David Teniers the Younger._ Collection Marshal Sebastiani. (_Bryan Collection._) B-177. Village Fête. (17½X20.) _David Teniers the Younger._ A picture similar in subject but inferior in treatment to the preceding; probably executed in old age. (_Bryan Collection._) [Illustration: B-182. WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE, (WILLIAM III.) _GERARD TERBURG._ (BRYAN COLLECTION)] B-178. Boors Regaling, and playing at Skittles. (11X14½.) _David Teniers the Younger._ Collection Duc de Berri. (_Bryan Collection._) B-179. Charles V. leaving the town of Dort. (23X39.) _David Teniers the Younger._ The Emperor, in full armor, is about to descend the steps of a large building. The Archbishop gives him his blessing. Persons of dignity, in church and state, are grouped on all sides. In the background is the ship in which the Emperor is about to embark. This composition is filled with portraits; among which, in the figure bearing the standard on the extreme right, we recognize that of the Painter himself. Collection D'Espinoy. (_Bryan Collection._) B-180. Parable of the Laborer who received a Penny. (22X17.) _David Teniers the Younger._ In which is introduced the portrait of RUBENS in his medal chain, also the portraits of REMBRANDT and other artists and two children of TENIERS. From the collection of Louis Philippe. (_Bryan Collection._) B-181. Landscape and Figures. (9½X13½.) _David Teniers the Younger._ A wonderful effect, and familiarly styled by painters as the "après déjeuner" manner. Bought in New York city. (_Bryan Collection._) B-182. Portrait of William, Prince of Orange, (William III.) (30½X23.) _Gerard Terburg._ This was supposed to be the portrait cited by Descamp as the one which William insisted that the artist should paint; he being a burgomaster devoted to the Prince's cause. It is signed "G. TERBORCH," the only genuine signature of the Master. (_Bryan Collection._) B-183. Marine View. (25X29.) _William van de Velde._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-184. Marine View. (12½X14.) _William van de Velde._ From Collection Giroud, Paris. (_Bryan Collection._) B-185. Marine View. (9½X12½.) _William van de Velde._ Bought in Philadelphia. (_Bryan Collection._) B-186. Landscape, with Animals. (9X11½.) _Adrian van de Velde._ This picture, though small, gives a just idea of the power of the Master, from whose pencil the donor has never seen a feeble work; though ADRIAN may have adorned with his figures the compositions of inferior masters. This picture, together with the small landscape by RUBENS (No. B-162), is from an old chateau in Normandy. (_Bryan Collection._) B-187. Landscape, with Figures. (25X33.) _Abraham Verboom._ So fine a specimen of the Master is rarely to be found. The group of figures, by LINGELBACH, is almost worthy of WOUWERMANS. (_Bryan Collection._) B-188. The Three Graces. (19X15½.) _Chevalier van der Werf._ From Hunter's collection, New York. (_Bryan Collection._) B-189. Ruins, with Figures. (22X17½.) _Jan Baptist Weenix._ In the opinion of the donor, this picture, though striking at first, is extremely false in everything, like most others of this painter's works. It is from the collection of Cardinal Fesch. (_Bryan Collection._) B-190. Travellers, by a River-side. (12X16.) _Philip Wouwermans._ This picture has, unfortunately, been much injured in many places; but in the head and shoulders of the white horse may be found a specimen of the Master's style of painting; and the signature is unquestionably genuine. (_Bryan Collection._) B-191. Departure of a Hawking Party of Nobles from a Baronial Castle. (43X51½.) _Philip Wouwermans._ The largest picture in size and manner which the donor has seen by this Master. From the Meert collection, sold in New York, Dec., 1865. (_Bryan Collection._) [Illustration: B-199. ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. _ALBRECHT DÜRER._ (BRYAN COLLECTION)] B-192. The Burning and Sacking of a Town. (21X19.) _Philip Wouwermans._ If not a copy, it is an early picture of the Master, and though meritorious, gives no idea of the fullness of his powers. (_Bryan Collection._) B-193. Landscape. (8X10½.) _Jan Wynants._ The equestrians and beggar in the foreground are by BARENT GAAL. It is a fair specimen of the Master. Collection Giroud, Paris. (_Bryan Collection._) B-194. Still Life. (7¾X10¼.) _Henry Martin Rokes._ It, as well as the "Sorcery Scene," by TENIERS, ornamented the collection of Mons. Sylvestre, whose ancestors have been either artists or connected with art since the year 1490. A noble pedigree. This artist inherited the name of _Zorg_ (careful) from his father. (_Bryan Collection._) B-195. Ruins, with Figures. (20X26.) _Flemish School._ (_Bryan Collection._) GERMAN SCHOOL B-196. Venus and Cupid. (19½X13.) _Lucas Cranach._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-197. Portrait of a Lady. (28X22.) _Lucas Cranach._ It is from this painter's pencil that we have the only known or recognized portrait of Martin Luther. Collection D'Espinoy. (_Bryan Collection._) B-198. Portrait. (20½X17.) _Balthazar Denner._ An old Lady, with a silk hood. The marks of age are given with great accuracy and truthfulness. (_Bryan Collection._) B-199. St. George and the Dragon. (16½X13.) _Albrecht Dürer._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-200. Triumph of Christianity. (26½X38.) _School of Dürer._ This picture is from the collection Quedeville. (_Bryan Collection._) B-201. Interior of a Private Chapel. (33½X25.) _Hans Holbein._ The family of Count Valkeniers are at prayers--the father and the two eldest sons being in armor, ready to depart for war. From the collection of Joseph M. Meert de Domberg, New York. (_Bryan Collection._) B-202. Portrait of a Professor. (30½X23½.) _Hans Holbein._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-203. The Judgment of Paris. (6½X9.) _Joachim Uytenwael._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-204. Adoration. (43X32.) _Martin Schoen._ On the right will be seen a Priest, holding a book, and supposed, by General D'Espinoy, from whose collection it came, to be a portrait of Luther, in his youth. (_Bryan Collection._) B-205. Landscape, with Figures. (11½X16½.) _Valkenburg._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-206. Landscape. (13X20.) _Valkenburg._ These pictures possess great interest, in being historically known as the earliest landscapes painted otherwise than as a mere accessory to some historical, religious, or other subject. Both of them are from the collection Quedeville. (_Bryan Collection._) SPANISH SCHOOL B-207. Philip IV. of Spain, as David with Goliath's Head. (74½X43.) _Diego Velasquez._ From the collection of Marshal Sebastiani. (_Bryan Collection._) B-208. Landscape. (37X43½.) _Diego Velasquez._ Found at Rome. A picture of a similar style--the only one ever seen by the donor--is in the possession of Mr. Madrazo, the Director of the Royal Gallery of Madrid. (_Bryan Collection._) B-209. Portrait of the Infanta Margarita of Spain. (28X24.) _Diego Velasquez._ From the collection of R. W. Meade, U. S. Consul at Cadiz. 1808. (_Bryan Collection._) B-210. Still Life. (27½X76.) _Diego Velasquez._ Preparation for an _olla podrida_, from the collection of R. W. Meade. (_Bryan Collection._) B-211. Adoration of the Magi. (42X64½.) _Murillo._ In the style and color of the three pictures now in the Vatican--a late gift to his Holiness by the Ex-Queen of Spain. (_Bryan Collection._) B-212. Adoration of the Shepherds. (57X80.) _Murillo._ From the Gallery of Marshal Soult. (_Bryan Collection._) B-213. The Vision of St. Francis. (23½X19.) _Murillo._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-214. St. Joseph. (65½X47.) _Murillo._ St. Joseph is bearing Christ in his arms, who is looking at the Carpenter's tools. From the collection of R. W. Meade. (_Bryan Collection._) B-215. The Entombment of Christ. (78X92.) _Sebastian Llanos y Valdes._ From the Gallery of Marshal Soult. (_Bryan Collection._) B-216. Christ borne to the Tomb. (70X50½.) _Spanish School._ A repetition of a Spanish picture in the Church of St. Pietro, in Montorio, Rome. (_Bryan Collection._) B-217. Portrait of a Queen of Spain. (29X23.) _Spanish School._ Imitation of VELASQUEZ. (_Bryan Collection._) FRENCH SCHOOL B-218. The Entombment of Christ. (27X9.) (_Bryan Collection._) B-219. The Resurrection. (27X9.) (_Bryan Collection._) B-220. Head of Christ. (15X11.) It is upon leather, which was stamped and gilded so as to form around it a strange quadrangular halo, in which _fleur de lis_ is prominent. Upon the edge is an inscription, of which only ADORO--REDENTOR, I. H. S., is legible. It is probably not older than the latter part of the fourteenth century, and was, doubtless, an object of adoration to some devout Catholic. (_Bryan Collection._) B-221. Diana of Poictiers, as Judith with the Head of Holofernes. (39X27.) _Martin Freminet._ The ornaments in gold, and precious stones, are from the compositions of the celebrated BENVENUTO CELLINI, and have been copied by modern jewelers. (_Bryan Collection._) B-222. The Repose in Egypt. (36½X30.) _Nicholas Poussin._ The attitude of the Virgin is remarkable, not only for its graceful dignity, but for its perfect expression of the fact that she is listening calmly but intently to the narrative which Joseph is evidently relating. The landscape, though not highly finished, is grandly composed; and upon it the twilight of dawn is made to fall with sweet solemnity. (_Bryan Collection._) B-223. The Daughter of Pharaoh about to bathe in the Nile. (25½X29.) _Nicholas Poussin._ Two attendants are about to disrobe the Princess; a third kneels at her feet with a vase of anointing oil. Before her is a figure emblematic of the river. The group is finely composed, and the forms and attitudes are simple and chaste almost to statuesqueness. Both these pictures display the knowledge of form, the classical taste, and the color which are characteristic of this Master, recognized as the _Peintre des Gens d'Esprit_. This sketch is in the best manner of POUSSIN, and was formerly in the collection of M. de St. Aubin. (_Bryan Collection._) B-224. Classic Landscape. (29X36½.) _Nicholas Poussin._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-225. Diana and her Nymphs bathing. (44½X56.) _Nicholas Poussin._ This is an unfinished sketch. (_Bryan Collection._) B-226. Portrait of Duchesnois, the Flemish Sculptor. (27½X23.) _Nicholas Poussin._ Duchesnois lived with POUSSIN in Rome. From the collection of Gen. D'Espinoy. (_Bryan Collection._) B-227. Landscape. (9½X7½.) _Guaspre Poussin._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-228. Landscape. (9½X7½.) _Guaspre Poussin._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-229. Grand Landscape: Hagar in the Desert. (37½X50½.) _Guaspre Poussin._ This picture, which has been engraved, is in the finest manner of the Master. The figures are by PHILIPPE LAURI. It is from the collection of Marshal Sebastiani. (_Bryan Collection._) B-230. Landscape, with Figures. (39½X50½.) _School of Claude Lorraine._ The peasants in the foreground are designed after DOMENICHINO; but the figure who leans against a tree, in the shadow on the left, and plays upon a pipe, is like CLAUDE. CLAUDE was so conscious of the want of merit in his pictures, he used to say that he sold his landscapes and gave away the people in them. Collection of Marshal Sebastiani. (_Bryan Collection._) B-231. A Grand Landscape, Marine View, and Figures, an Ancient Group in marble representing Echo punished. (46X59.) _School of Claude Lorraine._ This picture belonged to M. Forbin-Janson, Director of the Louvre; it was believed by him to be an original. (_Bryan Collection._) B-232. Landscape, with a Sea-View. (14X17.) _School of Claude Lorraine._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-233. Landscape. (15½X15½.) Round. _School of Claude Lorraine._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-234. Portrait of a Lady at her Toilet. (40½X32½.) Oval. _Pierre Mignard._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-235. Holy Family. (14X12.) _Pierre Mignard._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-236. The dead Christ supported by the Virgin. (18X17.) _Eustache le Sueur._ From the collection of the Abbé Genoud. (_Bryan Collection._) B-237. Portrait. (19X15.) _Charles Le Brun._ From the Parant Collection. (_Bryan Collection._) B-238. Battle-Piece. (9X19.) _Jacques Courtois._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-239. Battle-Piece. (9X19.) _Jacques Courtois._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-240. Christ in the Wilderness, ministered to by Angels. (36X46.) _Charles de la Fosse._ This picture was formerly in the collection of Cardinal Fesch. After its arrival in Paris, in the possession of the donor, it was solicited for the Gallery of the Louvre. (_Bryan Collection._) B-241, B-242. Scenes from the Life of St. Charles de Borromeo. (25X38½.) _Jean Jouvenet._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-243. Portraits of two Ladies. (57X44½.) _Nicholas de Largillière._ This picture was also sought from the donor for the Gallery of the Louvre. (_Bryan Collection._) B-244. Portrait of a Marshal of France. (32X25½.) Oval. _Hyacinthe Rigaud._ From the Collection Vien. It is a very fine specimen of the Master. Our own STUART thought the Portraits of RIGAUD'S two sisters, by him, the most natural and true he ever saw. (_Bryan Collection._) [Illustration: B-243. PORTRAITS OF TWO LADIES. _NICHOLAS DE LARGILLIERE._ (BRYAN COLLECTION)] B-245. Musicians. (18X15.) _Antoine Watteau._ This picture is evidently cut from a large and important work. (_Bryan Collection._) B-246. A Venetian Fête, or Ball, by day. (25½X31½.) _Antoine Watteau._ A composition unrivalled for picturesqueness of design and richness of color. (_Bryan Collection._) B-247. Landscape, with Figures. (18X22.) _Antoine Watteau._ This is but a sketch, in the style of GIORGIONE. (See No. B-32.) (_Bryan Collection._) B-248. Landscape, with Figures. (17½X22.) _Jean Baptiste Pater._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-249. Portrait of the Cardinal de Rochechouart. (53½X39.) _Pompeo Battoni._ From the Chateau Courcelle, the seat of the Cardinal's family. (_Bryan Collection._) B-250. Head of a Boy. (11½X9.) _Pompeo Battoni._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-251. Still Life. (16X24.) _Jean B. S. Chardin._ The viands for a _jour maigre_ under the rule of the Church. (_Bryan Collection._) B-252. Portrait of Louis XVII., Dauphin. (22½X17½.) _School of Greuze._ He is represented as seven or eight years old. He wears a blue scarf indicating his rank. From the collection of M. de Mont Louis, a devoted legitimist, who died at a very advanced age, in 1850. It bears much resemblance to the works of CHARDIN. (_Bryan Collection._) B-253. Park of St. Cloud. (13X29.) _Hubert Robert._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-254. Portrait of Dr. Ambroise Paré, the Father of French Surgery. (14½X11.) _Peter Porbus._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-255. Italian Scenery, with Figures. (31½X45.) _Joseph Vernet._ Painted by the artist for his friend, Balthazar, the architect, from whose collection it came. It is a fair specimen of the Master. (_Bryan Collection._) B-256. The Bay of Baia, an effect of Moonlight. (14½X25½.) _Joseph Vernet._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-257. A Seaport. (39X53.) _Joseph Vernet._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-258. Landscape, painted for a Snuff-Box. (5X5.) Round. _Joseph Vernet._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-259. Portrait of a Receiver-General. (18½X14.) _Robert Tourniere._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-260. A Nymph of Diana. (42X53.) _Jean Baptiste Greuze._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-261. A Repetition of the L'Aveugle Dupé. (24X19.) _Jean Baptiste Greuze._ An early production. Bought in New York city. (_Bryan Collection._) B-262. Portrait of the Duc de Choiseul. (24X19½.) _Jean Baptiste Greuze._ From the collection of PARANT, who painted, on porcelain, the heads of the celebrities of France. This head was probably procured for that purpose. (_Bryan Collection._) B-263. Head of a Young Girl. (17X14.) Oval. _Jean Baptiste Greuze._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-264. Virginie. (A study.) (18X15.) _Jean Baptiste Greuze._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-265. Sketch of a Female Head. (18X15.) _Jean Baptiste Greuze._ The celebrated miniature-painter SAINT purchased this sketch at the sale of GREUZE'S own collection after his death. (_Bryan Collection._) B-266. The Sister. (18X15.) _Nicholas Bernard Lepicié._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-267. France Triumphant after the Restoration of Louis XVIII. (54X33½.) _Pierre Paul Prud'hon._ This picture is the finished sketch of a plafond now at Dijon, the birth-place of the painter. It is from the collection of M. VIEN, artist. It was sought of the donor by the Director of the Louvre, for that Gallery. (_Bryan Collection._) B-268. Napoleon at Charleroi. (13X16.) _Horace Vernet._ The accessories and the horse are portraits. This little picture ornamented the private study of Louis Philippe. (_Bryan Collection._) B-269. The Duke of Orleans. (21X31.) _Horace Vernet._ The Duke is giving orders to his groom. He is attended by a negro-page and two greyhounds. In the background are a "cabriolet" and horse. This is a very early picture of the Master. It was rescued from the Chateau and Park de Monceau, on their destruction. (_Bryan Collection._) B-270. Attack repulsed at Constantine, Africa. (18½X15.) _Bellangé._ Death of Richepanse. (_Bryan Collection._) B-271. Fox-Chase. (14X18.) _J. B. Descamps._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-272. Snipe-Shooting. (14X18.) _J. B. Descamps._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-273. Duck-Shooting. (13X16.) _J. B. Descamps._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-274. Nymphs and Cupids. (9½X12.) _Vallin._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-275. Portrait of a Lady, as a Water-Nymph. (33½X23.) _L. J. Schaal._ It has been engraved as LA BELLE SOURCE, and is supposed to be the portrait of the wife of a revolutionary character of some note, named Source. From the Collection PARANT. (_Bryan Collection._) B-276. A Voluptuary. (22X18.) Oval. _François Boucher._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-277. Winter-Scene. (25X30.) _François Boucher._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-278. Landscape. (9½X12.) _Georges Michel._ The figures, by SWEBACH, are very spirited. (_Bryan Collection._) B-279. Landscape. (14X18.) _Frederic M. Kruseman._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-280. The Inheritance. (17X21.) _Felix Van der Eycken._ Painted for the donor. (_Bryan Collection._) B-281. Student Travellers, Regaling at a Hostelry in Flanders. (22X29.) _Felix Van der Eycken._ Bought in New York city. (_Bryan Collection._) B-282. Landscape, with Sheep. (17½X15.) _Balthasar Ommeganck._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-283. Catechism before Marriage, according to Belgian Law, being necessary for State and Matrimonial Security. (37½X48.) _Jean Henri de Coene._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-284. Portrait of an Old Man. (9½X7½.) _M. Dykemans._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-285. Portrait of the Artist, (1737-1815.) (36X30.) _John Singleton Copley._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-286. Portrait of Guy Bryan, (1755-1829.) (36½X28.) _Thomas Sully._ This portrait of the father of the donor of the Bryan Collection was considered by DUNLAP one of the happiest efforts of Mr. SULLY. (_Bryan Collection._) [Illustration: B-285. JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY _BY HIMSELF._ (BRYAN COLLECTION)] B-287. The Confessional. (35X28.) _William E. West._ Mr. WEST is well known by his having painted the best portrait of Lord Byron. This picture was a favorite of the late Washington Irving. (_Bryan Collection._) B-288. Landscape. (48½X64.) _George L. Brown._ This view is from Nature, in the Island of Capri, Vesuvius being seen in the distance. (_Bryan Collection._) B-289. A Midnight Conversation. (25X32.) _William Hogarth._ Engraved as the frontispiece of Ireland's Hogarth. In Walpole's anecdotes of painters a catalogue is given professing to contain a complete list of all of HOGARTH'S paintings and their then owners. This painting appears in that list, but the owner's name is not given. (_Bryan Collection._) B-290. The Harlot's Progress. (25X31½.) _Copy from William Hogarth._ This copy is by HORREMANS, of Vienna, and is one of the famous series of the "Harlot's Progress." The copyist has seen fit to make some variations from the print. (_Bryan Collection._) B-291. Portrait. (48X39.) _Sir Joshua Reynolds._ In his early style. (_Bryan Collection._) B-292. Pallas Appearing to Achilles, after the Death of Patroclus. (17½X14.) _Benjamin West._ This is a sketch for a large picture. (_Bryan Collection._) B-293. Portrait of Charles Wilson Peale, (1741-1827.) (28X23.) _Benjamin West._ From the Peale Gallery, Phila., 1854. (_Bryan Collection._) B-294. View of Genesee Falls, New York. (9½X13.) _Count Beaujolais._ This sketch is quite faithful as a representation of the locality. Its chief interest, however, consists in its having been made by the brother of Louis Philippe, when the two princes were on their visit to this country, after the first French Revolution. Collection Louis Philippe. (_Bryan Collection._) B-295. Landscape. (17½X24.) _Joseph Vollmering._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-296. Winter-Scene. (10½X13½.) _Joseph Vollmering._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-297. Murillo Sketching the Beggar-Boy. (17X21.) _Edwin White._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-298. Family Group. (56X89.) _Charles Wilson Peale._ This composition contains portraits of the artist and his brothers, St. George and James Peale; his sister, Margaret J. Ramsey; his wife, Rachel Brewer Peale; his cousin, Margaret Durgan; his sister, Elizabeth Digby Peale Polk; his mother, Margaret Peale; his children, Titian R. and Rembrandt Peale; also the old dog Argus, so well known to the frequenters of the Museum. The following inscription is on the picture: "C. W. Peale painted these portraits of his family in 1773--wishing to finish every work he had undertaken--completed this picture in 1809." From the Peale Gallery, Phila., 1854. (_Bryan Collection._) B-299. Portrait of George Washington, (1732-1799.) (29X24.) _Charles Wilson Peale._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-300. Portrait of John Beale Bordley, (1727-1804.) (23X20.) _Charles Wilson Peale._ From the Peale Gallery, Phila., 1854. (_Bryan Collection._) B-301. Portrait of Pieter Johan Van Berckel, (1725-1800.) (23X20.) _Charles Wilson Peale._ Minister Plenipotentiary from the Netherlands to the United States of America, 1782--being the first Minister sent and recognized. (_Bryan Collection._) B-302. Portrait of Gilbert C. Stuart, (1755-1828.) (23X20.) _Charles Wilson and Rembrandt Peale._ From the Peale Gallery, Phila., 1854. (_Bryan Collection._) B-303. Portrait of George Washington, (1732-1799.) (30½X24½.) _Gilbert C. Stuart._ (_Bryan Collection._) [Illustration: B-293. CHARLES WILSON PEALE. _BENJAMIN WEST._ (BRYAN COLLECTION)] B-304. Portrait of John Adams, (1735-1826.) (20X22½.) _Gilbert C. Stuart._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-305. Portrait of Alexander Hamilton, (1757-1804.) (30X25½.) From the American Museum Collection, 1863. (_Bryan Collection._) B-306. Portrait of Thomas Jefferson, (1743-1826.) (29X24.) _Rembrandt Peale._ Painted in 1805. (_Bryan Collection._) B-307. Portrait of Dr. Joseph Priestley, (1733-1804.) (23X20.) _Rembrandt Peale._ From the Peale Gallery, Phila., 1854. (_Bryan Collection._) B-308. Portrait of Mrs. James Madison, (1772-1849.) (30X24½.) _Rembrandt Peale._ From the American Museum Collection, 1863. (_Bryan Collection._) B-309. Portrait of Stephen Decatur, U. S. N., (1751-1808.) (28½X23.) _Rembrandt Peale._ From the Peale Gallery, Phila., 1854. (_Bryan Collection._) B-310. Portrait of Jacob Jones, U. S. N., (1768-1850.) (28½X23.) _Rembrandt Peale._ From the Peale Gallery, Phila., 1854. (_Bryan Collection._) B-311. Portrait of William Bainbridge, U. S. N., (1774-1833.) (28½X23.) _Rembrandt Peale._ From the Peale Gallery, Phila., 1854. (_Bryan Collection._) B-312. Portrait of Oliver H. Perry, U. S. N., (1785-1819.) (28½X23.) _Rembrandt Peale._ From the Peale Gallery, Phila., 1854. (_Bryan Collection._) B-313. Portrait of William Handy, M.D. (30X25.) _Edward Savage._ From the American Museum Collection, 1863. (_Bryan Collection._) B-314. Portrait of the Seneca Chief, Corn Plant, or Ki-on-twog-ky. (30X25.) _F. Bartoli._ This portrait was painted at New York city, in the year 1796, and is engraved in McKenney's History of the Indian Tribes, Vol. I., page 85. (_Bryan Collection._) B-315. Portrait of Jean Parisot de la Valette. (29X24.) Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, 1565. A modern copy of this picture is in the Gallery at Versailles. (_Bryan Collection._) B-316. Portrait of Cadwallader D. Colden, (1769-1834.) (35X28½.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ First Vice President of the Society, 1821. From the American Museum Collection, 1863. (_Bryan Collection._) B-317. Portrait of William Tilghman, (1756-1827.) (21X17.) _Rembrandt Peale._ Chief Justice of Pennsylvania. From the American Museum Collection, 1863. (_Bryan Collection._) B-318. A Presentation at the Temple. (30X38.) _Spanish School._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-319. St. Cecilia. In the Style of Correggio. (47X66.) (_Bryan Collection._) B-320. Fête Champêtre. (30X39½.) _Gonzales Coques._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-321. Female Head. (18½X14½.) _School of Correggio._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-322. St. Paul restored to Sight. (18½X14½.) _Copy from Domenichino._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-323. Adoration of the Shepherds. (16X11½.) _Copy from Spagnoletto._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-324. Female Head. (19X15.) _Copy from Greuze._ Original in the Lichtenstein Gallery. (_Bryan Collection._) B-325. Family Group, of the Artist, Wife and Children. (39X36½.) _Michael Van Musscher._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-326. Æneas and his son Ascanius visiting Dido. (25X21.) _Constantine Netscher._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-327. Portrait of Orelia Doria. (49X29.) _Italian School._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-328. Portrait of Madalena Doria. (49X29.) _Italian School._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-329. German Baron and his Family. (21X27½.) _Bartholomew Vander Helst._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-330. Virgin and Child. (17X11½.) (_Bryan Collection._) B-331. Christ appearing to the Magdalen. (23X19.) _Fra Bartolomeo._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-332. Virgin and Child. (22½X16.) _Bernardo Zenale._ From the Collection of Du Bluisel, Paris, 1870. (_Bryan Collection._) B-333. Triptique. (18X32.) (_Bryan Collection._) B-334. Landscape, with Figures. (28½X42.) _Adam Pynaker._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-335. Family Fête. (33X39.) _Jan Steen._ From the Collection of Comtesse de Vergez, Paris, 1870. (_Bryan Collection._) B-336. Landscape, with Figures. (37X51.) _William de Buytenweg._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-337. Bacchanal. (21X32.) _Sebastien Bourdon._ From the Olmade Collection, Paris, 1868. (_Bryan Collection._) B-338. Landscape, with Figures. (25½X30.) Cornelius Huysmans. (_Bryan Collection._) B-339. Landscape. (22X32½.) _Minderhout Hobbema._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-340. The Fortune Teller. (23½X21.) _Antoine Watteau._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-341. Snow Scene. (8X10.) _Philip Wouwermans._ From the Gaudinot Collection, Paris, 1839. (_Bryan Collection._) B-342. Dutch Interior. (23X21.) _Renier Brakenburg._ From the Olmade Collection, Paris, 1868. (_Bryan Collection._) B-343. Portrait of Margerethea De Bije. (19X14½.) _Constantine Netscher._ Wife of François Meerman, Recorder of the City of Leyden. She died December 12, 1712. (_Bryan Collection._) B-344. Interior of a Cottage. (14X11.) (_Bryan Collection._) B-345. Portrait of a Dog. (29X42.) _John B. Weenix._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-346. The Artist. (5X4.) _Godfrey Schalcken._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-347. Landscape with Cattle. (16X22.) _Albert Cuyp._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-348. Italian Landscape. (18½X25.) _Jan Hackaert._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-349. Still Life. (19½X24.) _J. B. Simeon Chardin._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-350. The Sacrifice. (17½X23.) _Leonard Bramer._ From the Olmade Collection, Paris, 1868. (_Bryan Collection._) B-351. The Village Fête. (11½X14½.) _Renier Brakenburg._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-352. Flemish Interior. (15½X19½.) _Renier Brakenburg._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-353. Portrait. (25X21¾.) _J. B. Simeon Chardin._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-354. Landscape. (15X22.) _Adam Pynaker._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-355. Pleasure Party. (19X15½.) _Antoine Watteau._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-356. Interior. (15X12.) _Egbert van Hemskerk._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-357. The Virgin and the Infant Jesus crushing the Serpent. (50X23.) _Pietro Berretini da Cortona._ From the Olmade Collection, Paris, 1868. (_Bryan Collection._) B-358. Landscape. (9X12.) _Dutch School._ From the Olmade Collection, Paris, 1868. (_Bryan Collection._) B-359. Entrance to a Park. (25X19½.) _Isaac Moucheron and John Lingelbach._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-360. Marine View. (15½X24.) (_Bryan Collection._) B-361. Portrait. (23X18.) _Francis Hals._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-362. Winter Scene. (14X18½.) _Egbert Vander Poel._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-363. Portrait. (32½X26.) _Mlle. Ledoux._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-364. Landscape. (9½X11.) _Isaac Moucheron._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-365. Portrait of a Gentleman. (18X15.) _Gerard Terburg._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-366. Portrait of a Lady. (18X15.) _Gerard Terburg._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-367. Temptation of St. Anthony. (15X11½.) _Matthew Van Helmont._ From the Olmade Collection, Paris, 1868. (_Bryan Collection._) B-368. The Frozen Canal. (14X21.) _Hendrik Van Avercamp._ From the Olmade Collection, Paris, 1868. (_Bryan Collection._) B-369. Portrait of a Lady. (22X18.) _Thomas Gainsborough._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-370. Landscape. (28X24½.) _Adam Pynaker._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-371. The Lovers. (10X8½.) (_Bryan Collection._) B-372. Interior. (9½X13½.) _Adrian Van Ostade._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-373. St. Jerome at Prayer. (15½X12½.) _Lodovico Mazzolino._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-374. Family Group. (14X41½.) _Henry Goltzius._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-375. Virgin and Child. (13X9½.) (_Bryan Collection._) B-376. The Flight into Egypt. (12X8½.) Oval Top. (_Bryan Collection._) B-377. Virgin and Child. (7X6.) _Bernard Van Orley._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-378. Scene from "M. de Pourceaugnac." (9X15.) _Antoine Watteau._ From the Collection of Comtesse de Vergez, Paris, 1870. (_Bryan Collection._) B-379. The Fatigues of War. (9X13.) _Antoine Watteau._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-380. The Relaxations of War. (9X13.) _Antoine Watteau._ (_Bryan Collection._) B-381. The Lover's Present. (12X15.) _S. Freudenberger._ Water-color of a lady receiving a present of a spaniel dog. Signed and dated Paris, 1770. (_Bryan Collection._) The following described Pictures were STOLEN from the BRYAN COLLECTION before it was received by the Society. Cupid discharging an Arrow. _In the style of Correggio._ Cupid after the discharge of the Arrow--with finger raised constraining silence. _In the style of Correggio._ Adoration of the Magi. _Leonard Bramer._ The Virgin, with the infant Christ and Joseph, sits in front of a ruined building. Around them the Magi are grouped in adoration. The distribution of the light in this little picture is truly grand, and the color is rich and harmonious. The influence of Rembrandt is apparent in every touch. Vision of St. Louis. _Anthony van Dyck._ The sainted King starts from a canopied couch to gaze upon the apparition of Pope GREGORY IV., who appears before him, cloud-borne, and surrounded by angels. In the background is a sentinel. This little picture is noble in style and harmonious in color. The action of the figures is remarkably free and vigorous. A Lace-Worker. _Peter De Hooghe._ A young woman sits by an open window, with her hands resting upon the cushion on which is her work. The light falls in a broad mass upon one side of her face and figure, while the other is in the half-shadow of reflected light. This little sketch, so unobtrusive in subject and treatment, will impress the close observer with a sense of great power and thorough knowledge--knowledge which is content to know without seeming learned. Miniature Portrait. _Balthazar Denner._ An old man, wearing a cap, and a breastplate over a rich doublet. This head is painted with an elaborateness of detail worthy of Gerard Douw, while at the same time it is modelled with a free and learned hand. (_Collection of General Count Turenne._) THE DURR COLLECTION WITH ADDITIONS PURCHASED BY THE DURR GALLERY FUND LOUIS DURR Louis Durr was born in Carlsruhe, Germany, in 1821, and died in New York City, March 31, 1880. His father was the Treasurer of the Duke of Baden-Baden, and was a watch-maker by trade, as well as a dealer in works of art. Mr. Durr graduated from the Lyceum in his native city, and after visiting Geneva and Paris, came to this country with his brother in 1848 and for a time was connected with Balbach's gold smelting works in Newark, N. J. In 1853-54 he was established at 111 Nassau Street, this city, as a refiner of gold and silver. In 1856 he removed to 51 Ann Street and the following year to 53 Ann Street, where he carried on his business as an assayer and refiner for many years with his brother. He accumulated a fortune and spent all his spare time studying and collecting works of art. He lived at No. 30 East 4th Street, where he kept his paintings. He was a member of the Liederkranz Club, then near his home, and became a member of this Society in 1873. By will Mr. Durr directed that the most meritorious works of art were to be selected from his gallery of paintings and placed by his executors in some public art gallery, to be known as the "Durr Gallery of Paintings," the residue of his paintings to be sold and the proceeds invested for the purchase of suitable additions for the "Durr Gallery of Paintings." In 1880 the executors of his estate under the terms of his will offered the collection of paintings to The New York Historical Society, and in 1882 they were transferred to the Society, together with the proceeds of the above-mentioned sale, which the Society designated the "Durr Gallery Fund" and from which the Gallery is added to. [Illustration: 17. BUST OF LOUIS DURR. IN BRONZE. _HENRY BAERER._ FOUNDER OF THE DURR COLLECTION. PRESENTED BY THE EXECUTORS OF HIS ESTATE.] THE DURR COLLECTION NO. SUBJECTS OF PAINTINGS. ARTISTS. D-1. St. Ferdinand I., King of Castile, receiving the Code de las Partidas from the Madonna. (65X41½.) _Murillo._ (_Durr Collection._) D-2. The Immaculate Conception. (24X32.) _Murillo._ From the Emmet Collection. (_Durr Collection._) D-3. Jesus Suffering. (19X24.) _J. A. Escalante._ Signed. From the Emmet Collection. (_Durr Collection._) D-4. Jesus Victorious. (19X24.) _J. A. Escalante._ Signed. From the Emmet Collection. (_Durr Collection._) D-5. St. John the Baptist. (41X65½.) _Velasquez._ From a collection brought from Seville, and purchased by Mr. Francis Tomes. (_Durr Collection._) D-6. Ecce Homo. (50X80.) _Luis Morales._ From a Catholic church in Mexico, brought to New York about 1855. (_Durr Collection._) D-7. Portrait of a Philosopher. (29X39.) _Spagnoletto._ Purchased in Philadelphia. (_Durr Collection._) D-8. Adoration of the Shepherds. (45X37.) _Il Bassano._ Brought from Italy by Mr. W. Metcalfe. (_Durr Collection._) D-9. Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. (21X27.) _Tintoretto._ (_Durr Collection._) D-10. Martyrdom of St. Lawrence. (90X97.) _Titian._ This painting is signed, and shows evidences of being the first of three of this subject which Titian painted--the second, ordered by King Philip II. of Spain, remains at the Escurial; the third is in the Jesuits' Church at Venice. This composition is esteemed by such authorities as Kugler one of the most important of Titian's works. From the collection owned by Gideon Nye, Jr., who valued this picture at sixteen thousand guineas. (_Durr Collection._) D-11. Portrait. (19X25.) The following is inscribed in French on the back of the portrait: "Collection of Alix, General-in-Chief of Westphalia.--This precious picture was found in the wagon of a vivandière, named Michau, who was killed at the battle of Marengo. After being in the possession of General Lemarois, it passed into the private cabinet of the Chevalier Denon, Director of the Musée Napoleon." (_Durr Collection._) D-12. Assumption of the Virgin. (19½X40½.) _Piazetta._ (_Durr Collection._) D-13. Italian Palace. (68½X47½.) _Pannini._ From the Stone Collection. (_Durr Collection._) D-14. Landscape. (28½X23½.) _Salvator Rosa._ (_Durr Collection._) D-15. Arion and Dolphin. (60½X45½.) _Annibale Caracci._ Signed. (_Durr Collection._) D-16. Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus. (70½X46½.) _Paul Veronese._ Bought in Philadelphia. The same composition, with slight variations, is in the Dresden Gallery. (_Durr Collection._) D-17. Madonna and Child. (18X22½.) _Fra Bartolomeo._ (_Durr Collection._) D-18. Holy Family. (7X9½.) _School of Correggio._ (_Durr Collection._) D-19. Portrait of Jerome Savonarola. (22½X28½.) _Fra Bartolomeo._ (_Durr Collection._) D-20. Lucretia. (22X26½.) _Venetian School, 17th Century._ (_Durr Collection._) D-21. Nymphs Disarming Cupids. (14X11.) _Francesco Albano._ (_Durr Collection._) D-22. Pieta. (11X15.) _Annibale Caracci._ (_Durr Collection._) D-23. Bacchus and Ariadne. (51X39½.) _Titian._ This is an old copy. The original is now in the National Gallery, London. (_Durr Collection._) D-24. Palace of the Prince of Orange, in the South of France, with Portrait figures. (44X43.) _Federigo Zuccaro._ (_Durr Collection._) D-25. Cattle Piece. (13X13.) _Tempesta._ (_Durr Collection._) D-26. Cattle Piece. (13X13.) _Tempesta._ (_Durr Collection._) D-27. Spanish Lady and Children. (67X85½.) _Velasquez._ Purchased with Le Brun's Scenes in the Life of Alexander. (_Durr Collection._) D-28-33. Scenes from the Life of Alexander the Great. (75X72.) _Charles Le Brun._ Le Brun's larger pictures of Nos. D-28, 29, 30, 32 and 33, found in the collection of Louis XIV., are in the Louvre. D-28. Triumphal Entry of Alexander into Babylon. (72X74½.) _Charles Le Brun._ (_Durr Collection._) D-29. Alexander and Hephestion entering the Tent of Darius. (74X77.) _Charles Le Brun._ (_Durr Collection._) D-30. Defeat of Darius at Arbela. (72X74½.) _Charles Le Brun._ (_Durr Collection._) D-31. Alexander cutting the Knot of Gordius. (73X75½.) _Charles Le Brun._ (_Durr Collection._) D-32. Porus brought to Alexander after his Defeat. (72X74½.) _Charles Le Brun._ (_Durr Collection._) D-33. Passage of the Granicus. (72X74½.) _Charles Le Brun._ (_Durr Collection._) D-34. Adoration of the Golden Calf. (70X49.) _Nicholas Poussin._ Brought from Italy by James Benkard. The subject was a favorite one with Poussin. (_Durr Collection._) D-35. Portrait of a French Gentleman. (32½X42.) _Hyacinthe Rigaud._ (_Durr Collection._) D-36. Odysseus Taking Leave of Penelope. (50X37.) _Claude Lorraine._ (_Durr Collection._) D-37. Evening Landscape. (39X31.) _Gaspar Poussin._ (_Durr Collection._) D-38. Virgin and Child. (23½X36.) Signed I. G. (_Durr Collection._) D-39. Adoration of the Magi. (25X31½.) _Dutch School, 15th Century._ (_Durr Collection._) D-40. Christ in the Prætorium. _John de Mabuse._ Signed "IOANNES, MALBODIVS, PINCEB 1527." From the collection of Thomas Jefferson, made at Paris while United States Minister to France. Sold at Boston, July 19, 1833. (_Durr Collection._) D-41. Christ Sinking Under the Cross. (13X18½.) _Copy from Albrecht Dürer._ This composition forms one of the series in the Passion, engraved by Dürer on wood. (_Durr Collection._) D-42. Christ with the Tribute Money. (33½X11¾.) _Albrecht Dürer._ Signed A. D., dated 1525. The wings of this triptique are ornamented with the head of a Monk and of a Nun. (_Durr Collection._) D-43. The Last Judgment. (31½X43½.) Oval Top. _Lucas Van Leyden._ (_Durr Collection._) D-44. St. Paul Preaching at Athens. (23X30.) _Martin Van Veen Hemskerk._ (_Durr Collection._) D-45. The Holy Night. (36X28.) _Karl du Jardin._ (_Durr Collection._) D-46. Christ Before Caiaphas. (63X43.) _G. Van Herp._ Signed. This and the two following pictures, forming a series, were brought from Seville by E. Boonen Graves. From the Emmet Collection. (_Durr Collection._) D-47. Christ Bearing the Cross. (63X43.) _G. Van Herp._ (_Durr Collection._) D-48. Christ Crowned with Thorns. (63X43.) _G. Van Herp._ (_Durr Collection._) D-49. Landing of Æneas in Italy. (60X40½.) _Tempesta._ (_Durr Collection._) D-50. The Madonna. (29X36.) _Philip de Champagne._ Bought by Mr. Durr at Stuttgart. (_Durr Collection._) D-51. The Angel Gabriel. (29X36.) _Philip de Champagne._ Bought by Mr. Durr at Stuttgart. (_Durr Collection._) D-52. Kitchen Utensils. (11X13.) _Barend Cornelis._ A Dutch painter, of whose life little is known, but whose manner of handling is praised by Karel Van Mander, the art commentator of the seventeenth century, as being superior to that of his contemporaries. This picture is signed. (_Durr Collection._) D-53. Halt at a Tavern. (14½X10.) _Peter Bout._ (_Durr Collection._) D-54. Portraits of John Bainbridge, M.D., (1582-1643) and Daughter. (38X50.) _Sir Peter Lely._ Bought at the sale of the collection of Thomas Sully, December 20, 1872. (_Durr Collection._) D-55. Portrait of a Lady. (27X33½.) Oval. _B. Denner._ Signed and dated 1734. (_Durr Collection._) D-56. Portrait of a Gentleman. (27X33½.) Oval. _B. Denner._ Signed and dated 1734. (_Durr Collection._) D-57. Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. (43½X29.) _Andreas Both._ Purchased December, 1865, from the collection of Joseph M. Meert de Domberg. (_Durr Collection._) D-58. Moses Striking the Rock. (43½X29.) _Andreas Both._ In this picture almost every position of the human body is represented. It is from the collection of Joseph M. Meert de Domberg. (_Durr Collection._) D-59. Still Life. (41X47½.) _Van Westhofen._ (_Durr Collection._) D-60. Portrait of a Gentleman. (15X19.) _School of Van Dyck._ (_Durr Collection._) D-61. Landscape with Spanish Figures. (53½X49½.) _Lucas Vanuden._ (_Durr Collection._) D-62. Landscape, with Cattle. (48X37½.) _John H. Roos._ This and the following picture were purchased in Bavaria by Mr. Keller. (_Durr Collection._) D-63. Landscape, with Cattle. (48X37½.) _John H. Roos._ (_Durr Collection._) D-64. Crossing the River. (23X16½.) _Solomon Ruysdael._ (_Durr Collection._) D-65. Passage of the Red Sea. (32X25.) _Francis Francken, the Elder._ Brought by Mr. Forbes from Sicily. (_Durr Collection._) D-66. The Crucifixion. (26X20.) _Francis Francken, the Elder._ From the collection of John G. Boker. (_Durr Collection._) D-67. Landscape with Figures. (40X24½.) _D. Hagelstein._ A pupil of A. Elzheimer, figures by C. Poelemburg. Signed and dated 1630. (_Durr Collection._) D-68. Game. (47X36½.) _J. B. Weenix._ (_Durr Collection._) D-69. The Riverside. (21X14½.) _Jan Van Hughtenburg._ (_Durr Collection._) D-70. Marine. (22X17½.) _L. Backhuysen._ (_Durr Collection._) D-71. Expulsion of Adam and Eve. (94X69.) _A. Bloemaert._ (_Durr Collection._) D-72. Mother and Child. (27½X35.) _Jan Victor._ Purchased February, 1870, at the sale of the collection of Thomas Thompson. (_Durr Collection._) D-73. Landscape. (9X11.) _Anthony Waterloo._ (_Durr Collection._) D-74. Reptiles, Birds, and Insects. (29X38½.) _Otho Marcellis._ Signed and dated 1667. From the collection of Gideon Nye, Jr. (_Durr Collection._) D-75. The Flute Player. (41X33.) _Jacob Vanloo._ Purchased February, 1870, from the collection of Thomas Thompson. (_Durr Collection._) D-76. The Bean King. (36X29.) _John Molenaer._ Signed. (_Durr Collection._) D-77. The Rhinefall at Schaffhouse. (18½X13½.) Signed A. K., 1609. (_Durr Collection._) D-78. Moonlight Landscape. (17X15.) _Claude Joseph Vernet._ (_Durr Collection._) D-79. Kitchen Utensils. (10X11.) _William Kalf._ (_Durr Collection._) D-80. Portrait of a Lady. (23X30.) _German School._ (_Durr Collection._) D-81. The Music Lesson--Effect of Candle-light. (37½X27½.) _Gerard Honthorst._ (_Durr Collection._) D-82. Portrait of Lucretia Van der Meulen. (28X34½.) _John Van Ravesteyn._ Signed. (_Durr Collection._) D-83. Sealing the Letter--Effect of Candle-light. (37½X27½.) _Gerard Honthorst._ (_Durr Collection._) D-84. Portrait of a Lady. (23X29.) _John de Baan._ (_Durr Collection._) D-85. Winter Landscape. (22X17½.) Signed, J. V. E. From the Beckett Collection, Philadelphia. (_Durr Collection._) D-86. Hunters Resting. (14½X17½.) _John Miel._ (_Durr Collection._) D-87. Landscape. (22X19.) _John Wynants._ From the Beckett Collection, Philadelphia. (_Durr Collection._) D-88. Stag Hunt. (24X19.) _Gerard Van Battem._ Signed. (_Durr Collection._) D-89. Evening Landscape. (32½X23½.) _Minderhout Hobbema._ Signed. Purchased from Mr. Joseph Vollmering. (_Durr Collection._) D-90. Farm House with Cattle. (34½X22.) _Albert Cuyp._ (_Durr Collection._) D-91. Evening Landscape. (32½X22½.) _A. Verboom._ Signed. (_Durr Collection._) D-92. The Happy Burgher. (8X9.) _Ary de Voys._ (_Durr Collection._) D-93. Huntsman Feeding his Dogs. (22X15½.) _Cornelius Saftleven._ (_Durr Collection._) D-94. Landscape. (21X16.) _Adam Pynaker._ (_Durr Collection._) D-95. Interior of a Dutch Tavern. (21X15.) _Egbert van Hemskerk, the Younger._ (_Durr Collection._) D-96. Interior.--Dutch Kitchen. (18½X25.) _Q. Brekelenkam._ Signed. (_Durr Collection._) D-97. Arrival of the Dutch Fleet at Amsterdam.(26X16½.) _W. van de Velde, the Younger._ (_Durr Collection._) D-98. Women Bathing. (11½X8½.) _Daniel Vertangen._ (_Durr Collection._) D-99. The Flight into Egypt. (4½X5½.) _Dutch School, 16th Century._ (_Durr Collection._) D-100. Starting for the Pasture. (21½X17½.) _David Teniers the Younger._ (_Durr Collection._) D-101. Dutch Interior.--Washerwomen. (28X21.) _Henry M. Rokes._ (_Durr Collection._) D-102. Interior of a Church. (33X26.) _Anthony de Lorme._ A Dutch painter of architecture, about 1660. Figures by A. VAN DE VELDE. The picture is signed. From the Emmet Collection. (_Durr Collection._) D-103. Combat of Cavalry. (33½X20½.) _Rembrandt._ From the collection of Gideon Nye, Jr. Signed. (_Durr Collection._) D-104. The Deluge. (9X7.) _Daniel Vertangen._ From the Beckett Collection, Philadelphia. (_Durr Collection._) D-105. Tavern Interior. (12X8½.) _Isaac van Ostade._ (_Durr Collection._) D-106-110. Allegorical Representation of the Five Senses. (12X8.) _Adrian Van Ostade._ From the Beckett Collection, Philadelphia. The subject was a favorite one with the artist. A repetition of No. D-106 will be found in No. B-372 of this catalogue. D-106. Sight. _Adrian Van Ostade._ (_Durr Collection._) D-107. Hearing. _Adrian Van Ostade._ (_Durr Collection._) D-108. Taste. _Adrian Van Ostade._ (_Durr Collection._) D-109. Touch. _Adrian Van Ostade._ (_Durr Collection._) D-110. Smell. _Adrian Van Ostade._ (_Durr Collection._) D-111. Mars and Venus. (19X14.) _J. Rottenhamer._ The background is painted by JOHN BRUEGHEL. This painting has been engraved by J. D. Herz. (_Durr Collection._) D-112. Entombment of Christ. (36X28½.) _Rubens._ Old copy. Original in the Vienna Gallery. From the Thompson Collection, February, 1870. (_Durr Collection._) D-113. Hunting Party. (41X28½.) _Simon van der Does._ (_Durr Collection._) D-114. Frederick I., Emperor of Germany, surnamed "Barbarossa." (19X36½.) _Lucas Cranach._ (_Durr Collection._) D-115. Vegetable Vender. (24½X18.) _John Doncker._ Signed, J. DONCK, 1630. (_Durr Collection._) D-116. Tavern Scene. (23X19½.) _John Horremans, the Elder._ (_Durr Collection._) D-117. Tavern Scene. (23X19½.) _John Horremans, the Elder._ (_Durr Collection._) D-118. Italian Landscape. (22X15.) _J. F. van Bloemen._ (_Durr Collection._) D-119. Birds and Fish. (22X16½.) _Albert Flamen._ (_Durr Collection._) D-120. Storm at Sea. (29½X19.) _Bonaventura Peters._ (_Durr Collection._) D-121. A Dutch Interior--Beggars Carousing.(27½X21.) _Adrian Brower._ Signed. From the collection of Joseph M. Meert de Domberg. (_Durr Collection._) D-122. Seaport. (25½X20½.) _L. Backhuysen._ (_Durr Collection._) D-123. A Sea Fight. (28X21.) _John Lingelbach._ (_Durr Collection._) D-124. Rendezvous of Smugglers. (25X20.) _John van Geel._ (_Durr Collection._) D-125. Tavern Interior. (16½X20.) _Peter Verelst._ (_Durr Collection._) D-126. Burning of a Cottage at Night. (15X16½.) _Egbert vander Poel._ (_Durr Collection._) D-127. Burning of a Cottage at Night. (19X14½.) _Egbert vander Poel._ (_Durr Collection._) D-128. Landscape with Figures and Cattle. (22X15.) _Nicholas Berghem._ (_Durr Collection._) D-129. Fruit Piece. (21X15½.) _Albert Cuyp._ (_Durr Collection._) D-130. Dutch Windmill. (16X13½.) _John vander Meer._ Signed and dated 1693. From the Stone Collection. (_Durr Collection._) D-131. Card Players. (17½X13½.) _Leonard de France._ From the Beckett Collection, Philadelphia. (_Durr Collection._) D-132. Landscape with Cattle. (15½X11½.) _Karl du Jardin._ (_Durr Collection._) D-133. Flowers. (28X33.) _Simon Verelst._ (_Durr Collection._) D-134. Playing the Bagpipe. (8X9½.) _John Tilius._ (_Durr Collection._) D-135. Landscape with Figures. (14X12.) _Philip Wouwermans._ From the Beckett Collection, Philadelphia. (_Durr Collection._) D-136. The Pedler. (8X9½.) From the Beckett Collection, Philadelphia. (_Durr Collection._) D-137. Chateau and Park. (12X9½.) _John vander Heyden._ (_Durr Collection._) D-138. Samson and Delilah. (33½X25.) _Van Dyck._ The finished picture of this sketch is in the Belvidere Gallery, Vienna. (_Durr Collection._) D-139. Historical Subject. (40X34.) _G. van den Eckhout._ Signed, "IS. ISAACKSEN, Inventr. _G. V. Eckhout_, ping-sit. A.D. 1670." (_Durr Collection._) D-140. Interior of a Church. (20X23.) _Emanuel de Witt._ (_Durr Collection._) D-141. Dutch Interior--Effect of Candle-light. (28½X22.) _David Ryckaert._ (_Durr Collection._) D-142. The Magi Going to Bethlehem. (41½X30½.) _Leonard Bramer._ (_Durr Collection._) D-143. Musical Party. (10½X11.) _Matthew Van Helmont._ Signed. (_Durr Collection._) D-144. Farm-yard--Peasants Playing Cards. (22X18.) _Karl du Jardin._ Signed, and dated 1667. (_Durr Collection._) D-145. Landscape. (31X26.) _John Wynants._ Signed. (_Durr Collection._) D-146. Landscape with Sheep and Figures. (24X18.) _P. B. Ommeganck._ (_Durr Collection._) D-147. The Pasture-field. (19X14½.) _Jan Kobell._ (_Durr Collection._) D-148. Kitchen Interior. (9½X12.) _H. Van Hove._ (_Durr Collection._) D-149. Family Group. (14X18.) _F. G. Waldmuller._ (_Durr Collection._) D-150. View on the Moselle River. (18X15½.) _Barend C. Koekkoek._ (_Durr Collection._) D-151. Halt at the Tavern. (24X19.) _Baron Henry Leys._ (_Durr Collection._) D-152. Wayside Hospitality. (9½X7½.) _Fritz Franz._ (_Durr Collection._) D-153. Evening Landscape--Sunset. (17X11.) (_Durr Collection._) D-154. Germania. (108X90.) _Christian Köhler._ The struggle of the German people in the year 1848 gave rise to this allegorical composition. Germania, the Goddess of Germany, awakened from her slumber on a bear's skin by Justice and Liberty, seizes the national crown and sword, and drives away the demons of Despotism and Discord. This picture was finished in 1849, when it was purchased by Mr. John G. Boker, and brought by him to New York, where for many years it was exhibited in the Düsseldorf Gallery. (_Durr Collection._) D-155. The Wood Road. (34X28.) _P. Barbièrs._ Signed. (_Durr Collection._) D-156. The Lute Player. (25X30.) _Gilbert Stewart Newton._ (_Durr Collection._) D-157. Group of Fishermen on the Seashore. (60X43½.) _Albert Cuyp._ Signed. (_Durr Collection._) D-158. The Three Marys. (27X36.) _Bernardino Luini._ (_Durr Collection._) D-159. Shandaken Range, Kingston, N. Y. (16¼X21½.) _A. B. Durand._ (_Durr Collection._) [Illustration: D-158. THE THREE MARYS. _BERNARDINO LUINI._ (DURR COLLECTION)] D-160. Trees by the Brookside, Kingston, N. Y. (16½X21.) _A. B. Durand._ (_Durr Collection._) D-161. Study at Marbletown, N. Y. (16¾X21.) _A. B. Durand._ (_Durr Collection._) D-162. Group of Trees. (17½X23¼.) _A. B. Durand._ (_Durr Collection._) D-163. Pool in the Catskills. (17X23.) _Josephine Walters._ (_Durr Collection._) D-164. The Parting Guests, 1775. (36X22.) _Wordsworth Thompson._ (_Durr Collection._) D-165. Portrait of Matthew L. Davis, (1766-1850.) (6X5.) Oval. (Miniature.) (_Durr Collection._) D-166. Portrait of Benjamin Franklin, (1706-1790.) (23X28½.) Oval. _Joseph S. Duplessis._ Painted, in Paris, about 1784. (_Durr Collection._) D-167. Summer in the Land of the Midnight Sun. (42X72.) _William Bradford._ (_Durr Collection._) D-168. Portrait of Asher B. Durand, (1796-1886.) (20½X26.) Painted in 1825. _John Trumbull._ (_Durr Collection._) D-169. Portrait of William S. Mount, (1807-1868.) (20X26.) _Frank B. Carpenter._ From the original by ELLIOTT. (_Durr Collection._) D-170. The Palisades, New Jersey. (21X14.) Water Color. _William G. Wall._ (_Durr Collection._) D-171. View near Fishkill, New York. (21X14.) Water Color. _William G. Wall._ (_Durr Collection._) D-172. Portrait of Samuel F. B. Morse, (1791-1872.) (32X26.) Crayon. (_Durr Collection, 1905._) D-173. Portrait of Alexander Anderson, M.D., (1775-1870.) (17X21.) (_Durr Collection, 1907._) D-174. Portrait of Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, (1757-1854.) (14¾X12¾.) Crayon. _Eastman Johnson._ From life, in the Capitol at Washington, March, 1846. (_Durr Collection, 1907._) D-175. Tontine Coffee House. (1800.) (65X43.) _Francis Guy._ Northwest corner Wall and Water Streets, New York City. (_Durr Gallery, 1907._) D-176. Portrait of James Riker, (1822-1889.) (14X11.) _Emil Kosa._ From a photograph. (_Durr Gallery Fund, 1911._) D-177. Portrait of Solomon Kip. (6X3¾.) Oval. (_Durr Gallery Fund, 1912._) D-178. Portrait of Gen. Pierre Van Cortlandt, (1762-1848.) (30X25.) _Wm. Collins._ (_Durr Gallery Fund, 1913._) D-179. Portrait of William C. Bouck, (1786-1859.) (21X17.) _Charles L. Elliott._ Painted, 1847. Governor of New York, 1843-1845. (_Durr Gallery Fund, 1913._) D-180. Portrait of Caleb Heathcote, (1665-1721.) (31½X26¼.) (_Durr Gallery Fund, 1913._) D-181. Portrait of Hamilton Fish, (1808-1893.) (35X30.) _Augustus G. Heaton._ From the original by DANIEL HUNTINGTON. President of the Society, 1867-1869; Vice President, 1881-1888. (_Durr Gallery Fund, 1914._) CATALOGUE OF THE PETER MARIÉ COLLECTION OF MINIATURES PRESENTED TO THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY MARCH 25TH, 1905 BY THE RESIDUARY LEGATEES UNDER THE WILL OF THE LATE PETER MARIÉ PETER MARIÉ COLLECTION OF MINIATURES NO. SUBJECTS OF MINIATURES. ARTISTS. 1. Adams, Maude. 2. Alexandre, Mrs. John E. _J. C. Coope, 1901._ 3. Allen, Mrs. William. _Carl Weidner._ 4. Amory, Mrs. Frances. _Paillet, 1892._ Anderson, Mary Houstoun. See Allen, Mrs. William. Anderson, Mary. See Navarro, Mrs. Antonio F. de. 5. Andréi, Madame Harriet de Bermingham. _Paillet, 1892._ 6. Annesly, Lady. Anthony, Rose. See Post, Mrs. William. Appleton, May. See Hoyt, Mrs. Gerald L. Appleton, Caroline. See Bonaparte, Mrs. Jerome. 7. Arnaud, Gen. Joseph Louis (Grandfather of Mr. Marié). 8. Arnaud, Mrs. Mary. _Paillet, 1892._ 9. Ashton, Elizabeth. _Carl Weidner._ Ashton, Elizabeth. See Glover, Miss Elizabeth. 10. Astor, Mrs. William Waldorf. _Meave T. Gedney._ 11. Astor, Mrs. William Waldorf. _Paillet, 1890._ 12. Bacon, Mrs. Francis McNeill, Jr. _Paillet, 1893._ 13. Bacon, Mrs. Walter Rathbone. _Weidner._ Banks, Josephine Lenox. See Marshall, Mrs. Charles H. 14. Baring, Mrs. Harold A. _Weidner._ Barker, Virginia Purdy. See Bacon, Mrs. Walter Rathbone. 15. Barnwell, Mrs. Morgan G. _Weidner._ 16. Baylies, Mrs. Edmund L. _Behenna._ Beekman, Margaret A. See Steward, Mrs. Campbell. 17. Bell, Mrs. Isaac. _Behenna._ Belmont, Fredrica. See Howland, Mrs. Samuel S. 18. Bend, Amy. _Paillet, 1889._ 19. Bend, Beatrice. _Weidner._ Bend, Elizabeth Pelham. See Robbins, Mrs. Henry Asher. Bermingham, Henriette de. See Andréi, Madame. Berry, Katherine. See Zerega, Mrs. John A. di. Berryman, Georgiana L. See de Rham, Mrs. H. Casimir. 20. Biddle, Betsy. _Weidner._ 21. Bishop, Mrs. Abigail Hancock. _Weidner._ 22. Bishop, The Misses, daughters of Heber R. Bishop. _C. and F. Weidner._ 23. Blackwood, Lady Terence T. _Paillet, 1890._ 24. Boissevain, Mrs. G. Louis. _Weidner._ 25. Bonaparte, Mrs. Jerome. _Paillet, 1892._ 26. Bond, Miss Carolina Washington. _Weidner._ Borland, Mrs. John. See Rives, The Misses. 27. Brancaccio, Princess. 28. Brewster, Pauline. 29. Bristed, Mrs. Charles Astor. 30. Brown, Mrs. Alexander. _Behenna, 1894._ Brown, Sophia Carter. See Sherman, Mrs. W. Watts. 31. Bryce, Mrs. Lloyd. _Behenna._ Bulkley, Helen C. See Redmond, Mrs. Roland. 32. Burden, Mrs. James Abercrombie. _Paillet, 1892._ 33. Burke, Mabel. _Weidner._ 34. Burke-Roche, Mrs. James B. _C. and F. Weidner._ 35. Byrd, Lucy. _Weidner._ 36. Cameron, Mrs. Senator Don. _Paillet, 1889._ Carey, Marion de Peyster. See Dinsmore, Mrs. Wm. B., Jr. Carley, Grace. See Harriman, Mrs. Oliver, Jr. Carley, Pearl. See Hunt, Mrs. Richard Howland. 37. Carroll, Mrs. John Lee. _Paillet, 1892._ 38. Carroll, Mrs. Royal Phelps. _Paillet, 1891._ 39. Carson, Rita. _Weidner, 1895._ Carter, Mary Frances. See Ronalds, Mrs. Mary Frances. 40. Cary, Mrs. Clarence. _Behenna._ Chamberlain, Jennie. See Leyland, Lady Naylor. 41. Chapin, Mrs. Alfred C. _C. and F. Weidner._ 42. Charette, Baroness de. _Behenna._ 43. Choate, Mabel. _Behenna._ Churchill, Marie. See Baring, Mrs. Harold A. 44. Clarkson, Margaret. _Paillet, 1890._ 45. Cleveland, Mrs. Grover. _Paillet, 1891._ 46. Clews, Mrs. Henry. _Behenna._ Coffey, Edwalyn. See De Kay, Mrs. Charles. Colgate, Cora Smith. See Strafford, Countess of. 47. Cotton, Mrs. J. Leslie. _Paillet._ Cooper, Edith. See Bryce, Mrs. Lloyd. 48. Cram, Ethel. _Behenna._ Cram, Henriette. See Haven, Mrs. J. Woodward. 49. Cram, Mrs. Henry S. _Paillet, 1891._ 50. Crosby, Angelica Schuyler. _Weidner._ Crosby, Elizabeth. See Powel, Mrs. Robert J. Hare. 51. Crosby, Elsinor. 52. Cross, Mrs. Horatio R. Odo. _Paillet, 1891._ 53. Cruger, Mrs. Van Rensselaer. _Paillet, 1893._ 54. Curzon, Lady. _Paillet, 1889._ 55. Cutting, Mrs. Wm. Bayard. _Behenna, 1894._ 56. Dahlgren, Romola. _Weidner._ 57. Davis, Bessie Frelinghuysen. _Weidner._ Davis, Flora. See Blackwood, Lady Terence T. 58. De Kay, Mrs. Charles. _Paillet, 1891._ 59. Del Grillo, Donna Bianca Capranica. _Paillet, 1889._ 60. De Rham, Mrs. Charles, Jr. _Weidner, 1895._ 61. De Rham, Mrs. H. Casimir. _Behenna._ 62. Dexter, Louise. _Behenna._ 63. D'Hauteville, Mrs. Frederic Grand. _Behenna._ 64. Dinsmore, Mrs. Wm. B., Jr. _Edward Fesser, 1896._ Di Zerega, Charlotte Berry. See Lady Frankland. 65. Domingnez, Mrs. _Behenna, 1893._ 66. Drayton, Caroline. _Cecile E. Payen._ Dresser, Pauline. See Merrill, Mrs. G. Grenville. 67. Drexel, Mrs. John R. _Abendschein._ 68. Drummond, Mrs. Victor. _Paillet, 1893._ Duncan, Jessie. See Phipps, Mrs. William Wilton. 69. Duncan, Mrs. Wm. Butler. _Behenna._ Duval, Lee. See Marié, Mrs. Louis. Eames, Emma. See Story, Mrs. Julian. 70. Edey, Mrs. Frederick. _Paillet, 1892._ 71. Edgar, Caroline. _Weidner._ 72. Edwards, Mary G. _Weidner._ 73. Elliott, Mrs. Duncan. _Paillet, 1891._ 74. Emmet, Mrs. Bache McEvers. _Paillet, 1892._ 75. Emmet, Mrs. Herman Le Roy. 76. Emmet, Jane. _Behenna, 1893._ 77. Emmet, Lydia. _Behenna, 1893._ 78. Essex, Countess of. _Behenna._ Fearing, Miss. See Sheldon, Mrs. Frederick. 79. Fearing, Mrs. Daniel B. _Paillet, 1890._ 80. Fenno, Mrs. _Behenna._ Field, Elizabeth H. See Brancaccio, Princess. 81. Field, Mary Pearsall. _Behenna._ Fish, Sarah Hamilton. See Webster, Mrs. Sidney. Fish, Susan Le Roy. See Rogers, Mrs. Wm. E. Foster, Emily. See de Rham, Mrs. Charles, Jr. 82. Francklyn, Mrs. Charles G. _Paillet, 1892._ 83. Frankland, Lady. _J. Clausen Coope._ 84. French, Mrs. Seth Barton. _C. and F. Weidner._ 85. Gambrill, Mrs. Richard. _Behenna._ Garner, Fanny. See Iselin, Mrs. C. Oliver. 86. Gebhard, Mrs. Frederick. _Behenna._ 87. Gebhard, Mrs. Frederick. _Edward Fesser, 1898._ 88. Glover, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth Ashton. _Weidner._ Goddard, Hope. See Iselin, Mrs. C. Oliver. 89. Goddard, Mrs. William. _Paillet, 1891._ 90. Godfrey, Ada. _C. and F. Weidner._ Gordon, Mabel. See Leigh, Mrs. Roland. Grant, Adele. See Essex, Countess of. 91. Gray, Mrs. Griswold. _Paillet, 1892._ 92. Gray, Mrs. John Clinton. _Weidner, 1896._ 93. Greene, Elizabeth McClelland. _Paillet, 1892._ Grew, Jane N. See Morgan, Mrs. J. Pierpont, Jr. Griswold, Florence. See Cross, Mrs. Horatio R. Odo. 94. Griswold, Mrs. George. _Behenna._ 95. Gurnee, The Misses Bell and Lucy. _Weidner._ Hall, Anna. See Roosevelt, Mrs. Elliott. Hall, Elizabeth Livingston. See Mortimer, Mrs. Stanley. 96. Handy, May. _Paillet, 1894._ Hargous, Sallie. See Elliott, Mrs. Duncan. Harriman, Mrs. J. Low. See Bishop, The Misses. 97. Harriman, Mrs. Oliver, Jr. _Meave T. Gedney._ 98. Havemeyer, Mrs. C. F. _Paillet, 1892._ 99. Haven, Mrs. J. Woodward. _Behenna._ Heckscher, Georgiana L. See Wilmerding, Mrs. John C. Heckscher, Emeline D. See Winthrop, Mrs. Egerton L., Jr. 100. Heckscher, Mrs. John G. _Weidner._ 101. Hewitt, Mrs. Peter Cooper. _Weidner._ 102. Higgins, Mrs. Henry Vincent. _Behenna, 1893._ 103. Hillhouse, Mrs. Charles Betts. _Weidner._ Hoe, Carolyn. See Marié, Mrs. Leon. 104. Hoffman, Dorothea Wolfe. _Weidner._ 105. Hoffman, Mrs. Ellis. _Weidner._ 106. Hoffman, Emily. _Abendschein._ 107. Hoffman, Mrs. Henry J. _Paillet, 1890._ 108. Hoffman, Mary Wolfe. _Weidner._ Hoffman, Madora Marie. See Mores, The Marquise de. 109. Hone, Hester. _Weidner._ 110. Hopkins, Mrs. Archibald and Mrs. Jacob W. Miller. _Paillet, 1892._ 111. Hoppin, Mrs. Sarah Carnes Weekes. _Behenna._ Hoppin, Katherine B. See Post, Mrs. Allison Wright. 112. Horton, Helen. _Paillet, 1892._ 113. Howland, Mrs. Samuel S. _Weidner._ Hoyt, Susan S. See Francklyn, Mrs. Charles G. 114. Hoyt, Mrs. Gerald L. _Paillet, 1891._ 115. Hoyt, Janet. _C. and F. Weidner._ Hunnewell, Charlotte. See Sorchon, Mrs. Victor. 116. Hunt, Mrs. Richard Howland. _Behenna._ 117. Huntington, Marie. _F. Weidner._ Hutton, Anna. See Moltke-Huitfeldt, Comtesse Harold de. 118. Irvin, Mrs. Richard. _Paillet, 1893._ Irvin, Susan. See Gray, Mrs. Griswold. 119. Iselin, Louise. _Weidner._ 120. Iselin, Mrs. C. Oliver. _Paillet, 1892._ 121. Iselin, Mrs. C. Oliver. _Paillet, 1891._ 122. Jaffray, Mrs. William P. _Paillet, 1893._ 123. Jay, Miss Eleanor. 124. Jenkins, Laura. _C. and F. Weidner._ Johnson, Alice W. See Emmet, Mrs. Herman Le Roy. Jones, Cornelia S. See Steward, Mrs. John, Jr. Jones, Edith. See Wharton, Mrs. Edward R. 125. Kane, Mrs. Grenville. _Abendschein._ 126. Kennedy, Mrs. H. Van Rensselaer. _Paillet, 1890._ Keteltas, Edith. See Wetmore, Mrs. George Peabody. Kip, Edith Lorillard. See McCreery, Mrs. Richard. 127. Knowlton, Edith. 128. Ladenburg, Mrs. Adolph. _Paillet, 1889._ La Montagne, Elizabeth. See Pendleton, Mrs. Francis K., No. 190. Lamson, Lily. See Drummond, Mrs. Victor. Langdon, Marion. See Carroll, Mrs. Royal Phelps. Lanier, Mrs. James F. D. See Bishop, The Misses. 129. Lawrence, Mrs. Prescott. 130. Ledyard, Mrs. Lewis Cass. Lee, Alice Bowers. See Miller, Mrs. Ralph G. 131. Lee, Mrs. J. Lawrence. _Paillet, 1891._ 132. Lee, Marion Bowers. _Weidner._ 133. Lee, Mrs. William H. L. _Behenna._ 134. Leigh, The Hon. Mrs. Dudley. _Weidner._ 135. Leigh, Mrs. Rowland. _M. T. Gedney._ Leiter, Mary. See Lady Curzon. 136. Le Roy, Mrs. Robert. _Paillet, 1892._ Lewis, Miss. See Le Roy, Mrs. Robert. 137. Leyland, Lady Naylor. Little, Nellie M. See Thieriot, Mrs. Albert. 138. Livingston, Mrs. Henry W. _Paillet, 1892._ Livingston, Margaret. See Lee, Mrs. J. Lawrence. 139. Lopez-Roberts, Madame de. _Behenna._ 140. Loring, Lydia Latrobe. _C. and F. Weidner._ 141. Lydig, Mrs. David. _Behenna._ 142. Lydig, Mrs. David. _Paillet, 1891._ McComb, Susan. See D'Hauteville, Mrs. Frederic Grand. 143. McCormick, Mrs. Robert. _Weidner._ 144. McCreery, Mrs. Richard. _Paillet, 1892._ 145. Mackay, Margaret Auchmuty. _Behenna._ McLane, Miss. See Lee, Mrs. William H. L. McRa, Mary S. See Livingston, Mrs. Henry W. 146. Madeira, Mrs. Percy. _Behenna._ Magee, Arabella. See Boissevain, Mrs. G. Louis. 147. Marié, Madame, Mr. Marié's Great-Grandmother. _Desobry à Clennont, 1824._ 148. Marié, John B. 149. Marié, Mrs. John Baptiste. 150. Marié, Mrs. John B., Jr. _Paillet, 1892._ 151. Marié, Mrs. John B. _Paillet, 1890._ 152. Marié, Josephine. _Paillet, 1892._ 153. Marié, Mrs. Leon. _Paillet, 1892._ 154. Marié, Leontine. _Paillet, 1890._ Marié, Leontine. See Sauer, Mrs. Emil. 155. Marié, Mrs. Louis. _Weidner._ Marié, Sallie. See Pendleton, Mrs. Francis K. 156. Marié, Peter. (Photograph.) 157. Marshall, Mrs. Charles H. _Paillet, 1890._ 158. Martin, Mrs. Bradley. _Meave T. Gedney._ May, Carolyn. See Wright, Mrs. Carolyn M. 159. Meade, Leontine. _Weidner._ Medell. Katherine. See McCormick, Mrs. Robert. 160. Merrill, Mrs. G. Grenville. _Weidner._ 161. Merritt, Mrs. Augusta Temple. _Weidner._ Miller, Mrs. Jacob W. See Hopkins, Mrs. Archibald. 162. Miller, Mrs. Ralph G. _Weidner._ Minturn, Edith. See Stokes, Mrs. I. N. Phelps. 163. Minturn, The Misses Edith, Gertrude, Mildred and Sara May. Daughters of Robert B. Minturn. _C. and F. Weidner._ 164. Minturn, Mrs. Robert B. _Paillet, 1892._ 165. Moller, S. Adelina. _Weidner._ 166. Moltke-Huitfeldt, Comtesse Harold de. _Weidner._ Monson, Anne F. See Emmet, Mrs. Bache McEvers. Montague, Bessie. See Brown, Mrs. Alexander. 167. Montant, Mrs. Auguste P. _Paillet, 1891._ 168. Moore, Mrs. Clement C. _Paillet, 1890._ Moran, Elizabeth. See Morgan, Mrs. Edwin D. 169. Mores, The Marquise de. _Paillet, 1889._ 170. Morgan, Mrs. Edwin D. _Paillet, 1893._ 171. Morgan, Mrs. J. Pierpont, Jr. _Behenna._ 172. Morris, Lulu. _Edw. Fesser, 1898._ 173. Morris, Miss Helen Van Cortlandt. _Weidner._ Morris, Louise. See Gebhard, Mrs. Frederic. Morris, Mary B. See Irvin, Mrs. Richard. 174. Mortimer, Mrs. Stanley. _Paillet, 1889._ 175. Morton, Mrs. Levi P. _Carl A. Weidner._ Mott, Adelaide. See Bell, Mrs. Isaac. 176. Mott, Mrs. Jordan L., Jr. _Paillet, 1892._ 177. Munn, Mrs. George F. _Weidner._ 178. Munoz, Mrs. José M. _Paillet, 1889._ Murphy, Miss. See Domingnez, Mrs. Murray, Caroline. See Wilmerding, Mrs. Lucius K. Murray, Olivia. See Cutting, Mrs. William B. 179. Navarro, Mrs. Antonio F. de. 180. Neilson, Helen Louise. _Edw. Fesser, 1899._ 181. Neilson, Mrs. Fred. _Paillet, 1891._ 182. Nicoll, Mrs. De Lancey. _Abendschein._ 183. Ogden, Miss. _Paillet, 1892._ Oothout, Pauline D. See Riggs, Mrs. Karrick. Otis, Sarah Birdsall. See Edey, Mrs. Frederick. 184. Paget, Mrs. Arthur Henry. _Paillet, 1891._ 185. Palmer, Mrs. Potter. _Behenna._ 186. Parsons, Mrs. H. de Berkeley. _C. and F. Weidner._ Parsons, Mary L. See Higgins, Mrs. Henry Vincent. 187. Patten, The Misses Edyth, Helen, Josephine and Mary Elizabeth. _Weidner, 1903._ Paul, Miss. See Astor, Mrs. William Waldorf. 188. Pearce, Miss Jennie. _Weidner._ 189. Pendleton, Mrs. Francis K. _Paillet, 1889._ 190. Pendleton, Mrs. Francis K. _Paillet, 1892._ 191. Pendleton, Mrs. Francis K. _Weidner._ Pendleton, Sarah B. See Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Eugene. 192. Perkins, Miss. _Behenna._ Perkins, Jessy. See Whitney, Mrs. Charles. Perkins, Mary. See Watson, Mrs. F. S. 193. Phelps, Ethel. _Weidner._ 194. Phipps, Mrs. William Wilton. _Paillet, 1893._ 195. Pierson, Marguerite. _Carl Weidner._ 196. Playfair, Lady. _Behenna._ Polk, Antoinette. See Charette, Baroness de. 197. Post, Mrs. Allison Wright. _Weidner._ 198. Post, Mrs. Charles A. _Paillet, 1893._ Post, Lina. See Webster, Mrs. Hamilton Fish. 199. Post, Daisy. _Weidner._ 200. Post, Mrs. Edwin Main. _Weidner._ Post, Emily. See Griswold, Mrs. George. Post, Pauline. See Bacon, Mrs. Francis McNeill, Jr. 201. Post, Mrs. William. _C. and F. Weidner._ 202. Powel, Mrs. Robert J. Hare and her children. _Weidner._ 203. Potter, Bertha Howard. _Paillet, 1895._ Potter, Elizabeth M. See Cary, Mrs. Clarence. 204. Potter, Grace Howard. _Paillet, 1895._ Potter, Maria Howard. See Tod, Mrs. J. Kennedy. Potter, Mary Clarkson. See Colton, Mrs. Leslie. 205. Potter, Virginia. _Paillet, 1891._ Price, Emily Bruce. See Post, Mrs. Edwin Main. Prince, Gertrude. See Ledyard, Mrs. Lewis Cass. 206. Randolph, Cora. _Behenna._ Randolph, May. See Webb, Mrs. F. Egerton. Read, Emily Meredith. See Spencer, Mrs. Edwards. 207. Redmond, Mrs. Roland. _Paillet, 1893._ 208. Reed, Marie. _Paillet, 1892._ Remsen, Georgiana D. See Hillhouse, Mrs. Chas. Betts. 209. Rhinelander, Mrs. T. J. Oakley. _Weidner._ 210. Riggs, Mrs. Karrick. _Paillet, 1892._ 211. Ripley, Mrs. Sidney Dillon. _Paillet, 1889._ 212. Rives, The Misses. _Paillet, 1893._ Rives, Amelia. See Troubetskoy, Princess Pierre. 213. Robb, Mrs. N. Thayer. _Carl Weidner, 1903._ 214. Robbins, Mrs. Henry Asher. _Paillet, 1891._ Robbins, Marian. See Kennedy, Mrs. H. Van Rensselaer. 215. Rogers, Mrs. William E. _Weidner._ 216. Ronalds, Mrs. Mary Frances. _Behenna._ 217. Roosevelt, Mrs. Elliott. _Behenna, 1893._ 218. Roosevelt, Helen R. _Cecile E. Payen, 1902._ 219. Russell, Charlotte. _Carl Weidner._ Russell, Edith. See Playfair, The Lady. 220. Sackett, Mrs. Charles A. _Paillet, 1892._ 221. Sackville-West, Mrs. Lionel. _Paillet, 1890._ Sands, Edith Cruger. See Rhinelander, Mrs. T. J. Oakley. 222. Sard, Gertrude. _Weidner._ Sargent, Jane P. See Duncan, Mrs. Wm. Butler. 223. Sauer, Mrs. Emil. _Behenna._ 224. Sauer, Leontine. _Paillet, 1892._ Schack, Augusta Temple. See Merritt, Mrs. Augusta Temple. 225. Schieffelin, Mrs. William Jay. _Paillet, 1892._ 226. Scott, Mrs. _Paillet, 1890._ 227. Scranton, Mrs. _Weidner._ 228. Sedgwick, Mrs. Henry Dwight, Jr. _Paillet, 1892._ Sedgwick, Mrs. Henry Dwight, Jr. See Minturn, The Misses. Shaw, Miss. See Minturn, Mrs. Robert B. 229. Sheldon, Mrs. Frederick. _Behenna._ Shepard, Maria Louisa. See Schieffelin, Mrs. William Jay. Sherman, Miss. See Cameron, Mrs. Senator Don. Sherman, Sybil. See Hoffman, Mrs. Ellis. 230. Sherman, Mrs. W. Watts. _Weidner._ 231. Sloane, Emily. _Weidner._ 232. Sloane, Mrs. William Douglas. _Paillet, 1891._ 233. Smith, Mrs. Sydney. _Behenna._ Smith, Mrs. Walker Breese. See Rives, The Misses. Smythe, Helen. See Jaffray, Mrs. William P. 234. Sorchan, Mrs. Victor. _Behenna._ Spedden, Blanche. See Tams, Mrs. Frederic. 235. Spencer, Mrs. Edwards. _Paillet, 1892._ Stebbins, Grace. See Chapin, Mrs. Alfred C. Stevens, Emily. See Ladenburg, Mrs. Adolph. Stevens, Mary Fiske. See Paget, Mrs. Arthur Henry. 236. Stevens, Mrs. Richard, Jr. _Weidner._ 237. Steward, Mrs. Campbell. _Paillet, 1890._ 238. Steward, Mrs. John, Jr. _Paillet, 1893._ 239. Stewart, Mrs. _Paillet, 1889._ Stirling, Marie. See Tailer, Mrs. J. Lee. 240. Stokes, Mrs. I. N. Phelps. _Paillet, 1892._ Stokes, Mrs. I. N. Phelps. See Minturn, The Misses. Stone, Romaine. See Turnure, Mrs. Lawrence, Jr. Storrow, Julie G. See Cruger, Mrs. Van Rensselaer. 241. Story, Mrs. Julian. 242. Strafford, Countess of. _Paillet, 1889._ 243. Strickland, Martha. _Weidner._ Strong, Henrietta T. See Fearing, Mrs. Daniel B. 244. Struthers, Miss. Sturgis, Mary. See Scott, Mrs. Sturgis, Susan. See Stewart, Mrs. Swan, Frances. See Welles, Mrs. Benjamin. 245. Tailer, Fanny. _Paillet, 1889._ Tailer, Fannie B. See Smith, Mrs. Sydney. 246. Tailer, Mrs. J. Lee. _Weidner, 1897._ 247. Tams, Mrs. Frederic. _Behenna._ Taylor, Mrs. Moses. See Bishop, The Misses. Terry, Angela. See Lopez-Roberts, Madame de. 248. Thayer, Mrs. John B. _C. and F. Weidner._ 249. Thieriot, Mrs. Albert. _Weidner._ Thieriot, Leontine C. See Munoz, Mrs. José M. Thompson, Mary Carter. See Carroll, Mrs. John Lee. Thorndike, Miss. See Fenno, Mrs. 250. Tod, Mrs. J. Kennedy. _Paillet, 1890._ Tompkins, Hannah M. See Lydig, Mrs. David. 251. Townsend, Amy. _Behenna, 1894._ Townsend, Grace. See Gray, Mrs. John Clinton. Townsend, Hannah. See Montant, Mrs. Augusta P. Townsend, Mary Alice. See Sackett, Mrs. Charles A. Townsend, Sallie. See Winthrop, Mrs. Buchanan. Travers, Mary. See Hecksher, Mrs. John G. 252. Troubetskoy, Princess Pierre. _Behenna._ Trobriand, Marie C. de. See Post, Mrs. Charles A. 253. Turnure, Mrs. Lawrence, Jr. _Paillet, 1889._ Vanderbilt, Emily T. See Sloane, Mrs. William Douglas. Van Nest, Anna. See Gambrill, Mrs. Richard. 254. Van Rensselaer, Elizabeth. _Weidner._ 255. Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Eugene. _Behenna._ Van Rensselaer, Louisa. See Baylies, Mrs. Edmund L. 256. Van Rensselaer, Mabel. _Behenna._ Waite, Florence S. See Marié, Mrs. John B. Walker, Frances. See Parsons, Mrs. H. de Berkeley. 257. Warren, Mrs. John Hobart. _Paillet, 1891._ 258. Watson, Mrs. F. S. _Weidner._ 259. Webb, Mrs. F. Egerton. _Weidner._ Webb, Helen L. See Alexandre, Mrs. John E. 260. Webster, Mrs. Hamilton Fish. _Paillet, 1890._ 261. Webster, Mrs. Sidney. _Paillet, 1892._ 262. Webster, Mrs. Sidney. _Weidner._ Weekes, Sarah. See Hoppin, Mrs. Francis Vinton. 263. Welles, Mrs. Benjamin. _Paillet, 1892._ 264. Wells, Mrs. W. Storrs. _Paillet, 1892._ 265. Wetmore, Mrs. George Peabody. _Paillet, 1890._ 266. Wetmore, Miss Edith. _Paillet, 1894._ 267. Wharton, Mrs. Edward R. _Paillet, 1890._ Whelan, Bertha. See Hoffman, Mrs. Henry J. 268. Whelen, Elise. 269. Whitney, Mrs. Charles. _Weidner._ 270. Whittier, Susan. _Paillet, 1892._ 271. Wilmerding, Georgiana. _Weidner._ 272. Wilmerding, Mrs. John C. _Paillet, 1892._ 273. Wilmerding, Mrs. Lucius K. _Behenna._ 274. Winthrop, Mrs. Buchanan. _Paillet, 1892._ Winthrop, Charlotte. See Crane, Mrs. Henry S. 275. Winthrop, Mrs. Egerton L., Jr. _Paillet, 1893._ 276. Winthrop, Maria. _Paillet, 1892._ Wise, Charlotte. See Hopkins, Mrs. Archibald. Wise, Katherine. See Miller, Mrs. Jacob W. 277. Wood, Melza R. _A. Abendschein._ 278. Woodworth, Mignonne. _Paillet, 1891._ Work, Fanny. See Burke-Roche, Mrs. James B. 279. Wright, Mrs. Carolyn M. _Paillet, 1890._ 280. Wright, Constance. _C. and F. Weidner._ 281. Wright, Constance. _Paillet, 1893._ 282. Wright, Florence. _Weidner._ 283. Wright, Mrs. Tailer. _Paillet, 1893._ Wright, Yznaga-Mabel. See Zichy, Countess. 284. Zerega, Mrs. John A. di. _J. Clausen Coope._ 285. Zichy, Countess. _Paillet, 1891._ 286. Unknown. SCULPTURE SCULPTURE PLASTER CASTS UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED NO. SUBJECTS. ARTISTS. 1. Bust of John Quincy Adams, (1767-1848.) Presented by Gulian C. Verplanck, 1820. 2. Bust of John Quincy Adams, (1767-1848.) _In marble._ _Horatio Greenough._ Presented by Augustus H. Ward, June 1, 1858. 3. Bust of Washington Allston, (1779-1843.) _In marble._ _E. A. Brackett._ Legacy of Charles M. Leupp, November 6, 1860. 4. Death Mask of Rev. Charles W. Baird, D. D., (1828-1887.) _S. Decomps._ Presented by the Presbyterian Church, Rye, N. Y., 1901. 5. Medallion of Fordyce Barker, M. D., (1819-1891.) _In marble._ _Louis M. Verhaegen._ Presented by Fordyce D. Barker, June 7, 1892. 6. Bust of Joel Barlow, (1754-1812.) _Jean Antoine Houdon._ 7. Bust of Simon Bolivar, (1783-1830.) _Petrus Tener._ Presented by Alexander H. Stevens, M. D., January 5, 1847. 8. Bust of Rt. Rev. Thomas C. Brownell, D. D., (1779-1865.) _C. B. Ives._ Presented by Gordon W. Burnham, October 2, 1860. 9. Bust of William Cullen Bryant, (1794-1878.) _In marble._ _Henry K. Brown._ Legacy of Charles M. Leupp, November 6, 1860. 10. Medallion of Dr. James R. Chilton, (1808-1863.) _In marble._ _S. Ellis._ Presented by Mrs. James R. Chilton, December 5, 1887. 11. Bust of Henry Clay, (1777-1852.) _Shobal V. Clevenger._ Presented by Samuel Verplanck, December 1, 1840. 12. Bust of De Witt Clinton, (1769-1828.) Presented by John Pintard, January 13, 1818. 13. Bust of George Clinton, (1739-1812.) _Giuseppe Ceracchi._ 14. Bust of Christopher Columbus, (1446-1506.) _In marble._ _John Gott._ Copied from an original in the museum of the Capitol at Rome. Presented by John E. Williams, January 6, 1857. 15. Bust of Frederic De Peyster, (1796-1882.) _In marble._ _George E. Bissell._ Presented by John Watts De Peyster, October 21, 1879. 16. Bust of John Watts De Peyster, (1821-1907.) _In bronze._ _George E. Bissell._ Presented by John Watts De Peyster, 1897. 17. Bust of Louis Durr, (1821-1880.) _In bronze._ _Henry Baerer._ Founder of the Durr Collection. Presented by the Executors of his Estate, October 7, 1884. 18. Bust of Edward Everett, (1794-1865.) _Shobal V. Clevenger._ Presented by George Folsom, December 1, 1840. 19. Bust of Hickson W. Field, (1822-1875.) _In marble._ Treasurer of the Society 1837-1839. Presented by Maunsell B. Field, 1910. 20. Bust of Charles James Fox, (1811-1846.) Published by R. Shout, Holborn. Presented by George Gibbs, January 23, 1871. 21. Bust of John Wakefield Francis, M. D., (1789-1861.) Presented by S. W. Francis, M. D. 22. Bust of Benjamin Franklin, (1706-1790.) _Jean Antoine Houdon._ Presented by David Hosack, April 19, 1832. 23. Bust of Robert Fulton, (1765-1815.) _In bronze._ _Jean Antoine Houdon._ Copy of Cast owned by the National Academy of Design. Presented by the Colonial Dames of America, 1909. 24. Bust of Alexander Hamilton, (1757-1804.) _John Dixey._ From the original by Ceracchi, N. Y. _Eve. Post_, September 18, 1804. Presented by the Artist, October 10, 1809. 25. Bust of William Henry Harrison, (1773-1841.) _Shobal V. Clevenger._ Presented by Benjamin R. Winthrop, December 1, 1840. 26. Bust of William F. Havemeyer, (1804-1874.) _In plaster._ _Julia Griffin, 1874._ Mayor of the City of New York 1845-6, 1848-9, 1872-4. Presented by his grandson, William F. H. Armstrong, May 27, 1915. 27. Medallion of Francis L. Hawks, D. D., (1798-1866.) _In marble._ _David Richards._ Presented by William Niblo. 28. Bust of Francis L. Hawks, D. D., (1798-1866.) _In marble._ _David Richards._ Presented by the Vestry of the Church of the Holy Saviour, N. Y., October 2, 1877. 29. Medallion of Rev. Francis L. Hawks, (1798-1866.) Presented by Rev. William E. Eigenbrodt, D. D., 1894. 30. Medallion of Nathaniel Hawthorne, (1804-1864.) _Edward J. Kuntze._ Presented by the Artist, December 1, 1868. 31. Medallion of Joseph Converse Heywood. _F. Manley._ Presented by John Watts de Peyster, February 19, 1873. 32. Bust of Philip Hone, (1781-1851.) _John H. I. Browere._ Presented by Charles E. Anthon in the name of his mother, Mrs. John Anthon, January 4, 1876. 33. Bust of Philip Hone, (1781-1851.) _Shobal V. Clevenger._ Presented by James Herring, June 3, 1862. 34. Bust of David Hosack, (1769-1835.) _John H. I. Browere._ Presented by John W. Francis, M. D., April 19, 1832. 35. Bust of Joseph Hume, (1777-1855.) _Bonomi._ Presented by James B. Murray, February 2, 1858. 36. Bust of Washington Irving, (1783-1859.) _In marble._ _E. D. Palmer._ Presented by Mrs. Anna T. E. Kirtland, October 3, 1865. 37. Bust of John Jay, (1745-1829.) _Giuseppe Ceracchi._ 38. Bust of Peter Augustus Jay, (1776-1842.) _Robert E. Launitz._ Presented by Henry E. Pierrepont, June 6, 1843. 39. Bust of Thomas Jefferson, (1743-1826.) _Jean Antoine Houdon._ Presented by Mrs. Laura Walcott Gibbs, October 8, 1839. 40. Bust of Elisha Kent Kane, M. D., (1820-1857.) _Peter Reniers._ Presented by Rev. Francis L. Hawks, D. D., March 5, 1859. 41. Bust of James Kent, (1763-1847.) _Shobal V. Clevenger._ Presented by John Jay, November 3, 1840. 42. Medallion of Governor John Alsop King, (1788-1867.) Presented by Mrs. Gherardi Davis and Helen King, 1909. 43. Bust of Thaddeus Kosciuszko, (1746-1817.) _Eggenschwiler._ Purchased by the Society, April 2, 1872. 44. Bust of Alphonse Marie Louis Depart de Lamartine, (1790-1869.) _In marble. 1854._ _A. S. Adam-Salomon._ Presented by the family of the late Colonel Washington A. Bartlett, May 7, 1867. 45. Bust of William Beach Lawrence, (1800-1881.) _In marble. 1877._ _F. A. T. Dunbar._ Presented by Isaac Lawrence, January 3, 1882. 46. Bust of Abraham Lincoln, (1809-1865.) _T. D. Jones._ Presented by H. L. Stuart, April 3, 1866. 47. Bust of D. J. Macgowan. _Clark Mills._ Presented by the Artist, June 8, 1866. 48. Bust of John Marshall, (1755-1835.) 49. Bust of Lord Nelson, (1758-1805.) Presented by William Prior and Julius L. Dunning, July 8, 1817. 50. Bust of Samuel Osgood, D. D., (1812-1880.) _Franklin Simmons, 1869._ Presented by Mrs. Samuel Osgood, February 1, 1887. 51. Bust of Thomas Paine, (1737-1809.) _John Wesley Jarvis._ Presented by the Artist, July 8, 1817. 52. Daniel Parish, Jr., (1838-1914.) Secretary of the Executive Committee, 1888-1902 and Chairman, 1903-1914. Benefactor of the Library. Plaster cast and mould of the large model of the gold medal presented to Daniel Parish, Jr., by the American Numismatic Society, 1890. LEA AHLBORN, Sculp. Presented by Mr. Parish, April 7, 1914. 53. Bust of William Pitt, (1759-1806.) Published January, 1800, by R. Shout, Holborn, London. Presented by George Gibbs, January 23, 1871. 54. Statue of William Pitt, (1759-1806.) _In marble._ _Joseph Wilton._ Erected by the Colony of New York, September 7, 1770, at the intersection of Wall and William streets. It was mutilated by the British soldiers soon after their occupation of New York City in 1776. Presented by Simon F. Mackie, March 1, 1864. 55. Bust of William H. Prescott, (1796-1859.) _Thomas Ball._ Presented by William A. Greene, June 7, 1859. 56. Bust of Sir Walter Scott, (1771-1832.) Presented by Samuel W. Francis, M. D. 57. Bust of William H. Seward, (1801-1872.) Presented by Charles A. Stetson, March 4, 1861. 58. Bust of William Shakespeare, (1564-1616.) A cast from the Bust in Stratford Church, from the collection of George Daniel. Presented by George Adlard, October 3, 1871. 59. Bust of Benjamin Silliman, (1779-1864.) _C. B. Ives._ 60. Bust of George Washington, (1732-1799.) _Jean Antoine Houdon._ Presented by David Hosack, April 19, 1832. 61. Medallion of Washington, (1732-1799.) _In bronze._ _Alfred W. Jones._ Presented by the Artist, March 2, 1858. 62. Bust of John Watts, (1749-1836.) _Thomas Coffee._ From the original by BALL HUGHES. Presented by his grandson, J. Watts De Peyster, October 10, 1863. 63. Bust of Daniel Webster, (1782-1852.) _Shobal V. Clevenger._ 64. Statuette of Daniel Webster, (1782-1852.) _In bronze._ _Thomas Ball, 1853._ Presented by Katherine Chambers, March 4, 1913. 65. Bust of Benjamin West, (1738-1820.) _Francis Chantrey._ Presented by Luther Bradish. 66. Bust of Joseph M. White, (1781-1839.) _In marble._ _Horatio Greenough._ Presented by Mrs. Charles A. Davis, June 18, 1867. 67. Bust of Hugh Williamson, M. D., (1735-1819.) _William I. Coffee, 1816._ 68. Bust of Oliver Wolcott, (1726-1797.) _Shobal V. Clevenger._ Presented by George Gibbs, November 3, 1840. 69. Bust of James R. Wood, M. D., (1816-1882.) Presented by Samuel W. Francis, M. D., June 6, 1865. 70. Achilles and Penthesilea. _Group in marble._ _G. M. Benzoni._ Presented by the children of the late Charles H. Russell, February 2, 1886. 71. A Bacchante. _In marble._ _Nicolas Coustou._ (_Bryan Collection._) 72. The Indian. _In marble._ _Thomas Crawford._ This sculpture is a repetition of the well known figure in _The Progress of Civilization in America_, a group executed by order of the Government for the Capitol extension at Washington. "Resting on a low mound is seated the Indian chief, a nude figure excellently modeled. His head, crowned with tufted feathers, rests sadly upon his hand, the weary chase of life is over, he is dying--the Great Spirit waits to conduct him to the far off hunting-grounds, that dreamy land where souls repose in boundless prairies. His tribe has disappeared, he is left alone, the solitary offshoot of a mighty race; already the axe of the backwoodsman disturbs his last hours; civilization, and art, and agriculture--all mysteries to him incomprehensible--have desecrated his home, and the dark shadows of the past gather him into their bosom!"--_London Art Journal._ Purchased from the family of the Artist, and presented by Frederic de Peyster, President of the Society, April 6, 1875. 73. Primitive Marksman. _In bronze._ _Fernando Miranda._ Presented by the Artist, February 22, 1911. 74. Ruth. _In marble._ _Henry K. Brown._ "The artist has chosen the moment in which Ruth is addressed by Boaz as she stands among the gleaners. He quoted the lines of Keats in the song of the Nightingale-- 'Perchance the self-same song hath found a path To the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn.' She is not in tears; but her aspect is that of one who listens in sadness; her eyes are cast down, and her thoughts are of the home of her youth in the land of Moab. Over her left arm hangs a handful of the ears of wheat which she has gathered from the ground, and her right rests on the drapery about her bosom. Nothing can be more graceful than her attitude, or more expressive of melancholy sweetness and modesty than her physiognomy."--_Extract of a letter by Mr. W. C. Bryant, dated Rome, 1845._ This statue was purchased by Miss Hicks, of New York, and presented to the New York Gallery of Fine Arts. 75. Group of a Boy and Dog; or, _Chi Vinci, mangia._ _In marble._ _Henry K. Brown._ This playful group was presented to the New York Gallery, by C. M. Leupp, Esq. The boy has left his bowl of milk upon the floor, and the dog is endeavoring to take advantage of his negligence, by appropriating the contents to himself, against which the boy stoutly protests. They are so equally matched in strength, that the struggle is of doubtful issue, and therefore the artist calls it, "_Chi Vinci, mangia_," or, who wins, eats. (_New York Gallery of Fine Arts, 1858._) 76. Bacchus. _In marble._ Presented by Mrs. Howard Townsend Martin, March 13, 1909. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF ARTISTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF ARTISTS ANTONY SAMUEL ADAM-SALOMON (1818-1881). French sculptor, among whose works may be mentioned the busts of Rossini, Marie Antoinette and the Tomb of the Duke of Padua. WILLIAM VAN AELST (1620-1679). Born at Delft; died at Amsterdam. Son of a notary. He was instructed in painting by his uncle, Evert van Aelst, whose style and subjects he adopted, though he greatly excelled him. FRANCESCO ALBANO (1578-1660). Born and died at Bologna. Son of Agostino Albano, a silk merchant. He was placed under the tuition of Denis Calvart. There he met Guido Reni and with him entered the School of Lodovico Caracci. He went to Rome, where his genius gained his reputation. ANTONIO ALLEGRI (DA CORREGGIO) (1494-1534). An Italian painter, born and died at Correggio, Italy. He was the son of Pellegrino Allegri, a merchant. He learned the rudiments from his uncle, Lorenzo Allegri, and followed the style of Montegna. EZRA AMES was a coach painter of Albany, who turned his attention to portraiture and gained distinction in 1812 at the Pennsylvania Academy by exhibiting his portrait of Gov. George Clinton. ALEXANDER ANDERSON (1775-1870). Born in New York City and died in Jersey City, N. J. He studied medicine at Columbia University and graduated in 1796, but was essentially a wood engraver and later devoted himself entirely to that art. JACOBUS VAN ARTOIS (1613-1684). Born at Brussels. He was a celebrated Flemish landscape painter, and studied under John Mertens. His works are often decorated with excellent figures by David Teniers, which renders them much more valuable. JAN ASSELYN (1610-1660). Born at Diepen and died at Antwerp. A Flemish landscape painter who studied under Esaias Vandervelde and went to Italy, where he remained several years. JOHN JAMES AUDUBON (1780-1851). Born near New Orleans, La.; died near New York City. His great love of nature led him to make the drawings of the birds, for which he is famous. He neglected business to spend his time in excursions through the woods, gathering specimens and making drawings of birds. He travelled extensively, making several voyages to England, finally settling, 1840, in New York City at what was known as Audubon Park on the Hudson, and was buried in Trinity Cemetery, adjoining his property. HENDRIK VAN AVERCAMP (1590-). Born at Kampen; lived and died there. Surnamed Stomme van Campen. He executed many pictures, chiefly marine views and landscapes ornamented with cattle. JOHN DE BAAN (1633-1702). Born at Haerlem; died at The Hague. A Dutch portrait painter who, after receiving some instructions from an uncle named Piemans, was sent to Amsterdam to study under Jacob de Backer. LUDOLF BACKHUYSEN (1631-1708). Born at Embden. A German painter, pupil of Albert van Everdingen and Henry Dubbels. He painted mostly marine subjects. GEORGE A. BAKER (1821-1880). A native of New York; is highly esteemed for his portraiture of women and children. He was the pupil of his father, a miniature painter. THOMAS BALL (1819-1911). Sculptor; born in Charlestown, Mass. Died at Montclair, N. J. He was a singer and portrait painter and in 1852 he took up modelling and executed a number of busts and statues, having studied in Europe several years. GIORGIO BARBARELLI (1477-1510). Born at Castelfranco, near Trevigi. An Italian portrait painter called Giorgione. Studied in the school of Giovanni Bellini, at Venice, where Titian became his fellow student. FRA BARTOLOMEO (BACCIO DELLA PORTA) (1475-1517). Born and died at Savignano, near Florence. Called also Il Frate, and Fra Bartolomeo di San Marco. While very young he became the disciple of Cosimo Rosselli, and acquired the name of Baccio della Porta, from his residence near the gate of St. Peter. BASSANO (JACOPO DA PONTE) (1510-1592). Born at Bassano, commonly called Il Bassano. He was the son of Francesco da Ponte, called also the Elder Bassano. He received his first instruction from his father, and then at Venice under Bonifazio Veneziano. GERARD VAN BATTEM. A Dutch landscape painter, who flourished about 1650 and died at Amsterdam in 1690. His subjects are mountainous landscapes, with travellers or banditti, and hunting pieces. POMPEO BATTONI (1708-1787). Born at Lucca; died at Rome. An Italian painter, son of a goldsmith. He was sent to Rome, where he studied under Sebastian Conca, and Agostino Masucci. He was more employed in portraits than historical works. JAN BEERESTRATEN (1622-1687). Dutch painter, born and died at Amsterdam. He painted landscapes. CORNELIUS BEGA (1620-1664). Born at Haerlem. He studied under Adrian Ostade, and became the ablest painter of his school. His pictures, like those of Ostade, represent Dutch peasants regaling and amusing themselves, and the interiors of Dutch cottages. JOSEPH L. H. BELLANGÉ (1800-1866). French painter, born and died at Paris. He was influenced by the wars of the 1st Napoleon and painted mostly military scenes. THEODORE VAN BERGEN (1645-1689). Born at Haerlem. A Dutch painter of landscapes and cattle. Studied under Adrian Vandevelde and was his ablest scholar. NICHOLAS BERGHEM (1620-1683). Born at Haerlem. A Dutch painter, the son of Peter Class van Haerlem. It is difficult to say how the name Berghem or Berchem originated. He studied first under his father and subsequently under John van Goyen and also John Baptist Weenix. PIETRO BERRETINI (1596-1669). Born at Cortona; died at Rome. Called Da Cortona and was a Florentine painter and architect. He studied under Baccio Ciarpi, but gained more advantage from the study of the works of Raphael and Caravaggio. ALBERT BIERSTADT (1830-1902.) Born in Düsseldorf, Germany, and in 1831 came with his parents to New Bedford, Mass. In 1853 he returned to Düsseldorf and studied painting there and in Rome. In 1857 he returned to the United States and made an extended tour in the West, especially Colorado and California. He died in New York City. THOMAS BIRCH (1787-1851). Born in London, England, the son of William Birch. Was brought to this country in 1794 when seven years of age. His father was his instructor. He lived and died in Philadelphia and was a landscape and marine painter. ABRAHAM BLOEMAERT (1564-1658). Born at Gorcum. He was a Dutch historical and landscape painter and engraver, who studied under Joseph de Beer. JOHANNES FRANCIS VAN BLOEMEN (1662-1740). Born at Antwerp; died at Rome. A Flemish landscape painter, who went to Italy when very young and remained there all his life. Studied under Goubau and was called Orizonti. PETRUS VAN BLOEMEN (1657-1719.) Born at Antwerp. He visited Rome for improvement, where the Flemings called him Standard, from his painting occasionally charges of cavalry. He returned to Antwerp, and in 1699 was made director of the Academy. JAMES BOGLE (1817-1873). Born in Georgetown, S. C.; died in Brooklyn, N. Y. Came to New York 1836, and entered the studio of Professor Morse. He confined himself to portrait painting. FERDINAND BOL (1611-1681). Born at Dort. A Dutch historical and portrait painter and engraver. His family removed to Amsterdam where he studied under Rembrandt, whose style he imitated. JOSEPH BONOMI (1796-1878). Born at Rome and died at London. An English sculptor and draftsman, the son of Giuseppe Bonomi. JOHN AND ANDREW BOTH. These Dutch painters were brothers. They were natives of Utrecht, John, the elder, being born about 1610 and died after 1662. Andrew died 1645. They learned the elements of design from their father, who was a painter on glass, but afterwards studied under A. Bloemaert. SANDRO OR ALESSANDRO BOTTICELLI (1447-1510). A Florentine painter and engraver. He studied under Filippo Lippi and subsequently visited Rome, where he executed several important works for Sixtus IV. FRANÇOIS BOUCHER (1703-1770). A Parisian painter and engraver. He studied under François Le Moine, and was appointed court painter. He succeeded best in pastoral subjects. SEBASTIEN BOURDON (1616-1671). Born at Montpellier; died at Paris. A French painter and engraver who studied the elements of design with his father. PETER BOUT (1658-1731). Born at Brussels; he painted in conjunction with Boudewyns, whose landscapes he ornamented with figures, representing assemblies, merrymakings and similar subjects. EDWARD AUGUSTUS BRACKETT (1819- ). Sculptor, born in Vassalborough, Me. He began his career in 1838 and produced portrait busts of prominent persons. WILLIAM BRADFORD (1827-1892). Born in New Bedford, Mass. Began by painting ships and coast scenes of New England and British North America, and later extended his studies to the Arctic regions. RENIER BRAKENBURG (1650-1702). Born at Haerlem. A Dutch painter who studied first under Mommers, a landscape painter, and afterwards under Bernard Schendel. His subjects, representing merrymakings and drunken assemblies, are similar to those of Schendel. LEONARD BRAMER (1596-1674). Born and died at Delft. He was a Dutch painter and painted night pieces, with towns on fire and caverns, in the manner of Rembrandt. His principal works were historical subjects of a small size. LUDOVICO BREA. A painter of the Genoese school, and a native of Nice. It is not mentioned under whom he studied. He resided at Genoa from 1483 to 1513. QUIRINUS BREKELENKAM. A Dutch painter who lived about 1650. He studied under Gerard Douw and followed the style of that master and of Rembrandt. His works represent Dutch cottages with figures. AGNOLO BRONZINO (1502-1572). A Florentine painter, and favorite scholar of Jacopo Carrucci, whom he assisted in some works. He imitated Michael Angelo. ADRIAN BROWER (1605-1638). Born at Haerlem; died at Antwerp. A Dutch painter of poor parentage. Francis Hals offered to take him into his school, which he gladly accepted. He was a friend of Adrian Ostade and Rubens. JOHN H. I. BROWERE (1792-1834). Sculptor, a student in Columbia University, and later studied painting under Archibald Robinson. After visiting Europe he returned to New York in 1819 and took up modelling. He devoted a great amount of time in forming a collection of busts which he executed of the most noted men in the country, prominent in history. DAVID BROWN. A pupil of George Moreland, whose works he imitated. He exhibited landscapes at the Royal Academy from 1792 to 1797. GEORGE LORING BROWN (1814-1889.) Born and died in Boston, Mass. He attended the Franklin School and became an engraver's apprentice. He studied under Washington Allston, and while in Paris under Eugene Isabey. HENRY KIRKE BROWN (1814-1886). Sculptor, born in Leyden, Mass., and died in Newburgh, N. Y. He studied painting under Chester Harding, of Boston, and then took up sculpture, executing portrait busts in Albany. He executed many statues of notable persons for various states. JOHN BRUEGHEL (1568-1625). Born at Brussels, the son of Peter Brueghel the elder. He commenced miniature painting, but afterwards studied oil painting under Peter Goekint. CHARLES LE BRUN (1619-1690). A Parisian painter, son of a sculptor. He was placed in the school of Simon Vouet, and went to Italy, where he was assisted in his studies by N. Poussin. In 1662 he commenced his great work of the Battles of Alexander, which gained him an immense reputation. BUONAMICO BUFFALMACCO (1262-1340). A Florentine painter who studied under Andrea Taffi. He painted in the dry, Gothic style of the immediate followers of Cimabue. WILLIAM DE BUYTENWEG (1600-1640). Born at Rotterdam. Houbraken calls him Geestige Willem (William the Gay). His principal work was the Triumph of William, Prince of Orange. PAOLO CALIARI (1528-1588). Born at Verona. He was of the Venetian school and called Paolo Veronese. He was placed in the school of his uncle, Antonio Badile. ANTONIO CANAL (CANALETTO) (1697-1768). A Venetian painter whose father was a scene painter, and he was brought up in the same profession. He went to Rome, where he designed the grand remains of antiquity. Returning to Venice, he chose as his subjects interior views. ANNIBALE CARACCI (1560-1609). A Bolognese painter, studied under his cousin, Lodovico, who advised him to study the works of Correggio. FRANCIS B. CARPENTER (1830-1900). Born in Homer, N. Y. He was mostly self-taught. He removed to New York in 1851 and was a portrait painter, having painted many distinguished men. JUAN CARRENNO DE MIRANDA (1614-1685). Born at Abiles, in Asturias. A Spanish painter, who studied at Madrid under P. de las Cuevas and afterwards under Bartolomé Roman. He died at Madrid. JOHN W. CASILEAR (1811-1893). Born in New York, and began studying at the age of fifteen under Peter Maverick, the engraver, after whose death he became a bank note engraver. He took up oil painting and went to Europe to study in 1840 and again in 1857. He died at Saratoga, N. Y. ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO (1390-1457). A painter of Castagno in Tuscany. Bernardetto de Medici placed him under Masaccio. After leaving that master he became one of the most distinguished artists of the day. GIUSEPPE CERACCHI (1760-1801). Italian sculptor; came to Philadelphia in 1791 and made busts of eminent men. In 1800, having joined in a plan to assassinate the first Consul of Italy, he, with the intention of carrying out the design, proposed to undertake a statue of him. The plot was detected and he was guillotined. GIUSEPPE CESARI (1568-1640). Born at the Castle of Arpino in Naples; died at Rome. Pope Gregory XIII. placed him in the school of Nicolo Pomerancio. PHILIP DE CHAMPAGNE (1602-1674). Born at Brussels; died at Paris. At the age of nineteen he went to Paris, and received most assistance from Fouquières, who lent him some of his drawings. SIR FRANCIS CHANTREY (1781-1841). Sculptor, born at Norton in Derbyshire, England, and was apprenticed as a carver in Sheffield. Later he established himself as a modeller in clay in Dublin, then Edinburgh and finally in London. He executed chiefly sepulchral monuments and busts. In 1837 he was knighted. JOHN GADSBY CHAPMAN (1808-1889). Born in Alexandria, Va., and went to Italy to study. He settled in New York and became a successful engraver and illustrator. In 1848 he returned to Italy and had his studio in Rome. JEAN BAPTISTE SIMEON CHARDIN (1701-1779). Born and died at Paris. A French painter who distinguished himself by painting conservation pieces of a domestic character. GIO CIMABUE (1240-1302). Born at Florence and of noble descent. He has been credited with rescuing the art from its gross and barbarous state, and he has been called the father of modern painters. SHOBAL VAIL CLEVENGER (1812-1843). Sculptor, born near Middletown, Butler Co., Ohio; died at sea. He was first occupied as a stone cutter in Cincinnati and was induced by David Guio to carve busts in freestone. He came to New York and executed several notable busts. In 1840 he went to Rome. JEAN HENRI DE COENE (1798-1866). Belgian painter of genre and historical subjects, born at Nederbrakel; he was a pupil of David and of Paelinck. He became professor in the Brussels Academy, and died in that city. THOMAS COLE (1801-1848). Born in Bolton-le-Moor, England; died near Catskill, N. Y. His father emigrated to the United States in 1819 and settled in Ohio, where Thomas Cole took lessons from a painter named Stein. In 1825 he removed to New York and became associated with Durand and Trumbull. He founded the "Hudson River School" and became one of the best American landscape painters. He made several visits to Europe. WILLIAM COLLINS (1787-1847). English painter, born and died at London. Studied under Moreland and in the Royal Academy. In 1836 he visited Italy, where he studied for two years. JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY (1737-1815). Born in Boston, Mass.; died in London. He was essentially a portrait painter. In 1774 he went to England, and after a visit to Italy, settled in London. GONZALES COQUES (1614-1684). Born and died at Antwerp. A Flemish painter who learned the elements of the art from Peeter Brueghel III., and then studied under David Ryckaert, the elder. CORREGGIO, _see_ ALLEGRI, ANTONIO. JACQUES COURTOIS (1621-1676). Called Il Borgognone; was born at St. Hippolyte, in Franche Conté, and died at Rome. He was the son of an obscure artist, who taught him the elements of design. NICHOLAS COUSTOU (1658-1733). French sculptor, born at Lyons and died at Paris. He studied at Paris under his uncle, Coysevox, and later at Rome. At the age of twenty-three he won the grand prize of the Royal Academy, which entitled him to the royal pension. LUCAS CRANACH (1472-1553). A German painter and engraver, born at Cranach, whose family name it is believed was Sunder. He was burgomaster of Wittenberg and was a friend of Luther and Melanchthon. Was a pupil of his father, and died at Weimar. CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH (1813-1892). Born in Alexandria, Va.; entered the ministry in 1835, from which he retired in 1842 to study art. He studied in France and Italy, returning to New York. Was also an author. He died at Cambridge, Mass. THOMAS CRAWFORD (1814-1857). Sculptor, born in New York City; died in London. At the age of nineteen he entered the studios of Frazer and Launitz in New York, and in 1834 went abroad and lived in Rome thereafter. He executed many notable works. THOMAS S. CUMMINGS (1804-1894). Born in England; came to New York in infancy. He studied with Henry Inman and became a miniature portrait painter. Was a founder of the National Academy and in 1838 was commissioned Brigadier General of Militia by Gov. Seward. ALBERT CUYP (1620-1691). A Dutch painter, born at Dort, son of Jacob Gerritze Cuyp, who taught him the elements of design. He became an excellent landscape painter. JACOB GERRITZE CUYP (1594-1652). Born at Dort and studied under A. Bloemaert. He was one of the founders of the Academy at Dort in 1642. His works were greatly surpassed by his son. ABRAHAM DELANOY, JR. A native of New York, who studied art under Benjamin West at London and in January, 1771, advertised his profession as a portrait painter in the New York newspapers. Six months later he advertised again, as selling various articles of merchandise as well as "most kinds of painting done as usual, at reasonable rates." In his latter days Dunlap says he was poor and dependent on sign-painting for his support. He died about 1786. ANTONIO DELLO (1603- ). An Italian historical painter, born at Florence, who assisted in the execution of great works in the Escurial in 1658. BALTHAZAR DENNER (1685-1749). German painter, born at Hamburg, who excelled in mechanical execution of painting. The faculty of imitation and German patience constituted the whole merit of this artist. JEAN BAPTISTE DESCAMPS (1706-1791). Born at Dunkirk, and studied under his uncle, Louis Coypel, after which he went to Paris and entered the school of Largillière. He established a school of design at Rouen. ANSON DICKINSON (1780- ). Born in Litchfield, Conn., and worked as a silversmith. He became a miniature painter and removed to New York. CHRISTIAN WILLIAM ERNEST DIETRICH (1712-1774). A German artist, born at Weimar and died at Dresden. He learned the first principles from his father and afterwards studied under Alex. Thiele, a landscape painter. Was also an engraver of reputation. JOHN DIXEY ( -1820). Sculptor, born in Dublin, Ireland, and educated in London. He was a student of the Royal Academy and came to America in 1789. He was vice-president of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and lived many years in New York. SIMON VAN DER DOES (1653-1717). Born at Amsterdam, son of Jacob van der Does, who instructed him in the art, adopting the same style of painting as his father, in subjects and manner. CARLO DOLCI (1616-1686). Born at Florence, and studied under Jacopo Vignali. His best works were chiefly confined to heads of the Saviour and the Virgin and to Madonnas. DOMENICHINO (1581-1641). His real name was Domenico Zampieri; born at Bologna and received his first instructions from Denis Calvart and then in the Academy of the Caracci, where Guido and Albano were then students. JOHN DONCKER (1610- ). A Dutch painter, born at Gouda, who had great abilities but died prematurely. GERARD DOUW (1613-1675). Born at Leyden, the son of a glazier, and received his first instructions in drawing from Dolendo, the engraver, and later a pupil of Rembrandt. GUILLAM DUBOIS (1622-1680). A Dutch landscape painter, born and died at Amsterdam, and painted in the style of Ruysdael. THOMAS SPENCE DUCHÉ (1766- ). Born in Philadelphia about 1766, and was the pupil of Benjamin West. Dunlap says, "little is known" of him. WILLIAM DUNLAP (1766-1839). Born in Perth Amboy, N. J.; died in New York City. He was engaged in artistic, dramatic and literary work. He came to New York in 1777 and painted portraits. In 1784 he went to London and studied with Benjamin West. JOSEPH SIFFREIN DUPLESSIS (1725-1802). Born at Carpentras, France. He was placed under Imbert at Chartreuse. In 1745 he entered the school of Subleyras at Rome. At the age of twenty-seven he went to Paris and was admitted to the Royal Academy. He was appointed keeper of the Museum at Versailles. ASHER B. DURAND (1796-1886). Born at Jefferson, N. J., and died in South Orange, N. J. He first took instructions from his father in engraving and in 1812 was apprenticed to Peter Maverick in New York City, whose partner he became, rising to the highest rank in that profession. He then turned his attention to painting landscapes in oil as well as portraits. In 1826 he was one of the founders of the National Academy of Design and its President from 1845 to 1861. ALBRECHT DÜRER (1471-1528). Born at Nuremberg. He was the son of a skillful goldsmith, who taught him the rudiments of design; subsequently he studied under Martin Hapse and Michael Wolgemut. He was most famous as an engraver. JOSEF LAURENS DYCKMANS (1811-1888). Flemish painter, born at Lierre. Pupil of Tielemans and Wappers. Painted genre pictures and small portraits, and was professor in the Antwerp Academy. JAMES EARLE (1761-1798). Born in Leicester, Mass., and died in Charleston, S. C. He painted portraits in Charleston, S. C., and died suddenly of yellow fever when he was preparing to return to England. RALPH EARLE (1751-1801). Born in Leicester, Mass.; died in Bolton, Conn. He painted portraits in Connecticut in 1775 and after the Revolution went to England, where he studied under Benjamin West, returning to the United States in 1786. His American historical paintings are among the first ever executed by an American artist. FRANCIS W. EDMONDS (1806-1863). Born in Hudson, N. Y.; died at Bronxville. He was a bank cashier in his native city and in New York City until 1855. During this time he studied at the National Academy of Design. While Secretary of the American Bank Note Company he designed several pictures which were engraved on notes printed by that establishment. GERBRANDT VANDEN EECKHOUT (1621-1674). A Dutch painter, born at Amsterdam, who studied in the school of Rembrandt and became a great portrait painter. CHARLES L. ELLIOTT (1812-1868). Born in Scipio, N. Y.; died in Albany, N. Y. About 1834 he came to New York and was a pupil of Trumbull and later of Quidor. He painted numerous portraits of eminent men. JUAN ANTONIO ESCALANTE (1630-1670). Spanish painter, born at Cordova, who studied under Francisco Rizi, but imitated the style of Tintoretto. He died at Madrid. JAN VAN EYCK (1380-1440.) A Flemish painter, native of Maes-Eyck, on the river Maes. He was a brother of Hubert van Eyck. They established themselves at Bruges and founded the Flemish school, and are credited with inventing oil painting. GAUDENZIO FERRARI (1484-1550). An Italian painter, student of Perugino, says one writer, while others say he first studied under Stefano Scotto and then under Bernardino Luini. ODVARDO FIALETTI (1573-1638). Born at Bologna; died at Venice. He first studied under Gio. Battista Cremonini and then in the school of Tintoretto. GEORGE W. FLAGG (1816-1897). Born in New Haven, Conn. He studied with his uncle, Washington Allston. Under the patronage of Luman Reed he spent three years in Europe to study. After living six years in London he returned to New Haven and subsequently removed to New York City. JARED BRADLEY FLAGG (1820-1899). Born in New Haven, Conn. Studied with his brother, George W. Flagg and Washington Allston. He first settled in Hartford, Conn., and in 1849 removed to New York. He entered the ministry, but after ten years of that life returned to his former profession. ALBERT FLAMEN. A Flemish painter and engraver who was born in Bruges and established himself at Paris from 1648 to 1664. He possessed greater abilities for engraving than for painting. SAMUEL FOLWELL (1765-1813). He probably came from New England and died in Philadelphia, where he was a miniature painter as well as a cutter of silhouettes and a "worker in hair." He conducted a school in that city for a time and engraved portraits and book plates. CHARLES DE LA FOSSE (1636-1716). Born at Paris, the son of a goldsmith, he studied under Charles Le Brun and later studied the works of Titian and Veronese. He became a distinguished colorist of the French school. JACQUES FOUQUIÈRES (1580-1659). A Flemish landscape painter, born at Antwerp and died at Paris. Studied under Josse Momper and John Brueghel. LEONARD DE FRANCE (1735-1805). Flemish painter, born at Liége, who studied under J. B. Coclers. He was appointed first professor in the Academy of the Fine Arts at Liége. FRANCIS FRANCKEN (1542-1616). Called the Elder. Flemish painter, born at Antwerp, who studied under Francis Floris. He painted historical subjects. MARTIN FREMINET (1567-1619). Born and died in Paris. He was the son of an obscure painter. When he visited Rome, formed a friendship with Giuseppe Cesari, but followed the style of Michael Angelo. SIGMUND FREUDENBERGER (1745-1801). Born at Berne, was a pupil of Em. Handmann, and then studied under Wille, Boucher, Greuze and Röslin. He painted and engraved Swiss life scenes. JAMES FROTHINGHAM (1788-1864). Born in Charlestown, Mass., and died at Brooklyn, N. Y. He began life as a chaise painter in his father's chaise manufactory, from which he developed into a successful portrait painter. JOHN FYT (1609-1661). A Flemish painter, born at Antwerp; was distinguished for painting animals, especially dogs. Pupil of Frans Snyders. BARENT GAAL (1650-1703). Dutch painter, born at Haerlem; studied under Philip Wouwermans and painted horse-fairs, battles and hunting-pieces. TADDEO GADDI (1300-1366). An Italian painter and architect, born in Florence. He was the son of Gaddo Gaddi, who first instructed him. Later he studied in the school of Giotto. THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH (1727-1788). An English painter of portraits and landscapes who was born at Suffolk. He received instructions from Gravelot and Hayman. JOHN VAN GEEL (1631-1698). A Dutch painter, and scholar of Gabriel Metzu, whose style he imitated. Born and died at Rotterdam. NICHOLAS VAN GELDER. Was an animal painter of the Netherlands, who flourished in the seventeenth century. GENTILESCHI, _see_ LOMI. JEAN L. T. A. GERICAULT (1791-1824). A French painter, born at Rouen, who studied under Carle Vernet and afterwards in the School of Guerin. He died at Paris. FRANÇOIS REGIS GIGNOUX (1816-1882). Born in Lyons, France; died in Paris. He studied art in the Academy of St. Pierre at Lyons and in the School of Fine Arts at Paris. In 1844 he came to the United States and opened a studio in Brooklyn, N. Y., returning to France in 1870. GROVE SHELDON GILBERT (1805-1885). Born in Clinton, N. Y.; died in Rochester. Studied medicine for a time but decided to take up art. For several years he painted in Fort Niagara and Toronto, settling in Rochester in 1834. He painted mostly portraits. GIORGIONE, _see_ BARBARELLI, GIORGIO. GIOTTINO, _see_ STEFANO, TOMMASO. GIOTTO DI BONDONE (1276-1337). An Italian painter and architect, born at Vespignano. He attracted the attention of Cimabue, under whom he studied and surpassed. JAN GLAUBER (1646-1726). A landscape painter, born at Utrecht, Holland, of German parents. He entered the School of Nicholas Berghem and later went to Rome. He settled at Amsterdam and formed a friendship with Gerard de Lairesse. HENRY GOLTZIUS (1558-1617). A Dutch painter and engraver, born at Mulbrecht, who acquired the elements of design from his father, afterward studying engraving under Theodore Cuernhert. HUBERT GOLTZIUS (1526-1583). A Flemish painter and engraver; born at Venloo, died at Bruges. He studied in the School of Lambert Lombard at Liége, and later visited Rome. JOHN VAN GOYEN (1596-1666). Born at Leyden and died at The Hague. Was one of the earliest Dutch landscape painters. He studied under Schilderpoort, Isaac Nicolai and Esias Vandevelde, and was father-in-law to Jan Steen. HENRY PETERS GRAY (1819-1877). He was born and died in New York and in 1838 entered the studio of Daniel Huntington. He visited Europe several times and was president of the National Academy 1869-1871. HORATIO GREENOUGH (1805-1852). Sculptor, born in Boston, Mass., and died in Somerville, Mass. When a boy he was taught the rudiments of his art by a French sculptor, Binon. He entered Harvard, where he met Washington Allston; but before completing his college course Greenough sailed for Europe in 1825, where he lived permanently. JEAN BAPTISTE GREUZE (1725-1805). Born at Tournus; died at Paris. He studied in School of Grandon, a portrait painter at Lyons, where he made rapid progress. ANTHONY GRIFF OR GRIEF (1670-1715). Flemish painter of landscapes, dead game and dogs. Born at Antwerp and died at Brussels. WILLIAM GRIMALDI (1751-1830). Born in Shoreditch, England, and died in London. Studied under Worlidge and afterward at Paris. He was a miniature painter and painted for members of the Royal Family. JEAN ANTOINE THEODORE GUDIN (1802-1879). Born at Paris and died at Boulogne. He was marine painter of harbor and coast scenes, also landscapes. He practised etching and lithography. GUIDO, _see_ RENI. GUIDO GUIDONE SIENA. An old Sienese painter who made great improvement over the Greeks before the time of Cimabue and Giotto. FRANCIS GUY (1760-1820). Born in England and came to New York in 1795, going to Philadelphia and Baltimore, where he established dye-works. He also had been a tailor, but always worked at landscape painting, to which he was devoted. About 1817 he returned to Brooklyn, N. Y., where he died. JAN HACKAERT (1636-1699). Born at Amsterdam, he became one of the ablest landscape painters of the Dutch School. He was a friend of Adrian Vandervelde. FRANCIS HALS (1584-1666). Flemish portrait painter, born at Antwerp and died at Haerlem. He was a disciple of Karel van Mander and a friend of Van Dyck. GEORGE P. A. HEALY (1813-1894). Born in Boston, Mass. He went to Paris in 1836 and occasionally visited the United States. He resided in Chicago from 1855 to 1867 and then made his residence in Rome and in Paris. He was one of the best American portrait painters of the French School. He died at Chicago. MATTHEW VAN HELMONT (1653-1719). Flemish painter, born at Brussels, who studied under D. Teniers and painted similar subjects to those of that master. He died at Antwerp. BARTHOLOMEW VANDER HELST (1611-1670). Dutch painter, born at Haerlem, who painted historical subjects and portraits. He died at Amsterdam. EGBERT VAN HEMSKERK (1645-1704). Called "the younger," was born at Haerlem and died at London. He studied under Peter Grebber and painted drunken scenes and drolls. MARTIN VAN VEEN HEMSKERK (1498-1574). Dutch painter, born at Hemskerk, the son of Jacob William van Veen. He studied under John Lucas and in the school of John Schoorel. Later he studied the works of Michael Angelo. GUILLIAM VAN HERP (1614-1677). Born and died at Antwerp. Pupil of Damiaan Wortelmans and painted history and genre. He came under the influence of Rubens. JOHN VANDER HEYDEN (1637-1712). Born at Gorcum; he obtained his knowledge of design from a glass painter. He painted churches, palaces, ruins and views of cities. Died at Amsterdam. THOMAS HICKS (1823-1890). Born in Newtown, Pa. He studied in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and in 1838 entered the National Academy in New York. After studying abroad he returned to New York City in 1849 and began a successful career as a portrait painter. JOHN WILLIAM HILL (1812-1879). Born in England and died in this country. He did aquatint work and drew upon stone for the lithographers. Later he painted landscapes in water-colors and achieved considerable reputation. THOMAS HILL (1829- ). Born in Birmingham, England. He came to the United States in 1840 and settled in Taunton, Mass. Until 1853 he followed the profession of ornamental painting, then studied in the life-class of the Pennsylvania Academy at Philadelphia. He removed to California and painted landscapes. MINDERHOUT HOBBEMA (1638-1709). Born at Coeverden, Holland, and resided at Amsterdam. He was a friend of Ruysdael and their styles are similar. WILLIAM HOGARTH (1697-1764). Born at London. His father was a schoolmaster, who apprenticed him to an engraver, after which he entered the Academy of St. Martin's Lane. HANS HOLBEIN (1497-1554). A Swiss painter and wood engraver, born at Augsburg. He was the son and scholar of John Holbein. He visited England and painted a number of portraits, including Henry VIII., who gave him apartments in the palace. He died at London. GERARD HONTHORST (1590-1656). A Dutch painter, born at Utrecht, who studied under Abraham Bloemaert. Going to Rome he studied the works of M. A. Caravaggio and later settled at The Hague. PETER DE HOOGHE (1632-1681). A Dutch painter, born at Rotterdam and died at Haerlem. His usual subjects were interiors of Dutch apartments with figures. JOHN HORREMANS, THE ELDER (1682-1759). A Flemish painter, born at Antwerp, whose favorite subjects were conversation pieces. Studied under Michiel Vander Voort and Jan van Pee. JEAN ANTOINE HOUDON (1740-1828). Sculptor, born at Versailles, France; died at Paris. He studied his art under Michel Ange Slodtz and later under Pigale. In 1785 he accompanied Franklin to the United States and spent two weeks at Mount Vernon to prepare his statue of Washington, now in Richmond, Virginia. He produced many masterpieces which placed him foremost of French sculptors. JAN VAN HUGTENBURG (1646-1733). Dutch painter and engraver, born at Haerlem. He studied under Thomas and Jacob Wyck and later became acquainted with Vander Meulen who gave him instruction. Died at Amsterdam. DANIEL HUNTINGTON (1816-1906). Born and died in New York City, and was a classmate of Charles L. Elliott at Hamilton College. In 1835 he studied with Samuel F. B. Morse. In 1839 he visited Europe and again in 1844. Returning to New York in 1846 he devoted himself chiefly to painting portraits, and was elected President of the National Academy of Design. CORNELIUS HUYSMANS (1648-1727). A Flemish landscape painter, born at Antwerp, who later settled at Mechlin. He was placed in the school of Gaspar de Wit and then studied under Jacques Artois. He is also known as Houseman of Mechlin, where he died. CHARLES C. INGHAM (1797-1863). Born in Dublin, Ireland; died in N. Y. City. He studied in the Academy of Dublin and settled in New York in 1817, being one of the founders of the National Academy of Design. HENRY INMAN (1801-1846). Born in Utica, N. Y.; died in New York City. Pupil of John Wesley Jarvis, with whom he studied seven years, painting miniatures. Later he acquired a high reputation as a portrait painter. CHAUNCEY B. IVES (1812- ). Sculptor, born in Hamden, Conn., the son of a farmer. At the age of sixteen he apprenticed himself to E. R. Northrup, a wood carver, and later studied with Hezekiah Augur. He lived most of the time abroad at Rome, making occasional visits to America. For a short time in 1855 he had a studio in New York and received many orders. KARL DU JARDIN (1625-1678). Born at Amsterdam and studied under Nicholas Berghem. He went to Italy where he was received by the Bentevogel Society. His works are mostly confined to landscapes. JOHN WESLEY JARVIS (1780-1834). Born in South Shields, England; died in New York City. He came to Philadelphia in 1785 and with but little instruction began to paint portraits in which he became popular. The bust of Thomas Paine, now in the Society collection, was executed by Jarvis. WILLIAM JEWETT (1792-1873). Born in East Haddam, Conn., and died at Bayonne, N. J. He began life as a farmer and was apprenticed to a coach-maker at New London, Conn., for whom he prepared paints and assisted in coloring carriages. At New London he met Samuel L. Waldo whose assistant he became and later collaborated with him in painting portraits. DAVID JOHNSON (1827-1908). Born in New York City and received a few lessons from Jasper F. Cropsey. His paintings represent mostly American scenery. He was a member of the National Academy of Design. He died at Walden, N. Y. EASTMAN JOHNSON (1824-1906). Born in Lowell, Me., and died in New York City. He first settled in Augusta, Me., and executed portraits in black and white and in pastel. In 1845 he removed to Washington, D. C., and in 1849 visited Europe, returning to the United States in 1856. In 1858 he settled in New York. He was an excellent portrait painter. JACOB JORDAENS (1593-1678). Born and died at Antwerp. He studied under Adam van Oort, whose daughter he married. He was associated with Rubens, whose style he imitated. JEAN JOUVENET (1644-1717). French painter, born at Rouen, the son of Laurent Jouvenet, who taught him the first principles of the art. Later he studied with Nicholas Poussin. Died at Paris. WILLIAM KALF (1630-1693). Dutch painter, born and died at Amsterdam. He studied under Hendrick Pot, an historical painter, and after leaving that master he acquired a reputation painting still life. JOHN F. KENSETT (1818-1872.) Born in Cheshire, Conn.; died in New York City. Studied under his father as an engraver and went into the employ of the American Bank Note Company at New York. He went to Europe to study Art in 1845 with other artists. Returning in 1847, he established himself in New York. ALBERT KLOMP. A Dutch painter whose pictures are dated from 1602 to 1632 and have much merit. JAN KOBELL (1779-1814). The son of Hendrick Kobell, born at Delfshaven. He was placed under the instruction of W. R. vander Wal, and adopted Paul Potter for his model. BAREND C. KOEK-KOEK (1803-1862). Born at Middleburg, Zeeland, and died at Cleves. He was a student of the Amsterdam Academy under Schelfhout and Van Oos. In 1841 he founded an Academy of Design at Cleves. CHRISTIAN KÖHLER (1809-1861). Born at Werben, studied at Berlin Academy, and was professor at the Düsseldorf Academy 1855-58. He painted historical subjects and died at Montpellier. EDWARD J. KUNTZE (1826-1870). Sculptor, born in Pomerania, Prussia; died in New York City. He studied in Stockholm, Sweden, and lived for some years in London, England. In 1852 he came to America and achieved a reputation. SIEGMUND LACHENWITZ (1820-1868). Born at Neuss and died at Düsseldorf. Was a student at the Düsseldorf Academy 1840-1867, studying animal life. GERARD DE LAIRESSE (1641-1711). Flemish painter, born at Liége and died at Amsterdam. He was the son of Renier Lairesse, who taught him the elements of design, later studying under Bertholet Flemael. JAMES R. LAMBDIN (1807-1889). Born in Pittsburg, Pa.; studied under Thomas Sully, and established himself as a portrait painter. He was professor of fine arts in the University of Pennsylvania and an officer of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. LOUIS LANG (1814-1893). Born in Waldsee, Württemberg, Germany. He studied at Stuttgart and Paris, and came to the United States in 1838 and resided in Philadelphia and New York, making frequent trips to Europe. Died at New York. NICHOLAS DE LARGILLIÈRE (1656-1746). Born at Paris, and studied under Francis Gobeau, a painter of landscapes and still life. He became a successful portrait painter. ROBERT E. LAUNITZ (1806-1870). Sculptor, born in Riga, Russia; died in New York City. He studied under Thorwaldsen and in 1828 came to New York. He was the instructor of Thomas Crawford and has been called the father of monumental art in America. PHILLIPPE LAURI (1623-1694). Son of Baldassare Lauri; born at Rome, and studied first under his brother, Francesco Lauri, and at the latter's death entered the school of Angelo Caroselli, his brother-in-law. SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE (1769-1830). An English portrait painter, born at Bristol, England, and studied under Mr. Hoare and in the Royal Academy. He was encouraged and advised by Reynolds. After the death of Benjamin West he was chosen president of the Royal Academy. OLIVER I. LAY (1845- ). Born in New York City, and was a pupil of Thomas Hicks. He studied at the Cooper Institute and the National Academy. JACOB H. LAZARUS (1823-1891). Born and died at New York. He was a pupil of Henry Inman and had a successful career as a portrait painter in this city. SIR PETER LELY (1618-1680). A German portrait painter, born at Soest, in Westphalia. He studied in the school of Peter Grebber, of Haerlem, for two years. His style of painting resembled that of Van Dyck, whom he imitated. He died at London. NICHOLAS BERNARD LEPICIÉ (1735-1784). A French painter, the son of Bernard Lepicié; born and died at Paris; studied under Carl Vanloo. LUCAS VAN LEYDEN (1494-1533). So called from the place of his birth; was the son of Hugo Jacobs, who instructed him in the rudiments of art and later placed him with Cornelius Engelbrechtsen. He became a friend of Dürer. HENRY LEYS (1815-1869). Born and died at Antwerp. Studied at the Antwerp Academy and under de Brackeleer. JOHN LINGELBACH (1625-1687). Born at Frankfort, Germany, and died at Amsterdam. He went to Amsterdam when very young, and later visited Paris and Rome to study. SEBASTIAN LLANOS Y VALDES (1602-1668). A Spanish painter who flourished at Seville and studied under Francisco d'Herrera the Elder. He became president of the Academy of Seville. ARTEMISIA LOMI (1590-1642). Called Gentileschi. An Italian paintress, born in Rome; went to England and later resided at Naples, where she married Pietro Antonio Schiattesi. She was the daughter and pupil of Orazio Lomi who adopted the name Gentileschi from his maternal uncle. LORENZO IL MONACO (1370-1425). An Italian painter who died at Florence. He was a follower of Angiolo Gaddi. ANTHONY DE LORME. A Dutch painter of whom little is known. He flourished at Rotterdam about 1640-1666. His pictures represent interiors of churches and other edifices. CLAUDE LORRAINE (1600-1682). Born in Chamagne, Lorraine, and learned the first rudiments of art from his brother, who was an engraver on wood. He entered the Academy of Godfrey Waal at Naples and later studied under Agostino Tassi, a landscape painter at Rome. BERNARDINO LUINI (1475-1530). Born at Luino in the Milanese on the Lago Maggiore, and from his style is considered to have been a follower of Leonardo da Vinci, but first studied under Stefano Scotto. NICHOLAS MAAS (1632-1693). A Dutch painter, born at Dort. He entered the school of Rembrandt and became an excellent colorist. After painting historical subjects for a while, he devoted himself to portrait painting. JOHN DE MABUSE. A Flemish painter, born at Maubeuge about 1472 and died in 1533. It is not known under whom he studied. He went to Italy in 1508. His family name was Gossart. MACRINO D'ALBA. A native of Alladio, and a citizen of Alba, whose name was Fava. It is not known with whom he studied or when he was born or died. His works are dated 1496 to 1508. ANDREA MANTEGNA (1431-1506). He was born at Vicenza and became the pupil and adopted son of Squarcione. He married the daughter of Jacopo Bellini. He was also an early engraver and did much for that art. OTHO MARCELLIS (1613-1673). A Dutch painter, born and died at Amsterdam. It is not known under whom he studied. He painted curious plants, insects, serpents and other reptiles, and acquired great celebrity in this singular branch of the art. EDWARD D. MARCHANT (1806-1887). Born in Edgarton, Mass.; died in Asbury Park, N. J. In 1843 he went West, and in 1845 settled in Philadelphia and painted many portraits. JACOB MARREL (1614-1685). Born at Utrecht; died at Frankfort. Was a pupil of Georg Flegel and painted flowers and fruit. QUINTIN MATSYS (1450-1530). A Flemish painter, born and died at Antwerp. He was a blacksmith until his twentieth year, and it is not known under whom he studied art. His style was unlike any other master. LUDOVICO MAZZOLINO (1481-1530). Born at Ferrara, and a student of Lorenzo Costa. There is a great confusion of names as applied to this artist. He may be placed after Garofalo, among the masters of his native town. FRANCESCO MAZZUOLI (1504-1540). Called "Il Parmiggiano"; was born at Parma. He received instructions from his uncles, who taught him what they knew in the art. He was also distinguished as an engraver. JOHN VANDER MEER (1656-1705). Born and died at Haerlem; the son of John vander Meer, under whom he first studied and afterwards with Berghem. JAN MEMLING (1430-1494). Flemish painter, born at Mümling, who studied under Roger Van der Weyden. He settled in Bruges. SIMONE MEMMI (1283-1344). A Sienese painter and one of the earliest who distinguished themselves after the revival of the art. He was a pupil of Duccio. GEORGES MICHEL (1763-1843). French painter, born and died at Paris, whose work was chiefly landscapes. Pupil of Leduc. JOHN MIEL (1599-1664). Born near Antwerp, and studied under Gerard Seghers. Went to Rome and entered the school of Andrea Sacchi, who employed him to assist in his works. He died at Turin. PIERRE MIGNARD (1610-1695.) Born at Troyes, and resided at Rome twenty-two years, where he acquired the name "the Roman." He studied under Jean Boucher and in the school of Simon Vouet at Paris, where he died. CLARK MILLS (1815-1883). Sculptor, born in Onondaga Co., N. Y.; died in Washington, D. C. In 1835 he discovered a new method of taking a cast from a living face, which enabled him to make busts very cheaply. Later he began cutting busts in marble with much success and executed the statue of "Freedom" now standing above the dome of the Capitol at Washington, D. C. JOHN MOLENAER (1610-1668). Born and died at Haerlem, he painted country scenes in the style of Steen and Brouwer. Was the best of the Molenaers. NICHOLAS MOLENAER (1629-1676). Born at Amsterdam, and painted landscapes in the manner of Ostade. PETER MOLYN (1632-1701), the Younger, called Il Tempesta by the Italians, was born at Haerlem, and studied under his father, and then imitated the style of Francis Snyders. His sea subjects and storms at sea gave him the name Il Tempesta. LUIS MORALES (1509-1586). A Spanish painter, born at Badajos in Estremadura. His works are said to resemble in many respects those of Leonardo da Vinci. GEORGE MORLAND (1763-1804). Born and died at London. He was the son of Henry Robert Morland, a portrait painter in crayons, and engraver. He exhibited many pictures at the Royal Academy. SAMUEL F. B. MORSE (1791-1872). Born at Charlestown, Mass.; died in New York City. He graduated at Yale in 1810 and then studied under Washington Allston, with whom he went to London, where he was admitted to the Royal Academy, also studying under Benjamin West. In 1823 he settled in New York and opened a studio, painting portraits. He was a founder of the National Academy. FREDERICK MOUCHERON (1633-1686). Flemish painter, born at Embden and died at Amsterdam. He studied under John Asselyn, a landscape painter. He designed everything after nature. ISAAC MOUCHERON (1670-1744). Born and died at Amsterdam. He was the son of the preceding and received his instruction from his father. He followed the style of Gaspar Poussin, painting chiefly landscapes, decorating the saloons and halls of the nobility and wealthy persons. WILLIAM S. MOUNT (1807-1868). Born and died in Setauket, L. I. At the age of seventeen he came to New York and became associated with his elder brother, Henry S. Mount, as a sign painter. In 1826 he entered the National Academy of Design, and in 1829 established himself as a portrait painter. Later he devoted himself to genre painting. BARTOLOMÉ ESTÉBAN MURILLO (1617-1682). Spanish painter, born and died at Seville. Was placed in the academy of his uncle, Don Juan del Castillo, and later studied under Velasquez at Madrid. MICHAEL VAN MUSSCHER (1645-1705). A Dutch painter, born at Rotterdam and died at Amsterdam. First studied under Martin Zaagmoolen, and afterwards under Abraham vander Tempel, Gabriel Metzu, and Adrian van Ostade. JAN VAN NECK (1636-1714). Born at Naarden, and studied under Jacob de Backer. He settled at Amsterdam. He painted portraits and historical subjects. PETER NEEFS (1577-1657). Born at Antwerp. Studied under Henry Steenwyck and painted interiors similar to those of his master. ARNOLD VANDER NEER (1604-1677). Born at Gorinchem and removed to Amsterdam. His instructor is not known. He painted landscapes and excelled in moonlight views. VICTOR NEHLIG (1830- ). Born in Paris, and was a pupil of Leon Cogniet and Abel de Pujol. He came to the United States in 1856 and settled in New York. Many of his works are illustrative of American History. He returned to Europe in 1872. CONSTANTINE NETSCHER (1670-1722). Dutch portrait painter, born at The Hague, who studied under his father, Gaspar Netscher, whose style he followed. CASPAR NETSCHER (1639-1684). Born at Heidelberg, Germany, and died at The Hague. He studied under Koster and in the school of Terburg. He settled in Holland and acquired fame as a portrait painter. GILBERT STUART NEWTON (1797-1835). Born in Halifax, N. S.; died in Chelsea, England. He received some instruction from his uncle, Gilbert Stuart. When a youth he went to Europe and entered the Royal Academy in London. There he lodged with Washington Irving. In 1831 he sailed for the United States, married in Boston and returned to England in October, 1832, and died three years later. JACOB VAN OCHTERVELDT. A Dutch painter, of whom little is known except by his works, in which he imitated the style of Gerard Terburg. He flourished about 1670. BALTHASAR PAUL OMMEGANCK (1755-1826). Born and died at Antwerp. He studied with H. Antonissen and became an eminent landscape and animal painter. JACOB VAN OOST (1600-1671). A Flemish painter, born at Bruges and died there. He imitated Annibale Caracci after he went to Rome to further his studies. BERNARD VAN ORLEY (1490-1542). Born at Brussels and at an early age went to Rome and studied under Raphael and later assisted him. He returned to Brussels with a distinguished reputation. SAMUEL S. OSGOOD (1808-1885). Born in Boston, Mass.; married Frances S. Locke (who wrote under the nom de plume of "Fanny Forrester"). He studied art in Europe and settled in New York City, making a specialty of portrait painting. ADRIAN VAN OSTADE (1610-1685). Dutch painter, born at Haerlem and studied under Francis Hals. He was an ardent friend of Adrian Brower, a fellow student. His subjects are always from low life. ISAAC VAN OSTADE (1621-1649). Brother of Adrian, under whom he studied and whose style he imitated, but later adopted a style of his own in painting out-door scenes. JEAN BAPTISTE OUDRY (1686-1755). French painter and engraver, born at Paris, and studied under Nicholas Largillière. He acquired distinction in painting hunting pieces, cavalcades, etc. He died at Beauvais. WILLIAM PAGE (1811-1885). Born in Albany, N. Y.; died in Tottenville, S. I. He studied under James Herring and Samuel F. B. Morse; also entered the Academy of Design. He spent eleven years in Europe, from 1849 to 1860, and returning to New York, was president of the Academy of Design. He painted mostly portraits. JACOPO PALMA (1480-1528). Called Il Vecchio, to distinguish him from his great nephew, called Il Giovine. He was a native of Serinalta in the Bergamese Territory. ERASTUS DOW PALMER (1817-1904). Sculptor, born in Pompey, Onondaga Co., N. Y. Was first a carpenter by trade, then executed cameo portraits, and finally undertook sculpture proper. All his knowledge was acquired in America, and it was not until he had become famous that he visited Europe. GIOVANNI PAOLO PANNINI (1691-1764). Born at Piacenza. He studied under Pietro Lucatelli at Rome, but followed the style of Salvator Rosa, and became a master of the art of perspective and architecture. JOHN PARADISE (1783-1834). Born in New Jersey; died in New York City. He was a pupil of Denis A. Volozan at Philadelphia, and in 1810 removed to New York. He is principally known by his portraits of Methodist divines. JEAN BAPTISTE PATER (1695-1736). French painter, born at Valenciennes, and became the pupil of Anthony Watteau, whose style and subjects he imitated. CHARLES WILSON PEALE (1741-1827). Born in Chestertown, Md.; died in Philadelphia, Pa. He changed his profession from saddle-making to portrait painting. He received some instructions from John Singleton Copley and in 1770 went to London, where he met Benjamin West, under whom he studied. In 1776 he established himself in Philadelphia, painting portraits. He became a Captain in the Revolutionary War, a member of the Legislature, and founded, in 1802, "Peale's Museum." He took up in turn the making of coaches, harness, clocks and watches, besides working as a silversmith; he was a naturalist, dentist and author, but was most famous as a portrait painter, having painted fourteen portraits of Washington from life. REMBRANDT PEALE (1778-1860). Son of Charles Wilson Peale; was born in Bucks Co., Pa., and died in Philadelphia. After receiving instructions from his father he went to England and studied under Benjamin West. He made several trips to Europe and painted many portraits in various cities in the United States. At the age of seventeen he painted Washington's portrait. PIETRO PERUGINO (1446-1524). Born at Citta della Pieve, near Perugia, and died at the latter place. It is believed that he studied under Andrea Verocchio at Florence. The family name of Perugino was Vannucci. BONAVENTURA PETERS (1614-1652). Flemish painter, born at Antwerp, who became one of the most eminent marine painters of his time. It is not known by whom he was instructed. GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIAZZETTA (1682-1754). A Venetian painter, who was first instructed by his father and later became a pupil of Antonio Molinari. He died at Venice. ROBERT EDGE PINE (1742-1790). Son of John Pine, an English designer and engraver, who instructed him. He was born in London and came to Philadelphia in 1784 to paint the portraits of distinguished persons. SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO (1485-1547). Born at Venice; his real name was Sebastiano Luciano. He first studied with Giovanni Bellini and then with Giorgione, becoming the most distinguished disciple of his school. EGBERT VANDER POEL (1621-1664). A Dutch painter, native of Delft, and died at Rotterdam. His favorite subjects were conflagrations, fire-works and interiors by candle-light. CORNELIUS POELEMBURG (1586-1667). Born at Utrecht, he studied under Abraham Bloemaert and then went to Italy. His style was a combination of the Flemish and Italian schools. FRANCIS PORBUS (1570-1622), "the younger," was born at Antwerp and studied with his father. He acquired distinction as a portrait painter in Paris, where he died. PETER PORBUS (1513-1584). A Dutch painter and architect, born at Gouda. He settled at Bruges, where he died. He acquired distinction in history and portraits. PAUL POTTER (1625-1654). Son of Peter Potter, born at Enkhuysen, and was the pupil of his father. His subjects were landscapes with different animals, in which he excelled. He established himself at The Hague. GASPAR POUSSIN (1613-1675). Born at Rome, the son of a Frenchman, and was adopted by Nicholas Poussin as his son, and taught him to paint. He became an eminent landscape painter and died at Rome. NICHOLAS POUSSIN (1594-1665). Born at Andely, in Normandy, and was descended from a noble family. He received his first instructions in art from Quinton Varin and then went to Paris and later to Rome, where he died. WILLIAM H. POWELL (1823-1879). Born and died in New York City. He was a pupil of Henry Inman and later studied in Paris and Florence. He painted historical subjects and portraits. ROBERT M. PRATT (1811-1880). Born in Binghamton, N. Y.; died in New York City. He studied under Samuel F. B. Morse and Charles C. Ingham, and became a figure and flower painter. He also painted portraits. PIERRE PAUL PRUD'HON (1758-1823). French painter, born at Clugny, and studied in the Academy of Dijon and later went to Rome, returning to France in 1789. ADAM PYNAKER (1621-1673). Dutch landscape painter, born at the village of Pynaker. He visited Rome while very young and on returning to Holland gained distinction. AUGUSTUS QUERFURT (1696-1761). A German painter, born at Wolfenbüttel, who after receiving instructions from his father went to Augsburg and studied under Rugendas. He died at Vienna. JOHN RAMAGE. An Irishman who painted miniatures in Boston, Mass. In 1777 he was established in William Street, New York, where he painted the military heroes while the city was in the British occupation. JEAN RAOUX (1677-1734). A French historical and portrait painter, born at Montpellier. He studied in the School of Bon Boulogne, at Paris. RAPHAEL SANZIO DI URBINO (1483-1520). Styled the Prince of Painters, and acknowledged to have possessed a greater combination of the higher excellencies of art than has fallen to the lot of any individual. He was placed in the School of Perugino after having learned the elements of design from his father, Giovanni Sanzio, a painter of little celebrity. He visited Florence and Rome, and died at the latter place at the age of thirty-seven years. JOHN VAN RAVESTEYN (1572-1657). Dutch portrait painter, born at The Hague. He was a pupil of Michael Mierevelt, and his works have great merit. PAUL REMBRANDT (1606-1669). One of the most eminent painters and engravers of the Dutch School, born at a small village on the banks of the Rhine, between Leyderdorp and Leyden. He entered the School of Jacob van Zwaanenberg at Amsterdam and later studied with Peter Lastmann and Jacob Pinas. GUIDO RENI (1575-1642). Born at Bologna, the son of Samuel Reni, who placed him in the School of Denis Calvart and later in the Academy of Caracci. He was also a pupil of Lodovico. He visited Rome and Naples and died at Bologna. SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS (1723-1792). Born at Plymouth, England, and studied under Hudson. After visiting various cities in Italy he settled at London and was appointed President of the Royal Academy in 1768 and shortly after was knighted by the king. He is called the founder of the British School of Painting. JOSÉ RIBERA (1588-1656). Called Il Spagnoletto. A Spanish painter, born at Xatia, in Valencia. He entered the School of Francisco Ribalta and later studied under Caravaggio at Naples. ANDREW RICHARDSON. An English painter of landscapes who exhibited a number of paintings, and of whom Dunlap says: "I am ignorant of his history." HYACINTHE RIGAUD (1659-1743). A French portrait painter, born at Perpignan; he settled at Lyons and in 1681 visited Paris to study historical painting, but accepting the advice of Charles Le Brun, he confined himself to portrait painting. HUBERT ROBERT (1733-1808). Born at Paris, where he acquired the rudiments of art. He visited Rome and studied in the French Academy under the direction of Carlo Natoire. His work was principally architectural and perspective views. JACOPO ROBUSTI (TINTORETTO) (1512-1594). Called Il Tintoretto, because he was the son of a dyer. He was born at Venice and a pupil of Titian, who became jealous of his success and banished him from his studio. His works are numerous and exhibit an extraordinary combination of beauties and defects. He died at Venice, aged eighty-two years. HENRY MARTIN ROKES (1621-1682). A Dutch painter, born at Rotterdam, who acquired a knowledge of art from William Buytenweg, and later studied under the younger Teniers, whose style he followed. GIO FRANCESCO ROMANELLI (1610-1662). Italian painter, born and died at Viterbo. He studied in the school of Pietro da Cortona, under the patronage of Cardinal Barberini. He visited Paris, where he was honored by Louis XIV. GIULIO ROMANO (1492-1546). Born at Rome, and was a pupil of Raphael and his most distinguished disciple. He was particularly successful in battle-pieces and also gained great distinction as an architect. THEODORE ROMBOUTS (1597-1637). A Flemish painter, born at Antwerp, who studied under Abraham Janssens. He visited Rome and Florence, then settled at Antwerp, where he died. JOHN HENRY ROOS (1631-1685). A Dutch painter, born at Otterberg. He was apprenticed to Julian du Jardyn, a painter of little note, and later studied under Adrian de Bie, an able designer of landscapes and animals. SALVATORE ROSA (1615-1673). Born at Renilla, near Naples, he first studied under Francesco Fracanzani, his brother-in-law, and later in the Academy of Giuseppe Ribera. He died at Rome. JOHN ROTTENHAMER (1564-1623). A German painter, born at Munich. He received his first instruction from an obscure artist named Donnaver. At Venice he studied the works of Tintoretto. After years of study in Italy he returned and settled at Augsburg, where he died. PETER PAUL RUBENS (1577-1640). Born at Siegen of a distinguished family, he was placed under the instruction of Tobias Verhaecht, and later entered the schools of Adam van Oort and Otho van Veen. He was one of the most original painters that ever lived, and his subjects are unlimited. He died at Antwerp. JACOB RUYSDAEL (1630-1682). Dutch landscape painter, born at Haerlem. He was the son and pupil of Izack van Ruysdael and became a great landscape painter. SOLOMON RUYSDAEL (1616-1670). Brother of the preceding, born at Haerlem. He was a pupil of Van de Velde and Jan van Goyen. His subjects were river views and landscapes. DAVID RYCKAERT (1612-1661). Born at Antwerp and instructed by his father, David Ryckaert. He devoted himself to interiors with peasants, fairs, etc. He died at Antwerp. CORNELIUS SAFTLEVEN (1607-1682). A Dutch painter, born at Gorinchem. It is not known under whom he studied, but he settled at Antwerp, where he acquired considerable reputation. C. B. JULIEN ST. MEMIN (1770-1852). Born and died in Dijon, France. He introduced in America, a machine called a "physionotrace," by which the human profile could be copied with mathematical accuracy and produced over 800 engraved portraits of distinguished citizens. Later he took up portrait and landscape painting and in 1817 was appointed director of the Museum at Dijon. GIOVANNI BATTISTA SALVI (1605-1685). Called Il Sassoferrato, from the place of his nativity. He first studied under his father, Tarquinio Salvi, and then in Rome and Naples. ANDREA DEL SARTO (1487-1531). Born at Florence. His real name was Andrea D'Agnolo, but called del Sarto from the occupation of his father, who was a tailor. He studied first under Gio Barile, a wood engraver, and then under Pietro di Cosimo. SASSOFERRATO, _see_ SALVI. WALTER SATTERLEE (1844-1905). Born in Brooklyn, N. Y., and was a graduate of Columbia University in 1863. Student of the National Academy of Design and under Edwin White. At Paris he studied with Leon Bonnat. EDWARD SAVAGE (1761-1817). Born and died in Princeton, Mass. He was a goldsmith, who turned his attention to portrait painting, and painted Washington's portrait for Harvard University. LOUIS JAQUES SCHAAL (1800- ). Born at Paris, he entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1816, and was a pupil of Daguerre and Lethière. He was a painter and engraver. GODFREY SCHALCKEN (1643-1706). Dutch historical portrait painter, born at Dort. He first studied with Soloman van Hoogstraten and later entered the school of Gerard Douw at Leyden. He died at The Hague. BARTOLOMEO SCHIDONE (1560-1615). He was born at Modena. His early history is very contradictory, but he emulated the style of Correggio very closely. MARTIN SCHOEN (1445-1491). A German painter and engraver; also known as Schongauer. Born and died at Colmar. He was the earliest German engraver on copper plates. CESARE DA SESTO (1480-1521). He is regarded as the most distinguished disciple of Leonardo da Vinci. Born at Milan. He went to Rome to study and became acquainted with Raphael there. JAMES SHARPLESS (1751-1811). Born in England; died in New York City. He first came to this country in 1794. He travelled through the country making pastel portraits of distinguished persons; among them is Washington's, which he made in 1796 at Philadelphia. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter's Church in Barclay Street. JAMES H. SHEGOGUE (1810-1879). He painted mainly portraiture, and first exhibited at the Academy of Design in 1835, and was Corresponding Secretary of the Academy, 1848-1852. FRANKLIN SIMMONS (1839- ). Sculptor, born in Webster, Me. During the close of the Civil War he was at Washington, where the Cabinet members and army and navy officers sat for life-size medallions. FRANCIS SNYDERS (1579-1657). A Flemish painter, born at Antwerp. He studied under Henry van Balen and frequented the studio of Rubens. He resided in Antwerp. SPAGNOLETTO, _see_ RIBERA, JOSÉ. JUNIUS BRUTUS STEARNS (1810-1885). Born in Arlington, Vt.; died in Brooklyn, N. Y. He studied at the Academy of Design, New York City, and went to Europe in 1848, returning in 1851. His work was mainly portraiture. JAN STEEN (1626-1679). Dutch painter, born at Leyden, and studied first under Nicholas Knufer and later with John van Goyen, whose daughter he married. He lived a dissipated life, and his pictures usually represented merrymakings and frolics of the ale-house. TOMMASO STEFANO (1324-1356). The son and scholar of Stefano, Il Florentino. He adhered so closely to Giotto, that he was called Il Giottino. He died at Florence at a young age. ANTHONY STEVERS (PALAMEDES) (1600-1673). A Dutch painter, born at Delft. He was more frequently employed in painting conversation pieces, card and musical parties. WILLIAM O. STONE (1830-1875). Born in Derby, Conn., and died in Newport, R. I. He studied with Nathaniel Jocelyn at New Haven, and in 1851 removed to New York and painted portraits almost entirely. WILLIAM STRICKLAND (1787-1854). Born in Philadelphia; died in Nashville, Tenn. He was an architect, and in 1809 took up landscape painting. He also did considerable work as an aquatint engraver. GILBERT C. STUART (1755-1828). Born at Narragansett; died in Boston, Mass. He was a pupil of Cosmo Alexander, a Scotchman, with whom he went to Edinburgh. Later he became a student under Benjamin West. In 1792 he returned to the United States from his second visit abroad, and painted many portraits in the various cities. An exhibition of his portraits, held in Boston in 1880, brought together 754 of them and this was not a complete list. EUSTACHE LE SUEUR (1616-1655). Born at Paris; the son of an obscure sculptor, who placed him under the tuition of Simon Vouet. Although he never visited Italy he emulated the Roman School and was called the French Raphael. THOMAS SULLY (1783-1872). Born in England and died in Philadelphia. Came to the United States when a boy and took up miniature painting with his brother, Laurence Sully. Turning to portrait painting, he studied under Stuart and West and settled in Philadelphia and was most successful in portraits of women. JUSTUS SUSTERMANS (1597-1681). Flemish painter, born at Antwerp. He first studied under William de Vos and later with Francis Pourbus. He travelled through Germany to Italy and at Florence was appointed painter to the Grand Duke Cosmo II. TEMPESTA, _see_ MOLYN, PETER. DAVID TENIERS, THE YOUNGER (1610-1694). Born at Antwerp. He was the pupil of his father, but it seems was also associated with Adrian Brower and Rubens. He acquired an immense reputation, and died at Brussels. GERARD TERBURG (1617-1681). Dutch painter, born at Zwolle, who received his first instructions from his father. He travelled through Germany, Italy and France, and upon returning to Holland was one of the most popular painters of his time. LUTHER TERRY (1813- ). Born in Enfield, Conn. In 1838 he went to Italy to study and copied the works of Raphael. He painted historical, portrait and genre compositions. ALFRED WORDSWORTH THOMPSON (1840-1896). Born in Baltimore, Md.; died at Summit, N. J. He studied in Paris under Charles Gleyre and Albert Pasini. He travelled extensively and his painting covered a wide range of subjects. CEPHAS G. THOMPSON (1809-1888). Born in Middleboro, Mass., and died in New York City. He received some instruction from his father and began portrait painting in Plymouth, Mass. After spending seven years in Rome he returned to America and settled in New York City in 1860. GIOVANNI BATTISTA TIEPOLO (1696-1749). Born at Venice; he studied under Gregorio Lazzarini and later the works of Gio. Battista Piazzetta and Paul Veronese. He acquired a great reputation and executed many works for churches and public edifices. He died at Madrid. JOHN TILIUS. Dutch painter, of the last half of the seventeenth century, born at Bois-le-Duc. He painted portraits and conversations after the manner of Gaspar Netscher. TINTORETTO, _see_ ROBUSTI, JACOPO. BENVENUTO TISIO (1481-1559). Called Il Garofolo, from the place of his nativity. He ranked at the head of the Ferrarese School. He was an universal painter, though he devoted himself mostly to sacred history. TITIAN (1477-1576). The greatest painter of the Venetian School, whose name was Tiziano Vecellio or Vercelli. He was descended of a noble family and born at the castle of Cadore. At the age of ten he was placed under Sebastiano Zuccati and later under Gentile and Giovanni Bellini. DOMINICK VAN TOL. A nephew and student of Gerard Douw and one of the most successful imitators of his style and subjects. He was born between 1631 and 1642 at Bodegrave, and died at Amsterdam in 1676. ROBERT TOURNIER (1668-1752). A French painter, born at Caen, in Normandy. After studying under Lucas de la Haye, he visited Paris and entered the School of Bon Boulogne. BENJAMIN TROTT. Born about 1740, and began painting miniatures about 1791. He established himself at New York, removing to Philadelphia with Gilbert Stuart. After a trip west he went to Charleston, S. C., then to Newark, N. J., New York and Boston, reaching the latter place, probably his native city, in 1833, after an absence of more than forty years. JEAN FRANÇOIS DE TROY (1679-1752). Son of François de Troy, born at Paris. He studied under his father, and later went to Italy to study the works of the best masters. He was appointed Director of the French Academy at Rome. JOHN TRUMBULL (1756-1843). Born in Lebanon, Conn.; died in New York City. Served in the Revolutionary War and rose to the rank of Colonel. Studied under Benjamin West, and painted portraits and historical subjects. He was also in the diplomatic service of the United States. Most of his pictures are in the art gallery of Yale College. GEORGE W. TWIBILL (1806-1836). Born in Lampeter, Pa.; died in New York City. He studied under Henry Inman in 1828, and was elected an associate of the National Academy in 1832, and an academician the following year. PAOLO MAZZOCCHI UCCELLO (1397-1475). Born at Florence, and a disciple of Antonio Veneziano. He was one of the first who cultivated perspective. JOACHIM UYTENWAEL (1566-1624). Dutch painter, born in Utrecht. He first painted on glass under the instruction of his father, and then became the scholar of Joseph de Beer. JUAN DE LEAL VALDEZ (1630-1691). Spanish painter, born at Cordova, who studied in the school of Antonio del Castillo. At Seville he became acquainted with Murillo and acquired a great reputation. E. VALLIN. Was a scholar of Prudhomme. JOHN VANDERLYN (1775-1852). Born and died in Kingston, N. Y. He attended the drawing school of Archibald Robertson, and later studied under Gilbert Stuart. He painted portraits, and in 1796 went to France, where he remained some years. He painted the portraits of many distinguished men, but died poor. SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK (1599-1641). Flemish painter, born at Antwerp. After receiving his first instructions from his father, he studied under Henry van Balen and then entered the school of Rubens, and became a great portrait painter. CHARLES ANDRÉ VANLOO (1705-1765). Born at Nice. He was first instructed by his brother, Jean Baptiste Vanloo, with whom he went to Rome, and studied some time under Benedetto Luti. JACOB VANLOO (1614-1670). A Dutch painter, born at Sluys, the son of John Vanloo, who first instructed him. He went to Amsterdam and then to Paris, where he settled. LUCAS VANUDEN (1595-1672). Born at Antwerp, and learned the art of painting from his father and his own studies of nature. He was employed by Rubens to paint the backgrounds in his pictures, who in turn enriched Vanuden's landscapes with historical figures. LUCAS AND MARTIN VAN VALKENBURG. These two brothers were painters of the Flemish school, who travelled together and painted landscapes. They were born at Mechlin, the former in 1530 and the latter in 1533. DIEGO RODRIQUEZ DE SILVA Y VELASQUEZ (1599-1660). Born at Seville. He was the most eminent painter of the Spanish school. He first studied under Francesco Herera, and later entered the school of Francisco Pacheco, whose daughter he married. He was a friend of Rubens and Ribera, and painter to the King of Spain. ADRIAN VAN DE VELDE (1636-1672). Dutch painter, born at Amsterdam, and studied under John Wynants, one of the ablest landscape painters of his time. He afterwards studied under Philip Wouwermans. WILLIAM VAN DE VELDE (1633-1707), the Younger, was born at Amsterdam, and received his first instructions from his father (a Dutch marine painter), and later studied with Simon de Vlieger. ABRAHAM VERBOOM. A Dutch painter, of whom little is known except from his works. He flourished about the middle of the seventeenth century and painted landscapes. CORNELIUS VER BRYCK (1813-1844). Born in Yaugh Paugh, N. J.; died in Brooklyn, N. Y. He studied under Samuel F. B. Morse, and in 1839 visited London, England. His health failed in 1843 and he again went to Europe, but died the following year. PETER VERELST. A Dutch painter, born at Amsterdam, 1614. Imitated Rembrandt in his portraits and Adrian Van Ostade in his genre pictures. Was living in 1665. SIMON VERELST (1640-1710). A Flemish painter, son of Pieter Verelst, born at Antwerp, whose instructor is unknown. He painted flowers and fruit most exquisitely. Died in London. CLAUDE JOSEPH VERNET (1714-1789). French marine and landscape painter, born at Avignon. He first studied under Adrian Manglard and later with Bernardino Fergioni. He lived in Italy twenty years. HORACE VERNET (1789-1863). Born at Paris in the Louvre, and received his chief instructions from his father, Antoine C. H. Vernet. He lived in Italy five years, returning to Paris in 1835. VERONESE, PAUL, _see_ CALIARI, PAOLO. DANIEL VERTANGEN (1598- ). Dutch painter, born at The Hague; studied under Cornelius Poelemburg, whose style he imitated. JAN VICTOR (1620-1672), or Fictoor. A Dutch painter who painted subjects taken from the Old Testament, after the style of Rembrandt, in whose school he was educated. LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519). An eminent painter and sculptor, the son of Pietro da Vinci, notary to the Florence Republic. He became the student of Andrea Verocchio, whom he soon surpassed. He visited Milan, Venice and Rome, and in 1516 he went to France at the invitation of Francis I. and spent the last three years of his life there. JOSEPH VOLLMERING (1810-1887). Born in Anholt, Westphalia, and died in New York City. He first studied in the Academy of Amsterdam and later under Barend Cornelis Koek-Koek. In 1847 he removed to the United States and opened a studio in New York. ARY DE VOYS (1641-1698). Dutch painter, born at Leyden. He first studied under Nicholas Knufer and then with Abraham vander Tempel, but adopted the style of Peter van Slingelandt, with whom he was intimate. JOHN RENIER DE VRIES. A landscape painter who followed the style of Jacob Ruysdael. He flourished in the latter part of the seventeenth century. FERDINAND G. WALDMULLER (1793-1865). Born at Vienna, he studied under Lampi and Maurer. Was Curator to the Lamberg Gallery in the Academy at Vienna, where he died. SAMUEL L. WALDO (1783-1861). Born in Windham, Conn.; died in New York City. In 1806 he went to London and returned in 1809, settling in New York City. William Jewett came to him for instruction and proved so useful that a partnership was formed and they jointly executed several works and became successful portrait painters. WILLIAM A. WALL (1801-1885). Born and died in New Bedford, Mass., and was apprenticed to a clock and watch-maker. After serving his apprenticeship he studied painting under Thomas Sully and visited England, France and Italy for improvement in 1831, returning to New Bedford in 1833, where he spent most of his life thereafter. WILLIAM G. WALL (1792- ). Born in Dublin, and came to New York in 1818, where he began his career as an artist, painting landscapes in oil and water color, the Hudson River Views being the first he made for publication. ANTHONY WATERLOO (1610-1679). Dutch painter and engraver, born at Lillie, of whose early history little is known. He spent most of his life in Utrecht, and became an excellent landscape painter. ANTOINE WATTEAU (1684-1721). French painter, born at Valenciennes. At Paris he gained the friendship of Claude Gillot, whom he surpassed. His subjects are usually comic conversations, musical parties, balls, etc. SAMUEL B. WAUGH. Was a Philadelphia portrait painter and his wife Eliza a miniature painter. He began his career there about 1843. JOHN BAPTIST WEENIX (1621-1660). Dutch painter, born at Amsterdam, the son of John Weenix, an architect. He studied first with John Micker and later with Abraham Bloemaert, then for two years with Nicholas Moyaert. He possessed extraordinary and varied talents. ROBERT W. WEIR (1803-1889). Born in New Rochelle, N. Y., and studied under John Wesley Jarvis. After painting for several years, he went to Florence in 1824 and then to Rome. He was professor of drawing at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, which post he held for forty-two years. ADRIAN VANDER WERF (1659-1722). Dutch painter, born near Rotterdam. He first studied under Cornelius Picolett, and then with Eglon vander Neer. He resided at Rotterdam and visited Düsseldorf, where the honor of knighthood was conferred upon him. BENJAMIN WEST (1738-1820). Born near Springfield, Chester Co., Pa.; died in London, England. He received some instruction from William Williams, a painter in Philadelphia, and established himself there in 1756 as a portrait painter. He came to New York and in 1760 visited Italy and from there went to London, where he remained. He succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1792 as president of the Royal Academy. WILLIAM E. WEST (1788-1857). Born in Lexington, Ky., and died in Nashville, Tenn. He was a pupil of Thomas Sully, and in 1819 went to Europe, where he remained until 1839. Upon his return he lived in Baltimore, New York and Nashville. EDWIN WHITE (1817-1877). Born in South Hadley, Mass.; died in Saratoga Springs, N. Y. He went abroad in 1850 and again in 1869 to study. Returning to the United States in 1875, he opened a studio in New York. JOHN WILDENS (1580-1653). Flemish painter, born at Antwerp. Pupil of Pieter Verhulst. He designed after nature and was employed by Rubens to paint the landscapes in his backgrounds. ADAM WILLAERTS (1577- ). Flemish painter, born in Antwerp. His subjects were marines, coast scenes and seaports. He went to Utrecht in 1600, where he died. JOSEPH WILTON (1722-1803). Sculptor, born in London, the son of a plasterer. He studied in Brabant under Laurent Delvaux. At the age of twenty-two he entered the school of Pigalle in Paris and learned the art of working in marble. At Rome he achieved great success and upon his return to England was appointed State Coach Carver to the King. He acquired a large fortune. MATTHEW WITHOOS (1627-1703). Dutch painter, born at Amersfort, and studied under Jacob van Campen. He went to Italy with Otho Marcellis and applied himself to the same branch as that artist in painting flowers, plants, insects, reptiles, etc. He died at Hoorn, Holland. EMANUEL DE WITT (1607-1692). Flemish painter, born at Alkmaer. Studied under Evert van Aelst, but did not adopt his style. His best pictures represent interiors of churches, temples and edifices. RICHARD C. WOODVILLE (1825-1855). Born in Baltimore, Md. He studied in Düsseldorf, and from there sent pictures to the American Art Union. He visited Europe twice and died on his second trip while in London, England. PHILIP WOUWERMANS (1614-1668). Dutch landscape painter, born at Haerlem. He first studied with his father and then under John Wynants. He was one of the most masterly landscape painters that ever lived. JOSEPH WRIGHT (1734-1797). An English painter, born at Derby. Studied under Thomas Hudson and devoted himself chiefly to portrait painting. JOHN WYNANTS (1600-1677). Dutch landscape painter, born at Haerlem. His instructor is not known. He established an academy and among his students was Philip Wouwermans. Little is known of his personal history, and the dates of birth and death above are only approximate. BERNARDO ZENALE (1436-1526). An Italian painter, born at Trevilio. He was a disciple of Foppa and friend of Leonardo da Vinci. He excelled particularly in perspective. FEDERIGO ZUCCARO (1543-1609). Born at St. Angiolo, in Vado. He went to Rome and entered the school of his brother, Taddeo. After his brother's death he became the first artist in Rome. FRANCESCO ZUCCO ( -1627). Born at Bergamo. He first studied in the school of Campi, and then under Pietro Moroni. The date of his birth is not given. INDEXES INDEX OF PORTRAITS Abbott, Henry, by Hicks, 180 Adams, John, by Durand, 6 Adams, John, by Stuart, B-304 Adams, John Quincy, by Durand, 7 Adams, John Quincy, by Marchant, 131 Allen, James H., 306 Allen, Theodore, 206 Alsop, John, 430 Alstyne, John, by Elliott, 284 Anderson, Alexander, M.D., D-173 Anderson, Julia M., by Anderson, 471 Aretino, Pietro, by Chapman, 70 Ashburton, Lord, by Healy, 282 Axtell, Mrs. William, 404 Bainbridge, John, M.D., by Lely, D-54 Bainbridge, William, by Peale, B-311 Baring, Alexander, by Healy, 282 Bayard, Anna Maria, 312 Bayard, Rev. Lazare, 486 Bayard, Mrs. Lazare, 487 Bayard, Samuel, 488 Bayard, Mrs. Samuel, 488 Bayley, Richard, M.D., by Lazarus, 193 Beecher, Rev. Henry Ward, 483 Beekman, Cornelia, 329 Beekman, James W., by Satterlee, 362 Bement, Edward, 439 Benedict, Erastus C., by Powell, 249 Benson, Egbert, by Jarvis, 81 Benson, Egbert, by Stuart, 82 Benson, Henry, by Vanderlyn, 273 Benson, Robert, by Trumbull, 272 Bethune, Rev. George W., by Peale, 205 Bloodgood, Matthais, 425 Bloodgood, Mrs. Matthais, 426 Bordley, John B., by Peale, B-300 Bouck, William C., by Elliott, D-179 Bradish, Luther, by Hicks, 141 Brasher, Elizabeth, by Ramage, 108 Breese, Samuel L., by Huntington, 291 Bruce, George, by Huntington, 390 Bryan, Guy, by Sully, B-286 Bryan, Thomas J., by Stone, 198 Bryant, Julia S., 456 Bryant, Peter, M.D., 451 Bryant, Mrs. Peter, 452 Bryant, William C., by Gray, 187 Bryant, William C. (cameo), 453 Bryant, William C., 454 Bryant, Mrs. William C., 455 Burr, Aaron, by Vanderlyn, 160 Burr, Emma Louisa, 469 Burr, Henry, 470 Burr, Henry A., 467 Burr, Mrs. Henry A., 468 Cabot, Sebastian, by Thompson, 129 Campbell, Thomas, by Osgood, 149 Carey, Alice, by Osgood, 148 Carlisle, Earl of, by Huntington, 142 Carlota, Empress of Mexico, 289 Carpenter, George, 396 Carpenter, Maria, 397 Casilear, J. W., by Durand, 369 Champlin, Mrs. Christopher, 298 Charles I, by Van Dyck, B-113 Choiseul, Duc de, by Greuze, B-262 Cinq Mars, by Velasquez, 226 Clay, Henry, by Osgood, 252 Clinton, DeWitt, by Jarvis, 138 Clinton, DeWitt, by Ingham, 139 Clinton, Gov. George, by Ames, 155 Colden, Cadwallader D., by Jarvis, B-316 Colles, Christopher, by Jarvis, 89 Columbus, Christopher, 113 Columbus, Christopher, after Parmigiano, 174 Combes, Charles U., by Cronin, 480 Cooper, Rev. Myles, 122 Copley, John Singleton, by himself, B-285 Copley, Sir John S., by Osgood, 134 Corn Plant, Seneca Chief, by Bartoli, B-314 Cortes, Hernando, 111 Crolius, Clarkson, by Ames, 188 Crolius, Mrs. Clarkson, by Wallace, 189 Cumming, Rev. Hooper, by Inman, 309 Cumming, Mrs. Hooper, by Peale, 310 Cumming, Mary, 304 Dallas, Alexander J., by Jarvis, 97 Daly, Charles P., by Page, 262 Darlington, William, M.D., by Eichholz, 479 Davis, Matthew L., D-165 De Bije, Margerethea, by Netscher, B-343 Decatur, Stephen, by Peale, B-309 Delavan, Capt. Daniel, by Trumbull, 301 DePeyster, Abraham, by DePeyster, 403 DePeyster, Catherine A., 419 DePeyster, Elizabeth Van R., 418 DePeyster family portraits, 399-401 DePeyster, Frederic, by Gerhard, 227 DePeyster, Col. James, by DePeyster, 402 DePeyster, John, by Peale, 296 DePeyster, Mrs. John, by Peale, 297 DePeyster, John Watts, by Jacquin, 422 DePeyster, William Axtell, 407, 408 DePeyster, Mrs. William Axtell, 409, 410 DeVos, Judith, 487 DeWitt, Rev. Thomas, by Cogswell, 157 DeWitt, Rev. Thomas, by Waugh, 158 Dexter, Henry, by Whipple, 360 Dexter, Orrando Perry, by Whipple, 361 Dix, John A., by Huntington, 260 Dongan family, members of, 263, 264 Doria, Madalena, B-328 Doria, Orelia, B-327 Douw, Gerard, in his atelier, by himself, B-114 Duchesnois, by Poussin, B-226 Durand, Asher B., by himself, 372 Durand, Asher B., by Jewett, 343 Durand, Asher B., by Trumbull, D-168 Durand, Mrs. John, by Durand, 378 Durand, Miss, by Durand, 377 Eastlake, Sir Charles L., by Huntington, 60 Engs, Philip W., 344 Everett, Alexander H., by Blanchard, 137 Field, Benjamin H., by Huntington, 277 Fish, Hamilton, by Heaton, D-181 Fish, Nicholas, by Shegogue, 76 Fish, Preserved, 321 Florence, Princess of, by Bronzino, B-52 France, Marshal of, by Rigaud, B-244 Francis, John W., M.D., by Elliott, 185 Francis, John W., M.D., by Bogle, 186 Franklin, Benjamin, by Duplessis, D-166 Frederick I, Emperor of Germany, by Cranach, D-114 Gallatin, Albert, by Powell, 130 Gates, Mrs. Horatio, 449 Gelston, David, by Jarvis, 314 Gevartius, by Trumbull, 68 Giles, John S., by Stearns, 364 Gilliland, William, by Earle, 457 Golden Fleece, Knight of the Order of, by Rubens, B-160 Graham, Com. John H., by Powell, 461 Graham, Mrs. John H., by Powell, 462 Grim, David, by Waldo, 334 Griswold, Rufus W., by Elliot, 86 Grosvenor, Seth, by Taggart, 176 Hall, Francis A., 395 Hall, John B., by Inman, 393 Hall, Mrs. John B., by Inman, 394 Halleck, Fitz-Greene, by Inman, 201 Halleck, Fitz-Greene, by Inman, 216 Halleck, Fitz-Greene, by Taggart, 143 Halleck, Fitz-Greene, by Twibill, 200 Hamilton, Alexander, by Peale, 103 Hamilton, Alexander, by Sharpless, 104 Hamilton, Alexander, B-305 Hamilton, Mrs. Alexander, by Johnson, D-174 Handy, William, M.D., by Savage, B-313 Haring, Elizabeth, by Peale, 297 Hawley, Jesse, by Ames, 126 Hawley, Jesse, by Gilbert, 127 Heathcote, Caleb, D-180 Henri IV, by Porbus, B-148 Hewitt, Mary E., by Osgood, 144 Hildreth, Richard, by Pratt, 269 Hoffman, Charles F., by Thompson, 172 Hoffman, Rev. Eugene A., by See, 330 Hoffman, Matilda, 438 Hoffman, Samuel V., by Beckwith, 331 Hoffman, Samuel V., by Schmidt, 332 Holley, Myron, 292 Holmes, Eldad, 320 Hosack, David, M.D., by Heaton, 458 Huntington, General E., by Trumbull, 73 Huntington, Jedediah V., by Huntington, 466 Indians, Osage Warriors, etc., by St. Memin, 164-171 Infanta Margarita of Spain, by Velasquez, B-209 Irvine, General William, by Lambdin, 196 Jackson, Andrew, by Durand, 11 Jaques, John D., M.D., by Inman, 363 Jay, Mrs. Augustus, 312 Jay, John, by Wright, 119 Jay, John, by Lay, 120 Jay, Peter A., by Saltza, 357 Jee, Harriet, by Peale, 310 Jefferson, Thomas, by Durand, 9 Jefferson, Thomas, 125 Jefferson, Thomas, by Peale, B-306 Johnson, William, by Jarvis, 204 Johnson, Sir William, 311 Jones, Jacob, by Peale, B-310 Jones, John, M.D., by Folwell, 116 Jones, John Divine, by Huntington, 420 Kane, Elisha Kent, by Hicks, 159 Kelby, William, by Hinckley, 324 Keteltas, Eugene, by Stone, 319 Keteltas, Henry, by Cotton, 325 Kent, James, by Morse, 90 King, John Alsop, by Hinckley, 290 King, John A., by Trumbull, 431 Ki-on-twog-ky, see Corn Plant Kip, Solomon, D-177 Kirton, Anne, 287 Knickerbacker, Herman, 300 Knickerbacker, Col. Johannes, 299 Kunze, Rev. John C., by Jarvis, 121 Lafayette, by Ingham, 65 Lafayette, 117 Lamb, Martha J., 294 Lawrance, John, 308 Lawrance, John, 427, 428 Lawrance, John, by Trumbull, 274 Leavitt, David, by Flagg, 392 Lewis, Estelle A., by Elliott, 250 Lewis, Morgan, by Curran, 448 L'Hommedieu, Ezra, by Earle, 248 Lincoln family, by Carpenter, 423 Livingston, John, 405 Livingston, Mrs. John, 406 Livingston, Peter R., by Powell, 326 Livingston, Robert R., by Vanderlyn, 255 Louis XVII, Dauphin (School of Greuze), B-252 Lyndhurst, Lord, by Osgood, 134 McKnight, Mary DePeyster, 417 Macomb, Mrs. Alexander N., by Trott, 305 Macready, as William Tell, by Cummings, 80 McWhorter, Rev. Alexander, 303 McWhorter, Mrs. Alexander, 304 McWhorter, Ann, 307 McWhorter, Julia Anna, by Trott, 305 Madison, James, 208 Madison, James, by Durand, 10 Madison, James, by Durand, 207 Madison, Mrs. James, by Peale, B-308 Magalhaens, Fernando, 114 Maximilian I, 288 Meerman, Mrs. François, by Netscher, B-343 Mills, Zophar, by Carpenter, 333 Mitchell, Samuel L., M.D., by Sharpless, 105 Monroe, James, 232 Monroe, James, by Durand, 8 Montespan, Madame de, by Netscher, B-141 Morris, George P., by Elliott, 323 Morris, Gouverneur, by Ames, 118 Morris, Lewis, 133 Morris, Robert, by Jarvis, 115 Morse, Samuel F. B., D-172 Mount, William S., by Carpenter, D-169 Napoleon at Charleroi, by Vernet, B-268 Nicholson, James, 302 Nims, Jeremiah, by himself, 100 Norton, Caroline E. S., by Osgood, 278 Ogden, General Aaron, by Durand, 257 Ogilvie, Mrs. George, 307 Orleans, Duke of, by Vernet, B-269 Osgood, Frances S., by Osgood, 147 Ostade, Mrs. Adrian van, and child, by Ostade, B-144 Paré, Dr. Ambroise, by Porbus, B-254 Parisot, Jean, B-315 Payne, John, by Wainewright, 268 Payne, Thomas, by Van der Puyl, 267 Peale, Charles Wilson, by West, B-293 Perry, Oliver H., by Peale, B-312 Peru, Incas of, 233-246 Philip IV of Spain, B-73 Philip IV of Spain, as David with Goliath's Head, by Velasquez, B-207 Phillips, Elizabeth, 449 Pierce, Franklin, 472 Pintard, John, 109 Pintard, John, by Ramage, 107 Pintard, John, by Trumbull, 106 Pintard, Mrs. John, by Ramage, 108 Pleasants, John H., 283 Poe, Edgar Allan, by Osgood, 146 Priestley, Dr. Joseph, by Peale, B-307 Provoost, Rev. Samuel, by Duché, 123 Randolph, John, by Jarvis, 154 Red Jacket, by Weir, 295 Reed, General Joseph, by Hagen, 95 Reed, Luman, by Durand, 56 Rembrandt, Paul, by Chapman, 69 Remsen, Peter, by Waldo, 181 Riker, James, by Kosa, D-176 Rivington, James, 153 Rochechouart, Cardinal de, by Battoni, B-249 Rodgers, Rev. John, 251 Rossiter, Bryan, by Trumbull, 192 Rotterdam, Burgomaster of, and family, by Cuyp, B-106 Roy, Rammohun, by Peale, 156 Rutgers, Henry, by Inman, 175 Sa-go-ye-wat-ha, see Red Jacket St. Catherine, by Rubens, B-158 St. John, weeping, by da Vinci, B-24 St. John the Baptist, by Velasquez, D-5 Santa Aña, Antonio L., by L'Ouvrier, 259 Savonarola, Jerome, by Bartolomeo, D-19 Schalcken, Godfrey, by himself, B-346 Schell, Augustus, by Johnson, 275 Schuyler, Catalina, 136 Schuyler, Philip, 135 Seymour, Daniel, by Cummings, 87 Shaler, William, 247 Sherman, Benjamin B., by Gerhard, 473 Smith, Edwin, by Anelli, 322 Smith, Elihu H., by Sharpless, 128 Smith, William, by Stubble, 124 Spain, Queen of (Spanish School), B-217 Spencer, Ambrose, by Jarvis, 211 Stanford, Rev. John, by Jarvis, 191 Stanton, Daniel, by Elliott, 183 Steenwyck, Cornelius, 265 Steenwyck, Cornelius, by Van Goosen, 266 Stevens, Gen. Ebenezer, 484 Stone, William L., by Marchant, 197 Strong, Roger, by Vanderlyn, 271 Stuart, Gilbert C., by Dickinson, 96 Stuart, Gilbert C., by Peale, B-302 Stuyvesant, Anna, 488 Stuyvesant, Gerardus, 350 Stuyvesant, Nicholas W., (1648-1698), 349 Stuyvesant, Nicholas W., (1722-1780), 351 Stuyvesant, Nicholas W., (1769-1833), 353 Stuyvesant, Gov. Peter, 347, 348 Stuyvesant, Peter, (1796-1860), 354 Stuyvesant, Petrus, (1727-1805) by Stuart, 352 Sutter, Capt. John A., by Osgood, 145 Swabey, Dr. Maurice, by Trumbull, 74 Taylor, Col. Zachary, 293 Ten Broeck, Henry, by Paradise, 285 Tilghman, William, by Peale, B-317 Tompkins, Gov. Daniel D., by Jarvis, 94 Trist, Nicholas P., by Pratt, 270 Vaché, Jean Lazare, 463 Vaché, John B., 465 Vaché, Maria A., 464 Van Berckel, Pieter J., by Peale, B-301 Van Cortlandt, Gen. Pierre, by Collins, D-178 Van Cortlandt, Stephen, 411 Van Cortlandt, Mrs. Stephen, 412 Van Dam, Rip, 178 Van Dam, Mrs. Rip, 179 Van der Meulen, Lucretia, by Van Ravesteyn, D-82 Vanderspiegle, Sarah, 179 Van Ness, William W., by Jarvis, 210 Van Polanen, Roger G., by Frothingham, 199 Van Schaack, Peter, 132 Verplanck, Gulian C., by Ingham, 258 Vespucius, Americus, 112 Vespucius, Americus, after Parmigiano, 173 Waddell, Capt. John, 286 Waddell, Mrs. John, 287 Walton, William, 327, 328 Walton, Mrs. William, 329 Warner, Colonel Andrew, by Baker, 256 Washington, George, by Durand, 32 Washington, George, by Grimaldi, 437 Washington, George, by Peale, 459 Washington, George, by Peale, B-299 Washington, George, by Stuart, B-303 Washington, Martha, by Durand, 38 Washington, Martha, by Peale, 460 Watts, John, by Bolles, 190 Wayne, General Anthony, 177 Webster, Daniel, by Healy, 281 West, Benjamin, by Delanoy, 415 Wetmore, Prosper M., by Elliott, 184 William, Prince of Orange, by Terburg, B-182 Willis, N. P., by Wall, 102 Wright, Harriet, by Peale, 310 Wright, Sophie, by Peale, 310 INDEX TO SCULPTURE Adams, John Quincy, 1 Adams, John Quincy, by Greenough, 2 Allston, Washington, by Brackett, 3 Baird, Rev. Charles W., by Decomps, 4 Barker, Fordyce, M.D., by Verhaegen, 5 Barlow, Joel, by Houdon, 6 Bolivar, Simon, by Tener, 7 Brownell, Rev. Thomas C., by Ives, 8 Bryant, William C., by Brown, 9 Chilton, Dr. James R., by Ellis, 10 Clay, Henry, by Clevenger, 11 Clinton, DeWitt, 12 Clinton, George, by Ceracchi, 13 Columbus, Christopher, by Gott, 14 DePeyster, Frederic, by Bissell, 15 DePeyster, John Watts, by Bissell, 16 Durr, Louis, by Baerer, 17 Everett, Edward, by Clevenger, 18 Field, Hickson W., 19 Fox, Charles J., 20 Francis, John W., M.D., 21 Franklin, Benjamin, by Houdon, 22 Fulton, Robert, by Houdon, 23 Hamilton, Alexander, by Dixey, 24 Harrison, William H., by Clevenger, 25 Havemeyer, William F., by Griffin, 26 Hawks, Rev. Francis L., by Richards, 27, 28, 29 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, by Kuntze, 30 Heywood, Joseph C., by Manley, 31 Hone, Philip, by Browere, 32 Hone, Philip, by Clevenger, 33 Hosack, David, by Browere, 34 Hume, Joseph, by Bonomi, 35 Irving, Washington, by Palmer, 36 Jay, John, by Ceracchi, 37 Jay, Peter A., by Launitz, 38 Jefferson, Thomas, by Houdon, 39 Kane, Elisha Kent, by Reniers, 40 Kent, James, by Clevenger, 41 King, John A., 42 Kosciuszko, Thaddeus, by Eggenschwiler, 43 Lamartine, Alphonse, by Adam-Salomon, 44 Lawrence, William B., by Dunbar, 45 Lincoln, Abraham, by Jones, 46 Macgowan, D. J., by Mills, 47 Marshall, John, 48 Nelson, Lord, 49 Osgood, Rev. Samuel, 50 Paine, Thomas, by Jarvis, 51 Parish, Daniel, Jr., 52 Pitt, William, 53 Pitt, William, by Wilton, 54 Prescott, William H., by Ball, 55 Scott, Sir Walter, 56 Seward, William H., 57 Shakespeare, William, 58 Silliman, Benjamin, by Ives, 59 Washington, George, by Houdon, 60 Washington, George, by Jones, 61 Watts, John, by Coffee, 62 Webster, Daniel, by Clevenger, 63 Webster, Daniel, by Ball, 64 West, Benjamin, by Chantrey, 65 White, Joseph M., by Greenough, 66 Williamson, Hugh, M.D., by Coffee, 67 Wolcott, Oliver, by Clevenger, 68 Wood, James R., M.D., 69 INDEX OF ARTISTS Adam-Salomon, A. S., _Sc._ 44 Aelst, William van, 15 Ahlborn, Lea, _Sc._ 52 Albano, Francesco, D-21 Allegri, Antonio (da Correggio), 54, B-47, B-48, B-321, D-18, see page 100 Ames, Ezra, 118, 126, 155, 188 Anderson, Alex., 471 Anelli, Francisco, 322 Artois, Jacobus van, B-78 Asselyn, Jan, B-79, B-80 Audubon, J. J., 421 Avercamp., Hendrik van, B-368 Baan, John de, D-84 Backhuysen, Ludolf, B-81, B-82, B-83, D-70, D-122 Baerer, Henry, _Sc._ 17 Baker, George A., 256 Baker, Mary L., 261 Ball, Thomas, _Sc._ 55, 64 Barbarelli, Giorgio (Giorgione), B-30, B-31, B-32 Barbièrs, Peter, D-155 Bartoli, F., B-314 Bartolomeo, Fra, B-29, B-331, D-17, D-19 Bassano, see Ponte Battem, Gerard van, D-88 Battoni, Pompeo, B-249, B-250 Beaujolais, Count, B-294 Beckwith, J. Carroll, 331 Beerestraten, Jan, B-84 Bega, Cornelius, B-85 Bellangé, Joseph L. H., B-270 Benzoni, G. M., _Sc._ 70 Bergen, Theodore van, B-86 Berghem, Nicholas, B-87, B-88, B-89, D-128 Berretini, Pietro (da Cortona), B-357 Bierstadt, Albert, 424, 440 Birch, Thomas, 13, 391 Bissell, George E., _Sc._ 15, 16 Blanchard, Washington, 137 Bloemaert, A., D-71 Bloemen, John Francis van, D-118 Bloemen, Petrus van, B-90, B-91, B-92 Bogle, James, 186 Boll, Ferdinand, 150 Bolles, John W., 190 Bonomi, Joseph, _Sc._ 35 Both, Andreas, D-57, D-58 Both, Jan, B-93, B-94, B-95, B-96 Botticelli, B-21 Boucher, François, B-276, B-277 Bourdon, Sebastian, B-337 Bout, Peter, D-53 Brackett, E. A., _Sc._ 2 Bradford, William, D-167 Brakenburg, Renier, B-97, B-342, B-351, B-352 Bramer, Leonard, B-98, B-350, D-142, see page 100 Brea, Ludovico, B-40 Brekelenkam, Quirinus, D-96 Bronzino, Agnolo, B-51, B-52 Brower, Adrian, B-99, B-100, D-121 Browere, John H. I., _Sc._ 32, 34 Brown, D., 225 Brown, George L., B-288 Brown, Henry K., _Sc._ 9, 74, 75 Brueghel, John, D-111 Brun, Charles le, B-237, D-28, D-33 Bruner, Carl, 163 Buffalmacco, B., B-14, B-15 Buytenweg, William de, B-336 Byzantine School, B-1, B-2 Caliari, Paolo (Paul Veronese), B-39., D-16 Calyo, N., 444 Canal, Antonio (Canaletto), B-71 Caracci, Annibale, 37, 101, B-55, B-56, D-15, D-22 Carpenter, Frank B., 333, 423, D-169 Carrenno de Miranda, Juan, 222 Casilear, John W., 387 Castagno, Andrea del, B-19 Castell, A., 313 Ceracchi, Giuseppe, _Sc._ 13, 37 Cesari, Giuseppe (d'Arpino), B-54 Champagne, Philip de, B-101, B-102, D-50, D-51 Chantrey, Francis, _Sc._ 65 Chapman, John G., 69, 70 Chardin, J. B. S., B-251, B-349, B-353 Cimabue, Gio, B-4 Clevenger, Shobal V., _Sc._ 11, 18, 25, 33, 41, 63, 68 Coene, Jean Henri de, B-283 Coffee, Thomas, _Sc._ 62 Coffee, William I., _Sc._ 67 Cogswell, William, 157 Cole, Thomas, 1-5, 19, 31, 42, 44, 46, 62, 342, 388 Collins, William, D-178 Copley, John Singleton, B-285 Coques, Gonzales de, B-104, B-320 Cornelius, Barend, D-52 Correggio, see Allegri Cotton, Marietta, 325 Courtois, Jacques, B-238, B-239 Coustou, Nicolas, _Sc._ 71 Cranach, Lucas, B-196, B-197, D-114 Cranch, C. P., 58 Crawford, Thomas, _Sc._ 72 Cummings, Thomas S., 80, 87 Cronin, David E., 480-482 Curran, Charles C., 448 Cuyp, Albert, B-105, B-347, D-90., D-129, D-157 Cuyp, Jacob G., B-106 Decomps, S., _Sc._ 4 Delanoy, A., 415 Dello, Antonio, B-20 Denner, Balthazar, B-198, D-55, D-56, see page 100 DePeyster, G. B., 402, 403 Descamps, Jean Baptiste, B-271, B-272, B-273 Dickinson, Anson, 96 Dietrich, Christian W. E., B-109, B-110 Dixey, John, _Sc._ 24 Does, Simon van der, D-113 Dolci, Carlo, B-60, B-61, B-62, B-63 Domenichino, see Zampieri Doncker, John, D-115 Douw, Gerard, 215, B-114 Dubois, Guilliam, B-107 Duché, Thomas S., 123 Dunbar, F. A. T., _Sc._ 45 Dunlap, William, 152 Duplessis, Joseph S., D-166 Durand, A. B., 6-11, 26, 28, 32, 38,49, 56, 75, 207, 257, 335-341, 365-386, D-159-D-162 Dürer, Albrecht, B-199, B-200, D-41, D-42 Dutch School, 45, 346, B-358, D-39, D-99 Dyckmans, Joseph L., B-284 Earle, James, 248 Earle, Ralph, 457 Eeckhout, Gerbrandt vanden, B-115, D-139 Edmonds, Francis W., 71 Eggenschwiler, _Sc._ 43 Elliott, Charles L., 86, 143, 183-185, 250, 284, 323, D-179 Ellis, S., _Sc._ 10 Escalante, Juan Antonio, D-3, D-4 Evrard, Adele, 83 Eyck, Jan van, B-116 Ferrari, Gaudenzio, B-28 Fialetti, Odvardo, B-35 Flagg, George W., 12, 16, 20-22, 27, 30, 33, 34, 36, 41, 48, 77 Flagg, Jared B., 392 Flamen, Albert, D-119 Flemish School, 39, B-195 Florentine School, B-43, B-44 Folwell, Samuel, 116 Fosse, Charles de la, B-240 Fouquières, Jacques, B-117 France, Leonard de, D-131 Francken, Francis, D-66 Franz, Fritz, D-152 Freminet, Martin, B-221 French School, B-218, B-219, B-220 Freudenberger, Sigmund, B-381 Frothingham, James, 199 Fyt, John, 40 Gaal, Barent, B-193 Gaddi, Taddeo, B-8, B-9 Gainsborough, Thomas, 228, B-369 Garofalo, see Tisio Geel, John van, D-124 Gelder, Nicholas van, 212, 213 Gentileschi, see Lomi Gerhard, George, 227, 473 Gericault, Jean, L. T. A., 161 German School, 18, D-80 Gignoux, Regis, 91 Gilbert, Grove S., 127 Giorgione, see Barbarelli Giottino, see Stefani Giotto de Bondone, B-5 Glauber, Jan, B-118 Goltzius, Henry, B-374 Goltzius, Hubert, 25 Goosen, Jan van, 266 Gott, John, _Sc._ 14 Goyen, John van, B-119 Gray, Henry Peters, 187 Greenough, Horatio, _Sc._ 1, 66 Greuze, Jean Baptiste, B-252, B-260, B-261, B-262, B-263, B-264, B-265, B-324 Griff, Anthony, B-120 Griffin, Julia, _Sc._ 26 Grimaldi, William, 437 Gudin, T., 441 Guido, see Reni Guido of Sienna, B-3 Guy, Francis, D-175 Hackaert, Jan, B-348 Hagelstein, D., D-67 Hagen, John C., 95 Hals, Francis, B-361 Healy, George P. A., 281, 282 Heaton, Augustus G., 458, D-181 Helmont, Matthew van, B-367, D-143 Helst, Bartholomew van der, B-329 Hemskerk, Egbert van, B-356, D-95 Hemskerk, Martin van Veen, D-44 Herp, Guilliam van, D-46, D-47, D-48 Heyden, Jan van der, B-123, D-137 Hicks, Thomas, 141, 159, 180 Hill, J. W., 398 Hill, Thomas, 316 Hinckley, Robert, 290, 324 Hobbema, Minderhout, B-124, B-339, D-89 Hogarth, William, B-289, B-290 Holbein, Hans, B-201, B-202 Honthorst, Gerard, D-81, D-83 Hooghe, Peter de, see page 100 Horremans, John, D-116, D-117 Houdon, Jean Antoine, _Sc._ 6, 22, 23, 39, 60 Hove, H. van, D-148 Hughes, Ball, _Sc._ 62 Hugtenburg, Jan van, D-69 Huntington, Daniel, 60, 142, 182, 260, 277, 291, 390, 420, 466 Huysmans, Cornelius, B-125, B-338 Ingham, Charles C., 64, 65, 139, 258 Inman, Henry, 175, 200, 201, 216, 309, 363, 393, 394 Isaacksen, Isaac, D-139 Italian School, 17, 29, 51, 53, B-327, B-328 Ives, C. B., _Sc._ 8, 59 Jacquin, E. S., 422 Jardin, Karl du, B-126, B-127, D-45, D-132, D-144 Jarvis, John Wesley, 81, 89, 94, 97, 115, 138, 154, 191, 204, 210, 211, 314, B-316, _Sc._ 51 Jewett, William, 343 Johnson, David, 442 Johnson, Eastman, 275, D-174 Jones, Alfred W., _Sc._ 61 Jones, T. D., _Sc._ 46 Jordaens, Jacob, 151 Jouvenet, Jean, B-241, B-242 Kalf, William, D-79 Kensett, John F., 474 Klomp, Albert, B-103 Kobell, Jan, B-128, D-147 Koek-Koek, Bernard C., D-150 Köhler, Christian, D-154 Kosa, Emil, D-176 Kruseman, Frederic M., B-279 Kuntze, Edward J., _Sc._ 30 Lachenwitz, Sigmund, 359 Lairesse, Gerard de, B-118 Lambdin, J. R., 196 Lang, Louis, 276 Largillière, Nicholas de, B-243 Launitz, Robert E., _Sc._ 38 Lauri, Phillippe, B-229 Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 217 Lay, Oliver, 120 Lazarus, J. H., 193 Ledoux, Mlle., B-363 Lely, Sir Peter, B-129, D-54 Leonardo da Vinci, B-23, B-24 Lepicié, Nicholas Bernard, B-266 Leyden, Lucas van, D-43 Leys, Henry, D-151 Lingelbach, John, B-359, D-123 Llanos y Valdes, Sebastian, B-215 Lomi, Artemisia (Gentileschi), B-64 Lorenzo, Don (il Monaco), B-10 Lorme, Anthony de, D-102 Lorraine, Claude, B-230, B-231, B-232, B-233, D-36 Luini, Bernardino, B-49, D-158 Maas, Nicholas, B-130 Mabuse, John de, B-131, D-40 McLeod, William, 88 Macrino d'Alba, B-22 Manley, F., _Sc._ 31 Mantegna, Andrea, B-45, B-46 Marcellis, Otho, D-74 Marchant, Edward D., 131, 197 Marrel, J., 35 Matsys, Quintin, B-133 Mazzolino, Lodovico, B-373 Mazzuoli, Francesco (il Parmiggiano), 173, 174 Meer, John vander, D-130 Memling, Jan, B-121, B-122 Memmi, Simone, B-6, B-7 Michel, Georges, B-278 Miel, John, D-86 Mignard, Pierre, B-234, B-235 Mills, Clark, _Sc._ 47 Minnigerode, Marietta, 485 Miranda, Fernando, _Sc._ 73 Molenaer, Jan, B-134, D-76 Molenaer, Nicholas, B-135 Molyn, Peter (Tempesta), 66, D-25, D-26, D-49 Morales, Luis, D-6 Morland, George, 43, 47 Morse, Samuel F. B., 90 Moucheron, Frederick, B-136, B-137 Moucheron, Isaac, B-359, B-364 Mount, William S., 23, 57, 59 Murillo, Bartholomé Estéban, B-211, B-212, B-213, B-214, D-1, D-2 Musscher, Michael van, B-325 Neck, Jan van, B-138 Neefs, Peter, B-140 Neer, Arnold van der, B-139 Nehlig, V., 253 Netscher, Caspar, B-141 Netscher, Constantine, B-326, B-343 Newton, Gilbert Stuart, D-156 Nims, Jeremiah, 100 Ochterveldt, Jacob van, B-143 Ommeganck, Paul Balthasar, B-282, D-146 Oost, Jacob van, B-142 Orley, Bernard van, B-377 Osgood, Samuel S., 134, 144-149, 252, 278-280 Ostade, Adrian van, B-144, B-145, B-372, D-106-D-110 Ostade, Isaac van, B-146, D-105 Oudry, Jean B., B-171 Ouvrier, Paul, 259 Page, William, 262 Palamedes, see Stevers Palma, Jacopo, B-53 Palmer, E. D., _Sc._ 36 Palmer, F. F., 478 Pannini, Cav. Giovanni Paolo, 435, D-13 Paradise, John, 285 Parmiggiano, see Mazzuoli Pater, Jean Baptiste, B-248 Peale, Charles Wilson, 103, 297, B-298, B-299, B-300, B-301, B-302 Peale, Rembrandt, 156, 205, 310, 459, 460, B-302, B-306, B-307, B-308, B-309, B-310, B-311, B-312, B-317 Perugino, Pietro, B-22 Peters, Bonaventura, D-120 Philip, Frederick W., 67, 84 Piazzetta, Giovanni Battista, D-12 Pietersz, Roelof, 24 Pine, Robert E., 196 Piombo, Sebastian del, B-41 Poel, Egbert van der, B-362, D-126, D-127 Poelemburg, Cornelius, B-147 Ponte, Jacopo da, D-8 Porbus, Francis, B-148, B-149 Porbus, Peter, B-254 Potter, Paul, B-150 Poussin, Gaspar, B-227, B-228, B-229, D-37 Poussin, Nicholas, B-222, B-223, B-224, B-225, B-226, D-34 Powell, William H., 130, 249, 326, 461, 462 Pratt, Robert M., 269, 270 Prud'hon, Pierre Paul, B-267 Puyl, G. vander, 267 Pynaker, Adam, B-334, B-354, B-370, D-94 Querfurt, Augustus, B-151 Ramage, John, 107, 108 Raoux, Jean, 61 Raphael, see Sanzio Ravesteyn, John van, D-82 Rembrandt, Van Ryn, B-152, B-153, B-154, B-155, D-103 Rembrandt School, 150 Reni, Guido, B-58, B-59 Reniers, Peter, _Sc._ 40 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, B-291 Ribera, Jose (Spagnoletto), B-323, D-7 Richards, David, _Sc._ 28 Richardson, Andrew, 14, 55 Rigaud, Hyacinthe, B-244, D-35 Robert, Hubert, B-253 Robusti, Jacopo (Tintoretto), B-37, D-9 Rokes, Henry Martin, B-194, D-101 Romanelli, Gio Francesco, 432 Romano, Giulio, B-50 Rombouts, Theodore, B-156, B-157 Roos, John H., D-62, D-63 Rosa, Salvator, 223, B-67, B-68, B-69, B-70, D-14 Rottenhamer, John, D-111 Rubens, Peter Paul, 151, B-158, B-159, B-160, B-161, B-162, B-163, B-164, B-165, B-166, D-112 Ruysdael, Jacob, B-167, B-168, B-169 Ruysdael, Solomon, B-170, D-64 Ryckaert, David, D-141 Saftleven, Cornelius, D-93 St. Memin, C. B. J. de, 164, 171 Saltza, Charles F., 357 Salvi, Giovanni Battista (Sassoferrato), B-66 Sanzio, Raphael, B-25, B-26, B-27 Sarto, Andrea del, B-42 Satterlee, Walter, 362 Savage, Edward, B-313 Schaal, L. J., B-275 Schalcken, Godfrey, B-346 Schidone, Bartolomeo, B-48 Schmidt, Rudolph, 332 Schoen, Martin, B-204 Schuerman, B-153, B-154 Searle, John, 254 See, Harry T., 330 Sesto, Cesare da, B-50 Sharpless, James, 104, 105, 128 Shegogue, James H., 76 Simmons, Franklin, _Sc._ 50 Snyders, Francis, 151, B-171, B-172 Spagnoletto, see Ribera Spanish School, B-216, B-217, B-318 Stearns, J. B., 364 Steen, Jan, B-173, B-174, B-335 Stefano, Tommaso de, B-11, B-12, B-13 Stevers, Anthony (Palamedes), 224 Stone, William O., 198, 319 Strickland, William, 317, 318 Stuart, Gilbert C., 82, 115, 120, 125, 352, B-303, B-304 Stubble, H., 124 Sueur, Eustache le, B-236 Sully, Thomas, B-286 Sustermans, Justus, B-65 Swebach, Edward, B-278 Taggart, John G., 143, 176 Tempesta, see Molyn Tener, Petrus, _Sc._ 7 Teniers, David the Younger, 50, 52, B-175, B-176, B-177, B-178, B-179, B-180, B-181, D-100 Terburg, Gerard, B-182, B-365, B-366 Terry, Luther, 209 Thompson, Cephas G., 129, 172 Thompson, Wordsworth, D-164 Tiepolo, Giovanni B., B-71 Tilius, John, D-134 Tintoretto, see Robusti Tisio, Benvenuto (Garofalo), B-44 Titian, see Vecelli Tol, Dominick Van, 214 Tourniere, Robert, B-259 Trott, Benjamin, 305 Troy, Jean François de, 220 Troye, E., 433, 434 Trumbull, John, 68, 73, 74, 106, 192, 202, 203, 272, 274, 301, 431, D-168 Twibill, G. W., 200 Uccello, Paolo Mazzocchi, B-18 Uytenwael, Joachim, B-203 Valdez, Juan de, 218, 219 Valkenburg, Lucas and Martin, B-205, B-206 Vallin, E., B-274 Vander Eycken, Felix, B-280, B-281 Vanderlyn, John, 101, 160, 255, 271, 273 Van Dyck, Sir Anthony, B-111, B-112, B-113, D-60, D-138, see page 100 Vanloo, Charles Andre, 162 Vanloo, Jacob, D-75 Vanuden, Lucas, D-61 Vecelli, Tiziano (Titian), B-33, B-34, B-35, B-36, D-10, D-23 Velasquez, Don Diego Rodriquez de Silvay, 226, B-207, B-208, B-209, B-210, D-5, D-27 Velde, Adrian van de, B-186 Velde, William van de, B-183, B-184, B-185, D-97 Venetian School, B-17, D-20 Ver Bryck, Cornelius, 63, 72 Verboom, Abraham, B-187, D-91 Verelst, Peter, D-125 Verelst, Simon, D-133 Verhaegen, L. M., _Sc._ 5 Vernet, Claude Joseph, B-255, B-256, B-257, B-258, D-78 Vernet, Horace, B-268, B-269 Veronese, Paul, see Caliari Vertangen, Daniel, D-98, D-104 Victor, Jan, D-72 Vollmering, Joseph, B-295, B-296 Voys, Ary de, D-92 Vries, John Renier de, B-108 Wainewright, Thomas G., 268 Waldo, Samuel L., 181, 334 Waldmuller, Ferdinand G., D-149 Wall, William A., 102 Wall, William G., 79, 355, 356, D-170, D-171 Wallace, Benjamin A., 189 Walters, Josephine, D-163 Waterloo, Anthony, D-73 Watteau, Antoine, B-32, B-245, B-246, B-247, B-340, B-355, B-378, B-379, B-380 Waugh, Samuel B., 158 Weenix, John Baptist, B-189, B-345, D-68 Weir, Robert W., 295 Werf, Adrian van der, B-188 West, Benjamin, 194, 195, B-292, B-293 West, William E., B-287 Westhofen, Van, D-59 Whipple, Charles A., 360, 361 White, Edwin, B-297 Wildens, John, B-171 Willaerts, Adam, 315 Wilton, Joseph, _Sc._ 54 Withoos, Matthew, 221 Witt, Emanuel de, D-140 Woodville, R. C., 475 Wouwermans, Philip, B-190, B-191, B-192, B-341, D-135 Wright, J. H., 358 Wright, Joseph, 119 Wynants, John, B-193, D-87, D-145 Zampieri, Domenico (Domenichino), B-57, B-322 Zenale, Bernardo, B-332 Zuccaro, Federigo, D-24 Zucco, Francesco, B-38 INDEX OF DONORS Abbott, William D., 97 Adlard, George, _Sc._ 58 Akerly, Dr. Samuel, 104, 105 Alofsen, S., 199 American Art Union, 182-185, 187 Anthon, Charles E., _Sc._ 32 Anthon, Mrs. John, _Sc._ 32 Armstrong, William F. H., _Sc._ 26 Banyer, Goldsborough, 345 Barker, Fordyce D., _Sc._ 5 Bartlett, Col. Washington A., family of, _Sc._ 4 Bayley, Rev. J. Roosevelt, 193 Beekman, Gerard, 362 Beekman, James W., 362 Bement, Edward, 439 Benedict, Erastus C., 249 Benson, Robert, Jr., 82, 272, 273 Bidwell, Marshall S., 210, 211 Bierstadt, Mrs. Albert, 440, 441 Binney, Horace, Jr., 204 Blanchard, Washington, 137 Bloodgood, Matthais, family of, 425, 426 Bogle, James, 186 Bonnett, P. R., 175 Bostwick, Henry A., 344 Bradish, Luther, _Sc._ 65 Breese, Mrs. E. L., bequest of, 291 Brett, Cornelia Graham, bequest of, 461 Brower, John H., 205 Browne, Maria J. B., 228 Bruce, Matilda Wolfe, bequest of, 390, 391 Bryan, Thomas J., B-1-B-381, _Sc._ 71 Buford, A. S., 283 Burnham, Gordon W., _Sc._ 8 Catlin, Cora V. R., bequest of, 486-488 Catlin, N. W. Stuyvesant, 486-488 Chambers, Katherine, _Sc._ 64 Champlin, Christopher, 296, 297, 298 Chanler, Winthrop, 295 Chilton, Mrs. James R., _Sc._ 10 Church of the Holy Saviour, N. Y., _Sc._ 28 Clapp, George P., heirs of, 284 Clarke, Mrs. Eliza M., 265 Clarkson, Mrs. Matthew, 357 Clute, John D., 83 Cogswell, William, 157 Colden, Mrs. Cadwallader D., 123 Colonial Dames of America, _Sc._ 23 Cox, Isabella V., 463-465 Crane, Warren C., 423 Crolius, Clarkson, 188, 189 Cruger, Mary, 208, 232 Crumby, John, 152 Cuyler, Theodore, 158 Daly, Mrs. Charles P., 262 Davis, Mrs. Charles A., 100, 200, 201, _Sc._ 66 Davis, Mrs. Gherardi, _Sc._ 42 Davis, Thomas E., 94 Delafield, John, 90 Delafield, John Ross, 448 Delafield, Maturin L., 448 de Lancey, Edward F., 311-313 DePeyster, Catherine A., bequest of, 390-419 DePeyster, Frederic, 132, 227, 233-246, 259, 263, 264, _Sc._ 72 DePeyster, J. Watts, 190, _Sc._ 15, 16, 31, 62 Dexter, Henry, 360, 361 Dixey, John, _Sc._ 24 Dominick, Marinus W., 301 Draper, Charlotte E., bequest of, 457 Dunning, Julius L., _Sc._ 49 Durand, Asher B., children of, 335-343 Durand, John, 335-343 Durr, Louis, Executors of, D-1-D-181, _Sc._ 17 Eigenbrodt, Rev. William E., _Sc._ 29 Ellis, F. S., 267, 268 Ellis, Samuel C., M.D., 153 Eno, Henry C., M.D., 109, 110 Fairchild, Anna, 451-456 Field, Mrs. Catharine M. V. C., 277 Field, Maunsell B., _Sc._ 19 Folsom, George, 177, _Sc._ 18 Francis, John W., M.D., _Sc._ 34 Francis, S. W. and V. M., 96 Francis, Samuel W., M.D., _Sc._ 21, 56, 69 Gallatin, Count de, 302 Gamage, Henry T., 285 Gerard, Mrs. William, 251 Gibbs, George, _Sc._ 20, 53, 68 Gibbs, Laura W., _Sc._ 39 Gibson, Mrs. Frances M., 364, 472 Gillespie, G. de Haert, 265 Goodwin, Mrs. Emily V., 178, 179 Greene, William A., _Sc._ 55 Griswold, Rufus W., bequest of, 86, 143, 145-149 Hagen, J. C., 95 Haight, R. K., 173, 174 Hale, Helen L. and Evelina S., 393-397 Hall, John B., 197 Halsey, Mary E., 471 Harbeck, Charles T., 316 Hawks, Rev. Francis L., _Sc._ 40 Hawley, Jesse, 126, 127 Hays, Aaron B., 191 Heaton, Augustus G., 458 Herrick, J. K., 156 Herring, James, _Sc._ 33 Hewitt, Mary E., 144 Hicks, Thomas, 141 Hoffman, Samuel V., 443-447, 450 Holley, Sallie, 292 Hosack, Alexander E., M.D., 202, 203 Hosack, David, M.D., 116, 124, 125, 128, _Sc._ 22, 60 Howland, Samuel S., 138 Huntington, Archer M., 421, 424 Huntington, Charles R., 466 Huntington, Daniel, 142 Ingraham, Daniel P., 247, 248 Irvine, William A., 196 Irving, Washington, 154 Jaques, David R., 363 Jarvis, John Wesley, 81, _Sc._ 51 Jay, Miss Elizabeth C., 120 Jay, John, _Sc._ 41 Jesup, Morris K., 158 Johnston, John H., 483 Jones, Alfred W., _Sc._ 61 Jones, Mrs., John D., 420 Jones, Mrs. Julia C. V. A., bequest of, 309, 310 Kelly, Robert, 87 Keteltas, Alice, 325 Keteltas, Henry, bequest of, 319 King, Helen, _Sc._ 42 King, Mary R., bequest of, 430-438 Kirtland, Anna T. E., _Sc._ 36 Knickerbacker, Rev. David B., bequest of, 299, 300 Kuntze, Edward J., _Sc._ 30 Kunze, John C., family of, 121 Lamb, Martha J., bequest of, 294 Lancey, Alice T., 252 Lang, Louis, 276 Lawrence, Isaac, _Sc._ 45 Leupp, Charles M., bequest of, _Sc._ 3, 9 Levy, Uriah P., bequest of, 161-163 Lewis, Estelle A., 250 Lincoln, Mrs. James M., 392 Livingstone, Mrs. Thomson, 255 Livingston, Mrs. William S., bequest of, 326 McGregor, John, 140 Mackie, Simon F., _Sc._ 54 McWhorter, George C., 303, 304, 305-308, 427-429 McWhorter, J. L. & G. C., 274 Mankin, Frances G., 271 Marchant, Edward D., 131 Marié, Peter, Residuary Legatees of, page 119 Martin, Mrs. Howard T., 422, _Sc._ 76 Mills, Adelaide, 333 Mills, Clark, _Sc._ 47 Minton, Sophie E., bequest of, 334 Miranda, Fernando, _Sc._ 73 Moore, T. W. C., 150, 151 Moore, T. W. C., bequest of, 212-226 Morgan, J. Pierpont, 281, 282 Morris, Mrs. Gouverneur, 111, 112, 113, 114 Morris, Thomas, 115 Mount, Richard E., 261 Murray, James B., _Sc._ 35 Newton, Edward A., bequest of, 181 New York City, Several Ladies of, 159 New York Gallery of Fine Arts, 1-80, _Sc._ 74, 75 New York Historical Society, members of, 160, 256, 257, 258, 266, 324 N. Y. State Society of the Cincinnati, 192 Niblo, William, _Sc._ 27 Nicoll, Mrs. Fancher, 359 Norton, Parthenia T., bequest of, 288, 289 O'Conor, Charles, 260 Osgood, Samuel S., 134 Osgood, Mrs. Samuel, 278-280, _Sc._ 50 Parish, Daniel, Jr., 293, 317, 318, 323, 355, 356, 398, 478, 479, 480-482, _Sc._ 52 Paulding, P. Kemble, 207 Pell, Duncan C., 103 Pemberton, T. William, 283 Pierrepont, Henry E., _Sc._ 38 Pintard, John, 119, _Sc._ 12 Potts, Thomas, 283 Powell, William H., 130 Pratt, Eugenia C., 269, 270 Prior, William, _Sc._ 49 Richards, Elizabeth, 229-231 Rieben, Eliza Hicks, 209 Robinson, Nelson, 139 Russell, Charles H., children of, _Sc._ 70 Rutherford, Lewis M., 93 Rye, N. Y., Presbyterian Church, _Sc._ 4 Schell, Mrs. Augustus, 275 Schmidt, Rudolph, 332 Schulte, Mrs. Herman V. W., 462 Servoss, George H., 107, 108 Sherman, Charles A., 473 Smith, Edwin, 322 Southwick, Edmond B., 286, 287 Stetson, Charles A., _Sc._ 57 Stevens, Alexander H., M.D., _Sc._ 7 Stevens, Byam K., 484, 485 Stevens, Gen. Ebenezer, 117 Stevens, John Austin, 449 Stokes, Carolina Phelps, bequest of, 459, 460 Storm, Theodore M., bequest of, 328, 329 Stuart, H. L., _Sc._ 46 Sturges, Jonathan, 206 Stuyvesant, Nicholas W., 122, 348 Stuyvesant, Robert Van R., 347, 349-354 Tallmadge, George C., 155 Ten Broeck, Mrs. Peter G. S., 346 Terry, Luther, 209 Thomas, Anna M., 427, 428, 429 Thompson, Cephas G., 129, 172 Thorn, Louisa F. J., 420 Tradesmen's Bank of N. Y., 320, 321 Van Ness, Mrs. Cornelius H., 467-470 Van Rensselaer, Harriet B. 254 Van Rensselaer, Stephen, 118 Van Schaack, Henry C., 135, 136 Verplanck, Gulian C., _Sc._ 1 Verplanck, Samuel, _Sc._ 11 Verplanck, Dr. William W., 327 Ward, Augustus H., _Sc._ 2 Warner, Kate, bequest of, 474-477 Warren, Susan C., 315 Webb, William H., 194, 195, 253 White, Cornelia L., 345 Whitehead, William A., 133 Williams, John E., _Sc._ 14 Williamson, Joseph T., 358 Winthrop, Benjamin R., _Sc._ 25 Winthrop, Mrs. Henry R., 314 Woodman, Mrs. Lucy M. Durand, 365-389 THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. FOUNDED NOVEMBER 20, 1804. ORGANIZED JANUARY 14, 1805. PRESIDENTS. EGBERT BENSON, LL.D. 1805-1815 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 1816 DEWITT CLINTON, LL.D. 1817-1819 DAVID HOSACK, M.D., LL.D. 1820-1827 JAMES KENT, LL.D. 1828-1831 MORGAN LEWIS 1832-1835 PETER GERARD STUYVESANT 1836-1839 PETER AUGUSTUS JAY, LL.D. 1840-1842 ALBERT GALLATIN, LL.D. 1843-1849 LUTHER BRADISH, LL.D. 1850-1863 FREDERIC DE PEYSTER, LL.D. 1864-1866 HAMILTON FISH, LL.D. 1867-1869 THOMAS DEWITT, D.D. 1869-1871 AUGUSTUS SCHELL 1872 FREDERIC DE PEYSTER, LL.D. 1873-1882 AUGUSTUS SCHELL 1883-1884 BENJAMIN HAZARD FIELD 1885-1886 JOHN ALSOP KING 1887-1900 EUGENE AUGUSTUS HOFFMAN, D.D., LL.D. 1901-1902 SAMUEL VERPLANCK HOFFMAN 1903-1913 JOHN ABEEL WEEKES 1913- MEMBERSHIP. Members, on their election, pay an initiation fee of Twenty Dollars, which includes dues for the current year, and annually thereafter Ten Dollars as dues; or a life-membership fee of One Hundred Dollars, in lieu of all other dues and fees. Nominations are to be sent by members to the Recording Secretary. Members have the privilege of introducing visitors to the rooms of the Society by their card or a note, and of bringing two persons with them to the monthly meetings. The contribution of five thousand dollars to the funds of the Society shall entitle the person giving the same to be elected a Patron of the Society in perpetuity. The contribution of one thousand dollars shall entitle the person giving the same to be elected a Fellow for life. THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY (Founded 1804) CENTRAL PARK WEST, 76TH TO 77TH STREETS * * * * * THE ART GALLERIES AND MUSEUM Open to the Public Daily from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. Sundays Excepted LIBRARY HOURS, 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. Open on Holidays from 1 to 5 P.M., excepting Christmas, New Year and July 4th Closed during August for cleaning and repairs * * * * * FORM OF A BEQUEST. I GIVE _and bequeath to_ "THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY," _founded in the year 1804, and incorporated by the Legislature of New-York in the year 1809, the sum of dollars_. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious typos, spelling and grammar errors were corrected. P. 218 changed Rembrandt, Van Ryn to Rembrandt, Paul as the forename Paul was used throughout the text. The index should agree with the text. However, it is apparent that the artist referred to is actually the Rembrandt Van Ryn. 
38724	----	produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive. Additional images courtesy of Google Books.) THE DANCE OF DEATH. [Illustration] The Dance of Death EXHIBITED IN ELEGANT ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD WITH A DISSERTATION ON THE SEVERAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THAT SUBJECT BUT MORE PARTICULARLY ON THOSE ASCRIBED TO Macaber and Hans Holbein BY FRANCIS DOUCE ESQ. F. A. S. AND A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF NORMANDY AND OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ETC. AT CAEN Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres. HORAT. lib. i. od. 4. LONDON WILLIAM PICKERING 1833 C. Whittingham, Tooks Court, Chancery Lane. PREFACE. The very ample discussion which the extremely popular subject of the Dance of Death has already undergone might seem to preclude the necessity of attempting to bestow on it any further elucidation; nor would the present Essay have ever made its appearance, but for certain reasons which are necessary to be stated. The beautiful designs which have been, perhaps too implicitly, regarded as the invention of the justly celebrated painter, Hans Holbein, are chiefly known in this country by the inaccurate etchings of most of them by Wenceslaus Hollar, the copper-plates of which having formerly become the property of Mr. Edwards, of Pall Mall, were published by him, accompanied by a very hasty and imperfect dissertation; which, with fewer faults, and considerable enlargement, is here again submitted to public attention. It is appended to a set of fac-similes of the above-mentioned elegant designs, and which, at a very liberal expense that has been incurred by the proprietor and publisher of this volume, have been executed with consummate skill and fidelity by Messrs. Bonner and Byfield, two of our best artists in the line of wood engraving. They may very justly be regarded as scarcely distinguishable from their fine originals. The remarks in the course of this Essay on a supposed German poet, under the name of Macaber, and the discussion relating to Holbein's connection with the Dance of Death, may perhaps be found interesting to the critical reader only; but every admirer of ancient art will not fail to be gratified by an intimate acquaintance with one of its finest specimens in the copy which is here so faithfully exhibited. In the latest and best edition of some new designs for a Dance of Death, by Salomon Van Rusting, published by John George Meintel at Nuremberg, 1736, 8vo. there is an elaborate preface by him, with a greater portion of verbosity than information. He has placed undue confidence in his predecessor, Paul Christian Hilscher, whose work, printed at Dresden in 1705, had probably misled the truly learned Fabricius in what he has said concerning Macaber in his valuable work, the "Bibliotheca mediæ et infimæ ætatis." Meintel confesses his inability to point out the origin or the inventor of the subject. The last and completest work on the Dance, or Dances of Death, is that of the ingenious M. Peignot, so well and deservedly known by his numerous and useful books on bibliography. To this gentleman the present Essay has been occasionally indebted. He will, probably, at some future opportunity, remove the whimsical misnomer in his engraving of Death and the Ideot. The usual title, "The Dance of Death," which accompanies most of the printed works, is not altogether appropriate. It may indeed belong to the old Macaber painting and other similar works where Death is represented in a sort of dancing and grotesque attitude in the act of leading a single character; but where the subject consists of several figures, yet still with occasional exception, they are rather to be regarded as elegant emblems of human mortality in the premature intrusion of an unwelcome and inexorable visitor. It must not be supposed that the republication of this singular work is intended to excite the lugubrious sensations of sanctified devotees, or of terrified sinners; for, awful and impressive as must ever be the contemplation of our mortality in the mind of the philosopher and practiser of true religion, the mere sight of a skeleton cannot, as to them, excite any alarming sensation whatever. It is chiefly addressed to the ardent admirers of ancient art and pictorial invention; but nevertheless with a hope that it may excite a portion of that general attention to the labours of past ages, which reflects so much credit on the times in which we live. The widely scattered materials relating to the subject of the Dance of Death, and the difficulty of reconciling much discordant information, must apologize for a few repetitions in the course of this Essay, the regular progress of which has been too often interrupted by the manner in which matter of importance is so obscurely and defectively recorded; instances of which are, the omission of the name of the painter in the otherwise important dedication to the first edition of the engravings on wood of the Dance of Death that was published at Lyons; the uncertainty as to locality in some complimentary lines to Holbein by his friend Borbonius, and the want of more particulars in the account by Nieuhoff of Holbein's painting at Whitehall. The designs for the Dance of Death, published at Lyons in 1538, and hitherto regarded as the invention of Holbein, are, in the course of this Dissertation, referred to under the appellation of _the Lyons wood-cuts_; and with respect to the term _Macaber_, which has been so mistakenly used as the name of a real author, it has been nevertheless preserved on the same principle that the word _Gothic_ has been so generally adopted for the purpose of designating the pointed style of architecture in the middle ages. F. D. CONTENTS. Page CHAPTER I. Personification of Death, and other modes of representing it among the Ancients.--Same subject during the Middle Ages.-- Erroneous notions respecting Death.--Monumental absurdities.--Allegorical pageant of the Dance of Death represented in early times by living persons in churches and cemeteries.--Some of these dances described.--Not unknown to the Ancients.--Introduction of the infernal, or dance of Macaber 1 CHAPTER II. Places where the Dance of Death was sculptured or depicted.-- Usually accompanied by verses describing the several characters.--Other metrical compositions on the Dance 17 CHAPTER III. Macaber not a German or any other poet, but a nonentity.-- Corruption and confusion respecting this word.--Etymological errors concerning it.--How connected with the Dance.--Trois mors et trois vifs.--Orgagna's painting in the Campo Santo at Pisa.--Its connection with the trois mors et trois vifs, as well as with the Macaber Dance.--Saint Macarius the real Macaber.--Paintings of this dance in various places.--At Minden; Church-yard of the Innocents at Paris; Dijon; Basle; Klingenthal; Lubeck; Leipsic; Anneberg; Dresden; Erfurth; Nuremberg; Berne; Lucerne; Amiens; Rouen; Fescamp; Blois; Strasburg; Berlin; Vienna; Holland; Italy; Spain 28 CHAPTER IV. Macaber Dance in England.--St. Paul's.--Salisbury.-- Wortley-hall.--Hexham.--Croydon.--Tower of London.--Lines in Pierce Plowman's Vision supposed to refer to it 51 CHAPTER V. List of editions of the Macaber Dance.--Printed Horæ that contain it.--Manuscript Horæ.--Other Manuscripts in which it occurs.--Various articles with letter-press, not being single prints, but connected with it 55 CHAPTER VI. Hans Holbein's connection with the Dance of Death.--A dance of peasants at Basle.--Lyons edition of the Dance of Death, 1538.--Doubts as to any prior edition.--Dedication to the edition of 1538.--Mr. Ottley's opinion of it examined.-- Artists supposed to have been connected with this work.-- Holbein's name in none of the old editions.--Reperdius 78 CHAPTER VII. Holbein's Bible cuts.--Examination of the claim of Hans Lutzenberger as to the design or execution of the Lyons engravings of the Dance of Death.--Other works by him 94 CHAPTER VIII. List of several editions of the Lyons work on the Dance of Death with the mark of Lutzenberger.--Copies of them on wood.--Copies on copper by anonymous artists.--By Wenceslaus Hollar.--Other anonymous artists.--Nieuhoff Picard.-- Rusting.--Mechel.--Crozat's drawings.--Deuchar.--Imitations of some of the subjects 103 CHAPTER IX. Further examination of Holbein's title.--Borbonius.-- Biographical notice of Holbein.--Painting of a Dance of Death at Whitehall by him 138 CHAPTER X. Other Dances of Death 146 CHAPTER XI. Dances of Death, with such text only as describes the subjects 160 CHAPTER XII. Books in which the subject is occasionally introduced 168 CHAPTER XIII. Books of emblems and fables.--Frontispieces and title-pages in some degree connected with the Dance of Death 179 CHAPTER XIV. Single prints connected with the Dance of Death 188 CHAPTER XV. Initial or capital Letters with the Dance of Death 213 CHAPTER XVI. Paintings.--Drawings.--Miscellaneous 221 CHAPTER XVII. Trois vifs et trois morts.--Negro figure of Death.--Danse aux Aveugles 228 CHAPTER XVIII. Errors of various writers who have introduced the subject of the Dance of Death 233 ERRATA. Page 7, line 25, for _Boistuan_ read _Boistuau_. 7, ... 26, for _Prodigeuses_ read _Prodigieuses_. 28, ... 14, read _in Holland_, &c. 32, ... 23, for _Lamorensi_ read _Zamorensi_. 81, ... 4, for _fex_ read _sex_. 88, ... 10, after _difficulty_ add ? 89, ... 21, after _works_ add " 180, ... 23, for _Typotia_ read _Typotii_. 197, ... 8, for _Stradamus_ read _Stradanus_. THE Dance of Death. CHAPTER I. _Personification of Death, and other modes of representing it among the Ancients.--Same subject during the Middle Ages.--Erroneous notions respecting Death.--Monumental absurdities.--Allegorical pageant of the Dance of Death represented in early times by living persons in churches and cemeteries.--Some of these dances described.--Not unknown to the Ancients.--Introduction of the infernal, or dance of Macaber._ The manner in which the poets and artists of antiquity have symbolized or personified Death, has excited considerable discussion; and the various opinions of Lessing, Herder, Klotz, and other controversialists have only tended to demonstrate that the ancients adopted many different modes to accomplish this purpose. Some writers have maintained that they exclusively represented Death as a mere skeleton; whilst others have contended that this figure, so frequently to be found upon gems and sepulchral monuments, was never intended to personify the extinction of human life, but only as a simple and abstract representation. They insist that the ancients adopted a more elegant and allegorical method for this purpose; that they represented human mortality by various symbols of destruction, as birds devouring lizards and serpents, or pecking fruits and flowers; by goats browsing on vines; cocks fighting, or even by a Medusa's or Gorgon's head. The Romans seem to have adopted Homer's[1] definition of Death as the eldest brother of Sleep; and, accordingly, on several of their monumental and other sculptures we find two winged genii as the representatives of the above personages, and sometimes a genius bearing a sepulchral vase on his shoulder, and with a torch reversed in one of his hands. It is very well known that the ancients often symbolized the human soul by the figure of a butterfly, an idea that is extremely obvious and appropriate, as well as elegant. In a very interesting sepulchral monument, engraved in p. 7 of Spon's Miscellanea Eruditæ Antiquitatis, a prostrate corpse is seen, and over it a butterfly that has just escaped from the _mouth_ of the deceased, or as Homer expresses it, "from the teeth's inclosure."[2] The above excellent antiquary has added the following very curious sepulchral inscription that was found in Spain, HÆREDIBVS MEIS MANDO ETIAM CINERE VTMEO VOLITET EBRIVS PAPILIO OSSA IPSA TEGANT MEA, &c. Rejecting this heathen symbol altogether, the painters and engravers of the middle ages have substituted a small human figure escaping from the mouths of dying persons, as it were, breathing out their souls. We have, however, the authority of Herodotus, that in the banquets of the Egyptians a person was introduced who carried round the table at which the guests were seated the figure of a dead body, placed on a coffin, exclaiming at the same time, "Behold this image of what yourselves will be; eat and drink therefore, and be happy."[3] Montfaucon has referred to an ancient manuscript to prove that this sentiment was conveyed in a Lacedæmonian proverb,[4] and it occurs also in the beautiful poem of Coppa, ascribed to Virgil, in which he is supposed to invite Mæcenas to a rural banquet. It concludes with these lines:-- Pone merum et talos; pereat qui crastina curat, Mors aurem vellens, vivite ait, venio. The phrase of pulling the ear is admonitory, that organ being regarded by the ancients as the seat of memory. It was customary also, and for the same reason, to take an oath by laying hold of the ear. It is impossible on this occasion to forget the passage in Isaiah xxii. 13, afterwards used by Saint Paul, on the beautiful parable in Luke xii. Plutarch also, in his banquet of the wise men, has remarked that the Egyptians exhibited a skeleton at their feasts to remind the parties of the brevity of human life; the same custom, as adopted by the Romans, is exemplified in Petronius's description of the feast of Trimalchio, where a jointed puppet, as a skeleton, is brought in by a boy, and this practice is also noticed by Silius Italicus: ... Ægyptia tellus Claudit odorato post funus stantia Saxo Corpora, et a mensis exsanguem haud separat umbram.[5] Some have imagined that these skeletons were intended to represent the larvæ and lemures, the good and evil shadows of the dead, that occasionally made their appearance on earth. The larvæ, or lares, were of a beneficent nature, friendly to man; in other words, the good demon of Socrates. The lemures, spirits of mischief and wickedness. The larva in Petronius was designed to admonish only, not to terrify; and this is proved from Seneca: "Nemo tam puer est ut Cerberum timeat et tenebras, et larvarum habitum nudis ossibus cohærentium."[6] There is, however, some confusion even among the ancients themselves, as to the respective qualities of the larvæ and lemures. Apuleius, in his noble and interesting defence against those who accused him of practising magic, tells them, "Tertium mendacium vestrum fuit, macilentam vel omnino evisceratam formam diri cadaveris fabricatam prorsus horribilem et larvalem;" and afterwards, when producing the image of his peculiar Deity, which he usually carried about him, he exclaims, "En vobis quem scelestus ille sceletum nominabat! Hiccine est sceletus? Hæccine est larva? Hoccine est quod appellitabatis Dæmonium."[7] It is among Christian writers and artists that the personification of Death as a skeleton is intended to convey terrific ideas, conformably to the system that Death is the punishment for original sin. The circumstances that lead to Death, and not our actual dissolution, are alone of a terrific nature; for Death is, in fact, the end and cure of all the previous sufferings and horrors with which it is so frequently accompanied. In the dark ages of monkish bigotry and superstition, the deluded people, seduced into a belief that the fear of Death was acceptable to the great and beneficent author of their existence, appear to have derived one of their principal gratifications in contemplating this necessary termination of humanity, yet amidst ideas and impressions of the most horrible and disgusting nature: hence the frequent allusions to it, in all possible ways, among their preachers, and the personification of it in their books of religious offices, as well as in the paintings and sculptures of their ecclesiastical and other edifices. They seemed to have entirely banished from their recollection the consolatory doctrines of the Gospel, which contribute so essentially to dissipate the terrors of Death, and which enable the more enlightened Christian to abide that event with the most perfect tranquillity of mind. There are, indeed, some exceptions to this remark, for we may still trace the imbecility of former ages on too many of our sepulchral monuments, which are occasionally tricked out with the silly appendages of Death's heads, bones, and other useless remains of mortality, equally repulsive to the imagination and to the elegance of art. If it be necessary on any occasion to personify Death, this were surely better accomplished by means of some graceful and impressive figure of the Angel of Death, for whom we have the authority of Scripture; and such might become an established representative. The skulls and bones of modern, and the entire skeletons of former times, especially during the middle ages, had, probably, derived their origin from the vast quantities of sanctified human relics that were continually before the eyes, or otherwise in the recollection of the early Christians. But the favourite and principal emblem of mortality among our ancestors appears to have been the moral and allegorical pageant familiarly known by the appellation of the _Dance of Death_, which it has, in part, derived from the grotesque, and often ludicrous attitudes of the figures that composed it, and especially from the active and sarcastical mockery of the ruthless tyrant upon its victims, which may be, in a great measure, attributed to the whims and notions of the artists who were employed to represent the subject. It is very well known to have been the practice in very early times to profane the temples of the Deity with indecorous dancing, and ludicrous processions, either within or near them, in imitation, probably, of similar proceedings in Pagan times. Strabo mentions a custom of this nature among the Celtiberians,[8] and it obtained also among several of the northern nations before their conversion to Christianity. A Roman council, under Pope Eugenius II. in the 9th century, has thus noticed it: "Ut sacerdotes admoneant viros ac mulieres, qui festis diebus ad ecclesiam occurrunt, ne _ballando_ et turpia verba decantando choros teneant, ac ducunt, similitudinem Paganorum peragendo." Canciani mentions an ancient bequest of money for a dance in honour of the Virgin.[9] These riotous and irreverent tripudists and caperers appear to have possessed themselves of the church-yards to exhibit their dancing fooleries, till this profanation of consecrated ground was punished, as monkish histories inform us, with divine vengeance. The well-known Nuremberg Chronicle[10] has recorded, that in the time of the Emperor Henry the Second, whilst a priest was saying mass on Christmas Eve, in the church of Saint Magnus, in the diocese of Magdeburg, a company of eighteen men and ten women amused themselves with dancing and singing in the church-yard, to the hindrance of the priest in his duty. Notwithstanding his admonition, they refused to desist, and even derided the words he addressed to them. The priest being greatly provoked at their conduct, prayed to God and Saint Magnus that they might remain dancing and singing for a whole year without intermission, and so it happened; neither dew nor rain falling upon them. Hunger and fatigue were set at defiance, nor were their shoes or garments in the least worn away. At the end of the year they were released from their situation by Herebert, the archbishop of the diocese in which the event took place, and obtained forgiveness before the altar of the church; but not before the daughter of a priest and two others had perished; the rest, after sleeping for the space of three whole nights, died soon afterwards. Ubert, one of the party, left this story behind him, which is elsewhere recorded, with some variation and additional matter. The dance is called St. Vitus's, and the girl is made the daughter of a churchwarden, who having taken her by the arm, it came off, but she continued dancing. By the continual motion of the dancers they buried themselves in the earth to their waists. Many princes and others went to behold this strange spectacle, till the bishops of Cologne and Hildesheim, and some other devout priests, by their prayers, obtained the deliverance of the culprits; four of the party, however, died immediately, some slept three days and three nights, some three years, and others had trembling in their limbs during the whole of their lives. The Nuremberg Chronicle, crowded as it is with wood-cut embellishments by the hand of Wolgemut, the master of Albert Durer, has not omitted to exhibit the representations of the above unhappy persons, equally correct, no doubt, as the story itself, though the same warranty cannot be offered for a similar representation, in Gottfried's Chronicle and that copious repertory of monstrosities, Boistuau and Belleforest's Histoires Prodigieuses. The Nuremberg Chronicle[11] has yet another relation on this subject of some persons who continued dancing and singing on a bridge whilst the eucharist was passing over it. The bridge gave way in the middle, and from one end of it 200 persons were precipitated into the river Moselle, the other end remaining so as to permit the priest and his host to pass uninjured. In that extremely curious work, the Manuel de Pêché, usually ascribed to Bishop Grosthead, the pious author, after much declamation against the vices of the times, has this passage:-- Karoles ne lutes ne deit nul fere, En seint eglise ki me voil crere; Kas en cimetere karoler, Utrage est grant u lutter.[12] He then relates the story in the Nuremberg Chronicle, for which he quotes the book of Saint Clement. Grosthead's work was translated about the year 1300 into English verse by Robert Mannyng, commonly called Robert de Brunne, a Gilbertine canon. His translation often differs from his original, with much amplification and occasional illustrations by himself. As the account of the Nuremberg story varies so materially, and as the scene is laid in England, it has been thought worth inserting. Karolles wrastelynges or somour games, Whosoever haunteth any swyche shames, Yn cherche other yn cherche yerd, Of sacrilage he may be aferd; Or entyrludes or syngynge, Or tabure bete or other pypynge; All swyche thyng forboden es, Whyle the prest stondeth at messe; But for to leve in cherche for to daunce, Y shall you telle a full grete chaunce, And y trow the most that fel, Ys sothe as y you telle. And fyl thys chaunce yn thys londe, Yn Ingland as y undyrstonde, Yn a kynges tyme that hyght Edward, Fyl this chaunce that was so hard. Hyt was upon crystemesse nyzt That twelve folys a karolle dyzt, Yn Wodehed, as hyt were yn cuntek,[13] They come to a toune men calle Cowek:[14] The cherche of the toune that they to come, Ys of Seynt Magne that suffred martyrdome, Of Seynt Bukcestre hyt ys also, Seynt Magnes suster, that they come to; Here names of all thus fonde y wryte, And as y wote now shal ye wyte Here lodesman[15] that made hem glew,[16] Thus ys wryte he hyzte[17] Gerlew; Twey maydens were yn here coveyne, Mayden Merswynde[18] and Wybessyne; All these came thedyr for that enchesone,} doghtyr Of the prestes of the toune. } The prest hyzt Robert as y can ame, Azone hyzt hys sone by name, Hys doghter that there men wulde have, Thus ys wryte that she hyzt Ave. Echone consented to o wyl, Who shuld go Ave out to tyl, They graunted echone out to sende, Bothe Wybessyne and Merswynde: These women zede and tolled[19] her oute, Wyth hem to karolle the cherche aboute, Benne ordeyned here karollyng, Gerlew endyted what they shuld syng. Thys ys the karolle that they sunge, As telleth the Latyn tunge, Equitabat Bevo per sylvam frondosam,} Ducebat secum Merwyndam formosam, } Quid stamus cur non imus. } By the levede[20] wode rode Bevolyne, Wyth hym he ledde feyre Merwyne, Why stonde we why go we noght: Thys ys the karolle that Grysly wroght, Thys songe sung they yn chercheyerd, Of foly were they nothyng aferd. The party continued dancing and carolling all the matins time, and till the mass began; when the priest, hearing the noise, came out to the church porch, and desired them to leave off dancing, and come into the church to hear the service; but they paid him no regard whatever, and continued their dance. The priest, now extremely incensed, prayed to God in favour of St. Magnes, the patron of the church: That swych a venjeaunce were on hem sent, Are they out of that stede[21] were went, That myzt ever ryzt so wende, Unto that tyme twelvemonth ende. Yn the Latyne that y fonde thore, He seyth not twelvemonth but evermore. The priest had no sooner finished his prayer, than the hands of the dancers were so locked together that none could separate them for a twelvemonth: The preste yede[22] yn whan thys was done, And comaunded hys sone Azone, That shuld go swythe after Ave, Oute of that karolle algate to have; But al to late that wurde was sayde, For on hem alle was the venjeaunce leyd. Azonde wende weyl for to spede Unto the karolle asswythe he yede; Hys syster by the arme he hente, And the arme fro the body wente; Men wundred alle that there wore, And merveyle nowe ye here more; For seythen he had the arme yn hand, The body yode furth karoland, And nother body ne the arme Bled never blode colde ne warme; But was as drye with al the haunche, As of a stok were ryve a braunche. Azone carries his sister's arm to the priest his father, and tells him the consequences of his rash curse. The priest, after much lamentation, buries the arm. The next morning it rises out of the grave; he buries it again, and again it rises. He buries it a third time, when it is cast out of the grave with considerable violence. He then carries it into the church that all might behold it. In the meantime the party continued dancing and singing, without taking any food or sleeping, "only a lepy wynke;" nor were they in the least affected by the weather. Their hair and nails ceased to grow, and their garments were neither soiled nor discoloured; but Sunge that songge that the wo wrozt, "Why stond we, why go we nozt." To see this curious and woful sight, the emperor travels from Rome, and orders his carpenters and other artificers to inclose them in a building; but this could not be done, for what was set up one day fell down on the next, and no covering could be made to protect the sinners till the time of mercy that Christ had appointed arrived; when, at the expiration of the twelvemonth, and in the very same hour in which the priest had pronounced his curse upon them, they were separated, and "in the twynklyng of an eye" ran into the church and fell down in a swoon on the pavement, where they lay three days before they were restored. On their recovery they tell the priest that he will not long survive: For to thy long home sone shalt thou wende, All they ryse that yche tyde, But Ave she lay dede besyde. Her father dies soon afterwards. The emperor causes Ave's arm to be put into a vessel and suspended in the church as an example to the spectators. The rest of the party, although separated, travelled about, but always dancing; and as they had been inseparable before, they were now not permitted to remain together. Four of them went hopping to Rome, their clothes undergoing no change, and their hair and nails not continuing to grow: Bruning the Bysshope of Seynt Tolous, Wrote thys tale so merveylous; Setthe was hys name of more renoun, Men called him the Pope Leon; Thys at the courte of Rome they wyte, And yn the kronykeles hyt ys write; Yn many stedys[23] beyounde the see, More than ys yn thys cuntre: Tharfor men seye an weyl ys trowed, The nere the cherche the further fro God. So fare men here by thys tale, Some holde it but a trotevale,[24] Yn other stedys hyt ys ful dere, And for grete merveyle they wyl hyt here. In the French copies the story is said to have been taken from the itinerary of St. Clement. The name of the girl who lost her arm is Marcent, and her brother's John.[25] Previously to entering upon the immediate subject of this Essay, it may be permitted to observe, that a sort of Death's dance was not unknown to the ancients. It was the revelry of departed souls in Elysium, as may be collected from the end of the fourth ode of Anacreon. Among the Romans this practice is exemplified in the following lines of Tibullus. Sed me, quod facilis tenero sum semper Amori, Ipsa Venus campos ducit in Elysios. Hic _choreæ_ cantusque vigent ...[26] And Virgil has likewise alluded to it: Pars pedibus plaudunt _choreas_ et carmina dicunt.[27] In the year 1810 several fragments of sculptured sarcophagi were accidentally discovered near Cuma, on one of which were represented three dancing skeletons,[28] indicating, as it is ingeniously supposed, that the passage from death to another state of existence has nothing in it that is sorrowful, or capable of exciting fear. They seem to throw some light on the above lines from Virgil and Tibullus. At a meeting of the Archæological Society at Rome, in December, 1831, M. Kestner exhibited a Roman lamp on which were three dancing skeletons, and such are said to occur in one of the paintings at Pompeii. In the Grand Duke of Tuscany's museum at Florence there is an ancient gem, that, from its singularity and connexion with the present subject, is well deserving of notice. It represents an old man, probably a shepherd, clothed in a hairy garment. He sits upon a stone, his right foot resting on a globe, and is piping on a double flute, whilst a skeleton dances grotesquely before him. It might be a matter of some difficulty to explain the recondite meaning of this singular subject.[29] Notwithstanding the interdiction in several councils against the practice of dancing in churches and church-yards, it was found impossible to abolish it altogether; and it therefore became necessary that something of a similar, but more decorous, nature should be substituted, which, whilst it afforded recreation and amusement, might, at the same time, convey with it a moral and religious sensation. It is, therefore, extremely probable, that, in furtherance of this intention, the clergy contrived and introduced the Dance or Pageant of Death, or, as it was sometimes called, the Dance of Macaber, for reasons that will hereafter appear. Mr. Warton states, "that in many churches of France there was an ancient show, or mimickry, in which all ranks of life were personated by the ecclesiastics, who danced together, and disappeared one after another."[30] Again, speaking of Lydgate's poem on this subject, he says, "these verses, founded on a sort of spiritual masquerade antiently celebrated in churches, &c."[31] M. Barante, in his History of the Dukes of Burgundy, adverting to the entertainments that took place at Paris when Philip le Bon visited that city in 1424, observes, "that these were not solely made for the nobility, the common people being likewise amused from the month of August to the following season of Lent with the Dance of Death in the church yard of the Innocents, the English being particularly gratified with this exhibition, which included all ranks and conditions of men, Death being, morally, the principal character."[32] Another French historian, M. de Villeneuve Bargemont, informs us that the Duke of Bedford celebrated his victory at Verneuil by a festival in the centre of the French capital. The rest of what this writer has recorded on the subject before us will be best given in his own words, "Nous voulons parler de cette fameuse _procession_ qu'on vit defiler dans les rues de Paris, sous le nom de _danse Macabrée ou infernale_, epouvantable divertissement, auquel présidoit un squelette ceint du diadême royal, tenant un sceptre dans ses mains décharnées et assis sur un trône resplendissant d'or et de pierreries. Ce spectacle repoussant, mêlange odieux de deuil et de joie, inconnu jusqu'alors, et qui ne s'est jamais renouvellé, n'eut guere pour témoins que des soldats étrangers, ou quelques malheureux échappés à tous les fléaux réunis, et qui avoient vu descendre tous leurs parens, tous leurs amis, dans ces sepulchres qu'on dépouilloit alors de leurs ossemens."[33] A third French writer has also treated the Dance of Death as a spectacle exhibited in like manner to the people of Paris.[34] M. Peignot, to whom the reader is obliged for these historical notices in his ingenious researches on the present subject, very plausibly conceives that their authors have entirely mistaken the sense of an old chronicle or journal under Charles VI. and VII. which he quotes in the following words.--"Item. L'an 1424 fut faite la Danse Maratre (pour Macabre) aux Innocens, et fut comencée environ le moys d'Aoust et achevée au karesme suivant. En l'an 1429 le cordelier Richard preschant aux Innocens estoit monté sur ung hault eschaffaut qui estoit près de toise et demie de hault, le dos tourné vers les charniers encontre la charounerie, à l'endroit de la danse Macabre." He observes, that the Dance of Death at the Innocents, having been commenced in August and finished at the ensuing Lent, could not possibly be represented by living persons, but was only a painting, the large dimensions of which required six months to complete it; and that a single Death must, in the other case, have danced with every individual belonging to the scene.[35] He might have added, that such a proceeding would have been totally at variance with the florid, but most inaccurate, description by M. Bargemont. The reader will, therefore, most probably feel inclined to adopt the opinion of M. Peignot, that the Dance of Death was not performed by living persons between 1424 and 1429. But although M. Peignot may have triumphantly demonstrated that this subject was not exhibited by living persons at the above place and period, it by no means follows that it was not so represented at some other time, and on some other spot. Accordingly, in the archives of the cathedral of Besançon, there is preserved an article respecting a delivery made to one of the officers of Saint John the Evangelist of four measures of wine, to be given to those persons who performed the Dance of Death after mass was concluded. This is the article itself, "Sexcallus [seneschallus] solvat D. Joanni Caleti matriculario S. Joannis quatuor simasias vini per dictum matricularium exhibitas illis qui choream Machabeorum fecerunt 10 Julii, 1453, nuper lapsa hora misse in ecclesia S. Joannis Evangeliste propter capitulum provinciale fratrum Minorum."[36] This document then will set the matter completely at rest. At what time the personified exhibition of this pageant commenced, or when it was discontinued cannot now be correctly ascertained. If, from a moral spectacle, it became a licentious ceremony, as is by no means improbable, in imitation of electing a boy-bishop, of the feast of fools, or other similar absurdities, its termination may be looked for in the authority of some ecclesiastical council at present not easily to be traced. CHAPTER II. _Places where the Dance of Death was sculptured or depicted.--Usually accompanied by verses describing the several characters.--Other Metrical Compositions on the Dance._ The subject immediately before us was very often represented, not only on the walls, but in the windows of many churches, in the cloisters of monasteries, and even on bridges, especially in Germany and Switzerland. It was sometimes painted on church screens, and occasionally sculptured on them, as well as upon the fronts of domestic dwellings. It occurs in many of the manuscript and illuminated service books of the middle ages, and frequent allusions to it are found in other manuscripts, but very rarely in a perfect state, as to the number of subjects. Most of the representations of the Dance of Death were accompanied by descriptive or moral verses in different languages. Those which were added to the paintings of this subject in Germany appear to have differed very materially, and it is not now possible to ascertain which among them is the oldest. Those in the Basle painting are inserted in the editions published and engraved by Mathew Merian, but they had already occurred in the Decennalia humanæ peregrinationis of Gaspar Landismann in 1584. Some Latin verses were published by Melchior Goldasti at the end of his edition of the Speculum omnium statuum, a celebrated moral work by Roderic, Bishop of Zamora, 1613, 4to. He most probably copied them from one of the early editions of the Danse Macabre, but without any comment whatever, the above title page professing that they are added on account of the similarity of the subject. A Provençal poet, called _Marcabres_ or _Marcabrus_, has been placed among the versifiers, but none of his works bear the least similitude to the subject; and, moreover, the language itself is an objection. The English metrical translation will be noticed hereafter. Whether any of the paintings were accompanied by descriptive verses that might be considered as anterior to those ascribed to the supposed Macaber, cannot now be ascertained. There are likewise some Latin verses in imitation of those above-mentioned, which, as well as the author of them, do not seem to have been noticed by any biographical or poetical writer. They occur at the end of a Latin play, intitled Susanna, Antverp. apud Michaelem Hillenium, MDXXXIII. As the volume is extremely rare, and the verses intimately connected with the present subject, it has been thought worth while to reprint them. After an elegy on the vanity and shortness of human life, and a Sapphic ode on the remembrance of Death, they follow under this title, "Plausus luctificæ mortis ad modum dialogi extemporaliter ab Eusebio Candido lusus. Ad quem quique mortales invitantur omnes, cujuscujus sint conditionis: quibusque singulis Mors ipsa respondet." Luctificæ mortis plausum bene cernite cuncti. Dum res læta, mori et viventes discite, namque Omnes ex æquo tandem huc properare necessum. Hic inducitur adolescens quærens, et mors vel philosophus respondens. Vita quid est hominis? Fumus super aream missus. Vita quid est hominis? Via mortis, dura laborum Colluvies, vita est hominis via longa doloris Perpetui. Vita quid est hominis? cruciatus et error, Vita quid est hominis? vestitus gramine multo, Floribus et variis campus, quem parva pruina Expoliat, sic vitam hominum mors impia tollit. Quamlibet illa alacris, vegeta, aut opulenta ne felix, Icta cadit modica crede ægritudine mortis. Et quamvis superes auro vel murice Croesum, Longævum aut annis vivendo Nestora vincas, Omnia mors æquat, vitæ meta ultima mors est. IMPERATOR. Quid fers? Induperator ego, et moderamina rerum Gesto manu, domuit mors impia sceptra potentum. REX RHOMANUS. Quid fers? en ego Rhomulidum rex. Mors manet omnes. PAPA. En ego Pontificum primus, signansque resignans. Et coelos oraque locos. Mors te manet ergo. CARDINALIS. Cardineo fulgens ego honore, et Episcopus ecce Mors manet ecce omnes, Phrygeus quos pileus ornat. EPISCOPUS. Insula splendidior vestit mea, tempora latum Possideo imperium, multi mea jura tremiscunt. Me dicant fraudis docti, producere lites. Experti, aucupium docti nummorum, et averni Causidici, rixatores, rabulæque forenses. Hos ego respicio, nihil attendens animarum, Ecclesiæ mihi commissæ populive salutem Sed satis est duros loculo infarcisse labores Agricolûm, et magnis placuisse heroibus orbis. Non tamen effugies mortis mala spicula duræ. ECCLESIÆ PRÆLATUS. Ecclesiæ prælatus ego multis venerandus Muneribus sacris, proventibus officiorum. Comptior est vestis, popina frequentior æde Sacra, et psalmorum cantus mihi rarior ipso Talorum crepitu, Veneris quoque voce sonora. Morte cades, annos speras ubi vivere plures. CANONICUS. En ego melotam gesto. Mors sæva propinquat. PASTOR. En parochus quoque pastor ego, mihi dulce falernum Notius æde sacra: scortum mihi charius ipsa Est animæ cura populi. Mors te manet ergo. ABBAS. En abbas venio, Veneris quoque ventris amicus. Coenobii rara est mihi cura, frequentior aula Magnorum heroum. Chorea saltabis eadem. PRIOR. En prior, ornatus longa et splendente cuculla, Falce cades mortis. Mors aufert nomina honoris. PATER VESTALIUM. Nympharum pater ecce ego sum ventrosior, offis Pinguibus emacerans corpus. Mors te manet ipsa. VESTALIS NYMPHA. En monialis ego, Vestæ servire parata. Non te Vesta potest mortis subducere castris. LEGATUS. Legatus venio culparum vincla resolvemus Omnia pro auro, abiens coelum vendo, infera claudo Et quicquid patres sanxerunt, munere solvo Juribus à mortis non te legatio solvet. DOMINUS DOCTOR. Quid fers? Ecce sophus, divina humanaque jura Calleo, et à populo doctor Rabbique salutor, Te manet expectans mors ultima linea rerum. MEDICUS. En ego sum medicus, vitam producere gnarus, Venis lustratis morborum nomina dico, Non poteris duræ mortis vitare sagittas. ASTRONOMUS. En ego stellarum motus et sydera novi, Et fati genus omne scio prædicere coeli. Non potis es mortis duræ præscire sagittas. CURTISANUS. En me Rhoma potens multis suffarsit onustum Muneribus sacris, proventibus, officiisque Non potes his mortis fugiens evadere tela. ADVOCATUS. Causarum patronus ego, producere doctus Lites, et loculos lingua vacuare loquaci Non te lingua loquax mortis subducet ab ictu. JUDEX. Justitiæ judex quia sum, sub plebe salutor. Vertice me nudo populus veneratur adorans. Auri sacra fames pervertere sæpe coëgit Justitiam. Mors te manet æquans omnia falce. PRÆTOR. Prætor ego populi, me prætor nemo quid audet. Accensor causis, per me stant omnia, namque Et dono et adimo vitam, cum rebus honorem. Munere conspecto, quod iniquum est jure triumphat Emitto corvos, censura damno columbas. Hinc metuendus ero superis ereboque profundo. Te manet expectans Erebus Plutoque cruentus. CONSUL. Polleo consiliis, Consul dicorque salutor. Munere conspecto, quid iniquum est consulo rectum Quod rectum est flecto, nihil est quod nesciat auri Sacra fames, hinc ditor et undique fio opulentus Sed eris æternum miser et mors impia tollet. CAUSIDICUS. Causidicus ego sum, causas narrare peritus, Accior in causas, sed spes ubi fulserit auri Ad fraudes docta solers utor bene lingua. Muto, commuto, jura inflecto atque reflecto. Et nihil est quod non astu pervincere possim. Mors æqua expectat properans te fulmine diro. Nec poteris astu mortis prævertere tela. SCABINUS. Ecce Scabinus ego, scabo bursas, prorogo causas. Senatorque vocor, vulgus me poplite curvo, Muneribusque datis veneratur, fronte retecta. Nil mortem meditor loculos quando impleo nummis Et dito hæredes nummis, vi, fraude receptis, Justitiam nummis, pro sanguine, munere, vendo. Quod rectum est curvo, quod curvum est munere rectum Efficio, per me prorsus stant omnia jura. Non poteris duræ mortis transire sagittas. LUDIMAGISTER. En ego pervigili cura externoque labore. Excolui juvenum ingenia, et præcepta Minervæ Tradens consenui, cathedræque piget sine fructu. Quid dabitur fructus, tanti quæ dona laboris? Omnia mors æquans, vitæ ultima meta laboris. MILES AURATUS. Miles ego auratus, fulgenti murice et auro Splendidus in populo. Mors te manet omnia perdens. MILES ARMATUS. Miles ego armatus, qui bella ferocia gessi. Nullius occursum expavi, quam durus et audax. Ergo immunis ero. Mors te intrepida ipsa necabit. MERCATOR. En ego mercator dives, maria omnia lustro Et terras, ut res crescant. Mors te metet ipsa. FUCKARDUS. En ego fuckardus, loculos gesto æris onustos, Omnia per mundum coëmens, vendo atque revendo. Heroës me solicitant, atque æra requirunt. Haud est me lato quisquam modo ditior orbe. Mortis ego jura et frameas nihil ergo tremisco Morte cades, mors te rebus spoliabit opimis. QUÆSTOR. Quæstor ego, loculos suffersi arcasque capaces Est mihi prænitidis fundata pecunia villis. Hac dives redimam duræ discrimina mortis Te mors præripiet nullo exorabilis auro. NAUCLERUS. En ego nauclerus spaciosa per æquora vectus, Non timui maris aut venti discrimina mille. Cymba tamen mortis capiet te quæque vorantis. AGRICOLA. Agricola en ego sum, præduro sæpe labore, Et vigili exhaustus cura, sudore perenni, Victum prætenuem quærens, sine fraude doloque Omnia pertentans, miseram ut traducere possim Vitam, nec mundo me est infelicior alter. Mors tamen eduri fiet tibi meta laboris. ORATOR. Heroum interpres venio, fraudisque peritus, Bellorum strepitus compono, et bella reduco, Meque petunt reges, populus miratur adorans. Nulla abiget fraudi linguéve peritia mortem. PRINCEPS BELLI. Fulmen ego belli, reges et regna subegi, Victor ego ex omni præduro quamlibet ecce Marte fui, vitæ hinc timeo discrimina nulla. Te mors confodiet cauda Trigonis aquosi, Atque eris exanimis moriens uno ictu homo bulla. DIVES. Sum rerum felix, foecunda est prolis et uxor, Plena domus, lætum pecus, et cellaria plena Nil igitur metuo. Quid ais? Mors te impia tollet. PAUPER. Iro ego pauperior, Codroque tenuior omni, Despicior cunctis, nemo est qui sublevet heu heu. Hinc parcet veniens mors: nam nihil auferet à me, Non sic evades, ditem cum paupere tollit. FOENERATOR. Ut loculi intument auro, vi, fraude, doloque, Foenore nunc quæstum facio, furtoque rapinaque, Ut proles ditem, passim dicarque beatus, Per fas perque nefas corradens omnia quæro. Mors veniens furtim prædabitur, omnia tollens. ADOLESCENS. Sum juvenis, forma spectabilis, indole gaudens Maturusque ævi, nullus præstantior alter, Moribus egregiis populo laudatus ab omni. Pallida, difformis mors auferet omnia raptim. PUELLA. Ecce puellarum pulcherrima, mortis iniquæ Spicula nil meditor, juvenilibus et fruor annis, Meque proci expectant compti, facieque venusti. Stulta, quid in vana spe jactas? Mors metet omnes Difformes, pulchrosque simul cum paupere dices. NUNCIUS. Nuncius ecce ego sum, qui nuncia perfero pernix Sed retrospectans post terga, papæ audio quidnam? Me tuba terrificans mortis vocat. Heu moriendum est. PERORATIO. Mortales igitur memores modo vivite læti Instar venturi furis, discrimine nullo Cunctos rapturi passim ditesque inopesque. Stultus et insipiens vita qui sperat in ista, Instar quæ fumi perit et cito desinit esse. Fac igitur tota virtuti incumbito mente, Quæ nescit mortem, sed scandit ad ardua coeli. Quo nos à fatis ducat rex Juppiter, Amen. Plaudite nunc, animum cuncti retinete faventes. FINIS. Antwerpiæ apud Michaelem Hillenium M.D.XXXIIII. Mense Maio. A very early allusion to the Dance of Death occurs in a Latin poem, that seems to have been composed in the twelfth century by our celebrated countryman Walter de Mapes, as it is found among other pieces that carry with them strong marks of his authorship. It is intitled "Lamentacio et deploracio pro Morte et consilium de vivente Deo."[37] In its construction there is a striking resemblance to the common metrical stanzas that accompany the Macaber Dance. Many characters, commencing with that of the Pope, are introduced, all of whom bewail the uncontrolable influence of Death. This is a specimen of the work, extracted from two manuscripts: Cum mortem meditor nescit mihi causa doloris, Nam cunctis horis mors venit ecce cito. Pauperis et regis communis lex moriendi, Dat causam flendi si bene scripta leges. Gustato pomo missus transit sine morte Heu missa sorte labitur omnis homo. Vado mori Papa qui jussu regna | Vado mori, Rex sum, quod honor, subegi | quod gloria regum, Mors mihi regna tulit eccine vado | Est via mors hominis regia vado mori. | mori. Then follow similar stanzas, for presul, miles, monachus, legista, jurista, doctor, logicus, medicus, cantor, sapiens, dives, cultor, burgensis, nauta, pincerna, pauper. In Sanchez's collection of Spanish poetry before the year 1400,[38] mention is made of a Rabbi Santo as a good poet, who lived about 1360. He was a Jew, and surgeon to Don Pedro. His real name seems to have been Mose, but he calls himself Don Santo Judio de Carrion. This person is said to have written a moral poem, called "Danza General." It commences thus: "_Dise la Muerte._ "Yo so la muerte cierta a todas criaturas, Que son y seran en el mundo durante: Demando y digo O ame! porque curas De vida tan breve en punto passante?" &c. He then introduces a preacher, who announces Death to all persons, and advises them to be prepared by good works to enter his Dance, which is calculated for all degrees of mankind. "Primaramente llama a su danza a dos doncellas, A esta mi danza trax de presente, Estas dos donzellas que vades fermosas: Ellas vinieron de muy malamente A oir mes canciones que son dolorosas, Mas non les valdran flores nin rosas, Nin las composturas que poner salian: De mi, si pudiesen parterra querrian, Mas non proveda ser, que son mis esposas." It may, however, be doubted whether the Jew Santo was the author of this Dance of Death, as it is by no means improbable that it may have been a subsequent work added to the manuscript referred to by Sanchez. In 1675, Maitre Jacques Jacques, a canon of the cathedral of Ambrun, published a singular work, intitled "Le faut mourir et les excuses inutiles que l'on apporte à cette nécessité. Le tout en vers burlesques." Rouen, 1675, 12mo. It is written much in the style of Scarron and some other similar poets of the time. It commences with a humorous description given by Death of his proceedings with various persons in every part of the globe, which is followed by several dialogues between Death and the following characters: 1. The Pope. 2. A young lady betrothed. 3. A galley slave. 4. Guillot, who has lost his wife. 5. Don Diego Dalmazere, a Spanish hidalgo. 6. A king. 7. The young widow of a citizen. 8. A citizen. 9. A decrepit rich man. 10. A canon. 11. A blind man. 12. A poor peasant. 13. Tourmenté, a poor soldier in the hospital. 14. A criminal in prison. 15. A nun. 16. A physician. 17. An apothecary. 18. A lame beggar. 19. A rich usurer. 20. A merchant. 21. A rich merchant. As the book is uncommon, the following specimen is given from the scene between Death and the young betrothed girl: LA MORT. A vous la belle demoiselle, Je vous apporte une nouvelle, Qui certes vous surprendra fort. C'est qu'il faut penser à la mort, Tout vistement pliés bagage, Car il faut faire ce voyage. LA DEMOISELLE. Qu'entends-je? Tout mon sens se perd, Helas! vous me prener sans verd; C'est tout à fait hors de raison Mourir dedans une saison Que je ne dois songer qu'à rire, Je suis contrainte de vous dire, Que très injuste est vostre choix, Parce que mourir je ne dois, N'estant qu'en ma quinzième année, Voyez quelque vielle échinée, Qui n'ait en bouche point de dent; Vous l'obligerez grandement De l'envoyer à l'autre monde, Puis qu'ici toujours elle gronde; Vous la prendrez tout à propos, Et laissez moi dans le repos, Moi qui suis toute poupinette, Dans l'embonpoint et joliette, Qui n'aime qu'à me réjouir, De grâce laissez moi jouir, &c. CHAPTER III. _Macaber not a German or any other poet, but a nonentity.--Corruption and confusion respecting this word.--Etymological errors concerning it.--How connected with the Dance.--Trois mors et trois vifs.--Orgagna's painting in the Campo Santo at Pisa.--Its connection with the trois mors et trois vifs, as well as with the Macaber dance.--Saint Macarius the real Macaber.--Paintings of this dance in various places.--At Minden; Church-yard of the Innocents at Paris; Dijon; Basle; Klingenthal; Lubeck; Leipsic; Anneberg; Dresden; Erfurth; Nuremberg; Berne; Lucerne; Amiens; Rouen; Fescamp; Blois; Strasburg; Berlin; Vienna; Holland; Italy; Spain._ The next subject for investigation is the origin of the name of Macaber, as connected with the Dance of Death, either with respect to the verses that have usually accompanied it, or to the paintings or representations of the Dance itself; and first of the verses. It may, without much hazard, be maintained that, notwithstanding these have been ascribed to a German poet called Macaber, there never was a German, or any poet whatever bearing such a name. The first mention of him appears to have been in a French edition of the Danse Macabre, with the following title, "Chorea ab eximio Macabro versibus Alemannicis edito, et à Petro Desrey emendata. Parisiis per Magistrum Guidonem Mercatorem pro Godefrido de Marnef. 1490, folio." This title, from its ambiguity, is deserving of little consideration as a matter of authority; for if a comma be placed after the word Macabro, the title is equally applicable to the author of the verses and to the painter or inventor of the Dance. As the subject had been represented in several places in Germany, and of course accompanied with German descriptions, it is possible that Desrey might have translated and altered some or one of these, and, mistaking the real meaning of the word, have converted it into the name of an author. It may be asked in what German biography is such a person to be found? how it has happened that this _famous_ Macaber is so little known, or whether the name really has a Teutonic aspect? It was the above title in Desrey's work that misled the truly learned Fabricius inadvertently to introduce into his valuable work the article for Macaber as a German poet, and in a work to which it could not properly belong.[39] M. Peignot has very justly observed that the Danse Macabre had been very long known in France and elsewhere, not as a literary work, but as a painting; and he further remarks that although the verses are German in the Basil painting, executed about 1440, similar verses in French were placed under the dance at the Innocents at Paris in 1424.[40] At the beginning of the text in the early French edition of the Danse Macabre, we have only the words "la danse Macabre sappelle," but no specific mention is made of the author of the verses. John Lydgate, in his translation of them from the French, and which was most probably adopted in many places in England where the painting occurred, speaks of "the Frenche Machabrees daunce," and "the daunce of Machabree." At the end, "Machabree the Doctoure," is abruptly and unconnectedly introduced at the bottom of the page. It is not in the French printed copy, from the text of which Lydgate certainly varies in several respects. It remains, therefore, to ascertain whether these words belong to Lydgate, or to whom else; not that it is a matter of much importance. The earliest authority that has been traced for the name of "Danse Macabre," belongs to the painting at the Innocents, and occurs in the MS. diary of Charles VII. under the year 1424. It is also strangely called "Chorea Machabæorum," in 1453, as appears from the before cited document at St. John's church at Besançon. Even the name of one _Maccabrees_, a Provençal poet of the 14th century, has been injudiciously connected with the subject, though his works are of a very different nature. Previously to attempting to account for the origin of the obscure and much controverted word Macaber, as applicable to the dance itself, it may be necessary to advert to the opinions on that subject that have already appeared. It has been disguised under the several names of Macabre,[41] Maccabees,[42] Maratre,[43] and even Macrobius.[44] Sometimes it has been regarded as an epithet. The learned and excellent M. Van Praet, the guardian of the royal library at Paris, has conjectured that _Macabre_ is derived from the Arabic _Magbarah_, magbourah, or magabir, all signifying a church-yard. M. Peignot seems to think that M. Van Praet intended to apply the word to the Dance itself,[45] but it is impossible that the intelligent librarian was not aware that personified sculpture, as well as the moral nature of the subject, cannot belong to the Mahometan religion. Another etymology extremely well calculated to disturb the gravity of the present subject, is that of M. Villaret, the French historian, when adverting to the spectacle of the Danse Macabre, supposed to have been given by the English in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris. Relying on this circumstance, he unceremoniously decides that the name of the dance was likewise English; and that _Macabrée_ is compounded of the words, to _make_ and to _break_. The same silly etymology is referred to as in some historical dictionary concerning the city of Paris by Mons. Compan in his Dictionaire de Danse, article _Macaber_; and another which is equally improbable has been hazarded by the accomplished Marquis de Paulmy, who, noticing some editions of the Danse Macabre in his fine library, now in the arsenal at Paris, very seriously states that Macaber is derived from two Greek words, which denote its meaning to be an _infernal dance_;[46] but if the Greek language were to be consulted on the occasion, the signification would turn out to be very different. It must not be left unnoticed that M. De Bure, in his account of the edition of the Danse Macabre, printed by Marchant, 1486, has stated that the verses have been attributed to Michel Marot; but the book is dated before Marot was born.[47] Again,--As to the connexion between the word Macaber with the Dance itself. In the course of the thirteenth century there appeared a French metrical work under the name of "Li trois Mors et li trois Vis," _i. e._ Les trois Morts et les trois Vifs. In the noble library of the Duke de la Valliere, there were three apparently coeval manuscripts of it, differing, however, from each other, but furnishing the names of two authors, Baudouin de Condé and Nicolas de Marginal.[48] These poems relate that three noble youths when hunting in a forest were intercepted by the like number of hideous spectres or images of Death, from whom they received a terrific lecture on the vanity of human grandeur. A very early, and perhaps the earliest, allusion to this vision, seems to occur in a painting by Andrew Orgagna in the Campo Santo at Pisa; and although it varies a little from the description in the above-mentioned poems, the story is evidently the same. The painter has introduced three young men on horseback with coronets on their caps, and who are attended by several domestics whilst pursuing the amusement of hawking. They arrive at the cell of Saint Macarius an Egyptian Anachorite, who with one hand presents to them a label with this inscription, as well as it can be made out, "Se nostra mente fia ben morta tenendo risa qui la vista affitta la vana gloria ci sara sconfitta la superbia e sara da morte;" and with the other points to three open coffins, in which are a skeleton and two dead bodies, one of them a king. A similar vision, but not immediately connected with the present subject, and hitherto unnoticed, occurs at the end of the Latin verses ascribed to Macaber, in Goldasti's edition of the Speculum omnium statuum à Roderico Zamorensi. Three persons appear to a hermit, whose name is not mentioned, in his sleep. The first is described as a man in a regal habit; the second as a civilian, and the third as a beautiful female decorated with gold and jewels. Whilst these persons are vainly boasting of their respective conditions, they are encountered by three horrible spectres in the shape of dead human bodies covered with worms, who very severely reprove them for their arrogance. This is evidently another version of the "Trois mors et trois vifs" in the text, but whether it be older or otherwise cannot easily be ascertained. It is composed in alternate rhymes, in the manner, and probably by the author of Philibert or Fulbert's vision of the dispute between the soul and the body, a work ascribed to S. Bernard, and sometimes to Walter de Mapes. There are translations of it both in French and English. [Illustration] [Illustration] For the mention of S. Macarius as the hermit in this painting by Orgagna, we are indebted to Vasari in his life of that artist; and he had, no doubt, possessed himself of some traditionary information on the subject of it. He further informs us, that the person on horseback who is stopping his nostrils, is intended for Andrea Uguzzione della fagivola. Above is a black and hideous figure of Death mowing down with his scythe all ranks and conditions of men. Vasari adds that Orgagna had crowded his picture with a great many inscriptions, most of which were obliterated by time. From one of them which he has preserved in his work, as addressed to some aged cripples, it should appear that, as in the Macaber Dance, Death apostrophizes the several characters.[49] Baldinucci, in his account of Orgagna, mentions this painting and the story of the Three Kings and Saint Macarius.[50] Morona, likewise, in his Pisa illustrata, adopts the name of Macarius when describing the same subject. The figures in the picture are all portraits, and their names may be seen, but with some variation as to description, both in Vasari and Morona.[51] Now the story of _Les trois mors et les trois vifs_, was prefixed to the painting of the Macaber Dance in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris, and had also been sculptured over the portal of the church, by order of the Duke de Berry in 1408.[52] It is found in numerous manuscript copies of Horæ and other service books prefixed to the burial office. All the printed editions of the Macaber Dance contain it, but with some variation, the figure of Saint Macarius in his cell not being always introduced. It occurs in many of the printed service books, and in some of our own for the use of Salisbury. The earliest wood engraving of it is in the black book of the "15 signa Judicii," where two of the young men are running away to avoid the three deaths, or skeletons, one of whom is rising from a grave. It is copied in Bibliotheca Spenceriana, vol. i. p. xxx. From the preceding statement then there is every reason to infer that the name of Macaber, so frequently, and without authority, applied to an unknown German poet, really belongs to the Saint, and that his name has undergone a slight and obvious corruption. The word _Macabre_ is found only in French authorities, and the Saint's name, which, in the modern orthography of that language, is _Macaire_, would, in many ancient manuscripts, be written _Macabre_ instead of _Macaure_, the letter _b_ being substituted for that of _u_ from the caprice, ignorance, or carelessness of the transcribers. As no German copy of the verses describing the painting can, with any degree of certainty, be regarded as the original, we must substitute the Latin text, which may, perhaps, have an equal claim to originality. The author, at the beginning, has an address to the spectators, in which he tells them that the painting is called the Dance of Macaber. There is an end, therefore, of the name of Macaber, as the author of the verses, leaving it only as applicable to the painting, and almost, if not altogether confirmatory of the preceding conjecture. The French version, from which Lydgate made his translation, nearly agrees with the Latin. Lydgate, however, in the above address, has thought fit to use the word _translator_ instead of _author_, but this is of no moment, any more than the words _Machabrée the Doctour_, which, not being in the French text, are most likely an interpolation. He likewise calls the work _the daunce_; and it may, once for all, be remarked, that scarcely any two versions of it will be found to correspond in all respects, every new editor assuming fresh liberties, according to the usual practice in former times. The ancient paintings of the Macaber Dance next demand our attention. Of these, the oldest on record was that of Minden in Westphalia, with the date 1383, and mentioned by Fabricius in his Biblioth. med. et infimæ ætatis, tom. v. p. 2. It is to be wished that this statement had been accompanied with some authority; but the whole of the article is extremely careless and inaccurate. The earliest, of which the date has been satisfactorily defined, was that in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris, and which has been already mentioned as having been painted in 1434. In the cloister of the church of the Sainte Chapelle at Dijon the Macaber Dance was painted by an artist whose name was Masonçelle. It had disappeared and was forgotten a long time ago, but its existence was discovered in the archives of the department by Mons. Boudot, an ardent investigator of the manners and customs of the middle ages. The date ascribed to this painting is 1436. The above church was destroyed in the revolution, previously to which another Macaber Dance existed in the church of Notre Dame in the above city. This was not a painting on the walls, but a piece of white embroidery on a black piece of stuff about two feet in height and very long. It was placed over the stalls in the choir on grand funeral ceremonies, and was also carried off with the other church moveables, in the abovementioned revolution.[53] Similar exhibitions, no doubt, prevailed in other places. The next Macaber Dance, in point of date, was the celebrated one at Basle, which has employed the pens and multiplied the errors of many writers and travellers. It was placed under cover in a sort of shed in the church-yard of the Dominican convent. It has been remarked by one very competent to know the fact, that nearly all the convents of the Dominicans had a Dance of Death.[54] As these friars were preachers by profession, the subject must have been exceedingly useful in supplying texts and matter for their sermons. The present Dance is said to have been painted at the instance of the prelates who assisted at the Grand Council of Basle, that lasted from 1431 to 1443; and in allusion, as supposed, to a plague that happened during its continuance. Plagues have also been assigned as the causes of other Dances of Death; but there is no foundation whatever for such an opinion, as is demonstrable from what has been already stated; and it has been also successfully combated by M. Peignot, who is nevertheless a little at variance with himself, when he afterwards introduces a conjecture that the painter of the first Dance imitated the violent motions and contortions of those affected by the plague in the dancing attitudes of the figures of Death.[55] The name of the original painter of this Basle work is unknown, and will probably ever remain so, for no dependance can be had on some vague conjectures, that without the smallest appearance of accuracy have been hazarded concerning it. It is on record that the old painting having become greatly injured by the ravages of time, John Hugh Klauber, an eminent painter at Basle, was employed to repair it in the year 1568, as appears from a Latin inscription placed on it at the time. This painter is said to have covered the decayed fresco with oil, and to have succeeded so well that no difference between his work and the original could be perceived. He was instructed to add the portrait of the celebrated Oecolampadius in the act of preaching, in commemoration of his interference in the Reformation, that had not very long before taken place. He likewise introduced at the end of the painting, portraits of himself, his wife Barbara Hallerin, and their little son Hans Birich Klauber. The following inscription, placed on the painting on this occasion, is preserved in Hentzner's Itinerary, and elsewhere. A. O. C. Sebastiano Doppenstenio, Casparo Clugio Coss. Bonaventura à Bruno, Jacobo Rudio Tribb. Pl. Hunc mortales chorum fabulæ, temporis injuria vitiatum Lucas Gebhart, Iodoc. Pfister. Georgius Sporlinus Hujus loci Ædiles. Integritati suæ restituendum curavere Ut qui vocalis picturæ divina monita securius audiunt Mutæ saltem poëseos miserab. spectaculo Ad seriam philosophiam excitentur. [Greek: ORATELOS MAKROU BIOU ARCHÊN ORAMAKARIOU] CI=C= I=C= LXIIX. In the year 1616 a further reparation took place, and some alterations in the design are said to have been then made. The above inscription, with an addition only of the names of the then existing magistrates of the city, was continued. A short time before, Mathew Merian the elder, a celebrated topographical draftsman, had fortunately copied the older painting, of which he is supposed to have first published engravings in 1621, with all the inscriptions under the respective characters that were then remaining, but these could not possibly be the same in many respects that existed before the Reformation, and which are entirely lost. A proof of this may be gathered from the lines of the Pope's answer to Death, whom he is thus made to apostrophize: "Shall it be said that I, a God upon earth, a successor of St. Peter, a powerful prince, and a learned doctor, shall endure thy insolent summons, or that, in obedience to thy decree, I should be compelled to ascertain whether the keys which I now possess will open for me the gates of Paradise?" None of the inscriptions relating to the Pope in other ancient paintings before the Reformation approach in the least to language of this kind. Merian speaks of a tradition that in the original painting the portrait of Pope Felix V. was introduced, as well as those of the Emperor Sigismund and Duke Albert II. all of whom were present at the council; but admitting this to have been the fact, their respective features would scarcely remain after the subsequent alterations and repairs that took place. That intelligent traveller, Mons. Blainville, saw this painting in January, 1707. He states that as it had been much injured by the weather, and many of the figures effaced, the government caused it to be retouched by a painter, whom they imagined to be capable of repairing the ravages it had sustained, but that his execution was so miserable that they had much better have let it alone than to have had it so wretchedly bungled. He wholly rejects any retouching by Holbein. He particularizes two of the most remarkable subjects, namely, the fat jolly cook, whom Death seizes by the hand, carrying on his shoulder a spit with a capon ready larded, which he looks upon with a wishful eye, as if he regretted being obliged to set out before it was quite roasted. The other figure is that of the blind beggar led by his dog, whom Death snaps up with one hand, and with the other cuts the string by which the dog was tied to his master's arm.[56] The very absurd ascription of the Basle painting to the pencil of Hans Holbein, who was born near a century afterwards, has been adopted by several tourists, who have copied the errors of their predecessors, without taking the pains to make the necessary enquiries, or possessing the means of obtaining correct information. The name of Holbein, therefore, as combined with this painting, must be wholly laid aside, for there is no evidence that he was even employed to retouch it, as some have inadvertently stated; it was altogether a work unworthy of his talents, nor does it, even in its latest state, exhibit the smallest indication of his style of painting. This matter will be resumed hereafter, but in the mean time it may be necessary to correct the mistake of that truly learned and meritorious writer, John George Keysler, who, in his instructive and entertaining travels, has inadvertently stated that the Basle painting was executed by Hans Bock or Bok, a celebrated artist of that city;[57] but it is well known that this person was not born till the year 1584. The Basle painting is no longer in existence; for on the 2d of August, 1806, and for reasons that have not been precisely ascertained, an infuriated mob, in which were several women, who carried lanterns to light the expedition, tumultuously burst the inclosure which contained the painting, tore it piecemeal from the walls, and in a very short space of time completely succeeded in its total demolition, a few fragments only being still preserved in the collection of Counsellor Vischer at his castle of Wildensheim, near Basle. This account of its destruction is recorded in Millin's Magazin Encyclopédique among the nouvelles littéraires for that year; but the Etrenne Helvétique for the above year has given a different account of the matter; it states that the painting having been once more renovated in the year 1703, fell afterwards into great decay, being entirely peeled from the wall--that this circumstance had, in some degree, arisen from the occupation of the cloister by a ropemaker--that the wall having been found to stand much in the way of some new buildings erected near the spot, the magistrates ventured, but not without much hesitation, to remove the cloister with its painting altogether in the year 1805--and that this occasioned some disturbance in the city among the common people, but more particularly with those who had resided in its neighbourhood, and conceived a renewed attachment to the painting. Of this Dance of Death very few specific copies have been made. M. Heinecken[58] has stated that it was engraved in 1544, by Jobst Denneker of Augsburg; but he has confounded it with a work by this artist on the other Dance of Death ascribed to Holbein, and which will be duly noticed hereafter. The work which contained the earliest engravings of the Basle painting, can on this occasion be noticed only from a modern reprint of it under the following title: "Der Todten-Tantz wie derselbe in der weitberuhmten Stadt Basel als ein Spiegel menslicher beschaffenheit gantz kuntlich mit lebendigen farben gemahlet, nicht ohne nutzliche vernunderung zu schen ist. Basel, bey Joh. Conrad und Joh. Jacob von Mechel, 1769, 12mo." that is, "The Dance of Death, painted most skilfully, and in lively colours, in the very famous town of Basel, as a mirror of human life, and not to be looked on without useful admiration." The first page has some pious verses on the painting in the church-yard of the Predicants, of which the present work contains only ten subjects, namely, the cardinal, the abbess, the young woman, the piper, the jew, the heathen man, the heathen woman, the cook, the painter, and the painter's wife. On the abbess there is the mark D. R. probably that of the engraver, two cuts by whom are mentioned in Bartsch's work.[59] On the cut of the young woman there is the mark G S with the graving knife. They are coarsely executed, and with occasional variations of the figures in Merian's plates. The rest of the cuts, thirty-two in number, chiefly belong to the set usually called Holbein's. All the cuts in this miscellaneous volume have German verses at the top and bottom of each page with the subjects. If Jansen, who usually pillages some one else, can be trusted or understood, there was a prior edition of this book in 1606, with cuts having the last-mentioned mark, but which edition he calls the Dance of Death at Berne;[60] a title, considering the mixture of subjects, as faulty as that of the present book, of which, or of some part of it, there must have been a still earlier edition than the above-mentioned one of 1606, as on the last cut but one of this volume there is the date 1576, and the letters G S with the knife. It is most probable that this artist completed the series of the Basle Dance, and that some of the blocks having fallen into the hands of the above printers, they made up and published the present mixed copy. Jost Amman is said to have engraved 49 plates of the Dance of Death in 1587. These are probably from the Basle painting.[61] The completest copies of this painting that are now perhaps extant, are to be found in a well-known set of engravings in copper, by Matthew Merian, the elder, the master of Hollar. There are great doubts as to their first appearance in 1621, as mentioned by Fuessli and Heinecken, but editions are known to exist with the respective dates of 1649, 1696, 1698, 1725, 1744, 1756, and 1789. Some of these are in German, and the rest are accompanied with a French translation by P. Viene. They are all particularly described by Peignot.[62] Merian states in his preface that he had copied the paintings several years before, and given his plates to other persons to be published, adding that he had since redeemed and retouched them. He says this Dance was repaired in 1568 by Hans Hugo Klauber, a citizen of Basle, a fact also recorded on the cut of the painter himself, his wife, Barbara Hallerin, and his son, Hans Birich, by the before-mentioned artist, G. S., and that it contained the portraits of Pope Felix V., the Emperor Sigismund, and Albert, King of the Romans, all of whom assisted at the Council of Basle in the middle of the 15th century, when the painting was probably executed. A greatly altered and modernised edition of Merian's work was published in 1788, 8vo. with the following title, "La Danse des Morts pour servir de miroir à la nature humaine, avec le costume dessiné à la moderne, et des vers à chaques figures. Au Locle, chez S. Girardet libraire." This is on an engraved frontispiece, copied from that in Merian. The letter-press is extracted from the French translation of Merian, and the plates, which are neatly etched, agree as to general design with his; but the dresses of many of the characters are rather ludicrously modernised. Some moral pieces are added to this edition, and particularly an old and popular treatise, composed in 1593, intitled "L'Art de bien vivre et de bien mourir." A Dance of Death is recorded with the following title "Todtentantz durch alle Stande der Menschen," Leipsig, durch David de Necker, formschneider. 1572, 4to.[63] Whether this be a copy of the Basle or the Berne painting, must be decided on inspection, or it may possibly be a later edition of the copy of the wood-cuts of Lyons, that will be mentioned hereafter. In the little Basle, on the opposite side of the Rhine, there was a nunnery called Klingenthal, erected towards the end of the 13th century. In an old cloister, belonging to it there are the remains of a Dance of Death painted on its walls, and said to have been much ruder in execution than that in the Dominican cemetery at Basle. On this painting there was the date 1312. In the year 1766 one Emanuel Ruchel, a baker by trade, but an enthusiastic admirer of the fine arts, made a copy in water colours of all that remained of this ancient painting, and which is preserved in the public library at Basle.[64] The numerous mistakes that have been made by those writers who have mentioned the Basle painting have been already adverted to by M. Peignot, and are not, in this place, worthy of repetition.[65] That which requires most particular notice, and has been so frequently repeated, is the making Hans Holbein the painter of it, who was not born till a considerable time after its execution, and even for whose supposed retouching of a work, almost beneath his notice in point of art, there is not the slightest authority. In the small organ chapel, or, according to some, in the porch, of the church of St. Mary at Lubeck in Lower Alsace, there is, or was, a very ancient Dance of Death, said to have been painted in 1463. Dr. Nugent, who has given some account of it, says, that it is much talked of in all parts of Germany; that the figures were repaired at different times, as in 1588, 1642, and last of all in 1701. The verses that originally accompanied it were in low Dutch, but at the last repair it was thought proper to change them for German verses which were written by Nathaniel Schlott of Dantzick. The Doctor has given an English translation of them, made for him by a young lady of Lubeck.[66] This painting has been engraved, and will be again mentioned. Leipsic had also a Dance of Death, but no particulars of it seem to have been recorded. In 1525 a similar dance was painted at Anneberg in Saxony, which Fabricius seems alone to have noticed. He also mentions another in 1534, at the palace of Duke George at Dresden.[67] This is described in a German work written on the subject generally, by Paul Christian Hilscher, and published at Dresden, 1705, 8vo. and again at Bautzen, 1721, 8vo. It consisted of a long frieze sculptured in stone on the front of the building, containing twenty-seven figures. A view of this very curious structure, with the Dance itself, and also on a separate print, on a larger scale, varying considerably from the usual mode of representing the Macaber Dance, is given in Anthony Wecken's Chronicle of Dresden, printed in German at Dresden 1680, folio. It is said to have been removed in 1721 to the church-yard of Old Dresden. Nicolai Karamsin has given a very brief, but ludicrous, account of a Dance of Death in the cross aisle of the Orphan House at Erfurth;[68] but Peignot places it in the convent of the Augustins, and seems to say that it was painted on the panels between the windows of the cell inhabited by Luther.[69] In all probability the same place is intended by both these writers. There is some reason to suppose that there was a Dance of Death at Nuremberg. Misson, describing a wedding in that city, states that the bridegroom and his company sat down on one side of the church and the bride on the other. Over each of their heads was a figure of Death upon the wall. This would seem very like a Dance of Death, if the circumstance of the figure being on both sides of the church did not excite a doubt on the subject. Whether there ever was a Macaber Dance at Berne of equal antiquity with that of Basle has not been ascertained: but Sandrart, in his article for Nicolas Manuel Deutch, a celebrated painter at Berne, in the beginning of the 16th century, has recorded a Dance of Death painted by him in oil, and regrets that a work materially contributing to the celebrity of that city had been so extremely neglected that he had only been able to lay before the readers the following German rhymes which had been inscribed on it: Manuel aller welt figur, Hastu gemahlt uf diese mur Nu must sterben da, hilft kun fund: Bist nit sicher minut noch stund. Which he thus translates: Cunctorum in muris pictis ex arte figuris. Tu quoque decedes; etsi hoc vix tempore credes. Then Manuel's answer: Kilf eineger Heiland! dru ich dich bitt: Dann hic ist gar kein Bleibens nit So mir der Tod mein red wird stellen So bhut euch Gott, mein liebe Gsellen. That is, in Latin: En tibi me credo, Deus, hoc dum sorte recedo Mors rapiat me, te, reliquos sociosque, valete! To which account M. Fuseli adds, that this painting, equally remarkable for invention and character, was retouched in 1553; and in 1560, to render the street in which it was placed more spacious, entirely demolished. There were, however, two copies of it preserved at Berne, both in water colours, one by Albrech Kauw, the other a copy from that by Wilhelm Stettler, a painter of Berne, and pupil of Conrad Meyer of Zurich. The painting is here said to have been in _fresco_ on the wall of the Dominican cemetery.[70] The verses that accompanied this painting have been mentioned as containing sarcastical freedoms against the clergy; and as Manuel had himself undergone some persecutions on the score of religion at the time of the Reformation, this is by no means improbable. There is even a tradition that he introduced portraits of some of his friends, who assisted in bringing about that event. In 1832, lithographic copies of the Berne painting, after the drawings of Stettler, were published at Berne, with a portrait of Manuel; and a set of very beautiful drawings in colours, made by some artist at Berne, either after those by Stettler or Kauw, in the public library, are in the possession of the writer of this essay. They, as well as the lithographic prints, exhibit Manuel's likeness in the subject of the painter. One of the bridges at Lucerne was covered with a Macaber Dance, executed by a painter named Meglinger, but at what time we are not informed. It is said to have been very well painted, but injured greatly by injudicious retouchings; yet there seems to be a difference of opinion as to the merit of the paintings, which are or were thirty-six in number, and supposed to have been copied from the Basle dance. Lucerne has also another of the same kind in the burial ground of the parish church of Im-hof. One of the subjects placed over the tomb of some canon, the founder of a musical society, is Death playing on the violin, and summoning the canon to follow him, who, not in the least terrified, marks the place in the book he was reading, and appears quite disposed to obey. This Dance is probably more modern than the other.[71] The subject of Death performing on the above instrument to some person or other is by no means uncommon among the old painters. M. Maurice Rivoire, in his very excellent description of the cathedral of Amiens, mentions the cloister of the Machabees, originally called, says he, the cloister of Macabré, and, as he supposes, from the name of the author of the verses. He gives some lines that were on one of the walls, in which the Almighty commands Death to bring all mortals before him.[72] This cloister was destroyed about the year 1817, but not before the present writer had seen some vestiges of the painting that remained on one of the sides of the building. M. Peignot has a very probable conjecture that the church-yard of Saint Maclou, at Rouen, had a Macaber Dance, from a border or frieze that contains several emblematical subjects of mortality. The place had more than once been destroyed.[73] On the pillars of the church at Fescamp, in Normandy, the Dance of Death was sculptured in stone, and it is in evidence that the castle of Blois had formerly this subject represented in some part of it. In the course of some recent alterations in the new church of the Protestants at Strasburg, formerly a Dominican convent, the workmen accidentally uncovered a Dance of Death that had been whitewashed, either for the purpose of obliteration or concealment. This painting seems to differ from the usual Macaber Dance, not always confined like that to two figures only, but having occasionally several grouped together. M. Peignot has given some more curious particulars relating to it, extracted from a literary journal by M. Schweighæuser, of Strasburg.[74] It is to be hoped that engravings of it will be given. Chorier has mentioned the mills of Macabrey, and also a piece of land with the same appellation, which he says was given to the chapter of St. Maurice at Vienne in Dauphiné, by one Marc Apvril, a citizen of that place. He adds, that he is well aware of the Dance of Macabre. Is it not, therefore, probable, that the latter might have existed at Vienne, and have led to the corruption of the above citizen's name by the common people.[75] Misson has noticed a Dance of Death in St. Mary's church at Berlin, and obscurely referred to another in some church at Nuremberg. Bruckmann, in his Epistolæ Itinerariæ, vol. v. Epist. xxxii. describes several churches and other religious buildings at Vienna, and among them the monastery of the Augustinians, where, he says, there is a painting of a house with Death entering one of the windows by a ladder. In the same letter he describes a chapel of Death in the above monastery, which had been decorated with moral paintings by Father Abraham à St. Clara, one of the monks. Among these were, 1. Death demolishing a student. 2. Death attacking a hunter who had just killed a stag. 3. Death in an apothecary's shop, breaking the phials and medicine boxes. 4. Death playing at draughts with a nobleman. 5. Harlequin making grimaces at Death. A description of this chapel, and its painting was published after the good father's decease. Nuremberg, 1710, 8vo. The only specimen of it in Holland that has occurred on the present occasion is in the celebrated _Orange-Salle_, which constitutes the grand apartment of the country seat belonging to the Prince of Orange in the wood adjacent to the Hague. In three of its compartments, Death is represented by skeletons darting their arrows against a host of opponents.[76] Nor has Italy furnished any materials for the present essay. Blainville has, indeed, described a singular and whimsical representation of Death in the church of St. Peter the Martyr, at Naples, in the following words. "At the entrance on the left is a marble with a representation of Death in a grotesque form. He has two crowns on his head, with a hawk on his fist, as ready for hunting. Under his feet are extended a great number of persons of both sexes and of every age. He addresses them in these lines: Eo sò la morte che caccio Sopera voi jente mondana, La malata e la sana, Di, e notte la percaccio; Non fugge, vessuna intana Per scampare dal mio laczio Che tutto il mondo abbraczio, E tutta la jente humana Perchè nessuno se conforta, Ma prenda spavento Ch'eo per comandamento Di prender à chi viene la sorte. Sia vi per gastigamento Questa figura di morte, E pensa vie di fare forte Tu via di salvamento. Opposite to the figure of Death is that of a man dressed like a tradesman or merchant, who throws a bag of money on a table, and speaks thus: Tutti ti volio dare Se mi lasci scampare. To which Death answers: Se mi potesti dare Quanto si pote dimandare Non te pote scampare la morte Se te viene la sorte.[77] It can hardly be supposed that this subject was not known in Spain, though nothing relating to it seems to have been recorded, if we except the poem that has been mentioned in p. 25, but no Spanish painting has been specified that can be called a regular Macaber Dance. There are grounds, however, for believing that there was such a painting in the cathedral of Burgos, as a gentleman known to the author saw there the remains of a skeleton figure on a whitewashed wall. CHAPTER IV. _Macaber Dance in England.--St. Paul's.--Salisbury.--Wortley Hall.--Hexham.--Croydon.--Tower of London.--Lines in Pierce Plowman's Vision supposed to refer to it._ We are next to examine this subject in relation to its existence in our own country. On the authority of the work ascribed to Walter de Mapes, already noticed in p. 24, it is not unreasonable to infer that paintings of the Macaber Dance were coeval with that writer, though no specimens of it that now remain will warrant the conclusion. We know that it existed at Old Saint Paul's. Stowe informs us that there was a great cloister on the north side of the church, environing a plot of ground, of old time called Pardon church-yard. He then states, that "about this _cloyster_ was artificially and richly painted the Dance of Machabray, or Dance of Death, commonly called the Dance of Paul's: the like whereof was painted about St. Innocent's cloyster at Paris: the meters or poesie of this dance were translated out of French into English, by John Lidgate, Monke of Bury, the picture of Death leading all estates; at the dispence of Jenken Carpenter in the reigne of Henry the Sixt."[78] Lydgate's verses were first printed at the end of Tottell's edition of the translation of his Fall of Princes, from Boccaccio, 1554, folio, and afterwards, in Sir W. Dugdale's History of St. Paul's cathedral.[79] In another place Stowe records that "on the 10th April, 1549, the cloister of St. Paul's church, called Pardon church-yard, with the Dance of Death, commonly called the Dance of Paul's, about the same cloister, costly and cunningly wrought, and the chappel in the midst of the same church-yard, were all begun to be pulled down."[80] This spoliation was made by the Protector Somerset, in order to obtain materials for building his palace in the Strand.[81] The single figure that remained in the Hungerford chapel at Salisbury cathedral, previously to its demolition, was formerly known by the title of "Death and the Young Man," and was, undoubtedly, a portion of the Macaber Dance, as there was close to it another compartment belonging to the same subject. In 1748, a print of these figures was published, accompanied with the following inscription, which differs from that in Lydgate. The young man says: Alasse Dethe alasse a blesful thyng thou were Yf thou woldyst spare us yn ouwre lustynesse. And cum to wretches that bethe of hevy chere Whene thay ye clepe to slake their dystresse But owte alasse thyne own sely selfwyldnesse Crewelly werneth me that seygh wayle and wepe To close there then that after ye doth clepe. Death answers: Grosless galante in all thy luste and pryde Remembyr that thou schalle onys dye Deth schall fro thy body thy sowle devyde Thou mayst him not escape certaynly To the dede bodyes cast down thyne ye Beholde thayme well consydere and see For such as thay ar such shalt thou be. This painting was made about the year 1460, and from the remaining specimen its destruction is extremely to be regretted, as, judging from that of the young gallant, the dresses of the time would be correctly exhibited. In the chapel at Wortley Hall, in Gloucestershire, there was inscribed, and most likely painted, "an history and Daunce of Deathe of all estatts and degrees." This inscribed history was the same as Lydgate's, with some additional characters.[82] From a manuscript note by John Stowe, in his copy of Leland's Itinerary, it appears that there was a Dance of Death in the church of Stratford upon Avon: and the conjecture that Shakespeare, in a passage in Measure for Measure, might have remembered it, will not, perhaps, be deemed very extravagant. He there alludes to Death and the fool, a subject always introduced into the paintings in question.[83] On the upper part of the great screen which closes the entrance to the choir of the church at Hexham, in Northumberland, are the painted remains of a Dance of Death.[84] These consist of the figures of a pope, a cardinal, and a king, which were copied by the ingenious John Carter, of well-deserved antiquarian memory. Vestiges of a Macaber Dance were not long since to be traced on the walls of the hall of the Archiepiscopal palace at Croydon, but so much obscured by time and neglect that no particular compartment could be ascertained. The tapestries that decorated the walls of palaces, and other dwelling places, were sometimes applied in extension of this moral subject. In the tower of London, the original and most ancient seat of our monarchs, there was some tapestry with the Macaber Dance.[85] The following lines in that admirable satire, the Vision of Pierce Plowman, written about the year 1350, have evidently an allusion to the Dance, unless they might be thought to apply rather to the celebrated triumph of Death by Petrarch, of which some very early paintings, and many engravings, still exist; or they may even refer to some of the ancient representations of the infernal regions that follow Death on the Pale horse of the Revelations, and in which is seen a grotesque intermixture of all classes of people.[86] Death came driving after, and all to dust pashed Kynges and Kaysers, Knightes and Popes, Learned and lewde: he ne let no man stande That he hitte even, he never stode after. Many a lovely ladie and lemmans of knightes Swouned and swelted for sorrowe of Deathes dyntes. It is probable that many cathedrals and other edifices, civil as well as ecclesiastical, in France, Germany, England, and probably other European countries, were ornamented with paintings and sculpture of this extremely popular subject. CHAPTER V. _List of editions of the Macaber Dance.--Printed Horæ that contain it.--Manuscript Horæ.--Other Manuscripts in which it occurs.--Various articles with letter-press, not being single prints, but connected with it._ It remains only, so far as regards the Macaber Dance, to present the reader with a list of the several printed editions of that celebrated work, and which, with many corrections and additions, has been chiefly extracted from M. Peignot's "Recherches historiques et litteraires sur les Danses des Morts," Paris et Dijon, 1826, 8vo. The article that should stand at the head of this list, if any reliance could be had on a supposed date, is the German edition, intitled, "Der Dotendantz mit figuren. Clage und Antwort Schon von allen staten der welt," small folio. This is mentioned in Braun Notitia de libris in Bibliotheca Monasterii ad SS. Udalricum et Afram Augustæ, vol. ii. 62. The learned librarian expresses his doubts as to the date, which he supposes may be between 1480 and 1500. He rejects a marginal note by the illuminator of the letters, indicating the date of 1459. Every page of this volume is divided into two columns, and accompanied with German verses, which may be either the original text, or a translation from the French verses in some early edition of the Macaber Dance in that language. It consists of twenty-two leaves, with wood-cuts of the Pope, Cardinal, Bishop, Abbot, &c. &c. accompanied by figures of Death. 1. "La Danse Macabre imprimée par ung nommé Guy Marchand, &c. Paris, 1485," small folio. Mons. Champollion Figeac has given a very minute description of this extremely rare, and perhaps unique, volume, the only known copy of which is in the public library of Grenoble. This account is to be found in Millin's Magazin Encyclopedique, 1811, vol. vi. p. 355, and thence by M. Peignot, in his Recherches, &c. 2. "Ce present livre est appelle Miroer salutaire pour toutes gens, et de tous estatz, et est de grant utilité et recreation pour pleuseurs ensegnemens tant en Latin comme en Francoys lesquels il contient ainsi compose pour ceulx qui desirent acquerir leur salut: et qui le voudront avoir. La Danse Macabre nouvelle." At the end, "Cy finit la Danse Macabre hystoriee augmentee de pleuseurs nouveaux pârsonnages (six) et beaux dis. et les trois mors et trois vif ensemble. Nouvellement ainsi composee et imprimee par Guyot Marchant demorant a Paris au grant hostel du college de Navarre en champ Gaillart lan de grace, 1486, le septieme jour de juing." A small folio of fifteen leaves, or thirty pages, twenty-four of which belong to the Danse Macabre, and six to the Trois morts et les trois vifs. On the authority of the above expression, "composée," and also on that of La Croix du Maine, Marchant has been made the author as well as the printer of the work; but M. De la Monnoye is not of that opinion, nor indeed is there any other metrical composition by this printer known to exist. 3. "La Danse Macabre des femmes, &c. Paris, par Guyot Marchant, 1486, le septieme jour de Juillet," small folio, of fifteen leaves only. This is the first edition of the Macaber Dance of females; and though thirty-two of them are described, the Queen and Duchess only are engraved. See No. 6 for the rest. This and the preceding edition are also particularly described by Messrs. Champollion Figeac and Peignot. 4. "Chorea ab eximio Macabro versibus Alemanicis edita, et a Petro Desrey emendata. Parisiis per magistrum Guidonem Mercatorem pro Godeffrido de Marnef. 1490," folio. Papillon thought the cuts were in the manner of the French artist Jollat, but without foundation, for they are much superior to any work by that artist, and of considerable merit. 5. "La nouvelle Danse Macabre des hommes dicte miroer salutaire de toutes gens et de touts etats, &c. Paris, Guyot Marchant. 1490." folio. 6. "La Danse Macabre des femmes, toute hystoriée et augmentée de nouveaulx personnages, &c. Paris, Guyot Marchant, le 2 Mai, 1491," folio. This edition, the second of the Dance of females, has all the cuts with other additions. The list of the figures is in Peignot, but with some doubts on the accuracy of his description. 7. An edition in the Low German dialect was printed at Lubeck, 1496, according to Vonder Hagen in his Deutschen Poesie, p. 459, who likewise mentions a Low German edition in prose, at the beginning of the 15th (he must mean 16th) century. He adds, that he has copied one page with cuts from _Kindeling's Remains_, but he does not say in what work. 8. "La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes hystorice et augmentée de beaulx dits en Latin, &c. &c. Le tout composé en ryme Francoise et accompagné de figures. Lyon, le xviii jour de Fevrier, l'an 1499," folio. This is supposed to be the first edition that contains both the men and the women. 9. There is a very singular work, intitled "Icy est le compost et kalendrier des _Bergeres_, &c. Imprimè à Paris en lostel de beauregart en la rue Cloppin à lenseigne du roy Prestre Jhan. ou quel lieu sont à vendre, ou au lyon dargent en la rue Sainct Jaques." At the end, "Imprimè à Paris par Guy Marchant maistre es ars ou lieu susdit. Le xvii iour daoust mil cccciiiixx·xix." This extremely rare volume is in the British Museum, and is mentioned by Dr. Dibdin, in vol. ii. p. 530 of his edition of Ames's typographical antiquities, and probably nowhere else. It is embellished with the same fine cuts that relate to the females in the edition of the Macaber Dance, Nos. 4 and 11. The work begins with the words "Deux jeunes Bergeres seulettes," and appears to have been composed for females only, differing very materially from the well-known "Kalendrier des Bergers," though including matter common to both. 10. "Chorea ab eximio Macabro versibus Alemanicis edita et à Petro Desrey Trecacio quodam oratore nuper emendata. Parisiis per Magistrum Guidonem Mercatorem pro Godeffrido Marnef. 15 Octob. 1499," folio, with cuts. 11. "La Danse Macabre, &c. Ant. Verard, no date, but about 1500," small folio. A vellum copy of this rare edition is described by M. Van Praet in his catalogue of vellum books in the royal library at Paris. A copy is in the Archb. Cant. library at Lambeth. 12. "La Danse Macabre, &c. Ant. Verard, no date, but about 1500," folio. Some variations from No. 9 are pointed out by M. Van Praet. This magnificent volume on vellum, and bound in velvet, came from the library at Blois. It is a very large and thin folio, consisting of three or four leaves only, printed on pasteboard, with four pages or compartments on each leaf. The cuts are illuminated in the usual manner of Verard's books. In the beginning it is marked "Marolles, No. 1601." It is probably imperfect, the fool not being among the figures, and all the females are wanting, though, perhaps, not originally in this edition. It is in the royal library at Paris, where there is another copy of the work printed by Verard, with coloured prints, but differing materially from the other in the press-work. It is a common-sized folio, and was purchased at the sale of the Count Macarthy's books.[87] 13. "La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Imprimèe à Troyes par Nicolas Le Rouge demourant en la grant rue à l'enseigne de Venise auprès la belle croix." No date, folio. With very clever wood-cuts, probably the same as in the edition of 1490; and if so, they differ much from the manner of Jollat, and have not his well-known mark. 14. "La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Rouen, Guillaume de la Mare." No date, 4to. with cuts, and in the Roman letter. 15. "La grande Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, ou est démonstré tous humains de tous estats estre du bransle de la Mort. Lyon, Olivier Arnoulet." No date, 4to. 16. "La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Lyon, Nourry, 1501," 4to. cuts. 17. "La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Imprimé à Genesve, 1503," 4to. cuts. 18. "La grant Danse Macabre, &c. Paris, Nicole de la Barre, 1523," 4to. with very indifferent cuts, and the omission of some of the characters in preceding editions. This has been privately reprinted, 1820, by Mr. Dobree, from a copy in the British Museum. 19. "La grant Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes. Troyes, Le Rouge, 1531," folio, cuts. 20. "La grand Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes. Paris, Denys Janot. 1533," 8vo. cuts. 21. "La grand Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, tant en Latin qu'en Francoys. Paris, par Estienne Groulleau libraire juré en la rue neuve Nostre Dame à l'enseigne S. Jean Baptiste." No date, 16mo. cuts. The first edition of this size, and differing in some respects from the preceding. 22. "La grand Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Paris, Estienne Groulleau, 1550," 16mo. cuts. 23. "La grande Danse des Morts, &c. Rouen, Morron." No date, 8vo. cuts. 24. "Les lxviii huictains ci-devant appellés la Danse Machabrey, par lesquels les Chrestiens de tous estats tout stimulés et invités de penser à la mort. Paris, Jacques Varangue, 1589," 8vo. In Roman letter, without cuts. 25. "La grande Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, &c. Troyes, Oudot," 1641, 4to. cuts. One of the bibliothèque bleue books. 26. "La grande Danse Macabre des hommes et des femmes, renouvellée de vieux Gaulois en langage le plus poli de notre temps, &c. Troyes, Pierre Garnier rue du Temple." No date, but the privilege is in 1728, 4to. cuts. The _polished_ language is, of course, for the worse, and Macaber is called "des Machabées," no doubt, the editor's improvement. 27. "La grande Danse _Macabre_ des hommes et des femmes, renouvellée, &c. Troyes, chez la veuve Oudot, et Jean Oudot fils, rue du Temple, 1729," 4to. cuts. Nearly the same as No. 25. These inferior editions continued, till very lately, to be occasionally reprinted for the use of the common people, and at the trifling expense of a very few sous. They are, nevertheless, of some value to those who feel interested in the subject, as containing tolerable copies of all the fine cuts in the preceding edition, No. 11. Dr. Dibdin saw in the public library at Munich a very old series of a Macaber Dance, that had been inserted, by way of illustration, into a German manuscript of the Dance of Death. Of these he has given two subjects in his "Bibliographical Tour," vol. iii. p. 278. But it was not only in the above volumes that the very popular subject of the Macaber Dance was particularly exhibited. It found its way into many of the beautiful service books, usually denominated Horæ, or hours of the Virgin. These principally belong to France, and their margins are frequently decorated with the above Dance, with occasional variety of design. In most of them Death is accompanied with a single figure only, characters from both sexes being introduced. It would be impossible to furnish a complete list of them; but it is presumed that the mention of several, and of the printers who introduced them, will not be unacceptable. No. I. "Las Horas de nuestra Senora con muchos otros oficios y oraçiones." Printed in Paris by Nicolas Higman for Simon Vostre, 1495, 8vo. It has two Dances of Death, the first of which is the usual Macaber Dance, with the following figures: "Le Pape, l'Empereur, le Cardinal, l'Archevesque, le Chevalier, l'Evesque, l'Escuyer, l'Abè, le Prevost, le Roy, le Patriarche, le Connestable, l'Astrologien, le Bourgoys, le Chanoine, le Moyne, l'Usurier, le Medesin, l'Amoureux, l'Advocat, le Menestrier, le Marchant, le Chartreux, le Sergent, le Cure, le Laboureur, le Cordelier." Then the women: "La Royne, la Duchesse, la Regente, la Chevaliere, l'Abbesse, la Femme descine, la Prieure, la Damoissele, la Bourgoise, la Cordeliere, la Femme daceul, la Nourice, la Theologienne, la nouvelle mariee, la Femme grosse, la Veufve, la Marchande, la Ballive, la Chamberiere, la Recommanderese, la vielle Damoise, l'Espousée, la Mignote, la Fille pucelle, la Garde d'accouchée, la jeune fille, la Religieuse, la Vielle, la Revenderesse, l'Amoureuse, la Sorciere, la Bigote, la Sote, la Bergere, la Femme aux Potences, la Femme de Village; to which are added, l'Enfant, le Clerc, l'Ermite." The second Dance of Death is very different from the preceding, and consists of groupes of figures. The subjects, which have never yet been described, are the following: 1. Death sitting on a coffin in a church-yard. "Discite vos choream cuncti qui cernitis istam." 2. Death with Adam and Eve in Paradise. He draws Adam towards him. "Quid tum prosit honor glorie divitie." 3. Death helping Cain to slay Abel. "Esto meorum qui pulvis eris et vermibus esca." 4. Death holding by the garment a cardinal, followed by several persons. "In gelida putrens quando jacebis humo." 5. Death mounted on a bull strikes three persons with his dart. "Vado mori dives auro vel copia rerum." 6. Death seizing a man sitting at a table with a purse in his hand, and accompanied by two other persons. "Nullum respectum dat michi, vado mori." 7. An armed knight killing an unarmed man, Death assisting. "Fortium virorum est magis mortem contemnere vitam odisse." 8. Death with a rod in his hand, standing upon a groupe of dead persons. "Stultum est timere quod vitari non potest." 9. Death with a scythe, having mowed down several persons lying on the ground. "Est commune mori mors nulli parcit honori." 10. A soldier introducing a woman to another man, who holds a scythe in his hand. Death stands behind. "Mors fera mors nequam mors nulli parcit et equam." 11. Death strikes with his dart a prostrate female, who is attended by two others. "Hec tua vita brevis: que te delectat ubique." 12. A man falling from a tower into the water. Death strikes him at the same time with his dart. "Est velut aura levis te mors expectat ubique." 13. A man strangling another, Death assisting. "Vita quid est hominis nisi res vallata ruinis." 14. A man at the gallows, Death standing by. "Est caro nostra cinis modo principium modo finis." 15. A man about to be beheaded, Death assisting. "Quid sublime genus quid opes quid gloria prestant." 16. A king attended by several persons is struck by Death with his dart. "Quid mihi nunc aderant hec mihi nunc abeunt." 17. Two soldiers armed with battle-axes. Death pierces one of them with his dart. "Ortus cuncta suos: repetunt matremque requirunt." 18. Death strikes with his dart a woman lying in bed. "Et redit in nihilum quod fuit ante nihil." 19. Death aims his dart at a sleeping child in a cradle, two other figures attending. "A, a, a, vado mori, nil valet ipsa juventus." 20. A man on the ground in a fit, Death seizes him. Others attending. "Mors scita sed dubia nec fugienda venit." 21. Death leads a man, followed by others. "Non sum securus hodie vel cras moriturus." 22. Death interrupts a man and woman at their meal. "Intus sive foris est plurima causa timoris." 23. Death demolishes a group of minstrels, from one of whom he has taken a lute. "Viximus gaudentes, nunc morimur tristes et flentes." 24. Death leads a hermit, followed by other persons. "Forte dies hec est ultima, vado mori." This Dance is also found in the Horæ printed by Godar, Vostre, and Gilles Hardouyn, but with occasional variations, as to size and other matters, in the different blocks which they respectively used. The same designs have also been adopted, and in a very singular style of engraving, in a work printed by Antony Verard, that will be noticed elsewhere. Some of the cuts, for they are not all by the same artist, in this very rare and beautiful volume, and not found in others printed by or for Simon Vostre, may be very justly compared, in point of the delicacy of design and engraving, though on wood, with the celebrated pax of Maso Finiguerra at Florence, accurately copied in Mr. Ottley's history of engraving. They are accompanied with this unappropriated mark [monogram]. No. II. "Ordinarium beate Marie Virginis ad usum Cisterciensem impressum est caracteribus optimis una cum expensis honesti viri Symonis Vostre commorantis Parisiis in vico novo Dive Marie in intersignio Sancti Joannis Evangeliste, 1497," 12mo. This beautiful book is on vellum, with the same Danse Macabre as in the preceding, but the other cuts are different. No. III. "Hore presentes ad usum Sarum impresse fuerunt Parisiis per Philippum Pigouchet Anno Salutis MCCCCXCVIII die vero xvi Maii pro Symone Vostre librario commorante, &c." 8vo. as above. Another beautiful volume on vellum, with the same Danse Macabre. He printed a similar volume of the same date, for the use of Rome, also on vellum. A volume of prayers, in 8vo. mentioned by M. Peignot, p. 145, after M. Raymond, but the title is not given. It is supposed to be anterior to 1500, and seems to contain the same personages in its Danse Macabre, as in the preceding volumes printed by Simon Vostre. No. IV. "Heures à l'usage de Soissons." Printed by Simon Vostre, on vellum, 1502, 8vo. With the same Danse Macabre. No. V. "Heures à l'usage de Rheims, nouvellement imprimées avec belles histoires, pour Simon Vostre," 1502, 8vo. This is mentioned by M. Peignot, on the authority of Papillon. It was reprinted 1513, 8vo. and has the same cuts as above. No. VI. "Heures à l'usage de Rome. Printed for Simon Vostre by Phil. Pigouchet," 1502, large 8vo. on vellum. With the same Danse Macabre. This truly magnificent volume, superior to all the preceding by the same printer in beauty of type and marginal decoration, differs from them in having stanzas at the bottom of each page of the Dance, but which apply to the figure at the top only. They are here given. POPE. Vous qui vivez certainement Quoy qu'il tarde ainsi danserez Mais quand Dieu le scet seulement Avisez comme vous ferez Dam Pape vous commencerez Comme le plus digne Seigneur En ce point honorire serez Au grant maistre est deu l'honneur. KING. Mais maintenant toute haultesse Laisserez vous nestes pas seul Peu aurez de votre richesse Le plus riche n'a qung linseul Venez noble Roy couronne Renomme de force et prouesse Jadis fustez environne De grans pompes de grant noblesse. ARCHBISHOP. Que vous tirez la teste arriere Archevesque tirez vous près, Avez vous peur qu'on ne vous fiere Ne doubtez vous viendres après N'est pas tousjours la mort empres Tout homme suyvant coste a coste Rendre comment debtez et pres Une foys fault coustera loste. SQUIRE. Il n'est rien que ne preigne cours Dansez et pensez de suyr Vous ne povez avoir secours Il n'est qui mort puisse fuyr Avencez vous gent escuyer Qui scavez de danser les tours Lance porties et escuz hyer Aujourdhuy finerez voz jours. ASTROLOGER. Maistre pour vostre regarder En hault ne pour vostre clergie Ne pouvez la mort retarder Ci ne vault rien astrologie Toute la genealogie D'Adam qui fust le premier homme Mort prent se dit theologie Tous fault mourir pour une pomme. MERCHANT. Vecy vostre dernier marche Il convient que par cy passez De tout soing serez despechie Tel convoiste qui a assez Marchant regardes par deca Plusieurs pays avez cerchie A pied a cheval de pieca Vous n'en serez plus empeschie. MONK. Ha maistre par la passeres N'est ja besoing de vous defendre Plus homme nespouvanteres Apres Moyne sans plus attendre Ou pensez vous cy fault entendre Tantost aurez la bouche close Homme n'est fors que vent et cendre Vie donc est moult peu de chose. LOVER. Trop lavez ayme cest foleur Et a mourir peu regarde Tantost vous changerez couleur Beaulte n'est que ymage farde Gentil amoureux gent et frique Qui vous cuidez de grant valeur Vous estez pris la mort vous pique Ce monde lairez a douleur. CURATE. Passez cure sans long songier Je sans questes habandonne Le vif le mort soulier menger Mais vous serez aux vers donne Vous fustes jadis ordonne Miroir dautruy et exemplaire De voz faitz serez guerdonne A toute peine est deu salaire. CHILD. Sur tout du jour de la naissance Convient chascun a mort offrir Fol est qui n'en a congnoissance Qui plus vit plus a assouffrir Petit enfant naguerez ne Au monde aures peu de plaisance A la danse sera mene Comme autre car mort a puissance. QUEEN. Noble Royne de beau corsage Gente et joyeuse a ladvenant Jay de par le grant maistre charge De vous enmener maintenant Et comme bien chose advenant Ceste danse commenseres Faictes devoir au remenant Vous qui vivez ainsi feres. LADY. C'est bien chasse quand on pourchasse Chose a son ame meritoire Car au derrain mort tout enchasse Ceste vie est moult transitoire Gentille femme de chevalier Que tant aymes deduit et chasse Les engins vous fault habiller Et suyvre le train de ma trasse. PRIORESS. Se vous avez sans fiction Tout vostre temps servi à Dieu Du cueur en sa religion La quelle vous avez vestue Celuy qui tous biens retribue Vous recompenserer loyalment A son vouloir en temps et lieu Bien fait requiert bon payment. FRANCISCAN NUN. Se vos prieres sont bien dignes Elles vous vauldront devant Dieu Rien ne vallent soupirs ne signes Bone operacion tient lieu Femme de grande devocion Cloez voz heures et matines Et cessez contemplacion Car jamais nyres a matines. CHAMBER-MAID. Dictez jeune femme a la cruche Renommée bonne chambriere Respondez au moins quant on huche Sans tenir si rude maniere Vous nirez plus a la riviere Baver au four na la fenestre Cest cy vostre journee derniere Ausy tost meurt servant que maistre. WIDOW. Cest belle chose de tenir Lestat ou on est appellee Et soy tousjours bien maintenir Vertus est tout par tout louee. Femme vesve venez avant Et vous avancez de venir Vous veez les aultres davant Il convient une fois finir. LYING-IN NURSE. Venez ca garde dacouchees Dresse aves maintz bainz perdus Et ses cortines attachees Ou estoient beaux boucques pendus Biens y ont estez despendus Tant de motz ditz que cest ung songe Qui seront cher vendus En la fin tout mal vient en ronge. SHEPHERDESS. Aux camps ni rez plus soir ne matin Veiller brebis ne garder bestes Rien ne sera de vous demain Apres les veilles sont les festes Pas ne vous oublieray derriere Venez apres moy sa la main Entendez plaisante bergiere Ou marcande cy main a main. OLD WOMAN. Et vous madame la gourree Vendu avez maintz surplis Donc de largent est fourree Et en sont voz coffres remplis Apres tous souhaitz acomplis Convient tout laisser et ballier Selon la robe on fait le plis A tel potaige tel cuiller. WITCH. Est condannee comme meurtriere A mourir ne vivra plus gaire Je la maine en son cimitiere Cest belle chose de bien faire Oyez oyez on vous fait scavoir Que ceste vielle sorciere A fait mourir et decepvoir Plusieurs gens en mainte maniere. In the cut of the adoration of the shepherds their names are introduced as follows: Gobin le gay; le beau Roger; Aloris; Ysauber; Alison, and Mahault. The same cut is in two or three other Horæ mentioned in this list. No. VII. "Heures à l'usaige de Rouan. Simon Vostre, 1508, 8vo." With the same Danse Macabre. No. VIII. "Horæ ad usum Romanum. Thielman Kerver," 1508, 8vo. Vellum. With the same Danse Macabre. No. IX. "Hore christofere virginis Marie secundum usum Romanum ad longum absque aliquo recursu, &c." Parisiis. Simon Vostre, 1508, 8vo. M. Peignot has given a very minute description of this volume with a list of the different persons in the Danse Macabre. No. X. "Heures à l'usage de ... Ant. Verard," 1509, 8vo. with the same Danse Macabre. No. XI. "Heures à l'usaige d'Angers. Simon Vostre," 1510, 8vo. With the same Danse Macabre. Particularly described by M. Peignot. No. XII. "Heures à l'usaige de Rome. Guil. Godar," 1510, large 8vo. vellum illuminated. A magnificent book. It contains the Danse Macabre as in No. I. But it is remarkable for a third Dance of Death on the margins at bottom, consisting of small compartments with a single figure, but unaccompanied in the usual manner by Death, who, in various shapes and attitudes, is occasionally introduced. The characters are the following, without the arrangement commonly observed, and here given in the order in which they occur. 1. La Prieuse. 2. La Garde dacouche. 3. L'Abesse. 4. Le Promoteur. 5. Le Conestable. 6. Le Moine, without a label. 7. La Vielle Demoiselle. 8. La Baillive. 9. La Duchesse. 10. Le Sergent. 11. La Nourrice. 12. La femme du Chevallier. 13. La Damoiselle. 14. Le Maistre descole. 15. La Femme du village. 16. La Rescomanderese. 17. La Revenderese. 18. Le Laboureur. 19. La Bourgoise. 20. L'Usurier. 21. Le Pelerin. 22. Le Berger. 23. La Religieuse. 24. L'Home d'armes. 25. La Sorciere. 26. Le Petit enfant. 27. Le Clerc. 28. Le Patriarche. 29. Le Cardinal. 30. L'Empereur. 31. Le Roy. 32. La Marchande. 33. Le Curé. 34. La Theologienne. 35. La Jeune fille. 36. Le Sot. 37. Le Hallebardier. 38. La Pucelle vierge. 39. L'Hermite. 40. L'Escuier. 41. La Chamberiere. 42. La Femme de lescuier. 43. La Cordeliere. 44. La Femme veuve. 45. Le Chartreux. 46. La Royne. 47. La Regente. 48. La Bergere. 49. L'Advocat. 50. L'Espousée. 51. La Femme amoureuse. 52. La Nouvelle Mariee. 53. Le Medecin. Wherever the figure of Death is introduced, he is accompanied with the motto "Amort, amort." No. XIII. "Hore ad usum Romanum. Thielman Kerver," 1511, 8vo. Vellum, with the Danse Macabre. No. XIV. "Heures à l'usage de Langres. Simon Vostre," 1512, 8vo. In the possession of Mons. G. M. Raymond, who has described it in Millin's "Magazin Encyclopédique," 1814, tom. iii. p. 13. Mentioned also by M. Peignot. No. XV. "Heures à l'usage de Paris. Simon Vostre," 1515, 8vo. With the Danse Macabre, and the other mentioned in No. I. No. XVI. "Heures de Nostre Dame à l'usage de Troyes." Th. Englard, pour G. Goderet, vers 1520. Vellum. Described by M. Peignot. No. XVII. "Hore ad usum Romanum. Thielman Kerver," 1526, 8vo. Vellum. A beautiful volume. Prefixed to the Danse Macabre are two prints of the Trois morts et trois vifs. In all the above Horæ the Macaber Dance is represented nearly alike in design, the variations being chiefly in the attitudes of the figures, which are cut on different blocks, except in a few instances where the printers have borrowed the latter from each other. Thus Vostre uses Verard's, and Pigouchet Godar's. The number of the subjects also varies, Vostre and Kerver having more than Verard, Godar, and Pigouchet. Exceptions to the above manner of representing the Macaber Dance, occur in two Horæ of singular rarity, and which are therefore worthy of particular notice. No. XVIII. "Officium beatæ Mariæ Virginis ad usum Romane ecclesie. Impressum Lugduni expensis Bonini de Boninis Dalmatini," die xx martij, 1499, 12mo. On vellum. Here the designs are very different, and three of the subjects are placed at the bottom of the page. They consist of the following personages, there being no females among them. It was reprinted by the same printer in 1521. Papa Astrologus Imperator Cives Cardinales. Canonicus. Archiepiscopus Scutifer Eques Abbas Episcopus. Pretor. Rex Monachus Patriarche Usurarius Capitanus. Medicus. Plebanus Mercator Laborator Certosinus Frater Minor. Nuncius. Amans Puer Advocatus Sacristanus Joculator. Heremita. No. XIX. "Hore beate Marie Virginis ad usum insignis ac preclare ecclesie Sarum cum figuris passionis mysterium representantibus recenter additis. Impresse Parisiis per Johannem Bignon pro honesto viro Richardo Fakes, London, librario, et ibidem commorante cymeterie Sancti Pauli sub signo A. B. C." 1521. A ledger-like 12mo. This Macaber Dance is unfortunately imperfect in the only copy of the book that has occurred. The figures that remain are those of the Pope, King, Cardinal, Patriarch, Judge, Archbishop, Knight, Mayor, and Earl. Under each subject are Lydgate's verses, with some slight variation; and it is therefore very probable that we have here a copy, as to many of the figures, of the Dance that was painted at St. Paul's in compartments like the other Macaber Dance, and not as the group in Dugdale, which has been copied from a wood-cut at the end of Lydgate's "Fall of Prynces." As all the before-mentioned Horæ were printed at Paris, with one exception only, and many of them at a very early period, it is equally probable that they may be copies of the Dance at the Innocents, unless a preference in that respect should be given to the figures in the French editions of the Danse Macabre. Manuscript Horæ, or books of prayers, which contain the Macaber Dance are in the next place deserving of our attention. These are extremely rare, and two only have occurred on the present occasion. 1. A manuscript prayer book of the fifteenth century is very briefly described by M. Peignot,[88] which he states to be the only one that has come to his knowledge. 2. An exquisitely beautiful volume, in large 8vo. bound in brass and velvet. It is a Latin Horæ, elegantly written in Roman type at the beginning of the 16th century. It has a profusion of paintings, every page being decorated with a variety of subjects. These consist of stories from scripture, sports, games, trades, grotesques, &c. &c. the several employments of the months, which have also the signs of the zodiac, are worth describing, there being two sets for each month. January. 1. A man sitting at table, a servant bringing in a dish of viands. The white tablecloth is beautifully diapered. 2. Boys playing at the game called Hockey. February. 1. A man warming himself by a fire, a domestic bringing in faggots. 2. Men and women at table, two women cooking additional food in the same apartment. March. 1. A man pruning trees. 2. A priest confirming a group of people. April. 1. A man hawking. 2. A procession of pilgrims. May. 1. A gentleman and lady on the same horse. 2. Two pairs of lovers: one of the men plays on a flute, the other holds a hawk on his fist. June. 1. A woman shearing sheep. 2. A bridal procession. July. 1. A man with a scythe about to reap. He drinks from his leathern bottle. 2. Boys and girls at the sport called Threading the needle. August. 1. A man reaping with a sickle. 2. Blind man's buff. September. 1. A man sowing. 2. The games of hot cockles and ... October. 1. Making wine. 2. Several men repairing casks, the master of the vineyard directing. November. 1. A man threshing acorns to feed his hogs. 2. Tennis. December. 1. Singeing a hog. 2. Boys pelting each other with snow balls. The side margins have the following Danse Macabre, consisting as usual of two figures only. Papa, Imperator, Cardinalis, Rex, Archiepiscopus, Comestabilis, Patriarcha, Eques auratus, Episcopus, Scutarius, Abbas, Prepositus, Astrologus, Mercator, Cordiger, Satelles, Usurarius, Advocatus, Mimus, Infans, Heremita. The margins at bottom contain a great variety of emblems of mortality. Among these are the following: 1. A man presents a mirror to a lady, in which her face is reflected as a death's head. 2. Death shoots an arrow at a man and woman. 3. A man endeavouring to escape from Death is caught by him. 4. Death transfixes a prostrate warrior with a spear. 5. Two very grotesque Deaths, the one with a scythe, the other with a spade. 6. A group of five Deaths, four dancing a round, the other drumming. 7. Death on a bull, holding a dart in his hand. 8. Death in a cemetery running away with a coffin and pick-axe. 9. Death digging a grave for two shrouded bodies on the ground. 10. Death seizing a fool. 11. Death seizing the master of a family. 12. Death seizing Caillette, a celebrated fool mentioned by Rabelais, Des Periers, &c. He is represented in the French translation of the Ship of Fools. 13. Death seizing a beggar. 14. Death seizing a man playing at tennis. 15. Death striking the miller going to his mill. 16. Death seizing Ragot, a famous beggar in the reign of Louis XII. He is mentioned by Rabelais. This precious volume is in the present writer's possession. Other manuscripts connected with the Macaber Dance are the following: 1. No. 1849, a Colbert MS. in the King of France's library, appears to have been written towards the end of the fifteenth century, and is splendidly illuminated on vellum with figures of men and women led by Death, the designs not much differing from those in Verard's printed copy. 2. Another manuscript in the same library, formerly No. 543 in that of Saint Victor, is at the end of a small volume of miscellanies written on paper about the year 1520; the text resembles that of the immediately preceding article, and occasionally varies from the printed editions. It has no illuminations. These are the only manuscript Macaber Dances in the royal library at Paris. 3. A manuscript of the Dance of Death, in German, is in the library of Munich. See Dr. Dibdin's bibliographical Tour, vol. iii. 278; and Vonder Hagen's history of German poetry. Berlin, 1812, 8vo. p. 459. The date of 1450 is given to this manuscript on the authority of Docen in his Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 148, and new Literary Advertizer for 1806, No. 22, p. 348. Vonder Hagen also states that Docen has printed it in his Miscellanies, p. 349-52, and 412-16. 4. A manuscript in the Vatican, No. 314. See Vonder Hagen, ubi supra, who refers to Adelung, vol. ii. p. 317-18, where the beginning and other extracts are given. 5. In the Duke de la Valliere's catal. No. 2801, is "La Danse Macabre par personnages, in 4to. Sur papier du xv siecle, contenant 12 feuillets." In the course of this enquiry no manuscript, decorated with a regular series of a Dance of Death, has been discovered. The Abbé Rive left, in manuscript, a bibliography of all the editions of the Macaber Dance, which is at present, with other manuscripts by the Abbé, in the hands of M. Achard, a bookseller at Marseilles. See Peignot, Diction. de Bibliologie, iii. 284. The following articles, accompanied by letter-press, and distinguishable from single prints, appear to relate to the Macaber Dance. 1. The Dance and song of Death is among books licensed to John Awdeley.[89] 2. "The roll of the Daunce of Death, with pictures and verses upon the same," was entered on the Stationers' books, 5th Jan. 1597, by Thomas Purfort, sen. and jun. The price was 6_d._ This, as well as that licensed to Awdeley, was in all probability the Dance at St. Paul's. 3. "Der Todten Tantz au Hertzog Georgens zu Sachsen schloss zu Dresden befindlich." _i. e._ "Here is found the Dance of Death on the Saxon palace of Duke George at Dresden." It consists of twenty-seven characters, as follow: 1. Death leading the way; in his right hand he holds a drinking glass or cup, and in his left a trumpet which he is blowing. 2. Pope. 3. Cardinal. 4. Abbot. 5. Bishop. 6. Canon. 7. Priest. 8. Monk. 9. Death beating a drum with bones. 10. Emperor. 11. King. 12. Duke. 13. Nobleman. 14. Knight. 15. Gentleman. 16. Judge. 17. Notary. 18. Soldier. 19. Peasant. 20. Beggar. 21. Abbess. 22. Duchess. 23. Old woman. 24. Old man. 25. Child. 26. Old beggar. 27. Death with a scythe. This is a single print in the Chronicle of Dresden, by Antony Wecken, Dresden, 1680, folio, already mentioned in p. 44. 4. In the catalogue of the library of R. Smith, which was sold by auction in 1682, is this article "Dance of Death, in the cloyster of Paul's, with figures, very old." It was sold for six shillings to Mr. Mearne. 5. A sort of Macaber Dance, in a Swiss almanack, consisting of eight subjects, and intitled "Ein Stuck aus dem Todten tantz," or, "a piece of a Dance of Death:" engraved on wood by Zimmerman with great spirit, after some very excellent designs. They are accompanied with dialogues between Death and the respective characters. 1. The Postilion on horseback. Death in a huge pair of jack-boots, seizes him by the arm with a view to unhorse him. 2. The Tinker. Death, with a skillet on his head, plunders the tinker's basket. 3. The Hussar on horseback, accompanied by Death, also mounted, and, like his comrade, wearing an enormous hat with a feather. 4. The Physician. Death habited as a modern beau, with chapeau-bras, brings his urinal to the Doctor for inspection. 5. The fraudulent Innkeeper in the act of adulterating a cask of liquor is seized and throttled by a very grotesque Death in the habit of an alewife, with a vessel at her back. 6. The Ploughman, holding his implements of husbandry, is seized by Death, who sits on a plough and carries a scythe in his left hand. 7. The Grave-digger, is pulled by Death into the grave which he has just completed. 8. The lame Messenger, led by Death. The size of the print 11 by 6-1/2 inches. 6. Papillon states that Le Blond, an artist, then living at Orleans, engraved the Macaber Dance on wood for the Dominotiers, or venders of coloured prints for the common people, and that the sheets, when put together, form a square of three feet, and have verses underneath each figure.[90] CHAPTER VI. _Hans Holbein's connexion with the Dance of Death.--A dance of peasants at Basle.--Lyons edition of the Dance of Death, 1538.--Doubts as to any prior edition.--Dedication to the edition of 1538.--Mr. Ottley's opinion of it examined.--Artists supposed to have been connected with this work.--Holbein's name in none of the old editions.--Reperdius._ The name of Holbein has been so strongly interwoven with the Dance of Death that the latter is seldom mentioned without bringing to recollection that extraordinary artist. It would be a great waste of time and words to dwell specifically on the numerous errors of such writers as Papillon, Fournier, and several others, who have inadvertently connected Holbein with the Macaber Dance, or to correct those of travellers who have spoken of the subject as it appeared in any shape in the city of Basle. The opinions of those who have either supposed or stated that Holbein even retouched or repaired the old painting at Basle, are entitled to no credit whatever, unaccompanied as they are by necessary proofs. The names of the artists who were employed on that painting have been already adverted to, and are sufficiently detailed in the volumes of Merian and Peignot; and it is therefore unnecessary to repeat them. Evidence, but of a very slight and unsatisfactory nature, has been adduced that Holbein painted some kind of a Death's Dance on the walls of a house at Basle. Whether this was only a copy of the old Macaber subject, or some other of his own invention, cannot now be ascertained. Bishop Burnet, in his letters from Switzerland,[91] states that "there is a _Dance_ which he painted on the walls of a house where he used to drink; yet so worn out that very little is now to be seen, except _shapes and postures_, but these shew the exquisiteness of the hand." It is much to be regretted that this painting was not in a state to have enabled the bishop to have been more particular in his description. He then mentions the older Dance, which he places "along the side of the convent of the Augustinians (meaning the Dominicans), now the French church, so worn out some time ago that they ordered the best painter they had to lay new colour on it, but this is so ill done, that one had rather see the dark shadow of Holbein's pencil than this coarse work." Here he speaks obscurely, and adopts the error that Holbein had some hand in it. Keysler, a man of considerable learning and ingenuity, and the author of a very excellent book of travels, mentions the old painting at Basle, and adds, that "Holbein had also drawn and painted a Death's Dance, and had likewise painted, as it were, a _duplicate_ of this piece on another house, but which time has entirely obliterated."[92] We are here again left entirely in the dark as to the first mentioned painting, and its difference from the other. Charles Patin, an earlier authority than the two preceding travellers, and who was at Basle in 1671, informs us that strangers behold, with a considerable degree of pleasure, the walls of a house at the corner of a little street in the above town, which are covered from top to bottom with paintings by Holbein, that would have done honour to the commands of a great prince, whilst they are, in fact, nothing more than the painter's reward to the master of a tavern for some meals that he had obtained.[93] In the list of Holbein's works, in his edition of Erasmus's Moriæ encomion, he likewise mentions the painting on a house in the Eisengassen, or Iron-street, near the Rhine bridge, and for which he is said to have received forty florins,[94] perhaps the same as that mentioned in his travels. This painting was still remaining in the year 1730, when Mr. Breval saw it, and described it as a _dance of boors_, but in his opinion unworthy, as well as the Dance of Death in that city, of Holbein's hand.[95] These accounts of the paintings on houses are very obscure and contradictory, and the only way to reconcile them is by concluding that Holbein might have decorated the walls of some houses with a Dance of Death, and of others with a dance of peasants.[96] The latter subject would indeed be very much to the taste of an inn-keeper, and the nature of his occupation. Some of the writers on engraving have manifested their usual inaccuracy on the subject of Holbein's Dance of Peasants. Joubert says it has been engraved, but that it is "a peu près introuvable."[97] Huber likewise makes them extremely rare, and adds, without the slightest authority, that Holbein engraved them.[98] There is, however, no doubt that his beautiful pencil was employed on this subject in various ways, of which the following specimens are worthy of being recorded. 1. In a set of initial letters frequently used in books printed at Basle and elsewhere. 2. In an edition of Plutarch's works, printed by Cratander at Basle, 1530, folio, and afterwards introduced into Polydore Vergil's "Anglicæ historiæ libri viginti sex," printed at Basle, 1540, in folio, where, on p. 3 at bottom, the subject is very elegantly treated. It occurs also, in other books printed in the same city. 3. In an edition of the "Nugæ" of Nicolas Borbonius, Basle, 1540, 12mo. at p. 17, there is a dance of peasants replete with humour: and, 4. A vignette in the first page of an edition of Apicius, printed at Basle, 1541, 4to. without the printer's name. After all, there seems to be a fatality of ambiguity in the account of the Basle paintings ascribed to Holbein; and that of the Dance of Death has not only been placed by several writers on the walls, inside and outside, of houses, but likewise in the fish-market; on the walls of the church-yard of St. Peter; and even in the cathedral itself of Basle; and, therefore, amidst this chaos of description, it is absolutely impossible to arrive at any conclusion that can be deemed in any degree satisfactory. We are now to enter upon the investigation of a work which has been somewhat erroneously denominated a "Dance of Death," by most of the writers who have mentioned it. Such a title, however, is not to be found in any of its numerous editions. It is certainly not a dance, but rather, with slight exception, a series of admirable groups of persons of various characters, among whom Death is appropriately introduced as an emblem of man's mortality. It is of equal celebrity with the Macaber Dance, but in design and execution of considerable superiority, and with which the name of Hans Holbein has been so intimately connected, and that great painter so generally considered as its inventor, that even to doubt his claim to it will seem quite heretical to those who may have founded their opinion on internal evidence with respect to his style of composition. In the year 1538 there appeared a work with the following title, "Les simulachres et historiees faces de la mort, autant elegamment pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées." A Lyon Soubz lescu de Coloigne, 4to. and at the end, "Excudebant Lugduni Melchior et Gaspar Trechsel fratres, 1538." It has forty-one cuts, most exquisitely designed and engraved on wood, in a manner which several modern artists only of England and Germany have been competent to rival. As to the designs of these truly elegant prints, no one who is at all skilled in the knowledge of Holbein's style and manner of grouping his figures, would hesitate immediately to ascribe them to that artist. Some persons have imagined that they had actually discovered the portrait of Holbein in the subject of the nun and her lover; but the painter, whoever he may have been, is more likely to be represented in the last cut as one of the supporters of the escutcheon of Death. In these designs, which are wholly different from the dull and oftentimes disgusting Macaber Dance, which is confined, with little exception, to two figures only, we have the most interesting assemblage of characters, among whom the skeletonized Death, with all the animation of a living person, forms the most important personage; sometimes amusingly ludicrous, occasionally mischievous, but always busy and characteristically occupied. Doubts have arisen whether the above can be regarded as the first edition of these justly celebrated engravings in the form of a volume accompanied with text. In the "Notices sur les graveurs," Besançon, 1807, 8vo. a work ascribed to M. Malpé,[99] it is stated to have been originally published at Basle in 1530; and in M. Jansen's "Essai sur l'origine de la gravure," &c. Paris, 1808, 8vo. a work replete with plagiarisms, and the most glaring mistakes, the same assertion is repeated. This writer adds, but unsupported by any authority, that soon afterwards another edition appeared with Flemish verses. Both these authors, following their blind leader Papillon, have not ventured to state that they ever saw this supposed edition of 1530, and it may indeed be asked, who has? Or in what catalogue of any library is it recorded? Malpé acknowledges that the earliest edition he had seen was that of 1538. M. Fuseli, in his edition of Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters, has appended a note to the article for Hans Holbein, where, alluding perhaps to the former edition of the present dissertation, he remarks, that "Holbein's title to the Dance of Death would not have been called in question, had the ingenious author of the dissertation on that subject been acquainted with the German edition." This gentleman seems, however, to have inadvertently forgotten a former opinion which he had given in one of his lectures, where he says, "The scrupulous precision, the high finish, and the Titianesque colour of Hans Holbein would make the least part of his excellence, if his right to that series of emblematic groups known under the name of Holbein's Dance of Death had not, of late, been too successfully disputed." M. Fuseli would have rendered some service to this question by favouring us with an explicit account of the above German edition, if he really intended by it a complete work; but it is most likely that he adverted to some separate impressions of the cuts with printed inscriptions on them, but which are only the titles of the respective characters or subjects. To such impressions M. Malpé has certainly referred, adding that they have, at top, passages from the Bible in German, and verses at bottom in the same language. Jansen follows him as to the verses at bottom only. Now, on forty-one of these separate impressions, in the collection of the accurate and laborious author of the best work on the origin and early history of engraving that has ever appeared, and on several others in the present writer's possession, neither texts of scripture, nor verses at bottom, are to be found, and nothing more than the above-mentioned German titles of the characters. M. Huber, in his "Manuel des curieux et des amateurs de l'art," vol. i. p. 155, after inaccurately stating that Holbein _engraved_ these cuts, proceeds to observe, that in order to form a proper judgment of their merit, it is necessary to see the earliest impressions, printed on one side only of the paper; and refers to twenty-one of them in the cabinet of M. Otto, of Leipsig, but without stating any letter-press as belonging to them, or regarding them as a part of any German edition of the work. In the public library of Basle there are proof impressions, on four leaves, of all the cuts which had appeared in the edition of 1538, except that of the astrologer. Over each is the name of the subject printed in German, and without any verses or letter-press whatever at bottom. It is here necessary to mention that the first known edition in which these cuts were used, namely, that of 1538, was accompanied with French verses, descriptive of the subjects. In an edition that soon afterwards appeared, these French verses were translated into Latin by George Æmylius, a _German_ divine; and in another edition, published at Basle, in 1554, the Latin verses were continued. In both these cases, had there been any former _German verses_, would they not have been retained in preference? There is a passage, however, in Gesner's Pandectæ, a supplemental volume of great rarity to his well-known Bibliotheca, that slightly adverts to a German edition of this work, and at the same time connects Holbein's name with it. It is as follows: "Imagines mortis expressæ ab optimo pictore Johanne Holbein cum epigrammatibus Geo. Æmylii, excusæ Francofurti et Lugduni apud Frellonios, quorum editio plures habet picturas. Vidi etiam cum metris Gallicis et _Germanicis si bene memini_."[100] But Gesner writes from imperfect recollection only, and specifies no edition in German. It is most probable that he refers to an early copy of the cuts on a larger scale with a good deal of text in German, and printed and perhaps engraved by Jobst Denecker, at Augsburg, 1544, small folio. The forty-one separate impressions of the cuts in the collection of Mr. Ottley, as well as those in the present writer's possession, are printed on one side of the paper only, another argument that they were not intended to be used in any book; and although they are extremely clear and distinct, many of them that were afterwards used in the various editions of the book are not less brilliant in appearance. It is well known to those who are conversant with engravings on wood, that the earliest impressions are not always the best; a great deal depending on the care and skill with which they were taken from the blocks, and not a little on the quality of the paper. As they were most likely engraved at Basle by an excellent artist, of whom more will be said hereafter, and at the instance of the Lyons booksellers or publishers, it is very probable that a few impressions would be taken off with German titles only for the use of the people of Basle, or other persons using the German language. Proofs might also be wanted for the accommodation of amateurs or other curious persons, and therefore it would be only necessary to print the names or titles of the subjects. This conjecture derives additional support from the well-known literary intercourse between the cities of Lyons and Basle, and from their small distance from each other. On the whole, therefore, the Lyons edition of 1538 may be safely regarded as the earliest, until some other shall make its appearance with a well ascertained prior date, either in German or any other language. In the edition of 1538 there is a dedication, not in any of the others, and of very considerable importance. It is a pious, quaint, and jingling address to Jeanne de Touszele, Abbess of the convent of St. Peter, at Lyons, in which the author, whose name is obscurely stated to be Ouzele, compliments the good lady as the pattern of true religion, from her intimate acquaintance with the nature of Death, rushing, as it were, into his hands, by her entrance into the sepulchre of a cloister. He enlarges on the various modes of representing the mortality of human nature, and contends that the image of Death has nothing terrific in the eyes of the Christian. He maintains that there is no better method of depicting mortality than by a dead person, especially by those images which so frequently occur on sepulchral monuments. Adverting then to the figures in the present work he _regrets the death of him who has here conceived [imaginé] such elegant designs, greatly exceeding all other patterns of the kind, in like manner as the paintings of Apelles and Zeuxis have surpassed those of modern times_. He observes that these funereal histories, accompanied by their grave descriptions in rhyme, induce the admiring spectators to behold the dead as alive, and the living as dead; which leads him to believe that Death, apprehensive lest this admirable _painter_ should exhibit him so lively that he would no longer be feared as Death, and that he should thereby become immortal himself, had hastened his days to an end, and thus prevented him from completing many other figures, which _he_ had already _designed_, especially that of the carman crushed and wounded beneath his demolished waggon, the wheels and horses of which are so frightfully overthrown that as much horror is excited in beholding their downfall, as pleasure in contemplating the lickerishness of one of the Deaths, who is clandestinely sucking with a reed the wine in a bursting cask.[101] That in these imperfect subjects no one had dared to put the finishing hand, on account of the boldness of their outline, shadow, and perspective, _delineated_ in so graceful a manner, that by its contemplation one might indulge either in a joyful sorrow, or a melancholy pleasure. "Let antiquaries then," says he, "and lovers of ancient imagery discover any thing comparable to these figures of Death, in which we behold the Empress of all living souls from the creation, trampling over Cæsars, Emperors, and Kings, and with her scythe mowing down the tyrannical heroes of the earth." He concludes with admonishing the Abbess to take in good part this his sad but salutary present, and to persuade her devout nuns not only to keep it in their cells and dormitories, but in the cabinet of their memory, therein pursuing the counsel of St. Jerom, &c. The singularity of this curious and interesting dedication is deserving of the utmost attention. It seems very strongly, if not decisively, to point out the edition to which it is prefixed, as the first; and what is of still more importance, to deprive Holbein of any claim to the _invention_ of the work. It most certainly uses such terms of art as can scarcely be mistaken as conveying any other sense than that of _originality in design_. There cannot be words of plainer import than those which describe the painter, as he is expressly called, _delineating_ the subjects, and leaving several of them unfinished: and whoever the artist might have been, it clearly appears that he was not living in 1538. Now it is well known that Holbein's death did not take place before the year 1554, during the plague which ravaged London at that time. If then the expressions used in this dedication signify any thing, it may surely be asked what becomes of any claim on the part of Holbein to the designs of the work in question, or does it not _at least_ remain in a situation of doubt and difficulty? It is, however, with no small hesitation that the author of the present dissertation still ventures to dispute, and even to deny, the title of Holbein to the invention of this Dance of Death, in opposition to his excellent and valuable friend Mr. Ottley, whose opinion in matters of taste, as well as on the styles of the different masters in the old schools of painting and engraving may be justly pronounced to be almost oracular. This gentleman has thus expressed himself: "It cannot be denied that were there nothing to oppose to this passage, it would seem to constitute very strong evidence that Holbein, who did not die until the year 1554, was not the author of the designs in question; but I am firmly persuaded that it refers in reality, not to the designer, but to the artist who had been employed, under his direction, to engrave the designs in wood, and whose name, there appears reason to believe, was Hans Lutzenberger.[102] Holbein, I am of opinion, had, shortly before the year 1538, sold the forty-one blocks which had been some time previously executed, to the booksellers of Lyons, and had at the same time given him a promise of others which he had lately designed, as a continuation of the series, and were then in the hands of the wood-engraver. The wood-engraver, I suppose, died before he had completed his task, and the correspondent of the bookseller, who had probably deferred his publication in expectation of the new blocks, wrote from Basle to Lyons to inform his friend of the disappointment occasioned by the artist's death. It is probable that this information was not given very circumstantially, as to the real cause of the delay, and that the person who wrote the dedication of the book might have believed the designer and engraver to be one and the same person: it is still more probable that he thought the distinction of little consequence to his reader, and willingly omitted to go into details which would have rendered his quaint moralizing in the above passage less admissible. Besides, the additional cuts there spoken of (eight cuts of the Dance of Death and four of boys) were afterwards finished (doubtless by another wood-engraver, who had been brought up under the eye of Holbein), and are not apparently inferior, whether in respect of design or execution to the others. In short, these designs have always been ascribed to Holbein, and designedly ranked amongst his finest works."[103] Mr. Ottley having admitted that the edition of the Dance of Death, printed in quarto, at Lyons, 1538, is the earliest with which we are at present acquainted, proceeds to state his belief that the cuts had been previously and _certainly_ used at Basle. He then alludes to the supposed German edition, about the year 1530, but acknowledges that he had not been able to meet with or hear of any person who had seen it. He next introduces to his reader's notice, and afterwards describes at large, a set of forty-one impressions, being the complete series of the edition of 1538, except one, and taken off with the greatest clearness and brilliancy of effect, on one side of the paper only, each cut having over it its title printed in the German language, with moveable type. He thinks it possible that they may originally have had German verses underneath, and texts of Scripture above, in addition to the titles; a fact, he adds, not now to be ascertained, as the margins are clipped on the sides and at bottom. He says, it is greatly to be regretted that the blocks were never taken off with due diligence and good printing ink, after they got into the hands of the Lyons booksellers, and then introduces into his page two fac-similes of these cuts so admirably copied as to be almost undistinguishable from the originals.[104] One may, indeed, regret with Mr. Ottley the _general carelessness_ of the old printers in their mode of taking off impressions from blocks of wood when introducing them into their books, and which is so very unequally practised that, as already observed, the impressions are often clearer and more distinct in later than in preceding editions. The works of the old designers and engravers would, in many cases, have been much more highly appreciated, if they had had the same justice done to them by the printers as the editorial taste and judgment of Mr. Ottley, combined with the skill of the workmen, have obtained in the decoration of his own book. With respect to the impressions of the cuts in question, when the blocks were in the hands of the Lyons booksellers, the fact is, that in some of their editions they are occasionally as fine as those separately printed off; and at the moment of making this remark, an edition, published in 1547, at Lyons, is before the writer, in which many of the prints are uncommonly clear and even brilliant, a circumstance owing, in a great degree, to the nature of the paper on which they are impressed. It were almost to be wished that this perplexing evidence against Holbein's title to the invention of the work before us had never existed, and that he had consequently been left in the quiet possession of what so well accords with his exquisite pencil and extraordinary talents. True it is, that the person to whom we owe this stubborn testimony, has manifested a much more intimate acquaintance with the mode of conveying his pious ejaculations to the Lady Abbess in the quaintest language that could possibly have been chosen, than with the art of giving an accurate account of the prints in question. Yet it seems scarcely possible that he should have used the word _imagined_, which undoubtedly expresses originality of invention, and not the mere act of copying, if he had referred to an engraver on wood, whom he would not have dignified with the appellation of a painter on whom he was bestowing the highest possible eulogium. There would also have been much less occasion for the author's hyperbolical fears on the part of Death in the case of an engraver, than in that of a painter. He has stated that the rainbow subject, meaning probably that of the Last Judgment, was left unfinished; but it appears among the engravings in his edition. He must, therefore, have referred to a painting, with which likewise the expression "bold shadows and perspective," seem better to accord than with a slight engraving on wood. He had also seen the subject of the waggon with the wine casks in its unfinished state, and in this case we may almost with certainty pronounce it to have been a painting, as the cut of it does not appear in the first edition, furnishing, at the same time, an argument against Holbein's claim; nor may it be unimportant to add that the dedicator, a religious person, and probably a man of some eminence, was much more likely to have been acquainted with the painter than with the engraver. The dedicator also stamps the work as originating at Lyons; and Frellon, its printer, in a complaint against a Venetian bookseller, who pirated his edition, emphatically describes it as exclusively belonging to France. Again, it is improbable that the dedicator, whoever he was, should have preferred complimenting the engraver of the cuts, who, with all his consummate skill, must, in point of rank and genius, be placed below the painter or designer; and it is at the same time remarkable that the name of Holbein is not adverted to in any of the early and genuine editions of the work, published at Lyons, or any other place, whilst his designs for the Bible have there been so pointedly noticed by his friend the poet Borbonius. It would be of some importance, if it could be shown, that the engraver was dead in or before the year 1538, for that circumstance would contribute to strengthen Mr. Ottley's opinion: but should it be found that he did not die in or before 1538, it would follow, of course, that the painter was the person adverted to in the dedication, and who consequently could not be Holbein. It becomes necessary, therefore, to endeavour at least to discover some other artist competent to the invention of the beautiful designs in question; and whether the attempt be successful or otherwise, it may, perhaps, be not altogether misplaced or unprofitable. It must be recollected that Francis the First, on returning from his captivity at Pavia, imported with him a great many Italian and other artists, among whom were Lionardo da Vinci, Rosso, Primaticcio, &c. He is also known to have visited Lyons, a royal city at that time eminent in art of every kind, and especially in those of printing and engraving on wood; as the many beautiful volumes published at that place, and embellished with the most elegant decorations in the graphic art, will at this moment sufficiently testify. In an edition of the "Nugæ" of Nicolas Borbonius, the friend of Holbein, printed at Lyons, 1538, 8vo. are the following lines: _De Hanso Ulbio, et Georgio Reperdio, pictoribus._ Videre qui vult Parrhasium cum Zeuxide, Accersat à Britannia Hansum Ulbium, et Georgium _Reperdium_. _Lugduno_ ab urbe Galliæ. In these verses Reperdius is opposed to Holbein for the excellence of his art, in like manner as Parrhasius had been considered as the rival of Zeuxis. After such an eulogium it is greatly to be regretted that notwithstanding a very diligent enquiry has been made concerning an artist, who, by the poet's comparative view of him, is placed on the same footing with Holbein, and probably of the same school of painting, no particulars of his life or works have been discovered. It is clear from Borbonius's lines that he was then living at Lyons, and it is extremely probable that he might have begun the work in question, and have died before he could complete it, and that the Lyons publishers might afterwards have employed Holbein to finish what was left undone, as well as to make designs for additional subjects which appeared in the subsequent editions. Thus would Holbein be so connected with the work as to obtain in future such notice as would constitute him by general report the real inventor of it. If then there be any validity in what is here stated concerning Reperdius, the difficulty and obscurity in the preface to the Lyons edition of the Dance of Death in 1538 will be removed, and Holbein remain in possession of a share at least in the composition of that inestimable work. The mark or monogram [monogram: HL] on one of the cuts cannot possibly belong to Holbein, but may possibly be that of the engraver, of whom more hereafter. CHAPTER VII. _Holbein's Bible cuts.--Examination of the claim of Hans Lutzenberger as to the design or execution of the Lyons engravings of the Dance of Death.--Other works by him._ At this time the celebrated designs for the illustration of the Old Testament, usually denominated Holbein's Bible, made their appearance, with the following title, "Historiarum veteris instrumenti icones ad vivum expressæ. Una cum brevi, sed quoad fieri potuit, dilucida earundem expositione. Lugduni, sub scuto Coloniensi MDXXXVIII." 4to. They were several times republished with varied titles, and two additional cuts. Prefixed are some highly complimentary Latin verses by Holbein's friend Nicholas Bourbon, better known by his Latinized name of Borbonius, who again introduces Parrhasius and Zeuxis in Elysium, and in conversation with Apelles, who laments that they had all been excelled by Holbein. These lines by Borbonius do not appear, among others addressed by him to Holbein, in the first edition of his "Nugæ" in 1533, or indeed in any of the subsequent editions; but it is certain that Borbonius was at Lyons in 1538, and might then have been called on by the publishers of the designs, with whom he was intimately connected, for the commendatory verses. The booksellers Frellon of Lyons, by some means with which we are not now acquainted, or indeed ever likely to be, became possessed of the copyright to these designs for the Old Testament. It is very clear that they had previously been in possession of those for the Dance of Death, and, finding the first four of them equally adapted to a Bible, they accordingly, and for the purpose of saving expense, made use of them in this Bible, though with different descriptions, having, in all probability, employed the same engraver on wood as in the Dance of Death, a task to which he had already demonstrated himself to be fully competent. Now, if the Frellons had regarded Holbein as the designer of the "Simulachres et historiees faces de la Mort," would they not rather have introduced into that work the complimentary lines of Borbonius on _some_ painting by Holbein of a Dance of Death, and which will be hereafter more particularly adverted to, instead of inserting the very interesting and decisive dedication that has so emphatically referred to the then deceased painter of the above admirable composition? Nor is it by any means a matter of certainty that Holbein was the designer of _all_ the wood engravings belonging to the Bible in question. Whoever may take the pains to examine these biblical subjects with a strict and critical eye, will not only discover a very great difference in the style and drawing of them, but likewise a striking resemblance, in that respect, of several of them to those in the Dance of Death, as well as in the manner of engraving. The rest are in a bolder and broader style, in a careless but effective manner, corresponding altogether with such designs as are well ascertained to be Holbein's, and of which it would be impossible to produce a single one, that in point of delicacy of outline, or composition, accords with those in the Dance;[105] and the judgment of those who are best acquainted with the works of Holbein is appealed to on this occasion. It is, besides, extremely probable that the anonymous painter or designer of the Dance might have been employed also by the Frellons to execute a set of subjects for the Bible previously to his Death, and that Holbein was afterwards engaged to complete the work. A comparison of the 8th subject in the "Simulachres, &c." with that in the Bible for Esther I. II. where the canopy ornamented with fleurs-de-lis is the same in both, will contribute to strengthen the above conjecture, as will both the cuts to demonstrate their Gallic origin. It is most certain that the king sitting at table in the Simulachres is intended for Francis I. which, if any one should doubt, let him look upon the miniature of that king, copied at p. 214 in Clarke's "Repertorium bibliographicum," from a drawing in a French MS. belonging to M. Beckford, or at a wood-cut in fo. xcxix b. of "L'histoire de Primaleon de Grece." Paris, 1550, folio, where the art in the latter will be found to resemble very much that in the "Simulachres." The portraits also of Francis by Thomas De Leu, Boissevin, and particularly that in the portraits of illustrious men edited by Beza at Geneva, may be mentioned for the like purpose. The admission in the course of the preceding remarks that Holbein might have been employed in some of the additional cuts that appeared in the editions of the Lyons Dance of Death which followed that of 1538, may seem at variance with what has been advanced with respect to the Bible cuts ascribed to him. It is, however, by no means a matter of necessity that an artist with Holbein's talents should have been resorted to for the purpose of designing the additional cuts to the Lyons work. There were, during the middle of the 16th century, several artists equally competent to the undertaking, both as to invention and execution, as is demonstrable, among numerous other instances, from the spurious, but beautiful, Italian copy of the original cuts; from the scarcely distinguishable copies of the Lyons Bible cuts in an edition put forth by John Stelsius at Antwerp, 1561, and from the works of several artists, both designers and wood-engravers, in the books published by the French, Flemish, and Italian booksellers at that period. An interesting catalogue raisonnè might be constructed, though with some difficulty, of such articles as were decorated with most exquisite and interesting embellishments. The above century was much richer in this respect than any one that succeeded it, displaying specimens of art that have only been rivalled, perhaps never outdone, by the very skilful engravers on wood of modern times. Our attention will, in the next place, be required to the excellent _engraver_ of the Dance of Death, the thirty-sixth cut of which represents the Duchess sitting up in bed, and accompanied with two figures of Death, one of which plays on a violin, whilst the other drags away the bed-clothes. On the base of one of the bed-posts is the mark or monogram [monogram: HL] which has, among other artists, been inconsiderately ascribed to Holbein. That it was intended to express the name of the designer cannot be supported by evidence of any kind. We must then seek for its meaning as belonging to the engraver, and whose name was, in all probability, Hans Leuczellberger or Lutzenberger, sometimes called Franck. M. de Mechel, the celebrated printseller and engraver at Basle, addressed a letter to M. de Murr, in which he states that on a proof sheet of an alphabet in the library in that city, containing several small figures of a Dance of Death, he had found the above name. M. Brulliot remarks that he had seen some of the letters of this alphabet, but had not perceived on them either the name of Lutzenberger, or the mark [monogram: HL];[106] but M. de Mechel has not said that the _mark_ was on the proof sheet, or on the letters themselves, but only the name of Lutzenberger, adding that the [monogram: HL] on the cut of the Duchess will throw some light on the matter, and that Holbein, although this monogram has been usually ascribed to him, never expressed his name by it, but used for that purpose an [monogram: H] joined to a [monogram: B]; in which latter assertion M. de Mechel was by no means correct. On another alphabet of a Dance of Peasants, in the possession of the writer of these pages, and undoubtedly by the same artists, M. de Mechel, to whom it was shown when in England, has written in pencil, the following memorandum: "[monogram: HL] gravè par Hans (John) Lutzenberger, graveur en patrons à Basle, vivant là au commencement du 16me siecle;" but he has inadvertently transferred the remark to the wrong alphabet, though both were undoubtedly the work of the same artist, as well as a third alphabet, equally beautiful, of groups of children. The late Pietro Zani, whose intimate experience in whatever relates to the art of engraving, together with the vast number of prints that had passed under his observation, must entitle his opinions to the highest consideration, has stated, in more places than one in his "Enciclopedia Metodica," that Holbein had no concern with the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death, the engraving of which he decidedly ascribes to Hans Lutzenberger; and, without any reference to the inscription on the proof of one of the alphabets in the library at Basle before-mentioned, which he had probably neither seen nor heard of, mentions the copy of one of the alphabets which he had seen at Dresden, and at once consigns it to Lutzenberger. He promises to resume the subject at large in some future part of his immense work, which, if existing, has not yet made its appearance. As the prints by this fine engraver are very few in number, and extremely rare, the following list of them may not be unacceptable. 1. An oblong wood engraving, in length 11 inches by 3-1/2. It represents, on one side, Christ requiring the attention of a group of eight persons, consisting of a monk, a peasant with a flail, a female, &c. to a lighted taper on a candelabrum placed in the middle of the print; on the other side, a group of thirteen or fourteen persons, preceded by one who is looking into a pit in which is the word PLATO. Over his head is inscribed ARISTOTELES; he is followed by a pope, a bishop, monks, &c. &c. 2. Another oblong wood engraving, 6-1/2 inches by 2-1/2, in two compartments, divided by a pillar. In one, the Judgment of Solomon; in the other, Christ and the woman taken in adultery; he writes something on the ground with his finger. It has the date 1539. 3. Another, size as No. 2. An emperor is sitting in a court of justice with several spectators attending some trial. This is doubtful. 4. Another oblong print, 10-1/2 inches by 3, and in two compartments. 1. David prostrate before the Deity in the clouds, accompanied by Manasses and a youth, over whom is inscribed OFFEN SVNDER. 2. A pope on a throne delivering some book, perhaps letters of indulgence, to a kneeling monk. This very beautiful print has been called "The Traffic of Indulgences," and is minutely and correctly described by Jansen.[107] 5. A print, 12 inches by 6, representing a combat in a wood between several naked persons and a troop of peasants armed with instruments of husbandry. Below on the left, the letters [monogram: H =N=]. Annexed are two tablets, one of which is inscribed HANS LEVCZELLBVRGER FVRMSCHNIDER; on the other is an alphabet. Jansen has also mentioned this print.[108] Brulliot describes a copy of it in the cabinet of prints belonging to the King of Bavaria, in which, besides the name, is the date MDXXII.[109] 6. A print of a dagger or knife case, in length 9 inches. At top, a figure inscribed VENVS has a lighted torch in one hand and a horn in the other; she is accompanied by Cupid. In the middle two boys are playing, and at bottom three others standing, one with a helmet. 7. A copy of Albert Durer's decollation of John the Baptist, with the mark [monogram: H L] reversed, is mentioned by Zani as certainly belonging to this artist.[110] In the index of names, he says, he finds his name thus written HANNS LVTZELBVRGER FORMSCHNIDER GENANT (chiamato) FRANCK, and calls him the true prince of engravers on wood. 8. An alphabet with a Dance of Death, the subjects of which, with a few exceptions, are the same as those in the other Dance; the designs, however, occasionally vary. In delicacy of drawing, in strength of character and in skill as to engraving they may be justly pronounced superior to every thing of the kind, and their excellence will probably remain a long time unrivalled. The figures are so small as almost to require the aid of lenses, the size of each letter being only an inch square. Zani had seen and admired this alphabet at Dresden.[111] 9. Another alphabet by the same artists. It is a Dance of Peasants, intermixed with other subjects, some of which are not of the most delicate nature. They are smaller than the letters in the preceding article, and are probably connected in point of design with the Dance of Peasants that Holbein is said to have painted at Basle. 10. Another alphabet, also by the same artists. This is in all respects equal in beauty and merit to the others, and exhibits groups of boys in the most amusing and playful attitudes and employments. The size of the letters is little more than half an inch square. These children much resemble those which Holbein probably added to the later editions of the Lyons engravings.[112] The proofs of the above alphabets, may have been deposited by Lutzenberger in the public library of his native city. Whether they were cut on wood or on metal may admit of a doubt; but there is reason to believe that the old printers and type-cutters occasionally used blocks of metal instead of wood for their figured initial letters, and the term _formschneider_ equally applies to those who engraved in relief on either of those materials. Nothing can exceed the beauty and spirit of the design in these alphabets, nor the extreme delicacy and accurate minuteness of the engraving. The letters in these respective alphabets were intended for the use of printers, and especially those of Basle, as Cratander, Bebelius, and Isingrin. Copies and imitations of them are to be found in many books printed at Zurich, Strasburg, Vienna, Augsburg, Frankfort, &c. and a few even in books printed at London by Waley, Purslowe, Marsh, and Nicholson, particularly in a quarto edition of Coverdale's Bible, if printed in the latter city; and one of them, a capital A, is in an edition of Stowe's Survey of London, 1618, 4to. There is an unfortunate ambiguity connected with the marks that are found on ancient engravings in wood, and it has been a very great error on the part of all the writers who treat on such engravings, in referring the marks that accompany them to the block-cutters, or as the Germans properly denominate them the _formschneiders_, whilst, perhaps, the greatest part of them really belong to the designers, as is undoubtedly the case with respect to Albert Durer, Hans Schaufelin, Jost Amman, Tobias Stimmer, &c. It may be laid down as a rule that there is no certainty as to the marks of engravers, except where they are accompanied with some implement of their art, especially a graving tool. Where the designer of the subject put his mark on the drawing which he made on, or for, the block, the engraver would, of course, copy it. Sometimes the marks of both designer and engraver are found on prints, and in these cases the ambiguity is consequently removed. CHAPTER VIII. _List of several editions of the Lyons work on the Dance of Death, with the mark of Lutzenberger.--Copies of them on wood.--Copies on copper by anonymous artists.--By Wenceslaus Hollar.--Other anonymous artists.--Nieuhoff Picard.--Rusting.--Mechel.--Crozat's drawings.--Deuchar.--Imitations of some of the subjects._ I. "Les Simulachres et historiées faces de la Mort, autant elegamment pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées. A Lyon, Soubz l'escu de Coloigne, MDXXXVIII." At the end "Excudebant Lugduni Melchior et Gaspar Trechsel fratres, 1538," 4to. On this title-page is a cut of a triple-headed figure crowned with wings, on a pedestal, over which a book with [Greek: GNÔTHI SEAUTON]. Below, two serpents and two globes, with "usus me genuit." This has, 1. A dedication to Madame Jehanne de Touszele. 2. Diverses tables de mort, non painctes, mais extraictes de l'escripture saincte, colorées par Docteurs Ecclesiastiques, et umbragées par philosophes. 3. Over each print, passages from scripture, allusive to the subject, in Latin, and at bottom the substance of them in four French verses. 4. Figures de la mort moralement descriptes et depeinctes selon l'authorité de l'scripture, et des Sainctz Peres. 5. Les diverses mors des bons, et des maulvais du viel, et nouveau testament. 6. Des sepultures des justes. 7. Memorables authoritez, et sentences des philosophes, et orateurs Payens pour conformer les vivans à non craindre la mort. 7. De la necessite de la mort qui ne laisse riens estre par durable." With forty-one cuts. This may be safely regarded as the first edition of the work. There is nothing in the title page that indicates any preceding one. II. "Les Simulachres et historiées faces de la mort, contenant la Medecine de l'ame, utile et necessaire non seulement aux malades mais à tous qui sont en bonne disposition corporelle. D'avantage, la forme et maniere de consoler les malades. Sermon de sainct Cecile Cyprian, intitulé de Mortalité. Sermon de S. Jan Chrysostome, pour nous exhorter à patience: traictant aussi de la consommation de ce siecle, et du second advenement de Jesus Christ, de la joye eternelle des justes, de la peine et damnation des mauvais, et autres choses necessaires à un chascun chrestien, pour bien vivre et bien mourir. A Lyon, à l'escu de Coloigne, chez Jan et François Frellon freres," 1542, 12mo. With forty-one cuts. Then a moral epistle to the reader, in French. The descriptions of the cuts in Latin and French as before, and the pieces expressed in the title page. III. "Imagines Mortis. His accesserunt, Epigrammata, è Gallico idiomate à Georgio Æmylio in Latinum translata. Ad hæc, Medicina animæ, tam iis qui firma, quàm qui adversa corporis valetudine præditi sunt, maximè necessaria. Ratio consolandi ob morbi gravitatem periculosè decumbentes. Quæ his addita sunt, sequens pagina commonstrabit. Lugduni, sub scuto Coloniensi, 1545." With the device of the crab and the butterfly. At the end, "Lugduni Excudebant Joannes et Franciscus Frellonii fratres," 1545, 12mo. The whole of the text is in Latin, and translated, except the scriptural passages, from the French, by George Æmylius, as he also states in some verses at the beginning; but several of the mottoes at bottom are different and enlarged. It has forty-two cuts, the additional one, probably not by the former artist, being that of the beggar sitting on the ground before an arched gate: extremely fine, particularly the beggar's head. This subject has no connection with the Dance of Death, and is placed in another part of the volume, though in subsequent editions incorporated with the other prints. The "Medicina animæ" is very different from the French one. There is some reason for supposing that the Frellons had already printed an edition with Æmylius's text in 1542. This person was an eminent German divine of Mansfelt, and the author of many pious works. In the present edition the first cut of the creation exhibits a crack in the block from the top to the bottom, but it had been in that state in 1543, as appears from an impression of it in Holbein's Bible of that date. It is found so in all the subsequent editions of the present work, with the exception of those in Italian of 1549 and in the Bible of 1549, in which the crack appears to have been closed, probably by cramping; but the block again separated afterwards. This edition is of some importance with respect to the question as to the priority of the publication of the work in France or Germany, or, in other words, whether at Lyons or Basle. It is accompanied by some lines addressed to the reader, which begin in the following manner: Accipe jucundo præsentia carmina vultu, Seu Germane legis, sive ea Galle legis: In quibus extremæ qualis sit mortis imago Reddidit imparibus Musa Latina modis _Gallia quæ dederat lepidis epigrammata verbis Teutona convertens est imitata manus._ Da veniam nobis doctissime Galle, videbis Versibus appositis reddita si qua parum. Now, had the work been originally published in the German language, Æmylius, himself a German, would, as already observed, scarcely have preferred a French text for his Latin version. This circumstance furnishes likewise, an argument against the supposed existence of German verses at the bottom of the early impressions of the cuts already mentioned. A copy of this edition, now in the library of the British Museum, was presented to Prince Edward by Dr. William Bill, accompanied with a Latin dedication, dated from Cambridge, 19 July, 1546, wherein he recommends the prince's attention to the figures in the book, in order to remind him that all must die to obtain immortality; and enlarges on the necessity of living well. He concludes with a wish that the Lord will long and happily preserve his life, and that he may finally reign to all eternity with his _most Christian father_. Bill was appointed one of the King's chaplains in ordinary, 1551, and was made the first Dean of Westminster in the reign of Elizabeth. IV. "Imagines Mortis. Duodecim imaginibus præter priores, totidemque inscriptionibus præter epigrammata è Gallicis à Georgio Æmylio in Latinum versa, cumulatæ. Quæ his addita sunt, sequens pagina commonstrabit. Lugduni sub scuto Coloniensi, 1547." With the device of the crab and butterfly. At the end, "Excudebat Joannes Frellonius, 1547," 12mo. This edition has twelve more cuts than those of 1538 and 1542, and eleven more than that of 1545, being, the soldier, the gamblers, the drunkards, the fool, the robber, the blind man, the wine carrier, and four of boys. In all fifty-three. Five of the additional cuts have a single line only in the frames, whilst the others have a double one. All are nearly equal in merit to those which first appeared in 1538. V. "Icones Mortis, Duodecim imaginibus præter priores, totidemque inscriptionibus, præter epigrammata è Gallicis à Georgio Æmylio in Latinum versa, cumulatæ. Quæ his addita sunt, sequens pagina commonstrabit, Lugduni sub scuto Coloniensi, 1547." 12mo. At the end, Excudebat Johannes Frellonius, 1547. This edition contains fifty-three cuts, and is precisely similar to the one described immediately before, except that it is entitled _Icones_, instead of _Imagines_ Mortis. VI. "Les Images de la Mort. Auxquelles sont adjoustées douze figures. Davantage, la medecine de l'ame, la consolation des malades, un sermon de mortalité, par Sainct Cyprian, un sermon de patience, par Sainct Jehan Chrysostome. A Lyon. A l'escu de Cologne, chez Jehan Frellon, 1547." With the device of the crab and butterfly. At the end, "Imprimé a Lyon à l'escu de Coloigne, par Jehan Frellon, 1547. 12mo." The verses at bottom of the cuts the same as in the edition of 1538, with similar ones for the additional. In all, fifty-three cuts. VII. "Simolachri historie, e figure de la morte. La medicina de l'anima. Il modo, e la via di consolar gl'infermi. Un sermone di San Cipriano, de la mortalità. Due orationi, l'un a Dio, e l'altra à Christo. Un sermone di S. Giovan. Chrisostomo, che ci essorta à patienza. Aiuntovi di nuovo molte figure mai piu stampate. In Lyone appresso Giovan Frellone MDXLIX." 12mo. With the device of the crab and butterfly. At the end, the same device on a larger scale in a circle. Fifty-three cuts. The scriptural passages are in Latin. To this edition Frellon has prefixed a preface, in which he complains of a pirated copy of the work in Italian by a printer at Venice, which will be more particularly noticed hereafter. He maintains that the cuts in this spurious edition are far less beautiful than the _French_ ones, and this passage goes very far in aid of the argument that they are not of German origin. Frellon, by way of revenge, and to save the trouble of making a new translation of the articles that compose the volume, makes use of that of his Italian competitor. VIII. "Icones Mortis. Duodecim Imaginibus præter priores, totidemque inscriptionibus, præter epigrammata è Gallicis à Georgio Æmylio in Latinum versa, cumulatæ. Quæ his addita sunt, sequens pagina commonstrabit. Basileæ, 1554. 12mo." With fifty-three cuts. It would not be very easy to account for the absence of the name of the Basle printer. IX. "Les Images de la Mort, auxquelles sont adjoustees dix sept figures. Davantage, la medecine de l'ame. La consolation des malades. Un sermon de mortalité, par Saint Cyprian. Un sermon de patience, par Saint Jehan Chrysostome. A Lyon, par Jehan Frellon, 1562." With the device of the crab and butterfly. At the end, "A Lyon, par Symphorien Barbier," 12mo. This edition has five additional cuts, viz. 1. A group of boys, as a triumphal procession, with military trophies. 2. The bride; the husband plays on a lute, whilst Death leads the wife in tears. 3. The bridegroom led by Death blowing a trumpet. Both these subjects are appropriately described in the verses below. 4. A group of boy warriors, one on horseback with a standard. 5. Another group of boys with drums, horns, and trumpets. These additional cuts are designed and engraved in the same masterly style as the others, but it is now impossible to ascertain the artists who have executed them. From the decorations to several books published at Lyons it is very clear that there were persons in that city capable of the task. Holbein had been dead eight years, after a long residence in London. Du Verdier, in his Bibliothèque Françoise, mentions this edition, and adds that it was translated from the French into Latin, Italian, Spanish, German, and English;[113] a statement that stands greatly in need of confirmation as to the last three languages, but this writer, on too many occasions, deserves but small compliment for his accuracy. X. "Imagines Mortis: item epigrammata è Gall. à G. Æmilio in Latinum versa. Lugdun. Frellonius, 1574." 12mo.[114] XI. In 1654 a Dutch work appeared with the following title, "De Doodt vermaskert met swerelts ydelheyt afghedaen door G. V. Wolsschaten, verciert met de constighe Belden vanden maerden Schilder Hans Holbein. _i. e._ Death masked, with the world's vanity, by G. V. Wolsschaten, ornamented with the ingenious images of the famous painter Hans Holbein. T'Antwerpen, by Petrus Bellerus." This is on an engraved frontispiece of tablet, over which are spread a man's head and the skin of two arms supported by two Deaths blowing trumpets. Below, a spade, a pilgrim's staff, a scepter, and a crosier, with a label, on which is "sceptra ligonibus æquat." Then follows another title-page, with the same words, and the addition of Geeraerdt Van Wolsschaten's designation, "Prevost van sijne conincklijcke Majesteyts Munten des Heertoogdoms van Brabant, &c. MDCLIV." 12mo. The author of the text, which is mixed up with poetry and historical matter, was prefect of the mint in the Duchy of Brabant.[115] This edition contains eighteen cuts, among which the following subjects are from the original blocks. 1. Three boys. 2. The married couple. 3. The pedlar. 4. The shipwreck. 5. The beggar. 6. The corrupt judge. 7. The astrologer. 8. The old man. 9. The physician. 10. The priest with the eucharist. 11. The monk. 12. The abbess. 13. The abbot. 14. The duke. Four others, viz. the child, the emperor, the countess, and the pope, are copies, and very badly engraved. The blocks of the originals appear to have fallen into the hands of an artist, who probably resided at Antwerp, and several of them have his mark, [monogram: SA], concerning which more will be said under one of the ensuing articles. As many engravings on wood by this person appeared in the middle of the sixteenth century, it is probable that he had already used these original blocks in some edition of the Dance of Death that does not seem to have been recorded. There are evident marks of retouching in these cuts, but when they first appeared cannot now be ascertained. The mark might have been placed on them, either to denote ownership, according to the usual practice at that time, or to indicate that they had been repaired by that particular artist. All these editions, except that of 1574, have been seen and carefully examined on the present occasion: the supposed one of 1530 has not been included in this list, and remains to be seen and accurately described, if existing, by competent witnesses. Papillon, in his Traité de la gravure en bois, has given an elaborate, but, as usual with him, a very faulty description of these engravings. He enlarges on the beauty of the last cut with the allegorical coat of arms, and particularly on that of the gentleman whose right hand he states to be placed on its side, whilst it certainly is extended, and touches with the back of it the mantle on which the helmet and shield of arms are placed. He errs likewise in making the female look towards a sort of dog's head, according to him, under the mantle and right hand of her husband, which, he adds, might be taken for the pummell of his sword, and that she fondles this head with her right hand, &c. not one word of which is correct. He says that a good impression of this print would be well worth a Louis d'or to an amateur. He appears to have been in possession of the block belonging to the subject of the lovers preceded by Death with a drum; but it had been spoiled by the stroke of a plane. COPIES OF THE ABOVE DESIGNS, AND ENGRAVED ALSO ON WOOD. I. At the head of these, in point of merit, must be placed the Italian spurious edition mentioned in No. VII. of the preceding list. It is entitled "Simolachri historie, e figure de la morte, ove si contiene la medicina de l'anima utile e necessaria, non solo à gli ammalati, ma tutte i sani. Et appresso, il modo, e la via di consolar gl'infermi. Un sermone di S. Cipriano, de la mortalità. Due orationi, l'una a Dio, e l'altra à Christo da dire appresso l'ammalato oppresso da grave infermitá. Un sermone di S. Giovan Chrisostomo, che ci essorta à patienza; e che tratta de la consumatione del secolo presente, e del secondo avenimento di Jesu Christo, de la eterna felicita de giusti, de la pena e dannatione de rei; et altre cose necessarie à ciascun Christiano, per ben vivere, e ben morire. Con gratia e privilegio de l'illustriss. Senato Vinitiano, per anni dieci. Appresso Vincenzo Vaugris al segno d'Erasmo, MDXLV." 12mo. With a device of the brazen serpent, repeated at the end. It has all the cuts in the genuine edition of the same date, except that of the beggar at the gate. It contains a very moral dedication to Signor Antonio Calergi by the publisher Vaugris or Valgrisi; in which, with unjustifiable confidence, he enlarges on the great beauty of the work, the cuts in which are, in his estimation, not merely equal, but far superior to those in the French edition in design and engraving. They certainly approach the nearest to the fine originals of all the imitations, but will be found on comparison to be inferior. The mark [monogram: HL] on the cut of the duchess sitting up in bed, with the two Deaths, one of whom is fiddling, whilst the other pulls at the clothes, is retained, but this could not be with a view to pass these engravings as originals, after what is stated in the dedication. An artist's eye will easily perceive the difference in spirit and decision of drawing. In the ensuing year 1546, Valgrisi republished this book in Latin, but without the dedication, and there are impressions of them on single sheets, one of which has at the bottom, "In Venetia, MDLXVIII. Fra. Valerio Faenzi Inquis. Apreso Luca Bertelli." So that they required a license from the Inquisition. II. In the absence of any other Italian editions of the "Simolachri," it is necessary to mention that twenty-four of the last-mentioned cuts were introduced in a work of extreme rarity, and which has escaped the notice of bibliographers, intitled "Discorsi Morali dell' eccell. Sig. Fabio Glissenti contra il dispiacer del morire. Detto Athanatophilia Venetia, 1609." 4to. These twenty-four were probably all that then remained; and five others of subjects belonging also to the "Simolachri," are inserted in this work, but very badly imitated, and two of them reversed. In the subject of the Pope there is in the original a brace of grotesque devils, one of which is completely erased in Glissenti, and a plug inserted where the other had been scooped out. A similar rasure of a devil occurs in the subject of the two rich men in conversation, the demon blowing with a bellows into his ear, whilst a poor beggar in vain touches him to be heard. Besides these cuts, Glissenti's work is ornamented with a great number of others, connected in some way or other with the subject of Death, which the author discusses in almost every possible variety of manner. He appears to have been a physician, and an exceedingly pious man. His portrait is prefixed to every division of the work, which consists of five dialogues. III. In an anonymous work, intitled "Tromba sonora per richiamar i morti viventi dalla tomba della colpa alla vita della gratia. In Venetia, 1670." 8vo. Of which there had already been three editions; there are six of the prints from the originals, as in the "Simolachri," &c. No. I. and a few others, the same as the additional ones to Glissenti's work. In another volume, intitled "Il non plus ultra di tutte le scienze ricchezze honori, e diletti del mondo, &c. In Venetia, 1677." 24mo. There are twenty-five of the cuts as in the Simolachri, and several others from those added to Glissenti. IV. A set of cuts which do not seem to have belonged to any work. They are very close copies of the originals. On the subject of the Duchess in bed, the letter [monogram: S] appears on the base of one of the pillars or posts, instead of the original [monogram: HL], and it is also seen on the cut of the soldier pierced by the lance of Death. Two have the date 1546. In that of the monk, whom, in the original, Death seizes by the cowl or hood, the artist has made a whimsical alteration, by converting the hood into a fool's cap with bells and asses' ears, and the monk's wallet into a fool's bauble. It is probable that he was of the reformed religion. V. "Imagines Mortis, his accesserunt epigrammata è Gallico idiomate à Georgio Æmylio in Latinum translata, &c. Coloniæ apud hæredes Arnoldi Birckmanni, anno 1555. 12mo." With fifty-three cuts. This may be regarded as a surreptitious edition of No. IV. of the originals by [monogram: HL] p. 106. The cuts are by the artist mentioned in No. IX. of those originals, whose mark is [monogram: SA] which is here found on five of them. They are all reversed, except the nobleman; and although not devoid of merit, they are not only very inferior to the fine originals, but also to the Italian copies in No. I. The first two subjects are newly designed; the two Devils in that of the Pope are omitted, and there are several variations, always for the worse, in many of the others, of which a tasteless example is found in that of Death and the soldier, where the thigh bone, as the very appropriate weapon of Death, is here converted into the common-place dart. The mark [monogram: HL] in the original cut of the Duchess in bed, is here omitted, without the substitution of any other. This edition was republished by the same persons, without any variation, successively in 1557, 1566, 1567, and 1573.[116] Papillon, in his "Traité sur la gravure en bois,"[117] when noticing the above-mentioned mark, has, amidst the innumerable errors that abound in his otherwise curious work, been led into a mistake of an exceedingly ludicrous nature, by converting the owner of the mark into a cardinal. He had found it on the cuts to an edition of Faerno's fables, printed at Antwerp, 1567, which is dedicated to Cardinal Borromeo by Silvio Antoniano, professor of Belles Lettres at Rome, afterwards secretary to Pope Pius IV. and at length himself a Cardinal. He was the editor of Faerno's work. Another of Papillon's blunders is equally curious and absurd. He had seen an edition of the Emblems of Sambucus, with cuts, bearing the mark [monogram: SA] in which there is a fine portrait of the author with his favourite dog, and under the latter the word BOMBO, which Papillon gravely states to be the name of the engraver; and finding the same word on another of the emblems which has also the dog, he concludes that all the cuts which have not the [monogram: SA] were engraved by the same BOMBO. Had Papillon, a good artist in his time, but an ignorant man, been able to comprehend the verses belonging to that particular emblem, he would have seen that the above word was merely the name of the dog, as Sambucus himself has declared, whilst paying a laudable tribute to the attachment of the faithful companion of his travels. Brulliot, in his article on the mark [monogram: SA][118] has mentioned Papillon's ascription of it to Silvio Antoniano, but without correcting the blunder, as he ought to have done. This monogram appears on five of the cuts to the present edition of the "Imagines Mortis;" but M. De Murr and his follower Janssen, are not warranted in supposing the rest of them to have been engraved by a different artist. It will perhaps not be deemed an unimportant digression to introduce a few remarks concerning the owner of the above monogram. It is by no means clear whether he was a designer or an engraver, or even both. There is a chiaroscuro print of a group of saints, engraved by Peter Kints, an obscure artist, with the name of Antony Sallaerts at length, and the mark. Here he appears as a designer. M. Malpé, the Besançon author of "Notices sur les graveurs," speaks of Sallaerts as an excellent painter, born at Brussels about 1576, which date cannot possibly apply to the artist in question; but at the same time, he adds, that he is said to have engraved on wood the cuts in a little catechism printed at Antwerp that have the monogram [monogram: SA]. These are certainly very beautiful, in accordance with many others with the same mark, and very superior in design to those which have it in the "Imagines Mortis." M. Malpé has also an article for Antony Silvyus or Silvius, born at Antwerp about 1525, and he mentions several books with engravings and the mark in question, which he gives to the same person. M. Brulliot expresses a doubt as to this artist; but it is very certain there was a family of that name, and surnamed, or at least sometimes called, Bosche or Bush, which indeed is more likely to have been the real Flemish name Latinized into Silvius. Foppens[119] has mentioned an Antony Silvius, a schoolmaster at Antwerp, in 1565, and several other members of this family. Two belonging to it were engravers, and another a writing master. Whether the artist in question was a Sallaerts or a Silvius, it is certain that Plantin, the celebrated printer, employed him to decorate several of his volumes, and it is to be regretted that an unsuccessful search has been made for him in Plantin's account books, that were not long since preserved, with many articles belonging to him, in his house at Antwerp. His mark also appears in several books printed in England during the reign of Elizabeth, and particularly on a beautiful set of initial letters, some of which contain the story of Cupid and Psyche, from the supposed designs by Raphael, and other subjects from Ovid's Metamorphoses: these have been counterfeited, and perhaps in England. The initial [monogram: G], in this alphabet, with the subject of Leda and the swan, was inadvertently prefixed to the sacred name at the beginning of St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews in the Bishop's Bible, printed by Rd. Jugge in 1572, and in one of his Common Prayer Books. An elegant portrait of Edward VI. with the mark [monogram: SA] is likewise on Jugge's edition of the New Testament, 1552, 4to. and there is reason to believe that Jugge employed this artist, as the same monogram appears on a cut of his device of the pelican. VI. In the German volume, the title of which is already given in the first article of the engravings from the Basle painting,[120] there are twenty-nine subjects belonging to the present work; the rest relating to the Basle dance, except two or three that are not in either of them. These have fallen into the hands of a modern bookseller, but there can be no doubt that there were other editions which contained the whole set. The most of them have the letters [monogram: G. S.] with the graving tool, and one has the date 1576. The name of this artist is unknown; but M. Bartsch has mentioned several other engravings by him, omitting, however, the present, which, it is to be observed, sometimes vary in design from the originals. VII. "Imagines Mortis illustratæ epigrammatis Georgii Æmylii theol. doctoris. Fraxineus Æmylio Suo. Criminis ut poenam mortem mors sustulit una: sic te immortalem mortis imago facit." With a cut of Death and the old man. This is the middle part only of a work, intitled "Libellus Davidis Chytræi de morte et vita æterna. Editio postrema; cui additæ sunt imagines mortis, illustrata Epigrammatis D. Georgio Æmylio, Witebergæ. Impressus à Matthæo Welack, anno MDXC." 12mo. The cuts, fifty-three in number, are, on the whole, tolerably faithful, but coarsely engraved. In the subject of the Pope the two Devils are omitted, and, in that of the Counsellor, the Demon blowing with a bellows into his ear is also wanting. Some have the mark [monogram: cross], and one that of [monogram: W] with a knife or graving tool. VIII. "Todtentanz durch alle stendt der menschen, &c. furgebildet mit figuren. S. Gallen, 1581." 4to. See Janssen, Essai sur l'origine de la gravure, i. 122, who seems to make them copies of the originals. IX. The last article in this list of the old copies, though prior in date to some of the preceding, is placed here as differing materially from them with respect to size. It is a small folio, with the following title, "Todtentantz, Das menschlichs leben anders nicht Dann nur ain lauff zum Tod Und Got ain nach seim glauben richt Dess findstu klaren tschaid O Mensch hicrinn mit andacht lisz Und fassz zu hertzen das So wirdsttu Ewigs hayls gewisz Kanst sterben dester bas. MDXLIIII. Desine longævos exposcere sedulus annos Inque bonis multos annumerare dies Atque hodie, fatale velit si rumpere filum Atropos, impavido pectore disce mori." At the end, "Gedruckt inn der kaiserlichen Reychstatt Augspurg durch Jobst Denecker Formschneyder." This edition is not only valuable for its extreme rarity, but for the very accurate and spirited manner in which the fine original cuts are copied. It contains all the subjects that were then published, but not arranged as those had been. It has the addition of one singular print, intitled "Der Eebrecher," _i. e._ the Adulterer, representing a man discovering the adulterer in bed with his wife, and plunging his sword through both of them, Death guiding his hands. On the opposite page to each engraving there is a dialogue between Death and the party, and at bottom a Latin hexameter. The subject of the Pleader has the unknown mark [monogram], and on that of the Duchess in bed, there is the date 1542. From the above colophon we are to infer that Dennecker, or as he is sometimes, and perhaps more properly, called De Necker or De Negher, was the engraver, as he is known to have executed many other engravings on wood, especially for Hans Schaufelin, with whom he was connected. He was also employed in the celebrated triumph of Maximilian, and in a collection of saints, to whom the family of that emperor was related. X. "Emblems of Mortality, representing, in upwards of fifty cuts, Death seizing all ranks and degrees of people, &c. Printed for T. Hodgson, in George's Court, St. John's Lane, Clerkenwell, 1789. 12mo." With an historical essay on the subject, and translations of the Latin verses in the Imagines Mortis, by John Sidney Hawkins, esq. The cuts were engraved by the brother of the celebrated Bewick, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and a pupil of Hodgson, who was an engraver on wood of some merit at that time. They are but indifferently executed, but would have been better had the artist been more liberally encouraged by the master, who was the publisher on his own account, Mr. Hawkins very kindly furnishing the letter-press. They are faithful copies of all the originals, except the first, which, containing a figure of the Deity habited as a Pope, was scrupulously exchanged for another design. A frontispiece is added, representing Death leading up all classes of men and women. XI. "The Dance of Death of the celebrated Hans Holbein, in a series of fifty-two engravings on wood by Mr. Bewick, with letter-press illustrations. What's yet in this That bears the name of life? Yet in this life Lie hid more thousand Deaths: yet Death we fear, That makes these odds all even. SHAKSPEARE. London. William Charlton Wright." 12mo. With a frontispiece, partly copied from that in the preceding article, a common-place life of Holbein, and an introduction pillaged verbatim from an edition with Hollar's cuts, published by Mr. Edwards. The cuts, with two or three exceptions, are imitated from the originals, but all the human figures are ridiculously modernised. The text to the subjects is partly descriptions in prose, and partly Mr. Hawkins's verses, and the cuts, if Bewick's, very inferior to those in his other works. XII. "Emblems of Mortality, representing Death seizing all ranks and degrees of people. Imitated in a series of wood cuts from a painting in the cemetery of the Dominican church at Basil in Switzerland, with appropriate texts of scripture, and a poetical apostrophe to each, freely translated from the Latin and French. London. Printed for Whittingham and Arliss, juvenile library, Paternoster-row." 12mo. The frontispiece and the rest of the cuts, with two exceptions, from the same blocks as those used for the last-mentioned edition. The preface, with very slight variation, is abridged from that by Mr. Hawkins in No. VIII. and the descriptive verses altogether the same as those in that edition. Both the last articles seem intended for popular and juvenile use. It will be immediately perceived that the title page is erroneous in confounding the Basle Dance of Death with that in the volume itself. XIII. The last in this list is "Hans Holbein's Todtentanz in 53 getreu nach den holtz schnitten lithographirten Blattern. Herausgegeben von J. Schlotthauer, K. Professor. Mit erklärendem Texte. Munschen, 1832. Auf kosten des Herausgebers," 12mo. or, "Hans Holbein's Dance of Death in fifty-three lithographic leaves, faithfully taken from wood engravings. Published by J. Schlotthauer, royal professor, with explanatory text. Munich, 1832. At the cost of the editors." This work is executed in so beautiful and accurate a manner that it might easily be mistaken for the wood originals. The professor has substituted German verses, communicated by a friend, instead of the former Latin ones. He states that the subject will be taken up by Professor Massman, of Munich, whose work will satisfy all enquiries relating to it. Massman, however, has added to this volume a sort of explanatory appendix, in which some of the editions are mentioned. He thinks it possible that the cholera may excite the same attention to this work as the plague had formerly excited to the old Macaber Dance at Basle, and concludes with a promise to treat the subject more at large at some future time. COPIES OF THE SAME DESIGNS, ENGRAVED IN COPPER. I. "Todten Dantz durch alle stande und Beschlecht der Menschen, &c." _i. e._ "Death's Dance through all ranks and conditions of men." This title is on a frontispiece representing a gate of rustic architecture, at the top of which are two boy angels with emblems of mortality between them, and underneath are the three Fates. At the bottom, Adam and Eve with the tree of knowledge, each holding the apple presented by the serpent. Between them is a circular table, on which are eight sculls of a Pope, Emperor, Cardinal, &c. with appropriate mottoes in Latin. On the outer edge of the table STATVTVM EST OMNIBVS HOMINIBVS SEMEL MORI POST HOC AVTEM IVDICIVM. In the centre the letters MVS, the terminating syllable of each motto. Before the gate are two pedestals, inscribed MEMENTO MORI and MEMORARE NOVISSIMA, on which stand figures of Death supporting two pyramids or obelisks surmounted with sculls and a cross, and inscribed ITER AD VITAM. Below, "Eberh. Kieser excudit." This frontispiece is a copy of a large print engraved on wood long before. Without date, in quarto. The work consists of sixty prints within borders of flowers, &c. in the execution of which two different and anonymous artists have been employed. At the top of each print is the name of the subject, accompanied with a passage from scripture, and at the bottom three couplets of German verses. Most of the subjects are copied from the completest editions of the Lyons cuts, with occasional slight variations. They are not placed in the same order, and all are reversed, except Nos. 57 and 60. No. 12 is not reversed, but very much altered, a sort of duplicate of the Miser. No. 50, the Jew, and No. 51, the Jewess, are entirely new. The latter is sitting at a table, on which is a heap of money, and Death appears to be giving effective directions to a demon to strangle her. No. 52 is also new. A castle within a hedge. Death enters one of the windows by a ladder, whilst a woman looks out of another.[121] The subject is from Jeremiah, ch. ix. v. 21. "Death is come up into our windows, &c." In the subject of the Pope, the two Devils are omitted. Two military groups of boys, newly designed, are added. The following are copies from Aldegrever, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 11, and 12. At the beginning and end of the book there are moral poems in the German language. II. Another edition of the same cuts. The title-page of the copy here described is unfortunately lost. It has a dedication in Latin to three patricians of Frankfort on the Maine by Daniel Meisner à Commenthaw, Boh. Poet. L. C. dated, according to the Roman capitals, in a passage from Psalm 46, in the year 1623. This is followed by the Latin epigram, or address to the reader, by Geo. Æmylius, whose translations of the original French couplets are also given, as well as the originals themselves. These are printed on pages opposite to the subjects, but they are often very carelessly transposed. At the end the date 1623 is twice repeated by means of the Roman capitals in two verses from Psalms 78 and 63, the one German, the other Latin. 12mo. III. "Icones Mortis sexaginta imaginibus totidemque inscriptionibus insignitæ, versibus quoque Latinis et novis Germanicis illustratæ. Vorbildungen desz Todtes. In sechtzig figuren durch alle Stande und Geschlechte, derselbigen nichtige Sterblichkeit furzuweisen, aus gebruckt, und mit so viel ubors schriffren, auch Lateinischen und neuen Teutschen Verszlein erklaret. Durch Johann Vogel. Bey Paulus Fursten Kunsthandlern zu finden." On the back of this printed title is an engraving of a hand issuing from the clouds and holding a pair of scales, in one of which is a scull, in the other a Papal tiara, sceptre, &c. weighing down the scull. On the beam of the scales an hour glass and an open book with Arabic numerals. In the distance, at bottom, is seen a traveller reposing in a shed. Above is a label, inscribed "Metas et tempora libro," and below, "Ich Wage ziel und zeitten ab." Then follows a neatly engraved and regular title-page. At top, a winged scull surmounted with an hour-glass, and crossed with a spade and scythe. At bottom, three figures of Death sitting on the ground; one of them plays on a hautboy, or trumpet, another on a bagpipe, and the third has a drum behind him. The middle exhibits a circular Dance of Death leading by the hand persons of all ranks from the Emperor downwards. In the centre of this circle "Toden Tantz zu finden bey Paulus Furst Kunst handlern," and quite at the bottom of the page, "G. Stra. in. A. Khol fecit." Next comes an exhortation on Death to the reader in Latin verse, followed by several poems in German and Latin, those in German signed G. P. H. Immediately afterwards, and before the first cut of the work is another elegantly engraved frontispiece representing an arched gate of stone surmounted with three sculls of a Pope, a Cardinal, and a King, between a vase of flowers on the right, and a pot of incense, a cock standing near it, on the left. On the keystone of the gate are two tilting lances in saltier, to which a shield and helmet are suspended. Through the arch is seen a chamber, in which there seems to be a bier, and near it a cross. On the left of the gate is a niche with a scull and bones in it. Below are two large figures of Death. That on the left has a wreath of flowers round its head, and is beating a bell with a bone. Under him is an owl, and on the side of his left knee a scythe. The other Death has a cap and feather, in his right hand an hour-glass, the left pointing to the opposite figure. On the ground between them, a bow, a quiver of arrows and a dart. On the left inner side of the gate a pot with holy water is suspended to a ring, the sprinkler being a bone. Further on, within the gate, is a flat stone, on which are several sculls and bones, a snake biting one of the sculls. On the right hand corner at bottom is the letter [monogram: A], perhaps the mark of the unknown engraver. The explanations on the pages opposite to each print are in German and Latin verses, the latter by Æmylius, with occasional variations. This edition has the sixty prints in the two preceding Nos. some of them having been retouched; and the cut of the King at table, No. 9, is by a different engraver from the artist of the same No. in the preceding 4to. edition, No. I. The present edition has also an additional engraving at the end, representing a gate, within which are seen several sculls and bones, other sculls in a niche, and in the distance a cemetery with coffins and crosses. Over the gate a scull on each side, and on the outer edge of the arch is the inscription, "Quis Rex, quis subditus hic est?" At bottom, Hie sage wer es sagen kan | Here let tell who may: Wer konig sey? wer unterthan. | Or, which be the king? which the subject? Paulus Furst Excu. The whole of the print in a border of sculls, bones, snakes, toads, and a lizard. Opposite to it the date 1647 is to be gathered from the Roman capitals in two scriptural quotations, the one in Latin, the other in German, ending with this colophon, "Gedrucht zu Nuremberg durch Christoff Lochner. In Verlegung Paul Fursten Kunsthandlern allda." 12mo. IV. A set of engravings, 8 inches by 8, of which the subject of the Pedlar, only has occurred on the present occasion. Instead of the trump-marine, which one of the Deaths plays on in the original cut, this artist has substituted a violin, and added a landscape in the back-ground. Below are these verses: LA MORT. Sus? cesse ton traficq, car il fault à ceste heure Que tu sente l'effort de mon dard asseré. Tu as assez vescu, il est temps que tu meure, Mon coup inevitable est pour toy preparé. LE MARCHANT. Et de grace pardon, arreste ta cholere. Je suis pauvre marchant appaise ta rigueur. Permete qu'encore un temps je vive en ceste terre: Et puis tu recevras l'offrande de mon coeur. V. A set of thirty etchings by Wenceslaus Hollar, within elegant frames or borders designed by Diepenbecke, of which there are three varieties. The first of these has at the top a coffin with tapers, at bottom, Death lying prostrate. The sides have figures of time and eternity. At bottom, _Ab. Diepenbecke inv. W. Hollar fecit_. The second has at top a Death's head crowned with the Papal tiara; at bottom, a Death's head with cross-bones on a tablet, accompanied by a saw, a globe, armour, a gun, a drum, &c. On the sides are Hercules and Minerva. At bottom, _Ab. Diepenbecke inv. W. Hollar fecit, 1651_. The third has at top a Death's head, an hour-glass winged between two boys; at bottom, a Death's head and cross-bones on a tablet between two boys holding hour-glasses. On the sides, Democritus and Heraclitus with fools' caps. This border has no inscription below. As these etchings are not numbered, the original arrangement of them cannot be ascertained. The names of Diepenbecke and Hollar are at the bottom of several of the borders, &c. On the subject of the Queen is the mark [monogram: UH] and on three others that of [monogram: WH]. This is the first and most desirable state of the work, the borders having afterwards fallen into the hands of Petau and Van Morle, two foreign printsellers, whose impressions are very inferior. It has not been ascertained what became of these elegant additions, but the work afterwards appeared without them, and with the additional mark [monogram: HB] _i._ on every print, and intended for Holbein invenit. It is very certain that Hollar himself did not place this mark on the prints; he has never introduced it in any of his copies from Holbein, always expressing that painter's name in these several ways: [monogram: HH], [monogram: HHolbein] _inv._ [monogram: HHolbein] _pinxit_, H. HOLBEIN inv. H. HOLBEIN inventor. On one of his portraits from the Arundel collection he has placed "[monogram: HHolbein] _incidit in lignum_." No copy, however, of this portrait has occurred in wood, and, if this be only a conjecture on the part of the engraver, the distance of time between the respective artists is an objection to its validity, though it is possible that Holbein might have engraved on wood, because there are prints which have all the appearance of belonging to him, that have his usual mark, accompanied by an engraving tool. There is no text to these etchings, except the Latin scriptural passages under each, that occur in the original editions in that language. As a sort of frontispiece to the work, Hollar has transferred the last cut of the allegorical shield of arms, supported by a lady and gentleman, to the beginning, with the appropriate title of MORTALIVM NOBILITAS. The other subjects are, 1. Adam and Eve in Paradise. 2. Their expulsion from Paradise. 3. Adam digging, Eve spinning. 4. The Pope. 5. The Emperor. 6. The Empress. 7. The Queen. 8. The Cardinal. 9. The Duke. 10. The Bishop. 11. The Nobleman. 12. The Abbot. 13. The Abbess. 14. The Friar. 15. The Nun. 16. The Preacher. 17. The Physician. 18. The Soldier, or Warrior. 19. The Advocate. 20. The Married Couple. 21. The Duchess. 22. The Merchant. 23. The Pedlar. 24. The Miser. 25. The Waggoner with wine casks. 26. The Gamesters. 27. The Old Man. 28. The Old Woman. 29. The Infant. Of these, Nos. 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 14, 23, 27, and 28, correspond with the Lyons wood-cuts, except that in No. 1 a stag is omitted, and there are some variations; in No. 6, the windows of the palace are altered; in No. 13, a window is added to the house next to the nunnery; and in No. 9, a figure is introduced, and the ducal palace much altered; in No. 23, a sword is omitted. They are all reverses, except No. 5. The rest of the subjects are reversed, with one exception, from the copies by [monogram: SA] in the spurious edition first printed at Cologne in 1555, with occasional very slight variations. Hollar's copies from the original cuts are in a small degree less both in width and depth. In the subject of Death and the Soldier he has not shown his judgment in making use of the spurious edition rather than the far more elegant and interesting original,[122] and it is remarkable that this is the only print belonging to the spurious ones that is not reversed. It is very probable that Hollar executed this work at Antwerp, where, at the time of its date, he might have found Diepenbecke and engaged him to make designs for the borders which are etched on separate plates, thus supplying passe-par-touts that might be used at discretion. Many sets appear without the borders, which seem to have strayed, and perhaps to have been afterwards lost or destroyed. As Rubens is recorded to have admired the beauty of the original cuts, so it is to be supposed that Diepenbecke, his pupil, would entertain the same opinion of them, and that he might have suggested to Hollar the making etchings of them, undertaking himself to furnish appropriate borders. But how shall we account for the introduction of so many of the spurious and inferior designs, if he had the means of using the originals? Many books were formerly excessively rare, which, from peculiar circumstances, not necessary to be here detailed, but well known to bibliographers and collectors, have since become comparatively common. Hollar might not have had an opportunity of meeting with a perfect copy of the original cuts, or he might, in some way or other, have been impeded in the use of them, when executing his work, and thus have been driven to the necessity of pursuing it by means of the spurious edition. These, however, are but conjectures, and it remains for every one to adopt his own opinion. The copper-plates of the above thirty etchings appear to have fallen into the hands of an English noble family, from which the late Mr. James Edwards, a bookseller of well merited celebrity, obtained them, and about the year 1794 caused many impressions to be taken off after they had been _rebitten_ with great care, so as to prevent that injury, with respect to outline, which usually takes place where etchings or engravings upon copper are _retouched_. Previously to this event good impressions must have been extremely rare, at least on the continent, as they are not found in the very rich collections of Winckler or Brandes, nor are they mentioned by the foreign writers on engraving. To Mr. Edwards's publication of Hollar's prints there was prefixed a short dissertation on the Dance of Death, which is here again submitted to public attention in a considerably enlarged form, and corrected from the errors and imperfections into which its author had been misled by preceding writers on the subject, and by the paucity of the materials which he was then able to obtain. This edition was reprinted verbatim, and with the same etchings, in 1816, for J. Coxhead, in Holywell Street, Strand, but without any mention of the former, and accompanied with the addition of a brief memoir of Holbein. It is most likely that Hollar, having discovered the error which he had committed in copying the spurious engravings before-mentioned, and subsequently procured a set of genuine impressions, resolved to make another set of etchings from the original work, four only of which he appears to have executed, his death probably taking place before they could be completed. These are, 1. The Pope crowning the Emperor, with "Moriatur sacerdos magnus." 2. The rich man disregarding the beggar, with "Qui obturat aurem suam ad clamorem pauperis, &c." and the four Latin lines, "Consulitis, dites, &c." at bottom, as in the original. It is beautifully and most faithfully copied, with [monogram: HHolbein] _inv. Hollar fecit_. 3. The Ploughman, with "In sudore vultus, &c." 4. The Robber, with "Domine vim patior." In Dugdale's History of St. Paul's, and also in the Monasticon, there is a single etching by Hollar of Death leading all ranks of people. It is only an improved copy of an old wood-cut in Lydgate's works, already mentioned in p. 52, and which is altogether imaginary, not being taken from any real series of the Dance. VI. "Varii e veri ritratte della morte disegnati in immagini, ed espressi in Essempii al peccatore duro di cuore, dal padre Gio. Battista Marmi della compagnia de Giesu." Venetia, 1669, 8vo. It has several engravings, among which are the following, after the original designs. 1. Queen. 2. Nobleman. 3. Merchant. 4. Gamblers. 5. Physician. 6. Miser. The last five being close copies from the same subjects, in the Basle edit. 1769, No. V. of the copies in wood. VII. "Theatrum mortis humanæ tripartitum. I. Pars. Saltum Mortis. II. Pars. Varia genera Mortis. III. Pars. Pænas Damnatorum continens, cum figuris æneis illustratum." Then the same repeated in German, with the addition "Durch Joannem Weichardum Valvasor. Lib. Bar. cum facultate superiorum, et speciali privilegio Sac. Cæs. Majest. Gedrucht zu Laybach, und zu finden ben Johann Baptista Mayr, in Saltzburg. Anno 1682. 4to." Prefixed is an engraved frontispiece representing a ruined arch, under which is a coffin, and before it the King of Terrors between two other figures of Death mounted respectively on an elephant and camel. In the foreground, Adam and Eve, tied to the forbidden tree of knowledge, between several other Deaths variously employed. Two men digging graves, &c. Underneath, "[monogram: W.] inven. [monogram: W.] excud. Jo. Koch del. And. Trost sculp. Wagenpurgi in Carniola." It is the first part only with which we are concerned. The artist, with very little exception, has followed and reversed the spurious wood-cuts of 1555, by [monogram: SA]. To the groups of boys he has added a Death leading them on. VIII. "De Doodt vermaskert met des werelts ydelheyt afghedaen door Geeraerdt Van Wolschaten." This is another edition of No. IX. of the original wood-cuts, here engraved on _copper_. The text is the same as that of 1654, with the addition of seven leaves, including a cut of Death leading all ranks of men. In that of the Pedler the artist has introduced some figures in the distance of the original _soldier_. Among other variations the costume of the time of William III. is sometimes very ludicrously adopted, especially in the frontispiece, where the author is represented writing at a desk, and near him two figures of a man in a full bottom wig, and a woman with a mask and a perpendicular cap in several stories, usually called a _Fontange_, both having skeleton faces. At bottom, the mark [monogram: L B.f.]. This edition was printed at Antwerp by Jan Baptist Jacobs, without date, but the privilege has that of 1698. 12mo. IX. "Imagines Mortis, or the Dead Dance of Hans Holbeyn, painter of King Henry the VIII." This title is on a copper-plate within a border, and accompanied with nineteen etchings on copper, by Nieuhoff Piccard, a person who will be more particularly adverted to hereafter. They consist of, 1. The emblem of Mortality. 2. The temptation. 3. The expulsion from Paradise. 4. Adam digging, Eve spinning. 5. Concert of Deaths. 6. The Infant. 7. The new married couple. 8. The Duke. 9. The Advocate. 10. The Abbot. 11. The Monk. 12. The Abbess. 13. The Soldier. 14. The Merchant. 15. The Pedler. 16. The Fool. 17. The Blind Man. 18. The Old Woman. 19. The Old Man. The designs, with some occasional variations, correspond with those in the original wood-cuts. The plates of these etchings must have passed into the hands of some English printsellers, as broken sets of them have not long since been seen, one only of which, namely, that of the Temptation, had these lines on it: "All that e'er had breath Must dance after Death." with the date 1720. Several were then numbered at bottom with Arabic numerals. X. "Schau-platz des Todes, oder Todten Tanz, von Sal. Van Rusting Med. Doct. in Nieder-Teutscher-Spracke nun aber in Hoch Teutscher mit nothigen Anmerchungen heraus gegeben von Johann Georg. Meintel Hochfurstl Brandenburg-Onoltzbachischen pfarrer zu Petersaurach." Nurnberg, 1736. 8vo. Or, "The Theatre of Death, or Dance of Death, by Sol. Van Rusting, doctor of medicine, in Low German language, but now in High German, with necessary notes by John George Meintel in the service of his Serene Highness of Brandenburg, and parson of Petersaurach." It is said to have been originally published in 1707, which is very probable, as Rusting, of whom very little is recorded, was born about 1650. In the early part of his life he practised as an army surgeon. He was a great admirer and follower of the doctrines of Balthasar Bekker in his "Monde enchanté." There are editions in Dutch only, 1735 and 1741. 12mo. the plates being copies. In the above-mentioned edition by Meintel there is an elaborate preface, with some account of the Dance of Death, and its editions, but replete with the grossest errors, into which he has been misled by Hilscher, and some other writers. His text is accompanied with a profusion of notes altogether of a pious and moral nature. Rusting's work consists of thirty neat engravings, of which the following are copied from the Lyons wood-cuts. 1. The King, much varied. 2. The Astrologer. 3. The Soldier. 4. The Monk. 5. The Old Man. 6. The Pedler. The rest are, on the whole, original designs, yet with occasional hints from the Lyons cuts; the best of them are, the Masquerade, the Rope-dancer, and the Skaiters. The frontispiece is in two compartments; the upper one, Death crowned, sitting on a throne, on each side of him a Death trumpeter; the lower, a fantastic Dance of seven Deaths, near a crowned skeleton lying on a couch. XI. "Le triomphe de la Mort." A Basle, 1780, folio. This is the first part of a collection of the works of Hans Holbein, engraved and published by M. Chretien de Mechel, a celebrated artist, and formerly a printseller in the above city. It has a dedication to George III. followed by explanations in French of the subjects, in number 46, and in the following order; No. 1. A Frontispiece, representing a tablet of stone, on one side of which Holbein appears behind a curtain, which is drawn aside by Death in order to exhibit to him the grand spectacle of the scenes of human life which he is intended to paint; this is further designated by a heap of the attributes of greatness, dignities, wealth, arts, and sciences, intermixed with Deaths' heads, all of which are trampled under foot by Death himself. At bottom, Lucan's line, "Mors sceptra ligonibus æquat." The tablet is surmounted by a medallion of Holbein, supported by two genii, one of whom decorates the portrait with flowers, whilst another lets loose a butterfly, and a third is employed in blowing bubbles. On the tablet itself is a second title, "Le triomphe de la mort, gravé d'apres les dessins originaux de Jean Holbein par Chr{n}. de Mechel, graveur à Basle, MDCCLXXX." This frontispiece has been purposely inverted for the present work. The other subjects are: No. 2. The Temptation. 3. Expulsion from Paradise. 4. Adam digging, Eve spinning. 5. The Pope. 6. The Cardinal. 7. The Duke. 8. The Bishop. 9. The Canon. 10. The Monk. 11. The Abbot. 12. The Abbess. 13. The Preacher. 14. The Priest. 15. The Physician. 16. The Astrologer. 17. The Emperor. 18. The King. 19. The Empress. 20. The Queen. 21. The Duchess. 22. The Countess. 23. The New-married Couple. 24. The Nun. 25. The Nobleman. 26. The Knight. 27. The Gentleman. 28. The Soldier. 29. The Judge. 30. The Counsellor. 31. The Advocate. 32. The Merchant. 33. The Pedler. 34. The Shipwreck. 35. The Wine-carrier. 36. The Plowman. 37. The Miser. 38. The Robber. 39. The Drunkard. 40. The Gamblers. 41. The Old Man. 42. The Old Woman. 45. The Blind Man. 44. The Beggar. 45. The Infant. 46. The Fool. M. Mechel has added another print on this subject, viz. the sheath of a dagger, a design for a chaser. It is impossible to exceed the beauty and skill that are manifested in this fine piece of art. The figures are, a king, queen, warrior, a young woman, a monk, and an infant, all of whom most unwillingly accompany Death in the dance. The despair of the king, the dejection of the queen, accompanied by her little dog, the terror of the soldier who hears the drum of Death, the struggling of the female, the reluctance of the monk, and the sorrow of the poor infant, are depicted with equal spirit and veracity. The original drawing is in the public library at Basle, and ascribed to Holbein. There is a general agreement between these engravings and the original wood-cuts. Twenty-three are reversed. In No. 13 the jaw-bone in the hand of Death is not distinct. In No. 16 a cross is added, and in No. 17 two heads. Mr. Coxe, in his Travels in Switzerland, has given some account of the drawings copied as above by M. de Mechel, in whose possession he saw them. He states that they were sketched with a pen, and slightly shaded with Indian ink. He mentions M. de Mechel's conjecture that they were once in the Arundel collection, and infers from thence that they were copied by Hollar, which, however, from what has been already stated on the subject of Hollar's print of the Soldier and Death, as well as from other variations, could not have been the case. Mr. Coxe proceeds to say that four of the subjects in M. de Mechel's work are not in the drawings, but were copied from Hollar. It were to be wished that he had specified them. The particulars that follow were obtained by the compiler of the present dissertation from M. de Mechel himself when he was in London. He had not been able to trace the drawings previously to their falling into the hands of M. de Crozat,[123] at whose sale, about 1771, they were purchased by Counsellor Fleischmann of Strasburg, and M. de Mechel having very emphatically expressed his admiration of them whilst they were in the possession of M. Fleischmann, that gentleman very generously offered them as a present to him. M. de Mechel, however, declined the offer, but requested they might be deposited in the public library at Basle, among other precious remains of Holbein's art. This arrangement, however, did not take place, and it happened in the mean time that two nephews of Prince Gallitzin, minister from Russia to the court of Vienna, having occasion to visit M. Fleischmann, then much advanced in years, and his memory much impaired, prevailed on him to concede the drawings to their uncle, who, on learning from M. de Mechel what had originally passed between himself and M. Fleischmann, sent the drawings to him, with permission to engrave and publish them, which was accordingly done, after they had been detained two years for that purpose. They afterwards passed into the Emperor of Russia's collection of fine arts at Petersburg. It were greatly to be wished that some person qualified like Mr. Ottley, if such a one can be found, would take the trouble to enter on a critical examination of these drawings in their present state, with a view to ascertain, as nearly as possible, whether they carry indisputable marks of Holbein's art and manner of execution, or whether, as may well be suspected, they are nothing more than copies, either by himself or some other person, from the original wood engravings. M. de Mechel had begun this work in 1771, when he had engraved the first four subjects, including a frontispiece totally different from that in the volume here described. There are likewise variations in the other three. He was extremely solicitous that these should be cancelled. XII. David Deuchar, sometimes called the Scottish Worlidge, who has etched many prints after Ostade and the Dutch masters, published a set of etchings by himself, with the following printed title: "The Dances of Death through the various stages of human life, wherein the capriciousness of that tyrant is exhibited in forty-six copper-plates, done from the original designs, which were cut in wood and afterwards painted by John Holbein in the town house at Basle, to which is prefixed descriptions of each plate in French and English, with the scripture text from which the designs were taken. Edinburgh, MDCCLXXXVIII." Before this most inaccurate title are two engraved leaves, on one of which is Deuchar's portrait, in a medallion, supported by Adam and Eve holding the forbidden fruit. Over the medallion, the three Fates, the whole within an arch before a pediment. On each side, a plain column, supporting a pyramid, &c. On the other leaf a copy of the engraved title to M. de Mechel's work with the substitution of Deuchar's name. After the printed title is a portrait, as may be supposed, of Holbein, within a border containing six ovals of various subjects, and a short preface or account of that artist, but accompanied with some very inaccurate statements. The subjects are inclosed, like Hollar's, within four different borders, separately engraved, three of them borrowed, with a slight variation in one, from Diepenbeke, the fourth being probably Deuchar's invention. The etchings of the Dance of Death are forty-six in number, accompanied with De Mechel's description and English translation. At the end is the emblematical print of mortality, but not described, with the dagger sheath, copied from De Mechel. Thirty of these etchings are immediately copied from Hollar, No. X. having the distance altered. The rest are taken from the spurious wood copies of the originals by [monogram: SA] with variation in No. XVIII.; and in No. XXXIX. and XLIII. Deuchar has introduced winged hour-glasses. These etchings are very inferior to those by Hollar. The head of Eve in No. III. resembles that of a periwigged Frenchman of the time of Louis XIV. but many of the subjects are very superior to others, and intitled to much commendation. XIII. The last in this list is "Der Todtentanz ein gedicht von Ludwig Bechstein mit 48 kupfern in treuen Conturen nach H. Holbein. Leipzig. 1831," 12mo.; or, "Death's Dance, a poem by Ludwig Bechstein, with forty-eight engravings in faithful outlines from H. Holbein." These very elegant etchings are by Frenzel, inspector of the gallery of engravings of the King of Saxony at Dresden. The poem, which is an epic one, relates entirely to the power of Death over mankind. It is necessary to mention that the artist who made the designs for the Lyons Dance of Death is not altogether original with respect to a few of them. Thus, in the subject of Adam digging and Eve spinning, he has partly copied an ancient wood engraving that occurs in some of the Horæ printed by Francis Regnault at Paris. In the subject of the Queen, and on that of the Duke and Duchess, he has made some use of those of Death and the Fool, and Death and the Hermit, in the old Dance at Basle. On the other hand, he has been imitated, 1. in "La Periere Theatre des bons engins. 1561." 24mo. where the rich man bribing the judge is introduced at fo. 66. 2. The figure of the Swiss gentleman in "Recueil de la diversité des habits." Paris, 1567. 12mo. is copied from the last print in the Lyons book. 3. From the same print the Death's head has been introduced in an old wood engraving, that will be more particularly described hereafter. 4. Brebiette, in a small etching on copper, has copied the Lyons plowman. 5. Mr. Dance, in his painting of Garrick, has evidently made use of the gentleman who lifts up his sword against Death. The copies of the portrait of Francis I. have been already noticed. CHAPTER IX. _Further examination of Holbein's title.--Borbonius.--Biographical notice of Holbein.--Painting of a Dance of Death at Whitehall by him._ It may be necessary in the next place to make some further enquiry respecting the connection that Holbein is supposed to have had _at any time_ with the subject of the Dance of Death. The numerous errors that have been fallen into in making Holbein a participator in any manner whatever with the old Basle Macaber Dance, have been already noticed, and are indeed not worth the trouble of refuting. It is wholly improbable that he would interfere with so rude a piece of art; nor has his name been recorded among the artists who are known to have retouched or repaired it. The Macaber Dance at Basle, or any where else, is, therefore, with respect to Holbein, to be altogether laid aside; and if the argument before deduced from the important dedication to the edition of the justly celebrated wood-cuts published at Lyons in 1538 be of any value, his claim to their invention, at least to those in the first edition, must also be rejected.[124] There is indeed but very slight evidence, and none contemporary, that he painted any Dance of Death at Basle. The indefinite statements of Bishop Burnet and M. Patin, together with those of the numerous and careless travellers who have followed blind leaders, and too often copied each other without the means or inclination of obtaining correct information, are deserving of very little attention. The circumstance of Holbein's having painted a Dance of Peasants somewhere in the above city, in conjunction with the usual mistake of ascribing to him the old Macaber Dance, seems to have occasioned the above erroneous statements as to a Dance of Death by his pencil. It is hardly possible that Zuinger, almost a contemporary, when describing the Dance of Peasants and other paintings by Holbein at Basle would have omitted the mention of any Dance of Death:[125] but even admitting the former existence of such a painting, it would not constitute him the inventor of the designs in the Lyons work. He might have imitated or copied those designs, or the wood-cuts themselves, or perhaps have painted subjects that were different from either. We are now to take into consideration some very clear and important evidence that Holbein actually _did paint a Dance of Death_. This is to be found in the _Nugæ_ of Borbonius in the following verses: _De morte picta à Hanso pictore nobili._ Dum mortis Hansus pictor imaginum exprimit, Tanta arte mortem retulit, ut mors vivere Videatur ipsa: et ipse se immortalibus Parem Diis fecerit, operis hujus gloria.[126] It has been already demonstrated that these lines could not refer to the old painting of the Macaber Dance at the Dominican convent, whilst, from the important dedication to the edition of the wood-cuts first published at Lyons in 1538, it is next to impossible that that work could then have been in Borbonius's contemplation. It appears from several places in his Nugæ that he was in England in 1535, at which time Holbein drew his portrait in such a manner as to excite his gratitude and admiration in another copy of verses.[127] This was probably the chalk drawing still preserved in the fine collection of portraits of the eminent persons in the court of Henry VIII. formerly at Kensington, and thence removed to Buckingham House, and which has been copied in an elegant wood-cut, that first appeared in the edition of the Paidagogeion of Borbonius, Lyons, 1536, and afterward in two editions of his Nugæ. It is inscribed NIC. BORBONIVS VANDOP. ANNO ÆTATIS XXXII. 1535. He returned to Lyons in 1536, and it is known that he was there in 1538, when he probably wrote the complimentary lines in Holbein's Biblical designs a short time before their publication, either out of friendship to the painter, or at the instance of the Lyons publisher with whom he was certainly connected. Now if Borbonius, during his residence at Lyons, had been assured that the designs in the wood-cuts of the Dance of Death were the production of Holbein, would not his before-mentioned lines on that subject have been likewise introduced into the Lyons edition of it, or at least into some subsequent editions, in none of which is any mention whatever made of Holbein, although the work was continued even after the death of that artist? The application, therefore, of Borbonius's lines must be sought for elsewhere; but it is greatly to be regretted that he has not adverted to the place where the painting, as he seems to call it, was made. Very soon after the calamitous fire at Whitehall in 1697, which consumed nearly the whole of that palace, a person calling himself T. Nieuhoff Piccard, probably belonging to the household of William the Third, and a man who appears to have been an amateur artist, made the etchings in the article IX. already described in p. 130. Copies of them were presented to some of his friends, with manuscript dedications to them. Three of these copies have been seen by the author of this Dissertation, and as the dedications differ from each other, and are of very considerable importance on the present occasion, the following extracts from them are here translated and transcribed: "TO MYNHEER HEYMANS. "Sir,--The costly palace of Whitehall, erected by Cardinal Wolsey, and the residence of King Henry VIII. contains, among other performances of art, a _Dance of Death_, painted by Holbein in its galleries, which, through an unfortunate conflagration, has been reduced to ashes; and even the little work which he has engraved with his own hand, and which I have copied as near as possible, is so scarce, that it is known only to a few lovers of art. And since the court has thought proper, in consideration of your singular deserts, to cause a dwelling to be built for you at Whitehall, I imagined it would not be disagreeable to you to be made acquainted with the former decorations of that palace. It will not appear strange that the artist should have chosen the above subject for ornamenting the _royal_ walls, if we consider that the founder of the Greek monarchy directed that he should be daily reminded of the admonition, 'Remember, Philip, that thou art a man.' In like manner did Holbein with his pencil give tongues to these walls to impress not only the king and his court, but every one who viewed them with the same reflection." He then proceeds to describe each of the subjects, and concludes with some moral observations. In another copy of these etchings the dedication is to "The high, noble, and wellborn Lord William Benting, Lord of Rhoon, Pendreght, &c." "Sir,--In the course of my constant love and pursuit of works of art, it has been my good fortune to meet with that scarce little work of Hans Holbein neatly engraved on wood, and which he himself had painted as large as life in fresco on the walls of Whitehall. In the copy which I presume to lay before you, as being born in the same palace, I have followed the original as nearly as possible, and considering the partiality which every one has for the place of his birth, a description of what is remarkable and curious therein and now no longer existing on account of its destruction by a fatal fire, must needs prove acceptable, as no other remains whatever have been left of that once so famous court of King Henry VIII. built by Cardinal Wolsey, than your own dwelling." He then repeats the story of Philip of Macedon, and the account of the subjects of his etchings. At the end of this dedication there is a fragment of another, the beginning of which is lost. The following passages only in it are worthy of notice. "The residence of King William." "I flatter myself with a familiar acquaintance with Death, since I have already lived long enough to seem to be buried alive, &c." In other respects, the same, in substance, as the preceding. It is almost needless to advert to M. Nieuhoff Piccard's mistake in asserting that Holbein made the engravings which he copied; but it would have been of some importance if, instead of his pious ejaculations, he had described all the subjects that Holbein painted on the walls of the galleries at Whitehall. He must have used some edition of the wood-cuts posterior to that of 1545, which did not contain the subjects of the German soldier, the fool, and the blind man, all of which he has introduced. It is possible, however, that he has given us all the subjects that were then remaining, the rest having become decayed or obliterated from dampness and neglect, and even those which then existed would soon afterwards perish when the remains of the old palace were removed. His copies are by no means faithful, and seem to be rather the production of an amateur than of a regular artist. For his greater convenience, he appears to have preferred using the wood engravings instead of the paintings; and it is greatly to be regretted that we have no better or further account of them, especially of the time at which they were executed. The lives of Holbein that we possess are uniformly defective in chronological arrangement. There seems to be a doubt whether the Earl of Arundel recommended him to visit England; but certain it is that in the year 1526 he came to London with a letter of that date addressed by Erasmus to Sir Thomas More, accompanied with his portrait, with which More was so well satisfied that he retained him at his house at Chelsea upwards of two years, until Henry VIII. from admiration of his works, appointed him his painter, with apartments at Whitehall. In 1529 he visited Basle, but returned to England in 1530. In 1535 he drew the portrait of his friend Nicholas Bourbon or Borbonius at London, probably the before-mentioned crayon drawing at Buckingham House, or some duplicate of it. In 1538 he painted the portrait of Sir Richard Southwell, a privy counsellor to Henry VIII. which was afterwards in the gallery of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.[128] About this time the magistrates of the city of Basle settled an annuity on him, but conditionally that he should return in two years to his native place and family, with which terms he certainly did not comply, preferring to remain in England. In the last-mentioned year he was sent by the king into Burgundy to paint the portrait of the Duchess of Milan, and in 1539 to Germany to paint that of Anne of Cleves. In some household accounts of Henry VIII. there are payments to him in 1538, 1539, 1540, and 1541, on account of his salary, which appears to have been thirty pounds per annum.[129] From this time little more is recorded of him till 1553, when he painted Queen Mary's portrait, and shortly afterwards died of the plague in London in 1554. In the absence of positive evidence it may surely be allowed to substitute probable conjecture; and as it cannot be clearly proved that Holbein painted a Dance of Death at Basle, may not the before-mentioned verses of Borbonius refer to his painting at Whitehall, and which the poet must himself have seen? It is no objection that Borbonius remained a year only in England, when his portrait was painted by his friend Holbein in 1535, or that the verses did not make their appearance till 1538, for they seem rather to fix the date of the painting, if really belonging to it, between those years; and it is not unreasonable to suppose that Borbonius would hold some intercourse with the painter, even after leaving England, as is indeed apparent from other compliments bestowed on him in his Nugæ, the contents of which are by no means chronologically arranged, and many of the poems known to have been written long before their publication. The lines in question might have been written any where, and at any time, and this may be very safely stated until the real time in which the Whitehall painting was made shall be ascertained. In one of Vanderdort's manuscript catalogues of the pictures and rarities transported from St. James's to Whitehall, and placed there in the newly erected cabinet room of Charles I. and in which several works by Holbein are mentioned, there is the following article: "A little piece where Death with a green garland about his head, stretching both his arms to apprehend a Pilate in the habit of one of the spiritual Prince Electors of Germany. Copied by Isaac Oliver from Holbein."[130] There cannot be a doubt that this refers to the subject of the Elector, as painted by Holbein in the Dance of Death at Whitehall, proving at the same time the identity of the painting with the wood-cuts, whatever may be the inference. Sandrart, after noticing a remarkable portrait of Henry VIII. at Whitehall, states, that "there yet remains in that palace _another work_ by Holbein that constitutes him the Apelles of the time."[131] This is certainly very like an allusion to a Dance of Death. It is by no means improbable that Mathew Prior may have alluded to Holbein's painting at Whitehall, as it is not likely that he would be acquainted with any other. Our term of life depends not on our deed, Before our birth our funeral was decreed, Nor aw'd by foresight, nor misled by chance, Imperious death directs the ebon lance, Peoples great Henry's tombs, and leads up Holbein's Dance. _Ode to the Memory of George Villiers._ CHAPTER X. _Other Dances of Death._ Having thus disposed of the two most ancient and important works on the subject in question, others of a similar nature, but with designs altogether different, and introduced into various books, remain to be noticed, and such are the following: I. "Les loups ravissans fait et composé par maistre Robert Gobin prestre, maistre es ars licencie en decret, doyen de crestienté de Laigny sur Marne au dyocese de Paris, advocat en court d'eglise. Imprimé pour Anthoine Verard a Paris, 4to." without date, but about 1500. This is a very bitter satire, in the form of a dream, against the clergy in general, but more particularly against Popes John XXII. and Boniface VIII. A wolf, in a lecture to his children, instructs them in every kind of vice and wickedness, but is opposed, and his doctrines refuted, by an allegorical personage called Holy Doctrine. In a second vision Death appears to the author, accompanied by Fate, War, Famine, and Mortality. All classes of society are formed into a Dance, as the author chooses to call it, and the work is accompanied with twenty-one very singular engravings on wood, executed in a style perhaps nowhere else to be met with. The designs are the same as those in the second Dance of the Horæ, printed by Higman for Vostre, No. I. page 61. II. "A booke of Christian prayers, collected out of the ancient writers, &c." Printed by J. Day, 1569. 4to. Afterwards in 1578, 1581, 1590, and 1609. It is more frequently mentioned under the title of "Queen Elizabeth's prayer-book," a most unsuitable title, when it is recollected how sharply this haughty dame rebuked the Dean of Christchurch for presenting a common prayer to her which had been purposely ornamented with cuts by him.[132] This book was most probably compiled by the celebrated John Fox, and is accompanied with elegant borders in the margins of every leaf cut in wood by an unknown artist whose mark is [monogram: CI], though they have been most unwarrantably ascribed to Holbein, and even to Agnes Frey, the wife of Albert Durer, who is not known with any certainty to have practised the art of engraving. At the end is a Dance of Death different from every other of the kind, and of singular interest, as exhibiting the costume of its time with respect to all ranks and conditions of life, male and female. These are the characters. "The Emperor, the King, the Duke, the Marques, the Baron, the Vicount, the Archbishop, the Bishop, the Doctor, the Preacher, the Lord, the Knight, the Esquire, the Gentleman, the Judge, the Justice, the Serjeant at law, the Attorney, the Mayor, the Shirife, the Bailife, the Constable, the Physitian, the Astronomer, the Herauld, the Sergeant at arms, the Trumpetter, the Pursevant, the Dromme, the Fife, the Captaine, the Souldier, the Marchant, the Citizen, the Printers (in two compartments), the Rich Man, the Aged Man, the Artificer, the Husbandman, the Musicians (in two compartments), the Shepheard, the Foole, the Beggar, the Roge, of Youth, of Infancie." Then the females. "The Empresse, the Queene, the Princes, the Duchesse, the Countesse, the Vicountesse, the Baronnesse, the Lady, the Judge's Wife, the Lawyer's Wife, the Gentlewoman, the Alderman's Wife, the Marchantes Wife, the Citizen's Wife, the Rich Man's Wife, the Young Woman, the Mayde, the Damosell, the Farmar's Wife, the Husbandman's Wife, the Countriwoman, the Nurse, the Shepheard's Wife, the Aged Woman, the Creeple, the Poore Woman, the Infant, the (female) Foole." All these are designed in a masterly manner, and delicately engraved. The figures of the Deaths occasionally abound in much humour, and always with appropriate characters. The names of the unknown artists were worthy of being recorded. III. "Icones mortis, sexaginta imaginibus totidemque inscriptionibus insignitæ versibus quoque Latinis et novis Germanicis illustratæ. Norimbergæ Christ. Lockner, 1648, 8vo."[133] IV. "Rudolph Meyers S: Todten dantz ergantz et und heraus gegeben durch Conrad Meyern Maalern in Zurich, im jahr 1650." On an engraved title page, representing an angel blowing a trumpet, with a motto from the Apocalypse. Death or Time holds a lettered label with the above inscription or title. In the back ground groups of small figures allusive to the last judgment. Then follows a printed title "Sterbenspiegel das ist sonnenklare vorstellung menschlicher nichtigkeit durch alle Stand und Geschlechter: vermitlest 60 dienstlicher kupferblatteren lehrreicher uberschrifften und beweglicher zu vier stimmen auszgesetzter Todtengesangen, vor disem angefangen durch Rudolffen Meyern S. von Zurich, &c. Jetzaber zu erwekung nohtwendiger Todsbetrachtung verachtung irdischer eytelkeit; und beliebung seliger ewigkeit zuend gebracht und verlegt durch Conrad Meyern Maalern in Zurich und daselbsten bey ihme zufinden. Getruckt zu Zürich bey Johann Jacob Bodmer, MDCL." 4to. that is: The Mirror of Death--that is--a brilliant representation of human nothingness in all ranks and conditions, by means of 60 appropriate Copperplates, spiritual superscriptions, and moving songs of Death, arranged for four voices, formerly commenced by Rudolph Meyer of Zurich, &c. but now brought to an end and completed, for the awaking of a necessary consideration of death, a contempt of earthly vanity, and a love of blissful eternity, by _Conrad_ Meyer of Zurich, of whom they are to be had. Printed at Zurich, by John Jacob Bodmer, MDCL. The subjects are the following:--1. The Creation. 2. The Fall. 3. Expulsion from Paradise. 4. Punishment of Man. 5. Triumph of Death. 6. An allegorical frontispiece relating to the class of the Clergy. 6. The Pope. 7. The Cardinal. 8. The Bishop. 9. The Abbot. 10. The Abbess. 11. The Priest. 12. The Monk. 13. The Hermit. 14. The Preacher. 15. An allegorical frontispiece to the class of Rulers and Governors. 15. The Emperor. 16. The Empress. 17. The King. 18. The Queen. 19. The Prince Elector. 20. The Earl and Countess. 21. The Knight. 22. The Nobleman. 23. The Judge. 24. The Steward, Widow, and Orphan. 25. The Captain. 26. An allegorical frontispiece to the Lower Classes. 26. The Physician. 27. The Astrologer. 28. The Merchant. 29. The Painter and his kindred: among these the old man is Dietrich Meyern; the painter resembles the portrait of Conrad Meyern in Sandrart, and the man at the table is probably Rudolph Meyern. 30. The Handcraftsman. 31. The Architect. 32. The Innkeeper. 33. The Cook. 34. The Ploughman. 35. The Man and Maid Servant. 36. The old Man. 37. The old Woman. 38. The Lovers. 39. The Child. 40. The Soldier. 41. The Pedler. 42. The Highwayman. 43. The Quack Doctor. 44. The Blind Man. 45. The Beggar. 46. The Jew. 47. The Usurer. 48. The Gamesters. 49. The Drunkards. 50. The Gluttons. 51. The Fool. 52. The Certainty of Death. 53. The Uncertainty of Death. 54. The Last Judgment. 55. Christ's Victory. 56. Salvation. 57. True and False Religion. The text consists chiefly of Death's apostrophe to his victims, with their remonstrances, verses under each subject, and various other matters. At the end are pious songs and psalms set to music. This work was jointly executed by two excellent artists, Rodolph and Conrad Meyer or Meyern, natives of Zurich. The designs are chiefly by Rodolph, and the etchings by Conrad, consisting of sixty very masterly compositions. The grouping of the figures is admirable, and the versatile representations of Death most skilfully characterized. Many of the subjects are greatly indebted to the Lyons wood engravings. In 1657 and 1759 there appeared other editions of the latter, with this title, "Die menschliche Sterblichkeit under dem titel Todten Tanz in LXI original-kupfern, von Rudolf und Conrad Meyern beruhmten kunstmahlern in Zurich abermal herausgegeben, nebst neven, dazu dienenden, moralischen versen und veber schriften." That is, "Human mortality, under the title of the Dance of Death, in 61 original copper prints of Rudolf and Conrad Meyern, renowned painters at Zurich, to which are added appropriate moral verses and inscriptions." Hamburg and Leipsig, 1759, 4to. The prolegomena are entirely different from those in the other edition, and an elaborate preface is added, giving an account of several editions of the Dance of Death. Instead of the Captain, No. 25, the Ensign is substituted, and the Cook is newly designed. Some of the numbers of the subjects are misplaced. The etchings have been retouched, and on many the date of 1637 is seen, which had no where occurred in the first edition here described. In 1704 copies of 52 of these etchings were published at Augsburg, under the title of "Tripudium mortis per victoriam super carnem universæ orbis terræ erectum. Ab A. C. Redelio S. C. M. T. P." on a label held by Death as before. Then the German title "Erbaulicher Sterb-Spiegel dast ist sonnen-klahre vorstellung menschlicher nichtigkeit durch alle stande und geschlechter: vermittelst schoner kupffern, lehr-reicher bey-schrifften und hertz-beweglich angehangter Todten-lieder ehmahls herauss gegeben durch Rudolph und Conrad Meyern mahlern in Zurch Anjetzo aber mit Lateinischen unterschrifften der kupffer vermehret und aussgezieret von dem Welt-beruhmten Poeten Augustino Casimiro Redelio, Belg. Mech. Sac. Cæs. Majest. L. P. Augsburg zu finden bey Johann Philipp Steudner. Druckts, Abraham Gugger. 1704." 4to. That is, "An edifying mirror of mortality, representing the nullity of man through all stations and generations, by means of beautiful engravings in copper, instructive inscriptions, and heart-moving lays of Death, as an appendix to the work formerly edited by Rudolph and Conrad Meyern of Zurich, but now published with Latin inscriptions, and engravings augmented and renewed by the worldly renowned poet Augustin Casimir Redel, &c." In this edition the Pope and all the other religious characters are omitted, probably by design. The etchings are very inferior to the fine originals, and without the name of the artist. The dresses are frequently modernised in the fashion of the time, and other variations are occasionally introduced. V. "Den Algemeynen dooden Spiegel van Pater Abraham à Sancta Clara," _i. e._ The universal mirror of Death of Father Abraham à Sancta Clara. On a frontispiece engraved on copper, with a medallion of the author, and various allegorical figures. Then the printed title, "Den Algemeynen Dooden spiegel ofte de capelle der Dooden waer in alle Menschen sich al lacchende oft al weenende op recht konnen beschouwen verciert mer aerdige historien, Siu-rycke gedichten ende sedenleer-ende Beeldt-schetsen op gestelt door den eerweerdigen Pater Abraham à Sancta Clara Difinitor der Provincie van het order der ongeschoende Augustynen ende Predickant van syne Keyserlycke Majesteyt Leopoldus. Getrouwelyck overgeset vyt het hoogh-duyts in onse Nederduytsche Taele. Tot Brussel, by de Wed. G. Jacobs tegen de Baert-brugge in de Druckerye, 1730." 12mo. _i. e._ "The universal mirror of Death taken from the chapel of the dead; in which all men may see themselves properly, whether laughing or weeping, ornamented with pretty stories, spirited poems, and instructive prints, arranged by Father Abraham à Sancta Clara, of the Augustinian order, and preacher to his Imperial Majesty Leopold, and faithfully translated out of High Dutch into our Netherlandish language." The work consists of sixty-seven engravings on wood within borders, and of very indifferent execution in all respects; the text a mixture of prose and poetry of a religious nature, allusive to the subjects, which are not uniformly a dance of Death. The best among them are the Painter, p. 45; the Drunkard, p. 75; the dancing Couple, Death playing the Flageolet, p. 103; the Fowler, p. 113; the hen-pecked Husband, p. 139; the Courtezan, p. 147; the Musician, p. 193; the Gamester, p. 221; and the blind Beggar, p. 289. VI. "Geistliche Todts-Gedanchen bey allerhand semahlden und Tchildereyn in vabildung Interschiedlichen geschlechts, alters, standes, und wurdend perschnen sich des Todes zucrinneren ans dessen lehrdie tugende zuüben und die Tundzu meyden Erstlich in kupfer entworffen nachmaler durch sittliche erdrtherung und aberlegung unter Todten-farben in vorschem gebracht, dardurch zumheyl der seelen im gemuth des geneighten lesers ein lebendige forcht und embsige vorsorg des Todes zu erwecken. Cum permissu superiorum. Passau Gedrucht bey Frederich Gabriel Mangold, hochfurst, hof buchdruckern, 1753. Lintz, verlegts Frantz Anton Ilger, Burgerl, Buchhandlern allda." Folio. In English, "The Spiritual Dance of Death in all kinds of pictures and representations, whereby persons of every age, sex, rank, and dignity, may be reminded of Death, from which lesson they may exercise themselves in virtue, and avoid sin. First put upon copper, and afterwards, through moral considerations and investigations brought to light in Death's own colours, thereby for the good of the souls of the well inclined readers to awaken in them a lively fear and diligent anticipation of Death." The subjects are: 1. The Creation. 2. Temptation. 3. Expulsion. 4. Punishment. 5. A charnel house, with various figures of Death, three in the back-ground dancing. 6. The Pope. 7. Cardinal. 8. Bishop. 9. Abbot. 10. Canon. 11. Preacher. 12. Chaplain. 13. Monk. 14. Abbess. 15. Nun. 16. Emperor. 17. Empress. 18. King. 19. Queen. 20. Prince. 21. Princess. 22. Earl. 23. Countess. 24. Knight. 25. Nobleman. 26. Judge. 27. Counsellor. 28. Advocate. 29. Physician. 30. Astrologer. 31. Rich man. 32. Merchant. 33. Shipwreck. 34. Lovers. 35. Child. 36. Old man. 37. Old woman. 38. Carrier. 39. Pedler. 40. Ploughman. 41. Soldier. 42. Gamesters. 43. Drunkards. 44. Murderer. 45. Fool. 46. Blind man. 47. Beggar. 48. Hermit. 49. Corruption. 50. Last Judgment. 51. Allegory of Death's Arms, &c. The designs and some of the engravings are by M. Rentz, for the most part original, with occasional hints from the Lyons wood-cuts. Another edition with some variation was printed at Hamburg, 1759, folio. VII. In the Lavenburg Calendar for 1792, are 12 designs by Chodowiecki for a Dance of Death. These are: 1. The Pope. 2. The King. 3. The Queen. 4. The General. 5. The Genealogist. 6. The Physician. 7. The Mother. 8. The Centinel. 9. The Fish Woman. 10. The Beggar. 11. The fille de joye and bawd. 12. The Infant. VIII. A Dance of Death in one of the Berne Almanacks, consisting of the 16 following subjects. 1. Death fantastically dressed as a beau, seizes the city maiden. 2. Death wearing a Kevenhuller hat, takes the housemaid's broom from her. 3. Death seizes a terrified washerwoman. 4. He takes some of the apple-woman's fruit out of her basket. 5. The cellar maid or tapster standing at the door of an alehouse is summoned by death to accompany him. 6. He lays violent hands upon an abusive strumpet. 7. In the habit of an old woman he lays hold of a midwife with a newly born infant in her hands. 8. With a shroud thrown over his shoulder he summons the female mourner. 9. In the character of a young man with a chapeau bras he brings a urinal for the physician's inspection. 10. The life-guardsman is accompanied by Death also on horseback and wearing an enormous military hat. 11. Death with a skillet on his head plunders the tinker's basket. 12. Death in a pair of jack-boots leads the postilion. 13. The lame beggar led by Death. 14. Death standing in a grave pulls the grave digger towards him by the leg. 15. Death seated on a plough with a scythe in his left hand, seizes the farmer, who carries several implements of husbandry on his shoulders. 16. The fraudulent inn-keeper in the act of adulterating his liquor in the cask, is throttled by Death who carries an ale vessel at his back. These figures are cut on wood in a free and masterly manner, by Zimmerman, an artist much employed in the decoration of these calendars. The prints are accompanied with dialogues between Death and the respective parties. IX. "Freund Heins Erscheinungen in Holbeins manier von J. R. Schellenberg Winterthur, bey Heinrich Steiner und Comp. 1785, 8vo." That is--"Friend Heins appearance in the manner of Holbein, by J. R. Schellenberg." The preface states that from the poverty of the German language in synonymous expressions for the allegorical or ideal Death, the author has ventured to coin the jocose appellation of Friend Hein, which will be understood from its resemblance to Hain or Hayn, a word signifying a grove. The sagacity of the German reader will perhaps discover the analogy. The subjects are 24 in number, as follow: 1. Love interrupted. The lovers are caught by Death in a net, and in no very decent attitude. 2. Suicide. A man shoots himself with a pistol, and falls into the arms of Death. 3. Death in the character of a beau visits a lady at her toilet. 4. The Aeronaut. The balloon takes fire, and the aeronaut is precipitated. 5. Death's visit to the school. He enters at a door inscribed SILENTIUM, and puts the scholars to flight. 6. Bad distribution of alms. 7. Expectation deluded. Death disguised as a fine lady lays hands upon a beau, who seems to have expected a very different sort of visitor. 8. Unwelcome officiousness. Death feeding an infant with poison, the nurse wringing her hands in despair. 9. The dissolution of the monastery. The Abbot followed by his monks receives the fatal summons in a letter delivered to him by Death. 10. The company of a friend. An aged man near a grave wrings his hands. Death behind directs his attention to heaven. 11. The lottery gambler. Death presents him with the unlucky ticket. 12. The woman of Vienna and the woman of Rome. Death seizes one, and points to the other. 13. The Usurer. Death shuts him into his money chest. 14. The Glutton. Death seizes him at table, and forcibly pours wine down his throat. 15. The Rope-dancer. Death mounted on an ass, and fantastically apparelled, enters the circle of spectators, and seizes the performer by one of his legs. 16. The lodge of secrecy (freemasonry). Death introduces a novice blindfold to the lodge. 17. The recruiting Officer. Death enlists some country fellows, a fiddler preceding. 18. Berthold Swartz. Death ignites the contents of the mortar, and blows up the monk. In the usual representations of this story the Devil is always placed near the monk. 19. The Duel. A man strikes with a sword at Death, who is lifting up the valves of a window. 20. The plunder of the falling-trap. Death demolishes a student by throwing a bookcase filled with books upon him. 21. Silence surrendered. Death appears to a schoolmistress. The children terrified, escape. 22. The privilege of the strong. Death lays violent hands on a lady, whom her male companions in vain endeavour to protect. 23. The apothecary. Death enters his shop, and directs his attention to the poor patients who are coming in. 24. The Conclusion. Two anatomists joining hands are both embraced by Death. The best of these subjects are Nos. 4, 13, 14, 15, and 18. The text is a mixture of prose and verse. X. "The English Dance of Death, from the designs of Thomas Rowlandson, with metrical illustrations by the author of Doctor Syntax." 2 vols. 8vo. 1815-1816. Ackermann. In seventy-two coloured engravings. Among these the most prominent and appropriate are, the last Chase; the Recruit; the Catchpole; the Death-blow; the Dramshop; the Skaiters; the Duel; the Kitchen; the Toastmaster; the Gallant's downfall; and the fall of four in hand. The rest are comparatively feeble and irrelevant, and many of the subjects ill-chosen, and devoid of that humour which might have been expected from the pencil of Rowlandson, whose grotesque predominates as usual in the groups. XI. "Death's Doings, consisting of numerous original compositions in prose and verse, the friendly contributions of various writers, principally intended as illustrations of 24 plates designed and etched by R. Dagley, author of "Select gems from the antique," &c." 1826. 8vo. From the intrinsic value and well deserved success of this work, a new edition was almost immediately called for, which received many important additions from the modest and ingenious author. Among these a new frontispiece, from the design of Adrian Van Venne, the celebrated Dutch poet and painter, is particularly to be noticed. This edition is likewise enriched with numerous elegant contributions, both in prose and verse, from some of the best writers of the age. XII. A modern French Dance of Death, under the title of "Voyage pour l'Eternité, service général des omnibus accélérés, depart à tout heure et de tous les point du globe." Par J. Grandville. No date, but about 1830. A series of nine lithographic engravings, including the frontispiece. Oblong 4to. These are the subjects: 1. Frontispiece. Death conducting passengers in his omnibus to the cemetery of Père la Chaise. 2. "C'est ici le dernier relai." Death as a postilion gives notice to a traveller incumbered with his baggage, &c. 3. "Vais-je bien? ... vous avancez horriblement." Death enters a watchmaker's shop, and shews his hour-glass to the master and his apprentice. 4. "Monsieur le Baron, on vous demande.--Dites que je n'y suis pas." Death having entered the apartment, the valet communicates his summons to his gouty master lying on a couch. 5. "Soyez tranquille, j'ai un garçon qui ne se trompe jamais." The apothecary addresses these words to some cautious patients whilst he fills a vessel which they have brought to his shop. Death, as an apprentice in another room, pounds medicines in a mortar. 6. "Voila, Messieurs, un plat de mon metier." A feast. Death as a waiter enters with a plate of poisonous fruit. 7. "Voulez vous monter chez moi, mon petit Monsieur, vous n'en serez pas fâché, allez." Death, tricked out as a fille de joye with a mask, entices a youth introduced by a companion. 8. "--Pour une consultation, Docteur, j'en suis j'vous suis ..." Death in the character of an undertaker, his hearse behind, invites an old man to follow him. 9. "Oui, Madame, ce sera bien la promenade la plus delicieuse! une voiture dans le dernier goût! un cheval qui fend l'air, et le meilleur groom de France." Death, habited as a beau, conducts a lady followed by her maid to a carriage in waiting. XIII. The British Dance of Death, exemplified by a series of engravings from drawings by Van Assen, with explanatory and moral essays. Printed by and for George Smeeton, Royal Arcade, Pall Mall. 8vo. no date. With a frontispiece designed by Geo. Cruikshank, representing a crowned sitting Death, holding a scythe in one hand, and with the other leaning on a globe. This is circular in the middle. Over it two small compartments of Death striking an infant in the cradle, and a sick man. At bottom, two others of Death demolishing a glutton and a drunkard. A short preface states that the work is on the plan of "the celebrated designs of Holbein," meaning of course the Lyons work, but to which it has not the smallest resemblance, and refers to Lord Orford for the mention of the Basle dance, which, as having two or sometimes three figures only, it does resemble. It then states that the late Mr. Van Assen had no intention of publishing these designs, which now appear in compliance with the wishes of many of his friends to possess them. They are very neatly engraved, and tinted in imitation of the original drawings, but are wholly destitute of that humour which might have been expected from the pencil of the ingenious inventor, and which he has manifested on many other occasions. The subjects are the following: 1. The Infant. 2. Juvenile piety. 3. The Student. 4. The Sempstress. 5. The musical Student. 6. The Dancer. 7. The female Student. 8. The Lovers. 9. The industrious Wife. 10. The Warrior. 11. The Pugilists. 12. The Glutton. 13. The Drunkard. 14. The Watchman. 15. The Fishwoman. 16. The Physician. 17. The Miser. 18. Old Age. Death with his dart is standing near all these figures, but does not seem to be noticed by any of them. XIV. A Dance of Death in Danish rimes is mentioned in Nyerup's "Bidragh til den Danske digtakunst historie." 1800. 12mo. XV. John Nixon Coleraine, an amateur, and secretary to the original Beef Stake Club, etched a dance of Death for ladies' fans. He died only a few years ago. Published by Mr. Fores, of Piccadilly, who had the copper-plates, but of which no impressions are now remaining. CHAPTER XI. _Dances of Death, with such text only as describes the subjects._ I. Six small circles on a single sheet, engraved on copper by Israel Van Meckenen. 1. Christ sitting on his cross. 2. Three skulls on a table. 3. Death and the Pope. 4. Death riding on a lion, and the Patriarch. 5. Death and the Standard-bearer. 6. Death and the Lady. At top "memento mori," at bottom "Israhel V. M." II. A Dance of Death, engraved on copper, by Henry Aldegrever. 1. Creation of Eve. 2. Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. 3. Expulsion from Paradise. 4. Adam digging, Eve spinning. 5. Death and the Pope. 6. Death and the Cardinal. 7. Death and the Bishop. 8. Death and the Abbot. All these have the date 1541, and with some variations follow the Lyons woodcuts. They have scriptural texts in Latin. 12mo. The whole were afterwards copied in a work by Kieser, already described, p. 121. III. A Dance of Death, consisting of eight subjects, engraved on copper by an unknown artist, whose mark is [monogram: AC]. 1. Death beating a drum, precedes a lady and gentleman accompanied by a little dog. 2. Death playing on a stickado, precedes a lady and gentleman dancing back to back, below an hour-glass. 3. Death, with an hour-glass in his right hand, lays his left on the shoulder of a gentleman taking hold of a lady with his right hand, and carrying a hawk with his left. 4. Death crowned with a garland, and holding an hour-glass in his left hand, stands between a lady and gentleman joining hands. 5. Death, with a fool's cap and hood, a dagger of lath, and a bladder, holds up an hour-glass with his right hand; with his left he seizes the hand of a terrified lady accompanied by a gentleman, who endeavours to thrust away the unwelcome companion. 6. Another couple led by Death. 7. Death with a cap and feathers holds an hour-glass in his right hand, and with his left seizes a lady, whom a gentleman endeavours to draw away from him. All have the date 1562. 12mo. Size, three inches by two. They are described also in Bartsch, Peintre Graveur, ix. 482, and have been sometimes erroneously ascribed to Aldegrever. [Illustration] IV. A Dance of Death, extremely well executed on wood, the designs of which have been taken from a set of initial letters, that will hereafter be particularly described. They are upright, and measure two inches by one and a half. Each subject is accompanied with two German verses. V. On the back of the title page to "Die kleyn furstlich Chronica," Strasb. 1544, 4to. are three subjects that appear to be part of a series. 1. Death and the Pope, who has a book and triple crosier. Death kneels to him whilst he plays on a tabor and drum. 2. Death and the King. Death blows a trumpet. 3. Death shoots an arrow at a warrior armed with sword and battle-axe. All these figures are accompanied with German verses, and are neatly engraved on wood. VI. A series of single figures, etched with great spirit by Giovanni Maria Mitelli. They are not accompanied by Death, but hold dialogues with him in Italian stanzas. The characters are, 1. The Astrologer. 2. The Doctor of universal science. 3. The Hunter. 4. The Mathematician. 5. The Idolater. They are not mentioned in Bartsch, nor in any other list of the works of engravers. It is possible that there are more of them. VII. The five Deaths, etched by Della Bella. 1. A terrific figure of Death on a galloping horse. In his left hand a trumpet, to which a flag, agitated by the wind, is attached. In the back ground, several human skeletons, variously employed. 2. Death carrying off an infant in his arms. In the back-ground, the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris. 3. Death walking away with a young child on his back. In the distance, another view of the above cemetery. 4. Death carrying off a female on his shoulders, with her head downwards, followed at a distance by another Death holding a corpse in his arms. 5. Death dragging a reluctant old man towards a grave, in which another Death, with an hour-glass in his hand, awaits him. All these are extremely fine, and executed in the artist's best time. There is a sixth of the series, representing Death throwing a young man into a well, but it is very inferior to the others. It was begun by Della Bella a short time before his death, and finished by his pupil Galestruzzi, about 1664. Della Bella likewise etched a long print of the triumph of Death. VIII. A single anonymous French engraving on copper, 14-1/2 by 6-1/2, containing three subjects. 1. Death and the soldier. 2. Death standing with a pruning knife in his right hand, and a winged hour-glass in his left. Under him are three prostrate females, one plays on a violin; the next, who represents Pride, holds a peacock in one hand and a mirror in the other; the third has a flower in her left hand. 3. Death and the lady. He holds an hour-glass and dart, and she a flower in her right hand. Under each subject are French verses. This may perhaps be one only of a set. IX. A German Dance of Death, in eight oblong engravings on copper, 11 by 8-1/2, consisting of eight sheets and twenty-five subjects, as follow. 1. A fantastic figure of a Death, with a cap and feathers, in the attitude of dancing and playing on a flute. He is followed by another dancing skeleton carrying a coffin on his shoulder. 2. Pope. 3. Emperor. 4 Empress. 5. Cardinal. 6. King. 7. Bishop. 8. Duke or General. 9. Abbot. 10. Knight. 11. Carthusian. 12. Burgomaster. 13. Canon. 14. Nobleman. 15. Physician. 16. Usurer. 17. Chaplain. 18. Bailiff or Steward. 19. Churchwarden. 20. Merchant. 21. Hermit. 22. Peasant. 23. Young Man. 24. Maiden. 25. Child. This is a complete set of the prints, representing the Lubeck painting, already described in p. 43. In the translation of the inscriptions, as given by Dr. Nugent, two more characters are added at the end, viz. the Dancing Master and the Fencing Master. On the spectator's left hand of No. 1. of these engravings, is a column containing the following inscription in German, in English as follows: "Silence, fool-hardy one, whoever thou art, who, with needless words, profanest this holy place. This is no chapel for talking, but thy sure place is in Death's Dance. Silence then, silence, and let the painting on these silent walls commune with thee, and convince thee that man is and will be earth:" and on Nos. 4 and 5, the words "Zu finden in Lubeck by Christian Gotfried Donatius." X. The following entry is in the Stationers' books: 28 b. v{o} Januarij [1597.] Tho. Purfoote, sen.} Entered their c. Mr. Dix and Wm. M. The Tho. Purfoote, jun.} roll of the Daunce of Death, with pictures } and verses upon the same VI_d_. XI. In the catalogue of the library of R. Smith, secretary of the Poultry Compter, which was sold by auction in 1682, is this article "Dance of Death in the cloyster of Paul's, with figures, very old." Probably a single sheet. XII. "The Dance of Death;" a single sheet, engraved on copper, with the following figures. In the middle, Death leading the king; the beggar hand in hand with the king; Death leading the old man, followed by a child; the fool; the wise man, as an astrologer, led by Death. On the spectator's left hand, Death bringing a man before a judge; with the motto, "The greatest judge that sits in honour's seat, must come to grave, where't boots not to intreate." A man and woman in a brothel, Death behind; with the motto, "Leave, wanton youth, thou must no longer stay; if once I call all mortals must obey." On the opposite side, the Miser and Death; the motto, "Come, worldling, come, gold hath no power to save, leave it thou shalt, and dance with me to grave." Death and the Prisoner; the motto, "Prisoner arise, ile ease thy fetterd feet, and now betake thee to thy winding sheet." In the middle of the print sits a minstrel on a stool formed of bones placed on a coffin with a pick-axe and spade. He plays on a tabor and pipe; with this motto, "Sickness, despaire, sword, famine, sudden death, all these do serve as minstrells unto Death; the beggar, king, fool, and profound, courtier and clown all dance this round." Under the above figures is a poem of sixty-six lines on the power of Death, beginning thus: Yea, Adam's brood and earthly wights which breath now on the earth, Come dance this dance, and mark the song of this most mighty Death. Full well my power is known and seen in all the world about, When I do strike of force do yeeld both noble, wise, and stout, &c. Printed cullored and sould by R. Walton at the Globe and Compasses at the West end of St. Paules church turning down towards Ludgate. XIII. A large anonymous German engraving on copper, in folio. In the middle is a circular Dance of Death, with nine females, from the Empress to the Fool. In the four corners, two persons kneeling before a crucifix; saints in heaven; the temptation; and the infernal regions. At top, a frame with these verses: Vulneris en nostri certam solamque medelam En data divina præmia larga manu. Der Todt Christi Zunicht hat gmacht Den Todt und Sleben wider bracht. At bottom in a similar frame: Per unius peccatum Mors intravit in mundum. Den Todt und ewig hellisch pein Hat veruhr sagt die Sund allein. This is within a broad frame, containing a Dance of Death, in twelve ovals. The names of the characters are in German: 1. The Pope. 2. Emperor. 3. King. 4. Cardinal. 5. Bishop. 6. Duke. 7. Earl. 8. Gentleman. 9. Citizen. 10. Peasant. 11. Soldier and Beggar. 12. Fool and Child. Under each subject is an appropriate inscription in Latin and German. In the middle at top, a Death's head and bones, an hour-glass and a dial. In the middle at bottom, a lamp burning on a Death's head, and a pot of holy water with an aspergillum. On the sides, in the middle, funereal implements. XIV. Heineken, in his "Dictionnaire des Graveurs," iii. 77, mentions a Dance of Death engraved about 1740 by Maurice Bodenehr of Friburg, but without any further notice. XV. Another very large print, 2 feet by 1-1/2, in mezzotinto, the subject as in No. 10. but the figures varied, and much better drawn. At bottom, "Joh. El. Ridinger excud. Aug. Vindel." XVI. Newton's Dances of Death. Published July 12, 1796, by Wm. Holland, No. 50, Oxford Street, consisting of the following grotesque subjects engraved on copper. The size 6 inches by 5. 1. Auctioneer. 2. Lawyer. 3. Old Maid on Death's back. 4. Gamblers. 5. Scolding Wife. 6. Apple-woman. 7. Blind Beggar. 8. Distressed Poet and Bailiff. 9. Undertaker. 10. Sleeping Lady. 11. Old Woman and her Cats. 12. Gouty Parson feeding on a tythe pig. 12. Same subject differently treated. 13. Sailor and Sweetheart. 14. Physician, Gravedigger, and Death dancing a round. 15. Market-man. 16. Doctor, sick Patient, and Nurse. 17. Watchman. 18. Gravedigger putting a corpse into the grave. 19. Old maid reading, Death extinguishes the candle. 20. Gravedigger making a grave. 21. Old Woman. 22. Barber. 23. Lady and Death reflected in the mirror. 24. Waiter. 25. Amorous Old Man and Young Woman. 26. Jew Old Clothes-man. 27. Miser. 28. Female Gin-drinker. XVII. The Dance of Death modernised. Published July 13, 1800, and designed by G. M. Woodward, Berners' Street, Oxford Street. Contains the following caricatures. Size 5 by 4-1/2. 1. King. "Return the diadem and I'll follow you." 2. Cardinal. "Zounds, take care of my great toe, or I shall never rise higher than a cardinal." 3. Bishop. "I cannot go, I am a bishop." 4. Old Man. "My good friend, I am too old, I assure you." 5. Dancing-master. "I never practised such an Allemande as this since I have been a dancing-master." 6. Alderman. "If you detain me in this way my venison will be quite cold." 7. Methodist Preacher. "If you wo'nt take I, I'll never mention you or the Devil in my sarmons as long as I lives." 8. Parson. "I can't leave my company till I've finish'd my pipe and bottle." 9. Schoolmaster. "I am only a poor schoolmaster, and sets good examples in the willage." 10. Miser. "Spare my money, and I'll go contented." 11. Politician. "Stay till I have finished the newspaper, for I am told there is great intelligence from the continent." 12. Press-gang Sailor. "Why d-- me I'm one of your apprentices." 13. Beggar. "This is the universal dance from a king to a beggar." 14. Jockey. "I assure you I am engaged at Newmarket." 15. Undertaker. "A pretty dance this for an undertaker." 16. Gouty Man. "Buzaglo's exercise was nothing to this." 17. Poet. "I am but a poor poet, and always praised the ode to your honour written by the late King of Prussia." 18. Physician. "Here's fine encouragement for the faculty." 19. Lawyer. "The law is always exempt by the statutes." 20. Old Maid. "Let me but stay till I am married, and I'll ask no longer time." 21. Fine Lady. "Don't be so boisterous, you filthy wretch. I am a woman of fashion." 22. Empress. "Fellow, I am an empress." 23. Young Lady. "Indeed, Sir, I am too young." 24. Old Bawd. "You may call me old bawd, if you please, but I am sure I have always been a friend to your worship." XVIII. Bonaparte's Dance of Death. Invented, drawn, and etched by Richard Newton, 7 by 5. 1. Stabb'd at Malta. 2. Drown'd at Alexandria. 3. Strangled at Cairo. 4. Shot by a Tripoline gentleman. 5. Devoured by wild beasts in the desert. 6. Alive in Paris. CHAPTER XII. _Books in which the subject is occasionally introduced._ To offer any thing in the shape of a perfect list of these, would be to attempt an impossibility, and therefore such only as have come under the author's immediate inspection are here presented to the curious reader. The same remark will apply to the list of single prints that follows. There is a very singular book, printed, as supposed, about 1460, at Bamberg, by Albert Pfister. It is in German, and a sort of moral allegory in the shape of complaints against Death, with his answers to these accusations. It is very particularly described from the only known perfect copy in the royal library at Paris, by M. Camus, in vol. ii. of "Memoires de l'institut. national des sciences et arts: litterature et beaux arts," p. 6 et seq. It contains five engravings on wood, the first of which represents Death seated on a throne. Before him stands a man with an infant to complain that Death has taken the mother, who is seen wrapped in a shroud upon a tomb. The second cut represents Death also on a throne with the same person as before, making his complaint, accompanied by several other persons at the feet of Death, sorrowfully deposing the attributes of their respective conditions, and at the head of them a Pope kneeling with one knee on the ground. The third cut has two figures of Death, one of which, on foot, mows down several boys and girls; the other is on horseback, and pursues some cavaliers, against whom he shoots his arrows. The fourth cut is in two compartments, the upper representing, as before, a man complaining to Death seated on a throne with a crown on his head. Below, on the spectator's left hand, is a convent whence several monks are issuing towards a garden encircled with hurdles, in which is a tree laden with fruit by the side of a river; a woman is seen crowning a child with a chaplet, near whom stands another female in conversation with a young man. M. Camus, in the course of his description of this cut, has fallen into a very ludicrous error. He mistakes the very plain and obvious gate of the garden, for a board, on which, he says, _several characters are engraved which may be meant to signify the arts and sciences, none of which are competent to protection against the attacks of Death_. These supposed characters, however, are nothing more than the flowered hinges, ring or knocker, and lock of the door, which stands ajar. The fifth cut is described as follows, and probably with greater accuracy than in M. Camus, by Dr. Dibdin, from a single leaf of this very curious work in the Bibliotheca Spenceriana, vol. i. p. 104, accompanied with a copy of part of it only. "Above the figures there seen sits the Almighty upon a throne, with an attendant angel on each side. He is putting the forefinger of his left hand into the centre of his right, and upon each of the hands is an eye, denoting, I presume, the omniscience of the Deity." The fac-simile cut partly corresponds with M. Camus's description of Death, and the complainant before Christ seated on a throne in a heaven interspersed with stars. The above fourth cut among these is on a single leaf in the possession of the author, which had Dr. Dibdin seen, he would not have introduced M. Camus's erroneous account of it, who has also referred to Heineken's Idée, &c. p. 276, where it certainly is not in the French edition of 1771. 8vo. In the celebrated Nuremberg Chronicle, printed in that city, 1493, large folio, there is at fo. cclxiiii. a fine wood-cut of three Deaths dancing hand in hand, another playing to them on a haut-boy. Below is a skeleton rising from a grave. It is inscribed IMAGO MORTIS. In the "Stultifera navis" of Sebastian Brant, originally printed in German at Basle and Nuremberg, 1494, are several prints, finely cut on wood, in which Death is introduced. In an edition printed at Basle, 1572, 12mo. with elegant wood engravings, after the designs of Christopher Maurer, and which differ very materially from those in the early editions, there is a cut of great merit to the verses that have for their title, "Qui alios judicat." It represents a man on his death bed; and as the poet's intention is to condemn the folly of those who, judging falsely or uncharitably of others, forget that they must die themselves, Death is introduced as pulling a stool from under a fool, who sits by the bed-side of the dying man. In the original cut the fool is tumbling into the jaws of hell, which, as usual, is represented by a monstrous dragon. In the "Calendrier des Bergers," Paris, 1500, folio, at sign. g. 6, is a terrific figure of Death on the pale horse; and at sign. g. 5. Death in a cemetery, with crosses and monuments; in his left hand the lid of a coffin in which his left foot is placed. These cuts are not in the English translation. "Ortulus Rosarum," circa 1500, 12mo. A wood-cut of Death bearing a coffin on his shoulder, leads a group consisting of a pope, a cardinal, &c. In the dialogue "Of lyfe and death," at the end of "the dialoges of creatures moralysed," probably printed abroad without date or printer's name soon after 1500, are two engravings in wood, one representing Death appearing to a man with a falcon on his fist, the other Death with his spade leading an emperor, a king, and a duke. The latter is not found in the Latin editions of this work, and has probably formed a part of some very old Dance of Death. In an edition of "Boetius de consolatione," Strasburg, 1501, folio, is a figure of Death on a lean horse throwing his dart at a group of warriors. In the "Freidanck," Strasburg, 1508, 4to, near the end is a wood-cut of a garden, in which two men and two women are feasting at a table. They are interrupted by the unexpected appearance of Death, who forcibly seizes one of the party, whilst the rest make their escape. In the "Mortilogus" of Conrad Reitter, Prior of Nordlingen, printed at Augsbourg by Erhard Oglin and Geo. Nadler, 1508, 4to. there is a wood-cut of Death in a church-yard, holding a spade with one hand and with the other showing his hour-glass to a young soldier; and another of Death shooting an arrow at a flying man. In "Heures à l'usaige de Sens," printed at Paris by Jean de Brie, 1512, 8vo. the month of December in the calendar is figured by Death pulling an old man towards a grave; a subject which is, perhaps, nowhere else to be found as a representation of that month. It is certainly appropriate, as being at once the symbol of the termination of the year and of man's life. In the "Chevalier de la Tour," printed by Guillaume Eustace, Paris, 1514, folio, there is an allegorical cut, very finely engraved on wood, at fo. xxii. nearly filling the page. The subject is the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, the gate of which exhibits a regular entrance, with round towers and portcullis. Behind this gate is seen the forbidden tree, at the bottom of which is the Devil, seemingly rejoicing at the expulsion, with an apple in his hand. Near the gate stands the angel with his sword, and a cross on his head. Between him and the parties expelled is a picturesque figure of Death with a scythe ready for action. "Horæ ad usum Romanum," printed for Geoffrey Tory of Tours, 1525. Before the Vigiliæ Mortuorum is a wood-cut of a winged Death holding a clock in one hand; with the other he strikes to the ground and tramples on several men and women. Near him is a tree with a crow uttering CRAS CRAS. In another edition, dated 1527, is a different cut of a crowned figure of Death mounted on a black mule and holding a scythe and hour-glass. He is trampling on several dead bodies, and is preceded by another Death, armed also with a scythe, whilst a third behind strikes the mule, who stops to devour one of the prostrate figures. Above is a crow. In a beautiful Officium Virg. printed at Venice, 1525, 12mo. is a vignette of Death aiming an arrow at a group consisting of a pope, cardinal, &c. Another Death is behind, on the spectator's left. In "Heures de Notre Dame mises en reyne, &c." par Pierre Gringoire, 1527, 8vo. there is a cut at fo. lx. before the vigilles de la mort, of a king lying on a bier in a chapel with tapers burning, several mourners attending, and on the ground a pot of holy water. A hideous figure of Death holding a scythe in one hand and a horn in the other, tramples on the body of the deceased monarch. In a folio missal for the use of Salisbury, printed at Paris by Francis Regnault, 1531, there is a singular cut prefixed to the Officium Mortuorum, representing two Deaths seizing a body that has the horrible appearance of having been some time in its grave. In a Flemish metrical translation of Pope Innocent III.'s work, "De vilitate conditionis humanæ," Ghend, 1543, 12mo. there is a wood-cut of Death emerging from hell, armed with a dart and a three-pronged fork, with which he attacks a party taking their repast at a table. In the cuts to the Old Testament, beautifully engraved on wood by Solomon or le petit Bernard, Lyons, 1553, 12mo. Death is introduced in the vision of Ezekiel, ch. xxxvii. In this work the expulsion from Paradise is imitated from the same subject in the Lyons wood-cuts. In "Hawes's History of Graund Amoure and la bel Pucell, called the Pastime of Pleasure," printed by R. Tottel, 1555, 4to. are two prints; the first exhibits a female seated on a throne, in contemplation of several men and animals, some of whom are lying dead at her feet; behind the throne Death is seen armed with a dart, which he seems to have been just making use of: there is no allusion to it in the text, and it must have been intended for some other work. The second print has two figures of Death and a young man, whom he threatens with a sort of mace in his right hand, whilst he holds a pickaxe with his left. "Imagines elegantissimæ quæ multum lucis ad intelligendos doctrinæ Christianæ locos adferre possunt, collectæ à Johann Cogelero verbi divini ministro, Stetini." Viteberg, 1560, 12mo. It contains a wood-print, finely executed, of the following subject. In the front Death, armed with a hunting-spear, pushes a naked figure into the mouth of hell, in which are seen a pope and two monks. Behind this group, Moses, with a pair of bulls' horns, and attended by two Jews, holds the tables of the law. In the distance the temptation, and the brazen serpent. A German translation of the well known block book, the "Ars Moriendi," was printed at Dilingen, 1569, 12mo. with several additional engravings on wood. It is perhaps the last publication of the work. On the title-page is an oval cut, representing a winged boy sleeping on a scull, and Death shooting an arrow at him. The first cut exhibits a sort of Death's dance, in eight small compartments. 1. A woman in bed just delivered of a child, with which Death is running away. 2. A man sitting at a table, Death seizes him behind, and pulls him over the bench on which he is sitting. 3. Death drowning a man in a river. 4. Flames of fire issue from a house, Death tramples on a man endeavouring to escape. 5. Two men fighting, one of whom pierces the other with his sword. The wounded man is seized by Death, the other by the Devil. 6. A man on horseback is seized by Death also mounted behind. 7. Death holds his hour-glass to a man on his death-bed. 8. Death leading an aged man to the grave. At the end of this curious volume is a singular cut, intitled "Symbolum M. Joannis Stotzinger Presbyteri Dilingensis." It exhibits a young man sitting at a table, on which is a violin, music books, and an hour-glass. On the table is written RESPICE FINEM. Near him his guardian angel holding a label, inscribed ANGELVS ASTAT. Behind them Death about to strike the young man with his dart, and over him MORS MINATVR. At the end of the table Conscience as a female, whom a serpent bites, with the label CONSCIENTIA MORDET, and near her the Devil, with the label DIABOLVS ACCVSAT. Above is the Deity looking down, and the motto DEVS VIDET. "Il Cavallero Determinado," Antwerp, 1591, 4to. A translation from the French romance of Olivier de la Marche, with etchings by Vander Borcht. The last print represents Death, armed with a coffin lid as a shield, attacking a knight on horseback. In several of the other prints Death is represented under the name of Atropos, as president in tournaments. In other editions the cuts are on wood by the artist with the mark [monogram: A]. In the margins of some of the Horæ, printed by Thielman Kerver, there are several grotesque figures of Death, independently of the usual Dance. In many of the Bibles that have prints to the Revelations, that of Death on the pale horse is to be noticed. In Petrarch's work "de remediis utriusque fortunæ," both in the German and Latin editions, there are several cuts that relate materially to the subject. It may be as well to mention that this work has been improperly ascribed to Petrarch. In many of the old editions of Petrarch's works which contain the triumphs, that of Death is usually accompanied with some terrific print of Death in a car drawn by oxen, trampling upon all conditions of men from the pope to the beggar. "Guilleville, Pelerin de la vie humaine." The pilgrim is conducted by Abstinence into a refectory, where he sees many figures of Death in the act of feeding several persons sitting at table. These are good people long deceased, who during their lives have been bountiful to their fellow-creatures. At the end, the pilgrim is struck by Death with two darts whilst on his bed. Death kicking at a man, his wife, and child. From some book printed at Strasburg in the 16th century. Death, as an ecclesiastic, sitting on the ground and writing in a book. Another Death holding an inscribed paper in one hand, seizes with the other a man pointing to a similar paper. The Deity in a cloud looking on. From the same book. "Mors," a Latin comedy, by William Drury, a professor of poetry and rhetoric in the English college at Douay. It was acted in the refectory of the college and elsewhere, and with considerable applause, which it very well deserved. There is as much, and sometimes more, wit and humour in it than are found in many English farces. It was printed at Douay, 1628, 12mo. with two other Latin plays, but not of equal interest. A moral and poetical Drama, in eleven scenes, intitled, "Youth's Tragedy, by T. S." 1671 and 1707, 4to. in which the interlocutors are, Youth, the Devil, Wisdom, Time, Death, and the Soul. It is miserable stuff. "La Historia della Morte," Trevigi, 1674, 4to. four leaves only. It is a poem in octave stanzas. The author, wandering in a wood, is overwhelmed with tears in reflecting on the approach of Death and his omnipotent dominion over mankind. He is suddenly accosted by the king of terrors, who is thus described: Un ombra mi coperse prestamente Che mi fece tremar in cotal sorte Ell'era magra, e longa in sua figura, Che chi la vede perde gioco, e festa, Dente d'acciaio haveva in bocca oscura, Corna di ferro due sopra la testa Ella mi fe tremar dalla paura, &c. The work consists of a long dialogue between the parties. The author enquires of Death if he was born of father and mother. Death answers that he was created, by Jesus Christ, "che e signor giocondo," with the other angels; that after Adam's sin he was called _Death_. The author tells him that he seems rather to be a malignant spirit, and presses for some further information. He is referred to the Bible, and the account of David's destroying angel: Quando Roma per me fu tribulata Gregorio videmi con suo occhio honesto Con una spada ch'era insanguinata Al castel de Sant Angelo chiamato Da l'hora in qua cosi fu appellato. This corresponds with the usual story, that during a plague Gregory saw an angel hovering over the castle, who, on the Pope's looking up to him, immediately sheathed his flaming sword. More questions are then propounded by Death, particularly as to the use of his horns and teeth, and the curiosity of the author is most condescendingly gratified. Bishop Warburton and Mr. Malone have referred to old Moralities, in which the fool escaping from the pursuit of Death is introduced. Ritson has denied the existence of any such farces, and he is perhaps right with respect to printed ones; but vestiges of such a drama were observed several years ago at the fair of Bristol by the present writer. See the notes to Measure for Measure, Act iii. sc. 1, and to Pericles, Act iii. sc. 2. In "Musart Adolescens Academicus sub institutione Salomonis," Duaci, 1633, 12mo. is an engraving on copper of a modern Bacchus astride upon a wine cask drawn by two tigers. In one hand he holds a thyrsus composed of grapes and vine leaves, and in the other a cup or vase, from which a serpent springs, to indicate poison. Behind this Bacchus Death is seated, armed with his scythe and lying in wait for him. The motto, "Vesani calices quid non fecere," a parody on the line, "Fecundi calices quem non fecere disertum?" Horat. lib. i. epist. v. 1. 19. In "Christopher Van Sichem's Bibels' Tresoor," 1646, 4to. there is a wood-cut of Death assisting Adam to dig the ground, partly copied from the subject of "the Curse," in the work printed at Lyons. In "De Chertablon, maniere de se bien preparer à la mort, &c." Anvers, 1700, 4to. there is an allegorical print in which a man is led by his guardian angel to the dwelling of Faith, Hope, and Charity, but is violently seized by Death, who points to his last habitation, in the shape of a sepulchral monument. In Luyken's "Onwaardige wereld," Amst. 1710, 12mo. are three allegorical engravings relating to this subject. In a very singular book, intitled "Confusio disposita rosis rhetorico-poeticis fragrans, sive quatuor lusus satyrico morales, &c. authore Josepho Melchiore Francisco a Glarus, dicto Tschudi de Greplang." Augsburg, 1725, 12mo. are the following subjects. 1. The world as Spring, represented by a fine lady in a flower-garden, Death and the Devil behind her. 2. Death and the Devil lying in wait for the miser. 3. Death and the Devil hewing down the barren fig-tree. 4. A group of dancers at a ball interrupted by Death. 5. Death striking a lady in bed attended by her waiting maid. 6. Death gives the coup-de-grace to a drunken fellow who had fallen down stairs. 7. Death mounted on a skeleton-horse dashes among a group of rich men counting their gold, &c. 8. A rich man refused entrance into heaven. He has been brought to the gate in a sedan chair, carried by a couple of Deaths in full-bottom periwigs. In Luyken's "Vonken der lief de Jezus," Amst. 1727, 12mo. are several engravings relating to the subject. In one of them Death pours a draught into the mouth of a sick man in bed. In Moncrief's "March of Intellect," 1830, 18mo. scene a workhouse, Death brings in a bowl of soup, a label on the ground, inscribed "Death in the pot." An engraving in wood after Cruikshank. In Jan Huygen's "Beginselen van Gods koninryk," Amst. 1738, 12mo. with engravings by Luyken, a dying man attended by his physician and friends; Death at the head of the bed eagerly lying in wait for him. In one of the livraisons of "Goethe's Balladen und Romanzen," 1831, in folio, with beautiful marginal decorations, there is a Dance of Death in a church-yard, accompanied with a description, of which an English translation is inserted in the "Literary Gazette" for 1832, p. 731, under the title of "The Skeleton Dance," with a reference to another indifferent version in the "Souvenir." The well-known subjects of Death and the old man with the bundle of sticks, &c. and Cupid and Death in many editions of Æsopian fables. CHAPTER XIII. _Books of emblems and fables.--Frontispieces and title-pages, in some degree connected with the Dance of Death._ EMBLEMS AND FABLES. It is very seldom that in this numerous and amusing class of books a subject relating to Death, either moral or of a ludicrous nature does not occur. It may be sufficient to notice a few of them. "La Morosophie de Guillaume de la Perriere," 1553, 12mo. "Emblemes ou devises Chretiennes," par Georgette de Montenaye, 1571, 4to. "Le Imprese del S. Gab. Symeoni." Lyons, 1574, 4to. "Enchiridion artis pingendi, fingendi et sculpendi. Auth. Justo Ammanno, Tig." Francof. 1578, 4to. This is one of Jost Amman's emblematical books in wood, and contains at the end a figure of Death about to cut off two lovers with his scythe, Cupid hovering over them. "Apologi creaturarum." Plantin, 1590, 4to. with elegant etchings by Marc Gerard. It has one subject only of Death summoning a youth with a hawk on his fist to a church-yard in the back-ground. Reusner's "aureolorum emblematum liber singularis," Argentorati, 1591, 12mo. A print of Death taking away a lady who has been stung by a serpent; designed and engraved by Tobias Stimmer. "De Bry Proscenium vitæ humanæ," Francof. 1592 and 1627, 4to. This collection has two subjects: 1. Death and the Young Man. 2. Death and the Virgin. "Jani Jacobi Boissardi Emblematum liber, a Theodoro de Bry sculpta." Francof. 1593. Contains one print, intitled "Sola virtus est funeris expers." The three Fates, one of whom holds a tablet with SIC VISVM SVPERIS. Death attending with his hour-glass. Below, crowns, sceptres, and various emblems of human vanity. On the spectator's left, a figure of Virtue standing, with sword and shield. "De Bry Emblemata." Francof. 1593, 4to. The last emblem has Death striking an old man, who still clings to the world, represented as a globe. "Rolandini variar. imaginum, lib. iii." Panormi, 1595, 12mo. "Alciati Emblemata," one of the earliest books of its kind, and a favourite that has passed through a great many editions. "Typotii symbola divina et humana Pontificum Imperatorum, Regum, &c." Francofurti, 1601, folio. "Friderich's Emblems," 1617, 8vo. Several engravings on the subject. "Das erneurte Stamm-und Stechbuchlein." By Fabian Athyr. Nuremberg, 1654. Small obl. 4to. "Mannichii Emblemata." Nuremberg, 1624, 4to. "Minne Beelden toe-ghepast de Lievende Jonckheyt," Amst. 1635, 12mo. The cuts on the subject are extremely grotesque and singular. "Sciographia Cosmica." A description of the principal towns and cities in the world, with views engraved by Paul Furst, and appropriate emblems. By Daniel Meisner: in eight parts. Nuremberg, 1637. Oblong 4to. In the print of the town of Freyburg, Death stands near an old man, and holds a clock in one hand. In that of the city of Toledo Death accompanies a female who has a mirror in her hand. In the same work, at vol. A. 4, is a figure of Death trampling on Envy, with the motto, "Der Todt mach dem Neyd ein ende." At A. 39, Death intercepting a traveller, the motto, "Vitam morti obviam procedit." At A. 74, Death standing near a city, the motto, "Tros Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine habetur." At C. 9, a man and woman in the chains of matrimony, which Death dissolves by striking the chain with a bone, the motto, "Conjugii vinculum firmissimum est." At C. 30, Death about to mow down a philosopher holding a clock, the motto, "Omnis dies, omnis hora, quam nihil sumus ostendit." At E. 32, Death standing in the middle of a parterre of flowers, holding in one hand a branch of laurel, in the other a palm branch, the motto, "Ante mortem nullus beatus est." At E. 35, Death shooting with a cross-bow at a miser before his chest of money, the motto, "Nec divitiis nec auro." At E. 44, Death seizes a young man writing the words, "sic visum superis" on a tablet, the motto, "Viva virtus est funeris expers." At G. 32, Death pursues a king and a peasant, all on horseback, the motto, "Mors sceptra ligonibus æquat." At G. 66, a woman looking in a mirror sees Death, who stands behind her reflected, the motto, "Tota vita sapientis est meditatio mortis." At H. 66, a company of drunkards. Death strikes one of them behind when drinking, the motto, "Malus inter poculo mos est." At H. 80, Death cuts down a genealogical tree, with a young man and woman, the motto, "Juventus proponit, mors disponit." "Conrad Buno Driestandige Sinnbilder," 1643. Oblong 4to. "Amoris divini et humani antipathia." Antw. 1670. 12mo. "Typotii Symbola varia diversorum principum sacrosanctæ ecclesiæ et sacri Imperii Romani." Arnheim, 1679. 12mo. In Sluiter's "Somer en winter leven," Amst. 1687, 12mo. is a figure of Death knocking at the door of a house and alarming the inhabitants with his unexpected visit. The designer most probably had in his recollection Horace's "Mors æquo pede pulsat pauperum tabernas regumque turres." "Euterpe soboles hoc est emblemata varia, &c." with stanzas in Latin and German to each print. No date. Oblong 4to. The engravings by Peter Rollo. Republished at Paris, with this title, "Le Centre de l'amour, &c." A Paris chez Cupidon. Same form, and without date. This edition has several additional cuts. "Rollenhagii nucleus Emblematum." The cuts by Crispin de Passe. In Herman Krul's "Eerlyche tytkorting, &c." a Dutch book of emblems, 4to. n. d. there are some subjects in which Death is allegorically introduced, and sometimes in a very ludicrous manner. Death enters the study of a seated philosopher, from whose mouth and breast proceed rays of light, and presents him with an hour-glass. Below a grave, over which hangs one foot of the philosopher. A. Venne invent. Obl. 5-1/2 by 4-1/2. "Catz's Emblems," in a variety of forms and editions, containing several prints relating to the subject. "Oth. Vænii Emblemata Horatiana." Several editions, with the same prints. "Le Centre de l'Amour decouvert soubs divers emblesmes galans et facetieux. A Paris chez Cupidon." Obl. 4to. without date. One print only of a man sitting in a chair seized by Death, whilst admiring a female, who, not liking the intrusion, is making her escape. The book contains several very singular subjects, accompanied by Latin and German subjects. It occurs also under the title of "Euterpæ soboles hoc est emblemata varia eleganti jocorum mistura, &c." "Fables nouvelles par M. de la Motte." 4to. edition. Amsterd. 1727, 12mo. "Apophthegmata Symbolica, &c." per A. C. Redelium Belgam. Augspurg, 1700. Oblong 4to. Death and the soldier; Death interrupting a feast; Death and the miser; Death and the old man; Death drawing the curtain of life, &c. &c. "Choice emblems, divine and moral." 1732. 12mo. FRONTISPIECES AND TITLE PAGES TO BOOKS. "Arent Bosman." This is the title to an old Dutch legend of a man who had a vision of hell, which is related much in the manner of those of Tundale and others. It was printed at Antwerp in 1504, 4to. The frontispiece has a figure of Death in pursuit of a terrified young man, and may probably belong to some other work. On a portion of the finely engraved wood frontispiece to "Joh. de Bromyard Summa predicantium." Nuremberg, 1518, folio. Death with scythe and hour-glass stands on an urn, supported by four persons, and terrifies several others who are taking flight and stumbling over each other. "Schawspiel Menchliches Lebens." Frankfort, 1596, 4to. Another edition in Latin, intitled, "Theatrum vitæ humanæ," by J. Boissard, the engravings by De Bry. At the top of the elegant title or frontispiece to this work is an oblong oval of a marriage, interrupted by Death, who seizes the bridegroom. At bottom a similar oval of Death digging the grave of an old man who is looking into it. On one side of the page, Death striking an infant in its cradle; on the other, a merchant about to ship his goods is intercepted by Death. On the title-page to a German jeu d'esprit, in ridicule of some anonymous pedant, there is a wood-cut of Death mounted backwards on an ass, and near him a fool hammering a block of some kind on an anvil. The title of this satirical morsel is "Res Mira. Asinus sex linguarum jucundissimis anagrammatismis et epigrammatibus oneratus, tractionibus, depositionibus, et fustuariis probè dedolatus, hero suo remissus, ac instar prodromi præmissus, donec meliora sequantur, Asininitates aboleantur, virique boni restituantur: ubi etiam ostenditur ab asino salso intentata vitia non esse vitia. Ob variam ejus jucunditatem, suavitatem et versuum leporem recusus, anno 1625." The address to the reader is dated from Giessen, 19th June, 1606, and the object of the satire disguised under the name of Jonas Melidæus. "Les Consolations de l'ame fidelle contre les frayeurs de la mort, par Charles Drelincourt." Amsterdam, 1660. 8vo. "Deugden Spoor De Vijfte Der-Eeringe Aen de Medicijas met sampt Monsieur Joncker Doctor Koe-Beest ende alle sijne Complicen." Death introduces an old man to a physician who is inspecting a urinal. 12mo. Death leading an old man with a crutch, near a charnel-house, inscribed MEMENTO MORI. At top these verses: Il faut sans diferer me suivre Tu dois être prèt a partir Dieu ne t'a fait si longtemps vivre Que pour l'aprendre à bien mourir. A Amsterdam chez Henri Desbordes. Another print, with the same design. "Se vendent à Londres par Daniel Du Chemin." On a spade, the monogram [monogram: HF] 8vo. "Reflexions sur les grands hommes." In the foreground various pranks of Death. In the distance, a church-yard with a regular dance, in a circle, of men, women, and Deaths, two of the latter sitting on a monument and playing on a violin and violoncello. Engraved by A. D. Putter. 12mo. "La Dance Macabre, or Death's Duell," by W. C. _i. e._ Colman. Printed by Wm. Stansby, no date, 12mo. It has an elegantly engraved frontispiece by T. Cecill, with eight compartments, exhibiting Death with the pope, the emperor, the priest, the nobles, the painter, the priest, and the peasant. The poem, in six line stanzas, is of considerable merit, and entirely moral on the subject of Death, but it is not the Macaber Dance of Lydgate. At the end, the author apologizes for the title of his book, which, he says, was injuriously conferred by Roger Muchill upon a sermon of Dr. Donne's, and adds a satirical epistle against "Muchill that never did good." There certainly was a sermon by Donne, published by Muchill or Michel, with the title of "Death's Duell." There appears to have been another edition of this book, the title-page only of which is preserved among Bagford's collections among the Harl. MSS. No. 5930. It has the same printed title, with the initials W. C. and the name of W. Stansby. It is also without date. This frontispiece is on a curtain held by two winged boys. At the top, a figure of Death, at bottom another of Time kneeling on a globe. In the right-hand corner, which is torn, there seems to have been a hand coupé with a bracelet as a crest; in the left, a coat of arms with a cross boutonné arg. and sable, and four mullets, arg. and sable. On each side, four oval compartments, with the following subjects. 1. A pope, a cardinal, and four bishops. 2. Several monks and friars. 3. Several magistrates. 4. A schoolmaster reading to his pupils. 5. An emperor, a king, a queen, a duke, a duchess, and a male attendant. 6. A group of noblemen or gentlemen. 7. A painter painting a figure of Death, in the back ground a woman who seems to be purchasing articles of dress. 8. Two men with spades, one of them digging. This very beautiful print is engraved by T. Cecil. On the top of each of the above compartments, Death holds a string with both his hands. "Theatrum omnium miserarum." A theatre filled with a vast number of people. In the centre, an obelisk on a pedestal, behind which is a small stage with persons sitting. In the foreground, Death holding a cord, with which three naked figures are bound, and another Death with a naked figure in a net. Between these figures symbols of the world, the flesh, and the Devil. 4to. "Les Consolations de l'Ame fidelle contre les frayeurs de la mort." Death holds his scythe over a group of persons, consisting of an old man and a child near a grave, who are followed by a king, queen, and a shepherd, with various pious inscriptions. 8vo. "La maniere de se bien preparer à la mort, par M. de Chertablon." Anvers, 1700, 4to. In an engraved frontispiece, a figure of Time or Death trampling upon a heap of articles expressive of worldly pomp and grandeur, strikes one end of his scythe against the door of a building, on which is inscribed "STATVTVM EST OMNIBVS HOMINIBVS. SEMEL MORI. Hebr. ix." At the bottom, within a frame ornamented with emblems of mortality, a sarcophagus with the skeleton of a man raised from it. Two Deaths are standing near, one of whom blows a trumpet, the other points upward with one hand, and holds a scythe in the other. On one side of the sarcophagus are several females weeping; on the other, a philosopher sitting, who addresses a group of sovereigns, &c. who are looking at the skeleton. "Palingenii Zodiacus Vitæ." Rotterdam, 1722. 12mo. Death seizes a sitting figure crowned with laurel, perhaps intended for Virtue, who clings to a bust of Minerva, &c. Death leading a bishop holding his crosier. He is preceded by another Death as a bellman with bell and lanthorn. Above, emblems of mortality over a label, inscribed "A Vision." 12mo. Scene, a church-yard. Death holding an hour-glass in one hand levels his dart at a young man in the habit of an ecclesiastic, with a mask in his hand. "Worlidge inv. Boitard sculp." The book unknown. 8vo. Three figures of Death uncovering a circular mirror, with a group of persons dying, &c. At bottom, INGREDIMVR. CVNCTI. DIVES. CVM. PAUPERE. MIXTVS. J. Sturt sculp. Death touching a globe, on which is inscribed VANITY, appears to a man in bed. "Hayman inv. C. Grignion sc." 8vo. To a little French work, intitled "Spectriana," Paris, 1817, 24mo. there is a frontispiece on copper representing the subject of one of the stories. A figure of Death incumbered with chains beckons to an armed man to follow him into a cave. CHAPTER XIV. _Single prints connected with the Dance of Death._ 1500-1600. (N. B. The right and left hands are those of the spectator. The prints on _wood_ are so specified.) An ancient engraving, in the manner of Israel Van Meckenen. Death is playing at chess with a king, who is alarmed at an impending check-mate. A pope, cardinal, bishop, and other persons are looking on. Above are three labels. Bartsch x. 55. No. 32. Albert Durer's knight preceded by Death, and followed by a demon, a well-known and beautiful engraving. A very scarce and curious engraving, representing the interior of a brothel. At the feet of a bed a man is sitting by a woman almost naked, who puts her hand into his purse, and clandestinely delivers the money she takes from it to a fellow standing behind one of the curtains. On the opposite side is a grinning fool making significant signs with his fingers to a figure of Death peeping in at a window. This singular print has the mark L upon it, and is something in the manner of Lucas Van Leyden, but is not mentioned in Bartsch's catalogue of his prints. Upright 7-1/2 by 5-1/2. A small etching, very delicately executed, and ascribed to Lucas Van Leyden, whose manner it certainly resembles. At a table on the left a family of old and young persons are assembled. They are startled by the appearance of a hideous figure of Death with a long beard and his head covered. Near him is a young female, crowned with a chaplet of flowers, holding in her hand a scull, Death's head, and hour-glass, and which the father of the family turns round to contemplate. Above is an angel or genius shooting an arrow at the family, and as it were at random. At top on the right is the letter L, and the date 1523. See Bartsch, vol. vii. p. 435. Oblong, 5-1/2 by 4. A small upright print of Death with a spade on his shoulder, and leading an armed soldier. The mark L below on a tablet. Not mentioned by Bartsch. A small circular engraving, of several persons feasting and dancing. Death lies in wait behind a sort of canopy. Probably a brothel scene, as part of the story of the prodigal son. The mark is L. Not noticed by Bartsch. A reverse of this engraving, marked S. An engraving on wood of Death presenting an hour-glass, surmounted by a dial, to a soldier who holds with both his hands a long battle-axe. The parties seem to be conversing. With Albert Durer's mark, and the date 1510. It has several German verses. See Bartsch, vii. 145, No. 132. A wood print of Death in a tree pointing with his right hand to a crow on his left, with which he holds an hour-glass. At the foot of the tree an old German soldier holding a sword pointed to the ground. On his left, another soldier with a long pike. A female sitting by the side of a large river with a lap-dog. The mark of Urs Graaf [monogram: VG] and the date 1524 on the tree. Upright, 8 by 4-1/2. Death as a buffoon, with cap, bauble, and hour-glass, leading a lady. The motto, OMNEM IN HOMINE VENVSTATEM MORS ABOLET. With the mark and date [monogram] 1541. Bartsch, viii. 174. An engraving of Adam and Eve near the tree of life, which is singularly represented by Death entwined with a serpent. Adam holds in one hand a flaming sword, and with the other receives the apple from Eve, who has taken it from the serpent's mouth. At top is a tablet with the mark and date [monogram] 1543. A copy from Barthol. Beham. Bartsch, viii. 116. Death seizing a naked female. A small upright engraving. The motto, OMNEM IN HOMINE VENVSTATEM MORS ABOLET. With the mark and date [monogram] 1546. Bartsch, viii. 175. A small upright engraving, representing Death with three naked women, one of whom he holds by the hair of her head. A lascivious print. The mark [monogram] on a label at bottom. Bartsch, viii. 176, who calls the women sorceresses. A small upright engraving of Death holding an hour-glass and dial to a soldier with a halberd. At top, the mark and date [monogram] 1532. Bartsch, viii. 276. An upright engraving of Death seizing a soldier, who struggles to escape from him. Below, an hour-glass. In a corner at top, the mark [monogram]. An upright engraving of Death trampling upon a vanquished soldier, who endeavours to parry with his sword a blow that with one hand his adversary aims at him, whilst with the other he breaks the soldier's spear. In a corner at top, the mark [monogram]. A truly terrific print, engraved also by [monogram: AC]. Bartsch, viii. 277. A naked female seized by a naked man in a very indecent manner. Death who is behind seizes the man whose left hand is placed on a little boy taking money out of a bag. The motto, HO: MORS VLTIMA LINEA RERVM, with the mark and date [monogram] 1529. See Bartsch, viii. 176. Near the end of an English Primer, printed at Paris, 1538, 4to. is a small print of Death leading a pope, engraved with great spirit on wood, but it has certainly not formed part of a series of a Dance of Death. An upright engraving of a pair of lovers interrupted by Death with scythe and hour-glass, with the mark and date [monogram: HM] 1550. Not in Bartsch. A small wood print of a gentleman conducting a lady, whose train is held up by Death with one hand, whilst he holds up an hour-glass with the other. In a corner below, the supposed mark of Jost de Negher, [monogram]. Upright, 2 by 1-3/4. A German anonymous wood print of the prodigal son at a brothel, a female fool attending. Death unexpectedly appears and takes him by the hand, whilst another female is caressing him. Oblong, 4-1/2 by 4. An upright engraving on wood, 14 by 11, of a naked female on a couch. Death with a spade and hour-glass approaches her. With her left hand she holds one corner of a counterpane, Death seizing the other, and trampling upon it. Under the counterpane, and at the foot of the couch is a dead and naked man grasping a sword in one hand. There is no indication of the artist of this singular print. An upright wood engraving, 14-1/2 by 11, of a whole-length naked female turning her head to a mirror, which she holds behind her with both hands. Death, unnoticed, with an hour-glass, enters the apartment; before him a wheel. On the left at bottom a blank tablet, and near the woman's left foot a large wing. An engraving on wood by David Hopfer of Death and the Devil surprizing a worldly dame, who admires herself in a mirror. Oblong, 8 inches by 5-1/2. An upright engraving of a lady holding in one hand a bunch of roses and in the other a glove. Death behind with his hour-glass; the motto, OMNEM IN HOMINE VENVSTATEM MORS ABOLET. and the mark F. B. Bartsch, ix. 464. A wood print of Death seizing a child. On the left, at top, is a blank tablet. Upright, 2-1/2 by 2. A small oblong anonymous engraving of a naked female asleep on a couch. A winged Death places an hour-glass on her shoulder. A lascivious print. An ancient anonymous wood print: scene, a forest. Death habited as a woodman, with a hatchet at his girdle and a scythe, shoots his arrows into a youth with a large plume of feathers, a female and a man lying prostrate on the ground; near them are two dead infants with amputated arms; the whole group at the foot of a tree. In the back-ground, a stag wounded by an arrow, probably by the young man. 4to. size. A small wood-cut of Death seizing a child. Anonymous, in the manner of A. Durer. 2-1/4 by 1-7/8. A very old oblong wood-cut, which appears to have been part of a Dutch or Flemish Macaber Dance. The subjects are, Death and the Pope, with "Die doot seyt," "die paens seyt," &c. and the Cardinal with "Die doot seyt," and "Die Cardinael seyt." There have been verses under each character. 9-1/2 by 6-1/2. A small wood print of a tree, in which are four men, one of whom falls from the tree into a grave at the foot of it. Death, as a woodman, cuts down the tree with a hatchet. In the back-ground, another man fallen into a grave. A figure of Death as a naked old man with a long beard. He leans on a pedestal, on which are placed a scull and an hour-glass, and with his left hand draws towards him a draped female, who holds a globe in her left hand. At the bottom of the print, MORS OMNIA MVTAT, with the unknown monogram [monogram: BAD]. Upright, 5 inches by 2-3/4. It is a very rare print on copper, not mentioned by Bartsch. A small anonymous wood print of Death playing on a vielle, or beggar's lyre. An ancient anonymous copper engraving of Death standing on a bier, and laying hands upon a youth over whom are the words, "Ach got min sal ich," and over Death, "hie her by mich." Both inscriptions on labels. Bartsch, x. p. 54, No. 30. An allegorical engraving on copper by Cuerenhert, after Martin Heemskirk, 1550. A naked man bestrides a large sack of money, on which a figure or statue of Hope is standing. Death with one hand levels his dart at the terrified man, and holds a circle in the other. The money is falling from the sack, and appears to have demolished the hour-glass of Death. Upright, 11 inches by 8. At bottom, these lines: Maer als hemdie eininghe doot comt voer ogen Dan vint hii hem doer üdele hope bedrogen. There is a smaller copy of it. A circular engraving, two inches diameter, of a pair of lovers in a garden. The lady is playing on a harp, her companion's lute is on the ground. They are accompanied by a fool, and Death behind is standing with a dart in his hand ready for aim at the youthful couple. A very large engraving on wood tinted in chiaroscuro. It represents a sort of triumphal arch at the top of which is a Death's head, above, an hour-glass between two arm bones, that support a stone; evidently borrowed from the last cut of the arms of Death in the Lyons wood-cuts. Underneath, the three Fates between obelisks crowned with Deaths' heads and crosses, with the words [Greek: MNÊMONEUE APOPSYCHEIN] and ITER AD VITAM. In the middle, a circle with eight compartments, in which are skeleton heads of a pope, an emperor, &c. with mottoes. In the extremity of the circle, the words "Post hoc autem judicium statutum est omnibus hominibus semel mori." The above obelisks are supported by whole length figures of Death, near which are shields with BONIS BONA and MALIS MALA. On the pedestals that support the figures of Death are shields inscribed MEMENTO MORI and MEMORARE NOVISSIMA. Underneath the circle, a sort of table monument with Death's head brackets, and on its plinth a sceptre, cardinal's cross, abbot's crozier, a vessel with money, and two books. Between the brackets, in capitals: TRIA SUNT VERE QVÆ ME FACIVNT FLERE. And underneath in italics: Primum quidem durum, quia scio me moriturum. Secundum vero plango, quia moriar, et nescio quando. Tertium autem flebo, quia nescio ubi manebo. In a corner at bottom, "Ill. D. Petro Caballo J. C. Poutrém Relig. D. Steph. ordinisq. milit. Ser. M. D. Hetr: Auditori mon: Joh. Fortuna Fortunius Inven. Seni..... MDLXXXVIII." It is a very fine print, engraved with considerable spirit. 1600-1700. A very beautiful engraving by John Wierix, of a large party feasting and dancing, with music, in a garden. Death suddenly enters, and strikes a young female supported by her partner. At bottom, "Medio, lusu, risuque rapimur æternum cruciandi." Oblong, 6-1/2 by 4-1/2. Its companion--Death, crowned with serpents, drags away a falling female, round whom he has affixed his chain, which is in vain held back by one of the party who supplicates for mercy. At bottom these lines: Divitibus mors dura venit, redimita corona Anguifera, et risus ultimo luctus habet. On the top of the print, "O mors quam amara est memoria tua homini pacem habenti in substantiis suis, etc." Eccl. cap. xli. An allegorical print by one of the Wierxes, after H. Van Balen. The Virgin Mary and a man are kneeling before and imploring Christ, who is about to strike a bell suspended to the branch of a tree, the root of which Death cuts with an axe, whilst the Devil assists in pulling at it with a rope. Upright, 4-1/2 by 3-1/2. Time holding a mirror to two lovers, Death behind waiting for them. At bottom, "Luxuries predulce malum cui tempus, &c." Engraved by Jerom Wierx. Oblong, 12 by 8. An allegorical engraving by Jerom Wierx, after Martin De Vos, with four moral stanzas at bottom, beginning "Gratia magna Dei cælo demittitur alto." A figure of Faith directs the attention of a man, accompanied with two infants, to a variety of worldly vanities scattered in a sun-beam. On the right, a miser counting his gold is seized and stricken by Death. At top, four lines of Latin and Dutch. Oblong, 13 by 10. A rare etching, by Rembrant, of a youthful couple surprized by Death. Date, 1639. Upright, 4-1/4 by 3. Rembrant's "Hour of Death." An old man sitting in a tent is visited by a young female. He points to a figure of Death with spade and hour-glass. Upright, 5-1/4 by 3-1/2. An engraving by De Bry. In the middle, an oblong oval, representing a marriage, Death attending. On the sides, grotesques of apes, goats, &c. At bottom, S. P. and these lines: Ordo licet reliquos sit præstantissimus inter Conjugium, heu nimium sæpe doloris habet. Oblong, 5-1/2 by 2-1/4. Its companion--Death digging a grave for an old man, who looks into it. Psal. 49 and 90. An engraving by Crispin de Pas of Death standing behind an old man, who endeavours, by means of his money spread out upon a table, to entice a young female, who takes refuge in the arms of her young lover. At bottom, the following dialogue. SENEX. Nil aurei? nil te coronati juvant? Argenteis referto bulga nil movet? MORS. Varios quid at Senex amores expetis: Tumulum tuæ finemque vitæ respice. JUVENIS. Quid aureorum me beabit copia. Amore si privata sim dulcissimo. Its companion--Death with his hour-glass stands behind an old woman, who offers money to a youth turning in disdain to his young mistress. At bottom, these lines: JUVENIS. Facie esse quid mihi gratius posset tua Ipsius haud Corinthi gaza divitis. VETULA. Formam quid ah miselle nudam respicis Cum plus beare possit auri copia. MORS. At tu juventa quid torquêre frustra anus Quin jam sepulchri instantis es potius memor. Both oblong, 6 by 4. An engraving by Bosse of a queen reposing on a tent bed, Death peeps in through the curtains, another Death stands at the corner of the bed, whilst a female with a shield, inscribed PIETAS, levels a dart at the queen. Underneath, these verses: Grand Dieu je suis donc le victime Qu'une vengeance legitime Doit immoler à tes autels Je n'ay point de repos qui n'augmente ma peine Et les tristes objets d'une face inhumaine Me sont autant de coups mortels. Oblong, 4-1/2 by 3. An engraving by John Sadeler, after Stradanus, of an old couple, with their children and grandchildren, in the kitchen of a farm-house. Death enters, fantastically crowned with flowers and an hour-glass, and with a bagpipe in his left hand. Round his right arm and body is a chain with a hook at the extremity. He offers his right hand to the old woman, who on her knees is imploring him for a little more delay. In the back-ground, a man conducted to prison; beggars receiving alms, &c. At bottom, these lines: "Pauperibus mors grata venit; redimita corona Florifera, et luctus ultima risus habet." On the top of the print, "O mors bonum est judicium tuum homini indigenti, et qui minoratur viribus defecto ætate, &c." Eccl. cap. xli. Oblong, 11 by 8-1/2. An exceedingly clever etching by Tiepolo of a group of various persons, to whom Death, sitting on the ground and habited grotesquely as an old woman, is reading a lecture. Oblong, 7 by 5-1/2. A small circle, engraved by Le Blond, of Death appearing to the astrologer, copied from the same subject in the Lyons wood-cuts. A print, painted and engraved by John Lyvijus of two card players quarrelling. Death seizes and strikes at them with a bone. Below, Rixas atque odia satagit dispergere serpens, Antiquus, cuncta at jurgia morte cadunt. Oblong, 10 by 7-1/2. An engraving by Langlois. Death with a basket at his shoulder, on which sits an owl, and holding with one hand a lantern, seizes the dice of a gambler sitting at a table with his winnings spread before him. At top, these verses: Alarme O le pipeur, chassez, chassez le moy, Je ne veux pas jouer a la raffle avec toy. LA MORT. A la raffle je joue avec toutes personnes Toutes pieces je prends, tant meschantes que bonnes. At bottom, a dialogue between the gambler and Death, in verse, beginning "J'ay ramenè ma chance il n'y a plus reméde." Upright, 10 by 7-1/2. A print by De Gheyn, but wanting his name, of an elegantly attired lady, with a feather on her head, and a fan mirror in her hand. She is accompanied by Death handsomely attired, with a similar feather, and holding an hour-glass. At bottom, Qui genio indulges, media inter gaudia morti Non dubiæ certum sis memor esse locum. Upright, 8 by 5-1/2. Hollar's etching in Dugdale's Monasticon and his history of St. Paul's, from the old wood-cut in Lydgate's Dance of Macaber, already described, and an outline copy in Mr. Edwards's publication of Hollar's Dance of Death. Death and two Misers, 11-3/4 by 10. Engraved by Michael Pregel, 1616. At bottom, six Latin lines, beginning "Si mihi divitiæ sint omnes totius orbis." An oblong allegorical print, 14 by 10-1/2. Death and Time at war with man and animals. In the foreground, Death levels three arrows at a numerous group of mortals of all ranks and conditions, who endeavour, in every possible way, to repel his attack. In the back-ground, he shoots a single arrow at various animals. It is a very rare and beautiful engraving by Bolsverd, after Vinck-boons, dated 1610. At bottom, six lines in Latin, by J. Semmius, beginning "Cernis ut imperio succumbant omnia Mortis." An oblong print, 18-1/2 by 13, intitled, "Alle mans vrees," _i. e._ "Every man's terror," and engraved by Cornelius Van Dalen, after Adrian Van Venne. It exhibits Death armed with a spade, and overturning and putting to flight a variety of persons. At bottom, four stanzas of Dutch verses, beginning "Dits de vrees van alle man." A large allegorical oblong engraving, 18-1/2 by 13, by Peter Nolpe, after Peter Potter. On the left, a figure of religion, an angel hovering over her with a crown and palm branch. She points to several figures bearing crosses, and ascending a steep hill to heaven. On the right, the Devil blowing into the ear of a female, representing worldly vanity. In the middle, Death beating a drum to a man and woman dancing. In the back-ground, several groups of people variously employed, and a city in flames. An anonymous Venetian engraving of Death striking a lady sitting at a table covered with various fruits, a lute, &c. She falls into the arms of her lover or protector. Oblong, 9-1/2 by 7. A print, after Martin Heemskirk, of Charon ferrying over souls. On the right, a winged Death supporting an emperor about to enter the fatal boat. Below, four lines, beginning "Sed terris debentur opes, quas linquere fato." An oblong engraving, 14 by 12, after John Cossiers. On the right, Death entering at a door, seizes a young man. In the middle, a music-master teaching a lady the lute, Death near them holding a violin and music-book. On the left, in another apartment, Death in a dancing attitude, with a double bagpipe, leads an aged man with a rosary in his left hand, and leaning on a staff with his right. At bottom, three stanzas of French verses, beginning "La Mort qui n'a point d'oreilles." A very small wood print, that seems to have belonged to some English book, about 1600. It represents Death behind a female, who sees his reflected image in a mirror which she holds, instead of her own. 1-1/2 by 1-1/2. The Devil's Ruff shop, into which a young gallant introduces his mistress, whose ruff one of the Devils is stiffening with a poking-stick. Death, with a ruff on his neck, waits at the door, near which is a coffin. This very curious satirical print, after Martin De Vos, is covered with inscriptions in French and Dutch. Oblong, 11-1/2 by 8. A small anonymous engraving of two Deaths hand in hand; the one holds a flower, the other two serpents; a man and woman also hand in hand; the latter holds a flower in her hand; they are preceded by a little boy on a cock-horse and a girl with a doll. Underneath, four lines, beginning "Quid sit, quid fuerit, quid tandem aliquando futurus." An anonymous engraving of a young gallant looking up to an image of Hope placed on a bag of money, near which plate, jewels, and money lie scattered on the ground. Death enters at a door, holding a circle in one hand and a dart with the other, in a menacing attitude. At bottom, these Latin lines: Namque ubi Mors trucibus supra caput adstitit armis, Hei quam tunc nullo pondere nummus erit. The same in Dutch. Upright, 8-1/2 by 6. This print was afterwards copied in a reduced form into a book of emblems, with the title, "Stulte hoc nocte repetent animam tuam," with verses in Latin, French, and German. A small anonymous wood engraving of five Deaths dancing in a circle; the motto, DOODEN DANS OP LESTEM, _i. e._ the last Dance of Death. A very clever etching of a winged and laurelled Death playing on the bagpipe and making his appearance to an old couple at table. The man puts off his cap and takes the visitor by the hand, as if to bid him welcome. Below, two Dutch lines, beginning "Maerdie hier sterven, &c." At top, on the left, "W. V. Valckert, in. fe. 1612." Oblong, 8-1/2 by 6-1/2. A very complicated and anonymous allegorical print, with a great variety of figures. In the middle, Death is striking with a sledge-hammer at a soul placed in a crucible over a sort of furnace. A demon with bellows is blowing the fire, and a female, representing the world, is adding fuel to it. In various parts of the print are Dutch inscriptions. Oblong, 10-1/2 by 6. Two old misers, a man and a woman. She weighs the gold, and he enters it in a book. Death with an hour-glass peeps in at one window, and the Devil at another. On the left, stands a demon with a book and a purse of money. On the right, in a corner, I. V. BRVG: F. "Se vend chez Audran rue S. Jaques aux deux piliers d'or." An upright mezzotint, 11-1/2 by 8-1/2. Two old misers, a man and a woman. He holds a purse, and she weighs the money. Death behind lies in wait for them. Below, a French stanza, beginning "Fol en cette nuit on te redemande ton ame," and the same in Latin. Below, "J. Meheux sculp. A Paris chez Audran rue St. Jaques aux deux pilliers d'or." An upright mezzotint, 10 by 7-1/2. An oval engraving in a frame of slips of trees. Death pulling down a fruit tree; a hand in a cloud cutting a flower with a sickle. Motto, "Fortior frango, tenera meto." Upright, 6-1/2 by 4. An anonymous engraving of a lady sitting at her toilet. She starts at the reflected image of Death standing behind her, in her looking glass. Her lover stands near her in the act of drawing his sword to repel the unwelcome visitor. Upright, 7-1/4 by 6-1/2. To some such print or painting, Hamlet, holding a scull in his hand, evidently alludes in Act v. Sc. 1. "Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come." A print of the tree of knowledge, the serpent holding the apple in his mouth. Below, several animals, as in the usual representations of Paradise. On one side a youth on horseback with a hawk on his fist; on the other, Death strikes at him with his dart. On the right, at bottom, the letters R. P. ex. and these verses: Nor noble, valiant, youthfull or wise, have The least exemption from the gloomy grave. Upright, 6 by 4. A large oblong engraving, on copper, 22 by 17. On the left, is an arched cavern, from which issue two Deaths, one of whom holds a string, the end of which is attached to an owl, placed as a bird decoy, on a pillar in the middle of the print. Under the string, three men reading. On the left, near a tree, is a ghastly sitting figure, whose head has been flayed. On the opposite side below, a musical group of three men and a woman. In the back-ground, several men caught in a net; near them, Death with a hound pursuing three persons who are about to be intercepted by a net spread between two trees. In the distance, a vessel with a Death's head on the inflated sail. On the top of the arched cavern, a group of seven persons, one of whom, a female, points to the interior of an urn; near them a flying angel holding a blank shield of arms. In the middle of the print, at bottom, some inscription has been erased. A print, intitled "Cursus Mundi." A woman holds, in one hand, a broken vessel with live coals; in the other, a lamp, at which a little boy is about to light a candle. Death appears on the left. At bottom, a Latin inscription stating that the picture was painted by William Panneels, the scholar of Rubens, in 1631, and that it is in the palace of Anselm Casimir, archbishop of Mentz. Upright, 9-1/2 by 6-1/2. A small anonymous engraving of Death sitting on a large fractured bass-viol, near which, on the ground, is a broken violin. An elegant small and anonymous engraving of a young soldier, whom Death strikes with his dart whilst he despoils him of his hat and feather. At bottom, six couplets of French verses, beginning "Retire toy de moy O monstre insatiable." Upright, 3-3/4 by 2-3/4. A small anonymous engraving of a merchant watching the embarkation of his goods, Death behind waiting for him. Motto from Psalm 39, "Computat et parcit nec quis sit noverit, hæres, &c." Upright, 3-1/4 by 1-1/2. Its companion--Death striking a child in a cradle. Job 14. "Vita brevis hominum variis obnoxia curis, &c." These were probably part of a series. An anonymous engraving of a man on his death-bed. On one side, the vision of a bishop saint in a cloud; on the other, Death has just entered the room to receive his victim. Oblong, 5-1/2 by 2-1/2. An anonymous engraving of a woman sitting under a tree. Sin, as a boy, with PECCATVM inscribed on his forehead, delivers a globe, on which a serpent is entwined, to Death. At bottom, "A muliere initium factum est peccati et per illam omnes morimur. Eccl. C. XXV." A small anonymous engraving of Death interrupting a Turkish sultan at table. In the back ground, another Turk contemplating a heap of sculls. A mezzotint by Gole, of Death appearing to a miser, treading on an hour-glass and playing on the violin. In the back-ground, a room in which is Death seizing a young man. The floor is covered with youthful instruments of recreation. This subject has been painted by Old Franks and Otho Vænius. Upright, 9 by 6-1/2. Another mezzotint of the same subject by P. Schenck is mentioned by Peignot, p. 19. It is inscribed "Mortis ingrata musica." A very singular, anonymous, and unintelligible engraving of a figure that seems intended for a blacksmith, who holds a large hammer in his hand. On his right, two monks, and behind him, Death folding his arms to his breast. Below, writing implements, &c. Upright, 4 by 3. The triumphal car of Time drawn by genii, and accompanied by a pope, cardinal, emperor, king, queen, &c. At the top of the car, Death blows a trumpet, to which a banner is suspended, with "Je trompe tout le monde." In the back-ground a running fountain, with "Ainsi passe la gloire du monde." An anonymous upright engraving, 4 by 2-1/2. A very neat engraving by Le Blon of several European coins. In the centre, a room in which Death strikes at two misers, a man and a woman sitting at a table covered with money. On the table cloth, "Luc. 12 ca." Its companion--Death and the Miser. The design from the same subject in the Lyons wood-cuts. A label on the wall, with "Luc. 12." Oblong, 6-1/2 by 3-1/2. A German anonymous print, apparently from a book of emblems, representing Death waiting with a scythe to cut off the following persons: 1. A lady. 2. A gentleman. 3. An advocate. 4. A soldier: and, 5. A preacher. Each has an inscription. 1. Ich todt euch alle (I kill you all). 2. Ich erfrew euch alle (I rejoice you all). 3. Ich eruhr euch alle (I honour you all). 4. Ich red fur euch alle (I speak for you all). 5. Ich fecht fur euch alle (I fight for you all). 6. Ich bett fur euch alle (I pray for you all). With verses at bottom, in Latin and German. Oblong, 5-1/4 by 4. An anonymous engraving of a naked youth who with a sword strikes at the head of Death pursuing another youth. Oblong, 9-1/2 by 5-1/2. An upright engraving, 5-1/2 by 4, representing a young man on horseback holding a hawk on his fist, and surrounded by various animals. Death holding an hour-glass, strikes at him with his dart. Behind, the tree of knowledge, with the serpent and apple. At bottom, on the right, are the initials T. P. ex. An engraving of the Duke of Savoy, who, attended by his guards, receives petitions from various persons. Before him stands in a cloud the angel of Death, who points towards heaven. At bottom, on the left, "Delphinus pinxit. Brambilla del. 1676," and on the right, "Nobilis de Piene S. R. C. Prim. cælator f. Taur." Oblong, 10-1/2 by 7-1/2. An engraving by De Gheyn, intitled, "Vanitas, idelheit." A lady is sitting at a table, on which is a box of jewels and a heap of money. A hideous female Death strikes at her with a flaming dart, which, at the same time, scatters the leaves of a flower which she holds in her left hand. Upright, 9 by 7. A very small circular wood-cut, apparently some printer's device, representing an old and a young man, holding up a mirror, in which is reflected the figure of Death standing behind them, with the motto, "Beholde your glory." An anonymous print of Death and the miser. Death seizes his money, which he conveys into a dish. Upright, 3-1/2 by 2-1/2. It is a copy from the same subject in the Lyons wood-cuts. 1700-1800. An anonymous modern copy of Death and the bridegroom, copied from the Lyons wood-cuts, edition 1562. An etching of Death, with an hour-glass in one hand and a cane in the other, entering a room where a poor poet has been writing, and who would willingly dispense with the visit. At bottom "And when Death himself knocked at my door, ye bad him come again; and in so gay a tone of careless indifference did ye do it, that he doubted of his commission. There must certainly be some mistake in this matter, quoth he." The same in Italian. This is one of Patch's caricatures after Ghezzi. Upright, 16-1/2 by 12. A print intitled "Time's lecture to man," with eight stanzas in verse, beginning "Why start you at that skeleton." It consists of three divisions. At top a young man starts at the appearance of time and death. Under the youth "Calcanda semel via lethi." At each extremity of this division is a figure of Death sitting on a monument. The verses, in double columns, are placed between two borders with compartments. That on the right a scull crowned with a mitre; an angel with a censer; time carrying off a female on his back; Death with an infant in his arms; Death on horseback with a flag; Death wrestling with a man. The border on the left has a scull with a regal crown; an angel dancing with a book; Death carrying off an old man; Death leading a child; Death with a naked corpse; Death digging a grave. At bottom "Sold by Clark and Pine, engravers, in Castle Yard, near Chancery Lane, T. Witham, frame-maker, in Long Lane, near West Smithfield, London." With a vignette of three Deaths' heads. 13 by 9-1/2. There is a very singular ancient gem engraved in "Passeri de Gemmis Astriferis," tom. ii. p. 248. representing a skeleton Death standing in a car drawn by two animals that may be intended for lions; he holds a whip in his hand, and is driving over other skeletons. It is covered with barbarous and unintelligible words in Greek characters, and is to be classed among those gems which are used as amulets or for magical purposes. It seems to have suggested some of the designs that accompany the old editions of Petrarch's Triumph of Death. A folio mezzotint of J. Daniel von Menzel, an Austrian hussar. Behind him is a figure of Death with the hussar's hat on his head, by whom he is seized. There are some German verses, and below Mon amis avec moi à la danse C'est pour vous la juste recompense. The print is dated 1744. A Dutch anonymous oblong engraving on copper, 10-1/2 by 10, intitled "Bombario, o dood! te schendig in de nood." Death leads a large group of various characters. At bottom verses beginning "De Boertjes knappen al temaal." On each side caricatures inscribed Democritus and Heraclitus. It is one of the numerous caricatures on the famous South Sea or Mississippi bubble. An engraving, published by Darly, entitled "Macaronies drawn after the life." On the left a macaroni standing. On the floor dice and dice-box. On a table cards and two books. On the right, Death with a spade, leaning on a sarcophagus, inscribed "Here lies interred Dicky Daffodil, &c." Oblong, 9 by 6. A very clever private etching by Colonel Turner, of the Guards, 1799, representing, in the foreground, three Deaths dancing in most grotesque attitudes. In the distance several groups of skeletons, some of whom are dancing, one of them beating a drum. Oblong, 5-1/2 by 3-1/2. A small engraving by Chodowiecki. Death appears to a medical student sitting at a table; underneath these lines, De grace epargne moi, je me fais medecin, Tu recevras de moi la moitié des malades. Upright, 3-1/2 by 2. This is not included in his Dance of Death. The same slightly retouched, with German verses. A small engraving, by Chodowiecki, of Death approaching a dying man attended by his family and a physician. Oblong, 2-1/2 by 2. A modern engraving, intitled "An emblem of a modern marriage." Death habited as a beau stands by a lady, who points to a monument inscribed "Requiescat in pace." Above a weeping Cupid with an inverted torch. At bottom ... No smiles for us the Godhead wears, His torch inverted and his face in tears. Drawn by M. H. from a sketch cut with a diamond on a pane of glass. Published according to act of parliament, June 15, 1775. A modern caricature intitled "A patch for t'other eye." Death is about to place a patch on the right eye of an old general, who has one already on the other. His hat and truncheon lie on the ground, and he is drawing his sword for the purpose of opposing the intention of his grim adversary, exclaiming at the same time, "Oh G--d d--n ye, if that's your sport, have at ye." Upright, 8 inches by 7. A small engraving by Chr. de Mechel, 1775, of an apothecary's shop. He holds up a urinal to a patient who comes to consult him, behind whom Death is standing and laying hands upon him. Below these verses: Docteur, en vain tu projettes De prononcer sur cette eau, La mort rit de tes recettes Et conduit l'homme au tombeau. Oblong, 4 by 3. An anonymous and spirited etching of Death obsequiously and with his arms crossed entering a room in which is a woman in bed with three infants. With uplifted arms she screams at the sight of the apparition. Below in a corner the husband, accompanied with four other children. Upright, 11 by 10-1/2. "The lawyer's last circuit." He is attacked by four Deaths mounted on skeleton horses. He is placed behind one of them, and all gallop off with him. A road-post inscribed "Road to hell." Below, the lines from Hamlet, "Where be his quiddits now? his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks, &c." Published April 25, 1782, by R. Smith, opposite the Pantheon, Oxford Street. Oblong, 10 by 6-1/2. 1800. A modern wood-cut of a drinking and smoking party. Demons of destruction hover over them in the characters of Poverty, Apoplexy, Madness, Dropsy, and Gout. In the bowl on the table is a monstrous head inscribed "Disease." Behind, a gigantic figure of Death with scythe and hour-glass. Oblong, 3-1/2 by 3. A Sketch by Samuel Ireland, after Mortimer, in imitation of a chalk drawing, apparently exhibiting an Englishman, a Dutchman, and a Spaniard. Death behind stretching his arms upon all of them. Oblong 10-1/2 by 8. A wood print intitled "Das betruhte Brautfest." Death seizes a man looking at a table covered with wedding-cakes, &c. From a modern Swiss almanack. Oblong 6-1/2 by 5-1/2. A mezzotint of a physician, who attending a sick patient in bed is attacked by a group of Deaths bearing standards, inscribed "Despair," "l'amour," "omnia vincit amor," and "luxury." Oblong, 11 by 8-1/2. An etching from a drawing by Van Venne of Death preaching from a charnel-house to a group of people. His text book rests on the figure of a skeleton as a reading desk. It is prefixed to Mr. Dagley's "Death's Doings," mentioned in p. 157. Oblong, 5-1/2 by 4-1/4. Mr. Dagley, in the second edition of his "Death's Doings," p. 9, mentions a print of "a man draining an enormous bowl, and Death standing ready to confirm the title of the print, "the last drop." An etching by Dagley, after Birch, of Baxter, a famous cricketer, bowled out by Death. Below, his portrait at full length. Oblong, 9 by 7. "Sketches of the celebrated skeletons, originally designed on the long wall between Turnham-Green and Brentford." Etchings of various groups; the subjects, billiards, drafts, cards, dice, toss, and pitch. Oblong, 18 by 11. "Humorous sketches of skeletons engaged in the various sciences of Singing, Dancing, Music, Oratory, Painting, and Sculpture." Drawn by H. Heathcote Russell as a companion to the skeletons copied from the long wall at Brentford. Published 3d June, 1830. Same size as the preceding print. A lithographic print of a conjurer pointing with his magic wand to a table on which are cups, a lanthorn, &c. In the back-ground, the Devil running away with a baker, and a group of three dancing Deaths. Below, birds in cages, cards, &c. Oblong, 8 by 6. A small modern wood-cut of Death seizing a lady at a ball. He is disguised as one of the party. Underneath, "Death leads the dance."--_Young--Night 5._ From "the Christian's Pocket Magazine." Oblong, 2-1/2 by 1-1/2. A design for the ballad of Leonora, by Lady Diana Beauclerc. A spectre, as Death, carrying off a lady on horseback, and striking her with his dart. Other Death-like spectres waiting for her. Oblong, 11-3/4 by 9. A small modern engraving of Death presenting a smelling bottle to a fainting butcher with one hand, and with the other fanning him. The motto, "A butcher overcome with extreme sensibility, is as strangely revived." A modern halfpenny wood-cut of several groups, among which is a man presenting an old woman to Death. The motto, "Death come for a wicked woman." An oval etching, by Harding, intitled "Death and the Doctor." Upright, 4-1/2 by 3-1/2. A modern etching of Death striking a sleeping lady leaning on a table, on which little imps are dancing. At bottom, "Marks fecit." Oblong, 4 by 3. An anonymous modern wood-cut of Death seizing a usurer, over whom another Death is throwing a counterpane. Square, 4 by 4. An etching, intitled "the Last Drop." A fat citizen draining a punch-bowl. Death behind is about to strike him with his dart. Upright, 8-1/2 by 6-1/2. In an elegant series of prints, illustrative of the poetical works of Goethe, there is a poem of seven stanzas, intitled "Der Todtentanz," where the embellishment represents a church-yard, in which several groups of skeletons are introduced, some of them rising, or just raised, from their graves; others in the attitude of dancing together or preparing for a dance. These prints are beautifully etched in outline in the manner of the drawings in the margins of Albert Durer's prayer-book in the library of Munich. Prefixed to a poem by Edward Quillinan, in a volume of wood-cuts used at the press of Lee Priory, the seat of Sir Egerton Brydges, intitled "Death to Doctor Quackery," there is an elegant wood-cut, representing Death hob-and-nobbing with the Doctor at a table. In the same volume is another wood-cut on the subject of a dance given by the Lord of Death in Clifton Halls. A motley group of various characters are dancing in a circle whilst Death plays the fiddle. In 1832 was published at Paris "La Danse des Morts, ballade dediée à Madame la Comtesse de Tryon Montalembert. Paroles et musique de P. Merruau." The subject is as follows: A girl named Lise is admonished by her mother not to dance on a Saturday, the day on which Satan calls the dead to the infernal _Sabbat_. She promises obedience, but whilst her mother is napping, escapes to the ball. She forgets the midnight hour, when a company of damned souls, led by Satan, enter the ball-room hand-in-hand, exclaiming "Make way for Death." All the party escape, except Lise, who suddenly finds herself encircled by skeletons, who continue dancing round her. From that time, on every Saturday at midnight, there is heard under ground, in the church-yard, the lamentation of a soul forcibly detained, and exclaiming "Girls beware of dancing Satan!" At the head of this ballad is a lithographic print of the terrified Lise in Satan's clutches, surrounded by dancing, piping, and fiddling Deaths. About the same time there appeared a silly ballad, set to music, intitled "the Cork Leg," accompanied by a print in which the man with the cork leg falling on the ground drops his leg. It is seized by Death, who stalks away with it in a very grotesque manner. CHAPTER XV. _Initial or capital Letters with the Dance of Death._ It is very well known that the use of initial or capital letters, especially with figures of any kind, is not coeval with the invention of printing. It was some time before they were introduced at all, a blank being left, or else a small letter printed for the illuminators to cover or fill up, as they had been accustomed to do in manuscripts; for, although the art of printing nearly put an end to the occupation of that ingenious class of artists, they continued to be employed by the early printers to decorate their books with elegant initials, and particularly to illuminate the first pages of them with beautiful borders of foliage or animals, for the purpose of giving them the appearance of manuscripts. It has more than once been most erroneously asserted by bibliographers and writers on typography, that Erhard Ratdolt, a printer at Venice, was the first person who made use of initial letters about the year 1477; for instances are not wanting of their introduction into some of the earliest printed books. Among the latter the most beautiful specimen of an ornamented capital letter is the B in the Psalter of 1457, of which Dr. Dibdin has given a very faithful copy in vol. I. p. 107, of the Bibliotheca Spenceriana. This truly elegant letter seems to have been regarded as the only one of its kind; but, in a fragment of an undescribed missal in folio, printed in the same type as the above-mentioned Psalter, there is an equally beautiful initial T, prefixed to the "Te igitur" canon of the mass. It is ornamented with flowers and foliage, and in both these precious volumes there are many other smaller capitals, but whether printed with the other type, or afterwards stamped, may admit of some doubt. This unique and valuable fragment is in the collection of the present writer. As the art of printing advanced, the initial letters assumed every possible variety of form, with respect to the subjects with which they were ornamented. Incidents from scripture and profane history, animals of every kind, and the most ludicrous grotesques, constitute the general materials; nor has the Dance of Death been forgotten. It was first introduced into the books printed at Basle by Bebelius and Cratander about the year 1530, and for one or the other of these celebrated printers an alphabet of initial letters was constructed, which, in elegance of design and delicacy of engraving, have scarcely ever been equalled, and certainly never exceeded. Whether they were engraved in relief on blocks of type or printer's metal, in the manner of wood-cutting, or executed in wood in the usual manner, is a matter of doubt, and likely to remain so. They may, in every point of view be regarded as the chef d'oeuvre of ancient block engraving, and to copy them successfully at this time might require the utmost efforts of such artists as Harvey, Jackson, and Byfield.[134] A proof set of this alphabet, in the possession of the present writer, was shown to M. De Mechel when he was in London, on which occasion he stated that he had seen in the public library of Basle another proof set on a single sheet, with the inscription "Hans Lutzelburger," who is elsewhere called _formschneider_, or block-cutter, of which he has written a memorandum on the leaf containing the first abovementioned set of proofs. M. de Mechel, with great probability, inferred that this person was either the designer or engraver of the alphabet as well as of the cuts to the "Historiées faces de la mort," on one of which, as already stated, the mark [monogram: HL] is placed;[135] but to whomsoever this mark may turn out to belong, certain it is that Holbein never made use of it.[136] These letters measure precisely 1 inch by 7/8 of an inch, and the subjects are as follow: A. A group of Deaths passing through a cemetery covered with sculls. One of them blows a trumpet, and another plays on a tabor and pipe. B. Two Deaths seize upon a pope, on whom a demon fastens, to prevent their dragging him along. C. An emperor in the clutches of two Deaths, one of whom he resists, whilst the other pulls off his crown. D. A king thrown to the ground and forcibly dragged away by two Deaths. E. Death and the cardinal. F. An empress sitting in a chair is attacked by two Deaths, one of whom lifts up her petticoat. G. A queen seized by two Deaths, one of whom plays on a fife. H. A bishop led away by Death. I. A duke with his hands clasped in despair is seized behind by Death in the grotesque figure of an old woman. K. Death with a furred cap and mantle, and a flail in his right hand, seizes a nobleman. L. Death in the habit of a priest with a vessel of holy water takes possession of the canon. M. Death behind a physician in his study lays his hand on a urinal which he is inspecting. N. One Death lays hold on a miser, whilst another carries off his money from a table. O. Death carries off a terrified monk. P. Combat between Death and the soldier. Q. Death very quietly leads away a nun. R. Death and the fool who strikes at him with his bauble. S. Exhibits two Deaths, one of whom is in a very licentious action with a female, whilst the other runs off with an hour-glass on his back. T. A minstrel with his pipe, lying prostrate on the ground, is dragged away by one Death, whilst another pours something from a vessel into his mouth. V. A man on horseback endeavouring to escape from Death is seized by him behind. W. Death and the hermit. X. Death and the Devil among the gamblers. Y. Death, the nurse, and the infant. Z. The last Judgment. But they were not only used at Basle by Bebelius Isingrin and Cratander, but also at Strasburg by Wolfgang Cephaleus, and probably by other printers; because in an edition of Huttichius's "Romanorum principum effigies," printed by Cephaleus at Strasburg in 1552, they appear in a very worn and much used condition. In his Greek Bible of 1526, near half the alphabet were used, some of them by different hands. They were separately published in a very small volume without date, each letter being accompanied with appropriate scriptural allusions taken from the Vulgate Bible. They were badly copied, and with occasional variations, for books printed at Strasburg by J. Schott about 1540. Same size as the originals. The same initials were used by Henry Stainer of Augsburg in 1530. Schott also used two other sets of a larger size, the same subjects with variations, and which occur likewise in books printed at Frankfort about 1550 by Cyriacus Jacob. Christopher Froschover, of Zurich, used two alphabets with the Dance of Death. In Gesner's "Bibliotheca Universalis," printed by him in 1545, folio, he used the letters A. B. C. in indifferent copies of the originals with some variation. In a Vulgate Bible, printed by him in 1544, he uses the A and C of the same alphabet, and also the following letters, with different subjects, viz. F. Death blowing a trumpet in his left hand, with the right seizes a friar holding his beads and endeavouring to escape. O. Death and the Swiss soldier with his battle-axe; and, S. a queen between two Deaths, one of whom leads her, the other holds up her train. The Gesner has also a Q from the same alphabet of Death and the nun. This second alphabet is coarsely engraved on wood, and both are of the same size as the originals. In Francolin's "Rerum præclare gestarum, intra et extra moenia civitatis Viennensis, pedestri et equestri prælio, terra et aqua, elapso Mense Junio Anni Domini MDLX. elegantissimis iconibus ad vivum illustratarum, in laudem et gloriam sere. poten. invictissimique principis et Domini, Domini Ferdinandi electi Roma: imperatoris, &c. Vienna excudebat Raphael Hofhalter," at fo. xxii. b. the letter D is closely copied in wood from the original, and appears to have been much used. This very rare work is extremely interesting for its large and spirited etchings of the various ceremonies on the above occasion, but more particularly for the tournaments. It is also valuable for the marks of the artists, some of which are quite unknown. Other copies of them on wood occur in English books, but whether the whole alphabet was copied would be difficult to ascertain. In a Coverdale's Bible, printed by James Nicolson in Southwark, the letters A. I. and T. occur. The subject of the A. is that of the fool and Death, from the R. of the originals, with the addition of the fool's bauble on the ground: the two other letters are like the originals. The size 2 inches by 1-1/2. The same letters, and no others, occur in a folio English Bible, the date of which has not been ascertained, it being only a fragment. The A is found as late as 1618 in an edition of Stowe's "Survey of London." In all these letters large white spots are on the back-ground, which might be taken for worm-holes, but are not so. The I occurs in J. Waley's "table of yeres of kings," 1567, 12mo. An X and a T, an inch and 1/2 square, with the same subjects as in the originals, and not only closely copied, but nearly as well engraved on wood, are in the author's collection. Their locality has not been traced. Hollar etched the first six letters of the alphabet from the initials described in p. 214. They are rather larger than the originals, but greatly inferior to them in spirit and effect. Two other alphabets, the one of peasants dancing, the other of boys playing, by the same artists, have been already described in p. 101, and were also used by the Basle and other printers. In Braunii Civitates Orbis terrarum, Par. I. No. 37, edit. 1576, there is an H, inch and 1/2 square. The subject, Death leading a Pope on horseback. It is engraved on wood with much spirit. In "Prodicion y destierro de los Moriscos de Castilla, por F. Marcos de Guadalajara y Xavier." Pamplona, 1614, 4to. there is an initial E cut in wood with the subject of the cardinal, varied from that in Lutzenberger's alphabet. A Greek [Greek: P] on wood, with Death leading away the pope, was used by Cephalæus in a Testament. In "Fulwell's Flower of Fame," printed by W. Hoskins, 1575, 4to. is an initial of Death leading a king, probably belonging to some alphabet. An S rudely cut on wood with Death seizing two children was used by the English printers, J. Herford and T. Marshe. An A well cut on wood, representing Death striking a miser, who is counting his money at a table. It occurs at fo. 5 of Quad's "fasciculus geographicus." Cologne, 1608, small folio, printed by John Buxemacher. An R indifferently cut on wood, two inches square. The subject, Death in a grave pulls an old man towards him. A boy making his escape. From some unknown book. An S indifferently cut on wood, two inches square. Death shovelling two sculls, one crowned, into a grave. On the shovel the word IDEM, and below, the initials of the engraver or designer, I. F. From some unknown book. An H, an inch and half square, very beautifully cut on wood. The letter is surrounded by a group of people, over whom Death below is drawing a net. It is from some Dutch book of emblems, about 1640. An M cut on wood in p. 353 of a Suetonius, edited by Charles Patin, and printed 1675, 4to. "Basle typis Genathianis." The subject is, Death seizing Cupid. Size, 1-1/2 square. A W, 2-1/8 square, engraved on copper, with the initials of Michael Burghers. A large palm tree in the middle, Death with his scythe approaches a shepherd sitting on a bank and tending his flock. In the second volume of Braun and Hogenberg Civitates orbis terrarum, and prefixed to a complimentary letter from Remaglus Lymburgus, a physician and canon of Liege, there is an initial letter about an inch and a half square, representing a pope and an emperor playing at cards. They are interrupted by Death, who offers them a cup which he holds in his left hand whilst he points to them with his right. Other figures are introduced. This letter is very finely engraved on wood. In Vol. II. p. 118 (misprinted 208) of Steinwich's "Bibliothecæ Ecclesiasticæ." Colon. Agrip. 1599, folio. There is a single initial letter V only, which may have been part of an alphabet with a Dance of Death. The subject is Death and the queen. The size nearly an inch square. At fo. 1. of "F. Marco de Guadalajara y Xavier, Memorable expulsion y justissimo destierro de los Moriscos de Espana, Pamplona, 1613, 4to." there is an initial E, finely drawn and well engraved in wood. The subject has been taken from two cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death, viz. the cardinal and the emperor. From the first, the figures of the cardinal and Death seizing his hat; and from the other, the figures of the kneeling man, and of Death seizing the emperor's crown, are introduced as a complete group in the above initial letter. Size, 1-1/2 inch square. In p. 66 of the same work there is another letter that has probably belonged to a set of initials with a Dance of Death. It is an H, and copied from the subject of the bishop taken by Death from his flock, in the Lyons series. It is engraved in a different and inferior style from that last mentioned, yet with considerable spirit. Size, 1-1/2 inch. CHAPTER XVI. _Paintings.--Drawings.--Miscellaneous._ Rene of Anjou is said to have painted a sort of Death's Dance at Avignon, which was destroyed in the French revolution. In one of the wardrobe accounts of Henry VIII. a picture at Westminster is thus described: "Item, a table with the picture of a woman playing upon a lute, and an old manne holding a glasse in th' one hande and a deadde mannes headde in th' other hande." MS. Harl. No. 1419. A round painting in oil, by or from Hans Holbein. The subject, an old man making love to a young girl. Death pulling him back, hints at the consequences, whilst the absurdity is manifested by the presence of a fool, with cockscomb and bauble, on the other side. Diameter, 15 inches. From the striking resemblance in the features of the old lover to those of Erasmus, there is no doubt that Holbein intended by this group to retort upon his friend, who, on one of the drawings which Holbein had inserted in a copy of Erasmus's Praise of Folly, now in the public library at Basle, and which represented a fat epicure at table embracing a wench, had written the name of HOLBEIN, in allusion to his well-known intemperance. In the present writer's possession. The small painting by Isaac Oliver, from Holbein, formerly at Whitehall, of Death with a green garland, &c. already more particularly described at p. 145. A small painting in oil, by Old Franks, of a gouty old miser startled at the unexpected appearance of Death, who approaches him playing on a violin, one of his feet resting on an hour-glass. In the distance, and in another room, Death is seen in conversation with a sitting gentleman. Upright, 7-1/2 by 5-1/2. The same subject, painted in oil by Otho Vænius, in which a guitar is substituted for the violin. This picture was in the collection of Richard Cosway, Esquire. Upright, 12 by 6, and is now belonging to the present writer. A Mr. Knowles, a modern artist, is said to have painted a miser counting his hoard, and Death putting an extinguisher over him. At p. 460 of the memoirs of that most ingenious artist, Charles Alfred Stothard, by his widow, mention is made of an old picture, at Nettlecombe Hall, Somersetshire, belonging to its owner, a clergyman, of a Dance of Death. Mr. Tyssen, a bookseller at Bristol, is said to possess a will of the 15th century, in which the testator bequeaths a painting of the Dance of Death. DRAWINGS. In a beautifully illuminated Psalter, supposed to have been made for Richard II. and preserved among the Cotton MSS. Domit. xvii. is a very singular painting, representing part of the choir of a cathedral, with ten monks sitting in their stalls, and chaunting the service. At the top of these stalls, and behind it, are five grotesque Deaths looking down on the monks. One of the Deaths has a cardinal's hat, two have baronial crowns on their heads, and those of the remaining two are decorated with a sort of imperial crowns, shaped like the papal tiara. A priest celebrates mass at the altar, before which another priest or monk prostrates himself. What the object of the painter was in the introduction of these singular figures of Death is difficult to comprehend. [Illustration] In the manuscript and illuminated copies of the "Romance of the Rose," the "Pelerin de la vie humaine" and the "Chevalier Deliberé," representations of Death as Atropos, are introduced. A very ancient and masterly drawing of Death and the beggar, the outlines black on a blue ground, tinted with white and red. The figures [monogram] at bottom indicate its having been part of a Macaber Dance. Upright, 5-1/4 by 4. In the author's possession. Sir Thomas Lawrence had four very small drawings by Callot that seemed to be part of an intended series of a Dance of Death. 1. Death and the bishop. 2. Death and the soldier. 3. Death and the fool. 4. Death and the old woman. An extremely fine drawing by Rembrandt of four Deaths, their hands joined in a dance, their faces outwards. One has a then fashionable female cap on his head, and another a cap and feather. Upright, 9-1/2 by 6-1/2. In the author's possession. A very singular drawing in pen and ink and bistre. In the middle, a sitting figure of a naked man holding a spindle, whilst an old woman, leaning over a tub on a bench, cuts the thread which he has drawn out. Near the old woman Death peeps in behind a wall. Close to the bench is a woman sitting on the ground mending a piece of linen, a child leaning on her shoulder. On the other side is a sitting female weaving, and another woman in an upright posture, and stretching one of her hands towards a shelf. Oblong, 11-1/4 by 8. In the author's possession. An anonymous drawing in pen and ink of a Death embracing a naked woman. His companion is mounted on the back of another naked female, and holds a dart in each hand. Oblong, 4 by 3-1/4. In the author's possession. A single sheet, containing four subjects, skilfully drawn with a pen and tinted in Indian ink. 1. An allegorical, but unknown figure sitting on a globe, with a sort of sceptre in his right hand. Death seizes him by his garment with great vigour, and endeavours to pull him from his seat. 2. Two men eating and drinking at a table. Death, unperceived, enters the room, and levels his dart at them. 3. Death seizes two naked persons very amorously situated. 4. Death seizes a miser counting his money. In the author's possession. Twenty-four very beautiful coloured drawings by a modern artist from those in the public library at Berne that were copied by Stettler from Kauw's drawings of the original painting by Nicolas Manuel Deutch. In the author's possession, together with lithographic copies of them that have been recently published at Berne.[137] A modern Indian ink drawing of a drunken party of men and women. Death above in a cloud levels his dart at them. Upright, 5-1/4 by 3-1/2. In the author's possession. A spirited drawing in Indian ink of two Deaths as pugilists with their bottle-holders. Oblong, 7 by 4-1/2. In the author's possession. A pen and ink tinted drawing, intitled "The Last Drop." A female seated before a table on which is a bottle of gin or brandy. She is drinking a glass of it, Death standing by and directing his dart at her. In the author's possession. Mr. Dagley, in the second edition of his "Death's Doings," p. 7, has noticed some very masterly designs chalked on a wall bordering the road from Turnham-Green towards Kew-Bridge. They exhibited figures of Death as a skeleton ludicrously occupied with gamblers, dancers, boxers, &c. all of the natural size. They were unfortunately swept away before any copies were made to perpetuate them, as they well deserved. It was stated in The Times newspaper that these sketches were made by a nephew of Mr. Baron Garrow, then living in retirement near the spot, but who afterwards obtained a situation in India. These drawings were made in 1819. Four very clever coloured drawings by Rowlandson, being probably a portion of an unfinished series of a Death's Dance. 1. The Suicide. A man seated near a table is in the act of discharging a pistol at his head. The sudden and terrific appearance of Death, who, starting from behind a curtain, significantly stares at him through an eye-glass. One of the candles is thrown down, and a wine-glass jerked out of the hand of the suicide, who, from a broken sword and a hat with a cockade, seems intended for some ruined soldier of fashion. A female servant, alarmed at the report of the pistol, rushes into the apartment. Below, these verses: Death smiles, and seems his dart to hide, When he beholds the suicide. 2. The Good Man, Death, and the Doctor. A young clergyman reads prayers to the dying man; the females of his family are shedding tears. Death unceremoniously shoves out the physician, who puts one hand behind him, as expecting a fee, whilst with the other he lifts his cane to his nostrils. Below, these lines: No scene so blest in Virtue's eyes, As when the man of virtue dies. 3. The Honey-moon. A gouty old fellow seated on a sopha with his youthful bride, who puts her hand through a window for a military lover to kiss it. A table covered with a desert, wine, &c. Death, stretching over a screen, pours something from a bottle into the glass which the husband holds in his hand. Below, these verses: When the old fool has drunk his wine, And gone to rest, I will be thine. 4. The Fortune-teller. Some females enter the conjurer's study to have their fortunes told. Death seizes the back of his chair and oversets him. Below, these verses: All fates he vow'd to him were known, And yet he could not tell his own. These drawings are oblong, 9 by 5 inches. In the author's possession. MISCELLANEOUS. A circular carving on wood, with the mark of Hans Schaufelin [monogram: HS], representing Death seizing a naked female, who turns her head from him with a very melancholy visage. It is executed in a masterly manner. Diameter, 4 inches. In the author's possession. In Boxgrove church, Sussex, there is a splendid and elaborately sculptured monument of the Lords Delawar; and on the side which has not been engraved in Mr. Dallaway's history of the county, there are two figures of Death and a female, wholly unconnected with the other subjects on the tomb. These figures are 9-1/2 inches in height, and of rude design. Many persons will probably remember to have seen among the ballads, &c. that were formerly, and are still exhibited on some walls in the metropolis, a poem, intitled "Death and the Lady." This is usually accompanied with a wood-cut, resembling the above figures. It is proper to mention likewise on this occasion the old alliterative poem in Bishop Percy's famous manuscript, intitled _Death and Liffe_, the subject of which is a vision wherein the poet sees a contest for superiority between "our Lady Dame Life," and the "ugly fiend, Dame Death." See "Percy's Reliques of ancient English poetry," in the Essay on the Metre of Pierce Plowman's Vision. Whether there may have been any connexion between these respective subjects must be left to the decision of others. There is certainly some reason to suppose so. [Illustration] The sculptures at Berlin and Fescamp have been already described. Among the subjects of tapestry at the Tower of London, the most ancient residence of our kings, was "the Dance of Macabre." See the inventory of King Henry VIII.'s Guardrobe, &c. in MS. Harl. 1419, fo. 5. Two panes of glass with a portion of a Dance of Death. 1. Three Deaths, that appear to have been placed at the beginning of the Dance. Over them, in a character of the time of Henry VII. these lines: ... ev'ry man to be contented w{t} his chaunce, And when it shall please God to folowe my daunce. 2. Death and the Pope. No verses. Size, upright, 8-1/2 by 7 inches. In the author's possession. They have probably belonged to a Macaber Dance in the windows of some church. CHAPTER XVII. _Trois vifs et trois morts.--Negro figure of Death.--Danse aux Avengles._ The first of these subjects, as connected with the Macaber Dance, has been already introduced at p. 31-33; what is now added will not, it is presumed, be thought unworthy of notice. It is needless to repeat the descriptions that have been given by M. Peignot of the manuscripts in the Duke de la Valliere's catalogue. The following are some of the printed volumes in which representations of the _trois vifs et trois morts_ occur. They are to be found in all the editions of the Danse Macabre that have already been described, and in the following Horæ and other service books of the catholic church. "Horæ ad usum Sarum," 1495, no place, no printer. 4to. Three Deaths, three horsemen with hawks and hounds. The hermit, to whom the vision appeared, in his cell. "Heures à l'usaige de Rome." Paris. Nicolas Higman, for Guil. Eustace, 1506, 12mo. "Horæ ad usum Traject." 1513. 18mo. "Breviarium seu horarium domesticum ad usum Sarum." Paris, F. Byrckman, 1516. Large folio. Three Deaths and three young men. "Horæ ad usum Romanum." Paris. Thielman Kerver, 1522. 8vo. And again, 1535. 4to. A Dutch "Horæ." Paris. Thielman Kerver, 1522. 8vo. "Heures à l'usage de Paris." Thielman Kerver's widow, 1525. 8vo. "Missale ad usum Sarum." Paris, 1527. Folio. Three horsemen as noblemen, but without hawks or hounds. "Enchiridion preclare ecclesie Sarum." Paris. Thielman Kerver, 1528. 32mo. "Horæ ad usum fratrum predicatorum ordinis S. Dominici." Paris. Thielman Kerver, 1529. 8vo. "Horæ ad usum Romanum." Paris. Yolande Bonhomme, widow of T. Kerver, 1531. 8vo. "Missale ad usum Sarum." Paris. F. Regnault, 1531. Three Deaths only; different from the others. "Prayer of Salisbury." Paris. Francois Regnault, 1531, 12mo. "Horæ ad usum Sarum." Paris. Widow of Thielman Kerver, 1532. 12mo. "Heures à l'usage de Paris." Francois Regnault, 1535. 12mo. "Horæ ad usum Romanum." Paris. Gilles Hardouyn, 1537. 18mo. The subject is different from all the others, and very curiously treated. "Heures à l'usage de Paris." Thielman Kerver, 1558. 12mo. "Heures à l'usage de Rome." Paris. Thielman Kerver, 1573. 12mo. "Heures à l'usage de Paris." Jacques Kerver, 1573. 12mo. And again, 1575. 12mo. In "The Contemplation of Sinners," printed by Wynkyn de Worde. 4to. All the above articles are in the collections of the author of this dissertation. In an elegant MS. "Horæ," in the Harl. Coll. No. 2917, 12mo. three Deaths appear to a pope, an emperor, and a king coming out of a church. All the parties are crowned. At the end of Desrey's "Macabri speculum choreæ mortuorum," a hermit sees a vision of a king, a legislator, and a vain female. They are all lectured by skeletons in their own likenesses. In a manuscript collection of unpublished and chiefly pious poems of John Awdeley, a blind poet and canon of the monastery of Haghmon, in Shropshire, anno 1426, there is one on the "_trois vifs et trois morts_," in alliterative verses, and composed in a very grand and terrific style. NEGRO FIGURE OF DEATH. In some degree connected with the old painting of the Macaber Dance in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris, was that of a black man over a vaulted roof, constructed by the celebrated N. Flamel, about the year 1390. This is supposed to have perished with the Danse Macabre; but a copy of the figure has been preserved in some of the printed editions of the dance. It exhibits a Negro blowing a trumpet, and was certainly intended as a personification of Death. In one of the oldest of the above editions he is accompanied with these verses: CRY DE MORT. Tost, tost, tost, que chacun savance Main à main venir a la danse De Mort, danser la convient, Tous et a plusieurs nen souvient. Venez hommes femmes et enfans, Jeunes et vieulx, petis et grans, Ung tout seul nen eschapperoit, Pour mille escuz si les donnoit, &c. Before the females in the dance the figure is repeated with a second "Cry de Mort." Tost, tost, venez femmes danser Apres les hommes incontinent, Et gardez vous bien de verser, Car vous danserez vrayment; Mon cornet corne bien souvent Apres les petis et les grans. Despecte vous legierement, Apres la pluye vient le beau temps. These lines are differently given in the various printed copies of the Danse Macabre. This figure is not to be confounded with an alabaster statue of Death that remained in the church-yard of the Innocents, when it was entirely destroyed in 1786. It had been usually regarded as the work of Germain Pilon, but with greater probability belonged to Francois Gentil, a sculptor at Troyes, about 1540. It was transported to Notre Dame, after being bronzed and repaired, by M. Deseine, a distinguished artist. It was saved from the fury of the iconoclast revolutionists by M. Le Noir, and deposited in the Museum which he so patriotically established in the Rue des petits Augustins, but it has since disappeared. It was an upright skeleton figure, holding in one hand a lance which pointed to a shield with this inscription: Il n'est vivant, tant soit plein d'art, Ne de force pour resistance, Que je ne frappe de mon dart, Pour bailler aux vers leur pitance. Priez Dieu pour les trespassés. It is engraved in the second volume of M. Le Noir's "Musée des monumens Francais," and also in his "Histoire des arts en France," No. 91. DANSE AUX AVEUGLES. There is a poetical work, in some degree connected with the subject of this dissertation, that ought not to be overlooked. It was composed by one Pierre Michault, of whom little more seems to be known than that he was in the service of Charles, Count of Charolois, son of Philip le Bon, Duke of Burgundy. It is intitled "La Danse aux Aveugles," and the object of it is to show that all men are subject to the influence of three blind guides, Love, Fortune, and Death, before whom several persons are whimsically made to dance. It is a dialogue in a dream between the Author and Understanding, and the respective blind guides describe themselves, their nature, and power over mankind, in ten-line stanzas, of which the following is the first of those which are pronounced by Death: Je suis la Mort de nature ennemie, Qui tous vivans finablement consomme, Anichillant à tous humains la vie, Reduis en terre et en cendre tout homme. Je suis la mort qui dure me surnomme, Pour ce qu'il fault que maine tout affin; Je nay parent, amy, frere ou affin Que ne face tout rediger en pouldre, Et suis de Dieu ad ce commise affin, Que l'on me doubte autant que tonnant fouldre. Some of the editions are ornamented with cuts, in which Death is occasionally introduced, and that portion of the work which exclusively relates to him seems to have been separately published, M. Goujet[138] having mentioned that he had seen a copy in vellum, containing twelve leaves, with an engraving to every one of the stanzas, twenty-three in number. More is unnecessary to be added, as M. Peignot has elaborately and very completely handled the subject in his interesting "Recherches sur les Danses des Morts." Dijon, 1826. octavo. CHAPTER XVIII. _Errors of various writers who have introduced the subject of the Dance of Death._ To enumerate even a moiety of these mistakes would almost occupy a separate volume, but it may be as well to notice some of them which are to be found in works of common occurrence. TRAVELLERS.--The erroneous remarks of Bishop Burnet and Mr. Coxe have been already adverted to. See pp. 79, 134, and 138. Misson seems to regard the old Danse Macabre as the work of Holbein. The Rev. Robert Gray, in "Letters during the course of a tour through Germany and Switzerland in the year 1791 and 1792," has stated that Mechel has engraved _Rubens's designs_ from the Dance of Death, now perishing on the walls of the church-yard of the Predicant convent, where it was sketched in 1431. Mr. Wood, in his "View of the History of Switzerland," as quoted in the Monthly Review, Nov. 1799, p. 290, states, that "the Dance of Death in the church-yard of the Predicants has been falsely ascribed to Holbein, as it is proved that it was painted _long after the death of that artist, and not before he was born_, as the honourable Horace Walpole supposes." Here the corrector stands in need himself of correction, unless it be possible that he is not fairly quoted by the reviewer. Miss Williams, in her Swiss tour, 1798, when speaking of the Basle Dance of Death, says it was painted by Kleber, a _pupil of Holbein_. Those intelligent and amusing travellers, Breval, Keysler, and Blainville have carefully avoided the above strange mistakes. WRITERS ON PAINTING AND ENGRAVING.--Meyssens, in his article for Holbein in "the effigies of the Painters," mentions his "Death's Dance, in the town-hall of Basle, the design whereof he first neatly cut in wood and afterwards painted, which appeared so fine to the learned Erasmus, &c." English edition, 1694, p. 15. Felibien, in his "Entretiens sur les vies des Peintres," follows Meyssens as to the painting in the town-hall. Le Comte places the supposed painting by Holbein in the fish-market, and in other respects copies Meyssens. "Cabinet des Singularités, &c." tom. iii. p. 323, edit. 1702, 12mo. Bullart not only places the painting in the town-hall of Basle, but adds, that he afterwards engraved it in wood. "Acad. des Sciences et des Arts," tom. ii. p. 412. Mr. Evelyn, in his "Sculptura," the only one of his works that does him no credit, and which is a meagre and extremely inaccurate compilation, when speaking of Holbein, actually runs riot in error and misconception. He calls him a Dane. He makes what he terms "the licentiousness of the friars and nuns," meaning probably Hollar's sixteen etchings after Holbein's satire on monks and friars and other members of the Romish church as the persecutors of Christ, and also the "Dance Machabre and Mortis imago," to have been cut in wood, and one or both of the latter to have been painted in the church of Basle. Mr. Evelyn's own copy of this work, with several additions in manuscript, is in the possession of Mr. Taylor, a retired and ingenious artist, of Cirencester-place. He probably intended to reprint it, and opposite the above-mentioned word "Dane," has inserted a query. Sandrart places the Dance of Death in the fish-market at Basle, and makes Holbein the painter as well as the engraver. "Acad. artis pictoriæ," p. 238, edit. 1683, folio. Baldinucci speaks of twenty prints of the Dance of Death painted by Holbein in the Senate-house of Basle. "Notizie dè professori del disegno, &c." tom. iii. 313 and 319. M. Descamps inadvertently ascribes the old Dance of Death on the walls of the church-yard of Saint Peter to the pencil of Holbein. "Vie des Peintres Flamandi," &c. 1753. 8vo. Tom. i. p. 75. Papillon, in his account of the Dance of Death, abounds with inaccuracies. He says, that a magistrate of Basle employed him to paint a Dance of Death in the fish-market, near a church-yard; that the work greatly increased his reputation, and made much noise in the world, although it has many anatomical defects; that he engraved this painting on small blocks of wood with unparalleled beauty and delicacy. He supposes that they first appeared in 1530 at Basle or Zuric, and as he thinks with a title and German verses on each print. Now he had never seen any edition so early as 1530, nor any of the cuts with German verses, and having probably been misled on this occasion, he has been the cause of misleading many subsequent writers, as Fournier, Huber, Strutt, &c. He adopts the error as to the mark [monogram: HL] on the thirty-sixth subject belonging to Holbein. He is entirely ignorant of the nature and character of the fool or idiot in No. xliii. whom he terms "un homme lascif qui a levé le devant de sa robbe:" and, to crown the whole, he makes the old Macaber Dance an _imitation_ of that ascribed to Holbein. De Murr, in tom. ii. p. 535 of his "Bibliothéque de Peinture, &c." servilely copies Papillon in all that he has said on the subject, with some additional errors of his own. The Abbé Fontenai, in the article for Holbein in his "Dictionnaire des Artistes," Paris, 1776, 8vo. not only makes him the painter of the old Macaber Dance, but places it in the town-house at Basle. Mr. Walpole, or rather Vertue, in the "Anecdotes of Painting in England," corrects the error of those who give the old Macaber Dance to Holbein, but inadvertently makes that which is usually ascribed to him to have been borrowed from the other. Messrs. Huber and Rost make Holbein the engraver of the Lyons wood-cuts, and suppose the original drawings to be preserved in the public library at Basle. They probably allude to the problematical drawings that were used by M. de Mechel, and which are now in Russia. "Manuel des curieux et des amateurs de l'art." Tom. i. p. 155. In the "Notices sur les graveurs," Besancon, 1807, 8vo. a work that has, by some writers, been given to M. Malpé, and by others to the Abbé Baverel, Papillon is followed with respect to the supposed edition of 1530, and its German verses. Mr. Janssen is more inaccurate than any of his predecessors, some of whom have occasionally misled him. He makes Albert Durer the inventor of the designs, the greater part of which, he says, are from the Dance of Death at Berne. He adopts the edition of 1530, and the German verses. He condemns the title-page of the edition of 1562 for stating an addition of seventeen plates, whereas, says he, there are but five; but the editor meant only that there were seventeen more cuts than in the original, which had only forty-one. MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.--Charles Patin, a libeller of the English nation, has made Holbein the engraver on wood of a Dance of Death, which, he says, is "not much unlike that in the church-yard of the Predicants at Basle, painted, as some say, from the life, by Holbein." He ought to have known that this work was executed near a century before Holbein was born. "Erasmi stultitiæ laus." Basileæ, 1676, 8vo. at the end of the list of Holbein's works. Martiniere, in his Geographical Dictionary, makes Holbein the inventor of the Macaber Dance at Basle. Goujet, in his very useful "Bibliothéque Francoise," tom. x. p. 436, has erroneously stated that the Lyons engravings on wood were by the celebrated artist Salomon Bernard, usually called "Le petit Bernard." The mistake is very pardonable, as it appears that Bernard chiefly worked in the above city. M. Compan, in his "Dictionnaire de Danse," 1787, 12mo. under the article _Macabrée_, very gravely asserts that the author took his work from the Maccabees, "qui, comme tout le monde scait danserent, et en ont fait epoque pour les morts." He then quotes some lines from a modern edition of the "Danse Macabre," where the word _Machabées_ is ignorantly substituted for "Machabre." M. Fournier states that Holbein painted a Dance of Death in the fish-market at Basle, reduced it, and engraved it. "Dissertation sur l'imprimerie," p. 70. Mr. Warton has converted the imaginary Machabree into _a French poet_, but corrects himself in his "Hist. of Engl. Poetry." He supposes the single cut in Lydgate to represent _all_ the figures that were in St. Paul's cloister. He atones for these errors in referring to Holbein's cuts in Cranmer's Catechism, as entirely different in style from those published at Lyons, _but which he thinks, are probably the work of Albert Durer_, and also in his conjecture that the painter Reperdius might have been concerned in the latter. See "Observations on the Fairy Queen of Spenser," vol. ii. 116, &c. In his most elegant and instructive History of English Poetry he relapses into error when he states that Holbein painted a Dance of Death in the Augustine monastery at Basle in 1543, and that Georgius Æmylius published this Dance at Lyons, 1542, one year before Holbein's painting at Basle appeared. Hist. Engl. Poetry, vol. ii. p. 364, edit. Price. The Marquis de Paulmy ascribes the old Macaber Dance at Basle to Holbein, and adds, "le sujet et l'execution en sont aussi singuliers que ridicules." "Mélanges tirés d'une grande bibliothéque," tom. Ff. 371. M. Champollion Figeac in Millin's "Magazin encyclopedique," 1811, tom. vi. has an article on an edition of the "Danse Macabre anterieure à celle de 1486." In this article he states that Holbein painted a fresco Dance of Death at Basle near the end of the 15th century (Holbein was not born till 1498!); that this Dance resembled the Danse Macabre, all the characters of which are in Holbein's style; that it is still more like the Dance in the Monasticon Anglicanum in a single print; and that the English Dance belongs to John Porey, an author who appears, however, to be unknown to all biographers. We should have been obliged to M. Figeac if he had mentioned where he met with this John Porey, whom he again mentions, but in such a manner as to leave a doubt whether he means to consider him as a poet or a painter. Even M. Millin himself, from whom more accuracy might have been expected, speaks of Holbein's work as at the Dominican convent at Basle. The "Nouveau Dictionnaire Historique," 1789, 8vo. gives the painting on the walls of the cemetery of St. Peter at Basle, to Holbein, confounding the two works as some other French biographical dictionaries have done, especially one that has cited an edition of the Danse Macabre in 1486 as the first of Holbein's painting, though it immediately afterwards states that artist to have been born in 1498. In that excellent work, the "Biographie universelle," in 42 vols. 8vo. 1811-1828, M. Ponce, under the article "Holbein," inaccurately refers to "the Dance of Death painted in 1543 on the walls of a cemetery at Basle," at the same time properly remarking that it was not Holbein's. He refers to the supposed original drawings of Holbein's work at Petersburg that were engraved by De Mechel, and concludes his brief note with a reference to a dissertation of M. Raymond in Millin's "Magazin encyclopedique," 1814, tom. v. which is nothing more than a simple notice of two editions of the Danse Macabre, described in the present dissertation. And lastly--The Reviewer of the first edition of the present dissertation prefixed to Mr. Edwards's engravings or etchings by Wenceslaus Hollar, has displayed considerable ingenuity in his attempt to correct supposed errors, by a lavish substitution of many of his own, some of which are the following: That the Dance of Death is found in _carvings in wood in the choirs of churches_. Not a single instance can be produced. That Hollar's etchings are on _wood_. "Black letter" is _corrected_ to "Black letters." That the book would have been more _complete if Lydgate's stanzas_ had been quoted, in common with others in _Piers Plowman_. Now all the stanzas of Lydgate are given, and not a single one is to be found in Piers Plowman. And they most _ingeniously and scientifically_ denominate the skeleton figure of Death "the Gothic monster of Holbein!" * * * * * A short time after the completion of the present Dissertation, the author accidentally became possessed of a recently published German life of Holbein, in which not a single addition of importance to what has been gleaned from preceding writers can possibly be found. It contains a general, but extremely superficial account of the works of that artist, including the Dance of Death, which, as a matter of course, is ascribed to him. As the author, a Mr. Ulrich Hegner, who is said to be a _Swiss gentleman and amateur_, has not conducted himself with that urbanity and politeness which might have been looked for from such a _character_, and has thought proper, in adverting to the slight Essay by the present writer, prefixed, at the instance of the late Mr. Edwards, to his publication of Hollar's etchings of the Dance of Death, to speak of it with a degree of contempt, which, even with all its imperfections, others may think it may not have deserved; the above _gentleman_ will have but little reason to complain should he meet with a somewhat uncourteous retort in the course of the following remarks on his compilation. Had Mr. Hegner written with a becoming diffidence in his opinions, his work might have commanded and deserved respect, though greatly abounding in error and false conceit. He has undertaken a task for which he has shown himself wholly unqualified, and with much unseemly arrogance, and its usual concomitant, ignorance, has assumed to himself a monopoly of information on the subject which he discusses. His arguments, if worthy of the name, are, generally speaking, of a most weak and flimsy texture. In support of his dogmatical opinion that the original designs for the Lyons Dance of Death exclusively belong to Holbein he has not adduced a single fact. He has not been in possession of a tenth part of the materials that were necessary for the proper investigation of his subject, nor does he appear to have even seen them. The very best judges of whatever relates to the history and art of engraving are quite satisfied that most of the persons who have written on them, with the exception of Mr. Ottley, and of the modest and urbane Monsieur Peignot, are liable to the charge of extreme inaccuracy and imperfection in their treatment of the Dance of Death, and the list of such writers may now be closed with the addition of Herr Hegner. Some of his positions are now to be stated and examined. He makes Holbein the author of a new Dance of Death in the Crozat or Gallitzin drawings in Indian ink which have been already described in the present dissertation, adding that he also _engraved_ them, and suppressing any mention in this place of the monogram on one of the cuts which he _elsewhere admits not to belong to Holbein_. Soon afterwards, and with very good reason, he doubts the originality of the drawings, which he says M. de Mechel caused to be copied by Rudolph Schellenberg, a skilful artist, already mentioned as the author of a Dance of Death of his own invention; and proceeds to state, that from these copies De Mechel employed some inferior persons in his service to make engravings; advancing all this without the accompaniment of any proof whatever, and in direct contradiction to De Mechel's authority of having himself engraved them. An apparently bitter enemy to De Mechel, whose posthumous materials, now in the library at Basle, he nevertheless admits to have used for his work, he invidiously enlarges on the discrepancies between his engravings and the Lyons wood-cuts, both in size and manner; and then concludes that they were copied from the wood-cuts, the copyist allowing himself the privilege of making arbitrary variations, especially in the figure of the Eve in the second cut, which, he says, is of the family of Boucher, who, in spite of Hegner's opinion, is regarded by better judges as a clever painter. Whether the remarks on any deviations of De Mechel's prints from the Crozat drawings are just or otherwise can now be decided by comparison only, and Hegner does not appear to have seen them, or at least does not tell us so. His criticisms on the merit of the engravings in De Mechel's work cannot be justified, for though they may occasionally be faulty, they are very neatly, and many will think beautifully executed. What Hegner has said respecting the alphabets of initial letters, is at once futile and inaccurate; but his comment on Hans Lutzenberger deserves the severest censure. Adverting to the inscription with the name of this fine artist on one of the sets of the initials, he terms him "an itinerant _bookseller_, who had bought the blocks and put his name on them;" and this after having himself referred to a print on which Lutzenberger is called FORMSCHNEIDER, _i. e._ woodcutter: making in this instance a clumsy and dishonest effort to get rid of an excellent engraver, who stands so recorded in opposition to his own untenable system. The very important and indelible expressions in the dedication to the first known edition of the Lyons wood-cuts, he very modestly terms "a play upon words," and endeavours to account for the death of the painter by supposing Holbein's absence in England would warrant the language of the dedication. This is indeed a most desperate argument. Frellon, the publisher and proprietor of the work, must have known better than to have permitted the dedication to accompany his edition had it been susceptible of so silly a construction. He again adheres to the improbable notion that _Holbein engraved_ the cuts to the Lyons book, and this in defiance of the mark or monogram [monogram: HL] which this painter never used; nor will a single print with Holbein's accredited name be found to bear the slightest resemblance to the style of the wood-cuts. Even those in Cranmer's catechism, which approach the nearest to them, are in a different manner. His earlier engravings on wood, whether in design only, or as the engraver, resemble those by Urs Graaf, who, as well as Holbein, decorated the frontispieces or titles to many of the books printed at Basle. It is not improbable that Urs Graaf was at that time a pupil of Holbein. Hegner next endeavours to annihilate the painting at Whitehall recorded in Nieuhoff's etchings and dedications, but still by arguments of an entirely negative kind. He lays much stress on this painting not being specifically mentioned by Sandrart or Van Mander, who were in England; but where does it appear that the latter, during his short stay in this country, had visited Whitehall? Even admitting that both these persons had seen that palace, it is most probable that the fresco painting of the Dance of Death, would, from length of time, dampness of the walls, and neglect, have been in a condition that would not warrant the exhibition of it, and it was, moreover, placed in a gallery which scarcely formed, at that time, a part of Whitehall, and which was, probably, not shown to visitors. It must not, however, be omitted to mention that Sandrart, in p. 239 of his Acad. Pict. states, though ambiguously, that "there was still remaining at Whitehall a work by Holbein that would constitute him the Apelles of his time," an expression which we may remember had been also applied to Holbein by his friend Borbonius in the complimentary lines on a Dance of Death. The Herr Hegner has thought fit to speak of Mr. T. Nieuhoff in terms of indecorous and unjust contempt, describing him as "an unknown and unimportant Dutch copper-plate engraver," and arraigning his evidence as being in manuscript only; as if manuscripts that have never been printed were of no authority. But where has Hegner discovered that Nieuhoff was a Dutch copper-plate engraver, by which is meant a professed artist; or even though he had been such, would that circumstance vitiate his testimony? In his dedication to Lord William Benting the expressions allusive to his ardent love of the arts, seem to constitute him an amateur attempter of etching; for what he has left us in that way is indeed of a very subordinate character, and unworthy of a professed artist. He appears to have been one of the Dutchmen who accompanied King William to England, and to have had apartments assigned to him at Whitehall. At the end of his dedication to Lord W. Benting, he calls himself an old servant of that person's father, and subscribes himself "your and your illustrious family's most obedient and humble servant." The identification of William Benting must be left to the sagacity of others. He could not have been the Earl of Portland created in 1689, or he would have been addressed accordingly. He is, moreover, described as a youth born at Whitehall, and then residing there, and whose dwelling consisted of nearly the whole of the palace that remained after the fire. Again,--We have before us a person living in the palace of Whitehall anterior to its destruction, testifying what he had himself seen, and addressing one who could not be imposed upon, as residing also in the palace. There seems to be no possible motive on the part of Nieuhoff for stating an untruth, and his most clear and unimpeachable testimony is opposed by Hegner's wild and weak conjectures, and chiefly by the negative argument that a few strangers who visited England in a hasty manner have not mentioned the painting in question at Whitehall, amidst those inaccurate and superficial accounts of England which, with little exception, have been given by foreign travellers. Among these Hegner has selected Patin and Sandrart. Before adducing the former, he would have done well to have looked at his very imperfect and erroneous account of Holbein's works, in his edition of the [Greek: MÔRIAS EGKÔMION] of Erasmus; and, with respect to the latter, the stamp of inaccuracy has been long affixed to most of the works he has published. He has mentioned, that being in company with Rubens in a Dutch passage boat "the conversation fell upon Holbein's book of cuts, representing the Dance of Death; that Rubens gave them the highest encomiums, advising him, who was then a young man, to set the highest value upon them, informing him, at the same time, that he in his youth had copied them."[139] On this passage Mr. Warton has well remarked that if Rubens styled these prints Holbein's, in familiar conversation, it was but calling them by the name which the world had given them, and by which they were generally known; and that Sandrart has, in another place, confounded them with the Basle painting.[140] To conclude,--Juvenal's "hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas," may be regarded as Herr Hegner's literary motto. He has advocated the vague traditions of unauthenticated Dances of Death by Holbein, and has made a most unjustifiable attempt to deprive that truly great artist of the only painting on the subject which really appears to belong to him. Yet, if by fair and candid argument, supported by the necessary proofs, the usual and long standing claim on the part of Holbein can be substantiated, no one will thereby be more highly gratified than the author of this dissertation. ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. P. 59. After No. 17 add "La Danse Macabre." Paris, Nicole de la Barre, 1523, 4to. with very different cuts, and some characters omitted in former editions. P. 77, last line of the text. There is a German work intitled "The process or law-suit of Death," printed, and perhaps written, by Conrad Fyner in 1477; but as it is not noticed in Panzer's list of German books, no further account of it can be given than that it is briefly mentioned by Joseph Heller, in a German work on the subject of engraving on wood, in which one cut from it is introduced, that exhibits Death conversing with a husbandman who holds a flail in one of his hands. It is probable that the book would be found to contain other figures relating to a Macaber Dance. P. 112, l. ult. There is another work by Glissenti, intitled "La Morte innamorata." Venet. 1608, 24mo. with a dedication to Sir Henry Wotton, the English ambassador at Venice, by Elisabetta Glissenti Serenella, the author's niece; in which, after stating that Sir Henry had seen it represented, she adds, that she had ventured to have it printed for the purpose of offering it to him as a very humble donation, &c. It is a moral, dramatic, and allegorical fable of five acts, in which _Man_, to avoid _Death_, who has fallen in love with him, retires with his family to the country of _Long Life_, where he takes up his abode in the house of _the World_, by whom and his wife _Fraud_, who is in strict friendship with _Fortune_, he is apparently made much of, and calculates on being very happy. _Death_ follows the _Man_, and being unknown in the above region, contrives, with the aid of _Infirmity_, the _Man's_ nurse, to make him fall sick. The _World_ being tired of his guest, and very desirous to get rid of, and plunder him of his property, under pretence of introducing him to _Fortune_, and consequent happiness, enters into a plot with _Time_ to disguise _Death_, who is lodged in the same house with him, as _Fortune_, and thus to give him possession of the _Man_, who imagines that he is just about to secure _Fortune_. Each act of this piece is ornamented with some wood-cut that had been already introduced into the other work of Glissenti. P. 118, line 32. Ebert, in his "Bibliographisches Lexicon," Leipsig. 1821, 4to. has mentioned some later editions of Denneker's engravings. See the article Denecker, p. 972. P. 126, l. 14. It is not impossible that Hollar may have copied a bust carved in wood, or some other material, by Holbein, as Albert Durer and other great artists are known to have practised sculpture in this manner. P. 135, l. 25. These four prints are in the author's possession. P. 137, l. ult. Other imitations of the Lyons cuts are, 1. A wood engraving of Adam digging and Eve spinning, by Corn. Van Sichem in the "Bibel's tresor," Amst. 1646, 4to. 2. The Astrologer, a small circular print on copper by Le Blond. 3. The Bridegroom, an anonymous modern engraving on wood. 4. The Miser, a small modern and anonymous print on copper. P. 147, l. 19. In the library at Lambeth palace, No. 1049, there is a copy of this book in Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, and French, printed by J. Day, 1569, 8vo. It was given by Archb. Tillotson, and from a memorandum in it supposed to have been the Queen's own copy. The cut of the Queen kneeling was used so late as 1652, in Benlowes' Theophila. Some of the cuts have the unexplained mark [monogram: CI]. P. 164, Article xii. This print is a copy, with a few variations, of a much older one engraved on wood, and probably unique, in the very curious collection of single sheets and black letter ballads, belonging to George Daniel, Esquire, of Islington. The figures are executed in a style of considerable merit, and each of them is described in a stanza of four lines. It may probably be the same as No. 1 or No. 2, mentioned in p. 76, or either of Nos. x. or xi. described in p. 163. P. 226, line 12. Another drawing by Rowlandson, intitled "Death and the Drunkards." Five topers are sitting at a table and enjoying their punch. Death suddenly enters and violently seizes one of them. Another perceives the unwelcome and terrific intruder, whilst the rest are too intent on their liquor to be disturbed at the moment. It is a very spirited and masterly performance. 11 by 9. In the author's possession. P. 239, l. 12. There is likewise in the "Biographie Universelle" an article intitled "Macaber, poete Allemand" by M. Weiss, and it is to be regretted that a writer whose learning and research are so eminently conspicuous in many of the best lives in the work, should have permitted himself to be misled in much that he has said, by the errors of Champollion Figeac in the Magazin Encyclopedique. He certainly doubts the existence of Macaber as a writer, but inclines to M. Van Praet's Arabic _Magbarah_. He states, that the English version of the Macaber Dance belongs to John Porey, _a poet who remains unknown even to his countrymen_, and is inserted in the Monasticon Anglicanum. Now this _unknown poet_, who is likewise adopted by M. Peignot, is merely the person who contributed Hollar's plate in the Monasticon, already mentioned in p. 52, and whose coat of arms is at the top of that plate, with the following inscription, "Quo præsentes et posteri Mortis, ut vidimus, omni Ordini comunis, sint magis memores, posuit IOHANNES POREY." Mr. Weiss has likewise inadvertently adopted the error that Holbein painted the old Dance of Macaber in the convent of the Augustines at Basle. Two recently published Dances of Death have come to hand too late to have been noticed in their proper places. 1. "Der Todtentantz. Ein Gedicht von Ludwig Bechstein, mit 48 kupfern in treuen Conturen nach H. Holbein. Leipzig bei Friedrich August Leo, 1831." 8vo. These prints are executed in a faithful and elegant outline, and accompanied with modern German verses. 2. "Hans Holbein's Todtentanz in 53 getreu nach den Holz schnitten lithographirten Blattern. Heraus gegeben von J. Schlotthaver k. Professor Mit erklärendem Texte. Munchen, 1832, Auf Rosten des Heraus gegebers." 12mo. The prints are most accurately and elegantly lithographed in imitation of wood engraving. The descriptions are in German verse, and accompanied with some brief prefatory matter by Dr. H. F. Massmann, which is said to have been amplified in one of the German journals or reviews. DESCRIPTION OF THE CUTS GIVEN IN THE DISSERTATION. I. The frontispiece is a design for the sheath of a dagger, probably made by Holbein for the use of a goldsmith or chaser. The original drawing is in the public library at Basle. See some remarks on it in p. 133. II. These circular engravings by Israel Van Meckenen are mentioned in p. 160. III. Copy of an ancient drawing, 1454, of Death and the Beggar. See p. 223. IV. Figures of Death and the Lady, sculptured on a monument of the Delawars, in Boxgrove church, Sussex. See p. 226. V. A fac-simile of one of the cuts to a very early edition, printed without date at Troyes by Nicolas le Rouge. It represents the story of the _trois morts et trois vifs_, and the vision of Saint Macarius. See pp. 33, 34, and 59. VI. A fac-simile of another cut from the edition of a Danse Macabre, mentioned in No. V. DESCRIPTION OF THE LYONS WOOD-CUTS OF THE DANCE OF DEATH. _The Copies have been made by MR. BONNER from the Cuts belonging to the "Imagines Mortis, Lugduni sub scuto Coloniensi, 1547," 12mo. and which have been usually ascribed to Holbein._ 1. THE CREATION OF ALL THINGS. The Deity is seen taking Eve from the side of Adam. "Formavit Dominus Deus hominem de limo terræ, &c." Gen. i. 2. THE TEMPTATION. Eve has just received the forbidden fruit from the serpent, who, on the authority of venerable Bede, is here, as well as in most ancient representations of the subject, depicted with a female human face. She holds it up to Adam, and entices him to gather more of it from the tree. "Quia audisti vocem uxoris tuæ, et comedisti de ligno, &c." Gen. iii. 3. THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE. Adam and Eve are preceded by Death, who plays on a vielle, or beggar's lyre, as if demonstrating his joy at the victory he has obtained over man. "Emisit eum Dominum Deus de Paradiso voluptatis, ut operaretur terram de qua sumptus est." Gen. iii. 4. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL OF MAN. Adam is digging the ground, assisted by Death. In the distance Eve is suckling her first-born and holding a distaff. Whence the proverb in many languages: When Adam delv'd and Eve span Where was then the gentleman? "Maledicta terra in opere tuo, in laboribus comedes cunctis diebus vitæ tuæ, donec revertaris, &c." Gen. iii. 5. A CEMETERY, in which several Deaths are assembled, most of whom are playing on noisy instruments of music, as a general summons to mortals to attend them. "Væ, væ, væ habitantibus in terra." Apoc. viii. 6. THE POPE. He is crowning an Emperor, who kneels before him, two Cardinals attending, one of whom is ludicrously personated by Death. In the back-ground are bishops, &c. Death embraces the Pope with one hand, and with the other leans on a crutch. Two grotesque Devils are introduced into the cut, one of whom hovers over the Pope, the other in the air holds a diploma, to which several seals are appended. "Moriatur sacerdos magnus." Josue xx. 7. THE EMPEROR. Seated on a throne, and attended by his courtiers, he seems to be listening to, or deciding, the complaint of a poor man who is kneeling before him, against his rich oppressor, whom the Emperor, holding the sword of justice, seems to regard with an angry countenance. Behind him Death lays hands upon his crown. "Dispone domui tuæ, morieris, enim tu, et non vives." Isaiæ xxxviii. 8. THE KING. He is sitting at his repast before a well-covered table, under a canopy studded with fleurs-de-lis. Death intrudes himself as a cupbearer, and presents the King with probably his last draught. The figure of the King seems intended as a portrait of Francis I. "Sicut et Rex hodie est, et cras morietur; nemo enim ex regibus aliud habuit." Ecclesiast. x. et Sapient. vii. 9. THE CARDINAL. There is some difficulty in ascertaining the real meaning of the designer of this subject. It has been described as the Cardinal receiving the bull of his appointment, or as a rich man making a purchase of indulgences. The latter interpretation seems warranted by the Latin motto. Death is twisting off the Cardinal's hat. "Væ qui justificatis impium pro muneribus, et justitiam justi aufertis ab eo." Isaiæ v. 10. THE EMPRESS. Gorgeously attired and attended by her maids of honour, she is intercepted in her walk by Death in the character of a shrivelled old woman, who points to an open grave, and seems to say, "to this you must come at last." "Gradientes in superbia potest Deus humiliare." Dan. iv. 11. THE QUEEN. She has just issued from her palace, when Death unexpectedly appears and forcibly drags her away. Her jester, in whose habiliments Death has ludicrously attired himself, endeavours in vain to protect his mistress. A female attendant is violently screaming. Death holds up his hour-glass to indicate the arrival of the fatal hour. "Mulieres opulentæ surgite, et audite vocem meam: post dies et annum, et vos conturbemini." Isaiæ xxxii. 12. THE BISHOP. Quietly resigned to his fate he is led away by Death, whilst the loss of the worthy Pastor is symbolically deplored by the flight and terror of several shepherds in the distance amidst their flocks. The setting sun is very judiciously introduced. "Percutiam pastorem, et dispergentur oves gregis." Mat. xxvi. Mar. xiv. 13. THE DUKE. Attended by his courtiers, he is accosted in the street for charity by a poor beggar woman with her child. He disdainfully turns aside from her supplication, whilst Death, fantastically crowned with leaves, unexpectedly lays violent hands upon him. "Princeps induetur moerore, et quiescere faciam superbiam potentium." Ezech. viii. 14. THE ABBOT. Death having despoiled him of his mitre and crosier, drags him away. The Abbot resists with all his might, and is about to throw his breviary at his adversary. "Ipse morietur, quia non habuit disciplinam, et in multitudine stultitiæ suæ decipietur." 15. THE ABBESS. Death, grotesquely crowned with flags, seizes the poor Abbess by her scapulary. A Nun at the convent gate, with uplifted hands, bewails the fate of her superior. "Laudavi magis mortuos quam viventes." Eccles. iv. 16. THE GENTLEMAN. He vainly, with uplifted sword, endeavours to liberate himself from the grasp of Death. The hour-glass is placed on his bier. "Quis est homo qui vivet, et non videbit mortem, eruet animam suam de manu inferi?" 17. THE CANON. Death holds up his hour-glass to him as he is entering a cathedral. They are followed by a noble person with a hawk on his fist, his buffoon or jester, and a little boy. "Ecce appropinquat hora." Mat. xxvi. 18. THE JUDGE. He is deciding a cause between a rich and a poor man. From the former he is about to receive a bribe. Death behind him snatches his staff of office from one of his hands. "Disperdam judicem de medio ejus." Amos ii. 19. THE ADVOCATE. The rich client is putting a fee into the hands of the dishonest lawyer, to which Death also contributes, but reminds him at the same time that his glass is run out. To this admonition he seems to pay little regard, fully occupied in counting the money. Behind this group is the poor suitor, wringing his hands, and lamenting that his poverty disables him from coping with his wealthy adversary. "Callidus vidit malum, et abscondit se: innocens pertransiit, et afflictus est damno." Prover. xxii. 20. THE MAGISTRATE. A Demon is blowing corruption into the ear of a magistrate, who has turned his back on a poor man, whilst he is in close conversation with another person, to whose story he seems emphatically attentive. Death at his feet with an hour-glass and spade. "Qui obturat aurem suam ad clamorem pauperis, et ipse clamabit, et non exaudietur." Prover. xxi. 21. THE PREACHER. Death with a stole about his neck stands behind the preacher, and holds a jaw-bone over his head, typifying perhaps thereby that he is the best preacher of the two. "Væ qui dicitis malum bonum, et bonum malum: ponentes tenebras lucem, et lucem tenebras: ponentes amarum in dulce, et dulce in amarum." Isaiæ v. 22. THE PRIEST. He is carrying the viaticum, or sacrament, to some dying person. Attendants follow with tapers and holy water. Death strides on before, with bell and lanthern, to announce the coming of the priest. "Sum quidem et ego mortalis homo." Sap. vii. 23. THE MENDICANT FRIAR. He is just entering his convent with his money box and wallet. Death seizes him by the cowl, and forcibly drags him away. "Sedentes in tenebris, et in umbra mortis, vinctos in mendicitate." Psal. cvi. 24. THE NUN. Here is a mixture of gallantry and religion. The young lady has admitted her lover into her apartment. She is kneeling before an altar, and hesitates whether to persist in her devotions or listen to the amorous music of the young man, who, seated on a bed, touches a theorbo lute. Death extinguishes the candles on the altar, by which the designer of the subject probably intimates the punishment of unlawful love. "Est via quæ videtur homini justa: novissima autem ejus deducunt hominem ad mortem." Prover. iv. 25. THE OLD WOMAN. She is accompanied by two Deaths, one of whom, playing on a stickado, or wooden psalter, precedes her. She seems more attentive to her rosary of bones than to the music, whilst the other Death impatiently urges her forward with blows. "Melior est mors quam vita." Eccle. xxx. 26. THE PHYSICIAN. He holds out his hand to receive, for inspection, a urinal which Death presents to him, and which contains the water of a decrepid old man whom he introduces, and seems to say to the physician, "Canst thou cure this man who is already in my power?" "Medice cura te ipsum." Luc. iv. 27. THE ASTROLOGER. He is seen in his study, looking attentively at a suspended sphere. Death holds out a skull to him, and seems, in mockery, to say, "Here is a better subject for your contemplation." "Indica mihi si nosti omnia. Sciebas quod nasciturus esses, et numerum dierum tuorum noveras?" Job xxxviii. 28. THE MISER. Death has burst into his strong room, where he is sitting among his chests and bags of gold, and, seated on a stool, deliberately collects into a large dish the money on the table which the Miser had been counting. In an agony of terror and despair, the poor man seems to implore forbearance on the part of his unwelcome visitor. "Stulte, hac nocte repetunt animam tuam: et quæ parasti, cujus erunt?" Lucæ xii. 29. THE MERCHANT. After having escaped the perils of the sea, and happily reached the wished-for shore with his bales of merchandize; this too secure adventurer, whilst contemplating his riches, is surprised by Death. One of his companions holds up his hands in despair. "Qui congregat thesauros lingua mendacii, vanus et excors est, et impingetur ad laqueos mortis." Proverb. xxi. 30. THE SHIP IN A TEMPEST. Death is vigorously employed in breaking the mast. The owner of the vessel is wringing his hands in despair. One man seems perfectly resigned to his impending fate. "Qui volunt ditescere, incidunt in tentationem et laqueum, et cupiditates multas, stultas ac noxias, quæ demergunt homines in exitium et interitum." 1 ad Tim. vi. 31. THE KNIGHT. After escaping the perils in his numerous combats, he is vanquished by Death, whom he ineffectually resists. "Subito morientur, et in media nocte turbabuntur populi, et auferent violentum absque manu." Job xxxiv. 32. THE COUNT. Death, in the character of a ragged peasant, revenges himself against his proud oppressor by crushing him with his own armour. On the ground lie a helmet, crest, and flail. "Quoniam cum interierit non sumet secum omnia, neque cum eo descendet gloria ejus." Psal. xlviii. 33. THE OLD MAN. Death leads his aged victim to the grave, beguiling him with the music of a dulcimer. "Spiritus meus attenuabitur, dies mei breviabuntur, et solum mihi superest sepulchrum." Job xvii. 34. THE COUNTESS. She receives from an attendant the splendid dress and ornaments with which she is about to equip herself. On a chest are seen a mirror, a brush, and the hour-glass of Death, who, standing behind her, places on her neck a collar of bones. "Ducunt in bonis dies suos, et in puncto ad inferna descendant." Job xxi. 35. THE NEW-MARRIED LADY. She is accompanied by her husband, who endeavours to divert her attention from Death, who is insidiously dancing before them and beating a tambour. "Me et te sola mors separabit." Ruth i. 36. THE DUCHESS. She is sitting up, dressed, in her bed, at the foot of which are two Deaths, one of whom plays on a violin, the other is pulling the clothes from the bed. "De lectulo, super quem ascendisti, non descendes, sed morte morieris." 4 Reg. i. 37. THE PEDLAR. Accompanied by his dog, and heavily laden, he is proceeding on his way, when he is intercepted by Death, who forcibly pulls him back. Another Death is playing on a trump-marine. "Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis, et onerati estis." Matth. xi. 38. THE HUSBANDMAN. He is assisted by Death, who conducts the horses of his plough. "In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo." Gen. iii. 39. THE CHILD. A female cottager is preparing her family mess, when Death enters and carries off the youngest of her children. "Homo natus de muliere, brevi vivens tempore, repletur multis miseriis: qui quasi flos egreditur, et conteritur, et fugit velut umbra." Job xiv. 40. THE SOLDIER. He is engaged in unequal combat with Death, who simply attacks him with a bone. On the ground lie some of his demolished companions. In the distance, Death is beating a drum, and leading on a company of soldiers to battle. "Cum fortis armatus custodit atrium suum, &c. Si autem fortior eo superveniens vicerit eum, universa ejus arma aufert, in quibus confidebat." Luc. xi. 41. THE GAMESTERS. Death and the Devil are disputing the possession of one of the gamesters, whom both have seized. Another seems to be interceding with the Devil on behalf of his companion, whilst a third is scraping together all the money on the table. "Quid prodest homini, si universum mundum lucretur, animæ autem suæ detrimentum patiatur?" Mat. xvi. 42. THE DRUNKARDS. They are assembled in a brothel, and intemperately feasting. Death pours liquor from a flaggon into the mouth of one of the party. "Ne inebriemini vino, in quo est luxuria." Ephes. v. 43. THE IDEOT FOOL. He is mocking Death, by putting his finger in his mouth, and at the same time endeavouring to strike him with his bladder-bauble. Death smiling, and amused at his efforts, leads him away in a dancing attitude, playing at the same time on a bag-pipe. "Quasi agnus lasciviens, et ignorans, nescit quod ad vincula stultus trahatur." Prover. vii. 44. THE ROBBER. Whilst he is about to plunder a poor market-woman of her property, Death comes behind and lays violent hands on him. "Domine vim patior." Isaiæ xxxviii. 45. THE BLIND MAN. Carefully measuring his steps, and unconscious of his perilous situation, he is led on by Death, who with one hand takes him by the cloak, both parties having hold of his staff. "Cæcus cæcum ducit: et ambo in foveam cadunt." Matt. xv. 46. THE WAGGONER. His cart, loaded with wine casks, has been overturned, and one of his horses thrown down by two mischievous Deaths. One of them is carrying off a wheel, and the other is employed in wrenching off a tie that had secured one of the hoops of the casks. The poor affrighted waggoner is clasping his hands together in despair. "Corruit in curru suo." 1 Chron. xxii. 47. THE BEGGAR. Almost naked, his hands joined together, and his head turned upwards as in the agonies of death, he is sitting on straw near the gate of some building, perhaps an hospital, into which several persons are entering, and some of them pointing to him as an object fit to be admitted. On the ground lie his crutches, and one of his legs is swathed with a bandage. A female is looking on him from a window of the building. "Miser ego homo! quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus?" Rom. vii. 48. THE LAST JUDGMENT. Christ sitting on a rainbow, and surrounded by a group of angels, patriarchs, &c. rests his feet on a globe of the universe. Below, are several naked figures risen from their graves, and stretching out their hands in the act of imploring judgment and mercy. "Memorare novissima, et in æternum non peccabis." Eccle. vii. 49. THE ALLEGORICAL ESCUTCHEON OF DEATH. The coat or shield is fractured in several places. On it is a skull, and at top the crest as a helmet surmounted by two arm bones, the hands of which are grasping a ragged piece of stone, and between them is placed an hour-glass. The supporters are a gentleman and lady in the dresses of the times. In the description of this cut Papillon has committed some very absurd mistakes, already noticed in p. 110. I THE CREATION [Illustration] Formavit Dominus Deus hominem de limo terræ, &c. _Gen._ i. II THE TEMPTATION [Illustration] Quia audisti vocem uxoris tuæ, et comedisti de ligno, &c. _Gen._ iii. III THE EXPULSION [Illustration] Emisit eum Dominum Deus de Paradiso voluptatis, ut operaretur terram de qua sumptus est. _Gen._ iii. IV THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL [Illustration] Maledicta terra in opere tuo, in laboribus comedes cunctis diebus vitæ tuæ, donec revertaris, &c. _Gen._ iii. V A CEMETERY [Illustration] Væ, væ, væ habitantibus in terra. _Apoc._ viii. VI THE POPE [Illustration] Moriatur sacerdos magnus. _Josue_ xx. VII THE EMPEROR [Illustration] Dispone domui tuæ, morieris, enim tu, et non vives. _Isaiæ_ xxxviii. VIII THE KING [Illustration] Sicut et Rex hodie est, et cras morietur; nemo enim ex regibus aliud habuit. _Eccles._ x. _et Sapient._ vii. IX THE CARDINAL [Illustration] Væ qui justificatis impium pro muneribus, et justitiam justi aufertis ab eo. _Isaiæ_ v. X THE EMPRESS [Illustration] Gradientes in superbia potest Deus humiliare. _Dan._ iv. XI THE QUEEN [Illustration] Mulieres opulentæ surgite, et audite vocem meam: post dies et annum, et vos conturbemini. _Isaiæ_ xxxii. XII THE BISHOP [Illustration] Percutiam pastorem, et dispergentur oves gregis. _Mat._ xxvi. _Mar._ xiv. XIII THE DUKE [Illustration] Princeps induetur moerore, et quiescere faciam superbiam potentium. _Ezech._ viii. XIV THE ABBOT [Illustration] Ipse morietur, quia non habuit disciplinam, et in multitudine stultitiæ suæ decipietur. XV THE ABBESS [Illustration] Laudavi magis mortuos quam viventes. _Eccles._ iv. XVI THE GENTLEMAN [Illustration] Quis est homo qui vivet, et non videbit mortem, eruet animam suam de manu inferi? XVII THE CANON [Illustration] Ecce appropinquat hora. _Mat._ xxvi. XVIII THE JUDGE [Illustration] Disperdam judicem de medio ejus. _Amos_ ii. XIX THE ADVOCATE [Illustration] Callidus vidit malum, et abscondit se: innocens pertransiit, et afflictus est damno. _Prover._ xxii. XX THE MAGISTRATE [Illustration] Qui obturat aurem suam ad clamorem pauperis, et ipse clamabit, et non exaudietur. _Prover._ xxi. XXI THE PREACHER [Illustration] Væ qui dicitis malum bonum, et bonum malum: ponentes tenebras lucem, et lucem tenebras: ponentes amarum in dulce, et dulce in amarum. _Isaiæ_ v. XXII THE PRIEST [Illustration] Sum quidem et ego mortalis homo. _Sap._ vii. XXIII THE MENDICANT [Illustration] Sedentes in tenebris, et in umbra mortis, vinctos in mendicitate. _Psal._ cvi. XXIV THE NUN [Illustration] Est via quæ videtur homini justa: novissima autem ejus deducunt hominem ad mortem. _Prover._ iv. XXV THE OLD WOMAN [Illustration] Melior est mors quàm vita. _Eccle._ xxx. XXVI THE PHYSICIAN [Illustration] Medice, cura te ipsum. _Luc._ iv. XXVII THE ASTROLOGER [Illustration] Indica mihi si nosti omnia. Sciebas quod nasciturus esses, et numerum dierum tuorum noveras? _Job_ xxxviii. XXVIII THE MISER [Illustration] Stulte, hac nocte repetunt animam tuam: et quæ parasti, cujus erunt? _Lucæ_ xii. XXIX THE MERCHANT [Illustration] Qui congregat thesauros lingua mendacii, vanus et excors est, et impingetur ad laqueos mortis. _Proverb._ xxi. XXX THE SHIP IN A TEMPEST [Illustration] Qui volunt ditescere, incidunt in tentationem et laqueum, et cupiditates multas, stultas, ac noxias, quæ demergunt homines in exitium et interitum. _1 ad Tim._ vi. XXXI THE KNIGHT [Illustration] Subito morientur, et in media nocte turbabuntur populi, et auferent violentum absque manu. _Job_ xxxiv. XXXII THE COUNT [Illustration] Quoniam cum interierit, non sumet secum omnia, neque cum eo descendet gloria ejus. _Psal._ xlviii. XXXIII THE OLD MAN [Illustration] Spiritus meus attenuabitur, dies mei breviabuntur, et solum mihi superest sepulchrum. _Job_ xvii. XXXIV THE COUNTESS [Illustration] Ducunt in bonis dies suos, et in puncto ad inferna descendunt. _Job_ xxi. XXXV THE NEW-MARRIED LADY [Illustration] Me et te sola mors separabit. _Ruth_ i. XXXVI THE DUCHESS [Illustration] De lectulo super quem ascendisti, non descendes, sed morte morieris. _4 Reg._ i. XXXVII THE PEDLAR [Illustration] Venite ad me, omnes qui laboratis, et onerati estis. _Matth._ xi. XXXVIII THE HUSBANDMAN [Illustration] In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo. _Gen._ iii. XXXIX THE CHILD [Illustration] Homo natus de muliere, brevi vivens tempore, repletur multis miseriis: qui quasi flos egreditur, et conteritur, et fugit velut umbra. _Job_ xiv. XL THE SOLDIER [Illustration] Cum fortis armatus custodit atrium suum, &c. Si autem fortior eo superveniens vicerit eum, universa ejus arma aufert, in quibus confidebat. _Luc._ xi. XLI THE GAMESTERS [Illustration] Quid prodest homini, si universum mundum lucretur, animæ autem suæ detrimentum patiatur? _Mat._ xvi. XLII THE DRUNKARDS [Illustration] Ne inebriemini vino, in quo est luxuria. _Ephes._ v. XLIII THE IDEOT FOOL [Illustration] Quasi agnus lasciviens, et ignorans, nescit quod ad vincula stultus trahatur. _Prover._ vii. XLIV THE ROBBER [Illustration] Domine, vim patior. _Isaiæ_ xxxviii. XLV THE BLIND MAN [Illustration] Cæcus cæcum ducit: et ambo in foveam cadunt. _Matt._ xv. XLVI THE WAGGONER [Illustration] Corruit in curru suo. _1 Chron._ xxii. XLVII THE BEGGAR [Illustration] Miser ego homo! quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus? _Rom._ vii. XLVIII THE LAST JUDGMENT [Illustration] Memorare novissima, et in æternum non peccabis. _Eccle._ vii. XLIX ALLEGORICAL ESCUTCHEON OF DEATH [Illustration] MARKS OF ENGRAVERS. [monogram: G S.] 41, 117 [monogram: HL] 93, 97, 98, 100, 111, 113, 114, 215, 235 [monogram: H =N=] 100 [monogram: S.] 113 [monogram: SA] 113, 114, 115, 116, 127, 130, 136, 174 [monogram: W] 117 [monogram: cross] 117 [monogram] 118 [monogram: A] 124 [monogram: UH] 125 [monogram: WH] 125 [monogram: HB] 126 [monogram: HH] 126 [monogram: HHolbein] inv. 126, 129 H. HOLBEIN, inv. 126. [monogram: W.] 130 [monogram: L B.f.] 130 [monogram: CI] 147, 248 [monogram: AC] 160, 190 [monogram: HF] 184 [monogram: L] 189 [monogram: VG] 189 [monogram] 190 [monogram] 190 [monogram] 191 [monogram: HM] 191 [monogram] 191 [monogram: BAD] 193 [monogram: I. F.] 219 [monogram] 223 [monogram: HS] 226 These are the marks erroneously given to Holbein, BI. Hf. [monogram: HL] [monogram: HL B.] [monogram: HB.] [monogram: HH.] And these the marks which really belong to him, HH. HANS HOLB. HANS HOLBEIN. [monogram: 1519 HF] [monogram: HF] II H. HANS HOLBEN. [monogram: AH 1517] [monogram: H [symbol] H] [monogram: H-H] INDEX. A. Æmylius, Geo. his verses, 84. Alciatus, his emblems the earliest work of the kind, 180. Aldegrever, his Dance of Death, 160. Almanac, a Swiss one, with a Dance of Death, 76, 209. Alphabets, several curious, 100, 214, 217. Amman, Jost, a Dance of Death by him, 41. Ars moriendi, some account of the last edition of it, 173. Athyr, "Stamm-und Stechbuchlein," a rare and singular book of emblems, 180. B. Baldinucci, a mistake by him corrected, 235. Basle, destruction of its celebrated painting of the Dance of Death, 39. engravings of it, 41. Beauclerc, Lady Diana, her ballad of Leonora, 210. Bechstein, Ludwig, his edition of the Lyons' wood-cuts, 136. Beham, Barthol., his Dance of Death, 190. Bernard, le petit, his fine wood-cuts to the Old Testament, 173. Berne almanac, a Dance of Death in one of them, 154. Bock, Hans, not the painter of the Basle Dance of Death, 39. Bodenehr, Maurice, a Dance of Death by him, 165. "Boetius de consolatione," a figure of Death in an old edition of it, 171. Bonaparte, Napoleon, a Dance of Death relating to him, 167. Books in which a Dance of Death is occasionally introduced, 168. Borbonius, Nicolas, his portrait, 140. his verses, 92, 94, 139. in England, 140. Bosman, Arent, a singular old Dutch legend relating to him, 183. Bosse, a curious engraving by him, 196. Boxgrove church in Sussex, sculpture in, 226. Brant, Sebastian, his stultifera navis, 170. Bromiard, John De, his "Summa predicantium," a fine frontispiece to it, 183. Buno, Conrad, a book of emblems by him, 181. Burnet, Bishop, his ambiguous account of a Dance of Death at Basle, 79, 138. C. Calendrier des Bergers, 170. Callot, drawings by him of a Dance of Death in the collection of Sir Tho. Lawrence, 223. Camus, M. de, a ludicrous mistake by him, 169. Catz's emblems, 182. Cavallero determinado, 174. Centre de l'amour, a singular book of emblems, 182. Chertablon, "Maniere de se bien preparer à la mort," 177. "Chevalier de la tour," a singular print from this curious romance, 171. Chodowiecki, his engravings relating to the Dance of Death, 153, 207, 208. Chorier, his "Antiquités de Vienne," 48. Cogeler, "Imagines elegantissimæ, &c." 173. Coleraine, I. Nixon, his Dance of Death on a fan, 159. Colman's "Death's duell," 185. Compan, M. his mistake about a Dance of Death, 237. Coppa, a poem ascribed to Virgil, 3. Cossiers, John, a curious print after him, 199. Coverdale's Bible, with initials of a Dance of Death, 217. Coxe's travels in Switzerland, some account in them of M. Crozat's drawings, 134. Crozat, M. De, account of some supposed drawings by Holbein in his collection, 134. D. Dagger, design for the sheath of one by Holbein, 133. Dagley's "Death's doings," 157, 210, 224. Dance of Death, a pageant, 5. Danish one, 159. known to the ancients, 12. one at Pompeii, 13. the term sometimes improperly used, 81. verses belonging to it, 17. where sculptured and painted, 17. Dance, Mr. the painter, his imitation of a subject in the Dance of Death in his portrait of Mr. Garrick, 137. Dances of Death, with such text only as describes the subject, 160. anonymous, 161, 162, 163, 164. at the following places, Amiens, 47. Anneberg, 44. Avignon, 221. Basle, 36. Berlin, 48. Berne, 45. Blois, 47. Croydon, 54. Dijon, 35. Dresden, 44. Erfurth, 44. Fescamp, 47. Hexham, 53. Holland, 49. Italy, 49. Klingenthal, 42. Leipsic, 44. Lubeck, 43. Lucerne, 46. Minden, 35. Nuremberg, 45. Paris, 14, 33, 35. Rouen, 47. Salisbury, 52. St. Paul's, 51, 76. Spain, 50. Strasburg, 47. Tower of London, 54. Vienne, in Dauphiné, 48. Wortley Hall, 53. Dancing in temples and churchyards, 5, 6. Daniel, Mr. an unique print of a Dance of Death in his possession, 248. Danse aux aveugles, 231. Death and the Lady, 226. how personified by the Ancients, 1. not in itself terrific, 4. to Dr. Quackery, 211. De Bry, prints by him, 180, 183, 195. Dedication to the first edition of the Lyons wood-cuts, 86. mistakes in it, 87. De Gheyn, prints by him, 198, 205. De la Motte's fables, 183. Della Bella, 162. De Murr, his mistake about the Dance of Death, 235 Dennecker, or De Necker, Jobst, Dances of Death by him, 40, 42, 85, 118. De Pas, Crispin, description of a singular engraving by him, 196. Descamps, his mistake about the Dance of Death, 235. Deuchar, David, the Scottish Worlidge, his etchings of the Dance of Death, 135. Deutch, Nicolas Manuel, the painter of a Dance of Death at Berne, 224. Devil's ruff-shop, 200. De Vos, Martin, print after him of the Devil's ruff-shop, 200. Diepenbecke, Abraham, designer of the borders to Hollar's etchings of the Dance of Death, 125. Dialogue of life and death, in "Dialogues of creatures moralized," 170. Dominotiers, venders of coloured prints for the common people, 77. Drawings of the Dance of Death, 222. Druræi Mors, an excellent Latin comedy, 175. Dugdale, his Monasticon, 129. his St. Paul's, 129. Durer, Albert, some prints by or after him described, 188, 189. E. Ear, the seat of memory among the Ancients, 3. swearing by, 3. Edwards, Mr. the bookseller, the possessor of Hollar's etchings of the Dance of Death, 128. Elizabeth, her prayer-book with a Dance of Death, 147, 247. Emblems and fables relating to the Dance of Death, 179. Engravings on wood, the earliest impressions of them not always the best, 85, 90. commendations of them in books printed in France, Germany, and Italy, 97. Errors of miscellaneous writers on the Dance of Death, 236. of travellers concerning it, 233. of writers on painting and engraving concerning it, 234. Evelyn, Mr. his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 235. F. Fables relating to the Dance of Death, 179. Faut mourir, le, 26. Felibien, his mistake about the Dance of Death, 235. Figeac, Champollion, his account of a Macaber Dance, 238. Fleischmann, Counsellor, of Strasburg, drawings of a Dance of Death in his possession, 134. Fontenai, Abbé, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 236. Fool and Death in old moralities, 177. Fournier, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 237. Fox, John, "Book of Christian Prayers," compiled by him, 147. Francis I. an importer of fine artists into France, 92. Francolin, a rare work by him described, 217. Freidanck, 171. Friderich's emblems, 180. Frontispieces connected with the Dance of Death, described, 183. Fulbert's vision of the dispute between the soul and the body, 32. Fuseli, Mr. his opinion concerning the Dance of Death, 83. Fyner, Conrad, his process or law-suit of Death. G. Gallitzin, Prince, some supposed drawings by Holbein of a Dance of Death in his possession, 134. Gem, an ancient one, with a skeleton as the representative of Death, 206. Gerard, Mark, some etchings of fables by him, 179. Gesner's Pandectæ, remarks on a passage in that work, 84. Ghezzi, a figure of Death among his caricatures, 206. Glarus, Franciscus à, his "Confusio disposita, &c." noticed as a very singular work, 177. Glass, painted, with a Dance of Death, 227. Glissenti, his "Discorsi morali," 112. his "Morte inamorata," 246. Gobin le gay, a name of one of the shepherds in an old print of the Adoration, 69. Gobin, Robert, his "loups ravissans," remarkable for a Dance of Death, 146. Goethe, a Dance of Death in one of his works, 178, 211. Gole, a mezzotinto by him of Death and the Miser, 203. Goujet, his mistake about the Dance of Death at Basle, 233. Graaf, Urs, a print by him, and his monogram described, 189. Grandville, "Voyage pour l'eternité," 157. Gray, Rev. Robert, his mistake about the Dance of Death at Basle, 233. Gringoire, Pierre, his "Heures de Notre Dame," 172. Grosthead, story from his "Manuel de Péché," 7. Guilleville, "Pelerin de la vie humaine," 175. H. Harding, an etching by him of "Death and the Doctor," 211. Hawes's "Pastime of Pleasure," two prints from it described, 173. Heemskirk, Martin, a print by him described, 193, 199. Hegner, his life of Holbein, 240. Heymans, Mynheer, a dedication to him, 141. Historia della Morte, a poem so called, 176. Holbein, a German, life of him by Hegner, 240. ambiguity with respect to the paintings at Basle ascribed to him, 81. dance of peasants by him, 80. engravings by him with his name, 95. his Bible prints, 94. his connexion with the Dance of Death, 78, 138. his death, in 1554, 144. his name not in the early editions of the Lyons wood-cuts, 92. lives of him very defective, 143. more particulars relating to him, 143. not the painter of the Dance of Death at Basle, 38, 43, 144. paints a Dance of Death at Whitehall, 141. satirical painting of Erasmus by him, 221. Hollar, his copies of the Dance of Death, 125. Hopfer, David, his print of Death and the Devil, 191. Horæ, manuscripts of this service book with the Macaber Dance, 60. printed copies of it with the same, and some similar designs, 72. Huber and Rust, their mistake concerning Holbein, 236. I. Jacques, Maitre, his "le faut mourir," 26. Jansen, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 236. Imitations of and from the Lyons wood-cuts, 137. Initial letters with a Dance of Death, 213, 214, 217. Innocent III. Pope, his work "de vilitate conditionis humanæ," 172. K. Karamsin, Nicolai, his account of a Dance of Death, 44. Kauw, his drawing of a Dance of Death, at Berne, 224. Kerver, Thielman, his editions of "Horæ," 174. Klauber, John Hugh, a painter of a Dance of Death at Basle, 36, 42. L. Langlois, an engraving by him described, 198. Larvæ and lemures, confusion among the ancients as to their respective qualities, 4. "Last drop," an etching so intitled, 211. a drawing of the same subject, 224. Lavenberg calendar, prints by Chodowiecki in it, 153. Lawrence, Sir Thomas, drawings by Callot of a Dance of Death in his possession, 223. "Lawyer's last circuit," a caricature print, 209. Le Blon, a circular print by him described, 197. Le Comte, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 235. Lubeck, a Dance of Death there, 163. Lutzenberger, Hans, the engraver of the Lyons wood-cuts of the Dance of Death, 98. alphabets by him, 100. various prints by him, 99. Luyken's Emblems, 177, 178. Lydgate, his Verses to the Macaber Dance, 29, 52. Lyons, all the editions of the wood-cuts of the Dance of Death published there described, 82, 103. copies of them by Hollar, 125. copies of them on copper, 121. copies of them on wood, 111. various imitations of some of them, 137. Lyvijus, John, a print by him of two card players, 197. M. Macaber, a word falsely applied as the name of a supposed German poet, 28, 34. its etymology discussed, 30, 34. Macaber Dance, 13, 28. copies or engravings of it as painted at Basle, 40. destruction of the painting at Basle, 39. manuscripts in which it is represented, 72. not painted by Holbein, 38. printed books, in which it is represented, 55. representations of it at the following places:-- Amiens, 47. Anneberg, 44. Basle, 36. Berlin, 48. Berne, 45. Burgos, 50. Croydon, 54. Dijon, 35. Dresden, 44, 76. Erfurth, 44. Hexham, 53. Holland, 49. Klingenthal, 42. Lubeck, 43. Lucerne, 46. Minden, 35. Naples, 49. Rouen, 47. Salisbury, 52. St. Paul's, 51, 76. Strasburg, 47. Tower of London, 54. Vienne, 48. Wortley Hall, 53. Macarius Saint, painting of a legend relating to him, by Orgagna, at the Campo Santo, 32, 33. Malpé, M., his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 236. Mannichius, 180. Manuel de Peché, by Grosthead, 7. Mapes, Walter de, an allusion by him to a Dance of Death, 24. vision of a dispute between the soul and the body, ascribed to him, 33. Marks or monograms of engravers, their uncertainty, 102. Marmi, Gio. Battista, his "Ritratte della Morte," 129. Mechel, Chretien de, 132, 208, 214. Meckenen, Israel Van, a Dance of Death by him, 160. Meisner, his "Sciographia Cosmica," 180. Melidæus, Jonas, a satirical work under this disguised name, intitled "Res mira," 184. Meyers, Rodolph, his Dance of Death, 148. Meyssens, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 234. Missal, an undescribed one, in the type of the psalter of 1457, 213. Misson, the traveller, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 233. Mitelli, Gio. Maria, a kind of Death's Dance, by him, 161. Moncrief, his "March of Intellect," quoted for a print after Cruikshank, 178. Montenaye, Georgette de, her emblems, 179. "Mors," an excellent Latin comedy, by William Drury, 175. Mortimer, a sketch by him of Death seizing several persons, 209. Mortilogus, 171. N. Negro figure of Death, 230. Newton's Dances of Death, 165. Nieuhoff, Piccard, 130, 140. Nuremberg Chronicle, a cut from it described, 170. a story from it, 6. O. Old Franks, a curious painting by him, 204, 221. Oliver, Isaac, his copy of a painting by Holbein, at Whitehall, 145, 221. Orgagna, Andrea, his painting at the Campo Santo, 32. Ortulus Rosarum, 170. Otho Vænius, a curious painting by him, 204, 222. Ottley, Mr. his opinion in favour of Holbein as the designer of the Lyons wood-cuts, 88. proof impressions of the Lyons wood-cuts in his valuable collection, 85. P. Palingenius, his "Zodiacus Vitæ," a frontispiece to this work described, 186. Panneels, William, a scholar of Rubens, mention of a painting by him, 203. Papillon, his ludicrous mistakes noticed, 110, 114. Patin, Charles, a traveller, and a libeller of the English, 79, 138, 237. Paulmy, Marquis de, his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 238. Paul's St., mention of the Dance of Death formerly there, 51, 163. Peasants, a dance of, painted at Basle, by Holbein, 80. Peignot, M. author of "Les Danses de Mort," an interesting work, preface. his misconception relating to John Porey, 248. Perriere, his "Morosophie," 179. Petrarch, his triumph of Death, 175, 207. his work "de remediis utriusque fortunæ," 175. Pfister, Albert, his "Tribunal Mortis," 168. Piccard, Nieuhoff, 130, 140. Piers Plowman, lines from, 54. Porey, John, a mistake concerning him corrected, 248. Potter, P. an allegorical engraving after him, 199. Prints, single, relating to the Dance of Death, list of, 188. Prior, Matthew, his lines on the Dance of Death, 145. Psalter of 1457, a beautiful initial letter in it noticed, 213. of Richard II., a manuscript in the British Museum, 222. R. Rabbi Santo, a Jewish poet, about 1360, 25. Ratdolt, a Venetian printer, not, as usually supposed, the inventor of initial or capital letters, 213. Rembrandt, drawing of a Dance of Death by him, 223. etching by him, 195. René, of Anjou, painted a Dance of Death, 221. Reperdius, Geo. an eminent painter at Lyons, 93. Revelations, prints of the, 175. Reusner, his emblems, 179. Rive, Abbé, his bibliography of the Macaber Dance, 75. Rivoire, his history of Amiens commended, 47. Roderic, bishop of Zamora, 17, 32. Rolandini's emblems, 180. Rollenhagius's emblems, 182. Roll of the Dance of Death, 1597, 163. Rowlandson's Dance of Death, 156, 225, 248. Rusting, Salomon Van, his Dance of Death, 131. S. [monogram: SA], some account of this monogram, 115. its owner employed by Plantin, the famous printer at Antwerp, 116. Salisbury missal, singular cut in one, 172. Sallaerts, an artist supposed to have been employed by Plantin the celebrated printer, 115, 116. Sancta Clara, Abraham, a description of his "universal mirror of Death," 151. Sandrart, his notice of a work by Holbein at Whitehall, 145. Schauffelin, Hans, a carving on wood by him described, 226. Schellenberg, I. R. a Dance of Death by him, 154. Schlotthaver, his edition of a Dance of Death, 249. Silvius, or Sylvius, Antony, an artist at Antwerp, account of a monogram supposed to belong to him, 115. Skeleton, use made of the human by the ancients, 3. "Spectriana," a modern French work, frontispiece to it described, 187. Stelsius, his edition of a spurious copy of Holbein's Bible cuts, 97. Stettler, his drawings of the Macaber Dance of Death at Berne, 224. "Stotzinger symbolum," description of a cut so intitled, 174. Stradanus, an engraving after him described, 197. Susanna, a Latin play, 18. Symeoni, "Imprese," 179. T. Tapestry at the Tower of London, 227. "Theatrum Mortis," a work with a Dance of Death described, 129. Tiepolo, a clever etching by him described, 197. Title-pages connected with the Dance of Death, list of, 183. Tory, Geoffrey, Horæ printed by him described, 172. Tower of London, tapestry formerly there of a Dance of Death, 227. Trois mors et trois vifs, 31, 33, 228. Turner, Col., a Dance of Death by him, 207. Turnham Green, some account of chalk drawings of a Dance of Death on a wall there, 210, 224. Typotii symbola, 180, 182. U. Urs Graaf, his engravings noticed, 243. V. Vænius, Otho, some of his works mentioned, 182, 204. Valckert, a clever etching by him described, 201. Van Assen, a Dance of Death by him, 158. Van Leyden, Lucas, 189. Van Meckenen, Israel, his Dance of Death in circles, 160. Van Sichem, his prints to the Bible, 177. Van Venne, prints after him, 157, 182, 199, 209. Verses that accompany the Dance of Death, 17. Von Menzel, 207. "Voyage pour l'eternité," a modern Dance of Death, 157. W. Walpole, Mr. his mistake concerning the Dance of Death, 236. Warton, Mr. his remarks on the Dance of Death, 237. Weiss, Mr. author of some of the best lives in the "Biographie Universelle," misled in his article "Macaber" by Champollion Figeac, 249. Whitehall, fire at, 140. painting of a Dance of Death there by Holbein, 141. Wierix, John, some prints by him described, 194, 195. Williams, Miss, her mistake concerning the Dance of Death at Basle, in her Swiss tour, 233. Wolschaten, Geeraerdt Van, a Dance of Death by him, 130. Wood, engravings on, the first impressions of them not always the best, 85. Wood, Mr. his mistake concerning the Dance of Death in his "View of Switzerland," 233. Y. "Youth's Tragedy," a moral drama, 1671, 175. Z. Zani, Abbate, of opinion that Holbein had no concern in the Lyons wood-cuts of the Dance of Death, 98, 101, 138. Zuinger, his account of paintings at Basle, 139. C. WHITTINGHAM, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. FOOTNOTES: [1] Iliad, and after him Virgil, Æn. vi. 278. [2] Iliad IX. On an ancient gem likewise in Ficoroni's Gemmæ Antiquæ Litteratæ, Tab. viii. No. 1, a human scull typifies mortality, and a butterfly immortality. [3] Lib. ii. 78. [4] Diarium, p. 212. [5] Lib. xiii. l. 474. [6] Epist. xxiv. [7] Apolog. p. 506, 507. edit. Delph. 4to. [8] Lib. iii. [9] Leg. Antiq. iii. 84. [10] Folio clxxxvii. [11] Folio ccxvii. [12] Bibl. Reg. 20 B. xiv. and Harl. MS. 4657. [13] Contest. [14] Q. Cowick in Yorkshire? [15] Leader. [16] Glee. [17] Called. [18] A name borrowed from Merwyn, Abbess of Ramsey, temp. Reg. Edgari. [19] Took. [20] Leafy. [21] Place. [22] Went. [23] Places. [24] A falsehood. [25] Whoever may be desirous of inspecting other authorities for the story, may consult Vincent of Beauvais Speculum Historiale, lib. xxv. cap. 10; Krantz Saxonia, lib. iv.; Trithemii Chron. Monast. Hirsaugensis; Chronicon Engelhusii ap. Leibnitz. Script. Brunsvicens. II. 1082; Chronicon. S. Ægidii, ap. Leibnitz. iii. 582; Cantipranus de apibus; & Cæsarius Heisterbach. de Miraculis; in whose works several _veracious_ and amusing stories of other instances of divine vengeance against dancing in general may be found. The most entertaining of all the dancing stories is that of the friar and the boy, as it occurs among the popular penny histories, of which, in one edition at least, it is, undoubtedly, the very best. [26] Lib. i. Eleg. iii. [27] Æn. lib. vi. l. 44. [28] Millin. Magaz. Encycl. 1813, tom. i. p. 200. [29] Gori Mus. Florentin. tom. i. pl. 91, No. 3. [30] Hist. Engl. Poetry, vol. ii. p. 43, edit. 8vo. and Carpentier. Suppl. ad Ducang. v. Machabæorum chorea. [31] Id. ii. 364. [32] Hist. des Ducs des Bourgogne, tom. v. p. 1821. [33] Hist. de René d'Anjou, tom. i. p. 54. [34] Dulaure. Hist. Physique, &c. de Paris, 1821, tom. ii. p. 552. [35] Recherches sur les Danses des Morts. Dijon et Paris, 1826, 8vo. p. xxxiv. et seq. [36] Mercure de France, Sept. 1742. Carpentier. Suppl. ad Ducang. v. Machabæorum chorea. [37] Bibl. Reg. 8 B. vi. Lansd. MS. 397. [38] Madrid. 1779, 8vo. p. 179. [39] Bibl. Med. et Inf. Ætat. tom. v. p. 1. [40] Recherches sur les Danses de Mort, pp. 79 80. [41] Passim. [42] Modern edition of the Danse Macabre. [43] Journal de Charles VII. [44] Lansd. MS. No. 397--20. [45] Peignot Recherches, p. 109. [46] Mélange d'une Grande Bibliothèque, tom. vii. p. 22. [47] Bibl. Instruc. No. 3109. [48] Catal. La Valliere No. 2736--22. [49] Vasari vite de Pittori, tom. i. p. 183, edit. 1568, 4to. [50] Baldinucci Disegno, ii. 65. [51] Morona Pisa Illustrata, i. 359. [52] Du Breul Antiq. de Paris, 1612, 4to. p. 834, where the verses that accompany the sculpture are given. See likewise Sandrart Acad. Picturæ, p. 101. [53] Peignot Recherches, xxxvii-xxxix. [54] Urtisii epitom. Hist. Basiliensis, 1522, 8vo. [55] Peignot Recherches, xxvi-xxix. [56] Travels, i. 376. [57] Travels, i. 138, edit. 4to. [58] Heinecken Dictionn. des Artistes, iii. 67, et iv. 595. He follows Keysler's error respecting Hans Bock. [59] Peintre graveur, ix. 398. [60] Essai sur l'Orig. de la Gravure, i. 120. [61] Heinecken Dictionn. des Artistes, i. 222. [62] Recherches, &c. p. 71. [63] Heller Geschiche der holtzchein kunst. Bamberg, 1823, 12mo. p. 126. [64] Basle Guide Book. [65] Recherches, 11 et seq. [66] More on the subject of the Lubeck Dance of Death may be found in 1. An anonymous work, which has on the last leaf, "Dodendantz, anno domini MCCCCXCVI. Lubeck." 2. "De Dodendantz fan Kaspar Scheit, na der utgave fan, 1558, unde de Lubecker fan, 1463." This is a poem of four sheets in small 8vo. without mention of the place where printed. 3. Some account of this painting by Ludwig Suhl. Lubeck, 1783, 4to. 4. A poem, in rhyme, with wood-cuts, on 34 leaves, in 8vo. It is fully described from the Helms. library in Brun's Beitrage zu krit. Bearb. alter handschr. p. 321 et seq. 5. Jacob à Mellen Grundliche Nachbricht von Lubeck, 1713, 8vo. p. 84. 6. Schlott Lubikischers Todtentantz. 1701. 8vo. 7. Berkenmeyer, le curieux antiquaire, 8vo. p. 530; and, 8. Nugent's Travels, i. 102. 8vo. [67] Biblioth. Med. et inf. ætat. v. 2. [68] Travels, i. 195. [69] Recherches, xlii. [70] Pilkington's Dict. of Painters, p. 307, edit. Fuseli, who probably follows Fuesli's work on the Painters. Merian, Topogr. Helvetiæ. [71] Peignot Recherches, xlv. xlvi. [72] Rivoire descr. de l'église cathédrale d'Amiens. Amiens, 1806. 8vo. [73] Recherches, xlvii. [74] Recherches, xlviii. [75] Recherches sur les antiquités de Vienne. 1659. 12mo, p. 15. [76] Dr. Cogan's Tour to the Rhine, ii. 127. [77] Travels, iii. 328, edit. 4to. [78] Survay of London, p. 615, edit. 1618, 4to. [79] In Tottel's edition these verses are accompanied with a single wood-cut of Death leading up all ranks of mortals. This was afterwards copied by Hollar, as to general design, in Dugdale's St. Paul's, and in the Monasticon. [80] Annales, p. 596, edit. 1631. folio. Sir Thomas More, treating of the remembrance of Death, has these words: "But if we not only here this word Death, but also let sink into our heartes, the very fantasye and depe imaginacion thereof, we shall parceive therby that we wer never so gretly moved by the beholding of the _Daunce of Death pictured in Poules_, as we shal fele ourself stered and altered by the feling of that imaginacion in our hertes. And no marvell. For those pictures expresse only y{e} lothely figure of our dead bony bodies, biten away y{e} flesh," &c.--Works, p. 77, edit. 1557, folio. [81] Heylin's Hist. of the Reformation, p. 73. [82] Cotton MS. Vesp. A. xxv. fo. 181. [83] Leland's Itin. vol. iv. part i. p. 69.--Meas. for Meas. Act iii. sc. 1. [84] Hutchinson's Northumberland, i. 98. [85] Warton's H. E. Poetry, ii. 43, edit. 8vo. [86] And see a portion of Orgagna's painting at the Campo Santo at Pisa, mentioned before in p. 33. [87] From the Author's own inspection. [88] Recherches, p. 144, and see Catal. La Valliere, No. 295. [89] Herbert's typogr. antiq. p. 888. [90] Traité hist. de la gravure en bois, i. 182, 336. [91] Letters containing an account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy, &c. by G. Burnet, D. D. Rotterdam, 1686, 8vo. p. 265. [92] Travels through Germany, &c. i. 138, edit. 4to. [93] Relations historiques et curieuses de voyages en Allemagne, &c. Amst. 1695, 12mo. p. 124. [94] See likewise Zuinger, Methodus Academica, Basle, 1577, 4to. p. 199. [95] Remarks on several parts of Europe, 1738, vol. ii. p. 72. [96] Peignot places the dance of peasants in the fish-market of Basle, as other writers had the Dance of Death. Recherches, p. 15. [97] Manuel de l'Amateur d'estampes, ii. 131. [98] Manuel des curieux, &c. i. 156. [99] Some give it to the Abbé Baverel. [100] Lib. ult. p. 86. [101] The dedicator has apparently in this place been guilty of a strange misconception. The Death is not sucking the wine from the cask, but in the act of untwisting the fastening to one of the hoops. Nor is the carman crushed beneath the wheels: on the contrary, he is represented as standing upright and wringing his hands in despair at what he beholds. It is true that this cut was not then completed, and might have undergone some subsequent alteration. He likewise speaks of the rainbow in the cut of the Last Judgment, as being at that time unfinished, which, however, is introduced in this first edition. [102] It would be of some importance if the date of Lutzenberger's death could be ascertained. [103] "An enquiry into the origin and early history of Engraving," 1816, 4to. vol. ii. p. 759. [104] "An Enquiry," &c. ii. 762. [105] The few engravings by or after Holbein that have his name or its initials are to be found in his early frontispieces or vignettes to books printed at Basle. In 1548, two delicate wood-cuts, with his name, occur in Cranmer's Catechism. In the title-page to "a lytle treatise after the maner of an Epystle wryten by the famous clerk, Doctor Urbanus Regius, &c." Printed by Gwalter Lynne, 1548, 24mo, there is a cut in the same style of art of Christ attended by his disciples, and pointing to a fugitive monk, whose sheep are scattered, and some devoured by a wolf. Above and below are the words "John x. Ezech. xxxiiii. Mich. v. I am the good shepehearde. A good shepehearde geveth his lyfe for the shype. The hyred servaunt flyeth, because he is an hered servaunt, and careth not for the shepe." On the cut at bottom HANS HOLBEIN. There is a fourth cut of this kind in the British Museum collection with Christ brought before Pilate; and perhaps Holbein might have intended a series of small engravings for the New Testament; but all these are in a simple outline and very different from the cuts in the Dance of Death, or Lyons Bible. It might be difficult to refer to any other engravings belonging to Holbein after the above year. [106] Brulliot dict. de monogrammes, &c. Munich, 1817, 4to. p. 418, where the letter from De Mechel is given. [107] Essai sur l'origine de la gravure, &c. tom. i. p. 260. [108] Id. p. 261. [109] Dict. de monogrammes, &c. tom. i. pp. 418, 499. [110] Enciclop. metod. par ii. vol. vii. p. 16. [111] Enciclop. metod. par. i. vol. x. p. 467. [112] All the above prints are in the author's possession, except No. 7, and his copy of No. 5 has not the tablets with the name, &c. [113] Edit. Javigny, iv. 559. [114] This edition is given on the authority of Peignot, p. 62, but has not been seen by the author of this work. In the year 1547, there were three editions, and it is not improbable that, by the transposition of the two last figures, one of these might have been intended. [115] Foppen's Biblioth. Belgica, i. 363. [116] That of 1557 has a frontispiece with Death pointing to his hour-glass when addressing a German soldier. [117] Tom. i. p. 238, 525. [118] Dict. de Monogrammes, col. 528. [119] Biblioth. Belgica, i. 92. [120] See p. 40. [121] This is the same subject as that in the Augustan monastery described in p. 48. [122] See p. 34. [123] It has been stated that they were in the Arundelian collection whence they passed into the Netherlands, where forty-six of them became the property of Jan Bockhorst the painter, commonly called Long John. See Crozat's catalogue. [124] On the same dedication are founded the opinions of Zani, De Murr, Meintel, and some others. [125] Zuinger methodus apodemica. Basil, 1557. 4to. p. 199. [126] P. 427, edit. Lugd. apud Gryphium, and p. 445, edit. Basil. [127] Nugæ, lib. vi. carm. 12. [128] Baldinucci notizie d'é professori del disegno, tom. iii. p. 317, 4to. edit. where the inscription on it is given. [129] Norfolk MS. 97, now in the Brit. Museum. [130] Harl. MS. 4718. [131] Acad. Pictur. 239. [132] Strype's Annals, I. 272, where the curious dialogue that ensued on the occasion is preserved. [133] Catal. de la bibliothèque du Roi. II. 153. [134] These initial letters have already been mentioned in p. 101-102. The elegant initials in Dr. Henderson's excellent work on modern wines, and those in Dr. Nott's Bristol edition of Decker's Gull's horn-book, should not pass unnoticed on this occasion. [135] See before in p. 97. [136] Zani saw this alphabet at Dresden, and ascribes it likewise to Lutzenberger. See his Enciclop. Metodica, Par. I. vol. x. p. 467. [137] See before, in p. 46. [138] Biblioth. Franc. tom. x. p. 436. [139] Sandrart Acad. Pict. p. 241. [140] Obs. on Spenser, II. 117, 118, 119. Transcriber's Notes: Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}. Letters printed in reverse are indicated by =X=. Various printers' monograms are included throughout the original text. These are represented by [monogram] or [monogram: description] if a description could be provided. The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations. 
46330	----	THE INTRODUCTION TO HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF FINE ART THE INTRODUCTION TO HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF FINE ART TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN _WITH NOTES AND PREFATORY ESSAY_ BY BERNARD BOSANQUET, M.A. LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1886 (_The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved._) TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. Hegel's "_Æsthetik_," or "Philosophy of Fine Art," is a work which should no longer be inaccessible to the English reading public, but the reproduction of which, in its complete form of 1600 pages, is a task not to be lightly undertaken. I know of three partial reproductions of the "_Æsthetik_" in English, viz. Mr. Bryant's translation of Part II.,[1] Mr. Kedney's short analysis of the entire work,[2] and Mr. Hastie's translation of Michelet's short "Philosophy of Art,"[3] prefaced by Hegel's Introduction, partly translated and partly analysed. I wholly disapprove of analyses (among which may be reckoned Michelet's summary above mentioned) as representations of Hegel's writing, which is attractive chiefly by the force and freshness of its detail. I am convinced that Hegel should be allowed to speak for himself, and that failing the translation of the whole "_Æsthetik_," or of very copious selections, the best course is that which I have adopted in the present volume, viz. to translate the entire Introduction, including the chapter entitled, "Division of the Subject." This Introduction is in Hegel's best manner--so far as he can be said to have literary manner at all, especially in a work which has been produced by editors from lecture-notes,--and is tolerably complete in itself. It is not contained as a whole in any of the above-mentioned works. I ought to say, however, that Mr. Hastie's translation is excellent in style; but after the first thirty-four pages it also becomes an analysis. Nor is it wholly free from serious mistakes. I have hoped that the present volume may be of interest to many who, without being students of philosophy, are intelligent lovers of art. I have therefore done my best to _interpret_ philosophical expressions, instead of merely furnishing their technical equivalents. I have also added a few short notes, either to explain literary allusions, or to complete the interpretation of technical terms. The prefatory essay was written with a similar intention, not as original speculation, but as an assistance to general readers in apprehending the point of view from which Fine Art is regarded by Hegel and kindred writers. I have broken up the "_Einleitung_," or Introduction proper, which is continuous in the original, into four chapters,[4] hoping that the arrangement of the discussion may be thus rendered easier to follow. The "_Eintheilung_," which forms my Chapter V., is a separate chapter in the original. The table of contents is translated from the original, excepting those portions of it which are enclosed in square brackets, [ ]. My literary notes are entirely borrowed from the late Mrs. F. C. Conybeare's translation of Scherer's "History of German Literature;" a work invaluable to the English student, whose gratitude must for long be saddened by the untimely death of the translator. CONTENTS. PAGE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE vii PREFATORY ESSAY BY THE TRANSLATOR xiii CHAPTER I. THE RANGE OF ÆSTHETIC DEFINED, AND SOME OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART REFUTED (1-25). [[Greek: a.] Æsthetic confined to Beauty of _Art_ 2 [Greek: b.] Does Art _merit_ Scientific Treatment? 5 [Greek: g.] Is Scientific Treatment _appropriate_ to Art? 8 [Greek: d.] Answer to [Greek: b.] 13 [Greek: e.] Answer to [Greek: g.]] 20 CHAPTER II. METHODS OF SCIENCE APPLICABLE TO BEAUTY AND ART (26-42). [1. Empirical Method--Art-scholarship 27 (_a_) Its Range 27 (_b_) It generates Rules and Theories 28 (_c_) The Rights of Genius 38 2. Abstract Reflection 40 3. The Philosophical Conception of Artistic Beauty, general notion of] 41 CHAPTER III. THE PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTION OF ARTISTIC BEAUTY, BEGINNING WITH CURRENT IDEAS OF ART (43-105). PART I.--The Work of Art as Made and as Sensuous 43-78 1. Work of Art as Product of Human Activity 48 [(_a_) Conscious Production by Rule 48 (_b_) Artistic Inspiration 50 (_c_) Dignity of Production by Man 54 (_d_) Man's Need to produce Works of Art] 57 2. Work of Art as addressed to Man's Sense 60-78 [(_a_) Object of Art--Pleasant Feeling? 60 (_b_) Feeling of Beauty--Taste 63 (_c_) Art-scholarship 65 (_d_) Profounder Consequences of Sensuous Nature of Art 66 ([Greek: a]) Relations of the Sensuous to the Mind 67 ([Greek: aa]) Desire 68 ([Greek: bb]) Theory 70 ([Greek: gg]) Sensuous as Symbol of Spiritual 72 ([Greek: b]) The Sensuous Element, how Present in the Artist 74 ([Greek: g]) The _Content_ of Art Sensuous] 78 PART II.--The End of Art. 3. [The Interest or End of Art (79-106) (_a_) Imitation of Nature? 79 ([Greek: a]) Mere Repetition of Nature is-- 79 ([Greek: aa]) Superfluous 80 ([Greek: bb]) Imperfect 80 ([Greek: gg]) Amusing merely as Sleight of Hand 82 ([Greek: b]) _What_ is Good to Imitate? 83 ([Greek: g]) Some Arts cannot be called Imitative 85 (_b_) _Humani nihii_--? 87 (_c_) Mitigation of the Passions? 90 ([Greek: a]) _How_ Art mitigates the Passions 91 ([Greek: b]) _How_ Art purifies the Passions 94 ([Greek: aa]) It must have a Worthy Content 95 ([Greek: bb]) But ought not to be Didactic 95 ([Greek: gg]) Nor explicitly addressed to a _Moral_ Purpose 98 (_d_) Art has its own Purpose as Revelation of Truth] 105 CHAPTER IV. HISTORICAL DEDUCTION OF THE TRUE IDEA OF ART IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY (107-132). 1. Kant 107 [(_a_) Pleasure in Beauty not Appetitive 110 (_b_) Pleasure in Beauty Universal 111 (_c_) The Beautiful in its Teleological Aspect 112 (_d_) Delight in the Beautiful _necessary_ though _felt_] 113 2. Schiller, Winckelmann, Schelling 116 3. The Irony 120 CHAPTER V. DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT (133-175). [1. The Condition of Artistic Presentation is the Correspondence of Matter and Plastic Form 133 2. Part I.--The Ideal 141 3. Part II.--The Types of Art 144 ([Greek: a]) Symbolic Art 145 ([Greek: b]) Classical Art 148 ([Greek: g]) Romantic Art 151 4. Part III.--The Several Arts 157 ([Greek: a]) Architecture 160 ([Greek: b]) Sculpture 162 ([Greek: g]) Romantic Art, comprising 164 (i.) Painting 167 (ii.) Music 169 (iii.) Poetry 171 5. Conclusion] 173 PREFATORY ESSAY BY THE TRANSLATOR. ON THE TRUE CONCEPTION OF ANOTHER WORLD. "With such barren forms of thought, that are always in a world beyond, Philosophy has nothing to do. Its object always something concrete, and in the highest sense present."--HEGEL'S _Logic_, Wallace's translation, p. 150. It will surprise many readers to be told that the words which I have quoted above embody the very essence of Hegelian thought. The Infinite, the supra-sensuous, the divine, are so connected in our minds with futile rackings of the imagination about remote matters which only distract us from our duties, that a philosophy which designates its problems by such terms as these seems self-condemned as cloudy and inane. But, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, Hegel is faithful to the present and the concrete. In the study of his philosophy we are always dealing with human experience. "My stress lay," says Mr. Browning,[5] "on the incidents in the development of a soul; little else is worth study." For "a soul" read "the mind," and you have the subject-matter to which Hegel's eighteen close-printed volumes are devoted. The present introductory remarks are meant to insist on this neglected point of view. I wish to point out, in two or three salient instances, the transformation undergone by speculative notions when sedulously applied to life, and restrained from generating an empty "beyond." By so doing I hope to pave the way for a due appreciation of Hegel's philosophy of fine art. That the world of mind, or the world above sense, exists as an actual and organized whole, is a truth most easily realized in the study of the beautiful. And to grasp this principle as Hegel applies it is nothing less than to acquire a new contact with spiritual life. The spiritual world, which is present, actual, and concrete, contains much besides beauty. But to apprehend one element of such a whole constitutes and presupposes a long step towards apprehending the rest. It is for this reason that I propose, in the first place, to explain, by prominent examples, the conception of a spiritual world which is present and actual, and then to let Hegel speak for himself on the particular sphere of art. So closely connected indeed are all the embodiments of mind, that the Introduction to the "Philosophy of Fine Art" is almost a microcosm of his entire system. We know, to our cost, the popular conception of the supra-sensuous world. Whatever that world is, it is, as commonly thought of, not here and not now. That is to say, if here and now, it is so by a sort of miracle, at which we are called upon to wonder, as when angels are said to be near us, or the dead to know what we do. Again, it is a counterpart of our present world, and rather imperceptible to _our_ senses, than in its nature beyond contact with sense as such. It is peopled by persons, who live eternally, which means through endless ages, and to whose actual communion with us, as also to our own with God, we look forward in the future. It even perhaps contains a supra-sensuous original corresponding to every thing and movement in this world of ours. And it does _not_ necessarily deepen our conception of life, but only reduplicates it. Such a world, whatever we may think about its actual existence, is _not_ the "other world" of philosophy. The "things not seen" of Plato or of Hegel are not a double or a projection of the existing world. Plato, indeed, wavered between the two conceptions in a way that should have warned his interpreters of the divergence in his track of thought. But in Hegel, at least, there is no ambiguity. The world of spirits with him is no world of ghosts. When we study the embodiments of mind or spirit in his pages, and read of law, property, and national unity; of fine art, the religious community, and the intellect that has attained scientific self-consciousness, we may miss our other world with its obscure "beyond," but we at any rate feel ourselves to be dealing with something real, and with the deepest concerns of life. We may deny to such matters the titles which philosophy bestows upon them; we may say that this is no "other world," no realm of spirits, nothing infinite or divine: but this matters little so long as we know what we are talking about, and are talking about the best we know. And what we discuss when Hegel is our guide, will _always_ be some great achievement or essential attribute of the human mind. He never asks, "Is it?" but always "What is it?" and therefore has instruction, drawn from experience, even for those to whom the titles of his inquiries seem fraudulent or bombastic. These few remarks are not directed to maintaining any thesis about the reality of nature and of sense. Their object is to enforce a distinction which falls _within_ the world which we know, and not _between_ the world we know and another which we do not know. This distinction is real, and governs life. I am not denying any other distinction, but I am insisting on this. No really great philosopher, nor religious teacher,--neither Plato, nor Kant, nor St. Paul--can be understood unless we grasp this antithesis in the right way. All of these teachers have pointed men to another world. All of them, perhaps, were led at times by the very force and reality of their own thought into the fatal separation that cancels its meaning. So strong was their sense of the gulf between the trifles and the realities of life, that they gave occasion to the indolent imagination--in themselves and in others--to transmute this gulf from a measure of moral effort into an inaccessibility that defies apprehension. But their purpose was to overcome this inaccessibility, not to heighten it. The hardest of all lessons in interpretation is to believe that great men mean what they say. We are below their level, and what they actually say seems impossible to us, till we have adulterated it to suit our own imbecility. Especially when they speak of the highest realities, we attach _our_ notion of reality to what _they_ pronounce to be real. And thus we baffle every attempt to deepen our ideas of the world in which we live. The work of intelligence is hard; that of the sensuous fancy is easy; and so we substitute the latter for the former. We are told, for instance, by Plato, that goodness, beauty, and truth are realities, but not visible or tangible. Instead of responding to the call so made on our intelligence by scrutinizing the nature and conditions of these intellectual facts--though we know well how tardily they are produced by the culture of ages--we apply forthwith our idea of reality as something separate in space and time, and so "refute" Plato with ease, and remain as wise as we were before. And it is true that Plato, handling ideas of vast import with the mind and language of his day, sometimes by a similar error refutes himself.[6] He makes, for instance, the disembodied soul see the invisible ideas. Thus he travesties his things of the mind as though they were things of sense, only not of _our_ sense--thereby destroying the deeper difference of kind that alone enables them to find a place in our world. That his doctrine of ideas was really rooted, not in mysticism, but in scientific enthusiasm, is a truth that is veiled from us partly by his inconsistencies, but far more by our own erroneous preconceptions.[7] There is, however, a genuine distinction between "this" world and the "other" world, which is merely parodied by the vulgar antitheses between natural and supernatural, finite and infinite, phenomenal and noumenal. We sometimes hear it said, "The world is quite changed to me since I knew such a person," or "studied such a subject," or "had suggested to me such an idea." The expression may be literally true; and we do not commonly exaggerate, but vastly underrate its import. We read, for instance, in a good authority, "These twenty kinds of birds (which Virgil mentions) do not correspond so much to our species as to our genera; for the Greeks and Romans, I need hardly say, had only very rough-and-ready methods of classification, just as is the case with uneducated people at the present day."[8] Any one may verify the same fact as regards the observation of flowers. Every yellow ranunculus is called a "butter-cup," every large white umbellifer a "hemlock." These, with hundreds of other differences of perception, affect the surroundings in which men consciously live, at least as much as a considerable degree of deafness or blindness. It is no metaphor, but literal fact, to say that man's whole environment is transformed by the training even of his mere apprehension of natural objects. But there is more in the matter than this. Without going into metaphysics, which I wish to avoid, I cannot, indeed, maintain that mind "makes" natural objects, although by enabling us to perceive them it unquestionably makes our immediate conscious world. My individual consciousness does not make or create the differences between the species of ranunculus, although it does create my knowledge of them. But when we come to speak of the world of morals or art or politics, we may venture much further in our assertions. The actual facts of this world do directly arise out of and are causally sustained by conscious intelligence; and these facts form the world above sense. The unity of a Christian church or congregation is a governing fact of life; so is that of a family or a nation; so, we may hope, will that of humanity come to be. What is this unity? Is it visible and tangible, like the unity of a human body? No, the unity is "ideal;" that is, it exists in the medium of thought only; it is made up of certain sentiments, purposes, and ideas. What even of an army? Here, too, an ideal unity is the mainspring of action. Without mutual intelligence and reciprocal reliance you may have a mob, but you cannot have an army. But all these conditions exist and can exist in the mind only. An army, _qua_ army, is not a mere fact of sense; for not only does it need mind to perceive it--a heap of sand does that--but it also needs mind to _make_ it. The world of these governing facts of life is the world of the things not seen, the object of reason, the world of the truly infinite and divine. It is, of course, a false antithesis to contrast seeing with the bodily eye and seeing with the mind's eye. The seeing eye is always the mind's eye. The distinction between sense and spirit or intellect is a distinction _within the mind_ just as is St. Paul's opposition between the spirit and the flesh. Nevertheless, the mind that only sees colour--sense or sense-perception--is different from the mind that sees beauty, the self-conscious spirit. The latter includes the former, but the former does not include the latter. To the one the colour is the ultimate fact; to the other it is an element in a thing of beauty. This relation prevails throughout between the world of sense and the world above sense. The "things not seen," philosophically speaking, are no world of existences or of intelligences co-ordinate with and severed from this present world. They are a value, an import, a significance, superadded to the phenomenal world, which may thus be said, though with some risk of misunderstanding, to be degraded into a symbol. The house, the cathedral, the judge's robe, the general's uniform, are ultimate facts for the child or the savage; but for the civilized man they are symbols of domestic life, of the Church, and of the State. Even where the supra-sensuous world has its purest expression, in the knowledge and will of intelligent beings, it presupposes a sensuous world as the material of ideas and of actions. "This" world and the "other" world are continuous and inseparable, and all men must live in some degree for both. But the completion of the Noumenal world, and the apprehension of its reality and completeness, is the task by fulfilling which humanity advances. I pass to the interpretation, neither technical nor controversial, of one or two of Hegel's most alarming phrases. The "infinite" seems to practical minds the very opposite of anything real, present, or valuable. As the description of life, it is the mere negation of the life we know; as the description of a purpose, it is the very antithesis of any purpose that we can conceive to be attainable; as the description of a being, it appears to be formed by denying every predicate which we attach to personality. And I could wish that Hegel had not selected this much-abused term as the distinctive predicate of what is most real and most precious in life. He adhered to it, no doubt, because his infinity, though different in nature to that of common logic, yet rightly fills the place and meets the problem of that conception. I will attempt to explain how this can be, and what we are discussing when we read about infinity in the Hegelian philosophy. It is an obvious remark, that infinity was a symbol of evil in Hellenic speculation, whereas to Christian and modern thought it is identified with good. Much idle talk has arisen on this account, as to the limitation of the Hellenic mind. For in fact, the Finite ascribed to Pythagoras, and the idea of limit and proportion in Plato or in Aristotle, are far more nearly akin to true infinity than is the Infinite of modern popular philosophy. Infinite means the negation of limit. Now, common infinity, which may be identified in general with enumeration _ad infinitum_,--the _false_ infinity of Hegel--is the attempt to negate or transcend a limit which inevitably recurs. It arises from attempting a task or problem in the wrong way, so that we may go on for ever without making any advance towards its achievement. All quantitative infinity--which of course has its definite uses, subject to proper reservations--is of this nature. A process does not change its character by mere continuance, and the aggregate of a million units is no more free from limitation than the aggregate of ten. A defect in kind cannot be compensated by mere quantity. We see the fallacious attempt in savage, barbaric, or vulgar art. Meaningless iteration, objectless labour, enormous size, extravagant costliness, indicate the effort to satisfy man's need of expression by the mere accumulation of work without adequate idea or purpose. But such efforts, however stupendous, never attain their goal. They constitute a recurrent failure to transcend a recurrent limit, precisely analogous to enumeration _ad infinitum_. A hundred thousand pounds' worth of bricks and mortar comes no nearer to the embodiment of mind than a thousand pounds' worth. To attempt adequate expression by mere aggregation of cost or size is therefore to fall into the infinite process or the false infinity. Another well-known instance is the pursuit of happiness in the form of "pleasure for pleasure's sake." The recurrence of unchanging units leaves us where we were. A process which does not change remains the same, and if it did not bring satisfaction at first, will not do so at last.[9] We might as well go on producing parallels to infinity, in the hope that somehow or somewhere they may meet. An infinite straight line may serve as a type of the kind of infinity we are considering. Infinity in the Hegelian sense does not partake in any way of this endlessness, or of the unreality which attaches to it. Its root-idea is self-completeness or satisfaction. That which is "infinite" is without boundary, because it does not refer beyond itself for explanation, or for justification; and therefore, in all human existence or production infinity can only be an aspect or element. A picture, for instance, regarded as a work of fine art, justifies itself, gives satisfaction directly and without raising questions of cause or of comparison, and is in this sense--_i.e._ in respect of its beauty--regarded as "infinite." When, on the other hand, we consider this same work of art as an historical phenomenon, as a link in a chain of causation--_e.g._ as elucidating the development of a school, or proving the existence of a certain technical process at a certain date--then we go beyond itself for its interest and explanation, and depress it at once into a finite object. The finite is that which presents itself as incomplete; the infinite that which presents itself as complete, and which, therefore, does not force upon us the fact of its limitation. This character belongs in the highest degree to self-conscious mind, as realized in the world above sense; and in some degree to all elements of that world--for instance, to the State--in as far as they represent man's realized self-consciousness. It is the nature of self-consciousness to be infinite, because it is its nature to take into itself what was opposed to it, and thus to make itself into an organized sphere that has value and reality within, and not beyond itself. If false infinity was represented by an infinite straight line, true infinity may be compared to a circle or a sphere. The distinction between true and false infinity is of the profoundest moral import. The sickly yearning that longs only to escape from the real, rooted in the antithesis between the infinite and the actual or concrete, or in the idea of the monotonous "_infini_" which is one with the "_abîme_" or the "_gouffre_," is appraised by this test at its true value. It is seen to rest on a mere pathetic fallacy of thought and sentiment. So far from the infinite being remote, abstract, unreal, nothing but the infinite can be truly present, concrete, and real. The finite always refers us away and away through an endless series of causes, of effects, or of relations. The infinite is individual, and bears the character of knowledge, achievement, attainment. In short, the actual realities which we have in mind when, in philosophy, we speak of the infinite, are such as a nation that is conscious of its unity and general will, or the realm of fine art as the recognition of man's higher nature, or the religious community with its conviction of an indwelling Deity. Now, whether we like the term Infinite or not, whether or no we think that man's life can be explained and justified within the limits of these aims and these phenomena, there is no doubt that these matters are real, and are the most momentous of realities. In acquainting ourselves with their structure, evolution, and relation to individual life, we are at least not wasting time, nor treating of matters beyond human intelligence. There is a very similar contrast in the conception of human Freedom. "Free will" is so old a vexed question, that though the conflict still rages fitfully round it, the world hardly conceives that much can turn upon its decision. But when in place of the abstract, "Is man free?" we are confronted with the concrete inquiry, "When, in what, and as what, does man carry out his will with least hindrance and with fullest satisfaction?" then we have before us the actual phenomena of civilization, instead of an idle and abstract Yes or No. Man's Freedom, in the sense thus contemplated, lies in the spiritual or supra-sensuous world by which his humanity is realized, and in which his will finds fulfilment. The family, for example, property, and law are the first steps of man's freedom. In them the individual's will obtains and bestows recognition as an agent in a society whose bond of union is ideal--_i.e._ existing only in consciousness; and this recognition develops into duties and rights. It is in these that man finds something to live for, something in which and for the sake of which to assert himself. As society develops he lives on the whole more in the civilized or spiritual world, and less in the savage or purely natural world. His will, which is himself, expands with the institutions and ideas that form its purpose, and the history of this expansion is the history of human freedom. Nothing is more shallow, more barbarously irrational, than to regard the progress of civilization as the accumulation of restrictions. Laws and rules are a necessary aspect of extended capacities. Every power that we gain has a positive nature, and therefore involves positive conditions, and every positive condition has negative relations. To accomplish a particular purpose you must go to work in a particular way, and in no other way. To complain of this is like complaining of a house because it has a definite shape. If freedom means absence of attributes, empty space is "freer" than any edifice. Of course a house may be so ugly that we may say we would rather have none at all. Civilization may bring such horrors that we may say "rather savagery than this;" but in neither case are we serious. Great as are the vices of civilization, it is only in civilization that man becomes human, spiritual, and free. The effort to grasp and apply such an idea as this can hardly be barren. It brings us face to face with concrete facts of history, and of man's actual motives and purposes. True philosophy here, as everywhere, plunges into the concrete and the real; it is the indolent abstract fancy that thrusts problems away into the remote "beyond" or into futile abstraction. Plato, the philosopher, knows well that the mind is free when it achieves what as a whole it truly wills. But Plato, the allegorist and imaginative preacher, refers the soul's freedom to a fleeting moment of ante-natal choice, which he vainly strives to exempt from causal influence. Pictorial imagination, with its ready reference to occurrences in past and future, is the great foe to philosophic intelligence. Finally, it is impossible to omit all reference to the notion of an immanent Deity, which forms the very centre of Hegel's thought. When an unspeculative English reader first meets with Hegel's passionate insistence that God is not unknowable, that He necessarily reveals himself as a Trinity of persons, and that to deny this is to represent men as "the heathen who know not God," he feels as if he had taken sand into his mouth. He is inclined to ask what these Neo-Platonic or mediæval doctrines are doing in the nineteenth century, and why we should resuscitate dead logomachies that can have no possible value for life or conduct. Now, I must not attempt here to discuss the difficult question of Hegel's ultimate conception of the being of God, and I am bound to warn any one who may read these pages that I only profess to reproduce one--though by far the most prominent--side of that conception. But, subject to this reservation, I have no hesitation in saying, that our own prejudices form the only hindrance to our seeing that Hegel's subject-matter is here, as elsewhere, human life. He gives us what he takes to be the literal truth, and we will have it to be metaphor. Verbally contradicting Kant, he accepts, completes, and enforces Kant's thought. "Revelation can never be the true ground of religion," said Kant; "for revelation is an historical accident, and religion is a rational necessity of man's intelligent nature." "Revelation is the only true knowledge of God and ground of religion," says Hegel, "because _revelation consists in the realization of God in man's intelligent nature_." We are, however, not unaccustomed to such phrases, and our imagination is equal to its habitual task of evading their meaning. We take them to be a strong metaphor, meaning that God, who is a sort of ghostly being a long way off, is, notwithstanding, more or less within the knowledge of our minds, and so is "in" them, as a book which is actually in London may be in my memory when I am in Scotland. Now, right or wrong, this is not what Hegel means. He means what he says; that God is spirit or mind,[10] and exists in the medium of mind, _which is actual as intelligence, for us at any rate, only in the human self-consciousness_. The thought is hard from its very simplicity, and we struggle, as always, to avoid grasping it. We imagine spirits as made of a sort of thin matter, and so as existing just like bodies, although we call them disembodied. And then we think of this disembodied form as an alternative to human form, and suppose spirit to have somehow a purer existence apart from human body. This error really springs from imagining the two as existences of the same kind, and so conflicting, and from not realizing the notion of spirit as mind or self-consciousness, which is the only way of conceiving its actual presence in our world. Mind uses sensuous existence as its symbol; perhaps even needs it. The poet who has hit Hegel's thought so nearly,[11] fails here:-- "This weight of body and limb, Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him?" Here we leave the track of the higher Pantheism for that of vulgar mysticism. Spiritual being is conceived as somehow incompatible with bodily shape, either because incapable of any concrete embodiment, or because it has a quasi-material shape of its own. Now, this is just the reverse of the Hegelian idea. According to Hegel, it is only in the human form that intelligence can for us find its full expression. The notion of a spiritual body other than and incompatible with the natural body does not arise. Spirit exists in the medium of consciousness, not in a peculiar kind of matter. The spiritualization of the natural body is not to be looked for in an astral or angel body, but in the gait and gesture, the significance and dignity, that make the body of the civilized man the outward image of his soul, and distinguish him from the savage as from the animal. The human soul becomes actual itself, and visible to others, only by moulding the body into its symbol and instrument. It ought to have been an axiom of physiology, Hegel says, that the series of animated forms must necessarily lead up to that of man. For this is the only sensuous form in which mind could attain adequate manifestation. Thus anthropomorphism in fine art is no accident, nor an unworthy portrayal of divinity. If the Deity is to be symbolized to sense, it must be in the image of man. The symbol is not indeed the reality, as the sensuous image is not conscious thought; but this is a defect inherent in artistic presentation, and not attributable to anthropomorphism in particular. It is obvious that in the light of such a conception, a speculative import can be attached to the doctrine of the Incarnation, and Hegel's reading of Christian ideas is, in fact, to be interpreted entirely in this sense. This is not the place to go deeper into such views, which, however profound, may perhaps continue to seem non-natural expositions of Christian dogma. I am only concerned to show how here, also, the speculative idea, operating upon the concrete and actual, generates a fresh and inspiring insight into life and conduct. Few chapters of anthropology are more thorough, profound, and suggestive than Hegel's account of the "actual soul;" _i.e._ of the habits and attributes which make the body distinctively human by stamping it with the impress of mind. Nor has philosophic insight ever done better service to the history of religion than in grasping the essence of Christianity as the _unity_, (not merely the _union_) of the divine and human nature. Among the things which are spiritually discerned, an important place belongs to beauty. As a boundary and transition between sense and thought, it is peculiarly fitted to illustrate the reality which we claim, in contradistinction to mere sensuous appearance, for what is best in life. Many who distrust Hegelian formulæ are convinced that beauty at least is real. They will admit that fine art and the recognition of beauty are not trifles, not amusements, but rank high among the interests that give life its value. All such will find themselves in sympathy with the purpose of a great philosopher who has bent all the power of his genius and his industry to vindicating a place for art as an embodiment of the divine nature. The Introduction to Hegel's "Æsthetic," which is all that it was possible to reproduce in the present volume, lacks, of course, the solidity and detailed elaboration of the treatise. Yet to all who care for thorough and noble thought on a great subject, and for a defence of their faith in the true spiritual realities, I have hope that the ensuing pages, however marred by imperfect translation, will be welcome. HEGEL'S ÆSTHETIC. INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. THE RANGE OF ÆSTHETIC DEFINED, AND SOME OBJECTIONS REFUTED. The present course of lectures deals with "Æsthetic." Their subject is the wide _realm of the beautiful_, and, more particularly, their province is _Art_--we may restrict it, indeed, to _Fine Art_. The name "Æsthetic" in its natural sense is not quite appropriate to this subject. "Æsthetic" means more precisely the science of sensation or feeling. Thus understood, it arose as a new science, or rather as something that was to become a branch of philosophy for the first time,[12] in the school of Wolff, at the epoch when works of art were being considered in Germany in the light of the feelings which they were supposed to evoke--feelings of pleasure, admiration, fear, pity, etc. The name was so inappropriate, or, strictly speaking, so superficial, that for this reason it was attempted to form other names, _e.g._ "Kallistic." But this name, again, is unsatisfactory, for the science to be designated does not treat of beauty in general, but merely of _artistic_ beauty. We shall, therefore, permit the name Æsthetic to stand, because it is nothing but a name, and so is indifferent to us, and, moreover, has up to a certain point passed into common language. As a name, therefore, it may be retained. The proper expression, however, for our science is the "Philosophy of Art," or, more definitely, the "Philosophy of Fine Art." [Greek: a.] By the above expression we at once exclude the _beauty of Nature_. Such a limitation of our subject may appear to be an arbitrary demarcation, resting on the principle that every science has the prerogative of marking out its boundaries at pleasure. But this is not the sense in which we are to understand the limitation of Æsthetic to _the beauty of art_. It is true that in common life we are in the habit of speaking of beautiful colour, a beautiful sky, a beautiful river, and, moreover, of beautiful flowers, beautiful animals, and, above all, of beautiful human beings. We will not just now enter into the controversy how far such objects can justly have the attribute of beauty ascribed to them, or how far, speaking generally, natural beauty ought to be recognized as existing besides artistic beauty. We may, however, begin at once by asserting that artistic beauty stands _higher_ than nature. For the beauty of art is the beauty that is born--born again, that is--of the mind;[13] and by as much as the mind and its products are higher than nature and its appearances, by so much the beauty of art is higher than the beauty of nature. Indeed, if we look at it _formally_--i.e. only considering in what way it exists, not what there is in it,--even a silly fancy such as may pass through a man's head is _higher_ than any product of nature; for such a fancy must at least be characterized by intellectual being and by freedom.[14] In respect of its content, on the other hand, the sun, for instance, appears to us to be an absolutely necessary factor in the universe, while a blundering notion passes away as accidental and transient; but yet, in its own being, a natural existence such as the sun is indifferent,[15] is not free or self-conscious, while if we consider it in its necessary connection with other things we are not regarding it by itself or for its own sake, and, therefore, not as beautiful. To say, as we have said, in general terms, that mind and its artistic beauty stand _higher_ than natural beauty, is no doubt to determine almost nothing. For "higher" is an utterly indefinite expression, which designates the beauty of nature and that of art as if merely standing side by side in the space of the imagination, and states the difference between them as purely quantitative, and, therefore, purely external. But the mind and its artistic beauty, in being "_higher_" as compared with nature, have a distinction which is not simply relative. Mind, and mind only, is capable of truth, and comprehends in itself all that is, so that whatever is beautiful can only be really and truly beautiful as partaking in this higher element and as created thereby. In this sense the beauty of nature reveals itself as but a reflection of the beauty which belongs to the mind, as an imperfect, incomplete mode of being, as a mode whose really substantial element is contained in the mind itself. Moreover, we shall find the restriction to fine art very natural, for however much has been and is said--though less by the ancients than by ourselves--of the beauties of nature, yet no one has taken it into his head to emphasize the point of view of the _beauty_ of natural objects, and to attempt to make a science, a systematic account of these beauties. The aspect of _Utility_, indeed, has been accentuated, and a science, _e.g._ of natural things useful against diseases a _materia medica_, has been compiled, consisting in a description of minerals, chemical products, plants, and animals that are of use for curative purposes. But the realm of nature has not been arrayed and estimated under the aspect of beauty. In dealing with natural beauty we find ourselves too open to _vagueness_, and too destitute of a _criterion_; for which reason such a review would have little interest. The above prefatory remarks upon beauty in nature and in art, upon the relation between the two, and the exclusion of the former from the region of the subject proper, are meant to remove any idea that the limitation of our science is owing merely to choice and to caprice. But this is not the place to _demonstrate_ the above relation, for the consideration of it falls within our science itself, and therefore it cannot be discussed and demonstrated till later. Supposing that for the present we have limited ourselves to the beauty of art, this first step brings us at once into contact with fresh difficulties. [Greek: b.] The first thing that may suggest itself to us is the difficulty whether fine art shows itself to _deserve_ a scientific treatment. Beauty and art, no doubt, pervade all the business of life like a kindly genius, and form the bright adornment of all our surroundings, both mental and material, soothing the sadness of our condition and the embarrassments of real life, killing time in entertaining fashion, and where there is nothing good to be achieved, occupying the place of what is vicious, better, at any rate, than vice. Yet although art presses in with its pleasing shapes on every possible occasion, from the rude adornments of the savage to the splendour of the temple with its untold wealth of decoration, still these shapes themselves appear to fall outside the real purposes of life. And even if the creations of art do not prove detrimental to our graver purposes, if they appear at times actually to further them by keeping evil at a distance, still it is so far true that art belongs rather to the relaxation and leisure of the mind, while the substantive interests of life demand its exertion. Hence it may seem unsuitable and pedantic to treat with scientific seriousness what is not in itself of a serious nature. In any case, upon such a view art appears as a superfluity, even if the softening of the mental temper which preoccupation with beauty has power to produce, does not turn out a detrimental, because effeminating influence. In this aspect of the matter, the fine arts being granted to be a _luxury_, it has been thought necessary in various ways to take up their defence with reference to their relation towards _practical_ necessities, and more especially towards morality and piety; and, as it is impossible to demonstrate their harmlessness, at least to make it credible that the mental luxury in question afforded a larger sum of _advantages_ than of _disadvantages_. With this view very serious aims have been ascribed to art, and it has been recommended in various ways as a mediator between reason and sensuousness, between inclination and duty, as the reconciler of these elements in the obstinate conflict and repulsion which their collision generates. But the opinion may be maintained that, assuming such aims of art, more serious though they are, nothing is gained for reason and duty by the attempt at mediation, because these principles, as essentially incapable of intermixture, can be parties to no such compromise, but demand in their manifestation the same purity which they have in themselves. And it might be said that art itself is not made any more worthy of scientific discussion by such treatment, seeing that it is still doubly a servant--to higher aims, no doubt, on the one hand, but none the less to vacuity and frivolity on the other; and in such service can at best only display itself as a means, instead of being an end pursued for its own sake. Finally, art, considered as a means, seems to labour under this defect of form, that, supposing it to be subordinated to serious ends, and to produce results of importance, still the means employed by art for such purposes is _deception_. For beauty has its being in appearance.[16] Now, it will readily be admitted that an aim which is real and true in itself ought not to be attained by deception, and if it does here and there achieve some success in this way, that can only be the case to a limited extent, and even then deception cannot approve itself as the right means. For the means should correspond to the dignity of the end, and only what is real and true, not semblance or deception, has power to create what is real and true; just as science, for instance, has to consider the true interests of the mind in accordance with the truth of reality and the true way of conceiving it. In all these respects it may appear as if fine art were _unworthy_ of scientific consideration; because, as is alleged, it is at best a pleasing amusement, and even if it pursues more serious aims is in contradiction with their nature, but is at best the mere servant alike of amusement and of serious aims, and yet has at command, whether as the element of its being or as the vehicle of its action, nothing beyond deception and semblance. [Greek: g]. But, in the second place, it is a still more probable aspect of the question that, even if fine art were to form a subject of philosophical reflections in a general way, it would be no _appropriate_ matter for strictly scientific treatment. The beauty of art presents itself to sense, to feeling, to perception, to imagination; its sphere is not that of thought, and the apprehension of its activity and its productions demand another organ than that of the scientific intelligence. Moreover, what we enjoy in the beauty of art is precisely the _freedom_ of its productive and plastic energy. In the origination, as in the contemplation, of its creations we appear to escape wholly from the fetters of rule and regularity. In the forms of art we seek for repose and animation in place of the austerity of the reign of law and the sombre self-concentration of thought; we would exchange the shadowland of the idea for cheerful vigorous reality. And lastly, the source of artistic creations is the free activity of fancy, which in her imagination is more free than nature's self. Not only has art at command the whole wealth of natural forms in the brilliant variety of their appearance, but also the creative imagination has power to expatiate inexhaustibly beyond their limit in products of _its own_. It may be supposed that, in presence of this immeasurable abundance of inspiration and its free creations, thought will necessarily lose the courage to bring them _completely_ before it, to criticize them, and to array them under its universal formulæ. Science, on the contrary, every one admits, is compelled by its form to busy itself with thought which abstracts from the mass of particulars. For this reason, on the one hand, imagination with its contingency and caprice--that is, the organ of artistic activity and enjoyment--is of necessity excluded from science. And on the other hand, seeing that art is what cheers and animates the dull and withered dryness of the idea, reconciles with reality its abstraction and its dissociation therefrom, and supplies out of the real world what is lacking to the notion, it follows, we may think, that a _purely_ intellectual treatment of art destroys this very means of supplementation, annihilates it, and reduces the idea once more to its simplicity devoid of reality, and to its shadowy abstractness. And further, it is objected that science, as a matter of _content_, occupies itself with what is _necessary_. Now, if Æsthetic puts aside the beauty of nature, we not only gain nothing in respect of necessity, but to all appearance have got further away from it. For the expression _Nature_ at once gives us the idea of Necessity and Uniformity,[17] that is to say, of a behaviour which may be hoped to be akin to science, and capable of submitting thereto. But in the mind, generally, and more particularly in the imagination, compared with nature, caprice and lawlessness are supposed to be peculiarly at home; and these withdraw themselves as a matter of course from all scientific explanation. Thus in all these aspects--in origin, in effect, and in range--fine art, instead of showing itself fitted for scientific study, seems rather in its own right to resist the regulating activity of thought, and to be unsuitable for strict scientific discussion. These and similar objections against a genuinely scientific treatment of fine art are drawn from common ideas, points of view, and considerations, which may be read _ad nauseam_ in full elaboration in the older writers upon beauty and the fine arts, especially in the works of French authors. And in part they contain facts which have a certain truth; in part, too, the argumentation[18] based upon these facts appears plausible at first sight. Thus, _e.g._, there is the fact that the forms of beauty are as manifold as the phenomenon of beauty is omnipresent; and from this, if we choose, we may proceed to conclude to a universal _impulse of Beauty_ in human nature, and then go on to the further inference: that because ideas of beauty are so endlessly various, and therefore, as seems obvious, are something _particular_,[19] it follows that there can be no universal laws of beauty and of taste. Before it is possible for us to turn from such considerations to our subject proper, it is our business to devote a brief introductory discussion to the objections and doubts which have been raised. In the first place, as regards the _worthiness_ of art to be scientifically considered, it is no doubt the case that art can be employed as a fleeting pastime, to serve the ends of pleasure and entertainment, to decorate our surroundings, to impart pleasantness to the external conditions of our life, and to emphasize other objects by means of ornament. In this mode of employment art is indeed not independent, not free, but servile. But what _we_ mean to consider, is the art which is _free_ in its end as in its means. That art is in the abstract capable of serving other aims, and of being a mere pastime, is moreover a relation which it shares with thought. For, on the one hand, science, in the shape of the subservient understanding, submits to be used for finite purposes, and as an accidental means, and in that case is not self-determined, but determined by alien objects and relations; but, on the other hand, science liberates itself from this service to rise in free independence to the attainment of truth, in which medium, free from all interference, it fulfils itself in conformity with its proper aims. Fine art is not real art till it is in this sense free, and only achieves its highest task when it has taken its place in the same sphere with religion and philosophy, and has become simply a mode of revealing to consciousness and bringing to utterance the Divine Nature,[20] the deepest interests of humanity, and the most comprehensive truths of the mind. It is in works of art that nations have deposited the profoundest intuitions and ideas of their hearts; and fine art is frequently the key--with many nations there is no other--to the understanding of their wisdom and of their religion. This is an attribute which art shares with religion and philosophy, only in this peculiar mode, that it represents even the highest ideas _in sensuous forms_, thereby bringing them nearer to the character of natural phenomena, to the senses, and to feeling. The world, into whose depths _thought_ penetrates, is a supra-sensuous world, which is thus, to begin with, erected as a _beyond_ over against immediate consciousness and present sensation; the power which thus rescues itself from the _here_, that consists in the actuality and finiteness of sense, is the freedom of thought in cognition. But the mind is able to heal this schism which its advance creates; it generates out of itself the works of fine art as the first middle term of reconciliation between pure thought and what is external, sensuous, and transitory, between nature with its finite actuality and the infinite freedom of the reason that comprehends. [Greek: d]. The _element_ of art was said to be in its general nature an _unworthy_ element, as consisting in appearance and deception. The censure would be not devoid of justice, if it were possible to class appearance as something that ought not to exist. An appearance or show, however, is essential to existence. Truth could not be, did it not appear and reveal itself,[21] were it not truth _for_ some one or something, _for_ itself as also _for_ Mind. Therefore there can be no objection against appearance in general, but, if at all, against the particular mode of appearance in which art gives actuality to what is in itself real and true. If, in this aspect, the _appearance_ with which art gives its conceptions life as determinate existences is to be termed a _deception_, this is a criticism which primarily receives its meaning by comparison with the external world of phenomena and its immediate contact with us as _matter_, and in like manner by the standard of our own world of feeling, that is, the inner world of _sense_. These are the two worlds to which, in the life of daily experience, in our own phenomenal[22] life, we are accustomed to attribute the value and the title of actuality, reality, and truth, in contrast to art, which we set down as lacking such reality and truth. Now, this whole sphere of the empirical inner and outer world is just what is not the world of genuine reality, but is to be entitled a mere appearance more strictly than is true of art, and a crueller deception. Genuine reality is only to be found beyond the immediacy of feeling and of external objects. Nothing is genuinely real but that which is actual in its own right,[23] that which is the substance of nature and of mind, fixing itself indeed in present and definite existence, but in this existence still retaining its essential and self-centred being, and thus and no otherwise attaining genuine reality. The dominion of these universal powers is exactly what art accentuates and reveals. The common outer and inner world also no doubt present to us this essence of reality, but in the shape of a chaos of accidental matters, encumbered by the immediateness of sensuous presentation, and by arbitrary states, events, characters, etc. Art liberates the real import of appearances from the semblance and deception of this bad and fleeting world, and imparts to phenomenal semblances a higher reality, born of mind. The appearances of art, therefore, far from being mere semblances, have the higher reality and the more genuine existence in comparison with the realities of common life. Just as little can the representations of art be called a deceptive semblance in comparison with the representations of historical narrative, as if that had the more genuine truth. For history has not even immediate existence, but only the intellectual presentation of it, for the element of its portrayals, and its content remains burdened with the whole mass of contingent matter formed by common reality with its occurrences, complications, and individualities. But the work of art brings before us the eternal powers that hold dominion in history, without any such superfluity in the way of immediate sensuous presentation and its unstable semblances. Again, the mode of appearance of the shapes produced by art may be called a deception in comparison with philosophic thought, with religious or moral principles. Beyond a doubt the mode of revelation which a content attains in the realm of thought is the truest reality; but in comparison with the show or semblance of immediate sensuous existence or of historical narrative, the artistic semblance has the advantage that in itself it points beyond itself, and refers us away from itself to something spiritual which it is meant to bring before the mind's eye. Whereas immediate appearance does not give itself out to be deceptive, but rather to be real and true, though all the time its truth is contaminated and infected by the immediate sensuous element. The hard rind of nature and the common world give the mind more trouble in breaking through to the idea than do the products of art. But if, on the one side, we assign this high position to art, we must no less bear in mind, on the other hand, that art is not, either in content or in form, the supreme and absolute mode of bringing the mind's genuine interests into consciousness. The form of art is enough to limit it to a restricted content. Only a certain circle and grade of truth is capable of being represented in the medium of art. Such truth must have in its own nature the capacity to go forth into sensuous form and be adequate to itself therein, if it is to be a genuinely artistic content, as is the case with the gods of Greece. There is, however, a deeper form of truth, in which it is no longer so closely akin and so friendly to sense as to be adequately embraced and expressed by that medium. Of such a kind is the Christian conception of truth; and more especially the spirit of our modern world, or, to come closer, of our religion and our intellectual culture, reveals itself as beyond the stage at which art is the highest mode assumed by man's consciousness of the absolute. The peculiar mode to which artistic production and works of art belong no longer satisfies our supreme need. We are above the level at which works of art can be venerated as divine, and actually worshipped; the impression which they make is of a more considerate kind, and the feelings which they stir within us require a higher test and a further confirmation. Thought and reflection have taken their flight above fine art. Those who delight in grumbling and censure may set down this phenomenon for a corruption, and ascribe it to the predominance of passion and selfish interests, which scare away at once the seriousness and the cheerfulness of art. Or we may accuse the troubles of the present time and the complicated condition of civil and political life as hindering the feelings, entangled in minute preoccupations, from freeing themselves, and rising to the higher aims of art, the intelligence itself being subordinate to petty needs and interests, in sciences which only subserve such purposes and are seduced into making this barren region their home. However all this may be, it certainly is the case, that art no longer affords that satisfaction of spiritual wants which earlier epochs and peoples have sought therein, and have found therein only; a satisfaction which, at all events on the religious side, was most intimately and profoundly connected with art. The beautiful days of Greek art, and the golden time of the later middle ages are gone by. The reflective culture of our life of to-day, makes it a necessity for us, in respect of our will no less than of our judgment, to adhere to general points of view, and to regulate particular matters according to them, so that general forms, laws, duties, rights, maxims are what have validity as grounds of determination and are the chief regulative force. But what is required for artistic interest as for artistic production is, speaking generally, a living creation, in which the universal is not present as law and maxim, but acts as if one with the mood and the feelings, just as, in the imagination, the universal and rational is contained only as brought into unity with a concrete sensuous phenomenon. Therefore, our present in its universal condition is not favourable to art. As regards the artist himself, it is not merely that the reflection which finds utterance all round him, and the universal habit of having an opinion and passing judgment about art infect him, and mislead him into putting more abstract thought into his works themselves; but also the whole spiritual culture of the age is of such a kind that he himself stands within this reflective world and its conditions, and it is impossible for him to abstract from it by will and resolve, or to contrive for himself and bring to pass, by means of peculiar education or removal from the relations of life, a peculiar solitude that would replace all that is lost. In all these respects art is, and remains for us, on the side of its highest destiny, a thing of the past. Herein it has further lost for us its genuine truth and life, and rather is transferred into our _ideas_ than asserts its former necessity, or assumes its former place, in reality. What is now aroused in us by works of art is over and above our immediate enjoyment, and together with it, our judgment; inasmuch as we subject the content and the means of representation of the work of art and the suitability or unsuitability of the two to our intellectual consideration. Therefore, the _science_ of art is a much more pressing need in our day, than in times in which art, simply as art, was enough to furnish a full satisfaction. Art invites us to consideration of it by means of thought, not to the end of stimulating art production, but in order to ascertain scientifically what art is. [Greek: e]. As soon as we propose to accept this invitation we are met by the difficulty which has already been touched upon in the suggestion that, though art is a suitable subject for philosophical reflection in the general sense, yet it is not so for systematic and scientific discussion. In this objection there lies the false idea that a philosophical consideration may, nevertheless, be unscientific. On this point it can only be remarked here with brevity, that, whatever ideas others may have of philosophy and philosophizing, I regard the pursuit of philosophy as utterly incapable of existing apart from a scientific procedure. Philosophy has to consider its object in its necessity, not, indeed, in its subjective necessity or external arrangement, classification, etc., but it has to unfold and demonstrate the object out of the necessity of its own inner nature. Until this evolution[24] is brought to pass the scientific element is lacking to the treatment. In as far, however, as the objective necessity of an object lies essentially in its logical and metaphysical nature, the isolated treatment of art must be conducted with a certain relaxation of scientific stringency. For art involves the most complex pre-suppositions, partly in reference to its content, partly in respect of its medium[25] and element,[26] in which art is constantly on the borders of the arbitrary or accidental. Thus it is only as regards the essential innermost progress of its content and of its media of expression that we must call to mind the outline prescribed by its necessity. The objection that works of fine art elude the treatment of scientific thought because they originate out of the unregulated fancy and out of the feelings, are of a number and variety that defy the attempt to gain a conspectus, and therefore take effect only on feeling and imagination, raises a problem which appears still to have importance. For the beauty of art does in fact appear in a form which is expressly contrasted with abstract thought, and which the latter is forced to destroy in exerting the activity which is its nature. This idea coheres with the opinion that reality as such, the life of nature and of mind, is disfigured and slain by comprehension; that, so far from being brought close to us by the thought which comprehends, it is by it that such life is absolutely dissociated from us, so that, by the use of thought as the _means_ of grasping what has life, man rather cuts himself off from this his purpose. We cannot speak fully on this subject in the present passage, but only indicate the point of view from which the removal of this difficulty, or impossibility depending on maladaptation, might be effected. It will be admitted, to begin with, that the mind is capable of contemplating itself, and of possessing a consciousness, and that a _thinking_ consciousness, of itself and all that is generated by itself. Thought--to think--is precisely that in which the mind has its innermost and essential nature. In gaining this thinking consciousness concerning itself and its products, the mind is behaving according to its essential nature, however much freedom and caprice those products may display, supposing only that in real truth they have mind in them. Now art and its works as generated and created by the mind (spirit), are themselves of a spiritual nature, even if their mode of representation admits into itself the semblance of sensuous being, and pervades what is sensuous with mind. In this respect art is, to begin with, nearer to mind and its thinking activity than is mere external unintelligent nature; in works of art, mind has to do but with its own. And even if artistic works are not abstract thought and notion, but are an evolution of the notion _out of_ itself, an alienation from itself towards the sensuous, still the power of the thinking spirit (mind) lies herein, _not merely_ to grasp _itself only_ in its peculiar form of the self-conscious spirit (mind), but just as much to recognize itself in its alienation in the shape of feeling and the sensuous, in its other form, by transmuting the metamorphosed thought back into definite thoughts, and so restoring it to itself. And in this preoccupation with the other of itself the thinking spirit is not to be held untrue to itself as if forgetting or surrendering itself therein, nor is it so weak as to lack strength to comprehend what is different from itself, but it comprehends both itself and its opposite. For the notion is the universal, which preserves itself in its particularizations, dominates alike itself and its "other," and so becomes the power and activity that consists in undoing the alienation which it had evolved. And thus the work of art in which thought alienates itself belongs, like thought itself, to the realm of comprehending thought, and the mind, in subjecting it to scientific consideration, is thereby but satisfying the want of its own inmost nature. For because thought is its essence and notion, it can in the last resort only be satisfied when it has succeeded in imbuing all the products of its activity with thought, and has thus for the first time made them genuinely its own. But, as we shall see more definitely below, art is far from being the highest form of mind, and receives its true ratification only from science.[27] Just as little does art elude philosophical consideration by unbridled caprice. As has already been indicated, it is its true task to bring to consciousness the highest interests of the mind. Hence it follows at once with respect to the _content_ that fine art cannot rove in the wildness of unfettered fancy, for these spiritual interests determine definite bases[28] for its content, how manifold and inexhaustible soever its forms and shapes may be. The same holds true for the forms themselves. They, again, are not at the mercy of mere chance. Not every plastic shape[29] is capable of being the expression and representation of those spiritual interests, of absorbing and of reproducing them; every definite content determines a form suitable to it. In this aspect too, then, we are in a position to find our bearings according to the needs of thought in the apparently unmanageable mass of works and types of art. Thus, I hope, we have begun by defining the content of our science, to which we propose to confine ourselves, and have seen that neither is fine art unworthy of a philosophical consideration, nor is a philosophical consideration incompetent to arrive at a knowledge of the essence of fine art. CHAPTER II. METHODS OF SCIENCE APPLICABLE TO BEAUTY AND ART. If we now investigate _the required mode of scientific consideration_, we here again meet with two opposite ways of treating the subject, each of which appears to exclude the other, and so to hinder us from arriving at _any true result_. On one side we see the science of art merely, so to speak, busying itself about the actual productions of art from the outside, arranging them in series as a history of art, initiating discussions about extant works, or sketching out theories intended to provide the general points of view that are to govern both criticism and artistic production. On the other side we see science abandoning itself independently to reflection upon the beautiful, and producing mere generalities which do not touch the work of art in its peculiarity, creating, in short, an abstract philosophy of the beautiful. 1. As regards the former mode of treatment, which starts from the empirical side, it is the indispensable road for any one who means to become a student of art. And just as in the present day every one, even though he is not busied with natural science, yet pretends to be equipped with the essentials of physical knowledge, so it has become more or less obligatory for a cultivated man to possess some acquaintance with art,[30] and the pretension to display one's-self as a dilettante and connoisseur is pretty universal. (_a_) If such information is really to be recognized as art-scholarship,[31] it must be of various kinds and of wide range. The first necessity is an exact acquaintance with the immeasurable region of individual works of art of ancient and modern times, works which in part have actually perished, in part belong to distant countries or portions of the world, or which adverse fortune has withdrawn from one's own observation. Moreover, every work belongs to its _age_, to its _nation_, and to its environment, and depends upon particular historical and other ideas and aims. For this reason art-scholarship further requires a vast wealth of historical information of a very special kind, seeing that the individualized nature of the work of art is related to individual detail and demands special matter to aid in its comprehension and elucidation. And lastly, this kind of scholarship not only needs, like every other, a memory for information, but a vivid imagination in order to retain distinctly the images of artistic forms in all their different features, and especially in order to have them present to the mind for purposes of comparison with other works. (_b_) Within this kind of consideration, which is primarily historical, there soon emerge various points of view which cannot be lost sight of in contemplating a work of art, inasmuch as our judgments must be derived from them. Now these points of view, as in other sciences which have an empirical starting-point, when extracted and put together form universal criteria and rules, and, in a still further stage of formal generalization, _Theories of the arts_. This is not the place to go into detail about literature of this kind, and it may, therefore, suffice to mention a few writings in the most general way. For instance, there is Aristotle's "Poetics," the theory of tragedy contained in which is still of interest; and to speak more particularly, among the ancients, Horace's "Ars Poetica" and Longinus's "Treatise on the Sublime" suffice to give a general idea of the way in which this kind of theorizing has been carried on. The general formulæ which were abstracted by such writers were meant to stand especially as precepts and rules, according to which, particularly in times of degeneration of poetry and art, works of art were meant to be produced. The prescriptions, however, compiled by these physicians of art had even less assured success than those of physicians whose aim was the restoration of health. Respecting theories of this kind, I propose merely to mention that, though _in detail_ they contain much that is instructive, yet their remarks were abstracted from a very limited circle of artistic productions, which passed for _the_ genuinely beautiful ones, but yet always belonged to a but narrow range of art. And again, such formulæ are in part very trivial reflections which in their generality proceed to no establishment of particulars, although this is the matter of chief concern. The above-mentioned Horatian epistle is full of these reflections, and, therefore, is a book for all men, but one which for this very reason contains much that amounts to nothing, _e.g._-- "Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci Lectorem delectando pariterque monendo"-- "He carries all votes, who has mingled the pleasant and the useful, by at once charming and instructing his reader." This is just like so many copybook headings,[32] _e.g._ "Stay at home and earn an honest livelihood," which are right enough as generalities, but lack the concrete determinations on which action depends. Another kind of interest was found, not in the express aim of directly causing the production of genuine works of art, but in the purpose which emerged of influencing men's judgment upon works of art by such theories, in short of _forming taste_. In this aspect, Home's "Elements of Criticism," the writings of Batteux, and Ramler's "Introduction to the Fine Arts," were works much read in their day. Taste in this sense has to do with arrangement and treatment, the harmony and finish of what belongs to the external aspect of a work of art. Besides, they brought in among the principles of taste views that belonged to the psychology that was then in vogue, and that had been drawn from empirical observation of capacities and activities of the soul, of the passions and their probable heightening, succession, etc. But it remains invariably the case that every man judges works of art, or characters, actions, and incidents according to the measure of his insight and his feelings; and as that formation of taste only touched what was meagre and external, and moreover drew its precepts only from a narrow range of works of art and from a _borné_ culture of intellect and feelings, its whole sphere was inadequate, and incapable of seizing the inmost and the true, and of sharpening the eye for the apprehension thereof. Such theories proceed in general outline, as do the remaining non-philosophic sciences. The content which they subject to consideration is borrowed from our idea of it, as something found there; then further questions are asked about the nature of this idea, inasmuch as a need reveals itself for closer determinations, which are also found in our idea of the matter, and drawn from it to be fixed in definitions. But in so doing, we find ourselves at once on uncertain and debatable ground. It might indeed appear at first as if the beautiful were a perfectly simple idea. But it soon becomes evident that manifold sides may be found in it, one of which is emphasized by one writer and another by another, or, even if the same points of view are adopted, a dispute arises on the question which side after all is to be regarded as the essential one. With a view to such questions it is held a point of scientific completeness to adduce and to criticize the various definitions of the beautiful. We will do this neither with historical _exhaustiveness_, so as to learn all the subtleties which have emerged in the defining process, nor for the sake of the _historical_ interest; but we will simply produce by way of illustration, some of the more interesting modern views which come pretty close in their purport to what in fact the idea of the beautiful does involve. For such purpose we have chiefly to mention Goethe's account of the beautiful, which Meyer embodied in his "History of the Formative Arts[33] in Greece," on which occasion he also brings forward Hirt's view, though without mentioning him. Hirt, one of the greatest of genuine connoisseurs in the present day, in his brochure about artistic beauty (_Horen_,[34] 1797, seventh number), after speaking of the beautiful in the several arts, sums up his ideas in the result that the basis of a just criticism of beauty in art and of the formation of taste is the conception of the _Characteristic_. That is to say, he defines the beautiful as the "perfect, which is or can be an object of eye, ear, or imagination." Then he goes on to define the perfect as "that which is adequate to its aim, that which nature or art aimed at producing within the given genus and species[35] in the formation of the object." For which reason, in order to form our judgment on a question of beauty, we ought to direct our observation as far as possible to the individual marks which constitute a definite essence. For it is just these marks that form its characteristics. And so by _character_ as the law of art he means "that determinate individual modification[36] whereby forms, movement and gesture, bearing and expression, local colour, light and shade, chiaroscuro[37] and attitude distinguish themselves, in conformity, of course, with the requirements of an object previously selected." This formula gives us at once something more significant than the other definitions. If we go on to ask what "the characteristic" is, we see that it involves in the first place _a content_, as, for instance, a particular feeling, situation, incident, action, individual; and secondly, the _mode_ and _fashion_ in which this content is embodied in a representation. It is to this, the mode of representation, that the artistic law of the "characteristic" refers, inasmuch as it requires that every particular element in the mode of expression shall subserve the definite indication of its content and be a member in the expression of that content. The abstract formula of the characteristic thus has reference to the degree of appropriateness with which the particular detail of the artistic form sets in relief the content which it is intended to represent. If we desire to illustrate this conception in a quite popular way, we may explain the limitation which it involves as follows. In a dramatic work, for instance, an action forms the content; the drama[38] is to represent how this action takes place. Now, men and women do all sorts of things; they speak to each other from time to time, at intervals they eat, sleep, put on their clothes, say one thing and another, and so forth. But in all this, whatever does not stand in immediate connection with that particular action considered as the content proper, is to be excluded, so that in reference to it nothing may be without import. So, too, a picture, that only represented a single phase of that action, might yet include in it--so wide are the ramifications of the external world--a multitude of circumstances, persons, positions, and other matters which at that moment have no reference to the action in question, and are not subservient to its distinctive character. But, according to the rule of the characteristic, only so much ought to enter into the work of art as belongs to the display[39] and, essentially, to the expression of that content and no other; for nothing must announce itself as otiose and superfluous. This is a very important rule, which may be justified in a certain aspect. Meyer, however, in his above-mentioned work, gives it as his opinion that this view has vanished and left no trace, and, in his judgment, to the benefit of art. For he thinks that the conception in question would probably have _led_ to caricature. This judgment at once contains the perversity of implying that such a determination of the beautiful had to do with _leading_. The Philosophy of art does not trouble itself about precepts for artists, but it has to ascertain what beauty in general is, and how it has displayed itself in actual productions, in works of art, without meaning to give rules for guidance. Apart from this, if we examine the criticism, we find it to be true, no doubt, that Hirt's definition includes caricature, for even a caricature may be characteristic; but, on the other hand, it must be answered at once that in caricature the definite character is intensified to exaggeration, and is, so to speak, a superfluity of the characteristic. But a superfluity ceases to be what is properly required in order to be characteristic, and becomes an offensive iteration, whereby the characteristic itself may be made unnatural. Moreover, what is of the nature of caricature shows itself in the light of the characteristic representation of what is ugly, which ugliness is, of course, a distortion. Ugliness, for its part, is closely connected with the content, so that it may be said that the principle of the characteristic involves as a fundamental property both ugliness and the representation of what is ugly. Hirt's definition, of course, gives no more precise information as to what is to be characterized and what is not, in the artistically beautiful, or about the content of the beautiful, but it furnishes in this respect a mere formal rule, which nevertheless contains some truth, although stated in abstract shape. Then follows the further question--what Meyer opposes to Hirt's artistic principle, _i.e._ what he himself prefers. He is treating, in the first place, exclusively of the principle shown in the artistic works of the ancients, which principle, however, must include the essential attribute[40] of beauty. In dealing with this subject he is led to speak of Mengs and Winckelmann's principle[40] of the Ideal, and pronounces himself to the effect that he desires neither to reject nor wholly to accept this law of beauty, but, on the other hand, has no hesitation in attaching himself to the opinion of an enlightened judge of art (Goethe), as it is definite,[41] and seems to solve the enigma more precisely. Goethe says: "The highest principle of the ancients was the _significant_, but the highest result of successful _treatment_, the _beautiful_." If we look closer at what this opinion implies, we find in it again two elements; the content or matter in hand, and the mode and fashion of representation. In looking at a work of art we begin with what presents itself immediately to us, and after that go on to consider what is its significance or content. The former, the external element, has no value for us simply as it stands; we assume something further behind it, something inward, a significance, by which the external semblance has a soul breathed into it.[42] It is this, its soul, that the external appearance indicates. For an appearance which means something, does not present to the mind's eye itself and that which it is _qua_ external, but something else; as does the _symbol_ for instance, and still more obviously the _fable_, whose moral and precept constitutes its meaning. Indeed every _word_ points to a meaning and has no value in itself. Just so the human eye, a man's face, flesh, skin, his whole figure, are a revelation of mind and soul, and in this case the meaning is always something other than what shows itself within the immediate appearance. This is the way in which a work of art should have its meaning, and not appear as exhausted in these mere particular lines, curves, surfaces, borings, reliefs in the stone, in these colours, tones, sounds, of words, or whatever other medium is employed; but it should reveal life, feeling, soul, import and mind, which is just what we mean by the significance of a work of art. Thus this requirement of _significance_ in a work of art amounts to hardly anything beyond or different from Hirt's principle of the _characteristic_. According to this notion, then, we find distinguished as the elements of the beautiful something inward, a content, and something outer which has that content as its significance; the inner shows itself in the outer and gives itself to be known by its means, inasmuch as the outer points away from itself to the inner. We cannot go into detail on this head. (_c_) But the earlier fashion alike of rules and of theories has already been violently thrown aside in Germany--especially owing to the appearance of genuine living poetry,--and the rights of genius, its works and their effects, have had their value asserted against the encroachment of such legalities and against the wide watery streams of theory. From this foundation both of an art which is itself genuinely spiritual, and of a general sympathy and communion with it, have arisen the receptivity and freedom which enabled us to enjoy and to recognize the great works of art which have long been in existence, whether those of the modern world,[43] of the middle ages, or even of peoples of antiquity quite alien to us (_e.g._ the Indian productions); works which by reason of their antiquity or of their alien nationality have, no doubt, a foreign element in them, yet in view of their content--common to all humanity and dominating their foreign character--could not have been branded as products of bad and barbarous taste, except by the prejudices of theory. This recognition, to speak generally, of works of art which depart from the sphere and form of those upon which more especially the abstractions of theory were based, led, in the first instance, to the recognition of a peculiar kind of art--that is, of _romantic_ art,--and it therefore became necessary to apprehend the idea and the nature of the beautiful in a deeper way than was possible for those theories. With this influence there co-operated another, viz. that the idea in its self-conscious form, the thinking mind, attained at this time, on its side, a deeper self-knowledge in philosophy, and was thereby directly impelled to understand the essence of art, too, in a profounder fashion. Thus, then, even judging by the phases of this more general evolution of ideas, the theoretical mode of reflection upon art which we were considering has become antiquated alike in its principles and in its particulars. Only the _scholarship_ of the history of art has retained its permanent value, and cannot but retain it, all the more that the advance of intellectual receptivity, of which we spoke, has extended its range of vision on every side. Its business and vocation consists in the æsthetic appreciation of individual works of art, and in acquaintance with the historical circumstances that externally condition such works; an appreciation which, if made with sense and mind, supported by the requisite historical information, is the only power that can penetrate the entire individuality of a work of art. Thus Goethe, for instance, wrote much about art and particular works of art. Theorizing proper is not the purpose of this mode of consideration, although no doubt it frequently busies itself with abstract principles and categories, and may give way to this tendency without being aware of it. But for a reader who does not let this hinder him, but keeps before him the concrete accounts of works of art, which we spoke of just now, it at all events furnishes the philosophy of art with the perceptible illustrations and instances, into the particular historical details of which philosophy cannot enter. This, then, may be taken to be the first mode of the study of art, starting from particular and extant works. 2. There is an essential distinction between this and the opposite aspect, the wholly theoretical reflection, which made an effort to understand beauty as such out of itself alone, and to get to the bottom of its idea. It is well known that Plato was the first to require of philosophical study, in a really profound sense, that its objects should be apprehended, not in their _particularity_, but in their _universality_, in their genius, in their own nature and its realization: inasmuch as he affirmed that the truth of things[44] did not consist in individual good actions, true opinions, beautiful human beings or works of art, but in _goodness_, _beauty_, _truth_ themselves. Now, if the beautiful is in fact to be known according to its essence and conception, this is only possible by help of the thinking idea, by means of which the logico-metaphysical nature of the _Idea as such_, as also that of the _particular Idea of the beautiful_ enters into the thinking consciousness. But the study of the beautiful in its separate nature and in its own idea may itself turn into an abstract Metaphysic, and even though Plato is accepted in such an inquiry as foundation and as guide, still the Platonic abstraction must not satisfy us, even for the logical idea of beauty. We must understand this idea more profoundly and more in the concrete, for the emptiness of content which characterizes the Platonic idea is no longer satisfactory to the fuller philosophical wants of the mind of to-day. Thus it is, no doubt, the case that we, too, in modern times, must in our philosophy of art start from the idea of the beautiful, but we ought not to abide by the fashion of Platonic ideas, which was purely abstract, and was the mere beginning of the philosophic study of beauty. 3. The philosophic conception of the beautiful, to indicate its true nature at least by anticipation, must contain, reconciled within it, the two extremes which have been mentioned, by combining metaphysical universality with the determinateness of real particularity. Only thus is it apprehended in its truth, in its real and explicit nature. It is then fertile out of its own resources, in contrast to the barrenness of one-sided reflection. For it has in accordance with its own conception to develop into a totality of attributes, while the conception itself as well as its detailed exposition contains the necessity of its particulars, as also of their progress and transition one into another. On the other hand, again, these particulars, to which the transition is made, carry in themselves the universality and essentiality of the conception as the particulars of which they appear. The modes of consideration of which we have so far been treating, lack both these qualities,[45] and for this reason it is only the complete conception of which we have just spoken that can lead to substantive, necessary, and self-complete determinations. CHAPTER III. THE CONCEPTION OF ARTISTIC BEAUTY. PART I.--THE WORK OF ART AS MADE AND AS SENSUOUS. After the above prefatory remarks, we approach closer to our subject, the philosophy of artistic beauty. Inasmuch as we are undertaking to treat it scientifically we must begin with its _Conception_. Not till we have established this conception can we map out the division, and with it the plan of the entirety of the science; for a division, if it is not, as is the case with unphilosophical inquiries, taken in hand in a purely external manner, must find its principle in the conception of the object itself. In presence of such a demand we are at once met by the question, "Whence do we get this conception?" If we begin with the given conception of artistic beauty itself, that is enough to make it a _pre-supposition_ and mere assumption; now, mere assumptions are not admitted by the philosophical method, but whatever it allows to pass must have its truth demonstrated, _i.e._ displayed as necessary. We will devote a few words to coming to an understanding upon this difficulty, which concerns the introduction to every philosophical branch of study when taken in hand by itself. The object of every science presents _prima facie_ two aspects: in the first place, that such an object _is_; in the second place, _what_ it is. In ordinary science little difficulty attaches to the first of these points. It might even, at first sight, look ridiculous, if the requirement were presented that in astronomy and physics it should be demonstrated that there was a sun, heavenly bodies, magnetic phenomena, etc. In these sciences, which have to do with what is given to sense, the objects are taken from external experience, and instead of demonstrating them ("beweisen") it is thought sufficient to show them ("weisen"). Yet even within the non-philosophical sciences, doubts may arise about the existence of their objects, as _e.g._ in psychology, the science of mind, it may be doubted if there _is_ a soul, a mind, _i.e._ something subjective, separate, and independent, distinct from what is material; or in theology, whether a God _is_. If, moreover, the objects are of subjective kind, _i.e._ are given only in the mind, and not as external sensuous objects, we are confronted by our conviction that there is nothing in the mind but what its own activity has produced. This brings up the accidental question whether men have produced this inner idea or perception in their minds or not, and even if the former is actually the case, whether they have not made the idea in question vanish again, or at any rate degraded it to a merely _subjective idea_, whose content has no natural and independent being. So, for instance, the beautiful has often been regarded as not naturally and independently necessary in our ideas, but as a mere subjective pleasure or accidental sense. Our external intuitions, observations, and perceptions are often deceptive and erroneous, but still more is this the case with the inner ideas, even if they have in themselves the greatest vividness, and are forcible enough to transport us irresistibly into passion. This doubt whether an object of inward ideas and inward perception as such is or is not, as also the accidental question whether the subjective consciousness has produced it in itself, and whether the act or mode in which it brought it before itself was in its turn adequate to the object in its essential and independent nature--all this is just what aroused in men the higher scientific need, which demands that, even if we have an idea that an object is, or that there is such an object, the object must yet be displayed or demonstrated in terms of its necessity. This proof, if it is developed in a really scientific way, must also satisfy the further question _What_ an object is. But to expound this relation would carry us too far in this place, and we can only make the following remarks on the point. If we are to display the necessity of our object, the beautiful in art, we should have to prove that art or beauty was a result of antecedents such as, when considered in their true conception, to lead us on with scientific necessity to the idea of fine art. But in as far as we begin with _art_, and propose to treat of the essence of _its_ idea and of the realization of that idea, not of antecedents which go before it _as demanded by_ its idea, so far art, as a peculiar scientific object, has, for us, a pre-supposition which lies beyond our consideration, and which, being a different content, belongs in scientific treatment to a different branch of philosophical study. For it is nothing short of the whole of philosophy that is the knowledge of the universe as in itself _one single_ organic totality which develops itself out of its own conception, and which, returning into itself so as to form a whole in virtue of the necessity in which it is placed towards itself, binds itself together with itself into _one single_ world of truth. In the coronal of this scientific necessity, each individual part is just as much a circle that returns into itself, as it has, at the same time, a necessary connection with other parts. This connection is a backward out of which it derives itself, as well as a forward, to which in its own nature it impels itself on and on, in as far as it is fertile by creating fresh matter out of itself, and issuing it into the further range of scientific knowledge. Therefore, it is not our present aim to demonstrate the idea of beauty from which we set out, that is, to derive it according to its necessity from the pre-suppositions which are its antecedents in science. This task belongs to an encyclopædic development of philosophy as a whole and of its particular branches. For us, the idea of beauty and of art is a pre-supposition given in the system of philosophy. But as we cannot in this place discuss this system, and the connection of art with it, we have not yet the idea of the beautiful before us _in a scientific form_; what we have at command are merely the elements and aspects of it, as they are or have at former periods been presented, in the diverse ideas of the beautiful and of art in the mere common consciousness. Having started from this point, we shall subsequently pass to the more profound consideration of the views in question, in order thereby to gain the advantage of, in the first place, obtaining a general idea of our object, and further, by a brief criticism effecting a preliminary acquaintance with its higher principles, with which we shall have to do in the sequel. By this mode of treatment our final introduction will act, so to speak, as the overture to the account of the subject itself, and will serve the purpose of a general collection and direction of our thoughts towards the proper object-matter of our discussion. What we know, to begin with, as a current idea of the work of art, comes under the three following general predicates:-- (1) We suppose the work of art to be no natural product, but brought to pass by means of human activity. (2) To be essentially made _for_ man, and, indeed, to be more or less borrowed from the sensuous and addressed to man's sense. (3) To contain an _end_. 1. As regards the first point, that a work of art is taken to be a product of human activity, this view has given rise (_a_) to the view that this activity, being the _conscious_ production of an external object, can also be _known_, and _expounded_ and learnt, and prosecuted by others. For, what one can do, it might seem, another can do,[46] or imitate,[47] as soon as he is acquainted with the mode of procedure; so that, supposing universal familiarity with the rules of artistic production, it would only be a matter of any one's will and pleasure to carry out the process in a uniform way, and so to produce works of art. It is thus that the above-mentioned rule-providing theories and their precepts, calculated for practical observance, have arisen. But that which can be executed according to such instruction, can only be something formally regular and mechanical. For only what is mechanical is of such an external kind that no more than a purely empty exercise of will and dexterity is required to receive it among our ideas and put it in act; such an exercise not needing to be supplemented by anything concrete, or anything that goes beyond the precepts conveyed in general rules. This is most vividly displayed when precepts of the kind in question do not limit themselves to what is purely external and mechanical, but extend to the meaning-laden spiritual activity of true art. In this region the rules contain nothing but indefinite generalities; _e.g._ "The theme ought to be interesting, and each individual ought to be made to speak according to his rank, age, sex, and position." But if rules are meant to be adequate on this subject, their precepts ought to have been drawn up with such determinateness that they could be carried out just as they are expressed, without further and original activity of mind. Being abstract, however, in their content, such rules reveal themselves, in respect of their pretension of being adequate to fill the consciousness of the artist, as wholly inadequate, inasmuch as artistic production is not formal activity in accordance with given determinations. For it is bound as spiritual activity to work by drawing on its own resources, and to bring before the mind's eye a quite other and richer content and ampler individual creations than any abstract formulæ can dictate. Such rules may furnish guidance in case of need, if they contain anything really definite, and therefore of practical utility; but their directions can only apply to purely external circumstances. (_b_) The tendency which we have just indicated has therefore been abandoned, and, in place of it, the opposite principle has been pursued to no less lengths. For the work of art came to be regarded no longer as the product of an _activity general_ in mankind, but as the work of a mind endowed with wholly peculiar gifts. This mind, it is thought, has then nothing to do but _simply_ to give free play to its particular gift, as though it were a specific force of nature, and is to be entirely released from attention to laws of universal validity, as also from the interference of reflection in its instinctively creative operation. And, indeed, it is to be guarded therefrom, inasmuch as its productions could only be infected and tainted by such a consciousness. In this aspect the work of art was pronounced to be the product of _talent_ and _genius_, and stress was laid on the natural element which talent and genius contain. The view was partly right. Talent is specific, and genius universal capability, with which a man has not the power to endow himself simply by his own self-conscious activity. We shall treat this point more fully in the sequel. In this place we have only to mention the aspect of falsity in the view before us, in that all consciousness respecting the man's own activity was held, in the case of artistic production, not merely superfluous, but even injurious. Production on the part of talent and genius then appears, in general terms, as a _state_, and, in particular, as a state of _inspiration_. To such a state, it is said, genius is in part excited by a given object, and in part it has the power of its own free will to place itself therein, in which process, moreover, the good service of the champagne bottle is not forgotten. This notion became prominent in Germany in the so-called _epoch of genius_, which was introduced by the early poetical productions of Goethe, and subsequently sustained by those of Schiller.[48] In their earliest works these poets began everything anew, in scorn of all the rules which had then been fabricated, transgressed these rules of set purpose, and, while doing so, distanced all rivals by a long interval. I will not enter more closely into the confusions which have prevailed respecting the conception of inspiration and genius, and which prevail even at the present day respecting the omnipotence of inspiration as such. We need only lay down as essential the view that, though the artist's talent and genius contains a natural element, yet it is essentially in need of cultivation by thought, and of reflection on the mode in which it produces, as well as of practice and skill in producing. A main feature of such production is unquestionably external workmanship, inasmuch as the work of art has a purely technical side, which extends into the region of handicraft; most especially in architecture and sculpture, less so in painting and music, least of all in poetry. Skill in this comes not by inspiration, but solely by reflection, industry, and practice; and such skill is indispensable to the artist, in order that he may master his external material, and not be thwarted by its stubbornness. Moreover, the higher an artist ranks, the more profoundly ought he to represent the depths of heart and mind; and these are not known without learning them, but are only to be fathomed by the direction of a man's own mind to the inner and outer world. So here, too, _study_ is the means whereby the artist brings this content into his consciousness, and wins the matter and burden of his conceptions. In this respect one art may need the consciousness and cognition of such matter more than others. Music, for instance, which concerns itself only with the undefined movement of the inward spiritual nature, and deals with musical sounds as, so to speak, feeling without thought, needs little or no spiritual content to be present in consciousness. It is for this reason that musical talent generally announces itself in very early youth, while the head is still empty and the heart has been but little moved, and is capable of attaining to a very considerable height in early years, before mind and life have experience of themselves. And again, as a matter of fact we often enough see very great expertness in musical composition, as also in execution, subsist along with remarkable barrenness of mind and character. The reverse is the case with poetry. In poetry all depends on the representation,--which must be full of matter and thought--of man, of his profounder interests, and of the powers that move him; and therefore mind and heart themselves must be richly and profoundly educated by life, experience, and reflection, before genius can bring to pass anything mature, substantial, and self-complete. Goethe's and Schiller's first productions are of an immaturity, and even of a rudeness and barbarism, that are absolutely terrifying. This phenomenon, that the greater part of those attempts display a predominant mass of thoroughly prosaic and in part of frigid and commonplace elements, furnishes the chief objection to the common opinion, that inspiration is inseparable from youth and youthful fire. Those two men of genius, it may be said, were the first to give our nation works of true poetry, and yet it was only their mature manhood[49] that presented us with creations profound, substantial, and the outcome of genuine inspiration, while no less thoroughly perfect in form. Thus, too, it was not till his old age that Homer devised and uttered his immortal songs. (_c_) A third view, which concerns the idea of the work of art as a product of human activity, refers to the position of such a work towards the external appearances of nature. It was an obvious opinion for the common consciousness to adopt on this head, that the work of art made by man ranked _below_ the product of nature. The work of art has no feeling in itself, and is not through and through a living thing, but, regarded as an external object, is dead. But we are wont to prize the living more than the dead. We must admit, of course, that the work of art has not in itself movement and life. An animated being in nature is within and without an organization appropriately elaborated down to all its minutest parts, while the work of art attains the semblance of animation on its surface only, but within is common stone, or wood and canvas, or, as in the case of poetry, is idea, uttering itself in speech and letters. But this aspect, viz. its external existence, is not what makes a work into a production of fine art; it is a work of art only in as far as, being the offspring of mind, it continues to belong to the realm of mind, has received the baptism of the spiritual, and only represents that which has been moulded in harmony with mind. A human interest, the spiritual value which attaches to an incident, to an individual character, to an action in its plot and in its _dénoûment_, is apprehended in the work of art, and exhibited more purely[50] and transparently than is possible on the soil of common unartistic reality. This gives the work of art a higher rank than anything produced by nature, which has not sustained this passage through the mind. So, for instance, by reason of the feeling and insight of which a landscape as depicted by an artist is a manifestation, such a work of mind assumes a higher rank than the mere natural landscape. For everything spiritual is better than anything natural. At any rate, no existence in nature is able, like art, to represent divine ideals. Upon that which, in works of art, the mind borrows from its own inner life it is able, even on the side of external existence, to confer _permanence_; whereas the individual living thing of nature is transient, vanishing, and mutable in its aspect, while the work of art persists. Though, indeed, it is not mere permanence, but the accentuation of the character which animation by mind confers, that constitutes its genuine pre-eminence as compared with natural reality. Nevertheless, this higher rank assigned to the work of art is in turn disputed by another idea of the common consciousness. It is said that nature and its products are a work of God, created by his goodness and wisdom, whereas the work of art is _merely_ a human production, made after man's devising by man's hands. In this antithesis between natural production as a divine creation and human activity as a merely finite creation, we at once come upon the misconception, that God does _not_ work in man and through man, but limits the range of his activity to nature alone. This false opinion is to be entirely abandoned if we mean to penetrate the true conception of art. Indeed, in opposition to such an idea, we must adhere to the very reverse, believing that God is more honoured by what mind does or makes than by the productions or formations of nature. For not only is there a divinity in man, but in him it is operative under a form that is appropriate to the essence of God, in a mode quite other and higher than in nature. God is a Spirit, and it is only in man that the medium through which the divine element passes has the form of conscious spirit, that actively realizes itself. In nature the corresponding medium is the unconscious, sensible, and external, which is far below consciousness in value. In the products of art God is operative neither more nor less than in the phenomena of nature; but the divine element, as it makes itself known in the work of art, has attained, as being generated out of the mind, an adequate thoroughfare for its existence; while existence in the unconscious sensuousness of nature is not a mode of appearance adequate to the Divine Being. (_d_) Granting, then, that the work of art is made by man as a creation of mind, we come to the last question, which will enable us to draw a deeper result from what has been said. What is man's need to produce works of art? On the one hand the production may be regarded as a mere toy of chance and of man's fancies, that might just as well be let alone as pursued. For, it may be said, there are other and better means for effecting that which is the aim of art, and man bears in him interests that are yet higher and of more import than art has power to satisfy. But, on the other hand, art appears to arise from the higher impulse and to satisfy the higher needs, at times, indeed, even the highest, the absolute need of man, being wedded to the religious interests of whole epochs and peoples, and to their most universal intuitions respecting the world. This inquiry concerning the not contingent but absolute need of art we cannot as yet answer completely, seeing that it is more concrete than any shape which could here be given to the answer.[51] We must, therefore, content ourselves for the present with merely establishing the following points. The universal and absolute need out of which art, on its formal side,[52] arises has its source in the fact that man is a _thinking_ consciousness, _i.e._ that he draws out of himself, and makes explicit _for himself_, that which he is, and, generally, whatever is. The things of nature are only _immediate and single_, but man as mind _reduplicates_ himself, inasmuch as _prima facie_ he _is_ like the things of nature, but in the second place just as really is _for_ himself, perceives himself, has ideas of himself, thinks himself, and only thus is active self-realizedness.[53] This consciousness of himself man obtains in a twofold way: _in the first place theoretically_, in as far as he has inwardly to bring himself into his own consciousness, with all that moves in the human breast, all that stirs and works therein, and, generally, to observe and form an idea of himself, to fix before himself what thought ascertains to be his real being, and, in what is summoned out of his inner self as in what is received from without, to recognize only himself. Secondly, man is realized for himself by _practical_ activity, inasmuch as he has the impulse, in the medium which is directly given to him, and externally presented before him, to produce himself, and therein at the same time to recognize himself. This purpose he achieves by the modification of external things upon which he impresses the seal of his inner being, and then finds repeated in them his own characteristics. Man does this in order as a free subject to strip the outer world of its stubborn foreignness, and to enjoy in the shape and fashion of things a mere external reality of himself.[54] Even the child's first impulse involves this practical modification of external things. A boy throws stones into the river, and then stands admiring the circles that trace themselves on the water, as an effect in which he attains the sight of something that is his own doing. This need traverses the most manifold phenomena, up to the mode of self-production in the medium of external things as it is known to us in the work of art. And it is not only external things that man treats in this way, but himself no less, _i.e._ his own natural form, which he does not leave as he finds it, but alters of set purpose. This is the cause of all ornament and decoration, though it may be as barbarous, as tasteless, as utterly disfiguring or even destructive as crushing Chinese ladies' feet, or as slitting the ears and lips. It is only among cultivated men that change of the figure,[55] of behaviour, and of every kind and mode of self-utterance emanates from spiritual education.[56] The universal need for expression in art[57] lies, therefore, in man's rational impulse to exalt the inner and outer world into a spiritual consciousness for himself, as an object in which he recognizes his own self. He satisfies the need of this spiritual freedom when he makes all that exists explicit for himself _within_, and in a corresponding way realizes this his explicit self _without_, evoking thereby, in this reduplication of himself, what is in him into vision and into knowledge for his own mind and for that of others. This is the free rationality of man, in which, as all action and knowledge, so also art has its ground and necessary origin. The specific need of art, however, in contradistinction to other action, political or moral, to religious imagination and to scientific cognition, we shall consider later. 2. We have so far been considering that aspect of the work of art in which it is made by man. We have now to pass on to its second characteristic, that it is made for man's _sense_, and for this reason is more or less borrowed from the sensuous. (_a_) This reflection has furnished occasion for the consideration to be advanced that fine art is intended to arouse feeling, and indeed more particularly the feeling which we find suits us--that, is pleasant feeling. Looking at the question thus, men have treated the investigation of fine art as an investigation of the feelings, and asked what feelings it must be held that art ought to evoke,--fear, for example, and compassion; and then, how these could be pleasant--how, for example, the contemplation of misfortune could produce satisfaction. This tendency of reflection is traceable particularly to Moses Mendelssohn's times, and many such discussions are to be found in his writings. Yet such an investigation did not lead men far, for feeling is the indefinite dull region of the mind; what is felt remains wrapped in the form of the most abstract individual subjectivity,[58] and therefore the distinctions of feeling are also quite abstract, and are not distinctions of the actual object-matter itself. For instance, fear, anxiety, alarm, terror, are no doubt of one and the same sort of feeling variously modified, but in part are mere quantitative heightenings, in part are forms which in themselves have nothing to do with their content itself, but are indifferent to it. In the case of fear, for instance, an existence is given in which the subject (_i.e._ a person) has an interest, but at the same time sees approaching the negative that threatens to annihilate this existence, and so finds immediately in himself, as a contradictory affection of his subjectivity, the two at once, this interest and that negative. Now, such fear considered in itself is not enough to condition any content, but is capable of receiving into itself the most diverse and opposite matters.[59] Feeling, as such, is a thoroughly empty form of subjective affection. No doubt this form may in some cases be manifold in itself, as is hope, grief, joy, or pleasure; and, again, may in such diversity comprehend varied contents, as there is a feeling of justice, moral feeling, sublime religious feeling, and so forth. But the fact that such content is forthcoming in different forms of feeling is not enough to bring to light its essential and definite nature; they remain purely subjective affections of myself, in which the concrete matter vanishes, as though narrowed into a circle of the utmost abstraction.[60] Therefore, the inquiry into the feelings which art arouses, or ought to arouse, comes utterly to a standstill in the indefinite, and is a mode of study which precisely abstracts from the content proper and from its concrete essence and notion. For reflection upon feeling contents itself with the observation of the subjective affection in its isolation, instead of diving into and fathoming the matter in question itself, the work of art, and, while engaged with it, simply letting go the mere subjectivity and its states. In feeling it is just this vacant subjectivity that is--not merely retained, but--given the first place, and that is why men are so fond of having emotions. And for the same reason such a study becomes tedious from its indefiniteness and vacancy, and repulsive from its attentiveness to little subjective peculiarities. (_b_) Now, as a work of art is not merely to do in general something of the nature of arousing emotion--for this is a purpose which it would have in common, without specific difference, with eloquence, historical composition, religious edification, and so forth--but is to do so only in as far as it is beautiful, reflection hit upon the idea, seeing that beauty was the object, of searching out a _peculiar feeling of beauty_ to correspond to it, and of discovering a particular _sense of beauty_. In this search it soon appeared that such a sense is no blind instinct made rigidly definite by nature, and capable from the beginning in its own independent essence of discerning beauty. Hence it followed that education came to be demanded for this sense, and the educated sense of beauty came to be called _taste_, which, although an educated appreciation and apprehension of the beautiful, was yet supposed to retain the nature of immediate feeling. We have already mentioned how abstract theories undertook to educate such a sense of taste, and how external and one-sided that sense remained. The criticism of the time when those views prevailed, was not only defective in _universal_ principles, but also, in its particular references to individual works of art, was less directed to justifying a _definite_ judgment--the power to make one not having at that time been acquired--than to advancing the general education of taste. For this reason such education in its turn came to a standstill in the indefinite, and merely endeavoured so to equip feeling as sense of beauty by help of reflection, that there might thenceforth be capacity to find out beauty whenever and wherever it should exist. Yet the depths of the matter remained a sealed book to mere taste, for these depths demand not only sensibility and abstract reflection, but the undivided reason and the mind in its solid vigour; while taste was only directed to the external surface about which the feelings play, and on which one-sided maxims may pass for valid. But, for this very reason, what is called good taste takes fright at all more profound effects of art, and is silent where the reality comes in question, and where externalities and trivialities vanish. For when great passions and the movements of a profound soul are unveiled, we are no longer concerned with the finer distinctions of taste and its pettifogging particularities. It feels that genius strides contemptuously over such ground as this, and, shrinking before its power, becomes uneasy, and knows not which way to turn. (_c_) And thus, as we should expect, men have abandoned the tendency to consider works of art solely with an eye to the education of taste, and with the purpose of merely displaying taste. The _connoisseur_, or scholar of art, has replaced the art-judge, or man of taste. The positive side of art-scholarship, so far as it concerns a thorough acquaintance with the entire circumference[61] of the individual character in a given work of art, we have already pronounced to be essential to the study of art. For a work of art, owing to its nature as at once material and individual, is essentially originated by particular conditions of the most various kinds, to which belong especially the time and place of its production, then the peculiar individuality of the artist, and in particular the grade of technical development attained by his art. Attention to all these aspects is indispensable to distinct and thorough insight and cognition, and even to the enjoyment of a work of art; it is with them that connoisseurship, or art-scholarship, is chiefly occupied; and all that it can do for us in its own way is to be accepted with gratitude. Yet, though such scholarship is entitled to rank as something essential, still it ought not to be taken for the sole or supreme element in the relation which the mind adopts towards a work of art, and towards art in general. For art-scholarship (and this is its defective side) is capable of resting in an acquaintance with purely external aspects, such as technical or historical details, etc., and of guessing but little, or even knowing absolutely nothing, of the true and real nature of a work of art. It may even form a disparaging estimate of the value of more profound considerations in comparison with purely positive, technical, and historical information. Still, even so, art-scholarship, if only it is of a genuine kind, at least strives after definite grounds and information, and an intelligent judgment, with which is closely conjoined the more precise distinction of the different, even if partly external, aspects in a work of art, and the estimation of their importance. (_d_) After these remarks upon the modes of study which have arisen out of that aspect of a work of art in which, being a sensuous object, it is invested with a relation to man as a sensuous being, we will now consider this aspect in its more essential relation to art as such, and so ([Greek: a]) partly as regards the work of art as object, ([Greek: b]) partly with respect to the subjectivity of the artist, his genius, talent, and so on; but without entering into matter relative to these points that can only proceed from the knowledge of art in its universal idea. For we are not yet on genuinely scientific ground, but have only reached the province of external reflection. ([Greek: a]) The work of art then, of course, presents itself to sensuous apprehension. It is addressed to sensuous feeling, outer or inner, to sensuous perception and imagination, just as is the nature that surrounds us without, or our own sensitive nature within. Even a speech, for instance, may be addressed to sensuous imagination and feeling. Notwithstanding, the work of art is not only for the _sensuous_ apprehension as sensuous object, but its position is of such a kind that as sensuous it is at the same time essentially addressed to the _mind_, that the mind is meant to be affected by it, and to find some sort of satisfaction in it. This intention of the work of art explains how it is in no way meant to be a natural product and to possess natural life, whether a natural product is to be ranked higher or lower than a _mere_ work of art, as it is often called in a depreciatory sense. For the sensuous aspect of the work of art has a right to existence only in as far as it exists for man's mind, but not in as far as _qua_ sensuous thing it has separate existence by itself.[62] If we examine more closely in what way the sensuous is presented to man, we find that what is sensuous may bear various relations to the mind. (_aa_) The lowest mode of apprehension, and that least appropriate to the mind, is purely sensuous apprehension. It consists naturally in mere looking, listening, feeling, just as in seasons of mental fatigue it may often be entertaining to go about without thought, and just to hear and look around us. The mind, however, does not rest in the mere apprehension of external things by sight and hearing, it makes them objects for its own inner nature, which then is itself impelled in a correspondingly sensuous form to realize itself in the things, and relates itself to them as _desire_. In this appetitive relation to the outer world, the man stands as a sensuous particular over against the things as likewise particulars; he does not open his mind to them with general ideas as a thinking being, but has relations dictated by particular impulses and interests to the objects as themselves particulars, and preserves himself in them, inasmuch as he uses them, consumes them, and puts in act his self-satisfaction by sacrificing them to it. In this negative relation desire requires for itself not merely the superficial appearance of external things, but themselves in their concrete sensuous existence. Mere pictures of the wood that it wants to use, or of the animals that it wants to eat, would be of no service to desire. Just as little is it possible for desire to let the object subsist in its freedom. For its impulse urges it just precisely to destroy this independence and freedom of external things, and to show that they are only there to be destroyed and consumed. But, at the same time, the subject himself, as entangled in the particular limited and valueless interests of his desires, is neither free in himself, for he does not determine himself out of the essential universality and rationality of his will, nor free in relation to the outer world, for his desire remains essentially determined by things, and related to them. This relation of desire is not that in which man stands to the work of art. He allows it to subsist as an object, free and independent, and enters into relation with it apart from desire, as with an object which only appeals to the theoretic side of the mind. For this reason the work of art, although it has sensuous existence, yet, in this point of view, does not require concrete sensuous existence and natural life; indeed, it even _ought_ not to remain on such a level, seeing that it has to satisfy only the interests of mind, and is bound to exclude from itself all desire. Hence it is, indeed, that practical desire rates individual things in nature, organic and inorganic, which are serviceable to it, higher than works of art, which reveal themselves to be useless for its purpose, and enjoyable only for other modes of mind. ([Greek: bb]) A second mode in which the externally present may be related to the mind is, in contrast with singular sensuous perception and desire, the purely theoretical relation to the _Intelligence_. The theoretic contemplation of things has no interest in consuming them as particulars, in satisfying itself sensuously, and in preserving itself by their means, but rather in becoming acquainted with them in their universality, in finding their inner being and law, and in conceiving them in terms of their notion. Therefore the theoretical interest lets the single things be, and holds aloof from them as sensuous particulars, because this sensuous particularity is not what the contemplation exercised by the intelligence looks for. For the rational intelligence does not belong, as do the desires, to the individual subject[63] as such, but only to the individual as at the same time in his nature universal. In as far as man has relation to things in respect of this universality, it is his universal reason which attempts to find himself in nature, and thereby to reproduce the inner essence of things, which sensuous existence, though having its ground therein, cannot immediately display. But again, this theoretic interest, the satisfaction of which is the work of science, is in the scientific form no more shared by art, than the latter makes common cause with the impulse of the purely practical desires. Science may, no doubt, start from the sensuous thing in its individuality, and may possess a sensuous idea of the way in which such an individual presents itself in its individual colour, shape, size, etc. Still, this isolated sensuous thing, as such, has no further relation to the mind, inasmuch as the intelligence aims at the universal, the law, the thought and notion of the object. Not only, therefore, does it abandon all intercourse with the thing as a given individual, but transforms it within the mind, making a concrete object of sense into an abstract matter of thought, and so into something quite other than the same object _qua_ sensuous phenomenon. The artistic interest, as distinguished from science, does not act thus. Artistic contemplation accepts the work of art just as it displays itself _qua_ external object, in immediate determinateness and sensuous individuality clothed in colour, figure, and sound, or as a single isolated perception, etc., and does not go so far beyond the immediate appearance of objectivity which is presented before it, as to aim, like science, at apprehending the notion of such an objective appearance as a universal notion. Thus, the interest of art distinguishes itself from the practical interest of _desire_ by the fact that it permits its object to subsist freely and in independence, while desire utilizes it in its own service by its destruction. On the other hand, artistic contemplation differs from theoretical consideration by the scientific intelligence, in cherishing interest for the object as an individual existence, and not setting to work to transmute it into its universal thought and notion. [Greek: gg] It follows, then, from the above, that though the sensuous must be present in a work of art, yet it must only appear as surface and _semblance_ of the sensuous. For, in the sensuous aspect of a work of art, the mind seeks neither the concrete framework of matter, that empirically thorough completeness and development of the organism which desire demands, nor the universal and merely ideal thought. What it requires is sensuous presence, which, while not ceasing to be sensuous, is to be liberated from the apparatus of its merely material nature. And thus the sensuous in works of art is exalted to the rank of a mere _semblance_ in comparison with the immediate existence of things in nature, and the work of art occupies the mean between what is immediately sensuous and ideal thought. This semblance of the sensuous presents itself to the mind externally as the shape, the visible look, and the sonorous vibration of things--supposing that the mind leaves the objects uninterfered with (physically), but yet does not descend into their inner essence (by abstract thought), for if it did so, it would entirely destroy their external existence as separate individuals _for it_. For this reason the sensuous aspect of art only refers to the two _theoretical_ senses of _sight_ and _hearing_, while smell, taste, and feeling remain excluded from being sources of artistic enjoyment. For smell, taste, and feeling have to do with matter as such, and with its immediate sensuous qualities; smell with material volatilization in air, taste with the material dissolution of substance,[64] and feeling with warmth, coldness, smoothness, etc. On this account these senses cannot have to do with the objects of art, which are destined to maintain themselves in their actual independent existence, and admit of no purely sensuous relation. The pleasant for these latter senses is not the beautiful in art. Thus art on its sensuous side purposely produces no more than a shadow-world of shapes, sounds, and imaginable ideas;[65] and it is absolutely out of the question to maintain that it is owing to simple powerlessness and to the limitations on his actions that man, when evoking worlds of art into existence, fails to present more than the mere surface of the sensuous, than mere _schemata_.[66] In art, these sensuous shapes and sounds present themselves, not simply for their own sake and for that of their immediate structure,[67] but with the purpose of affording in that shape satisfaction to higher spiritual interests, seeing that they are powerful to call forth a response and echo in the mind from all the depths of consciousness. It is thus that, in art, the sensuous is _spiritualized_, _i.e._ the _spiritual_ appears in sensuous shape. ([Greek: _b_]) But for this very reason we have a product of art only in so far as it has found a passage through the mind, and has been generated by spiritually productive activity. This leads us to the other question which we have to answer--how, that is, the sensuous side, which is indispensable to art, is operative in the artist as a productive state of the subject or person. This, the method and fashion of production, contains in itself as a subjective activity just the same properties which we found objectively present in the work of art; it must be a spiritual activity which, nevertheless, at the same time has in itself the element of sensuousness and immediateness. It is neither, on the one hand, purely mechanical work, as mere unconscious skill in sensuous sleight of hand,[68] or a formal activity according to fixed rules learnt by rote; nor is it, on the other hand, a scientific productive process, which passes from sense to abstract ideas and thoughts, or exercises itself exclusively in the element of pure thinking; rather the spiritual and the sensuous side must in artistic production be as one. For instance, it would be possible in poetical creation to try and proceed by first apprehending the theme to be treated as a prosaic thought, and by then putting it into pictorial ideas, and into rhyme, and so forth; so that the pictorial element would simply be hung upon the abstract reflections as an ornament or decoration. Such a process could only produce bad poetry, for in it there would be operative as two _separate activities_ that which in artistic production has its right place only as undivided unity. This genuine mode of production constitutes the activity of artistic _fancy_. It is the rational element which, _qua_ spirit, only exists in as far as it actively extrudes itself into consciousness, but yet does not array before it what it bears within itself till it does so in sensuous form. This activity has, therefore, a spiritual import, which, however, it embodies in sensuous shape. Such a process may be compared with the habit even of a man with great experience of the world, or, again, with that of a man of _esprit_[69] or wit, who, although he has complete knowledge of the main stakes of life, of the substantive interests that hold men together, of what moves them, and of what is the power that they recognize, yet neither has himself apprehended this content in the form of general rules, nor is able to explain it to others in general reflections, but makes plain to himself and to others what occupies his consciousness always in particular cases, whether real or invented, in adequate instances, and the like. For in his ideas, everything shapes itself into concrete images, determinate in time and place, to which, therefore, names and other external circumstances of all kinds must not be wanting. Yet such a kind of imagination rather rests on the recollection of states that he has gone through, and of experiences that have befallen him, than is creative in its own strength. His recollection preserves and reproduces the individuality and external fashion of occurrences that had such and such results with all their external circumstances, and prevents the universal from emerging in its own shape. But the productive fancy of the _artist_ is the fancy of a great mind and heart, the apprehension and creation of ideas and of shapes, and, indeed, the exhibition of the profoundest and most universal human interests in the definite sensuous mould of pictorial representation. From this it follows at once, that in one aspect Fancy unquestionably rests on natural gifts--speaking generally, on talent--because its mode of production requires a sensuous medium. It is true that we speak in the same way of scientific "talent," but the sciences only presuppose the universal capacity of thought, which has not, like Fancy, a natural mode (as well as an intellectual one), but abstracts just precisely from all that is natural (or native) in an activity; and thus it would be more correct to say that there is no specifically scientific talent in the sense of a _mere_ natural endowment. Now, Fancy _has_ in it a mode of instinct-like productiveness, inasmuch as the essential plasticity and sensuousness of the work of art must be subjectively present in the artist as natural disposition and natural impulse, and, considering that it is unconscious operation, must belong to the natural element in man, as well as to the rational. Of course, natural capacity leaves room for other elements in talent and genius, for artistic production is just as much of a spiritual and self-conscious nature; we can but say that its spirituality must, somehow, have an element of natural, plastic, and formative tendency. For this reason, though nearly every one can reach a certain point in an art, yet, in order to go beyond this point, with which the art in the strict sense begins, it is impossible to dispense with native artistic talent of the highest order. Considered as a natural endowment, moreover, such talent reveals itself for the most part in early youth, and is manifested in the impelling restlessness that busies itself, with vivacity and industry, in creating shapes in some particular sensuous medium, and in seizing on this species of utterance and communication as the only one, or as the chief and the most suitable one. And thus, too, a precocious technical facility, that up to a certain grade of attainment is without effort, is a sign of natural talent. A sculptor finds everything transmute itself into shapes, and he soon begins to take up the clay and model it. And, speaking generally, whatever men of such talents have in their imagination, whatever rouses and moves their inner nature, turns at once into shape, drawing, melody, or poem. ([Greek: g]) Thirdly, and to conclude: the _content_ of art is also in some respects borrowed from the sensuous, from nature; or, in any case, even if the content is of a spiritual kind, it can only be seized and fixed by representing the spiritual fact, such as human relations, in the shape of phenomena with external reality. CHAPTER III. (_Continued_). THE CONCEPTION OF ARTISTIC BEAUTY. PART II.--THE END OF ART. 3. The question then arises, what the interest or the _End_ is which man proposes to himself when he reproduces such a content in the form of works of art. This was the third point of view which we set before us with reference to the work of art, and the closer discussion of which will finally make the transition to the actual and true conception of art. If in this aspect we glance at the common consciousness, a current idea which may occur to us is-- ([Greek: a]) The principle of the _imitation of nature_. According to this view the essential purpose of art consists in imitation, in the sense of a facility in copying natural forms as they exist in a way that corresponds precisely to them; and the success of such a representation, exactly corresponding to nature, is supposed to be what affords complete satisfaction. ([Greek: a]) This definition contains, _prima facie_, nothing beyond the purely formal[70] aim that whatever already exists in the external world, just _as_ it is therein, is now to be made a second time by man as a copy of the former, as well as he can do it with the means at his command. But we may at once regard this repetition as-- ([Greek: aa]) A _superfluous_ labour, seeing that the things which pictures, theatrical representations, etc., imitate and represent--animals, natural scenes, incidents in human life--are before us in other cases already, in our own gardens or our own houses, or in cases within our closer or more remote circle of acquaintance. And, looking more closely, we may regard this superfluous labour as a presumptuous sport which-- ([Greek: bb]) Comes far short of nature. For art is restricted in its means of representation; and can produce only _one-sided_ deceptions, _i.e._ for instance, a semblance of reality addressed to one sense only; and, in fact, it invariably gives rise, if it rests in the formal purpose of _mere imitation_, to a mere parody[71] of life, instead of a genuine vitality. Just so the Turks, being Mohammedans, tolerate, as is well known, no pictures copied from men or the like; and when James Bruce, on his journey to Abyssinia, showed paintings of fish to a Turk, the man was amazed at first, but soon enough made answer: "If this fish shall rise up against you on the last day, and say, 'You have created for me a body, but no living soul,' how will you defend yourself against such an accusation?" The prophet, moreover, it is recorded in the Sunna, said to the two women, Ommi Habiba and Ommi Selma, who told him of pictures in Æthiopian churches--"These pictures will accuse their authors on the day of judgment!" There are, no doubt, as well, examples of completely deceptive imitation. Zeuxis' painted grapes have from antiquity downward been taken to be the triumph of this principle of the imitation of nature, because the story is that living doves pecked at them. We might add to this ancient example the modern one of Büttner's monkey, which bit in pieces a painted cockchafer in Rösel's "Diversions of the Insect World," and was pardoned by his master, in spite of his having thereby spoilt a beautiful copy of this valuable work, because of this proof of the excellence of the pictures. But when we reflect on these and similar instances, it must at once occur to us that, in place of commending works of art because they have _actually_ deceived _even_ pigeons and monkeys, we ought simply to censure the people who mean to exalt a work of art by predicating, as its highest and ultimate quality, so poor an effect as this. In general, we may sum up by saying that, as a matter of mere imitation, art cannot maintain a rivalry with nature, and, if it tries, must look like a worm trying to crawl after an elephant. ([Greek: gg]) Considering the unvarying failure--comparative failure, at least--of imitation when contrasted with the original in nature, there remains as end nothing beyond our pleasure in the sleight of hand[72] which can produce something so like nature. And it is doubtless open to man to be pleased at producing over again what is already present in its own right, by his labour, skill, and industry. But enjoyment and admiration, even of this kind, naturally grow frigid or chilled precisely in proportion to the resemblance of the copy to the natural type, or are even converted into tedium and repugnance. There are portraits which, as has been wittily said, are sickeningly like; and Kant adduces another instance relative to this pleasure in imitation as such, viz. that we soon grow tired of a man--and there are such men--who is able to mimic the nightingale's strain quite perfectly; and as soon as it is discovered that a man is producing the notes, we are at once weary of the song. We then recognize in it nothing but a conjuring trick, neither the free production of nature, nor a work of art; for we expect from the free productive capacity of human beings something quite other than such music as this, which only interests us when, as is the case with the nightingale's note, it gushes forth from the creature's own vitality without special purpose, and yet recalls the utterance of human feeling. In general, such delight at our skill in mimicking can be but limited, and it becomes man better to take delight in what he produces out of himself. In this sense the invention of any unimportant and technical product has the higher value, and man may be prouder of having invented the hammer, the nail, and so forth, than of achieving feats of mimicry. For this fervour of abstract[73] copying is to be evened with the feat of the man who had taught himself to throw lentils through a small opening without missing. He displayed this skill of his before Alexander, and Alexander presented him with a bushel of lentils as a reward for his frivolous and meaningless art. ([Greek: b]) Moreover, seeing that the principle of imitation is purely formal, to make it the end has the result that _objective beauty_ itself disappears. For the question is in that case no longer _of what nature_ that is which is to be copied, but only whether it is _correctly_ copied. The object and content of the beautiful comes then to be regarded as matter of entire indifference. That is to say, if we go outside the principle and speak of a difference of beauty and ugliness in considering beasts, men, landscapes, actions, or characters, this must nevertheless, in presence of the maxim in question,[74] be set down as a distinction that does not belong particularly to art, for which nothing is left but abstract imitation. In this case the above-mentioned lack of a criterion in dealing with the endless forms of nature reduces us, as regards the selection of objects and their distinction in beauty and ugliness, to subjective _taste_ as an ultimate fact, which accepts no rule and admits of no discussion. And, in fact, if in selecting objects for representation we start from what _men_ think beautiful or ugly, and therefore deserving artistic imitation--that is, from their taste,--then all circles of natural objects open to us, and not one of them will be likely to fail of a patron. Among men, for instance, it is the case that at any rate every bridegroom thinks his bride beautiful, and indeed, perhaps, he alone; though not, it may be, every husband his wife; and that subjective taste for such beauty has no fixed rule one may hold to be the good fortune of both parties. If we, moreover, look quite beyond individuals and their accidental taste, to the taste of nations, this again is full of extreme diversity and contrast. How often we hear it said that a European beauty would not please a Chinese or even a Hottentot, in as far as the Chinaman has quite a different conception of beauty from the negro, and the negro in turn from the European, and so forth. Indeed, if we look at the works of art of those extra-European peoples--their images of the gods, for instance--which their fancy has originated as venerable and sublime, they may appear to us as the most gruesome idols, and their music may sound to our ears as the most horrible noise; while they, on their side, will regard our sculptures, paintings, and musical productions as trivial or ugly. ([Greek: g]) But even if we abstract from an objective principle of art, and if beauty is to be based on subjective and individual taste, we shall still soon find on the side of art itself that the imitation of nature, which certainly appeared to be a universal principle and one guaranteed by high authority, is at any rate not to be accepted in this universal and merely abstract form. For if we look at the different arts it will at once be admitted that even if painting and sculpture represent objects which appear like those of nature, or the type of which is essentially borrowed from nature, yet works of architecture on the other hand--and architecture belongs to the fine arts--and the productions of poetry, in as far as they do not confine themselves to mere description, are by no means to be called imitations of nature. At least, if we desired to maintain the principle as valid in the case of these latter arts, we should have to make a long circuit by conditioning the proposition in various ways, and reducing the so-called truth[75] at any rate to probability. But if we admitted probability we should again be met by a great difficulty in determining what is probable and what is not; and still, moreover, one would neither consent nor find it possible to exclude from poetry all wholly arbitrary and completely original[76] imaginations. The end of art must, therefore, lie in something different from the purely formal[77] imitation of what we find given, which in any case can bring to the birth only _tricks_ and not _works_ of art. It is, indeed, an element essential to the work of art to have natural shapes for its foundation; seeing that its representation is in the medium of external and therefore of natural phenomena. In painting, for instance, it is an important study to know how to copy with precision the colours in their relations to one another, the effects of light, reflections, etc., and, no less, the forms and figures of objects down to their subtlest characteristics.[78] It is in this respect chiefly that the principle of naturalism in general and of copying nature has recovered its influence in modern times. Its aim is to recall an art which has grown feeble and indistinct to the vigour and crispness of nature; or, again, to invoke against the purely arbitrary and artificial conventionalism, as unnatural as it was inartistic, into which art had strayed, the uniform, direct, and solidly coherent sequences of nature. But however true it is that there is something right in this endeavour from one point of view, yet still the naturalism at which it aims is not as such the substantive and primary concern that underlies fine art. And, therefore, although external appearance in the shape of natural reality constitutes an essential condition of art, yet, nevertheless, neither is the given natural world its _rule_, nor is the mere imitation of external appearance _as_ external its _end_. (_b_) The further question then arises--What _is_ the true content of art, and with what aim is this content to be presented. On this subject our consciousness supplies us with the common opinion that it is the task and aim of art to bring in contact with our sense, our feeling, our inspiration, _all_ that finds a place in the mind of man. Art, it is thought, should realize in us that familiar saying, "Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto." Its aim is therefore placed in arousing and animating the slumbering emotions, inclinations, and passions; in filling the _heart_, in forcing the human being, whether cultured or uncultured, to feel the whole range of what man's soul in its inmost and secret corners has power to experience and to create, and all that is able to move and to stir the human breast in its depths and in its manifold aspects and possibilities; to present as a delight to emotion and to perception all that the mind possesses of real and lofty in its thought and in the Idea--all the splendour of the noble, the eternal, and the true; and no less to make intelligible misfortune and misery, wickedness and crime; to make men realize the inmost nature of all that is shocking and horrible, as also of all pleasure and delight; and, finally, to set imagination roving in idle toyings of fancy, and luxuriating in the seductive spells of sense-stimulating visions. This endlessly varied content, it is held, art is bound to embrace, partly in order to complete the natural experience in which our external existence consists, and partly with the general aim of provoking the passions of our nature, both in order that the experiences of life may not leave us unmoved, and because we desire to attain to a receptivity that welcomes all phenomena. Now, such a stimulus is not given in this sphere by actual experience itself, but can only come by the semblance thereof, by art, that is, deceptively substituting its creations for reality. The possibility of this deception by means of artistic semblance rests on the fact that all reality must, for man, traverse the medium of perception and ideas, and cannot otherwise penetrate the feelings and the will. In this process it is quite indifferent whether his attention is claimed by immediate external reality, or whether this effect is produced by another means--that is, by images, symbols, and ideas, containing or representing _the content_ of reality. Man can frame to himself ideas of things that are not actual as though they were actual. Hence it is all the same to our feelings whether external reality or only the semblance of it is the means of bringing in contact with us a situation, a relation, or the import of a life. Either mode suffices to awaken our response to its burden, in grief and in rejoicing, in pathos and in horror,[79] and in traversing the emotions and the passions of wrath, hatred, compassion, of anxiety, fear, love, reverence, and admiration, or of the desire of honour and of fame. This awakening of all feelings in us, the dragging of the heart through the whole significance of life, the realization of all such inner movements by means of a presented exterior consisting merely in deception--all this was what, from the point of view which we have been considering, constituted the peculiar and pre-eminent power of art. Now, as this mode of treatment credits art with the vocation of impressing on the heart and on the imagination good and bad alike, and of strengthening man to the noblest, as of enervating him to the most sensuous and selfish emotions, it follows that the task set before art is still purely formal, and so it would have no certain purpose, but would merely furnish the empty form for every possible kind of significance and content. (_c_) It is a fact that art does include this formal side, in that it has power to present every possible subject-matter in artistic dress, before perception and feeling, just exactly as argumentative[80] reflection has the power of manipulating all possible objects and modes of action, and of furnishing them with reasons and justifications. But when we admit so great a variety of content we are at once met by the remark that the manifold feelings and ideas, which art aims at provoking or reinforcing, intersect and contradict, and by mutual interference cancel one another. Indeed, in this aspect, in so far as art inspires men to directly opposite emotions, it only magnifies the contradiction of our feelings and passions, and either sets them staggering like Bacchantes, or passes into sophistry and scepticism, in the same way as argumentation.[81] This diversity of the material of art itself compels us, therefore, not to be content with so formal[82] an aim for it, seeing that rationality forces its way into this wild diversity, and demands to see the emergence of a higher and more universal purpose from these elements in spite of their self-contradiction, and to be assured of its being attained. Just in the same way the State and the social life of men are, of course, credited with the purpose that in them _all_ human capacities and _all_ individual powers are to be developed and to find utterance in _all_ directions and with _all_ tendencies. But in opposition to so formal a view there at once arises the question in what _unity_ these manifold formations must be comprehended, and what _single end_ they must have for their fundamental idea and ultimate purpose. As such an end, reflection soon suggests the notion that art has the capacity and the function of mitigating the fierceness of the desires. ([Greek: a]) In respect to this first idea, we have only to ascertain in what feature peculiar to art it is that the capacity lies of eliminating brutality and taming and educating the impulses, desires, and passions. Brutality in general has its reason in a direct selfishness of the impulses, which go to work right away, and exclusively for the satisfaction of their concupiscence. Now, desire is most savage and imperious in proportion as, being isolated and narrow, it occupies the _whole man_, so that he does not retain the power of separating himself as a universal being from this determinateness, and becoming aware of himself as universal. Even if the man in such a case says, "The passion is stronger than I," it is true that the abstract I is then separated for consciousness from the particular passion; but still only in a formal way, inasmuch as this separation is only made in order to pronounce that, against the power of the passion, the I as such is of no account whatever. The savageness of passion consists, therefore, in the oneness of the I as universal with the limited content of its desires, so that the man has no will outside this particular passion. Now, such brutality and untamed violence of passion is softened through art, to begin with, by the mere fact that it brings before the man as an idea what in such a state he feels and does. And even if art restricts itself to merely setting up pictures of the passions before the mind's eye, or even if it were actually to flatter them, still this is by itself enough to have a softening power, inasmuch as the man is thereby at least _made aware_, of what, apart from such presentation, he simply _is_. For then the man observes his impulses and inclinations, and whereas before they bore him on without power of reflection, he now sees them outside himself, and begins already to be free from them, in so far as they form an object which he contrasts with himself. Hence it may frequently be the case with the artist that when attacked by grief he softens and weakens the intensity of his own feelings in its effect on his own mind by representing it in art. Tears, even, are enough to bring comfort; the man, who to begin with is utterly sunk and concentrated in grief, is able thus, at any rate, to utter in a direct fashion this his inner state. Still more of a relief however, is the utterance of what is within in words, images, pictures, sounds, and shapes. For this reason it was a good old custom at deaths and funerals to appoint wailing women, in order to bring the grief before the mind in its utterance. Manifestations of sympathy, too, hold up the content of a man's misfortune to his view; when it is much talked about he is forced to reflect upon it, and is thereby relieved. And so it has always been held that to weep or to speak one's fill is a means to obtain freedom from the oppressive weight of care, or at least to find momentary relief for the heart. Hence the mitigation of the violence of passion has for its universal reason that man is released from his immediate sunkenness[83] in a feeling, and becomes conscious of it as of something external to him, towards which he must now enter into an _ideal_ relation. Art, by means of its representations, while remaining within the sensuous sphere, delivers man at the same time from the power of sensuousness. Of course we may often hear those favourite phrases about man's duty being to remain in immediate oneness with nature, but such oneness in its abstraction is simply and solely coarseness and savagery; and art, in the very process of dissolving this oneness for man, is raising him with gentle hand above and away from mere sunkenness in nature. Man's mode of occupying himself with works of art is always purely contemplative,[84] and educates thereby, in the first place, no doubt, merely attention to the representations themselves, but then, going beyond this, it cultivates attention to their significance, the power of comparison with other contents, and receptivity for the general consideration of them, and for the points of view which it involves. ([Greek: b]) To the above there attaches itself in natural connection the second characteristic which has been ascribed to art as its essential purpose, viz. the _purification_ of the passions, instruction and _moral_ perfecting. For the characteristic that art was to bridle savageness and educate the passions remained quite abstract and general, so that a question must again arise about a _determinate_ kind and an essential _end_ of this education. ([Greek: aa]) The doctrine of the purification of passion suffers indeed under the same defect as the above doctrine of the mitigation of the desires; yet, when more closely looked at, it at any rate arrives at the point of accentuating the fact that the representations of art may be held to lack a standard by which their worth or unworthiness could be measured. This standard simply means their effectiveness in separating pure from impure in the passions. It therefore requires a content that has capacity to exercise this purifying power, and, in as far as the production of such an effect is taken to constitute the substantive end of art, it must follow that the purifying content must be brought before consciousness in its _universality_ and _essentiality_. ([Greek: bb]) In this latter aspect the end of art has been pronounced to be that it should _teach_. Thus, on the one side, the peculiar character of art would consist in the movement of the emotions and in the satisfaction which lies in this movement, even in fear, compassion, in painful pathos and shock--that is to say, in the satisfying engagement of the emotions and passions, and to that extent in a complacency, entertainment, and delight in the objects of art, in their representation and effect; but, on the other side, this purpose (of art) is held to find its higher standard only in its instructiveness, in the _fabula docet_,[85] and thus in the useful influence which the work of art succeeds in exerting on the subject.[86] In this respect the Horatian saw,[87] "Et prodesse volunt et delectare poetæ," ("Poets aim at utility and entertainment alike") contains, concentrated in a few words, all that has subsequently been elaborated in infinite degrees, and diluted into the uttermost extreme of insipidity as a doctrine of art. As regards such instruction we have, then, to ask, whether it is meant to be directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly contained in the work of art. If, speaking generally, we are concerned about a purpose which is universal and not contingent, it follows that this purpose, considering the essentially spiritual nature of art, cannot but be itself spiritual, and indeed, moreover, one which is not contingent,[88] but actual in its nature and for its own sake. Such a purpose in relation to teaching could only consist in bringing before consciousness, by help of the work of art, a really and explicitly significant spiritual content. From this point of view it is to be asserted that the higher art ranks itself, the more it is bound to admit into itself such a content as this, and that only in the essence of such a content can it find the standard which determines whether what is expressed is appropriate or inappropriate. Art was, in fact, the first _instructress_ of peoples. But the purpose of instruction may be treated as _purpose_, to such a degree that the universal nature of the represented content is doomed to be exhibited and expounded directly and obviously as abstract proposition, prosaic reflection, or general theorem, and not merely in an indirect way in the concrete form of a work of art. By such a severance the sensuous plastic form, which is just what makes the work of art a work of _art_, becomes a mere otiose accessory, a husk which is expressly pronounced to be mere husk, a semblance expressly pronounced to be mere semblance. But thereby the very nature of the work of art is distorted. For the work of art ought to bring a content before the mind's eye, not in its generality as such, but with this generality made absolutely individual, and sensuously particularized. If the work of art does not proceed from this principle, but sets in relief its generalized aspect with the purpose of abstract instruction, then the imaginative and sensuous aspect is only an external and superfluous adornment, and the work of art is a thing divided against itself,[89] in which form and content no longer appear as grown into one. In that case the sensuously individual and the spiritually general are become external to one another. And further, if the purpose of art is limited to this _didactic_ utility, then its other aspect, that of pleasure, entertainment, and delight, is pronounced to be in itself _unessential_, and ought to have its substance merely in the utility of the teaching on which it is attendant. But this amounts to pronouncing that art does not bear its vocation and purpose in itself, but that its conception is rooted in something else, to which it is a _means_. Art is, in this case, only one among the several means which prove useful and are applied for the purpose of instruction. This brings us to the boundary at which art is made no longer to be an end on its own merits, seeing that it is degraded into a mere toy of entertainment or a mere means of instruction. ([Greek: gg]) This boundary becomes most sharply marked when a question is raised, in its turn, about a supreme end and aim for the sake of which the passions are to be purified and men are to be instructed. This aim has often, in modern times, been declared to be _moral_ improvement, and the aim of art has been placed in the function of preparing the inclinations and impulses for moral perfection, and of leading them to this goal. This idea combines purification with instruction, inasmuch as art is, by communicating an insight into genuine moral goodness--that is, by instruction,--at the same time to incite to purification, and in this way alone to bring about the improvement of mankind as its useful purpose and supreme goal. Regarding art in reference to moral improvement, the same has _prima facie_ to be said as about the didactic purpose. We may readily grant that art must not as a principle take for its aim the immoral and its furtherance. But it is one thing to take immorality for the express aim of representation, and another to abstain from taking morality. Every genuine work of art may have a good moral drawn from it, but, of course, in doing so much depends on interpretation and on him who draws the moral. Thus one may hear the most immoral representations defended by saying that we must know evil, or sin, in order to act morally; and, conversely, it has been said that the portrayal of Mary Magdalene, the beautiful sinner who afterwards repented, has seduced many into sin, because art makes it look so beautiful to repent, and you must sin before you can repent. But the doctrine of moral improvement, if consistently carried out, goes in general yet further. It would not be satisfied with the possibility of extracting a moral from a work of art by interpretation, but it would, on the contrary, display the moral instruction as the substantive purpose of the work of art, and, indeed, would actually admit to portrayal none but moral subjects, moral characters, actions, and incidents. For art has the choice among its subjects, in contradistinction to history or the sciences which have their matter fixed for them. In order that we may be able to form a thoroughly adequate estimate of the idea that the aim of art is moral from this point of view, we must inquire first of all for the definite standpoint of the morality on which this doctrine is based. If we look closely at the standpoint of morality as we have to understand it in the best sense at the present day, we soon find that its conception does not immediately coincide with what apart from it we are in the habit of calling in a general way virtue, respectability,[90] uprightness, etc. To be respectable and virtuous is not enough to make a man moral.[91] Morality involves _reflection_ and the definite consciousness of that which duty prescribes, and acting out of such a prior consciousness. Duty itself is the law of the will, which man nevertheless lays down freely out of his own self, and then is supposed to determine himself to this duty for duty's and its fulfilment's sake, by doing good solely from the conviction which he has attained that it is the good. Now this law, the duty which is chosen for duty's sake to be the guide of action, out of free conviction and the inner conscience, and is then acted upon, is, taken by itself,[92] the abstract universal of the will, and is the direct antithesis of nature, the sensuous impulses, the self-seeking interests, the passions, and of all that is comprehensively entitled the feelings[93] and the heart. In this antagonism the one side is regarded as _negativing_ the other; and, seeing that both are present as antagonists within the subject (person), he has, as determining himself out of himself, the choice of following the one or the other. But, according to the view under discussion, a _moral_ aspect is acquired by such a decision, and by the act performed in accordance with it, only through the free conviction of duty on the one hand, and, on the other hand, through the conquest, not only of the particular or separate will, of the natural motives, inclinations, passions, etc., but also through that of the nobler emotions and the higher impulses. For the modern moralistic view starts from the fixed antithesis of the will in its spiritual universality to its sensuous natural particularity,[94] and consists not in the completed reconciliation of these contrasted sides, but in their conflict with one another, which involves the requirement that the impulses which conflict with duty ought to yield to it. This antithesis does not merely display itself for our consciousness, in the limited region of moral action; but also emerges as a fundamental distinction and antagonism between that which is real essentially and in its own right,[95] and that which is external reality and existence. Formulated in the abstract, it is the contrast of the universal and particular, when the former is explicitly fixed over against the latter, just as the latter is over against the former; more concretely, it appears in nature as the opposition of the abstract law against the abundance of individual phenomena, each having its own character; in the mind, as the sensuous and spiritual in man, as the battle of the spirit against the flesh, of duty for duty's sake, the cold command, with the individual interest, the warm feelings, the sensuous inclinations and impulses, the individual disposition as such; as the hard conflict of inward freedom and of natural necessity; further, as the contradiction of the dead conception--empty in itself--compared with full concrete vitality, or of theory and subjective thought contrasted with objective existence and experience. These are antitheses which have not been invented, either by the subtlety of reflection or by the pedantry of philosophy, but which have from all time and in manifold forms preoccupied and disquieted the human consciousness, although it was modern culture that elaborated them most distinctly, and forced them up to the point of most unbending contradiction. Intellectual culture and the modern play of understanding create in man this contrast, which makes him an amphibious animal, inasmuch as it sets him to live in two contradictory worlds at once; so that even consciousness wanders back and forward in this contradiction, and, shuttle-cocked from side to side, is unable to satisfy itself _as_ itself on the one side as on the other. For, on the one side, we see man a prisoner in common reality and earthly temporality, oppressed by want and poverty, hard driven by nature, entangled in matter, in sensuous aims and their enjoyments; on the other side, he exalts himself to eternal ideas, to a realm of thought and freedom, imposes on himself as a _will_ universal laws and attributions, strips the world of its living and flourishing reality and dissolves it into abstractions, inasmuch as the mind is put upon vindicating its rights and its dignity simply by denying the rights of nature and maltreating it, thereby retaliating the oppression and violence which itself has experienced from nature. Such a discrepancy in life and consciousness involves for modern culture and its understanding the demand that the contradiction should be resolved. Yet the understanding cannot release itself from the fixity of these antitheses. The solution, therefore, remains for consciousness a mere _ought_, and the present and reality only stir themselves in the unrest of a perpetual to and fro, which seeks a reconciliation without finding it. Then the question arises, whether such a many-sided and fundamental opposition which never gets beyond a mere ought and a postulated solution, can be the genuine and complete[96] truth, and, in general, the supreme purpose. If the culture of the world[97] has fallen into such a contradiction, it becomes the task of philosophy to undo or cancel it, _i.e._ to show that neither the one alternative in its abstraction nor the other in similar one-sidedness possesses truth, but that they are essentially self-dissolving; that truth only lies in the conciliation and mediation of the two, and that this mediation is no mere postulate, but is in its nature and in reality accomplished and always self-accomplishing. This intuition agrees directly with the natural faith and will, which always has present to the mind's eye precisely this resolved antithesis, and in action makes it its purpose and achieves it. All that philosophy does is to furnish a reflective insight into the essence of the antithesis in as far as it shows that what constitutes truth is merely the resolution of this antithesis, and that not in the sense that the conflict and its aspects in any way _are not_, but in the sense that they _are_, _in reconciliation_. (_d_) Now, as an ultimate aim implied a higher standpoint in the case of moral improvement, we shall have to vindicate this higher standpoint for art no less than for morals. Thereby we at once lay aside the false position, which has already been remarked upon, that art has to serve as a means for moral ends, and to conduce to the moral end of the world, as such, by instruction and moral improvement, and thereby has its substantive aim, not in itself, but in something else. If, therefore, we now continue to speak of an aim or purpose, we must, in the first instance, get rid of the perverse idea, which, in asking "What is the aim?" retains the accessory meaning of the question, "What is the _use_?". The perverseness of this lies in the point that the work of art would then be regarded as aspiring to something else which is set before consciousness as the essential and as what ought to be; so that then the work of art would only have value as a useful instrument in the realization of an end having substantive importance _outside_ the sphere of art. Against this it is necessary to maintain that art has the vocation of revealing _the truth_ in the form of sensuous artistic shape, of representing the reconciled antithesis just described, and, therefore, has its purpose in itself, in this representation and revelation. For other objects, such as instruction, purification, improvement, pecuniary gain, endeavour after fame and honour, have nothing to do with the work of art as such, and do not determine its conception. It is from this point of view, into which _reflective_ consideration of the matter resolves itself, that we have to apprehend the idea of art in its inner necessity, as indeed it was from this point of view, historically speaking, that the true appreciation and understanding of art took its origin. For that antithesis, of which we spoke, made itself felt, not only within general reflective culture, but no less in philosophy as such, and it was not till philosophy discovered how to overcome this antithesis absolutely, that it grasped its own conception and, just in as far as it did so, the conception of nature and of art. Hence this point of view, as it is the re-awakening of philosophy in general, so also is the re-awakening of the science of art; and, indeed, it is this re-awakening to which alone æsthetic as a science owes its true origin, and art its higher estimation. CHAPTER IV. HISTORICAL DEDUCTION OF THE TRUE IDEA OF ART IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. I Shall touch briefly upon the historical side of the transition above alluded to, partly for its historical interest, partly because, in doing so, we shall more closely indicate the critical points which are important, and on the foundation of which we mean to continue our structure. In its most general formulation, this basis consists in recognizing artistic beauty as one of the means which resolve and reduce to unity the above antithesis and contradiction between the abstract self-concentrated mind and actual nature, whether that of external phenomena, or the inner subjective feelings and emotions. 1. The Kantian philosophy led the way by not merely feeling the lack of this point of union, but attaining definite knowledge of it, and bringing it within the range of our ideas.[98] In general, Kant treated as his foundation for the intelligence as for the will, the self-related rationality or freedom, the self-consciousness that finds and knows itself in itself as infinite.[99] This knowledge of the absoluteness of reason in itself which has brought philosophy to its turning-point in modern times, this absolute beginning, deserves recognition even if we pronounce Kant's philosophy inadequate, and is an element in it which cannot be refuted. But, in as far as Kant fell back again into the fixed antithesis of subjective thought and objective things, of the abstract universality and the sensuous individuality of the will, it was he more especially who strained to the highest possible pitch the above-mentioned contradiction called morality,[100] seeing that he moreover exalted the practical side of the mind above the theoretical. In presence of this fixed antithesis, with its fixity acknowledged by the understanding, he had no course open but to propound the unity merely in the form of subjective ideas of the reason to which no adequate reality could be shown to correspond, or again, to treat it as consisting in postulates which might indeed be deduced from the practical reason, but whose essential nature[101] was not for him knowable by thought, and whose practical accomplishment remained a mere ought deferred to infinity. Thus, then, Kant no doubt brought the reconciled contradiction within the range of our ideas, but he succeeded neither in scientifically unfolding its genuine essence nor in presenting it as the true and sole reality. Kant indeed pressed on still further, inasmuch as he recognized the required unity in what he called the _intuitive understanding_; but here, again, he comes to a standstill in the contradiction of subjectivity and objectivity, so that although he suggests in the abstract a solution of the contradiction of concept and reality, universality and particularity, understanding and sense, and thereby points to the Idea, yet, on the other hand, he makes this solution and reconciliation itself a purely _subjective_ one, not one which is true and actual in its nature and on its own merits.[102] In this respect the Critique of the power of judgment, in which he treats of the æsthetic and teleological powers of judgment, is instructive and remarkable. The beautiful objects of nature and art, the rightly adapted products of nature, by connecting which Kant is led to a closer treatment of organic and animated beings, are regarded by him only from the point of view of the reflection which subjectively judges of them. Indeed Kant defines the power of judgment generally as "the power of thinking the particular as contained under the universal;" and he calls the power of judgment _reflective_ "when it has only the particular given to it, and has to find the universal under which it comes." To this end it requires a law, a principle, which it has to impose upon itself; and Kant suggests as this law that of _Teleology_. In the idea of freedom that belongs to the practical reason, the accomplishment of the end is left as a mere "ought," but in the teleological judgment dealing with animated beings, Kant hits on the notion of regarding the living organism in the light that in it the idea, the universal, contains the particulars as well. Thus in its capacity as end, it determines the particular and external, the structure of the limbs, not from without, but from within, and in the sense that the particular conforms to the end _spontaneously_. Yet even in such a judgment, again, we are supposed not to know the objective nature of the thing, but only to be enunciating a subjective mode of reflection. Similarly, Kant understands the _æsthetic_ judgment as neither proceeding from the understanding as such _qua_ the faculty of ideas, nor from sensuous perception as such with its manifold variety, but from the free play of the understanding and of the imagination. It is in this free agreement of the faculties of knowledge, that the thing is related to the subject or person, and to his feeling of pleasure and complacency. (_a_) Now this complacency is, in the first place, to be devoid of any interest, i.e., _devoid of relation to our appetitive faculty_. If we have an interest, by way of curiosity for instance, or a sensuous interest on behalf of our sensuous want, a desire of possession and use, then the objects are not important to us for their own sake, but for the sake of our want. In that case, what exists has a value only with reference to such a want, and the relation is of such a kind that the object is on the one side, and on the other stands an attribution which is distinct from the object, but to which we relate it. If, for instance, I consume the object in order to nourish myself by it, this interest lies only in me, and remains foreign to the object itself. Now, what Kant asserts is, that the relation to the beautiful is not of this kind. The æsthetic judgment allows the external existence to subsist free and independent, giving licence to the object to have its end in itself. This is, as we saw above, an important consideration.[103] (_b_) The beautiful, in _the second place_, says Kant, is definable as that which, without a conception, _i.e._ without a category of the understanding, is perceived as the object of a _universal_ delight. To estimate the beautiful requires a cultivated mind; the natural man[104] has no judgment about the beautiful, seeing that this judgment claims universal validity. The universal is, indeed to begin with, _as such_ an abstraction; but that which in itself and on its own merits[105] is true, bears in itself the attribution and the claim to be valid even universally. In this sense the beautiful, too, ought to be _universally_ recognized, although the mere conceptions of the understanding are competent to no judgment thereupon. The good, that, for instance, which is right in particular actions, is subsumed under universal conceptions, and the act passes for good when it succeeds in corresponding to these conceptions. Beauty, on the other hand, according to the theory, should awaken a universal delight directly, without any such relation. This amounts to nothing else than that, in contemplating beauty, we are not conscious of the conception and of the subsumption under it, and do not permit to take place the severance of the individual object and of the universal conception which in all other cases is present in the judgment. (_c_) In the _third_ place, the beautiful (Kant says) has the form of teleology,[106] in as far as a teleological character is perceived in the object without the idea of an end. At bottom this only repeats the view which we have just discussed. Any natural production, _i.e._ a plant or an animal, is organized teleologically, and is so immediately a datum to us in this its teleology that we have no separate abstract idea of the end, distinct from its given reality. It is in this way that even _the beautiful_ is to be displayed to us as teleological. In finite teleology[107] end and means remain external to one another, inasmuch as the end stands in no essential inner relation to the material medium of its accomplishment. In this case, the idea of the end in its abstraction[108] distinguishes itself from the object in which the end appears as realized. The beautiful, on the other hand, exists as teleological in itself, without means and end revealing themselves in it as distinct aspects. For instance, the purpose of the limbs of an organism is the vitality which exists as actual in the limbs themselves; separately they cease to be limbs. For in the living thing the end and the material medium of the end are so directly united, that the existing being only exists so long as its purpose dwells in it. The beautiful, Kant maintains, when considered from this point of view, does not wear its teleology as an external form attached to it; but the teleological correspondence of the inner and outer is the immanent nature of the beautiful object. (_d_) Lastly, Kant's treatment determines the beautiful, in the _fourth_ place, as being recognized, without a conception, as object of a _necessary_ delight. Necessity is an abstract category, and indicates an inner essential relation of two aspects; _if_ the one is, and _because_ the one is, _then_ (_and therefore_) the other is. The one in its nature involves the other as well as itself, just as cause, _e.g._, has no meaning without effect. The delight which the beautiful involves is such a necessary consequence, wholly without relation to conceptions, _i.e._ to categories of the understanding. Thus, for instance, we are pleased no doubt by what is symmetrical, and this is constructed in accordance with a conception of the understanding. But Kant requires, to give us pleasure, even more than the unity and equality that belong to such a conception of the understanding. Now, what we find in all these Kantian laws is a non-severance of that which in all other cases is presupposed in our consciousness to be distinct. In the beautiful this severance finds itself cancelled, inasmuch as universal and particular, end and means, conception and object thoroughly interpenetrate one another. And thus, again, Kant regards the beautiful in _art_ as an agreement in which the particular itself _is_ in accordance with the conception. Particulars, as such, are _prima facie_ contingent, both as regards one another and as regards the universal, and this very contingent element, sense, feeling, temper, inclination, is now in the beauty of art not merely _subsumed_ under universal categories of the understanding and _controlled_ by the conception of feeling in its abstract universality, but so united with the universal that it reveals itself as inwardly and in its nature and realization[109] adequate thereto. By this means the beauty of art becomes embodiment of a thought, and the material is not externally determined by this thought, but exists itself in its freedom. For in this case the natural, sensuous, the feelings and so forth have _in themselves_ proportion, purpose, and agreement; while perception and feeling are exalted into spiritual universality, and thought itself, not content with renouncing its hostility to nature, finds cheerfulness therein. Thus feeling, pleasure, and enjoyment are justified and sanctified, so that nature and freedom, sensuousness and the idea, find their warrant and their satisfaction all in _one_. Yet even this apparently complete reconciliation is ultimately inferred[110] to be, nevertheless, merely subjective in respect of our appreciation as in respect of our production, and not to be the naturally and completely true and real. These we may take as the main results of the Kantian Criticism, so far as they have interest for us in our present inquiry. This criticism forms the starting-point for the true conception of artistic beauty. Yet this conception had to overcome the Kantian defects before it could assert itself as the higher grasp of the true unity of necessity and freedom, of the particular and the universal, of the sensuous and the rational. 2. And so it must be admitted that the artistic sense of a profound, and, at the same time, philosophic mind was beforehand with philosophy as such, in demanding and enunciating the principle of totality and reconciliation as against that abstract endlessness of reflective thought, that duty for duty's sake, that intelligence devoid of plastic shape, which apprehend nature and reality, sensation and feeling as a mere _limit_, and as an absolutely hostile element. For _Schiller_ must be credited with the great merit of having broken through the Kantian subjectivity and abstractness of thought, and having dared the attempt to transcend these limits by intellectually grasping the principles of unity and reconciliation as the truth, and realizing them in art. Schiller, in his æsthetic discussions, did not simply adhere to art and its interest without concerning himself about its relation to philosophy proper, but compared his interest in artistic beauty with the principles of philosophy; and it was only by starting from the latter, and by their help that he penetrated the profounder nature and notion of the beautiful. Thus we feel it to be a feature in one period of his works that he has busied himself with thought--more perhaps than was conducive to their unsophisticated beauty as works of art. The intentional character of abstract reflection and even the interest of the philosophical idea are noticeable in many of his poems. This has been made a ground of censure against him, especially by way of blaming and depreciating him in comparison with Goethe's agreeable straightforwardness[111] and objectivity. But in this respect Schiller, as poet, did but pay the debt of his time; and the reason lay in a perplexity which turned out only to the honour of that sublime soul and profound character, and to the profit of science and cognition. At the same epoch the same scientific stimulus withdrew Goethe, too, from poetry, his proper sphere. Yet just as Schiller immersed himself in the study of the inner depths of the _mind_, so Goethe's idiosyncrasy led him to the _physical_ side of art, to external nature, to animal and vegetable organisms, to crystals, to cloud formation, and to colour. To such scientific research Goethe brought the power of his great mind, which in these regions put to rout[112] the science of mere understanding with its errors, just as Schiller, on the other side, succeeded in asserting the idea of the free totality of beauty against the understanding's science of volition and thought. A whole set of Schiller's productions is devoted to this insight of his into the nature of art, especially the "Letters upon Æsthetic Education." In these letters the central point from which Schiller starts is that every individual human being has within him the capacity of an ideal humanity. This genuine human being, he says, is represented by the State,[113] which he takes to be the objective, universal, or, so to speak, normal form in which the diversity of particular subjects or persons aims at aggregating and combining itself into a unity. There were, then, he considered, two imaginable ways in which the human being in time (in the actual course of events) might coincide with the human being in the Idea: on the one hand, by the State, _qua_ genus or class-idea of morality,[114] law, and intelligence, destroying individuality; on the other hand, by the individual raising himself to the level of his genus, _i.e._ by the human being that lives in time ennobling himself into the human being of the Idea. Now reason, he thinks, demands unity as such, the generic character, but nature demands diversity and individuality; and both these legislative authorities have simultaneous claims on man. In presence of the conflict between these antagonistic elements, æsthetic education simply consists in realizing the requirement of mediation and reconciliation between them. For the aim of this education is, according to Schiller, to give such form to inclination, sensuousness, impulse, and heart, that they may become rational in themselves, and by the same process reason, freedom, and spirituality may come forward out of their abstraction, and uniting with the natural element, now rationalized throughout, may in it be invested with flesh and blood. Beauty is thus pronounced to be the unification of the rational and the sensuous, and this unification to be the genuinely real. This notion of Schiller's may be readily recognized in the general views of "Anmuth und Würde,"[115] and in his poems more particularly from the fact that he makes the praise of women his subject matter; because it was in their character that he recognized and held up to notice the spontaneously present combination of the spiritual and natural. Now this _Unity_ of the universal and particular, of freedom and necessity, of the spiritual and the natural, which Schiller grasped from a scientific point of view as the principle and essence of art, and laboured indefatigably to evoke into actual existence by help of art and æsthetic culture, was considered, by a further advance, _as the Idea itself_, and was thus constituted the principle of knowledge and of existence, while the Idea in this sense was recognized as the sole truth and reality. By means of this recognition, science, in Schelling's philosophy, attained its absolute standpoint, and although art had previously begun to assert its peculiar nature and dignity in relation to the highest interests of humanity, yet it was now that the actual _notion_ of art and its place in scientific theory were discovered. Art was now accepted, even if erroneously in one respect, which this is not the place to discuss, yet in its higher and genuine vocation. No doubt before this time so early a writer as Winckelmann had been inspired by his observation of the ideals of the ancients in a way that led him to develop a new sense for the contemplation of art, to rescue it from the notions of commonplace aims and of mere mimicry of nature, and to exert an immense influence in favour of searching out the idea of art in the works of art and in its history. For Winckelmann should be regarded as one of the men who have succeeded in furnishing the mind with a new organ and new methods of study in the field of art. On the theory, however, and the scientific knowledge of art his view has had less influence. 3. To touch briefly on the further course of the subject, A. W. and Friedrich von Schlegel, in proximity to the renaissance of philosophy, being covetous of novelty and with a thirst for what was striking and extraordinary, appropriated as much of the philosophical idea as their natures, which were anything but philosophical, and essentially of the critical stamp, were capable of absorbing. Neither of them can claim the reputation of a speculative thinker. But it was they who, armed with their critical understanding, set themselves somewhere near the standpoint of the Idea, and with great plainness of speech and audacity of innovation, though with but a poor admixture of philosophy, directed a clever polemic against the traditional views. And thus they undoubtedly introduced in several branches of art a new standard of judgment in conformity with notions which were higher than those that they attacked. As, however, their criticism was not accompanied by the thorough philosophical comprehension of their standard, this standard retained a character of indefiniteness and vacillation, with the result that they sometimes did too much and sometimes too little. No doubt they are to be credited with the merit of bringing afresh to light and extolling in a loving spirit much that was held obsolete and was inadequately esteemed by their age, e.g. the work of the older painters of Italy and the Netherlands, the "Nibelungen Lied," etc.; and, again, they endeavoured with zeal to learn and to teach subjects that were little known, such as the Indian poetry and mythology. Nevertheless, they attributed too high a value to the productions of such epochs, and sometimes themselves fell into the blunder of admiring what was but mediocre, _e.g._ Holberg's comedies, and attaching a universal importance to what had only relative value, or even boldly showing themselves enthusiasts for a perverse tendency and subordinate standpoint as if it were something supreme. Out of this tendency, and especially out of the sentiments[116] and doctrines of Fried. von Schlegel, there further grew in all its manifold shapes the so-called _Irony_. This idea had its deeper root, if we take it in one of its aspects, in Fichte's philosophy, in so far as the principles of his philosophy were applied to art. Fried. von Schlegel, as also Schelling, started from Fichte's point of view; Schelling, to pass wholly beyond it, Fried. von Schlegel to develop it in a peculiar fashion, and to tear himself loose from it. As regards the intimate connection of Fichte's principles with one tendency (among others) of the irony, we need only lay stress on the following point, that Fichte establishes the =I= as the absolute principle of all knowledge, of all reason and cognition; and that in the sense of the =I= which is, and is no more than, utterly abstract and formal. For this reason, in the second place, this =I= is in itself absolutely simple, and, on the one hand, every characteristic, every attribute, every content is negated therein--for every positive matter is annihilated by absorption into this abstract freedom and unity; on the other side, every content which is to be of value for the =I=, is given position and recognition only by favour of the =I=. Whatever is, is only by favour of the =I=,[117] and what is by my favour =I= am in turn able to annihilate. Now, if we abide by these utterly empty forms which have their origin in the absoluteness of the abstract =I=, then nothing has value in its real and actual nature, and regarded[118] in itself, but only as produced by the subjectivity of the =I=. But if so, it follows that the =I= is able to remain lord and master of everything, and in no sphere of morality or legality, of things human or divine, profane or sacred, is there anything that would not have to begin by being given position by the =I=, and that might not, therefore, just as well be in turn annihilated thereby. This amounts to making all that is actual in its own right[119] a mere _semblance_, not true and real for its own sake and by its own means, but a mere appearance due to the =I=, within whose power and caprice it remains, and at its free disposal. To admit it or to annihilate it stands purely in the pleasure of the =I= which has attained absoluteness in itself and simply as =I=. In the third place,[120] then, the =I= is a _living_, active individual, and its life consists in bringing its individuality to its own consciousness as to that of others, in uttering itself and taking shape in phenomena. For every human being while he lives, seeks to realize himself, and does realize himself. With respect to beauty and art this receives the meaning of living as artist and forming one's life _artistically_. But, according to the principle before us, =I= live as artist when all my action and utterance in general, whenever it has to do with any content, is for me on the level of mere _semblance_, and assumes a shape which is wholly in my power. So =I= am not really in _earnest_, either about this content, or generally, about its utterance and realization. For genuine earnest comes into being only by means of a substantial interest, a matter that has something in it, truth, morality, and so forth; by means of a content which, as such (without my help) is enough to have value for me as something essential, so that =I= myself only become essential in my own eyes in as far as =I= have immersed myself in such a matter and have come to be in conformity with it in my whole knowledge and action. At the standpoint according to which the artist is the =I= that binds and looses[121] of its own power, for whom no content of consciousness counts as absolute and as essentially real, but only as itself an artificial and dissoluble semblance, such earnest can never come into being, as nothing has validity ascribed to it but the formalism of the =I=. By others, indeed, my self-display in which =I= present myself to them may be taken seriously, inasmuch as they interpret me as though I were really concerned about the matter in hand; but therein they are simply deceived, poor _borné_ creatures, without talent and capacity to apprehend and to attain my standpoint. And this shows me that not every one is so free (_formally_[122] free, that is) as to see in all that usually has value, dignity, and sanctity for mankind, simply a product of his own power of caprice, whereby he is able to set his seal on the value of such matters, and to determine himself and obtain a content by their means, or not. And then this skill in living an ironical artist life apprehends itself as a _God-like geniality_,[123] for which every possible thing is a mere dead creature, to which the free creator, knowing himself to be wholly unattached, feels in no way bound, seeing that he can annihilate as well as create it. He who has attained such a standpoint of God-like geniality looks down in superiority on all mankind besides, for they are pronounced _borné_ and dull in as far as law, morality, and so forth retain for them their fixed, obligatory, and essential validity. And the individual who thus lives his artist life assigns himself indeed relation to others, lives with friends, mistresses, etc., but as genius he sets no value on this relation to his determinate reality and particular actions, or to what is universal in its own right; that is, he assumes an ironical attitude towards it. This is the universal import of the genial God-like irony, as that concentration of the =I= into itself for which all bonds are broken, and which will only endure to live in the bliss of self-enjoyment.[124] This irony was the invention of Herr Fried. von Schlegel, and many followed him in prating about it then, or are prating of it afresh just now. The proximate form of this negativity which displays itself as irony is, then, on the one hand the futility[125] of all that is matter of fact, or moral and of substantive import in itself; the nothingness of all that is objective, and that has essential and actual value. If the =I= remains at this point of view, all appears to it as nothing worth and as futile, excepting its own subjectivity, which thereby becomes hollow and empty, and itself mere conceit.[126] But on the other hand, the reverse may happen, and the I may also find itself unsatisfied in its enjoyment of itself, and may prove insufficient to itself, so as in consequence to feel a craving for the solid and substantial, for determinate and essential interests. Out of this there arises misfortune and antinomy, in that the subject desires to penetrate into truth and has a craving for objectivity, but yet is unable to abandon its isolation and retirement into itself, and to strip itself free of this unsatisfied abstract inwardness (of mind), and so has a seizure of sickly yearning[127] which we have also seen emanate from Fichte's school. The discontent of this quiescence and feebleness,--which does not like to act or to touch anything for fear of surrendering its inward harmony, and, for all its craving after the absolute, remains none the less unreal and empty, even though pure in itself,--is the source of morbid saintliness[128] and yearning. For a true saintly soul acts and is a reality. But all that craving is the feeling of the nullity of the empty futile[129] subject or person, which lacks the strength to escape this its futility,[129] and to fill[130] itself with something of substantial value. In so far, however, as the Irony was treated as a form of art, it did not content itself with conferring artistic shape upon the life and particular individuality of the artist. In addition to the works of art presented by his own actions, etc., the artist was bound to produce external works of art as creations of his fancy. The principle of these productions, which for the most part can only come to the birth in poetical form, is, in due course, the representation of the Divine as the Ironical. The ironical, as "genial" individuality, consists in the self-annihilation of what is noble, great, and excellent; and thus even the objective shapes of art will have to represent the mere principle of absolute subjectivity, by displaying what has value and nobleness for man as null in its self-annihilation. This implies, not merely that we are not to be serious about the right, the moral, and the true, but that the highest and best of all has nothing in it, inasmuch as in its exhibition through individuals, characters, and actions, it refutes and annihilates itself, and so is irony at its own expense. This mode, taken in the abstract, borders closely on the principle of comedy; but yet within this affinity the comic must be essentially distinguished from the ironical. For the comic must be limited to bringing to nothing what is in itself null, a false and self-contradictory phenomenon; for instance, a whim, a perversity, or particular caprice, set over against a mighty passion; or even a _supposed_ reliable principle or rigid maxim may be shown to be null. But it is quite another thing when what is in reality moral and true, any substantial content as such, exhibits itself as null in an individual and by his means. Such an individual is then null and despicable in character, and weakness and want of character are thus introduced into the representation. In this distinction between the ironical and the comic it is therefore an essential question what import that has which is brought to nothing. In the case supposed they are wretched worthless subjects, persons destitute of the power to abide by their fixed and essential purpose, but ready to surrender it and let it be destroyed in them. The "Irony" loves this irony of the characterless. For true character involves on the one hand an essential import in its purpose; on the other hand, adherence to that purpose, such that the individuality would be robbed of its whole existence if forced to desist from and to abandon it. This stability and substance constitute the keynote of character. _Cato_ can live only as Roman and as republican. Now, if Irony is taken as the keynote of the representation, this means that the supremely inartistic is taken as the true principle of the work of art. For the result is in part insipid figures; in part shapes void of import and of conduct,[131] seeing that their substantive nature turns out to be a nullity; and in part, finally, those yearning moods and unresolved contradictions of the heart that attach themselves to such conceptions. Representations of this kind can awake no genuine interest. And for this reason it is from the Irony that we have eternal lamentations over the lack of profound feeling, artistic insight, and genius in the public, inasmuch as it does not understand these heights of Irony. That is to say, the public does not like all this mediocrity, half grotesque and half characterless. And it is well that these unsubstantial languishing natures afford no pleasure; it is a comfort that such insincerity and hypocrisy are not approved, and that, on the contrary, man has a desire no less for full and genuine interests than for characters which remain true to the weighty purposes of their lives. It may be added as an historical remark that those who more particularly adopted irony as the supreme principle of art were Solger and Ludwig Tieck. This is not the place to speak of Solger at the length which is due to him, and I must content myself with a few observations. Solger was not like the others, satisfied with superficial philosophical culture, but the genuine speculative need of his innermost nature impelled him to descend into the depths of the philosophic idea. And therein he hit upon the dialectical element of the Idea, the point to which I give the name of "infinite absolute negativity," the activity of the idea in that it negates itself as the infinite and universal, so as to become finiteness and particularity, and just as really cancels this negation in turn, establishing thereby the universal and infinite in the finite and particular. Solger got no further than this negativity, and it is no doubt an element in the speculative idea, but yet when conceived as this mere dialectic unrest and dissolution both of infinite and of finite _no more than_ an element; not, as Solger maintains, _the entire Idea_. Unhappily Solger's life was too soon interrupted for him to have achieved the concrete development of the philosophical Idea. And so he never got beyond this aspect of negativity, which has affinity with the dissolution that Irony effects of what is determinate and of what has substantive value in itself, a negativity in which he saw the principle of artistic activity. Yet in his actual life, considering the solidity, seriousness, and strength of his character, he neither was himself, in the sense above depicted, an ironical artist, nor was his profound feeling for genuine works of art, developed in protracted art studies, in this respect of an ironical nature. So much in vindication of Solger, whose life, philosophy, and art merit to be distinguished from the previously mentioned apostles of irony. As regards Ludwig Tieck, his culture, too, dates from that period in which for some time Jena was the literary centre.[132] Tieck and others of these distinguished people display great familiarity with the phrases in question, but without telling us what they mean by them. Thus, Tieck no doubt always says there ought to be Irony; but when he himself approaches the criticism of great works of art, though his recognition and portrayal of their greatness is excellent, yet, if we fancy that now is the best opportunity to explain where the Irony is, _e.g._ in such a work as "Romeo and Juliet," we are taken in--for we hear no more about the Irony. CHAPTER V DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 1. After the above introductory remarks, it is now time to pass to the study of our object-matter. But we are still in the introduction, and an introduction cannot do more than lay down, for the sake of explanation, the general sketch of the entire course which will be followed by our subsequent scientific considerations. As, however, we have spoken of art as proceeding from the absolute Idea, and have even assigned as its end the sensuous representation of the absolute itself, we shall have to conduct this review in a way to show, at least in general, how the particular divisions of the subject spring from the conception of artistic beauty as the representation of the absolute. Therefore we must attempt to awaken a very general idea of this conception itself. It has already been said that the content of art is the Idea, and that its form lies in the plastic use of images accessible to sense. These two sides art has to reconcile into a full and united totality. The _first_ attribution which this involves is the requirement that the content, which is to be offered to artistic representation, shall show itself to be in its nature worthy of such representation. Otherwise we only obtain a bad combination, whereby a content that will not submit to plasticity and to external presentation, is forced into that form, and a matter which is in its nature prosaic is expected to find an appropriate mode of manifestation in the form antagonistic to its nature. The _second_ requirement, which is derivable from this first, demands of the content of art that it should not be anything abstract in itself. This does not mean that it must be concrete as the sensuous is concrete in contrast to everything spiritual and intellectual, these being taken as in themselves simple and abstract. For everything that has genuine truth in the mind as well as in nature is concrete in itself, and has, in spite of its universality, nevertheless, both subjectivity and particularity within it. If we say, _e.g._, of God that he is simply _One_, the supreme Being as such, we have only enunciated a lifeless abstraction of the irrational understanding. Such a God, as he himself is not apprehended in his concrete truth, can afford no material for art, least of all for plastic art. Hence the Jews and the Turks have not been able to represent their God, who does not even amount to such an abstraction of the understanding, in the positive way in which Christians have done so. For God in Christianity is conceived in His truth, and therefore, as in Himself thoroughly concrete, as a person, as a subject,[133] and more closely determined, as mind or spirit. What He is as spirit unfolds itself to the religious apprehension as the Trinity of Persons, which at the same time in relation with itself is _One_. Here is essentiality, universality, and particularity, together with their reconciled unity; and it is only such unity that constitutes the concrete. Now, as a content in order to possess truth at all must be of this concrete nature, art demands the same concreteness, because a mere abstract universal has not in itself the vocation to advance to particularity and phenomenal manifestation and to unity with itself therein. If a true and therefore concrete content is to have corresponding to it a sensuous form and modelling, this sensuous form must, in the third place, be no less emphatically something individual, wholly concrete in itself, and one. The character of concreteness as belonging to both elements of art, to the content as to the representation, is precisely the point in which both may coincide and correspond to one another; as, for instance, the natural shape of the human body is such a sensuous concrete as is capable of representing spirit, which is concrete in itself, and of displaying itself in conformity therewith. Therefore we ought to abandon the idea that it is a mere matter of accident that an actual phenomenon of the external world is chosen to furnish a shape thus conformable to truth. Art does not appropriate this form either because it simply finds it existing or because there is no other. The concrete content itself involves the element of external and actual, we may say indeed of sensible manifestation. But in compensation this sensuous concrete, in which a content essentially belonging to mind expresses itself, is in its own nature addressed to the inward being; its external element of shape, whereby the content is made perceptible and imaginable, has the aim of existing purely for the heart and mind. This is the only reason for which content and artistic shape are fashioned in conformity with each other. The _mere_ sensuous concrete, external nature as such, has not this purpose for its exclusive ground of origin. The birds' variegated plumage shines unseen, and their song dies away unheard, the _Cereus_[134] which blossoms only for a night withers without having been admired in the wilds of southern forests, and these forests, jungles of the most beautiful and luxuriant vegetation, with the most odorous and aromatic perfumes, perish and decay no less unenjoyed. The work of art has not such a naïve self-centred being, but is essentially a question, an address to the responsive heart, an appeal to affections and to minds. Although the artistic bestowal of sensuous form is in this respect not accidental, yet on the other hand it is not the highest mode of apprehending the spiritually concrete. Thought is a higher mode than representation by means of the sensuous concrete. Although in a relative sense abstract, yet it must not be one-sided but concrete thinking, in order to be true and rational. Whether a given content has sensuous artistic representation for its adequate form, or in virtue of its nature essentially demands a higher and more spiritual embodiment, is a distinction that displays itself at once, if, for instance, we compare the Greek gods with God as conceived according to Christian ideas. The Greek god is not abstract but individual, and is closely akin to the natural human shape; the Christian God is equally a concrete personality, but in the mode of pure spiritual existence, and is to be known as _mind_[135] and in mind. His medium of existence is therefore essentially inward knowledge and not external natural form, by means of which He can only be represented imperfectly, and not in the whole depth of His idea. But inasmuch as the task of art is to represent the idea to direct perception in sensuous shape, and not in the form of thought or of pure spirituality as such, and seeing that this work of representation has its value and dignity in the correspondence and the unity of the two sides, _i.e._ of the Idea and its plastic embodiment, it follows that the level and excellency of art in attaining a realization adequate to its idea,[136] must depend upon the grade of inwardness and unity with which Idea and Shape display themselves as fused into one. Thus the higher truth is spiritual being that has attained a shape adequate to the conception of spirit. This is what furnishes the principle of division for the science of art. For before the mind can attain the true notion of its absolute essence, it has to traverse a course of stages whose ground is in this idea itself; and to this evolution of the content with which it supplies itself, there corresponds an evolution, immediately connected therewith, of the plastic forms of art, under the shape of which the mind as artist presents to itself the consciousness of itself. This evolution within the art-spirit has again in its own nature two sides. In the _first_ place the development itself is a spiritual[137] and universal one, in so far as the graduated series of definite _conceptions of the world_ as the definite but comprehensive consciousness of nature, man and God, gives itself artistic shape; and, in the _second_ place, this _universal_ development of art is obliged to provide itself with external existence and sensuous form, and the definite modes of the sensuous art-existence are themselves a totality of necessary distinctions in the realm of art--which are _the several arts_. It is true, indeed, that the necessary kinds of artistic representation are on the one hand _qua_ spiritual of a very general nature, and not restricted to any one material;[138] while sensuous existence contains manifold varieties of matter. But as this latter, like the mind, has the Idea potentially for its inner soul, it follows from this that particular sensuous materials have a close affinity and secret accord with the spiritual distinctions and types of art presentation. In its completeness, however, our science divides itself into three principal portions. _First_, we obtain a _general part_. It has for its content and object the universal Idea of artistic beauty--this beauty being conceived as the Ideal--together with the nearer relation of the latter both to nature and to subjective artistic production. _Secondly_, there develops itself out of the idea of artistic beauty a _particular_ part, in as far as the essential differences which this idea contains in itself evolve themselves into a scale _particular_ plastic[139] forms. In the _third_ place there results a _final_ part, which has for its subject the individualization of artistic beauty, that consists in the advance of art to the sensuous realization of its shapes and its self-completion as a system of the several arts[140] and their genera and species. 2. With respect to the first part, we must begin by recalling to mind, in order to make the sequel intelligible, that the Idea _qua_ the beautiful in art is not the Idea as such, in the mode in which a metaphysical logic apprehends it as the absolute, but the Idea as developed into concrete form fit for reality, and as having entered into immediate and adequate unity with this reality. For the _Idea as such_, although it is the essentially and actually true, is yet the truth only in its generality which has not yet taken objective shape; but the _Idea_ as the _beautiful in art_ is at once the Idea when specially determined as in its essence individual reality, and also an individual shape of reality essentially destined to embody and reveal the Idea. This amounts to enunciating the requirement that the Idea, and its plastic mould as concrete reality, are to be made completely adequate to one another. When reduced to such form the Idea, as a reality moulded in conformity with the conception of the Idea, is the _Ideal_. The problem of this conformity might, to begin with, be understood in the sense that any Idea would serve, so long as the actual shape, it did not matter what shape, represented this particular Idea and no other. But if so, the required truth of the Ideal is confounded with mere correctness, which consists in the expression of any meaning whatever in appropriate fashion so that its import may be readily recognized in the shape created. The Ideal is not to be thus understood. Any content whatever may attain to being represented quite adequately, judged by the standard of its own nature, but it does not therefore gain the right to claim the artistic beauty of the Ideal. Compared indeed with ideal beauty, even the presentation will in such a case appear defective. From this point of view we must remark to begin with, what cannot be proved till later, that the defects of a work of art are not to be regarded simply as always due, for instance, to individual unskillfulness. _Defectiveness of form_ arises from _defectiveness of content_. So, for example, the Chinese, Indians, and Egyptians in their artistic shapes, their forms of deities, and their idols, never got beyond a formless phase, or one of a vicious and false definiteness of form, and were unable to attain genuine beauty; because their mythological ideas, the content and thought of their works of art, were as yet indeterminate in themselves, or of a vicious determinateness, and did not consist in the content that is absolute in itself. The more that works of art excel in true beauty of presentation, the more profound is the inner truth of their content and thought. And in dealing with this point, we have not to think merely perhaps of the greater or lesser skill with which the natural forms as given in external reality are apprehended and imitated. For in certain stages of art-consciousness and of representation, the distortion and disfigurement of natural structures is not unintentional technical inexpertness and want of skill, but intentional alteration, which emanates from the content that is in consciousness, and is required thereby. Thus, from this point of view, there is such a thing as imperfect art, which may be quite perfect, both technically and in other respects, _in its determinate_ sphere, yet reveals itself to be defective when compared with the conception of art as such, and with the Ideal. Only in the highest art are the Idea and the representation genuinely adequate to one another, in the sense that the outward shape given to the Idea is in itself essentially and actually the true shape, because the content of the Idea, which that shape expresses, is itself the true and real content. It is a corollary from this, as we indicated above,[141] that the Idea must be defined in and through itself as concrete totality, and thereby possess in itself the principle and standard of its particularization and determination in external appearance. For example, the Christian imagination will be able to represent God only in human form and with man's intellectual expression, because it is herein that God Himself is completely known in Himself as mind. Determinateness is, as it were, the bridge to phenomenal existence. Where this determinateness is not totality derived from the Idea itself, where the Idea is not conceived as self-determining and self-particularizing, the Idea remains abstract and has its determinateness, and therefore the principle that dictates its particular and exclusively appropriate mode of presentation, not in itself but external to it. Therefore, the Idea when still abstract has even its shape external, and not dictated by itself. The Idea, however, which is concrete in itself bears the principle of its mode of manifestation within itself, and is by that means the free process of giving shape to itself. Thus it is only the truly concrete Idea that can generate the true shape, and this correspondence of the two is the Ideal. 3. Now because the Idea is in this fashion concrete unity, it follows that this unity can enter into the art-consciousness only by the expansion and reconciliation of the particularities of the Idea, and it is through this evolution that artistic beauty comes to possess a _totality of particular stages and forms_. Therefore, after we have studied the beauty of art in itself and on its own merits, we must see how beauty as a whole breaks up into its particular determinations. This gives, as our _second part_, _the doctrine of the types of art_. These forms find their genesis in the different modes of grasping the Idea as artistic content, whereby is conditioned a difference of the form in which it manifests itself. Hence the types of art are nothing but the different relations of content and shape, relations which emanate from the Idea itself, and furnish thereby the true basis of division for this sphere. For the principle of division must always be contained in _that_ conception whose particularization and division is in question. We have here to consider _three_ relations of the Idea to its outward shaping.[142] [Greek: a]. First, the Idea gives rise to the beginning of Art when, being itself still in its indistinctness and obscurity, or in vicious untrue determinateness, it is made the import of artistic creations. As indeterminate it does not yet possess in itself that individuality which the Ideal demands; its abstractness and one-sidedness leave its shape to be outwardly bizarre and defective. The first form of art is therefore rather a mere search after plastic portrayal than a capacity of genuine representation. The Idea has not yet found the true form even within itself, and therefore continues to be merely the struggle and aspiration thereafter. In general terms we may call this form the _Symbolic_ form of art. In it the abstract Idea has its outward shape external to itself[143] in natural sensuous matter, with which the process of shaping begins, and from which, _qua_ outward expression, it is inseparable. Natural objects are thus primarily left unaltered, and yet at the same time invested with the substantial Idea as their significance, so that they receive the vocation of expressing it, and claim to be interpreted as though the Idea itself were present in them. At the root of this is the fact that natural objects have in them an aspect in which they are capable of representing a universal meaning. But as an adequate correspondence is not yet possible, this reference can only concern _an abstract attribute_, as when a lion is used to mean strength. On the other hand, this abstractness of the relation brings to consciousness no less strongly the foreignness of the Idea to natural phenomena; and the Idea, having no other reality to express it, expatiates in all these shapes, seeks itself in them in all their unrest and disproportion, but nevertheless does not find them adequate to itself. Then it proceeds to exaggerate the natural shapes and the phenomena of reality into indefiniteness and disproportion, to intoxicate itself in them, to seethe and ferment in them, to do violence to them, to distort and explode them into unnatural shapes, and strives by the variety, hugeness, and splendour of the forms employed[144] to exalt the phenomenon to the level of the Idea. For the Idea is here still more or less indeterminate and non-plastic, but the natural objects are in their shape thoroughly determinate. Hence, in view of the unsuitability of the two elements to each other, the relation of the Idea to objective reality becomes a _negative_ one, for the former, as in its nature inward,[145] is unsatisfied with such an externality, and as being its inner universal substance[146] persists in exaltation or _Sublimity_ beyond and above all this inadequate abundance of shapes. In virtue of this sublimity the natural phenomena and the human shapes and incidents are accepted, and left as they were, though at the same time understood to be inadequate to their significance, which is exalted far above every earthly content. These aspects may be pronounced in general terms to constitute the character of the primitive artistic pantheism of the East, which either charges even the meanest objects with the absolute import, or again coerces nature with violence into the expression of its view. By this means it becomes bizarre, grotesque, and tasteless, or turns the infinite but abstract freedom of the substantive Idea disdainfully against all phenomenal being as null and evanescent. By such means the import cannot be completely embodied in the expression, and in spite of all aspiration and endeavour the reciprocal inadequacy of shape and Idea remains insuperable. This may be taken as the first form of art,--Symbolic art with its aspiration, its disquiet,[147] its mystery and its sublimity. ([Greek: b]) In the second form of art, which we propose to call "_Classical_," the double defect of symbolic art is cancelled. The plastic shape of symbolic art is imperfect, because, in the first place, the Idea in it only enters into consciousness in _abstract_ determinateness or indeterminateness, and, in the second place, this must always make the conformity of shape to import defective, and in its turn merely abstract. The classical form of art is the solution of this double difficulty; it is the free and adequate embodiment of the Idea in the shape that, according to its conception, is peculiarly appropriate to the Idea itself. With it, therefore, the Idea is capable of entering into free and complete accord. Hence, the classical type of art is the first to afford the production and intuition of the completed Ideal, and to establish it as a realized fact. The conformity, however, of notion and reality in classical art must not be taken in the purely _formal_ sense of the agreement of a content with the external shape given to it, any more than this could be the case with the Ideal itself. Otherwise every copy from nature, and every type of countenance, every landscape, flower, or scene, etc., which forms the purport of any representation, would be at once made classical by the agreement which it displays between form and content. On the contrary, in classical art the peculiarity of the content consists in being itself concrete idea, and, as such, the concrete spiritual; for only the spiritual is the truly inner self. To suit such a content, then, we must search out that in Nature which on its own merits belongs to the essence and actuality of the mind. It must be the absolute[148] notion that _invented_ the shape appropriate to concrete mind, so that the _subjective_ notion--in this case the spirit of art--has merely _found_ it, and brought it, as an existence possessing natural shape, into accord with free individual spirituality.[149] This shape, with which the Idea as spiritual--as individually determinate spirituality--invests itself when manifested as a temporal phenomenon, is _the human form_. Personification and anthropomorphism have often been decried as a degradation of the spiritual; but art, in as far as its end is to bring before perception the spiritual in sensuous form, must advance to such anthropomorphism, as it is only in its proper body that mind is adequately revealed to sense. The migration of souls is in this respect a false abstraction,[150] and physiology ought to have made it one of its axioms that life had necessarily in its evolution to attain to the human shape, as the sole sensuous phenomenon that is appropriate to mind. The human form is employed in the classical type of art not as mere sensuous existence, but exclusively as the existence and physical form corresponding to mind, and is therefore exempt from all the deficiencies of what is merely sensuous, and from the contingent finiteness of phenomenal existence. The outer shape must be thus purified in order to express in itself a content adequate to itself; and again, if the conformity of import and content is to be complete, the spiritual meaning which is the content must be of a particular kind. It must, that is to say, be qualified to express itself completely in the physical form of man, without projecting into another world beyond the scope of such an expression in sensuous and bodily terms. This condition has the effect that Mind is by it at once specified as a particular case of mind, as human mind, and not as simply absolute and eternal, inasmuch as mind in this latter sense is incapable of proclaiming and expressing itself otherwise than as intellectual being.[151] Out of this latter point arises, in its turn, the defect which brings about the dissolution of classical art, and demands a transition into a third and higher form, viz. into the _romantic_ form of art. ([Greek: g]) The romantic form of art destroys the completed union of the Idea and its reality, and recurs, though in a higher phase, to that difference and antagonism of two aspects which was left unvanquished by symbolic art. The classical type attained the highest excellence, of which the sensuous embodiment of art is capable; and if it is in any way defective, the defect is in art as a whole, _i.e._ in the limitation of its sphere. This limitation consists in the fact that art as such takes for its object Mind--the conception of which is _infinite_ concrete universality--in the shape of _sensuous_ concreteness, and in the classical phase sets up the perfect amalgamation of spiritual and sensuous existence as a Conformity of the two. Now, as a matter of fact, in such an amalgamation Mind cannot be represented according to its true notion. For mind is the infinite subjectivity of the Idea, which, as absolute inwardness,[152] is not capable of finding free expansion in its true nature on condition of remaining transposed into a bodily medium as the existence appropriate to it. As _an escape from such a condition_ the romantic form of art in its turn dissolves the inseparable unity of the classical phase, because it has won a significance which goes beyond the classical form of art and its mode of expression.[153] This significance--if we may recall familiar ideas--coincides with what Christianity declares to be true of God as Spirit, in contradistinction to the Greek faith in gods which forms the essential and appropriate content for classical art. In Greek art the concrete import is potentially, but not explicitly, the unity of the human and divine nature; a unity which, just because it is purely _immediate_[154] and _not explicit_, is capable of adequate manifestation in an immediate and sensuous mode. The Greek god is the object of naive intuition and sensuous imagination. His shape is, therefore, the bodily shape of man. The circle of his power and of his being is individual and individually limited. In relation with the subject,[155] he is, therefore, an essence and a power with which the subject's inner being is merely in latent unity, not itself possessing this unity as inward subjective knowledge. Now the higher stage is the _knowledge_ of this _latent_ unity, which as latent is the import of the classical form of art, and capable of perfect representation in bodily shape. The elevation of the latent or potential into self-conscious knowledge produces an enormous difference. It is the infinite difference which, _e.g._, separates man as such from the animals. Man is animal, but even in his animal functions he is not confined within the latent and potential as the animal is, but becomes conscious of them, learns to know them, and raises them--as, for instance, the process of digestion--into self-conscious science. By this means Man breaks the boundary of merely potential and immediate consciousness, so that just for the reason that he knows himself to be animal, he ceases to be animal, and, as _mind_, attains to self-knowledge. If in the above fashion the unity of the human and divine nature, which in the former phase was potential, is raised from an _immediate_ to a _conscious_ unity, it follows that the true medium for the reality of this content is no longer the sensuous immediate existence of the spiritual, the human bodily shape, but _self-conscious inward intelligence_.[156] Now, Christianity brings God before our intelligence _as spirit_, or mind--not as particularized individual spirit, but as absolute, in _spirit_ and in truth. And for this reason Christianity retires from the sensuousness of imagination into intellectual inwardness, and makes this, not bodily shape, the medium and actual existence of its significance. So, too, the unity of the human and divine nature is a conscious unity, only to be realized by _spiritual_ knowledge and in _spirit_. Thus the new content, won by this unity, is not inseparable from sensuous representation, as if that were adequate to it, but is freed from this immediate existence, which has to be posited[157] as negative, absorbed, and reflected into the spiritual unity. In this way, romantic art must be considered as art transcending itself, while remaining within the artistic sphere and in artistic form. Therefore, in short, we may abide by the statement that in this third stage the object (of art) is _free_, concrete intellectual being, which has the function of revealing itself as spiritual existence for the inward[158] world of spirit. In conformity with such an object-matter, art cannot work for sensuous perception. It must address itself to the inward mind, which coalesces with its object simply and as though this were itself,[159] to the subjective inwardness, to the heart, the feeling, which, being spiritual, aspires to freedom within itself, and seeks and finds its reconciliation only in the spirit within. It is this _inner_ world that forms the content of the romantic, and must therefore find its representation as such inward feeling, and in the show or presentation of such feeling. The world of inwardness celebrates its triumph over the outer world, and actually in the sphere of the outer and in its medium manifests this its victory, owing to which the sensuous appearance sinks into worthlessness. But, on the other hand, this type of Art,[160] like every other, needs an external vehicle of expression. Now the spiritual has withdrawn into itself out of the external and its immediate oneness therewith. For this reason, the sensuous externality of concrete form is accepted and represented, as in Symbolic art, as something transient and fugitive. And the same measure is dealt to the subjective finite mind and will, even including the peculiarity or caprice of the individual, of character, action, etc., or of incident and plot. The aspect of external existence is committed to contingency, and left at the mercy of freaks of imagination, whose caprice is no more likely to mirror what is given _as_ it is given, than to throw the shapes of the outer world into chance medley, or distort them into grotesqueness. For this external element no longer has its notion and significance, as in classical art, in its own sphere, and in its own medium. It has come to find them in the feelings, the display of which is _in themselves_ instead of being in the external and _its_ form of reality, and which have the power to preserve or to regain their state of reconciliation with themselves, in every accident, in every unessential circumstance that takes independent shape, in all misfortune and grief, and even in crime. Owing to this, the characteristics of symbolic art, in difference, discrepancy, and severance of Idea and plastic shape, are here reproduced, but with an essential difference. In the sphere of the romantic, the Idea, whose defectiveness in the case of the symbol produced the defect of external shape, has to reveal itself in the medium of spirit and feelings as perfected in itself. And it is because of this higher perfection that it withdraws itself from any adequate union with the external element, inasmuch as it can seek and achieve its true reality and revelation nowhere but in itself. This we may take as in the abstract the character of the symbolic, classical, and romantic forms of art, which represent the three relations of the Idea to its embodiment in the sphere of art. They consist in the aspiration after, and the attainment and transcendence of the Ideal as the true Idea of beauty. 4. The third part of our subject, in contradistinction to the two just described, presupposes the conception of the Ideal, and the general types of art, inasmuch as it simply consists of their realization in particular sensuous media. Hence we have no longer to do with the inner development of artistic beauty in conformity with its general fundamental principles. What we have to study is how these principles pass into actual existence, how they distinguish themselves in their external aspect, and how they give actuality to every element contained in the idea of beauty, separately and by itself _as a work of art_, and not merely as a general type. Now, what art transfers into external existence are the differences[161] proper to the idea of beauty and immanent therein. Therefore, the general types of art must reveal themselves in this third part, as before, in the character of the fundamental principle that determines the arrangement and definition of the _several arts_; in other words, the species of art contain in themselves the same essential modifications as those with which we become acquainted as the general types of art. External objectivity, however, to which these forms are introduced through the medium of a sensuous and therefore _particular_ material, affects these types in the way of making them _separate_ into independent and so particular forms embodying their realization. For each type finds its definite character in some one definite external material, and its adequate actuality in the mode of portrayal which that prescribes. But, moreover, these types of art, being for all their determinateness, its _universal_ forms, break the bounds of _particular_ realization by a determinate form of art, and achieve existence in other arts as well, although in subordinate fashion. Therefore, the particular arts belong each of them specifically to _one_ of the general types of art, and constitute _its adequate_ external actuality; and also they represent, each of them after its own mode of external plasticity, the totality of the types of art.[162] Then, speaking generally, we are dealing in this third principal division with the beautiful of art, as it unfolds itself in the several arts and in their creations into a _world_ of actualized beauty. The content of this world is the beautiful, and the true beautiful, as we saw, is spiritual being in concrete shape, the Ideal; or, more closely looked at, the absolute mind, and the truth itself. This region, that of divine truth artistically represented to perception and to feeling, forms the centre of the whole world of art. It is the independent, free, and divine plasticity, which has thoroughly mastered the external elements of form and of medium, and wears them simply as a means to manifestation of itself. Still, as the beautiful unfolds itself in this region in the character of _objective_ reality, and in so doing distinguishes within itself its individual aspects and elements, permitting them independent particularity, it follows that this centre erects its extremes, realized in their peculiar actuality, into its own antitheses. Thus one of these extremes comes to consist in an objectivity as yet devoid of mind, in the merely natural vesture of God. At this point the external element takes plastic shape as something that has its spiritual aim and content, not in itself, but in another.[163] The other extreme is the divine as inward, as something known, as the variously particularized _subjective_ existence of the Deity; it is the truth as operative and vital in sense, heart, and mind of individual subjects, not persisting in the mould of its external shapes, but as having returned into subjective, individual inwardness. In such a mode, the Divine is at the same time distinguished from its first manifestation as Deity, and passes thereby into the diversity of particulars which belongs to all subjective knowledge--emotion, perception, and feeling. In the analogous province of religion, with which art at its highest stage is immediately connected, we conceive this same difference as follows. _First_, we think of the earthly natural life in its finiteness as standing on one side; but, then, _secondly_, consciousness makes God its object, in which the distinction of objectivity and subjectivity is done away. And at last, _thirdly_, we advance from God as such to the devotion of the community, that is, to God as living and present in the subjective consciousness. Just so these three chief modifications present themselves in the world of art in independent development. ([Greek: a]) The _first_ of the particular arts with which, according to their fundamental principle, we have to begin, is architecture considered as a fine art.[164] Its task lies in so manipulating external inorganic nature that it becomes cognate to mind, as an artistic outer world. The material of architecture is matter itself in its immediate externality as a heavy mass subject to mechanical laws, and its forms do not depart from the forms of inorganic nature, but are merely set in order in conformity with relations of the abstract understanding, _i.e._ with relations of symmetry. In this material and in such forms, the ideal as concrete spirituality does not admit of being realized. Hence the reality which is represented in them remains contrasted with the Idea, as something external which it has not penetrated, or has penetrated only to establish an abstract relation. For these reasons, the fundamental type of the fine art of building is the _symbolical_ form of art. It is architecture that pioneers the way for the adequate realization of the God, and in this its service bestows hard toil upon existing nature, in order to disentangle it from the jungle of finitude and the abortiveness of chance. By this means it levels a space for the God, gives form to his external surroundings, and builds him his temple as a fit place for concentration of spirit, and for its direction to the mind's absolute objects. It raises an enclosure round the assembly of those gathered together, as a defence against the threatening of the storm, against rain, the hurricane, and wild beasts, and reveals the will to assemble, although externally, yet in conformity with principles of art. With such import as this it has power to inspire its material and its forms more or less effectively, as the determinate character of the content on behalf of which it sets to work is more or less significant, more concrete or more abstract, more profound in sounding its own depths, or more dim and more superficial. So much, indeed, may architecture attempt in this respect as even to create an adequate artistic existence for such an import in its shapes and in its material. But in such a case it has already overstepped its own boundary, and is leaning to sculpture, the phase above it. For the limit of architecture lies precisely in this point, that it retains the spiritual as an inward existence over against the external forms of the art, and consequently must refer to what has soul only as to something other than its own creations. [Greek: b] Architecture, however, as we have seen, has purified the external world, and endowed it with symmetrical order and with affinity to mind; and the temple of the God, the house of his community, stands ready. Into this temple, then, in the _second_ place, the God enters in the lightning-flash of individuality, which strikes and permeates the inert mass, while the infinite[165] and no longer merely symmetrical form belonging to mind itself concentrates and gives shape to the corresponding bodily existence. This is the task of _Sculpture_. In as far as in this art the spiritual inward being which architecture can but indicate makes itself at home in the sensuous shape and its external matter, and in as far as these two sides are so adapted to one another that neither is predominant, sculpture must be assigned the _classical form of art_ as its fundamental type. For this reason the sensuous element itself has here no expression which could not be that of the spiritual element, just as, conversely, sculpture can represent no spiritual content which does not admit throughout of being adequately presented to perception in bodily form. Sculpture should place the spirit before us in its bodily form and in immediate unity therewith at rest and in peace; and the form should be animated by the content of spiritual individuality. And so the external sensuous matter is here no longer manipulated, either in conformity with its mechanical quality alone, as a mass possessing weight, nor in shapes belonging to the inorganic world, nor as indifferent to colour, etc.; but it is wrought in ideal forms of the human figure, and, it must be remarked, in all three spatial dimensions. In this last respect we must claim for sculpture, that it is in it that the inward and spiritual are first revealed in their eternal repose and essential self-completeness. To such repose and unity with itself there can correspond only that external shape which itself maintains its unity and repose. And this is fulfilled by shape in its abstract spatiality.[166] The spirit which sculpture represents is that which is solid in itself, not broken up in the play of trivialities and of passions; and hence its external form too is not abandoned to any manifold phases of appearance, but appears under this one aspect only, as the abstraction of space in the whole of its dimensions. ([Greek: g]) Now, after architecture has erected the temple, and the hand of sculpture has supplied it with the statue of the God, then, in the third place, this god present to sense is confronted in the spacious halls of his house by the _community_. The community is the spiritual reflection into itself of such sensuous existence, and is the animating subjectivity and inner life which brings about the result that the determining principle for the content of art, as well as for the medium which represents it in outward form, comes to be particularization [dispersion into various shapes, attributes, incidents, etc.], individualization, and the subjectivity which they require.[167] The solid unity which the God has in sculpture breaks up into the multitudinous inner lives of individuals, whose unity is not sensuous, but purely ideal.[168] It is only in this stage that God Himself comes to be really and truly spirit--the spirit in His (God's) community; for He here begins to be a to-and-fro, an alternation between His unity within himself and his realization in the individual's knowledge and in its separate being, as also in the common nature and union of the multitude. In the community, God is released from the abstractness of unexpanded self-identity, as well as from the simple absorption in a bodily medium, by which sculpture represents Him. And He is thus exalted into spiritual existence and into knowledge, into the reflected[169] appearance which essentially displays itself as inward and as subjectivity. Therefore the higher content is now the spiritual nature, and that in its absolute shape. But the dispersion of which we have spoken reveals this at the same time as particular spiritual being, and as individual character. Now, what manifests itself in this phase as the main thing is not the serene quiescence of the God in Himself, but appearance as such, being which is _for_ another, self-manifestation. And hence, in the phase we have reached, all the most manifold subjectivity in its living movement and operation--as human passion, action, and incident, and, in general, the wide realm of human feeling, will, and its negation,--is for its own sake the object of artistic representation. In conformity with this content, the sensuous element of art has at once to show itself as made particular in itself and as adapted to subjective inwardness. Media that fulfil this requirement we have in colour, in musical sound, and finally in sound as the mere indication of inward perceptions and ideas; and as modes of realizing the import in question by help of these media we obtain painting, music, and poetry. In this region the sensuous medium displays itself as subdivided in its own being and universally set down as ideal.[170] Thus it has the highest degree of conformity with the content of art, which, as such, is spiritual, and the connection of intelligible import and sensuous medium develops into closer intimacy than was possible in the case of architecture and sculpture. The unity attained, however, is a more inward unity, the weight of which is thrown wholly on the subjective side, and which, in as far as form and content are compelled to particularize themselves and give themselves merely ideal existence, can only come to pass at the expense of the objective universality of the content and also of its amalgamation with the immediately sensuous element.[171] The arts, then, of which form and content exalt themselves to ideality, abandon the character of symbolic architecture and the classical ideal of sculpture, and therefore borrow their type from the romantic form of art, whose mode of plasticity they are most adequately adapted to express. And they constitute a _totality_ of arts, because the romantic type is the most concrete in itself.[172] i. The articulation of this _third sphere_ of the individual arts may be determined as follows. The _first_ art in it, which comes next to sculpture, is painting. It employs as a medium for its content and for the plastic embodiment of that content visibility as such in as far as it is specialized in its own nature, _i.e._ as developed into colour. It is true that the material employed in architecture and sculpture is also visible and coloured; but it is not, as in painting, visibility as such, not the simple light which, differentiating itself in virtue of its contrast with darkness, and in combination with the latter, gives rise to colour.[173] This quality of visibility, made subjective in itself and treated as ideal, needs neither, like architecture, the abstractly mechanical attribute of mass as operative in the properties of heavy matter, nor, like sculpture, the complete sensuous attributes of space, even though concentrated into organic shapes. The visibility and the rendering visible which belong to painting have their differences in a more ideal form, in the several kinds of colour, and they liberate art from the sensuous completeness in space which attaches to material things, by restricting themselves to a plane surface. On the other hand, the content also attains the most comprehensive specification. Whatever can find room in the human heart, as feeling, idea, and purpose; whatever it is capable of shaping into act--all this diversity of material is capable of entering into the varied content of painting. The whole realm of particular existence, from the highest embodiment of mind down to the most isolated object of nature, finds a place here. For it is possible even for finite nature,[174] in its particular scenes and phenomena, to make its appearance in the realm of art, if only some allusion to an element of mind endows it with affinity to thought and feeling. ii. The _second_ art in which the romantic type realizes itself is contrasted with painting, and is music. Its medium, though still sensuous, yet develops into still more thorough subjectivity and particularization. Music, too, treats the sensuous as ideal, and does so by negating,[175] and idealizing into the individual isolation of a single point, the indifferent externality[176] of space, whose complete semblance is accepted and imitated by painting. The single point, _qua_ such a negativity (excluding space) is in itself a concrete and active process of positive negation[177] within the attributes of matter, in the shape of a motion and tremor of the material body within itself and in its relation to itself. Such an inchoate ideality of matter,[178] which appears no longer as under the form of space, but as temporal ideality,[179] is sound, the sensuous set down as negated, with its abstract visibility converted into audibility, inasmuch as sound, so to speak, liberates the ideal content from its immersion in matter. This earliest inwardness of matter and inspiration of soul into it furnishes the medium for the mental inwardness--itself as yet indefinite,--and for the soul[180] into which mind concentrates itself; and finds utterance in its tones for the heart with its whole gamut of feelings and passions. Thus music forms the centre of the romantic arts, just as sculpture represents the central point between architecture and the arts of romantic subjectivity. Thus, too, it forms the point of transition between abstract spatial sensuousness, such as painting employs, and the abstract spirituality of poetry. Music has within itself, like architecture, a relation of quantity conformable to the understanding, as the antithesis to emotion and inwardness; and has also as its basis a solid conformity to law on the part of the tones, of their conjunction, and of their succession. iii. most spiritual mode of representation of the romantic art-type, we must look for it in _poetry_. Its characteristic peculiarity lies in the power with which it subjects to the mind and to its ideas the sensuous element from which music and painting in their degree began to liberate art. For sound, the only external matter which poetry retains, is in it no longer the feeling of the sonorous itself, but is a _sign_, which by itself is void of import. And it is a sign of the idea which has become concrete in itself and not merely of indefinite feeling and of its _nuances_ and grades. This is how sound develops into the _Word_, as voice articulate in itself, whose import it is to indicate ideas and notions. The merely negative point up to which music had developed now makes its appearance as the completely concrete point, the point which is mind, the self-conscious individual, which, producing out of itself the infinite space of its ideas, unites it with the temporal character of sound. Yet this sensuous element, which in music was still immediately one with inward feeling, is in poetry separated from the content of consciousness. In poetry the mind determines this content for its own sake, and apart from all else, into the shape of ideas, and though it employs sound to express them, yet treats it solely as a symbol without value or import. Thus considered, sound may just as well be reduced to a mere letter, for the audible, like the visible, is thus depressed into a mere indication of mind.[181] For this reason the proper medium of poetical representation is the poetical imagination and intellectual portrayal itself. And as this element is common to all types of art, it follows that poetry runs through them all and develops itself independently in each. Poetry is the universal art of the mind which has become free in its own nature, and which is not tied to find its realization in external sensuous matter, but expatiates exclusively in the inner space and inner time of the ideas and feelings. Yet just in this its highest phase art ends by transcending itself, inasmuch as it abandons the medium of a harmonious embodiment of mind in sensuous form, and passes from the poetry of imagination into the prose of thought. 5. Such we may take to be the articulated totality of the particular arts, viz. the external art of architecture, the objective art of sculpture, and the subjective art of painting music and poetry. Many other classifications have been attempted, for a work of art presents so many aspects, that, as has often been the case, first one and then another is made the basis of classification. For instance, one might take the sensuous medium. Thus architecture is treated as crystallization; sculpture, as the organic modelling of the material in its sensuous and spatial totality; painting, as the coloured surface and line; while in music, space, as such, passes into the point of time possessed of content within itself, until finally the external medium is in poetry depressed into complete insignificance. Or, again, these differences have been considered with reference to their purely abstract attributes of space and time. Such abstract peculiarities of works of art may, like their material medium, be consistently explored in their characteristic traits; but they cannot be worked out as the ultimate and fundamental law, because any such aspect itself derives its origin from a higher principle, and must therefore be subordinate thereto. This higher principle we have found in the types of art--symbolic, classical, and romantic--which are the universal stages or elements[182] of the Idea of beauty itself. For _symbolic art_ attains its most adequate reality and most complete application in _architecture_, in which it holds sway in the full import of its notion, and is not yet degraded to be, as it were, the inorganic nature dealt with by another art. The _classical_ type of art, on the other hand, finds adequate realization in sculpture, while it treats architecture only as furnishing an enclosure in which it is to operate, and has not acquired the power of developing painting and music as absolute[183] forms for its content. The _romantic_ type of art, finally, takes possession of painting and music, and in like manner of poetic representation, as substantive and unconditionally adequate modes of utterance. Poetry, however, is conformable to all types of the beautiful, and extends over them all, because the artistic imagination is its proper medium, and imagination is essential to every product that belongs to the beautiful, whatever its type may be. And, therefore, what the particular arts realize in individual works of art, are according to their abstract conception simply the universal types which constitute the self-unfolding Idea of beauty. It is as the external realization of this Idea that the wide Pantheon of art is being erected, whose architect and builder is the spirit of beauty as it awakens to self-knowledge, and to complete which the history of the world will need its evolution of ages. FOOTNOTES: [1] New York, Appleton and Co. [2] Chicago, Griggs and Co., 1885. [3] Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd, 1886. [4] Of these, Chapter III. is subdivided into two Parts, because of the disproportionate length of the division in the original to which it corresponds. [5] Preface to "Sordello." [6] "Endless duration makes good no better, nor white any whiter," is one of Aristotle's comments on Plato's "eternal" ideas, and is just, unless "eternal" conveys a difference of kind. [7] Whewell, I think, misinterprets Plato's language about astronomy in this sense. Plato is not decrying observation, but demanding a theoretical treatment of the laws of motion,--a remarkable anticipation of modern ideas. [8] "A Year with the Birds," by an Oxford Tutor. [9] See note above, p. xii. [10] The fusion of these meanings in the German "Geist" gives a force to his pleading which English cannot render. He appeals, _e.g._, triumphantly to "God is a Spirit," _i.e._ not "a ghost" but "mind." [11] See Tennyson's "Higher Pantheism," especially the fine lines-- "Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet, Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." [12] In Baumgarten's "Æsthetica," 1750. See Lotze's "Æsthetik in Deutschland," p. 4, and Scherer's "Hist. of German Literature," Engl. Transl., ii. 25. [13] _Aus dem Geiste_--allusion to "born of water and of the Spirit." [14] Not in the sense of fancying what you please, but in the technical sense of having separate existence; detached, so to speak, from the general background of things, not a mere concurrence of other elements. [15] Has no power of distinguishing itself from other things. [16] "_Das Schöne--in dem Scheine._" [17] "_Gesetzmässigkeit._" [18] "_Raisonnement_"--a disparaging term in Hegel. [19] "Particular"--different unconnected matters, considered as merely thrown together in an aggregate, or occurring in a series; opposed to parts or cases united by an essential principle. [20] "_Das Göttliche._" [21] "_Schiene und erschiene._" [22] The life in which we treat common circumstances and sensations as, in their degree, realities. [23] "_Das An--und Fürsichseyende._" [24] "_Explication._" [25] "_Material_," _e.g._ colour, sound, heavy matter, etc. [26] "_Element_:" perhaps more especially any mental function entering into art--sense, imagination, understanding, etc. [27] "Philosophy," "_Wissenschaft_." [28] "_Haltpunkte_:" ultimate points that the matter of art must not leave hold of, leading ideas that must somehow dominate it. [29] "_Gestaltung_:" shaping, as if arrangement of shapes. [30] "_Kunstkenntniss._" [31] "_Gelehrsamkeit._" [32] "_Paränetischen Lehren._" [33] "_Bildenden Künste._" I am not sure if I have given the best rendering. It is wider than _Plastik_, because it includes painting and architecture. [34] _Die Horen_--the monthly magazine whose establishment by Schiller, in 1795, first brought Schiller and Goethe into contact. It only existed for three years. See Scherer, Eng. Trans., ii. 173. [35] That is, not a caprice of nature or art, but the perfection of the object _after its kind_. [36] "_Individualität._" [37] "_Helldunkel._" [38] "_Drama_," Gr. [Greek: drama] = _Handlung_, "action." [39] "_Erscheinung._" [40] "_Bestimmung._" [41] "_Bestimmend._" [42] "_Begeistet wird_"--"Is spiritualized." [43] I have no doubt he means Shakespeare, who was unpopular in Germany before Goethe's time. _Vide_ "Wilhelm Meister." [44] "_Das Wahre sehen nicht die einzelnen_," etc. [45] The exhibition of particulars as contained in the principle, and of the principle as contained in particulars. [46] "_Machen._" [47] "_Nach-machen._" [48] See Appendix to Eng. Trans. of Scherer, ii. 347. Goethe's "Götz von Berlichingen" appeared in 1773; Schiller's "Raüber" in 1781. [49] The "Iphigenie" was completed in Goethe's thirty-eighth year, fourteen years later than "Götz." The bulk of his great works are of the same date as the "Iphigenie," or later. See Scherer, ii. 152, and Appendix, 1. c. Schiller's "Wallenstein" was completed after his thirty-fifth year. [50] Free from irrelevancies. [51] _i.e._ it requires a definite or determinate answer, depending on a number of ideas which cannot be explained in an introduction. [52] _i.e._ considered generally, apart from the wishes and, perhaps, selfish aims of individual artists. [53] "_Fursichsein._" [54] Reality derivative from his own reality. [55] He means as in attitude, bearing, gentle movement, etc. [56] "_Bildung._" [57] "_Bedurfniss zur Kunst._" [58] _i.e._ you cannot describe it or picture it definitely, like a thing with attributes, although you feel it in yourself. [59] _i.e._ you may be afraid of anything; the fact that you are afraid does not in itself indicate what you are afraid of. [60] My private feeling is compared to a small circle, in which morality, justice, etc., may _be_, but have not room to show their nature. Feeling allows of no definition. [61] _All_ its positive aspects or relations, age, phase, artist's history, etc. [62] Its sensuous aspect has no independent warrant or justification, as that, for example, of an animal has in its own separate life. So it must simply be such as is enough to appeal to man's mind, _e.g._ mere surface painting. [63] _i.e._ person. [64] Nothing can be tasted which is not dissolved in a liquid. [65] "_Anschauungen._" [66] Abstract forms, which are to reality as a diagram to a picture. [67] Lit. "figure," _Gestalt_. [68] "_Handgriffen._" [69] "_Eines geistreichen._" [70] General, abstract, as much applicable to one thing as to another. [71] "_Heuchelei_," lit. "hypocrisy." [72] "_Kunststück._" [73] _i.e._ _mere_ copying, devoting one's-self to the one-sided purpose of making a thing over again, without putting any life or meaning into it. [74] Which says that the business of art is to imitate. [75] Of imitation. [76] "_Phantastischen._" "Fantastic" means "odd or wild." Hegel only means "original," "creative." [77] Mechanical, without origination. [78] "_Nüancen._" Context seems to forbid referring it to colour. I suspect it of meaning character of outline. [79] "_Erschüttern._" [80] "_Raisonnirende_;" a term of disparagement in Hegel, applied to proofs, _pro_ and _con_, which do not rest on a thorough conception of the fundamental nature of what is being discussed. [81] "_Raisonnement._" [82] "Formal" means here as usual, empty, or general; _i.e._ not taking account of varieties in the matter to which it is applied. [83] "_Befangensein._" [84] "_Theoretisch._" I have no doubt that it has here the meaning of [Greek: Theôrein] without a trace of allusion to "theory." It is opposed to "destructive," or "appetitive." [85] The moral. [86] Person, _i.e._, here, audience or spectator. [87] "_Kernspruch._" [88] "Contingent" means, not so much "what may or may not exist," as the trivial, which makes no difference whether it exists or not. [89] "_In ihm selbst gebrochenes._" I do not suppose there is an allusion to the words I use. [90] "_Sittlichkeit_" almost = morality in the English sense. It means the habit of virtue, without the reflective aspiration after goodness as an ideal. [91] "_Moralität_" almost = conscientiousness or scrupulosity. The above sentence is hardly true with the English word "moral." [92] "_Für sich_," is often used where there is no notion of development, and seems very like "an sich." [93] "_Gemüth._" [94] As _e.g._ if we suppose that an act done at the bidding of natural affection cannot also be a fulfilment of the command of duty. The "reconciliation" would be in supposing the natural affection, _e.g._ for parents, to operate as a moral motive, being transformed by a recognition of its sacred or spiritual character. [95] "_An und für sich._" [96] "_An und für sich Wahre._" [97] "_Allgemeine Bildung._" [98] "_Vorstellung._" [99] See Pref. Essay, p. xix. [100] Or conscientiousness--what was above described as the moralistic view. [101] "_An sich._" [102] "_An und für sich wahrem und wirklichem._" [103] See p. 68, _supra_. [104] "_Der mensch wie er geht und steht._" [105] "_An und für sich._" [106] "_Zweck-mässigkeit._" [107] _i.e._ in any means which we adopt in order to effect an end which we have distinctly before us as an idea. A knife does not include cutting, nor a spade digging, although their construction is relative to these ends. But a man does include living, _i.e._ he is not a man if he ceases to live. [108] "_Für sich._" [109] "_An und für sich._" [110] By Kant. [111] "_Unbefangenheit._" [112] On Goethe's discoveries in morphology and errors in optics, see Helmholtz's "Popular Lectures," series i., lecture ii.; but compare Schopenhauer, "Werke," vol. i., "_Ueber das Sehn und die Farben_." [113] Compare Browning's "Luria:"-- "A people is but the attempt of many To rise to the completer life of one." [114] Or "Of the moral, etc., man." [115] "_Ueber Anmuth und Würde_," "Of Grace and Dignity," a work of Schiller that appeared in 1793. [116] "_Gesinnungen._" [117] The Baccalaureus' speech in Faust (Part 2) "Die Welt, sie war nicht, eh' ich sie erschuf," etc., appears to be a parody of Fichte's ideas in this aspect. [118] I think the order of the German must be a misprint. "_So ist nichts an und für sich und in sich selbst werthvoll betrachtet._" [119] "_An und für sich seyende._" [120] The three points are, (i.) The I is abstract. (ii.) Everything is a semblance for it. (iii.) Its own acts, even, are a semblance. [121] Not literal. "_Das alles an sich setzende und auflösende Ich._" [122] _Formal_ freedom is detachment from everything, or the (apparent) capacity of alternatives; it is opposed to _real_ freedom, which is identification of one's-self with something that is capable of satisfying one. [123] "_Genialität_:" the character or state of mind in which genius is dominant--here, the mere self-enjoyment of genius. [124] "_Selbstgenuss._" I do not think it means self-indulgence, but the above-described enjoyment of reposing in the superiority of the ego. [125] "_Eitelkeit_," also = "conceit;" which is the other side of this attitude. Hegel uses it on purpose. [126] "_Eitle._" [127] "_Sehnsuchtigkeit._" [128] "_Krankhafte Schönseligkeit._" _Schönseligkeit_ seems to be really a word formed like _Redselig_, etc., but to be given an equivocating reference to "_Schöne Seele_," which I have rendered in the next sentence by "saintly soul." [129] "_Eitlen_," "_Eitelkeit._" [130] This recurring phrase may be used etymologically, as a reminiscence of the Platonic [Greek: plêrousthai]. [131] _Haltung_: "bearing" in general, and more especially _the_ bearing of one who bears himself nobly by reason of a principle. [132] See Scherer, Eng. Transl., ii. 248. [133] It is natural for a reader to ask in _what_ person or subject God is conceived to have reality. On this see below, p. 165. It appears certain to me that Hegel, when he writes thus, is referring to the self-consciousness of individual human beings as constituting, and reflecting on, an ideal unity between them. This may seem to put a non-natural meaning on the term "person" or "subject," as if the common element of a number of intelligences could be a single person. It is obvious that the question hinges on the degree in which a unity that is not sensuous but ideal can be effective and actual. I can only say here, that the more we consider the nature of ideal unity the higher we shall rate its capabilities. See Prefatory Essay, p. xiv. [134] _Fackeldistel_ = "Torch thistle," a plant of the genus _Cereus_, Nat. Order _Cactaceæ_. [135] Or "as spirit and in spirit." [136] The idea of art. [137] The two evolutions are, speaking roughly, (i.) that of the subject-matter; (ii.) that of the particular mode of art: (i.) _e.g._ you have Egyptian, Greek, Christian religion, etc., with the corresponding views and sentiments, each in its own relation to art; (ii.) you have, as a cross division to the former, the several arts--sculpture, music, poetry, etc., each having its special ground and warrant. [138] He is asking himself why sound or paint, etc., should correspond to one type of art as theoretically defined--this being intellectual, not sensuous, at root--and answers that these media _qua_ natural objects have, though more latent than in works of art, an import and purpose of their own, which reveals itself in their suitability to particular forms of art. [139] "_Gestaltungsformen._" I use "plastic" all through in a pregnant sense, as one speaks of plastic fancy, etc.; meaning ideally determinate, and fit for translating into pictures, poetry, etc. These "plastic forms" are the various modifications of the subject-matter of art. See note, p. 139, above. [140] See note, p. 139, above. [141] See p. 134, above. [142] "_Gestaltung._" I do not think this means the process of shaping, but the shapes taken collectively. [143] _i.e._ not in a separate ideal shape devoted to it. He means that man takes a stock or stone as representation or symbol of the divine, and as there is no real connection between divinity and the stone, it may either be left untouched and unshaped, or be hewn into any bizarre or arbitrary shape that comes to hand: see next paragraph. [144] This description is probably directed, in the first place, to the Indian representation of deities, and would apply to those of many barbaric religions. But its truth may be very simply verified in daily observation of the first attempts of the uneducated at plastic presentation of their ideas, where costliness, ingenuity, labour, or size take the place of beauty. [145] "_Sie als Inneres._" [146] _i.e._ an idea or purpose which gives these partial and defective representations all the meaning they have, although they are incapable of really expressing it. [147] "_Gährung_," lit. "fermentation." [148] "_Der ursprüngliche Begriff_," lit. "the original notion." [149] _i.e._ God or the Universe _invented_ man to be the expression of mind; art _finds_ him, and adapts his shape to the artistic embodiment of mind as concentrated in individual instances. [150] Because it represents the soul as independent of an appropriate body--the human soul as capable of existing in a beast's body. [151] "_Geistigkeit._" "The nature of thought, mind, or spirit." It cannot be here rendered by mind or spirit, because these words make us think of an isolated individual, a mind or soul, and neglect the common spiritual or intellectual nature, which is referred to by the author. [152] It is the essence of mind or thought not to have its parts outside one another. The so-called terms of a judgment are a good instance of parts in thought which are inward to each other. [153] Compare Browning's "Old Pictures in Florence." [154] _i.e._ in the form of feeling and imagination--not reflected upon. [155] Subject, _i.e._ conscious individual person. [156] "_Innerlichkeit_," lit. "inwardness." [157] Taken, considered as or determined to be negative. [158] "Inward," again, does not mean merely inside our heads, but having the character of spirit in that its parts are not external to one another. A judgment is thus "inward." [159] _i.e._ does not keep up a distinction between percipient and object, as between things in space. Goodness, nobleness, etc., are not felt to be other than or outside the mind. [160] The romantic. [161] _i.e._ species, modifications naturally arising out of a principle. [162] Thus _e.g._ Sculpture is _the_ art which corresponds _par excellence_ to the general type called Classical Art; but there is _a_ Symbolic kind of sculpture, and I suppose _a_ Romantic or modern kind of sculpture, although neither of these types are exactly fitted to the capabilities of Sculpture. [163] Architecture as relative to the purposes of life and of religion. See below, p. 162. [164] "_Die schöne Architectur._" [165] In the sense "self-complete," "not primarily regarded as explained by anything outside," like a machine or an animal contrasted with a wheel or a limb, which latter are finite, because they demand explanation and supplementation from without, _i.e._ necessarily draw attention to their own limit. [166] _i.e._ shape taken simply as an object filling space. [167] The terms used in the text explain themselves if we compare, _e.g._, a Teniers with a Greek statue, or again, say, a Turner with the same. "Subjectivity" means that the work of art appeals to our ordinary feelings, experiences, etc. Music and poetry are still stronger cases than painting, according to the theory. Poetry especially can deal with _everything_. [168] The unity of the individuals forming a church or nation is not visible, but exists in common sentiments, purposes, etc., and in the recognition of their community. [169] An expression constantly applied to consciousness, because it can look at itself. _Cf._:-- "'Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?' 'No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself But by reflection, by some other things.'" _Julius Cæsar._ [170] Posited or laid down to be ideal; almost = pronounced or made _to be_ in the sense of _not being_; e.g. musical sound is "ideal" as existing, _qua_ work of art, in memory only, the moment in which it is actually heard being fugitive; a picture, in respect of the third dimension, which has to be read into it; and poetry is almost wholly ideal, _i.e._ uses hardly any sensuous element, but appeals almost entirely to what exists _in the mind_. "Subdivided," "_besondert_," like "_particularisirt_" above; because of the variety and diversity present in the mere material of colours, musical sounds, and ideas. [171] Again, the subject of a Turner or Teniers is not objectively universal, in the simplest sense; not something that is actually and literally the same everywhere and for every one. And both painting and music (immediately sensuous elements) are less completely amalgamated with the ideal, represent it less solidly and thoroughly than the statue, so far as the ideal is itself external or plastic. [172] The greater affinity of Romantic art with the movement and variety of the modern spirit displays itself not only in the greater flexibility of painting, music, or poetry, as compared with architecture and sculpture, but in the fact that the Romantic type contains these three arts at least, while the Symbolic and Classical types had only one art each. [173] This is drawn from Goethe's doctrine of colour, which Hegel unfortunately adopted in opposition to Newton's theory. [174] He means landscape, principally. [175] "_Aufheben_," used pregnantly by Hegel to mean _both_ "cancel," "annul," _and_, "preserve," "fix in mind," "idealize." The use of this word is a cardinal point of his dialectic. See "Wiss. der Logik.," i. 104. I know of no equivalent but "put by," provincial Scotch "put past." The negation of space is an attribute of music. The parts of a chord are no more in space than are the parts of a judgment. Hegel expresses this by saying that music idealizes space and concentrates it into a point. [176] The parts of space, though external to each other, are not distinguished by qualitative peculiarities. [177] "_Aufheben._" [178] "Ideality of matter:" the distinctively material attribute of a sonorous body, its extension, only appears in its sound indirectly, or inferentially, by modifying the nature of the sound. It is, therefore, "idealized." [179] Succession in time is a degree more "ideal" than co-existence in space, because it exists solely in the medium of memory. [180] "_Seele_:" mind on its individual side, as a particular feeling subject. "_Geist_" is rather mind as the common nature of intelligence. Thus in feeling and self-feeling, mind is said to concentrate itself into a soul. [181] Hegel seems to accept this view. Was he insensible to sound in poetry? Some very grotesque verses of his, preserved in his biography, go to show that his ear was not sensitive. Yet his critical estimate of poetry is usually just. Shakespeare and Sophocles were probably his favourites. And, as a matter of proportion, what he here says is true. It must be remembered that the beauty of sound in poetry is to a great extent indirect, being supplied by the passion or emotion which the ideas symbolized by the sounds arouse. The beauty of poetical sound in itself _is_ very likely less than often supposed. It must have the capacity for receiving passionate expression; but that is not the same as the sensuous beauty of a note or a colour. If the words used in a noble poem were divested of all meaning, they would lose much, though not all, of the beauty of their sound. [182] "Stages or elements." "_Momente_," Hegel's technical phrase for the stages which form the essential parts or factors of any idea. They make their appearance successively, but the earlier are implied and retained in the later. [183] Adequate, and so of permanent value. THE END. PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. A CLASSIFIED LIST OF Kegan Paul, Treneh, Trübner & Co.'s PUBLICATIONS. DECEMBER, 1896. INDEX. Angling, 67 Animal Magnetism, 30 Anthropology, 48 Arts, Useful and Fine, 56 Astronomy, 49 Bibliography, 93 Biography, 34 Botany, 49 Buddhism, 91 Chemistry, 51 Chess, 56 China, 86 Diet, 57 Education, 44 Egypt, 87 Essays, 3 Ethnology, 48 Ethics, 31 Fiction, 12 Finance, 46 Folk-lore, 28 Gastronomy, 57 Geology, 51 History, 39 History, Constitutional, 45 India, 81 Islam, 89 Japan, 90 Languages, 67 Law, 45 Medicine, 57 Mental Science, 31 Metaphysics, 31 Meteorology, 51 Military Science, 60 Mineralogy, 51 Moral Science, 27 Music, 61 Mythology, 28 Numismatics, 61 Occult Sciences, 29 Oriental, 81 Painting, 62 Periodicals, 95 Persian, 78, 92 Philology, 67 Philosophy, 31 Philosophy, Religious, 27 Physics, 53 Physiology, 57 Poetry, 3 Politics, 46 Religion, 16 Sculpture, 62 Sociology, 44 Societies' Publications, 95 Speculative Theology, 27 Sports, 66 Technology, 63 Theosophy, 26 Topography, 41 Travels, 41 Voyages, 41 Zoology, 54 PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD, LONDON, W.C. PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD, LONDON, W.C., _December, 1896._ A CLASSIFIED LIST OF KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & Co.'s PUBLICATIONS. NOTE.--The letters I. S. S. denote that the Work forms a Volume of the International Scientific Series. I. BELLES-LETTRES. POETRY AND ESSAYS. =ÆSCHYLUS=, =The Seven Plays=. Translated into English Verse by Professor LEWIS CAMPBELL. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =ALEXANDER, WILLIAM, D. D.=, BISHOP OF DERRY, =St. Augustine's Holiday=, and other Poems. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =ARNOLD, Sir EDWIN=, =In My Lady's Praise=. Poems Old and New, written to the honour of Fanny, Lady Arnold. Fourth Edition. Imperial 16mo, parchment, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Indian Idylls.= From the Sanskrit of the Mahâbhârata. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Indian Poetry.= Containing 'The Indian Song of Songs' from the Sanskrit, two books from 'The Iliad of India,' and other Oriental Poems. Sixth Edition. 6_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =Lotus and Jewel.= Containing 'In an Indian Temple,' 'A Casket of Gems,' 'A Queen's Revenge,' with other Poems. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Pearls of the Faith=; or, Islam's Rosary. Being the Ninetynine Beautiful Names of Allah. Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Poems, National and Non-Oriental=, with some New Pieces. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =The Light of Asia=; or, The Great Renunciation. Being the Life and Teaching of Gautama. Presentation Edition, with Illustrations and Portrait, small 4to, 21_s._ Library Edition, crown 8vo, 6_s._ Elzevir Edition, 6_s._ Cheap Edition (_Lotos Series_), cloth or half-parchment, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The Secret of Death.= Being a Version of the Katha Upanishad, from the Sanskrit. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =The Song Celestial=; or, Bhagavad-Gitâ. From the Sanskrit. Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =With Sa'di in the Garden=; or, The Book of Love. Being the 'Ishk,' or third chapter of the 'Bostân' of the Persian poet Sa'di, embodied in a Dialogue. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Poetical Works.= Uniform Edition, comprising--'The Light of Asia,' 'Lotus and Jewel,' 'Indian Poetry,' 'Pearls of the Faith,' 'Indian Idylls,' 'The Secret of Death,' 'The Song Celestial,' 'With Sa'di in the Garden.' 8 vols. crown 8vo, 48_s._ _See also Class_ ORIENTAL. =AVELING, F. W.=, =The Classic Birthday Book=. 8vo, cloth, 8_s._ 6_d._; paste grain, 15_s._; tree calf, 21_s._ =BARNES, WILLIAM=, =Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect=. New Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =BLUNT, WILFRID SCAWEN=, =Poems=:-- =The Wind and the Whirlwind.= 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._ =The Love Sonnets of Proteus.= Fifth Edition. Elzevir 8vo, 5_s._ =In Vinculis.= With Portrait. Elzevir 8vo, 5_s._ =A New Pilgrimage,= and other Poems. Elzevir 8vo, 5_s._ =Esther, Love Lyrics, and Natalia's Resurrection.= 7_s._ 6_d._ =BOSWELL, C. STUART=, =The Vita Nuova and its Author=. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ net. =BREITMANN.= _See_ LELAND, C. G. =BRINTON, D. G.=, =Essays of an Americanist=. 8vo, 12_s._ =BRYANT, W. CULLEN=, =Poems=. Cheap Edition. Small 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =BURNS, ROBERT=, =Selected Poems=. With an Introduction by ANDREW LANG. Elzevir 8vo, vellum, 7_s._, 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ (_Parchment Library_); New Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =CALDERON=: =Essay on the Life and Genius of Calderon=. With translations from his 'Life's a Dream' and 'Great Theatre of the World.' By ARCHBISHOP TRENCH. Second Edition, revised and improved. Extra foolscap 8vo, 5_s._ 6_d._ =CARLYLE, THOMAS=, =Sartor Resartus=. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =CHAUCER, Canterbury Tales.= Edited by A. W. POLLARD. 2 vols. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 15_s._; parchment or cloth, 12_s._ =Canterbury Chimes=; or, Chaucer Tales retold to Children. By F. STORR and H. TURNER. With 6 Illustrations from the Ellesmere Manuscript. Third Edition. Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =COLEBROOKE, H. T., Miscellaneous Essays.= With Biography by his Son, Sir T. E. COLEBROOKE. 3 vols. 8vo, 42_s._ =DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, Confessions of an English Opium Eater.= Edited by RICHARD GARNETT. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =DOBSON, AUSTIN, Poems on Several Occasions.= With 7 full-page Etchings by ADOLPHE LALAUZE, and Portrait of the Author etched from life by WILLIAM STRANG. 2 vols. demy 8vo, 25_s._ net. =Ballad of Beau Brocade=, and other Poems of the Eighteenth Century. With 50 Illustrations by HUGH THOMSON. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Proverbs in Porcelain.= With 25 Illustrations by BERNARD PARTRIDGE. 5_s._ =Old World Idylls=, and other Verses. Elzevir 8vo, gilt top, 6_s._ =At the Sign of the Lyre.= Elzevir 8vo, gilt top, 6_s._ =Story of Rosina=, and other Verses. Illustrated by HUGH THOMSON. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Eighteenth Century Essays.= Edited by AUSTIN DOBSON. With Frontispiece. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ Cheap Edition. _See also under_ GAY _and_ PRIOR. =DOWDEN, EDWARD, Studies in Literature, 1789-1877.= Fourth Edition. Large post 8vo, 6_s._ =New Studies in Literature.= Large post 8vo, 12_s._ =Transcripts and Studies.= Large post 8vo, 6_s._ _See also under_ SHAKSPERE. =Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles.= Edited by MARTHA FOOTE CROWE. In 4 vols. Small crown 8vo, 5_s._ net each vol. Vol. I. =Phillis=, by THOMAS LODGE. =Licia=, by GILES FLETCHER. II. =Delia-Diana.= =ELLIOTT, EBENEZER, Poems.= Edited by his son, the Rev. EDWIN ELLIOTT, of St. John's, Antigua. 2 vols. crown 8vo, 18_s._ =English Comic Dramatists.= Edited by OSWALD CRAWFURD. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =English Lyrics.= Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =English Sacred Lyrics.= Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =English Poets (Living).= With Frontispiece by HERBERT RAILTON. 1894 Edition. Large crown 8vo, printed on hand-made paper, vellum, 15_s._; cloth or parchment, 12_s._ =FRASER, Sir WILLIAM, Bart.=, =Disraeli and His Day=. Second Edition. Post 8vo, 9_s._ =French Lyrics.= _See_ SAINTSBURY. =GAY, JOHN=, =Fables=. Edited by AUSTIN DOBSON. With Portrait. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =GOLDSMITH=, =Vicar of Wakefield=. Edited by AUSTIN DOBSON. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =GOODCHILD, JOHN A.=, =The Two Thrones=. A Drama. Small crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =GOSSE, E.=, =English Odes=. Edited by E. GOSSE. With Frontispiece. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =GREG, W. R.=, _Literary and Social Judgments_. Fourth Edition. 2 vols. crown 8vo, 15_s._ =Griselda.= A Society Novel in Rhymed Verse. 5_s._ =GURNEY, ALFRED=, =The Vision of the Eucharist=, and other Poems. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =A Christmas Faggot.= Small 8vo, 5_s._ =Voices from the Holy Sepulchre=, and other Poems. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =HARRISON, CLIFFORD=, =In Hours of Leisure=. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =HOMER=, =Iliad=, Greek Text, with Translation. By J. G. CORDERY. 2 vols. 8vo, 14_s._; Cheap Edition (translation only), crown 8vo, 5_s._ =HORATIUS FLACCUS, Q.=, =Opera=. Edited by F. A. CORNISH. With Frontispiece. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =HOUSMAN, A. E.=, =A Shropshire Lad=. Small crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =Kalender of Shepherdes.= _Fac-simile_ Reprint. With Introduction and Glossary by Dr. H. OSKAR SOMMER. £2 2_s._ net. =KEATS, JOHN=, =Poetical Works=. Edited by W. T. ARNOLD. Large crown 8vo. Choicely printed on hand-made paper. With Etched Portrait. Vellum, 15_s._; parchment or cloth, 12_s._ New Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3_s._ 6_d._ =KEBLE, J.=, =The Christian Year=. With Portrait. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ New Edition. Rubricated, crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ Also to be had in leather bindings. =KING, Mrs. HAMILTON=, =Poems. The Disciples=. Tenth Edition. Elzevir 8vo, 6_s._; Small 8vo, 5_s._ =Book of Dreams.= Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Sermon in the Hospital= (from 'The Disciples'). Foolscap 8vo, 1_s._ Cheap Edition, 3_d._ =Ballads of the North=, and other Poems. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =LAMB, CHARLES=, =Beauty and the Beast=; or, A Rough Outside with a Gentle Heart. A Poem. Foolscap 8vo, vellum, 10_s._ 6_d._ =LANG, ANDREW=, =Lost Leaders=. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Ballades in Blue China=. Elzevir 8vo, 5_s._ =Rhymes à La Mode=. With Frontispiece by E. A. ABBEY. Second Edition. Elzevir 8vo, 5_s._ =LELAND, C. G.=, =Breitmann Ballads=. Only Complete Edition, including 19 Original Ballads, illustrating his travels in Europe. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ Another Edition (_Lotos Series_), 3_s._ 6_d._ =Pidgin-English Sing-Song=; or, Songs and Stories in the China-English dialect. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =LINDSAY, LADY=, =The King's Last Vigil=. Elzevir 8vo, 5_s._ =Lyrics and Other Poems.= Second Edition. Elzevir 8vo, 5_s._ =LINTON, W. J.=, =Rare Poems of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries=. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =LINTON, W. J., and STODDARD, R. H.=, =English Verse=. Chaucer to Burns--Translations--Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century--Dramatic Scenes and Characters--Ballads and Romances. 5 vols. crown 8vo, 5_s._ each. =LOCKER, F.=, =London Lyrics=. Tenth Edition. With Portrait. Elzevir 8vo, cloth extra, gilt top, 5_s._ =LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL=, =Biglow Papers=. Edited by THOMAS HUGHES, Q.C. Foolscap 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =LYALL, Sir ALFRED=, =Verses Written in India=. Fourth Edition. Elzevir 8vo, gilt top, 5_s._ =MACAULAY, Lord=, =Essays on Men and Books=: Lord Clive, Milton, Earl of Chatham, Lord Byron. Edited by ALEX. H. JAPP. (_Lotos Series_), 3_s._ 6_d._ =MACKAY, ERIC=, =A Lover's Litanies=, and other Poems. With Portrait of Author. (_Lotos Series_), 3_s._ 6_d._ =MARCHANT, W. T.=, =In Praise of Ale=: Songs, Ballads, Epigrams, and Anecdotes. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =MILTON, JOHN=, =Poetical Works=. 2 vols. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =Sonnets.= Edited by MARK PATTISON. With Portrait. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =Prose Writings.= Edited by E. MYERS. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =MORRIS, Sir LEWIS=, =Complete Poetical Works=, including 'A Vision of Saints.' 1 vol. With latest Portrait. Tenth Thousand. Crown 8vo, cloth plain, 6_s._; cloth extra, gilt edges, 7_s._ 6_d._ =The Epic of Hades.= With 16 Autotype Illustrations, after the Drawings of GEORGE R. CHAPMAN. 4to, cloth extra, gilt edges, 21_s._ =The Epic of Hades.= Presentation Edition. 4to, cloth extra, gilt edges, 7_s._ 6_d._ =The Epic of Hades.= Elzevir Edition. Printed on hand-made paper, cloth extra, gilt top, 5_s._ =Poetical Works.= Complete in 7 vols. Foolscap 8vo, 5_s._ each. Vol. I. =Songs of Two Worlds.= Twenty-second Thousand. II. =The Epic of Hades.= Thirty-eighth Thousand. III. =Gwen= and =The Ode of Life=. Twentieth Thousand. IV. =Songs Unsung= and =Gycia=. Seventeenth Thousand. V. =Songs of Britain.= Fifteenth Thousand. VI. =A Vision of Saints.= Fifth Thousand. VII. =Songs Without Notes.= =Idylls and Lyrics.= Third Edition. 12mo, cloth, 5_s._ =The Birthday Book.= Edited by S. S. CHAPMAN. With Frontispiece. 32mo, cloth extra, gilt edges, 2_s._; cloth limp, 1_s._ 6_d._ =MUNCHAUSEN'S Travels and Surprising Adventures.= Illustrated by ALFRED CROWQUILL. (_Lotos Series_), 3_s._ 6_d._ =NEWMAN, Cardinal, Characteristics from the Writings of.= Selections from his various Works. Arranged by W. S. LILLY. Ninth Edition. With Portrait. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ [asterism] Portrait of the late Cardinal Newman, mounted for framing, 2_s._ 6_d._ =PARKES, Sir HENRY, Sonnets and other Verse.= Elzevir 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =PLINY, The Letters of Pliny the Younger.= Translated by J. D. LEWIS. Post 8vo, 15_s._ =POE, EDGAR ALLAN, Poems.= Edited by ANDREW LANG. With Frontispiece. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =The Raven.= With Commentary by JOHN H. INGRAM. Crown 8vo, parchment, 6_s._ =POLLEN, JOHN, Rhymes from the Russian.= Translations from the best Russian Poets. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =POSNETT, H. M., Comparative Literature.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =PRAED, W. MACKWORTH, Every-day Characters.= Profusely Illustrated by CECIL ALDEN. Imperial 8vo, 6_s._ =PRIOR, MATTHEW, Selected Poems.= Edited by AUSTIN DOBSON. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =Psalms of the West.= Small 8vo. 1_s._ 6_d._ =SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, Specimens of English Prose Style, from Malory to Macaulay.= Selected and Annotated. With an Introductory Essay. Large crown 8vo, printed on hand-made paper. Vellum, 15_s._; parchment antique or cloth, 12_s._ =French Lyrics.= Edited by GEORGE SAINTSBURY. With Frontispiece. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =SCHEFFEL, J. V., and others, Gaudeamus=: Humorous Poems. Translated from the German by C. G. LELAND. 16mo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =SCOONES, W. B., Four Centuries of English Letters.= A selection of 350 Letters by 150 Writers, from the period of the Paston Letters to the Present Time. New and cheaper Edition. 5_s._ =Sea Song and River Rhyme, from Chaucer to Tennyson.= With 12 Etchings. Edited by ESTELLE ADAMS. Large crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =SEARS, LORENZO, The History of Oratory from the Age of Pericles to the Present Time=. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =SHAKSPERE, WILLIAM, Works=:-- AVON EDITION. 12 vols. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). =Vellum, 7s. 6d. per vol.; parchment or cloth, 6s. per vol.= CHEAP EDITION, =1s. per vol. net.= [asterism] THE CHEAP EDITION may also be had complete-- =12 vols. in cloth box, 15s. net; or bound in 6 vols., 12s. net.= In ONE VOLUME, with Glossarial Index-- =Super Royal 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._= =Concordance to Shakespeare's Poems.= By Mrs. FURNESS. 18_s._ =A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare.= Edited by HORACE HOWARD FURNESS. 18_s._ each vol. Vol. I. =Romeo.= II. =Macbeth.= Vols. III. and IV. =Hamlet.= Vol. V. =Lear.= VI. =Othello.= VII. =Merchant of Venice.= Vol. VIII. =As You Like It.= =Sonnets.= Edited by EDWARD DOWDEN. With Frontispiece. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =Index to Shakespeare's Works.= By <sc>E. O'Connor</sc>. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Shakespeare Classical Dictionary=; or, Mythological Allusions in the Plays of Shakespeare explained. By H. M. SELBY. Foolscap 8vo, 1_s._ =Shakspere=: A Critical Study of his Mind and Art. By EDWARD DOWDEN. Ninth edition. Large post 8vo, 12_s._ =Shakespeare=, and other Lectures. By GEORGE DAWSON. Edited by GEORGE ST. CLAIR. Large crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =SHELLEY, P. B., Complete Poetical Works.= Centenary Edition. Edited by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY. 4 vols. crown 8vo, 24_s._ net. =Poems.= Edited by RICHARD GARNETT. With Frontispiece. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =Select Letters=. Edited by RICHARD GARNETT. Elzevir 8vo (Parchment Library). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =SIDNEY, Sir PHILIP, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.= Edited by H. OSKAR SOMMER. The original 4to edition (1590) in Photographic _Fac-simile_, with Bibliographical Introduction. £2 2_s._ net. =SMITH, HUNTINGTON, A Century of American Literature.= Benjamin Franklin to James Russell Lowell. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =SWIFT, DEAN, Letters and Journals.= Edited by STANLEY LANE POOLE. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =Prose Writings.= Edited by STANLEY LANE POOLE. With Portrait. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =SYMONDS, JOHN ADDINGTON, Vagabunduli Libellus.= Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =TAYLOR, Sir HENRY, Works.= 5 vols, crown 8vo, 30_s._ =Philip Van Artevelde.= Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The Virgin Widow=, etc. Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =TENNYSON, Analysis of Tennyson's 'In Memoriam.'= (Dedicated by permission to the Poet Laureate.) By F. W. ROBERTSON. Foolscap 8vo, 2_s._ =TRENCH, Archbishop, Poems.= Tenth Edition. Foolscap 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ Library Edition, 2 vols. small 8vo, 10_s._ =Household Book of English Poetry=. Edited by Archbishop TRENCH. Fourth Edition, revised. Extra foolscap 8vo, 5_s._ =TYNAN, KATHERINE, Shamrocks.= Small 8vo, 5_s._ =Ballads and Lyrics.= Small 8vo, 5_s._ =WAGNER, RICHARD, Prose Works.= Translated by W. ASHTON ELLIS. Vol. I. =The Art Work of the Future=, etc. 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ net. II. =The Drama.= 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ net. III. =The Theatre= 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ net. IV. =Art and Politics.= 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ net. =WORDSWORTH, W., Selections.= By WILLIAM KNIGHT and other Members of the Wordsworth Society. Printed on hand-made paper. Large crown 8vo. With Portrait. Vellum, 15_s._; parchment, 12_s._ Cheap Edition, crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ =Wordsworth Birthday Book.= Edited by ADELAIDE and VIOLET WORDSWORTH. 32mo, 2_s._; cloth limp, 1_s_. 6_d._ #/ WORKS OF FICTION. =ADAMS, Mrs. LEITH=, =The Old Pastures=. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =AMYAND, ARTHUR=, =Only a Drummer Boy=. Crown 8vo, picture boards, 2_s._ =BAIN, R. NISBET=, =Weird Tales from the Northern Seas=. From the Danish of JONAS LIE. With Illustrations by LAURENCE HOUSMAN. Large post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =BANKS, Mrs. G. LINNÆUS=, =God's Providence House=. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =BENSON, MAY ELEANOR=, =At Sundry Times and in Divers Manners=. With Portrait and Memoir. 2 vols. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =CAIRD, MONA=, =The Wing of Azrael=. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =CHILD, J. T.=, =The Pearl of Asia=. 10_s._ 6_d._ =COMPTON, C. G.=, =Scot Free=. A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =FLETCHER, J. S.=, =The Winding Way=. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =GOODCHILD, JOHN A.=, =My Friends at Sant 'Ampelio=. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =GRAY, MAXWELL=, =In the Heart of the Storm=. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =The Reproach of Annesley.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Silence of Dean Maitland.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and Illustrated Edition, post 8vo, 6_s._ =Costly Freak.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =An Innocent Impostor.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =GREY, ROWLAND=, =In Sunny Switzerland=; A Tale of Six Weeks. Second Edition. Small 8vo, 5_s._ =Lindenblumen=, and other Stories. Small 8vo, 5_s._ =Jacob's Letter=, and other Stories. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =GURNEY, Rev. ALFRED=, =The Story of a Friendship=. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL=, =Works=. Complete in 12 vols. Large post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ each. =Scarlet Letter.= New Illustrated Edition. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Dr. Grimshawe's Secret.= A Romance. With Preface and Notes by Julian Hawthorne. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ #/ =HOUSMAN, LAWRENCE=, =All Fellows=. With 7 Illustrations, Title Page, and Cover designed by the Author. Imperial 16mo, 6_s._ =The House of Joy.= With 9 Illustrations, and Cover specially designed by the Author. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =A Farm in Fairyland.= With 12 Illustrations by the Author. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =HUYSMANS, J. K.=, =En Route=. Translated by C. KEGAN PAUL. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =INGELOW, JEAN=, =Off the Skelligs=. A Novel. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =LANG, ANDREW=, =In the Wrong Paradise=, and other Stories. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =MACDONALD, GEORGE=, =St. George and St. Michael=. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =What's Mine's Mine.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The Seaboard Parish.= A Sequel to 'Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood.' With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Wilfrid Cumbermede.= An Autobiographical Story. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Thomas Wingfold, Curate.= With Frontispiece. 6d 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Paul Faber, Surgeon.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The Elect Lady.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Flight of the Shadow.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Malcolm.= With Portrait of the Author engraved on Steel. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Castle Warlock.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =There and Back.= With Frontispiece. 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Donal Grant.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Home Again.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The Marquis of Lossie.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s_ New and cheaper Edition, 3_s._ 6_d._ =MacKENNA, S. T.=, =Plucky Fellows=. A Book for Boys. With 6 Illustrations. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =MALET, LUCAS=, Colonel Enderby's Wife. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =A Counsel of Perfection.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Little Peter.= A Christmas Morality for Children of any age. With numerous Illustrations. Fourth Thousand. 5_s._ =MULHOLLAND, ROSA=, =Marcella Grace=. An Irish Novel. New Edition, with Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =A Fair Emigrant.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ New and cheaper Edition, 2_s._ =OWLGLASS, TYLL=, =Marvellous and Rare Conceits=. Translated by KENNETH MACKENZIE. Illustrated by ALFRED CROWQUILL. (_Lotos Series_), 3_s._ 6_d._ =PONTOPIDDAN, HENRIK=, =The Apothecary's Daughters=. Translated from the Danish by GORDIUS NIELSEN. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =PRIG=, =The Prigment=: 'The Life of a Prig,' 'Prig's Bede,' 'How to Make a Saint,' 'Black is White.' Second Edition. In 1 vol. crown 8vo, 5_s._ =A Romance of the Recusants.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Black is White=; or, Continuity Continued. Second Edition. Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Prig's Bede.= The Venerable Bede Expurgated, Expounded, and Exposed. Second Edition. Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Riches or Ruin.= Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Egosophy.= Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =REANEY, Mrs. G. S.=, =Waking and Working=; or, From Girlhood to Womanhood. New and cheaper Edition. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Blessing and Blessed.= A Sketch of Girl Life. New and cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Rose Gurney's Discovery.= A Story for Girls. Dedicated to their Mothers. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =English Girls=: Their Place and Power. With Preface by the Rev. R. W. DALE. Fifth Edition. Foolscap 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =Just Any One=, and other Stories. With 3 Illustrations. 16mo, 1_s._ 6_d._ =Sunbeam Willie=, and other Stories. With 3 Illustrations. 16mo, 1_s._ 6_d._ =Sunshine Jenny=, and other Stories. With 3 Illustrations. 16mo, 1_s._ 6_d._ =ROSS, PERCY=, =A Professor of Alchemy=. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =SHAW, FLORA L.=, =Castle Blair=. A Story of Youthful Days. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =SPINNER, ALICE=, =Lucilla=: An Experiment. 2 vols. crown 8vo, 12_s._ net. Also cheaper Edition, crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Sporting Stories and Sketches.= By G. G. With Frontispiece by G. BOWERS. New and cheaper Edition, picture-boards, crown 8vo, 2_s._ =STRETTON, HESBA=, =David Lloyd's Last Will=. With 4 Illustrations. New Edition, royal 16mo, 2_s._ 6_d._ ='TASMA,'= =A Sydney Sovereign=, and other Tales. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6_s._ =In Her Earliest Youth.= Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =TAYLOR, Colonel MEADOWS=, =Seeta=. A Novel. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Tippoo Sultaun.= A Tale of the Mysore War. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Ralph Darnell.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =A Noble Queen.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The Confessions of a Thug.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Tara.= A Mahratta Tale. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =THACKERAY, W. M.=, =Sultan Stork=, and other Stories and Sketches, 1829-44. Now first collected, to which is added the Bibliography of Thackeray. Large 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =THEODOLI, The MARCHESA=, =Candiduccia=. Scenes from Roman Life. 2 vols. crown 8vo, 12_s._ net. =TRAHERNE, Mrs. ARTHUR=, =The Mill on the Usk=. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ _II. RELIGION._ THEOLOGY, EXEGESIS, DEVOTIONAL WORKS, ETC. =ABRAHAMS, L. B.=, =Manual of Scripture History for Jewish Schools and Families=. With Map. Crown 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._ =ALEXANDER, WILLIAM, Bishop, The Great Question=, and other Sermons. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =ALLIES, THOMAS W.=, =The Monastic Life, from the Fathers of the Desert to Charlemagne=. Post 8vo, 9_s._ net. =ANDERSON, ROBERT=, =A Doubter's Doubt about Science and Religion=. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =ARNOLD, THOMAS, and SCANNELL, T. B.=, =Catholic Dictionary=. An Account of the Doctrine, Discipline, Rites, Ceremonies, etc., of the Catholic Church. Fourth Edition, revised and enlarged. 8vo, 21_s._ =BADHAM, F. P.=, =Formation of the Gospels=. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =BAGSHAWE, EDWARD G., Bishop, Notes on Christian Doctrine=. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =BAGSHAWE, JOHN B.=, =Skeleton Sermons for the Sundays and Holidays in the Year=. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Bibliotheca Sacra.= Annual Subscription, 14_s._ =BOLD, PHILIP=, =Catholic Doctrine and Discipline Simply Explained=. Revised and in part Edited by Father EYRE, S.J. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =BRIDGETT, Rev. T. E.=, =History of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain=. 2 vols. 8vo, 18_s._ =BROOKE, Rev. STOPFORD A.=, =Christ in Modern Life=. Seventeenth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =The Spirit of the Christian Life.= Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =The Fight of Faith.= Sermons preached on various occasions. Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Sermons.= Two Series. Thirteenth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ each. =Theology in the English Poets=--Cowper, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Burns. Sixth Edition. Post 8vo, 5_s._ =BUDGE, E. A. WALLIS=, =The Book of Governors=. The Historica Monastica of Thomas, Bishop of Marga. 2 vols. 8vo, 40_s._ net. =Saint Michael the Archangel.= Three Encomiums in the Coptic Texts, with a Translation. Imperial 8vo, 15_s._ net. =CARPENTER, R. L.=, =Personal and Social Christianity=. Sermons and Addresses by the late RUSSELL LANT CARPENTER. With a Short Memoir by FRANCES E. COOKE. Edited by J. ESTLIN CARPENTER. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Catherine of Siena.= The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena. Translated from the Italian, with an Introduction on the Study of Mysticism. By ALGAR THOROLD. 8vo, 15_s._ =CHEYNE, Canon T. K.=, The Origin and Religious Contents of the Psalter. The Bampton Lectures, 1889. 8vo, 16_s._ =The Prophecies of Isaiah.= With Notes and Dissertations. Fifth Edition. 2 vols. 8vo, 25_s._ =Job and Solomon=; or, The Wisdom of the Old Testament. 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ =The Book of Psalms=; or, The Praises of Israel. With Commentary. 8vo, 16_s._ Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =CLARK, HENRY W.=, =History of Tithes, from Abraham to Queen Victoria=. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =CLARKE, JAMES FREEMAN=, =Ten Great Religions=. An Essay in Comparative Theology. 8vo. Part I. 10_s._ 6_d._; Part II. A Comparison of all Religions, 10_s._ 6_d._ =CLODD, EDWARD=, =Jesus of Nazareth=. With a Brief Sketch of Jewish History to the Time of His Birth. Second Edition. Small crown 8vo, 6_s._ Special Edition for Schools, in 2 parts, 1_s._ 6_d._ each. =Childhood of Religions,= including a Simple Account of the Birth and Growth of Myths and Legends. New Edition, revised and partly re-written. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ Special Edition for schools, 1_s._ 6_d._ =COX, Rev. SAMUEL, D. D.=, =Commentary on the Book of Job=. With a Translation. Second Edition. 8vo, 15_s._ =Balaam.= An Exposition and a Study. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Miracles.= An Argument and a Challenge. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =Salvator Mundi=; or, Is Christ the Saviour of all Men? Twelfth Edition. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =The Larger Hope.= A Sequel to 'Salvator Mundi' Second Edition. 16mo, 1_s._ =Genesis of Evil,= and other Sermons, mainly Expository. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =DAVIDSON, SAMUEL, Introduction to the New Testament.= Third Edition, Revised and enlarged. 2 vols. demy 8vo, 30_s._ =DAWSON, GEORGE, The Authentic Gospel,= and other Sermons. Edited by GEORGE ST. CLAIR. Fourth Edition. Small 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Every-day Counsels.= Edited by GEORGE ST. CLAIR. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Prayers.= First Series. Edited by his Wife. Tenth Edition. Small 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ Second Series. Edited by GEORGE ST. CLAIR. Small 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Sermons on Disputed Points and Special Occasions.= Edited by his Wife. Fifth Edition. Small 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Sermons on Daily Life and Duty.= Edited by his Wife. Fifth Edition. Small 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =DEMBO, Dr. J. A., The Jewish Method of Slaughter.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ net. =DIDON, Father, Jesus Christ.= Cheaper Edition. 2 vols. 8vo, 12_s._ =Belief in the Divinity of Jesus Christ.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =DORMAN, MARCUS R., From Matter to Mind.= Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =DRAPER, J. W., The Conflict between Religion and Science.= Twenty-first Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =EYTON, ROBERT, The Apostles' Creed.= Sermons. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The True Life,= and other Sermons. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =The Lord's Prayer.= Sermons. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The Ten Commandments.= Sermons. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The Search for God, and other Sermons.= Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The Temptation of Jesus,= and other Sermons. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The Beatitudes.= Sermons. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =French Jansenists.= By the Author of 'Spanish Mystics' and 'Many Voices.' Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =FRIEDLÄNDER, M., Text Book of Jewish Religion.= Fourth Edition, Revised. Crown 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._ =The Jewish Religion.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ GRIMLEY, REV. H. N., TREMADOC SERMONS. Chiefly on the Spiritual Body, the Unseen World, and the Divine Humanity. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =The Prayer of Humanity.= Sermons on the Lord's Prayer. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The Temple of Humanity,= and other Sermons. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =HAWEIS, Rev. H. R., Current Coin.= Materialism--The Devil--Crime--Drunkenness--Pauperism--Emotion--Recreation--The Sabbath. Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Arrows in the Air.= Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Speech in Season.= Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Thoughts for the Times.= Fourteenth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Unsectarian Family Prayers.= New Edition. Foolscap 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._ =HERSHON, J. P., Talmudic Miscellany=; or, One Thousand and One Extracts from the Talmud, the Midrashim, and the Kabbalah. Post 8vo, 14_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =ISLAM.= _See Class_ ORIENTAL. =KEMPIS, THOMAS À, Imitation of Christ.= Revised Translation. Elzevir 8vo, (_Parchment Library_). Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ RED LINE EDITION. Foolscap 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ Cabinet Edition, small 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._; cloth limp, 1_s._ MINIATURE EDITION. 32mo. With Red Lines, 1_s._ 6_d._; without Red Lines, 1_s._ =De Imitatione Christi.= Latin and English. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =LÉPICIER, ALEXIUS W., D.D., Indulgences=: Their Origin, Nature, and Development. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Life's Greatest Possibility.= An Essay in Spiritual Realism. Foolscap 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =LOVAT, Lady, Seeds and Sheaves:= Thoughts for Incurables. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =MAIMONIDES=, =Guide of the Perplexed=, from the Original Text. Annotated by H. FRIEDLÄNDER. 3 vols. post 8vo, 31_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library._) =MANNING, Cardinal=, =Towards Evening=: Selections from the Writings of Cardinal Manning. Fourth Edition, with _Fac-simile_. 16mo, 2_s._ =MEAD, C. M., D.D.=, =Supernatural Revelation=: An Essay concerning the Basis of the Christian Faith. Royal 8vo, 14_s._ =MOORE, AUBREY L.=, =Science and the Faith=: Essays on Apologetic Subjects. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =PARKER, THEODORE= (Minister of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society at Boston, U.S.), =Collected Works=. 14 vols. 8vo, 6_s._ each. Vol. I. =Discourse on Matters Pertaining to Religion.= II. =Ten Sermons and Prayers.= III. =Discourses on Theology.= IV. =Discourses on Politics.= V. & VI. =Discourses on Slavery.= VII. =Discourses on Social Science.= VIII. =Miscellaneous Discourses.= IX. & X. =Critical Writings.= XI. =Sermons on Theism, Atheism, and Popular Theology.= XII. =Autobiographical and Miscellaneous Pieces.= XIII. =Historic Americans.= XIV. =Lessons from the World of Matter and the World of Man.= =Discourse on Matters Pertaining to Religion.= People's Edition. Crown 8vo, 2_s._; 1_s._ 6_d._ =PASCAL=, =Thoughts=. Translated by C. KEGAN PAUL. Foolscap 8vo, parchment, 12_s._ New Edition, crown 8vo, 6_s._ =PASTOR, Dr. LUDWIG=, =The History of the Popes=. Translated from the German by FREDERICK J. ANTROBUS. Vols. 3 and 4, 8vo, 24_s._ net. =Paul of Tarsus.= By the Author of 'Rabbi Jeshua.' Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ =PEARSON, SAMUEL=, =Scholars of Christ=. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Week-Day Living.= Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =PULPIT COMMENTARY, The (Old Testament Series).= Edited by the Very Rev. Dean H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D., and Rev. J. S. EXELL. Super royal 8vo. =Genesis=, by the Rev. T. WHITELAW, D.D. Homilies by the Very Rev. J. F. MONTGOMERY, D.D., Rev. Prof. R. A. REDFORD, Rev. F. HASTINGS, Rev. W. ROBERTS. Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament, by Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR, D.D. Introductions to the Pentateuch, by the Right Rev. H. COTTERILL, D.D., and Rev. T. WHITELAW, D.D. Ninth Edition. 15_s._ =Exodus=, by the Rev. Canon RAWLINSON. Homilies by the Rev. J. ORR, D.D., Rev. D. YOUNG, Rev. C. A. GOODHART, Rev. J. URQUHART, and Rev. H. T. ROBJOHNS. Fifth Edition. 2 vols. 9_s._ each. =Leviticus=, by the Rev. Preb. MEYRICK. Introductions by the Rev. R. COLLINS and Rev. Prof. A. CAVE. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. REDFORD, Rev. J. A. MACDONALD, Rev. W. CLARKSON, Rev. S. R. ALDRIDGE, and Rev. MCCHEYNE EDGAR. Fifth Edition. 15_s._ =Numbers=, by the Rev. R. WINTERBOTHAM. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. W. BINNIE, D.D., Rev. E. S. PROUT, Rev. D. YOUNG, and Rev. J. WAITE. Introduction by the Rev. THOMAS WHITELAW, D.D. Fifth Edition. 15_s._ =Deuteronomy=, by the Rev. W. L. ALEXANDER, D.D. Homilies by the Rev. C. CLEMANCE, D.D., Rev. J. ORR, D.D., Rev. R. M. EDGAR, and Rev. J. D. DAVIES. Fourth Edition. 15_s._ =Joshua=, by the Rev. J. J. LIAS. Homilies by the Rev. S. R. ALDRIDGE, Rev. R. GLOVER, Rev. E. DE PRESSENSÉ, D.D., Rev. J. WAITE, and Rev. W. F. ADENEY. Introduction by the Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. Sixth Edition. 12_s._ 6_d._ =Judges and Ruth=, by the Bishop of BATH and WELLS and Rev. J. MORISON, D.D. Homilies by the Rev. A. F. MUIR, Rev. W. F. ADENEY, Rev. W. M. STATHAM, and Rev. Prof. J. THOMSON. Fifth Edition. 10_s._ 6_d._ =1 and 2 Samuel=, by the Very Rev. R. PAYNE SMITH, D.D. Homilies by the Rev. DONALD FRASER, D.D., Rev. Prof. CHAPMAN, Rev. B. DALE, and Rev. G. WOOD. Seventh Edition. 2 vols. 15_s._ each. =1 Kings=, by the Rev. JOSEPH HAMMOND. Homilies by the Rev. E. DE PRESSENSÉ, D.D., Rev. J. WAITE, Rev. A. ROWLAND, Rev. J. A. MACDONALD, and Rev. J. URQUHART. Fifth Edition. 15_s._ =2 Kings=, by the Rev. Canon RAWLINSON. Homilies by the Rev. J. ORR, D.D., Rev. D. THOMAS, D.D., and Rev. C. H. IRWIN. Second Edition. 15_s._ =1 Chronicles=, by the Rev. Prof. P. C. BARKER. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. J. R. THOMSON, Rev. R. TUCK, Rev. W. CLARKSON, Rev. F. WHITFIELD, and Rev. RICHARD GLOVER. Second Edition. 15_s._ =2 Chronicles=, by the Rev. PHILIP C. BARKER. Homilies by the Rev. W. CLARKSON and Rev. T. WHITELAW, D.D. Second Edition. 15_s._ =Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther=, by the Rev. Canon G. RAWLINSON. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. J. R. THOMSON, Rev. Prof. R. A. REDFORD, Rev. W. S. LEWIS, Rev. J. A. MACDONALD, Rev. A. MACKENNAL, Rev. W. CLARKSON, Rev. F. HASTINGS, Rev. W. DINWIDDIE, Rev. Prof. ROWLANDS, Rev. G. WOOD, Rev. Prof. P. C. BARKER, and the Rev. J. S. EXELL. Seventh Edition. 12_s._ 6_d._ =Job=, by the Rev. Canon G. RAWLINSON. Homilies by the Rev. T. WHITELAW, D.D., the Rev. Prof. E. JOHNSON, the Rev. Prof. W. F. ADENEY, and the Rev. R. GREEN. 21_s._ =Psalms=, by the Rev. Canon G. RAWLINSON. Homilies by the Rev. E. R. CONDER, D.D., Rev. W. CLARKSON, Rev. C. CLEMANCE, D.D., Rev. W. FORSYTH, D.D., Rev. C. SHORT, D.D., Rev. S. CONWAY, and Rev. R. TUCK. 3 vols. 10_s._ 6_d._ each. =Proverbs=, by the Rev. W. J. DEANE and Rev. S. T. TAYLOR-TASWELL. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. W. F. ADENEY, Rev. Prof. E. JOHNSON, and the Rev. W. CLARKSON. Second Edition. 15_s._ =Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon=, by the Rev. W. J. DEANE and Rev. Prof. R. A. REDFORD. Homilies by the Rev. T. WHITELAW, D.D., Rev. B. C. CAFFIN, Rev. Prof. J. R. THOMSON, Rev. S. CONWAY, Rev. D. DAVIES, Rev. W. CLARKSON, and Rev. J. WILLCOCK. 21_s._ =Isaiah=, by the Rev. Canon G. RAWLINSON. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. E. JOHNSON, Rev. W. CLARKSON, Rev. W. M. STATHAM, and Rev. R. TUCK. Third Edition. 2 vols. 15_s._ each. =Jeremiah and Lamentations=, by the Rev. Canon T. K. CHEYNE, D.D. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. J. R. THOMSON, Rev. W. F. ADENEY, Rev. A. F. MUIR, Rev. S. CONWAY, Rev. D. YOUNG, and Rev. J. WAITE. Fourth Edition. 2 vols. 15_s._ each. =Ezekiel=, by the Very Rev. E. H. PLUMPTRE, D.D. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. W. F. ADENEY, Rev. Prof. J. R. THOMSON, Rev. J. D. DAVIES, Rev. W. JONES, and Rev. W. CLARKSON. Introduction by the Rev. T. WHITELAW, D.D. 2 vols. 12_s._ 6_d._ each. =Daniel=, by the Rev. J. E. H. THOMSON, B.D. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. W. F. ADENEY, Rev. H. T. ROBJOHNS, and Rev. J. D. DAVIES. 21_s._ =Hosea and Joel=, by the Rev. Prof. J. J. GIVEN, D.D. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. J. R. THOMSON, Rev. A. ROWLAND, Rev. C. JERDAN, Rev. J. ORR, D.D., and Rev. D. THOMAS, D.D. Second Edition. 15_s._ =Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah=, by the Rev. W. J. DEANE. Homilies by the Rev. J. EDGAR HENRY, Rev. Prof. J. R. THOMSON, Rev. S. D. HILLMAN, Rev. =A. Rowland=, Rev. D. THOMAS, Rev. A. C. THISELTON, Rev. E. S. PROUT, Rev. G. T. COSTER, and Rev. W. G. BLAIKIE. 15_s._ =Nahum=, by the Rev. W. J. DEANE. Homilies by the Rev. T. WHITELAW, Rev. S. D. HILLMAN, and Rev. D. THOMAS. 15_s._ =Pulpit Commentary, The (New Testament Series).= Edited by the Very Rev. H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D., and Rev. JOSEPH S. EXELL. =St. Matthew=, by the Rev. A. L. WILLIAMS. Homilies by the Rev. B. C. CAFFIN, Rev. Prof. W. F. ADENEY, Rev. P. C. BARKER, Rev. M. DODS, D.D., Rev. J. A. MACDONALD, and Rev. R. TUCK. 2 vols. 21_s._ each. =St. Mark=, by the Very Rev. Dean E. BICKERSTETH, D.D. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. J. R. THOMSON, Rev. Prof. J. J. GIVEN, D.D., Rev. Prof. E. JOHNSON, Rev. A. ROWLAND, Rev. A. F. MUIR, and Rev. R. GREEN. Sixth Edition. 2 vols. 10_s._ 6_d._ each. =St. Luke=, by the Very Rev. Dean H. D. M. SPENCE. Homilies by the Rev. J. MARSHALL LANG, D.D., Rev. W. CLARKSON, and Rev. R. M. EDGAR. Second Edition. 2 vols. 10_s._ 6_d._ each. =St. John=, by the Rev. Prof. H. R. REYNOLDS, D.D. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. T. CROSKERY, D.D., Rev. Prof. J. R. THOMSON, Rev. D. YOUNG, Rev. B. THOMAS, and Rev. G. BROWN. Third Edition. 2 vols. 15_s._ each. =The Acts of the Apostles=, by the Right Rev. Bishop of BATH and WELLS. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. P. C. BARKER, Rev. Prof. E. JOHNSON, Rev. Prof. R. A. REDFORD, Rev. R. TUCK, and Rev. W. CLARKSON. Fifth Edition. 2 vols. 10_s._ 6_d._ each. =Romans=, by the Rev. J. BARMBY. Homilies by the Rev. Prof. J. R. THOMSON, Rev. C. H. IRWIN, Rev. T. F. LOCKYER, Rev. S. R. ALDRIDGE, and Rev. R. M. EDGAR. 15_s._ =Corinthians and Galatians=, by the Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR, D.D., and Rev. Preb. E. HUXTABLE. Homilies by the Rev. Ex-Chancellor LIPSCOMB, Rev. DAVID THOMAS, D.D., Rev. DONALD FRASER, D.D., Rev. R. TUCK, Rev. E. HURNDALL, Rev. Prof. J. R. THOMSON, Rev. R. FINLAYSON, Rev. W. F. ADENEY, Rev. R. M. EDGAR, and Rev. T. CROSKERY, D.D. 2 vols. Vol. I., containing 1 Corinthians, Fifth Edition, 15_s._ Vol. II., containing 2 Corinthians and Galatians, Second Edition, 21_s._ =Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians=, by the Rev. Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., Rev. B. C. CAFFIN, and Rev. G. G. FINDLAY. Homilies by the Rev. D. THOMAS, D.D., Rev. R. M. EDGAR, Rev. R. FINLAYSON, Rev. W. F. ADENEY, Rev. Prof. T. CROSKERY, D.D., Rev. E. S. PROUT, Rev. Canon VERNON HUTTON, and Rev. U. R. THOMAS, D.D. Third Edition. 21_s._ =Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon=, by the Right Rev. Bishop of BATH and WELLS, Rev. Dr. GLOAG, and Rev. Dr. EALES. Homilies by the Rev. B. C. CAFFIN, Rev. R. FINLAYSON, Rev. Prof. T. CROSKERY, D.D., Rev. W. F. ADENEY, Rev. W. M. STATHAM, and Rev. D. THOMAS, D.D. Second Edition. 15_s._ =Hebrews and James=, by the Rev. J. BARMBY, and Rev. Preb. E. C. S. GIBSON. Homilies by the Rev. C. JERDAN, Rev. Preb. E. C. S. GIBSON, Rev. W. JONES, Rev. C. NEW, Rev. D. YOUNG, Rev. J. S. BRIGHT, and Rev. T. F. LOCKYER. Third Edition. 15_s._ =Peter, John, and Jude=, by the Rev. B. C. CAFFIN, Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D., and Rev. Prof. S. D. F. SALMOND, D.D. Homilies by the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D., Rev. C. CLEMANCE, D.D., Rev. Prof. J. R. THOMSON, Rev. C. NEW, Rev. U. R. THOMAS, Rev. R. FINLAYSON, Rev. W. JONES, Rev. Prof. T. CROSKERY, D.D., and Rev. J. S. BRIGHT, D.D. Second Edition. 15_s._ =Revelation=. Introduction by the Rev. T. RANDELL, Principal of Bede College, Durham. Exposition by the Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D., assisted by Rev. T. RANDELL and A. T. BOTT. Homilies by the Rev. C. CLEMANCE, D.D., Rev. S. CONWAY, Rev. R. GREEN, and Rev. D. THOMAS, D.D. Second Edition. 15_s._ =PUSEY, Rev. E. B., D.D., Sermons for the Church's Seasons from Advent to Trinity.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =RENAN, ERNEST, Life of Jesus.= Crown 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =The Apostles.= Crown 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =REYNOLDS, Rev. J. W., The Supernatural in Nature.= A Verification by the Free Use of Science. Third Edition, revised and enlarged. 8vo, 14_s._ =Mystery of the Universe Our Common Faith.= 8vo, 14_s._ =Mystery of Miracles.= Third Edition, enlarged. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =The World to Come.= Immortality a Physical Fact. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =RICHARDSON, AUSTIN, What are the Catholic Claims?= Introduction by Rev. LUKE RIVINGTON. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =RIVINGTON, Rev. LUKE, Authority=; or, A Plain Reason for Joining the Church of Rome. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Dependence=; or, The Insecurity of the Anglican Position. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =ROBERTSON, Rev. F. W., Notes on Genesis.= New and cheaper Edition. Small 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians.= Expository Lectures. New Edition. Small 8vo, 5_s._ =Lectures and Addresses=, with other Literary Remains. New Edition. Small 8vo, 5_s._ =Sermons.= Five Series. Small 8vo, 3_s_. 6_d._ each. [asterism] Portrait of the late Rev. F. W. ROBERTSON, mounted for framing, 2_s._ 6_d._ =ROWAN, FREDERICA, Meditations on Death and Eternity.= Translated from the German by F. ROWAN. Published by Her Majesty's gracious permission. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Meditations on Life and its Religious Duties.= Translated from the German by F. ROWAN. Published by Her Majesty's gracious permission. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =SCANNELL, THOMAS B.=, and =WILHELM, JOSEPH, D.D.=, =Manual of Catholic Theology=, based on SCHEEBEN'S 'Dogmatik.' Vol I. 15_s._ =SCHLEIERMACHER, F., On Religion.= Speeches to its Cultured Despisers. Translated, with Introduction, by J. OMAN. 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =TAYLER, J. J., Retrospect of the Religious Life of England=; or, Church, Puritanism, and Free Inquiry. Second Edition. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =TIELE, Prof. C. P., Outlines of the History of Religion to the Spread of the Universal Religions.= From the Dutch, by J. ESTLIN CARPENTER. Fifth Edition. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library, and Trübner's Oriental Series._) =History of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian Religions.= Translated by J. BALLINGAL. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =TRENCH, Archbishop, Notes on the Parables of our Lord.= 8vo, 12_s._ Cheap Edition. Sixty-first Thousand. 7_s._ 6_d._ =Notes on the Miracles of our Lord.= 8vo, 12_s._ Cheap Edition. Forty-eighth Thousand. 7_s._ 6_d._ =Brief Thoughts and Meditations on some Passages in Holy Scripture.= Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Apocalypse: Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia.= Fourth Edition, revised. 8vo, 8_s._ 6_d._ =On the Authorised Version of the New Testament.= Second Edition. 8vo, 7_s._ =Proverbs and their Lessons.= Eighth Edition, enlarged. Foolscap 8vo, 4_s._ =Studies in the Gospels.= Fifth Edition, revised. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Synonyms of the New Testament.= Tenth Edition, enlarged. 8vo, 12_s._ =Sermons, New and Old.= Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Lectures on Mediæval Church History.= Being the substance of Lectures delivered at Queen's College, London. Second Edition. 8vo, 12_s._ =Shipwrecks of Faith.= Three Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge. Foolscap 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =Westminster and other Sermons.= Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =TRUMBULL, H. CLAY, The Blood-Covenant.= A Primitive Rite, and its bearing on Scripture. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =TURTON, Major W. H., The Truth of Christianity.= Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =WILSON, Archdeacon, Rochdale Sermons, 1891-4.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =WYLD, Dr. GEORGE, Christo-Theosophy;= or, Spiritual Dynamics. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ net. RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY AND SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY. (_See also_ PHILOSOPHY.) =ARNOLD, Sir EDWIN, Death--and Afterwards.= Reprinted from the _Fortnightly Review_ of August, 1885, with a Supplement. Eleventh Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =FEUERBACH, L., Essence of Christianity.= From the German, by MARIAN EVANS. Second Edition. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library._) =FITZARTHUR, T., The Worth of Human Testimony.= Foolscap 8vo, 2_s._ =GRAHAM, WILLIAM, Creed of Science, Religious, Moral, and Social.= Second Edition, revised. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =GREG, W. R., The Creed of Christendom.= Eighth Edition. 2 vols. post 8vo, 15_s._ (_Philosophical Library._) =Enigmas of Life.= Seventeenth Edition. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ New Edition, with Prefatory Memoir, Edited by his Wife. 6_s._ (_Philosophical Library._) =Miscellaneous Essays.= Two Series. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ each. =HEGEL, G. W. F., Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion.= Translated by the Rev. E. B. SPIERS and J. BURDON SANDERSON. 3 vols. 8vo, 12_s._ each. (_See also_ PHILOSOPHY.) =HEINE, H., Religion and Philosophy in Germany.= Translated by J. SNODGRASS. Post 8vo, 6_s._ (_Philosophical Library._) =MORISON, J. COTTER, The Service of Man.= An Essay towards the Religion of the Future. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =NEWMAN, F. W., Miscellanies.= Essays, Tracts, and Addresses, Moral and Religious. 8vo. Vol. I. 10s. 6d. =PHYSICUS, Candid Examination of Theism.= Second Edition. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library._) =READE, WINWOOD, The Martyrdom of Man.= Fourteenth Edition. Crown 8vo. 7_s._ 6_d._ =WARD, W. G., Essays on the Philosophy of Theism.= Edited, with an Introduction, by WILFRID WARD. 2 vols. 8vo, 21_s._ MYTHOLOGY, ETC. =BRINTON, D. G., Rig Veda Americanus.= 8vo, 12_s._ =COX, Sir G. W., Bart., Mythology of the Aryan Nations.= New Edition. 8vo, 16_s._ =Tales of Ancient Greece.= New Edition. Small crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Tales of the Gods and Heroes.= Small Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Manual of Mythology in the Form of Question and Answer.= New Edition. Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ =Introduction to the Science of Comparative Mythology and Folk-Lore.= Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =DOWSON, JOHN, Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and History, Geography and Literature.= Post 8vo, 16_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =GUBERNATIS, ANGELO DE, Zoological Mythology=; or, The Legends of Animals. 2 vols. 8vo, £1 8_s._ =MUIR, JOHN, Cosmogony, Mythology, etc., of the Indians in the Vedic Age.= Third Edition. £1 1_s._ =VIGNOLI, TITO, Myth and Science.= An Essay. Third Edition. With Supplementary Note. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I.S.S._) =WAKE, C. S., Serpent Worship=, and other Essays, with a Chapter on Totemism. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =WESTROPP, H. M., Primitive Symbolism as Illustrated in Phallic Worship=; or, The Reproductive Principle. With Introduction by Major-Gen. FORLONG. 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =WILSON, H. H., Vishnu Puráná.= A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition. From the original Sanskrit. Illustrated by Notes derived chiefly from other Puránás. Translated by H. H. WILSON. Edited by FITZ EDWARD HALL. 5 vols, £3 4_s._ 6_d._ FOLK-LORE. =BLEEK, W. H. I., Hottentot Folk-Lore.--Reynard the Fox in South Africa=; or, Hottentot Fables and Tales. Post 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =CATLIN, GEORGE, Mandan Customs.--O-Kee-Pa=, a Religious Ceremony; and other customs of the Mandans. With 13 Coloured Illustrations. Small 4to, 14_s._ =COX, Sir G. W., and JONES, E. H., Popular Romances of the Middle Ages.= Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =GASTER, M., Greeko-Slavonic Literature and its Relation to the Folk-Lore of Europe during the Middle Ages.= Large post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =GOMME, G. LAURENCE, Ethnology in Folk-Lore.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ (_Modern Science Series._) =Indian Folk-Lore.= _See class_ ORIENTAL. =LONG, J., Eastern Proverbs and Emblems Illustrating Old Truths.= Post 8vo, 6_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =MACRITCHIE, DAVID, Fians, Fairies, and Picts.= With Illustrations. Large post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =NORTHALL, G. F., English Folk Rhymes.= A Collection of Traditional Verses relating to Places and Persons, Customs, Superstitions, etc. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Turkish Tales.--The History of the Forty Vezirs;= or, The Story of the Forty Morns and Eves. Translated from the Turkish by E. J. W. GIBB. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ _III. OCCULT SCIENCES._ =BAUGHAN, ROSA, The Influence of the Stars.= A Treatise on Astrology, Chiromancy, and Physiognomy. 8vo, 5_s._ =BINET, A., and FÉRÉ, C., Animal Magnetism.= Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I.S.S._) =COLLINS, MABEL, Through the Gates of Gold.= Mysticism. Small 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ =COOK, LOUISA S., Geometrical Psychology;= or, The Science of Representation. An Abstract of the Theories and Diagrams of B. W. BETTS. Sixteen Plates. 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =COTTON, LOUISE, Palmistry and its Practical Uses.= Twelve Plates. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =D'ASSIER, ADOLPHE, Posthumous Humanity.= A Study of Phantoms, from the French. By COLONEL OLCOTT. With Appendix and Notes. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =DEWEY, J. H., The Way, the Truth, and the Life.= A Handbook of Christian Theosophy, Healing, and Psychic Culture. 10_s._ 6_d._ =HARTMANN, FRANZ, White and Black Magic=; or, The Science of Finite and Infinite Life. Fourth Edition, revised. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Life of Paracelsus, and the Substance of his Teachings.= New and Revised Edition. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme.= An Introduction to the Study of his Works. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =HEIDENHAIN, RUDOLPH, Hypnotism, or Animal Magnetism.= With Preface by G. J. ROMANES. Second Edition. Small 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =HERMES, TRISMEGISTUS, Christian Neoplatonist=, Theological and Philosophical Works of. Translated from the Greek by J. D. CHAMBERS. 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =The Virgin of the World.= Translated and Edited by the Authors of 'The Perfect Way.' Illustrations. 4to, imitation parchment, 10_s._ 6_d._ =JENNINGS, HARGRAVE, The Indian Religions=; or, Results of the Mysterious Buddhism. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =KINGSFORD, ANNA, and MAITLAND, EDWARD, The Perfect Way=; or, The Finding of Christ. Third Edition, revised. Square 16mo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =KINGSFORD, ANNA, Spiritual Hermeneutics of Astrology and Holy Writ.= With Illustrations. 4to, parchment, 10_s._ 6_d._ =MATHERS, S. L. M., The Key of Solomon the King.= Translated from ancient MSS. in the British Museum. With Plates. Crown 4to, 25_s._ =The Kaballah Unveiled.= Containing the Three Books of the Zohar, translated from the Chaldee and Hebrew Text. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =The Tarot.= Its Occult Signification, use in Fortune-telling, and method of Play. With Pack of 78 Tarot Cards, 5_s._; without the Cards, 1_s._ 6_d._ =OLCOTT, Colonel, Theosophy, Religion, and Occult Science.= With Glossary of Eastern Words. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =OWEN, ROBERT DALE, Footfalls on the Boundary of another World.= With Narrative Illustrations. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =Debatable Land between this World and the Next.= With Illustrative Narrations. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =Threading My Way.= Twenty-seven Years of Autobiography. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =PREL, CARL DU, Philosophy of Mysticism.= Translated from the German by C. C. MASSEY. 2 vols 8vo, cloth, 25_s._ =Psychical Research Society, Proceedings.= Irregular. =SERJEANT, W. C. ELDON, The Astrologer's Guide= (=Anima Astrologiæ=). 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =STREET, J. C., The Hidden Way across the Threshold=; or, The Mystery which hath been hidden for Ages and from Generations. With Plates. Large 8vo, 15_s._ =VAUGHAN, THOMAS, Magical Writings.= Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by A. E. WAITE. Small 4to, 10_s._ 6_d._ =VINCENT, R. HARRY, The Elements of Hypnotism.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =WAITE, A. E., Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers.= 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Magical Writings of Thomas Vaughan.= Small 4to, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Real History of the Rosicrucians.= With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =Mysteries of Magic.= A Digest of the Writings of Eliphas Lévi. New and revised Edition. With Illustrations. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =The Occult Sciences.= Crown 8vo, 6_s._ #/ _IV. PHILOSOPHY._ (_See also_ RELIGION.) =ACLAND, Sir THOMAS DYKE, Knowledge, Duty, and Faith.= A Study of Principles Ancient and Modern. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =ALEXANDER, S., Moral Order and Progress=: An Analysis of Ethical Conceptions. Second Edition. Post 8vo, 14_s._ (_Philosophical Library._) =ALLEN, GRANT, Colour Sense=: Its Origin and Development. An Essay in Comparative Psychology. Second Edition. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library._) =ARISTOTLE, The Nicomachean Ethics.= Translated by F. H. PETERS. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =BAIN, ALEXANDER, Mind and Body=: The Theories of their Relations. With Four Illustrations. Eighth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =BASTIAN, H. CHARLTON, Brain as an Organ of Mind.= With numerous Illustrations. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =COMTE, AUGUSTE, Positive Philosophy.= Translated and Condensed by HARRIET MARTINEAU. 2 vols. Third Edition. Large post 8vo, 15_s._ =Catechism of Positive Religion.= From the French by R. CONGREVE. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =FICHTE, J. GOTTLIEB, Characteristics of the Present Age.= Translated by W. SMITH. Post 8vo, 6_s._ =New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.= Translated by A. E. KROEGER. 8vo, 12_s._ =Science of Knowledge.= Translated by A. E. KROEGER. With an Introduction by Prof. W. T. HARRIS. 10_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library._) =Science of Rights.= Translated by A. E. KROEGER. With an Introduction by Prof. W. T. HARRIS. 12_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library._) =Science of Ethics.= Translated by W. T. HARRIS. 7_s._ 6_d._ =Popular Works=: The Nature of the Scholar, The Vocation of the Scholar, The Vocation of Man, The Doctrine of Religion, Characteristics of the Present Age, Outlines of the Doctrine of Knowledge. With a Memoir by W. SMITH. 2 vols. 21_s._ (_Philosophical Library._) =GUICCIARDINI, F., Counsels and Reflections.= Translated by N. H. THOMSON. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =HARTMANN, E. von, Philosophy of the Unconscious.= Translated by W. C. COUPLAND. 3 vols. post 8vo, 31_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library._) =HEGEL, G. W. F., Lectures on the History of Philosophy.= Translated by E. S. HALDANE. 3 vols. post 8vo, each 12_s._ =HINTON, JAMES, The Law-Breaker=, and =The Coming of the Law=. Edited by MARGARET HINTON. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Mystery of Pain.= New Edition. Foolscap 8vo, 1_s._ =Philosophy and Religion.= Selections from the MSS. of the late James Hinton. Edited by CAROLINE HADDON. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =The Larger Life. Studies in Hinton's Ethics.= By CAROLINE HADDON. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =HUGHES, H., Principles of Natural and Supernatural Morals. Vol. I. Natural Morals=. 8vo, 12_s._ =The Theory of Inference.= 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =JORDAN, F., Character as seen in Body and Parentage.= With Illustrations. Third Edition. Small crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ net. =LEWES, GEORGE HENRY, Problems of Life and Mind.= 8vo. Series I. =Foundations of a Creed.= 2 vols. 28_s._ II. =Physical Basis of Mind.= With Illustrations. 16_s._ III. 2 vols. 22_s._ 6_d._ =The Physical Basis of Mind.= With Illustrations. New Edition. With Prefatory Note by Prof. J. SULLY. Large post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =LANGE, Prof. F. A., History of Materialism, and Criticism of its Present Importance.= Authorised Translation by ERNEST C. THOMAS. 3 vols. post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ each. (_Philosophical Library._) =LESLEY, J. P., Man's Origin and Destiny.= Sketched from the Platform of the Physical Sciences. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =LUBBOCK, Sir John, Senses, Instincts, and Intelligence of Animals.= With special reference to Insects. With 100 Illustrations. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =LUYS, J., Brain and its Functions.= With Illustrations. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =MAUDSLEY, H., Body and Will.= An Essay concerning Will, in its Metaphysical, Physiological, and Pathological Aspects. 8vo, 12_s._ =Responsibility in Mental Disease.= Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =Supernaturalism.--Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings.= Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =MILL, JOHN STUART, Auguste Comte and Positivism.= Third Edition. Post 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library._) =MIVART, ST. GEORGE, On Truth.= 8vo, 16_s._ =Origin of Human Reason.= 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =MOORE, AUBREY L., Essays, Scientific and Philosophical.= With Memoir of the Author. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =MORSELLI, Prof. H., Suicide.= An Essay on Comparative Moral Statistics. Second Edition. With Diagrams. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =RIBOT, Prof. T., English Psychology.= Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =Diseases of Memory.= An Essay in the Positive Psychology. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =RIEHL, Dr. A., Introduction to the Theory of Science and Metaphysics.= Translated by Dr. ARTHUR FAIRBANKS. Post 8vo, 9_s._ (_Philosophical Library._) =ROMANES, G. J., Mental Evolution in Man.= Origin of the Human Faculty. 8vo, 14_s._ =Mental Evolution in Animals.= With Posthumous Essay on Instinct by CHARLES DARWIN. 8vo, 12_s._ =Animal Intelligence.= Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =SCHOPENHAUER, ARTHUR, The World as Will and Idea.= From the German. By R. R. HALDANE and J. KEMP. Third Edition. 3 vols. post 8vo, 12_s._ each vol. =SIMCOX, EDITH, Natural Law.= An Essay in Ethics. Second Edition. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library._) =SULLY, JAMES, Illusions.= A Psychological Study. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =WEDGWOOD, JULIA, The Moral Ideal.= An Historic Study. Second Edition. 8vo, 9_s._ _V. HISTORY._ BIOGRAPHY. =Alchemystical Philosophers=, Lives of. With a Bibliography of Alchemy. By A. E. WAITE. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =ANSELM, St., Archbishop of Canterbury, and Primate of the Britons=, Life and Times of. By MARTIN RULE. 2 vols. 8vo, 32_s._ =APPLETON, Dr.=, His Life and Literary Relics. By J. H. APPLETON and A. H. SAYCE. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library._) =BACON, FRANCIS=, Life and Times of. By JAMES SPEDDING. 2 vols. post 8vo, 21_s._ =BETTERTON, THOMAS.= By R. W. LOWE. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ (_Eminent Actors._) =BLAVATSKY, Madame=, Incidents in the Life of. By A. P. SINNETT. With Portrait. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =BOEHME, JACOB=, Life and Doctrines of. An Introduction to the Study of his Works. By FRANZ HARTMANN. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =BRADSHAW, HENRY.= A Memoir. By G. W. PROTHERO. With Portrait and _Fac-simile_. 8vo, 16_s._ =Brave Men's Footsteps.= A Book of Example and Anecdote for Young People. By the Editor of 'Men who have Risen.' Illustrations by C. DOYLE. Ninth Edition. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =BRUNO, GIORDANO, the Nolan=, Life of. By I. FRITH. Revised by Professor MORIZ CARRIERE. With Portrait. Post 8vo, 14_s._ =BURKE, the Very Rev. T. N.=, Life of. By W. J. FITZPATRICK. With Portrait. 2 vols. 8vo, 30_s_. New and cheaper Edition, 7_s._ 6_d._ =BURROWS, HENRY WILLIAM.= Memorials. By E. WORDSWORTH. With Portrait. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =CAXTON, WILLIAM, England's First Printer=, Biography and Typography of. By W. BLADES. 8vo, hand-made paper, imitation old bevelled binding, £1 1_s._ Cheap Edition, Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =DAWSON, GEORGE=, Biographical Lectures. Edited by GEORGE ST. CLAIR. Third Edition. Large crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =DICKENS, CHARLES, and the Stage=; or, A Record of his Connection with the Drama. By T. EDGAR PEMBERTON. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =DIGBY, Sir EVERARD=, The Life of a Conspirator, a Biography of. By one of his Descendants. With Portrait. Demy 8vo, 9_s._ =DORA, Sister.= A Biography. By MARGARET LONSDALE. With Portrait. Thirtieth Edition. Small 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =DRUMMOND, THOMAS=, Life and Letters of, Under-Secretary in Ireland, 1835-40. By R. BARRY O'BRIEN. 8vo, 14_s._ =DUNCAN, FRANCIS, C.B., R.A., M.P.=, Life of. By Rev. HENRY BIRDWOOD BLOGG. With Introduction by the BISHOP OF CHESTER. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =EDMUND, St., of Canterbury=, Life. From Original Sources. By WILFRID WALLACE. With 5 Illustrations and Map. 8vo, 15_s._ =EMERSON, RALPH WALDO=, Talks with. By C. J. WOODBURY. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Emerson at Home and Abroad.= By M. D. CONWAY. With Portrait. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library._) =Episodes in the Lives of Men, Women, and Lovers.= By EDITH SIMCOX, Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =FICHTE, JOHANN GOTTLIEB=, Memoir of. By W. SMITH. Second Edition. Post 8vo, 4_s._ =FORBES, Bishop.= A Memoir. By DONALD J. MACKAY. With Portrait and Map. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =FRANCIS, S., of Assisi=, History of. By Abbé LÉON LE MONNIER. With a Preface by Cardinal VAUGHAN. 8vo, 16_s._ =FRANCIS XAVIER, the Apostle of the Indies.= By MARY HALL MCLEAN. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ net. =From World to Cloister=; or, My Noviciate. By 'BERNARD.' Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =GARRICK, DAVID=. By JOSEPH KNIGHT. With Portrait. Demy 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ net. =GILBERT, Mrs.= Autobiography, and other Memorials. Edited by JOSIAH GILBERT. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =GLADSTONE, WILLIAM EWART=, Life of. Told by Himself in Speeches and Public Letters. By H. J. LEECH. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =GOOCH, Sir DANIEL, Bart.=, Diaries of. With an Introductory Notice by Sir THEODORE MARTIN, K.C.B. With 2 Portraits and an Illustration. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =GORDON, Major-General C. G.=, His journals at Khartoum. Printed from the Original MSS., with Introduction and Notes by A. EGMONT HAKE. Portrait, 2 Maps, and 30 Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo, 21_s._ Cheap Edition, 6_s._ =Gordon's Last Journal=: A _Fac-simile_ of the Last Journal received in England from GENERAL GORDON. Reproduced by photo-lithography. Imperial 4to, £3 3_s._ =GOWER, Lord RONALD, My Reminiscences.= New Edition. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =HAMILTON, ARTHUR, B.A.=, of Trinity College, Cambridge. Memoirs of. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =HINTON, JAMES=, Life and Letters of. With an Introduction by Sir W. W. GULL, and Portrait engraved on steel by C. H. JEENS. Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo, 8_s._ 6_d._ =JOHNSON, SAMUEL, Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets.= Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by ARTHUR WAUGH, and with 30 Portraits. 6 vols. foolscap 8vo, £1 16_s._ =KEMPIS, THOMAS À.= Notes of a Visit to the Scenes in which the Life of Thomas à Kempis was spent. By F. R. CRUISE. With numerous Illustrations. 8vo, 12_s._ =KHAMA.= The Story of an African Chief. By Mrs. WYNDHAM KNIGHT-BRUCE. Fourth Edition. 16mo, 2_s._ =KÖRÖS, ALEXANDER COSMA DE=, Life and Works of, between 1819 and 1842. With a short notice of all his Works and Essays, from original documents. By THEODORE DUKA. Post 8vo, 9_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =LAUD, WILLIAM=, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury. By A. C. BENSON. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Life of Archbishop Laud.= By a Romish Recusant. 8vo, 15_s._ =LESLIE, FRED.=, Recollections of. By W. L. VINCENT. With Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo, 30_s._ =LESSING=: His Life and Writings. By JAMES SIME. New and cheaper Edition. 2 vols. With portraits. Post 8vo, 12_s._ (_Philosophical Library._) =LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH=, Life of. By his Brother SAMUEL LONGFELLOW. With Portraits and Illustrations. 3 vols. 8vo, 42_s._ =LOWDER, CHARLES.= A Biography. By the Author of 'St. Teresa' Twelfth Edition. With Portrait. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =LYTTON, Lord=, Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton. By the Earl of LYTTON. With Portraits, Illustrations, and _Fac-similes_. 8vo. Vols. I. and II., 32_s._ =MACKLIN, CHARLES.= By EDWARD ABBOTT PARRY. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ (_Eminent Actors._) =MACKONOCHIE, ALEXANDER HERIOT.= A Memoir. By E. A. T. Edited, with Preface, by E. F. RUSSELL. With Portrait and Views. Large crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ Cheap Edition, crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =MACREADY, WILLIAM CHARLES.= By WILLIAM ARCHER. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ (_Eminent Actors._) =MARIE ANTOINETTE=, Last Days of. An Historical Sketch. By Lord RONALD GOWER. With Portrait and _Fac-similes_. Foolscap 4to, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Marie Antoinette and Her Children, the Dauphin and the Duchesse D'Angoulême=, The Prison Life of. By M. C. BISHOP. New and revised Edition. With Portrait. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =MITCHEL, JOHN=, Life of. By W. DILLON. With Portrait. 2 vols. 8vo, 21_s._ =MOHL, JULIUS and MARY=, Letters and Recollections of. By M. C. M. SIMPSON. With Portraits and 2 Illustrations. 8vo, 15_s._ =MOLTKE (General von).= Letters to His Wife and other Relatives. The only complete Edition in any language. With an Introduction by SIDNEY WHITMAN. Portraits, etc. 2 vols. 8vo, cloth, £1 10_s._ 1896. "Of the most surpassing interest." =MORRIS, GOUVERNEUR, Minister of the United States to France=, Diary and Letters of. By ANNE C. MORRIS. With Portraits. 2 vols. 8vo, 30_s._ =MOTLEY, JOHN LOTHROP.= A Memoir. By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =MUNRO, Major-General Sir THOMAS.= A Memoir. By Sir A. J. ARBUTHNOT. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =NEWMAN, JOHN HENRY=, the Founder of Modern Anglicanism, and a Cardinal of the Roman Church. By WILFRID MEYNELL. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =NUN, A=: Her Friends and Her Order. Being a Sketch of the Life of Mother Mary Xaveria Fallon. By KATHERINE TYNAN. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =O'CONNELL, Count=, The Last Colonel of the Irish Brigade, and Old Irish Life at Home and Abroad, 1745-1833. By Mrs. MORGAN J. O'CONNELL. 2 vols. 8vo, 25_s._ =OWEN, ROBERT DALE=, Threading my Way. Twenty-seven Years of Autobiography. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =PARACELSUS=, Life of, and the Substance of His Teachings. By FRANZ HARTMANN. New and Revised Edition. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =PLUTARCH.= His Life, His Lives, and His Morals. By Archbishop TRENCH. Second Edition enlarged. Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =RAWLE, Bishop.= A Memoir. By G. MATHER and C. J. BLAGG. Large crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =ROBERTSON, F. W.=, Life and Letters of. Edited by STOPFORD BROOKE. I. Library Edition, with Portrait. 8vo, 12_s._ II. With Portrait. 2 vols. crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ III. Popular Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =RUPERT of the Rhine.= A Biographical Sketch of the Life of Prince Rupert. By Lord RONALD GOWER. With 3 Portraits. Crown 8vo, buckram, 6_s._ =SELWYN, Bishop, of New Zealand and of Lichfield.= A Sketch of his Life and Work, with further Gleanings from his Letters, Sermons, and Speeches. By Canon CURTEIS. Large crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE=, Life of. By EDWARD DOWDEN, LL.D. With Portrait. 12_s._ net. =SKINNER, JAMES.= A Memoir. By the Author of 'Charles Lowder.' With Preface by the Rev. Canon CARTER, and Portrait. Large crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ Cheap Edition, crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =SPINOZA, BENEDICT DE=, Life, Correspondence, and Ethics of. By R. WILLIS. 8vo, 21_s._ =TAYLOR, REYNELL, C.B., C.S.I.= A Biography. By E. GAMBIER PARRY. With Portrait and Map. 8vo, 14_s._ =TENNYSON, Poet, Philosopher, and Idealist.= By J. C. WALTERS. With Portrait. 8vo, 12_s._ =TRENCH, Archbishop=, Letters and Memorials of. By the Author of 'Charles Lowder.' With 2 Portraits. 2 vols. 8vo, 21_s._ =TRENCH, Mrs. RICHARD=, Remains of the late. Being Selections from her Journals, Letters, and other Papers. Edited by her Son, Archbishop TRENCH. New and cheaper Edition. With Portraits. 8vo, 6_s._ =Wells Wills=, arranged in Parishes and Annotated. By F. W. WEAVER. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =WILBERFORCE, Bishop, of Oxford and Winchester=, Life of. By his Son. Crown 8vo, 9_s._ =WOLSELEY, WILLIAM, Admiral of the Red Squadron=, Memoir of. By MARY C. INNES. 8vo, 9_s._ net. HERALDRY. =Heraldry=, English and Foreign. By R. C. JENKINS. With a Dictionary of Heraldic Terms and 156 Illustrations. Small 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ HISTORY. =BAIN, R. NISBET, Gustavus III. and His Contemporaries, 1746-1792.= From original documents. 2 vols. post 8vo, 21_s._ net. =BAIRD, HENRY M., The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.= With Maps. 2 vols, 8vo, 30_s._ =BANCROFT, K. H., Popular History of the Mexican People.= 8vo, 15_s._ =BARING-GOULD, S., Germany, Present and Past.= New and cheaper Edition. Large crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =BRIDGETT, T. E., Blunders and Forgeries.= Historical Essays. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =BRYANT, SOPHIE, Celtic Ireland.= With 3 Maps. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =BRYCE, JAMES, Two Centuries of Irish History.= With Introduction by JAS. BRYCE, M.P. 8vo, 16_s._ =GREVILLE, The Hon. E., The Year-Book of Australia.= Published Annually. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ net. =DENVIR, JOHN, The Irish in Britain from the Earliest Times to the Fall and Death of Parnell.= By JOHN DENVIR. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =DJEMALEDDIN, BEY, Sultan Murad V.= The Turkish Dynastic Mystery, 1876-95. With 6 Portraits. Crown 8vo, 9_s._ net. =DURUY, VICTOR, The History of Greece.= With Introduction by Prof. J. P. MAHAFFY. Maps and many Illustrations, some coloured. 8 vols. super royal 8vo, £8 8_s._ =Egypt.= _See_ ORIENTAL. =FREEMAN, E. A., Lectures to American Audiences.= I. The English People in its Three Homes. II. Practical Bearings of General European History. Post 8vo, 9_s._ =GARDINER, SAMUEL R.=, and =MULLINGER, J. BASS, Introduction to the Study of English History.= Third and enlarged Edition. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ net. =HILLEBRAND, KARL, France and the French in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century.= Translated from the Third German Edition. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =HOLST, H. von, The French Revolution.= 2 vols. crown 8vo, cloth, 18_s._ =HOPE, Mrs., The First Divorce of Henry VIII.= As told in the State Papers. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =India.= _See_ ORIENTAL. =JANSSEN, JOHANNES, History of the German People at the Close of the Middle Ages.= Translated by M. A. MITCHELL and A. M. CHRISTIE. 2 vols. 8vo, 25_s._ =KINGSFORD, W., The History of Canada.= By W. KINGSFORD. Vol. i. 1608-1682; vol. ii. 1679-1725; vol. iii. 1726-1756; vol. iv. 1756-1763; vol. v. 1763-1775; vol. vi. 1776-1779; vol. vii. 1779-1807; vol. viii. 1808-1815. With Maps. 8vo, 15_s._ each volume. =LELAND, C. G., The Gypsies.= Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =LEONARD, Major ARTHUR G., How We Made Rhodesia.= Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =LIVY.= Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius. From the Italian of NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI. By N. HILL THOMPSON. Large crown 8vo, 12_s._ =MOORE, AUBREY L., Lectures and Papers on the History of the Reformation in England and on the Continent.= 8vo, 16_s._ =O'CLERY, THE, The Making of Italy, 1856-1870.= 8vo, 16_s._ =O'HAGAN, JOHN, Joan of Arc.= An Historical Essay. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =PARAVICINI, FRANCES DE, The Early History of Balliol College.= 8vo, 12_s._ =PASTOR, Dr. LUDWIG, The History of the Popes.= Translated from the German by FREDERICK J. ANTROBUS. Vols. III. and IV. 8vo, 24_s._ net. =PEET, Rev. STEPHEN D., Prehistoric America.= Vol. I., The Mound Builders. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 21_s._ net. =REINDORF, Rev. CARL CHRISTIAN, History of the Gold Coast and Asante.= Demy 8vo, 9_s._ net. =SARJENT, Lt. HERBERT H., Napoleon Bonaparte's First Campaign.= Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =TRENCH, Archbishop, Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, and other Lectures on the Thirty Years' War.= Third Edition, enlarged. Foolscap 8vo, 4_s._ =WALPOLE, C. G., Short History of Ireland.= With 5 Maps and Appendices. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =WRIGHT, THOMAS, Early Britain--The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon.= A History of the Early Inhabitants of Britain down to the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Corrected and Enlarged Edition. With nearly 300 Engravings. Crown 8vo, 9_s._ TRAVELS, VOYAGES, GUIDE-BOOKS, ETC. =AUBERTIN, J. J., Wanderings and Wonderings.= With Portrait, Map, and 7 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 8_s._ 6_d._ =By Order of the Sun to Chili.= With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =BEVAN, THEODORE F., Toil, Travel, and Discovery in British New Guinea.= With 5 Maps. Large crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =BRADSHAW'S Guide.= Dictionary of Mineral Waters, Climatic Health Resorts, Sea Baths, and Hydropathic Establishments. With a Map, 3_s._ 6_d._; without Map, 2_s._ 6_d._ =BROWN, HORATIO F., Venetian Studies.= Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =BURGESS, W. W., Bits of Old Chelsea.= 40 splendid Etchings. With Letterpress Descriptions by LIONEL JOHNSON and RICHARD LE GALLIENNE. Only 100 copies printed. Folio, £10 10_s._ net. =CORNEY, P., Early Northern Pacific Voyages (1813-1818).= With Preface by Prof. W. D. ALEXANDER. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =CROKER T. CROFTON, A Walk from London to Fulham.= Enlarged and Re-written by BEATRICE E. HORNE. With Illustrations. 7_s._ 6_d._ net. =GRIMBLE, AUGUSTUS, The Deer Forests of Scotland.= Illustrated by A. THORBURN. 4to, £2 10_s._ net. =HAECKEL, Prof. ERNST, A Visit to Ceylon.= Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =HEILPRIN, A., Bermuda Islands.= 8vo, 18_s._ =HENDRIKS, DOM LAURENCE, The London Charterhouse: Its Monks and its Martyrs.= Illustrated. 8vo, 15_s._ =HORNADAY, W. T., Two Years in a Jungle.= With Illustrations. 8vo, 21_s._ =IM THURN, EVERARD F., Among the Indians of Guiana.= Sketches, chiefly Anthropologic, from the Interior of British Guiana. With 53 Illustrations and a Map. 8vo, 18_s._ =JOHNSTON, H. H., The Kilima-Njaro Expedition.= A Record of Scientific Exploration in Eastern Equatorial Africa. With 6 Maps and 80 Illustrations. 8vo, 21_s._ =History of a Slave.= With 47 Illustrations. Square 8vo, 6_s._ =KRAUS, J., Carlsbad and its Natural Healing Agents.= With Notes by JOHN T. WALLERS. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ 6_d._ =LELAND, C. G., Fu-Sang=; or, The Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =MARKHAM, Captain ALBERT HASTINGS, The Great Frozen Sea.= A Personal Narrative of the Voyage of the _Alert_ during the Arctic Expedition of 1875-76. With Illustrations and Map. Sixth and cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =MITCHELL, E. H., Forty Days in the Holy Land.= With 6 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =MULHALL, M. G. and E. T., Handbook of the River Plate=, comprising the Argentine Republic, Uruguay, and Paraguay. With Railway Map. Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =OATES, FRANK, Matabele Land and the Victoria Falls=: A Naturalist's wanderings in the interior of South Africa. Edited by C. G. OATES. With numerous Illustrations and 4 Maps. 8vo, 21_s._ =PIDGEON, DAVID, Venice.= With Frontispiece after TURNER. Small crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ net. =RENDELL, J. M., Handbook of the Island of Madeira.= With Plan and Map. Second Edition. Foolscap 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._ =REYNOLDS-BALL, E. A., Mediterranean Winter Resorts.= With Maps and Diagrams. Third Edition. Foolscap 8vo, 5_s._ =ROLFE, E. N., and INGLEBY, H., Naples in 1888.= With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =ROUTLEDGE, Canon C. F., History of St. Martin's Church, Canterbury.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =ST. CLAIR, GEORGE, Buried Cities and Bible Countries.= Large crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =SAMUELSON, JAMES, Bulgaria, Past and Present=: Historical, Political, and Descriptive. With Map and numerous Illustrations. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =STODDARD, CHARLES AUGUSTUS, Cruising among the Caribbees.= Summer Days in Winter Months. With Illustrations. 8vo, 9_s._ =STRACHEY, Sir JOHN, India.= With Map. New Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =TAYLOR, Canon ISAAC, Egypt.= Leaves from an Egyptian Note-Book. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =VINCENT, FRANK, Around and About South America=: Twenty Months of Quest and Query. With Maps, Plans, and 54 Illustrations. Medium 8vo, 21_s._ =Wales.--Through North Wales with a Knapsack.= By Four Schoolmistresses. With a Sketch Map. Small 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =WARD, BERNARD, History of St. Edmund's College, Old Hall (Ware).= With Illustrations. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =WRIGHT, G. F., and APHAM, W., Greenland Icefields, and Life in the North Atlantic.= With Maps and Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =YOUNG, ROSALIND AMELIA, Mutiny of the 'Bounty,' and Story of Pitcairn Island: 1790-1894.= By a NATIVE DAUGHTER. Third Edition, Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ _VI.--SOCIOLOGY._ EDUCATION. =BAIN, ALEXANDER, Education as a Science.= Seventh Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =BROWNING, OSCAR, Introduction to the History of Educational Theories.= Second Edition. 3_s._ 6_d._ (_Education Library._) =GALLOWAY, R., Scientific and Technical Education=; or, How the Inductive Sciences are taught, and how they ought to be taught. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =HAECKEL, Prof. E., Freedom in Science and Teaching.= With a Prefatory Note by Prof. T. H. HUXLEY. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =HAWTREY, MABEL, The Co-Education of the Sexes.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ net. =LESSING, G. E., Education of the Human Race.= From the German. By F. W. ROBERTSON. Fourth Edition, revised. Foolscap 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =LANDON, JOSEPH, School Management.= Including a General View of the Work of Education, Organisation, and Discipline. Eighth Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ (_Education Library._) =MAGNUS, Sir PHILIP, Industrial Education.= 6_s._ (_Education Library._) =MAHAFFY, Prof., Old Greek Education.= Second Edition. 3_s._ 6_d._ (_Education Library._) =MASON, CHARLOTTE M., Home Education.= A course of Lectures to Ladies. New Edition. 8vo, 6_s._ =Parents and Children.= 8vo. 6_s._ =Our Public Schools=: Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, Westminster, Marlborough, and the Charterhouse. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Parents' Review.= Monthly. 6_d._ =PLUMPTRE, C. J., Lectures on Elocution.= Delivered at King's College. Fifth Edition. Illustrated. Post 8vo, 15_s._ LAW. =AMOS, Prof. SHELDON, History and Principles of the Civil Law of Rome.= An Aid to the Study of Scientific and Comparative Jurisprudence. 8vo, 16_s._ =Science of Law.= Seventh Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =BENTHAM, JEREMY, Theory of Legislation as Enunciated by Bentham.= Translated from the French of Etienne Dumont by R. HILDRETH. Seventh Edition. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ New and cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ (_Paternoster Library._) =BERTILLON, ALPHONSE, Signaletic Instructions, including the Theory and Practice of Anthropometrical Identification.= Translated under the Supervision of Major R. W. MCCLAUGHTY. Illustrated. Large 8vo, half morocco, £1 10_s._ =FIELD, D. D., Outlines of an International Code.= Second Edition. Royal 8vo, £2 2_s._ =FOSTER, ROGER, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Historical, and Juridical.= Vol. 1, royal 8vo, £1 4_s._ net. =HALLECK'S International Law=; or, Rules Regulating the Intercourse of States in Peace and War. Third Edition, thoroughly revised by Sir SHERSTON BAKER, Bart. 2 vols. 8vo, 38_s._ =HOLST, H. von, The Constitutional Law of the United States of America.= Translated by ALFRED BISHOP MASON. Royal 8vo, cloth, 10_s._ 6_d._ =The Constitutional History of the United States.= Translated by LALOR. 8 vols., 8vo, cloth. Vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7, 18_s._ each; vols. 6 and 8, 12_s._ 6_d._ each. =JENKINS, E., and RAYMOND, J., Architect's Legal Handbook.= Fourth Edition, revised. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =LEVI, Prof. LEONE, International Law, with Materials for a Code of International Law.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =SALAMAN, J. S., Trade Marks: their Registration and Protection.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ POLITICS, LABOUR, SOCIALISM, FINANCE, ETC. =AMOS, Prof. SHELDON, Science of Politics.= Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =BAGEHOT, WALTER, Physics and Politics=; or, The Application of the Principles of 'Natural Selection' and 'Inheritance' to Political Society. New Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ (Paternoster_ Library._) =The English Constitution. New Edition.= Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ (_Paternoster Library._) =Lombard Street.= A Description of the Money Market. New Edition. With Notes, bringing the work up to the present time, by E. JOHNSTONE. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ (_Paternoster Library._) =Essays on Parliamentary Reform.= New Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ (_Paternoster Library._) =BESANT, Sir WALTER, and Others, The Poor in Great Cities.= With Illustrations by HUGH THOMPSON, etc. 8vo, 12_s._ =BRENTANO, LUJO, History and Development of Guilds, and the Origin of Trade Unions.= 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =BRYCE, J., Handbook of Home Rule.= Being Articles on the Irish Question. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =CLAPPERTON, JANE H., Scientific Meliorism, and the Evolution of Happiness.= Large crown 8vo, 8_s._ 6_d._ =DAVITT, MICHAEL, Speech before the Special Commission.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =FAIRBANKS, ARTHUR, Introduction to Sociology.= Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library._) =GEORGE, HENRY, Progress and Poverty.= An Inquiry into the Causes of Industrial Depressions, and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth; the Remedy. Fifth Edition. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ Cabinet Edition, crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d_. Cheap Edition, limp cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =Protection or Free Trade.= An Examination of the Tariff Question, with especial regard to the interests of Labour. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ Cheap Edition, limp cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =Social Problems.= Fourth Thousand. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ Cheap Edition, limp cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =A Perplexed Philosopher.= Being an Examination of Mr. Herbert Spencer's various utterances on the Land Question, etc. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ Cheap Edition, limp cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =GRAHAM, WILLIAM, Socialism New and Old.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =The Social Problem, in its Economic, Moral and Political Aspects.= 8vo, 14_s._ =GREG, W. R., Political Problems for our Age and Country.= 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =HAGGARD, H. RIDER, Cetewayo and His White Neighbours.= Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ (_Paternoster Library._) =HOPKINS, ELLICE, Work amongst Working Men.= Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =HUMBOLDT, Baron W. von, The Sphere and Duties of Government.= From the German, by J. COULTHARD. Post 8vo, 5_s._ =JEVONS, W. STANLEY, Money and the Mechanism of Exchange.= Ninth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =KAUFMANN, M., Christian Socialism.= Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ =Utopias=; or, Schemes of Social Improvement, from Sir Thomas More to Karl Marx. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =LEFEVRE, Right Hon. G. SHAW, Peel and O'Connell.= 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Incidents of Coercion.= A Journal of Visits to Ireland. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, limp cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =Irish Members and English Gaolers.= Crown 8vo, limp cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =Combination and Coercion in Ireland.= Sequel to 'Incidents of Coercion.' Crown 8vo, cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =LYNCH, E. M., Killboylan Bank=; or, Every Man His Own Banker. Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ (_Village Library._) =MINTON, FRANCIS, Welfare of the Millions.= Crown 8vo, limp cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =O'BRIEN, R. BARRY, Home Ruler's Manual.= Crown 8vo, cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =Irish Wrongs and English Remedies=, with other Essays. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =PERRY, ARTHUR LATHAM, Principles of Political Economy.= Large post 8vo, 9_s._ =PLIMSOLL, SAMUEL, Cattle Ships.= Being the Fifth Chapter of 'An Appeal for our Seamen.' With 46 Illustrations. Cheap Edition, 1_s._ =SPENCER, HERBERT, Study of Sociology.= Fifteenth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =SUMNER, W. G., What Social Classes Owe to each Other.= 18mo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =TAYLOR, Sir H., The Statesman.= Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =TAYLOR, R. WHATELEY COOKE, The Modern Factory System.= 8vo, 14_s._ =THOMPSON, Sir H., Modern Cremation.= Second Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo, 1_s._; cloth, 2_s._ _VII.--NATURAL SCIENCE._ ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY. =Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Journal of.= Quarterly. 5_s._ =BALKWILL, F. H., The Testimony of the Teeth to Man's Place in Nature.= With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =CARPENTER, W. B., Nature and Man.= With a Memorial Sketch by J. ESTLIN CARPENTER. Portrait. Large crown 8vo, 8_s._ 6_d._ =CLODD, EDWARD, Childhood of the World=: A Simple Account of Man in Early Times. Eighth Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ Special Edition for Schools, 1_s._ =CURR, EDWARD M., The Australian Race.= Its Origin, Languages, Customs, etc. With Map and Illustrations. 3 vols. 8vo, 1 vol. 4to, £2 2_s._ =FORNANDER, A., Account of the Polynesian Race.= Its Origin and Migrations, and the Ancient History of the Hawaiian people. Post 8vo. Vol. I. 7_s._ 6_d._; Vol. II. 10_s._ 6_d._; Vol. III. 9_s._ (_Philosophical Library._) =GEIGER, LAZARUS, Development of the Human Race.= Translated from the German by D. ASHER. Post 8vo, 6_s._ (_Philosophical Library._) =HAECKEL, Prof. ERNST, History of the Evolution of Man.= With numerous Illustrations. 2 vols. post 8vo, 32_s._ =JOLY, N., Man before Metals.= With 148 Illustrations. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =QUATREFAGES, Prof. A. DE, The Human Species.= Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =SMITH, R. BROUGH, The Aborigines of Victoria.= Compiled for the Government. With Maps, Plates, and Woodcuts. 2 vols. royal 8vo, £3 3_s._ =STARCKE, C. N., The Primitive Family in its Origin and Development.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =WRIGHT, G. FREDERICK, The Ice Age in North America, and its Bearing upon the Antiquity of Man.= With Maps and Illustrations. 8vo, 21_s._ =Man and the Glacial Period.= With 111 Illustrations and Map. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) ASTRONOMY. =DRAYSON, Major-General, Untrodden Ground in Astronomy and Geology.= With Numerous Figures. 8vo, 14_s._ =LOOMIS, E., A Treatise on Astronomy.= 8vo, sheep, 7_s._ 6_d._ =Introduction to Practical Astronomy.= 8vo, sheep, 7_s._ 6_d._ =STANLEY, W. F., Notes on the Nebular Theory.= 8vo, 9_s._ =YOUNG, Professor, The Sun, with Illustrations.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) BOTANY. =CANDOLLE, ALPHONSE DE, Origin of Cultivated Plants.= Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =COOKE, M. C., British Edible Fungi: How to Distinguish and how to Cook them.= With Coloured Figures of upwards of Forty Species. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =Fungi: their Nature, Influences, Uses, &c.= Edited by Rev. M. J. BERKELEY. With numerous Illustrations. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =Introduction to Fresh-Water Algæ.= With an Enumeration of all the British Species. With 13 plates. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =DAVIES, G. CHRISTOPHER, Rambles and Adventures of Our School Field Club.= With 4 Illustrations. New and cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =HENSLOW, Prof. G., Origin of Floral Structures through Insect and other Agencies.= With 88 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =The Origin of Plant Structures.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =HICKSON, S. J., The Fauna of the Deep Sea.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ (_Modern Science Series._) =LENDENFELD, R. von, Monograph of the Horny Sponges.= With 50 Plates. Issued by direction of the Royal Society. 4to, £3. =LUBBOCK, Sir JOHN, Contribution to Our Knowledge of Seedlings.= With nearly 700 figures in text. 2 vols., 8vo, 36_s._ net. Also Popular Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =PHILLIPS, W., Manual of British Discomycetes.= With Descriptions of all the Species of Fungi hitherto found in Britain, included in the Family, and Illustrations of the Genera. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =SEDDING, JOHN D., Gardencraft, Old and New.= With Memorial Notice by the Rev. E. F. RUSSELL. 16 Illustrations. Second Edition. 8vo, 12_s._ =Tropical Agriculturist.= Monthly. Annual Subscription, £1 6_s._ =TROUESSART, E. L., Microbes, Ferments, and Moulds.= With 107 Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =WARD, H. MARSHALL, The Oak: a Popular Introduction to Forest Botany.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ (_Modern Science Series._) =WEED, C. M., Fungi and Fungicides.= A Practical Manual. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =YOUMANS, ELIZA A., First Book of Botany.= Designed to Cultivate the Observing Powers of Children. With 300 Engravings. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ CHEMISTRY. =COOKE, Prof. J. P., Laboratory Practice.= A Series of Experiments on the Fundamental Principles of Chemistry. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =New Chemistry.= With 31 Illustrations. Ninth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =RICHTER, Prof. V. von, Chemistry of the Carbon Compounds: or Organic Chemistry.= Authorised Translation by EDGAR F. SMITH. Second American Edition from Sixth German Edition. Crown 8vo, 20_s._ =Text-Book of Inorganic Chemistry.= Authorised Translation by EDGAR F. SMITH. Third American Edition from Fifth German Edition. Crown 8vo, 8_s._ 6_d._ =SMITH, EDGAR F., Electro-Chemical Analysis.= With 25 Illustrations. Square 16mo, 5_s._ =STRECKER, ADOLPH, Text-Book of Organic Chemistry.= Edited by Professor WISLICENUS. Translated and Edited, with extensive Additions, by W. R. HODGKINSON and A. J. GREENAWAY. Second and cheaper Edition. 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ =VOGEL, Dr. HERMANN, Chemistry of Light and Photography.= With 100 Illustrations. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) GEOLOGY, MINERALOGY, ETC. =ABERCROMBY, Hon. RALPH, Weather.= A popular Exposition of the Nature of Weather Changes from day to day. With 96 Figures. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =BALL, Sir ROBERT, The Cause of an Ice Age.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ (_Modern Science Series._) =BONNEY, Prof. T. G., Ice Work, Present and Past.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =CATLIN, GEORGE, The Lifted and Subsided Rocks of America.= With their Influence on the Oceanic, Atmospheric, and Land Currents, and the Distribution of Races. With 2 Maps, Crown 8vo, 6_s._ 6_d._ =DANA, E. S., Text-Book of Mineralogy.= With Treatise on Crystallography and Physical Mineralogy. Third Edition. With 800 Woodcuts and Plates. 8vo, 15_s._ =DANA, J. D., Text-Book of Geology=, for Schools. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ =Manual of Geology.= Illustrated by a Chart of the World, and 1000 Figures. Fourth Edition. 8vo, 28_s._ =The Geological Story Briefly Told.= Illustrated. 12mo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =DANA, J. D., and BRUSH, J. G., System of Mineralogy.= Sixth Edition, entirely re-written and enlarged. Royal 8vo, £2 12_s._ 6_d._ =Manual of Mineralogy and Petrography.= Fourth Edition. Numerous Woodcuts. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ net. =DAWSON, Sir J. W., Geological History of Plants.= With 80 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA IN CALCUTTA:= =Palæontologia Indica.= Folio. 1863-95. Published at various prices. [asterism] Index to the Genera and species described in the Palæontologia Indica up to the year 1891. By W. THEOBALD. 186 pp. folio. 1892. 4_s._ =Memoirs of the Geological Survey.= Vols. I.--XXIV. Royal 8vo. 1859-91. 10_s._ each. [asterism] Contents and Index to the first 20 volumes. By W. THEOBALD. Royal 8vo. 1892. 4_s._ =Records of the Geological Survey.= Vols. I.-XXVIII. Royal 8vo. 1868-95. 4_s._ each. [asterism] Contents and Index to the first 20 volumes (1868-87). Royal 8vo. 1891. 4_s._ =HAECKEL, Prof. ERNST, The History of Creation.= New Edition. Translation revised by Prof. E. RAY LANKESTER. With 20 Plates and numerous Figures. Fourth Edition. 2 vols. large post 8vo, 32_s._ =JUDD, Prof. J. W., Volcanoes=: What they Are, and What they Teach. With 96 Illustrations on wood. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =KINAHAN, G. H., Valleys, and their Relations to Fissures, Fractures, and Faults.= Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =LOOMIS, E., A Treatise on Meteorology.= 8vo. sheep, 7_s._ 6_d._ =MALLET, F. R., Manual of the Geology of India.= Part 4.--Mineralogy (mainly non-economic). 175 pp. royal 8vo. 1887. 4_s._ =MILNE, J., Earthquakes and other Earth Movements.= With 38 Figures. Third and revised Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =MOSES, A. J., and PARSONS, C. L., Elements of Mineralogy, Crystallography, and Blow-pipe Analysis.= 8vo, 10_s._ =OLDHAM, R. D., Manual of the Geology of India.= Second Edition, revised and largely re-written. Royal 8vo, half calf. 1893. 16_s._ =SCOTT, ROBERT H., Elementary Meteorology.= Fifth Edition. With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =SYMONS, G. J., The Eruption of Krakatoa, and Subsequent Phenomena.= Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society. With 6 Chromo-lithographs, and 40 Maps and Diagrams. 4to, £1 10_s._ =TYNDALL, J., Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice and Glaciers.= With 25 Illustrations. Tenth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =WRIGHT, G. F., The Ice Age in North America, and its Bearing upon the Antiquity of Man.= With Maps and Illustrations. 8vo, 21_s._ MATHEMATICS. =CLIFFORD, W. KINGDON, Common Sense of the Exact Sciences.= Second Edition. With 100 Figures. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =KLEIN, FELIX, Lectures on the Ikosahedron, and the Solution of Equations of the Fifth Degree.= Translated by G. G. MORRICE. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ PHYSICS. =BABBITT, E. D., The Principles of Light and Colour.= With over 200 Engravings and 4 Coloured Plates. Royal 8vo, 21_s._ net. =Electricity in Daily Life.= A Popular Account of its Application to Everyday Uses. With 125 Illustrations. Square 8vo, 9_s._ =GLAZEBROOK, R. T., Laws and Properties of Matter.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ (_Modern Science Series._) =HOSPITALIER, E., The Modern Applications of Electricity.= Translated and Enlarged by JULIUS MAIER. Second Edition, revised, with many Additions and Numerous Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo, 25_s._ =LE CONTE, JOSEPH, Sight.= An Exposition of the Principles of Monocular and Binocular Vision. Second Edition. With 132 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =LOMMEL, Dr. EUGENE, Nature of Light.= With a General Account of Physical Optics. With 188 Illustrations and a Table of Spectra in Chromo-lithography. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =ROOD, OGDEN N., Colour.= A Text-Book of Modern Chromatics. With Applications to Art and Industry. With 130 Original Illustrations. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =STALLO, J. B., Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics.= Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =STEWART, BALFOUR, Conservation of Energy.= With 14 Illustrations. Seventh Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =WURTZ, Prof., The Atomic Theory.= Translated by E. CLEMINSHAW. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) ZOOLOGY. =BENEDEN, J. P., van, Animal Parasites and Messmates.= With 83 Illustrations. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =BERNSTEIN, Prof., The Five Senses of Man.= With 91 Illustrations. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =COMSTOCK, JOHN HENRY and ANNA B., A Manual for the Study of Insects.= Royal 8vo, 25_s._ net. =FLOWER, W. H., The Horse: A Study in Natural History.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ (_Modern Science Series._) =HARTMANN, R., Anthropoid Apes.= With 63 Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =HEILPRIN, Prof. A., Geographical and Geological Distribution of Animals.= With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =HORNADAY, W. T., Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting.= With Chapters on Collecting and Preserving Insects, by W. J. HOLLAND, D.D. With 24 Plates and 85 Illustrations. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =HUXLEY, Prof. T. H., The Crayfish: An Introduction to the Study of Zoology.= With 82 Illustrations. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =KEW, H. W., Dispersal of Shells.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =LUBBOCK, Sir JOHN, Ants, Bees, and Wasps.= A Record of Observations on the Habits of the Social Hymenoptera. With 5 Chromo-lithographic Plates. Tenth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =On the Senses, Instincts, and Intelligence of Animals.= With Special Reference to Insects. With 118 Illustrations. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. (_I. S. S._) =MAREY, Prof. E. J., Animal Mechanism=, A Treatise on Terrestrial and Aërial Locomotion. With 117 Illustrations. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =MEYER, G. HERMANN von, Organs of Speech and their Application in the Formation of Articulate Sounds.= With 47 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =PETTIGREW, J. B., Animal Locomotion=; or, Walking, Swimming, and Flying. With 130 Illustrations. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =POULTON, E. B., Colours of Animals: their Meaning and Use, especially considered in the case of Insects.= With Coloured Frontispiece and 66 Illustrations in text. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =RODD, E. H., Birds of Cornwall and the Scilly Islands.= Edited by J. E. HARTING. With Portrait and Map. 8vo, 14_s._ =ROMANES, G. J., Jelly-Fish, Star-Fish, and Sea-Urchins.= Being a Research on Primitive Nervous Systems. With Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) (_See also_ PHILOSOPHY.) =SCHMIDT, Prof. O., Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism.= With 26 Illustrations. Seventh Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =Mammalia in their Relation to Primeval Times.= With 51 Woodcuts. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =SEMPER, KARL, Natural Conditions of Existence as they affect Animal Life.= With 2 Maps and 106 Woodcuts. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =STEBBING, T. R. R., A History of Crustacea.= Recent Malacostraca. With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =TRIMEN, ROLAND, South African Butterflies.= A Monograph of the Extra-tropical Species. With 12 Coloured Plates. 3 vols., 8vo, £2 12_s._ 6_d._ =WARNER, Prof. F., Physical Expression: Its Modes and Principles.= With 50 Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =WEED, C. M., Insects and Insecticides.= Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =WITHERBY, HARRY, Forest Birds, their Haunts and Habits.= With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ _VIII.--USEFUL ARTS AND SCIENCES AND FINE ARTS._ CHESS. =British Chess Magazine.= Monthly, _d._ =EUCLID'S Analysis of the Chess Ending=, King and Queen against King and Rook. Edited by E. FREEBOROUGH. 8vo, 6_s._ net. =FREEBOROUGH, E., Chess Endings.= A Companion to Chess Openings, Ancient and Modern. Edited and arranged by E. FREEBOROUGH. Large post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =Select Chess End Games.= Edited and arranged. Crown 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._ net. =FREEBOROUGH, E.=, and =RANKEN, C. E., Chess Openings, Ancient and Modern.= Revised and Corrected up to the Present Time from the best Authorities. Large post 8vo, 8_s._ =GOSSIP, G. H. D., The Chess Player's Text-Book.= An Elementary Treatise on the Game of Chess. Numerous Diagrams. 16mo, 2_s._ =GREENWELL, W. J., Chess Exemplified in One Hundred and Thirty-two Games of the Most Celebrated Players.= By W. J. GREENWELL, 8vo, 5_s._ =WALKER'S Chess Studies.= New Edition. With Preface by E. FREEBOROUGH. Large post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ GASTRONOMY AND DIET. =ALLEN, MARY L., Luncheon Dishes.= Comprising Menus in French and English, as well as Suggestions for Arrangement and Decoration of Table. Foolscap 8vo, cloth 1_s._ 6_d._; paper, 1_s._ =Five O'clock Tea.= Containing Receipts for Cakes, Savoury Sandwiches, etc. Eighth Thousand. Foolscap 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =CAMERON, Miss, Soups and Stews, and Choice Ragouts.= 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =DE JONCOURT, MARIE, Wholesome Cookery.= Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =HOOPER, MARY, Cookery for Invalids, Persons of Delicate Digestion, and Children.= Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =Every-Day Meals.= Being Economical and Wholesome Recipes for Breakfast, Luncheon, and Supper. Seventh Edition. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =Little Dinners.= How to Serve them with Elegance and Economy. Twenty-first Edition. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =KINGSFORD, ANNA, The Perfect Way in Diet.= A Treatise advocating a return to the Natural and Ancient Food of our race. Third Edition. Small 8vo, 2_s._ =NEWMAN, FRANCIS WILLIAM, Essays on Diet.= Small 8vo, cloth limp, 2_s._ =SANTIAGO, D., Curry Cook's Assistant.= Foolscap 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ =SMITH, E., Foods.= With numerous Illustrations. Ninth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =THOMPSON, Sir H., Diet in Relation to Age and Activity.= Foolscap 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._; paper covers, 1_s._ MEDICINE AND PHYSIOLOGY. =BROTHERS, A., Infantile Mortality during Child-Birth, and Its Prevention.= 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ net. =BROWNE, EDGAR A., How to use the Ophthalmoscope.= Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =BUNGE, Prof. G., Text-Book of Physiological and Pathological Chemistry=, for Physicians and Students. Translated from the German by L. C. WOOLDRIDGE. 8vo, 16_s._ =BYFORD, H. J., Manual of Gynecology.= With 234 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ net. =CARPENTER, W. B., Principles of Mental Physiology.= With their Applications to the Training and Discipline of the Mind and the Study of its Morbid Conditions. Illustrated. Sixth Edition, 8vo, 12_s._ =CATLIN, GEORGE, Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life.= With 29 Illustrations. Eighth Edition. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =DUNN, H. P., Infant Health.= The Physiology and Hygiene of Early Life. Small crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =DYMOCK, W., WARDEN, C. J. H.=, and =HOOPER, D., Pharmacographia Indica.= The principal Drugs of Vegetable Origin met with in British India. Six Parts and an Index. 8vo. 1889-93 £3 10_s._ =GREEN, F. W. EDRIDGE, Colour Blindness and Colour Perception.= With 3 Coloured Plates. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =HAMMERSTON, OLOF, A Text-Book of Physiological Chemistry.= 8vo, £1. =HARLINGEN, A. van, Handbook on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Skin Disease.= With 60 Illustrations. 8vo, 12_s._ net. =Index Medicus.= A Monthly Classified Record of the Current Medical Literature of the World. Annual Subscription, £5 5_s._ =JACKSON, EDWARD, Skiascopy and Its Practical Application to the Study of Refraction.= 5_s._ =KRAUS, Dr. J., The Etiology, Symptoms and Treatment of Gall-Stones.= With Remarks on Operative Treatment by H. MORRIS. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =KRAUS, Dr. J.. Senr., Pathology and Therapy of Gall-Stones.= Crown 8vo. 5_s._ =Carlsbad: Its Thermal Springs and Baths, and How to Use them.= Fourth Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ 6_d._ =LAGRANGE, F., Physiology of Bodily Exercise.= Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =LEHMANN, K. B., Methods of Practical Hygiene.= Translated by W. CROOKES. 2 vols., 8vo, £1 11_s._ 6_d._ =LÜCKES, EVA C. E., Lectures on General Nursing.= Delivered to the Probationers of the London Hospital Training School for Nurses. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =METCHNIKOFF, ELIAS, Lectures on the Comparative Pathology of Inflammation.= Translated from the French by F. A. and E. H. STARLING. 8vo, 12_s._ =NUNN, T. W., Growing Children and Awkward Walking.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ =PILCHER, J. E., First Aid in Illness and Injury.= With 174 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =PURITZ, LUDWIG, Code-Book of Gymnastic Exercises.= 32mo, 1_s._ 6_d._ net. =PYE, W., Surgical Handicraft.= A Manual of Surgical Manipulations, &c. With 235 Illustrations. Third Edition. Revised and Edited by T. H. R. CROWLE. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Elementary Bandaging and Surgical Dressing, for the use of Dressers and Nurses.= Twelfth Thousand. 18mo, 2_s._ =RIBOT, Prof. T., Heredity: A Psychological Study of its Phenomena, Laws, Causes, and Consequences.= Second Edition. Large crown 8vo, 9_s._ =ROSENTHAL, Prof. J., General Physiology of Muscles and Nerves.= Third Edition. With 75 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =Sanitarian.= Devoted to the Preservation of Health, Mental and Physical Culture. Monthly. Annual Subscription, 18_s._ =SCOVILLE, W. L., The Art of Compounding Drugs.= For Students and Pharmacists at the Prescription Counter. 8vo, 12_s._ =STRAHAN, S. A. K., Marriage and Disease.= A Study of Heredity and the more important Family Degenerations. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =TAYLOR, CHARLES BELL, Lectures on Diseases of the Eye.= Third Edition. 8vo, 10_s._ =TYRRELL, WALTER, Nervous Exhaustion: its Causes, Outcomes, and Treatment.= Crown 8vo, 3_s._ =WAKE, C. STANILAND, Development of Marriage and Kinship.= 8vo, 18_s._ =WALLIS, J. WHITE, Manual of Hygiene.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =WOOLDRIDGE, L. C., On the Chemistry of the Blood, and other Scientific Papers.= Arranged by VICTOR HORSLEY and ERNEST STARLING. With Introduction by VICTOR HORSLEY. With Illustrations. 8vo, 16_s._ MILITARY SCIENCE. =BAKER, Lt-Col. EDEN, R.A., Preliminary Tactics.= An Introduction to the Study of War. For the use of Junior Officers. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =BRACKENBURY, Major-General, Field Works.= Their Technical Construction and Tactical Application. 2 vols. small crown 8vo, 12_s._ =BUXTON, Major, Elements of Military Administration.= First Part: Permanent System of Administration. Small crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =Cavalry Tactics, Organisation, etc., Notes on.= By a CAVALRY OFFICER. With Diagrams. 8vo, 12_s._ =CLERY, Gen. C. FRANCIS, Minor Tactics.= 13th Edition Revised, with 26 Maps and Plans. Crown 8vo, 9_s._ =FOSTER, C. W., Modern War.= Translated by C. W. FOSTER. Part I.: Strategy, and Atlas of 64 Plates. 8vo, £1 16_s._ Part II.: Grand Tactics, 15_s._ =GALL, Captain H. R., Solutions of the Tactical Problems Examinations for Captains, May, 1896.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =HARRISON, Col. R., Officer's Memorandum Book for Peace and War.= Fourth Edition, revised. Oblong 32mo, red basil, with pencil, 3_s._ 6_d._ =HUTCHINSON, Col., and MACGREGOR, Major, Military Sketching and Reconnaissance.= Fifth Edition. With 16 Plates. Small crown 8vo, 4_s._ =PRATT, Lieut.-Col. S. C., Field Artillery.= Its Equipment, Organisation, and Tactics. Sixth Edition. Revised by Lieut.-Col. EDEN BAKER. Small crown 8vo, 6_s._ (_Military Handbooks._) =Military Law.= Its Procedure and Practice. Eleventh revised Edition. Small crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ net. (_Military Handbooks._) =SCHAW, Col. H., Defence and Attack of Positions and Localities.= Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =SHAW, Lieut.-Col. WILKINSON, Elements of Modern Tactics practically applied to English Formations.= Eighth Edition. With 31 Plates and Maps. Small crown 8vo, 9_s._ net. (_Military Handbooks._) =TRENCH, Major-General, Cavalry in Modern War.= Small crown 8vo, 6_s._ (_Military Handbooks._) =WINDHAM, Sir C. A., The Crimean Diary of the late General Sir Charles A. Windham, K.C.B.= With an Introduction by Sir W. H. RUSSELL. Edited by Major HUGH PEARCE. With an added Chapter on The Defence of Cawnpore, by Lieut.-Col. JOHN ADYE, C.B. 8vo. MUSIC. =BLASERNA, Prof. P., Theory of Sound in its Relation to Music.= With Numerous Illustrations. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I.S.S._) =LOCHER, CARL, Explanation of Organ Stops.= With Hints for Effective Combinations. 8vo, 5_s._ =PARRY, C. HUBERT H., The Evolution of the Art of Music.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ Also cloth, gilt top, 6_s._ (_I.S.S._) =POLE, W., Philosophy of Music.= Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution. Fourth Edition. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ (_Philosophical Library._) =WAGNER, RICHARD, Prose Works.= Translated by W. ASHTON ELLIS. Vol. I. =The Art Work of the Future, &c.= 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ net. Vol. II. =The Drama.= 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ net. Vol. III. =The Theatre.= 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ net. Vol. IV. =Art and Politics.= 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ net. NUMISMATICS. =Numismata Orientalia.= Royal 4to, in paper wrapper. Part I.--Ancient Indian Weights. By E. THOMAS. With a plate and Map, 9_s._ 6_d._ Part II.--Coins of the Urtuki Turkumáns. By S. LANE POOLE. With 6 Plates, 9_s._ Part III.--Coinage of Lydia and Persia. By BARCLAY V. HEAD. With 3 Plates, 10_s._ 6_d._ Part IV.--Coins of the Tuluni Dynasty. By E. T. ROGERS. With 1 Plate, 5_s._ Part V.--Parthian Coinage. By PERCY GARDNER. With 8 Plates, 18_s._ Part VI.--Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon. By T. W. RHYS DAVIDS. With 1 Plate, 10_s._ Vol. I. Containing the first six parts as specified above. Royal 4to, half bound, £3 13_s._ 6_d._ Vol. II. =Coins of the Jews.= Being a History of the Jewish Coinage in the Old and New Testaments. By F. W. MADDEN. With 279 Woodcuts and Plate. Royal 4to, £2. Vol. III. Part I.--=The Coins of Arakan, of Pegu, and of Burma.= By Lieut.-General Sir ARTHUR PHAYRE. Also contains the Indian Balhara and the Arabian Intercourse with India in the ninth and following centuries. By EDWARD THOMAS. With 5 Illustrations. Royal 4to, 8_s._ 6_d._ Vol. III. Part II.--=The Coins of Southern India.= By Sir W. Elliott. With Map and Plates. Royal 4to, 25_s._ =Numismata Orientalia.= Illustrated. Fifty-seven Plates of Oriental Coins, Ancient and Modern, from the collection of the late WILLIAM MARSDEN, F.R.S. Engraved from drawings made under his directions. 4to, 31_s._ 6_d._ PAINTING, SCULPTURE, ETC. =BLAKE, WILLIAM, Selections from the Writings of.= Edited, with Introduction, by LAURENCE HOUSMAN. With Frontispiece. Elzevir 8vo, Parchment or cloth, 6_s._; vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._ (_Parchment Library._) =CLEMENT C. E., and HUTTON, L., Artists of the Nineteenth Century and their Works.= 2050 Biographical Sketches. Third Edition, revised. Crown 8vo, 15_s._ =GOWER, Lord RONALD, Bric-à-Brac.= Being some Photo-prints illustrating Art Objects at Gower Lodge, Windsor. With Letterpress Descriptions. Super-royal 8vo, 15_s._; extra binding, 21_s._ =HOLMES, FORBES A. W., The Science of Beauty.= An Analytical Inquiry into the Laws of Aesthetics. Second Edition. Post 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =HOUSMAN, LAURENCE, Arthur Boyd Houghton.= Selections from his Work in Black and White. With Introductory Essay. 4to, 15_s._ net. =HOWELLS, W. D., A Little Girl among the Old Masters.= With 54 Plates. Oblong crown 8vo, 10_s._ =LEIGHTON, Lord, P.R.A., Addresses to the Students of the Royal Academy.= With Portrait. 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =MITCHELL, LUCY M., History of Ancient Sculpture.= With numerous Illustrations. Super-royal 8vo, 42_s._ =REYNOLDS, Sir JOSHUA, Discourses.= Edited by E. GOSSE. Elzevir 8vo (_Parchment Library._) Vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ =THACKERAY, W. M., Essay on the Genius of George Cruikshank.= Reprinted verbatim from the _Westminster Review_. With 40 Illustrations. Royal 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =THOMPSON, Sir E. MAUNDE.= English Illuminated Manuscripts. With 21 Plates in chromo-lithography. Imp. 8vo, 18_s._ =WOLTMANN, ALFRED, and WOERMANN, KARL, History of Painting.= With numerous Illustrations. Med. 8vo, Vol. I.: Painting in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 28_s._ Vol. II.: The Painting of the Renasence, 42_s._ The two volumes may be had bound in cloth with bevelled boards and gilt leaves, price 30_s._ and 45_s._ respectively. TECHNOLOGY, ETC. =Amateur Mechanic's Workshop.= Plain and Concise Directions for the Manipulation of Wood and Metals. By the Author of 'The Lathe and its Uses.' Sixth Edition. Illustrated. 8vo, 6_s._ =ANDERSON, WILLIAM, Practical Mercantile Correspondence.= A Collection of Modern Letters of Business. With Notes. Thirtieth Edition, Revised. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =AXON, W. E. A., The Mechanic's Friend.= A Collection of Receipts and Practical Suggestions relating to Aquaria, Bronzing, Cements, Drawing, Dyes, Electricity, Gilding, Glass-working, &c. Second Edition. Numerous Woodcuts. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =BELLOWS, W., The Ocean Liners of the World Illustrated.= Second Edition. Small oblong 4to, 1_s._ =DU MONCEL, Count, The Telephone, the Microphone, and the Phonograph.= With 74 Illustrations. Third Edition. Small 8vo, 5_s._ =EGER, GUSTAV, Technological Dictionary.= In the English and German Languages. 2 vols. royal 8vo, £1 7_s._ =FULTON, J., A Treatise on the Manufacture of Coke, and the Saving of By-Products.= 8vo, 21_s._ =GALLOWAY, ROBERT, Treatise on Fuel.= Scientific and Practical. With Illustrations. Post 8vo, 6_s._ =HULME, F. EDWARD, Mathematical Drawing Instruments, and How to Use them.= With Illustrations. Third Edition. Imperial 16mo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =HUSMANN, G., American Grape Growing and Wine Making.= New and entirely Revised Edition. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =INMAN, JAMES, Nautical Tables.= Designed for the use of British Seamen. New Edition, Revised and Enlarged. 8vo, 16_s._ =JAPP, A. H., Days with Industrials.= Adventures and Experiences among Curious Industries. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =KAMARSCH, KARL, Technological Dictionary of the Terms Employed in the Arts and Sciences= (Architecture, Engineering, Mechanics, Shipbuilding and Navigation, Metallurgy, Mathematics, &c.). Fourth Revised Edition. 3 vols. imperial 8vo. Vol. I. German--English--French. 12_s._ Vol. II. English--German--French. 12_s._ Vol. III. French--German--English. 15_s._ =KROHNKE, G. H. A., Handbook for Laying out Curves on Railways and Tramways.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Lathe, The, and its Uses=; or, Instruction in the Art of Turning Wood and Metal. Sixth Edition. Illustrated. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =LAWLOR, J. J., Practical Hot Water Heating, Steam and Gas Fitting.= Crown 8vo, 8_s._ 6_d._ =LEFFMANN, HENRY=, and =BEAM, W., Examination of Water for Sanitary and Technical Purposes.= Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Analysis of Milk and Milk Products.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =LUKIN, J., Amongst Machines.= A Description of Various Mechanical Appliances used in the Manufacture of Wood, Metal, etc. A book for boys. Third Edition. With 64 Engravings. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The Boy Engineers.= What They Did, and How They Did It. A book for boys. With 30 Engravings. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =The Young Mechanic.= A Book for Boys, containing Directions for the Use of all kinds of Tools, and for the Construction of Steam Engines and Mechanical Models. Seventh Edition. With 70 Engravings. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =MAGUIRE, W. R., Domestic Sanitary Drainage and Plumbing. Second Edition.= Revised. 8vo, 12_s._ =MALDEN, W. J., Pig Keeping for Profit.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ (_Village Library._) =MOORE, CUNNINGHAM WILSON, A Practical Guide for Prospectors, Explorers, and Miners.= 8vo, 12_s._ net. =MORFIT, CAMPBELL, Pure Fertilisers, and the Chemical Conversion of Rock Guanos, etc., into various valuable products.= 8vo, £4 4_s._ =Manufacture of Soaps.= With Illustrations. 8vo, £2 12_s._ 6_d._ =OSTERBERG, MAX, Synopsis of Current Electrical Literature.= 8vo, 5_s._ net. =RICHARDSON, M. T., Practical Blacksmithing.= With 400 Illustrations. 4 vols. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ each. =Practical Carriage Building.= 2 vols. 10_s._ =Practical Horse-shoer.= With 170 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =ROSS, Lieut.-Col. W. A., Pyrology=; or, Fire Chemistry. Small 4to, 36_s._ =SCHEIDEL, Dr. A., The Cyanide Process=; its Practical Applications and Economical Results. 8vo, 6_s._ =SCHOOLING, J. HOLT, Handwriting and Expression.= A Study of Written Gesture, with 150 _Fac-simile_ Reproductions of the Handwritings of Men and Women of various Nationalities. Translated. 8vo, 6_s._ =SCHÜTZENBERGER, Prof., Fermentation.= With 28 Illustrations. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =Science.= Weekly. £1 2_s._ =Scientific American.= Weekly. 18_s._ =Scientific American.= Export Edition. Monthly. £1 5_s._ =Scientific American.= Building Edition. Monthly. 14_s._ =Do. Supplement.= Weekly. £1 5_s._ =SEDDING, J. D., Art and Handicraft.= Six Essays. 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =SMITH, HAMILTON, Hydraulics.= The Flow of Water through Orifices, over Weirs, and through Open Conduits and Pipes. With 17 Plates. Royal 4to, 30_s._ =THURSTON, Prof. R. H., History of the Growth of the Steam Engine.= With Numerous Illustrations. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) =Manual of the Steam Engine.= For Engineers and Technical Schools. Parts I. and II. Royal 8vo. 31_s._ 6_d._ each Part. =WANKLYN, J. A., Milk Analysis.= A Practical Treatise on the Examination of Milk and its Derivatives, Cream, Butter and Cheese. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =WANKLYN, J. A., and CHAPMAN, E. T., Water Analysis.= A Treatise on the Examination of Potable Water. Tenth Edition. thoroughly Revised. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =WANKLYN, J. A., and COOPER, W. J., Bread Analysis.= A Practical Treatise on the Examination of Flour and Bread. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Air Analysis.= A Practical Treatise. With Appendix on Illuminating Gas. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =WATERHOUSE, Col. J., Preparation of Drawings for Photographic Reproduction.= With Plates. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =WEISBACH, JULIUS, Theoretical Mechanics.= A Manual of the Mechanics of Engineering. Designed as a Text Book for Technical Schools, and for the use of Engineers. From the German, by E. B. COXE. With 902 Woodcuts. Second Edition. 8vo, 31_s._ 6_d._ =WIECHMANN, G. F., Sugar Analysis.= For Refineries, Sugar-Houses, Experimental Stations, &c. 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ =WILCOX, LUTE, Irrigation Farming.= Crown 8vo, 10_s._ =WYLDE, W., Inspection of Meat.= A Guide and Instruction Book to Officers supervising Contract Meat, and to all Sanitary Inspectors. With 32 Coloured Plates. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ SPORTS. =GOULD, A. C., Modern American Pistols and Revolvers.= 8vo, cloth, 7_s._ 6_d._ =Modern American Rifles.= 8vo, cloth, 10_s._ 6_d._ =HILLIER, G. LACY, All About Bicycling.= 12mo, 1_s._ =MONEY, Captain ALBERT ("Blue Rock,") Pigeon Shooting.= Foolscap 8vo, 5_s._ net. =NEWHOUSE. The Trapper's Guide.= A Manual of Instruction. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Practical Hints on Shooting.= By "20-BORE." 8vo, 12_s._ =WHEELDON, J. P., Angling Resorts near London.= The Thames and the Lea. Crown 8vo, paper, 1_s._ 6_d._ _IX.--PHILOLOGY._ COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY. =ABEL, CARL, Linguistic Essays.= Post 8vo, 9_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =Slavic and Latin.= Lectures on Comparative Lexicography. Post 8vo, 5_s._ =BRUGMANN, K., Elements of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-Germanic Languages.= A Concise Exposition of the History of Sanscrit, Old Iranian, Old Armenian, Old Greek, Latin, Umbrian, Samnitic, Old Irish, Gothic, Old High German, Lithuanian, and Old Bulgarian. In 5 vols. 8vo, cloth. Vol. I. =Introduction and Phonology.= By J. WRIGHT. 582 pp. 1888. 18_s._ Vol. II. Part I.--=Morphology.= Stem Formation and Inflection. By S. CONWAY and W. D. ROUSE. 500 pp. 1891. 16_s._ Vol. III. Part II.--=Morphology.= Numerals, Nouns, and Pronouns. By S. CONWAY and W. D. ROUSE. 412 pp. 1892. 12_s._ 6_d._ Vol. IV. Part III.--=Morphology.= Verbs: Formation of the Stem, and Inflection or Conjugation. By S. CONWAY and W. D. ROUSE. 630 pp. 1895. £1. Vol. V. Index of Words, Matters, and Authors mentioned in Vols. I.-IV. 250 pp. 1895. 9_s._ =BYRNE, Dean JAMES, General Principles of the Structure of Language.= 2 vols. Second and Revised Edition. 8vo, 36_s._ =Origin of Greek, Latin, and Gothic Roots.= Second and Revised Edition. 8vo, 18_s._ =CUST, R., Linguistic and Oriental Essays.= Post 8vo. First Series, 10_s._ 6_d._ Second Series, with 6 Maps, 21_s._ Third Series, 21_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =DELBRUCK, B., Introduction to the Study of Language.= The History and Methods of Comparative Philology of the Indo-European Languages. 8vo, 5_s._ =GARLANDA, FEDERICO, The Fortunes of Words.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =The Philosophy of Words.= A Popular Introduction to the Science of Language. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =GREG, R. P., Comparative Philology of the Old and New Worlds in Relation to Archaic Speech.= With Copious Vocabularies. Super royal 8vo. £1 11_s._ 6_d._ =LEFEVRE, ANDRÉ, Race and Language.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I.S.S._) =Philological Society, Transactions and Proceedings of.= Irregular. =SAYCE, A. H., Introduction to the Science of Language.= New and Cheaper Edition. 2 vols. Crown 8vo, 9_s._ =The Principles of Comparative Philology.= Fourth Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =SCHLEICHER, AUGUST, Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin Languages.= Translated from the Third German Edition by H. BENDALL. 8vo, 13_s._ 6_d._ =TAYLOR, Canon ISAAC, The Alphabet.= An Account of the Origin and Development of Letters. With numerous Tables and _Fac-similes_. 2 vols. 8vo, 36_s._ =WHITNEY, Prof. W. D., Life and Growth of Language.= Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I.S.S._) =Language and the Study of Language.= Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Language and its Study.= With especial Reference to the Indo-European Family of Languages. Edited by R. MORRIS. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ #/ AFRICAN. =CUST, R. N.= A Sketch of the Modern Languages of Africa. 2 vols. With 31 autotype portraits, 1883. Post 8vo, 18_s._ (_T.O.S._) ALBANIAN. =Grammaire Albanaise=, à l'usage de ceux qui désirent apprendre cette langue sans l'aide d'un maître. Par P. W. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ ANGLO-SAXON. =RASK, ERASMUS, Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Tongue.= From the Danish, by B. THORPE. Third Edition. Post 8vo, 5_s._ 6_d._ ARABIC. =COTTON, General Sir A., Arabic Primer.= Consisting of 180 short sentences, containing 30 primary words prepared according to the vocal system of studying language. 38 pp., crown 8vo, cloth. 1876. 2_s._ =Diwans, The, of the six ancient Arabic Poets=--Enn[=a]biga, 'Antara, Tharafa, Zuhair, 'Alqama, and Imruulqais, and a collection of their fragments, with a list of the various readings of the text edited by W. AHLWARDT. 8vo, wrapper. 1870. 12_s._ =HIRSCHFELD, H., Arabic Chrestomathy in Hebrew characters, with a Glossary.= viii. and 174 pp., 8vo, cloth. 1892. 7_s._. 6_d._ =MEAKIN, J. E. BUDGETT, Introduction to the Arabic of Morocco.= English-Arabic Vocabulary, Grammar, Notes, etc. Foolscap 8vo, 6_s._ net. =NEWMAN, F. W., Dictionary of Modern Arabic.= (Anglo-Arabic and Arabo-English.) 2 vols. Crown 8vo, £1 1_s._ =Handbook of Modern Arabic.= Post 8vo, 6_s._ =PENRICE, J., Dictionary and Glossary of the Korân, with copious Grammatical References and Explanations.= 1873. Small 4to, £1 1_s._ =SALMONÉ, H. A., Arabic-English Dictionary.= Comprising about 120,000 Arabic words with English Index of about 50,000 words. 2 vols. Post 8vo, 36_s._ BANTU. =KOLBE, F. W., A Language Study based on Bantu.= An Inquiry into the Laws of Root Formation. 8vo, 6_s._ =TORREND, J., Comparative Grammar of the South African Bantu Languages.= Comprising those of Zanzibar, Mozambique, the Zambezi, Kafirland, Benguela, Angola, the Congo, the Ogowe, the Cameroons, the Lake Region, &c. Super-royal 8vo, 25_s._ BASQUE. =VAN EYS, W., Outlines of Basque Grammar.= Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._. BENGALI. =YATES and WENGER, Bengali Grammar.= New and Revised Edition. 136 pp. small 8vo, cloth. 1885. 4_s._ CHINESE. =BALL, J. D., How to Write Chinese.= Part I. Royal 8vo, boards. 1888. 10_s._ 6_d._ =EITEL, E. J., Chinese Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect.= With Supplement. Royal 8vo, half calf. £2 12_s._ 6_d._ =HIRTH, F., Text Book of Documentary Chinese.= With a Vocabulary. 2 vols, demy 4to, £1 1_s._ =Notes on the Chinese Documentary Style.= 1888. 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =LOBSCHEID, Rev. W., Chinese and English Dictionary.= Arranged according to the Radicals. 1871. Royal 4to, cloth, £2 8_s._ =English-Chinese Dictionary.= With the Punti and Mandarin Pronunciation. 1866-69. 4 vols., folio, £4 4_s._ =WILLIAMS, S. WELLS, Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language.= Arranged according to the Wu-Fang Yuen Yin, with the Pronunciation of the Characters as heard in Pekin, Canton, Amoy, and Shanghai. Third Edition. 4to, half calf, £3 15_s._ Also Index to same, arranged according to Sir Thomas Wade's system of orthography, by ACHESON. 8vo, cloth, 12_s._ 6_d._ CUNEIFORM. =BERTIN, GEORGE, Abridged Grammar of the Languages of the Cuneiform Inscriptions.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ DANISH. =BOJESEN, MARIA, Guide to the Danish Language.= 12mo, 5_s._ =OTTÉ, E. C., Dano-Norwegian Grammar.= A Manual for Students of Danish, based on the Ollendorffian System. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ Key, 3_s._ =Simplified Grammar of the Danish Language.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =ROSING, S., Danish Dictionary.= Crown 8vo, 8_s._ 6_d._ DUTCH. =AHN, F., Grammar of the Dutch Language.= 12mo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =HALDEMAN, S. S., Pennsylvania Dutch.= A Dialect of South Germany, with an Infusion of English. 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ EAST INDIAN. =BEAMES, J., Outlines of Indian Philology.= With language Map. Second Edition, enlarged and revised. 1868. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India.= Hindi, Panjabi, Sindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, and Bengali. In 3 vols. 8vo, 16_s._ each vol. Vol. I.--On Sounds, xvi. and 360 pp. 1872. Vol. II.--The Noun and Pronoun, xii. and 348 pp. 1875. Vol. III.--The Verb, viii. and 316 pp. 1879. =CAMPBELL, G., Specimens of Languages of India.= Including those of the aboriginal tribes of Bengal, the Central Provinces, and the Eastern Frontier. Royal 4to, boards. 1874. £1 11_s._ 6_d._ =WHITWORTH, G. E., Anglo-Indian Dictionary.= A Glossary of Indian terms used in English, and of such English or other non-Indian terms as have obtained special meanings in India. 8vo, 12_s._ EGYPTIAN. =BUDGE, E. A. WALLIS, First Steps in Egyptian.= Large post 8vo, 9_s._ net. =An Egyptian Reading Book for Beginners, with a Vocabulary.= 8vo, 15_s._ net. ENGLISH. =BARTLETT, J. R., Dictionary of Americanisms.= A Glossary of Words and Phrases colloquially used in the United States. Fourth Edition. 8vo, 21_s._ =BOWEN, H. C., Studies in English.= For the use of Modern Schools. Tenth Thousand. Small crown 8vo, 1_s._ 6_d._ =English Grammar for Beginners.= Foolscap 8vo, 1_s._ =CARREÑO, Metodo para aprender a Leer, escribir y hablar el Ingles segun el sistema de Ollendorff.= 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ Key, 3_s._ =JENKINS, JABEZ, Vest-Pocket Lexicon.= An English Dictionary of all except Familiar Words, including the principal Scientific and Technical Terms. 64mo, roan, 1_s._ 6_d._; cloth, 1_s._ =SMITH, H. PERCY, Glossary of Terms and Phrases.= Cheap Edition. Medium 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =TRENCH, Archbishop, English Past and Present.= Fourteenth Edition, Revised and Improved. Foolscap 8vo, 5_s._ =On the Study of Words.= Twenty-third Edition, Revised. Foolscap 8vo, 5_s._ =Select Glossary of English Words used formerly in Senses Different from the Present.= Seventh Edition, Revised and Enlarged. Foolscap 8vo, 5_s._ =WEDGWOOD, H., Dictionary of English Etymology.= Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged. 8vo, £1 1_s._ =Contested Etymology in the Dictionary of the Rev. W. W. Skeat.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =WHITNEY, Prof. W. D., Essentials of English Grammar.= Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ FRENCH. =AHN, F., Method of Learning French.= First and Second Courses. 12mo, 3_s._ Separately, 1_s._ 6_d._ each. =Method of Learning French.= Third Course. 12mo, 1_s._ 6_d._ =BELLOWS, JOHN, French and English Dictionary for the Pocket.= Containing the French-English and English-French Divisions on the same page, Conjugating all the Verbs, Distinguishing the Genders by Different Types, giving Numerous Aids to Pronunciation, &c. Fifty-third Thousand of the Second Edition. 32mo, morocco tuck, 12_s._ 6_d._; roan, 10_s._ 6_d._ =BRETTE, P. H.=, and =THOMAS, F., French Examination Papers set at the University of London.= Part I.--Matriculation and the General Examination for Women. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ Key, 5_s._ Part II.--First B.A. Examinations for Honours and D. Litt. Examinations. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ =CASSAL, CHARLES, Glossary of Idioms, Gallicisms, and other Difficulties contained in the Senior Course of the 'Modern French Reader.'= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =CASSAL, CHARLES=, and =KARCHER, THEODORE, Modern French Reader.= Junior Course. Nineteenth Edition. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ Senior Course. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ Senior Course and Glossary in 1 vol. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Little French Reader.= Extracted from the 'Modern French Reader.' Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ =KARCHER, THEODORE, Questionnaire Français.= Questions on French Grammar, Idiomatic Difficulties, and Military Expressions. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._; interleaved with writing paper, 5_s._ 6_d._ =LARMOYER, M. DE, Practical French Grammar.= Crown 8vo. New Edition, in one vol., 3_s._ 6_d._ Two Parts, 2_s._ 6_d._ each. =LE-BRUN, L., Materials for Translating English into French.= Seventh Edition. Post 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ =NUGENT, French-English and English-French Pocket Dictionary.= 24mo, 3_s._ =ROCHE, A., French Grammar.= Adopted by the Imperial Council of Public Instruction. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ =French Translation.= Prose and Poetry, from English Authors, for reading, composition, and translation. Second Edition. Foolscap 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =SIMONNÉ, Metodo para aprender a Leer Escribir y hablar el Frances, segun el verdadero sistema de Ollendorff.= Crown 8vo, 6_s._ Key, 3_s._ 6_d._ =VAN LAUN, H., Grammar of the French Language.= Crown 8vo. Accidence and Syntax, 4_s._; Exercises, 3_s._ 6_d._ =WELLER, E., Improved Dictionary.= English-French and French-English. Royal 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ GERMAN. =AHN, F., Grammar of the German Language.= New Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Method of Learning German.= 12mo, 3_s._ Key, 8_d._ =Manual of German Conversation=; or, Vade Mecum for English Travellers. Second Edition. 12mo, 1_s._ 6_d._ =FROEMBLING, F. OTTO, Graduated German Reader.= A Selection from the most popular writers. With a Vocabulary. Twelfth Edition. 12mo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Graduated Exercises for Translation into German.= Extracts from the best English Authors, with Idiomatic Notes. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._; without Notes, 4_s._ GREEK. =CONTOPOULOS, N., Lexicon of Modern Greek-English and English-Modern Greek.= 2 vols., 8vo, 27_s._ =Modern-Greek and English Dialogues and Correspondence.= Foolscap 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =GELDART, E. M., Guide to Modern Greek.= Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ Key, 2_s._ 6_d._ =Simplified Grammar of Modern Greek.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =PAUL, C. KEGAN=, and =STONE, E. D., Philological Introduction to Greek and Latin for Students.= Translated and adapted from the German. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =THOMPSON, E. MAUNDE, Handbook of Greek and Latin Palæography.= Second Edition. Revised. With numerous _fac-similes_. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ (_I. S. S._) GUJARATI. =TISDALL, Rev. W. ST. CLAIR, A Simplified Grammar of the Gujarati Language.= Together with a short Reading Book and Vocabulary. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ HEBREW. =BALLIN, ADA S.= and =F. L., Hebrew Grammar.= With Exercises selected from the Bible. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =BICKELL, G., Outlines of Hebrew Grammar.= 8vo, cloth, 4_s._ HINDI. =BALLANTYNE, J. R., Elements of Hindi and Braj Bhakha Grammar.= Compiled for the East India College at Haileybury. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =BATE, J. D., Hindi-English Dictionary.= Royal 8vo, cloth. 1875. £1 11_s._ 6_d._ =KELLOGG, S. H., Grammar of the Hindi Language.= With copious Philological Notes and Tables. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. 1893. 8vo, cloth, 18_s._ HINDUSTANI. =CRAVEN, T., English-Hindustani and Hindustani-English Dictionary.= New Edition. 18mo, 4_s._ 6_d._ =DOWSON, J., Grammar of the Urd[=u] or Hind[=u]st[=a]n[=i] Language.= Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Hind[=u]st[=a]n[=i] Exercise Book.= Passages and Extracts for Translation into Hind[=u]st[=a]n[=i]. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =FALLON, S. W., A New English-Hindustani Dictionary.= With Illustrations from English Literature and Colloquial English. iv. and 674 pp. royal 8vo, cloth. 1883. (Published at Rs. 22.) Reduced to £1. [asterism] Printed in Roman characters only. =A New Hindustani-English Dictionary.= With Illustrations from Hindustani Literature and Folk-lore. xxiv. ix. and 1216 pp. royal 8vo, cloth. 1879. (Published at Rs. 52.) Reduced to £2. [asterism] All Hindustani words are printed in the Persian and Roman character; those of Hindi origin also in the Devanagari. =PALMER, E. H., Simplified Grammar of Hindustani, Persian, and Arabic.= Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =PHILLIPS, Col. A. N., Hindustani Idioms.= With Vocabulary and Explanatory Notes. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ HUNGARIAN. =SINGER, J., Simplified Grammar of the Hungarian Language.= Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ IRISH. =STOKES, WHITLEY, Goidelica.= Old and Early-Middle Irish Glosses, Prose and Verse. Second Edition. Medium 8vo, 18_s._ ITALIAN. =AHN, F., Method of Learning Italian.= 12mo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =CAMERINI, E., L'Eco Italiano.= A Guide to Italian Conversation. With Vocabulary. 12mo, 4_s._ 6_d._ =MILLHOUSE, J., English and Italian Dictionary.= 2 vols. 8vo, 12_s._ =Manual of Italian Conversation.= 18mo, 2_s._ #/ JAPANESE. =BABA, TATUI, Elementary Grammar of the Japanese Language.= With easy Progressive Exercises. Second Edition. 5_s._ =CHAMBERLAIN, Prof. B. H., Simplified Japanese Grammar.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Romanised Japanese Reader.= Consisting of Japanese Anecdotes and Maxims, with English Translations and Notes. 12mo, 6_s._ =Handbook of Colloquial Japanese.= Second Edition. 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ =Handbook of the Japanese Language.= For Tourists and Residents. In the Colloquial style. 24mo, 4_s._ =HEPBURN, J. C., Japanese and English Dictionary.= Second Edition. Imp. 8vo, half roan, 18_s._ =Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary.= Third Edition. Royal 8vo, half morocco, 30_s._ Pocket Edition, square 16mo, 14_s._ Index of Chinese characters in the royal 8vo. Edition, arranged according to their radicals by W. H. WHITNEY. 1888. Cloth, 4_s._ 6_d._ =IMBRIE, W., Handbook of English-Japanese Etymology.= Second Edition, 1889. 8vo, 6_s._ =MUTSU, H., Japanese Conversation Course.= 1894. Small 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ KHASSI. =ROBERTS, H., Grammar of the Khassi Language.= Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ LATIN. =AHN, F., Latin Grammar for Beginners.= Thirteenth Edition. 12mo, 3_s._ =IHNE, W., Latin Grammar for Beginners, on Ahn's System.= 12mo, 3_s._ MALAGASY. =PARKER, G. W., Concise Grammar of the Malagasy Language.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ NORWEGIAN. =SMITH, M.=, and =HORNEMAN, H., Norwegian Grammar.= With a Glossary for Tourists. Post 8vo, 2_s._ PALI. =CHILDERS, R. C., Pali-English Dictionary.= With Sanskrit Equivalents. Imperial 8vo, £3 3_s._ =MÜLLER, E., Simplified Grammar of the Pali Language.= Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ PANJABI. =TISDALL, W. ST. CLAIR, Simplified Grammar and Reading Book of the Panjabi Language.= Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ PERSIAN. =FINN, A., Persian for Travellers.= Oblong 32mo, 5_s._ =PALMER, E. H., English-Persian Dictionary.= With Simplified Grammar of the Persian Language. Royal 16mo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Persian-English Dictionary.= Second Edition. Royal 16mo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Simplified Grammar of Hindustani, Persian, and Arabic.= Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ #/ POLISH. =MORFILL, W. R., Simplified Grammar of the Polish Language.= Crown 8vo. 3_s._ 6_d._ PORTUGUESE. =D'ORSEY, A. J. D., Colloquial Portuguese=; or, The Words and Phrases of Every-day Life. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Grammar of Portuguese and English.= Adapted to Ollendorff's System. Fourth Edition. 12mo, 7_s._ =VIEYRA'S Pocket Dictionary of the Portuguese and English Languages.= 2 vols. Post 8vo, 10_s._ PUSHTO (or Afghan). =TRUMPP, E., Grammar of the Pas't[=o]=; or, Language of the Afgh[=a]ns, compared with the Tr[=a]nian and North Indian Idioms. Cloth, 1873. 21_s._ ROMANY. =LELAND, C. G., English Gipsies and their Language.= New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ ROUMANIAN. =TORCEANU, R., Simplified Grammar of the Roumanian Language.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ RUSSIAN. =RIOLA, HENRY, How to Learn Russian.= A Manual for Students. Based upon the Ollendorffian System. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 12_s._ Key, 5_s._ =Russian Reader.= With Vocabulary. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ #/ SANSKRIT. =BALLANTYNE, J. R., First Lessons in Sanscrit Grammar.= Fifth Edition. 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =BENFEY, THEODOR, Grammar of the Sanskrit Language.= For the use of Early Students. Second Edition. Royal 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =COWELL, E. B., Short Introduction to the Ordinary Prakrit of the Sanskrit Dramas.= Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Prakrita-Prakasa, or the Prakrit Grammar of Vararuchi.= With the Commentary (Manorama) of Bhamaha. 8vo, 14_s._ =WHITNEY, Prof. W. D., Sanskrit Grammar.= Including both the Classical Language and the Older Dialects of Veda and Brahmana. Second Edition. 8vo, 12_s._ SERBIAN. =MORFILL, W. R., Simplified Serbian Grammar.= Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ SOMALI. =Somali-English Dictionary.= Post 8vo. In the Press. Orders booked. SINHALESE. =MENDIS, GUNASEKARA A., A Comprehensive Grammar of the Sinhalese Language.= 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ =Sinhalese Made Easy; or, Phrase-Book of Colloquial Sinhalese.= Revised and enlarged Edition. 12mo, 3_s._ 6_d._ SPANISH. =BEALE, ALFRED A., Excelsior English-Spanish and Spanish-English Dictionary.= Commercial and Technical. Foolscap 8vo, roan, 10_s._ 6_d._ =BUTLER, F., Spanish Teacher, and Colloquial Phrase-Book.= 18mo, half roan, 2_s._ 6_d._ =VELASQUEZ, M. de la CADENA, Dictionary of the Spanish and English Languages.= For the use of Young Learners and Travellers. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Pronouncing Dictionary of the Spanish and English Languages.= Royal 8vo, £1 4_s._ =New Spanish Reader.= Passages from the most approved Authors, with Vocabulary. Post 8vo, 6_s._ =Introduction to Spanish Conversation.= 12mo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =VELASQUEZ and SIMONNÉ, New Method of Learning the Spanish Language.= Adapted to Ollendorff's system. Revised and corrected by Senor VIVAR. Post 8vo, 6_s._; Key, 4_s._ SUAHILI. =KRAPF, L., Dictionary of the Suahili Language.= 8vo, £1 10_s._ SWEDISH. =OTTE, E. C., Simplified Grammar of the Swedish Language.= Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ TAMIL. =ARDEN, A. H., A Progressive Grammar of Common Tamil.= 8vo, 5_s._ =A Companion Reader to Arden's Progressive Tamil Grammar.= 2 vols. 8vo, 5_s._ each. Vol. I.: Companion Exercises and Easy Stories. Vol. II.: The Panchatranta in Tamil. #/ TIBETAN. =JÄSCHKE, H. A., Tibetan Grammar.= Prepared by Dr. H. WENZELL. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Tibetan-English Dictionary.= With special reference to the prevailing dialects, to which is added an English-Tibetan Vocabulary. Royal 8vo, cloth. (Published £1 10_s._) £1 1_s._ #/ TURKISH. =ARNOLD, Sir EDWIN, Grammar of the Turkish Language.= With Dialogues and Vocabulary. Post 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =REDHOUSE, J. W., Simplified Grammar of the Ottoman-Turkish Language.= Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Turkish Vade-Mecum of Ottoman Colloquial Language.= English-Turkish and Turkish-English, the whole in English Characters, the Pronunciation being fully indicated. Third Edition. 32mo, 6_s._ #/ VOLAPUK. =SPRAGUE, C. E., Handbook of Volapuk.= The International Language. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ ZULU. =ROBERTS, C., An English-Zulu Dictionary.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ net. =The Zulu-Kafir Language.= Crown 8vo, 6_s._ net. #/ _X.--ORIENTAL._ BRITISH INDIA. =ALBÊRUNI'S India: The Religion, Philosophy, Literature, &c., of India about A.D. 1030.= Arabic Text, edited by Prof. E. SACHAU, 1887. 4to, £3 3_s._ =ARNOLD, Sir EDWIN, India Revisited.= With 32 full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ (_See also class_ BELLES-LETTRES.) _BALDWIN, Capt. J. H., Large and Small Game of Bengal and the North-Western Provinces of India._ With Illustrations. Second Edition. Small 4to, 10_s._ 6_d._ =BALL, V., Diamonds, Coal, and Gold of India.= Foolscap 8vo. 1881. 5_s._ =BALLANTYNE, J. R., Sankhya Aphorisms of Kapila.= Translated and Edited. Third Edition. Post 8vo, 16_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =BARTH, A., Religions of India.= Translated by the Rev. J. WOOD. Third Edition. Post 8vo, 16_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =Bhagavad-Gita; or, The Song Celestial.= From the Sanskrit by Sir E. ARNOLD. Fifth Edition. 1894. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Bhagavadgita.= With Commentary and Notes, as well as References to the Christian Scriptures. Translated from the Sanskrit by M. CHATTERJI. Second Edition. 1892. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =Bhagavad-Gita.= English translation, with a Commentary and a few introductory papers by HURRYCHUND CHINTAMON. 1874. x. and 83 pp. 8vo, 6_s._ =Bhagavad Gita; or, the Sacred Lay.= Translated, with notes, from the Sanskrit by J. DAVIES. Third Edition. 1893. Post 8vo, 6_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =BOSE, P. NATH., A History of Hindu Civilization during British Rule.= Vols. I. and II. together, 15_s._ net. Vol. III., 7_s._ 6_d._ net. Crown 8vo. To be completed in 4 volumes. =BOYD, P., Nagananda=; or, the Joy of the Snake World. From the Sanskrit of Sri-Harsha-Deva. 1872. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ _BRITISH MUSEUM CATALOGUES OF INDIAN LITERATURE._ _Special List Sent on Application._ =BURNELL, A. C., South Indian Palæography, from the 4th to the 17th Century.= Enlarged Edition, with Map and Plates. 4to, £2 12_s._ 6_d._ =Ordinances of Manu.= Translated from the Sanskrit, with introduction. Completed and edited by E. W. Hopkins. 1884. Post 8vo, 12_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =CHRISTIAN, J., Behar Proverbs.= Classified and arranged according to subject-matter, with notes. 1890. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =COTTON, H. J. S., New India=; or, India in Transition. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 4_s._ 6_d._ =COWELL, Prof. E. B., Short Introduction to the Ordinary Prakrit of the Sanskrit Dramas=. 1875. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =Prakrita-Prakasa; or, The Prakrit Grammar of Vararuchi.= With the Commentary (Manorama) of Bhamaha. 1868. 8vo, 14_s._ =COWELL= and =GOUGH, A. E., The Sarva-Darsana-Samgraha=; or, Review of the Different Systems of Hindu Philosophy. 1882. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =CUNNINGHAM, Major-Genl. ALEX., Ancient Geography of= India. Vol. I.: The Buddhist Period. With 13 Maps. 1870. 8vo, £1 8_s._ =DAVIES, J., S[=a]nkhya K[=a]rik[=a] of Iswara Krishna.= An Exposition of the System of Kapila. 1881. Post 8vo, 6_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =DOWSON, J., Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and History, Geography and Literature.= 1879. Post 8vo, 16_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =DUTT, ROMESH CHUNDER, History of Civilisation in Ancient India, based on Sanskrit Literature.= Revised Edition in 2 vols. 1894. 8vo, 21_s._ =Lays of Ancient India.= Selections from Indian Poetry rendered into English verse. 1894. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =DUTT, TORU, Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan.= With an Introductory Memoir by EDMUND GOSSE. 18mo, cloth extra, gilt top, 5_s._ =EDGREN, H., Compendious Sanskrit Grammar.= With a brief sketch of scenic Prakrit. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ (Forms a volume of _Trübner's Collection of Simplified Grammars_.) =ELLIOT, Sir H. M., History of India, as told by its own Historians.= The Muhammadan Period. Revised and continued by Professor JOHN DOWSON. 8vols. 1871-77. 8vo, £8 8_s._ =History, Folk-lore, and Distribution of the Races of the North-Western Provinces of India.= Edited by J. BEAMES. With three coloured Maps. 2 vols. 1869. 8vo, £1 16_s._ =FERGUSSON, J., Archæology in India.= vii. and 115 pp. text, with numerous Cuts. 1884. 8vo, 5_s._ =FERGUSSON, J.=, and =BURGESS, J., The Cave Temples of India.= 536 pp. text, with one hundred Plates. 1880. 4to, half calf (Pub. at £2 2_s._) £1 11_s._ 6_d._ =GOUGH, A. E., Philosophy of the Upanishads.= 1882. Post 8vo, 9_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =GOVER, C. E., Folk Songs of Southern India.= Containing Canarese, Badaga, Coorg, Tamil, Malayalam, and Telugu Songs. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =GRAY, J., Ancient Proverbs and Maxims from Burmese Sources=; or, The Niti Literature of Burmah. Post 8vo, 6_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =GRIFFIN, Sir LEPEL, The Rajas of the Punjab.= History of the principal States in the Punjab, and their political relations with the British Government. 1870. Royal 8vo, 21_s._ =HAIG, Maj.-Gen., The Indus Delta Country.= With 3 Maps. 1895. Royal 8vo, 5_s._ net. =HAUG, M., Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsis.= Third Edition. Edited and enlarged by E. W. WEST. 1884. Post 8vo, 16_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =HODGSON, B. H., Essays on the Languages, Literature, and Religion of Nepal and Tibet.= 1874. 8vo, 14_s._ =Miscellaneous Essays relating to Indian Subjects.= 2 vols. 1880. Post 8vo, 28_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =HUNTER, Sir W. W., Imperial Gazetteer of India.= Second Edition, enlarged and revised. 14 vols. 1885-87. 8vo, half calf. (Pub. at £3 3_s._) £2 2_s._ =Imperial Series of the Reports of the Archæological Survey of India.= _List Sent on Application._ =JACOB, G. A., Manual of Hindu Pantheism.= The Vedântasâra. Translated, with Annotations, &c. Third Edition. 1891. Post 8vo, 6_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =JOHNSON, S., Oriental Religions, and their Relation to Universal Religion: India.= 2 vols. 1879. 402 and 408 pp. 8vo, £1 1_s._ (_Trübner's Philosophical Library._) =KNOWLES, J. H., Folk Tales of Kashmir.= 1888. Post 8vo, 16_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =Koran.= Selections from it, with a commentary. Translated by E. W. LANE. New Revised Edition, with Introduction by S. LANE-POOLE. 1879. Post 8vo, 9_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =Mahabharata.= Translated literally from the original Sanskrit text into English prose by M. N. DUTT, M.A. To be complete in 30 parts, of which the first three are out. Subscription price to the whole work, £1 5_s._ =Mahabharata.= Translated into English prose by the late PROTAP CHUNDRA R[=O]Y. Price of the whole work, bound in 10 vols. 8vo, £10 10_s._ =MAISEY, Gen. F. C., Sanchi and its Remains.= With Introductory Note by the late Maj.-Gen. Sir ALEX. CUNNINGHAM. With 40 plates. 1892. Royal 4to, £2 10_s._ =Manava-Dharma-Castra, the Code of Manu.= Original Sanskrit text. Edited, with critical Notes, by JULIUS JOLLY. 1887. Post 8vo, 10_s_. 6_d_. (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =MASON, F., Burma, its People, and Productions.= Being Notes on the Fauna, Flora, and Minerals of Tenasserim, Pegu, and Burma. New Edition, re-written and enlarged by W. THEOBALD. 2 vols. 1884. 4to. (Pub. at £3 3_s._) £1 11_s._ 6_d._ =MUIR, J., Original Sanskrit Texts, on the Origin and History of the People of India, their Religion and Institutions.= Collected, Translated, and Illustrated by JOHN MUIR. 5 vols. 8vo. Price of a complete set, £5 5_s._ Sold only in sets. =MÜLLER, MAX, Sacred Hymns of the Bramins=, as preserved in the Rig-Veda-Sanhita. Translated from the Sanskrit. Vol. I.: Hymns to the Maruts, or the Storm-Gods. 1869. 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ =Hymns of the Rig-Veda.= In the Sanhita and Pada texts. Reprinted from the Edition Princeps. 2 vols. Second Edition. 1877. 8vo. (Pub. at £1 12_s._) 16_s._ =Naradiya Dharma-Sastra=; or, The Institutes of Narada. Translated from the Sanskrit by JULIUS JOLLY. 1876. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =PICKFORD, J., Maha-vira-Charita=; or, The Adventures of the Great Hero Rama. From the Sanskrit of Bhavabhüti. 1871. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =ROUTLEDGE, J., English Rule and Native Opinion in India.= From notes taken in 1870-74. 1878. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =SCOTT, J. G., Burma as it Was, as it Is, and as it Will Be.= Cheap Edition. 1886. Crown 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =STRACHEY, Sir J., India., with map.= New Edition. 1894. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =WATT, G., A Dictionary of the Economic Products of India.= 6 volumes, bound in 9. 1889-1893. Royal 8vo, half calf, £3 3_s._ =WEBER, A., History of Indian Literature.= Translated from the German. Third Edition. 1890. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =WHEELER, J. TALBOYS, History of India.= From the Earliest Ages down to the time of the Mughul Empire. 5 vols. 1867-1881. 8vo, £6 6_s._ net. Or separate, except vol. I. =Early Records of British India.= A History of the English Settlements in India. 1878. Royal 8vo, 15_s._ =WILLIAMS, Sir M. MONIER, Modern India and the Indians.= Fifth Edition. Post 8vo, 14_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =WILSON, H. H., Complete Works.= 12 vols., bound in 13. 1862-77. 8vo, £10 10_s._ net. =Rig-Veda-Sanhita.= A Collection of Ancient Hindu Hymns. From the Sanskrit. Edited by E. B. COWELL and W. F. WEBSTER, 6 vols. 1854-1888. 8vo, £6 6_s._ net. =The Megha-Duta (Cloud Messenger).= Translated into English verse with the Sanskrit text of Kalidasa. Third Edition. 1867. 4to, 10_s._ 6_d._ CENTRAL AND WESTERN ASIA. =BRETSCHNEIDER, E., Mediæval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources.= Fragments towards the Knowledge of the Geography and History of Central and Western Asia, from the 13th to the 17th Century. 2 vols. With two Maps. 1888. Post 8vo, 21_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =Papers Relating to Indo-China.= Reprinted from Dalrymple's "Oriental Repertory," "Asiatic Researches," and the "Journal" of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 2 vols. 1886. Post 8vo, 21_s._ =----Second Series.= Edited by the late R. ROST. With Plates, and a Map. 2 vols. 1887. 25_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =RALSTON, W. R. S., Tibetan Tales.= Derived from Indian sources. Done into English from the German of F. ANTON VON SCHIEFNER. 1882. Post 8vo, 14_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) CHINA. =ALEXANDER, Maj.-Gen. G. G., Confucius, the Great Teacher.= Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Lao-tsze, the Great Thinker.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =ALLEN, C. F. ROMILLY, Book of Chinese Poetry.= Being the Collection of Ballads, Sagas, Hymns, and other Pieces known as the Shih Ching, metrically translated. 8vo, 16_s._ =BALFOUR, F. H., Leaves from my Chinese Scrap-Book.= Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =DENNYS, N. B., Folk-Lore of China, and its Affinities with that of the Aryan and Semitic Races.= 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =DOUGLAS, Prof. R. K., Catalogue of Chinese Printed Books, Manuscripts, and Drawings in the Library of the British Museum.= 4to, 20_s._ =Chinese Language and Literature.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =Life of Jenghiz Khan.= Translated from the Chinese. Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =EDKINS, J., D.D., Religion in China.= Containing a Brief Account of the Three Religions of the Chinese. Third Edition. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =FABER, E., The Mind of Mencius=; or, Political Economy Founded upon Moral Philosophy. A Systematic Digest of the Doctrines of the Chinese Philosopher Mencius. Translated from the German, with Additional Notes, by A. B. HUTCHINSON. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =FERGUSSON, T., Chinese Researches, Chinese Chronology and Cycles.= Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =HAHN, T., Tsuni-Goam, the Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi.= Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =JOHNSON, S., Oriental Religions and their Relation to Universal Religion.= China. 8vo, cloth, 25_s._ =LEGGE, JAMES, Chinese Classics.= Translated into English. Popular Edition. Crown 8vo. Vol. I.--=Life and Teachings of Confucius.= Sixth Edition. 10_s._ 6_d._ " II.--=Works of Mencius.= 12_s._ " III.--=She-King, or Book of Poetry.= 12_s._ =SMITH, ARTHUR H., Chinese Characteristics.= Second Edition. Revised, with Illustrations. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ EGYPT AND ASSYRIA. =BRITISH MUSEUM PUBLICATIONS:= =TYLOR, J. J., Wall Drawings and Monuments of El Kab.= Part I.: Paheri. 18 Plates. With Notes by SOMERS CLARKE. £2 2_s._ [Other Parts in preparation.] =BUDGE, E. A. WALLIS, Book of the Dead.= The Papyrus of Ani, in the British Museum. With Translation and Transliteration. 4to, half morocco, £1 10_s._ =Archaic Classics, Assyrian Texts.= Being Extracts from the Annals of Shalmaneser II., Sennacherib, and Assur-Bani-Pal, with Philological Notes. Small 4to, 7_s._ 6_d._ =History of Esarhaddon= (Son of Sennacherib), King of Assyria, B.C. 681-668. Translated from the Cuneiform Inscriptions in the British Museum. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =Inscriptions in the Hieratic and Demotic Character.= Folio, £1 7_s._ 6_d._ =Egyptian Texts of the Earliest Period.= From the coffin of Amamu. 32 Coloured Plates. Folio, £2 2_s._ =Fac-simile of an Egyptian Hieratic Papyrus of the Reign of Rameses III.=, now in the British Museum. Folio, £3. =Photographs of the Papyrus of Nebseni=, in the British Museum. Unmounted, £2 2_s._ Or, Mounted and in portfolio, on special terms. =EGYPT EXPLORATION FUND:= =MEMOIRS.= Vol. I.--=The Store City of Pithom, and the Route of the Exodus.= By E. NAVILLE. Third Edition. 1887. Out of print. " II.--=Tanis.= Part I., by W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE. Second Edition. 1888. £1 5_s._ " III.--=Naukratis.= Part I. By W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE. Third Edition. 1888. £1 5_s._ " IV.--=Goshen, and the Shrine of Saft-el-Henneh.= By E. NAVILLE. Second Edition. 1888. £1 5_s._ " V.--=Tanis.= Part II. Including Tell Defenneh, and Tell Nebesheh. By W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, etc. 1888. £1 5_s._ " VI.--=Naukratis.= Part II. By E. A. GARDNER and F. L. GRIFFITH. 1889. £1 5_s._ " VII.--=The City of Divas, and the Mound of the Jew.= By E. NAVILLE and F. L. GRIFFITH. 1890. £1 5_s._ " VIII.--=Bubastis.= By E. NAVILLE. 1891. £1 5_s._ " IX.--=Two Hieroglyphic Papyri from Tanis.= 1891. 5_s._ I. The Sign Papyrus. By F. L. GRIFFITH. II. The Geographical Papyrus. By W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE. " X.--=The Festival Hall of Osorkon II.= (Bubastis). By E. NAVILLE. 1892. £1 5_s._ " XI.--=Ahnas el Medineh.= By E. Naville. And =The Tomb of Paheri at El Kab.= By J. J. TYLOR and F. L. GRIFFITH. 1894. £1 5_s._ " XII.--=Deir el Bahari.= Introductory Volume. By E. NAVILLE. 1894. £1 5_s._ " XIII.--=Temple of Deir el Bahari.= By E. NAVILLE. Part I. 1896. £1 10_s._ =Atlas of Ancient Egypt.= Second Edition. Revised. Small 4to, 3_s._ 6_d._ =LE PLONGEON, AUGUSTUS, Queen Moo and the Sphinx.= Royal 8vo, £1 10_s._ net. =MARIETTE, ALPHONSE, The Monuments of Upper Egypt.= Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =PATON, A. A., History of the Egyptian Revolution.= From the Period of the Mamelukes to the death of Mohammed Ali. Second Edition. 2 vols. 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ =PUBLICATIONS OF THE ARCHÆOLOGICAL SURVEY OF EGYPT:= FIRST MEMOIR.--=Beni Hasan.= Part I. By P. E. NEWBERRY. 1890-91. £1 5_s._ SECOND MEMOIR.--=Beni Hasan.= Part II. By P. E. NEWBERRY and G. W. FRASER. 1891-92. £1 5_s._ THIRD MEMOIR.--=El Bersheh.= Part I. By P. E. NEWBERRY. 1892-93. £1 5_s._ FOURTH MEMOIR.--=El Bersheh.= Part II. By F. L. GRIFFITH and P. E. NEWBERRY. 1893-94. £1 5_s._ FIFTH MEMOIR.--=Beni Hasan.= Part III. By F. L. GRIFFITH. £1 5_s._ =SANDWITH, F. M., Egypt as a Winter Resort.= Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ ISLAM. =BLUNT, W. S., The Future of Islam.= Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =BROWN, J. P., The Dervishes.= With Illustrations. 1868. Crown 8vo, 14_s._ =BUNSEN, ERNEST DE, Islam, or True Christianity.= Crown 8vo, 5_s._ =HUNTER, Sir W. W., The Indian Musalmans.= Third Edition. 1876. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =LANE, E. W., Selections from the Koran.= New Edition. With Introduction by STANLEY LANE-POOLE. Post 8vo, 9_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =REDHOUSE, J. W., History, System, and Varieties of Turkish Poetry.= Illustrated by Specimens in the Original English Paraphrase. 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =The Mesnevi.= Usually known as the Mesnev[=i]yi Sher[=i]f, or Holy Mesnev[=i] of Mevl[=a]n[=a] (Our Lord), Jel[=a]lu'd-Din Muhammed Er-R[=u]m[=i]. Illustrated by a Selection of Characteristic Anecdotes. Translated by J. W. REDHOUSE. Post 8vo, £1 1_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =Tentative Chronological Synopsis of the History of Arabia and its Neighbours, from B.C. 500,000 (?) to A.D. 679.= 8vo, paper, 1_s._ =SELL, Rev. EDWARD, The Faith of Islam.= Second Edition, Revised. Post 8vo, 12_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Library._) =WHERRY, A Comprehensive Commentary to the Quran.= To which is Prefixed Sale's Preliminary Discourse, with additional Notes and Emendations. Together with a Complete Index to the Text, Preliminary Discourse, and Notes. Vols. I., II., and III., 12_s._ 6_d._ each. Vol. IV., 10_s._ 6_d._ =WRIGHT, W., Book of Kalilah and Dimnah.= Translated from Arabic into Syriac, with Preface and Glossary in English. 8vo, 21_s._ JAPAN. =CHAMBERLAIN, BASIL, Classical Poetry of the Japanese.= Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =Things Japanese.= Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 8_s._ 6_d._ =Chushingura, or the Loyal Retainers of Akao.= Translated by JUKICHI INOUYE, with numerous Illustrations by EISEN TOMIOKA. 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ =GOWER, Lord RONALD, Notes of a Tour from Brindisi to Yokohama, 1883-84.= Foolscap 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ =GRIFFIS, W. E., The Mikado's Empire.= Book I.--History of Japan from B.C. 660 to A.D. 1872. Book II.--Personal Experiences, Observations, and Studies in Japan, 1870-74. Second Edition. Illustrated. 8vo, 20_s._ =History of the Empire of Japan.= Compiled and Translated under the direction of the Department of Education, Tokyo. With numerous Illustrations, of which some are in Colours and Collotype, and a Map. vi. and 428 pp. of text. 1893. 8vo, boards, 12_s._ 6_d._ [asterism] The Illustrations are printed on Japanese paper. =Nihongi; or, Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697.= Translated from the original Chinese and Japanese, by W. G. ASTON. Vol. I. 1896. 8vo. Price, complete in 2 vols., 21_s._ =SALWAY, CHARLOTTE M., Fans of Japan.= With 10 full-page Coloured Plates, and 39 Blocks in Text. Royal 4to, 31_s._ 6_d._ net. =TAYUI, R., The Commercial Guide and Trade Directory of Japan.= Royal 8vo, cloth, £1 1_s._ =WENCKSTERN, F. von, Bibliography of the Japanese Empire.= Being a Classified List of all Books, Essays, and Maps in European Languages, relating to Dai Nihon, published in Europe, America, and the East, from 1859-93, to which is added a _fac-simile_ reprint of Léon Pagès' _Bibliographie japonaise depuis le XV^e. siècle jusqu'à 1859_. 1895. Large 8vo, £1 5_s._ net. ORIENTAL BUDDHISM. =BEAL, S., The Romantic Legend of Sakya Buddha.= From the Chinese Sanskrit. 1875. Crown 8vo, 12_s._ =Life of Hiuen-Tsiang.= By the Shamans HWUI LI and YEN-TSUNG, with an Account of the Works of I-TSING. Post 8vo, 10_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =Dhammapada.=--Texts from the Buddhist Canon, commonly known as Dhammapada. Translated from the Chinese. Post 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =Catena of Buddhist Scriptures.= From the Chinese. 8vo, 15_s._ =Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World.= Translated from the Chinese of HIUEN TSIANG (A.D. 629). With Maps. 2 vols. Post 8vo, 24_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =BIKSHU, SUBHADRA, Buddhist Catechism.= 12mo, 2_s._ =EDKINS, J., D.D., Chinese Buddhism.= Sketches Historical and Critical. Post 8vo, 18_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =EITEL, E. J., Chinese Buddhism.= Handbook for the Student of. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 18_s._ =FAUSBOLL, V., The Jataka.= Together with its Commentary, being tales of the anterior birth of Gotama Buddha. Now first published in Pali. Vols. I.-VI. 8vo, 28_s._ each. =JENNINGS, H., The Indian Religions=; or, Results of the Mysterious Buddhism. 1890. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =KISTNER, O., Buddha and his Doctrines.= A Bibliographical Essay. 4to, 2_s._ 6_d._ =LILLIE, A., Popular Life of Buddha.= Containing an answer to the Hibbert Lectures of 1881. With Illustrations. 1883. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =Buddhism in Christendom=; or, Jesus the Essene. With Illustrations. 1887. 8vo, 15_s._ =RHYS-DAVIDS, T. W., Buddhist Birth-Stories=; or, Jataka Tales. The Oldest Collection of Folk-Lore extant. Being the J[=a]takatthavannan[=a], translated from the Pali Text of V. FAUSBOLL. Vol. I. Post 8vo, 18_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =ROCKHILL, W. W., Life of the Buddha and the Early History of his Order.= Derived from Tibetan works in the Bkah-Hgyur and the Bstan-Hgyur. 1884. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =Udanavarga.= A collection of Verses from the Buddhist Canon. Compiled by DHARMATRÂTA, and translated from the Tibetan. 1883. Post 8vo, 9_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =SWAMY, Sir M. C., Sutta Nipata=; or, Dialogues and Discourses of Gotama Buddha. Translated from the Original Pali. Crown 8vo, 6_s._ =The Dathavansa=; or, the History of the Tooth Relic of Gotama Buddha., Pali Text with Translation. 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ English Translation only, 6_s._ (_See also under_ CHINA.) PERSIAN. =HAFIZ, The Divan.= By KHWAJA SHAMSU-D-DIN MUHAMMAD-I-HAFIZ-I-SHIRAZI. Translated into English Prose, with Remarks, etc., by Lieut.-Col. H. WILBERFORCE CLARKE. Vols. I. and II. 1891. 4to, cloth, £2 12_s._ 6_d._ Vol. III., 4to, cloth, £1 11_s._ =HAFIZ, of Shiraz, Selections from His Poems.= Translated from the Persian by H. BICKNELL. 1875. 4to, cloth, £2 2_s._ =JOHNSON, S., Oriental Religions and their Relation to Universal Religion.= Persia. 8vo, 18_s._ =OMAR KHAYYAM, The Quatrains.= Persian Text with an English Verse Translation by E. H. WHINFIELD. 1883. Post 8vo, cloth, 10_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =The Quatrains.= New Translation into English Verse by E. H. WHINFIELD. 1881. Post 8vo, cloth, 5_s._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =RIEU, C., Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum.= 3 vols. 1879-83. 4to, cloth, 25_s._ each volume. =SA'D UD DIN MAHMUD SHABISTARI. Gulshan i Raz (the Mystic Rose Garden).= Persian Text with an English Translation, Notes, and a Commentary, by E. H. WHINFIELD. 1880. 4to, cloth, 10_s._ 6_d._ =The Gulistan, or Rose Garden of Shekh Mushliu'd-Din Sadi of Shiraz.= Translated from the Atish Kadah, by E. B. EASTWICK. Second Edition. Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ (_Trübner's Oriental Series._) =Vazir of Lankuran.= A Persian Play, with a Grammatical Introduction, Translation, Notes, and Vocabulary, by W. H. HAGGARD and G. LE STRANGE. Crown 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ _XI.--BIBLIOGRAPHY, PERIODICALS, AND PUBLICATIONS OF SOCIETIES._ BIBLIOGRAPHY. =ALLIBONE, S. A., Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors.= From the Earliest Accounts to the Latter Half of the 19th Century. 3 vols. Royal 8vo, £5 8_s._ SUPPLEMENT, 1891, 2 vols. royal 8vo, £3 3_s._ =Bibliographica--3 Volumes.= Containing the 12 parts. Bound in half morocco (Roxburgh style). Large Imperial 8vo, £2 2_s._ net. each. =British Museum Publications.= List on application. =DUFF, E. GORDON, Early Printed Books.= With Frontispiece and Ten Plates. Post 8vo, 6_s._ net. (_Books about Books._) =ELTON, CHARLES and MARY, The Great Book Collectors.= With 10 Illustrations. Post 8vo, 6_s._ net. (_Books about Books._) =FLETCHER, W. YOUNGER, English Bookbindings in the British Museum.= With 66 plates. Printed in _fac-simile_ by W. GRIGGS. Folio, limited to 500 copies, £3 3_s._ net. =HARDY, W. J., Book Plates.= With Frontispiece and 36 Illustrations of Book Plates. Post 8vo, 6_s._ net. (_Books about Books._) =HORNE, H. P., The Binding of Books.= With 12 Plates. Post 8vo, 6_s._ net. (_Books about Books._) =IBRAHIM, HIMLY, Prince, The Literature of Egypt and the Soudan.= A Bibliography, comprising Printed Books, Periodical Writings, and Papers of Learned Societies, Maps and Charts, Ancient Papyri Manuscripts, Drawings, etc. 2 vols. Demy 4to, £3 3_s._ =Japan, Bibliography of.= (_See_ ORIENTAL.) =MADAN, FALCONER, Books in Manuscript.= With 8 Plates. Post 8vo, 6_s._ net. (_Books about Books._) =POLLARD, A. W., Early Illustrated Books.= With Plates. Post 8vo, 6_s._ net. (_Books about Books._) =POOLE, W. F., Index to Periodical Literature.= Revised Edition. Royal 8vo, £3 13_s._ 6_d._ net. FIRST SUPPLEMENT, 1882 to 1887. Royal 8vo, £2 net. SECOND SUPPLEMENT, 1887 to 1892. Royal 8vo, £2 net. =SLATER, J. H., Early Editions.= A Bibliographical Survey of the Works of some Popular Authors. 8vo, 21_s._ net. Interleaved with Writing Paper, 26_s._ net. =SWINBURNE, Bibliography of Algernon Charles Swinburne from 1857 to 1887.= Crown 8vo, vellum, gilt, 6_s._ =THACKERAY, Bibliography of.= Sultan Stork, and other Stories and Sketches, 1829-44, now first collected. To which is added the Bibliography of Thackeray. Large 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ =THOMPSON, Sir E. MAUNDE, English Illuminated Manuscripts.= With 21 Plates in Chromo-Lithography. Imperial 8vo, 18_s._ net. =TRÜBNER'S Bibliographical Guide to American Literature from 1817 to 1887.= 8vo, half bound, 18_s._ =Catalogue of Dictionaries and Grammars of the Principal Languages and Dialects of the World.= Second Edition. 8vo, 5_s._ #/ PERIODICALS AND SOCIETIES. =Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Journal of.= Quarterly. 5_s._ =Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer, The.= Edited by EDWARD WALFORD and G. W. REDWAY. Complete in 12 vols. 8vo, £3 net. =Asiatic Society of Bengal, Journal.= 8vo, 3_s._ per number. Proceedings, 1_s._ per number. =Asiatic Society, Royal.= Bombay Branch. Journal. Irregular. =Asiatic Society, Royal.= Ceylon Branch. Journal. Irregular. =Asiatic Society, Royal.= China Branch. Journal. Irregular. =Asiatic Society, Royal.= Straits Branch. Journal. Irregular. =Asiatic Society.= Japan Branch. Transactions. Irregular. =Bibliotheca Sacra.= Quarterly, 3_s._ 6_d._ Annual Subscription, 14_s._ =British Chess Magazine.= Monthly, 9_d._ =Calcutta Review.= Quarterly, 6_s._ =Imperial Institute Year Book.= 10_s._ net. =Index Medicus.= A Monthly Classified Record of the Current Medical Literature of the World. Annual Subscription, 50_s._ =Indian Antiquary.= A Journal of Oriental Research in Archæology, History, Literature, Languages, Philosophy, Religion, Folk-lore, etc. Annual Subscription, £1 16_s._ =Indian Evangelical Review.= Annual Subscription, 10_s._ =Psychical Research Society, Proceedings.= Irregular. =Sanitarian.= Devoted to the Preservation of Health, Mental and Physical Culture. Monthly. Annual Subscription, 18_s._ =Science.= Weekly. Annual Subscription, £1 2_s._ =Scientific American.= Weekly. Annual Subscription, 18_s._ =Scientific American, Export Edition.= Monthly. Annual Subscription, £1 5_s._ =Scientific American, Building Edition.= Monthly. Annual Subscription, 14_s._. --------=Supplement.= Weekly. Annual Subscription, £1 5_s._ =Tropical Agriculturist.= Monthly. Annual Subscription, £1 6_s._ =Parents' Review.= Monthly, 6_d._ * * * * * =Messrs. KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., Ltd, are also Publishers to the following Societies, etc., lists of publications of which may be had on application:= =The Chaucer Society.= =The Early English Text Society.= =The New Shakspere Society.= =The Wagner Society.= =The British Museum.= =The Geological Survey of India.= =The India Office.= =The Egypt Exploration Fund.= Plymouth: W. BRENDON and SON, Printers * * * * * Transcriber's Note Obvious typographical errors have been corrected, but inconsistencies of spelling, hyphenation and accent have been retained. The table of contents confuses Translator's Preface and Prefatory Essay by the Translator, omitting the second of these. This has been corrected. Italics are represented thus, _italics_ and bold thus, =bold=. The list of publications contains a number of asterisms shown as [asterism] and several macron accented vowels shown as, for example [=a]. The page reference in the book catalogue index to Theosophy has been corrected. 
4672	----	None 
47512	----	CHATS ON OLD MINIATURES LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, ADELPHI TERRACE. [Illustration: MANSION. PORTRAIT OF A LADY. _Wallace Collection._] CHATS ON OLD MINIATURES BY J. J. FOSTER, F.S.A. AUTHOR OF "BRITISH MINIATURE PAINTERS AND THEIR WORKS," "THE STUARTS IN 16TH, 17TH, AND 18TH CENTURY ART," "FRENCH ART FROM WATTEAU TO PRUDHON," "CONCERNING THE TRUE PORTRAITURE OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS," ETC., ETC. WITH 117 ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN ADELPHI TERRACE MCMVIII (_All rights reserved._) PREFACE Acceding to the wish of my Publishers that the following pages should be included in a certain well-known series, I have termed them "Chats on Old Miniatures," but confess that I consider the title somewhat of a misnomer, inasmuch as I have been accustomed to regard "a chat" as a conversation between two or more persons interested in a given subject; whereas in this little volume it is obvious that I have done all the talking. In the interval which has elapsed since my larger works appeared the most important event in connection with the subject of Miniatures is, in my opinion, the Exhibition of Works of Art of the Eighteenth Century at the French National Library in 1906. The concluding chapter of this book gives the impressions afforded by that extremely interesting and instructive Exhibition. In the hope that they will be of use to the general reader, I have amplified my references to the public collections of Miniatures in this country, especially those at Hertford House and the Jones Collection, so rich in the works of Petitot. Miss E. M. Foster has been of much service in revising the proofs and passing this work through the press. I have only to add one word, and that relates to the illustrations. I am fortunate in being able to put before my readers so large a selection of choice examples of the art of miniature painting. This I owe to the generosity of the owners of the originals, to whom I desire once again to express my indebtedness and thanks. J. J. FOSTER. LONDON, _Easter, 1908_. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 9 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 13 BIBLIOGRAPHY 17 CHAPTER I. ON COLLECTING MINIATURES AND THE CARE OF THEM 19 II. ORIGIN OF MINIATURES, AND A METHOD OF PAINTING THEM 43 III. CONCERNING ENAMELS AND ENAMEL PAINTERS 63 IV. HOLBEIN, AND EARLY MINIATURE PAINTERS 95 V. NICHOLAS HILLIARD 123 VI. THE OLIVERS AND HOSKINS 145 VII. SAMUEL COOPER 171 VIII. PETITOT 191 IX. SOME GEORGIAN ARTISTS 211 X. COSWAY AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 229 XI. THE LAST OF THE OLD SCHOOL 261 XII. ROYAL AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS 279 XIII. PUBLIC COLLECTIONS 301 XIV. THE FRENCH SCHOOL OF MINIATURE PAINTERS 325 CONCLUSION 361 INDEX 367 ILLUSTRATIONS FRONTISPIECE. _Portrait of a Lady_, by J. Mansion (Wallace Collection). PAGE CHAPTER I.--ON COLLECTING MINIATURES AND THE CARE OF THEM. _Lady Villiers_ and _Katharine, Fifth Duchess of Leeds_, by R. Cosway, R.A. (Col. W. H. Walker) 23 _Louisa of Stolberg_, a Jacobite badge (A. Lang, Esq.) _Mr. Barbor and the Barbor Jewel_ (Victoria and Albert Museum). _Charles I. in his own hair_ (Shelley family) 29 _Queen Elizabeth_ (Harcourt family). _Miss Pretyman_, by R. Cosway, R.A. (J. Davison, Esq.) 37 CHAPTER II.--ORIGIN OF MINIATURES, AND A METHOD OF PAINTING THEM. _A Philospher_, Fifteenth-century Missal (Wallace Collection) 47 _Sir Walter Raleigh_ and _Walter Raleigh, jun._, unknown (Duke of Rutland) 51 _Back of the Enamel Case containing the Raleigh Portraits_ (Duke of Rutland) 55 _Sir John Hatton and his Mother_, ascribed to Lucas de Heere (Earl Spencer) 59 CHAPTER III.--CONCERNING ENAMELS AND ENAMEL PAINTERS. _C. F. Zincke and his wife_, after J. Hysing 67 _Jeremiah Meyer, R.A._, after Dance. _Nathaniel Hone, R.A._, by Himself 71 _Thomas Howard_, by Sir A. More (Duke of Norfolk). _Edmond Butts_, by John Bettes (National Gallery) 77 _Henry Brandon_, by Hans Holbein the Younger (H.M. the King). _Hans Holbein the Younger_, by Himself (from a drawing at Basle). _Charles Brandon_, by Hans Holbein the Younger (H.M. the King) 81 _A Burgomaster_, by Hans Holbein the Younger (H.M. the King). _Lady Audley_, by Hans Holbein the Younger (H.M. the King) 85 _Catharine of Arragon_, by Hans Holbein the Younger. _Henry VIII._, by Hans Holbein the Younger (H.M. the King). _Henry, Duke of Richmond_, by Hans Holbein the Younger (H.M. the King) 91 CHAPTER IV.--HOLBEIN, AND EARLY MINIATURE PAINTERS. _Nicholas Hilliard_, by Himself (from Penshurst). _Lady Mary Sidney_, by N. Hilliard (Harcourt family) 99 _Henry VII._, by N. Hilliard (H.M. the King). _Charles the First when Prince of Wales_, by Isaac Oliver (Duke of Rutland). _Spenser_ (Lord Fitzhardinge) 103 _Isaacus Oliverus, Anglus Pictor_ (from a print in the British Museum) 107 _Venetia, Lady Digby_, by I. Oliver (Burdett-Coutts Collection). _I. Oliver_, by Himself (H.M. the King) 111 _Sir Kenelm Digby_ and _Venetia, Lady Digby_, by Peter Oliver (Burdett-Coutts Collection) 115 _Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset_, by Isaac Oliver. _Peter Oliver_, after Sir A. Van Dyck. _Arabella Stuart_, by Peter Oliver (Capt. J. H. Edwards, Heathcote) 119 CHAPTER V.--NICHOLAS HILLIARD. _Charles I._, by John Hoskins (H.M. the King). _Duke of Buckingham_, by Isaac Oliver (H.M. the King) 126 _Oliver Cromwell_, by S. Cooper (Duke of Devonshire). _Oliver Cromwell_, by S. Cooper (Duke of Sutherland) 129 _George Monck, Duke of Albemarle_, by S. Cooper (H.M. the King) 133 _Duchess of Cleveland_, by S. Cooper (Countess of Caledon). _O. Cromwell's Mother._ _Lady Leigh_, by S. Cooper (Sackville Bale Collection) 137 _Sir John King_, by Alexander Cooper (H.M. the King). _S. Cooper_, by Himself (Dyce Collection) 141 CHAPTER VI.--THE OLIVERS AND HOSKINS. _Petitot_, by Himself. _Mlle. Fontanges_, by Petitot. _Henrietta d'Orleans_, by Petitot (Burdett-Coutts Collection) 151 _Louis XIV._, by Petitot. _Charles I._, by Petitot (Burdett-Coutts Collection). _James II._, by Petitot (Burdett-Coutts Collection). _Cardinal Mazarin_, by Petitot (Earl of Carlisle). _Cardinal Richelieu_, by Petitot 157 _Petitot le Vieux_, by Petitot (Earl Dartrey). _Petitot_, from a print in the British Museum. _Charles II._, by Petitot (Burdett-Coutts Collection) 163 CHAPTER VII.--SAMUEL COOPER. _Lady Mary Wortley Montagu_, by S. Liotard. _Amelia, Duchess of Leinster_, after Sir Joshua Reynolds (Earl of Charlemont) 174 _A Lady_, unknown (Lord Tweedmouth). _Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough_, by Gaspar Netscher (Charles Butler, Esq.) 177 _Duchess of Hamilton_, by W. Derby (Earl of Derby). _Miss Kitty Mudge_, by James Nixon (Canon Raffles Flint) 181 _Marchioness of Hertford_, by R. Cosway, R.A. (Meynell-Ingram Collection). _Portrait of a Gentleman_, by S. Shelley (Miss Kendall). _Lady Frances Radcliffe_, by S. Collins (Earl of Carlisle) 185 _Lady Elizabeth Hamilton_, by W. Derby (Earl of Derby) 189 CHAPTER VIII.--PETITOT. _Richard and Maria Cosway_, by R. Cosway, R.A. 195 _Lady Caroline Howard_, by R. Cosway, R.A. (Earl of Carlisle). _William, fifth Duke of Devonshire_, by R. Cosway, R.A. (Earl of Carlisle). _Lady Horatio Seymour_, by R. Cosway, R.A. 199 _George IV. when Prince of Wales_, by R. Cosway, R.A. (Shaftesbury family) 203 _Lady Caroline Duncombe_, by R. Cosway, R.A. (W. B. Stopford, Esq.). _The Ladies Georgina and Harriet Cavendish_, by R. Cosway, R.A. (Earl of Carlisle) 207 CHAPTER IX.--SOME GEORGIAN ARTISTS. _R. Cosway, R.A._, by Himself (National Portrait Gallery) 213 _Lady Hamilton_ (J. H. Anderdon, Esq.). _Lady Theresa Strangways_, by A. Plimer 216 _Lady Orde_, by R. Cosway, R.A. (Sir A. J. Campbell-Orde, Bart.) 219 _Caroline of Anspach_, by O. Humphrey, R.A. _Lady Clive_, by J. Smart (Earl of Powis). _Portrait of a Lady_, by J. Smart (Miss Kendall). _Lord Clive_, by J. Smart (Earl of Powis) 223 _Ozias Humphrey, R.A._, after G. Romney 227 CHAPTER X.--COSWAY AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. _Portrait of a Lady_, by G. Engleheart (Col. W. H. Walker). _Portrait of a Gentleman_, by G. Engleheart (M. Viennot) 233 _Portrait of a Gentleman_, by W. Wood. _Maria, Duchess of Coventry_, unknown (J. G. Fanshawe, Esq.) 239 _The Baroness Burdett-Coutts_, by Sir W. C. Ross, R.A. 243 _Countess of Leitrim_, by A. Robertson. _The Artist's Mother_, by Sir W. C. Ross, R.A. 249 _William Cobden_, by R. Dudman. _Millicent Amber, his Wife_, by R. Dudman 253 _Master Cobden, son of Richard Cobden_ 257 CHAPTER XI.--THE LAST OF THE OLD SCHOOL. _Mary Stuart_, by Janet (H.M. the King) 265 _The Duke of Monmouth_, by S. Cooper (H.M. the King) 269 _Queen Charlotte_, by Ozias Humphrey, R.A. (H.M. the King). _James II._, by S. Cooper (H.M. the King) 273 _Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire_, by R. Cosway, R.A. (H.M. the King) 277 CHAPTER XII.--ROYAL AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS. _Henry, Cardinal of York_ and _Prince Charles Edward_, unknown (H.R.H. the Duchess of Albany). _Mme. de Montespan_, by Petitot. _Mary Stuart_, from an enamel by H. Bone (Burdett-Coutts Collection) 283 _Sir Kenelm Digby, Wife, and Sons_, by Peter Oliver, after Sir A. van Dyck (Burdett-Coutts Collection) 289 _Sir Philip Sidney_, by Isaac Oliver (H.M. the King) 295 CHAPTER XIII.-PUBLIC COLLECTIONS. _The Dauphin_, by Janet (H.M. the King). _Napoleon I._, by Chatillon (Duke of Wellington) 305 _Portrait of Mirabeau_, Anonymous (M. Gabriel Marceau). _Portrait of a Lady_, by P. A. Hall (Mme. de B.) 311 _Portrait of the Painter C. J. Natoire_, by J. B. Massé (M. Ed. Taigny) 317 CHAPTER XIV.--THE FRENCH SCHOOL OF MINIATURE PAINTERS. _Benoit Boulouvard de Sainte Albine and Sister_, by L. Sicardi (M. le Comte Allard du Chollet) 329 _Mlle. Constance Mayer_, by P. P. Prudhon (Eudoxe-Marcille Collection) 335 _Portrait of a Lady_, by J. B. Augustin (M. Ed. Taigny). _Portrait of a Young Lady_, by J. Guérin (Mme. de Sainte Martin Valogne) 341 _Mme. Henri Belmont_, by L. F. Aubry (M. de Richter) 347 _F. B. Isabey_, by Himself (M. Ed. Taigny) 353 WORKS OF REFERENCE Archæologia, volume 39. Athenæum, The. Biographie Universelle. Bordier, Les Emaux de Petitot en Angleterre, G. des Beaux Arts, 1867. Bradley's Dictionary of Miniaturists, Illuminators, &c., 3 vols., 1887. Bromley's Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits. Bryan's Dictionary of Artists. Burlington Fine Arts Club, Catalogue of Exhibition of Miniatures at. Connoisseur Library, Heath, Dudley, Miniatures, 1905. De Conches, History of English School of Painting. Eighteenth Century, Exhibition of Works of Art of (Catalogue), Paris, 1906. Evelyn's Diary. Fairholt's Dictionary of Art terms. Foster, J. J., British Miniature Painters and their Works, 1898. " Miniature Painters, British and Foreign, 1903. " Concerning the true Portraiture of Mary Stuart, 1904. Gazette des Beaux Arts. Gower, Lord Ronald, Great Historic Galleries. Granger's Biographical History of England. Graves, A., Dictionary of Artists. Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography. Kugler's Handbook of Painting. Labarte, Jules, Histoire des Arts Industriels. Laborde's Renaissance des Arts. Lacroix, The Arts in the Middle Ages. Lenoir, Catalogue de collection du Louvre. Lomazzo, A tracte containing the Artes of Painting. Louvre, Catalogues. Mariette's Abecedario. Merrifield's Arts of Painting. Miniatures, Special Loan Exhibition, South Kensington, 1865. Molinier, E., Dictionnaire des Emailleurs, Paris, 1885. Nagler's Kunst Lexicon. Pattison, Mrs. Mark, Renaissance of Art in France. Pepys' Diary. Propert's History of Miniature Painting, London, 1887. Redgrave's Century of Painters. Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists of the English School. Robertson, Andrew, Letters and Papers of. Rouquet's State of the Arts in England. Smith, J. R. Nollekens and his Times. Van der Doort's Catalogue, by Vertue, London, 1757. Vasari's Lives of the Painters. Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting. Williamson, G. C., Portrait Miniatures. Wornum's Life and Works of Holbein, London, 1867. I ON THE COLLECTING OF MINIATURES CHATS ON OLD MINIATURES CHAPTER I ON THE COLLECTING OF MINIATURES You would like to make a collection of old miniatures, did I hear my reader say? and you want to know the best way to set about it? Well, I can suggest one way: it is to become a millionaire, and let it be known that you are interested in miniatures, then you will find that a collection can easily be made, and not only so, but people will actually make it for you, with an alacrity, ingenuity, and industry which may surprise you. Should you further inquire what the collection would be like when made, my reply would be: that depends upon your own taste, intelligence, knowledge of art in general, and of miniature painting in particular; upon the depth of your purse--and, I had almost said, on your luck. Let me take that last-named qualification first, and illustrate what I mean by luck in relation to a collection of miniatures. Some years ago the father of the present Duke of Buccleuch took to collecting miniatures, and the agent he employed to purchase them was the late Mr. Dominic Colnaghi, into whose shop there walked one day a man who said he had some little pictures to sell that he had bought with a "job lot" of old silver and gold from a working jeweller. These "little pictures" turned out to be no less a prize than a number of miniatures formerly in the collection of Charles I., which, as we know, was dispersed at the time of the Commonwealth. In the days of the King's prosperity these had been catalogued and described by the Royal Librarian, the conscientious Dutchman Van der Doort, and these miniatures bore on their back a crown and the royal cipher, the entwined C's. Now, after all their vicissitudes, these priceless historical miniatures rest in Montagu House, Whitehall, barely a stone's throw from the window in the banqueting-hall of the palace whence their Royal one-time owner stepped forth upon the scaffold on that bitter winter morning of January 30, 1649. By the word "luck" in connection with this acquisition, I mean that they might have been taken to any one else but Dominic Colnaghi, in which case there is but little likelihood of their having formed part of the famous Buccleuch Collection. In truth, it may be said that there is no royal road for the collection of miniatures, and especially in these days, when so many sharp eyes are on the look-out for them. If you go to the auction-room you are confronted with that iniquitous institution known as the "knock-out," which not only debars the owner from getting the full value of his property, but often prevents the would-be private purchaser from acquiring it at all. [Illustration: R. COSWAY, R.A. LADY VILLIERS. (_Col. W. H. Walker._) KATHARINE, FIFTH DUCHESS OF LEEDS. (_Col. W. H. Walker._)] To be a successful collector of miniatures demands that one should be conversant with their market value, which, in its turn, presupposes some knowledge of the various painters and the characteristics of their work. Here again, I make so bold as to assert, there is no royal road. Knowledge of this sort, like most other knowledge worth possessing, has to be acquired by experience, by patience, and by degrees. The various handbooks which have appeared in such plenty of late years professing to teach "How to Identify this" and "How to Collect that" are, no doubt, valuable in their way, but, in my opinion, are apt to lead the inexperienced collector to believe that the discrimination and the judgment essential to safety are more easily acquired than is likely to be the case in so difficult a pursuit. And it is difficult, because, as no doubt the reader will often have observed for himself, it is so very frequently the case that miniatures do not bear the names of either the person whom they are intended to represent, or of the artist who drew the likeness. So that the collector who would judge of some little head, it may be, is thrown back upon the necessity of having an intimate knowledge of the technical characteristics and qualities of the work before him, which is often the sole test that he can apply and the trifling clue he has to follow. In the case of old silver there are, at any rate, the stamps to guide the connoisseur, to say nothing of other differences which I need not stop to point out. Most old china, too, is marked. Again, as with china, and also with silver, there is the forger to beware of, and he constitutes a very real danger, even to collectors of experience, because the forgery of miniatures is brought in these days almost to the level of a fine art, and the ingenuity employed to deceive is indeed remarkable. Take by way of illustration the practice of painting miniatures upon old playing-cards--or what appear to be old playing-cards, for I am told that such things as the latter are expressly fabricated. In the days of the Stuarts miniatures were painted upon pieces of playing-cards, and when framed they were often backed up by one or two other pieces fitted in behind them. These latter pieces afford valuable opportunity for the forger's exertions. Old papier-mâché frames, from which some silhouette or comparatively worthless portrait has been taken, are employed to mislead the unwary. A copy, painted only the week before, is put into some old frame of the eighteenth century, and although costing but a few shillings (and dear at that), is offered at as many guineas to the confiding collector, who, if he falls into the trap, thinks he has got a bargain, as no doubt he would have if--_if_ only the prize were an original, and what it professed to be. Then the manufacture of copies of well-known examples in public collections is carried on unblushingly and upon a wholesale scale. I have had large leather cases of such things, containing tray after tray of them, offered me repeatedly, and "upon highly advantageous terms." These are the work of continental copyists, German and French. In Paris they may be found by the gross in the shops of the Rue de Rivoli and in the purlieus of the Palais Royal. And let not the collector make light of this persistent fabrication, because, remember, they _are_ bought by somebody. The distribution of them is going on, as Americans say, "all the time." They become dispersed and crop up again under all sorts of circumstances, from all kinds of sources; they have endless fictitious origins given to them. Generally you are told that they have been in the possessor's family for untold generations, and that the grandfather of the would-be vendor refused a fabulous sum for them. Perhaps the best advice that I, as one of some experience in such matters, can give, is to be summed up in the word "caution." I say, then, use caution, and always caution, and once more caution. There remains the alternative of acquiring miniatures by private treaty, often a somewhat delicate matter. It would not be difficult to write an essay on the Ethics of Collecting, but it might be hard to discriminate with nicety between the use the collector is justified in making of his superior knowledge, to the detriment of the possessor, because we must not forget that when a bargain is "picked up," the _owner_ does not benefit much. It is of the essence of "a bargain" that the coveted object--whether it be old china, old furniture, jewels, or what not--shall be acquired below its customary, real, and interchangeable value. Well, that clearly is a transaction in which both parties cannot reap the advantage, and the gain of the one is measured exactly by the loss of the other. The tactics of the buyer are well understood in the East, where they are universally practised to-day, as they have been for untold centuries. Do we not read in Proverbs, "The buyer saith it is naught, it is naught, and when he goeth his way he rejoiceth"? But enough on a matter which, after all, must be left to the individual conscience, always supposing a "collector" has one. Uncertainty and confusion often arise in the mind of purchasers owing to miniature painters of widely different abilities bearing similar names, and sometimes owning the same initials. It is important, therefore, to be able to discriminate in such cases. Thus we shall find three "Arlauds" and an "Artaud," though I suspect the last named is a misprint. It occurs on a miniature shown at Kensington in 1865. Amongst the early men there represented were two Betts, or Bettes, Thomas and John, probably brothers, though their relationship is really uncertain. One frequently hears a work described as an enamel by H. Bone. There were two--Henry, the father, a Royal Academician, and Henry Pierce Bone, his son. There were also two grandsons of Henry Bone, viz., W. and C. R., who practised between 1826 and 1851. The latter of these contributed no less than sixty-seven miniatures to the Royal Academy. In 1801 there was also an enamel shown at the Academy by P. J. Bone. [Illustration: A JACOBITE BADGE. LOUISA OF STOLBERG. (_A. Lang, Esq._)] [Illustration: MR. BARBOR AND THE BARBOR JEWEL. (_Victoria and Albert Museum_)] [Illustration: CHARLES I. IN HIS OWN HAIR. (_Shelley family._)] A. E. Chalon, R.A., was a miniature painter; he was brother to John James Chalon, R.A. Miss M. A. Chalon, the miniaturist, was a daughter of Henry Bernard Chalon, and no relation to the above-named Academicians. Lawrence Crosse must be distinguished from Richard Crosse, whom he preceded by many years. As we all know, many good miniatures were painted by Maria, wife of Richard Cosway. There were two Collins, both admirable miniaturists, but no relation to each other, viz., Samuel, master of Ozias Humphrey, R.A., and Richard Collins, pupil of Jeremiah Meyer, R.A. Samuel Cooper had an elder and less accomplished brother, Alexander. Alexander Day must not be confounded with Thomas Day, nor with Edward Dayes, whose wife was also a miniature painter. William Derby had a son Alfred T. Derby, a miniature painter like his father. Then we must distinguish between John Dixon, the pupil of Lely, who was made "Keeper of the King's picture closet" by William III.; John Dixon, the mezzotint engraver, and N. Dixon. The last named was an excellent miniature painter who is well represented in the Buccleuch Collection, although unmentioned in Redgrave's "Dictionary." There were eleven works by him shown at the Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1879 portraits of the period of the Restoration and somewhat later. In the catalogue of this exhibition Dixon is called Nathaniel; Mr. Goulding, the Duke of Portland's librarian, informs me there is evidence at Welbeck that this artist's Christian name was Nicholas. There were two Englehearts, viz., George and his less talented nephew, J. C. D. William Essex had a son William B. Essex, also an enameller. I find two Ferriers, F. and L., probably father and son, and three Goupeys, Louis, also the brothers Joseph and Bernard. Mrs. Mary Green was no relation to her contemporary, Robert Green, also a miniaturist. Richard Gibson, the dwarf, had a daughter, Susan Penelope, and a nephew William, who both followed his profession. Charles Hayter was eclipsed as a miniature painter by his son, Sir George. There was a Moses Haughton, or Houghton, an enameller, who had a nephew, also named Moses, a miniaturist. D. Heins and John Heins, his son, both painted miniatures at Norwich. Nicholas and Lawrence Hilliard, father and son, are probably often confused. There are said to be two Hoskins, both John, also father and son. Two out of the three Hones were miniaturists, viz., Nathaniel, R.A., and his grandson, Horace Hone, A.R.A. Thomas Hopkins was an enameller, and William Hopkins a miniature painter. There were several artists of the name of Lens, viz., Bernard Lens, enameller, who had a son Bernard, an engraver, and a grandson (also Bernard), enamel painter to George II.; whilst Andrew Benjamin Lens and Peter Paul Lens, each miniature painters, are assumed to have been sons of the last-named Bernard. G. M. Moser, R.A., had a nephew an enameller, named Joseph Moser. His daughter Mary was celebrated as a flower painter, but I do not find that she painted miniatures. The short-lived Richard Newton should be distinguished from Sir William John Newton. Daniel and John O'Keefe were brothers, and both miniaturists. Isaac and Peter Oliver were father and son. Of the two Plimers, Andrew and Nathaniel, brothers, the latter was the inferior artist. Alexander Pope, the poet, was an industrious amateur artist; but there was another Alexander Pope, an Irish miniature painter, who exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1787 to 1821, and who was also an actor; he played at Covent Garden in 1783. Andrew Robertson, the well-known Scottish miniature painter, had two brothers, of inferior artistic ability to himself; they both had the same initial, namely A, one being Archibald, the other Alexander. There was a Mrs. A. Robertson who also painted miniatures; she was a Miss Saunders, niece of George Saunders the miniature painter. She worked in this country in the early part of the nineteenth century; going to St. Petersburg in 1847, she was elected a member of the Russian Imperial Academy. Two other Robertsons, the brothers Walter and Charles, practised in Dublin at the end of the eighteenth century, the latter excelling in female portraits. The Petitots, father and son, were both named John. One of the most familiar names amongst British miniature painters is that of Ross, and Sir William Charles Ross may be said to have been the last of the old school. His father (H. Ross) and mother both painted miniatures. Then there was also an H. Ross, jun., who exhibited at the Academy from 1815 to 1845; a Miss Magdalene Ross, who became Mrs. Edwin Dalton, and exhibited for over twenty years, and finally a Miss Maria Ross. There were two Sadlers, Thomas of the seventeenth century, and William Sadler, who flourished in the eighteenth century. I shall mention only two Smiths, both sons of Smith of Derby, viz., Thomas Correggio, the elder and John Raphael Smith. Two William Sherlocks exhibited miniatures at the Royal Academy in 1803. Joseph and William Singleton were contemporary exhibitors during the last century. Of the three Saunders, George L. is the most distinguished; the other two, Joseph and R., were father and son. Finally, there were three Smarts known as miniaturists, viz., Samuel Paul and the two John Smarts, father and son, besides Anthony Smart and his two daughters. I shall have something more to say later in this volume about several of the artists whom I have just mentioned, but here I may refer to a miniature painter who may well be placed in a class by herself, for she painted without hands or feet. This lady was a Mrs. Wright, _née_ Sarah Biffin; nothing daunted by her apparently overwhelming physical disabilities, she learnt drawing, and in 1821 was awarded a medal by the Society of Arts. I am not aware of other miniature painters handicapped as Miss Biffin must have been. But I know of several other artists who have worked without hands, _e.g._, C. F. Felu, a Belgian painter, who was a familiar figure in the Antwerp Gallery, where he painted for many years, and copied hundreds of the masterpieces therein. He held his palette with his left great toe placed through the orifice in which it is usual to put the thumb, and used the brush with his other foot with astonishing freedom and precision. I remember to have seen him fasten the small metal hooks of his colour box with the utmost ease and celerity. Then there was W. Carter, who, having neither hands nor feet, drew exquisitely with his mouth; and of late years Mr. Bartram Hiles, deprived of his arms by a tramcar accident, has shown what a noble enthusiasm to practise as an artist can enable a man to do. ON THE CARE OF MINIATURES. "First catch your hare," said Mrs. Glass in her immortal cookery-book. And now, the reader having collected miniatures, or being their fortunate possessor by inheritance or otherwise, it is not unimportant to know how to take proper care of them. These delicate works of art are always subject to the attacks of two enemies, and they are insidious enemies, although of widely different natures. The one is sunlight, and the other is damp, which brings mildew and disfigurement in its train. It is really melancholy to see, as one so often does, the terrible destruction which has been wrought by these two agencies, a destruction the nature and extent of which are, perhaps, only fully realised when one is fortunate enough to come across a work by a fine miniature painter in anything like its pristine condition. I am talking of old miniatures, of course, and have in my mind as I write a portrait, by one of the Olivers, I think, of Henry, Prince of Wales, that I saw in one of those interesting historical exhibitions at the New Gallery; the Stuart it must have been. This miniature was surrounded by many others, ostensibly by the same artists, and by examples of contemporary painters. It doubtless had been kept covered up during the many years it had been painted, and thus had a freshness and vigour which was absolutely startling in comparison with the faded, ghostlike specimens to be seen around. Indeed, it is only when we see a good miniature in anything like its original condition that we can grasp and fully appreciate the strength and beauty of the earlier masters, and admit, without any doubt or qualification, their claim to our admiration. [Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH. (_Harcourt family._)] [Illustration: R. COSWAY, R.A. MISS PRETYMAN. (_J. Davison, Esq._)] Take another painter, Nicholas Hilliard. A most prolific artist he would seem to be, judging from the number of examples by him that I have met with; speaking generally, one may say that all his work is marked by flatness in the flesh-painting. This artist was appointed painter of miniatures to Queen Elizabeth, and we are told that he was instructed to paint her royal features without any shadows. My point is that nearly all his work is marked more or less by the same peculiarity. Now this may be the result of a fashion set by the Virgin Queen, and, as imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (and she was very fond of flattery), that may in part account for the frequently ghostlike effect of the faces in Hilliard's work; but my own opinion is that in nearly all of them the carnations have flown, as artists say. That constant source of mischief--exposure to light--is always to be guarded against. Owners are, it must be said, very careless in such matters. I have seen in the morning-rooms of great houses most valuable miniatures hung on the shutters, or stuck about on a screen, placed perhaps in the embrasure of a window. No doubt the owners like to be surrounded by such things, but they should at least have some consideration for posterity. In such a room as I have spoken of you may perhaps see a case of miniatures hung over the mantelpiece, with a hot chimney behind them. Within my own experience I have known most disastrous results, from that cause alone, in the case of historical miniatures of great value, belonging to a noble owner who shall be nameless. Turning now to the other great disfigurement which so often besets miniatures--the ravages made by mildew. This, in some instances, can be traced to the fact of cases containing miniatures being hung against a damp wall. Probably the simple expedient of a piece of cork, fastened at each corner on the back of the case, would have proved a safeguard. This would prevent contact with the wall, and allow of a current of air passing up behind. Although the fungus which results from damp is terribly disfiguring, it dies off in time, leaving a yellow stain. This can be removed by a skilful hand and careful treatment, and, in so far, is a less-to-be-dreaded enemy than light, or I should say sunlight. This latter, of course, can be easily guarded against by another simple expedient, which is, either to keep your miniatures locked up in drawers, or, if you must have them on your walls, have a small rod fastened to the top of your case, with a dark curtain on it which you can draw back at pleasure. But I have heard some collectors say, "My miniatures have never been put against damp walls; they have been kept in cases always, yet they have mildew on them." Well, it must be admitted that this unsightly, objectionable fungus does appear unexpectedly and in the best regulated households. No doubt the germs were there, shut into the case; in due course they have been developed, bringing perplexity and dismay with them. * * * * * Miniatures of a comparatively recent type, that is to say upon ivory (as well-informed collectors know, it was not until the early Georgian period that this substance was used to paint on)--miniatures on ivory, I repeat, are subject to curl, warp, and crack; changes of temperature easily affect the thin slices which the artist uses; when one of these splits, as it often does, the only thing to be done is carefully to lay the pieces down on cardboard, joining the edges as skilfully as may be, a task only to be performed satisfactorily by an expert. The large miniatures by Sir William Ross, Sir W. J. Newton, and R. Thorburn are particularly liable to this mischief, the reason for which is to be found in the practice of these artists in employing several pieces of ivory for one picture. A large slab, the largest procurable, taken from the circumference of a tusk, rolled flat under great pressure, was laid down by gutta-percha upon a well-seasoned mahogany panel; round this on all sides were laid other strips of ivory, the whole forming a large surface upon which it was possible to paint an elaborate composition, proportionately expensive, (for that, I take it, was the principal incentive to the artist). Such pictures as these represented great labour--for you cannot "wash in colour" on ivory--and being highly finished all over, warranted the artists in asking high prices, and they obtained them. Other dangers there are, arising from the cupidity excited by the value of these little works, so easily removed, and often in valuable settings. But risks from those who break through and steal are common to all valuables, and owners of property are alive to them. Yet these few words of reminder and caution against pilferers will, I trust, not be deemed out of place. II THE ORIGIN OF THE ART CHAPTER II THE ORIGIN OF THE ART When we come to get a little familiar with old miniatures, to have learned their language, as it were, we shall find that, if they are authentic portraits, they possess, in addition to their high personal interest, other and distinct values as illustrations of art, of history, and of costume. They are, in fact, when genuine and contemporary, precious documents, some of which go back several centuries, and are of great service in reading the history of the past. They have, like other works of art, their definite origins; and so, too, they have their own separate and distinct characteristics, and it is upon these and such-like aspects of the study that I propose now to say a few words. As in the case of so many arts and religions, it is to the Orient, that cradle of them all, as far as our present knowledge allows us to know, that we must turn our eyes, if we wish to find the earliest source of the practice. There is no doubt whatever that the Egyptian papyri were rubricated, and we may safely conclude that the use of gold, silver, and colour in the ornamentation of MSS. found its way from the valley of the Nile into Greece. Thence Greek artists took it to Rome, and from Rome the use spread throughout Europe. Many choice historical miniatures have long pedigrees, and it may be worth while to see how far back we can definitely trace the practice of the fascinating art which gave them birth. On this point I may quote the opinion of the late Keeper of the Department of Engravings in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, M. Henri Bouchot. He had made, as is well known, a close and profound study of the art of the French "Primitifs," and therefore the conclusions that he arrived at may, I think, be very safely taken on this subject. Writing many years ago in the _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, he said the origin of miniature painting "is lost in the obscurity of the ninth century." He contended that the heads which are to be found in MSS. of that period, the work of monkish artists, are intended to represent some well-known prince, emperor, or pope of that time. He suggested that the painter, shut up in his monastery, could only paint such a portrait from hearsay, and from information which he gathered from brethren of his Order, or from neighbouring great nobles with whom he came in contact, and who, in their turn, had seen the original of such a portrait or portraits. If this distinguished French critic be right, it follows that at that remote date such representations could have been little less than pure inventions; and such, indeed, he would have us suppose to be the case for several centuries more. But at the commencement of the fourteenth century it would seem that the illuminators set themselves to render the real portraiture of individuals; and here, from our point of view, the especial interest of the subject may be said to begin. [Illustration: FIFTEENTH-CENTURY MISSAL. A PHILOSOPHER. (_Wallace Collection._)] The art, then, may be traced to the illuminated devotional manuscripts, Books of the Hours, or Lives of the Saints, enshrining minute, exquisite, and loving labour. Who these early artists of the Scriptorium were we shall never know; but the manuscripts which have escaped the wreck of Time have come down to us, silent yet eloquent testimonies of their authors' patience and skill. It is in connection with their beautiful work that the word "miniature" came into existence, the term being derived from the Latin _minium_, or red lead, that being the pigment in which the capital letters in the manuscripts were drawn. The art of medieval illumination was expressed by the Latin verb _miniare_; the word thus will be seen to be closely allied to our term "rubric." The persons employed in this work seem to have been classified as Miniatori, Miniatori Caligrifi, or Pulchri Scriptores. The first named painted scenes from Scripture stories, also the exquisite borders and arabesques. To the others would be entrusted the writing of the body of the book. But whilst we may thus go back to medieval times for the origin of the name, it can hardly be said to have been in use with us before the beginning of the eighteenth century. Thus Samuel Pepys never uses the word, while Horace Walpole constantly does so. An entry in the Diary of the former, made in 1668, speaks of his wife's picture which Samuel Cooper painted for him; and earlier--that is, in 1662--John Evelyn relates how he was called in to the closet of the King (Charles II.), and "saw Mr. Cooper, the rare limner, crayoning of the King's face and head to make the stamps by for the new milled money now contriving." The reader will observe that no mention of the word "miniature" is made by either writer. And there is something arbitrary in the use of the word now and always, for it is restricted to portraits in water-colours or gouache, whether on vellum, paper, or ivory. Yet figures when painted in oil, even though as small as Gerard Dow's, or not more than two or three inches high, are called small pictures. When the most important exhibition of miniatures ever held in this country--namely, the collection which was brought together at South Kensington, in 1865--was being arranged, its organisers were confronted with the difficulty attaching to a definition of the term; and it may be worth while to give the conclusion they arrived at. In reply to the question, What constitutes a miniature portrait? they remark that miniatures may be drawn on any material, painted in any medium, and in every style of art. Commencing with the head only, to which the skill of some of our early "face painters" was limited, we find their works followed by miniature half-lengths, whole-lengths, and groups; but from these no technical, accepted definition of the term "miniature" can be derived. Without, therefore, attempting to lay down a rule, it was deemed best in the interests of the exhibition to accept all such works as were drawn to a small scale and were, in manner, of a miniature character, except paintings on porcelain. [Illustration: UNKNOWN. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. WALTER RALEIGH, JUNIOR. (_Duke of Rutland._)] Returning to the origin of the term, we see that it was the ornamentation of the office of the Mass in use in the Christian Church which really gave rise to it. Under the protection of Constantine, Christian art may be said to have come into existence in the fourth century at Byzantium. Work of this period has a very strongly marked and sufficiently familiar character of its own. The Canterbury Gospels in the British Museum are ascribed to the eighth century, and the Louvre possesses a noble work in the shape of the Prayer Book of Charlemagne, which belongs to the ninth century. It is to Charlemagne that we owe the Carlovingian school, and when the tomb of the great Emperor, at Aix-la-Chapelle, was opened, a copy of the Gospels was found upon his knees. Another very interesting school is the Hibernian, sometimes called Anglo-Celtic. A characteristic feature of this work is the inferiority of the figure-drawing, but the elaborate and beautiful interlacing of the geometrical patterns is no less remarkable. Perhaps the best-known example of this school is the Book of Kells, preserved in Trinity College, Dublin. Brought from the abbey church of Kells in 1621 by Archbishop Ussher, it was confiscated during the Commonwealth, but restored to Trinity College by Charles II. after the Restoration. Still dealing with the early work of this nature, I may briefly refer to what is known as Opus Anglicum, of which the Benedictional of St. Ethelwald, belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, is the most celebrated example. This belongs to the latter part of the tenth century, as we know by a Dedication it contains, showing that it was made for Ethelwald, Bishop of Winchester from 963 to 984 A.D. The Bishop "commanded a certain monk subject to him (the scribe Godeman) to write the present book, and ordered also to be made in it certain arches, elegantly decorated and filled up with various ornamental pictures expressed in divers beautiful colours and gold." And so we might go on to consider the various Continental schools--the Flemish and German, the French and Italian--but the subject is too large to be dealt with here. Those of my readers who care to pursue a fascinating study will find ample illustration in the freely displayed treasures of the British Museum, where fine examples of every school may be seen. At Hertford House the Wallace Collection, amongst its multifarious treasures, contains some initial letters which have been cut out of MSS., no doubt on account of their beauty. They are obviously portraiture. The example here shown is Italian work, and is taken from a fifteenth-century missal. Whilst I am unable to enter upon details of the earliest schools, I may observe that the material upon which work of this nature was done has a practical bearing upon our subject. It was upon vellum, sometimes stained purple, upon which the letters were written in gold or silver. There is a magnificent example of this work, known as the Codex Purpureo-Argenteus, preserved at Upsala, in Sweden. This has been dated as early as A.D. 360. And I remember the pride with which the monks in the remote monastery on the Isle of Patmos showed me five pages of one of the Gospels, also on vellum, stained purple, which had been preserved in their library with religious care for unknown centuries. The surface of the vellum, naturally greasy, would have to be carefully prepared for the art of the "steyners," as they came to be called. When so prepared it was called _Pecorella_. [Illustration: BACK OF THE ENAMEL CASE CONTAINING THE RALEIGH PORTRAITS. (_Duke of Rutland._)] To vellum succeeded cardboard. Nicholas Hilliard and the great English miniature painter Samuel Cooper commonly used old playing cards; and a very good substance for the purpose they were, not being so liable to cockle as vellum, nor to crack, curl, and split as ivory under certain conditions is liable to do. It has already been noted that ivory did not come into use for such purposes until about the end of the seventeenth or beginning of the eighteenth century. This is a very important point in detecting forgeries, and, indeed, in determining the age of any work about which doubt may exist. The way to paint miniatures is no part of the subject of this book; nevertheless, by way of giving a practical value to its pages, I may state the method employed by a miniature painter with whom I was well acquainted and whose work I greatly admired, and this seems a convenient place to do so. The artist to whom I refer was the late Robert Henderson, a self-taught man, born in Dumfries. He lived to the close of the nineteenth century, but the manner of his execution was essentially that of the mid-Victorian painters, and whilst it had not quite the brilliancy of the flesh tones of Sir William Ross, for example, whose work he greatly admired, it was always conscientious, sound, and excellent. Without being laboured, it was always marked by a careful finish. He was a frequent exhibitor in the Royal Academy, but was indifferent to the distinction, having constant employment from Messrs. Dickinson for a long series of years, during which he painted a large number of the British aristocracy. I am able to subjoin some account of his method of working and choice of colours from particulars he gave me himself, and as they may be useful to others, I extract them pretty much in his own words:-- "Having chosen a piece of ivory of good colour and even texture, prepare its surface by rubbing it with the finest glass paper. The first step is to draw the likeness with a blacklead pencil on paper, not on the ivory itself, because, if any corrections are needed, they cannot be made without smudging and making the ivory dirty, a thing to be studiously avoided. This drawing should then be carefully transferred to the surface of the ivory by means of a piece of tracing paper. "Now take a nice flat sable brush, and wash the face all over with a flesh colour, then indicate the features, eyes, and so forth, touching in the nostrils and mouth. Next prepare a grey tint, made of cobalt or ultramarine with a tinge of red to give it a lilac tint. Wash this all round the outer part of the face--not touching the centre of the face. Then with a little blue mixed with the flesh colour, work up the face until you get somewhat the effect of an engraving. This being done, you may proceed to put in the deepest shadows, _e.g._, under the nose and eyebrows, with a warm colour composed of a light red with a little blue in it. Having got your deep shadows in, use the grey again, this time with a little more flesh colour, and blend the whole together. [Illustration: ASCRIBED TO LUCAS DE HEERE. SIR JOHN HATTON AND HIS MOTHER. (_Earl Spencer._)] "For a flesh colour I used to employ rose madder and cadmium yellow in about equal proportions; for men's complexions light red alone makes a good flesh wash. There is a new red brought out which is warranted to be thoroughly permanent; it is a useful colour, called mazarine, and comes in for everything. There have been suspicions cast upon rose madder, but I have found it stand well enough in ordinary miniature painting. Carmine was used by Sir William Ross and Thorburn, certainly, but that was apt to go dark in colour. The madders are very delicate colours. "Eyes--for hazel use burnt sienna and French ultramarine, real ultramarine being very expensive. For ordinary dark brown eyes nothing is better than sepia; for blue eyes it depends on the shade--if bright strong blue, cobalt is the best colour; for grey eyes use cobalt and a little light red--the latter very sparingly. Cat's eyes (by which I mean greenish) require peculiar colouring, which must depend on circumstances and be treated accordingly. "Hair is a troublesome thing to get right. For golden hair I use a very thin wash of burnt sienna; for the half tones a purple tint--blue and red mixed in equal parts, and for the deep shadows burnt sienna. For ordinary dark hair nothing is better than sepia, and for the high lights a purple grey--blue and a touch of red--that gives a glossiness to the hair. For grey hair simply mix sepia and ultramarine; for red hair burnt sienna is used principally, shaded with sepia in the dark parts. "Backgrounds--for the ordinary, deep, plain, brownish, the best thing is a wash of burnt sienna and ultramarine, in proportions as required to obtain warmer or cooler effects. For a cloudy sky or background use cobalt for the blue and light red mixed with cobalt for the deeper shadows; where the shadows come near the figure, use brown madder and cobalt; touch the edges of the clouds with light red alone, to give a warm, cloudy effect. "Draperies--for a man's black coat use blue-black and cobalt, mixed in about equal proportions, and a little madder lake; put in the shadows with sepia. For a lady's black silk use much the same, only less blue-black and more cobalt, with a little light red in it; use sepia again for the shadows, as it gives a warmer tone than black itself. If lights are required on a black coat when it is too black, body colour must be used--white, with a little light red mixed with it." III CONCERNING ENAMELS AND ENAMEL PAINTERS CHAPTER III CONCERNING ENAMELS AND ENAMEL PAINTERS The subject of enamel has a close relation to that of these pages, although its uses, as need hardly be said, far transcend the limits of portraiture. Every substance, whether earthenware, stone, or metal, to which a vitreous substance can be made to adhere by heat may be enamelled, but this term is usually restricted to metalwork ornamented by a vitreous glaze. As in the case of illuminated manuscripts, we find the earliest instances of the use of enamel in Egypt, and Dr. Birch is our authority for believing that there was a method of inlaying glass, jasper, and lapis lazuli, which resembled enamel in effect, employed as far back as the Fourth Egyptian Dynasty--that is to say, some four thousand years before the Christian era. The Chinese have had it in use for unknown centuries, and it was applied by the Etruscans and Greeks to enrich their jewellery. It has been found employed for horse trappings and for human ornaments, such as brooches, bracelets, and rings, both in this country and in Ireland, under circumstances which lead us to assign it to pre-Roman days. But it is with the seat of Roman power on the Bosphorus, namely, Byzantium, in the early Christian centuries, that antique enamels seem most closely associated; and the museums of Europe contain great numbers of marvellous works of this description originating from that source. What has come down to us is for the most part intended for ecclesiastical use; reliquaries, diptychs, triptychs, the covers of missals, chalices, crosses, and objects of a like nature abound. On many of these there are what may, in a sense, be termed portraits of saints and ecclesiastical dignitaries; but it is obvious that no attempt at likeness, as we moderns understand it, can have been made in this work of the fourth to the eleventh centuries. This Byzantine style and influence, which have left such a deep mark in art, may be said to survive to this day in the ritual of the Greek Church; but that is another story. I may remark that the Byzantine work is for the most part what is called _cloisonné_; this term, and one of a somewhat similar sound, namely _champlevé_, is constantly used in descriptions of old enamel, and it may be well, therefore, to define what is meant by each respectively. The former has been described by M. Lebarte as being made in the following manner: "The plate of metal intended as a foundation was first provided with a little rim to retain the enamel. Slender strips of gold of the same depth as the rim were then bent in short lengths and fashioned to form the outline of the pattern. These short bits were then fixed upright upon the plate. The metal outline being thus arranged, the intervening spaces were filled with the different enamels, reduced to a fine powder and moistened into a paste. The piece was then placed in the furnace, and when the fusion was complete, was withdrawn, with certain precautions that the cooling might be effected gradually. The enamel, when thoroughly cold, was ground and polished. It is easy to comprehend that the old artists must have used very pure gold and extremely fusible enamels, in order that the plate might not be injured from the action of the fire or the thin strips of metal be melted by the heat which fused the paste." [Illustration: AFTER J. HYSING. C. F. ZINCKE AND HIS WIFE.] The method of preparing _champlevé_ is as follows: "A slender line of metal shows on the surface the principal outlines of the design; but the outline, instead of being arranged in detached pieces, is formed out of a portion of the plate itself. The artist, having polished a piece of metal about a quarter of an inch thick, generally copper, traced upon it the outlines of his subject; then, with proper tools he hollowed out all the spaces to be filled with the different enamels, leaving slender lines level with the original surface to keep them distinct. The vitreous matter, either dry or reduced to a paste, was then introduced into the cavities, and fusion was effected by the same process as in the _cloisonné_ enamels. After the piece had become cold it was polished, and the exposed lines of copper having been gilded, it was returned to the fire. The gilding only required a moderate temperature, not high enough to injure the incrustations of enamel." Byzantium, as I have said, was a great seat of the _cloisonné_ process, and the celebrated "Pala d'oro," a magnificent altar front now preserved at St. Mark's, Venice, was made at Constantinople about the year 1100. In _champlevé_ enamelling, although the art was practised in the Rhenish provinces of Germany, it was at Limoges, in France, that the finest work was done, and in the thirteenth century _opus Lemoviticum_ was in high favour. A century later, when the city was sacked by the troops of Edward the Black Prince, the manufacture received a great check. But with the Renaissance came a renewed demand for enamels, which were used in combination with articles of domestic utility, and in the reign of Francis the First the enamellers of Limoges, among whom Suzanne de Court, Laudin, Jehan Courtois, and Pierre Reymond are well known, produced decorative works of the most costly and beautiful nature. Whole families devoted themselves to the art, and their traditions were handed on from generation to generation. But perhaps the most famous name in connection with this French work is that of Léonard Limousin, and three others, namely, Jean, Joseph, and François, of the same family. Léonard Limousin, who was appointed painter to the king, François I., has expressed in numerous pieces which have come from his hand the very spirit of the Renaissance, partly devotional and still more strongly classical and sensuous in feeling and treatment. Old Limoges enamel, as we all know, is extremely valuable; single pieces from the Hamilton Palace Collection were sold at Christie's in the celebrated sale for something like £2,000 apiece. The subject is far too wide to be treated exhaustively in this book, but at the Victoria and Albert Museum examples will be found of the various styles, and the varied uses to which they were applied. The British Museum of late years has been enriched by what is known as the Waddesdon Collection, bequeathed by the late Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild; and in Paris the Cluny Museum, and especially the Salle d'Apollon in the Louvre, are extremely rich in works of this nature. [Illustration: AFTER DANCE. JEREMIAH MEYER, R.A.] [Illustration: NATHANIEL HONE, R.A., BY HIMSELF.] All these collections contain portraiture in enamel, but one would hesitate to say that the portrait is the primary object in the production of these works, in which undoubtedly a decorative feeling largely predominates. Although in the general treatment they were feeling their way to a larger palette, no attempt seems to have been made by these earlier artists to get anything approaching reality in the flesh tones; they were left a uniform cold white. Until one has got a little used to this absence of colour, and the metallic hardness which the use of oxide of tin in the paste of the enamel gave rise to, and until one recognises that it is the conventional mode of treating them, the pallor of the faces, contrasted, as it generally is, with a deep blue, or sometimes shining black background, is somewhat repellent. Take, for example, the large medallion of the Cardinal de Lorraine, Charles de Guise, uncle to Mary Stuart, a piece which cost the nation £2,000, and may be seen at Kensington. It represents the Cardinal in scarlet robes and a biretta. The head, fully seven inches long, is painted upon a deep blue ground; his hair is black, the eyes are blue, and the effect of the whole is, it must be admitted, extremely hard, in spite of the distinguished name its author, Léonard Limousin, bears in the ranks of medieval enamellers. The work is as different as possible from the exquisite minuteness which characterises other enamel painters, like Petitot, for instance, to whom we shall come by and by. The same lack of modelling and of half-tones may be observed in the portraits in the Waddesdon room at the British Museum, to which reference has already been made. See, for example, the large panel, 9 inches by 12, or thereabouts, of Catherine de Lorraine, Duchess de Montpensier. This lady wears her hair in a golden and jewelled net; her open collar is laced with pearls; this piece is also signed Limousin, and may be regarded as a typical sixteenth-century portrait. The step forward which was to elevate the art of painting in enamel to the highest possible pitch of technical execution, of artistic treatment and minute finish, was taken by Jean Petitot, a Genevan, born in 1609. Apart from the wonderful skill of the artist, who, in respect of technique, must be considered absolutely unique, the means by which such beautiful, delicate, and minute effects could be produced in so difficult an art as that of fusing colours would be in itself an interesting study. Probably it is to Jean Toutin, an obscure French goldsmith, who lived at Châteaudun, and, assisted by Isaac Gribelin, a painter in pastels, and doubtless by his son, Henri Toutin, of Blois, produced, about 1632, a variety of colours which he found could be laid upon a thin ground of white enamel, and passed through a furnace with scarcely any change of tint, that Petitot owed the richness of his palette. From Toutin, and from Pierre Bordier, another French goldsmith, to whom he was apprenticed, Petitot gained the insight into enamelling which bore such rich fruit when he came to this country in his twenty-eighth year, attracted, there is little doubt, by the reputation then enjoyed by our king, Charles I., as a patron of art. The English monarch had in his service as physician at that time a certain Sir Turquet de Mayerne, himself a Genevan and a chemist of European celebrity. He and Petitot pursued scientific research into the nature and properties of the metallic oxides with such ardour and success that the miniature painter's palette became greatly enriched, and he was able to express all the _nuances_ of flesh colouring in a way which had never before been approached and, I may add, has never been surpassed. When one realises the extraordinary minuteness and exquisite finish of a work of Petitot, and the difficulties of the method--by which I mean the risks attending the firing--it is almost incredible that such success could be attained; but probably there were large numbers of failures of which the world knows nothing. In some of the Limoges work we see attempts at colouring the cheeks; but the result is not satisfactory; whereas in Petitot it leaves absolutely nothing to be desired, and the most minute differences of character find expression in the art of this wonderful man. Take as an example the two portraits of Louis XIV., to be seen in the Jones Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, one representing the Grand Monarque when young, the other in more advanced years; or, from the same Collection, take the portraits of Mme. de Montespan and Mlle. de la Vallière; and compare these again with the insipidity and monotony of Lely and Kneller, the two artists most in vogue in this country at that time; here you have upon a small piece of gold, perhaps hardly bigger than a finger-nail, nearly all that may be looked for in a portrait, coupled with a perfection of technical execution to which it is impossible to do justice in words. One comes away from an examination of that admirable collection which the nation owes to the generosity of Mr. John Jones with a paramount feeling of astonishment, wondering how such work was done. Of course Petitot has had innumerable imitators; and although the standard of the Collection to which reference has just been made is very high, there are in it examples which are instructive, and serve to show how supreme the master was in his own line. A contemporary pupil, namely Jacques Bordier, was a cousin of the Pierre Bordier, Petitot's old master and colleague, of whom I have just spoken. According to M. Reiset this Jacques Bordier also worked in England with Petitot. Like Petitot, he returned to the Continent, and did a great deal of work in Paris upon watch-cases; the two men married two sisters, Madeleine and Margaret Cuper, in 1651. Pierre Bordier stopped in this country and executed an elaborate watch-cover, designed as a memorial of the Battle of Naseby, presented to General Fairfax, and described in the catalogue of the sale of Strawberry Hill, where it was sold. It was, doubtless, the troubles of the Civil War which drove the great enameller back to France, where he was well received by Louis XIV., and commissions flowed in upon him until the close of his life; indeed, he is said to have retired to Vevey to escape the importunity of his patrons; and there he died, at an advanced age, in the year 1691. [Illustration: SIR A. MORE. THOMAS HOWARD. (_Duke of Norfolk._)] [Illustration: JOHN BETTES. EDMOND BUTTS. (_National Gallery._)] The art of which this incomparable miniaturist was such a great exponent was peculiarly adapted to a form of patronage much in vogue at that time; that is to say, it was employed in the adornment of costly and exquisite snuff-boxes. These _boites aux portraits_, as they were called, were extensively used for diplomatic purposes, and portraits of the Grand Monarque were ordered by the dozen at a time. The presentation of boxes of such a character with a portrait on, or inside, the lid, with or without a setting of brilliants, as the rank and importance, or otherwise, of the fortunate recipient required, were part of the ceremonial usage and Court etiquette of the day. The Collection left to South Kensington by Mr. Gardiner, the extremely choice examples in the Wallace Collection, and the still larger collection left by the Lenoirs to the Louvre, show the extravagant pitch to which work of this kind was carried, the diamond settings alone often running to a cost of many thousands of francs. For example, a portrait of Louis XVI., when Dauphin, was presented to Marie Antoinette. The portrait was painted by the most eminent miniature painter of his day, namely Pierre Adolphe Hall; the artist received 2,684 francs, and the cost of the box and brilliants was over 75,000 francs. Petitot may be studied to full advantage at the Jones Collection, even better than at the Louvre, whilst at Hertford House there are only a couple of examples attributed to him. In private collections there are some notable works which passed from Strawberry Hill into the possession of the late Baroness Burdett Coutts; and the Earl of Dartrey also owns a number. The portrait, shown in this book, of Petitot le Vieux, is from this nobleman's collection, which, by the way, is also rich in examples by the brothers Hurter. These two enamellers came from Schaffhausen, being introduced to the British aristocracy by the Lord Dartrey of that day. Some thirty examples of their work were shown at the Loan Exhibition at South Kensington in 1865 by the then Lord Cremorne. At Althorp is a portrait of the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire by John Henry Hurter; and Lord Dartrey has a portrait of Queen Charlotte painted by J. F. C. Hurter. [Illustration: HENRY BRANDON. (_H.M. the King._)] [Illustration: HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER. HIMSELF. (_From a drawing at Basle._)] [Illustration: CHARLES BRANDON. (_H.M. the King._)] We now pass on to consider the art of painting portraits in enamel as practised in this country. The first name of any importance in this connection is that of Charles Boit, a native of Stockholm, but of French extraction. He was born in 1663, and when he was about twenty came to this country and worked as a jeweller. Being unable to succeed in that occupation, he turned drawing-master, and Walpole tells us of an intrigue which led to his being thrown into prison for two years, time which he is said to have turned to advantage by practising enamel painting, though how that could have been done under such circumstances I do not know. Ultimately he became celebrated for his work, and obtained high prices for it He attempted pieces on a large scale, the difficulties of which are enormously enhanced by their size, as is well known to craftsmen. One was intended for Queen Anne, and the artist is said to have received a thousand pounds advance on it, but before he succeeded in firing it some £700 or £800 were spent, which led him into such difficulties that he escaped to France, where he died, about 1726. There is a large, though not particularly attractive, example of Boit's to be seen in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford; but specimens of his art are not very common, and are not nearly so often met with as those by C. F. Zincke, whose spick-and-span style and bright blue draperies are well known; Oxford is rich in them. This Dresden miniature painter, whose features are familiar to print collectors from the mezzotint of him and his wife by Faber, came to England in 1706 and obtained the patronage of George II., although that uninteresting monarch hated "boetry and bainting." Zincke's work is, indeed, typically early Georgian, and repeats the insipidities of Kneller on a small scale, with a persistent consistency which is monotonous in the extreme. Horace Walpole had a high opinion of his work; he declared that it surpassed that of Boit and rivalled Petitot, an opinion which few who know the merits of Petitot's exquisite art are likely to endorse. Failure of eyesight led Zincke to retire in 1746; but he lived some twenty years longer. During the forty years that he practised his art he must have executed an enormous number of portraits, for he was the fashionable artist of his day, and so great was the patronage bestowed upon him that he raised his prices to limit the number of his patrons. A pupil of Zincke's was William Prewitt, who is not, I think, very well known. There is an example by him to be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, a body-colour drawing. The Duke of Buccleuch has a portrait of Horace Walpole when young, also painted by Prewitt. Another miniaturist who was especially an enameller was Charles Muss, said by some to be an Italian, and by others to have been born at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1779. He was enamel painter to George III. and George IV.; and devoted himself especially to copying old masters. Examples of his work in this direction will be found in the Plumley Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum. [Illustration: HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER. A BURGOMASTER. (_H.M. the King._)] [Illustration: LADY AUDLEY. (_H.M. the King._)] A much better-known enameller is Nathaniel Hone, an Irishman of a self-assertive, not to say aggressive, personality, if one may judge by the tone of his remarks when he quarrelled with the Academy, of which he was a full member, over his picture called "The Conjurer." This indifferent painting excited an amount of attention of which it was quite undeserving from the tongue of scandal, which asserted that Sir Joshua Reynolds and Angelica Kauffmann were satirised in the composition, and that one of the naked figures dancing in the background was intended for the fair Academician. Hone essayed the various branches of art with varying success. There is a characteristic portrait of himself in the Diploma collection of the Royal Academy. He, too, had a share of Royal patronage, and painted many of the notabilities of his day, including the lovely Misses Gunning. He had a son, Horace Hone, who was made an Associate of the Academy, and who also practised as a miniature painter. His work is considered inferior to that of his father. John Plott, another miniaturist, was also a pupil of the elder Hone, and was born at Winchester, where he studied law. Forsaking that pursuit, he came to London, and was at first a pupil of Richard Wilson R.A. Two other Academicians associated with this period, and both enamellers of exceptional ability, are George Michael Moser and Jeremiah Meyer. Moser was the son of a sculptor, and was born at St. Galle, in 1704. Upon his arrival in this country he found employment with the Royal Family, and, being a fine medallist, was commissioned to design the King's Great Seal. No doubt he had social gifts, and he certainly enjoyed the respect and friendship of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He was one of the most active founders of the Royal Academy, and was made its first Keeper. His only child, Mary Moser, was a flower painter of great reputation in her day. She married a Captain Lloyd, but is reported to have gone about the country in the company of Richard Cosway, who at the beginning of the century was separated from his wife, Maria. This Mary Moser, by the way, was a lady Royal Academician, like the fair Angelica Kauffmann. Jeremiah Meyer, the other enameller whom I have mentioned, was also a foundation member of the Royal Academy; he was, moreover, a very fine miniature painter. Great refinement of colour, excellent drawing, perfect finish, and, what is perhaps more rare in miniature work, truth to life, distinguish his miniatures. He came to London when he was fourteen, and was a pupil of Zincke for two years. Fifteen years later, when only twenty-nine, he was made enameller to George III. He was a constant exhibitor at the Academy, where he showed some twenty pieces. He was born at Tubingen, in 1735, and died in 1789, some three years before Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose work is said greatly to have influenced his style. The palette of the enamel painter is a very rich one, but not all the colours to be found amongst the metallic oxides fuse at the same temperature. Hence the artist must be able to judge most accurately the length of time that each will stand the heat without melting too much and running one into the other. Such acquaintance can only be acquired by pains-taking practice, and it is obvious how greatly the difficulties of portraiture are enhanced under such conditions. It is usual to place these opaque colours upon the enamel ground, on a gold or copper plate, applying the hardest vitrifiable colour first, then the less hard, and so on. It is perhaps not surprising that so delicate a process, liable to be attended by failure at every step, has fallen out of fashion in these days, and as a matter of fact it is now scarcely attempted in this country at all--that is to say, in the way of portraiture. Formerly, however, it was carried on here with more or less success, and one interesting practice of the art may be named before we leave this part of our subject. I refer to what are known as the Battersea enamels. In the middle of the eighteenth century, under the management of S. J. Jansen, many articles, such as candlesticks, patch-boxes and snuff-boxes, and such like, were produced. These are fairly well drawn and coloured, and consist largely of flowers, birds and fruit, and so forth, generally on a white ground. But beside all these there are a number of contemporary portraits, produced by means of transfers from copper plates. Amongst these are the beautiful Misses Gunning, the Royal Family of the day, Gibbon, and many others. Some may be seen in the Franks Collection at the British Museum, and a more important collection is at the Victoria and Albert, brought together by the late Lady Charlotte Schreiber. To a somewhat later period than that we have been discussing belongs Henry Bone, R.A., who, like so many other artists, came from the West of England, having been born at Truro, in 1755. The circumstances of his early life doubtless somewhat affected the direction which his artistic efforts took, he having been apprenticed in a china manufactory at Plymouth. He removed with it to Bristol in 1778, and, coming to London, was employed in painting devices in enamel on trinkets. He first attracted attention in London by an enamel of the "Sleeping Girl," after Sir Joshua Reynolds, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1780. This led to his being appointed enamel painter to Royalty, and George, Prince of Wales, extended his patronage to him. Academical honours followed; he was made an Associate in 1801, and full member ten years later. Bone stands out as the enameller _par excellence_ of the English school; and he was astonishingly successful in many large and ambitious pieces. For example, he was paid two thousand guineas for a plaque measuring 18 by 15 inches, a copy of Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne," in the National Gallery. He devoted himself especially to copying the works of the great masters, such as Raphael, Titian, and Murillo. He also executed a series of 85 copies of portraits of the statesmen and others who lived in "the spacious days of great Elizabeth." But whilst a large measure of success may be ungrudgingly accorded him in respect of these works, the flesh tones in his painting often leave something to be desired; there is a suggestion of painting on porcelain, and of the smoothness and want of vitality that characterise that kind of work, and are so fatal to its artistic completeness. It would be a little curious to trace this tendency to what may be termed ceramic smoothness to the early training of Bone as a china-painter. At any rate, it may be recognised as characteristic of his style. His son, Henry Pierce Bone, followed his father's footsteps in painting a great number of copies from the old masters. The elder Bone died in 1834, the younger lived some twenty years longer. Besides these two, there was a P. J. Bone, who exhibited an enamel at the Royal Academy in 1801; and there were also two other Bones, whose names appear in the catalogues, namely, W. Bone and C. R. Bone. They were the grandsons of Henry, and exhibited up to 1851, the latter alone contributing 67 miniatures to the Academy. [Illustration: HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER. CATHARINE OF ARRAGON.] [Illustration: HENRY VIII. (_H.M. the King._)] [Illustration: HENRY, DUKE OF RICHMOND. (_H.M. the King._)] The last enamellers that I would mention are the Essexes, William and William B. The former was born in 1784, and died at Brighton, in 1869. In his long life he exhibited a large number of works at the Royal Academy, mostly portraits, H.M. the late Queen Victoria giving him much employment, and appointing him her enamel painter in 1839. Although most of his works exhibited at the Academy from 1818 until within five years of his death were portraits, or copies of paintings by the old masters, animal painting was really his forte, as may be seen by an examination of his work at the Victoria and Albert Museum. His son, W. B. Essex, died in Birmingham, in 1852, at the early age of twenty-nine, having contributed to the Academy from 1845 to 1851 some ten or twelve portraits. In concluding these remarks upon enamel painting, one cannot help feeling a certain regret that the art, as applied to portraiture, I mean, should have fallen into such desuetude in these days. When one considers the beautiful effects which have been produced in it by the hands of masters, and especially the valuable quality of permanence which such works possess (for an enamel by Petitot is as brilliant to-day as it was when it was fired), one must wish that artists would devote themselves to so satisfactory a record of contemporary portraiture. Miniature painting upon ivory, charming as it is in its delicate effects, is, as we all know, subject to the great defect of being fleeting in its nature, when exposed to light. Not only has the charm and beauty of many a miniature by Cosway vanished utterly, but a green and ghastly caricature is left in its place, a travesty and a libel upon the original. The amount of time and patience requisite to produce an enamel is, no doubt, the secret of the neglect into which it has fallen in these days. The tendency to haste and to hurry, with its concomitant, cheapness of production, is, we are told, ruining the art of such conservative craftsmen as those of China, of Japan, and of India; and if these Western tendencies have made their influence felt in the Far East, it is not to be wondered at that in England of to-day a portrait in enamels is a thing which demands too much labour and time to be in the vogue. True it is that it was never extensively practised here; but now it may be said, as far as regards portraiture, to be practically extinct. IV EARLY PORTRAIT PAINTERS CHAPTER IV EARLY PORTRAIT PAINTERS Horace Walpole has asserted that this country has very rarely given birth to a genius in painting. "Flanders and Holland," says he, "have sent us the greatest men that we can boast." The following list of portrait painters who are reputed to have practised in England during the Tudor and Stuart periods contains, it will be seen at once, a very large proportion of foreign names:-- John Bettes -- 1570 Thomas Bettes -- -- Surmised to be the son or brother of John Bettes. Pierre Bordier (E) -- -- _temp._ Charles I. Jacques Bordier (E) 1616-1684 Alexander Brown -- -- _temp._ Charles II. Samuel Butler 1612-1680 Joost Van Cleef 1500-1536 Francis Cleyn 1625-1650 John Cleyn -- -- Penelope Cleyn -- -- _temp._ Charles II. Samuel Cooper 1609-1672 Alexander Cooper -- -- _flo._ 1650-1660. David de Grange -- -- Lucas de Heere 1534-1584 Nathaniel Dixon[1] -- -- William Faithorne 1616-1691 Thomas Flatman 1633-1688 Sir Balthazar Gerbier 1591-1667 Richard Gibson 1615-1690 Edward Gibson -- -- William Gibson 1644-1702 John Greenhill 1649-1676 John Hayles -- 1679 Contemporary of Cooper. Nicholas Hilliard 1547-1619 Lawrence Hilliard -- -- Son of Nicholas Hilliard. Gerard Lucas Hornebonde 1498-1554 Susannah Hornebonde _cir._ 1503 -- John Hoskins -- 1664 John Hoskins, junr. (?) -- -- _flo._ 1686 (?) Hans Holbein the younger 1495-1543 George Jamesone 1586-1644 François Clouet or Janet _cir._ 1510-1571-4 Cornelius Janssen 1590-1665 David Loggan 1630-1693 Sir Antonio More 1525-1581 Gaspar Netscher 1639-1684 Isaac Oliver 1556-1617 Peter Oliver 1601-1647 Sir Robert Peake 1592-1667 Luca Penni _cir._ 1500 -- Jean Petitot 1607-1691 Jean Petitot, fils 1650 -- Cornelius Polemberg 1586-1660 Theodore Russell 1614 -- John Shute or Shoote -- 1563 Matthew Snelling -- -- _flo._ 1647. Gwillim Streetes -- -- _flo. temp._ Edward VI. Levina Teerlinck -- -- Contemporary of Holbein. Girolamo da Trevigi 1497-1544 Herbert Tuer -- 1680 (?) Sir A. Van Dyck 1599-1641 Frederigo Zucchero 1543-1609 [Footnote 1: So called in the Royal Acad. Winter Exhibition Catalogues.] As this book makes no claim to be regarded as a biographical dictionary, and as I have given such particulars as I have been able to ascertain about the whole of the above named in my larger works, I do not propose to deal with those mentioned in this list _seriatim_, but I shall devote chapters to the most important of them, such men as Samuel Cooper, Hilliard, Hoskins, Holbein, the Olivers, and Petitot. [Illustration: N. HILLIARD. NICHOLAS HILLIARD, BY HIMSELF. (_From Penshurst._)] [Illustration: LADY MARY SIDNEY. (_Harcourt family._)] As to many of the others, I give their names for the sake of being comprehensive but with reservations. Take, for example, Lucas de Heere. It may be allowed that he worked in England, and there is a very good oil painting by him in the Palace of Holyrood House, of a lady of the Tudor period, miscalled Mary, Queen of Scots. But I should not like to undertake to produce any evidence that he painted miniatures, in spite of the fact of one of Sir John B. Hatton and his mother being shown at Kensington in 1865, and attributed to him. This work belongs to Earl Spencer. It is dated 1525, and signed "L." Now, the date assigned to the birth of the artist is 1534. In other words, this group, which comes from a great and justly celebrated collection, namely, Althorp, and was shown under such auspices at that great exhibition of miniatures to which I have so often referred--I say, in spite of all this, a picture is actually catalogued as being by an artist who did not come into existence till nine years after the date which the panel actually bears. The connection of many of the others with miniature painting is decidedly slight, yet, as need hardly be said, there are contemporary references to them which entitle them to a mention in this list. Thus Lanzi has recorded that Lucca Penni and Giralamo Da Trevigi were employed here. Then there was a lady miniature painter, a daughter of Master Simon Bennink of Bruges, who was employed by the Court of England. Thus we know that in 1547 "Maistris Levyn Teerling, Paintrix," was paid quarterly £11, and we read of her presenting Queen Mary with a small miniature of the Trinity as a New Year's gift. Again in 1558 she presents her Majesty Elizabeth with the "Queen's picture finely painted on a card," and received in return "one casting bottell guilt," weighing two and three-quarter ounces. And in 1561 she presents "the Queen's personne and other personages in a box, finely painted." "One guilt salt with a cover," weighing five and a quarter ounces, was the return made for this. Then there was the Horneband, Hornebonde, or Hornebolt family, of whom some interesting particulars will be found in "Archæologia," contributed by Mr. Nichols. The best known of these appears to be Susannah, whose father was in the service of King Henry VIII. at a monthly pay of 33s. 4d. Her brother Lucas, was even better paid, namely 55s. 6d. per month, a sum which was more, it is interesting to note, than Hans Holbein received. In April, 1554, the household books of Henry show that the painter was duly paid his salary. In the following month there occurs this entry, "Item for Lewke Hornebonde, Paynter, Wages nil, Quia Mortuus." Albert Dürer has told us of his meeting members of this family at Antwerp in 1521. He was impressed with the ability of Susannah, who was then about eighteen years old, and he records how he gave her a florin, for she had made a coloured drawing of our Saviour, of which he says, "It is wonderful that a female should be able to do such a work." [Illustration: N. HILLIARD. HENRY VII. (_H.M. the King._)] [Illustration: ISAAC OLIVER. CHARLES THE FIRST WHEN PRINCE OF WALES. (_Duke of Rutland._)] [Illustration: SPENSER. (_Lord Fitzhardinge._)] _Apropos_ of Antwerp, Joost Van Cleef may be mentioned. He is described as an industrious painter noted for the beautiful rendering of his hands, and according to Van Mander was the best colourist of his time. He came to this country with an introduction from his countryman Sir Antonio More, and Charles I. purchased two or three of his pictures. He was expecting to get great prices for his work, but it seems some canvases by Titian arrived in England at the same time as he did. According to Walpole this threw the Antwerp painter into a jealous frenzy. He abused More (who was here at the time painting a portrait of Queen Mary by command of Philip) with whom he afterwards returned to Spain, telling him (More) to go back to Utrecht, and keep his wife from the Canons. The unfortunate Van Cleef is said to have painted his own clothes and spoilt his own pictures, and he behaved in such a way that it was necessary to confine him. There is a portrait of Henry VIII. at Hampton Court ascribed by some to this painter, and the mention of this monarch reminds me of John and Thomas Betts, brothers as is supposed, the former of whom painted Edmund Butts, son of the King's physician. This portrait, in the black cap and furred gown of the period, is to be seen in the National Gallery, and came from the collection of the late George Richmond, R.A. It is a vigorous, soundly painted work, recalling Holbein in manner, as may be seen, I think, by the illustration shown on p. 77, though markedly inferior in subtlety of rendering of character to that great master. It has been customary to term John Betts a pupil of Nicholas Hilliard, but this portrait is conclusive evidence on that point, for it is dated in the clearest manner 1545. Now, as Hilliard was not born till two years later, it is sufficiently obvious that John Betts could not have been his pupil. In the case of these early English artists, John being supposed to have died in 1570, any information which can be given is of interest. Apart from particulars which may be gleaned from biographical dictionaries, it is worth mentioning that at the Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1879 the Duke of Buccleuch exhibited a miniature of Catherine de Balzac, Duchess of Lennox (wife of Esmé Stuart, created Duke of Lennox by James VI.), and another of Queen Elizabeth, both ascribed to John Betts. At the same exhibition there was a miniature of Thomas Egerton, Lord Ellesmere (Lord Chancellor, 1603), also lent by the Duke of Buccleuch, and Dr. Propert had a miniature of J. Digby, Earl of Bristol, which he ascribed to Thomas Betts. Thomas and John Betts are mentioned in Mere's "Wit's Commonwealth," published in London, 1598, together with other artists whose names are hardly known and whose works are absolutely unknown. The painters in question were mentioned in the introduction to the catalogue of the Kensington Loan Collection of 1865, but not a single example of their work was forthcoming. Confusion reigns as to their date, and beyond the fact that Vertue mentions a miniature by John Betts of Sir John Godsalve, who was controller of the Mint to Edward VI., and that in Hall's _Chronicle_ of the year 1576 (for which he engraved some vignettes) he is termed a designer, and said to have been a pupil of Hilliard's, but little is recorded of him. [Illustration: ISAACUS OLIVERUS, ANGLUS, PICTOR. _Ad vivum lætos qui pingis imagine vultus, OLIVERE oculos mirifice bi capiunt Corpora quæ formas jus to hæc expressa Colore. Multum est, cum rebus convenit ipse color._ (_From a print in the British Museum._)] With the exception of Holbein, and perhaps Petitot, the most important name in connection with our subject, in the list of foreigners which I have given at the commencement of this chapter, is François Clouet or Janet. I shall devote a separate chapter to the latter. Not least amongst the treasures of the unique collection of miniatures in the Royal Library in Windsor Castle is a small one of Mary Queen of Scots. As I have described this fully in my remarks upon the Royal collection, I shall only now say that it was catalogued for King Charles I. as "supposed to be done by Jennet, a French limner." This name, which is spelt nowadays Janet, is that of a family whose interesting history is given in some detail in Mrs. Mark Pattison's "History of the Renaissance." It is not a little difficult to distinguish between the various members of this family, the Clouets, as they were also called; and we need not stop to deal with the story now, as I have referred to the subject in my remarks on French art (see Chapter XIV.), but there is no doubt that François was Court painter in the reigns of Henry II. and III., of Francis II. and Charles IX. of France, and that his work belongs to the period with which we are now dealing. Judged by the standard of his own day, this artist attained a high level of excellence, but if we are to judge of the merits of his work rightly, we must discriminate between his finished pictures and his studies for portraits. Now, these latter, some of which were hardly more than memoranda in black and red chalk, were very fashionable in Janet's day, and there is no doubt immense numbers of them were produced. Great personages of the day owned portfolios of them, which in a sense were the precursors of the photographic albums of our own time. Of Janet's work I can only mention a few examples here. Amongst them is, at Chantilly, a notable one of Mary Queen of Scots, as she was when nine years old, giving, it must be owned, but slender promise of the physical beauty which afterwards she was allowed to possess by foes and friends alike. Equally interesting, of greater technical merit, and indeed of supreme importance in their way, are the three superb portraits in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, of Mary Queen of Scots as Dauphine, of her first husband, Francis II., and of herself in the white Court mourning or _deuil blanc_ which she wore as widow of the last named.[2] Did only these three works exist, they would be quite sufficient to stamp Janet as an admirable artist, perhaps second only to Holbein in his way and in his time: I say second, because nothing of Janet's, so far as I know, has ever reached the high level, the searching execution, the power of draughtsmanship, and the masterly style of Hans Holbein. It is with that great artist, who may be considered as the founder of miniature painting in this country, that we have now to deal. [Footnote 2: These illustrations in facsimile, and the size of the originals, will be found figured in the author's work, "Concerning the True Portraiture of Mary Stuart."] [Illustration: VENETIA, LADY DIGBY. (_Burdett-Coutts Collection._)] [Illustration: I. OLIVER. I. OLIVER, BY HIMSELF. (_H.M. the King._)] HOLBEIN. Every tyro in art knows, it may be said, the eminence of Hans Holbein the Younger as a painter, and especially as a portrait painter. He had other gifts as well, to which we shall refer by and by, but perhaps all my readers may not be aware that Holbein must be regarded as the actual founder of the art of miniature painting in England. As Hans Holbein came to London in 1526 it will be seen that the art of limning has, in this country, a genealogy, so to speak, of nearly four hundred years. And during all that long period, and amidst the great number of artists who worked therein, there is no greater name to be found than that of the Augsburg painter. It is to Erasmus that he owed his introduction to this country, which he visited for the first time when he was about thirty-two years of age. The painter's acquaintance with Erasmus was made at Basle, where, by the way, in the Salle des Dessins, one of the best portraits of Holbein is to be found--a drawing in body colour on vellum, beautifully finished, which I here reproduce. Sir Thomas More was a friend of Erasmus, and it was to the house of this distinguished man that Holbein went on his arrival. There he remained some time, painting portraits of eminent men with whom he must have come in contact at Chelsea, amongst others--Archbishop Warham, Sir Henry Guildford, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Sir Thomas More himself, and two generations of the More family. After a while he returned to Switzerland, and when he revisited this country in 1531 his friend had become Lord Chancellor. We need not attempt to follow his career here in detail; there is no doubt that he soon was taken into the service of Henry VIII., and, becoming a favourite of that monarch, was attached to the Royal household, and appears to have had apartments in the palace at Whitehall. In 1538 he is spoken of as "a sarvand of the Kynges Majesties named Mr. Haunce." At this time his salary was £30 per annum, as to which the relative value of money, then and now, must not be forgotten. In this year he was at Brussels with Sir Philip Hobby, having a commission to paint the portrait of the young widowed Duchess of Milan. It is a magnificent full-length portrait, one of his finest works, and may be seen in the National Gallery to-day, having been lent by the Duke of Norfolk. This demure-looking lady may be credited with having a pretty wit of her own, if the story told of her reception of an offer of marriage by Henry VIII. be true; the answer she made to these overtures was that she must beg to be excused as she was possessed of but one neck. The collection of pictures and drawings for pictures attributed to Holbein, and now preserved at Windsor, is well known and justly celebrated. But it is with the miniatures which are supposed to be his work that we have most to do in this book. It is somewhat remarkable that so great an authority as the late Mr. Ralph Wornum must be allowed to be should dispute the fact of Holbein having ever painted any miniatures at all. In his "Life and Works of Holbein" he distinctly asserts that there is not a single miniature in existence which can be positively assigned to Holbein. [Illustration: PETER OLIVER. SIR KENELM DIGBY. VENETIA, LADY DIGBY. (_Burdett-Coutts Collection._)] The learned late Keeper of the National Gallery would probably not have disputed that Holbein did paint miniatures, in the face of Van Mander's explicit statement that "he [Holbein] worked equally well in oil and in water-colours; he painted also miniatures of a special excellence, which last art he learned from one Master Lucas, then in London, whom, however, he soon surpassed." Then we have the testimony of Sandrart, who says: "Holbein began practising the art when in the King's service, having been incited thereto by the excellence of the works of Master Lucas." There is no question, either, that Van der Doort regarded Holbein as a limner; in his catalogue of King Charles I.'s collection he speaks of two miniatures of Henry VIII. which he ascribes to Holbein. But Mr. Wornum says of these that it is next to impossible to identify them now. Then there is the express statement of Nicholas Hilliard, who declares himself as the pupil of Holbein in the art of limning. Finally, in the Bodleian Library is a manuscript by Edward Morgate, dedicated to Henry Frederick, Earl of Arundel, dated July 8, 1654, entitled "Miniatura, or the Art of Limning," in which it is stated that "the incomparable Holbein, in all his different and various methods of painting, either in oyle, distemper, _lymning_, or crayon, was, it seems, so general an artist as never to imitate any man, nor ever was worthily imitated by any." But whilst it seems impossible to dispute that Holbein certainly did paint miniatures, the claims of individual specimens to be considered as his handiwork are, of course, open to question, since none of his works of this nature are known to be signed. It may, therefore, be worth while to state what little evidence can be gleaned about some of the best known pieces which are attributed to Holbein. There are at least six in the King's collection at Windsor; of these two are of Henry VIII.; they were given to Charles I. by Theophilus Howard, second Earl of Suffolk, who died in 1640. I have described them at some length in subsequent remarks on the Royal Collection. A third example is that of Lady Audley. Here, again, we have not direct testimony, but apart from the technicalities of the execution and so forth, we have the fact that she was the daughter of Sir Brian Tuke, Treasurer of the Chamber to Henry VIII., and that a portrait of her in red chalk is among the drawings by Holbein at Windsor, the authenticity of which is, I believe, unquestioned. The fourth to be mentioned in this connection is the portrait of Queen Catherine Howard, a replica of which exists in the Duke of Buccleuch's collection. Lastly, I may mention two very interesting portraits of the sons of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. They were entered in Van der Doort's catalogue as being "done by Hans Holbein. Given to the King by Sir H. Vane." [Illustration: ISAAC OLIVER. FRANCES HOWARD, COUNTESS OF SOMERSET.] [Illustration: AFTER SIR A. VAN DYCK. PETER OLIVER.] [Illustration: PETER OLIVER. ARABELLA STUART. (_Capt. J. H. Edwards, Heathcote._)] These I have also described in Chapter XII., under "The Royal Collection," for opportunities of examining which I may express my obligation to the courtesy of the late librarian, Sir Richard Holmes. The picture of a burgomaster (given on p. 85), is one which has been assigned to Holbein, and it is also at Windsor. Another of Henry's wives, whose portrait is ascribed to Holbein, and was, we have reason to believe, in the Royal Collection at one time, is Katherine of Arragon. Walpole says of this portrait: "It was given to the Duke of Monmouth by Charles II. I bought it at the sale of Lady Isabella Scott, daughter of the Duchess of Monmouth." When the famous Colworth Collection was dispersed, a piece, purporting to be this particular miniature, painted on vellum, was sold. It is reproduced on p. 91. Its then owner, Mr. Magniac, sent it to the South Kensington Exhibition of 1865, believing it, no doubt, to be as described in the catalogue. But had he referred to the "Anecdotes of Painting" he would have found that Walpole's description of it could not apply to this particular work, seeing that it was _on a round_, and on a blue ground. In the Strawberry Hill sale catalogue it is described as a "very fine specimen of the master," and was purchased by W. Blamire, Esq., for the sum of £50 8s. A curious picture of a natural son of Henry VIII., by Lady Elizabeth Talboys, was ascribed to Holbein in the Strawberry Hill Collection. It was sold to the Duke of Buckingham for seven and a half guineas, and bears the following inscription: "Henry Duck off Richmond, ætatis sue XV^o." It is painted on an ace of hearts, and was formerly in the collection of Mr. Sackville Bale, who enjoyed the reputation of being a connoisseur of good judgment. This young man, it may be mentioned, who appears to be painted in his nightdress and a most unbecoming nightcap, did not live to be eighteen years of age. There is an interesting portrait of Holbein himself to be seen at Hertford House. As Mr. Claude Phillips, the keeper of the Wallace Collection, accepts this as Holbein's work, I shall not stop to discuss its authenticity, but I may remark that there is a duplicate of this particular subject at Montagu House. The Wallace example is in oils on card, whilst the Duke of Buccleuch's piece is in gouache, I believe, on card. The view of the face, the position of the hands, and all the details, except the length of the hair, appear identical. As to the hair, it is certainly longer in the Wallace Collection portrait. This latter piece may be thus described. Head and bust of a middle-aged man, wearing black dress and cap, with a lace open collar, holding a pencil in his right hand and looking at spectator, with whiskers and a short beard, dark in colour and rather sparse. Blue background, circular, about one and a half inches in diameter. It is inscribed "1543. Ætatis suæ 45." V NICHOLAS HILLIARD [Illustration: JOHN HOSKINS. CHARLES I. (_H.M. the King._)] [Illustration: ISAAC OLIVER. DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. (_H.M. the King._)] CHAPTER V NICHOLAS HILLIARD As with other branches of art, so with miniature painting, we cannot show any native-born artists of eminence until we arrive at the middle of the sixteenth century, when the series of English miniature painters, properly so called, may be said to begin with Nicholas Hilliard, for we may disregard the one or two others whose names occur only in stray references. Nicholas Hilliard, born at Exeter, it is said, in 1547, is the first English professed miniature portrait painter whose history can be given. His father was Richard Hilliard, High Sheriff of his county in the year 1560. His mother was a daughter of John Wall, goldsmith, of London, a circumstance which there can be little doubt had much to do with Nicholas Hilliard being brought up to the business of jeweller and goldsmith, occupations closely connected with limning in those days. Assuming the date usually given for his birth to be correct, as to which I shall have something to say farther on, he engraved the Great Seal when he was forty years of age. This means that his reputation was already made--and indeed he had been appointed goldsmith, carver, and portrait painter to Queen Elizabeth, "to make pictures of her body and person in small compass in limning only." According to Pilkington, he owed his introduction to the Virgin Queen to the interest of Sir Walter Raleigh, but I have not met with any corroboration of this statement. It is also commonly said that Hilliard was enjoined to paint her Majesty without shadows. From what we know of the vanity of Elizabeth this is not improbable, though it is, to my mind, by no means certain; and there is another reason for the flatness of treatment which is undoubtedly characteristic of his work, which I shall deal with in considering his method of painting. James I. granted him a patent to this effect: "Whereas our well-beloved servant, Nicholas Hilliard, gentleman, our principal drawer of small portraits, and embosser of our medals in gold, in respect of his extraordinary skill in drawing, graving, and imprinting, &c., we have granted unto him our special licence for twelve years, to invent, make, grave and imprint any pictures of our image, of our Royal Family, with power to take a constable and search for any pictures, plates, or works, printed, sold, or set up." There is not much to be said about the career of Hilliard, and this work is not greatly concerned with biographical details. It must, however, be observed that Hilliard had an only son, Lawrence, who followed his father's profession, and enjoyed the patent granted by King James, until its expiration. [Illustration: S. COOPER. (_Duke of Devonshire._) OLIVER CROMWELL. (_Duke of Sutherland._)] There is a warrant of the Council, dated 1624, extant, ordering the payment of £42 to Lawrence Hilliard for five pictures "by him drawn." Probably this privilege was a source of emolument to the Hilliard family (by the way, Lawrence had several children), and gave them control over the engravers and print-sellers of the period to whom licences were granted. Simon de Passe was employed by them in engraving small plates of the heads of the Royal Family. Nicholas Hilliard died on the 6th of January, 1619, and was buried in St. Martin's in the Fields. He left to his sister, Ann Avery, £20 out of the £30 due to him as his pension. This, it will be remembered, is the same amount as Holbein's salary. Works by Nicholas Hilliard are by no means rare. We have just seen that he lived to over seventy years of age, and was probably pretty fully employed during the greater part of his career, as is shown by portraits of James I. and his consort, Anne of Denmark, of which several exist. Fourteen examples of his work were shown at the Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1879, of which four came from the Royal Library at Windsor. A still larger collection was exhibited at the Loan Collection at Kensington in 1865, and I have, at one time or another, examined a great many examples personally. It may be said of all these that they are characterised by uniformity of style, treatment, and quality. We have Hilliard's own statement as to his artistic training: "Holbein's manner of limning I have ever imitated," he says, "and hold it for the best." Horace Walpole has remarked concerning this "manner of limning": "Although he copied the neatness of his model (Holbein), he was far from attaining that nature and force which that great master impressed on his most minute works. Hilliard," he continues, "arrived at no strength of colouring; his faces are pale and void of any variety of tints, the features, jewels, and ornaments expressed by lines as slender as a hair. The exact dress of the times he curiously delineated, but he seldom attempted beyond the head, yet his performances were greatly valued." The paleness of the faces in Hilliard's work, as it exists to-day, is true enough, and would seem to justify the criticism of the owner of Strawberry Hill, and his statement that the painter "arrived at no strength of colouring," but before we accept the conclusion that his portraits always possessed the bloodless appearance they now present, we may ask whether it is by any means certain that they were originally marked by this defect. It must be remembered that they were painted more than three hundred years ago, which is ample time for the flesh tints to have faded right out. We know how the carnations have flown in numberless examples of comparatively recent work, the ghastly paleness of which robs them of all beauty. The more perfect condition of the jewels and ornaments, with which the figures in Hilliard's pictures are so profusely adorned, is not conclusive, owing to the opaque nature of the colours and the quantity of gold he was wont to use. He commonly painted on card or vellum, and employed, it is said, a brush composed of hairs from a squirrel's tail. His works are generally signed "N. H.," and frequently have a motto and date written round the edge in Latin and abbreviated. [Illustration: S. COOPER. GEORGE MONCK, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE. (_H.M. the King._)] What is known as "quality" in works of art is a very elusive factor in their charm, and it is proportionately difficult to express in words. Indeed, I might go farther, and say that a large proportion of people who look upon works of art never realise what it means. Hence it is always difficult to assign with absolute fairness and accuracy the rank of a given artist. There are many things to be taken into consideration, but I think it may be safely said of Hilliard that he stands well in the front of the second row of our native miniature painters. He is certainly inferior in finish and beauty to the Olivers, and his heads are even more deficient in the wonderful rendering of character and the masterly execution of Samuel Cooper, but his faces are well drawn, and are differentiated--far more so, for instance, than are the insipidities of Kneller and Lely and the early Georgian artists. We know that he won the admiration of his contemporaries, both strangers and fellow-countrymen. In Heydock's translation of "Lomazzo on Painting," published in 1598, we are told that "limning was much used in former times in church books, as also in drawing by life in small models of late years by some of our countrymen, as Shoote, Betts, &c.; but brought to the rare perfection we now see by the most ingenious, painful, and skilful master, Nicholas Hilliard." The ornate jewellery which he appears to have painted with such care was, of course, the fashion of the time, as were the elaborate ruffs, both of which are well shown in the accompanying portrait of Lady Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke--an extremely interesting miniature, by the way, which came from Penshurst. This lady was the daughter of Sir Henry Sidney, and married Henry, second Earl of Pembroke. It was to her that Sir Philip Sidney dedicated his "Arcadia." She died in her House at Aldersgate Street, and was buried in Salisbury Cathedral. She was the subject of the well-known epitaph by Ben Jonson:-- "Underneath this sable hearse Lies the subject of all verse, Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother. Death, ere thou hast slain another, Fair and wise and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee." Penshurst Place, the charming old home of the Sidneys, possesses, or did possess, the portrait of the painter himself in his thirtieth year. It is probably also the background in the elaborate and beautiful miniature by Isaac Oliver, in the Royal Collection, which adorns this volume (see p. 295). From Penshurst, too, came the profile of Elizabeth given in this book. I refer to it here because it illustrates so perfectly what Walpole has said about portraits of Elizabeth, who, as we have seen, was certainly painted by Hilliard, and it is an apt criticism on the miniature painting of the time. [Illustration: S. COOPER. DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. (_Countess of Caledon._)] [Illustration: O. CROMWELL'S MOTHER.] [Illustration: S. COOPER. LADY LEIGH. (_Sackville Bale Collection._)] Speaking of the numerous portraits of Elizabeth which exist, he says there is not a single one to be called beautiful. They are totally composed of hands and necklaces. A pale Roman nose, a head of hair loaded with crowns and powdered with diamonds, a vast ruff, a vaster farthingale, and a bushel of pearls, are the features by which every one knows them at once. In this connection it may be observed there is another portrait of Queen Elizabeth, spoken of by Walpole as one of Hilliard's most capital performances, namely a whole length of her in robes, sitting on her throne. This was in King Charles I.'s Collection, and included in the catalogue by Van der Doort, to which frequent reference has been made, but, so far as I am aware, its whereabouts is not now known. Fourteen Hilliards are specified in the above-named catalogue, including a view of the Spanish Armada. Four of these, portraits, and copies of older pictures, are now at Windsor, and were once attached to a gold and enamelled jewel, the work on which, it is surmised, was probably also Hilliard's, he being, as we have seen, the Court goldsmith; the portraits are those of Henry VII., Henry VIII., Jane Seymour, and Edward VI. The latter Van der Doort describes as "meanly done," "upon a round card." This remarkable example of goldsmith's work has on one side the roses of York and Lancaster and on the other a representation of the Battle of Bosworth Field. There are jewelled badges upon the dress and cap of Henry VII., and the miniature is dated 1509, the year of his death. In Horace Walpole's copy of Van der Doort's catalogue, it is noted: "The above jewel and pictures were done by old Hilliard, and given to the King by young Hilliard, by the deceased Earl of Pembroke's means." It is possible, by means of the miniatures of Nicholas Hilliard, to realise the appearance of many of the personages of Tudor times, and of Elizabeth's Court in particular. Thus, in the Duke of Buccleuch's Collection is a portrait, on vellum, of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset; he was the brother of Jane Seymour, uncle of Edward VI., and was beheaded on Tower Hill, 1552. Also in the Buccleuch Collection is one of the most beautiful of this artist's works, namely, a portrait of Alicia Brandon, daughter of John Brandon, Chamberlain of the City of London. She was the wife of Hilliard, and was painted by him in her twenty-second year, 1578. The picture is charming from the vivacity of the features and its delicate execution. It is circular in form, signed N. H. (connected), and is preserved in a rose-turned case of logwood with an ivory circular rim. It was shown in the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition in 1879. In the Colworth Collection there was formerly a portrait of Darnley, Earl of Lennox, thus inscribed: "Comes linoz ano Dni 1560 ætatis Suæ 18." I give this description as it is a typical instance of the abbreviations one commonly finds on Hilliard's miniatures. [Illustration: ALEXANDER COOPER. SIR JOHN KING. (_H.M. the King._)] [Illustration: S. COOPER. PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF. (_Dyce Collection._)] Mrs. Naylor Leyland owns a portrait of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, which is ascribed to Hilliard, and has a circumstantial history. It is said to have been given by the unfortunate Queen to one of her Maids of Honour on her marriage, from whom it descended to her grandson, the second and last Earl of Middleton, and thence to the present possessor. Of course, it is quite possible that this is the work of Hilliard, although most improbable that the painter ever saw her. In the case of another unfortunate lady of the period, namely, Arabella Stuart, the case is different, and he may quite well have had access to this ill-fated victim of the fears of James I. Walpole possessed two of her, one when young, which may be that owned by the Duke of Buccleuch, representing her as a girl with a baby face. James I. and his wife were painted by him, as we have already mentioned, and one portrait of the Scottish Solomon was sold at Christie's for a very large sum. Of the courtiers of Elizabeth we have a number of well-known personages, Essex and Dudley, for example; of Drake when forty-two, in Lord Derby's Collection; and a portrait of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, Elizabeth's champion, dressed as for a tournament, in an enormous flapped hat, with a glove, the emblem of his office, fixed on the front of it. This picture is well known from the engraving by R. White. At Kensington, in 1865, might have been seen Nicholas Harbon, Ambassador to Constantinople; Mrs. Holland, one of Elizabeth's Maids of Honour; Lord Keeper Coventry; Lady Hunsdon; and a portrait of the poet Spenser, which last is the property of Lord Fitzhardinge, and here shown. VI ISAAC AND PETER OLIVER, AND JOHN HOSKINS CHAPTER VI ISAAC AND PETER OLIVER, AND JOHN HOSKINS Those of my readers who are able to agree with the estimate already advanced in this work as to the unique position held by Samuel Cooper in the ranks of British miniature painters, will be able to gauge the position which may be assigned to Isaac Oliver when they read Walpole's opinion of his powers. He expresses it in the following terms: "We have no one," says he, "to put in competition with Isaac Oliver, except it be our own Cooper." This is tantamount to saying that this painter, Oliver, was one of the greatest we have ever had, in his own walk of art. It must be remembered that there were two Olivers--Isaac the father, and Peter, his eldest son and pupil. Walpole could find no account of the origin of the family, but he notes that in the elder painter's pocket-book was a mixture of English and French, a point not without significance. The connoisseur of Strawberry Hill, whose opinions on art generally, and on his own magnificent collection in particular, are so interesting, and which we have so often quoted, states that the excellence of the elder Oliver was such that "we may challenge any nation to show a greater master"; and Peacham states that to Hilliard, in conjunction with Zucchero, has been given the credit of having instructed "a limner inferior to none in Christendome for the countenance in small." The elder Oliver was born in 1555 or 1556. He died in his house at Blackfriars in 1617, the date of Raleigh's execution, and just a year after the death of Shakespeare. That he was at work till the close of his life is clear from the inscription upon one of the finest examples of his powers, namely, the portrait of the Earl of Dorset, formerly in the possession of Mr. C. Sackville Bale, sold at Christie's in 1880 for £750, and now one of the most valuable miniatures in the collection Mr. John Jones bequeathed to the nation, which is housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is a full length, nearly ten inches high, and thus signed, "Isaac Olliuierus fecit 1616." As in the case of other artists mentioned in this book, I do not think it necessary to dwell much upon the facts of their careers; what I think more important, and at least as interesting, is to give some idea of their relative ability, of the character of their work, and a more or less critical account of some accessible examples to be found in this country. That, amplified to an extent not possible in this volume, is what I set before myself in my preceding works upon Miniature Painters, and in practice I have not found any better way of treating the subject. So, then, we may disregard the biographical details of Oliver's life, of which, I take it, there are indeed very few to be gleaned. We have settled upon excellent authority his rank and qualifications as a miniature painter, and seen that he ranks as second only to the "incomparable Samuel Cooper." Let us now turn to some of the principal known works of this admirable artist which have survived. Probably the largest number is to be found in the Duke of Buccleuch's magnificent Collection at Montagu House; but we may refer first of all to those in the Royal Library at Windsor, and begin with the celebrated full length of Sir Philip Sidney sitting under a tree in an arcaded garden, which some think conveys an allusion to the "Arcadia." It is shown on p. 295, and is reproduced on the exact scale of the original. This, with so many other of the finest of the old miniatures, was formerly in the Strawberry Hill Collection. It was sold at West's sale for the paltry sum of £16 5s. We have evidence of four miniatures being painted for Charles I. when Duke of York, as is shown by an entry of payment by warrant in the office books of the Chambers, dated Lincoln, 1617: "To Isaace Oliver for four several pictures drawn for the Prince His Highness, Forty pounds." A profile of Anne of Denmark, now at Windsor, may be one of these, she being the mother of Charles I.; as may also be the portrait of Henry, Prince of Wales, his brother, which, according to Sir Richard Holmes, is the finest extant of that Prince. It is described in Charles I.'s catalogue as follows: "Number 17, done upon the right light, the biggest limned picture which was made of Prince Henry, being limned in the set lace ruff and gilded armour and a landskip wherein are some soldiers and tents, in a square frame, with a sheeting glass over it, done by Isaace Oliver, five and a quarter inches by four." The interesting portrait of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who was stabbed by Felton at Portsmouth in 1628, is probably a late example of the master, and is in his Majesty's Collection. It is figured on p. 126, as is also the interesting miniature of the artist himself in a tall felt hat (see p. 111), which we may conclude was the height of fashion of the period, there being one extremely like it in the National Gallery, worn by James I. The miniature here shown is also in the King's Collection. Amongst the miniatures by Oliver which are best known are those of Sir Kenelm Digby and his family, which were shown at Messrs. Dickinson's Loan Exhibition of 1880. Comparisons are odious, but it must be admitted that those belonging to the Burdett-Coutts Collection are in finer condition than those preserved at the home of the Digbys, namely Sherborne Castle, Dorset, a picturesque Jacobean mansion given by James I. to Sir Walter Raleigh. [Illustration: PETITOT. BY HIMSELF.] [Illustration: MLLE. FONTANGES.] [Illustration: HENRIETTE D'ORLEANS. (_Burdett-Coutts Collection._)] These interesting portraits were once at Strawberry Hill, where they hung in "the blue breakfast room." The way they came into the possession of Horace Walpole is worth telling. It aptly shows how easily treasures of this kind may be forgotten and lost. Writing about Peter Oliver's habit of making duplicates of his works, Walpole says:-- "Since this work was first published a valuable treasure of the works of this master, and of his father Isaac, was discovered in an old house in Wales, which belonged to a descendant of Sir Kenelm Digby (Mr. Watkin Williams). The latest are dated 1633, but being closed in ivory and ebony cases, and the whole collection locked up in a wainscot box, they are as perfectly preserved as if newly painted. They all represent Sir Kenelm and persons related to or connected with him. There are three portraits of him, six of his beloved wife at different ages, and three triplicates of his mistress, all three by Isaac Oliver, as is Lady Digby's mother, which I have mentioned before. But the capital work is a large miniature copied from Van Dyck of Sir Kenelm, his wife, and two sons, the most beautiful piece of the size that I believe exists (see p. 289). There is a duplicate of Sir Kenelm and Lady Digby from the same picture, and though of not half the volume, still more highly finished. This last piece is set in gold, richly inlaid with flowers in enamel, and shuts like a book. All these, with several others, I purchased at a great price, but they are not to be matched." It is noteworthy that nearly all the portraits of Sir Kenelm and his wife ascribed to Isaac Oliver must be by Peter, as Isaac died when the originals were boy and girl. Sir Kenelm Digby was born in 1603. Isaac Oliver was buried in October, 1617. One of the portraits is dated 1627. This discrepancy in Walpole's account, wherein, as we have seen above, he speaks of Sir Kenelm's mistress as being painted by the elder Oliver, may be owing to his misreading the monogram. The large copy after Van Dyck of the family group is dated 1635. Amongst the Digby portraits at Sherborne Castle is that remarkable one of Venetia Lady Digby lying dead in her bed. This is ascribed to Peter Oliver. Walpole had six portraits of her at different ages, and Lord Clarendon speaks of her as "a lady of extraordinary beauty and of as extraordinary fame." Nor was her husband less remarkable. I have somewhere seen him described as "the bravest gentleman and the biggest liar of his time." Be that as it may, he was certainly of handsome appearance, extraordinary strength, and distinguished as a soldier, scholar, and courtier. His father was Sir Everard Digby, who was executed for his share in the Gunpowder Plot. Sir Kenelm renounced the faith of his father, and was entered at Gloucester Hall, Oxford. He was on the Continent at an early age, and, returning in 1623, was knighted by James I. Five years later we hear of him commanding a small squadron in the Mediterranean. During the Civil War he had the prudence to retire to France. Returning to England at the Restoration, he lived at his house in Covent Garden till the year of his death, namely 1665. His wife, Venetia Anastasia, was the youngest daughter of Sir Edward Stanley, and was born at Tong Castle, in Shropshire, in 1600. They had two sons--Kenelm, killed during the Civil War in a skirmish at St. Neots; and John, who was disinherited by his father, but ultimately succeeded to a portion of the property. Judging from the lovely group after Van Dyck which, by the courtesy of the late lamented Baroness Burdett-Coutts, I am able to show of this interesting family, these two sons would seem to have inherited the physical beauty of their parents. Another group not less remarkable, and in a sense more interesting in this connection, inasmuch as it is an original work of the artist himself, and not a copy from any other, is that of the three brothers, Anthony Maria, John, and William Browne. This noble piece, which measures ten inches by nine, is now at Burleigh, the owner of which historic house, the Marquess of Exeter, is descended from the eldest of these young men. The work was known to Walpole, and was at Cowdray in his time. He thus describes it: "At Lord Montague's at Cowdray is an invaluable work of Isaac Oliver's. It represents three brothers of that lord's family, whole lengths in black. These young gentlemen resemble each other remarkably, a peculiarity observable in the picture, the motto on which is _figuræ conformis affectus_. The black dresses are relieved by gold belts and lace collars, and contrasted by the silver-laced doublet of another young man, presumably a page, who is entering the room." This beautiful group is in perfect preservation, of absolutely superlative quality, and, as we have seen, upon an important scale. It possesses also the interest of having, with three other pictures, escaped the disastrous fire at Cowdray in 1793. This fatality is said to have marked the end of the race of the Lords Montague, and the last scion of the house lost his life over the Falls of Schaffhausen just at the time the flames destroyed the old family mansion. It is said that messengers--one bearing the news of the death of the last Lord Montague by water and the other of the destruction of the home of the race by fire--met one another in Paris. Earl Spencer possesses a very fine copy of this work in oils, painted by Sherwin in 1781. Any readers who may desire further genealogical details of the brothers represented will find them in my book on "Miniature Painters, British and Foreign," pp. 39 and 40. I am not aware of Isaac Oliver holding any appointment at Court, but of courtiers and of the aristocracy of his day he must have painted a great number. This was made clear at the exhibition of the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1889, when some five and twenty or thirty more or less well-authenticated works by Isaac Oliver were shown, besides a number by Peter Oliver. That masterpiece of Oliver's, the Earl of Dorset, now in the Jones Collection, at Kensington, has already been described, and reference has been made to the portrait of Buckingham belonging to the King. There was another of "Steenie," by Isaac Oliver, in the Propert Collection. Mr. Jefferey Whitehead owns, or did own, a couple of portraits of Sir Francis Drake. Lord Derby possesses one of the ill-fated Elizabeth of Bohemia. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, appears to have been painted oftener, almost, than any one of his time. Thus, the Duke of Devonshire possesses two Olivers of him, the King another, and there was one in the Propert Collection also assigned to him. The "wicked" Countess of Essex, Frances Howard, afterwards Countess of Somerset, condemned to death for her share in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, was also painted by Oliver. The Earl of Derby and Major-General Sotheby possess miniatures of her. [Illustration: PETITOT. LOUIS XIV.] [Illustration: CARDINAL MAZARIN. (_Earl of Carlisle._)] [Illustration: JAMES II. (_Burdett-Coutts Collection._)] [Illustration: CHARLES I. (_Burdett-Coutts Collection._)] [Illustration: CARDINAL RICHELIEU.] There is a passing reference to Isaac Oliver in the very interesting autobiography of Lord Herbert, of Cherbury. That remarkable man tells a story of "a Lady, wife to Sir John Ayres, knight, who, finding some means to get a copy of my picture from Larkin, gave it to Mr. Isaac [Oliver], the Painter in Blackfriars, and desired him to draw it in little, after his manner, which being done, she caused it to be set in gold and enamelled, and so wore it about her neck so low that she had it under her breasts." Lord Herbert adds that he caught Lady Ayres lying upon her bed contemplating the miniature! The temptation to stop and gossip about some of these people, as, for instance, the lady to whom reference has just been made, is almost irresistible; in truth it may be said that almost all the people painted by Oliver are remarkable either for their virtues, their vices, or their misfortunes; in this latter category must be placed the unfortunate Arabella Stuart, of whom Major-General Sotheby and Mr. J. K. D. Wingfield Digby possess examples, the latter owning two. The number of portraits existing of this lady, of various kinds, is somewhat remarkable, and I am led to surmise that it may be accounted for by the sympathy aroused by the fate of this unhappy creature. I may mention, in support of this conjecture, the existence of a miniature that belonged to a collection which may be described as the Stuart Collection, inasmuch as it once belonged to James II., and has a circumstantial history which we must not stop to go into here, further than to say that these miniatures are all supposed to possess historical authenticity, and are works of high quality. Amongst them is one of Lady Arabella Stuart, ascribed to Peter Oliver. Now, the ill-fated victim of the political jealousy of James I. ended her days in the Tower in 1615, and Peter Oliver, whose work it is supposed to have been, was not born till 1601, or as some say 1604; hence it is almost impossible that he could or did paint it from life. The fact that he painted her at all, a political prisoner, whose reason had given way before the artist was in his teens, points to an interest in her fate, whether felt by him or by others, such as led, as I have said, to a multiplication of her portraits. Catherine Cary, Countess of Nottingham, whose portrait is in the Duke of Buccleuch's Collection, and Lady Teresa Shirley are both ladies with stories which belong to the byways of history. Before leaving Isaac Oliver, there is one other kind of work of which he did a good deal, and to which I must refer, namely, the copying in miniature of paintings by the old masters, of which--but this is by the way--Peter Oliver appears to have done still more. Isaac did not live to finish all his work of this nature, as is shown by an entry in the catalogue of Charles I. of a "great limned piece of the Burial of Christ, which was invented by Isaac Oliver, and was left unfinished at his decease, and now, by His Majesty's appointment finished by his son Peter Oliver." Peter Oliver erected a monument to his father in the Church of St. Anne's, Blackfriars; it was a bust, and both the monument and the church perished in the Great Fire of 1666. Vertue recalls having seen a model of the bust; and with a copy of the entry occurring in the register of this church I may conclude my remarks on Isaac Oliver: "Isaack Oliver buried 2nd October 1617. Mr. Peter Oliver buried September 22 1647." PETER OLIVER Peter Oliver was the eldest son of his father, and was born, as we have before observed, at the very opening of the seventeenth century. There is a portrait of him by Hanneman, a Dutch painter who came to this country soon after Van Dyck, at Hampton Court, which, if we may trust it, shows him to have been a man with dark brown hair and dark, dreary eyes. As he did not live to be fifty years of age, dying two years before the execution of Charles I., he must have worked hard. The Van der Doort catalogue, of which frequent mention has been made, includes thirteen of the paintings once in the possession of Charles, which were copied in water colours by Peter Oliver, as were portraits of the Stuart family. He married, and had children, and Vertue tells a story, upon the authority of Russell the painter, who was connected with the Olivers, which shows that Peter Oliver's work for and in connection with the Court was well known to Charles II. We do not hear much of the "Merry Monarch" as a patron of art, nor as a model of filial affection, but some motive or other took him _incognito_, we are told, to Isleworth on a visit to the widow of Peter Oliver to make inquiries about miniatures which she was supposed to possess. "The King went very privately ... to see them, the widow showed several finished and unfinished; asked if she would sell them, she said she had a mind the King should see them first, and if he did not purchase them, she would think of disposing of them; the King discovered himself, on which she produced some more pictures which she seldom showed. The King desired her to set her price; she said she did not care to make a price with His Majesty, she would leave it to him, but promised to look over her husband's books, and to let him know what prices his father, the late King, had paid. The King took away what he liked, and sent Rogers to Mrs. Oliver with the option of £1,000, or an annuity of £300 for life, and she chose the latter. Some years afterwards, the King's mistresses having begged all or most of these pictures, Mrs. Oliver said, on hearing it, that if she had thought that the King would have given them to such unworthy persons, he never should have had them. This reached the Court, the poor woman's salary was stopped, and she never received it afterwards." _Apropos_ of the return of the many treasures which we know were dispersed at the close of the Civil War, I may mention an instance of a piece which was formerly in the Royal Collection, and has gone back to Windsor of recent times. It is an interesting work by Peter Oliver, dated 1628, and is a copy of Raphael's "St. George," about half the size of the original, which latter, by the way, was presented to Henry VII. by the Duke of Urbino, in return for the Order of the Garter. The copy found its way back to the Royal Collection in 1883, having been purchased at the sale at Christie's of the Hamilton Palace treasures in that year. [Illustration: PETITOT LE VIEUX. (_Earl Dartrey._)] [Illustration: PETITOT. (_From a print in the British Museum._)] [Illustration: CHARLES II. (_Burdett-Coutts Collection._)] Sir Richard Holmes, to whom I am indebted for the information, surmises that the copy may have been given by Charles to the Marquess of Hamilton. The original painting, one regrets to say, was sold at the Rebellion; it is now the property of the Russian Crown, and hangs in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg. There is an interesting entry in John Evelyn's diary just after the Restoration, which runs as follows: "I went with some of my relations to the Court, to show them His Majesty's cabinet and closet of varieties, the rare miniatures of Peter Oliver after Raphael, Titian, and other masters, which I infinitely esteem." Judging from the amount of work in the shape of copies of the old masters, which we know to have been executed by Peter Oliver, and, further, the comparatively small number of portraits by him one meets with, it would seem probable that he did less in the way of portraiture than his father. Thus at the Burlington Fine Arts Club exhibition works assigned to Isaac Oliver were at least three times as numerous as those assigned to Peter Oliver. I may mention here that besides the Digbys, the younger artist was also credited in this collection with having painted the Countess of Nottingham and the Earls of Somerset and Southampton, Lady Arabella Stuart, and others. Where there are two artists of the same name working at the same period, as in the case of the Olivers, mistakes easily occur, and we have seen an instance of it in the case of Walpole's error with regard to the Digby family, as shown on a preceding page. I may therefore call collectors' particular attention, in distinguishing the works of these great limners, to the fact that the elder Oliver signed his works with a monogram F, whilst the younger used the initials P. O. connected. JOHN HOSKINS The researches both of Vertue and of Walpole have resulted in discovering but very little about the career of that excellent miniature painter John Hoskins, and both quote an extract from Graham's "English School," to this effect: "He [Hoskins] was bred to face painting in oils, but afterwards taking to miniature, far exceeded what he did before. He drew Charles, his Queen, and most of the Court, and had two considerable disciples, Alexander and Samuel Cooper, the latter of whom became much the more eminent limner"; and though it must be conceded there is not much to be gleaned about the life of the man, it is evident that he had a considerable share of the Court and aristocratic patronage in his day. The Earl of Wharncliffe possesses, or did possess, portraits of the Countess of Carlisle, as well as one of Oliver Cromwell. Mr. Whitehead does, or did, possess one of Lucy, Viscountess Falkland; also one of John Gauden, Bishop of Worcester. Lord Derby owns a portrait of the ill-fated Henrietta Maria; the Duke of Devonshire one of Thomas Hobbs, philosopher; General Sotheby owns portraits of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey and Sir Charles Lucas. We miss in the works of Hoskins the minute touch of Hilliard, the refinement of the Olivers, and the breadth of Samuel Cooper; yet Sir Kenelm Digby, in his "Discourses," says that "by his paintings he pleased the public more than Van Dyck." Horace Walpole allows his heads to have great truth and nature, but finds fault with the carnations as "too bricky and wanting a degradation and variety of tints." The few lines quoted above virtually sum up the approximate rank and position of John Hoskins, and I am not aware that recent biographers have discovered anything of importance to add to them. That he was master to such an artist as Samuel Cooper, and that his pupil's manner was clearly formed on that of the master, constitute, perhaps, the strongest claim that can be urged for Hoskins in connection with this subject. There is a great deal of truth to nature in Hoskins's work. Elsewhere I have termed his style virile and unaffected, and I do not know that I can find more appropriate epithets. At the same time, the justice of Walpole's criticism, that Hoskins is defective in colour, must be admitted. It is quite true that the carnations are too bricky, and wanting in gradation and variety of tint. This deficiency, which is a very serious one in miniature painting, depriving the flesh tints of their charm, may be traced in part to the medium employed. The amount of body colour used by limners of this period was so great, that the transparency of tone attained by later painters was impossible. The work of the incomparable Cooper himself is not free from this defect, and we see it carried to excess both in the case of Cooper's master and in that of his pupil Flatman. All three are marked by a certain dryness of colour attaining to brickiness, only Cooper generally avoids the extremes into which the other two artists fall. This fault, it may be said, is characteristic of examples I have seen and possess. The character of Charles I., whose melancholy visage Hoskins has drawn in a miniature now at Windsor, and here shown, is extremely well rendered. In the Duke of Rutland's valuable collection at Belvoir Castle there is an interesting portrait of Charles, when Prince of Wales, aged fourteen, ascribed to Hoskins, but infinitely inferior in the rendering of expression. Lord Carlisle owns, I believe, a replica of the last named. One of the finest examples of the master that I have met with is a portrait of Percy, tenth Earl of Northumberland, now in the collection of Lord Aldenham, and this nobleman also possesses a portrait of Elizabeth, wife of Frederick, fifth King of Bohemia. The question has been raised whether there were two John Hoskinses, father and son. It will be noticed that in an extract from Graham which I have given he speaks of but one Hoskins, and those who argue that there were two appear to rest their contention mainly upon the foundation of a variation in the manner of signing the portrait. Thus the mark + is said to distinguish the works of the father from those of the son, which have I. H. simply. But if this be the test, then it may be urged that there were several John Hoskinses, since amongst the miniatures shown at Burlington House from Windsor, and by the Duke of Buccleuch, ascribed to Hoskins, there were the following different signatures: H. only, I. H. 1645, I. H. fc, I. H. (connected). I am unable to give the date of the birth of John Hoskins, but he died in 1664, and was buried in St. Paul's, Covent Garden. VII SAMUEL COOPER [Illustration: S. LIOTARD. LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU.] [Illustration: AFTER SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. AMELIA, DUCHESS OF LEINSTER. (_Earl of Charlemont._)] CHAPTER VII SAMUEL COOPER As Hilliard has made us familiar with the features of the most distinguished members of the Court of Elizabeth, so, a hundred years later, did Samuel Cooper, that "admirable workman and good company" as Pepys describes him, draw for us on a few inches of cardboard the presentment of the Cromwell family and many of the men and beautiful women who made up the _entourage_ of the second Charles. Samuel Cooper, in whom, it has been said, the art of miniature painting culminated, was born in London, in 1609. He came of an artistic stock, his uncle being John Hoskins, himself a painter of no mean reputation, as we have just seen. Samuel was instructed by his elder brother Alexander in the art of limning, and both brothers are reputed to have been the pupils of their uncle. Be that as it may, Samuel spent much of his life on the Continent, and was intimate with many of the eminent men of his day. Pepys frequently mentions the artist in terms of warm commendation. Possibly the fact that he was an excellent musician endeared him to the amiable diarist, who, under the date "1668, July 10th," says: "To Cooper's, and there find my wife.... And here he do work finely, though I fear it will not be so like as I expected; but now I understand his great skill in music, his playing and setting to the French lute most excellently, and he speaks French, and indeed is an excellent man." This visit is explained by a previous entry, on March 29th: "Harris ... hath persuaded me to have Cooper draw my wife's portrait, which, though it cost £30, yet will I have done." Thirty pounds in those days was, of course, a considerable sum of money, but it seems to have been Cooper's usual price for a miniature, as we learn from the record of another visit to the painter in the pages of the immortal diary: "To Cooper's, where I spent all the afternoon with my wife and girl, seeing him make an end of her picture, which he did to my great content, though not so great as I confess I expected, being not satisfied in the greatness of the resemblance, nor in the blue garment; but it is most certainly a most rare piece of work as to the painting. He hath £30 for his work, and the chrystal and case and gold case comes to £8 3s. 4d., and which I sent him this night that I might be out of his debt." Elsewhere Pepys relates visiting the artist's studio and being much struck with the miniature of "one Swinfen, Secretary to my Lord Manchester.... This fellow died in debt and never paid Cooper for this picture.... Cooper himself did buy it [from the creditors], and give £25 out of his purse for it, for what he was to have had but £30." [Illustration: UNKNOWN. A LADY. (_Lord Tweedmouth._)] [Illustration: GASPAR NETSCHER. SARAH JENNINGS, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. (_Charles Butler, Esq._)] The market value of Cooper's miniatures, however, very rapidly rose. Thus we find Walpole writing in February, 1758, to Sir Horace Mann: "But our glaring extravagance is in the constant high price given for pictures.... I know but one dear picture not sold (this was at Mr. Furnese's auction)--Cooper's head of O. Cromwell, an unfinished miniature. They asked me four hundred pounds for it." Of this masterpiece, which Cunningham correctly assumes to be "the one mentioned elsewhere as in the possession of Lady Franklin, widow of Sir Thomas, a descendant of Cromwell, of which there is an exquisite copy in the Harley Collection at Welbeck, made in 1723 by Bernard Lens," Dallaway says it is related in the family that Cromwell surprised Cooper while he was copying the portrait and indignantly took it away with him. The original was shown at Burlington House in 1879, being then in the possession of the Duke of Buccleuch. It formerly belonged to Mr. Henry Cromwell Frankland, of Chichester, who inherited it through a daughter of Lady Elizabeth Claypole. The Lady Frankland (not Franklin) mentioned above was the grand-daughter of Oliver Cromwell. The Protector and his family seem to have been very favourite subjects of the painter. Thus in the Loan Collection of 1865, out of some eighty or ninety miniatures ascribed to Cooper there were no less than seven of Oliver Cromwell, and almost as many of his daughters and of Richard Cromwell. A very beautiful example is the portrait of Oliver's second and favourite daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, who is said to have upbraided her father for his share in the death of Charles I. and his cruelty in sanctioning the execution of the Royalist agent, Dr. Hewitt. It is signed S. C. 1655 and belongs to the Duke of Devonshire, who also possesses a very fine portrait of the Protector, of which a French critic, M. de Conches, has remarked that Cooper was a man who knew how to enlarge the style of a miniature, and that this particular specimen was as vigorous as oil, perfectly modelled and firm in touch. In the same collection is the profile drawing on paper in pen and brown ink from which Houbraken engraved his portrait. At Stafford House is another portrait of Oliver, and also a very interesting example of the pencil studies from which the artist used to paint his miniatures. It was in connection with this portrait that Walpole gave it as his opinion that "If his portrait of Cromwell could be so enlarged [to the size of one of Van Dyck's pictures], I do not know but Van Dyck would appear less great by comparison." This is the portrait referred to by Walpole above. The Duke of Buccleuch possesses another Cooper of unsurpassed interest--Cromwell's Latin Secretary. This portrait of the poet fully bears out the description of Aubrey, who says that Milton "had light browne haire. His complexion exceeding fayre, oval face, his eie a dark gray. He was a spare man." [Illustration: W. DERBY. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. (_Earl of Derby._)] [Illustration: JAMES NIXON. MISS KITTY MUDGE. (_Canon Raffles Flint._)] Another characteristic of Cooper's work is that he frequently leaves his miniatures unfinished, being content, apparently, as soon as he had seized the likeness. It was this peculiarity, doubtless, that gave rise to Walpole's disparaging, and, it must be contended, unjust remark that "Cooper, with so much merit, had two defects: his skill was confined to a mere head; his drawing of the neck and shoulders so incorrect and untoward that it seems to account for the number of his works unfinished. It looks as if he was sensible how small a way his talent extended[!] This very properly accounts for the other [defect], his want of grace, a signal deficiency in a painter of portraits, yet how seldom possessed." As to this latter deficiency, it is very much a matter of opinion. Those who have seen the portrait at Windsor of the Duke of Monmouth when young will hardly be disposed to allow it; indeed, when we have such an amazing power of seizing character, and such breadth of delineation, we can afford to dispense with mere superficial prettiness. And, to return to Walpole's first contention, it is surely unlikely that the artist who could portray such subtleties of character and expression as Cooper did should not have been able to extend his talent "so small a way" as to draw necks and shoulders if he had been so minded. In the Royal Collection is a head of Charles II., which with another of George Monck, Duke of Albemarle, and that of Monmouth mentioned above, form a trio of portraits difficult to surpass for character and simplicity, although the two last are unfinished. There is, however, no want of finish in the elaborate picture of Charles II., wearing the Robes of the Garter, which belongs to the Duke of Richmond, and is preserved at Goodwood. It is one of the largest and finest examples of the master, and gives more dignity to that cynical voluptuary than any portrait of him with which I am acquainted. It has been said that Cooper's portraits of women are inferior to his portraits of men, and, on the whole, I think this must be conceded. In the Dyce Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum will be found a series of fourteen more or less unfinished miniatures attributed to Samuel Cooper, and shown with a pocket-book in which they were found, which formerly belonged to Mr. Edwin H. Lawrence. I have used the word "attributed" advisedly, because several of these miniatures, attractive as they are, seem to me to lack the supreme quality of Samuel Cooper's work. Some, it has been suggested, recall Flatman[3] rather, or, as I think more likely, Dixon. They are in various stages of completion, and show the artist's method of working; well drawn and broadly treated, they are excellent work, and most interesting, technically speaking. [Footnote 3: Thomas Flatman was a briefless barrister and poet, who imitated but never equalled Cooper's work, although Vertue pronounces him equal to Hoskins. His portrait by Lely is in the National Portrait Gallery.] The biographical details to be gleaned of this English master miniature painter seem to be meagre in the extreme, and still slighter are they in the case of his elder brother Alexander. I recall two examples of the latter's work, both in the Royal Library at Windsor; one a portrait of Sir John King, a highly successful lawyer of his day, a favourite of King Charles II., who intended to make him Attorney-General; but he died when only thirty-eight, and lies buried in the Temple Church. Granger says of him: "Such was his reputation and so extensive his practice that in the latter part of his life his fees amounted to forty and fifty pounds a day." His portrait is given on p. 141. The other is of James Stuart, created second Duke of Richmond in 1641. This nobleman is noteworthy as being one of the four who offered their lives to save King Charles I. [Illustration: R. COSWAY, R.A. ISABELLE, MARCHIONESS OF HERTFORD. (_Meynell-Ingram Collection._)] [Illustration: S. SHELLEY. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN. (_Miss Kendall._)] [Illustration: S. COLLINS. LADY FRANCES RADCLIFFE. (_Earl of Carlisle._)] There is great strength and force of character in the portrait of this staunch Royalist. Technically, however, both pieces are inferior to the work of Samuel Cooper. [Illustration: W. DERBY. LADY ELIZABETH HAMILTON. (_Earl of Derby._)] VIII PETITOT CHAPTER VIII PETITOT As we saw in a previous chapter, it is to a Frenchman, Jean Toutin, that the credit of applying enamel to portraiture must be given. It may be remarked, in passing, that it is somewhat remarkable that this difficult but beautiful process should come into use just as the older and decorative enamelling fell into decay. Jean Toutin was assisted by pupils, amongst whom one stands pre-eminent, so much so that the fame of the early professors of this art, including that of Toutin himself, may be said to have become merged in the reputation of Petitot, and everything in the shape of a portrait in enamel of that period is commonly assigned, one might almost say without hesitation, to Jean Petitot, very often, it is needless to add, upon the slenderest grounds. We are fortunate to possess in this country a considerable number of examples of the portraiture we are about to discuss. These may be seen and studied in the Jones Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. A comparison of them will show how wide are the differences existing between works ostensibly by the same artist, to whom we may now return. Petitot came of a family of French origin, but was born at Geneva, where his parents, having adopted the reformed religion, had settled. Paul, the father of Jean Petitot, was a wood-carver. His son is thought by some of his biographers, of whom there are several, to have commenced life as a goldsmith and jeweller. We have already seen how close was the connection between the various occupations of goldsmith and jeweller, enameller and miniature painter, and this connection was still existing at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Petitot was born. We need not stop to inquire precisely into the early stages of our artist's career, but we may gather that he applied himself to an occupation which was the fashion of the time, namely, the enrichment of gems with ornaments, such as flowers and the like, in enamel; and we may safely conclude that he became proficient, for, after a sojourn in France, he came to England when he was about twenty-eight. Arrived in London in 1634 or 1635, Petitot proceeded to show the Court jeweller his work in enamel; this led to an introduction to the King. Charles I., a passionate lover of art, as we know, must have appreciated the artist's ability, since we find that he assigned him an apartment in the palace at Whitehall. By great good fortune, the young Petitot had the advantage of the protection of a Genevese, physician to the King, and a celebrated chemist, Sir Turquet de Mayerne. Such a patron and colleague must have been of the utmost assistance to our artist in this stage of his career, since he was able to further his chemical researches, and aid him in experiments in vitrification which resulted in the painter's palette being much enriched and his methods perfected. I may remark, by the way, there is a very characteristic portrait of Sir Turquet, after Rubens, at Hampton Court. [Illustration: R. COSWAY, R.A. RICHARD AND MARIA COSWAY.] But, in addition to the scientific help which Petitot's countryman was able to afford, the artist enjoyed the advantage of instruction from the King's chief portrait painter, Sir Anthony Van Dyck; and it is significant of the close relationship which probably existed between the two artists that the copies which Petitot made from the great Fleming's work are esteemed as amongst his most exquisite productions, combining grace and freedom with marvellous exactness, in spite of the minuteness of the scale. It is one of these copies of Van Dyck, namely the whole length of Rachel de Rouvigny, Countess of Southampton, that Horace Walpole does not hesitate to call "indubitably the most capital work in enamel in the world.... It is nine and three-quarter inches high, by five and three-quarter inches wide, and though the enamel is not perfect in some trifling parts, the execution is the boldest, and the colouring the most rich and beautiful that can be imagined. It is dated 1642." He also mentions a portrait of Buckingham, painted about the same time. Three years later we find Petitot arrived in Paris, led to take refuge in France, there can be little doubt, by the troubles which attended the outbreak of civil war in this country. He was favourably received by Cardinal Mazarin, and seems to have established himself at the French Court with the same facility that he had done in the case of the English Court, as we find him installed in the Louvre and in receipt of a pension from Le Grand Monarque. The portraits of Louis XIV. by Petitot may be termed almost innumerable, for reasons which I hope to show by and by. Five or six years after his return to France he married Madeleine Cuper, and a certain Jacques Bordier, of whom more anon, married her sister Margaret. The brothers-in-law worked together for many years, Bordier being responsible for the draperies and backgrounds of the portraits and Petitot for the exquisite details of the features. This art partnership lasted until the death of Bordier, in 1684. Petitot remained in Paris till 1687, a period of forty-two years. He would have quitted France earlier, namely at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, but Louis was clearly unwilling to part with him. The King shut up the painter, whose Protestant origin we have already mentioned, in Fort l'Evêque, and sent the eloquent Bossuet to convert him. To regain his liberty "he signed like the rest," and escaped to Geneva. By this time the artist was in his eightieth year, but his powers of vision and the cunning of his hand appear to have been unabated. At any rate, he was overwhelmed, we are told, with commissions, and retired to Vevey to escape the importunity of his patrons. He lived four years longer, and was carried off by a sudden illness in a day, "as he was painting his wife," says Walpole. [Illustration: R. COSWAY, R.A. LADY CAROLINE HOWARD. (_Earl of Carlisle._)] [Illustration: WILLIAM, FIFTH DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE. (_Earl of Carlisle._)] [Illustration: LADY HORATIA SEYMOUR.] A mention has been made of Bordier as Petitot's brother-in-law; and I may here point out that according to Monsieur Reiset, the compiler of the catalogue of the Louvre, there were two Bordiers who worked with Petitot in England, namely Jacques, to whom reference has already been made, and Peter Bordier. I do not know that there is much to be learned about these _collaborateurs_ of Petitot, but of the two Peter seems the better known, and is indeed reputed to have been the master of Petitot. He remained in England after Petitot left it, and painted for the Parliament a memorial of the Battle of Naseby, which was presented to Fairfax. It was in the shape of a watch. Walpole purchased it from the collection at Thoresby, whither it came from the executors of the famous Roundhead general. It will be found fully described in the "Anecdotes of Painting." _Apropos_ of the Bordiers, I may mention that Petitot had a very large family, namely, eight daughters and nine sons; but only one, so far as I know, namely Jean, who is known as Petitot le fils, displayed anything of his father's artistic talent. This younger Petitot was patronised by our King Charles II. He was born in 1650, settled in England, and married Madeleine Bordier, the daughter of his father's colleague. He died in London, and after his death his family removed to Dublin. His work was distinctly inferior to his father's, both in colour and in finish. The Earl of Dartrey, who possesses a number of enamels, has amongst his valuable collection "Petitot le vieux par luy mesme," also "Petitot fils and his wife." The two latter are inscribed as follows: "Petitot fait par luy mesme d'age de 33 ans 1685." "Petitot a fait ce portrait à Paris en Janvier 1690 qui est sa femme." Another son of the elder Petitot rose to be a Major-General in the British Army. Besides the younger Petitot, a number of imitators and copyists of the elder may be named. Amongst these were his contemporaries Perrot and Chatillon, the engraver. Then there is Jacques Philippe Ferrand, who studied under Mignard; he was a member of the Academy and a _valet-de-chambre_ to Louis XIV. His father, Louis Ferrand, had been physician to the preceding monarch. At a later date we find Mademoiselle Chavant, who painted at Sèvres at the end of the eighteenth century; Moïse Constantin, who was an enameller, and also painted on porcelain. He was a Genevese, but lived at Paris, and was painter to the King, 1726-8. Four more Genevese, also enamellers, may be named, all of whom painted copies of Petitot, namely, Alexandre de la Chana, Dufey, Lambert, and J. G. Soutter. When we come to know of all these imitators or followers of Petitot, we begin to understand the enormous quantity of work attributed to him by the uninitiated; but difficult as it may be for the unpractised eye to discriminate, there may very well be a large number of works which are from the hand of Petitot himself, because, as we have seen, he spent a long and laborious life, and there was in his time a demand for this particular kind of portraiture far in excess of anything like modern requirements. That demand arose from the use of these enamel portraits for snuff-boxes, which were then so largely employed, not only for personal use, but as diplomatic presents. The amount of taste and labour bestowed upon these objects may be realised by those who will study the Le Noir Collection at the Louvre, the many fine pieces at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and last, but not least, those shown at Hertford House. They were, of course, extremely expensive, and such was their artistic charm that we do not wonder at people making a hobby of collecting them. Thus, we are told, Frederick the Great owned 1,500 snuff-boxes; then there was the Comte de Brieulle, the favourite minister of the King of Saxony, who was said to have owned 300 costumes, with a walking-stick and snuff-box appropriate to each. This was the nobleman of whom Frederick the Great remarked that he had "tant de perruques et si peu de tête." [Illustration: R. COSWAY, R.A. GEORGE IV. WHEN PRINCE OF WALES. (_Shaftesbury family._)] These _boits aux portraits_ were in fashionable use during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We have seen how Louis XIV. employed Petitot as far back as 1645, and we read of a portrait of Louis XVI. when Dauphin being sent to Marie Antoinette on her arrival in 1770. The picture was by P. A. Hall, the most distinguished miniaturist in France, and cost 2,664 francs. The box in which it was mounted contained seventy-five brilliants, costing over seventy-eight thousand francs, or nearly thirty times as much. The production of portraits for these snuff-boxes assumed the proportions of a manufactory at the French Court during the eighteenth century; thus the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs contain entries showing that enamel portraits were made by the dozen, and one Bruckmann, a Swede, supplied as many as nineteen at a time. I may mention with regard to the illustrations of Petitot here shown that the portrait of Cardinal Richelieu is mounted in a lovely chased gold and jasper snuff-box, which once belonged to the King of Saxony. The Louis XIV. is also upon a snuff-box. The Cardinal Mazarin comes from the Earl of Carlisle's celebrated collection at Castle Howard. The Charles I. on a preceding page was at Strawberry Hill, and Walpole thus speaks of it: "I have a fine head of Charles I., for which he probably sat, as it is not like any I have seen by Van Dyck. My portrait came from one of his [Petitot's] sons, who was a Major in our service, and died a Major-General at Northallerton 1764." This now belongs to the Burdett-Coutts Collection, as does the Charles II., the extremely fine James II., and also, I may remind the reader, the lovely Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, perhaps the most beautiful of all his works, and reproduced on p. 151. A few words may be said in conclusion as to the painter's method. He is reported to have generally used plates of gold or silver, seldom copper, for the foundation of his miniatures. His signed works are excessively rare. The Duke of Buckingham, dated 1640, to which I have already referred, is signed, however, and in the Louvre there is an example bearing a date, but these are exceptions. The beautiful borders which, in the shape of wreaths of enamelled flowers, are to be met with around his works, such as that in the Jones Collection, for example, are the work of Jules Legarré, goldsmith to the King, with whom there is little doubt Jean Petitot must have worked in the execution of commissions for the Court. [Illustration: R. COSWAY, R.A. LADY CAROLINE DUNCOMBE. (_W. B. Stopford, Esq._)] [Illustration: THE LADIES GEORGINA AND HARRIET CAVENDISH. (_Earl of Carlisle._)] IX SOME GEORGIAN ARTISTS [Illustration: R. COSWAY, R.A. BY HIMSELF. (_National Portrait Gallery._)] [Illustration: LADY HAMILTON. (_J. H. Anderdon, Esq._)] [Illustration: A. PLIMER. LADY THERESA STRANGWAYS.] CHAPTER IX SOME GEORGIAN ARTISTS It is a hundred years from the death of Samuel Cooper, which was in 1672, to the time when Cosway, Smart, and Humphrey may be said to have established their reputation as miniature painters of the first rank. Thus Richard Cosway was elected Royal Academician in 1773, and Ozias Humphrey, having made his start in life and obtained Royal patronage, set out the same year with Romney for Italy. Five years later John Smart was made Vice-President of the Incorporated Society of Artists. This century, it will be observed, takes in the whole of the early Georgian period; and it is a time of great dearth and barrenness in our subject, indeed, of art generally, in this country. When the three distinguished artists I have just named, Petitot and the two or three good enamellers we had, such as Meyer and Moser, whom I have dealt with elsewhere--I say, when these names are excepted, practically none of the first importance remain. Lawrence Crosse (1724-1784), with his somewhat heavy and insipid style, his fondness for blue drapery--so well shown in the Duke of Portland's Collection--and the Lens family, with their somewhat puzzling personality, may be named. There was also some good work done by stray artists like Gaspar Netscher, whose rendering of the imperious Sarah Jennings from the collection of Mr. Charles Butler I give on p. 177. Then there was the eccentric Jean Etienne Liotard, who was born at Geneva in 1702 and died there in the first year of the French Revolution. He was an artist of great ability, but of somewhat irregular habits and uncertain methods of work, and was known in Paris as "le Turc." Oriental costumes had a fascination for him, and some of his finest drawings are of figures in flowing Eastern robes. Walpole criticises him and says his likenesses were as exact as possible; Sir Joshua Reynolds seems to have been jealous of him and sneers at his style. Probably his best work was in pastel. He was patronised by Maria Theresa, and by Royalty in this country. The Museum at Amsterdam has of late years been enriched by several examples bequeathed by descendants. I confess to finding great charm in his work; so far as I know, he is unrepresented in our National collections, except by some drawings in the print-room of the British Museum. In the Salle des Dessins at the Louvre, however, is a striking full-length figure of a woman in Russian costume; and the Bessborough family possess works by him, he having met the Earl of Bessborough of his day at Constantinople and enjoyed that nobleman's patronage. [Illustration: R. COSWAY, R.A. LADY ORDE. (_Sir A. J. Campbell-Orde, Bart._)] I give examples of two excellent English artists of this period whose work is very pleasing without being, perhaps, of the first rank, viz., James Nixon, born within a year or two of Ozias Humphrey--that is, in 1741 (his Miss Kitty Mudge is marked by great refinement); and Samuel Collins, whose Lady Frances Radcliffe is shown on p. 185; he was the master of Humphrey, and enjoyed a great reputation at Bath, which he took with him to Dublin. In much the same category as the two foregoing may be placed Samuel Shelley, though personally I prefer Collins and Nixon, as Shelley's drawing is often defective, not to speak of other faults, traceable, no doubt, to his origin and want of training--for he was a self-taught genius, born in Whitechapel, in 1750. He is said to have founded his style upon that of Sir Joshua Reynolds; if so, he fell very far short of his master. He devoted much time also to female subjects, treated allegorically, such as "Chastity," which was engraved. His book illustrations are reckoned inferior to his miniatures. Some examples of his work may be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The number of miniature painters of about the calibre of Shelley who belong to this period--that is to say, the latter half of the eighteenth century--is so great that I can, in a chat about miniatures, only mention a few of them. The William Derby whose attractive portraits of Lady Elizabeth Hamilton and the Duchess of Hamilton adorn these pages was a Birmingham man, probably best known by his drawings for Lodge's "Portraits of Illustrious Personages." He was assisted by a son, who lived until 1873. The work of the elder was marked by great care and minuteness. He copied all the family portraits for the Earl of Derby, and was a frequent exhibitor at the Academy and elsewhere. The Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, shown on p. 189, was daughter of the sixth Duke of Hamilton; the Duchess of Hamilton is, of course, Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of Hamilton and afterwards of Argyll, one of the two famous Irish beauties who took the town by storm in "Horry" Walpole's time, and whose career has been so often narrated. I also give her sister, Maria Gunning, who became Countess of Coventry, and died an early victim to cosmetics. No doubt, it has often occurred to my readers that there ought to be a British national collection of miniatures. It is a reproach that none such exists. Miniature painting is a branch of art which has been flourishing amongst us for three centuries at least, and it has been carried to great perfection; no country can show more beautiful work of the kind, and in the number, as well as in the charm, of its miniatures England is unsurpassed. Yet no attempt has ever been made to procure a permanent collection. Had such efforts been made, say even a generation ago, examples might have been obtained at prices vastly below what would have to be paid in order to acquire them nowadays, and many precious works might have been secured. As we all know, the sums realised by fine miniatures, especially of ladies, and by men like Cosway and his pupils the Plimers, by Smart or Engleheart, to say nothing of historical works by Hilliard and Samuel Cooper, are enormous. Such a national collection would be attractive and instructive in the highest degree--attractive to lovers of art and history, instructive to students, who could hardly fail to benefit by the study of such work as might have been, long ere this, brought together, whilst the miniature painters of our day clearly stand in need of such artistic training. Finally, let the collector try to realise what valuable opportunities such a collection would afford for the comparison of style, for identification, and for instruction generally in this fascinating subject. [Illustration: O. HUMPHREY, R.A. CAROLINE OF ANSPACH.] [Illustration: J. SMART. LADY CLIVE. (_Earl of Powis._)] [Illustration: J. SMART. PORTRAIT OF A LADY. (_Miss Kendall._)] [Illustration: LORD CLIVE. (_Earl of Powis._)] [Illustration: AFTER G. ROMNEY. OZIAS HUMPHREY, R.A.] X RICHARD COSWAY CHAPTER X RICHARD COSWAY Probably there is no one miniature painter whose name is so familiar to the general reader as that of Richard Cosway, there is no one whose works in this particular branch of art are more admired, no one more frequently copied, and, as a consequence, no one whose miniatures or alleged miniatures are to be found in so many British collections as "Maccaroni Cosway," as he was called in his day. Maccaroni, you remember, was a name given to "dandies" about the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Sticking a huge feather in his hat, disporting himself in a mulberry coat with scarlet strawberries, displaying himself at sale-rooms and other places of public resort--these and such-like doings were delights to this diminutive, vain, and eccentric artist. "Yankee Doodle went to town Upon a little pony, He stuck a feather in his hat And called it Maccaroni." In his "Lives of Eminent British Painters" Allan Cunningham closes a long account of Cosway in these words, "His works are less widely known than they deserve, and his fame is faded." In the light of the present day, and the annals of the auction-room, that statement is one which can by no means be admitted. It may, on the contrary, be safely asserted of Richard Cosway that his fame, whatever it may have been in the days of Allan Cunningham, so far from fading, has been steadily increasing, until it has reached a pinnacle of the highest reputation--that is, if the pecuniary test be applied. But whilst this is true, it may also be conceded that of late a more just appreciation of the relative merits of Cosway, as compared with some of his contemporaries, has been made by the impartial and discriminating critic; by which I mean it is not so much that Cosway has become less famous, but that others, such as George Engleheart and John Smart, for example, have received proper recognition, and all the finest works of the period are no longer assigned, as a matter of course, to Cosway, as it may be said was at one time the case. The eccentricities of Cosway as a man, his diminutive appearance, and extravagance of attire, made him a conspicuous object wherever he went. His extravagance of living, his vanity and ostentation, excited jealousy and ridicule; but, whilst fortune smiled on him, he could boast of his friendship with the Prince of Wales, and lavishly entertained the rank and fashion of his day. He was, according to the gossip of J. T. Smith, in his "Life and Times of Nollekins," "one of the dirtiest of boys." This amusing but sometimes ill-natured writer says that Cosway was employed as a waiter to the students at Shipley's well-known drawing school, and used to take in the tea and coffee for them. Inasmuch as his father was Master of Blundell's School, Tiverton, it seems improbable that the young Cosway would have been placed in such a menial position at Shipley's. That he was a student there we know, as he was also in the studio of Thomas Hudson, a mediocre artist, best known as the master of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and, like the President of the Royal Academy and Cosway himself, also a Devonshire man. [Illustration: G. ENGLEHEART. PORTRAIT OF A LADY. (_Col. W. H. Walker._)] [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN. (_M. Viennot._)] Cosway must have come to London when of very tender years; for in 1755, being then only thirteen years old, he won a premium of fifteen guineas of the then newly constituted Society of Arts, for the best drawing of any kind by boys and girls under fourteen, and this promise of early success was followed by his being elected Associate of the Royal Academy when only twenty-nine, and full member two years later. The hard work that he went through in his early training, joined, no doubt, to what must have been natural facility of execution, gave him astonishing rapidity in his work, as to which Cunningham has observed: "He often finished miniatures at three sittings of half an hour each, and when he sat down to dinner would boast that he had despatched during the day twelve or fourteen sitters." If this boast be even approximately true, he must indeed have been a prolific artist, and his annual production of miniatures be reckoned by the thousand. That there must be a vast number extant we may safely conclude when we remember the facility to which we have just referred, and the fact that his earliest contributions to the Academy were made when he was only twenty-six, and that he worked until half a century later, for he was eighty when he died. But if, then, the existence must be allowed of an enormous number of miniatures by Cosway, to say nothing of those by his wife, of whom I shall speak later, what shall I say of the countless forgeries of this the most popular of all English miniature painters? What was the case in his day I do not know, but I am sure that there must be a never-ending host of copyists at work now, who devote themselves particularly to imitating the works of Cosway and his contemporaries. And here I cannot refrain from telling a little story _apropos_ of what happens to these copies. It was told me by an artist who was present at an auction in certain well-known sale-rooms with a friend. By and by some so-called Cosways were put up and fetched very high prices, whereat the acquaintance expressed great satisfaction to my artist friend, and, in a burst of confidence said, "You know, I painted them myself." Well-known historical characters, such as the Pompadour, Madame Du Barry, Marie Antoinette, the First Napoleon, the Empress Josephine, Madame Vigée le Brun, and the rest, whose name is legion, these are the favourite subjects of the copyist. The late Dr. Propert, who owned a large collection himself, of by no means uniform quality, speaks feelingly on this subject. He says: "I am sorry to say that the French hold an unenviable pre-eminence for the production of spurious enamels and miniatures. It is really of some danger to attempt a collection of French specimens; many at once, no doubt, display the cloven hoof clearly enough to warn off even a novice, but I have seen some which would puzzle an expert. If any of these enterprising gentry get hold of a really old miniature, it matters not how time or exposure to light may have wrecked the once beautiful tints, the merest ghost suffices them; they will restore and paint it all over again with a subdued palette, and, like new wine artificially aged by the arts of the chemist, it presents itself in a guise which will take no denial." This subject is one of very great importance to the collector, upon whose credulity the forgers appear to be able to reckon to any extent, and it is really remarkable the way in which people, who should know better, will bring out from their cabinets works to which they do not hesitate to attach some of the most eminent names to be found in the annals of the art of miniature painting. If only they have picked them up _themselves_, that appears to be one of the chief recommendations and guarantees of authenticity. It is the delight in a bargain, or what they are pleased to think is a bargain, that appears to have such a fascination for generation after generation of collectors. That this evil--for as such I regard it--is ever on the increase may be concluded from the fact of the increasing number of bric-à-brac shops in which one sees these forgeries displayed. I do not know what their owners say about these so-called old miniatures, and I do not wish necessarily to cast any stigma upon the vendors. I might go farther, and say that very often it seems as if the purchasers did not want to know the truth about these works. They like to think that their own astuteness and sound judgment, their sharp eye and keen nose for a bargain have enabled them to "pick up" (that is their favourite word) these treasures, upon such favourable terms, and to enrich their collection with gems which, unaccountable as it may seem, have quite escaped the notice of the general public and of the common or ordinary collector. Talking of collections, it may be observed that Cosway himself was a great collector. His house, No. 1, Stratford Place, was full of costly works of art, of silks, china, and gems of bijouterie and vertu, in which he trafficked and dealt, and his wife, Maria, fully shared the painter's taste. I may here say something about this lady, who was in many ways a remarkable woman. She was the daughter of an Irishman named Hadfield, who was an innkeeper at Leghorn. Maria was born in Florence, in 1759, and lived to be nearly as old as her husband. After studying art in Rome, she came to England, where she took up miniature painting as a profession. Her first contributions to the Royal Academy were in 1781, in which year Cosway married her, she being then twenty-two, of a blonde type of beauty, with soft blue eyes. She practised art in various forms. At Hardwicke, in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, there is a really fine picture painted by her of the beautiful duchess as Cynthia, full length, in oils, life size. Allan Cunningham observed of this picture that when it was exhibited there was no little stir. The likeness was excellent, and its poetic feeling not unworthy of the poet (Spenser) whose work inspired it. At Longford Castle the Earl of Radnor has a full length, also in oils, of a lady of the family. [Illustration: W. WOOD. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN.] [Illustration: UNKNOWN. MARIA, DUCHESS OF COVENTRY. (_J. G. Fanshawe, Esq._)] As to her miniatures, Cunningham says: "Almost the first time she was seen in public she was pointed out as the lady who had painted some of the most lovely miniatures in the Royal Academy," and he adds, "her reputation was made at once, for nothing was talked about but the great youth and the great talent of Mrs. Cosway. One half of the carriages that stopped at her husband's door contained sitters ambitious of the honours of her pencil." He says that the painter was too proud a man to permit his wife to paint professionally. But inexorable though he was in regard to painting, "he was more gentle in the matter of music, of which Maria was passionately fond, and he had a handsome house and good income and allowed her to indulge in those splendid nuisances called evening parties." With a character so full of vanity and weakness as Cosway's was in some respects, it is not surprising to learn that, after twenty years of married life, incompatibility of temperament, as the phrase goes, developed between this ill-assorted pair, and at the beginning of the last century Mrs. Cosway was separated from her husband. In 1804 she retired to a religious house at Lyons, Cunningham says "owing to the death of her daughter." She was in London as late as 1821-2 selling her deceased husband's property, old miniatures and so forth, for Cosway had died whilst taking the air in 1821. Her final visit to England was in 1829, on a similar errand. She then retired to Italy, and founded a college at Lodi, near Milan, which grew into a religious house in connection with the order known as the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and here she died, in 1838. She was known as the Baroness in Italy, the Emperor Francis of Austria having granted her a title. There is no doubt that Maria Cosway was a versatile and amiable woman and an artist of considerable ability. Although at one time separated from her husband, she nursed him in his declining years. As to his character, Andrew Robertson, the miniature painter, although he terms him "the vainest creature in the world," says, "To me he behaved in the most liberal way"; and we have the valuable testimony of Ozias Humphrey, who was a rival miniature painter, that he was "the kindliest of friends." Another contemporary, William Hazlitt, says he was "bright and joyous." His pupil Andrew Plimer speaks of him as "my beloved master"; and, finally, we have the testimony of his wife, that he was "_toujours gai_." Before leaving Cosway a few remarks may be offered upon his technique. One of the first characteristics of his style is what has been termed a certain hothouse lusciousness. Although the bulk of his work consisted of portraits from life, whether it was that he did not attempt to make likeness a strong feature, or whether he could not help exaggerating the delicacy of his sitters' complexions, the size of their eyes, and giving them an air of artificiality, or whether it was the extreme rapidity of his method (he used, as we saw, to boast of having painted several portraits in a day)--whether it be to one or all of these reasons that we must attribute the style of Cosway, there it is, and so marked is it that, generally speaking and in the case of fine examples, at any rate, one cannot mistake it. The treatment of the hair is marked by breadth and peculiar freedom of handling, the backgrounds are commonly, but not always, an ultramarine blue (especially his early ones). The foregoing remarks apply to Cosway's miniatures upon ivory, but, as is well known, he by no means confined himself to those. Some of his most pleasing work took the form of full-length figures drawn in pencil with a very slight background, the draperies lightly drawn, but the face carefully finished, of which the George IV., given on p. 203, is a fine example. He also painted in oils. [Illustration: SIR W. C. ROSS, R.A. THE BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS.] THE PLIMERS. Amongst the many surprising vicissitudes of the auction-room, the enhancement in value of the works of two of Cosway's pupils may here be mentioned. I refer to the prices that have been paid within the past few years for works by the brothers Andrew and Nathaniel Plimer (or Plymer, as the name is sometimes spelled). That the miniatures of these men, of whom Andrew was much the better artist, are pleasing--indeed, have something of the charm of Cosway--cannot be denied, but they are less well-drawn than his, the eyes, particularly, being exaggerated in size; the execution of the hair is certainly inferior to Cosway's, being stiff and wiry. In spite of this inferiority--which, I think, is apparent upon a careful comparison--miniatures which, a few years ago, could be bought for a few pounds now fetch as many hundreds. Despite some early struggles, I do not know that there is very much that need be said about these painters, beyond this posthumous rise in the value of their works. Redgrave, in his "Century of Painters," does not even mention them. In his "Dictionary of Artists" less than twenty lines are devoted to them. The Plimers were born at Wellington, in Shropshire, where their father was a clockmaker, Nathaniel in 1757, Andrew, the younger, six years later. The elder brother exhibited at the Academy from 1787 to 1815, and died in 1822. Andrew contributed from 1786 to 1810 and again in 1819. He died at Brighton, in 1837, aged seventy-four. In the obituary of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ he is described as being, many years ago, an eminent miniature painter in Exeter. A charming portrait of him by Geddes now hangs in the Scottish National Gallery. There is a well-known group of three young girls, daughters of Sir John Rushout, sometimes called the Three Graces, on which much of Andrew Plimer's fame may be said to rest. It was sold with a lot of worthless odds-and-ends at a sale at Marlow Place, Great Marlow; the bidding began at half a crown, and left off at £315. The miniature was purchased, with others, from Mr. E. Joseph's collection for a very large sum, and has now gone, I believe, to New York. JOHN SMART. The mention of the enhancement of price which has been of late years witnessed in the case of eighteenth-century miniatures instinctively recalls the name of John Smart, who was born at Norwich in the same year as Cosway was born at Tiverton, namely, 1740. He must have been precocious, for he gained the Society of Arts premium when only fifteen. It was as a student at Shipley's, no doubt, that he made the acquaintance of Richard Cosway, and they became friends, the latter artist terming Smart, in letters, "little John," "faithful John," and so forth. Smart became a fashionable miniaturist of his day, and, like Humphrey, went to India, where he remained five years. His son John followed his example in 1808, but died in India the following year. The portraits of Lord and Lady Clive given in this volume, belonging to the Earl of Powis, are probably due to Smart's visit to the East. His work in India may be identified by the letter "I" which is attached to his signature. He was a large contributor to the Exhibition of the Incorporated Society of Artists, of which he was made Vice-president. I may remark, in passing, that an excellent, but little-known painter and somewhat eccentric character, namely, George Chinnery, R.A., also spent a great deal of time in the East Indies, where he practised his art for nearly fifty years, dying at Macao. There is a portrait of him in the National Portrait Gallery, painted by himself. It would be difficult to over-praise the truth and beauty of Smart's work, although Cosway termed him "slow, and a bit washy." The last epithet sounds almost ludicrous to those who are familiar with Smart's manner of painting, which is finished almost to excess, and often resembles an enamel in appearance. Indeed, I possess a fair-complexioned man's head by him which might at first sight be taken for an enamel, so smooth is it in execution. But the absolute truth of the flesh-tints, scrupulous accuracy of the drawing of the features, and the harmonious beauty of the whole, make it a work of the highest art in its way, placing the artist in the very front rank of miniaturists. Moreover, these qualities distinguish all Smart's best work, and stamp him, in my opinion, as a greater artist than Cosway. OZIAS HUMPHREY. By the "cognoscenti," doubtless, the merit of Ozias Humphrey is recognised, but I think it may be safely said that by the general public his ability is certainly not estimated at its true value. Merit is, in fact, an inadequate term for the admirable draughtsmanship and beautiful colour of this true artist. The refinement, the self-restraint and sobriety of his work, the unobtrusive, careful, thorough finish, are perhaps those qualities most likely to escape the casual observer. For my own part I incline to place him in the front rank of English miniature painters, and amongst the very finest of them all. He may not have the luscious sweetness of Cosway at his best, but he is more uniformly excellent. His technique is far superior to the over-rated Plimer and is free from the mannerism and enamel-like smoothness of Smart. [Illustration: A. ROBERTSON. COUNTESS OF LEITRIM.] [Illustration: SIR W. C. ROSS, R. A. THE ARTIST'S MOTHER.] Humphrey worked in India for rather less than three years--from 1785 to 1788; but ill-health forced him to return to England. In the British Museum is preserved a note-book containing memoranda by him and a few sketches; amongst other interesting entries by his own hand are particulars of portraits which he executed for Indian princes and Anglo-Indians. These show the prices he obtained. Thus, for the Governor-General he obtained 1,000 rupees; for Mrs. Sturt, 700; for Mrs. Hewitt, 1,000; for Miss Blair and Mrs. Keighley, 532 each; 1,000 for a whole length of Mrs. Trevor. In 1786 he was owed 6,600 rupees by native princes. Ozias Humphrey was born at Honiton, in 1742. Probably his West Country origin had something to do with Sir Joshua Reynolds's friendship for him, and it was by the President's advice that he studied in the St. Martin's Lane School. After two years in London he returned home, owing to the death of his father. He then was placed under Samuel Collins, the miniature painter, at Bath, and lodged with Lindley, the musician. Here, as a child, the future Mrs. Sheridan, the lovely original of Sir Joshua's Saint Cecilia, "With looks commercing with the skies, Her rapt soul sitting in her eyes," was wont to sing to Humphrey. Pecuniary difficulties drove Collins from Bath, and he established himself in Dublin, whereupon the young Humphrey, who was then but twenty-two, returned to London and settled in King Street, Covent Garden, not far from his patron, Sir Joshua Reynolds. A purchase by George III. from an exhibition in Spring Gardens, two years later, was probably the commencement of Humphrey's success, and led to the King commissioning him to paint his Consort and members of the Royal Family. At Windsor, by the way, are three notable and beautiful miniatures by him of Queen Charlotte, all after Gainsborough, two of them representing her as quite young and not a little attractive. In one of them the likeness to an eminent living member of the Royal Family is very marked. Doubtless Humphrey had ambition as an artist, and, accompanied by George Romney, he went to Italy in 1773, as all who could afford it did in those days. Cumberland, the dramatist, celebrated the event by some indifferent verses; of the miniature painter he says: "Crown'd with fresh roses, graceful Humphrey stands, While beauty grows immortal from his hands." Romney returned sooner than Humphrey; a coolness sprang up between them, as to which Allan Cunningham makes Humphrey to blame, and rather ill-naturedly remarks that he was "a gossip and an idler." The same critic has observed that he, Humphrey, used to call and read the newspaper to Sir Joshua Reynolds, when, in his declining days, the great painter's eyesight failed--a misfortune destined to overtake the miniaturist himself a few years later. [Illustration: R. DUDMAN. WILLIAM COBDEN.] [Illustration: MILLICENT AMBER. _His wife._] After a four years' sojourn in Italy Humphrey returned to London and essayed oil-painting, exhibiting whole-lengths in the Academy, but without much success. Miniature painting was his forte, especially also the copying of other men's work in small, and at Knole may be seen many works of this nature. GEORGE ENGLEHEART. Some ten or twelve years later than the three eminent miniature painters we have been discussing was born George Engleheart, whose best work may often be placed almost on a level with theirs, but not always. He frequently exaggerates the eyes in his ladies' portraits, and his colour is often not agreeable, the flesh tints in his men's pictures being especially sallow. Engleheart, who lived at Kew, was of Silesian origin; he was a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and when only thirty-eight was made miniature painter to King George III., with whom he was a favourite. His fee book discloses that he must have painted nearly 5,000 miniatures, as he painted assiduously between 1775 and 1813, in some years finishing more than 200 per annum. He contributed to the Academy for nearly forty years. For fidelity of likeness and sound workmanship I should incline to give preference to the male portraits of Engleheart, of which the example shown on p. 233 is a fair specimen. Five thousand miniatures by one artist alone, of the fair women and brave men of his day, and how many of them are to be seen in our national collections? At Hertford House, a solitary one, an unknown lady in a white head-dress; in the National Portrait Gallery, not one; at Kensington, three or four, and those not of superlative quality by any means, the excessive size of the head compared with the figure being a marked defect in two of them. THREE MINIATURES OF THE COBDEN FAMILY. Mrs. Cobden Unwin enables me to reproduce in this volume three miniatures of the Cobden family. The father of Richard Cobden, the statesman, was William Cobden, of Dunford, Heyshott, Midhurst, Sussex. He was born at Dunford on September 30, 1775, and died at Droxford, Bishop's Waltham, Hants, on June 15, 1833. The miniature of him here reproduced is by W. Dudman. Dudman was a contributor to the Royal Academy of 1797, and it is possible that this miniature was his sole contribution, since it bears an inscription on the back in Latin to the effect that it was "out of the Royal Academy." Now, inasmuch as he exhibited but once, and that occasion was the same year as the date of the inscription I have just quoted, it seems to demonstrate that this was the identical miniature shown that year, although the name is not given in the catalogue. William Cobden married Millicent Amber, whose portrait in her wedding dress is also here given. The painter of this is unknown, but the picture is very probably the work of Dudman, the two miniatures being much alike in colouring and treatment. Mrs. Cobden predeceased her husband by some eight years, dying at West Meon in Hampshire in 1825, aged 49. [Illustration: UNKNOWN. MASTER COBDEN. Son of Richard Cobden.] The other member of the Cobden family whose portrait is given here is Richard Brooks Cobden, the son of the statesman. He was born at Manchester in 1841, the year his father was elected member for Stockport, in the very midst of the Anti-Corn-Law League agitation. He was sent to school on the Continent, and died at Weinheim, near Heidelberg, on April 6, 1856, thus being cut off on the threshold of life. The miniature here shown represents him when considerably younger, and I am unable to give the artist's name. XI SOME EARLY VICTORIAN ARTISTS CHAPTER XI SOME EARLY VICTORIAN ARTISTS Andrew Robertson, his pupil Sir William Ross, Hayter, William Newton, and Robert Thorburn may be said to form a group of Victorian miniature painters, the last survivors of "the old guard," and men who mark a definite break in the practice of the art, for they painted down to the arrival of the enemy, namely photography. This was a very momentous event in the history of miniature painting, and, at one time, seemed destined to put an end to the practice of the art entirely, leading Sir William Ross to say, "It is all up with miniature painting" and Thorburn to abandon the art altogether. For years after the _carte de visite_ was introduced the number of miniature painters grew smaller and smaller, as did their contributions to the Academy. Of the four above-named men, Robertson may first be dealt with. Andrew Robertson was a self-taught man, born at Aberdeen, in 1777. Besides being an artist, he was a first-rate violinist, and so ardent a musician that he was director of concerts in his native town at sixteen years of age. His energetic temperament led him to walk to London to see the exhibition of the Royal Academy, in 1801. Arrived in the metropolis, he was so fortunate as to attract the notice of Benjamin West, President of the Academy, who induced the young Scottish artist to remain in London, and sat to him for his portrait. West's influence at Court at that time was great; it led to Royal patronage being extended to Robertson, who was made miniature painter to the Duke of Sussex. His reputation was now assured, and soon he obtained many pupils, of whom Sir William Ross was one. In 1841, after a career in London of forty years, he retired, when he was presented with a piece of plate, as "father of the profession." He died at Hampstead four years later. He was an actively charitable and industrious man. Those who wish to trace his career in more detail may do so in the pages of the "Letters and Papers of Andrew Robertson," published by his daughter, Miss Robertson, in 1895. As to the works of this artist I do not count myself a great admirer of them, finding his colour rather crude, almost disagreeable. There is, however, a certain rugged force and honesty about his portraiture which perhaps compensate for the lack of charm and refinement. Mr. Jeffery Whitehead possesses (or did possess) a large collection of his works, many of which were shown at one of Messrs. Dickinson's loan exhibitions of miniatures some years ago. Miss Robertson, the writer to whom I have just referred has observed that "it is not generally known that at the close of the eighteenth century the multitude of inferior miniatures, and the failing powers or retirement of the eminent men [then] living threatened the extinction of this branch of arts. The small oval miniature developed into the cabinet picture, which culminated in the works of Hayter, Newton, and Thorburn and the delicate and beautiful works of Ross, my father's pupil from the age of fourteen and his dear friend through life." [Illustration: JANET. MARY STUART. (_H.M. the King._)] As this present work is neither a history of miniature painting nor a dictionary of artists, I need not attempt to enumerate the numerous inferior miniature painters to whom reference is made in the above extract; but I may say a few words about some men who belong to this period, and whose names and works are often met with by the collector. Earliest amongst these was William Wood, a Suffolk man, born 1760. His work is distinguished at any rate by harmony of colour and correct drawing. He was President of the short-lived Society of Associated Artists and exhibited at the Academy for twenty years (from 1788 to the year of his death), contributing over a hundred portraits. I should place Thomas Hargreaves, born at Liverpool, in 1775, in much the same category as Wood. His father was a woollen draper, who articled his son as an assistant to Sir Thomas Lawrence. Hargreaves's work bears the impress of that master's style. He painted W. E. Gladstone and his sister as children. Then Henry Edridge, who was born in 1769, and lived to see George IV. on the throne, should not be overlooked. His early works are on ivory, but he is best known by his spirited and refined drawings on paper, the figures in which are slightly touched in, whilst the heads are carefully finished; good examples of them may be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He became an Associate of the Academy, and his advancement in life is said to have been due to the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who allowed him to copy his paintings in miniature; but the drawings by Edridge to which I have just made reference do not show the influence of Sir Joshua. He died in 1821, from grief at the loss of a favourite daughter, aged seventeen, and an only son. Between the years 1786 and 1821 there were no less than 260 examples of Edridge's work shown on the walls of the Academy. John Downman was a contemporary of the foregoing and also a fellow-associate of the Academy; but his portraits, though delicate and minute, hardly come under the definition of miniatures. John Linnell, the landscape artist, was a miniature painter at the outset of his career, as was Sir Henry Raeburn. Mrs. Mee, born Anne Foldsome, is a lady miniaturist who is fully represented in the Royal Collection at Windsor, having been patronised by George IV. when Prince of Wales. I do not like her work, but all credit must be given to her for her exertions to support a widowed mother and eight brothers and sisters. [Illustration: S. COOPER. THE DUKE OF MONMOUTH. (_H.M. the King._)] Alfred Edward Chalon (not to be confounded with H. B. Chalon the animal painter, nor with John James Chalon, R.A.) besides being a witty and popular man, was a thorough artist, as his spirited full-lengths, dashed in with great freedom, attest, his treatment of draperies being particularly skilful. He came of an old French family, and was born at Geneva, in 1817. He was made water-colour painter to Queen Victoria, and elected a full member of the Academy, to the exhibitions of which he contributed no less than 400 works. And now, by way of concluding my remarks on English miniature painters, I turn to the group of men to which Miss Robertson refers, and the particular style of work they introduced; for they were, she alleges, the originators of the cabinet pictures in vogue at the beginning of the nineteenth century and in the early Victorian days. Miss Robertson does not make it clear to which Hayter she refers (for there were two, father and son, to whom her remarks might perhaps apply). I conclude she means Charles Hayter, who exhibited for nearly half a century; his last contribution was in 1832. In spite of his writings on perspective, and the alleged correctness of his likenesses, Hayter's work is feeble and uninteresting. Sir William Newton is an artist about whom opinions differ, the late Dr. Propert, for example, hardly having a good word to say for him. In his own day, however, Newton, who was the son of an engraver, and descended from a brother of Sir Isaac, was a thoroughly successful man. He was made miniature painter-in-ordinary to William IV., whom he painted a dozen times or more. He was knighted on the accession of Queen Victoria, in 1837, and was the first person who received that distinction in the new reign. Sir William became a well-known figure in London society, and took a leading position in the musical world. For fifty years he contributed nearly the whole number of works allowed to Academicians. At one time membership of the Academy was not open to miniature painters; after a long struggle Sir William obtained a withdrawal of the restriction, although he would not allow his own name to be brought forward for the honour. He lived to be eighty-four, dying in 1869. In Robert Thorburn, A.R.A., we have an instance of a rapid rise. Born at Dumfries, in 1818, he had painted the Queen, the Prince Consort, and two of the Royal children by the time he was thirty years of age. His successful career as a miniature painter was cut short by the advent of photography, but not before he had painted many of the aristocracy.[4] [Footnote 4: In my larger works on miniature painting I have given lists of his sitters, compiled from information kindly afforded by Mrs. Thorburn.] The change was so great that he abandoned the practice of his earlier art, and took to painting portraits in oils, but with less success. He died at Tunbridge, in 1885. In spite of a certain monotony in his flesh painting, I greatly admire his miniatures, which are marked by refinement, whilst the composition is graceful and sometimes dignified. His work was appreciated in Paris, where he was awarded a gold medal in 1855. [Illustration: QUEEN CHARLOTTE. (_H.M. the King._)] [Illustration: JAMES II. (_H.M. the King._)] Like Sir William Newton and Sir William Ross (to whom I shall refer presently), Thorburn used large surfaces of ivory for his portraits, or cabinet pictures as Miss Robertson terms them: this was managed by taking the circumference of a trunk of ivory, making it flat by great pressure, laying it down on a panel and adding strips on the top, bottom, and sides. Thus pictures of considerable size with elaborate backgrounds could be painted and correspondingly high prices obtained. I now come to a distinguished and excellent man who rounds off a period in the art we have under discussion. Sir William Charles Ross was the last of the old school of miniature painters. Of Scottish origin, he was born in London, in 1794. Both his father and mother were portrait painters, the former being gardener to the Duke of Marlborough. Young William Ross made an early start in life, for, according to Miss Robertson, he became a pupil of her father's when he (Ross) was only fourteen. In 1809, when he was but fifteen, he contributed three works to the Academy and had already won medals at the Society of Arts and in the Academy Schools. Queen Victoria sat to him in 1837, and he painted the whole of the Royal Family of his day as well as the Kings and Queens of Belgium and Portugal, &c. His miniatures are said to have exceeded two thousand in number. After his death, in 1860, an exhibition of his works was opened at the Society of Arts; the catalogue (which I have printed elsewhere) is likely to be of much interest in the future, and shows most clearly the commanding position Ross occupied in his profession. He painted Miss Angela Burdett-Coutts (as she then was) in 1846; it is here shown, and must be reckoned one of his finest works. The Baroness owned several other important examples of Sir William. At Windsor there are a great many, and in the exhibition to which I have just referred Queen Victoria is given as the owner of over forty pieces. In judging of the artistic value of Ross we must remember that he had to contend with the difficulties imposed by a thoroughly tasteless style of costume, according to present standards. The period covered by his work coincides with that of the very lowest depth of Philistinism in art, costume, and architecture which our annals disclose. His colour was too florid to suit some tastes, his palette being set somewhat _à la_ Rubens, but his flesh-tints are fresh and delightful, and when time has mellowed them will probably be reckoned of great beauty. His composition, draperies, background, and accessories were treated with much skill. He had a brother, Hugh, who was also a miniature painter of ability. [Illustration: R. COSWAY, R.A. GEORGINA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE. (_H.M. the King._)] XII ROYAL AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS CHAPTER XII ROYAL AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS As in works by the old masters, so also this country is extremely rich in old miniatures. I am speaking now of private collections. Of course, by the very nature of the case, the majority of these are comparatively inaccessible, not that their owners are illiberal in furnishing a sight of their treasures to those who are interested, and can furnish reasonable credentials for admission to a sight of them, but these miniatures are scattered all over the land, and to see them demands time, trouble, and expense. In the restricted space at my command in this book it is futile to attempt to describe with fulness all the riches of those private collections which I have been privileged to study. There are, however, a few collections of such paramount importance in connection with our subject that they cannot be passed by, and every one claiming to feel an intelligent interest in the subject of old miniatures must wish to know something, at any rate, of the nature and the extent of these private collections to which I have just referred. THE ROYAL COLLECTION Let us take first the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, which comprises some thousand examples, many remarkable for their intrinsic beauty as well as their historic interest. Perhaps I ought to have put the latter first, as being the principal source of interest belonging to them. But that would be to look at them too much with the eye of the historical student. Were they all portraits of comparative nobodies, or even unknown persons, they would yet be a most delightful, varied, and fascinating collection. As Sir Richard Holmes, the ex-royal-librarian, who has written about them from time to time, has pointed out, the collection has one peculiar interest, namely that "in nearly every case these miniatures remain in the custody of the descendants of those for whom they were originally painted, and thus present an almost unbroken series of authentic portraits of the Royal Family from the time of Henry VIII. to the present day." The fact that this unique collection goes back, as the reader has just been reminded, to Tudor days, leads us to expect that we may find some work by Holbein, perhaps the greatest name in all the annals of the art. Nor shall we be disappointed. Six examples there are by the great Hans, among them Katherine Howard, and the two sons of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, portraits possessing a pathetic interest, seeing that the originals both died on the same day from the sweating sickness. That was in 1551. Mr. Ralph Wornum's description of them may be worth giving. [Illustration: UNKNOWN. HENRY, CARDINAL OF YORK. PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD. (_H.R.H. the Duchess of Albany._)] [Illustration: PETITOT. MME. DE MONTESPAN.] [Illustration: FROM AN ENAMEL BY H. BONE. MARY STUART. (_Burdett-Coutts Collection._)] "Henry Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, in a black cap with white feather, and a black coat with green sleeves, blond hair cropped all round; he is leaning his left arm on a table, on which is written, '_Etatis svæ 5, 6 sepdem, Anno 1535_.' Blue ground painted on the back of the ace or three of clubs. The other is his brother Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, in a grey and red coat with black cuffs; his shirt collar is embroidered with black thread round the outer edge. Blue ground. On a tablet is inscribed '_Ann 1541, etatis svæ 10 Marci_.' This is painted on the back of a king. Both are of the same size, one and eleven-twelfths of an inch in diameter. They are said to have been given to Charles I. by Sir Henry Vane, and both are entered as Holbein's work in Van der Doort's catalogue. They are freely, firmly, and yet elaborately executed. "There are two of Henry VIII., one with a beard, in a black cap and black ribbonds about his neck, in an ash-coloured tissue suit in a fur cloak, his name and age in golden letters written on it. Being also one of the number which were given to the King by Lord Suffolk." This description is a quotation from the catalogue made by Van der Doort, who was custodian of the pictures to Charles I., and that monarch is meant by the reference to "the King." The same authority describes another and lesser picture of Henry VIII.: "Without a beard, also in a black cap and a little golden chain about his neck, in an ash-coloured wrought doublet in a furred cloak with crimson sleeves." Yet another Holbein is the portrait of Lady Audley, daughter of the Treasurer of the Chamber to Henry, whose portrait in red chalk is amongst the drawings by Holbein preserved at Windsor. These miniatures are all circular, and measure from one and three-quarter inches to two and a quarter inches in diameter. Holbein's pupil, Nicholas Hilliard, is well represented at Windsor; the valuable catalogue of Charles I.'s collection which I have quoted above contains references to fourteen by him, including, says Sir Richard Holmes, "those of Queen Elizabeth. But these last, unfortunately, are no longer to be found." It is interesting to compare the renderings of Henry VIII. which Holbein and Hilliard respectively present. Amongst the most noteworthy of the Hilliards now at Windsor are four which were probably painted by Royal command, namely Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Jane Seymour. These were originally attached to a golden jewel, enamelled on one side with a representation of the Battle of Bosworth Field and the roses of York and Lancaster on the other. The miniature of Henry VII. must clearly have been painted either from imagination or from some earlier picture, since it is dated 1509, whereas Hilliard was not born till 1547. The other portraits, too, represent the originals when it would have been impossible for Hilliard to have painted them. Among the miniatures of King Charles I.'s progenitors which Van der Doort describes is one which hung with seven others in his own chamber, and it is one of surpassing interest. He thus describes it: "No 23. Item. Done upon the right light, the second picture of Queen Mary of Scotland upon a blew-grounded square card, dressed in her hair, in a carnation habit laced with small gold lace and a string of pearls about her neck, in a little plain falling band, she putting upon her second finger her wedding ring. Supposed to be done by the said Jennet. Length three inches, breadth two inches." The claim to authenticity which this portrait thus possesses is obviously very high, and Sir Richard Holmes asserts "there is no portrait of the unhappy queen which has so good a pedigree as this." We will not stop to discuss the complex and difficult question of the true portraiture of Mary Queen of Scots. Having recently published an exhaustive folio devoted to this topic, a work containing more portraits of Mary, good, bad and doubtful, than any with which I am acquainted, I may refer the reader to its pages for the further elucidation of this fascinating problem. I may, however, mention that the "said Jennet," by whom this portrait is "supposed to be done," was of course the well-known Janet, otherwise called François Clouet, Court painter in France at the time of Queen Mary's betrothal to the Dauphin, whose portrait, by the same artist and from the Royal Collection, I am able to show. Clouet was one of a family of limners whose work was the best of the day, and his drawings should be seen and studied by all who wish to realise how admirable that work was in expression and character. It is to be seen to the best advantage in the Print Department of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and also in the large series now preserved in the Palace of Chantilly, the ancestral home of the Condés. By Hilliard I do not recall anything else very remarkable at Windsor, unless a small circular picture of a girl wearing the roses of York and Lancaster in her hair, which came from the Sackville Bale Collection and is said to represent Lady Jane Grey, is his work. But in the works of the Olivers, both father and son, the Royal Collection is rich. Among portraits by Isaac Oliver there is the extremely interesting and elaborate miniature, before referred to, representing Sir Philip Sidney seated under a tree, presumably at his birthplace, Penshurst, with a background of the formal Italian garden then so much in vogue (see p. 295). As this famous scholar, statesman, and soldier died in 1586, the work must be a comparatively early example of Isaac Oliver, who would be under thirty years of age at that time. A piece probably much later is one of no less importance, namely a portrait of Prince Henry Frederick, eldest son of James I., that "sweet royal bud" and "hope of the Puritans" who died in 1612. An entry in the catalogue of Van der Doort is as follows: "Imprimis. Done upon the right light. The biggest limned picture that was made of Prince Henry, being limned in a set laced ruff and gilded armour and a landskip, wherein are some soldiers and tents, in a square frame with a shutting glass over it. Done by Isaac Oliver. Length five and a quarter inches, breadth four inches." [Illustration: PETER OLIVER, AFTER SIR A. VAN DYCK. SIR KENELM DIGBY, WIFE, AND SONS. (_Burdett-Coutts Collection._)] Worthy to be ranked with these is another large miniature of Charles II., which is even more highly finished than the two masterpieces, viz., Monck and Monmouth, which I described in Chapter VII.--that is to say, it is more finished throughout, because painting--in the head only was a characteristic of Samuel Cooper. Probably he found the painting of the drapery, background, and details somewhat irksome, and having got the head and the character of the portrait, was often wont to leave the completion of the picture until a more convenient season. Be the reason what it may, there is no doubt that several of the finest things that he ever painted are left in the unfinished state of which Walpole has complained in his "Anecdotes of Painting." There is, however, another miniature in the Royal Collection by this great artist which may be appropriately mentioned here, and that is a portrait of the man who sent the unfortunate "Mr. Crofts" to the scaffold. The cold, implacable nature of James II. is admirably and most forcefully suggested in this superb miniature. It represents him in armour when he was probably Duke of York, and may have been painted after his return from fighting the Dutch off the Texel. But the riches of this collection, numbering as it does not less than a thousand examples, are such that we must pass on. For several decades following the death of Cooper there was comparatively little native-born miniature art of first-rate importance produced in this country, but about the middle of the eighteenth century a "bright particular star" appeared on the horizon in the person of Richard Cosway, and in the works of this eccentric but highly talented miniature painter the Royal Collection is rich. The portrait of the celebrated Duchess of Devonshire, which will be recognised as an extremely characteristic example of the master, is one of the most beautiful things in its way in the Royal Library, and is here given. As I have devoted a chapter to the works of Cosway, I need not dwell further upon the examples by him at Windsor. There is a good deal of work by another artist, a contemporary of Cosway, namely, Ozias Humphrey, to be seen here. Humphrey's style of painting is far less showy than Cosway's, but it has a completeness, a perfection of finish, repose, and beautiful colour, qualities which combine to give his art great and, to my mind, permanent charm. A good illustration of this may, I think, be found in his rendering of the somewhat homely charms of Queen Charlotte, here given. In so large a collection, brought together, I believe, through the initiative of the late Prince Consort, and gathered into a whole from all the royal palaces, there are, of course, works by artists too numerous to mention here. But reference should be made to the large number of examples of Sir William Ross. The Crown possesses at least fifty works by him, many of large size, as was the fashion of his day. In the year 1860, Queen Victoria owned over forty examples, which comprised the English Royal Family and Queen Adelaide, besides the Queen of the Belgians, the King and Queen of Portugal, Louis Philippe, and other foreign royalties, for Ross was the most fashionable portrait painter of his day. PRIVATE COLLECTIONS Rivalling, in general interest, the Royal Collection at Windsor is that formed by the Duke of Buccleuch, now preserved at Montagu House, in Whitehall. Those who have been privileged to visit this collection, or who may remember it when it was shown in the rooms of the Royal Academy at the Winter Exhibition in 1879, must admit its extraordinary value, interest, and importance, alike from the artistic and from the historical point of view. It presents, in fact, a microcosm of English history, from the middle of Henry VIII.'s reign down to the closing years of the period of the Restoration. We may see the _vera effigies_ of most of the leading characters of the times which are synchronous with the work of Holbein down to the death of Samuel Cooper, in 1672. The present writer well remembers of this exhibition that it left three very distinct impressions on his mind, the force of which has been but deepened by further acquaintance with the collection and by the process of time. From it he first gained some idea of the richness of this country in historical art of this nature. Secondly, he realised the high quality, and indeed supreme artistic value, of much of the work it contained; and, thirdly, the vivid illustration it furnished of the history of the times contemporary with the artists represented. These considerations lead him to regard old miniatures as valuable adjuncts to historical research, and as worthy of careful and serious study. In the catalogue of the exhibition which I have mentioned we find amongst the contributions of the Duke of Buccleuch some hundred and fifty pieces by several of the most distinguished miniature painters this country has produced--for example, some half-dozen Holbeins, a score of Hilliards, as many Isaac Olivers, and more Coopers; not to speak of rare men like Bettes, Dixon, and John Hoskins, junr. Setting aside the Holbeins, which, however, call for special notice on account of the rarity of the master as a miniature painter, the works of Samuel Cooper claim pre-eminence; and one of them, namely, the portrait of Oliver Cromwell, to which I have referred before, is regarded by some good judges as perhaps the very finest thing that the great limner has left us of his work. I am indebted to the Duke of Buccleuch for the information that it was purchased through the agency of Messrs. Colnaghi, from a descendant of the Protector, namely, a Mr. Henry Cromwell Frankland, of Chichester, who inherited it through a daughter of Lady Elizabeth Claypole. A writer in the _Athenæum_ of September 10, 1898, states that this miniature is one of two of Oliver Cromwell, which, being painted at Hampton Court, "were snatched from the artist by the Protector, indignant because he found Cooper making a copy of the original his Highness had sat for. Lady Falconbridge [_sic_] inherited one or both of her father's captures, which, in the course of a divided inheritance, parted company for about a century and a half, only to be reunited at Montagu House." [Illustration: ISAAC OLIVER. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. (_H.M. the King._)] There is a very beautiful miniature of this Elizabeth Claypole herself (she was, it will be remembered, the second and favourite daughter of Cromwell) in the Buccleuch Collection; and in the same connection may be mentioned the portrait of John Milton, which I have dealt with in the chapter upon Cooper. The beauty and importance of the Coopers should not blind us to the interest of some of the Hilliards--for instance, the portrait of Alicia Brandon, the wife of Nicholas Hilliard, and a portrait of Drake, dated 1581, painted probably just after his return from circumnavigating the world. The great seaman's hair is dark brown, his moustache and beard a light auburn; he looks manly vigour personified. I have spoken of Dixon as being a rare painter; there are, however, at least seven or eight by him in the collection I am now describing. He is not mentioned by Redgrave, it may be noted in passing; but he must have stood high in Court favour in his day, seeing that Charles II., Madame Hughes, Mary Davis, the Duchess of Portsmouth, the Duke of Monmouth, and Prince Rupert were among his sitters, and their portraits are to be found in this collection. I pass on to another private collection also remarkable for the number and the superb quality of its examples of Samuel Cooper. It is that of the Duke of Portland. The Welbeck Collection is largely a family one, and so far as I know was never made as a collection pure and simple. But it contains, nevertheless, amongst the portraits that I shall proceed to mention, some of the very finest examples of Cooper with which I am acquainted. Four of these struck me as especially noteworthy, namely, Richard, Earl of Arran, John, Earl of Clare, Sir Freschevile Holles, and Colonel Sidney, afterwards Lord Romney. The latest of these works is dated 1668, four years before the painter's death. Cooper attained no greater age than sixty-three, and this may account for the absence of any discoverable decadence, even in his latest works. Another marked feature in this collection, which is a large one, is the predominance of Laurence Cross and Bernard Lens; but Cosway and his school are scarcely, if at all, represented. Another ducal collection, namely that at Belvoir, is important in respect of the historical miniatures it contains, and not the least valuable of these are miniatures of Sir Walter Raleigh and his son--he who was killed in the attack on the Spanish settlement on the Cayenne River, the story of which, and the beautiful enamel case which contained them, with its initials of Walter and Elizabeth Raleigh, is to be found in my book "Miniature Painters, British and Foreign," which also contains particulars of many private collections, described at considerable length and illustrated. The Burdett-Coutts Collection is one of exceptional interest, inasmuch as it contains some of Horace Walpole's most treasured pieces. It is especially rich in the work of Peter Oliver, and hardly less so in that of Petitot _fils_. By the kindness of the late Baroness, this important collection was shown in the galleries of Messrs. Dickinson, in New Bond Street, when the group of the Digby family, after Van Dyck, and the separate miniatures of Sir Kenelm and his handsome wife, all the work of the younger Oliver, were especially admired; these are all shown in this volume. The Petitots, as I have said, are remarkable, and the two examples here given were highly valued by the _dilettante_ owner of Strawberry Hill. Of the Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, as beautiful as she was ill-fated, he says it is a "very very large and capital one, exquisitely laboured." On the back of the James II., which represents him as Duke of York, Walpole has written with his own hand "a present from the Duke to his mistress Mrs. Godfrey"; and in his "Anecdotes" he says of this enamel, "freely painted, though highly finished, and I suppose done in France." We find ourselves sometimes at variance with Horace Walpole's judgment, as when, for example, he extols Lady Anne Damer to the skies, and refuses the rank of a painter to William Hogarth! But as to his estimate of these two magnificent specimens of Petitot's art there can be but one opinion, and it is one which coincides with that of their former owner. Amongst the numerous Petitots in the Jones Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, to which I shall refer again, I can recall nothing to surpass, if indeed there be anything to equal them; and it is remarkable what astounding advance has been made in the value of these works of art, some of which fetch, it is literally true to say, as many hundreds as they did single pounds only sixty-five years ago. Those of my readers who are wont to observe the prices realised at auction nowadays by fine old miniatures may be interested to compare them with those obtained at the famous Strawberry Hill sale. In my "Miniature Painters, British and Foreign," I have printed the catalogue of Horace Walpole's miniatures, and given the prices they realised and the names of their purchasers. The curious in such matters will find many interesting notes and illustrations in the pages of this catalogue; _e.g._, the information given as to the provenance of the two Petitots just described is gleaned from George Robbin's catalogue, and I may add, from the same source, that the James II. fetched 75 guineas. It had been bought at the sale of the property of Mrs. Dunch (who was the daughter of Mrs. Godfrey); it fetched less than the Henrietta, which realised 125 guineas. We learn that Walpole purchased it of C. F. Zincke, the distinguished enamel painter, who had it in his possession for a long while, and "kept it as a study." XIII PUBLIC COLLECTIONS CHAPTER XIII PUBLIC COLLECTIONS The private collections of the United Kingdom, scattered as they are all over the country, are by the nature of things not readily accessible to the general reader. But with the public galleries the case is different; and in London there exist, within half-an-hour's walk of each other, two very considerable and instructive collections which may be seen, studied, and compared at leisure. I refer, of course, to those of Hertford House and the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington. And here, in passing, I should like to emphasise the great practical value of the comparisons which such visits enable us to make. To see, side by side, miniatures of various periods and by various masters is more informing than any amount of printed description. The three hundred miniatures, or thereabouts, which the Wallace Collection contains, are extremely valuable, not only intrinsically, but because they present some reliable portraiture of great interest, and, especially, because they are the only examples of many eminent miniature painters which are to be found in any public galleries in this country. As with oil paintings, so with miniatures; this collection fills _lacunæ_. The National Gallery is remarkably--one might say unaccountably--deficient in the French School, especially of the eighteenth century (the nineteenth, as we all know, is hardly represented at all), whilst the magnificent collection got together by the third and fourth Marquis of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace, and now shown at Hertford House, is rich in these masters--so rich as almost to provoke the envy of our neighbours across the Channel. It may be well to inform such of my readers as are not familiar with Hertford House that the miniatures are all to be found in three double cases in Gallery No. XI. The light, admitted by a side window, is not over good; this window faces north, and the best time to see the miniatures is in the morning. The arrangement, roughly speaking, is as follows:-- In case B are placed miniatures of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. In case C, miniatures chiefly of the Napoleonic period and the Restoration. In case D, miniatures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and a large number of small copies after François Boucher, with similar work by Charlier and others of the French school of the middle of the eighteenth century. Thus, in the Wallace Collection we can study at our leisure a valuable series of works by several of the best French miniature painters, some of whom are not to be found represented in any other public gallery that I am aware of, even in Paris. There is, besides, a not inconsiderable number of works by good English artists, which afford instructive means of comparison, besides being interesting in themselves. Viewing, then, the collection from the various standpoints which I have enumerated, let us see what it reveals. We may here dispense with any consideration of the pecuniary value; that is a commercial view of the subject, one difficult to determine, and foreign to the object of this book. Suffice it to say that the monetary value of many of them is very great. Take the Isabeys and Halls, for example; a miniature by the latter, shown at the Exhibition of Eighteenth Century Art in Paris in 1906, at the Bibliothèque Nationale, fetched at the Mülbacher Sale no less than 60,000 francs, or £2,400. [Illustration: JANET. THE DAUPHIN. (_H.M. the King._)] [Illustration: CHATILLON. NAPOLEON I. (_Duke of Wellington._)] The collection at Hertford House is especially rich in portraits belonging to the Napoleonic period. Many of the principal personages of the First Empire may be found in case C. Thus we have Madame Letizia Ramolino, the mother of Napoleon I.--Madame Mère, as she was called; two or three portraits of Joséphine, notably one by Isabey in a Court dress of white and gold; four of Marie Louise, Archduchess of Austria and second wife of the Emperor. There is also one of her father, which bears on the back this curious inscription, "Madame, disait l'Empereur Napoléon à l'Impératrice Marie Louise, votre père n'est qu'une ganache," a term which may be very closely rendered by our English word "booby." There are several portraits of the King of Rome, the son of Napoleon and Louise, who was living, as one is apt to forget, as late as 1832. The sisters of the Emperor, Pauline and Caroline, both are here, as are his brothers Jérome and Louis. Finally, of the Emperor himself there are over a dozen--as General Bonaparte in 1796; in Academic attire; and in Court costume, wearing in his hat the golden laurels of victory. Of this period of his career is the miniature by Isabey, in which he is wearing the Imperial robes and emblems of victory as before. This miniature by Isabey is a remarkable presentment of the man and a masterpiece of the artist. I have described these numerous Napoleonic portraits in some detail because many of them are not only remarkable as specimens of French miniature painting of the period, but they also bear out, I think, what I have said in the preceding pages as to the value of such works and the instruction they afford. But the interest of the Wallace Collection of Miniatures is not confined to the personages who crossed the stage of French history during the First Empire. Here we may see also Louis XV. and Marie Leczinska, and two or three of their daughters, Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, Louis XVII. and Louis XVIII. Of the latter there are three or four portraits; of Madame de Pompadour one of exceptional beauty (No. 89), signed F. Boucher. It need hardly be said that François Boucher is not generally recognised as a miniaturist, the breadth and purely decorative nature of much of his work being as far removed as it is possible to imagine from the minute finish of a miniature. This fact, it may be, has led Mr. Claude Phillips, the Curator of the Gallery, to remark upon this example, and to surmise that it represents "a wholly exceptional effort made for his (Boucher's) patroness." Strange to say, Madame Du Barry is unrepresented; on the other hand, Mlle. Du Thé and La Camargo, the famous dancer, whom Watteau painted, will be found. I have given this prominence to the French historical characters as compared with English or other celebrities since, from this point of view, there is no comparison to be made between the importance of the two groups. A Cooper and a Flatman of Charles II., a copy by Bone (after Lely probably), of Charles's sister-in-law, Anne Hyde; an enamel by W. Grimaldi, copied from a contemporary portrait of John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough; Mrs. Fitzherbert, by R. Cosway; and two portraits of Wellington by Isabey may be said to sum up the most notable works coming under the category of English historical characters. In this connection there remains, however, one miniature of such importance, if its ascription be correct, as to merit a special reference. It is No. 93 described as a portrait of Hans Holbein the Younger. It is inscribed "HH. A N O. 1543 _Etatis suæ_ 45." The Duke of Buccleuch possesses a similar one, the only variation perceptible being a subtle difference in the expression, and that in the Montagu House example there is a little more seen of the painter's left hand. Each is on a card; that at Hertford House may be thus described: Head and bust of a man of middle age, in a black dress, open at the neck, and a black cap. He holds a pencil in his right hand and looks with a searching and rather sour expression at the spectator. The portrait is about one and a half inches circular, and has a blue background. The beard and moustache are dark and somewhat sparse, the flesh-tones flat, and inclined to brickiness in colour. But I am disposed to consider the distinguishing feature of the Wallace Collection of Miniatures to be the number and importance of the works of Isabey and of Hall shown therein. By Jean Baptiste Isabey there are no less than twenty-seven examples, by Pierre Adolphe Hall nearly a score, by the talented J. B. Augustin, and by the comparatively little known Mansion, nine each; not to speak of Saint, Dumont, and of Sicardi. There is one specimen which the Curator apparently does not hesitate to ascribe to Fragonard, whose miniatures he justly says "are of extreme rarity." Here, then, we have a feast both rich and varied. Of the Isabeys we shall find that the most important pieces are dated between 1811 and 1831. They are treated with a breadth and freedom of handling which make them resemble water-colour sketches, but when looked at closely they will be found to have careful detail in the features, and to be miniatures strictly speaking. The Halls are characteristic and good, the Mansions exceptionally fine. I have dealt with both these artists in the final chapter of this book. [Illustration: ANONYMOUS. PORTRAIT OF MIRABEAU. (_M. Gabriel Marceau._)] [Illustration: P. A. HALL. PORTRAIT OF A LADY. (_Mme. de B._)] It would be impossible to examine here the hundreds of miniatures in this collection. They deserve the closest attention, and should be carefully studied with the aid of a magnifying glass. THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM. Having elsewhere in this volume expressed regret at the absence of any national collection of miniatures in this country, I refrain from giving utterance to disappointment again. But if there is one place more than another where such feelings are aroused it is at South Kensington. True there are miniatures there, but only in sufficient numbers and, I may say, of sufficient quality, to whet the appetite for more. Apart from the Jones Collection, which may be dealt with separately, the miniatures in the Victoria and Albert Museum are rather disappointing, and that in spite of a few examples of interest. The National Collection preserves all its riches of art of this nature in four cases, which stand in the Sheepshanks Gallery. The catalogue has, I believe, been out of print for years, certainly there is none now obtainable, a circumstance very much to be deplored, to say the least of it. Another matter of regret is that the miniatures cannot be seen properly by the artificial light with which the galleries are provided; seeing that the museum is open until ten p.m. three or four nights in the week, many must feel it tantalising to have no catalogue, and insufficient and unsatisfactory lighting. Taking in a rough chronological order what is there shown, we shall find a faded Queen Elizabeth or two, of the usual type, by Hilliard, and a fine Oliver of unwonted freshness and brilliancy, due, no doubt, to its having been preserved in a locket. It is dated 1619, and must therefore have been painted by Peter Oliver, as his father died two years earlier. The flesh-tones are particularly good and true to nature. Of the Samuel Coopers, of which there are two or three examples, that of Henry, Duke of Gloucester, the brother of Charles II., is the finest and most noteworthy; it is somewhat faded, but the long, weak face and melancholy expression, which seem typical of his race, are strikingly rendered. To about this period belongs a very fine specimen of plumbago work by David Loggan; it is a portrait of Sir Greville Verney, full of life as to the character of the head, and of exquisite finish and delicacy in execution. Near this hang two examples of similar work by Thomas Forster, but of much inferior quality. They present John, first Duke of Marlborough and his imperious wife, and are dated 1712. Richard Cosway is not shown at his best, although the Earl of Carlisle is a good and characteristic specimen of his somewhat effeminate rendering of men's portraits. By his pupil, Andrew Plimer, are two very indifferent portraits of ladies, but another of a young lady (given by Miss Edmonstone Ashley) is a very charming work; the fair unknown wears a huge white chin stay, and looks at the spectator with an arch and vivacious expression. Mrs. Carruthers is a pleasing instance of J. Meyer's sound and attractive method of painting, and there are two excellent and characteristic Rosses, viz., Margaret, Duchess of Somerset and Mrs. Dalton. There is also a very good specimen of Sir W. J. Newton, an artist whose work is now perhaps somewhat underrated. In the Plumley Collection of Enamels, shown in the same gallery, are some examples of Essex which may please lovers of animals, and a number of Bone's copies, which, skilful as they are, considering the scale on which they are done and the difficulty in doing them, yet leave a good deal to be desired when compared with the originals. A word may be said as to the Barbor jewel which hangs in one of these cases, and is reproduced in this book. It was made for a Mr. Barbor to commemorate his deliverance from the stake in the reign of Mary Tudor by the timely death of that sovereign just at the time fixed for his execution. It is cut in a fine Oriental onyx, mounted in gold and enamelled, and was bequeathed to the Museum by the Rev. E. E. Blencowe. THE DYCE COLLECTION. There are four small cases of miniatures pertaining to the Dyce Collection which contain a few Coopers, and, notably, a portrait of the artist himself, of which last an illustration is given. The pocket-book and its contents attributed to Cooper I have already referred to in Chapter VII. Some of these are thoroughly characteristic; others, in their smoothness and in the nature of their colouring, are quite unlike Cooper's ordinary manner; whilst in one instance at least the drawing is so bad as to make one sceptical of its being the work of such an artist as Samuel Cooper at all. Take for example the portrait labelled Miss Pru Fillips (_sic_), or Mrs. Rosse, or Mrs. Priestman. On the other hand, the preparatory sketches for the Duchess of Cleveland and Mrs. Munday, and, above all, the Catherine of Braganza strike one as being not only the work of the master but also as especially characteristic. There is a very good Flatman in this collection, a portrait of himself; there are also a number of miniatures in oil on copper which, like most works of this nature, fail to interest us very much; owing to their scale they have necessarily nothing of the impressiveness of an oil portrait, whilst as miniatures they lack delicacy and charm. THE JONES COLLECTION. As the Isabeys and Halls strike the dominant note of the Wallace Collection of miniatures, so do the enamels by Petitot that of the Jones Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. There are at Kensington no less than 56 pieces attributed to Jean Petitot, besides two others ascribed to Petitot the Younger. I shall not re-enter upon a criticism of the great Genevese enameller and his marvellous art, with its distinctive character, further than to repeat that for minute delicacy, perfection of drawing, and colouring it has never been excelled. I am speaking of course, of genuine work by Petitot, for he has had numberless imitators and copyists. [Illustration: J. B. MASSÉ. PORTRAIT OF THE PAINTER C. J. NATOIRE. (_M. Ed. Taigny._)] Upon examining the index of painters which is subjoined to this chapter it will be seen that many of the names we have been discussing occur therein, but the Jones Collection cannot be said to be a representative one. There are but three or four Coopers, one each by Hilliard and Hoskins, Zincke and Boit have five between them; there are three attributed to Peter Oliver, and the like number to Isaac. In the case of the last named, however, we have a _chef d'[oe]uvre_ in the shape of the portrait of the Earl of Dorset already described in Chapter VI. By Bernard Lens also we have an important example, namely, the full length of Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough, in the blue robe affected by artists of the period. But it is the Petitots which in the eyes of students should give such especial value to this collection, for nowhere else, so far as I have seen or heard, can the like be found, certainly not at the Louvre. Having previously enlarged fully upon the exquisite art of which Jean Petitot was the greatest exponent, I need not recapitulate the charm which attaches to these gems of miniature painting nor the difficulties attending their production. But I have been at the pains to arrange the Jones Collection alphabetically under painters and personages, to facilitate reference. By the aid of this analysis I trust my readers will be enabled to judge for themselves what there is to see at Kensington in this way, and, if they have a genuine interest in the subject, they may find the study of the collection facilitated by this key to its contents. INDEX TO THE NAMES OF PERSONS IN THE JONES COLLECTION. A Name. Addison, Joseph, 305 Aiguillon, Duchesse de, 307 Alençon, Duc de, 553 Angoulême, Duchesse de, 502 Anjou, Duc de, 289 Antoinette, Marie, 347, 497, 502 Artois, Comte d', 502 Austria, Anne of, 312, 345 B Berri, Duc de, 293 Berri, Duchesse de, 288 Bohemia, Elizabeth of, 257 Borgia, Cesare, 87 Bourgogne, Duchesse de, 292 Brissac, Duchesse de, 262 C Catherine I., 282 Catinat, 524 Challace, Mlle. de, 290 Charles I., 349, 517 Charles II., 88, 304 Christine, Queen, 255 Corneille, 313 Condé, Le Grand, 272 Condé, Henri Prince de, 92, 277 Condé, Princesse de, 274 Condé, Sister of Le Grand, 280 Conti, Anne, Princesse de, 260, 263 D Dauphin, the, 502 Dorset, Earl of, 357 Drake, Sir F., 297 E Elizabeth, 350 Elizabeth, Mme., 502 Essex, R., Earl of, 301 Etampes, Duchesse de, 86 F Fontanges, Mlle., 543 Fouquet, Nicholas, 279 François II., 421 G George IV., 339 Grammont, Comtesse de, 287, 489 Granby, Marquis of, 506 Grignan, Comtesse de, 269, 543 Guise, Louis Jos., 320 Guise, Duc de, 266 H Henry, Prince of Wales, 294 Henrietta Maria, Queen, 254, 521 Henry VIII., 85 J James, Duke of York, 89 L Lamballe, Princesse de, 348 L'Enclos, Ninon de 253, 489 Longueville, Duchesse de, 251 Lorraine, Duchesse de, 317 Lorraine, Cardinal, 424 Louis XIV., 246-8, 259, 270, 273, 275, 309, 359, 486 See also 539 Louis XV., 286, 352, 519 Louis XVI., 362 Louis XVIII., 502 Louvois, Marquis de, 264 Luxembourg, F. Duc de, 261, 267 M Maintenon, Mme. de, 271, 479 Maine, Duc de, 249 Marlborough, Duchess of, 91, 364 Mary, Queen (of William III.), 356 Mary, Queen of Scots, 80, 299, 541 Marie Thérèse, Queen, 315 Mazarin, Cardinal, 247, 318 Mazarin, Duchesse de, 291, 308 Meilleraye, Duc de, 311 Milton, 351 Molière, 316 Montpensier, Duchesse de, 241 Montespan, Mme. de, 242, 252 N Nôtre, André le, 278 O Orléans, M. Louise, Duchesse d', 524 Orléans, Philippe d', 284 Orléans, Duchesse d', 265, 344, 488 Orléans, Duc d', 240 Ormonde, James, Duke of, 298 P Pontchartreux, 525 Pembroke, Countess of, 365 Peter the Great, 363 Philip V., 283 Portsmouth, Duchess of, 285, 343 Pym, J., 84 R Racine, 355 Richelieu, Duc de, 326, 346 Rochester, J. Wilmot, Earl of, 295 Rochefoucauld, 310 Rupert, Prince, 302 S Sévigné, Mme. de, 245, 250, 482 Sidney, Sir Philip, 303 Sidney, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, 365 Soissons, Comtesse de, 276 Sully, Duc de, 314 T Thurloe, John, 296 Turenne, Comte de, 90, 268 U Unknown, 300, 319, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331, 333, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 358, 509 V Vallière, Mlle. de la, 243, 258 Vendôme, Duc de, 256 Vendôme, Louis Joseph, Duc de, 281 Vermandois, Comte de, 244 W Wales, Henry, Prince of, 294 Wellington, Duke of, 531 William III., 354 Y York, James, Duke of, 89 INDEX TO PAINTERS. Artaud, 289 Boit, C., 282, 288, 292 Boucher, 341, 347 Cooper, S., 295 (after) 296 (after) 302, 304, 351 Essex, William, 339 F. Hans, 344, 362 Gerbier, 349 Hilliard, N., 350 Holbein, H., 81 (after) 85 Hoskins, J., 365 Isabey, 531 Janet, 353 Janssen, C., 82, 83, 84 Lens, Bernard, 364, 541 Le Seuer, 506 Oliver, Isaac, 294, 303, 357 Oliver, Peter, 361, 517, 521 Parent, J., 486 Petitot, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 246, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 258, 259, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 273, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280?, 281, 285, 291, 293, 306, 307, 309, 310, 311, 312, 315, 316, 318, 320, 321, 323, 324?, 326, 328, 330, 331, 333, 336, 488, 543? Petitot the Younger, 308, 327 P. W., 89 Seuin, P., 90 Titian, 87 Zincke, C. F., 300, 305 XIV THE FRENCH SCHOOL CHAPTER XIV THE FRENCH SCHOOL A study of French miniature painters has led the present writer to place their work on a higher level than has heretofore, perhaps, been generally assigned to it, and has shown him that there have been not a few but many French miniaturists of remarkable excellence, and that they practised their art during a period which we are accustomed to look upon as one of anarchy, of tumult, and of bloodshed; a fact which is not only interesting in itself, but has the advantage of throwing light upon the period also; on its life, and on the men and women who played prominent parts during that eventful period of modern history, for we find ample evidence that even during the Terror itself the miniature painter was busy at work. In this respect, as in many others, a recent exhibition of eighteenth century French Art, at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, revealed much. Indeed, it may be said that it was the most noteworthy event in connection with miniatures, and the claims they have upon the notice of students of art, of manners, and of costume, which has taken place for years. It was recognised as a revelation by the learned authorities of the French national library, who were responsible for its arrangement, foremost amongst whom stood the late lamented Henri Bouchot, "Directeur du département des Estampes," a gentleman to whose courtesy I have been personally indebted, and whose critical acumen was well known. It was, they said, a revelation; they spoke of it in relation to its technical aspects more particularly. It brought to light a number of French miniature painters whose ability was amply demonstrated, but who were almost or quite unknown at the present day, even to their own countrymen. But the personality of these miniature painters and the remarkable people who sat to them must not make us ignore some earlier men to whom I shall now briefly refer. In the first place I may call attention to the fact that, as might be expected, a comparison between French painters-in-little and those of Great Britain reveals some interesting differences, both technically and in respect of the treatment of the subject. The latter differences, which spring from national characteristics, will, I think, be brought out as we come to deal with the work of the various artists, and I shall not stop to enlarge upon them now. At a time when we could boast in England of no native artist of importance--hardly one, indeed, can be named, for Nicholas Hilliard was not born until the middle of the sixteenth century--there was working in France a family of artists known as the Clouets, who produced portraiture of great excellence. What I have termed elsewhere the tangled skein of the history of the Clouets would take a great deal of unravelling. It is a subject to which foreign critics of eminence have devoted much time and trouble. Without following all their researches in detail, or professing to utter anything like the last word upon an obscure and difficult subject, it may be said to have been proved that the family was undoubtedly of Flemish extraction, and that they were firmly established at the French Court at the beginning of the sixteenth century. M. Laborde, in his "Renaissance des Arts à la Cour de France," quotes a deed of gift of property which had escheated to the Crown dated 1516, the second year of the reign of François I., which shows that, at any rate, by that time the Clouets were established in Royal favour. [Illustration: L. SICARDI. BENOIT BOULOUVARD DE SAINTE ALBINE AND SISTER. (_M. le Comte Allard du Chollet._)] The surname was probably originally Clouwet, and two members of the family, father and son, have been commonly known as Janet. This duplication of names, to say nothing of the varieties of spelling, has led to a good deal of confusion in the attribution of works by these artists. Among the latest authorities upon this subject I may quote my friend M. Dimier, of Paris, who contributed a chapter to my book on the portraiture of Mary Queen of Scots.[5] [Footnote 5: "Concerning the True Portraiture of Mary Stuart." Dickinsons, 1905.] The subject has a significance of its own for French art critics as throwing light upon the influences exerted upon French artists at the period of the Renaissance--that is to say, whether the work by the men of that time which has come down to us owes its highest artistic qualities to Italian influence, to native genius, or to Flemish influence. Critics are divided into two camps: those who stoutly maintain the claims of the French artists to originality, and those who are equally confident that it is to Italian influence we owe all that is most attractive in French art of that period. M. Dimier has acutely pointed out that whilst the Italian influence theory is anathema to many, these same critics allow the assertion of Flemish influence to pass without a protest. Be all this as it may, it is quite clear that the vogue for portraiture in France at the beginning of the sixteenth century was extraordinary. Contemporary inventories show that drawings by the thousand must have existed. They were kept in albums in the houses of the great, and many collections are known. Catherine de Medici loved to have her children painted, and M. Bonafflé has shown that her estate included more than a hundred such portraits. There are numbers of these to be seen to-day at Chantilly, the old home of the Condés, not the least interesting of which is a series of eighty or ninety drawings in black and red chalk that once belonged to the Earl of Carlisle and formed part of the famous Castle Howard Collection. Before leaving the Clouets, I may mention that a painting, measuring sixty-one by fifty-three inches, of Henri II. was sold at Christie's in January, 1905, for £2,500. Those who were fortunate enough to have visited the Exhibition de Primitifs Français at Paris, in 1904, will remember a number of interesting portraits attributed to the two Clouets, of which they cannot have failed to admire the beautiful portrait from the Louvre of Elizabeth of Austria. The original drawing for this is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and the existence of the two works--that is, the crayon from nature and the beautifully finished picture in oils--is interesting as showing the practice of the artist. In the remarkable Exhibition just named the student will have made the acquaintance of many names probably new to him, and can hardly have failed to observe the number attributed to Corneille de Lyon, most of them dated somewhere about 1548. This is an artist who has only of late years won recognition. He, too, was a Fleming, but the only name which can be assigned to him is Corneille. M. Dimier says he was a native of the Hague who settled at Lyons. He surmises that the Royal visits to Lyons in the year 1536 were productive of Royal patronage. But M. Dimier appears to hold very conflicting views as to the merits of this artist, and discovers great divergences in his style; thus he says: "His [Corneille's] knowledge is so scanty that he can scarce fill in his own feeble design; in the best of these pictures the bust and shoulders are like students' work, and verge on the ridiculous"; yet his texture, he says, elsewhere, "is delicate, limpid, and absolutely fresh, the total effect the result of genius of a very small order." But in a portrait of the Baron de Chateauneuf, which does, or did, belong to Mr. Charles Butler, he finds work which he says is scarcely unworthy of Holbein; "in depth of knowledge, boldness of execution, and extreme beauty of colour this little work is a masterpiece, far and away superior to anything which I have ascribed to the Janets," &c. I have quoted these opinions at some length so that readers may judge for themselves of the relative importance of this early artist, all of whose work exhibited at the Exhibition de Primitifs was small in scale, and most of it, I have reason to believe, new to some students of art. When we leave the Court of the Valois we seem to come to a great gap in our subject; and it is not until we arrive at the names of Petitot and his followers, a subject which has already been dealt with in Chapter VIII., that there is anything of importance to arrest our attention. This book is in no sense a detailed history of miniature painting; it merely aims at discussing some of the salient points of a wide subject; and, therefore, I make no further apology for passing on to the work which was executed in the eighteenth century, when several artists of remarkable ability appear on the horizon. I propose to take a few of the most eminent of these names, and to deal with them in chronological order. Following that classification, the amiable Rosalba Carriera will come first. She was born in Venice in 1675; and though some would deny her any extraordinary talent, certain it is that she achieved European reputation. This lady must have possessed charming manners and very endearing qualities, for she is reputed to have been plain in personal appearance. Some ten or twelve years before her death, which occurred in her native place in 1757, she became blind, and devoted her means and the closing period of her life to works of charity. She painted a good many miniatures, which are dispersed in various collections, also landscapes. But probably her fame will rest most securely upon her work in pastels, of which there are examples in the Louvre; I recall two in the Salon des Pastels which are not unworthy of the fine specimens of that kind of work which hang around them; and that is high praise indeed, for, as every one knows, work in crayons was carried by French artists of the eighteenth century to a pitch of astonishing excellence; some of the portraits in that room by La Tour, for example, can hardly be surpassed for truth to nature and beauty of drawing; with almost the strength of oil paintings, they have a character and charm peculiar to themselves. In landscape work Rosalba earned great renown, though there are some who say that she was over-praised in her day and by her generation. [Illustration: P. P. PRUDHON. MLLE. CONSTANCE MAYER. (_Eudoxe-Marcille Collection._)] Jean Baptiste Massé has been described as a link between seventeenth and eighteenth century miniature painters. He was also an engraver, the son of a Protestant goldsmith of Chateaudun, born in 1687. In spite of his religion, the Regent obtained his admission to the Academy. He worked in gouache and his style is said to have influenced Hall. The portrait of Natoire here shown gives a good idea of his powers. He lived till 1767. In François Boucher, who was born just at the beginning of the century, in 1704, and died in 1770, we have an artist of consummate ability, whose renown does not depend upon his miniatures. He may be called the decorative artist _par excellence_ of the century; but probably many of the little nudities (of which there are a large collection to be seen at Hertford House) which are attributed to Boucher are really by Charlier and others of his followers. The learned editor of the catalogue of the collection of French miniatures shown at the Bibliothèque Nationale in 1906 is my authority for saying that some of the miniatures which are signed Boucher are by Madame Boucher, not the wife of our painter, but a lady bearing the same name. Thus the connection of François Boucher with our subject appears to be slight, and as his other work is so well known we need not stop to discuss him further. Jacques Charlier comes next to his master in point of date, having been born in 1720. Very little biographical information is to be gleaned about this artist; nevertheless he was extremely well known in his time, and his genius, such as it was, appears to have been admirably adapted to the taste of the day. Thus, the Comte de Caylus, the amateur who has left us that valuable memoir of Watteau which the Goncourts rescued from oblivion, is said to have possessed a hundred examples by Charlier; and in 1772 the Prince de Conti commissioned him to paint a dozen miniatures at 1,200 livres apiece. Louis XV. also extended his patronage to Charlier, who painted upon boxes most of the members of that monarch's family. It would seem that after the death of Louis XV. Charlier's reputation waned, and the value of his works diminished. He had a sale of his productions which by no means answered his expectations, and shortly afterwards he died. Hertford House can boast of a large number of works attributed to Charlier; but, for the most part, they consist of the familiar Toilet of Venus, nymphs bathing, and such-like subjects which we are wont to associate with Boucher. But here and there will be found a portrait--one of Madame Elizabeth of France, for instance. The versatile Jean Honoré Fragonard, says M. Bouchot, painted miniatures only for his amusement. This critic also attributes them to Madame Fragonard. Be their authorship what it may, examples which can be safely attributed to him are extremely rare and greatly sought after. A representative one is to be seen in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and another is in the Wallace Collection.[6] Each may be described as a portrait study of a young girl; in each the handling is broad in the extreme, and resembles a freely painted water-colour drawing in effect. [Footnote 6: No. 183, in Gallery XI.] I now come to a miniature painter proper, of the highest excellence, viz., Pierre Adolphe Hall. He has been termed--and I, for one, should agree with this verdict--the finest miniature painter of the eighteenth century. The facility of his execution is simply marvellous; the sweetness and tenderness of expression that he gives to his faces, and the invariable refinement of his works, make them delightful. His manner is entirely peculiar to himself, body colour being largely used. The work is broad in style and effect, and yet the features are often minute. The career of this prolific artist was somewhat chequered; and although he earned large sums of money by his brush--as much as twenty to thirty thousand livres a year, it is said--he died in poverty, and left his family in want. He was born at Stockholm, in 1736. When twenty-four years of age he came to Paris to study; here he remained many years, and married a Mlle. Godin, of Versailles, whose father was killed in the Revolution. Gustavus III. wished Hall to return to Sweden; but he had become so thoroughly French that he refused. The Revolution sounded the knell of the artist's fortunes. Quitting Paris, he started for the north, hoping to find employment and commissions on the way; but at Liège he was seized with apoplexy, and died there, in 1793. In the Exhibition of Miniatures at the French National Library to which I have several times referred, there were over fifty examples attributed to Hall, many of superb quality and undoubted authenticity. I do not mention the price obtained at auction as an infallible test of the quality of a miniature, or of any other work of art--for fashion reigns supreme in the sale-room as elsewhere; nevertheless, it is perhaps worth recording that two miniatures by Hall, shown in this collection, fetched the sum of 28,000 and 60,000 francs respectively, one being a portrait of the Countess Helflinger, _née_ O'Dune--an exquisitely soft and tender example, now belonging to M. Cognac; while the other came from the Mülbacher Sale, and represented, not Louisa, Queen of Prussia, as was wrongly stated in Swedish on the back of the frame, but probably, since the portrait is entirely French in style, that of Mlle. Dugazon in the character of _Nina_, as may be seen by a comparison with an engraving of the subject by Janinet after Houin, and the portrait by Mme. Vigée le Brun of the famous actress which now belongs to the Comtesse de Pourtales. [Illustration: J. B. AUGUSTIN. PORTRAIT OF A LADY. (_M. Ed. Taigny._)] [Illustration: J. GUÉRIN. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG LADY. (_Mme. de Sainte Martin Valogne._)] The year after Hall, was born in Stockholm another Swedish artist, destined to attain great popularity in France, and, like his greater compatriot, to fall into neglect, was Nicolas Lavreince, or, to give him his proper name, Nicolas Lanfransen. When about thirty years of age he came to Paris to pursue his studies, and the work of his dainty, minute, not always too decorous brush was just suited to the taste of the people for whom he worked and amongst whom he lived. He, too, like Hall, drew _Nina_, and the Dugazon in the _rôle_ of _Babet_, and the Du Barry of course; all of whom were to be seen in the Bibliothèque Nationale a year or two ago, each portrait being marked by extreme delicacy of touch and minuteness of finish. It must be owned that there is an extraordinary charm about the work of this artist, apart from its merits of execution; but it is a charm difficult to put into words. They have not the unreality of the _fêtes galantes_, nor the domesticity of our Francis Wheatley, but something between the two, something of the daintiness of Watteau combined with the homeliness of the English artist. He worked a good deal in body colour, and his gouaches have been engraved in colour and in black and white by Janinet and Vidal. Many of these, such as "La Comparaison," "L'Aveu Difficile," "L'Indiscrétion," are very celebrated, and now of extreme value; while another, "Le petit Conseil," is a print of great rarity. Probably driven away by the Revolution, Lavreince, like Hall, quitted Paris, and died at Stockholm, in 1807, at which date, according to M. Bouchot, his art had fallen into complete discredit. Antoine Vestier, born in 1740, is recognised as an oil painter, and was received into the French Academy in 1786. He is said to have rivalled Mme. Vigée le Brun and Roslin, and loved to adorn his sitters with ribbons and satins. Nevertheless, he was a miniature painter, and exhibited in the Salon excellent work of the kind, marked by good colour and careful execution. He lived on until the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and had a daughter, Nicole Vestier, who was also a miniature painter. She married Dumont, himself a distinguished artist, of whom I shall have something to say later on. Another artist who devoted special pains to his draperies, and has been called the Roslin of miniature painting, was Jean Laurent Mosnier, born in Paris, in 1746. Mosnier was made an Academician two years after Vestier, but did not long survive, dying in 1795. French critics place his work on a level with that of Augustin or Dumont. His comparatively early death may account for the rarity of his miniatures, which are extremely scarce and much sought after nowadays, being distinguished by excellent taste and brilliant finish, especially, as I have said, in the painting of the draperies. In the same year as the last-named artist, Luc Sicard, or, as he was sometimes called, Sicardi, was born. He was a native of Avignon, and one of the best miniature painters of his day. The delicacy of his flesh tones, the precision of his execution, and his attention to the most minute details made his work especially adapted for _boits aux portraits_; and he was officially attached to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, to assist in the production of these _cadeaux diplomatiques_, for which he was wont to be paid 300 livres apiece. Hence many portraits of the French Royalty of his time were executed by him. There is a lovely example of his delicate handling in the Wallace Collection (reproduced in my "Miniature Painters"); and the fine example given in this volume, the portraits of Benoit Boulouvard and Françoise du Plain de Ste. Albine, gives a good idea of his style, though it cannot convey the colouring which is especially charming in the latter example. Thus, the girl wears a citron-coloured ribbon in her beautifully painted hair, her dress is of a tender pale greenish-blue, her lips fresh and red; her dark eyes contrast with a pale complexion of the utmost purity, while the boy's deep blue eyes contrast with his warm brown hair. Sicardi died in the same year as Mosnier, namely 1825. Another provincial artist of about this period was Claude Jean Baptiste Houin, a native of Dijon, where he died, as Conservateur du Musée, in 1817. His work, too, is much sought after now. He was a pupil of Devosge and Greuze, and also painted in pastel. M. Rouvier, who was born in 1750 and died in the year of Waterloo, is a man whose work appears to have won recognition in his own time, a contemporary writer speaking of it as possessing likeness, good colour, and harmony; but, perhaps owing to the rarity of examples by him, he may be said to be almost unknown to the present generation. There were four notable miniatures by him in the Alphonse Kann Collection, dated 1780 and 1781. They are marked by beautiful handling and distinction of style. In François Dumont we have, it is generally allowed, one of the foremost miniature painters that France can boast of, worthy of being ranked with Isabey and Augustin, and, like both of them, a native of Lorraine. In the Exhibition, which was so valuable as an exposition of what the French school was capable of, there were a large number of works by Dumont, comprising Marie Antoinette, painted in 1774, and many portraits of the period of the Revolution. There is a certain sobriety and moderation about the work of Dumont which conveys a sense of solid value, sometimes rising to a height of character painting of extreme vigour, and sometimes, in his women's portraits, marked by great delicacy of face, hair and drapery painting. The career of Dumont is a notable instance of the triumph of genius and industry. He was left an orphan, with six brothers and sisters, and when only eighteen years of age quitted his native place, Luneville, and came to Paris as a portrait painter. After ten or twelve years' work he had so far succeeded as to be able to go to Rome, in 1784, where he established a reputation which led to his being appointed the "miniaturiste attitré" of the Italian Court. He was made an Academician when only thirty-seven, and the King gave him Cochin's rooms in the Louvre. The year the Revolution broke out he married Nicole Vestier; and from that time on till 1824 Dumont's contributions to the Salon were regular and numerous. [Illustration: L. F. AUBRY. MME. HENRI BELMONT. (_M. de Richter._)] There is a comparatively large collection of his works to be seen at the Louvre, bequeathed by Dr. Gillet. It may be noted that he had a brother, Laurent Nicolas Antoine, called Tony, who painted miniatures, signed "Dumont," at Paris. Some critics are inclined to attribute a certain heaviness of style to Dumont, which may be the excess of the solid qualities that I spoke of; and this charge is somewhat borne out by the examples to be seen at the Louvre. The _lourdeur_ of Dumont passes into leatheriness in the work of Louis Lié Périn, his flesh painting being greatly inferior to that of his master, Sicardi. Périn came to Paris to earn his living as a miniature painter in 1778. Ruined by the Assignats in 1799, he returned to his native place, Rheims, where he followed his father's trade of woollen manufacturer; but he continued to paint during the Empire, and died in 1817. In Pierre Paul Prudhon (1758-1823) we have an artist indeed, but not, strictly speaking, a miniature painter, for his work in this manner was but little. Nevertheless, there is one celebrated example of his powers, viz., the portrait of Mlle. Constance Mayer, from the Eudoxe Marcille Collection. The tragic end of this pupil and friend of Prudhon is well known. The face is marked by the sensibility which was the distinguishing charm of that ill-fated lady and artist. There is a large drawing of the same subject in the Louvre (reproduced in my recent work on "Eighteenth Century French Art"), remarkable for force and character. Jean Baptiste Jacques Augustin (1759-1832) has long enjoyed a reputation as one of the greatest miniature painters produced by France; but it was reserved for the Exhibition brought together at the Bibliothèque Nationale in 1906 to show the extent and surpassing quality of some of his work. From the collections of Baron Schlichting and Alphonse Kann, from the Doistau Collection, and last, but not least, from Mr. Pierpont Morgan, came nearly fifty works. The quality of these varied a good deal, some being almost coarse and bricky in colour, whilst others, notably some sketches, with small heads, which came from Augustin's heirs, were amongst the most wonderful things I have ever seen in art of this nature. It would be impossible to convey an adequate idea of the marvellous expression, delicacy, and finish combined in the heads in these sketches, which were not larger than a pea. In another specimen of his powers in the same collection might be seen the most delicate tones of flesh painting imaginable. In the Wallace Collection are nine or ten Augustins, including Jérome and Napoleon Bonaparte and Marie Louise. The most attractive of them all is a young lady in a white bodice, with a leopard skin hanging round her _décolleté_ figure. She has a most vivacious and winning expression. It is dated 1824. Augustin arrived in Paris some eight years before the outbreak of the Revolution; he lived to paint Napoleon at the height of his greatness, say, about 1810, Joséphine, Pauline, and others of the Bonaparte family, and died of cholera in 1832. Between 1781 and 1800, when he was married, he painted upwards of three hundred and sixty portraits, some miniatures and some in oils. His wife became his pupil, and is said to have almost equalled her husband. She lived till 1865, and her work is often confounded with that of her husband, whose method of working and artistic tendencies she thoroughly understood and embraced. It has been said of Augustin that he was the traditional descendant of the old missal painters; and a portrait by him of Denon in enamel recalls, according to M. Bouchot, the best work of Fouquet, of Clouet, or Nanteuil. I should have said that, compared with the two latter painters, he was far their superior when at his best. For delineation of character, minute detail, and brilliant, if somewhat hard, finish, Augustin's work would hold its own in comparison with much of the finest medieval missal-painting, which, indeed, it instinctively recalls. Although, consciously or unconsciously, Augustin's work may have been influenced by the study of medieval work, with its brilliancy, formality, and patience, amongst the fifty pieces from his hand shown in Paris a considerable variety of treatment might be found, some of it being large and bold in style, as, for example, a portrait of the sculptor Calamard. J.-B. J. Augustin must not be confounded with that Augustin Dubourg who signed his work "Augustin." Dubourg's work is not met with after 1800; it is said that he was a cousin of the better-known man, and came from the same town, namely St. Dié in the Vosges. A contemporary of Augustin, born in the same year and dying in the same year, was Charles Guillaume Alexandre Bourgeois. His effective manner of rendering a portrait may be said to be peculiar to himself, he treating them as medallions, and painting the head in profile on a black ground, which greatly added to their effect. Although this seems to have been Bourgeois's favourite method of portraiture, it was not his invariable practice; and when, leaving the marble whiteness and medal-like effect of his ordinary method, he set himself to paint flesh tones and the fair skin and rounded contours of youth, he was equally successful. He is said to have been very proficient in practical chemistry, and published several works on the subject. Although he exhibited in the Salon from 1800 to 1824, his work is rare, and examples fetch a high price. A peculiarity I have noted in his treatment is that the eyes in his women's portraits are invariably large and the eyes lashes curled to an unnatural degree. I should say that his men are not as well painted as his women. The medallion style that he affects makes his work particularly suitable for insertion in boxes. [Illustration: J. B. ISABEY. BY HIMSELF. (_M. Ed. Taigny._)] In concluding these remarks upon the French school of miniature painters, I come to a very distinguished name, that of Isabey, with which two other artists may be grouped as pupils or companions; and we will take the latter first; they are Jean Guérin and Louis François Aubry. Guérin was born in 1760, and was a companion of Isabey in David's studio. His abilities must have been early recognised at Court, as he painted the King and Queen, and, later, many of the celebrities of the Assemblée; he also lived to paint Joséphine Bonaparte in Court costume. His portrait of General Kléber is perhaps the best known miniature in the Louvre, and is a work of astonishing virility and force of character. It was exhibited in the Salon of 1798, and he made many copies of it. Although his men's portraits are remarkable for their searching modelling, he was equally successful with the portraits of women and children, which he painted with _naïveté_ and tenderness. The other associate of Isabey was Louis François Aubry, a Parisian, born in 1767, who lived till the middle of the nineteenth century. Contemporary criticism assigned to this artist the ability to imitate his master Isabey, and to rival him in delicacy of brush and fidelity of likeness. Although he exhibited for over thirty years at the Salon, there is nothing by him in the Wallace Collection, and I only recall one in the Louvre, and that is a large miniature, painted with great care, representing a lady playing a harp. It is highly finished throughout, and recalls the best work of Augustin. I should say that he excelled in what may be called full-dress pictures, somewhat conscious, not to say affected, in pose, but excellent work of high technical quality. Aubry was at his zenith during the Restoration; he lived till 1851, and for many years had an _atelier_ in Paris frequented by male and female students. In some respects Jean Baptiste Isabey is the most remarkable name in the annals of French miniature painting. He was _persona grata_ to successive monarchs, having been _peintre attitré_ to Napoleon, to the Allies, to Louis XVIII., and to Charles X. But the commencement of this artist's career can be taken much farther back, seeing that it was the admiration of Marie Antoinette for his work upon _boites decorées_ that led to his first royal patronage, and resulted in his being installed at Versailles before he was of age. From that time, the very eve of the Revolution, until 1855 he produced a long series of portraits of all the most distinguished personages of his time. The Wallace Collection is especially rich in his work, there being nearly thirty examples by his hand. With Napoleon I. he was a special favourite, and, as I have said, several of his portraits of the Emperor may be seen at Hertford House, representing him in full Imperial costume, in academic dress, with Joséphine, and otherwise. And there, too, may be seen two portraits of the Duke of Wellington from his hand. But this collection is especially rich in portraits of ladies of the Empire and Restoration, to depict whose charms he adopted a style of his own, known to French critics as _portraits sous voile_. These ladies are touched in with a light hand and with the freedom of a water-colour sketch. This manner of painting, in which he may be said to have set the fashion, is the very antithesis in style to that of his master David; but the rigorous training of that severe draughtsman enabled Isabey, when he chose, to paint with a precision and minute finish which is the _ne plus ultra_ of such work. This was shown in a large piece, twenty-three by seventeen centimetres, exhibited in Paris in 1906, and representing the children of Joachim Murat, and Caroline of Naples _déjeunant sur l'herbe_. This, I do not hesitate to say, is the most extraordinary piece of work of its kind that I have ever seen. It is a group of several children in velvet dresses of the period, and a certain quality of velvety softness marks the execution. The attention to detail is microscopic; all the accessories of the little picnic party are painted with elaborate care; the stalk of the flowers in the dessert dish, the tiny finger-nails of the children, are all treated as if the artist's reputation depended upon the fidelity with which he represented them. It is a veritable _tour de force_ of finish; but such is the brilliant and luminous way in which he has handled it that there is nothing hard or laboured in its effect, in spite of the immense amount of work it must have entailed. In this particular example there is a quality recalling the finest Flemish work; and yet, as Isabey came to the capital, as we have seen, before he was twenty-one years of age, he can hardly have been subject to Flemish influences; I should attribute it to the influence of David and the classical school. The group I have been describing is not dated, but clearly belongs to the halcyon days of the Empire. It may have been the demands made upon the time of Isabey, owing to his numberless commissions, that made him adopt the less laboured style of most of the portraits of ladies which may be seen at the Wallace Collection--that is, his latest manner--which is so entirely different from the group of Murat's children as to make one almost doubt at first sight that it can have proceeded from the same hand. I had intended to close this notice upon the French painters with Isabey, who, as he lived to be nearly ninety, seems to be linked on almost to our own times; but there are two or three others to whom I must briefly refer, of whom the Italian Ferdinand Quaglia is one. He was born in 1780, and was established in Paris in 1805, where, having obtained the patronage of Joséphine Beauharnais, he became a Court painter. A miniature of the Empress by him may be seen at Hertford House; it is probably a replica, as it is dated 1814, and she was divorced five years earlier. Quaglia's work is marked by high finish, but it is uninteresting, and his style sometimes approaches the smoothness of porcelain, which detracts from its artistic value. Another artist who clearly enjoyed the French Imperial patronage was C. Chatillon, as is shown by the beautiful portrait of Napoleon in his coronation robe and wearing the laurel wreath of victory, which adorns this volume. The original is in the collection of his Grace the Duke of Wellington. Daniel Saint was an excellent artist, though not, perhaps, of the first rank; there are several examples of his work in the Wallace Collection, and he may be regarded as the successor of Augustin and Dumont. Lastly, I may mention J. Mansion, who painted many charming portraits of the period of the Restoration, as may be seen at Hertford House. He was associated with the Sèvres factory, but his quality as a portrait painter is amply vindicated in the Wallace Collection. His work was probably largely influenced by Isabey, whose style it closely resembles. CONCLUSION The practice of the art of Miniature Painting has now been traced through several centuries, from its origin in the cloister, to its enthronement on the hearth and place of honour in mid-Victorian homes. These pages will have been written to little purpose if they have not amply demonstrated the truth of what Dr. Johnson has finely said of the art, namely, that it is "so valuable in diffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in awakening the affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead." I have quoted these words elsewhere; but none that I am acquainted with so aptly express the personal interest pertaining to miniatures, which strikes a deep and vibrant note, one which, when joined to exquisite work, as we have seen it to be in the case of so many examples of the older masters, lends an indefinable charm to miniatures, and makes them amongst the most cherished of human possessions. Thus much, then, as regards the past. The future progress of this fascinating art it will be for others to chronicle, if, and when, it regains an importance which warrants a record. At present all good judges agree that, in spite of the number of those who are practising as miniature painters, the standard reached is most disappointing. The reason for this unsatisfactory state of affairs I shall leave my readers to determine for themselves, for I may be told that in talking about old miniatures it is no concern of mine to point out, and still less to dwell upon, the merits or otherwise of recent examples. Nevertheless, as one who has studied the subject somewhat closely for many years, I may be allowed to express the conviction that the deficiencies so painfully apparent in modern work are mainly due to the want of thorough artistic training. Miniature painting is too often taken up much as ladies take up some new kind of "fancy-work" (as they term it). Want of success--due to lack of knowledge and lack of experience--soon leads to discouragement. Thus the persistent practice which led to success in other days is wanting, and the artist's powers never reach their full development. If this be true, and I think it is, the remedy for it, as far as the artists are concerned, may be found in more careful training and in patient devotion to work. But then, the public who employ them must play their part. They must show greater refinement of taste, and learn to discriminate; to reject what is bad or indifferent, and realise that good work cannot be cheap work, that it demands and is entitled to adequate remuneration. It should be the task of each successive generation to see that the art of miniature painting is encouraged. Miniatures must be taken seriously, not regarded as mere bric-à-brac or trifles. I repeat, we must insist upon a high standard. We have a goodly heritage of beautiful work of unique historical value handed down to us, and it is a duty to perpetuate this series, so that the "fair women and brave men" of our own days shall not go unrepresented; and thus shall we add our share to the treasures of our national art and earn the gratitude of posterity. INDEX A Amber, Millicent, wife of William Cobden, 256, 257 Amsterdam, Liotards at, 218 Anglo-Celtic, _see_ Hibernian _Arlaud_, 28 Ashmolean Museum, miniatures at, 83 _Aubrey, L. F._, 355 Audley, Lady, by Holbein, 286 _Augustin, J. B. J._, quality of his work, 350, 351; examples of, in Wallace Collection, 310, 351; his career, 351 _Augustin, J. B. J., Madame_, 351 B Barbor jewel, the, 315 Battersea enamels, 89 Belvoir, miniatures at, 298 Bessborough family, owners of Liotards, 218 _Betts, J. & T._, 28, 105, 106, 109 Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Janets at, 288 _Biffin, Miss_, 35 _Boit, Charles_, 83 Bonaparte, Napoleon I., 308 Bonaparte, Caroline, 308 Bonaparte, Jerome, 308 Bonaparte, Louis, 308 Bonaparte, Pauline, 308 _Bone, Henry_, 30, 90 _Bone, Henry Pierce_, 30, 93 _Bone, W._, 30, 93 _Bone, C. R._, 30, 93 _Bone, P. J._, 31 _Bordier, Jacques_, 75, 198, 201 _Bordier, Pierre_, 76, 201 _Boucher, François_, 308, 337 _Boucher, Madame_, 338 _Bourgeois, C. G. A._, 352 Brandon, Alicia, wife of N. Hilliard, 297 Brandon, Charles and Henry, sons of the Duke of Suffolk, by Holbein, 282 British Museum, enamels at, 73 Buccleuch Collection of Miniatures, the, 22, 118, 122, 140, 143, 149, 160, 293-95, 300 Burdett-Coutts Collection, 298, 299 Byzantine work, 66, 69 C Camargo, La, portrait of, 309 Canterbury Gospels, 53 Carlisle, Earl of, his collection, 206 Carlovingian school, 53 _Carriera, Rosalba_, 334; her character, 334; her pastels, 337 _Carter, W._, 35 Catherine of Braganza, by Cooper, at Victoria and Albert Museum, 316 _Chalon, A. E._, R.A., 31, 271 _Chalon, J. J._, R.A., 31 _Chalon, Miss M. A._, 31 _Chalon, H. B._, 31 Chantilly, works by Janet at, 110, 288; reference to, 332 Charles I., his collection of miniatures, 22; his miniature by Petitot, 206 Charles II., by Cooper, 183, 291, 309; by Flatman, in the Wallace Collection, 309; his miniature by Petitot, 206 Charlemagne, 53 _Charlier_, patronised by Louis XV., 338; examples of, at Hertford House, 306, 339 Charlotte, Queen, by O. Humphrey, 252, 292 _Chatillon, C._, 359 _Chavant, Mlle._, imitator of Petitot, 202 _Chinnery, George_, 247 Claypole, Elizabeth, 294, 297 Clive, Lord and Lady, portraits of, 247 _Clouet_, works by, 333 Cobden family, miniatures of, 256 Cobden, William, 256 Cobden, Richard, 256 Cobden, Richard Brooks, 259 Cobden Unwin, Mrs., miniatures belonging to, 256-59 _Collins, Richard_, 31 _Collins, Samuel_, 31, 221, 251 _Constantin, Moïse_, imitator of Petitot, 202 _Cooper, Samuel_, 31, 57; Evelyn's reference to, 50; his birth and career, 175; Pepys's admiration for him, 176; money value attaching to his miniatures, 179; his portraits of the Protector's family, 179, 180; merits of his work criticised, 183; examples in the Royal Collection, 186; at Montague House, 294; at Welbeck, 297; at Kensington, 314; at Victoria and Albert Museum, 315, 319 _Cooper, Alexander_, 31; rarity of his work, 186; his death, 186; his inferiority to S. Cooper, 187 _Corneille de Lyon_, 333 _Cosway, Richard_, 31; his reputation, 232; his eccentricities, 232; his career, 235; his training and dexterity, 235; the number of his works, 236; and of forgeries of the same, 236; a great collector, 238; his marriage, 238; his character, 242; his technique, 245; his portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire, 292; his works at Victoria and Albert Museum, 314 _Cosway, Maria_, reference to, 31; her parentage and marriage, 238; her ability as a painter, 238, 241; separates from her husband, 241; retires to Italy and dies, 242 _Courtois, Jehan_, 70 Cromwell, Oliver, by S. Cooper, at Montague House, 294 _Crosse, Lawrence_, 31; his style of painting, 218; examples at Welbeck, 298 _Crosse, Richard_, 31 Cuper, Madeleine and Margaret, 79 D Dartrey, Lord, collection of, 80, 201 Dauphin, Janet's portrait of, 287 Davis, Mary, by S. Cooper, 297 _Day, Alexander_, 31 _Day, Thomas_, 31 _Dayes, Edward_, 31 _de Court, Suzanne_, 70 _de Heere, Lucas_, 101 _de la Chana, Alexandre_, imitator of Petitot, 202 _Derby, Alfred_, 31 _Derby, William_, 31, 221 Devonshire, Duchess of, portrait of, 238 Dickinson Gallery, exhibitions of miniatures at, 264, 299 Digbys, the, portraits of, 150, 153, 154, 299 Dimier, M., on the Clouets, 331; on Corneille de Lyon, 333 _Dixon, John_, 31; engraver, 31; examples of, in the Buccleuch Collection, 297 _Dixon, N._, 31, 32 _Downman, John_, A.R.A., 268 Drake, Admiral, by S. Cooper, 297 _Dubourg, Augustin_, 352 _Dudman, W._, miniature painter, 256 _Dufey_, copyist of Petitot, 202 _Dumont, F._, his career, 346; character of his work, 349 _Dumont, Laurent N. A._, 349 Du Thé, Mlle., portrait of, 309 Dyce Collection at Victoria and Albert Museum, 315 E _Edridge, Henry_, A.R.A., 268; his copies of Reynolds and drawings, _ibid._ Edward VI., by Hilliard, 286 Enamels, early use of, 65; _cloisonné_, 66; _champlevé_, 69; Limoges, 70 _Engleheart, George_, 32; his origin, 255; characteristics of his style, 255; number of his works, 255; their rarity in our public collections, 256 _Engleheart, J. C. D._, 37 _Essex, William_, 32, 93, 315 _Essex, William B._, 32 Ethelwald, Benedictional of, 56 F _Felu, C. F._, 35 _Ferrier, F._, 32 _Ferrier, L._, 32 _Ferrand, J. P._, imitator of Petitot, 202 Fitzherbert, Mrs., by R. Cosway, 309 _Flatman, T._, example of, in Dyce Collection, 316 _Foldsome, Miss_, _see_ Mee _Forster, Thomas_, portraits of Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, 314 _Fragonard, J. H._, examples of, 310, 339 _Fragonard, Madame_, works by, 310 French School, as shown at Hertford House, 307; its excellence, 327 G Gardiner Collection, 79 _Geddes_, portrait of A. Plimer by, 246 George III., patronises Humphrey, 252; patronises Engleheart, 255 George IV., miniature of, 245 _Gibson, Richard_, 32 _Gibson, Penelope_, 32 _Gibson, William_, 32 _Goupey, Louis_, 32 _Goupey, Joseph_, 32 _Goupey, Bernard_, 32 _Green, Mrs. Mary_, 32 _Green, Robert_, 32 _Gribelin, Isaac_, 74 _Grimaldi, W._, copy by, 309 _Guérin, J._, 355; his career, 355; his portrait of Kléber, 355 Gunning, Elizabeth, Duchess of Hamilton, 222 Gunning, Maria, Countess of Coventry, 222 H _Hall, P. A._, 80; his portrait of Marie Antoinette, 205; works by, 307; at Hertford House, 310; facility of his execution, 339; characteristics of his work, 339; his career, 340; high price fetched by his work, 340 Hamilton, Lady Elizabeth, 222 _Hargreaves, Thomas_, 267 _Haughton_ (or _Houghton_), _Moses_, 32 _Hayter, Charles_, 32, 271 _Hayter, Sir George_, 32 _Hazlitt, William_, 242 _Heins, D._, 32 _Heins, John_, 32 _Henderson, R._, 57 Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, by Petitot, 299 Henry VII., by Hilliard, 286 Henry VIII., by Holbein, 285; by Hilliard, 286 Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, miniature of, 36; by I. Oliver, 288 Henry, Duke of Gloucester, by S. Cooper, 314 Hertford House Collection, _see_ Wallace Hibernian School of Manuscript, 53 _Hiles, Bartram_, 35 _Hilliard, Nicholas_, 32; his manner of painting, 39; birth and parentage, 127; employed by Elizabeth, _ibid._; his death, 131; examples of his work, _ibid._, 136-44, 286, 288, 297, 314; his method of painting and merits, 132-36 _Hilliard, Lawrence_, 32, 128, 131 _Holbein, Hans, the Younger_, the founder of miniature painting in England, visits Sir Thomas More, 113; portraits by him, 114; taken into the service of Henry VIII., _ibid._; collection of drawings and miniatures by, at Windsor, _ibid._, 118, 282; at Hertford House, 309; other works by, 121, 122 Holmes, Sir Richard, on the Royal Collection, 281, 282, 287 _Hone, Nathaniel_, R.A., 32, 84, 87 _Hone, Horace_, A.R.A., 32, 87 _Hopkins, Thomas_, 33 _Hopkins, William_, 33 _Horneband Family_, 102 _Hoskins, John_, 32; his career, his pupils, 166; examples of work, 167; his merits as a miniature painter, 167, 168; his death, 169 _Houin, C. J. B._, 345 Howard, Katherine, 282 _Hudson, Thomas_, Master of Cosway, 235 Hughes, Madame, by S. Cooper, 297 _Humphrey, Ozias_, R.A., his qualities as a miniature painter, 248; compared with Plimer and Smart, 251; his origin and career, a pupil of Collins, 251; goes to Italy, 252; and India, 251; his prices, 251; examples of his powers as a copyist at Knole, 255; beauty of his work, 292; his portrait of Queen Charlotte, 292 _Hurter, the Brothers_, 80 I _Isabey, J. B._, his portrait of Napoleon I., 308; painter to successive monarchs, 356; examples at Hertford House, 310, 356; diverse nature of his work, 357, 358 J James II., by Cooper, 291; by Petitot, 206, 299, 300 _Janet, François_, his family, 109, 331; his work at Windsor, 287; by members of his family, 333 _Jansen, S. J._, 89 Jennings, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, by B. Lens, 319 Jones Collection, 76-80, 148, 156, 193; index of portraits in, 320-24 Joséphine, Empress, portraits of, 307 K Kells, book of, 53 Kensington, Loan Collection at in 1865, 131, 143, 144 L _Lambert_, imitator of Petitot, 202 _Laudin_, 70 _Lavreince, Nicholas_, 343; his career and nature of his work, 344 Leczinska, Marie, portrait of, 308 _Legarré, Jules_, 207 _Lens, Bernard_, 32; examples of, at Welbeck, 248 _Lens, Andrew B._, 32 _Lens, Peter P._, 32 _Lens_ family, 218 _Limousin, Lenard_, 70 _Limousin, Jean_, 70 _Limousin, Joseph_, 70 _Limousin, François_, 70 _Linnell, John_, 268 _Liotard, J. E._, his work criticised, examples at Amsterdam and Paris, 218 _Loggan, David_, portrait of Sir G. Verney, 314 Louis XV., portrait of, 308 Louis XVI., portrait of, 308 Louis XVII., portrait of, 308 Louis XVIII., portrait of, 308 Louvre, enamels at, 73, 206; snuff-boxes, 80, 205; Le Noir Collection, 205; Liotards at, 218 M _Mansion, J._, works by, 310; at Hertford House, 313, 350 Marie Louise, portraits of, 307 Mary, Queen of Scots, portraits of, 109, 110, 143, 287 _Massé, J. B._, 337 Mayerne, Sir T. de, 75, 194 Medici, Catherine de, 332 _Mee, Mrs._, 268 _Meyer, Jeremiah_, R.A., 87, 88, 315 Milton, John, by S. Cooper, 297 Miniatures, on the collecting of, 22; forgeries of, 27, 237; on the care and preservation of, 36-42; painted on several pieces of ivory, 41; origin of the art, 45-57; and of the term, 49; method of painting, 58-62 Miniature painters, early, 97 Miniature painting, its long history, 363; importance of perpetuating it, 364, 365 Monck, George, by Cooper, 183, 291 Monmouth, Duke of, by Cooper, 183, 291; by Dixon, 297 _More, Sir A._, 105 _Moser, G. M._, R.A., 33, 87 _Moser, Joseph_, 33 _Moser, Mary_, 33, 88 _Mosnier, J. L._, 344 _Muss, Charles_, 84 N Napoleonic period illustrated at Hertford House, 307 _Netscher, Gaspar_, 218 _Newton, Richard_, 33 _Newton, Sir William J._, 32, 41, 271; the number of his works, _ibid._; example at Victoria and Albert Museum, 315 _Nixon, James_, 221 O _O'Keefe, Daniel_, 33 _O'Keefe, John_, 33 _Oliver, Isaac_, 33; the Oliver family, 147; examples of Isaac Oliver's work, 149-160 _Oliver, Peter_, 33; his parentage and family, 161; his copies ofold masters, 165; his death, 161; example at Victoria and Albert Museum, 314 Olivers, the, in Burdett-Coutts Collection, 298, 299 P Pala d'oro, 69 _Périn, Louis L._, 349 _Perrot_, copyist of Petitot, 202 _Petitot, Jean_, 24, 74, 75, 79; his origin, 194; his arrival in England, _ibid_; introduction to Charles I., and friendship with Van Dyck, 197; takes refuge in Paris, _ibid._; his numerous portraits of Louis XIV., 198; quits France and settles at Geneva, _ibid._; his death at Vevey, _ibid._; his copyists, 202; fine examples of his work, 206, 299; number of, in Jones Collection, 316 _Petitot Fils_, 201; inferiority of his work to that of the elder Petitot, _ibid._ _Plimer, Andrew_, 33, 245; parentage, 33, 245; death, 246; his portrait in the Scottish National Gallery, 246; his group of the Rushout girls, 246; examples of, at Victoria and Albert Museum, 314 _Plimer, Nathaniel_, 33, 245; exhibits at Royal Academy, 245 _Plott, John_, 87 Plumley Collection at Victoria and Albert Museum, 315 Pompadour, portrait of, 308 _Pope, Alexander_, miniature painter and poet, 33 Portland, Duke of, his collection, 297; Coopers in, 298 Portsmouth, Duchess of, by Cooper, 297 Powis, earl of, collection of, 247 _Prewitt, W._, 84 Primitifs Français, Exhibition of, 332, 334 Propert, Dr., on forgeries, 236, 237 _Prudhon, P. P._, 350 Q _Quaglia, F._, 358 R Radnor, Earl of, collection of, 241 _Raeburn, Sir Henry_, 268 Raleigh, Sir Walter, and his son at Belvoir, 298 Ramolino, Madame, portrait of, 307 _Reymond, Pierre_, 70 _Reynolds, Sir Joshua_, P.R.A., referred to, 235, 251, 255 _Robertson, Andrew_, his origin, 33, 263; his varied talents, 263; comes to London and makes B. West his patron, 264; characteristics of his work, 264; his death and character, 264 _Robertson, Archibald_, 33 _Robertson, Alexander_, 33 _Robertson, Mrs. A._, 33 _Robertson, Walter_, 34 _Robertson, Charles_, 34 Rome, King of, portrait of, 308 _Romney, George_, goes to Italy with Humphrey, 252 _Ross, H._, 34, 276 _Ross, Mrs._, 34 _Ross, H., Junr._, 34 _Ross, Miss Maria_, 34 _Ross, Miss Magdalene_, 34 _Ross, Sir William Charles_, R.A., 34; his birth and parentage, 275; his precocity, 275; is patronised by Royalty, 275; the great number of his works, 275; characteristics of his style, 276; many examples in the Royal Collection, _ibid._, 292; examples of, at Victoria and Albert Museum, 315 _Rouvier, M._, 346 Rouvigny, Rachel de, her portrait, 197 Rupert, Prince, by Dixon, 297 Rushout, the Misses, Plimer's miniature of, 246, 247 Rutland, Duke of, his collection, 298 S _Sadler, Thomas_, 34 _Sadler, William_, 34 _Saint, D._, 359 _Saunders, George L._, 34 _Saunders, Joseph_, 34 _Saunders, R._, 34 Schreiber Collection, 89 Seymour, Jane, by Hilliard, 286 Sheepshanks Gallery, _see_ Victoria and Albert _Shelley, Samuel_, 221 Sheridan, Mrs., 251 _Sherlock, William_, 34 Shipley's Drawing School, 235, 247 _Sicardi_, or _Sicard, L._, 345; charm of his colouring, 345; example at Hertford House, 345 Sidney, Sir Philip, by I. Oliver, 288 _Singleton, Joseph_, 34 _Singleton, William_, 34 _Smart, Anthony_, 35 _Smart, John_, 34; his birth and career, 247; goes to India, 247; qualities of his art, 248 _Smart, John, junr._, 34, 247 _Smart, Samuel Paul_, 34 _Smith Thomas Correggio_, 34 _Smith, John Raphael_, 34 Snuff-boxes, 79; their use in the eighteenth century, 205 _Soutter, J. G._, imitator of Petitot, 202 T _Teerling, Levyn_, 102 _Thorburn, Robert_, A.R.A., his method of painting large works on ivory, 41; his rapid rise, 271; his method of making cabinet pictures, 275 _Toutin, Jean_, 74, 193 _Toutin, Henri_, 75 U Unwin, Mrs., _see_ Cobden Upsala, MSS. preserved at, 57 V _Van Cleef, J._, 105 Van der Doort's catalogue, 285, 286, 288 _Van Dyck, Sir A._, his friendship with Petitot, 197 Victoria and Albert Museum, enamels at, 73, 74, 76, 93; snuff-boxes at, 205; miniatures at, 313 W Waddesdon Collection, 73, 74 Wallace Collection, miniatures in, 304-313; snuff-boxes, 79 Walpole, Horace, his criticisms, 183, 299 Welbeck Collection, 297 _West, Benjamin_, P.R.A., a patron of Robertson, 264; his influence at Court, 264 Windsor, collection at, its extent, 282, 291; Olivers at, 149, 150, 165, 288 _Wood, William_, 267 _Wright, Mrs._, _see_ Biffin Z _Zincke, C. F._, 83, 300 * * * * * CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE BY ARTHUR HAYDEN. _Price_ =5s.= _net._ _With a Coloured Frontispiece and many Illustrations, a List of Sale Prices, and a Full Index._ "Mr. Hayden knows his subject intimately."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ "The hints to collectors are the best and clearest we have seen; so that altogether this is a model book of its kind."--_Athenæum._ "A useful and instructive volume."--_Spectator._ "An abundance of illustrations completes a well-written and well-constructed history."--_Daily News._ "Mr. Hayden's taste is sound and his knowledge thorough."--_Scotsman._ "A book of more than usual comprehensiveness and more than usual merit."--_Vanity Fair._ "Mr. Hayden has worked at his subject on systematic lines, and has made his book what it purports to be--a practical guide for the collector."--_Saturday Review._ CHATS ON OLD CHINA BY ARTHUR HAYDEN. _Price_ =5s.= _net._ _With Coloured Frontispiece and Reproductions of 156 Marks and 89 Specimens of China._ A List of SALE PRICES and a full INDEX increase the usefulness of the Volume. This is a handy book of reference to enable Amateur Collectors to distinguish between the productions of the various factories. "A handsome handbook that the amateur in doubt will find useful, and the china-lover will enjoy for its illustrations, and for the author's obvious love and understanding of his subject."--_St. James's Gazette._ "All lovers of china will find much entertainment in this volume."--_Daily News._ "It gives in a few pithy chapters just what the beginner wants to know about the principal varieties of English ware. We can warmly commend the book to the china collector."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ "One of the best points about the book is the clear way in which the characteristics of each factory are noted down separately, so that the veriest tyro ought to be able to judge for himself if he has a piece or pieces which would come under this heading, and the marks are very accurately given."--_Queen._ CHATS ON OLD PRINTS BY ARTHUR HAYDEN. _Price_ =5s.= _net._ _With a Coloured Frontispiece and 110 Illustrations, a Table of Engravers, a Bibliography, a Glossary, and a Full Index._ "Mr. Hayden writes at once with enthusiasm and discrimination on his theme."--_Daily Telegraph._ "Any one who, having an initial interest in matters of art, wants to form sound and intelligent opinions about engravings, will find this book the very thing for him."--_Literary World._ "These 'Chats' comprise a full and admirably lucid description of every branch of the engraver's art, with copious and suggestive illustrations."--_Morning Leader._ In 2 vols., royal 4to, £5 5s. nett. MINIATURE PAINTERS: British and Foreign. Illustrated with numerous Examples selected from celebrated Collections. AUTHOR'S EDITION, with all the Plates, many of them in the best style of Photogravure, printed upon fine Plate Paper. "Mr. Foster's experience makes him a safe guide, and leaves little to be desired. Mr. Foster is more fortunate than some other writers upon miniatures in possessing sound critical taste. The splendid series of illustrations in photogravure which enrich the volumes ... form in themselves a gallery of miniature art ... admirably chosen."--_Athenæum._ THE STUARTS Illustrated by 16th, 17th, and 18th Century Art. From the Collections of His Majesty the King, H.R.H. the Duchess of Albany, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Rutland, K.G., Earl Spencer, K.G., and many others. Containing 13 Original Etchings, 150 Full-page Photogravures, Illustrations in Colour, and various Facsimile Letters, Medals, Maps, &c. "The glory, pride, and beauty of three centuries of English history are enshrined in these pages, reproduced and made alive again before our eyes in all the glow of the best art of the past, and with a fidelity of reproduction which it has been reserved for the modern world to invent."--_Athenæum._ A POPULAR EDITION of the above with 30 Illustrations now ready, £1 5s. nett. CONCERNING THE TRUE PORTRAITURE OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. Illustrated by Large Plates, many in Colour, from Authentic Originals in the Collections of His Majesty the King, the Duke of Devonshire, the Earl of Leven and Melville, the Earl of Denbigh, the Duke of Portland, &c. The Edition is EXTREMELY LIMITED, namely, 175 copies only of an _EDITION DE LUXE_, at 10 guineas nett. "Mr. Foster's sumptuous and remarkable volume.... A most exhaustive, well-weighed, well-balanced study."--_Standard._ "The author is as careful and exhaustive as he is critical."--_Glasgow Herald._ THE CENTENARY EDITION OF THE LIFE OF GEORGE MORLAND. BY GEORGE DAWE, R.A. Illustrated by 56 Large Plates in the finest Photogravure. AUTHOR'S EDITION strictly limited to 250 copies at 3 guineas nett each. FRENCH ART FROM WATTEAU TO PRUDHON. This sumptuous Work, illustrating French art of the Eighteenth Century, upon a scale _never before attempted_, with Essays by eminent French and English critics of the day, NOW READY. _Prospectuses of this and other Volumes of the DICKINSON ART LIBRARY may be had of all the important Booksellers, or post free on application at 114, New Bond Street, London, W._ UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON 
48053	----	[Illustration: Front dust jacket cover] The Haciendas of Mexico [Frontispiece: Hacienda de Mediñero. Jalisco: residence. One-room school was located in right wing of residence.] +The Haciendas of Mexico+ +An Artist's Record+ PAUL ALEXANDER BARTLETT Foreword by James A. Michener Introduction by Gisela von Wobeser UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO Copyright © 1990 by the University Press of Colorado, Niwot, CO 80544 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED First Edition The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State College, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Mesa State College, Metropolitan State College, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, University of Southern Colorado, and Western State College. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences--Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48-1984 +Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data+ Bartlett, Paul Alexander. The haciendas of Mexico: an artist's record/Paul Alexander Bartlett; foreword by James A. Michener, Introduction by Gisela von Wobeser.--1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-807801-205-x (alk. paper) 1. Bartlett, Paul Alexander. 2. Haciendas in art. 3. Haciendas--Mexico--Pictorial works. I. Title. N6537.B2264A4 1989 728.8'0972--dc20 89-24922 Manufactured in the United States of America *************** +2015 PROJECT GUTENBERG EDITION+ _The Haciendas of Mexico: An Artist's Record_, a copyrighted work, originally published by the University Press of Colorado, is now out-of-print. The University Press of Colorado has released all rights to the book to the author's literary executor, Steven James Bartlett, who has decided to make the book available as an open access publication, freely available to readers through Project Gutenberg under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs license, which allows anyone to distribute this work without changes to its content, provided that both the author and the original URL from which this work was obtained are mentioned, that the contents of this work are not used for commercial purposes or profit, and that this work will not be used without the copyright holder's written permission in derivative works (i.e., you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work without such permission). The full legal statement of this license may be found at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode [Illustration: Creative Commons logo] _Dedicated to my son, Steven, who was my compañero on many hacienda trips. This book would not exist without his help._ [Illustration: Hacienda de Colonia Campo. Chihuahua: residence.] +Contents+ List of Illustrations List of Photographs Foreword _by James A. Michener_ Preface Introduction _by Gisela von Wobeser_ Map I. The Hacienda System II. Through the Eyes of Hacienda Visitors III. Hacienda Life IV. Fiestas V. Education VI. The Revolution VII. Mexico Since the Revolution Bibliography +Illustrations+ Hacienda de Mediñero, Jalisco: residence. One-room school was located in right wing of residence. Hacienda de Colonia Campo, Chihuahua: residence. Hacienda de Buena Vista, Jalisco: well-preserved residence and patio. Hacienda de San Felipe, Oaxaca: 19th-century residence, patio fountain. Hacienda de Encero, Veracruz: church, 1799. Hacienda de Bledos, San Luis Potosí: map of the hacienda. Hacienda de Cedra, Jalisco: ornamental entry to 18th-century chapel; door and gate of mesquite. Orange trees shade patio. Hacienda de Endo, Sonora: residence, stable below. Hacienda de Valenciana, Guanajuato: patio fountain. Hacienda de Valenciana, Guanajuato: figure on 1788 church wall. Hacienda de Holactún, Yucatán: chapel and residence. Hacienda de San José, D.F.: churrigueresque-style residence and chapel with blue and white tiled dome. Hacienda El Pópulo, Puebla: residence with tiled façade. Hacienda de Santana, Hildago: residence and chapel. Hacienda de Teya, Yucatán: residence, 1700. Hacienda de Leoncito, Guanajuato: 16th-century chapel. Hacienda de San José, D.F.: rococo façade of residence. Hacienda de Bledos, San Luis Potosí: coat-of-arms. Hacienda de Calderón, Guanajuato: bronze bell on residence, 1838. Hacienda de Ciénega de Mata, Jalisco: 16th-century church Hacienda de Cabezón, Jalisco: chapel Virgin; her elaborate wardrobe valued at $50,000. Hacienda de Cabezón, Jalisco: capital, front of residence, 1800; building designed by architect Eduardo Tresguerras. Hacienda de Cuisillos, Jalisco: late 17th-century church in rose stucco. A famous Jesuit hacienda. Hacienda de Cuisillos, Jalisco: floor plan of residence. Hacienda de Cuisillos, Jalisco: handpainted wall fresco in bedroom of ruined residence. Hacienda de Cuisillos, Jalisco: mural, one of fourteen panels on veranda wall of residence. Hacienda de Xcanatún, Yucatán: one of a series of gold wall motifs around chapel walls. Hacienda de San José Huejotzingo, Puebla: florentine armor in residence. Hacienda de San José Huejotzingo, Puebla: pistol and brand of hacienda. Hacienda de San José Huejotzingo, Puebla: 16th-century stone bas relief, 3 feet x 5 feet, unearthed in garden. Hacienda de San Francisco, Jalisco: residence. Hacienda de Sodzil, Yucatán: narrow-gauge railway passenger car drawn by mule or horse. Hacienda de Dolores Noriatenco, Puebla: century-old carriage. Hacienda cattle brands, state of Jalisco. Hacienda de Cedra, Jalisco: stone cross to one side of hacienda chapel, 8 feet tall. Hacienda de Tabi, Yucatán: early 18th-century church. Hacienda de Altillo, Coyoacán, D.F.: pastel of St. Andrew. Hacienda de Zapotitán, Jalisco: remains of 1750 residence and mirador, white stuccoed masonry. Hacienda de Dolores Noriatenco, Puebla: polychrome wood statue, 16th century, 5 feet tall. Hacienda San Ignacio, Yucatán: 18th century brass sacristy implements--handbell and Bible holder. Hacienda San Ignacio, Yucatán: brass ecclesiastical candle holder. Hacienda de Castamay, Campeche: _cepo_ (stocks), made of mahogany. Hacienda de Castamay, Campeche: chapel stairway. Hacienda Corralitos, Corralitos, Chihuahua: one-million-acre cattle and mining hacienda, 1750. Adobe residence, 1886, surrounded by cottonwoods. Hacienda de Bellavista, Jalisco: sugar refinery silo. Hacienda de Sodzil, Yucatán: bronze weathervane on residence. Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato: stone residence and chapel. Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato: gate. Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato: church. Hacienda de Aurora, Jalisco: commemorative bridge column dated 1750. Hacienda de los Morales, D.F.: patio fountain, 1643. Hacienda de Xala, Hidalgo: residence and chapel, 1785. Hacienda Pixoy, Yucatán: brick-adobe residence and storage rooms. 18th century, eleven rooms. Hacienda de los Ricos, Guanajuato: residence. Hacienda de los Ricos, Guanajuato: bullring entry door. Hacienda de Yaxche, Yucatán: Virgin, 14 inches high, 17th century. Hacienda de San Antonio, Colima: 17th-century chapel and terminus of aqueduct. Hacienda de Jajalpa, D.F.: pink stucco sixteen-room, red-tiled 19th-century residence and chapel. Hacienda San Cayetano, Nayarit: one of a pair of pink ceramic lions at entry to residence. Hacienda de Guarache, Michoacán: residence and chapel. Now a government school. Hacienda de Petaca, Guanajuato: residence. Hacienda de Juana Guerra, Amado Nervo, Durango: millstone. Hacienda San Cayetano de Valencia, Guanajuato: church, 1788. Hacienda de Juana Guerra, Amado Nervo, Durango: baroque church. Hacienda de la Venta del Astillero, Jalisco: 18th-century stone and brick residence and chapel, 220 feet long. Hacienda la Gavia, Estado de México: wood figure, 5 feet tall. Hacienda de Cocoyoc, Morelos: 16th-century chapel. Hacienda de Tikuch, Yucatán: rear view, stairway to second floor residential area Hacienda de Chinameca, Morelos: residence and chapel. Emiliano Zapata assassinated here, 1919. Hacienda de Canutillo, Durango: Pancho Villa buried here July 23, 1923. Hacienda de la Erre, Guanajuato: 1673. Father Miguel Hidalgo began his march from this church. Hacienda de Pueblilla, Zempoala, Hidalgo: chapel tower, 1860. Hacienda de Tepa-Chica, Hidalgo: chapel, 1864. Hacienda la Gavia, Estado de México: carved figure on library door. Hacienda de Arenillas, Puebla: chapel gateway. Hacienda Manga de Clavo, Veracruz: owned by Santa Anna. Rendering from an 1868 bank bond; hacienda destroyed. Hacienda de Esperanza, D.F.: residence. Cattle stalls on ground floor. Hacienda de Águilar, Oaxaca: bas relief, 3 feet x 5 feet, front wall of residence. Hacienda de Sodzil, Yucatán: 19th-century residence. Hacienda de los Molinos, Tlaxcala: 16th-century chapel. Cholula pyramid in the distance. Hacienda Quinta Carolina, Chihuahua: residence of more than fifty rooms, 1892. Abandoned as of 1981. Hacienda de Caleturia, Puebla: silver door knocker. Hacienda de Chichén Itza, Yucatán: church. Hacienda de Valenciana, Guanajuato: residence. Hacienda cattle brands from various states in Mexico appear at the beginning of each chapter. +Photographs+ Hacienda Castillo, Jalisco: 18th-century landscape view typical of many haciendas. Hacienda de Buena Vista, Jalisco: well-preserved residence and patio. Hacienda de San Felipe, Oaxaca: 19th-century residence, patio fountain. Hacienda Uxmal, Yucatán: main gate. Hacienda de Valenciana, Guanajuato. Hacienda Petaca, Guanajuato: patio side of main residence. Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato: 17th-century defense tower. Note bullet holes. Hacienda de Barrera, Guanajuato: residence. Hacienda de Cañedo, Jalisco: 19th-century church. Hacienda Yaxcopoíl, Yucatán: residence. Note narrow-gauge rail-road car. Hacienda de los Morales, D.F.: spinning wheel in residence patio. Hacienda de Blanca, Oaxaca: patio. Hacienda de Xotla, Puebla: residence patio and oven. Hacienda Zapotitán, Jalisco: map on veranda of residence. Hacienda de Buena Vista, Jalisco: 18th-century aqueduct. Hacienda de Castamay, Campeche: 18th-century church Hacienda de Dolores Noriatenco, Puebla: saddle belonging to former President Ávila Camacho decorated with silver. Hacienda de Yocotepec, Hidalgo: church and stone cross. Hacienda de Tenache, Oaxaca: twin bells on roof of residence. Hacienda la Calera, Jalisco: second residence on the property, 1890. Hacienda de Tamanche, Yucatán: 17th-century colonial residence and remains of sugar refinery chimney. Hacienda de San Antonio, Guanajuato: 18th-century chapel ruin. Hacienda Aguilera, Oaxaca: former 19th-century hacienda residence, now university building. Hacienda de Matanzas, Jalisco: chapel and residence, chapel date 1750. Hacienda los Molinos, Puebla: fortified wall and stairway to tower of 16th-century residence. Hacienda de Matanzas, Jalisco: 18th-century chapel, residence, Hacienda Quinta Carolina, Chihuahua: main residence. Hacienda Mendocina, Puebla: 18th-century guest home on island in small man-made lake. +Foreword+ +_James A. Michener_+ Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Miami I first became aware of the high artistic merit of Paul Bartlett's work on the classic haciendas of Old Mexico when I came upon an exhibition in Texas in 1968. His drawings, sketches, and photographs evoked so effectively the historic buildings I had known when working in Mexico that I wrote to the architect-artist to inform him of my pleasure. Subsequently, I saw examples of his devotion to the great haciendas with their strong Mexican-Spanish coloration, and always I enjoyed his reminders of what life in colonial Mexico must have been like for the favored classes. It is rewarding to renew my acquaintance with this remarkable body of work, for it is a reassuring example of what a lifetime of scholarship can accomplish. +Preface+ The haciendas of Mexico have a special appeal for me. They represent a way of life that is now gone--some would say fortunately, since it was often a burdensome and cruel way of life for the peasant workers, a way of life that eventually motivated a revolution and the dissolution of the majority of hacienda landholdings. Many haciendas can be reached only with difficulty by horse or by foot, by boat or motorcycle or jeep. Their isolation from the culture of Europe, three hundred years ago, impresses the mind with its severity. In their isolation, these estates recall the brave attempts of hacienda families to re-establish cultivated patterns of living in the New World, with fine china and crystal, grand pianos and chapel organs, ornate furnishings, paintings, and tapestries. For my project, I received no financial rewards. Hence, I made repeated trips to Mexico, each funded by the modest savings accumulated in the United States between visits, with the hacienda project ever in mind. My wife, Elizabeth encouraged my efforts. She was my mainstay, my constant friend and faithful companion. Our son, Steven, was born in Mexico and was raised in a world punctuated by hacienda visits; he was my _compañero_ on many hacienda trips. The three of us usually returned to Mexico to stay for a year or two at a time. To find out where haciendas were located in a particular area, I turned to local government officials, owners of village stores, the postman, or the peasant who delivered charcoal on his burro. Mostly, I found the haciendas on random trips, when their archways and rooftops appeared in the distance. In 1941, when I began this project, few studies of the Mexican hacienda had been made. Only a handful of scholars had visited individual haciendas, and had gained first-hand familiarity with a limited number of them. To this day, with the possible exception of my own work, this is still true. And it is certain to remain true, since many of the haciendas I visited no longer exist. My own interest in that heritage was to re-create the special aura that my visits to more than three hundred haciendas had created. As an artist I felt an enduring affinity with a time that is no more, a heritage and tradition that may be recaptured only, I think, through the medium of art. This, then, is an attempt to survey the story of the haciendas. It is not a treatise about their economic structure, their political influence, or their historical importance in the establishment of New Spain. Despite the meager records relating to the many individual haciendas, there are excellent studies of regional haciendas in Mexico. The reader will find references to them in the Bibliography. The text was written to accompany a selection of my hacienda illustrations, including descriptions of hacienda life based on information received from personal contacts with hacienda families and caretakers who could still recall the old days. My impressions and commentary are offered to enable the reader to leave the twentieth century for a while and return to a period when the freshly colonized American continent witnessed the birth, the spread, and eventually the death of a unique way of life. Finally, I wish to acknowledge my thanks to the many who helped my hacienda project to develop and grow through its many stages; among them: historians Frank Tannenbaum of Columbia University and Silvio Zavala of Mexico City; authors Ralph Roeder, Stuart Chase, and Russell Kirk; artist Roberto Montenegro; art directors Reginald Poland of the Atlanta Art Association, Herbert Friedmann of the Los Angeles County Museum, Donald Goodall of the University of Texas Art Gallery in Austin, the Reverend J. Pociask, S.J. of the DeSaisset Gallery at the University of Santa Clara, and Stella Benson of the Latin American library collections at the University of Texas in Austin; and art patron Huntington Hartford. I am especially grateful to my son, Steven, without whose help this book would have remained an unfinished project. I am also indebted to Dr. Fae Batten for her magnanimous effort, patience, and skill in preparing my photos for this book, and to Lowell Waxman, head librarian of the Claremont Branch of the San Diego Libraries for his tireless assistance in the department of references. In addition, I am thankful for the good friends and associates it has been my fortune to come across on the long journey over the years. [Illustration: Hacienda Castillo, Jalisco: 18th-century landscape view typical of many haciendas.] This book contains reproductions of a selected number of illustrations and photographs, drawn from a collection of more than 300 original pen-and-ink illustrations and several hundred photographs, which now form part of the Benson Latin American Collection of the University of Texas in Austin. A collection of hacienda photographs, illustrations, and other materials is also maintained by the Western History Research Center of the University of Wyoming in Laramie. [Illustration: Hacienda de Buena Vista, Jalisco: well-preserved residence and patio.] +Introduction+ +_Gisela von Wobeser_+ Professor of History, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, D.F. Translated from the Spanish by Steven J. Bartlett Senior Research Professor, Oregon State University The lifework of artist Paul Alexander Bartlett to retrieve the past of the Mexican hacienda has made this book possible. This volume contains a selection of his original pen-and-ink illustrations and photographs, realized over a period of some forty years, of more than three hundred haciendas. Bartlett began his record during the 1940s. He made a series of visits to Mexico to sketch and photograph the hacienda buildings that had survived the Agrarian Reform. Many haciendas were inaccessibly located, at considerable distances from population centers. He traveled hundreds of miles on foot, on muleback, by train and by boat, climbed hills, and descended into canyons to find them. The record that Bartlett has made represents an important chapter in Mexican history. Because the majority of hacienda structures have been subjected to severe and progressive deterioration, his study, in many cases, is the only trace that remains of the physical appearance of individual haciendas. His collection of illustrations and photographs is now in the custody of two institutions, the University of Texas at Austin, in the Benson Latin American Collection, and the University of Wyoming in Laramie, in the Western History Research Center [Now the American Heritage Center]. These two archives will be useful to scholars interested in the physical structure of the haciendas, their evolution and history, their economy, as well as in comparative studies. At the same time, this collection of materials makes it possible to study the characteristics of different types of haciendas. Above all, the contents of the two archives form an extremely valuable resource for the history of art and architecture. [Illustration: Hacienda de San Felipe, Oaxaca: 19th-century residence, patio fountain.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Encero, Veracruz: church, 1799.] When Bartlett began his travels through the Mexican backcountry, the producing haciendas had largely disappeared. What he found were often remnants of an earlier existence during the Porfiriato, the period between 1877 and 1911. Many of the buildings he saw dated from this epoch, along with their interior decorations, water and irrigation systems, machinery, and farming tools. In addition to these haciendas, he also found vestiges of the first half of the nineteenth century and of the colonial era. These were mainly hacienda buildings, some of which had been rebuilt during the Porfiriato. The disintegration of the haciendas began as a result of the Mexican Revolution, and it ended with the redistribution of their land during the Agrarian Reform. During the 1930s and 1940s, huge rural estates were fragmented and converted into _ejidos_ or _minifundios_. _Ejidos_ are tracts of land that are granted as communal property to rural towns. They are worked by members of the community, who benefit from the land's yield. Ejidal properties cannot be sold or transferred. The _minifundios_ are small private pieces of property, amounting on the average to 100 hectares but varying according to the region of the country and type of soil. Between 1934 and 1940, approximately 17,900,000 hectares (44,230,900 acres) were redistributed, representing close to half of all tillable land. This repartitioning of the land has continued into the present, though its pace has been much slower. As hacienda property was broken up, the hacienda owners, the _hacendados_, were left in possession of the hacienda buildings and the immediate land around them, the size of which was restricted by the limits that were set for these small properties. This meant that immense haciendas were reduced to very tiny ranches. Along with their land, the hacendados lost access to water, they lost their means of irrigation, machinery, and livestock. Because of these measures, the hacienda system was annihilated. For the majority of the hacendados, the few acres left them turned out to be unproductive land, and their hardships were magnified by the instability and the violence that prevailed in the country. As a result, many hacienda buildings were abandoned or were destined for new purposes. Only a few of the ex-haciendas remained in production. Some landowners took advantage of the limited property left to them to plant lucrative, high-yielding crops, while others augmented the size of their cultivated land by leasing adjoining land or by purchasing it under assumed names. [Illustration: Hacienda de Bledos, San Luis Potosí: map of the hacienda.] When Bartlett began his hacienda visits in the 1940s, he found many of the hacienda buildings in ruins, exposed to the ravages of time and vandalism. Buildings had been converted into chicken coops, pigsties, public apartments, and machine shops. Others served as sources for construction materials, from which were scavenged rocks, bricks, beams, and tiles for the habitations of the local population. In some cases the destruction was total: All the hacienda's structures were removed, and only the name of the place alluded to the fact that an hacienda had ever existed there. At other haciendas, buildings were adapted to new uses. They were transformed into hotels, resorts, government buildings, barracks, hospitals, restaurants, and schools. The exterior of the buildings were generally left intact; interiors were completely changed. [Illustration: Hacienda de Cedra, Jalisco: ornamental entry to 18th-century chapel; door and gate of mesquite. Orange trees shade patio.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Endo, Sonora: residence, stable below.] The best-preserved hacienda buildings were those that continued to function as country properties or vacation homes. In these, Bartlett often found furnishings and utensils from the epoch of Don Porfirio, surrounded by the old traditions of Mexican country life. As an artist, Bartlett's attention was drawn foremost to the hacienda buildings themselves and to the works of art that they housed. The majority of his illustrations and photographs therefore depict the main group of hacienda buildings or certain buildings--for example, the main residence, the church, the patios, and work buildings. However, among his rich materials, one can also find a testimony to hacienda work and life: machinery, irrigation devices and structures, farm implements, mining equipment, warehouses, barns, corrals, and carriages, among others. The history of the hacienda spans three centuries. The first haciendas appeared in New Spain toward the beginning of the seventeenth century, when demand for agricultural products increased and the prehispanic supply system crumbled. Farming received an impetus at the hands of Spaniards, and the small farms and livestock ranches, which dated from the sixteenth century, expanded their landholdings. Many new sources of water were tapped, and a resident labor force was developed. These steps encouraged production and supplied the regional as well as the continually growing metropolitan markets. The increase in hacienda production and in the number of hacienda workers made it necessary to expand the sixteenth-century facilities, which, with the exception of those of the sugar plantations, had been very modest. In this way, a large number of buildings were constructed, buildings that were to be preserved as the core of many haciendas until the Porfiriato. There were three principal types of haciendas. Grain haciendas were the most important because they were dedicated to the cultivation of the subsistence crops corn and wheat. In addition, beans, barley, lima beans, chiles, and other crops were planted. Grain haciendas were established mainly in the vicinity of the urban centers, which they supplied. The important areas of grain cultivation were Puebla, Atlixco, Toluca, Guadalajara, Oaxaca, and Michoacán. Livestock haciendas occupied a second level of importance. They raised cattle and horses, as well as goats and sheep. This type of hacienda tended to be located in more remote areas, in an attempt to prevent the livestock from invading cultivated fields. Sugar haciendas were located in tropical regions, where they could count on sufficient water for the cultivation of sugarcane. The most important sugar regions were Veracruz, Cuernavaca, Cuautla, and Michoacán. Throughout the seventeenth century the haciendas grew in significance. They held much of the land and water resources, expanded their labor force, intensified their control over the market, and consolidated their territorial rights in accordance with _composiciones de tierras_. (The phrase _composiciones de tierras_ belongs to the legal terminology of the time. It relates to a legal mechanism that was instituted by the Spanish Crown during the first half of the sixteenth century but which was applied mainly during the seventeenth century. It made it possible to legalize properties whose titles were not in order.) They sought to make improvements by constructing, for example, buildings, irrigation systems, roads, granaries, and shelters for livestock. Together, these made it possible to increase agricultural yields substantially. It was not an easy process, often involving transfers of hacienda property, severe indebtedness of their owners, and great difficulties in production. Hacienda expansion proceeded throughout the following two centuries. Huge tracts of uncultivated land were transformed into farmland and impressive water distribution systems opened up new areas to irrigation. The population, constantly growing, demanded an ever greater quantity of food. Much land that had been devoted to the raising of livestock was turned over to cultivation, and the stock were gradually displaced until livestock haciendas came to be located mainly in the north of the country. However, this was not a period of unimpeded progress: there were severe periods of crisis, sharp fluctuations in production, a lack of continuity in the transmission of property, and frequent bankruptcies. Hacienda properties tended to be deeply mortgaged to ecclesiastical institutions and to individual lenders. [Illustration: Hacienda Uxmal, Yucatán: main gate.] When dictator Porfirio Díaz assumed power in 1877, a boom period for the hacienda began. Historical circumstances were favorable, and the government offered all manner of facilities to the livestock and farm impresarios. The substantial increase in the country's population, as well as the strengthening international economy, created a great demand for farm and livestock products. The consumption of goods from the tropics, such as coffee, cacao, sugar, tobacco, and vanilla, grew considerably during this time both in Europe and in the United States. The same thing happened with certain basic materials, among them _henequén_, rubber, chicle, and _ixtle_. (_Ixtle_ or _istle_ is the name given to the hard fibers that are extracted from different plants of the genus agave, of which the most important are the _maguey_ and the _lechuguilla_. They are raised mainly in northern Mexico.) As a result of laws that secularized communal land and set aside fallow land, huge areas of cultivation and land suitable for farming were placed at the disposition of commercial agriculture. Supporting capital for the most part came from foreign sources--from the United States, France, and England. Labor came from the impoverished peasants, from town workers, and from indigenous groups, among them the Mayas and the Tarahumaras. Large landed estates appeared and a powerful class of hacienda owners arose. It was during this period that it was possible to overcome some of the endemic problems that had beset the hacienda since its birth: instability, indebtedness, lack of capital, and scarce revenues. During the Porfiriato, the majority of the haciendas were highly productive and provided their owners with plentiful earnings. Yet, at the same time there were haciendas that had to face financial problems and fluctuations in production. Frequently, hacendados participated in other areas of business, such as finance, commerce, and mining. Their privileged economic position permitted them to furnish their rural properties with great luxury and to sustain a life of affluence. Bartlett found hacienda residences with twenty bedrooms, salons for dancing, Japanese gardens, billiard rooms and music rooms, swimming pools, bullrings, and palisades. Bearing witness to the interior splendor of these mansions, there was fine furniture from Europe, carpeting from Persia, velvet draperies, chandeliers of cut crystal, and valuable oil paintings. There were haciendas that possessed chapels that rivaled the provincial churches in size, architecture, and decor. Of course not all haciendas were this elegant: most had much more rustic appointments; many were in decline, poorly maintained, furnished with the very barest minimum. Bartlett captured and transmits to us today through his art the grand cultural richness that enfolds the hacienda, its diversity according to its moment in time, its location, and its type of production, and he accompanies these with a portrayal of hacienda life, customs, and its inherent style of thought. He is one of the pioneers in his field of study. [Illustration: Map of Mexico and its states] +Sonora+ 1. Hacienda de Endo +Chihuahua+ 2. Hacienda de Colonia Campo 3. Hacienda Corralitos 4. Hacienda Quinta Carolina +Durango+ 5. Hacienda de Juana Guerra 6. Hacienda de Canutillo +Nayarit+ 7. Hacienda San Cayetano +San Luis Potosí+ 8. Hacienda de Castamay +Guanajuato+ 9. Hacienda de Valenciana 10. Hacienda de Leoncito 11. Hacienda de Calderón 12. Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto 13. Hacienda de los Ricos 14. Hacienda San Cayetano de Valencia 15. Hacienda de Petaca 16. Hacienda de la Erre +Jalisco+ 17. Hacienda de Medinero 18. Hacienda de Cedra 19. Hacienda de Ciénega de Mata 20. Hacienda de Cabezón 21. Hacienda de Cuisillos 22. Hacienda de Zapotitán 23. Hacienda de Bellavista 24. Hacienda de Aurora 25. Hacienda de la Venta del Astillero +Hidalgo+ 26. Hacienda de Santana 27. Hacienda de Xala 28. Hacienda de Pueblilla 29. Hacienda de Tepa-Chica +Michoacán+ 30. Hacienda de Guarache +Colima+ 31. Hacienda de San Antonio +State of México+ 32. Hacienda de San José 33. Hacienda de Altillo 34. Hacienda de los Morales 35. Hacienda de Jajalpa 36. Hacienda la Gavia 37. Hacienda de Esperanza +Morelos+ 38. Hacienda de Cocoyoc 39. Hacienda de Chinameca +Tlaxcala+ 40. Hacienda de los Molinos +Puebla+ 41. Hacienda de Pópulo 42. Hacienda de San José Huejotzingo 43. Hacienda de Dolores Noriatenco 44. Hacienda de Arenillas 45. Hacienda de Caleturia +Veracruz+ 46. Hacienda de Encero 47. Hacienda Manga de Clavo +Oaxaca+ 48. Hacienda de Águilar +Campeche+ 49. Hacienda de Castamay +Yucatán+ 50. Hacienda de Holactún 51. Hacienda de Teya 52. Hacienda de Xcanatun 53. Hacienda de Sodzil 54. Hacienda de Tabi 55. Hacienda San Ignacio 56. Hacienda Pixoy 57. Hacienda Yaxche 58. Hacienda de Tikuch 59. Hacienda de Chichén Itza I. The Hacienda System [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] Forty years ago, traveling by train in Mexico, I saw, in remote areas, what appeared to be miniature villages. I made sketches of them from the train and later visited some of the sites and learned they were ancient haciendas. Over the years since then, I have visited 330 haciendas and made the first art record of these estates. I traveled on horseback, on foot, by bus, train, car, truck, motorbike, and mule-drawn, narrow-gauge railway. I saw that haciendas had become mere place-names as they disintegrated or were bulldozed. Walk into a handsome mansion and you find twenty or thirty empty rooms. To escape the revolution, the owner fled years earlier. Earthquakes, weather, and abandonment have riddled walls and floors. The residence stands roofless, windowless, doorless--constructed of stone, brick and adobe, or a combination of these. Church and chapel exist at every hacienda and they are still used by neighbors and peasants who may occupy the manor house. There are dates on bell skirts, on walls or beams of a storage bodega, on escutcheons, on archways; often they are carved in the mesquite floor of a chapel or church. [Illustration: Hacienda de Valenciana, Guanajuato: patio fountain.] In the tropics, flame trees, bougainvillea, red-orange galeanas, lavender jacaranda, and yellow primavera flower among ruins. In northern areas, pine, tall eucalypti, mesquite, cedar, pepper, and chinaberry remain. I sketched under the tropic sun, in corrals, in a bullring, under an Indian laurel; I poked through empty rooms. As I sketched, burro trains passed, their sacks loaded with charcoal or corn; goat bells tapped as a herd grazed; ox teams hauled carts with wooden wheels; blackbirds crowded a treetop; a cowboy tipped his hat. There was always courtesy. I drank _pulque_ from a communal gourd; I shared pineapple grown in Tecomán; I was entertained at town houses of hacendados. On the estates there was silence from the days of the viceroys, the silence of padres, the silence of abandonment. [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] In the sixteenth century, following the Spanish invasion of Mexico between the years 1519 and 1521, the Spanish Crown granted enormous land areas to the conquerors and adventurers who came to the New World. Since this property belonged to the natives, the grants amounted to usurpation. Scattered throughout Mexico, from Yucatán to Sonora, the extensive holdings frequently included towns and villages. These grants of land were the origin of the haciendas, the rural estates. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Spanish immigrants sometimes passed themselves off as noblemen--camouflaging criminal or poverty-stricken backgrounds. Others, with a sack of cash or a pair of brawny shoulders, used the invasion as an opportunity to bluff their way and claim land and lives through the power of the sword. They remembered that dropping quicksilver into a mule's ear made the animal trot faster. Wealthy immigrants were able to purchase titles, and this arrangement was encouraged by the Crown since it benefited the treasury. The hacendado (or his representative) employed or coerced native workers to build a residence, church or chapel, storage buildings, mills, dams, aqueducts, fences, and roads. He paid lip service to the Crown and whenever possible circumvented legalities. It was advantageous to sidestep the Crown since a letter or document took half a year to reach Spain. The employer was unable to communicate with the people who spoke Otomi, Coro, or Chichiméc. He was thwarted by new diseases, strange customs, tropical climate, and crop problems. Unlike the countries of Europe, Mexico was a corn culture, not a wheat culture. During his first years he learned that grain did better when planted in the most primitive manner, by stick and foot. [Illustration: Hacienda de Valenciana, Guanajuato: figure on 1788 church wall.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Holactún, Yucatán: chapel and residence. [Illustration: Hacienda de San José, D.F.: churrigueresque-style residence and chapel with blue and white tiled dome.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Valenciana, Guanajuato.] [Illustration: Hacienda Petaca. Guanajuato: patio side of main residence.] [Illustration: Hacienda El Pópulo, Puebla: residence with tiled façade.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Santana. Hildago: residence and chapel.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Teya, Yucatán: residence. 1700.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Leoncito, Guanajuato: 16th-century chapel.] [Illustration: Hacienda de San José, D.F.: rococo façade of residence.] As rapidly as possible, the landowner, the _hacendado_, added to his holdings, buying or usurping acreage. An hacienda might consist of several thousand or several million acres. The terrain might be mountainous, semi-desert, coastal strips, forest or jungle, or a combination of topographical zones. There were cattle haciendas, sheep haciendas, mining haciendas, pulque/tequila haciendas; others produced henequén, grew coffee, sugarcane, corn, wheat. A few bred bulls for the bullring. During the first century of the occupation, Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, friend of the Indians, objected to the atrocities committed by the Spanish. Alfonso de Zorita, writing his "Brevíssima Relación," exposed Indian mistreatment. Burnouf, French agronomist, wrote Emperor Maximilian that the whip of the _mayordomo_ (the hacendado's administrator) was destroying many lives. Regardless of objections through the years, the hacienda system prospered. Counts, countesses, dukes and duchesses, crude invasionists, wealthy men, and religious orders owned estates. Some of the famous hacendados were Hernán Cortéz, Porfirio Díaz, Martín Ruiz de Zavala, General Santa Anna, and Pancho Villa (who was given his hacienda as a political bribe). Famous families owned estates: Terrazas, Rosa, Amor, Jaral, Ibarra, Echeverría, and Regla. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, hacienda architecture varied: Where generation after generation owned the hacienda, in families of great wealth, façades were gothic, churrigueresque, plateresque, Islamic, baroque, rococo. The most widespread architectural style derived from the Roman. Most residences had their living quarters around an _atrium_, or patio. Grilled windows and massive wooden doors and shutters were common. Thousands of work-hours went into the carvings and embellishments--in gray, pink, or yellowish limestone. _Hornacinas_ (niches) peppered a church or chapel façade. [Illustration: Hacienda de Bledos, San Luis Potosí: coat-of-arms.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato: 17th-century defense tower. Note bullet holes.] Each niche contained a saint or religious figure: It was tapestry in stone. In the states of Puebla and Oaxaca, tiled façades ornamented the hacienda residences and lofty walls surrounded them. Church and chapel domes were also tiled. In the Sierras, haciendas were often built of logs and planed wood--rustic, two-story buildings with outside stairways. In the tropics, the usual residence was one story with ample verandas and deep-set doors and windows. Most buildings were roofed in cone-shaped, interlocking, or flat tiles. The majority of hacienda structures were skillfully mortared in stone block _cantera_ (limestone) by rule-of-thumb. Professional architects like Francisco Eduardo de Tresguerras were seldom available. Instead, artisans were employed who used various styles learned from early ecclesiastical buildings. Bitter rivalries between estates were part of the scene. Owners were on the alert for a bankrupt hacienda that could be purchased at a very low price. If extending landholdings meant violating the rights of a village or of an individual farmer or rancher, those rights were brushed aside, or contested legally. [Illustration: Hacienda de Barrera, Guanajuato: residence.] To bolster his stature, the hacendado placed a baronial device on the façade of his residence or church: A coat-of-arms elevated his status. He also respected his skin, and against the threat of _la intrusa_ (the intruder) he installed gun slots, grilled windows, studded doors, and armed his retainers. _La intrusa_ was his Old World enemy. Now and then he raised a private army to repel difficult natives, belligerent hacendados, or revolutionaries. Thick-walled, ponderous buildings reflected his philosophy. They indicated his loneliness and his fear of death as well. As life became less threatening in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as roads improved and travel became safer and more comfortable, hacienda owners erected open structures: Residences appeared with multiple arches across the front, and tiled verandas led to the outdoors. Two-story homes, with balconies on the second floor became common. Eucalypti, jacaranda, chirimoya, and columnar cypress shaded a complex of buildings: church, residence, _bodega_. In the north country, a line of cottonwoods led to the gracious house, which was stuccoed pink or pale yellow. Farther south, a grove of palms graced the setting. As time passed, viceroys, churchmen, lawyers, and teachers became more and more aware of the language barriers that existed throughout the country and that impeded progress. The Catholics, through their _colegios_ (ecclesiastical schools) attempted to upgrade life. There were no public schools. Among the ecclesiastical orders, the Jesuits were major hacienda owners. Their design-for-living began at 4:00 A.M. and ended at 7:00 P.M. At the most famous Jesuit hacienda, Santa Lucía, near Mexico City, slaves were purchased, bred, sold, or retained for work on the estate. There were no fiestas at Santa Lucía. For almost two hundred years the hacienda functioned to support the ecclesiastical schools of the order. The Colegio Máximo, in Mexico City, was the principal beneficiary. Until June 25, 1767, when all Jesuits were deported from Mexico, the estate prospered, selling wheat, corn, textiles, cattle, sheep, and slaves. Its economic influence extended as far as Guadalajara, Zapotlán, and Colima. Schooling at the hacienda was largely disregarded. There were sixty foreign dialects to contend with. There were no dictionaries, no language bridges for the Zapotec, Coro, Méxica, and Nahuatl people. On the estates a priest or teacher, one who knew a little Latin, gave lessons in Spanish, arithmetic, Latin, and the catechism. Scholarly priests began linguistic studies of some tribes; they edited dictionaries, but these were never circulated. Some of their work has yet to be published. _Machismo_ was more meaningful to the average estate than education. The blacksmith from Barcelona, who now owned ninety thousand acres, was eager for compliant women. Sex life, for the invaders, for the colonist, was freer than in Europe. Since the men did not speak the Indian dialects, sex was a body language. Some were promiscuous and guilty of perversion. Priests and nuns were shocked by their animality and attempted to control their countrymen. Since most haciendas were remote and few women accompanied the settlers, isolation and power granted license. The kindly man, the gentile man, looked for other ways to overcome loneliness, isolation, homesickness. Some, preferring the familiar life, returned to their homeland. By 1910, thousands of estates were scattered across the country. Mansions were located in the midst of maguey and henequén fields or were situated in lush valleys. Some faced the ocean; some were lost in acres of corn; miles of range country surrounded others; there were desert haciendas with the nearest neighbor fifty miles away; there were rain forest haciendas, mahogany haciendas. Many were regional landmarks. [Illustration: Hacienda de Calderón, Guanajuato: bronze bell on residence, 1838.] Haciendas became an embodiment of time. They seemed to defy time, offering the illusion that a family could live there indefinitely. +II. Through the Eyes of Hacienda Visitors+ [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] Through the years there were notable visitors to the haciendas who have left us their impressions: Bishop Landa, Father Alonso Ponce, Gemelli Gareri, Samuel de Champlain, John Chilton, Mora y Escobar, Sieur Bully, Fathers Balalenque and Acosta, Thomas Gage ("clerical spy"), Don Ernesto de Icaza, Emperor Iturbide, Emperor Maximilian I, Baron von Humboldt, Madame Calderón de la Barca, James Stephens, and Frederick Catherwood, among others. [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] One of the most famous haciendas, in the state of Jalisco, is Ciénega de Mata, legalized by the Crown in 1697. Owned by the Rincón Gallardo family, it was a tract of eighty-seven estancias (ranches). According to Alfonso Rincón Gallardo, reminiscing about his father's estate, the residence was built during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. It is a two-story building with twenty rooms and spans or arches across the front. The church is gray limestone, like the residence, with a baroque façade. An elaborate coat-of-arms embellishes the entry. Sculptured pink stone _cantera_ saints and angels fill various niches. The octagonal dome and tower are richly carved. [Illustration: Hacienda de Ciénega de Mata, Jalisco: 16th-century church.] Gallardo appreciated the life at Ciénega, the brandings, the roundups, sheep pasturing, shearings, and weanings. "I liked to ride with the cowboys," he wrote, "those extraordinary horsemen, pleasant companions, tanned by sun and wind, simple in tastes, frank, never tiring--the classic men of the great haciendas." Recalling his life he tells us: Every morning after breakfast, all of us--my father dressed in his charro outfit; my mother attired English style--would set out on horseback, riding about the hacienda's vast fields of corn and barley. After the midday meal, back at the house, we walked about the stables, the granaries, and over a small hill that lay nearby; and sometimes we played fronton or went out riding again. At night, after supper, we read or played games. In this tranquil, pleasant manner, life went on, broken only by the annual festival, an event celebrated on a grand scale with parades, banquets, horse races, cockfights, boxing matches, and, in the evening, a fantastic display of fireworks. [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] Brantz Mayer, secretary of the United States Legation in Mexico during 1841 and 1842, enjoyed a horseback visit to the Hacienda de San Nicolás, near Tetécala, in the state of Mexico. He admired the white buildings and the neatness of the estate: "The sugarcane fields were in capital order, the roads smooth, the fences maintained; cattle were under the care of herdsmen." [Illustration: Hacienda de Cabezón, Jalisco: chapel Virgin; her elaborate wardrobe valued at $50,000.] The _mayordomo_ was hospitable and accommodated Mayer and his party with comfortable rooms. Following dinner, Mayer walked among the hacienda's fields of sugarcane. He inspected the _tienda de raya_ (the general store), and the hacienda's offices, kitchens, parlors, bedrooms, and an "immense corridor of arches filled with caged birds, hung with hammocks, where the family pass most of the long warm days of summer." [Illustration: Hacienda de Cabezón, Jalisco: capital, front of residence. 1800: building designed by architect Eduardo Tresguerras.] At sunset the workers gathered under the arches of the residence and the administrator called the roll and each man replied with "Alabo a Dios" ("I praise God"). When all were dismissed they walked away singing a hymn to the Virgin.... That night a group of musicians played in a hut: violin, clarinet, flute, and drum. [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] In 1833, travelers Emma Undsay Squier and her husband were guests at a tequila hacienda, Ometusco, about an hour and a half by horseback from Mexico City. From the railroad station, the complex appeared like a "salmon-pink birthday cake in the shape of a walled fortress." The buildings were surrounded by fields of maguey. The Squiers entered the grounds through a large gateway where soldiers lounged. The walled patio was enormous and paved with stone. Burros trotted by, bearing casks of freshly collected _agua miel_ (sap of the maguey). Ometusco was the size of a village; the hacendado's home was a palace of many rooms, kitchens, winding stairways, patios, poultry yards, corrals. The largest patio, centered by a stone fountain, was planted with flowers, trees, and flowering vines. A tiny school had its own patio. The chapel was elaborate. Guests enjoyed a billiard room in the main house. Each bedroom had beds protected by mosquito netting. The dining room could seat seventy persons at a mahogany table. Inlaid buffets glittered with silver and glassware, seldom to be seen after the revolutionary period of 1910-1914. [Illustration: Hacienda de Cuisillos, Jalisco: late 17th-century church in rose stucco. A famous Jesuit hacienda.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Cuisillos, Jalisco: floor plan of residence. A. Residence. B. Kitchens. C. Chapel. D-E. Living Quarters. F-G-H. Corrals. I. Granary. J. Jail. K. General Store (Tienda de Raya). L. Living Quarters. M. Yard.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Cuisillos, Jalisco: handpainted wall fresco in bedroom of ruined residence.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Cuisillos, Jalisco: mural, one of fourteen panels on veranda wall of residence.] By 1952, the renowned Hacienda Cabezón had become a mere _casco_ (a shell). Located about 48 miles from Guadalajara, near Ameca, the residence was designed in 1780 by the famous architect Francisco Eduardo de Tresguerras. Now, grunting, shuffling pigs have squatters' rights to the fifteen rooms. The building is roofless; its handpainted bedroom walls are open to the weather, all that remains of the handsome structure, once the focal point of fifteen or twenty _sitios_ (ranches), is the chapel, pewless, clean, its walls faded red, gold, and yellow. Swallows fly in and out of their nests in the gold curlicues of the reredos. [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] Cabezón has a single treasure: the Virgin of Candelaria, protected by a plate-glass case. Her face seems Andalusian. Colored scrolls, garlands, and angels frame her as she stands on a silver crescent moon, her figure the center of a gilded _reredo_. About 18 inches tall, she wears a white satin gown sewn with gold. A jeweled pearl crown rests on her hair, making her the perfect madonna. Close by, under the dark mesquite floor, members of the hacienda family are buried: Ignacio Cañedo de Valdivierlos (1836); Estanislao Cañedo (1887); Manuel Calixto Cañedo (1905). According to a chiseled inscription, the floor was laid in 1858 and cost 166 pesos. [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] The land belonging to the famous ecclesiastical hacienda, Santa Lucía, was purchased by the Jesuits on December 4, 1576. Legally, the estate's area measured 18.8 square miles, an area populated by Otomi, Tepaneca, and Chichimeca Indians. At the time of its purchase it had 16,800 sheep, 1,400 goats, 125 brood mares and colts, 1 stallion, 1 saddle horse, 2 donkey mares, 2 donkey stallions, and 8 slaves. During the 1580s, construction work was carried out on residences, offices, storage buildings, corrals, sheds, and quarters for the slaves. A chapel was built in 1592. The hacienda produced barley, oats, beans, wheat, corn, chickpeas, and livestock: cattle, sheep, goats, mules, and horses, in increasing numbers each year. Santa Lucía prospered for nearly two centuries. [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] Cuisillos is another Jalisco hacienda, a place of jacaranda, palms, eucalyptus, ash, and mesquite, near Cabezón. Horizon hills are often steel blue, and a low-lying volcano is often misty gray. Cuisillos, deeded in 1620, first belonged to Juan González de Apodaca, chief constable under Cortéz. During the sixteenth century it was one of the largest estates in Mexico and added substantial revenues to the Crown. Neoclassic, its _casa principal_ (main house) and chapel form an L, and fronting the L is a grove of palms. The main house has thirty rooms, two tiled patios with a fountain in each; in the main patio there are fourteen fresco panels painted in 1910 of seascapes, landscapes, and scenes of women in the eighteenth century. The grilled patio gate bears the renovation date 1910 and the hacienda brand and family monogram. All rooms are still roofed and floored. The house is putting up a valiant struggle. Its primitive kitchen has an igloo-shaped oven with a charcoal basket dangling from its chimney pipe. A corkscrew limestone stairway leads to the chapel tower where there are bronze bells whose skirt dates are 1895, 1895, 1896, and 1896; the fifth bell has no date. The chapel façade is ornate. The interior is simple: a small _coro_ (choir gallery), with a small darkwood organ that is badly battered. The walls of the chapel are white and gold. [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] A neighboring hacienda is architecturally imposing. The Hacienda Cañedo has a church that would be outstanding in any city. The building, of yellow limestone, is baroque-Italianate. It towers above the surrounding structures and is amazing for its spire and its twelve stone apostles in the forecourt--8-foot carvings of limestone on stone pedestals--native craft at its finest. The church interior is blue, white, and gold. Sedate. The black mesquite floor has a carved strip leading to the altar, and the words on the strip indicate when the floor was laid and what it cost. Altar and decorations are simple: brass candle holders, vases with paper flowers. There are solid-backed wooden pews in cedar. The room expresses spaciousness. The residence, which adjoins the church, is a stone mansion with badly scaled walls. All rooms are vacant except the kitchen, a charcoal-blackened room with smudged clay pots and a row of cracked white plates in racks above a tiled stone stove. Around this _casco_ are other buildings, storage rooms--all stone, all neglected. At one time, according to a wall sign, there was a _biblioteca rural_ (rural library) in the complex. [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] In the state of Hidalgo, the Hacienda de San Francisco--a pulque estate--was refurbished in 1880. The twenty-room mansion stands in a giant field of maguey ringed by hills. Fifty carriages could park in front. Once there were twin swimming pools, a bullring, and fifty Japanese gardeners to maintain the gardens. The residence has rooms around a flower-weed-garbage patio. The building is in a pseudo Arabian-Spanish style. On a wall there is a crank-style phone. There is electricity and a broken television antenna. A large _sala_ (parlor) has a number of ornate tables, tufted velvet couches, and silk-damask chairs; imported brocaded drapes are fastened by gold sashes, all from France via train, ox cart, and tumpline. On the stairway leading to the roof, the hacienda workers killed the owner in 1910. Occasionally there are guests, weekenders. Barefooted girls wearing braids serve among the antiques. [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] [Illustration: Hacienda de Cañedo, Jalisco: 19th-century church.] Far south, in Yucatán, Yaxcopoíl is a working henequén hacienda, a survivor of two centuries, still semi-successful economically. Located about forty miles from Mérida, on the Uxmal-Campeche highway, the residence forms a U. Residence, chapel, offices, and storage space are eighteenth-century structures. The main house has thirteen arches along its broad veranda and micro-chapel. This section of the complex is connected by an imposing pillared breezeway to the dining room, kitchen, and servants' quarters. [Illustration: Hacienda de Xcanatún, Yucatán: one of a series of gold wall motifs around chapel walls.] The floor of the extensive patio between these buildings is paved with flagstone carved with Mayan glyphs and designs, appropriated from nearby ruins on the property. The residence is furnished in eighteenth and nineteenth-century styles with marble-topped tables, bronze and brass beds, dangling chain lamps with handpainted globes and shades, henequén hammocks, and tanned hides on tile floors. Bathroom fixtures are British and washbasins with silver faucets bear a porcelainized coat-of-arms. There are reed chairs in the living room. Mediocre prints and a seventeenth-century religious canvas decorate the walls. The floor tiles are conventional in pattern; there are no rugs; the ceiling beams are stenciled in pastel floral designs. Double doors lead to the veranda. The dining room has a center table with a Tiffany-type lamp. In the office there are chairs, an oak desk, a handpress, and a bookcase. In the micro-chapel, its wall decorated with gold and silver fleur-de-lys and pink roses, there is a large sixteenth-century canvas by an accomplished, anonymous artist: the descent from the cross, with eight or ten figures merging with the background. There are no chairs. The altar is small, insignificant. A white Seybold organ, a silver crucifix, a pair of silver candles on a side table complete the furnishings. Behind the residence stands a theater with simple stone façade and pilaster figures of women representing spring, summer, autumn, and winter. A windmill spins behind a carved Mayan head perched on the roof line. The auditorium accommodates a couple of hundred people for movies and plays. [Illustration: Hacienda de San José Huejotzingo, Puebla: florentine armor in residence.] The henequén production mill consists of a large open shed with a corrugated roof. There is a machine press for crushing the maguey leaves, which are hauled in by narrow-gauge flat cars, pulled by mules or Ford-engine. There are fence-like racks behind the mill for drying thousands of fibers at one time. Employees here work on salary; today there are no feudal restrictions. [Illustration: Hacienda de San José Huejotzingo, Puebla: pistol and brand of hacienda] From the rooftop of the residence, Mayan ruins are visible as earthen mounds in the midst of maguey plantings. The seven mounds are an unexplored archaeological site. [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] The imposing Hacienda San José Huejotzingo is near the city of Puebla in the state of Puebla. Its stark one-story red brick, white brick façade faces a lane of dying elm and willow. The residence measures 170 feet across the front. At each corner there is an ornamental tower. The house encloses two patios. Destroyed by revolutionaries, its chapel and storage areas are roofless, but the residential rooms have been reconditioned. They are filled with _recuerdos_ (mementos): incunabula, antique firearms, a suit of Italian armor, oil paintings, Aztec figures, charro spurs, leather chests, colonial tables and chairs. In the dining room are tall ecclesiastical wooden candelabra, carved cedar chairs, monogrammed chests, pre-Columbian objects, colonial pottery, and old dishes. Modern Tonalá pottery ornaments a nineteenth-century buffet. Throughout the residence the floors are red tile. The central patio has a 5-foot limestone statue of St. Joseph, carved in 1624. It stands near a wall tile that reads: _Margarita Barrados, died June 3, 1871_. A stone plaque of a conquistador on horseback, in primitive style, decorates another wall. The property--a corn, wheat, and cattle estate dating from Cortesian days--is owned by Juan Matienzo, who has made a hobby of reconstructing his ancestral home. Few other haciendas have Popocatépetl's 18,000-foot peak looming behind. [Illustration: Hacienda de San José Huejotzingo, Puebla: 16th-century stone bas relief, 3 feet x 5 feet, unearthed in garden.] [Illustration: Hacienda de San Francisco, Jalisco: residence.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Sodzil, Yucatán: narrow-gauge railway passenger car drawn by mule or horse] [Illustration: Hacienda Yaxcopoíl, Yucatán: residence. Note narrow-gauge railroad car.] [Illustration: Hacienda de los Morales, D.F.: spinning wheel in residence patio.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Bianca, Oaxaca: patio] San Martín Rinconada, a feudal hacienda, is halfway between Puebla and Jalapa on the Jalapa route. The buildings are enclosed in a compound. The protective walls, 30 feet high, are in good condition--mellowed by age. Extensive cornfields surround the compound, which is about one half-block square. An intricate grilled gateway opens to a plateresque church. The church clock keeps time, and the stone sundial by the corral also keeps time, hacienda time. Behind the church, a windowless chapel, with double doors for light and air, contains five mauled wooden desks, dusty benches of adzed wood, and a cracked blackboard. This was once a school. Outside the compound, facing the church, are adobe huts roofed with straw. They accommodated the workers, their poultry, pigs, and dogs. Perhaps one hundred people lived in the twenty huts. A shingle-roofed _pozo_ (well) supplies water for horses, cattle, and people, spilling it into a 20-foot wooden trough. Gun slots in the compound walls slant toward the well and trough. Zapatistas and Carrancistas threatened the hacienda in 1914; they banged on the residence door and demanded beef and saddle horses but left the property undamaged. Now empty, the bedrooms are papered in gold and white and are semi-frescoed overhead. A minute patio, facing several bedrooms, has a few shabby cypress. The _sala_ has no furnishings. Stained-glass windows, humble panes of colored glass, light the auditorium that seated one hundred people. Behind a plaster life-size Christ on the altar hangs a dark red velvet drape; nearby, on the same wall, is a tortured Christus. A pair of prayer wheels stands by the altar. Chandeliers are encased in white covers, carefully tied. There are stubby oak candelabra with fat candles that have dripped wax. A foxed, framed letter is dated 1742. +III. Hacienda Life+ [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] Life on an hacienda was basically agrarian, revolving around the care of livestock, poultry, planting, harvesting, crop storage, irrigation, and general maintenance. If the estate was located in an area that included tropical low-level land, mountainous terrain, and semi-desert, administration was complex. The thousands of acres had to be supervised on horseback. Weather was a daily concern. Keeping a competent work force was an ever-changing problem. The personnel of an hacienda consisted of a mayordomo (the administrator), minor supervisors, field workers, cowhands, shepherds, blacksmiths, masons, saddlers, cobblers, carpenters, woodcutters, weavers, a stable boss and assistants, errand boys, a barber, a chandler, gardeners, dairymen, maids, butler, cooks, seamstresses, the manager of the tienda de raya, butchers, a priest, an organist, a teacher, a governess, and sometimes a doctor. The bigger the estate, the bigger the staff. All were responsible to the hacendado who lived on the hacienda or who was an absentee owner-administrator. [Illustration: Hacienda de Dolores Noriatenco, Puebla: century-old carriage.] During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the haciendas became increasingly self-sufficient. Isolated as they were, they made every effort to provide for their own needs: water, food, carriages, wagons, carts, saddles, shoes, spurs, harnesses, clothing, linen. Equipment like saws, plows, pumps, pipe, guns, and machetes had to be "imported." The hacendado, his family, and staff ate an early breakfast. Bells clanged for a Mass at 6:00 or 7:00 A.M. (before or after breakfast), depending on the weather. In most tropical regions, work commenced at dawn to escape the noon heat; during the summer, work was often suspended around midday and resumed late in the afternoon. [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brands, state of Jalisco.] Each morning, the hacendado found his clothes laid out by his mozo (valet), perhaps his charro outfit, a shirt, socks, sombrero, pistol, boots, gloves, and quirt. His breakfast menu included fruit, eggs, meat dishes, beans, tortillas, or _pan dulces_ (varied sweet rolls). The chef offered coffee, chocolate, tea, pulque, or beer. Cuban cigars were favored. Mounted on a well-groomed thoroughbred, riding western saddle, the hacendado checked crops, cattle, corrals, granary, irrigation project, and village laborers. He also conferred with village _caciques_ (chiefs). During a lifetime the hacendado rode some 60,000 miles. [Illustration: Hacienda de Cedra, Jalisco: stone cross to one side of hacienda chapel. 8 feet tall.] The hacendada looked after her staff, her maids, the governess, the tutor, she allocated tasks: sheets to be laundered, soap to be made, the purchase of _manta_ for linen, clothes to be mended, skirts to be hemmed. If guests were expected, the dinner menu had to be carefully planned. Children, relatives, friends--they were all important. Supplies had to be brought to the hacienda from the nearest village or town: kerosene, salt, lamps, matches, drugs. By 2:00 or 2:30 P.M., it was time to eat. At a kind of makeshift picnic, the workers shared their clay pots of hot beans or rice, their tortillas, and pulque. Sometimes there was meat with the rice or beans: chicken, pork, beef, goat. In season, there were zapotes, mangos, oranges, avocados, bananas, chirimoyas. Workers wore cast-offs: torn shirts, torn trousers, battered hats; the women were usually dressed in blue cotton dresses and blue and white rebozos. They ate in the fields, in the kitchen, in the corral and stables--sharing their food. [Illustration: Hacienda de Tabi, Yucatán: early 18th-century church.] At the same hour, inside the big house, the hacendado, his family, and guests enjoyed a meal at the long table set with imported or hacienda linen, elegant china, cut glass, and Mexican and European silverware. Barefoot maids served. Perhaps the maids wore Tehuana or Yucatecan dresses. The butler may have worn white gloves. In the spacious, beamed, windowed room, cool in summer, warm in winter, the menu was varied: Hors d'oeuvres Soup _Sopa Seca_ (pasta, rice, etc.) Beef, chicken, pork, lamb, venison--or a combination of these (Turkey, rabbit, quail, fish, when available) _Flan_ (custard), _chongo_ (a milk and syrup confection), _cajeta_ (caramelized goat's milk), cake--or fresh fruit and cheese Coffee, tea, wine, liquor, _horchata_ (a rice drink), _jamaica_ (a tropical drink), chocolate. Wine and liquor were both domestic and imported. Both local and imported cheeses were served, as well as European delicacies like caviar, marmalades, jellies, mints, nuts, and bon-bons. After dinner, the siesta called for relaxation, comfortable chairs, hammocks. A well-earned sense of ease took over. A few guests played pool or billiards, bridge, rummy, pinochle. At dusk, croquet was a favorite game. Some estates had a swimming pool or access to a river, lake, or ocean playa. [Illustration: Hacienda de Altillo, Coyoacán, D.F.: pastel of St. Andrew.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Xotla, Puebla: residence patio and oven.] [Illustration: Hacienda Zapotitán, Jalisco: map on veranda of residence.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Buena Vista, Jalisco: 18th-century aqueduct.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Zapotitán, Jalisco: remains of 1750 residence and mirador; white stuccoed masonry.] At a Jesuit hacienda, a peasant who failed to attend Mass might be lashed; but the average hacienda was lenient about attendance. At evening Mass after a day's labor, the workers were glad to kneel or squat: the hour was a humble reward. Hymns were sung. Someone played the organ or piano. Each chapel or church boasted an altar--a lace-covered table with paper flowers or a rococo gilded carving, with _santos_ (saints) and angels in the gray niches. The Virgin or saint was the focal point. Stained-glass and onyx windows appeared in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Marble and onyx sometimes replaced mesquite or tiled floors. Some chapels and churches had pews, but in those without furniture the workers knelt. As for the hacienda family, they sat on cane chairs or worshipped behind a screened _coro_. There was a clear distance between them and the "unwashed." [Illustration: Hacienda de Dolores Noriatenco, Puebla: polychrome wood statue, 16th-century, 5 feet tall.] Most services were conducted in Latin, a language disliked by the Indians because they considered it an affront to their integrity. Spanish was a tribulation and Latin was another. When they memorized songs in Latin or Spanish, they often mispronounced words intentionally. [Illustration: Hacienda de Castamay, Campeche: 18th-century church.] Crucifixes were evident in most places of worship. The figure of Christ was sometimes pornographic in style, sometimes tragic. "Yerma," Federico Garcia Lorca's tragic evocation, was brought to life again and again. Young people grew up seeing marriage distorted, warped by superstition and rigid conventions. They learned to admire martyrs. They learned that the body was unclean--putrefying. The bloody cross hung in countless minds. With a cross dangling at her throat, the señorita made confections: sugar skulls. "A Nun's Cry" was the name of a confection. Hacienda loneliness did strange things; it summoned _duendes_ (spirits). In this remote place, the church bred intolerance--deep whispers of death and damnation. [Illustration: Hacienda de Dolores Noriatenco, Puebla: saddle belonging to former President Ávila Camacho decorated with silver.] Great art--when it could be found--added to extremism. St. Sebastian and his arrow-pierced body, Murillo and his forlorn madonnas, Caravaggio and his rebellious saints--each tilted the mind a little further askew. However, there was great music at some estates. Freighted by train, retransported in sections by ox cart, the London Broadway piano brought Bach, Händel, and Couperin to the señora's _sala_. Most haciendas had a sala cluttered with heirlooms: horsehair sofas, tapestry chairs, wicker rockers, a parotta table, an ormolu screen, an inlaid card table, brass spittoons, and a whatnot of oriental ivory carvings. [Illustration: Hacienda San Ignacio, Yucatán: 18th century brass sacristy Implements--handbell and Bible holder.] Since most work was onerous and the hours long, with most workers undernourished and small-boned, the haciendas faced labor problems. Most man-hours went into agricultural jobs; in some areas where the water supply was critical, wells had to be dug and serviced, pipelines demanded upkeep. If an aqueduct supplied the estate, the canal, its outlets, and spans had to be maintained. In the fields--across thousands of acres--there was planting, weeding, harvesting, and shucking to be done. There were beans, peppers, and tomatoes to pick. Fences had to be repaired. The cycles continued, altered by rain or drought, by pests and soil failure. [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] The most capable agronomists were the Jesuits; their haciendas achieved the best production records. Their workers often were treated with a measure of consideration. The Jesuit conduct book called for respect. This 200-page bible of _Instrucciónes_, written in the sixteenth century, forbade the whip, ball and chain, and the pillory. Yet even so, Jesuit cruelty was evident. In Santa Lucía, administrators chained mill workers and left skeletons of men in chains in subterranean rooms. In 1767, the Jesuits were expelled from New Spain. By 1810, Augustinians, Carmelites, Dominicans, and Franciscans owned more than half of the nation's real estate. As for slavery on the haciendas, when is a man a slave? He is a slave if he works in perpetual debt. If he cannot, under penalty of imprisonment and death, leave the hacienda and work elsewhere, he is a slave. From the days of the _encomiendas_ (land grant estates) until 1910, workers were enslaved by the hacienda. A small hacienda kept ten or twelve black slaves. Since there were approximately eight thousand haciendas in 1910, the total of black slaves must have reached many thousands. A large hacienda kept one hundred to one hundred and fifty slaves, of all ages. There is no accurate count, but it is clear that black slavery played an important role in the hacienda system. [Illustration: Hacienda San Ignacio, Yucatán: brass ecclesiastical candle holder.] Disharmony was common among the ethnic groups: negro, mulatto, mestizo, Creole, Zapotec, Méxica, Chichimeca, Yaqui. The mores of each group were affected by Spanish customs and demands. Ethnic problems existed at each estate to varying degrees. At the mining hacienda, the sugar refining hacienda, and the vast cattle properties, the worker was less valuable than the horse. Big jobs and big land grants minimized personalities; anonymity took over. At the mine holdings, workers grubbed for ore 1,000 feet below. They worked almost naked, without adequate food, drank contaminated water, climbed precarious ladders in shafts faintly lit. Men, women, and children were employed. In principle, they were to work for a few days and then return home, but they worked until they were ill or until they died. Overseers were unwilling to spare the workers. There was no medical care. [Illustration: Hacienda de Castamay, Campeche: _cepo_ (stocks), made of mahogany.] With their mining, sugar refinery, and cattle properties, the hacendados were proud of their affluence, evident in their elegant mansions, ornate churches, endowed schools, and hospitals. They lived like Carolingian kings as they traveled from one hacienda to another, attended by friends, relatives, and parasites. They were famed for their hospitality, hated for their cruelty, kowtowed to when they went abroad. Rincón Gallardo offered his private army to the Spanish Crown should there be a need. It took the Gallardo family less than a century to create a principality with its own administration, castle, village, and subordinate haciendas. [Illustration: Hacienda de Castamay, Campeche: chapel stairway.] Rincón Gallardo reminisced about his hacienda life: I spent my vacations with friends at Tlalayote, near Apán, in the state of Hidalgo. There we rode in the morning; in the afternoon we hunted for pheasant, quail and rabbit, and, near Tultengo Lake, for ducks. Since there was no automobile we went everywhere on horseback. I can remember returning late from a hunt, the stars our only guide, since the one we were supposed to use--Evaristo, our groom--had by then a headful of pulque and was in no shape to lead us home. But once back at Tlalayote's main house we handed over our game-bags to Miscaela, the magnificent cook, who prepared several of the birds and served us plentifully with great mugs of pulque brought in from the fermenting shed. This rural life seemed yet another indication of the land's undying attraction. As a young man I learned to ride charro style, to throw a calf by its tail, to lasso on horseback and on foot, to drive a six-mule team, to break wild colts and calves, and use firearms of various kinds. I enjoyed the brandings, the shearings, and the weanings, which include one of my favorite sports ... separating calves from their mothers. [Illustration: Hacienda Corralitos, Corralitos, Chihuahua: one-million-acre cattle and mining hacienda, 1750. Adobe residence, 1886, surrounded by cottonwoods.] But there were a few hacendados who disavowed the great estates: One of them said: "I'd rather have an attic in Paris than an hacienda." [Illustration: Hacienda de Bellavista, Jalisco: sugar refinery silo.] +IV. Fiestas+ [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] Haciendas were the home of the fiesta. The first fiestas were held shortly after the Conquest. As the influence of Catholicism spread, fiestas increased in number--honoring a saint, commemorating a religious event, a holiday, a wedding. Generally, fiestas were initiated by the peasants and represented a communal expression. At an hacienda village someone had to collect funds, arrange for costumes, supervise church or chapel decorations, commission the fireworks, hire or borrow musicians, and arrange for food and drinks. If the hacendado hosted a fiesta, he might leave the details to his wife or the _mayordomo_. The priest and his assistant also managed fiestas. People came on foot, by ox cart, palanquin, burro, mule, horse, wagon, and carriage--from distant haciendas and towns. For some four hundred years fiestas livened these feudal outposts that existed across the nation. Guests were often royalty or politically important: a viceroy, a duke, a governor, or church dignitary. Since travel was usually tedious and fatiguing, everything was done to make the festival memorable. [Illustration: Hacienda de Yocotepec, Hidalgo: church and stone cross.] Sixteenth-century fiestas were announced by drums and the _chirimía_--a shrill flute from Aztec-Toltec-Mayan days. Dancers performed in front of the big house or danced in a patio or on the tiles of the church plaza. They wore harlequin-like costumes, feathered headdresses, conquest clothes, white trousers sashed with red, giant sombreros, masks; they flaunted wands, shields, spears, bows, and arrows. Ankle rattles hissed. Gourds thumped and rustled. Only male dancers participated. In the far south, at estates in Chiapas, Yucatán, Quintana Roo, and Campeche, the marimba replaced the flute and drum. Sometimes six or eight musicians pounded out music simultaneously on four or five instruments. [Illustration: Hacienda de Sodzil, Yucatán: bronze weathervane on residence.] In the north, on Sonoran and Chihuahuan haciendas, the violin was the chief instrument. Fashioned with no other tools than pieces of glass and a knife, it supplied basic rhythms, one or several instruments wailing for Yaqui and Tarahumaran dances. [Illustration: Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato: stone residence and chapel.] Flowers decked every fiesta. Gardenias were tossed into the fountains, carnations were woven into bell ropes, and rambler roses were spun around ox cart wheels and wagon wheels. Blossoms filled churches and chapels with fragrance, they crisscrossed patios on wires, they brightened roadside shrines. Food and drink were plentiful: tortillas, beans, beans cooked with beef or chicken, pots and pots of beans, iron caldrons of soup, meat barbecued on spits, ox and goat, barrels of punch, buckets of pulque, barrels of beer, bottles of tequila, and, of course, cognac--for the _gente de razón_ (gentry). [Illustration: Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato: gate.] In the big house, dinners were elaborate--the hacendado presiding. The menu offered _Cochinita pibil_ (pork barbecued in banana leaves), squash blossom soup, _quesadillas_ (tortilla turnovers stuffed with cheese and mushrooms), _uchepos_ (corn mush steamed in husks), _muk-bil pollo_ (chicken and pork tamale pie), _tamales Veracruzanos_ (pork-filled tamales), and _ate de guayaba_ (guava candy paste). For special guests, the chefs served more elaborate dishes: pheasant, quail, javelina, venison, dove, rabbit. There were no government restrictions on wild game. Fishermen contributed _gallo_ (rooster fish), _pardo trucha_ (trout), _huachinango_ (red snapper), turtle, turtle eggs, lobster, and crab. [Illustration: Hacienda de Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato: church.] The guests gathered for cockfights. If it was summertime, a canopy shaded the pit. In the highlands a _mozo_ swept aside pine needles and built a green fire to fight the mosquitoes. In the south, white awnings and striped parasols furnished shade. The cocks, which were uncaged at a pit, were named: _Biba Manza_, _Panadero_, _Porfirio_, _Tigre_, _Mi General_, and _El Rayo_. At a signal the birds flew at each other, their razor blades flashing. Bets were wagered ... a hundred ... a thousand ... five. [Illustration: Hacienda de Aurora, Jalisco: commemorative bridge column dated 1750.] [Illustration: Hacienda de los Morales, D.F.: patio fountain, 1643.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Xala, Hidalgo: residence and chapel, 1785.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Tenache, Oaxaca: twin bells on roof of residence.] [Illustration: Hacienda la Calera, Jalisco: second residence on the property, 1890.] [Illustration: Hacienda Pixoy, Yucatán: brick-adobe residence and storage rooms. 18th century, eleven rooms.] [Illustration: Hacienda de los Ricos, Guanajuato: residence.] [Illustration: Hacienda de los Ricos, Guanajuato: bullring entry door.] Every fiesta had popular dances: Cora Paixil, Moro, Tapatío, Jarana. The _gente_ (people) danced in the sala or on a cool veranda or outside by kerosene lamps, by torches, by candlelight, under chandeliers in the big house, by gasoline lamps--the illumination changing with the epoch. Orchestras--brought by train from the cities--played polkas, waltzes, rustic Bach, "La Bamba," "Torres de Pueblo," "There is Someone," and other current favorites. Mariachis, in their sequined black suits and sprawling black hats, played and sang. They were always the favorites at every fiesta. Dating from Aztec days, _Los Voladores_ (pole dancers), were the sensation. Customarily, five men participated, first dancing on the ground, then climbing a lofty pole where they hurled themselves into space, roped by the feet. Spinning round and round the pole, they gradually descended, unwinding. Fiestas lasted a single day or several days; sometimes they became a _feria_, a market where vendors would set up booths and display fabric, produce, herbs, pottery, machetes, knives. Poultry and livestock were sold or bartered. Early in the sixteenth century, Spanish bullfighters arrived and performed at haciendas near the capital. The elegantly-dressed cowboy, the _charro_, spent $1,000 on his outfit; his trousers were skintight and had single or double rows of silver buttons trimming the outside seams. His shirt was homespun cotton or handsomely embroidered linen. His jacket was embroidered and sequined. His boots were made of inlaid leather, expertly fitted. His sombrero was ornamented with silver and silver banded. His stirrups and spurs were chased silver or gold, and his saddle was inlaid with silver or gold. It is not known when the first _castillo_ (bamboo tower) spat fire. When there was ample gunpowder, someone fashioned a windmill for pinwheels, rockets, Roman candles, blazing globes of flame, and strings of tangled lights. It was a windmill of bamboo, a shivering, shaking tower of color, 20 to 30 feet high. Throughout the fiesta, workers dipped into the pulque casks. They tried to dance off their intoxication; they did their best to forget their hardships; sometimes they found themselves in the hacienda jail. Notables played billiards, pool and cards and tossed dice; until far into the night they might gamble at the _Monte_ (card game) tables; when the fiesta came to an end they laid down their cards reluctantly--it might be a long way home. July, August, September--the summer calendar rolled on and new fiesta dates became important: Candlemas, Holy Week, Corpus Christi, Día de Los Reyes. On the Day of Divine Proficience, candles burned for twenty-four hours. On carts and on men's shoulders, biblical floats appeared: It was time for a reappraisal of faith, time to honor the local Virgin. [Illustration: Hacienda de Yaxche, Yucatán: Virgin, 14 inches high, 17th century.] +V. Education+ [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] In bygone days--two hundred years ago--an hacienda church or chapel bell signaled school. A youngster or priest or acolyte yanked the bell rope. In the tropics, if you were lucky, you put on your _shirgo_ (raincoat), and got to school dry. Your class started at 7:00 A.M. and lasted until noon, when the heat moved in. You walked to your home for lunch or picked it off the trees as you went home. If school convened regularly you were fortunate. You were fortunate if classes freed you from hacienda chores. In the temperate zone, school began about 9:00 A.M. and reconvened after the siesta--closing at 4:00 P.M. Again intermittency played havoc with the sessions. The _maestro_ (teacher) was very informal; if you had a teacher who was dedicated, your education began to acquire meaning. Teaching was in Spanish, though the pupils might speak one or more of the sixty dialects. For centuries the parents objected to Spanish being taught; at home the children spoke their native tongue. Since Spanish coercion was continual, it was only normal for the students to rebel. Intuitively, they sensed the destruction of their way of life. Both school and church were suspect. [Illustration: Hacienda de Tamanche, Yucatán: 17th-century colonial residence and remains of sugar refinery chimney.] Priests, as instructors, read selections from the Bible, religious treatises, and pamphlets. There were no books for the students. With pencil, paper, and blackboard or slate, children learned the rudiments of writing, reading, and arithmetic. Without musical accompaniment, they learned hymns and poetry. Their centuries were centuries of neglect. It was exceptional when an hacienda hired a priest-instructor permanently. Since teachers were either poorly paid or were hacienda guests, they offered halfhearted service. Haciendas were known to neglect education intentionally: the peasant was to be kept subordinate--a little reading, a little writing, but no more. [Illustration: Hacienda de San Antonio, Guanajuato: 18th-century chapel ruin.] [Illustration: Hacienda de San Antonio, Colima: 17th-century chapel and terminus of aqueduct.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Jajalpa, D.F.: pink stucco sixteen-room, red-tiled 19th-century residence and chapel.] [Illustration: Hacienda San Cayetano, Nayarit: one of a pair of pink ceramic lions at entry to residence.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Guarache, Michoacán: residence and chapel. Now a government school.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Petaca, Guanajuato: residence.] Usually the main hacienda residence housed the school. One of the twenty or thirty rooms was designated the classroom. It was small and had few or no windows; the open door let in light and air. Students in the sixteenth century sat on the floor. Later, they had benches and sat around a table, the _maestro_ at one end. Slates came into being in the eighteenth century; and, in the nineteenth century, blackboards. Engravings of the presidents began to decorate bare walls. Dirty, foxed maps hid stains. Tiled floors were often cold and damp. Though there was sunshine most of the year, classes were never held under the laurel or palm trees. Girls sat on one side, boys on the other--if the room was large enough. There were no sanitary facilities, no health precautions, no hygiene instruction. At recess, the children drank from the patio fountain or cattle trough. [Illustration: Hacienda de Juana Guerra, Amado Nervo, Durango: millstone.] On an hacienda employing four hundred workers, about twenty children attended school. Since the hacienda was on a dawn-to-dark schedule, work never ran out; the average hacendado felt he could employ those skinny legs and arms to his advantage. At harvest time there were no classes; during fiestas there were no classes; if the _maestro_ got drunk there were no classes. Truancy was a fact of life. [Illustration: Hacienda Aguilera, Oaxaca: former 19th-century hacienda residence, now university building.] At school and at home the children played marbles, using clay marbles of their own baking. They spun tops and played jacks, tag, hide-and-seek, and a flower game called "Stealing a Soul." In "The Old Saints," the "buyer" dashed from one saint to another to see if his saint is the one he wants to buy. If the saint runs off and is caught he is given a "job" to do. A favorite song was "Golden Bell": _Little golden bell, Let me pass; With all my children Who are behind me._ Singing "La Víbora del Mar," the children divided into two groups; this was a tug-of-war song and is still remembered: _The serpent, serpent of the sea, here it can pass by. Those in front run fast, those in back will be left behind; a Mexican girl, selling fruit, plums, apricots, muskmelons, and watermelons._ Haciendas had no school libraries. The _casa principal_ may have acquired a collection of history, travel, philosophy, and fiction; but such collections were rarely shared. For centuries the Inquisition influenced most reading habits. Pagan and Catholic superstition wreaked havoc with young minds; it is still evident in rural Mexico where men and women knock on the side of a coffin--and listen for an answer. Men and women flagellate themselves. Tarahumaras, in caves of the Barranca del Cobre country, worship stone idols and pray to rain gods. Lacandones still leave offerings on jungle altars. Until about 1826, when a national school system was created in the larger towns and in the cities, textbooks were unknown except at private schools. Homer, Sappho, Plato, Shakespeare and Kant were all but unrecognized. _Don Quixote_, however, was an influence. So were Lope de Vega and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. But they were only literary shadows. No hacienda _maestro_ explored the thoughts of Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, or Jefferson. There were no science labs. There was no art instruction. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries only six or eight Mexican minds contributed to culture and learning: Ruiz de Alarcón, Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, and Don Bartolomé de Alba were among them. Their influence was restricted to metropolitan centers. Without books, with limited transportation, the hacienda remained a lost society. [Illustration: Hacienda San Cayetano de Valencia, Guanajuato: church, 1788.] In 1910, when there were approximately eight thousand haciendas, between ten and twenty students attended school each day on a given hacienda: In all, some 870,000 children and teenagers were enrolled--gaining a rudimentary education. In towns and cities, where private schools contributed to the nation's education, schools were small and offered limited opportunities. With a population in 1910 of 15 million, Mexico's enrollment was among the world's lowest. Mexico had only 3 million literates. In all hacienda areas millions could not read or write--or speak Spanish. [Illustration: Hacienda de Juana Guerra, Amado Nervo, Durango: baroque church.] During the more than ten years of civil war and machete madness that followed 1910-1914, education of the masses was disrupted throughout the nation. School attendance dropped in towns and cities; on the hacienda every hint of learning stopped. When hacienda after hacienda was pillaged or burned, the skeletal school system disappeared. Books--those there were--went up in flames. Youth had no chance for scholastic growth. The young who survived were fortunate. During these years, Mexico's population declined by one million people. [Illustration: Hacienda de la Venta del Astillero. Jalisco: 18th-century stone and brick residence and chapel. 220 feet long.] Years of revolution retarded Mexico to an incalculable degree as guns took the place of brains. Towns, while occupied by troops or harassed by gunfire, had to abandon teaching and schooling. Youngsters born on an hacienda during those years grew up without seeing the inside of a school. Yet, it is an amazing and stimulating fact that Mexico, after such havoc, could evolve an educational system of merit and induce the young and the old to attend classes. The "Each One, Teach One," or "Analfabetismo Program," was put into effect and successfully carried out. In 1951, thirty-seven years after the haciendas had been abolished, the government appropriated 355,680,000 pesos for schools. Prefabs sprang up overnight; old buildings were renovated; education became compulsory; efforts were made to attract teachers and to train them. The wealthy elite sons and daughters of the hacienda studied at institutions of higher learning abroad. This favored group, though small, contributed to the nation's maturity. Universities such as Salamanca, Heidelberg, Harvard, the Sorbonne, Oxford, and Cambridge enriched these students. They assumed important posts, government positions, and engineering jobs; they became senators, doctors, lawyers, and educators. The long, bitter struggle to attain a middle class had begun. +VI. The Revolution+ [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] John Reed, an American journalist who covered the campaign of Pancho Villa, described in _Insurgent Mexico_ the revolution at an hacienda in northern Mexico in 1913-1914: We crept close to the line and when we were almost upon them we opened fire. There were three detachments and we pushed right into their encampment and set fire to their shelters. Their corn and beans were laid out on blankets to dry in the sun and we even destroyed that. The Carrancistas fled from us and we chased them through very rough country. We believed we were winning, but man! It wasn't that way at all! We followed them without knowing where we were going. They stopped on the other side of a hill, at the entrance to Hacienda San Gregorio, and there a fourth detachment withstood us so we pulled back and joined our forces. There were five thousand of us but we were extended from San Gregorio to Topilejo. Our guides were local peasants and they sent General Chon and his men through the mountains. He was from Guerrero and he didn't know these mountains so they sent him to the worst peaks. His men were stopped but we weren't. We were sent along the side of the highway and General Teodor's men went on the highway because they were all on horseback. The Carrancistas had artillery but the shots passed over us because we lay down in the ditches.... But then we entered a little cornfield in a valley where the fighting was very bad. The Zapatistas were on one hill and the Carrancistas were on another and we were in the middle, fighting hand to hand with other Carrancistas. The two armies got all mixed up, there in San Gregorio. There was a tremendous hail of bullets and the dead piled up like stones in a milpa (small plot). The man just next to me fell.... At five o'clock a bullet got the Captain who had been blaspheming the day before. In the dark we didn't know who was a Zapatista, who was a Carrancista. [Illustration: Hacienda de Matanzas, Jalisco: chapel and residence, chapel date 1750.] The revolution swept from hacienda to hacienda, now the Carrancistas attacking, now the Colorados, now the Zapatistas, now the Villistas. After four centuries of constant bludgeoning by the Spaniards the hacienda worker was settling his score: This was his opportunity to reclaim the land that had been stolen from him, not once but many times. [Illustration: Hacienda los Molinos, Puebla: fortified wall and stairway to tower of 16th-century residence.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Matanzas, Jalisco: 18th-century chapel, residence, and storage rooms.] Reed continues, supplying intimate details: Tomorrow we'll move in on the Hacienda Casasano. You, José, will set fire to the stable; turn out the horses and colts first ... you know where the hayloft is so pour your two cans of kerosene there. You, Magaña, empty the chicken coop just before it gets dark, chase the chickens into the gully; we'll be waiting there. The more noise you make the better. María, open the front door and then open the kitchen door, just stroll through the house and open doors.... Give us our signal from the kitchen. We'll move in just as soon as we see your light ... pour inside and wreck the place. You can have any goddamn thing you want, you bastards, but don't hang on too long, remember the hacienda is going up in flames. Revolutionist Emiliano Zapata attempted to destroy the haciendas in his home state of Morelos. Other radical leaders in other states worked to undermine the hacienda system. At any cost, the Zapatista/Villista wanted no more of the Díaz policy. In place of Díazism the peasants wanted freedom, dignity, land, schools, and food; to achieve these goals they would ravage the nation. Men, women, and children, intent on smashing the hacienda world, could no longer exist on tortillas and water. Singly and in hordes, they scavenged and ravaged. Peasants who understood less than ten Spanish words found themselves trying Spanish if it helped the cause. Raiders commandeered trains and boarded flat cars and freight cars, perched on the roofs, clung to the ladders, crowding the cowcatcher of the locomotive. Soldados (soldiers) sang their cockroach songs as the train rolled, belts of ammunition across their shoulders and around their waists. [Illustration: Hacienda la Gavia, Estado de Mexico: wood figure, 5 feet tall.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Cocoyoc, Morelos: 16th-century chapel.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Tikuch, Yucatán: rear view, stairway to second floor residential area.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Chinameca, Morelos: residence and chapel. Emiliano Zapata assassinated here, 1919.] Women and children trailed the fighting battalions. Women were determined to prove themselves as resourceful as the men: They were out to avenge years of maltreatment. They robbed stores in towns and sacked hacienda wardrobes. They strutted in Parisian finery, wore silk hosiery, and elegant shawls. Women became terrorists in some regions. Thieves' markets cropped up in León, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Morelia. Women traded silverware for food, a blouse, a shirt, cigarettes. They traded Sevreware for ammunition and shoes for pistols. The women dynamited bank vaults and shared the money--government and counterfeit. They rifled safes and destroyed documents at haciendas--land grants, deeds, notarizations. They roared into a village, waving flimsy flags, encountering dogs barking and howling. They fired their rifles and pistols; they caroused and conscripted fighters. [Illustration: Hacienda de Canutillo, Durango: Pancho Villa buried here July 23, 1923.] [Illustration: Hacienda de la Erre, Guanajuato: 1673. Father Miguel Hidalgo began his march from this church.] The horde fought, retreated, lost, and fought again, seldom aware of a victory. When their dead piled up in cornfields and fields of maguey, too numerous to bury, they left them to be eaten by coyotes, dogs, buzzards. They learned to live as much life as possible between sunup and sundown. They copulated in the fields. They promised one another fidelity, they lost one another, they found someone else. Children, born in the field, were bundled into rebozos and lugged to the next encampment Again and again, they robbed the government troops of ammunition, rifles, revolvers, and machineguns. It was steal or quit fighting. They perpetrated more and more dangerous raids: They spied; they used a hot-air balloon; they filtered through troop concentrations; they passed themselves off as scouts; faithfully, they followed Pancho Villa and his henchmen and they vulturized the dead in the barrancas, on the haciendas, in the towns. Without boots or shoes they continued their barefoot war against the hacendados. Armed with machetes, men stole into enemy encampments and returned with guns. Some of the fighters believed the words of Zapata: "It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." In their bravado, they carved initials and dates on trees, on the leaves of the maguey, and on the doors of churches and haciendas. "Freedom!" they cried. Huddled around campfires, in their hideaways, they sang: "If I am to die tomorrow let them kill me right away." By now many hacienda mansions had disappeared. Weeds had taken over farmland, irrigation systems no longer functioned, wells had dried, mills had been dismantled, and cattle had been driven away or killed and eaten. Former laborers had fled or had been conscripted, jailed, or killed. Prices had climbed 300 percent. [Illustration: Hacienda de Pueblilla, Zempoala, Hidalgo: chapel tower, 1860.] Zapata took "Tierra y Libertad!" ("land and liberty") as his cry, and fighting every governmental force he demanded "Land for the Landless!," "Land and Water!," "Freedom for the People!" [Illustration: Hacienda de Tepa-Chica, Hidalgo: chapel, 1864.] Zapatismo meant business everywhere and at all times. As revolutionist, Zapata was a lean, moustached young man; without more than rudimentary schooling, he led his countrymen against the hacienda system. He had promised his father, whose property was stolen by an hacendado, that he would recover it for him. When his home village of San Miguel Anonecuilco was appropriated, Zapata fled to the mountains, hoping for support from the peasantry. In time he commanded several thousand armed men. Ideologically, the revolution was American- and European-inspired since it was focused on freedom and equality. The goal of this conflict was in a major sense Utopian. But it lacked intellectual leadership: a Napoleon, to serve as figurehead. Under a single military leadership the revolution might have been shortened, saving thousands of lives. Following the collapse of the Porfirio Díaz regime, leaders tottered like dominos, and local revolts involved years of quixotic terrorism. Zapata, Villa, Madero, Carranza, Huerta, and Obregón attempted to form a government or attempted to attain power for the sake of power. Greed and chicanery took their toll. Almost every community felt the impact as governments failed. The Church did its best to retain the feudalism of the hacienda; hacendados, lobbying in the capital, attempted to retain their old status. [Illustration: Hacienda la Gavia, Estado de Mexico: carved figure on library door.] Zapata and Villa joined forces briefly, because they sought the same goal. They met in Mexico City but could not reach an accord or coordinate their military "hordes." While they held the capital under their control, they dreamed of power, and yet it is doubtful whether either man thought constructively of the future of the nine million peasants remaining on the haciendas, earning from nothing to thirty cents a day. Suspecting betrayal, both men returned to their native regions. [Illustration: Hacienda de Arenillas, Puebla: chapel gateway.] Villa raided most of the northern states. His armed forces sometimes had an international character with a menagerie of professional adventurers: Tom Mix, Pascual Orozco, Óscar Creighton, Guiseppe Garibaldi, Tracy Richardson, and Hector Worden, the first American barnstormer to participate in armed hostilities. Villa, as military governor of Chihuahua, stripped the fourteen haciendas of the Terrazas family, haciendas totaling 17 million acres. His cronies hanged Terrazas until he revealed where cash was concealed. Both Villa and Zapata were known as "horse bandits"--through robbery they financed their troops or buried their loot for tomorrow. Sonorans and Chihuahuans winked at the _entierros_ (loot) they concealed in Sierra Madre caves. Villa and Zapata commanded thousands--killed thousands. Reed, in his book _Insurgent Mexico_, describes the fighting at the Hacienda Santa Clara: Massed columns of the army halted and began to defile to the left and right, thin lines of troops jogging out under the checkered sun and shade of great trees, until six thousand men were spread in one single front ... Bugles blared faintly far and near and the army moved forward in a mighty line.... In the center, came the cannon car; beside that Villa rode with his staff.... From Reed's reports, we learn that haciendas were headquarters for insurgents. Men were stationed at the Hacienda la Cadena: Maderistas slept on the tiled floor of the patio, saddles, bridles, sabers, rifles, and ammunition against the wall, dirty blanket rolls in a corner. Reed writes: Sheep were baaing to be let out of the corral; little knots of peons were gathered in front of the hacienda, pointing. A little running horse appeared on the rim, headed our way. He was going at a furious speed, dipping and rising over the rolling land. As he spurred wildly up the little hill, where we stood, we saw a horror. A fan-shaped cascade of blood poured from the front of him. The lower part of his mouth was shot away. He reined up beside the Colonel and tried earnestly, terribly, to tell him something; but nothing intelligible issued from the ruin. Tears poured down the poor fellow's cheeks. He gave a hoarse cry and driving spurs deep into his horse, fled. One after another, haciendas disappeared in flames or were pillaged and left to rot into windowless, doorless, roofless buildings. Trainloads of connoisseur furniture and irreplaceable antiques were sold or forsaken. A squatter, with no home of his own, claimed a room or two, patched the roof, and blocked a doorway with adobes. Cattle were fed and watered in the patio. Overnight, abandoned mill and refinery machinery was stripped and sold. The revolutionaries had stolen the horses, the thoroughbreds, the mules, donkeys, oxen, and cattle. Phaetons, buggies, wagons, and cars had vanished. Poverty moved in. [Illustration: Hacienda Manga de Clavo, Veracruz: owned by Santa Anna. Rendering from an 1868 bank bond; hacienda destroyed.] Zapata was assassinated while reconnoitering at the Hacienda Chinameca. He was shot as he entered the patio. Villa was gunned down in his Dodge, on the road near his Hacienda Canutillo, the estate given him as a political bribe. +VII. Mexico Since the Revolution+ [Illustration: Hacienda cattle brand] In the summer of 1938, President Lázaro Cárdenas wrote to his American friend, William C. Townsend: We are confident that the people and the government of the United States will be able to grasp the fact that the breaking up of the large estates is the main point in our national program for improving the living conditions of the peasants of Mexico. The ideal of giving land to the masses was written into the Constitution at the cost of much bloodshed and my government is duty-bound to comply with that mandate. All the holdings that are larger than what the Agrarian Code permits are subject to distribution if there are peasants nearby who do not have land to till. Each landowner, however, is permitted to retain 370 acres, whether he is a foreigner or a Mexican. By 1940, approximately 45 million acres of hacienda land had been turned over to the homeless and the landless by President Cárdenas (1934-1940). Three hundred haciendas in the country could claim more than 1 million acres apiece, and then only for a brief period. [Illustration: Hacienda de Esperanza, D.F.: residence. Cattle stalls on ground floor.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Águilar, Oaxaca: bas relief, 3 feet x 5 feet, front wall of residence.] [Illustration: Hacienda de Sodzil, Yucatán: 19th-century residence.] [Illustration: Hacienda de los Molinos, Tlaxcala: 16th-century chapel. Cholula pyramid in the distance.] [Illustration: Hacienda Quinta Carolina, Chihuahua: main residence.] The revolution had achieved an important goal. Men and women were free to live in a more congenial environment: _Rurales_ (police) would no longer pursue them. The four-century-old illusion of a _patrón_ (master) had vanished; in its place the workers found themselves unshackled. They were hungry but no longer whipped. Mexico began to say goodbye to the culture of poverty. President Cárdenas, traveling from village to village, from hacienda to hacienda, crisscrossing his country throughout his term in office, listened to the little man, and the little man believed what the _presidente_ said, as he promised roads, bridges, schools, clinics, water, and land. Millions of peasants thanked him for a home and independence. [Illustration: Hacienda Mendocina, Puebla: 18th-century guest home on island in small man-made lake.] By expropriating multi-billion dollar oil properties from foreign companies, Cárdenas returned to Mexico some of its lost pride and a hope for the future. Although agrarian reform came first on the nation's docket, there were other reforms to help man improve his lot. The ejidal bank aided the farmer by loaning him money for his plow, seeds, fertilizer, harvesting tools, oxen, mules, tractors. [Illustration: Hacienda Quinta Carolina, Chihuahua: residence of more than fifty rooms, 1892. Abandoned as of 1981.] By 1960, the last of the largest haciendas had been abolished: the Greene Cananea Ranch and the Hacienda Atotonilco had become agrarian property--millions of acres had returned to the people. Mexico had become a Spanish-speaking nation. Out of a population of forty million people, only two million were now unable to speak Spanish. By 1960, a school teacher earned 36,000 pesos a year, instead of 400 pesos annually at an hacienda. [Illustration: Hacienda de Caleturia, Puebla: silver door knocker.] By the 1970s, about 70 percent of the children were attending primary grades, while at the turn of the century, in pre-revolutionary decades, scarcely 10 percent acquired an elementary education. By 1980, rural schools provided at least two grades, and cities offered the primary cycle through the sixth year. Ideally, a child can now attend school at five years of age, learn through six years of primary, three years of secondary, two years of preparatory, followed by three to seven years at the university level. [Illustration: Hacienda de Chichén Itza, Yucatán: church.] Article 3 of the new constitution prescribes that education, whether in national, state, or municipal institutions, should develop all the faculties, encourage patriotism and an awareness of international solidarity, shun religious dogma, advance science, and oppose fanaticism and slavery. This progress was based on a past that combined two distinct traditions. Mexico's pre-Columbian culture had mastered concepts of intellectual and practical value, had a knowledge of astronomy, a number system, metropolitan and temple architecture, and made advances in writing, surgery and medical skills, sculpture and mural art, irrigation, and the construction of a system of highways. The other tradition was based on the methods and knowledge that the sixteenth-century Iberian brought Mexico: the wheel, sophisticated tools, steel, industrial know-how, marine architecture, navigational skills, and gunpowder. But the Conquistadors also destroyed much. Although many of the pre-Columbian societies were warlike, the Monte Albán temples in the state of Oaxaca appear to represent a local culture that had fostered peace for some fifteen hundred years. The Iberian invaders were not familiar with such ancient traditions and often failed to appreciate their values. They destroyed towns and cities, burned books, disrupted the ecology, spread disease, and diminished the arts, crafts, and culture of the new world. It was not until the twentieth century that Mexico came to the forefront internationally. Respect for the country grew as Mexico undertook to restore its pre-Columbian sites, assembled comprehensive anthropological collections, and established a University City and a dynamic, original metropolitan architecture. Famous artists contributed to this period of awakened cultural awareness: Roberto Montenegro, Covarrubias, Orozco, Rivera, O'Higgins, Tamayo, and Siqueiros. A folkloric ballet, a national symphony, and entertainers like Conchita Cintrón, Dolores del Río, and Cantinflas broadened the cultural landscape. Among contemporary writers, Luis Spota, Carlos Fuentes, Sergio Galino, Luisa Hernández, Augustín Yañez, Octavio Paz, and Antonio Haas have interpreted Mexico for a large public. Leopoldo Zea and Ramón Xirau have added to Mexico's philosophical thought. Silvio Zavala has contributed to Mexican history. The radio and television media are following American footsteps--eager to keep pace. There is no hacienda nostalgia in Mexico--only frenetic pressure for industrialization and overall capitalism. Most renowned haciendas are only memories: they are _cascos_, _recuerdos_. [Illustration: Hacienda de Valenciana, Guanajuato: residence.] The 1529 Hacienda San Gabriel de Las Palmas, in Morelos, has become an American luxury residence; other mansions house millionaires; still others have become motels, dairies, factories, schools, posh restaurants, subdivisions with an hacienda office. But hundreds of hacienda homes have been totally abandoned. They are piles of rubble--no more than place-names. In the struggle to eliminate the hacienda system, more than eight hundred thousand men, women, and children died. Forces that held together a dubious past seek to achieve an enlightened future. Education continues to enrich more and more lives. Mexico's present-day inflation and political corruption have halted the country's advance, but these unfortunate conditions cannot last. +Bibliography+ +General Works+ Ajofrín, Francisco de, _Diario del Viaje en el Siglo XVIII_ (Madrid, 1958). Beals, Carleton, _Mexican Maze_ (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1951). Brenner, Anita, _The Wind that Swept Mexico_ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1943). Butler, William, _Mexico in Transition_ (New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1892). Chase, Stuart, _Mexico, A Study of Two Americas_ (New York: Macmillan, 1931). Chevalier, Francis, _Land and Society in Colonial Mexico_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963). Cline, Howard F., _Mexico, Revolution to Evolution, 1940-1960_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963). Crow, John A., _The Epic of Latin America_ (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1946). Ewing, Russell, _Six Faces of Mexico_ (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1966). Gage, Thomas, _A New Survey of the West Indies_ (New York: Broadway Travellers, 1929). Gruening, Ernest, _Mexico and its Heritage_ (New York: Appleton Century, 1928). Haring, Clarence H., _The Spanish Empire in America_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947). Jones, Oakah, _Santa Anna_ (New York: Twayne, 1968). Kubler, George, _Mexican Architecture in the Sixteenth Century_ (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972). Las Casas, Bartolomé de, _Brevíssima Relación de la Destruction de las Indias_, trans. H. Briffault (New York: Seabury Press, 1974; originally published, 1552). Leonard, Irving A., _Colonial Travelers in Latin America_ (New York: Knopf, 1972). Lewis, Oscar, _Life in a Mexican Village: Tepoztlán Restudied_ (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963). McHenry, J. Patrick, _A Short History of Mexico_ (New York: Doubleday, 1962). Madariaga, Salvador de, _The Rise of the Spanish American Empire_ (New York: Free Press, 1965). Mansfield, Edward D., _The Mexican War_ (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1849). Mayer, Brantz, _Mexico As It Was and As It Is_ (Hartford, Conn.: S. Drake, 1853). Meyer, Michael C., and Sherman, William, _The Course of Mexican History_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). Miller, Robert, _Mexico: A History_ (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989). Ober, Frederick A., _Travels in Mexico_ (San Francisco, 1884). Parkes, Henry Banford, _A History of Mexico_ (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950). Prescott, W. H., _The Conquest of Mexico_ (New York: Henry Holt, 1922). Redfield, Robert, _Tepotzlán--A Mexican Village_ (Chicago, 1930). Reed, John, _Insurgent Mexico_ (New York: International Publishers, 1970). ---- _I Saw the World Burn_ (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976). Roeder, Ralph, _Juárez and His Mexico_ (New York: Viking, 1947). Scholes, W. V., _The Diego Ramírez Visita_ (Columbia, Mo., 1946). Simpson, L. B., _The Encomienda in New Spain_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966). Stein, Stanley J., and Barbara H., _The Colonial Heritage of Latin America_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970). Strode, Hudson, _Timeless Mexico_ (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1944). Tannenbaum, Frank, _The Mexican Agrarian Revolution_ (New York: Macmillan, 1929). ---- _Mexico: The Struggle for Peace and Bread_ (New York: Knopf, 1951). Townsend, William C., _Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexican Democrat_ (Ann Arbor, Mich.: G. Wahr Publishing Co., 1952). Whetten, Nathan L., _Rural Mexico_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948). Womach, John, _Zapata and the Mexican Revolution_ (New York: Knopf, 1969). Zavala, Silvio, _De Encomiendas y Propiedad Territorial en Algunas Regiones de la América Española_ (Mexico, 1940). ---- _El Mundo Americano en la Época Colonial_ (Mexico, 1967). ---- _New Viewpoints on the Spanish Colonization of America_ (London, 1943). Zorita, Alfonso de, _Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico_ (New Brunswick, 1963). +Works on the Haciendas of Mexico+ Bartlett, Paul Alexander, "Haciendas," with photographs by the author, _Mexico This Month_, Vol. IV, No. 12, December 1958, pp. 16-21. ---- "Haciendas of Mexico," with illustrations by the author, _Los Angeles County Museum Quarterly_, Vol. 1, Nos. 3/4, 1962-1963, pp. 18-23. ---- "The Hacienda Mansion," with illustrations by the author, _Mexican Life_, Vol. 4, No. 46, 1970. ---- "La Vida en una Hacienda," with Illustrations by the author, _Américas_ (Organization of American States), Vol. 34, No. 3, May-June 1982, pp. 12-17. Bazant S., Jan, _Cinco Haciendas Mexicanas: Tres Siglos de Vida Rural en San Luis Potosí, 1600-1910_ (Mexico, D.F.: Colegio de Mexico, 1980). Bellengeri, Marco, _Las Haciendas en Mexico: El Caso de San Antonio Tochatlaco_ (Mexico, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, 1980). Bengoa, José, _La Hacienda Latinoamericana_ (Quito: Ediciónes CIESE, 1978). Brading, D. A., _Haciendas and Ranchos in the Mexican Bajio, Leon, 1700-1860_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). Buve, R., ed., _Haciendas in Central Mexico from Late Colonial Times to the Revolution: Labour Conditions, Hacienda Management, and its Relation to the State_ (Amsterdam: Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation, 1984). _Coloquio de Antropología e Historia Regionales_ (Zamora, Michoacán: Colegio de Michoacán, 1982). Couturier, Edith Boortein, _La Hacienda de Hueyapán, 1550-1936_, trans. Carlos E. Guerrero (Mexico, D.F.: Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1976). Ewald, Ursula, _Estudios sobre la Hacienda Colonial en México: Las Propiedades Rurales del Colegio Espíritu Santo en Puebla_, trans. Luis R. Cerna (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1976). Ferguson, Bobbie,_ Tracing John Reed's 1914 Desert Route: The Haciendas_ (Portales, N.M.: Eastern New Mexico University, Paleo-Indian Institute, 1979). Florescano, Enrique, _Haciendas, Latifundios y Plantaciónes en América Latina_ (Mexico, D.F.: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1975). García Luna O., Margarita, _Haciendas Porfiristas en el Estado de México_ (Toluca: Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, 1981). Gómez Serrano, Jesús, _Hacendados y Campesinos en Aguascalientes_ (Mexico, D.F.: Centro de Investigaciónes Regionales de Aguascalientes, 1985). ---- _El Mayorazgo Rincón Gallardo: Disolución del Vinculo y Reparto de las Haciendas_ (Aguascalientes: Centro de Investigaciónes Regionales de Aguascalientes, 1984). González Sánchez, Isabel, _Haciendas y Ranchos de Tlaxcala en 1712_ (Mexico, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Anthropología e Historia, 1969). Harris, Charles H., _A Mexican Family Empire: The Latifundio of the Sánchez Navarros, 1765-1867_ (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1975). Katz, Friedrich, ed., _La Servidumbre Agraria en México en la Época Porfiriana_ (Mexico, D.F.: Ediciónes Era, 1982). Keith, Robert G., ed., _Haciendas and Plantations in Latin American History_ (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1977). Kirk, Carlos R., _Haciendas en Yucatán_ (Mexico, D.F.: Institute Nacional Indigenista, 1982). Konrad, Herman W., _A Jesuit Hacienda in Colonial Mexico: Santa Lucía, 1576-1767_ (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1980). Lancaster-Jones, Ricardo, _Haciendas de Jalisco y Aledaños 1506-1821_ (Mexico, D.F.: Financiera Aceptaciónes, 1974). Luna Marez, Patricia, ed., _La Hacienda Agrícola en México: Guía de Documentos Localizados en la Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia_ (Mexico, D.F.: Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1978). Macera dall'Orso, Pablo, _Población Rural en Haciendas, 1876_ (Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1976). Martinez Alier, Juan, _Haciendas, Plantations, and Collective Farms: Agrarian Class Societies_ (London: F. Cass, 1977). Millet Camara, Luis, ed., _Hacienda y Cambio Social en Yucatán_ (Yucatán: Maldonado Editores, 1984). Ponce Alcocer, María Eugenia, _Las Haciendas de Mazaquiahuac, El Rosario y El Moral, 1912-1913: Catálogo de la Correspondencia de Antonio Castro Solorzano, su Administrador_ (Mexico, D.F.: Universidad Iberoamericana, 1981). Prem, Hanns J., _Milpay Hacienda: Tenencia de la Tierra Indígena y Española en la Cuenca del Alto Atoyac, Puebla, México (1520-1650)_ (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1978). Rójas, Beatriz, _La Destrucción de la Hacienda en Aguascalientes, 1910-1931_ (Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1981). Saudet, William, "Land of the Haciendas," _Latin American Report_, Vol. 14, No. 1, February-September 1959, pp. 2-9. Reproductions of art work by Paul Alexander Bartlett. Schell, William, _Medieval Iberian Traditions and the Development of the Mexican Hacienda_ (Syracuse, N.Y.: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, 1986). Selmo, Enrique, ed., _Siete Ensayos sobre la Hacienda Méxicana, 1780-1880_ (Mexico, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1977). Taylor, William B., _Landlord and Peasant in Colonial Mexico_ (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1972). van Young, Eric, _Hacienda and Market in Eighteenth-Century Mexico: The Rural Economy of the Guadalajara Region, 1675-1820_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981). von Wobeser, Gisela, _San Carlos Borroméo: Endeudamiento de una Hacienda Colonial (1608-1729)_ (Mexico, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México, 1980). ---- _La Formacíon de la Hacienda en la Época Colonial: el Uso de la Tierra y el Agua_ (Mexico, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 1983). Wells, Allen, _Yucatan's Gilded Age: Haciendas, Henequen, and International Harvester, 1860-1915_ (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985). +ABOUT THE AUTHOR+ Paul Alexander Bartlett (1909-1990) was both a writer and an artist, born in Moberly, Missouri, and educated at Oberlin College, the University of Arizona, the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City, and the Instituto de Bellas Artes in Guadalajara. His work can be divided into three categories: He is the author of many novels, short stories, and poems; second, as a fine artist, his drawings, hacienda illustrations, and paintings have been exhibited in more than 40 one-man shows in leading galleries, including the Los Angeles County Museum, the Atlanta Art Museum, the Bancroft Library, the Richmond Art Institute, the Brooks Museum, the Instituto-Mexicano-Norteamericano in Mexico City, and other galleries; and, third, he devoted much of his life to the most comprehensive study of the haciendas of Mexico. Three hundred and fifty of his pen-and-ink illustrations of the haciendas and more than one thousand hacienda photographs make up the Paul Alexander Bartlett Collection held by the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection of the University of Texas, and form part of a second diversified collection held by the American Heritage Center of the University of Wyoming, which also includes an extensive archive of Bartlett's literary work, fine art, and letters. A third archive consisting primarily of Bartlett's literary work is held by the Department of Special Collections at UCLA. A fourth archive consisting of 198 hacienda photographs by Bartlett is preserved by the Latin America Image Library at Tulane University in New Orleans. Bartlett's book about the history and life on the haciendas, including a selection of his illustrations and photographs, was originally published by the University Press of Colorado in 1990 under the title _The Haciendas of Mexico: An Artist's Record_. Paul Alexander Bartlett's fiction has been commended by many authors, among them Pearl Buck, Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, James Michener, Upton Sinclair, Evelyn Eaton, and many others. He was the recipient of numerous grants, awards, and fellowships, from such organizations such as the Leopold Schepp Foundation, the Edward MacDowell Association, the New School for Social Research, the Huntington Hartford Foundation, the Montalvo Foundation, Yaddo, and the Carnegie Foundation. His novel _When the Owl Cries_ received national acclaim; his fine art has been exhibited throughout the United States and in Mexico; his poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies and has been published in individual volumes of his collected poetry. Bartlett was extremely prolific and left to the archives of his work many as yet unpublished manuscripts, including poetry, short stories, and novels, as well as more than a thousand paintings and illustrations. His wife, Elizabeth Bartlett, a widely published and internationally recognized poet, is the author of seventeen published books of poetry, more than one thousand individually published poems, numerous short stories and essays in leading literary quarterlies and anthologies, and, as the founder of Literary Olympics, Inc., served as the editor of a series of multi-language volumes of international poetry to honor the work of outstanding contemporary poets. His son, Steven James Bartlett, has published fifteen books and many papers in philosophy and psychology. [Illustration: Front dust jacket inside panel] [Illustration: Rear dust jacket inside panel] [Illustration: Rear dust jacket] [Transcriber's note: italicized text is surrounded by _underscores_; bold text by +plus signs+.] 
51459	----	http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made available by the Hathi Trust) THE ANALYSIS OF BEAUTY. Written with a view of fixing the fluctuating IDEAS of TASTE. BY WILLIAM HOGARTH. _So vary'd he, and of his tortuous train Curl'd many a wanton wreath, in sight of Eve, To lure her eye_.----Milton. [Illustration: Variety] LONDON: Printed by J. REEVES for the AUTHOR, And Sold by him at his House in LEICESTER-FIELDS. MDCCLIII. PREFACE. If a preface was ever necessary, it may very likely be thought so to the following work; the title of which (in the proposals publish'd some time since) hath much amused, and raised the expectation of the curious, though not without a mixture of doubt, that its purport could ever be satisfactorily answered. For though beauty is seen and confessed by all, yet, from the many fruitless attempts to account for the cause of its being so, enquiries on this head have almost been given up; and the subject generally thought to be a matter of too high and too delicate a nature to admit of any true or intelligible discussion. Something therefore introductory ought to be said at the presenting a work with a face so entirely new; especially as it will naturally encounter with, and perhaps may overthrow, several long received and thorough establish'd opinions: and since controversies may arise how far, and after what manner this subject hath hitherto been consider'd and treated, it will also be proper to lay before the reader, what may be gathered concerning it, from the works of the ancient and modern writers and painters. It is no wonder this subject should have so long been thought inexplicable, since the nature of many parts of it cannot possibly come within the reach of mere men of letters; otherwise those ingenious gentlemen who have lately published treatises upon it (and who have written much more learnedly than can be expected from one who never took up the pen before) would not so soon have been bewilder'd in their accounts of it, and obliged so suddenly to turn into the broad, and more beaten path of moral beauty; in order to extricate themselves out of the difficulties they seem to have met with in this: and withal forced for the same reasons to amuse their readers with amazing (but often misapplied) encomiums on deceased painters and their performances; wherein they are continually discoursing of effects instead of developing causes; and after many prettinesses, in very pleasing language, do fairly set you down just where they first took you up; honestly confessing that as to GRACE, the main point in question, they do not even pretend to know any thing of the matter. And indeed how should they? when it actually requires a practical knowledge of the whole art of painting (sculpture alone not being sufficient) and that too to some degree of eminence, in order to enable any one to pursue the chain of this enquiry through all its parts: which I hope will be made to appear in the following work. It will then naturally be asked, why the best painters within these two centuries, who by their works appear to have excelled in grace and beauty, should have been so silent in an affair of such seeming importance to the imitative arts and their own honour? to which I answer, that it is probable, they arrived at that excellence in their works, by the mere dint of imitating with great exactness the beauties of nature, and by often copying and retaining strong ideas of graceful antique statues; which might sufficiently serve their purposes as painters, without their troubling themselves with a farther enquiry into the particular causes of the effects before them. It is not indeed a little strange, that the great Leonardo da Vinci (amongst the many philosophical precepts which he hath at random laid down in his treatise on painting) should not have given the least hint of any thing tending to a system of this kind; especially, as he was cotemporary with Michael Angelo, who is said to have discover'd a certain principle in the trunk only of an antique statue, (well known from this circumstance by the name of Michael Angelo's Torso, or Back, fig. 54 p. I) which principle gave his works a grandeur of gusto equal to the best antiques. Relative to which tradition, Lomazzo who wrote about painting at the same time, hath this remarkable passage, vol. I. book I. [Illustration: Fig. 54] "And because in this place there falleth out a certaine precept of _Michael Angelo_ much for our purpose, I wil not conceale it, leaving the farther interpretation and vnderstanding thereof to the iudicious reader. It is reported then that _Michael Angelo_ vpon a time gaue this observation to the Painter _Marcus de Sciena_ his scholler; _that he should alwaies make a figure Pyramidall, Serpentlike, and multiplied by one two and three_. In which precept (in mine opinion) the whole mysterie of the arte consisteth. For the greatest grace and life that a picture can haue, is, that it expresse _Motion_: which the Painters call the _spirite_ of a picture: Nowe there is no forme so fitte to expresse this _motion_, as that of the flame of fire, which according to _Aristotle_ and the other Philosophers, is an elemente most actiue of all others: because the forme of the flame thereof is most apt for motion: for it hath a _Conus_ or sharpe pointe wherewith it seemeth to divide the aire, that so it may ascende to his proper sphere. So that a picture having this forme will bee most beautifull."[1] [1] See Haydock's translation printed at Oxford, 1598. Many writers since Lomazzo have in the same words recommended the observing this rule also; without comprehending the meaning of it: for unless it were known systematically, the whole business of grace could not be understood. Du Fresnoy, in his art of painting, says "large flowing, gliding outlines which are in waves, give not only a grace to the part, but to the whole body; as we see in the Antinous, and in many other of the antique figures: a fine figure and its parts ought always to have a serpent-like and flaming form: naturally those sort of lines have I know not what of life and seeming motion in them, which very much resembles the activity of the flame and of the serpent." Now if he had understood what he had said, he could not, speaking of grace, have expressed himself in the following contradictory manner.--"But to say the truth, this is a difficult undertaking, and a rare present, which the artist rather receives from the hand of heaven than from his own industry and studies[2]." But De Piles, in his lives of the painters, is still more contradictory, where he says, "that a painter can only have it (meaning grace) from nature, and doth not know that he hath it, nor in what degree, nor how he communicates it to his works: and that grace and beauty are two different things; beauty pleases by the rules, and grace without them." [2] See Dryden's translation of his latin poem on Painting, verse 28, and the remarks on these very lines, page 155, which run thus, "It is difficult to say what this grace of painting is, it is to be conceiv'd, and understood much more easy than to be expressed by words; it proceeds from the illuminations of an excellent mind, (but not to be acquired) by which we give a certain turn to things, which makes them pleasing." All the English writers on this subject have echo'd these passages; hence _Je ne sçai quoi_, is become a fashionable phrase for grace. By this it is plain, that this precept which Michael Angelo deliver'd so long ago in an oracle-like manner, hath remain'd mysterious down to this time, for ought that has appear'd to the contrary. The wonder that it should do so will in some measure lessen when we come to consider that it must all along have appeared as full of contradiction as the most obscure quibble ever deliver'd at Delphos, because, _winding lines are as often the cause of deformity as of grace_, the solution of which, in this place, would be an anticipation of what the reader will find at large in the body of the work. [Illustration: Fig. between Figs. 22 and 105] There are also strong prejudices in favour of straight lines, as constituting true beauty in the human form, where they never should appear. A middling connoisseur thinks no profile has beauty without a very straight nose, and if the forehead be continued straight with it, he thinks it is still more sublime. I have seen miserable scratches with the pen, sell at a considerable rate for only having in them a side face or two, like that between fig. 22, and fig. 105, plate I, which was made, and any one might do the same, with the eyes shut. The common notion that a person should be straight as an arrow, and perfectly erect is of this kind. If a dancing-master were to see his scholar in the easy and gracefully-turned attitude of the Antinous (fig. 6, plate I,) he would cry shame on him, and tell him he looked as crooked as a ram's horn, and bid him hold up his head as he himself did. See fig. 7, plate I. [Illustration: Figs. 6 and 7] The painters, in like manner, by their works, seem to be no less divided upon the subject than the authors. The French, except such as have imitated the antique, or the Italian school, seem to have studiously avoided the serpentine line in all their pictures, especially Anthony Coypel, history painter, and Rigaud, principal portrait painter to Lewis the 14th. Rubens, whose manner of designing was quite original, made use of a large flowing line as a principle, which runs through all his works, and gives a noble spirit to them; but he did not seem to be acquainted with what we call the _precise line_; which hereafter we shall be very particular upon, and which gives the delicacy we see in the best Italian masters; but he rather charged his contours in general with too bold and S-like swellings. Raphael, from a straight and stiff manner, on a sudden changed his taste of lines at sight of Michael Angelo's works, and the antique statues; and so fond was he of the serpentine line, that he carried it into a ridiculous excess, particularly in his draperies: though his great observance of nature suffer'd him not long to continue in this mistake. Peter de Cortone form'd a fine manner in his draperies of this line. We see this principle no where better understood than in some pictures of Corregio, particularly his Juno and Ixion: yet the proportions of his figures are sometimes such as might be corrected by a common sign painter. Whilst Albert Durer, who drew mathematically, never so much as deviated into grace, which he must sometimes have done in copying the life, if he had not been fetter'd with his own impracticable rules of proportion. But that which may have puzzled this matter most, may be, that Vandyke, one of the best portrait painters in most respects ever known, plainly appears not to have had a thought of this kind. For there seems not to be the least grace in his pictures more than what the life chanced to bring before him. There is a print of the Dutchess of Wharton (fig. 52, plate II,) engraved by Van Gunst, from a true picture by him, which is thoroughly divested of every elegance. Now, had he known this line as a principle, he could no more have drawn all the parts of this picture so contrary to it, than Mr. Addison could have wrote a whole spectator in false grammar; unless it were done on purpose. However, on account of his other great excellencies, painters chuse to stile this want of grace in his attitudes, &c. _simplicity_, and indeed they do often very justly merit that epithet. [Illustration: Fig. 52] Nor have the painters of the present times been less uncertain and contradictory to each other, than the masters already mentioned, whatever they may pretend to the contrary: of this I had a mind to be certain, and therefore, in the year 1745, published a frontispiece to my engraved works, in which I drew a serpentine line lying on a painter's pallet, with these words under it, THE LINE OF BEAUTY. The bait soon took; and no Egyptian hierogliphic ever amused more than it did for a time, painters and sculptors came to me to know the meaning of it, being as much puzzled with it as other people, till it came to have some explanation; then indeed, but not till then, some found it out to be an old acquaintance of theirs, tho' the account they could give of its properties was very near as satisfactory as that which a day-labourer who constantly uses the leaver, could give of that machine as a mechanical power. Others, as common face painters and copiers of pictures, denied that there could be such a rule either in art or nature, and asserted it was all stuff and madness; but no wonder that these gentlemen should not be ready in comprehending a thing they have little or no business with. For though the _picture copier_ may sometimes to a common eye seem to vye with the original he copies, the artist himself requires no more ability, genius, or knowledge of nature, than a journeyman-weaver at the goblins, who in working after a piece of painting, bit by bit, scarcely knows what he is about, whether he is weaving a man or a horse, yet at last almost insensibly turns out of his loom a fine piece of tapestry, representing, it may be, one of Alexander's battles painted by Le Brun. As the above-mention'd print thus involved me in frequent disputes by explaining the qualities of the line, I was extremely glad to find it (which I had conceiv'd as only part of a system in my mind) so well supported by the above precept of Michael Angelo: which was first pointed out to me by Dr. Kennedy, a learned antiquarian and connoisseur, of whom I afterwards purchased the translation, from which I have taken several passages to my purpose. Let us now endeavour to discover what light antiquity throws upon the subject in question. Egypt first, and afterward Greece, have manifested by their works their great skill in arts and sciences, and among the rest painting, and sculpture, all which are thought to have issued from their great schools of philosophy. Pythagoras, Socrates, and Aristotle, seem to have pointed out the right road in nature for the study of the painters and sculptors of those times (which they in all probability afterwards followed through those nicer paths that their particular professions required them to pursue) as may be reasonably collected from the answers given by Socrates to Aristippus his disciple, and Parrhasius the painter, concerning FITNESS, the first fundamental law in nature with regard to beauty. I am in some measure saved the trouble of collecting an historical account of these arts among the ancients, by accidentally meeting with a preface to a tract, call'd the _Beau Ideal_: this treatise[3] was written by Lambert Hermanson Ten Kate, in French, and translated into English by James Christopher le Blon; who in that preface says, speaking of the Author, "His superior knowledge that I am now publishing, is the product of the Analogy of the ancient Greeks; or the true key for finding all harmonious proportions in painting, sculpture, architecture, musick, &c. brought home to Greece by Pythagoras. For after this great philosopher had travell'd into Phoenicia, Egypt and Chaldea, where he convers'd with the learned; he return'd into Greece about Anno Mundi 3484. Before the christian æra 520, and brought with him many excellent discoveries and improvements for the good of his countrymen, among which the Analogy was one of the most considerable and useful. [3] Publish'd in 1732, and sold by A. Millar. "After him the Grecians, by the help of this Analogy, began (and not before) to excel other nations in sciences and arts; for whereas before this time they represented their _Divinities_ in plain human figures, the Grecians now began to enter into the Beau Ideal; and Pamphilus, (who flourish'd A. M. 3641, before the christian æra 363, who taught, that no man could excel in painting without mathematicks) the scholar of Pausias and master of Apelles, was the first who artfully apply'd the said Analogy to the art of painting; as much about the same time the sculpturers, the architects, &c. began to apply it to their several arts, without which science, the Grecians had remain'd as ignorant as their forefathers. "They carried on their improvements in drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, &c. till they became the wonders of the world; especially after the Asiaticks and Egyptians (who had formerly been the teachers of the Grecians) had, in process of time and by the havock of war, lost all the excellency in sciences and arts; for which all other nations were afterwards obliged to the Grecians, without being able so much as to imitate them. "For when the Romans had conquered Greece and Asia, and had brought to Rome the best paintings and the finest artists, we don't find they discovered the great key of knowledge, the Analogy I am now speaking of, but their best performances were conducted by Grecian artists, who it seems cared not to communicate their secret of the Analogy; because either they intended to be necessary at Rome, by keeping the secret among themselves, or else the Romans, who principally affected universal dominion, were not curious enough to search after the secret, not knowing the importance of it, nor understanding that, without it, they could never attain to the excellency of the Grecians: though nevertheless it must be owned that the Romans used well the proportions, which the Grecians long before had reduced to certain fixed rules according to their ancient Analogy; and the Romans could arrive at the happy use of the proportions, without comprehending the Analogy itself." This account agrees with what is constantly observed in Italy, where the Greek, and Roman work, both in medals and statues, are as distinguishable as the characters of the two languages. As the preface had thus been of service to me, I was in hopes from the title of the book (and the assurance of the translator, that the author had by his great learning discovered the secret of the ancients) to have met with something there that might have assisted, or confirmed the scheme I had in hand; but was much disappointed in finding nothing of that sort, and no explanation, or even after-mention of what at first agreeably alarmed me, the word _Analogy_. I have given the reader a specimen, in his own words, how far the author has discovered this grand secret of the ancients, or _great key of knowledge_, as the translator calls it. "The sublime part that I so much esteem, and of which I have begun to speak, is a real _Je ne sçai quoi_, or an unaccountable something to most people, and it is the most important part to all the connoisseurs, I shall call it an harmonious propriety, which is a touching or moving unity, or a pathetick agreement or concord, not only of each member to its body, but also of each part to the member of which it is a part: _It is also an infinite variety of parts_, however conformable, with respect to each different subject, so that all the attitude, and all the adjustment of the draperies of each figure ought to answer or correspond to the subject chosen. Briefly, it is a true decorum, a bienseance or a congruent disposition of ideas, as well for the face and stature, as for the attitudes. A bright genius, in my opinion, who aspires to excel in the ideal, should propose this to himself, as what has been the principal study of the most famous artists. 'Tis in this part that the great masters cannot be imitated or copied but by themselves, or by those that are advanced in the knowledge of the ideal, and who are as knowing as those masters in the rules or laws of the pittoresque and poetical nature, altho' inferior to the masters in the high spirit of invention." The words in this quotation "_It is also an infinite variety of parts_," seem at first to have some meaning in them, but it is entirely destroy'd by the rest of the paragraph, and all the other pages are filled, according to custom, with descriptions of pictures. Now, as every one has a right to conjecture what this discovery of the ancients might be, it shall be my business to shew it was a key to the thorough knowledge of variety both in form, and movement. Shakespear, who had the deepest penetration into nature, has sum'd up all the charms of beauty in two words, INFINITE VARIETY; where, speaking of Cleopatra's power over Anthony, he says, ----Nor custom stale Her infinite variety:----Act 2. Scene 3. It has been ever observed, that the ancients made their doctrines mysterious to the vulgar, and kept them secret from those who were not of their particular sects, and societies, by means of symbols, and hieroglyphics. Lomazzo says, chap. 29, book 1. "The Grecians in imitation of antiquity searched out the truly renowned proportion, wherein the exact perfection of most exquisite beauty and sweetness appeareth; dedicating the same in a triangular glass unto Venus the goddess of divine beauty, from whence all the beauty of inferior things is derived." If we suppose this passage to be authentic, may we not also imagine it probable, that the symbol in the triangular glass, might be similar to the line Michael Angelo recommended; especially, if it can be proved, that the triangular form of the glass, and the serpentine line itself, are the two most expressive figures that can be thought of to signify not only beauty and grace, but the whole _order of form_. There is a circumstance in the account Pliny gives of Apelles's visit to Protogenes, which strengthens this supposition. I hope I may have leave to repeat the story. Apelles having heard of the fame of Protogenes, went to Rhodes to pay him a visit, but not finding him at home asked for a board, on which he drew a _line_, telling the servant maid, that line would signify to her master who had been to see him; we are not clearly told what sort of a line it was that could so particularly signify one of the first of his profession: if it was only a stroke (tho' as fine as a hair as Pliny seems to think) it could not possibly, by any means, denote the abilities of a great painter. But if we suppose it to be a line of some extraordinary quality, such as the serpentine line will appear to be, Apelles could not have left a more satisfactory signature of the complement he had paid him. Protogenes when he came home took the hint, and drew a finer _or rather more expressive line_ within it, to shew Apelles if he came again, that he understood his meaning. He, soon returning, was well-pleased with the answer Protogenes had left for him, by which he was convinced that fame had done him justice, and so correcting the line again, perhaps by making it more precisely elegant, he took his leave. The story thus may be reconcil'd to common sense, which, as it has been generally receiv'd, could never be understood but as a ridiculous tale. [Illustration: Fig. over Fig. 4] Let us add to this, that there is scarce an Egyptian, Greek, or Roman deity, but hath a twisted serpent, twisted cornucopia, or some symbol winding in this manner to accompany it. The two small heads (over the busto of the Hercules, fig. 4, in plate I) of the goddess Isis, one crowned with a globe between two horns, the other with a lily[4], are of this kind. Harpocrates, the god of silence, is still more remarkably so, having a large twisted horn growing out of the side of his head, one cornucopia in his hand, and another at his feet, with his finger placed on his lips, indicating secrecy: (see Montfaucon's antiquities) and it is as remarkable, that the deities of barbarous and gothic nations never had, nor have to this day, any of these elegant forms belonging to them. How absolutely void of these turns are the pagods of China, and what a mean taste runs through most of their attempts in painting and sculpture, notwithstanding they finish with such excessive neatness; the whole nation in these matters seem to have but one eye: this mischief naturally follows from the prejudices they imbibe by copying one anothers works, which the ancients seem seldom to have done. [4] The leaves of this flower as they grow, twist themselves various ways in a pleasing manner, as may be better seen by figure 43, in plate I, but there is a curious little flower called the Autumn Syclamen, fig. 47, the leaves of which elegantly twist one way only. [Illustration: Figs. 43 and 47] Upon the whole, it is evident, that the ancients studied these arts very differently from the moderns: Lomazzo seems to be partly aware of this, by what he says in the division of his work, page 9, "There is a two-folde proceeding in all artes and sciences: the one is called the order of nature, and the other of teaching. Nature proceedeth ordinarily, beginning with the unperfect, as the particulars, and ending with the perfect, as the universals. Now if in searching out the nature of things, our understanding shall proceede after that order, by which they are brought forth by nature, doubtlesse it will be the most absolute and ready method that can bee imagined. For we beginne to know things by their first and immediate principles, &c. and this is not only mine opinion but Aristotles also," yet, mistaking Aristotle's meaning, and absolutely deviating from his advice, he afterwards says, "all which if we could comprehend within our understanding, we should be most wise; but it is _impossible_," and after having given some dark reasons why he thinks so, he tells you "he resolves to follow the order of teaching," which all the writers on painting have in like manner since done. Had I observed the foregoing passage, before I undertook this essay, it probably would have put me to a stand, and deterred me from venturing upon what Lomazzo calls an impossible task: but observing in the foremention'd controversies that the torrent generally ran against me; and that several of my opponents had turn'd my arguments into ridicule, yet were daily availing themselves of their use, and venting them even to my face as their own; I began to wish the publication of something on this subject; and accordingly applied myself to several of my friends, whom I thought capable of taking up the pen for me, offering to furnish them with materials by word of mouth: but finding this method not practicable, from the difficulty of one man's expressing the ideas of another, especially on a subject which he was either unacquainted with, or was new in its kind, I was therefore reduced to an attempt of finding such words as would best answer my own ideas, being now too far engaged to drop the design. Hereupon, having digested the matter as well as I could, and thrown it into the form of a book, I submitted it to the judgment of such friends whose sincerity and abilities I could best rely on, determining on their approbation or dislike to publish or destroy it: but their favourable opinion of the manuscript being publicly known, it gave such a credit to the undertaking, as soon changed the countenances of those, who had a better opinion of my pencil, than my pen, and turn'd their sneers into expectation: especially when the same friends had kindly made me an offer of conducting the work through the press. And here I must acknowledge myself particularly indebted to one gentleman for his corrections and amendment of at least a third part of the wording. Through his absence and avocations, several sheets went to the press without any assistance, and the rest had the occasional inspection of one or two other friends. If any inaccuracies shall be found in the writing, I shall readily acknowledge them all my own, and am, I confess, under no great concern about them, provided the matter in general may be found useful and answerable in the application of it to truth and nature; in which material points, if the reader shall think fit to rectify any mistakes, it will give me a sensible pleasure, and be doing great honour to the work. ADVERTISEMENT. _For the more easy finding the figures referred to in the two prints belonging to this work, the references are for the most part placed in the margin. Fig._ T p. I _signifies the top of plate_ I. L p. I _the left side_. R p. I _the right side_. B. p. I. _the bottom. And where a figure is referred to in the middle of either print, it is only mark'd thus, fig._ p. I _or fig._ p. II. [Transcriber's note: In this digital edition, these marginal references have been incorporated into the text within square brackets, e.g. [fig. 1 T p. I]. The two prints were not originally bound into the book; they are reproduced in their entirety below. Reproductions of the individual figures have also been incorporated into the text at the appropriate points.] [Illustration: PLATE I] [Illustration: PLATE II] CONTENTS. page PREFACE. iii ADVERTISEMENT. _The plates and figures_. xxii INTRODUCTION. _The use and advantage of considering solid objects as only thin shells composed of lines, like the outer-coat of an onion_. 1 CHAPTER I. _Of FITNESS_, 13 CHAPTER II. _Of VARIETY_, 16 CHAPTER III. _Of UNIFORMITY, REGULARITY, or SYMMETRY_, 18 CHAPTER IV. _Of SIMPLICITY, or DISTINCTNESS_, 21 CHAPTER V. _Of INTRICACY_, 24 CHAPTER VI. _Of QUANTITY_, 29 CHAPTER VII. _Of LINES_, 37 CHAPTER VIII. _Of what sort of parts and how PLEASING FORMS are composed_, 39 CHAPTER IX. _Of COMPOSITIONS with the WAVING LINE_, 48 CHAPTER X. _Of COMPOSITIONS with the SERPENTINE LINE_, 50 CHAPTER XI. _Of PROPORTION_, 67 CHAPTER XII. _Of LIGHT and SHADE, and the manner in which objects are explained to the eye by them_, 93 CHAPTER XIII. _Of COMPOSITION with regard to LIGHT, SHADE, and COLOURS_, 106 CHAPTER XIV. _Of COLOURING_. 113 CHAPTER XV. _Of the FACE_. 1. _In the highest taste, and the reverse_. 2. _As to character and expression_. 3. _Of the manner in which the lines of the Face alter from infancy upwards, and shew the different Ages_, 122 CHAPTER XVI. _Of ATTITUDE_, 135 CHAPTER XVII. _Of ACTION_. 1. _A new method of acquiring an easy and graceful movement of the hand and arms_. 2. _Of the head, &c._ 3. _Of dancing, particularly the minuet_. 4. _Of country-dancing, and, lastly, of stage-action_. 138 _Prints Publish'd by_ W. HOGARTH. FIGURES _referr'd to in the_ BOOK. ERRATA. [Transcriber's note: Hogarth's corrections are now incorporated within the text.] INTRODUCTION. I now offer to the public a short essay, accompanied with two explanatory prints, in which I shall endeavour to shew what the principles are in nature, by which we are directed to call the forms of some bodies beautiful, others ugly; some graceful, and others the reverse; by considering more minutely than has hitherto been done, the nature of those lines, and their different combinations, which serve to raise in the mind the ideas of all the variety of forms imaginable. At first, perhaps, the whole design, as well as the prints, may seem rather intended to trifle and confound, than to entertain and inform: but I am persuaded that when the examples in nature, referr'd to in this essay, are duly consider'd and examined upon the principles laid down in it, it will be thought worthy of a careful and attentive perusal: and the prints themselves too will, I make no doubt, be examined as attentively, when it is found, that almost every figure in them (how odly soever they may seem to be group'd together) is referr'd to singly in the essay, in order to assist the reader's imagination, when the original examples in art, or nature, are not themselves before him. And in this light I hope my prints will be consider'd, and that the figures referr'd to in them will never be imagined to be placed there by me as examples themselves, of beauty or grace, but only to point out to the reader what sorts of objects he is to look for and examine in nature, or in the works of the greatest masters. My figures, therefore, are to be consider'd in the same light, with those a mathematician makes with his pen, which may convey the idea of his demonstration, tho' not a line in them is either perfectly straight, or of that peculiar curvature he is treating of. Nay, so far was I from aiming at grace, that I purposely chose to be least accurate, where most beauty might be expected, that no stress might be laid on the figures to the prejudice of the work itself. For I must confess, I have but little hopes of having a favourable attention given to my design in general, by those who have already had a more fashionable introduction into the mysteries of the arts of painting, and sculpture. Much less do I expect, or in truth desire, the countenance of that set of people, who have an interest in exploding any kind of doctrine, that may teach us to _see with our own eyes_. It may be needless to observe, that some of the last-mention'd, are not only the dependents on, but often the only instructors and leaders of the former; but in what light they are so consider'd abroad, may be partly seen by [Fig. 1 T p. I] a burlesque representation of them, taken from a print publish'd by Mr. Pond, design'd by Cavr. Ghezzi at Rome. [Illustration: Fig. 1] To those, then, whose judgments are unprejudiced, this little work is submitted with most pleasure; because it is from such that I have hitherto received the most obligations, and now have reason to expect most candour. Therefore I would fain have such of my readers be assured, that however they may have been aw'd, and over-born by pompous terms of art, hard names, and the parade of seemingly magnificent collections of pictures and statues; they are in a much fairer way, ladies, as well as gentlemen, of gaining a perfect knowledge of the elegant and beautiful in artificial, as well as natural forms, by considering them in a systematical, but at the same time familiar way, than those who have been prepossess'd by dogmatic rules, taken from the performances of art only: nay, I will venture to say, sooner, and more rationally, than even a tolerable painter, who has imbibed the same prejudices. The more prevailing the notion may be, that painters and connoisseurs are the only competent judges of things of this sort; the more it becomes necessary to clear up and confirm, as much as possible, what has only been asserted in the foregoing paragraph: that no one may be deterr'd, by the want of such previous knowledge, from entring into this enquiry. The reason why gentlemen, who have been inquisitive after knowledge in pictures, have their eyes less qualified for our purpose, than others, is because their thoughts have been entirely and continually employ'd and incumber'd with considering and retaining the various _manners_ in which pictures are painted, the histories, names, and characters of the masters, together with many other little circumstances belonging to the mechanical part of the art; and little or no time has been given for perfecting the ideas they ought to have in their minds, of the objects themselves in nature: for by having thus espoused and adopted their first notions from nothing but _imitations_, and becoming too often as bigotted to their faults, as their beauties, they at length, in a manner, totally neglect, or at least disregard the works of nature, merely because they do not tally with what their minds are so strongly prepossess'd with. Were not this a true state of the case, many a reputed capital picture, that now adorns the cabinets of the curious in all countries, would long ago have been committed to the flames: nor would it have been possible for the Venus and Cupid, represented by the figure [under Fig. 49 T p. I], to have made its way into the principal apartment of a palace. [Illustration: Fig. under Fig. 49] It is also evident that the painter's eye may not be a bit better fitted to receive these new impressions, who is in like manner too much captivated with the works of art; for he also is apt to pursue the shadow, and drop the substance. This mistake happens chiefly to those who go to Rome for the accomplishment of their studies; as they naturally will, without the utmost care, take the infectious turn of the connoisseur, instead of the painter: and in proportion as they turn by those means bad proficients in their own arts, they become the more considerable in that of a connoisseur. As a confirmation of this seeming paradox, it has ever been observ'd at all auctions of pictures, that the very worst painters sit as the most profound judges, and are trusted only, I suppose, on account of their _disinterestedness_. I apprehend a good deal of this will look more like resentment, and a design to invalidate the objections of such as are not likely to set the faults of this work in the most favourable light; than merely for the encouragement, as was said above, of such of my readers, as are neither painters, nor connoisseurs: and I will be ingenuous enough to confess something of this may be true; but, at the same time, I cannot allow that this alone would have been a sufficient motive to have made me risk giving offence to any; had not another consideration, besides that already alledg'd, of more consequence to the purpose in hand, made it necessary. I mean the setting forth, in the strongest colours, the alterations objects seemingly undergo through the prepossessions and prejudices contracted by the mind.----Fallacies, strongly to be guarded against by such as would learn to see objects truly! Altho' the instances already given are pretty flagrant, yet it is certainly true, (as a farther confirmation of this, and for the consolation of those, who may be a little piqued at what has been said) that painters of every condition are stronger instances of the almost unavoidable power of prejudice, than any people whatever. What are all the _manners_, as they are call'd, of even the greatest masters, which are known to differ so much from one another, and all of them from nature, but so many strong proofs of their inviolable attachment to falshood, converted into establish'd truth in their own eyes, by self-opinion? Rubens would, in all probability, have been as much disgusted at the dry manner of Poussin, as Poussin was at the extravagant of Rubens. The prejudices of inferior proficients in favour of the imperfections of their own performances, is still more amazing.----Their eyes are so quick in discerning the faults of others, at the same time they are so totally blind to their own! Indeed it would be well for us all, if one of Gulliver's flappers could be placed at our elbows to remind us at every stroke how much prejudice and self-opinion perverts our sight. From what has been said, I hope it appears that those, who have no bias of any kind, either from their own practice, or the lessons of others, are fittest to examine into the truth of the principles laid down in the following pages. But as every one may not have had an opportunity of being sufficiently acquainted with the instances, that have been given: I will offer one of a familiar kind, which may be a hint for their observing a thousand more. How gradually does the eye grow reconciled even to a disagreeable dress, as it becomes more and more the fashion, and how soon return to its dislike of it, when it is left off, and a new one has taken possession of the mind?--so vague is taste, when it has no solid principles for its foundation! Notwithstanding I have told you my design of considering minutely the variety of lines, which serve to raise the ideas of bodies in the mind, and which are undoubtedly to be consider'd as drawn on the surfaces only of solid or opake bodies: yet the endeavouring to conceive, as accurate an idea as is possible, of the _inside_ of those surfaces, if I may be allow'd the expression, will be a great assistance to us in the pursuance of our present enquiry. In order to my being well understood, let every object under our consideration, be imagined to have its inward contents scoop'd out so nicely, as to have nothing of it left but a thin shell, exactly corresponding both in its inner and outer surface, to the shape of the object itself: and let us likewise suppose this thin shell to be made up of very fine threads, closely connected together, and equally perceptible, whether the eye is supposed to observe them from without, or within; and we shall find the ideas of the two surfaces of this shell will naturally coincide. The very word, shell, makes us seem to see both surfaces alike. The use of this conceit, as it may be call'd by some, will be seen to be very great, in the process of this work: and the oftner we think of objects in this shell-like manner, we shall facilitate and strengthen our conception of any particular part of the surface of an object we are viewing, by acquiring thereby a more perfect knowledge of the whole, to which it belongs: because the imagination will naturally enter into the vacant space within this shell, and there at once, as from a center, view the whole form within, and mark the opposite corresponding parts so strongly, as to retain the idea of the whole, and make us masters of the meaning of every view of the object, as we walk round it, and view it from without. Thus the most perfect idea we can possibly acquire of a sphere, is by conceiving an infinite number of straight rays of equal lengths, issuing from the center, as from the eye, spreading every way alike; and circumscribed or wound about at their other extremities with close connected circular threads, or lines, forming a true spherical shell. But in the common way of taking the view of any opake object, that part of its surface, which fronts the eye, is apt to occupy the mind alone, and the opposite, nay even every other part of it whatever, is left unthought of at that time: and the least motion we make to reconnoitre any other side of the object, confounds our first idea, for want of the connexion of the two ideas, which the complete knowledge of the whole would naturally have given us, if we had considered it in the other way before. Another advantage of considering objects thus merely as shells composed of lines, is, that by these means we obtain the true and full idea of what is call'd the _out-lines_ of a figure, which has been confin'd within too narrow limits, by taking it only from drawings on paper; for in the example of the sphere given above, every one of the imaginary circular threads has a right to be consider'd as an out-line of the sphere, as well as those which divide the half, that is seen, from that which is not seen; and if the eye be supposed to move regularly round it, these threads will each of them as regularly succeed one another in the office of out-lines, (in the narrow and limited sense of the word:) and the instant any one of these threads, during this motion of the eye, comes into sight on one side, its opposite thread is lost, and disappears on the other. He who will thus take the pains of acquiring perfect ideas of the distances, bearings, and oppositions of several material points and lines in the surfaces of even the most irregular figures, will gradually arrive at the knack of recalling them into his mind when the objects themselves are not before him: and they will be as strong and perfect as those of the most plain and regular forms, such as cubes and spheres; and will be of infinite service to those who invent and draw from fancy, as well as enable those to be more correct who draw from the life. In this manner, therefore, I would desire the reader to assist his imagination as much as possible, in considering every object, as if his eye were placed within it. As straight lines are easily conceiv'd, the difficulty of following this method in the most simple and regular forms will be less than may be first imagined; and its use in the more compounded will be greater: as will be more fully shewn when we come to speak of composition. But as [Fig. 2 L p. I] may be of singular use to young designers in the study of the human form, the most complex and beautiful of all, in shewing them a mechanical way of gaining the opposite points in its surface, which never can be seen in one and the same view; it will be proper to explain the design of it in this place, as it may at the same time add some weight to what has been already said. [Illustration: Fig. 2] It represents the trunk of a figure cast in soft wax, with one wire pass'd perpendicularly through its center, another perpendicularly to the first, going in before and coming out in the middle of the back, and as many more as may be thought necessary, parallel to and at equal distances from these, and each other; as is mark'd by the several dots in the figure.--Let these wires be so loose as to be taken out at pleasure, but not before all the parts of them, which appear out of the wax, are carefully painted close up to the wax, of a different colour from those, that lie within it. By these means the horizontal and perpendicular _contents_ of these parts of the body (by which I mean the distances of opposite points in the surface of these parts) through which the wires have pass'd, may be exactly known and compared with each other; and the little holes, where the wires have pierced the wax, remaining on its surface, will mark out the corresponding opposite points on the external muscles of the body; as well as assist and guide us to a readier conception of all the intervening parts. These points may be mark'd upon a marble figure with calibers properly used. The known method, many years made use of, for the more exactly and expeditiously reducing drawings from large pictures, for engravings; or for enlarging designs, for painting cielings and cupolas, (by striking lines perpendicular to each other, so as to make an equal number of squares on the paper design'd for the copy, that hath been first made on the original; by which means, the situation of every part of the picture is mechanically seen, and easily transferred) may truly be said to be somewhat of the same kind with what has been here proposed, but that one is done upon a flat surface, the other upon a solid; and that the new scheme differs in its application, and may be of a much more useful and extensive nature than the old one. But it is time now to have done with the introduction: and I shall proceed to consider the fundamental principles, which are generally allowed to give elegance and beauty, when duly blended together, to compositions of all kinds whatever; and point out to my readers, the particular force of each, in those compositions in nature and art, which seem most to _please and entertain the eye_, and give that grace and beauty, which is the subject of this enquiry. The principles I mean, are FITNESS, VARIETY, UNIFORMITY, SIMPLICITY, INTRICACY and QUANTITY;----_all which co-operate in the production of beauty, mutually correcting and restraining each other occasionally_. CHAPTER I. _Of FITNESS_. Fitness of the parts to the design for which every individual thing is form'd, either by art or nature, is first to be consider'd, as it is of the greatest consequence to the beauty of the whole. This is so evident, that even the sense of seeing, the great inlet of beauty, is itself so strongly bias'd by it, that if the mind, on account of this kind of value in a form, esteem it beautiful, tho' on all other considerations it be not so; the eye grows insensible of its want of beauty, and even begins to be pleas'd, especially after it has been a considerable time acquainted with it. It is well known on the other hand, that forms of great elegance often disgust the eye by being improperly applied. Thus, twisted columns are undoubtedly ornamental; but as they convey an idea of weakness, they always displease, when they are improperly made use of as supports to any thing that is bulky, or appears heavy. The bulks and proportions of objects are govern'd by fitness and propriety. It is this that has establish'd the size and proportion of chairs, tables, and all sorts of utensils and furniture. It is this that has fix'd the dimensions of pillars, arches, &c. for the support of great weight, and so regulated all the orders in architecture, as well as the sizes of windows and doors, &c. Thus though a building were ever so large, the steps of the stairs, the seats in the windows must be continued of their usual heights, or they would lose their beauty with their fitness: and in ship-building the dimensions of every part are confin'd and regulated by fitness for sailing. When a vessel sails well, the sailors always call her a beauty; the two ideas have such a connexion! The general dimensions of the parts of the human body are adapted thus to the uses they are design'd for. The trunk is the most capacious on account of the quantity of its contents, and the thigh is larger than the leg, because it has both the leg and foot to move, the leg only the foot, &c. Fitness of parts also constitutes and distinguishes in a great measure the characteristics of objects; as for example, the race-horse differs as much in quality, or character, from the war-horse, as to its figure, as the Hercules from the Mercury. The race-horse, having all its parts of such dimensions as best fit the purposes of speed, acquires on that account a consistent character of one sort of beauty. To illustrate this, suppose the beautiful head and gracefully-turn'd neck of the war-horse were placed on the shoulders of the race-horse, instead of his own aukward straight one: it would disgust, and deform, instead of adding beauty; because the judgment would condemn it as unfit. [Illustration: Fig. 3] The Hercules, by Glicon [Fig. 3 p. I], hath all its parts finely fitted for the purposes of the utmost strength, the texture of the human form will bear. The back, breast and shoulders have huge bones, and muscles adequate to the supposed active strength of its upper parts; but as less strength was required for the lower parts, the judicious sculptor, contrary to all modern rule of enlarging every part in proportion, lessen'd the size of the muscles gradually down towards the feet; and for the same reason made the neck larger in circumference than any part of the head [Fig. 4 p. I]; otherwise the figure would have been burden'd with an unnecessary weight, which would have been a draw-back from his strength, and in consequence of that, from its characteristic beauty. [Illustration: Fig. 4] These seeming faults, which shew the superior anatomical knowledge as well as judgment of the ancients, are not to be found in the leaden imitations of it near Hyde-park. These saturnine genius's imagin'd they knew how to correct such apparent _disproportions_. These few examples may be sufficient to give an idea of what I mean (and would have understood) by the beauty of fitness, or propriety. CHAPTER II. _Of VARIETY_. How great a share variety has in producing beauty may be seen in the ornamental part of nature. The shapes and colours of plants, flowers, leaves, the paintings in butterflies wings, shells, &c. seem of little other intended use, than that of entertaining the eye with the pleasure of variety. All the senses delight in it, and equally are averse to sameness. The ear is as much offended with one even continued note, as the eye is with being fix'd to a point, or to the view of a dead wall. Yet when the eye is glutted with a succession of variety, it finds relief in a certain degree of sameness; and even plain space becomes agreeable, and properly introduced, and contrasted with variety, adds to it more variety. I mean here, and every where indeed, a composed variety; for variety uncomposed, and without design, is confusion and deformity. Observe, that a gradual lessening is a kind of varying that gives beauty. The pyramid diminishing from its basis to its point, and the scroll or voluta, gradually lessening to its center, are beautiful forms. So also objects that only seem to do so, though in fact they do not, have equal beauty: thus perspective views, and particularly those of buildings, are always pleasing to the eye. The little ship, between figure 47 and 88 [p. I], suppos'd moving along the shore even with the eye, might have its top and bottom bounded by two lines at equal distances all the way, as A; but if the ship puts out to sea, these lines at top and bottom would seem to vary and meet each other by degrees, as B, in the point C, which is in the line where the sky and water meets, call'd the horizon. Thus much of the manner of perspectives adding beauty, by seemingly varying otherwise unvaried forms, I thought, might be acceptable to those, who have not learnt perspective. [Illustration: Fig. between Figs. 47 and 88] CHAPTER III. _Of UNIFORMITY, REGULARITY, or SYMMETRY_. It may be imagined that the greatest part of the effects of beauty results from the symmetry of parts in the object, which is beautiful: but I am very well persuaded, this prevailing notion will soon appear to have little or no foundation. It may indeed have properties of greater consequence, such as propriety, fitness, and use; and yet but little serve the purposes of pleasing the eye, merely on the score of beauty. We have, indeed, in our nature a love of imitation from our infancy, and the eye is often entertained, as well as surprised, with mimicry, and delighted with the exactness of counterparts: but then this always gives way to its superior love of variety, and soon grows tiresom. If the uniformity of figures, parts, or lines were truly the chief cause of beauty, the more exactly uniform their appearances were kept, the more pleasure the eye would receive: but this is so far from being the case, that when the mind has been once satisfied, that the parts answer one another, with so exact an uniformity, as to preserve to the whole the character of fitness to stand, to move, to sink, to swim, to fly, &c. without losing the balance: the eye is rejoiced to see the object turn'd, and shifted, so as to vary these uniform appearances. Thus the profile of most objects, as well as faces, are rather more pleasing than their full fronts. Whence it is clear, the pleasure does not arise from seeing the exact resemblance, which one side bears the other, but from the knowledge that they do so on account of fitness, with design, and for use. For when the head of a fine woman is turn'd a little to one side, which takes off from the exact similarity of the two halves of the face, and somewhat reclining, so varying still more from the straight and parallel lines of a formal front face: it is always look'd upon as most pleasing. This is accordingly said to be a graceful air of the head. It is a constant rule in composition in painting to avoid regularity. When we view a building, or any other object in life, we have it in our power, by shifting the ground, to take that view of it which pleases us best; and in consequence of this, the painter if he is left to his choice, takes it on the angle rather than in front, as most agreeable to the eye; because the regularity of the lines is taken away by their running into perspective, without losing the idea of fitness: and when he is of necessity obliged to give the front of a building, with all its equalities and parallelisms, he generally breaks (as it is term'd) such disagreeable appearances, by throwing a tree before it, or the shadow of an imaginary cloud, or some other object that may answer the same purpose of adding variety, which is the same with taking away uniformity. If uniform objects were agreeable, why is there such care taken to contrast, and vary all the limbs of a statue? [Illustration: Figs. 72, 6 and 7] The picture of Henry the Eighth [Fig. 72 p. II], would be preferable to the finely contrasted figures of Guido or Correggio; and the Antinous's easy sway [Fig. 6 p. I], must submit to the stiff and straight figure of the dancing-master [Fig. 7 p. I]; and the uniform out-lines of the muscles in the figure [Fig. 55 p. I] taken from Albert Durer's book of proportions, would have more taste in them than those in the famous part of an antique figure [Fig. 54 p. I] from which Michael Angelo acquired so much of his skill in grace. [Illustration: Figs. 55 and 54] In short, whatever appears to be fit, and proper to answer great purposes, ever satisfies the mind, and pleases on that account. Uniformity is of this kind. We find it necessary, in some degree, to give the idea of rest and motion, without the possibility of falling. But when any such purposes can be as well effected by more irregular parts, the eye is always better pleased on the account of variety. How pleasingly is the idea of firmness in standing convey'd to the eye by the three elegant claws of a table, the three feet of a tea-lamp, or the celebrated tripod of the ancients? Thus you see regularity, uniformity, or symmetry, please only as they serve to give the idea of fitness. CHAPTER IV. _Of SIMPLICITY, or DISTINCTNESS_. Simplicity, without variety, is wholly insipid, and at best does only not displease; but when variety is join'd to it, then it pleases, because it enhances the pleasure of variety, by giving the eye the power of enjoying it with ease. There is no object composed of straight lines, that has so much variety, with so few parts, as the pyramid: and it is its constantly varying from its base gradually upwards in every situation of the eye, (without giving the idea of sameness, as the eye moves round it) that has made it been esteem'd in all ages, in preference to the cone, which in all views appears nearly the same, being varied only by light and shade. Steeples, monuments, and most compositions in painting and sculpture, are kept within the form of the cone or pyramid, as the most eligible boundary on account of their simplicity and variety. For the same reason equestrian statues please more than the single figures. The authors (for there were three concern'd in the work) of as fine a group of figures in sculpture, as ever was made, either by ancients or moderns, (I mean Laocoon and his two sons) chose to be guilty of the absurdity of making the sons of half the father's size, tho' they have every other mark of being design'd for men, rather than not bring their composition within the boundary of a pyramid [Fig. 9 T p. I]. Thus if a judicious workman were employ'd to make a case of wood, for preserving it from the injuries of the weather, or for the convenience of carriage; he would soon find by his eye, the whole composition would readily fit and be easily pack'd up, in one of a pyramidal form. [Illustration: Fig. 9] Steeples, &c. have generally been varied from the cone, to take off from their too great simplicity, and instead of their circular bases, polygons of different, but even numbers of sides, have been substituted, I suppose for the sake of uniformity. These forms however may be said to have been chosen by the architect, with a view to the cone, as the whole compositions might be bounded by it. Yet, in my mind, odd numbers have the advantage over the even ones, as variety is more pleasing than uniformity, where the same end is answer'd by both; as in this case, where both polygons may be circumscrib'd by the same circle, or in other words, both compositions bounded by the same cone. And I can't help observing, that nature in all her works of fancy, if I may be allow'd the expression, where it seems immaterial whether even or odd numbers of divisions were prefer'd, most frequently employs the odd; as for example, in the indenting of leaves, flowers, blossoms, &c. The oval also, on account of its variety with simplicity, is as much to be prefer'd to the circle, as the triangle to the square, or the pyramid to the cube; and this figure lessen'd at one end, like the egg, thereby being more varied, is singled out by the author of all variety, to bound the features of a beautiful face. [Illustration: Fig. 10] When the oval has a little more of the cone added to it than the egg has, it becomes more distinctly a compound of those two most simple varied figures. This is the shape of the pine-apple [Fig. 10 T p. I], which nature has particularly distinguish'd by bestowing ornaments of rich mosaic upon it, composed of contrasted serpentine lines, and the pips [Fig. 11 T p. I], as the gardiners call them, are still varied by two cavities and one round eminence in each. [Illustration: Fig. 11] Could a more elegant simple form than this have been found; it is probable that judicious architect, Sir Christopher Wren, would not have chosen the pine-apples for the two terminations of the sides of the front of St. Paul's: and perhaps the globe and cross, tho' a finely varied figure, which terminates the dome, would not have had the preference of situation, if a religious motive had not been the occasion. Thus we see simplicity gives beauty even to variety, as it makes it more easily understood, and should be ever studied in the works of art, as it serves to prevent perplexity in forms of elegance; as will be shewn in the next chapter. CHAPTER V. _Of INTRICACY_. The active mind is ever bent to be employ'd. Pursuing is the business of our lives; and even abstracted from any other view, gives pleasure. Every arising difficulty, that for a while attends and interrupts the pursuit, gives a sort of spring to the mind, enhances the pleasure, and makes what would else be toil and labour, become sport and recreation. Wherein would consist the joys of hunting, shooting, fishing, and many other favourite diversions, without the frequent turns and difficulties, and disappointments, that are daily met with in the pursuit?--how joyless does the sportsman return when the hare has not had fair play? how lively, and in spirits, even when an old cunning one has baffled, and out-run the dogs! This love of pursuit, merely as pursuit, is implanted in our natures, and design'd, no doubt, for necessary, and useful purposes. Animals have it evidently by instinct. The hound dislikes the game he so eagerly pursues; and even cats will risk the losing of their prey to chase it over again. It is a pleasing labour of the mind to solve the most difficult problems; allegories and riddles, trifling as they are, afford the mind amusement: and with what delight does it follow the well-connected thread of a play, or novel, which ever increases as the plot thickens, and ends most pleas'd, when that is most distinctly unravell'd? The eye hath this sort of enjoyment in winding walks, and serpentine rivers, and all sorts of objects, whose forms, as we shall see hereafter, are composed principally of what, I call, the _waving_ and _serpentine_ lines. Intricacy in form, therefore, I shall define to be that peculiarity in the lines, which compose it, that _leads the eye a wanton kind of chace_, and from the pleasure that gives the mind, intitles it to the name of beautiful: and it may be justly said, that the cause of the idea of grace more immediately resides in this principle, than in the other five, except variety; which indeed includes this, and all the others. That this observation may appear to have a real foundation in nature, every help will be requir'd, which the reader himself can call to his assistance, as well as what will here be suggested to him. To set this matter in somewhat a clearer light, the familiar instance of a common jack, with a circular fly, may serve our purpose better than a more elegant form: preparatory to which, let the figure [Fig. 14 T p. I] be consider'd, which represents the eye, at a common reading distance viewing a row of letters, but fix'd with most attention to the middle letter A. [Illustration: Fig. 14] Now as we read, a ray may be supposed to be drawn from the center of the eye to that letter it looks at first, and to move successively with it from letter to letter, the whole length of the line: but if the eye stops at any particular letter, A, to observe it more than the rest, these other letters will grow more and more imperfect to the sight, the farther they are situated on either side of A, as is express'd in the figure: and when we endeavour to see all the letters in a line equally perfect at one view, as it were, this imaginary ray must course it to and fro with great celerity. Thus though the eye, strictly speaking, can only pay due attention to these letters in succession, yet the amazing ease and swiftness, with which it performs this task, enables us to see considerable spaces with sufficient satisfaction at one sudden view. Hence, we shall always suppose some such principal ray moving along with the eye, and tracing out the parts of every form, we mean to examine in the most perfect manner: and when we would follow with exactness the course any body takes, that is in motion, this ray is always to be supposed to move with the body. In this manner of attending to forms, they will be found, whether _at rest_, or _in motion_, to give _movement_ to this imaginary ray; or, more properly speaking, to the eye itself, affecting it _thereby_ more or less _pleasingly_, according to their different _shapes_ and _motions_. Thus, for example, in the instance of the jack, whether the eye (with this imaginary ray) moves slowly down the line, to which the weight is fix'd, or attends to the slow motion of the weight itself, the mind is equally fatigu'd: and whether it swiftly courses round the circular rim of the flyer, when the jack stands; or nimbly follows one point in its circularity whilst it is whirling about, we are almost equally made giddy by it. But our sensation differs much from either of these unpleasant ones, when we observe the curling worm, into which the worm-wheel is fixt [Fig. 15 L p. I]: for this is always pleasing, either at rest or in motion, and whether that motion is slow or quick. [Illustration: Fig. 15] That it is accounted so, when it is _at rest_, appears by the ribbon, twisted round a stick (represented on one side of this figure) which has been a long-establish'd ornament in the carvings of frames, chimney-pieces, and door-cases; and call'd by the carvers, _the stick and ribbon ornament_: and when the stick, through the middle is omitted, it is call'd the _ribbon edge_; both to be seen in almost every house of fashion. But the pleasure it gives the eye is still more lively when _in motion_. I never can forget my frequent strong attention to it, when I was very young, and that its beguiling movement gave me the same kind of sensation then, which I since have felt at seeing a country-dance; tho' perhaps the latter might be somewhat more engaging; particularly when my eye eagerly pursued a favourite dancer, through all the windings of the figure, who then was bewitching to the sight, as the imaginary ray, we were speaking of, was dancing with her all the time. This single example might be sufficient to explain what I mean by _the beauty of a composed intricacy of form_; and how it may be said, with propriety, to _lead_ the eye a _kind of chace_. But the hair of the head is another very obvious instance, which, being design'd chiefly as an ornament, proves more or less so, according to the form it naturally takes, or is put into by art. The most amiable in itself is the flowing curl; and the many waving and contrasted turns of naturally intermingling locks ravish the eye with the pleasure of the pursuit, especially when they are put in motion by a gentle breeze. The poet knows it, as well as the painter, and has described the wanton ringlets waving in the wind. And yet to shew how excess ought to be avoided in intricacy, as well as in every other principle, the very same head of hair, wisp'd, and matted together, would make the most disagreeable figure; because the eye would be perplex'd, and at a fault, and unable to trace such a confused number of uncomposed and entangled lines; and yet notwithstanding this, the present fashion the ladies have gone into, of wearing a part of the hair of their heads braided together from behind, like intertwisted serpents, arising thickest from the bottom, lessening as it is brought forward, and naturally conforming to the shape of the rest of the hair it is pin'd over, is extremely picturesque. Their thus interlacing the hair in distinct varied quantities is an artful way of preserving as much of intricacy, as is beautiful. CHAPTER VI. _Of QUANTITY_. Forms of magnitude, although ill-shaped, will however, on account of their vastness, draw our attention and raise our admiration. Huge shapeless rocks have a pleasing kind of horror in them, and the wide ocean awes us with its vast contents; but when forms of beauty are presented to the eye in large quantities, the pleasure increases on the mind, and horror is soften'd into reverence. How solemn and pleasing are groves of high grown trees, great churches, and palaces? has not even a single spreading oak, grown to maturity, acquir'd the character of the venerable oak? Windsor castle is a noble instance of the effect of quantity. The hugeness of its few distinct parts strikes the eye with uncommon grandeur at a distance, as well as nigh. It is quantity, with simplicity, which makes it one of the finest objects in the kingdom, tho' void of any regular order of architecture. The Façade of the old Louvre at Paris is also remarkable for its quantity. This fragment is allow'd to be the finest piece of building in France, tho' there are many equal, if not superior, to it in all other respects, except that of quantity. Who does not feel a pleasure when he pictures in his mind the immense buildings which once adorn'd the lower Egypt, by imagining the whole complete, and ornamented with colossal statues? Elephants and whales please us with their unwieldy greatness. Even large personages, merely for being so, command respect: nay, quantity is an addition to the person which often supplies a deficiency in his figure. The robes of state are always made large and full, because they give a grandeur of appearance, suitable to the offices of the greatest distinction. The judge's robes have an awful dignity given them by the quantity of their contents, and when the train is held up, there is a noble waving line descending from the shoulders of the judge to the hand of his train-bearer. So when the train is gently thrown aside, it generally falls into a great variety of folds, which again employ the eye, and fix its attention. The grandeur of the Eastern dress, which so far surpasses the European, depends as much on quantity as on costliness. In a word, it is quantity which adds greatness to grace. But then excess is to be avoided, or quantity will become clumsy, heavy, or ridiculous. [Illustration: Fig. 16] The full-bottom wig, like the lion's mane, hath something noble in it, and adds not only dignity, but sagacity to the countenance [fig. 16 p. I]: but were it to be worn as large again, it would become a burlesque; or were an improper person to put it on, it would then too be ridiculous. When improper, or _incompatible_ excesses meet, they always excite laughter; more especially when the forms of those excesses are inelegant, that is, when they are composed of unvaried lines. [Illustration: Figs. 17 and 18] For example, the figure refer'd to in the margin [Fig. 17 p. I], represents a fat grown face of a man, with an infant's cap on, and the rest of the child's dress stuff'd, and so well placed under his chin, as to seem to belong to that face. This is a contrivance I have seen at Bartholomew-fair, and always occasion'd a roar of laughter. The next [Fig. 18 p. I] is of the same kind, a child with a man's wig and cap on. In these you see the ideas of youth and age jumbled together, in forms without beauty. [Illustration: Fig. 19] So a Roman general [Fig. 19 p. I], dress'd by a modern tailor and peruke-maker, for tragedy, is a comic figure.----The dresses of the times are mix'd, and the lines which compose them are straight or only round. Dancing-masters, representing deities, in their grand ballets on the stage, are no less ridiculous. See the Jupiter [Fig. 20 p. I]. [Illustration: Fig. 20] Nevertheless custom and fashion will, in length of time, reconcile almost every absurdity whatever, to the eye, or make it over-look'd. It is from the same joining of opposite ideas that makes us laugh at the owl and the ass, for under their aukward forms, they seem to be gravely musing and meditating, as if they had the sense of human beings. A monkey too whose figure, as well as most of his actions, so odly resembles the human, is also very comical; and he becomes more so when a coat is put on him, as he then becomes a greater burlesque on the man. There is something extremely odd and comical in the rough shock dog. The ideas here connected are the inelegant and inanimate figure of a thrum mop, or muff, and that of a sensible, friendly animal; which is as much a burlesque of the dog, as the monkey when his coat is on, is of the man. What can it be but this inelegance of the figure, join'd with impropriety, that makes a whole audience burst into laughter, when they see the miller's sack, in Dr. Faustus, jumping across the stage? was a well-shap'd vase to do the same, it would equally surprise, but not make every body laugh, because the elegance of the form would prevent it. For when the forms, thus join'd together, are each of them elegant, and composed of agreeable lines, they will be so far from making us laugh, that they will become entertaining to the imagination, as well as pleasing to the eye. The sphinx and siren have been admired and accounted ornamental in all ages. The former represents strength and beauty join'd; the latter, beauty and swiftness, in pleasing and graceful forms. The griffin, a modern hieroglyphic, signifying strength and swiftness, united in the two noble forms of the lion and eagle, is a grand object. So the antique centaur hath a savage greatness as well as beauty. These may be said to be monsters, it's true, but then they convey such noble ideas, and have such elegance in their forms as greatly compensates for their being unnaturally join'd together. I shall mention but one more instance of this sort, and that the most extraordinary of all, which is an infant's head of about two years old, with a pair of duck's-wings placed under its chin, supposed always to be flying about, and singing psalms [Fig. 22 R p. I]. [Illustration: Fig. 22] A painter's representation of heaven would be nothing without swarms of these little inconsistent objects, flying about, or perching on the clouds; and yet there is something so agreeable in their form, that the eye is reconciled and overlooks the absurdity, and we find them in the carving and painting of almost every church. St. Paul's is full of them. * * * * * As the foregoing principles are the very ground work of what is to follow; we will, in order to make them the more familiar to us, just speak of them in the way they are daily put in practice, and may be seen, in every dress that is worn; and we shall find not only that ladies of fashion, but that women of every rank, who are said to dress prettily, have known their force, without considering them as principles. * * * * * I. Fitness is first considered by them, as knowing that their dresses should be useful, commodious, and fitted to their different ages; or rich, airy, and loose, agreeable to the character they would give out to the public by their dress. * * * * * II. Uniformity is chiefly complied with in dress on account of fitness, and seems to be extended not much farther than dressing both arms alike, and having the shoes of the same colour. For when any part of dress has not the excuse of fitness or propriety for its uniformity of parts, the ladies always call it _formal_. For which reason, when they are at liberty to make what shapes they please in ornamenting their persons, those of the best taste choose the irregular as the more engaging: for example, no two patches are ever chosen of the same size, or placed at the same height; nor a single one in the middle of a feature, unless it be to hide a blemish. So a single feather, flower, or jewel is generally placed on one side of the head; or if ever put in front, it is turn'd awry to avoid formality. It was once the fashion to have two curls of equal size, stuck at the same height close upon the forehead, which probably took its rise from seeing the pretty effect of curls falling loosely over the face. A lock of hair falling thus cross the temples, and by that means breaking the regularity of the oval, has an effect too alluring to be strictly decent, as is very well known to the loose and lowest class of women: but being pair'd in so stiff a manner, as they formerly were, they lost the desired effect, and ill deserv'd the name of favourites. * * * * * III. Variety in dress, both as to colour and form, is the constant study of the young and gay----But then, * * * * * IV. That taudriness may not destroy the proper effect of variety, simplicity is call'd in to restrain its superfluities, and is often very artfully made use of to set native beauty off to more advantage. I have not known any set of people, that have more excell'd in this principle of simplicity, or plainness, than the Quakers. * * * * * V. Quantity, or fulness in dress has ever been a darling principle; so that sometimes those parts of dress, which would properly admit of being extended to a great degree, have been carried into such strange excesses, that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth a law was made to put a stop to the growth of ruffs: nor is the enormous size of the hoops at present, a less sufficient proof of the extraordinary love of quantity in dress, beyond that of convenience or elegance. * * * * * VI. The beauty of intricacy lies in contriving winding shapes, such as the antique lappets belonging to the head of the sphinx [Fig. 21 p. I], or as the modern lappet when it is brought before. Every part of dress, that will admit of the application of this principle, has an air (as it is term'd) given to it thereby; and altho' it requires dexterity and a taste to execute these windings well, we find them daily practised with success. [Illustration: Fig. 21] This principle also recommends modesty in dress, to keep up our expectations, and not suffer them to be too soon gratified. Therefore the body and limbs should all be cover'd, and little more than certain hints be given of them thro' the cloathing. The face indeed will bear a constant view, yet always entertain and keep our curiosity awake, without the assistance either of a mask, or veil; because vast variety of changing circumstances keeps the eye and the mind in constant play, in following the numberless turns of expression it is capable of. How soon does a face that wants expression grow insipid, tho' it be ever so pretty?--The rest of the body, not having these advantages in common with the face, would soon satiate the eye, were it to be as constantly exposed, nor would it have more effect than a marble statue. But when it is artfully cloath'd and decorated, the mind at every turn resumes its imaginary pursuits concerning it. Thus, if I may be allow'd a simile, the angler chooses not to see the fish he angles for, until it is fairly caught. CHAPTER VII. _Of LINES_. It may be remember'd that in the introduction, the reader is desired to consider the surfaces of objects as so many shells of lines, closely connected together, which idea of them it will now be proper to call to mind, for the better comprehending not only this, but all the following chapters on composition. The constant use made of lines by mathematicians, as well as painters, in describing things upon paper, hath establish'd a conception of them, as if actually existing on the real forms themselves. This likewise we suppose, and shall set out with saying in general--That _the straight line_, and _the circular line_, together with their different combinations, and variations, &c. bound, and circumscribe all visible objects whatsoever, thereby producing such endless variety of forms, as lays us under the necessity of dividing, and distinguishing them into general classes; leaving the intervening mixtures of appearances to the reader's own farther observation. First, [Fig. 23 T p. I] objects composed of straight lines only, as the cube, or of circular lines, as the sphere, or of both together, as cylinders and cones, &c. [Illustration: Fig. 23] Secondly, [Fig. 24 T p. I] those composed of straight lines, circular lines, and of lines partly straight, and partly circular, as the capitals of columns, and vases, &c. [Illustration: Fig. 24] Thirdly, [Fig. 25 T p. I] those composed of all the former together with an addition of the waving line, which is a line more productive of beauty than any of the former, as in flowers, and other forms of the ornamental kind: for which reason we shall call it the line of beauty. [Illustration: Fig. 25] Fourthly, [Fig. 26 T p. I] those composed of all the former together with the serpentine line, as the human form, which line hath the power of super-adding grace to beauty. Note, forms of most grace have least of the straight line in them. [Illustration: Fig. 26] It is to be observed, that straight lines vary only in length, and therefore are least ornamental. That curved lines as they can be varied in their degrees of curvature as well as in their lengths, begin on that account to be ornamental. That straight and curv'd lines join'd, being a compound line, vary more than curves alone, and so become somewhat more ornamental. That the waving line, or line of beauty, varying still more, being composed of two curves contrasted, becomes still more ornamental and pleasing, insomuch that the hand takes a lively movement in making it with pen or pencil. And that the serpentine line, by its waving and winding at the same time different ways, leads the eye in a pleasing manner along the continuity of its variety, if I may be allowed the expression; and which by its twisting so many different ways, may be said to inclose (tho' but a single line) varied contents; and therefore all its variety cannot be express'd on paper by one continued line, without the assistance of the imagination, or the help of a figure; see [Fig. 26 T p. I] where that sort of proportion'd, winding line, which will hereafter be call'd the precise serpentine line, or _line of grace_, is represented by a fine wire, properly twisted round the elegant and varied figure of a cone. CHAPTER VIII. _Of what sort of PARTS, and how PLEASING FORMS are composed_. Thus far having endeavoured to open as large an idea as possible of the power of variety, by having partly shewn that those lines which have most variety in themselves, contribute most towards the production of beauty; we will next shew how lines may be put together, so as to make pleasing figures or compositions. In order to be as clear as possible, we will give a few examples of the most familiar and easy sort, and let them serve as a clue to be pursued in the imagination: I say in the imagination chiefly, for the following method is not meant always to be put in practice, or follow'd in every case, for indeed that could hardly be, and in some it would be ridiculously losing time if it could----Yet there may be cases where it may be necessary to follow this method minutely; as for example, in architecture. I am thoroughly convinc'd in myself, however it may startle some, that a completely new and harmonious order of architecture in all its parts, might be produced by the following method of composing, but hardly with certainty without it; and this I am the more apt to believe, as upon the strictest examination, those four orders of the ancients, which are so well established for beauty and true proportion, perfectly agree with the scheme we shall now lay down. This way of composing pleasing forms, is to be accomplished by making choice of variety of lines, as to their shapes and dimensions; and then again by varying their situations with each other, by all the different ways that can be conceived: and at the same time (if a solid figure be the subject of the composition) the contents or space that is to be inclosed within those lines, must be duly consider'd and vary'd too, as much as possible, with propriety. In a word, it may be said, the art of composing well is the art of varying well. It is not expected that this should at first be perfectly comprehended, yet I believe it will be made sufficiently clear by the help of the examples following. [Illustration: Fig. 29] The figure [Fig. 29 T p. I], represents the simple and pleasing figure of a bell; this shell, as we may call it, is composed of waving lines, encompassing, or bounding within it, the varied space marked with dotted lines: here you see the variety of the space within is equal to the beauty of its form without, and if the space, or contents, were to be more varied, the outward form would have still more beauty. [Illustration: Figs. 30, 31 and 32] As a proof, see a composition of more parts, and a way by which those parts may be put together by a certain method of varying: i. e. how the one half of the socket of the candlestick A [Fig. 30 T p. I], may be varied as the other half B. Let a convenient and fit height be first given for a candlestick, as [Fig. 31 T p. I], then let the necessary size of the socket be determined, as at (a) [Fig. 32] after which, in order to give it a better form, let every _distance_ or length of divisions differ from the length of the socket, as also vary in their distances from each other, as is seen by the points on the line under the socket (a); that is let any two points, _signifying distance_, be plac'd farthest from any other two near points, observing always that there should be one distance or part larger than all the rest; and you will readily see that variety could not be so complete without it.--In like manner, let the horizontal distances (always keeping within the bounds of fitness) be varied both as to distances and situations, as on the opposite side of the same figure (b); then unite and join all the several distances into a complete shell, by applying several parts of curves and straight lines; varying them also by making them of different sizes, as (c): and apply them as at (d) in the same figure, and you have the candlestick [Fig. 33 T p. I], and with still more variations on the other side. If you divide the candlestick into many more parts, it will appear crouded, as [Fig. 34 T p. I] it will want distinctness of form on a near view, and lose the effect of variety at a distance: this the eye will easily distinguish on removing pretty far from it. [Illustration: Figs. 33 and 34] Simplicity in composition, or distinctness of parts, is ever to be attended to, as it is one part of beauty, as has been already said: but that what I mean by distinctness of parts in this place, may be better understood, it will be proper to explain it by an example. When you would compose an object of a great variety of parts, let several of those parts be distinguish'd by themselves, by their remarkable difference from the next adjoining, so as to make each of them, as it were, one well-shap'd quantity or part, as is marked by the dotted lines in figure [35 T p. I] (these are like what they call passages in music, and in writing paragraphs) by which means, not only the whole, but even every part, will be better understood by the eye: for confusion will hereby be avoided when the object is seen near, and the shapes will seem well varied, tho' fewer in number, at a distance; as figure [36 p. I] supposed to be the same as the former, but removed so far off that the eye loses sight of the smaller members. [Illustration: Figs. 35 and 36] The parsley-leaf [Fig. 37 T p. I], in like manner, from whence a beautiful foliage in ornament was originally taken, is divided into three distinct passages; which are again divided into other odd numbers; and this method is observ'd, for the generality, in the leaves of all plants and flowers, the most simple of which are the trefoil and cinquefoil. [Illustration: Fig. 37] Light and shade, and colours, also must have their distinctness to make objects completely beautiful: but of these in their proper places----only I will give you a general idea of what is here meant by the beauty of distinctness of forms, lights, shades, and colours, by putting you in mind of the reverse effects in all them together. Observe the well-composed nosegay how it loses all its distinctness when it dies; each leaf and flower then shrivels and loses its distinct shape; and the firm colours fade into a kind of sameness: so that the whole gradually becomes a confused heap. If the general parts of objects are preserv'd large at first, they will always admit of farther enrichments of a small kind, but then they must be so small as not to confound the general masses or quantities.--thus you see variety is a check upon itself when overdone, which of course begets what is call'd a _petit taste_ and a confusion to the eye. [Illustration: Figs. 38 and 39] It will not be amiss next to shew what effects an object or two will have that are put together without, or contrary to these rules of composing variety. Figure [38 L p. I], is taken from one of those branches fixt to the sides of common old-fashion'd stove-grates by way of ornament, wherein you see how the parts have been varied by fancy only, and yet pretty well: close to which [Fig. 39 L p. I] is another, with about the like number of parts; but as the shapes, neither are enough varied as to their contents, nor in their situations with each other, but one shape follows its exact likeness: it is therefore a disagreeable and tasteless figure, and for the same reason the candlestick, fig. [40 T p. I] is still worse, as there is less variety in it. Nay, it would be better to be quite plain, as figure [41 T p. I], than with such poor attempts at ornament. [Illustration: Figs. 40, 41 and 42] These few examples, well understood, will, I imagine, be sufficient to put what was said at the beginning of this chapter out of all doubt, viz. that _the art of composing well_ is no more than the _art of varying well_; and to shew, that the method which has been here explain'd, must consequently produce a pleasing proportion amongst the parts; as well as that all deviations from it will produce the contrary. Yet to strengthen this latter assertion, let the following figures, taken from the life, be examin'd by the above rules for composing, and it will be found that the Indian-fig or torch-thistle, figure [42 T p. I], as well as all that tribe of uncouth shaped exotics, have the same reasons for being ugly, as the candlestick, fig. 40; as also that the beauties of the Lily [Fig. 43 T p. I] and the calcidonian Iris [Fig. 44 T p. I] proceeds from their being composed with great variety, and that the loss of variety, to a certain degree, in the imitations of those flowers underneath them (fig. 45 and 46) is the cause of the meanness of their shapes, tho' they retain enough to be call'd by the same names. [Illustration: Figs. 43 and 44] [Illustration: Figs. 45 and 46] Hitherto, with regard to composition, little else but forms made up of straight and curv'd lines have been spoken of, and though these lines have but little variety in themselves, yet by reason of the great diversifications that they are capable of in being join'd with one another; great variety of beauty of the more useful sort is produced by them, as in necessary utensils and building: but in my opinion, buildings as I before hinted, might be much more varied than they are, for after _fitness_ hath been strictly and mechanically complied with, any additional ornamental members, or parts, may, by the foregoing rules, be varied with equal elegance; nor can I help thinking, but that churches, palaces, hospitals, prisons, common houses and summer houses, might be built more in distinct characters than they are, by contriving orders suitable to each; whereas were a modern architect to build a palace in Lapland, or the West-Indies, Paladio must be his guide, nor would he dare to stir a step without his book. Have not many gothic buildings a great deal of consistent beauty in them? perhaps acquired by a series of improvements made from time to time by the natural persuasion of the eye, which often very near answers the end of working by principles; and sometimes begets them. There is at present such a thirst after variety, that even paltry imitations of Chinese buildings have a kind of vogue, chiefly on account of their novelty: but not only these, but any other new-invented characters of building might be regulated by proper principles. The mere ornaments of buildings, to be sure, at least might be allow'd a greater latitude than they are at present; as capitals, frizes, &c. in order to increase the beauty of variety. Nature, in shells and flowers, &c. affords an infinite choice of elegant hints for this purpose; as the original of the Corinthian capital was taken from nothing more, as is said, than some dock-leaves growing up against a basket. Even a capital composed of the aukward and confin'd forms of hats and periwigs, as fig. [48 p. I] in a skilful hand might be made to have some beauty. [Illustration: Fig. 48] However, tho' the moderns have not made many additions to the art of building, with respect to mere beauty or ornament, yet it must be confess'd, they have carried simplicity, convenience, and neatness of workmanship, to a very great degree of perfection, particularly in England; where plain good sense hath prefer'd these more necessary parts of beauty, which every body can understand, to that richness of taste which is so much to be seen in other countries, and so often substituted in their room. St. Paul's cathedral is one of the noblest instances that can be produced of the most judicious application of every principle that has been spoken of. There you may see the utmost variety without confusion, simplicity without nakedness, richness without taudriness, distinctness without hardness, and quantity without excess. Whence the eye is entertain'd throughout with the charming variety of all its parts together; the noble projecting quantity of a certain number of them, which presents bold and distinct parts at a distance, when the lesser parts within them disappear; and the grand few, but remarkably well-varied parts that continue to please the eye as long as the object is discernable, are evident proofs of the superior skill of Sir Christopher Wren, so justly esteem'd the prince of architects. It will scarcely admit of a dispute, that the outside of this building is much more perfect than that of St. Peter's at Rome: but the inside, though as fine and noble, as the space it stands on, and our religion will allow of, must give way to the splendor, shew, and magnificence of that of St. Peter's, on account of the sculptures and paintings, as well as the greater magnitude of the whole, which makes it excel as to quantity. There are many other churches of great beauty, the work of the same architect, which are hid in the heart of the city, whose steeples and spires are raised higher than ordinary, that they may be seen at a distance above the other buildings; and the great number of them dispers'd about the whole city, adorn the prospect of it, and give it an air of opulence and magnificence: on which account their shapes will be found to be particularly beautiful. Of these, and perhaps of any in Europe, St. Mary-le-Bow is the most elegantly varied. St. Bride's in Fleet-street diminishes sweetly by elegant degrees, but its variations, tho' very curious when you are near them, not being quite so bold, and distinct, as those of Bow, it too soon looses variety at a distance. Some gothic spires are finely and artfully varied, particularly the famous steeple of Strasburg. Westminster-Abbey is a good contrast to St. Paul's, with regard to simplicity and distinctness, the great number of its filligrean ornaments, and small divided and subdivided parts appear confused when nigh, and are totally lost at a moderate distance; yet there is nevertheless such a consistency of parts altogether in a good gothic taste, and such propriety relative to the gloomy ideas, they were then calculated to convey, that they have at length acquir'd an establish'd and distinct character in building. It would be look'd upon as an impropriety and as a kind of profanation to build places for mirth and entertainment in the same taste. CHAPTER IX. _Of COMPOSITION with the WAVING-LINE_. There is scarce a room in any house whatever, where one does not see the waving-line employ'd in some way or other. How inelegant would the shapes of all our moveables be without it? how very plain and unornamental the mouldings of cornices, and chimney-pieces, without the variety introduced by the _ogee_ member, which is entirely composed of waving-lines. [Illustration: Figs. 49 and 50] Though all sorts of waving-lines are ornamental, when properly applied; yet, strictly speaking, there is but one precise line, properly to be called the line of _beauty_, which in the scale of them [Fig. 49 T p. I] is number 4: the lines 5, 6, 7, by their bulging too much in their curvature becoming gross and clumsy; and, on the contrary, 3, 2, 1, as they straighten, becoming mean and poor; as will appear in the next figure [50 T p. I] where they are applied to the legs of chairs. [Illustration: Fig. 53] A still more perfect idea of the effects of the precise waving-line, and of those lines that deviate from it, may be conceived by the row of stays, figure [53 B p. I], where number 4 is composed of precise waving-lines, and is therefore the best shaped stay. Every whale-bone of a good stay must be made to bend in this manner: for the whole stay, when put close together behind, is truly a shell of well-varied contents, and its surface of course a fine form; so that if a line, or the lace were to be drawn, or brought from the top of the lacing of the stay behind, round the body, and down to the bottom peak of the stomacher; it would form such a perfect, precise, serpentine-line, as has been shewn, round the cone, figure 26 in plate I.----For this reason all ornaments obliquely contrasting the body in this manner, as the ribbons worn by the knights of the garter, are both genteel and graceful. The numbers 5, 6, 7 and 3, 2, 1, are deviations into stiffness and meanness on one hand, and clumsiness and deformity on the other. The reasons for which disagreeable effects, after what has been already said, will be evident to the meanest capacity. [Illustration: Fig. 26] It may be worth our notice however, that the stay, number 2, would better fit a well-shaped man than number 4; and that number 4, would better fit a well-form'd woman, than number 2; and when on considering them, merely as to their forms, and comparing them together as you would two vases, it has been shewn by our principles, how much finer and more beautiful number 4 is, than number 2: does not this our determination enhance the merit of these principles, as it proves at the same time how much the form of a woman's body surpasses in beauty that of a man? From the examples that have been given, enough may be gathered to carry on our observations from them to any other objects that may chance to come in our way, either animate or inanimate; so that we may not only _lineally_ account for the ugliness of the toad, the hog, the bear, and the spider, which are totally void of this waving-line, but also for the different degrees of beauty belonging to those objects that possess it. CHAPTER X. _Of COMPOSITIONS with the SERPENTINE-LINE_. The very great difficulty there is in describing this line, either in words, or by the pencil (as was hinted before, when I first mention'd it) will make it necessary for me to proceed very slowly in what I have to say in this chapter, and to beg the reader's patience whilst I lead him step by step into the knowledge of what I think the sublime in form, so remarkably display'd in the human body; in which, I believe, when he is once acquainted with the idea of them, he will find this species of lines to be principally concern'd. First, then, let him consider fig. [56 B p. II], which represents a straight horn, with its contents, and he will find, as it varies like the cone, it is a form of some beauty, merely on that account. [Illustration: Fig. 56] Next let him observe in what manner, and in what degree the beauty of this horn is increas'd, in fig. [57 B p. II], where it is supposed to be bent two different ways. [Illustration: Fig. 57] And lastly, let him attend to the vast increase of beauty, even to grace and elegance, in the same horn, fig. [58 B p. II], where it is supposed to have been twisted round, at the same time, that it was bent two different ways, (as in the last figure). [Illustration: Fig. 58] In the first of these figures, the dotted line down the middle expresses the straight lines of which it is composed; which, without the assistance of curve lines, or light and shade, would hardly shew it to have contents. The same is true of the second, tho' by the bending of the horn, the straight dotted line is changed into the beautiful waving-line. But in the last, this dotted line, by the twisting as well as the bending of the horn, is changed from the waving into the serpentine-line; which, as it dips out of sight behind the horn in the middle, and returns again at the smaller end, not only gives play to the imagination, and delights the eye, on that account; but informs it likewise of the quantity and variety of the contents. I have chosen this simple example, as the easiest way of giving a plain and general idea of the peculiar qualities of these serpentine-lines, and the advantages of bringing them into compositions, where the contents you are to express, admit of grace and elegance. And I beg the same things may be understood of these serpentine-lines, that I have said before of the waving-lines. For as among the vast variety of waving-lines that may be conceiv'd, there is but one that truly deserves the name of _the line of beauty_, so there is only one precise serpentine-line that I call _the line of grace_. Yet, even when they are made too bulging, or too tapering, though they certainly lose of their beauty and grace, they do not become so wholly void of it, as not to be of excellent service in compositions, where beauty and grace are not particularly design'd to be express'd in their greatest perfection. Though I have distinguish'd these lines so particularly as to give them the titles of _the lines of beauty and grace_, I mean that the use and application of them should still be confined by the principles I have laid down for composition in general; and that they should be judiciously mixt and combined with one another, and even with those I may term _plain_ lines, (in opposition to these) as the subject in hand requires. Thus the cornu-copia, fig. [59 B p. II], is twisted and bent after the same manner, as the last figure of the horn; but more ornamented, and with a greater number of other lines of the same twisted kind, winding round it with as quick returns as those of a screw. [Illustration: Fig. 59] This sort of form may be seen with yet more variations, (and therefore more beautiful) in the goat's horn, from which, in all probability, the ancients originally took the extremely elegant forms they have given their cornu-copias. There is another way of considering this last figure of the horn I would recommend to my reader, in order to give him a clearer idea of the use both of the waving and serpentine-lines in composition. This is to imagine the horn, thus bent and twisted, to be cut length-ways by a very fine saw into two equal parts; and to observe one of these in the same position the whole horn is represented in; and these two observations will naturally occur to him. First, that the edge of the saw must run from one end to the other of the horn in the line of beauty; so that the edges of this half of the horn will have a beautiful shape: and, secondly, that wherever the dotted serpentine-line on the surface of the whole horn dips behind, and is lost to the eye, it immediately comes into sight on the hollow surface of the divided horn. The use I shall make of these observations will appear very considerable in the application of them to the human form, which we are next to attempt. It will be sufficient, therefore, at present only to observe, first, that the whole horn acquires a beauty by its being thus genteely bent two different ways; secondly, that whatever lines are drawn on its external surface become graceful, as they must all of them, from the twist that is given the horn, partake in some degree or other, of the shape of the serpentine-line: and, lastly, when the horn is split, and the inner, as well as the outward surface of its shell-like form is exposed, the eye is peculiarly entertained and relieved in the pursuit of these serpentine-lines, as in their twistings their concavities and convexities are alternately offer'd to its view. Hollow forms, therefore, composed of such lines are extremely beautiful and pleasing to the eye; in many cases more so, than those of solid bodies. Almost all the muscles, and bones, of which the human form is composed, have more, or less of these kind of twists in them; and give in a less degree, the same kind of appearance to the parts which cover them, and are the immediate object of the eye: and for this reason it is that I have been so particular in describing these forms of the bent, and twisted, and ornamented horn. There is scarce a straight bone in the whole body. Almost all of them are not only bent different ways, but have a kind of twist, which in some of them is very graceful; and the muscles annex'd to them, tho' they are of various shapes, appropriated to their particular uses, generally have their component fibres running in these serpentine-lines, surrounding and conforming themselves to the varied shape of the bones they belong to: more especially in the limbs. Anatomists are so satisfied of this, that they take a pleasure in distinguishing their several beauties. I shall only instance in the thigh-bone, and those about the hips. [Illustration: Figs. 64 and 62] The thigh-bone fig. [62 R p. II], has the waving and twisted turn of the horn, 58: but the beautiful bones adjoining, call'd the ossa innominata [Fig. 60 B p. II], have, with greater variety, the same turns and twists of that horn when it is cut; and its inner and outward surfaces are exposed to the eye. [Illustration: Figs. 60, 61 and 63] How ornamental these bones appear, when the prejudice we conceive against them, as being part of a skeleton, is taken off, by adding a little foliage to them, may be seen in fig. [61 B p. II]----such shell-like winding forms, mixt with foliage, twisting about them, are made use of in all ornaments; a kind of composition calculated merely to please the eye. Divest these of their serpentine twinings, and they immediately lose all grace, and return to the poor gothic taste they were in an hundred years ago [Fig. 63 B p. II]. [Illustration: Figs. 64 and 62] Fig. [64 B p. II] is meant to represent the manner, in which most of the muscles, (those of the limbs in particular) are twisted round the bones, and conform themselves to their length and shape; but with no anatomical exactness. As to the running of their fibres, some anatomists have compared them to skains of thread, loose in the middle, and tight at each end, which, when they are thus consider'd as twisted contrary ways round the bone, gives the strongest idea possible of a composition of serpentine-lines. [Illustration: Figs. 65, 66 and 67] Of these fine winding forms then are the muscles and bones composed, and which, by their varied situations with each other, become more intricately pleasing, and form a continued waving of winding forms from one into the other, as may be best seen by examining a good anatomical figure, part of which you have here represented, in the muscular leg and thigh, fig. [65 p. I]: which shews the serpentine forms and varied situations of the muscles, as they appear when the skin is taken off. It was drawn from a plaster of paris figure cast off nature, the original of which was prepared for the mould by Cowper, the famous anatomist. In this last figure, as the skin is taken off the parts are too distinctly traced by the eye, for that intricate delicacy which is necessary to the utmost beauty; yet the winding figures of the muscles, with the variety of their situations, must always be allow'd elegant forms: however, they lose in the imagination some of the beauty, which they really have, by the idea of their being flayed; nevertheless, by what has already been shewn both of them and the bones, the human frame hath more of its parts composed of serpentine-lines than any other object in nature; which is a proof both of its superior beauty to all others, and, at the same time, that its beauty proceeds from those lines: for although they may be required sometimes to be bulging in their twists, as in the thick swelling muscles of the Hercules, yet elegance and greatness of taste is still preserved; but when these lines lose so much of their twists as to become almost straight, all elegance of taste vanishes. Thus fig. [66 p. I], was also taken from nature, and drawn in the same position, but treated in a more dry, stiff, and what the painters call, _sticky manner_, than the nature of flesh is ever capable of appearing in, unless when its moisture is dryed away: it must be allowed, that the parts of this figure are of as right dimensions, and as truly situated, as in the former; it wants only the true twist of the lines to give it taste. To prove this further, and to put the mean effect of these plain or unvaried lines in a stronger light, see fig. [67 p. I], where, by the uniform, unvaried shapes and situation of the muscles, without so much as a waving-line in them, it becomes so wooden a form, that he that can fashion the leg of a joint-stool may carve this figure as well as the best sculptor. In the same manner, divest one of the best antique statues of all its serpentine winding parts, and it becomes from an exquisite piece of art, a figure of such ordinary lines and unvaried contents, that a common stone-mason or carpenter, with the help of his rule, calipers, and compasses, might carve out an exact imitation of it: and were it not for these lines a turner, in his lathe, might turn a much finer neck than that of the grecian Venus, as according to the common notion of a beautiful neck, it would be more truly round. For the same reason, legs much swoln with disease, are as easy to imitate as a post, having lost their _drawing_, as the painters call it; that is, having their serpentine-lines all effaced, by the skin's being equally puffed up, as figure [68]. [Illustration: Fig. 68] If in comparing these three figures one with another, the reader, notwithstanding the prejudice his imagination may have conceiv'd against them, as anatomical figures, has been enabled only to perceive that one of them is not so disagreeable as the others; he will easily be led to see further, that this tendency to beauty in one, is not owing to any greater degree of exactness in the _proportions_ of its parts, but merely to the more _pleasing turns, and intertwistings of the lines,_ which compose its external form; for in all the three figures the same proportions have been observ'd, and, on that account, they have all an equal claim to beauty. And if he pursues this anatomical enquiry but a very little further, just to form a true idea of the elegant use that is made of the skin and fat beneath it, to conceal from the eye all that is hard and disagreeable, and at the same time to preserve to it whatever is necessary in the shapes of the parts beneath, to give grace and beauty to the whole limb: he will find himself insensibly led into the principles of that grace and beauty which is to be found in well-turn'd limbs, in fine, elegant, healthy life, or in those of the best antique statues; as well as into the reason why his eye has so often unknowingly been pleased and delighted with them. Thus, in all other parts of the body, as well as these, wherever, for the sake of the necessary motion of the parts, with proper strength and agility, the insertions of the muscles are too hard and sudden, their swellings too bold, or the hollows between them too deep, for their out-lines to be beautiful; nature most judiciously softens these hardnesses, and plumps up these vacancies with a proper supply of fat, and covers the whole with the soft, smooth, springy, and, in delicate life, almost transparent skin, which, conforming itself to the external shape of all the parts beneath, expresses to the eye the idea of its contents with the utmost delicacy of beauty and grace. The skin, therefore, thus tenderly embracing, and gently conforming itself to the varied shapes of every one of the outward muscles of the body, soften'd underneath by the fat, where, otherwise, the same hard lines and furrows would appear, as we find come on with age in the face, and with labour, in the limbs, is evidently a shell-like surface (to keep up the idea I set out with) form'd with the utmost delicacy in nature; and therefore the most proper subject of the study of every one, who desires to imitate the works of nature, _as a master should do_, or to judge of the performances of others _as a real connoisseur ought_. I cannot be too long, I think, on this subject, as so much will be found to depend upon it; and therefore shall endeavour to give a clear idea of the different effect such anatomical figures have on the eye, from what the same parts have, when cover'd by the fat and skin; by supposing a small wire (that has lost its spring and so will retain every shape it is twisted into) to be held fast to the out-side of the hip (fig. 65. plate I) and thence brought down the other side of the thigh obliquely over the calf of the leg, down to the outward ancle (all the while press'd so close as to touch and conform itself to the shape of every muscle it passes over) and then to be taken off. If this wire be now examined it will be found that the general uninterrupted flowing twist, which the winding round the limbs would otherwise have given to it, is broken into little better than so many separate plain curves, by the sharp indentures it every where has receiv'd on being closely press'd in between the muscles. [Illustration: Figs. 65, 66 and 67] Suppose, in the next place, such a wire was in the same manner twisted round a living well-shaped leg and thigh, or those of a fine statue; when you take it off you will find no such sharp indentures, nor any of those regular _engralings_ (as the heralds express it) which displeased the eye before. On the contrary, you will see how _gradually_ the changes in its shape are produced; how imperceptibly the different curvatures run into each other, and how easily the eye glides along the varied wavings of its sweep. To enforce this still further, if a line were to be drawn by a pencil exactly where these wires have been supposed to pass, the point of the pencil, in the muscular leg and thigh, would perpetually meet with stops and rubs, whilst in the others it would flow from muscle to muscle along the elastic skin, as pleasantly as the lightest skiff dances over the gentlest wave. This idea of the wire, retaining thus the shape of the parts it passes over, seems of so much consequence, that I would by no means have it forgot; as it may properly be consider'd as one of the threads (or outlines) of the shell (or external surface) of the human form: and the frequently recurring to it will assist the imagination in its conceptions of those parts of it, whose shapes are most intricately varied: for the same sort of observations may be made, with equal justice, on the shapes of ever so many such wires twisted in the same manner in ever so many directions over every part of a well made man, woman, or statue. And if the reader will follow in his imagination the most exquisite turns of the chisel in the hands of a master, when he is putting the finishing touches to a statue; he will soon be led to understand what it is the real judges expect from the hand of such a master, which the Italians call, the little more, Il poco piu, and which in reality distinguishes the original master-pieces at Rome from even the best copies of them. An example or two will sufficiently explain what is here meant; for as these exquisite turns are to be found, in some degree of beauty or other, all over the whole surface of the body and limbs: we may by taking any one part of a fine figure (though so small a one that only a few muscles are express'd in it) explain the manner in which so much beauty and grace has been given to them, as to convince a skilful artist, almost at sight, that it must have been the work of a master. [Illustration: Fig. 76] I have chosen, for this purpose, a small piece of the body of a statue, fig. [76 T p. II], representing part of the left side under the arm, together with a little of the breast, (including a very particular muscle, which, from the likeness its edges bear to the teeth of a saw, is, if consider'd by itself, void of beauty) as most proper to the point in hand, because this its regular shape more peculiarly requires the skill of the artist to give it a little more variety than it generally has, even in nature. [Illustration: Fig. 77] First, then, I will give you a representation of this part of the body, from an anatomical figure [Fig. 77 T p. II], to show what a sameness there is in the shapes of all the teeth-like insertions of this muscle; and how regularly the fibres, which compose it, follow the almost parallel out-lines of the ribs they partly cover. [Illustration: Fig. 78] From what has been said before of the use of the natural covering of the skin, &c. the next figure [78 T p. II] will easily be understood to mean so tame a representation of the same part of the body, that tho' the hard and stiff appearance of the edges of this muscle is taken off by that covering, yet enough of its regularity and sameness remains to render it disagreeable. Now as regularity and sameness, according to our doctrine, is want of elegance and true taste, we shall endeavour in the next place to show how this very part (in which the muscles take so very regular a form) may be brought to have as much variety as any other part of the body whatever. In order to this, though some alteration must be made in almost every part of it, yet it should be so inconsiderable in each, that no remarkable change may appear in the shape and situation of any. [Illustration: Figs. 79, 80 and 81] Thus, let the parts mark'd 1, 2, 3, 4, (which appear so exactly similar in shape, and parallel in situation in the muscular figure 77) and not much mended in fig. 78, be first varied in their sizes, but not gradually from the uppermost to the lowest, as in fig. [79 T p. II], nor alternately one long and one short, as in fig. [80 T p. II], for in either of these cases there would still remain too great a formality. We should therefore endeavour, in the next place, to vary them every way in our power, without losing entirely the true idea of the parts themselves. Suppose them then to have changed their situations a little, and slip'd beside each other irregularly, (some how as is represented in fig. [81 T p. II], merely with regard to their situation) and the external appearance of the whole piece of the body, now under our consideration, will assume the more varied and pleasing form, represented in fig. 76, easily to be discern'd by comparing the three figures, 76, 77, 78, one with another; and it will as easily be seen, that were lines to be drawn, or wires to be bent, over these muscles, from one to the other, and so on to the adjoining parts; they would have a continued waving flow, let them pass in any direction whatever. The unskilful, in drawing these parts after the life, as their regularities are much more easily seen and copied than their fine variations, seldom fail of making them more regular and poor than they really appear even in a consumptive person. The difference will appear evident by comparing fig. 78, purposely drawn in this tasteless manner, with fig. 76. But will be more perfectly understood by examining this part in the Torso of Michael Angelo [Fig. 54 p. I], whence this figure was taken. [Illustration: Fig. 54] Note, there are casts of a small copy of that famous trunk of a body to be had at almost every plaster-figure makers, wherein what has been here described may be sufficiently seen, not only in the part which figure 76 was taken from, but all over that curious piece of antiquity. I must here again press my reader to a particular attention to the windings of these superficial lines, even in their passing over every joint, what alterations soever may be made in the surface of the skin by the various bendings of the limbs: and tho' the space allow'd for it, just in the joints, be ever so small, and consequently the lines ever so short, the application of this principle of varying these lines, as far as their lengths will admit of, will be found to have its effect as gracefully as in the more lengthen'd muscles of the body. It should be observ'd in the fingers, where the joints are but short, and the tendons straight; and where beauty seems to submit, in some degree, to use, yet not so much but you trace in a full-grown taper finger, these little winding lines among the wrinkles, or in (what is more pretty because more simple) the dimples of the nuckles. As we always distinguish things best by seeing their reverse set in opposition with them; if fig. 82 T p. II, by the straightness of its lines, shews fig. 83 T p. II, to have some little taste in it, tho' it is so slightly sketch'd; the difference will more evidently appear when you in like manner compare a straight coarse finger in common life with the taper dimpled one of a fine lady. [Illustration: Figs. 82 and 83] There is an elegant degree of plumpness peculiar to the skin of the softer sex, that occasions these delicate dimplings in all their other joints, as well as these of the fingers; which so perfectly distinguishes them from those even of a graceful man; and which, assisted by the more soften'd shapes of the muscles underneath, presents to the eye all the varieties in the whole figure of the body, with gentler and fewer parts more sweetly connected together, and with such a fine simplicity as will always give the turn of the female frame, represented in the Venus [Fig. 13 p. I], the preference to that of the Apollo [Fig. 12 p. I]. [Illustration: Figs. 13 and 12] Now whoever can conceive lines thus constantly flowing, and delicately varying over every part of the body even to the fingers ends, and will call to his remembrance what led us to this last description of what the Italians call, Il poco piu (_the little more_ that is expected from the hand of a master) will, in my mind, want very little more than what his own observation on the works of art and nature will lead him to, to acquire a true idea of the word _Taste_, when applied to form; however inexplicable this word may hitherto have been imagined. We have all along had recourse chiefly to the works of the ancients, not because the moderns have not produced some as excellent; but because the works of the former are more generally known: nor would we have it thought, that either of them have ever yet come up to the utmost beauty of nature. Who but a bigot, even to the antiques, will say that he has not seen faces and necks, hands and arms in living women, that even the Grecian Venus doth but coarsely imitate? And what sufficient reason can be given why the same may not be said of the rest of the body? CHAPTER XI. _Of PROPORTION_. If anyone should ask, what it is that constitutes a fine-proportion'd human figure? how ready and seemingly decisive is the common answer: _a just symmetry and harmony of parts with respect to the whole_. But as probably this vague answer took its rise from doctrines not belonging to form, or idle schemes built on them, I apprehend it will cease to be thought much to the purpose after a proper enquiry has been made. Preparatory to which, it becomes necessary in this place, to mention one reason more which may be added to those given in the introduction, for my having persuaded the reader to consider objects scoop'd out like thin shells; which is, that partly by this conception, he may be the better able to separate and keep asunder the two following _general ideas_, as we will call them, belonging to form; which are apt to coincide and mix with each other in the mind, and which it is necessary (for the sake of making each more fully and particularly clear) should be kept apart, and consider'd singly. First, the _general ideas_ of what hath already been discussed in the foregoing chapters, which only comprehends the surface of form, viewing it in no other light than merely as being ornamental or not. Secondly, that _general idea_, now to be discussed, which we commonly have of form altogether, as arising chiefly from a fitness to some design'd purpose or use. Hitherto our main drift hath been to establish and illustrate the first idea only, by shewing, first the nature of variety, and then its effects on the mind; with the manner how such impressions are made by means of the different feelings given to the eye, from its movements in tracing and coursing[5] over surfaces of all kinds. [5] See Chapter V, page 25. The surface of a piece of ornament, that hath every turn in it that lines are capable of moving into, and at the same time no way applied, nor of any manner of use, but merely to entertain the eye, would be such an object as would answer to this first idea alone. The figure like a leaf, at the bottom of plate I, near to fig. 67, is something of this kind; it was taken from an ash-tree, and was a sort of Lusus naturæ, growing only like an excressence, but so beautiful in the lines of its shell-like windings, as would have been above the power of a Gibbons to have equalled, even in its own materials; nor could the graver of an Edlinck, or Drevet, have done it justice on copper. [Illustration: Fig. near Fig. 67] Note, the present taste of ornaments seems to have been partly taken from productions of this sort, which are to be found about autumn among plants, particularly asparagus, when it is running to seed. I shall now endeavour to explain what is included in what I have called for distinction sake, the second _general idea_ of form, in a much fuller manner than was done in Chapter I, of Fitness. And begin with observing, that though surfaces will unavoidably be still included, yet we must no longer confine ourselves to the particular notice of them as surfaces only, as we heretofore have done; we must now open our view to general, as well as particular bulk and solidity; and also look into what may have filled up, or given rise thereto, such as certain _given_ quantities and dimensions of parts, for inclosing any substance, or for performing of _motion, purchase, stedfastness,_ and other matters of use to living beings, which, I apprehend, at length, will bring us to a tolerable conception of the word _proportion_. As to these _joint-sensations_ of bulk and motion, do we not at first sight almost, even without making trial, seem to _feel_ when a leaver of any kind is too weak, or not long enough to make such or such a purchase? or when a spring is not sufficient? and don't we find by experience what weight, or dimension should be given, or taken away, on this or that account? if so, as the general as well as particular bulks of form, are made up of materials moulded together under mechanical directions, for some known purpose or other; how naturally, from these considerations, shall we fall into a judgment of _fit proportion_; which is one part of beauty to the mind tho' not always so to the eye. Our necessities have taught us to mould matter into various shapes, and to give them fit proportions for particular uses, as bottles, glasses, knives, dishes, &c. Hath not offence given rise to the form of the sword, and defence to that of the shield? And what else but proper fitness of parts hath fix'd the different dimensions of pistols, muskets, great guns, fowling-pieces and blunderbusses; which differences as to figure, may as properly be called the different characters of fire-arms, as the different shapes of men are called characters of men. We find also that the profuse variety of shapes, which present themselves from the whole animal creation, arise chiefly from the nice fitness of their parts, designed for accomplishing the peculiar movements of each. And here I think will be the proper place to speak of a most curious difference between the living machines of nature, in respect of fitness, and such poor ones, in comparison with them, as men are only capable of making; by means of which distinction, I am in hopes of shewing what particularly constitutes the utmost beauty of proportion in the human figure. A clock, by the government's order, has been made, and another now making, by Mr. Harrison, for the keeping of true time at sea; which perhaps is one of the most exquisite movements ever made. Happy the ingenious contriver! although the form of the whole, or of every part of this curious machine, should be ever so confused, or displeasingly shaped to the eye; and although even its movements should be disagreeable to look at, provided it answers the end proposed. An ornamental composition was no part of his scheme, otherwise than as a pollish might be necessary. If ornaments are required to be added to mend its shape, care must be taken that they are no obstruction to the movement itself, and the more as they would be superfluous, as to the main design.--But in nature's machines, how wonderfully do we see beauty and use go hand in hand! Had a machine for this purpose been nature's work, the whole and every individual part would have had exquisite beauty of form without danger of destroying the exquisiteness of its motion, even as if ornament had been the sole aim; its movements too would have been graceful, without one superfluous tittle added for either of these lovely purposes.--Now this is that curious difference between the fitness of nature's machines (one of which is man) and those made by mortal hands: which distinction is to lead us to our main point proposed; I mean, to the shewing what constitutes the utmost beauty of proportion. There was brought from France some years ago, a little clock-work machine, with a duck's head and legs fixt to it, which was so contrived as to have some resemblance of that animal standing upon one foot, and stretching back its leg, turning its head, opening and shutting its bill, moving its wings, and shaking its tail; all of them the plainest and easiest directions in living movements: yet for the poorly performing of these few motions, this silly, but much extoll'd machine, being uncover'd, appeared a most complicated, confused, and disagreeable object: nor would its being covered with a skin closely adhering to its parts, as that of a real duck's doth, have much mended its figure; at best, a bag of hob-nails, broken hinges, and patten-rings, would have looked as well, unless by other means it had been stuffed out to bring it into form. Thus again you see, the more variety we pretend to give to our trifling movements, the more confused and unornamental the forms become; nay chance but seldom helps them.--How much the reverse are nature's! the greater the variety her movements have, the more beautiful are the parts that cause them. The finny race of animals, as they have fewer motions than other creatures, so are their forms less remarkable for beauty. It is also to be noted of every species, that the handsomest of each move best: birds of a clumsy make seldom fly well, nor do lumpy fish glide so well through the water as those of a neater make; and beasts of the most elegant form, always excel in speed; of this, the horse and greyhound are beautiful examples: and even among themselves, the most elegantly made seldom fail of being the swiftest. The war-horse is more equally made for strength than the race-horse, which surplus of power in the former, if suppos'd added to the latter, as it would throw more weight into improper parts for the business of mere speed, so of course it would lessen, in some degree, that admirable quality, and partly destroy that delicate fitness of his make; but then a quality in movement, superior to that of speed, would be given to him by the addition, as he would be render'd thereby more fit to move with ease in such varied, or graceful directions, as are so delightful to the eye in the carriage of the fine manag'd war-horse; and as at the same time, something stately and graceful would be added to his figure, which before could only be said to have an elegant neatness. This noble creature stands foremost among brutes; and it is but consistent with nature's propriety, that the most useful animal in the brute-creation, should be thus signalized also for the most beauty. Yet, properly speaking, no living creatures are capable of moving in such truly varied and graceful directions, as the human species; and it would be needless to say how much superior in beauty their forms and textures likewise are. And surely also after what has been said relating to figure and motion, it is plain and evident that nature has thought fit to make beauty of proportion, and beauty of movement, necessary to each other: so that the observation before made on animals, will hold equally good with regard to man: i. e. that he who is most exquisitely well-proportion'd is most capable of exquisite movements, such as ease and _grace in deportment_, or in dancing. It may be a sort of collateral confirmation of what has been said of this method of nature's working, as well as otherwise worth our notice, that when any parts belonging to the human body are conceal'd, and not immediately concern'd in movement, all such ornamental shapes, as evidently appear in the muscles and bones[6], are totally neglected as unnecessary, for nature doth nothing in vain! this is plainly the case of the intestines, none of them having the least beauty, as to form, except the _heart_; which noble part, and indeed kind of first mover, is a simple and well-varied figure; conformable to which, some of the most elegant Roman urns and vases have been fashion'd. [6] See Chapter IX on Compositions with the Serpentine-line. Now, thus much being kept in remembrance, our next step will be to speak of, first, general measurements; such as the whole height of the body to its breadth, or the length of a limb to its thickness: and, secondly, of such appearances of dimensions as are too intricately varied to admit of a description by lines. The former will be confined to a very few straight lines, crossing each other, which will easily be understood by everyone; but the latter will require somewhat more attention, because it will extend to the precision of every modification, bound, or limit, of the human figure. To be somewhat more explicit. As to the first part, I shall begin with shewing what practicable sort of measuring may be used in order to produce the most proper variety in the proportions of the parts of any body. I say, _practicable_, because the vast variety of intricately situated parts, belonging to the human form, will not admit of measuring the distances of one part by another, by lines or points, beyond a certain degree or number, without great perplexity in the operation itself, or confusion to the imagination. For instance, say, a line representing one breadth and an half of the wrist, would be equal to the true breadth of the thickest part of the arm above the elbow; may it not then be ask'd, what part of the wrist is meant? for if you place a pair of calipers a little nearer or further from the hand, the distance of the points will differ, and so they will if they are moved close to the wrist all round, because it is flatter one way than the other; but suppose, for argument sake, one certain diameter should be fix'd upon; may it not again be ask'd, how is it to be apply'd, if to the flattest side of the arm or the roundest, and how far from the elbow, and must it be when the arm is extended or when it is bent? for this also will make a sensible difference, because in the latter position, the muscle, call'd the biceps, in the front of that part of the arm, swells up like a ball one way, and narrows itself another; nay all the muscles shift their appearances in different movements, so that whatever may have been pretended by some authors, no exact mathematical measurements by lines, can be given for the true proportion of a human body. [Illustration: Figs. 68 and 55] It comes then to this, that no longer than whilst we suppose all the lengths and breadths of the body, or limbs, to be as regular figures as cylinders, or as the leg, figure 68 in plate I, which is as round as a rolling-stone, are the measures of lengths to breadths practicable, or of any use to the knowledge of proportion: so that as all mathematical schemes are foreign to this purpose, we will endeavour to root them quite out of our way: therefore I must not omit taking notice, that Albert Durer, Lomazzo, (see two tasteless figures taken from their books of proportion [Fig. 55 p. I]) and some others, have not only puzzled mankind with a heap of minute unnecessary divisions, but also with a strange _notion_ that those divisions are govern'd by the laws of music; which mistake they seem to have been led into, by having seen certain uniform and consonant divisions upon one string produce harmony to the ear, and by persuading themselves, that similar distances in lines belonging to form, would, in like manner, delight the eye. The very reverse of which has been shewn to be true, in Chapter III, on Uniformity. "The length of the foot," say they, "in respect to the breadth, makes a _double suprabipartient_, a _diapason_, and a _diatesseron_[7]:" which, in my opinion, would have been full as applicable to the ear, or to a plant, or to a tree, or any other form whatsoever; yet these sort of _notions_ have so far prevail'd by time, that the words, _harmony of parts_, seem as applicable to form, as to music. [7] Note, these authors assure you, that this curious method of measuring, _will produce beauty far beyond any nature doth afford_. Lomazzo, recommends also another scheme, with a triangle, to correct the _poverty of nature_, as they express themselves. These _nature-menders_ put one in mind of Gulliver's tailor at Laputa, who, having taken measure of him for a suit of clothes, with a rule, quadrant, and compasses, after a considerable time spent, brought them home ill-made. Notwithstanding the absurdity of the above schemes, such measures as are to be taken from antique statues, may be of some service to painters and sculptors, especially to young beginners, but nothing nigh of such use to them, as the measures, taken the same way, from ancient buildings, have been, and are, to architects and builders; because the latter have to do with little else but plain geometrical figures: which measures, however, serve only in copying what has been done before. The few measures I shall speak of, for the setting out the general dimensions of a figure, shall be taken by straight lines only, for the more easy conception of what may indeed be properly call'd, _gaging the contents of the body_, supposing it solid like a marble statue, as the wires were described to do [Fig. 2 p. I] in the introduction: by which plain method, clear ideas may be acquir'd of what _alone_ seem to me to require measuring, of what certain lengths to what breadths make the most eligible proportions in general. [Illustration: Fig. 2] The most general dimensions of a body, or limbs, are lengths, breadths, or thicknesses: now the whole gentility of a figure, according to its character, depends upon the first proportioning these lines or wires (which are its measures) properly one to another; and the more varied these lines are, with respect to each other, the more may the future divisions be varied likewise, that are to be made on them; and of course the less varied these lines are, the parts influenced by them, as they must conform themselves to them, must have less variety too. For example, the exact cross [Fig. 69 R p. II] of two equal lines, cutting each other in the middle, would confine the figure of a man, drawn conformable to them, to the disagreeable character of his being as broad as he is long. And the two lines crossing each other, to make the height and breadth of a figure, will want variety a contrary way, by one line being very short in proportion to the other, and therefore, also incapable of producing a figure of tolerable variety. To prove this, it will be very easy for the reader to make the experiment, by drawing a figure or two (tho' ever so imperfectly) confin'd within such limits. [Illustration: Fig. 69] There is a medium between these, proper for every character, which the eye will easily and accurately determine. [Illustration: Fig. 70] Thus, if the lines, fig. [70 R p. II], were to be the measure of the extreme length and breadth, set out either for the figure of a man or a vase, the eye soon sees the longest of these is not quite sufficiently so, in proportion to the other, for a genteel man; and yet it would make a vase too taper to be elegant; no rule or compasses would decide this matter either so quickly or so precisely as a good eye. It may be observed, that minute differences in great lengths, are of little or no consequence as to proportion, because they are not to be discerned; for a man is half an inch shorter when he goes to bed at night, than when he rises in the morning, without the possibility of its being perceived. In case of a wager the application of a rule or compasses may be necessary, but seldom on any other occasion. Thus much I apprehend is sufficient for the consideration of general lengths to breadths. Where, by the way, I apprehend I have plainly shewn, that there is no practicable rule, by lines, for minutely setting out proportions _for_ the human body, and if there were, the eye alone must determine us in our choice of what is most pleasing to itself. Thus having dispatch'd general dimension, which we may say is almost as much of proportion, as is to be seen when we have our cloaths on: I shall in the second, and more extensive method proposed for considering it, set out in the familiar path of common observation, and appeal as I go on to our usual feeling, or joint-sensation, of figure and motion. Perhaps by mentioning two or three known instances it will be found that almost every one is farther advanced in the knowledge of this speculative part of proportion than he imagines; especially he who hath been used to observe naked figures doing bodily exercise, and more especially if he be any way interested in the success of them; and the better he is acquainted with the nature of the exercise itself, still the better judge he becomes of the figure that is to perform it. For this reason, no sooner are two boxers stript to fight, but even a butcher, thus skill'd, shews himself a considerable critic in proportion; and on this sort of judgment, often gives, or takes the odds, at bare sight only of the combatants. I have heard a blacksmith harangue like an anatomist, or sculptor, on the beauty of a boxer's figure, tho' not perhaps in the same terms; and I firmly believe, that one of our common proficients in the athletic art, would be able to instruct and direct the best sculptor living, (who hath not seen, or is wholly ignorant of this exercise) in what would give the statue of an English-boxer, a much better proportion, as to character, than is to be seen, even in the famous group of antique boxers, (or as some call them, Roman wrestlers) so much admired to this day. Indeed, as many parts of the body are so constantly kept cover'd, the proportion of the whole cannot be equally known; but as stockings are so close and thin a covering, every one judges of the different shapes and proportions of legs with great accuracy. The ladies always speak skilfully of necks, hands, and arms; and often will point out such particular beauties or defects in their make, as might easily escape the observation of a man of science. Surely, such determinations could not be made and pronounced with such critical truth, if the eye were not capable of measuring or judging of thicknesses by lengths, with great preciseness. Nay more, in order to determine so nicely as they often do, it must also at the same time, trace with some skill those delicate windings upon the surface which have been described in page 64 and 65, which altogether may be observ'd to include the two general ideas mention'd at the beginning of this chapter. If so, certainly it is in the power of a man of science, with as observing an eye, to go still further, and conceive, with a very little turn of thought, many other necessary circumstances concerning proportion, as of what size and in what manner the bones help to make up the bulk, and support the other parts; as well as what certain weights or dimensions of muscles are proper (according to the principle of the steelyard) to move such or such a length of arm with this or that degree of swiftness or force. But though much of this matter, may be easily understood by common observation, assisted by science, still I fear it will be difficult to raise a very clear idea of what constitutes, or composes the _utmost beauty of proportion_; such as is seen in the Antinous; which is allowed to be the most perfect in this respect, of any of the antique statues; and tho' the lovely likewise seems to have been as much the sculptor's aim, as in the Venus; yet a manly strength in its proportion is equally express'd from head to foot in it. [Illustration: Fig. 6] Let us try, however, and as this master-piece of art is so well known, we will set it up before us as a pattern, and endeavour to fabricate, or put together in the mind, such kind of parts as shall seem to build another figure like it. In doing which, we shall soon find that it is chiefly to be effected by means of the nice sensation we naturally have of what certain quantities or dimensions of parts, are fittest to produce the utmost strength for moving, or supporting great weights; and of what are most fit for the utmost light agility, as also for every degree, between these two extremes. He who hath best perfected his ideas of these matters by common observations, and by the assistance of arts relative thereto, will probably be most precisely just and clear, in conceiving the application of the various parts and dimensions, that will occur to him, in the following descriptive manner of disposing of them, in order to form the idea of a fine-proportion'd figure. Having set up the Antinous as our pattern, we will suppose there were placed on one side of it, the unwieldy elephant-like figure of an Atlas, made up of such thick bones and muscles, as would best fit him for supporting a vast weight, according to his character of extreme heavy strength. And, on the other side, imagine the slim figure of a Mercury, every where neatly formed for the utmost light agility, with slender bones and taper muscles fit for his nimble bounding from the ground.--Both these figures must be supposed of equal height, and not exceeding six foot[8]. [8] If the scale of either of these proportions were to exceed six foot in the life, the quality of strength in one, and agility in the other, would gradually decrease, the larger the person grew. There are sufficient proofs of this, both from mechanical reasonings and common observation. Our _extremes_ thus placed, now imagine the Atlas throwing off by degrees, certain portions of bone and muscle, proper for the attainment of light agility, as if aiming at the Mercury's airy form and quality, whilst on the other hand, see the Mercury augmenting his taper figure by equal degrees, and growing towards an Atlas in equal time, by receiving to the like places from whence they came, the very quantities that the other had been casting off, when, as they approach each other in weight, their forms of course may be imagined to grow more and more alike, till at a certain point of time, they meet in just similitude; which being an exact medium between the two extremes, we may thence conclude it to be the precise form of exact proportion, fittest for perfect active strength or graceful movement; such as the Antinous we proposed to imitate and figure in the mind[9]. [9] The jocky who knows to an ounce what flesh or bone in a horse is fittest for speed or strength, will as easily conceive the like process between the strongest dray-horse and the fleetest racer, and soon conclude, that the fine war-horse must be the medium between the two extremes. I am apprehensive that this part of my scheme, for explaining exact proportion, may not be thought so sufficiently determinate as could be wished: be this as it will, I must submit it to the reader, as my best resource in so difficult a case: and shall therefore beg leave to try to illustrate it a little more, by observing, that, in like manner, any two opposite colours in the _rainbow_, form a third between them, by thus imparting to each other their peculiar qualities; as for example, the brightest yellow, and the lively blue that is placed at some distance from it, visibly approach, and blend by interchangable degrees, and, as above, _temper_ rather than destroy each other's vigour, till they meet in one firm compound; whence, at a certain point, the sight of what they were originally, is quite lost; but in their stead, a most pleasing green is found, which colour nature hath chose for the vestment of the earth, and with the beauty of which the eye is never tired. From the order of the ideas which the description of the above three figures may have raised in the mind, we may easily compose between them, various other proportions. And as the painter, by means of a certain order in the arrangement of the colours upon his pallet, readily mixes up what kind of tint he pleases, so may we mix up and compound in the imagination such fit parts as will be consistent with this or that particular character, or at least be able thereby to discover how such characters are composed, when we see them either in art or nature. But perhaps even the word _character, as it relates to form,_ may not be quite understood by every one, tho' it is so frequently used: nor do I remember to have seen it explained any where. Therefore on this account--and also as it will further shew the use of thinking of form and motion together, it will not be improper to observe,--that notwithstanding a character, in this sense, chiefly depends on a figure being remarkable as to its form, either in some particular part, or altogether; yet surely no figure, be it ever so singular, can be perfectly conceived as a character, till we find it connected with some remarkable circumstance or cause, for such particularity of appearance; for instance, a fat bloted person doth not call to mind the character of a Silenus, till we have joined the idea of voluptuousness with it; so likewise strength to support, and clumsiness of figure, are united, as well in the character of an Atlas as in a porter. When we consider the great weight chairmen often have to carry, do we not readily consent that there is a propriety and fitness in the tuscan order of their legs, by which they properly become _characters_ as to figure? Watermen too, are of a distinct cast, or character, whose legs are no less remarkable for their smallness: for as there is naturally the greatest call for nutriment to the parts that are most exercised, so of course these that lye so much stretched out, are apt to dwindle, or not grow to their full size. There is scarcely a waterman that rows upon the Thames, whose figure doth not confirm this observation. Therefore were I to paint the character of a Charon, I would thus distinguish his make from that of a common man's; and, in spite of the word _low_, venture to give him a broad pair of shoulders, and spindle shanks, whether I had the authority of an antique statue, or basso-relievo, for it or not. May be, I cannot throw a stronger light on what has been hitherto said of proportion, than by animadverting on a remarkable beauty in the Apollo-belvedere; which hath given it the preference even to the Antinous: I mean a super-addition of _greatness_, to at least as much beauty and grace, as is found in the latter. These two master-pieces of art, are seen together in the same palace at Rome, where the Antinous fills the spectator with admiration only, whilst the Apollo strikes him with surprise, and, as travellers express themselves, with an appearance of something _more than human_; which they _of course_ are always at a loss to describe: and this effect, they say, is the more astonishing, as upon examination its disproportion is evident even to a common eye. One of the best sculptors we have in England, who lately went to see them, confirm'd to me what has been now said, particularly as to the legs and thighs being too long, and too large for the upper parts. And Andrea Sacchi, one of the great Italian painters, seems to have been of the same opinion, or he would hardly have given his Apollo, crowning Pasquilini the musician, the exact proportion of the Antinous, (in a famous picture of his now in England) as otherwise it seems to be a direct copy from the Apollo. Although in very great works we often see an inferior part neglected, yet here it cannot be the case, because in a fine statue, just proportion is one of its essential beauties: therefore it stands to reason, that these limbs must have been lengthened on purpose, otherwise it might easily have been avoided. So that if we examine the beauties of this figure thoroughly, we may reasonably conclude, that what has been hitherto thought so unaccountably _excellent_ in its general appearance, hath been owing to what hath seem'd a _blemish_ in a part of it: but let us endeavour to make this matter as clear as possible, as it may add more force to what has been said. Statues by being bigger than life, (as this is one, and larger than the Antinous) always gain some nobleness in effect, according to the principle of quantity[10] but this alone is not sufficient to give what is properly to be called, _greatness_ in proportion; for were figures 17 and 18, in plate I, to be drawn or carved by a scale of ten feet high, they would still be but pigmy proportions, as, on the other hand, a figure of but two inches, may represent a gigantic height. [Illustration: Figs. 17 and 18] [10] See Chapter VI. Therefore _greatness_ of proportion must be considered, as depending on the application of _quantity_ to those parts of the body where it can give more scope to its grace in movement, as to the neck for the larger and swan-like turns of the head, and to the legs and thighs, for the more ample sway of all the upper parts together. By which we find that the Antinous's being equally magnified to the Apollo's height, would not sufficiently produce that superiority of effect, as to greatness, so evidently seen in the latter. The additions necessary to the production of this _greatness_ in proportion, as it there appears added to grace, must then be, by the proper application of them, to the parts mention'd only. I know not how further to prove this matter than by appealing to the reader's eye, and common observation, as before. The Antinous being allowed to have the justest proportion possible, let us see what addition, upon the principle of quantity, can be made to it, without taking away any of its beauty. If we imagine an addition of dimensions to the head, we shall immediately conceive it would only deform--if to the hands or feet, we are sensible of something gross and ungenteel,--if to the whole lengths of the arms, we feel they would be dangling and aukward--if by an addition of length or breadth to the body, we know it would appear heavy and clumsy--there remains then only the _neck_, with the _legs_ and _thighs_ to speak of; but, to these we find, that not only certain additions may be admitted without causing any disagreeable effect, but that thereby _greatness_, the last perfection as to proportion, is given to the human form; as is evidently express'd in the Apollo: and may still be further confirmed by examining the drawings of Parmigiano, where these particulars are seen in excess; yet on this account his works are said, by all true connoisseurs, to have an inexpressible greatness of taste in them, though otherwise very incorrect. Let us now return to the two general ideas we set out with at the beginning of this chapter, and recollect that under the first, on surface, I have shewn in what manner, and how far human proportion is measureable, by varying the contents of the body, conformable to the given proportion of two lines. And that under the second and more extensive general idea of form, as arising from fitness for movement, &c. I have endeavour'd to explain, by every means I could devise, that every particular and minute dimension of the body, should conform to such purposes of movement, &c. as have been first properly considered and determined: on which conjunctively, the true proportion of every character must depend; and is found so to do, by our joint-sensation of bulk and motion. Which account of the proportion of the human body, however imperfect, may possibly stand its ground, till one more plausible shall be given. As the Apollo [Fig. 12 p. I] has been only mention'd on account of the greatness of its proportion, I think in justice to so fine a performance; and also as it is not foreign to the point we have been upon, we may subjoin an Observation or two on its perfections. [Illustration: Fig. 12] Besides, what is commonly allow'd, if we consider it by the rules here given for constituting or composing character, it will discover the author's great sagacity, in choosing a proportion for this deity, which has served two noble purposes at once; in that these very dimensions which appear to have given it so much dignity, are the same that are best fitted to produce the utmost speed. And what could characterise the god of day, either so strongly or elegantly, to be expressive in a statue, as superior swiftness, and beauty dignify'd? and how poetically doth the action it is put into, carry on the allusion to speed,[11] as he is lightly stepping forward, and seeming to shoot his arrows from him; if the arrows may be allowed to signify the sun's rays? This at least may as well be supposed as the common surmise, that he is killing the dragon, Python; which certainly is very inconsistent with so erect an attitude, and benign an aspect[12]. [11]----the sun: which cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course. Psalm xix. 5. [12] The accounts given, in relation to this statue, make it so highly probable that it was the great Apollo of Delphos, that, for my own part, I make no manner of doubt of its being so. Nor are the inferior parts neglected: the drapery also that depends from his shoulders, and folds over his extended arm, hath its treble office. As first, it assists in keeping the general appearance within the boundary of a pyramid, which being inverted, is, for a single figure, rather more natural and genteel than one upon its basis. Secondly, it fills up the vacant angle under the arm, and takes off the straightness of the lines the arm necessarily makes with the body in such an action; and, lastly, spreading as it doth, in pleasing folds, it helps to satisfy the eye with a noble quantity in the composition altogether, without depriving the beholder of any part of the beauties of the naked: in short, this figure might serve, were a lecture to be read over it, to exemplify every principle that hath been hitherto advanced. We shall therefore close not only all we have to say on proportion with it, but our whole lineal account of form, except what we have particularly to offer as to the face; which it will be proper to defer, till we have spoken of _light_ and _shade_ and _colour_. As some of the ancient statues have been of such singular use to me, I shall beg leave to conclude this chapter with an observation or two on them in general. It is allowed by the most skilful in the imitative arts, that tho' there are many of the remains of antiquity, that have great excellencies about them; yet there are not, moderately speaking, above twenty that may be justly called _capital_. There is one reason, nevertheless, besides the blind veneration that generally is paid to antiquity, for holding even many very imperfect pieces in some degree of estimation: I mean that _peculiar taste of elegance_ which so visibly runs through them all, down to the most incorrect of their basso-relievos: which _taste_, I am persuaded, my reader will now conceive to have been entirely owing to the perfect knowledge the ancients must have had of the use of the precise serpentine-line. But this cause of _elegance_ not having been since sufficiently understood, no wonder such effects should have appear'd mysterious, and have drawn mankind into a sort of religious esteem, and even bigotry, to the works of antiquity. Nor have there been wanting of artful people, who have made good profit of those whose unbounded admiration hath run them into enthusiasm. Nay there are, I believe, some who still carry on a comfortable trade in such originals as have been so defaced and maimed by time, that it would be impossible, without a pair of _double-ground_ connoisseur-spectacles, to see whether they have ever been good or bad: they deal also in cook'd-up copies, which they are very apt to put off for originals. And whoever dares be bold enough to detect such impositions, finds himself immediately branded, and given out as one of low ideas, ignorant of the true sublime, self-conceited, envious, &c. But as there are a great part of mankind that delight most in what they least understand; for ought I know, the emolument may be equal between the _bubler_ and the _bubled_: at least this seems to have been Butler's opinion: Doubtless the pleasure is as great In being cheated, as to cheat. CHAPTER XII. _Of LIGHT and SHADE, and the manner in which objects are explained to the eye by them_. Although both this and the next chapter may seem more particularly relative to the art of painting, than any of the foregoing; yet, as hitherto, I have endeavour'd to be understood by every reader, so here also I shall avoid, as much as the subject will permit, speaking of what would only be well-conceived by painters. There is such a subtile variety in the nature of appearances, that probably we shall not be able to gain much ground by this enquiry, unless we exert and apply the full use of every sense, that will convey to us any information concerning them. So far as we have already gone, the sense of feeling, as well as that of seeing, hath been apply'd to; so that perhaps a man born blind, may, by his better touch than is common to those who have their sight, together with the regular process that has been here given of lines, so feel out the nature of forms, as to make a tolerable judgment of what is beautiful to sight. Here again our other senses must assist us, notwithstanding in this chapter we shall be more confined to what is communicated to the eye by rays of light; and tho' things must now be consider'd as appearances only; produced and made out merely by means of _lights, shades,_ and _colours_. By the various circumstances of which, every one knows we have represented on the flat surface of the looking-glass, pictures equal to the originals reflected by it. The painter too, by proper dispositions of lights, shades, and colours, on his canvas, will raise the like ideas. Even prints, by means of lights and shades alone, will perfectly inform the eye of every shape and distance whatsoever, in which even lines must be consider'd as narrow parts of shade, a number of them, drawn or engrav'd neatly side by side, called _hatching_, serve as shades in prints, and when they are artfully managed, are a kind of pleasing _succedaneum_ to the delicacy of nature's. Could mezzo-tinto prints be wrought as accurately as those with the graver, they would come nearest to nature, because they are done without strokes or lines. I have often thought that a landskip, in the process of this way of representing it, doth a little resemble the first coming on of day. The copper-plate it is done upon, when the artist first takes it into hand, is wrought all over with an edg'd-tool, so as to make it print one even black, like night: and his whole work after this, is merely introducing the lights into it; which he does by scraping off the rough grain according to his design, artfully smoothing it most where light is most required: but as he proceeds in burnishing the lights, and clearing up the shades, he is obliged to take off frequent impressions to prove the progress of the work, so that each proof appears like the different times of a foggy morning, till one becomes so finish'd as to be distinct and clear enough to imitate a day-light piece. I have given this description because I think the whole operation, in the simplest manner, shews what lights and shades alone will do. As light must always be supposed, I need only speak of such privations of it as are called shades or shadows, wherein I shall endeavour to point out and regularly describe a certain order and arrangement in their appearance, in which order we may conceive different kinds of softnings and modulations of the rays of light which are said to fall upon the eye from every object it sees, and to cause those more or less-pleasing vibrations of the optic nerves, which serve to inform the mind concerning every different shape or figure that presents itself. The best light for seeing the shadows of objects truly, is, that which comes in at a common sized window, where the sun doth not shine; I shall therefore speak of their order as seen by this kind of light: and shall take the liberty in the present and following chapter, to consider colours but as variegated shades, which together with common shades, will now be divided into two general parts or branches. The first we shall call PRIME TINTS, by which is meant any colour or colours on the surfaces of objects; and the use we shall make of these different hues will be to consider them as shades to one another. Thus gold is a shade to silver, &c. exclusive of those additional shades which may be made in any degree by the privation of light. The second branch may be called RETIRING SHADES, which gradate or go off by degrees, as figs. [84 and 85 T p. II]. These shades, as they vary more or less, produce beauty, whether they are occasioned by the privation of light, or made by the pencilings of art or nature. [Illustration: Figs. 84 and 85] When I come to treat of colouring, I shall particularly shew in what manner the gradating of prime tints serve to the making a beautiful complexion; in this place we shall only observe how nature hath by these gradating shades ornamented the surfaces of animals; fish generally have this kind of shade from their backs downward; birds have their feathers enriched with it; and many flowers, particularly the rose, shew it by the gradually-increasing colours of their leaves. The sky always gradates one way or other, and the rising or setting sun exhibits it in great perfection, the imitating of which was Claud. de Loraine's peculiar excellence, and is now Mr. Lambert's: there is so much of what is called harmony to the eye to be produced by this shade, that I believe we may venture to say, in art it is the painter's gamut, which nature has sweetly pointed out to us in what we call the eyes of a peacock's tail: and the nicest needle-workers are taught to weave it into every flower and leaf, right or wrong, as if it was as constantly to be observed as it is seen in flames of fire; because it is always found to entertain the eye. There is a sort of needle-work called Irish-stitch, done in these shades only; which pleases still, tho' it has long been out of fashion. There is so strict an analogy between shade and sound, that they may well serve to illustrate each other's qualities: for as sounds gradually decreasing and increasing give the idea of progression from, or to the ear, just so do retiring shades shew progression, by figuring it to the eye. Thus, as by objects growing still fainter, we judge of distances in prospects, so by the decreasing noise of thunder, we form the idea of its moving further from us. And with regard to their similitude in beauty, like as the gradating shade pleases the eye, so the increasing, or swelling note, delights the ear. I have call'd it the retiring shade, because by the successive, or continual change in its appearance, it is equally instrumental with converging lines[13], in shewing how much objects, or any parts of them, retire or recede from the eye; without which, a floor, or horizontal-plane, would often seem to stand upright like a wall. And notwithstanding all the other ways by which we learn to know at what distances things are from us, frequent deceptions happen to the eye on account of deficiencies in this shade: for if the light chances to be so disposed on objects as not to give this shade its true gradating appearance, not only spaces are confounded, but round things appear flat, and flat ones round. [13] See p. 17. The two converging lines from the ship, to the point C, under fig. 47, plate I. [Illustration: Fig. 94] But although the retiring shade hath this property, when seen with converging lines, yet if it describes no particular form, as none of those do in fig. 94, on top of plate II, it can only appear as a flat-pencil'd shade; but being inclosed within some known boundary or out-line, such as may signify a wall, a road, a globe, or any other form in perspective where the parts retire, it will then shew its retiring quality: as for example, the retiring shade on the floor, in plate II, which gradates from the dog's feet to those of the dancer's, shews, that by this means a level appearance is given to the ground: so when a cube is put into true perspective on paper, with lines only, which do but barely hint the directions every face of it is meant to take, these shades make them seem to retire just as the perspective lines direct; thus mutually compleating the idea of those recessions which neither of them alone could do. [Illustration: gradated shade] Moreover, the out-line of a globe is but a circle on the paper; yet, according to the manner of filling up the space within it, with this shade, it may be made to appear either flat, globular, or concave, in any of its positions with the eye; and as each manner of filling up the circle for those purposes must be very different, it evidently shews the necessity of distinguishing this shade into as many species or kinds, as there are classes or species of lines, with which they may have a correspondence. In doing which, it will be found, that, by their correspondency with, and conformity to objects, either composed of straight, curved, waving, or serpentine lines, they of course take such appearances of variety as are adequate to the variety made by those lines; and by this conformity of shades we have the same ideas of any of the objects composed of the above lines in their front aspects, as we have of them by their profiles; which otherwise could not be without feeling them. Now instead of giving engraved examples of each species of shade, as I have done of lines, I have found that they may be more satisfactorily pointed out and described by having recourse to the life. But in order to the better and more precisely fixing upon what may be there seen, as the distinct species, of which all the shades of the retiring kind in nature partake, in some degree or other, the following scheme is offered, and intended as an additional means of making such simple impressions in the mind, as may be thought adequate to the four species of lines described in Chapter VII. Wherein we are to suppose imperceptible degrees of shade gradating from one figure to another. The first species to be represented by, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. the second by, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. and the third by, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. gradating from the dots underneath, repeated either way. As the first species varies or gradates but one way, it is therefore least ornamental, and equal only to straight lines. The second gradating contrary ways, doubling the others variety, is consequently twice as pleasing, and thereby equal to curved lines. The third species gradating doubly contrary ways, is thereby still more pleasing in proportion to that quadruple variety which makes it become capable of conveying to the mind an equivalent in shade, which expresses the beauty of the waving line, when it cannot be seen as a line. The retiring shade, adequate to the serpentine line, now should follow; but as the line itself could not be expressed on paper, without the figure of a cone [Fig. 26 p. I], so neither can this shade be described without the assistance of a proper form, and therefore must be deferred a little longer. [Illustration: Fig. 26] When only the ornamental quality of shades is spoken of, for the sake of distinguishing them from retiring shades, let them be considered as pencilings only; whence another advantage will arise, which is, that then all the intervening mixtures, with their degrees of beauty between each species, may be as easily conceived, as those have been between each class of lines. And now let us have recourse to the experiments in life, for such examples as may explain the retiring power of each species; since, as has been before observed, they must be considered together with their proper forms, or else their properties cannot be well distinguished. All the degrees of obliquity that planes, or flat surfaces are capable of moving into, have their appearances of recession perfected by the first species of retiring shades, which may evidently be seen by setting opposite a door, as it is opening outwards from the eye, and fronting one light. But it will be proper to premise, that when it is quite shut, and flat or parallel to the eye and window, it will have only a penciling shade gradating upon it, and spreading all around from the middle, but which will not have the power of giving the idea of recession any way, as when it opens, and the lines run in perspective to a point; because the square figure or parallel lines of the door, do not correspond with such shade; but let a door be circular in the same situation, and all without side, or round about it, painted of any other colour, to make its figure more distinctly seen, and it will immediately appear concave like a bason, the shade continually retiring; because this circular species of shade would then be accompanied by its corresponding form, a circle[14]. [14] Note, if the light were to come in at a very little hole not far from the door, so as to make the gradation sudden and strong, like what may be made with a small candle held near a wall or a wainscot, the bason would appear the deeper for it. Note also, that when planes are seen parallel to the eye in open day-light, they have scarce any round gradating or penciling shade at all, but appear merely as uniform prime tints, because the rays of light are equally diffused upon them. Nevertheless, give them but obliquity, they will more or less exhibit the retiring shade. But to return; we observ'd that all the degrees of obliquity in the moving of planes or flat surfaces, have the appearances of their recession perfected to the eye by the first species of retiring shade. For example, then; when the door opens, and goes from its parallel situation with the eye, the shade last spoken of, may be observed to alter and change its round gradating appearance, into that of gradating one way only; as when a standing water takes a current upon the least power given it to descend. Note, if the light should come in at the door-way, instead of the window, the gradation then would be reversed but still the effect of recession would be just the same, as this shade ever complies with the perspective lines. In the next place, let us observe the _ovolo_, or quarter-round in a cornice, fronting the eye in like manner, by which may be seen an example of the second species; where, on its most projecting part, a line of light is seen, from whence these shades retire contrary ways, by which the curvature is understood. And, perhaps, in the very same cornice may be seen an example of the third species, in that ornamental member called by the architects _cyma recta_, or talon, which indeed is no more than a larger sort of waving or ogee moulding; wherein, by the convex parts gently gliding into the concave, you may see four contrasted gradating shades, shewing so many varied recessions from the eye; by which we are made as sensible of its waving form as if we saw the profile out-line of some corner of it, where it is miter'd, as the joiners term it. Note, when these objects have a little gloss on them these appearances are most distinct. Lastly, the serpentine shade may be seen (light and situation as before) by the help of the following figure, as thus; imagine the horn, figure 57, plate II, to be of so soft a nature, that with the fingers only, it might be pressed into any shape; then beginning gently from the middle of the dotted line, but pressing harder and harder all the way up the lesser end, by such pressure there would be as much concave above, as would remain convex below, which would bring it equal in variety or beauty to the ogee moulding; but after this, by giving the whole a twist, like figure 58, these shades must unavoidably change their appearances, and in some measure, twist about as the concave and convex parts are twisted, and consequently thereby add that variety, which of course will give this species of shade, as much the preference to the foregoing, as forms composed of serpentine lines have, to those composed only of the waving. See Chapter IX and Chapter X. [Illustration: Figs. 57 and 58] I should not have given my reader the trouble of compleating, by the help of his imagination, the foregoing figure, but as it may contribute to the more ready and particular conception of that intricate variety which twisted figures give to this species of shade, and to facilitate his understanding the cause of its beauty, wherever it may be seen on surfaces of ornament, when it will be found no where more conspicuous than in a fine face, as will be seen upon further enquiry. The dotted line [Fig. 97 B p. I], which begins from the concave part, under the arch of the brow, near the nose, and from thence winding down by the corner of the eye, and there turning obliquely with the round of the cheek, shews the course of that twist of shades in a face, which was before described by the horn; and which may be most perfectly seen in the life, or in a marble busto, together with the following additional circumstances still remaining to be described. [Illustration: Fig. 97] As a face is for the most part round, it is therefore apt to receive reflected light on its shadowy side[15], which not only adds more beauty by another pleasing tender gradation, but also serves to distinguish the roundness of the cheeks, &c. from such parts as sink and fall in: because concavities do not admit of reflections, as convex forms do[16]. [15] Note, though I have advised the observing objects by a front light, for the sake of the better distinguishing our four fundamental species of shades, yet objects in general are more advantagiously, and agreeably seen by light coming side-ways upon them, and therefore generally chose in paintings; as it gives an additional reflected softness, not unlike the gentle tone of an echo in music. [16] As an instance that convex and concave would appear the same, if the former were to have no reflection thrown upon, observe the ovolo and cavetto, or channel, in a cornice, placed near together, and seen by a front light, when they will each of them, by turns, appear either concave, or convex, as fancy shall direct. I have now only to add, that as before observed, Chapter IV, page 23, that the oval hath a noble simplicity in it, more equal to its variety than any other object in nature; and of which the general form of a face is composed; therefore, from what has been now shewn, the general gradation-shade belonging to it, must consequently be adequate thereto, and which evidently gives a delicate softness to the whole composition of a face; insomuch that every little dent, crack, or scratch, the form receives, its shadows also suffer with it, and help to shew the blemish. Even the least roughness interrupts and damages that soft gradating play of shades which fall upon it. Mr. Dryden, describing the light and shades of a face, in his epistle to Sir Godfrey Kneller the portrait painter, seems, by the penetration of his incomparable genius, to have understood that language in the works of nature, which the latter, by means of an exact eye and a strict obeying hand, could only faithfully transcribe; when he says, Where light to shades descending, plays, not strives, Dies by degrees, and by degrees revives. CHAPTER XIII. _Of COMPOSITION with regard to LIGHT, SHADE and COLOURS_. Under this head I shall attempt shewing what it is that gives the appearance of that hollow or vacant space in which all things move so freely; and in what manner light, shade and colours, mark or point out the distances of one object from another, and occasion an agreeable play upon the eye, called by the painters a fine keeping, and pleasing composition of light and shade. Herein my design is to consider this matter as a performance of nature _without_, or before the eye; I mean, as if the objects with their shades, &c. were in fact circumstanced as they appear, and as the unskill'd in optics take them to be. And let it be remarked throughout this chapter, that the pleasure arising from composition, as in a fine landskip, &c. is chiefly owing to the dispositions and assemblages of light and shades, which are so order'd by the principles called OPPOSITION, BREADTH and SIMPLICITY, as to produce a just and distinct perception of the objects before us. Experience teaches us that the eye may be subdued and forced into forming and disposing of objects even quite contrary to what it would naturally see them, by the prejudgment of the mind from the better authority of feeling, or some other persuasive motive. But surely this extraordinary perversion of the sight would not have been suffer'd, did it not tend to great and necessary purposes, in rectifying some deficiencies which it would otherwise be subject to (tho' we must own at the same time, that the mind itself may be so imposed upon as to make the eye see falsely as well as truly) for example, were it not for this controul over the sight, it is well known, that we should not only see things double, but upside down, as they are painted upon the retina, and as each eye has a distinct sight. And then as to distances; a fly upon a pane of glass is sometimes imagined a crow, or larger bird afar off, till some circumstance hath rectified the mistake, and convinced us of its real size and place. Hence I would infer, that the eye generally gives its assent to such space and distances as have been first measured by the feeling, or otherwise calculated in the mind: which measurements and calculations are equally, if not more, in the power of a blind man, as was fully experienced by that incomparable mathematician and wonder of his age, the late professor Sanderson. By pursuing this observation on the faculties of the mind, an idea may be formed of the means by which we attain to the perception or appearance of an immense space surrounding us; which cavity, being subject to divisions and subdivisions in the mind, is afterwards fashioned by the limited power of the eye, first into a hemisphere, and then into the appearance of different distances, which are pictured to it by means of such dispositions of light and shade as shall next be described. And these I now desire may be looked upon, but as so many _marks_ or _types_ set upon these distances, and which are remember'd and learnt by degrees, and when learnt, are recurred to upon all occasions. If permitted then to consider light and shades as _types of distinction_, they become, as it were, our materials, of which _prime tints_ are the principal; by these, I mean the fixed and permanent colours of each object, as the green of trees, &c. which serve the purposes of separating and relieving the several objects by the different strengths or shades of them being opposed to each other [Fig. 86 T p. II]. [Illustration: Fig. 86] The other shades that have been before spoken of, serve and help to the like purposes when properly opposed; but as in nature they are continually fleeting and changing their appearances, either by our or their situations, they sometimes oppose and relieve, and sometimes not, as for instance; I once observed the tower-part of a steeple so exactly the colour of a light cloud behind it, that, at the distance I stood, there was not the least distinction to be made, so that the spire (of a lead-colour) seemed suspended in the air; but had a cloud of the like tint with the steeple, supplied the place of the white one, the tower would then have been relieved and distinct, when the spire would have been lost to the view. Nor is it sufficient that objects are of different colours or shades, to shew their distances from the eye, if one does not in part hide or lay over the other, as in fig. 86. [Illustration: Fig. 90] For as fig. [90 T p. II] the two equal balls, tho' one were black and the other white, placed on the separate walls, supposed distant from each other twenty or thirty feet, nevertheless, may seem both to rest upon one, if the tops of the walls are level with the eye; but when one ball hides part of the other, as in the same figure, we begin to apprehend they are upon different walls, which is determin'd by the perspective[17]: hence you will see the reason, why the steeple of Bloomsbury-church, in coming from Hampstead, seems to stand upon Montague-house, tho' it is several hundred yards distant from it. [17] The knowledge of perspective is no small help to the seeing objects truly, for which purpose Dr. Brook Taylor's Linear perspective made easy to those who are unacquainted with geometry, proposed to be publish'd soon by Mr. Kirby of Ipswich, may be of most service. Since then the opposition of one prime tint or shade to another, hath so great a share in marking out the recessions, or distances in a prospect, by which the eye is led onward step by step, it becomes a principle of consequence enough to be further discussed, with regard to the management of it in compositions of nature, as well as art. As to the management of it, when seen only from one point, the artist hath the advantage over nature, because such fix'd dispositions of shades as he hath artfully put together, cannot be displaced by the alteration of light, for which reason, designs done in two prime tints only, will sufficiently represent all those recessions, and give a just keeping to the representation of a prospect, in a print; whereas, the oppositions in nature, depending, as has been before hinted, on accidental situations and uncertain incidents, do not always make such pleasing composition, and would therefore have been very often deficient, had nature worked in two colours only; for which reason she hath provided an infinite number of materials, not only by way of prevention, but to add lustre and beauty to her works. By an infinite number of materials, I mean colours and shades of all kinds and degrees; some notion of which variety may be formed by supposing a piece of white silk by several dippings gradually dyed to a black; and carrying it in like manner through the prime tints of yellow, red, and blue; and then again, by making the like progress through all the mixtures that are to be made of these three original colours. So that when we survey this infinite and immense variety, it is no wonder, that, let the light or objects be situated or changed how they will, oppositions seldom miss; nor that even every incident of shade should sometimes be so completely disposed as to admit of no further beauty, as to composition; and from whence the artist hath by observation taken his principles of imitation, as in the following respect. [Illustration: Fig. 89] Those objects which are intended most to affect the eye, and come forwardest to the view, must have large, strong, and smart oppositions, like the fore-ground in fig. [89 p. II], and what are designed to be thrown further off, must be made still weaker and weaker, as expressed in figures 86, 92, and 93, which receding in order make a kind of gradation of oppositions; to which, and all the other circumstances already described, both for recession, and beauty, nature hath added what is known by the name of aerial perspective; being that interposition of air, which throws a general soft retiring tint over the whole prospect; to be seen in excess at the rising of a fog. All which again receives still more distinctness, as well as a greater degree of variety, when the sun shines bright, and casts broad shadows of one object upon another; which gives the skilful designer such hints for shewing broad and fine oppositions of shades, as give life and spirit to his performances. [Illustration: Figs. 92 and 93] BREADTH of SHADE is a principle that assists in making distinction more conspicuous; thus fig. [87 p. I], is better distinguish'd by its breadth or quantity of shade, and view'd with more ease and pleasure at any distance, than fig. [88 p. I], which hath many, and these but narrow shades between the folds. And for one of the noblest instances of this, let Windsor-castle be viewed at the rising or setting of the sun. [Illustration: Figs. 87 and 88] Let breadth be introduced how it will, it always gives great repose to the eye; as on the contrary, when lights and shades in a composition are scattered about in little spots, the eye is constantly disturbed, and the mind is uneasy, especially if you are eager to understand every object in the composition, as it is painful to the ear when any one is anxious to know what is said in company, where many are talking at the same time. SIMPLICITY (which I am last to speak of) in the disposition of a great variety, is best accomplished by following nature's constant rule, of dividing composition into three or five parts, or parcels, see Chapter IV on simplicity: the painters accordingly divide theirs into fore-ground, middle-ground, and distance or back-ground; which simple and distinct quantities _mass_ together that variety which entertains the eye; as the different parts of base, tenor, and treble, in a composition in music, entertain the ear. Let these principles be reversed, or neglected, the the light and shade will appear as disagreeable as fig. [91 T p. II], whereas, was this to be a composition of lights and shades only, properly disposed, tho' ranged under no particular figures, it might still have the pleasing effect of a picture. And here, as it would be endless to enter upon the different effects of lights and shades on lucid and transparent bodies, we shall leave them to the reader's observation, and so conclude this chapter. [Illustration: Fig. 91] CHAPTER XIV. _Of COLOURING_. By the beauty of colouring, the painters mean that disposition of colours on objects, together with their proper shades, which appear at the same time both distinctly varied and artfully united, in compositions of any kind; but, by way of pre-eminence, it is generally understood of flesh-colour, when no other composition is named. To avoid confusion, and having already said enough of retiring shades, I shall now only describe the nature and effect of the prime tint of flesh; for the composition of this, when rightly understood, comprehends every thing that can be said of the colouring of all other objects whatever. And herein (as has been shewn in Chapter VIII, of the manner of composing pleasing forms) the whole process will depend upon the art of varying; i. e. upon an artful manner of varying every colour belonging to flesh, under the direction of the six fundamental principles there spoken of. But before we proceed to shew in what manner these principles conduce to this design, we shall take a view of nature's curious ways of producing all sorts of complexions, which may help to further our conception of the principles of varying colours, so as to see why they cause the effect of beauty. It is well known, the fair young girl, the brown old man, and the negro; nay, all mankind, have the same appearance, and are alike disagreeable to the eye, when the upper skin is taken away: now to conceal so disagreeable an object, and to produce that variety of complexions seen in the world, nature hath contrived a transparent skin, called the cuticula, with a lining to it of a very extraordinary kind, called the cutis; both which are so thin any little scald will make them blister and peel off. These adhering skins are more or less transparent in some parts of the body than in others, and likewise different in different persons. The cuticula alone is like gold-beaters-skin, a little wet, but somewhat thinner, especially in fair young people, which would shew the fat, lean, and all the blood-vessels, just as they lie under it, as through Isinglass, were it not for its lining the cutis, which is so curiously constructed, as to exhibit those things beneath it which are necessary to life and motion, in pleasing arrangements and dispositions of beauty. The cutis is composed of tender threads like network, fill'd with different colour'd juices. The white juice serves to make the very fair complexion;--yellow, makes the brunnet;--brownish yellow, the ruddy brown;--green yellow, the olive;--dark brown, the mulatto;--black, the negro;--These different colour'd juices, together with the different _meshes_ of the network, and the size of its threads in this or that part, causes the variety of complexions. A description of this manner of its shewing the rosy colour of the cheek, and, in like manner, the bluish tints about the temple, &c. see in the profile [fig. 95 T p. II], where you are to suppose the black strokes of the print to be the white threads of the network, and where the strokes are thickest, and the part blackest, you are to suppose the flesh would be whitest; so that the lighter part of it stands for the vermilion-colour of the cheek, gradating every way. [Illustration: Fig. 95] Some persons have the network so equally wove over the whole body, face and all, that the greatest heat or cold will hardly make them change their colour; and these are seldom seen to blush, tho' ever so bashful, whilst the texture is so fine in some young women, that they redden, or turn pale, on the least occasion. I am apt to think the texture of this network is of a very tender kind, subject to damage many ways, but able to recover itself again, especially in youth. The fair fat healthy child of 3 or 4 years old hath it in great perfection; most visible when it is moderately warm, but till that age somewhat imperfect. It is in this manner, then, that nature seems to do her work.--And now let us see how by art the like appearance may be made and penciled on the surface of a uniform coloured statue of wax or marble; by describing which operation we shall still more particularly point out what is to our present purpose: I mean the reason why the order nature hath thus made use of should strike us with the idea of beauty; which by the way, perhaps may be of more use to some painters than they will care to own. [Illustration: Fig. 94] There are but three original colours in painting besides black and white, viz. red, yellow and blue. Green, and purple, are compounded; the first of blue and yellow, the latter of red and blue: however these compounds being so distinctly different from the original colours, we will rank them as such. Fig. [94 T p. II], represents mixt up, as on a painter's pallet, scales of these five original colours divided into seven classes--1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.--4, is the medium, and most brillant class, being that which will appear a firm red, when those of 5, 6, 7, would deviate into white, and those of 1, 2, 3, would sink into black, either by twilight or at a moderate distance from the eye, which shews 4 to be brightest, and a more permanent colour than the rest. But as white is nearest to light it may be said to be equal if not superior in value as to beauty, with class 4. Therefore the classes 5, 6, 7, have also, almost equal beauty with it too, because what they lose of their brillancy and permanency of colour, they gain from the white or light; whereas 3, 2, 1, absolutely lose their beauty by degrees as they approach nearer to black, the representative of darkness. Let us then, for distinction and pre-eminence sake, call class 4 of each colour, _bloom tints_, or if you please, virgin tints, as the painters call them; and once more recollect, that in the disposition of colours as well as of forms, variety, simplicity, distinctness, intricacy, uniformity and quantity, direct in giving beauty to the colouring of the human frame, especially if we include the face, where uniformity and strong opposition of tints are required, as in the eyes and mouth, which call most for our attention. But for the general hue of flesh now to be described, variety, intricacy and simplicity, are chiefly required. The value of the degrees of colour being thus consider'd and ranged in order upon the pallet, figure 94, let us next apply them to a busto, fig. [96 R p. II], of white marble, which may be supposed to let every tint sink into it, like as a drop of ink sinks in and spreads itself upon course paper, whereby each tint will gradate all around. [Illustration: Fig. 96] If you would have the neck of the busto tinged of a very florid and lively complexion, the pencil must be dipt in the bloom tints of each colour as they stand one above another at No. 4.--if for a less florid, in those of No. 5--if for a very fair, from No. 6--and so on till the marble would scarce be ting'd at all: let therefore No. 6, be our present choice, and begin with penciling on the red, as at r, the yellow tint at y, the blue tint at b, and the purple or lake tint at p. These four tints thus laid on, proceed to covering the whole neck and breast, but still changing and varying the situations of the tints with one another, also causing their shapes and sizes to differ as much as possible; red must be oftenest repeated, yellow next often, purple red next, and blue but seldom, except in particular parts as the temples, backs of the hands, &c. where the larger veins shew their branching shapes (sometimes too distinctly) still varying those appearances. But there are no doubt infinite variations in nature, from what may be called the most beautiful order and disposition of the colours in flesh, not only in different persons, but in different parts of the same, all subject to the same principles in some degree or other. Now if we imagine this whole process to be made with the tender tints of class 7, as they are supposed to stand, red, yellow, blue, green and purple, underneath each other; the general hue of the performance will be a seeming uniform prime tint, at any little distance, that is a very fair, transparent and pearl-like complexion; but never quite uniform as snow, ivory, marble or wax, like a poet's mistress, for either of these in living-flesh, would in truth be hideous. As in nature, by the general yellowish hue of the cuticula, the gradating of one colour into another appears to be more delicately soften'd and united together; so will the colours we are supposed to have been laying upon the busto, appear to be more united and mellowed by the oils they are ground in, which takes a yellowish cast after a little time, but is apt to do more mischief hereby than good; for which reason care is taken to procure such oil as is clearest, and will best keep its colour[18] in oil painting. [18] Notwithstanding the deep-rooted notion, even among the majority of painters themselves, that time is a great improver of good pictures, I will undertake to shew, that nothing can be more absurd. Having mention'd above the whole effect of the oil, let us now see in what manner time operates on colours themselves; in order to discover if any changes in them can give a picture more union and harmony than has been in the power of a skilful master, with all his rules of art, to do. When colours change at all it must be somewhat in the manner following, for as they are made some of metal, some of earth, some of stone, and others of more perishable materials, time cannot operate on them otherwise than as by daily experience we find it doth, which is, that one changes darker, another lighter, one quite to a different colour, whilst another, as ultramarine, will keep its natural brightness even in the fire. Therefore how is it possible that such different materials, ever variously changing (visibly after a certain time) should accidentally coincide with the artist's intention, and bring about the greater harmony of the piece, when it is manifestly contrary to their nature, for do we not see in most collections that much time disunites, untunes, blackens, and by degrees destroys even the best preserved pictures. But if for argument sake we suppose, that the colours were to fall equally together, let us see what advantage this would give to any sort of composition. We will begin with a flower-piece: when a master hath painted a rose, a lily, an african, a gentianella, or violet, with his best art, and brightest colours, how far short do they fall of the freshness and rich brillancy of nature; and shall we wish to see them fall still lower, more faint, sullied, and dirtied by the hand of time, and then admire them as having gained an additional beauty, and call them mended and heightened, rather than fouled, and in a manner destroy'd; how absurd! Instead of mellow and softened therefore, always read yellow and sullied, for this is doing time the destroyer, but common justice. Or shall we desire to see complexions, which in life are often, literally, as brillant as the flowers above-mention'd, served in the like ungrateful manner. In a landskip, will the water be more transparent, or the sky shine with a greater lustre when embrown'd and darken'd by decay? surely no. I own it would be a pity that Mr. Addison's beautiful description of time at work in the gallery of pictures, and the following lines of Mr. Dryden, should want a sufficient foundation;-- For time shall with his ready pencil stand, Retouch your figures with his ripening hand; Mellow your colours, and imbrown the tint; Add every grace which time alone can grant; To future ages shall your fame convey, And give more beauties than he takes away. Dryden to Kneller. were it not that the error they are built upon, hath been a continual blight to the growth of the art, by misguiding both the proficient, and the encourager; and often compelling the former, contrary to his judgment, to imitate the damaged hue of decayed pictures; so that when his works undergo the like injuries, they must have a double remove from nature; which puts it in the power of the meanest observer to see his deficiencies. Whence another absurd notion hath taken rise, viz. that the colours now-a-days do not stand so well as formerly; whereas colours well prepared, in which there is but little art or expence, have, and will always have, the same properties in every age, and without accidents, as damps, bad varnish, and the like (being laid separate and pure,) will stand and keep together for many years in defiance of time itself. In proof of this, let any one take a view of the cieling at Greenwich-hospital, painted by Sir James Thornhil, forty years ago, which still remains fresh, strong and clear as if it had been finished but yesterday: and altho' several french writers have so learnedly, and philosophically proved, that the air of this island is too thick, or--too something, for the genius of a painter; yet France in all her palaces can hardly boast of a nobler, more judicious, or richer performance of its kind. Note, the upper end of the hall where the royal family is painted, was left chiefly to the pencil of Mr. Andrea a foreigner, after the payment originally agreed upon for the work was so much reduced, as made it not worth Sir James's while to finish the whole with his own more masterly hand. Upon the whole of this account we find, that the utmost beauty of colouring depends on the great principle of varying by all the means of varying, and on the proper and artful union of that variety; which may be farther proved by supposing the rules here laid down, all or any part of them reversed. I am apt to believe, that the not knowing nature's artful, and intricate method of uniting colours for the production of the variegated composition, or prime tint of flesh, hath made colouring, in the art of painting, a kind of mystery in all ages; insomuch, that it may fairly be said, out of the many thousands who have labour'd to attain it, not above ten or twelve painters have happily succeeded therein, Corregio (who lived in a country-village, and had nothing but the life to study after) is said almost to have stood alone for this particular excellence. Guido, who made beauty his chief aim, was always at a loss about it. Poussin scarce ever obtained a glimpse of it, as is manifest by his many different attempts: indeed France hath not produced one remarkably good colourist[19]. [19] The lame excuse writers on painting have made for the many great masters that have fail'd in this particular, is, that they purposely deaden'd their colours, and kept them, what they affectedly call'd _chaste_, that the correctness of their outlines might be seen to greater advantage. Whereas colours cannot be too brillant if properly disposed, because the distinction of the parts are thereby made more perfect; as may be seen by comparing a marble busto with the variegated colours of the face either in the life, or well painted: it is true, uncomposed variety, either in the features or the limbs, as being daubed with many, or one colour, will so confound the parts as to render them unintelligible. Rubens boldly, and in a masterly manner, kept his bloom tints bright, separate, and distinct, but sometimes too much so for easel or cabinet pictures; however, his manner was admirably well calculated for great works, to be seen at a considerable distance, such as his celebrated cieling at Whitehall-chapel[20]: which upon a nearer view, will illustrate what I have advanc'd with regard to the separate brightness of the tints; and shew, what indeed is known to every painter, that had the colours there seen so bright and separate, been all smooth'd and absolutely blended together, they would have produced a dirty grey instead of flesh-colour. The difficulty then lies in bringing _blue_ the third original colour, into flesh, on account of the vast variety introduced thereby; and this omitted, all the difficulty ceases; and a common sign-painter that lays his colours smooth, instantly becomes, in point of colouring, a Rubens, a Titian, or a Corregio. [20] The front of this building by Inigo Jones, is an additional exemplification of the principles for varying the parts in building; (explained by the candlesticks, &c. Chapter VIII) which would appear to be a stronger proof still, were a building formed of squares, on squares; with squares uniformly cut in each square to be opposed to it, to shew the reverse. CHAPTER XV. _Of the FACE_. Having thus spoken briefly of light, shade, and colour, we now return to our lineal account of form, as proposed (page 91) with regard to the face. It is an observation, that, out of the great number of faces that have been form'd since the creation of the world, no two have been so exactly alike, but that the usual and common discernment of the eye would discover a difference between them: therefore it is not unreasonable to suppose, that this discernment is still capable of further improvements by instructions from a methodical enquiry; which the ingenious Mr. Richardson, in his treatise on painting, terms _the art of seeing_. [Illustration: Fig. 97] 1. I shall begin with a description of such lines as compose the features of a face of the highest taste, and the reverse. See fig. [97, B p. I], taken from an antique head, which stands in the first rank of estimation: in proof of this, Raphael Urbin, and other great painters and sculptors, have imitated it for the characters of their heroes and other great men; and the old man's head, fig. [98, L p. I] was model'd in clay, by Fiamingo (and not inferior in its taste of lines, to the best antique) for the use of Andrea Sacchi, after which model he painted all the heads in his famous picture of St. Romoaldo's dream; and this picture hath the reputation of being one of the best pictures in the world[21]. [21] Note, I must refer the reader to the casts of both these pieces of sculpture, which are to be found in the hands of the curious; because it is impossible to express all that I intend, with sufficient accuracy, in a print of this size, whatever pains might have been taken with it; or indeed in any print were it ever so large. [Illustration: Fig. 98] These examples are here chosen to exemplify and confirm the force of serpentine lines in a face; and let it also be observed, that in these master-pieces of art, all the parts are otherwise consistent with the rules heretofore laid down: I shall therefore only shew the effects and use of the line of beauty. One way of proving in what manner the serpentine line appears to operate in this respect, may be by pressing several pieces of wire close up and down the different parts of the face and features of those casts; which wires will all come off so many serpentine lines, as is partly marked in figure 97, by the dotted lines. The beard and hair of the head, fig. 98, being a set of loose lines naturally, and therefore disposable at the painter's or sculptor's pleasure, are remarkably composed in this head of nothing else but a varied play of serpentine lines, twisting together in a flame-like manner. But as imperfections are easier to be imitated than perfections, we shall now have it in our power to explain the latter more fully; by shewing the reverse in several degrees, down to the most contemptible meanness that lines can be form'd into. [Illustration: Figs. 99-105] Figure 99, is the first degree of deviation from figure 97; where the lines are made straighter, and reduced in quantity; deviating still more in figure 100, more yet in figure 101, and yet more visibly in 102; figure 103, still more so; figure 104 is totally divested of all lines of elegance, like a barber's block; and 105 is composed merely of such plain lines as children make, when of themselves they begin to imitate in drawing a human face. It is evident, the inimitable Butler was sensible of the mean and ridiculous effect of such kind of lines, by the description he gives of the shape of Hudibras's beard, fig. [106 L p. I], In cut and dye so like a tile, A sudden view it would beguile. [Illustration: Fig. 106] 2. With regard to character and expression; we have daily many instances which confirm the common received opinion, that the face is the index of the mind; and this maxim is so rooted in us, we can scarce help (if our attention is a little raised) forming some particular conception of the person's mind whose face we are observing, even before we receive information by any other means. How often is it said, on the slightest view, that such a one looks like a good-natur'd man, that he hath an honest open countenance, or looks like a cunning rogue; a man of sense, or a fool, &c. And how are our eyes riveted to the aspects of kings and heroes, murderers and saints; and as we contemplate their deeds, seldom fail making application to their looks. It is reasonable to believe that aspect to be a true and legible representation of the mind, which gives everyone the same idea at first sight; and is afterwards confirm'd in fact: for instance, all concur in the same opinion, at first sight, of a down-right idiot. There is but little to be seen by childrens faces, more than that they are heavy or lively; and scarcely that unless they are in motion. Very handsom faces of almost any age, will hide a foolish or a wicked mind till they betray themselves by their actions or their words: yet the frequent aukward movements of the muscles of the fool's face, tho' ever so handsom, is apt in time to leave such traces up and down it, as will distinguish a defect of mind upon examination: but the bad man, if he be a hypocrite, may so manage his muscles, by teaching them to contradict his heart, that little of his mind can be gather'd from his countenance, so that the character of an hypocrite is entirely out of the power of the pencil, without some adjoining circumstance to discover him, as smiling and stabbing at the same time, or the like. It is by the natural and unaffected movements of the muscles, caused by the passions of the mind, that every man's character would in some measure be written in his face, by the time he arrives at forty years of age, were it not for certain accidents which often, tho' not always prevent it. For the ill-natur'd man, by frequently frowning, and pouting out the muscles of his mouth, doth in time bring those parts to a constant state of the appearance of ill-nature, which might have been prevented by the constant affectation of a smile; and so of the other passions: tho' there are some that do not affect the muscles at all simply of themselves, as love and hope. But least I should be thought to lay too great a stress on outward shew, like a physiognomist, take this with you, that it is acknowledg'd there are so many different causes which produce the same kind of movements and appearances of the features, and so many thwartings by accidental shapes in the make of faces, that the old adage, fronti nulla fides, will ever stand its ground upon the whole; and for very wise reasons nature hath thought fit it should. But, on the other hand, as in many particular cases, we receive information from the expressions of the countenance, what follows is meant to give a lineal description of the language written therein. It may not be amiss just to look over the passions of the mind, from tranquillity to extreme despair; as they are in order described in the common drawing-book, called, Le Brun's passions of the mind; selected from that great master's works for the use of learners; where you may have a compendious view of all the common expressions at once. And altho' these are but imperfect copies, they will answer our purpose in this place better than any other thing I can refer you to; because the passions are there ranged in succession, and distinctly marked with lines only, the shadows being omitted. Some features are formed so as to make this or that expression of a passion more or less legible; for example, the little narrow chinese eye suits a loving or laughing expression best, as a large full eye doth those of fierceness and astonishment; and round-rising muscles will appear with some degree of chearfulness even in sorrow: the features thus suiting with the expressions that have been often repeated in the face, at length mark it with such lines as sufficiently distinguish the character of the mind. The ancients in their lowest characters have shewn as much judgment, and as great a degree of taste in the management and twisting of the lines of them, as in their statues of a sublimer kind; in the former varying only from the precise line of grace in some parts where the character or action required it. The dying gladiator and the dancing fawn, the former a slave, the latter a wild clown, are sculptored in as high a taste of lines as the Antinous or the Apollo; with this difference, that the precise line of grace abounds more in the two last: notwithstanding which it is generally allow'd there is equal merit in the former, as there is near as much judgment required for the execution of them. Human nature can hardly be represented more debased than in the character of the Silenus, fig. [107 p. I], where the bulging-line figure 49, No. 7, runs through all the features of the face, as well as the other parts of his swinish body: whereas in the satyr of the wood, tho' the ancients have joined the brute with the man, we still see preserved an elegant display of serpentine lines, that make it a graceful figure. [Illustration: Figs. 107 and 49] Indeed the works of art have need of the whole advantage of this line to make up for its other deficiencies: for tho' in nature's works the line of beauty is often neglected, or mixt with plain lines, yet so far are they from being defective on this account, that by this means there is exhibited that infinite variety of human forms which always distinguishes the hand of nature from the limited and insufficient one of art; and as thus she for the sake of variety upon the whole, deviates sometimes into plain and inelegant lines, if the poor artist is but able now and then to correct and give a better taste to some particular part of what he imitates, by having learnt so to do from her more perfect works, or copying from those that have, ten to one he grows vain upon it, and fancies himself a nature-mender; not considering, that even in these, the meanest of her works, she is never wholly destitute of such lines of beauty and other delicacies, as are not only beyond his narrow reach, but are seen wanting even in the most celebrated attempts to rival her. But to return, As to what we call plain lines, there is this remarkable effect constantly produced by them, that being more or less conspicuous in any kind of character or expression of the face, they bring along with them certain degrees of a foolish or ridiculous aspect. It is the inelegance of these lines which more properly belonging to inanimate bodies, and being seen where lines of more beauty and taste are expected, that renders the face silly and ridiculous. See Chapter VI, p. 31. Children in infancy have movements in the muscles of their faces peculiar to their age, as an uninformed and unmeaning stare, an open mouth, and simple grin: all which expressions are chiefly formed of plain curves, and these movements and expressions ideots are apt to retain; so that in time they mark their faces with these uncouth lines; and when the lines coincide and agree with the natural forms of the features, it becomes a more apparent and confirmed character of an ideot. These plain shapes last mentioned, sometimes happen to people of the best sense, to some when the features are at rest, to others when they are put into motion; which a variety of constant regular movements proceeding from a good understanding, and fashioned by a genteel education, will often by degrees correct into lines of more elegance. That particular expression likewise of the face, or movement of a feature which becomes one person, shall be disagreeable in another, just as such expressions or turns chance to fall in with lines of beauty, or the reverse; for this reason there are pretty frowns and disagreeable smiles: the lines that form a pleasing smile about the corners of the mouth have gentle windings, as fig. [108 L p. II], but lose their beauty in the full laugh, as fig. [109 L p. II], the expression of excessive laughter, oftener than any other, gives a sensible face a silly or disagreeable look, as it is apt to form regular plain lines about the mouth, like a parenthesis, which sometimes appears like crying; as, on the contrary, I remember to have seen a beggar who had clouted up his head very artfully, and whose visage was thin and pale enough to excite pity, but his features were otherwise so unfortunately form'd for his purpose, that what he intended for a grin of pain and misery, was rather a joyous laugh. [Illustration: Figs. 108 and 109] It is strange that nature hath afforded us so many lines and shapes to indicate the deficiencies and blemishes of the mind, whilst there are none at all that point out the perfections of it beyond the appearance of common sense and placidity. Deportment, words, and actions, must speak the good, the wise, the witty, the humane, the generous, the merciful, and the brave. Nor are gravity and solemn looks always signs of wisdom: the mind much occupied with trifles will occasion as grave and sagacious an aspect, as if it were charged with matters of the utmost moment; the balance-master's attention to a single point, in order to preserve his balance, may look as wise at that time as the greatest philosopher in the depth of his studies. All that the ancient sculptors could do, notwithstanding their enthusiastic endeavours to raise the characters of their deities to aspects of sagacity above human, was to give them features of beauty. Their god of wisdom hath no more in his look than a handsom manliness; the Jupiter is carried somewhat higher, by giving it a little more severity than the Apollo, by a larger prominency of brow gently bending in seeming thoughtfulness, with an ample beard, which being added to the noble quantity of its other lines, invests that capital piece of sculpture with uncommon dignity, which, in the mysterious language of a profound connoisseur, is stiled a divine idea, inconceivably great, and above nature. 3dly and lastly, I shall shew in what manner the lines of the face alter from infancy upwards, and specify the different ages. We are now to pay most attention to _simplicity_, as the difference of ages we are about to speak of, turn chiefly upon the use made of this principle in a greater or less degree, in the form of the lines. From infancy till the body has done growing, the contents both of the body and the face, and every part of their surface, are daily changing into more variety, till they obtain a certain medium (see page 78 on proportion) from which medium, as fig. [113 B p. II], if we return back to infancy, we shall see the variety decreasing, till by degrees that simplicity in the form, which gave variety its due limits, deviates into sameness; so that all the parts of the face may be circumscribed in several circles, as fig. [116 L p. II]. [Illustration: Figs. 113 and 116] But there is another very extraordinary circumstance, (perhaps never taken notice of before in this light) which nature hath given us to distinguish one age from another by; which is, that tho' every feature grows larger and longer, till the whole person has done growing, the sight of the eye still keeps its original size; I mean the pupil, with its iris or ring; for the diameter of this circle continues still the same, and so becomes a fixt measure by which we, as it were, insensibly compare the daily perceiv'd growings of the other parts of the face, and thereby determine a young person's age. You may sometimes find this part of the eye in a new-born infant, full as large as in a man of six foot; nay, sometimes larger, see fig. [110 B p. II], [114 B p. II] and [115 T p. I] which represents three different sizes of the pupil of the eye; the least, was exactly taken from the eye of a large-featur'd man, aged 105, the biggest, from one of twenty, who had this part larger than ordinary, and the other is the common size. If this part of the eye in the pictures of Charles II. and James II. painted by Vandyke at Kensington, were to be measured with a pair of compasses, and compared with their pictures painted by Lilly when they were men, the diameters would be found in both pictures respectively the same. [Illustration: Figs. 110, 114 and 115] In infancy the faces of boys and girls have no visible difference, but as they grow up the features of the boy get the start, and grow faster in proportion to the ring of the eye, than those of the girl, which shews the distinction of the sex in the face. Boys who have larger features than ordinary, in proportion to the rings of their eyes, are what we call manly-featured children; as those who have the contrary, look more childish and younger than they really are. It is this proportion of the features with the eyes, that makes women, when they are dressed in mens-cloaths, look so young and boyish: but as nature doth not always stick close to these particulars, we may be mistaken both in sexes and ages. By these obvious appearances, and the differences of the whole size, we easily judge of ages till twenty, but not with such certainty afterwards; for the alterations from that age are of a different kind, subject to other changes by growing fatter or leaner, which it is well known, often give a different turn to the look of the person, with regard to his age. The hair of the head, which encompasses a face as a frame doth a picture, and contrasts with its uniform colour, the variegated inclosed composition, adding more or less beauty thereto, according as it is disposed by the rules of art, is another indication of advanced age. What remains to be said on the different appearances of ages, being less pleasing than what has gone before, shall be described with more brevity. In the age from twenty to thirty, barring accidents, there appears but little change, either in the colours or the lines of the face; for tho' the bloom tints may go off a little, yet on the other hand, the make of the features often attain a sort of settled firmness in them, aided by an air of acquired sensibility; which makes ample amends for that loss, and keeps beauty till thirty pretty much upon a par; after this time, as the alterations grow more and more visible, we perceive the sweet simplicity of many rounding parts of the face, begin to break into dented shapes, with more sudden turns about the muscles, occasioned by their many repeated movements; as also by dividing the broad parts, and thereby taking off the large sweeps of the serpentine lines; the shades of beauty also consequently suffering in their softnesses. Something of what is here meant between the two ages of thirty and fifty, see in figures [117 and 118 B p. II], and what further havock time continues to make after the age of fifty, is too remarkable to need describing: the strokes and cuts he then lays on are plain enough; however, in spite of all his malice, those lineaments that have once been elegant, retain their flowing turns in venerable age, leaving to the last a comely piece of ruins. [Illustration: Figs. 117 and 118] CHAPTER XVI. _Of ATTITUDE_. Such dispositions of the body and limbs as appear most graceful when seen at rest, depend upon gentle winding contrasts, mostly govern'd by the precise serpentine line, which in attitudes of authority, are more extended and spreading than ordinary, but reduced somewhat below the medium of grace, in those of negligence and ease: and as much exaggerated in insolent and proud carriage, or in distortions of pain (see figure 9, plate I) as lessen'd and contracted into plain and parallel lines, to express meanness, aukwardness, and submission. [Illustration: Fig. 9] The general idea of an action, as well as of an attitude, may be given with a pencil in very few lines. It is easy to conceive that the attitude of a person upon the cross, may be fully signified by the two straight lines of the cross; so the extended manner of St. Andrew's crucifixion is wholly understood by the X-like cross. Thus, as two or three lines at first are sufficient to shew the intention of an attitude, I will take this opportunity of presenting my reader (who may have been at the trouble of following me thus far) with the sketch of a country-dance, in the manner I began to set out the design; in order to shew how few lines are necessary to express the first thoughts, as to different attitudes; see fig. [71 T p. II], which describe in some measure, the several figures and actions, mostly of the ridiculous kind, that are represented in the chief part of plate II. [Illustration: Fig. 71] The most amiable person may deform his general appearance by throwing his body and limbs into plain lines, but such lines appear still in a more disagreeable light in people of a particular make, I have therefore chose such figures as I thought would agree best with my first score of lines, fig. 71. [Illustration: The dancers] The two parts of curves next to 71, served for the figures of the old woman and her partner at the farther end of the room. The curve and two straight lines at right angles, gave the hint for the fat man's sprawling posture. I next resolved to keep a figure within the bounds of a circle, which produced the upper part of the fat woman, between the fat man and the aukward one in the bag wig, for whom I had made a sort of an X. The prim lady, his partner, in the riding-habit, by pecking back her elbows, as they call it, from the waste upwards, made a tolerable D, with a straight line under it, to signify the scanty stiffness of her peticoat; and a Z stood for the angular position the body makes with the legs and thighs of the affected fellow in the tye-wig; the upper part of his plump partner was confin'd to an O, and this chang'd into a P, served as a hint for the straight lines behind. The uniform diamond of a card, was filled up by the flying dress, &c. of the little capering figure in the spencer-wig; whilst a double L mark'd the parallel position of his poking partner's hands and arms: and lastly, the two waving lines were drawn for the more genteel turns of the two figures at the hither end. The best representation in a picture, of even the most elegant dancing, as every figure is rather a suspended action in it than an attitude, must be always somewhat unnatural and ridiculous; for were it possible in a real dance to fix every person at one instant of time, as in a picture, not one in twenty would appear to be graceful, tho' each were ever so much so in their movements; nor could the figure of the dance itself be at all understood. [Illustration: The statues and pictures] The dancing-room is also ornamented purposely with such statues and pictures as may serve to a farther illustration. Henry viii. fig. [72 p. II], makes a perfect X with his legs and arms; and the position of Charles the first, fig. [51 p. II], is composed of less-varied lines than the statue of Edward the sixth, fig. [73 p. II]; and the medal over his head is in the like kind of lines; but that over Q. Elizabeth, as well as her figure, is in the contrary; so are also the two other wooden figures at the end. Likewise the comical posture of astonishment (expressed by following the direction of one plain curve, as the dotted line in a french print of Sancho, where Don Quixote demolishes the puppet shew, fig. [75 R p. II])is a good contrast to the effect of the serpentine lines in the fine turn of the Samaritan woman, fig. [74 L p. II], taken from one of the best pictures Annibal Carrache ever painted. [Illustration: Figs. 75 and 74] CHAPTER XVII. _Of ACTION_. To the amazing variety of forms made still infinitely more various in appearance by light, shade and colour, nature hath added another way of increasing that variety, still more to enhance the value of all her compositions. This is accomplished by means of action; the fullest display of which is put into the power of the human species, and which is equally subject to the same principles with regard to the effects of beauty, or the reverse, as govern all the former compositions; as is partly seen in Chapter XI on proportion. My business here shall be, in as concise a manner as possible, to particularise the application of these principles to the movement of the body, and therewith finish this _system_ of variety in forms and actions. There is no one but would wish to have it in his power to be genteel and graceful in the carriage of his person, could it be attained with little trouble and expence of time. The usual methods relied on for this purpose among well-bred people, takes up a considerable part of their time: nay even those of the first rank have no other resource in these matters, than to dancing-masters, and fencing-masters: dancing and fencing are undoubtedly proper, and very necessary accomplishments; yet are they frequently very imperfect in bringing about the business of graceful deportment. For altho' the muscles of the body may attain a pliancy by these exercises, and the limbs, by the elegant movement in dancing, acquire a facility in moving gracefully, yet for want of knowing the meaning of every grace, and whereon it depends, affectations and misapplications often follow. Action is a sort of language which perhaps one time or other, may come to be taught by a kind of grammar-rules; but, at present, is only got by rote and imitation: and contrary to most other copyings or imitations, people of rank and fortune generally excel their originals, the dancing-masters, in easy behaviour and unaffected grace; as a sense of superiority makes them act without constraint; especially when their persons are well turn'd. If so, what can be more conducive to that freedom and necessary courage which make acquired grace seem easy and natural, than the being able to demonstrate _when_ we are actually just and proper in the least movement we perform; whereas, for want of such certainty in the mind, if one of the most finish'd gentlemen at court was to appear as an actor on the public stage, he would find himself at a loss how to move properly, and be stiff, narrow, and aukward, in representing even his own character: the uncertainty of being right would naturally give him some of that restraint which the uneducated common people generally have when they appear before their betters. It is known that bodies in motion always describe some line or other in the air, as the whirling round of a fire-brand apparently makes a circle, the water-fall part of a curve, the arrow and bullet, by the swiftness of their motions, nearly a straight line; waving lines are formed by the pleasing movement of a ship on the waves. Now in order to obtain a just idea of action at the same time to be judiciously satisfied of being in the right in what we do, let us begin with imagining a line formed in the air by any supposed point at the end of a limb or part that is moved, or made by the whole part, or limb; or by the whole body together. And that thus much of movements may be conceived at once is evident, on the least recollection, for whoever has seen a fine arabian war-horse, unback'd and at liberty, and in a wanton trot, cannot but remember what a large waving line his rising, and at the same time pressing forward, cuts through the air; the equal continuation of which, is varied by his curveting from side to side; whilst his long mane and tail play about in serpentine movements. After thus having form'd the idea of all movements being as lines, it will not be difficult to conceive, that grace in action depends upon the same principles as have been shewn to produce it in forms. The next thing that offers itself to our consideration is the force of _habit_ and custom in action; for a great deal depends thereon. The peculiar movements of each person, as the gate in walking, are particularised in such lines as each part describes by the habits they have contracted. The nature and power of habit may be fully conceived by the following familiar instance, as the motions of one part of the body may serve to explain those of the whole. Observe that whatever habit the fingers get in the use of the pen, you see exactly delineated to the eye by the shapes of the letters. Were the movements of every writer's fingers to be precisely the same, one hand-writing would not be known from another, but as the fingers naturally fall into, or acquire different habits of moving, every hand-writing is visibly different. Which movements must tally with the letters, tho' they are too quick and too small to be as perfectly traced by the eye; but this shews what nice differences are caused, and constantly retained by habitual movements. It may be remark'd, that all useful habitual motions, such as are readiest to serve the necessary purposes of life, are those made up of plain lines, i. e. straight and circular lines, which most animals have in common with mankind, tho' not in so extensive a degree: the monkey from his make hath it sufficiently in his power to be graceful, but as reason is required for this purpose, it would be impossible to bring him to move genteelly. Though I have said that the ordinary actions of the body are performed in plain lines, I mean only comparatively so with those of studied movements in the serpentine line, for as all our muscles are ever ready to act, when one part is moved, (as an hand, or arm, by its proper movers, for raising up or drawing down) the adjacent muscles act in some degree in correspondence with them: therefore our most common movements are but seldom performed in such absolutely mean lines, as those of jointed dolls and puppets. A man must have a good deal of practice to be able to mimic such very straight or round motions, which being incompatible with the human form, are therefore ridiculous. Let it be observed, that graceful movements in serpentine lines, are used but occasionally, and rather at times of leisure, than constantly applied to every action we make. The whole business of life may be carried on without them, they being properly speaking, only the ornamental part of gesture; and therefore not being naturally familiarised by necessity, must be acquired by precept or imitation, and reduced to habit by frequent repetitions. _Precept_ is the means I should recommend as the most expeditious and effectual way. But before we proceed to the method I have to propose, for the more ready and sure way of accustoming the limbs to a facility in the ornamental way of moving; I should observe, that quick time gives it spirit and vivacity, as slow time, gravity, and solemnity, and further, that the latter of these allows the eye an opportunity of seeing the line of grace to advantage, as in the address of heroes on the stage, or in any solemn act of ceremony; and that although time in movement is reduced to certain rules for dancing, it is left more at large and at discretion for deportment. We come now to offer an odd, but perhaps efficacious method of acquiring a habit of moving in the lines of grace and beauty. [Illustration: Figs. 119 and 120] 1. Let any one chalk the line fig. [119 L p. II], on a flat surface, beginning at either end, and he will move his hand and arm in a beautiful direction, but if he chalks the same sort of line on an ogee-moulding of a foot or two in breadth, as the dotted line on figure [120 L p. II], his hand must move in that more beautiful direction, which is distinguished by the name of grace; and according to the quantity given to those lines, greatness will be added to grace, and the movement will be more or less noble. Gentle movements of this sort thus understood, may be made at any time and any where, which by frequent repetitions will become so familiar to the parts so exercised, that on proper occasion they make them as it were of their own accord. The pleasing effect of this manner of moving the hand, is seen when a snuff-box, or fan is presented gracefully or genteely to a lady, both in the hand moving forward and in its return, but care must be taken that the line of movement be but gentle, as No. 3, fig. 49, plate I, and not too S-like and twirling, as No. 7 in the same figure: which excess would be affected and ridiculous. [Illustration: Fig. 49] Daily practising these movements with the hands and arms, as also with such other parts of the body as are capable of them, will in a short time render the whole person graceful and easy at pleasure. 2. As to the motions of the _head_; the awe most children are in before strangers, till they come to a certain age, is the cause of their dropping and drawing their chins down into their breasts, and looking under their foreheads, as if conscious of their weakness, or of something wrong about them. To prevent this aukward shyness, parents and tutors are continually teasing them to hold up their heads, which if they get them to do it is with difficulty, and of course in so constrain'd a manner that it gives the children pain, so that they naturally take all opportunities of easing themselves by holding down their heads; which posture would be full as uneasy to them were it not a relief from restraint: and there is another misfortune in holding down the head, that it is apt to make them bend too much in the back; when this happens to be the case, they then have recourse to steel-collars, and other iron-machines; all which shacklings are repugnant to nature, and may make the body grow crooked. This daily fatigue both to the children and the parents may be avoided, and an ugly habit prevented, by only (at a proper age) fastening a ribbon to a quantity of platted hair, or to the cap, so as it may be kept fast in its place, and the other end to the back of the coat, as fig. [121 L p. II], of such a length as may prevent them drawing their chins into their necks; which ribbon will always leave the head at liberty to move in any direction but this aukward one they are so apt to fall into. [Illustration: Fig. 121] But till children arrive at a reasoning age it will be difficult by any means to teach them more grace than what is natural to every well made child at liberty. The grace of the upper parts of the body is most engaging, and sensible well made people in any station naturally have it in a great degree, therefore rules unless they are simple and easily retain'd and practis'd, are of little use; nay, rather are of disservice. Holding the head erect is but occasionally right, a proper recline of it may be as graceful, but true elegance is mostly seen in the moving it from one position to another. And this may be attain'd by a sensibility within yourself, tho' you have not a sight of what you do by looking in the glass, when with your head assisted by a sway of the body in order to give it more scope, you endeavour to make that very serpentine line in the air, which the hands have been before taught to do by the help of the ogee-moulding: and I will venture to say, a few careful repetitions at first setting out will make this movement as easy to the head as to the hands and arms. The most graceful bow is got by the head's moving in this direction, as it goes downward and rises up again. Some aukward imitators of this elegant way of bowing, for want of knowing what they were about, have seem'd to bow with wry necks. The low solemn bow to majesty should have but a very little twist, if any, as more becoming gravity and submission. The clownish nod in a sudden straight line is quite the reverse of these spoken of. The most elegant and respectful curtesy hath a gentle, or small degree of the above graceful bowing of the head as the person sinks, and rises, and retreats. If it should be said, that a fine curtesy consists in no more than in being erect in person at the time of sinking and rising; Madam Catherine in clock-work, or the dancing bears led about the streets for a shew, must be allow'd to make as good a curtesy as anybody. N. B. It is necessary in bowing and curtesying to shun an exact sameness at all times; for however graceful it may be on some occasions, at other times it may seem formal and improper. Shakespear seems to have meant the above spoken of ornamental manner of bowing, in Enobarbus's description of Cleopatra's waiting-women.---- ----And made their bends adornings. Act 2. 3. Of _Dancing_. The minuet is allowed by the dancing-masters themselves to be the perfection of all dancing. I once heard an eminent dancing-master say, that the minuet had been the study of his whole life, and that he had been indefatigable in the pursuit of its beauties, yet at last he could only say with Socrates, _he knew nothing_: adding, that I was happy in my profession as a painter, in that some bounds might be set to the study of it. No doubt, as the minuet contains in it a composed variety of as many movements in the serpentine lines as can well be put together in distinct quantities, it is a fine composition of movements. [Illustration: Fig. 122] The ordinary undulating motion of the body in common walking (as may be plainly seen by the waving line, which the shadow a man's head makes against a wall as he is walking between it and the afternoon sun) is augmented in dancing into a larger quantity of _waving_ by means of the minuet-step, which is so contrived as to raise the body by gentle degrees somewhat higher than ordinary, and sink it again in the same manner lower in the going on of the dance. The figure of the minuet-path on the floor is also composed of serpentine lines, as fig. [122 T p. II], varying a little with the fashion: when the parties by means of this step rise and fall most smoothly in time, and free from sudden starting and dropping, they come nearest to Shakespear's idea of the beauty of dancing, in the following lines, ----What you do, Still betters what is done,---- ----When you do dance, I wish you A wave o' th' sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that; move still, still so, And own no other function. WINTER'S TALE. The other beauties belonging to this dance, are the turns of the head, and twist of the body in passing each other, as also gentle bowing and presenting hands in the manner before described, all which together, displays the greatest variety of movements in serpentine lines imaginable, keeping equal pace with musical time. There are other dances that entertain merely because they are composed of variety of movements and performed in proper time, but the less they consist of serpentine or waving lines, the lower they are in the estimation of dancing-masters: for, as has been shewn, when the form of the body is divested of its serpentine lines it becomes ridiculous as a human figure, so likewise when all movements in such lines are excluded in a dance, it becomes low, grotesque and comical; but however, being as was said composed of variety, made consistent with some character, and executed with agility, it nevertheless is very entertaining. Such are Italian peasant-dances, &c. But such uncouth contortions of the body as are allowable in a man would disgust in a woman; as the extreme graceful, so very alluring in this sex, is nauseous in the other; even the minuet-grace in a man would hardly be approved, but as the main drift of it represents repeated addresses to the lady. There is a much greater consistency in the dances of the Italian theatre than of the French, notwithstanding dancing seems to be the genius of that nation; the following distinctly marked characters were originally from Italy; and if we consider them lineally as to their particular movements, we shall see wherein their humour consists. The attitudes of the harlequin are ingeniously composed of certain little, quick movements of the head, hands, and feet, some of which shoot out as it were from the body in straight lines, or are twirled about in little circles. Scaramouch is gravely absurd as the character is intended, in over-stretch'd tedious movements of unnatural lengths of lines: these two characters seem to have been contrived by conceiving a direct opposition of movements. Pierrott's movements and attitudes, are chiefly in perpendiculars and parallels, so is his figure and dress. Punchinello is droll by being the reverse of all elegance, both as to movement, and figure, the beauty of variety is totally, and comically excluded from this character in every respect; his limbs are raised and let fall almost altogether at one time, in parallel directions, as if his seeming fewer joints than ordinary, were no better than the hinges of a door. Dances that represent provincial characters, as these above do, or very low people, such as gardeners, sailors, &c. in merriment, are generally most entertaining on the stage: the Italians have lately added great pleasantry and humour to several french dances, particularly the wooden-shoe dance, in which there is a continual shifting from one attitude in plain lines to another; both the man and the woman often comically fix themselves in uniform positions, and frequently start in equal time, into angular forms, one of which remarkably represents two W's in a line, as over figure 122, plate II, these sort of dances a little raised, especially on the woman's side, in expressing elegant wantonness (which is the true spirit of dancing) have of late years been most delightfully done, and seem at present to have got the better of pompous unmeaning grand ballets; serious dancing being even a contradiction in terms. [Illustration: Fig. over Fig. 122] 4thly, Of _Country Dancing_. The lines which a number of people together form in country or figure dancing, make a delightful play upon the eye, especially when the whole figure is to be seen at one view, as at the playhouse from the gallery; the beauty of this kind of mystic dancing, as the poets term it, depends upon moving in a composed variety of lines, chiefly serpentine, govern'd by the principles of intricacy, &c. The dances of barbarians are always represented without these movements, being only composed of wild skiping, jumping, and turning round, or running backward and forward, with convulsive shrugs, and distorted gestures. One of the most pleasing movements in country dancing, and which answers to all the principles of varying at once, is what they call the hay; the figure of it altogether, is a cypher of S's, or a number of serpentine lines interlacing, or intervolving each other, which suppose traced on the floor, the lines would appear as fig. [123 T p. II]. Milton in his Paradise lost, describing the angels dancing about the sacred hill, pictures the whole idea in words; Mystical dance!---- ----Mazes intricate, Eccentric, intervolv'd, yet regular Then most, when most irregular they seem. [Illustration: Fig. 123] I shall venture, lastly, to say a word or two of stage-action. From what has been said of habitually moving in waving lines, it may possibly be found that if stage-action, particularly the graceful, were to be studied lineally, it might be more speedily and accurately acquired by the help of the foregoing principles than the methods hitherto taken. It is known that common deportment, such as may pass for elegant and proper off the stage, would no more be thought sufficient upon it than the dialogue of common polite conversation, would be accurate or spirited enough for the language of a play. So that trusting to chance only will not do. The actions of every scene ought to be as much as possible a compleat composition of well varied movements, considered as such abstractedly, and apart from what may be merely relative to the sense of the words. Action consider'd with regard to assisting the authors meaning, by enforcing the sentiments or raising the passions, must be left entirely to the judgment of the performer, we only pretend to shew how the limbs may be made to have an equal readiness to move in all such directions as may be acquired. What I would have understood by action, abstractedly and apart from its giving force to the meaning of the words, may be better conceived by supposing a foreigner, who is a thorough master of all the effects of action, at one of our theatres, but quite ignorant of the language of the play; it is evident his sentiments under such limitations, would chiefly arise from what he might distinguish by the lines of the movements belonging to each character; the actions of an old man, if proper, or not, would be visible to him at once, and he would judge of low and odd characters, by the inelegant lines which we have already shewn to belong to the characters of punch, harlequin, pierrott, or the clown; so he would also form his judgment of the graceful acting of a fine gentleman, or hero, by the elegance of their movements in such lines of grace and beauty as have been sufficiently described. See chapters V, VI, VII, VIII, on the composition of forms. Where note, that as the whole of beauty depends upon _continually varying_ the same must be observed with regard to genteel and elegant acting: and as plain space makes a considerable part of beauty in form, so cessation of movement in acting is as absolutely necessary; and in my opinion much wanted on most stages, to relieve the eye from what Shakespear calls, _continually sawing the air_. The actress hath sufficient grace with fewer actions, and those in less extended lines than the actor; for as the lines that compose the Venus are simpler and more gently flowing, than those that compose the Apollo, so must her movements be in like proportion. And here it may not be improper to take notice of a mischief that attends copied actions on the stage; they are often confin'd to certain sets and numbers, which being repeated, and growing stale to the audience, become at last subject to mimickry and ridicule, which would hardly be the case, if an actor were possest of such general principles as include a knowledge of the effects of all the movements that the body is capable of. The comedian, whose business it is to imitate the actions belonging to particular characters in nature, may also find his account in the knowledge of lines; for whatever he copies from the life, by these principles may be strengthened, altered, and adjusted as his judgment shall direct, and the part the author has given him shall require. FINIS. _Prints Publish'd by_ W. HOGARTH, _and are to be had at his House in_ Leicester Fields. l. s. d. Marriage a-la-mode, in six prints 1 11 6 Harlot's Progress, in six prints 1 1 0 Rake's Progress, in eight prints 2 2 0 Four Times of the Day, in four prints 1 0 0 Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn. 0 5 0 Midnight Conversation 0 5 0 Southwark Fair 0 5 0 Bishop of Winchester 0 3 0 Calais, or the Roast Beef of Old England 0 5 0 Before and After, two prints 0 5 0 Distress'd Poet 0 3 0 Enraged Musician 0 3 0 Various Characters of Heads, in five groups 0 2 6 Beer Street and Gin Lane, two prints 0 3 0 Four Stages of Cruelty, four prints 0 6 0 Moses brought to Pharoah's Daughter 0 7 6 Paul before Felix 0 7 6 Paul before Felix in the manner of Rembrant 0 0 0 The Effects of Idleness and Industry, exemplified in the Conduct of two Fellow-Prentices, in twelve prints 0 12 0 Lord Lovat 0 1 0 Country-Inn Yard 0 1 0 Sleeping Congregation 0 1 0 March to Finchley 0 10 6 Mr. Garrick in the Character of King Richard the third 0 7 6 Columbus breaking the Egg 0 1 0 Frontispiece 0 3 0 N. B. If any one purchases the whole together, they will have them deliver'd bound, at the Price of ten Guineas, and a sufficient Margin will be left for Framing. FIGURES _referr'd to in the_ BOOK. PLATE I. Figure Page 1, 3 2, 10, 77 3-4, 15 Fig. over Fig. 4, xix 6, vi, viii, 20, 81, 82, 83, 86, 88, 128 7, viii, 20 9, 22, 135 10-11, 23 12, 66, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 128, 153 13, 66, 152 14, 25, 26 15, 27 16, 31 17-18, 31, 87 19-20, 31 21, 36 22, 33 Fig. bet'n 22 & 105 viii 23, 37 24-25, 38 26, 38, 39, 100 29, 40 30-32, 41 33-37, 42 38, 43 39-42 44 43, xix, 44 44-46 44 47, xix, 19 Fig. bet'n 47 & 88, 17, 97 48, 46 49, 49, 128, 143 Fig. under 49, 4 50, 49 53, 49, 50 54, v, 20, 64 55, 20, 76 65, 56, 60 66-67, 57 Fig. near 67, 68 68, 58, 76 87-88, 111 97, 104, 123, 124 98, 123, 124 99-105, 124 106, 125 107, 128 115, 133 PLATE II. Figure Page 51, 137 52, x 56, 51 57, 51, 103 58, 51, 55, 103 59, 53 60-63, 55 64, 56 69-70, 78 71, 136 72, 20, 137 73, 137 74, 138 75, 137 76, 62, 64 77, 62, 63, 64 78, 63, 64 79-80, 63 81, 64 82-83, 65 84-85, 96 86, 108, 109, 111 89, 111 90, 109 91, 112 92, 111 93, 111 94, 98, 116, 117, 118 95, 115 96, 117 108-109, 130 110, 133 113, 132 114, 133 116, 132 117-118, 134 119-120, 143 121, 144 122, 147 123, 151 
5321	----	Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreaders Website CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN ART BY WASSILY KANDINSKY [TRANSLATED BY MICHAEL T. H. SADLER] TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS [NOT IN E-TEXT] TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION PART I. ABOUT GENERAL AESTHETIC I. INTRODUCTION II. THE MOVEMENT OF THE TRIANGLE III. SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION IV. THE PYRAMID PART II. ABOUT PAINTING V. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING OF COLOUR VI. THE LANGUAGE OF FORM AND COLOUR VII. THEORY VIII. ART AND ARTISTS IX. CONCLUSION LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS [NOT IN E-TEXT] Mosaic in S. Vitale, Ravenna Victor and Heinrich Dunwegge: "The Crucifixion" (in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich) Albrecht Durer: "The Descent from the Cross" (in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich) Raphael: "The Canigiani Holy Family" (in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich) Paul Cezanne: "Bathing Women" (by permission of Messrs. Bernheim-Jeune, Paris) Kandinsky: Impression No. 4, "Moscow" (1911) "Improvisation No. 29 (1912) "Composition No. 2 (1910) "Kleine Freuden" (1913) TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION It is no common thing to find an artist who, even if he be willing to try, is capable of expressing his aims and ideals with any clearness and moderation. Some people will say that any such capacity is a flaw in the perfect artist, who should find his expression in line and colour, and leave the multitude to grope its way unaided towards comprehension. This attitude is a relic of the days when "l'art pour l'art" was the latest battle cry; when eccentricity of manner and irregularity of life were more important than any talent to the would-be artist; when every one except oneself was bourgeois. The last few years have in some measure removed this absurdity, by destroying the old convention that it was middle-class to be sane, and that between the artist and the outer-world yawned a gulf which few could cross. Modern artists are beginning to realize their social duties. They are the spiritual teachers of the world, and for their teaching to have weight, it must be comprehensible. Any attempt, therefore, to bring artist and public into sympathy, to enable the latter to understand the ideals of the former, should be thoroughly welcome; and such an attempt is this book of Kandinsky's. The author is one of the leaders of the new art movement in Munich. The group of which he is a member includes painters, poets, musicians, dramatists, critics, all working to the same end--the expression of the SOUL of nature and humanity, or, as Kandinsky terms it, the INNERER KLANG. Perhaps the fault of this book of theory--or rather the characteristic most likely to give cause for attack--is the tendency to verbosity. Philosophy, especially in the hands of a writer of German, presents inexhaustible opportunities for vague and grandiloquent language. Partly for this reason, partly from incompetence, I have not primarily attempted to deal with the philosophical basis of Kandinsky's art. Some, probably, will find in this aspect of the book its chief interest, but better service will be done to the author's ideas by leaving them to the reader's judgement than by even the most expert criticism. The power of a book to excite argument is often the best proof of its value, and my own experience has always been that those new ideas are at once most challenging and most stimulating which come direct from their author, with no intermediate discussion. The task undertaken in this Introduction is a humbler but perhaps a more necessary one. England, throughout her history, has shown scant respect for sudden spasms of theory. Whether in politics, religion, or art, she demands an historical foundation for every belief, and when such a foundation is not forthcoming she may smile indulgently, but serious interest is immediately withdrawn. I am keenly anxious that Kandinsky's art should not suffer this fate. My personal belief in his sincerity and the future of his ideas will go for very little, but if it can be shown that he is a reasonable development of what we regard as serious art, that he is no adventurer striving for a momentary notoriety by the strangeness of his beliefs, then there is a chance that some people at least will give his art fair consideration, and that, of these people, a few will come to love it as, in my opinion, it deserves. Post-Impressionism, that vague and much-abused term, is now almost a household word. That the name of the movement is better known than the names of its chief leaders is a sad misfortune, largely caused by the over-rapidity of its introduction into England. Within the space of two short years a mass of artists from Manet to the most recent of Cubists were thrust on a public, who had hardly realized Impressionism. The inevitable result has been complete mental chaos. The tradition of which true Post-Impressionism is the modern expression has been kept alive down the ages of European art by scattered and, until lately, neglected painters. But not since the time of the so-called Byzantines, not since the period of which Giotto and his School were the final splendid blossoming, has the "Symbolist" ideal in art held general sway over the "Naturalist." The Primitive Italians, like their predecessors the Primitive Greeks, and, in turn, their predecessors the Egyptians, sought to express the inner feeling rather than the outer reality. This ideal tended to be lost to sight in the naturalistic revival of the Renaissance, which derived its inspiration solely from those periods of Greek and Roman art which were pre-occupied with the expression of external reality. Although the all-embracing genius of Michelangelo kept the "Symbolist" tradition alive, it is the work of El Greco that merits the complete title of "Symbolist." From El Greco springs Goya and the Spanish influence on Daumier and Manet. When it is remembered that, in the meantime, Rembrandt and his contemporaries, notably Brouwer, left their mark on French art in the work of Delacroix, Decamps and Courbet, the way will be seen clearly open to Cezanne and Gauguin. The phrase "symbolist tradition" is not used to express any conscious affinity between the various generations of artists. As Kandinsky says: "the relationships in art are not necessarily ones of outward form, but are founded on inner sympathy of meaning." Sometimes, perhaps frequently, a similarity of outward form will appear. But in tracing spiritual relationship only inner meaning must be taken into account. There are, of course, many people who deny that Primitive Art had an inner meaning or, rather, that what is called "archaic expression" was dictated by anything but ignorance of representative methods and defective materials. Such people are numbered among the bitterest opponents of Post-Impressionism, and indeed it is difficult to see how they could be otherwise. "Painting," they say, "which seeks to learn from an age when art was, however sincere, incompetent and uneducated, deliberately rejects the knowledge and skill of centuries." It will be no easy matter to conquer this assumption that Primitive art is merely untrained Naturalism, but until it is conquered there seems little hope for a sympathetic understanding of the symbolist ideal. The task is all the more difficult because of the analogy drawn by friends of the new movement between the neo-primitive vision and that of a child. That the analogy contains a grain of truth does not make it the less mischievous. Freshness of vision the child has, and freshness of vision is an important element in the new movement. But beyond this a parallel is non-existent, must be non-existent in any art other than pure artificiality. It is one thing to ape ineptitude in technique and another to acquire simplicity of vision. Simplicity--or rather discrimination of vision--is the trademark of the true Post-Impressionist. He OBSERVES and then SELECTS what is essential. The result is a logical and very sophisticated synthesis. Such a synthesis will find expression in simple and even harsh technique. But the process can only come AFTER the naturalist process and not before it. The child has a direct vision, because his mind is unencumbered by association and because his power of concentration is unimpaired by a multiplicity of interests. His method of drawing is immature; its variations from the ordinary result from lack of capacity. Two examples will make my meaning clearer. The child draws a landscape. His picture contains one or two objects only from the number before his eyes. These are the objects which strike him as important. So far, good. But there is no relation between them; they stand isolated on his paper, mere lumpish shapes. The Post-Impressionist, however, selects his objects with a view to expressing by their means the whole feeling of the landscape. His choice falls on elements which sum up the whole, not those which first attract immediate attention. Again, let us take the case of the definitely religious picture. [Footnote: Religion, in the sense of awe, is present in all true art. But here I use the term in the narrower sense to mean pictures of which the subject is connected with Christian or other worship.] It is not often that children draw religious scenes. More often battles and pageants attract them. But since the revival of the religious picture is so noticeable a factor in the new movement, since the Byzantines painted almost entirely religious subjects, and finally, since a book of such drawings by a child of twelve has recently been published, I prefer to take them as my example. Daphne Alien's religious drawings have the graceful charm of childhood, but they are mere childish echoes of conventional prettiness. Her talent, when mature, will turn to the charming rather than to the vigorous. There could be no greater contrast between such drawing and that of--say--Cimabue. Cimabue's Madonnas are not pretty women, but huge, solemn symbols. Their heads droop stiffly; their tenderness is universal. In Gauguin's "Agony in the Garden" the figure of Christ is haggard with pain and grief. These artists have filled their pictures with a bitter experience which no child can possibly possess. I repeat, therefore, that the analogy between Post-Impressionism and child-art is a false analogy, and that for a trained man or woman to paint as a child paints is an impossibility. [Footnote: I am well aware that this statement is at variance with Kandinsky, who has contributed a long article--"Uber die Formfrage"--to Der Blaue Reiter, in which he argues the parallel between Post-Impressionism and child vision, as exemplified in the work of Henri Rousseau. Certainly Rousseau's vision is childlike. He has had no artistic training and pretends to none. But I consider that his art suffers so greatly from his lack of training, that beyond a sentimental interest it has little to recommend it.] All this does not presume to say that the "symbolist" school of art is necessarily nobler than the "naturalist." I am making no comparison, only a distinction. When the difference in aim is fully realized, the Primitives can no longer be condemned as incompetent, nor the moderns as lunatics, for such a condemnation is made from a wrong point of view. Judgement must be passed, not on the failure to achieve "naturalism" but on the failure to express the inner meaning. The brief historical survey attempted above ended with the names of Cezanne and Gauguin, and for the purposes of this Introduction, for the purpose, that is to say, of tracing the genealogy of the Cubists and of Kandinsky, these two names may be taken to represent the modern expression of the "symbolist" tradition. The difference between them is subtle but goes very deep. For both the ultimate and internal significance of what they painted counted for more than the significance which is momentary and external. Cezanne saw in a tree, a heap of apples, a human face, a group of bathing men or women, something more abiding than either photography or impressionist painting could present. He painted the "treeness" of the tree, as a modern critic has admirably expressed it. But in everything he did he showed the architectural mind of the true Frenchman. His landscape studies were based on a profound sense of the structure of rocks and hills, and being structural, his art depends essentially on reality. Though he did not scruple, and rightly, to sacrifice accuracy of form to the inner need, the material of which his art was composed was drawn from the huge stores of actual nature. Gauguin has greater solemnity and fire than Cezanne. His pictures are tragic or passionate poems. He also sacrifices conventional form to inner expression, but his art tends ever towards the spiritual, towards that profounder emphasis which cannot be expressed in natural objects nor in words. True his abandonment of representative methods did not lead him to an abandonment of natural terms of expression--that is to say human figures, trees and animals do appear in his pictures. But that he was much nearer a complete rejection of representation than was Cezanne is shown by the course followed by their respective disciples. The generation immediately subsequent to Cezanne, Herbin, Vlaminck, Friesz, Marquet, etc., do little more than exaggerate Cezanne's technique, until there appear the first signs of Cubism. These are seen very clearly in Herbin. Objects begin to be treated in flat planes. A round vase is represented by a series of planes set one into the other, which at a distance blend into a curve. This is the first stage. The real plunge into Cubism was taken by Picasso, who, nurtured on Cezanne, carried to its perfectly logical conclusion the master's structural treatment of nature. Representation disappears. Starting from a single natural object, Picasso and the Cubists produce lines and project angles till their canvases are covered with intricate and often very beautiful series of balanced lines and curves. They persist, however, in giving them picture titles which recall the natural object from which their minds first took flight. With Gauguin the case is different. The generation of his disciples which followed him--I put it thus to distinguish them from his actual pupils at Pont Aven, Serusier and the rest--carried the tendency further. One hesitates to mention Derain, for his beginnings, full of vitality and promise, have given place to a dreary compromise with Cubism, without visible future, and above all without humour. But there is no better example of the development of synthetic symbolism than his first book of woodcuts. [Footnote: L'Enchanteur pourrissant, par Guillaume Apollinaire, avec illustrations gravees sur bois par Andre Derain. Paris, Kahnweiler, 1910.] Here is work which keeps the merest semblance of conventional form, which gives its effect by startling masses of black and white, by sudden curves, but more frequently by sudden angles. [Footnote: The renaissance of the angle in art is an interesting feature of the new movement. Not since Egyptian times has it been used with such noble effect. There is a painting of Gauguin's at Hagen, of a row of Tahitian women seated on a bench, that consists entirely of a telling design in Egyptian angles. Cubism is the result of this discovery of the angle, blended with the influence of Cezanne.] In the process of the gradual abandonment of natural form the "angle" school is paralleled by the "curve" school, which also descends wholly from Gauguin. The best known representative is Maurice Denis. But he has become a slave to sentimentality, and has been left behind. Matisse is the most prominent French artist who has followed Gauguin with curves. In Germany a group of young men, who form the Neue Kunstlevereinigung in Munich, work almost entirely in sweeping curves, and have reduced natural objects purely to flowing, decorative units. But while they have followed Gauguin's lead in abandoning representation both of these two groups of advance are lacking in spiritual meaning. Their aim becomes more and more decorative, with an undercurrent of suggestion of simplified form. Anyone who has studied Gauguin will be aware of the intense spiritual value of his work. The man is a preacher and a psychologist, universal by his very unorthodoxy, fundamental because he goes deeper than civilization. In his disciples this great element is wanting. Kandinsky has supplied the need. He is not only on the track of an art more purely spiritual than was conceived even by Gauguin, but he has achieved the final abandonment of all representative intention. In this way he combines in himself the spiritual and technical tendencies of one great branch of Post-Impressionism. The question most generally asked about Kandinsky's art is: "What is he trying to do?" It is to be hoped that this book will do something towards answering the question. But it will not do everything. This--partly because it is impossible to put into words the whole of Kandinsky's ideal, partly because in his anxiety to state his case, to court criticism, the author has been tempted to formulate more than is wise. His analysis of colours and their effects on the spectator is not the real basis of his art, because, if it were, one could, with the help of a scientific manual, describe one's emotions before his pictures with perfect accuracy. And this is impossible. Kandinsky is painting music. That is to say, he has broken down the barrier between music and painting, and has isolated the pure emotion which, for want of a better name, we call the artistic emotion. Anyone who has listened to good music with any enjoyment will admit to an unmistakable but quite indefinable thrill. He will not be able, with sincerity, to say that such a passage gave him such visual impressions, or such a harmony roused in him such emotions. The effect of music is too subtle for words. And the same with this painting of Kandinsky's. Speaking for myself, to stand in front of some of his drawings or pictures gives a keener and more spiritual pleasure than any other kind of painting. But I could not express in the least what gives the pleasure. Presumably the lines and colours have the same effect as harmony and rhythm in music have on the truly musical. That psychology comes in no one can deny. Many people--perhaps at present the very large majority of people--have their colour-music sense dormant. It has never been exercised. In the same way many people are unmusical--either wholly, by nature, or partly, for lack of experience. Even when Kandinsky's idea is universally understood there may be many who are not moved by his melody. For my part, something within me answered to Kandinsky's art the first time I met with it. There was no question of looking for representation; a harmony had been set up, and that was enough. Of course colour-music is no new idea. That is to say attempts have been made to play compositions in colour, by flashes and harmonies. [Footnote: Cf. "Colour Music," by A. Wallace Rimington. Hutchinson. 6s. net.] Also music has been interpreted in colour. But I do not know of any previous attempt to paint, without any reference to music, compositions which shall have on the spectator an effect wholly divorced from representative association. Kandinsky refers to attempts to paint in colour-counterpoint. But that is a different matter, in that it is the borrowing from one art by another of purely technical methods, without a previous impulse from spiritual sympathy. One is faced then with the conflicting claims of Picasso and Kandinsky to the position of true leader of non-representative art. Picasso's admirers hail him, just as this Introduction hails Kandinsky, as a visual musician. The methods and ideas of each rival are so different that the title cannot be accorded to both. In his book, Kandinsky states his opinion of Cubism and its fatal weakness, and history goes to support his contention. The origin of Cubism in Cezanne, in a structural art that owes its very existence to matter, makes its claim to pure emotionalism seem untenable. Emotions are not composed of strata and conflicting pressures. Once abandon reality and the geometrical vision becomes abstract mathematics. It seems to me that Picasso shares a Futurist error when he endeavours to harmonize one item of reality--a number, a button, a few capital letters--with a surrounding aura of angular projections. There must be a conflict of impressions, which differ essentially in quality. One trend of modern music is towards realism of sound. Children cry, dogs bark, plates are broken. Picasso approaches the same goal from the opposite direction. It is as though he were trying to work from realism to music. The waste of time is, to my mind, equally complete in both cases. The power of music to give expression without the help of representation is its noblest possession. No painting has ever had such a precious power. Kandinsky is striving to give it that power, and prove what is at least the logical analogy between colour and sound, between line and rhythm of beat. Picasso makes little use of colour, and confines himself only to one series of line effects--those caused by conflicting angles. So his aim is smaller and more limited than Kandinsky's even if it is as reasonable. But because it has not wholly abandoned realism but uses for the painting of feeling a structural vision dependent for its value on the association of reality, because in so doing it tries to make the best of two worlds, there seems little hope for it of redemption in either. As has been said above, Picasso and Kandinsky make an interesting parallel, in that they have developed the art respectively of Cezanne and Gauguin, in a similar direction. On the decision of Picasso's failure or success rests the distinction between Cezanne and Gauguin, the realist and the symbolist, the painter of externals and the painter of religious feeling. Unless a spiritual value is accorded to Cezanne's work, unless he is believed to be a religious painter (and religious painters need not paint Madonnas), unless in fact he is paralleled closely with Gauguin, his follower Picasso cannot claim to stand, with Kandinsky, as a prophet of an art of spiritual harmony. If Kandinsky ever attains his ideal--for he is the first to admit that he has not yet reached his goal--if he ever succeeds in finding a common language of colour and line which shall stand alone as the language of sound and beat stands alone, without recourse to natural form or representation, he will on all hands be hailed as a great innovator, as a champion of the freedom of art. Until such time, it is the duty of those to whom his work has spoken, to bear their testimony. Otherwise he may be condemned as one who has invented a shorthand of his own, and who paints pictures which cannot be understood by those who have not the key of the cipher. In the meantime also it is important that his position should be recognized as a legitimate, almost inevitable outcome of Post-Impressionist tendencies. Such is the recognition this Introduction strives to secure. MICHAEL T. H. SADLER REFERENCE Those interested in the ideas and work of Kandinsky and his fellow artists would do well to consult: DER BLAUE REITER, vol. i. Piper Verlag, Munich, 10 mk. This sumptuous volume contains articles by Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Arnold Schonberg, etc., together with some musical texts and numerous reproductions--some in colour--of the work of the primitive mosaicists, glass-painters, and sculptors, as well as of more modern artists from Greco to Kandinsky, Marc, and their friends. The choice of illustrations gives an admirable idea of the continuity and steady growth of the new painting, sculpture, and music. KLANGE. By Wassily Kandinsky. Piper Verlag, Munich, 30 mk. A most beautifully produced book of prose-poems, with a large number of illustrations, many in colour. This is Kandinsky's most recent work. Also the back and current numbers of Der Sturm, a weekly paper published in Berlin in the defence of the new art. Illustrations by Marc, Pechstein, le Fauconnier, Delaunay, Kandinsky, etc. Also poems and critical articles. Price per weekly number 25 pfg. Der Sturm has in preparation an album of reproductions of pictures and drawings by Kandinsky. For Cubism cf. Gleizes et Metzinger, "du Cubisme," and Guillaume Apollinaire, "Les Peintres Cubistes." Collection Les Arts. Paris, Figuiere, per vol. 3 fr. 50 c. DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF ELISABETH TICHEJEFF PART 1: ABOUT GENERAL AESTHETIC I. INTRODUCTION Every work of art is the child of its age and, in many cases, the mother of our emotions. It follows that each period of culture produces an art of its own which can never be repeated. Efforts to revive the art-principles of the past will at best produce an art that is still-born. It is impossible for us to live and feel, as did the ancient Greeks. In the same way those who strive to follow the Greek methods in sculpture achieve only a similarity of form, the work remaining soulless for all time. Such imitation is mere aping. Externally the monkey completely resembles a human being; he will sit holding a book in front of his nose, and turn over the pages with a thoughtful aspect, but his actions have for him no real meaning. There is, however, in art another kind of external similarity which is founded on a fundamental truth. When there is a similarity of inner tendency in the whole moral and spiritual atmosphere, a similarity of ideals, at first closely pursued but later lost to sight, a similarity in the inner feeling of any one period to that of another, the logical result will be a revival of the external forms which served to express those inner feelings in an earlier age. An example of this today is our sympathy, our spiritual relationship, with the Primitives. Like ourselves, these artists sought to express in their work only internal truths, renouncing in consequence all consideration of external form. This all-important spark of inner life today is at present only a spark. Our minds, which are even now only just awakening after years of materialism, are infected with the despair of unbelief, of lack of purpose and ideal. The nightmare of materialism, which has turned the life of the universe into an evil, useless game, is not yet past; it holds the awakening soul still in its grip. Only a feeble light glimmers like a tiny star in a vast gulf of darkness. This feeble light is but a presentiment, and the soul, when it sees it, trembles in doubt whether the light is not a dream, and the gulf of darkness reality. This doubt, and the still harsh tyranny of the materialistic philosophy, divide our soul sharply from that of the Primitives. Our soul rings cracked when we seek to play upon it, as does a costly vase, long buried in the earth, which is found to have a flaw when it is dug up once more. For this reason, the Primitive phase, through which we are now passing, with its temporary similarity of form, can only be of short duration. These two possible resemblances between the art forms of today and those of the past will be at once recognized as diametrically opposed to one another. The first, being purely external, has no future. The second, being internal, contains the seed of the future within itself. After the period of materialist effort, which held the soul in check until it was shaken off as evil, the soul is emerging, purged by trials and sufferings. Shapeless emotions such as fear, joy, grief, etc., which belonged to this time of effort, will no longer greatly attract the artist. He will endeavour to awake subtler emotions, as yet unnamed. Living himself a complicated and comparatively subtle life, his work will give to those observers capable of feeling them lofty emotions beyond the reach of words. The observer of today, however, is seldom capable of feeling such emotions. He seeks in a work of art a mere imitation of nature which can serve some definite purpose (for example a portrait in the ordinary sense) or a presentment of nature according to a certain convention ("impressionist" painting), or some inner feeling expressed in terms of natural form (as we say--a picture with Stimmung) [Footnote: Stimmung is almost untranslateable. It is almost "sentiment" in the best sense, and almost "feeling." Many of Corot's twilight landscapes are full of a beautiful "Stimmung." Kandinsky uses the word later on to mean the "essential spirit" of nature.--M.T.H.S.] All those varieties of picture, when they are really art, fulfil their purpose and feed the spirit. Though this applies to the first case, it applies more strongly to the third, where the spectator does feel a corresponding thrill in himself. Such harmony or even contrast of emotion cannot be superficial or worthless; indeed the Stimmung of a picture can deepen and purify that of the spectator. Such works of art at least preserve the soul from coarseness; they "key it up," so to speak, to a certain height, as a tuning-key the strings of a musical instrument. But purification, and extension in duration and size of this sympathy of soul, remain one-sided, and the possibilities of the influence of art are not exerted to their utmost. Imagine a building divided into many rooms. The building may be large or small. Every wall of every room is covered with pictures of various sizes; perhaps they number many thousands. They represent in colour bits of nature--animals in sunlight or shadow, drinking, standing in water, lying on the grass; near to, a Crucifixion by a painter who does not believe in Christ; flowers; human figures sitting, standing, walking; often they are naked; many naked women, seen foreshortened from behind; apples and silver dishes; portrait of Councillor So and So; sunset; lady in red; flying duck; portrait of Lady X; flying geese; lady in white; calves in shadow flecked with brilliant yellow sunlight; portrait of Prince Y; lady in green. All this is carefully printed in a book--name of artist--name of picture. People with these books in their hands go from wall to wall, turning over pages, reading the names. Then they go away, neither richer nor poorer than when they came, and are absorbed at once in their business, which has nothing to do with art. Why did they come? In each picture is a whole lifetime imprisoned, a whole lifetime of fears, doubts, hopes, and joys. Whither is this lifetime tending? What is the message of the competent artist? "To send light into the darkness of men's hearts--such is the duty of the artist," said Schumann. "An artist is a man who can draw and paint everything," said Tolstoi. Of these two definitions of the artist's activity we must choose the second, if we think of the exhibition just described. On one canvas is a huddle of objects painted with varying degrees of skill, virtuosity and vigour, harshly or smoothly. To harmonize the whole is the task of art. With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators regard the work. Connoisseurs admire the "skill" (as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality of painting" (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry away. The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures "nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing. This condition of art is called "art for art's sake." This neglect of inner meanings, which is the life of colours, this vain squandering of artistic power is called "art for art's sake." The artist seeks for material reward for his dexterity, his power of vision and experience. His purpose becomes the satisfaction of vanity and greed. In place of the steady co-operation of artists is a scramble for good things. There are complaints of excessive competition, of over-production. Hatred, partisanship, cliques, jealousy, intrigues are the natural consequences of this aimless, materialist art. [Footnote: The few solitary exceptions do not destroy the truth of this sad and ominous picture, and even these exceptions are chiefly believers in the doctrine of art for art's sake. They serve, therefore, a higher ideal, but one which is ultimately a useless waste of their strength. External beauty is one element of a spiritual atmosphere. But beyond this positive fact (that what is beautiful is good) it has the weakness of a talent not used to the full. (The word talent is employed in the biblical sense.)] The onlooker turns away from the artist who has higher ideals and who cannot see his life purpose in an art without aims. Sympathy is the education of the spectator from the point of view of the artist. It has been said above that art is the child of its age. Such an art can only create an artistic feeling which is already clearly felt. This art, which has no power for the future, which is only a child of the age and cannot become a mother of the future, is a barren art. She is transitory and to all intent dies the moment the atmosphere alters which nourished her. The other art, that which is capable of educating further, springs equally from contemporary feeling, but is at the same time not only echo and mirror of it, but also has a deep and powerful prophetic strength. The spiritual life, to which art belongs and of which she is one of the mightiest elements, is a complicated but definite and easily definable movement forwards and upwards. This movement is the movement of experience. It may take different forms, but it holds at bottom to the same inner thought and purpose. Veiled in obscurity are the causes of this need to move ever upwards and forwards, by sweat of the brow, through sufferings and fears. When one stage has been accomplished, and many evil stones cleared from the road, some unseen and wicked hand scatters new obstacles in the way, so that the path often seems blocked and totally obliterated. But there never fails to come to the rescue some human being, like ourselves in everything except that he has in him a secret power of vision. He sees and points the way. The power to do this he would sometimes fain lay aside, for it is a bitter cross to bear. But he cannot do so. Scorned and hated, he drags after him over the stones the heavy chariot of a divided humanity, ever forwards and upwards. Often, many years after his body has vanished from the earth, men try by every means to recreate this body in marble, iron, bronze, or stone, on an enormous scale. As if there were any intrinsic value in the bodily existence of such divine martyrs and servants of humanity, who despised the flesh and lived only for the spirit! But at least such setting up of marble is a proof that a great number of men have reached the point where once the being they would now honour, stood alone. II. THE MOVEMENT OF THE TRIANGLE The life of the spirit may be fairly represented in diagram as a large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal parts with the narrowest segment uppermost. The lower the segment the greater it is in breadth, depth, and area. The whole triangle is moving slowly, almost invisibly forwards and upwards. Where the apex was today the second segment is tomorrow; what today can be understood only by the apex and to the rest of the triangle is an incomprehensible gibberish, forms tomorrow the true thought and feeling of the second segment. At the apex of the top segment stands often one man, and only one. His joyful vision cloaks a vast sorrow. Even those who are nearest to him in sympathy do not understand him. Angrily they abuse him as charlatan or madman. So in his lifetime stood Beethoven, solitary and insulted. [Footnote: Weber, composer of Der Freischutz, said of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony: "The extravagances of genius have reached the limit; Beethoven is now ripe for an asylum." Of the opening phrase, on a reiterated "e," the Abbe Stadler said to his neighbour, when first he heard it: "Always that miserable 'e'; he seems to be deaf to it himself, the idiot!"] How many years will it be before a greater segment of the triangle reaches the spot where he once stood alone? Despite memorials and statues, are they really many who have risen to his level? [Footnote 2: Are not many monuments in themselves answers to that question?] In every segment of the triangle are artists. Each one of them who can see beyond the limits of his segment is a prophet to those about him, and helps the advance of the obstinate whole. But those who are blind, or those who retard the movement of the triangle for baser reasons, are fully understood by their fellows and acclaimed for their genius. The greater the segment (which is the same as saying the lower it lies in the triangle) so the greater the number who understand the words of the artist. Every segment hungers consciously or, much more often, unconsciously for their corresponding spiritual food. This food is offered by the artists, and for this food the segment immediately below will tomorrow be stretching out eager hands. This simile of the triangle cannot be said to express every aspect of the spiritual life. For instance, there is never an absolute shadow-side to the picture, never a piece of unrelieved gloom. Even too often it happens that one level of spiritual food suffices for the nourishment of those who are already in a higher segment. But for them this food is poison; in small quantities it depresses their souls gradually into a lower segment; in large quantities it hurls them suddenly into the depths ever lower and lower. Sienkiewicz, in one of his novels, compares the spiritual life to swimming; for the man who does not strive tirelessly, who does not fight continually against sinking, will mentally and morally go under. In this strait a man's talent (again in the biblical sense) becomes a curse--and not only the talent of the artist, but also of those who eat this poisoned food. The artist uses his strength to flatter his lower needs; in an ostensibly artistic form he presents what is impure, draws the weaker elements to him, mixes them with evil, betrays men and helps them to betray themselves, while they convince themselves and others that they are spiritually thirsty, and that from this pure spring they may quench their thirst. Such art does not help the forward movement, but hinders it, dragging back those who are striving to press onward, and spreading pestilence abroad. Such periods, during which art has no noble champion, during which the true spiritual food is wanting, are periods of retrogression in the spiritual world. Ceaselessly souls fall from the higher to the lower segments of the triangle, and the whole seems motionless, or even to move down and backwards. Men attribute to these blind and dumb periods a special value, for they judge them by outward results, thinking only of material well-being. They hail some technical advance, which can help nothing but the body, as a great achievement. Real spiritual gains are at best under-valued, at worst entirely ignored. The solitary visionaries are despised or regarded as abnormal and eccentric. Those who are not wrapped in lethargy and who feel vague longings for spiritual life and knowledge and progress, cry in harsh chorus, without any to comfort them. The night of the spirit falls more and more darkly. Deeper becomes the misery of these blind and terrified guides, and their followers, tormented and unnerved by fear and doubt, prefer to this gradual darkening the final sudden leap into the blackness. At such a time art ministers to lower needs, and is used for material ends. She seeks her substance in hard realities because she knows of nothing nobler. Objects, the reproduction of which is considered her sole aim, remain monotonously the same. The question "what?" disappears from art; only the question "how?" remains. By what method are these material objects to be reproduced? The word becomes a creed. Art has lost her soul. In the search for method the artist goes still further. Art becomes so specialized as to be comprehensible only to artists, and they complain bitterly of public indifference to their work. For since the artist in such times has no need to say much, but only to be notorious for some small originality and consequently lauded by a small group of patrons and connoisseurs (which incidentally is also a very profitable business for him), there arise a crowd of gifted and skilful painters, so easy does the conquest of art appear. In each artistic circle are thousands of such artists, of whom the majority seek only for some new technical manner, and who produce millions of works of art without enthusiasm, with cold hearts and souls asleep. Competition arises. The wild battle for success becomes more and more material. Small groups who have fought their way to the top of the chaotic world of art and picture-making entrench themselves in the territory they have won. The public, left far behind, looks on bewildered, loses interest and turns away. But despite all this confusion, this chaos, this wild hunt for notoriety, the spiritual triangle, slowly but surely, with irresistible strength, moves onwards and upwards. The invisible Moses descends from the mountain and sees the dance round the golden calf. But he brings with him fresh stores of wisdom to man. First by the artist is heard his voice, the voice that is inaudible to the crowd. Almost unknowingly the artist follows the call. Already in that very question "how?" lies a hidden seed of renaissance. For when this "how?" remains without any fruitful answer, there is always a possibility that the same "something" (which we call personality today) may be able to see in the objects about it not only what is purely material but also something less solid; something less "bodily" than was seen in the period of realism, when the universal aim was to reproduce anything "as it really is" and without fantastic imagination. [Footnote: Frequent use is made here of the terms "material" and "non-material," and of the intermediate phrases "more" or "less material." Is everything material? or is EVERYTHING spiritual? Can the distinctions we make between matter and spirit be nothing but relative modifications of one or the other? Thought which, although a product of the spirit, can be defined with positive science, is matter, but of fine and not coarse substance. Is whatever cannot be touched with the hand, spiritual? The discussion lies beyond the scope of this little book; all that matters here is that the boundaries drawn should not be too definite.] If the emotional power of the artist can overwhelm the "how?" and can give free scope to his finer feelings, then art is on the crest of the road by which she will not fail later on to find the "what" she has lost, the "what" which will show the way to the spiritual food of the newly awakened spiritual life. This "what?" will no longer be the material, objective "what" of the former period, but the internal truth of art, the soul without which the body (i.e. the "how") can never be healthy, whether in an individual or in a whole people. THIS "WHAT" IS THE INTERNAL TRUTH WHICH ONLY ART CAN DIVINE, WHICH ONLY ART CAN EXPRESS BY THOSE MEANS OF EXPRESSION WHICH ARE HERS ALONE. III. SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION The spiritual triangle moves slowly onwards and upwards. Today one of the largest of the lower segments has reached the point of using the first battle cry of the materialist creed. The dwellers in this segment group themselves round various banners in religion. They call themselves Jews, Catholics, Protestants, etc. But they are really atheists, and this a few either of the boldest or the narrowest openly avow. "Heaven is empty," "God is dead." In politics these people are democrats and republicans. The fear, horror and hatred which yesterday they felt for these political creeds they now direct against anarchism, of which they know nothing but its much dreaded name. In economics these people are Socialists. They make sharp the sword of justice with which to slay the hydra of capitalism and to hew off the head of evil. Because the inhabitants of this great segment of the triangle have never solved any problem independently, but are dragged as it were in a cart by those the noblest of their fellowmen who have sacrificed themselves, they know nothing of the vital impulse of life which they regard always vaguely from a great distance. They rate this impulse lightly, putting their trust in purposeless theory and in the working of some logical method. The men of the segment next below are dragged slowly higher, blindly, by those just described. But they cling to their old position, full of dread of the unknown and of betrayal. The higher segments are not only blind atheists but can justify their godlessness with strange words; for example, those of Virchow--so unworthy of a learned man--"I have dissected many corpses, but never yet discovered a soul in any of them." In politics they are generally republican, with a knowledge of different parliamentary procedures; they read the political leading articles in the newspapers. In economics they are socialists of various grades, and can support their "principles" with numerous quotations, passing from Schweitzer's EMMA via Lasalle's IRON LAW OF WAGES, to Marx's CAPITAL, and still further. In these loftier segments other categories of ideas, absent in these just described, begin gradually to appear--science and art, to which last belong also literature and music. In science these men are positivists, only recognizing those things that can be weighed and measured. Anything beyond that they consider as rather discreditable nonsense, that same nonsense about which they held yesterday the theories that today are proven. In art they are naturalists, which means that they recognize and value the personality, individuality and temperament of the artist up to a certain definite point. This point has been fixed by others, and in it they believe unflinchingly. But despite their patent and well-ordered security, despite their infallible principles, there lurks in these higher segments a hidden fear, a nervous trembling, a sense of insecurity. And this is due to their upbringing. They know that the sages, statesmen and artists whom today they revere, were yesterday spurned as swindlers and charlatans. And the higher the segment in the triangle, the better defined is this fear, this modern sense of insecurity. Here and there are people with eyes which can see, minds which can correlate. They say to themselves: "If the science of the day before yesterday is rejected by the people of yesterday, and that of yesterday by us of today, is it not possible that what we call science now will be rejected by the men of tomorrow?" And the bravest of them answer, "It is possible." Then people appear who can distinguish those problems that the science of today has not yet explained. And they ask themselves: "Will science, if it continues on the road it has followed for so long, ever attain to the solution of these problems? And if it does so attain, will men be able to rely on its solution?" In these segments are also professional men of learning who can remember the time when facts now recognized by the Academies as firmly established, were scorned by those same Academies. There are also philosophers of aesthetic who write profound books about an art which was yesterday condemned as nonsense. In writing these books they remove the barriers over which art has most recently stepped and set up new ones which are to remain for ever in the places they have chosen. They do not notice that they are busy erecting barriers, not in front of art, but behind it. And if they do notice this, on the morrow they merely write fresh books and hastily set their barriers a little further on. This performance will go on unaltered until it is realized that the most extreme principle of aesthetic can never be of value to the future, but only to the past. No such theory of principle can be laid down for those things which lie beyond, in the realm of the immaterial. That which has no material existence cannot be subjected to a material classification. That which belongs to the spirit of the future can only be realized in feeling, and to this feeling the talent of the artist is the only road. Theory is the lamp which sheds light on the petrified ideas of yesterday and of the more distant past. [Footnote: Cf. Chapter VII.] And as we rise higher in the triangle we find that the uneasiness increases, as a city built on the most correct architectural plan may be shaken suddenly by the uncontrollable force of nature. Humanity is living in such a spiritual city, subject to these sudden disturbances for which neither architects nor mathematicians have made allowance. In one place lies a great wall crumbled to pieces like a card house, in another are the ruins of a huge tower which once stretched to heaven, built on many presumably immortal spiritual pillars. The abandoned churchyard quakes and forgotten graves open and from them rise forgotten ghosts. Spots appear on the sun and the sun grows dark, and what theory can fight with darkness? And in this city live also men deafened by false wisdom who hear no crash, and blinded by false wisdom, so that they say "our sun will shine more brightly than ever and soon the last spots will disappear." But sometime even these men will hear and see. But when we get still higher there is no longer this bewilderment. There work is going on which boldly attacks those pillars which men have set up. There we find other professional men of learning who test matter again and again, who tremble before no problem, and who finally cast doubt on that very matter which was yesterday the foundation of everything, so that the whole universe is shaken. Every day another scientific theory finds bold discoverers who overstep the boundaries of prophecy and, forgetful of themselves, join the other soldiers in the conquest of some new summit and in the hopeless attack on some stubborn fortress. But "there is no fortress that man cannot overcome." On the one hand, FACTS are being established which the science of yesterday dubbed swindles. Even newspapers, which are for the most part the most obsequious servants of worldly success and of the mob, and which trim their sails to every wind, find themselves compelled to modify their ironical judgements on the "marvels" of science and even to abandon them altogether. Various learned men, among them ultra-materialists, dedicate their strength to the scientific research of doubtful problems, which can no longer be lied about or passed over in silence. [Footnote: Zoller, Wagner, Butleroff (St. Petersburg), Crookes (London), etc.; later on, C. H. Richet, C. Flammarion. The Parisian paper Le Matin, published about two years ago the discoveries of the two last named under the title "Je le constate, mais je ne l'explique pas." Finally there are C. Lombroso, the inventor of the anthropological method of diagnosing crime, and Eusapio Palladino.] On the other hand, the number is increasing of those men who put no trust in the methods of materialistic science when it deals with those questions which have to do with "non-matter," or matter which is not accessible to our minds. Just as art is looking for help from the primitives, so these men are turning to half-forgotten times in order to get help from their half-forgotten methods. However, these very methods are still alive and in use among nations whom we, from the height of our knowledge, have been accustomed to regard with pity and scorn. To such nations belong the Indians, who from time to time confront those learned in our civilization with problems which we have either passed by unnoticed or brushed aside with superficial words and explanations. [Footnote: Frequently in such cases use is made of the word hypnotism; that same hypnotism which, in its earlier form of mesmerism, was disdainfully put aside by various learned bodies.] Mme. Blavatsky was the first person, after a life of many years in India, to see a connection between these "savages" and our "civilization." From that moment there began a tremendous spiritual movement which today includes a large number of people and has even assumed a material form in the THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. This society consists of groups who seek to approach the problem of the spirit by way of the INNER knowledge. The theory of Theosophy which serves as the basis to this movement was set out by Blavatsky in the form of a catechism in which the pupil receives definite answers to his questions from the theosophical point of view. [Footnote: E. P. Blavatsky, The Key of Theosophy, London, 1889.] Theosophy, according to Blavatsky, is synonymous with ETERNAL TRUTH. "The new torchbearer of truth will find the minds of men prepared for his message, a language ready for him in which to clothe the new truths he brings, an organization awaiting his arrival, which will remove the merely mechanical, material obstacles and difficulties from his path." And then Blavatsky continues: "The earth will be a heaven in the twenty-first century in comparison with what it is now," and with these words ends her book. When religion, science and morality are shaken, the two last by the strong hand of Nietzsche, and when the outer supports threaten to fall, man turns his gaze from externals in on to himself. Literature, music and art are the first and most sensitive spheres in which this spiritual revolution makes itself felt. They reflect the dark picture of the present time and show the importance of what at first was only a little point of light noticed by few and for the great majority non-existent. Perhaps they even grow dark in their turn, but on the other hand they turn away from the soulless life of the present towards those substances and ideas which give free scope to the non-material strivings of the soul. A poet of this kind in the realm of literature is Maeterlinck. He takes us into a world which, rightly or wrongly, we term supernatural. La Princesse Maleine, Les Sept Princesses, Les Aveugles, etc., are not people of past times as are the heroes in Shakespeare. They are merely souls lost in the clouds, threatened by them with death, eternally menaced by some invisible and sombre power. Spiritual darkness, the insecurity of ignorance and fear pervade the world in which they move. Maeterlinck is perhaps one of the first prophets, one of the first artistic reformers and seers to herald the end of the decadence just described. The gloom of the spiritual atmosphere, the terrible, but all-guiding hand, the sense of utter fear, the feeling of having strayed from the path, the confusion among the guides, all these are clearly felt in his works.[Footnote: To the front tank of such seers of the decadence belongs also Alfred Kubin. With irresistible force both Kubin's drawings and also his novel "Die Andere Seite" seem to engulf us in the terrible atmosphere of empty desolation.] This atmosphere Maeterlinck creates principally by purely artistic means. His material machinery (gloomy mountains, moonlight, marshes, wind, the cries of owls, etc.) plays really a symbolic role and helps to give the inner note. [Footnote: When one of Maeterlinck's plays was produced in St. Petersburg under his own guidance, he himself at one of the rehearsals had a tower represented by a plain piece of hanging linen. It was of no importance to him to have elaborate scenery prepared. He did as children, the greatest imaginers of all time, always do in their games; for they use a stick for a horse or create entire regiments of cavalry out of chalks. And in the same way a chalk with a notch in it is changed from a knight into a horse. On similar lines the imagination of the spectator plays in the modern theatre, and especially in that of Russia, an important part. And this is a notable element in the transition from the material to the spiritual in the theatre of the future.] Maeterlinck's principal technical weapon is his use of words. The word may express an inner harmony. This inner harmony springs partly, perhaps principally, from the object which it names. But if the object is not itself seen, but only its name heard, the mind of the hearer receives an abstract impression only, that is to say as of the object dematerialized, and a corresponding vibration is immediately set up in the HEART. The apt use of a word (in its poetical meaning), repetition of this word, twice, three times or even more frequently, according to the need of the poem, will not only tend to intensify the inner harmony but also bring to light unsuspected spiritual properties of the word itself. Further than that, frequent repetition of a word (again a favourite game of children, which is forgotten in after life) deprives the word of its original external meaning. Similarly, in drawing, the abstract message of the object drawn tends to be forgotten and its meaning lost. Sometimes perhaps we unconsciously hear this real harmony sounding together with the material or later on with the non-material sense of the object. But in the latter case the true harmony exercises a direct impression on the soul. The soul undergoes an emotion which has no relation to any definite object, an emotion more complicated, I might say more super-sensuous than the emotion caused by the sound of a bell or of a stringed instrument. This line of development offers great possibilities to the literature of the future. In an embryonic form this word-power-has already been used in SERRES CHAUDES. [Footnote: SERRES CHAUDES, SUIVIES DE QUINZE CHANSONS, par Maurice Maeterlinck. Brussels. Lacomblez.] As Maeterlinck uses them, words which seem at first to create only a neutral impression have really a more subtle value. Even a familiar word like "hair," if used in a certain way can intensify an atmosphere of sorrow or despair. And this is Maeterlinck's method. He shows that thunder, lightning and a moon behind driving clouds, in themselves material means, can be used in the theatre to create a greater sense of terror than they do in nature. The true inner forces do not lose their strength and effect so easily. [Footnote: A comparison between the work of Poe and Maeterlinck shows the course of artistic transition from the material to the abstract.] An the word which has two meanings, the first direct, the second indirect, is the pure material of poetry and of literature, the material which these arts alone can manipulate and through which they speak to the spirit. Something similar may be noticed in the music of Wagner. His famous leitmotiv is an attempt to give personality to his characters by something beyond theatrical expedients and light effect. His method of using a definite motiv is a purely musical method. It creates a spiritual atmosphere by means of a musical phrase which precedes the hero, which he seems to radiate forth from any distance. [Footnote: Frequent attempts have shown that such a spiritual atmosphere can belong not only to heroes but to any human being. Sensitives cannot, for example, remain in a room in which a person has been who is spiritually antagonistic to them, even though they know nothing of his existence.] The most modern musicians like Debussy create a spiritual impression, often taken from nature, but embodied in purely musical form. For this reason Debussy is often classed with the Impressionist painters on the ground that he resembles these painters in using natural phenomena for the purposes of his art. Whatever truth there may be in this comparison merely accentuates the fact that the various arts of today learn from each other and often resemble each other. But it would be rash to say that this definition is an exhaustive statement of Debussy's significance. Despite his similarity with the Impressionists this musician is deeply concerned with spiritual harmony, for in his works one hears the suffering and tortured nerves of the present time. And further Debussy never uses the wholly material note so characteristic of programme music, but trusts mainly in the creation of a more abstract impression. Debussy has been greatly influenced by Russian music, notably by Mussorgsky. So it is not surprising that he stands in close relation to the young Russian composers, the chief of whom is Scriabin. The experience of the hearer is frequently the same during the performance of the works of these two musicians. He is often snatched quite suddenly from a series of modern discords into the charm of more or less conventional beauty. He feels himself often insulted, tossed about like a tennis ball over the net between the two parties of the outer and the inner beauty. To those who are not accustomed to it the inner beauty appears as ugliness because humanity in general inclines to the outer and knows nothing of the inner. Almost alone in severing himself from conventional beauty is the Austrian composer, Arnold Schonberg. He says in his Harmonielehre: "Every combination of notes, every advance is possible, but I am beginning to feel that there are also definite rules and conditions which incline me to the use of this or that dissonance." [Footnote: "Die Musik," p. 104, from the Harmonielehre (Verlag der Universal Edition).] This means that Schonberg realizes that the greatest freedom of all, the freedom of an unfettered art, can never be absolute. Every age achieves a certain measure of this freedom, but beyond the boundaries of its freedom the mightiest genius can never go. But the measure of freedom of each age must be constantly enlarged. Schonberg is endeavouring to make complete use of his freedom and has already discovered gold mines of new beauty in his search for spiritual harmony. His music leads us into a realm where musical experience is a matter not of the ear but of the soul alone--and from this point begins the music of the future. A parallel course has been followed by the Impressionist movement in painting. It is seen in its dogmatic and most naturalistic form in so-called Neo-Impressionism. The theory of this is to put on the canvas the whole glitter and brilliance of nature, and not only an isolated aspect of her. It is interesting to notice three practically contemporary and totally different groups in painting. They are (1) Rossetti and his pupil Burne-Jones, with their followers; (2) Bocklin and his school; (3) Segantini, with his unworthy following of photographic artists. I have chosen these three groups to illustrate the search for the abstract in art. Rossetti sought to revive the non-materialism of the pre-Raphaelites. Bocklin busied himself with the mythological scenes, but was in contrast to Rossetti in that he gave strongly material form to his legendary figures. Segantini, outwardly the most material of the three, selected the most ordinary objects (hills, stones, cattle, etc.) often painting them with the minutest realism, but he never failed to create a spiritual as well as a material value, so that really he is the most non-material of the trio. These men sought for the "inner" by way of the "outer." By another road, and one more purely artistic, the great seeker after a new sense of form approached the same problem. Cezanne made a living thing out of a teacup, or rather in a teacup he realized the existence of something alive. He raised still life to such a point that it ceased to be inanimate. He painted these things as he painted human beings, because he was endowed with the gift of divining the inner life in everything. His colour and form are alike suitable to the spiritual harmony. A man, a tree, an apple, all were used by Cezanne in the creation of something that is called a "picture," and which is a piece of true inward and artistic harmony. The same intention actuates the work of one of the greatest of the young Frenchmen, Henri Matisse. He paints "pictures," and in these "pictures" endeavours to reproduce the divine.[Footnote: Cf. his article in KUNST UND KUNSTLER, 1909, No. 8.] To attain this end he requires as a starting point nothing but the object to be painted (human being or whatever it may be), and then the methods that belong to painting alone, colour and form. By personal inclination, because he is French and because he is specially gifted as a colourist, Matisse is apt to lay too much stress on the colour. Like Debussy, he cannot always refrain from conventional beauty; Impressionism is in his blood. One sees pictures of Matisse which are full of great inward vitality, produced by the stress of the inner need, and also pictures which possess only outer charm, because they were painted on an outer impulse. (How often one is reminded of Manet in this.) His work seems to be typical French painting, with its dainty sense of melody, raised from time to time to the summit of a great hill above the clouds. But in the work of another great artist in Paris, the Spaniard Pablo Picasso, there is never any suspicion of this conventional beauty. Tossed hither and thither by the need for self-expression, Picasso hurries from one manner to another. At times a great gulf appears between consecutive manners, because Picasso leaps boldly and is found continually by his bewildered crowd of followers standing at a point very different from that at which they saw him last. No sooner do they think that they have reached him again than he has changed once more. In this way there arose Cubism, the latest of the French movements, which is treated in detail in Part II. Picasso is trying to arrive at constructiveness by way of proportion. In his latest works (1911) he has achieved the logical destruction of matter, not, however, by dissolution but rather by a kind of a parcelling out of its various divisions and a constructive scattering of these divisions about the canvas. But he seems in this most recent work distinctly desirous of keeping an appearance of matter. He shrinks from no innovation, and if colour seems likely to balk him in his search for a pure artistic form, he throws it overboard and paints a picture in brown and white; and the problem of purely artistic form is the real problem of his life. In their pursuit of the same supreme end Matisse and Picasso stand side by side, Matisse representing colour and Picasso form. IV. THE PYRAMID And so at different points along the road are the different arts, saying what they are best able to say, and in the language which is peculiarly their own. Despite, or perhaps thanks to, the differences between them, there has never been a time when the arts approached each other more nearly than they do today, in this later phase of spiritual development. In each manifestation is the seed of a striving towards the abstract, the non-material. Consciously or unconsciously they are obeying Socrates' command--Know thyself. Consciously or unconsciously artists are studying and proving their material, setting in the balance the spiritual value of those elements, with which it is their several privilege to work. And the natural result of this striving is that the various arts are drawing together. They are finding in Music the best teacher. With few exceptions music has been for some centuries the art which has devoted itself not to the reproduction of natural phenomena, but rather to the expression of the artist's soul, in musical sound. A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own art. And from this results that modern desire for rhythm in painting, for mathematical, abstract construction, for repeated notes of colour, for setting colour in motion. This borrowing of method by one art from another, can only be truly successful when the application of the borrowed methods is not superficial but fundamental. One art must learn first how another uses its methods, so that the methods may afterwards be applied to the borrower's art from the beginning, and suitably. The artist must not forget that in him lies the power of true application of every method, but that that power must be developed. In manipulation of form music can achieve results which are beyond the reach of painting. On the other hand, painting is ahead of music in several particulars. Music, for example, has at its disposal duration of time; while painting can present to the spectator the whole content of its message at one moment. [Footnote: These statements of difference are, of course, relative; for music can on occasions dispense with extension of time, and painting make use of it.] Music, which is outwardly unfettered by nature, needs no definite form for its expression. [Footnote: How miserably music fails when attempting to express material appearances is proved by the affected absurdity of programme music. Quite lately such experiments have been made. The imitation in sound of croaking frogs, of farmyard noises, of household duties, makes an excellent music hall turn and is amusing enough. But in serious music such attempts are merely warnings against any imitation of nature. Nature has her own language, and a powerful one; this language cannot be imitated. The sound of a farmyard in music is never successfully reproduced, and is unnecessary waste of time. The Stimmung of nature can be imparted by every art, not, however, by imitation, but by the artistic divination of its inner spirit.] Painting today is almost exclusively concerned with the reproduction of natural forms and phenomena. Her business is now to test her strength and methods, to know herself as music has done for a long time, and then to use her powers to a truly artistic end. And so the arts are encroaching one upon another, and from a proper use of this encroachment will rise the art that is truly monumental. Every man who steeps himself in the spiritual possibilities of his art is a valuable helper in the building of the spiritual pyramid which will some day reach to heaven. PART II: ABOUT PAINTING V. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING OF COLOUR To let the eye stray over a palette, splashed with many colours, produces a dual result. In the first place one receives a PURELY PHYSICAL IMPRESSION, one of pleasure and contentment at the varied and beautiful colours. The eye is either warmed or else soothed and cooled. But these physical sensations can only be of short duration. They are merely superficial and leave no lasting impression, for the soul is unaffected. But although the effect of the colours is forgotten when the eye is turned away, the superficial impression of varied colour may be the starting point of a whole chain of related sensations. On the average man only the impressions caused by very familiar objects, will be purely superficial. A first encounter with any new phenomenon exercises immediately an impression on the soul. This is the experience of the child discovering the world, to whom every object is new. He sees a light, wishes to take hold of it, burns his finger and feels henceforward a proper respect for flame. But later he learns that light has a friendly as well as an unfriendly side, that it drives away the darkness, makes the day longer, is essential to warmth, cooking, play-acting. From the mass of these discoveries is composed a knowledge of light, which is indelibly fixed in his mind. The strong, intensive interest disappears and the various properties of flame are balanced against each other. In this way the whole world becomes gradually disenchanted. It is realized that trees give shade, that horses run fast and motor-cars still faster, that dogs bite, that the figure seen in a mirror is not a real human being. As the man develops, the circle of these experiences caused by different beings and objects, grows ever wider. They acquire an inner meaning and eventually a spiritual harmony. It is the same with colour, which makes only a momentary and superficial impression on a soul but slightly developed in sensitiveness. But even this superficial impression varies in quality. The eye is strongly attracted by light, clear colours, and still more strongly attracted by those colours which are warm as well as clear; vermilion has the charm of flame, which has always attracted human beings. Keen lemon-yellow hurts the eye in time as a prolonged and shrill trumpet-note the ear, and the gazer turns away to seek relief in blue or green. But to a more sensitive soul the effect of colours is deeper and intensely moving. And so we come to the second main result of looking at colours: THEIR PSYCHIC EFFECT. They produce a corresponding spiritual vibration, and it is only as a step towards this spiritual vibration that the elementary physical impression is of importance. Whether the psychic effect of colour is a direct one, as these last few lines imply, or whether it is the outcome of association, is perhaps open to question. The soul being one with the body, the former may well experience a psychic shock, caused by association acting on the latter. For example, red may cause a sensation analogous to that caused by flame, because red is the colour of flame. A warm red will prove exciting, another shade of red will cause pain or disgust through association with running blood. In these cases colour awakens a corresponding physical sensation, which undoubtedly works upon the soul. If this were always the case, it would be easy to define by association the effects of colour upon other senses than that of sight. One might say that keen yellow looks sour, because it recalls the taste of a lemon. But such definitions are not universally possible. There are many examples of colour working which refuse to be so classified. A Dresden doctor relates of one of his patients, whom he designates as an "exceptionally sensitive person," that he could not eat a certain sauce without tasting "blue," i.e. without experiencing a feeling of seeing a blue color. [Footnote: Dr. Freudenberg. "Spaltung der Personlichkeit" (Ubersinnliche Welt. 1908. No. 2, p. 64-65). The author also discusses the hearing of colour, and says that here also no rules can be laid down. But cf. L. Sabanejeff in "Musik," Moscow, 1911, No. 9, where the imminent possibility of laying down a law is clearly hinted at.] It would be possible to suggest, by way of explanation of this, that in highly sensitive people, the way to the soul is so direct and the soul itself so impressionable, that any impression of taste communicates itself immediately to the soul, and thence to the other organs of sense (in this case, the eyes). This would imply an echo or reverberation, such as occurs sometimes in musical instruments which, without being touched, sound in harmony with some other instrument struck at the moment. But not only with taste has sight been known to work in harmony. Many colours have been described as rough or sticky, others as smooth and uniform, so that one feels inclined to stroke them (e.g., dark ultramarine, chromic oxide green, and rose madder). Equally the distinction between warm and cold colours belongs to this connection. Some colours appear soft (rose madder), others hard (cobalt green, blue-green oxide), so that even fresh from the tube they seem to be dry. The expression "scented colours" is frequently met with. And finally the sound of colours is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would try to express bright yellow in the bass notes, or dark lake in the treble. [Footnote: Much theory and practice have been devoted to this question. People have sought to paint in counterpoint. Also unmusical children have been successfully helped to play the piano by quoting a parallel in colour (e.g., of flowers). On these lines Frau A. Sacharjin-Unkowsky has worked for several years and has evolved a method of "so describing sounds by natural colours, and colours by natural sounds, that colour could be heard and sound seen." The system has proved successful for several years both in the inventor's own school and the Conservatoire at St. Petersburg. Finally Scriabin, on more spiritual lines, has paralleled sound and colours in a chart not unlike that of Frau Unkowsky. In "Prometheus" he has given convincing proof of his theories. (His chart appeared in "Musik," Moscow, 1911, No. 9.)] [Footnote: The converse question, i.e. the colour of sound, was touched upon by Mallarme and systematized by his disciple Rene Ghil, whose book, Traite du Verbe, gives the rules for "l'instrumentation verbale."--M.T.H.S.] The explanation by association will not suffice us in many, and the most important cases. Those who have heard of chromotherapy will know that coloured light can exercise very definite influences on the whole body. Attempts have been made with different colours in the treatment of various nervous ailments. They have shown that red light stimulates and excites the heart, while blue light can cause temporary paralysis. But when the experiments come to be tried on animals and even plants, the association theory falls to the ground. So one is bound to admit that the question is at present unexplored, but that colour can exercise enormous influence over the body as a physical organism. No more sufficient, in the psychic sphere, is the theory of association. Generally speaking, colour is a power which directly influences the soul. Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul. IT IS EVIDENT THEREFORE THAT COLOUR HARMONY MUST REST ONLY ON A CORRESPONDING VIBRATION IN THE HUMAN SOUL; AND THIS IS ONE OF THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF THE INNER NEED. [Footnote: The phrase "inner need" (innere Notwendigkeit) means primarily the impulse felt by the artist for spiritual expression. Kandinsky is apt, however, to use the phrase sometimes to mean not only the hunger for spiritual expression, but also the actual expression itself.--M.T.H.S.] VI. THE LANGUAGE OF FORM AND COLOUR The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music. (The Merchant of Venice, Act v, Scene I.) Musical sound acts directly on the soul and finds an echo there because, though to varying extents, music is innate in man. [Footnote: Cf. E. Jacques-Dalcroze in The Eurhythmics of Jacques-Dalcroze. London, Constable.--M.T.H.S.] "Everyone knows that yellow, orange, and red suggest ideas of joy and plenty" (Delacroix). [Footnote: Cf. Paul Signac, D'Eugene Delacroix au Neo-Impressionisme. Paris. Floury. Also compare an interesting article by K. Schettler: "Notizen uber die Farbe." (Decorative Kunst, 1901, February).] These two quotations show the deep relationship between the arts, and especially between music and painting. Goethe said that painting must count this relationship her main foundation, and by this prophetic remark he seems to foretell the position in which painting is today. She stands, in fact, at the first stage of the road by which she will, according to her own possibilities, make art an abstraction of thought and arrive finally at purely artistic composition. [Footnote: By "Komposition" Kandinsky here means, of course, an artistic creation. He is not referring to the arrangement of the objects in a picture.--M.T.H.S.] Painting has two weapons at her disposal: 1. Colour. 2. Form. Form can stand alone as representing an object (either real or otherwise) or as a purely abstract limit to a space or a surface. Colour cannot stand alone; it cannot dispense with boundaries of some kind. [Footnote: Cf. A. Wallace Rimington. Colour music (OP. CIT.) where experiments are recounted with a colour organ, which gives symphonies of rapidly changing colour without boundaries--except the unavoidable ones of the white curtain on which the colours are reflected.--M.T.H.S.] A never-ending extent of red can only be seen in the mind; when the word red is heard, the colour is evoked without definite boundaries. If such are necessary they have deliberately to be imagined. But such red, as is seen by the mind and not by the eye, exercises at once a definite and an indefinite impression on the soul, and produces spiritual harmony. I say "indefinite," because in itself it has no suggestion of warmth or cold, such attributes having to be imagined for it afterwards, as modifications of the original "redness." I say "definite," because the spiritual harmony exists without any need for such subsequent attributes of warmth or cold. An analogous case is the sound of a trumpet which one hears when the word "trumpet" is pronounced. This sound is audible to the soul, without the distinctive character of a trumpet heard in the open air or in a room, played alone or with other instruments, in the hands of a postilion, a huntsman, a soldier, or a professional musician. But when red is presented in a material form (as in painting) it must possess (1) some definite shade of the many shades of red that exist and (2) a limited surface, divided off from the other colours, which are undoubtedly there. The first of these conditions (the subjective) is affected by the second (the objective), for the neighbouring colours affect the shade of red. This essential connection between colour and form brings us to the question of the influences of form on colour. Form alone, even though totally abstract and geometrical, has a power of inner suggestion. A triangle (without the accessory consideration of its being acute-or obtuse-angled or equilateral) has a spiritual value of its own. In connection with other forms, this value may be somewhat modified, but remains in quality the same. The case is similar with a circle, a square, or any conceivable geometrical figure. [Footnote: The angle at which the triangle stands, and whether it is stationary or moving, are of importance to its spiritual value. This fact is specially worthy of the painter's consideration.] As above, with the red, we have here a subjective substance in an objective shell. The mutual influence of form and colour now becomes clear. A yellow triangle, a blue circle, a green square, or a green triangle, a yellow circle, a blue square--all these are different and have different spiritual values. It is evident that many colours are hampered and even nullified in effect by many forms. On the whole, keen colours are well suited by sharp forms (e.g., a yellow triangle), and soft, deep colours by round forms (e.g., a blue circle). But it must be remembered that an unsuitable combination of form and colour is not necessarily discordant, but may, with manipulation, show the way to fresh possibilities of harmony. Since colours and forms are well-nigh innumerable, their combination and their influences are likewise unending. The material is inexhaustible. Form, in the narrow sense, is nothing but the separating line between surfaces of colour. That is its outer meaning. But it has also an inner meaning, of varying intensity, [Footnote: It is never literally true that any form is meaningless and "says nothing." Every form in the world says something. But its message often fails to reach us, and even if it does, full understanding is often withheld from us.] and, properly speaking, FORM IS THE OUTWARD EXPRESSION OF THIS INNER MEANING. To use once more the metaphor of the piano--the artist is the hand which, by playing on this or that key (i.e., form), affects the human soul in this or that way. SO IT IS EVIDENT THAT FORM-HARMONY MUST REST ONLY ON A CORRESPONDING VIBRATION OF THE HUMAN SOUL; AND THIS IS A SECOND GUIDING PRINCIPLE OF THE INNER NEED. The two aspects of form just mentioned define its two aims. The task of limiting surfaces (the outer aspect) is well performed if the inner meaning is fully expressed. [Footnote: The phrase "full expression" must be clearly understood. Form often is most expressive when least coherent. It is often most expressive when outwardly most imperfect, perhaps only a stroke, a mere hint of outer meaning.] The outer task may assume many different shapes; but it will never fail in one of two purposes: (1) Either form aims at so limiting surfaces as to fashion of them some material object; (2) Or form remains abstract, describing only a non-material, spiritual entity. Such non-material entities, with life and value as such, are a circle, a triangle, a rhombus, a trapeze, etc., many of them so complicated as to have no mathematical denomination. Between these two extremes lie the innumerable forms in which both elements exist; with a preponderance either of the abstract or the material. These intermediate forms are, at present, the store on which the artist has to draw. Purely abstract forms are beyond the reach of the artist at present; they are too indefinite for him. To limit himself to the purely indefinite would be to rob himself of possibilities, to exclude the human element and therefore to weaken his power of expression. On the other hand, there exists equally no purely material form. A material object cannot be absolutely reproduced. For good or evil, the artist has eyes and hands, which are perhaps more artistic than his intentions and refuse to aim at photography alone. Many genuine artists, who cannot be content with a mere inventory of material objects, seek to express the objects by what was once called "idealization," then "selection," and which tomorrow will again be called something different. [Footnote: The motive of idealization is so to beautify the organic form as to bring out its harmony and rouse poetic feeling. "Selection" aims not so much at beautification as at emphasizing the character of the object, by the omission of non-essentials. The desire of the future will be purely the expression of the inner meaning. The organic form no longer serves as direct object, but as the human words in which a divine message must be written, in order for it to be comprehensible to human minds.] The impossibility and, in art, the uselessness of attempting to copy an object exactly, the desire to give the object full expression, are the impulses which drive the artist away from "literal" colouring to purely artistic aims. And that brings us to the question of composition. [Footnote: Here Kandinsky means arrangement of the picture.--M.T.H.S.] Pure artistic composition has two elements: 1. The composition of the whole picture. 2. The creation of the various forms which, by standing in different relationships to each other, decide the composition of the whole. [Footnote: The general composition will naturally include many little compositions which may be antagonistic to each other, though helping--perhaps by their very antagonism--the harmony of the whole. These little compositions have themselves subdivisions of varied inner meanings.] Many objects have to be considered in the light of the whole, and so ordered as to suit this whole. Singly they will have little meaning, being of importance only in so far as they help the general effect. These single objects must be fashioned in one way only; and this, not because their own inner meaning demands that particular fashioning, but entirely because they have to serve as building material for the whole composition. [Footnote: A good example is Cezanne's "Bathing Women," which is built in the form of a triangle. Such building is an old principle, which was being abandoned only because academic usage had made it lifeless. But Cezanne has given it new life. He does not use it to harmonize his groups, but for purely artistic purposes. He distorts the human figure with perfect justification. Not only must the whole figure follow the lines of the triangle, but each limb must grow narrower from bottom to top. Raphael's "Holy Family" is an example of triangular composition used only for the harmonizing of the group, and without any mystical motive.] So the abstract idea is creeping into art, although, only yesterday, it was scorned and obscured by purely material ideals. Its gradual advance is natural enough, for in proportion as the organic form falls into the background, the abstract ideal achieves greater prominence. But the organic form possesses all the same an inner harmony of its own, which may be either the same as that of its abstract parallel (thus producing a simple combination of the two elements) or totally different (in which case the combination may be unavoidably discordant). However diminished in importance the organic form may be, its inner note will always be heard; and for this reason the choice of material objects is an important one. The spiritual accord of the organic with the abstract element may strengthen the appeal of the latter (as much by contrast as by similarity) or may destroy it. Suppose a rhomboidal composition, made up of a number of human figures. The artist asks himself: Are these human figures an absolute necessity to the composition, or should they be replaced by other forms, and that without affecting the fundamental harmony of the whole? If the answer is "Yes," we have a case in which the material appeal directly weakens the abstract appeal. The human form must either be replaced by another object which, whether by similarity or contrast, will strengthen the abstract appeal, or must remain a purely non-material symbol. [Footnote: Cf. Translator's Introduction, pp. xviii and xx.--M.T.H.S.] Once more the metaphor of the piano. For "colour" or "form" substitute "object." Every object has its own life and therefore its own appeal; man is continually subject to these appeals. But the results are often dubbed either sub--or super-conscious. Nature, that is to say the ever-changing surroundings of man, sets in vibration the strings of the piano (the soul) by manipulation of the keys (the various objects with their several appeals). The impressions we receive, which often appear merely chaotic, consist of three elements: the impression of the colour of the object, of its form, and of its combined colour and form, i.e. of the object itself. At this point the individuality of the artist comes to the front and disposes, as he wills, these three elements. IT IS CLEAR, THEREFORE, THAT THE CHOICE OF OBJECT (i.e. OF ONE OF THE ELEMENTS IN THE HARMONY OF FORM) MUST BE DECIDED ONLY BY A CORRESPONDING VIBRATION IN THE HUMAN SOUL; AND THIS IS A THIRD GUIDING PRINCIPLE OF THE INNER NEED. The more abstract is form, the more clear and direct is its appeal. In any composition the material side may be more or less omitted in proportion as the forms used are more or less material, and for them substituted pure abstractions, or largely dematerialized objects. The more an artist uses these abstracted forms, the deeper and more confidently will he advance into the kingdom of the abstract. And after him will follow the gazer at his pictures, who also will have gradually acquired a greater familiarity with the language of that kingdom. Must we then abandon utterly all material objects and paint solely in abstractions? The problem of harmonizing the appeal of the material and the non-material shows us the answer to this question. As every word spoken rouses an inner vibration, so likewise does every object represented. To deprive oneself of this possibility is to limit one's powers of expression. That is at any rate the case at present. But besides this answer to the question, there is another, and one which art can always employ to any question beginning with "must": There is no "must" in art, because art is free. With regard to the second problem of composition, the creation of the single elements which are to compose the whole, it must be remembered that the same form in the same circumstances will always have the same inner appeal. Only the circumstances are constantly varying. It results that: (1) The ideal harmony alters according to the relation to other forms of the form which causes it. (2) Even in similar relationship a slight approach to or withdrawal from other forms may affect the harmony. [Footnote: This is what is meant by "an appeal of motion." For example, the appeal of an upright triangle is more steadfast and quiet than that of one set obliquely on its side.] Nothing is absolute. Form-composition rests on a relative basis, depending on (1) the alterations in the mutual relations of forms one to another, (2) alterations in each individual form, down to the very smallest. Every form is as sensitive as a puff of smoke, the slightest breath will alter it completely. This extreme mobility makes it easier to obtain similar harmonies from the use of different forms, than from a repetition of the same one; though of course an exact replica of a spiritual harmony can never be produced. So long as we are susceptible only to the appeal of a whole composition, this fact is of mainly theoretical importance. But when we become more sensitive by a constant use of abstract forms (which have no material interpretation) it will become of great practical significance. And so as art becomes more difficult, its wealth of expression in form becomes greater and greater. At the same time the question of distortion in drawing falls out and is replaced by the question how far the inner appeal of the particular form is veiled or given full expression. And once more the possibilities are extended, for combinations of veiled and fully expressed appeals suggest new LEITMOTIVEN in composition. Without such development as this, form-composition is impossible. To anyone who cannot experience the inner appeal of form (whether material or abstract) such composition can never be other than meaningless. Apparently aimless alterations in form-arrangement will make art seem merely a game. So once more we are faced with the same principle, which is to set art free, the principle of the inner need. When features or limbs for artistic reasons are changed or distorted, men reject the artistic problem and fall back on the secondary question of anatomy. But, on our argument, this secondary consideration does not appear, only the real, artistic question remaining. These apparently irresponsible, but really well-reasoned alterations in form provide one of the storehouses of artistic possibilities. The adaptability of forms, their organic but inward variations, their motion in the picture, their inclination to material or abstract, their mutual relations, either individually or as parts of a whole; further, the concord or discord of the various elements of a picture, the handling of groups, the combinations of veiled and openly expressed appeals, the use of rhythmical or unrhythmical, of geometrical or non-geometrical forms, their contiguity or separation--all these things are the material for counterpoint in painting. But so long as colour is excluded, such counterpoint is confined to black and white. Colour provides a whole wealth of possibilities of her own, and when combined with form, yet a further series of possibilities. And all these will be expressions of the inner need. The inner need is built up of three mystical elements: (1) Every artist, as a creator, has something in him which calls for expression (this is the element of personality). (2) Every artist, as child of his age, is impelled to express the spirit of his age (this is the element of style)--dictated by the period and particular country to which the artist belongs (it is doubtful how long the latter distinction will continue to exist). (3) Every artist, as a servant of art, has to help the cause of art (this is the element of pure artistry, which is constant in all ages and among all nationalities). A full understanding of the first two elements is necessary for a realization of the third. But he who has this realization will recognize that a rudely carved Indian column is an expression of the same spirit as actuates any real work of art of today. In the past and even today much talk is heard of "personality" in art. Talk of the coming "style" becomes more frequent daily. But for all their importance today, these questions will have disappeared after a few hundred or thousand years. Only the third element--that of pure artistry--will remain for ever. An Egyptian carving speaks to us today more subtly than it did to its chronological contemporaries; for they judged it with the hampering knowledge of period and personality. But we can judge purely as an expression of the eternal artistry. Similarly--the greater the part played in a modern work of art by the two elements of style and personality, the better will it be appreciated by people today; but a modern work of art which is full of the third element, will fail to reach the contemporary soul. For many centuries have to pass away before the third element can be received with understanding. But the artist in whose work this third element predominates is the really great artist. Because the elements of style and personality make up what is called the periodic characteristics of any work of art, the "development" of artistic forms must depend on their separation from the element of pure artistry, which knows neither period nor nationality. But as style and personality create in every epoch certain definite forms, which, for all their superficial differences, are really closely related, these forms can be spoken of as one side of art--the SUBJECTIVE. Every artist chooses, from the forms which reflect his own time, those which are sympathetic to him, and expresses himself through them. So the subjective element is the definite and external expression of the inner, objective element. The inevitable desire for outward expression of the OBJECTIVE element is the impulse here defined as the "inner need." The forms it borrows change from day to day, and, as it continually advances, what is today a phrase of inner harmony becomes tomorrow one of outer harmony. It is clear, therefore, that the inner spirit of art only uses the outer form of any particular period as a stepping-stone to further expression. In short, the working of the inner need and the development of art is an ever-advancing expression of the eternal and objective in the terms of the periodic and subjective. Because the objective is forever exchanging the subjective expression of today for that of tomorrow, each new extension of liberty in the use of outer form is hailed as the last and supreme. At present we say that an artist can use any form he wishes, so long as he remains in touch with nature. But this limitation, like all its predecessors, is only temporary. From the point of view of the inner need, no limitation must be made. The artist may use any form which his expression demands; for his inner impulse must find suitable outward expression. So we see that a deliberate search for personality and "style" is not only impossible, but comparatively unimportant. The close relationship of art throughout the ages, is not a relationship in outward form but in inner meaning. And therefore the talk of schools, of lines of "development," of "principles of art," etc., is based on misunderstanding and can only lead to confusion. The artist must be blind to distinctions between "recognized" or "unrecognized" conventions of form, deaf to the transitory teaching and demands of his particular age. He must watch only the trend of the inner need, and hearken to its words alone. Then he will with safety employ means both sanctioned and forbidden by his contemporaries. All means are sacred which are called for by the inner need. All means are sinful which obscure that inner need. It is impossible to theorize about this ideal of art. In real art theory does not precede practice, but follows her. Everything is, at first, a matter of feeling. Any theoretical scheme will be lacking in the essential of creation--the inner desire for expression--which cannot be determined. Neither the quality of the inner need, nor its subjective form, can be measured nor weighed. [Footnote: The many-sided genius of Leonardo devised a system of little spoons with which different colours were to be used, thus creating a kind of mechanical harmony. One of his pupils, after trying in vain to use this system, in despair asked one of his colleagues how the master himself used the invention. The colleague replied: "The master never uses it at all." (Mereschowski, LEONARDO DA VINCI).] Such a grammar of painting can only be temporarily guessed at, and should it ever be achieved, it will be not so much according to physical rules (which have so often been tried and which today the Cubists are trying) as according to the rules of the inner need, which are of the soul. The inner need is the basic alike of small and great problems in painting. We are seeking today for the road which is to lead us away from the outer to the inner basis. [Footnote: The term "outer," here used, must not be confused with the term "material" used previously. I am using the former to mean "outer need," which never goes beyond conventional limits, nor produces other than conventional beauty. The "inner need" knows no such limits, and often produces results conventionally considered "ugly." But "ugly" itself is a conventional term, and only means "spiritually unsympathetic," being applied to some expression of an inner need, either outgrown or not yet attained. But everything which adequately expresses the inner need is beautiful.] The spirit, like the body, can be strengthened and developed by frequent exercise. Just as the body, if neglected, grows weaker and finally impotent, so the spirit perishes if untended. And for this reason it is necessary for the artist to know the starting point for the exercise of his spirit. The starting point is the study of colour and its effects on men. There is no need to engage in the finer shades of complicated colour, but rather at first to consider only the direct use of simple colours. To begin with, let us test the working on ourselves of individual colours, and so make a simple chart, which will facilitate the consideration of the whole question. Two great divisions of colour occur to the mind at the outset: into warm and cold, and into light and dark. To each colour there are therefore four shades of appeal--warm and light or warm and dark, or cold and light or cold and dark. Generally speaking, warmth or cold in a colour means an approach respectively to yellow or to blue. This distinction is, so to speak, on one basis, the colour having a constant fundamental appeal, but assuming either a more material or more non-material quality. The movement is an horizontal one, the warm colours approaching the spectator, the cold ones retreating from him. The colours, which cause in another colour this horizontal movement, while they are themselves affected by it, have another movement of their own, which acts with a violent separative force. This is, therefore, the first antithesis in the inner appeal, and the inclination of the colour to yellow or to blue, is of tremendous importance. The second antithesis is between white and black; i.e., the inclination to light or dark caused by the pair of colours just mentioned. These colours have once more their peculiar movement to and from the spectator, but in a more rigid form (see Fig. 1). FIGURE I First Pair of antitheses. (inner appeal acting on A and B. the spirit) A. Warm Cold Yellow Blue = First antithesis Two movements: (i) horizontal Towards the spectator <-----<<< >>>-----> Away from the spectator (bodily) (spiritual) Yellow Blue (ii) Ex- and concentric B. Light Dark White Black = Second Antithesis Two movements: (i) discordant Eternal discord, but with Absolute discord, devoid possibilities for the White Black of possibilities for the future (birth) future (death) (ii) ex-and concentric, as in case of yellow and blue, but more rigid. Yellow and blue have another movement which affects the first antithesis--an ex-and concentric movement. If two circles are drawn and painted respectively yellow and blue, brief concentration will reveal in the yellow a spreading movement out from the centre, and a noticeable approach to the spectator. The blue, on the other hand, moves in upon itself, like a snail retreating into its shell, and draws away from the spectator. [Footnote: These statements have no scientific basis, but are founded purely on spiritual experience.] In the case of light and dark colours the movement is emphasized. That of the yellow increases with an admixture of white, i.e., as it becomes lighter. That of the blue increases with an admixture of black, i.e., as it becomes darker. This means that there can never be a dark-coloured yellow. The relationship between white and yellow is as close as between black and blue, for blue can be so dark as to border on black. Besides this physical relationship, is also a spiritual one (between yellow and white on one side, between blue and black on the other) which marks a strong separation between the two pairs. An attempt to make yellow colder produces a green tint and checks both the horizontal and excentric movement. The colour becomes sickly and unreal. The blue by its contrary movement acts as a brake on the yellow, and is hindered in its own movement, till the two together become stationary, and the result is green. Similarly a mixture of black and white produces gray, which is motionless and spiritually very similar to green. But while green, yellow, and blue are potentially active, though temporarily paralysed, in gray there is no possibility of movement, because gray consists of two colours that have no active force, for they stand the, one in motionless discord, the other in a motionless negation, even of discord, like an endless wall or a bottomless pit. Because the component colours of green are active and have a movement of their own, it is possible, on the basis of this movement, to reckon their spiritual appeal. The first movement of yellow, that of approach to the spectator (which can be increased by an intensification of the yellow), and also the second movement, that of over-spreading the boundaries, have a material parallel in the human energy which assails every obstacle blindly, and bursts forth aimlessly in every direction. Yellow, if steadily gazed at in any geometrical form, has a disturbing influence, and reveals in the colour an insistent, aggressive character. [Footnote: It is worth noting that the sour-tasting lemon and shrill-singing canary are both yellow.] The intensification of the yellow increases the painful shrillness of its note. [Footnote: Any parallel between colour and music can only be relative. Just as a violin can give various shades of tone,--so yellow has shades, which can be expressed by various instruments. But in making such parallels, I am assuming in each case a pure tone of colour or sound, unvaried by vibration or dampers, etc.] Yellow is the typically earthly colour. It can never have profound meaning. An intermixture of blue makes it a sickly colour. It may be paralleled in human nature, with madness, not with melancholy or hypochondriacal mania, but rather with violent raving lunacy. The power of profound meaning is found in blue, and first in its physical movements (1) of retreat from the spectator, (2) of turning in upon its own centre. The inclination of blue to depth is so strong that its inner appeal is stronger when its shade is deeper. Blue is the typical heavenly colour. [Footnote: ...The halos are golden for emperors and prophets (i.e. for mortals), and sky-blue for symbolic figures (i.e. spiritual beings); (Kondakoff, Histoire de l'An Byzantine consideree principalement dans les miniatures, vol. ii, p. 382, Paris, 1886-91).] The ultimate feeling it creates is one of rest. [Footnote: Supernatural rest, not the earthly contentment of green. The way to the supernatural lies through the natural. And we mortals passing from the earthly yellow to the heavenly blue must pass through green.] When it sinks almost to black, it echoes a grief that is hardly human. [Footnote: As an echo of grief violet stand to blue as does green in its production of rest.] When it rises towards white, a movement little suited to it, its appeal to men grows weaker and more distant. In music a light blue is like a flute, a darker blue a cello; a still darker a thunderous double bass; and the darkest blue of all-an organ. A well-balanced mixture of blue and yellow produces green. The horizontal movement ceases; likewise that from and towards the centre. The effect on the soul through the eye is therefore motionless. This is a fact recognized not only by opticians but by the world. Green is the most restful colour that exists. On exhausted men this restfulness has a beneficial effect, but after a time it becomes wearisome. Pictures painted in shades of green are passive and tend to be wearisome; this contrasts with the active warmth of yellow or the active coolness of blue. In the hierarchy of colours green is the "bourgeoisie"-self-satisfied, immovable, narrow. It is the colour of summer, the period when nature is resting from the storms of winter and the productive energy of spring (cf. Fig. 2). Any preponderance in green of yellow or blue introduces a corresponding activity and changes the inner appeal. The green keeps its characteristic equanimity and restfulness, the former increasing with the inclination to lightness, the latter with the inclination to depth. In music the absolute green is represented by the placid, middle notes of a violin. Black and white have already been discussed in general terms. More particularly speaking, white, although often considered as no colour (a theory largely due to the Impressionists, who saw no white in nature as a symbol of a world from which all colour as a definite attribute has disappeared). [Footnote: Van Gogh, in his letters, asks whether he may not paint a white wall dead white. This question offers no difficulty to the non-representative artist who is concerned only with the inner harmony of colour. But to the impressionist-realist it seems a bold liberty to take with nature. To him it seems as outrageous as his own change from brown shadows to blue seemed to his contemporaries. Van Gogh's question marks a transition from Impressionism to an art of spiritual harmony, as the coming of the blue shadow marked a transition from academism to Impressionism. (Cf. The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. Constable, London.)] This world is too far above us for its harmony to touch our souls. A great silence, like an impenetrable wall, shrouds its life from our understanding. White, therefore, has this harmony of silence, which works upon us negatively, like many pauses in music that break temporarily the melody. It is not a dead silence, but one pregnant with possibilities. White has the appeal of the nothingness that is before birth, of the world in the ice age. A totally dead silence, on the other hand, a silence with no possibilities, has the inner harmony of black. In music it is represented by one of those profound and final pauses, after which any continuation of the melody seems the dawn of another world. Black is something burnt out, like the ashes of a funeral pyre, something motionless like a corpse. The silence of black is the silence of death. Outwardly black is the colour with least harmony of all, a kind of neutral background against which the minutest shades of other colours stand clearly forward. It differs from white in this also, for with white nearly every colour is in discord, or even mute altogether. [Footnote: E.g. vermilion rings dull and muddy against white, but against black with clear strength. Light yellow against white is weak, against black pure and brilliant.] Not without reason is white taken as symbolizing joy and spotless purity, and black grief and death. A blend of black and white produces gray which, as has been said, is silent and motionless, being composed of two inactive colours, its restfulness having none of the potential activity of green. A similar gray is produced by a mixture of green and red, a spiritual blend of passivity and glowing warmth. [Footnote: Gray = immobility and rest. Delacroix sought to express rest by a mixture of green and red (cf. Signac, sup. cit.).] The unbounded warmth of red has not the irresponsible appeal of yellow, but rings inwardly with a determined and powerful intensity. It glows in itself, maturely, and does not distribute its vigour aimlessly (see Fig. 2). The varied powers of red are very striking. By a skillful use of it in its different shades, its fundamental tone may be made warm or cold. [Footnote: Of course every colour can be to some extent varied between warm and cold, but no colour has so extensive a scale of varieties as red.] Light warm red has a certain similarity to medium yellow, alike in texture and appeal, and gives a feeling of strength, vigour, determination, triumph. In music, it is a sound of trumpets, strong, harsh, and ringing. Vermilion is a red with a feeling of sharpness, like glowing steel which can be cooled by water. Vermilion is quenched by blue, for it can support no mixture with a cold colour. More accurately speaking, such a mixture produces what is called a dirty colour, scorned by painters of today. But "dirt" as a material object has its own inner appeal, and therefore to avoid it in painting, is as unjust and narrow as was the cry of yesterday for pure colour. At the call of the inner need that which is outwardly foul may be inwardly pure, and vice versa. The two shades of red just discussed are similar to yellow, except that they reach out less to the spectator. The glow of red is within itself. For this reason it is a colour more beloved than yellow, being frequently used in primitive and traditional decoration, and also in peasant costumes, because in the open air the harmony of red and green is very beautiful. Taken by itself this red is material, and, like yellow, has no very deep appeal. Only when combined with something nobler does it acquire this deep appeal. It is dangerous to seek to deepen red by an admixture of black, for black quenches the glow, or at least reduces it considerably. But there remains brown, unemotional, disinclined for movement. An intermixture of red is outwardly barely audible, but there rings out a powerful inner harmony. Skillful blending can produce an inner appeal of extraordinary, indescribable beauty. The vermilion now rings like a great trumpet, or thunders like a drum. Cool red (madder) like any other fundamentally cold colour, can be deepened--especially by an intermixture of azure. The character of the colour changes; the inward glow increases, the active element gradually disappears. But this active element is never so wholly absent as in deep green. There always remains a hint of renewed vigour, somewhere out of sight, waiting for a certain moment to burst forth afresh. In this lies the great difference between a deepened red and a deepened blue, because in red there is always a trace of the material. A parallel in music are the sad, middle tones of a cello. A cold, light red contains a very distinct bodily or material element, but it is always pure, like the fresh beauty of the face of a young girl. The singing notes of a violin express this exactly in music. Warm red, intensified by a suitable yellow, is orange. This blend brings red almost to the point of spreading out towards the spectator. But the element of red is always sufficiently strong to keep the colour from flippancy. Orange is like a man, convinced of his own powers. Its note is that of the angelus, or of an old violin. Just as orange is red brought nearer to humanity by yellow, so violet is red withdrawn from humanity by blue. But the red in violet must be cold, for the spiritual need does not allow of a mixture of warm red with cold blue. Violet is therefore both in the physical and spiritual sense a cooled red. It is consequently rather sad and ailing. It is worn by old women, and in China as a sign of mourning. In music it is an English horn, or the deep notes of wood instruments (e.g. a bassoon). [Footnote: Among artists one often hears the question, "How are you?" answered gloomily by the words "Feeling very violet."] The two last mentioned colours (orange and violet) are the fourth and last pair of antitheses of the primitive colours. They stand to each other in the same relation as the third antitheses--green and red--i.e., as complementary colours (see Fig. 2). FIGURE II Second Pair of antitheses (physical appeal of complementary C and D colours) C. Red Green = Third antithesis Movement of the spiritually extinguished First antithesis Motion within itself [CIRCLE] = Potentiality of motion = Motionlessness Red Ex-and concentric movements are absent In optical blend = Gray In mechanical blend of white and black = Gray D. Orange Violet = Fourth antithesis Arise out of the first antithesis from: 1. Active element of the yellow in red = Orange 2. Passive element of the blue in red = Violet <---Orange---Yellow<--<--<--Red-->-->-->Blue---Violet---> In excentric Motion within In Concentric direction itself direction As in a great circle, a serpent biting its own tail (the symbol of eternity, of something without end) the six colours appear that make up the three main antitheses. And to right and left stand the two great possibilities of silence--death and birth (see Fig. 3). FIGURE III. A Yellow / \ / \ / \ D C B Orange Green B White | | Black | | | | C D Red Violet \ / \ / \ A / Blue The antitheses as a circle between two poles, i.e., the life of colours between birth and death. (The capital letters designate the pairs of antitheses.) It is clear that all I have said of these simple colours is very provisional and general, and so also are those feelings (joy, grief, etc.) which have been quoted as parallels of the colours. For these feelings are only the material expressions of the soul. Shades of colour, like those of sound, are of a much finer texture and awake in the soul emotions too fine to be expressed in words. Certainly each tone will find some probable expression in words, but it will always be incomplete, and that part which the word fails to express will not be unimportant but rather the very kernel of its existence. For this reason words are, and will always remain, only hints, mere suggestions of colours. In this impossibility of expressing colour in words with the consequent need for some other mode of expression lies the opportunity of the art of the future. In this art among innumerable rich and varied combinations there is one which is founded on firm fact, and that is as follows. The actual expression of colour can be achieved simultaneously by several forms of art, each art playing its separate part, and producing a whole which exceeds in richness and force any expression attainable by one art alone. The immense possibilities of depth and strength to be gained by combination or by discord between the various arts can be easily realized. It is often said that admission of the possibility of one art helping another amounts to a denial of the necessary differences between the arts. This is, however, not the case. As has been said, an absolutely similar inner appeal cannot be achieved by two different arts. Even if it were possible the second version would differ at least outwardly. But suppose this were not the case, that is to say, suppose a repetition of the same appeal exactly alike both outwardly and inwardly could be achieved by different arts, such repetition would not be merely superfluous. To begin with, different people find sympathy in different forms of art (alike on the active and passive side among the creators or the receivers of the appeal); but further and more important, repetition of the same appeal thickens the spiritual atmosphere which is necessary for the maturing of the finest feelings, in the same way as the hot air of a greenhouse is necessary for the ripening of certain fruit. An example of this is the case of the individual who receives a powerful impression from constantly repeated actions, thoughts or feelings, although if they came singly they might have passed by unnoticed. [Footnote: This idea forms, of course, the fundamental reason for advertisement.] We must not, however, apply this rule only to the simple examples of the spiritual atmosphere. For this atmosphere is like air, which can be either pure or filled with various alien elements. Not only visible actions, thoughts and feelings, with outward expression, make up this atmosphere, but secret happenings of which no one knows, unspoken thoughts, hidden feelings are also elements in it. Suicide, murder, violence, low and unworthy thoughts, hate, hostility, egotism, envy, narrow "patriotism," partisanship, are elements in the spiritual atmosphere. [Footnote: Epidemics of suicide or of violent warlike feeling, etc., are products of this impure atmosphere.] And conversely, self-sacrifice, mutual help, lofty thoughts, love, un-selfishness, joy in the success of others, humanity, justness, are the elements which slay those already enumerated as the sun slays the microbes, and restore the atmosphere to purity. [Footnote: These elements likewise have their historical periods.] The second and more complicated form of repetition is that in which several different elements make mutual use of different forms. In our case these elements are the different arts summed up in the art of the future. And this form of repetition is even more powerful, for the different natures of men respond to the different elements in the combination. For one the musical form is the most moving and impressive; for another the pictorial, for the third the literary, and so on. There reside, therefore, in arts which are outwardly different, hidden forces equally different, so that they may all work in one man towards a single result, even though each art may be working in isolation. This sharply defined working of individual colours is the basis on which various values can be built up in harmony. Pictures will come to be painted--veritable artistic arrangements, planned in shades of one colour chosen according to artistic feeling. The carrying out of one colour, the binding together and admixture of two related colours, are the foundations of most coloured harmonies. From what has been said above about colour working, from the fact that we live in a time of questioning, experiment and contradiction, we can draw the easy conclusion that for a harmonization on the basis of individual colours our age is especially unsuitable. Perhaps with envy and with a mournful sympathy we listen to the music of Mozart. It acts as a welcome pause in the turmoil of our inner life, as a consolation and as a hope, but we hear it as the echo of something from another age long past and fundamentally strange to us. The strife of colours, the sense of balance we have lost, tottering principles, unexpected assaults, great questions, apparently useless striving, storm and tempest, broken chains, antitheses and contradictions, these make up our harmony. The composition arising from this harmony is a mingling of colour and form each with its separate existence, but each blended into a common life which is called a picture by the force of the inner need. Only these individual parts are vital. Everything else (such as surrounding conditions) is subsidiary. The combination of two colours is a logical outcome of modern conditions. The combination of colours hitherto considered discordant, is merely a further development. For example, the use, side by side, of red and blue, colours in themselves of no physical relationship, but from their very spiritual contrast of the strongest effect, is one of the most frequent occurrences in modern choice of harmony. [Footnote: Cf. Gauguin, Noa Noa, where the artist states his disinclination when he first arrived in Tahiti to juxtapose red and blue.] Harmony today rests chiefly on the principle of contrast which has for all time been one of the most important principles of art. But our contrast is an inner contrast which stands alone and rejects the help (for that help would mean destruction) of any other principles of harmony. It is interesting to note that this very placing together of red and blue was so beloved by the primitive both in Germany and Italy that it has till today survived, principally in folk pictures of religious subjects. One often sees in such pictures the Virgin in a red gown and a blue cloak. It seems that the artists wished to express the grace of heaven in terms of humanity, and humanity in terms of heaven. Legitimate and illegitimate combinations of colours, contrasts of various colours, the over-painting of one colour with another, the definition of coloured surfaces by boundaries of various forms, the overstepping of these boundaries, the mingling and the sharp separation of surfaces, all these open great vistas of artistic possibility. One of the first steps in the turning away from material objects into the realm of the abstract was, to use the technical artistic term, the rejection of the third dimension, that is to say, the attempt to keep a picture on a single plane. Modelling was abandoned. In this way the material object was made more abstract and an important step forward was achieved--this step forward has, however, had the effect of limiting the possibilities of painting to one definite piece of canvas, and this limitation has not only introduced a very material element into painting, but has seriously lessened its possibilities. Any attempt to free painting from this material limitation together with the striving after a new form of composition must concern itself first of all with the destruction of this theory of one single surface--attempts must be made to bring the picture on to some ideal plane which shall be expressed in terms of the material plane of the canvas. [Footnote: Compare the article by Le Fauconnier in the catalogue of the second exhibition of the Neue Kunstlervereinigung, Munich, 1910-11.] There has arisen out of the composition in flat triangles a composition with plastic three-dimensional triangles, that is to say with pyramids; and that is Cubism. But there has arisen here also the tendency to inertia, to a concentration on this form for its own sake, and consequently once more to an impoverishment of possibility. But that is the unavoidable result of the external application of an inner principle. A further point of great importance must not be forgotten. There are other means of using the material plane as a space of three dimensions in order to create an ideal plane. The thinness or thickness of a line, the placing of the form on the surface, the overlaying of one form on another may be quoted as examples of artistic means that may be employed. Similar possibilities are offered by colour which, when rightly used, can advance or retreat, and can make of the picture a living thing, and so achieve an artistic expansion of space. The combination of both means of extension in harmony or concord is one of the richest and most powerful elements in purely artistic composition. VII. THEORY From the nature of modern harmony, it results that never has there been a time when it was more difficult than it is today to formulate a complete theory, [Footnote: Attempts have been made. Once more emphasis must be laid on the parallel with music. For example, cf. "Tendances Nouvelles," No. 35, Henri Ravel: "The laws of harmony are the same for painting and music."] or to lay down a firm artistic basis. All attempts to do so would have one result, namely, that already cited in the case of Leonardo and his system of little spoons. It would, however, be precipitate to say that there are no basic principles nor firm rules in painting, or that a search for them leads inevitably to academism. Even music has a grammar, which, although modified from time to time, is of continual help and value as a kind of dictionary. Painting is, however, in a different position. The revolt from dependence on nature is only just beginning. Any realization of the inner working of colour and form is so far unconscious. The subjection of composition to some geometrical form is no new idea (cf. the art of the Persians). Construction on a purely abstract basis is a slow business, and at first seemingly blind and aimless. The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul, so that he can test colours for themselves and not only by external impressions. If we begin at once to break the bonds which bind us to nature, and devote ourselves purely to combination of pure colour and abstract form, we shall produce works which are mere decoration, which are suited to neckties or carpets. Beauty of Form and Colour is no sufficient aim by itself, despite the assertions of pure aesthetes or even of naturalists, who are obsessed with the idea of "beauty." It is because of the elementary stage reached by our painting that we are so little able to grasp the inner harmony of true colour and form composition. The nerve vibrations are there, certainly, but they get no further than the nerves, because the corresponding vibrations of the spirit which they call forth are too weak. When we remember, however, that spiritual experience is quickening, that positive science, the firmest basis of human thought, is tottering, that dissolution of matter is imminent, we have reason to hope that the hour of pure composition is not far away. It must not be thought that pure decoration is lifeless. It has its inner being, but one which is either incomprehensible to us, as in the case of old decorative art, or which seems mere illogical confusion, as a world in which full-grown men and embryos play equal roles, in which beings deprived of limbs are on a level with noses and toes which live isolated and of their own vitality. The confusion is like that of a kaleidoscope, which though possessing a life of its own, belongs to another sphere. Nevertheless, decoration has its effect on us; oriental decoration quite differently to Swedish, savage, or ancient Greek. It is not for nothing that there is a general custom of describing samples of decoration as gay, serious, sad, etc., as music is described as Allegro, Serioso, etc., according to the nature of the piece. Probably conventional decoration had its beginnings in nature. But when we would assert that external nature is the sole source of all art, we must remember that, in patterning, natural objects are used as symbols, almost as though they were mere hieroglyphics. For this reason we cannot gauge their inner harmony. For instance, we can bear a design of Chinese dragons in our dining or bed rooms, and are no more disturbed by it than by a design of daisies. It is possible that towards the close of our already dying epoch a new decorative art will develop, but it is not likely to be founded on geometrical form. At the present time any attempt to define this new art would be as useless as pulling a small bud open so as to make a fully blown flower. Nowadays we are still bound to external nature and must find our means of expression in her. But how are we to do it? In other words, how far may we go in altering the forms and colours of this nature? We may go as far as the artist is able to carry his emotion, and once more we see how immense is the need for true emotion. A few examples will make the meaning of this clearer. A warm red tone will materially alter in inner value when it is no longer considered as an isolated colour, as something abstract, but is applied as an element of some other object, and combined with natural form. The variety of natural forms will create a variety of spiritual values, all of which will harmonize with that of the original isolated red. Suppose we combine red with sky, flowers, a garment, a face, a horse, a tree. A red sky suggests to us sunset, or fire, and has a consequent effect upon us--either of splendour or menace. Much depends now on the way in which other objects are treated in connection with this red sky. If the treatment is faithful to nature, but all the same harmonious, the "naturalistic" appeal of the sky is strengthened. If, however, the other objects are treated in a way which is more abstract, they tend to lessen, if not to destroy, the naturalistic appeal of the sky. Much the same applies to the use of red in a human face. In this case red can be employed to emphasize the passionate or other characteristics of the model, with a force that only an extremely abstract treatment of the rest of the picture can subdue. A red garment is quite a different matter; for it can in reality be of any colour. Red will, however, be found best to supply the needs of pure artistry, for here alone can it be used without any association with material aims. The artist has to consider not only the value of the red cloak by itself, but also its value in connection with the figure wearing it, and further the relation of the figure to the whole picture. Suppose the picture to be a sad one, and the red-cloaked figure to be the central point on which the sadness is concentrated--either from its central position, or features, attitude, colour, or what not. The red will provide an acute discord of feeling, which will emphasize the gloom of the picture. The use of a colour, in itself sad, would weaken the effect of the dramatic whole. [Footnote: Once more it is wise to emphasize the necessary inadequacy of these examples. Rules cannot be laid down, the variations are so endless. A single line can alter the whole composition of a picture.] This is the principle of antithesis already defined. Red by itself cannot have a sad effect on the spectator, and its inclusion in a sad picture will, if properly handled, provide the dramatic element. [Footnote: The use of terms like "sad" and "joyful" are only clumsy equivalents for the delicate spiritual vibrations of the new harmony. They must be read as necessarily inadequate.] Yet again is the case of a red tree different. The fundamental value of red remains, as in every case. But the association of "autumn" creeps in. The colour combines easily with this association, and there is no dramatic clash as in the case of the red cloak. Finally, the red horse provides a further variation. The very words put us in another atmosphere. The impossibility of a red horse demands an unreal world. It is possible that this combination of colour and form will appeal as a freak--a purely superficial and non-artistic appeal--or as a hint of a fairy story [Footnote: An incomplete fairy story works on the mind as does a cinematograph film.]--once more a non-artistic appeal. To set this red horse in a careful naturalistic landscape would create such a discord as to produce no appeal and no coherence. The need for coherence is the essential of harmony--whether founded on conventional discord or concord. The new harmony demands that the inner value of a picture should remain unified whatever the variations or contrasts of outward form or colour. The elements of the new art are to be found, therefore, in the inner and not the outer qualities of nature. The spectator is too ready to look for a meaning in a picture--i.e., some outward connection between its various parts. Our materialistic age has produced a type of spectator or "connoisseur," who is not content to put himself opposite a picture and let it say its own message. Instead of allowing the inner value of the picture to work, he worries himself in looking for "closeness to nature," or "temperament," or "handling," or "tonality," or "perspective," or what not. His eye does not probe the outer expression to arrive at the inner meaning. In a conversation with an interesting person, we endeavour to get at his fundamental ideas and feelings. We do not bother about the words he uses, nor the spelling of those words, nor the breath necessary for speaking them, nor the movements of his tongue and lips, nor the psychological working on our brain, nor the physical sound in our ear, nor the physiological effect on our nerves. We realize that these things, though interesting and important, are not the main things of the moment, but that the meaning and idea is what concerns us. We should have the same feeling when confronted with a work of art. When this becomes general the artist will be able to dispense with natural form and colour and speak in purely artistic language. To return to the combination of colour and form, there is another possibility which should be noted. Non-naturalistic objects in a picture may have a "literary" appeal, and the whole picture may have the working of a fable. The spectator is put in an atmosphere which does not disturb him because he accepts it as fabulous, and in which he tries to trace the story and undergoes more or less the various appeals of colour. But the pure inner working of colour is impossible; the outward idea has the mastery still. For the spectator has only exchanged a blind reality for a blind dreamland, where the truth of inner feeling cannot be felt. We must find, therefore, a form of expression which excludes the fable and yet does not restrict the free working of colour in any way. The forms, movement, and colours which we borrow from nature must produce no outward effect nor be associated with external objects. The more obvious is the separation from nature, the more likely is the inner meaning to be pure and unhampered. The tendency of a work of art may be very simple, but provided it is not dictated by any external motive and provided it is not working to any material end, the harmony will be pure. The most ordinary action--for example, preparation for lifting a heavy weight--becomes mysterious and dramatic, when its actual purpose is not revealed. We stand and gaze fascinated, till of a sudden the explanation bursts suddenly upon us. It is the conviction that nothing mysterious can ever happen in our everyday life that has destroyed the joy of abstract thought. Practical considerations have ousted all else. It is with this fact in view that the new dancing is being evolved--as, that is to say, the only means of giving in terms of time and space the real inner meaning of motion. The origin of dancing is probably purely sexual. In folk-dances we still see this element plainly. The later development of dancing as a religious ceremony joins itself to the preceding element and the two together take artistic form and emerge as the ballet. The ballet at the present time is in a state of chaos owing to this double origin. Its external motives--the expression of love and fear, etc.--are too material and naive for the abstract ideas of the future. In the search for more subtle expression, our modern reformers have looked to the past for help. Isadora Duncan has forged a link between the Greek dancing and that of the future. In this she is working on parallel lines to the painters who are looking for inspiration from the primitives. [Footnote: Kandinsky's example of Isadora Duncan is not perhaps perfectly chosen. This famous dancer founds her art mainly upon a study of Greek vases and not necessarily of the primitive period. Her aims are distinctly towards what Kandinsky calls "conventional beauty," and what is perhaps more important, her movements are not dictated solely by the "inner harmony," but largely by conscious outward imitation of Greek attitudes. Either Nijinsky's later ballets: Le Sacre du Printemps, L'Apres-midi d'un Faune, Jeux, or the idea actuating the Jacques Dalcroze system of Eurhythmics seem to fall more into line with Kandinsky's artistic forecast. In the first case "conventional beauty" has been abandoned, to the dismay of numbers of writers and spectators, and a definite return has been made to primitive angles and abruptness. In the second case motion and dance are brought out of the souls of the pupils, truly spontaneous, at the call of the "inner harmony." Indeed a comparison between Isadora Duncan and M. Dalcroze is a comparison between the "naturalist" and "symbolist" ideals in art which were outlined in the introduction to this book.--M.T.H.S.] In dance as in painting this is only a stage of transition. In dancing as in painting we are on the threshold of the art of the future. The same rules must be applied in both cases. Conventional beauty must go by the board and the literary element of "story-telling" or "anecdote" must be abandoned as useless. Both arts must learn from music that every harmony and every discord which springs from the inner spirit is beautiful, but that it is essential that they should spring from the inner spirit and from that alone. The achievement of the dance-art of the future will make possible the first ebullition of the art of spiritual harmony--the true stage-composition. The composition for the new theatre will consist of these three elements: (1) Musical movement (2) Pictorial movement (3) Physical movement and these three, properly combined, make up the spiritual movement, which is the working of the inner harmony. They will be interwoven in harmony and discord as are the two chief elements of painting, form and colour. Scriabin's attempt to intensify musical tone by corresponding use of colour is necessarily tentative. In the perfected stage-composition the two elements are increased by the third, and endless possibilities of combination and individual use are opened up. Further, the external can be combined with the internal harmony, as Schonberg has attempted in his quartettes. It is impossible here to go further into the developments of this idea. The reader must apply the principles of painting already stated to the problem of stage-composition, and outline for himself the possibilities of the theatre of the future, founded on the immovable principle of the inner need. From what has been said of the combination of colour and form, the way to the new art can be traced. This way lies today between two dangers. On the one hand is the totally arbitrary application of colour to geometrical form--pure patterning. On the other hand is the more naturalistic use of colour in bodily form--pure phantasy. Either of these alternatives may in their turn be exaggerated. Everything is at the artist's disposal, and the freedom of today has at once its dangers and its possibilities. We may be present at the conception of a new great epoch, or we may see the opportunity squandered in aimless extravagance. [Footnote: On this question see my article "Uber die Formfrage"--in "Der Blaue Reiter" (Piper-Verlag, 1912). Taking the work of Henri Rousseau as a starting point, I go on to prove that the new naturalism will not only be equivalent to but even identical with abstraction.] That art is above nature is no new discovery. [Footnote: Cf. "Goethe", by Karl Heinemann, 1899, p. 684; also Oscar Wilde, "De Profundis"; also Delacroix, "My Diary".] New principles do not fall from heaven, but are logically if indirectly connected with past and future. What is important to us is the momentary position of the principle and how best it can be used. It must not be employed forcibly. But if the artist tunes his soul to this note, the sound will ring in his work of itself. The "emancipation" of today must advance on the lines of the inner need. It is hampered at present by external form, and as that is thrown aside, there arises as the aim of composition-construction. The search for constructive form has produced Cubism, in which natural form is often forcibly subjected to geometrical construction, a process which tends to hamper the abstract by the concrete and spoil the concrete by the abstract. The harmony of the new art demands a more subtle construction than this, something that appeals less to the eye and more to the soul. This "concealed construction" may arise from an apparently fortuitous selection of forms on the canvas. Their external lack of cohesion is their internal harmony. This haphazard arrangement of forms may be the future of artistic harmony. Their fundamental relationship will finally be able to be expressed in mathematical form, but in terms irregular rather than regular. VIII. ART AND ARTISTS The work of art is born of the artist in a mysterious and secret way. From him it gains life and being. Nor is its existence casual and inconsequent, but it has a definite and purposeful strength, alike in its material and spiritual life. It exists and has power to create spiritual atmosphere; and from this inner standpoint one judges whether it is a good work of art or a bad one. If its "form" is bad it means that the form is too feeble in meaning to call forth corresponding vibrations of the soul. [Footnote: So-called indecent pictures are either incapable of causing vibrations of the soul (in which case they are not art) or they are so capable. In the latter case they are not to be spurned absolutely, even though at the same time they gratify what nowadays we are pleased to call the "lower bodily tastes."] Therefore a picture is not necessarily "well painted" if it possesses the "values" of which the French so constantly speak. It is only well painted if its spiritual value is complete and satisfying. "Good drawing" is drawing that cannot be altered without destruction of this inner value, quite irrespective of its correctness as anatomy, botany, or any other science. There is no question of a violation of natural form, but only of the need of the artist for such form. Similarly colours are used not because they are true to nature, but because they are necessary to the particular picture. In fact, the artist is not only justified in using, but it is his duty to use only those forms which fulfil his own need. Absolute freedom, whether from anatomy or anything of the kind, must be given the artist in his choice of material. Such spiritual freedom is as necessary in art as it is in life. [Footnote: This freedom is man's weapon against the Philistines. It is based on the inner need.] Note, however, that blind following of scientific precept is less blameworthy than its blind and purposeless rejection. The former produces at least an imitation of material objects which may be of some use. [Footnote: Plainly, an imitation of nature, if made by the hand of an artist, is not a pure reproduction. The voice of the soul will in some degree at least make itself heard. As contrasts one may quote a landscape of Canaletto and those sadly famous heads by Denner.--(Alte Pinakothek, Munich.)] The latter is an artistic betrayal and brings confusion in its train. The former leaves the spiritual atmosphere empty; the latter poisons it. Painting is an art, and art is not vague production, transitory and isolated, but a power which must be directed to the improvement and refinement of the human soul--to, in fact, the raising of the spiritual triangle. If art refrains from doing this work, a chasm remains unbridged, for no other power can take the place of art in this activity. And at times when the human soul is gaining greater strength, art will also grow in power, for the two are inextricably connected and complementary one to the other. Conversely, at those times when the soul tends to be choked by material disbelief, art becomes purposeless and talk is heard that art exists for art's sake alone. [Footnote: This cry "art for art's sake," is really the best ideal such an age can attain to. It is an unconscious protest against materialism, against the demand that everything should have a use and practical value. It is further proof of the indestructibility of art and of the human soul, which can never be killed but only temporarily smothered.] Then is the bond between art and the soul, as it were, drugged into unconsciousness. The artist and the spectator drift apart, till finally the latter turns his back on the former or regards him as a juggler whose skill and dexterity are worthy of applause. It is very important for the artist to gauge his position aright, to realize that he has a duty to his art and to himself, that he is not king of the castle but rather a servant of a nobler purpose. He must search deeply into his own soul, develop and tend it, so that his art has something to clothe, and does not remain a glove without a hand. THE ARTIST MUST HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY, FOR MASTERY OVER FORM IS NOT HIS GOAL BUT RATHER THE ADAPTING OF FORM TO ITS INNER MEANING. [Footnote: Naturally this does not mean that the artist is to instill forcibly into his work some deliberate meaning. As has been said the generation of a work of art is a mystery. So long as artistry exists there is no need of theory or logic to direct the painter's action. The inner voice of the soul tells him what form he needs, whether inside or outside nature. Every artist knows, who works with feeling, how suddenly the right form flashes upon him. Bocklin said that a true work of art must be like an inspiration; that actual painting, composition, etc., are not the steps by which the artist reaches self-expression.] The artist is not born to a life of pleasure. He must not live idle; he has a hard work to perform, and one which often proves a cross to be borne. He must realize that his every deed, feeling, and thought are raw but sure material from which his work is to arise, that he is free in art but not in life. The artist has a triple responsibility to the non-artists: (1) He must repay the talent which he has; (2) his deeds, feelings, and thoughts, as those of every man, create a spiritual atmosphere which is either pure or poisonous. (3) These deeds and thoughts are materials for his creations, which themselves exercise influence on the spiritual atmosphere. The artist is not only a king, as Peladan says, because he has great power, but also because he has great duties. If the artist be priest of beauty, nevertheless this beauty is to be sought only according to the principle of the inner need, and can be measured only according to the size and intensity of that need. THAT IS BEAUTIFUL WHICH IS PRODUCED BY THE INNER NEED, WHICH SPRINGS FROM THE SOUL. Maeterlinck, one of the first warriors, one of the first modern artists of the soul, says: "There is nothing on earth so curious for beauty or so absorbent of it, as a soul. For that reason few mortal souls withstand the leadership of a soul which gives to them beauty." [Footnote: De la beaute interieure.] And this property of the soul is the oil, which facilitates the slow, scarcely visible but irresistible movement of the triangle, onwards and upwards. IX. CONCLUSION The first five illustrations in this book show the course of constructive effort in painting. This effort falls into two divisions: (1) Simple composition, which is regulated according to an obvious and simple form. This kind of composition I call the MELODIC. (2) Complex composition, consisting of various forms, subjected more or less completely to a principal form. Probably the principal form may be hard to grasp outwardly, and for that reason possessed of a strong inner value. This kind of composition I call the SYMPHONIC. Between the two lie various transitional forms, in which the melodic principle predominates. The history of the development is closely parallel to that of music. If, in considering an example of melodic composition, one forgets the material aspect and probes down into the artistic reason of the whole, one finds primitive geometrical forms or an arrangement of simple lines which help toward a common motion. This common motion is echoed by various sections and may be varied by a single line or form. Such isolated variations serve different purposes. For instance, they may act as a sudden check, or to use a musical term, a "fermata." [Footnote: E.g., the Ravenna mosaic which, in the main, forms a triangle. The upright figures lean proportionately to the triangle. The outstretched arm and door-curtain are the "fermate."] Each form which goes to make up the composition has a simple inner value, which has in its turn a melody. For this reason I call the composition melodic. By the agency of Cezanne and later of Hodler [Footnote: English readers may roughly parallel Hodler with Augustus John for purposes of the argument.--M.T.H.S.] this kind of composition won new life, and earned the name of "rhythmic." The limitations of the term "rhythmic" are obvious. In music and nature each manifestation has a rhythm of its own, so also in painting. In nature this rhythm is often not clear to us, because its purpose is not clear to us. We then speak of it as unrhythmic. So the terms rhythmic and unrhythmic are purely conventional, as also are harmony and discord, which have no actual existence. [Footnote: As an example of plain melodic construction with a plain rhythm, Cezanne's "Bathing Women" is given in this book.] Complex rhythmic composition, with a strong flavour of the symphonic, is seen in numerous pictures and woodcuts of the past. One might mention the work of old German masters, of the Persians, of the Japanese, the Russian icons, broadsides, etc. [Footnote: This applies to many of Hodler's pictures.] In nearly all these works the symphonic composition is not very closely allied to the melodic. This means that fundamentally there is a composition founded on rest and balance. The mind thinks at once of choral compositions, of Mozart and Beethoven. All these works have the solemn and regular architecture of a Gothic cathedral; they belong to the transition period. As examples of the new symphonic composition, in which the melodic element plays a subordinate part, and that only rarely, I have added reproductions of four of my own pictures. They represent three different sources of inspiration: (1) A direct impression of outward nature, expressed in purely artistic form. This I call an "Impression." (2) A largely unconscious, spontaneous expression of inner character, the non-material nature. This I call an "Improvisation." (3) An expression of a slowly formed inner feeling, which comes to utterance only after long maturing. This I call a "Composition." In this, reason, consciousness, purpose, play an overwhelming part. But of the calculation nothing appears, only the feeling. Which kind of construction, whether conscious or unconscious, really underlies my work, the patient reader will readily understand. Finally, I would remark that, in my opinion, we are fast approaching the time of reasoned and conscious composition, when the painter will be proud to declare his work constructive. This will be in contrast to the claim of the Impressionists that they could explain nothing, that their art came upon them by inspiration. We have before us the age of conscious creation, and this new spirit in painting is going hand in hand with the spirit of thought towards an epoch of great spiritual leaders. 
5620	----	Palaces and Courts of the Exposition A Handbook of the Architecture Sculpture and Mural Paintings with Special Reference to the Symbolism By Juliet James "The trail is lost, the path is hid and winds that blow from out the ages sweep me on to that chill borderland where time's spent sands engulf lost peoples and lost trails." Marian Manville Pope A Foreword The Pastel City by the Sea There is a hill-crowned city by a silver sea, near a Golden Gate. For ages the water has washed from an almost land-locked bay against this hill-crowned city, and on its northern side has created of the shore an amphitheatre stretching for some three miles to the western headlands. Behind this amphitheatre rises, in terraces, the steep hills of this water-lashed city, and in part, a forest of pines stretches to the west. Man has flanked this reach of shore by two lowering forts, and in front, across the sapphire sea, one looks onto the long undulations of hills, climaxed by grand old Tamalpais. Just three years ago and one saw in this same low-lying shore only a marshy stretch, with lagoons working their way far into the land - the home of the seagull. There came a time when, had you looked closely, you would have seen coming thru the Golden Gate a phantom flotilla of caravels, freighted with clever ideas. On the vessels came; at the prows were several noble figures: Energy, Enterprise, Youth, the Spirit of the East, the Spirit of the West, Success, and in the last caravel, the stalwart Mother of Tomorrow. They had dug and delved with mighty Hercules and had created that great gap that has severed two continents. Then, leaving their work to be finished, they had sailed on to celebrate their triumph in the Land of El Dorado, the region of their desires. In a shallop in front of these floating winged vessels, riding on the waves, came Venus, rowed by the fairies - in her hand the golden ball of opportunity. The mermaids, the dolphins, the little sea-horses sported in the wake of these vessels, leaving a long line of foam and silver as they sped on. Over the waves they came to the Golden Land of the Pacific. They moored their vessels by the fort-flanked shores, and stepping out upon the haunt of the seagull, they moved boldly across this unsightly stretch of wave-washed land. Enterprise and Energy pushed ahead: the Fairy ever flitting near. At a signal from Enterprise the Fairy turned her wheel, Venus threw her golden ball of opportunity, and lo! out of the foam of the sea rose a Venus city with the round sea bubbles resting on the roofs. One day a man appeared on the hilltop o'erlooking this wondrous city and by his magic power, being filled with music, with color-music, he cast a spell and behold a pastel city by the sea - such an one as only those who dream could think of; a city glowing with warmth of color, with a softness and mystical charm such as only the brain of Jules Guerin could produce. He is the conductor of this wondrous symphony, this beautiful Mozart fantasia, and if you listen, you can hear the strains of the great beautiful melodies wafted now east, now west, now north, now south, rising to great climaxes, falling back to great chords of harmony, or, in an allegro movement, causing you almost to trip with delight in the joy of it all. Your eye is enthralled with the beauty of the coloring. One sees turquoise green domes floating in a silver-moated ether, long colonnades of glacial ice columns leading to regions beyond, where quiet silver pools throw back the mirrored glories. Battalions of daffodils holding their long sabers stand in the South Garden, making ready for the great festival. Soon those daffodils will raise their golden trumpets and will sound the fanfare at the opening of the Great Jubilee, and up will spring two hundred thousand wide-eyed yellow pansies to look and wonder at the marvelous beauty and help in the hallelujah chorus that will be one great poeon of joy - one splendid hymn of praise. And the blue eucalypti against the walls will lend their voices, the yellow acacias will add their cadences; while down by the great lagoon, ten thousand periwinkles will dance for joy. Far out on the waters will be intoned to the rhythm of the waves a chorus from white-robed water-lilies, who, like a throng of choristers, will send their anthems rippling over the sun-kissed waves. The Spirit of the East that has added its domes, its minarets, its soft-glowing colors, will remain and join hands with the Spirit of the West, that strong, pulsating energetic spirit, and the harmony produced will vibrate from the shores of the Occident to the shores of the Orient and bring about a better understanding, a great world peace. And the world will come to listen. The great music will sound across the waters, and the world will be the better in its way of thinking, of working, of living - and all because of the great beauty. Wonderful is it to be living today, to have the opportunity of watching the beginning of this mighty growth; to be present at one of the world's greatest events. And the pastel city by the sea will not leave us, for, as the years go on, whatever be our mission, the vision of this dream-city will float before us, leading us to finer, higher works, strengthening our ideals, and causing us to give only of our finest fiber. Table of Contents Foreword - The Pastel City by the Sea Ground Plan of Palaces and Courts Prayers at Opening of Exposition Chiefs of Departments Architecture and Architects Sculptors and Mural Painters Materials of the Palaces Material of the Statues Machinery Palace Palace of Varied Industries Flora of the Avenue of Progress and the Avenue of Palms Palace of Manufactures and Palace of Liberal Arts Palace of Education Aisles between the Palaces Court of the Universe Cosmical Side of the Court of the Universe Human Side of the Court of the Universe Historical Side of the Court of the Universe Ethical Side of the Court of the Universe Floral Side of the Court of the Universe Festival Side of the Court of the Universe Tower of Jewels Jewels on the Tower Column of Progress Court of the Ages North Court of the Ages Court of the Four Seasons Court of Palms Court of Flowers Italian Towers Palace of Fine Arts Palace of Horticulture South Gardens Festival Hall Color Scheme Index List of Illustrations "The End of the Trail" (by James E. Fraser) Machinery Palace Palace of Varied Industries Portal of the Palace of Varied Industries Portal of the Palace of Liberal Arts West Side of the Palace of Education "Thought" (by Ralph Stackpole) Portal of all the Palaces facing North Court of the Universe "The Rising Sun" (by A. A. Weinmann) "Descending Night" (by A. A. Weinmann) "Earth" (by Robert Aitken) "The Genius of Creation" (by Daniel C. French) "The Nations of the Occident" (by Calder, Roth and Lentelli) "Youth" (by Edith W. Burroughs) Part of "Fountain of El Dorado" (by G. V. Whitney) Tower of Jewels "Cortez" (by Chas. Niehaus) North Court of Court of the Universe "The Adventurous Bowman" (by H. A. McNeil) Court of the Ages "Water" (by Frank Brangwyn) Panel of "The Fountain of the Earth" (by R. Aitken) Court of the Four Seasons "The Fountain of Ceres" (by Evelyn B. Longman) "The Feast of the Sacrifice" (by Albert Jaegers) The Emerald Pool "Winter" (by Furio Piccirilli) Eastern Gateway of Court of Four Seasons Court of Palms "The American Pioneer" (by Solon Borglum) Palace of Fine Arts Corner of the Palace of Fine Arts Panel of "Pegasus " (by Bruno Zimm) Palace of Horticulture "The Fountain of Energy" (by A. Stirling Calder) Festival Hall Palaces and Courts of the Exposition The Prayer of Bishop Nichols of the Episcopal Diocese of California, Given at the Opening of the Exposition The Blessing of God Almighty, the God of the Ages, the God of the Oceans, the God of the Continents, the God of the Genius of man and the God of every Exposition of human achievement and progress - the Blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, be upon you and remain with you always. Amen. The 148th Psalm Read by Rabbi Meyer of San Francisco at the Opening of the Exposition Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens; praise Him in the Heights. Praise ye Him, all His Angels; praise ye, all His hosts. Praise ye Him, sun and moon; praise Him all ye stars of light. Praise Him, ye heaven of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord; for He commanded and they were created. He hath also established them for ever and ever; He hath made a decree which shall not pass. Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps. Fire and hail, snow and vapors; stormy wind fulfilling His word; Mountains and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars; Beasts and all cattle; creeping things and flying fowl; Kings of the earth and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth. Both young men, and maidens; old men, and children. Let them praise the name of the Lord; for His name alone is excellent; His glory is above the earth and heaven. He also exalteth the horn of His people, the praise of all His saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto Him. Praise ye the Lord. The Prayer of Bishop E. J. Hanna of the Catholic Diocese Given at the Opening of the Exposition O God of our Fathers, in Whose power are the destinies of men, in Whose hands are the ends of the world, look down with loving-kindness on Thy children here gathered in Thy Name. From the uttermost bounds of the earth have we come to commemorate one of man's greatest achievements adown the ages. Make us, Thy children, realize that Thou art the source of light and of inspiration; make us realize that great things are wrought through Thee alone. To the city of St. Francis, enthroned in beauty by the western sea, give the grace of kindly hospitality, the blessing of an ever-widening vision of true greatness, a faith and a hope that know not failure. To our glorious California give abundance of harvest, a bounteous plenty of Thy treasures and a valiant race of men blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of Thy law. To our favored land, which is from sea to sea, vouchsafe strength and unity and that peace which the world cannot give. Make us feel that the mighty City of God rises sublime through the centuries only when built on the foundations of justice and of truth; and, finally, to all the nations here represented, grant a vision of the highest things of life - of the things that make for true progress, for real brotherhood, for lasting union, for unfailing love, for mighty achievement in time, and for that glory which is everlasting. Amen. The Chief's of Departments Architects - Mr. George Kelham of San Francisco. Sculptors - Mr. Karl Bitter of New York and his able manager, Mr. A. Stirling Calder of New York. Painters - Mr. Jules Guerin of New York. Illuminators - Mr. W. D'Arcy Ryan of San Francisco and Mr. Guy Bailey of Berkeley, Cal. Landscape Gardening - Mr. John McLaren of San Francisco and his son, Donald McLaren. Inscriptions - Selected by Mr. Porter Garnett of Berkeley, Cal. Material for Buildings was originated by Mr. Paul E. Deneville of New York. Architecture and Architects Manager-in-Chief - Geo. Kelham of San Francisco. Court of the Universe - McKim, Meade and White of New York. Tower of Jewels - Thomas Hastings of New York. Court of the Ages - Louis Christian Mullgardt of San Francisco. Court of the Four Seasons - Henry Bacon of New York. Court of Flowers - Geo. Kelham of San Francisco. Court of Palms - " " The Italian Towers - " " Column of Progress - Symmes Richardson of New York. Machinery Palace - Ward and Blohme of San Francisco. Palace of Varied Industries - W. B. Faville of San Francisco. Palace of Mines - " " Palace of Manufactures - " " Palace of Transportation - " " Palace of Liberal Arts - " " Palace of Education - " " Palace of Agriculture - " " Palace of Food Products - " " Also all portals and aisles - " " Palace of Fine Arts - Bernard R. Maybeck of San Francisco. Palace of Horticulture - Bakewell and Brown of San Francisco. Festival Hall - Robert Farquhar of Los Angeles. Sculptors (The numbers indicate the other works by the same sculptors to be seen in the Fine Arts Palace.) Adams, Herbert (3) Aitken, Robert (9) Bateman, John Beach, Chester (1) Borglum, Solon H. (1) Boutier, E. L. Bufano, B. Burroughs, Edith Woodman (4) Calder, A. Stirling (5) Cummings, Earle Ellerhusen, Ulric H. (2) Elwell, Frank Edwin Flanagan, John (3) Fraser, James Earle (7) French, Daniel Chester (4) Fry, Sherry (2) Gerlach, Gustave Gruppe, Carl Harley, C. R. Humphries, C. H. (1) Jaegers, Albert (1) Jaegers, August Konti, Isadore (6) Laessle, Albert (21) Lentelli, Leo Longman, Evelyn Beatrice (4) MacNeil, Herman A. (2) Manship, Paul (10) Newman, Allen Niehaus, Charles Patigian, Haig (7) Peters, C. Piccirilli, Furio (2) Putnam, Arthur Roth, Frederick G. R. (12) Rumsey, Charles Carey (8) Stackpole, Ralph W. (4) Stea, Cesare Tonetti, F. M. L. Walters, Edgar (1) Weinert, Albert Weinman, Adolph A. (9) Whitney, Gertrude Vanderbilt (1) Young, Mahonri (9) Zimm, Bruno L. MURAL PAINTERS (The numbers indicate the other works by the same artists to be seen in the Fine Arts Palace.) Bancroft, Milton Brangwyn, Frank Dodge, William de Leftwich Du Mond, Frank Vincent (6) Hassam, Childe (37) Holloway, Charles Matthews, Arthur F. (14) Reid, Robert (3) Simmons, Edward Materials of the Palaces The buildings, as well as all of the statuary, are made of artificial travertine, of a smoked-ivory tone. Real travertine is found in and around Rome, especially at Tivoli. It is a pure carbonate of lime, a creamy white deposit formed from dripping water, in stratified form, with cavities and fissures lined with crystals. The Colosseum and St. Peter's at Rome are both made of this material. The imitation travertine made with concrete, and used in the second story of the Pennsylvania Station in New York in combination with real travertine of the first story, was invented by Mr. Symmes Richardson of the firm of McKim, Meade and White of New York. He also brought the real travertine to America to have it used for the first time in a large building, the Pennsylvania Station. Mr. Paul Deneville of New York has most successfully made a plastic travertine, composed of gypsum from Nevada combined with hemp fiber and a coloring pigment, which has been applied to all of the Exposition buildings, producing a most pleasing glareless background under the sunny skies of San Francisco. The roofs are covered with imitation tiles, since real tiles would be too expensive for Exposition purposes. Material of the Statues The architectural statues - that is, those directly connected with the architecture - are of smoked-ivory tone, so that you see them as part of the architectural scheme. Those far away from the eye, used as free statues, are, in the main, golden. Those nearer the eye simulate bronze, the special color that seems worked out from the color of the blue eucalyptus. All the statues of the Exposition palaces and courts are of travertine, the material of which the buildings are made. Machinery Palace Architects - Ward and Blohme of San Francisco. The palace is one of grandeur, dignity and great beauty. The architecture has been inspired by such old Roman thermae as the Baths of Caracalla, the Baths of Titus and the like. The ornamentation is of the Italian Renaissance style, worked out on a building that in form suits the needs of a great palace of machinery. The gable points at the top of the western façade are such as one sees in the restoration of the Baths of Caracalla. The first and only other expression of this style in America is seen in the Pennsylvania Station of New York City. In the Transportation Palace can be seen a model of the proposed plan for a new Union Depot for Chicago, with a similar gabled effect. The three arches reflect on the exterior the three aisles of the same portion of the palace within. The great columns in front, and also in the vestibule, simulate Siena marble. The entablature carried across the faces of the arches supports American eagles by C. A. Humphries. Eagles are also seen at the corners of the Corinthian capitals. This bird of freedom can be found all over the Exposition. Notice that Mr. Jules Guerin, the great color wizard, leads you by means of the blue ground of the capitals, the blue between the dentils, the blue between the consoles to the blue sky above. The principal lighting is by great clerestory windows - great windows at the north and the south ends - also by skylights. The building covers nine acres, and is the largest wooden structure in the world. It is about three blocks long. The statues as well as the reliefs are by Haig Patigian of San Francisco. Vigorous types like machinery itself are used. The generation, transmission and application of power as applied to machinery are most interestingly represented. The decorated drums of the columns show the Genii of Machinery. The eyes of these figures are closed, reminding you that power comes from within. Notice how from any point of view your figures suggest support at the sides of the drum. The very position of the arms gives you a strong feeling of support. The figures on the spandrels represent the application of power to machinery. The figures on the pedestals represent: 1. "Steam Power" with the lever that starts the engine. 2. "Invention" showing a more intellectual type of face, carrying the figure with wings spread, suggesting the flight of thought. This thought, as it were, is above the world. 3. "Electricity" with foot on the earth, suggesting that electricity is not only in the earth, but around it. He carries his symbol, electricity. 4. "Imagination," showing man with his eyes closed - seeing within. The bird of inspiration, the eagle, is about to take flight. The wings on the head suggest the rapidity of thought or action. Inside this great palace one sees the latest inventions in machinery. Ponderous machines capable of shaping tons of metal, great labor-saving machines, and all sorts of electrical appliances. "Safety first" is a pronounced feature of this exhibit. Palace of Varied Industries Architect - W. B. Faville of San Francisco. The high walls, averaging seventy feet to the cornice, with their respective buttresses, are strongly suggestive of the California missions of the eighteenth century. The "California bear" and the Seal of California are in decorative and suggestive evidence at the tops of the buttresses. The green domes on the palace belong to the Byzantine school of architecture, such domes as one sees in the mosques of Constantinople and other Mohammedan centers. The windows seen in the corner towers are the same kind that one sees used in the majority of mosques. The beautiful central portal, facing south, is modeled after the Portal of the Hospice of Santa Cruz at Toledo, Spain. It is 16th century Spanish Renaissance, known as the Plateresque style (from platero, silversmith). The columns suggest a wood origin and look as if they had been turned in a lathe. The portal is the color of cork, illuminated here and there with niche walls of pink, and touches of ultramarine blue. The fine figure work representing the modern industrial types is by Ralph Stackpole of Oregon, whose home is now in San Francisco. He expresses himself most simply and unaffectedly, in clear, broad treatment, and makes the ordinary workman a man to be honored and respected. The upper figures represent an old man handing his burden to a younger man. The Old World Handing Its Burden to the Younger World, that is America, is finely suggested. The keystone figure represents The Power of Industry, the man who both thinks and uses his hands. In the tympanum are the types representing the Varied Industries. In the center is Agriculture representing the food side of life. On the left a workman, possibly an architect, suggests the refinements of the varied industries, while on the right one sees the ordinary workman with his sledge-hammer, bringing to mind the rougher side of industry. In the left corner a woman with her spindle - a lamb standing near - recalls the making of textiles. Commerce occupies the right corner, holding the prow of a vessel with its figurehead. The Workman with his pick is repeated in the four niches. The two flanking portals are also in the plateresque style with devices of this Spanish Renaissance period represented on them. The shields, or cartouches as they are called, have no special meaning, being only ornaments of this particular period. The portals on the east of the Palace of Varied Industries and also of the Palace of Mines are suggestive of gateways of old Roman walled cities, like those of Perugia, for instance. This Italian type of portal is chosen since Machinery Palace opposite is in the Italian style of architecture. Notice how the pastel pink accents the portal. The figure of "The Miner" in the niches is by Albert Weinert, whose work in the Congressional Library at Washington is well known. The Palace of Varied Industries has an exhibition of the more refined manufactures, those articles that are regarded more as luxuries, such as bronzes, jewelry, silverware, fine pottery, porcelains, rugs, leather work, silks, etc. The Palace of Mines deals with the smelting of metals, a fine exhibition of different ores, and above all "Safety First" in its relation to mines. The Mines Rescue work is most interesting. Flora of the Avenue of Progress and the Avenue of Palms Eucalyptus globulus (blue gum). Eucalyptus robusta. Eucalyptus viminalis. Cupressus macrocarpa (Monterey cypress). Laurestinus. Australian pea vine on the palms. Muhlenbeckia (Australian mattress vine) against the base of Machinery Palace. Honeysuckle against the base of the Varied Industries Palace. Lawson cypress. Libocedrus decurrens (incense cedar). Acacia floribunda. Acacia latifolia. Albizzia lophantha. Abies menziesü (fir). Picea Engelmanni (spruce). Picea excelsa (from Norway) (spruce). Pittosporum. Rhododendrons (notice how they work upon the pink walls) (for color). Cinerarias (for color). Cyclamen (for color). Dracaena indivisa (cabbage palm). Woodwardias. Japanese strawberry. Notice Mr. McLaren's devices for covering the ground. The lophantha lawn, it might be called, is an artificial device for producing a most lovely effect. The tree is stripped of all branches until it has attained the height of four feet, the top being trained and flattened into a head five feet across. The trees are placed close enough together so that the tops interlace, producing thereby a continuous green surface. The veronica, buxifolia is the light green border at the side and in front of the Palace of Varied Industries. Achanea from New Zealand and Australia is used on the banks and accords most harmoniously with the albizzia lophantha. The abelia rupestris is the red leafed plant with pink blossoms. Peonia moutan daikaqura is the peony. Since the small plants in front of the permanent shrubs are changed periodically, a list of everything planted is of course out of the question. The technical names are suggested with a few of the trees and shrubs so that you can continue this line of work for yourself. Since the botanical names are placed on the plants in many places you can easily find what you seek. The Palace of Manufactures and also The Palace of Liberal Arts (Since they are alike.) The portal is Spanish Renaissance with grill work. Notice the pastel pink, turquoise blue and burnt orange on this portal. This coloring is a means of strongly accenting this fine architectural feature. The panel (representing the making of glass, metal work, textiles, statuary, etc.), as well as the female figure holding the spindle and the male with the sledge-hammer, are by Mahonri Young of Salt Lake City, Utah. The wall niches show elephants and lions used alternately - a fine oriental touch. The heads are used as fountains. "Acroterium" is the Victory on the gables, many times repeated. It is the work of Frank Edwin Elwell, curator of Ancient Art, at the Metropolitan Museum of New York. Viewing the figure from the side, you are reminded of the Victory of Samothrace. She is noticeably beautiful against the late afternoon sky and also against the blue morning sky. You will notice that the flora is just the same in the main in front of these buildings as it was in front of the others you have seen, the grass lawn here taking the place of the albizzia lophantha. Sweet peas, daffodils, rhododendrons, evening primroses, Japanese magnolias, coronilla are added for color. The Palace of Manufactures shows the coarser, heavier articles, such as furniture, carpets, woolen goods, hardware. Many articles are being made in this palace. The Palace of Liberal Arts includes all kinds of printing, book binding, engraving, photographic apparatus, especially in the line of moving pictures and color photography, theatrical appliances, musical instruments, instruments of precision, wireless telegraphy and the wireless telephone, etc. Palace of Education Architect - W. B. Faville of San Francisco. There are three portals on the south in the Spanish Renaissance style, with twisted columns of the Byzantine school. Notice that the screws twist in opposite directions. Above the central portal is Gustav Gerlach's tympanum relief "Education." The tree of knowledge is seen in the background. The kindergarten stage, the half-grown, and the mature periods are shown, the last showing the man no longer under a teacher, but working his problem out by himself. The modern costumes, combined with the classical styles, suggest that the knowledge of today rests upon that of the old schools. Mr. Gerlach is a pupil of Karl Bitter of New York, the Chief of the Sculpture. Below the tympanum is the open book of knowledge from which light radiates in all directions. The curtains of darkness have been drawn aside. The hour-glass says, "Improve the shining moments as they pass." The crown awaits those who will seek knowledge. Atop this portal is the globe suggesting that education extends around the world. The panel on the left shows the female teacher in the center. She is instructing her hearers who discuss their interests. This panel is by Peters. The companion panel with the male teacher is by Cesare Stea. Both panels are quite evident in meaning. Messrs. Peters and Stea are pupils of the Beaux Arts of Paris and the National School of Sculpture of America, respectively. The Palace of Education and Social Economy shows developments since 1905. Comparative exhibits of educational interests of all nations are shown. Child welfare, playgrounds, care of the feebleminded, treatment of the insane, missionary work, the Red Cross system, criminology, park systems, street improvements, methods of disposing of sewage, and many other allied subjects are interestingly worked out for public benefit. The flora is just about the same in front of these palaces as that which you have noticed. The veronica buxifolia is grouped around the lawn at the corner of Palm and Administration Avenues. The west side of the Palace of Education as well as that of the Palace of Food Products, has great Roman half domes above the entrances. Again your architecture at the portals is changed to suit the style of the palace opposite. The Fine Arts Palace is mainly old Roman. These are called respectively "The Dome of Philosophy" and "The Dome of Plenty." The female figures carrying the books "Ex libris," as well as the male figures carrying cereal wreaths, are by Albert Weinert and Earl Cummings, respectively. "Out of books comes much knowledge," says the woman. "If you wish to be as physically strong as I am, eat my food," says the man. This figure then represents physical vigor. The fountains of the vestibules are by W. B. Faville of San Francisco. That in the vestibule of the Palace of Food Products is strongly reminiscent of the fountain of Perugia. The great Siena pedestals beside these palaces carry Ralph Stackpole's "Thought." The niches have alternate groups of "Abundance" and "Triumph of the Fields," both by Chas. Harley of Philadelphia (studio in New York). Abundance expresses to you the overflowing amount of all that we have today. Her symbol, the cornucopia, is seen on either side. Her large hands are spread out as if to say: "I give you all that I have. Take. Choose what you will." One certainly has a bountiful choice. The eagle's head is on the prow of the vessel in which she sits. It surely suggests that considering all we have put before us today, we have reason for inspiration (the eagle being the symbol of inspiration). The Triumph of the Fields shows man surrounded by the symbols of the harvest festivals when the Celtic cross, to take one case, or the standard with the bull atop, to take another, was carried through the fields at the time of the bringing in of the harvests. Man has been the guiding hand to the bull, but the bull has really triumphed since it has actually done the work, while man receives the credit. Man has surmounted the bull, as it were. Above is the wheel of the wain of old. The seed in the black earth appears almost to possess intelligence. You get that idea by the head below. Has not the seed produced the bearded barley head you see represented? Does not that power of production appear to be intelligence in the seed? Below the niches are facsimiles of old Roman baths such as one sees in the Lateran Museum, in Rome. (See picture in Bannister Fletcher's History of Architecture, page 170.) Fronting the Esplanade are four great palaces: The Palace of Food Products, which allows you to see how a number of our dry groceries are made; The Palace of Agriculture, dealing with the many interests of the farmer and the orchardist, the fisheries, forestry, reclaimed land, etc.; The Palace of Transportation, which enables one to see the remarkable progress made in automobiles, aerial navigation, ocean liners, overland trains, etc.; The Palace of Mines, which has been spoken of before. These four palaces have the same kind of doorway. The style is the Spanish Plateresque, the same kind of work that was used on the fine portals of the Palace of Varied Industries. The Spanish Cavalier (by Allen Newman) is the type of man who came to America in the 16th century, during the period following its discovery. He is the type of Spanish conqueror (conquistador). The Pirate (by Allen Newman) is the type of man who infested the shores of Spanish-America and preyed upon the commerce. The Palaces are intimately placed for several reasons. From experiences at previous Expositions "tired feet" are strongly to be considered, hence the nearness of the buildings. San Francisco has a few (?) windy and foggy days in the Trade Wind Season, so if the walls are high and near together, the courts on the inside of those walls will be well protected from both winds and fogs. The high walls lift the cool air so that it passes over the buildings of the great block, thus sheltering the courts within. - Now that you have walked around the façades of the palaces of this great block system, you can start with your courts. I would strongly suggest that you study all of your buildings of this group first, before entering the courts for close work. - The Aisles Between the Palaces The aisle between the Educational Palace and the Palace of Food Products is called The Aisle of Spring, tho the name will probably not be applied very often, as the aisle is not important. The flora seen here is eucalyptus, acacia, laurestinus with its white bloom, and veronica decussata with its purple flowers. The border is cistus. - The Aisle of the Setting Sun is between the Court of the Universe and the Court of the Four Seasons. The Aisle of the Rising Sun is between the Court of the Universe and the Court of the Ages. These two aisles are very much alike, the great difference being in the flora used. The style is Italian Renaissance and should not be called Venetian, as many have named it. The walls are covered with a diaper design of ochre, pink and travertine. Blue rondels are used with telling effect. They give a delightful touch of color and have a fine Italian feeling. These rondels have no special meaning, being purely decorative. The coupled columns with different decorations have their prototypes in the columns of the churches of southern Italy. The arched windows have interesting grotesque keystones. Notice that the spirals of the great Siena marble columns turn in opposite directions. Think how they would appear if they all turned the same way! Notice also the beautiful manipulation of color on the Triumphal Arches. The latticed windows are strongly suggestive of Mohammedan work and are a beautiful turquoise green. They are among the many Oriental touches at this splendid Exposition. The area of deep pink and the burnt orange medallions must be seen to realize their beauty. No wonder Pegasus is seen in the spandrels! Who would not mount Pegasus at such a glorious Exposition? In these aisles are many remarkable conifers. Yews from many different countries, junipers of various kinds, pines, firs, spruces, cypresses of countless varieties, many thuyas, beside euonymus, holly, datura, India rubber, aralias, the beautiful nandina domestica, a most lovely foliage massed in the corners of the west side of the Aisle of the Rising Sun. In March and April these courts receive glorious rich coloring from beds of California poppies and anemones, bordered with creeping juniper. The gay spring flowers will be followed by summer annuals, and later by our autumn blossoms, The Court of the Universe This court, which strongly resembles the great area in front of St. Peter's, Rome, with its sweep of colonnade to right and left, was designed by the New York firm of McKim, Meade and White. The architecture is Italian Renaissance and gives you the beautiful spirit of the old-time work. It is a wonderful court in architecture, ornamentation, color, arrangement, and above all in meaning. In order to get the full joy of it you must pursue a regular plan and you cannot hurry. Don't try to do it all in one day. First walk thru the court to the Triumphal Arch on the right. Pass thru it and read the quotation on the right at the top of the arch. - The Cosmical Side of the Court of the Universe "The universe - an infinite sphere. Its center everywhere, its circumference, nowhere." This comes from Pascal, from his Pensées. This splendid quotation gives you the infinite side of your subject. Now pass back to the Court of the Universe and you will see ninety times repeated against the sky, A. Stirling Calder's very decorative "Jeweled Star." This will suggest the myriad of suns in our great universe (since stars are suns). The nearest star to us, our sun ("The Rising Sun," by A. A. Weinmann of New York) then attracts the attention. He is seen just before daybreak. This fresh, strong young sun is just bout to start on his journey. Dawn is soon to break upon the world and with muscles stretched, the heavenly joy of the first move expressed upon his face, the wind blowing thru his hair, the vigor of young life pulsating thru his body, he will start the chest forward and move those outstretched wings. Walk toward him and you will see him begin his journey thru space. Now read the quotation an the Triumphal Arch of the Rising Sun: "The moon sinks yonder in the west While in the east the glorious sun Behind the herald dawn appears Thus rise and set in constant change those shining orbs And regulate the very life of this our world." - By Kalidasa (the Shakespeare of India). The sun at setting is represented by a beautiful woman. The day is just about to close and with muscles relaxed (knees bent, head drooping, arms falling, wings folding) she is soon to sink to slumber, to pass from view. This is what is suggested by calling the figure the Setting Sun. In the Fine Arts Palace, Mr. A. A. Weinmann has called the same figure "Descending Night," and that title is much more consistent and satisfactory, for how are you going to account for the youthful sun's appearing at the end of the day as a woman? Then again the reliefs refer to "Descending Night," for they are called "The Mysteries of Dusk." Now raise your eyes to those beautiful cameo figures on the burnt orange ground at the entrance to the colonnades, and you will be carried in thought to the Zodiac, that great imaginary belt thru which the sun and planets travel. There you see the zodiacal figures, two and two, with their symbols, gliding thru space. The clouds or nebulous matter is suggested by the female figures with swirling drapery, toward the end of the frieze. In the center stands Atlas, mythologically the first astronomer. Your fancy has carried you on the wings of the wind at this very suggestion. These fourteen maids are Atlas' fourteen daughters. Go close to the die of the fountain of the Rising Sun and look at the reliefs. The subject is Day Triumphant. The genius of Time with hour-glass is followed by the genius of Light with flaming torch, and Energy sounds on his trumpet the announcement of the break of day. Truth follows with mirror and sword emerging triumphant from the sinister powers of Darkness. Falsehood shrinks from its own image reflected in the mirror of Truth. Vice cowers and struggles in the coils of a serpent. - Walk over to the corresponding die on the fountain of Descending Night. On it are shown the Gentle Powers of the Night. Dusk envelops in her cloak Labor, Love and Peace. Following are Illusions carried upon the wings of Sleep. Then come the Evening Mists, followed by the Star Dance and Luna, goddess of the Silver crescent. (Let me acknowledge the kind help of Mr. A. A. Weinmann in the interpretation of these reliefs.) You have swept your mind over the cosmical side of the Court of the Universe on objects at a great distance. Come closer now to view the elements. These colossal figures of Earth, Air, Water, Fire assume a certain majesty in this Court of the Universe. They are in horizontal composition and add greatly to the decorative, side of this inspiring court. Earth - The sleeping Earth which yields to man wood (from the great trees whose roots ramify below the surface of the ground), stone and minerals - (man wrests thru great muscular strength these substances from the earth). Air - That holds to her ear the star. She is listening to the music of the spheres. On her back are wings which man has fastened so that he can overcome her - a fine suggestion to aerial navigation. The bird, the symbol of the air, is twice repeated. Fire - His very expression of face shows you the terrorizing effect of fire. He holds his hand in the flame. The lightning plays on his right arm. Across his figure passes the salamander, the fabled reptile of the fire. (See the real salamander in the Japanese concession on the Zone.) Water - The bellowing ocean with mouth agape lies on the tossing waves, thru which sport the dolphins. Ocean, the king of the waters, carries the trident. On his head and in his hands the kelp is seen. The elements are by Robert Aitken of New York, formerly of San Francisco. - The Human Side of the Court of the Universe All is now ready for man. In the center of the Court of the Universe was to have been Daniel French's Genius of Creation, but if it is not there, we must not lose the great dominant note of this Court, so pass thru the Triumphal Arch of the Orient, thru the beautiful Aisle of the Rising Sun, across the Court of the Ages, out thru the next aisle, to the plaza in front of Machinery Palace in order to follow the story. Here on the boulder sits the great Spirit (not a man you will notice). The hood is drawn far over the face so that a certain idealism is produced - a great spirit with wings and arms raised. Wisdom (the serpent) encircles the throne. The arms of the creating spirit have just been raised, the word has just been spoken and splendid manhood ready to meet the world, with modest, helpful woman, just come forth. The hands touch at the back of the group, causing you to feel that man and woman are mutually dependent. Return to the Court of the Universe. Now, look up at the Triumphal arches and notice Leo Lentelli's Angel of Peace with its downturned sword. "Let there be peace throughout the world. Turn down the sword," it says. - A night of illumination should follow your work and you can then read under the searchlights the words on the right upper corner of the Oriental Gateway - "Our eyes and hearts uplifted Seem to rest on heaven's radiance." (From Hitomaro, the Japanese poet of the 8th century, A. D.) - Your scene is shifted for a short time. You have passed into the Court of the Ages for a retrospect (upon the human side). The primitive people are to be seen here on the Fountain of the Psychology of Life. Don't try to see everything in detail now, for you can come back later. Just realize this, that the small group facing west in the fountain is The Dawn of Life, then comes Natural Selection which develops into The Survival of the Fittest, or The Development of the Militant Spirit. This early period shows man working strongly under the power of impulse. Vanity, lust and greed seem to dominate his actions. On these primitive people pass thru life. You can see them if you look up on the Tower. On they march, in that upward climb of civilization. Marching along with primitive man, thru long periods of time, you next meet him developed as the Crusader of the Mediaeval period. He has mounted thru war and his religion and stands at the feet of the Priestess of Religion, the last group at the upper part of the Tower. On either side you will notice a man and a woman standing on the bodies of primitive beings. These figures represent the man and the woman of today - the man and the woman who have sprung from this primitive stock. Don't stop in this beautiful Court of the Ages, for we shall return later to finish our story. You have gotten connection enough now to allow you to return to the Court of the Universe. Take a seat in the sunken garden and look up at the figures on the Triumphal Arch of the Rising Sun. The Orientals are represented by many types. From left to right are seen: 1. The Arab sheik on his Arabian steed. 2. The Negro servitor with fruits on head. 3. The Egyptian on his camel, carrying a Mohammedan standard. 4. The Arab falconer with bird on wrist. 5. The splendid Indian prince on the back of the elephant. 6. Inside the howdah the Spirit of the East. 7. The lama from Thibet with his rod of authority. 8. The Mohammedan with his crescent standard. 9. Again a negro servitor. 10. The Mongolian on his horse. On they come, these Orientals, to take part in the great celebration. (They are the collaborated work of A. Stirling Calder, Leo Lentelli, Frederick Roth.) Next look up at your Occidentals on the Arch of the Setting Sun. From left to right you see: 1. The French Canadian - the trapper. 2. The Alaskan with her totem poles on her back. 3. The Latin-American on horseback. 4. The German. 5. The Italian. 6. The Anglo-American. 7. The Squaw with her papoose basket. 8. The American Indian on his horse. In the center is the old Prairie Schooner drawn by the great oxen. Atop, pushing out, is Enterprise leading these men westward, on either side a white boy and a colored boy, The Heroes of Tomorrow. In front marches that stalwart Mother of Tomorrow. It has taken all these Occidentals to produce the work that is coming in the future - the achievements due to the completion of the Panama Canal - therefore, they conjointly express "The Mother of Tomorrow." - These nations are now marching into the Court of the Universe and are to meet in front of the Tower of Jewels, the symbol of the Panama Canal. Read now on the Occidental Gateway the magnificent lines by Walt Whitman: "Facing west from California's shores, Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound, I, a child, very old, over waves Toward the house of maternity, the land of migrations look afar, Look off the shores of my western sea, The circle almost circled." Mr. Porter Garnett's excellent explanation you may be glad to read: "In these transcendent lines we have the poet speaking as the personification and representative of the Aryan race, the race, which, having its origin in the plains of Kashmir, has by virtue of the spirit of conquest, the desire to be seeking what is yet unfound, finally reached the western edge of the American Continent, whence it 'faces west from California's shores' and looks toward the House of Maternity, the Land of Migrations from which it originally sprang." "It seems hardly possible to conceive of an inscription that embodies such a tremendous thought, and is, at the same time, so appropriate to the purpose for which it is suggested. It comes, moreover, from the poet who above all others represents the spirit of the American people and the ideals of democracy." You now feel the import of the Occidentals who, with that Aryan spirit, have with mighty power, such as Hercules alone possessed (as Perham Nahl's poster tells you) severed two continents and introduced the Panama Canal. - Next read the far-seeing words of Goethe in his letters to Eckermann (on the west side of The Arch of the Setting Sun): "It is absolutely indispensable for the United States to effect a passage from the Mexican Gulf to the Pacific Ocean, and I am certain that they will do it. Would that I could live to see it, but I shall not." - The Historical Side of the Court of the Universe Begin with Mr. Edward Simmon's murals on either side of the Gateway of the Rising Sun. Facing east, the mural on the right represents The Nations That Have Crossed the Atlantic (Greece, Italy, Spain, England, France, etc.) and the special types are these: 1. The savage of the lost Atlantis. 2. The Graeco-Roman sharpening his blade. 3. Columbus, the type of adventurer. 4. Sir Walter Raleigh, the type of colonist. 5. The priest, representing the Jesuit missionaries. 6. The artist. 7. The workman. 8. The (veiled) Future listening to the Past. The people of the old world, with all their traditions, cross the Atlantic, led by the "Spirit of Adventure" (with his bugle calling them to come). The mural on the opposite side shows the aspirations, etc., of the group just examined. Reading from left to right we find the men had hopes (and some false hopes - but bubbles), commerce, inspiration, truth, religion, wealth and family in their minds. Cross to the Gateway of the Setting Sun looking at the mural on the right as you face west. Time has moved on since those early colonists came to the Atlantic shores and now the Spirit of Abundance (with her overflowing golden cornucopia) is sounding the call for all to follow. Many leave their homes to join the great throng that is moving westward. The wagon is laden with the necessaries of life for the new home in the western country. You see the feather bed, the old grandfather's clock that stood on the stairs, the scythe, the pitchfork and the rake for their agricultural interests, etc. On the right the young man who has said goodbye to his wife now turns to his aged parents. The mother, overcome with grief at parting, stands speechless, and the grey-haired father shakes his boy's hands and wishes him "Godspeed." All types of men are taking the journey and you are reminded that not alone workmen and adventurers are leading the procession, but ministers, women with their refining influence, children with their school books, and college men with gown and mortar-board, with books under arms - all moving on the long journey westward. Occupying the same position on the southern side of the arch the companion-piece, by Frank Vincent Du Mond, shows these men from the Atlantic arriving at the shores of the Pacific. The people of the west with outstretched arms welcome the travelers. The children of the Pacific shores run with flowers and fruits to greet them. You will notice the different types arriving from the Atlantic shore - literary men (with pen and book), architects (with temple in hand), scientists (with book under arm), Franciscan friars (with crucifix and mission bells in hand), etc. These are followed by the Red Coats, indicating those who preserved order. These men are all led by the Spirit of Adventure. She is no longer in the foreground, but is ready to fall behind as soon as she has fulfilled her mission. The agricultural interests of the western countries are suggested by the wheat and implements of the field. The heavily laden orange trees speak of the fruit industries. Does the tapir stand for South America? Surely, South America is coming into the foreground just now. The people have now been brought to the shores of the Pacific. - The Panama region is the one next to be visited and you rehearse its story, standing under the Tower of Jewels, "The Panama Canal." These are the murals of Frank DeLeftwich Dodge: 1. The Panama Isthmus is discovered. 2. It is purchased by the United States. 3. You are reminded that the great waters - the Atlantic and the Pacific - play with titanic force on either side of the isthmus. 4. The Panama Canal is completed. 5. Labor is crowned. 6. The achievements which follow are shown: (The caduceus, the wand of Mercury, the symbol of commerce, is prominent.) - Pass thru this Tower of jewels noticing in the eastern and also the western arcades two fine fountains. On the left is the Fountain of Youth by Mrs. Edith Woodman Burroughs of Flushing, Long Island. The simple, beautiful, naive figure standing on the pedestal is Youth, the United States, the child that has come from old parents (Europe). The old father and mother have had many children - many little primroses you will notice - but none more dear than this one. The charming panels will remind you that the old people of today are being rowed by the young. These children row the vessels, bring them to shore and fasten them to their moorings. Many of the old people are deaf or blind and are straining to follow the young who, with willing hands are guiding them on. A most charming, lovely work is this, and adds a fine touch to the open book that we are reading. Don't lose the eagle and laurel wreath back of Youth. They are significant. Oh the other side is the fine formal fountain of "El Dorado," by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney of New York. The fountain of El Dorado brings to mind the old Indian legend of El Dorado, the Gilded One: There was once among the South American tribes a belief that in a certain far-off country lived a king called El Dorado, the Gilded One. He ruled over a region where gold and precious stones were found in abundance. The story influenced a vast number of adventurers who led expeditions to seek the land of golden treasure, but, notwithstanding the fact that they searched most carefully and for long periods, they all failed to find it. The idea of the unattainable gave the suggestion to Mrs. Whitney for her fountain. The gold of El Dorado was used as the symbol of all material advantages which we so strongly desire - wealth, power, fame, etc. In the panels are seen the men and women of life in their mad race for the unattainable. Many have had a glimpse of El Dorado, the Gilded One, and are rushing on to pass the mysterious gate behind which the desires of life await them. Some faint by the roadside or stop in their race for the goal to contend or to loiter by the way, but those nearest the El Dorado increase their speed - rush madly on. Beside the gateway that has only just allowed the fabled El Dorado, the Gilded One, to pass through are two mortals who have come close to the land of their desires, but only to find the door shut and slaves beside it barring the way. Their strength is expended, their courage gone in the long race for material things. The panels of this fountain tell us in satirical language something we can profitably think over and realize if we will. - The Ethical Side of the Court of the Universe After man has created the great "Isthmian Way," it is well to think on his fine ethical standards. Read on the triumphal arches these quotations on truth, honor, justice, wisdom: (Spain) "Truth, witness of the past, counsellor of the present, guide of the future." (Cervantes in Don Quixote.) East side of Arch of the Setting Sun. (China) "They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it." (Confucius from the Confucian Analects translated by James Legge.) West side of the Arch of the Rising Sun. (Arabia) "He that honors not himself lacks honor where soe'er he goes." (From the "Mu'allaqua" of Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma translated by Reynold A. Nicholson.) East side of the Arch of the Rising Sun. (Italy) "The world is in its most excellent state when justice is supreme." (Dante Purgatoria.) West side of the Arch of the Setting Sun. (Siam) "A wise man teaches, be not angry; from untrodden ways turn aside." (From the sayings of Phra Ruang, Prince Ram Khamheng of Sukhothai.) East side of the Arch of the Rising Sun. - Coming into this great Court of the Universe one hopes that truth, honor, justice and wisdom will be maintained. - The Floral Side of the Court of the Universe This court will show a succession of beautiful bloom throughout the year. The daffodils will have their golden season, the rhododendrons their brilliant sheet of color, and in May the columns will support our various climbing roses, exhaling their perfume for all who come to this Land of Flowers. Summer flowering annuals will follow and later the autumnal flowers. Read the quotation on the aisle side of the Arch of the Rising Sun: "The balmy air diffuses health and fragrance, So tempered is the genial glow that we know neither heat nor cold. Tulips and Hyacinths abound. Fostered by a delicious clime, the earth blooms like a garden." - Firdausi. (Annals of Kai-Kaus, in James Atkinson's translation of Shah Nameh.) So, while thinking of a Persian garden in the quotation, we feel the applicability of these words to the California gardens. - The Festival Side of the Court of the Universe There is still another side to realize in this meaningful court. The exposition is a great festival, a triumphal festival, and you meet the suggestions of it all around you. This great court is entered on three sides by Triumphal Arches. The Triumphal Arch of the Occident, The Triumphal Arch of the Orient, The Triumphal Arch of the Tower of Jewels. The prototype of the triumphal arch is seen in many places, most satisfactorily today in Rome. The Arch of Constantine is the best model for us to examine, for it has three openings - even if the shape of the side opening is not the same as that of the arches before us. The great court is hung with festoons (on the frieze) and decorated with the vine and its grapes (on the architrave). The bulls' heads with festoons are represented on the frieze as they once were on the altars of old when the festival, "The Feast of the Sacrifice," was celebrated. (Refer to the same subject in The Court of the Four Seasons.) In stately procession around the sunken garden are seen the Canephori bringing their jars of nectar. The Canephori in old Greek days were the maidens who formed part of the great processions, such an one as the Panethenaea, carrying on their heads baskets which held the consecrated temple furniture, to be deposited at the end of the long march in the temple. Here the sculptor has taken the license of representing men with the maidens, and instead of baskets has used vases. This idea of the festival is strongly accented at night when you are transported to old Greek and Roman days. Follow after this procession and you will notice that Paul Manship's "Joy of Living," or "Motion," as it is also called, has entered. The joyous girls in perfect abandon are coming to join the happy throng. They bring their offerings in the shape of great wild-rose festoons, well suited to the "Wild Roses" who carry them. Near by is Paul Manship's "Music," adding the song, and the music of the lyre. As a last touch you will find the nations of the Occident and the nations of the Orient marching into this Court of the Universe to take part in the festival in celebration of one of the greatest events of history - the opening of the Panama Canal. At night comes the illumination, as a climax to the festival, and gradually the lights die down and all is still - just for a few hours only, for day will dawn, for is not the Rising Sun ever with us - and another day of festivity will come, and yet more at this greatest festival that the world has ever known. The Tower of Jewels Architect - Thomas Hastings of New York. Architecture - Italian Renaissance with Byzantine features. This great Tower of Jewels symbolizes the Panama Canal, the jewel today that is most resplendent. It is 433 feet high. In cold weather, owing to the contraction of the steel, it is said to be four inches shorter than in warm weather. The arch is 110 feet high and 60 feet broad. The tower is in seven lifts, surmounted by the earth with its shimmering jewels. You are reminded that the whole earth is affected by this stupendous piece of engineering (the Panama Canal). The figures on the pedestals of the arch are by John Flanagan of New York, and they represent: 1. The Adventurer, the type of man of the 16th century who pushed out into the wilderness of the southwest. 2. The Priest, the type of man who came to convert the country in the 16th century. 3. The Philosopher, who by his fine knowledge of the Greek and Latin manuscripts was able to disseminate knowledge in the 16th century thruout the new regions. 4. The Warrior, the type of 16th century soldier who came to conquer the country. On the first tier you meet the Armoured Horseman by Tonetti, the type of colonizer of the 16th century. Now look at the equestrian statues that stand on either side of the Tower. That on the right is Cortez (by Chas. Niehaus), the conqueror of Mexico - the man who wrested Mexico from Montezuma for the kingdom of Spain. On the left Pizarro (by Chas. Rumsey), the conqueror of Peru, who gained for Spain the land of the Incas. The country north of the Panama region was conquered by the Spanish. That on the south of Panama was also the Spanish land. It is time now to read the inscriptions on the south side of the tower: 1501 Rodrigo de Bastides, pursuing his course beyond the West Indies, discovers Panama. 1513 Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, crossing the Isthmus of Panama, discovers the Pacific Ocean. 1904 The United States, succeeding France, begins operations on the Panama Canal. 1915 The Panama Canal is opened to the commerce of the world. - The United States has put thru the canal, so the American eagle with outstretched wings is seen as a decorative motive on either side of the Tower - with telling suggestions. The hand of the law is governing the commerce of the Panama Canal, hence you receive that gentle reminder in the Roman insignia, the fasces. In the old Roman days of the kingdom, as well as in the days of the Roman republic, the lictor marched in front of the head of the State carrying the fasces, those twelve birch rods with the ax, indicating punishment and then death if the laws were not obeyed. The fasces are seen at the extreme ends of the wings of the tower. It is interesting to see this same device used in the Liberal Arts Palace and in the Educational Palace - especially in reform exhibits or such exhibitions as the New York Educational Exhibit, where the hand of state is suggested. The laurel wreath on the tower is another speaking motive. The vessels push out in all directions from the Panama Canal. You get that suggestion at the corners of the third lift. Don't lose sight of the beautiful turquoise green columns in the temple forms of the Tower. At night the aquamarines follow out the same beautiful color. Watch, when the Tower is first illuminated with the blood glow, and you will see that it almost pulsates with life. It should, for is it not the vital part of this great Exposition? - Jewels on the Tower There are some ten tons of jewels used at the Exposition. Fifty thousand jewels are used on the Tower alone, accenting in the main its architectural feature. These jewels are of live colors - mostly canary and white glass, ruby, emerald, aquamarine. Mathematical calculations have been made by expert physicists to show at just what angle the jewel must be cut. These jewels were made in Austria. Nearly every village in Austria has its glass workers - the finest workers in their line in the world. Sand of a peculiar quality is most carefully prepared, mixed with other ingredients, the whole being brought to a molten state. This glass is then poured into molds. It is taken out of the molds, the casts being carefully trimmed by hand. The principal tool used is a rotating sanded wheel. The prism is polished by hand with tin, so as to make the facets perfectly smooth. This glass must be very hard in order to reflect sufficiently well. The glass is called Sumatra Stone. It is tinted to counterfeit jewels. These jewels are held in place by metallic bands from which extend small arms at the back of each jewel to hold tiny mirrors which assist in the reflection. Each jewel is suspended from a hook so that it is in constant vibration, in order to catch the rays of light most advantageously. - As you have now rehearsed your history and have in mind what has been done by the United States in regard to the Panama Canal (the Tower of Jewels), walk thru the Court of the Universe to the Esplanade where stands the Column of Progress. The Column of Progress The prototype of this column is seen in Trajan's Column in the Forum of Trajan or in the Column of Marcus Aurelius, in Rome. Architect - Symmes Richardson, one of the junior partners of the firm of McKim, Meade and White of New York. The bas-reliefs at the base are by Isadore Konti of New York. The sum of all human effort is represented. Man's spiritual progress is seen on the four sides of the base. Atlas rolling the heavens suggests the passage of time. Men with their different ideals in the long procession of progress are seen. Some go manfully on, some fearfully, some feel the need of the sword to win their way, others find companions necessary, but all of these men and women must have faith (represented by the two meaningful women at the door), the hope of the palm of victory, and hear the bugle call as they go on their upward climb. They pass before us, these men and women of different aspirations, and disappear from view. Up, up they climb. At the top of the column is Hermon A. McNeil's Burden Bearers, supporting his Adventurous Bowman. "All must toil to win" and some must bend their backs that others may rise. Has it not been so at the Panama Canal? Have not many done the labor that the United States, the Adventurous Bowman, may win? This purposeful type of manhood, with magnificent decision, has just drawn the bow, and on has sped the arrow of success. The bowman looks to see it hit the mark. The man on the right possibly is one of his aids. The little woman at his side will know by his eyes if the arrow has gone home, and she will then bestow upon him the laurel wreath and the palm of victory which she holds in her hand. She stands ready to help him. - See the group from the sea-wall directly in front of the Column of Progress for the splendid purpose expressed in the figure and on the face of the "Adventurous Bowman." Many San Franciscans would like to have this wonderful group duplicated in bronze to remain permanently with the city of the Exposition of 1915. The Court of the Ages and not The Court of Abundance Architect - Louis Christian Mullgardt of San Francisco. Architecture - If one could call this beautiful architecture by name one might say Spanish Gothic, on account of the round-arched Gothic and also the Spanish finials used, but it is so thoroughly original that this is hardly the term to use. It is Romanesque in its vaulting of the corridor, and at first glance in its great square tower, and arches, and yet not Romanesque architecture. It is suggestive of the last period of English Gothic in its rich parallelism of vertical line - and yet is not that. It is suggestive of the flamboyant decoration of the French architecture such as one sees and feels at Rouen Cathedral - and yet, not that, for on looking closer one sees not wavy line suggesting flame, but the wave of the kelp of the sea - and then one realizes that the vertical lines represent falling water. The kelp is turned, looped and suspended with all sorts of lobsters, crabs, sea-turtles, octopi, flounders, etc., wriggling thru it, not seen at first, then in strong evidence, making you wonder why you had not seen them before. The whole cloister represents the magical power of water and fire worked out in travertine, fountains and illuminations. This court certainly shows the most marked originality in the architectural line at the Exposition. It is the conception of a man of rare invention, imagination, and marked poetic feeling. It is surely the last word in stucco. Everybody loves this Court of the Ages, and everybody wishes that we could have something permanent like it somewhere - perhaps in San Francisco. We shall all be loath to part with in when the two hundred and eighty-eight days are gone. The arches of perfect proportions are allowed two swinging fairy lanterns apiece - a soft glow coming from them. In the corridors are globes which at night look like lambent moonstones, casting soft light. Walk down the corridors (not noticing the glorious murals at the ends) to observe the fine manipulation of color. Notice that the usual pink of the walls has here a deeper tone - a terra-cotta warmth added, making a most wonderful combination with the blue vault above. The arches are of smoked ivory. Your eye catches a line of cerulean blue at your side, and up you follow the blue, until it gains its fullest expression in the square area of the groined vaulting. Notice how bands of smoked ivory play the part of transverse arches. It is so very beautiful here. The murals in this corridor are more wonderful than words can tell. They are by Frank Brangwyn of London, and represent Earth, Air, Water, Fire. Earth - Two canvases represent the Earth, the teeming, opulent earth giving of its fullness. Men with great baskets gather the harvests of vegetables and fruits (especially the luscious grapes in the second canvas). Fire - One canvas shows Primitive Fire, where by means of leaves and twigs the narrow curl of smoke ascends between the trees. Men on bended knees blow the slowly burning leaves and fan the flame. The aged draw near to feel the warmth; nearer comes the man with the little child in his arms - and, as a result, we have a homely woodland scene of primitive times. The second representation of the same subject glows on the next canvas. The subject is Industrial Fire. Men have made a rude furnace in which the pots are being baked. Pots of all sizes and shapes are being brought by the men and women of the neighboring region. The great cloud of blue smoke rises in increasing breadth and height thru the trees. Don't fail to notice the wonderful skies in these two canvases. Water - On a portion of land between two waters men and women have sauntered down to the water's edge to fill their jars. The flamingoes, birds of the water, stand in the foreground telling you that water is near. Plants grow luxuriantly on the banks. Pregnant clouds are blown nearer and nearer. The canvas is fairly moist with watery suggestions. It would not be hard to realize when you look at this canvas that it was done by a man who understands the art of making stained-glass windows. He cannot keep his secret from you. The second treatment of Water - Great brawny-armed fishermen are pulling in their heavy net. In the distance come men with baskets on their heads to carry away the wriggling fish. Beyond the trees the heavy moisture-laden clouds come nearer and nearer. Air - A great windmill such as one sees in Frank Brangwyn's etchings (for he lived during his youth in the windmill country, making what he saw around him his own). The wind has brought the storm-laden clouds and the rain is descending. The currents of moisture-laden air are reflecting the rainbow. The wheat of the field bends far forward as the wind blows over it. The belated harvesters (the foremost with his winnowing sieves) are blown forcibly along their path. The many flowers bend their heads under the forward movement of the breeze. It is most interesting to notice how many devices have been used in order to make the work as suggestive as possible. The second treatment of Air. The great trees are most noble in their strength. Men, strong like the trees, are shooting thru the air their arrows. A flock of frightened white birds are cutting the air, showing you why the men are there. This is a simple but clever treatment of the subject. - If you would know why you feel that there is something ancestral in these glorious compositions, why the strong colors are so well combined, why the canvases breathe freedom of thought and action, why the distances are so marvelously expressed, why the sky and water are just that deep wonderful blue, read Sparrow's "Frank Brangwyn" and you will soon discover, and the appreciation for the pictures will be increased tenfold. - Now step down into the Cloister, so that you can see well Helios, the setting sun. This was the primitive man's idea of the setting sun. He saw the sun as a man holding a huge golden ball, splashing down into the waters of the west. The serpent represents the burning sting of the sun. You are bound to reflect here that the sun has thrown off great nebulous masses and that one of those masses has cooled and that we now call it the Earth. Yonder it is, seen at the end of the fountain, with four streams of water, from prehistoric sea life, playing over it. Pass along to the first group beyond Helios, realizing that Robt. Aitken, the sculptor, calls this "The Dawn of Life." From right to left are these figures: 1. The Hand of Destiny Giving Life. 2. The Prenatal Sleep of Woman. 3. The Awakening. 4. The Joy of Living. 5. The Kiss of Life. 6. The Bringing Forth of Life. The elemental feelings are here suggested. You will then notice a gap which stands for the unknown period of history after the first "Dawn of Life." - Now pass to Panel 1 (facing Helios). The central figure is Vanity, one of the compelling motives of that early life. Following are two fine figures carrying their children, expressing the idea of the fecundity of the early races. - A hermes divides this panel from the next. Since in classic times a herm, or hermes, was used to mark distances on the roads, so here the hermes is used to mark distances, or periods in time. - Panel 2 - We now see the successors of the children of the previous panel grown to manhood. The fact of Natural Selection inflicts itself upon man. Two women are attracted to the same male, a fine intellectual and physical type. The rejected suitors are seen at the end of the panel, one in anger, the other in despair. - Panel 3 is called The Survival of the Fittest. This is the suggestion that physical strength decides who shall survive. We notice that chieftains struggle to possess the same woman, a woman on the right endeavoring to separate them. - Panel 4 is called The Lesson of Life. Elders of experience attempt to give counsel to the love-lorn and impetuous, knowing that impulse may sometimes be a poignant foe. Returning to Panel 1, the two figures at the right represent Lust, another of the strong forces of the early peoples. You have now reached your first group beyond the gap. The first figure is Greed, the third motive in this history of life. He has been holding onto the material things of life - there they are, rolled into a great ball. He realizes how futile his life has been and looks back upon the past, longing to retrace his steps and live to nobler purpose. Then comes the old man who has the spiritual understanding, and he knows that the only hope for his companion is the realization of the spiritual, the consciousness of immortality, and so he gives to her the winged beetle, the symbol of renewed life. The time has now arrived for her to leave her mortal life, and she passes into that sleep by which her material body is cast aside. Thereby the man has his first sorrow. She whom he loved is gone, and he is cast down in despair - because his outlook is not a spiritual one. The hand of Destiny has drawn these lives unto itself. The law has been fulfilled. I have taken the liberty of culling the chief ideas from the article on the subject, written for the November "International Studio," adding a few ideas which seem consistent with the work before us. - This fountain, done in pierced relief, is most decorative in the Court of the Ages. It is, from a technical standpoint, a most remarkable composition. - The next subject for study is The Tower. Notice the small spire atop. It is like a flêche on a French cathedral and helps in the French feeling which you had when you thought that you had discovered the flamboyant style, and yet, on the whole, it is more the style of Spanish towers than of the French. Most of the figure work on the tower is by Chester Beach, formerly of San Francisco. The groups on the tower are now to be considered. The combined work is called The Rise of Civilization. The lowest group is Primitive Man during that period when great reptiles, like the saurian in the foreground, crept over the earth; when man fought with huge serpents and gigantic lions. The rude man in the center has his child on one arm, the other arm protecting his mate (not an ordinary position for the arm of primitive man). You easily surmise that trouble is near. His look of dogged defiance tells you that he is marching forth to meet some enemy, man or beast. This is the first march of civilization - one in which brute strength plays the principal part. - Just above, you notice that civilization has now reached the mediaeval stage and you see the Crusader with cross on breast and sword in hand. He has reached this lofty position thru faith (represented by the priest) and war (suggested by the rude warrior). The spiritual has now been added to the physical. At the side of the tower, holding the same position on the tower as does the Crusader, are suggestions of the crusader's tomb such as one sees in many of the English churches. The Crusader passes on and his place is taken by more advanced types. - On either side of the Crusader appears the paschal candlestick (which at night is illuminated). You are approaching the altar. Above is the Priestess of Religion, with the nimbus surrounding her head. At her feet are children holding, one a book, indicating faith, and the other the wheel, meaning progress. - Around the court, on the highest pinnacles, are cocks, signifying the dawn of Christianity (in reference to Peter's denying Christ). - Come back to the tower and you will notice a man and a woman on either side of the altar. They are rising from the primitive man and the primitive woman at their feet. They represent the man and the woman of today. In the case of the man, you will notice how primitive man holds on to him and how the man of today endeavors to shake him off. (The man of today, by the power of thought, is trying to shake the rude brutish nature off.) (These figures are by Albert Weinert.) - Primitive Man and Primitive Woman, by Albert Weinert, are seen as finials around the court. He is a simple hunter, or a man whose pastime consists in such amusement as feeding fish to the pelican. She is a woman whose chief work is to rear children. Leo Lentelli's Aquatic Maids are grouped at the bases of the columns in front of the tower. It was at first planned to have the fountains play to the tops of the columns on which sit the aquatic maids shooting their arrows into the waters, but a change in the plans left the aquatic maids high and dry, hence your wonderment at why they sit aloft. (Leo Lentelli was born in Bologna, Italy, but now lives in New York). The Italian cypresses, tall and slender, stand like sentinels in front of the arches. Orange trees, ten feet in height, heavy with fruit, stand in opulence before the cypresses. Balled acacias, with repeated regularity of shape, produce in this charming cloister a delightful formalism. Solid beds of pink hyacinths add a glowing touch of color in this beauteous garden. The creeping juniper is the border used. The cistus is the border used around the other beds. Under the trees are planted calceolarias, gebara, Shasta daisies, potentilla, columbine, and many other showy flowers. The conventional standards at the south end of the cloister are aids in the illumination. This court is most beautiful at night. The tower, in white light, has the glowing candlesticks in striking evidence. Great clouds of seeming incense rise constantly from the altars ranged around the court. Fiery serpents belch fire into the basins below. Beneath the world and around it rises the steam, which is marvelously illuminated. - The North Court of the Ages Eucalypti, acacias, English laurel and veronicas are banked close together in this court. Great beds of orange eschscholtzia, the California poppy, make this court a veritable Field of the Cloth of Gold. The creeping juniper is the border used. Sherry Fry's "Listening to the Sound of the Ages" stands in this court with her shell to her ear. She listens to the stories that the sea has told the shell, and wonderful, very wonderful, is what she hears. - Since the first issue of this book I have received in written form Mr. Mullgardt's own wonderful interpretation, which I hereby append with his kind permission. I shall not correct my work, for it will be interesting to compare the work of a layman with that of the initiated: San Francisco, April 19, 1915. The Court of the Ages A Sermon in Stone "The Court of the Ages" is 340 feet square. The surrounding walls are 75 feet high. The Tower is 200 feet high. The floor of the Court declines to the central Basin, affording the observer a full view of the surroundings. The arcaded and vaulted Ambulatory extends continuously around the four sides. The floor of this Ambulatory is elevated above the upper floor level of the Court for the convenience of observers. Its architecture has not been accredited to any established style. The Court is an historical expression of the successive Ages of the World's growth. The Central Fountain symbolizes the nebulous world with its innate human passions. Out of a chaotic condition came Water (the Basin) and Land (the Fountain) and Light (the Sun supported by Helios, and the Electroliers). The Braziers and Cauldrons symbolize Fire. The floor of the Court is covered with verdure, trees, flowers and fruits. The two Sentinel Columns to the right and left of the Tower symbolize Earth and Air. The eight paintings in the four corners of the Ambulatory symbolize the elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. The Central Figure in the North Avenue symbolizes "Modern Time Listening to the Story of the Ages." The decorative motifs employed on the surrounding Arcade are sea plant life and its animal evolution. The conventionalized backbone, the symbol for the vertebrates, is seen between the arches. The piers, arches, reeds and columns bear legendary decorative motifs of the transitional plant to animal life in the forms of tortoise and other shell motifs - kelp and its analogy to prehistoric lobster, skate, crab and sea urchin. The water-bubble motif is carried through all vertical members which symbolize the Crustacean Period, which is the second stratum of the Court. The third stratum, the Prehistoric Figures, surmounting the piers of the Arcade, also the first group over the Tower Entrance, show earliest forms of human, animal, reptile and bird life, symbolizing the Stone Age. The fourth stratum, the second group in the Altar Tower, symbolizes human struggle for emancipation from ignorance and superstition in which Religion and War are dominating factors. The kneeling figures on the side Altar are similarly expressive. The torches above these Mediaeval Groups symbolize the Dawn of Understanding. The Chanticleers on the finials surrounding the Court symbolize the Christian Era. The topmost figure of the Altar symbolizes Intelligence, "Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards All" - the symbols of Learning and Industry at her feet. The topmost figure surmounting the side Altar symbolizes Thought. The Arched Opening forming the inclosure of the Altar contains alternating Masks expressing Intelligence and Ignorance in equal measure, symbolizing the Peoples of the World. A gradual development to the higher forms of Plant Life is expressed upward in the Altar Tower, the conventionalized Lily Petal being the highest form. L. C. Mullgardt. Court of the Four Seasons It will be noticed that this court is planted mainly with grey-green foliage, the banner poles being of the same color. Flora Olive trees. Choisya ternata. High-grade acacias. Coprosma (from Chili - a shiny-leafed shrub on north front). Eucalypti. Cotoneaster bufolia (border). English yews in couples of three groups. Cypresses. English laurel. - Architect - Henry Bacon of New York. Architecture - Italian Renaissance. There is a strong feeling of the architectural influence of Hadrian's Villa, near Rome, when the eye rests on the half dome and also on the treatment of the columns in front of the fountains of the seasons. This is one of the chief beauty spots of the Exposition. A quiet, reposeful, happy place where birds have built their nests and where they sing their carols of spring. As you pass into this court from the bay, or north side, your attention is drawn almost immediately to the bucrania, or bulls' heads, between festoons of flowers. This is only a Renaissance motive, but the mind wanders back to the harvest festivals of olden days, when, after the great harvest procession was over, the bulls were sacrificed to the gods as a reward for the abundant harvest. The same idea is worked out in "The Feast of the Sacrifice," the magnificent bull groups atop the pylons (by Albert Jaegers), where youths and maidens lead the bulls in the harvest procession. Great garlands suggest the festivity. The whole court is an expression of the abundance of the harvests - especially those of California. - Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, with her wreath of cereals and her corn sceptre, has just poised on the top of the lovely fountain (by Mrs. Evelyn Longman), the die of which tells you by its cameo figures that this is the fountain of young, fresh, joyous nature. The graceful, happy creatures with garlands and fruits glide past you in song, shaking the tambourine or softly piping their roundelays. Jolly satyrs, the happy creatures of the woodland, spout water into the basin below. - The Food Products Palace is on one side, the Agricultural Palace on the other, and the suggestions worked out in the corn of the Ionic capital, the cereal wreaths on the frieze, the sheaves of wheat, are most happy decorations for just this court. - Pass to the Pool beyond and stop to read the quotation. (from Spenser's "Faerie Queene") on the western gateway. "So forth issew'd the seasons of the yeare First lusty spring all dight in leaves and flowres Then came the jolly sommer being dight in a thin silken cassock coloured greene Then came the autumne all in yellow clad Lastly came winter, clothed all in frize Chattering his teeth, for cold that did him chill." - Facing the half dome, walk first to the second niche to the right of the colonnade to examine Furio Piccirilli's Seasons. Spring - A pyramidal group with Spring with her flowers in the center of the group. To the right is modest, timid, fresh young Flora, bringing her wealth of flowers. To the left, one sees man adoring, bringing to mind Tennyson's lines from Locksley Hall. "In the spring a young man's fancies Lightly turn to thoughts of love." Here is that fine feeling that one has in beautiful springtime - the adoration for all fresh young life. Look above now at Milton Bancroft's murals to left and right. He has painted all of the murals in this court. "Spring" is here in floral dress and the shepherd pipes sweet notes. "Seed-time" - This is the time when the seed bag stands open so that the crops for the coming year may be sown. - Marble group of Summer - Go to the left, along the corridor beyond the gateway, to the second niche - this group expresses fruition. The mother brings to her husband the babe, the fruit of their love. The laborer at the right brings in the first harvest. - Murals Summer - This is the period of the year when man amuses himself, when the games are in progress. One sees the disc thrower at the left resting after the game. Summer is crowning the victor of the canoe race. Fruition - Fruits, vegetables, flowers fulfill the meaning of the subject. - Now pass out into the open to the niche at the left of the gateway of the east. In the niche is Autumn, a mature figure indicative of the maturity of the year. (Mr. Piccirilli calls her Providence.) It is the time of the harvests. The apples, the grapes, and even the human family are being harvested. The wine is being made and the great vine-decked jars are filled with the ruby fluid. - Murals Autumn - The colors speak of autumn. Here is seen the amphora of wine, the tambourine, the rhyton, the Greek drinking horn, and the raised Greek cup - all suggesting the time of festivity after the harvests. Harvest, and one sees the garnered wheat and vegetables. - Standing between the two central columns and looking toward the half dome, the eye wanders to the summit, and there, seated on her great cornucopia, the symbol of abundance, is Harvest with her plenteous supply of luscious fruits. The dates from the south are being borne in on one side, while the great sheaves of wheat are seen on the left. - Standing on the pedestal at the right of the half dome is Rain (by Albert Jaegers) catching the drops in her shell. Sunshine (by Albert Jaegers) shielding her eyes with the long palm branch - the rain and the sunshine so necessary for the harvests. Walk over to see the detail of the capitals and bases of the columns. On the capitals of these pedestals, on which Rain and Sunshine stand, are the small figures of harvesters - a most charming, original treatment. At the bases one sees harvest scenes. The agriculturists pass along to their labors. The women and children accompany the laborers, expecting to help in the many duties of the harvest field. The dog, wagging his tail, follows after the children, and all is activity. - You will now find it convenient to examine the murals on either side the great half dome. Facing the Dome. On the right is Man Receiving Instruction in Nature's Laws. The work is perfectly plain. You could not go astray if you simply read the inscriptions. An interesting thing to notice is that "Mother Earth" is a man bearing fruits and that "Father Neptune" is a woman with a trident. Nature's laws are applied to: Earth, Water, Fire. Love, Life (protecting the flame of life) and Death. On the left is: Art Crowned by Time. The queen of art with her sceptre and palette (with the suggestion of architecture in the temple in the background) is crowned by Father Time, holding his hour-glass. His scythe is seen in the background. Time is bestowing the laurel wreath. At the sides stand the arts of - Jewelry making, Weaving, Glass making, Painting, Smithery, Pottery. The emerald pool is before you wreathed with the cotoneaster bufolia with its wealth of red berries. - Pass now to the last season of the year in the niche to the left of the half dome, Winter. - Before you is naked winter. Back of her is the leafless tree, with splitting bark. At the left one feels that man rests after the activities of the harvest season, but there is an added idea in Mr. Piccirilli's words, "In winter, the central figure is Nature resting, or rather in a state of conception. To the right an old man is resting after having prepared the soil for the seed; at the right a strong man is sowing." Murals Winter with the snow on the ground. The fire is necessary; faggots have been gathered; the animals are brought in for the winter food. The time for spinning has arrived during the long winter evenings (considering the life of today this idea is almost obsolete). Festivity - Winter strikes the strings of the harp and gaiety is about to glide forth. - The seasons are again suggested by names of the signs of the zodiac on the gateways, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces. - Look thru the entrance into the Court of Palms at the Horticultural Palace across the way - a fine green and white picture. Turn back into the Court of the Four Seasons and below the half dome will be seen Albert Jaeger's Nature (there is a great probability that this will not be placed). Mother Earth, the great mother, sits in the center. On the left, carrying the shell, is the Sea. On the right, upholding the globe, is the Heavens. - Read the quotation from George Sterling's "The Triumph of Bohemia" to make the connection with your Nature group: "For lasting happiness we turn our eyes to one alone And she surrounds you now Great Nature, refuge of the weary heart, and only balm to breasts that have been bruised She hath cool hands for every fevered brow And gentlest silence for the troubled soul." Near by are August Jaeger's figures of Abundance, four times repeated on each gateway; also his spandrel figures, still adding harvest thoughts. Walk along the colonnade to the right - As you pass the fountains, you will notice how the water slips its silvery pink reflection from the wall down the terraces into the pool below, producing almost a sunrise or a sunset effect. The long hanging vine on the wall above is muhlenbeckia, the so-called maidenhair vine. The shorter vine is lotus bertolletti, showing later its red claw-like flowers. Court of Palms As a balance to the Court of Flowers at the east end of the block of palaces is the Court of Palms at the west end. The general effect in color of decoration is pink and blue. The columns are coupled Ionic of smoked ivory, producing a most lovely effect against the pastel pink walls back of them. The caryatids lining off the pink and blue marble panels show a soft flush of pink. (These are by A. Stirling Calder and John Bateman.) The festoons of fruits at the side of the panels are accented in deeper blues and soft reds. Notice the delicate figures on either side the cartouche over the portals. The pinks and blues are so delightfully combined. Between the columns, against the wall, are balled acacias. The Pool in the center of the Court might be called The Pool of Reflections. In front of this Court is "The End of the Trail," by James Earle Fraser. Before you is the end of the Indian race. The poor Indian, following his long trail, has at last come to the end. The worn horse and its rider tell a long, pathetic story. By the entrances are great vases on which in low relief are Bacchanalian scenes. Satyrs form part of the handles. - Over the doorways are beautifully colored murals. On the west - Fruits and Flowers, by Childe Hassam, a fine area of superb color. On the east - The Pursuit of Pleasure, by Chas. Holloway, gracefully carrying out the idea of this court. On the north - "Victorious Spirit," by Arthur F. Matthews. This wonderful golden note represents the Victorious Spirit, the Angel of Light, with widespread wings of protection. She is the means by her gentle influence of keeping materialism (represented by the horse driven by brute force) from riding over the higher expressions of life. Muhlenbeckia borders the pool, producing a most fernlike effect. At the side, in front of the flanking Italian Towers, are erica and epacris, in lavenders and pinks, accented by deep lavender pansies. The tiny border to the beds is myrtus ugni. The wallflowers, interspersed with Spanish and English iris, are massed thruout this court, with rhododendrons in the corners. Against the foundations is pink-and-cream lantana. The Palm is the strong feature of the court. On either side the portal Italian cypresses have been used. The lanterns in the corridors have been modeled from Roman lamps, and are particularly beautiful in perspective. The Court of Flowers Dedicated to the Oriental Fairy Tales. This exquisite court is by Geo. Kelham of San Francisco, who came from New York just after the San Francisco fire to help in the reconstruction of the city. He is a man of pronounced ability and has just won in the competition for plans for the new San Francisco Public Library. The court is made one of great beauty by the collaborated work of Mr. Geo. Kelham, the architect; Mr. Jules Guerin, the colorist, and Mr. John McLaren of San Francisco, the chief of landscape gardening. A loggia runs around the second story of the court, interrupted along the face by niches which hold "The Oriental Flower Girl," designed by Mr. A. Stirling Calder of New York, but worked out in the studio of the Exposition. Coupled columns, suggesting glacial ice, form a colonnade around three sides of the court, the fourth side opening into the Avenue of Palms. As you walk down the main path of this court you are held spell-bound by the fairy-like appearance of the albizzia lophantha, trimmed four feet in height, the top of which branches out into a head five feet across. One has the feeling of meeting fairies with their skirts out ready for the dance - a veritable fairy ballet. Nothing could be more lovely than this remarkably treated tree. The rich yellow fluff that will soon appear, lasting for some four to six weeks, will be one note of the yellow chord to be struck in this court-pansy, daffodil, albizzia, the orange and the yellow background of niches. (This floral music for March and April.) A symphony in yellows. The groups of trees at the north are the eugenia myrtifolia. Every one appreciates the blessing of the trees and flowers, without which the Exposition would have lost much of its beauty. The flowers used at the opening of the Exposition can alone be given, but these will serve to show the plan of arrangement. The six lions are by Albert Laessle, who has many fine examples of his animal life in the Fine Arts Palace. The fountain of Beauty and the Beast, which should have been placed in the Court of Palms, the Court of Occidental Fairy Tales, is by a young San Franciscan, Edgar Walters, whose fine bears can be seen in the Fine Arts Palace. The base of the fountain shows a procession of beasts - the bear, the cynocephalus ape, the lion. Upholding Beauty and the Beast are fauns and satyrs, playing on their pipes. - Walk down the colonnades and take note of the coupled smoked ivory pilasters on the pink ground. A fawn-colored ceiling has suspended from it Italian bronze lanterns - the bronze suggestive of the color of the blue eucalyptus. At night these lanterns glow with color. In front of the Court of Flowers is "The American Pioneer," a fine meaningful equestrian figure, by Solon Borglum of Ogden, Utah. I am taking the liberty of quoting Secretary Lane's inspiring words given at the opening of the Exposition - a fine retrospect that we must not lose sight of when we look upon the determined woodsman of the early American life: As I went through these grounds yesterday, I looked for some symbol that would tell me the true significance of this moment, I saw that the sculptor had carved prophets, priests and kings; he had carved the conquerors of the earth, the birds in the air and the fish in the sea. He had gone into legend and history for his symbols, but in none of these did I find the suggestion that I sought. I found, however, in the court that lies before us, the simple, modest figure hidden behind some soldiers - a gaunt, slim, plodding figure, and I said to myself, there is the figure that represents this day, for without the American pioneer we would not be here this day, no banners would be flying, no bands playing. He has-lived for centuries and centuries. He took sail with Ulysses and he was turned back. He took sail with Columbus, and when he heard that sailor shout, "Sail on and on," his heart was glad; but Columbus found his way barred, and then this pioneer landed at Plymouth Rock, and with that band of oxen he has trudged his way across the continent, he has gone through the sodden forests, where Nature for a thousand years has conspired to make his pathway impossible. He has gone through the icy streams, climbed the mountains, tracked his way over the plains, over the land where there is no horizon, gone through the gorges where the Titans have been, and at last he has got it, beside the Golden Gate, beside the sunset sea, and founded himself this city, this beautiful city of dreams that have come true. And he has done more than that, he has gathered around himself his sons, and now they set themselves down here to tell each other tales of their progress through the centuries. The sons of the pioneers - theirs be the glory today, for they have slashed the continent in two, they have cut the land that God made as with a knife, they have made the seas themselves to lift the ships across the barriers and mountains, and this accomplishment we celebrate. They have brought the waters of the far Sierras and turned these waters into living light that put new stars in the heavens at night. They have hung their sky-line with a garden of flowers; they have worked a magic. They have gathered here in all these temples to tell their victory - the pioneers - what they have done and in what manner. This city has been finished in blue and gold, in scarlet and purples and the greens of the sea, and burnt brown, and the scene shown the pioneer has made the architecture of the centuries to march before their eyes in columns and colonnades. The long journey of this light figure of the pioneer is at an end, the waste places of the earth have been found and filled, but adventure is not at an end; the greatest adventure is before us, the gigantic adventures of an advancing democracy - strong, virile and kindly - and in that advance we shall be true to the indestructible spirit of the American pioneer. The Italian Towers Architect - Geo. Kelham of San Francisco. Architecture - Italian Renaissance with Byzantine touches. (See picture facing page 22.) These very beautiful towers are seen in pairs on either side The Court of Flowers and The Court of Palms, and assist in the fine balance preserved thruout the block of palaces. They are not alike, as you will see when you examine them. The pair flanking The Court of Flowers is far simpler, and produces quite a different effect, when illuminated, from its sister towers. The vibrant red that seems to give throbbing life to these beautiful towers is one of the chief glories of the night-glow. The entrances at the base of the tower are accented by magnificent Siena marble columns, and the coloring from these entrances to the top of the towers is most unique. The long rectangular height is admirably treated with a most original diaper design. Jules Guerin, the colorist, has used small areas of color on the towers to play upon the color of the courts below. For instance, note the pastel-pink walls, the greatest color area of the courts reflected, as it were, upon the largest colored area of the towers; the travertine of the courts acting as a background for the towers, the burnt orange capitals shown in the use of the same color on the tower, the Indian red appearing through the design as it appears on the capitals. The result is a sort of dissonance that makes the harmony of the courts more charming than ever. The most adroit management of the blue-checkered border is seen. It is the means of drawing your colored diaper work toward that blue background, the sky, and is superb in its connecting force. The little towers above, with the turquoise-blue columns, show a most daring use of color when you consider the colors below, but how admirably that turquoise blue works onto the domes and the blue columns of The Tower of Jewels. The longer you look at the Italian Towers the more you come to feel their subtle connection with the beauties around. Only a genius could manipulate his colors as Jules Guerin has done in this splendid work before you. The repeated cartouche in turquoise blue has a most lovely effect upon the whole. Poised on the top of the Italian Towers is The Fairy (by Carl Gruppe). She looks afar and sees the vision of this wondrous Exposition. The Palace of Fine Arts Architect - Bernard R. Maybeck of San Francisco. Architecture - Old Roman in the main, with Italian Renaissance features. In the background is the fire-proof art gallery of 113 rooms. In front is a pergola, extending along an arc 1100 feet from end to end. Ochre columns are closely grouped with pale green ones. The Roman Corinthian capitals are burnt orange with an Indian-red ground. The columns sweep forward on either side the rotunda, in the dome of which are Robt. Reid's eight murals. 1st Panel - Birth of European Art. The central point of the picture is the altar on which is seen the sacred fire. The guardian of this altar holds the torch. She has three attendants, one holding a flask of oil, one pouring oil upon the altar and ready to apply the torch should the flame grow dim, a third one carefully watching the flame. An earthly messenger, holding back his rearing steeds, leans from his chariot to receive the torch of inspiration. A winged attendant checks for an instant the flight of these steeds. In the left corner a woman holds a crystal ball in which the future of art is revealed. 2nd Panel - The Birth of Oriental Art. The forces of earth try to wrest inspiration from the powers of the air. This is shown in an ancient Ming legend. We see a Chinese warrior, mounted on a writhing dragon, combating an eagle. Japan is seen under the great umbrella. Two more Oriental figures are seen. 3rd Panel - Ideals in Art. Greek ideal in the classic nude is seen. Religion - Madonna and Child. Heroism - Joan of Arc. Youth and Material Beauty - Young woman on the left. Absolute nature without ideal or inspiration - peacock. Mystic figure in background holds cruse of oil to pour onto the sacred flame. A winged figure floats above with laurels for the victorious living. A shadowy figure in foreground holds the palm for the dead. Panel 4 - Inspiration in All Art - Music, Painting, Architecture, Poetry, Sculpture. The torch that kindles the arts is again seen. The veil of darkness is drawn back, revealing the arts. There are also four panels showing the four golds of California - Gold, Wheat, Poppies, Oranges. "The whole scheme is to show the conception and birth of art, its translation to earth, its progress and acceptance by man." Below these murals, on the octagonal drum, is The Priestess of Culture, by Herbert Adams, eight times repeated. This outline has been taken from the official report. The dome of the Rotunda is burnt orange, with the guilloche below it worked out in turquoise green. Notice the great flower receptacles filled with the reddish cryptomeria of Japan. In front of the Rotunda is Ralph Stackpole's Kneeling Figure. She is a devotee to art, beauty, truth, and kneels at the altar. Among the trees along the pergola are many statues in bronze and marble. Don't fail to see Janet Scudder's bewitching fountain figures as you walk past the Pergola. At the south, near the Pool, among the trees, sits St. Gauden's fine "Lincoln." Opposite is J. Q. A. Ward's statute of "Henry Ward Beecher." Around the corner, "The Bisons," by Proctor. Follow along by the Pool and you meet "The Scout," by Cyrus Dallin. No words can describe the great poetic beauty of this Fine Arts Palace. It seems to be the pivotal part of the Exposition, the goal of all pilgrimages, the altar on which you place your ideals. It has so many moods that one must see it in all seasons, during all times of the day, and especially under the illuminations. The figure of "Aspiration," by Leo Lentelli, is suspended - as is all aspiration - over the main entrance of the Fine Arts Palace. Walk over to Administration Avenue so that you can look across the Pool at the panels. They are by Bruno Zimm of New York. They represent the Arts and a long procession of devotees. In the center of one panel, called "The Unattainable in Art," one sees Art represented. On either side is the battle between the idealists, the materialists and the artists. Many idealists have fallen, but the centaurs, the materialists, seem to be held back by the artists who are striving to reach Art herself. We are all striving to reach the so-called unattainable, but it means the battle with materialism before we can do it. Yonder stand beauty, health, truth - the flowers of the spirit - but we must pass the centaur to make that figure of Truth attainable. Then comes the Apollo Panel, and Apollo, the leader of the arts, in his chariot, seems to be in a long procession preceded and followed by devotees of the fine arts. Next comes the Pegasus Panel, indicating inspiration in the arts. Ahead, marches Music with his lyre, who, like a sort of Orpheus, is stilling even the beasts. The figures between the panels represent those who stand ready to do battle for the arts. Ulric H. Ellerhusen has done the flower boxes, with women at the corners. Vines were to have fallen over the figures from the boxes, allowing only a shoulder, a head, or a long line of the drapery to appear, but the plans had to be changed, hence the figure now in full evidence. The women are looking into the flower-laden boxes. As you stand by the Pool, notice the shrubs and flowers near by. Near the columns are Monterey cypresses. Grey-green artemisia is between the columns. Ten thousand periwinkles are on the banks. Five thousand Spanish iris. Many Japanese iris. California incense shrub. Yellow primroses. One thousand white callas. One thousand yellow callas. One thousand California violets. The shiny-leaved coprosma from Chili. Blue-flowered buddleia. Groups of pittosporum. Pampas grass from Brazil. Hundreds of daffodils (in March). The weeping willows. A great group on the north of erica, epacris, and cryptomeria. Across from the erica is the red-berried cotoneaster horizontalis. Near the columns on the north side by the Pool grows the purple agapanthus. The Catalina cherry is massed against the building on the north. The pink-flowered escallonia is found under the columns near the Pool. The orange-berried pyracantha cretaegus is seen in all its glory on the north. Heliotrope makes the air one of sweet perfume. Polygala, with pea-like blossom, is seen near the base of the columns. In the Pool have been put five hundred papyrus plants and five hundred Japanese water lilies. These are a few of the many wonderful blooms seen here. The vistas and reflections are ever new and beautiful from every turn of the Pool. Palace of Horticulture Architects - Bakewell and Brown of San Francisco. Architecture - Byzantine in the arrangement of the domes (the mosque of Ahmed I of Constantinople being the inspiration) and in the use of tall finials suggesting minarets, but quite French in its ornamentation. The building is one of great beauty and is considered one of the finest exhibit palaces ever erected at any exposition. The ornamentation below the dome is by Boutier. The Caryatids of the Caryatid Porch are by John Bateman of New York. The great opulence of the harvests of California is brought to mind by the lavish abundance of the ornamentation on this building. The combination of the smoked-ivory color of the travertine and the lattice green of the decorations produces a more lovely effect. The basket atop is over thirty-three feet in diameter. The dome is 152 feet in diameter. St. Peter's dome is 137 feet; the Pantheon dome is 142 feet. Under the dome will be a constant display of hothouse plants. At the opening of the Exposition were seen cinerarias and cyclamen of glorious hue. A wonderful display of orchids is seen in another portion of this great building. Those interested in orange packing will have a chance to see the different stages of the packing as shown from the arrival of the fruit at the packinghouse to the nailing of the cover on the box. A model olive-oil press is in working order and will afford great interest. Great steel framework will enable the vast amount of glass of the dome to withstand the wind pressure. The dome will be illuminated three times a week. It will at times look like a great pearl or a fiery opal. Luther Burbank, the wizard of horticulture, and Carl Purdy, of bulb and wild flower fame, will have headquarters at this palace during the entire Exposition, ready to answer and help those who apply to them. Sixty-five acres of land are to be devoted to horticultural interests. The Netherlands have fifty-three thousand square feet in a wonderful display of bulbs and other plants. Horticultural Interests All the areas on the Exposition site were composed of drifting sands or sands that had been pumped in from the bay, upon which no ornamental plant could grow. It was necessary to bring down from the Sacramento Valley rich soil (fifty thousand cubic yards), and spread sixteen thousand cubic yards of fertilizer over that, in order to maintain lawns, trees and shrubs. An immense number of trees, ranging from thirty to sixty feet in height, were moved from Golden Gate Park and the Presidio of San Francisco. It is the largest number of evergreen trees ever moved in connection with any landscape work. Many plantings will be made thruout the Exposition. It will require the moving of four hundred thousand plants each time a change is made. Work on the eucalyptus trees was started two years ago, when the plants were six inches high, in flats. These little trees were transferred into other flats and placed on hot beds. After six weeks of this treatment they were transferred to 12-inch boxes. They remained there for a period of eight months and then were put into 18-inch boxes and made a vigorous growth. They are now 25 feet in height. In boxing large specimen trees the following method was adopted: The trees were side-boxed, and, after the roots were cut, three inches of space was allowed between the ball and the sides of the box, and this three-inch space was secured with good surface soil so as to start side-root action. The plants were mulched and watered for a period of from four to six months, when the bottom of the box was put on. This method has been most successful in transplanting palms and trees in general. (These facts were kindly given by Mr. Donald McLaren of the Department of Landscape Gardening, San Francisco.) The South Gardens Throughout the Exposition these garden beds are to show a succession of blooms. At the opening of the Exposition five thousand daffodils were in bloom over two hundred thousand yellow pansies. - The South Gardens, besides having two great pools, at the end of which are the Mermaid Fountains by Arthur Putnam of San Francisco, have a most decorative fountain called the Fountain of Energy. In the pool below are seen great sea animals, representing: 1. The Atlantic Ocean, with coral in hair and seahorses in her hand, riding on the back of an helmeted fish, suggestive of armored cruisers, etc. 2. The North Atlantic, an Esquimaux riding the walrus, ready to spear the enemy. 3. The South Atlantic, a negro riding on the back of a sea-elephant playing with an octopus. 4. The Pacific Ocean on the back of a great creature unknown on land or sea. In the pool, on the dolphins' backs, ride most charming sea maidens. Around the base of the earth are grouped sea spirits. The earth shows on one side a great bull representing the Western Hemisphere, a great lioness denoting the Eastern. One sees the swirling of the waters around the figure of Panama. Surmounting the globe, standing in his stirrups, rides Energy, the force that has overcome the play of the waters and has put thru the Panama Canal. Energy is strongly suggested by this stalwart male, who rides on, having surmounted all difficulties. This is the great power that is responsible for the completion of the Panama Canal, and Fame and Victory blow bugles long and loud from his shoulders. The idea of energy is further carried out by the splendid play of the waters from the fountain itself, tremendous force being evident. - At the west end of South Gardens, opposite the Band Concourse, are most interesting groups of trees, shrubs and flowers. The members of different floral families have taken the opportunity of meeting and establishing themselves in the same neighborhood, and the result is delightful for the lover of flowers. Now is the time to study differences and similarities in the plant world - and our opportunities are appreciated. Notice the splendid groups of trees and shrubs on either side of Horticultural Palace. Monterey pines, Monterey cypresses, Lawson cypresses, acacias, laurustinus, veronicas and dahlias are grouped so as to make a most remarkable effect in form and color. The Dracaena Canariensis or Canary palm, as we are in the habit of calling it, and the Washingtonia robusta, or California fan palm, are seen in alternate arrangement, double rows on either side the Avenue of Palms. On the south side of the Exposition grounds is a wall, twenty feet high, of living green. It is made of mesembryanthemum spectabilis put in boxes, six feet by two by two and a half inches, filled with earth, over which is put a wire-mesh screen. This is the first time this work has been tried and it has proved to be a thorough success. Festival Hall Architect - Robt. Farquhar of Los Angeles, California, widely known for his fine domestic architecture. On the south side of the Avenue of Palms, opposite the Court of Flowers, stands the building in which the majority of the musical festivals of the Exposition are to be held. The main hall will hold three thousand people. There are about five hundred conventions to meet here during the time the Exposition is open. The organ, of marvelous tone and sweetness, is one of the finest in the world. Edwin H. Lamare of London will give one hundred performances, each recital beginning at 12 M. He starts his musicals the first of June. The building is French in style, having been inspired by the Beaux Arts Theatre, Paris. It has a large dome, the cupola of which is lighted by projectors beneath the floor of the building. Sherry Fry of Iowa has done the sculpture, all of it being suggestive of festivity. Bacchus, with his grapes and wine skin, reclines on one side, while "The Reclining Woman" listens from her position. On the west are two Floras with their festoons of flowers. Little Pan sits with his panpipes on an Ionic capital over which is thrown a fawn skin. He has just stopped playing to watch the lizard that creeps at his side. The Torch Bearer, a most graceful figure, is poised on each corner dome. A border of pinkish-lavender hydrangeas, four feet in diameter, with a fringe of lavender and pink baby primroses, adds much to the beauty of this spot. Pinkish-lavender erica, or heath, borders the steps leading from Festival Hall to the Avenue of Palms. Above the western entrance one see the old Greek drinking horn, the rhyton, suggestive of festivity. The Color Scheme Jules Guerin, probably the greatest man in his particular line in the world, has had complete charge of the Exposition coloring. He has used only five colors, but of course these colors are not all the same tone. All walls are pastel pink or a sunset shade, as seen in the Court of the Ages. All niches are the same shade. All ceilings and shells are ultramarine blue, with two exceptions. The Court of the Ages is a pastel blue, and that of the Court of Palms is fawn-color. The domes of the Fine Arts Palace, and the Court of the Universe, are burnt orange, or, as one writer has expressed it, "sea-weed washed with brine." The other domes are an oriental green, approaching copper-green. The capitals when colored are burnt orange, with either an ultramarine-blue or an Indian-red ground. Columnettes and a few decorative bands are of turquoise-green. There is a unity, a balance, a color beauty all unto itself. You see it in the architecture, sculpture, and painting, in the arrangement of the decorations, in the courts. Then over it all hangs the spirit of romance such as surrounds the days of old Castile. A mediaeval beauty and splendor bring longings for the pageants that would add a world of interest. There is a Graeco-Roman appeal in the long colonnades, the porticoes, the fountains, the courts. The Orient is strongly marked by the domes, the minaret suggestions, the elephants, and minor details. It is an Arabian-Nights-Tale - not a thousand and one nights, but two hundred and eighty-eight. Siena marble is used mainly at entrances and for pedestals. The travertine is pinkish, grey and cream. Doorways in shadow are of lattice green. Flag-poles are colored Spanish red. Lighting standards are green, ochre, or eucalyptus blue. Banners are ochre and cadmium. The world has never seen such an Occidental-Oriental harmony as in this Exposition. The traditions of the olden days are so strongly worked into these palaces and courts that one feels more than he can tell when wandering in this world of beauty; and we the laymen owe a debt of gratitude to the architects, sculptors, painters, horticulturists, financiers, engineers and the workmen who have given us this dream city of 1915. Index Abundance Acroterium Adams, Herbert Adventurer Adventurous Bowman Agriculture Air Aitken, Robert American Pioneer Angel of Peace Apollo Panel Aquatic Maids Arch of Rising Sun Arch of Setting Sun Armoured Horseman Art Crowned by Time Arts Aspiration Atlas Autumn Bacchus Bacon, Henry Bakewell and Brown Bancroft, Milton Bateman, John Beach, Chester Beauty and the Beast Beecher, Henry Ward Bisons Borglum, Solon Brangwyn, Frank Bucrania Burden Bearers Burroughs, Edith Woodman Calder, A. Stirling Canephori Caryatids Ceres Cortez Crusader Cummings Dallin, Cyrus Edwin Dawn of Life Day Triumphant Deneville, Paul Descending Night Dodge, Frank de Leftwich Domes Dome of Philosophy Dome of Plenty Du Mond, Frank Vincent Eagles Earth Education Electricity Ellerhusen, Ulric H. Elwell, Frank Edwin Emerald Pool End of the Trail Fairy Farquhar, Robert Faville Feast of the Sacrifice Festivity, Fire Flanagan, John Fountain of El Dorado Fountain of Energy Fountain of Psychology of Life Fountain of Youth Four Golds of California Fraser, James Earle French, Daniel Cheater Fruits and Flowers Fruition Fry, Sherry Genii of Machinery Genius of Creation Gentle Powers of the Night Gerlach, Gustave Gruppe, Karl Guerin, Jules Harley, Charles Harvest Hassam, Childe Hastings, Thomas Helios Hermes Holloway, Chas. Hospice of Santa Cruz, Toledo Humphries, Charles A. Imagination Invention Jaegers, Albert Jaegers, August Joy of Living Kelham, George Kneeling Figure Konti, Isadore Laessle, Albert Lentelli, Leo Lesson of Life Lincoln, Abraham Lions Listening to the Sound of the Ages Longman, Evelyn McKim, Meade and White McLaren, John MacNeil, Hermon A. Man Receiving Instruction in Nature's Law (Mural) Manship, Paul Matthews, Arthur Maybeck, Bernard R. Men from Atlantic Mermaid Fountain Miner Mullgardt, Louis Christian Music Nahl, Perham Nations That Have Crossed the Atlantic (Mural) Nature Natural Selection Newman, Allen Niehaus, Charles Old World Handing Burden to New World Oriental Flower Girl Pan Panama Canal (Murals) Patigian, Haig Pegasus Pegasus Panel Peters Philosopher Piccirilli, Furio Pirate Pizarro Pool of Reflections Power of Industry Priest Priestess of Culture Priestess of Religion Primitive Man Proctor, P. Providence Pursuit of Pleasure Putnam, Arthur Rain Reclining Woman Reid, Robert Richardson, Symmes Rise of Civilization Rising Sun Roth, Frederick Rumsey, Charles Saint Gaudens, Augustus Scout, The Scudder, Janet Seed Time Setting Sun Simmons, Edward Spanish Cavalier Spring Stackpole, Ralph Star, Jeweled Stea, Cesare Steam Power Summer Sunshine Survival of the Fittest Thought Tonetti Torch Bearer Triumph of the Fields Unattainable In Art Varied Industries Victorious Spirit Walters, Edgar Ward, J. Q. A. Ward and Blohme Warrior Water Weinert, Albert Weinmann, A. A. Whitney, Gertrude V. Winter, Workman Young, Mahonri Zimm, Bruno Zodiac, Signs of 
8701	----	THE DORE GALLERY OF BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrated by Gustave Dore Volume 1. This volume, as its title indicates, is a collection of engravings illustrative of the Bible--the designs being all from the pencil of the greatest of modern delineators, Gustave Dore. The original work, from which this collection has been made, met with an immediate and warm recognition and acceptance among those whose means admitted of its purchase, and its popularity has in no wise diminished since its first publication, but has even extended to those who could only enjoy it casually, or in fragmentary parts. That work, however, in its entirety, was far too costly for the larger and ever-widening circle of M. Dore's admirers, and to meet the felt and often-expressed want of this class, and to provide a volume of choice and valuable designs upon sacred subjects for art-loving Biblical students generally, this work was projected and has been carried forward. The aim has been to introduce subjects of general interest--that is, those relating to the most prominent events and personages of Scripture--those most familiar to all readers; the plates being chosen with special reference to the known taste of the American people. To each cut is prefixed a page of letter-press--in, narrative form, and containing generally a brief analysis of the design. Aside from the labors of the editor and publishers, the work, while in progress, was under the pains-taking and careful scrutiny of artists and scholars not directly interested in the undertaking, but still having a generous solicitude for its success. It is hoped, therefore, that its general plan and execution will render it acceptable both to the appreciative and friendly patrons of the great artist, and to those who would wish to possess such a work solely as a choice collection of illustrations upon sacred themes. GUSTAVE DORE. The subject of this sketch is, perhaps, the most original and variously gifted designer the world has ever known. At an age when most men have scarcely passed their novitiate in art, and are still under the direction and discipline of their masters and the schools, he had won a brilliant reputation, and readers and scholars everywhere were gazing on his work with ever-increasing wonder and delight at his fine fancy and multifarious gifts. He has raised illustrative art to a dignity and importance before unknown, and has developed capacities for the pencil before unsuspected. He has laid all subjects tribute to his genius, explored and embellished fields hitherto lying waste, and opened new and shining paths and vistas where none before had trod. To the works of the great he has added the lustre of his genius, bringing their beauties into clearer view and warming them to a fuller life. His delineations of character, in the different phases of life, from the horrible to the grotesque, the grand to the comic, attest the versatility of his powers; and, whatever faults may be found by critics, the public will heartily render their quota of admiration to his magic touch, his rich and facile rendering of almost every thought that stirs, or lies yet dormant, in the human heart. It is useless to attempt a sketch of his various beauties; those who would know them best must seek them in the treasure--house that his genius is constantly augmenting with fresh gems and wealth. To one, however, of his most prominent traits we will refer--his wonderful rendering of the powers of Nature. His early wanderings in the wild and romantic passes of the Vosges doubtless developed this inherent tendency of his mind. There he wandered, and there, mayhap, imbibed that deep delight of wood and valley, mountain--pass and rich ravine, whose variety of form and detail seems endless to the enchanted eye. He has caught the very spell of the wilderness; she has laid her hand upon him, and he has gone forth with her blessing. So bold and truthful and minute are his countless representations of forest scenery; so delicate the tracery of branch and stem; so patriarchal the giant boles of his woodland monarchs, that the' gazer is at once satisfied and entranced. His vistas lie slumbering with repose either in shadowy glade or fell ravine, either with glint of lake or the glad, long course of some rejoicing stream, and above all, supreme in a beauty all its own, he spreads a canopy of peerless sky, or a wilderness, perhaps, of angry storm, or peaceful stretches of soft, fleecy cloud, or heavens serene and fair--another kingdom to his teeming art, after the earth has rendered all her gifts. Paul Gustave Dore was born in the city of Strasburg, January 10, 1833. Of his boyhood we have no very particular account. At eleven years of age, however, he essayed his first artistic creation--a set' of lithographs, published in his native city. The following year found him in Paris, entered as a 7. student at the Charlemagne Lyceum. His first actual work began in 1848, when his fine series of sketches, the "Labors of Hercules," was given to the public through the medium of an illustrated, journal with which he was for a long time connected as designer. In 1856 were published the illustrations for Balzac's "Contes Drolatiques" and those for "The Wandering Jew "--the first humorous and grotesque in the highest degree--indeed, showing a perfect abandonment to fancy; the other weird and supernatural, with fierce battles, shipwrecks, turbulent mobs, and nature in her most forbidding and terrible aspects. Every incident or suggestion that could possibly make the story more effective, or add to the horror of the scenes was seized upon and portrayed with wonderful power. These at once gave the young designer a great reputation, which was still more enhanced by his subsequent works. With all his love for nature and his power of interpreting her in her varying moods, Dore was a dreamer, and many of his finest achievements were in the realm of the imagination. But he was at home in the actual world also, as witness his designs for "Atala," "London--a Pilgrimage," and many of the scenes in "Don Quixote." When account is taken of the variety of his designs, and the fact considered that in almost every task he attempted none had ventured before him, the amount of work he accomplished is fairly incredible. To enumerate the immense tasks he undertook--some single volumes alone containing hundreds of illustrations--will give some faint idea of his industry. Besides those already mentioned are Montaigne, Dante, the Bible, Milton, Rabelais, Tennyson's "Idyls of the King," "The Ancient Mariner," Shakespeare, "Legende de Croquemitaine," La Fontaine's "Fables," and others still. Take one of these works--the Dante, La Fontaine, or "Don Quixote"--and glance at the pictures. The mere hand labor involved in their production is surprising; but when the quality of the work is properly estimated, what he accomplished seems prodigious. No particular mention need be made of him as painter or sculptor, for his reputation rests solely upon his work as an illustrator. Dore's nature was exuberant and buoyant, and he was youthful in appearance. He had a passion for music, possessed rare skill as a violinist, and it is assumed that, had he failed to succeed with his pencil, he could have won a brilliant reputation as a musician. He was a bachelor, and lived a quiet, retired life with his mother--married, as he expressed it, to her and his art. His death occurred on January 23, 1883. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS GUSTAVE DORE THE CREATION OF EVE THE EXPULSION FROM THE GARDEN THE MURDER OF ABEL THE DELUGE NOAH CURSING HAM THE TOWER OF BABEL ABRAHAM ENTERTAINS THREE STRANGERS THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM THE EXPULSION OF HAGAR HAGAR IN THE WILDERESS THE TRIAL OF THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM THE BURIAL OF SARAH ELIEZER AND REBEKAH ISAAC BLESSING JACOB JACOB TENDING THE FLOCKS JOSEPH SOLD INTO EGYPT JOSEPH INTERPRETING PHARAOH'S DREAM JOSEPH MAKING HIMSELF KNOWN TO HIS BRETHREN MOSES IN THE BULRUSHES THE WAR AGAINST GIBEON SISERA SLAIN BY JAEL DEBORAH'S SONG OF TRIUMPH JEPHTHAH MET BY HIS DAUGHTER JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER AND HER COMPANIONS SAMSON SLAYING THE LION SAMSON AND DELILAH THE DEATH OF SAMSON NAOMI AND HER DAUGHTERS-IN-LAW RUTH AND BOAZ THE RETURN OF THE ARK SAUL AND DAVID DAVID SPARING SAUL DEATH OF SAUL THE DEATH OF ABSALOM DAVID MOURNING OVER ABSALOM SOLOMON THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON THE CEDARS DESTINED FOR THE TEMPLE THE PROPHET SLAIN BY A LION ELIJAH DESTROYING THE MESSENGERS OF AHAZIAH ELIJAH'S ASCENT IN A CHARIOT OF FIRE DEATH OF JEZEBEL ESTHER CONFOUNDING HAMAN ISAIAH DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB'S HOST BARUCH EZEKIEL PROPHESYING THE VISION OF EZEKIEL DANIEL THE FIERY FURNACE BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST DANIEL IN THE LION'S DEN THE PROPHET AMOS JONAH CALLING NINEVEH TO REPENTANCE DANIEL CONFOUNDING THE PRIESTS OF BEL HELIODORUS PUNISHED IN THE TEMPLE THE NATIVITY THE STAR IN THE EAST THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS JESUS QUESTIONING THE DOCTORS JESUS HEALING THE SICK SERMON ON THE MOUNT CHRIST STILLING THE TEMPEST THE DUMB MAN POSSESSED CHRIST IN THE SYNAGOGUE THE DISCIPLES PLUCKING CORN ON THE SABBATH JESUS WALKING ON THE WATER CHRIST'S ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM JESUS AND THE TRIBUTE MONEY THE WIDOW'S MITE RAISING OF THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS THE GOOD SAMARITAN ARRIVAL OF THE SAMARITAN AT THE INN THE PRODIGAL SON LAZARUS AND THE RICH MAN THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN JESUS AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA JESUS AND THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS MARY MAGDALENE THE LAST SUPPER THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN PRAYER OF JESUS IN THE GARDEN OF OLIVES THE BETRAYAL CHRIST FAINTING UNDER THE CROSS THE FLAGELLATION THE CRUCIFIXION CLOSE OF THE CRUCIFIXION THE BURIAL OF JESUS THE ANGEL AT THE SEPULCHER THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS THE ASCENSION THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. STEPHEN SAUL'S CONVERSION THE DELIVERANCE OF ST. PETER PAUL AT EPHESUS PAUL MENACED BY THE JEWS PAUL'S SHIPWRECK DEATH ON THE PALE HORSE THE CREATION OF EVE. "And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helpmeet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." Genesis ii, 18, 21-24. In these few words the Scriptures narrate the creation of the first mother of our race. In "Paradise Lost," the poetic genius of Milton, going more into detail, describes how Eve awoke to consciousness, and found herself reposing under a shade of flowers, much wondering what she was and whence she came. Wandering by the margin of a small lake, she sees her own form mirrored in the clear waters, at which she wonders more. But a voice is heard, leading her to him for whom she was made, who lies sleeping under a grateful shade. It is at this point the artist comes to interpret the poet's dream. Amid the varied and luxurious foliage of Eden, in the vague light of the early dawn, Eve is presented, coy and graceful, gazing on her sleeping Lord, while in the background is faintly outlined the mystic form of Him in whose image they were created. THE EXPULSION FROM THE GARDEN. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.--Genesis iii, 22-24 They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate, With dreadful forces thronged, and fiery arms Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide; They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way. Paradise Lost, Book XII. THE MURDER OF ABEL. And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass,--when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.--Genesis iv, 1-16 THE DELUGE. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; they, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the Lord shut him in. And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased, greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man; all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth; and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.--Genesis vii, 11-24. NOAH CURSING HAM. And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread. And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.--Genesis ix, 18-27. THE TOWER OF BABEL. And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.--Genesis xi, 1-9. ABRAHAM ENTERTAINS THREE STRANGERS. In the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son. And all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him. And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, and said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth. And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.--Genesis xvii, 26, 27; xviii 1-8. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.--Hebrews xiii, 2. THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM. And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city. And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city. And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord. Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me and I die. Behold now this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live. And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken. Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered unto Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.--Genesis xix, 15-28. THE EXPULSION OF HAGAR. And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old, as God had commanded him. And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age. And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. And Sarah, saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking. Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this, bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son. And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.--Genesis xxi, 1-14. HAGAR IN THE WILDERNESS. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away; and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. And she went and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow-shot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.--Genesis xxi. 14-21. 
8703	----	THE DORE GALLERY OF BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrated by Gustave Dore Volume 3. DEBORAH'S SONG OF TRIUMPH. Then sang Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinoam on that day, saying:-- Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, When the people willingly offered themselves. Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes; I, even I, will sing unto the Lord; I will sing praise to the Lord God of Israel. Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, When thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, The earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water. The mountains melted from before the Lord, Even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be; Blessed shall she be above women in the tent. He asked water, and she gave him milk; She brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; And with the hammer she smote Sisera, She smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: At her feet he bowed, he fell: Where he bowed, there he fell down dead. The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariots? Her wise ladies answered her, yea, she returned answer to herself, Have they not sped? Have they not divided the prey; To every man a damsel or two; To Sisera a prey of divers colours, a prey of divers colours of needlework, Of divers colours of needlework on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil? So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: But let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. Judges v, 2-5, 24-31 JEPHTHAH MET BY HIS DAUGHTER. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon. And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hands. And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel. And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. Judges xi, 29-34. JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER AND HER COMPANIONS And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back. And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon. And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel, that the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year. Judges xi, 35-40. SAMSON SLAYING THE LION. Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath; and, behold, a young lion roared against him. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand; but he told not his father or his mother what he had done. Judges xiv, 5-6. SAMSON AND DELILAH. And it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto her, Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver. And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee. And Samson said unto her, If they bind me with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another man. Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green withs which had not been dried, and she bound him with them. Now there were men lying in wait, abiding with her in the chamber. And she said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he brake the withs, as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire. So his strength was not known. And Delilah said unto Samson, Behold, thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: now tell me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If they bind me fast with clew ropes that never were occupied, then shall I be weak, and be as another man. Delilah therefore took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And there were liers in wait abiding in the chamber. And he brake them from off his arms like a thread. And Delilah said unto Samson, Hitherto thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web. And she fastened it with the pin, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awaked out of his sleep, and went away with the pin of the beam and with the web. And she said unto him, How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth. And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; that he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's womb if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man. And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he hath showed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought money in their hand. And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him. Judges xvi, 4-20. THE DEATH OF SAMSON. But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house. Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven. Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our God hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand. And when the people saw him, they praised their god: for they said, Our god hath delivered into our hands our enemy, and the destroyer of our country, which slew many of us. And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house; and he made them sport: and they set him between the pillars. And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them. Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport. And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left. And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life. Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burying-place of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years.--Judges xvi; 21-31 NAOMI AND HER DAUGHTERS IN LAW. Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Beth-lehem-judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Beth-lehem-judah. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there. And Elimelech Naomi's husband died; and she was left, and her two sons. And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth: and they dwelt there about ten years. And Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was left of her two sons and her husband. Then she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab for she had heard in the country of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread. Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters in law with her; and they went on the way to return unto the land of Judah. And Naomi said unto her two daughters in law, Go, return each to her mother's house the Lord deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me. The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them; and they lifted up their voice, and wept. And they said unto her, Surely we will return with thee unto thy people. And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? Turn again, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say, I have hope, if I should have a husband also to night, and should also bear sons; would ye tarry for them till they were grown? would ye stay for them from having husbands? nay, my daughters; for it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord is gone out against me. And they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother in law but Ruth cleave unto her. And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods return thou after thy sister in law. And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her. So they two went until they came to Beth-lehem.--Ruth i, 1-19. RUTH AND BOAZ. And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech; and his name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said unto her, Go, my daughter. And she went, and came and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech. And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee. Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this? And the servant that was set over the reapers answered and said, It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab: and she said, I pray you, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves: so she came, and hath continued even from the morning until now, that she tarried a little in the house. Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens: let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them: have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? and when thou art athirst, go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn. Then she fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger? And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore. The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. Then she said, Let me find favor in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine handmaid, though I be not like unto one of thine handmaidens. And Boaz said unto her, At mealtime come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. And she sat beside the reapers: and he reached her parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left. And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not: and let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, that she may glean them and rebuke her not. So she gleaned in the field until even, and beat out that she had gleaned: and it was about an ephah of barley.--Ruth ii, 1-17. THE RETURN OF THE ARK. And the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months. And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do to the ark of the Lord? tell us wherewith we shall send it to his place. And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; but in any wise return him a trespass offering: then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you. Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords. Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land. Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed? Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them: and take the ark of the Lord, and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye return him for a trespass offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go. And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Beth-shemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us. And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home: and they laid the ark of the Lord upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods. And the kine took the straight way to the way of Beth-shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them, unto the border of Beth-shemesh. And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley: and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth-shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone: and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt offering unto the Lord. And the Levites took down the ark of the Lord, and the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of gold were, and put them on the great stone: and the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices the same day unto the Lord.--1 Samuel vi, 1-5. SAUL AND DAVID. And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle. And David went out withersoever Saul sent him, and behaved himself wisely: and Saul set him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul's servants. And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music. And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, "They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?" And Saul eyed David from that day and forward. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul's hand. And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.--1 Samuel xviii, I-II. DAVID SPARING SAUL. And it came to pass, when Saul was returned from following the Philistines, that it was told him, saying, Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi. Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the wild goats. And he came to the sheepcotes by the way, where was a cave; and Saul went in to cover his feet: and David and his men remained in the sides of the cave. And the men of David said unto him, Behold the day of which the Lord said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee. Then David arose, and cut off the skirt of Saul's robe privily. And it came to pass afterward, that David's heart smote him, because he had cut off Saul's skirt. And he said unto his men, The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord. So David stayed his servants with these words, and suffered them not to rise against Saul. But Saul rose up out of the cave, and went on his way. David also arose afterward, and went out of the cave, and cried after Saul, saying, My lord the king. And when Saul looked behind him, David stooped with his face to the earth and bowed himself. And David said to Saul, Wherefore hearest thou men's words, saying, Behold, David seeketh thy hurt? Behold, this day thine eyes have seen how that the Lord had delivered thee to-day into mine hand in the cave: and some bade me kill thee; but mine eye spared thee; and I said, I will not put forth mine hand against my lord; for he is the Lord's anointed. Moreover, my father, see, yea, see the skirt of thy robe in my hand: for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe, and killed thee not, know thou and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in mine hand, and I have not sinned against thee; yet thou huntest my soul to take it. The Lord judge between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon thee. As saith the proverb of the ancients, Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked: but mine hand shall not be upon thee. After whom is the king of Israel come out? after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea. The Lord therefore be judge, and judge between me and thee, and see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand. And it came to pass, when David had made an end of speaking these words unto Saul, that Saul said, Is this thy voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice, and wept. And he said to David, Thou art more righteous than I: for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil. And thou hast shewed this day how that thou hast dealt well, with me: forasmuch as when the Lord had delivered me into thine hand, thou killedst me not. For if a man find his enemy, will he let him go well away? wherefore the Lord reward thee good for that thou hast done unto me this day. And now, behold, I know well that thou shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand. Swear now therefore unto me by the Lord, that thou wilt not cut off my seed after me, and that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father's house. And David sware unto Saul. And Saul went home; but David and his men gat them up unto the hold.--2 Samuel xxiv, 2--22. 
7227	----	MORNINGS IN FLORENCE By John Ruskin, M.A. MORNINGS IN FLORENCE. THE FIRST MORNING. SANTA CROCE. If there is one artist, more than another, whose work it is desirable that you should examine in Florence, supposing that you care for old art at all, it is Giotto. You can, indeed, also see work of his at Assisi; but it is not likely you will stop there, to any purpose. At Padua there is much; but only of one period. At Florence, which is his birthplace, you can see pictures by him of every date, and every kind. But you had surely better see, first, what is of his best time and of the best kind. He painted very small pictures and very large--painted from the age of twelve to sixty--painted some subjects carelessly which he had little interest in--some carefully with all his heart. You would surely like, and it would certainly be wise, to see him first in his strong and earnest work,--to see a painting by him, if possible, of large size, and wrought with his full strength, and of a subject pleasing to him. And if it were, also, a subject interesting to yourself,--better still. Now, if indeed you are interested in old art, you cannot but know the power of the thirteenth century. You know that the character of it was concentrated in, and to the full expressed by, its best king, St. Louis. You know St. Louis was a Franciscan, and that the Franciscans, for whom Giotto was continually painting under Dante's advice, were prouder of him than of any other of their royal brethren or sisters. If Giotto ever would imagine anybody with care and delight, it would be St. Louis, if it chanced that anywhere he had St. Louis to paint. Also, you know that he was appointed to build the Campanile of the Duomo, because he was then the best master of sculpture, painting, and architecture in Florence, and supposed to be without superior in the world. [Footnote: "Cum in universe orbe non reperiri dicatur quenquam qui sufficientior sit in his et aliis multis artibus magistro Giotto Bondonis de Florentia, pictore, et accipiendus sit in patriâ, velut magnus magister."--(Decree of his appointment, quoted by Lord Lindsay, vol. ii., p. 247.)] And that this commission was given him late in life, (of course he could not have designed the Campanile when he was a boy;) so therefore, if you find any of his figures painted under pure campanile architecture, and the architecture by his hand, you know, without other evidence, that the painting must be of his strongest time. So if one wanted to find anything of his to begin with, especially, and could choose what it should be, one would say, "A fresco, life size, with campanile architecture behind it, painted in an important place; and if one might choose one's subject, perhaps the most interesting saint of all saints--for him to do for us--would be St. Louis." Wait then for an entirely bright morning; rise with the sun, and go to Santa Croce, with a good opera-glass in your pocket, with which you shall for once, at any rate, see an opus; and, if you have time, several opera. Walk straight to the chapel on the right of the choir ("k" in your Murray's guide). When you first get into it, you will see nothing but a modern window of glaring glass, with a red-hot cardinal in one pane--which piece of modern manufacture takes away at least seven-eighths of the light (little enough before) by which you might have seen what is worth sight. Wait patiently till you get used to the gloom. Then, guarding your eyes from the accursed modern window as best you may, take your opera-glass and look to the right, at the uppermost of the two figures beside it. It is St. Louis, under campanile architecture, painted by--Giotto? or the last Florentine painter who wanted a job--over Giotto? That is the first question you have to determine; as you will have henceforward, in every case in which you look at a fresco. Sometimes there will be no question at all. These two grey frescos at the bottom of the walls on the right and left, for instance, have been entirely got up for your better satisfaction, in the last year or two--over Giotto's half-effaced lines. But that St. Louis? Re-painted or not, it is a lovely thing,--there can be no question about that; and we must look at it, after some preliminary knowledge gained, not inattentively. Your Murray's Guide tells you that this chapel of the Bardi della Libertà, in which you stand, is covered with frescos by Giotto; that they were whitewashed, and only laid bare in 1853; that they were painted between 1296 and 1304; that they represent scenes in the life of St. Francis; and that on each side of the window are paintings of St. Louis of Toulouse, St. Louis king of France, St. Elizabeth, of Hungary, and St. Claire,--"all much restored and repainted." Under such recommendation, the frescos are not likely to be much sought after; and accordingly, as I was at work in the chapel this morning, Sunday, 6th September, 1874, two nice-looking Englishmen, under guard of their valet de place, passed the chapel without so much as looking in. You will perhaps stay a little longer in it with me, good reader, and find out gradually where you are. Namely, in the most interesting and perfect little Gothic chapel in all Italy--so far as I know or can hear. There is no other of the great time which has all its frescos in their place. The Arena, though far larger, is of earlier date--not pure Gothic, nor showing Giotto's full force. The lower chapel at Assisi is not Gothic at all, and is still only of Giotto's middle time. You have here, developed Gothic, with Giotto in his consummate strength, and nothing lost, in form, of the complete design. By restoration--judicious restoration, as Mr. Murray usually calls it--there is no saying how much you have lost, Putting the question of restoration out of your mind, however, for a while, think where you are, and what you have got to look at. You are in the chapel next the high altar of the great Franciscan church of Florence. A few hundred yards west of you, within ten minutes' walk, is the Baptistery of Florence. And five minutes' walk west of that is the great Dominican church of Florence, Santa Maria Novella. Get this little bit of geography, and architectural fact, well into your mind. There is the little octagon Baptistery in the middle; here, ten minutes' walk east of it, the Franciscan church of the Holy Cross; there, five minutes walk west of it, the Dominican church of St. Mary. Now, that little octagon Baptistery stood where it now stands (and was finished, though the roof has been altered since) in the eighth century. It is the central building of Etrurian Christianity,--of European Christianity. From the day it was finished, Christianity went on doing her best, in Etruria and elsewhere, for four hundred years,--and her best seemed to have come to very little,--when there rose up two men who vowed to God it should come to more. And they made it come to more, forthwith; of which the immediate sign in Florence was that she resolved to have a fine new cross-shaped cathedral instead of her quaint old little octagon one; and a tower beside it that should beat Babel:--which two buildings you have also within sight. But your business is not at present with them; but with these two earlier churches of Holy Cross and St. Mary. The two men who were the effectual builders of these were the two great religious Powers and Reformers of the thirteenth century;--St. Francis, who taught Christian men how they should behave, and St. Dominic, who taught Christian men what they should think. In brief, one the Apostle of Works; the other of Faith. Each sent his little company of disciples to teach and to preach in Florence: St. Francis in 1212; St. Dominic in 1220. The little companies were settled--one, ten minutes' walk east of the old Baptistery; the other five minutes' walk west of it. And after they had stayed quietly in such lodgings as were given them, preaching and teaching through most of the century; and had got Florence, as it were, heated through, she burst out into Christian poetry and architecture, of which you have heard much talk:--burst into bloom of Arnolfo, Giotto, Dante, Orcagna, and the like persons, whose works you profess to have come to Florence that you may see and understand. Florence then, thus heated through, first helped her teachers to build finer churches. The Dominicans, or White Friars the Teachers of Faith, began their church of St. Mary's in 1279. The Franciscans, or Black Friars, the teachers of Works, laid the first stone of this church of the Holy Cross in 1294. And the whole city laid the foundations of its new cathedral in 1298. The Dominicans designed their own building; but for the Franciscans and the town worked the first great master of Gothic art, Arnolfo; with Giotto at his side, and Dante looking on, and whispering sometimes a word to both. And here you stand beside the high altar of the Franciscans' church, under a vault of Arnolfo's building, with at least some of Giotto's colour on it still fresh; and in front of you, over the little altar, is the only reportedly authentic portrait of St. Francis, taken from life by Giotto's master. Yet I can hardly blame my two English friends for never looking in. Except in the early morning light, not one touch of all this art can be seen. And in any light, unless you understand the relations of Giotto to St. Francis, and of St. Francis to humanity, it will be of little interest. Observe, then, the special character of Giotto among the great painters of Italy is his being a practical person. Whatever other men dreamed of, he did. He could work in mosaic; he could work in marble; he could paint; and he could build; and all thoroughly: a man of supreme faculty, supreme common sense. Accordingly, he ranges himself at once among the disciples of the Apostle of Works, and spends most of his time in the same apostleship. Now the gospel of Works, according to St. Francis, lay in three things. You must work without money, and be poor. You must work without pleasure, and be chaste. You must work according to orders, and be obedient. Those are St. Francis's three articles of Italian opera. By which grew the many pretty things you have come to see here. And now if you will take your opera-glass and look up to the roof above Arnolfo's building, you will see it is a pretty Gothic cross vault, in four quarters, each with a circular medallion, painted by Giotto. That over the altar has the picture of St. Francis himself. The three others, of his Commanding Angels. In front of him, over the entrance arch, Poverty. On his right hand, Obedience. On his left, Chastity. Poverty, in a red patched dress, with grey wings, and a square nimbus of glory above her head, is flying from a black hound, whose head is seen at the corner of the medallion. Chastity, veiled, is imprisoned in a tower, while angels watch her. Obedience bears a yoke on her shoulders, and lays her hand on a book. Now, this same quatrefoil, of St. Francis and his three Commanding Angels, was also painted, but much more elaborately, by Giotto, on the cross vault of the lower church of Assisi, and it is a question of interest which of the two roofs was painted first. Your Murray's Guide tells you the frescos in this chapel were painted between 1296 and 1304. But as they represent, among other personages, St. Louis of Toulouse, who was not canonized till 1317, that statement is not altogether tenable. Also, as the first stone of the church was only laid in 1294, when Giotto was a youth of eighteen, it is little likely that either it would have been ready to be painted, or he ready with his scheme of practical divinity, two years later. Farther, Arnolfo, the builder of the main body of the church, died in 1310. And as St. Louis of Toulouse was not a saint till seven years afterwards, and the frescos therefore beside the window not painted in Arnolfo's day, it becomes another question whether Arnolfo left the chapels or the church at all, in their present form. On which point--now that I have shown you where Giotto's St. Louis is--I will ask you to think awhile, until you are interested; and then I will try to satisfy your curiosity. There fore, please leave the little chapel for the moment, and walk down the nave, till you come to two sepulchral slabs near the west end, and then look about you and see what sort of a church Santa Croce is. Without looking about you at all, you may find, in your Murray, the useful information that it is a church which "consists of a very wide nave and lateral aisles, separated by seven fine pointed arches." And as you will be--under ordinary conditions of tourist hurry--glad to learn so much, _without_ looking, it is little likely to occur to you that this nave and two rich aisles required also, for your complete present comfort, walls at both ends, and a roof on the top. It is just possible, indeed, you may have been struck, on entering, by the curious disposition of painted glass at the east end;--more remotely possible that, in returning down the nave, you may this moment have noticed the extremely small circular window at the west end; but the chances are a thousand to one that, after being pulled from tomb to tomb round the aisles and chapels, you should take so extraordinary an additional amount of pains as to look up at the roof,--unless you do it now, quietly. It will have had its effect upon you, even if you don't, without your knowledge. You will return home with a general impression that Santa Croce is, somehow, the ugliest Gothic church you ever were in. Well, that is really so; and now, will you take the pains to see why? There are two features, on which, more than on any others, the grace and delight of a fine Gothic building depends; one is the springing of its vaultings, the other the proportion and fantasy of its traceries. _This_ church of Santa Croce has no vaultings at all, but the roof of a farm-house barn. And its windows are all of the same pattern,--the exceedingly prosaic one of two pointed arches, with a round hole above, between them. And to make the simplicity of the roof more conspicuous, the aisles are successive sheds, built at every arch. In the aisles of the Campo Santo of Pisco, the unbroken flat roof leaves the eye free to look to the traceries; but here, a succession of up-and-down sloping beam and lath gives the impression of a line of stabling rather than a church aisle. And lastly, while, in fine Gothic buildings, the entire perspective concludes itself gloriously in the high and distant apse, here the nave is cut across sharply by a line of ten chapels, the apse being only a tall recess in the midst of them, so that, strictly speaking, the church is not of the form of a cross, but of a letter T. Can this clumsy and ungraceful arrangement be indeed the design of the renowned Arnolfo? Yes, this is purest Arnolfo-Gothic; not beautiful by any means; but deserving, nevertheless, our thoughtfullest examination. We will trace its complete character another day; just now we are only concerned with this pre-Christian form of the letter T, insisted upon in the lines of chapels. Respecting which you are to observe, that the first Christian churches in the catacombs took the form of a blunt cross naturally; a square chamber having a vaulted recess on each side; then the Byzantine churches were structurally built in the form of an equal cross; while the heraldic and other ornamental equal-armed crosses are partly signs of glory and victory, partly of light, and divine spiritual presence. [Footnote: See, on this subject generally, Mr. R. St. J. Tyrwhitt's "Art-Teaching of the Primitive Church." S. P. B. K., 1874.] But the Franciscans and Dominicans saw in the cross no sign of triumph, but of trial.[Footnote: I have never obtained time for any right study of early Christian church-discipline,--nor am I sure to how many other causes, the choice of the form of the basilica may be occasionally attributed, or by what other communities it may be made. Symbolism, for instance, has most power with the Franciscans, and convenience for preaching with the Dominicans; but in all cases, and in all places, the transition from the close tribune to the brightly-lighted apse, indicates the change in Christian feeling between regarding a church as a place for public judgment or teaching, or a place for private prayer and congregational praise. The following passage from the Dean of Westminster's perfect history of his Abbey ought to be read also in the Florentine church:--"The nearest approach to Westminster Abbey in this aspect is the church of Santa Croce at Florence. There, as here, the present destination of the building was no part of the original design, but was the result of various converging causes. As the church of one of the two great preaching orders, it had a nave large beyond all proportion to its choir. That order being the Franciscan, bound by vows of poverty, the simplicity of the worship preserved the whole space clear from any adventitious ornaments. The popularity of the Franciscans, especially in a convent hallowed by a visit from St. Francis himself, drew to it not only the chief civic festivals, but also the numerous families who gave alms to the friars, and whose connection with their church was, for this reason, in turn encouraged by them. In those graves, piled with standards und achievements of the noble families of Florence, were successively interred--not because of their eminence, but as members or friends of those families--some of the most illustrious personages of the fifteenth century. Thus it came to pass, as if by accident, that in the vault of the Buonarotti was laid Michael Angelo; in the vault of the Viviani the preceptor of one of their house, Galileo. From those two burials the church gradually be same the recognized shrine of Italian genius."] The wounds of their Master were to be their inheritance. So their first aim was to make what image to the cross their church might present, distinctly that of the actual instrument of death. And they did this most effectually by using the form of the letter T, that of the Furca or Gibbet,--not the sign of peace. Also, their churches were meant for use; not show, nor self-glorification, nor town-glorification. They wanted places for preaching, prayer, sacrifice, burial; and had no intention of showing how high they could build towers, or how widely they could arch vaults. Strong walls, and the roof of a barn,--these your Franciscan asks of his Arnolfo. These Arnolfo gives,--thoroughly and wisely built; the successions of gable roof being a new device for strength, much praised in its day. This stern humor did not last long. Arnolfo himself had other notions; much more Cimabue and Giotto; most of all, Nature and Heaven. Something else had to be taught about Christ than that He was wounded to death. Nevertheless, look how grand this stern form would be, restored to its simplicity. It is not the old church which is in itself unimpressive. It is the old church defaced by Vasari, by Michael Angelo, and by modern Florence. See those huge tombs on your right hand and left, at the sides of the aisles, with their alternate gable and round tops, and their paltriest of all possible sculpture, trying to be grand by bigness, and pathetic by expense. Tear them all down in your imagination; fancy the vast hall with its massive pillars,--not painted calomel-pill colour, as now, but of their native stone, with a rough, true wood for roof,--and a people praying beneath them, strong in abiding, and pure in life, as their rocks and olive forests That was Arnolfo's Santa Croce. Nor did his work remain long without grace. That very line of chapels in which we found our St. Louis shows signs of change in temper. _They_ have no pent-house roofs, but true Gothic vaults: we found our four-square type of Franciscan Law on one of them. It is probable, then, that these chapels may be later than the rest--even in their stonework. In their decoration, they are so, assuredly; belonging already to the time when the story of St. Francis was becoming a passionate tradition, told and painted everywhere with delight. And that high recess, taking the place of apse, in the centre,--see how noble it is in the coloured shade surrounding and joining the glow of its windows, though their form be so simple. You are not to be amused here by patterns in balanced stone, as a French or English architect would amuse you, says Arnolfo. "You are to read and think, under these severe walls of mine; immortal hands will write upon them." We will go back, therefore, into this line of manuscript chapels presently; but first, look at the two sepulchral slabs by which you are standing. That farther of the two from the west end is one of the most beautiful pieces of fourteenth century sculpture in this world; and it contains simple elements of excellence, by your understanding of which you may test your power of understanding the more difficult ones you will have to deal with presently. It represents an old man, in the high deeply-folded cap worn by scholars and gentlemen in Florence from 1300--1500, lying dead, with a book in his breast, over which his hands are folded. At his feet is this inscription: "Temporibus hic suis phylosophye atq. medicine culmen fuit Galileus de Galileis olim Bonajutis qui etiam summo in magistratu miro quodam modo rempublicam dilexit, cujus sancte memorie bene acte vite pie benedictus filius hunc tumulum patri sibi suisq. posteris edidit." Mr. Murray tells you that the effigies "in low relief" (alas, yes, low enough now--worn mostly into flat stones, with a trace only of the deeper lines left, but originally in very bold relief,) with which the floor of Santa Croce is inlaid, of which this by which you stand is characteristic, are "interesting from the costume," but that, "except in the case of John Ketterick, Bishop of St. David's, few of the other names have any interest beyond the walls of Florence." As, however, you are at present within the walls of Florence, you may perhaps condescend to take some interest in this ancestor or relation of the Galileo whom Florence indeed left to be externally interesting, and would not allow to enter in her walls. [Footnote: "Seven years a prisoner at the city gate, Let in but his grave-clothes." _Rogers' "Italy_."] I am not sure if I rightly place or construe the phrase in the above inscription, "cujus sancte memorie bene acte;" but, in main purport, the legend runs thus: "This Galileo of the Galilei was, in his times, the head of philosophy and medicine; who also in the highest magistracy loved the republic marvellously; whose son, blessed in inheritance of his holy memory and well-passed and pious life, appointed this tomb for his father, for himself, and for his posterity." There is no date; but the slab immediately behind it, nearer the western door, is of the same style, but of later and inferior work, and bears date--I forget now of what early year in the fifteenth century. But Florence was still in her pride; and you may observe, in this epitaph, on what it was based. That her philosophy was studied _together with useful arts,_ and as a part of them; that the masters in these became naturally the masters in public affairs; that in such magistracy, they loved the State, and neither cringed to it nor robbed it; that the sons honoured their fathers, and received their fathers' honour as the most blessed inheritance. Remember the phrase "vite pie bene dictus filius," to be compared with the "nos nequiores" of the declining days of all states,--chiefly now in Florence, France and England. Thus much for the local interest of name. Next for the universal interest of the art of this tomb. It is the crowning virtue of all great art that, however little is left of it by the injuries of time, that little will be lovely. As long as you can see anything, you can see--almost all;--so much the hand of the master will suggest of his soul. And here you are well quit, for once, of restoration. No one cares for this sculpture; and if Florence would only thus put all her old sculpture and painting under her feet, and simply use them for gravestones and oilcloth, she would be more merciful to them than she is now. Here, at least, what little is left is true. And, if you look long, you will find it is not so little. That worn face is still a perfect portrait of the old man, though like one struck out at a venture, with a few rough touches of a master's chisel. And that falling drapery of his cap is, in its few lines, faultless, and subtle beyond description. And now, here is a simple but most useful test of your capacity for understanding Florentine sculpture or painting. If you can see that the lines of that cap are both right, and lovely; that the choice of the folds is exquisite in its ornamental relations of line; and that the softness and ease of them is complete,--though only sketched with a few dark touches,--then you can understand Giotto's drawing, and Botticelli's;--Donatello's carving and Luca's. But if you see nothing in _this_ sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, _of_ theirs. Where they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any vulgar modern trick with marble--(and they often do)--whatever, in a word, is French, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; but what is Florentine, and for ever great--unless you can see also the beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap,--you will see never. There is more in this sculpture, however, than its simple portraiture and noble drapery. The old man lies on a piece of embroidered carpet; and, protected by the higher relief, many of the finer lines of this are almost uninjured; in particular, its exquisitely-wrought fringe and tassels are nearly perfect. And if you will kneel down and look long at the tassels of the cushion under the head, and the way they fill the angles of the stone, you will,--or may--know, from this example alone, what noble decorative sculpture is, and was, and must be, from the days of earliest Greece to those of latest Italy. "Exquisitely sculptured fringe!" and you have just been abusing sculptors who play tricks with marble! Yes, and you cannot find a better example, in all the museums of Europe, of the work of a man who does _not_ play tricks with it--than this tomb. Try to understand the difference: it is a point of quite cardinal importance to all your future study of sculpture. I _told_ you, observe, that the old Galileo was lying on a piece of embroidered carpet. I don't think, if I had not told you, that you would have found it out for yourself. It is not so like a carpet as all that comes to. But had it been a modern trick-sculpture, the moment you came to the tomb you would have said, "Dear me! how wonderfully that carpet is done,--it doesn't look like stone in the least--one longs to take it up and beat it, to get the dust off." Now whenever you feel inclined to speak so of a sculptured drapery, be assured, without more ado, the sculpture is base, and bad. You will merely waste your time and corrupt your taste by looking at it. Nothing is so easy as to imitate drapery in marble. You may cast a piece any day; and carve it with such subtlety that the marble shall be an absolute image of the folds. But that is not sculpture. That is mechanical manufacture. No great sculptor, from the beginning of art to the end of it, has ever carved, or ever will, a deceptive drapery. He has neither time nor will to do it. His mason's lad may do that if he likes. A man who can carve a limb or a face never finishes inferior parts, but either with a hasty and scornful chisel, or with such grave and strict selection of their lines as you know at once to be imaginative, not imitative. But if, as in this case, he wants to oppose the simplicity of his central subject with a rich background,--a labyrinth of ornamental lines to relieve the severity of expressive ones,--he will carve you a carpet, or a tree, or a rose thicket, with their fringes and leaves and thorns, elaborated as richly as natural ones; but always for the sake of the ornamental form, never of the imitation; yet, seizing the natural character in the lines he gives, with twenty times the precision and clearness of sight that the mere imitator has. Examine the tassels of the cushion, and the way they blend with the fringe, thoroughly; you cannot possibly see finer ornamental sculpture. Then, look at the same tassels in the same place of the slab next the west end of the church, and you will see a scholar's rude imitation of a master's hand, though in a fine school. (Notice, however, the folds of the drapery at the feet of this figure: they are cut so as to show the hem of the robe within as well as without, and are fine.) Then, as you go back to Giotto's chapel, keep to the left, and just beyond the north door in the aisle is the much celebrated tomb of C. Marsuppini, by Desiderio of Settignano. It is very fine of its kind; but there the drapery is chiefly done to cheat you, and chased delicately to show how finely the sculptor could chisel it. It is wholly vulgar and mean in cast of fold. Under your feet, as you look at it, you will tread another tomb of the fine time, which, looking last at, you will recognize the difference between the false and true art, as far as there is capacity in you at present to do so. And if you really and honestly like the low-lying stones, and see more beauty in them, you have also the power of enjoying Giotto, into whose chapel we will return to-morrow;--not to-day, for the light must have left it by this time; and now that you have been looking at these sculptures on the floor you had better traverse nave and aisle across and across; and get some idea of that sacred field of stone. In the north transept you will find a beautiful knight, the finest in chiselling of all these tombs, except one by the same hand in the south aisle just where it enters the south transept. Examine the lines of the Gothic niches traced above them; and what is left of arabesque on their armour. They are far more beautiful and tender in chivalric conception than Donatello's St. George, which is merely a piece of vigorous naturalism founded on these older tombs. If you will drive in the evening to the Chartreuse in Val d'Ema, you may see there an uninjured example of this slab-tomb by Donatello himself; very beautiful; but not so perfect as the earlier ones on which it is founded. And you may see some fading light and shade of monastic life, among which if you stay till the fireflies come out in the twilight, and thus get to sleep when you come home, you will be better prepared for to-morrow morning's walk--if you will take another with me--than if you go to a party, to talk sentiment about Italy, and hear the last news from London and New York. THE SECOND MORNING. THE GOLDEN GATE. To-day, as early as you please, and at all events before doing anything else, let us go to Giotto's own parish-church, Santa Maria Novella. If, walking from the Strozzi Palace, you look on your right for the "Way of the Beautiful Ladies," it will take you quickly there. Do not let anything in the way of acquaintance, sacristan, or chance sight, stop you in doing what I tell you. Walk straight up to the church, into the apse of it;--(you may let your eyes rest, as you walk, on the glow of its glass, only mind the step, half way;)--and lift the curtain; and go in behind the grand marble altar, giving anybody who follows you anything they want, to hold their tongues, or go away. You know, most probably, already, that the frescos on each side of you are Ghirlandajo's. You have been told they are very fine, and if you know anything of painting, you know the portraits in them are so. Nevertheless, somehow, you don't really enjoy these frescos, nor come often here, do you? The reason of which is, that if you are a nice person, they are not nice enough for you; and if a vulgar person, not vulgar enough. But if you are a nice person, I want you to look carefully, to-day, at the two lowest, next the windows, for a few minutes, that you may better feel the art you are really to study, by its contrast with these. On your left hand is represented the birth of the Virgin, On your right, her meeting with Elizabeth. You can't easily see better pieces--nowhere more pompous pieces--of flat goldsmiths' work. Ghirlandajo was to the end of his life a mere goldsmith, with a gift of portraiture. And here he has done his best, and has put a long wall in wonderful perspective, and the whole city of Florence behind Elizabeth's house in the hill country; and a splendid bas-relief, in the style of Luca della Robbia, in St. Anne's bedroom; and he has carved all the pilasters, and embroidered all the dresses, and flourished and trumpeted into every corner; and it is all done, within just a point, as well as it can be done; and quite as well as Ghirlandajo could do it. But the point in which it _just_ misses being as well as it can be done, is the vital point. And it is all simply--good for nothing. Extricate yourself from the goldsmith's rubbish of it, and look full at the Salutation. You will say, perhaps, at first, "What grand and graceful figures!" Are you sure they are graceful? Look again and you will see their draperies hang from them exactly as they would from two clothes-pegs. Now, fine drapery, really well drawn, as it hangs from a clothes-peg, is always rather impressive, especially if it be disposed in large breadths and deep folds; but that is the only grace of their figures. Secondly. Look at the Madonna, carefully. You will find she is not the least meek--only stupid,--as all the other women in the picture are. "St. Elizabeth, you think, is nice"? Yes; "and she says, 'Whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?' really with a great deal of serious feeling?" Yes, with a great deal. Well, you have looked enough at those two. Now--just for another minute--look at the birth of the Virgin. "A most graceful group, (your Murray's Guide tells you,) in the attendant servants." Extremely so. Also, the one holding the child is rather pretty. Also, the servant pouring out the water does it from a great height, without splashing, most cleverly. Also, the lady coming to ask for St. Anne, and see the baby, walks majestically and is very finely dressed. And as for that bas-relief in the style of Luca della Robbia, you might really almost think it _was_ Luca! The very best plated goods, Master Ghirlandajo, no doubt--always on hand at your shop. Well, now you must ask for the Sacristan, who is civil and nice enough, and get him to let you into the green cloister, and then go into the less cloister opening out of it on the right, as you go down the steps; and you must ask for the tomb of the Marcheza Stiozzi Ridolfi; and in the recess behind the Marcheza's tomb--very close to the ground, and in excellent light, if the day is fine--you will see two small frescos, only about four feet wide each, in odd-shaped bits of wall--quarters of circles; representing--that on the left, the Meeting of Joachim and Anna at the Golden Gate; and that on the right, the Birth of the Virgin. No flourish of trumpets here, at any rate, you think! No gold on the gate; and, for the birth of the Virgin--is this all! Goodness!--nothing to be seen, whatever, of bas-reliefs, nor fine dresses, nor graceful pourings out of water, nor processions of visitors? No. There's but one thing you can see, here, which you didn't in Ghirlandajo's fresco, unless you were very clever and looked hard for it--the Baby! And you are never likely to see a more true piece of Giotto's work in this world. A round-faced, small-eyed little thing, tied up in a bundle! Yes, Giotto was of opinion she must have appeared really not much else than that. But look at the servant who has just finished dressing her;--awe-struck, full of love and wonder, putting her hand softly on the child's head, who has never cried. The nurse, who has just taken her, is--the nurse, and no more: tidy in the extreme, and greatly proud and pleased: but would be as much so with any other child. Ghirlandajo's St. Anne (I ought to have told you to notice that,--you can afterwards) is sitting strongly up in bed, watching, if not directing, all that is going on. Giotto's lying down on the pillow, leans her face on her hand; partly exhausted, partly in deep thought. She knows that all will be well done for the child, either by the servants, or God; she need not look after anything. At the foot of the bed is the midwife, and a servant who has brought drink for St. Anne. The servant stops, seeing her so quiet; asking the midwife, Shall I give it her now? The midwife, her hands lifted under her robe, in the attitude of thanksgiving, (with Giotto distinguishable always, though one doesn't know how, from that of prayer,) answers, with her look, "Let be--she does not want anything." At the door a single acquaintance is coming in, to see the child. Of ornament, there is only the entirely simple outline of the vase which the servant carries; of colour, two or three masses of sober red, and pure white, with brown and gray. That is all. And if you can be pleased with this, you can see Florence. But if not, by all means amuse yourself there, if you find it amusing, as long as you like; you can never see it. But if indeed you are pleased, ever so little, with this fresco, think what that pleasure means. I brought you, on purpose, round, through the richest overture, and farrago of tweedledum and tweedledee, I could find in Florence; and here is a tune of four notes, on a shepherd's pipe, played by the picture of nobody; and yet you like it! You know what music is, then. Here is another little tune, by the same player, and sweeter. I let you hear the simplest first. The fresco on the left hand, with the bright blue sky, and the rosy figures! Why, anybody might like that! Yes; but, alas, all the blue sky is repainted. It _was_ blue always, however, and bright too; and I dare say, when the fresco was first done, anybody _did_ like it. You know the story of Joachim and Anna, I hope? Not that I do, myself, quite in the ins and outs; and if you don't I'm not going to keep you waiting while I tell it. All you need know, and you scarcely, before this fresco, need know so much, is, that here are an old husband and old wife, meeting again by surprise, after losing each other, and being each in great fear;--meeting at the place where they were told by God each to go, without knowing what was to happen there. "So they rushed into one another's arms, and kissed each other." No, says Giotto,--not that. "They advanced to meet, in a manner conformable to the strictest laws of composition; and with their draperies cast into folds which no one until Raphael could have arranged better." No, says Giotto,--not that. St. Anne has moved quickest; her dress just falls into folds sloping backwards enough to tell you so much. She has caught St. Joachim by his mantle, and draws him to her, softly, by that. St. Joachim lays his hand under her arm, seeing she is like to faint, and holds her up. They do not kiss each other--only look into each other's eyes. And God's angel lays his hand on their heads. Behind them, there are two rough figures, busied with their own affairs,--two of Joachim's shepherds; one, bare headed, the other wearing the wide Florentine cap with the falling point behind, which is exactly like the tube of a larkspur or violet; both carrying game, and talking to each other about--Greasy Joan and her pot, or the like. Not at all the sort of persons whom you would have thought in harmony with the scene;--by the laws of the drama, according to Racine or Voltaire. No, but according to Shakespeare, or Giotto, these are just the kind of persons likely to be there: as much as the angel is likely to be there also, though you will be told nowadays that Giotto was absurd for putting _him_ into the sky, of which an apothecary can always produce the similar blue, in a bottle. And now that you have had Shakespeare, and sundry other men of head and heart, following the track of this shepherd lad, _you_ can forgive him his grotesques in the corner. But that he should have forgiven them to himself, after the training he had, this is the wonder! _We_ have seen simple pictures enough in our day; and therefore we think that of course shepherd boys will sketch shepherds: what wonder is there in that? I can show you how in _this_ shepherd boy it was very wonderful indeed, if you will walk for five minutes back into the church with me, and up into the chapel at the end of the south transept,--at least if the day is bright, and you get the Sacristan to undraw the window-curtain in the transept itself. For then the light of it will be enough to show you the entirely authentic and most renowned work of Giotto's master; and you will see through what schooling the lad had gone. A good and brave master he was, if ever boy had one; and, as you will find when you know really who the great men are, the master is half their life; and well they know it--always naming themselves from their master, rather than their families. See then what kind of work Giotto had been first put to. There is, literally, not a square inch of all that panel--some ten feet high by six or seven wide--which is not wrought in gold and colour with the fineness of a Greek manuscript. There is not such an elaborate piece of ornamentation in the first page of any Gothic king's missal, as you will find in that Madonna's throne;--the Madonna herself is meant to be grave and noble only; and to be attended only by angels. And here is this saucy imp of a lad declares his people must do without gold, and without thrones; nay, that the Golden Gate itself shall have no gilding that St. Joachim and St. Anne shall have only one angel between them: and their servants shall have their joke, and nobody say them nay! It is most wonderful; and would have been impossible, had Cimabue been a common man, though ever so great in his own way. Nor could I in any of my former thinking understand how it was, till I saw Cimabue's own work at Assisi; in which he shows himself, at heart, as independent of his gold as Giotto,--even more intense, capable of higher things than Giotto, though of none, perhaps, so keen or sweet. But to this day, among all the Mater Dolorosas of Christianity, Cimabue's at Assisi is the noblest; nor did any painter after him add one link to the chain of thought with which he summed the creation of the earth, and preached its redemption. He evidently never checked the boy, from the first day he found him. Showed him all he knew: talked with him of many things he felt himself unable to paint: made him a workman and a gentleman,--above all, a Christian,--yet left him--a shepherd. And Heaven had made him such a painter, that, at his height, the words of his epitaph are in nowise overwrought: "Ille ego sum, per quem pictura extincta revixit." A word or two, now, about the repainting by which _this_ pictura extincta has been revived to meet existing taste. The sky is entirely daubed over with fresh blue; yet it leaves with unusual care the original outline of the descending angel, and of the white clouds about his body. This idea of the angel laying his hands on the two heads--(as a bishop at Confirmation does, in a hurry; and I've seen one sweep four together, like Arnold de Winkelied),--partly in blessing, partly as a symbol of their being brought together to the same place by God,--was afterwards repeated again and again: there is one beautiful little echo of it among the old pictures in the schools of Oxford. This is the first occurrence of it that I know in pure Italian painting; but the idea is Etruscan-Greek, and is used by the Etruscan sculptors of the door of the Baptistery of Pisa, of the _evil_ angel, who "lays the heads together" of two very different persons from these--Herodias and her daughter. Joachim, and the shepherd with the larkspur cap, are both quite safe; the other shepherd a little reinforced; the black bunches of grass, hanging about are retouches. They were once bunches of plants drawn with perfect delicacy and care; you may see one left, faint, with heart-shaped leaves, on the highest ridge of rock above the shepherds. The whole landscape is, however, quite undecipherably changed and spoiled. You will be apt to think at first, that if anything has been restored, surely the ugly shepherd's uglier feet have. No, not at all. Restored feet are always drawn with entirely orthodox and academical toes, like the Apollo Belvidere's. You would have admired them very much. These are Giotto's own doing, every bit; and a precious business he has had of it, trying again and again--in vain. Even hands were difficult enough to him, at this time; but feet, and bare legs! Well, he'll have a try, he thinks, and gets really a fair line at last, when you are close to it; but, laying the light on the ground afterwards, he dare not touch this precious and dear-bought outline. Stops all round it, a quarter of an inch off, [Footnote: Perhaps it is only the restorer's white on the ground that stops; but I think a restorer would never have been so wise, but have gone right up to the outline, and spoiled all.] with such effect as you see. But if you want to know what sort of legs and feet he _can_ draw, look at our _lambs_, in the corner of the fresco under the arch on your left! And there is one on your right, though more repainted--the little Virgin presenting herself at the Temple,--about which I could also say much. The stooping figure, kissing the hem of her robe without her knowing, is, as far as I remember, first in this fresco; the origin, itself, of the main design in all the others you know so well; (and with its steps, by the way, in better perspective already than most of them). "_This_ the original one!" you will be inclined to exclaim, if you have any general knowledge of the subsequent art. "_This_ Giotto! why it's a cheap rechauffé of Titian!" No, my friend. The boy who tried so hard to draw those steps in perspective had been carried down others, to his grave, two hundred years before Titian ran alone at Cadore. But, as surely as Venice looks on the sea, Titian looked upon this, and caught the reflected light of it forever. What kind of boy is this, think you, who can make Titian his copyist,--Dante his friend? What new power is here which is to change the heart of Italy?--can you see it, feel it, writing before you these words on the faded wall? "You shall see things--as they Are." "And the least with the greatest, because God made them." "And the greatest with the least, because God made _you_, and gave you eyes and a heart." I. You shall see things--as they are. So easy a matter that, you think? So much more difficult and sublime to paint grand processions and golden thrones, than St. Anne faint on her pillow, and her servant at pause? Easy or not, it is all the sight that is required of you in this world,--to see things, and men, and yourself,--as they are. II. And the least with the greatest, because God made them,--shepherd, and flock, and grass of the field, no less than the Golden Gate. III. But also the golden gate of Heaven itself, open, and the angels of God coming down from it. These three things Giotto taught, and men believed, in his day. Of which Faith you shall next see brighter work; only before we leave the cloister, I want to sum for you one or two of the instant and evident technical changes produced in the school of Florence by this teaching. One of quite the first results of Giotto's simply looking at things as they were, was his finding out that a red thing was red, and a brown thing brown, and a white thing white--all over. The Greeks had painted anything anyhow,--gods black, horses red, lips and cheeks white; and when the Etruscan vase expanded into a Cimabue picture, or a Tafi mosaic, still,--except that the Madonna was to have a blue dress, and everything else as much gold on it as could be managed,--there was very little advance in notions of colour. Suddenly, Giotto threw aside all the glitter, and all the conventionalism; and declared that he saw the sky blue, the tablecloth white, and angels, when he dreamed of them, rosy. And he simply founded the schools of colour in Italy--Venetian and all, as I will show you to-morrow morning, if it is fine. And what is more, nobody discovered much about colour after him. But a deeper result of his resolve to look at things as they were, was his getting so heartily interested in them that he couldn't miss their decisive _moment_. There is a decisive instant in all matters; and if you look languidly, you are sure to miss it. Nature seems always, somehow, trying to make you miss it. "I will see that through," you must say, "with out turning my head"; or you won't see the trick of it at all. And the most significant thing in all his work, you will find hereafter, is his choice of moments. I will give you at once two instances in a picture which, for other reasons, you should quickly compare with these frescos. Return by the Via delle Belle Donne; keep the Casa Strozzi on your right; and go straight on, through the market. The Florentines think themselves so civilized, forsooth, for building a nuovo Lung-Arno, and three manufactory chimneys opposite it: and yet sell butchers' meat, dripping red, peaches, and anchovies, side by side: it is a sight to be seen. Much more, Luca della Robbia's Madonna in the circle above the chapel door. Never pass near the market without looking at it; and glance from the vegetables underneath to Luca's leaves and lilies, that you may see how honestly he was trying to make his clay like the garden-stuff. But to-day, you may pass quickly on to the Uffizii, which will be just open; and when you enter the great gallery, turn to the right, and there, the first picture you come at will be No. 6, Giotto's "Agony in the garden." I used to think it so dull that I could not believe it was Giotto's. That is partly from its dead colour, which is the boy's way of telling you it is night:--more from the subject being one quite beyond his age, and which he felt no pleasure in trying at. You may see he was still a boy, for he not only cannot draw feet yet, in the least, and scrupulously hides them therefore; but is very hard put to it for the hands, being obliged to draw them mostly in the same position,--all the four fingers together. But in the careful bunches of grass and weeds you will see what the fresco foregrounds were before they got spoiled; and there are some things he can understand already, even about that Agony, thinking of it in his own fixed way. Some things,--not altogether to be explained by the old symbol of the angel with the cup. He will try if he cannot explain them better in those two little pictures below; which nobody ever looks at; the great Roman sarcophagus being put in front of them, and the light glancing on the new varnish so that you must twist about like a lizard to see anything. Nevertheless, you may make out what Giotto meant. "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" In what was its bitterness?--thought the boy. "Crucifixion?--Well, it hurts, doubtless; but the thieves had to bear it too, and many poor human wretches have to bear worse on our battlefields. But"--and he thinks, and thinks, and then he paints his two little pictures for the predella. They represent, of course, the sequence of the time in Gethsemane; but see what choice the youth made of his moments, having two panels to fill. Plenty of choice for him--in pain. The Flagellation--the Mocking--the Bearing of the Cross;--all habitually given by the Margheritones, and their school, as extremes of pain. "No," thinks Giotto. "There was worse than all that. Many a good man has been mocked, spitefully entreated, spitted on, slain. But who was ever so betrayed? Who ever saw such a sword thrust in his mother's heart?" He paints, first, the laying hands on Him in the garden, but with only two principal figures,--Judas and Peter, of course; Judas and Peter were always principal in the old Byzantine composition,--Judas giving the kiss--Peter cutting off the servant's ear. But the two are here, not merely principal, but almost alone in sight, all the other figures thrown back; and Peter is not at all concerned about the servant, or his struggle with him. He has got him down,--but looks back suddenly at Judas giving the kiss. What!--_you_ are the traitor, then--you! "Yes," says Giotto; "and you, also, in an hour more." The other picture is more deeply felt, still. It is of Christ brought to the foot of the cross. There is no wringing of hands or lamenting crowd--no haggard signs of fainting or pain in His body. Scourging or fainting, feeble knee and torn wound,--he thinks scorn of all that, this shepherd-boy. One executioner is hammering the wedges of the cross harder down. The other--not ungently--is taking Christ's red robe off His shoulders. And St. John, a few yards off, is keeping his mother from coming nearer. She looks _down_, not at Christ; but tries to come. And now you may go on for your day's seeings through the rest of the gallery, if you will--Fornarina, and the wonderful cobbler, and all the rest of it. I don't want you any more till to-morrow morning. But if, meantime, you will sit down,--say, before Sandro Botticelli's "Fortitude," which I shall want you to look at, one of these days; (No. 1299, innermost room from the Tribune,) and there read this following piece of one of my Oxford lectures on the relation of Cimabue to Giotto, you will be better prepared for our work to-morrow morning in Santa Croce; and may find something to consider of, in the room you are in. Where, by the way, observe that No. 1288 is a most true early Lionardo, of extreme interest: and the savants who doubt it are--never mind what; but sit down at present at the feet of Fortitude, and read. Those of my readers who have been unfortunate enough to interest themselves in that most profitless of studies--the philosophy of art--have been at various times teased or amused by disputes respecting the relative dignity of the contemplative and dramatic schools. Contemplative, of course, being the term attached to the system of painting things only for the sake of their own niceness--a lady because she is pretty, or a lion because he is strong: and the dramatic school being that which cannot be satisfied unless it sees something going on: which can't paint a pretty lady unless she is being made love to, or being murdered; and can't paint a stag or a lion unless they are being hunted, or shot, or the one eating the other. You have always heard me--or, if not, will expect by the very tone of this sentence to hear me, now, on the whole recommend you to prefer the Contemplative school. But the comparison is always an imperfect and unjust one, unless quite other terms are introduced. The real greatness or smallness of schools is not in their preference of inactivity to action, nor of action to inactivity. It is in their preference of worthy things to unworthy, in rest; and of kind action to unkind, in business. A Dutchman can be just as solemnly and entirely contemplative of a lemon pip and a cheese paring, as an Italian of the Virgin in Glory. An English squire has pictures, purely contemplative, of his favorite horse--and a Parisian lady, pictures, purely contemplative, of the back and front of the last dress proposed to her in La Mode Artistique. All these works belong to the same school of silent admiration;--the vital question concerning them is, "What do you admire?" Now therefore, when you hear me so often saying that the Northern races--Norman and Lombard,--are active, or dramatic, in their art; and that the Southern races--Greek and Arabian,--are contemplative, you ought instantly to ask farther, Active in what? Contemplative of what? And the answer is, The active art--Lombardic,--rejoices in hunting and fighting; the contemplative art--Byzantine,--contemplates the mysteries of the Christian faith. And at first, on such answer, one would be apt at once to conclude--All grossness must be in the Lombard; all good in the Byzantine. But again we should be wrong,--and extremely wrong. For the hunting and fighting did practically produce strong, and often virtuous, men; while the perpetual and inactive contemplation of what it was impossible to understand, did not on the whole render the contemplative persons, stronger, wiser, or even more amiable. So that, in the twelfth century, while the Northern art was only in need of direction, the Southern was in need of life. The North was indeed spending its valour and virtue on ignoble objects; but the South disgracing the noblest objects by its want of valour and virtue. Central stood Etruscan Florence--her root in the earth, bound with iron and brass--wet with the dew of heaven. Agriculture in occupation, religious in thought, she accepted, like good ground, the good; refused, like the Rock of Fesole, the evil; directed the industry of the Northman into the arts of peace; kindled the dreams of the Byzantine with the fire of charity. Child of her peace, and exponent of her passion, her Cimabue became the interpreter to mankind of the meaning of the Birth of Christ. We hear constantly, and think naturally, of him as of a man whose peculiar genius in painting suddenly reformed its principles; who suddenly painted, out of his own gifted imagination, beautiful instead of rude pictures; and taught his scholar Giotto to carry on the impulse; which we suppose thenceforward to have enlarged the resources and bettered the achievements of painting continually, up to our own time,--when the triumphs of art having been completed, and its uses ended, something higher is offered to the ambition of mankind; and Watt and Faraday initiate the Age of Manufacture and Science, as Cimabue and Giotto instituted that of Art and Imagination. In this conception of the History of Mental and Physical culture, we much overrate the influence, though we cannot overrate the power, of the men by whom the change seems to have been effected. We cannot overrate their power,--for the greatest men of any age, those who become its leaders when there is a great march to be begun, are indeed separated from the average intellects of their day by a distance which is immeasurable in any ordinary terms of wonder. But we far overrate their influence; because the apparently sudden result of their labour or invention is only the manifested fruit of the toil and thought of many who preceded them, and of whose names we have never heard. The skill of Cimabue cannot be extolled too highly; but no Madonna by his hand could ever have rejoiced the soul of Italy, unless for a thousand years before, many a nameless Greek and nameless Goth had adorned the traditions, and lived in the love, of the Virgin. In like manner, it is impossible to overrate the sagacity, patience, or precision, of the masters in modern mechanical and scientific discovery. But their sudden triumph, and the unbalancing of all the world by their words, may not in any wise be attributed to their own power, or even to that of the facts they have ascertained. They owe their habits and methods of industry to the paternal example, no less than the inherited energy, of men who long ago prosecuted the truths of nature, through the rage of war, and the adversity of superstition; and the universal and overwhelming consequences of the facts which their followers have now proclaimed, indicate only the crisis of a rapture produced by the offering of new objects of curiosity to nations who had nothing to look at; and of the amusement of novel motion and action to nations who had nothing to do. Nothing to look at! That is indeed--you will find, if you consider of it--our sorrowful case. The vast extent of the advertising frescos of London, daily refreshed into brighter and larger frescos by its billstickers, cannot somehow sufficiently entertain the popular eyes. The great Mrs. Allen, with her flowing hair, and equally flowing promises, palls upon repetition, and that Madonna of the nineteenth century smiles in vain above many a borgo unrejoiced; even the excitement of the shop-window, with its unattainable splendours, or too easily attainable impostures, cannot maintain itself in the wearying mind of the populace, and I find my charitable friends inviting the children, whom the streets educate only into vicious misery, to entertainments of scientific vision, in microscope or magic lantern; thus giving them something to look at, such as it is;--fleas mostly; and the stomachs of various vermin; and people with their heads cut off and set on again;--still _something_, to look at. The fame of Cimabue rests, and justly, on a similar charity. He gave the populace of his day something to look at; and satisfied their curiosity with science of something they had long desired to know. We have continually imagined in our carelessness, that his triumph consisted only in a new pictorial skill; recent critical writers, unable to comprehend how any street populace could take pleasure in painting, have ended by denying his triumph altogether, and insisted that he gave no joy to Florence; and that the "Joyful quarter" was accidentally so named--or at least from no other festivity than that of the procession attending Charles of Anjou. I proved to you, in a former lecture, that the old tradition was true, and the delight of the people unquestionable. But that delight was not merely in the revelation of an art they had not known how to practise; it was delight in the revelation of a Madonna whom they had not known how to love. Again; what was revelation to _them_--we suppose farther and as unwisely, to have been only art in _him_; that in better laying of colours,--in better tracing of perspectives--in recovery of principles, of classic composition--he had manufactured, as our Gothic Firms now manufacture to order, a Madonna--in whom he believed no more than they. Not so. First of the Florentines, first of European men--he attained in thought, and saw with spiritual eyes, exercised to discern good from evil,--the face of her who was blessed among women; and with his following hand, made visible the Magnificat of his heart. He magnified the Maid; and Florence rejoiced in her Queen. But it was left for Giotto to make the queenship better beloved, in its sweet humiliation. You had the Etruscan stock in Florence--Christian, or at least semi-Christian; the statue of Mars still in its streets, but with its central temple built for Baptism in the name of Christ. It was a race living by agriculture; gentle, thoughtful, and exquisitely fine in handiwork. The straw bonnet of Tuscany--the Leghorn--is pure Etruscan art, young ladies:--only plaited gold of God's harvest, instead of the plaited gold of His earth. You had then the Norman and Lombard races coming down on this: kings, and hunters--splendid in war--insatiable of action. You had the Greek and Arabian races flowing from the east, bringing with them the law of the City, and the dream of the Desert. Cimabue--Etruscan born, gave, we saw, the life of the Norman to the tradition of the Greek: eager action to holy contemplation. And what more is left for his favourite shepherd boy Giotto to do, than this, except to paint with ever-increasing skill? We fancy he only surpassed Cimabue--eclipsed by greater brightness. Not so. The sudden and new applause of Italy would never have been won by mere increase of the already-kindled light. Giotto had wholly another work to do. The meeting of the Norman race with the Byzantine is not merely that of action with repose--not merely that of war with religion,--it is the meeting of _domestic_ life with _monastic_, and of practical household sense with unpractical Desert insanity. I have no other word to use than this last. I use it reverently, meaning a very noble thing; I do not know how far I ought to say--even a divine thing. Decide that for yourselves. Compare the Northern farmer with St. Francis; the palm hardened by stubbing Thornaby waste, with the palm softened by the imagination of the wounds of Christ. To my own thoughts, both are divine; decide that for yourselves; but assuredly, and without possibility of other decision, one is, humanly speaking, healthy; the other _un_healthy; one sane, the other--insane. To reconcile Drama with Dream, Cimabue's task was comparatively an easy one. But to reconcile Sense with--I still use even this following word reverently--Nonsense, is not so easy; and he who did it first,--no wonder he has a name in the world. I must lean, however, still more distinctly on the word "domestic." For it is not Rationalism and commercial competition--Mr. Stuart Mill's" other career for woman than that of wife and mother "--which are reconcilable, by Giotto, or by anybody else, with divine vision. But household wisdom, labour of love, toil upon earth according to the law of Heaven--these are reconcilable, in one code of glory, with revelation in cave or island, with the endurance of desolate and loveless days, with the repose of folded hands that wait Heaven's time. Domestic and monastic. He was the first of Italians--the first of Christians--who _equally_ knew the virtue of both lives; and who was able to show it in the sight of men of all ranks,--from the prince to the shepherd; and of all powers,--from the wisest philosopher to the simplest child. For, note the way in which the new gift of painting, bequeathed to him by his great master, strengthened his hands. Before Cimabue, no beautiful rendering of human form was possible; and the rude or formal types of the Lombard and Byzantine, though they would serve in the tumult of the chase, or as the recognized symbols of creed, could not represent personal and domestic character. Faces with goggling eyes and rigid lips might be endured with ready help of imagination, for gods, angels, saints, or hunters--or for anybody else in scenes of recognized legend, but would not serve for pleasant portraiture of one's own self--or of the incidents of gentle, actual life. And even Cimabue did not venture to leave the sphere of conventionally reverenced dignity. He still painted--though beautifully--only the Madonna, and the St. Joseph, and the Christ. These he made living,--Florence asked no more: and "Credette Cimabue nella pintura tener lo campo." But Giotto came from the field, and saw with his simple eyes a lowlier worth. And he painted--the Madonna, and St. Joseph, and the Christ,--yes, by all means if you choose to call them so, but essentially,--Mamma, Papa, and the Baby. And all Italy threw up its cap,--"Ora ha Giotto il grido." For he defines, explains, and exalts, every sweet incident of human nature; and makes dear to daily life every mystic imagination of natures greater than our own. He reconciles, while he intensifies, every virtue of domestic and monastic thought. He makes the simplest household duties sacred, and the highest religious passions serviceable and just. THE THIRD MORNING. BEFORE THE SOLDAN. I promised some note of Sandro's Fortitude, before whom I asked you to sit and read the end of my last letter; and I've lost my own notes about her, and forget, now, whether she has a sword, or a mace;--it does not matter. What is chiefly notable in her is--that you would not, if you had to guess who she was, take her for Fortitude at all. Everybody else's Fortitudes announce themselves clearly and proudly. They have tower-like shields, and lion-like helmets--and stand firm astride on their legs,--and are confidently ready for all comers. Yes;--that is your common Fortitude. Very grand, though common. But not the highest, by any means. Ready for all comers, and a match for them,--thinks the universal Fortitude;--no thanks to her for standing so steady, then! But Botticelli's Fortitude is no match, it may be, for any that are coming. Worn, somewhat; and not a little weary, instead of standing ready for all comers, she is sitting,--apparently in reverie, her fingers playing restlessly and idly--nay, I think--even nervously, about the hilt of her sword. For her battle is not to begin to-day; nor did it begin yesterday. Many a morn and eve have passed since it began--and now--is this to be the ending day of it? And if this--by what manner of end? That is what Sandro's Fortitude is thinking. And the playing fingers about the sword-hilt would fain let it fall, if it might be: and yet, how swiftly and gladly will they close on it, when the far-off trumpet blows, which she will hear through all her reverie! There is yet another picture of Sandro's here, which you must look at before going back to Giotto: the small Judith in the room next the Tribune, as you return from this outer one. It is just under Lionardo's Medusa. She is returning to the camp of her Israel, followed by her maid carrying the head of Holofernes. And she walks in one of Botticelli's light dancing actions, her drapery all on flutter, and her hand, like Fortitude's, light on the sword-hilt, but daintily--not nervously, the little finger laid over the cross of it. And at the first glance--you will think the figure merely a piece of fifteenth-century affectation. 'Judith, indeed!--say rather the daughter of Herodias, at her mincingest.' Well, yes--Botticelli _is_ affected, in the way that all men in that century necessarily were. Much euphuism, much studied grace of manner, much formal assertion of scholarship, mingling with his force of imagination. And he likes twisting the fingers of hands about, just as Correggio does. But he never does it like Correggio, without cause. Look at Judith again,--at her face, not her drapery,--and remember that when a man is base at the heart, he blights his virtues into weaknesses; but when he is true at the heart, he sanctifies his weaknesses into virtues. It is a weakness of Botticelli's, this love of dancing motion and waved drapery; but why has he given it full flight here? Do you happen to know anything about Judith yourself, except that she cut off Holofernes' head; and has been made the high light of about a million of vile pictures ever since, in which the painters thought they could surely attract the public to the double show of an execution, and a pretty woman,--especially with the added pleasure of hinting at previously ignoble sin? When you go home to-day, take the pains to write out for yourself, in the connection I here place them, the verses underneath numbered from the book of Judith; you will probably think of their meaning more carefully as you write. Begin thus: "Now at that time, Judith heard thereof, which was the daughter of Merari, ... the son of Simeon, the son of Israel." And then write out, consecutively, these pieces-- Chapt. viii., verses 2 to 8. (Always inclusive,) and read the whole chapter. Chapt. ix., verses 1 and 5 to 7, beginning this piece with the previous sentence, "Oh God, oh my God, hear me also, a widow." Chapt. ix., verses 11 to 14. Chapter x., verses 1 to 5. Chapter xiii., verses 6 to 10. Chapter xv., verses 11 to 13. Chapter xvi., verses 1 to 6. Chapter xvi., verses 11 to 15. Chapter xvi., verses 18 and 19. Chapter xvi., verses 23 to 25. Now, as in many other cases of noble history, apocryphal and other, I do not in the least care how far the literal facts are true. The conception of facts, and the idea of Jewish womanhood, are there, grand and real as a marble statue,--possession for all ages. And you will feel, after you have read this piece of history, or epic poetry, with honourable care, that there is somewhat more to be thought of and pictured in Judith, than painters have mostly found it in them to show you; that she is not merely the Jewish Delilah to the Assyrian Samson; but the mightiest, purest, brightest type of high passion in severe womanhood offered to our human memory. Sandro's picture is but slight; but it is true to her, and the only one I know that is; and after writing out these verses, you will see why he gives her that swift, peaceful motion, while you read in her face, only sweet solemnity of dreaming thought. "My people delivered, and by my hand; and God has been gracious to His handmaid!" The triumph of Miriam over a fallen host, the fire of exulting mortal life in an immortal hour, the purity and severity of a guardian angel--all are here; and as her servant follows, carrying indeed the head, but invisible--(a mere thing to be carried--no more to be so much as thought of)--she looks only at her mistress, with intense, servile, watchful love. Faithful, not in these days of fear only, but hitherto in all her life, and afterwards forever. After you have seen it enough, look also for a little while at Angelico's Marriage and Death of the Virgin, in the same room; you may afterwards associate the three pictures always together in your mind. And, looking at nothing else to-day in the Uffizi, let us go back to Giotto's chapel. We must begin with this work on our left hand, the Death of St. Francis; for it is the key to all the rest. Let us hear first what Mr. Crowe directs us to think of it. "In the composition of this scene, Giotto produced a masterpiece, which served as a model but too often feebly imitated by his successors. Good arrangement, variety of character and expression in the heads, unity and harmony in the whole, make this an exceptional work of its kind. As a composition, worthy of the fourteenth century, Ghirlandajo and Benedetto da Majano both imitated, without being able to improve it. No painter ever produced its equal except Raphael; nor could a better be created except in so far as regards improvement in the mere rendering of form." To these inspiring observations by the rapturous Crowe, more cautious Cavalcasella [Footnote: I venture to attribute the wiser note to Signor Cavalcasella because I have every reason to put real confidence in his judgment. But it was impossible for any man, engaged as he is, to go over all the ground covered by so extensive a piece of critical work as these three volumes contain, with effective attention.] appends a refrigerating note, saying, "The St. Francis in the glory is new, but the angels are in part preserved. The rest has all been more or less retouched; and no judgment can be given as to the colour of this--or any other (!)--of these works." You are, therefore--instructed reader--called upon to admire a piece of art which no painter ever produced the equal of except Raphael; but it is unhappily deficient, according to Crowe, in the "mere rendering of form"; and, according to Signor Cavalcasella, "no opinion can be given as to its colour." Warned thus of the extensive places where the ice is dangerous, and forbidden to look here either for form or colour, you are to admire "the variety of character and expression in the heads." I do not myself know how these are to be given without form or colour; but there appears to me, in my innocence, to be only one head in the whole picture, drawn up and down in different positions. The "unity and harmony" of the whole--which make this an exceptional work of its kind--mean, I suppose, its general look of having been painted out of a scavenger's cart; and so we are reduced to the last article of our creed according to Crowe,-- "In the composition of this scene Giotto produced a masterpiece." Well, possibly. The question is, What you mean by 'composition.' Which, putting modern criticism now out of our way, I will ask the reader to think, in front of this wreck of Giotto, with some care. Was it, in the first place, to Giotto, think you, the "composition of a scene," or the conception of a fact? You probably, if a fashionable person, have seen the apotheosis of Margaret in Faust? You know what care is taken, nightly, in the composition of that scene,--how the draperies are arranged for it; the lights turned off, and on; the fiddlestrings taxed for their utmost tenderness; the bassoons exhorted to a grievous solemnity. You don't believe, however, that any real soul of a Margaret ever appeared to any mortal in that manner? _Here_ is an apotheosis also. Composed!--yes; figures high on the right and left, low in the middle, etc., etc., etc. But the important questions seem to me, Was there ever a St. Francis?--_did_ he ever receive stigmata?--_did_his soul go up to heaven--did any monk see it rising--and did Giotto mean to tell us so? If you will be good enough to settle these few small points in your mind first, the "composition" will take a wholly different aspect to you, according to your answer. Nor does it seem doubtful to me what your answer, after investigation made, must be. There assuredly was a St. Francis, whose life and works you had better study than either to-day's Galignani, or whatever, this year, may supply the place of the Tichborne case, in public interest. His reception of the stigmata is, perhaps, a marvellous instance of the power of imagination over physical conditions; perhaps an equally marvellous instance of the swift change of metaphor into tradition; but assuredly, and beyond dispute, one of the most influential, significant, and instructive traditions possessed by the Church of Christ. And, that, if ever soul rose to heaven from the dead body, his soul did so rise, is equally sure. And, finally, Giotto believed that all he was called on to represent, concerning St. Francis, really had taken place, just as surely as you, if you are a Christian, believe that Christ died and rose again; and he represents it with all fidelity and passion: but, as I just now said, he is a man of supreme common sense;--has as much humour and clearness of sight as Chaucer, and as much dislike of falsehood in clergy, or in professedly pious people: and in his gravest moments he will still see and say truly that what is fat, is fat--and what is lean, lean--and what is hollow, empty. His great point, however, in this fresco, is the assertion of the reality of the stigmata against all question. There is not only one St. Thomas to be convinced; there are five;--one to each wound. Of these, four are intent only on satisfying their curiosity, and are peering or probing; one only kisses the hand he has lifted. The rest of the picture never was much more than a grey drawing of a noble burial service; of all concerned in which, one monk, only, is worthy to see the soul taken up to heaven; and he is evidently just the monk whom nobody in the convent thought anything of. (His face is all repainted; but one can gather this much, or little, out of it, yet.) Of the composition, or "unity and harmony of the whole," as a burial service, we may better judge after we have looked at the brighter picture of St. Francis's Birth--birth spiritual, that is to say, to his native heaven; the uppermost, namely, of the three subjects on this side of the chapel. It is entirely characteristic of Giotto; much of it by his hand--all of it beautiful. All important matters to be known of Giotto you may know from this fresco. 'But we can't see it, even with our opera-glasses, but all foreshortened and spoiled. What is the use of lecturing us on this?' That is precisely the first point which is essentially Giottesque in it; its being so out of the way! It is this which makes it a perfect specimen of the master. I will tell you next something about a work of his which you can see perfectly, just behind you on the opposite side of the wall; but that you have half to break your neck to look at this one, is the very first thing I want you to feel. It is a characteristic--(as far as I know, quite a universal one)--of the greatest masters, that they never expect you to look at them; seem always rather surprised if you want to; and not overpleased. Tell them you are going to hang their picture at the upper end of the table at the next great City dinner, and that Mr. So and So will make a speech about it; you produce no impression upon them whatever, or an unfavourable one. The chances are ten to one they send you the most rubbishy thing they can find in their lumber-room. But send for one of them in a hurry, and tell him the rats have gnawed a nasty hole behind the parlor door, and you want it plastered and painted over;--and he does you a masterpiece which the world will peep behind your door to look at for ever. I have no time to tell you why this is so; nor do I know why, altogether; but so it is. Giotto, then, is sent for, to paint this high chapel: I am not sure if he chose his own subjects from the life of St. Francis: I think so,--but of course can't reason on the guess securely. At all events, he would have much of his own way in the matter. Now you must observe that painting a Gothic chapel rightly is just the same thing as painting a Greek vase rightly. The chapel is merely the vase turned upside-down, and outside-in. The principles of decoration are exactly the same. Your decoration is to be proportioned to the size of your vase; to be together delightful when you look at the cup, or chapel, as a whole; to be various and entertaining when you turn the cup round; (you turn _yourself_ round in the chapel;) and to bend its heads and necks of figures about, as it best can, over the hollows, and ins and outs, so that anyhow, whether too long or too short-possible or impossible--they may be living, and full of grace. You will also please take it on my word today--in another morning walk you shall have proof of it--that Giotto was a pure Etruscan-Greek of the thirteenth century: converted indeed to worship St. Francis instead of Heracles; but as far as vase-painting goes, precisely the Etruscan he was before. This is nothing else than a large, beautiful, coloured Etruscan vase you have got, inverted over your heads like a diving-bell.' [Footnote: I observe that recent criticism is engaged in proving all Etruscan vases to be of late manufacture, in imitation of archaic Greek. And I therefore must briefly anticipate a statement which I shall have to enforce in following letters. Etruscan art remains in its own Italian valleys, of the Arno and upper Tiber, in one unbroken series of work, from the seventh century before Christ, to this hour, when the country whitewasher still scratches his plaster in Etruscan patterns. All Florentine work of the finest kind--Luca della Robbia's, Ghiberti's, Donatello's, Filippo Lippi's, Botticelli's, Fra Angelico's--is absolutely pure Etruscan, merely changing its subjects, and representing the Virgin instead of Athena, and Christ instead of Jupiter. Every line of the Florentine chisel in the fifteenth century is based on national principles of art which existed in the seventh century before Christ; and Angelico, in his convent of St. Dominic, at the foot of the hill of Fésole, is as true an Etruscan as the builder who laid the rude stones of the wall along its crest--of which modern civilization has used the only arch that remained for cheap building stone. Luckily, I sketched it in 1845. but alas, too carelessly,--never conceiving of the brutalities of modern Italy as possible.] Accordingly, after the quatrefoil ornamentation of the top of the bell, you get two spaces at the sides under arches, very difficult to cramp one's picture into, if it is to be a picture only; but entirely provocative of our old Etruscan instinct of ornament. And, spurred by the difficulty, and pleased by the national character of it, we put our best work into these arches, utterly neglectful of the public below,--who will see the white and red and blue spaces, at any rate, which is all they will want to see, thinks Giotto, if he ever looks down from his scaffold. Take the highest compartment, then, on the left, looking towards the window. It was wholly impossible to get the arch filled with figures, unless they stood on each other's heads; so Giotto ekes it out with a piece of fine architecture. Raphael, in the Sposalizio, does the same, for pleasure. Then he puts two dainty little white figures, bending, on each flank, to stop up his corners. But he puts the taller inside on the right, and outside on the left. And he puts his Greek chorus of observant and moralizing persons on each side of his main action. Then he puts one Choragus--or leader of chorus, supporting the main action--on each side. Then he puts the main action in the middle--which is a quarrel about that white bone of contention in the centre. Choragus on the right, who sees that the bishop is going to have the best of it, backs him serenely. Choragus on the left, who sees that his impetuous friend is going to get the worst of it, is pulling him back, and trying to keep him quiet. The subject of the picture, which, after you are quite sure it is good as a decoration, but not till then, you may be allowed to understand, is the following. One of St. Francis's three great virtues being Obedience, he begins his spiritual life by quarreling with his father. He, I suppose in modern terms I should say, commercially invests some of his father's goods in charity. His father objects to that investment; on which St. Francis runs away, taking what he can find about the house along with him. His father follows to claim his property, but finds it is all gone, already; and that St. Francis has made friends with the Bishop of Assisi. His father flies into an indecent passion, and declares he will disinherit him; on which St. Francis then and there takes all his clothes off, throws them frantically in his father's face, and says he has nothing more to do with clothes or father. The good Bishop, in tears of admiration, embraces St. Francis, and covers him with his own mantle. I have read the picture to you as, if Mr. Spurgeon knew anything about art, Mr. Spurgeon would read it,--that is to say, from the plain, common sense, Protestant side. If you are content with that view of it, you may leave the chapel, and, as far as any study of history is concerned, Florence also; for you can never know anything either about Giotto, or her. Yet do not be afraid of my re-reading it to you from the mystic, nonsensical, and Papistical side. I am going to read it to you--if after many and many a year of thought, I am able--as Giotto meant it; Giotto being, as far as we know, then the man of strongest brain and hand in Florence; the best friend of the best religious poet of the world; and widely differing, as his friend did also, in his views of the world, from either Mr. Spurgeon, or Pius IX. The first duty of a child is to obey its father and mother; as the first duty of a citizen to obey the laws of his state. And this duty is so strict that I believe the only limits to it are those fixed by Isaac and Iphigenia. On the other hand, the father and mother have also a fixed duty to the child--not to provoke it to wrath. I have never heard this text explained to fathers and mothers from the pulpit, which is curious. For it appears to me that God will expect the parents to understand their duty to their children, better even than children can be expected to know their duty to their parents. But farther. A _child's_ duty is to obey its parents. It is never said anywhere in the Bible, and never was yet said in any good or wise book, that a man's, or woman's, is. _When,_ precisely, a child becomes a man or a woman, it can no more be said, than when it should first stand on its legs. But a time assuredly comes when it should. In great states, children are always trying to remain children, and the parents wanting to make men and women of them. In vile states, the children are always wanting to be men and women, and the parents to keep them children. It may be--and happy the house in which it is so--that the father's at least equal intellect, and older experience, may remain to the end of his life a law to his children, not of force, but of perfect guidance, with perfect love. Rarely it is so; not often possible. It is as natural for the old to be prejudiced as for the young to be presumptuous; and, in the change of centuries, each generation has something to judge of for itself. But this scene, on which Giotto has dwelt with so great force, represents, not the child's assertion of his independence, but his adoption of another Father. You must not confuse the desire of this boy of Assisi to obey God rather than man, with the desire of your young cockney Hopeful to have a latch-key, and a separate allowance. No point of duty has been more miserably warped and perverted by false priests, in all churches, than this duty of the young to choose whom they will serve. But the duty itself does not the less exist; and if there be any truth in Christianity at all, there will come, for all true disciples, a time when they have to take that saying to heart, "He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me." '_Loveth_'--observe. There is no talk of disobeying fathers or mothers whom you do not love, or of running away from a home where you would rather not stay. But to leave the home which is your peace, and to be at enmity with those who are most dear to you,--this, if there be meaning in Christ's words, one day or other will be demanded of His true followers. And there is meaning in Christ's words. Whatever misuse may have been made of them,--whatever false prophets--and Heaven knows there have been many--have called the young children to them, not to bless, but to curse, the assured fact remains, that if you will obey God, there will come a moment when the voice of man will be raised, with all its holiest natural authority, against you. The friend and the wise adviser--the brother and the sister--the father and the master--the entire voice of your prudent and keen-sighted acquaintance--the entire weight of the scornful stupidity of the vulgar world--for _once_, they will be against you, all at one. You have to obey God rather than man. The human race, with all its wisdom and love, all its indignation and folly, on one side,--God alone on the other. You have to choose. That is the meaning of St. Francis's renouncing his inheritance; and it is the beginning of Giotto's gospel of Works. Unless this hardest of deeds be done first,--this inheritance of mammon and the world cast away,--all other deeds are useless. You cannot serve, cannot obey, God and mammon. No charities, no obediences, no self-denials, are of any use, while you are still at heart in conformity with the world. You go to church, because the world goes. You keep Sunday, because your neighbours keep it. But you dress ridiculously, because your neighbours ask it; and you dare not do a rough piece of work, because your neighbours despise it. You must renounce your neighbour, in his riches and pride, and remember him in his distress. That is St. Francis's 'disobedience.' And now you can understand the relation of subjects throughout the chapel, and Giotto's choice of them. The roof has the symbols of the three virtues of labour--Poverty, Chastity, Obedience. A. Highest on the left side, looking to the window. The life of St. Francis begins in his renunciation of the world. B. Highest on the right side. His new life is approved and ordained by the authority of the church. C. Central on the left side. He preaches to his own disciples. D. Central on the right side. He preaches to the heathen. E. Lowest on the left side. His burial. F. Lowest on the right side. His power after death. Besides these six subjects, there are, on the sides of the window, the four great Franciscan saints, St. Louis of France, St. Louis of Toulouse, St. Clare, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. So that you have in the whole series this much given you to think of: first, the law of St. Francis's conscience; then, his own adoption of it; then, the ratification of it by the Christian Church; then, his preaching it in life; then, his preaching it in death; and then, the fruits of it in his disciples. I have only been able myself to examine, or in any right sense to see, of this code of subjects, the first, second, fourth, and the St. Louis and Elizabeth. I will ask _you_ only to look at two more of them, namely, St. Francis before the Soldan, midmost on your right, and St. Louis. The Soldan, with an ordinary opera-glass, you may see clearly enough; and I think it will be first well to notice some technical points in it. If the little virgin on the stairs of the temple reminded you of one composition of Titian's, this Soldan should, I think, remind you of all that is greatest in Titian; so forcibly, indeed, that for my own part, if I had been told that a careful early fresco by Titian had been recovered in Santa Croce, I could have believed both report and my own eyes, more quickly than I have been able to admit that this is indeed by Giotto. It is so great that--had its principles been understood-there was in reality nothing more to be taught of art in Italy; nothing to be invented afterwards, except Dutch effects of light. That there is no 'effect of light' here arrived at, I beg you at once to observe as a most important lesson. The subject is St. Francis challenging the Soldan's Magi,--fire-worshippers--to pass with him through the fire, which is blazing red at his feet. It is so hot that the two Magi on the other side of the throne shield their faces. But it is represented simply as a red mass of writhing forms of flame; and casts no firelight whatever. There is no ruby colour on anybody's nose: there are no black shadows under anybody's chin; there are no Rembrandtesque gradations of gloom, or glitterings of sword-hilt and armour. Is this ignorance, think you, in Giotto, and pure artlessness? He was now a man in middle life, having passed all his days in painting, and professedly, and almost contentiously, painting things as he saw them. Do you suppose he never saw fire cast firelight?--and he the friend of Dante! who of all poets is the most subtle in his sense of every kind of effect of light--though he has been thought by the public to know that of fire only. Again and again, his ghosts wonder that there is no shadow cast by Dante's body; and is the poet's friend, _because_ a painter, likely, therefore, not to have known that mortal substance casts shadow, and terrestrial flame, light? Nay, the passage in the 'Purgatorio' where the shadows from the morning sunshine make the flames redder, reaches the accuracy of Newtonian science; and does Giotto, think you, all the while, see nothing of the sort? The fact was, he saw light so intensely that he never for an instant thought of painting it. He knew that to paint the sun was as impossible as to stop it; and he was no trickster, trying to find out ways of seeming to do what he did not. I can paint a rose,--yes; and I will. I can't paint a red-hot coal; and I won't try to, nor seem to. This was just as natural and certain a process of thinking with _him_, as the honesty of it, and true science, were impossible to the false painters of the sixteenth century. Nevertheless, what his art can honestly do to make you feel as much as he wants you to feel, about this fire, he will do; and that studiously. That the fire be _luminous_ or not, is no matter just now. But that the fire is _hot_, he would have you to know. Now, will you notice what colours he has used in the whole picture. First, the blue background, necessary to unite it with the other three subjects, is reduced to the smallest possible space. St. Francis must be in grey, for that is his dress; also the attendant of one of the Magi is in grey; but so warm, that, if you saw it by itself, you would call it brown. The shadow behind the throne, which Giotto knows he _can_ paint, and therefore does, is grey also. The rest of the picture [Footnote: The floor has been repainted; but though its grey is now heavy and cold, it cannot kill the splendour of the rest.] in at least six-sevenths of its area--is either crimson, gold, orange, purple, or white, all as warm as Giotto could paint them; and set off by minute spaces only of intense black,--the Soldan's fillet at the shoulders, his eyes, beard, and the points necessary in the golden pattern behind. And the whole picture is one glow. A single glance round at the other subjects will convince you of the special character in this; but you will recognize also that the four upper subjects, in which St. Francis's life and zeal are shown, are all in comparatively warm colours, while the two lower ones--of the death, and the visions after it--have been kept as definitely sad and cold. Necessarily, you might think, being full of monks' dresses. Not so. Was there any need for Giotto to have put the priest at the foot of the dead body, with the black banner stooped over it in the shape of a grave? Might he not, had he chosen, in either fresco, have made the celestial visions brighter? Might not St. Francis have appeared in the centre of a celestial glory to the dreaming Pope, or his soul been seen of the poor monk, rising through more radiant clouds? Look, however, how radiant, in the small space allowed out of the blue, they are in reality. You cannot anywhere see a lovelier piece of Giottesque colour, though here, you have to mourn over the smallness of the piece, and its isolation. For the face of St. Francis himself is repainted, and all the blue sky; but the clouds and four sustaining angels are hardly retouched at all, and their iridescent and exquisitely graceful wings are left with really very tender and delicate care by the restorer of the sky. And no one but Giotto or Turner could have painted them. For in all his use of opalescent and warm colour, Giotto is exactly like Turner, as, in his swift expressional power, he is like Gainsborough. All the other Italian religious painters work out their expression with toil; he only can give it with a touch. All the other great Italian colourists see only the beauty of colour, but Giotto also its brightness. And none of the others, except Tintoret, understood to the full its symbolic power; but with those--Giotto and Tintoret--there is always, not only a colour harmony, but a colour secret. It is not merely to make the picture glow, but to remind you that St. Francis preaches to a fire-worshipping king, that Giotto covers the wall with purple and scarlet;--and above, in the dispute at Assisi, the angry father is dressed in red, varying like passion; and the robe with which his protector embraces St. Francis, blue, symbolizing the peace of Heaven, Of course certain conventional colours were traditionally employed by all painters; but only Giotto and Tintoret invent a symbolism of their own for every picture. Thus in Tintoret's picture of the fall of the manna, the figure of God the Father is entirely robed in white, contrary to all received custom: in that of Moses striking the rock, it is surrounded by a rainbow. Of Giotto's symbolism in colour at Assisi, I have given account elsewhere. [Footnote: 'Fors Clavigera' for September, 1874.] You are not to think, therefore, the difference between the colour of the upper and lower frescos unintentional. The life of St. Francis was always full of joy and triumph. His death, in great suffering, weariness, and extreme humility. The tradition of him reverses that of Elijah; living, he is seen in the chariot of fire; dying, he submits to more than the common sorrow of death. There is, however, much more than a difference in colour between the upper and lower frescos. There is a difference in manner which I cannot account for; and above all, a very singular difference in skill,--indicating, it seems to me, that the two lower were done long before the others, and afterwards united and harmonized with them. It is of no interest to the general reader to pursue this question; but one point he can notice quickly, that the lower frescos depend much on a mere black or brown outline of the features, while the faces above are evenly and completely painted in the most accomplished Venetian manner:--and another, respecting the management of the draperies, contains much interest for us. Giotto never succeeded, to the very end of his days, in representing a figure lying down, and at ease. It is one of the most curious points in all his character. Just the thing which he could study from nature without the smallest hindrance, is the thing he never can paint; while subtleties of form and gesture, which depend absolutely on their momentariness, and actions in which no model can stay for an instant, he seizes with infallible accuracy. Not only has the sleeping Pope, in the right hand lower fresco, his head laid uncomfortably on his pillow, but all the clothes on him are in awkward angles, even Giotto's instinct for lines of drapery failing him altogether when he has to lay it on a reposing figure. But look at the folds of the Soldan's robe over his knees. None could be more beautiful or right; and it is to me wholly inconceivable that the two paintings should be within even twenty years of each other in date--the skill in the upper one is so supremely greater. We shall find, however, more than mere truth in its casts of drapery, if we examine them. They are so simply right, in the figure of the Soldan, that we do not think of them;--we see him only, not his dress But we see dress first, in the figures of the discomfited Magi. Very fully draped personages these, indeed,--with trains, it appears, four yards long, and bearers of them. The one nearest the Soldan has done his devoir as bravely as he could; would fain go up to the fire, but cannot; is forced to shield his face, though he has not turned back. Giotto gives him full sweeping breadth of fold; what dignity he can;--a man faithful to his profession, at all events. The next one has no such courage. Collapsed altogether, he has nothing more to say for himself or his creed. Giotto hangs the cloak upon him, in Ghirlandajo's fashion, as from a peg, but with ludicrous narrowness of fold. Literally, he is a 'shut-up' Magus--closed like a fan. He turns his head away, hopelessly. And the last Magus shows nothing but his back, disappearing through the door. Opposed to them, in a modern work, you would have had a St. Francis standing as high as he could in his sandals, contemptuous, denunciatory; magnificently showing the Magi the door. No such thing, says Giotto. A somewhat mean man; disappointing enough in presence-even in feature; I do not understand his gesture, pointing to his forehead--perhaps meaning, 'my life, or my head, upon the truth of this.' The attendant monk behind him is terror-struck; but will follow his master. The dark Moorish servants of the Magi show no emotion--will arrange their masters' trains as usual, and decorously sustain their retreat. Lastly, for the Soldan himself. In a modern work, you would assuredly have had him staring at St. Francis with his eyebrows up, or frowning thunderously at his Magi, with them bent as far down as they would go. Neither of these aspects does he bear, according to Giotto. A perfect gentleman and king, he looks on his Magi with quiet eyes of decision; he is much the noblest person in the room--though an infidel, the true hero of the scene, far more than St. Francis. It is evidently the Soldan whom Giotto wants you to think of mainly, in this picture of Christian missionary work. He does not altogether take the view of the Heathen which you would get in an Exeter Hall meeting. Does not expatiate on their ignorance, their blackness, or their nakedness. Does not at all think of the Florentine Islington and Pentonville, as inhabited by persons in every respect superior to the kings of the East; nor does he imagine every other religion but his own to be log-worship. Probably the people who really worship logs--whether in Persia or Pentonville--will be left to worship logs to their hearts' content, thinks Giotto. But to those who worship _God_, and who have obeyed the laws of heaven written in their hearts, and numbered the stars of it visible to them,--to these, a nearer star may rise; and a higher God be revealed. You are to note, therefore, that Giotto's Soldan is the type of all noblest religion and law, in countries where the name of Christ has not been preached. There was no doubt what king or people should be chosen: the country of the three Magi had already been indicated by the miracle of Bethlehem; and the religion and morality of Zoroaster were the purest, and in spirit the oldest, in the heathen world. Therefore, when Dante, in the nineteenth and twentieth books of the Paradise, gives his final interpretation of the law of human and divine justice in relation to the gospel of Christ--the lower and enslaved body of the heathen being represented by St. Philip's convert, ("Christians like these the Ethiop shall condemn")--the noblest state of heathenism is at once chosen, as by Giotto: "What may the _Persians_ say unto _your_ kings?" Compare also Milton,-- "At the Soldan's chair, Defied the best of Paynim chivalry." And now, the time is come for you to look at Giotto's St. Louis, who is the type of a Christian king. You would, I suppose, never have seen it at all, unless I had dragged you here on purpose. It was enough in the dark originally--is trebly darkened by the modern painted glass--and dismissed to its oblivion contentedly by Mr. Murray's "Four saints, all much restored and repainted," and Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcasella's serene "The St. Louis is quite new." Now, I am the last person to call any restoration whatever, judicious. Of all destructive manias, that of restoration is the frightfullest and foolishest. Nevertheless, what good, in its miserable way, it can bring, the poor art scholar must now apply his common sense to take; there is no use, because a great work has been restored, in now passing it by altogether, not even looking for what instruction we still may find in its design, which will be more intelligible, if the restorer has had any conscience at all, to the ordinary spectator, than it would have been in the faded work. When, indeed, Mr. Murray's Guide tells you that a _building_ has been 'magnificently restored,' you may pass the building by in resigned despair; for _that_ means that every bit of the old sculpture has been destroyed, and modern vulgar copies put up in its place. But a restored picture or fresco will often be, to _you_, more useful than a pure one; and in all probability--if an important piece of art--it will have been spared in many places, cautiously completed in others, and still assert itself in a mysterious way--as Leonardo's Cenacolo does--through every phase of reproduction. [Footnote: For a test of your feeling in the matter, having looked well at these two lower frescos in this chapel, walk round into the next, and examine the lower one on your left hand as you enter that. You will find in your Murray that the frescos in this chapel "were also till lately, (1862) covered with whitewash"; but I happen to have a long critique of this particular picture written in the year 1845, and I see no change in it since then. Mr. Murray's critic also tells you to observe in it that "the daughter of Herodias playing on a violin is not unlike Perugino's treatment of similar subjects." By which Mr. Murray's critic means that the male musician playing on a violin, whom, without looking either at his dress, or at the rest of the fresco, he took for the daughter of Herodias, has a broad face. Allowing you the full benefit of this criticism--there is still a point or two more to be observed. This is the only fresco near the ground in which Giotto's work is untouched, at least, by the modern restorer. So felicitously safe it is, that you may learn from it at once and for ever, what good fresco painting is--how quiet--how delicately clear--how little coarsely or vulgarly attractive--how capable of the most tender light and shade, and of the most exquisite and enduring colour. In this latter respect, this fresco stands almost alone among the works of Giotto; the striped curtain behind the table being wrought with a variety and fantasy of playing colour which Paul Veronese could not better at his best. You will find, without difficulty, in spite of the faint tints, the daughter of Herodias in the middle of the picture---slowly _moving_, not dancing, to the violin music--she herself playing on a lyre. In the farther corner of the picture, she gives St. John's head to her mother; the face of Herodias is almost entirely faded, which may be a farther guarantee to you of the safety of the rest. The subject of the Apocalypse, highest on the right, is one of the most interesting mythic pictures in Florence; nor do I know any other so completely rendering the meaning of the scene between the woman in the wilderness, and the Dragon enemy. But it cannot be seen from the floor level: and I have no power of showing its beauty in words.] But I can assure you, in the first place, that St. Louis is by no means altogether new. I have been up at it, and found most lovely and true colour left in many parts: the crown, which you will find, after our mornings at the Spanish chapel, is of importance, nearly untouched; the lines of the features and hair, though all more or less reproduced, still of definite and notable character; and the junction throughout of added colour so careful, that the harmony of the whole, if not delicate with its old tenderness, is at least, in its coarser way, solemn and unbroken. Such as the figure remains, it still possesses extreme beauty--profoundest interest. And, as you can see it from below with your glass, it leaves little to be desired, and may be dwelt upon with more profit than nine out of ten of the renowned pictures of the Tribune or the Pitti. You will enter into the spirit of it better if I first translate for you a little piece from the Fioretti di San Francesco. _"How St. Louis, King of France, went personally in the guise of a pilgrim, to Perugia, to visit the holy Brother Giles._--St. Louis, King of France, went on pilgrimage to visit the sanctuaries of the world; and hearing the most great fame of the holiness of Brother Giles, who had been among the first companions of St. Francis, put it in his heart, and determined assuredly that he would visit him personally; wherefore he came to Perugia, where was then staying the said brother. And coming to the gate of the place of the Brothers, with few companions, and being unknown, he asked with great earnestness for Brother Giles, telling nothing to the porter who he was that asked. The porter, therefore, goes to Brother Giles, and says that there is a pilgrim asking for him at the gate. And by God it was inspired in him and revealed that it was the King of France; whereupon quickly with great fervour he left his cell and ran to the gate, and without any question asked, or ever having seen each other before, kneeling down together with greatest devotion, they embraced and kissed each other with as much familiarity as if for a long time they had held great friendship; but all the while neither the one nor the other spoke, but stayed, so embraced, with such signs of charitable love, in silence. And so having remained for a great while, they parted from one another, and St. Louis went on his way, and Brother Giles returned to his cell. And the King being gone, one of the brethren asked of his companion who he was, who answered that he was the King of France. Of which the other brothers being told, were in the greatest melancholy because Brother Giles had never said a word to him; and murmuring at it, they said, 'Oh, Brother Giles, wherefore hadst thou so country manners that to so holy a king, who had come from France to see thee and hear from thee some good word, thou hast spoken nothing?' "Answered Brother Giles: 'Dearest brothers, wonder not ye at this, that neither I to him, nor he to me, could speak a word; for so soon as we had embraced, the light of the divine wisdom revealed and manifested, to me, his heart, and to him, mine; and so by divine operation we looked each in the other's heart on what we would have said to one another, and knew it better far than if we had spoken with the mouth, and with more consolation, because of the defect of the human tongue, which cannot clearly express the secrets of God, and would have been for discomfort rather than comfort. And know, therefore, that the King parted from me marvellously content, and comforted in his mind.'" Of all which story, not a word, of course, is credible by any rational person. Certainly not: the spirit, nevertheless, which created the story, is an entirely indisputable fact in the history of Italy and of mankind. Whether St. Louis and Brother Giles ever knelt together in the street of Perugia matters not a whit. That a king and a poor monk could be conceived to have thoughts of each other which no words could speak; and that indeed the King's tenderness and humility made such a tale credible to the people,--this is what you have to meditate on here. Nor is there any better spot in the world,--whencesoever your pilgrim feet may have journeyed to it, wherein to make up so much mind as you have in you for the making, concerning the nature of Kinghood and Princedom generally; and of the forgeries and mockeries of both which are too often manifested in their room. For it happens that this Christian and this Persian King are better painted here by Giotto than elsewhere by any one, so as to give you the best attainable conception of the Christian and Heathen powers which have both received, in the book which Christians profess to reverence, the same epithet as the King of the Jews Himself; anointed, or Christos:--and as the most perfect Christian Kinghood was exhibited in the life, partly real, partly traditional, of St. Louis, so the most perfect Heathen Kinghood was exemplified in the life, partly real, partly traditional, of Cyrus of Persia, and in the laws for human government and education which had chief force in his dynasty. And before the images of these two Kings I think therefore it will be well that you should read the charge to Cyrus, written by Isaiah. The second clause of it, if not all, will here become memorable to you--literally illustrating, as it does, the very manner of the defeat of the Zoroastrian Magi, on which Giotto founds his Triumph of Faith. I write the leading sentences continuously; what I omit is only their amplification, which you can easily refer to at home. (Isaiah xliv. 24, to xlv. 13.) "Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb. I the Lord that maketh all; that stretcheth forth the heavens, alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth, alone; _that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge, foolish; that confirmeth the word of his Servant, and fulfilleth the counsel of his messengers_: that saith of Cyrus, He is my Shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, 'thou shalt be built,' and to the temple, 'thy foundations shall be laid." "Thus saith the Lord to his Christ;--to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of Kings. "I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron; and I will give _thee_ the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. "For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name; I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. "I am the Lord, and there is none else; there is no God beside me. I girded thee, though thou hast not known me. That they may know, from the _rising of the sun_, and from the west, that there is none beside me; I am the Lord and there is none else. _I form the light_, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things. "I have raised him up in Righteousness, and will direct all his ways; he shall build my city, and let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of Nations." To this last verse, add the ordinance of Cyrus in fulfilling it, that you may understand what is meant by a King's being "raised up in Righteousness," and notice, with respect to the picture under which you stand, the Persian King's thought of the Jewish temple. "In the first year of the reign of Cyrus, [Footnote: 1st Esdras vi. 24.] King Cyrus commanded that the house of the Lord at Jerusalem should be built again, _where they do service with perpetual fire_; (the italicized sentence is Darius's, quoting Cyrus's decree--the decree itself worded thus), Thus saith Cyrus, King of Persia: [Footnote: Ezra i. 3, and 2nd Esdras ii. 3.] The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem. "Who is there among you of all his people?--his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and let the men of his place help him with silver and with gold, and with goods and with beasts." Between which "bringing the prisoners out of captivity" and modern liberty, free trade, and anti-slavery eloquence, there is no small interval. To these two ideals of Kinghood, then, the boy has reached, since the day he was drawing the lamb on the stone, as Cimabue passed by. You will not find two other such, that I know of, in the west of Europe; and yet there has been many a try at the painting of crowned heads,--and King George III and Queen Charlotte, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, are very fine, no doubt. Also your black-muzzled kings of Velasquez, and Vandyke's long-haired and white-handed ones; and Rubens' riders--in those handsome boots. Pass such shadows of them as you can summon, rapidly before your memory--then look at this St. Louis. His face--gentle, resolute, glacial-pure, thin-cheeked; so sharp at the chin that the entire head is almost of the form of a knight's shield--the hair short on the forehead, falling on each side in the old Greek-Etruscan curves of simplest line, to the neck; I don't know if you can see without being nearer, the difference in the arrangement of it on the two sides-the mass of it on the right shoulder bending inwards, while that on the left falls straight. It is one of the pretty changes which a modern workman would never dream of--and which assures me the restorer has followed the old lines rightly. He wears a crown formed by an hexagonal pyramid, beaded with pearls on the edges: and walled round, above the brow, with a vertical fortress-parapet, as it were, rising into sharp pointed spines at the angles: it is chasing of gold with pearl--beautiful in the remaining work of it; the Soldan wears a crown of the same general form; the hexagonal outline signifying all order, strength, and royal economy. We shall see farther symbolism of this kind, soon, by Simon Memmi, in the Spanish chapel. I cannot tell you anything definite of the two other frescos--for I can only examine one or two pictures in a day; and never begin with one till I have done with another; and I had to leave Florence without looking at these--even so far as to be quite sure of their subjects. The central one on the left is either the twelfth subject of Assisi--St. Francis in Ecstacy; [Footnote: "Represented" (next to St. Francis before the Soldan, at Assisi) "as seen one night by the brethren, praying, elevated from the ground, his hands extended like the cross, and surrounded by a shining cloud."--_Lord Lindsay_.] or the eighteenth, the Apparition of St. Francis at Arles; [Footnote: "St. Anthony of Padua was preaching at a general chapter of the order, held at Arles, in 1224, when St. Francis appeared in the midst, his arms extended, and in an attitude of benediction."--_Lord Lindsay_.] while the lowest on the right may admit choice between two subjects in each half of it: my own reading of them would be--that they are the twenty-first and twenty-fifth subjects of Assisi, the Dying Friar [Footnote: "A brother of the order, lying on his deathbed, saw the spirit of St. Francis rising to heaven, and springing forward, cried, 'Tarry, Father, I come with thee!' and fell back dead."--_Lord Lindsay_.] and Vision of Pope Gregory IX.; [Footnote: "He hesitated, before canonizing St. Francis; doubting the celestial infliction of the stigmata. St. Francis appeared to him in a vision, and with a severe countenance reproving his unbelief, opened his robe, and, exposing the wound in his side, filled a vial with the blood that flowed from it, and gave it to the Pope, who awoke and found it in his hand."--_Lord Lindsay_.] but Crowe and Cavalcasella may be right in their different interpretation; [Footnote: "As St. Francis was carried on his bed of sickness to St. Maria degli Angeli, he stopped at an hospital on the roadside, and ordering his attendants to turn his head in the direction of Assisi, he rose in his litter and said, 'Blessed be thou amongst cities! may the blessing of God cling to thee, oh holy place, for by thee shall many souls be saved;' and, having said this, he lay down and was carried on to St. Maria degli Angeli. On the evening of the 4th of October his death was revealed at the very hour to the bishop of Assisi on Mount Sarzana."--_Crowe and Cavalcasella._] in any case, the meaning of the entire system of work remains unchanged, as I have given it above. THE FOURTH MORNING. THE VAULTED BOOK. As early as may be this morning, let us look for a minute or two into the cathedral:--I was going to say, entering by one of the side doors of the aisles;--but we can't do anything else, which perhaps might not strike you unless you were thinking specially of it. There are no transept doors; and one never wanders round to the desolate front. From either of the side doors, a few paces will bring you to the middle of the nave, and to the point opposite the middle of the third arch from the west end; where you will find yourself--if well in the mid-wave--standing on a circular slab of green porphyry, which marks the former place of the grave of the bishop Zenobius. The larger inscription, on the wide circle of the floor outside of you, records the translation of his body; the smaller one round the stone at your feet--"quiescimus, domum hanc quum adimus ultimam"--is a painful truth, I suppose, to travellers like us, who never rest anywhere now, if we can help it. Resting here, at any rate, for a few minutes, look up to the whitewashed vaulting of the compartment of the roof next the west end. You will see nothing whatever in it worth looking at. Nevertheless, look a little longer. But the longer you look, the less you will understand why I tell you to look. It is nothing but a whitewashed ceiling: vaulted indeed,--but so is many a tailor's garret window, for that matter. Indeed, now that you have looked steadily for a minute or so, and are used to the form of the arch, it seems to become so small that you can almost fancy it the ceiling of a good-sized lumber-room in an attic. Having attained to this modest conception of it, carry your eyes back to the similar vault of the second compartment, nearer you. Very little further contemplation will reduce that also to the similitude of a moderately-sized attic. And then, resolving to bear, if possible--for it is worth while,--the cramp in your neck for another quarter of a minute, look right up to the third vault, over your head; which, if not, in the said quarter of a minute, reducible in imagination to a tailor's garret, will at least sink, like the two others, into the semblance of a common arched ceiling, of no serious magnitude or majesty. Then, glance quickly down from it to the floor, and round at the space, (included between the four pillars), which that vault covers. It is sixty feet square,[Footnote: Approximately. Thinking I could find the dimensions of the duomo anywhere, I only paced it myself,--and cannot, at this moment, lay my hand on English measurements of it.]--four hundred square yards of pavement,--and I believe you will have to look up again more than once or twice, before you can convince yourself that the mean-looking roof is swept indeed over all that twelfth part of an acre. And still less, if I mistake not, will you, without slow proof, believe, when you turn yourself round towards the east end, that the narrow niche (it really looks scarcely more than a niche) which occupies, beyond the dome, the position of our northern choirs, is indeed the unnarrowed elongation of the nave, whose breadth extends round you like a frozen lake. From which experiments and comparisons, your conclusion, I think, will be, and I am sure it ought to be, that the most studious ingenuity could not produce a design for the interior of a building which should more completely hide its extent, and throw away every common advantage of its magnitude, than this of the Duomo of Florence. Having arrived at this, I assure you, quite securely tenable conclusion, we will quit the cathedral by the western door, for once, and as quickly as we can walk, return to the Green cloister of Sta. Maria Novella; and place ourselves on the south side of it, so as to see as much as we can of the entrance, on the opposite side, to the so-called 'Spanish Chapel.' There is, indeed, within the opposite cloister, an arch of entrance, plain enough. But no chapel, whatever, externally manifesting itself as worth entering. No walls, or gable, or dome, raised above the rest of the outbuildings--only two windows with traceries opening into the cloister; and one story of inconspicuous building above. You can't conceive there should be any effect of _magnitude_ produced in the interior, however it has been vaulted or decorated. It may be pretty, but it cannot possibly look large. Entering it, nevertheless, you will be surprised at the effect of height, and disposed to fancy that the circular window cannot surely be the same you saw outside, looking so low, I had to go out again, myself, to make sure that it was. And gradually, as you let the eye follow the sweep of the vaulting arches, from the small central keystone-boss, with the Lamp carved on it, to the broad capitals of the hexagonal pillars at the angles,--there will form itself in your mind, I think, some impression not only of vastness in the building, but of great daring in the builder; and at last, after closely following out the lines of a fresco or two, and looking up and up again to the coloured vaults, it will become to you literally one of the grandest places you ever entered, roofed without a central pillar. You will begin to wonder that human daring ever achieved anything so magnificent. But just go out again into the cloister, and recover knowledge of the facts. It is nothing like so large as the blank arch which at home we filled with brickbats or leased for a gin-shop under the last railway we made to carry coals to Newcastle. And if you pace the floor it covers, you will find it is three feet less one way, and thirty feet less the other, than that single square of the Cathedral which was roofed like a tailor's loft,--accurately, for I did measure here, myself, the floor of the Spanish chapel is fifty-seven feet by thirty-two. I hope, after this experience, that you will need no farther conviction of the first law of noble building, that grandeur depends on proportion and design--not, except in a quite secondary degree, on magnitude. Mere size has, indeed, under all disadvantage, some definite value; and so has mere splendour. Disappointed as you may be, or at least ought to be, at first, by St. Peter's, in the end you will feel its size,--and its brightness. These are all you _can_ feel in it--it is nothing more than the pump-room at Leamington built bigger;--but the bigness tells at last: and Corinthian pillars whose capitals alone are ten feet high, and their acanthus leaves, three feet six long, give you a serious conviction of the infallibility of the Pope, and the fallibility of the wretched Corinthians, who invented the style indeed, but built with capitals no bigger than hand-baskets. Vastness _has_ thus its value. But the glory of architecture is to be--whatever you wish it to be,--lovely, or grand, or comfortable,--on such terms as it can easily obtain. Grand, by proportion--lovely, by imagination--comfortable, by ingenuity--secure, by honesty: with such materials and in such space as you have got to give it. Grand--by proportion, I said; but ought to have said by _dis_proportion. Beauty is given by the relation of parts--size, by their comparison. The first secret in getting the impression of size in this chapel is the _dis_proportion between pillar and arch. You take the pillar for granted,--it is thick, strong, and fairly high above your head. You look to the vault springing from it--and it soars away, nobody knows where. Another great, but more subtle secret is in the _in_equality and immeasurability of the curved lines; and the hiding of the form by the colour. To begin, the room, I said, is fifty-seven feet wide, and only thirty-two deep. It is thus nearly one-third larger in the direction across the line of entrance, which gives to every arch, pointed and round, throughout the roof, a different spring from its neighbours. The vaulting ribs have the simplest of all profiles--that of a chamfered beam. I call it simpler than even that of a square beam; for in barking a log you cheaply get your chamfer, and nobody cares whether the level is alike on each side: but you must take a larger tree, and use much more work to get a square. And it is the same with stone. And this profile is--fix the conditions of it, therefore, in your mind,--venerable in the history of mankind as the origin of all Gothic tracery-mouldings; venerable in the history of the Christian Church as that of the roof ribs, both of the lower church of Assisi, bearing the scroll of the precepts of St. Francis, and here at Florence, bearing the scroll of the faith of St. Dominic. If you cut it out in paper, and cut the corners off farther and farther, at every cut, you will produce a sharper profile of rib, connected in architectural use with differently treated styles. But the entirely venerable form is the massive one in which the angle of the beam is merely, as it were, secured and completed in stability by removing its too sharp edge. Well, the vaulting ribs, as in Giotto's vault, then, have here, under their painting, this rude profile: but do not suppose the vaults are simply the shells cast over them. Look how the ornamental borders fall on the capitals! The plaster receives all sorts of indescribably accommodating shapes--the painter contracting and stopping his design upon it as it happens to be convenient. You can't measure anything; you can't exhaust; you can't grasp,--except one simple ruling idea, which a child can grasp, if it is interested and intelligent: namely, that the room has four sides with four tales told upon them; and the roof four quarters, with another four tales told on those. And each history in the sides has its correspondent history in the roof. Generally, in good Italian decoration, the roof represents constant, or essential facts; the walls, consecutive histories arising out of them, or leading up to them. Thus here, the roof represents in front of you, in its main quarter, the Resurrection--the cardinal fact of Christianity; opposite (above, behind you), the Ascension; on your left hand, the descent of the Holy Spirit; on your right, Christ's perpetual presence with His Church, symbolized by His appearance on the Sea of Galilee to the disciples in the storm. The correspondent walls represent: under the first quarter, (the Resurrection), the story of the Crucifixion; under the second quarter, (the Ascension), the preaching after that departure, that Christ will return--symbolized here in the Dominican church by the consecration of St. Dominic; under the third quarter, (the descent of the Holy Spirit), the disciplining power of human virtue and wisdom; under the fourth quarter, (St. Peter's Ship), the authority and government of the State and Church. The order of these subjects, chosen by the Dominican monks themselves, was sufficiently comprehensive to leave boundless room for the invention of the painter. The execution of it was first intrusted to Taddeo Gaddi, the best architectural master of Giotto's school, who painted the four quarters of the roof entirely, but with no great brilliancy of invention, and was beginning to go down one of the sides, when, luckily, a man of stronger brain, his friend, came from Siena. Taddeo thankfully yielded the room to him; he joined his own work to that of his less able friend in an exquisitely pretty and complimentary way; throwing his own greater strength into it, not competitively, but gradually and helpfully. When, however, he had once got himself well joined, and softly, to the more simple work, he put his own force on with a will and produced the most noble piece of pictorial philosophy [Footnote: There is no philosophy _taught_ either by the school of Athens or Michael Angelo's 'Last Judgment,' and the 'Disputa' is merely a graceful assemblage of authorities, the effects of such authority not being shown.] and divinity existing in Italy. This pretty, and, according to all evidence by me attainable, entirely true, tradition has been all but lost, among the ruins of fair old Florence, by the industry of modern mason-critics--who, without exception, labouring under the primal (and necessarily unconscious) disadvantage of not knowing good work from bad, and never, therefore, knowing a man by his hand or his thoughts, would be in any case sorrowfully at the mercy of mistakes in a document; but are tenfold more deceived by their own vanity, and delight in overthrowing a received idea, if they can. Farther: as every fresco of this early date has been retouched again and again, and often painted half over,--and as, if there has been the least care or respect for the old work in the restorer, he will now and then follow the old lines and match the old colours carefully in some places, while he puts in clearly recognizable work of his own in others,--two critics, of whom one knows the first man's work well, and the other the last's, will contradict each other to almost any extent on the securest grounds. And there is then no safe refuge for an uninitiated person but in the old tradition, which, if not literally true, is founded assuredly on some root of fact which you are likely to get at, if ever, through it only. So that my general directions to all young people going to Florence or Rome would be very short: "Know your first volume of Vasari, and your two first books of Livy; look about you, and don't talk, nor listen to talking." On those terms, you may know, entering this chapel, that in Michael Angelo's time, all Florence attributed these frescos to Taddeo Gaddi and Simon Memmi. I have studied neither of these artists myself with any speciality of care, and cannot tell you positively, anything about them or their works. But I know good work from bad, as a cobbler knows leather, and I can tell you positively the quality of these frescos, and their relation to contemporary panel pictures; whether authentically ascribed to Gaddi, Memmi, or any one else, it is for the Florentine Academy to decide. The roof, and the north side, down to the feet of the horizontal line of sitting figures, were originally third-rate work of the school of Giotto; the rest of the chapel was originally, and most of it is still, magnificent work of the school of Siena. The roof and north side have been heavily repainted in, many places; the rest is faded and injured, but not destroyed in its most essential qualities. And now, farther, you must bear with just a little bit of tormenting history of painters. There were two Gaddis, father and son,--Taddeo and Angelo. And there were two Memmis, brothers,--Simon and Philip. I daresay you will find, in the modern books, that Simon's real name was Peter, and Philip's real name was Bartholomew; and Angelo's real name was Taddeo, and Taddeo's real name was Angelo; and Memmi's real name was Gaddi, and Gaddi's real name was Memmi. You may find out all that at your leisure, afterwards, if you like. What it is important for you to know here, in the Spanish Chapel, is only this much that follows:--There were certainly two persons once called Gaddi, both rather stupid in religious matters and high art; but one of them, I don't know or care which, a true decorative painter of the most exquisite skill, a perfect architect, an amiable person, and a great lover of pretty domestic life. Vasari says this was the father, Taddeo. He built the Ponte Vecchio; and the old stones of it--which if you ever look at anything on the Ponte Vecchio but the shops, you may still see (above those wooden pent-houses) with the Florentine shield--were so laid by him that they are unshaken to this day. He painted an exquisite series of frescos at Assisi from the Life of Christ; in which,--just to show you what the man's nature is,--when the Madonna has given Christ into Simeon's arms, she can't help holding out her own arms to him, and saying, (visibly,) "Won't you come back to mamma?" The child laughs his answer--"I love _you_, mamma; but I'm quite happy just now." Well; he, or he and his son together, painted these four quarters of the roof of the Spanish Chapel. They were very probably much retouched afterwards by Antonio Veneziano, or whomsoever Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcasella please; but that architecture in the descent of the Holy Ghost is by the man who painted the north transept of Assisi, and there need be no more talk about the matter,--for you never catch a restorer doing his old architecture right again. And farther, the ornamentation of the vaulting ribs _is_ by the man who painted the Entombment, No. 31 in the Galerie des Grands Tableaux, in the catalogue of the Academy for 1874. Whether that picture is Taddeo Gaddi's or not, as stated in the catalogue, I do not know; but I know the vaulting ribs of the Spanish Chapel are painted by the same hand. Again: of the two brothers Memmi, one or other, I don't know or care which, had an ugly way of turning the eyes of his figures up and their mouths down; of which you may see an entirely disgusting example in the four saints attributed to Filippo Memmi on the cross wall of the north (called always in Murray's guide the south, because he didn't notice the way the church was built) transept of Assisi. You may, however, also see the way the mouth goes down in the much repainted, but still characteristic No. 9 in the Uffizii. [Footnote: This picture bears the inscription (I quote from the French catalogue, not having verified it myself), "Simon Martini, et Lippus Memmi de Senis me pinxerunt." I have no doubt whatever, myself, that the two brothers worked together on these frescoes of the Spanish Chapel: but that most of the Limbo is Philip's, and the Paradise, scarcely with his interference, Simon's.] Now I catch the wring and verjuice of this brother again and again, among the minor heads of the lower frescoes in this Spanish Chapel. The head of the Queen beneath Noah, in the Limbo,--(see below) is unmistakable. Farther: one of the two brothers, I don't care which, had a way of painting leaves; of which you may see a notable example in the rod in the hand of Gabriel in that same picture of the Annunciation in the Uffizii. No Florentine painter, or any other, ever painted leaves as well as that, till you get down to Sandro Botticelli, who did them much better. But the man who painted that rod in the hand of Gabriel, painted the rod in the right hand of Logic in the Spanish Chapel,--and nobody else in Florence, or the world, _could_. Farther (and this is the last of the antiquarian business); you see that the frescoes on the roof are, on the whole, dark with much blue and red in them, the white spaces coming out strongly. This is the characteristic colouring of the partially defunct school of Giotto, becoming merely decorative, and passing into a colourist school which connected itself afterwards with the Venetians. There is an exquisite example of all its specialities in the little Annunciation in the Uffizii, No. 14, attributed to Angelo Gaddi, in which you see the Madonna is stupid, and the angel stupid, but the colour of the whole, as a piece of painted glass, lovely; and the execution exquisite,--at once a painter's and jeweller's; with subtle sense of chiaroscuro underneath; (note the delicate shadow of the Madonna's arm across her breast). The head of this school was (according to Vasari) Taddeo Gaddi; and henceforward, without further discussion, I shall speak of him as the painter of the roof of the Spanish Chapel,--not without suspicion, however, that his son Angelo may hereafter turn out to have been the better decorator, and the painter of the frescoes from the life of Christ in the north transept of Assisi,--with such assistance as his son or scholars might give--and such change or destruction as time, Antonio Veneziano, or the last operations of the Tuscan railroad company, may have effected on them. On the other hand, you see that the frescos on the walls are of paler colours, the blacks coming out of these clearly, rather than the whites; but the pale colours, especially, for instance, the whole of the Duomo of Florence in that on your right, very tender and lovely. Also, you may feel a tendency to express much with outline, and draw, more than paint, in the most interesting parts; while in the duller ones, nasty green and yellow tones come out, which prevent the effect of the whole from being very pleasant. These characteristics belong, on the whole, to the school of Siena; and they indicate here the work _assuredly_ of a man of vast power and most refined education, whom I shall call without further discussion, during the rest of this and the following morning's study, Simon Memmi. And of the grace and subtlety with which he joined his work to that of the Gaddis, you may judge at once by comparing the Christ standing on the fallen gate of the Limbo, with the Christ in the Resurrection above. Memmi has retained the dress and imitated the general effect of the figure in the roof so faithfully that you suspect no difference of mastership--nay, he has even raised the foot in the same awkward way: but you will find Memmi's foot delicately drawn-Taddeo's, hard and rude: and all the folds of Memmi's drapery cast with unbroken grace and complete gradations of shade, while Taddeo's are rigid and meagre; also in the heads, generally Taddeo's type of face is square in feature, with massive and inelegant clusters or volutes of hair and beard; but Memmi's delicate and long in feature, with much divided and flowing hair, often arranged with exquisite precision, as in the finest Greek coins. Examine successively in this respect only the heads of Adam, Abel, Methuselah, and Abraham, in the Limbo, and you will not confuse the two designers any more. I have not had time to make out more than the principal figures in the Limbo, of which indeed the entire dramatic power is centred in the Adam and Eve. The latter dressed as a nun, in her fixed gaze on Christ, with her hands clasped, is of extreme beauty: and however feeble the work of any early painter may be, in its decent and grave inoffensiveness it guides the imagination unerringly to a certain point. How far you are yourself capable of filling up what is left untold and conceiving, as a reality, Eve's first look on this her child, depends on no painter's skill, but on your own understanding. Just above Eve is Abel, bearing the lamb: and behind him, Noah, between his wife and Shem: behind them, Abraham, between Isaac and Ishmael; (turning from Ishmael to Isaac), behind these, Moses, between Aaron and David. I have not identified the others, though I find the white-bearded figure behind Eve called Methuselah in my notes: I know not on what authority. Looking up from these groups, however, to the roof painting, you will at once feel the imperfect grouping and ruder features of all the figures; and the greater depth of colour. We will dismiss these comparatively inferior paintings at once. The roof and walls must be read together, each segment of the roof forming an introduction to, or portion of, the subject on the wall below. But the roof must first be looked at alone, as the work of Taddeo Gaddi, for the artistic qualities and failures of it. I. In front, as you enter, is the compartment with the subject of the Resurrection. It is the traditional Byzantine composition: the guards sleeping, and the two angels in white saying to the women, "He is not here," while Christ is seen rising with the flag of the Cross. But it would be difficult to find another example of the subject, so coldly treated--so entirely without passion or action. The faces are expressionless; the gestures powerless. Evidently the painter is not making the slightest effort to conceive what really happened, but merely repeating and spoiling what he could remember of old design, or himself supply of commonplace for immediate need. The "Noli me tangere," on the right, is spoiled from Giotto, and others before him; a peacock, woefully plumeless and colourless, a fountain, an ill drawn toy-horse, and two toy-children gathering flowers, are emaciate remains of Greek symbols. He has taken pains with the vegetation, but in vain. Yet Taddeo Gaddi was a true painter, a very beautiful designer, and a very amiable person. How comes he to do that Resurrection so badly? In the first place, he was probably tired of a subject which was a great strain to his feeble imagination; and gave it up as impossible: doing simply the required figures in the required positions. In the second, he was probably at the time despondent and feeble because of his master's death. See Lord Lindsay, II. 273, where also it is pointed out that in the effect of the light proceeding from the figure of Christ, Taddeo Gaddi indeed was the first of the Giottisti who showed true sense of light and shade. But until Lionardo's time the innovation did not materially affect Florentine art. II. The Ascension (opposite the Resurrection, and not worth looking at, except for the sake of making more sure our conclusions from the first fresco). The Madonna is fixed in Byzantine stiffness, without Byzantine dignity. III. The Descent of the Holy Ghost, on the left hand. The Madonna and disciples are gathered in an upper chamber: underneath are the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, etc., who hear them speak in their own tongues. Three dogs are in the foreground--their mythic purpose the same as that of the two verses which affirm the fellowship of the dog in the journey and return of Tobias: namely, to mark the share of the lower animals in the gentleness given by the outpouring of the Spirit of Christ. IV. The Church sailing on the Sea of the World. St. Peter coming to Christ on the water. I was too little interested in the vague symbolism of this fresco to examine it with care--the rather that the subject beneath, the literal contest of the Church with the world, needed more time for study in itself alone than I had for all Florence. On this, and the opposite side of the chapel, are represented, by Simon Memmi's hand, the teaching power of the Spirit of God, and the saving power of the Christ of God, in the world, according to the understanding of Florence in his time. We will take the side of Intellect first, beneath the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit. In the point of the arch beneath, are the three Evangelical Virtues. Without these, says Florence, you can have no science. Without Love, Faith, and Hope--no intelligence. Under these are the four Cardinal Virtues, the entire group being thus arranged:-- A B C D E F G A, Charity; flames issuing from her head and hands. B, Faith; holds cross and shield, quenching fiery darts. This symbol, so frequent in modern adaptation from St. Paul's address to personal faith, is rare in older art. C, Hope, with a branch of lilies. D, Temperance; bridles a black fish, on which she stands. E, Prudence, with a book. F, Justice, with crown and baton. G, Fortitude, with tower and sword. Under these are the great prophets and apostles; on the left,[Footnote: I can't find my note of the first one on the left; answering to Solomon, opposite.] David, St. Paul, St. Mark, St. John; on the right, St. Matthew, St. Luke, Moses, Isaiah, Solomon. In the midst of the Evangelists, St. Thomas Aquinas, seated on a Gothic throne. Now observe, this throne, with all the canopies below it, and the complete representation of the Duomo of Florence opposite, are of finished Gothic of Orecagna's school--later than Giotto's Gothic. But the building in which the apostles are gathered at the Pentecost is of the early Romanesque mosaic school, with a wheel window from the duomo of Assisi, and square windows from the Baptistery of Florence. And this is always the type of architecture used by Taddeo Gaddi: while the finished Gothic could not possibly have been drawn by him, but is absolute evidence of the later hand. Under the line of prophets, as powers summoned by their voices, are the mythic figures of the seven theological or spiritual, and the seven _ge_ological or natural sciences: and under the feet of each of them, the figure of its Captain-teacher to the world. I had better perhaps give you the names of this entire series of figures from left to right at once. You will see presently why they are numbered in a reverse order. Beneath whom 8. Civil Law. The Emperor Justinian. 9. Canon Law. Pope Clement V. 10. Practical Theology. Peter Lombard. 11. Contemplative Theology. Dionysius the Areopagite. 12. Dogmatic Theology. Boethius. 13. Mystic Theology. St. John Damascene. 14. Polemic Theology. St. Augustine. 7. Arithmetic. Pythagoras. 6. Geometry. Euclid. 5. Astronomy. Zoroaster. 4. Music. Tubalcain. 3. Logic. Aristotle. 2. Rhetoric. Cicero. 1. Grammar. Priscian. Here, then, you have pictorially represented, the system of manly education, supposed in old Florence to be that necessarily instituted in great earthly kingdoms or republics, animated by the Spirit shed down upon the world at Pentecost. How long do you think it will take you, or ought to take, to see such a picture? We were to get to work this morning, as early as might be: you have probably allowed half an hour for Santa Maria Novella; half an hour for San Lorenzo; an hour for the museum of sculpture at the Bargello; an hour for shopping; and then it will be lunch time, and you mustn't be late, because you are to leave by the afternoon train, and must positively be in Rome to-morrow morning. Well, of your half-hour for Santa Maria Novella,--after Ghirlandajo's choir, Orcagna's transept, and Cimabue's Madonna, and the painted windows, have been seen properly, there will remain, suppose, at the utmost, a quarter of an hour for the Spanish Chapel. That will give you two minutes and a half for each side, two for the ceiling, and three for studying Murray's explanations or mine. Two minutes and a half you have got, then--(and I observed, during my five weeks' work in the chapel, that English visitors seldom gave so much)--to read this scheme given you by Simon Memmi of human spiritual education. In order to understand the purport of it, in any the smallest degree, you must summon to your memory, in the course of these two minutes and a half, what you happen to be acquainted with of the doctrines and characters of Pythagoras, Zoroaster, Aristotle, Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Augustine, and the emperor Justinian, and having further observed the expressions and actions attributed by the painter to these personages, judge how far he has succeeded in reaching a true and worthy ideal of them, and how large or how subordinate a part in his general scheme of human learning he supposes their peculiar doctrines properly to occupy. For myself, being, to my much sorrow, now an old person; and, to my much pride, an old-fashioned one, I have not found my powers either of reading or memory in the least increased by any of Mr. Stephenson's or Mr. Wheatstone's inventions; and though indeed I came here from Lucca in three hours instead of a day, which it used to take, I do not think myself able, on that account, to see any picture in Florence in less time than it took formerly, or even obliged to hurry myself in any investigations connected with it. Accordingly, I have myself taken five weeks to see the quarter of this picture of Simon Memmi's: and can give you a fairly good account of that quarter, and some partial account of a fragment or two of those on the other walls: but, alas! only of their pictorial qualities in either case; for I don't myself know anything whatever, worth trusting to, about Pythagoras, or Dionysius the Areopagite; and have not had, and never shall have, probably, any time to learn much of them; while in the very feeblest light only,--in what the French would express by their excellent word 'lueur,'--I am able to understand something of the characters of Zoroaster, Aristotle, and Justinian. But this only increases in me the reverence with which I ought to stand before the work of a painter, who was not only a master of his own craft, but so profound a scholar and theologian as to be able to conceive this scheme of picture, and write the divine law by which Florence was to live. Which Law, written in the northern page of this Vaulted Book, we will begin quiet interpretation of, if you care to return hither, to-morrow morning. THE FIFTH MORNING. THE STRAIT GATE. As you return this morning to St. Mary's, you may as well observe--the matter before us being concerning gates,--that the western façade of the church is of two periods. Your Murray refers it all to the latest of these;--I forget when, and do not care;--in which the largest flanking columns, and the entire effective mass of the walls, with their riband mosaics and high pediment, were built in front of, and above, what the barbarian renaissance designer chose to leave of the pure old Dominican church. You may see his ungainly jointings at the pedestals of the great columns, running through the pretty, parti-coloured base, which, with the 'Strait' Gothic doors, and the entire lines of the fronting and flanking tombs (where not restored by the Devil-begotten brood of modern Florence), is of pure, and exquisitely severe and refined, fourteenth century Gothic, with superbly carved bearings on its shields. The small detached line of tombs on the left, untouched in its sweet colour and living weed ornament, I would fain have painted, stone by stone: but one can never draw in front of a church in these republican days; for all the blackguard children of the neighbourhood come to howl, and throw stones, on the steps, and the ball or stone play against these sculptured tombs, as a dead wall adapted for that purpose only, is incessant in the fine days when I could have worked. If you enter by the door most to the left, or north, and turn immediately to the right, on the interior of the wall of the façade is an Annunciation, visible enough because well preserved, though in the dark, and extremely pretty in its way,--of the decorated and ornamental school following Giotto:--I can't guess by whom, nor does it much matter; but it is well To look at it by way of contrast with the delicate, intense, slightly decorated design of Memmi,--in which, when you return into the Spanish chapel, you will feel the dependence for its effect on broad masses of white and pale amber, where the decorative school would have had mosaic of red, blue, and gold. Our first business this morning must be to read and understand the writing on the book held open by St. Thomas Aquinas, for that informs us of the meaning of the whole picture. It is this text from the Book of Wisdom VII. 6. "Optavi, et datus est mihi sensus. Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapientiae, Et preposui illam regnis et sedibus." "I willed, and Sense was given me. I prayed, and the Spirit of Wisdom came upon me. And I set her before, (preferred her to,) kingdoms and thrones." The common translation in our English Apocrypha loses the entire meaning of this passage, which--not only as the statement of the experience of Florence in her own education, but as universally descriptive of the process of all noble education whatever--we had better take pains to understand. First, says Florence "I willed, (in sense of resolutely desiring,) and Sense was given me." You must begin your education with the distinct resolution to know what is true, and choice of the strait and rough road to such knowledge. This choice is offered to every youth and maid at some moment of their life;--choice between the easy downward road, so broad that we can dance down it in companies, and the steep narrow way, which we must enter alone. Then, and for many a day afterwards, they need that form of persistent Option, and Will: but day by day, the 'Sense' of the rightness of what they have done, deepens on them, not in consequence of the effort, but by gift granted in reward of it. And the Sense of difference between right and wrong, and between beautiful and unbeautiful things, is confirmed in the heroic, and fulfilled in the industrious, soul. That is the process of education in the earthly sciences, and the morality connected with them. Reward given to faithful Volition. Next, when Moral and Physical senses are perfect, comes the desire for education in the higher world, where the senses are no more our Teachers; but the Maker of the senses. And that teaching, we cannot get by labour, but only by petition. "Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapientiae"--"I prayed, and the Spirit of Wisdom," (not, you observe, _was given_, [Footnote: I in careless error, wrote "was given" in 'Fors Clavigera.] but,) "_came_ upon me." The _personal_ power of Wisdom: the "[Greek: sophia]" or Santa Sophia, to whom the first great Christian temple was dedicated. This higher wisdom, governing by her presence, all earthly conduct, and by her teaching, all earthly art, Florence tells you, she obtained only by prayer. And these two Earthly and Divine sciences are expressed beneath in the symbols of their divided powers;--Seven terrestrial, Seven celestial, whose names have been already indicated to you:--in which figures I must point out one or two technical matters, before touching their interpretation. They are all by Simon Memmi originally; but repainted, many of them all over, some hundred years later,--(certainly after the discovery of America, as you will see)--by an artist of considerable power, and some feeling for the general action of the figures; but of no refinement or carelessness. He dashes massive paint in huge spaces over the subtle old work, puts in his own chiaro-oscuro where all had been shadeless, and his own violent colour where all had been pale, and repaints the faces so as to make them, to his notion, prettier and more human: some of this upper work has, however, come away since, and the original outline, at least, is traceable; while in the face of the Logic, the Music, and one or two others, the original work is very pure. Being most interested myself in the earthly sciences, I had a scaffolding put up, made on a level with them, and examined them inch by inch, and the following report will be found accurate until next repainting. For interpretation of them, you must always take the central figure of the Science, with the little medallion above it, and the figure below, all together. Which I proceed to do, reading first from left to right for the earthly sciences, and then from right to left the heavenly ones, to the centre, where their two highest powers sit, side by side. We begin, then, with the first in the list given above, (Vaulted Book, page 75):--Grammar, in the corner farthest from the window. 1. GRAMMAR: more properly Grammaticë, "Grammatic Act" the Art of _Letters_ or "Literature," or using the word which to some English ears will carry most weight with it,--"Scripture," and its use. The Art of faithfully reading what has been written for our learning; and of clearly writing what we would make immortal of our thoughts. Power which consists first in recognizing letters; secondly, in forming them; thirdly, in the understanding and choice of words which errorless shall express our thought. Severe exercises all, reaching--very few living persons know, how far: beginning properly in childhood, then only to be truly acquired. It is wholly impossible--this I say from too sorrowful experience--to conquer by any effort or time, habits of the hand (much more of head and soul) with which the vase of flesh has been formed and filled in youth,--the law of God being that parents shall compel the child in the day of its obedience into habits of hand, and eye, and soul, which, when it is old, shall not, by any strength, or any weakness, be departed from. "Enter ye in," therefore, says Grammaticë, "at the Strait Gate." She points through it with her rod, holding a fruit(?) for reward, in her left hand. The gate is very strait indeed--her own waist no less so, her hair fastened close. She had once a white veil binding it, which is lost. Not a gushing form of literature, this,--or in any wise disposed to subscribe to Mudie's, my English friends--or even patronize Tauchnitz editions of--what is the last new novel you see ticketed up today in Mr. Goodban's window? She looks kindly down, nevertheless, to the three children whom she is teaching--two boys and a girl: (Qy. Does this mean that one girl out of every two should not be able to read or write? I am quite willing to accept that inference, for my own part,--should perhaps even say, two girls out of three). This girl is of the highest classes, crowned, her golden hair falling behind her the Florentine girdle round her hips--(not waist, the object being to leave the lungs full play; but to keep the dress always well down in dancing or running). The boys are of good birth also, the nearest one with luxuriant curly hair--only the profile of the farther one seen. All reverent and eager. Above, the medallion is of a figure looking at a fountain. Underneath, Lord Lindsay says, Priscian, and is, I doubt not, right. _Technical Points_.--The figure is said by Crowe to be entirely repainted. The dress is so throughout--both the hands also, and the fruit, and rod. But the eyes, mouth, hair above the forehead, and outline of the rest, with the faded veil, and happily, the traces left of the children, are genuine; the strait gate perfectly so, in the colour underneath, though reinforced; and the action of the entire figure is well preserved: but there is a curious question about both the rod and fruit. Seen close, the former perfectly assumes the shape of folds of dress gathered up over the raised right arm, and I am not absolutely sure that the restorer has not mistaken the folds--at the same time changing a pen or style into a rod. The fruit also I have doubts of, as fruit is not so rare at Florence that it should be made a reward. It is entirely and roughly repainted, and is oval in shape. In Giotto's Charity, luckily not restored, at Assisi, the guide-books have always mistaken the heart she holds for an apple:--and my own belief is that originally, the Grammaticë of Simon Memmi made with her right hand the sign which said, "Enter ye in at the Strait Gate," and with her left, the sign which said, "My son, give me thine Heart." II. RHETORIC. Next to learning how to read and write, you are to learn to speak; and, young ladies and gentlemen, observe,--to speak as little as possible, it is farther implied, till you _have_ learned. In the streets of Florence at this day you may hear much of what some people call "rhetoric"--very passionate speaking indeed, and quite "from the heart"--such hearts as the people have got. That is to say, you never hear a word uttered but in a rage, either just ready to burst, or for the most part, explosive instantly: everybody--man, woman, or child--roaring out their incontinent, foolish, infinitely contemptible opinions and wills, on every smallest occasion, with flashing eyes, hoarsely shrieking and wasted voices,--insane hope to drag by vociferation whatever they would have, out of man and God. Now consider Simon Memmi's Rhetoric. The Science of Speaking, primarily; of making oneself _heard_ therefore: which is not to be done by shouting. She alone, of all the sciences, carries a scroll: and being a speaker gives you something to read. It is not thrust forward at you at all, but held quietly down with her beautiful depressed right hand; her left hand set coolly and strongly on her side. And you will find that, thus, she alone of all the sciences _needs no use of her hands_. All the others have some important business for them. She none. She can do all with her lips, holding scroll, or bridle, or what you will, with her right hand, her left on her side. Again, look at the talkers in the streets of Florence, and see how, being essentially _un_able to talk, they try to make lips of their fingers! How they poke, wave, flourish, point, jerk, shake finger and fist at their antagonists--dumb essentially, all the while, if they knew it; unpersuasive and ineffectual, as the shaking of tree branches in the wind. You will at first think her figure ungainly and stiff. It is so, partly, the dress being more coarsely repainted than in any other of the series. But she is meant to be both stout and strong. What she has to say is indeed to persuade you, if possible; but assuredly to overpower you. And _she_ has not the Florentine girdle, for she does not want to move. She has her girdle broad at the waist--of all the sciences, you would at first have thought, the one that most needed breath! No, says Simon Memmi. You want breath to run, or dance, or fight with. But to speak!--If you know _how_, you can do your work with few words; very little of this pure Florentine air will be enough, if you shape it rightly. Note, also, that calm setting of her hand against her side. You think Rhetoric should be glowing, fervid, impetuous? No, says Simon Memmi. Above all things,--_cool_. And now let us read what is written on her scroll:--Mulceo, dum loquor, varios induta colores. Her chief function, to melt; make soft, thaw the hearts of men with kind fire; to overpower with peace; and bring rest, with rainbow colours. The chief mission of all words that they should be of comfort. You think the function of words is to excite? Why, a red rag will do that, or a blast through a brass pipe. But to give calm and gentle heat; to be as the south wind, and the iridescent rain, to all bitterness of frost; and bring at once strength, and healing. This is the work of human lips, taught of God. One farther and final lesson is given in the medallion above. Aristotle, and too many modern rhetoricians of his school, thought there could be good speaking in a false cause. But above Simon Memmi's Rhetoric is _Truth_, with her mirror. There is a curious feeling, almost innate in men, that though they are bound to speak truth, in speaking to a single person, they may lie as much as they please, provided they lie to two or more people at once. There is the same feeling about killing: most people would shrink from shooting one innocent man; but will fire a mitrailleuse contentedly into an innocent regiment. When you look down from the figure of the Science, to that of Cicero, beneath, you will at first think it entirely overthrows my conclusion that Rhetoric has no need of her hands. For Cicero, it appears, has three instead of two. The uppermost, at his chin, is the only genuine one. That raised, with the finger up, is entirely false. That on the book, is repainted so as to defy conjecture of its original action. But observe how the gesture of the true one confirms instead of overthrowing what I have said above. Cicero is not speaking at all, but profoundly thinking _before_ he speaks. It is the most abstractedly thoughtful face to be found among all the philosophers; and very beautiful. The whole is under Solomon, in the line of Prophets. _Technical Points_.--These two figures have suffered from restoration more than any others, but the right hand of Rhetoric is still entirely genuine, and the left, except the ends of the fingers. The ear, and hair just above it, are quite safe, the head well set on its original line, but the crown of leaves rudely retouched, and then faded. All the lower part of the figure of Cicero has been not only repainted but changed; the face is genuine--I believe retouched, but so cautiously and skilfully, that it is probably now more beautiful than at first. III. LOGIC. The science of reasoning, or more accurately Reason herself, or pure intelligence. Science to be gained after that of Expression, says Simon Memmi; so, young people, it appears, that though you must not speak before you have been taught how to speak, you may yet properly speak before you have been taught how to think. For indeed, it is only by frank speaking that you _can_ learn how to think. And it is no matter how wrong the first thoughts you have may be, provided you express them clearly;--and are willing to have them put right. Fortunately, nearly all of this beautiful figure is practically safe, the outlines pure everywhere, and the face perfect: the _prettiest_, as far as I know, which exists in Italian art of this early date. It is subtle to the extreme in gradations of colour: the eyebrows drawn, not with a sweep of the brush, but with separate cross touches in the line of their growth--exquisitely pure in arch; the nose straight and fine; the lips--playful slightly, proud, unerringly cut; the hair flowing in sequent waves, ordered as if in musical time; head perfectly upright on the shoulders; the height of the brow completed by a crimson frontlet set with pearls, surmounted by a _fleur-de-lys_. Her shoulders were exquisitely drawn, her white jacket fitting close to soft, yet scarcely rising breasts; her arms singularly strong, at perfect rest; her hands, exquisitely delicate. In her right, she holds a branching and leaf-bearing rod, (the syllogism); in her left, a scorpion with double sting, (the dilemma)--more generally, the powers of rational construction and dissolution. Beneath her, Aristotle,--intense keenness of search in his half-closed eyes. Medallion above, (less expressive than usual) a man writing, with his head stooped. The whole under Isaiah, in the line of Prophets. _Technical Points_.--The only parts of this figure which have suffered seriously in repainting are the leaves of the rod, and the scorpion. I have no idea, as I said above, what the background once was; it is now a mere mess of scrabbled grey, carried over the vestiges, still with care much redeemable, of the richly ornamental extremity of the rod, which was a cluster of green leaves on a black ground. But the scorpion is indecipherably injured, most of it confused repainting, mixed with the white of the dress, the double sting emphatic enough still, but not on the first lines. The Aristotle is very genuine throughout, except his hat, and I think that must be pretty nearly on the old lines, through I cannot trace them. They are good lines, new or old. IV. MUSIC. After you have learned to reason, young people, of course you will be very grave, if not dull, you think. No, says Simon Memmi. By no means anything of the kind. After learning to reason, you will learn to sing; for you will want to. There is so much reason for singing in the sweet world, when one thinks rightly of it. None for grumbling, provided always you _have_ entered in at the strait gate. You will sing all along the road then, in a little while, in a manner pleasant for other people to hear. This figure has been one of the loveliest in the series, an extreme refinement and tender severity being aimed at throughout. She is crowned, not with laurel, but with small leaves,--I am not sure what they are, being too much injured: the face thin, abstracted, wistful; the lips not far open in their low singing; the hair rippling softly on the shoulders. She plays on a small organ, richly ornamented with Gothic tracery, the down slope of it set with crockets like those of Santa Maria del Fiore. Simon Memmi means that _all_ music must be "sacred." Not that you are never to sing anything but hymns, but that whatever is rightly called music, or work of the Muses, is divine in help and healing. The actions of both hands are singularly sweet. The right is one of the loveliest things I ever saw done in painting. She is keeping down one note only, with her third finger, seen under the raised fourth: the thumb, just passing under; all the curves of the fingers exquisite, and the pale light and shade of the rosy flesh relieved against the ivory white and brown of the notes. Only the thumb and end of the forefinger are seen of the left hand, but they indicate enough its light pressure on the bellows. Fortunately, all these portions of the fresco are absolutely intact. Underneath, Tubal-Cain. Not Jubal, as you would expect. Jubal is the inventor of musical instruments. Tubal-Cain, thought the old Florentines, invented harmony. They, the best smiths in the world, knew the differences in tones of hammer strokes on anvil. Curiously enough, the only piece of true part-singing, done beautifully and joyfully, which I have heard this year in Italy, (being south of Alps exactly six months, and ranging from Genoa to Palermo) was out of a busy smithy at Perugia. Of bestial howling, and entirely frantic vomiting up of hopelessly damned souls through their still carnal throats, I have heard more than, please God, I will ever endure the hearing of again in one of His summers. You think Tubal-Cain very ugly? Yes. Much like a shaggy baboon: not accidentally, but with most scientific understanding of baboon character. Men must have looked like that, before they had invented harmony, or felt that one note differed from another, says, and knows Simon Memmi. Darwinism, like all widely popular and widely mischievous fallacies, has many a curious gleam and grain of truth in its tissue. Under Moses. Medallion, a youth drinking. Otherwise, you might have thought only church music meant, and not feast music also. _Technical Points_.--The Tubal-Cain, one of the most entirely pure and precious remnants of the old painting, nothing lost: nothing but the redder ends of his beard retouched. Green dress of Music, in the body and over limbs entirely repainted: it was once beautifully embroidered; sleeves, partly genuine, hands perfect, face and hair nearly so. Leaf crown faded and broken away, but not retouched. V. ASTRONOMY. Properly Astro-logy, as (Theology) the knowledge of so much of the stars as we can know wisely; not the attempt to define their laws for them. Not that it is unbecoming of us to find out, if we can, that they move in ellipses, and so on; but it is no business of ours. What effects their rising and setting have on man, and beast, and leaf; what their times and changes are, seen and felt in this world, it is our business to know, passing our nights, if wakefully, by that divine candlelight, and no other. She wears a dark purple robe; holds in her left hand the hollow globe with golden zodiac and meridians: lifts her right hand in noble awe. "When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained." Crowned with gold, her dark hair in elliptic waves, bound with glittering chains of pearl. Her eyes dark, lifted. Beneath her, Zoroaster,[Footnote: Atlas! according to poor Vasari, and sundry modern guides. I find Vasari's mistakes usually of this _brightly_ blundering kind. In matters needing research, after a while, I find _he_ is right, usually.] entirely noble and beautiful, the delicate Persian head made softer still by the elaborately wreathed silken hair, twisted into the pointed beard, and into tapering plaits, falling on his shoulders. The head entirely thrown back, he looks up with no distortion of the delicately arched brow: writing, as he gazes. For the association of the religion of the Magi with their own in the mind of the Florentines of this time, see "Before the Soldan." The dress must always have been white, because of its beautiful opposition to the purple above and that of Tubal-Cain beside it. But it has been too much repainted to be trusted anywhere, nothing left but a fold or two in the sleeves. The cast of it from the knees down is entirely beautiful, and I suppose on the old lines; but the restorer could throw a fold well when he chose. The warm light which relieves the purple of Zoroaster above, is laid in by him. I don't know if I should have liked it better, flat, as it was, against the dark purple; it seems to me quite beautiful now. The full red flush on the face of the Astronomy is the restorer's doing also. She was much paler, if not quite pale. Under St. Luke. Medallion, a stern man, with sickle and spade. For the flowers, and for us, when stars have risen and set such and such times;--remember. _Technical Points_.--Left hand globe, most of the important folds of the purple dress, eyes, mouth, hair in great part, and crown, genuine. Golden tracery on border of dress lost; extremity of falling folds from left sleeve altered and confused, but the confusion prettily got out of. Right hand and much of face and body of dress repainted. Zoroaster's head quite pure. Dress repainted, but carefully, leaving the hair untouched. Right hand and pen, now a common feathered quill, entirely repainted, but dexterously and with feeling. The hand was once slightly different in position, and held, most probably, a reed. VI. GEOMETRY. You have now learned, young ladies and gentlemen, to read, to speak, to think, to sing, and to see. You are getting old, and will have soon to think of being married; you must learn to build your house, therefore. Here is your carpenter's square for you, and you may safely and wisely contemplate the ground a little, and the measures and laws relating to that, seeing you have got to abide upon it:--and that you have properly looked at the stars; not before then, lest, had you studied the ground first, you might perchance never have raised your heads from it. This is properly the science of all laws of practical labour, issuing in beauty. She looks down, a little puzzled, greatly interested, holding her carpenter's square in her left hand, not wanting that but for practical work; following a diagram with her right. Her beauty, altogether soft and in curves, I commend to your notice, as the exact opposite of what a vulgar designer would have imagined for her. Note the wreath of hair at the back of her head, which though fastened by a _spiral_ fillet, escapes at last, and flies off loose in a sweeping curve. Contemplative Theology is the only other of the sciences who has such wavy hair. Beneath her, Euclid, in white turban. Very fine and original work throughout; but nothing of special interest in him. Under St. Matthew. Medallion, a soldier with a straight sword (best for science of defence), octagon shield, helmet like the beehive of Canton Vaud. As the secondary use of music in feasting, so the secondary use of geometry in war--her noble art being all in sweetest peace--is shown in the medallion. _Technical Points_.--It is more than fortunate that in nearly every figure, the original outline of the hair is safe. Geometry's has scarcely been retouched at all, except at the ends, once in single knots, now in confused double ones. The hands, girdle, most of her dress, and her black carpenter's square are original. Face and breast repainted. VII. ARITHMETIC. Having built your house, young people, and understanding the light of heaven, and the measures of earth, you may marry--and can't do better. And here is now your conclusive science, which you will have to apply, all your days, to all your affairs. The Science of Number. Infinite in solemnity of use in Italy at this time; including, of course, whatever was known of the higher abstract mathematics and mysteries of numbers, but reverenced especially in its vital necessity to the prosperity of families and kingdoms, and first fully so understood here in commercial Florence. Her hand lifted, with two fingers bent, two straight, solemnly enforcing on your attention her primal law--Two and two are--four, you observe,--not five, as those accursed usurers think. Under her, Pythagoras. Above, medallion of king, with sceptre and globe, counting money. Have you ever chanced to read carefully Carlyle's account of the foundation of the existing Prussian empire, in economy? You can, at all events, consider with yourself a little, what empire this queen of the terrestrial sciences must hold over the rest, if they are to be put to good use; or what depth and breadth of application there is in the brief parables of the counted cost of Power, and number of Armies. To give a very minor, but characteristic, instance. I have always felt that with my intense love of the Alps, I ought to have been able to make a drawing of Chamouni, or the vale of Cluse, which should give people more pleasure than a photograph; but I always wanted to do it as I saw it, and engrave pine for pine, and crag for crag, like Albert Dürer. I broke my strength down for many a year, always tiring of my work, or finding the leaves drop off, or the snow come on, before I had well begun what I meant to do. If I had only _counted_ my pines first, and calculated the number of hours necessary to do them in the manner of Dürer, I should have saved the available drawing time of some five years, spent in vain effort. But Turner counted his pines, and did all that could be done for them, and rested content with that. So in all the affairs of life, the arithmetical part of the business is the dominant one. How many and how much have we? How many and how much do we want? How constantly does noble Arithmetic of the finite lose itself in base Avarice of the Infinite, and in blind imagination of it! In counting of minutes, is our arithmetic ever solicitous enough? In counting our days, is she ever severe enough? How we shrink from putting, in their decades, the diminished store of them! And if we ever pray the solemn prayer that we may be taught to number them, do we even try to do it after praying? _Technical Points_.--The Pythagoras almost entirely genuine. The upper figures, from this inclusive to the outer wall, I have not been able to examine thoroughly, my scaffolding not extending beyond the Geometry. Here then we have the sum of sciences,--seven, according to the Florentine mind--necessary to the secular education of man and woman. Of these the modern average respectable English gentleman and gentlewoman know usually only a little of the last, and entirely hate the prudent applications of that: being unacquainted, except as they chance here and there to pick up a broken piece of information, with either grammar, rhetoric, music, [Footnote: Being able to play the piano and admire Mendelssohn is not knowing music.] astronomy, or geometry; and are not only unacquainted with logic, or the use of reason, themselves, but instinctively antagonistic to its use by anybody else. We are now to read the series of the Divine sciences, beginning at the opposite side, next the window. VIII. CIVIL LAW. Civil, or 'of citizens,' not only as distinguished from Ecclesiastical, but from Local law. She is the universal Justice of the peaceful relations of men throughout the world, therefore holds the globe, with its _three_ quarters, white, as being justly governed, in her left hand. She is also the law of eternal equity, not erring statute; therefore holds her sword _level_ across her breast. She is the foundation of all other divine science. To know anything whatever about God, you must begin by being Just. Dressed in red, which in these frescoes is always a sign of power, or zeal; but her face very calm, gentle and beautiful. Her hair bound close, and crowned by the royal circlet of gold, with pure thirteenth century strawberry leaf ornament. Under her, the Emperor Justinian, in blue, with conical mitre of white and gold; the face in profile, very beautiful. The imperial staff in his right hand, the Institutes in his left. Medallion, a figure, apparently in distress, appealing for justice. (Trajan's suppliant widow?) _Technical Points_.--The three divisions of the globe in her hand were originally inscribed ASIA, AFRICA, EUROPE. The restorer has ingeniously changed AF into AME--RICA. Faces, both of the science and emperor, little retouched, nor any of the rest altered. IX. CHRISTIAN LAW. After the justice which rules men, comes that which rules the Church of Christ. The distinction is not between secular law, and ecclesiastical authority, but between the equity of humanity, and the law of Christian discipline. In full, straight-falling, golden robe, with white mantle over it; a church in her left hand; her right raised, with the forefinger lifted; (indicating heavenly source of all Christian law? or warning?) Head-dress, a white veil floating into folds in the air. You will find nothing in these frescoes without significance; and as the escaping hair of Geometry indicates the infinite conditions of lines of the higher orders, so the floating veil here indicates that the higher relations of Christian justice are indefinable. So her golden mantle indicates that it is a glorious and excellent justice beyond that which unchristian men conceive; while the severely falling lines of the folds, which form a kind of gabled niche for the head of the Pope beneath, correspond with the strictness of true Church discipline firmer as well as more luminous statute. Beneath, Pope Clement V., in red, lifting his hand, not in the position of benediction, but, I suppose, of injunction,--only the forefinger straight, the second a little bent, the two last quite. Note the strict level of the book; and the vertical directness of the key. The medallion puzzles me. It looks like a figure counting money. _Technical Points_.--Fairly well preserved; but the face of the science retouched: the grotesquely false perspective of the Pope's tiara, one of the most curiously naïve examples of the entirely ignorant feeling after merely scientific truth of form which still characterized Italian art. Type of church interesting in its extreme simplicity; no idea of transept, campanile, or dome. X. PRACTICAL THEOLOGY. The beginning of the knowledge of God being Human Justice, and its elements defined by Christian Law, the application of the law so defined follows, first with respect to man, then with respect to God. "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's--and to God the things that are God's." We have therefore now two sciences, one of our duty--to men, the other to their Maker. This is the first: duty to men. She holds a circular medallion, representing Christ preaching on the Mount, and points with her right hand to the earth. The sermon on the Mount is perfectly expressed by the craggy pinnacle in front of Christ, and the high dark horizon. There is curious evidence throughout all these frescos of Simon Memmi's having read the Gospels with a quite clear understanding of their innermost meaning. I have called this science Practical Theology:--the instructive knowledge, that is to say, of what God would have us do, personally, in any given human relation: and the speaking His Gospel therefore by act. "Let your light so shine before men." She wears a green dress, like Music her hair in the Arabian arch, with jewelled diadem. Under David. Medallion, Almsgiving. Beneath her, Peter Lombard, _Technical Points_.--It is curious that while the instinct of perspective was not strong enough to enable any painter at this time to foreshorten a foot, it yet suggested to them the expression of elevation by raising the horizon. I have not examined the retouching. The hair and diadem at least are genuine, the face is dignified and compassionate, and much on the old lines. XI. DEVOTIONAL THEOLOGY.--Giving glory to God, or, more accurately, whatever feelings He desires us to have towards Him, whether of affection or awe. This is the science or method of _devotion_ for Christians universally, just as the Practical Theology is their science or method of _action_. In blue and red: a narrow black rod still traceable in the left hand; I am not sure of its meaning. ("Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me?") The other hand open in admiration, like Astronomy's; but Devotion's is held at her breast. Her head very characteristic of Memmi, with upturned eyes, and Arab arch in hair. Under her, Dionysius the Areopagite--mending his pen! But I am doubtful of Lord Lindsay's identification of this figure, and the action is curiously common and meaningless. It may have meant that meditative theology is essentially a writer, not a preacher. The medallion, on the other hand, is as ingenious. A mother lifting her hands in delight at her child's beginning to take notice. Under St. Paul. _Technical Points_.--Both figures very genuine, the lower one almost entirely so. The painting of the red book is quite exemplary in fresco style. XII. DOGMATIC THEOLOGY.--After action and worship, thought becoming too wide and difficult, the need of dogma becomes felt; the assertion, that is, within limited range, of the things that are to be believed. Since whatever pride and folly pollute Christian scholarship naturally delight in dogma, the science itself cannot but be in a kind of disgrace among sensible men: nevertheless it would be difficult to overvalue the peace and security which have been given to humble persons by forms of creed; and it is evident that either there is no such thing as theology, or some of its knowledge must be thus, if not expressible, at least reducible within certain limits of expression, so as to be protected from misinterpretation. In red,--again the sign of power,--crowned with a black (once golden?) triple crown, emblematic of the Trinity. The left hand holding a scoop for winnowing corn; the other points upwards. "Prove all things--hold fast that which is good, or of God." Beneath her, Boethius. Under St. Mark. Medallion, female figure, laying hands on breast. _Technical Points_.--The Boethius entirely genuine, and the painting of his black book, as of the red one beside it, again worth notice, showing how pleasant and interesting the commonest things become, when well painted. I have not examined the upper figure. XIII. MYSTIC THEOLOGY. [Footnote: Blunderingly in the guide-books called 'Faith!'] Monastic science, above dogma, and attaining to new revelation by reaching higher spiritual states. In white robes, her left hand gloved (I don't know why)--holding chalice. She wears a nun's veil fastened under her chin, her hair fastened close, like Grammar's, showing her necessary monastic life; all states of mystic spiritual life involving retreat from much that is allowable in the material and practical world. There is no possibility of denying this fact, infinite as the evils are which have arisen from misuse of it. They have been chiefly induced by persons who falsely pretended to lead monastic life, and led it without having natural faculty for it. But many more lamentable errors have arisen from the pride of really noble persons, who have thought it would be a more pleasing thing to God to be a sibyl or a witch, than a useful housewife. Pride is always somewhat involved even in the true effort: the scarlet head-dress in the form of a horn on the forehead in the fresco indicates this, both here, and in the Contemplative Theology. Under St. John. Medallion unintelligible, to me. A woman laying hands on the shoulders of two small figures. _Technical Points_.--More of the minute folds of the white dress left than in any other of the repainted draperies. It is curious that minute division has always in drapery, more or less, been understood as an expression of spiritual life, from the delicate folds of Athena's peplus down to the rippled edges of modern priests' white robes; Titian's breadth of fold, on the other hand, meaning for the most part bodily power. The relation of the two modes of composition was lost by Michael Angelo, who thought to express spirit by making flesh colossal. For the rest, the figure is not of any interest, Memmi's own mind being intellectual rather than mystic. XIV. POLEMIC THEOLOGY.[Footnote: Blunderingly called 'Charity' in the guide-books.] "Who goes forth, conquering and to conquer?" "For we war, not with flesh and blood," etc. In red, as sign of power, but not in armour, because she is herself invulnerable. A close red cap, with cross for crest, instead of helmet. Bow in left hand; long arrow in right. She partly means Aggressive Logic: compare the set of her shoulders and arms with Logic's. She is placed the last of the Divine sciences, not as their culminating power, but as the last which can be rightly learned. You must know all the others, before you go out to battle. Whereas the general principle of modern Christendom is to go out to battle without knowing _any one_ of the others; one of the reasons for this error, the prince of errors, being the vulgar notion that truth may be ascertained by debate! Truth is never learned, in any department of industry, by arguing, but by working, and observing. And when you have got good hold of one truth, for certain, two others will grow out of it, in a beautifully dicotyledonous fashion, (which, as before noticed, is the meaning of the branch in Logic's right hand). Then, when you have got so much true knowledge as is worth fighting for, you are bound to fight for it. But not to debate about it, any more. There is, however, one further reason for Polemic Theology being put beside Mystic. It is only in some approach to mystic science that any man becomes aware of what St. Paul means by "spiritual wickedness in heavenly [Footnote: With cowardly intentional fallacy, translated 'high' in the English Bible.] places;" or, in any true sense, knows the enemies of God and of man. Beneath St. Augustine. Showing you the proper method of controversy;--perfectly firm; perfectly gentle. You are to distinguish, of course, controversy from rebuke. The assertion of truth is to be always gentle: the chastisement of wilful falsehood may be--very much the contrary indeed. Christ's sermon on the Mount is full of polemic theology, yet perfectly gentle:--"Ye have heard that it hath been said--but _I_ say unto you";--"And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?" and the like. But His "Ye fools and blind, for whether is greater," is not merely the exposure of error, but rebuke of the avarice which made that error possible. Under the throne of St. Thomas; and next to Arithmetic, of the terrestrial sciences. Medallion, a soldier, but not interesting. Technical Points.--Very genuine and beautiful throughout. Note the use of St. Augustine's red bands, to connect him with the full red of the upper figures; and compare the niche formed by the dress of Canon Law, above the Pope, for different artistic methods of attaining the same object,--unity of composition. But lunch time is near, my friends, and you have that shopping to do, you know. THE SIXTH MORNING. THE SHEPHERD'S TOWER. I am obliged to interrupt my account of the Spanish chapel by the following notes on the sculptures of Giotto's Campanile: first because I find that inaccurate accounts of those sculptures are in course of publication; and chiefly because I cannot finish my work in the Spanish chapel until one of my good Oxford helpers, Mr. Caird, has completed some investigations he has undertaken for me upon the history connected with it. I had written my own analysis of the fourth side, believing that in every scene of it the figure of St. Dominic was repeated. Mr. Caird first suggested, and has shown me already good grounds for his belief,[Footnote: He wrote thus to me on 11th November last: "The three preachers are certainly different. The first is Dominic; the second, Peter Martyr, whom I have identified from his martyrdom on the other wall; and the third, Aquinas."] that the preaching monks represented are in each scene intended for a different person. I am informed also of several careless mistakes which have got into my description of the fresco of the Sciences; and finally, another of my young helpers, Mr. Charles F. Murray,--one, however, whose help is given much in the form of antagonism,--informs me of various critical discoveries lately made, both by himself, and by industrious Germans, of points respecting the authenticity of this and that, which will require notice from me: more especially he tells me of certification that the picture in the Uffizii, of which I accepted the ordinary attribution to Giotto, is by Lorenzo Monaco,--which indeed may well be, without in the least diminishing the use to you of what I have written of its predella, and without in the least, if you think rightly of the matter, diminishing your confidence in what I tell you of Giotto generally. There is one kind of knowledge of pictures which is the artist's, and another which is the antiquary's and the picture-dealer's; the latter especially acute, and founded on very secure and wide knowledge of canvas, pigment, and tricks of touch, without, necessarily, involving any knowledge whatever of the qualities of art itself. There are few practised dealers in the great cities of Europe whose opinion would not be more trustworthy than mine, (if you could _get_ it, mind you,) on points of actual authenticity. But they could only tell you whether the picture was by such and such a master, and not at all what either the master or his work were good for. Thus, I have, before now, taken drawings by Varley and by Cousins for early studies by Turner, and have been convinced by the dealers that they knew better than I, as far as regarded the authenticity of those drawings; but the dealers don't know Turner, or the worth of him, so well as I, for all that. So also, you may find me again and again mistaken among the much more confused work of the early Giottesque schools, as to the authenticity of this work or the other; but you will find (and I say it with far more sorrow than pride) that I am simply the only person who can at present tell you the real worth of _any_; you will find that whenever I tell you to look at a picture, it is worth your pains; and whenever I tell you the character of a painter, that it _is_ his character, discerned by me faithfully in spite of all confusion of work falsely attributed to him in which similar character may exist. Thus, when I mistook Cousins for Turner, I was looking at a piece of subtlety in the sky of which the dealer had no consciousness whatever, which was essentially Turneresque, but which another man might sometimes equal; whereas the dealer might be only looking at the quality of Whatman's paper, which Cousins used, and Turner did not. Not, in the meanwhile, to leave you quite guideless as to the main subject of the fourth fresco in the Spanish chapel,--the Pilgrim's Progress of Florence,--here is a brief map of it: On the right, in lowest angle, St. Dominic preaches to the group of Infidels; in the next group towards the left, he (or some one very like him) preaches to the Heretics: the Heretics proving obstinate, he sets his dogs at them, as at the fatallest of wolves, who being driven away, the rescued lambs are gathered at the feet of the Pope. I have copied the head of the very pious, but slightly weak-minded, little lamb in the centre, to compare with my rough Cumberland ones, who have had no such grave experiences. The whole group, with the Pope above, (the niche of the Duomo joining with and enriching the decorative power of his mitre,) is a quite delicious piece of design. The Church being thus pacified, is seen in worldly honour under the powers of the Spiritual and Temporal Rulers. The Pope, with Cardinal and Bishop descending in order on his right; the Emperor, with King and Baron descending in order on his left; the ecclesiastical body of the whole Church on the right side, and the laity,--chiefly its poets and artists, on the left. Then, the redeemed Church nevertheless giving itself up to the vanities and temptations of the world, its forgetful saints are seen feasting, with their children dancing before them, (the Seven Mortal Sins, say some commentators). But the wise-hearted of them confess their sins to another ghost of St. Dominic; and confessed, becoming as little children, enter hand in hand the gate of the Eternal Paradise, crowned with flowers by the waiting angels, and admitted by St. Peter among the serenely joyful crowd of all the saints, above whom the white Madonna stands reverently before the throne. There is, so far as I know, throughout all the schools of Christian art, no other so perfect statement of the noble policy and religion of men. I had intended to give the best account of it in my power; but, when at Florence, lost all time for writing that I might copy the group of the Pope and Emperor for the schools of Oxford; and the work since done by Mr. Caird has informed me of so much, and given me, in some of its suggestions, so much to think of, that I believe it will be best and most just to print at once his account of the fresco as a supplement to these essays of mine, merely indicating any points on which I have objections to raise, and so leave matters till Fors lets me see Florence once more. Perhaps she may, in kindness forbid my ever seeing it more, the wreck of it being now too ghastly and heartbreaking to any human soul that remembers the days of old. Forty years ago, there was assuredly no spot of ground, out of Palestine, in all the round world, on which, if you knew, even but a little, the true course of that world's history, you saw with so much joyful reverence the dawn of morning, as at the foot of the Tower of Giotto. For there the traditions of faith and hope, of both the Gentile and Jewish races, met for their beautiful labour: the Baptistery of Florence is the last building raised on the earth by the descendants of the workmen taught by Dædalus: and the Tower of Giotto is the loveliest of those raised on earth under the inspiration of the men who lifted up the tabernacle in the wilderness. Of living Greek work there is none after the Florentine Baptistery; of living Christian work, none so perfect as the Tower of Giotto; and, under the gleam and shadow of their marbles, the morning light was haunted by the ghosts of the Father of Natural Science, Galileo; of Sacred Art, Angelico, and the Master of Sacred Song. Which spot of ground the modern Florentine has made his principal hackney-coach stand and omnibus station. The hackney coaches, with their more or less farmyard-like litter of occasional hay, and smell of variously mixed horse-manure, are yet in more permissible harmony with the place than the ordinary populace of a fashionable promenade would be, with its cigars, spitting, and harlot-planned fineries: but the omnibus place of call being in front of the door of the tower, renders it impossible to stand for a moment near it, to look at the sculptures either of the eastern or southern side; while the north side is enclosed with an iron railing, and usually encumbered with lumber as well: not a soul in Florence ever caring now for sight of any piece of its old artists' work; and the mass of strangers being on the whole intent on nothing but getting the omnibus to go by steam; and so seeing the cathedral in one swift circuit, by glimpses between the puffs of it. The front of Notre Dame of Paris was similarly turned into a coach-office when I last saw it--1872. [Footnote: See Fors Clavigera in that year.] Within fifty yards of me as I write, the Oratory of the Holy Ghost is used for a tobacco-store, and in fine, over all Europe, mere Caliban bestiality and Satyric ravage staggering, drunk and desperate, into every once enchanted cell where the prosperity of kingdoms ruled and the miraculous-ness of beauty was shrined in peace. Deluge of profanity, drowning dome and tower in Stygian pool of vilest thought,--nothing now left sacred, in the places where once--nothing was profane. For _that_ is indeed the teaching, if you could receive it, of the Tower of Giotto; as of all Christian art in its day. Next to declaration of the facts of the Gospel, its purpose, (often in actual work the eagerest,) was to show the _power_ of the Gospel. History of Christ in due place; yes, history of all He did, and how He died: but then, and often, as I say, with more animated imagination, the showing of His risen presence in granting the harvests and guiding the labour of the year. All sun and rain, and length or decline of days received from His hand; all joy, and grief, and strength, or cessation of labour, indulged or endured, as in His sight and to His glory. And the familiar employments of the seasons, the homely toils of the peasant, the lowliest skills of the craftsman, are signed always on the stones of the Church, as the first and truest condition of sacrifice and offering. Of these representations of human art under heavenly guidance, the series of bas-reliefs which stud the base of this tower of Giotto's must be held certainly the chief in Europe. [Footnote: For account of the series on the main archivolt of St. Mark's, see my sketch of the schools of Venetian sculpture in third forthcoming number of 'St. Mark's Rest.'] At first you may be surprised at the smallness of their scale in proportion to their masonry; but this smallness of scale enabled the master workmen of the tower to execute them with their own hands; and for the rest, in the very finest architecture, the decoration of most precious kind is usually thought of as a jewel, and set with space round it,--as the jewels of a crown, or the clasp of a girdle. It is in general not possible for a great workman to carve, himself, a greatly conspicuous series of ornament; nay, even his energy fails him in design, when the bas-relief extends itself into incrustation, or involves the treatment of great masses of stone. If his own does not, the spectator's will. It would be the work of a long summer's day to examine the over-loaded sculptures of the Certosa of Pavia; and yet in the tired last hour, you would be empty-hearted. Read but these inlaid jewels of Giotto's once with patient following; and your hour's study will give you strength for all your life. So far as you can, examine them of course on the spot; but to know them thoroughly you must have their photographs: the subdued colour of the old marble fortunately keeps the lights subdued, so that the photograph may be made more tender in the shadows than is usual in its renderings of sculpture, and there are few pieces of art which may now be so well known as these, in quiet homes far away. We begin on the western side. There are seven sculptures on the western, southern, and northern sides: six on the eastern; counting the Lamb over the entrance door of the tower, which divides the complete series into two groups of eighteen and eight. Itself, between them, being the introduction to the following eight, you must count it as the first of the terminal group; you then have the whole twenty-seven sculptures divided into eighteen and nine. Thus lettering the groups on each side for West, South, East, and North, we have: W. S. E. N. 7 + 7 + 6 + 7 = 27; or, W. S. E. 7 + 7 + 4 = 18; and, E. N. 2 + 7 = 9 There is a very special reason for this division by nines but, for convenience' sake, I shall number the whole from 1 to 27, straightforwardly. And if you will have patience with me, I should like to go round the tower once and again; first observing the general meaning and connection of the subjects and then going back to examine the technical points in each, and such minor specialties as it may be well, at the first time, to pass over. 1. The series begins, then, on the west side, with the Creation of Man. It is not the beginning of the story of Genesis; but the simple assertion that God made us, and breathed, and still breathes, into our nostrils the breath of life. This, Giotto tells you to believe as the beginning of all knowledge and all power. [Footnote: So also the Master-builder of the Ducal Palace of Venice. See Fors Clavigera for June of this year.] This he tells you to believe, as a thing which he himself knows. He will tell you nothing but what he _does_ know. 2. Therefore, though Giovanna Pisano and his fellow sculptors had given, literally, the taking of the rib out of Adam's side, Giotto merely gives the mythic expression of the truth he knows,--"they two shall be one flesh." 3. And though all the theologians and poets of his time would have expected, if not demanded, that his next assertion, after that of the Creation of Man, should be of the Fall of Man, he asserts nothing of the kind. He knows nothing of what man was. What he is, he knows best of living men at that hour, and proceeds to say. The next sculpture is of Eve spinning and Adam hewing the ground into clods. Not _digging_: you cannot, usually, dig but in ground already dug. The native earth you must hew. They are not clothed in skins. What would have been the use of Eve spinning if she could not weave? They wear, each, one simple piece of drapery, Adam's knotted behind him, Eve's fastened around her neck with a rude brooch. Above them are an oak and an apple-tree. Into the apple-tree a little bear is trying to climb. The meaning of which entire myth is, as I read it, that men and women must both eat their bread with toil. That the first duty of man is to feed his family, and the first duty of the woman to clothe it. That the trees of the field are given us for strength and for delight, and that the wild beasts of the field must have their share with us. [Footnote: The oak and apple boughs are placed, with the same meaning, by Sandro Botticelli, in the lap of Zipporah. The figure of the bear is again represented by Jacopo della Quercia, on the north door of the Cathedral of Florence. I am not sure of its complete meaning.] 4. The fourth sculpture, forming the centre-piece of the series on the west side, is nomad pastoral life. Jabal, the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle, lifts the curtain of his tent to look out upon his flock. His dog watches it. 5. Jubal, the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. That is to say, stringed and wind instruments;--the lyre and reed. The first arts (with the Jew and Greek) of the shepherd David, and shepherd Apollo. Giotto has given him the long level trumpet, afterwards adopted so grandly in the sculptures of La Robbia and Donatello. It is, I think, intended to be of wood, as now the long Swiss horn, and a long and shorter tube are bound together. 6. Tubal Cain, the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron. Giotto represents him as sitting, _fully robed_, turning a wedge of bronze on the anvil with extreme watchfulness. These last three sculptures, observe, represent the life of the race of Cain; of those who are wanderers, and have no home. _Nomad_ pastoral life; Nomad artistic life, Wandering Willie; yonder organ man, whom you want to send the policeman after, and the gipsy who is mending the old schoolmistress's kettle on the grass, which the squire has wanted so long to take into his park from the roadside. 7. Then the last sculpture of the seven begins the story of the race of Seth, and of home life. The father of it lying drunk under his trellised vine; such the general image of civilized society, in the abstract, thinks Giotto. With several other meanings, universally known to the Catholic world of that day,--too many to be spoken of here. The second side of the tower represents, after this introduction, the sciences and arts of civilized or home life. 8. Astronomy. In nomad life you may serve yourself of the guidance of the stars; but to know the laws of _their_ nomadic life, your own must be fixed. The astronomer, with his sextant revolving on a fixed pivot, looks up to the vault of the heavens and beholds their zodiac; prescient of what else with optic glass the Tuscan artist viewed, at evening, from the top of Fésole. Above the dome of heaven, as yet unseen, are the Lord of the worlds and His angels. To-day, the Dawn and the Daystar: to-morrow, the Daystar arising in the heart. 9. Defensive architecture. The building of the watchtower. The beginning of security in possession. 10. Pottery. The making of pot, cup, and platter. The first civilized furniture; the means of heating liquid, and serving drink and meat with decency and economy. 11. Riding. The subduing of animals to domestic service. 12. Weaving. The making of clothes with swiftness, and in precision of structure, by help of the loom. 13. Law, revealed as directly from heaven. 14. Dædalus (not Icarus, but the father trying the wings). The conquest of the element of air. As the seventh subject of the first group introduced the arts of home after those of the savage wanderer, this seventh of the second group introduces the arts of the missionary, or civilized and gift-bringing wanderer. 15. The Conquest of the Sea. The helmsman, and two rowers, rowing as Venetians, face to bow. 16. The Conquest of the Earth. Hercules victor over Antæus. Beneficent strength of civilization crushing the savageness of inhumanity. 17. Agriculture. The oxen and plough. 18. Trade. The cart and horses. 19. And now the sculpture over the door of the tower. The Lamb of God, expresses the Law of Sacrifice, and door of ascent to heaven. And then follow the fraternal arts of the Christian world. 20. Geometry. Again the angle sculpture, introductory to the following series. We shall see presently why this science must be the foundation of the rest. 21. Sculpture. 22. Painting. 23. Grammar. 24. Arithmetic. The laws of number, weight, and measures of capacity. 25 Music. The laws of number, weight (or force), and measure, applied to sound. 26. Logic. The laws of number and measure applied to thought. 27. The Invention of Harmony. You see now--by taking first the great division of pre-Christian and Christian arts, marked by the door of the Tower; and then the divisions into four successive historical periods, marked by its angles--that you have a perfect plan of human civilization. The first side is of the nomad life, learning how to assert its supremacy over other wandering creatures, herbs, and beasts. Then the second side is the fixed home life, developing race and country; then the third side, the human intercourse between stranger races; then the fourth side, the harmonious arts of all who are gathered into the fold of Christ. Now let us return to the first angle, and examine piece by piece with care. 1. _Creation of Man._ Scarcely disengaged from the clods of the earth, he opens his eyes to the face of Christ. Like all the rest of the sculptures, it is less the representation of a past fact than of a constant one. It is the continual state of man, 'of the earth,' yet seeing God. Christ holds the book of His Law--the 'Law of life'--in His left hand. The trees of the garden above are,--central above Christ, palm (immortal life); above Adam, oak (human life). Pear, and fig, and a large-leaved ground fruit (what?) complete the myth of the Food of Life. As decorative sculpture, these trees are especially to be noticed, with those in the two next subjects, and the Noah's vine as differing in treatment from Giotto's foliage, of which perfect examples are seen in 16 and 17. Giotto's branches are set in close sheaf-like clusters; and every mass disposed with extreme formality of radiation. The leaves of these first, on the contrary, are arranged with careful concealment of their ornamental system, so as to look inartificial. This is done so studiously as to become, by excess, a little unnatural!--Nature herself is more decorative and formal in grouping. But the occult design is very noble, and every leaf modulated with loving, dignified, exactly right and sufficient finish; not done to show skill, nor with mean forgetfulness of main subject, but in tender completion and harmony with it. Look at the subdivisions of the palm leaves with your magnifying glass. The others are less finished in this than in the next subject. Man himself incomplete, the leaves that are created with him, for his life, must not be so. (Are not his fingers yet short; growing?) 2. _Creation of Woman._ Far, in its essential qualities, the transcendent sculpture of this subject, Ghiberti's is only a dainty elaboration and beautification of it, losing its solemnity and simplicity in a flutter of feminine grace. The older sculptor thinks of the Uses of Womanhood, and of its dangers and sins, before he thinks of its beauty; but, were the arm not lost, the quiet naturalness of this head and breast of Eve, and the bending grace of the submissive rendering of soul and body to perpetual guidance by the hand of Christ--(_grasping_ the arm, note, for full support)--would be felt to be far beyond Ghiberti's in beauty, as in mythic truth. The line of her body joins with that of the serpent-ivy round the tree trunk above her: a double myth--of her fall, and her support afterwards by her husband's strength. "Thy desire shall be to thy husband." The fruit of the tree--double-set filbert, telling nevertheless the happy equality. The leaves in this piece are finished with consummate poetical care and precision. Above Adam, laurel (a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband); the filbert for the two together; the fig, for fruitful household joy (under thy vine and fig-tree [Footnote: Compare Fors Clavigera, February, 1877.]--but vine properly the masculine joy); and the fruit taken by Christ for type of all naturally growing food, in his own hunger. Examine with lens the ribbing of these leaves, and the insertion on their stem of the three laurel leaves on extreme right: and observe that in all cases the sculptor works the moulding _with_ his own part of the design; look how he breaks variously deeper into it, beginning from the foot of Christ, and going up to the left into full depth above the shoulder. 3. _Original labour._ Much poorer, and intentionally so. For the myth of the creation of humanity, the sculptor uses his best strength, and shows supremely the grace of womanhood; but in representing the first peasant state of life, makes the grace of woman by no means her conspicuous quality. She even walks awkwardly; some feebleness in foreshortening the foot also embarrassing the sculptor. He knows its form perfectly--but its perspective, not quite yet. The trees stiff and stunted--they also needing culture. Their fruit dropping at present only into beasts' mouths. 4. _Jabal._ If you have looked long enough, and carefully enough, at the three previous sculptures, you cannot but feel that the hand here is utterly changed. The drapery sweeps in broader, softer, but less true folds; the handling is far more delicate; exquisitely sensitive to gradation over broad surfaces--scarcely using an incision of any depth but in outline; studiously reserved in appliance of shadow, as a thing precious and local--look at it above the puppy's head, and under the tent. This is assuredly painter's work, not mere sculptor's. I have no doubt whatever it is by the own hand of the shepherd-boy of Fésole. Cimabue had found him drawing, (more probably _scratching_ with Etrurian point,) one of his sheep upon a stone. These, on the central foundation-stone of his tower he engraves, looking back on the fields of life: the time soon near for him to draw the curtains of his tent. I know no dog like this in method of drawing, and in skill of giving the living form without one touch of chisel for hair, or incision for eye, except the dog barking at Poverty in the great fresco of Assisi. Take the lens and look at every piece of the work from corner to corner--note especially as a thing which would only have been enjoyed by a painter, and which all great painters do intensely enjoy--the _fringe_ of the tent, [Footnote: "I think Jabal's tent is made of leather; the relaxed intervals between the tent-pegs show a curved ragged edge like leather near the ground" (Mr. Caird). The edge of the opening is still more characteristic, I think.] and precise insertion of its point in the angle of the hexagon, prepared for by the archaic masonry indicated in the oblique joint above; [Footnote: Prints of these photographs which do not show the masonry all round the hexagon are quite valueless for study.] architect and painter thinking at once, and _doing_ as they thought. I gave a lecture to the Eton boys a year or two ago, on little more than the shepherd's dog, which is yet more wonderful in magnified scale of photograph. The lecture is partly published--somewhere, but I can't refer to it. 5. _Jubal_. Still Giotto's, though a little less delighted in; but with exquisite introduction of the Gothic of his own tower. See the light surface sculpture of a mosaic design in the horizontal moulding. Note also the painter's freehand working of the complex mouldings of the table--also resolvedly oblong, not square; see central flower. 6. _Tubal Cain_. Still Giotto's, and entirely exquisite; finished with no less care than the shepherd, to mark the vitality of this art to humanity; the spade and hoe--its heraldic bearing--hung on the hinged door. [Footnote: Pointed out to me by Mr. Caird, who adds farther, "I saw a forge identical with this one at Pelago the other day,--the anvil resting on a tree-stump: the same fire, bellows, and implements; the door in two parts, the upper part like a shutter, and used for the exposition of finished work as a sign of the craft; and I saw upon it the same finished work of the same shape as in the bas-relief--a spade and a hoe."] For subtlety of execution, note the texture of wooden block under anvil, and of its iron hoop. The workman's face is the best sermon on the dignity of labour yet spoken by thoughtful man. Liberal Parliaments and fraternal Reformers have nothing essential to say more. 7. _Noah_. Andrea Pisano's again, more or less imitative of Giotto's work. 8. _Astronomy_. We have a new hand here altogether. The hair and drapery bad; the face expressive, but blunt in cutting; the small upper heads, necessarily little more than blocked out, on the small scale; but not suggestive of grace in completion: the minor detail worked with great mechanical precision, but little feeling; the lion's head, with leaves in its ears, is quite ugly; and by comparing the work of the small cusped arch at the bottom with Giotto's soft handling of the mouldings of his, in 5, you may for ever know common mason's work from fine Gothic. The zodiacal signs are quite hard and common in the method of bas-relief, but quaint enough in design: Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces, on the broad heavenly belt; Taurus upside down, Gemini, and Cancer, on the small globe. I think the whole a restoration of the original panel, or else an inferior workman's rendering of Giotto's design, which the next piece is, with less question. 9. _Building_. The larger figure, I am disposed finally to think, represents civic power, as in Lorenzetti's fresco at Siena. The extreme rudeness of the minor figures may be guarantee of their originality; it is the smoothness of mass and hard edge work that make me suspect the 8th for a restoration. 10. _Pottery_. Very grand; with much painter's feeling, and fine mouldings again. The _tiled_ roof projecting in the shadow above, protects the first Ceramicus-home. I think the women are meant to be carrying some kind of wicker or reed-bound water-vessel. The Potter's servant explains to them the extreme advantages of the new invention. I can't make any conjecture about the author of this piece. 11. _Riding_. Again Andrea Pisano's, it seems to me. Compare the tossing up of the dress behind the shoulders, in 3 and 2. The head is grand, having nearly an Athenian profile: the loss of the horse's fore-leg prevents me from rightly judging of the entire action. I must leave riders to say. 12. _Weaving_. Andrea's again, and of extreme loveliness; the stooping face of the woman at the loom is more like a Leonardo drawing than sculpture. The action of throwing the large shuttle, and all the structure of the loom and its threads, distinguishing rude or smooth surface, are quite wonderful. The figure on the right shows the use and grace of finely woven tissue, under and upper--that over the bosom so delicate that the line of separation from the flesh of the neck is unseen. If you hide with your hand the carved masonry at the bottom, the composition separates itself into two pieces, one disagreeably rectangular. The still more severely rectangular masonry throws out by contrast all that is curved and rounded in the loom, and unites the whole composition; that is its aesthetic function; its historical one is to show that weaving is queen's work, not peasant's; for this is palace masonry. 13. _The Giving of Law_. More strictly, of _the_ Book of God's Law: the only one which _can_ ultimately be obeyed. [Footnote: Mr. Caird convinced me of the real meaning of this sculpture. I had taken it for the giving of a book, writing further of it as follows:-- All books, rightly so called, are Books of Law, and all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. (What _we_ now mostly call a book, the infinite reduplication and vibratory echo of a lie, is not given but belched up out of volcanic clay by the inspiration of the devil.) On the Book-giver's right hand the students in cell, restrained by the lifted right hand: "Silent, you, till you know"; then, perhaps, you also. On the left, the men of the world, kneeling, receive the gift. Recommendable seal, this, for Mr. Mudie! Mr. Caird says: "The book is written law, which is given by Justice to the inferiors, that they may know the laws regulating their relations to their superiors--who are also under the hand of law. The vassal is protected by the accessibility of formularized law. The superior is restrained by the right hand of power." ] The authorship of this is very embarrassing to me. The face of the central figure is most noble, and all the work good, but not delicate; it is like original work of the master whose design No. 8 might be a restoration. 14 _Dædalus_. Andrea Pisano again; the head superb, founded on Greek models, feathers of wings wrought with extreme care; but with no precision of arrangement or feeling. How far intentional in awkwardness, I cannot say; but note the good mechanism of the whole plan, with strong standing board for the feet. 15. _Navigation_. An intensely puzzling one; coarse (perhaps unfinished) in work, and done by a man who could not row; the plaited bands used for rowlocks being pulled the wrong way. Right, had the rowers been rowing Englishwise: but the water at the boat's head shows its motion forwards, the way the oarsmen look. I cannot make out the action of the figure at the stern; it ought to be steering with the stern oar. The water seems quite unfinished. Meant, I suppose, for surface and section of sea, with slimy rock at the bottom; but all stupid and inefficient. 16. _Hercules and Antæus._ The Earth power, half hidden by the earth, its hair and hand becoming roots, the strength of its life passing through the ground into the oak tree. With Cercyon, but first named, (Plato, _Laws_, book VII., 796), Antæus is the master of contest without use;--[GREEK: philoneikias achrestou]--and is generally the power of pure selfishness and its various inflation to insolence and degradation to cowardice;--finding its strength only in fall back to its Earth,--he is the master, in a word, of all such kind of persons as have been writing lately about the "interests of England." He is, therefore, the Power invoked by Dante to place Virgil and him in the lowest circle of Hell;--"Alcides whilom felt,--that grapple, straitened sore," etc. The Antæus in the sculpture is very grand; but the authorship puzzles me, as of the next piece, by the same hand. I believe both Giotto's design. 17. _Ploughing._ The sword in its Christian form. Magnificent: the grandest expression of the power of man over the earth and its strongest creatures that I remember in early sculpture,--(or for that matter, in late). It is the subduing of the bull which the sculptor thinks most of; the plough, though large, is of wood, and the handle slight. But the pawing and bellowing labourer he has bound to it!--here is victory. 18. _The Chariot._ The horse also subdued to draught--Achilles' chariot in its first, and to be its last, simplicity. The face has probably been grand--the figure is so still. Andrea's, I think by the flying drapery. 19. _The Lamb, with the symbol of Resurrection._ Over the door: 'I am the door;--by me, if any man enter in,' etc. Put to the right of the tower, you see, fearlessly, for the convenience of staircase ascent; all external symmetry being subject with the great builders to interior use; and then, out of the rightly ordained infraction of formal law, comes perfect beauty; and when, as here, the Spirit of Heaven is working with the designer, his thoughts are suggested in truer order, by the concession to use. After this sculpture comes the Christian arts,--those which necessarily imply the conviction of immortality. Astronomy without Christianity only reaches as far as--'Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels--and put all _things_ under His feet':--Christianity says beyond this,--'Know ye not that we shall judge angels (as also the lower creatures shall judge us!)' [Footnote: In the deep sense of this truth, which underlies all the bright fantasy and humour of Mr. Courthope's "Paradise of Birds," that rhyme of the risen spirit of Aristophanes may well be read under the tower of Giotto, beside his watch-dog of the fold.] The series of sculptures now beginning, show the arts which _can_ only be accomplished through belief in Christ. 20. _Geometry_. Not 'mathematics': _they_ have been implied long ago in astronomy and architecture; but the due Measuring of the Earth and all that is on it. Actually done only by Christian faith--first inspiration of the great Earth-measurers. Your Prince Henry of Spain, your Columbus, your Captain Cook, (whose tomb, with the bright artistic invention and religious tenderness which are so peculiarly the gifts of the nineteenth century, we have just provided a fence for, of old cannon open-mouthed, straight up towards Heaven--your modern method of symbolizing the only appeal to Heaven of which the nineteenth century has left itself capable--'The voice of thy Brother's blood crieth to me'--your outworn cannon, now silently agape, but sonorous in the ears of angels with that appeal)--first inspiration, I say, of these; constant inspiration of all who set true landmarks and hold to them, knowing their measure; the devil interfering, I observe, lately in his own way, with the Geometry of Yorkshire, where the landed proprietors, [Footnote: I mean no accusation against any class; probably the one-fielded statesman is more eager for his little gain of fifty yards of grass than the squire for his bite and sup out of the gypsy's part of the roadside. But it is notable enough to the passing traveller, to find himself shut into a narrow road between high stone dykes which he can neither see over nor climb over, (I always deliberately pitch them down myself, wherever I need a gap,) instead of on a broad road between low grey walls with all the moor beyond--and the power of leaping over when he chooses in innocent trespass for herb, or view, or splinter of grey rock.] when the neglected walls by the roadside tumble down, benevolently repair the same, with better stonework, _outside_ always of the fallen heaps;--which, the wall being thus built _on_ what was the public road, absorb themselves, with help of moss and time, into the heaving swells of the rocky field-and behold, gain of a couple of feet--along so much of the road as needs repairing operations. This then, is the first of the Christian sciences: division of land rightly, and the general law of measuring between wisely-held compass points. The type of mensuration, circle in square, on his desk, I use for my first exercise in the laws of Fésole. 21. _Sculpture_. The first piece of the closing series on the north side of the Campanile, of which some general points must be first noted, before any special examination. The two initial ones, Sculpture and Painting, are by tradition the only ones attributed to Giotto's own hand. The fifth, Song, is known, and recognizable in its magnificence, to be by Luca della Robbia. The remaining four are all of Luca's school,--later work therefore, all these five, than any we have been hitherto examining, entirely different in manner, and with late flower-work beneath them instead of our hitherto severe Gothic arches. And it becomes of course instantly a vital question--Did Giotto die leaving the series incomplete, only its subjects chosen, and are these two bas-reliefs of Sculpture and Painting among his last works? or was the series ever completed, and these later bas-reliefs substituted for the earlier ones, under Luca's influence, by way of conducting the whole to a grander close, and making their order more representative of Florentine art in its fulness of power? I must repeat, once more, and with greater insistence respecting Sculpture than Painting, that I do not in the least set myself up for a critic of authenticity,--but only of absolute goodness. My readers may trust me to tell them what is well done or ill; but by whom, is quite a separate question, needing for any certainty, in this school of much-associated masters and pupils, extremest attention to minute particulars not at all bearing on my objects in teaching. Of this closing group of sculptures, then, all I can tell you is that the fifth is a quite magnificent piece of work, and recognizably, to my extreme conviction, Luca della Robbia's; that the last, Harmonia, is also fine work; that those attributed to Giotto are fine in a different way,--and the other three in reality the poorest pieces in the series, though done with much more advanced sculptural dexterity. But I am chiefly puzzled by the two attributed to Giotto, because they are much coarser than those which seem to me so plainly his on the west side, and slightly different in workmanship--with much that is common to both, however, in the casting of drapery and mode of introduction of details. The difference may be accounted for partly by haste or failing power, partly by the artist's less deep feeling of the importance of these merely symbolic figures, as compared with those of the Fathers of the Arts; but it is very notable and embarrassing notwithstanding, complicated as it is with extreme resemblance in other particulars. You cannot compare the subjects on the tower itself; but of my series of photographs take 6 and 21, and put them side by side. I need not dwell on the conditions of resemblance, which are instantly visible; but the _difference_ in the treatment of the heads is incomprehensible. That of the Tubal Cain is exquisitely finished, and with a painter's touch; every lock of the hair laid with studied flow, as in the most beautiful drawing. In the 'Sculpture,' it is struck out with ordinary tricks of rapid sculptor trade, entirely unfinished, and with offensively frank use of the drill hole to give picturesque rustication to the beard. Next, put 22 and 5 back to back. You see again the resemblance in the earnestness of both figures, in the unbroken arcs of their backs, in the breaking of the octagon moulding by the pointed angles; and here, even also in the general conception of the heads. But again, in the one of Painting, the hair is struck with more vulgar indenting and drilling, and the Gothic of the picture frame is less precise in touch and later in style. Observe, however,--and this may perhaps give us some definite hint for clearing the question,--a picture-frame _would be_ less precise in making, and later in style, properly, than cusped arches to be put under the feet of the inventor of all musical sound by breath of man. And if you will now compare finally the eager tilting of the workman's seat in 22 and 6, and the working of the wood in the painter's low table for his pots of colour, and his three-legged stool, with that of Tubal Cain's anvil block; and the way in which the lines of the forge and upper triptych are in each composition used to set off the rounding of the head, I believe you will have little hesitation in accepting my own view of the matter--namely, that the three pieces of the Fathers of the Arts were wrought with Giotto's extremest care for the most precious stones of his tower; that also, being a sculptor and painter, he did the other two, but with quite definite and wilful resolve that they _should be_, as mere symbols of his own two trades, wholly inferior to the other subjects of the patriarchs; that he made the Sculpture picturesque and bold as you see it is, and showed all a sculptor's tricks in the work of it; and a sculptor's Greek subject, Bacchus, for the model of it; that he wrought the Painting, as the higher art, with more care, still keeping it subordinate to the primal subjects, but showed, for a lesson to all the generations of painters for evermore,--this one lesson, like his circle of pure line containing all others,--'Your soul and body must be all in every touch.' I can't resist the expression of a little piece of personal exultation, in noticing that he holds his pencil as I do myself: no writing master, and no effort (at one time very steady for many months), having ever cured me of that way of holding both pen and pencil between my fore and second finger; the third and fourth resting the backs of them on my paper. As I finally arrange these notes for press, I am further confirmed in my opinion by discovering little finishings in the two later pieces which I was not before aware of. I beg the masters of High Art, and sublime generalization, to take a good magnifying glass to the 'Sculpture' and look at the way Giotto has cut the compasses, the edges of the chisels, and the keyhole of the lock of the toolbox. For the rest, nothing could be more probable, in the confused and perpetually false mass of Florentine tradition, than the preservation of the memory of Giotto's carving his own two trades, and the forgetfulness, or quite as likely ignorance, of the part he took with Andrea Pisano in the initial sculptures. I now take up the series of subjects at the point where we broke off, to trace their chain of philosophy to its close. To Geometry, which gives to every man his possession of house and land, succeed 21, Sculpture, and 22, Painting, the adornments of permanent habitation. And then, the great arts of education in a Christian home. First-- 23. _Grammar_, or more properly Literature altogether, of which we have already seen the ancient power in the Spanish Chapel series; then, 24. _Arithmetic_, central here as also in the Spanish Chapel, for the same reasons; here, more impatiently asserting, with both hands, that two, on the right, you observe-and two on the left-do indeed and for ever make Four. Keep your accounts, you, with your book of double entry, on that principle; and you will be safe in this world and the next, in your steward's office. But by no means so, if you ever admit the usurers Gospel of Arithmetic, that two and two make Five. You see by the rich hem of his robe that the asserter of this economical first principle is a man well to do in the world. 25. _Logic_. The art of Demonstration. Vulgarest of the whole series, far too expressive of the mode in which argument is conducted by those who are not masters of its reins. 26. _Song._ The essential power of music in animal life. Orpheus, the symbol of it all, the inventor properly of Music, the Law of Kindness, as Dædalus of Music, the Law of Construction. Hence the "Orphic life" is one of ideal mercy, (vegetarian,)--Plato, _Laws_, Book VI., 782,--and he is named first after Dædalus, and in balance to him as head of the school of harmonists, in Book III., 677, (Steph.) Look for the two singing birds clapping their wings in the tree above him; then the five mystic beasts,--closest to his feet the irredeemable boar; then lion and bear, tiger, unicorn, and fiery dragon closest to his head, the flames of its mouth mingling with his breath as he sings. The audient eagle, alas! has lost the beak, and is only recognizable by his proud holding of himself; the duck, sleepily delighted after muddy dinner, close to his shoulder, is a true conquest. Hoopoe, or indefinite bird of crested race, behind; of the other three no clear certainty. The leafage throughout such as only Luca could do, and the whole consummate in skill and understanding. 27. _Harmony._ Music of Song, in the full power of it, meaning perfect education in all art of the Muses and of civilized life: the mystery of its concord is taken for the symbol of that of a perfect state; one day, doubtless, of the perfect world. So prophesies the last corner stone of the Shepherd's Tower. 
8702	----	THE DORE GALLERY OF BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrated by Gustave Dore Volume 2. THE TRIAL OF THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM. And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he, said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.--Geneszs xxii. 1-18. THE BURIAL OF SARAH. And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old these were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight. And the children of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him, Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince among us: in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead. And Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth. And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and intreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me for a possession of a burying-place amongst you. And Ephron dwelt among the children of Heth: and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying, Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee: bury thy dead. And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land. And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me: I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there. And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver: what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead. And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city. And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan. And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying-place by the sons of Heth.--Genesis xxiii. ELIEZER AND REBEKAH. And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware to him concerning that matter. And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed; for all the goods of his master were in his hand: and he arose and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor. And he made his camels to kneel down, without the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water. And he said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham. Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw: water: and let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master. And it came to pass before he had done speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder. And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher and came up. And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher. And she said, Drink, my lord; and she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking. And she hasted and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels. And the man wondering at her held his peace, to wit whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold: and said, Whose daughter art thou? tell me, I pray thee; is there room in thy father's house for us to lodge in? And she said unto him, I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor. She said moreover unto him, We have both straw and provender enough, and room to lodge in. And the man bowed down his head and worshiped the Lord. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master's brethren. And the damsel ran, and told them of her mother's house these things.--Genesis xxiv, 9-28. ISAAC BLESSING JACOB. And it came to pass, that when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see, he called Esau, his eldest son, and said unto him, My son: and he said unto him, Behold, here am I. And he said, Behold now, I am old, I know not the day of my death: Now therefore take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me some venison; And make me savoury meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat; that my soul may bless thee before I die. And Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring it. And Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son, saying, Behold, I heard thy father speak unto Esau thy brother, saying, Bring me venison, and make me savoury meat, that I may eat, and bless thee before the Lord before my death. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to that which I command thee. Go now to the flock, and fetch me from thence two good kids of the goats; and I will make them savoury meat for thy father such as he loveth; And thou shalt bring it to thy father, that he may eat, and that he may bless thee before his death. And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man: My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing. And his mother said unto him, Upon me be thy curse, my son: only obey my voice, and go fetch me them. And he went, and fetched, and brought them to his mother: and his mother made savoury meat, such as his father loved. And Rebekah took goodly raiment of her eldest son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob her younger son: And she put the skins of the kids of the goats upon his hands and upon the smooth of his neck: And she gave the savoury meat and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob. And he came unto his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I; who art thou, my son? And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thy first born; I have done according as thou badest me: arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said, Because the Lord thy God brought it to me. And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not. And Jacob went; near unto Isaac his father; and he felt him, and said, The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy, as his brother Esau's hands: so he blessed him. And he said, Art thou my very son Esau? And he said, I am. And he said, Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son's venison, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near to him, and he did eat; and he brought him wine, and he drank. And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near now, and kiss me, my son. And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed: Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine: Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee.--Genesis xxvii. 1-29. JACOB TENDING THE FLOCKS OF LABAN. And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep: for she kept them. And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother's brother, that Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother's brother. And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's brother, and that he was Rebekah's son: and she ran and told her father. And it came to pass, when Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister's son, that he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house. And he told Laban all these things. And Laban said to him, Surely thou art my bone and my flesh. And he abode with him the space of a month. And Laban said unto Jacob, Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for naught? tell me, what shall thy wages be? And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured. And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man; abide with me. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had for her. And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast. And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and he went in unto her. And Laban gave unto his daughter Leah Zilpah his maid, for an handmaid. And it came to pass that in the morning, behold, it was Leah: and he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done unto me? did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week; and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also. And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid. And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.--Genesis xxix, 9-30. JOSEPH SOLD INTO EGYPT. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren, and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a coat of many colors. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed. For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father and to his brethren; and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth. And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying. And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan. And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreams. And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him. And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands to deliver him to his father again. And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him; and they took him and cast him into a pit; and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. And they sat down to eat bread; and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content. Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver; and they brought Joseph into Egypt. And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, and captain of the guard.--Genesis xxxvii, 2--12, 17-28, 36 JOSEPH INTERPRETING PHARAOH'S DREAM. And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river. And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well favoured kine and fat-fleshed; and they fed in a meadow. And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and lean-fleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. And the ill favored and lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well favoured and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke. And he slept and dreamed the second time: and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good. And, behold, seven thin ears and blasted with the east wind sprung up after them. And the seven thin ears devoured the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dream. And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh. [At the suggestion of his chief butler Pharaoh sends for Joseph and relates to him his dreams, which Joseph interprets as follows:] And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do. The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one. And the seven thin and ill favoured kine that came up after them are seven years; and the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind shall be seven years of famine. This is the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh: What God is about to do he sheweth unto Pharaoh. Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; and the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of that famine following; for it shall be very grievous. And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass. Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. And let them gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities. And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine.--Genesis xli. 1-36. JOSEPH MAKING HIMSELF KNOWN TO HIS BRETHREN. Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not: And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast. And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty. And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him. And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying, Joseph's brethren are come and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan; and take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land.--Genesis xlv, 1-18. MOSES IN THE BULRUSHES. And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.--Exodus ii, 1-10. THE WAR AGAINST GIBEON. Therefore the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped before Gibeon, and made war against it. And the men of Gibeon sent unto Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, saying, Slack not thy hand from thy servants; come up to us quickly, and save us and help us: for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the mountains are gathered together against us. So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he, and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor. And the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thine hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee. Joshua therefore came unto them suddenly, and went up from Gilgal all night. And the Lord discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Beth-horon, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makkedah. And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword. Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hastened not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel. And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal. But these five kings fled, and hid themselves in a cave at Makkedah. And it was told Joshua, saying, The five kings are found hid in a cave at Makkedah. And Joshua said, Roll great stones upon the mouth of the cave, and set men by it for to keep them: and stay ye not, but pursue after your enemies, and smite the hindmost of them; suffer them not to enter into their cities; for the Lord your God hath delivered them into your hand. And it came to pass, when Joshua and the children of Israel had made an end of slaying them with a very great slaughter, till they were consumed, that the rest which remained of them entered into fenced cities. Joshua x, 5-20. SISERA SLAIN BY JAEL. Now Heber the Kenite, which was of the children of Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses, had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent unto the plain of Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh. And they shewed Sisera that Barak, the son of Abinoam, was gone up to Mount Tabor. And Sisera gathered together all his chariots, even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people that were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles unto the river of Kishon. And Deborah said unto Barak, Up; for this is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hand: is not the Lord gone out before thee? So Barak went down from Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him. And the Lord discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on his feet. But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the host, unto Harosheth of the Gentiles: and all the host of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword; and there was not a man left. Howbeit Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle. And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him. Again he said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and enquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here? that thou shalt say, No. Then Jael, Heber's wife, took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died. And, behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples. Judges iv, 2-22. 
8705	----	THE DORE GALLERY OF BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrated by Gustave Dore Volume 5. ISAIAH. Isaiah (in Hebrew, Yeshayahu, "Salvation of God"), the earliest and most sublime of the four greater Hebrew prophets, was the son of Amoz (2 Kings xix, 2-20; Isaiah xxxvii, 2), and he uttered his oracles during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. The dates of his birth and death are unknown, but he lived from about 760 B.C. to about 700 B.C. He was married and had three sons--the children referred to in Isaiah viii, 18; and he appears to have resided near Jerusalem. But by most competent critics it is now held that the last twenty-seven chapters (40-66) of the book bearing his name were the work, not of the prophet, but of a later writer who is commonly styled the second or Deutero-Isaiah. In this portion of the book, Cyrus, who was not born till after 600 B.C., is mentioned by name (Isaiah, xliv, 28; xlv, i); and events which did not take place till a century after the prophet's death are referred to as happening contemporaneously with the writer's account of them. The style of these last twenty-seven chapters, also, is different, and the tone is more elevated and spiritual. Dore's ideal portrait is more suited to the second or pseudo-Isaiah, than to the real one. DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB'S HOST. Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake. And it came to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead.--2 Kings xix, 32-37 BARUCH. And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord, which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book. Jeremiah xxxvi; 1-4. The word that Jeremiah the prophet spake unto Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, unto thee, O Baruch; thou didst say, Woe is me now! for the Lord hath added grief to my sorrow; I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest. Thus shalt thou say unto him, The Lord saith thus; Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land. And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the Lord: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goesth. Jeremiah xlv, 1-5. EZEKIEL PROPHESYING. Ezekiel, the third of the great Hebrew prophets, was the son of the priest Buzi. (Ezekiel i, 3). He was probably born about 620 or 630 years before Christ, and was consequently a contemporary of Jeremiah and Daniel, to the latter of whom he alludes in chapters xiv, 14-20 and xxviii, 3. When Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 B.C. (2 Kings xxiv, 8-16; Jeremiah xxix, 1-2; Ezekiel xvii, 12; xix, 9), Ezekiel was carried captive along with Jehoiachin, or Jeconiah, king of Judah, and thousands of other Jewish prisoners, to Babylonia, or as he himself calls it, "the land of the Chaldeans." (Ezekiel i, 3). Here, along with his exiled fellow-countrymen, he lived on the banks of the river Chebar (Ezekiel i, 1-3), in a house of his own (viii, i). Here also he married, and here, too, his wife, "the desire of his eyes," was taken from him "with a stroke" (Ezekiel xxiv, 15-18). His prophetic career extended over twenty-two years, from about 592 B.C. to about 570 B.C. The book bearing his name is written in a mystical and symbolical style, and abounds with visions and difficult allegories which indicate on the part of the author the possession of a vivid and sublime imagination. Ezekiel's authorship of it has been questioned. The Talmud attributes it to the Great Synagogue, of which Ezekiel was not a member. It is divisible into two portions. The first (chapters i-xxiv) was written before, and the second (chapters xxv-xlviii) after, the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C, the eleventh year of the prophet's captivity (Ezekiel xxvi, 1-2; XI, i). The present text is very imperfect, being corrupted by the interpolation of glosses and other additions by later hands. Dore's picture represents the prophet uttering his oracles to his fellow-exiles ("them of the captivity"), or to the "elders of Judah," or "elders of Israel," on one of the occasions to which he himself alludes (viii, I; xi, 25; xiv, I; xx, I). THE VISION OF EZEKIEL. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me; Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the, bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord.--Ezekiel xxxvii, 1-14. DANIEL. Respecting the parentage or family of Daniel, the fourth of the great Hebrew prophets, nothing is known, though he appears to have been of noble if not of royal descent (Daniel i, 3). When, in the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim (607, 606, 605, or 604 B.C.), Jerusalem was first taken by Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel, then a youth, was among the captives carried to Babylon. By the king's orders, he, with others of the Jewish youth, was educated for three years (Daniel i, 3-7). At this time Daniel acquired the power of interpreting dreams (i, 17), which he used with such advantage in expounding a dream of Nebuchadnezzar, that he was made ruler over the whole province of Babylon (Daniel ii, 46-48). Daniel's interpretation of Belshazzar's famous vision having been fulfilled by the capture of Babylon by Darius, that conqueror promoted Daniel to the highest office in the kingdom (Daniel vi, 1-3). The prophet also prospered greatly during the reign of Cyrus (Daniel vi, 28). The book of Daniel is written partly in Chaldaic or Syriac (the vernacular Aramaic language spoken by the people of Palestine), and partly in sacred Hebrew. It is manifestly divisible into two portions. The first (chapters i-vi) narrating the details of the prophet's life, and the second (chapters vii-xii) setting forth his apocalyptic visions. Much doubt has been cast upon the authenticity of the work. The evident reference in the eleventh chapter to the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, which took place about 330 B.C., or more than two hundred years after Daniel flourished, has led many modern critics to believe that the work was composed in the time of the Maccabees. Dore's picture appears to be intended to represent the prophet meditating over one of the many visions which came to him. THE FIERY FURNACE. Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and accused the Jews. They spake and said to the king Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever. There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Then they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego? do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: therefore he spake, and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated. And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Therefore because the king's commandment was urgent and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counselors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered, and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came forth of the midst of the fire. And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's counselors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was a hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.--Daniel iii, 8, 9, 12-27. BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. [On the failure of his astrologers and soothsayers to interpret the writing, the king, at the suggestion of his queen, sends for Daniel, who interprets it as follows:] O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honor: and for the majesty that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him and he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses: they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will. And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written. And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom.--Daniel v. DANIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. Then these men assembled, and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God. Then they came near, and spake before the king concerning the king's decree Hast thou not signed a decree, that every man that shall ask a petition of any God or man within thirty days, save of thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. The king answered and said, The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. Then answered they and said before the king, That Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day. Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him: and he laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him. Then these men assembled unto the king, and said unto the king, Know, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, That no decree nor statute which the king establisheth may be changed. Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions. Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee. And a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that the purpose might not be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting: neither were instruments of musick brought before him: and his sleep went from him. Then the king arose very early in the morning, and went in haste unto the den of lions. And when he came to the den, he cried with a lamentable voice unto Daniel: and the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions? Then said Daniel unto the King, O king, live forever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt. Then was the king exceeding glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God. And the king commanded, and they brought those men which had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces or ever they came at the bottom of the den.--Daniel vi. THE PROPHET AMOS. Amos, one of the earliest of the Hebrew prophets, flourished during the reign of Uzziah, about 790 B.C., and was consequently a contemporary of Hosea and Joel. In his youth he lived at Tekoa, about six miles south of Bethlehem, in Judaea, and was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit (Amos i, i; vii, 14). This occupation he gave up for that of prophet (vii, 15), and he came forward to denounce the idolatry then prevalent in Judah, Israel, and the surrounding kingdoms. The first six chapters of his book contain his denunciations of idolatry; the other three, his symbolical vision of the overthrow of the people of Israel, and a promise of their restoration. The style is remarkable for clearness and strength, and for its picturesque use of images drawn from the rural and pastoral life which the prophet had led in his youth. JONAH CALLING NINEVEH TO REPENTANCE. And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto to Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything: let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.--Jonah iii. DANIEL CONFOUNDING THE PRIESTS OF BEL. Now the Babylonians had an idol called Bel: and there were spent upon him every day, twelve great measures of fine flour, and forty sheep, and sixty vessels of wine. The king also worshipped him, and went every day to adore him: but Daniel adored his God. And the king said unto him: Why dost thou not adore Bel? And he answered, and said to him Because I do not worship idols made with hands, but the living God, that created heaven and earth, and hath power over all flesh. And the king said to him: Doth not Bel seem to thee to be a living God? Seest thou not how much he eateth and drinketh every day? Then Daniel smiled and said: O king, be not deceived: for this is but clay within, and brass without, neither hath he eaten at any time. And the king being angry called for his priests, and said to them: If you tell me not, who it is that eateth up these expenses, you shall die. But if you can show that Bel eateth these things, Daniel shall die, because he hath blasphemed against Bel. And Daniel said to the king: Be it done according to thy word. Now the priests of Bel were seventy besides their wives and little ones and children. And they went with Daniel into the temple of Bel. And the priests of Bel said: Behold, we go out: and do thou, O king, set on the meats, and make ready, the wine, and shut the door fast, and seal it with thy own ring: and when thou comest in the morning, if thou findest not that Bel hath eaten all up, we will suffer death, or else Daniel that hath lied against us. And they little regarded it, because they had made under the table a secret entrance, and they always came in by it, and consumed those things. So it came to pass after they were gone out, the king set the meats before Bel: and Daniel commanded his servants, and they brought ashes, and he sifted them all over the temple before the king: and going forth they shut the door, and having sealed it with the king's ring, they departed. But the priests went in by night, according to their custom, with their wives and their children: and they eat and drank all up. And the king rose early in the morning, and Daniel with him. And the king said: Are the seals whole, Daniel? and he answered: They are whole, O king. And as soon as he had opened the door, the king looked upon the table, and cried out with a loud voice Great art thou, O Bel, and there is not any deceit with thee. And Daniel laughed: and he held the king that he should not go in: and he said: Behold the pavement, mark whose footsteps these are. And the king said: I see the footsteps of men, and women, and children. And the king was angry. Then he took the priests, and their wives, and their children: and they showed him the private doors by which they came in, and consumed the things that were on the table. The king therefore put them to death, and delivered Bel into the power of Daniel: who destroyed him, and his temple.--Daniel xiv, I-21 (Douay Version). HELIODORUS PUNISHED IN THE TEMPLE. But Heliodorus executed that which he had resolved on, himself being present in the same place with his guard about the treasury. But the spirit of the Almighty God gave a great evidence of his presence, so that all that had presumed to obey him, falling down by the power of God, were struck with fainting and dread. For there appeared to them a horse with a terrible rider upon him, adorned with a very rich covering: and he ran fiercely and struck Heliodorus with his fore-feet, and he that sat upon him seemed to have armor of gold. Moreover, there appeared two other young men, beautiful and strong, bright and glorious, and in comely apparel: who stood by him, on either side, and scourged him without ceasing with many stripes. And Heliodorus suddenly fell to the ground, and they took him up covered with great darkness, and having put him into a litter they carried him out. So he that came with many servants, and all his guard into the aforesaid treasury, was carried out, no one being able to help him, the manifest power of God being known. And he indeed by the power of God lay speechless, and without all hope of recovery.--2 Maccabees iii, 23-29. 
8704	----	THE DORE GALLERY OF BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrated by Gustave Dore Volume 4. DEATH OF SAUL. Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa. And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchshua, Saul's sons. And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers. Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore, Saul took a sword, and fell upon it. And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him. So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together. And when the men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley, and they that were on the other side Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities, and fled; and the Philistines came and dwelt in them. And it came to pass on the morrow, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his three sons fallen in mount Gilboa. And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to publish it in the house of their idols, and among the people. And they put his armour in the house of Ashtaroth and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan. And when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard of that which the Philistines had done to Saul; all the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan, and came to Jabesh, and burnt them there. And they took their bones, and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days. 1 Samuel xxxi. THE DEATH OF ABSALOM. And David numbered the people that were with him, and set captains of thousands and captains of hundreds over them. And David set forth a third part of the people under the hand of Joab, and a third part under the hand of Abishai the son of Zeruiah, Joab's brother, and a third part under the hand of Ittai the Gittite. And the king said unto the people, I will surely go forth with you myself also. But the people answered, Thou shalt not go forth: for if we flee away, they will not care for us; neither if half of us die, will they care for us: but now thou art worth ten thousand of us: therefore now it is better that thou succor us out of the city. And the king said unto them, What seemeth you best I will do. And the king stood by the gate side, and all the people came out by hundreds and by thousands. And the king commanded Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying, Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom. And all the people heard when the king gave all the captains charge concerning Absalom. So the people went out into the field against Israel: and the battle was in the wood of Ephraim; where the people of Israel were slain before the servants of David, and there was there a great slaughter that day, of twenty thousand men. For the battle was there scattered over the face of all the country: and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured. And Absalom met the servants of David. And Absalom rode upon a mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth; and the mule that was under him went away. And a certain man saw it, and told Joab, and said, Behold I saw Absalom hanged in an oak. And Joab said unto the man that told him, And, behold, thou sawest him, and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle. And the man said unto Joab, Though I should receive a thousand shekels of silver in mine hand, yet would I not put forth mine hand against the king's son: for in our hearing the king charged thee and Abishai and Ittai, saying, Beware that none touch the young man Absalom. Otherwise I should have wrought falsehood against mine own life: for there is no matter hid from the king, and thou thyself wouldst have set thyself against me. Then said Joab, I may not tarry thus with thee. And he took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak. And ten young men that bare Joab's armor compassed about and smote Absalom, and slew him. And Joab blew the trumpet, and the people returned from pursuing after Israel: for Joab held back the people. And they took Absalom, and cast him into a great pit in the wood, and laid a very great heap of stones upon him: and all Israel fled every one to his tent.--2 Samuel xviii, 1-17. DAVID MOURNING OVER ABSALOM. Then said Ahimaaz the son of Zadok, Let me now run, and bear the king tidings, how that the Lord hath avenged him of his enemies. And Joab said unto him, Thou shalt not bear tidings this day, but thou shalt bear tidings another day: but this day thou shalt bear no tidings, because the king's son is dead. Then said Joab to Cushi, Go tell the king what thou hast seen. And Cushi bowed himself unto Joab, and ran. Then said Ahimaaz the son of Zadok yet again to Joab, But howsoever, let me, I pray thee, also run after Cushi. And Joab said, Wherefore wilt thou run, my son, seeing that thou hast no tidings ready? But howsoever, said he let me run. And he said unto him, Run. Then Ahimaaz ran by the way of the plain, and overran Cushi. And David sat between the two gates: and the watchman went up to the roof over the gate unto the wall, and lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold a man running alone. And the watchman cried, and told the king. And the king said, If he be alone, there is tidings in his mouth. And he came apace, and drew near. And the watchman saw another man running: and the watchman called unto the porter, and said, Behold another man running alone. And the king said, He also bringeth tidings. And the watchman said, Me thinketh the running of the foremost is like the running of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok. And the king said, He is a good man, and cometh with good tidings. And Ahimaaz called, and said unto the king, All is well. And he fell down to the earth upon his face before the king, and said, Blessed be the Lord thy God, which hath delivereth up the men that lifted up their hand against my lord the king. And the king said, Is the young man Absalom safe? And Ahimaaz answered, When Joab sent the king's servant, and me thy servant, I saw a great tumult, but I knew not what it was. And the king said unto him, Turn aside, and stand here. And he turned aside, and stood still. And, behold, Cushi came; and Cushi said, Tidings, my lord the king: for the Lord bath avenged thee this day of all them that rose up against thee. And the king said unto Cushi, Is the young man Absalom safe? And Cushi answered, The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is. And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son! And it was told Joab, Behold the king weepeth and mourneth for Absalom. And the victory that day was turned into mourning unto all the people: for the people heard say that day how the king was grieved for his son. And the people gat them by stealth that day into the city, as people being ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. But the king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!--2 Samuel xviii, 19 33; xix, 1-4. SOLOMON And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron: and there were yet sons and daughters born to David. And these be the names of those that were born unto him in Jerusalem; Shammuah, and Shobab, and Nathan, and Solomon, Ibhar also, and Elishua, and Nepheg, and Japhia, and Elishama, and Eliada, and Eliphalet.--2 Samuel v. 13-16. And David comforted Bath-sheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her: and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon: and the Lord loved him.--2 Samuel xii, 24. So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David. And the days that David reigned over Israel were forty years: seven years reigned he in Hebron, and thirty and three years reigned he in Jerusalem. Then sat Solomon upon the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was established greatly.--1 Kings ii, 10-12. And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in all nations round about. And he spake three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom.--2 Kings iv, 29-34. THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON. Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him. And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house. And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house. And this woman's child died in the night; because she overlaid it. And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear. And the other woman said, Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son. And this said, No; but the dead is thy son, and, the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king. Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead--and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living. And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other. Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it she is the mother thereof. And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment. 1 Kings iii, 16-28. THE CEDARS DESTINED FOR THE TEMPLE. And Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants unto Solomon; for he had heard that they had anointed him king in the room of his father: for Hiram was ever a lover of David. And Solomon sent to Hiram, saying, Thou knowest how that David my father could not build a house unto the name of the Lord his God for the wars which were about him on every side, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet. But now the Lord my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent. And, behold: I purpose to build a house unto the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord spake unto David my father, saying, Thy son, whom I will set upon thy throne in thy room, he shall build a house unto my name. Now therefore command thou that they hew me cedar trees out of Lebanon; and my servants shall be with thy servants: and unto thee will I give hire for the servants according to all that thou shalt appoint: for thou knowest that there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians. And it came to pass, when Hiram heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly and said, Blessed be the Lord this day, which hath given unto David a wise son over this great, people. And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying, I have considered the things which thou sentest to me for: and I will do all thy desire concerning timber of cedar, and concerning timber of fir: My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea; and I will convey them by sea in floats unto the place that thou shalt appoint me, and will cause them to be discharged there, and thou shalt receive them: and thou shalt accomplish my desire, in giving food for my household. So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees according to all his desire. And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household and twenty measures of pure oil: thus gave Solomon to Hiram year by year. And the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him: and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and they two made a league together. And king Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men. And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses: a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home: and Adoniram was over the levy. And Solomon had three score and ten thousand that bare burdens, and fourscore thousand hewers in the mountains beside the chief of Solomon's officers which were over the work, three thousand and three-hundred, which ruled over the people that wrought in the work. And the king commanded and they brought great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones, to lay the foundation of the' house. And Solomon's builders, and Hiram's builders did hew them, and the stone-squarers; so they prepared timber and stones to build the house.--1 Kings v. THE PROPHET SLAIN BY A LION. Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel: the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father. And their father said unto them, What way went he? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went, which came, from Judah. And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the, ass: and he rode thereon, and went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am. Then he said unto him, Come home with me, and eat bread. And he, said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place: for it was said to me by the word of the Lord, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest. He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him. So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water. And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the word of the Lord came unto the prophet that brought him back: and he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord, and hast not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God commanded thee, but camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the Lord did say to thee, Eat no bread, and drink no water; thy carcass shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers. And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled for him the ass, to wit, for the prophet whom he had brought back. And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him: and his carcass was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it, the lion also stood by the carcass. And, behold, men passed by, and saw the carcass cast in the way, and the lion standing by the carcass: and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt. And when the prophet that brought him back from the way heard thereof, he said, It is; the man of God, who was disobedient unto the word of the Lord: therefore the Lord hath delivered him unto the lion, which hath torn him, and slain him, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake unto him. And he spake to his sons, saying, Saddle me the ass. And they saddled him. And he went and found his carcass cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the carcass: the lion had not eaten the carcass, nor torn the ass.--2 Kings xiii, II-28. ELIJAH DESTROYING THE MESSENGERS OF AHAZIAH. And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, enquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease. But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say unto them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that 'ye go to enquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron? Now therefore thus saith the Lord, Thou; shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. And Elijah departed. And when the messengers turned back unto him, he said unto them, Why are ye now turned back? And they said unto him, There came a man up to meet us, and said unto us, Go, turn again unto the king that sent you, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that thou sendest to enquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron? therefore thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. And he said unto them, What manner of man was he which came up to meet you, and told you these words? And they answered him, He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite. Then the king sent unto him a captain of fifty with his fifty. And he went up to him and, behold, he sat on the top of an hill. And he spake unto him, Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down. And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. Again also he sent unto him another captain of fifty with his fifty. And he answered and said unto him, O man of God, thus hath the king said, Come down quickly. And Elijah answered and said unto them, If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. And he sent again a captain of the third fifty with his fifty. And the third captain of fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and besought him, and said unto him, O man of God, I pray thee, let my life, and the life of these fifty thy servants, be precious in thy sight. Behold, there came fire down from heaven, and burnt up the two captains of the former fifties with their fifties: therefore let my life now be precious in thy sight. And the angel of the lord said unto Elijah, Go down with him: be not afraid of him. And he arose, and went down with him unto the king. And he said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast sent messengers to enquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron, is it not because there is no God in Israel to enquire of his word? therefore thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. So he died according to the word of the Lord which Elijah had spoken.--2 Kings i, 2-17. ELIJAH'S ASCENT IN A CHARIOT OF FIRE. And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Beth-el. And Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Beth-el. And the sons of the prophets that were at Beth-el came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day? And he said, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace. And Elijah said unto him, Elisha, tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they came to Jericho. And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day? And he answered, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace. And Elijah said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee, here; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they two went on. And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood to view afar off and they two stood by Jordan. And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground. And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so. And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.--2 Kings ii, I-II. THE DEATH OF JEZEBEL. And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window. And as Jehu entered in at the gate, she said, Had Zimri peace, who slew his master? And he lifted up his face to the window, and said, Who is on my side? who? And there looked out to him two or three eunuchs. And he said, Throw her down. So they threw her down: and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses and he trod her under foot. And when he was come in, he did eat and drink, and said, Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her: for she is a king's daughter. And they went to bury her: but they found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands. Wherefore they came again, and told him. And he said, This is the word of the Lord, which he spake by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel: and the carcass of Jezebel shall be as dung upon the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel; so that they shall not say, This is Jezebel.--2 Kings ix, 30-37. ESTHER CONFOUNDING HAMAN. So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen. And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom. Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favor in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request: for we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage. Then the king Ahasuerus answered and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so? And Esther said, The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman. Then, Haman was afraid before the king and the queen. And the king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath went into the palace garden: and Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king. Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was. Then said the king, Will he force the queen also before me in the house? As the word went out of the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face. And Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said, Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king's wrath pacified.--Esther vii. 
8709	----	THE DORE GALLERY OF BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrated by Gustave Dore Volume 9. THE BURIAL OF JESUS. When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple he went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.--Matthew xxvii, 57-61 THE ANGEL AT THE SEPULCHRE. In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from, heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.--Matthew xxviii, 1-8. THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know him. And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? And the one of them, whose, name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days? And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to-day is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; and when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not. Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further. But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them. And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.--Luke xxiv, 13-35. THE ASCENSION. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. * * * And they remembered his words. And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest. * * * And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. * * * And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread. And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. * * * And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Luke xxiv, 1-2, 8-9, 13-14, 33-36, 49-52. The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: to whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: and, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but, wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up: and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel.--Acts i, 1-10 THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. STEPHEN. And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God. And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council. And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law: for we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us. And all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. Then said the high priest, Are these things so? And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken: [Stephen here makes his defense, concluding with a terrible, denunciation of the Jews as being stiffnecked and persecutors of their prophets, and as betrayers and murderers of Jesus Christ.] When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they, gnashed on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of, the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul was consenting unto his death.--Acts vi, 8-15; vii, 1-2, 54-56; viii, 1. SAUL'S CONVERSION. And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice, saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink. And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth, and hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem: and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: for I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hash sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose and was baptized. And when he had received meat, he was strengthened. Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus. And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.--Acts ix, 1-20. THE DELIVERANCE OF ST. PETER. Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.) And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quarternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people. Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison. And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals: And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. And he went out, and followed him; and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel but thought he saw a vision. When they were past the first and the second ward, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth unto the city; which opened to them of his own accord and they went out and passed on through one street and forthwith the angel departed from him. And when Peter was come to himself, he said, Now I know of a surety, that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews.--Acts xii, 1-11 PAUL AT EPHESUS. And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus; and finding certain disciples, he said unto them, Have ye, received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he, said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John's baptism. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied. And all the men were about twelve. And he went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God. But when divers were hardened, and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus. And this continued by the space of two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.--Acts xix, 1--20. PAUL MENACED BY THE JEWS. Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them; them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law. Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them. And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help: this is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place. (For they had seen before with him in the city Trophimus an Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple.) And all the city was moved, and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and forthwith the doors were shut. And as they went about to kill him, tidings came unto the chief captain of the band, that all Jerusalem was in an uproar: who immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down unto them and when they saw the chief captain and the soldiers, they left beating of Paul. Then the chief captain came near, and took him, and commanded him to be bound with two chains; and demanded who he was, and what he had done. And some cried one thing, some another, among the multitude: and when he could not know the certainty for the tumult, he commanded him to be carried into the castle. And when he came upon the stairs, so it was, that he was borne of the soldiers for the violence of the people. For the multitude of the people followed after, crying, Away with him. And as Paul was to be led into the castle, he said unto the chief captain, May I speak unto thee? Who said, Canst thou speak Greek? Art not thou that Egyptian, which before these days madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers? But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: and, I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people. And when he had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs, and beckoned with the hand unto the people. And when there was made a great silence, he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue.--Acts xxi, 23-40. PAUL'S SHIPWRECK. And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing. Wherefore I pray you to take some meat; for this is for your health: for there shall not a hair fall from the head of any of you. And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all; and when he had broken it, he began to eat. Then were they all of good cheer, and they also took some meat. And we were in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls. And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, and cast out the wheat into the sea. And when it was day, they knew not the land: but they discovered a certain creek with a shore, into the which they were minded, if it were possible, to thrust in the ship. And when they had taken up the anchors, they committed themselves unto the sea, and loosed the rudder bands, and hoised up the mainsail to the wind, and made toward shore. And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground; and the forepart stuck fast, and remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves. And the soldiers' counsel was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim out, and escape. But the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose; and commanded that they which could swim should cast themselves first into the sea, and get to land: and the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land. And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Melita. And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold.--Acts xxvii, 33-44; xxviii, 1-2 DEATH ON THE PALE HORSE. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. Revelation vi, 7-8 
58981	----	THE FINE ARTS. HISTORY OF SCULPTURE, PAINTING, AND ARCHITECTURE. BY J. S. MEMES, LL. D. BOSTON: CLAPP AND BROADERS, SCHOOL STREET 1834. TO THE VERY REVEREND WILLIAM JACK, D.D. PRINCIPAL OF THE UNIVERSITY AND KING'S COLLEGE, ABERDEEN; IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF EARLY KINDNESS AND CONTINUED FRIENDSHIP. AND AS A SINCERE THOUGH INADEQUATE TRIBUTE OF MOST PROFOUND RESPECT FOR HIS VIRTUES, LEARNING, TALENTS, AND INTEGRITY, THIS VOLUME, WITH SENTIMENTS OF THE HIGHEST ESTEEM, IS INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. TABLE OF CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. Taste--Principles of Imitative Art 1 SCULPTURE. CHAPTER I. Egyptian and Oriental Sculpture--Indian Monuments 15 CHAPTER II. Early Schools of Greece--Perfection of Material Art 34 CHAPTER III. Ideal Art--Phidias--Elgin Marbles--Methods of Composition Among the Greek Sculptors 49 CHAPTER IV. School of Beauty--Lysippus and Praxiteles--Historical Remarks 60 CHAPTER V. Sculpture in Ancient Italy--Etruscan Art--Roman Busts--Decline 69 CHAPTER VI. Revival of Sculpture in Italy--Italian Republics--Influence of Liberty--Early Schools of Modern Art 79 CHAPTER VII. Michael Angelo and his Contemporaries 84 CHAPTER VIII. School of Bernini--Decline of Sculpture--Causes of Decay 94 CHAPTER IX. Revival--Canova--Thorwaldsen--Flaxman--Conclusion 101 PAINTING. CHAPTER X. Ancient Painting--Schools of Greece--Zeuxis, Appelles --Historical Remarks 117 CHAPTER XI. Modern Schools in Italy--Roman, Raphael--Florentine, Michael Angelo--Comparison between the two--Lombard School, Coreggio--Venetian School, Titian--Eclectic School, Caracci 130 CHAPTER XII. German School, Holbein, Daur--Flemish School, Rubens, Vandyke--Dutch School, Teniers--French School, David--Anecdote of Napoleon 154 CHAPTER XIII. English School--Historical Remarks--Causes of Inferiority in the Art--Influence of the Reformation not Hostile to the Fine Arts in Britain, &c. 174 CHAPTER XIV. English School continued--History--Portrait--Landscape --Reynolds--West--Wilson--Laurence--Defects of English Style--Conclusion 190 ARCHITECTURE. CHAPTER XV. Early History and Principles of Architectural Design--Egyptian --Syrian--Indian Architecture 227 CHAPTER XVI. Greek Architecture--Three Orders: Doric Remains, Ionic Remains, Corinthian Remains--Roman Architecture--Decline 248 CHAPTER XVII. Architecture of the Middle Ages--Divisions of the Gothic--Revival of Classic Architecture--Italian, French, and English Masters--Conclusion 278 PREFACE. THE present volume is offered to the public, under the impression that the general cultivation of practical taste, and an acquaintance with the principles of the Fine Arts, are not only desirable in the light of acquirement, but must eventually prove highly beneficial to the useful arts of the country. The subject, therefore, seemed peculiarly adapted to the very excellent Publication of which this forms a portion.[A] * * * * * It is only bespeaking that share of confidence due, in the first instance, to opportunities of research, to state, that in the following pages not a single work of art is made the subject of criticism, the original of which the author has not seen and examined. Indeed, the substance of his remarks is generally transcribed from notes taken with the statue, or picture, or building, before him. The best authorities, also, have been consulted, and such as from their price or rarity are within reach of few readers. The historical details of Classic Art are chiefly the result of inquiries connected with a work on Grecian Literature, the composition of which has long engaged his hours of leisure. J. S. M. INTRODUCTION. TASTE is the perception of intellectual pleasure. Beauty, the object of taste and the source of this pleasure, is appreciated by the understanding, exercised, either upon the productions of art, or upon the works of nature. The term beauty, indeed, has appeared to admit a specific difference of import, according to the diversity of objects in which it may seem to reside, and the supposed variety of means through which it is perceived by the mind. This cause, more than any other, has tended to throw difficulty and inconclusive inference over every department of the subject. Yet, perhaps in all cases, most certainly in every instance of practical importance to our present purpose--elucidation of the Fine Arts, beauty will be found resolvable into some relation discerned and approved by the understanding. Hence the objects in which this relation exists impart pleasure to the mind, on the well known principles of its constitution. But in all languages, the word beauty is applied to the results of those operations of the intellectual powers, which are not commonly recognised as appertaining to any province of taste. Thus we speak of the beauty of a theorem, of an invention, of a philosophical system or discovery, as frequently, and with the same propriety, as of a picture or a group of statuary, of a landscape or a building. Correspondent to these objective modes of speech, we find, in every polished idiom, such causative forms as these--a taste for the mathematics, for mechanics, for philology, or science. Now, in these, and similar instances, in which a like manner of expression by the common sentiment of mankind, opposed to the opinion of certain writers, is rightly applied, relations furnishing the specific beauty of the subjects are perceived, and pleasurable emotions are excited. What then constitutes the essential difference between the beautiful in general language, and the beautiful in the fine arts? or, which is identical, the difference between the powers of judgment and of taste? Shall we say with some, that to decide on the relations of truth and falsehood, is the sole province of the judgment or understanding? But in the fine arts, to whose labours, taste, by these philosophers, is confined, truth is beauty, falsehood deformity; hence, to discriminate between even their minutest shades, requires the constant exercise of the most refined taste. Or, shall we maintain with others, that beauty consists in certain arrangements and proportions of the parts to a whole; or in the fitness of means to an end? This, as far as an intelligible description of beauty, applies equally to the pursuits of the philosopher and of the artist. Or, omitting almost innumerable minor theories, shall we say with the philosophy presently accepted, that beauty is something not intrinsic in the beautiful object, but dependent on associations awakened in the mind of the spectator? Without entering now into an examination of this important, because received opinion, we remark, that this definition of beauty, from its associated pleasures, is applicable alike to the deductions of science, to the exercises of imagination, and to the disquisitions of taste. Indeed, as the discoveries of the philosopher, and the truths which he discloses, are both more abiding in their nature, and in their influence more universally important and interesting, it would follow, even on the system of association, that the beauty of scientific truth must be, at least, equally fruitful in pleasurable emotions, as the beauty of any one object in those pursuits to which this system has hitherto been restricted. And that such is actually the case, may be proved by an appeal to the writings and the annals of men of study. The law of gravitation, to take a familiar instance, possesses an essential principle of the beautiful--simplicity. Accordingly, to a mind of any refinement, the abstract contemplation of this theory will ever impart high delight. Yet, how imperfect is the pleasure, and even the beauty, till the mind associates with this simple law, that thereby worlds are governed in their course through boundless space; that by the same discovery, the future generations of rational and immortal beings will be directed in their most useful and loftiest speculations; and to all this magnificence of association, what tender sublimity will be added, by the thought, that the Supreme Father of all has graciously endowed his creatures with powers, and with permission, to discern the secondary laws by which infinite wisdom sees fit to rule in the visible creation! Even the holier and lovelier sensibilities awakened by moral beauty, though certainly distinct in principle, are in their influence not easily separable from the pleasures of taste. At least, by the wise and gracious constitution of the human heart, the latter, when unallied with the former, necessarily remain imperfect. Our most exquisite enjoyments in literature and the fine arts will be found to arise from such performances as most directly remind us of virtuous associations; while, in the material world, those scenes prove most delightful which call forth recollections of man's nobleness, or which elevate our contemplations to the power, and wisdom, and goodness of the Creator. In one important point, however, is at once discoverable the independent and higher principle of moral pleasure and beauty. The humble and pious mind may, often does, enjoy the most refined and mental gratification in the exercises of charity and devotion, while the intellectual resources or the adornments of taste are extremely circumscribed. How wise, how salutary, are these appointments! The possessor of the most cultivated perceptions and extensive knowledge, thus feels, if he feel aright, that his acquirements render him only the more dependent upon religion and virtue for his best and purest enjoyments, as also for the dignified estimation of his pursuits. The unlettered but sincere Christian, again, thus knows that his heartful joys suffer not alloy from ignorance of this world's external culture. Both are thus equal; yet each profits by his own peculiar good. The latter is secure against a deprivation imposed by temporal circumstances: the former is paid the toil and self-denial of attainment, by the increased manifestations he is thus enabled to discern of the charms of virtue, and the goodness of Omnipotence. The presence and operation of taste can thus be traced in every act of the mind, and are intimately associated with the feelings of our moral nature. The exercises of taste have ever been regarded as productive generally of pleasurable emotion. Hence we consider ourselves justified in defining, at the beginning of this chapter, taste to be 'the perception of intellectual pleasure.' The common use of language, also--an authority always to be respected in tracing the extent or import of ideas--and even the best theories of taste, when rightly understood, coincide with this definition. The various systems of taste, however apparently dissimilar, may be referred in principle to one or other of the two following: that this is an original and independent faculty; or, that it may be resolved into a modification of the general powers of the mind. Of these opinions, the first has been, within the present century, satisfactorily proved utterly unphilosophical and inadequate to its purpose; the second is preferable, but imperfect in the explications hitherto given, chiefly from three causes. First, writers have formed their conclusions from a consideration of the quality, in its full and complete exercise, instead of tracing the steps by which it is acquired or improved: secondly, this intellectual quality, even by the best writers, has been treated too much as an external sense--or it has been resolved into direct and inflex perceptions, and confounded with so many accidental feelings, that the inferences have been most perplexing and cumbrous: and, thirdly, the subject in general has been treated too metaphysically. Hence, however learned, or even abstractly just, the investigations may have been, they have exerted slight influence in establishing practice upon obvious and enlightened theory. But declining to enter upon the exposure of what may be conceived former mistakes, we shall proceed briefly to explain our own views. Following out, then, the tenor of the preceding remarks, we conceive taste to be nothing more than a certain acuteness, which necessarily is acquired by, and always accompanies, the frequent exercise of the powers of understanding in any one given pursuit. It seems to differ from mere knowledge, in being attended by a love or desire of the particular exercise. This desire, whether it precedes or follows acquirement, is easily accounted for, in the one case, as an agreeable anticipation of advantage to be gained, and in the other as a mental habitude; or it is frequently cherished from impressions received at an age too early for notice. The gratification of this desire, exclusive even of the enjoyment received from the successful exercise of the mental powers, sufficiently explains the origin of the pleasures of taste. This view of taste, as applicable to, and indeed resulting from, training of the understanding in all dignified pursuits, is agreeable, as already shown, to common feeling and common language. But in deference to the same authorities, it is necessary to limit the idea to a restricted, that is, a proper sense of the word. Hence we have said that the object of taste is beauty, as perceivable in the works of nature and art: thus confining its province to literature and the fine arts, which reflect nature either by direct imitation, or by more remote association. In the present volume, the subject is limited, of course, to the arts of design; but the principles now expounded are conversant with every varied application of taste: And we have pursued this extent of illustration throughout the whole powers of the mind, in order to ground, on the broadest basis, this practical precept, that taste, like the powers of judgment and understanding, of which, in fact, it is only a modification, can be improved, or, we venture to say, acquired in any useful degree, only by patient cultivation, and well-directed study of the particular subject. The opinion opposite to this has been productive of the worst effects, both in the practice and patronage of the arts. It not unfrequently has led artists into irregular, and even unnatural compositions; but its greatest evils do daily arise from those, whose previous habits and attainments by no means qualify them for judges, confidently pronouncing upon works of art, from what they are pleased to term a natural taste. This, if it means any thing, must imply an untutored, and therefore, imperfect taste. We would be understood here, not as advocating a conventional criticism, but as maintaining, that the higher beauties, and nobler principles of art, can be appreciated only by those whose taste has been cultivated by profound study and knowledge of these principles. One class of effects in an imitative art is, doubtless, to produce sensations which can be immediately compared with the more obvious effects and appearances of nature. Of these every one can judge, whether the effect be actually produced or not. This, however, though a primary, is the lowest object of the artist. The dignity, too, and comparative value, of these effects, can be estimated only by a mind generally cultivated; while the propriety of the means employed, and their agreement with the modes of art, the higher beauties of execution, the intelligence of style, the just character of the performance as a work of peculiar talents, can be sanctioned by canons of judgment familiar only to those who have made the subject a regular study. In this we require nothing more for the sculptor and the painter than is demanded, and rightly too, in favour of the poet and the orator. From these observations, founded, as they are, on experience, follows as a corollary the truth of the previous definition, that, in the fine arts, beauty is always resolvable into some effect or relation discerned and approved by the understanding. For since it has been shown that taste is but another name for intellectual cultivation and knowledge in a given pursuit, the perception of beauty, which forms the peculiar object of taste, must ultimately be referred to the understanding. Now, in an imitative art, there can be only one relation, namely, truth, which thus becomes both the source and the criterion of beauty. This truth, however, admits of two specific distinctions; or at least respects two separate objects, as the production is compared with nature, the archetype imitated; and with the principles of the art, or peculiar mode of imitation. In the one case, there is the relation of resemblance; in the other, that of consistency. These, in their infinitely various combinations and modified excellences, still recur to one and the same simple law of the beautiful--veracity. The general spirit and tendency of these remarks bear directly on the question regarding a standard of taste. Both parties here, in pertinaciously adhering to their opinion, are wrong. There is, and there is not, a standard; meaning, by this term, a permanent rule of taste beyond which human invention or genius shall never pass. At the same time, if there be no stable and unerring principles of judgment, there can be neither merit nor moral dignity, beauty nor truth, in the works of the most gifted mind. How, then, are facts seemingly so discordant to be reconciled? We have already adverted to the radical error in all cases of disregarding, and in some instances of treating with scorn, the idea of a gradual and laborious acquirement of taste. This, however, will be found the only idea of the subject truly useful in a practical view, as well as the sole ground of consistent and rational theory. Taste is not only progressive, but inductive; it is, in fact, the result of a series of experiments whose object is beauty. As in every other species of experimental knowledge, then, the standard of excellence must vary in different ages according to their lights and their refinement. In the progress of individual genius this succession is very remarkable, the objects and nature of its aims changing with, and indeed indicating, attainment. It is thus clear that taste, whether nationally or individually considered, must vary in its models, and in their standards, according to the existing state of knowledge; for, in departing from received precepts, men are guided by the hope of reaching higher perfection, or of exhibiting novelty of invention. If such tentative measures succeed, the general standard is so far elevated; when they fail, though the advance of real improvement may be impeded for a season, established modes more firmly recover their authority. But again, as in every species of experimental science, those researches, in their practice the most carefully conducted, and in their inferences the most consistent, are regarded as the canons of scientific truth; so in the liberal arts, those noble monuments which, during the longest period, and to the greatest number of competent judges, have yielded the most satisfaction, are justly esteemed standards of taste--rules by which other works are to be tried. Such standards, or final experiments, in the science of taste, are fortunately possessed in the literary compositions, and in the remains of the sculpture and architecture of antiquity; as also in the labours of those moderns who have emulated the teachers of the olden time. These accredited relics of genius obtain a deserved and venerable mastery over future aspirings, first, from their own inborn excellence; secondly, from the effects of that excellence in a continually increasing influence over association and feeling. Imagination thus combines with reason in hallowing both the original cause and the attendant influence into precepts of an immutable authority, consecrated by the suffrages of the wise and the refined of every later age. Reason, however, first established, and subsequently demonstrates, the principles upon which this standard has become unchanged and unchangable; namely, perfect simplicity in the means, and perfect truth in the results, through all their varied combinations. Consideration even of the vicissitudes and revolutions in taste seems farther to confirm these general views. Opinion, indeed, has vacillated in the estimation of elegance; but, as in the constantly returning eccentricities of a planetary body, some secret power has maintained certain limits to these changes, and round certain principles, though at times obscured, art has continued to revolve. Now these checks to barbarous novelty and innovation, have been derived from the not-altogether-forgotten remembrance of admitted standards, or from the natural effects upon which these have been founded. The temporary derelictions of good taste have ever occurred in the most ignorant ages, and in extent as in duration have corresponded with the intellectual darkness of the period; the returning light of knowledge has in this respect also invariably dispelled error, afresh disclosing the pristine beauty of the ancient models, and recalling the judgment to the rectitude of those precepts on which they are composed. Even the tyranny of fashion and the inveteracy of prejudice yield before the majesty of antique excellence, or produce a passing absurdity adopted for a day, to be forever forgotten. Surely, then, there must be in these abiding modes in literature and art, as likewise in that science of taste which appreciates and determines their canons, a beauty--an excellence, the offspring and the object of truth and reason--and like these, ever consistent, immutable, imperishable. To the doctrines now advocated it furnishes no objection, that mankind do not agree in the same estimate of beauty, nor even that objects entirely different in their qualities, are assumed as beautiful. This fact, indeed, has often and triumphantly been adduced as conclusive in favour of the sceptical position regarding a standard of taste. Those writers, again, who support the opposite opinion, seem too readily to have admitted difficulty in repelling the objection. The truth is, it can be obviated only on the principle which we have endeavoured to establish; namely, that taste is the certain result of intellectual cultivation in the proper province, that it is consequently commensurate with the degree of intelligence, and always an object of truth and reason. Now, the diversity so much insisted upon, is capable not only of being thus easily accounted for, but is to be expected as the necessary effect of varied extent of knowledge. The very objection predetermines, that among the rudest people, ideas and perceptions of something termed beauty are entertained. Does not this establish the existence of taste coeval with the earliest traces of information? True, the beauty admired by the African or the Esquimaux differs from that which awakens the sensibility of the European,--but so also are their means and capabilities of judging unequal. It is not, therefore, diversity, but inconsistency of judgment, that in this case can prove the absence of all fixed principles of decision. Now, we will venture to affirm, without fear of contradiction, that there is no inconsistency nor opposition; and that the most polished inhabitant of Europe, proceeding upon the same premises as the wildest in-dweller of the desert or savannah, will arrive at exactly the same conclusion. The sable virgin, for instance, whose charms are acknowledged by the rude warriors of her tribe, will also, by the refined European, be admitted among the fairest examples of native beauty. Hence it is evident that all men acknowledge a standard of taste, founded on similar reasonings and accordant feelings of the human heart, though the final expression of this standard, or the degree of refinement whence it is deduced, will necessarily be modified by moral and physical circumstances, and by the light enjoyed. The questions we have now laboured to resolve, are by no means to be regarded as mere problems in abstract speculation. The subject is of the highest practical importance, and we have attempted to reduce it to practical inferences. Nothing has tended more to retard improvement, than placing genius and taste in opposition to reason and application. Each of the two former has been invested with some untangible, undefined excellence, disdaining rule, and superior to the drudgery of study. In treating of both, authors appear to have aimed at exalting their theme, by refusing certainty to the operations of the one, and stability to the principles of the other; treating each as the empiricism of talent, which it would be as vain to attempt reducing to precept as to prescribe the eagle's path through heaven. But how does this accord with fact and with usefulness? Men, the most eminent for genius, and who have bequeathed to futurity the most perfect productions, have also been the most remarkable for assiduity. This industry has been directed as much to the study of principles and rules as to the creation of new works. We have shown that there are standards, or rules, of taste, which never can be disregarded save at the peril of absurdity. If we deny regularity and certainty, or fixed and rational precepts of criticism to the labours of genius, of what advantage to succeeding knowledge can these prove? Beyond a passing pleasure--a barren sentiment, they remain without fruit. Excellence in the most refined exercises of mind is degraded to a mere knack,--to a fortunate and inexplicable aptitude. Thus, not the improvement of the human race only, but the very continuance of acquirement among men, is rendered uncertain. Yet such are the consequences of every system which considers taste as different from, and independent of knowledge; or its precepts as mutable, and not more amenable to judgment than to imagination. In whatever light, then, the views now briefly proposed be regarded, whether as respects taste as an object of mental science, or as the improver of art; whether in its influence upon the understanding or the heart, they appear to promise the surest, the most practical, and the most dignified results. Beauty, as already observed, is the object of taste. The primitive source, and, in a great measure, the ultimate and only criterion, of this beauty, is nature. For, in the arts over which taste presides, natural beauty receives new modifications, and is subjected to new laws. Yet, in their general tendency and design, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, and even music, all contemplate one end,--to awaken associated emotion; while each employs the same means of direct or less obvious imitation of nature. In each of these arts, however, a distinction exists, both in the manner and in the extent of instruction. They differ also in the closeness with which the respective imitations reflect their natural archetypes. But in this they correspond, that in none is mere imitation the final, or most exalted, object of the artist. In the fidelity of representation, and in the facility with which the originals in nature may be traced, Sculpture and Painting are superior to all the other imitative arts. Between the vivid creations of these, and the more varied, more imaginative, but less defined, efforts of poetry, the middle rank is occupied by Architecture, whose mighty masses and harmonious proportions fill the mind with awe or delight, as they recall the majesty or grace of the material world. Architecture thus stands alone, in its own principles, and, it may be, in its own pre-eminence. These principles are at once more profound, or at least more abstract, and yet more determinate, than those of either of the sister arts. Indeed, so remarkable is this fact, and so nearly do the limits and the constituents of beauty verge here on demonstrative science, that we may hereafter point out their connexion with some of the preceding doctrines of taste. In the meantime, it may be sufficient merely to mention, that though architecture, as a necessary knowledge, must have been practised from the earliest formation of society; and though it furnishes their principal field to the other arts; yet it was later in arriving at perfection than Sculpture, which, besides, affords a more continuous series of monuments, and supplies the best materials for the philosophy of the subject; and in other respects, the arrangement now selected seems to promise the most clear elucidation of the history of art. THE FINE ARTS. SCULPTURE. CHAPTER I. THE representation of external forms by their tangible properties, in actual or proportional magnitude, seems the most obvious, as it is the simplest, mode of imitation. Sculpture, therefore, of all the imitative arts, probably first exercised the ingenuity of mankind. Even now, we remark that the rude carvings on the spear-shaft or canoe of the savage warrior surpass other exhibitions of his skill, and might more readily be exalted into tasteful decorations. Hence, in tracing the history of an art which thus appears almost coeval with the earliest formation of society, the chronology of those ancient empires in which it chiefly flourished, will supply an arrangement best adapted to the explanation of the subject. Regarding the origin of sculptural design, indeed, much has been written, and many theories proposed, each asserting, for some favorite people, the praise of invention. All the kindred arts, however, with which taste and feeling are conversant, have their birth and subsequent improvement, in the same universal principles of the human mind. Principles which mysteriously, yet powerfully, and doubtless for the accomplishment of the wisest ends, connect man with that nature amidst whose haunts he is destined to dwell--which awaken his untutored enthusiasm to her beauties, and unite his individual sympathies, as his social remembrances, with her hallowed associations. It is thus that human action and human suffering find their earliest records in the scenes where the events were transacted. The conflict long continues to revive on its heath; the memory of the chief appropriates the lone vale where he sleeps; woods, mountains, streams, become the representatives of supernatural beings--beneficent or vindictive--as sensations of beauty or of awe are called forth in the mortal breast. The succeeding step is easy to the erection of less durable but more particular memorials. Piety--true in sentiment, false in means--patriotism, friendship, gratitude, admiration, leave the successive impress of their influence, according to the accessions of intelligence, on the 'grey stone'--the rude column--the dressed altar--the visible shape--the perfect statue. How beautiful, then, yet how true, the allegory of Grecian poetry, which feigns that love, or the natural affections, taught man the arts of genius! The gradations, also, from uninformed art to some degree of refined invention, will present, even among distant nations, little of diversified character. In the infancy of society, men in all countries closely resemble each other, in their feelings, in their wants, in their means of gratification, and improvement. Hence, in the fine arts, which at first among every people minister, with similar resources, to the same natural desires, or mental affections, resemblance of style ought not to be assumed as evidence of continuous imitation from a common origin. Early Egyptian and Grecian statues exhibit almost identical lineaments, and even corresponding attitude; simply, because each had to surmount the same difficulties with nearly equal information. The tendency of these remarks, especially applicable to sculpture, sufficiently proves that no reliance is to be placed on any theories of its exclusive discovery. Such opinions, however profound they may appear, are in reality the substitution of a partial view of facts, when a general law of our nature is within reach. In treating of the ancient history of sculpture, then, the legitimate objects of inquiry are, its progress, character, and degree of perfection among the different nations of antiquity. But though no claims of any single nation to have imparted the skill to others can be conceded, a very wide disparity of merit is observable, both in the final excellence attained by one people, as respects the relative acquirements of another; and likewise points of equal advance being assumed, the times past in realising this similar improvement are found to be very unequal. These facts, here most easily distinguishable, are pregnant with importance, and invest the history of this art with much of dignity and solemn interest, exhibiting the striking connexion between the intellectual and the political and moral condition of man. The diversity, in truth, is the visible impress which legislation has stamped upon human genius. Egypt has been styled the cradle of the arts; and, waiving the examination of all disputes as to priority, we prefer commencing with the history of Egyptian sculpture, since its authentic monuments carry us up to a very early date,--are numerous,--and especially, because they tend to unite the scattered lights which doubtful tradition flings over the less perfect remains of Asiatic ingenuity. In pursuing this investigation, we shall observe the following arrangement of the subject. Era of original, or native Sculpture. Era of mixed, or Greco-Egyptian Sculpture. Era of imitative Sculpture, improperly denominated Egyptian. The first or true age of Sculpture in Egypt, ascends from the invasion of Cambyses to unknown antiquity. During this period only were primitive institutions in full vigour and integrity, and public works, reflecting national taste, conducted by national talent. The two remaining eras, extending downwards through the successive dominion of the Greeks and Romans, have been added, in order to embrace the consideration of topics, which, though remotely connected therewith, have hitherto been regarded as integral parts of the subject. In examining the principles and character of this aboriginal school, there are still left two sources of judging, with sufficient accuracy, the merits of its production,--vestiges of ancient grandeur yet existing on their native site--and the numerous specimens in European cabinets. These remains may be classed under the three following divisions. Colossal statues. Groups or single figures about the natural size. Hieroglyphical and historical relievos. In the formation of these various labours, four kinds of materials are employed: one soft, a species of sandstone; and three very hard, a calcareous rock, out of which the tombs, with their sculptures, are hewn; basalt or trap, of various shades, from black to dark grey, the constituent generally of the smaller statues; granite, more commonly of the description named by mineralogists _granites rubescens_, of a warm reddish hue, with large crystals of feld-spar; or it is sometimes, though rarely, of a dark red ground, with black specks, as in the magnificent head, mis-named of Memnon, now in the British Museum. Colossal figures are uniformly of granite, in which also is a large portion of the relievos. Besides these, from the account of Herodotus, as also from the statues of wood actually discovered by modern travellers, we learn that even in great works, the Egyptian sculptors were accustomed to exercise their skill on that less stubborn material. Metal appears to have been sparingly used; at least, only very small figures have yet been found of a composition similar to the bronze of later times. Yet the book of Job especially, and other parts of Scripture, would induce the conclusion, that even colossal figures were, from an early period, cast of metal. In the tombs, as those near Thebes, small images of porcelain and terra cotta are likewise frequent. I. The number of colossal statues in ancient Egypt, as described by the writers of Greece, would appear incredible, especially when we consider the magnitude of some, and the materials of all, if these early descriptions were not, at the present day, authenticated by countless remains. Yet, than a statue of granite sixty or seventy feet high, there is not, perhaps, one instance more striking, of disregard of time, and patience of toil. Of these mighty labours, some are hewn from the living rock, and left adhering to the natural bed; as the celebrated Sphynx, near the pyramids of Ghizeh, and various sculptures on the rocks of the Thebaid, which look the shadows of giants cast by a declining sun. Others again, as in some of the figures in the Memnonium, appear to have been built; most probably reared first of square blocks, and afterwards fashioned into shape. The greater part, however, are composed of one block, raised in the granite quarries of Upper Egypt, and transported to their destined situation by the waters of the Nile. Of these works, Herodotus, to whose veracity almost every new discovery in these countries adds fresh credibility, saw and has described many, some of which can be identified at the present day, and others, a labour of not many hours promises to bring to light. The dimensions of those actually enumerated, extend from twelve to seventy cubits in height. Some are figures of men; others of animals, chiefly of the Sphynx. These latter appear to have been in considerable numbers, usually ranged in corresponding lines on the opposite side of the approach to the great temples. Of the human colossi, again, some were isolated, and were probably objects of worship; others were merely ornaments, chiefly employed as columns, as in the famous Propylæon of the Temple of Vulcan, ascribed to Psammetichus, and erected at Memphis. Of the unattached figures, the attitude appears to have exhibited but little action; the posture apparently various, though seldom erect. One is described as recumbent, seventy cubits long, accompanied by two smaller, standing one at each extremity. The largest statues now known, namely, two in the Memnonium at Thebes, are both in a sitting posture. All these works, even the columnar statues, seem to have been connected with religious rites or symbols. This, together with imperfect science, accounts for the striking similarity discoverable in a class, the individuals of which are thus varied, at least in purpose and magnitude. Another peculiarity is, that in Egyptian sculpture, whenever the dimensions are much beyond nature, the head is always larger than even colossal proportions would require. It would be unreasonable to ascribe to ignorance a practice thus universal; it is to be attributed rather to mistaken principle, in order to render the features more conspicuous, when removed to a distance from the eye. Where similar character and design thus pervade the whole class, minuteness of individual description is unnecessary; we may, however, merely refer, as examples best known, to the two Theban colossi already noticed, one of which, from inscriptions still legible, would appear to be the famous sounding statue of Memnon. In each of these figures, exclusive of the lower plinth of the throne, the altitude is fifty feet, the material red granite, and the positions alike--namely, seated, the head looking straight in front, arms close pressed to the sides, palms and forearm extended and resting upon the thighs, lower extremities perpendicular and apart. This posture, which may be described as characteristic of the entire class, is little calculated to convey any sentiment of ease or grace. Yet in these vast, although comparatively uninformed labours, we discover more of the sublime than arises from mere vastness, or even from the recollections of distant time with which their memory is associated. They are invested with a majestic repose--with a grand and solemn tranquillity, which awes without astonishing; and while they exhibit the greatest perfection to which Egyptian art has attained, in colossal statues generally, we discover occasional approaches to truth and nature, with no inconsiderable feeling of the sweet, the unaffected, and the flowing in expression and contour. II. To the second class belong both the earliest and the latest works of the Egyptian chisel; yet between the worst and the best, is not to be perceived a diversity of merit corresponding to the lapse of time--a certain proof, that the principles of the art were fixed at an early period of its progress, and on grounds independent of its precepts. The first essays in sculpture in Egypt, seem to have been made upon the living rock, in the process of excavating artificial or enlarging natural caverns for the purposes of habitation or devotion, and at every period in Eastern history of sepulture. Statues thus formed, would, from the mode of their formation, not much exceed the natural size; and being afterwards detached when finished, were transferred to other situations. In imitation of these, statues were subsequently hewn, in what became the ordinary manner, from detached blocks. It is not here implied, that these two methods can be distinctly traced in their separate applications, nor that the one was superseded by the other; but simply, that the state of knowledge, and the habits of the people, render very probable the priority of the former. Hence appears an explanation of a singular fact in the history of the art, which has been the subject of much discussion. In every specimen, without exception, which can be ranked as Egyptian, a pilaster runs up the back of the figure, in whatever attitude it may be represented. The origin of a practice not natural, in an art professing to imitate nature, must be sought in some external circumstance of its early history. Now, such circumstance seems plainly discernible in works still remaining, in the excavations of Philoe, Elephantis, Silsilis, and at El Malook, in the tombs of the Theban kings. In these monuments, which are often suites of magnificent chambers hewn from the hard and white calcareous rock, numerous and beautiful remains of sculpture are preserved. These ornaments vary from simple relievos to complete statues. In the latter, the figure is never entirely detached, when placed on the surface of the wall, a posterior portion being always left adhering; while, if formed by cutting round to a recess, a pilaster behind runs up the whole height, evidently with the original view of increasing strength or of saving labour, or from certain religious notions. Subsequently, in detached statues wrought out of blocks from the same, or in part the same motives, and also in order to obtain a surface for the inscription of hieroglyphics, the aboriginal pillar was retained. Generally speaking, the workmanship here is inferior to the details of the colossal figures, although some of the finest specimens belong to this second division. The varieties, however, cannot be referred to any regular gradations of improvement, nor determinate epochas of style, as sometimes attempted. They are the result solely of individual skill in the artists, and of the views, opulence, or purposes of their employers. This difference, also, extends only to the minor details of execution; in the more intellectual principles of art, all are nearly on an equality. Even the design and attitudes are wonderfully limited, the sameness being more uniform than could have been produced, except by the operation of prescriptive rules and fixed models of imitation. In many of the ancient Egyptian buildings, the whole of the exterior is frequently covered with relievos. This profusion, for the purpose, too, of mere decoration, together with the indefinite nature of hieroglyphical delineation, operated strongly against improvement in this particular province. Indeed, the prejudicial effects arising from an embellishment, in which extent more than intrinsic beauty was regarded, and where arbitrary forms, or mere indications of known objects, precluded all natural imitation, and all delicacy of expression, infected the whole of the art. The general inferiority in works of this third class, is, however, to be understood with due limitation. In relievos, consisting of few figures, sepulchral ones for instance, which in the same piece rarely contain more than three, are often displayed no mean beauties both of execution and of character. In historical relievos, again, which occupy entire walls of the temples, crowded as they are with figures in various actions, processions, battles, sieges, and represented by artists who apparently possessed no principles of design, save a knowledge of simple form in its most restricted movements, all is feebleness, puerility, and confusion. Or if beauty occasionally break forth, it is in some single reposing figure, or in the patient details of execution. In the drawing and anatomy, singular ignorance is manifested; the limbs are without joints, and the movements exhibit neither balance nor spring; proportion and perspective seem to have been utterly unknown. Military engines, buildings, horses, soldiers, all appear of the same dimensions, and all equally near the eye. The hero in all these monuments bears a strong individual resemblance; he is represented ever victorious, in the bloom of youth, and in his figure are sometimes displayed both grandeur and beauty of conception, when considered apart. But these separate excellences are completely obscured by the absurdity of representing him at least double the stature of his followers or opponents. The circumstance of thus confounding moral greatness with physical magnitude, were alone sufficient to mark the infancy of invention, and the barbarism of taste. It is nevertheless only justice to mention, that occasionally, in the historical relievos, we observe rudiments of higher art, with less of convention, and more of freedom of imagination, than in any other Egyptian sculptures. The praises bestowed upon the hieroglyphics of Egypt by Winkleman and others, must be restricted to the mere workmanship; and even then, are exaggerated or misplaced. Considered as works of art, if indeed they can be elevated to that rank, they will be found entirely destitute of accurate discrimination of form, and are more properly conventional representations, dependent upon modes and principles at once limited and arbitrary. These labours, the probable records of primitive history, and of earliest superstition, are of different kinds. The first in use, though not afterwards superseded, were anaglyphics, in which objects are represented by a simple outline, often traced to the depth of several inches. An obvious improvement upon this was to round the angles, and to relieve the figures upon themselves; a mode which very generally obtains. To this manner much ingenuity and forethought has inconsiderately been ascribed, as if adopted against the attacks of time, and to cast a deeper shadow on the symbols. It is, on the contrary, to be judged merely as the resource of an imperfect art. A third, but comparatively rare method, was to elevate the contour, by reducing the surface both within and without. The last and most laborious plan, was to remove the ground entirely, leaving the figures in proper relief. This, the true relievo, was unknown to or unpractised in the ancient arts of Egypt. Even the historical and monumental sculptures just described, partake more of the anaglyphical than of the elevated relievo. Indeed every specimen of this latter is to be assigned to a later period than the first and genuine age. By attending to this, and to the costume of the figures in the most ancient works, data of importance might be discovered, throwing valuable light on the eras of Egypt's mysterious monuments. The expression, mixed art, selected to discriminate the second epoch, has been adopted, to mark the successive changes in the ancient modes induced by the Persians and the Greeks. The influence exerted upon art by the dominion of the former, amounted merely to a negative,--to the prohibition of its exercise; which, with the destruction of many of its best monuments, produced a deterioration in the few and feeble attempts during the latter years of that dynasty. Mythraism, in which elemental fire was the symbol of the Deity, proscribed the imitative arts in that service, whence, in all other countries, they have sprung. The Persians, says the father of history, have neither temples nor statues. Or, if architecture was encouraged by these conquerors, evidence still remains that their erections were but modifications of materials torn from the mighty structures of past ages. In little more than a century and a half, the Persian was subverted by the Macedonian empire. Yet even in Alexander, the ancient and native arts of Egypt obtained not a patron. The majestic range of temples, palaces, and cities, which bordered the sacred stream of the Nile, furnished so many quarries, of tempting access, whence Alexandria was reared; and the mightiest, as well as most rational trophy of Grecian superiority, received its grandest and most enduring monuments from the stupendous labours of the first age. His successors followed the example; and although, under them, the polished literature of Greece, united with her own subtile philosophy, constituted Alexandria the Athens of the East, yet in sculpture, in architecture, and in religion, to which both were subordinate, the character remained essentially Egyptian, but with certain deviations and additions. The Roman dominion finally introduced new modifications, or rather mutations, of the ancient art. This epoch may be considered as commencing with the introduction of the Isiac mysteries at Rome; although the principal features by which, as a division in the history of art, it is distinguished, are not decidedly marked prior to the reign of Hadrian. The works of the third, or imitative era, have, in strict propriety, no real connexion with Egyptian sculpture, farther than as it multiplied copies of the ancient forms, with occasional accessions of elegance. During a residence of two years in the East, and by the deification there of his favorite Antinous, Hadrian imbibed a fondness for the arts, and particularly for the statuary of Egypt. But the works which he commanded were in all respects Roman, or rather Grecian, under Egyptian modes. They were indeed most scrupulously modelled after the most ancient and authentic specimens; even the materials were brought from the native quarries, but the sculptors were Greeks or Italians; and the Grecian character of design is visible in every remaining specimen, the merits of which require notice. Nothing, therefore, can be more futile, than from the works of this age to infer the merits or principles of native and ancient art. So far, indeed, does our scepticism here extend, that we doubt if a single statue of genuine and ancient Egyptian workmanship is to be found among the numbers that have been discovered in Italy, and with which Hadrian filled that portion of the empire. The general conclusion, then, from these remarks, is, that there is but one period of real Egyptian sculpture, and that the genius and character of this indigenous and aboriginal art is to be discovered only in the most ancient monuments, having suffered various changes under the Greeks and under the Romans. In establishing this inference, we have not been guided by the often fanciful, always deceitful, analogies discoverable in the fluctuating style and varying productions of imitation, but have viewed these as directed by the steady operation of the laws and institutions of society, which govern the spirit and tendency of the arts themselves. During an interval of nearly twenty centuries previous to the era of Alexander, though diligently cultivated, sculpture had hardly attained any of the nobler qualities of invention. The system of taste and of government was in fact hostile to improvement in this art beyond a certain limit, or upon any principles, save those fixed on the very threshold of knowledge. The national polity, which will ever be found to guide the national taste, induced a preference of the immense and the durable; hence the grandeur of Egyptian architecture: but in statuary, such a character of design necessarily produced figures rigid and motionless. The essential elements of the grand and the beautiful--breadth and simplicity, are indeed present, but the effect is rarely elicited. The simple is seldom inspired by any feeling of the true, the natural, or the graceful; breadth, unrelieved by symmetry of parts, or expression of details, degenerates into inert magnitude. The colossal forms are the records only of power, of patience, and of labour; not the creations of intelligence and of genius. Sculpture also suffered from peculiar obstacles to its progress. Exclusively attached to the service of religion, its representations were confined to divinities, priests, and kings; personages whose modes and lineaments were unalterably fixed--fixed, too, from types, frequently of the most hideous description, at least ill managed, and little adapted to the objects or spirit of the art. This religion likewise admitted no images of human virtue or sympathy to mingle with its cold obstructions; thus denying to the Egyptian arts a source, which, to those of Greece, proved one of the richest and sweetest veins of ideal composition. The artist, therefore, even had he been allowed to depart from established but imperfect models, possessed no ennobling source whence to create new models of beauty or of grandeur. Imagination wanted materials, which neither the prescribed subject nor living nature, under these restrictions, could supply. Again, sculpture not only laboured under the general disadvantage of hereditary and unchanging professions; a national regulation which repressed every fortunate predilection of genius, but as a security against the possibility of innovation, slaves, educated under the immediate care of the priests, were entrusted with the execution of the most sacred, and, consequently, most important monuments. In Egyptian sculpture, thus properly understood, little will be discovered of that excellence which has been attributed to its remains. Still there are to be found some first principles of true science; and these are occasionally developed with considerable beauty of detail; always with patient, but inefficient technicality. It is by no means apparent, however, that by the masters of these early ages any theory was observed; certainly the occasional refinement seems rather the result of accident or of individual superiority, than of systematic perceptions, or of transmitted precept. Their best statues have an elevation of seven hands and a half, being divided equally, the torso and limbs having the same length. These proportions are pleasing, and borrowed directly from nature; but they show nothing of that characteristic beauty of physical art, which, in the varied harmony of parts, indicates the capabilities of form. A similar principle regulates the details, which, though brought out with considerable propriety and softness, are yet without precision or anatomical knowledge, especially of internal structure,--the heads of the bones, the insertions and terminations of the muscles, never being correctly indicated. Hence the forms appear coarse and inelegant, the limbs heavy and inert, because without vigorous marking on the joints, where the deeper depressions only and the strongest projections are aimed at, not feelingly touched. The attitude, also, is constantly rectilinear, denoting that condition of the art when poverty of source limits its reach of the beautiful by the difficulties of execution. It is, in fact, the first choice of invention rendered permanent by prescriptive institutions. From the curve being thus unknown in the contour, the action is necessarily angular in its direction, unless the movement be parallel to the gravitating line of the figure. Hence the range of action and of attitude is very circumscribed; the arms either hanging close by the sides or crossed at right angles on the breast; or, as a slight variation, one is placed in each posture. Lateral movements in like manner are limited, the statue standing equally poised on both limbs, the feet not exactly opposite, one being in advance, often almost in front of the other. Whether erect, sitting, or kneeling, the action is the same: hence, little of grace or animation of movement is to be found even in the most perfect works; yet there is often to be remarked a grave and staid serenity, neither unpleasing nor devoid of interest. As in the selection of attitude, however, the artist has been guided, not by the beautiful, but by his own timidity and confined resources; so in expression, little beyond a vague and general emotion has been attempted; seldom more, indeed, than might be produced by the symmetrical arrangement of the features. These are flat, the countenance being Ethiopian, and are just sufficiently distinguished for the effect of separation; the depth of shadow is wanting to give contrast and firmness. The eyes, whether long and narrow, the peculiar characteristic of the earliest era, or more full and open, as in the Greco-Egyptian period, are nearly on the general level of the face; the nose is broad and depressed, the lips thick, and always sharp on the outer edge, though often touched with great softness and delicacy; the cheeks, chin, and ears, are large, ill made out, and without feeling. Hence, although the heads are often finished with wonderful labour, the effect is always feeble, while the whole is uniformly surmounted by harsh and disproportionate masses of drapery, overpowering the already too weak expression. The superior beauty of some of the colossal busts may perhaps be rightly attributed to their having been executed as portraits. Conventional art, even in the most skilful hands, is rarely pleasing; nature, even rudely imitated, is ever viewed with a degree of pleasure. On the methods employed to work materials so unyielding as those of the Egyptian sculptors, it is difficult to propose any decided opinion. On their porphyry, granite, and basalt, modern tools can hardly make impression; yet are the forms, in all instances, highly finished, with angles sharp and unbroken. The latter circumstance, indeed, constitutes a peculiar feature in the works of this country as distinguished from Oriental art generally, which, together with breadth and simplicity, brings them nearest the productions of the Grecian chisel. From the style of execution, however, it would appear that the effect has been brought out rather by patience and labour, than by rapid or dexterous management. In fact, the general character has been influenced not a little by the materials; for in the statues of wood, both as described and discovered, the action is bolder, and the manner more free. If a conjecture may be hazarded on the subject of their theory, it would seem that the Egyptians, in the infancy of their arts, were guided by an outline traced round a human figure, dead or alive, extended upon the block, face upwards, with the arms close by the sides, and the limbs placed together exactly as their statues are composed. The scattered details given in the Greek writers respecting the arts of this ancient people, have indeed induced the belief, that they were acquainted with much more refined canons of symmetry; but it ought to have been observed, that Diodorus and others describe the practices existing in their own times, when Egypt had, to a certain extent, become the pupil of Greece. In some respects, also, it is difficult to give implicit credit to their accounts, at least in the common interpretation. It is farther particularly to be observed, that the supposition now made will account for the correctness of the general proportions which would thus be obtained from nature; likewise no theory of proportional parts can be detected different from the results thus obtainable, while those details which a refined theory would preserve, but which could not by such method be measured, are defective. We have been thus minute and critical in these investigations for two reasons: from Egypt certainly descended the first principles of improvement to Western art, while no less evidently did the Eastern world derive its entire knowledge from the same source. Consequently, in carefully examining that of the Egyptians, the best account, deduced too from monuments actually observed, has been given of Oriental Sculpture generally. Of the mighty empires, indeed, which once embraced the happiest regions of Asia and of the globe, a name, or at most a shapeless mass of ruins, alone remain. Of Jewish art, the sole memorials in existence are the sculptured transcripts on the arch of Titus. But every description in the sacred records, from the calf of the wilderness to the twelve oxen of the molten sea, or the lions of the throne of Solomon, evinces the taste of the former bondsmen of Pharaoh, and of him who was skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians; at the same time we learn that the Israelites quickly departed from the severe and simple grandeur of the parent source. Moving eastward: Baalbec's gigantic masonry is adorned with little of sculpture; the lonely Palmyra exhibits only Roman ruins, for the Tadmor of Scripture has long disappeared; the pillared Persepolis claims a remoter antiquity; but the Pelhavi and arrowheaded inscriptions, instead of hieroglyphics, show comparatively recent, and the innumerable and beautiful sculptures, display certain traits of the Grecian school. They cannot be older than Cyrus, but most probably belong to the age of his successors. The mysterious monuments of Hindustan alone seem to claim an equal or more ancient date compared with the labours we have surveyed. Their nature, also, is the same; hence there are not wanting names of highest eminence, who have maintained not only the greater antiquity of Indian art, but that thence has been derived all other, as from the parent source. This opinion has been grounded too exclusively on the dubious inferences of philology, or of mere antiquarian erudition,--dubious, at least, when applied to Sculpture. Here the subject itself ought to supply the true principles of decision; and on this point one observation will suffice. The sculpture, like the architecture, of Egypt, bears the impress of uniform simplicity; the grand lines of composition are few, accessories are sparingly introduced, and wear the same sober, massive, and unpretending character. In the works of Asiatic art, on the contrary, although presenting a general resemblance to those of Egypt, the design is neither simple nor uniform; the parts are numerous, breaking the master lines into multiplied compartments, while the style of ornament is replete with complicated details, and of pretension above the means of the artist. Now, judging according to the natural inferences from these facts, and according to the acknowledged precepts of imitative art, this latter style, with its defects in keeping, has evidently arisen in consequence of superinducing a laboured and injudiciously aspiring taste upon the more severe and simple conceptions of a primitive composition. Similar principles may be obviously traced in the farther progress of the arts eastward. China is admitted, on the most learned authorities, to have been planted by colonists from the banks of the Indus and the Ganges; and in the unchanging modes of that country, we seem almost to catch glimpses of the aboriginal knowledge of our race. Yet how striking the difference between the ornate and the frittered labours of the Chinese compared with the works either of India or of Egypt! Even their great wall is but the accumulation of petty exertions--an evidence of numerical, not of scientific energy. CHAPTER II. IN the previous chapter, Egypt has been exhibited as the centre of intelligence in the history of ancient art; and having explained the connexion which can still be traced in the few remaining monuments of the East, we now turn from the parent source to trace the progress of refinement in the West, where, first in Greece, the human mind awoke to the full consciousness of its capacious grasp, and of its exquisite sensibilities. The universal origin of sculptural representation, already noticed, in the alliance which man forms with natural objects as shadowing forth the affections or the regrets of the heart, is nowhere so conspicuous as in Greece. Here art was poetry from the beginning; her consecrated groves, her winding streams, her flowery plains, the azure depths of her mountains, became at once the residence and the representatives of those beings, whether divine or heroic, who constituted her theology. By a people, simple in their habits, yet ardent in their feelings, this early faith was long remembered,--such reminiscences deeply tincturing much of what is most exquisitely descriptive and sentimental in Grecian poetry. But a belief so abstract, so untangible in its forms, and so remotely addressed to the senses, would soon prove insufficient to maintain effectual empire over the passions. Attempts were speedily made to secure, as it were, the more immediate presence and protection of the objects of veneration or of worship. Men's desires in this respect, however, as in all other instances, would necessarily be limited by their knowledge and their powers. In the primitive ages, accordingly, objects rude and unfashioned as we learn from history, were adored as representing the divinities of Greece. Even to the time of Pausanias, stones and trunks of trees, rough and uninformed by art, were preserved in the temples: and though replaced by forms almost divine, still regarded with peculiar veneration, as the ancient images of the deities. As skill improved, these signs began to assume more determinate similitude; and from a square column, the first stage, by slow gradations something approaching to a resemblance of the human figure was fashioned. These efforts at sculpture long continued extremely imperfect. The extremities seem not to have been even attempted; the arms were not separated from the body, nor the limbs from each other, but, like the folds of the drapery, stiffly indicated by deep lines drawn on the surface. Such appears to have been the general state of the art immediately prior to the period when it can first be traced, as cultivated with some degree of success in any particular place. This occurs about twelve centuries before Christ. The fine arts have never flourished in states not commercial; in this respect, presenting a marked contrast to the origin and progress of poetry and music; a fact singularly exemplified in the condition of those cities where arose the primitive schools in Greece. Sicyon, �gina, Corinth, and Athens, were the first seats of commerce and of sculpture. Sicyon, with its small but important territory, extending a few miles along the south-eastern extremity of the Corinthian gulf, was the most ancient of the Grecian states, and probably the oldest city of Europe. From the earliest times, it became celebrated for the wealth, enterprise, and intelligence of its population; and from the Sicyonian academy were sent forth many of the most celebrated masters of design; hence Sicyon obtained the venerable appellation of 'Mother of the Arts.' The foundation of this school, though most probably of much higher antiquity, is assigned to Dibutades, who, in the humble occupation of a potter, became the accidental inventor of the art of modelling. For this discovery, so precious in its subsequent effects, he was indebted to the ingenuity of his daughter, who, inspired by love, traced upon the wall, by means of a lamp, the shadowed profile of the favored youth as he slept, that with this imperfect resemblance she might beguile the lingering hours of absence. This outline the father, filling up with clay, formed a medallion, which, even to the time of Pliny, was preserved as a most interesting relic. To the same pleasing origin painting has been ascribed--another instance of that delightful charm, which, to their poetry, their arts, their philosophy even, the Greeks have imparted by the constant union of sentiment and reason--of the heart with the understanding. The little island, or rather rock, of �gina, still one of the most interesting spots of Greece, rising above the waves of the Saronic gulf, nearly opposite to Athens, affords a striking illustration of the effects of commercial wisdom. Insignificant in extent, boasting of few productions, it was yet enabled, by this wisdom, long and successfully to maintain the struggle of warfare, and to cherish the arts of peace and of elegance, especially sculpture, in a school, if not the earliest, certainly latest distinguished by originality of style and invention. Smilis was famous by his statues of Juno, especially one at Samos, called by Pliny 'the most ancient image' of that goddess. Even in the works of this, her first master, it is said, were to be discovered a gravity and austere grandeur, the principles of that style visible still in the noble marbles which once adorned, in �gina, the temple of Jupiter Panhellenius. Corinth was early more celebrated as the patroness of painting. Concerning Dædalus, the first of the Athenian sculptors, doubtful or fabulous accounts have reached us; but a careful investigation of circumstances proves, that of whatsoever country a native, he had rendered himself renowned by the exercise of his skill at the court of Minos before settling in Attica. The facts attending his arrival there, and the history of his previous labours, enable us to fix dates, and to trace the true source of improvement in Grecian art at this particular era. Of the early establishments of the Greeks planted in the isles of the �gean, which even preceded the mother country in the acquisition of wealth and intelligence, the Doric colony of Crete enjoyed, from a very early period, the happiness and consequent power of settled government. External advantages of situation first invited the access, while domestic institutions secured the benefits, of ancient and uninterrupted intercourse with Egypt. Hence the laws and the arts of the Cretans. With the former, the Athenian hero, Theseus, wished to transplant the latter also; and while he gave to his countrymen a similar system of policy, he did not fail to secure the co-operation of one whose knowledge might yield powerful aid in humanizing a rude people by adding new dignity to the objects of national veneration. Accordingly Dædalus, accompanying the conqueror of the Minotaur to Athens, fixes there the commencement of an improved style, 1234 years before the Christian era. With Dædalus, the artists already mentioned are described as nearly or altogether contemporaries. The performances of Dædalus were chiefly in wood, of which no fewer than nine, of large dimensions, are described as existing in the second century, which, notwithstanding the injuries of fourteen hundred years, and the imperfections of early taste, seemed, in the words of Pausanias, to possess something of divine expression. Their author, as reported by Diodorus, improved upon ancient art, so as to give vivacity to the attitude, and more animated expression to the countenance. Hence we are not to understand, with some, that Dædalus introduced sculpture into Greece, nor even into Attica; but simply that he was the first to form something like a school of art, and whose works first excited the admiration of his own rude age, while they were deemed worthy of notice even in more enlightened times. Indeed the details preserved in the classic writers, that he raised the arms in varied position from the flanks, and opened the eyes, before narrow and blinking, sufficiently prove the extent of preceding art, and the views we have given on the subject. In these primitive schools, however, many centuries necessarily elapsed, before sculpture can be considered as a regular art. Their founders and pupils were little more than ingenious mechanics, who followed carving among other avocations. Such were Endæus of Athens, celebrated for three several statues of Minerva; �peus, immortalized as the fabricator of the Trojan horse; Icmulous, praised in the Odyssey as having sculptured the throne of Penelope; with many others who must have contributed to the arts of the heroic ages, and who, if they did not rapidly improve, at least kept alive the knowledge of sculpture. Besides these continental schools, another must be described, which there is every reason to believe was still more ancient, and which certainly attained higher perfection at an earlier period. This was the insular Ionian school, flourishing in those delightful isles that gem the coast of Asia Minor, and chiefly in Samos and Chios. To this the continental academies were even indebted for many of their most distinguished members, who, leaving the narrow sphere of their island homes, naturally preferred the commercial cities from the same causes which had rendered these originally seats of art, opulence, intelligence, and security. Of the Samian masters, Rhæcus, about the institution of the Olympiads, or 777 B. C., first obtained celebrity, as a sculptor in brass, in which art, Telecles and Theodorus, his son and grandson, also excelled. Their works in ivory, wood, and metal, were extant in the age of Pausanius, whose description exhibits the hard and dry manner of Egypt, whence it is probable these artists had derived their improvements, distinguished for very careful finish. The Chian school claims the praise of first introducing the use of a material to which sculpture mainly owes its perfection, namely, marble. The merit of this happy application is assigned to Malas, the father of a race of sculptors, and who is placed about the 38th Olympiad, or 649 years before the Christian era. Michiades inherited and improved the science of the inventor, transmitting to his own son, Anthermus, the accumulated fame and experience of two generations of sculptors, to whom, as to their successors, the beautiful marbles of their native island furnished one rich means of superiority. In the insular,--and the evidence is in favour of the Chian school,--we also first hear of bronze statues. The earliest works of this kind were not cast, but executed with the hammer. Two manners are discernible; large figures were formed of plates, and hollow, the interior being filled with clay; in small pieces, the separate parts were brought nearly into shape in the solid, afterwards united, and the whole finished by the graver and the file. These methods, in each of which rivets, dovetails, and soldering, formed the joints, were gradually superseded as the knowledge of casting was acquired. About the commencement of the sixth century before Christ, the school of Sicyon was illustrated by Dipænus and Scyllis, brothers, the most famous of her ancient masters, and whose age forms an era in the history of the ancient art, marking the first decided advances towards the mastery of the succeeding style. Their labours were in various materials, the most esteemed of marble; and the praise of its application is shared betwixt them and the Chian school. Statues by these artists, in Parian marble, were admired in the time of Pliny, excited the cupidity of Nero, and are subsequently described by one of the Christian fathers, from the peculiar veneration in which they were held. The style of sculpture had hitherto been extremely dry and minute;--a passion for extreme finish, in preference to general effect, had distinguished former masters. This taste had been first introduced, and afterwards maintained, by the limited resources of the art itself, by the mediocrity of artists, and by the dress and ornaments of the time. The hair arranged in undulating locks or spiral curls, and sometimes little separate knobs, was laboured as if to be numbered; the drapery, disposed in the most rigid and methodical folds, finished with painful minuteness; at the same time the limbs and countenance retained much of rude and incorrect form and tasteless expression, but elaborated with the extreme of care. It is far easier, and the common error, both of inferior genius and of an unskilful age, to bestow on parts that talent and application by which a whole is to be perfected. The fault of fastidious and useless labour, with inaccuracy of general result, still attaches to the works of Dipænus and Scyllis, but great melioration is also apparent; their execution was much more free, the whole effect more powerful, the expression, if not more animated, more natural, and the forms better selected and composed. Colossal heads, now in the British Museum, of Hercules and Apollo, most probably of these masters, afford an admirable illustration of these remarks, and of the style of art at this early period. The fiftieth Olympiad, shows all the necessary inventions and principles of mechanical art fully known and universally practised. Even so early as the twentyninth Olympiad, an equestrian group had been executed in Crete by Aristocles; all the proper materials, and the methods of working them, had long been discovered; in the greatest single work of these times, the shrine of Apollo at Amyclæ, by Bathycles the Ionian, every description of relief had been exhibited; and lastly, improvement had been fixed on such principles of taste and composition, as enabled succeeding efforts to carry it forward. The extent of country in which the art was now cultivated, and the zeal evinced in the pursuit, corresponded to, while they increased, the improvement of taste. Attention is now directed to a new school, that of Magna Græcia, which (during two thousand years), had been gradually rising into importance and excellence. Its chief seats were at Rhegium and Crotona in Italy, and in Sicily, Syracuse and Agrigentum. In these, the artists first practised in metal chiefly, afterwards in marble; and were among the foremost to perfect iconic statues,--a source of most decided advantage to the art. Omitting farther enumeration, one of these early masters, Dionysius of Rhegium, merits to be mentioned as the first who composed a statue of Homer, erected about the twenty-seventh Olympiad. This was an ideal bronze, in which the traditionary resemblance had been preserved; and from this ancient original were taken those portraits of the father of verse which are mentioned by Pliny as so numerous in his time, and of which one or two exquisite examples still remain. Thus five centuries and a half before the Christian era, sculpture was practised with success throughout the wide extent of Greece and her colonies. During the former part of the sixth century, however, Sicyon, whose school had added to its ancient supremacy by the superiority of Dipænus and Scyllis, continued to send forth, in their pupils, the most numerous and efficient artists. Of these, the principal were Learchus, a native of Rhegium; Theocles, Dontas, Doryclidos, and Medon, Lacedæmonians; Tecteus and Angelion of Delos, where they erected a colossal statue of Apollo. At Rhegium, Clearchus was highly esteemed, and had a very flourishing academy; while at Agrigentum, Perillus rivalled the masters of the parent schools. He cast the famous bull of Phalaris, afterwards carried off by the Carthaginians, restored by Scipio, again the object of the cupidity of Verres, and of the praise of Cicero, whose words, _ille nobilis Taurus_, prove that the skill of those early ages has not been too highly appreciated. But the fame of all preceding sculptors has suffered from the superior reputation of the two Chian brothers, Bupalus and Anthemis, who lived 517 years B. C. They were the first who brought to a high degree of perfection the discovery of their ancestors,--sculpture in marble. Both Greece and Asia strove to possess their works, which were equally numerous and excellent, and on which was inscribed, not their own, but their father's name and their country's, in the following verse: 'The sons of Anthermus will render thee, O Chios, more renowned than thy vines have yet done.' The beauty of these works caused them to be highly valued in all succeeding ages, and they formed part of those master-pieces removed to Rome by order of Augustus. During the period of fiftyeight years, from the sixtieth to the seventysecond Olympiad, and the battle of Marathon, sculpture throughout Greece was vigorously exercised, and with corresponding success. At Athens, which, though distinguished in the very commencement of our narrative, has subsequently appeared in the back ground, Pisistratus laid the foundation of that school whence afterwards issued the new lights of the art. This extraordinary man perceived and applied the proper remedy to the poverty of Attica: he introduced manufactures and encouraged commerce; and while the true sources of political greatness were thus opened, the more enviable supremacy of his country was secured in the intellectual empire of literature and the arts of elegance. Yet this man has been termed, in the history of that very country, a tyrant, because he saved her from her worst enemy, the mob--miscalled free citizens--slaves of their own passions, and agents in the hands of demagogues. Our own times are not without similar prejudices. Mankind seem destined, in all ages, to be the dupes of fears and of phantoms which they themselves have evoked, and which distract attention from real danger. Happy that state, governed by rulers, who, like Pisistratus, will respect the essentials of free institutions, who will consecrate the resources of the state to promote the national grandeur, and save the people from themselves! Under his protection were assembled the most esteemed artists of all descriptions: of sculptors, Eucharis was famous for the figures of warriors in armour; and Callon for statues of bronze. Callimachus is praised as master of all the arts of design, and in sculptural composition had introduced a lightness and elegance before unattained. In other parts of Greece, during the same interval, were the following: Dameas, of whose works, the statue of his compatriot Milo was the most celebrated, and which the latter, among his other wonderful feats, carried to the place of erection. Polycletus, the first of the name, and his master Ageladas, finished at Argos, their native city, the statue of Cleosthenes in a car, soon after the sixtyseventh Olympiad, and one of the greatest works yet undertaken. At Sicyon were the brothers Canachus and Aristocles, whose two Muses were the finest statues then known; and of which, one is supposed to be the famous antique now in the Barbarini palace. Ascarus, at Elis, produced a Jupiter crowned with flowers; Menecmus and Soidas a Diana, afterwards placed in the palace of Augustus. Menecmus was the first who wrote on the principles of his art. The Dioscorides of Egesias, contemporary with the Persian invasion, have, by a misinterpretation of Pliny, been assigned to the figures now on Monte Cavallo, at Rome. The victory of Marathon, B. C. 490, inspired fresh vigour into the genius and institutions of Greece. From this date, to the government of Pericles, intervenes a period in moral grandeur, the brightest, perhaps, in Grecian history. Of the sculptors who then flourished, the immediate predecessors, or early contemporaries, of Phidias, the following were the chief: Onatas and Glaucias, of Egina; the one modelled an admirable statue of Gelon, king of Syracuse; the other, an iconic figure of Theagines of Thasos, four hundred times victorious in the public games. Critias replaced the statues of Harmodias and Aristogiton, the originals having been carried off by Xerxes. Calamis was still more renowned for his horses, which were likewise iconic statues--a proof how early nature was admitted as the only guide in every department of sculpture. Pythagoras of Rhegium surpassed all his predecessors; his statues of Enthymus and Astylas, conquerors in the Olympic games, were masterpieces of form; and in expression, his Philoctetes exhibited deeper and truer sentiment than had yet appeared in any work. The name of Pythagoras, indeed, is closely associated with the general advancement of the art, as ranking among the inventors of that system of proportion which, derived from nature, taught to unite elegance with truth, and which invariably guided the practice, while its perfection was improved by the discoveries, of each succeeding master. In the mechanical department, also, his manner was more bold, firm, and graceful, in delicacy of style being placed by Quintilian inferior only to Myron, the last and the greatest of the early school. Myron, a native of Eleutheræ, exercised his profession chiefly at Athens, of which he enjoyed the citizenship. The decline of his life corresponds with the early labours of Phidias: Myron thus unites the first and second ages of Grecian sculpture, combining in his works many of the essential excellences of its perfection, with some of the remaining hardness and defects of its pupillage. In adopting this chronology, we seem to reconcile conflicting opinions both with each other and with history. The principal works of Myron were in bronze, and the most colossal in wood; consequently, no original of his hand has come down to modern times. There can, however, be no doubt that the famous Discobolos is preserved to us in more than one antique repetition. Hence, and from the writings of the orators and historians, a fair estimate of his merits may be deduced. His composition was distinguished for energy, science, and truth. Iconic statues he carried to a degree of excellence and vigour, as in the portrait of Ladus, unsurpassed in any succeeding age. The Bacchus, Erectheus, and Apollo, executed by order of the state, were not less admired by the Athenians; the last, carried away by Antony, was restored to them by Augustus, in consequence of a dream. His representations of animals were equally admirable; and seem, if possible, to have been more universally praised, judging from the circumstance of no fewer than thirtysix laudatory poems on the famous heifer being still extant in the Anthology. Myron carried mere imitative art to its utmost limits; yet in some of the minor details, the dry manner of the first ages appeared. Sculpture, as the representation of the external form, he perfected; but as an instrument of touching the heart--of elevating the imagination--of embodying sentiment, he proved unequal to call forth its powers. He represented nature forcibly and with fidelity, but without grandeur or ideal elevation. An important approach, however, to just conceptions of abstract beauty, is to be perceived in the principle which he is said first to have promulgated,--that propriety in the separate parts was beauty, or that a work of art was beautiful as a whole, according as the partial forms and proportions corresponded to their offices and to the general character. This, in fact, is the essence of corporeal beauty, the highest refinement of material art; and assigns to form, independent of mind, the noblest expression of which it is susceptible. This is the utmost range attained by the genius of this the first period in the history of art in Greece, and an admirable ground-work for the sublimity, and refined perceptions of the beautiful, added in the era that followed. Casting a retrospect over the ages that have passed in review, how are we struck with the slow and painful growth of human invention! The collective energies and discoveries of a thousand years were required to rear the arts of Greece--not to their perfection, but to the state where the first decided approaches to it commence. Such is the length of time from the first feeble glimmerings of imitative art to the era of Dipænus and Scyllis, Bupalus and Anthermus. The interval of forty years occupied by these artists, from the fiftieth to the sixtieth Olympiad, may be considered as terminating the old, and introducing the new school. The art was now in possession of all the means and instruments, the correct application of which bound the aspirings and the praise of mediocrity, but which merely become subservient to the aims of loftier minds. During part of this period, also, these means were industriously, and with daily improving skill, employed. From this date to the battle of Marathon, an interval of fifty-eight years, improvement was rapid in every corner of Greece and her colonies. Fortunately, also, the movement then given to Sculpture was one of diffuse activity, not an influence derived from, and sustained amongst, a few leading minds, whose authority might thus have operated fatally, by binding down to fixed and imperfect modes the aspirings of future genius. This advantage was secured by the number of independent states forming the Grecian confederacy, a constitution, which, throughout the whole history of ancient art, exercised the most beneficial effects, both by preventing mannerism, in taste, and by nourishing emulation. The Persian invasion, the victories of Marathon, Salamis, and Platea, awakened a new energy in the moral character of Greece, infusing at the same time into her institutions a vigour and a stability before unknown. From the elevation she had now attained among the nations of the earth, her genius rushed forward as from vantage ground. In every field of mental enterprise, indeed, a certain preparation had already been made, and in some the best exertions had long been achieved. In poetry a sublimity had been attained, which has yet set at nought all succeeding rivalry. But in that knowledge, and in those arts, which depend less upon individual eminence, and more upon the circumstances of the times, and upon a strong national interest,--in all those studies which embrace numbers by their consequences or their success, which demand the union of patient perseverance with high talent, and finally, which pertain to the business of public life, and require deep insight into the nicer distinctions of human character--all, from this happy era, with an almost supernatural progress, attained maturity. The opulence and security, with the resulting consciousness of power, and the love of elegance, which followed the defeat of the Barbarians, proved especially propitious to the arts of sculpture and architecture. If in the former any doubt be entertained, what the difference of improvement was between the artists who preceded and those who followed the age of Xerxes, we have only to recall the fortunes of the drama during the same heart-stirring period. In the last of the 74th Olympiad, A. C. 489, or one year after the battle of Marathon, �schylus placed the first wreath upon the solemn brow of Tragedy. Not twenty years afterwards, the warrior bard was vanquished by his youthful rival. Between the Prometheus of �schylus, then, and the [OE]dipus of Sophocles, we find as wide an interval as is necessary to suppose between the sculptures contemporary with the former, and the productions of Polycletus or Myron. CHAPTER III. THE age of Pericles seemed marked out by fortune as a distinguished epoch in the history of his country. The fine talents, also, and popular qualities of this accomplished statesman, were admirably adapted to turn to the best account the propitious circumstances of the period. To the further progress of the fine arts, and of sculpture in particular, preceding events, and their present consequences, almost necessarily contributed; while the condition of the art itself was just fitted to receive the perfecting impulse. The energies of sculpture, likewise, were now to be more directly concentrated in one parent school; which, while it especially adorned one seat, preserved yet the stirring rivalry of honorable emulation, as being the common seminary of free and independent states. The noble stand she had made, her superior sacrifices and sufferings in the cause of freedom, directed to Athens the sympathy and deference of Greece. The prosperity, too, of her political situation, was suitable to the support of this moral pre-eminence. Provided with means of defence and of commerce, on a scale which seemed to contemplate future empire, she was left by Themistocles with ample resources--a noble field of fame and recompense for the artist. He himself, satisfied with the useful, had cared less about the ornamental; but, among the little he did add, were the lions, now at Venice, originally placed on the entrance to the Piræus, in which fidelity of detail, and grandeur of conception, have furnished to us existing evidence of the skill of this age. Great as they were, the mind of Phidias proved equal to these external advantages. Possessing that rarest and highest of all genius which is at once creative and regular--learned, yet original, he caught the inspiration of art in the most elevated range of the past, bringing in his own attainments a sublimity and truth yet unequalled by all that has followed. This great master, the son of Charmidas, an Athenian citizen, was born about the 72d Olympiad, or nearly 500 years before our era, and studied under Eladas. His numerous works belonged to three distinct classes: Toreutic, or statues of mixed materials, ivory being the chief,--statues of bronze,--sculptures in marble. In this enumeration are included only capital performances, for exercises in wood, plaster, clay, and minute labours in carving, are recorded occasionally to have occupied his attention. The beauty of these miniatures was not inferior to the excellence of his greater works; at once sublime and ingenious, he executed grand undertakings with majesty and force, and the most minute with simplicity and truth. 'Artis Phidiacæ toreuma durum Pisces adspicis: adde aquam, natabunt.' 'These fish are iv'ry--but by Phidias made; From want of water only seem they dead.' Of the works belonging to the first division, the Olympian Jupiter, and the Minerva of the Parthenon, colossal statues composed of gold and ivory, were the most wonderful productions of ancient art. The former, placed in the Temple at Elis, was sixty feet high, in a reposing attitude, the body naked to the cincture, the lower limbs clothed in a robe gemmed with golden flowers; the hair also was of gold, bound with an enamelled crown; the eyes of precious stones; the rest of ivory. Notwithstanding the gigantic proportions, every part was wrought with the most scrupulous delicacy; even the splendid throne was carved with exquisite nicety. The whole was finished before the artist had obtained the direction of the public works of the Athenians, in the 83d Olympiad after a labour of ten years; the same date in which Herodotus read the second part of his history, the first regular prose composition that had been heard at Athens. About twelve years later was executed the Minerva, of inferior dimensions, being only forty feet in altitude, but equal, if not superior, in beauty of workmanship and richness of material, the nude being of ivory, the ornaments of gold. A flowing tunic added grace to the erect attitude of the goddess: in one hand was a spear, upon the head a casque; on the ground a buckler, exquisitely carved, the concave representing the giants' war, the convex a conflict with the Amazons, portraits of the artist and of his patron being introduced among the Athenian combatants--one cause of the future misfortunes which envy brought upon the author. On the golden sandals was also sculptured another favorite subject, the battle of the Centaurs, praised by historians as a perfect gem of minute art. Such admiration attached to these two works, that they were regarded as 'having added majesty to the received religion;' and it was esteemed a misfortune not to have been able, once in a lifetime, to behold them. Yet judged according to the true principles of genuine art, theirs was not a legitimate beauty. It does not excite surprise, then, to learn that Phidias himself disapproved of the mixed effect produced by such a combination of different substances, nor will it appear presumptuous here to condemn these splendid representations. It is not sufficient that a work of art does produce a powerful impression--it is indispensable to its excellence that the means employed be in accordance with the principles and the mode of imitation. Now, in the compositions just described, exposed as they were to the dim light of the ancient temple, and from very magnitude imperfectly comprehended, the effects of variously reflecting surfaces, now gloom, now glowing of unearthly lustre, must have been rendered doubly imposing. But this influence, though well calculated to increase superstitious devotion, or to impress mysterious terror on the bewildered sense, was meretricious, altogether diverse from the solemn repose, the simple majesty of form and expression, which constitute the true sublimity of sculptural representation. Statuary, or the art of casting in bronze, as the term was used by the ancients, Phidias carried to unrivalled perfection. The Amazon, the Minerva, at Lemnos, and in the Acropolis, were considered as the masterpieces in this department. The last, called the Minerva Polias, was of such majestic proportions, that the crest and helmet might be discerned above the battlements of the citadel at a distance of twentyfive miles, pointing home to the Athenian mariner, as he rounded the promontory of Sunium. Of these and other works, descriptions alone remain; we are consequently indebted for our positive knowledge of his style and principles to the marble sculptures of Phidias, in which department numerous admirable performances of his hand have also perished; but we have here an advantage in the possession of undoubted originals denied in every other instance. Of the scholars of Phidias, the most esteemed were Alcamenes the Athenian, and Agoracritus of Paros. Their real merit, however, is matter of uncertainty, since their works are reported to have been retouched by their master, who was likewise in the habit of inscribing his statues with the names of his favorite pupils. Indeed, the sublime style perfected by Phidias seems almost to have expired with himself--not that the art declined, but a predilection for subjects of beauty, and the softer graces, in preference to more heroic and masculine character, with the exception of the grand relievos on the temple of Olympia, may be traced even among his immediate disciples. Among his contemporaries, indeed, Polycletus, the second of the name, has been by some placed equal in grandeur of style, while by others he has been described as unequal, to the majesty of the great Athenian. Polycletus himself appears to have decided the controversy, by showing, from the selection of his subjects, that his genius carried him to the imitation rather of the beautiful than the great. His most celebrated performances were the statues of two youths, both nude, the Diadumenos and the Doryphorus, so called from their action of binding the head with a fillet, and bearing a spear. The latter formed the famous 'canon,' from which, as from an unerring standard, all succeeding artists, even Lysippus, borrowed their proportions. Among contemporaries, also, a most distinguished station must have been occupied by Ctesilaus, since he contested with Phidias and Polycletus the public prize of merit for a statue to be dedicated in the temple of the Ephesian Diana. To this artist is erroneously ascribed one of the finest specimens of art now in existence, miscalled, but best known as, the Dying Gladiator, and which, more than any other ancient example, discovers the most profound knowledge of the internal structure of the human frame. From the banishment and death of Phidias, which occurred some time before his patron died of the plague, in the last year of the eightyseventh Olympiad, the history of art is carried forward through a period, one of the most stormy and unsettled in the Grecian annals. He beheld the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, an event, indeed, Pericles is accused of having at least hastened, in order to screen his remaining friends from those accusations of which the sculptor had been the guiltless victim. During thirty years of hostile commotions, the arts flourished with almost unimpaired vigor, except that towards the close of the contest, sculpture, which had naturally participated in the fortunes of Athens, suffered a decline in this its capital school. The spirit of the age generally, however, united with the sentiment of hostility a more generous rivalry in excellence of every kind. The grand and beautiful in art continued to be followed and admired, while, amid the contention of arms, eloquence began to attain that nervous elegance which yet renders attic oratory the finest model of deliberative procedure. Even the less friendly interval which followed, the establishment of the iron rule of Sparta--the ruin of the milder and more splendid dominion of Athens--and, more disastrous still, the war kindled by the ambition of Thebes, with the various isolated struggles arising out of these leading events, appear to have produced no material degradation in that heroic style, whose lofty character harmonized with the strong excitement of contests for freedom or empire. Of the artists who adorned this stirring era, the names of nearly fifty, with descriptions of certain of their works, have been handed down in the incidental notices of contemporary history, or in the more detailed accounts of Pausanius, Strabo, and Pliny. Naucydes was author of that beautiful figure holding a discus, and measuring in his own mind the distance, of which antique copies remain, admired for fine position, sweet variety of contour, and unaffected expression. Leochares, Bryaxis, and Timotheus, assisted in the erection of the tomb of Mausolus, where Scopas, superior to all others mentioned, presided. Thus his age is fixed about the 102d Olympiad, or 370 B. C. To the chisel of this eminent artist is ascribed the Townley Venus, or Dione, now in the British Museum, as also the group of Niobe at Florence. Grace, softness, and truth, were the characteristics of his style, which may be considered as forming the intermediate gradation between that of Phidias and those of Praxiteles and Lysippus; between the two grand divisions of Greek sculpture, the schools of grandeur and of beauty. In the era and labours of Phidias, we discover the utmost excellence to which Grecian genius attained in the arts. From an examination, then, of this excellence, we shall not only obtain a knowledge of that style pronounced by the Greeks themselves to be their proudest achievement in sculpture, but may also be able to elicit principles of the highest general importance in the philosophy of imitative art. This inquiry likewise demands attention, were it merely on account of the singularly fortunate circumstances under which it can be instituted. Respecting the most esteemed masterpieces of antiquity, reasonable doubts still exist how far our judgments are formed upon real originals. But in the marbles of the British Museum, the former ornaments of the Parthenon, we certainly behold the conceptions, and, in some measure, the very practice of the great Athenian sculptor. Both statues and relievos compose these precious remains, one of the noblest bequests of ancient to modern talent. The statues adorned the two tympana of the Parthenon, which was amphiprostylos or double-fronted, consisting, besides fragments, of fourteen groups, or seventeen figures, of the natural proportions. The relievos are of two kinds, one of which formed the inner frieze of the cella, and flat, representing the procession of the Panathenean festival; the other, consisting of fifteen metopes of the exterior peristyle, very bold, even to entire roundness in some parts, the subject, combats of the Centaurs with the followers of Theseus, appropriate to a national temple. In these sculptures, the technicality is of unequal merit; but in the design, the presence of the same mind is visible throughout. In the statues, and in the frieze, of which nearly two hundred feet still remain, the execution generally approaches so near the beauty and grandeur of the composition, that we seem to trace not only one intelligence, but one hand; in the metopes, again, a baldness of rendering, utterly inconsistent with the fervid idea, is occasionally perceivable. These contradictions would naturally arise from, and can be explained only by, the fact that the master-spirit overlooking the whole trusted the expressing of his conceptions to assistants of dissimilar capacity. Of the intellectual character, grandeur is the prevailing principle; the grandeur of simplicity and nature, devoid of all parade or ostentation of art. The means are forgotten in their very excellence, and in the fullest accomplishment of the end. The ancient critics, who, in speaking of Phidias, seem to labour with the power of those ideas awakened by the contemplation of his works, are fond of comparing their effects to those of the eloquence of their most accomplished orators. The comparison is happy. The sculpture of Phidias might well be assimilated to Demosthenian eloquence, in the truth and affecting interest of its imagery, and in its power of bearing the whole soul along in our engrossing feeling. But the sternness and the severity of the orator, the taking of the heart by force, attach not to the artist; all is here sweet and gracious; we are willing captives to the witchery of art. It is this union of the graceful and the pleasing with the energetic and the great, which constitutes the surpassing merit of the works we are considering. Exquisitely delicate in the minute, in the grand, the style is bold, vigorous, and flowing. Their author, to use the language of antiquity, united the three characteristics of truth, grandeur, and minute refinement; exhibiting majesty, gravity, breadth, and magnificence of composition, with a practice scrupulous in detail, and truth of individual representation, yet in the handling rapid, broad, and firm. This harmonious assemblage of qualities, in themselves dissimilar, in their results the same, gives to the productions of this master an ease, a grace, a vitality, resembling more the spontaneous overflowings of inspiration than the laborious offspring of thought and science. The attentive study of the remaining labours of Phidias, and, fortunately for the arts of Britain, their final abiding place is with us, will supply a criterion by which to estimate the principles of the beautiful in execution, and of the ideal in imitative art, as exercised among the Greeks in the most splendid period of their refinement, and will prove guides by which we may emulate, perhaps, equal, our masters. In all that merely meets the eye, the marbles of the Parthenon display the finest keeping, with the general nobleness of their intellectual character. But the execution is perfect, simply because the composition is so. It comes not forward as an independent merit. Its exquisite mechanism operates without intruding. Unseen and unfelt amid the intelligence it conveys, it is finally noticed as an harmonious element of a perfect whole, and only then calls forth an especial admiration. The finish is high, and even delicate, because the extreme beauty and correctness of the design required to be rendered with corresponding elegance and ease. The chiselling is at once detailed and vigorous, harmonizing with attitudes and expressions full of vivacity, natural grace, and dignity. The touch is broad, the forms decided--the marking deep and firm, according with and increasing the general grandeur and conception. The style of design, indeed, is, in the strictest acceptation, learned, the parts being pronounced with a decision and truth unequalled, we are almost inclined to say, in any other remain of antiquity. The ideal of Phidias is derived entirely from nature, as the true ideal of art must ever be. Much has been said respecting the import of this term among the ancients; and the words their writers have employed in speaking of this very master, have been construed into meanings not only inconsistent with, but subversive of, the principles of genuine excellence. If, by the divine archetypes which he is reported to have followed, be implied, that he copied after ideas not existing in nature--living and tangible nature, the breathing works before us attest, that whether ancients or moderns, these critics speak with more zeal than knowledge. In the Elgin marbles, every conception deeply participates of human sentiment and action, so intimately does the representation belong to reality, that every form seems, by the touch of enchantment, to have become marble in the very energies of its natural life. This happy effect of truth, however, does not arise from the imitation of common, that is, of imperfect types; neither is nature the only real object of art, viewed through any medium of fancy, nor imitated according to conventional or imaginative principles. The artist has only looked abroad upon all existence, refining partial conceptions and limited modes by the unerring and collected harmonies of the whole. The true ideal, then--the ideal of Grecian sculpture, as beheld in these its sublimest productions, is but the embodied union of whatever of beauty and perfection still lingers among the forms of nature viewed universally--free from individuality or accident. Truth is thus the primary constituent of the ideal. Beauty is the perfect expression of this truth, agreeably to the most unblemished and purest models which general nature presents. In this union of collective excellence and individual verisimilitude, the mind feels, and at once acknowledges, a power of awakening and reflecting its own truest, best sympathies. These principles are unfolded in their purest elements; and the modes of accomplishing this union distinctly traceable by careful observation on the style of Phidias. The forms are, in the first place, composed with the most correct, but unostentatious science; hence the freedom of their movements, the ease of their attitudes, seeming to possess the same capabilities of momentary action as the living models. In this anatomical knowledge, too, as actually displayed, there is a truly admirable simplicity: the bones and muscles are, indeed, pronounced with a firmness rare in antique sculpture, whence chiefly arises the wonderful elasticity of the figures. All this is unaccompanied with the slightest exaggeration; the divisions being few, and masses large, the eye runs sweetly along the general forms, yet finds wherewithal to be delighted in resting upon details. This absence, or rather this unobtrusiveness, of all pomp of art, throws over the whole an air of reality and of unsophisticated nature. But with these essential qualities of merely imitative art, are united perfect symmetry, the most harmonious contours, grand composition, the most refined taste, and noble expression. This causes every figure to respire an heroic and elevated character. Hence, we perceive, that to base ideal upon imitative art--to address the imagination by grandeur of design and perfection of form, while he appealed to the judgment by fidelity of detail and correctness of resemblance--have formed the objects of this great sculptor. The relations under which truth and imagination produce results at once grand and interesting, he has carefully studied and successfully rendered. Hence, while the general composition breathes the loftiest spirit of ideal or possible excellence, the means by which the sentiment is rendered are received from individual nature, expressed simply, and without artifice. In this happy and unobtrusive union of nature and imagination, in this continually remounting, without convention or ostentation, to the eternal sources of natural truth and beauty, Phidias displays the real sublimity of art, and stands unrivalled among the masters of the ancient world. CHAPTER IV. THE progressive change in sculpture, from a style of severe and simple majesty, to one of more studied elegance and softer character, already noticed as having commenced even in the lifetime of Phidias, received its full developement under those masters who adorned the beginning of the Macedonian empire. Various political and moral causes, without decline of talent, might have contributed to this change, which is not even so great, while it corresponds with, the contemporary revolutions which, from similar origin, took place in manners and literature, in the opinions and usages of the times. The annals of no nation, also, can boast a distinguished succession of names, eminent in the exercises of the very highest genius. Sublimity is, in its own nature, a more simple sentiment than beauty, and the sources whence it springs infinitely more limited. If, then, we find the true sublime in Grecian sculpture confined to almost the age and the labour of one man, is this to be wondered at, when the same is the case, not only in their poetry, an art far more abundant in resources, but in the poetical literature of every people? The sculptors, then, who followed the era of Pericles to the death of Alexander, can be called inferior to Phidias, only in the same sense as the poets who succeeded will be termed inferior to Homer. In both instances, the change was but the application of principles which in their essence could not vary, the subjects requiring a modification of certain distinguishing qualities. But an opinion opposite to this is more commonly entertained, namely, that not till the improvements of Praxiteles and Lysippus, was ancient art perfectly free from the rude and harsh of that early taste. A glance, however, either to the Greek historians, or especially to the remaining labours of Phidias himself, is more than sufficient to show how utterly without foundation is this censure; and that no other man has united in his style more of the highest excellences. It is, in fact, this union which truly constitutes beauty in sculpture, whose sources of pleasing and of moving, being new, and derived only from the essential elements of design, form, and expression, admit of separation or imperfection with peculiar disadvantage. If we examine the Elgin Marbles in regard to those qualities considered as especial constituents of the beautiful, we shall find how slight indeed could be succeeding additions. More seductive grace, an air more elaborately refined, may have been given to the female statues of Praxiteles; but for that perfect beauty, which arises from including the essentials of excellence in the most liberal proportion, we search successfully in the labours of Phidias alone. The views now taken of Grecian sculpture, in which we have divided the subject into three schools, are thus proved to be correct. Two of these have already been examined; the old school, which brought material art almost to perfection, retaining only a degree of constraint, but wanting the expression of mind; the Phidian, or sublime school, in which the genius of art soared to its loftiest height. The third is now to be considered, which, from the prevailing character of its principal works, has been rightly termed the School of the Beautiful. The discussions which have been so warmly agitated regarding the true era of this school, seem entirely gratuitous. It is acknowledged, that the greatest masters of whom this latter age could boast, were Praxiteles and Lysippus, contemporaries, and both highly esteemed by Alexander the Great. Coeval, then, with the commencement of the career, and during the brief empire, of this prince, is to be placed the brightest period in this last display of the arts and genius of Greece. Many external circumstances concurred, with the encouragement given by Alexander himself, to render his reign propitious to refinement, science, and letters; while a reaction of opposite influences, on his death, closed with that event both the progress of higher improvement, and even the prospect of long retaining the knowledge possessed. In sculpture, particularly, a visible decay of talent, and a neglect of the exercise, soon after follow. Indeed, Pliny decidedly says, that art from thenceforth ceased,--_deinde cessavit ars_. This expression must be understood in a limited sense; there is no doubt, however, that the causes of decline, whose consequences wealth, the complexion and renewed energies of the times, had retarded, were then recalled into more direct activity. Praxiteles, born about the 104th Olympiad, or 364 B. C., was a native of Magna Grecia, but of what town is uncertain. From preceding remarks it will appear, that in praising him as an original inventor,--the discoverer of a new style, writers very generally have mistaken the influence exercised by his genius upon the progress and character of sculpture. Finding the highest sublimity in the more masculine graces of the art already reached; perceiving, also, that the taste of his age tended thitherwards; he resolved to woo exclusively the milder and gentler beauties of style. In this pursuit he attained eminent success. None ever more happily succeeded in uniting softness with force,--elegance and refinement with simplicity and purity; his grace never degenerates into the affected, nor his delicacy into the artificial. He caught the delightful medium between the stern majesty which awes, and the beauty which merely seduces,--between the external allurements of form, and the colder, but loftier, charm of intellectuality. Over his compositions he has thrown an expression spiritual at once and sensual; a voluptuousness and modesty which touch the most insensible, yet startle not the most retiring. The works which remain of this master, either in originals or in repetitions,--the Faun,--the Thespian Cupid, in the Museum of the capitol,--the Apollino with a Lizard, one of the most beautiful, as well as difficult, specimens of antiquity, abundantly justify this character. Of the works that have utterly perished, the nude and draped, or Coan and Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles, fixed each a standard which future invention dared scarcely to alter. Indeed, he appears to have been the first, perhaps the sole master, who attained the true ideal on this subject, in the perfect union of yielding feminine grace with the dignity of intellectual expression. The Venus of Cnidos, in her representative the Medicean, still 'enchants the world', --and fills The air around with beauty: we inhale The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils Part of its immortality; the veil Of Heaven is half withdrawn; within the pale We stand, and in that form and face behold What mind can make when nature's self would fail. Lysippus of Sicyon the younger, contemporary and rival of the preceding, appears to have wrought only in metal. Accordingly, in comparing him with Phidias, Aristotle employs distinctive terms, which both point out this fact, and would alone settle the needless dispute, whether the latter wrought in marble. Of the 610 works, an incredible number, ascribed to Lysippus, not one survives; for the Venetian horses originally brought from Chios, by Theodosius the younger, to Constantinople, and thence removed to St Mark's in 1204, are unworthy of the artist's reputation. The bust at Portici requires also to be authenticated, though of superior merit. Born in the lowest walks of life, Lysippus was, in a great measure, self-taught, and commenced his studies where the art itself had begun,--with nature. Though a perfect master of beauty, his style appears to have been distinguished by a more masculine character than that of the age. He was emulous of reviving the grave and severe grandeur of the preceding school. This predilection his subjects and materials would cherish, if not produce. Colossal and equestrian statues of warriors in bronze, demanded a forceful and vigorous composition, with sober and dignified expression. The Tarentine Jupiter, sixty feet high, was in magnitude equal to any undertaking in the ancient world; and twentyone equestrian statues of Alexander's bodyguard, who fell at the Granicus, would alone have sufficed for the labour of years to an ordinary artist. But not only in great works was Lysippus famous; many of the most beautiful and delicate description are recorded. His finishing was exquisite, his imitation of nature faithful 'as truth itself,' and he especially excelled in the knowledge of symmetry. He was so great a favorite with Alexander, that to him alone permission of casting the prince's statue was granted; and it may serve to prove how justly this admiration of his own age was deserved, that centuries after, even the monster Tiberius trembled in his palace at an insurrection of the Roman people, occasioned by the removal from one of the public baths of a figure by Lysippus. During at least forty years from the death of Alexander, the school founded and presided in by these two masters would preserve undiminished the beauty of the art. The latter was still alive on the death of the Macedonian prince, in the last year of the 114th Olympiad, or 324 B. C.; while Praxiteles survived to the 123d Olympiad. If, again, we consider the pupils immediately deriving their science from these great men, the period may be extended during which Greece could have produced sculptors not unworthy her ancient glory. When we contemplate also her condition in other respects, never had she exhibited a more numerous or a more imposing assemblage of intellectual worthies. Surely, then, the death of a despot could not have wrought so fatal and so immediate a decline in the means and faculties of human genius. No! but the consequences of that event destroyed an artificial system, and dried up factitious streams of prosperity, which for a time had supplied or concealed the absence of those healthful and constitutional currents, whence was circulated, throughout the whole of Greece, the very life-blood of her glory and greatness. Had liberal institutions been then restored; had the moral vigour of her better days reappeared, even amid wars and revolutions--in such struggles they had been reared--her genius and taste, her letters and arts, would have survived. These were innate in the constitution of her free states. The last, in particular, formed at once a means and an end in her popular governments. Springing up an ornamental blossom amid the sterner and the nobler fruits of liberty, they withered as independence decayed. We would not be understood as here maintaining a respectable and amiable, but unfounded theory, that the fine arts have never flourished except under popular governments, nor that they ceased with such forms in Greece. In this, more than in any walk of genius, is the active encouragement of the supreme power indispensable to excellence. But never can the arts of taste flourish in true grandeur, where patriotism and popular feeling are not the paramount, or at least the apparently paramount, principles of the times, and source of their peculiar cultivation. The arts themselves must be essentially free; they must likewise derive their quickening inspiration from a national sentiment of interest and of country. Pisistratus and Pericles, we have seen, while rulers of Athens, were but superintendents of the arts, in their application to public purposes, in unison with public will, and in obedience to public approval. Even Phidias prepared with trembling anxiety to receive the award of merit from the voice of his fellow-citizens; and only on the supposition that they were to undergo the ordeal of a close inspection before being placed in their destined situation, can we account for the exquisite finish of the Elgin Marbles, even in parts not exposed to the effects of climate. Only when the purity of this source of honor was contaminated, did art fall, never to rise again. Not till every institution belonging to the republican ages of Greece; not till every sentiment of a generous kind had been trampled upon; not till the Olympic games ceased,--till the physical education and martial exercises of the youth were neglected,--till the arts, separated from national polity, became dependent on the caprice of individuals,--till there was no longer public spirit nor patriotic feeling; not till all that creates and endears the name of country had sunk beneath a foreign yoke or domestic thraldom, did Greece cease to produce artists. Again, the period of this decline extends through nearly two hundred years, from the dismemberment of the Macedonian empire, to the final reduction of Greece into a Roman province. This space of time, in regard to the eras of Sculpture, has been variously and too minutely divided. Each favorable turn of circumstances enabling the art to recover a little, has been exalted into an epoch. Into these details it needs not to enter. From the death of Praxiteles, or at least in the school of his own and the pupils of Lysippus, as Cephissodotus, son of the former, Tauriscus, Eubolas, Pamphilus, Polyceutas, Agasias, and others, it does not appear that original works of magnitude or beauty were produced. After this the labours of artists seem to have been confined to copies of the works of the older masters, and chiefly to making repetitions in marble of the ancient bronzes. To this period belong many of the antique marbles now remaining. Pliny, indeed, though not with strict correctness, considers that Sculpture lay dormant during one hundred and twenty years, from the 120th to the 150th Olympiad. The Achæan league, and the expiring efforts of Greece under the last of her heroes, Aratus and Philopæmen, inspired a degree of vigour into her intellectual exertions. Of these warriors, contemporary statues are noticed by Pausanius; and the latter is reported to have excelled in painting. But the �tolian war broke for ever the ties of country, and the sacredness of national glory. Temples were therein first desecrated,--statues and paintings defaced in Greece, and by the hands of Greeks. If, during the same era, we direct our attention to the successors of Alexander in Egypt and Asia, we find letters cultivated in preference to art; or, where Sculpture is patronised, as at the courts of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ, the cultivation of a taste between Grecian and barbarian only hastened the progress of corruption. One bright interval yet arose in the parent seats of refinement, upon the declaration, by the Romans, of freedom to the states of Greece. Sculpture, for more than thirty years of apparent liberty at least, and of real repose, was exercised with considerable success by the masters, Antheus, Callistratus, Polycles Apollodorus, Pasiteles, and others, possessing considerable merit, though far below the genius of ancient times. This was the struggling gleam of the expiring taper--the farewell sweet of a sun about to set forever. The independence of Greece endured only by sufferance; the Achæan league was dissolved, and Corinth and its capitol levelled with the dust, to the sound of Roman trumpets--the knell of freedom and of the arts in Greece. CHAPTER V. THE history of Sculpture in Italy divides into two distinct, yet connected, subjects of inquiry, embracing two very dissimilar dynasties--the Etruscan and the Roman. Of the former interesting people we know far too little commensurate with their power, and the influence which they appear to have exercised upon the spirit and progress of ancient art. The Thyrreneans, or Etruscans, it is certain, possessed, at a very early period, the empire of almost the whole Italian peninsula, and, to a very considerable extent, whatever of refinement existed in those primitive times. Respecting the origin of the nation, however, and the sources of this intelligence, authors disagree; while the scanty annals that have reached us, through the medium of the Latins and Greeks, enemies or rivals, leave but too much scope for unsettled opinion. The various systems here may be arranged under two general heads; first, that the Etruscans were of Lydian extraction, and under their king, Thyrrenus, settled in Italy at an era anterior to authentic history: or, secondly, that the early colonization of Etruria was owing to the wandering tribes from Greece, chiefly of the Pelasgic race, who settled at different times prior to the Trojan war. Neither of these opinions, singly, accords with contemporary, nor explains subsequent events; combined, they account both for the skill attained by the Etruscans in the arts of taste and civil government, while Greece was yet in a state of pastoral rudeness, and also for the subsequent interweaving into their history of Grecian fable and mythology. We enter not farther into this disquisition, interesting as it undoubtedly is. For our present purpose, it is sufficient to bear in mind, that Sculpture in Etruria had attained a coeval, if not a prior, degree of refinement as compared with Greece, and that regard to preserving the unity of the subject has alone occasioned the precedence in time given to the arts of the latter. The remains of Etruscan Sculpture are not numerous, and of these the authenticity of some may justly be doubted. Taken in general, the works of national art consist of medals and coins; statues of bronze and marble; relievos; sculptured gems; engraved bronzes; and paintings. The first class is the most numerous, and contains many beautiful, indeed, for those early ages, wonderful specimens. These are all cast of a compound metal, being of two kinds, either mythological or symbolical in their representations. Of the statues, it is difficult to say whether those in marble be early Greek or Etruscan; the smaller ones in bronze are more authentic, being household divinities, or merely ornaments: of those in the size of nature, scarcely one has escaped suspicion of its true age. One or two exhibit great beauty. Of the ancient relievos found in various parts of Italy, several are admitted to be genuine Etruscan; and here there can be little hesitation, as a series of sepulchral monuments, sarcophagi, and altars, might be arranged and compared throughout the whole period of Italian history. Gem engraving was brought to great perfection at an early period both in Greece and Italy. Of this minute but charming art, probably the oldest specimen now extant represents five of the seven chiefs who fought against Thebes. Of this the design is inartificial, and the workmanship rude; other Etruscan gems, however, or _scarabæi_, from their resemblance to the shape of a beetle, as the Tydeus and Peleus, equal the most exquisite performances in this branch. The most curious and numerous remains belong to the class of engraved bronzes, or pateræ, small vessels used in sacrificing, circular, and, in the single instance of the Etruscan, with a handle. On the bottom, inside, which is perfectly flat, being merely a plate surrounded with a shallow brim, there is usually engraved some mythological subject, of simple design, expressed in few, bold, firm, and deep lines. In the style of these remains, three distinct eras of art among the Etruscans may be discerned. The first, or ancient style, commences with the earliest notices of the people. It has been confounded with the Egyptian and the Grecian; but the similarity is not greater than characterises the infancy of invention among every people. And though, apart, it might be difficult to discern their national or original elements, considered in connexion with the style of the following era, their distinctive character becomes apparent, of an unfettered imagination, essaying its feeble powers by no systematic, no conventional representation, arising, as in Egypt, from an impulse foreign to art; while, from Greek sculpture of the same age, we clearly distinguish the rudiments of new modes, and certain specialities in the relations between fancy and feeling with nature. The vigorous imagination, the bold forms and general tendency to exaggeration, which may be traced even in its infancy, display in its perfection, during the second epoch, the peculiar characteristics of Etruscan sculpture. In the works of this age, there is strength, and massiveness, and power; but they want delicacy of proportion, discrimination of character, and graceful simplicity. The third epoch embraces that period which beheld the gradual disappearance of the Tuscans as an independent state from the face of Italy. Their political empire was ingulfed in the extending dominion of Rome: the discriminative character of their genius merged in the arts of the colonial Greeks; when, as we have already seen, the schools of Rhegium and Crotona sent forth masters equal, if not superior, to those of Greece. These eras, in date and duration, nearly coincide with as many revolutions in the political history of the nation. Their greatest extent of territory was held but for a short time, being quickly reduced on the south by settlements of the Dorian colonies, and on the north by the Gauls and Ligurians. It was only during their diminished, but secure and admirably constituted empire in Etruria Proper, that their national arts flourished, and their national style was formed. Each of twelve allied, but separately independent capitals, then became a school of art, the friendly rival of her compeers--each exciting the industry, and directing the advance, of the other--each the Athens of ancient Italy. Inflamed by the brutal spirit of mere conquest, the Romans broke in upon this tranquillity; and though, at first, science proved more than a match for force, Etruria, with her free institutions, her elective magistracy, her solemn insignia, fell beneath their rude despotism. Thus terminated, 480 years from the building of Rome, the only native school of art in Italy; and that here sculpture had been cultivated with no ordinary ardour, is attested by the fact of the Romans having carried off from Volsinum alone no fewer than two thousand statues. Even for some time after the subjugation of the Etruscan republics, sculpture was practised; but it soon lost all national character. The Roman dominion embracing the circuit of Italy, the Tuscan freeman and the Greek colonist became alike its vassal; but their common masters fostered not the arts as native ornaments--as moral causes in their empire: they possessed merely sufficient knowledge to value the fruits of genius as the harvest of conquest. The same spirit actuated their subsequent conduct, when their victorious armies came in successive contact with the richer treasures of Sicily, and of Greece herself. Marcellus plundered Syracuse of her marble population, as a proof that he had subdued her living inhabitants; and, from a still more sordid motive, in which ignorance and avarice are disgustingly blended, Mummius first began the work of devastation in Greece. A picture of Bacchus, which the Corinthians, on account of its super-excellence, were anxious to regain from the soldiers, who were using it as a table, is said first to have excited his cupidity. From the vast sum offered, the Roman general conceived the picture contained gold, which he might perhaps discover when more at leisure; accordingly he delivered it to a common messenger, with this sage menace, that he was to carry it safely to Rome, under pain of being obliged to paint one equally good! Such was the state of early republican taste, quite in keeping with the national arts, sufficiently characterised by Tibullus, when he says: 'In paltry temple stood the wooden god.' Or by the opposition of Cato to the introduction of Greek statuary, on the plea, that its divine forms would expose to ridicule the rude fashioning of the Roman deities. During the latter period of the commonwealth, attempts were successively made by Sylla, Pompey, and Cæsar, to domiciliate the arts in Rome. Their efforts, however, reached no farther than collecting in that capital the sculptors of Greece,--thus doubly unfortunate, as the place whence were torn the plundered ornaments of temples and palaces, and as the nurse of that science which, in busts and statues, was to immortalize the lineaments of her enslavers. The patronage of Augustus, who could wield for his purposes the energies of the whole enlightened world, necessarily proved highly advantageous to art, which he affected to cultivate from patriotic and intellectual, but really from those still stronger political motives. But of all the sculptors of the Augustan age whose names have reached us, every one is Greek, and chiefly Athenian. Pasiteles, Arcesilaus, Zopirus, and Evander, were the most eminent. The arts, indeed, were revived; but the creative spirit which infuses life and soul into their productions, which stamps them with originality and thought, could not be recalled. The character of design and of execution is evidently the same as that by which the last era of sculpture in Greece is distinguished, or rather it is superior; for settled government, ample reward, and certain honor, not only drew to Rome every man of talent, but also awakened new powers. But in the finest specimens, there is no evidence of new energies, added by the union of two separate modifications of talent; nor in the inferior, any exhibition of the more original, though it might be ruder, efforts of an aspiring and distinct national taste. Either or both of these effects would have been apparent, had there been native, prior to this importation of Greek artists. On the contrary, everything in the sculpture of this era discovers a descent from a state of higher excellence; every touch exhibits rather what has been, than presages the eminence for which we are to draw upon futurity. From Augustus to Trajan, during a period of 140 years, the principles and practice of the Greeks continue to be observed, with such difference only as political causes can easily reconcile, but with a progressive decay. The most favorable periods during this space were the reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Trajan; for the reign of Nero, whose taste, like his morals, was corrupt, which Pliny has assumed as an epoch in the Roman school, was propitious to practice, not to improvement. With the reign of Hadrian, in the seventeenth year of the second century, is introduced a new style of sculpture, which may properly be termed Roman. Here the distinguishing characteristic is extreme minuteness of finish, indicating the labour more of the hand than the mind. The chisel, the file, the drill, have been plied with ceaseless care, and great mechanical dexterity. Over the whole genius and spirit of the art, is now diffused an air of studied and even affected refinement, which smooths away every characteristic and natural expression. For the sublime is substituted the difficult, the florid for the elegant; and in every remaining specimen, we can readily detect the taste which preferred a poetaster to Homer, or the laboured inanities of the sophists to the vigorous and manly eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero. The reign of the Antonines forms the last lucid interval in the arts of the ancient world. The decline of sculpture from thence to the reign of Constantine would be almost incredibly rapid, were we not enabled to trace its progress in the monuments that yet remain. Beyond Constantine it would not be difficult, but it would be useless, to carry our inquiries. When an imperial master of the world is found pilfering, from the monument of a virtuous predecessor, a few ornaments to deck the record of his own triumphs, and which the whole ingenuity of the Roman world could not supply, the annals of ancient taste may be closed. Sculpture, it thus appears--and the remark is true of all the arts--was never cultivated in Rome as a native acquirement, as an integral element in national history. As political causes, too, the arts scarcely operated, except merely in connexion with public monuments, which were treated more as matters of business than of sentiment; where the successful execution brought no accession of moral dignity to the artist, and where the modes long formed were adopted with no change, save that arising from decaying capabilities. Of all the nations, indeed, who have held supremacy upon the earth, the Romans show the poorest claims to originality; and have least impressed the future fortunes of the human mind by any bold peculiarities or successful darings of her own genius. In letters and in the arts, they have bequeathed to posterity only modifications of the exquisite inventions of Greece. In letters, indeed, they have improved upon their borrowings, because in some instances they have imparted the stamp of nationality;--not so in the fine arts. Yet even in the former, the improvement extends only to the manner; the material remains with little alteration, and no addition. The character of Roman talent--manly and persevering, though not inventive--seemed well adapted to succeed in sculpture, laborious in its practice, in its principles grave and simple. Three causes chiefly opposed this success. The Romans regarded the art as the peculiar eminence of a conquered people. Hence they cherished no genuine enthusiasm for its excellences, and no real respect for its professors--among them the fallen Greeks or manumitted slaves. Secondly, their national manners were inclined, while their spirit burned in its best energies, more to action and business than to elegant accomplishment. As a more particular obstacle, growing out of this general cause, the desire constantly affected of being represented in armour, most materially operated against the improvement of sculpture; and by shutting up the warm and breathing forms of nature, gave at once origin and inveteracy to the evils of harshness and incorrectness, in the early school, and in the latter, to finical and ineffective laboriousness. Thirdly, the superlative beauty of the finest labours of Greece, scattered with amazing profusion throughout Italy, rendered their possessors indifferent to contemporary and so conspicuously inferior works. To this last circumstance, however, is principally to be ascribed the only excellence to which Roman sculpture can justly lay claim, as it proved mainly instrumental in directing attention to that particular department. The busts of the Roman school, from Julius to Gallienus, embracing a period of three centuries, exhibit a series invaluable in the history of art, and in some instances capable of being compared with the best of similar works of the first ages, without suffering by the contrast. These do not, indeed, equal in heroic character one or two remains of Greece, but they exhibit a more powerful representation of individual mental resemblance. The soul of history absolutely seems to inhabit and to breathe from the marble. Into every movement of the countenance is infused an expression so speaking, so characteristic, so full of individuality, that we seem to have set before us the very actor in those deeds which have formed our most serious studies. But this high perfection applies only to the termination of the commonwealth, or does not extend beyond the reign of Augustus. As we advance, the impress of grandeur of thought, and energy of purpose, becomes obscured. This in part is no doubt owing to the decline of power to represent; but the decay of internal nobleness in the subject appears to have at least kept pace with the fall of material art; and, in the words of Pliny, when there were no longer images of mind, the lineaments of form also degenerated. From a careful examination of the imperial busts,--for the jealous fears of these tyrants soon forbade any others to be sculptured--we derive our best knowledge of the Roman school. The style of design during the first, or republican age, is distinguished by squareness and vigour in the forms--decision of arrangement--boldness and firmness in pronouncing the parts, accompanied with truth and great force of general effect, but destitute of minuteness and accuracy in the details. The mastery of touch, indeed, is frequently so daring, as to be redeemed from the imputation of careless and unfinished only by the vigorous meaning of every stroke. We detect the greatest deficiency in those passing lines of thought and form, where little meets the outward sense, but in which the science and feeling of the artists are most surely displayed and most severely tried; the expression of the eyes are studied, and the eye-ball, with intent to produce an imposing look, is made larger than in nature. The hair, though skilfully massed, and fine in distant effect, is particularly heavy; indeed, the characteristic defect is harshness--an absence of those sweet and flowing lines which bring the contour fully, but graciously, upon the view. To the close of the first century, bold and facile execution, and force of effect, continue to take the place of simple and accurate design and natural expression--faults most conspicuous in the most prosperous time, the reigns of Titus and Trajan, from the art being exercised chiefly on architectural designs. In addition to the dry, the hard, and laboured, the era of Hadrian is further distinguished by the pupil of the eye having a deeply drilled orifice, and by the separate parts of the countenance being marked with an affected and unnatural depth. The busts of Aurelius are the last good examples. Under Severus appears a singular affectation of marking the forehead, and even the whole countenance, with furrows. Subsequently every reign displays more decided retrogression, and the final disappearance of every redeeming excellence. CHAPTER VI. WITH the dawn of liberty in the republican cities of Italy, we hail the reappearance of the arts. Before the close of the thirteenth century, Pisa, with the neighboring cities of Etruria, the ancient seats of elegance, had already made progress in sculpture. The founder of this, the primitive school of modern Europe, was Nicolo Pisano. The works of this master, and those of his scholars, still remaining in his native city, in Sienna, Arezzo, Pistoia, Orvieto, and Lucca, induce a very high opinion indeed of the progress of the age. In the succeeding century, the art was carried by his grandson, Andrea, to Florence, the future head and fountain of art. Here, in 1350, was established the first academy of design; and before the close of the century, sculpture was firmly established, and far from unskilfully practised, throughout a considerable portion of Italy. Nor was this the limit of the influence, though, as upon its centre, the eye of history is fixed chiefly here. Fraternities of itinerant sculptors carried their art over Germany and France; and even in England the works of this early school have been traced. In these countries the numerous Gothic edifices, with their sculptured ornaments, furnished rich occasions for the exercise of the art; but from this very circumstance it ceased, in a certain degree, to be regarded as independent of architecture. In Italy, private excellence was better preserved, and is easily traced. But it was union with the grand moral and political principles of free constitutions, that in Italy at once gave dignity to, and cherished the progress of, the arts. In the ancient world we bade a common farewell to freedom and to genius, nay, virtue at the same time would have winged her flight, had she not found an asylum on earth in the bosom of Christianity. Upon the ages now passing in review, when Freedom again rises, we behold genius also revive, as if the sweeter sensibilities and the manlier virtues had together slumbered through the long long night of ignorance and of despotism. It is thus that spring, breathing on bank and wild wood, unchains the bud and the blossom from the tenderest floweret to the hardy oak. In the progress of intelligence, the fifteenth century constitutes a splendid era. Advances were then accomplished in moral, intellectual, and political knowledge, which form the ground work of no inconsiderable portion of modern science. In the arts of elegance, especially in sculpture, the labours of this age will always hold distinguished rank. In the first year of the century, we find six great masters--competitors for the same public work--the bronze folding-doors of the baptistry at Florence: Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, Florentines; Jacomo della Quercia of Sienna; Nicolo Lamberti of Arezzo; Francisco di Valdambrino, and Simon dei Colle, Tuscans. The competitors each afterwards became the head of a flourishing school. Ghiberti, a youth of twentythree, was the successful candidate; and the work thus assigned to his superior merit, occupied forty years of his future life, remaining still one of the proudest triumphs of modern talent. The subjects are upon panels in relievo, representing historical passages from the Old and New Testaments, and the same which were afterwards declared worthy the gates of Paradise. This era may be styled the commonwealth of sculpture; no single master so far excelling his compeers as to impress upon the art the stamp and bearing of one individual style. But among this crowd of illustrious contemporaries, Donatello, born in 1383, and already an eminent artist at the age of twenty, stands forth pre-eminently conspicuous by the magnitude and excellence of his own labours, as also by the number and merits of his pupils. His performances, in almost every variety of material, are scattered over all Italy; the best are in Florence, but the equestrian statue of Erasmus, Duke of Narni, in that city, merits attention as the first attempt of such magnitude in the revival of art. The numerous scholars of Donatello may be divided into two classes. The first comprehends those who, without producing much of their own, have attained reputation as fellow-labourers in the most considerable undertakings of their master. The legitimate disciples of Donatello, however, consists of those who, without servilely following in the train of their instructer, preserved, or even in some respects improved, the science derived from his precepts. These include most of the leading masters of the latter part of the century, for in every town of importance he had left works and planted a school. After the demise of Ghiberti in 1455, and of Donatello in 1466, the art was far from languishing in the hands of their successors, and especially under Andrea du Verrochio, towards the close of the century. In the academy founded by the Medici, many of the most eminent men of the next century are to be found, as yet youthful though not undistinguished pupils. In reviewing the ages which have been made to pass before us in their leading characters, the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, we perceive, may be termed the infancy of sculpture; with the fifteenth begins its manhood, while in some respects full vigour was attained even at the close of this period. During the two preceding centuries, we find views frequently derived from the antique, of which many specimens were brought directly from the East to Pisa. A character of truth and simplicity, faithful imitation of nature, and just expression, visibly begin from the time of Nicolo, whose own style indeed is remarkable for sweetness and absence of all pretension. The effect is never daringly ventured, but is sought to be discovered by patient reiteration of effort and persevering imitation. At first, therefore, no acknowledged principles of taste or of composition can be perceived; a degree of restraint and meagreness consequently long pervade the early labours of sculpture. But if in these the creative faculties have seldom been conspicuously exerted; if the fancy be rarely excited by novelty or variety of invention, the heart, even in the sculpture of the fourteenth century, is often awakened to deep feeling by unexpected beauties of the sweetest power, arising from a diligent imitation of nature. The art being chiefly dedicated to devotion, and to the memory of departed virtue, an air of dignified sincerity, a touching portraiture of the gentler affections, diffuse over the mind of the spectator a melancholy yet pleasing serenity, to be felt rather than described--which give back the images of our own sensibilities in all their simple, unpretending reality. The succeeding age assumes a style and character more elevated, without being less true. The simplicity is refined--equally removed from affectation as from poverty--the skill of hand great, the execution bold and felicitous; yet still exercised as a means, never as an instrument to astonish or surprise. Nature is imitated faithfully, under the least remote appearances, and by the simplest expression--the manner never allures from the subject. The great proportion of the sculpture of this century being in bronze, may account for a style of execution in some respects harsh, with a degree of restraint, and occasionally defective in energy. As respects intellectual merits, the design is always chaste, often extremely elegant; the composition judicious, seldom contrasted or grouped artificially. The expression is sweet and calmly dignified, for rarely is strongly marked passion attempted. No decided aims at representation of abstract or ideal beauty can be observed; the powers of fancy are never presumed upon--seldom roused by remote associations. But the mind of the artist, now no longer entirely engrossed in mechanical detail, or confined by difficulties of mere representation, expatiates, selects, combines; if the forms and conceptions are not invested with the sublimity of ideal elevation, the beautiful models of real existence are imitated not unsuccessfully. Were the extent and object of art confined to simple imitation, the aim of the sculptor would now nearly be attained. Yet, judging even by the principles of the most refined criticism, one department, during the fifteenth century, acquired a perfection which has not been surpassed, rarely equalled, in succeeding times. Donatello and Ghiberti, the former in high, the latter in low relief, have left models which it does not easily appear possible to excel. The best of these are Donatello's, in the church of San Lorenzo, representing the most memorable events in the life of the Saviour; and Ghiberti's, already noticed, on the gates of the baptistry at Florence. The subjects seem to have imparted to the genius of the sculptors a portion of their own sacred dignity, and calm and holy feeling. Indeed, to the influence of religious impressions, we attribute, to a great degree, the improvement of sculpture during this age, the principal undertakings being from Scripture. CHAPTER VII. NOTWITHSTANDING the very considerable attainments already exhibited, to the perfection of Sculpture, there yet wanted greater ease and grace of execution, more perfect and elevated expression, more refined selection of form and composition,--more, in short, of that heightening charm which fancy lends to reality--of that which constitutes the poetry, not the fiction, of art. The first blush of the times, too, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, seemed to promise a most propitious era for the accomplishment of these remaining improvements. In Italy, yet the only fixed and native seat of art, a spirit of refinement and love of elegance, a high and general respect for art, pervaded all ranks. Universal activity, also, and energy of character, growing out of the conscious dignity of independence, animated the republican cities. Each vied with its neighbour in the splendour of public buildings, and in munificence of patronage. Florence, indeed, from her peculiar advantages and superior opulence, sooner distanced rivalry; but her schools were open to all, and her Medici, the most enlightened of patrons, were as yet but merchants and simple citizens. In those states, too, where free and popular government was not established, kings and princes affected to love and encourage the arts. Literature, in most of the countries of Europe, had spread its lights around; the ancient models of eloquence were known, at least in their precepts, to all who laboured in the fields of genius; and even in sculpture, some of the most breathing fragments had been, or in the course of the century, were restored to day. The stir of spirit had penetrated even the recesses of papal domination and priestly ease. Means of empire were now to be essayed more congenial to the complexion of the times, and to the minds of men, than spiritual weapons, unhallowed in every church, because unscriptural, or than--more unjustifiable still, when wielded by ministers of peace--secular arms. Rome was to be rendered the home and habitation of art, as of religion. She was to contain a temple vainly hoped to become the Zion of the Christian world. All these causes, favorable as they were to general developement of talent, tended with a peculiar energy to the advancement of sculpture, in which, with the exception of poetry, the greatest progress had yet been accomplished since the revival of intelligence. The path, too, which had here been pursued, led directly to excellence. Nothing was to be unlearned. The era bore a striking resemblance in its leading features to that of Pericles; there was wanting only a Phidias to realize its expectancy; and in Michael Angelo, the genius of Greece seemed to be supplied. For three fourths of the sixteenth century, this extraordinary man presided in the schools, and by his style influenced much longer the principles of modern art. To him, therefore, during the most brilliant period in the annals which we are now feebly endeavoring to trace, is the attention chiefly directed. Nor only in one point of view, is his genius to be contemplated. He has extended the grasp of a mighty though irregular spirit over our whole subject. Sculptor of the Moses, painter of the Last Judgment, architect of the Cupola--we behold in him the greatest of the works of art. It is this, more than any other circumstance, which has invested the character of his genius with a species of awful supremacy not to be inquired into; discrimination is lost in general admiration; and to him who thus seems to bear away the palm of universal talent, we are inclined to concede the foremost rank in each separate pursuit. His productions, thus dominating among the labours of man, bewilder the judgment both by their real and their apparent magnitude. Thus some giant cliff, rising far above minor elevations, while it serves as a landmark to the traveller, misleads his conceptions of its own distance and immediate relations of site. Here it appears the proper, or at least simplest method, to present such gradual unfolding of the subject as each branch separately may seem to require, reserving a general view for such place as shall give the reader full command of the joint influences, bearings, and consequences of these details. In sculpture, the works of Michael Angelo are divided between Rome and Florence. They are not numerous, and few are even finished. Impatience of slowly progressive labour, united with indomitable activity and unwearied industry--fastidiousness of fancy, and exalted perceptions of excellence, joined with a reckless daring in execution, form singular distinctions of intellectual temperament. Hence have sprung the characteristic beauties and the besetting errors of his style in sculpture--a style discovering much that is derived from liberal and enlightened study of the sublime and graceful in nature, but still more of those qualities which arise from the peculiarities of an individual and erratic, though rich and powerful, imagination. Rarely do his statues exhibit that simplicity and repose essential to beauty in an art--grave, dignified, or even austere, and possessing means comparatively limited and uniform. Forced and constrained attitude, proportions exaggerated, expression awful, gloomy, and unearthly, forms of unnatural, of superhuman energy--these constitute the ideal of his composition. In giving visible existence to these ideas, his execution is most wonderful. A force, a fire, an enthusiasm, elsewhere unfelt, unknown, give to every limb and lineament, a vitality, a movement, resembling more the sudden mandate of inspiration, than a laborious and retarded effort. The first impressions created by these works are thus irresistibly powerful; but they startle, surprise, astonish--do not soothe, delight, and satisfy the mind. An influence originating solely in the imagination, and in which the sensibilities of the heart have little interest, cannot long retain its power; the ordinary tone of feeling returns, and amid the unquiet and aspiring composition seeks for nature and repose. If the productions and style of Michael Angelo be compared with the great standards of excellence and of truth in sculpture--nature, and the remains of ancient art, he will be found to have deviated widely from both, or rather, perhaps, he has rendered both subservient to his own particular views of each. He has created to himself modes of imitation, which should in themselves claim a paramount importance, independent of all archetypes; while these latter are connected with the originals of reality, only as an intermediate step to the realms of fancy. Hence, round a false, though gorgeous and imposing art, his genius has swept a magic circle, within whose perilous bound no inferior spirit has dared with impunity to tread. Unfortunately, however, such was the fascination produced in his own age, when the forcible and imaginative were admired above the simple and the true, that his works became a standard by which the past was to be tried, and the future directed. As a necessary consequence, a prodigious and irreparable lapse was prepared for the art. The imitation of a natural style will ever be productive of good; it will ultimately lead to no imitation, by conducting to the primeval source. The very reverse is the effect of following a guide such as Buonarotti, who has departed from nature farther, we will venture to say, than any great name on record, whether in literature or in art. Irregularities and imperfections in almost every other instance of lofty genius, are forgotten amid the deep-thrilling pathos, or soothing loveliness, of natural expression; but amid the awe-inspiring, the commanding, the overpowering representations of the Tuscan, the soul languishes for nature. His creations are not of this world, nor does feeling voluntarily respond to the mysterious and uncontrollable mastery which they exert over it. The cause and progress of this dereliction of nature can also be traced. He had marked the perplexities and constraint under which his predecessors had laboured, in their endeavors to unite the forms and expressions of living nature with images of ideal beauty, overlooking the productions of classic sculpture, in which this union is so happily accomplished: because to his vigorous, rather than refined perceptions, its simplicity appeared poverty, he fearlessly struck into a line of art, where all was to be new--vehement--wonderful. From the antique, besides simplicity, Michael Angelo has deviated in another important, and, indeed, vital respect; a deviation, indeed, which changes completely the very aspect of art. Of the two elements of sculptural design--form and expression--the ancients selected form as the principal object of their representation: the modern has preferred expression, to which he may be said almost to have sacrificed form; or rather, he has so contorted his figures, by the violence of their emotions, that all is expression, and that of the most vehement kind. Here, however, it may be asked, how far has prescription the power to determine this matter? To this it may be replied, that not only the associations springing from the most perfect of human works were opposed to this choice, but also the internal proprieties of the art favour the selection of the ancients. In sculpture all is staid, enduring, actual; movement alone is the only passing object of imitation. Expression, therefore, at least strong and individual expression, as a primary characteristic--as destructive of symmetry, and as implying an effort ungraceful, when connected with unyielding materials, seems not a legitimate beauty of higher art. Indeed, passion is inconsistent with the beautiful in form, or the dignified in sentiment. A sweetly pleasing, a gently agitating excitement, or a nobly repressed feeling, visible only in the resolve of soul, and mastering of sorrow, is the true and the only proper expression in sculpture. Grief alone seems to be admissible in its deepest pathos. Considered in connexion with the impetuous style of his composition, nothing can be finer than the execution of Michael Angelo. It participates in, it harmonizes with, his ardent temperament of mind; rapid, impatient, fervid, it seems to animate and create, rather than form, the breathing conceptions. But taken alone, it discovers many technical peculiarities and imperfections. From having sometimes merely sketched, or, at most, modelled the subject in small, nay, in some instances, with no other suggestion or guide, save the accidental shape of the block, he struck into the marble. It was impossible, under these circumstances, to avoid error. While the hand, the eye, the mind, were thus in instant exertion; while propriety of expression and beauty of outline, mechanical detail, and general effect, grandeur of the whole, and propriety of parts, were at once to be studied, and that, too, where each stroke removes what never can be again united--imperfection was almost a necessary consequence. Hence the want of proportion so conspicuous in many of his best works--in the Moses even; hence so few finished; hence, too, his statues, like paintings, seldom present more than one point of view. As regards more individual details; in the salient lines of the contours, the circles have rarely their just value, and the surfaces want their proper fulness. Partly to compensate this deficiency in the advancing curves, partly as a characteristic distinction, which consists in strongly pronouncing the muscles, the retiring lines, or muscular depressions, are expressed in exaggerated depth. Trusting to mechanical dexterity, also, and to a profound science, he was frequently reduced to work without model, or reference to the living form. This produces a rigidity, a want of feeling, and a mannerism, in his best performances even, the commencement of those conventional modes which finally superseded all diligent study of nature, and led to the abandonment of every genuine grace of sculpture. The style and character of composition now described is evidently one of study and acquisition; we might therefore expect a gradation to be apparent in the works from which we have deduced our remarks. Accordingly, the earlier performances of the artist retain much of the simplicity and truth of the fifteenth century, exhibiting, at the same time, much of the better part of the qualities now described as the peculiar characteristics of the school. These we are inclined, upon the whole, to regard, if not the most splendid, as the most correct examples of Michael Angelo's powers. His later and more important labours present, in their full maturity, the peculiar modes of thought and execution which constitute the principles of this era. A regular gradation, however, is scarcely to be traced, since, in his very old age, he perceived and lamented the brilliant but fatal errors of his style; and, in the few works then finished, a degree of sobriety and chasteness is observed. He saw and lamented, too late, the fall prepared for sculpture. Of the works of this master at Florence, the Bacchus, notwithstanding the undignified expression of inebriety, is the most correct in its forms, and the least mannered in composition. The tombs of the Medici show much of whatever is most splendid, and what is most reprehensible in the genius of their author. They might indeed be selected as special illustrations of the general views just given. Every figure--there are six--bears the strong impress of a spirit delighting in the great and the wonderful--an imagination eager in the pursuit of untried modes of existence, and a consciousness of power to execute the most daring conceptions. Intelligence in science, breadth of touch, boldness of manner, fearlessness of difficulty, unite to give life and movement to attitudes the most remote from such as nature would voluntarily assume, or graceful design select. Rome contains the most perfect and the most wonderful of Michael Angelo's statues. The Pietà, or Virgin and Dead Saviour, in St Peter's, finished in his twentyfourth year, is not only at the head of the first division of his works, but, on the whole, is the least exaggerated, and the most natural of all. The Moses, on the tomb of Julius II., amid the creations of genius, rises a solitary and matchless monument. Without model among the productions of antiquity, it has remained inimitable and unimitated in modern times. Neither in nature do we find its prototype: it is the extraordinary conception of an extraordinary mind. Thus isolated by its own peculiar sublimity of character, this statue exhibits a striking resemblance of the imagination whence it derived existence. We behold a being who awes, who subdues, yet who fails to interest--for with such humanity entertains no communion of feeling. Here the sublime is too exclusively sought in the vehement and the marvellous; every effort is forced, every trait exaggerated, and the whole shows a daring originality verging on the extravagant and the false. The solemn majesty--the dignified repose--the commanding simplicity, admired in ancient sculpture--those milder beauties which sentiment alone can appreciate--those exalted and touching graces which arise from elegance or nobleness of form--from refined and subdued expression--from elevated yet genuine nature, in the Moses are looked for in vain. Than Michael Angelo, no artist has ever exerted a more extensive influence, or more deeply impressed his peculiar views, upon art. Indeed, so much is this the case, that, during the sixteenth century, not a single sculptor appears who is not to be ranked either as a disciple or imitator. Even to this our own time, the influence in some respect continues. In sculpture more than in painting or architecture, though for the first he did less than for the second art, was his genius paramount. Of contemporaries, then, and successors, from his death in 1564, to the end of the century, the only distinction is between those who imitated and those who studied under this great leader. Among the most eminent of the former was Baccio Bandinelli, a rival, who contended with less generous weapons than those of talent: yet he must receive justice,--as a sculptor he is second only, sometimes hardly inferior, to Buonarotti. Baccio di Monte Lupo was an original artist of considerable power. Andrea Contucci founded the school of Loretto. Francisco Rustici, an excellent founder, more eminent still as the master of Leonardo da Vinci, carried the manner of this school into France, dying at Paris in 1550. Giacomo Tatti, better known as Sansovino, presided over the Venetian works of sculpture and architecture with much reputation, having studied along with Michael Angelo at Rome, whence he fled in 1527, on the sack of that capital by Bourbon. He survived the great Florentine, and became founder of a numerous and respectable school, where Cattaneo and Vittoria supported the credit of their instructor: the latter perfected working in stucco. In Milan, Agostino Busti, and Guglielmo della Porta, were highly distinguished, especially the latter; as were also, in Naples, Marliano Nola, and Garolamo St Croce. In these schools, however, we trace the most rapid decay of the art, in simplicity and correct design, from the splendour of the courts demanding employment of the arts on objects of temporary interest, when rapidity was preferred to excellence of execution. Among the real disciples of the Florentine, the following were the chief:--Raphael di Monte Lupo, a favorite pupil, who assisted his master in the tomb of Julius, the greatest undertaking in modern sculpture, if completed; Nicolo di Tribulo, an excellent founder, by whom are the bronze doors of the cathedral at Bologna; Giovanni del Opera, whose name is significant of his industry; Danti, the closest imitator of his instructer. Ammanati subsequently transferred his attention to architecture. Giovanni di Bologna, a Frenchman by birth, an Italian as a sculptor, was the most eminent of all the scholars of Michael Angelo; and, on the death of the latter, continued to be the leading master in Europe till the end of the century. Beyond the confines of Italy, the art had yet made few advances worthy of notice; and what little had been accomplished was upon the principles of the Tuscan school. Thus, at the close of the sixteenth century, the genius and principles of Michael Angelo extended their influence over the whole of Europe. During the last thirty years of this era, however, the art had been on the decline. These principles could be maintained only by that genius by which they had been invented and matured; and by it alone could the errors of the system be consecrated or concealed. CHAPTER VIII. THE seventeenth century thus rose with few favorable presages for sculpture. The Group of Hercules and the Centaur, set up in Florence the last year of the former era, serves to show a considerable falling off in the intellectual qualities, while it displays also many improvements and facilities introduced into the technical principles and modes of mechanical operation. These are the last beauties to linger in the lapse of talent. External circumstances, also, both moral and political, had become less favorable. The states of Italy were either no longer alive to the same motives which had induced a cultivation of sculpture, or, with the loss of liberty, had lost also the desire of prosecuting the measures of public aggrandizement. The ascendancy of painting, likewise, was hostile to the recovery of a manly and accurate style of design in the sister art; while the spirit of philosophical inquiry, which came abroad in the seventeenth century, was inimical to the fine arts generally. It must, however, be acknowledged, that the great sources of decline originated in the state of the art itself. Indeed, when a high degree of excellence has been attained in any art, a rapid and sudden retrogression will always be found to indicate the operation of external influences; at the same time, such falling off must always be preceded by, and is in part the result of, internal corruption in the principles of composition or of criticism. A crowd of undistinguished names followed the dissolution of the great Tuscan school. And when at length an artist of decided talent appeared, instead of retracing the steps of his predecessors, he struck into a new path, conducting still more pronely to error. Bernini, born at Naples in 1598, though immeasurably inferior to the mighty master of the last century in majesty and energy of mind, possessed most of the requisites for becoming one of the greatest of modern sculptors. Unfortunately, he neglected, or was ignorant of, the species of invention which belongs to an imitative art; and choosing rather to be the founder of a sept, than rank among the fathers of regular art, he employed his endowments only to throw a meretricious splendour round the caprices of a silly and affected manner. His powers of execution were wonderful, his fertility of fancy exuberant, but they were under control neither of regulated judgment nor of manly taste. To Bernini, the conceptions of ancient simplicity seemed poverty and meagreness. The compositions of Michael Angelo he deemed more forcible, but too severe in character. His aim consequently was, to erect a third style, which should possess distinctive qualities, displaying greater strength and energy than, to his taste, the former presented, while it surpassed the latter in suavity and grace. In pursuit of these imaginary excellences, he deviated, and by his talents or patronage carried art along with him, still farther from the simple, the true, and the natural. To produce effect, by whatever means of startling attitude, voluminous drapery, forced expression, became the sole object of study--means the most improper for sculpture. The works of Bernini are very numerous, for his opportunities as master of the works to several successive Popes were extensive. All are composed in the same false and flattering taste. Contemporaries were generally imitators. Algard and Fiammingo, however, preserved the dignity of independent, and, in a certain degree, merited the praise of original minds. The former has produced the largest, but not the best, relievo of modern art; the latter is most happy in the representation of children, which, to use the words of Rubens, 'Nature, rather than art, appears to have sculptured; the marble seems softened into life.' To Bernini, who died in 1680, Camilla Rusconi, a Milanese, succeeded in the throne of sculpture during the remainder of the seventeenth, and a considerable portion of the early part of the eighteenth century. Following the same principles as his greater predecessor, but with talents much inferior, in the hands of Rusconi deterioration of taste became proportionably more rapid, while the influence of external circumstances was also adverse. Italy was already filled with statues, and no undertakings of magnitude presenting, the art continued to languish during the greater part of the last century, suffering both from defect of principle, and poverty of means. During the time that has elapsed, Transalpine sculpture scarcely demands our notice. In France, we first discover the art separately and extensively practised: for in other countries it was associated with ornamental architecture. The expeditions of Charles VIII. and the personal predilections of Francis, had introduced among their subjects some knowledge of Italian refinement; and so early as the middle of the sixteenth century, French sculptors of considerable eminence appear. Jean Gougon completed the celebrated Fountain of the Innocents in 1550. The works of a contemporary, Jean Cousin, show some grace and delicacy, but want strength and correctness. German Pilon assimilates very closely to the style of the Tuscan masters in energetic detail, but is destitute of simplicity and natural expression. Jacques D'Angouleme had merit, but not enough to warrant the statement of native historians, that he defeated Michael Angelo in a trial of skill. Towards the conclusion of this century, Giovanni di Bologna filled the whole of France with the principles of his former master; and his own pupils continued to maintain similar, though inferior, practice to the golden age of refinement in France--the reign of Louis XIV. Of this school, two artists, Girardon and Puget, claim to be the head. The former, though we cannot say with Voltaire, 'il a égalé tout ce que l'antiquité a de plus beau,' has yet great merit. His manner of design, with a degree of hardness, is yet noble, and though cold, is more correct than that of his contemporaries, as appears from the tomb of Richelieu. Puget, in every respect the opposite as to intellectual temperament, is the favorite of his countrymen. _Sculpteur_, _Architecte_, _et Peintre_, as they, after the historian of Louis XIV., are fond of representing him, for the sake of comparison with Buonarotti, though what he painted, or what he built, does not appear, is yet not dissimilar in the fiery energetic character of his composition, and in his handling, bold and full of movement; but his expression is studied, his science inaccurate, his forms wanting in nobleness and grace. Sarasin was a most esteemed contemporary, and, in the Caryatides of the Louvre, has equalled the best sculpture of France. To the schools of the two first mentioned, however, and especially of Puget, in style at least, are to be referred the succeeding artists of France, as Les Gros, Theodon, Le Peintre, Desjardins, Coysevaux Vaucleve, the two Coustous, all flourishing at the close of the seventeenth, and during the early part of the eighteenth century. The last of this list is Bouchardon, under Louis XV.; for though his unfortunate successor inclined to patronise talent, the excesses of the Revolution proved not less injurious to living art, than destructive of ancient monuments. Among the latest works previous to this horrid outbreaking, was the statue of Voltaire, by Pigal, now in the library of the Institute, and upon which the following severe epigram was composed:-- Pigal au naturel represente Voltaire-- Le squelette à la fois offre l'homme et l'auteur. L'[oe]il qui le voit sans parure étrangère Est effrayé de sa maigreur! Bermudez, the historian of Spanish art, enumerates a splendid list of native sculptors from the commencement of the sixteenth century. This, however, is scarcely consistent with the fact, that not till 1558, in consequence of a royal edict, was this esteemed a liberal profession, or admitted to any privileges as such. It is easy to perceive indeed, that national partiality, or that adventitious magnitude which every subject is apt to acquire in the estimation of the writer, has led, in this instance, to consider as artists, those who have with remarkable success been employed in ornamenting the fine ecclesiastical edifices in Spain, beyond which they are little known. Berruguete, a pupil of Michael Angelo, appears to have founded the first regular school, of which Paul de Cespides was the ornament, as he is of the national sculpture. Before the seventeenth century, Germany makes no appearance in a general history of sculpture; and even now she is more celebrated for her writers on the philosophy, than for her artists in the practice, of the art. Still the genius of the nation we should be inclined to estimate as highly favorable to its future advancement. In Vienna, Rauchmüller; in Silesia, Leigebe; at Berlin, Schluter, Millich, Barthel, and others, have proved this estimate not unfounded. While our more immediate contemporaries, Ohnmacht, Sonnenschein, Nahl, the two Shadofs, especially the younger, whose Spinning Girl is one of the most exquisite imitations of simple nature which modern art can show, do not discourage this hope; if indeed artists be not carried away by that unnatural striving after marvellous effect, which has wrought so much injury to common sense and right feeling in German literature. On reviewing the history of modern sculpture during its rise and perfection, to the decline immediately antecedent to the present century, we find that, from the commencement of the fifteenth century, when the art began to rank among national causes of exertion and feeling, progress towards perfection, and in the most direct path, was rapid. Hence it has been the singular distinction of the sculptors of this period, to have left models in their own works, while their previous discoveries enabled those who immediately followed also to produce models. They have thus remained original in an age of originality. During the sixteenth century, causes more remotely connected with real patriotism--an ostentatious desire of splendour, not an unaffected love of refinement--operated in the promotion of the arts; and in Sculpture, in particular, the artificial excitement imparted a portion of its spirit to its effects. From the age of Michael Angelo inclusive, we find that the desire of novelty, a continued endeavor to extend the boundaries of art, by the introduction of imaginary perfections inconsistent with its real character and excellence, were the rocks on which was made fatal shipwreck of truth, of simplicity, and of beauty. These imagined improvements were directed to the acquisition of two grand objects. A style of composition was aimed at, more purely ideal, less connected with nature, than is to be found in the remains of the ancient, or in the works of the early modern masters. Genius hovered on the very confines of credibility and of the impossible, deriving the elements of its creations from imaginings awful and imposing, embodied in forms of gloomy sublimity and power, overwhelming--not awakening--to the human sympathies. As characteristics of this imaginative style, the proportions are enlarged, the expressions forced, and action and energy are given, destructive of grace and reality. Art is raised to regions where nature is unknown, and where the very highest exertions of intellect and fancy could hardly sustain interest. This was more especially the style of the Tuscan school, and it fell with its great founder, who had placed the art on this dangerous height. But, in the second place, sculpture was sought to be assimilated to painting, and merit was estimated by the extent to which imitation was carried--in difficulty and variety of effect, in complicated detail, in volume of drapery, and, latterly, even in facility of production. This taste first began decidedly in the school of Bernini, and exclusively cherished the powers of mechanical execution, in preference to the unobtrusive but essential beauties of purity and correctness of design. Hence the rapid decline; for statues soon became merely confused masses of drapery, without drawing, and without science. Still the chisel was wielded with great mechanical dexterity; but before the middle of the eighteenth century, every moral beauty, sentiment, truth, feeling, had disappeared from the labours of the sculptor. CHAPTER IX. ART has never been reformed, after a lapse from high eminence, by mere imitation of examples, however excellent; nor by only following rules for the correction of error. It is here as in morals, example succeeds where precept would fail. Some mind of uncommon firmness and good sense is required, who, beginning with nature, brings to the work of reformation original powers and severe judgment; fancy and feeling, with correctness and cultivated taste: one, in short, of those rare minds whose merits, great in themselves, become incomparably greater viewed with the times in which they commenced their career; whose exertions, wonderful in their own accomplishments, are yet more admirable from the progress which thereby others have been enabled to effect. Such a genius was that possessed by Canova, a name venerable alike for virtue and for talents. Born, in 1757, in a distant and otherwise unknown hamlet, in the territory of Treviso--fallen upon evil days in his art--of the most obscure parentage, destined to fill the humble and laborious occupation of village stone-cutter--remote, in the first instance, from every advice and assistance, he rose to be the companion of princes, the restorer of art, and the generous patron of merit friendless as his own. We know not whether more to love or to admire Canova. In his fifteenth year, repairing to Venice, the cloisters of a convent supplied him, through the benevolence of the good fathers, with a work-shop; and only fifteen years afterwards, through a struggle of poverty, yet redeemed by prudence and industry, and sweetened by independence, he erected in St Peter's the monument of Ganganelli--the first fruits of a spirit, whose sobriety of temperament, more valuable and more rare than mere original invention, here exhibited a correctness which would amend, with a vigour which would elevate, a fallen age. A series of more than two hundred compositions, of which this was the first, standing itself nobly conspicuous, yet only a step from previous imbecility, presents too extensive a field for particular description, or minute examination. The remembrance is yet fresh upon our memory, when, arranged in a funereal hall, representations of these works might well have been deemed the labours of a generation; and while now about to describe the originals, we bear in recollection, that to view these a considerable portion of Europe has been traversed. Thus numerous, and widely extending the influence of their style, these productions certainly, require careful notice. Avoiding details, then, we shall class them under Heroic subjects; Compositions of softness and grace--Monumental erections and Relievos. The superiority of Canova, has been questioned in the first of these departments only. He has been admitted a master of the beautiful--hardly of the grand. Or rather, perhaps, while his claims have been universally recognised in representing the softer graces of loveliness, his powers in the sublimities of severe and masculine composition are less generally appreciated. This estimation is unjust, having been originated and maintained by causes entirely extrinsic to the genius or labours of the artist. In not one, but many groups and single statues, he has attained some of the loftiest aims of sculpture. In manly and vigorous beauty of form, the Perseus; in forceful expression and perfection of science, the Pugilists--a work, in its peculiar range, one of the most classical of modern art; in harmonious and noble composition, uniting nature and poetic feeling, the Theseus combating the Centaur; in the terrible of sentiment and suffering, the Hercules;--these, with the Ajax, Hector, Paris, Palamedes, all belonging to the grand style of art, may challenge comparison with any works of the modern chisel, in the beauties of sustained effect, learned design, boldness yet exquisite delicacy of execution; while as to number, the series here is unparalleled in the history of any single mind. In the majestic or venerable realities of portraiture, again, there is Napoleon, Pius VI., Washington, Ganganelli, Rezzonico. In the second department, the compositions of Canova have enriched modern art with the most glowing conceptions of elegance and grace; raised, and yet more refined, by the expression of some elevating or endearing sentiment. Here, indeed, has been allotted his peculiar and unapproachable walk. Yet it may justly be doubted, whether he be not superior in the former class, where his merit has hitherto been denied or doubted. True, one or two works in the second, as the Venus recumbent, the Nymph, and Cupid, are superior, as examples of beauty and grace, to any one of masculine character which might be compared with them; but, as a class, the second is less uniformly dignified and excellent than the first. The great defect here, indeed, is a want of dignity in the female figures; which, though equally removed from the flimsy affectations of his immediate predecessors, as from the robust and austere proportions of the Tuscan school, are not always free from the meagre and the cold where grace is to be united with sweetness. This seems to be occasioned by a want of harmony between the just height and roundness of the forms--from an absence of those firm, yet gracious contours, meeting, yet eluding the eye, rounded into life and dissolving in the animated marble, which render, for instance, the Medicean so incomparably superior to the Venus of Canova. Throughout the whole of this class, there frequently runs a character of composition too ornate--too elaborately pleasing, and which would appear still more decidedly, were it not accompanied by inimitable ease, and were not every part, even to the minutest ornament, an emanation of the same refined taste and cultivated mind. It is this, chiefly, which spreads their delightful charm of consistency over these works; there is, on close examination, little derived immediately and simply from nature. Every choice has finally, but not obviously, been determined after much thought and many trials. All is that perfection of art, by which art itself is best concealed, and which to its creations lends the enchantment of nature's own sweetest graces. In the monumental series of works, Canova displays all the practical excellences of his genius, with more, perhaps, of originality and simplicity than generally characterise his other labours. This class consists of architectural elevations, supporting colossal statues, and of tablets in relievo. Of the former, the tombs of the Popes at Rome, of Alfieri at Florence, and of the Archduchess Maria Christina at Vienna, are magnificent examples. The second constitutes a numerous and very beautiful class, which, though composed of nearly the same simple elements of design, a female figure, or a genius, in basso relievo, mourning over a bust or an urn, yet exhibit much diversity of character and arrangement. From each of these an example might be selected in the tomb of the Archduchess, and the grand relievo of the O'Hara family mourning over the funereal couch of the deceased daughter and wife--equal to anything in the whole compass of art. To those who deny the merit of Canova in relief, we recommend the study of this monument. The former, representing a procession bearing to the tomb the ashes of the dead, is one of the most arduous and noblest compositions extant; and, judging from our own impressions, no record of mortality ever better accomplished its purpose, whether to awaken regret for departed virtue, or to tell, by its own perfection, that in man there exists an intelligence which shall survive beyond the grave. Although, from the series of works briefly mentioned, it would not be difficult to prove Canova the most indefatigable--nor, when we consider their influence, the principles they are calculated to enforce, and the fallen state from which they rescued art, the most respectable--of modern sculptors; yet, in estimating truly the rank and constituents of his genius, there is no small difficulty. The very fertility of that genius, diffusing its richness over every province of the art, and, in each varied exercise, constantly displaying the same judgment and taste, increases this difficulty, by blending into one harmonious and regular effect, those outbreakings of peculiar energies usually accompanying, and indicative of, great powers. Hence the character of his mind might be pronounced, at first, as distinguished rather by correctness than by force. Yet, of his talents generally, such would be an erroneous estimate. His mind was deeply embued with both fire and enthusiasm; his imagination, uncommonly active, was stored with materials, but over the treasures thus lavishly poured forth by fancy, severe scrutiny was held by the understanding. Energetic, and even rapid, in composition, in correcting, and finally determining, he was slow and fastidious--often changing, but always improving. Such intellectual organization is by no means favorable to that grandeur usually associated with highest genius, which frequently hurrying alike the artist and spectator beyond reality, derives its very mastery from daring disregard of rule, grasping, with dangerous hardihood, those lofty graces, pardoned only when successful; and even then, however they may elevate the individual subject or artist, not enriching art with useful examples or solid acquisitions. But a mind thus constituted was eminently fitted for correcting public taste, especially in the serene majesty, the orderly magnificence, which compose the true grandeur of Sculpture. Hence Canova is uniformly dignified and consistent; correct without coldness, if he rarely attains the highest sublimity; neither does he fall beneath himself, nor into the extravagant. Compared with the ancients, many of his works remind us of more than merely casual imitation; but it is no less true, that in others of novel invention, he has applied, in not unsuccessful rivalry, their own principles, the discovery of which forms his highest praise, as constituting one of the most essential services ever rendered to Sculpture. Among the moderns he claims pre-eminence, as the first who established improvement upon genuine and universal precepts of art. The perfection to which Canova seems to have aspired in the ideal, appears to have been the union of the two elements of sculptural design, keeping each in just subordination to beauty. Hence, in his figures, form does not, as in the antique, constitute so entirely the primary, and almost sole thought, neither is it so much subservient to action and effect, as in the most eminent of the modern masters. In like manner, the expression holds an intermediate character between the unmoved serenity of the ancients, and the marked lineaments of Michael Angelo. In some instances this union is very happily accomplished; but generally, though always true, the expression is not often simple. The only defect which can be discerned in Canova's selection of form, and which is more especially to be found in his female, is a meagreness and want of vigour; sometimes they too much remind us of the individual model, and of those manners of life whence such models are usually obtained. But speaking universally, the contours of this master are full, flowing, and well sustained. And here we can discover the same principles of design and practice which were pointed out in the best era of the Grecian schools, with this novel precept, the discovery, or at least uniformly successful application, of which belongs to Canova, namely, that all grand parts may be resolved into a primary and two secondary forms. As this ternary combination is sweetly, yet decidedly marked, blending yet separating its constituent lines, the graceful ease and infinite variety of natural outline is obtained. In every statue of the modern, also, we find exemplified the principle adopted from Phidias, and already noticed, namely, that from whatever resources of imagination any figure may be composed, the final surface--all that meets the eye at last--must be finished, and faithfully imitated from individual nature. There is still one characteristic which pre-eminently distinguishes those works we are examining, namely, the exquisite beauty of composition. They unite the dexterity and force which constituted the peculiar praise of the masters of the sixteenth century, with a delicacy, a refinement, and truth, exclusively their own. This is an excellence of the highest import--not so much in itself as in its consequences--for it can be introduced with good effect only when the nobler elements of composition are present. A statue defective in the higher qualities of art, would by high finish become only the more ungracious: works of unblemished merit only admit with advantage of elaborate technicality. Hence, among the ancients, the perfect statues, in all other respects, are also the most highly wrought. This excellence Canova seems to have been the first to remark and to emulate, which he has done successfully, especially in the most difficult parts--the extremities. In short, when we view Canova in himself and in his works singly, isolated from the age that preceded, and separated from that which now follows his own, in concentrated energy and originality of mind, he may hardly compare with Donatello, still less with Buonarotti, perhaps not with our own Flaxman; but when we estimate his genius in the varied, yet uniform excellence of his labours, in the principles upon which these are conducted,--when we recollect the state of degradation in which he found, and the elevated condition in which he left art; and remember, too, that his own works and practice between these extremes, were marked by no false splendors of talent, but must prove a shining light, guiding to yet higher attainment; we must pronounce, in truth and gratitude, that none other name is in merit so inseparably associated with the progress of sculpture. Since the death of his illustrious contemporary, Thorwaldsen, born at Copenhagen, 1771-2, has occupied the public eye as head of the modern school. The character and powers of this master are doubtless of a very elevated rank; but neither in the extent nor excellence of his works, do we apprehend his station to be so high as sometimes placed. The genius of the Danish sculptor is forcible, yet is its energy derived more from peculiarity than from real excellence. His ideal springs less from imitation of the antique, or of nature, than from the workings of his own individual mind--it is the creation of a fancy seeking forcible effect in singular combinations, rather than in general principles; therefore hardly fitted to excite lasting or beneficial influence upon the age. Simplicity and imposing expression seem to have hitherto formed the principal objects of his pursuit; but the distinction between the simple and rude, the powerful and the exaggerated, is not always observed in the labours of the Dane. His simplicity is sometimes without grace; the impressive--austere, and without due refinement. The air and contours of his heads, except, as in the Mercury--an excellent example both of the beauties and defects of the artist's style--when immediately derived from antiquity, though grand and vigorous, seldom harmonize in the principles of these efforts with the majestic regularity of general nature. The forms, again, are not unfrequently poor, without vigorous rendering of the parts, and destitute at times of their just roundness. These defects may in some measure have arisen from the early and more frequent practice of the artist in relievos. In this department, Thorwaldsen is unexceptionably to be admired. The Triumph of Alexander, originally intended for the frieze of the government palace at Milan, notwithstanding an occasional poverty in the materials of thought, is, as a whole, one of the grandest compositions in the world; while the delicacy of execution, and poetic feeling, in the two exquisite pieces of Night and Aurora, leave scarcely a wish here ungratified. But in statues, Thorwaldsen excels only where the forms and sentiment admit of uncontrolled imagination, or in which no immediate recourse can be had to fixed standards of taste, and to the simple effects of nature. Hence, of all his works, as admitting of unconfined expression, and grand peculiarity of composition, the statues of the Apostles, considered in themselves, are the most excellent. Thorwaldsen, in fine, possesses singular, but in some respects erratic genius. His ideas of composition are irregular; his powers of fancy surpass those of execution; his conceptions seem to lose a portion of their value and freshness in the act of realisement. As an individual artist, he will command deservedly a high rank among the names that shall go down to posterity. As a sculptor, who will influence, or has extended the principles of the art, his pretensions are not great; or, should this influence and these claims not be thus limited, the standard of genuine and universal excellence must be depreciated in a like degree. We have hitherto made little or no mention of British sculpture, for two reasons. The number of ancient monuments of the art with which the cathedrals of England, and Westminster Abbey in particular, are ornamented, is considerable: yet very little is known regarding their authors. There is reason to believe, however, that by far the greater part are the work of foreigners, members of those confraternities of itinerant artists, which have been noticed as existing in Italy so early as the middle of the fourteenth century. This opinion is corroborated by the circumstance, that the object in these societies was to undertake buildings in whatever country, and for this purpose were composed of architects, sculptors, workers in mosaic, builders, designers, each strictly attending to his own department, except the architect, who seems to have acted as the general overseer. Thus, companies of individuals, more or less numerous, were engaged by the proper ecclesiastical authorities, wherever a building of magnitude was to be erected. Of this, the plan appears uniformly to have been prescribed by the ecclesiastics, the foreign masters superintending and availing themselves of local assistants for the mere workmanship. Again, between the early productions of sculpture in England, when these first attract notice by their excellence, we very decidedly trace the style, and in some instances, as in the beautiful monuments of Eleanor, queen of Edward I., the designs of the school of Pisa. About this time, the very improvements introduced by Giovanni da Pisa, son of Nicolo, especially in the drapery, are decidedly apparent in those and other English works. Hence, although we find English names mentioned as masters of the works in several of our most splendid erections, and even in one instance as sculpturing the images of saints, it is doubtful whether they were not the ecclesiastics directly employed by the chapter to communicate their plans to the actual artificers. But it must also be observed, that the natural consequence of introducing foreign art would be to create native artists. There can be little doubt, therefore, that many of the really fine monuments of our Henrys and Edwards, during the fifteenth century, are the works of home-bred talent. During the sixteenth century, again, we do certainly know that two Italian sculptors, Cavallini, and especially the celebrated Torregiano, were in England, when the latter erected the monument in Henry VII.'s chapel, for which he received so large a sum as a thousand pounds. Henry VIII., again, had for his master of works an Italian sculptor, John of Padua, scholar of Michael Angelo. In 1615, we at length find a work erected by an Englishman, the monument of the 'good Thomas Sutton,' by Nicholas Stone; and, towards the conclusion of the same era, lived Francis Bird, a native of London, whose labours, however, only show the miserable state of art. Sculpture has never been practised as a separate branch in the early history of Scotland, who appears to have obtained her masters rather from France than Italy. In both countries, our first historians have been most culpably remiss in attention to the progress of native art. On the present occasion, to attempt a detailed account of the scattered notices they have left us, or, what might prove still more satisfactory, an examination of the rich remains we possess, would be irrelevant, as we touch merely upon the general history of the arts, in which our own isolated labours, even at best, form only an episode. Not till towards the conclusion of the last century can there properly be said to have existed a school of British sculpture. Cibber, Roubilac, Scheemakers, Carlini, Locatelli, Rysbrack--all the sculptors who flourished in England during the greater part of the eighteenth century, were foreigners. It is well that the fame of our good and our brave finds a memorial in the records of history, and in the breasts of their countrymen, more worthy of their virtues than these men have often erected, in the noblest, too, of our temples. Now, British worth can be commemorated by British art. Our native school of Sculpture may be considered as commencing with Banks, born in 1738, died in 1805; for Wilton, as an artist, was educated abroad. In power of modelling few have excelled Banks, whose name merits eulogium, and is mentioned by foreign writers as among the very few at Rome, who, previous to the appearance of Canova, presented in their works the dawnings of reviving art. Bacon, born in 1740, was in every respect an English artist, and we may almost say self-taught. In simplicity his works have great merit; they are often wanting in feeling. Bacon was not unacquainted with the literature of his art. Proctor and Deare died too early for the arts, after they had given evidence of the highest abilities. Deare has indeed left works, young as he was, not surpassed by any in modern art. We approach our more immediate contemporaries with respectful diffidence, and shall touch only upon the merits of those who are removed from the effects of praise or censure. Nollekins knew his _art_, but wanted _science_, dignity, and fancy. Flaxman belongs to posterity, and has more widely extended the influence of his genius--more intimately connected his labours with general improvement, than any other English sculptor. Towards the propitious revolution which rescued the arts from utter imbecility, in the latter end of last century, he largely contributed, by his learned, powerful, and simple style. From 1787 to 1794, he continued in Italy; and had his sojourn been longer, he would have divided not unequal honors with the great reformer of taste. This is known and acknowledged by the intelligent critics of that country, of whom one of the most judicious, Count Cicognara, thus writes:--'To Flaxman our obligations are very great, since, as far as our acquaintance with his works extends, they served nobly to elevate from a certain monotonous lethargy, and to create afresh, that taste for the severe and golden style of antiquity, which he applied to his own inventions.' From his youth, Flaxman was distinguished by the strength of his genius, by devotion to the study of the ancient models, and by fearless but judicious disregard of those conventional affectations by which art was disgraced. He was among the first, if not the earliest, to awaken the long dormant energies of sculpture, to unite anew art with nature. The simple and the grand of antiquity he made his own; nor, since the best ages of Greece, do we anywhere find, in the works mentioned in these pages, greater meaning, more deep feeling of truth, with less pomp of art, than in the sculpture of Flaxman. The wonderful designs from Homer, the statues of Mr Pitt and Sir Joshua Reynolds, the monuments of Montague, Howe, and Nelson, the group of Michael and Satan, will alone fully justify this character. If, in the works of this master, a defect may be pointed out, it is an excess of the severe and simple, which nearly approaches to harshness. Surpassing both Canova and Thorwaldsen in the loftiness of his conceptions, and perhaps in classic purity of taste, in the graces of composition, and the facilities of modelling, he is inferior to the former. But in all that constitutes the epic of the art, Flaxman is not surpassed. We must omit with regret, though not unadmired, the names of living English artists. To their honor be it remarked, that, at this moment, in rectitude and sobriety of precept, in the walk which has hitherto been followed, where nothing is yet to be unlearned, and which must infallibly conduct to higher perfection, no school in Europe can boast of happier auspices, of more vigorous practice, nor of sounder principles, than the British school of Sculpture. In Italy, the numerous--we may say universal--imitators of Canova, appear to be following, with exaggerated effect, the only failing towards which his style inclines--elaborate grace. In Germany, the art languishes for want of encouragement. Sculpture is more pre-eminently the nursling of freedom. The French sculptors are, at the present time, more distinguished for science than for feeling or invention. They want individuality of character in their works; the symmetry and proportions, the mechanical art of antiquity, their chisel has transferred,--but the sentiment, the essence which unites art with nature, which breathes into Grecian statuary the breath of life, has escaped. It is a singular fact, that from the school formed under the empire, while the most valued treasures of existing art were collected in the French capital, not a sculptor, hardly one artist of eminence, has issued. The cause is plain. These monuments were torn from their resting places by the hand of violence; they were viewed by a vain and mistaken people as the trophies of victory; but they were never venerated with that enthusiastic yet humble devotion, with which the disciple regards the sources of knowledge. During a shorter period, how different have been the effects of our own unsullied and bloodless collection. Since the public exposition of the Phidian Marbles, in particular, every department of taste has been improved, and every artist has been ready to exclaim, with the late venerable president, that till he saw these works, he was ignorant how much of his art he had yet to learn. Let the British sculptor, then, continue in the same principles as have heretofore guided his practice; let him follow nature, and these the noblest remains of art in existence, and he must excel. Sculpture seems especially calculated to flourish amongst us. The grave and manly character of the art agrees with the tone of national genius, harmonizes with our free institutions, and may find in our history sources of the brightest inspiration. THE FINE ARTS. PAINTING. CHAPTER X. IN the present undertaking, two methods of arrangement are obviously presented: either to treat the arts simultaneously; or, considering each in succession, to commence with that one which seemed best adapted to illustrate the history and common principles of all. With this view we have, in the commencement, followed the fortunes of Sculpture at some length, because here we find an uninterrupted series of monuments; here the elements of imitative art are discoverable in their purest and least compounded character; and also because in Sculpture the labours, being enduring, of greater magnitude, and more generally employed for national purposes than those of Painting, seem more clearly to illustrate the connexion which will ever be found to subsist between the refinement of taste and the progress of moral and political intelligence, as affects nations, or the human race universally. This is the truly dignified object in the history of the fine arts. In this respect our inquiries have been most satisfactorily resolved. We have found the state of sculpture an index of the moral and political condition of the people; owing its best cultivation to national and popular causes. We have seen it languish or revive according to the energy and the freedom of national institutions. The epochs of painting were nearly or altogether the same, as were also those of architecture. The conclusions, then, are universal. Little, therefore, remains to be explained in painting, save its own peculiarities as an individual art. Painting, which depends upon illusion for some of its most striking effects, and employs principles abstractly unreal, is, in the application of these principles, and in the full accomplishment of their effects, an art of greater difficulty than Sculpture. Hence, _a priori_, it might be inferred, that the former would more slowly attain to the perfection which it reached among the nations of the ancient world. But perhaps it would hardly have been predicted, that, in the age of Phidias, when sculpture had already been raised to an elevation yet unapproached, the sister art should still be little advanced. At the same time, there can be no doubt that the elements of both arts have in all countries sprung up together. Nature has sown the seed, but circumstances nourish the plants. Among the ancient inhabitants of Asia, painting and writing appear to have been the same art, or rather, the former supplied the place of the latter. From the same source the art arose in Egypt, where are still to be found its oldest remains. In this branch the mental and political despotism already explained, bound down every aspiration. Whether we regard the art as picture writing, or in its more determinate and independent efforts at representation, we discover no change--no progressive improvement, and no superiority which has not evidently arisen from a greater or less degree of care and personal skill in the performer. Egyptian painting seldom, if ever, attempts more than an outline of the object, as seen in profile, such as would be obtained by its shadow. To this rude but always well-proportioned draught, colors are applied, simply and without mixture or blending, or the slightest indication of light and shade. The process appears to have been, first, the preparation of the ground in white; next, the outline was firmly traced in black; and, lastly, the flat colors were applied. The Egyptian artists employed six pigments, mixed up with a gummy liquid, namely, white, black, red, blue, yellow, and green: the three first always earthy, the remaining vegetable, or at least frequently transparent. The specimens from which we derive these facts, are the painted shrouds and cases of the mummies, and the still more perfect examples on the walls of the tombs. It can furnish no evidence of extraordinary experience or practice, that these paintings still retain their hues clear and fresh. The circumstance merely shows the aridity of the climate, and that the coloring matters were prepared and applied pure and without admixture. Over no part of ancient intellectual history hangs there so great uncertainty, respecting at least the means and progressive steps, as in the instance of Painting in Greece. We can judge here only from inference, while the facts upon which our conclusions must rest, are in some degree contradictory. No production of the Grecian pencil remains to us, as in sculpture, whence to form our own judgment apart from the opinions of ancient critics; while there is internal evidence, that the historical annals handed down to us, imperfect as these now are, have been compiled, not from authentic materials early collected, but from recollection of names to whom discoveries are by the later historian casually attributed. The whole account of early painting is too regular, too systematic, the progressive advances follow each other in an order too artificial to represent faithfully the alternate failure and success, the devious course, the rapid and almost inexplicable advance of genius. The young eagle tempts not the liquid way in steady flight, commensurate only with his strength--he flutters and falls--wavers in broken and ungraceful curves, before he can launch into full career, or circle slowly and majestically in his pride of place. We do not doubt, then, that the names of the earliest painters handed down to us in the Greek and Roman writers, are correct; but the system of gradual and regular advance which they have connected with these names, seems inconsistent with the nature of human things. In this case, the only safe method that can be adopted, consistently with the intention of giving every useful information, is to select a few leading and well ascertained dates, between which it is proved that certain discoveries did take place; the interval will thus be sufficiently filled up without entering into minute discussion. Anticipating this arrangement, we have been full in our account of the early schools of sculpture, whence the deficiency here may be supplied; for in both arts, the locality is always, and the masters frequently, the same. The first painting on record is the battle of Magnete, by Bularchus, and purchased by Candaules, king of Lydia, for its weight in gold, or as some say, a quantity of gold coins equal to the extent of its surface. This establishes the first era, 718 B. C. During five centuries, however, the art had previously flourished in the cities and islands, and especially at Corinth, whose situation, commanding the two seas that wash the shores, and connecting by land the grand divisions, of Greece, early rendered that city, with the commercial states already noticed, the seat of wealth and refinement. Practised by numerous masters,--as Eucherus, Hygenon, Dymas, Charamides, Philocles, Cleanthes, Cleophantes,--painting, in this interval, is reported to have passed through various gradations; as, simple skiagraphy, or shadow painting; the monographic style, consisting of a simple outline; monochromatic compositions, in which one color only was employed; and polychromatic, where a variety of hue, but without shading, was used. During the same time, there appear accounts of minor improvements, with their authors assigned, all of which we reject, as already stated. In what manner the work of Bularchus was executed, does not appear; but there is every reason to believe that it was merely a monogram, and, from the contemporaneous state of sculpture, very highly finished, in a style hard, dry, and ineffective. The price paid is by no means the criterion of absolute excellence;--the work might be fully prized as the master-piece of its own remote age, while the laborious minuteness of its details might render the sum not more than a compensation for the time bestowed. To select a second era sufficiently marked by addition or revolution of principle, is difficult. To the age of Phidias, the art continued certainly to improve, but very slowly, being left far in the rear by Sculpture. The genius of this consummate master, who indeed had originally commenced his career as a painter, extended to all the arts; and, under such an instructer, his brother Penænus, very highly distinguished himself, though vanquished in a contest for the public prize, then instituted at Delphos and Corinth. From the middle of the fifth century, then, a decided movement commences in the history of painting,--a preparation for something still greater. The influence extended among the able contemporaries of the great sculptor. Polygnotus of Thasos then first succeeded, to borrow a phrase, 'in the expression of undescribed being,' and whose pictures Pliny admired six hundred years afterwards. Improvement was carried forward for half a century by Mycon, famous in horses; Pauson, his rival; Dionysius of Colophon, praised by �lian for minute accuracy; Aglaophon, bold and energetic; Colotes, sculptor and painter; Evenor, father of Parrhasius; and finally, greatest of all, Apollodorus the Athenian, who invented or perfected the knowledge of light and shade. With this artist, the precursor and contemporary of Zeuxis, and whose discovery may be placed about the commencement of the fourth century B. C., may be terminated the second era. The propriety of this division will more obviously appear, when it is considered that to this period, not only was the art deficient in the most powerful of its means, the magic of chiar' oscura, but also in its instruments. The ancient paintings, as late as the age of Phidias, were executed with the _cestrum_, a species of pliant _stylus_, similar to that used in writing. This is the diagraphic, or linear method, and seems to have resembled our chalk and crayon, or perhaps more closely our pen and reed drawing. The process, however, can be explained only by conjecture. The tablet, primed in white, was laid over with a varnish of resin mixed with wax, and usually incorporated with a dark-reddish coloring matter. Upon this the subject was traced, and the lights worked in with the cestrum of various fineness. At what precise period this imperfect instrument was superseded by the pencil, or if the effects of the two were combined, is unknown. But the invention must have been made after the death of Polygnotus, and prior to the ninetythird Olympiad, a period of twenty or thirty years, when Apollodorus is known to have handled the pencil with great effect. It is not unlikely, therefore, that this artist either was the inventor or the improver of this tool, whose mastery so decidedly ministered to his reputation. The third period commences with Zeuxis, marking an era distinct at once in principle and in excellence. Preceding masters had crowded their tablets with numerous figures. He introduced simplicity of composition, and relied upon the perfection frequently of a single figure to concentrate interest. He was equally simple in his coloring, never using more than four, often only two pigments. Parrhasius equalled the former in expression, and seems to have surpassed him in coloring. Euphranor was equally celebrated in painting as in statuary. Both were surpassed by Timanthes, who, in veiling the head of a father compelled to attend the sacrifice of his daughter, appealed to the heart not in vain, when the powers of genius had failed. Eupompus, by the splendour of his style, gave rise to a new distinction of schools into the Athenian and Sicyonian, in addition to the Asiatic, the Rhodian, and the Corinthian. Theon of Samos obtained high praise for the eager haste of his young warrior to join the fight. Aristides of Thebes, in his picture of the wounded mother, solicitous, in the pangs of death, lest her child should suck blood, appears to have reached the utmost range of expression in art. And lastly, Pamphilus the Macedonian, eminent for the natural feeling and truth of his style, was the master of Apelles. This era, embracing about the first half of the fourth century, coincides with the commencement of the Phidian age in painting. Whatever might have been the merits of preceding masters, Zeuxis was certainly the first from whose works we derive explicit statements of the ideal in Grecian painting. This ideal, as in their sculpture, was immediately derived from reality; it was no farther the creation of fancy, than as taste and imagination were employed in selecting and combining what was good in particular, towards an approach to the best, in general nature. 'Behold,' said Eupompus to Lysippus, when consulted by the young sculptor on the subject of imitation, pointing to the passing multitude, 'Behold my models: from nature, not from art, must he study, who aspires to the true excellence of art.' Zeuxis, then, first discovered or practised the grand principle in the heroic style of painting,--to render each figure the perfect representative of the class to which it belongs. There is reason to believe, also, that he taught the true method of grouping; at least, from the manner of description adopted by Pausanias, it would evidently seem that in all pictures anterior to this age, the figures were ranged in lines, without any principal group on which the interest of the event was concentrated. Even so late as the works of Panænus, the brother of Phidias, the different distances were represented by the very inartificial and ungracious means of placing the figures in rows one above the other. In all his improvements, Zeuxis was more than followed by his able contemporaries. It is a singular and an amusing fact, that at no time do we find more real talent in art, combined with so much ridiculous coxcombry in the personal character of artists. The fourth and last epoch of painting in Greece commences with Apelles, about the conclusion of the fourth century B. C. This age witnessed both the glory and the fall of ancient art. Apelles united, in his own style, the scattered excellences which had separately adorned the performances of his predecessors. It was this power and equability of combination, arranged and animated by an elegance and refinement of taste peculiarly his own, which constituted the just eminence of this master. From the descriptions of ancient writers, the character of his style must have closely resembled that of Raphael, while their choice of subjects appears to have been nearly similar. The Venus of Apelles, long afterwards purchased by Augustus for one hundred talents, or £20,000 sterling, was esteemed the most faultless creation of the Grecian pencil, the most perfect example of that simple yet unapproachable grace of conception, of symmetry of form, and exquisite finish, in which may be summed up the distinctive beauties of his genius. He alone appears to have practised portrait painting in the full majesty of that art; this, indeed, does not appear to have been a branch the most cultivated among the Greeks, who preferred busts. Hence, while Pausanias enumerates eightyeight masterpieces of history, he mentions only half the number of portraits, which he had seen in his travels through Greece, during the second century. The contemporaries of Apelles were Protogenes, an excellent artist, whose merits his generous rival first pointed out. He was blamed for finishing too highly; yet, to obtain possession of one of his pictures, was the chief cause of the siege of Rhodes. Nicias, who is reported to have touched up the statues of Praxiteles--in what manner is not known, nor was Canova successful in his researches on this subject. Somewhat later lived Nichomachus, Pausius, �tion, the Albano of antiquity, and others, with whom the art began to lapse. The causes and progress of this decline have already been traced in the history of sculpture. The remarks there are applicable to both arts, but peculiar circumstances rendered the progress of decay more rapid in painting. Even in the later contemporaries of the great ornament of the art, we discover a falling off from the great style, to one exactly resembling that of the modern Dutch school. Although the best pictures, from their greater rarity, were more highly valued in pecuniary estimation than statues, yet the art was never so completely national as Sculpture. The ambition was not cherished, nor the talents of painters directed, by the nationality of their performances; the general taste was not fixed by public and venerated monuments, consequently the wholesome restraints of public opinion operated but slightly, and were speedily withdrawn. Be it also remembered, that the standard here was formed after the severe purity of ancient taste, and morals had suffered sad relaxation. Hence painting was sooner abandoned to the caprice of private patronage and judgment; but the whole framework of her institutions, moral and political, was to be dissolved before sculpture,--which honored the forms of her religion; whose labours were publicly dedicated to the renown of her good, her learned, and her brave,--could cease to be regarded with national sympathy in Greece. Pausanias mentions the names of one hundred and sixtynine sculptors, and only fifteen painters; while, after three centuries of spoliation, he found in Greece three thousand statues, not one of them a copy, while he describes only one hundred and thirtyone paintings. The empire, then, of ancient painting, appears to have been of brief continuance, for, beyond the age now under review, no memorials of its greatness remain. The Romans prized this, as they have been shown to value every accomplishment in the fine arts, as ministering to luxury, and as a worthy employment for their slaves. In the early portion of their iron reign, Etruscan captives decorated their houses--subsequently itinerant Greeks; and though we find a few names of Roman painters, we never find it carried among them beyond mere embellishment. The moral dignity of the art never revived. One difficulty regarding the history of ancient painting still remains to be stated--satisfactorily cleared it never can be--namely, the perfection to which the art actually attained. It has been said, and the remark is just, that there exists a wide disparity between the means and instruments of the art, as described by writers of antiquity, and the excellence of the effects produced, as these have reached us through the same channel. We have, it is replied, the criticisms of the same writers upon other subjects of taste, with the originals likewise in our hands, and finding here their opinions correct--not only so, but exquisitely correct--we are constrained to admit, that in painting their judgment was equally refined as in poetry, oratory, sculpture, or architecture. This reasoning may prove relative, but not absolute excellence; for taste being necessarily formed upon the very models on which it passes sentence, cannot be admitted as evidence beyond its experience. Our own conviction is, that, unless in this view of merely relative beauty, the praises bestowed by the Greek and Roman writers upon their paintings are overcharged; and that these were much inferior to their sculptures. This opinion is founded not upon any alleged inferiority of means, for, besides the difficulty of exactly comprehending certain passages on this subject, we do find, that the ancient artists were armed with all the powers of fresco-painting, in which the grandest conceptions of modern talent are embodied. But these very descriptions, in many of which are accounts of very complicated expression, show that the writers, and especially Pliny, the most circumstantial, either did not truly feel the nature and object of beauty in painting; or they evince, that if such effects were attempted, the art was devoid of that simplicity and natural expression which constitute the primeval source, the all-pervading principle, of beauty and of grandeur, of truth and excellence, in antique sculpture. But again, if, from the few and very imperfect remains of ancient painting, any conclusion be allowed in reference to its higher state, we discover in these all the principles, especially those of form, common to sculpture, always well, often admirably understood, while those peculiar to painting are inartificially expressed, without firmness or decision. These remains consist, first, of the delineations upon vases, improperly called Etruscan, where the pictorial representations are monochromatic shadows and outline, or monograms, executed with the _cestrum_, or style, in black, upon a red or yellow ground, or sometimes the order of the colors is reversed. Even these support the views just stated; for, vigorous as are the lines, the representation, on the whole, is inferior to the abstract perception of the beautiful in form, as exhibited in the vases themselves. The second division of remains are the frescos, or stucco paintings of Herculaneum, Pompeii, Stabia near Naples, and those in the baths of Titus at Rome. The former were doubtless executed by itinerant Greek painters, who are known to have been very numerous under the empire. The latter were most probably the performance of the best artists that could be procured; yet we do not discover an intrinsic difference of style which can bear against our general conclusion, or rather the similarity proves the fact, while in Herculaneum every sculptured ornament is infinitely more elegant than the paintings found in the same spot. To these might be added some very imperfect sepulchral remains, found near Tarquinia, which merely prove that the ancient Etruscans were far from ignorant of painting. In the pictures at Naples and Rome, is greater variety of coloring than, from some passages in their writings, has been allowed to the ancients. And, indeed, unless Pliny be supposed to point out a distinction in this respect between the practice of the earlier and later painters, he contradicts himself; for in all, he enumerates no less than five different whites, three yellows, nine reds or purples, two blues, one of which is indigo, two greens, and one black, which also appears to be a generic expression, including bitumen, charcoal, ivory, or lamp-black, mentioned with probably others. Occasional allusion has been made to the mechanical modes of operation employed in ancient painting. On comparing the different passages allusive to these, two things certainly appear: that a permanency was given to its productions unknown even in modern art; and that oil-painting, properly so termed, formed no part of its practice. Laying aside, then, all conflicting opinions, we are disposed to infer that there were three principal methods; first, Distemper employed on stuccoed walls, and for pictures not moveable; second, Glazing, when the picture, after being furnished in water-colours, crayons, or distemper, was covered with a coat of hard and transparent varnish, of which several kinds are described; and thirdly, Encaustic, when the coloring matters actually incorporated with wax, or preparations of wax, were thus applied in a liquid state, and when finished, allowed to dry, and most likely afterwards varnished also. In these two latter methods were executed the most excellent pictures of the great masters, and which were portable. The last has given rise to much needless discussion, as if resembling enamel, the colors being burnt in. We apprehend, however, the Greek and Latin verb here used, merely denotes that the tints were laid on hot, which, from their nature, must have been absolutely necessary, while it is evident, from scattered hints, that the material painted upon was destructible by fire. CHAPTER XI. FALLEN as was every liberal pursuit during those ages, since emphatically called dark, painting was yet never unpractised in Europe. In the ecclesiastical records of that period, evidence is found that, in Italy, churches were in every century decorated with paintings and mosaics by native or Greek artists. A kind of competition, indeed, appears to have been carried on between the successive pontiffs, imitated by their inferior suffragans, who should thus load some favorite cathedral with the greatest quantity of barbarous finery. These gentlemen, as even the Abbate Tiraboschi has ventured to disclose, being rarely ornamental to the church in their own proper persons, endeavored to make up the deficiency in the best way possible by proxy. From monuments still remaining in Germany, it is evident, that neither was some degree of skill wanting in that quarter. In France, as in our country, similar research would probably be rewarded with the same discovery. Though darkened, the human spirit was still at work; and when at length its energies were restored to comparative activity by the slow operation of causes, imperceptible in themselves, mighty in their results, the arts, as already seen, shone forth among the morning stars in the dawn of freedom. This light first arose upon Italy; and, from the circumstances of her situation, Florence soonest established a school of painting. Cimabue, her citizen, early in the thirteenth century, caught the inspiration from certain Greek painters, employed by order of the magistracy. Equalling his masters, he was himself surpassed by Giotto, once a shepherd boy; in turn excelled by Memmi, Orgagna, Ucello, Massolino, to the middle of the fifteenth century, when all former names were forgotten in the merits of Massaccio. Dying at the age of twentyfour, he gave to painting truth, expression, light, and shade; thus creating the first era in its history. The chapel which still contains his frescoes, the early school of Da Vinci and Buonarotti--the scene, too, of the latter's misfortune, will long be visited with interest by the pilgrims of art. About the same time, the invention of oil painting, ascribed to Van Eyck of Bruges; and, not long after, the illusion of aerial perspective added by Ghirlandajo, gave to modern art all the means of perfection. These did not remain unimproved in the hands of such men as Verrocchio, first excelling in perspective, Lippi, Signorelli, in whose works evidence of selection is apparent, and many others, who, in different cities in Italy, were now laying the foundation of schools, soon to become as distinct in manner as the masters of one and the same art can well be conceived. But though much had been accomplished before the close of the fifteenth century, as respects the higher qualities of imitative art, painting was still in infancy. Leonardo da Vinci, born in 1452, reared it to high maturity. The genius of this extraordinary man seemed as a mirror, receiving and reflecting, in added brightness, every ray of intellectual light which had yet beamed upon the age. Philosopher, poet, artist, he anticipated the march of three centuries; proving, in his own instance, what the unshackled energies of man would then accomplish. Yet--and that, too, by a living historian of most deserved reputation--has Leonardo been represented as a dabbler in various knowledge, a proficient in none--a laborious idler, wasting time and talent in useless multiplicity of pursuit. This apparently has been done to exalt his great contemporary and successor; but history ought not to be written as a picture is painted, touching in under-tones what are deemed secondaries, that the light may be more conspicuously directed to a principal figure. At the shrine of art, the devotion of Da Vinci was neither devoid of fervor nor unfruitful; albeit he courted, and not unsuccessfully, the favors of science, then new and dear to the aspiring mind. His true rank is not only among the fathers, but the masters of the art; he is one who not merely preceded, but excelled. His cartoon of horsemen in the battle of Pisa formed a favorite study of the greatest masters; and, in competition, Michael Angelo produced another of soldiers arming in haste, after bathing; which even his admirers say he scarcely ever afterwards equalled. Yet was Leonardo not vanquished. The Last Supper, painted in fresco, at Milan, exhibited a dignity and propriety of expression, a correctness of drawing, then unequalled; and, if seen as originally finished, probably still unsurpassed. The story of the head of the principal personage having been left incomplete is a vulgar error, as might be easily proved by reference to the early literature of Italian art. The well-known portrait of Mona Lisa, in purity of drawing, sweetness of simple and natural expression, has an equal only in the works of Raphael. But the influence of this master extended much more widely than the sphere of individual examples: he first united the science of anatomy with that of painting, and both with nature; and thus may truly be said to have prepared the art for the coming greatness. To the majesty of Michael Angelo's genius the reader has already done homage. If in sculpture the grandeur of his conceptions was admired, in painting this greatness is still more wonderful, but unfortunately, not less singular and remote from nature. Yet, than the painting of Buonarotti there is perhaps no instance of intellectual power more truly grand in the entire history of mind. Previous to leaving his native Florence, where he was born, of a noble family, in 1474; and whence he fled, when his country became false to herself and to freedom, architecture and sculpture had formed his principal studies. Design he had pursued little farther than as indispensably connected with these: of painting, as a separate science, he was of course comparatively ignorant. In this state of knowledge, he received orders to complete the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, upon which several of the artists, already mentioned, had before been engaged. Yet, at this time, Michael Angelo was unacquainted with the mechanical processes of fresco. To produce the designs was to him a labour of ease; and these he endeavored to have executed by artists brought from Florence; but on trial, dismissed them in all save utter hopelessness. Rising in the strength and perseverance of indomitable genius, he resolved to begin art anew, and to depend henceforth solely on his own resources. Shutting himself up in the fated chapel, preparing the materials with his own hands, after many trials and failures,--after beholding the first piece finished to his satisfaction, moulder and mildew almost before his admiring eye--he at length triumphed, achieving in the course of years the most adventurous undertaking in modern art, under circumstances, too, that while they encourage all, leave to none who aspires to the moral dignity of talent even the shadow of an apology for irresolution or indolence. The walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, with the picture of the Last Judgment, executed thirty years afterwards, form the principal, almost the sole, works of Michael Angelo in painting. The latter is the greatest work of modern art, being fifty feet high by forty wide, and containing upwards of 300 figures, many of which are larger than life. Here the human form appears under every variety of position, and agitated by every gradation of feeling; and over the whole is diffused a living ease--a science--a magic power--a fascination, which constrains us to gaze with wonder, astonishment, admiration, but not with interest or sympathy. Similar are our feelings in every other example; nor can this be exactly charged as a defect. Michael Angelo formed a system for himself--he stands alone in his art--an ideal abstraction of mind was the object of his imitation, to which all of living nature, elevated into gigantic forms and energetic modes, was to be moulded in subserviency. His art was creative, not imitative--standing forth, in its own independence of aim. Hence, there are two relations in which the works in painting of Michael Angelo are to be examined, and according to which his merits will be very differently estimated. Viewed in themselves, the frescos of the Vatican present astonishing evidences of human power. Every thought is grandeur and strength; and the rapid, fervent execution arms the pencil with an omnipotence of art equal to all the modifications of form. Here the whole is perfect, inimitable; within this his own walk, Buonarotti has no compeer,--'second to none, with nothing like to him.' But when the same works are considered in reference to the general principles of imitation, and as deriving value according as they reflect the archetypes of elevated nature, those very qualities which formerly constrained our approbation, become startling blemishes. The ideal is found to consist solely in the imaginative; sublimity is sought too exclusively in the vehement to be always dignified. All is action,--all participates of an unquiet and too aspiring character of composition: every form, every muscle, every attitude, exhibits the very gladiatorship of art,--for each is displayed, exerted, involved, to the utmost. Even repose is anything save rest. Yet, in difficulty apparently insurmountable, constraint is not perceived; the execution, wonderfully facile, though too prominent in general effect, gives to each giant limb of the awful and gloomy shapes, the very effect of life and movement. But to this display of capabilities--to the exhibition of science, and the sporting with difficulty, truth, simplicity, feeling, and real beauty, have been sacrificed. In this nothing seems peculiar to painting as distinguished from sculpture; nor, indeed, is there any discrimination: color, tone, light, shadow--all is systematic and ideal, but all mighty and overpowering in the whole. Again, when the influence of such a style upon the progress of improvement is considered, it appears that such influence could be favorable neither to future improvement nor to stationary excellence. The greatness of Michael Angelo, then, is his own--not the grandeur of art. Both sculpture and painting he made subservient to the loftiest aims, and the most splendid fame any artist ever did, perhaps can, pursue or attain: yet each was but a slave, ministering to a glory in which neither intrinsically participated. Contemporary with the 'mighty Florentine,' but most unlike in all the characteristics of genius, save the sublimity of the final result, was Raphael, the founder and master of the Roman school. Born at Urbino, 1483, he arrived in Rome upon the invitation of his relation, Bramante, the architect, about 1508, nearly at the same time with his great rival. Dying on his thirtyseventh birthday, he has, in a short life, bequeathed to posterity works almost equally numerous, and certainly displaying more of the profound excellences and beautiful sentiment of art, than those of any name since the revival of painting. Of these inestimable productions there remain to us easel pictures in oil, cartoons, and frescos, exhibiting, also, three different manners. The first dry, little, and tedious, but not without truth--often great beauty of finishing. This was derived from his instructer, Pietro Perugino; and though observable as a general characteristic only in his early easel pictures, and some frescos at Sienna, may yet occasionally be detected in the careful pencilling even of his frescos, and in the making out of his accompaniments. The pictures which display this style are those painted after he left his master in 1493, and before his return to Urbino about 1504. The finest of these was executed in his seventeenth year, representing a Holy Family,--the Virgin raising a veil from the Infant, who sleeps. Except in the works of Da Vinci, so much sweetness of expression and beauty of design had not yet appeared in the art, as is found even in this youthful production. The second manner is an intermediate step--an attempt to escape from a minuteness which he soon discovered to be unsuitable both to his own fervor and the dignity of art. The change is perceptible immediately after he had studied the works of the Florentine masters, whose improvements, and the vigor of their enlarged style, he would at sight appreciate as movements evidently in advance, but with which he had hitherto remained unacquainted. As a separate manner, it can scarcely be said to exist; for at most it was but a new instrument in the possession of a mind which has made everything its own. All that is apparent amounts merely to a progressive melioration, extending through three or four years, of which space he resided nearly two in Florence, studying the performances of art in that city, but receiving no personal instructions, excepting a reciprocal interchange of knowledge with Fra Bartolomeo. The most celebrated pictures produced by him during this interval are the Virgin, Infant, and St John, in the ducal gallery, and the entombing of Christ, now at Rome. These, more strikingly when viewed in comparison with the style of contemporary works, exhibit beauties of so opposite a character to the compositions of Michael Angelo, that it is impossible to perceive any grounds on which the obligations said to be owing by their author to the latter can be rested. Buonarotti, in fact, could not, or at least never did, paint in a taste of such simplicity as these exhibit. The third manner is solely and exclusively individual, neither derived nor--we grieve to say--inherited; full, harmonious, sweet, and flowing--yet bold, learned, and sustained,--composed of such an union of natural grace and antique correctness, as meet only in the creations of Raphael's pencil. To this style his most important works belong, having been formed after his arrival in Rome, and when he had there become deeply impressed with the sublimities of ancient art. In the space of only twelve years--for he united exquisite finish with wonderful expedition--he completed the frescos of the Vatican and the Farnesina, besides others, amounting to many hundred figures--designed the Cartoons--cultivating, at the same time, architecture (of which he was a master), poetry, and sculpture. During the same laborious period were produced those exquisite paintings in oil, which have chiefly contributed to spread his fame beyond Italy. Of these the best, the most wonderful, though in slight respects not the most perfect, is the Transfiguration--the last bequeathment of his genius to the arts and to posterity, for he died within a few days after it was completed. As Raphael in these works, no painter has ever done so much for the real excellence of the art, nor, in the principles upon which they are conducted, has placed improvement on precepts so pure, so unerring. All that imagination could lend to a strictly imitative art he has added, yet has infused into its creations the warmest sensibilities of life; to nature he has given all that grace and fancy can bestow, consistent with the sweetest of all charms--leaving her nature still. On this account is Raphael, of all great names in art, the safest to adopt as the guide of taste and practice. For were the most decided admirer of system merely to copy, he would quickly find himself constrained to become the disciple of reality. True, we discover no mixed modes of nature, such as impede her energies and cloud her beauties in ordinary life; yet the tranquil loveliness--the sinless beauty--the noble feeling of the representation--has nothing of the cold and merely imaginative. This, indeed, constitutes the great charm of Raphael's grace, that neither in form nor expression is it abstract; its power of moving is acquired directly from human sympathy. In gazing upon his dramatic scenes and breathing figures, who has not experienced this truth in a gradual melting of the heart, in unison with every pure and holy remembrance that connects man with the species? See the Madona--how mildly, simply beautiful! In that bosom not one rude passion has a resting place; yet feels not each spectator now called-up dear though distant recollections of a parent's--a mother's tenderness, with all the reverential charities of life's spring? Behold the Magdalen--how changed the sensibilities! still how respectable! One overmastering, absorbing affection. No meretricious display--every movement is that of passion, but of sentiment too. Or view that youth so intent upon instruction; he hangs upon the very words of his aged guide. How powerfully do we conceive the mature resolves that irradiate the ingenuous countenance! Or turn your attention to the child who is playing in the lap of the mother--how innocently happy! how unconsciously beautiful! Yet look again;--even here is passion, sentiment, futurity. The imagination involuntarily shapes out the fortunes of that disposition so legibly expressed in the speaking countenance. But in the deep meaning of the mild full eye, in the holy expression which beams in every lineament, in the spotless form, has not genius made the nearest approaches to our unbreathed conceptions of an infant Saviour! Regard that prophet--how glorious, yet how good, he seems! No spirit insensible to human woe, unpitying of human frailty, lives there. The errors and backslidings of his race have given a fixed though placid sorrow to the eye, but the closing sunshine of his own pure life hath settled on the majestic brow. Such are all the works of Raphael, full to overflowing of human sentiment and of interest. In their very highest ideal, they are but the primeval dignity and sacredness of our nature. How then can these facts be reconciled with the opinion so boldly and so long asserted, that they do not strike at first sight--that the heart as well as the judgment must be gradually prepared to relish their beauties? We shall not attempt to reconcile--we deny the conclusion. Where these works have not been from the first felt, and admired, and loved in their truth and in their simplicity, they have been viewed through the mists of false theory, or compared with erroneous standards of excellence. We discard all consideration of the theories of the French professional critics on this subject; but it has often been matter of great surprise to find Sir Joshua Reynolds maintaining the same system. 'I remember very well,' says the English artist, 'my own disappointment when I first visited the Vatican; but on confessing my feelings to a brother student, of whose ingenuousness I had a high opinion, he acknowledged that the works of Raphael had the same effect upon him--or rather, that they did not produce the effect which he expected. This was a great relief to my mind; and on inquiring further of other students, I found that those persons only, who, from natural imbecility, appeared incapable of ever relishing those divine performances, made pretensions to instantaneous raptures on first beholding them. I found myself in the midst of works executed upon principles with which I was unacquainted; I felt my ignorance, and stood abashed. I viewed them again and again; I even affected to admire them more than I really did. In a short time a new taste and a new perception began to dawn upon me, and I was convinced that I had originally formed a false opinion of the perfection of the art, and that this great painter was well entitled to the high rank which he holds in the estimation of the world. But let it always be remembered that the excellence of his style is not on the surface, but lies deep, and at first view is seen but mistily. It is the florid style which strikes at once, and captivates the eye for a time, without ever satisfying the judgment.' We admire this candor, and can at once admit the justness of these remarks in general, when applied to the works of Michael Angelo, on whose principles it is well known that Sir Joshua formed his theory of ideal beauty. But in reference to Raphael, conclusions the very opposite would be nearer the truth. Drawn immediately from nature, as are all his ideas, they interest the heart at once; and as we study the exquisite mechanism, the perfection of the details, the propriety of the composition, the judgment confirms yet more the impressions which the heart first entertained. These observations lead to, while they are confirmed by, another view, which yet remains to be taken of the genius of Raphael. It is only in the individuality and profoundness of expression, that he reaches the sublimities of art. In the abstract conception of form he is inferior; hence, in the representations of mythological existences, he becomes feeble in proportion as he generalizes. It is this that discriminates between the Roman and the Florentine. The former is the painter of men as they live, and feel, and act; the latter delineates man in the abstract. The one embodies sentiment--feeling--passion; the other pourtrays the capacities, energies, and idealities of form. Raphael excels in resemblance; he walks the earth, but with dignity, and is seen to most advantage in relations of human fellowship. Michael Angelo can be viewed only in his own world; with ours he holds no farther communion than is necessary to obtain a common medium of intelligence. In the grand, the venerable, the touching realities of life, the first is unrivalled; his fair, and seeming true, creations cause us to reverence humanity and ourselves. Over the awful and the sublime of fiction, the second extends a terrible sway; he calls spirits from their shadowy realms, and they come at his bidding, in giant shapes, to frown upon the impotency of man. To contend here for superiority is futile--each has his own independent sphere. The style of Raphael has justly been characterised as the dramatic, that of Michael Angelo as the epic, of painting. The distinction is accurate, in as far as the former has made to pass before us character in conflict with passion--in all its individualities of mode; while the latter represented and generalized both character and passion. The first leads us from natural beauty to divine--the second elevates us at once into regions which his own lofty imaginations have peopled. Hence, than Michael Angelo's prophets, and other beings that just hover on the confines of human and spiritual existence, the whole range of art and poetry never has, and never will, produce more magnificent and adventurous creations. This is his true power--here he reigns alone, investing art with a mightiness unapproachable by any other pencil. But when the interest is to be derived from known forms, and natural combinations, he fails almost utterly; never can his line want grandeur--but grandeur so frequently substituted for feeling, and when the subject cannot sustain it, presents only gorgeous caricature. Human affection mingles in every touch of Raphael, and he carries our nature to its highest moral, if not physical, elevation. Hence, his supernatural forms may want abstract majesty and overawing expression; but they display a community in this world's feelings, without its weaknesses or imperfections, by which the heart is perhaps even more subdued. If this be a true estimate of the powers of these great men, and we have drawn our inferences from impressions often felt, and long studied, no comparison can be more unjust, nor less apt, than the one so frequently repeated, that Michael Angelo is the Homer, Raphael the Virgil, of modern painting. The Florentine may justly take his place by the side of the Greek. Not so the Roman and the Mantuan. The copyist of Homer, nay, frequently his translator, whose nature is taken at second-hand--whose characters, in the mass, have about as much individuality as the soldiers of a platoon, and little more intellectual discrimination than brave, braver, and bravest, must occupy a lower seat at the banquet of genius than the original, the ever varied, and graphic artist. The great error in estimating the merits of these masters appears to have arisen from not considering them separately, and as independent minds. Michael Angelo, indeed, created, while Raphael may be said to have composed; but he discovered and collected--he did not derive his materials. Michael Angelo found the art poor in means, undignified and powerless in composition; he assumed it in feebleness, and bore it at once to maturity of strength. Of these improvements Raphael profited by novel application; but the advantage was nothing more than necessarily occurs in the spread of intelligence. Massaccio had, in like manner, prepared the previous change; Da Vinci first, then Buonarotti, took it up. The pupil of Perugino made availment of this new path to a commanding height, whence the whole prospect of the empire of art might be surveyed, but over this his genius soared in guideless, independent flight. Than the invention, and at such a time, of Michael Angelo's mighty system, there is to be found no greater evidence of talent, nor of greater talent; but from the mind that could conceive that system, scarcely an exertion was demanded to maintain supremacy therein, guarded as were its claims against all rivalry by the very novelty and peculiarity of the style, where each adopter would be degraded into an imitator. On the other hand, if the perfection of Raphael's manner appear to be more in the ordinary course of genius, it is to be remembered, that its very perfectness depends upon those qualities of mind which most rarely assemble in the constitution of inventive genius--exquisite taste, sound judgment, patient study, and profound knowledge of the human heart. Be it also recollected, that to support the mastery here, in a style founded on no peculiar habitudes of intellect, but embracing the general and intrinsic principles of art, where all good artists would consequently be rivals, without incurring the imputation of copying, required unabating effort, diligence, and originality,--more liberal and varied excellence, than in the preceding system. Here we at length discover the real and abiding superiority of Raphael. It is not that he pre-eminently surpasses in one of the faculties of genius, but he has embodied in his labours more of the requisites of perfection than any other of the modern masters. In grandeur of invention and form, he is inferior to Michael Angelo. Titian surpasses him in coloring, Corregio in gradation of tone. This superiority, however, becomes visible only where each of the qualities becomes the ruling sentiment of the work. For when we view in itself a composition of Raphael, where the style of design so exquisitely accords with the forms, the coloring corresponding with each, the chiar' oscuro just adequate to the degree of perception meditated; the whole harmonized by innate and unerring propriety, animated with his own peculiar grace and sentiment, while each separate quality becomes yet more perfect in the combination,--the pencil seems justly to have attained its unrivalled utmost. With their respective founders, the schools of Rome and Florence may be said to have terminated; at least the mantle of their teacher rested with very unequal inspiration upon the disciples of both. The death of Raphael, in 1520, proved an irremediable loss to the arts, the extent of which never can indeed be known. His pure and natural style, had it been more firmly engrafted by longer life, would probably have delayed, perhaps prevented, the sudden extravagance and mannerism which overspread the united schools of Tuscany and Rome, at the head of which Michael Angelo survived upwards of forty years. Among the various pursuits of taste, painting alone exhibits this singular fortune, that the noblest and most intellectual of its principles, as also those which speak most directly to sense, and are merely alluring, were invented at the same time, but in different places, and separately practised. It is worthy of remark, also, that in each respect the first inventors remained the most accomplished professors of their own discoveries. While in Rome and Florence, design and expression were receiving their perfection, forming the almost exclusive subjects of study, in Venice, the seductions of coloring, in Lombardy, the illusions of light and shadow, were adding unknown pomp and magic to the art. The school of Venice, though one of the earliest in Europe to cherish reviving arts, has added little of intellectual or noble to their progressive culture. Here they have never flourished in the genial soil of popular institutions. A haughty and jealous, yet luxurious and unpatriotic aristocracy, converted the arts into instruments of private gratification--instead of turning them to national ornament. Hence sculpture has been little cultivated, architecture more, though in peculiar style, and painting most of all. But while the sacredness of religion, or the manliness of history, has occupied the Italian pencil generally, of the older masters especially, Venice has sent forth her lordly senators, splendid banquets, and naked beauties. From the twelfth century, we have already seen, a movement might be discerned in the arts of Venice. Her school of painting begins to attract notice under Antonello da Messina, who introduced oil colors. The Bellinis carried out his improvements; and as pupils of the youngest, we discover Giorgione and Titian, who, with Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, Sebastian del Piombo, Schiavone, and Bassano, were the chief masters of this school. But of Venetian painting the great ornament is Titian, whose name is synonymous with the characteristic of the native school--fine coloring. From this, however, we are not to suppose, as is too frequently done, that he was wanting in the higher principles of his profession. The alleged imperfection of his design will not often be detected, and only in momentary action of the parts; for in the more common modifications of form, it is faultless, and of inanimate nature the drawing and painting of his landscapes is unrivalled. In expression he is the most historical of all painters, his portraits being second only to those of Raphael. In careful imitation of natural effect, he is equal to the most pains-taking of the Dutch school; yet, with such grandeur and breadth in the masses, that, as has been justly remarked, the most imperfect sketch in which the original disposition in this respect is preserved, will present a character of high art. The chief defect of Titian was in composition and poetical fancy; he penetrated the very secrets of nature in all her varied effects and minutest shades of tone and hue--but he neither made selections of her forms, nor possessed the power of correcting her defects, by an ideal standard. In this mastery of coloring, three principles may be remarked; first, the interposing medium between the eye and the object is supposed to be a mellow golden light; secondly, the most glowing and gorgeous lights are produced, not so much by rich local tints as by the general conduct of the whole piece, in which the gradations of tone are almost evanescent, yet in their strongest hues powerfully contrasted. Hence the final splendor is effected rather by painting in under-tones, than by lavishing on particular spots the whole riches of the palette. The shadows and under-tones, also, are enlivened by a thousand local hues and flickering lights, and his masses by innumerable varieties and play of parts; yet all softened, and blended, and combined by an undefinable harmony. Hence, nothing more easy than apparently to copy Titian--nothing more difficult than really to imitate his faithfulness and splendor. The third principle refers to his practice; the colors are laid on pure, without mixing, in tints by reiterated application, and apparently with the point of the pencil. Titian died in 1576, at the venerable age of 96 or 99, having survived the glory of the Venetian school, the last disciple of decided eminence being Tintoretto, called the lightning of the pencil, from his miraculous despatch. The Bassans are powerful colorists, and wonderfully true to nature. Paul Veronese wantons in all the luxuriance of fresh and magnificent coloring, but is correct neither in taste nor drawing. Giorgione, of all the early Venetian masters, gave greatest promise of uniting purity with splendor, but died in 1511, at the age of 33;--thus leaving Titian, to whom he had in some measure been instructer, to reap an undivided harvest of fame. In the annals of genius, no name bears more strongly on the popular sense attached to the term of a heaven-born inspiration, superior to circumstances and independent of tuition, than that of Antonio Leti--better known as Corregio. This artist, who was born about 1494, and died at the age of 40, is the model rather than the founder of the Lombard school. From the bosom of poverty, without master, without patron, without even the commonest appliances of his art, he bursts at once upon the view in all the blaze of original talent--unpraised, unknown--in an age of knowledge, to sink unmarked like the meteor of the desert, leaving but the memorials of his graceful pencil--in his own phrase, 'anch' io son pittore'--to cry aloud that he also was a painter,--that such a man, contemporary with Raphael and Michael Angelo, and their nearest compeer, should have lived in ignorance of them, of Rome, of the antique, of all but nature--to die at last unrewarded in Parma--is utterly inexplicable. The principal works of this master are the two noble cupolas of the cathedral churches of Parma, painted in fresco--one subject the Assumption of the Virgin, the other the Ascension of the Saviour. Of his easel paintings, the most precious, representing a Holy Family, and called the 'Night,' is in the Dresden gallery. The beauties of Corregio are grace and exquisite management of light and color, united with inexpressible harmony,--'thus was completed the round of art.' 'Everything I see,' says Annibale Caracci, on beholding fifty years afterwards these works of Corregio,'astonishes me, particularly the coloring and beauty of the children, who live, breathe, and smile, with so much sweetness and vivacity, that we are constrained to sympathize in their enjoyment.' The clearness and relief, the sweetness and freedom of pencil, in the works before us, have indeed never been exceeded, but correctness is not one of their elements. Neither the most beautiful forms, nor the most pleasing groupings, are preferred to the most ungraceful upon any principle of abstract elegance, but the whole composed and selected in obedience to the distribution of light and the gradation of tone. In expression, the same system is pursued; for here Corregio has endeavored habitually to impress the soft hues and undulating lines which rapture and joy leave on the countenance. Beyond these, of ideal, he appears to have had no conception. Every form wears the stamp of living nature, and his coloring is the very reflection of natural bloom. He wanted force, which, with the defect of elevation, renders the whole effect, though delightfully soft and graceful, sometimes effeminate and monotonous. Yet Raphael alone united a greater variety of different excellences. We have now surveyed the labours and merits of the old masters--the patriarchs of modern art. The establishment of the four primitive schools embraces likewise the golden age of painting. How brief was the reign of lofty genius! The same individual might have lived with all the masters now enumerated,--he might have survived them all,--beholding the art in its infancy, and in its manhood, he might have witnessed also its decline, and yet have viewed all this within the ordinary span of existence. The same brevity in the duration of excellence we also remarked in the arts of Greece. Is it, then, the fate of the human spirit, like human institutions, to fall away immediately on attaining a degree of perfection? or rather, is not this evidence of powers which shall hereafter expand, grow, and unfold their activities,--here on earth chilled, and cramped, and broken? Among the minor fathers of the art who not unworthily supported the glory of the sixteenth century, and who continue the history of painting in the Roman and Florentine schools through the remainder of that period, the chief were the immediate disciples of Raphael and Michael Angelo. The favorite pupil of the former, Julio Romano, was an artist of highly poetic imagination, but less informed with pure taste than his master; his ambition appears to have aimed at uniting the grace of his instructer with the science and energy of Florence. Penni, Perin del Vaga, Polidore Caravaggio, and Maturino, not unsuccessfully studied in the same school; but we find a gradual disappearance of the more simple style of Raphael, and long before the middle of the century, the two schools may almost be said to have merged in the overwhelming despotism of the principles of Michael Angelo. Even the names now mentioned, though at first following the Roman in their later works, are scarcely to be distinguished from the disciples of the Florentine school. Of those who were truly disciples of the latter, and who derived their science immediately from the founder, was Daniel de Volterra, who survived till 1566. The designs of this latter have frequently been assigned to his master; and in the opinion of Poussin, his Descent from the Cross, in fresco, in the church of Trinita del Monte at Rome, is--or rather was, for it perished under French experiment,--one of the three best pictures in the world. Andrea del Sarto was more an independent master, who held between the two styles, and added better coloring than either. Mazzuoli, better known as Parmegiano, though by birth and early study belonging to the school of Corregio, his better taste was formed at Rome; his style of design is noble, coloring forcible, and general effect sweet and gracious. He died in 1540, ten years after the preceding. But of all the followers of Michael Angelo, Tibaldi approached nearest to the sublimity, without the extravagance, of his model. It soon becomes difficult, indeed impossible, to follow decidedly the division of the ancient schools. In the progress of the century, their principles become united in the works of the minor painters, who are henceforth to be distinguished by the place of their birth, rather than by their style. The design of Michael Angelo prevailed; but to this were added, in proportion to the abilities of the artist, the various discoveries of the other masters. The art however, was in rapid retrogression. A style which suited only the most transcendent genius, which only under such inspiration could be at all pleasing, and from whose sublimity one step led into the turgid and the false, became a most dangerous instrument of ill in the hands of mere imitators. The ingrafting, also, upon its severe simplicity, the more luxurious modes of Venice and Lombardy, tended still more effectually to extinguish character and truth of distinctive representation. Towards the close of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth century, the progress of decline was stayed for a time by the establishment of a new school. This was the Bolognese or Eclectic, founded by the Caracci, and which, in some measure, was the concentration of all the Lombard artists, who, separately following, in a great measure, the style of Corregio, had yet never united into a seminary of which that master could be called the head. The grand principle of this new academy, and thence deriving the appellation of Eclectic, was to select what was most excellent in the primitive schools; design from the Florentine, and grace from the Roman, from the Venetian color, from the Lombard light and shade, uniting all in due proportion and harmonious effect. The plan was arduous and aspiring, but the idea was good; the failure which ensued, for, abating the success of individual talent, the final result disappointed expectation, arose not from the intention pursued, but from the means employed. The Bolognese masters sought to effect the combination of these elements by rules of art, instead of taking nature as the connecting and vivifying principle. In the study of her effects they would have found the very union they contemplated--the previous separation, in fact, of pictorial excellence into departments, had been occasioned by partial or peculiar views of nature. Still the success of the attempt was great, and threw the last rays of glory over the native seat of modern art. The founders and great ornaments of this school were the three Caracci; Ludovico the eldest, born in 1555, died in 1619, was the instructer of his two cousins--Agostino, three years younger, and Annibale, born in 1560, both of whom Ludovico survived. The association formed by these relatives was, in the strictest sense of the term, a _school_ of design, and conducted upon an admirable plan; students being instructed in anatomy, in drawing, in painting, and in the principles of composition, by actual superintendence and personal instruction. The unaffected breadth, solemnity, yet grace of effect--the simplicity of character, which distinguish the works of Ludovico, are justly admired. Augustino excelled more in the theory than the practice of his art; but one of the best pictures of this school, the St Jerome of the Certosa, is his. Engravings by him are numerous and valuable. Of all the Caracci, Annibale is the most magnificent in his compositions, and may be taken as the true representative of the school; bold, splendid, broad, his pencil deals its touches with firm, almost unerring certainty, to its aim--but too frequently that aim is style in art, rather than truth in feeling. Of the immediate pupils of the Bolognese academy, the first undoubtedly is the modest and tender Domenichino. Though participating in the common fault of his school, loaded design, yet his heads have a feeling and expression approaching to the sublime in sentiment. The Communion of St Jerome is pronounced by Poussin to be one of the three best pictures in the world--the Transfiguration of Raphael, and Volterra's Descent from the Cross, completing the number. We shall not easily forget our impressions on beholding the Transfiguration and the Communion side by side in the Vatican. Guido's name instantly calls up all our associations of the graceful and the benign; but his expression is too often artificial: perhaps in his works we first decidedly mark those academic abstractions and refinements of precept, which, formed independently of nature, hastened the downfall of art in this its last resting place. Guercino wants power and individual character; Albani is agreeable and poetic, the painter of the Loves and Graces. Carlo Dolci, a Florentine, imitates Guido. Lanfranco is bold, but incorrect in his design; as are likewise Pietro Cortona, and Luca Giordano, mannerists in whom is lost every distinction of character. Contemporary with the Carracci, but self-taught, and belonging to no school, was Caravaggio, strong but ungraceful in design, harsh in the disposition of his lights, but of undoubted genius:--his pupil was Spagnoletto. The history of painting in Italy, at least of painting animated by genius, may be closed with the name of Salvator Rosa, who died in 1673, the only native landscape painter which that delightful and picturesque country has produced. The old masters, indeed, have left the grandest and most perfect landscape compositions--but these are subservient to the figures. Rosa succeeded in both, and stands nobly, but peculiarly, original in an age of decay and mannerism. The eighteenth century opens under the auspices of Carlo Maratti, an affected mannerist, but not altogether devoid of talent. After his death, in 1713, his rivals, Garzi and Cignani, sustained for a little the expiring reputation of the Roman school. But it is quite unnecessary to continue the narrative; the state of the arts during the early part of this century has already been noticed, and the names of Bianchi, Costanzi, Manchini, the early contemporaries of Canova, and of the revival, are now forgotten. The only artists of those times still regarded with some respect, are, Solemena, who died in 1747; Sebastian Conca, in 1764; and Pompeo Battoni, who brings down the history of the art to 1787; Mengs belongs to Germany. Over the living art of Italy, Camuccini at Rome, and Benvenuti at Florence, preside. The former is perhaps the best draughtsman in Europe, but is inferior as a colorist; he wants depth, harmony, and force; his grouping also is defective in richness and variety, approaching too nearly to the linear as in relievo. His expression, though noble, is cold--deficient in that warm gush of sentiment, which, in the ancient masters, seemed to 'create a soul under the ribs of death.' Benvenuti excels his contemporary as a colorist, in the disposition of his group, and in the force of _chiar' oscuro_; but in purity of drawing, in classical taste, and in the selection of form, he is inferior. Each has chosen his subjects principally from profane history. Camuccini's best performance is the Departure of Regulus; Benvenuti's a scene in the recent history of Saxony. Rome possesses several other good painters, but few natives--for, to the artist as to the poet of every nation, she has become '----His country--city of the soul.' CHAPTER XII. THE Trans-alpine schools of painting now demand attention. The German is usually divided into three distinct schools--the German, properly so called, the Flemish, and the Dutch. These distinctions are rather local than depending upon characteristic difference of manner. Indeed, prior to the age of Durer, the only style discernible in the schools is that named Gothic, common more or less to all the states of Europe, but especially indigenous in Germany. The expression, then, is here employed not altogether in its vague and generic sense of anything stiff and formal--for these early or Gothic pictures exhibit a specific character both of design and execution. They are painted upon wood, usually oak, covered sometimes with canvass, always with a white ground, upon which the outline of the subject is sketched, and the whole overlaid with gilding. This last forms the real grounding of the picture, which is painted in water or size-color, with great care and diligence of finish, often with considerable felicity of effect, and always with more of the simplicity of individual nature than occurs in any other works of the same age and description. This early school terminated in the fifteenth century, from the more general diffusion of oil-painting; its principal masters were Schoen, the Bon Martino of the Italians, born in 1420, painter and engraver; Wohlgemuth, the instructer of Durer; and Muiller, or Kranach, Burgomaster of Wittemberg, and friend of Luther. But the prince of German artists is Albert Durer, born at Nuremberg in 1471--the Da Vinci of this school, as excelling in science and in art. His works in painting and engraving are equally admirable, evincing knowledge of the best principles of imitation. They still retain a degree of constraint--a remnant of the Gothic manner, of which the habits and prejudices of his countrymen, and his own ignorance of the antique, prevented the removal. Want of dignified design and grandeur of composition, hard and meagre outline, are his defects; truth, originality, and simplicity of thought, good coloring, and the invention, or at least perfecting, of etching on copper, form his contributions to the arts. His contemporary, and, in portraits, superior, was Holbein, best known in England, and whose works, in the reign of Henry VIII., are excellent examples of the school; his successors, in departing from the national style, become blended with the minor Italian masters--for the German school ceases to be original or distinct when it ceases to be Gothic. After Schwartz Rolenhamer, and others of the sixteenth century, who painted history in the Italian manner, Germany sent forth chiefly landscape painters, as Bauer, Elzhaimer, and others, who finished in a style exquisitely delicate and natural. Commercial wealth, the comparative independence and activity which always accompany industrious enterprise, rendered the Flemish cities, from a very early period, famous in painting. In fact, many of their most lucrative branches of trade--tapestry, embroidery, jewellery--depended upon, and, as in the Italian republics, aided the progress of design. Few characteristics of a national style, however, are to be found in the history of art in the Low Countries, as distinct from Germany, prior to the close of the sixteenth century. To John of Bruges, better known as Van Eyck, a Flemish painter about the beginning of the fifteenth century, has been ascribed the discovery of oil colors; but though the discovery appears rather to have been a gradual improvement, commencing from a much earlier date, he certainly first brought the practice into general use. The painters of the Flemish and Dutch schools were thus put early in possession of an advantage, contributing principally to the distinguishing qualities of art in these countries--fine coloring and exquisite finish. The method, indeed, necessarily introduced these properties, as may also be remarked in Italy, where the Venetian masters, who first obtained the secret, continued to surpass, as they had taken the lead, in sweetness and splendor of pencilling. Lucas Van Leyden and Mabeuse, far surpassed Van Eyck, and indeed rivalled their German contemporaries, Durer and Holbein; while, in the subsequent century, artists are numerous who carried to a high perfection the characteristics of the school--imitation of nature, and wonderful minuteness of finish--such as Brill, Stenwyck, Spranger, the Brueghils, and Van Veen. Rubens was born of an honorable family, at Antwerp, in 1577, and died in 1640. This powerful and prolific artist, whose works are abundantly scattered over the whole of Europe, gave to the Flemish school the consideration attendant on separate and dignified character. Had Rubens, indeed, united to brilliancy of coloring, rapidity of composition, and splendor of general effect, the elevation of form and sentiment which ennoble the thoughts of the old masters, his name would justly have ranked amongst the highest in art. But the seductions of the Venetian, and the bravura of the Lombard style, had for him more attraction than the majesty of the Florentine, or the grace and pathos of the Roman pencil. There is in his style, however, a dexterous compensation for defects, which, more than in any other, momentarily seduces the judgment from propriety. His defect of expression is concealed in the richness, the lavish variety, of his figures and grouping; the incorrectness of his forms is forgotten in beholding their almost mobile elasticity; the absence of lofty interest passes unmarked amid the striking contrasts and picturesque impressions of the general effect. Over the whole is thrown the most gorgeous coloring, the play of reflected lights, the magnificence of almost shifting, yet ever harmonious hues and luxuriance of ornament;--like the golden flood from the stained window, pouring its radiance over the irregular but magical combinations of the Gothic aisle. The landscapes of Rubens are delightful; they have the freshness, the clearness, the variety of nature, and a far deeper sentiment of her beauty than his histories or portraits--the last, indeed, are the least meritorious of his works. But we shall qualify or support our own by the opinion of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose summary of the character of Rubens is as follows: 'In his composition his art is too apparent; his figures have expression, and act with energy, but without simplicity or dignity. His coloring, in which he is eminently skilled, is notwithstanding too much of what we call tinted. Throughout the whole of his works, there is a proportionable want of that nicety of distinction and elegance of mind, which is required in the higher walks of painting; to this want, it may in some degree be ascribed, that those qualities that make the excellence of this subordinate style, appear in him with the greatest lustre.' The Crucifixion at Antwerp is his masterpiece; the Allegories of Mary de Medici in the Louvre his largest work; but some of the most finished smaller pictures which we have seen are in the Rubens-gallery, in the palace of Frederic at Potzdam. The contemporaries of Rubens were independent masters or disciples. Among the former were Van Voss Strada, Miel Savary Seegers; among the latter, Snyders, Jordains, Teniers, and especially Vandyke. Rather later, lived Schwaneveldt in landscape, and Neef for interiors, &c.; but the influence of the principles or precepts of Rubens animated the whole of their efforts. In point of manner and subject, Teniers and Vandyke may in some measure be considered as forming the extremes of the Flemish schools, though in respect of merit they stand in the first rank. Teniers, for instance, connects the Flemish with the Dutch style, being more elevated in the general tone of his conceptions and manner than the latter, while he has selected a less dignified walk than Rubens. He has painted with exquisite truth, and very great beauty of pencil, the customs, scenes, amusements, and character of his countrymen. Vandyke, again, in the grace and dignity of his portraits, in the intellectuality of his expression and composition, seems to effect a junction between the common and broad nature of the native taste, with the ideal of Italian art. The pictures painted by Vandyke during the early period of his residence in England, are among the finest specimens of portraiture. Here, indeed, in some respects, as the clearness and transparency of his carnations, he is excelled only by Titian,--in the graceful air of the heads, and beautiful drawing of the extremities, he reminds us of Raphael,--while, to these qualities, he has added a silvery tone of pencilling, which, more so than in any other master, gives back the delicate and varied hues of real flesh and skin. He has hardly succeeded in history, more, however, from want of practice than genius; for his alleged want of fancy seems not so apparent as has been supposed. In Vandyke, we find a most striking proof that excellence in art is founded upon no abstract theory of the ideal, but in selecting, and sedulously adhering to, some one view of nature: hence--hence alone, 'The soft precision of the clear Vandyke.' What Rubens had accomplished for the Flemish school in giving to it nationality and a head, Rembrandt some time after conferred upon that of Holland; but between the two cases there is this difference,--the former has identified his principles and reputation with the whole of succeeding art in his country,--these principles, also, are founded in a more comprehensive view of nature and of imitation; the latter has merely given a consistency to the scattered details and individual artists of the Dutch school, by concentrating attention upon one, while he has given a singular but most powerful delineation of nature. He stands alone, not only among his countrymen, a gigantic workman among the minute laborers of cabbages, butchers' shops, and green-grocers' stalls, but he is a solitary master in the schools of Europe. The style of Rembrandt it is easy to distinguish, but difficult to characterise. It is at once natural and highly artificial--original, yet excessively mannered. It is natural: for every object, no matter what, is represented just as it appears, without alteration, improvement, or addition--but the medium of visibility, if the expression may be allowed, the mode in which nature is exposed, is a complete artifice; no inventor was ever more original in his system, but none less varied in its application;--if we have seen one picture of Rembrandt, we have seen all, as far as respects his principles, for he has only two. In his practice he is at once bold, even to coarseness, and elaborately finished--his coloring is delicate, yet placed frequently in lumps upon the canvass. But to attempt a positive description: of the two principles of the Dutch master, one respects the manner of delineating, the other of exhibiting, nature. He appears to have regarded art as without power or control, over the character or form of the subject--these were to be most faithfully preserved, and most minutely copied. This formed his first principle, to which he has most rigidly adhered. But as natural objects present different modifications in appearance, according to the quantity and direction of the light which falls upon them, and since this can be artificially varied at the will of the artist, here Rembrandt fixed his second, and what may be termed his ideal principle. In the schools of Italy, we have seen that the management of light had been brought to very great perfection, especially by Titian, Corregio, and their best instructed followers. Their method was diffusion--to unite, by secondary, the principal lights, and both, by a gradation of under-tone, with the darkest shadows, avoiding strong contrasts. Indeed, the Venetian master has shown, in his practice, that strong opposition, neither of light nor color, was necessary to powerful effect; and Corregio, on the same principle, has painted much in demi, or neutral tone. These precepts Rubens also had discovered in his Italian studies, and afterwards constantly practised; Vandyke, by the same method, has given that extraordinary softness and delicacy which sits so divinely upon his female countenances. Rembrandt pursued a method directly the reverse; he concentrated his light into one meteoric blaze, directed in full power upon one spot--to which all other forms are sacrificed in deep gloom--and upon which the whole riches of his palette are heaped. He placed nature, as it were, in a dungeon, while, through one solitary loophole, the beam of heaven seems, with ten-fold force, to penetrate to the object of the artist's immediate contemplation. This, spreading a dazzling, yet solemn light over all, invests the commonest forms with an unknown interest, and gives to the grossest and most unclassical imitation an elevated and romantic character,--just as the uncertain gloom of twilight mantles in the shadowy terrors and strange shapes, objects, the most familiar in ordinary day. In the same style are painted the landscapes of Rembrandt, equally valued, and more true than even his figures. The rest of the Dutch masters have little of distinctive excellence; the imitation of all is wonderful in its fidelity, minuteness, and beauty; but human talent, and weeks of precious time, wasted upon a cabbage leaf, or a few fish upon a board, is after all but a melancholy theme, which we shall despatch with a catalogue of names. Before or contemporary with Rembrandt, who died in 1674, we have Hæmskirk, Both, Metzu, Blæmart, Breenberg, Polemberg, Bhergem, Cuyp, Wynants, Heem, Mieris, Vangoyn, Schalken, Van der Neer, Van der Warf. A higher class of artists were Wouvermans, Laar, and Gherard Douw, the most careful of painters. These and others now mentioned placed the ideal of art in the most scrupulous delineation of nature--the most elaborate truth and transparent coloring; and it cannot be denied, that they approached their ideal nearer than did the Italian masters to theirs. But more glory accrued from the attempt than in the success. The arts of the Low Countries, so long an appendage of the crown of Spain, naturally lead to those of that kingdom. No regular Spanish school of painting appears at any time to have existed, though the art has been very successfully practised by numerous artists. Of these the chief are Velasquez, equally eminent in history and portrait; and Murillo, a delightful colorist, and distinguished for natural feeling, though often vulgar, and rarely dignified, in his choice of forms. He is the most original of all the great masters of Spain, who have generally been indebted to Italy. Morales, Herrera, with many others, might be mentioned, but we have not seen their works. The principal seats of painting, in Spain, were Madrid and Seville; the school holds intermediate rank between those of Venice and Flanders--its chief beauty is truth of character, natural expression and fine coloring, correct, but not elevated, design. In France, or by French artists, painting has been practised with much individual success; and though academies have been formed, and government protection long and liberally afforded, it would yet be difficult exactly to describe in what the characteristics of the national style of art in France consist. In that country, taste, as respects painting, has fluctuated more, and from the first has been less deeply impressed with original traits, than as regards any other of the fine arts. Voltaire has remarked, that a people may have a music and poetry pleasing only to themselves, and yet both good; but in painting, though their genius may be peculiar, it can be genuine only as it is agreeable to, and prized by, all the world. Tried by this rule, French painting seems to be neither correct nor pleasing, and it is not universal, that is inventive, in its peculiarity of manner. In her early efforts, France was indebted to Italy, and in her subsequent labors the Italian method of design has prevailed; indeed, her artists have here rather copied than imitated, adding, no doubt, what have been termed _les graces Françoises_--an expression ill-naturedly, but not without truth, translated, 'French grimaces.' It is rare, perhaps impossible, to find originality where taste has not been naturally, and to a considerable extent, cultivated prior to the introduction of extrinsic knowledge. Art borrowed in a state of forwardness, can receive no new nor valuable modifications from unskilful hands and unpractised fancy. On the other hand, when thought has been independently exercised, refinement, engrafted upon its bold, though perhaps rude strength, will receive novel combinations and freshness of character, while the reception of more perfect modes in the same walk, will but improve the faculties, without oppressing the powers, of native genius. Again, the fluctuations of painting observable during its progress in France, appear to have arisen chiefly from the influence which favorite masters have been able to exercise over the art universally in that country. Nor has the influence often been that of pure talent. Court intrigue, during the most favorable epochs, has raised to court employment, and consequently to pre-eminence in the honors and emoluments of his profession, some individual, who thus became possessed of the means of rendering his brethren eager to obtain his countenance by imitation of his style. Thus we have the schools of Vouet, of Le Brun, of David, distinguished merely by adherence to the particular manner of these masters; with some exception in the last, which is founded most on general principles. This, however, is only an effect growing out of a far more general cause of imperfection in French art, namely, the absence of all true national interest. Among the French, painting has hitherto, during the most prosperous periods, formed the amusement or the luxury of their rulers; though as contributing to the external pomp, splendor, and show of their '_monarchie_,' the people have been trained to applaud. There never has been mutual sympathy between the artist and his countrymen; he drew his encouragement, and looked for his reward, from other and far less ennobling inspiration than their praise. That incense which not unfrequently was really kindled at the Muses' flame, was burnt before the idols set up by a despot, instead of being offered to the majesty of national feeling. In confirmation of these remarks, so congenial with the whole history of art as an intellectual attainment, we have only to refer to the reigns of Louis XIII., XIV., XV.; more especially of the second, whose selfish glory, the pursuit of his entire life, converted the most splendid of the arts into a vehicle of adulation, through fulsome and direct flattery, or glaring and far-fetched allegory. If, during the recent order of things, more respect was paid to real merit, and less to cabal than formerly, the same, nearly, was the isolation of the art from popular enthusiasm--it was still under the same thraldom to the cold and selfish aggrandisement of an individual; or, where this object seemed more directly connected with national exultation, the art was exercised on a theme, whose violent and artificial aspect is, throughout, unvaried, entirely destructive of natural expression and discrimination of character. The gold and glitter of military portraits--the unromantic combinations of modern warfare, with its mechanical levelling of distinctive peculiarities, were little calculated to rectify--they increased--the errors and the wants of French painting; while that which is absolutely good was derived from the colder forms of sculpture. The most ancient labours of the art in France appear to have been on glass, and, as in every other country, dedicated to the service of religion. Of these primitive specimens, many still remain of considerable beauty, as in the church of St Genevieve at Paris. Another method, common also to Germany, and which, in the fourteenth century, had assumed the appearance of a regular and important branch of ingenuity, was a species of enamel, formed by the fusion of metallic colors with glass. Of this method, many remains of surprising beauty occur in the early part of the fifteenth century, which, with the Gothic paintings already described, seem to have exercised the ingenuity of his subjects, till the exertions of Francis I. for their improvement brought artists from Italy. Among these was the great Leonardo, who died at Fontainbleau, in the arms of this monarch, in 1524, and before he had exercised his pencil in France. Copies of his works, especially of the Last Supper, were executed for Francis, who was desirous of carrying off the original with the wall upon which it is painted.[B] The intervening period from the death of Francis to the commencement of the seventeenth century, torn by religious dissension, distracted by the heartless intrigue, and still more heartless massacres perpetrated by the Catholic party, threw France back in the career of improvement. The splendid reign of Henry of Navarre was favorable indeed both to the fine and useful arts; but, as in the former age, foreign, and principally Flemish artists, were employed. The imbecile Louis XIII. has the credit of having first formed a native school of painting, or rather, perhaps, in this reign, advantage was first taken of those various circumstances which had gradually been forming both skill and taste in France. This, like every other measure of the same period, is to be attributed to the prime minister, Richelieu, founder also of the Academy. This was the source whence were supplied the artists of the succeeding reign, who were principally disciples of Vouet, the first French master of eminence, born in 1582, but whose merits in the nobler walks of art would not otherwise entitle him to notice. The glory, not only of this period, but of the history of French art, is Nicholas Poussin--the classic and the virtuous Poussin. To his contemporaries, however, or to the retainers in the halls of Louis, he did not properly belong. Born in 1594, he had formed his taste by a residence of nearly twenty years in Italy, before he was invited, in 1639, to a pension and an apartment in the Tuileries. From the cabals of a court, and the petty jealousy of the inferior Vouet, he fled beyond the Alps to his own loved Rome, never to return. There he conversed more with antiquity than with living men. Thence originated the grand defect of his style. 'We never,' says a moralist, 'live out of our age, without missing something which our successors will wish we had possessed.' This is especially true in the present instance. The characteristics of the works of Poussin are extreme correctness of form and costume, great propriety in keeping, and the most enchanting simplicity of design. These beauties he derived from constant study and deep knowledge of ancient sculpture. While he thus followed closely one of the sources of excellence, he, however, neglected the other, and, in painting, the more important--nature. Hence the frequent want of interest--the defects of expression--the cold and sombre coloring--the absence of that breathing similitude which animates even the subjects of his intense contemplation. But the ancient sculptors were not satisfied with nature at second-hand--the great cause of failure in the painter. The perfections of their statues he transferred to his canvass, forgetting that these were copied from men. In the choice of his subject, and manner of representing its incidents, Poussin has few equals; in his pictures, too, there is always a most charming harmony of thought--the scene--the figures--the handling--even the forms of inanimate objects in his landscapes, all have an antique air, transporting the imagination into an ideal world. Hence, of all those who have made the attempt, Poussin has best succeeded in classical allegory. Louis XIV., who commenced his reign in 1643, resolved to complete the intentions of his predecessor, in giving to France a school of native artists; and, by the institution of academies, conferring rewards, and raising to honors, so far accomplished his purpose, as respected the cultivation of the art by Frenchmen, to a very considerable extent. The school, however, thus created, was composed of imitators in their profession, and flatterers of their royal patron. True, vigorous, original genius, lives not to be called forth at the smile of a monarch, nor by permission to display its powers in painted panegyrics on the walls of a palace. As well might we expect, in the artificial atmosphere of the hothouse, the strength, and beauty, and freshness, which bloom amid glades and groves, freely visited by the pure breath of heaven. The great master of this school was Le Brun, for so the Scotch name of Brown, from a family of which name he was descended, has been translated. He was born in 1619, of a family long attached to the practice of the arts, and became the favorite pupil of Vouet, whose precepts in many respects he too faithfully retained. Yet Le Brun had good capabilities,--a lively fancy, great dexterity of hand, and not unfrequently noble conceptions. But in all things he is too artificial--a defect never redeemable by any display even of the most splendid technical qualities. In the paintings of Le Brun, the want of simplicity is conspicuous in the forced attitudes of his figures, and in their too systematic expression. Both these imperfections have resulted from the same cause--neglect of nature, neglect operating by different effects. In the former case, the artist has designed too much from memory, or--a common fault, we should be inclined to say, in French art--has taken his attitudes from the theatre. In the second, it is easy to perceive, that he aimed at reducing the infinite and minute changes, of expression to a theory of academic rules; indeed, his pictures are but commentaries, in this respect, upon his celebrated treatise on the Passions. The coloring in these performances is glaring, without firmness of shadow, and the local tones are false; hence the general effect is shallow, with a monotony of hue, arising, not so much from want of variety in the tints, as from error in keeping. The best works of Le Brun are the five grand pictures from the life of Alexander, which, notwithstanding the defects inherent in his style, are productions of dignity and grandeur, exhibiting great fertility both of composition and of resource in mechanic art; but surely Voltaire must intend his assertion to be restricted to France, when he says, that engravings of these paintings are more sought after than those of the battles of Constantine, by Raphael and Julio Romano. The truth of the preceding remarks on the causes which have contributed, in France, to the mediocrity of painting, is placed in a striking view by the tyranny, the absolute despotism, in which Le Brun was enabled to lord it over his contemporaries, whether painters, sculptors, or architects. Every one was forced to become the observant servitor of him whom the court favored, or enjoyed the option of remaining unemployed. Such was the fate of Le Sueur, not merely the superior of Le Brun, but, with the exception of Poussin, to whom even in some respects he is more than equal, the best painter France has ever produced--the sole one in whose works are found natural simplicity and repose. He took Raphael for his model, whose feeling, sober grace, and internal dignity, do not contribute even now to render his imitation popular. If Le Sueur were less frequently inferior to himself, he would have stood in the first rank of his profession, though he died in 1655, at the early age of thirtyeight. Bourdon, Valentin, and Megnard, were also contemporaries, and in some respects equals, of Le Brun. To this period, though only by chronology, and to France merely by birth, belongs Claude Gelee, better known as Claude Lorrain, from his native province, where he was born in 1600, dying in his 88th year at Rome, where he resided during the greater part of the reigns of Louis XIII. and XIV., having never crossed the Alps after leaving home as the runaway apprentice of a pastry cook. To this artist, self-taught, and at first apparently more than commonly incapable, landscape painting owes its interest and its loveliness as a separate and dignified branch of art. In the sweetest, as in the most brilliant, effects of light--from the first blush of day to the fall of dewy eve, Claude is unrivalled, or even unapproached, if in one or two instances we except our own Wilson. The aerial perspective, and the liquid softness of the tones, in his pictures,--the leafing, forms, and branching of the trees, the light flickering clouds, the transparency of hue, the retiring distances, all make as near approaches to nature as it is possible for art to accomplish. Still there is one grand defect in the representations of Claude, which to a degree destroys the natural effect of their constituent features;--they are too frequently compositions, or what are termed heroic landscape. This certainly heightens the charm merely as respects the imagination, but detracts from the still deeper interests of reality. For this practice, which, indeed, is too common with landscape painters, there can be found also no plea, till it has been proved that the majesty and variety of nature are unequal to the powers of the pencil. The French painters of the eighteenth century were numerous, and on the whole superior to those of the same era in Italy. Throughout the whole, however, we detect the principles of the school of Louis XIV., as respects the individual qualities of the art; while in the philosophy of taste, more especially as affects painting, are discoverable the effects of the mechanical and systematic criticism--the mere pedantry of learning, which, originating with the writers of that age, spread over Europe, nor, in art, is yet entirely exploded. Cases is one of the most eminent of native artists, who was overlooked during his lifetime; but what is the meaning of Voltaire's remark on this artist? 'Chaque nation cherche à se faire valoir; les Français font valoir les autres nations en tout genre.' The taste of this writer in the fine arts is not less contemptible than in the principles of nobler literature, and in religion. The tawdry nudities which we have seen still suspended in the _Salle de Tableaux_, at Ferney, are a practical testimony of the one fact; and, place serving, it would be no difficult matter to prove the other, or rather, we trust, it needs no exposition. Santerre studied nature, designs with correctness, and colors agreeably, but he rises not above mediocrity; nor will it be admitted, as asserted by his countrymen, that his picture of Adam and Eve is one of the best in modern art. The two Parrocels and Bourgoyn painted combats, chiefly of horsemen. Jouvenet shows talent in design, but colors too yellow; is remarkable as having painted in old age with his left hand. Rigaud is called the French Rubens. Le Moine, in the Apotheosis of Henry IV. at Versailles, has left a striking and well-colored composition, but one of those incongruous allegories, which, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, formed the besetting sin of French art. La Fosse, the two Boulognes, De Troy, Raous, Tremoilliere, and especially Vanloo, in history; Vateau, in grotesque subjects; Desportes and Audry, in animals; Vernet, the admirable marine painter, with others of less note, bring down our researches to the middle of the last century. The founder and the representative of the modern French school is David. Born in 1750, he early saw and forsook the conventional feebleness, and, to a great degree, the false glare, of contemporaries, and thus merits the appellation of restorer of art. Unfortunately, however, he engaged in other revolutions than those of taste, and participated too largely in the atrocities which desecrated the close of last century. As one of the regicides, he was, at the restoration, driven into exile--a useless severity, which might have been spared in favor of one who has contributed largely to the solid glory of his country. He died at Brussels in 1825. The leading defect of preceding art in France, is a want of dignified and correct form; next, of simple and natural expression. The former the genius of David detected, and sought to apply the remedy in the careful study of antique sculpture. In this he has been far from unsuccessful; his drawing is most correct, his style of design noble, but both are cold and without feeling. The second defect David either did not discover, or has failed in rectifying. The system which he pursued was in part excellent, but he followed it too exclusively. Statuary can give little to painting beyond form and proportion--the essentials, indeed--but expression, action, not less true and dignified, but more varied, and composition, not to mention coloring, must be added from nature. Here David has failed. He either conceived that the artists who preceded him wanted only form to render French art perfect, or that, by grouping the statuary of ancient Greece in more violent and complicated action, and with more vehemence of expression, pictures would be produced, such, to use his own words, 'that if an Athenian were to return to this world, they might appear to him the works of a Greek painter.' Like Poussin, then, he lived too much for antiquity, and too little with the present; but if Poussin has often given to representations of the most perfect art, instead of delineations of nature, he has at least depicted antiquity as it is, in all its simplicity and perfect repose. David has not done this; he has completely changed, nay, inverted, the character of ancient art, by adding exaggerated expression and forced attitude. The coloring is also very indifferent; for though highly finished, the effect is hard and dry, without sweetness or depth; and while the general tone inclines to the bronze or metallic, the local tints are feeble or untrue. Here, likewise, we discover an endeavor at improvement failing through neglect of the proper object of study. Wishing to avoid the glaring hues of his predecessors, David has fallen into the opposite extreme from overlooking the living subject. The grouping, too, participates in the meagreness inseparable from the system, the arrangement of the figures often approaching to the basso-relievo, where they necessarily stand in lines, while, to relieve the sameness thus produced, the forms are violently and ungracefully contrasted in themselves. Of this a striking instance occurs in the famous picture of the Horatii, who are ranged rank and file, receding from the spectator, so that only one is completely seen, the heads of the others being in profile, each with an arm and foot extended, one, by way of variety, reaching forth his left hand to take the oath dictated by the father, who stands on the opposite side! Without doubt, however, David was a man of great genius, and when he errs, it is more through defect of system than of talent; but the former being his own creation, he stands responsible for its faults. Besides that just quoted, his best performances are Leonidas with the Spartans at Thermopylæ, one of the best colored of his pictures, but the figure of the chief wants majesty; the Death of Socrates is destitute of that solemnity of repose, yet activity of feeling, which we have been accustomed to associate with the scene; the Funeral of Patroclus--a fine antique composition, but French in feeling; the Coronation of Napoleon--a splendid failure; the Rape of the Sabines--much fine drawing, and the usual share of bustle--expression extravagant, yet cold. In portrait, as might have been anticipated from the range of his studies, David was unequal to himself. His best performances in this walk are the numerous likenesses of his imperial patron. We have seen the original sketch for one of these, which indeed was never afterwards touched, taken during the last few hours of undiminished power possessed by Napoleon in Paris. The greater part of the preceding day and night had been spent in arranging the final operations of the campaign which terminated in the battle of Waterloo. When now past midnight, instead of retiring to repose, the emperor sent for David, to whom he had promised to sit, and who was in waiting in an apartment of the Tuileries. 'My friend,' said Napoleon to the artist, on entering, 'there are yet some hours till four, when we are finally to review the defences of the capital; in the meantime, _faites votre possible_--(do your utmost), while I read these despatches.' But exhausted nature could hold out no longer; the paper dropt from the nerveless hand, and Napoleon sunk to sleep. In this attitude the painter has represented him. The pale and lofty forehead, the careworn features, the relaxed expression, the very accompaniments, wear an impress inexpressibly tender and melancholy. With the dawn Napoleon awoke, and springing to his feet, was about to address David, when a taper just expiring in the socket arrested his eye. Folding his arms on his breast, a usual posture of thought, he contemplated in silence its dying struggles. When with the last gleam the rays of the morning sun penetrated through the half closed window-curtains, 'Were I superstitious,' said Napoleon, a faint smile playing about his beautiful mouth, 'the first object on which my sight has rested this day might be deemed ominous; but,' pointing to the rising sun, 'the augury is doubtful--at least, the prayer of the Grecian hero will be accorded,--we shall perish in light!' CHAPTER XIII. THE history of Painting in England embraces only a very recent period in the annals of the art. But though chronologically, as well as from the peculiar interest of the subject, it is to be treated last, this arrangement is not adopted from the same motive as actuates foreign critics, namely, the alleged inferiority of British painting. It has been shown, we trust satisfactorily, that in the real condition of taste, in the modes of practice and in the principles of theory, our school of Sculpture, though not equal in specimens yet produced, is superior to every other, not only now, but formerly, in Europe. In favor of our painters, we go further--and yet not so far. Pictures, and in more than one branch, painted in this country, and by native living artists, can be produced superior to any contemporary examples in any part of the Continent; but, in its theoretic principles, and in the practice introduced in consequence of these, the English school has sadly departed from the perfect labours and just science of the old masters. This has arisen from following a course in some respects opposite to that which has been adopted in sculpture, as shall hereafter be the endeavor to point out. Again, if we review our early history, it appears, that in the ages immediately subsequent to the revival of art, native artists in this country, in the ingenious processes then known, were not inferior to contemporary names in Italy, France, or Germany. It is sufficient here merely to refer to Walpole's interesting work; in which it is shown, that before the middle of the thirteenth century, two hundred years prior to Van Eyck, evidences are found of oil-painting in England; and that in the fourteenth, painting on glass, heraldic emblazonment, the illumination of manuscripts, with all the similar approaches to elegance then practised, were cultivated among our ancestors, and by natives whose names are preserved, with equal success as elsewhere. Causes, therefore, originating in the moral and political condition of the people, can alone explain the striking inferiority of English art during the period of greatest splendor in its modern history. The opinions, indeed, promulgated by the French and Italian writers, not excepting Winklemann, and so complacently entertained even now on the Continent, respecting the deleterious influence of climate upon English genius, are, in their philosophy, too contemptible to merit serious investigation. Nor are similar theories of our own and other authors exempted from this censure, which ascribe excellence, as for instance in ancient Greece, to the propitious effects of the same physical cause. The mighty and the immortal energies of the human mind are independent of all other external causes; they will bear up against all other external pressure--save moral and political degradation. In fact, art in England was crushed almost in its cradle by the civil wars of York and Lancaster. Warfare between different nations, where the struggle is from rivalry of interests or empire, rather favors the developement of national talent; the activity of martial achievement conveys, through all the relations of citizenship, and to every field of honorable exertion, a corresponding vigor and elasticity of mind--an ardent love of glory and of country--raising high the spirit of emulation, yet binding closer the ties of fellowship. In the unhallowed commotion of civil contest, all these effects are reversed; while in England, the desecration of country consequent on such feuds was deeper than perhaps in any other instance of modern times, from religion, which in other states, under like unhappy circumstances, had afforded an asylum to arts and to peace, here taking part with the combatants. These political divisions healed, religious dissensions broke in upon the national quiet, at a time, too, when a taste for the fine arts was gaining ground in the different states of Europe. When at length every animosity and partial feeling had subsided in the generous consciousness of being Englishmen, an eager thirst for nautical enterprise engaged the minds of the subjects of Elizabeth and James. The wealth, security, and information which flowed from these exertions, were beginning to create taste, and to provide means highly favorable to the future progress of painting. The predilections of Charles, likewise, as also his knowledge, were calculated to improve and to direct in the best manner these advantages. The collection of pictures which he formed was the most valuable then in Europe, and composed of pieces especially adapted to a national gallery, and to the design of creating a native school. The most eminent artists of the age, invited to his court, found their labors at once skilfully appreciated and munificently rewarded. This unfortunate monarch had the satisfaction to perceive the refinement beginning to spread among his subjects, even in the remotest and least opulent portion of his dominions. In Scotland, Jamieson, born at Aberdeen, in 1586, and pupil of Rubens, has left, in the universities of his native place and elsewhere, fruits of his genius which by no means show him unworthy of the appellation of the Scottish Vandyke. To this painter Charles sat, and further distinguished him by peculiar marks of royal favor. In England, painting was naturally still more flourishing in prospect; the nobles imitated, and some shared in, the taste of their sovereign, while a love of elegant acquirement was generally diffused. This period, also, was highly favorable to a new and aspiring epoch in English art, from the great and original acquirements previously made in poetry and elegant literature, which both prepared the public mind to relish similar displays of talent in a cognate branch; while they evinced and cherished that creative spirit which may render available the introduction of improved modes, without degenerating into imitation in its own efforts. The progress of successful art in Greece, and in republican Italy, with the absence of nationality in that of ancient Rome and of modern France, exhibits the justice of the remark, and the importance of the acquisition. The reign of Charles, I., thus appears to have been one of the most favorable periods in our history for the foundation of a British school of art; indeed, we perceive that every essential towards this had been accomplished. The fearful concussions which closed in blood the career of that unhappy monarch, while they shook the entire realm from its propriety, proved more pernicious to the cultivation of the arts of elegance, than has usually been the case even in civil commotion. The lowest and most illiterate, now armed with some degree of power, destroyed, because they knew not how to value; while the coarse hypocrisy and more dangerous cunning, or the stern bigotry, of their leaders, viewed with the malignity of ignorance, or the hatred of party, all evidence of superior refinement. In thus rapidly reviewing the leading causes which have concurred to retard the progress of early art in this country, the Reformation has been merely alluded to as turning aside attention to other pursuits. The commonly received opinion which makes this event a primary and permanent source of our inferiority, seems to rest on a very imperfect knowledge of facts. When the glorious doctrines of the Reformation obtained footing in England, no advance had yet been effected in the formation of a native school; the national refinement was in no degree prepared for the successful cultivation of painting; nor do any circumstances particularly favorable induce the belief, that had the Catholic continued to be the established faith, the arts would have improved. On the contrary, though the number of pictures would doubtless have multiplied, these, as in France at the same period, and under circumstances incomparably more felicitous, must have been the works of foreign artists; consequently, by introducing an artificial manner before any national character of art had been formed, the exoteric taste would, in all probability, have for ever bound up in conventional trammels, the freshness of original conception, and the vigor of national genius. Such we have seen to be the invariable effects of introducing, instead of rearing, art, among every people where the experiment has been attempted. The Reformation, by restoring to the human mind the uncontrolled exercise of its own faculties, by unlocking the barriers by which the will and the powers of free inquiry had been imprisoned, has stamped upon every British institution, as upon every effort of British talent, the worth and the manliness of independent character. Our Fine Arts, though the last to feel, do at length experience this happy influence. The particular views entertained, or rather taken up without examination, have led, on this subject, to erroneous conceptions, both of the existing condition of art, and of the state of royal patronage. Henry VIII. certainly endeavored by every means to induce the most esteemed painters of the age to visit his court; while the encouragement which he offered was not only continued, but increased with more ample means, after the Reformation had commenced; as far as his influence went, there was a change for the better. But his was neither a cultivated nor a natural taste. The sentiment was merely one of rivalry, stirred up by imitation of his contemporaries, Francis I. and Charles V. His subjects and courtiers, not even animated by such factitious impulse, were, generally speaking, still less qualified to assist in rearing national art. Neither did there exist, in any other form, a previous standard of characteristic originality; a most important consideration, as already shown--for, with the exception of Surrey, no poet of genius capable of giving to taste an abiding tone of nationality had yet appeared. Under these circumstances, had the importation of foreign art--and it is clear none other could have been encouraged--taken place to any extent; even had Raphael and Titian accepted the invitation of the English monarch, beyond bare possession, their works would have been valueless to the nation; or worse--they would have depressed, by an unapproachable model, the aspirings of native talent, fixing for ever our arts in the mediocrity of imitation. The opposition, also, which the Reformers are accused of having bent against the practice of painting has been altogether misrepresented. Not only were they not opposed to such acquirements in their proper place, but the assurance is, that they viewed such accomplishments with favor. Among the earliest Reformers, the movers of that emancipation which regenerated a portion, and made despotism more tolerable in the rest, of Europe, were to be found the most accomplished minds and the most elegant scholarship of which the age could boast. Indeed, their superior enlightenment was the human means of that liberty, in which through Christ they had become free. For such men to be the enemies of intelligence, of whatever description, if under proper guidance, and in due subserviency to higher knowledge, was to place obstacles to the spread of their own principles. Hence in Germany and in the Low Countries, the fine arts were admired and patronised by the leading Reformers. Holbein came to England most warmly recommended by Luther, who has already been named as the friend of other contemporary artists. In one respect, the Reformers certainly may be said to have been hostile to art. They proscribed the introduction of pictures into their churches. To this prohibition only, extended the penal statutes of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, about which so much outcry has been raised. No proscription, no interdict against religious paintings merely as such, was agitated, till the period already alluded to as the most truly disastrous to national refinement, when, in 1643, a bigoted parliament ordered, 'that all pictures which had the representation of the Saviour or the Virgin Mary in them should be burned.' The brutal fanaticism, and still more disgusting hypocrisy, of the adherents of Oliver Cromwell, have in this and in similar instances been most unjustly mixed up with the pure spirit and unsullied zeal of the genuine followers of Martin Luther. It is not intended, however, indeed it cannot be denied, that to the mere practice of painting, and to the multiplication of its labours, the exclusion of pictures from the churches is injurious. But extension is not improvement. So far, then, the Reformation has proved permanently hostile to the art. But highly as we honor the talent of artisanship, and intimately connected as is the glory of the land with the reputation of its arts, we cannot for one moment entertain the proposal now so generally, it had almost been said unblushingly, brought forward, of converting our churches 'into spacious repositories' for the productions of the pencil. Here we have explicitly to state an opinion, though opposed by almost every writer on the arts; first, that neither is the house of God a proper receptacle for pictures; nor, secondly, if every Protestant place of worship were open to such ornaments, is it clear that art would be materially advantaged. Let our sacred edifices be as nobly simple, as massively grand, as may be; let them exhibit every beauty of architecture, if needful; the effect will elevate, without distracting, the mind; or let the solemn representations of sculpture invite remembrance to dwell upon the departed, who sleep around the living worshipper. Such thoughts prepare the mind for its duties. But pictures do not seem so immediately associated, either with the place or with our meditations; with us, the only association is that of mere ornament. We might, however, be accused of treating here the subject too seriously, were an attempt made to show the sinfulness of abducing even one thought from heaven, to fix it on a merely ornamental appendage. We shall therefore suppose, that in our country, people do not go to church to see pictures, and that, as elsewhere, pictures are here painted to be seen. Now, the time of divine service with us is short, and that space is passed, without intermission, in sacred duties, in prayer, in praise, and in exhortation. Either these momentous engagements or the pictures must be neglected. In the Romish church the service is long, composed of many ceremonies in which the audience take no share, and during which, the mind may be employed in contemplating a religious painting, with at least equal profit as the dressings and undressings, the crossings, genuflexions, perambulations, and incensings, which are being enacted by the officials. In a Protestant assembly, every one is seated in his place; a picture can be viewed properly from a very few points, perhaps only one; granting, then, all the advantages 'of pictures in unison with the feelings of the mind, exemplifying in the most striking manner the objects of its highest admiration and respect,' how limited is the number that could enjoy these? The Catholic church, again, knows not the impediment of pews, and the individuals of the congregation may move and change positions at pleasure. Protestant churches are open only on Sundays, or a few fast days, while we have no useless train of idle retainers to show the curiosities of the place; the Catholic church is open from sunrise to sunset throughout the year, each with its sacristans, vergers, macemen, &c. in constant attendance. In the Romish ritual, external emblems are certainly permitted as stimulants to inward devotion; of these, pictures are among the most favored. In our faith, the symbols are simple as its practice, and too sacred even to be named here. We have no wish, then, to decry the use or advantage of paintings to the Catholic; but it seems sufficiently obvious, that to the Protestant they can at best be useless in a place of public worship. In reference to the second consideration, namely, the profit thus accruing to the arts of the country, it has been stated above, that only to the multiplication of paintings has the exclusion in question proved hurtful, and not to the improvement or perfection of the art. In this respect the merits of the Reformation have not only been overlooked, but denied, while the claims of Catholicism, as favorable to elegance, have been too highly exalted. True, a great proportion of the patronage by which the arts have been supported in Italy has been extended by churchmen; this has all been put down to the account of the system. But it is to be remembered, that this protection has been granted more frequently in the character of lay noblemen and princes, than of ecclesiastics. The most splendid works of the pencil are in the private palaces of the popes and cardinals, and other members of the hierarchy; laymen with the same means would have acted similarly. During the infancy of the arts, their feebleness was stayed, and their vigorous manhood nourished, by the free corporations of the republican cities. The Catholic Church only received the arts as orphans, after her temporal, and therefore improper ambition, had destroyed their true and natural parent--Liberty. At this moment, too, very few fine pictures are in churches; they are in public galleries, in private collections, in the cabinets of the curious, and in palaces. Where, then, is the vaunted superiority in the Catholic profession, or where the ancient and permanent disabilities under which Protestantism has been represented as labouring, in regard to the arts of elegance? And why should we incur even the possibility of contaminating the purity and the spirituality of our faith, or of even offending the mind of the humblest believer, by filling our churches with pictures, when there remains to us the amplest field yet unoccupied? We have, in fact, all that is yet in possession of high art; in our royal palaces, in the almost regal seats of our nobility, in our national galleries, in the halls of our universities and institutions, and in our public buildings of every description. Has not the pencil 'ample verge' and 'room' appropriate? If these advantages have hitherto remained without fruit, let it be remembered, that the defective returns have not been occasioned by imbecility or idleness--the labourers have been otherwise engaged. During only three centuries of poor and struggling Protestantism, tenfold more extensive and valuable accessions to true knowledge have been realized than were accomplished in the space of a thousand years of the prosperous and uncontrolled empire of Catholicism. That this uprousing of the human spirit has become not less refined than it has been vigorous, is evident from the fact which connects these remarks with our subject, namely, that now, in Protestant Britain, is to be found the only original, and the most flourishing school of painting in Europe. In pursuing the history of English art posterior to the Restoration, little of importance occurs till the late and present reigns. Charles II. had wit, but no great share of taste, and that little, like his morals, was equally flimsy and meretricious. He trifled with Verrio and Gennaro in decorating ceilings and covering walls; while Lely, whose light and graceful, but feeble pencil, had in succession traced the melancholy countenance of the Martyr, and the bluff face of the Protector,[C] was employed as state portrait-painter on the sleepy and luxurious beauties of the court. During the succeeding reigns, to the accession of George I., lived Kneller, a native of Lubec, an artist of considerable talent, but who painted too expeditiously to paint well, and who was too intent upon sharing the wealth of his own age to leave many drafts that would be honored by posterity, though he painted in his life seven English and three foreign sovereigns. His head of Sir Isaac Newton is worth them all. During the same period we find many native artists of obscure fame and merits; as Dobson, who died in 1646, and was brought into notice through the generosity of Vandyke. Riley, (John), born in the same year, possessed, according to Walpole, more talent than any of his countrymen. It was to this artist that Charles II. said, 'Od's fish, man, if your picture of me be a likeness, I am an ugly fellow.' Hoskins and Cooper, uncle and nephew, were celebrated miniature-painters, especially the latter, who was married to a sister of Pope's mother. Henry, who was employed by King William in the reparation of Raphael's cartoons. Highmore painted the only portrait known of the poet Young. Greenhill and Buckshorn were pupils of Lely. Jervas, who, in spite of art, contrived to make a fortune and to set up a carriage; upon which Kneller remarked, in his broken English, 'Ah, mine Cot! if de horses do not draw better dan he, de journey will never have an end.' The praises lavished by Pope on this his master evince the wretched condition of general taste, when we consider these praises as merely the echo of the public voice. Richardson is best known as a writer on art; though a very inferior artist, he stood at the head of the profession on the death of Kneller. His scholar and son-in-law, Hudson, succeeded in the dignity of metropolitan portrait-painter, though opposed for some time by Liotard, a Genevese, and Vanloo, a Frenchman. Hudson was the master of Reynolds, with whom the British school first assumes the dignity of higher art, the elevation commencing with the portraits painted by Sir Joshua on his return from the Continent in 1752-3. Previously, however, had appeared Hogarth, the most original of all painters; but his pictures, from their subjects, were not calculated, in proportion to their merit, to refine the national taste. So early, too, as 1739, the establishment of the old academy in St Martin's Lane had been silently preparing some melioration in a better manner of designing; and the introduction of costume, though poorly executed, was an advance towards truth from the absurd robes of Lely and Kneller. The association just mentioned was afterwards incorporated by his late Majesty; but the members disagreeing, the Royal Academy was founded. Here have presided the three greatest names in the art since the time of Rubens and Vandyke, perhaps since the Caracci--Reynolds, West, and Lawrence. Walpole has with justice remarked, that 'in the commencement of the reign of George I., in 1714, the arts of England were sunk almost to their lowest ebb.' The preceding sketch verifies the observation; and from the singular anomaly of a nation, during the most flourishing period of its literature, possessing a taste absolutely contemptible in the fine arts, evinces the truth of the principles advocated throughout these pages. From the Restoration to the accession of George III., the arts had never once been regarded as adding to national respectability, nor as connected with national feeling. The people crowded to have their portraits taken, without inquiring or conceiving that there was anything to know beyond the mere mechanical art. The sovereign, instead of regarding the progress of elegant taste as an important object of legislation, looked out for a limner merely as a necessary appurtenance of a court. As our monarchs of this period, not even excepting Anne, through the predilections of her husband, were, as regards painting, better acquainted with Continental art, and some more attached to everything foreign, British genius, of course overlooked, was never once called forth. Some stray Italian, Dutchman, or German, was caught hold of, patronised by royalty, supported by the nobility, and never thought of by the nation beyond face-painting in the metropolis. From the middle of the seventeenth to the first forty years of the eighteenth century, when national talent at length began to break forth in its own strength, such was the state of patronage, and the artists who enjoyed its benefits were but little qualified to create a national interest; for their mannerism and foreign modes served only the more decidedly to exclude a characteristic style, and, as must ever be the case in similar instances, prevented any developement of native originality. Another great cause of our wretched taste in the arts, and which perhaps in part grew out of these more general causes, was, that the real genius of the land was bent upon the pursuits of literature and science; while the nation had not attained that degree of refinement, security, and opulence, which enable a people to enjoy and to reward the exertions of mind, as at the present day, in all its separate and diversified departments of action. Between literary eminence and excellence in art there seems a natural connexion, as depending upon principles of taste and modes of exercise nearly similar. Letters and the Fine Arts, then, have generally been carried to the highest perfection among the same people; they have flourished in conjunction, and they have fallen together. It is to be remarked, however, that the former have always preceded; the noblest effusions of poetry have long been the delight of his country before the painter or the sculptor have reached an equal merit. Nor is this casual precedence. The labours of the poet are a necessary, in fact a creative preparation; by their rapid and wide circulation, they soften the sensibilities, arouse the imagination, give to taste an existence and a feeling of its object, and awake the mind to a consciousness of its intellectual wants. They constitute, also, a common chronicle, whether of fiction or of reality, whose events are clear to, and quickly recognisable by all. Fancy thus obtains a lore of its own, whose legends delight by repetition, and whose imagery animates the canvass or the marble with forms loved of old. Poetry, then, must precede art. All this advantage of preparation and expectancy was denied to the infancy of English painting. Milton's verse, not inferior to any precursor of Phidias or of Raphael, instead of being, as Homer's or Dante's, for centuries the manual of his countrymen, was barely known. Dryden, Addison, Pope, were yet but forming the public mind. In many respects, too, even had there not existed artists capable of constituting an epoch, the writings of these distinguished men are not favorable to vigorous originality of thought in art. Their own immediate productions are impressed with the genuine stamp of nationality, but their abstract system of criticism is often timid, almost always conventional; while in every remark on that subject, they show inexperience of the true object and philosophy of art. Even Addison here writes as a mere antiquarian, and Dryden with all the enthusiasm of poetry indeed, but with little of the sober judgment which must guide the more laborious hand and less undefined shapes of the painter. Again, the intellectual temperament and state of society favorable to the arts is directly opposed to those which promote scientific knowledge. Indeed, between the spirit of analytical inquiry, of minute research, which belongs to the investigations of science, and the creative fancy which tends to the successful exercise of the poet's or painter's art, the dissimilarity appears so great, that among the same people and at the same period, high eminence in both has never yet been attained. The amazing demonstrations of Newton, then, and the profound speculations of Locke, were by no means favorable to painting, while so entirely in infancy. They spread abroad a different taste--they engaged in the pursuit every ardent and aspiring mind. The sublime mysteries unveiled by the genius of Newton gave an especial bias to men's minds, and caused his own age to view with indifference, as light and valueless, pursuits which seemed but to minister to the amenities of life, or to hang only as graceful ornaments upon society. Having thus faintly traced the rise and progress of painting in connexion with the history of the country, we now proceed briefly to examine the principles and the practice of the British school, under the general heads of Portrait, Historical, and Landscape Painting. CHAPTER XIV. SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS is the founder of the English school. He is also the author of much that presently forms the most objectionable practice. Like every great artist, Sir Joshua must be viewed in two lights--as he stands in reference to the circumstances of his own age, and as an individual master in his profession. As the immediate successor, then, of the artists already named, and as elevating the art from their inanity to the state in which he left it, he justly ranks among the small number who compose the reformers of taste. In this aspect, his genius exhibits no ordinary claims to the gratitude of posterity, while here his merits are presented in the most favorable light. For when these are considered, on the other hand, as regards the present influence of the principles upon which the reformation, or perhaps commencement, of the English school was established, there will be found defect both in practice and theory. Indeed, the theoretical part of his professional education appears to have been founded, in the first instance, upon the erroneous modes of the writers of the age of Louis XIV., which were never laid aside, though to a certain extent modified by his studies in Italy. In fact, the pictures and the writings of Sir Joshua bear in this respect a striking resemblance--that the beauties of each break forth in despite of theory. Nature and good feeling, operating unrestrained, give to his paintings their best graces, when the ideal perfection at which he aimed has at happy moments been forgotten. In like manner, his discourses are admirable, when they deliver practical precepts, explain the suggestions of experience, or endeavor to reconcile refined taste with common sentiment. But when they speak of the abstractions and idealities of art, they become, and have already proved, most treacherous guides. This he has himself exemplified, for he has uniformly gone astray where he has implicitly followed these guides; and it may be shown that the besetting sins of the English school spring from the same sources. Sir Joshua's theory and his practice were in more than one respect inconsistent, while neither adhered so closely to, or at least did not render nature, so faithfully and so minutely, as is desirable. His perceptions of form he derived, or professed to derive, from Michael Angelo; but his practice is founded upon the principles of Rembrandt. From the explanation of these already given, with this anticipation, at some length, it must at once appear, that they were little calculated kindly to amalgamate with the decided lines, refined science, and lofty abstractions of the Florentine. But even of these principles, Sir Joshua did not follow the most valuable portion, namely, the rigid fidelity of imitation which they enjoined. He adopted them only in their concentration of light, and deep contrast of shadow, and in their massive coloring, intended for inspection at a certain distance. Instead of careful resemblance, he substituted middle forms, and large masses without details; or, to refer here to his own words, which he has most directly illustrated in his whole practice:--'the great style in art, and the most perfect imitation of nature, consist in avoiding the details and peculiarities of particular objects;' and again: 'the perfection of portrait painting consists in giving the general idea or character, without individual peculiarities.' Now, whether these principles be regarded as they affect the practice of an imitative art, and more especially in the department of portraiture; or whether they be examined in reference to the philosophy of taste and composition in historical painting, we apprehend they will be found not only reprehensible in themselves, but to be the ground work upon which have been reared the present errors of our school. It is for this reason that we shall examine them at some length. There are two styles or modes of representation in painting, which agree in producing the same general effect of resemblance, but differ in the extent to which the resemblance of individual forms is carried; or perhaps, if the expression be allowed, in the number of particular similitudes composing the aggregate resemblance. It is evident from this definition, that the portion of mental pleasure, or exercise of the imagination, arising from contemplating the productions of an imitative art, merely as such, will be increased just in proportion to the facilities afforded of augmenting comparisons between the prototype and the representation. If this be denied, it follows that the coarsest scene-painting is equal to the most finished landscape of Claude; for the general effect must be alike true in each. But again, since painting has not, like poetry, the advantage of repeated and progressive impressions; the object which the painter must hold constantly, and as primary, in view, is to add power to the first burst of effect which his work is to produce upon the mind. When, therefore, attention to the individual resemblances has caused to be neglected or overlooked the grand result or aggregate of resemblance, one of the greatest possible errors is committed. The performance is justly condemned to a low grade in art, because the author has both mistaken the real strength of the instrument which he wields, and has shown himself defective in the highest quality of genius,--comprehension and creation of a whole. Thus there are two extremes in art; and even on the adage of common life, the mean must be preferable. Hence, then, even thus far Sir Joshua's maxim, and the maxim of too large a proportion of our native school generally, appears to be erroneous, 'in avoiding details and individual character.' But in each of these extremes are found its respective, and to excellence, indispensable advantages. The nearer, therefore, they can be approached and reconciled, the more perfect will be the style. If this be doubted, the practice of the best masters will accord with a conclusion derived from the very nature of an art at once imitative and liberal. If we examine in this view the remains of classic sculpture, we find, indeed, the masses and divisions few and simple, in order to preserve the harmony and force of general effect; but so far from details being excluded, the Elgin marbles have the very veins of the horses marked, and are in every respect highly finished; and as we approach the era of Alexander, though this particular circumstance in certain cases be laid aside, yet the general divisions become even more numerous, and the details still more minute. Among the moderns, again, those masters in the art now considered, who are esteemed the most excellent, are singularly remarkable for the quantity and variety of detail which they have harmonized into one grand and perfect whole. For this we refer to the heads of Raphael, Titian, Coreggio, and Vandyke, which, though broad and grand in general effect, are so far from being defective in detail, that each separate part would form a perfect study. If, again, the history of art be considered, it has been shown, both in sculpture and in painting, that during the infancy of each art, details were imitated, while the mind was yet unable to grasp the entire subject. As improvement advanced, and genius attained the full mastery of its weapons, truth and number of constituents, grandeur and unity of design, crowned the whole. Inversely, decline is perceived to commence in the neglect of those fine and almost evanescent details, which compose the breathing, the master-touches of a work of art. Successively the progress of corruption advances, till little remain save large harsh masses, from which state the downward path is rapid, to the complete destitution of even _general_ form. How strongly, for instance, and in how short a space, was this exemplified in the fortunes of Greek sculpture in Rome! From the finishing of even Ludovico Caracci, to the sprawlings of Luca Giordano, how brief was the interval! from the exquisitely pencilled and speaking portraits of Vandyke to the glaring vacancies, the undetailed middle forms, of Lely and Kneller! These reasonings, so varied in their origin, give but one uniform conclusion, the very reverse of the principle upon which English portraits have been painted, with few exceptions, from the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds to those of the present day;--a conclusion, showing that the excellence of art, and the most perfect imitation of nature, do not consist in 'the avoiding of details,' but in the happy union of detail and of individual resemblance with greatness and breadth of general power. To avoid details is to rest contented with an inferior aim in art--to avoid, in fact, the chief difficulty and the chief glory that mark the career of the artist. This gross style of mechanical practice, which the theory now combated certainly originated, has spread over the whole of English portraiture a coarseness of effect and unfinished appearance, destitute of the agreeable lightness of a sketch, and yet without the clear and well-defined solidity of a highly-wrought picture. In like manner, the striving at some delusive, some shadowy excellence of general expression, instead of representing the air and character exactly as in the countenance of the sitter, has greatly depreciated the intellectual qualities of our art. Hence the unmeaning, common-place look which most of portraits cast at the spectator. Doubtless, in every countenance there is a general impress of thought or feeling, which may be said to constitute the habitual mental likeness of the individual. This it is of the first importance faithfully to transfer to the canvass. Without this, indeed, the most correct and elaborate pronouncing of the separate features is of no comparative value. Hence, however, it by no means follows, that 'individual peculiarities' are to be resigned. On the contrary, when judiciously introduced, they will give force by the very addition of individuality to the general resemblance. It is this which imparts the speaking impress of thought and mind to the portraits of Raphael and Titian, where 'the rapt soul sitting in the eye' seems to breathe, in all its historic energies, from the canvass. It astonishes, indeed, that such precepts should have been delivered by one who must have been sensible, that the reformation which he accomplished in contemporary art, was mainly owing to his having exploded the very same notions of generalizing resemblance, and of middle forms, held by his predecessors. In fact, Reynolds was superior to Lely or Kneller, or even Hudson, chiefly as he approached nearer to nature, by discarding mannered, conventional, and systematic modifications of her realities. And he is superior to himself exactly in those works where he has left out his own peculiar 'ways of seeing nature,' and has given her honestly and faithfully as she actually did appear. Thus his best portraits are those of his intimate friends;--men whose habits of thought and action were pressed upon him by constant observance, and in veneration of whom, and of all that belonged to them, he forgot his system in the subject before him. Such are the portraits of Dr Johnson, of Baretti, of Goldsmith, of Burney, and two of the finest and most powerful likenesses in the world, of John Hunter and Bishop Newton. As it was with Sir Joshua, so will it be with every other artist. He must not merely imitate, he must resign himself to, nature; become as a little child, leaving all artifice and false knowledge, and receive from her the precepts of truth and soberness. These remarks, though now illustrated chiefly by reference to its founder, are applicable more or less to the English school of portraiture generally. Indeed, down to the masters of the present day, these precepts operate, and often not less decidedly than in the works of those who were the contemporaries of Sir Joshua. Of the latter, the names of a few of the principal may now be enumerated. Romney, who died in 1802, ten years after the death of Sir Joshua, was an original, and to a great degree, self-taught artist. His style of design is simple, his coloring warm and rich, but his affectation of breadth has frequently induced a neglect of form, with often too vague a generalization of sentiment. The great failing of Romney--one common, indeed, to all men, in every profession, who have not been regularly educated--is something defective in his general management, so that the whole is rendered imperfect or displeasing from some peculiarity or immethodical management, which early instruction would easily have enabled him to avoid. Opie has carried the principles of Sir Joshua to the very verge of coarse and indistinct, from which the force of his own genius has scarcely secured him. His portraits have frequently not more detail than a sketch, yet are usually heavy and laboured in effect. Though undoubtedly possessing high talent, Opie's success was owing not less to the circumstances under which he rose, than to intrinsic merit. He is, however, a very unequal artist, sometimes attaining great beauty, at others falling beneath himself, which renders it difficult to pronounce generally; besides, he has several manners, though in each, the large and unfinished style predominates. Great allowance is, however, undoubtedly to be made for him, whose first portrait was painted by stealth, in moments snatched from the menial occupation of carrying offals to the house-dog of his first employer. Such was his employment as house-boy in the family of Walcott, the portrait being that of the butcher, and which there is reason to believe was painted in the shambles. No where in the history of mind, do we find such amazing instances of the power of talent over circumstances as in art. From painting likenesses at seven and sixpence in Truro, 'the Cornish boy' came to London with thirty guineas in his pocket, and, with hardly any instructions, save advice from Sir Joshua, made his way to fame and fortune. Next to Sir Joshua, of the contemporary painters, Romney and Opie supported undoubtedly the first rank, though many others, of considerable merit, would deserve notice in a more extended narrative. We shall therefore now direct attention to Historical and Landscape Painting. The excellence and amazing number of its portraits, has occasioned the merits of the English school of history to appear less than they really are. Indeed, where portraiture is practised on the principles of grand art, as in this country, there must be excellence in all the departments of the profession; and the opinion so prevalent, that portrait is an inferior branch, has seriously prejudiced both divisions of the art. It has withdrawn the historical painter, as, by way of exclusive eminence, he was solicitous to be named, from the careful study of nature in her individual modes and forms--the only true source of ideal perfection; while it has damped the precious enthusiasm which arises from the consciousness of dignified pursuit, by placing the portrait painter in the degraded rank of a secondary artizan. The more elevated the standard to which, in any study, the mind is taught to aspire, the nobler will be the fruits of exertion; but where less is expected, less will be accomplished. The portrait painter, feeling that he would not receive credit for beauties of which his art was deemed incapable, has been too ready to take the public at their own word, and to remain contented with the inferiority they were thus willing to accept. But the very reverse of all this is the truth. No essential principle of high art may not be exhibited, and indeed every one is to be found, in a first-rate portrait. Such works, too, are equally, perhaps even more rare, and by the same authors, as the masterpieces of historical composition. Hence we are conducted to our first premise as a conclusion, that where portraiture has been successfully practised, history must also flourish. A reference to the annals of the latter will prove this to be the case among ourselves, at least to a greater extent than is the general impression. Even from the time of Henry VIII. we find historical painting in repute; some of Holbein's works from history remain even more admirable than his portraits. In the reign of Mary, Antonio More was eminent, though against his inclination employed chiefly in portraiture. Elizabeth, in like manner, patronized Zucchero; and the portraits of Hilliard, one of the first English artists of merit, are in some instances, though of small size, almost historical, as Donne bears witness: ----Or hand or eye By Hilliard drawn is worth a history By a worse painter made. The labours of Rubens and Vandyke under Charles, especially the Banqueting-House at Whitehall by the former, continue to show that history was not unpatronized. Still no English school can properly be said to have been formed till the eighteenth century, when Sir James Thornhill, in the reign of Queen Anne, was appointed historical painter to the court. The works of this artist are numerous, and we are disposed to rank them higher than they are commonly appreciated. Those in St. Paul's and at Greenwich are well known; and though it be questionable whether they could have been much better executed by any other artist at that time in Europe, yet so miserable was the encouragement, that Thornhill is reported to have been paid for some of these labours by the square yard for two pounds. Thus the annals of historical painting in England furnish little to reward research or to interest the reader, previous to the appearance of Hogarth, born 1698, in the Old Bailey, the son of a schoolmaster, and died in 1764, being the first native artist who proved that there existed subject in our manners, and talent in our land, for other painting than portrait. Hogarth claims the highest praise of genius; he was an original inventor; nay, more, he both struck out a new path, and qualified himself to walk therein. From an engraver of armorial bearings and ornaments on plate, he taught himself to be a painter. The aim of no artist has been more mistaken, at least estimated on principles more opposed, than that of Hogarth. Some have ranked him as a satirical, some as a grotesque painter, while others have not scrupled to rate him merely as a caricaturist. If, however, historical painting consist in the delineation of manners, in the expression of sentiment, and in striking representation of natural character, few names in art will stand higher than Hogarth; while, beyond most painters, he has extended the bounds of the art, in the alliance which he has formed between the imagination and the heart,--between amusing of the external sense and the profound reflections thus awakened. His pictures are not merely passing scenes, or momentary actions; they are profound moral lessons. It is this which raises him far above the Dutch or Flemish school, with whose general imitation of national customs, his firm and individual grasp of the morality of common life has with great injustice been confounded. From the lofty abstractions of the Italian masters, again, he differs widely, but not, as usually supposed, because he represents low, but because he paints real life. In this respect, the observation of Walpole, that, 'Hogarth's place is between the Italians, whom we may consider as epic poets and tragedians; and the Flemish painters, who are as writers of farce, and editors of burlesque nature,' is founded in utter mistake, or misrepresentation; he never forgave the artist's independence of his _connoisseurship_. Hogarth's place is not between, but above and apart. He 'holds the mirror up to nature,' not to exhibit graphic powers of mimicry, not to depict the sublimity of mind, or the idealities of form, but 'to show Vice her own features,' man 'his own image.' His predecessor thus standing alone, Sir Joshua Reynolds claims to be the founder of English historical painting in its recognised acceptation. Indeed, his principles already, or hereafter to be explained, have been followed by all succeeding artists, or have influenced practice in history no less than in portraiture. And what this influence accomplished in the latter, it certainly has also effected in the former department, with this difference indeed, that in the first it created, in the second improved, giving to each a large, bold, and energetic manner, which was at least a step greatly in advance, a most respectable approximation, in the path of excellence. But this, as a resting-place, was far less perfect in history than in any other branch of the art, since the style was adverse to attainment in many of those qualities justly deemed essential. Hence is Sir Joshua not only inferior to himself in history, but his example has, on the whole, retarded the advancement of the study amongst us. Successors have either too often rested in imitation of his manner, or they have carried his principles forward, in which case they are unfortunately calculated to lead farther from the genuine sources of pure taste and substantial composition. The masterpieces of Sir Joshua are his representations of children; and in many historical, or rather fancy pieces of this character, as the Infant Hercules, the Strawberry Girl, Puck, Cupid and Psyche, Hope nursing Love, his labours are truly admirable. Such subjects were just fitted to his bland and flowing pencil, while they suffered nothing from undecided form and contours feebly expressed. The arch, yet simple expression, the lovely, yet almost grotesque individuality of character, in the heads of his children, the execution, and even coloring--all is equally natural and exquisite. They are among the most perfect gems of art. Only second to the similar productions of Coreggio, they are superior to everything done on the Continent since the days of Rubens and Fiammingo. It appears singular, then, on the first view of the matter, that Sir Joshua should have so frequently failed, and on the whole left so few good female portraits, while so nearly attaining perfection in subjects of allied grace and loveliness. But it is to be remarked, a style of handling broad and facile, yet peculiarly soft and fleshy, which in these instances produces effects so beautiful without much finish, is not equally adapted to express the equally soft, yet decided forms and delicate movements of the female countenance. Besides, Sir Joshua had peculiar notions of grace, which affected ease and nature, rather than actually represented the easy and the natural. He wished to avoid stiffness, and has often lapsed into the contrasted and theatrical. His picture of Mrs Siddons, as the Tragic Muse, however, is pronounced by Sir Thomas Lawrence to be 'a work of the highest epic character, and indisputably the finest female portrait in the world.' How far, however, either that, or the no less celebrated picture of Garrick, can rank with historical portraitures, at least considered with those of Raphael and Titian, may justly be questioned. Of the more elevated and serious historical compositions of Sir Joshua, the Death of Cardinal Beaufort is the grandest, the best drawn, and the most powerfully colored; the only defect is the expression, which is too material; Ugolino is a failure, if intended for the fierce inmate of Dante's 'tower of famine:' these want dignity and truth of character. The designs at Oxford are fine; the Nativity, in imitation of the famous Notte of Coreggio, is a splendid performance. Sir Joshua Reynolds, then, owed more to taste and application than to genius; more to incessant practice than to science; he derived all from his predecessors which he has bequeathed to posterity; but if, in making the transmission, he added no new nor essential principle of imitation or invention, he established in high practical excellence the arts of his country. Among those whose labours in historical painting connect the former with the present school, Barry stands foremost in time as in merit. The performances of this artist exhibit, in a very striking manner, the justice of some of the preceding remarks. They are destitute of the most essential and touching graces of imitative representation; they want, in short, all that portraiture, which their author affected to despise, could have given--life, nature, truth, and sweetness, without this absence being compensated by any extraordinary beauties of what is termed higher art. The drawing, though often good, is also not seldom defective; while the coloring is uniformly harsh, and the management without force. Imagination and invention run riot without due control of the judgment; not that the fervor of poetic enthusiasm snatches a too daring grace, but rather the unpruned fertility of conception frequently unites the most glaring incongruities. Yet Barry is far from being without power or science; his great deficiences were a chaste taste and mellowed practice. No man better understood, or has written more learnedly, on the abstract principles of composition; indeed, he has been accused of devoting too much attention to the mere theory and literature of his art, while he neglected Raphael's golden application of Cicero's maxim--'Nulla dies sine linea.' There existed, however, in the character of Barry, notwithstanding a rudeness of exterior, and ignorance or disregard of the proprieties of polished life, a moral grandeur of unshaken resolve, of enduring enthusiasm, of stern and uncompromising self-denial, in his professional career, which invest his memory with no common interest. The man who could undertake, alone, and with no certain prospect of remuneration, one of the greatest works which has been attempted within two centuries--and that, too, with only sixteen shillings in his pocket; who, during seven years of struggle, prosecuted that work to a completion, often thus labouring all day, while he sat up the greater part of the night finishing some sketch for the publishers, in order to make provision for the passing hour;--such a man presents claims to admiration of higher dignity than even those of genius. The great work undertaken and finished amid these difficulties, is the series of six pictures, of the size of life, representing the progress of civilization, in the Hall of the Society of Arts; and it reflects the highest honor on that useful institution, that its gratuitous reward enabled the artist to enjoy his only permanent, though small income, of about £60 yearly. That such a member should have been ejected from the Royal Academy of Great Britain, in which also he held the Chair of Painting, must be considered as a common calamity both to that body and to himself: to him it certainly was, for the degradation embittered the enjoyment, and very seriously impaired the means, of existence. Barry died in 1806, having been born at Cork in 1741; rising from a sailor boy, chalking his rude fancies on the deck of his father's coaster, self-taught, to be the painter now described--the learned writer on his art--the friend of Samuel Johnson and of Edmund Burke. Many other names of minor reputation might be mentioned,--as Hayman, Mortimer, &c.,--who occasionally with portrait, painted history, but to no extent. This branch of the art, except for the labours of the late Sir Benjamin West, at the close of the last century, would almost have been without a representative amongst us. From that period, very great progress in all the departments has been realized. Still, to the ancient grandeur of the historic style this venerable artist has continued to make the nearest approaches. To the New World, succeeding ages will stand indebted for West; but for the painter, the arts are under obligation to England. It is singular, too, that the advice and services of a Scotsman were the immediate inducements which prevented this ornament of two worlds from returning to his native country, in which case his talents would most probably have been lost to both. The state of patronage and of taste could not have afforded to him the means nor the incitement of rising beyond portrait, in which we do not think West would ever have excelled. Two incidents in his lot reflect equal honor on his native and his adopted country,--like many other moral analogies, evincing the common possession of a congenial liberality and kindliness of spirit, which ought, and will, we trust, ever mingle its best affections in reciprocally advantageous and amicable intercourse. In the land of his birth, the opening genius of West was cheered with a truly tender solicitude; his future advance and his future fame seemed less the care of individual friends than of his countrymen. And, from 1763, on first setting foot in Britain, during the long course of his life, he received more encouragement from her sovereign and her people than has ever been accorded to any historical painter, native or foreign; this, too, in the midst of an unhappy, and, as then considered, rebellious contest. When we consider the labours of Sir Benjamin, in reference either to English or Continental art, they have, in both points of view, a high, but not an equal rank. In the former, they are unrivalled in magnitude, in progressive improvement, and in the excellence of the principles upon which they are composed. In comparing them with foreign art, their merits are not so absolute; but here we shall use the words of the present accomplished president. 'At an era,' says Sir Thomas Lawrence, 'when historical painting was at the lowest ebb, (with the few exceptions which the claims of the beautiful and the eminent permitted to the pencil of Sir Joshua), Mr West, sustained by the munificent patronage of his late Majesty, produced a series of compositions, from sacred and profane history, profoundly studied, and executed with the most facile power, which not only were superior to any former productions of English art, but, far surpassing contemporary merit on the Continent, were unequalled at any period below the schools of the Caracci.' In support of this high encomium, Sir Thomas instances 'the Return of Regulus to Carthage,' and 'the Shipwreck of St Paul,'--pictures which amply testify the superiority we have assumed to exist in the living arts of Britain. These, however, are by no means the only master-pieces of West, whose great glory it is to have proceeded on a system which admits of indefinite, and which tends to certain improvement. Even to his eightieth year he was employed in new exercises, not inferior to, or in some respects excelling, the enterprises of his vigorous strength. The cause of his late eminence bears strongly upon the whole tenor of our remarks in treating of Sculpture, and will best be explained in his own words. In 1811, writing to Lord Elgin, the artist thus expresses himself: 'in the last production of my pencil, which I now invite your lordship to see, it has been my ambition, though at a very advanced period of life, to introduce those refinements in art, which are so distinguished in your collection,'--(the Phidian Marbles of the Parthenon.) 'Had I been blest with seeing and studying these emanations of genius at an earlier period of life, the sentiment of their pre-eminence would have animated all my exertions; and more character, and expression, and life, would have pervaded my humble attempts at historical painting.' It is the soundness and regularity of principle expressed in, or whose existence is clearly deducible from, the entertaining of such views, that constitutes the great merit of the pictures of West. It is these qualities, too, which impart to them their utility and high value as a school of art. As far as they go, they may safely and without reserve be recommended to the student. Here he will not be led astray by brilliant though false theory, nor degraded into mannerism by peculiar though striking modes, which can please only from their peculiarity, and when they exhibit the result of native invention. All here is placed upon the broad highway of universal art; all is equable, uniformly correct, firm, and respectable; no compensation of error by an occasional loftiness of flight: the stream of invention sweeps onward calmly and majestically; if not conducting to scenes of the most stupendous sublimity, flowing at least without cataract or whirlpool, through a magnificence which is grand from its very regularity and usefulness. In these works we discover this, perhaps singular character, that in them we detect many wants, but no defects. The composition, grouping and symmetry, are unexceptionable; the drawing is particularly fine, yet without the statue-like design of the French school. But to animate this beautiful framework of art--to inspire these moulds of form and emblems of intelligence with action and sentiment--the touch of that genius, to whose final aims external science furnishes the bare instrument, is wanting. The representation is chaste and beautiful, but it is too clearly a representation; there wants the almost o'er-informing mind, the freshness of natural feeling, which give to art its truest, only mastery over the human spirit. The surpassing softness and variety of our island scenery seems to have inspired a corresponding beauty and vigorous diversity into our school of Landscape. Rural imagery may almost be said to mingle in every dream of English enjoyment. Hence this department of our arts has always been popular, and, as a necessary consequence of encouragement, has been cultivated with ardor and success. Only, indeed, when English artists have forsaken English nature, or have attempted to unite classical allegory with heroic landscape, as it is called, have they failed in this delightful branch. From an early period in the eighteenth century, the school may be said to commence, and thenceforward may justly be said to have remained unrivalled by contemporary merit in any other country. One department indeed of landscape, and that too a very charming one, namely water-color, has been, by British artists, not only invented, it may be said, but raised into a most beautiful and useful branch of dignified art. Nor let landscape be deemed, as too frequently, an inferior department: it certainly requires not the highest genius, yet so many qualities must unite in the same individual before he can attain excellence here, that Sir Joshua Reynolds used to say, 'there is more likely to be another Raphael than a second Claude.' Yet more than one native has approached the eminence of the latter. Commencing with the last century, the following arrangement will include the most esteemed landscape painters of this country. _First Class._ Wilson, born 1714, died 1782, the first of English landscape painters; aerial perspective very fine, not surpassed by Claude; great fidelity in representing natural effects; coloring, especially in his later pictures, somewhat dry; objects rather indeterminate. Gainsborough, 1727-88; a painter of universal but irregular genius; in his landscapes the most decidedly English of all our great masters. Wright, 1734-97; exquisite finishing and wonderful effects of light, especially in his Eruption of Vesuvius, rising and setting sun; touch delicate; coloring fresh and transparent. Morland, 1764-1806; it is not easy exactly to class this artist, as his landscapes are generally accessory only to his figures, while these latter are hardly of sufficient interest without such accessories. Whatever Morland accomplished was rather by the force of genius, than through study or knowledge, with the exception of some of his pictures painted about 1789-95. His great excellences lie in the unaffected exhibition of broad and vulgar character, and in the representation of domestic animals, pigs, sheep, donkeys, and worn-out horses; for as he drew merely by force of eye, his ignorance of anatomy prevented him from attempting that 'noble creature' in perfect condition. Moreland's back-grounds and distances are often truly admirable. _Second Class._ Wooton, died 1765, excellent in field-sports, horses, dogs, and landscape; but his touch and coloring are indistinct. Lambert, 1710-1765, chaste and harmonious coloring, with a slight degree of monotony; distances sweet; followed G. Poussin, whose occasional faults in harshness and black shadow he has avoided, though left far behind in sublimity and variety of composition. Barrett, from the sister isle, self-instructed, yet none of our native school has more happily caught the characteristic features of English landscape: his touch, though defective in detail, is rapid, and forcibly distinguishes, at least by their general forms, the different elements of natural composition. Marlow, concerning whom there are no exact dates, and Scott, born in 1710, died in 1772,--both excel in marine views; the latter is scarcely surpassed by the best masters of the Flemish school, and the finishing of the former is particularly happy, though he fails in trees, when attempting inland scenery. _Third Class._ This division includes many landscape painters of various, some, indeed, of very high merit, whose labours extend from the commencement of the eighteenth to an early part of the present century. Of this class the principal names are the following: Smiths of Chichester, especially John and George, and Smith of Derby;--it is singular that all three were self-taught. The two Gilpins of Carlisle; the elder by pictures of horses and wild animals, and the Rev. William Gilpin, by his writings and landscapes, have added much to this department. Sandby of Nottingham, a most exquisite landscape draughtsman, as also were Cozens and Hearne, whose paintings have great value in fidelity, and whose drawings contributed not a little towards forming the present school of water-color painting. Tull imitated too closely the Dutch masters. Wheately excelled both in minor history and landscape, especially in rural subjects. Dean, a native of Ireland, some good Italian landscapes. Dayes, Devis, of which names there were three artists more or less connected with landscape. Two Pethers of Chichester; William, both a painter and engraver of landscapes; Abraham excelled in moonlight scenes, exercising the pencil with remarkable sweetness, luxuriance, and transparency of coloring; he died in 1812. Of all the landscape painters of the British school, Wilson and Gainsborough are undoubtedly the first; nor is it easy to discriminate between them. Wilson excels in splendour of effect and magnificence of composition; but Gainsborough is more natural and pleasing, at least in his early pictures. Latterly he introduced the notion of an ideal beauty in rural nature, which has too frequently been imitated. Both possessed genius in no ordinary degree; but though to the first has been conceded the higher walk as it has been called, because imaginative, to the latter belongs that temperament of mind more essential, we think, to the landscape painter, which powerfully conceives the objects of contemplation, and places them in vivid reality before the eye and the fancy. Each has failed in the grand difficulty of landscape--the proper introduction of figures; and in the besetting defect of the English school--slovenly execution, and want of detail. Here the remarks are not confined to these artists alone, but express rather the general character. Among the masters of historical painting, as Titian, Caracci, N. Poussin, Rubens, who excelled in landscape incidentally, as it were, the scene is always subordinate to the figures. This is generally the case, too, with those who more directly professed historical or heroic landscape, as Salvator Rosa, Albano, Franceso Bolonese, with many of the most celebrated Flemish and Dutch artists. In this case the landscape is introduced either to exhibit some scenic propriety, or as a mere embellishment of the historical design. The great difficulty here lies in maintaining subordination and unity, yet preserving the interest, of the respective parts of the composition. In these beauties Claude completely fails, as do also Wilson, and most English artists who have made the attempt. The landscape overwhelms the story, while the story generally discredits the landscape; or, the attention being equally divided between both, the interest of each is weakened. This is sometimes the case with Gainsborough, often with Morland, and still more frequently in the Dutch school. In landscape painting, properly considered, the figures should always be subordinate, forming merely a part of, and corresponding with, the scene; most especially when that scene is from nature, and with her beauties ever fresh renewed, inexhaustible--there is something almost unhallowed in thrusting upon us the inferior, and mannered and crowded compositions of mere imagination. Nor is it a matter merely of taste; everything which has a tendency to lead the mind and the imagination of the artist away from nature, tends also to the deterioration of art. Hence the absurdities so visible in the history of this particular branch--Nature represented as if seen through a Claude-Lorraine-glass--skies gleaming and glaring under the appellations of sunrises and sunsets,--buildings of fantastic form and uninhabitable dimensions, under the name of Italian ruins--foliage and fields in every variety of tint, save the soft, quiet, unobtrusive hues of leaves and herbage. Surely of all painters, the British landscape painter is least excusable in deviating from the reality around him, which presents every element of his art in its best perfection, from the softest beauty in a freshness of dewy verdure elsewhere unknown, to the wildest sublimity of lake, mountain, wood, and torrent! Even in the gorgeous magnificence of our changing sky, there is a gloriousness, and grandeur of effect, which we have never seen even in Italy. If, again, he seek for objects of moral interest, there is the feudal fortalice--the cloistered abbey--the storied minster--the gothic castle, with all their rich associations;--there the mouldering monument--the fields of conflict, the scenes of tradition, of poetry, and of love--and, far amid the wild upland, gleams the mossy stone, and bends the solitary ash, over the martyr of his faith. For such as these the imagination can give us no equivalents. Coarse and undetailed, though talented, execution, has overspread every department of the British school. In the present branch, however, this manner seems especially misplaced. A landscape painting, more than any other, is viewed merely as a work of art. Consequently, the mind feels dissatisfied in the absence of those qualities of finished execution and delicate management, which constitute the essential value and character of art as such. The imitation requires not only to be general; but, to give entire pleasure, we must be enabled also to trace with ease minute and varied resemblances. The work thus affords almost the endless gratification of nature's own productions. But we shall not rest the objections to loose practice on grounds that might be disputed as a matter of dubious taste. The evil is not stayed in the effect, but endangers the very existence of its own rapid creations. Where the study is general effect only, the next object must necessarily be to produce that effect speedily: indeed, such a style completely excludes the care requisite to proper elaboration and transparent coloring. Hence tints are used, which soonest attain to the general end in view; but such tints are exactly those which fade the soonest. Hence the blackness, rawness, and want of harmony, in so many English landscapes. Hence, also, the clear and silvery tones which seem indestructible in the exquisitely finished landscapes of Claude, and the most eminent foreign artists. Generally, indeed, the best masters in this branch are decidedly those who have finished with due care. Of the works of our own school, those are also the most excellent as essays of genius, which are the most judiciously laboured as performances of art. We may now turn our attention for a little to the past state of painting in Scotland. During the eighteenth century, though there can hardly be said to have existed any separate style, so as to merit the distinction of a school apart from that of the empire generally, yet several very respectable Scottish artists are found to have practised both in London and Edinburgh. In the latter capital, towards the close of that period, a school gradually arose, which, considering the resources of the country, the opportunities of improvement, the means of patronage, and latterly, the merits of its individual masters, especially of its head, the late Sir Henry Raeburn, displays an inferiority certainly not greater than might reasonably be expected. Or we will go farther; when the invigorating influence of royal countenance and protection upon the fine arts, the superior wealth and intelligence congregated in the seat of legislature, are viewed--all concurring to foster and advance art in the capital; and when, on the other hand, we reflect, not merely on the absence of these advantages, but on the positive detriment of a non-resident nobility, whose presence might in some measure supply other deficiencies, it must be matter of astonishment, not that Scottish painting is inferior, but that it is so nearly equal, to that of London. But there needs not an appeal merely to relative excellence; the absolute merits of some of the masters now in Edinburgh, or belonging to Scotland, are not surpassed in their respective departments. It is far from the intention, in these remarks, to institute any invidious distinctions, but to state fairly the claims of Edinburgh, and that the talents of her artists, and the zeal of her people, place her, not among the secondary cities, but among the capitals of Europe. It ought also to be remembered, that in no instance are the arts of any kingdom more indebted, than those of the British Empire to Scotsmen. Not to mention the exertions of Gavin Hamilton, himself an artist, whose discoveries and knowledge of antique art materially assisted the general restoration of taste--and we do know that, in this light, Canova both regarded and ever spoke of him with gratitude--there are two cases more immediate to the present purpose. Sir William Hamilton, at his own risk and expense, though afterwards, as was only proper, in part repaid, made the most splendid collection of ancient vases now in the world, excepting that of Naples. These are in the British Museum, and have not merely refined taste, but have most materially improved the useful arts of the country. The Earl of Elgin's inestimable treasures of ancient sculpture have enriched Britain with examples of unrivalled excellence, and which have already mainly contributed to the present superiority of her genius in art. These precious remains, with indefatigable assiduity, at a ruinous and hopeless expenditure, collected--an enterprise in which kings had formerly failed--he gave to his country on repayment of not nearly his own outlay, though we have reason to know, through the late venerable Denon, that the former government of France offered to the possessor his own terms. The meritorious act of removal indeed has, with schoolboy enthusiasm, and maudlin sentimentality, been deplored as a despoiling of a classic monument. How utterly absurd is this, to lament that the time-honored labours of ancient Greece did not sink for ever beneath the violence of the despot and the ignorance of the slave, instead of being, as now, in the midst of an admiring and enlightened people, shedding abroad their beauty and their intelligence, again to revive in our living arts! Jamieson, the first of whom there is interesting notice, and one of the most accomplished of the Scottish artists, died in Edinburgh 1644. His labours, with those of the succeeding century, are connected by works and names, as Norrie, elder and younger, now fast hastening, or already, with no injustice, consigned, to oblivion. The times, agitated as they were by political and religious dissensions, offered little encouragement to the arts of elegance and peace. Throughout the early part of the eighteenth century, however, to the era even of Sir Joshua Reynolds, individual artists, natives of Scotland, may be mentioned, of attainments and practice superior to any in the history of painting during the same period in England. The cause of this is evident in the more accomplished professional education which the former received. The intercourse between Scotland and Italy, owing to various political causes, and to the great number of Scotch residents in the latter country, was then very close; hence, after attaining all that home instruction could give, hardly a single Scottish artist of eminence can be mentioned, who had not, by an abode in Italy, finished his studies where alone the highest and truest knowledge can be obtained. It would be needless to combat the opinion, that such a process is unnecessary. No artist, with a mind open to the real beauties of his profession, can visit Italy without reaping the most solid advantages, otherwise unattainable. In this respect, too, the Scottish artist seemed to enjoy a security in the very poverty of native art; for if he saw little to excite ambition, enough remained to direct study, without taste being influenced by the popularity of false modes. Hence it is not more than justice to state, that in the works of the following names, there is to be found a more uniformly pure and dignified style, if not of higher excellence, than generally distinguishes contemporary art. Ramsay, son of the poet, inherited no small portion of his father's love of nature, and power of unaffected delineation of her simplicity. His portraits present, in these respects, a charm quite refreshing, when compared with the staring mannerism of the Anglo-German school, founded by Lely and Kneller. Ramsay remained three years in Italy, from 1736. Of his accomplishments, Dr Johnson has left this testimony: 'you will not find a man in whose conversation there is more instruction, more information, and more elegance, than in Ramsay's.' Runciman, an excellent draughtsman and pleasing colorist, born in 1736. Several historical paintings, executed at Rome and in Edinburgh, evince very considerable powers both of composition and practice. He was for a length of time a very efficient teacher in the Scottish Academy of design. More, the Scottish Claude, as he is sometimes termed, whom also he selected as his model. Without, however, reaching the depth of coloring and beautiful nature which are found in that admirable painter, there are many stations which may be filled with honor. In one of these More is to be placed, while his figures have very great propriety both of selection and in the manner of introducing them. His subjects are usually Italian scenes, in the neighborhood of Rome, where he chiefly resided, and died in 1795. To these, other names of considerable merit might be added, as Cochrane, Sir George Chalmers; Barker, too, the inventor of panoramic painting, was, we believe, a native of Scotland, at least, the first work of the kind ever exhibited was in Edinburgh. Martin, who visited Italy in company with Ramsay, practised portrait painting with considerable reputation, till he retired from his professional labours on the increasing and merited popularity of his distinguished contemporary, under whom the Scottish school assumes a dignified importance, heretofore denied to its comparatively isolated endeavors. Sir Henry Raeburn, the representative of painting in Scotland from 1787 to his death 1823, was born in a suburb of the capital, 1756. Of all the distinguished artists who have attained excellence, without any peculiarity of manner, perhaps Raeburn owes least to others and most to himself in the acquisition of his art. Originally apprenticed to a goldsmith, it does not appear that he ever received a single lesson from a master even in the ordinary accomplishments of drawing. From painting miniatures with success during his apprenticeship, he turned his attention to large portraiture in oil, with no other assistance than merely copying a few portraits could give. Even these early productions must have possessed merit, since they obtained the approbation of Sir Joshua, by whose advice he visited Italy, remaining abroad two years, thus completing the round of his professional studies. The character of Sir Henry's art participates strongly in that which has prevailed in British portraiture during the last fifty years. It in fact presents the very ideal of that style whose aim is to speak most powerfully to the imagination, through the slenderest means addressed to the eye. His pictures afford the finest, we might say the most wonderful examples, how far detail may be sacrificed, and yet general effect and striking resemblance be retained. In this respect he has carried the principles of Sir Joshua to the very verge of indistinctness; but what is given has such vigorous meaning, that in the power of the leading forms, the fancy discovers an intelligence, which, overspreading the whole composition, and bursting from each master line, guides the mind triumphantly over the blank masses often composing the interior. If, then, to produce strong effect, by whatsoever means, be the object of art, Raeburn has succeeded beyond most painters; but if true excellence consist in blending into one harmonious whole the delicate markings and grand contours of nature, he has failed; if pictures are to be viewed only on the walls of a gallery, at a distance from the spectator, his portraits correspond with this arrangement; but if the eye loves to rest upon features dear to the affections, or prized by the understanding--if delight to trace the shades of feeling and the lines of thought--if these wishes can be gratified, and are indulged in the masterpieces of art, then does Raeburn, and not only he, but the great majority of the English school, rest far behind. The error, in his individual instance, as in most others, lies in the system. To this, also, which recognizes mere effect and general resemblance as all, is to be ascribed his frequent disregard of correct outline, his black and square shadows, and coarseness of coloring. Yet Raeburn saw nature with the eye of true genius, for he caught her essential forms, and often her most effective graces; but either his industry disdained, or his art was unable, to add the rest. The leading events and principal masters in the past history of British art have now been rapidly surveyed. Upon the living ornaments of the school, individually, it scarcely falls under the province of the annalist, nor is it his intention, to dwell. It is not, that matter of still farther congratulation would not thus be afforded in the evidence of national progress; for at no time has the English school occupied a more elevated position, whether compared with others, or with itself. But, estimated thus highly and thus truly, the general eminence has still gradations, which, in entering upon detail, it would be incumbent to point out. The responsibility of this duty it is the wish to avoid. An opinion ventured upon works left by their authors to the guardianship of posterity, may be canvassed in its truth or falsehood as an abstract criticism, without either wounding the feelings of the living, or, it may be, injuring the value of professional labour. From judicious observations when called for, an artist has to fear nothing, and may profit much; but it should ever be remembered, that the professional merit must be humble indeed, which does not render the possessor superior to his self-constituted judge, who is himself not an artist. A sound judgment in literature, or an acquaintance with the general principles upon which all works of taste must necessarily be conducted, are not sufficient, without practical skill, truly to estimate a production of art. The poet employs vehicles of thought and signs of expression familiar to all as the use of reason; the means and instruments of the painter constitute in their management a peculiar science, in which excellence or defect is less appreciable by natural or untrained observation. Neglect of these principles of criticism has exposed to groundless censure, and to as injurious praise, both arts and artists. When it is stated, that the modern English school surpasses every other in Europe, the inference is not to be assumed, that painting elsewhere has retrograded, but that, with us, art has advanced beyond the general improvement. During the present century, painting in France has been superior to any thing produced in that country since the age of Louis XIV., or, perhaps, it has in this space attained a greater glory. Italy has more than one master, who, in purity of style at least, excels any predecessor within the last fifty years. Now, if the representatives of these respective schools be compared, or if the universal works of each be taken as the criterion of merit, in either case it would not be difficult to show, that separately, or as a school, the British artists of the present age have made the greatest attainments towards excellence. But compared with ourselves, has our course also been progressive? The affirmative here it is more difficult to prove. Reynolds, Hogarth, Wilson, Gainsborough, all contemporaries, certainly present a rare combination of genius and art. But besides these stars of the first magnitude, every other 'lesser light' twinkles with diminished ray. Now, as respects the general diffusion of most respectable eminence, this is far from being the case at present. In every branch, more than one master of high talent might be mentioned. Again, considering the representatives of each department in the present and in the former age, there can be no hesitation, everything considered, in giving the preference to our contemporaries. A remark of the late learned Fuseli is here quite to the purpose, while in itself perfectly correct: 'The works of Sir Joshua Reynolds are unequal, many of them are indifferent, though some cannot be surpassed; but, on the other hand, even the most inferior picture from the pencil of Sir Thomas Lawrence is excellent.' It is this extended and uniform excellence, as has appeared throughout the whole course of these investigations, which constitutes not only individual superiority, but which tends, most directly and most surely, to the exaltation of art. Hogarth, again, stands alone rather in the peculiar dramatic character of his performances, than in their beauty or science, as bearing upon the promotion of universal improvement, or even as individual pieces of painting. His pictures, also, with few exceptions, are rather isolated representations than general exhibitions of manners; they are scenes displaying the singularities, more than the leading actions and feelings of life. Their effect is broad and true, and the moral powerful; but both are circumscribed by times, and by partial divisions among mankind. Wilkie, whose style of composition most nearly resembles Hogarth's, and with whom, therefore, he is to be compared, while he preserves all the force of individual character and delineation of living nature, has extended a far more comprehensive grasp of mind over the moralities of his subject. He has brought within the pencil's magic sway, and fixed there in permanent reality, the sorrows and the joys, the hopes, fears, and attachments, the occupations, customs, habits, and even amusements, of a whole unchanging class of mankind. This may appear to have been before accomplished, both in the English and Flemish schools. But here lies the distinction: Hogarth represents general ideas by particular signs. His forms and his expressions are individual modifications of the limited society to which they belong. The conceptions of Wilkie are the idealisms of his models. Each figure is not only pregnant with individuality of character and life, but is the true representative of the class whose constituent it is. Each expression, though generally but the index of humble feeling, sends abroad into the heart of every spectator its artless appeal. He has thus, in fact, applied the generalizations of higher art to the interests of common life, yet preserving its simplicity, its humbleness, and reality. The Dutch painters, again, have painted vulgar instead of common nature; nor, in the complete range of their school, is there once an example of that delightful sentiment, which our countryman has so successfully cast over his most lowly scenes, and by which he has redeemed them from every approach to vulgarity, without falling, as Gainsborough has sometimes done, into insipidity or mannerism. In landscape, Turner has extended the boundaries of his art by the invention of prismatic colors, and by his novel applications of them. He is therefore decidedly a more original artist than Wilson, whose best works are those composed in imitation of Claude. But Turner by no means stands so much alone as did the masters of the former age; names in both divisions of Britain might be mentioned his equals in more than one respect. In the historical department, again, if we admit the late President's works, there can be no comparison between these and any former labours of the English school. But in all the possible varieties of historical composition, there are artists of great excellence either now living, or who have been taken from us within these few years; as Haydn, Martin, Allan of Edinburgh, Heapy, Collings, Fuseli, Harlow, Stothard, Cooper, Landseer, with others. In portraiture, Jackson, Phillips, and others, show, that even high excellence is not so confined as in the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Lawrence is indeed the first artist in Europe, but he is ably supported. A little anecdote may here give some idea of the powers of Sir Thomas's pencil. On visiting, one evening, the apartment in the Vatican where his splendid portrait of George IV., in coronation robes, was then exhibited, we were much struck with the fixed attention immediately directed to it by an individual who had just entered. A deeper interest was excited on perceiving the stranger to be a celebrated native artist. Continuing for some time in total abstraction, during which the workings of his countenance clearly indicated admiration or astonishment, and, we thought, disappointment, with a sudden unconscious gesticulation, he exclaimed aloud, 'Dio--il tramontane!' as if saying 'Heavens! can that have been painted beyond the Alps!' and abruptly hurried away. From the preceding remarks, and the names now enumerated, who are mentioned without any reference to comparative rank or merit as to each other, two inferences are deducible: first, That the masters more immediately in the public eye, as now at the head of the various departments of art, are on the whole superior to those of the last age; and, secondly, That between the former and their present contemporaries, the interval is small in comparison with the position occupied by Reynolds, Hogarth, Wilson, or Gainsborough, in relation to the school over which they presided. Hence the general conclusion seems evident, that in Britain, the art, as compared with itself, has continued to improve. Compared with foreign art, the distinctive character of the English school is strongly marked. Painting on the Continent exhibits a striking uniformity of style, with such peculiarities as, on a general view, will not lessen the truth of a common classification. The Continental artist, then, studies to detail, but fails in power of general effect; his performances are more valuable as works of art and of imitation, than of imagination or abstract resemblance. The parts are beautifully made out, finely drawn; but the whole is too seldom connected by any animating principle of general similitude, uniting the separate elaborations into one broad and forcible harmony. Hence the dry, the meagre, and the disjointed particulars, the usual components of their labours, though in themselves truer than the constituents of British art--better drawn, it may be, and more carefully finished, as they almost always are, yet contrast disadvantageously with the bold and powerful, though large generalizations of our pencil. Nor can there be impartial question, though each be separately defective, that more genius is displayed in the latter than in the former. The English artist paints more to the mind; the French and the Italian to the eye. The first looks abroad upon the universal harmonies and oppositions of nature; the second scrutinizes and carefully renders the filling up of her aggregated forms, and the lesser concurrences of her general effects. Art, with us, represents objects as they seem in their relations, rather than as they actually exist; among our rivals, it delineates things as they are in themselves, to the neglect of those modifications by which reality is diversified through pleasing falsehood, especially as viewed in reference to a medium of expression, founded itself in delusion. In the one case, nature is seen and imitated as a picture; in the other, her operations and forms are contemplated as materials out of which pictures are to be wrought. Hence English art satisfies, but deceives; the foreign style does not deceive, but fails to satisfy. Compared with itself, and with the real objects and essence of art, we have already pointed out the great defect in the practice of English art to be, imperfection in the details. In portraiture, this has spread to a ruinous extent; and with the most beautiful models in the world, British female portraits, speaking in general, are most decided failures. On this subject, nothing more remains to be said--we refer to the exquisite works of Lawrence, whose female heads are at once most striking, most lovely, and very highly finished;--we recommend a study of Vandyke's likenesses of the ladies of the Court of Charles, now in the Louvre. Let the natural grace and modesty, the delicacy of feature and transparency of tint, in these, be compared with similar works of the present day and practice--when it must at once appear how much is lost to art, and how great injustice is done to nature. In male portraits our practice is better, but only from the bolder lineaments of the subject. The inherent errors are the same--modelling with the pencil, rather than drawing--immense masses of dark shade to conceal the absence of all that should be present--and forcible rather than natural effect. There certainly now appears, however, in the productions of the most esteemed living masters, the progress of a more scientific and more perfect style. In the walk of history, expression--that expression which comes from the natural outpourings of feeling--which animates the canvass of the early masters--and which seems to find its proper, spontaneous, accordant instrument in their pencil,--has yet been wanting. Next, our historical paintings are sadly defective in composition--not in the symmetrical arrangement and grouping of figures, but in the real poetry of the art, in the facile, the creative power over the means and materials of the science--in the skill of causing them to fall as if by chance, and without effort or visible design, into the most harmonious, most striking, and most effective combinations. Another and a principal source of inferiority--of absolute, yet laborious error, has been the most mistaken perceptions of ideal beauty in art. This subject it was our intention to have treated here at some length. Our limits, however, forbid, while it is of less consequence, since the volume contains within itself the leading precepts on this topic. The sum of these separate remarks is, that the ideal is not beauty apart from, but wrought out of nature. So far from being the creation of fancy, it lives, breathes, and is to be found only in nature. In this important principle, juster ideas are beginning rapidly to diffuse their influence over the whole of our art, since theory has been laid aside, and nature, and the antique, and real taste have regained the ascendency. THE FINE ARTS. ARCHITECTURE. CHAPTER XV. ARCHITECTURE has been termed the Art of Necessity, in contradistinction to Sculpture and Painting, which have been distinguished as the offspring of elegance and luxury. To the first, the remark of the ancient poet has been deemed most peculiarly applicable, 'Hinc variæ venîre artes--labor omnia vicit Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas.' If there be, however, distinction in the first origin, it ceases long before any of these can become the object of refined or useful inquiry. The principles of all, considered in the rank of arts, originate in the mind, though a sentiment of intelligent curiosity, or a sense of corporeal weakness, and the desire of protection, first give visible action to the latent germs of feeling and of ingenuity. Here, then, appears the accidental, not distinctive character, in the originating impulse, and in the species of imitative design thence resulting, which is afterwards to call forth the most refined evidence of human thought and genius. Man's first care would evidently be directed to the discovery or construction of means of shelter against the inclemencies of the sky under which his lot was cast. His best affections, no less than his natural wants, would prompt him to this. But the cave of the Troglodyte, or the hut of the savage, are not more connected with science and forethought, than is the den of the tiger, or the lair of the wolf, or the still more artful structure of the fowl. For no sooner is the human creature thus established, his physical desires stilled, not gratified, than begin the ceaseless aspirings of the spirit within; the workings of that wondrous maze of understanding and of feeling, of thought and volition, which so mysteriously bind, and so irresistibly direct him to his higher and better destinies. Thence, and only thence, springs, as a bright and pure emanation, though darkened for a while in struggling through an imperfect medium, every effort thereafter to instruct or to adorn a happier world. In conformity with these views, it has appeared, that the first attempts at sculptural or pictorial representation were dedicated to piety, and to the social affections of the heart. In like manner, the earliest and rudest erections of architecture now existing, as well as the most perfect and magnificent, are temples to the Deity, or memorials of the dead. There is, in these respects, indeed, a striking proof of the existence of this law of mind,--not of mere instinct, and, at the same time, of self-denial, in favor of the generous and the holy in man's nature. Not only do we find, that, wherever the human foot has been stayed, there is the altar, the temple, and the tomb; but we meet these amid the destitution of every approach to that luxury to which the arts have been ascribed; and, finally, we discover a vast disproportion between the efforts dedicated to these tributes of gratitude and affection, and those directed to personal comfort or splendor. Jacob, while yet a wanderer in tents, consecrated, by a pillar,--the first monument on record,--the spot where reposed his beloved Rachael. Over the whole of the inhabited globe, not excepting the dark heaths of our native land, are the last resting-places of the dead, which must have required a union of care and labour given only to a duty, everywhere held inviolably sacred. Even in the wilds of the New World, there are sepulchres of like laborious structure, to which, with a steadiness surer than that of the needle, the distant tribe tracks its way though pathless woods. Compare, again, the evidence of congregated energy, and even science, in the Druidical temples only, with the glimpses we possess of the accommodations of common life. The religious edifices of Egypt even yet fill the mind with admiration; while the probable monuments of their dead, faithless, indeed, to their individual trust, shall only sink amid the ruins of the world, enduring testimonies of the power of religion and of futurity over the mind of man, and of the vain attempt to convert that power into an instrument of selfish aggrandisement. From all this, something better may be deduced than even refuting the idea, that the sublimest objects of taste indicate, in their origin, a grovelling necessity, and, in their progress, owe their most graceful improvements to an idle luxury. In this inseparable union of the primitive arts of taste with feelings of religious service and of human affection, we perceive that man, even in a state of natural darkness, is not the selfish, the irreligious being, represented by a cold and material philosophy, equally the enemy of taste as of religion. Beyond these remarks it is not here necessary to trace the first origin of Architecture. In this art are certainly to be detected the very links of connexion, joining the knowledge of the descendants of Adam with that of the families of Noah. We learn from Scripture, that soon after the Flood, while yet the remembrance of that catastrophe was fresh in the mind, the building of a city and a tower was commenced. Such design could not have been entertained without some previous model, or, at least, assurance that it might be accomplished. Such model or such assurance could be derived only from antediluvian experience or tradition; for it is in the highest degree improbable that either could have originated, or been brought to such maturity, in so short a space as intervenes between the descent of Noah from the Ark, and the gigantic undertaking of his posterity. Again, the materials were artificial; and of such perfection, well-burnt brick, as we do not find mankind to have used in the same countries many centuries afterwards. The construction, too, of that mysterious relic of two worlds, which 'floated on the waters of the abyss,' is a proof of high advance in the arts of the first. Subsequently, all researches are at fault. From this state of intelligence and union, mankind suddenly sink into the most wretched ignorance, and disperse in wild confusion. A cause, such as the one in Sacred Writ, could alone produce this effect. Broken fragments and glimmerings of ancient knowledge, no doubt, remained with the scattered tribes of the human family. But to trace usefully the extent, reunion, and improvement of these imperfect elements, would be here a vain task. The few valuable and only authentic memorials of the very early ages are to be found in Scripture, which ascribes the origin of monuments that may be termed architectural, to ratify contracts,--to mark the place of the dead,--to indicate some remarkable event--to the altar of stone; also, it contains the descriptions of regular buildings of a later period, which have now passed away, as the walled cities which the Israelites found in Canaan; their own early labours,--the Temple of Solomon, the Palace of Lebanon, the 'House of Dagon,' and other heathen temples incidentally mentioned in Scripture, to which reference is made. All these erections and notices are confined to that part of Asia which extends from the Black Sea to the mouth of the Euphrates, and from the Mediterranean to the extremities of Persia. Over the once magnificent architecture of the whole of this extensive tract, including the seats of the most powerful and ancient monarchies of Asia,--the Assyrian, Median, Babylonian, and Persian,--except what can be gathered from scattered heaps of brick, utter forgetfulness reigns. Later information is supplied by Herodotus and the Greek writers; but, except the comparatively recent remains at Persepolis, Baalbec, and Palmyra, already noticed, nothing exists that can throw light upon our subject. A very different aspect, however, is presented in Egypt and in India, where monuments of the most remote antiquity remain, interesting in themselves, and as they tend to illustrate the progress and the revolutions of Architecture in its more modern forms. From an examination of the former, we shall be enabled to discover the germs of the more perfect Greek modes, while, in the combinations of Arabian with Indian forms, we seem to detect the rudiments of that singular style, which, under the various appellations of Arabic, Saracenic, Gothic, has extended over the whole of Europe, and a considerable portion of Asia. Thus, one of the first and one of the last departments of the present subject, one of its purest and one of its most complicated systems, originates probably in countries now to be considered, and whose monuments are coeval with the first reunion of intelligence and society among men. But, before entering upon the inquiry which is to trace this connexion through the history of the art, it becomes necessary to explain certain common and preliminary principles. There are three grand causes of structure and form in Architecture,--three leading principles, which not only originated the primeval elements of design, but which, to a great degree, have governed all the subsequent combinations of these. This influence also extends not merely to the essentials of stability, equilibrium, and strength, but, as will afterwards appear, has suggested the system of ornament. These master dispositions, which it thus becomes necessary to bear along with the commencement, are, first, _the purpose_--secondly, _the material_ of Architecture--and thirdly, _the climate_. The purpose for which any building was erected, or the uses which it was contemplated to serve, would necessarily determine the magnitude, and to a certain extent, the form. Again, these considerations would suggest the most appropriate means of accomplishing the requisite ends, which, once accomplished, would constitute permanent distinctions. The materials, again, employed in architecture, have influenced most decidedly its forms and character. This has been the case, not only in the peculiar styles which have separately been adopted in different countries, but in the general and essential principles of the science. The materials of which buildings, in all ages, have been chiefly constructed, are stone, wood, and factitious substances, are tiles and bricks. The first adopting of these materials, and, of course, the style of building, must have been recommended by the resources of the country. The law, however, which determines their arrangement is universal, arising from exigencies over which taste, and even ingenuity, exert limited control. This evidently arises from the nature of the question; for, since a mass of stone is heavier in all, and weaker in most positions, than timber of equal dimensions, the whole congeries of supporting and supported members--that is, the whole system of architecture will be affected as the one or the other material is employed. Thus, in wooden erections, the supporting members may be much fewer and less massive than in structures of stone; because, in the former, the horizontal or supported parts are both lighter, and will carry an incumbent weight--as a roof--over a much wider interval than in the latter. It is apparent, also, even for the ordinary purposes of stability, that, in constructing edifices of stone, whether of the perpendicular or horizontal members, the dimensions would be greater than in elevations of wood; and in the case of columnar structures, that the altitude, in proportion to the diameter, would be far less in stone than in timber supports. Hence, the two grand characteristics of a massive or solemn, and a light or airy, architecture. Hence, also, when genius and taste had begun to consider the arrangements of necessity and use in the relations of effect and beauty, new combinations would be attempted, which approached to one or other of these leading divisions. It must, however, be obvious, that the field of these experiments is narrowed by the very principles on which they would be first suggested. In the art we are now considering, the human agent has less power over the inertness of matter than in any other. Imagination comes in contact with reality at every step, and the laws of nature impress the boundaries of that reality, not at the risk of absurdity, but of very being. Beauty becomes here, not the creation of fantasy--a something pleasing only as it reflects our associations, or harmonizes with our feelings; but is more especially the creation of science--the object of demonstrative wisdom. Hence, perfect architectural beauty is the most sublime and the most rational of the objects of taste; because, while the susceptibilities of mind are awakened, the powers of judgment are gratified, by the certainty with which the sources of pleasure can be traced. We feel the arrangement to be beautiful; we know that it is necessary. Hence, also, the perfect modes--the true combinations of the art--are few; the error in departing from them great. These refined perceptions do not indeed pertain to the period now contemplated; but the facility with which they can be connected with the first practice of the art, evinces how deeply rooted are the real and substantial precepts of architectural design. The leading views, also, in regard to the influence of material upon form, proportion, and distribution of parts, are supported by early history. In Egypt, a country destitute of wood, the most ancient erections were in imitation of the natural caves in which the rude inhabitants had sought a wretched shelter. In a later age, yet one which far transcends the authentic researches of history, were reared those mysterious edifices, still standing as landmarks between known and unknown time. In the ponderous members of these solemn piles, the narrowness of the intervals, the crowded pillars, the massive base, and the lessened perpendicular, is found every principle previously assumed as characteristic of that architecture, which would be governed by necessity before the sensation of beauty had been felt, or at least methodized. Here, also, appears the first species of architectural design. Again, in that region of Asia, already noticed as the scene of the earliest recorded labours of the art, wood was abundant. From the descriptions of Holy Writ we accordingly find, that this material was much employed even in their most sacred and important buildings. Thus, though few details capable of giving any just architectural notions, are preserved of Solomon's Temple, it is yet plain, that cedar wood was the chief material both for roofs and columns, that is, both for supported and supporting members. Hence, the temples of Palestine, and of Syria generally, by which we understand the Asia of the Old Testament, already described, were more spacious, but less durable than those of Egypt, and with fewer upright supports. Of this, a singularly striking proof occurs in the catastrophe of the House of Dagon, when Samson, by overturning only two columns, brought down the whole fabric. As with the force of winds and waters pent, When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars, With horrible convulsion, to and fro He tugg'd, he shook, till down they came, and drew The whole roof after them, with bursts of thunder: The vulgar only 'scaped who stood without. In an edifice constructed on the plan of the Egyptian Temple, where pillar stands crowded behind pillar, in range beyond range, to give support to the ponderous architrave and marble roof, the overturning of two of these columns would produce but a very partial disintegration. The very circumstance, also, of there being no remains in a country where once stood the most renowned cities, proves the perishable nature of the substance chiefly employed. There is evidence, also, that stone and wood were often, perhaps usually, combined--the first as a columnar or pier-like support, for horizontal beams of the latter. This plainly appears to have been the case in the oldest ruin existing in this part of the world, namely, Persepolis, where the marble columns evidently bear marks of having been connected by cross beams of wood, and to have supported a roof of the same light structure. Hence the easy conflagration of this abode of the Persian kings, in a debauch of Alexander. The columns are loftier, further apart, and fewer in number, than in Egypt. Had not the illustration of the general subject been of more importance in the establishment of this point, reference might at once have been made to the early temples of Greece, which, even to the age of Xerxes, were structures of wood; and to the well-known difference of style between them and those of Egypt. Thus we have the second species of architectural design; and again find the facts, recounted by history, according with deductions from _a priori_ consideration of the nature, objects, and origin, of the art itself. It may afford illustration of the certainty with which the principles of reasoning operate, while the fact is singular, that ancient writers describe the huts of the nomadic tribes on their dispersion, or, at least, the earliest recorded residences of mankind, as composed of poles, formed of the branches of trees, fixed in the earth, enclosing a circular space, and meeting at top, the sloping sides being covered with leaves, reeds, or skins. This is exactly the wigwam of the aboriginal inhabitant of America. So much is man the creature of the same instincts, under similar circumstances. Climate will necessarily operate a considerable effect upon the external arrangements of architecture. According to the latitude of the situation, buildings will be contrived to admit or exclude the sun, to give shelter from biting cold, or to secure against scorching heat, or merely to yield shade, without immediate reference to either extreme. All these, however, will not affect the internal harmonies or proprieties of the constituent parts. Climate, therefore, is only modifying, not creative, as the two preceding causes; it may suggest composition, but hardly design; for, with the exception of the pointed or flat roof, according to the humidity or dryness of the atmosphere, consequently the angular pediment surmounting the horizontal lines of the entablature, little of real form or order has been added, or materially influenced, by climate. This cause, however, has given rise to, or permitted, many picturesque combinations. Purpose, besides the constitutional effects upon the science already described, necessarily occasions the various classes under which the labours of the architect may be arranged. Architecture, by this principle, is separated into two grand divisions--Civil and Military. The former of these, from its greater variety of purpose, is further subdivided into subordinate heads, namely, placing each in the order of its probable antiquity, Sacred, Monumental, Municipal, and Domestic. These modifications of purpose do not, indeed, give novel principles, nor do they affect any of the conclusions already explained; they have only, though strongly, influenced the practice of the art. In presenting an abstract of the history of the science of Architecture, then, it is not requisite to dwell particularly upon these divisions, nor to be guided by them in the future arrangement of our matter. But as we may occasionally revert, by a passing word, to the obvious distinctions which are thus perceived, a short explanation, especially as several scattered particulars of very early times can thus be properly assembled, will here be useful. _Sacred Architecture_ is a term sufficiently expressive of its own import. It was the primitive effort of the present race of man; the first impress of his existence left upon the soil, yet moist from the waters of the deluge, was the erection of an altar; and the noblest evidence of his most accomplished skill has been a temple: ----'His greatest ornament of fame, And strength, and art.' From the 'altar builded by Noah,' how interesting to follow out the effects of one uncontrollable, but, when unguided, erring sentiment in the steadfast piles--'works of Memphian kings,' in the glorious proportions of Greece, where ----'Doric pillars, Cornice, and frieze, with bossy sculptures graven,' rear their graceful height, looking tranquil magnificence--down even to the rude circle of grey stones on the bleak heath! For this inquiry, visible materials are indeed wanting; but does not the Word of Truth supply the general inference, 'The imaginations of man's heart are wicked--he has sought out many inventions--but I will be honored among the generations of men?' Incidental allusion has already been made to the marvellous fabric reared by Solomon, which, if not in grace, in splendor of decoration appears to have exceeded all the erections of the early ages, and is the first of which written notice remains. The descriptions of this building enable us to form a reunion of the arts of Sculpture and Architecture at the commencement of the tenth century before Christ. This date, however, we consider to be at least six hundred years later than the era of any Egyptian monument, not of brick, now extant throughout the whole course of the Nile. In considering, also, the countries whence Solomon obtained workmen, will be remarked the confirmation of the preceding observations on the originating causes of styles in architecture. The hewers of stone, we are informed, were from Egypt; and the solid substructions of the Jewish temple, the massive proportions of the separate parts--resemblances still more striking in Josephus' account of the second edifice--show exactly the same principles and practice as can to this day be traced in the Egyptian structures. From Phoenicia, again, a country abounding in timber, were brought the most skilful 'hewers of wood,' that is, workmen instructed in the arts of the joiner and carpenter, and also, as may be inferred from various descriptions of the ornamental appendages, of the carver or sculptor in wood,--'and the cedar of the house within was carved with open knops and flowers;' again, and 'he made two cherubims of olive tree.' These sculptures, however, might have been finished, and, from the state of art in that country, most probably were the work of artists from Egypt. There can be no doubt that the 'House,' as the magnificent pile is emphatically termed, was of a quadrangular outline, erected upon a solid platform of stone, bearing a strong resemblance to the ancient temples still extant. Indeed, there is, in this respect, a most striking analogy between the dimensions as given in Scripture, and those of the oldest Greek temples, especially of �gina and Pæstum. This latter we have examined, and, agreeing to the fidelity of the grounds upon which Wilkins has founded his reasonings, in the admirable dissertation on this subject in his preface to the 'Antiquities of Magna Grecia,' we cannot coincide in the final conclusion, that the Greeks borrowed the Doric order from this ancient temple of Solomon. Reference to this subject is hereafter to be made. In the meantime, while facts are fresh in the mind, it must be obvious to the reader, that, since the shell or carcass of the temple of Jerusalem was of stone, and built by Egyptian workmen, alone skilled in that material, the general arrangements would resemble those of the Egyptian temples. Consequently, the Greeks and the Jews, deriving their leading orders from one source, would naturally, though unconsciously, imitate each other. Again, since wood was employed in every part of the roof and interior by Solomon, on the principles already explained, the relative proportions of the parts, and the number of the supports, would necessarily be different, compared with the similar members of Egyptian art. But the Greeks also in part followed the laws of wooden structure; consequently both differing, on similar principles, from the original model, would yet preserve mutual resemblance in that very difference. _Monumental Architecture_, deriving its origin from allied feelings and associations, would be coeval, or nearly so, with the origin of sacred. Indeed, it is not possible always to separate the two distinct purposes. Monuments have two objects in view--to honor the memory of the dead, and to preserve remembrance of the transactions of the living; both of which are recorded in Scripture. The material of a monumental erection, and consequently its design, will always, in early times, be determined by the circumstances of the vicinity, with the sole exception of wood. Hence pillars of stone, and mounds of earth, are the primitive records of both life and death. In a more advanced age, when stone could not be readily procured, brick would be employed. The magnitude and beauty will accord with the skill of the times. Hence arise sources of determining the relative antiquity of monuments, and the circumstances of the age. Under almost every privation of means, and in all countries, 'heaped earth' would present a durable and an accessible material. Hence the universality of this species of monument throughout the globe. This primitive accumulation of efforts--for an earthen mound can be considered as nothing more--seems to have given origin to the most gigantic labours of human architecture. The pyramids of Egypt, and the cognate structures of India, seem to be imitations, wonderful indeed, of the more ancient barrow. They are, in fact, but mounds of higher art and more valuable materials. Their intermediate forms, indeed, may be traced in both countries, at least in the curve which would bound the perpendicular section of the mound. In India, however, pyramids seem, from the extent of the interior, and the facility of access, to have been chiefly intended for places of crowded resort--most likely, therefore, temples. In Egypt, again, the single chamber, the imperviously closed entrance, appear to indicate with precision their original destination to have been sepulchral. It has already been remarked, that the Arts are themselves their own best interpreters, and that little faith is to be placed in the remote analogies of philology, which have too frequently been admitted in evidence beyond their value; but it has often been matter of surprise, that two words, belonging to the most ancient forms of the Syriac language, should have been overlooked in the numerous derivations of the word pyramid. _Peer_ and _Muid_, as the words in question may be rendered in our characters, united, as in Eastern languages, forming compound expressions, would give almost identical sound, and in signification, 'the hill or mountain of the dead,' would be nearer the purpose and appearance than any derivation with which we are acquainted. Under the head of _Municipal Architecture_ is included every application of the science to those purposes of social life not included under the former heads, such as public buildings of all descriptions connected with the civil business of life, up to the arrangements of entire cities. Men, therefore, must have been assembled together for some time, they must have agreed upon certain compacts and regulations of society, before this branch could have made any progress in the world. Yet we find, that not more than a century after the flood, a city was begun, a fact already attempted to be explained; and to what was then said it may be farther added, that the Tower of Babel, which belonged to this city, was clearly monumental--it was 'to make a name.' Although no vestiges of the ancient cities of Asia or of Egypt remain, sufficient from inspection to corroborate the descriptions of history, these lead to the belief, that, in many instances, the plan and architecture were both regular and grand. The reader, however, ought to be on his guard against the amplifications of Scriptural and Homeric accounts contained in later authorities, in as far as the former describe relatively, according to the state of things in their own age and experience; whereas the latter, too often forgetting this distinction, convey the impression, that grandeur and magnificence were absolute. Yet, even with this abatement, there remains sufficient ground of admiration in the ideas excited of Thebes, Babylon, Nineveh, or Memphis. There appears, in this respect, a very striking difference between the cities of the second age, after the arts had migrated into Europe. Many circumstances tend to confirm the opinion, that, even in Greece, Municipal Architecture in general was not much studied, and that there were few, if any, really fine cities among the numerous capitals of that country. Their magnificence was concentrated in particular spots--in their agorai, or squares. Their temples usually stood apart; so that, like the cities of modern Italy, whatever might be the beauty, or the romantic effect of their distant appearance, internally, they often appear to have been little more than an irregular assemblage of narrow winding streets. Such we know Athens to have been to a very late period. Sparta was long an unwalled village. Argos, Thebes, or Corinth, cannot be placed in comparison with the before mentioned capitals of Asia and Egypt. Even Rome, to the age of Nero, was crowded, unwholesome, and mean, over a great portion of its less important surface. In one respect, however, it seems to have differed greatly from every other ancient city of which we read, namely, in the great elevation of the houses; in almost every other instance we are led to an opposite inference, which is further corroborated by the present appearance of Pompeii. With the _Domestic Architecture_ of the primitive ages, to which our accounts have hitherto been confined, the acquaintance to be obtained is exceedingly limited. In the description of Solomon's Palace, and in various passages of Homer, considerable details are given of the palatial dwellings; but how the greater part of mankind were lodged, few means of determining remain. Protection against the vicissitudes of climate would first employ the instinctive ingenuity of man; next, conveniency would be consulted, by enlarging the dimensions of his abode. Both these objects might be obtained, while yet the original circular area was retained. As some ideas, however, of the comforts and decencies of life prevailed, seclusion of the different orders and sexes in the members of the family would be sought; and hence division of one common apartment into separate portions. But as circular space admits of division very imperfectly, and with loss, this new necessity would introduce, or at least render permanent, the rectangular shape of the domestic abode. _Military Architecture_ is but little connected with the history of the science, from the peculiar nature of those principles of construction which it recognises. Here design is regulated by circumstances external to the art, and which, therefore, though enriched by novel combinations in its later and more impure modes, received originally no component elements, from a branch which has universally and largely engrossed the attention of mankind. The application of architecture to the purposes of defence, would not take place till a comparatively later period in the history of the species. Men would previously have acquired ideas of the right and value of property, and divided into separate communities by political or moral distinctions. Mere defence would be the first object in military erections; a wall, a rampart, or barrier, of altitude and strength sufficient to resist, or rather to disappoint, any sudden attack, would be all for some time required; and, subsequently, with facility of access to the summit, for the purpose of hurling stones from vantage ground upon the assailants, these defences for long would be complete, by the obvious addition of a ditch. As the arts of violence, and especially as missile warfare improved, experience would point out the impossibility of defending, even with a ditch, a long unbroken line of wall, consistently with the safety of the defenders, who, in the attempt to overlook the whole, would necessarily be exposed to the hostile weapons. To obviate this defect, and that the whole line might be seen, and the approaches commanded from points within itself, towers projecting beyond the face of the wall were constructed, thus finishing the whole of the science of ancient fortification. Cities, with towers and battlements on this plan, were found by the Jews in Syria, where they had existed for ten centuries before. The same was the system of the Greeks and Romans; and all the varieties of feudal defences are but applications, and even the inventions now in use are but modifications of the primeval fortress, which, in adaptations to the exigencies and science of the time, have also removed from it all picturesque effect and all scenic grandeur, such as the fortalice of old, even in its 'ruins grey,' yet produces. Such is a rapid sketch of the origin and principles of architectural design; and such the extent to which, in practice, history informs us they had been carried in the ancient world. The details, necessarily very imperfect, now given, belong to what may be termed the first age in the history of the art. The second era commences with the earliest appearances of regular architectural science in Europe, marked by the erection of temples in Greece, soon after, or nearly contemporary with, the labours of Solomon, which were commenced 1015 B. C. Before entering upon European art, it will be useful, as formerly hinted, briefly to examine the monuments still existing in Egypt of the architecture of the first age,--the probable sources of those primitive modes, which, adopted in rudeness, by Grecian taste refined and matured, have become immutable. In addition to what has already been stated in the first article, and in reference to the present subject, it will be necessary merely to explain the general character and principles of these aboriginal structures, with the view of ascertaining whether, and to what extent, these have influenced the subsequent and more perfect science of the Grecian architect. Of ancient Egypt, the government was not only peculiar, but contemplated peculiar results--pursued, too, with undeviating purpose, through an unknown succession of ages. Hence the enduring greatness of the works it has left; but as the ends were, from the commencement, so fixed as to forbid progressive means, hence the uniformity of imperfect character in these labours, exhibiting much of the elements, but none of the perfections of taste. The eternal durability to which, in all things, the hierarchy aspired, pointed out a style of architecture, especially in their sacred buildings, retaining, as most substantial, only the simplest forms and the largest masses. Hence, in these mysterious structures, whatever deficiency may be perceived in beauty or grace, is compensated by vastness and simplicity, the most powerful elements of the grand. In beholding these mighty fabrics, then, even laying aside the associations of unnumbered centuries, if neither the most refined nor agreeable emotions be experienced, the imagination is exalted to a high pitch of awe, astonishment, and admiration. Long withdrawing lines, unbroken surfaces, simple contours, immense blocks, even while the individual forms are destitute of proportion, harmony, or grace, will ever produce a solemn sublimity of effect. But it now occurs to inquire, before the merit of rational design can be granted, or these architectonic labours admitted among the works of genius,--Do these lofty effects arise from principle, or are they purely accidental? Are they the meditated results of science and taste, or are they merely inevitable consequences of the large and enduring style which the political system recommended? Upon the nature of the reply to these questions will, in a great measure, depend the rank of the Greeks, as original inventors and refiners of taste in architecture. Now, there can be no doubt that in these, to use Strabo's expression, 'barbarous monuments of painful labour,' the sublimity and imposing solemnity of the general effect is incidental, not inherent. It is the grandeur of mass, not of proportion. The imagination is subdued, indeed, by vastness, but neither is the fancy delighted by tracing a well preserved resemblance to any acknowledged prototype, nor is the judgment instructed by the contemplation of a harmony consistent in itself, though deriving its elements from no immediate source. We discover neither imitation nor creative taste, for imitation is ever destroyed by some monstrous incongruity, and originality becomes aimless through interminable variety of accessories. As a science, then, beyond the rules necessarily imposed by the leading intention of durability, we detect nothing in the architecture of Egypt like the universal harmony given to it in Greece. The same is the character of Indian art, with still more of incongruous union; for here the massive simplicity of the original, or at least earliest source, for so we have already shown Egyptian art to be, is broken down and loaded with frittered and pretending ornament, Syria, or the vast district lying between, furnishes nothing beyond conjecture, or rather in the only instance, that of Solomon's labours, where we attain some information on which implicit reliance may be placed--clear manifestations are discovered of mixed art, in which that of Egypt predominated. Thus, in the whole of the ancient world, about a thousand years before our present era, and when the Greeks first, or soon after, began to erect temples, there existed no science complete in itself, or whose principles even had been elicited from the chaotic mass of materials, by which they could have been directed, in their own matchless monuments. Whatever of grace and of beauty--of dignity and truth--of sublimity and harmonious proportion,--whatever of architectonic excellence, grounded on the most profound principles of taste, and established on the sure basis of geometry,--whatever of all this can be discovered in the building of Greece, she owes it to the superiority of native genius. Yet the obligations to Egyptian predecessors were neither few nor unimportant. The rectangular area, in which the breadth should bear a proportion less to the length, a shape of all others best adapted to beauty and convenience, was introduced. A still less obvious source of almost every higher beauty in the science--columnar architecture--was there practised so early, that whether it originated in the country, or was introduced, is unknown. Even the system of ornament may, in its rise at least, be traced in these primeval remains; for not a single detail afterwards introduced may not, in a rudimental, often nearly perfected state, be remarked; especially the beautiful idea of floral ornaments. Lastly, in the works of Egyptian art, very perfect examples of mechanical practice, both in dressing and laying the materials, might be observed in almost every instance. All these elements, however, the last excepted, jarring among themselves, whether as wholes or parts, were to be selected, arranged, methodized, and animated by grace, harmony, nobleness,--in short, the science of architecture was yet to be created. CHAPTER XVI. IN treating briefly of the architecture of Greece, though there still exist remains of astonishing magnitude, and of the greatest beauty yet attained among men, there are, notwithstanding, manifold difficulties in the attempt to treat historically of its origin and progress. Whatever information is to be derived from native writers composes merely incidental notices, mixed up with those wild traditions and dreamy lore, in which the Greeks, from ignorance or vanity, or both, seem to have delighted in wrapping up the sources of their knowledge. It is almost certain, indeed, that they never possessed, on the present subject, any writings beyond the mere technical treatises which must have been in the hands of architects. The compilation of Vitruvius might be supposed amply to supply this defect of more original materials; but, as respects the history of the art, this is not the case. His accounts of the state of architecture in his own time, that of Augustus, and the various scientific details into which he enters, are excellent; they show him to have probably possessed all the requisites which he enumerates as necessary to form an accomplished architect, high as he rates the profession. The historical department of his work, again, is extremely defective, not only in point of research, but in the fanciful nature of the theories. He entirely keeps out of view all reference to skill anterior to the arts of Greece; while, with the incredible fables received in that country, he mixes up no less groundless notions of his own. To these difficulties in the more ancient sources of information, there is to be added the obscurity arising from modern hypothesis. Under these circumstances, and while the present limits preclude lengthened discussion on any topic, the most eligible and useful procedure appears to offer in a plain narrative of facts, illustrated by a description of actual remains, by reference to ancient authors, particularly Homer, and by analogies drawn from the state of society and manners. Here there can be given only the general results of such an inquiry. The earliest architectural remains in Greece appear to have been military erections, or at least constructions for the purposes of defence. This corresponds with the condition of a country, peopled, as we know this portion of Europe to have been, when first noticed in history, by different tribes, hostile, generally speaking, to each other, and in all instances fearing and feared by the rude and fierce aboriginal possessors. In the instances where comparison can be instituted, the gigantic elements of these structures, and the manner of their union, refer us to Egypt, or the cognate style of Syria; most probably, however, to the former, by way of Crete, which, as already shown, formed the intervening station in the progress of civilization. The traditions, whether poetical, or merely narrative, connected with these monuments--whether they be ascribed to the labours of the gods, or to the arts of the Cyclops, whence their common appellation--all point to a foreign origin, and to imported skill. This knowledge, too, must have been brought from a distance. Even on the adjacent shores of Asia, we find the walls of Troy ascribed by Homer to celestial skill--a clear proof that in his time there existed, neither in Greece, nor in the neighboring regions, experience adequate to such a work. Of these fortresses, the most celebrated, and probably the most ancient, is Tiryrns, in the plain of Argos, and attributed to the Lycians, about six generations prior to the Trojan war. This cyclopean wall includes a circuit of about a quarter of a mile, enclosing an inconsiderable elevation above the general level of the plain. Thus have evidently been composed the defences of the included town; but the disproportion between the means of security and the object protected appears amazing, and must have been considered as wonderful even in the age of Homer, who, in his catalogue, distinguishes this city by the epithet 'well-walled,' or, as Pope has rendered the passage, Whom strong Tyrenthé's lofty walls surround. Indeed, of all the characteristics added to the Grecian confederates, the distinction of their walled cities is by far the most frequent. Of all these, however, the one now mentioned only retains a degree of regularity seeming to bid defiance to further dilapidation from time, and capable of being overturned only by a force equal to that employed in the construction. Several entrances are yet to be traced, one of which has, opening into it, a gallery formed in the thickness of the wall. It is worthy of remark, that the top of this passage is covered, exactly as in the great pyramid, by immense stones, placed one on each side, and meeting at an acute angle in the centre. Near in point of situation, but somewhat later in time, are the walls of the 'proud Mycenæ' of Homer, an interesting ruin in the age of Thucydides, four hundred years before our era. These remains show evident correspondence with the style of Egypt. The very gateway, described by the author just mentioned, and subsequently by Pausanius, still remains; formed of single blocks, the jambs incline narrowing upwards to eight feet, and support a lintel twelve feet in length.[D] Next in point of antiquity and preservation to the preceding are those singular remains in Greece; to which the name of Treasury has been given, on the supposition, that as the former were constructed as defences against hostile violence, the latter were erected as places of security for valuable property. From the frequent mention of such structures during the heroic age, and from the preservation of the names, true or false, of two architects, Agamides and Trophonius, most eminent in their construction, they seem to have been regarded as of no ordinary importance. We are informed that both states and individuals had such places of safe custody, before temples either existed or were employed as repositories for treasure. Of these buildings, one of the most perfect, and indeed the most interesting relic of those earliest times, is the treasury of Atreus amid the ruins of Mycenæ. Externally it presents the appearance of a mound of earth; but the interior is found to be a magnificent structure, circular, fifty feet in diameter, and rather more in height, composed of stones of great size, each course projecting inwards and over the one below, till, meeting in a small aperture at top, the whole is shut in by a mass of very large dimensions. The general form is thus a hollow cone, or paraboloid, the surface of which appears to have been coated with plates of metal, as brazen nails still remain in many parts. These defences, both for person and property, prepared with such skill and solicitude, afford a very striking view of the turbulent and dangerous state of society. They are, in fact, records, lasting almost as the Iliad itself, of an age capable of such outrages as gave foundation to that divine poem, and to whose verisimilitude they thus supply unequivocal testimony. Into the condition of domestic architecture during the same period, neither the poems of Homer, nor any collateral source, afford much insight. Both in the Iliad and Odyssey, palaces are described, but in an extremely general as well as indefinite manner. Between these loose accounts and the graphic delineations which the same author has given of sculptured ornaments, as in the shield of Achilles, it is easy to perceive the difference of a description without a model, and from reality. Sculpture, as a regular art, had already made progress; the science of architecture was yet unknown. These palaces, which appear to have answered all purposes of public edifices, are described as very capacious, as containing numerous apartments, and as very rich in doors of ivory and gold, with posts of silver; but not the slightest impression occurs indicative of any regular order of architectonic ornament or design. Magnificence and lavish profusion of splendor are everywhere confounded with beauty and grace and regular art. During the Homeric age, then, it is plain that the orders were yet unknown--a deduction exactly tallying with the state of art in Egypt, where from the inspection of existing monuments, it is evident, that a system or order was in like manner undiscovered. True, the Egyptian edifices resemble each other in general character, and even to their measurements agree; but the same building rises into endless multiplicity of subordinate parts and forms. So Homer heaps riches upon riches, ornament above ornament, making that fine which he cannot render great. This affords more valuable evidence of his veracity than it detracts from his genius. Even the palace of Troy, though Paris himself is represented as a great architect, is described in the same general terms: And now to Priam's stately courts he came, Raised on arch'd columns of stupendous frame; O'er these a range of marble structure runs, The rich pavilion of his fifty sons, In fifty chambers lodged; and rooms of state, Opposed to these, where Priam's daughters sat; Twelve domes for them, and their loved spouses shone, Of equal beauty, and of polished stone. This, and indeed almost every other passage referring to the practical arts of antiquity, is very incorrectly translated. From a comparison of various original descriptions of palatial buildings, a tolerable idea of the highest efforts of architecture during the Homeric and succeeding ages may be obtained. They appear universally to have been placed so as to enclose a court, along the sides of which ran an open corridore, formed by pillars; for the word corresponding to column does not once occur in the Iliad. These pillars, as may still be seen in Egyptian buildings, were united by flat epistylia or architraves, for the phrase, 'arched columns,' is nonsense. During the times of the Iliad, no division of stories appears to have been practised; and the expression lofty chamber, so often occurring, seems to imply that the whole was open to the roof; for the apartments, with the exception of the great hall, do not otherwise induce the idea of great magnitude. In the Odyssey again, to this mode of division distinct reference is made, a circumstance which, with many others respecting the arts, points to a later as the age of that poem. The roof itself may be inferred from incidental remarks to have been pointed, composed of wooden beams inclined towards each other, and supported in the central angle by columns or shafts of wood; for wherever the word occurs in the early poetical literature of Greece, an internal member is implied, and from the casual introduction, one of necessity, not ornament, the only adjunct being lofty or tall, exactly corresponding with the distinction here supposed. It is evident, then, that we must examine elsewhere for the origin of ornamental architecture in Greece. And the only other department of the art refers to buildings for sacred purposes. But even here, mighty and graceful as are the existing ruins, many ages elapse before we reach the era of the temple--where The whole so measured true, so lessen'd off, By fine proportion that the marble pile, Form'd to repel the still or stormy waste Of rolling ages, light as fabrics look'd, That from the magic wand aerial rise. Throughout the whole of the Iliad no mention occurs of a temple in Greece, except in the second book, evidently incidental, and the interpolation of some vainly patriotic Athenian rhapsodist. The passage, indeed, might be condemned, on the grounds of philological discussion, but it contradicts both the history of art and of religion in that country. In Troy, the temple of Minerva appears to have been a mere shrine, in which a statue was enclosed, and probably, in Tenedos, a temple of Apollo is merely alluded to. During the age of Homer, then, the primeval altar, common both to Europe and Asia, was the only sacred edifice known. This differed little from a common hearth; the sacrifice being in fact a social rite, the victim, at once an offering to heaven, and the food of man, was prepared by roasting; the first improvement upon this simple construction appears to have been the addition of a pavement, an obvious means of cleanliness and comfort. Yet even this appears to have constituted a distinction at least not common, since, in particular instances, the pavement is mentioned as a peculiar ornament. Subsequently, in order to mark in a more conspicuous manner, and with more dignity, the sacred spot, while the rites should be equally exposed to the spectators, an open colonnade was added, enclosing the altar and pavement. Thus the roofless temple might be said to be finished; but whether this primeval structure existed in his native country during the age of Homer, does not appear. We remark here a very striking resemblance between the ancient places of devotion in Greece, and the Druidical temple of the more northern regions. In fact, the astonishing remains at Stonehenge present the best known, and perhaps one of the most stupendous examples ever erected of the open temple. This species of religious erection appears to have been co-extensive with the spread of the human race, and not, as generally supposed, limited to the northern portion of the globe. The revolutions in Greece, which abolished the regal, while they respected and increased the pontifical authority, the gradual additions of magnificence and convenience to the places of sacrifice, producing at length the regular temple; the change of design from the circle to the quadrangle; all these can now only be conjectured as to their causes and progressive vicissitudes. One thing appears certain, that the earliest approaches to the perfect temple were erections of wood; and this materially contributed to fix the character of later architecture: yet there still remain temples of stone, whose date transcends the epochs of known history. During this interval, Grecian architecture assumed regularity and science, for the earliest dawnings of authentic information light us to monuments of a systematic style, differing from the Egyptian in the rejection of all variety of ornament, yet, like it, solemn, massive, and imposing. This is the order which, subsequently, under the name of Doric, extended over the whole of Greece and her colonies. To this the most ancient species of the art, various origin has been assigned; but from our imperfect knowledge of contemporary events, and from the impossibility of extending research, it is plain that nothing can with certainty be known. The most ably supported, but not less improbable theory, is that of Dr Wilkins, already referred to, who supposes the order to have been directly introduced from Syria, and Solomon's temple; his reasonings and calculations on this subject present a rare combination of ingenuity, learning, and practical science. The premises, however, are assumed, namely, that the word translated 'chapiter' in the common version of the book of Kings, means not only the capital, but includes the entablature also; a gratuitous assumption, opposed by the dimensions still visible in the parent source of Egyptian columns, and which, even granted, would not prove an identity in purpose and proportion with the Greek order. The hypothesis of Vitruvius is fanciful, namely, that the proportion of the human foot to the height of the body, was adopted as the rule for the proportion of the base to the elevation of the column. The most probable view seems to be, that this order sprung up as the fruit of continued observation on the practice of Egyptian art, as compared with the methods of wooden erection employed among the early Greeks themselves. This would necessarily give an intermediate style in simplicity and lightness; the pine, common in the ancient forests of Greece, truncated for any purpose, gives at once a very near approximation to the shaft; the same tree converted into a squared beam, gives the horizontal binding or architrave; the merely ornamental or subordinate members would be suggested in progressive operations of experience, or they might be introduced by selection; for, as already noted, every ornament of succeeding art, though not under the same combinations, is to be found in the Egyptian modes. The whole history of taste, even as touched upon in these pages, favors this slow and native growth of an art among every people remarkable for its successful cultivation. The three orders--the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian, exhibit also this gradual process of discovery and advance to perfection. It is historically, as well as poetically true, that ----First, unadorn'd, And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose; The Ionic then with decent matron grace Her airy pillar heaved; luxuriant last The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath. The character of genius in Greece likewise favors these views, more exquisitely alive to beauty, to propriety, to decorous simplicity and grandeur, than distinguished for those qualities that more decisively belong to invention--fire, impetuosity, wild irregularity, or rude majesty. Neither then were the primitive elements invented, and thence without aid of more ancient knowledge, the orders or systems of architecture brought to perfection in Greece; nor was any one of these introduced wholly or at once in a state approaching to perfect symmetry and arrangement. In this, as in all their arts, no less than in their literature, the Greeks borrowed, imitated, selected,--and yet they created--they assimilated discordant variety to one solemn breathing harmony--they brought out every latent germ of beauty that lay overwhelmed in the mass of more ancient thought. From the dark yet mighty accumulations of Eastern knowledge and skill, their genius spake forth that light and that perfection which, in human wisdom and taste, still guides, corrects, and animates. Yet their improvements were but so many--important indeed--intermediate gradations in the universal system of obligation which nations owe to each other. But while sound judgment constrains the rejection of the exclusive pretensions of the Greek writers on the particular subject in question, it must be confessed there is in these something more than pleasing. They are not selfish; they are deeply connected with the sympathies and the feelings--the truest, best associations in objects of art. Though we find all the elements of composition in Egyptian architecture, and must believe that the Greek orders were in their origin thence derived; yet the very idea, that the sedate grandeur of the Doric borrowed its majesty from imitation of man's vigorous frame and decorous carriage; or that the chaste proportions of the graceful Ionic were but resemblances of female elegance and modesty,--the belief of all this, so carefully cherished, was calculated to produce the happiest effect upon living manners. So also, though the origin of the Corinthian capital is apparent in an object emblematic over the whole East, and not unknown even in some Christian forms, the mysterious lotus, whose leaves so frequently constitute the adornment of the Egyptian column; still, how dear to the heart the thought of most perfect skill receiving its model from the humble tribute of affection placed on the grave of the Corinthian maid, round which nature had by chance thrown the graceful acanthus! If, in the sober inquiries of history, such opinions are removed, the act is done with regret. Yet in this onward path of truth, if one blossom planted there by human feeling must be beaten down, how grateful the incense even of the crushed flower! The three orders now mentioned constitute the whole system of Greek architecture. The Doric appears to have been the most ancient, and continued down to the period of the Roman conquest to be most extensively employed in the European states of Greece, as these were colonized chiefly by the Dorians--hence the name. Of this order are the most celebrated remains of ancient art, which may be divided into two great classes, namely, those of Greece, and of the Greek settlements in Sicily and Southern Italy. The first class of buildings comprehends a space extending from the earliest traditions, when �achus, in the commencement of the tenth century before Christ, is reported to have built the temple of Jupiter still remaining in �gina, to the erection of the Parthenon, the noblest monument of this order, which, from its beauty, and the predilection in its favor, has been termed the Grecian. Subsequently, decline appears so early as the era of the Macedonian empire; but the latest erection is supposed coeval with the reign of Augustus. Within the ten centuries thus comprehended between the first and last application of the Doric order, must have been erected those magnificent structures whose ruins still adorn Greece. The probable ages of these are as follow: commencing with the �ginetic ruin just mentioned, whose date is lost in remote antiquity, and which seems to have formed the second remove only in the march of art westward from its primeval sources, to Crete, �gina, Greece. Next, the celebrated four columns near Corinth. The temple of Jupiter at Olympia either precedes or follows, the architect Libon, and the roof, the first of the kind, formed of marble tiles, the invention of Byzes of Naxos. An interval occurs here, carrying us forward to the Athenian structures, the most ancient of which, the temple of Theseus, belongs to a much later period than any of the preceding. The date of the Propylea and the Parthenon crowning the Acropolis, and placed in situation as in excellence eminently conspicuous, is fixed by the most splendid names in Grecian art;--they were built under the direction of Phidias, the former by Mnesicles, the latter by Ictinus, encouraged by the patronage of Pericles. Ancient of days! august Athena! where, Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul? Gone--glimmering through the dream of things that were. First in the race that led to Glory's goal,-- They're sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower, Dim with the mist of years, grey flits the shade of power. To Ictinus is also to be ascribed the most perfect vestige of antiquity now in existence, the Temple of the Apollo Epicurius, in Arcadia, and which is reported to have been one of the most splendid buildings of the Peloponnesus. The magnificent columns which 'crown Sunium's marble steep,' belong to the same era, and probably to the same school. For sixty years afterwards, we have no decline in the grandeur or purity of the Doric, as yet appears in the ruins of Messene, a city built by Epaminondas, and still exhibiting the most perfect specimen of ancient military architecture. But the victories of this warrior were parricidal triumphs; they were gained over those who ought to have been as brothers. In sculpture, we have already seen that this era marks the retrogression of the manly and the grand in style; it is so in architecture, for in less than forty years, a great declension in these respects must have taken place in this the grandest and most severe of the orders, as is attested by the specimen in the isle of Delos, inscribed with the name of Philip of Macedon. After this the Doric either fell into desuetude, or the works have perished, for the only remaining example is the portico, erected by Augustus in one of the _agorai_ or squares of Athens. Of the remains of Doric architecture in the ancient seats of the Sicilan and Italian colonies, the dates, even with ordinary accuracy, it is impossible individually to ascertain. The former claim the highest antiquity in some, but not in all instances. The temple of Egesta, in the interior of the island, is perhaps one of the oldest, yet among the least imperfect monuments of the art in Europe; contemporary or earlier, is the temple of Minerva, at Syracuse; the other remains near that city are of a later date. The ponderous ruins at Selinus, which consist of no less than six temples, one of which, three hundred and thirty-one feet in length, composed of a double peristyle of columns sixty feet high, must have presented one of the sublimest objects ever reared by human art. Ruins at Agrigentum--Temple of Juno most picturesque, of Concord very perfect--three others, last the grand Temple of Olympian Jupiter, one of the most stupendous buildings of the ancient world, and whose buried materials swell into hills or subside in valleys, over which we have ourselves wandered, without at first knowing that we trode upon the prostrate labours of man, and not the workings of nature. With the exception of the two first, these remains as also the Temple of Apollo, at Gela, seem to be nearly of the same age. Indeed, their erection can be fixed between certain limits, by comparison of historical details, in which, either by direct mention or inference, a connexion is traced between the political condition and the arts of the Sicilian cities. Proceeding in this manner, it is found that all of these enormous piles rose in little more than a century, embracing the greater part of the fifth, and the early portion of the fourth, before our era. These edifices thus fall in with the interval already noticed between the earliest Doric buildings in Greece, and the erection of the Athenian temples. Accordingly, there appear in them more noble proportions and a greater elevation of column than in the former, still without the graceful majesty of the latter. Under what circumstances, however, or by what science, many of these wonderful fabrics were reared, history affords no information. Of the rise and the overthrow, for instance, of the temples at Selinus, we know nothing; some even doubt whether human power could have overthrown what it had elevated; and ascribe the regular prostration of the gigantic columns, each often exactly in a line, extending outwards from its base, as if overturned but yesterday, to the concussion of an earthquake. These appearances we have certainly remarked with astonishment, and have beheld, and measured, and wandered amid the ruins, with admiration not unmingled with awe; but the truth was obvious, that the same age which could arrange these masses into symmetry, could also have cast them down as they now lie. And we know that it was the same age--for one page, almost one sentence, records both their rise and their fall. Yet of the energies and knowledge of that age, our own has no conception. The riches of any one of the sovereigns of Europe, and the skill of his wisest subjects, would barely suffice for the erection of only one of the six Selinuntine temples--the works of a distant colony of Greece. That this may not appear exaggeration, let the reader contemplate for a moment an edifice--the porticos of which alone would require one hundred columns of stone, each sixty feet high, and thirty in circumference--such was the great Temple of Selinus. The celebrated ruins of Pæstum, consisting of two temples and a quadrangular portico, containing eighteen columns in flank, and seven in front, compose the only Grecian Doric remains in Italy. The date and origin of these structures will probably ever remain liable to doubt. This arises partly from the singular nature of some of the buildings themselves, as well as from the obscurity which rests upon this portion of history in general. The greater of the two temples bears evident character of the same design and architectural principles as the Sicilian edifices; between which latter, indeed, as compared with each other, there exists, in this respect, a very striking uniformity, pointing to a nearly contemporary erection. Hence the inference seems clear, that to the same era the Pæstan ruin is to be referred, and that it is the work of Greek colonists from Sybaris, who, from the middle of the sixth century B. C., for more than two hundred years enjoyed peaceable possession of this part of Lucania. This temple, though not equal in magnitude to some ruins in Sicily, is a very noble, and the largest pile in a state of such perfection out of Greece. Not a single column of the outer peristylia is wanting. It was within this 'pillared range,' during the moonlight of a troubled sky, we experienced emotions of the awful and sublime, such as impress a testimony, never to be forgotten, of the power of art over the affections of the mind. The other ruins, which some consider a temple and a hall of justice, others, with greater probability, two temples, though, like the former in situation, They stand between the mountain and the sea, Awful memorials, but of whom we know not, are far inferior in dignity of effect and purity of style. Nor are these defects the consequences of a progressive knowledge advancing to better things, they are evident corruptions of ancient simplicity. Both these are to be referred to a period posterior to the Roman conquest of the city, which occurred in the 481st year of Rome, that is, not three centuries before our era. Of the same age are the walls, remaining in considerable entireness, especially the eastern gate, as represented in the vignette, where the voussoirs, or arch-stones, still span the entrance. Here it may be proper, without going into the particular facts and reasonings upon which the inference is founded, merely to state, that, regarding the introduction of the arch into classic architecture, the weight of evidence is against any knowledge of its use or construction prior to the era of Alexander. Indeed, the arch is contrary to the whole genius of the Greek system, which delights in the simplicity of horizontal and perpendicular lines, to which the contrasts, minute divisions, and constantly recurring breaks of arched building, are most directly opposed. During the pure ages of truly Grecian taste, the very improvements and changes which successively ensued, all tended to guide invention farthest from the arch. To add elevation to the column, and to increase the unbroken length of the entablature, were objects most directly pursued. The greater richness or variety of ornament thus admitted, was an advantage rather incidental than contemplated, though with exquisite skill rendered available-- ----without o'erflowing--full. Whether the Ionic order of architecture originated merely as a variation on the 'Dorian mode,' or as a separate invention, it is not easy, and not of much importance, to determine. The two ideas may be reconciled; remains of Ionic are found coeval with the earliest certain accounts of the Doric edifices; so far the former was independent, and having arisen among the Ionian states, where subsequently it continued to be employed in preference, it thus obtained a distinct name and character. Afterwards, however, on being brought into use in European Greece, architects appear to have studied its capabilities, chiefly in contrast with the corresponding proprieties of the Doric. Here something like an encroachment was made on its separate identity; or rather, the artists of those times contemplated each system as a modification, in part, of one great whole, bearing a relation only to the emotions of grandeur and beauty. This is still the proper view in which the orders are to be regarded in reference to excellence in architectural composition. Now, indeed, the moderns possess the advantage of a principle then unknown--the principle of association, which both limits the field of choice, and increases the beauty of a just selection. Of the Ionic order, few remains are extant in Greece or her colonies--few, we mean, as compared with the amazing structures just considered. The Temple of Juno, in the Isle of Samos, raised about the first Olympiad by Ræchus and Theodorus, already noticed as the founders of the Samian School of Sculpture, supplies the earliest specimen. This, in the age of Herodotus, was the grandest building in Greece. How rapidly the order must have improved! Many archaisms, not to say barbarous inventions, occur. Next in age has been placed the singular but not ungraceful monument at Agrigentum, called the Tomb of Theron. Here we discover, indeed, Ionic columns, but everything else is Doric--proofs, first, of the antiquity of the monument; and secondly, of the truth of our opinion, more than once hinted in these pages, that the Dorian colonies in Sicily were original settlements from the East, little or no intermediate connexion having taken place between them and the Dorians of the Peloponnesus, who affected to be considered as the mother country. If pursued to the full extent of its consequences, this position would go far to explain several doubts, in regard to the early power and arts of the Sicilian and Lucanian cities. The earliest example of the true Ionic, is the Temple of Bacchus at Teos, erected, most probably, soon after the Persian invasion, or not later than fifty years after, or about 440 B. C. At Athens, however, in the temples of Minerva, Polias, and Erectheus, is to be found the most perfect remain of this order, but of what precise date is uncertain,--probably about the era of the Peloponnesian war. Near Miletus, the Temple of Apollo, erected by the architects Peonius and Daphnis, brings us down to that of Minerva at Priene, by Pitheas, in the age of Alexander; after which no specimens are to be found more ancient than the Roman conquest, with the exception of some in different parts of Asia Minor, whose dates cannot be ascertained. In these two orders, now described, almost every beauty of composition had been attained, except facility of arrangement, with that extreme simplicity in which the taste of 'early Greece' seems to have placed the very perfection of the art. In the Doric, the triglyphs broke in upon the unity of the entablature viewed in perspective, producing also complexity in the intervals, or difficulty of managing them. The Ionic, by removing the divisions of the zoophorus, left the guiding lines of the horizontal members of the order unbroken, and with greater aptitude for the introduction of ornament; still the capital deviated from the simple harmony--the object contemplated by the artist, as it presented different aspects viewed in front or in flank, and also was not equally adapted to all situations in the same range. By the invention of the Corinthian, the beauties of the former orders were combined, while their defects were also obviated; the removal of the triglyphs left the arrangement unembarrassed, while the circular capital presented always the same outline, and adapted itself equally to all positions. The system of Greek architecture, the most perfect combination of the necessities of science with forms most pleasing to the eye, that ever did, or, we may venture to say, will exist, was completed. When this perfection was attained is doubtful, as we have elsewhere shown;[E] but the question is of less importance, since it is known that the Corinthian order was employed by Scopas in the magnificent temple of Minerva at Tegea, erected between the 94th and 104th Olympiad, or nearly 400 years before the Christian era. Of the remaining monuments of this order, few can be ascribed to the best ages of Grecian taste. It became the favorite style after Alexander, and especially of the Romans, to whom is to be attributed by far the greater part of the Corinthian remains now in Greece. The circular erection of Lysicrates, commonly termed, from the occasion commemorated, the Choragic Monument, built 342 B. C.; the octagonal edifice of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, apparently not much later; most probably the magnificent remains of the temple of the Olympian Jupiter; and, according to Stuart, another ruin, which he calls the _Poikele Stoa_, or painted portico, compose the sole remains of the order prior to the Roman conquest. The first is one of the most exquisite and perfect gems of architectural taste, and the purest specimen of the order, that has reached our time, whose minuteness and unobtrusive beauty have preserved it almost entire amid the ruins of the mightiest piles of Athenian art. The second is curious in its contrivance to supply ignorance of the arch. The fourth is of doubtful antiquity; but of the third, the columns, at least, are of the best age of Greece. These, composed of the finest white marble, and of the most perfect workmanship, with an elevation of nearly sixty feet, and belonging to an edifice four hundred long, awaken emotions of regret, of magnificence, and of beauty, difficult to comprehend or to impart. In thus briefly following out the history of the orders, as far as researches can be authenticated by remaining examples, the narrative has conducted us to the death of Alexander, A. C. 324, while it has included the consideration of every essential principle, for the Greeks never widely deviated from their established modes. The caryatic supports of the Temples of the Nymph Pandrosos, still almost perfect at Athens, and the Persian portico said to have been at Sparta, form the only exceptions to this observation. These, however, were never imitated--they were suffered as individual fantasies--not allowed as models. The period just considered, comprehending a space of about 113 years from Pericles to Alexander, was occupied almost exclusively with the perfecting and application of the Ionic and Corinthian orders. The art had now attained, in all its modes, the highest character of purity and magnificence. For more than two successive centuries, the history of the art would conduct to consideration of the labours of the Greek princes in the East, when Asia received back the early information given to Europe. How vast the interval of obligation! But of all the labours of those times, great as they must have been, when one alone of the Seleucidan dynasty founded forty cities, only a few remains in Ionia, with one or two in Greece, are known, or have been explored. To this period are doubtless to be referred ruins in the Greek style, said to exist in Syria and Persia, while, as already noticed, the Romans justly claim those more commonly visited; but over all these hangs an obscurity perhaps now impenetrable. Innovations upon the severe purity of ancient taste were now certainly introduced; still the art had not suffered any lapse; the essential principles appear to have been fully understood, and sufficiently respected. This, indeed, is the case, to a degree of veneration not generally supposed, at least in the remains of Asia Minor, while now, in complete possession of a new and mighty element of design--the arch; never before had architecture exhibited so great capabilities, or powers adequate to the most gigantic works, whether of use or magnificence. In this state the art passed into the hands of the Romans, when universal conquest had left them masters of the world. Thence commences a new era in the history of architecture, distinguished, however, rather by new applications than by fresh inventions. The art continued essentially Greek, for, though to the Etruscans, and subsequently to the early Romans, an order has been ascribed, no specimen of this Tuscan capital has come down to our times, and consequently there exist no means of tracing the narrative or descriptions of Vitruvius. But by the account even of this native writer, the public buildings of the regal and consular times were rude enough, exhibiting a state of the science as already described among the early nations of the East--vertical supports of stone, with wooden bearers. This continued to be their style of design and practice, till extending empire brought the Romans acquainted with the arts of the Dorian settlements on the east and southern shores of Italy. The situation of the capital, however, distant from accessible materials, the simplicity--not to say homeliness of manners--and the constant bent of the national genius towards foreign conquest, at first denied power to profit by accession of science, or subsequently diverted attention away from its pleasures and its advantages. Down to the conquest of Asia and the termination of the republic, Rome continued a 'city of wood and brick.' Only with the establishment of the empire and the reign of Augustus, with the wealth of the world at command, and the skill of Greece to direct the application, commences the valuable history of architecture among the Romans. This, the last period of Classic Art, comprehends a space of about 350 years, terminating with the transference of the seat of empire by Constantine, A. D. 306. Of this interval, however, only the smaller portion must be given to a taste even comparatively pure; for, great as were its resources, symptoms of the decay of art, continually increasing, are detected even from the first years of the imperial government. Without entering minutely into these gradations, the death of Hadrian, A. D. 138, may be assumed as including both the noblest erections and the better taste of the empire. That to this date, the essential characteristics of elegance and purity continued in a degree untainted, there is evidence in the works of Hadrian at Athens. Thus, during an interval of not less than 574 years, from Pericles to the last mentioned emperor, architecture, in this respect more fortunate than either sculpture or painting, flourished in splendor and excellence not greatly impaired. Of all the fine arts--poetry not excepted--architecture is the only one into which the Roman mind entered with the real enthusiasm of natural and national feeling. Success corresponded with the exalted sentiment whence it arose; here have been left for the admiration of future ages, the most magnificent proofs of original genius. This originality, however, depends not upon _invention_ so much as upon _application_ of modes. To the architectonic system, indeed, the Romans claim to have added two novel elements in their own Doric, or Tuscan, and Composite orders. But in the restless spirit of innovation which these betray, the alleged invention discovers a total want of the true feeling and understanding of the science of Grecian design. In this very desire of novelty, and in the principles upon which it was pursued, are to be traced the immediate causes of ruin to the art, while yet its resources were unimpaired. The Romans unfortunately viewed the constituents of the Greek orders, and even the orders themselves, as so many conventional ornaments, which might be changed or superseded on the laws of association, in the same manner as they were supposed to have been framed. This it is of importance to mark, for the very same have been the sources, and are still the operating causes, of inferiority in modern architecture. But the very opposite of all this is the case. Of this system, the Greeks, in the course of centuries, had founded what was conventional upon what is necessary; they had united beauty with science, by combinations the most pleasing to taste--because of this very union of effect and principle. Architecture, with them, was thus not more conventional than is every part of knowledge not immediately derived from sense--not more, for instance, than geometry; and its modes, therefore, as constituting one whole, became immutable, being only conventional, as expressions or representatives of truth. This harmony, therefore, between the intellectual and the merely beautiful--the very perfection of the science of taste--the Greeks sought not by perilous experiments to disturb. Not that among them the vigor of independent genius was cramped; proper latitude of composition being allowed, licentiousness of fancy was restrained; each artist thought, in due subordination to the principles of a system which he knew to be as unchangeable as the laws that ensured the stability of his edifice. Hence, in every remain of Greek art, something peculiar is discoverable--some exquisite adaptation of parts to circumstances--to proportion--to feeling; but this never obtrudes--never is the general symmetry, or prevailing character, in the least interrupted. Even the orders observe the same law of composition. They are but variations of one grand abstraction of stability and grace, which may be termed the ideal of architecture. Each varies from another in detail, but the result is one and the same concord; the proportions in each differ, but the analogies of proportion are in all cases congenial. Even when, by addition or absence of parts, there is discriminative form, still the same final result of purpose or propriety is evident. In all, the same master lines meet the eye, guide the comprehension over all divisions, and bind the entire design into one grand harmonious whole. Similar means and similar harmonies everywhere occur; the same in all is the last impress on the mind of symmetry and majestic repose--of grace and dignity--of steadfast tranquillity--of unlaboured elegance--and of rich simplicity. The system in this, its perfect wholeness, the Romans never conceived, and upon this entireness their style first broke. They appear to have deemed that lightness and grace, here the great objects of their pursuit, were to be attained not so much by proportion between the vertical and horizontal, as by comparative slenderness in the former. Hence, in the very outset, is detected a poverty in the Roman architecture, even in the midst of profuse ornament, which, as we advance, continually increases with the practice whence it originated. The great error was a constant aim to lessen the diameter, while they increased the elevation, of the columns and supporting members generally--an error, as remarked by Plutarch, 'to a Greek eye' perceptible so early as the reign of Domitian. Hence the incongruities of the Roman orders, which yet are mere plagiarisms from the Greek, and upon this defective principle. The massive simplicity and severe grandeur of the ancient Doric, disappear in the Roman, the characteristics of the order being frittered down into a multiplicity of minute members. This division is not only in itself injurious to the simple idea of strength, but the parts are separately composed in ignorance of the primitive intention. To their two more refined orders, the Ionic and Corinthian, the Greeks always added a base, to unite them sweetly and gracefully with the plinth step, or floor; to the Doric, this accessory was always denied, that strong contrast might lead the eye at once from the support to the firm position of the vertical shaft--thus apparently still more securely planted, as resting immediately on the solid platform of the building. In opposition to these obvious principles, the Romans used the Doric always with a base, composed, too, of various members; while in the capital they erred still more against propriety. The Doric capital of the Greeks is a masterpiece of composition;--formed of few and bold, yet graceful parts, it leads by degrees of increasing strength to the surmounting entablature, which, with its triglyphs and sculptured metopes, seems to the eye yet more ponderous--ready to crush the starved and fluttering members, fillet above fillet, which compose the capital of the Roman pillar. The Corinthian is the only order which the Romans have employed with almost the undiminished grace of the original; but even here is distinctly to be traced the pernicious effects of their system. In the Ionic, they have left comparatively few examples, while, still following out their principle, they added to the length of the shaft, and flattened the capital, thus losing much of the simple yet stately elegance which distinguishes this order. Their own Composite is in some measure a combination of the Ionic and the Corinthian, having the volutes of the former and the foliage of the latter, upon which it is anything but an improvement, since it contradicts the character, and in a great degree opposes the advantages, of the primitive. As far, then, as concerns the invention of forms, and the just conception of the elemental modes of Greece, the Romans failed. Their architecture was imperfect, both as a system of symmetry, and as a science founded upon truth and upon taste. But when their labours are viewed as regards the practice of the art, their merits are presented under a far different aspect. Whether the magnitude, the utility, the varied combinations, or the novel and important evidences of their knowledge, be considered, the Romans, in their practical works, are yet unrivalled. They here created their own models, while they have remained examples to their successors. Though not the inventors of the arch, they, of all the nations of antiquity, first discovered and boldly applied its powers; nor is there one dignified principle in its use which they have not elicited. Rivers are spanned; the sea itself, as at Ancona, is thus enclosed within the cincture of masonry; nay, streams were heaved into air, and, borne aloft through entire provinces, poured into the capital their floods of freshness, and health. The self-balanced dome, extending a marble firmament over head, the proudest boast of modern skill, has yet its prototype and its superior in the Pantheon-- Relic of nobler days and noblest arts! Despoil'd, yet perfect, with thy circle spreads A holiness appealing to all hearts-- To art a model. The same stupendous and enduring character pervaded all the efforts of Roman art, even in those instances where more ancient principles only were brought into action. Where the Greeks were forced to call the operations of nature in aid of the weakness of art, availing themselves of some hollow mountain side for the erection of places of public resort, the imperial masters of Rome caused such mountains to be reared of masonry, within their capital, for the Theatre, Amphitheatre, and Circus. Of these vast structures, where assembled multitudes might sit uncrowded, the Colosseum--the mightiest indeed, yet only one of the labours of the reign in which it was raised--contains more solid material, brought too from far, and exquisitely wrought, than all the works of either Louis XIV., or the Czar Peter--the two greatest builders among the sovereigns of modern times: From its mass, Walls, palaces, half cities, have been rear'd; Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd. Palaces--Temples--Baths--Porticos--Arches of Triumph--Commemorative Pillars--Basilica, or Halls of Justice--Fora, or Squares--Bridges--without mentioning the astonishing highways, extending to the extremities of the empire--all were constructed on the same grand and magnificent plan. The art, in every part of its practice, partook of the national character of the people. Its applications were great, substantial, and useful--beautiful in execution, but this beauty dignified yet more as subservient to utility. The highest conceivable grandeur seemed but necessary, as commensurate with the wants and the durability of a dominion which was to be universal and eternal. Roman art has, in these respects, a character almost of moral dignity beyond all relics of antiquity. The records of their dead, though erections of more equivocal usefulness, partake of the same style, and, like the pyramids of Egyptian kings, have ceased to be monuments save of their own greatness. Some, and those but of individuals, or even a woman's grave, as towers of strength have rolled back the shock of feudal warfare; and the tomb of an emperor, turned into a palace, or a fortress, still overawes the city of the Cæsars. But, alas! the passing briefness of all things sublunary! The spirit's homage to this mightiness of mind and power, is due only to the labours of little more than a century and a half. The very greatness of these edifices proved a source of after corruption, by withdrawing attention from the delicacies of composition, and by substituting brute mass for the refinements of science. Even under the Antonines, decline from the age of Hadrian is perceptible--though more in taste than in practice. Under Commodus, architecture suffered most decided degradation--another proof how steadily the arts reflect, not only the mental, but the moral energies of the times. The downward impulse hurries onwards, occasionally stayed by the personal virtues or activities of the reigning prince. Severus has thus left evidence how far his age had fallen, and yet how superior to those that follow! between his triumphal arch and that of Titus, how great the difference!--yet, in point of design, far less than between his and Constantine's. The last splendours of Roman skill were elicited by the talents of Dioclesian, and great appear still to have been the practical resources of architecture--greater than usually admitted. The circular Hall in his Baths is inferior only to the Pantheon, and awakened the enthusiasm of Michael Angelo; his Dalmatian Palace was the finest building undertaken for twelve succeeding centuries. Few of the qualities which can ennoble the art, as an object of taste, survived this period. The works of Constantine, not excepting the founding of a capital, prove how complete was the lapse, since even his zeal could call forth only attempts to ungraceful and ineffective. CHAPTER XVII. THE history of Architecture still to be considered, extends through fifteen centuries to the present time. This interval may be divided into three eras. I. Period of the circular arch. II. Period of the pointed arch. III. Revival and practice of classic art. The theories so abounding in this particular portion of the subject, must be reviewed as in themselves forming part of the information which the reader has a right to expect; but the notice will be brief, the narrative, it is hoped, enabling the judgment to deduce its own conclusions from facts, independently of all opinion. For this reason, the preceding division is adopted, characterised only by the style of architecture, without reference to those minute distinctions and disputes about names, the great sources of obscurity and unsettled hypothesis in treating of the building of the middle ages. It may be remarked, _in limine_, that the term, 'Gothic Architecture,' is of late invention, and appears to be used in two distinct, or indeed opposite meanings. First, to denote the whole system of architectural erection intervening between the decline of the ancient classic modes, and their reappearance soon after the revival of letters. In this sense, it is usually employed as expressive of something barbarous and unscientific. In the second place, the phrase is employed by a large school of writers and artists, to denote a system or systems of art, arising, it is acknowledged, among men of rude cultivation in other respects, yet claiming original principles of invention, and very refined rules of practice--so far even as to be an imitation of natural prototypes of very distant, yet tasteful associations. Each of these theories exclusively taken, seems to be disproved by the course of history, when all preconceived notions are laid aside, and when art, as ought ever to be the case, is fairly made its own interpreter. I. It has been shown that the Romans, in obtaining full mastery of a powerful engine in building--the arch, were at first bold, subsequently lavish, and, it will appear, finally barbarous, in its application. From the reigns even of the early Cæsars, a tendency may be traced in their architecture to become great in mass, but little in parts--to lessen, in the first instance, the vertical or supporting members; and in the second, to load the superstructure, or supported parts. The progress of corruption might be traced, by regular steps, from vast arches, with groins planted on a single Corinthian column, to the arcades of the palace of Dioclesian at Spalatro. These still are left, exhibiting external and internal ranges of arches, springing directly from the capitals of the columns, without any intervening entablature. What more, we ask, is wanting here, to one of the most decided characteristics of one species, at least, of Gothic architecture, and an elemental principle in all kinds? nothing, save a little less elegance of workmanship in the supports, a pier substituted for the column, and the soffit of the arch bevelled instead of being square; steps successively apparent in posterior remains. Surely, then, it is carrying theory beyond all moderate limits, to contend for a separate origin of the system, when the principles of Gothic building are thus distinctly recognizable in a corruption of classic modes, at an era while yet vigorous practice prevailed, with resources undiminished for its support. This corruption, indeed, evidently proceeded, not so much from inefficiency, as from too eager pursuit of novelty--this too, unrestrained by the immediate presence of more simple forms; for, in the baths of the same emperor, appears a less licentious taste. For the exterior, indeed, such Gothic arcades do not seem to have been soon imitated; but for the interior, their adoption was almost immediate. These intermediate steps it is unnecessary farther to pursue at present. The era of Constantine, though justly regarded as marking the final disappearance of the last lingering rays of ancient taste, proves yet a most important epoch in the history of architecture. The reception of Christianity as the religion of the empire, not only changed to a very great extent, the entire frame and aspect of society, but in a particular manner influenced the practical art of building. As in the heathen temple was traced the great source of perfection in ancient art, so in the Christian church then established, is to be found the origin of those modes and forms, which, for so many centuries, guided modern practice. But the former structure was one of external magnificence only; internally, it was neither intended, nor, unaltered, adapted, to accommodate large assemblies. In the new religion, this became the primary object in its places of worship: while the early Christians refused to make use of the 'houses of idols.' In this emergency, there remained only one course--to convert the most capacious of unobjectionable buildings into churches. Of all these, the Basilicon presented, not only no difficulties as having been desecrated, but also was directly accommodated to the necessities of the case. The ancient Basilicon was a building of great extent, adjoining the forum or great square, in every city, serving at once the purposes of an exchange for the transaction of business, of a court for the administration of justice, and of a place for general resort. The exterior was adorned with porticoes more or less magnificent, while internally it was separated lengthwise by two or four ranges of columns, into three or five longitudinal divisions, according to its width. Of these, the middle one was the largest, open to the top, and uncovered; the side ones were smaller, roofed in, with galleries opening into the centre compartment, and to which access was had by stairs at the two extremities. Under an arched niche, usually at the extremity of the central division, was a tribunal for the judge, exactly in the situation where the Christian altar was afterwards placed. From the whole description, it is evident, that the only alteration necessary to convert this edifice into a complete church, with its nave and lateral aisles, was to place a roof over the middle portion. Thus the first Christian churches were formed; and hence many of those in Rome still retain the name of Basilicon. Subsequently, the transepts were added, to imitate the cross, though this form seems to have been very early known in the East. The general form of the church being thus determined, more through chance than design, yet with great convenience and propriety, this accidental form was adhered to in the subsequent erections for sacred purposes; but with certain internal arrangements, modified by the lessened resources of the art, the prevailing taste, and the novel exigencies of the case. Instead of the horizontal entablature resting upon the internal ranges of pillars, as in the more classical Basilicon, churches were constructed internally of arcades, the arches resting upon the capitals of the columns. These latter were torn from more ancient edifices, but combined, and often with considerable effect, by the ruder efforts of existing art. Thus, with columns for supports, united with ranges of semicircular arches abutting against the walls, we soon find the perfect Gothic church established. This style of building, recommended at once by convenience and necessity, rapidly spread over the whole of Italy and the Empire, for Constantinople was erected from pilfered monuments, which, when taken to pieces and transported thither, were subsequently set up in a most confused and imperfect manner. When the supporting columns could no longer be obtained from ancient structures, or where this resource had never existed, the whole was to be reared from the foundation. Here it would soon be discovered that a cylindrical, square, or bevelled pier, without diminution, would be a fitter and more easily erected support for the arch. From the desire of stability, or the imperfection of skill, this pier, of whatever form, begins gradually to decrease in altitude, while it becomes more massive, still with a base and capital palpable though rude imitations of the same, members of the classic column. In this state was the art, when Italy fell under the power of barbarian conquerors. This style they adopted in their own buildings; for, after conquest was secure, they patronised the arts of their subjects, introducing a still greater profusion of ornament, rudely executed, and in worse design. Yet the whole effect of such works is often not without grandeur. Beginning with Rome, we might instance, from our own observation, a continuous series of monuments, of a style such as now described, still remaining in different parts of Italy, especially the Gothic capitals of Lombardy, as Ravenna, Verona, Pavia, introducing the early revival in Pisa and the cities of Tuscany. Such a survey would unite the labours of Metrodorus, the first Christian architect under Constantine, with those of Buschetto and Diotisalvi, in the commencement of the eleventh century, leading to the mention of various architects of the Gothic kingdom, as Ciriades, of Rome; Aloisius, of Padua, author of the famous tomb of Theodoric, called the Rotunda of Ravenna; St Germain, of France; St Avitus, of Clermont; Agricola, of Chalons; Romnaldus, of France; Tietland, of Germany; with others. Such an inquiry, however, is not here necessary, inasmuch as it must now appear obvious, that the style just described might be termed Gothic, as practised by the mixed race of invaders, who, under the name of Goths, subdued Italy; but that such a style could not have been introduced by them from the forests of Germany and the wilds of Pannonia. From Italy, religion, and consequently ecclesiastical building, extended over the rest of Europe. In France and Germany, the names enumerated above, with the works still remaining there, might be examined in corroboration of the fact, that the circular arch prevailed at the same time in these countries. But as of most importance, attention is better limited to British art in the middle age. This species of building is distinguished, in native antiquities, by the appellation of Saxon or Norman,--displaying, as characteristics, low, thick, and rotund pillars, with bases and capitals often fantastically carved, with heavy semicircular arches, springing directly from the top, corresponding exactly with the corrupted Roman. Regarding the propriety of this designation, however, doubts may reasonably be entertained, since it by no means certainly appears that either the Saxons or Normans were the introducers. There is evidence that sacred edifices existed in Britain prior to the Saxon invasion; and, indeed, when Constantine wrote rescripts to the various provinces, his own birthplace would not be omitted among those enjoined to erect and repair churches. It would appear, also, that the Saxons were attached to wooden erections, as is expressed by the verb _getymbrian_, to build,--a similar analogy, from the same cause, as in Greek, where the word _wood_ is used to denote the constituent matter, or material, of anything--as 'the wood,' meaning the matter, of 'an argument.' It is probable, then, that the stone buildings of the Saxons were rather copied from existing edifices among the conquered people, consequently direct imitations of the parent corruptions of Italy. This last fact, the only one of real importance in the present case, is not left to conjecture; for, in the accounts of the earliest stone structures of the seventh century, it is said they were erected, in the original phrase, 'more Romanorum,' in the style of the Romans, that is, the style already described. Between the Saxon, or supposed Saxon, and Norman, there exists no difference, except in the superior magnificence of the latter--a circumstance accounted for by the progress of society. It has thus been established, that the style of building with circular arches is clearly a corruption from the ancient classic forms. With little distinctive change, or characteristic difference, this mode was practised throughout Europe during nine centuries. II. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, an innovation upon the long monotony of the circular arch begins to appear and to be perfected. This was the introduction of the pointed, or lancet Gothic, to which species the term is more strictly limited. The origin and progress of the pointed arch, has been rendered one of the most complicated problems in the history of architecture. The subjects of discussion here involve two questions--first, Whence and by whom this style was introduced? secondly, From what prototype the idea was originally derived? On the former of these subjects, the various conflicting opinions may be arranged under two general heads: that the proper Gothic, or pointed arch, had its origin in the cathedral buildings of England, whence the knowledge and practice of this style was diffused throughout Europe during the thirteenth century; or that this architecture is of Oriental growth, and was brought into Europe by the Crusaders. The author of the first system we believe was Walpole; but it has since been adopted by Britton, and a large proportion of the English antiquaries. The second opinion has been ably maintained by Lord Aberdeen, and is that more generally adopted in other countries. It is not here possible to enter into the details of the controversy; the latter view certainly appears to be supported by the analogy both of history and of the arts. This, in absence of positive evidence, and with similar buildings of equal age and character in France, affords far more conclusive argument than any to be derived from the greater perfection which the style, comparatively speaking, displays in England, when the extent of the country and the number of fine buildings are considered. But individual edifices, especially in Germany, are not only equally ancient, but more splendid. Our pretensions to exclusive invention, under circumstances so notorious, that, in Italy, the Gothic is more frequently styled '_Tedesco_,' or '_German_,' have exposed the national information in matters of art, to the severe but merited animadversions of foreign writers. The assumption, however, appears to have little connexion with national opinion, having arisen among antiquaries whose almost sole study had been English building, or, at least, who had viewed the history of Architecture under this peculiar mode alone. In this respect, extensive research and elegant erudition enabled Lord Aberdeen to bring to the subject every requisite of decision; and were we inclined to place faith in any exclusive theory of introduction, it would be that which his Lordship has so ably advocated, in maintaining the Eastern origin of the Gothic or pointed arch. From what exemplar this form was conceived, or by what prototype suggested, has, in the second place, exercised speculation to a wide extent. The following are the principal opinions: 1. Theory of Warburton,--that natural groves supplied the primitive idea, the trunks, branches, and foliage of the trees being represented in the pillars, arches, and tracery of the Gothic. 2. The system of Sir James Hall,--that the whole style, in all its varieties, is but an imitation of wickerwork,--an opinion frequently, though very improperly, considered as a modification of the former: it is independent, and has been very ingeniously followed out in detail. 3. Theory of Sir Christopher Wren, remarkable at least in its propounder,--that the Free Masons were the inventors of the pointed arch. 4. Opinions of many German and Continental writers,--that this arch is but an imitation of the Egyptian and Indian pyramid. 5. Hypothesis, first incidentally proposed by Bentham, subsequently methodized and illustrated by Dr Milner, and pretty generally received,--that the intersection of semicircular arches forming intermediate pointed ones, gave the primitive model. This interlacing of arches is a common ornament in buildings of the old Gothic, already explained; it occurs frequently in relievo, and, if we recollect rightly, also with disengaged columns in several of the façades of old churches in Italy. Durham and Lincoln cathedrals, likewise ecclesiastical remains in Scotland, as Kelso Abbey, furnish examples. 6. Opinion of Mr Whittaker and others,--that pointed Architecture was known to, and practised by, the Romans, early under the imperial government. Such are the leading theories on this interesting subject; an examination of the facts would lead to a history of the ecclesiastical architecture of a great portion of Europe for upwards of three centuries. In France, the pointed arch was early introduced; but the light style of Gothic architecture was not generally carried to such perfection as in Germany and Flanders, having been sooner affected by the introduction of the Italian taste. The German style was perfected about the close of the fourteenth century, and subsequently appears to have undergone little variation, even to the middle of the sixteenth, thus retaining the elegance of the best age in the art much longer. Compared with our own, the best examples have much the same character, with lighter forms and richer tracery,--but of such examples there are fewer in proportion than with us. In Italy, the pointed arch never obtained. It is found, indeed, in Venice and Milan, and occasionally elsewhere; but the style to which it gave birth is not characteristic of Italy, where the early churches are of the old or circular, and the more modern of the mixed or Lombard style. In England, four general periods mark so many changes of Gothic. 1. From 1235 to 1272, including the reigns from the accession of Stephen to that of Edward I., termed _Early_, _English_, _Simple_, and _Lancet Gothic_, characterised by long narrow openings, with a very sharp high arch. Early part of the period shows the gradual introduction of the pointed style. 2. From 1272 to 1377, to the accession of Richard II. This has been designated the age of the _Pure Gothic_, or _Decorated English_, being more highly ornamented than the former, but without exuberance; especially characterised by an arch which circumscribes an equilateral triangle, hence proposed to be named, _Triangular Gothic_. 3. From 1377 to 1509, terminating with the accession of Henry VIII. This constitutes the age of the _Florid Gothic_, which, between these dates, underwent a succession of changes; first, from aspiring, to flatly-pointed and obtuse arches, with large daylights, in panels and straight mullions, instead of tracery; hence the names _Obtuse_ and _Perpendicular English_; becomes more and more ornamented; ceilings of the richest and most complicated tracery, with pendents; Henry VII.'s chapel fine specimen. 4. From 1509 to 1625; when the reign of Charles I. introduces Inigo Jones, and the revival of ancient architecture. First part of the reign of Henry the Eighth a continuation of the Florid Gothic; subsequently the designs of Holbein, and of the Italian artist employed by that monarch, entirely ruined the Gothic, introducing a most barbarous mixture of Roman, Italian, and Gothic. In the succeeding reigns, a stiff and most unmeaning style arose; and, in Scotland, we trace a near approach, if not in magnitude, at least in excellence, to the English examples of Gothic; while the fortunes of the art are found to assimilate to its history in Germany, in as far as a character of great perfection was early formed, and longer preserved, than in the south. It must appear a singular proof of hasty and inconclusive inquiry, that, while an English origin has been claimed for the pointed arch, its elements are found of a date more ancient in Scottish ecclesiastical buildings, not to mention those on the Continent. In opposition to all the preceding theories, we consider the system of pointed architecture, or that properly denominated Gothic, to have arisen independently, though almost contemporaneously, among the nations of Europe most conspicuous for the cultivation of this peculiar style. In this we are borne out by a series of monuments in each country, showing the progressive rise and introduction of the pointed arch, from the form of two long stones, placed on supports, and meeting at top--a contrivance as still visible in the walls of Mycenæ, of three thousand years' standing, up to the finished lancet arch, as in Salisbury cathedral. Or, granting even the Eastern introduction of the arch--and here the monuments are of very doubtful antiquity,[F]--what does this prove with regard to the origin of the system?--Absolutely nothing. This knowledge alone would not go further to enable the architect to construct a Gothic cathedral, than would one of the voussoirs in teaching him the properties of the arch itself. The system is one entire and independent whole, in which the pointed arch is merely an instrument subservient to principles, in consequence of which, if not invented, it was at least improved and rendered perfect. In this light the subject has too seldom been viewed: a light which places Gothic architecture in true and dignified position of an independent branch of art, governed by its own precepts of convenience, stability, and ornament. When, in consequence of an extraordinary out-breaking of religious zeal and enthusiasm, an astonishing change was wrought in the frame of European society, one of the first impulses was to provide, in those countries hitherto comparatively ignorant of the arts, more suitable edifices for the services of that religion, in whose cause multitudes were shedding, or ready to shed, their blood in distant and unknown regions. Thus the Crusades were, but not as usually supposed, the cause of the introduction of art. They operated as one of those moral springs of action by which the arts, as the course of human life, are found to be directed. Under such impressions, when the architect contemplated the ancient structures, the principle of convenience would at once suggest the necessity of heightening their low arches, and decreasing their enormous supports, by which light was obstructed, and space filled up. He saw, however, these efforts could not be accomplished on the old methods:--here the principle of stability--no abstract theory, but the knowledge of the practical builder--taught him, that by elevating the crown of the arch, and thus removing in part the lateral pressure, both objects would be accomplished; for while height was gained, the weight would be thrown more into the perpendicular, and consequently would remain firm with diminished support. The principle once introduced, was carried even to frightful boldness. But again, though the lateral pressure was removed from the arcade itself, abutment was still to be provided at the extremities and side-walls. Hence the peculiar characteristic of the buttress. This indeed existed in the old Gothic; but here the feature assumed a novel appearance. The arches being placed high, required additional altitude to be added, as a counterbalance, at the opposing point; thus the buttress was converted into a turret or pinnacle, susceptible of every varied form which it afterwards received, when the desire of ornament, without the guidance of taste, wandered into every maze of fantasy. Thus the whole system depended upon principle--neither rising, like an exhalation, in consequence of imported knowledge, nor emulating some remote association or model, but by the slow and gradual process of experience. The Gothic cathedral, thus contemplated in its native character and principles--established in unmoved security by the very agency of those forces which tend most directly to destruction, displays an evidence of science, perhaps, when the times are considered, the most wonderful in the whole history of intelligence. Never have the stereometric precepts of building--one of the most difficult branches of the art, been better exhibited than in these piles. Mass counteracts mass,--the very confliction of downward efforts upholds the reed-like column, and hangs on high the ponderous vault. Self-balanced, the entire system contains within itself the essence of its own existence in the chain of means and end, of minute contrivance, and of one purpose. Yet amid all this no effort is apparent, even while the mind starts at the power of its own ingenuity over the properties of matter, and the laws of nature--the artist seems to sport with his subject, to tempt the prostration of his airy fabrics. Here come into aid the principles of Gothic ornament, than which nothing pertaining to the style more merits admiration, whether as enabling the architect to extend the fantasy of his plans, or still more as essentially producing those effects which these plans contemplate. In no system of architecture, the Grecian not even excepted, do the ornamental, so completely integrate and harmonize with the necessary modes. Ornament could not here be removed without destruction both of beauty and stability; it strengthens, yet conceals the necessity of support; and, like the garniture of herbage, and flower, and twining plant, upon the rugged face of earth, it spreads to the delighted eye its mazy error, where would else be only a frightful and unformed mass of nodding masonry. Such are the merits of Gothic architecture, examined in itself, and in reference to the times which gave it birth. Apart from these considerations, viewed as the object of refined perception or cultivated taste, the entire system is defective. In architecture, pleasurable emotion arises from a two-fold cause--the modes, and the associations of the art. In regard to the former, it may be laid down as an universal precept of taste, that in architecture, of all the arts, according to the exhibition of principle, and to the facility with which the mind conceives design, and traces intention, will be the mental pleasure produced by the work. This constitutes the very essence of exalted feeling in Greek art, which, grounded upon obvious principle, consonant with natural appearances, and pursuing beauty as a final aim, fills the mind with delight and admiration. In Gothic architecture, all this is reversed: its first principle is, to conceal all principle; to dazzle and to surprise by effects seemingly at variance with all the usual harmonies of things. Hence, on entering a Gothic edifice, though the mind, at first, be strongly affected by the magnitude and daring arrangement of the forms, where ----the tall pile, Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, Bearing aloft the arch'd and pond'rous roof, By its own weight stands steadfast and immoveable; yet neither the judgment nor the fancy experiences those continually increasing emotions of delight which a Grecian building inspires. Again, the associations connected with Gothic structures are temporary, and, in great measure, local. They are dependent on our assurance of antiquity. Remove from such their antique reminiscences, and venerable traditions, and they are despoiled of all, or good part, of their power over the imagination. With religious Gothic, our associations are more congenial; the holiness of the sentiment mingles its permanency even with the abstract forms; we love the very semblance of the place, Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise! But there can be no doubt that this effect is accidental, not intrinsic; for decidedly the most impressive interiors in Europe are those in churches on classic models. To such style we are, indeed, not accustomed; yet certain it is, the first Christian hymn, when Christianity had now obtained a temple, rose to heaven from amid the beauteous majesty of the Grecian orders. Sublime associations, how much more in unison with the simple grandeur of the reformed service, than the austerity and superstitious gloom of Gothic erection! As a system, then, adapted to its own age--as possessing independent, if not dignified, principles, we consider the pure Gothic, as now described, as one of the most singular and ingenious modes of architectonic science. But in its revived and modern application no useful purpose can be served, whether of good taste or legitimate effect. III. Having thus considered, at some length, the only original and distinguishing characteristics of the architecture of the middle age; the revival of classic forms, as already described, and therefore offering little of novelty, seems to require here only brief notice. Indeed, to render a detailed account interesting, would introduce discussions too lengthened for our limits, on the present state of the art in the different countries of Europe. So early as the commencement of the eleventh century, the Italians began to depart from the ungraceful style of the first period; a departure which, if not a renovation, was at least an improvement, in some measure founded upon closer conceptions of ancient art, and with the Roman orders, though improperly applied. This style, heavy, highly decorated, but not unimpressive, continued to the close of the fourteenth century, and has been named the Italian. Its principal masters were the sculptors already mentioned as belonging to the period. With the commencement of the fifteenth century, a new and far higher school arose, which, though far from pure, was yet much improved; and would have been still more so, had not its patrons been chiefly painters, too ready to aspire to the bold and peculiar effects of their own art. Bramante, the first architect of St Peter's, Da Vinci, Raphael, Julio Romano, and, above all, Michael Angelo, were the masters of this era. The last mentioned mighty name, here, as in all the arts, created his own style: robust, even to the abuse of strength; incorrect, and sometimes barbarous, in detail; in general effect, always grand and original. In St Peter's, with many defects, and still greater beauties, he has left a monument of his genius, the most glorious structure that now adorns the face of the earth, unequalled in extent as in science. Yes, thou, of temples old or altars new, Standest alone, with nothing like to thee-- Worthiest of God, the holy and the true. Since Zion's desolation, when that He Forsook his former city, what could be Of earthly structures, in his honor piled, Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty, Power, glory, strength, and beauty, there are aisled. Great as was this school, much was yet wanting to retrieve the golden purity of ancient art; and this, in the succeeding century, was added by Palladio, so far at least, as the severe majesty of the primitive modes could be recovered from a Roman writer, and by the study of Roman exemplars. Palladio is refined, rather than nervous,--elegant, rather than grand; but of all the modern masters, he is the most chaste in design and ornament, prior to more recent knowledge of the fountain of all excellence--the remains of Greece. His school was numerous, at least the masters who followed out his principles; which, spreading over Europe, firmly established the Roman style, banishing a bastard species of Roman Gothic, by which both systems had been disgraced, and their characteristic distinctions confounded. Of the Palladian, or reformed school, Bernini was the last disciple of genius; his circular colonnade, in front of St Peter's, is worthy of its site. With him, and the conceits of Borromini, Italian architecture may almost be said to have ceased. In France, the two Mansards, during the building reign of Louis XIV., have left heavy imitations of the Michael-Angelesque style; still, to the artist writers of that country, the art owes much. It is there more regularly studied than in any other country in Europe; and in one specimen, the façade of the Louvre, the grandest excellence has been attained; but the general character of national building is too fluttering, wanting repose and majesty. From the two schools, the following ten have been selected, under the name of the modern masters, because, in their writings or buildings, the best precepts are obtained. Ranging the names in order of merit, we have Palladio, Scamozzi, Vignola, Alberti, De Lorme, Serlio, Viola, Cataneo, Boullant, Barbaro. The graces of the Palladian school were caught by the congenial spirit of Inigo Jones, in whose labours the English school of classical architecture took its rise, and, we might almost say, received its completion. Whitehall and Greenwich will rank among the finest architecture of Europe--evidences at once of the skill of the artist, and the taste of Charles I. Sir Christopher Wren, in the succeeding reign, with the same chaste design, brought to the profession more general science than his predecessor. His opportunities, from the consequences of the great fire, were greater than perhaps have fallen to the lot of any other modern; and, in the erection of the Metropolitan Cathedral, he proved the capabilities of his genius to be equal to his good fortune. He has reared the second, and barely second, edifice in the world. The art has nothing finer than the western front--so rich, so noble, and, notwithstanding the double arcade, so pure. On the whole, the exterior of St Paul's is to be preferred, both for effect and design, to St Peter's. Not so the interior. The Roman Basilicon opens upon the view with a calm, majestic, expansive capaciousness; the English cathedral is broken into parts, and scattered in its entireness. Jones and Wren have remained the great masters of the English school: though Vanbrugh hardly deserved Swift's satire-- Lie heavy on him, earth, for he Laid many a heavy load on thee; while the Earl of Burlington, in spite of Pope, did understand building. Gibbs, Kent, Hawksmore, left no successors; and during the reign of George II., English architecture was at its lowest. His late majesty is reported to have understood, and certainly had a taste for, the science; but his majesty was scarcely happy in the artist whom he patronized, Chambers, the architect of Somerset-house, and whose character may be thus summed up:--he introduced the Chinese style, and denied that the Parthenon ever existed, or that, if it did, it must have been a clumsy piece of business. It is unnecessary to pursue the subject. For the mixed Roman--the modern Gothic--and Oriental styles, which have since prevailed, we can find no place among the modes of art. The most recent improvements in the British metropolis are in better taste than those immediately preceding; but in following the varied forms of buildings among the Romans, rather than the simpler outline of the Greeks, though no error has been committed, but perhaps the contrary, sufficient care has not been employed to place these varied masses advantageously, both as respects their own grandeur, and their decorative effect in street architecture. A more promising aspect, also, of things, invites attention to the Northern capital. This singularly romantic and beautiful city, combining the associations of centuries with our admiration of the living age, and exhibiting in its buildings the rudest and the most refined exemplars, constitutes a feature in the history of our national architecture, and, among the cities of Europe, an isolated instance of undecided mastery between art and nature. The earlier of the new buildings of the Scottish metropolis, are, generally speaking, in the Palladian, or Roman style, with the exception of the college. Adams, in the last, has left a most splendid proof of genius. Viewed, as it ought to be, in itself, within the quadrangle, it fills the eye with a burst of splendid magnificence, equal to any effect we have ever experienced in modern building. Recent structures are in the true Grecian modes, transcripts from the Theseum and the Parthenon. We rejoice in this; it is the only source whence renewed vigor can be derived to our fallen art--for fallen it is at present among us; nor do we perceive, in the British empire, such decided marks, not of reviving, but of vigorous taste, as in the Scottish school of architecture. The National Monument on the Calton, emulates, in gigantic mass, the Athenian structures themselves; while in the new High School is presented a perfect gem of art--where the purest Greek modes are combined and adapted with the happiest originality. The laborious and useful investigations which have rendered our artists so well acquainted with even the minutest details of the Greek forms, cannot remain without fruit--provided architects will be true to the best interests of their profession. Let it ever be borne in mind, that, magnificent as are the specimens of Roman skill, we desert the parent source when for these we forsake the remains of Grecian genius and art. On reviewing these pages, it scarcely appears, that incidents or principles of importance have been overlooked, without such notice as limits permitted. In treating of the Fine Arts, indeed, the subject of patronage may seem to demand more separate consideration than is bestowed in occasional remarks. Brief, however, as these are, they will be found to contain, on this question, the impartial decisions of history, which uniformly declares the only wise, wholesome, and inspiring patronage to consist in national sympathy and national regard for the objects, purposes, and professors of Art. Here the countenance and protection of government are necessarily included, as affording the most distinguished assurance of the existence of this feeling, and as giving direction to the national efforts. In Britain, the genius of our institutions, and the character of the people require, while they will add power to, the effects of this union. These institutions are more national--the opulence and intelligence of the subject, abler to strengthen the hands and to aid the designs of government, than in any other empire that ever existed. Our Fine Arts have hitherto been the only constituent of our national glory to which the cheering influence of this united sympathy has been denied. THE END. FOOTNOTES: [A] Constable's Miscellany. [B] The best of these confirm the former remarks on this accomplished artist. [C] 'I desire, Mr Lely,' said Cromwell, when sitting to the artist, 'that you will paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me; otherwise I will never pay you a farthing.' [D] In these ruins are two lions sculptured in relievo described by Pausanius, and remaining the most ancient accredited monument of the art in Greece. [E] See Edinburgh Encyclopædia, vol. xviii. part i. p. 21. [F] Since expressing our opinion, in an early part of the volume, on the doubtful antiquity of Indian architecture, we have perceived, with pleasure, that Bishop Heber's observations confirm the inference we had ventured to draw from the analogies of art. Transcribers Notes: Obvious typos were silently corrected. Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. Expressions such as 'epochas' for 'epochs' on P23, have not been altered. Numbers such as 'twentyninth', have been retained throughout. Inconsistant spelling such as - 'developement' and 'development', has been retained. Gnidian and Gnidos have been replaced with Cnidian and Cnidos, P63 and 64. In the table of contents chapter XII has been corrected from p153 to p154. Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved. Italics are shown thus: _sloping_. Small capitals have been capitalised. [OE] and [oe] have been used as ligatures. 
8708	----	THE DORE GALLERY OF BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrated by Gustave Dore Volume 8. JESUS AND THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY. Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. --john viii, 1-11 THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him. The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.--John xi, 30-45 MARY MAGDALENE. Of Mary "called Magdalene" (Luke viii, 2) but few particulars are recorded in scripture. We first hear of her as having been delivered by Jesus of seven devils (Luke viii, 1-3; Mark xvi, 9). Impelled, no doubt, by gratitude for her deliverance, she becomes one of his followers, accompanying him thenceforward in all his wanderings faithfully till his death. She was the first person to whom he appeared after his resurrection (Mark xvi, 9; John xx, 1, 11-18) The common belief that she was a fallen woman is destitute of the slightest foundation. On the contrary, the references to her as being in the company of such women as Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward, Salome, the mother of James and John, and Mary, the mother of Jesus (Luke viii, 3; Mark xvi, 40; John xix, 25), strongly discountenance such a supposition. The error, which had no other source than ecclesiastical tradition, has been fostered and perpetuated by the stupid blunder of the translators of the authorized version in identifying her with the "sinner" who is described in Luke vii, 37-50 as washing the feet of Jesus with her tears (see head-note to Luke vii). The Roman Catholic notion that this "sinner" was Mary the sister of Lazarus is almost equally groundless (see Douay Bible, head-note to Matthew xxvi, and the foot-note references to Luke vii, 37, found in most Catholic Bibles). The only reason for this identification is that the anointing by the "sinner" is described as taking place in the house of a Pharisee named Simon (Luke vii, 36, 39-40 43-44); that the anointing by the unnamed woman, as described in Matthew xxvi, 6-13 and Mark xiv, 3-9, took place in the house of one "Simon the leper," in Bethany; and that Mary, the sister of Lazarus, is described in John xi, 2, and xii, 3-8, as anointing Jesus in a house (apparently that of Lazarus himself) in Bethany, when a conversation ensues altogether different from that recorded in Luke vii, but similar to that related in Matthew xxvi, and Mark xiv, save that the objection to the anointing of Jesus is made, not by "his disciples" (Matthew xxvi, 8), not by "some that had indignation" (Mark xiv, 4), but by "one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son" (John xii, 4). The demeanor of Mary, the sister of Lazarus, is, however, by no means that of a fallen and sinful though penitent woman but that of a pious and good one (see Luke x, 39, 42; John xi, 28-33; xii, 3). Dore's illustration, which portrays Mary Magdalene as a heartbroken and despairing sinner, shows that he has fallen into the common error. THE LAST SUPPER. Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover? And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the passover. Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve. And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born. Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.--Matthew xxvi, 17-30. THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN. And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples all followed him. And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not in temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops, of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow, and said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation--Luke xxii, 39-46. PRAYER OF, JESUS IN THE GARDEN OF' OLIVES. Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto, the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy. And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me. Matthew xxvi, 36-46 THE BETRAYAL. And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest it is enough, the hour is come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise up, let us go; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand. And immediately, while he yet spake, cometh Judas, one of the twelve, and with him great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. And he that betrayed him had given them a token, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he; take him, and lead him away safely. And as soon as he was come, he goeth straight way to him, and saith, Master, master; and kissed him. And they laid their hands on him, and took him. And one of them that stood by drew a sword, and smote a servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear. And Jesus answered and said unto them, Are ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me not but the scriptures must be fulfilled. And they all forsook him, and fled.--Mark xiv, 41-50 CHRIST FAINTING UNDER THE CROSS. The incident depicted in this illustration seems to be as apocryphal as that embodied in the artist's picture of Mary Magdalene. There is absolutely no warrant in scripture for the notion that Christ fainted under the burden of the cross. The only foundation for such an idea to found in the Bible is contained in the head note to Mark xv, which is quite unwarranted by the text. According to the three synoptic gospels the cross was borne not by Christ, but by Simon, a Cyrenian (see Matthew xxvii, 32; Mark xv, 2 1; Luke xxiii, 26). According to the fourth evangelist, Jesus bore the cross without assistance the whole distance to the place crucifixion (John xix, 16-18). In not one of the four narratives is there so much as a hint that he fainted under the burden. THE FLAGELLATION. Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he deliver him to be crucified.--Matthew xxvii, 26. And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and deliver Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.--Mark xv, 15. Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. John xix. THE CRUCIFIXION. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots. And sitting down they watched him there; and set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left. And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others: himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God. The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.--Matthew xxvii, 33--44. CLOSE OF THE CRUCIFIXION. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God. And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him: among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children.--Matthew xxvii, 45-56. 
8858	----	None 
6631	----	This eBook was produced by David Schwan <davidsch@earthlink.net>. The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition A Pictorial Survey of the Art of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition Described by Stella G. S. Perry With an Introduction by A. Stirling Calder, N. A. Acting Chief of Sculpture of the Exposition Paul Elder and Company Publishers - San Francisco Copyright, 1915, by Paul Elder & Company San Francisco The courtesy of the Cardinell-Vincent Company, official photographers of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, of granting permission to reproduce the selection of official photographs appearing in this volume, is gratefully acknowledged. To the Memory of Karl Bitter When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love; then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. -Keats Contents Sonnet. Keats The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition. A. Stirling Calder, N. A. Illustrations Exposition Sculpture The Mother of Tomorrow - Detail from the Nations of the West. Cardinell-Vincent, photo. (Frontispiece.) Fountain of Energy - Central Group, South Gardens. Pillsbury Pictures Equestrian Group - Detail, Fountain of Energy. Cardinell-Vincent, photo North Sea-Atlantic Ocean - Details, Fountain of Energy. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Mermaid Fountain - Festival Hall, South Gardens. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Torch Bearer - Finial Figure, Festival Hall. Cardinell-Vincent, photo The Muse and Pan - Pylon Group, Festival Hall. W. Zenis Newton, photo Boy Pan - Detail, Pylon Group, Festival Hall. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Detail, Spire Base, Palace of Horticulture. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Cortez - In Front of Tower of Jewels. J. L. Padilla, photo Pizarro - In Front of Tower of Jewels. William Hood, photo The Pioneer - Avenue of Palms. W. Zenis Newton, photo The End of the Trail - Avenue of Palms. W. Zenis Newton, photo Historic Types - Finial Figures, Tower of Jewels. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Fountain of Youth - Colonnade, Tower of Jewels. W. Zenis Newton, photo Fountain of El Dorado - Colonnade, Tower of Jewels. W. Zenis Newton, photo Frieze - Details, Fountain of El Dorado. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Nations of the East - Group, Arch of the Rising Sun. Gabriel Moulin, photo Pegasus - Spandrels, East and West Arches. Cardinell-Vincent, photo The Stars - A Detail of the Colonnade. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Earth - Detail, one of "The Elements." Cardinell-Vincent, photo The Signs of the Zodiac - Frieze on the Corner Pavilions. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Nations of the West - Group, Arch of the Setting Sun. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Enterprise - Detail, Nations of the West. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Dance - Balustrade, Court of the Universe. Cardinell-Vincent, photo The Rising Sun - Fountain, Court of the Universe. W. Zenis Newton, photo Column of Progress - In the Forecourt of the Stars. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Frieze - Base, Column of Progress. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Primitive Ages - Altar Tower, Court of Ages. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Primitive Man - Arcade Finial, Court of Ages. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Fountain of Earth - Central Group, Court of Ages. W. Zenis Newton, photo Survival of the Fittest - A Panel, Fountain of Earth. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Lesson of Life - A Panel, Fountain of Earth. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Helios - Separate Group, Fountain of Earth. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Water Sprites - Base of Column, Court of Ages. Cardinell-Vincent, photo A Daughter of the Sea - North Aisle, Court of Ages. W. Zenis Newton, photo The Fairy - Finial Figure, Italian Towers. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Flower Girl - Niche, Court of Flowers. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Beauty and the Beast - Fountain Detail, Court of Flowers. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Caryatid - Court of Palms. Cardinell-Vincent, photo The Harvest - Court of the Four Seasons. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Rain - Court of the Four Seasons. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Fountain of Spring - Court of the Four Seasons. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Fountain of Winter - Court of the Four Seasons. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Fountain of Ceres - Forecourt of the Four Seasons. W. Zenis Newton, photo The Genius of Creation - Central Group, Avenue of Progress. Cardinell-Vincent, photo The Genius of Mechanics - Column Friezes, Machinery Hall. Cardinell-Vincent, photo The Powers - Column Finials, Machinery Hall. W. Zenis Newton, photo Pirate Deck-hand - Niches, North Facade of Palaces. Cardinell-Vincent, photo From Generation to Generation - Palace of Varied Industries. Cardinell-Vincent, photo The Man With the Pick - Palace of Varied Industries. Cardinell-Vincent, photo The Useful Arts - Frieze over South Portals. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Triumph of the Field - Niches, West Facade of Palaces. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Worship - Altar of Fine Arts Rotunda. Ralph Stackpole, photo The Struggle for the Beautiful - Frieze, Fine Arts Rotunda. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Guardian of the Arts - Attic of Fine Arts Rotunda. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Priestess of Culture - Within the Fine Arts Rotunda. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Frieze - Flower-boxes, Fine Arts Colonnade. J. L. Padilla, photo Exhibit Sculpture The Pioneer Mother - Exhibit, Fine Arts Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo Lafayette - Exhibit, Fine Arts Rotunda. W. Zenis Newton, photo Thomas Jefferson - Exhibit, Fine Arts Rotunda. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Lincoln - Exhibit, South Approach. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Earle Dodge Memorial - Exhibit, Fine Arts Rotunda. Gabriel Moulin, photo Fountain - Foyer, Palace of Fine Arts. Gabriel Moulin, photo Wildflower - Garden Exhibit, Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo The Boy With the Fish - Garden Exhibit, Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo Young Diana - Garden Exhibit, Colonnade. Pillsbury Pictures Young Pan - Garden Exhibit, Colonnade. Cardinell-Vincent, photo Fighting Boys - Garden Exhibit, Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo Duck Baby - Garden Exhibit, Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo Muse Finding the Head of Orpheus - Garden Exhibit, Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo Diana - Garden Exhibit, South Lagoon. W. Zenis Newton, photo Eurydice - Garden Exhibit, Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo Wood Nymph - Garden Exhibit, Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo L'Amour - Garden Exhibit, Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo An Outcast - Garden Exhibit, Colonnade. Gabriel Moulin, photo The Sower - Garden Exhibit, Colonnade. W. Zenis Newton, photo The Bison - Garden Exhibit, South Approach W. Zenis Newton, photo The Scout - Garden Exhibit, South Lagoon W. Zenis Newton, photo The Thinker - Exhibit, Court of French Pavilion. W. Zenis Newton, photo Mural Decorations Earth - Fruit Pickers. Court of Ages. W. Zenis Newton, photo Fire - Industrial Fire. Court of Ages. W. Zenis Newton, photo Water - Fountain Motive. Court of Ages. W. Zenis Newton, photo Air - The Windmill. Court of Ages. W. Zenis Newton, photo Half Dome - Court of the Four Seasons. Gabriel Moulin, photo Art Crowned by Time - Court of the Four Seasons. Gabriel Moulin, photo The Seasons - Court of the Four Seasons. Gabriel Moulin, photo Westward March of Civilization - Arch, Nations of the West. Gabriel Moulin, photo Discovery - The Purchase. Tower of Jewels. Gabriel Moulin, photo Ideals of Emigration - Arch, Nations of the East. Gabriel Moulin, photo The Golden Wheat - Rotunda, Palace of Fine Arts. Gabriel Moulin, photo Oriental Art - Rotunda, Palace of Fine Arts. Gabriel Moulin, photo The Arts of Peace - Netherlands Pavilion. Gabriel Moulin, photo Penn's Treaty with the Indians - Pennsylvania Building. Clayton Williams, photo Return from the Crusade - Court, Italian Pavilion. Cardinell-Vincent, photo The Riches of California - Tea Room, California Building. Gabriel Moulin, photo The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition The Sculpture and Mural Decorations "In this fair world of dreams and vagary, Where all is weak and clothed in failing forms, Where skies and trees and beauties speak of change, And always wear a garb that's like our minds, We hear a cry from those who are about And from within we hear a quiet voice That drives us on to do, and do, and do." The persistent necessity for creation is strikingly proved by the prolific output of the Arts. Year after year, as we whirl through space on our mysterious destiny, undeterred by apparent futility, the primal instinct for the visualization of dreams steadily persists. Good or bad, useful or useless, it must be satisfied. It amounts to a law, like the attraction of the sexes. Discouraged in some directions, it will out in others, never permanently satisfied. Each age and people must have its own art as well as what remains of the arts of past ages and peoples - in spite of scant patronage, commercial limitation, and critics' hostility. The philosopher tells us that everything has been done, yet we must do it again - personally. Art is so much a part of life that to discourage it is to discourage life itself - as if one would say: "Others have lived; all imaginable kinds of life have been lived. Therefore it is unnecessary for you to experience life." The plastic and pictorial decoration of an Exposition offer unusual opportunity to the Artist, at the same time imposing handicaps - the briefness of time, the poverty of material. It affords chances for experiment, invention, and originality only limited by the necessary formal settings of the architecture, out of proportion to the initiative of the artists, a majority of whom prefer, either from inclination or necessity, to take the safe course, the beaten path of precedent. Artists are of two kinds - the Imitators and the Innovators. The public also is of two corresponding kinds - those who accept only what they have learned to regard as good, preferring imitations of it to anything requiring the acquisition of a new viewpoint; and that other kind, receptive to new sensations. The first class is the more numerous, which explains why most of our art, in fact most of all art, is imitative - that is, imitative of the works of other artists. The sculpture and mural decorations of the buildings and grounds of the Exposition adequately represent the output of American art today. It is the best possible collection under existent conditions. Its many sources of inspiration - all European, like the sources of our racial origin - are clothed in outward resemblances of the styles and tinged with the thought of the masters, old and new, who constitute Precedent. Thus, in sculpture we have imitations, conscious or unconscious, of the Greek, of Michael Angelo, Donatello, Rodin, Barye, Meunier, Saint Gaudens; in painting, of Besnard, Merson, Monet, et cetera, as well as some more complex personal notes, more difficult to relate, although they too are related in the main, adding only another variation of character to the great mass of human ideality. As in nature, there is nothing absolutely pure - nothing that can exist totally unrelated to the whole - so it is in art. Its works should be judged, not by their absolute adherence to any so-called standard, but finally by the appeal they make to the receptive and unprejudiced mind. Be brave, Mr. Critic - Madame Public, think for yourself, at the risk of ridicule. Be not ashamed to admire what appeals, before learning its author, and when it no longer appeals leave it without remorse. In this introduction to the sculpture of the Exposition, it is unusually fitting that grateful recognition be accorded the memory of the sculptor whose lively faith in our growth, and tireless energy first launched the enterprise. Karl Bitter possessed more than any other American sculptor that breadth of vision that enabled him to discern talent - that generosity that enabled him to give praise where he believed it due - that suppleness of mind that could comprehend new concepts - and that sense of justice that avoided no obligation. Such an unusual combination of faculties defined a man broader and more profound than his broad achievement - one of the rare personalities in our Art, the most this exponent that sculpture has known in this land. In the initial stages of planning, his fiery initiative and amazing grasp of detail commanded attention, speedily resulting in the first general plan of the sculpture of the buildings and grounds; while later his tenacity and generosity assured the completed unity, as it now stands. Forty-four sculptors contributed designs, the subjects of which were assigned to the number of seventy-eight items, some of which comprise compositions involving a score of figures. The number of replicas used as repeated architectural motifs in order to create an effect of richness necessitated by the styles of architecture, is very numerous. Vitality and exuberance, guided by a distinct sense of order, are the dominant notes of the Arts of the Exposition and pre-eminently of the sculpture. It proclaims with no uncertain voice that "all is right with this Western world" - it is not too much to claim that it supplies the humanized ideality for which the Exposition stands - the daring, boasting masterful spirits of enterprise and imagination - the frank enjoyment of physical beauty and effort - the fascination of danger; as well as the gentler, more reverent of our attitudes, to this mysterious problem that is Life. One of the strongest influences the sculpture will have will be in the direction of a new impulse to inventive decoration. This field has remained relatively undeveloped, partly owing to our fondness for the portrait idea, but the direction is legitimate and worthy. Architecture, which is the growth of a selective precedence, must be continually supplied with new impulses - new blood to re-energize, rehumanize its conventions - and on the other hand, all such new impulses must be trained into order with architecture. Within the last few years a school devoted to the development of this, as it might be styled, applied sculpture, has been maintained by a group of public-spirited architects under the management of the Society of Beaux Arts Architects and the National Sculpture Society of the United States of America. The Star Goddess on the colonnades of the Court of the Universe amounts to a definite creation of a new type of repeated architectural finial - a human figure conventionalized to be come architecturally static - yet not so devitalized as to be inert. Based on another style of architecture the finials of the cloister of the Court of Ages serve a correspondingly related purpose, and the crouching figures on columns in this court are excellent examples of decorative crestings. The groups of the Nations of the East and the Nations of the West are new types in motif and composition of arch-crowning groups - to be seen in silhouette against the sky at all points. Both of these are grandly successful solutions of problems never before attempted since the ancients imposed the quadriga form of composition. They were first of all made possible by the receptive attitude of the distinguished architects, Messrs. McKim, Mead and White - which proves conclusively to me that those who are most versed in the various forms of antique arts are also those who are most capable of accepting the application of new motifs when sufficiently proven, and of quickly assimilating genuine contributions to the growth of progressive art. By so doing they lend to them all that wealth of refined elegance that has come down through the ages. This acceptance in itself is fraught with much encouragement to the growing school of public sculpture that aims to understand the principles of co-operation and to weld them to an ideal. The above is true also of the Column of Progress, which was again made possible by the instant comprehension of the architect, Mr. W. Symmes Richardson. The Column illustrates a new use for an ancient motif. A type of monument which while distinctly architectural in mass has been humanized by the use of sculpture embodying a modern poetic idea. Now, Mr. Critic, it does not matter in the least whether you care for this idea or not. The fact remains, and is all important, that as a type of sculptured column it is new and fills architectural and aesthetic requirements, so that other columns of the same or kindred types will be designed. The Fountain of Energy and the Fountain of the Earth are the two original fountain compositions. By which is meant that while there are many other very charming fountains on the grounds they are distinctly conceived within the rules of precedent and offer no new suggestion of type. An exposition is the proper place to offer new types in design and execution and happy are they who accept the challenge. The fountains in the Court of the Universe are examples of how the charm of sculpture can vitalize architectural conventions. The crowning figures of these fountains, representations of the Rising and the Setting Suns, have achieved great popularity. The still potent charm of archaic methods applied to modern uses is well illustrated in the groups of the "Dance" and of "Music" on the terraces of the Court of the Universe. Again on the rotunda of the Fine Arts Palace and elsewhere this tendency crops out and always with the assurance of pleasing. The group representing the "Genius of Creation" lends a modifying note of refinement against the vigorous Western facade of Machinery Building, and adds much to the interest of the vistas north and south of the Avenue of Progress. There are figures and reliefs of genuine feeling that do not gain by resemblances to the mannerisms of Rodin and Meunier, that are not in harmony with the surrounding architecture. The original figures in the south portal of the Palace of Varied Industries and the panel over the entrance to the Palace of Liberal Arts are quite successful inserts of new thought in old frames in spite of a touch, of this influence. Rodin, the emancipator of modern sculpture, and a notorious anarchist as regards architecture, is not always applicable. The imitation of his style induces a negation of modeling only in evidence in one of his manners of execution. There is a vague tendency voiced by some critics to advance the theory that the real future democracy of art depends on the verdict of the man in the street. This is ridiculous. The future of art depends on no one class of men, aristocratic or democratic. It depends on all men. Art is neither democratic nor aristocratic. It knows no class - it is concerned with life at large - elemental life. Art is praise and all things in life are its subjects. The group "Harvest" surmounting the great niche in the Court of the Seasons is a fine placid thing - and the bull groups on the pylons are time-honored, virile conceptions strikingly placed. The three-tiered sculpture groupings of the Tower of Ages make rich appeal in relation to the romantic architecture. There are groups in niches in the west walls that will remain caviar to the general, but which are conceived with a fine sense of decoration, and need only a touch of relation to reconcile them to the observer. To him they are too strange. Yet strangeness exists and if sufficiently medicated is even admired. It is strange when one thinks of it, to have had an Exposition. "The End of the Trail" is perhaps the most popular work on the grounds - the symbolism is simple and reaches many, with just the right note of sentiment. On the other hand, there are those who have gone beyond the obvious and prefer less realistic subjects particularly in relation to architecture. Of this kind may be found many inserts and details making no particular claim for attention except that of delightful enrichment. The details of the Exposition are excellent and sometimes brilliant. "The Pioneer" is not well understood. The trappings here puzzle the realists who insist on a portrait of a certain personage - Joaquin Miller. The sculptor, I know, intended nothing of the sort. It is his vision of an aged pioneer living over again for a moment his prime. Astride his ancient pony hung with chance trappings, symbols of association, with axe and rifle with which he conquered the wilderness, he broods the past. A mural decoration should be fitting for the place which it embellishes - both in color and composition. The subject, also, should be relatively interesting, but not the first consideration as is the color, the line, the chiaros-curo. At a glance the decoration should be the jewel for the surrounding space. The murals at the Exposition are rather unusual in their settings, where every building and every court is so replete with Mr. Guerin's splendid coloring. Mr. Brangwyn's decorations are by far the most interesting in their free joyous use of color and amusing composition. From about the middle of the cloister under the arches one turns to the right or left and is greeted with a pleasant surprise of color. Then the story appears and is buoyant and rich in execution. One is rather shocked when standing directly near or underneath by the big patches of color and coarse drawing, the vulgar types not well enough drawn to move our admiration. The cloister looked poor to have such rich notes in each corner, but one glance without the arches into the rich and teeming court, and we were reconciled to their placing. Mr. Simmons' color note is pleasant, seen across the great court. How much more pleasant it is than to have adopted the blue of the heavens as the dominating note - all the blue decorations in spite of their many excellences look dull and grey and weary - the painters have not been able to play up to and dominate the brilliant blue of the sky. In the Court of the Four Seasons one finds color notes that are fitting, though lacking in imaginative interest. From the Avenue of Palms one looks across the Court of Flowers and sees over an opening what appears to be a crucifixion. On nearer view one is undeceived. The rich orange coloring and darker contrast is very handsome. It is to be regretted that the lunettes over the other doors are again that watery blue from heaven. Though brilliant in themselves and clear in coloring, none of the three decorations in this court are sufficiently naive in design for the space - much too smart and knowing, they might be easel picture motifs used for the occasion. The American public is so quick and clever that it is difficult to find in the painters the simplicity of mind necessary for such work. Again we find good composition and brilliant coloring in the two wall paintings in the Pennsylvania Building. The Italians have given us an imitation of their frescoing - the doing of it in this manner illustrates the simplicity of the Italian mind, but does not convey to one who has not been to Italy the absolute grandness of Italian fresco. This is not a detailed review nor can justice here be done to all that honest, earnest, hopeful effort of the world-loving artist - he who delights in the myriad phases of our lovely-terrible life, who naively labors to bring forth his sonnet of praise. Be kind to him all ye who contemplate, and remember how much easier it is to criticize than to - be intelligently sympathetic. It is all for you. Take what you like, and leave the rest without pollution. It may serve to comfort and to joy thy fellow-man. A. Stirling Calder. Illustrations and Descriptive Notes of the Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition Fountain of Energy Central Group, South Gardens The Fountain of Energy in the place of honor within the main entrance gives the keynote of the Exposition - a mood of triumphant rejoicing. The proud bearing of the equestrian group, the wide sweep of water when the fountain is in play, the sportive movement of the figures in the basin, all express the joy of achievement. In the conception of the sculptor, A. Stirling Calder, this was fitting tribute to the completion of the Panama Canal which the Exposition celebrates. The fountain has a double significance. In the first aspect it records the conquest by Energy of the labors of the Canal. In the second it proclaims the approach of the Super-Energy of the future. Both interpretations are detailed upon the following pages. On the globe supporting the horseman are indicated the sun's course North and South and the evolution of mankind from lower to higher forms of life. That of the strenuous Western hemisphere is connoted by a bullman; the quiet East by a cat-human. Great oceans and lesser waters revel in the fountain-bowl. A garland of merfolk join globe to base with great sculptural beauty. Equestrian Group Detail, Fountain of Energy In the more obvious phase of the fountain's meaning, Energy, the Lord of the Isthmian Way, rides grandly upon the earth, triumphing because of the Canal so well achieved. His outstretched arms have severed the lands and let the waters pass. Upon his mighty shoulders stand Fame and Glory, heralding the coming of a conqueror. The second and more subtle intention is nobly prophetic. Energy, the Power of the Future, the Superman, approaches. Twin inspirations - of two sexes to denote the dual nature of man - urge him onward. His hands point upward, contacting human energy with Divine. It is interesting to note the steadiness of the central figure, the sense of firmness, security, in spite of the feeling of motion in the whole. This is largely due to the hold of the feet upon the stirrups and the weight of the body in the saddle. North Sea - Atlantic Ocean Details, Fountain of Energy The basin of the Fountain of Energy is devoted to the revel of the waters. The genii of the four great oceans dominate the scene. They are mounted upon cavorting marine monsters and surrounded by the smaller waters, fearlessly playing, head-downwards, upon dolphins about to dive. The Atlantic Ocean faces East; the Pacific, West; the North and South Seas their appropriate quarters. The symbolic figures are designed to interpret the spirit of the oceans they represent - the Atlantic, fine and bright, upon her armored sword-fish; the Pacific, a beautiful, graceful, happily brooding Oriental; the North Sea, finned and glistening, strange and eerie; the South Sea, savage and tempestuous, blowing a fitful blast. The lesser waters have a lighter quality. The hair of the sea-spirits suggests seaweed and coral. From the mouths of of the sea-chargers jets of water rise to meet the nimbus and rainbows of the semi-spherical downpour of the main fountain. Mermaid Fountain Festival Hall, South Gardens Long, quiet mirror pools flank the great Fountain of Energy, giving balance and calm to the entrance plaza, or South Gardens. They are oblong in shape with the farther ends curving into a graceful convex. The pools are surrounded by formal flowerbeds planted to correspond to the beds surrounding the central fountain, thus giving continuity to the whole. These beds are enclosed by a decorative fence which follows the outline of the pools; the entering paths, emphasized at the outer ends by flower urns, at the inner by sculptural light standards. The curved ends of the pools are marked by Arthur Putnam's beautiful Mermaid Fountain, in duplicate. The crowning figure is by no means the conventional mermaid. She is free, full of grace, charmingly poised. The bifurcated tail is original and gives sculptural distinction as well as greater human appeal. The figure is instinct with a spirit of play but is not boisterous. Arthur Putnam is a Californian who has greatly influenced the development of art in the West. Torch Bearer Finial Figure, Festival Hall As Festival Hall is the seat of the Exposition's musical life, all the sculpture on and about the building expresses a lyrical mood. The sculptor has contrived to give this feeling great variety; but, on the whole, the large reclining figures - the beautiful, relaxed Reclining Nymph and the Listening God over the great pylons - seem to be meditatively listening, the seated figures have a fanciful, lighter suggestion and those standing give a gentle effect of rhythm. The great arches are marked by a cartouche emphasizing this intention. "The Torch Bearer" here pictured is lightly yet firmly poised above the minor domes. Exquisitely silhouetted against the sky, she has a spiral beauty, and the grace of one posed in the midst of a dance. The work of Sherry Edmundsen Fry, who made all the sculpture on Festival Hall, is, generally characterized by a classic correctness combined with a modern robustness. It lends itself well to this French Renaissance building - a type that depends upon its sculptured embellishments. The Muse and Pan Pylon Group, Festival Hall At the base of the great pylons that flank the columnar entrance court of Festival Hall, are low pyramidal masses of foliage and flowering shrubs. An interesting group by Sherry E. Fry is set in the midst of each. The more evident figure, mounted upon a decorative pedestal, is identical in both groups - a classic, flower-bearing Muse, who seems to step softly forward. But though the Muse is repeated, the groups vary in the smaller seated figures at the base of the pedestals. This variation is not felt architecturally, for the figures balance perfectly and are nestled in a mass of leafage. At the feet of the Muse before the northern pylon a Boy Pan sits among the flowers, balanced in the southern group by a Young Nymph or Dryad. The gentle dignity of the standing Muse and the reality and softness of her draperies recall the same sculptor's figure, Peace, exhibited in the department of Fine Arts and awarded a medal by the jury. The architectural beauty of these groups, in relation to the arched panels of the pylons forming their background, is worthy of study. It will be seen that the group, in spite of its statuesque quality, is actually part of the wall surface. The beauty of the ensemble is greatly enhanced by the sympathetic planting. Boy Pan Detail, Pylon Group, Festival Hall Without doubt the most popular, if not the most admired, of the statues that adorn Festival Hall is the "Boy Pan," nestled in the foliage at the base of the pedestal in the group just described. This roguish little god of woodland music has, besides his traditional attributes, a certain urchin quality that is very appealing. He has just taken his pipe from his lips, momentarily diverted by the presence of an alert lizard his melody has attracted. The lizard is here hidden in the leafage. The arch amusement of the whole figure, the mischievous, boyish smile upon his face, have allurement, just lifted from the normal by the quaint suggestion of small horns still in velvet. Here in his youth is the wholesome, simple, poetic Pan of the earlier myths, he who grew into the "Great God Pan," rather than the hero of the more subtle and diversified later legends. His pertness is contrasted with the shy modesty of the Young Nymph, the companion figure at the foot of the opposite pylon. Detail, Spire Base Palace of Horticulture The Palace of Horticulture, a combination of French Renaissance with the Byzantine, is consistently flowery in decoration. It has been given a carnival expression. The general sculptured adornments are heavy garlands and overflowing baskets, and profuse ornamentations of flowers. Large flower-decked jars stand in niches; the cartouches bear the flower motif. Suggestions of lattices and arbors appear in the low domes on the porches surrounding the great greenhouses, reminiscent of French garden architecture of the Great Age. The superb central glass dome that gives the building distinction is crowned by a huge flower basket and draped at its base by a long garland. At the foot of the sharply ascending spires - the slender shafts of which are carved with conventionalized vines and bear tapering flower urns as finials - stand graceful garlands of girls. These pleasing spire bases, the attendants of Flora, are by Ernest Louis Boutier, a Parisian. They carry small baskets of flowers on their heads, a chain of flowers binds them. The same feeling is continued in the caryatids on this building, by John Bateman. These, also flower-capped, are repeated on the Press and Y. W. C. A. buildings, smaller structures in the South Gardens adjoining the Horticultural Palace, thus unifying the buildings in the plaza. Cortez In Front of Tower of Jewels Equestrian statues of Cortez and Pizzaro stand in the Avenue of Palms at the base of the Tower of Jewels to suggest the early history of the South and West of this hemisphere as a background to the present achievements at Panama and, indeed, at San Francisco. This spirited and romantic presentation of the fearless conquistador, Hernando Cortez, shows him at the very height of his proud successes. Charles Niehaus, whose work is always direct and convincing, has made us feel the Spanish conqueror's own sense of victory. We know that now Mexico, the Tlascalans and the Emperor Montezuma have been vanquished, that the victor's ruthless ambition is already dreaming of the conquest of New Spain and the navigation of the Pacific. There are infused into the work a brilliancy and dash that fill the imagination with the glamor of that picturesque period of history. The perfect horsemanship, the restrained but vigorous motion, the whole bearing, have a stirring beauty. There is also intended and expressed in the countenance a sense of vision, as if Cortez had here a prophetic moment in which he saw the future of the continent he claimed. Pizarro In Front of Tower of Jewels Pizzaro, the companion equestrian to Cortez, is the work of Charles Cary Rumsey. The grim, stern and epic history of the bold, arrogant adventurer who was merciless in success and dauntless in failure is ruggedly suggested by this figure, mounted upon a heavily armored charger and advancing with drawn sword. The fact that Pizzaro was a member of Balboa's party when that explorer discovered the Pacific and that he himself was in charge of a Spanish colony at Darien in 1510, makes his appearance at this Exposition appropriate. But it is, after all, the conqueror of the Incas, the indomitable, who spared neither his men nor his enemy until the rich cities of the Southern Empire had been pillaged of their gold and destroyed, who is here portrayed. After achieving wealth and honors Pizzaro was slain by the followers of a rival conquistador. The position of these two equestrians is well chosen; the colonnade of the Tower makes an impressive background. The Pioneer Avenue of Palms History of a later period, nearer to the heart of Westerners, is embodied in Solon Borglum's lusty and venerable Pioneer. This impressive equestrian stands on the Avenue of Palms at the entrance to the court of Flowers. It is interesting to note that, in this rugged and commanding figure, fineness, dignity and nobility are emphasized as well as the more customary endurance and hardihood conventionally associated with the character. On the leather trappings of the old Pioneer's horse, the tepee, the canoe and other symbols of Indian life are marked. The sculptor is himself the son of pioneers and has treated this subject with sincerity and affectionate insight. The Pioneer has been greatly appreciated and has received special notice in a number of addresses delivered by distinguished guests of the Exposition. Its veracity is attested by the fact that resemblance to several famous pioneers has been imagined in it by their admirers. The End of the Trail Avenue of Palms Still further back into the historical records of American stamina goes The End of the Trail by James Earle Fraser. No single work of art at the Exposition has attracted more popular applause than this. It has a gripping, manly pathos that makes a direct appeal. The physical vigor of the rider, over-tried but sound, saves it from mere sentiment. An Indian brave, utterly exhausted, his strong endurance worn through by the long, hard ride, storm-spent, bowed in the abandon of helpless exhaustion, upon a horse as weary as he, has come to the end of the trail, beyond which there is no clear path. It is easy to apply the message of this statue to the tragedy of the American Indian's decline upon the continent he once possessed. The sculptor acknowledges as his text these words of Marian Manville Pope: The trail is lost, the path is hid and winds that blow from out the ages sweep me on to that chill borderland where Time's spent sands engulf lost peoples and lost trails. Historic Types Finial Figures, Tower of Jewels As repeated alternating figures on the top of corner pedestals on the first stage of the Tower of Jewels, stand The Four Agents of Civilization, the historic influences that have developed our American life. These, the Adventurer, the Soldier, the Priest and the Philosopher, have been presented with vivid simplicity by John Flanagan. He has given us, first, the Adventurous Explorer, romantic, courageous, he who crossed the uncharted seas and found new worlds; then the formidable conquering Soldier, he who founded settlements and held them with his sword or fought with natives for empire or riches for European monarchs; then the Missionary Priest, inspired with a holy zeal to spread the divine message to strange peoples; and, last, the Philosopher, the Thinker, whose great influence is but now beginning. The treatment of these figures is quiet, restful and architectural in feeling, as becomes their position. They supply the serious note to the gala Tower. Fountain of Youth Colonnade, Tower of Jewels Within the colonnades of the Tower are two wall-fountains by American women. The Fountain of Youth in the eastern colonnade is the work of Edith Woodman Burroughs. She has given us the eternally desired fountain in a new aspect, not as the legendary restorative that changes age to adolescence, but as the fount of perpetual youth that keeps inspiring and vivifying the race and every stage of our life. An exquisite nude girl stands in a beautifully balanced archway rising like a flower from a pedestal on which are seen, like roots, vaguely outlined, the faces of her ancestors. She is Youth, the center of life, for which the world, its dreams and its rewards are made. The side panels show the ships of life laden with the aged and manned by infants, off on the sea of time on the endless quests upon which youth and desire for its fulfillment's keep the world launched. However, the enduring charm of the fountain certainly comes from the little-girlhood of the central figure, the gentle, expectant sweetness of waning childhood and the perfect purity of the emotion it produces. Fountain of El Dorado Colonnade, Tower of Jewels Within the West colonnade of the Tower of Jewels is the other fountain desired by all the world - the Fountain of El Dorado. Like the Fountain of Youth it is connected by legend with early Spanish exploration in America. Long ago, the story goes, there lived in Mexico or South America a golden king who scattered treasures along his path. El Dorado and his realm have long been symbols of the elusive gold sought by mankind in all ages and every clime. In this fountain by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, it is not the mere possession of wealth that is so sought, but those joys of which our mistaken imaginings make gold the symbol. In the central composition here pictured, the Gilded One has vanished through the portals. Impersonal, unresponsive attendants in Aztec garb guard the door from suppliant followers. With subtle symbolism they give no sign as to whether or not they will relent and give entrance. But the fact that branches of trees have grown close across the opening seems to imply that hope is slight. Frieze Details, Fountain of El Dorado Two long curving panels supplement the main archway of the Fountain of El Dorado. They represent the striving of humankind for Power and Possession. Some by prowess, some by thought; some gaily, some sorrowfully; some urgent, some patient; some rushing, some lingering - all press onward toward the longed-for goal. Here and there one falls fainting; another halts for love or pleasure or indifference. Some stop to lift or help the fallen, others press by unheeding. The certain sad fatality of the concept is relieved of its pang by the light and fluent beauty of treatment. The idea is perhaps a little grim, but the handling is pleasant and the impression agreeable. The beauty of both the colonnade fountains is enhanced by the lines of the water in the cascade stairway. In the Fountain of El Dorado this effect is increased by a line of balanced jets flowing from dolphin heads in the lower panel. Nations of the East Group, Arch of the Rising Sun Across the great Court of the Universe, the Court of Honor of the Exposition, the Nations of the East and West face each other from the summits of their triumphal arches. They express the coming brotherhood of man, the nations brought closer by Canal and Exposition, and the fact that civilization has girdled the earth. Inscriptions characteristic of Eastern and Western wisdom are engraved beneath them. These heroic groups are the result of the successful collaboration of A. Stirling Calder, Frederick G. R. Roth, and Leo Lentelli. In the Eastern group here pictured, about a richly caparisoned elephant stand the camel drivers, Egypt and Assyria; the equestrians, Arabian and Mongolian; two Negro Servitors; the Bedouin Falconer and the Chinese Llama. The pyramidal composition is massive and the Eastern spirit nobly sustained. On pylons before both arches, Leo Lentelli's Guardian Genii - calm, impressive, winged spirits - guard the universe. The unity of men and nature are denoted by the Rising and Setting Sun fountains, the row of Stars, the Zodiac friezes and the Elements. Of these, "Air and Earth" appear in the foreground of the picture. In the distance is "Music," one of the classic groups contacting the Court with the carnival spirit. All these are described on later pages. Pegasus Spandrels, East and West Arches These spandrels, by Frederick G. R. Roth, are interesting artistically, not only for the eager sweep and sense of bigness not usual in the narrow scope of a spandrel, but especially for their warm decorative value to the wall surface and the aspiring way in which they follow the rising line of the archway over which they are placed. The spandrels are made in very vigorous low relief. They express the place of poetry in the Universe. For, in this court that celebrates man's achievements in the East and West, and Nature's gifts to all, the poet on his winged horse appears to inspire the one and interpret the other. The spandrels throughout the Exposition are noteworthy. It is significant of the artistic conscientiousness in detail of those who planned the sculpture that these and other smaller pieces are so uniformly beautiful. Notable among them are August Jaegers' spandrels in the Court of the Four Seasons and Albert Weinert's in the Court of Palms. The Stars A Detail of the Colonnade A sense of eternal spaces, the feeling of calm and elemental tranquillity, is given to the Court of the Universe by the surrounding Colonnade of Stars. The quiet stars look, down upon the activities of men. The semi-conventionalized Star figure, light and firm, repeated about the Colonnade is a highly important factor in the architectural beauty of the Court. She stands a-tiptoe on the globe that forms her pedestal; the circle of her arms about the starry head-dress implies the endlessness of space. The pointed headdress is hung with jewels of the kind that decorate the tower. These carry the jubilant idea of the tower around the Court. They twinkle brilliantly where the sun strikes them and are illuminated by thin shafts of searchlight at night. This Star figure by A. Stirling Calder has been reproduced in the insignia of the Exposition on a number of its official engravings and is the central design of the gold badges of the Directors and the silver badges of the Chiefs of Departments. Earth Detail, One of "The Elements" The Four Elements, heroic pieces by Robert I. Aitken, are placed at the top of the main stairways leading down into the sunken gardens of the Court of the Universe. In spite of their imaginative themes, these massive works have the same gripping reality that characterizes all the later method of this sculptor. He has treated the elements, especially "Earth" and "Air," in their relation to man. As here pictured, "Earth," the quiet mother, sleeps on her rocks, over which little human beings struggle and toil. The rear view of "Air," the group on the opposite side of the same stairway, may be seen in the foreground of the plate illustrating The Nations of the East. "Air" holds a star in her hair; she has great wings and is attended by floating sea-gulls. Behind her, a man has strapped his arms to her mighty pinions, signifying the effort of the present age to ride the winds. "Fire" and "Water," across the gardens, are shown in vivid action; "Fire" roaring with his salamander, and "Water" blowing a stormy gust across the waves. The Signs of the Zodiac Frieze on the Corner Pavilions Low relief, the form that is so difficult and so beautiful and satisfying when perfectly achieved, is at its finest in the sculptured mural panels that crown the corner pavilions of the Court of the Universe and the Forecourt of the Stars. These are the panels of "The Signs of the Zodiac," by Hermon A. MacNeil, who is better known to Exposition visitors by his finial group, "The Adventurous Bowman," on the Column of Progress. The idea of the overhanging, serene heavens, expressed by the Star Colonnade, is extended by these panels. About the central figure of Atlas or Time, his heavenly daughters move, bearing the Zodiacal symbols, to indicate the sweep of the constellations and the onward march of time. This impression of the steady, slow passage of our days is increased by the gentle motion of the figures, so slight as to be felt rather than seen. The frieze has a clean-cut effect almost cameo-like in its precision and the harmony and grace of the whole composition have frequently been found suggestive of the decorations on an Attic urn. Nations of the West Group, Arch of the Setting Sun As we look across the Court of the Universe towards the Nations of the West, the vastness of the Court and the commanding effect of these great groups of the nations impress us. The high columns of the Rising and Setting Sun fountains, the monumental groups of the "Elements," the classic "Music" and "Dance" of heroic size, are merged in the splendid sweep of the Court; the dignified circle of sculptured light-standards is dwarfed by the perspective. But these mighty processional masses of the Nations still dominate the whole. This western group, companion to the Nations of the East, centers about the prairie schooner, which balances the elephant in the opposing composition, and the girlish figure of a young pioneer mother, poetically called "The Mother of Tomorrow." Accompanying her are represented the nations that have contributed to our American civilization. The group is by the same sculptors in collaboration who made the group of eastern nations. The four equestrians, the Latin-American, the French-Canadian, the Anglo-American, the Indian and the trudging Squaw are by Leo Lentelli; the pedestrian figures, the bowed Alaskan women, the German and the Italian are by F. G. R. Roth, who made also the oxen and the prairie schooner. The Mother and the crowning symbolic group of "Enterprise" and the "Hopes of the Future" are by A. Stirling Calder, who is responsible for the general composition. Enterprise Detail, Nations of the West The prairie schooner that forms the axis of the Nations of the West is crowned by an animated, imaginative group so perfectly co-ordinated with the realistic main composition that it causes no sense of discord. This group of "Enterprise" and the "Hopes of the Future" by A. Stirling Calder, forms the apex of the pyramidal construction. It gives the required height and balances the howdah on the elephant in the companion group, the Nations of the East, on the opposite archway. The spirit of Enterprise, a kneeling figure whose encircling wings carry the rewards of the world, calls aloud to summon initiative, encouragement and perseverance to the brave and adventurous who advance our progress. This Enterprise is the pioneer spirit that discovered and developed America. At the feet of Enterprise sit the Hopes of the Future; two boys, one white, the other, negro. These sound the note of deep humanity that underlies the poetry of the conception. This group of the Western nations has an appropriate sub-title, "The Pioneers." Dance Balustrade, Court of the Universe At the top of the longitudinal stairways in the Court of the Universe are Paul Manship's "Music" and "Dance." These are typical examples of that sculptor's power to combine classic restraint, sculptural dignity and grace of line with complete freedom and untrammeled ease of method. They express a musical mood, supplying the honor of musical art to the otherwise incomplete celebration of man's achievements. In "Dance," here reproduced, the beautiful movement of the figures and the garlands, full in volume but light in weight, are superlatively well presented. A glimpse of the companion group, "Music," can be had in the plate devoted to the Nations of the East. In this are two classic male figures, the Composer and the Musician. One holds an open scroll from which the other reads as he pauses in touching the strings of a lyre. A number of distinguished exhibits by Mr. Manship, showing all phases of his art, appear in the Palace of Fine Arts where he has been awarded the honor of a gold medal. The Rising Sun Fountain, Court of the Universe "The Rising" and "The Setting Sun," by Adolph A. Weinman, stand high against the heavens on tall shafts that rise from fountain bowls. They are inspired with a sort of rapturous imagery and they so inspire the beholder. "The Rising Sun," a youth with outstretched wings, a figure suggestive of gladness, hope and the dawn of high adventure, is a fitting symbol of the sunrise. He seems "a-tiptoe for a flight" on the summit of his column; his profile against the sky is superb. On the opposite column "The Setting Sun," a young woman with pensive face, shaded by her hair and drooping wings, sinks to rest. These figures stand on translucent shafts that are pillars of light in the evening. They bear garlanded capitals and rise from double fountain bowls bound together by rising and falling jets and sheets of water. The column bases are finished with beautiful friezes, one symbolic of the Sun of Truth, the other of the Peace of Night. Winged mermen support the upper basin; sea-creatures gambol in the lower. Column of Progress In the Forecourt of the Stars One of the most serious and thoughtful works of the Exposition sculpture is the Column of Progress which faces the bay at the end of the Forecourt of Stars. This column represents with direct imagery the upward progress of man. The shaft itself is sculptured with conventionalized waves in a gradually ascending spiral, upon which a repeated vessel, the Ship of Life, sails upward, indicating the slow upward rise of our life. The lower panels, significant of man's endeavors, are described on the following page. The crowning group, "The Adventurous Bowman," noble in intent and in sculptural power, is from the hand of Hermon A. MacNeil. At the highest point of man's achievement, stands this Adventurous Bowman, the super-hero, the leader, the man with insight into the future, who shoots his arrow into the Sun of Truth. Behind him the next man supports and is protected, by him. Beside him kneels the woman with his reward in her hands. The frieze beneath the group shows the Burden-Bearers on whose shoulders the hero stands - an arresting thought; reminder of the true values in modern life. Frieze Base, Column of Progress The four panels at the base of the Column of Progress sympathetically express its exalted idealism. They are by Isadore Konti, in richly wrought high relief. The play of color values, the planes of light and shade, are handled with mastery. These four panels indicate that the thought, the dream, the aspiration, the dutiful devotion underlying all the labors of the common day are the source of their progress. One panel shows the higher toils of the mind, as in the arts and statesmanship. In the center of this stands the inventor or leader of thought with the eagle of aspiration above him. Another shows the motives of love and pain and prayer and the central power of labor as movers of the world. Still another, which is shown here, expresses the humbler toils of mankind; even they, it says, progress upward through the thinker who pauses in their midst to dream. The other panel here pictured represents the triumph of man's endeavors, and the successes that spur to greater achievements. Primitive Ages Altar Tower, Court of Ages The Tower of Ages, in the Court of Ages, represents Evolution. The lower group, here illustrated, presents "The Early Ages." This shows the development of man from his physical beginnings among the creatures of the ooze up through the cave man and the Stone Age to the growth of the family ideal out of which sprang a higher civilization. The second group shows "The Middle Ages." Its three figures are the Monk, the Armored Bowman, and, at the apex, the Crusader, the highest expression of idealism, of that period. "The Present Age" crowns the whole, upon an altar sits the Woman Enthroned and Enshrined. Her children, the future, are at her feet. Their finger-tips touch a symbol, the Cosmos. One bears a book, the other the wheel of a machine. Figures of Mutation flank the central composition. The sculpture on the Tower of Ages is by Chester A. Beach, whose emancipated and vigorous manner is exactly suited to the presentment of these strong ideas. Primitive Man Arcade Finial, Court of Ages In accord with the basic idea of the beginning, change and upward growth of the human race and its emotional life that are emphasized in this eastern court, rough, plastic figures of "Primitive Man" and "Primitive Woman" surmount the elaborate arcade. They harmonize with the conception and treatment of the, group on the Tower of Ages. They are the work of Albert Weinert, the sculptor who made the much-admired "Miner" in the portal niches of the Palace of Mines and Metallurgy, and "Philosophy" on Administration Avenue. He presents these parents of civilization at the transition stage when they are still savage but have become physically upright and begun to develop the elementary glimmering of intellectual and emotional consciousness. They stand as finials on the continued columns that pierce the arcade wall and emphasize the arches. Dividing the spaces above them, on a higher level, are repeated finials of a pert chanticleer, emblem of the east, the dawn and immortality. Fountain of Earth Central Group, Court of Ages Here is one of the most majestic and imposing enrichments of contemporary art developed by the Exposition. The Fountain of Earth by Robert I. Aitken has compelled the attention of the world of art and won the gold medal for sculpture of the year offered by the Architectural League. In this fountain the idea of man's evolution takes a subtler and more profound significance. In general, it shows the development and growth of love from its lower to higher forms and the upward effect of that spiritualization upon the life of the earth. In the secondary group, a prelude and epilogue to the main composition, on the prow of the Ship of Earth are grouped the loves, greeds, passions, griefs and spiritual cravings of man and woman, who come and go from the Unknown to the Unknowable. The great arms of Destiny, pushing and pointing, giving and taking, guide the way. Between the four panels of Life on the Earth, stand the Hermes, milestones of ancient Rome, here used as milestones upon the road of Time. Sea-creatures indicate our origin in the waters. The description of the panels follows on succeeding pages. Survival of the Fittest A Panel, Fountain of Earth The central fountain shows the globe of Earth revolving in the Infinite. Streams of water by day, clouds of luminous steam by night, give it the effect of swimming out of chaos. The powerful panels of Earth are boldly modeled in pierced relief, giving statuesque realism as well as the picturesqueness demanded of a panel. They follow in a natural sequence as regards their deep and arresting symbolism. The order is, first, the Southern, then the Western, Northern and Eastern panels as the fountain lies. The panel here illustrated is third in the sequence. In the first panel are shown the motive Elemental Emotions - Vanity, Sexual Love and mere Physical Parenthood without enlightenment. After the next milestone is the second panel called "Natural Selection." This presents the approach of the Strong Man; little wings beside his head indicate the dawn of Intellect. Women turn to him attracted by his qualities. Of the men whom they have deserted, one resigns in sorrow; the other prepares to contend the the issue. In the next phase, here illustrated, "The Survival of the Fittest," the struggle has begun. The following pages resume the story. Lesson of Life A Panel, Fountain of Earth In the panel of "The Survival of the Fittest" the battle of life is at its height. The men are in a furious struggle of strength and prowess. The interplay of human passions, the contests of wills and capacities, has developed. The women, too, are taking a conscious part in life, one weeping and shrinking from the fray, the other extending a restraining hand. In the last and noblest panel, called "The Lesson of Life," we see the spiritualized and intellect-guided emotions. A helmeted man and pure-browed woman gaze tenderly in each other's eyes. Youth, full of impulse and fire, stays to listen to the voice of Reason. The lover keeps in touch with the guiding memory of the Mother. And the cycle is completed from animal to mental toward the higher foundation of life upon the earth. Seldom has more exaltation of thought or intensity of feeling been infused, without mawkishness or exaggeration, into a work of art. The Fountain of Earth, is deeply interpretive of the trend of modern thought. Helios Separate Group, Fountain of Earth On the wall of the basin of the Fountain of Earth, is a subsidiary group called "Helios, the Sun." It is a decorative point of finish and is also symbolic. The Sun is taken as the symbol of the Cosmos, the enduring, the Day, the source of life. Man is pictured as clinging to it, in the hope of being freed from the encircling coils of his baser self and the old earthy entanglements that hold him down, and destroy him. This group and the main fountain, as well as the sides of the beautiful court, are mirrored in the long still pool in which the fountain stands - a pool properly free from splashes or springs as befits the setting of this intricate and massive work. The rapid and stable growth of Robert I. Aitken, sculptor of the Fountain of Earth, is of particular interest to San Francisco, the city of his birth, and the site of several of his earlier efforts. Water Sprites Base of Column, Court of Ages The "Water Sprite Columns" in the Court of Ages bring the somber symbolism of this court back to the gay spirit of festival. The sprites are the work of Leo Lentelli; they have a quaint elfin quality that is very engaging. The amusing and lovely group seated about the base of the column have a certain chic habit of pointing elbows, wrists and ankles that lends an unworldly attraction. Their sister sprite at the top of the slender decorated shaft is mischievously aiming an arrow downwards. These Sprite Columns express the gay, frolicsome mood of the waters. Their feeling harmonizes more with the sea-weed and shell decorations of the court itself and its falling-water motif than with the weightier sculpture it contains. They create a pleasing ripple of merriment. Their light and airy modeling has the beauty of unconscious and unforced artistry. The columns stand just within the northern entrance of the court, guarding a vista of the bay. A Daughter of the Sea North Aisle, Court of Ages In this "Daughter of the Sea," Sherry E. Fry has given us a nymph who typifies the life within the watery sphere where it is deep and broad. She has the robustness, volume and vigor of the great high seas. She is deep-bosomed and broad of thigh and stands as though storms and monsters had no terrors, as one accustomed to breast and conquer the waves. Water creatures supplement her, but she seems made on too goddess-like a scale to disport herself with them. It is interesting to contrast this nymph of the fathomless trough of the sea with the arch and playful Water Sprites of the froth and ripple, on the columns within the Court of Ages. This statue is placed in the Forecourt of Ages, facing the Marina, the court that is designed to graduate the richness of the larger court toward the more severe facades on the Marina. Sherry E. Fry's work, in a less rugged vein, appears upon Festival Hall. The Fairy Finial Figure, Italian Towers The gay and gracefully ethereal towers on corner pavilions at the entrance to the Court of Palms and the Court of Flowers, sometimes called The Kelham Towers for their architect, are pointed by a long and pleasing slope of wings. Carl Gruppe's slender Fairy stands upon them, poised, as though just alighted. This finial figure has a pretty wistfulness that suggests the whimsical firefly fairies of Peter Pan more than the conventional gauzy creatures of ordinary fairy tale, and is more like a female counterpart of Shakespeare's "delicate Ariel" who sucks "where the bee sucks" than any other creature of fancy. The curving antennae increase this impression. She carries in her hand a whirling star. The silhouette of the figure is attractive and the halo of sky behind the head framed within the circle of the wings, lends a distinct charm. It is pleasant to have this symbol of imagination over the Exhibit palaces, especially in the Courts of Palms and Flowers, more suited to the fairy feeling than, perhaps, any other spot upon the grounds. Flower Girl Niche, Court of Flowers The perfect balance of this "Flower Girl" by A. Stirling Calder, saved from any hint of rigidity by the graceful curves of its extended lines, makes it an admirable wall decoration. Harmony with the wall-niche in which it appears is part of its allurement. The sculptor has modestly sought to merge the figure's loveliness into that of the Court and has succeeded in increasing both. "The Flower Girl" appears in outer niches of the attic cloister of the court bearing her name, the Court of Flowers. A light garlanded mantle falls like a petal from her shoulders, the floating edge following the line of the nymph's divided hair, so that the maiden seems more like a flower itself than a flowerbearer. However, she has the sculptural solidity necessary for her location and resembles not some frail, wind-blown blossom, but the robust and buxom California blooms that flourish in the court below her. Beauty and the Beast Fountain Detail, Court of Flowers The Fountain of Beauty and the Beast in the Court of Flowers accentuates the feeling of gentle fancy and the spirit of the fairytale that are the mood of this and its companion court. It is by Edgar Walter, a distinguished San Franciscan; he has given us a delightful, playful and tender rendition of the old tale that has held the imagination of the world since it first appeared in Straparola's "Piacevoli Notti" in 1550. Since it was popularized by Madame le Prince de Beaumont in 1757, the story has been translated into every language. The fountain shows, with great restraint and refinement of handling, one of Beauty's ministrations to the sick monster shortly before his transformation. It is subject to the symbolism that may be read into the story itself; but the note of fairy magic is the essential theme of the fountain. Quaint fairy pipers, the unseen musicians of the Monster's Palace, stand about the pedestal. The lower basin bears a frieze of charmed or enchanted beasts, very lightly handled and not insistent. Their idea is continued in the court by the gryphon decorations and Albert Laessle's wreath-bearing Friendly Lions, at the entrances to the palaces. Caryatid Court of Palms The Court of Palms is restful, meditative, a place where the feeling of magical allure takes a deeper, more subjective character. It might well be called the Court of Pools, for two, quiet pools, one circular, one oblong except for its concave side to hold the other, fill the floor of its sunken garden and reflect its pensive as well as its physical charms. The Caryatids repeated throughout this court are the joint work of John Bateman and A. Stirling Calder. They inject into the court its fairy spirit without disturbing its repose. They are Puckish, bat-winged, goblin-horned fairy creatures of an eerie beauty, elfin, roguish and quaint. Their quality is enhanced by the beautiful color that has been applied to them, to the garlanded panels between them, to the cartouches over the archways and, indeed, to all the decorations on the walls and columns of this court. This richness and depth of color leads the eye to the three splendid mural lunettes in the arches. These are Childe Hassam's "Fruit and Flowers" and Charles Holloway's "Pursuit of Pleasure," at the entrances to the palaces, and Arthur Mathews' "Victory of Culture Over Force" in the portal that leads to the Court of the Four Seasons and frames a vista of the bay. The Harvest Court of the Four Seasons The Court of the Four Seasons, classic in spirit, finished and chaste in execution, required a perfect harmony of mass, line and feeling in the sculpture that was to embellish it. It was the further task of the sculptors and mural painters to give the court its meaning, to illustrate the idea of the earth's abundance and the fruitful beneficence of the seasons that is implied in the title of the court. That they have nobly succeeded in this difficult double achievement is an actual triumph. "The Harvest," by Albert Jaegers, crowning the half-dome, is a magnificent bit of architectural sculpture. It seems a faithful part of the surface it enriches; its outlines are faultlessly balanced; although its sides are varied, its mass is superbly centered. The Goddess of the Plentiful Harvest sits in the slope of an overflowing cornucopia; a sheaf of ripe wheat rests in her supporting arm; she is attended by a lad who can scarcely lift the weight of fruit he bears. The group is bound more closely to the half-dome by a graceful garland applied to the wall-surface Mr. Jaegers has further illustrated the traditional idea of Harvest Home festivals by the vigorous groups, "The Feast of Sacrifice," which adorn the huge pylons of this court. Rain Court of the Four Seasons On separate columns flanking the Half-Dome of the Harvest, Albert Jaegers has given us classic presentations of the two great resources of nature that bring the blessing of rich harvest. These are symbolic figures, "Rain," here pictured, and "Sunshine." In "Rain," the nymph of the Earth, holds upward a shell, her cup, in grateful expectation of the beneficent rainfall, while she shields her head from the storm with a cloud-like mantle. On the other column, that of "Sunshine," the nymph shades her head with an arching palm-branch, though she looks up in happy appreciation to the welcome glow of the sun. As in his "Harvest" and "The Feast of Sacrifice," Mr. Jaegers has here given with perfect restraint a sense of generous weight, of richness, profusion and mass that are highly satisfying in their artistic aspect and are valuable interpreters of the message of the Court. August Jaegers, a younger brother of this sculptor, has embellished the arcade of this court with an attractive repeated attic figure. In voluminous, decorative draperies this female figure stands between two young orange trees, her arms about them - significant of the harvest of California. Fountain of Spring Court of the Four Seasons The seasons of the year are expressed in the Court that honors them by four wall-fountains, the work of Furio Piccirilli. The sculptured groups are set in colonnaded niches, against a warm background of deep pastel pink wall. The water flows over a cascade stairway. The floors of this and of the basin are painted pale Oriental green, giving a luminous beauty to the water, especially at night in the glow of hidden lighting. The planting about the niches and the trailing green on the walls are component parts of the fountains' beauty. The sculptor has felt the Seasons in their gradual changes, as found in California, rather than in the usual sharp divisions. He has infused them with a wistful sadness, however, as at the passing of time. In "Spring," here illustrated, for example, we feel something more than the Youth, Flowers, Love and Promise obvious in the composition - something tender and romantic but by no means gay. Fountain of Winter Court of the Four Seasons Fountains of Summer, Autumn and Winter, by the same sculptor as Spring, just described, are similarly installed in their respective niches in the Court of Four Seasons. In "Summer" is represented the earth's early fruition. A young mother lifts her new-born babe for its father's kiss. A gleaner harvests the grain. Over all is a gentle solemnity. In "Autumn," probably the most admired of the four, against the background of a fruit-bearing tree, a superb nymph bears proudly the full jar of wine or oil. On one side a crouched figure gathers a richly-laden garland of the vine; on the other, a youthful, kneeling female figure plays with a lusty child. Even this period of completion is marked by the general pensive beauty. It is emphasized most, however, in "Winter," here illustrated. The bowed, worn toiler rests on his shovel, the spirit of the year waits, still and brooding. But, on the other hand, the sower is ready to cast the new seeds; the cycle re-commences. Fountain of Ceres Forecourt of the Four Seasons The Forecourt of the Seasons, the continuation of the Court of the Four Seasons to the Marina, is officially called the Forecourt of Ceres, because of Evelyn Beatrice Longman's Fountain of Ceres which commands it. Ceres, or Demeter, the goddess of Agriculture, presided over the Earth's abundance. By her favor, came the good harvest; she it was who first instructed man in the use of the plough. In the loveliest of antique myths she is the mother of Prosperine, the Spring. Miss Longman has expressed her as exultant, regal, young - far less matronly than as conventionally pictured - glorying in her power to bless the cooperative labors of man and nature. She holds as her sceptre the stalk of corn, and offers the crown of summer to the world. The central figure is not more lovely than the pedestal base on which she stands. A frieze of dancing maidens, wrought in cleancut low relief, Greek in manner, celebrate the Harvest feast. In the accompanying illustration, the groups on pylons, by Albert Jaegers, already described, may be seen in the background. The Genius of Creation Central Group, Avenue of Progress "The Genius of Creation," by Daniel Chester French, has the superb simplicity of all works of that master of sculptural calm, intellectual power and straightforward sincerity. Mr. French is said to make no mistakes in composition; his precision is not dryness but technical ease and infallibility; his classical quality is not obedience to tradition but insight, into the underlying laws that made tradition. Here we have a splendid example of his perfection of mass, balance and finish and of quiet, inspiring depth and directness of feeling. Creation extends life-giving arms over the universe. Serene, brooding, blessing, the noble face emerges from mysterious shadows of the enveloping mantle. The sculptural quality of the draperies, their weight and texture and grace are notable. At the foot of the pedestal rock, man and woman stand - facing different sides, but their hands are clasped at the back of the group. The Serpent surrounds all, inevitably suggestive of the story of Genesis, but symbolic of the waters from which life emerged and the encircling oneness of the universe. The Genius of Mechanics Column Friezes, Machinery Hall All of the sculpture about the Palace of Machinery partakes appropriately of the size and strength of that huge building which houses the world's progress in mechanical arts. The sculpture, like the building, is Roman rather than Greek in type and modern American in vigor and expression, as are the chief contents of the Palace. The sculptor, Haig Patigian of San Francisco, has expressed this combination with power and virility. The frieze here illustrated appears at the base of massive columns, interestingly made of simulated Sienna marble, the warm tones truly reproduced. The frieze is extremely energetic, although well restrained, and supports the great column as a basic frieze should do, especially when its subject is so appropriate to the purpose. Two winged Genii, one holding a pulley, one upholding the column upon his hands, alternate with two Disciples, for whom their extended wings create a background. One of these is complemented by hammer and anvil, the other by furnace and tongs. Both share the column's weight on powerful arms. The imaginary figures show potential strength in repose, the human figures potent strength in action. The frieze in low relief is colorful and decorative. The Powers Column Finials, Machinery Hall High upon the mighty columns that surround, relieve and give color to the immense facades of Machinery Palace, are Haig Patigian's masculine and trenchant figures "The Four Powers." These are of heroic height, and create an impression of superhuman size and strength even when raised so far above the ground. They have a simple robustness that accords well with their theme. Two of the Powers are abstract, the driving powers of thought; these are Invention and Imagination. Two are concrete, representing the mightiest powers of modern mechanics, Steam Power and Electric Power. Steam Power is forcing the driving arm of an engine; Electric Power, the world at his feet, handles the lightnings. He wears the winged cap of Mercury, messenger of the gods, for electricity is the messenger of modern days. Invention, crowned with the bays of achievement, holds in his hand a bird-man about to leave the earth; Imagination, accompanied by the eagle making ready to soar, dreams with closed eyes. Pirate Deck-Hand Niches, North Facade of Palaces The northern facades of all the palaces along the Marina are beautifully embellished above the vestibules with an intricate plateresque decoration, modeled after portals in Old Spain. In the three ornate statue-niches - in the original probably devoted to saintly images - are romantic figures by Allen Newman. It is appropriate that these figures facing the water-front should represent, as they do, the Conquistador and the Pirate Deck-hand, who once were masters and terrors of the main. The Conquistador stands in the central canopied niche, the strong line from his helmet-point down his sword-hilt making a grimly decorative axis for the whole. The Deck-hand is repeated in the niches on each side. This ruthless minion of sea adventurers is here pictured beyond the urchin's dreams. The line of the rope he carries is a touch of excellently handled decoration. Both these figures are so well harmonized architecturally and sculpturally to their pedestals and location that the entire facade should be seen for their proper appreciation. From Generation to Generation Palace of Varied Industries In the portals on the south side of the group of palaces, facing the Avenue of Palms, we have again the beauteous old Spanish doorways in plateresque design, with niches filled with modern sculpture. The portal of the Palace of Varied Industries, copied from a famous prototype in the old hospice of Santa Cruz, in Toledo, Spain, was assigned to Ralph Stackpole. He is a sculptor who delights to honor the laborer and the craftsman and has supplied the figures for niches and keystone space and the tympanum and secondary groups in the portal of Varied Industries with evident affection. He treats the subject of labor with dignity, according it respect and not sentimentality. In this secondary or crowning group, a strong young man is taking the burden of labor from the shoulders of the last generation - an old workman, bowed but still hale and vigorous. There is a sense of responsibility and earnestness in the group, but complete confidence and power. It might well have been feared that these rugged types of American life might ill accord with the ancient ornate doorway. But the decorative proprieties have been thoroughly sustained. The Man with the Pick Palace of Varied Industries In the repeated niches following the line of the archway in the portal of Varied Industries, described in the foregoing page, appears Ralph Stackpole's "Man With the Pick," a manly tribute to the intelligent, self-respecting workman who is the basis of our national life. There is a frank and unaffected realism in the work that attracts by its uncapitulating sincerity. Its impression of rugged power and self-respect saves it from becoming merely photographic, and its plastic feeling is excellent. In this and the preceding group, as also in the keystone figure and the tympanum, the courageous employment of the actual commonplace garments of everyday labor instead of idealized draperies has met success. The tympanum group is called "Varied Industries." It appreciates the various daily labors of mankind through which civilization continues and is almost devotional in its expression - "in the handicraft of their work is their prayer." The Useful Arts Frieze Over South Portals Another artist who appreciates the spirit and enterprise of our own day and finds inspiration in its humble labors is Mahonri Young. This feeling appears in much of his work and is notable in the panel of "Useful Arts," as also in the niche figures that flank it and are really part of the conception. These appear over the handsome portal arch of the Liberal Arts Palace. The beautiful grouping of the many figures in the panel is a delight; the planes of perspective are skillfully handled, without in the least marring the flat surface requisite in a mural panel. This panel of "Useful Arts" does honor to skilled labor. Men and women are shown busy with the spinning-wheel, the anvil, the forge and other implements of skilled craft. Satisfying figures in the niches, the Woman with the Distaff and the Man with the Sledge-Hammer, continue the same idea. Mr. Young's place in art is unique in that he has won distinguished consideration in three branches - painting, etching and sculpture. In the Palace of Fine Arts he exhibits twelve etchings and nine works of sculpture, several of each devoted to the phases of life expressed in this panel. Triumph of the Field Niches West Facade of Palaces In the western facade of the Palaces of Food Products and Education are examples of the new tendency in sculpture. These are "The Triumph of the Field" and "Abundance" by Charles R. Harley, the modernist. He has made them intricate and teeming with imagery, giving the beholder much food for study and personal interpretation. These works have been useful in arousing much artistic discussion. They endeavor to express a mood of richness, fullness and success and have the effect of laden chariots in a triumphant pageant. In "The Triumph of the Field," Man sits upon the skeleton head of a steer, surrounded by a multitude of symbols indicative of festivals of agricultural success in the past. Some are pagan, some Christian. Above his head is the wheel of an antique wagon; he holds crude farm implements of long-past days. In "Abundance," the companion piece, Nature, a female figure, sits in the prow of a ship, surrounded by the abundance of land and sea. Her hands are extended; one, in order to receive greatly; the other, that she may greatly give. Worship Altar of Fine Arts Rotunda This lovely, adoring figure, pure, devoted, appealing, emblematic of Art Tending the Fires of Inspiration, is placed upon the Altar before the Palace of Fine Arts and can be seen only from across the waters of the lagoon. Her perfect self-surrender to her holy task of guarding inspiration's flame is a sermon and a poem. She is the worshipful spirit for whose reward the glow of genius is sent. She is an image of the perfect reverence for an ideal. It is interesting to note that she is by the same hand that fashioned those rugged laborers on the portals of the Palace of Varied Industries, that of Ralph Stackpole. The altar of Fine Arts, separated from the beholder by the whole width of the beautiful lagoon, set before the great rotunda and surrounded by sculptured barriers and growing green buttress walls of flowers that quite shut it off from all access of the passerby, has the effect of a shrine. This sense of seclusion adds much to the impressiveness of the statue. The Struggle for the Beautiful Frieze, Fine Arts Rotunda A surpassingly beautiful contribution to the Exposition art has been made by Bruno Louis Zimm in his panels of Greek culture. These lovely panels in low relief, surely worthy of a permanent medium, are set in the attic of the Rotunda or Belvedere before the Palace of Fine Arts, used and known as the Temple of Sculpture. The panels express not so much the historical Greek tradition - though they are, indeed, produced in the purest Greek manner - as they do the high spirit and ideals of Greek art, the devoted seeking for divine fire, the determined opposition to the trivial and the base. Each of the panels is once repeated. The panel of "The Triumph of Apollo" shows the fiery god of Inspiration, Music and the Sun in a procession of worshipers; his flaming wings are the rays of the sun. The panel of "The Unattainable in Art" might well be called "The Struggle for the Beautiful." It pictures the unending struggle with the gross and stupid, both objective and subjective, that confronts the champion of the beautiful. Art stands serene, aloof, unassailable in the center of the fray. The panel of "Pegasus" shows the winged steed of the poets controlled by a true aspirant, attended by Music, Literature and Art. Guardian of the Arts Attic of Fine Arts Rotunda Two stately "Guardians of the Arts," one male, one female, of godlike proportions and great dignity, are placed in the attic of the Fine Arts Rotunda, separating the panels of Greek culture. They are the work of Ulric H. Ellerhusen, who has shown a keen perception of the structural necessities involved in these immense details. The Rotunda of Fine Arts, the temple of Sculpture, is one of the most interesting architectural features of the Exposition. It is the culminating beauty of the marvelous colonnade of Fine Arts Palace, its chief distinction. Within are some of the treasures of the exhibit sculpture. Under the arching dome are Robert Reid's mural paintings described in a later place. The Weeping Figures on top of the colonnade itself are also by Mr. Ellerhusen. They express the humility that ennobles the true artistic spirit and distinguishes it from the spurious. Instead of the self-satisfied Triumph or Victory that might be expected to crown this last of the Exposition palaces, these represent the spirit of Art weeping at the impossibility of achieving her dreams. Priestess of Culture Within the Fine Arts Rotunda High on the decorative columns that mark the great arches within the beautiful Rotunda of Fine Arts, stand, repeated, the peaceful, dignified and serene "Priestess of Culture," by Herbert Adams, an angelic figure, modeled with the control and calm that fittingly express the mission of culture upon the earth. Indeed the work of Mr. Adams may be said generally to be characterized by that probity and intellectual beauty ministering to the purposes of culture. These figures are harmonious ornaments to the richly decorated ceiling which they touch and to which they give a certain tranquillity. The slope of their wings connects gracefully with that of the arches; this, with the quiet beauty of the drapery and its accord with the line of the cornucopia, creates a restful architectural effect. It is a pleasant coincidence that these Priestesses of Culture look down upon the statue of William Cullen Bryant by the same sculptor, an exhibit piece, charmingly installed at the entrance to the great Rotunda. Frieze Flower Boxes, Fine Arts Colonnade The very large flower boxes bearing masses of luxuriant California shrubs that mark the Peristyle Walk in the Fine Arts Colonnade are constantly admired for their own beauty, the beauty of their contents and their part in the general effectiveness of the delightful Colonnade they enrich. The friezes are by Ulric H. Ellerhusen, who made also the Weeping Figures and the heroic "Guardians of Arts" already described. It is interesting to note that the precision of handling has given this design, in spite of its size, an exquisite delicacy. Standing at charmingly balanced intervals, a circle of maidens bear a heavy rope-garland. This rope makes a gratifying line that has given pleasure to connoisseurs. The frieze is so successful largely because, though frankly decorative as suits its purpose, its personality and charm distinguish it from the pattern-like or conventional. The landscape planting in the boxes, in the flower beds and above, is one of the enduring attractions of this colonnade and walk. The green is architecturally massed and the relief of flowers bright and delicate, never intrusive. The Pioneer Mother Exhibit, Fine Arts Colonnade The "Pioneer Mother" monument, by Charles Grafly, is a permanent bronze, a tribute by the people of the West to the women who laid the foundation of their welfare. It is to stand in the San Francisco Civic Center, where its masterful simplicity will be more impressive than in this colorful colonnade. It is a true addition to noteworthy American works of art and fully expresses the spirit of this courageous motherhood, tender but strong, adventurous but womanly, enduring but not humble. It has escaped every pitfall of mawkishness, stubbornly refused to descend to mere prettiness, and lived up to the noblest possibilities of its theme. The strong guiding hands, the firmly set feet, the clear, broad brow of the Mother and the uncompromisingly simple, sculpturally pure lines of figure and garments are honest and commanding in beauty. The children, too, are modeled with affectionate sincerity and are a realistic interpretation of childish charm. Oxen skulls, pine cones, leaves and cacti decorate the base; the panels show the old sailing vessel, the Golden Gate and the trans-continental trails. The inscription by Benjamin Ide Wheeler perfectly expresses what the sculptor has portrayed. Lafayette Exhibit, Fine Arts Rotunda Paul Wayland Bartlett's "Lafayette," of which this is a plaster copy, should be known and honored by every loyal American. It is considered by many the most successful equestrian statue of modern times and it was the gift of the school children of America to the Republic of France. The original bronze stands in the Court of the Louvre, the most coveted location in Paris. The position of honor among the sculpture exhibits accorded to this copy, as the central piece in the Temple of Sculpture, gives the impressive beauty of the "Lafayette" the distinction it deserves. Seen at a little distance, with the background of the lagoon, the superb bearing of both horse and rider get their full effect. This interpretation of Lafayette, commanding, heroic, graceful, unselfconscious, his Gallic dash and fire evident but restrained by military and aristocratic control, is stirring and convincing. The upheld sword is a touch of fine artistry. Mr. Bartlett was Chairman for Sculpture of the Exposition Jury of Fine Arts. He has just completed the pedestal heads for the House wing of the Capitol at Washington. His "Dying Lion," exhibited in plaster copy in the Fine Arts garden, has been coupled by critics with the "Wounded Lion" of Rodin. Thomas Jefferson Exhibit, Fine Arts Rotunda All the work of the late Karl Bitter bears a peculiar appeal at this time, since he was Chief of Sculpture of the Exposition, was so close personally to many of the men who made its beauty, was so valuable an influence to the art of our nation and left so ennobling a memory as man and as artist. His sustained, faithful and enduring works are well represented in the exhibit galleries by his "Signing of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty," made for the St. Louis Exposition and loaned by that city; his Tappan Memorial from the University of Michigan; his Rockefeller Fountain, and the appealing "Faded Flowers." A medal of honor was awarded to him. Thomas Jefferson was always a sympathetic study to Karl Bitter, who has interpreted that statesman, scholar and patriot in his several capacities. The original of the present statue was made for the University of Virginia; Jefferson said he preferred to be remembered as founder of that institution rather than as President of the United States. He is here represented in a moment of meditative leisure. Lincoln Exhibit, South Approach Two noble Lincolns by the great Augustus Saint-Gaudens do honor to the city of Chicago and are distinguished by the titles "The Standing Lincoln" and "The Seated Lincoln." Both have the homely beauty, greatness and dignity of character that are essential to the presentment of this national inspiration. "The Seated Lincoln" here shown is the original bronze, not a replica. It was loaned, under the protection of heavy insurance, to the Fine Arts Department, and will soon be installed in a Chicago park. It is the property of the Lincoln Memorial Fund, a foundation of $100,000 left by the late John Crerar to commemorate Abraham Lincoln in Chicago. Saint-Gaudens, having made "The Standing Lincoln" with such success, was given the opportunity for a new presentation of this great theme. "The Seated Lincoln" has a soul-stirring expression of figure and countenance; the crumpled shirt, the square-toed shoes, the well-known shawl draped upon the chair, are not more real than the simple greatness of soul that somehow expresses itself throughout. Earle Dodge Memorial Exhibit, Fine Arts Rotunda The "Princeton Student" made by Daniel Chester French as the Earle Dodge Memorial, is lent to the Exposition by the trustees of Princeton University. It is this master's expression of the type of young manhood that makes for the winning of respect and enthusiastic friendship and worthy leadership in our modern college life. Full of energy and spirit, the youth steps forward, physically rugged, of athletic prowess and sportsmanly character, intelligent, frank, clearbrowed, fearless and straightforward of gaze, bearing his books with care and ease and draped with the academic gown, symbol of scholastic achievement. To give this figure of young manhood the solemnity of a memorial and still keep it true to the hearty and cheerful vigor it depicts was a notable achievement. The setting in one of the arches of the Rotunda, with the lagoon and the landscape-planting in the background, is admirable. Two great universities have in recent years been graced by Mr. French's work; his "Alma Mater" on the great stairway of the Columbia University Library is one of the art treasures of New York City. Fountain Foyer, Palace of Fine Arts This fountain, by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who made the Fountain of El Dorado for the Exposition, is strikingly different from that work in treatment and character, showing a notable versatility and responsiveness to change in motif. As that was poetically symbolic, this is a massive direct work in a more virile and vigorous manner. It shows three well-modeled nudes supporting a bowl heavy with richly laden vines. Its installation in the center of the entrance hall of the Fine Arts Palace is in itself a work of art. The white marble fountain - for this is the original work, loaned by the artist - is cleverly contrasted with vivid green water plants in the bowl; just enough of them and tastefully placed. And in the rim small trees are set, of well-chosen verdure, shape and size. The fountain was awarded a bronze medal. Wildflower Garden Exhibit, Colonnade One of the most varied and interesting talents among the younger men of distinction who have exhibited in the Department of Fine Arts is that of Edward Berge of Baltimore. The entire originality and freedom from mannerism with which each subject is met, and the variety of the subjects themselves, are worthy of note, as are also Mr. Berge's singular lightness and fluidity of method. His correctness is apparently unlabored. No small piece has more admirers than this sweet and merry little "Wildflower." A secret of her appeal may lie in the fact that the artist is the father of the model. The little girl, crowned with a wildflower, posed with the pertness of a wayside blossom, her hands extended like pointed leaves, has a roguishness and playful grace that charm. With something of the same humorous whimsy Mr. Berge exhibits a Sundial showing a nude baby, buxom and cuddlesome, embracing a new doll while the old one lies discarded, illustrating the legend, "There is no Time like the Present." The Boy with the Fish Garden Exhibit, Colonnade Bela Lyon Pratt, widely esteemed for his vital and imposing serious works, of which a splendid collection here exhibited has been awarded a gold medal, has amused himself and all of us with this jolly little garden piece, "The Boy With the Fish." It is a unique bronze, never to be reproduced or copied. Though hundreds of persons have wished to purchase replicas, no one can ever do so, for the owner stipulated with the sculptor never to allow reproduction. The moulds have been destroyed. But no one can stop the joyous memory in many minds of this spirited little elf, riding a turtle, struggling with his slippery fish and having so much fun about the difficult feat. One of Mr. Pratt's more serious works that is attracting the deserved attention of Exposition visitors is "The Whaleman," a detail of his noble Whaleman's Memorial. This sculptor has done much to encourage individuality and earnestness among the younger men, not only by example but also in his capacity of instructor in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Young Diana Garden Exhibit, Colonnade Janet Scudder, an American artist whose work has been as highly honored in France as in her native land, is known chiefly for her poetic and happy expressions of the out-of-door spirit. Her fountains and garden pieces are small and sportive but intensely sincere and never trivial. She has a pagan sense of natural imagery and a deep feeling for childhood. Her finish is delicate and perfect. The "Young Diana," here illustrated, girlish, with singularly natural untrammeled grace - slender, beautiful and novel in conception - was awarded honorable mention in the Paris Salon of 1911. The young goddess of the chase, the moon and of maidens, is presented as still more of a maid than a goddess, glad with the freedom of girlhood, unconscious of her Olympian inheritance. Miss Scudder has received the distinction of having one of her fountains purchased by the Metropolitan Museum in New York. This is the Frog Fountain which, loaned by that Museum, appears in the Palace of Fine Arts. Her "Little Lady of the Sea," also here exhibited, received notable consideration in the Paris Salon of 1913. She is the holder of a silver medal awarded by the present Exposition. Young Pan Garden Exhibit, Colonnade One of the charms of the Exposition lies in the fact that the long rainless summer and beautiful plant-life of California permit the garden pieces to be displayed out of doors in the setting desired for them by their sculptors. This little Pan of Janet Scudder's, for instance, is far happier in his appropriate mass of foliage than if he were inside of a gallery. "Young Pan," a garden figure, is witty, elfin, very engaging. He is a seaside Pan instead of the woodland dweller usually portrayed. His foot is - rather recklessly one would think, were this not a magical, superhuman being - placed heel-down upon the back of a great crab. A pretty pedestal base, with sea-shell decoration, supports the baby god. This base, by the way, Miss Scudder attributes as the work of Laurence Grant White. Pan is enjoying the music of the two long pipes he blows-playing one of the unplaced wild lilts of nature, we may be sure. This sense of enjoyment and his debonair little swagger are festive and delightful. His mischievous gaiety communicates itself to the beholder. This humorous quality appears in another merry little god by the same sculptor, her "Flying Cupid," close at hand. Fighting Boys Garden Exhibit, Colonnade Another evidence of the charm of outdoor installation is seen in Miss Scudder's Fountain of the Fighting Boys, so beautifully placed, with the waters in actual play, in the Peristyle Walk about the Fine Arts Palace. The original of this little fountain is owned by the Art Institute of Chicago. There can be no doubt that this fight is without rancor; the faces of the cherubic contestants are so gay and good-natured that only the determined little tug of the hair, the business-like pressure of chubby knee upon knee, the uncertain possession of the big fish that is the cause of contention, makes us see that a battle is raging. The boys fight merrily, evidently enjoying both the contest and the downpour of water that complicates it. An unexpected accidental beauty has been added to this and all the Exposition fountains. Some colorful substance in the water that plays upon them has given soft touches of the same rich ochre tone that appears in the columns. This increases the effectiveness and takes away the appearance of boldness or newness, substituting a weather-beaten and permanent aspect. When long spires of flowers are in bloom and reflect their beauty in this little fountain pool, the gayety and loveliness of the spot are entrancing. Duck Baby Garden Exhibit, Colonnade The contagious mirth of "The Duck Baby," a garden figure by Edith Barretto Parsons, is irresistible. This plump little image of good cheer conquers the most serious; every observer breaks into answering chuckles as this smile-compelling small person, holding fast her victims, beams upon them. The frieze of busy ducklings on the pedestal base adds to the amusing impression. This figure makes such a universal appeal that thousands of postal card pictures and amateur photographs by exposition visitors have been sent in a steady stream throughout the land, scattering the Duck Baby's good cheer far and wide ever since the Exposition opened. In the presence of so much that is weighty and powerful, this popularity of the "Duck Baby" is significant and touching indication of the world's hunger for what is cheerful and mirth provoking. Another well-liked and winsome work with a chubby baby figure at its center is "The Bird Bath" by Caroline Risque, in which a lovable baby, with an expression of the tenderest sympathy, holds a little bird to his breast. Muse Finding the Head of Orpheus Garden Exhibit, Colonnade Under the branches of a low tree the poetic group by Edward Berge, "Muse Finding the Head of Orpheus," a white marble group of superior elegance and texture, arrests the passerby. A Muse kneels, drooping in exquisite pathos over the head of Orpheus found in the waves. The sculptor has chosen the tragic side of the Orphean myth. The son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope, whose heaven-taught lyre charmed men and beasts, melted rocks and even opened the gates of Erebus, had failed to win from death his bride, Eurydice, lost to him for the second time. As he wandered disconsolate, the Thracian bacchantes wooed him in vain. Maddened by failure and by their bacchanal revels, they called upon Bacchus to avenge, and hurled a javelin upon him. But the music charmed the weapon, until the wild women drowned it with their cries. Then they dismembered the singer and threw him to the waves; but the very fragments were melodious and reached the Muses, who buried them where the nightingale still sings "Eurydice." So runs the allegory; even drowned by earthly clamors, slain and torn by wanton hands, the song of Poetry continues, the weeping Muses save. Diana Garden Exhibit, South Lagoon In a setting of surpassing appropriateness and beauty, installed high amid the tall shrubbery as if emerging from the edge of one of her own forests, the huntress Diana points the arrow she is about to let fly. This rendering by Haig Patigian, who made the heroic Powers and other decorations on Machinery Hall, is simple, classic, pure, imaginative, poetic in purpose and in effect. He has softened the traditional coldness of the goddess by a warmer humanity without injuring the sense of proud aloofness. The Maiden goddess of the Hunt bears in her hand the crescent bow, its lines here strongly suggestive of those of the young moon, of which it is the symbol and this goddess the deity. Mr. Patigian exhibits in the Colonnade a companion piece, "Apollo, the Sun God," twin brother of Diana. A vivid figure of manly grace, Apollo is presented in the guise of the sun of the morning. He kneels and shoots an arrow upward; the long, pleasing curve of his bow suggests the outline of the sun above the horizon as Apollo releases his first bright shaft of light. Eurydice Garden Exhibit, Colonnade This "Eurydice," by Furio Piccirilli, pictures the nymph as standing against the background of an echoing rock, listening to the distant strains of the magic lyre of her lover, Orpheus. Orpheus had been taught to play by Apollo, his father, and could enchant the animate and inanimate world by his music. So he charmed the nymph, Eurydice; but Hymen, god of marriage, refused to prophesy happiness at their nuptials and soon Eurydice, in escaping from a pursuer, trod upon a snake, was bitten and died. Orpheus' sorrowful music moved all the earth to pity. Even Pluto and the keepers of Erebus relented, allowed the musician to descend into their forbidden realm and lead Eurydice back to life, provided he should not turn backward to gaze upon her until they reached the world of mortals. But the lover could not resist the desire to assure himself of her presence, looked, and lost her forever. Furio Piccirilli, who made this marble, is the sculptor who has graced the Exposition with the four Fountains of the Seasons in the Court of that name. For this "Eurydice" and his other small group, "Mother and Child," he has taken a silver medal. Wood Nymph Garden Exhibit, Colonnade Isadore Konti, from whose hand came also the inspiring, panels at the base of the Column of Progress, described in a preceding page, is the sculptor of this pretty "Hamadryad." The Dryads and Hamadryads lived, according to old legend, within the trunks of trees and perished with their homes. So it was an impious act to destroy a tree without cause. This nymph of the woods has emerged from the tree-trunk home or from some rocky fastness and taken the urn of a naiad, a sister nymph of brook and fountain, to give drink to the gentle, confident fawn that is her charge. The little animal is lapping the stream that flows from the overturned vase. This study in white marble follows tradition and is regarded chiefly for its gentle grace and careful tooling. It is harmoniously composed and has a beautiful surface. Mr. Konti's varying moods are, represented in the Fine Arts collection by a number of works, each revealing a different intention - from the pretty and restful, like this, to the large and stirring. L'Amour Garden Exhibit, Colonnade There are few more complete examples of delicacy of feeling and of refined, caressing perfection of tooling than this exquisite marble group, "L'Amour," by Evelyn Beatrice Longman. The purity of its emotion, the tenderness and fidelity of its poignant pose, are surpassed only by the marvel of surface finish. The surface has been gone over so lovingly, so painstakingly, so repeatedly that the marble has taken on the soft, warm impression of living flesh. And the gentle unstrained modeling has the plastic grace of the human body. Miss Longman, winner, by the way, of a silver medal for exhibits in the Fine Arts, is the maker of the Fountain of Ceres in the Forecourt of Seasons that has been described. She is an earnest and serious artist of abundant talent whose work is treated with ever-increasing respect and admiration. She won the competition for the doors of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, for which there were many distinguished aspirants. She presents Love in the group under discussion as a rarefied and inspiring emotion in which the physical and spiritual commingle and "sense helps soul" as well as "soul helps sense." An Outcast Garden Exhibit, Colonnade This epic figure, "An Outcast," compelling by its earnestness and the tragedy of its motive idea, is handled with firmness, assurance and a perfect sense of volume and sculptural mass values. It is exhibited by Attilio Piccirilli, the artist who designed the Maine Memorial in New York City. The appeal of "An Outcast" is too direct to need any illumination. Its frank bigness and physical power and tenseness, so suggestive and so desperate, are Rodinesque. But though the work is influenced by that master's school and thought, it is by no means a copy of his method. This sculptor has a number of interesting groups in the exhibit palaces and has been granted a gold medal. The dejected and desolate Outcast, so huge and so tragic, is in sharp contrast with the quaint and fanciful "Fawn's Toilet," by the same hand, at the entrance to the Colonnade. Attilio and Furio Piccirilli, whose work has been here noticed, are brothers, members of a family of sculptors. The Sower Garden Exhibit, Colonnade One of the most useful services of a great Exposition, especially as it relates to the world of art, is its service in bringing to the attention of the public the power of new and rising stars on the horizon of achievement. Albin Polasek has made his work generally felt at this Exposition, where he received a silver medal. He is one of the most talented sculptors of the American Academy at Rome. He won honorable mention in the Paris Salon in 1913, and the Prix de Rome in 1910. He was the holder of the Cresson scholarship. His "Sower" was the culminating work of his early labors, the product of his final year at Rome, in which year a heroic figure is required of every student. It caused the critics to prophesy for this sculptor the future that is developing. Mr. Polasek's work has the same unassailable rigor of truth as that of Charles Grafly, who was his teacher. "The Sower" ennobles an humble theme. It has sweep and life and distinction of bearing. In "The Girl of the Roman Compagna," close at hand in this Colonnade, the sculptor shows his equal power in a softer theme. The Roman girl is a well-poised and beautiful expression of the spirit of old Rome in the days of her grand simplicity. The Bison Garden Exhibit, South Approach These mighty monarchs of the plains, now disinherited by human progress, the American bisons, are here more than portrayed; they are realized. Their essential characteristics, their strong mass, bulky without clumsiness, are made present and convincing in these two statues by A. Phimister Proctor, a master of animal sculpture. There is good reason for the living and sharp aspect of these plaster models. They are not copies of the permanent statues; they are the sculptor's own original plasters from which the permanent pieces were cast. A number of Mr. Proctor's animal studies stand in the great zoological parks of our nation. He does not idealize or humanize the beasts he depicts; but he understands them and reverses the underlying life that gives them their racial and personal individuality. Partly his Canadian love of the wild, partly a technician's delight in mastering this difficult phase of art, has caused a lifelong devotion to animal studies. They are not photographic, but combine the qualities of sculptural beauty with rugged and imposing freedom. A varied and stimulating collection of Mr. Proctor's work, exhibited at the Exposition, has won a gold medal. It includes the famous "Princeton Tiger." The Scout Garden Exhibit, South Lagoon Cyrus Edwin Dallin has devoted many years and much of his high talent to the poetry and beauty of the American Indian. He says that this Scout is to be the last of his long series of Indian studies, and he believes it to be the best of them all. Surely it has an exalted beauty and is a noble example of Mr. Dallin's firm, finished, accurate method, perfection of restraint and free grace of modeling. It has a clear and beautiful directness that is almost Greek in feeling. Those who do not believe in the picturesqueness and dignity of the Indian as celebrated in these bronzes, need only to have seen the photographs in the exhibit of the Indian Memorial booth in the Palace of Education. Some of the chiefs there shown have the dignity of Caesar and the knightly splendor of heroic periods. Copies of almost all the Dallin Indians and other of his notable works appear in the Palace of Fine Arts, where Mr. Dallin is a gold medalist; They include the famous "Appeal to the Great Spirit," which stands before the Boston Museum of Art. The Thinker Exhibit, Court of French Pavilion It is a satisfaction that at the entrance to the Pavilion of France should stand this great work of the master sculptor of our age. This is a replica of "Le Penseur" (The Thinker), placed before the doors of the Pantheon in Paris. Paul Gsell says of it: "Before us, the Thinker, his fist beneath his chin, his toes clutching the rock upon which he sits, bends his back beneath the overpowering weight of a meditation that surpasses the endurance of the human spirit." Here, tremendous, rugged, primitive human strength at its highest power suffers under the first great grapple of the human mind with problems of the unknowable universe. It is majestic, true, an expression of our age; it is everlasting art. Rodin kept this replica outdoors for a long time, thinking the rigor of the elements helpful to its finish. "The Thinker" and other Rodins in the French Pavilion are loaned by Mrs. A. B. Spreckels of San Francisco. Americans and American museums have long appreciated this master of whom Octave Mirbeau says: "Not only is he the highest and most glorious artistic conscience of our time, but his name burns henceforth like a luminous date in the history of art." Earth Fruit Pickers, Court of Ages In the corners of the ambulatory about the Court of Ages, crystallizing the color and design of its long, arched ceiling, are the opulent, warm, vibrant murals by Frank Brangwyn. They introduce to the general public of America this Belgian-English artist who has long been esteemed among the great of the world. He has presented here the Elements, two interpretations of each, in relation to their service to simple human life. The paintings are neither allegorical nor photographic, but highly interpretative of the luxuriant picturesqueness of nature and the everyday labors of man. The luminosity of color, dash and daring of contrast, fairly crackle with life and yet have rich depths of quietness. The two panels of Earth glow with the earth's abundance. The first, the "Fruit Pickers," here shown, in which harvesters gather fruits from high trees and the laden ground, is notable for its marvelous massing of composition and color. The second, "Dancing the Grapes," is remarkable for its shimmering contrasts of light and shade. In both you get the tang of the harvest season. Fire Industrial Fire, Court of Ages The two Fire panels represent this element in its two phases of serviceability. The first shows its simplest use, that of giving warmth to man; the second, its more developed employment as an agent of manufacture. In the "Primitive Fire," a gray, woodsy plume of smoke rises to the autumn sky. A group of workers have made a fire at the edge of a grove; they surround it, some encouraging the growing blaze by blowing upon it, others leaning forward toward its warmth. The thin pillar of waving smoke is executed with such fidelity that it explains why this artist's admirers dwell upon his handling of fugitive surface tones, as smoke or clouds, as much as upon his more obvious excellences. In "Industrial Fire," here reproduced, the smoke rises not in fine line, but in heavy mass from a kiln. It is a rich cloud, colorful with iridescent metallic lustres. Workers feed the blaze, their warm flesh glowing in the mixed light. Whole vessels and broken bits of pottery are heaped and scattered upon the ground. Water Fountain Motive, Court of Ages As the Earth panels are luxuriant, teeming with a sense of plentitude, and the Fire panels are moving with the grace of rising smoke, those that represent the phases of Water are moist and lush. In the one here shown, "The Fountain," people have come through the damp grasses, bearing their bright vessels to fill them with water that flows downward from a spring in a long, fine, curving bow. The beautiful grouping, the pose of the figures and the graceful lines of the vessels are unforgettable. The air is fluid; great white clouds stretch across the sky, which has the same liquid beauty as the water in the background. Water-birds and dewy flowers add life and color. The grateful use of water for man's thirst is beautifully told. In the other water panel, "The Net," hardy fishermen, standing in the water-reeds and blossoming flag-lilies, haul in the last catch of the brightly dying day. Others bear on their heads baskets heavy with the success of earlier castings. Heavy sea-clouds are tinted by the late afternoon sunshine. Air The Windmill, Court of Ages The two panels of Air may well be thought of as the air that moves and the air that supports. In the first, "The Windmill," which is illustrated, the motion of the wind and of the world it blows is dazzling. The field of, golden grain, bright in the glow of the sun that has just broken through the rain clouds, is quivering with graceful undulations. The great wings of the windmill turn, with flapping sails. The little kites are blown tempestuously. The garments of the workers wave forward as they walk, braced against the wind that blows from behind them. A brilliant rainbow and wind-blown dark rain-clouds tell the end of a passing storm. In the second Air panel, which is called "The Hunters," the air supports the arrows just shot from the bows of hunters who hide behind the last trees at the edge of a wood. It bears also flocks of homing birds and light clouds blown across a ruddy sunset sky. Half Dome Court of the Four Seasons The murals in the Court of the Four Seasons are the work of Milton Herbert Bancroft. They are smooth, flat, highly decorative to the wall surfaces into which they blend with rare discretion and harmony. They have a soft beauty of coloring and a classic definiteness of outline that accord well with the pure feeling of this court. Mr. Bancroft has kept two ideas consistently throughout these murals. One is the abundance of rewards and delights brought by the changing seasons; the other, the fruitful labors of man. In this second idea special honor is tendered to those who labor in the arts and artistic crafts. To these two ideals the sculptor has given the unifying title, "The Pleasures and Work of the Seasons." The panels of The Seasons appear in the walls of the fountain niches. In the place of honor is the beautiful Half Dome; beneath its colorful decorated roof are the great, panels, "Man Receiving Instruction in Nature's Laws" and "Art Crowned by Time." In the former, Nature holds her child, Man, in her arms. She has summoned for him all the forces of the Universe, who attend in a group of calm dignity. She teaches him that by obedience to her laws all these forces, Earth, Fire, Water, Life, and even Death, will serve and never harm. The other panel is described on the following page. Art Crowned by Time Court of the Four Seasons In this calm and classic panel, "Art Crowned by Time," the sculptor has done honor not only to the Fine Arts but also to those artistic crafts that fulfill the perfect combination of use and beauty. In the center of the panel stands Art, a superb, regal figure, serenely indifferent to the wreath of appreciation with which she is being crowned by the hand of Time. She is surrounded by her attendants, the Useful Crafts: Weaving, with her distaff; Glasswork, holding carefully a delicate example of her skill; Jewelry, a beautiful youth severely garbed, bearing an ornate casket; Pottery, with a finished vase upon her knee; Smithery, carrying in his strong arm a piece of armor; and Printing, cherishing in both hands a beautiful clasped book. The panel has a fine Olympian dignity and an ornateness that becomes simplicity through grace of handling, and does not mar the correct mural flatness of surface. In spite of the gracefully composed grouping each figure has individual, almost statuesque, distinction. The treatment of the draperies is interesting. The Seasons Court of the Four Seasons The fountain niches of the Seasons in the Court of the Four Seasons are graced by Milton Herbert Bancroft's appropriate panels. Two of these, one on each wall of the fountain niche, are devoted to each season. One represents the pleasures that that period of the year brings forth for man; the other shows the duties it demands of him. In "Spring," we have the poet's conception of the time of blossoms and garlands, of young loves, piping shepherds and dancing maidens, while the goddess of the season dreams of coming glories. In the companion panel, "Seedtime," the waiting farmers attend her as she stands, sceptered with an Easter lily, and extends her benison on the land. "Summer" crowns the victors in athletic sports; while in "Fruition" the goddess of the season receives the tribute of the successful workers of the soil. The panel called "Autumn" is gay with the dance of the vineyard festival; three happy figures modeled with grace and much refinement are placed on a background divided into panels by a vine. But "Harvest" is quiet and serious; the goddess, bearing the torch of Indian Summer, receives the sheaves of the gleaners. So in "Winter," one panel shows Festivity, with the old bard, the Christmas garland and the gaieties of the home; the other, the distaff by the fireside, the huntsman and the wood-cutter. Westward March of Civilization Arch, Nations of the West Decorating the inner walls of the Arch of the Setting Sun are two long, colorful panels by Frank Vincent Du Mond, inspired by the historical background of the West. They have refreshing vividness of color, clear precision of draughtsmanship and a bright enthusiasm for their subject. With a narrative quality unusual in a mural they commemorate the adventurous spirit that led a stable civilization in the march across the continent of America. In the panel, "Leaving the East," emigrants depart from a barren, snowy coast, upon which stands the meeting-house, source of so many national traditions. A youth bids farewell to his sorrowing friends; a group of adventurers bearing the bare necessities of life leads the way to the frontier. In the central group, surrounding the old Concord wagon laden with household goods, appear the Jurist, Preacher, Schoolmistress, the Child - Symbol of the Home - the Plains' Driver and the Trapper. A symbolic figure, "The Call of Fortune," accompanies them. Some of the characters are actual portraits, as are also the Artist, Writer, Scholar, Architect and Sculptor in the opposite panel, "The Arrival in the West." In this the lavishness and opulence of California welcome the pioneers. Mr. Du Mond is a member of the International Jury of Awards in the Fine Arts Department of the Exposition. Discovery - The Purchase Tower of Jewels The murals in the great tower are properly dedicated to the Panama Canal. In them William de Leftwich Dodge admirably interprets its history, labors and triumphant achievement. Each of the long decorative bands is divided into three panels. The central panels, 96 feet long, are, on the west wall, "The Atlantic and the Pacific," celebrating the united nations face to face across the united waters, and on the east, "The Gateway of All Nations," an allegorical pageant of triumph. The "Gateway of All nations" is flanked by "Achievement" and "Labor Crowned," noble and timely tributes to the Workers who made the canal. Those here reproduced, opposing them on the western wall, are historic. "Discovery" shows Balboa, "on a peak in Darien," in awe at his great moment of discovering the Pacific. The Spirit of Adventurous Fortune attends him. Watching him, sits the Indian guarding his treasures, a tragic prophecy in face and figure. "The Purchase" commemorates the part of France in this achievement. Columbia is purchasing the title from her sister republic. American workmen, led by Enterprise, take up the tools that French laborers have relinquished. Ideals of Emigration Arch, Nations of the East The mural panels in the Eastern arch are devoted to the ideals and motives that brought men across the sea. They are by Edward Simmons and show that fresh juvenility of touch, that exquisite lucid tenderness of color and gentle lightness of motion that give his work its delightful poetic quality. But Mr. Simmons' art has always a deep accent and the imagery in these panels touches fundamentals. "Visions of Exploration," the upper as here pictured, are Hope and Illusory Hope - she who casts bubbles behind her - Adventure, following the lure of the bubbles; then, in a dignified central group, Commerce, Imagination, Fine Arts and Religion; these, followed at a little distance by Wealth and The Family, potent motives of the immigrant of today. In the background, the Taj Mahal and a modern city indicate the ideal and the practical. On the opposite panel, called the "Lure of the Atlantic," the Call of the New World, a youth blowing a trumpet, summons the brave explorers, the man of Atlantis, of the Classic Age, of Northern and Southern Europe, the Missionary Priest, the Artist and the Modern Immigrant. They are followed by the Veiled Future, still hearkening to the onward call. The Golden Wheat Rotunda, Palace of Fine Arts The richly ornate ceiling of the Rotunda of Fine Arts is embellished by a double series of eight panels from the brush of Robert Reid, in the luminous, fervid, joyous vein that characterizes the method of this highly honored American artist. The task assigned him here was a test of skill. The arched effect, so beautifully achieved, and the great accomplishment of merging the huge, brilliant panels into the decorative plan, were not the only difficulties. He had also to calculate the scale of proportion to a mathematical nicety, to make the figures large enough to appear the proper size when viewed so high overhead. The panels are in two sequences, four of them devoted to each subject. The sequence of which an example is illustrated is the Four Golds of California: "The Golden Poppy," the "cup of gold" that makes the spring a glory on California hills; "The Golden Fruit," the citrus fruits that are her pride; "The Golden Metal" that called the world to her hill-sides, and "The Golden Wheat," here shown, the treasure of her fields, borne high in honor. These alternate with the sequence of the Golden Arts, described on the succeeding page. Oriental Art Rotunda, Palace of Fine Arts The great panels of the Golden Arts alternate, in the ceiling of the Rotunda of Fine Arts, with the Four Golds of California. All of these panels so tone their brilliancy into the great sweep of the ceiling that the beholder gets a sense of the beauty of the whole rather than that of any part. This arching, floating unity of the ceiling is an admirable example of the self-control of the muralist. The Golden Arts are interpreted by symbolic groups including a larger number of figures than The Four Golds. They are entitled "Inspirations of All Art," "Ideals in Art," "The Birth of European Art," and "Oriental Art," here illustrated as typical. In this, against the soft but sparkling background of bright sky and clouds that supports all of the panels, are set with much verve the historical, legendary and romantic inspirations of Oriental art. The group is dominated by a contest between an eagle and a knight mounted upon a dragon - based upon a legend of the Ming dynasty. Fugi, the sacred mountain, is in the distance; the sacred dog attends the Chinese hero in the foreground. A beautiful Japanese woman - indicating the inspiration of romance, East and West - sits among flowers. The space is filled in a manner appropriately and charmingly suggestive of Oriental composition. The Arts of Peace Netherlands Pavilion The Pavilion of The Netherlands is inevitably reminiscent of the Peace Palace of The Hague, by natural association of ideas and because of the spirit of its central mural painting, "The Arts of Peace." It is therefore an interesting fact that Hermann Rosse, the artist who painted this imposing work, and, indeed, designed the entire interior decoration of the pavilion, was also muralist and decorator of the Palace of Peace. The pavilion walls and hangings - steel blue, olive green and silver grey, relieved by quaint conventional stencils of orange trees and tulips and severe shields of the four divisions of the kingdom - has a broad, cool puritanism that lends itself well to the rich depth of the painting. Holland holds high the image of Peace, surrounded by the peace-nurtured arts and industries on whose support all human welfare rests. Among them stand not only representatives of trades and crafts, with their symbols and implements, but also the Art of Motherhood and the Art of Play shown by a happy child. Ships of all ages in side-panels and background tell of the maritime history of Holland which so largely and peacefully colonized the world. Beneath the painting is a comforting and inspiring legend. Penn's Treaty with the Indians Pennsylvania Building The Pennsylvania Building was designed with the patriotic purpose of enshrining the Liberty Bell. The Bell stands in a loggia between two wings, the architectural motif following that of Independence Hall. On the walls of the loggia are two mural lunettes of distinction by Edward Trumbull of Pittsburg. Their deep glowing color and massive grouping mark Mr. Trumbull a worthy pupil of his master, Frank Brangwyn. "Penn's Treaty with the Indians," here given, shows William Penn and the foremost of his shipmates on "The Welcome" making with Chief Tamanend and his braves the Treaty of Shackamaxon in 1683, the treaty that never was broken. The plainness of the kindly Friends, the barbaric splendor of the Indians, the deep green of the overarching Treaty Elm and the lovely typical Pennsylvania landscape have enduring attraction. The panel is in contrast with Mr. Trumbull's vigorous and burning modern picture, "The Steel Workers," on the opposite wall. In the reception room of this building are seven delightful small panels by Charles J. Taylor, showing the early life of Pennsylvania villages. They are painted in the quaint style of old colonial decorations and have charm, humor, naivete and beauty too pleasing to be overlooked. Return from the Crusade Court, Italian Pavilion The courts and palaces of Italy, with their appearance of age and their remote, sheltered calm, present an education in artistic reserve and decorative uses of space that all who linger may learn. They represent four centuries of architecture, of three historic types. The lovely piazzetta with its antique well is the center of beauty. On one of its walls is what appears to be an ancient mural, soft, flat, with that faded, velvety coloring associated with age. It was recently painted by Mathilde Festa-Piacentini, in the ancient manner to harmonize with the court. It represents "The Return from the Crusade" of one noble Pandolfo, and bears date and description in Latin. Quaint old-time stiffness and weather-worn coloring combine with modern correctness and fluency. The young artist is the wife of the architect of the pavilion and has won a silver medal in the Italian section of Fine Arts. Below this lunette stands a bronze copy of an antique David with the marble head of Goliath. Other interesting murals appear in Italy's pavilion, by Pierretto Banco and Bruno Ferrari, son of the sculptor, Ettore Ferrari. The Riches of California Tea Room, California Building The tea-room of the Auxiliary to the Woman's Board, in the California Building, was decorated by Florence Lundborg, a Californian whose work has won consideration in this country and in France. In her large mural, "The Riches of California," one of the most extensive ever painted by a woman, and in the supplementary medallions she has expressed the generous abundance of California's fruitage. Feeling a similarity between copious California and Sicily, where she has lived and painted, the artist chose for her text a line from Theocritus describing that country: All breathes the scent of the opulent summer, the season of fruits. This inscription, in old Spanish lettering, surrounds the great canvas. Across a restful, soft-toned landscape, bright but tempered, the peaceful, happy harvesters bear homeward the plenteous fruit. A mood of quiet gladness is over all. The window arches, throughout the soft gray walls of the room, are marked by brilliant medallions of fruit and flowers, sumptuously composed upon a gold background. Here ends The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition, with an introduction by A. Stirling Calder. The Descriptive titles have been written by Stella G. S. Perry. Edited by Paul Elder. Published by Paul Elder and Company and seen through their Tomoye Press under the typographical direction of H. A. Funke, in the city of San Francisco during the month of October, Nineteen Hundred and Fifteen 
7291	----	Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team THE TWO PATHS By John Ruskin, M.A. CONTENTS. THE TWO PATHS. LECTURE I. THE DETERIORATIVE POWER OF CONVENTIONAL ART OVER NATIONS LECTURE II. THE UNITY OF ART LECTURE III. MODERN MANUFACTURE AND DESIGN LECTURE IV. THE INFLUENCE OF IMAGINATION IN ARCHITECTURE LECTURE V. THE WORK OF IRON, IN NATURE, ART, AND POLICY APPENDICES LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. THE TWO PATHS. THE IDEAL OF AN ANGEL THE SERPENT BEGUILING EVE CONTRAST SYMMETRY ORNAMENT CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE CENTREPIECE OF BALCONY GENERAL EFFECT OF MASSES PROFILE TEETH OF THE BORDER BORDER AT THE SIDE OF BALCONY OUTLINE OF RETRACTED LEAVES PREFACE. The following addresses, though spoken at different times, are intentionally connected in subject; their aim being to set one or two main principles of art in simple light before the general student, and to indicate their practical bearing on modern design. The law which it has been my effort chiefly to illustrate is the dependence of all noble design, in any kind, on the sculpture or painting of Organic Form. This is the vital law; lying at the root of all that I have ever tried to teach respecting architecture or any other art. It is also the law most generally disallowed. I believe this must be so in every subject. We are all of us willing enough to accept dead truths or blunt ones; which can be fitted harmlessly into spare niches, or shrouded and coffined at once out of the way, we holding complacently the cemetery keys, and supposing we have learned something. But a sapling truth, with earth at its root and blossom on its branches; or a trenchant truth, that can cut its way through bars and sods; most men, it seems to me, dislike the sight or entertainment of, if by any means such guest or vision may be avoided. And, indeed, this is no wonder; for one such truth, thoroughly accepted, connects itself strangely with others, and there is no saying what it may lead us to. And thus the gist of what I have tried to teach about architecture has been throughout denied by my architect readers, even when they thought what I said suggestive in other particulars. "Anything but that. Study Italian Gothic?--perhaps it would be as well: build with pointed arches?--there is no objection: use solid stone and well-burnt brick?-- by all means: but--learn to carve or paint organic form ourselves! How can such a thing be asked? We are above all that. The carvers and painters are our servants--quite subordinate people. They ought to be glad if we leave room for them." Well: on that it all turns. For those who will not learn to carve or paint, and think themselves greater men because they cannot, it is wholly wasted time to read any words of mine; in the truest and sternest sense they can read no words of mine; for the most familiar I can use--"form," "proportion," "beauty," "curvature," "colour"--are used in a sense which by no effort I can communicate to such readers; and in no building that I praise, is the thing that I praise it for, visible to them. And it is the more necessary for me to state this fully; because so- called Gothic or Romanesque buildings are now rising every day around us, which might be supposed by the public more or less to embody the principles of those styles, but which embody not one of them, nor any shadow or fragment of them; but merely serve to caricature the noble buildings of past ages, and to bring their form into dishonour by leaving out their soul. The following addresses are therefore arranged, as I have just stated, to put this great law, and one or two collateral ones, in less mistakeable light, securing even in this irregular form at least clearness of assertion. For the rest, the question at issue is not one to be decided by argument, but by experiment, which if the reader is disinclined to make, all demonstration must be useless to him. The lectures are for the most part printed as they were read, mending only obscure sentences here and there. The parts which were trusted to extempore speaking are supplied, as well as I can remember (only with an addition here and there of things I forgot to say), in the words, or at least the kind of words, used at the time; and they contain, at all events, the substance of what I said more accurately than hurried journal reports. I must beg my readers not in general to trust to such, for even in fast speaking I try to use words carefully; and any alteration of expression will sometimes involve a great alteration in meaning. A little while ago I had to speak of an architectural design, and called it "elegant," meaning, founded on good and well "elected" models; the printed report gave "excellent" design (that is to say, design _excellingly_ good), which I did not mean, and should, even in the most hurried speaking, never have said. The illustrations of the lecture on iron were sketches made too roughly to be engraved, and yet of too elaborate subjects to allow of my drawing them completely. Those now substituted will, however, answer the purpose nearly as well, and are more directly connected with the subjects of the preceding lectures; so that I hope throughout the volume the student will perceive an insistance upon one main truth, nor lose in any minor direction of inquiry the sense of the responsibility which the acceptance of that truth fastens upon him; responsibility for choice, decisive and conclusive, between two modes of study, which involve ultimately the development, or deadening, of every power he possesses. I have tried to hold that choice clearly out to him, and to unveil for him to its farthest the issue of his turning to the right hand or the left. Guides he may find many, and aids many; but all these will be in vain unless he has first recognised the hour and the point of life when the way divides itself, one way leading to the Olive mountains--one to the vale of the Salt Sea. There are few cross roads, that I know of, from one to the other. Let him pause at the parting of THE TWO PATHS. THE TWO PATHS _BEING_ LECTURES ON ART, AND ITS APPLICATION TO DECORATION AND MANUFACTURE DELIVERED IN 1858-9. LECTURE I. THE DETERIORATIVE POWER OF CONVENTIONAL ART OVER NATIONS. _An Inaugural Lecture, Delivered at the Kensington Museum, January, 1858._ [Footnote: A few introductory words, in which, at the opening of this lecture, I thanked the Chairman (Mr. Cockerell), for his support on the occasion, and asked his pardon for any hasty expressions in my writings, which might have seemed discourteous towards him, or other architects whose general opinions were opposed to mine, may be found by those who care for preambles, not much misreported, in the _Building Chronicle;_ with such comments as the genius of that journal was likely to suggest to it.] As I passed, last summer, for the first time, through the north of Scotland, it seemed to me that there was a peculiar painfulness in its scenery, caused by the non-manifestation of the powers of human art. I had never travelled in, nor even heard or conceived of such a country before; nor, though I had passed much of my life amidst mountain scenery in the south, was I before aware how much of its charm depended on the little gracefulnesses and tendernesses of human work, which are mingled with the beauty of the Alps, or spared by their desolation. It is true that the art which carves and colours the front of a Swiss cottage is not of any very exalted kind; yet it testifies to the completeness and the delicacy of the faculties of the mountaineer; it is true that the remnants of tower and battlement, which afford footing to the wild vine on the Alpine promontory, form but a small part of the great serration of its rocks; and yet it is just that fragment of their broken outline which gives them their pathetic power, and historical majesty. And this element among the wilds of our own country I found wholly wanting. The Highland cottage is literally a heap of gray stones, choked up, rather than roofed over, with black peat and withered heather; the only approach to an effort at decoration consists in the placing of the clods of protective peat obliquely on its roof, so as to give a diagonal arrangement of lines, looking somewhat as if the surface had been scored over by a gigantic claymore. And, at least among the northern hills of Scotland, elements of more ancient architectural interest are equally absent. The solitary peel- house is hardly discernible by the windings of the stream; the roofless aisle of the priory is lost among the enclosures of the village; and the capital city of the Highlands, Inverness, placed where it might ennoble one of the sweetest landscapes, and by the shore of one of the loveliest estuaries in the world;--placed between the crests of the Grampians and the flowing of the Moray Firth, as if it were a jewel clasping the folds of the mountains to the blue zone of the sea,--is only distinguishable from a distance by one architectural feature, and exalts all the surrounding landscape by no other associations than those which can be connected with its modern castellated gaol. While these conditions of Scottish scenery affected me very painfully, it being the first time in my life that I had been in any country possessing no valuable monuments or examples of art, they also forced me into the consideration of one or two difficult questions respecting the effect of art on the human mind; and they forced these questions upon me eminently for this reason, that while I was wandering disconsolately among the moors of the Grampians, where there was no art to be found, news of peculiar interest was every day arriving from a country where there was a great deal of art, and art of a delicate kind, to be found. Among the models set before you in this institution, and in the others established throughout the kingdom for the teaching of design, there are, I suppose, none in their kind more admirable than the decorated works of India. They are, indeed, in all materials capable of colour, wool, marble, or metal, almost inimitable in their delicate application of divided hue, and fine arrangement of fantastic line. Nor is this power of theirs exerted by the people rarely, or without enjoyment; the love of subtle design seems universal in the race, and is developed in every implement that they shape, and every building that they raise; it attaches itself with the same intensity, and with the same success, to the service of superstition, of pleasure or of cruelty; and enriches alike, with one profusion on enchanted iridescence, the dome of the pagoda, the fringe of the girdle and the edge of the sword. So then you have, in these two great populations, Indian and Highland-- in the races of the jungle and of the moor--two national capacities distinctly and accurately opposed. On the one side you have a race rejoicing in art, and eminently and universally endowed with the gift of it; on the other you have a people careless of art, and apparently incapable of it, their utmost effort hitherto reaching no farther than to the variation of the positions of the bars of colour in square chequers. And we are thus urged naturally to enquire what is the effect on the moral character, in each nation, of this vast difference in their pursuits and apparent capacities? and whether those rude chequers of the tartan, or the exquisitely fancied involutions of the Cashmere, fold habitually over the noblest hearts? We have had our answer. Since the race of man began its course of sin on this earth, nothing has ever been done by it so significative of all bestial, and lower than bestial degradation, as the acts the Indian race in the year that has just passed by. Cruelty as fierce may indeed have been wreaked, and brutality as abominable been practised before, but never under like circumstances; rage of prolonged war, and resentment of prolonged oppression, have made men as cruel before now; and gradual decline into barbarism, where no examples of decency or civilization existed around them, has sunk, before now, isolated populations to the lowest level of possible humanity. But cruelty stretched to its fiercest against the gentle and unoffending, and corruption festered to its loathsomest in the midst of the witnessing presence of a disciplined civilization,-- these we could not have known to be within the practicable compass of human guilt, but for the acts of the Indian mutineer. And, as thus, on the one hand, you have an extreme energy of baseness displayed by these lovers of art; on the other,--as if to put the question into the narrowest compass--you have had an extreme energy of virtue displayed by the despisers of art. Among all the soldiers to whom you owe your victories in the Crimea, and your avenging in the Indies, to none are you bound by closer bonds of gratitude than to the men who have been born and bred among those desolate Highland moors. And thus you have the differences in capacity and circumstance between the two nations, and the differences in result on the moral habits of two nations, put into the most significant--the most palpable--the most brief opposition. Out of the peat cottage come faith, courage, self- sacrifice, purity, and piety, and whatever else is fruitful in the work of Heaven; out of the ivory palace come treachery, cruelty, cowardice, idolatry, bestiality,--whatever else is fruitful in the work of Hell. But the difficulty does not close here. From one instance, of however great apparent force, it would be wholly unfair to gather any general conclusion--wholly illogical to assert that because we had once found love of art connected with moral baseness, the love of art must be the general root of moral baseness; and equally unfair to assert that, because we had once found neglect of art coincident with nobleness of disposition, neglect of art must be always the source or sign of that nobleness. But if we pass from the Indian peninsula into other countries of the globe; and from our own recent experience, to the records of history, we shall still find one great fact fronting us, in stern universality--namely, the apparent connection of great success in art with subsequent national degradation. You find, in the first place, that the nations which possessed a refined art were always subdued by those who possessed none: you find the Lydian subdued by the Mede; the Athenian by the Spartan; the Greek by the Roman; the Roman by the Goth; the Burgundian by the Switzer: but you find, beyond this--that even where no attack by any external power has accelerated the catastrophe of the state, the period in which any given people reach their highest power in art is precisely that in which they appear to sign the warrant of their own ruin; and that, from the moment in which a perfect statue appears in Florence, a perfect picture in Venice, or a perfect fresco in Rome, from that hour forward, probity, industry, and courage seem to be exiled from their walls, and they perish in a sculpturesque paralysis, or a many-coloured corruption. But even this is not all. As art seems thus, in its delicate form, to be one of the chief promoters of indolence and sensuality,--so, I need hardly remind you, it hitherto has appeared only in energetic manifestation when it was in the service of superstition. The four greatest manifestations of human intellect which founded the four principal kingdoms of art, Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, and Italian, were developed by the strong excitement of active superstition in the worship of Osiris, Belus, Minerva, and the Queen of Heaven. Therefore, to speak briefly, it may appear very difficult to show that art has ever yet existed in a consistent and thoroughly energetic school, unless it was engaged in the propagation of falsehood, or the encouragement of vice. And finally, while art has thus shown itself always active in the service of luxury and idolatry, it has also been strongly directed to the exaltation of cruelty. A nation which lives a pastoral and innocent life never decorates the shepherd's staff or the plough-handle, but races who live by depredation and slaughter nearly always bestow exquisite ornaments on the quiver, the helmet, and the spear. Does it not seem to you, then, on all these three counts, more than questionable whether we are assembled here in Kensington Museum to any good purpose? Might we not justly be looked upon with suspicion and fear, rather than with sympathy, by the innocent and unartistical public? Are we even sure of ourselves? Do we know what we are about? Are we met here as honest people? or are we not rather so many Catilines assembled to devise the hasty degradation of our country, or, like a conclave of midnight witches, to summon and send forth, on new and unexpected missions, the demons of luxury, cruelty, and superstition? I trust, upon the whole, that it is not so: I am sure that Mr. Redgrave and Mr. Cole do not at all include results of this kind in their conception of the ultimate objects of the institution which owes so much to their strenuous and well-directed exertions. And I have put this painful question before you, only that we may face it thoroughly, and, as I hope, out-face it. If you will give it a little sincere attention this evening, I trust we may find sufficiently good reasons for our work, and proceed to it hereafter, as all good workmen should do, with clear heads, and calm consciences. To return, then, to the first point of difficulty, the relations between art and mental disposition in India and Scotland. It is quite true that the art of India is delicate and refined. But it has one curious character distinguishing it from all other art of equal merit in design--_it never represents a natural fact_. It either forms its compositions out of meaningless fragments of colour and flowings of line; or if it represents any living creature, it represents that creature under some distorted and monstrous form. To all the facts and forms of nature it wilfully and resolutely opposes itself; it will not draw a man, but an eight-armed monster; it will not draw a flower, but only a spiral or a zigzag. It thus indicates that the people who practise it are cut off from all possible sources of healthy knowledge or natural delight; that they have wilfully sealed up and put aside the entire volume of the world, and have got nothing to read, nothing to dwell upon, but that imagination of the thoughts of their hearts, of which we are told that "it is only evil continually." Over the whole spectacle of creation they have thrown a veil in which there is no rent. For them no star peeps through the blanket of the dark--for them neither their heaven shines nor their mountains rise--for them the flowers do not blossom-- for them the creatures of field and forest do not live. They lie bound in the dungeon of their own corruption, encompassed only by doleful phantoms, or by spectral vacancy. Need I remind you what an exact reverse of this condition of mind, as respects the observance of nature, is presented by the people whom we have just been led to contemplate in contrast with the Indian race? You will find upon reflection, that all the highest points of the Scottish character are connected with impressions derived straight from the natural scenery of their country. No nation has ever before shown, in the general tone of its language--in the general current of its literature--so constant a habit of hallowing its passions and confirming its principles by direct association with the charm, or power, of nature. The writings of Scott and Burns--and yet more, of the far greater poets than Burns who gave Scotland her traditional ballads,--furnish you in every stanza--almost in every line--with examples of this association of natural scenery with the passions; [Footnote: The great poets of Scotland, like the great poets of all other countries, never write dissolutely, either in matter or method; but with stern and measured meaning in every syllable. Here's a bit of first-rate work for example: "Tweed said to Till, 'What gars ye rin sae still?' Till said to Tweed, 'Though ye rin wi' speed, And I rin slaw, Whar ye droon ae man, I droon twa.'"] but an instance of its farther connection with moral principle struck me forcibly just at the time when I was most lamenting the absence of art among the people. In one of the loneliest districts of Scotland, where the peat cottages are darkest, just at the western foot of that great mass of the Grampians which encircles the sources of the Spey and the Dee, the main road which traverses the chain winds round the foot of a broken rock called Crag, or Craig Ellachie. There is nothing remarkable in either its height or form; it is darkened with a few scattered pines, and touched along its summit with a flush of heather; but it constitutes a kind of headland, or leading promontory, in the group of hills to which it belongs--a sort of initial letter of the mountains; and thus stands in the mind of the inhabitants of the district, the Clan Grant, for a type of their country, and of the influence of that country upon themselves. Their sense of this is beautifully indicated in the war-cry of the clan, "Stand fast, Craig Ellachie." You may think long over those few words without exhausting the deep wells of feeling and thought contained in them--the love of the native land, the assurance of their faithfulness to it; the subdued and gentle assertion of indomitable courage--I _may_ need to be told to stand, but, if I do, Craig Ellachie does. You could not but have felt, had you passed beneath it at the time when so many of England's dearest children were being defended by the strength of heart of men born at its foot, how often among the delicate Indian palaces, whose marble was pallid with horror, and whose vermilion was darkened with blood, the remembrance of its rough grey rocks and purple heaths must have risen before the sight of the Highland soldier; how often the hailing of the shot and the shriek of battle would pass away from his hearing, and leave only the whisper of the old pine branches--"Stand fast, Craig Ellachie!" You have, in these two nations, seen in direct opposition the effects on moral sentiment of art without nature, and of nature without art. And you see enough to justify you in suspecting--while, if you choose to investigate the subject more deeply and with other examples, you will find enough to justify you in _concluding_--that art, followed as such, and for its own sake, irrespective of the interpretation of nature by it, is destructive of whatever is best and noblest in humanity; but that nature, however simply observed, or imperfectly known, is, in the degree of the affection felt for it, protective and helpful to all that is noblest in humanity. You might then conclude farther, that art, so far as it was devoted to the record or the interpretation of nature, would be helpful and ennobling also. And you would conclude this with perfect truth. Let me repeat the assertion distinctly and solemnly, as the first that I am permitted to make in this building, devoted in a way so new and so admirable to the service of the art-students of England--Wherever art is practised for its own sake, and the delight of the workman is in what he _does_ and _produces_, instead of what he _interprets_ or _exhibits_, --there art has an influence of the most fatal kind on brain and heart, and it issues, if long so pursued, in the _destruction both of intellectual power_ and _moral principal_; whereas art, devoted humbly and self- forgetfully to the clear statement and record of the facts of the universe, is always helpful and beneficent to mankind, full of comfort, strength, and salvation. Now, when you were once well assured of this, you might logically infer another thing, namely, that when Art was occupied in the function in which she was serviceable, she would herself be strengthened by the service, and when she was doing what Providence without doubt intended her to do, she would gain in vitality and dignity just as she advanced in usefulness. On the other hand, you might gather, that when her agency was distorted to the deception or degradation of mankind, she would herself be equally misled and degraded--that she would be checked in advance, or precipitated in decline. And this is the truth also; and holding this clue you will easily and justly interpret the phenomena of history. So long as Art is steady in the contemplation and exhibition of natural facts, so long she herself lives and grows; and in her own life and growth partly implies, partly secures, that of the nation in the midst of which she is practised. But a time has always hitherto come, in which, having thus reached a singular perfection, she begins to contemplate that perfection, and to imitate it, and deduce rules and forms from it; and thus to forget her duty and ministry as the interpreter and discoverer of Truth. And in the very instant when this diversion of her purpose and forgetfulness of her function take place--forgetfulness generally coincident with her apparent perfection--in that instant, I say, begins her actual catastrophe; and by her own fall--so far as she has influence--she accelerates the ruin of the nation by which she is practised. The study, however, of the effect of art on the mind of nations is one rather for the historian than for us; at all events it is one for the discussion of which we have no more time this evening. But I will ask your patience with me while I try to illustrate, in some further particulars, the dependence of the healthy state and power of art itself upon the exercise of its appointed function in the interpretation of fact. You observe that I always say _interpretation_, never _imitation_. My reason for so doing is, first, that good art rarely imitates; it usually only describes or explains. But my second and chief reason is that good art always consists of two things: First, the observation of fact; secondly, the manifesting of human design and authority in the way that fact is told. Great and good art must unite the two; it cannot exist for a moment but in their unity; it consists of the two as essentially as water consists of oxygen and hydrogen, or marble of lime and carbonic acid. Let us inquire a little into the nature of each of the elements. The first element, we say, is the love of Nature, leading to the effort to observe and report her truly. And this is the first and leading element. Review for yourselves the history of art, and you will find this to be a manifest certainty, that _no great school ever yet existed which had not for primal aim the representation of some natural fact as truly as possible_. There have only yet appeared in the world three schools of perfect art--schools, that is to say, that did their work as well as it seems possible to do it. These are the Athenian, [Footnote: See below, the farther notice of the real spirit of Greek work, in the address at Bradford.] Florentine, and Venetian. The Athenian proposed to itself the perfect representation of the form of the human body. It strove to do that as well as it could; it did that as well as it can be done; and all its greatness was founded upon and involved in that single and honest effort. The Florentine school proposed to itself the perfect expression of human emotion--the showing of the effects of passion in the human face and gesture. I call this the Florentine school, because, whether you take Raphael for the culminating master of expressional art in Italy, or Leonardo, or Michael Angelo, you will find that the whole energy of the national effort which produced those masters had its root in Florence; not at Urbino or Milan. I say, then, this Florentine or leading Italian school proposed to itself human expression for its aim in natural truth; it strove to do that as well as it could--did it as well as it can be done--and all its greatness is rooted in that single and honest effort. Thirdly, the Venetian school propose the representation of the effect of colour and shade on all things; chiefly on the human form. It tried to do that as well as it could--did it as well as it can be done--and all its greatness is founded on that single and honest effort. Pray, do not leave this room without a perfectly clear holding of these three ideas. You may try them, and toss them about afterwards, as much as you like, to see if they'll bear shaking; but do let me put them well and plainly into your possession. Attach them to three works of art which you all have either seen or continually heard of. There's the (so-called) "Theseus" of the Elgin marbles. That represents the whole end and aim of the Athenian school--the natural form of the human body. All their conventional architecture--their graceful shaping and painting of pottery--whatsoever other art they practised--was dependent for its greatness on this sheet-anchor of central aim: true shape of living man. Then take, for your type of the Italian school, Raphael's "Disputa del Sacramento;" that will be an accepted type by everybody, and will involve no possibly questionable points: the Germans will admit it; the English academicians will admit it; and the English purists and pre-Raphaelites will admit it. Well, there you have the truth of human expression proposed as an aim. That is the way people look when they feel this or that--when they have this or that other mental character: are they devotional, thoughtful, affectionate, indignant, or inspired? are they prophets, saints, priests, or kings? then--whatsoever is truly thoughtful, affectionate, prophetic, priestly, kingly--_that_ the Florentine school tried to discern, and show; _that_ they have discerned and shown; and all their greatness is first fastened in their aim at this central truth--the open expression of the living human soul. Lastly, take Veronese's "Marriage in Cana" in the Louvre. There you have the most perfect representation possible of colour, and light, and shade, as they affect the external aspect of the human form, and its immediate accessories, architecture, furniture, and dress. This external aspect of noblest nature was the first aim of the Venetians, and all their greatness depended on their resolution to achieve, and their patience in achieving it. Here, then, are the three greatest schools of the former world exemplified for you in three well-known works. The Phidian "Theseus" represents the Greek school pursuing truth of form; the "Disputa" of Raphael, the Florentine school pursuing truth of mental expression; the "Marriage in Cana," the Venetian school pursuing truth of colour and light. But do not suppose that the law which I am stating to you--the great law of art-life--can only be seen in these, the most powerful of all art schools. It is just as manifest in each and every school that ever has had life in it at all. Wheresoever the search after truth begins, there life begins; wheresoever that search ceases, there life ceases. As long as a school of art holds any chain of natural facts, trying to discover more of them and express them better daily, it may play hither and thither as it likes on this side of the chain or that; it may design grotesques and conventionalisms, build the simplest buildings, serve the most practical utilities, yet all it does will be gloriously designed and gloriously done; but let it once quit hold of the chain of natural fact, cease to pursue that as the clue to its work; let it propose to itself any other end than preaching this living word, and think first of showing its own skill or its own fancy, and from that hour its fall is precipitate--its destruction sure; nothing that it does or designs will ever have life or loveliness in it more; its hour has come, and there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither it goeth. Let us take for example that school of art over which many of you would perhaps think this law had but little power--the school of Gothic architecture. Many of us may have been in the habit of thinking of that school rather as of one of forms than of facts--a school of pinnacles, and buttresses, and conventional mouldings, and disguise of nature by monstrous imaginings--not a school of truth at all. I think I shall be able, even in the little time we have to-night, to show that this is not so; and that our great law holds just as good at Amiens and Salisbury, as it does at Athens and Florence. I will go back then first to the very beginnings of Gothic art, and before you, the students of Kensington, as an impanelled jury, I will bring two examples of the barbarism out of which Gothic art emerges, approximately contemporary in date and parallel in executive skill; but, the one, a barbarism that did not get on, and could not get on; the other, a barbarism that could get on, and did get on; and you, the impanelled jury, shall judge what is the essential difference between the two barbarisms, and decide for yourselves what is the seed of life in the one, and the sign of death in the other. The first,--that which has in it the sign of death,--furnishes us at the same time with an illustration far too interesting to be passed by, of certain principles much depended on by our common modern designers. Taking up one of our architectural publications the other day, and opening it at random, I chanced upon this piece of information, put in rather curious English; but you shall have it as it stands-- "Aristotle asserts, that the greatest species of the beautiful are Order, Symmetry, and the Definite." I should tell you, however, that this statement is not given as authoritative; it is one example of various Architectural teachings, given in a report in the _Building Chronicle_ for May, 1857, of a lecture on Proportion; in which the only thing the lecturer appears to have proved was that,-- The system of dividing the diameter of the shaft of a column into parts for copying the ancient architectural remains of Greece and Rome, adopted by architects from Vitruvius (circa B.C. 25) to the present period, as a method for producing ancient architecture, _is entirely useless_, for the several parts of Grecian architecture cannot be reduced or subdivided by this system; neither does it apply to the architecture of Rome. Still, as far as I can make it out, the lecture appears to have been one of those of which you will just at present hear so many, the protests of architects who have no knowledge of sculpture--or of any other mode of expressing natural beauty--_against_ natural beauty; and their endeavour to substitute mathematical proportions for the knowledge of life they do not possess, and the representation of life of which they are incapable.[Illustration] Now, this substitution of obedience to mathematical law for sympathy with observed life, is the first characteristic of the hopeless work of all ages; as such, you will find it eminently manifested in the specimen I have to give you of the hopeless Gothic barbarism; the barbarism from which nothing could emerge--for which no future was possible but extinction. The Aristotelian principles of the Beautiful are, you remember, Order, Symmetry, and the Definite. Here you have the three, in perfection, applied to the ideal of an angel, in a psalter of the eighth century, existing in the library of St. John's College, Cambridge.[Footnote: I copy this woodcut from Westwood's "Palaeographia Sacra."] Now, you see the characteristics of this utterly dead school are, first the wilful closing of its eyes to natural facts;--for, however ignorant a person may be, he need only look at a human being to see that it has a mouth as well as eyes; and secondly, the endeavour to adorn or idealize natural fact according to its own notions: it puts red spots in the middle of the hands, and sharpens the thumbs, thinking to improve them. Here you have the most pure type possible of the principles of idealism in all ages: whenever people don't look at Nature, they always think they can improve her. You will also admire, doubtless, the exquisite result of the application of our great modern architectural principle of beauty--symmetry, or equal balance of part by part; you see even the eyes are made symmetrical--entirely round, instead of irregular, oval; and the iris is set properly in the middle, instead of--as nature has absurdly put it--rather under the upper lid. You will also observe the "principle of the pyramid" in the general arrangement of the figure, and the value of "series" in the placing of dots. From this dead barbarism we pass to living barbarism--to work done by hands quite as rude, if not ruder, and by minds as uninformed; and yet work which in every line of it is prophetic of power, and has in it the sure dawn of day. You have often heard it said that Giotto was the founder of art in Italy. He was not: neither he, nor Giunta Pisano, nor Niccolo Pisano. They all laid strong hands to the work, and brought it first into aspect above ground; but the foundation had been laid for them by the builders of the Lombardic churches in the valleys of the Adda and the Arno. It is in the sculpture of the round arched churches of North Italy, bearing disputable dates, ranging from the eighth to the twelfth century, that you will find the lowest struck roots of the art of Titian and Raphael. [Footnote: I have said elsewhere, "the root of _all_ art is struck in the thirteenth century." This is quite true: but of course some of the smallest fibres run lower, as in this instance.] I go, therefore, to the church which is certainly the earliest of these, St. Ambrogio, of Milan, said still to retain some portions of the actual structure from which St. Ambrose excluded Theodosius, and at all events furnishing the most archaic examples of Lombardic sculpture in North Italy. I do not venture to guess their date; they are barbarous enough for any date. We find the pulpit of this church covered with interlacing patterns, closely resembling those of the manuscript at Cambridge, but among them is figure sculpture of a very different kind. It is wrought with mere incisions in the stone, of which the effect may be tolerably given by single lines in a drawing. Remember, therefore, for a moment--as characteristic of culminating Italian art--Michael Angelo's fresco of the "Temptation of Eve," in the Sistine chapel, and you will be more interested in seeing the birth of Italian art, illustrated by the same subject, from St. Ambrogio, of Milan, the "Serpent beguiling Eve." [Footnote: This cut is ruder than it should be: the incisions in the marble have a lighter effect than these rough black lines; but it is not worth while to do it better.] Yet, in that sketch, rude and ludicrous as it is, you have the elements of life in their first form. The people who could do that were sure to get on. For, observe, the workman's whole aim is straight at the facts, as well as he can get them; and not merely at the facts, but at the very heart of the facts. A common workman might have looked at nature for his serpent, but he would have thought only of its scales. But this fellow does not want scales, nor coils; he can do without them; he wants the serpent's heart--malice and insinuation;--and he has actually got them to some extent. So also a common workman, even in this barbarous stage of art, might have carved Eve's arms and body a good deal better; but this man does not care about arms and body, if he can only get at Eve's mind--show that she is pleased at being flattered, and yet in a state of uncomfortable hesitation. And some look of listening, of complacency, and of embarrassment he has verily got:-- note the eyes slightly askance, the lips compressed, and the right hand nervously grasping the left arm: nothing can be declared impossible to the people who could begin thus--the world is open to them, and all that is in it; while, on the contrary, nothing is possible to the man who did the symmetrical angel--the world is keyless to him; he has built a cell for himself in which he must abide, barred up for ever-- there is no more hope for him than for a sponge or a madrepore. I shall not trace from this embryo the progress of Gothic art in Italy, because it is much complicated and involved with traditions of other schools, and because most of the students will be less familiar with its results than with their own northern buildings. So, these two designs indicating Death and Life in the beginnings of mediaeval art, we will take an example of the _progress_ of that art from our northern work. Now, many of you, doubtless, have been interested by the mass, grandeur, and gloom of Norman architecture, as much as by Gothic traceries; and when you hear me say that the root of all good work lies in natural facts, you doubtless think instantly of your round arches, with their rude cushion capitals, and of the billet or zigzag work by which they are surrounded, and you cannot see what the knowledge of nature has to do with either the simple plan or the rude mouldings. But all those simple conditions of Norman art are merely the expiring of it towards the extreme north. Do not study Norman architecture in Northumberland, but in Normandy, and then you will find that it is just a peculiarly manly, and practically useful, form of the whole great French school of rounded architecture. And where has that French school its origin? Wholly in the rich conditions of sculpture, which, rising first out of imitations of the Roman bas-reliefs, covered all the façades of the French early churches with one continuous arabesque of floral or animal life. If you want to study round-arched buildings, do not go to Durham, but go to Poictiers, and there you will see how all the simple decorations which give you so much pleasure even in their isolated application were invented by persons practised in carving men, monsters, wild animals, birds, and flowers, in overwhelming redundance; and then trace this architecture forward in central France, and you will find it loses nothing of its richness--it only gains in truth, and therefore in grace, until just at the moment of transition into the pointed style, you have the consummate type of the sculpture of the school given you in the west front of the Cathedral of Chartres. From that front I have chosen two fragments to illustrate it. [Footnote: This part of the lecture was illustrated by two drawings, made admirably by Mr. J. T. Laing, with the help of photographs from statues at Chartres. The drawings may be seen at present at the Kensington Museum: but any large photograph of the west front of Chartres will enable the reader to follow what is stated in the lecture, as far as is needful.] These statues have been long, and justly, considered as representative of the highest skill of the twelfth or earliest part of the thirteenth century in France; and they indeed possess a dignity and delicate charm, which are for the most part wanting in later works. It is owing partly to real nobleness of feature, but chiefly to the grace, mingled with severity, of the falling lines of excessively _thin_ drapery; as well as to a most studied finish in composition, every part of the ornamentation tenderly harmonizing with the rest. So far as their power over certain tones of religious mind is owing to a palpable degree of non-naturalism in them, I do not praise it--the exaggerated thinness of body and stiffness of attitude are faults; but they are noble faults, and give the statues a strange look of forming part of the very building itself, and sustaining it--not like the Greek caryatid, without effort--nor like the Renaissance caryatid, by painful or impossible effort--but as if all that was silent and stern, and withdrawn apart, and stiffened in chill of heart against the terror of earth, had passed into a shape of eternal marble; and thus the Ghost had given, to bear up the pillars of the church on earth, all the patient and expectant nature that it needed no more in heaven. This is the transcendental view of the meaning of those sculptures. I do not dwell upon it. What I do lean upon is their purely naturalistic and vital power. They are all portraits--unknown, most of them, I believe, --but palpably and unmistakeably portraits, if not taken from the actual person for whom the statue stands, at all events studied from some living person whose features might fairly represent those of the king or saint intended. Several of them I suppose to be authentic: there is one of a queen, who has evidently, while she lived, been notable for her bright black eyes. The sculptor has cut the iris deep into the stone, and her dark eyes are still suggested with her smile. There is another thing I wish you to notice specially in these statues --the way in which the floral moulding is associated with the vertical lines of the figure. You have thus the utmost complexity and richness of curvature set side by side with the pure and delicate parallel lines, and both the characters gain in interest and beauty; but there is deeper significance in the thing than that of mere effect in composition; significance not intended on the part of the sculptor, but all the more valuable because unintentional. I mean the close association of the beauty of lower nature in animals and flowers, with the beauty of higher nature in human form. You never get this in Greek work. Greek statues are always isolated; blank fields of stone, or depths of shadow, relieving the form of the statue, as the world of lower nature which they despised retired in darkness from their hearts. Here, the clothed figure seems the type of the Christian spirit--in many respects feebler and more contracted--but purer; clothed in its white robes and crown, and with the riches of all creation at its side. The next step in the change will be set before you in a moment, merely by comparing this statue from the west front of Chartres with that of the Madonna, from the south transept door of Amiens. [Footnote: There are many photographs of this door and of its central statue. Its sculpture in the tympanum is farther described in the Fourth Lecture.] This Madonna, with the sculpture round her, represents the culminating power of Gothic art in the thirteenth century. Sculpture has been gaining continually in the interval; gaining, simply because becoming every day more truthful, more tender, and more suggestive. By the way, the old Douglas motto, "Tender and true," may wisely be taken up again by all of us, for our own, in art no less than in other things. Depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth. I find this more and more every day: an infinitude of tenderness is the chief gift and inheritance of all the truly great men. It is sure to involve a relative intensity of disdain towards base things, and an appearance of sternness and arrogance in the eyes of all hard, stupid, and vulgar people--quite terrific to such, if they are capable of terror, and hateful to them, if they are capable of nothing higher than hatred. Dante's is the great type of this class of mind. I say the first inheritance is Tenderness-- the second Truth, because the Tenderness is in the make of the creature, the Truth in his acquired habits and knowledge; besides, the love comes first in dignity as well as in time, and that is always pure and complete: the truth, at best, imperfect. To come back to our statue. You will observe that the arrangement of this sculpture is exactly the same as at Chartres--severe falling drapery, set off by rich floral ornament at the side; but the statue is now completely animated: it is no longer fixed as an upright pillar, but bends aside out of its niche, and the floral ornament, instead of being a conventional wreath, is of exquisitely arranged hawthorn. The work, however, as a whole, though perfectly characteristic of the advance of the age in style and purpose, is in some subtler qualities inferior to that of Chartres. The individual sculptor, though trained in a more advanced school, has been himself a man of inferior order of mind compared to the one who worked at Chartres. But I have not time to point out to you the subtler characters by which I know this. This statue, then, marks the culminating point of Gothic art, because, up to this time, the eyes of its designers had been steadily fixed on natural truth--they had been advancing from flower to flower, from form to form, from face to face,--gaining perpetually in knowledge and veracity--therefore, perpetually in power and in grace. But at this point a fatal change came over their aim. From the statue they now began to turn the attention chiefly to the niche of the statue, and from the floral ornament to the mouldings that enclosed the floral ornament. The first result of this was, however, though not the grandest, yet the most finished of northern genius. You have, in the earlier Gothic, less wonderful construction, less careful masonry, far less expression of harmony of parts in the balance of the building. Earlier work always has more or less of the character of a good solid wall with irregular holes in it, well carved wherever there is room. But the last phase of good Gothic has no room to spare; it rises as high as it can on narrowest foundation, stands in perfect strength with the least possible substance in its bars; connects niche with niche, and line with line, in an exquisite harmony, from which no stone can be removed, and to which you can add not a pinnacle; and yet introduces in rich, though now more calculated profusion, the living element of its sculpture: sculpture in the quatrefoils--sculpture in the brackets-- sculpture in the gargoyles--sculpture in the niches--sculpture in the ridges and hollows of its mouldings,--not a shadow without meaning, and not a light without life. [Footnote: The two _transepts_ of Rouen Cathedral illustrate this style. There are plenty of photographs of them. I take this opportunity of repeating what I have several times before stated, for the sake of travellers, that St. Ouen, impressive as it is, is entirely inferior to the transepts of Rouen Cathedral.] But with this very perfection of his work came the unhappy pride of the builder in what he had done. As long as he had been merely raising clumsy walls and carving them like a child, in waywardness of fancy, his delight was in the things he thought of as he carved; but when he had once reached this pitch of constructive science, he began to think only how cleverly he could put the stones together. The question was not now with him, What can I represent? but, How high can I build--how wonderfully can I hang this arch in air, or weave this tracery across the clouds? And the catastrophe was instant and irrevocable. Architecture became in France a mere web of waving lines,--in England a mere grating of perpendicular ones. Redundance was substituted for invention, and geometry for passion; tho Gothic art became a mere expression of wanton expenditure, and vulgar mathematics; and was swept away, as it then deserved to be swept away, by the severer pride, and purer learning, of the schools founded on classical traditions. You cannot now fail to see, how, throughout the history of this wonderful art--from its earliest dawn in Lombardy to its last catastrophe in France and England--sculpture, founded on love of nature, was the talisman of its existence; wherever sculpture was practised, architecture arose--wherever that was neglected, architecture expired; and, believe me, all you students who love this mediaeval art, there is no hope of your ever doing any good with it, but on this everlasting principle. Your patriotic associations with it are of no use; your romantic associations with it--either of chivalry or religion--are of no use; they are worse than useless, they are false. Gothic is not an art for knights and nobles; it is an art for the people: it is not an art for churches or sanctuaries; it is an art for houses and homes: it is not an art for England only, but an art for the world: above all, it is not an art of form or tradition only, but an art of vital practice and perpetual renewal. And whosoever pleads for it as an ancient or a formal thing, and tries to teach it you as an ecclesiastical tradition or a geometrical science, knows nothing of its essence, less than nothing of its power. Leave, therefore, boldly, though not irreverently, mysticism and symbolism on the one side; cast away with utter scorn geometry and legalism on the other; seize hold of God's hand and look full in the face of His creation, and there is nothing He will not enable you to achieve. Thus, then, you will find--and the more profound and accurate your knowledge of the history of art the more assuredly you will find--that the living power in all the real schools, be they great or small, is love of nature. But do not mistake me by supposing that I mean this law to be all that is necessary to form a school. There needs to be much superadded to it, though there never must be anything superseding it. The main thing which needs to be superadded is the gift of design. It is always dangerous, and liable to diminish the clearness of impression, to go over much ground in the course of one lecture. But I dare not present you with a maimed view of this important subject: I dare not put off to another time, when the same persons would not be again assembled, the statement of the great collateral necessity which, as well as the necessity of truth, governs all noble art. That collateral necessity is _the visible operation of human intellect in the presentation of truth, _the evidence of what is properly called design or plan in the work, no less than of veracity. A looking-glass does not design--it receives and communicates indiscriminately all that passes before it; a painter designs when he chooses some things, refuses others, and arranges all. This selection and arrangement must have influence over everything that the art is concerned with, great or small--over lines, over colours, and over ideas. Given a certain group of colours, by adding another colour at the side of them, you will either improve the group and render it more delightful, or injure it, and render it discordant and unintelligible. "Design" is the choosing and placing the colour so as to help and enhance all the other colours it is set beside. So of thoughts: in a good composition, every idea is presented in just that order, and with just that force, which will perfectly connect it with all the other thoughts in the work, and will illustrate the others as well as receive illustration from them; so that the entire chain of thoughts offered to the beholder's mind shall be received by him with as much delight and with as little effort as is possible. And thus you see design, properly so called, is human invention, consulting human capacity. Out of the infinite heap of things around us in the world, it chooses a certain number which it can thoroughly grasp, and presents this group to the spectator in the form best calculated to enable him to grasp it also, and to grasp it with delight. And accordingly, the capacities of both gatherer and receiver being limited, the object is to make _everything that you offer helpful_ and precious. If you give one grain of weight too much, so as to increase fatigue without profit, or bulk without value--that added grain is hurtful; if you put one spot or one syllable out of its proper place, that spot or syllable will be destructive--how far destructive it is almost impossible to tell: a misplaced touch may sometimes annihilate the labour of hours. Nor are any of us prepared to understand the work of any great master, till we feel this, and feel it as distinctly as we do the value of arrangement in the notes of music. Take any noble musical air, and you find, on examining it, that not one even of the faintest or shortest notes can be removed without destruction to the whole passage in which it occurs; and that every note in the passage is twenty times more beautiful so introduced, than it would have been if played singly on the instrument. Precisely this degree of arrangement and relation must exist between every touch [Footnote: Literally. I know how exaggerated this statement sounds; but I mean it,--every syllable of it.--See Appendix IV.] and line in a great picture. You may consider the whole as a prolonged musical composition: its parts, as separate airs connected in the story; its little bits and fragments of colour and line, as separate passages or bars in melodies; and down to the minutest note of the whole--down to the minutest _touch_,--if there is one that can be spared--that one is doing mischief. Remember therefore always, you have two characters in which all greatness of art consists:--First, the earnest and intense seizing of natural facts; then the ordering those facts by strength of human intellect, so as to make them, for all who look upon them, to the utmost serviceable, memorable, and beautiful. And thus great art is nothing else than the type of strong and noble life; for, as the ignoble person, in his dealings with all that occurs in the world about him, first sees nothing clearly,--looks nothing fairly in the face, and then allows himself to be swept away by the trampling torrent, and unescapable force, of the things that he would not foresee, and could not understand: so the noble person, looking the facts of the world full in the face, and fathoming them with deep faculty, then deals with them in unalarmed intelligence and unhurried strength, and becomes, with his human intellect and will, no unconscious nor insignificant agent, in consummating their good, and restraining their evil. Thus in human life you have the two fields of rightful toil for ever distinguished, yet for ever associated; Truth first--plan or design, founded thereon; so in art, you have the same two fields for ever distinguished, for ever associated; Truth first--plan, or design, founded thereon. Now hitherto there is not the least difficulty in the subject; none of you can look for a moment at any great sculptor or painter without seeing the full bearing of these principles. But a difficulty arises when you come to examine the art of a lower order, concerned with furniture and manufacture, for in that art the element of design enters without, apparently, the element of truth. You have often to obtain beauty and display invention without direct representation of nature. Yet, respecting all these things also, the principle is perfectly simple. If the designer of furniture, of cups and vases, of dress patterns, and the like, exercises himself continually in the imitation of natural form in some leading division of his work; then, holding by this stem of life, he may pass down into all kinds of merely geometrical or formal design with perfect safety, and with noble results.[Footnote: This principle, here cursorily stated, is one of the chief subjects of inquiry in the following Lectures.] Thus Giotto, being primarily a figure painter and sculptor, is, secondarily, the richest of all designers in mere mosaic of coloured bars and triangles; thus Benvenuto Cellini, being in all the higher branches of metal work a perfect imitator of nature, is in all its lower branches the best designer of curve for lips of cups and handles of vases; thus Holbein, exercised primarily in the noble art of truthful portraiture, becomes, secondarily, the most exquisite designer of embroideries of robe, and blazonries on wall; and thus Michael Angelo, exercised primarily in the drawing of body and limb, distributes in the mightiest masses the order of his pillars, and in the loftiest shadow the hollows of his dome. But once quit hold of this living stem, and set yourself to the designing of ornamentation, either in the ignorant play of your own heartless fancy, as the Indian does, or according to received application of heartless laws, as the modern European does, and there is but one word for you--Death:--death of every healthy faculty, and of every noble intelligence, incapacity of understanding one great work that man has ever done, or of doing anything that it shall be helpful for him to behold. You have cut yourselves off voluntarily, presumptuously, insolently, from the whole teaching of your Maker in His Universe; you have cut yourselves off from it, not because you were forced to mechanical labour for your bread--not because your fate had appointed you to wear away your life in walled chambers, or dig your life out of dusty furrows; but, when your whole profession, your whole occupation-- all the necessities and chances of your existence, led you straight to the feet of the great Teacher, and thrust you into the treasury of His works; where you have nothing to do but to live by gazing, and to grow by wondering;--wilfully you bind up your eyes from the splendour-- wilfully bind up your life-blood from its beating--wilfully turn your backs upon all the majesties of Omnipotence--wilfully snatch your hands from all the aids of love, and what can remain for you, but helplessness and blindness,--except the worse fate than the being blind yourselves--that of becoming Leaders of the blind? Do not think that I am speaking under excited feeling, or in any exaggerated terms. I have written the words I use, that I may know what I say, and that you, if you choose, may see what I have said. For, indeed, I have set before you tonight, to the best of my power, the sum and substance of the system of art to the promulgation of which I have devoted my life hitherto, and intend to devote what of life may still be spared to me. I have had but one steady aim in all that I have ever tried to teach, namely--to declare that whatever was great in human art was the expression of man's delight in God's work. And at this time I have endeavoured to prove to you--if you investigate the subject you may more entirely prove to yourselves--that no school ever advanced far which had not the love of natural fact as a primal energy. But it is still more important for you to be assured that the conditions of life and death in the art of nations are also the conditions of life and death in your own; and that you have it, each in his power at this very instant, to determine in which direction his steps are turning. It seems almost a terrible thing to tell you, that all here have all the power of knowing at once what hope there is for them as artists; you would, perhaps, like better that there was some unremovable doubt about the chances of the future--some possibility that you might be advancing, in unconscious ways, towards unexpected successes--some excuse or reason for going about, as students do so often, to this master or the other, asking him if they have genius, and whether they are doing right, and gathering, from his careless or formal replies, vague flashes of encouragement, or fitfulnesses of despair. There is no need for this--no excuse for it. All of you have the trial of yourselves in your own power; each may undergo at this instant, before his own judgment seat, the ordeal by fire. Ask yourselves what is the leading motive which actuates you while you are at work. I do not ask you what your leading motive is for working--that is a different thing; you may have families to support--parents to help--brides to win; you may have all these, or other such sacred and pre-eminent motives, to press the morning's labour and prompt the twilight thought. But when you are fairly _at_ the work, what is the motive then which tells upon every touch of it? If it is the love of that which your work represents--if, being a landscape painter, it is love of hills and trees that moves you--if, being a figure painter, it is love of human beauty and human soul that moves you--if, being a flower or animal painter, it is love, and wonder, and delight in petal and in limb that move you, then the Spirit is upon you, and the earth is yours, and the fulness thereof. But if, on the other hand, it is petty self-complacency in your own skill, trust in precepts and laws, hope for academical or popular approbation, or avarice of wealth,--it is quite possible that by steady industry, or even by fortunate chance, you may win the applause, the position, the fortune, that you desire;-- but one touch of true art you will never lay on canvas or on stone as long as you live. Make, then, your choice, boldly and consciously, for one way or other it _must_ be made. On the dark and dangerous side are set, the pride which delights in self-contemplation--the indolence which rests in unquestioned forms--the ignorance that despises what is fairest among God's creatures, and the dulness that denies what is marvellous in His working: there is a life of monotony for your own souls, and of misguiding for those of others. And, on the other side, is open to your choice the life of the crowned spirit, moving as a light in creation-- discovering always--illuminating always, gaining every hour in strength, yet bowed down every hour into deeper humility; sure of being right in its aim, sure of being irresistible in its progress; happy in what it has securely done--happier in what, day by day, it may as securely hope; happiest at the close of life, when the right hand begins to forget its cunning, to remember, that there never was a touch of the chisel or the pencil it wielded, but has added to the knowledge and quickened the happiness of mankind. LECTURE II. THE UNITY OF ART. _Part of an Address delivered at Manchester, 14th March, 1859._ [Footnote: I was prevented, by press of other engagements, from preparing this address with the care I wished; and forced to trust to such expression as I could give at the moment to the points of principal importance; reading, however, the close of the preceding lecture, which I thought contained some truths that would bear repetition. The whole was reported, better than it deserved, by Mr. Pitman, of the _Manchester Courier_, and published nearly verbatim. I have here extracted, from the published report, the facts which I wish especially to enforce; and have a little cleared their expression; its loose and colloquial character I cannot now help, unless by re-writing the whole, which it seems not worth while to do.] It is sometimes my pleasant duty to visit other cities, in the hope of being able to encourage their art students; but here it is my pleasanter privilege to come for encouragement myself. I do not know when I have received so much as from the report read this evening by Mr. Hammersley, bearing upon a subject which has caused me great anxiety. For I have always felt in my own pursuit of art, and in my endeavors to urge the pursuit of art on others, that while there are many advantages now that never existed before, there are certain grievous difficulties existing, just in the very cause that is giving the stimulus to art--in the immense spread of the manufactures of every country which is now attending vigorously to art. We find that manufacture and art are now going on always together; that where there is no manufacture there is no art. I know how much there is of pretended art where there is no manufacture: there is much in Italy, for instance; no country makes so bold pretence to the production of new art as Italy at this moment; yet no country produces so little. If you glance over the map of Europe, you will find that where the manufactures are strongest, there art also is strongest. And yet I always felt that there was an immense difficulty to be encountered by the students who were in these centres of modern movement. They had to avoid the notion that art and manufacture were in any respect one. Art may be healthily associated with manufacture, and probably in future will always be so; but the student must be strenuously warned against supposing that they can ever be one and the same thing, that art can ever be followed on the principles of manufacture. Each must be followed separately; the one must influence the other, but each must be kept distinctly separate from the other. It would be well if all students would keep clearly in their mind the real distinction between those words which we use so often, "Manufacture," "Art," and "Fine Art." "MANUFACTURE" is, according to the etymology and right use of the word, "the making of anything by hands,"--directly or indirectly, with or without the help of instruments or machines. Anything proceeding from the hand of man is manufacture; but it must have proceeded from his hand only, acting mechanically, and uninfluenced at the moment by direct intelligence. Then, secondly, ART is the operation of the hand and the intelligence of man together; there is an art of making machinery; there is an art of building ships; an art of making carriages; and so on. All these, properly called Arts, but not Fine Arts, are pursuits in which the hand of man and his head go together, working at the same instant. Then FINE ART is that in which the hand, the head, and the _heart_ of man go together. Recollect this triple group; it will help you to solve many difficult problems. And remember that though the hand must be at the bottom of everything, it must also go to the top of everything; for Fine Art must be produced by the hand of man in a much greater and clearer sense than manufacture is. Fine Art must always be produced by the subtlest of all machines, which is the human hand. No machine yet contrived, or hereafter contrivable, will ever equal the fine machinery of the human fingers. Thoroughly perfect art is that which proceeds from the heart, which involves all the noble emotions;--associates with these the head, yet as inferior to the heart; and the hand, yet as inferior to the heart and head; and thus brings out the whole man. Hence it follows that since Manufacture is simply the operation of the hand of man in producing that which is useful to him, it essentially separates itself from the emotions; when emotions interfere with machinery they spoil it: machinery must go evenly, without emotion. But the Fine Arts cannot go evenly; they always must have emotion ruling their mechanism, and until the pupil begins to feel, and until all he does associates itself with the current of his feeling, he is not an artist. But pupils in all the schools in this country are now exposed to all kinds of temptations which blunt their feelings. I constantly feel discouraged in addressing them because I know not how to tell them boldly what they ought to do, when I feel how practically difficult it is for them to do it. There are all sorts of demands made upon them in every direction, and money is to be made in every conceivable way but the right way. If you paint as you ought, and study as you ought, depend upon it the public will take no notice of you for a long while. If you study wrongly, and try to draw the attention of the public upon you,--supposing you to be clever students--you will get swift reward; but the reward does not come fast when it is sought wisely; it is always held aloof for a little while; the right roads of early life are very quiet ones, hedged in from nearly all help or praise. But the wrong roads are noisy,--vociferous everywhere with all kinds of demand upon you for art which is not properly art at all; and in the various meetings of modern interests, money is to be made in every way; but art is to be followed only in _one_ way. That is what I want mainly to say to you, or if not to you yourselves (for, from what I have heard from your excellent master to-night, I know you are going on all rightly), you must let me say it through you to others. Our Schools of Art are confused by the various teaching and various interests that are now abroad among us. Everybody is talking about art, and writing about it, and more or less interested in it; everybody wants art, and there is not art for everybody, and few who talk know what they are talking about; thus students are led in all variable ways, while there is only one way in which they can make steady progress, for true art is always and will be always one. Whatever changes may be made in the customs of society, whatever new machines we may invent, whatever new manufactures we may supply, Fine Art must remain what it was two thousand years ago, in the days of Phidias; two thousand years hence, it will be, in all its principles, and in all its great effects upon the mind of man, just the same. Observe this that I say, please, carefully, for I mean it to the very utmost. _There is but one right way of doing any given thing required of an artist_; there may be a hundred wrong, deficient, or mannered ways, but there is only one complete and right way. Whenever two artists are trying to do the same thing with the same materials, and do it in different ways, one of them is wrong; he may be charmingly wrong, or impressively wrong--various circumstances in his temper may make his wrong pleasanter than any person's right; it may for him, under his given limitations of knowledge or temper, be better perhaps that he should err in his own way than try for anybody else's--but for all that his way is wrong, and it is essential for all masters of schools to know what the right way is, and what right art is, and to see how simple and how single all right art has been, since the beginning of it. But farther, not only is there but one way of _doing_ things rightly, but there is only one way of _seeing_ them, and that is, seeing the whole of them, without any choice, or more intense perception of one point than another, owing to our special idiosyncrasies. Thus, when Titian or Tintoret look at a human being, they see at a glance the whole of its nature, outside and in; all that it has of form, of colour, of passion, or of thought; saintliness, and loveliness; fleshly body, and spiritual power; grace, or strength, or softness, or whatsoever other quality, those men will see to the full, and so paint, that, when narrower people come to look at what they have done, every one may, if he chooses, find his own special pleasure in the work. The sensualist will find sensuality in Titian; the thinker will find thought; the saint, sanctity; the colourist, colour; the anatomist, form; and yet the picture will never be a popular one in the full sense, for none of these narrower people will find their special taste so alone consulted, as that the qualities which would ensure their gratification shall be sifted or separated from others; they are checked by the presence of the other qualities which ensure the gratification of other men. Thus, Titian is not soft enough for the sensualist, Correggio suits him better; Titian is not defined enough for the formalist,--Leonardo suits him better; Titian is not pure enough for the religionist,--Raphael suits him better; Titian is not polite enough for the man of the world,--Vandyke suits him better; Titian is not forcible enough for the lovers of the picturesque,-- Rembrandt suits him better. So Correggio is popular with a certain set, and Vandyke with a certain set, and Rembrandt with a certain set. All are great men, but of inferior stamp, and therefore Vandyke is popular, and Rembrandt is popular, [Footnote: And Murillo, of all true painters the narrowest, feeblest, and most superficial, for those reasons the most popular.] but nobody cares much at heart about Titian; only there is a strange under-current of everlasting murmur about his name, which means the deep consent of all great men that he is greater than they-- the consent of those who, having sat long enough at his feet, have found in that restrained harmony of his strength there are indeed depths of each balanced power more wonderful than all those separate manifestations in inferior painters: that there is a softness more exquisite than Correggio's, a purity loftier than Leonardo's, a force mightier than Rembrandt's, a sanctity more solemn even than Raffaelle's. Do not suppose that in saying this of Titian, I am returning to the old eclectic theories of Bologna; for all those eclectic theories, observe, were based, not upon an endeavour to unite the various characters of nature (which it is possible to do), but the various narrownesses of taste, which it is impossible to do. Rubens is not more vigorous than Titian, but less vigorous; but because he is so narrow-minded as to enjoy vigour only, he refuses to give the other qualities of nature, which would interfere with that vigour and with our perception of it. Again, Rembrandt is not a greater master of chiaroscuro than Titian;-- he is a less master, but because he is so narrow-minded as to enjoy chiaroscuro only, he withdraws from you the splendour of hue which would interfere with this, and gives you only the shadow in which you can at once feel it. Now all these specialties have their own charm in their own way: and there are times when the particular humour of each man is refreshing to us from its very distinctness; but the effort to add any other qualities to this refreshing one instantly takes away the distinctiveness, and therefore the exact character to be enjoyed in its appeal to a particular humour in us. Our enjoyment arose from a weakness meeting a weakness, from a partiality in the painter fitting to a partiality in us, and giving us sugar when we wanted sugar, and myrrh when we wanted myrrh; but sugar and myrrh are not meat: and when we want meat and bread, we must go to better men. The eclectic schools endeavoured to unite these opposite partialities and weaknesses. They trained themselves under masters of exaggeration, and tried to unite opposite exaggerations. That was impossible. They did not see that the only possible eclecticism had been already accomplished;--the eclecticism of temperance, which, by the restraint of force, gains higher force; and by the self-denial of delight, gains higher delight. This you will find is ultimately the case with every true and right master; at first, while we are tyros in art, or before we have earnestly studied the man in question, we shall see little in him; or perhaps see, as we think, deficiencies; we shall fancy he is inferior to this man in that, and to the other man in the other; but as we go on studying him we shall find that he has got both that and the other; and both in a far higher sense than the man who seemed to possess those qualities in excess. Thus in Turner's lifetime, when people first looked at him, those who liked rainy, weather, said he was not equal to Copley Fielding; but those who looked at Turner long enough found that he could be much more wet than Copley Fielding, when he chose. The people who liked force, said that "Turner was not strong enough for them; he was effeminate; they liked De Wint,--nice strong tone;--or Cox--great, greeny, dark masses of colour--solemn feeling of the freshness and depth of nature;--they liked Cox--Turner was too hot for them." Had they looked long enough they would have found that he had far more force than De Wint, far more freshness than Cox when he chose,--only united with other elements; and that he didn't choose to be cool, if nature had appointed the weather to be hot. The people who liked Prout said "Turner had not firmness of hand--he did not know enough about architecture--he was not picturesque enough." Had they looked at his architecture long, they would have found that it contained subtle picturesquenesses, infinitely more picturesque than anything of Prout's. People who liked Callcott said that "Turner was not correct or pure enough--had no classical taste." Had they looked at Turner long enough they would have found him as severe, when he chose, as the greater Poussin;--Callcott, a mere vulgar imitator of other men's high breeding. And so throughout with all thoroughly great men, their strength is not seen at first, precisely because they unite, in due place and measure, every great quality. Now the question is, whether, as students, we are to study only these mightiest men, who unite all greatness, or whether we are to study the works of inferior men, who present us with the greatness which we particularly like? That question often comes before me when I see a strong idiosyncrasy in a student, and he asks me what he should study. Shall I send him to a true master, who does not present the quality in a prominent way in which that student delights, or send him to a man with whom he has direct sympathy? It is a hard question. For very curious results have sometimes been brought out, especially in late years, not only by students following their own bent, but by their being withdrawn from teaching altogether. I have just named a very great man in his own field--Prout. We all know his drawings, and love them: they have a peculiar character which no other architectural drawings ever possessed, and which no others can possess, because all Prout's subjects are being knocked down or restored. (Prout did not like restored buildings any more than I do.) There will never be any more Prout drawings. Nor could he have been what he was, or expressed with that mysteriously effective touch that peculiar delight in broken and old buildings, unless he had been withdrawn from all high art influence. You know that Prout was born of poor parents--that he was educated down in Cornwall;--and that, for many years, all the art- teaching he had was his own, or the fishermen's. Under the keels of the fishing-boats, on the sands of our southern coasts, Prout learned all that he needed to learn about art. Entirely by himself, he felt his way to this particular style, and became the painter of pictures which I think we should all regret to lose. It becomes a very difficult question what that man would have been, had he been brought under some entirely wholesome artistic influence, He had immense gifts of composition. I do not know any man who had more power of invention than Prout, or who had a sublimer instinct in his treatment of things; but being entirely withdrawn from all artistical help, he blunders his way to that short-coming representation, which, by the very reason of its short-coming, has a certain charm we should all be sorry to lose. And therefore I feel embarrassed when a student comes to me, in whom I see a strong instinct of that kind: and cannot tell whether I ought to say to him, "Give up all your studies of old boats, and keep away from the sea-shore, and come up to the Royal Academy in London, and look at nothing but Titian." It is a difficult thing to make up one's mind to say that. However, I believe, on the whole, we may wisely leave such matters in the hands of Providence; that if we have the power of teaching the right to anybody, we should teach them the right; if we have the power of showing them the best thing, we should show them the best thing; there will always, I fear, be enough want of teaching, and enough bad teaching, to bring out very curious erratical results if we want them. So, if we are to teach at all, let us teach the right thing, and ever the right thing. There are many attractive qualities inconsistent with rightness;--do not let us teach them,--let us be content to waive them. There are attractive qualities in Burns, and attractive qualities in Dickens, which neither of those writers would have possessed if the one had been educated, and the other had been studying higher nature than that of cockney London; but those attractive qualities are not such as we should seek in a school of literature. If we want to teach young men a good manner of writing, we should teach it from Shakspeare,--not from Burns; from Walter Scott,-- and not from Dickens. And I believe that our schools of painting are at present inefficient in their action, because they have not fixed on this high principle what are the painters to whom to point; nor boldly resolved to point to the best, if determinable. It is becoming a matter of stern necessity that they should give a simple direction to the attention of the student, and that they should say, "This is the mark you are to aim at; and you are not to go about to the print-shops, and peep in, to see how this engraver does that, and the other engraver does the other, and how a nice bit of character has been caught by a new man, and why this odd picture has caught the popular attention. You are to have nothing to do with all that; you are not to mind about popular attention just now; but here is a thing which is eternally right and good: you are to look at that, and see if you cannot do something eternally right and good too." But suppose you accept this principle: and resolve to look to some great man, Titian, or Turner, or whomsoever it may be, as the model of perfection in art;--then the question is, since this great man pursued his art in Venice, or in the fields of England, under totally different conditions from those possible to us now--how are you to make your study of him effective here in Manchester? how bring it down into patterns, and all that you are called upon as operatives to produce? how make it the means of your livelihood, and associate inferior branches of art with this great art? That may become a serious doubt to you. You may think there is some other way of producing clever, and pretty, and saleable patterns than going to look at Titian, or any other great man. And that brings me to the question, perhaps the most vexed question of all amongst us just now, between conventional and perfect art. You know that among architects and artists there are, and have been almost always, since art became a subject of much discussion, two parties, one maintaining that nature should be always altered and modified, and that the artist is greater than nature; they do not maintain, indeed, in words, but they maintain in idea, that the artist is greater than the Divine Maker of these things, and can improve them; while the other party say that he cannot improve nature, and that nature on the whole should improve him. That is the real meaning of the two parties, the essence of them; the practical result of their several theories being that the Idealists are always producing more or less formal conditions of art, and the Realists striving to produce in all their art either some image of nature, or record of nature; these, observe, being quite different things, the image being a resemblance, and the record, something which will give information about nature, but not necessarily imitate it. [Footnote: The portion of the lecture here omitted was a recapitulation of that part of the previous one which opposed conventional art to natural art.] * * * * * You may separate these two groups of artists more distinctly in your mind as those who seek for the pleasure of art, in the relations of its colours and lines, without caring to convey any truth with it; and those who seek for the truth first, and then go down from the truth to the pleasure of colour and line. Marking those two bodies distinctly as separate, and thinking over them, you may come to some rather notable conclusions respecting the mental dispositions which are involved in each mode of study. You will find that large masses of the art of the world fall definitely under one or the other of these heads. Observe, pleasure first and truth afterwards, (or not at all,) as with the Arabians and Indians; or, truth first and pleasure afterwards, as with Angelico and all other great European painters. You will find that the art whose end is pleasure only is pre-eminently the gift of cruel and savage nations, cruel in temper, savage in habits and conception; but that the art which is especially dedicated to natural fact always indicates a peculiar gentleness and tenderness of mind, and that all great and successful work of that kind will assuredly be the production of thoughtful, sensitive, earnest, kind men, large in their views of life, and full of various intellectual power. And farther, when you examine the men in whom the gifts of art are variously mingled, or universally mingled, you will discern that the ornamental, or pleasurable power, though it may be possessed by good men, is not in itself an indication of their goodness, but is rather, unless balanced by other faculties, indicative of violence of temper, inclining to cruelty and to irreligion. On the other hand, so sure as you find any man endowed with a keen and separate faculty of representing natural fact, so surely you will find that man gentle and upright, full of nobleness and breadth of thought. I will give you two instances, the first peculiarly English, and another peculiarly interesting because it occurs among a nation not generally very kind or gentle. I am inclined to think that, considering all the disadvantages of circumstances and education under which his genius was developed, there was perhaps hardly ever born a man with a more intense and innate gift of insight into nature than our own Sir Joshua Reynolds. Considered as a painter of individuality in the human form and mind, I think him, even as it is, the prince of portrait painters. Titian paints nobler pictures, and Vandyke had nobler subjects, but neither of them entered so subtly as Sir Joshua did into the minor varieties of human heart and temper; arid when you consider that, with a frightful conventionality of social habitude all around him, he yet conceived the simplest types of all feminine and childish loveliness;--that in a northern climate, and with gray, and white, and black, as the principal colours around him, he yet became a colourist who can be crushed by none, even of the Venetians;--and that with Dutch painting and Dresden china for the prevailing types of art in the saloons of his day, he threw himself at once at the feet of the great masters of Italy, and arose from their feet to share their throne--I know not that in the whole history of art you can produce another instance of so strong, so unaided, so unerring an instinct for all that was true, pure, and noble. Now, do you recollect the evidence respecting the character of this man,--the two points of bright peculiar evidence given by the sayings of the two greatest literary men of his day, Johnson and Goldsmith? Johnson, who, as you know, was always Reynolds' attached friend, had but one complaint to make against him, that he hated nobody:-- "Reynolds," he said, "you hate no one living; I like a good hater!" Still more significant is the little touch in Goldsmith's "Retaliation." You recollect how in that poem he describes the various persons who met at one of their dinners at St. James's Coffee-house, each person being described under the name of some appropriate dish. You will often hear the concluding lines about Reynolds Quoted-- "He shifted his trumpet," &c;-- less often, or at least less attentively, the preceding ones, far more important-- "Still born to improve us in every part-- His pencil our faces, his _manners our heart;_" and never, the most characteristic touch of all, near the beginning:-- "Our dean shall be venison, just fresh from the plains; Our Burke shall be tongue, with a garnish of brains. To make out the dinner, full certain I am, That Rich is anchovy, and Reynolds is _lamb_." The other painter whom I would give you as an instance of this gentleness is a man of another nation, on the whole I suppose one of the most cruel civilized nations in the world--the Spaniards. They produced but one great painter, only one; but he among the very greatest of painters, Velasquez. You would not suppose, from looking at Velasquez' portraits generally, that he was an especially kind or good man; you perceive a peculiar sternness about them; for they were as true as steel, and the persons whom he had to paint being not generally kind or good people, they were stern in expression, and Velasquez gave the sternness; but he had precisely the same intense perception of truth, the same marvellous instinct for the rendering of all natural soul and all natural form that our Reynolds had. Let me, then, read you his character as it is given by Mr. Stirling, of Kier:-- "Certain charges, of what nature we are not informed, brought against him after his death, made it necessary for his executor, Fuensalida, to refute them at a private audience granted to him by the king for that purpose. After listening to the defence of his friend, Philip immediately made answer: 'I can believe all you say of the excellent disposition of Diego Velasquez.' Having lived for half his life in courts, he was yet capable both of gratitude and generosity, and in the misfortunes, he could remember the early kindness of Olivares. The friend of the exile of Loeches, it is just to believe that he was also the friend of the all-powerful favourite at Buenretiro. No mean jealousy ever influenced his conduct to his brother artists; he could afford not only to acknowledge the merits, but to forgive the malice, of his rivals. His character was of that _rare and happy kind, in which high intellectual power is combined with indomitable strength of will, and a winning sweetness of temper_, and which seldom fails to raise the possessor above his fellow-men, making his life a 'laurelled victory, and smooth success Be strewed before his feet.'" I am sometimes accused of trying to make art too moral; yet, observe, I do not say in the least that in order to be a good painter you must be a good man; but I do say that in order to be a good natural painter there must be strong elements of good in the mind, however warped by other parts of the character. There are hundreds of other gifts of painting which are not at all involved with moral conditions, but this one, the perception of nature, is never given but under certain moral conditions. Therefore, now you have it in your choice; here are your two paths for you: it is required of you to produce conventional ornament, and you may approach the task as the Hindoo does, and as the Arab did,--without nature at all, with the chance of approximating your disposition somewhat to that of the Hindoos and Arabs; or as Sir Joshua and Velasquez did, with, not the chance, but the certainty, of approximating your disposition, according to the sincerity of your effort--to the disposition of those great and good men. And do you suppose you will lose anything by approaching your conventional art from this higher side? Not so. I called, with deliberate measurement of my expression, long ago, the decoration of the Alhambra "detestable," not merely because indicative of base conditions of moral being, but because merely as decorative work, however captivating in some respects, it is wholly wanting in the real, deep, and intense qualities of ornamental art. Noble conventional decoration belongs only to three periods. First, there is the conventional decoration of the Greeks, used in subordination to their sculpture. There are then the noble conventional decoration of the early Gothic schools, and the noble conventional arabesque of the great Italian schools. All these were reached from above, all reached by stooping from a knowledge of the human form. Depend upon it you will find, as you look more and more into the matter, that good subordinate ornament has ever been rooted in a higher knowledge; and if you are again to produce anything that is noble, you must have the higher knowledge first, and descend to all lower service; condescend as much as you like,--condescension never does any man any harm,--but get your noble standing first. So, then, without any scruple, whatever branch of art you may be inclined as a student here to follow,--whatever you are to make your bread by, I say, so far as you have time and power, make yourself first a noble and accomplished artist; understand at least what noble and accomplished art is, and then you will be able to apply your knowledge to all service whatsoever. I am now going to ask your permission to name the masters whom I think it would be well if we could agree, in our Schools of Art in England, to consider our leaders. The first and chief I will not myself presume to name; he shall be distinguished for you by the authority of those two great painters of whom we have just been speaking--Reynolds and Velasquez. You may remember that in your Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition the most impressive things were the works of those two men-- nothing told upon the eye so much; no other pictures retained it with such a persistent power. Now, I have the testimony, first of Reynolds to Velasquez, and then of Velasquez to the man whom I want you to take as the master of all your English schools. The testimony of Reynolds to Velasquez is very striking. I take it from some fragments which have just been published by Mr. William Cotton--precious fragments--of Reynolds' diaries, which I chanced upon luckily as I was coming down here: for I was going to take Velasquez' testimony alone, and then fell upon this testimony of Reynolds to Velasquez, written most fortunately in Reynolds' own hand-you may see the manuscript. "What _we_ are all," said Reynolds, "attempting to do with great labor, Velasquez does at once." Just think what is implied when a man of the enormous power and facility that Reynolds had, says he was "trying to do with great labor" what Velasquez "did at once." Having thus Reynolds' testimony to Velasquez, I will take Velasquez' testimony to somebody else. You know that Velasquez was sent by Philip of Spain to Italy, to buy pictures for him. He went all over Italy, saw the living artists there, and all their best pictures when freshly painted, so that he had every opportunity of judging; and never was a man so capable of judging. He went to Rome and ordered various works of living artists; and while there, he was one day asked by Salvator Rosa what he thought of Raphael. His reply, and the ensuing conversation, are thus reported by Boschini, in curious Italian verse, which, thus translated by Dr. Donaldson, is quoted in Mr. Stirling's Life of Velasquez:-- "The master" [Velasquez] "stiffly bowed his figure tall And said, 'For Rafael, to speak the truth-- I always was plain-spoken from my youth-- I cannot say I like his works at all.' "'Well,' said the other" [Salvator], 'if you can run down So great a man, I really cannot see What you can find to like in Italy; To him we all agree to give the crown.' "Diego answered thus: 'I saw in Venice The true test of the good and beautiful; First in my judgment, ever stands that school, And Titian first of all Italian men is.'" "_Tizian ze quel die porta la bandiera_" Learn that line by heart and act, at all events for some time to come, upon Velasquez' opinion in that matter. Titian is much the safest master for you. Raphael's power, such as it characters in his mind; it is "Raphaelesque," properly so called; but Titian's power is simply the power of doing right. Whatever came before Titian, he did wholly as it _ought_ to be done. Do not suppose that now in recommending Titian to you so strongly, and speaking of nobody else to-night, I am retreating in anywise from what some of you may perhaps recollect in my works, the enthusiasm with which I have always spoken of another Venetian painter. There are three Venetians who are never separated in my mind--Titian, Veronese, and Tintoret. They all have their own unequalled gifts, and Tintoret especially has imagination and depth of soul which I think renders him indisputably the greatest man; but, equally indisputably, Titian is the greatest painter; and therefore the greatest painter who ever lived. You may be led wrong by Tintoret [Footnote: See Appendix I.--"Right and Wrong."] in many respects, wrong by Raphael in more; all that you learn from Titian will be right. Then, with Titian, take Leonardo, Rembrandt, and Albert Dürer. I name those three masters for this reason: Leonardo has powers of subtle drawing which are peculiarly applicable in many ways to the drawing of fine ornament, and are very useful for all students. Rembrandt and Dürer are the only men whose actual work of hand you can have to look at; you can have Rembrandt's etchings, or Dürer's engravings actually hung in your schools; and it is a main point for the student to see the real thing, and avoid judging of masters at second-hand. As, however, in obeying this principle, you cannot often have opportunities of studying Venetian painting, it is desirable that you should have a useful standard of colour, and I think it is possible for you to obtain this. I cannot, indeed, without entering upon ground which might involve the hurting the feelings of living artists, state exactly what I believe to be the relative position of various painters in England at present with respect to power of colour. But I may say this, that in the peculiar gifts of colour which will be useful to you as students, there are only one or two of the pre-Raphaelites, and William Hunt, of the old Water Colour Society, who would be safe guides for you: and as quite a safe guide, there is nobody but William Hunt, because the pre-Raphaelites are all more or less affected by enthusiasm and by various morbid conditions of intellect and temper; but old William Hunt--I am sorry to say "old," but I say it in a loving way, for every year that has added to his life has added also to his skill--William Hunt is as right as the Venetians, as far as he goes, and what is more, nearly as inimitable as they. And I think if we manage to put in the principal schools of England a little bit of Hunt's work, and make that somewhat of a standard of colour, that we can apply his principles of colouring to subjects of all kinds. Until you have had a work of his long near you; nay, unless you have been labouring at it, and trying to copy it, you do not know the thoroughly grand qualities that are concentrated in it. Simplicity, and intensity, both of the highest character;-- simplicity of aim, and intensity of power and success, are involved in that man's unpretending labour. Finally, you cannot believe that I would omit my own favourite, Turner. I fear from the very number of his works left to the nation, that there is a disposition now rising to look upon his vast bequest with some contempt. I beg of you, if in nothing else, to believe me in this, that you cannot further the art of England in any way more distinctly than by giving attention to every fragment that has been left by that man. The time will come when his full power and right place will be acknowledged; that time will not be for many a day yet: nevertheless, be assured--as far as you are inclined to give the least faith to anything I may say to you, be assured--that you can act for the good of art in England in no better way than by using whatever influence any of you have in any direction to urge the reverent study and yet more reverent preservation of the works of Turner. I do not say "the exhibition" of his works, for we are not altogether ripe for it: they are still too far above us; uniting, as I was telling you, too many qualities for us yet to feel fully their range and their influence;-- but let us only try to keep them safe from harm, and show thoroughly and conveniently what we show of them at all, and day by day their greatness will dawn upon us more and more, and be the root of a school of art in England, which I do not doubt may be as bright, as just, and as refined as even that of Venice herself. The dominion of the sea seems to have been associated, in past time, with dominion in the arts also: Athens had them together; Venice had them together; but by so much as our authority over the ocean is wider than theirs over the �gean or Adriatic, let us strive to make our art more widely beneficent than theirs, though it cannot be more exalted; so working out the fulfilment, in their wakening as well as their warning sense, of those great words of the aged Tintoret: "Sempre si fa il mare maggiore." LECTURE III. MODERN MANUFACTURE AND DESIGN. _A Lecture delivered at Bradford, March, 1859_. It is with a deep sense of necessity for your indulgence that I venture to address you to-night, or that I venture at any time to address the pupils of schools of design intended for the advancement of taste in special branches of manufacture. No person is able to give useful and definite help towards such special applications of art, unless he is entirely familiar with the conditions of labour and natures of material involved in the work; and indefinite help is little better than no help at all. Nay, the few remarks which I propose to lay before you this evening will, I fear, be rather suggestive of difficulties than helpful in conquering them: nevertheless, it may not be altogether unserviceable to define clearly for you (and this, at least, I am able to do) one or two of the more stern general obstacles which stand at present in the way of our success in design; and to warn you against exertion of effort in any vain or wasteful way, till these main obstacles are removed. The first of these is our not understanding the scope and dignity of Decorative design. With all our talk about it, the very meaning of the words "Decorative art" remains confused and undecided. I want, if possible, to settle this question for you to-night, and to show you that the principles on which you must work are likely to be false, in proportion as they are narrow; true, only as they are founded on a perception of the connection of all branches of art with each other. Observe, then, first--the only essential distinction between Decorative and other art is the being fitted for a fixed place; and in that place, related, either in subordination or command, to the effect of other pieces of art. And all the greatest art which the world has produced is thus fitted for a place, and subordinated to a purpose. There is no existing highest-order art but is decorative. The best sculpture yet produced has been the decoration of a temple front--the best painting, the decoration of a room. Raphael's best doing is merely the wall- colouring of a suite of apartments in the Vatican, and his cartoons were made for tapestries. Correggio's best doing is the decoration of two small church cupolas at Parma; Michael Angelo's of a ceiling in the Pope's private chapel; Tintoret's, of a ceiling and side wall belonging to a charitable society at Venice; while Titian and Veronese threw out their noblest thoughts, not even on the inside, but on the outside of the common brick and plaster walls of Venice. Get rid, then, at once of any idea of Decorative art being a degraded or a separate kind of art. Its nature or essence is simply its being fitted for a definite place; and, in that place, forming part of a great and harmonious whole, in companionship with other art; and so far from this being a degradation to it--so far from Decorative art being inferior to other art because it is fixed to a spot--on the whole it may be considered as rather a piece of degradation that it should be portable. Portable art--independent of all place--is for the most part ignoble art. Your little Dutch landscape, which you put over your sideboard to-day, and between the windows tomorrow, is a far more contemptible piece of work than the extents of field and forest with which Benozzo has made green and beautiful the once melancholy arcade of the Campo Santo at Pisa; and the wild boar of silver which you use for a seal, or lock into a velvet case, is little likely to be so noble a beast as the bronze boar who foams forth the fountain from under his tusks in the market-place of Florence. It is, indeed, possible that the portable picture or image may be first-rate of its kind, but it is not first-rate because it is portable; nor are Titian's frescoes less than first-rate because they are fixed; nay, very frequently the highest compliment you can pay to a cabinet picture is to say--"It is as grand as a fresco." Keeping, then, this fact fixed in our minds,--that all art _may_ be decorative, and that the greatest art yet produced has been decorative,--we may proceed to distinguish the orders and dignities of decorative art, thus:-- I. The first order of it is that which is meant for places where it cannot be disturbed or injured, and where it can be perfectly seen; and then the main parts of it should be, and have always been made, by the great masters, as perfect, and as full of nature as possible. You will every day hear it absurdly said that room decoration should be by flat patterns--by dead colours--by conventional monotonies, and I know not what. Now, just be assured of this--nobody ever yet used conventional art to decorate with, when he could do anything better, and knew that what he did would be safe. Nay, a great painter will always give you the natural art, safe or not. Correggio gets a commission to paint a room on the ground floor of a palace at Parma: any of our people--bred on our fine modern principles--would have covered it with a diaper, or with stripes or flourishes, or mosaic patterns. Not so Correggio: he paints a thick trellis of vine-leaves, with oval openings, and lovely children leaping through them into the room; and lovely children, depend upon it, are rather more desirable decorations than diaper, if you can do them--but they are not quite so easily done. In like manner Tintoret has to paint the whole end of the Council Hall at Venice. An orthodox decorator would have set himself to make the wall look like a wall--Tintoret thinks it would be rather better, if he can manage it, to make it look a little like Paradise;-- stretches his canvas right over the wall, and his clouds right over his canvas; brings the light through his clouds--all blue and clear--zodiac beyond zodiac; rolls away the vaporous flood from under the feet of saints, leaving them at last in infinitudes of light--unorthodox in the last degree, but, on the whole, pleasant. And so in all other cases whatever, the greatest decorative art is wholly unconventional--downright, pure, good painting and sculpture, but always fitted for its place; and subordinated to the purpose it has to serve in that place. II. But if art is to be placed where it is liable to injury--to wear and tear; or to alteration of its form; as, for instance, on domestic utensils, and armour, and weapons, and dress; in which either the ornament will be worn out by the usage of the thing, or will be cast into altered shape by the play of its folds; then it is wrong to put beautiful and perfect art to such uses, and you want forms of inferior art, such as will be by their simplicity less liable to injury; or, by reason of their complexity and continuousness, may show to advantage, however distorted by the folds they are cast into. And thus arise the various forms of inferior decorative art, respecting which the general law is, that the lower the place and office of the thing, the less of natural or perfect form you should have in it; a zigzag or a chequer is thus a better, because a more consistent ornament for a cup or platter than a landscape or portrait is: hence the general definition of the true forms of conventional ornament is, that they consist in the bestowal of as much beauty on the object as shall be consistent with its Material, its Place, and its Office. Let us consider these three modes of consistency a little. (A.) Conventionalism by cause of inefficiency of material. If, for instance, we are required to represent a human figure with stone only, we cannot represent its colour; we reduce its colour to whiteness. That is not elevating the human body, but degrading it; only it would be a much greater degradation to give its colour falsely. Diminish beauty as much as you will, but do not misrepresent it. So again, when we are sculpturing a face, we can't carve its eyelashes. The face is none the better for wanting its eyelashes--it is injured by the want; but would be much more injured by a clumsy representation of them. Neither can we carve the hair. We must be content with the conventionalism of vile solid knots and lumps of marble, instead of the golden cloud that encompasses the fair human face with its waving mystery. The lumps of marble are not an elevated representation of hair--they are a degraded one; yet better than any attempt to imitate hair with the incapable material. In all cases in which such imitation is attempted, instant degradation to a still lower level is the result. For the effort to imitate shows that the workman has only a base and poor conception of the beauty of the reality--else he would know his task to be hopeless, and give it up at once; so that all endeavours to avoid conventionalism, when the material demands it, result from insensibility to truth, and are among the worst forms of vulgarity. Hence, in the greatest Greek statues, the hair is very slightly indicated--not because the sculptor disdained hair, but because he knew what it was too well to touch it insolently. I do not doubt but that the Greek painters drew hair exactly as Titian does. Modern attempts to produce finished pictures on glass result from the same base vulgarism. No man who knows what painting means, can endure a painted glass window which emulates painter's work. But he rejoices in a glowing mosaic of broken colour: for that is what the glass has the special gift and right of producing. [Footnote: See Appendix II., Sir Joshua Reynolds's disappointment.] (B.) Conventionalism by cause of inferiority of place. When work is to be seen at a great distance, or in dark places, or in some other imperfect way, it constantly becomes necessary to treat it coarsely or severely, in order to make it effective. The statues on cathedral fronts, in good times of design, are variously treated according to their distances: no fine execution is put into the features of the Madonna who rules the group of figures above the south transept of Rouen at 150 feet above the ground; but in base modern work, as Milan Cathedral, the sculpture is finished without any reference to distance; and the merit of every statue is supposed to consist in the visitor's being obliged to ascend three hundred steps before he can see it. (C.) Conventionalism by cause of inferiority of office. When one piece of ornament is to be subordinated to another (as the moulding is to the sculpture it encloses, or the fringe of a drapery to the statue it veils), this inferior ornament needs to be degraded in order to mark its lower office; and this is best done by refusing, more or less, the introduction of natural form. The less of nature it contains, the more degraded is the ornament, and the fitter for a humble place; but, however far a great workman may go in refusing the higher organisms of nature, he always takes care to retain the magnificence of natural lines; that is to say, of the infinite curves, such as I have analyzed in the fourth volume of "Modern Painters." His copyists, fancying that they can follow him without nature, miss precisely the essence of all the work; so that even the simplest piece of Greek conventional ornament loses the whole of its value in any modern imitation of it, the finer curves being always missed. Perhaps one of the dullest and least justifiable mistakes which have yet been made about my writing, is the supposition that I have attacked or despised Greek work. I have attacked Palladian work, and modern imitation of Greek work. Of Greek work itself I have never spoken but with a reverence quite infinite: I name Phidias always in exactly the same tone with which I speak of Michael Angelo, Titian, and Dante. My first statement of this faith, now thirteen years ago, was surely clear enough. "We shall see by this light three colossal images standing up side by side, looming in their great rest of spirituality above the whole world horizon. Phidias, Michael Angelo, and Dante,--from these we may go down step by step among the mighty men of every age, securely and certainly observant of diminished lustre in every appearance of restlessness and effort, until the last trace of inspiration vanishes in the tottering affectation or tortured insanities of modern times." ("Modern Painters," vol. ii., p. 253.) This was surely plain speaking enough, and from that day to this my effort has been not less continually to make the heart of Greek work known than the heart of Gothic: namely, the nobleness of conception of form derived from perpetual study of the figure; and my complaint of the modern architect has been not that he followed the Greeks, but that he denied the first laws of life in theirs as in all other art. The fact is, that all good subordinate forms of ornamentation ever yet existent in the world have been invented, and others as beautiful can only be invented, by men primarily exercised in drawing or carving the human figure. I will not repeat here what I have already twice insisted upon, to the students of London and Manchester, respecting the degradation of temper and intellect which follows the pursuit of art without reference to natural form, as among the Asiatics: here, I will only trespass on your patience so far as to mark the inseparable connection between figure-drawing and good ornamental work, in the great European schools, and all that are connected with them. Tell me, then, first of all, what ornamental work is usually put before our students as the type of decorative perfection? Raphael's arabesques; are they not? Well, Raphael knew a little about the figure, I suppose, before he drew them. I do not say that I like those arabesques; but there are certain qualities in them which are inimitable by modern designers; and those qualities are just the fruit of the master's figure study. What is given the student as next to Raphael's work? Cinquecento ornament generally. Well, cinquecento generally, with its birds, and cherubs, and wreathed foliage, and clustered fruit, was the amusement of men who habitually and easily carved the figure, or painted it. All the truly fine specimens of it have figures or animals as main parts of the design. "Nay, but," some anciently or mediævally minded person will exclaim, "we don't want to study cinquecento. We want severer, purer conventionalism." What will you have? Egyptian ornament? Why, the whole mass of it is made up of multitudinous human figures in every kind of action--and magnificent action; their kings drawing their bows in their chariots, their sheaves of arrows rattling at their shoulders; the slain falling under them as before a pestilence; their captors driven before them in astonied troops; and do you expect to imitate Egyptian ornament without knowing how to draw the human figure? Nay, but you will take Christian ornament--purest mediaeval Christian--thirteenth century! Yes: and do you suppose you will find the Christian less human? The least natural and most purely conventional ornament of the Gothic schools is that of their painted glass; and do you suppose painted glass, in the fine times, was ever wrought without figures? We have got into the way, among our other modern wretchednesses, of trying to make windows of leaf diapers, and of strips of twisted red and yellow bands, looking like the patterns of currant jelly on the top of Christmas cakes; but every casement of old glass contained a saint's history. The windows of Bourges, Chartres, or Rouen have ten, fifteen, or twenty medallions in each, and each medallion contains two figures at least, often six or seven, representing every event of interest in the history of the saint whose life is in question. Nay, but, you say those figures are rude and quaint, and ought not to be imitated. Why, so is the leafage rude and quaint, yet you imitate that. The coloured border pattern of geranium or ivy leaf is not one whit better drawn, or more like geraniums and ivy, than the figures are like figures; but you call the geranium leaf idealized--why don't you call the figures so? The fact is, neither are idealized, but both are conventionalized on the same principles, and in the same way; and if you want to learn how to treat the leafage, the only way is to learn first how to treat the figure. And you may soon test your powers in this respect. Those old workmen were not afraid of the most familiar subjects. The windows of Chartres were presented by the trades of the town, and at the bottom of each window is a representation of the proceedings of the tradesmen at the business which enabled them to pay for the window. There are smiths at the forge, curriers at their hides, tanners looking into their pits, mercers selling goods over the counter--all made into beautiful medallions. Therefore, whenever you want to know whether you have got any real power of composition or adaptation in ornament, don't be content with sticking leaves together by the ends,--anybody can do that; but try to conventionalize a butcher's or a greengrocer's, with Saturday night customers buying cabbage and beef. That will tell you if you can design or not. I can fancy your losing patience with me altogether just now. "We asked this fellow down to tell our workmen how to make shawls, and he is only trying to teach them how to caricature." But have a little patience with me, and examine, after I have done, a little for yourselves into the history of ornamental art, and you will discover why I do this. You will discover, I repeat, that all great ornamental art whatever is founded on the effort of the workman to draw the figure, and, in the best schools, to draw all that he saw about him in living nature. The best art of pottery is acknowledged to be that of Greece, and all the power of design exhibited in it, down to the merest zigzag, arises primarily from the workman having been forced to outline nymphs and knights; from those helmed and draped figures he holds his power. Of Egyptian ornament I have just spoken. You have everything given there that the workman saw; people of his nation employed in hunting, fighting, fishing, visiting, making love, building, cooking--everything they did is drawn, magnificently or familiarly, as was needed. In Byzantine ornament, saints, or animals which are types of various spiritual power, are the main subjects; and from the church down to the piece of enamelled metal, figure,--figure,--figure, always principal. In Norman and Gothic work you have, with all their quiet saints, also other much disquieted persons, hunting, feasting, fighting, and so on; or whole hordes of animals racing after each other. In the Bayeux tapestry, Queen Matilda gave, as well as she could,--in many respects graphically enough,--the whole history of the conquest of England. Thence, as you increase in power of art, you have more and more finished figures, up to the solemn sculptures of Wells Cathedral, or the cherubic enrichments of the Venetian Madonna dei Miracoli. Therefore, I will tell you fearlessly, for I know it is true, you must raise your workman up to life, or you will never get from him one line of well-imagined conventionalism. We have at present no good ornamental design. We can't have it yet, and we must be patient if we want to have it. Do not hope to feel the effect of your schools at once, but raise the men as high as you can, and then let them stoop as low as you need; no great man ever minds stooping. Encourage the students, in sketching accurately and continually from nature anything that comes in their way--still life, flowers, animals; but, above all, figures; and so far as you allow of any difference between an artist's training and theirs, let it be, not in what they draw, but in the degree of conventionalism you require in the sketch. For my own part, I should always endeavour to give thorough artistical training first; but I am not certain (the experiment being yet untried) what results may be obtained by a truly intelligent practice of conventional drawing, such as that of the Egyptians, Greeks, or thirteenth century French, which consists in the utmost possible rendering of natural form by the fewest possible lines. The animal and bird drawing of the Egyptians is, in their fine age, quite magnificent under its conditions; magnificent in two ways--first, in keenest perception of the main forms and facts in the creature; and, secondly, in the grandeur of line by which their forms are abstracted and insisted on, making every asp, ibis, and vulture a sublime spectre of asp or ibis or vulture power. The way for students to get some of this gift again (_some_ only, for I believe the fulness of the gift itself to be connected with vital superstition, and with resulting intensity of reverence; people were likely to know something about hawks and ibises, when to kill one was to be irrevocably judged to death) is never to pass a day without drawing some animal from the life, allowing themselves the fewest possible lines and colours to do it with, but resolving that whatever is characteristic of the animal shall in some way or other be shown. [Footnote: Plate 75 in Vol. V. of Wilkinson's "Ancient Egypt" will give the student an idea of how to set to work.] I repeat, it cannot yet be judged what results might be obtained by a nobly practised conventionalism of this kind; but, however that may be, the first fact,--the necessity of animal and figure drawing, is absolutely certain, and no person who shrinks from it will ever become a great designer. One great good arises even from the first step in figure drawing, that it gets the student quit at once of the notion of formal symmetry. If you learn only to draw a leaf well, you are taught in some of our schools to turn it the other way, opposite to itself; and the two leaves set opposite ways are called "a design:" and thus it is supposed possible to produce ornamentation, though you have no more brains than a looking-glass or a kaleidoscope has. But if you once learn to draw the human figure, you will find that knocking two men's heads together does not necessarily constitute a good design; nay, that it makes a very bad design, or no design at all; and you will see at once that to arrange a group of two or more figures, you must, though perhaps it may be desirable to balance, or oppose them, at the same time vary their attitudes, and make one, not the reverse of the other, but the companion of the other. I had a somewhat amusing discussion on this subject with a friend, only the other day; and one of his retorts upon me was so neatly put, and expresses so completely all that can either be said or shown on the opposite side, that it is well worth while giving it you exactly in the form it was sent to me. My friend had been maintaining that the essence of ornament consisted in three things:--contrast, series, and symmetry. I replied (by letter) that "none of them, nor all of them together, would produce ornament. Here"--(making a ragged blot with the back of my pen on the paper)--"you have contrast; but it isn't ornament: here, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,"--(writing the numerals)--"You have series; but it isn't ornament: and here,"--(sketching a rough but symmetrical "stick- figure" sketch of a human body at the side)--"you have symmetry; but it isn't ornament." My friend replied:-- "Your materials were not ornament, because you did not apply them. I send them to you back, made up into a choice sporting neckerchief:" [Illustration: Sketch of a square of cloth decorated with a diagonal grid pattern of stick-figure human forms, with repeated and reflected ink-blot shapes at the corners and the digits 1 through 6 arranged into simple symmetrical shapes and repeated around the border.] Symmetrical figure Unit of diaper. Contrast Corner ornaments. Series Border ornaments. "Each figure is converted into a harmony by being revolved on its two axes, the whole opposed in contrasting series." My answer was--or rather was to the effect (for I must expand it a little, here)--that his words, "because you did not apply them," contained the gist of the whole matter;--that the application of them, or any other things, was precisely the essence of design; the non- application, or wrong application, the negation of design: that his use of the poor materials was in this case admirable; and that if he could explain to me, in clear words, the principles on which he had so used them, he would be doing a very great service to all students of art. "Tell me, therefore (I asked), these main points: "1. How did you determine the number of figures you would put into the neckerchief? Had there been more, it would have been mean and ineffective,--a pepper-and-salt sprinkling of figures. Had there been fewer, it would have been monstrous. How did you fix the number? "2. How did you determine the breadth of the border and relative size of the numerals? "3. Why are there two lines outside of the border, and one only inside? Why are there no more lines? Why not three and two, or three and five? Why lines at all to separate the barbarous figures; and why, if lines at all, not double or treble instead of single? "4. Why did you put the double blots at the corners? Why not at the angles of the chequers,--or in the middle of the border? "It is precisely your knowing why _not_ to do these things, and why to do just what you have done, which constituted your power of design; and like all the people I have ever known who had that power, you are entirely unconscious of the essential laws by which you work, and confuse other people by telling them that the design depends on symmetry and series, when, in fact, it depends entirely on your own sense and judgment." This was the substance of my last answer--to which (as I knew beforehand would be the case) I got no reply; but it still remains to be observed that with all the skill and taste (especially involving the architect's great trust, harmony of proportion), which my friend could bring to bear on the materials given him, the result is still only--a sporting neckerchief--that is to say, the materials addressed, first, to recklessness, in the shape of a mere blot; then to computativeness in a series of figures; and then to absurdity and ignorance, in the shape of an ill-drawn caricature--such materials, however treated, can only work up into what will please reckless, computative, and vulgar persons,--that is to say, into a sporting neckerchief. The difference between this piece of ornamentation and Correggio's painting at Parma lies simply and wholly in the additions (somewhat large ones), of truth and of tenderness: in the drawing being lovely as well as symmetrical-- and representative of realities as well as agreeably disposed. And truth, tenderness, and inventive application or disposition are indeed the roots of ornament--not contrast, nor symmetry. It ought yet farther to be observed, that _the nobler the materials, the less their symmetry is endurable_. In the present case, the sense of fitness and order, produced by the repetition of the figures, neutralizes, in some degree, their reckless vulgarity; and is wholly, therefore, beneficent to them. But draw the figures better, and their repetition will become painful. You may harmlessly balance a mere geometrical form, and oppose one quatrefoil or cusp by another exactly like it. But put two Apollo Belvideres back to back, and you will not think the symmetry improves them. _Whenever the materials of ornament are noble, they must be various_; and repetition of parts is either the sign of utterly bad, hopeless, and base work; or of the intended degradation of the parts in which such repetition is allowed, in order to foil others more noble. Such, then, are a few of the great principles, by the enforcement of which you may hope to promote the success of the modern student of design; but remember, none of these principles will be useful at all, unless you understand them to be, in one profound and stern sense, useless. [Footnote: I shall endeavour for the future to put my self- contradictions in short sentences and direct terms, in order to save sagacious persons the trouble of looking for them.] That is to say, unless you feel that neither you nor I, nor any one, can, in the great ultimate sense, teach anybody how to make a good design. If designing _could_ be taught, all the world would learn: as all the world reads--or calculates. But designing is not to be spelled, nor summed. My men continually come to me, in my drawing class in London, thinking I am to teach them what is instantly to enable them to gain their bread. "Please, sir, show us how to design." "Make designers of us." And you, I doubt not, partly expect me to tell you to-night how to make designers of your Bradford youths. Alas! I could as soon tell you how to make or manufacture an ear of wheat, as to make a good artist of any kind. I can analyze the wheat very learnedly for you--tell you there is starch in it, and carbon, and silex. I can give you starch, and charcoal, and flint; but you are as far from your ear of wheat as you were before. All that can possibly be done for any one who wants ears of wheat is to show them where to find grains of wheat, and how to sow them, and then, with patience, in Heaven's time, the ears will come--or will perhaps come--ground and weather permitting. So in this matter of making artists--first you must find your artist in the grain; then you must plant him; fence and weed the field about him; and with patience, ground and weather permitting, you may get an artist out of him--not otherwise. And what I have to speak to you about, tonight, is mainly the ground and the weather, it being the first and quite most material question in this matter, whether the ground and weather of Bradford, or the ground and weather of England in general,--suit wheat. And observe in the outset, it is not so much what the present circumstances of England are, as what we wish to make them, that we have to consider. If you will tell me what you ultimately intend Bradford to be, perhaps I can tell you what Bradford can ultimately produce. But you must have your minds clearly made up, and be distinct in telling me what you do want. At present I don't know what you are aiming at, and possibly on consideration you may feel some doubt whether you know yourselves. As matters stand, all over England, as soon as one mill is at work, occupying two hundred hands, we try, by means of it, to set another mill at work, occupying four hundred. That is all simple and comprehensive enough--but what is it to come to? How many mills do we want? or do we indeed want no end of mills? Let us entirely understand each other on this point before we go any farther. Last week, I drove from Rochdale to Bolton Abbey; quietly, in order to see the country, and certainly it was well worth while. I never went over a more interesting twenty miles than those between Rochdale and Burnley. Naturally, the valley has been one of the most beautiful in the Lancashire hills; one of the far away solitudes, full of old shepherd ways of life. At this time there are not,--I speak deliberately, and I believe quite literally,--there are not, I think, more than a thousand yards of road to be traversed anywhere, without passing a furnace or mill. Now, is that the kind of thing you want to come to everywhere? Because, if it be, and you tell me so distinctly, I think I can make several suggestions to-night, and could make more if you give me time, which would materially advance your object. The extent of our operations at present is more or less limited by the extent of coal and ironstone, but we have not yet learned to make proper use of our clay. Over the greater part of England, south of the manufacturing districts, there are magnificent beds of various kinds of useful clay; and I believe that it would not be difficult to point out modes of employing it which might enable us to turn nearly the whole of the south of England into a brickfield, as we have already turned nearly the whole of the north into a coal-pit. I say "nearly" the whole, because, as you are doubtless aware, there are considerable districts in the south composed of chalk renowned up to the present time for their downs and mutton. But, I think, by examining carefully into the conceivable uses of chalk, we might discover a quite feasible probability of turning all the chalk districts into a limekiln, as we turn the clay districts into a brickfield. There would then remain nothing but the mountain districts to be dealt with; but, as we have not yet ascertained all the uses of clay and chalk, still less have we ascertained those of stone; and I think, by draining the useless inlets of the Cumberland, Welsh, and Scotch lakes, and turning them, with their rivers, into navigable reservoirs and canals, there would be no difficulty in working the whole of our mountain districts as a gigantic quarry of slate and granite, from which all the rest of the world might be supplied with roofing and building stone. Is this, then, what you want? You are going straight at it at present; and I have only to ask under what limitations I am to conceive or describe your final success? Or shall there be no limitations? There are none to your powers; every day puts new machinery at your disposal, and increases, with your capital, the vastness of your undertakings. The changes in the state of this country are now so rapid, that it would be wholly absurd to endeavour to lay down laws of art education for it under its present aspect and circumstances; and therefore I must necessarily ask, how much of it do you seriously intend within the next fifty years to be coal-pit, brickfield, or quarry? For the sake of distinctness of conclusion, I will suppose your success absolute: that from shore to shore the whole of the island is to be set as thick with chimneys as the masts stand in the docks of Liverpool: and there shall be no meadows in it; no trees; no gardens; only a little corn grown upon the housetops, reaped and threshed by steam: that you do not leave even room for roads, but travel either over the roofs of your mills, on viaducts; or under their floors, in tunnels: that, the smoke having rendered the light of the sun unserviceable, you work always by the light of your own gas: that no acre of English ground shall be without its shaft and its engine; and therefore, no spot of English ground left, on which it shall be possible to stand, without a definite and calculable chance of being blown off it, at any moment, into small pieces. Under these circumstances, (if this is to be the future of England,) no designing or any other development of beautiful art will be possible. Do not vex your minds, nor waste your money with any thought or effort in the matter. Beautiful art can only be produced by people who have beautiful things about them, and leisure to look at them; and unless you provide some elements of beauty for your workmen to be surrounded by, you will find that no elements of beauty can be invented by them. I was struck forcibly by the bearing of this great fact upon our modern efforts at ornamentation in an afternoon walk, last week, in the suburbs of one of our large manufacturing towns. I was thinking of the difference in the effect upon the designer's mind, between the scene which I then came upon, and the scene which would have presented itself to the eyes of any designer of the middle ages, when he left his workshop. Just outside the town I came upon an old English cottage, or mansion, I hardly know which to call it, set close under the hill, and beside the river, perhaps built somewhere in the Charles's time, with mullioned windows and a low arched porch; round which, in the little triangular garden, one can imagine the family as they used to sit in old summer times, the ripple of the river heard faintly through the sweetbrier hedge, and the sheep on the far-off wolds shining in the evening sunlight. There, uninhabited for many and many a year, it had been left in unregarded havoc of ruin; the garden-gate still swung loose to its latch; the garden, blighted utterly into a field of ashes, not even a weed taking root there; the roof torn into shapeless rents; the shutters hanging about the windows in rags of rotten wood; before its gate, the stream which had gladdened it now soaking slowly by, black as ebony, and thick with curdling scum; the bank above it trodden into unctuous, sooty slime: far in front of it, between it and the old hills, the furnaces of the city foaming forth perpetual plague of sulphurous darkness; the volumes of their storm clouds coiling low over a waste of grassless fields, fenced from each other, not by hedges, but by slabs of square stone, like gravestones, riveted together with iron. That was your scene for the designer's contemplation in his afternoon walk at Rochdale. Now fancy what was the scene which presented itself, in his afternoon walk, to a designer of the Gothic school of Pisa--Nino Pisano, or any of his men. On each side of a bright river he saw rise a line of brighter palaces, arched and pillared, and inlaid with deep red porphyry, and with serpentine; along the quays before their gates were riding troops of knights, noble in face and form, dazzling in crest and shield; horse and man one labyrinth of quaint colour and gleaming light--the purple, and silver, and scarlet fringes flowing over the strong limbs and clashing mail, like sea-waves over rocks at sunset. Opening on each side from the river were gardens, courts, and cloisters; long successions of white pillars among wreaths of vine; leaping of fountains through buds of pomegranate and orange: and still along the garden-paths, and under and through the crimson of the pomegranate shadows, moving slowly, groups of the fairest women that Italy ever saw--fairest, because purest and thoughtfullest; trained in all high knowledge, as in all courteous art--in dance, in song, in sweet wit, in lofty learning, in loftier courage, in loftiest love--able alike to cheer, to enchant, or save, the souls of men. Above all this scenery of perfect human life, rose dome and bell-tower, burning with white alabaster and gold; beyond dome and bell-tower the slopes of mighty hills, hoary with olive; far in the north, above a purple sea of peaks of solemn Apennine, the clear, sharp-cloven Carrara mountains sent up their steadfast flames of marble summit into amber sky; the great sea itself, scorching with expanse of light, stretching from their feet to the Gorgonian isles; and over all these, ever present, near or far-- seen through the leaves of vine, or imaged with all its march of clouds in the Arno's stream, or set with its depth of blue close against the golden hair and burning cheek of lady and knight,--that untroubled and sacred sky, which was to all men, in those days of innocent faith, indeed the unquestioned abode of spirits, as the earth was of men; and which opened straight through its gates of cloud and veils of dew into the awfulness of the eternal world;--a heaven in which every cloud that passed was literally the chariot of an angel, and every ray of its Evening and Morning streamed from the throne of God. What think you of that for a school of design? I do not bring this contrast before you as a ground of hopelessness in our task; neither do I look for any possible renovation of the Republic of Pisa, at Bradford, in the nineteenth century; but I put it before you in order that you may be aware precisely of the kind of difficulty you have to meet, and may then consider with yourselves how far you can meet it. To men surrounded by the depressing and monotonous circumstances of English manufacturing life, depend upon it, design is simply impossible. This is the most distinct of all the experiences I have had in dealing with the modern workman. He is intelligent and ingenious in the highest degree--subtle in touch and keen in sight: but he is, generally speaking, wholly destitute of designing power. And if you want to give him the power, you must give him the materials, and put him in the circumstances for it. Design is not the offspring of idle fancy: it is the studied result of accumulative observation and delightful habit. Without observation and experience, no design-- without peace and pleasurableness in occupation, no design--and all the lecturings, and teachings, and prizes, and principles of art, in the world, are of no use, so long as you don't surround your men with happy influences and beautiful things. It is impossible for them to have right ideas about colour, unless they see the lovely colours of nature unspoiled; impossible for them to supply beautiful incident and action in their ornament, unless they see beautiful incident and action in the world about them. Inform their minds, refine their habits, and you form and refine their designs; but keep them illiterate, uncomfortable, and in the midst of unbeautiful things, and whatever they do will still be spurious, vulgar, and valueless. I repeat, that I do not ask you nor wish you to build a new Pisa for them. We don't want either the life or the decorations of the thirteenth century back again; and the circumstances with which you must surround your workmen are those simply of happy modern English life, because the designs you have now to ask for from your workmen are such as will make modern English life beautiful. All that gorgeousness of the middle ages, beautiful as it sounds in description, noble as in many respects it was in reality, had, nevertheless, for foundation and for end, nothing but the pride of life--the pride of the so-called superior classes; a pride which supported itself by violence and robbery, and led in the end to the destruction both of the arts themselves and the States in which they nourished. The great lesson of history is, that all the fine arts hitherto--having been supported by the selfish power of the noblesse, and never having extended their range to the comfort or the relief of the mass of the people--the arts, I say, thus practised, and thus matured, have only accelerated the ruin of the States they adorned; and at the moment when, in any kingdom, you point to the triumphs of its greatest artists, you point also to the determined hour of the kingdom's decline. The names of great painters are like passing bells: in the name of Velasquez, you hear sounded the fall of Spain; in the name of Titian, that of Venice; in the name of Leonardo, that of Milan; in the name of Raphael, that of Rome. And there is profound justice in this; for in proportion to the nobleness of the power is the guilt of its use for purposes vain or vile; and hitherto the greater the art, the more surely has it been used, and used solely, for the decoration of pride, [Footnote: Whether religious or profane pride,--chapel or banqueting room,--is no matter.] or the provoking of sensuality. Another course lies open to us. We may abandon the hope--or if you like the words better--we may disdain the temptation, of the pomp and grace of Italy in her youth. For us there can be no more the throne of marble--for us no more the vault of gold--but for us there is the loftier and lovelier privilege of bringing the power and charm of art within the reach of the humble and the poor; and as the magnificence of past ages failed by its narrowness and its pride, ours may prevail and continue, by its universality and its lowliness. And thus, between the picture of too laborious England, which we imagined as future, and the picture of too luxurious Italy, which we remember in the past, there may exist--there will exist, if we do our duty--an intermediate condition, neither oppressed by labour nor wasted in vanity--the condition of a peaceful and thoughtful temperance in aims, and acts, and arts. We are about to enter upon a period of our world's history in which domestic life, aided by the arts of peace, will slowly, but at last entirely, supersede public life and the arts of war. For our own England, she will not, I believe, be blasted throughout with furnaces; nor will she be encumbered with palaces. I trust she will keep her green fields, her cottages, and her homes of middle life; but these ought to be, and I trust will be enriched with a useful, truthful, substantial form of art. We want now no more feasts of the gods, nor martyrdoms of the saints; we have no need of sensuality, no place for superstition, or for costly insolence. Let us have learned and faithful historical painting--touching and thoughtful representations of human nature, in dramatic painting; poetical and familiar renderings of natural objects and of landscape; and rational, deeply-felt realizations of the events which are the subjects of our religious faith. And let these things we want, as far as possible, be scattered abroad and made accessible to all men. So also, in manufacture: we require work substantial rather than rich in make; and refined, rather than splendid in design. Your stuffs need not be such as would catch the eye of a duchess; but they should be such as may at once serve the need, and refine the taste, of a cottager. The prevailing error in English dress, especially among the lower orders, is a tendency to flimsiness and gaudiness, arising mainly from the awkward imitation of their superiors. [Footnote: If their superiors would give them simplicity and economy to imitate, it would, in the issue, be well for themselves, as well as for those whom they guide. The typhoid fever of passion for dress, and all other display, which has struck the upper classes of Europe at this time, is one of the most dangerous political elements we have to deal with. Its wickedness I have shown elsewhere (Polit. Economy of Art, p. 62, _et seq._); but its wickedness is, in the minds of most persons, a matter of no importance. I wish I had time also to show them its danger. I cannot enter here into political investigation; but this is a certain fact, that the wasteful and vain expenses at present indulged in by the upper classes are hastening the advance of republicanism more than any other element of modern change. No agitators, no clubs, no epidemical errors, ever were, or will be, fatal to social order in any nation. Nothing but the guilt of the upper classes, wanton, accumulated, reckless, and merciless, ever overthrows them Of such guilt they have now much to answer for--let them look to it in time.] It should be one of the first objects of all manufacturers to produce stuffs not only beautiful and quaint in design, but also adapted for every-day service, and decorous in humble and secluded life. And you must remember always that your business, as manufacturers, is to form the market, as much as to supply it. If, in shortsighted and reckless eagerness for wealth, you catch at every humour of the populace as it shapes itself into momentary demand--if, in jealous rivalry with neighbouring States, or with other producers, you try to attract attention by singularities, novelties, and gaudinesses--to make every design an advertisement, and pilfer every idea of a successful neighbour's, that you may insidiously imitate it, or pompously eclipse --no good design will ever be possible to you, or perceived by you. You may, by accident, snatch the market; or, by energy, command it; you may obtain the confidence of the public, and cause the ruin of opponent houses; or you may, with equal justice of fortune, be ruined by them. But whatever happens to you, this, at least, is certain, that the whole of your life will have been spent in corrupting public taste and encouraging public extravagance. Every preference you have won by gaudiness must have been based on the purchaser's vanity; every demand you have created by novelty has fostered in the consumer a habit of discontent; and when you retire into inactive life, you may, as a subject of consolation for your declining years, reflect that precisely according to the extent of your past operations, your life has been successful in retarding the arts,--tarnishing the virtues, and confusing the manners of your country. But, on the other hand, if you resolve from the first that, so far as you can ascertain or discern what is best, you will produce what is best, on an intelligent consideration of the probable tendencies and possible tastes of the people whom you supply, you may literally become more influential for all kinds of good than many lecturers on art, or many treatise-writers on morality. Considering the materials dealt with, and the crude state of art knowledge at the time, I do not know that any more wide or effective influence in public taste was ever exercised than that of the Staffordshire manufacture of pottery under William Wedgwood, and it only rests with the manufacturer in every other business to determine whether he will, in like manner, make his wares educational instruments, or mere drugs of the market. You all should, be, in a certain sense, authors: you must, indeed, first catch the public eye, as an author must the public ear; but once gain your audience, or observance, and as it is in the writer's power thenceforward to publish what will educate as it amuses--so it is in yours to publish what will educate as it adorns. Nor is this surely a subject of poor ambition. I hear it said continually that men are too ambitious: alas! to me, it seems they are never enough ambitious. How many are content to be merely the thriving merchants of a state, when they might be its guides, counsellors, and rulers--wielding powers of subtle but gigantic beneficence, in restraining its follies while they supplied its wants. Let such duty, such ambition, be once accepted in their fulness, and the best glory of European art and of European manufacture may yet be to come. The paintings of Raphael and of Buonaroti gave force to the falsehoods of superstition, and majesty to the imaginations of sin; but the arts of England may have, for their task, to inform the soul with truth, and touch the heart with compassion. The steel of Toledo and the silk of Genoa did but give strength to oppression and lustre to pride: let it be for the furnace and for the loom of England, as they have already richly earned, still more abundantly to bestow, comfort on the indigent, civilization on the rude, and to dispense, through the peaceful homes of nations, the grace and the preciousness of simple adornment, and useful possession. LECTURE IV. INFLUENCE OF IMAGINATION IN ARCHITECTURE _An Address Delivered to the Members of the Architectural Association, in Lyon's Inn Hall, 1857._ If we were to be asked abruptly, and required to answer briefly, what qualities chiefly distinguish great artists from feeble artists, we should answer, I suppose, first, their sensibility and tenderness; secondly, their imagination; and thirdly, their industry. Some of us might, perhaps, doubt the justice of attaching so much importance to this last character, because we have all known clever men who were indolent, and dull men who were industrious. But though you may have known clever men who were indolent, you never knew a great man who was so; and, during such investigation as I have been able to give to the lives of the artists whose works are in all points noblest, no fact ever looms so large upon me--no law remains so steadfast in the universality of its application, as the fact and law that they are all great workers: nothing concerning them is matter of more astonishment than the quantity they have accomplished in the given length of their life; and when I hear a young man spoken of, as giving promise of high genius, the first question I ask about him is always-- Does he work? But though this quality of industry is essential to an artist, it does not in anywise make an artist; many people are busy, whose doings are little worth. Neither does sensibility make an artist; since, as I hope, many can feel both strongly and nobly, who yet care nothing about art. But the gifts which distinctively mark the artist--_without_ which he must be feeble in life, forgotten in death--_with_ which he may become one of the shakers of the earth, and one of the signal lights in heaven--are those of sympathy and imagination. I will not occupy your time, nor incur the risk of your dissent, by endeavouring to give any close definition of this last word. We all have a general and sufficient idea of imagination, and of its work with our hands and in our hearts: we understand it, I suppose, as the imaging or picturing of new things in our thoughts; and we always show an involuntary respect for this power, wherever we can recognize it, acknowledging it to be a greater power than manipulation, or calculation, or observation, or any other human faculty. If we see an old woman spinning at the fireside, and distributing her thread dexterously from the distaff, we respect her for her manipulation--if we ask her how much she expects to make in a year, and she answers quickly, we respect her for her calculation--if she is watching at the same time that none of her grandchildren fall into the fire, we respect her for her observation--yet for all this she may still be a commonplace old woman enough. But if she is all the time telling her grandchildren a fairy tale out of her head, we praise her for her imagination, and say, she must be a rather remarkable old woman. Precisely in like manner, if an architect does his working-drawing well, we praise him for his manipulation--if he keeps closely within his contract, we praise him for his honest arithmetic--if he looks well to the laying of his beams, so that nobody shall drop through the floor, we praise him for his observation. But he must, somehow, tell us a fairy tale out of his head beside all this, else we cannot praise him for his imagination, nor speak of him as we did of the old woman, as being in any wise out of the common way, a rather remarkable architect. It seemed to me, therefore, as if it might interest you to-night, if we were to consider together what fairy tales are, in and by architecture, to be told--what there is for you to do in this severe art of yours "out of your heads," as well as by your hands. Perhaps the first idea which a young architect is apt to be allured by, as a head-problem in these experimental days, is its being incumbent upon him to invent a "new style" worthy of modern civilization in general, and of England in particular; a style worthy of our engines and telegraphs; as expansive as steam, and as sparkling as electricity. But, if there are any of my hearers who have been impressed with this sense of inventive duty, may I ask them first, whether their plan is that every inventive architect among us shall invent a new style for himself, and have a county set aside for his conceptions, or a province for his practice? Or, must every architect invent a little piece of the new style, and all put it together at last like a dissected map? And if so, when the new style is invented, what is to be done next? I will grant you this Eldorado of imagination--but can you have more than one Columbus? Or, if you sail in company, and divide the prize of your discovery and the honour thereof, who is to come after you clustered Columbuses? to what fortunate islands of style are your architectural descendants to sail, avaricious of new lands? When our desired style is invented, will not the best we can all do be simply--to build in it?-- and cannot you now do that in styles that are known? Observe, I grant, for the sake of your argument, what perhaps many of you know that I would not grant otherwise--that a new style _can_ be invented. I grant you not only this, but that it shall be wholly different from any that was ever practised before. We will suppose that capitals are to be at the bottom of pillars instead of the top; and that buttresses shall be on the tops of pinnacles instead of at the bottom; that you roof your apertures with stones which shall neither be arched nor horizontal; and that you compose your decoration of lines which shall neither be crooked nor straight. The furnace and the forge shall be at your service: you shall draw out your plates of glass and beat out your bars of iron till you have encompassed us all,--if your style is of the practical kind,--with endless perspective of black skeleton and blinding square,--or if your style is to be of the ideal kind--you shall wreathe your streets with ductile leafage, and roof them with variegated crystal--you shall put, if you will, all London under one blazing dome of many colours that shall light the clouds round it with its flashing, as far as to the sea. And still, I ask you, What after this? Do you suppose those imaginations of yours will ever lie down there asleep beneath the shade of your iron leafage, or within the coloured light of your enchanted dome? Not so. Those souls, and fancies, and ambitions of yours, are wholly infinite; and, whatever may be done by others, you will still want to do something for yourselves; if you cannot rest content with Palladio, neither will you with Paxton: all the metal and glass that ever were melted have not so much weight in them as will clog the wings of one human spirit's aspiration. If you will think over this quietly by yourselves, and can get the noise out of your ears of the perpetual, empty, idle, incomparably idiotic talk about the necessity of some novelty in architecture, you will soon see that the very essence of a Style, properly so called, is that it should be practised _for ages_, and applied to all purposes; and that so long as any given style is in practice, all that is left for individual imagination to accomplish must be within the scope of that style, not in the invention of a new one. If there are any here, therefore, who hope to obtain celebrity by the invention of some strange way of building which must convince all Europe into its adoption, to them, for the moment, I must not be understood to address myself, but only to those who would be content with that degree of celebrity which an artist may enjoy who works in the manner of his forefathers;--which the builder of Salisbury Cathedral might enjoy in England, though he did not invent Gothic; and which Titian might enjoy at Venice, though he did not invent oil painting. Addressing myself then to those humbler, but wiser, or rather, only wise students who are content to avail themselves of some system of building already understood, let us consider together what room for the exercise of the imagination may be left to us under such conditions. And, first, I suppose it will be said, or thought, that the architect's principal field for exercise of his invention must be in the disposition of lines, mouldings, and masses, in agreeable proportions. Indeed, if you adopt some styles of architecture, you cannot exercise invention in any other way. And I admit that it requires genius and special gift to do this rightly. Not by rule, nor by study, can the gift of graceful proportionate design be obtained; only by the intuition of genius can so much as a single tier of façade be beautifully arranged; and the man has just cause for pride, as far as our gifts can ever be a cause for pride, who finds himself able, in a design of his own, to rival even the simplest arrangement of parts in one by Sanmicheli, Inigo Jones, or Christopher Wren. Invention, then, and genius being granted, as necessary to accomplish this, let me ask you, What, after all, with this special gift and genius, you _have_ accomplished, when you have arranged the lines of a building beautifully? In the first place you will not, I think, tell me that the beauty there attained is of a touching or pathetic kind. A well-disposed group of notes in music will make you sometimes weep and sometimes laugh. You can express the depth of all affections by those dispositions of sound: you can give courage to the soldier, language to the lover, consolation to the mourner, more joy to the joyful, more humility to the devout. Can you do as much by your group of lines? Do you suppose the front of Whitehall, a singularly beautiful one ever inspires the two Horse Guards, during the hour they sit opposite to it, with military ardour? Do you think that the lovers in our London walk down to the front of Whitehall for consolation when mistresses are unkind; or that any person wavering in duty, or feeble in faith, was ever confirmed in purpose or in creed by the pathetic appeal of those harmonious architraves? You will not say so. Then, if they cannot touch, or inspire, or comfort any one, can your architectural proportions amuse any one? Christmas is just over; you have doubtless been at many merry parties during the period. Can you remember any in which architectural proportions contributed to the entertainment of the evening? Proportions of notes in music were, I am sure, essential to your amusement; the setting of flowers in hair, and of ribands on dresses, were also subjects of frequent admiration with you, not inessential to your happiness. Among the juvenile members of your society the proportion of currants in cake, and of sugar in comfits, became subjects of acute interest; and, when such proportions were harmonious, motives also of gratitude to cook and to confectioner. But did you ever see either young or old amused by the architrave of the door? Or otherwise interested in the proportions of the room than as they admitted more or fewer friendly faces? Nay, if all the amusement that there is in the best proportioned architecture of London could be concentrated into one evening, and you were to issue tickets for nothing to this great proportional entertainment;--how do you think it would stand between you and the Drury pantomine? You are, then, remember, granted to be people of genius--great and admirable; and you devote your lives to your art, but you admit that you cannot comfort anybody, you cannot encourage anybody, you cannot improve anybody, and you cannot amuse anybody. I proceed then farther to ask, Can you inform anybody? Many sciences cannot be considered as highly touching or emotional; nay, perhaps not specially amusing; scientific men may sometimes, in these respects, stand on the same ground with you. As far as we can judge by the results of the late war, science helps our soldiers about as much as the front of Whitehall; and at the Christmas parties, the children wanted no geologists to tell them about the behaviour of bears and dragons in Queen Elizabeth's time. Still, your man of science teaches you something; he may be dull at a party, or helpless in a battle, he is not always that; but he can give you, at all events, knowledge of noble facts, and open to you the secrets of the earth and air. Will your architectural proportions do as much? Your genius is granted, and your life is given, and what do you teach us?--Nothing, I believe, from one end of that life to the other, but that two and two make four, and that one is to two as three is to six. You cannot, then, it is admitted, comfort any one, serve or amuse any one, nor teach any one. Finally, I ask, Can you be of _Use_ to any one? "Yes," you reply; "certainly we are of some use--we architects--in a climate like this, where it always rains." You are of use certainly; but, pardon me, only as builders--not as proportionalists. We are not talking of building as a protection, but only of that special work which your genius is to do; not of building substantial and comfortable houses like Mr. Cubitt, but of putting beautiful façades on them like Inigo Jones. And, again, I ask--Are you of use to any one? Will your proportions of the façade heal the sick, or clothe the naked? Supposing you devoted your lives to be merchants, you might reflect at the close of them, how many, fainting for want, you had brought corn to sustain; how many, infected with disease, you had brought balms to heal; how widely, among multitudes of far-away nations, you had scattered the first seeds of national power, and guided the first rays of sacred light. Had you been, in fine, _anything_ else in the world _but_ architectural designers, you might have been of some use or good to people. Content to be petty tradesmen, you would have saved the time of mankind;--rough-handed daily labourers, you would have added to their stock of food or of clothing. But, being men of genius, and devoting your lives to the exquisite exposition of this genius, on what achievements do you think the memories of your old age are to fasten? Whose gratitude will surround you with its glow, or on what accomplished good, of that greatest kind for which men show _no_ gratitude, will your life rest the contentment of its close? Truly, I fear that the ghosts of proportionate lines will be thin phantoms at your bedsides--very speechless to you; and that on all the emanations of your high genius you will look back with less delight than you might have done on a cup of cold water given to him who was thirsty, or to a single moment when you had "prevented with your bread him that fled." Do not answer, nor think to answer, that with your great works and great payments of workmen in them, you would do this; I know you would, and will, as Builders; but, I repeat, it is not your _building_ that I am talking about, but your _brains_; it is your invention and imagination of whose profit I am speaking. The good done through the building, observe, is done by your employers, not by you--you share in the benefit of it. The good that _you_ personally must do is by your designing; and I compare you with musicians who do good by their pathetic composing, not as they do good by employing fiddlers in the orchestra; for it is the public who in reality do that, not the musicians. So clearly keeping to this one question, what good we architects are to do by our genius; and having found that on our proportionate system we can do no good to others, will you tell me, lastly, what good we can do to _ourselves_? Observe, nearly every other liberal art or profession has some intense pleasure connected with it, irrespective of any good to others. As lawyers, or physicians, or clergymen, you would have the pleasure of investigation, and of historical reading, as part of your work: as men of science you would be rejoicing in curiosity perpetually gratified respecting the laws and facts of nature: as artists you would have delight in watching the external forms of nature: as day labourers or petty tradesmen, supposing you to undertake such work with as much intellect as you are going to devote to your designing, you would find continued subjects of interest in the manufacture or the agriculture which you helped to improve; or in the problems of commerce which bore on your business. But your architectural designing leads you into no pleasant journeys,--into no seeing of lovely things,--no discerning of just laws,--no warmths of compassion, no humilities of veneration, no progressive state of sight or soul. Our conclusion is--must be--that you will not amuse, nor inform, nor help anybody; you will not amuse, nor better, nor inform yourselves; you will sink into a state in which you can neither show, nor feel, nor see, anything, but that one is to two as three is to six. And in that state what should we call ourselves? Men? I think not. The right name for us would be--numerators and denominators. Vulgar Fractions. Shall we, then, abandon this theory of the soul of architecture being in proportional lines, and look whether we can find anything better to exert our fancies upon? May we not, to begin with, accept this great principle--that, as our bodies, to be in health, must be _generally_ exercised, so our minds, to be in health, must be _generally_ cultivated? You would not call a man healthy who had strong arms but was paralytic in his feet; nor one who could walk well, but had no use of his hands; nor one who could see well, if he could not hear. You would not voluntarily reduce your bodies to any such partially developed state. Much more, then, you would not, if you could help it, reduce your minds to it. Now, your minds are endowed with a vast number of gifts of totally different uses--limbs of mind as it were, which, if you don't exercise, you cripple. One is curiosity; that is a gift, a capacity of pleasure in knowing; which if you destroy, you make yourselves cold and dull. Another is sympathy; the power of sharing in the feelings of living creatures, which if you destroy, you make yourselves hard and cruel. Another of your limbs of mind is admiration; the power of enjoying beauty or ingenuity, which, if you destroy, you make yourselves base and irreverent. Another is wit; or the power of playing with the lights on the many sides of truth; which if you destroy, you make yourselves gloomy, and less useful and cheering to others than you might be. So that in choosing your way of work it should be your aim, as far as possible, to bring out all these faculties, as far as they exist in you; not one merely, nor another, but all of them. And the way to bring them out, is simply to concern yourselves attentively with the subjects of each faculty. To cultivate sympathy you must be among living creatures, and thinking about them; and to cultivate admiration, you must be among beautiful things and looking at them. All this sounds much like truism, at least I hope it does, for then you will surely not refuse to act upon it; and to consider farther, how, as architects, you are to keep yourselves in contemplation of living creatures and lovely things. You all probably know the beautiful photographs which have been published within the last year or two of the porches of the Cathedral of Amiens. I hold one of these up to you, (merely that you may know what I am talking about, as of course you cannot see the detail at this distance, but you will recognise the subject.) Have you ever considered how much sympathy, and how much humour, are developed in filling this single doorway [Footnote: The tympanum of the south transcept door; it is to be found generally among all collections of architectural photographs] with these sculptures of the history of St. Honoré (and, by the way, considering how often we English are now driving up and down the Rue St. Honoré, we may as well know as much of the saint as the old architect cared to tell us). You know in all legends of saints who ever were bishops, the first thing you are told of them is that they didn't want to be bishops. So here is St. Honoré, who doesn't want to be a bishop, sitting sulkily in the corner; he hugs his book with both hands, and won't get up to take his crosier; and here are all the city aldermen of Amiens come to _poke_ him up; and all the monks in the town in a great puzzle what they shall do for a bishop if St. Honoré won't be; and here's one of the monks in the opposite corner who is quite cool about it, and thinks they'll get on well enough without St Honoré,--you see that in his face perfectly. At last St. Honoré consents to be bishop, and here he sits in a throne, and has his book now grandly on his desk instead of his knees, and he directs one of his village curates how to find relics in a wood; here is the wood, and here is the village curate, and here are the tombs, with the bones of St. Victorien and Gentien in them. After this, St. Honoré performs grand mass, and the miracle occurs of the appearance of a hand blessing the wafer, which occurrence afterwards was painted for the arms of the abbey. Then St. Honoré dies; and here is his tomb with his statue on the top; and miracles are being performed at it--a deaf man having his ear touched, and a blind man groping his way up to the tomb with his dog. Then here is a great procession in honour of the relics of St. Honoré; and under his coffin are some cripples being healed; and the coffin itself is put above the bar which separates the cross from the lower subjects, because the tradition is that the figure on the crucifix of the Church of St. Firmin bowed its head in token of acceptance, as the relics of St. Honoré passed beneath. Now just consider the amount of sympathy with human nature, and observance of it, shown in this one bas-relief; the sympathy with disputing monks, with puzzled aldermen, with melancholy recluse, with triumphant prelate, with palsy-stricken poverty, with ecclesiastical magnificence, or miracle-working faith. Consider how much intellect was needed in the architect, and how much observance of nature before he could give the expression to these various figures--cast these multitudinous draperies--design these rich and quaint fragments of tombs and altars--weave with perfect animation the entangled branches of the forest. But you will answer me, all this is not architecture at all--it is sculpture. Will you then tell me precisely where the separation exists between one and the other? We will begin at the very beginning. I will show you a piece of what you will certainly admit to be a piece of pure architecture; [Footnote: See Appendix III., "Classical Architecture."] it is drawn on the back of another photograph, another of these marvellous tympana from Notre Dame, which you call, I suppose, impure. Well, look on this picture, and on this. Don't laugh; you must not laugh, that's very improper of you, this is classical architecture. I have taken it out of the essay on that subject in the "Encyclopædia Britannica." Yet I suppose none of you would think yourselves particularly ingenious architects if you had designed nothing more than this; nay, I will even let you improve it into any grand proportion you choose, and add to it as many windows as you choose; the only thing I insist upon in our specimen of pure architecture is, that there shall be no mouldings nor ornaments upon it. And I suspect you don't quite like your architecture so "pure" as this. We want a few mouldings, you will say--just a few. Those who want mouldings, hold up their hands. We are unanimous, I think. Will, you, then, design the profiles of these mouldings yourselves, or will you copy them? If you wish to copy them, and to copy them always, of course I leave you at once to your authorities, and your imaginations to their repose. But if you wish to design them yourselves, how do you do it? You draw the profile according to your taste, and you order your mason to cut it. Now, will you tell me the logical difference between drawing the profile of a moulding and giving _that_ to be cut, and drawing the folds of the drapery of a statue and giving _those_ to be cut. The last is much more difficult to do than the first; but degrees of difficulty constitute no specific difference, and you will not accept it, surely, as a definition of the difference between architecture and sculpture, that "architecture is doing anything that is easy, and sculpture anything that is difficult." It is true, also, that the carved moulding represents nothing, and the carved drapery represents something; but you will not, I should think, accept, as an explanation of the difference between architecture and sculpture, this any more than the other, that "sculpture is art which has meaning, and architecture art which has none." Where, then, is your difference? In this, perhaps, you will say; that whatever ornaments we can direct ourselves, and get accurately cut to order, we consider architectural. The ornaments that we are obliged to leave to the pleasure of the workman, or the superintendence of some other designer, we consider sculptural, especially if they are more or less extraneous and incrusted--not an essential part of the building. Accepting this definition, I am compelled to reply, that it is in effect nothing more than an amplification of my first one--that whatever is easy you call architecture, whatever is difficult you call sculpture. For you cannot suppose the arrangement of the place in which the sculpture is to be put is so difficult or so great a part of the design as the sculpture itself. For instance: you all know the pulpit of Niccolo Pisano, in the baptistry at Pisa. It is composed of seven rich _relievi_, surrounded by panel mouldings, and sustained on marble shafts. Do you suppose Niccolo Pisano's reputation--such part of it at least as rests on this pulpit (and much does)--depends on the panel mouldings, or on the relievi? The panel mouldings are by his hand; he would have disdained to leave even them to a common workman; but do you think he found any difficulty in them, or thought there was any credit in them? Having once done the sculpture, those enclosing lines were mere child's play to him; the determination of the diameter of shafts and height of capitals was an affair of minutes; his _work_ was in carving the Crucifixion and the Baptism. Or, again, do you recollect Orcagna's tabernacle in the church of San Michele, at Florence? That, also, consists of rich and multitudinous bas-reliefs, enclosed in panel mouldings, with shafts of mosaic, and foliated arches sustaining the canopy. Do you think Orcagna, any more than Pisano, if his spirit could rise in the midst of us at this moment, would tell us that he had trusted his fame to the foliation, or had put his soul's pride into the panelling? Not so; he would tell you that his spirit was in the stooping figures that stand round the couch of the dying Virgin. Or, lastly, do you think the man who designed the procession on the portal of Amiens was the subordinate workman? that there was an architect over _him_, restraining him within certain limits, and ordering of him his bishops at so much a mitre, and his cripples at so much a crutch? Not so. _Here_, on this sculptured shield, rests the Master's hand; _this_ is the centre of the Master's thought; from this, and in subordination to this, waved the arch and sprang the pinnacle. Having done this, and being able to give human expression and action to the stone, all the rest--the rib, the niche, the foil, the shaft--were mere toys to his hand and accessories to his conception: and if once you also gain the gift of doing this, if once you can carve one fronton such as you have here, I tell you, you would be able--so far as it depended on your invention--to scatter cathedrals over England as fast as clouds rise from its streams after summer rain. Nay, but perhaps you answer again, our sculptors at present do not design cathedrals, and could not. No, they could not; but that is merely because we have made architecture so dull that they cannot take any interest in it, and, therefore, do not care to add to their higher knowledge the poor and common knowledge of principles of building. You have thus separated building from sculpture, and you have taken away the power of both; for the sculptor loses nearly as much by never having room for the development of a continuous work, as you do from having reduced your work to a continuity of mechanism. You are essentially, and should always be, the same body of men, admitting only such difference in operation as there is between the work of a painter at different times, who sometimes labours on a small picture, and sometimes on the frescoes of a palace gallery. This conclusion, then, we arrive at, _must_ arrive at; the fact being irrevocably so:--that in order to give your imagination and the other powers of your souls full play, you must do as all the great architects of old time did--you must yourselves be your sculptors. Phidias, Michael Angelo, Orcagna, Pisano, Giotto,--which of these men, do you think, could not use his chisel? You say, "It is difficult; quite out of your way." I know it is; nothing that is great is easy; and nothing that is great, so long as you study building without sculpture, can be _in_ your way. I want to put it in your way, and you to find your way to it. But, on the other hand, do not shrink from the task as if the refined art of perfect sculpture were always required from you. For, though architecture and sculpture are not separate arts, there is an architectural _manner_ of sculpture; and it is, in the majority of its applications, a comparatively easy one. Our great mistake at present, in dealing with stone at all, is requiring to have all our work too refined; it is just the same mistake as if we were to require all our book illustrations to be as fine work as Raphael's. John Leech does not sketch so well as Leonardo da Vinci; but do you think that the public could easily spare him; or that he is wrong in bringing out his talent in the way in which it is most effective? Would you advise him, if he asked your advice, to give up his wood-blocks and take to canvas? I know you would not; neither would you tell him, I believe, on the other hand, that because he could not draw as well as Leonardo, therefore he ought to draw nothing but straight lines with a ruler, and circles with compasses, and no figure- subjects at all. That would be some loss to you; would it not? You would all be vexed if next week's _Punch_ had nothing in it but proportionate lines. And yet, do not you see that you are doing precisely the same thing with _your_ powers of sculptural design that he would be doing with his powers of pictorial design, if he gave you nothing but such lines. You feel that you cannot carve like Phidias; therefore you will not carve at all, but only draw mouldings; and thus all that intermediate power which is of especial value in modern days,--that popular power of expression which is within the attainment of thousands,--and would address itself to tens of thousands,--is utterly lost to us in stone, though in ink and paper it has become one of the most desired luxuries of modern civilization. Here, then, is one part of the subject to which I would especially invite your attention, namely, the distinctive character which may be wisely permitted to belong to architectural sculpture, as distinguished from perfect sculpture on one side, and from mere geometrical decoration on the other. And first, observe what an indulgence we have in the distance at which most work is to be seen. Supposing we were able to carve eyes and lips with the most exquisite precision, it would all be of no use as soon as the work was put far above the eye; but, on the other hand, as beauties disappear by being far withdrawn, so will faults; and the mystery and confusion which are the natural consequence of distance, while they would often render your best skill but vain, will as often render your worst errors of little consequence; nay, more than this, often a deep cut, or a rude angle, will produce in certain positions an effect of expression both startling and true, which you never hoped for. Not that mere distance will give animation to the work, if it has none in itself; but if it has life at all, the distance will make that life more perceptible and powerful by softening the defects of execution. So that you are placed, as workmen, in this position of singular advantage, that you may give your fancies free play, and strike hard for the expression that you want, knowing that, if you miss it, no one will detect you; if you at all touch it, nature herself will help you, and with every changing shadow and basking sunbeam bring forth new phases of your fancy. But it is not merely this privilege of being imperfect which belongs to architectural sculpture. It has a true privilege of imagination, far excelling all that can be granted to the more finished work, which, for the sake of distinction, I will call,--and I don't think we can have a much better term--"furniture sculpture;" sculpture, that is, which can be moved from place to furnish rooms. For observe, to that sculpture the spectator is usually brought in a tranquil or prosaic state of mind; he sees it associated rather with what is sumptuous than sublime, and under circumstances which address themselves more to his comfort than his curiosity. The statue which is to be pathetic, seen between the flashes of footmen's livery round the dining-table, must have strong elements of pathos in itself; and the statue which is to be awful, in the midst of the gossip of the drawing- room, must have the elements of awe wholly in itself. But the spectator is brought to _your_ work already in an excited and imaginative mood. He has been impressed by the cathedral wall as it loomed over the low streets, before he looks up to the carving of its porch--and his love of mystery has been touched by the silence and the shadows of the cloister, before he can set himself to decipher the bosses on its vaulting. So that when once he begins to observe your doings, he will ask nothing better from you, nothing kinder from you, than that you would meet this imaginative temper of his half way;--that you would farther touch the sense of terror, or satisfy the expectation of things strange, which have been prompted by the mystery or the majesty of the surrounding scene. And thus, your leaving forms more or less undefined, or carrying out your fancies, however extravagant, in grotesqueness of shadow or shape, will be for the most part in accordance with the temper of the observer; and he is likely, therefore, much more willingly to use his fancy to help your meanings, than his judgment to detect your faults. Again. Remember that when the imagination and feelings are strongly excited, they will not only bear with strange things, but they will _look_ into _minute_ things with a delight quite unknown in hours of tranquillity. You surely must remember moments of your lives in which, under some strong excitement of feeling, all the details of visible objects presented themselves with a strange intensity and insistance, whether you would or no; urging themselves upon the mind, and thrust upon the eye, with a force of fascination which you could not refuse. Now, to a certain extent, the senses get into this state whenever the imagination is strongly excited. Things trivial at other times assume a dignity or significance which we cannot explain; but which is only the more attractive because inexplicable: and the powers of attention, quickened by the feverish excitement, fasten and feed upon the minutest circumstances of detail, and remotest traces of intention. So that what would at other times be felt as more or less mean or extraneous in a work of sculpture, and which would assuredly be offensive to the perfect taste in its moments of languor, or of critical judgment, will be grateful, and even sublime, when it meets this frightened inquisitiveness, this fascinated watchfulness, of the roused imagination. And this is all for your advantage; for, in the beginnings of your sculpture, you will assuredly find it easier to imitate minute circumstances of costume or character, than to perfect the anatomy of simple forms or the flow of noble masses; and it will be encouraging to remember that the grace you cannot perfect, and the simplicity you cannot achieve, would be in great part vain, even if you could achieve them, in their appeal to the hasty curiosity of passionate fancy; but that the sympathy which would be refused to your science will be granted to your innocence: and that the mind of the general observer, though wholly unaffected by the correctness of anatomy or propriety of gesture, will follow you with fond and pleased concurrence, as you carve the knots of the hair, and the patterns of the vesture. Farther yet. We are to remember that not only do the associated features of the larger architecture tend to excite the strength of fancy, but the architectural laws to which you are obliged to submit your decoration stimulate its _ingenuity_. Every crocket which you are to crest with sculpture,--every foliation which you have to fill, presents itself to the spectator's fancy, not only as a pretty thing, but as a _problematic_ thing. It contained, he perceives immediately, not only a beauty which you wished to display, but a necessity which you were forced to meet; and the problem, how to occupy such and such a space with organic form in any probable way, or how to turn such a boss or ridge into a conceivable image of life, becomes at once, to him as to you, a matter of amusement as much as of admiration. The ordinary conditions of perfection in form, gesture, or feature, are willingly dispensed with, when the ugly dwarf and ungainly goblin have only to gather themselves into angles, or crouch to carry corbels; and the want of skill which, in other kinds of work would have been required for the finishing of the parts, will at once be forgiven here, if you have only disposed ingeniously what you have executed roughly, and atoned for the rudeness of your hands by the quickness of your wits. Hitherto, however, we have been considering only the circumstances in architecture favourable to the development of the _powers_ of imagination. A yet more important point for us seems, to me, the place which it gives to all the _objects_ of imagination. For, I suppose, you will not wish me to spend any time in proving, that imagination must be vigorous in proportion to the quantity of material which it has to handle; and that, just as we increase the range of what we see, we increase the richness of what we can imagine. Granting this, consider what a field is opened to your fancy merely in the subject matter which architecture admits. Nearly every other art is severely limited in its subjects--the landscape painter, for instance, gets little help from the aspects of beautiful humanity; the historical painter, less, perhaps, than he ought, from the accidents of wild nature; and the pure sculptor, still less, from the minor details of common life. But is there anything within range of sight, or conception, which may not be of use to _you_, or in which your interest may not be excited with advantage to your art? From visions of angels, down to the least important gesture of a child at play, whatever may be conceived of Divine, or beheld of Human, may be dared or adopted by you: throughout the kingdom of animal life, no creature is so vast, or so minute, that you cannot deal with it, or bring it into service; the lion and the crocodile will couch about your shafts; the moth and the bee will sun themselves upon your flowers; for you, the fawn will leap; for you, the snail be slow; for you, the dove smooth her bosom; and the hawk spread her wings toward the south. All the wide world of vegetation blooms and bends for you; the leaves tremble that you may bid them be still under the marble snow; the thorn and the thistle, which the earth casts forth as evil, are to you the kindliest servants; no dying petal, nor drooping tendril, is so feeble as to have no more help for you; no robed pride of blossom so kingly, but it will lay aside its purple to receive at your hands the pale immortality. Is there anything in common life too mean,--in common too trivial,--to be ennobled by your touch? As there is nothing in life, so there is nothing in lifelessness which has not its lesson for you, or its gift; and when you are tired of watching the strength of the plume, and the tenderness of the leaf, you may walk down to your rough river shore, or into the thickest markets of your thoroughfares, and there is not a piece of torn cable that will not twine into a perfect moulding; there is not a fragment of cast-away matting, or shattered basket-work, that will not work into a chequer or capital. Yes: and if you gather up the very sand, and break the stone on which you tread, among its fragments of all but invisible shells you will find forms that will take their place, and that proudly, among the starred traceries of your vaulting; and you, who can crown the mountain with its fortress, and the city with its towers, are thus able also to give beauty to ashes, and worthiness to dust. Now, in that your art presents all this material to you, you have already much to rejoice in. But you have more to rejoice in, because all this is submitted to you, not to be dissected or analyzed, but to be sympathized with, and to bring out, therefore, what may be accurately called the moral part of imagination. We saw that, if we kept ourselves among lines only, we should have cause to envy the naturalist, because he was conversant with facts; but you will have little to envy now, if you make yourselves conversant with the feelings that arise out of his facts. For instance, the naturalist coming upon a block of marble, has to begin considering immediately how far its purple is owing to iron, or its whiteness to magnesia; he breaks his piece of marble, and at the close of his day, has nothing but a little sand in his crucible and some data added to the theory of the elements. But _you_ approach your marble to sympathize with it, and rejoice over its beauty. You cut it a little indeed; but only to bring out its veins more perfectly; and at the end of your day's work you leave your marble shaft with joy and complacency in its perfectness, as marble. When you have to watch an animal instead of a stone, you differ from the naturalist in the same way. He may, perhaps, if he be an amiable naturalist, take delight in having living creatures round him;--still, the major part of his work is, or has been, in counting feathers, separating fibres, and analyzing structures. But _your_ work is always with the living creature; the thing you have to get at in him is his life, and ways of going about things. It does not matter to you how many cells there are in his bones, or how many filaments in his feathers; what you want is his moral character and way of behaving himself; it is just that which your imagination, if healthy, will first seize--just that which your chisel, if vigorous, will first cut. You must get the storm spirit into your eagles, and the lordliness into your lions, and the tripping fear into your fawns; and in order to do this, you must be in continual sympathy with every fawn of them; and be hand-in-glove with all the lions, and hand-in-claw with all the hawks. And don't fancy that you will lower yourselves by sympathy with the lower creatures; you cannot sympathize rightly with the higher, unless you do with those: but you have to sympathize with the higher, too-- with queens, and kings, and martyrs, and angels. Yes, and above all, and more than all, with simple humanity in all its needs and ways, for there is not one hurried face that passes you in the street that will not be impressive, if you can only fathom it. All history is open to you, all high thoughts and dreams that the past fortunes of men can suggest, all fairy land is open to you--no vision that ever haunted forest, or gleamed over hill-side, but calls you to understand how it came into men's hearts, and may still touch them; and all Paradise is open to you--yes, and the work of Paradise; for in bringing all this, in perpetual and attractive truth, before the eyes of your fellow-men, you have to join in the employment of the angels, as well as to imagine their companies. And observe, in this last respect, what a peculiar importance, and responsibility, are attached to your work, when you consider its permanence, and the multitudes to whom it is addressed. We frequently are led, by wise people, to consider what responsibility may sometimes attach to words, which yet, the chance is, will be heard by few, and forgotten as soon as heard. But none of _your_ words will be heard by few, and none will be forgotten, for five or six hundred years, if you build well. You will talk to all who pass by; and all those little sympathies, those freaks of fancy, those jests in stone, those workings-out of problems in caprice, will occupy mind after mind of utterly countless multitudes, long after you are gone. You have not, like authors, to plead for a hearing, or to fear oblivion. Do but build large enough, and carve boldly enough, and all the world will hear you; they cannot choose but look. I do not mean to awe you by this thought; I do not mean that because you will have so many witnesses and watchers, you are never to jest, or do anything gaily or lightly; on the contrary, I have pleaded, from the beginning, for this art of yours, especially because it has room for the whole of your character--if jest is in you, let the jest be jested; if mathematical ingenuity is yours, let your problem be put, and your solution worked out, as quaintly as you choose; above all, see that your work is easily and happily done, else it will never make anybody else happy; but while you thus give the rein to all your impulses, see that those impulses be headed and centred by one noble impulse; and let that be Love--triple love--for the art which you practise, the creation in which you move, and the creatures to whom you minister. I. I say, first, Love for the art which you practise. Be assured that if ever any other motive becomes a leading one in your mind, as the principal one for exertion, except your love of art, that moment it is all over with your art. I do not say you are to desire money, nor to desire fame, nor to desire position; you cannot but desire all three; nay, you may--if you are willing that I should use the word Love in a desecrated sense--love all three; that is, passionately covet them, yet you must not covet or love them in the first place. Men of strong passions and imaginations must always care a great deal for anything they care for at all; but the whole question is one of first or second. Does your art lead you, or your gain lead you? You may like making money exceedingly; but if it come to a fair question, whether you are to make five hundred pounds less by this business, or to spoil your building, and you choose to spoil your building, there's an end of you. So you may be as thirsty for fame as a cricket is for cream; but, if it come to a fair question, whether you are to please the mob, or do the thing as you know it ought to be done; and you can't do both, and choose to please the mob, it's all over with you--there's no hope for you; nothing that you can do will ever be worth a man's glance as he passes by. The test is absolute, inevitable--Is your art first with you? Then you are artists; you may be, after you have made your money, misers and usurers; you may be, after you have got your fame, jealous, and proud, and wretched, and base: but yet, _as long as you won't spoil your work_, you are artists. On the other hand--Is your money first with you, and your fame first with you? Then, you may be very charitable with your money, and very magnificent with your money, and very graceful in the way you wear your reputation, and very courteous to those beneath you, and very acceptable to those above you; but you are _not artists_. You are mechanics, and drudges. II. You must love the creation you work in the midst of. For, wholly in proportion to the intensity of feeling which you bring to the subject you have chosen, will be the depth and justice of our perception of its character. And this depth of feeling is not to be gained on the instant, when you want to bring it to bear on this or that. It is the result of the general habit of striving to feel rightly; and, among thousands of various means of doing this, perhaps the one I ought specially to name to you, is the keeping yourselves clear of petty and mean cares. Whatever you do, don't be anxious, nor fill your heads with little chagrins and little desires. I have just said, that you may be great artists, and yet be miserly and jealous, and troubled about many things. So you may be; but I said also that the miserliness or trouble must not be in your hearts all day. It is possible that you may get a habit of saving money; or it is possible, at a time of great trial, you may yield to the temptation of speaking unjustly of a rival,--and you will shorten your powers arid dim your sight even by this;--but the thing that you have to dread far more than any such unconscious habit, or--any such momentary fall--is the _constancy of small emotions_;--the anxiety whether Mr. So-and-so will like your work; whether such and such a workman will do all that you want of him, and so on;--not wrong feelings or anxieties in themselves, but impertinent, and wholly incompatible with the full exercise of your imagination. Keep yourselves, therefore, quiet, peaceful, with your eyes open. It doesn't matter at all what Mr. So-and-so thinks of your work; but it matters a great deal what that bird is doing up there in its nest, or how that vagabond child at the street corner is managing his game of knuckle-down. And remember, you cannot turn aside from your own interests, to the birds' and the children's interests, unless you have long before got into the habit of loving and watching birds and children; so that it all comes at last to the forgetting yourselves, and the living out of yourselves, in the calm of the great world, or if you will, in its agitation; but always in a calm of your own bringing. Do not think it wasted time to submit yourselves to any influence which may bring upon you any noble feeling. Rise early, always watch the sunrise, and the way the clouds break from the dawn; you will cast your statue-draperies in quite another than your common way, when the remembrance of that cloud motion is with you, and of the scarlet vesture of the morning. Live always in the springtime in the country; you do not know what leaf-form means, unless you have seen the buds burst, and the young leaves breathing low in the sunshine, and wondering at the first shower of rain. But above all, accustom yourselves to look for, and to love, all nobleness of gesture and feature in the human form; and remember that the highest nobleness is usually among the aged, the poor, and the infirm; you will find, in the end, that it is not the strong arm of the soldier, nor the laugh of the young beauty, that are the best studies for you. Look at them, and look at them reverently; but be assured that endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty; and that it is not in the high church pews, where the gay dresses are, but in the church free seats, where the widows' weeds are, that you may see the faces that will fit best between the angels' wings, in the church porch. III. And therefore, lastly, and chiefly, you must love the creatures to whom you minister, your fellow-men; for, if you do not love them, not only will you be little interested in the passing events of life, but in all your gazing at humanity, you will be apt to be struck only by outside form, and not by expression. It is only kindness and tenderness which will ever enable you to see what beauty there is in the dark eyes that are sunk with weeping, and in the paleness of those fixed faces which the earth's adversity has compassed about, till they shine in their patience like dying watchfires through twilight. But it is not this only which makes it needful for you, if you would be great, to be also kind; there is a most important and all-essential reason in the very nature of your own art. So soon as you desire to build largely, and with addition of noble sculpture, you will find that your work must be associative. You cannot carve a whole cathedral yourself--you can carve but few and simple parts of it. Either your own work must be disgraced in the mass of the collateral inferiority, or you must raise your fellow-designers to correspondence of power. If you have genius, you will yourselves take the lead in the building you design; you will carve its porch and direct its disposition. But for all subsequent advancement of its detail, you must trust to the agency and the invention of others; and it rests with you either to repress what faculties your workmen have, into cunning subordination to your own; or to rejoice in discovering even the powers that may rival you, and leading forth mind after mind into fellowship with your fancy, and association with your fame. I need not tell you that if you do the first--if you endeavour to depress or disguise the talents of your subordinates--you are lost; for nothing could imply more darkly and decisively than this, that your art and your work were not beloved by you; that it was your own prosperity that you were seeking, and your own skill only that you cared to contemplate. I do not say that you must not be jealous at all; it is rarely in human nature to be wholly without jealousy; and you may be forgiven for going some day sadly home, when you find some youth, unpractised and unapproved, giving the life-stroke to his work which you, after years of training, perhaps, cannot reach; but your jealousy must not conquer--your love of your building must conquer, helped by your kindness of heart. See--I set no high or difficult standard before you. I do not say that you are to surrender your pre-eminence in _mere_ unselfish generosity. But I do say that you must surrender your pre-eminence in your love of your building helped by your kindness; and that whomsoever you find better able to do what will adorn it than you,--that person you are to give place to; and to console yourselves for the humiliation, first, by your joy in seeing the edifice grow more beautiful under his chisel, and secondly, by your sense of having done kindly and justly. But if you are morally strong enough to make the kindness and justice the first motive, it will be better;--best of all, if you do not consider it as kindness at all, but bare and stern justice; for, truly, such help as we can give each other in this world is a _debt_ to each other; and the man who perceives a superiority or a capacity in a subordinate, and neither confesses, nor assists it, is not merely the withholder of kindness, but the committer of injury. But be the motive what you will, only see that you do the thing; and take the joy of the consciousness that, as your art embraces a wider field than all others--and addresses a vaster multitude than all others--and is surer of audience than all others--so it is profounder and holier in Fellowship than all others. The artist, when his pupil is perfect, must see him leave his side that he may declare his distinct, perhaps opponent, skill. Man of science wrestles with man of science for priority of discovery, and pursues in pangs of jealous haste his solitary inquiry. You alone are called by kindness,-- by necessity,--by equity, to fraternity of toil; and thus, in those misty and massive piles which rise above the domestic roofs of our ancient cities, there was--there may be again--a meaning more profound and true than any that fancy so commonly has attached to them. Men say their pinnacles point to heaven. Why, so does every tree that buds, and every bird that rises as it sings. Men say their aisles are good for worship. Why, so is every mountain glen, and rough sea-shore. But this they have of distinct and indisputable glory,--that their mighty walls were never raised, and never shall be, but by men who love and aid each other in their weakness;--that all their interlacing strength of vaulted stone has its foundation upon the stronger arches of manly fellowship, and all their changing grace of depressed or lifted pinnacle owes its cadence and completeness to sweeter symmetries of human soul. LECTURE V. THE WORK OP IRON, IN NATURE, ART, AND POLICY. _A Lecture Delivered at Tunbridge Wells, February, 1858._ When first I heard that you wished me to address you this evening, it was a matter of some doubt with me whether I could find any subject that would possess any sufficient interest for you to justify my bringing you out of your comfortable houses on a winter's night. When I venture to speak about my own special business of art, it is almost always before students of art, among whom I may sometimes permit myself to be dull, if I can feel that I am useful: but a mere talk about art, especially without examples to refer to (and I have been unable to prepare any careful illustrations for this lecture), is seldom of much interest to a general audience. As I was considering what you might best bear with me in speaking about, there came naturally into my mind a subject connected with the origin and present prosperity of the town you live in; and, it seemed to me, in the out-branchings of it, capable of a very general interest. When, long ago (I am afraid to think how long), Tunbridge Wells was my Switzerland, and I used to be brought down here in the summer, a sufficiently active child, rejoicing in the hope of clambering sandstone cliffs of stupendous height above the common, there used sometimes, as, I suppose, there are in the lives of all children at the Wells, to be dark days in my life--days of condemnation to the pantiles and band--under which calamities my only consolation used to be in watching, at every turn in my walk, the welling forth of the spring over the orange rim of its marble basin. The memory of the clear water, sparkling over its saffron stain, came back to me as the strongest image connected with the place; and it struck me that you might not be unwilling, to-night, to think a little over the full significance of that saffron stain, and of the power, in other ways and other functions, of the steelly element to which so many here owe returning strength and life;--chief as it has been always, and is yet more and more markedly so day by day, among the precious gifts of the earth. The subject is, of course, too wide to be more than suggestively treated; and even my suggestions must be few, and drawn chiefly from my own fields of work; nevertheless, I think I shall have time to indicate some courses of thought which you may afterwards follow out for yourselves if they interest you; and so I will not shrink from the full scope of the subject which I have announced to you--the functions of Iron, in Nature, Art, and Policy. Without more preface, I will take up the first head. I. IRON IN NATURE.--You all probably know that the ochreous stain, which, perhaps, is often thought to spoil the basin of your spring, is iron in a state of rust: and when you see rusty iron in other places you generally think, not only that it spoils the places it stains, but that it is spoiled itself--that rusty iron is spoiled iron. For most of our uses it generally is so; and because we cannot use a rusty knife or razor so well as a polished one, we suppose it to be a great defect in iron that it is subject to rust. But not at all. On the contrary, the most perfect and useful state of it is that ochreous stain; and therefore it is endowed with so ready a disposition to get itself into that state. It is not a fault in the iron, but a virtue, to be so fond of getting rusted, for in that condition it fulfils its most important functions in the universe, and most kindly duties to mankind. Nay, in a certain sense, and almost a literal one, we may say that iron rusted is Living; but when pure or polished, Dead. You all probably know that in the mixed air we breathe, the part of it essentially needful to us is called oxygen; and that this substance is to all animals, in the most accurate sense of the word, "breath of life." The nervous power of life is a different thing; but the supporting element of the breath, without which the blood, and therefore the life, cannot be nourished, is this oxygen. Now it is this very same air which the iron breathes when it gets rusty. It takes the oxygen from the atmosphere as eagerly as we do, though it uses it differently. The iron keeps all that it gets; we, and other animals, part with it again; but the metal absolutely keeps what it has once received of this aerial gift; and the ochreous dust which we so much despise is, in fact, just so much nobler than pure iron, in so far as it is _iron and the air._ Nobler, and more useful--for, indeed, as I shall be able to show you presently--the main service of this metal, and of all other metals, to us, is not in making knives, and scissors, and pokers, and pans, but in making the ground we feed from, and nearly all the substances first needful to our existence. For these are all nothing but metals and oxygen--metals with breath put into them. Sand, lime, clay, and the rest of the earths--potash and soda, and the rest of the alkalies--are all of them metals which have undergone this, so to speak, vital change, and have been rendered fit for the service of man by permanent unity with the purest air which he himself breathes. There is only one metal which does not rust readily; and that, in its influence on Man hitherto, has caused Death rather than Life; it will not be put to its right use till it is made a pavement of, and so trodden under foot. Is there not something striking in this fact, considered largely as one of the types, or lessons, furnished by the inanimate creation? Here you have your hard, bright, cold, lifeless metal--good enough for swords and scissors--but not for food. You think, perhaps, that your iron is wonderfully useful in a pure form, but how would you like the world, if all your meadows, instead of grass, grew nothing but iron wire--if all your arable ground, instead of being made of sand and clay, were suddenly turned into flat surfaces of steel--if the whole earth, instead of its green and glowing sphere, rich with forest and flower, showed nothing but the image of the vast furnace of a ghastly engine--a globe of black, lifeless, excoriated metal? It would be that,--probably it was once that; but assuredly it would be, were it not that all the substance of which it is made sucks and breathes the brilliancy of the atmosphere; and as it breathes, softening from its merciless hardness, it falls into fruitful and beneficent dust; gathering itself again into the earths from which we feed, and the stones with which we build;-- into the rocks that frame the mountains, and the sands that bind the sea. Hence, it is impossible for you to take up the most insignificant pebble at your feet, without being able to read, if you like, this curious lesson in it. You look upon it at first as if it were earth only. Nay, it answers, "I am not earth--I am earth and air in one; part of that blue heaven which you love, and long for, is already in me; it is all my life--without it I should be nothing, and able for nothing; I could not minister to you, nor nourish you--I should be a cruel and helpless thing; but, because there is, according to my need and place in creation, a kind of soul in me, I have become capable of good, and helpful in the circles of vitality." Thus far the same interest attaches to all the earths, and all the metals of which they are made; but a deeper interest, and larger beneficence belong to that ochreous earth of iron which stains the marble of your springs. It stains much besides that marble. It stains the great earth wheresoever you can see it, far and wide--it is the colouring substance appointed to colour the globe for the sight, as well as subdue it to the service of man. You have just seen your hills covered with snow, and, perhaps, have enjoyed, at first, the contrast of their fair white with the dark blocks of pine woods; but have you ever considered how you would like them always white--not pure white, but dirty white--the white of thaw, with all the chill of snow in it, but none of its brightness? That is what the colour of the earth would be without its iron; that would be its colour, not here or there only, but in all places, and at all times. Follow out that idea till you get it in some detail. Think first of your pretty gravel walks in your gardens, yellow and fine, like plots of sunshine between the flower- beds; fancy them all suddenly turned to the colour of ashes. That is what they would be without iron ochre. Think of your winding walks over the common, as warm to the eye as they are dry to the foot, and imagine them all laid down suddenly with gray cinders. Then pass beyond the common into the country, and pause at the first ploughed field that you see sweeping up the hill sides in the sun, with its deep brown furrows, and wealth of ridges all a-glow, heaved aside by the ploughshare, like deep folds of a mantle of russet velvet--fancy it all changed suddenly into grisly furrows in a field of mud. That is what it would be without iron. Pass on, in fancy, over hill and dale, till you reach the bending line of the sea shore; go down upon its breezy beach--watch the white foam flashing among the amber of it, and all the blue sea embayed in belts of gold: then fancy those circlets of far sweeping shore suddenly put into mounds of mourning--all those golden sands turned into gray slime, the fairies no more able to call to each other, "Come unto these yellow sands;" but, "Come unto these drab sands." That is what they would be, without iron. Iron is in some sort, therefore, the sunshine and light of landscape, so far as that light depends on the ground; but it is a source of another kind of sunshine, quite as important to us in the way we live at present--sunshine, not of landscape, but of dwelling-place. In these days of swift locomotion I may doubtless assume that most of my audience have been somewhere out of England--have been in Scotland, or France, or Switzerland. Whatever may have been their impression, on returning to their own country, of its superiority or inferiority in other respects, they cannot but have felt one thing about it--the comfortable look of its towns and villages. Foreign towns are often very picturesque, very beautiful, but they never have quite that look of warm self-sufficiency and wholesome quiet, with which our villages nestle themselves down among the green fields. If you will take the trouble to examine into the sources of this impression, you will find that by far the greater part of that warm and satisfactory appearance depends upon the rich scarlet colour of the bricks and tiles. It does not belong to the neat building--very neat building has an uncomfortable rather than a comfortable look--but it depends on the _warm_ building; our villages are dressed in red tiles as our old women are in red cloaks; and it does not matter how worn the cloaks, or how bent and bowed the roof may be, so long as there are no holes in either one or the other, and the sobered but unextinguishable colour still glows in the shadow of the hood, and burns among the green mosses of the gable. And what do you suppose dyes your tiles of cottage roof? You don't paint them. It is nature who puts all that lovely vermilion into the clay for you; and all that lovely vermilion is this oxide of iron. Think, therefore, what your streets of towns would become--ugly enough, indeed, already, some of them, but still comfortable-looking-- if instead of that warm brick red, the houses became all pepper-and- salt colour. Fancy your country villages changing from that homely scarlet of theirs which, in its sweet suggestion of laborious peace, is as honourable as the soldiers' scarlet of laborious battle--suppose all those cottage roofs, I say, turned at once into the colour of unbaked clay, the colour of street gutters in rainy weather. That's what they would be, without iron. There is, however, yet another effect of colour in our English country towns which, perhaps, you may not all yourselves have noticed, but for which you must take the word of a sketcher. They are not so often merely warm scarlet as they are warm purple;--a more beautiful colour still: and they owe this colour to a mingling with the vermilion of the deep grayish or purple hue of our fine Welsh slates on the more respectable roofs, made more blue still by the colour of intervening atmosphere. If you examine one of these Welsh slates freshly broken, you will find its purple colour clear and vivid; and although never strikingly so after it has been long exposed to weather, it always retains enough of the tint to give rich harmonies of distant purple in opposition to the green of our woods and fields. Whatever brightness or power there is in the hue is entirely owing to the oxide of iron. Without it the slates would either be pale stone colour, or cold gray, or black. Thus far we have only been considering the use and pleasantness of iron in the common earth of clay. But there are three kinds of earth which in mixed mass and prevalent quantity, form the world. Those are, in common language, the earths of clay, of lime, and of flint. Many other elements are mingled with these in sparing quantities; but the great frame and substance of the earth is made of these three, so that wherever you stand on solid ground, in any country of the globe, the thing that is mainly under your feet will be either clay, limestone, or some condition of the earth of flint, mingled with both. These being what we have usually to deal with, Nature seems to have set herself to make these three substances as interesting to us, and as beautiful for us, as she can. The clay, being a soft and changeable substance, she doesn't take much pains about, as we have seen, till it is baked; she brings the colour into it only when it receives a permanent form. But the limestone and flint she paints, in her own way, in their native state: and her object in painting them seems to be much the same as in her painting of flowers; to draw us, careless and idle human creatures, to watch her a little, and see what she is about--that being on the whole good for us,--her children. For Nature is always carrying on very strange work with this limestone and flint of hers: laying down beds of them at the bottom of the sea; building islands out of the sea; filling chinks and veins in mountains with curious treasures; petrifying mosses, and trees, and shells; in fact, carrying on all sorts of business, subterranean or submarine, which it would be highly desirable for us, who profit and live by it, to notice as it goes on. And apparently to lead us to do this, she makes picture-books for us of limestone and flint; and tempts us, like foolish children as we are, to read her books by the pretty colours in them. The pretty colours in her limestone-books form those variegated marbles which all mankind have taken delight to polish and build with from the beginning of time; and the pretty colours in her flint-books form those agates, jaspers, cornelians, bloodstones, onyxes, cairngorms, chrysoprases, which men have in like manner taken delight to cut, and polish, and make ornaments of, from the beginning of time; and yet, so much of babies are they, and so fond of looking at the pictures instead of reading the book, that I question whether, after six thousand years of cutting and polishing, there are above two or three people out of any given hundred, who know, or care to know, how a bit of agate or a bit of marble was made, or painted. How it was made, may not be always very easy to say; but with what it was painted there is no manner of question. All those beautiful violet veinings and variegations of the marbles of Sicily and Spain, the glowing orange and amber colours of those of Siena, the deep russet of the Rosso antico, and the blood-colour of all the precious jaspers that enrich the temples of Italy; and, finally, all the lovely transitions of tint in the pebbles of Scotland and the Rhine, which form, though not the most precious, by far the most interesting portion of our modern jewellers' work;--all these are painted by nature with this one material only, variously proportioned and applied--the oxide of iron that stains your Tunbridge springs. But this is not all, nor the best part of the work of iron. Its service in producing these beautiful stones is only rendered to rich people, who can afford to quarry and polish them. But Nature paints for all the world, poor and rich together: and while, therefore, she thus adorns the innermost rocks of her hills, to tempt your investigation, or indulge your luxury,--she paints, far more carefully, the outsides of the hills, which are for the eyes of the shepherd and the ploughman. I spoke just now of the effect in the roofs of our villages of their purple slates: but if the slates are beautiful even in their flat and formal rows on house-roofs, much more are they beautiful on the rugged crests and flanks of their native mountains. Have you ever considered, in speaking as we do so often of distant blue hills, what it is that makes them blue? To a certain extent it is distance; but distance alone will not do it. Many hills look white, however distant. That lovely dark purple colour of our Welsh and Highland hills is owing, not to their distance merely, but to their rocks. Some of their rocks are, indeed, too dark to be beautiful, being black or ashy gray; owing to imperfect and porous structure. But when you see this dark colour dashed with russet and blue, and coming out in masses among the green ferns, so purple that you can hardly tell at first whether it is rock or heather, then you must thank your old Tunbridge friend, the oxide of iron. But this is not all. It is necessary for the beauty of hill scenery that Nature should colour not only her soft rocks, but her hard ones; and she colours them with the same thing, only more beautifully. Perhaps you have wondered at my use of the word "purple," so often of stones; but the Greeks, and still more the Romans, who had profound respect for purple, used it of stone long ago. You have all heard of "porphyry" as among the most precious of the harder massive stones. The colour which gave it that noble name, as well as that which gives the flush to all the rosy granite of Egypt--yes, and to the rosiest summits of the Alps themselves--is still owing to the same substance--your humble oxide of iron. And last of all: A nobler colour than all these--the noblest colour ever seen on this earth--one which belongs to a strength greater than that of the Egyptian granite, and to a beauty greater than that of the sunset or the rose--is still mysteriously connected with the presence of this dark iron. I believe it is not ascertained on what the crimson of blood actually depends; but the colour is connected, of course, with its vitality, and that vitality with the existence of iron as one of its substantial elements. Is it not strange to find this stern and strong metal mingled so delicately in our human life, that we cannot even blush without its help? Think of it, my fair and gentle hearers; how terrible the alternative--sometimes you have actually no choice but to be brazen- faced, or iron-faced! In this slight review of some of the functions of the metal, you observe that I confine myself strictly to its operations as a colouring element. I should only confuse your conception of the facts, if I endeavoured to describe its uses as a substantial element, either in strengthening rocks, or influencing vegetation by the decomposition of rocks. I have not, therefore, even glanced at any of the more serious uses of the metal in the economy of nature. But what I wish you to carry clearly away with you is the remembrance that in all these uses the metal would be nothing without the air. The pure metal has no power, and never occurs in nature at all except in meteoric stones, whose fall no one can account for, and which are useless after they have fallen: in the necessary work of the world, the iron is invariably joined with the oxygen, and would be capable of no service or beauty whatever without it. II. IRON IN ART.--Passing, then, from the offices of the metal in the operations of nature to its uses in the hands of man, you must remember, in the outset, that the type which has been thus given you, by the lifeless metal, of the action of body and soul together, has noble antitype in the operation of all human power. All art worthy the name is the energy--neither of the human body alone, nor of the human soul alone, but of both united, one guiding the other: good craftsmanship and work of the fingers, joined with good emotion and work of the heart. There is no good art, nor possible judgment of art, when these two are not united; yet we are constantly trying to separate them. Our amateurs cannot be persuaded but that they may produce some kind of art by their fancy or sensibility, without going through the necessary manual toil. That is entirely hopeless. Without a certain number, and that a very great number, of steady acts of hand--a practice as careful and constant as would be necessary to learn any other manual business--no drawing is possible. On the other side, the workman, and those who employ him, are continually trying to produce art by trick or habit of fingers, without using their fancy or sensibility. That also is hopeless. Without mingling of heart-passion with hand-power, no art is possible. [Footnote: No fine art, that is. See the previous definition of fine art at p. 38.] The highest art unites both in their intensest degrees: the action of the hand at its finest, with that of the heart at its fullest. Hence it follows that the utmost power of art can only be given in a material capable of receiving and retaining the influence of the subtlest touch of the human hand. That hand is the most perfect agent of material power existing in the universe; and its full subtlety can only be shown when the material it works on, or with, is entirely yielding. The chords of a perfect instrument will receive it, but not of an imperfect one; the softly bending point of the hair pencil, and soft melting of colour, will receive it, but not even the chalk or pen point, still less the steel point, chisel, or marble. The hand of a sculptor may, indeed, be as subtle as that of a painter, but all its subtlety is not bestowable nor expressible: the touch of Titian, Correggio, or Turner, [Footnote: See Appendix IV., "Subtlety of Hand."] is a far more marvellous piece of nervous action than can be shown in anything but colour, or in the very highest conditions of executive expression in music. In proportion as the material worked upon is less delicate, the execution necessarily becomes lower, and the art with it. This is one main principle of all work. Another is, that whatever the material you choose to work with, your art is base if it does not bring out the distinctive qualities of that material. The reason of this second law is, that if you don't want the qualities of the substance you use, you ought to use some other substance: it can be only affectation, and desire to display your skill, that lead you to employ a refractory substance, and therefore your art will all be base. Glass, for instance, is eminently, in its nature, transparent. If you don't want transparency, let the glass alone. Do not try to make a window look like an opaque picture, but take an opaque ground to begin with. Again, marble is eminently a solid and massive substance. Unless you want mass and solidity, don't work in marble. If you wish for lightness, take wood; if for freedom, take stucco; if for ductility, take glass. Don't try to carve leathers, or trees, or nets, or foam, out of marble. Carve white limbs and broad breasts only out of that. So again, iron is eminently a ductile and tenacious substance-- tenacious above all things, ductile more than most. When you want tenacity, therefore, and involved form, take iron. It is eminently made for that. It is the material given to the sculptor as the companion of marble, with a message, as plain as it can well be spoken, from the lips of the earth-mother, "Here's for you to cut, and here's for you to hammer. Shape this, and twist that. What is solid and simple, carve out; what is thin and entangled, beat out. I give you all kinds of forms to be delighted in;--fluttering leaves as well as fair bodies; twisted branches as well as open brows. The leaf and the branch you may beat and drag into their imagery: the body and brow you shall reverently touch into their imagery. And if you choose rightly and work rightly, what you do shall be safe afterwards. Your slender leaves shall not break off in my tenacious iron, though they may be rusted a little with an iron autumn. Your broad surfaces shall not be unsmoothed in my pure crystalline marble--no decay shall touch them. But if you carve in the marble what will break with a touch, or mould in the metal what a stain of rust or verdigris will spoil, it is your fault--not mine." These are the main principles in this matter; which, like nearly all other right principles in art, we moderns delight in contradicting as directly and specially as may be. We continually look for, and praise, in our exhibitions the sculpture of veils, and lace, and thin leaves, and all kinds of impossible things pushed as far as possible in the fragile stone, for the sake of showing the sculptor's dexterity. [Footnote: I do not mean to attach any degree of blame to the effort to represent leafage in marble for certain expressive purposes. The later works of Mr. Munro have depended for some of their most tender thoughts on a delicate and skilful use of such accessories. And in general, leaf sculpture is good and admirable, if it renders, as in Gothic work, the grace and lightness of the leaf by the arrangement of light and shadow --supporting the masses well by strength of stone below; but all carving is base which proposes to itself _slightness_ as an aim, and tries to imitate the absolute thinness of thin or slight things, as much modern wood carving does, I saw in Italy, a year or two ago, a marble sculpture of birds' nests.] On the other hand, we _cast_ our iron into bars--brittle, though an inch thick--sharpen them at the ends, and consider fences, and other work, made of such materials, decorative! I do not believe it would be easy to calculate the amount of mischief done to our taste in England by that fence iron-work of ours alone. If it were asked of us by a single characteristic, to distinguish the dwellings of a country into two broad sections; and to set, on one side, the places where people were, for the most part, simple, happy, benevolent, and honest; and, on the other side, the places where at least a great number of the people were sophisticated, unkind, uncomfortable, and unprincipled, there is, I think, one feature that you could fix upon as a positive test: the uncomfortable and unprincipled parts of a country would be the parts where people lived among iron railings, and the comfortable and principled parts where they had none. A broad generalization, you will say! Perhaps a little too broad; yet, in all sobriety, it will come truer than you think. Consider every other kind of fence or defence, and you will find some virtue in it; but in the iron railing none. There is, first, your castle rampart of stone--somewhat too grand to be considered here among our types of fencing; next, your garden or park wall of brick, which has indeed often an unkind look on the outside, but there is more modesty in it than unkindness. It generally means, not that the builder of it wants to shut you out from the view of his garden, but from the view of himself: it is a frank statement that as he needs a certain portion of time to himself, so he needs a certain portion of ground to himself, and must not be stared at when he digs there in his shirt- sleeves, or plays at leapfrog with his boys from school, or talks over old times with his wife, walking up and down in the evening sunshine. Besides, the brick wall has good practical service in it, and shelters you from the east wind, and ripens your peaches and nectarines, and glows in autumn like a sunny bank. And, moreover, your brick wall, if you build it properly, so that it shall stand long enough, is a beautiful thing when it is old, and has assumed its grave purple red, touched with mossy green. Next to your lordly wall, in dignity of enclosure, comes your close-set wooden paling, which is more objectionable, because it commonly means enclosure on a larger scale than people want. Still it is significative of pleasant parks, and well-kept field walks, and herds of deer, and other such aristocratic pastoralisms, which have here and there their proper place in a country, and may be passed without any discredit. Next to your paling, comes your low stone dyke, your mountain fence, indicative at a glance either of wild hill country, or of beds of stone beneath the soil; the hedge of the mountains--delightful in all its associations, and yet more in the varied and craggy forms of the loose stones it is built of; and next to the low stone wall, your lowland hedge, either in trim line of massive green, suggested of the pleasances of old Elizabethan houses, and smooth alleys for aged feet, and quaint labyrinths for young ones, or else in fair entanglement of eglantine and virgin's bower, tossing its scented luxuriance along our country waysides;--how many such you have here among your pretty hills, fruitful with black clusters of the bramble for boys in autumn, and crimson hawthorn berries for birds in winter. And then last, and most difficult to class among fences, comes your handrail, expressive of all sorts of things; sometimes having a knowing and vicious look, which it learns at race-courses; sometimes an innocent and tender look, which it learns at rustic bridges over cressy brooks; and sometimes a prudent and protective look, which it learns on passes of the Alps, where it has posts of granite and bars of pine, and guards the brows of cliffs and the banks of torrents. So that in all these kinds of defence there is some good, pleasant, or noble meaning. But what meaning has the iron railing? Either, observe, that you are living in the midst of such bad characters that you must keep them out by main force of bar, or that you are yourself of a character requiring to be kept inside in the same manner. Your iron railing always means thieves outside, or Bedlam inside; it _can_ mean nothing else than that. If the people outside were good for anything, a hint in the way of fence would be enough for them; but because they are violent and at enmity with you, you are forced to put the close bars and the spikes at the top. Last summer I was lodging for a little while in a cottage in the country, and in front of my low window there were, first some beds of daisies, then a row of gooseberry and currant bushes, and then a low wall about three feet above the ground, covered with stone-cress. Outside, a corn-field, with its green ears glistening in the sun, and a field path through it, just past the garden gate. From my window I could see every peasant of the village who passed that way, with basket on arm for market, or spade on shoulder for field. When I was inclined for society, I could lean over my wall, and talk to anybody; when I was inclined for science, I could botanize all along the top of my wall-- there were four species of stone-cress alone growing on it; and when I was inclined for exercise, I could jump over my wall, backwards and forwards. That's the sort of fence to have in a Christian country; not a thing which you can't walk inside of without making yourself look like a wild beast, nor look at out of your window in the morning without expecting to see somebody impaled upon it in the night. And yet farther, observe that the iron railing is a useless fence--it can shelter nothing, and support nothing; you can't nail your peaches to it, nor protect your flowers with it, nor make anything whatever out of its costly tyranny; and besides being useless, it is an insolent fence;--it says plainly to everybody who passes--"You may be an honest person,--but, also, you may be a thief: honest or not, you shall not get in here, for I am a respectable person, and much above you; you shall only see what a grand place I have got to keep you out of--look here, and depart in humiliation." This, however, being in the present state of civilization a frequent manner of discourse, and there being unfortunately many districts where the iron railing is unavoidable, it yet remains a question whether you need absolutely make it ugly, no less than significative of evil. You must have railings round your squares in London, and at the sides of your areas; but need you therefore have railings so ugly that the constant sight of them is enough to neutralise the effect of all the schools of art in the kingdom? You need not. Far from such necessity, it is even in your power to turn all your police force of iron bars actually into drawing masters, and natural historians. Not, of course, without some trouble and some expense; you can do nothing much worth doing, in this world, without trouble, you can get nothing much worth having without expense. The main question is only--what is worth doing and having:--Consider, therefore, if this be not. Here is your iron railing, as yet, an uneducated monster; a sombre seneschal, incapable of any words, except his perpetual "Keep out!" and "Away with you!" Would it not be worth some trouble and cost to turn this ungainly ruffian porter into a well-educated servant; who, while he was severe as ever in forbidding entrance to evilly-disposed people, should yet have a kind word for well-disposed people, and a pleasant look, and a little useful information at his command, in case he should be asked a question by the passers-by? We have not time to-night to look at many examples of ironwork; and those I happen to have by me are not the best; ironwork is not one of my special subjects of study; so that I only have memoranda of bits that happened to come into picturesque subjects which I was drawing for other reasons. Besides, external ironwork is more difficult to find good than any other sort of ancient art; for when it gets rusty and broken, people are sure, if they can afford it, to send it to the old iron shop, and get a fine new grating instead; and in the great cities of Italy, the old iron is thus nearly all gone: the best bits I remember in the open air were at Brescia;--fantastic sprays of laurel- like foliage rising over the garden gates; and there are a few fine fragments at Verona, and some good trellis-work enclosing the Scala tombs; but on the whole, the most interesting pieces, though by no means the purest in style, are to be found in out-of-the-way provincial towns, where people do not care, or are unable, to make polite alterations. The little town of Bellinzona, for instance, on the south of the Alps, and that of Sion on the north, have both of them complete schools of ironwork in their balconies and vineyard gates. That of Bellinzona is the best, though not very old--I suppose most of it of the seventeenth century; still it is very quaint and beautiful. Here, for example, are two balconies, from two different houses; one has been a cardinal's, and the hat is the principal ornament of the balcony; its tassels being wrought with delightful delicacy and freedom; and catching the eye clearly even among the mass of rich wreathed leaves. These tassels and strings are precisely the kind of subject fit for ironwork--noble in ironwork, they would have been entirely ignoble in marble, on the grounds above stated. The real plant of oleander standing in the window enriches the whole group of lines very happily. The other balcony, from a very ordinary-looking house in the same street, is much more interesting in its details. It is shown in the plate as it appeared last summer, with convolvulus twined about the bars, the arrow-shaped living leaves mingled among the leaves of iron; but you may see in the centre of these real leaves a cluster of lighter ones, which are those of the ironwork itself. This cluster is worth giving a little larger to show its treatment. Fig. 2 (in Appendix V.) is the front view of it: Fig. 4, its profile. It is composed of a large tulip in the centre; then two turkscap lilies; then two pinks, a little conventionalized; then two narcissi; then two nondescripts, or, at least, flowers I do not know; and then two dark buds, and a few leaves. I say, dark buds, for all these flowers have been coloured in their original state. The plan of the group is exceedingly simple: it is all enclosed in a pointed arch (Fig. 3, Appendix V.): the large mass of the tulip forming the apex; a six-foiled star on each side; then a jagged star; then a five-foiled star; then an unjagged star or rose; finally a small bud, so as to establish relation and cadence through the whole group. The profile is very free and fine, and the upper bar of the balcony exceedingly beautiful in effect;--none the less so on account of the marvellously simple means employed. A thin strip of iron is bent over a square rod; out of the edge of this strip are cut a series of triangular openings--widest at top, leaving projecting teeth of iron (Appendix, Fig. 5); then each of these projecting pieces gets a little sharp tap with the hammer in front, which beaks its edge inwards, tearing it a little open at the same time, and the thing is done. The common forms of Swiss ironwork are less naturalistic than these Italian balconies, depending more on beautiful arrangements of various curve; nevertheless, there has been a rich naturalist school at Fribourg, where a few bell-handles are still left, consisting of rods branched into laurel and other leafage. At Geneva, modern improvements have left nothing; but at Annecy, a little good work remains; the balcony of its old hôtel de ville especially, with a trout of the lake --presumably the town arms--forming its central ornament. I might expatiate all night--if you would sit and hear me--on the treatment of such required subject, or introduction of pleasant caprice by the old workmen; but we have no more time to spare, and I must quit this part of our subject--the rather as I could not explain to you the intrinsic merit of such ironwork without going fully into the theory of curvilinear design; only let me leave with you this one distinct assertion--that the quaint beauty and character of many natural objects, such as intricate branches, grass, foliage (especially thorny branches and prickly foliage), as well as that of many animals, plumed, spined, or bristled, is sculpturally expressible in iron only, and in iron would be majestic and impressive in the highest degree; and that every piece of metal work you use might be, rightly treated, not only a superb decoration, but a most valuable abstract of portions of natural forms, holding in dignity precisely the same relation to the painted representation of plants, that a statue does to the painted form of man. It is difficult to give you an idea of the grace and interest which the simplest objects possess when their forms are thus abstracted from among the surrounding of rich circumstance which in nature disturbs the feebleness of our attention. In Plate 2, a few blades of common green grass, and a wild leaf or two--just as they were thrown by nature,--are thus abstracted from the associated redundance of the forms about them, and shown on a dark ground: every cluster of herbage would furnish fifty such groups, and every such group would work into iron (fitting it, of course, rightly to its service) with perfect ease, and endless grandeur of result. III. IRON in POLICY.--Having thus obtained some idea of the use of iron in art, as dependent on its ductility, I need not, certainly, say anything of its uses in manufacture and commerce; we all of us know enough,--perhaps a little too much--about _them_. So I pass lastly to consider its uses in policy; dependent chiefly upon its tenacity-- that is to say, on its power of bearing a pull, and receiving an edge. These powers, which enable it to pierce, to bind, and to smite, render it fit for the three great instruments, by which its political action may be simply typified; namely, the Plough, the Fetter, and the Sword. On our understanding the right use of these three instruments, depend, of course, all our power as a nation, and all our happiness as individuals. I. THE PLOUGH.--I say, first, on our understanding the right use of the plough, with which, in justice to the fairest of our labourers, we must always associate that feminine plough--the needle. The first requirement for the happiness of a nation is that it should understand the function in this world of these two great instruments: a happy nation may be defined as one in which the husband's hand is on the plough, and the housewife's on the needle; so in due time reaping its golden harvest, and shining in golden vesture: and an unhappy nation is one which, acknowledging no use of plough nor needle, will assuredly at last find its storehouse empty in the famine, and its breast naked to the cold. Perhaps you think this is a mere truism, which I am wasting your time in repeating. I wish it were. By far the greater part of the suffering and crime which exist at this moment in civilized Europe, arises simply from people not understanding this truism--not knowing that produce or wealth is eternally connected by the laws of heaven and earth with resolute labour; but hoping in some way to cheat or abrogate this everlasting law of life, and to feed where they have not furrowed, and be warm where they have not woven. I repeat, nearly all our misery and crime result from this one misapprehension. The law of nature is, that a certain quantity of work is necessary to produce a certain quantity of good, of any kind whatever. If you want knowledge, you must toil for it: if food, you must toil for it; and if pleasure, you must toil for it. But men do not acknowledge this law, or strive to evade it, hoping to get their knowledge, and food, and pleasure for nothing; and in this effort they either fail of getting them, and remain ignorant and miserable, or they obtain them by making other men work for their benefit; and then they are tyrants and robbers. Yes, and worse than robbers. I am not one who in the least doubts or disputes the progress of this century in many things useful to mankind; but it seems to me a very dark sign respecting us that we look with so much indifference upon dishonesty and cruelty in the pursuit of wealth. In the dream of Nebuchadnezzar it was only the _feet_ that were part of iron and part of clay; but many of us are now getting so cruel in our avarice, that it seems as if, in us, the _heart_ were part of iron, and part of clay. From what I have heard of the inhabitants of this town, I do not doubt but that I may be permitted to do here what I have found it usually thought elsewhere highly improper and absurd to do, namely, trace a few Bible sentences to their practical result. You cannot but have noticed how often in those parts of the Bible which are likely to be oftenest opened when people look for guidance, comfort, or help in the affairs of daily life, namely, the Psalms and Proverbs, mention is made of the guilt attaching to the _Oppression_ of the poor. Observe: not the neglect of them, but the _Oppression_ of them: the word is as frequent as it is strange. You can hardly open either of those books, but somewhere in their pages you will find a description of the wicked man's attempts against the poor: such as--"He doth ravish the poor when he getteth him into his net." "He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages; his eyes are privily set against the poor." "In his pride he doth persecute the poor, and blesseth the covetous, whom God abhorreth." "His mouth is full of deceit and fraud; in the secret places doth he murder the innocent. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread? They have drawn out the sword, and bent the bow, to cast down the poor and needy." "They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression." "Pride compasseth them about as a chain, and violence as a garment." "Their poison is like the poison of a serpent. Ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth." Yes: "Ye weigh the violence of your hands:"--weigh these words as well. The last things we ever usually think of weighing are Bible words. We like to dream and dispute over them; but to weigh them, and see what their true contents are--anything but that. Yet, weigh these; for I have purposely taken all these verses, perhaps more striking to you read in this connection, than separately in their places, out of the Psalms, because, for all people belonging to the Established Church of this country these Psalms are appointed lessons, portioned out to them by their clergy to be read once through every month. Presumably, therefore, whatever portions of Scripture we may pass by or forget, these at all events, must be brought continually to our observance as useful for direction of daily life. Now, do we ever ask ourselves what the real meaning of these passages may be, and who these wicked people are, who are "murdering the innocent?" You know it is rather singular language this!--rather strong language, we might, perhaps, call it-- hearing it for the first time. Murder! and murder of innocent people!-- nay, even a sort of cannibalism. Eating people,--yes, and God's people, too--eating _My_ people as if they were bread! swords drawn, bows bent, poison of serpents mixed! violence of hands weighed, measured, and trafficked with as so much coin! where is all this going on? Do you suppose it was only going on in the time of David, and that nobody but Jews ever murder the poor? If so, it would surely be wiser not to mutter and mumble for our daily lessons what does not concern us; but if there be any chance that it may concern us, and if this description, in the Psalms, of human guilt is at all generally applicable, as the descriptions in the Psalms of human sorrow are, may it not be advisable to know wherein this guilt is being committed round about us, or by ourselves? and when we take the words of the Bible into our mouths in a congregational way, to be sure whether we mean merely to chant a piece of melodious poetry relating to other people--(we know not exactly to whom)--or to assert our belief in facts bearing somewhat stringently on ourselves and our daily business. And if you make up your minds to do this no longer, and take pains to examine into the matter, you will find that these strange words, occurring as they do, not in a few places only, but almost in every alternate psalm and every alternate chapter of proverb, or prophecy, with tremendous reiteration, were not written for one nation or one time only; but for all nations and languages, for all places and all centuries; and it is as true of the wicked man now as ever it was of Nabal or Dives, that "his eyes are set against the poor." Set _against_ the poor, mind you. Not merely set _away_ from the poor, so as to neglect or lose sight of them, but set against, so as to afflict and destroy them. This is the main point I want to fix. your attention upon. You will often hear sermons about neglect or carelessness of the poor. But neglect and carelessness are not at all the points. The Bible hardly ever talks about neglect of the poor. It always talks of _oppression_ of the poor--a very different matter. It does not merely speak of passing by on the other side, and binding up no wounds, but of drawing the sword and ourselves smiting the men down. It does not charge us with being idle in the pest-house, and giving no medicine, but with being busy in the pest-house, and giving much poison. May we not advisedly look into this matter a little, even tonight, and ask first, Who are these poor? No country is, or ever will be, without them: that is to say, without the class which cannot, on the average, do more by its labour than provide for its subsistence, and which has no accumulations of property laid by on any considerable scale. Now there are a certain number of this class whom we cannot oppress with much severity. An able-bodied and intelligent workman--sober, honest, and industrious, will almost always command a fair price for his work, and lay by enough in a few years to enable him to hold his own in the labour market. But all men are not able-bodied, nor intelligent, nor industrious; and you cannot expect them to be. Nothing appears to me at once more ludicrous and more melancholy than the way the people of the present age usually talk about the morals of labourers. You hardly ever address a labouring man upon his prospects in life, without quietly assuming that he is to possess, at starting, as a small moral capital to begin with, the virtue of Socrates, the philosophy of Plato, and the heroism of Epaminondas. "Be assured, my good man,"--you say to him,--"that if you work steadily for ten hours a day all your life long, and if you drink nothing but water, or the very mildest beer, and live on very plain food, and never lose your temper, and go to church every Sunday, and always remain content in the position in which Providence has placed you, and never grumble nor swear; and always keep your clothes decent, and rise early, and use every opportunity of improving yourself, you will get on very well, and never come to the parish." All this is exceedingly true; but before giving the advice so confidently, it would be well if we sometimes tried it practically ourselves, and spent a year or so at some hard manual labour, not of an entertaining kind--ploughing or digging, for instance, with a very moderate allowance of beer; nothing hut bread and cheese for dinner; no papers nor muffins in the morning; no sofas nor magazines at night; one small room for parlour and kitchen; and a large family of children always in the middle of the floor. If we think we could, under these circumstances, enact Socrates or Epaminondas entirely to our own satisfaction, we shall be somewhat justified in requiring the same behaviour from our poorer neighbours; but if not, we should surely consider a little whether among the various forms of the oppression of the poor, we may not rank as one of the first and likeliest--the oppression of expecting too much from them. But let this pass; and let it be admitted that we can never be guilty of oppression towards the sober, industrious, intelligent, exemplary labourer. There will always be in the world some who are not altogether, intelligent and exemplary; we shall, I believe, to the end of time find the majority somewhat unintelligent, a little inclined to be idle, and occasionally, on Saturday night, drunk; we must even be prepared to hear of reprobates who like skittles on Sunday morning better than prayers; and of unnatural parents who send their children out to beg instead of to go to school. Now these are the kind of people whom you _can_ oppress, and whom you do oppress, and that to purpose,--and with all the more cruelty and the greater sting, because it is just their own fault that puts them into your power. You know the words about wicked people are, "He doth ravish the poor when he getteth him _into his net_." This getting into the net is constantly the fault or folly of the sufferer--his own heedlessness or his own indolence; but after he is once in the net, the oppression of him, and making the most of his distress, are ours. The nets which we use against the poor are just those worldly embarrassments which either their ignorance or their improvidence are almost certain at some time or other to bring them into: then, just at the time when we ought to hasten to help them, and disentangle them, and teach them how to manage better in future, we rush forward to _pillage_ them, and force all we can out of them in their adversity. For, to take one instance only, remember this is literally and simply what we do, whenever we buy, or try to buy, cheap goods-- goods offered at a price which we know cannot be remunerative for the labour involved in them. Whenever we buy such goods, remember we are stealing somebody's labour. Don't let us mince the matter. I say, in plain Saxon, STEALING--taking from him the proper reward of his work, and putting it into our own pocket. You know well enough that the thing could not have been offered you at that price, unless distress of some kind had forced the producer to part with it. You take advantage of this distress, and you force as much out of him as you can under the circumstances. The old barons of the middle ages used, in general, the thumbscrew to extort property; we moderns use, in preference, hunger or domestic affliction: but the fact of extortion remains precisely the same. Whether we force the man's property from him by pinching his stomach, or pinching his fingers, makes some difference anatomically;-- morally, none whatsoever: we use a form of torture of some sort in order to make him give up his property; we use, indeed, the man's own anxieties, instead of the rack; and his immediate peril of starvation, instead of the pistol at the head; but otherwise we differ from Front de B�uf, or Dick Turpin, merely in being less dexterous, more cowardly, and more cruel. More cruel, I say, because the fierce baron and the redoubted highwayman are reported to have robbed, at least by preference, only the rich; _we_ steal habitually from the poor. We buy our liveries, and gild our prayer-books, with pilfered pence out of children's and sick men's wages, and thus ingeniously dispose a given quantity of Theft, so that it may produce the largest possible measure of delicately distributed suffering. But this is only one form of common oppression of the poor--only one way of taking our hands off the plough handle, and binding another's upon it. This first way of doing it is the economical way--the way preferred by prudent and virtuous people. The bolder way is the acquisitive way:--the way of speculation. You know we are considering at present the various modes in which a nation corrupts itself, by not acknowledging the eternal connection between its plough and its pleasure;--by striving to get pleasure, without working for it. Well, I say the first and commonest way of doing so is to try to get the product of other people's work, and enjoy it ourselves, by cheapening their labour in times of distress: then the second way is that grand one of watching the chances of the market;--the way of speculation. Of course there are some speculations that are fair and honest-- speculations made with our own money, and which do not involve in their success the loss, by others, of what we gain. But generally modern speculation involves much risk to others, with chance of profit only to ourselves: even in its best conditions it is merely one of the forms of gambling or treasure hunting; it is either leaving the steady plough and the steady pilgrimage of life, to look for silver mines beside the way; or else it is the full stop beside the dice-tables in Vanity Fair --investing all the thoughts and passions of the soul in the fall of the cards, and choosing rather the wild accidents of idle fortune than the calm and accumulative rewards of toil. And this is destructive enough, at least to our peace and virtue. But is usually destructive of far more than _our_ peace, or _our_ virtue. Have you ever deliberately set yourselves to imagine and measure the suffering, the guilt, and the mortality caused necessarily by the failure of any large-dealing merchant, or largely-branched bank? Take it at the lowest possible supposition- count, at the fewest you choose, the families whose means of support have been involved in the catastrophe. Then, on the morning after the intelli- gence of ruin, let us go forth amongst them in earnest thought; let us use that imagination which we waste so often on fictitious sorrow, to measure the stern facts of that multitudinous distress; strike open the private doors of their chambers, and enter silently into the midst of the domestic misery; look upon the old men, who had reserved for their failing strength some remainder of rest in the evening-tide of life, cast helplessly back into its trouble and tumult; look upon the active strength of middle age suddenly blasted into incapacity--its hopes crushed, and its hardly earned rewards snatched away in the same instant--at once the heart withered, and the right arm snapped; look upon the piteous children, delicately nurtured, whose soft eyes, now large with wonder at their parents' grief, must soon be set in the dimness of famine; and, far more than all this, look forward to the length of sorrow beyond--to the hardest labour of life, now to be undergone either in all the severity of unexpected and inexperienced trial, or else, more bitter still, to be begun again, and endured for the second time, amidst the ruins of cherished hopes and the feebleness of advancing years, embittered by the continual sting and taunt of the inner feeling that it has all been brought about, not by the fair course of appointed circumstance, but by miserable chance and wanton treachery; and, last of all, look beyond this--to the shattered destinies of those who have faltered under the trial, and sunk past recovery to despair. And then consider whether the hand which has poured this poison into all the springs of life be one whit less guiltily red with human blood than that which literally pours the hemlock into the cup, or guides the dagger to the heart? We read with horror of the crimes of a Borgia or a Tophana; but there never lived Borgias such as live now in the midst of us. The cruel lady of Ferrara slew only in the strength of passion--she slew only a few, those who thwarted her purposes or who vexed her soul; she slew sharply and suddenly, embittering the fate of her victims with no foretastes of destruction, no prolongations of pain; and, finally and chiefly, she slew, not without remorse, nor without pity. But _we,_ in no storm of passion--in no blindness of wrath,--we, in calm and clear and untempted selfishness, pour our poison--not for a few only, but for multitudes;--not for those who have wronged us, or resisted,--but for those who have trusted us and aided:--we, not with sudden gift of merciful and unconscious death, but with slow waste of hunger and weary rack of disappointment and despair;--we, last and chiefly, do our murdering, not with any pauses of pity or scorching of conscience, but in facile and forgetful calm of mind--and so, forsooth, read day by day, complacently, as if they meant any one else than ourselves, the words that forever describe the wicked: "The _poison of asps_ is under their lips, and their _feet are swift to shed blood._" You may indeed, perhaps, think there is some excuse for many in this matter, just because the sin is so unconscious; that the guilt is not so great when it is unapprehended, and that it is much more pardonable to slay heedlessly than purposefully. I believe no feeling can be more mistaken, and that in reality, and in the sight of heaven; the callous indifference which pursues its own interests at any cost of life, though it does not definitely adopt the purpose of sin, is a state of mind at once more heinous and more hopeless than the wildest aberrations of ungoverned passion. There may be, in the last case, some elements of good and of redemption still mingled in the character; but, in the other, few or none. There may be hope for the man who has slain his enemy in anger; hope even for the man who has betrayed his friend in fear; but what hope for him who trades in unregarded blood, and builds his fortune on unrepented treason? But, however this may be, and wherever you may think yourselves bound in justice to impute the greater sin, be assured that the question is one of responsibilities only, not of facts. The definite result of all our modern haste to be rich is assuredly, and constantly, the murder of a certain number of persons by our hands every year. I have not time to go into the details of another--on the whole, the broadest and terriblest way in which we cause the destruction of the poor--namely, the way of luxury and waste, destroying, in improvidence, what might have been the support of thousands; [Footnote: The analysis of this error will be found completely carried out in my lectures on the political economy of art. And it is an error worth analyzing; for until it is finally trodden under foot, no healthy political, economical, or moral action is _possible_ in any state. I do not say this impetuously or suddenly, for I have investigated this subject as deeply; and as long, as my own special subject of art; and the principles of political economy which I have stated in those lectures are as sure as the principles of Euclid. Foolish readers doubted their certainty, because I told them I had "never read any books on Political Economy" Did they suppose I had got my knowledge of art by reading books?] but if you follow out the subject for yourselves at home--and what I have endeavoured to lay before you to-night will only be useful to you if you do--you will find that wherever and whenever men are endeavouring to _make money hastily_, and to avoid the labour which Providence has appointed to be tho only source of honourable profit;--and also wherever and whenever they permit themselves to _spend it luxuriously_, without reflecting how far they are misguiding the labour of others;--there and then, in either case, they are literally and infallibly causing, for their own benefit or their own pleasure, a certain annual number of human deaths; that, therefore, the choice given to every man born into this world is, simply, whether he will be a labourer, or an assassin; and that whosoever has not his hand on the Stilt of the plough, has it on the Hilt of the dagger. It would also be quite vain for me to endeavour to follow out this evening the lines of thought which would be suggested by the other two great political uses of iron in the Fetter and the Sword: a few words only I must permit myself respecting both. 2. THE FETTER.--As the plough is the typical instrument of industry, so the fetter is the typical instrument of the restraint or subjection necessary in a nation--either literally, for its evil-doers, or figuratively, in accepted laws, for its wise and good men. You have to choose between this figurative and literal use; for depend upon it, the more laws you accept, the fewer penalties you will have to endure, and the fewer punishments to enforce. For wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not chains, but chain mail--strength and defence, though something also of an incumbrance. And this necessity of restraint, remember, is just as honourable to man as the necessity of labour. You hear every day greater numbers of foolish people speaking about liberty, as if it were such an honourable thing: so far from being that, it is, on the whole, and in the broadest sense, dishonourable, and an attribute of the lower creatures. No human being, however great or powerful, was ever so free as a fish. There is always something that he must, or must not do; while the fish may do whatever he likes. All the kingdoms of the world put together are not half so large as the sea, and all the railroads and wheels that ever were, or will be, invented are not so easy as fins. You will find, on fairly thinking of it, that it is his Restraint which is honourable to man, not his Liberty; and, what is more, it is restraint which is honourable even in the lower animals. A butterfly is much more free than a bee; but you honour the bee more, just because it is subject to certain laws which fit it for orderly function in bee society And throughout the world, of the two abstract things, liberty and restraint, restraint is always the more honourable. It is true, indeed, that in these and all other matters you never can reason finally from the abstraction, for both liberty and restraint are good when they are nobly chosen, and both are bad when they are basely chosen; but of the two, I repeat, it is restraint which characterizes the higher creature, and betters the lower creature: and, from the ministering of the archangel to the labour of the insect,--from the poising of the planets to the gravitation of a grain of dust,--the power and glory of all creatures, and all matter, consist in their obedience, not in their freedom. The Sun has no liberty--a dead leaf has much. The dust of which you are formed has no liberty. Its liberty will come--with its corruption. And, therefore, I say boldly, though it seems a strange thing to say in England, that as the first power of a nation consists in knowing how to guide the Plough, its second power consists in knowing how to wear the Fetter:-- 3. THE SWORD.--And its third power, which perfects it as a nation, consist in knowing how to wield the sword, so that the three talismans of national existence are expressed in these three short words--Labour, Law, and Courage. This last virtue we at least possess; and all that is to be alleged against us is that we do not honour it enough. I do not mean honour by acknowledgment of service, though sometimes we are slow in doing even that. But we do not honour it enough in consistent regard to the lives and souls of our soldiers. How wantonly we have wasted their lives you have seen lately in the reports of their mortality by disease, which a little care and science might have prevented; but we regard their souls less than their lives, by keeping them in ignorance and idleness, and regarding them merely as instruments of battle. The argument brought forward for the maintenance of a standing army usually refers only to expediency in the case of unexpected war, whereas, one of the chief reasons for the maintenance of an army is the advantage of the military system as a method of education. The most fiery and headstrong, who are often also the most gifted and generous of your youths, have always a tendency both in the lower and upper classes to offer themselves for your soldiers: others, weak and unserviceable in a civil capacity, are tempted or entrapped into the army in a fortunate hour for them: out of this fiery or uncouth material, it is only a soldier's discipline which can bring the full value and power. Even at present, by mere force of order and authority, the army is the salvation of myriads; and men who, under other circumstances, would have sunk into lethargy or dissipation, are redeemed into noble life by a service which at once summons and directs their energies. How much more than this military education is capable of doing, you will find only when you make it education indeed. We have no excuse for leaving our private soldiers at their present level of ignorance and want of refinement, for we shall invariably find that, both among officers and men, the gentlest and best informed are the bravest; still less have we excuse for diminishing our army, either in the present state of political events, or, as I believe, in any other conjunction of them that for many a year will be possible in this world. You may, perhaps, be surprised at my saying this; perhaps surprised at my implying that war itself can be right, or necessary, or noble at all. Nor do I speak of all war as necessary, nor of all war as noble. Both peace and war are noble or ignoble according to their kind and occasion. No man has a profounder sense of the horror and guilt of ignoble war than I have: I have personally seen its effects, upon nations, of unmitigated evil, on soul and body, with perhaps as much pity, and as much bitterness of indignation, as any of those whom you will hear continually declaiming in the cause of peace. But peace may be sought in two ways. One way is as Gideon sought it, when he built his altar in Ophrah, naming it, "God send peace," yet sought this peace that he loved, as he was ordered to seek it, and the peace was sent, in God's way:--"the country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon." And the other way of seeking peace is as Menahem sought it when he gave the King of Assyria a thousand talents of silver, that "his hand might be with him." That is, you may either win your peace, or buy it:--win it, by resistance to evil;--buy it, by compromise with evil. You may buy your peace, with silenced consciences;--you may buy it, with broken vows,--buy it, with lying words,--buy it, with base connivances,--buy it, with the blood of the slain, and the cry of the captive, and the silence of lost souls--over hemispheres of the earth, while you sit smiling at your serene hearths, lisping comfortable prayers evening and morning, and counting your pretty Protestant beads (which are flat, and of gold, instead of round, and of ebony, as the monks' ones were), and so mutter continually to yourselves, "Peace, peace," when there is No peace; but only captivity and death, for you, as well as for those you leave unsaved;--and yours darker than theirs. I cannot utter to you what I would in this matter; we all see too dimly, as yet, what our great world-duties are, to allow any of us to try to outline their enlarging shadows. But think over what I have said, and as you return to your quiet homes to-night, reflect that their peace was not won for you by your own hands; but by theirs who long ago jeoparded their lives for you, their children; and remember that neither this inherited peace, nor any other, can be kept, but through the same jeopardy. No peace was ever won from Fate by subterfuge or agreement; no peace is ever in store for any of us, but that which we shall win by victory over shame or sin;--victory over the sin that oppresses, as well as over that which corrupts. For many a year to come, the sword of every righteous nation must be whetted to save or subdue; nor will it be by patience of others' suffering, but by the offering of your own, that you ever will draw nearer to the time when the great change shall pass upon the iron of the earth;--when men shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; neither shall they learn war any more. APPENDICES. APPENDIX I. RIGHT AND WRONG. Readers who are using my _Elements of Drawing_ may be surprised by my saying here that Tintoret may lead them wrong; while in the _Elements_ he is one of the six men named as being "always right." I bring the apparent inconsistency forward at the beginning of this Appendix, because the illustration of it will be farther useful in showing the real nature of the self-contradiction which is often alleged against me by careless readers. It is not only possible, but a frequent condition of human action, to _do_ right and _be_ right--yet so as to mislead other people if they rashly imitate the thing done. For there are many rights which are not absolutely, but relatively right--right only for _that_ person to do under those circumstances,--not for _this_ person to do under other circumstances. Thus it stands between Titian and Tintoret. Titian is always absolutely Right. You may imitate him with entire security that you are doing the best thing that can possibly be done for the purpose in hand. Tintoret is always relatively Right--relatively to his own aims and peculiar powers. But you must quite understand Tintoret before you can be sure what his aim was, and why he was then right in doing what would not be right always. If, however, you take the pains thus to understand him, he becomes entirely instructive and exemplary, just as Titian is; and therefore I have placed him among those are "always right," and you can only study him rightly with that reverence for him. Then the artists who are named as "admitting question of right and wrong," are those who from some mischance of circumstance or short- coming in their education, do not always do right, even with relation to their own aims and powers. Take for example the quality of imperfection in drawing form. There are many pictures of Tintoret in which the trees are drawn with a few curved flourishes of the brush instead of leaves. That is (absolutely) wrong. If you copied the tree as a model, you would be going very wrong indeed. But it is relatively, and for Tintoret's purposes, right. In the nature of the superficial work you will find there must have been a cause for it. Somebody perhaps wanted the picture in a hurry to fill a dark corner. Tintoret good-naturedly did all he could--painted the figures tolerably--had five minutes left only for the trees, when the servant came. "Let him wait another five minutes." And this is the best foliage we can do in the time. Entirely, admirably, unsurpassably right, under the conditions. Titian would not have worked under them, but Tintoret was kinder and humbler; yet he may lead you wrong if you don't understand him. Or, perhaps, another day, somebody came in while Tintoret was at work, who tormented Tintoret. An ignoble person! Titian would have been polite to him, and gone on steadily with his trees. Tintoret cannot stand the ignobleness; it is unendurably repulsive and discomfiting to him. "The Black Plague take him--and the trees, too! Shall such a fellow see me paint!" And the trees go all to pieces. This, in you, would be mere ill-breeding and ill-temper. In Tintoret it was one of the necessary conditions of his intense sensibility; had he been capable, then, of keeping his temper, he could never have done his greatest works. Let the trees go to pieces, by all means; it is quite right they should; he is always right. But in a background of Gainsborough you would find the trees unjustifiably gone to pieces. The carelessness of form there is definitely purposed by him;--adopted as an advisable thing; and therefore it is both absolutely and relatively wrong;--it indicates his being imperfectly educated as a painter, and not having brought out all his powers. It may still happen that the man whose work thus partially erroneous is greater far, than others who have fewer faults. Gainsborough's and Reynolds' wrongs are more charming than almost anybody else's right. Still, they occasionally _are_ wrong--but the Venetians and Velasquez, [Footnote: At least after his style was formed; early pictures, like the Adoration of the Magi in our Gallery, are of little value.] never. I ought, perhaps, to have added in that Manchester address (only one does not like to say things that shock people) some words of warning against painters likely to mislead the student. For indeed, though here and there something may be gained by looking at inferior men, there is always more to be gained by looking at the best; and there is not time, with all the looking of human life, to exhaust even one great painter's instruction. How then shall we dare to waste our sight and thoughts on inferior ones, even if we could do so, which we rarely can, without danger of being led astray? Nay, strictly speaking, what people call inferior painters are in general no painters. Artists are divided by an impassable gulf into the men who can paint, and who cannot. The men who can paint often fall short of what they should have done;--are repressed, or defeated, or otherwise rendered inferior one to another: still there is an everlasting barrier between them and the men who cannot paint--who can only in various popular ways pretend to paint. And if once you know the difference, there is always some good to be got by looking at a real painter--seldom anything but mischief to be got out of a false one; but do not suppose real painters are common. I do not speak of living men; but among those who labour no more, in this England of ours, since it first had a school, we have had only five real painters;--Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hogarth, Richard Wilson, and Turner. The reader may, perhaps, think I have forgotten Wilkie. No. I once much overrated him as an expressional draughtsman, not having then studied the figure long enough to be able to detect superficial sentiment. But his colour I have never praised; it is entirely false and valueless. And it would tie unjust to English art if I did not here express my regret that the admiration of Constable, already harmful enough in England, is extending even into France. There was, perhaps, the making, in Constable, of a second or third-rate painter, if any careful discipline had developed in him the instincts which, though unparalleled for narrowness, were, as far as they went, true. But as it is, he is nothing more than an industrious and innocent amateur blundering his way to a superficial expression of one or two popular aspects of common nature. And my readers may depend upon it, that all blame which I express in this sweeping way is trustworthy. I have often had to repent of over- praise of inferior men; and continually to repent of insufficient praise of great men; but of broad condemnation, never. For I do not speak it but after the most searching examination of the matter, and under stern sense of need for it: so that whenever the reader is entirely shocked by what I say, he may be assured every word is true.[Footnote: He must, however, be careful to distinguish blame-- however strongly expressed, of some special fault or error in a true painter,--from these general statements of inferiority or worthlessness. Thus he will find me continually laughing at Wilson's tree-painting; not because Wilson could not paint, but because he had never looked at a tree.] It is just because it so much offends him, that it was necessary: and knowing that it must offend him, I should not have ventured to say it, without certainty of its truth. I say "certainty," for it is just as possible to be certain whether the drawing of a tree or a stone is true or false, as whether the drawing of a triangle is; and what I mean primarily by saying that a picture is in all respects worthless, is that it is in all respects False: which is not a matter of opinion at all, but a matter of ascertainable fact, such as I never assert till I have ascertained. And the thing so commonly said about my writings, that they are rather persuasive than just; and that though my "language" may be good, I am an unsafe guide in art criticism, is, like many other popular estimates in such matters, not merely untrue, but precisely the reverse of the truth; it is truth, like reflections in water, distorted much by the shaking receptive surface, and in every particular, upside down. For my "language," until within the last six or seven years, was loose, obscure, and more or less feeble; and still, though I have tried hard to mend it, the best I can do is inferior to much contemporary work. No description that I have ever given of anything is worth four lines of Tennyson; and in serious thought, my half-pages are generally only worth about as much as a single sentence either of his, or of Carlyle's. They are, I well trust, as true and necessary; but they are neither so concentrated nor so well put. But I am an entirely safe guide in art judgment: and that simply as the necessary result of my having given the labour of life to the determination of facts, rather than to the following of feelings or theories. Not, indeed, that my work is free from mistakes; it admits many, and always must admit many, from its scattered range; but, in the long run, it will be found to enter sternly and searchingly into the nature of what it deals with, and the kind of mistake it admits is never dangerous, consisting, usually, in pressing the truth too far. It is quite easy, for instance, to take an accidental irregularity in a piece of architecture, which less careful examination would never have detected at all, for an intentional irregularity; quite possible to misinterpret an obscure passage in a picture, which a less earnest observer would never have tried to interpret. But mistakes of this kind--honest, enthusiastic mistakes--are never harmful; because they are always made in a true direction,--falls forward on the road, not into the ditch beside it; and they are sure to be corrected by the next comer. But the blunt and dead mistakes made by too many other writers on art--the mistakes of sheer inattention, and want of sympathy--are mortal. The entire purpose of a great thinker may be difficult to fathom, and we may be over and over again more or less mistaken in guessing at his meaning; but the real, profound, nay, quite bottomless, and unredeemable mistake, is the fool's thought--that he had no meaning. I do not refer, in saying this, to any of my statements respecting subjects which it has been my main work to study: as far as I am aware, I have never yet misinterpreted any picture of Turner's, though often remaining blind to the half of what he had intended: neither have I as yet found anything to correct in my statements respecting Venetian architecture; [Footnote: The subtle portions of the Byzantine Palaces, given in precise measurements in the second volume of the "Stones of Venice," were alleged by architects to be accidental irregularities. They will be found, by every one who will take the pains to examine them, most assuredly and indisputably intentional,--and not only so, but one of the principal subjects of the designer's care.] but in _casual references_ to what has been quickly seen, it is impossible to guard wholly against error, without losing much valuable observation, true in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, and harmless even when erroneous. APPENDIX II. REYNOLDS' DISAPPOINTMENT. It is very fortunate that in the fragment of Mason's MSS., published lately by Mr. Cotton in his "Sir Joshua Reynolds' Notes," [Footnote: Smith, Soho Square, 1859.] record is preserved of Sir Joshua's feelings respecting the paintings in the window of New College, which might otherwise have been supposed to give his full sanction to this mode of painting on glass. Nothing can possibly be more curious, to my mind, than the great painter's expectations; or his having at all entertained the idea that the qualities of colour which are peculiar to opaque bodies could be obtained in a transparent medium; but so it is: and with the simplicity and humbleness of an entirely great man he hopes that Mr. Jervas on glass is to excel Sir Joshua on canvas. Happily, Mason tells us the result. "With the copy Jervas made of this picture he was grievously disappointed. 'I had frequently,' he said to me, 'pleased myself by reflecting, after I had produced what I thought a brilliant effect of light and shadow on my canvas, how greatly that effect would be heightened by the transparency which the painting on glass would be sure to produce. It turned out quite the reverse.'" APPENDIX III. CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE. This passage in the lecture was illustrated by an enlargement of the woodcut, Fig. 1; but I did not choose to disfigure the middle of this book with it. It is copied from the 49th plate of the third edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (Edinburgh, 1797), and represents an English farmhouse arranged on classical principles. If the reader cares to consult the work itself, he will find in the same plate another composition of similar propriety, and dignified by the addition of a pediment, beneath the shadow of which "a private gentleman who has a small family may find conveniency." APPENDIX IV. SUBTLETY OF HAND. I had intended in one or other of these lectures to have spoken at some length of the quality of refinement in Colour, but found the subject would lead me too far. A few words are, however, necessary in order to explain some expressions in the text. "Refinement in colour" is indeed a tautological expression, for colour, in the true sense of the word, does not exist until it _is_ refined. Dirt exists,--stains exist,--and pigments exist, easily enough in all places; and are laid on easily enough by all hands; but colour exists only where there is tenderness, and can be laid on only by a hand which has strong life in it. The law concerning colour is very strange, very noble, in some sense almost awful. In every given touch laid on canvas, if one grain of the colour is inoperative, and does not take its full part in producing the hue, the hue will be imperfect. The grain of colour which does not work is dead. It infects all about it with its death. It must be got quit of, or the touch is spoiled. We acknowledge this instinctively in our use of the phrases "dead colour," "killed colour," "foul colour." Those words are, in some sort, literally true. If more colour is put on than is necessary, a heavy touch when a light one would have been enough, the quantity of colour that was not wanted, and is overlaid by the rest, is as dead, and it pollutes the rest. There will be no good in the touch. The art of painting, properly so called, consists in laying on the least possible colour that will produce the required result, and this measurement, in all the ultimate, that is to say, the principal, operations of colouring, is so delicate that not one human hand in a million has the required lightness. The final touch of any painter properly so named, of Correggio--Titian--Turner--or Reynolds--would be always quite invisible to any one watching the progress of the work, the films of hue being laid thinner than the depths of the grooves in mother-of-pearl. The work may be swift, apparently careless, nay, to the painter himself almost unconscious. Great painters are so organized that they do their best work without effort: but analyze the touches afterwards, and you will find the structure and depth of the colour laid mathematically demonstrable to be of literally infinite fineness, the last touches passing away at their edges by untraceable gradation. The very essence of a master's work may thus be removed by a picture- cleaner in ten minutes. Observe, however, this thinness exists only in portions of the ultimate touches, for which the preparation may often have been made with solid colours, commonly, and literally, called "dead colouring," but even that is always subtle if a master lays it--subtle at least in drawing, if simple in hue; and farther, observe that the refinement of work consists not in laying absolutely _little_ colour, but in always laying precisely the right quantity. To lay on little needs indeed the rare lightness of hand; but to lay much,--yet not one atom _too_ much, and obtain subtlety, not by withholding strength, but by precision of pause,--that is the master's final sign-manual--power, knowledge, and tenderness all united. A great deal of colour may often be wanted; perhaps quite a mass of it, such as shall project from the canvas; but the real painter lays this mass of its required thickness and shape with as much precision as if it were a bud of a flower which he had to touch into blossom; one of Turner's loaded fragments of white cloud is modelled and gradated in an instant, as if it alone were the subject of the picture, when the same quantity of colour, under another hand, would be a lifeless lump. The following extract from a letter in the _Literary Gazette_ of 13th November, 1858, which I was obliged to write to defend a questioned expression respecting Turner's subtlety of hand from a charge of hyperbole, contains some interesting and conclusive evidence on the point, though it refers to pencil and chalk drawing only:-- "I must ask you to allow me yet leave to reply to the objections you make to two statements in my catalogue, as those objections would otherwise diminish its usefulness. I have asserted that, in a given drawing (named as one of the chief in the series), Turner's pencil did not move over the thousandth of an inch without meaning; and you charge this expression with extravagant hyperbole. On the contrary, it is much within the truth, being merely a mathematically accurate description of fairly good execution in either drawing or engraving. It is only necessary to measure a piece of any ordinary good work to ascertain this. Take, for instance, Finden's engraving at the 180th page of Rogers' poems; in which the face of the figure, from the chin to the top of the brow, occupies just a quarter of an inch, and the space between the upper lip and chin as nearly as possible one-seventeenth of an inch. The whole mouth occupies one-third of this space, say one- fiftieth of an inch, and within that space both the lips and the much more difficult inner corner of the mouth are perfectly drawn and rounded, with quite successful and sufficiently subtle expression. Any artist will assure you that in order to draw a mouth as well as this, there must be more than twenty gradations of shade in the touches; that is to say, in this case, gradations changing, with meaning, within less than the thousandth of an inch. "But this is mere child's play compared to the refinement of a first- rate mechanical work--much more of brush or pencil drawing by a master's hand. In order at once to furnish you with authoritative evidence on this point, I wrote to Mr. Kingsley, tutor of Sidney-Sussex College, a friend to whom I always have recourse when I want to be precisely right in any matter; for his great knowledge both of mathematics and of natural science is joined, not only with singular powers of delicate experimental manipulation, but with a keen sensitiveness to beauty in art. His answer, in its final statement respecting Turner's work, is amazing even to me, and will, I should think, be more so to your readers. Observe the successions of measured and tested refinement: here is No. 1:-- "'The finest mechanical work that I know, which is not optical, is that done by Nobert in the way of ruling lines. I have a series ruled by him on glass, giving actual scales from .000024 and .000016 of an inch, perfectly correct to these places of decimals, and he has executed others as fine as .000012, though I do not know how far he could repeat these last with accuracy.' "This is No. 1 of precision. Mr. Kingsley proceeds to No. 2:-- "'But this is rude work compared to the accuracy necessary for the construction of the object-glass of a microscope such as Rosse turns out.' "I am sorry to omit the explanation which follows of the ten lenses composing such a glass, 'each of which must be exact in radius and in surface, and all have their axes coincident:' but it would not be intelligible without the figure by which it is illustrated; so I pass to Mr. Kingsley's No. 3:-- "'I am tolerably familiar,' he proceeds, 'with the actual grinding and polishing of lenses and specula, and have produced by my own hand some by no means bad optical work, and I have copied no small amount of Turner's work, and _I still look with awe at the combined delicacy and precision of his hand_; IT BEATS OPTICAL WORK OUT OF SIGHT. In optical work, as in refined drawing, the hand goes beyond the eye, and one has to depend upon the feel; and when one has once learned what a delicate affair touch is, one gets a horror of all coarse work, and is ready to forgive any amount of feebleness, sooner than that boldness which is akin to impudence. In optics the distinction is easily seen when the work is put to trial; but here too, as in drawing, it requires an educated eye to tell the difference when the work is only moderately bad; but with "bold" work, nothing can be seen but distortion and fog: and I heartily wish the same result would follow the same kind of handling in drawing; but here, the boldness cheats the unlearned by looking like the precision of the true man. It is very strange how much better our ears are than our eyes in this country: if an ignorant man were to be "bold" with a violin, he would not get many admirers, though his boldness was far below that of ninety-nine out of a hundred drawings one sees.' "The words which I have put in italics in the above extract are those which were surprising to me. I knew that Turner's was as refined as any optical work, but had no idea of its going beyond it. Mr. Kingsley's word 'awe' occurring just before, is, however, as I have often felt, precisely the right one. When once we begin at all to understand the handling of any truly great executor, such as that of any of the three great Venetians, of Correggio, or Turner, the awe of it is something greater than can be felt from the most stupendous natural scenery. For the creation of such a system as a high human intelligence, endowed with its ineffably perfect instruments of eye and hand, is a far more appalling manifestation of Infinite Power, than the making either of seas or mountains. "After this testimony to the completion of Turner's work, I need not at length defend myself from the charge of hyperbole in the statement that, 'as far as I know, the galleries of Europe may be challenged to produce one sketch [footnote: A sketch, observe,--not a finished drawing. Sketches are only proper subjects of comparison with each other when they contain about the same quantity of work: the test of their merit is the quantity of truth told with a given number of touches. The assertion in the Catalogue which this letter was written to defend, was made respecting the sketch of Rome, No. 101.] that shall equal the chalk study No. 45, or the feeblest of the memoranda in the 71st and following frames;' which memoranda, however, it should have been observed, are stated at the 44th page to be in some respects 'the grandest work in grey that he did in his life.' For I believe that, as manipulators, none but the four men whom I have just named (the three Venetians and Correggio) were equal to Turner; and, as far as I know, none of those four ever put their full strength into sketches. But whether they did or not, my statement in the catalogue is limited by my own knowledge: and, as far as I can trust that knowledge, it is not an enthusiastic statement, but an entirely calm and considered one. It may be a mistake but it is not a hyperbole." APPENDIX V. I can only give, to illustrate this balcony, fac-similes of rough memoranda made on a single leaf of my note-book, with a tired hand; but it may be useful to young students to see them, in order that they may know the difference between notes made to get at the gist and heart of a thing, and notes made merely to look neat. Only it must be observed that the best characters of free drawing are always lost even in the most careful facsimile; and I should not show even these slight notes in woodcut imitation, unless the reader had it in his power, by a glance at the 21st or 35th plates in _Modern Painters_ (and yet better, by trying to copy a piece of either of them), to ascertain how far I can draw or not. I refer to these plates, because, though I distinctly stated in the preface that they, together with the 12th, 20th, 34th, and 37th, were executed on the steel by my own hand, (the use of the dry point in the foregrounds of the 12th and 21st plates being moreover wholly different from the common processes of etching) I find it constantly assumed that they were engraved for me--as if direct lying in such matters were a thing of quite common usage. Fig. 2 is the centre-piece of the balcony, but a leaf-spray is omitted on the right-hand side, having been too much buried among the real leaves to be drawn. Fig. 3 shows the intended general effect of its masses, the five-leaved and six-leaved flowers being clearly distinguishable at any distance. Fig. 4 is its profile, rather carefully drawn at the top, to show the tulip and turkscap lily leaves. Underneath there is a plate of iron beaten into broad thin leaves, which gives the centre of the balcony a gradual sweep outwards, like the side of a ship of war. The central profile is of the greatest importance in ironwork, as the flow of it affects the curves of the whole design, not merely in surface, as in marble carving, but in their intersections, when the side is seen through the front. The lighter leaves, _b b_, are real bindweed. Fig. 5 shows two of the teeth of the border, illustrating their irregularity of form, which takes place quite to the extent indicated. Fig. 6 is the border at the side of the balcony, showing the most interesting circumstance in the treatment of the whole, namely, the enlargement and retraction of the teeth of the cornice, as it approaches the wall. This treatment of the whole cornice as a kind of wreath round the balcony, having its leaves flung loose at the back, and set close at the front, as a girl would throw a wreath of leaves round her hair, is precisely the most finished indication of a good workman's mind to be found in the whole thing. Fig. 7 shows the outline of the retracted leaves accurately. It was noted in the text that the whole of this ironwork had been coloured. The difficulty of colouring ironwork rightly, and the necessity of doing it in some way or other, have been the principal reasons for my never having entered heartily into this subject; for all the ironwork I have ever seen look beautiful was rusty, and rusty iron will not answer modern purposes. Nevertheless it may be painted, but it needs some one to do it who knows what painting means, and few of us do--certainly none, as yet, of our restorers of decoration or writers on colour. It is a marvellous thing to me that book after book should appear on this last subject, without apparently the slightest consciousness on the part of the writers that the first necessity of beauty in colour is gradation, as the first necessity of beauty in line is curvature,--or that the second necessity in colour is mystery or subtlety, as the second necessity in line is softness. Colour ungradated is wholly valueless; colour unmysterious is wholly barbarous. Unless it looses itself and melts away towards other colours, as a true line loses itself and melts away towards other lines, colour has no proper existence, in the noble sense of the word. What a cube, or tetrahedron, is to organic form, ungradated and unconfused colour is to organic colour; and a person who attempts to arrange colour harmonies without gradation of tint is in precisely the same category, as an artist who should try to compose a beautiful picture out of an accumulation of cubes and parallelepipeds. The value of hue in all illuminations on painted glass of fine periods depends primarily on the expedients used to make the colours palpitate and fluctuate; _inequality_ of brilliancy being the _condition_ of brilliancy, just as inequality of accent is the condition of power and loveliness in sound. The skill with which the thirteenth century illuminators in books, and the Indians in shawls and carpets, use the minutest atoms of colour to gradate other colours, and confuse the eye, is the first secret in their gift of splendour: associated, however, with so many other artifices which are quite instinctive and unteachable, that it is of little use to dwell upon them. Delicacy of organization in the designer given, you will soon have all, and without it, nothing. However, not to close my book with desponding words, let me set down, as many of us like such things, five Laws to which there is no exception whatever, and which, if they can enable no one to produce good colour, are at least, as far as they reach, accurately condemnatory of bad colour. 1. ALL GOOD COLOUR IS GRADATED. A blush rose (or, better still, a blush itself), is the type of rightness in arrangement of pure hue. 2. ALL HARMONIES OF COLOUR DEPEND FOR THEIR VITALITY ON THE ACTION AND HELPFUL OPERATION OF EVERY PARTICLE OF COLOUR THEY CONTAIN. 3. THE FINAL PARTICLES OF COLOUR NECESSARY TO THE COMPLETENESS OF A COLOUR HARMONY ARE ALWAYS INFINITELY SMALL; either laid by immeasurably subtle touches of the pencil, or produced by portions of the colouring substance, however distributed, which are so absolutely small as to become at the intended distance infinitely so to the eye. 4. NO COLOUR HARMONY IS OF HIGH ORDER UNLESS IT INVOLVES INDESCRIBABLE TINTS. It is the best possible sign of a colour when nobody who sees it knows what to call it, or how to give an idea of it to any one else. Even among simple hues the most valuable are those which cannot be defined; the most precious purples will look brown beside pure purple, and purple beside pure brown; and the most precious greens will be called blue if seen beside pure green, and green if seen beside pure blue. 5. THE FINER THE EYE FOR COLOUR, THE LESS IT WILL REQUIRE TO GRATIFY IT INTENSELY. But that little must be supremely good and pure, as the finest notes of a great singer, which are so near to silence. And a great colourist will make even the absence of colour lovely, as the fading of the perfect voice makes silence sacred. 
8710	----	THE DORE GALLERY OF BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrated by Gustave Dore Complete This volume, as its title indicates, is a collection of engravings illustrative of the Bible--the designs being all from the pencil of the greatest of modern delineators, Gustave Dore. The original work, from which this collection has been made, met with an immediate and warm recognition and acceptance among those whose means admitted of its purchase, and its popularity has in no wise diminished since its first publication, but has even extended to those who could only enjoy it casually, or in fragmentary parts. That work, however, in its entirety, was far too costly for the larger and ever-widening circle of M. Dore's admirers, and to meet the felt and often-expressed want of this class, and to provide a volume of choice and valuable designs upon sacred subjects for art-loving Biblical students generally, this work was projected and has been carried forward. The aim has been to introduce subjects of general interest--that is, those relating to the most prominent events and personages of Scripture--those most familiar to all readers; the plates being chosen with special reference to the known taste of the American people. To each cut is prefixed a page of letter-press--in, narrative form, and containing generally a brief analysis of the design. Aside from the labors of the editor and publishers, the work, while in progress, was under the pains-taking and careful scrutiny of artists and scholars not directly interested in the undertaking, but still having a generous solicitude for its success. It is hoped, therefore, that its general plan and execution will render it acceptable both to the appreciative and friendly patrons of the great artist, and to those who would wish to possess such a work solely as a choice collection of illustrations upon sacred themes. GUSTAVE DORE. The subject of this sketch is, perhaps, the most original and variously gifted designer the world has ever known. At an age when most men have scarcely passed their novitiate in art, and are still under the direction and discipline of their masters and the schools, he had won a brilliant reputation, and readers and scholars everywhere were gazing on his work with ever-increasing wonder and delight at his fine fancy and multifarious gifts. He has raised illustrative art to a dignity and importance before unknown, and has developed capacities for the pencil before unsuspected. He has laid all subjects tribute to his genius, explored and embellished fields hitherto lying waste, and opened new and shining paths and vistas where none before had trod. To the works of the great he has added the lustre of his genius, bringing their beauties into clearer view and warming them to a fuller life. His delineations of character, in the different phases of life, from the horrible to the grotesque, the grand to the comic, attest the versatility of his powers; and, whatever faults may be found by critics, the public will heartily render their quota of admiration to his magic touch, his rich and facile rendering of almost every thought that stirs, or lies yet dormant, in the human heart. It is useless to attempt a sketch of his various beauties; those who would know them best must seek them in the treasure--house that his genius is constantly augmenting with fresh gems and wealth. To one, however, of his most prominent traits we will refer--his wonderful rendering of the powers of Nature. His early wanderings in the wild and romantic passes of the Vosges doubtless developed this inherent tendency of his mind. There he wandered, and there, mayhap, imbibed that deep delight of wood and valley, mountain--pass and rich ravine, whose variety of form and detail seems endless to the enchanted eye. He has caught the very spell of the wilderness; she has laid her hand upon him, and he has gone forth with her blessing. So bold and truthful and minute are his countless representations of forest scenery; so delicate the tracery of branch and stem; so patriarchal the giant boles of his woodland monarchs, that the' gazer is at once satisfied and entranced. His vistas lie slumbering with repose either in shadowy glade or fell ravine, either with glint of lake or the glad, long course of some rejoicing stream, and above all, supreme in a beauty all its own, he spreads a canopy of peerless sky, or a wilderness, perhaps, of angry storm, or peaceful stretches of soft, fleecy cloud, or heavens serene and fair--another kingdom to his teeming art, after the earth has rendered all her gifts. Paul Gustave Dore was born in the city of Strasburg, January 10, 1833. Of his boyhood we have no very particular account. At eleven years of age, however, he essayed his first artistic creation--a set' of lithographs, published in his native city. The following year found him in Paris, entered as a 7. student at the Charlemagne Lyceum. His first actual work began in 1848, when his fine series of sketches, the "Labors of Hercules," was given to the public through the medium of an illustrated, journal with which he was for a long time connected as designer. In 1856 were published the illustrations for Balzac's "Contes Drolatiques" and those for "The Wandering Jew "--the first humorous and grotesque in the highest degree--indeed, showing a perfect abandonment to fancy; the other weird and supernatural, with fierce battles, shipwrecks, turbulent mobs, and nature in her most forbidding and terrible aspects. Every incident or suggestion that could possibly make the story more effective, or add to the horror of the scenes was seized upon and portrayed with wonderful power. These at once gave the young designer a great reputation, which was still more enhanced by his subsequent works. With all his love for nature and his power of interpreting her in her varying moods, Dore was a dreamer, and many of his finest achievements were in the realm of the imagination. But he was at home in the actual world also, as witness his designs for "Atala," "London--a Pilgrimage," and many of the scenes in "Don Quixote." When account is taken of the variety of his designs, and the fact considered that in almost every task he attempted none had ventured before him, the amount of work he accomplished is fairly incredible. To enumerate the immense tasks he undertook--some single volumes alone containing hundreds of illustrations--will give some faint idea of his industry. Besides those already mentioned are Montaigne, Dante, the Bible, Milton, Rabelais, Tennyson's "Idyls of the King," "The Ancient Mariner," Shakespeare, "Legende de Croquemitaine," La Fontaine's "Fables," and others still. Take one of these works--the Dante, La Fontaine, or "Don Quixote"--and glance at the pictures. The mere hand labor involved in their production is surprising; but when the quality of the work is properly estimated, what he accomplished seems prodigious. No particular mention need be made of him as painter or sculptor, for his reputation rests solely upon his work as an illustrator. Dore's nature was exuberant and buoyant, and he was youthful in appearance. He had a passion for music, possessed rare skill as a violinist, and it is assumed that, had he failed to succeed with his pencil, he could have won a brilliant reputation as a musician. He was a bachelor, and lived a quiet, retired life with his mother--married, as he expressed it, to her and his art. His death occurred on January 23, 1883. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS GUSTAVE DORE THE CREATION OF EVE THE EXPULSION FROM THE GARDEN THE MURDER OF ABEL THE DELUGE NOAH CURSING HAM THE TOWER OF BABEL ABRAHAM ENTERTAINS THREE STRANGERS THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM THE EXPULSION OF HAGAR HAGAR IN THE WILDERESS THE TRIAL OF THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM THE BURIAL OF SARAH ELIEZER AND REBEKAH ISAAC BLESSING JACOB JACOB TENDING THE FLOCKS JOSEPH SOLD INTO EGYPT JOSEPH INTERPRETING PHARAOH'S DREAM JOSEPH MAKING HIMSELF KNOWN TO HIS BRETHREN MOSES IN THE BULRUSHES THE WAR AGAINST GIBEON SISERA SLAIN BY JAEL DEBORAH'S SONG OF TRIUMPH JEPHTHAH MET BY HIS DAUGHTER JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER AND HER COMPANIONS SAMSON SLAYING THE LION SAMSON AND DELILAH THE DEATH OF SAMSON NAOMI AND HER DAUGHTERS-IN-LAW RUTH AND BOAZ THE RETURN OF THE ARK SAUL AND DAVID DAVID SPARING SAUL DEATH OF SAUL THE DEATH OF ABSALOM DAVID MOURNING OVER ABSALOM SOLOMON THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON THE CEDARS DESTINED FOR THE TEMPLE THE PROPHET SLAIN BY A LION ELIJAH DESTROYING THE MESSENGERS OF AHAZIAH ELIJAH'S ASCENT IN A CHARIOT OF FIRE DEATH OF JEZEBEL ESTHER CONFOUNDING HAMAN ISAIAH DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB'S HOST BARUCH EZEKIEL PROPHESYING THE VISION OF EZEKIEL DANIEL THE FIERY FURNACE BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST DANIEL IN THE LION'S DEN THE PROPHET AMOS JONAH CALLING NINEVEH TO REPENTANCE DANIEL CONFOUNDING THE PRIESTS OF BEL HELIODORUS PUNISHED IN THE TEMPLE THE NATIVITY THE STAR IN THE EAST THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS JESUS QUESTIONING THE DOCTORS JESUS HEALING THE SICK SERMON ON THE MOUNT CHRIST STILLING THE TEMPEST THE DUMB MAN POSSESSED CHRIST IN THE SYNAGOGUE THE DISCIPLES PLUCKING CORN ON THE SABBATH JESUS WALKING ON THE WATER CHRIST'S ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM JESUS AND THE TRIBUTE MONEY THE WIDOW'S MITE RAISING OF THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS THE GOOD SAMARITAN ARRIVAL OF THE SAMARITAN AT THE INN THE PRODIGAL SON LAZARUS AND THE RICH MAN THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN JESUS AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA JESUS AND THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS MARY MAGDALENE THE LAST SUPPER THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN PRAYER OF JESUS IN THE GARDEN OF OLIVES THE BETRAYAL CHRIST FAINTING UNDER THE CROSS THE FLAGELLATION THE CRUCIFIXION CLOSE OF THE CRUCIFIXION THE BURIAL OF JESUS THE ANGEL AT THE SEPULCHER THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS THE ASCENSION THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. STEPHEN SAUL'S CONVERSION THE DELIVERANCE OF ST. PETER PAUL AT EPHESUS PAUL MENACED BY THE JEWS PAUL'S SHIPWRECK DEATH ON THE PALE HORSE THE CREATION OF EVE. "And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helpmeet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." Genesis ii, 18, 21-24. In these few words the Scriptures narrate the creation of the first mother of our race. In "Paradise Lost," the poetic genius of Milton, going more into detail, describes how Eve awoke to consciousness, and found herself reposing under a shade of flowers, much wondering what she was and whence she came. Wandering by the margin of a small lake, she sees her own form mirrored in the clear waters, at which she wonders more. But a voice is heard, leading her to him for whom she was made, who lies sleeping under a grateful shade. It is at this point the artist comes to interpret the poet's dream. Amid the varied and luxurious foliage of Eden, in the vague light of the early dawn, Eve is presented, coy and graceful, gazing on her sleeping Lord, while in the background is faintly outlined the mystic form of Him in whose image they were created. THE EXPULSION FROM THE GARDEN. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.--Genesis iii, 22-24 They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate, With dreadful forces thronged, and fiery arms Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide; They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way. Paradise Lost, Book XII. THE MURDER OF ABEL. And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass,--when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.--Genesis iv, 1-16 THE DELUGE. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; they, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the Lord shut him in. And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased, greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man; all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth; and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.--Genesis vii, 11-24. NOAH CURSING HAM. And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread. And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.--Genesis ix, 18-27. THE TOWER OF BABEL. And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.--Genesis xi, 1-9. ABRAHAM ENTERTAINS THREE STRANGERS. In the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son. And all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him. And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, and said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth. And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.--Genesis xvii, 26, 27; xviii 1-8. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.--Hebrews xiii, 2. THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM. And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city. And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city. And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord. Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me and I die. Behold now this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live. And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken. Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered unto Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.--Genesis xix, 15-28. THE EXPULSION OF HAGAR. And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old, as God had commanded him. And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age. And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. And Sarah, saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking. Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this, bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son. And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.--Genesis xxi, 1-14. HAGAR IN THE WILDERNESS. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away; and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. And she went and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow-shot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.--Genesis xxi. 14-21. THE TRIAL OF THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM. And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he, said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.--Geneszs xxii. 1-18. THE BURIAL OF SARAH. And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old these were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight. And the children of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him, Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince among us: in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy dead. And Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth. And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and intreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me for a possession of a burying-place amongst you. And Ephron dwelt among the children of Heth: and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying, Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee: bury thy dead. And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land. And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me: I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there. And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver: what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead. And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city. And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan. And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying-place by the sons of Heth.--Genesis xxiii. ELIEZER AND REBEKAH. And the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware to him concerning that matter. And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed; for all the goods of his master were in his hand: and he arose and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor. And he made his camels to kneel down, without the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water. And he said, O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham. Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw: water: and let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master. And it came to pass before he had done speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder. And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher and came up. And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher. And she said, Drink, my lord; and she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking. And she hasted and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels. And the man wondering at her held his peace, to wit whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking, that the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold: and said, Whose daughter art thou? tell me, I pray thee; is there room in thy father's house for us to lodge in? And she said unto him, I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor. She said moreover unto him, We have both straw and provender enough, and room to lodge in. And the man bowed down his head and worshiped the Lord. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth: I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master's brethren. And the damsel ran, and told them of her mother's house these things.--Genesis xxiv, 9-28. ISAAC BLESSING JACOB. And it came to pass, that when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see, he called Esau, his eldest son, and said unto him, My son: and he said unto him, Behold, here am I. And he said, Behold now, I am old, I know not the day of my death: Now therefore take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me some venison; And make me savoury meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat; that my soul may bless thee before I die. And Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring it. And Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son, saying, Behold, I heard thy father speak unto Esau thy brother, saying, Bring me venison, and make me savoury meat, that I may eat, and bless thee before the Lord before my death. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to that which I command thee. Go now to the flock, and fetch me from thence two good kids of the goats; and I will make them savoury meat for thy father such as he loveth; And thou shalt bring it to thy father, that he may eat, and that he may bless thee before his death. And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man: My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing. And his mother said unto him, Upon me be thy curse, my son: only obey my voice, and go fetch me them. And he went, and fetched, and brought them to his mother: and his mother made savoury meat, such as his father loved. And Rebekah took goodly raiment of her eldest son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob her younger son: And she put the skins of the kids of the goats upon his hands and upon the smooth of his neck: And she gave the savoury meat and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob. And he came unto his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I; who art thou, my son? And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thy first born; I have done according as thou badest me: arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said, Because the Lord thy God brought it to me. And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not. And Jacob went; near unto Isaac his father; and he felt him, and said, The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy, as his brother Esau's hands: so he blessed him. And he said, Art thou my very son Esau? And he said, I am. And he said, Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son's venison, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near to him, and he did eat; and he brought him wine, and he drank. And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near now, and kiss me, my son. And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed: Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine: Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee.--Genesis xxvii. 1-29. JACOB TENDING THE FLOCKS OF LABAN. And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep: for she kept them. And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother's brother, that Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother's brother. And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father's brother, and that he was Rebekah's son: and she ran and told her father. And it came to pass, when Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister's son, that he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house. And he told Laban all these things. And Laban said to him, Surely thou art my bone and my flesh. And he abode with him the space of a month. And Laban said unto Jacob, Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for naught? tell me, what shall thy wages be? And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured. And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man; abide with me. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had for her. And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast. And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and he went in unto her. And Laban gave unto his daughter Leah Zilpah his maid, for an handmaid. And it came to pass that in the morning, behold, it was Leah: and he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done unto me? did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week; and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also. And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid. And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years.--Genesis xxix, 9-30. JOSEPH SOLD INTO EGYPT. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren, and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a coat of many colors. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed. For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father and to his brethren; and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth. And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying. And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan. And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreams. And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him. And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands to deliver him to his father again. And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him; and they took him and cast him into a pit; and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. And they sat down to eat bread; and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content. Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver; and they brought Joseph into Egypt. And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, and captain of the guard.--Genesis xxxvii, 2--12, 17-28, 36 JOSEPH INTERPRETING PHARAOH'S DREAM. And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river. And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well favoured kine and fat-fleshed; and they fed in a meadow. And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and lean-fleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. And the ill favored and lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well favoured and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke. And he slept and dreamed the second time: and, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good. And, behold, seven thin ears and blasted with the east wind sprung up after them. And the seven thin ears devoured the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dream. And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled; and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men thereof: and Pharaoh told them his dream; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh. [At the suggestion of his chief butler Pharaoh sends for Joseph and relates to him his dreams, which Joseph interprets as follows:] And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do. The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one. And the seven thin and ill favoured kine that came up after them are seven years; and the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind shall be seven years of famine. This is the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh: What God is about to do he sheweth unto Pharaoh. Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; and the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of that famine following; for it shall be very grievous. And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass. Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. And let them gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities. And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine.--Genesis xli. 1-36. JOSEPH MAKING HIMSELF KNOWN TO HIS BRETHREN. Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not: And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast. And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty. And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him. And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying, Joseph's brethren are come and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, say unto thy brethren, This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan; and take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land.--Genesis xlv, 1-18. MOSES IN THE BULRUSHES. And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.--Exodus ii, 1-10. THE WAR AGAINST GIBEON. Therefore the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped before Gibeon, and made war against it. And the men of Gibeon sent unto Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, saying, Slack not thy hand from thy servants; come up to us quickly, and save us and help us: for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the mountains are gathered together against us. So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he, and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor. And the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thine hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee. Joshua therefore came unto them suddenly, and went up from Gilgal all night. And the Lord discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Beth-horon, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makkedah. And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword. Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hastened not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel. And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal. But these five kings fled, and hid themselves in a cave at Makkedah. And it was told Joshua, saying, The five kings are found hid in a cave at Makkedah. And Joshua said, Roll great stones upon the mouth of the cave, and set men by it for to keep them: and stay ye not, but pursue after your enemies, and smite the hindmost of them; suffer them not to enter into their cities; for the Lord your God hath delivered them into your hand. And it came to pass, when Joshua and the children of Israel had made an end of slaying them with a very great slaughter, till they were consumed, that the rest which remained of them entered into fenced cities. Joshua x, 5-20. SISERA SLAIN BY JAEL. Now Heber the Kenite, which was of the children of Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses, had severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent unto the plain of Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh. And they shewed Sisera that Barak, the son of Abinoam, was gone up to Mount Tabor. And Sisera gathered together all his chariots, even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people that were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles unto the river of Kishon. And Deborah said unto Barak, Up; for this is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hand: is not the Lord gone out before thee? So Barak went down from Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him. And the Lord discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on his feet. But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the host, unto Harosheth of the Gentiles: and all the host of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword; and there was not a man left. Howbeit Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle. And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him. Again he said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and enquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here? that thou shalt say, No. Then Jael, Heber's wife, took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died. And, behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples. Judges iv, 2-22. DEBORAH'S SONG OF TRIUMPH. Then sang Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinoam on that day, saying:-- Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, When the people willingly offered themselves. Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes; I, even I, will sing unto the Lord; I will sing praise to the Lord God of Israel. Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, When thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, The earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water. The mountains melted from before the Lord, Even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel. ********************************* Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be; Blessed shall she be above women in the tent. He asked water, and she gave him milk; She brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; And with the hammer she smote Sisera, She smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: At her feet he bowed, he fell: Where he bowed, there he fell down dead. The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariots? Her wise ladies answered her, yea, she returned answer to herself, Have they not sped? Have they not divided the prey; To every man a damsel or two; To Sisera a prey of divers colours, a prey of divers colours of needlework, Of divers colours of needlework on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil? So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: But let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. Judges v, 2-5, 24-31 JEPHTHAH MET BY HIS DAUGHTER. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon. And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hands. And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel. And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. Judges xi, 29-34. JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER AND HER COMPANIONS And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back. And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon. And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel, that the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year. Judges xi, 35-40. SAMSON SLAYING THE LION. Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath; and, behold, a young lion roared against him. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand; but he told not his father or his mother what he had done. Judges xiv, 5-6. SAMSON AND DELILAH. And it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto her, Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver. And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee. And Samson said unto her, If they bind me with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another man. Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green withs which had not been dried, and she bound him with them. Now there were men lying in wait, abiding with her in the chamber. And she said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he brake the withs, as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire. So his strength was not known. And Delilah said unto Samson, Behold, thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: now tell me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If they bind me fast with clew ropes that never were occupied, then shall I be weak, and be as another man. Delilah therefore took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And there were liers in wait abiding in the chamber. And he brake them from off his arms like a thread. And Delilah said unto Samson, Hitherto thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web. And she fastened it with the pin, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awaked out of his sleep, and went away with the pin of the beam and with the web. And she said unto him, How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth. And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; that he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's womb if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man. And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he hath showed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought money in their hand. And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him. Judges xvi, 4-20. THE DEATH OF SAMSON. But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house. Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven. Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our God hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand. And when the people saw him, they praised their god: for they said, Our god hath delivered into our hands our enemy, and the destroyer of our country, which slew many of us. And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house; and he made them sport: and they set him between the pillars. And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them. Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport. And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left. And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life. Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burying-place of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years.--Judges xvi; 21-31 NAOMI AND HER DAUGHTERS IN LAW. Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Beth-lehem-judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Beth-lehem-judah. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there. And Elimelech Naomi's husband died; and she was left, and her two sons. And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth: and they dwelt there about ten years. And Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was left of her two sons and her husband. Then she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab for she had heard in the country of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread. Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters in law with her; and they went on the way to return unto the land of Judah. And Naomi said unto her two daughters in law, Go, return each to her mother's house the Lord deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me. The Lord grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them; and they lifted up their voice, and wept. And they said unto her, Surely we will return with thee unto thy people. And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? Turn again, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say, I have hope, if I should have a husband also to night, and should also bear sons; would ye tarry for them till they were grown? would ye stay for them from having husbands? nay, my daughters; for it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord is gone out against me. And they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother in law but Ruth cleave unto her. And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods return thou after thy sister in law. And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her. So they two went until they came to Beth-lehem.--Ruth i, 1-19. RUTH AND BOAZ. And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech; and his name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said unto her, Go, my daughter. And she went, and came and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech. And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee. Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this? And the servant that was set over the reapers answered and said, It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab: and she said, I pray you, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves: so she came, and hath continued even from the morning until now, that she tarried a little in the house. Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens: let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them: have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? and when thou art athirst, go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn. Then she fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger? And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore. The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. Then she said, Let me find favor in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine handmaid, though I be not like unto one of thine handmaidens. And Boaz said unto her, At mealtime come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. And she sat beside the reapers: and he reached her parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left. And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not: and let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, that she may glean them and rebuke her not. So she gleaned in the field until even, and beat out that she had gleaned: and it was about an ephah of barley.--Ruth ii, 1-17. THE RETURN OF THE ARK. And the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months. And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do to the ark of the Lord? tell us wherewith we shall send it to his place. And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; but in any wise return him a trespass offering: then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you. Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords. Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land. Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed? Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them: and take the ark of the Lord, and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye return him for a trespass offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go. And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Beth-shemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us. And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home: and they laid the ark of the Lord upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods. And the kine took the straight way to the way of Beth-shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them, unto the border of Beth-shemesh. And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley: and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth-shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone: and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt offering unto the Lord. And the Levites took down the ark of the Lord, and the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of gold were, and put them on the great stone: and the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices the same day unto the Lord.--1 Samuel vi, 1-5. SAUL AND DAVID. And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle. And David went out withersoever Saul sent him, and behaved himself wisely: and Saul set him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul's servants. And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music. And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, "They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?" And Saul eyed David from that day and forward. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul's hand. And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.--1 Samuel xviii, I-II. DAVID SPARING SAUL. And it came to pass, when Saul was returned from following the Philistines, that it was told him, saying, Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi. Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the wild goats. And he came to the sheepcotes by the way, where was a cave; and Saul went in to cover his feet: and David and his men remained in the sides of the cave. And the men of David said unto him, Behold the day of which the Lord said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee. Then David arose, and cut off the skirt of Saul's robe privily. And it came to pass afterward, that David's heart smote him, because he had cut off Saul's skirt. And he said unto his men, The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord. So David stayed his servants with these words, and suffered them not to rise against Saul. But Saul rose up out of the cave, and went on his way. David also arose afterward, and went out of the cave, and cried after Saul, saying, My lord the king. And when Saul looked behind him, David stooped with his face to the earth and bowed himself. And David said to Saul, Wherefore hearest thou men's words, saying, Behold, David seeketh thy hurt? Behold, this day thine eyes have seen how that the Lord had delivered thee to-day into mine hand in the cave: and some bade me kill thee; but mine eye spared thee; and I said, I will not put forth mine hand against my lord; for he is the Lord's anointed. Moreover, my father, see, yea, see the skirt of thy robe in my hand: for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe, and killed thee not, know thou and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in mine hand, and I have not sinned against thee; yet thou huntest my soul to take it. The Lord judge between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon thee. As saith the proverb of the ancients, Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked: but mine hand shall not be upon thee. After whom is the king of Israel come out? after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea. The Lord therefore be judge, and judge between me and thee, and see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand. And it came to pass, when David had made an end of speaking these words unto Saul, that Saul said, Is this thy voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice, and wept. And he said to David, Thou art more righteous than I: for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil. And thou hast shewed this day how that thou hast dealt well, with me: forasmuch as when the Lord had delivered me into thine hand, thou killedst me not. For if a man find his enemy, will he let him go well away? wherefore the Lord reward thee good for that thou hast done unto me this day. And now, behold, I know well that thou shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand. Swear now therefore unto me by the Lord, that thou wilt not cut off my seed after me, and that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father's house. And David sware unto Saul. And Saul went home; but David and his men gat them up unto the hold.--2 Samuel xxiv, 2--22. DEATH OF SAUL. Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa. And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchshua, Saul's sons. And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers. Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore, Saul took a sword, and fell upon it. And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him. So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together. And when the men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley, and they that were on the other side Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities, and fled; and the Philistines came and dwelt in them. And it came to pass on the morrow, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his three sons fallen in mount Gilboa. And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to publish it in the house of their idols, and among the people. And they put his armour in the house of Ashtaroth and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan. And when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard of that which the Philistines had done to Saul; all the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan, and came to Jabesh, and burnt them there. And they took their bones, and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days. 1 Samuel xxxi. THE DEATH OF ABSALOM. And David numbered the people that were with him, and set captains of thousands and captains of hundreds over them. And David set forth a third part of the people under the hand of Joab, and a third part under the hand of Abishai the son of Zeruiah, Joab's brother, and a third part under the hand of Ittai the Gittite. And the king said unto the people, I will surely go forth with you myself also. But the people answered, Thou shalt not go forth: for if we flee away, they will not care for us; neither if half of us die, will they care for us: but now thou art worth ten thousand of us: therefore now it is better that thou succor us out of the city. And the king said unto them, What seemeth you best I will do. And the king stood by the gate side, and all the people came out by hundreds and by thousands. And the king commanded Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying, Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom. And all the people heard when the king gave all the captains charge concerning Absalom. So the people went out into the field against Israel: and the battle was in the wood of Ephraim; where the people of Israel were slain before the servants of David, and there was there a great slaughter that day, of twenty thousand men. For the battle was there scattered over the face of all the country: and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured. And Absalom met the servants of David. And Absalom rode upon a mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth; and the mule that was under him went away. And a certain man saw it, and told Joab, and said, Behold I saw Absalom hanged in an oak. And Joab said unto the man that told him, And, behold, thou sawest him, and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle. And the man said unto Joab, Though I should receive a thousand shekels of silver in mine hand, yet would I not put forth mine hand against the king's son: for in our hearing the king charged thee and Abishai and Ittai, saying, Beware that none touch the young man Absalom. Otherwise I should have wrought falsehood against mine own life: for there is no matter hid from the king, and thou thyself wouldst have set thyself against me. Then said Joab, I may not tarry thus with thee. And he took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak. And ten young men that bare Joab's armor compassed about and smote Absalom, and slew him. And Joab blew the trumpet, and the people returned from pursuing after Israel: for Joab held back the people. And they took Absalom, and cast him into a great pit in the wood, and laid a very great heap of stones upon him: and all Israel fled every one to his tent.--2 Samuel xviii, 1-17. DAVID MOURNING OVER ABSALOM. Then said Ahimaaz the son of Zadok, Let me now run, and bear the king tidings, how that the Lord hath avenged him of his enemies. And Joab said unto him, Thou shalt not bear tidings this day, but thou shalt bear tidings another day: but this day thou shalt bear no tidings, because the king's son is dead. Then said Joab to Cushi, Go tell the king what thou hast seen. And Cushi bowed himself unto Joab, and ran. Then said Ahimaaz the son of Zadok yet again to Joab, But howsoever, let me, I pray thee, also run after Cushi. And Joab said, Wherefore wilt thou run, my son, seeing that thou hast no tidings ready? But howsoever, said he let me run. And he said unto him, Run. Then Ahimaaz ran by the way of the plain, and overran Cushi. And David sat between the two gates: and the watchman went up to the roof over the gate unto the wall, and lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold a man running alone. And the watchman cried, and told the king. And the king said, If he be alone, there is tidings in his mouth. And he came apace, and drew near. And the watchman saw another man running: and the watchman called unto the porter, and said, Behold another man running alone. And the king said, He also bringeth tidings. And the watchman said, Me thinketh the running of the foremost is like the running of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok. And the king said, He is a good man, and cometh with good tidings. And Ahimaaz called, and said unto the king, All is well. And he fell down to the earth upon his face before the king, and said, Blessed be the Lord thy God, which hath delivereth up the men that lifted up their hand against my lord the king. And the king said, Is the young man Absalom safe? And Ahimaaz answered, When Joab sent the king's servant, and me thy servant, I saw a great tumult, but I knew not what it was. And the king said unto him, Turn aside, and stand here. And he turned aside, and stood still. And, behold, Cushi came; and Cushi said, Tidings, my lord the king: for the Lord bath avenged thee this day of all them that rose up against thee. And the king said unto Cushi, Is the young man Absalom safe? And Cushi answered, The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is. And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son! And it was told Joab, Behold the king weepeth and mourneth for Absalom. And the victory that day was turned into mourning unto all the people: for the people heard say that day how the king was grieved for his son. And the people gat them by stealth that day into the city, as people being ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. But the king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!--2 Samuel xviii, 19 33; xix, 1-4. SOLOMON And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron: and there were yet sons and daughters born to David. And these be the names of those that were born unto him in Jerusalem; Shammuah, and Shobab, and Nathan, and Solomon, Ibhar also, and Elishua, and Nepheg, and Japhia, and Elishama, and Eliada, and Eliphalet.--2 Samuel v. 13-16. And David comforted Bath-sheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her: and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon: and the Lord loved him.--2 Samuel xii, 24. So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David. And the days that David reigned over Israel were forty years: seven years reigned he in Hebron, and thirty and three years reigned he in Jerusalem. Then sat Solomon upon the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was established greatly.--1 Kings ii, 10-12. And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in all nations round about. And he spake three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom.--2 Kings iv, 29-34. THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON. Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him. And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house. And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house. And this woman's child died in the night; because she overlaid it. And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear. And the other woman said, Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son. And this said, No; but the dead is thy son, and, the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king. Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead--and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living. And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other. Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it she is the mother thereof. And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment. 1 Kings iii, 16-28. THE CEDARS DESTINED FOR THE TEMPLE. And Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants unto Solomon; for he had heard that they had anointed him king in the room of his father: for Hiram was ever a lover of David. And Solomon sent to Hiram, saying, Thou knowest how that David my father could not build a house unto the name of the Lord his God for the wars which were about him on every side, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet. But now the Lord my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent. And, behold: I purpose to build a house unto the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord spake unto David my father, saying, Thy son, whom I will set upon thy throne in thy room, he shall build a house unto my name. Now therefore command thou that they hew me cedar trees out of Lebanon; and my servants shall be with thy servants: and unto thee will I give hire for the servants according to all that thou shalt appoint: for thou knowest that there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians. And it came to pass, when Hiram heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly and said, Blessed be the Lord this day, which hath given unto David a wise son over this great, people. And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying, I have considered the things which thou sentest to me for: and I will do all thy desire concerning timber of cedar, and concerning timber of fir: My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea; and I will convey them by sea in floats unto the place that thou shalt appoint me, and will cause them to be discharged there, and thou shalt receive them: and thou shalt accomplish my desire, in giving food for my household. So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees according to all his desire. And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household and twenty measures of pure oil: thus gave Solomon to Hiram year by year. And the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him: and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and they two made a league together. And king Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men. And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses: a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home: and Adoniram was over the levy. And Solomon had three score and ten thousand that bare burdens, and fourscore thousand hewers in the mountains beside the chief of Solomon's officers which were over the work, three thousand and three-hundred, which ruled over the people that wrought in the work. And the king commanded and they brought great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones, to lay the foundation of the' house. And Solomon's builders, and Hiram's builders did hew them, and the stone-squarers; so they prepared timber and stones to build the house.--1 Kings v. THE PROPHET SLAIN BY A LION. Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel: the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father. And their father said unto them, What way went he? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went, which came, from Judah. And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the, ass: and he rode thereon, and went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am. Then he said unto him, Come home with me, and eat bread. And he, said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place: for it was said to me by the word of the Lord, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest. He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him. So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water. And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the word of the Lord came unto the prophet that brought him back: and he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord, and hast not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God commanded thee, but camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the Lord did say to thee, Eat no bread, and drink no water; thy carcass shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers. And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled for him the ass, to wit, for the prophet whom he had brought back. And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him: and his carcass was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it, the lion also stood by the carcass. And, behold, men passed by, and saw the carcass cast in the way, and the lion standing by the carcass: and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt. And when the prophet that brought him back from the way heard thereof, he said, It is; the man of God, who was disobedient unto the word of the Lord: therefore the Lord hath delivered him unto the lion, which hath torn him, and slain him, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake unto him. And he spake to his sons, saying, Saddle me the ass. And they saddled him. And he went and found his carcass cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the carcass: the lion had not eaten the carcass, nor torn the ass.--2 Kings xiii, II-28. ELIJAH DESTROYING THE MESSENGERS OF AHAZIAH. And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, enquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease. But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say unto them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that 'ye go to enquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron? Now therefore thus saith the Lord, Thou; shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. And Elijah departed. And when the messengers turned back unto him, he said unto them, Why are ye now turned back? And they said unto him, There came a man up to meet us, and said unto us, Go, turn again unto the king that sent you, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that thou sendest to enquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron? therefore thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. And he said unto them, What manner of man was he which came up to meet you, and told you these words? And they answered him, He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite. Then the king sent unto him a captain of fifty with his fifty. And he went up to him and, behold, he sat on the top of an hill. And he spake unto him, Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down. And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. Again also he sent unto him another captain of fifty with his fifty. And he answered and said unto him, O man of God, thus hath the king said, Come down quickly. And Elijah answered and said unto them, If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. And he sent again a captain of the third fifty with his fifty. And the third captain of fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and besought him, and said unto him, O man of God, I pray thee, let my life, and the life of these fifty thy servants, be precious in thy sight. Behold, there came fire down from heaven, and burnt up the two captains of the former fifties with their fifties: therefore let my life now be precious in thy sight. And the angel of the lord said unto Elijah, Go down with him: be not afraid of him. And he arose, and went down with him unto the king. And he said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast sent messengers to enquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron, is it not because there is no God in Israel to enquire of his word? therefore thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. So he died according to the word of the Lord which Elijah had spoken.--2 Kings i, 2-17. ELIJAH'S ASCENT IN A CHARIOT OF FIRE. And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Beth-el. And Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Beth-el. And the sons of the prophets that were at Beth-el came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day? And he said, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace. And Elijah said unto him, Elisha, tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they came to Jericho. And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day? And he answered, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace. And Elijah said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee, here; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they two went on. And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood to view afar off and they two stood by Jordan. And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground. And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so. And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.--2 Kings ii, I-II. THE DEATH OF JEZEBEL. And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window. And as Jehu entered in at the gate, she said, Had Zimri peace, who slew his master? And he lifted up his face to the window, and said, Who is on my side? who? And there looked out to him two or three eunuchs. And he said, Throw her down. So they threw her down: and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses and he trod her under foot. And when he was come in, he did eat and drink, and said, Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her: for she is a king's daughter. And they went to bury her: but they found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands. Wherefore they came again, and told him. And he said, This is the word of the Lord, which he spake by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel: and the carcass of Jezebel shall be as dung upon the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel; so that they shall not say, This is Jezebel.--2 Kings ix, 30-37. ESTHER CONFOUNDING HAMAN. So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen. And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom. Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favor in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request: for we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage. Then the king Ahasuerus answered and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so? And Esther said, The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman. Then, Haman was afraid before the king and the queen. And the king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath went into the palace garden: and Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king. Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was. Then said the king, Will he force the queen also before me in the house? As the word went out of the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face. And Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said, Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king's wrath pacified.--Esther vii. ISAIAH. Isaiah (in Hebrew, Yeshayahu, "Salvation of God"), the earliest and most sublime of the four greater Hebrew prophets, was the son of Amoz (2 Kings xix, 2-20; Isaiah xxxvii, 2), and he uttered his oracles during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. The dates of his birth and death are unknown, but he lived from about 760 B.C. to about 700 B.C. He was married and had three sons--the children referred to in Isaiah viii, 18; and he appears to have resided near Jerusalem. But by most competent critics it is now held that the last twenty-seven chapters (40-66) of the book bearing his name were the work, not of the prophet, but of a later writer who is commonly styled the second or Deutero-Isaiah. In this portion of the book, Cyrus, who was not born till after 600 B.C., is mentioned by name (Isaiah, xliv, 28; xlv, i); and events which did not take place till a century after the prophet's death are referred to as happening contemporaneously with the writer's account of them. The style of these last twenty-seven chapters, also, is different, and the tone is more elevated and spiritual. Dore's ideal portrait is more suited to the second or pseudo-Isaiah, than to the real one. DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB'S HOST. Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake. And it came to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead.--2 Kings xix, 32-37 BARUCH. And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord, which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book. Jeremiah xxxvi; 1-4. The word that Jeremiah the prophet spake unto Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a book at the mouth of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, unto thee, O Baruch; thou didst say, Woe is me now! for the Lord hath added grief to my sorrow; I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest. Thus shalt thou say unto him, The Lord saith thus; Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land. And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the Lord: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goesth. Jeremiah xlv, 1-5. EZEKIEL PROPHESYING. Ezekiel, the third of the great Hebrew prophets, was the son of the priest Buzi. (Ezekiel i, 3). He was probably born about 620 or 630 years before Christ, and was consequently a contemporary of Jeremiah and Daniel, to the latter of whom he alludes in chapters xiv, 14-20 and xxviii, 3. When Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 B.C. (2 Kings xxiv, 8-16; Jeremiah xxix, 1-2; Ezekiel xvii, 12; xix, 9), Ezekiel was carried captive along with Jehoiachin, or Jeconiah, king of Judah, and thousands of other Jewish prisoners, to Babylonia, or as he himself calls it, "the land of the Chaldeans." (Ezekiel i, 3). Here, along with his exiled fellow-countrymen, he lived on the banks of the river Chebar (Ezekiel i, 1-3), in a house of his own (viii, i). Here also he married, and here, too, his wife, "the desire of his eyes," was taken from him "with a stroke" (Ezekiel xxiv, 15-18). His prophetic career extended over twenty-two years, from about 592 B.C. to about 570 B.C. The book bearing his name is written in a mystical and symbolical style, and abounds with visions and difficult allegories which indicate on the part of the author the possession of a vivid and sublime imagination. Ezekiel's authorship of it has been questioned. The Talmud attributes it to the Great Synagogue, of which Ezekiel was not a member. It is divisible into two portions. The first (chapters i-xxiv) was written before, and the second (chapters xxv-xlviii) after, the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C, the eleventh year of the prophet's captivity (Ezekiel xxvi, 1-2; XI, i). The present text is very imperfect, being corrupted by the interpolation of glosses and other additions by later hands. Dore's picture represents the prophet uttering his oracles to his fellow-exiles ("them of the captivity"), or to the "elders of Judah," or "elders of Israel," on one of the occasions to which he himself alludes (viii, I; xi, 25; xiv, I; xx, I). THE VISION OF EZEKIEL. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me; Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the, bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord.--Ezekiel xxxvii, 1-14. DANIEL. Respecting the parentage or family of Daniel, the fourth of the great Hebrew prophets, nothing is known, though he appears to have been of noble if not of royal descent (Daniel i, 3). When, in the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim (607, 606, 605, or 604 B.C.), Jerusalem was first taken by Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel, then a youth, was among the captives carried to Babylon. By the king's orders, he, with others of the Jewish youth, was educated for three years (Daniel i, 3-7). At this time Daniel acquired the power of interpreting dreams (i, 17), which he used with such advantage in expounding a dream of Nebuchadnezzar, that he was made ruler over the whole province of Babylon (Daniel ii, 46-48). Daniel's interpretation of Belshazzar's famous vision having been fulfilled by the capture of Babylon by Darius, that conqueror promoted Daniel to the highest office in the kingdom (Daniel vi, 1-3). The prophet also prospered greatly during the reign of Cyrus (Daniel vi, 28). The book of Daniel is written partly in Chaldaic or Syriac (the vernacular Aramaic language spoken by the people of Palestine), and partly in sacred Hebrew. It is manifestly divisible into two portions. The first (chapters i-vi) narrating the details of the prophet's life, and the second (chapters vii-xii) setting forth his apocalyptic visions. Much doubt has been cast upon the authenticity of the work. The evident reference in the eleventh chapter to the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, which took place about 330 B.C., or more than two hundred years after Daniel flourished, has led many modern critics to believe that the work was composed in the time of the Maccabees. Dore's picture appears to be intended to represent the prophet meditating over one of the many visions which came to him. THE FIERY FURNACE. Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and accused the Jews. They spake and said to the king Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever. There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Then they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego? do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: therefore he spake, and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated. And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Therefore because the king's commandment was urgent and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counselors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered, and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came forth of the midst of the fire. And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's counselors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was a hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.--Daniel iii, 8, 9, 12-27. BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. [On the failure of his astrologers and soothsayers to interpret the writing, the king, at the suggestion of his queen, sends for Daniel, who interprets it as follows:] O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honor: and for the majesty that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him and he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses: they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will. And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written. And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom.--Daniel v. DANIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. Then these men assembled, and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God. Then they came near, and spake before the king concerning the king's decree Hast thou not signed a decree, that every man that shall ask a petition of any God or man within thirty days, save of thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. The king answered and said, The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. Then answered they and said before the king, That Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day. Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him: and he laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him. Then these men assembled unto the king, and said unto the king, Know, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, That no decree nor statute which the king establisheth may be changed. Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions. Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee. And a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that the purpose might not be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting: neither were instruments of musick brought before him: and his sleep went from him. Then the king arose very early in the morning, and went in haste unto the den of lions. And when he came to the den, he cried with a lamentable voice unto Daniel: and the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions? Then said Daniel unto the King, O king, live forever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt. Then was the king exceeding glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God. And the king commanded, and they brought those men which had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces or ever they came at the bottom of the den.--Daniel vi. THE PROPHET AMOS. Amos, one of the earliest of the Hebrew prophets, flourished during the reign of Uzziah, about 790 B.C., and was consequently a contemporary of Hosea and Joel. In his youth he lived at Tekoa, about six miles south of Bethlehem, in Judaea, and was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit (Amos i, i; vii, 14). This occupation he gave up for that of prophet (vii, 15), and he came forward to denounce the idolatry then prevalent in Judah, Israel, and the surrounding kingdoms. The first six chapters of his book contain his denunciations of idolatry; the other three, his symbolical vision of the overthrow of the people of Israel, and a promise of their restoration. The style is remarkable for clearness and strength, and for its picturesque use of images drawn from the rural and pastoral life which the prophet had led in his youth. JONAH CALLING NINEVEH TO REPENTANCE. And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto to Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything: let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.--Jonah iii. DANIEL CONFOUNDING THE PRIESTS OF BEL. Now the Babylonians had an idol called Bel: and there were spent upon him every day, twelve great measures of fine flour, and forty sheep, and sixty vessels of wine. The king also worshipped him, and went every day to adore him: but Daniel adored his God. And the king said unto him: Why dost thou not adore Bel? And he answered, and said to him Because I do not worship idols made with hands, but the living God, that created heaven and earth, and hath power over all flesh. And the king said to him: Doth not Bel seem to thee to be a living God? Seest thou not how much he eateth and drinketh every day? Then Daniel smiled and said: O king, be not deceived: for this is but clay within, and brass without, neither hath he eaten at any time. And the king being angry called for his priests, and said to them: If you tell me not, who it is that eateth up these expenses, you shall die. But if you can show that Bel eateth these things, Daniel shall die, because he hath blasphemed against Bel. And Daniel said to the king: Be it done according to thy word. Now the priests of Bel were seventy besides their wives and little ones and children. And they went with Daniel into the temple of Bel. And the priests of Bel said: Behold, we go out: and do thou, O king, set on the meats, and make ready, the wine, and shut the door fast, and seal it with thy own ring: and when thou comest in the morning, if thou findest not that Bel hath eaten all up, we will suffer death, or else Daniel that hath lied against us. And they little regarded it, because they had made under the table a secret entrance, and they always came in by it, and consumed those things. So it came to pass after they were gone out, the king set the meats before Bel: and Daniel commanded his servants, and they brought ashes, and he sifted them all over the temple before the king: and going forth they shut the door, and having sealed it with the king's ring, they departed. But the priests went in by night, according to their custom, with their wives and their children: and they eat and drank all up. And the king rose early in the morning, and Daniel with him. And the king said: Are the seals whole, Daniel? and he answered: They are whole, O king. And as soon as he had opened the door, the king looked upon the table, and cried out with a loud voice Great art thou, O Bel, and there is not any deceit with thee. And Daniel laughed: and he held the king that he should not go in: and he said: Behold the pavement, mark whose footsteps these are. And the king said: I see the footsteps of men, and women, and children. And the king was angry. Then he took the priests, and their wives, and their children: and they showed him the private doors by which they came in, and consumed the things that were on the table. The king therefore put them to death, and delivered Bel into the power of Daniel: who destroyed him, and his temple.--Daniel xiv, I-21 (Douay Version). HELIODORUS PUNISHED IN THE TEMPLE. But Heliodorus executed that which he had resolved on, himself being present in the same place with his guard about the treasury. But the spirit of the Almighty God gave a great evidence of his presence, so that all that had presumed to obey him, falling down by the power of God, were struck with fainting and dread. For there appeared to them a horse with a terrible rider upon him, adorned with a very rich covering: and he ran fiercely and struck Heliodorus with his fore-feet, and he that sat upon him seemed to have armor of gold. Moreover, there appeared two other young men, beautiful and strong, bright and glorious, and in comely apparel: who stood by him, on either side, and scourged him without ceasing with many stripes. And Heliodorus suddenly fell to the ground, and they took him up covered with great darkness, and having put him into a litter they carried him out. So he that came with many servants, and all his guard into the aforesaid treasury, was carried out, no one being able to help him, the manifest power of God being known. And he indeed by the power of God lay speechless, and without all hope of recovery.--2 Maccabees iii, 23-29. THE NATIVITY. And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid: And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it, wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.--Luke ii. THE STAR IN THE EAST. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him; In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem! in the land of Juda, are not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of the shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently, what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king, they parted; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.--Matthew ii, I-10. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: and was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.--Matthew ii 13-15. THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.--Matthew ii, 16-18. JESUS QUESTIONING THE DOCTORS. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother, knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that, ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my father's business? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Luke ii, 41-52. JESUS HEALING THE SICK. And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy;--and he healed them.--Matthew iv, 23--24. SERMON ON THE MOUNT. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him. And he opened his mouth and taught them. And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.--Matthew iv, 25; v, 1-2, 28-29, viii, I. CHRIST STILLING THE TEMPEST. And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marveled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?--Matthew viii, 23-27. THE DUMB MAN POSSESSED. As they went out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil. And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake: and the multitudes marveled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel. But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.--Matthew ix, 32-34 CHRIST IN THE SYNAGOGUE. And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence. And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house. And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.--Matthew xiii, 53-58 THE DISCIPLES PLUCKING CORN ON THE SABBATH. And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungered, he, and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.--Mark ii, 23-28. JESUS WALKING ON THE WATER. And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray. And when, even was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land. And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourths watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed: by them. But when they saw him walking upon the sea, they supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out: for they all saw him, and were troubled. And immediately he talked with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid. And he went up unto them into the ship; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered. For they considered not the miracle of the loaves; for their heart was hardened.--Mark vi, 46-52. CHRIST'S ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM. And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring the unto me. And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them. All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass'; and a colt the foal of an ass. And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches; from the trees, and strewed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest. And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.--Matthew xxi, I-II. JESUS AND THE TRIBUTE MONEY. And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words. And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it. And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar's. And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marveled at him.--Mark xii, 13-17. THE WIDOW'S MITE. And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: for all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.--Mark xii, 13-17 RAISING OF THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS. And, behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw him, he fell at his feet, and besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed and she shall live. And Jesus went with him; and much people followed him, and thronged him. And a certain woman which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew, worse, when she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment. For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes? And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing. But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth. And he said unto her Daughter, thy faith hath made the whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague. While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further? As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe. And he suffered no man to follow him, save Peter, and James, and John the brother of James. And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly. And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. But when he had put them all out, he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entereth in where the damsel was lying. And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. And straightway the damsel arose, and walked; for she was of the age of twelve years. And they were astonished with a great astonishment. And he charged them straitly that no man should know it; and commanded that something should be given her to eat.--Mark v, 22-43. THE GOOD SAMARITAN. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him. And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.--Luke x, 29-37. ARRIVAL OF THE SAMARITAN AT THE INN. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. Luke x, 33-34 THE PRODIGAL SON. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. And he said, a certain man had two sons: and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.--Luke xv, 10-32 LAZARUS AND THE RICH MAN. There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.--Luke xvi, 19-31 THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others. Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican; The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up as much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every: one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Luke xviii, 9-14. JESUS AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly. The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. And upon this came his disciples, and marveled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things, that ever I did: is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.--John iv 5-30 JESUS AND THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY. Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. --john viii, 1-11 THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him. The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.--John xi, 30-45 MARY MAGDALENE. Of Mary "called Magdalene" (Luke viii, 2) but few particulars are recorded in scripture. We first hear of her as having been delivered by Jesus of seven devils (Luke viii, 1-3; Mark xvi, 9). Impelled, no doubt, by gratitude for her deliverance, she becomes one of his followers, accompanying him thenceforward in all his wanderings faithfully till his death. She was the first person to whom he appeared after his resurrection (Mark xvi, 9; John xx, 1, 11-18) The common belief that she was a fallen woman is destitute of the slightest foundation. On the contrary, the references to her as being in the company of such women as Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward, Salome, the mother of James and John, and Mary, the mother of Jesus (Luke viii, 3; Mark xvi, 40; John xix, 25), strongly discountenance such a supposition. The error, which had no other source than ecclesiastical tradition, has been fostered and perpetuated by the stupid blunder of the translators of the authorized version in identifying her with the "sinner" who is described in Luke vii, 37-50 as washing the feet of Jesus with her tears (see head-note to Luke vii). The Roman Catholic notion that this "sinner" was Mary the sister of Lazarus is almost equally groundless (see Douay Bible, head-note to Matthew xxvi, and the foot-note references to Luke vii, 37, found in most Catholic Bibles). The only reason for this identification is that the anointing by the "sinner" is described as taking place in the house of a Pharisee named Simon (Luke vii, 36, 39-40 43-44); that the anointing by the unnamed woman, as described in Matthew xxvi, 6-13 and Mark xiv, 3-9, took place in the house of one "Simon the leper," in Bethany; and that Mary, the sister of Lazarus, is described in John xi, 2, and xii, 3-8, as anointing Jesus in a house (apparently that of Lazarus himself) in Bethany, when a conversation ensues altogether different from that recorded in Luke vii, but similar to that related in Matthew xxvi, and Mark xiv, save that the objection to the anointing of Jesus is made, not by "his disciples" (Matthew xxvi, 8), not by "some that had indignation" (Mark xiv, 4), but by "one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son" (John xii, 4). The demeanor of Mary, the sister of Lazarus, is, however, by no means that of a fallen and sinful though penitent woman but that of a pious and good one (see Luke x, 39, 42; John xi, 28-33; xii, 3). Dore's illustration, which portrays Mary Magdalene as a heartbroken and despairing sinner, shows that he has fallen into the common error. THE LAST SUPPER. Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover? And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the passover. Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve. And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born. Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.--Matthew xxvi, 17-30. THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN. And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples all followed him. And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not in temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops, of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow, and said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation--Luke xxii, 39-46. PRAYER OF, JESUS IN THE GARDEN OF' OLIVES. Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto, the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy. And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me. Matthew xxvi, 36-46 THE BETRAYAL. And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest it is enough, the hour is come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise up, let us go; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand. And immediately, while he yet spake, cometh Judas, one of the twelve, and with him great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. And he that betrayed him had given them a token, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he; take him, and lead him away safely. And as soon as he was come, he goeth straight way to him, and saith, Master, master; and kissed him. And they laid their hands on him, and took him. And one of them that stood by drew a sword, and smote a servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear. And Jesus answered and said unto them, Are ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me not but the scriptures must be fulfilled. And they all forsook him, and fled.--Mark xiv, 41-50 CHRIST FAINTING UNDER THE CROSS. The incident depicted in this illustration seems to be as apocryphal as that embodied in the artist's picture of Mary Magdalene. There is absolutely no warrant in scripture for the notion that Christ fainted under the burden of the cross. The only foundation for such an idea to found in the Bible is contained in the head note to Mark xv, which is quite unwarranted by the text. According to the three synoptic gospels the cross was borne not by Christ, but by Simon, a Cyrenian (see Matthew xxvii, 32; Mark xv, 2 1; Luke xxiii, 26). According to the fourth evangelist, Jesus bore the cross without assistance the whole distance to the place crucifixion (John xix, 16-18). In not one of the four narratives is there so much as a hint that he fainted under the burden. THE FLAGELLATION. Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he deliver him to be crucified.--Matthew xxvii, 26. And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and deliver Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.--Mark xv, 15. Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. John xix. THE CRUCIFIXION. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots. And sitting down they watched him there; and set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left. And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others: himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God. The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.--Matthew xxvii, 33--44. CLOSE OF THE CRUCIFIXION. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God. And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him: among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children.--Matthew xxvii, 45-56. THE BURIAL OF JESUS. When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple he went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.--Matthew xxvii, 57-61 THE ANGEL AT THE SEPULCHRE. In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from, heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.--Matthew xxviii, 1-8. THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know him. And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? And the one of them, whose, name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days? And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to-day is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; and when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not. Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further. But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them. And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.--Luke xxiv, 13-35. THE ASCENSION. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. * * * And they remembered his words. And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest. * * * And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. * * * And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread. And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. * * * And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Luke xxiv, 1-2, 8-9, 13-14, 33-36, 49-52. The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: to whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: and, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but, wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up: and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel.--Acts i, 1-10 THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. STEPHEN. And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God. And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council. And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law: for we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us. And all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. Then said the high priest, Are these things so? And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken: [Stephen here makes his defense, concluding with a terrible, denunciation of the Jews as being stiffnecked and persecutors of their prophets, and as betrayers and murderers of Jesus Christ.] When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they, gnashed on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of, the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul was consenting unto his death.--Acts vi, 8-15; vii, 1-2, 54-56; viii, 1. SAUL'S CONVERSION. And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice, saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink. And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth, and hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem: and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: for I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hash sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose and was baptized. And when he had received meat, he was strengthened. Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus. And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.--Acts ix, 1-20. THE DELIVERANCE OF ST. PETER. Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.) And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quarternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people. Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison. And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals: And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. And he went out, and followed him; and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel but thought he saw a vision. When they were past the first and the second ward, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth unto the city; which opened to them of his own accord and they went out and passed on through one street and forthwith the angel departed from him. And when Peter was come to himself, he said, Now I know of a surety, that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews.--Acts xii, 1-11 PAUL AT EPHESUS. And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus; and finding certain disciples, he said unto them, Have ye, received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he, said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John's baptism. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied. And all the men were about twelve. And he went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God. But when divers were hardened, and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus. And this continued by the space of two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.--Acts xix, 1--20. PAUL MENACED BY THE JEWS. Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them; them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law. Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them. And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help: this is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place. (For they had seen before with him in the city Trophimus an Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple.) And all the city was moved, and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and forthwith the doors were shut. And as they went about to kill him, tidings came unto the chief captain of the band, that all Jerusalem was in an uproar: who immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down unto them and when they saw the chief captain and the soldiers, they left beating of Paul. Then the chief captain came near, and took him, and commanded him to be bound with two chains; and demanded who he was, and what he had done. And some cried one thing, some another, among the multitude: and when he could not know the certainty for the tumult, he commanded him to be carried into the castle. And when he came upon the stairs, so it was, that he was borne of the soldiers for the violence of the people. For the multitude of the people followed after, crying, Away with him. And as Paul was to be led into the castle, he said unto the chief captain, May I speak unto thee? Who said, Canst thou speak Greek? Art not thou that Egyptian, which before these days madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers? But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: and, I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people. And when he had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs, and beckoned with the hand unto the people. And when there was made a great silence, he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue.--Acts xxi, 23-40. PAUL'S SHIPWRECK. And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing. Wherefore I pray you to take some meat; for this is for your health: for there shall not a hair fall from the head of any of you. And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all; and when he had broken it, he began to eat. Then were they all of good cheer, and they also took some meat. And we were in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls. And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, and cast out the wheat into the sea. And when it was day, they knew not the land: but they discovered a certain creek with a shore, into the which they were minded, if it were possible, to thrust in the ship. And when they had taken up the anchors, they committed themselves unto the sea, and loosed the rudder bands, and hoised up the mainsail to the wind, and made toward shore. And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground; and the forepart stuck fast, and remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves. And the soldiers' counsel was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim out, and escape. But the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose; and commanded that they which could swim should cast themselves first into the sea, and get to land: and the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land. And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Melita. And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold.--Acts xxvii, 33-44; xxviii, 1-2 DEATH ON THE PALE HORSE. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. Revelation vi, 7-8 
28422	----	[Transcriber's note: Bold text is marked with =." Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained.] LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT PAINTERS SCULPTORS & ARCHITECTS BY GIORGIO VASARI: VOLUME VI. FRA GIOCONDO TO NICCOLÒ SOGGI 1913 NEWLY TRANSLATED BY GASTON Du C. DE VERE. WITH FIVE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS: IN TEN VOLUMES [Illustration: 1511-1574] PHILIP LEE WARNER, PUBLISHER TO THE MEDICI SOCIETY, LIMITED 7 GRAFTON ST. LONDON, W. 1912-14 CONTENTS OF VOLUME VI PAGE FRA GIOCONDO, LIBERALE, AND OTHERS 1 FRANCESCO GRANACCI [IL GRANACCIO] 55 BACCIO D' AGNOLO 63 VALERIO VICENTINO [VALERIO BELLI], GIOVANNI DA CASTEL BOLOGNESE [GIOVANNI BERNARDI], MATTEO DAL NASSARO, AND OTHERS 73 MARC' ANTONIO BOLOGNESE, AND OTHERS 89 ANTONIO DA SAN GALLO 121 GIULIO ROMANO 143 FRA SEBASTIANO VINIZIANO DEL PIOMBO 171 PERINO DEL VAGA 187 GIORGIO VASARI, TO THE CRAFTSMEN IN DESIGN 227 DOMENICO BECCAFUMI 233 GIOVANNI ANTONIO LAPPOLI 253 NICCOLÒ SOGGI 267 INDEX OF NAMES 281 ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME VI PLATES IN COLOUR FACING PAGE GIOVAN FRANCESCO CAROTO Elisabetta Gonzaga, Duchess of Mantua Florence: Uffizi, 1121 16 FRANCESCO MONSIGNORI (BONSIGNORI) Portrait of a Gentleman London: N.G., 736 28 FRANCESCO MORONE Madonna and Child London: N.G., 285 32 GIROLAMO DAI LIBRI Madonna and Child, with S. Anne London: N.G., 748 48 FRANCESCO GRANACCI (IL GRANACCIO) The Holy Family Florence: Pitti, 199 58 FRA SEBASTIANO VINIZIANO DEL PIOMBO Portrait of a Lady Florence: Uffizi, 1123 174 DOMENICO BECCAFUMI S. Catharine before the Crucifix Siena: Pinacoteca, 420 238 PLATES IN MONOCHROME LIBERALE OF VERONA S. Mary Magdalene with Saints Verona: S. Anastasia 10 LIBERALE OF VERONA Miniature Siena: Duomo Library 14 GIOVAN FRANCESCO CAROTO Madonna and Child, with S. Anne and Saints Verona: S. Fermo Maggiore 18 FRANCESCO TURBIDO (IL MORO) Portrait of a Man Munich: Pinacothek, 1125 24 FRANCESCO MONSIGNORI (BONSIGNORI) S. Sebastian Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 46c 30 FRANCESCO MORONE The Crucifixion Verona: S. Bernardino 34 PAOLO CAVAZZUOLA The Deposition Verona: Museo Civico, 392 40 GIOVAN MARIA (FALCONETTO) Palazzo del Capitanio Padua 46 GIROLAMO DAI LIBRI Madonna and Child, with Saints Verona: Museo Civico, 290 50 FRANCESCO GRANACCI (IL GRANACCIO) The Madonna giving the Girdle to S. Thomas Florence: Uffizi, 1280 62 GIOVANNI DA CASTEL BOLOGNESE (GIOVANNI BERNARDI) Cassetta Farnese Naples: Museo Nazionale 78 VALERIO VICENTINO (VALERIO BELLI) Casket of Rock Crystal Florence: Uffizi 82 ALESSANDRO CESATI BENVENUTO CELLINI Medals London: British Museum 84 PASTORINO OF SIENA DOMENICO POGGINI Medals London: British Museum 84 MARTIN SCHONGAUER Christ and the Virgin Enthroned London: British Museum, B. 71 92 ALBRECHT DÜRER Hercules London: British Museum, B. 73 92 ALBRECHT DÜRER Christ taking leave of His Mother London: British Museum, B. 92 94 ALBRECHT DÜRER S. Jerome in his Study London: British Museum, B. 60 96 LUCAS VAN LEYDEN "Ecce Homo" of 1510 London: British Museum 98 MARC' ANTONIO BOLOGNESE The Death of Lucretia London: British Museum, B. 192 102 MARC' ANTONIO BOLOGNESE (AFTER BANDINELLI) The Martyrdom of S. Lawrence (engraving) London: British Museum 104 ANTONIO DA SAN GALLO (THE YOUNGER) (WITH MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI) Palazzo Farnese Rome 138 GIULIO ROMANO Detail: The Battle of Constantine Rome: The Vatican 146 GIULIO ROMANO The Marriage Banquet of Cupid and Psyche Mantua: Palazzo del Tè 154 GIULIO ROMANO The Destruction of the Giants by the Thunderbolts of Jove Mantua: Palazzo del Tè, Sala dei Giganti 160 FRA SEBASTIANO VINIZIANO DEL PIOMBO The Flagellation Rome: S. Pietro in Montorio 176 FRA SEBASTIANO VINIZIANO DEL PIOMBO Andrea Doria Rome: Palazzo Doria 182 PERINO DEL VAGA The Passage of the Red Sea Rome: The Vatican, Loggia 192 FRA GIOCONDO, LIBERALE, AND OTHER CRAFTSMEN OF VERONA LIVES OF FRA GIOCONDO, LIBERALE, AND OTHER CRAFTSMEN OF VERONA If writers of history were to live a few years longer than the number commonly granted as the span of human life, I, for my part, have no manner of doubt that they would have something to add to the accounts of the past previously written by them, for the reason that, even as it is not possible for a single man, be he ever so diligent, to learn the exact truth in a flash, or to discover all the details of his subject in the little time at his command, so it is as clear as the light of day that Time, who is said to be the father of truth, is always revealing new things every day to the seeker after knowledge. If, many years ago, when I first wrote and also published these Lives of the Painters and other Craftsmen, I had possessed that full information which I have since received concerning Fra Giocondo of Verona, a man of rare parts and a master of all the most noble faculties, I would without a doubt have made that honourable record of him which I am now about to make for the benefit of craftsmen, or rather, of the world; and not of him only, but also of many other masters of Verona, who have been truly excellent. And let no one marvel that I place them all under the image of one only, because, not having been able to obtain portraits of them all, I am forced to do this; but, so far as in me lies, not one of them shall thereby have his excellence defrauded of its due. Now, since the order of time and merit so demands, I shall speak first of Fra Giocondo. This man, when he assumed the habit of S. Dominic, was called not simply Fra Giocondo, but Fra Giovanni Giocondo. How the name Giovanni dropped from him I know not, but I do know that he was always called Fra Giocondo by everyone. And although his chief profession was that of letters, and he was not only a very good philosopher and theologian, but also an excellent Greek scholar (which was a rare thing at that time, when learning and letters were just beginning to revive in Italy), nevertheless he was also a very fine architect, being a man who always took supreme delight in that art, as Scaliger relates in his epistle against Cardan, and the learned Budé in his book "De Asse," and in the observations that he wrote on the Pandects. Fra Giocondo, then, who was a fine scholar, a capable architect, and an excellent master of perspective, spent many years near the person of the Emperor Maximilian, and was master in the Greek and Latin tongues to the learned Scaliger, who writes that he heard him dispute with profound learning on matters of the greatest subtlety before the same Maximilian. It is related by persons still living, who remember the facts very clearly, that at the time when Verona was under the power of that Emperor the bridge which is called the Ponte della Pietra, in that city, was being restored, and it was seen to be necessary to refound the central pier, which had been destroyed many times in the past, and Fra Giocondo gave the design for refounding it, and also for safeguarding it in such a manner that it might never be destroyed again. His method of safeguarding it was as follows: he gave orders that the pier should be kept always bound together with long double piles fixed below the water on every side, to the end that these might so protect it that the river should not be able to undermine it; for the place where it is built is in the main current of the river, the bed of which is so soft that no solid ground can be found on which to lay its foundations. And excellent, in truth, as is evident from the result, was the advice of Fra Giocondo, for the reason that the pier has stood firm from that time to our own, as it still does, without ever showing a crack; and there is hope that, by the observation of the suggestions given by that good monk, it will stand for ever. In his youth Fra Giocondo spent many years in Rome, giving his attention to the study of antiquities, and not of buildings only, but also of the ancient inscriptions that are in the tombs, and the other relics of antiquity, both in Rome itself and its neighbourhood, and in every part of Italy; and he collected all these inscriptions and memorials into a most beautiful book, which he sent as a present, according to the account of the citizens of Verona mentioned above, to the elder Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, to whom, by reason of the great friendliness and favour that he showed to all men of talent, both Fra Giocondo and Domizio Calderino, his companion and compatriot, were always most deeply devoted. Of this book Poliziano makes mention in his Mugellane, in which he uses various parts of it as authorities, calling Fra Giocondo a profound master in antiquities. The same Giocondo wrote some observations, which are in print, on the Commentaries of Cæsar; and he was the first who made a drawing of the bridge built by Cæsar over the River Rhone, and described by him in those same Commentaries, but misunderstood in the time of Fra Giocondo. Him the aforesaid Budé confesses to have had as his master in the study of architecture, thanking God that he had been taught his Vitruvius by a teacher so learned and so diligent as was that monk, who corrected in that author a vast number of errors not recognized up to that time; and this he was able to do with ease, because he was a master of every kind of learning, and had a good knowledge of both the Greek tongue and the Latin. This and other things declares Budé, extolling Fra Giocondo as an excellent architect, and adding that by the researches of the same monk there were discovered in an old library in Paris the greater part of the Epistles of Pliny, which, after having been so long out of the hands of mankind, were printed by Aldus Manutius, as may be read in a Latin letter written by him and printed with the same. When living in Paris in the service of King Louis XII, Fra Giocondo built two superb bridges over the Seine, covered with shops--works truly worthy of that magnanimous King and of the marvellous intellect of Fra Giocondo. Wherefore that master, in addition to the inscription in his praise that may still be seen on those works, won the honour of being celebrated by Sannazzaro, a rare poet, in this most beautiful distich: Jocundus geminum imposuit tibi, Sequana, pontem; Hunc tu jure potes dicere pontificem. Besides this, he executed a vast number of other works for that King throughout all his kingdom; but of these, after having made mention of those above, as being the greatest, I shall say no more. Then, happening to be in Rome at the death of Bramante, he was placed, in company with Raffaello da Urbino and Giuliano da San Gallo, in charge of the Church of S. Pietro, to the end that the structure begun by Bramante might be carried forward. Now, from the circumstance that it had been erected in haste, and for other reasons given in another place, it was threatening to fall in many parts, and by the advice of Fra Giocondo, Raffaello, and Giuliano, the foundations were in great measure renewed; in which work persons who were present and are still living declare that those masters adopted the following method. They excavated below the foundations many large pits after the manner of wells, but square, at a proper distance one from another, which they filled with masonry; and between every two of these piers, or rather pits filled with masonry, they threw very strong arches across the space below, insomuch that the whole building came to be placed on new foundations without suffering any shock, and was secured for ever from the danger of showing any more cracks. But the work for which it seems to me that Fra Giocondo deserves the greatest praise is one on account of which an everlasting gratitude is due to him not only from the Venetians, but from the whole world as well. For he reflected that the life of the Republic of Venice depended in great measure on the preservation of its impregnable position on the lagoons on which that city, as it were by a miracle, is built; and that, whenever those lagoons silted up with earth, the air would become infected and pestilential, and the city consequently uninhabitable, or at the least exposed to all the dangers that threaten cities on the mainland. He set himself, therefore, to think in what way it might be possible to provide for the preservation of the lagoons and of the site on which the city had been built in the beginning. And having found a way, Fra Giocondo told the Signori that, if they did not quickly come to some resolution about preventing such an evil, in a few years, to judge by that which could be seen to have happened in part, they would become aware of their error, without being in time to be able to retrieve it. Roused by this warning, and hearing the powerful arguments of Fra Giocondo, the Signori summoned an assembly of the best engineers and architects that there were in Italy, at which many opinions were given and many designs made; but that of Fra Giocondo was held to be the best, and was put into execution. They made a beginning, therefore, with excavating a great canal, which was to divert two-thirds or at least one-half of the water brought down by the River Brenta, and to conduct that water by a long détour so as to debouch into the lagoons of Chioggia; and thus that river, no longer flowing into the lagoons at Venice, has not been able to fill them up by bringing down earth, as it has done at Chioggia, where it has filled and banked up the lagoons in such a manner that, where there was formerly water, many tracts of land and villas have sprung up, to the great benefit of the city of Venice. Wherefore it is the opinion of many persons, and in particular of the Magnificent Messer Luigi Cornaro, a Venetian gentleman of ripe wisdom gained both by learning and by long experience, that, if it had not been for the warning of Fra Giocondo, all the silting up that took place in the lagoons of Chioggia would have happened, and perhaps on a greater scale, in those of Venice, inflicting incredible damage and almost ruin on that city. The same Messer Luigi, who was very much the friend of Fra Giocondo, as he is and always has been of all men of talent, declares that his native city of Venice owes an eternal debt of gratitude for this to the memory of Fra Giocondo, who on this account, he says, might reasonably be called the second founder of Venice; and that he almost deserves more praise for having preserved by that expedient the grandeur and nobility of that marvellous and puissant city, than do those who built it at the beginning in such a weak and ill-considered fashion, seeing that the benefit received from him will be to all eternity, as it has been hitherto, of incalculable utility and advantage to Venice. Not many years after Fra Giocondo had executed this divine work, the Venetians suffered a great loss in the burning of the Rialto, the place in which are the magazines of their most precious merchandise--the treasure, as it were, of that city. This happened at the very time when that Republic had been reduced by long-continued wars and by the loss of the greater part, or rather almost the whole, of her dominions on the mainland to a desperate condition; and the Signori then governing were full of doubt and hesitation as to what they should do. However, the rebuilding of that place being a matter of the greatest importance, they resolved that it should be reconstructed at all costs. And wishing to give it all possible grandeur, in keeping with the greatness and magnificence of that Republic, and having already recognized the talent of Fra Giocondo and his great ability in architecture, they gave him the commission to make a design for that structure; whereupon he drew one in the following manner. He proposed to occupy all the space that lies between the Canale delle Beccherie,[1] in the Rialto, and the Rio del Fondaco delle Farine,[2] taking as much ground between one canal and the other as would make a perfect square--that is, the length of the sides of this fabric was to be as great as the space which one covers at the present day in walking from the debouchure of one of those canals into the Grand Canal to that of the other. He intended, also, that the same two canals should debouch on the other side into a common canal, which was to run from the one to the other, so that the fabric might be left entirely surrounded by water, having the Grand Canal on one side, the two smaller canals on two other sides, and on the last the new canal that was to be made. Then he desired that between the water and the buildings, right round the square, there should be made, or rather should be left, a beach or quay of some breadth, which might serve as a piazza for the selling in duly appointed places of the vegetables, fruits, fish, and other things, that come from many parts to the city. It was also his opinion that right round the outer side of the buildings there should be erected shops looking out upon those same quays, and that these shops should serve only for the sale of eatables of every kind. And in these four sides the design of Fra Giocondo had four principal gates--namely, one to each side, placed in the centre, one directly opposite to another. But before going into the central piazza, by whichever side one entered, one would have found both on the right hand and on the left a street which ran round the block of buildings and had shops on either side, with handsome workshops above them and magazines for the use of those shops, which were all to be devoted to the sale of woven fabrics--that is, fine woollen cloth and silk, which are the two chief products of that city. This street, in short, was to contain all the shops that are called the Tuscan's and the silk-merchant's. From this double range of shops there was to be access by way of the four gates into the centre of the whole block--that is to say, into a vast piazza surrounded on every side by spacious and beautiful loggie for the accommodation of the merchants and for the use of the great number of people who flock together for the purposes of their trade and commerce to that city, which is the custom-house of all Italy, or rather of Europe. Under those loggie, on every side, were to be the shops of the bankers, goldsmiths, and jewellers; and in the centre was to be built a most beautiful temple dedicated to S. Matthew, in which the people of quality might be able to hear the divine offices in the morning. With regard to this temple, however, some persons declare that Fra Giocondo changed his mind, and wished to build two under the loggie, so as not to obstruct the piazza. And, in addition, this superb structure was to have so many other conveniences, embellishments, and adornments, all in their proper places, that whoever sees at the present day the beautiful design that Fra Giocondo made for the whole, declares that nothing more lovely, more magnificent, or planned with better order, could be imagined or conceived by the most excellent of craftsmen, be his genius never so happy. It was proposed, also, with the advice of the same master, and as a completion to this work, to build the Bridge of the Rialto of stone, covered with shops, which would have been a marvellous thing. But this enterprise was not carried into effect, for two reasons: first, because the Republic, on account of the extraordinary expenses incurred in the last war, happened to be drained dry of money; and, secondly, because a gentleman of great position and much authority at that time (of the family, so it is said, of Valereso), being a man of little judgment in such matters, and perchance influenced by some private interest, chose to favour one Maestro Zanfragnino,[3] who, so I am informed, is still alive, and who had worked for him on buildings of his own. This Zanfragnino--a fit and proper name for a master of his calibre--made the design for that medley of marble which was afterwards carried into execution, and which is still to be seen; and many who are still alive, and remember the circumstances very well, are even yet not done with lamenting that foolish choice. Fra Giocondo, having seen that shapeless design preferred to his beautiful one, and having perceived how much more virtue there often is in favour than in merit with nobles and great persons, felt such disdain that he departed from Venice, nor would he ever return, although he was much entreated to do it. And the design, with others by the same monk, remained in the house of the Bragadini, opposite to S. Marina, in the possession of Frate Angelo, a member of that family and a friar of S. Dominic, who, by reason of his many merits, afterwards became Bishop of Vicenza. Fra Giocondo was very versatile, and delighted, in addition to the pursuits already mentioned, in simples and in agriculture. Thus Messer Donato Giannotti, the Florentine, who was very much his friend for many years in France, relates that once, when living in that country, the monk reared a peach-tree in an earthen pot, and that this little tree, when he saw it, was so laden with fruit that it was a marvellous sight. On one occasion, by the advice of some friends, he had set it in a place where the King was to pass and would be able to see it, when certain courtiers, who passed by first, plucked all the peaches off that little tree, as suchlike people were sure to do, and, playing about with one another, scattered what they could not eat along the whole length of the street, to the great displeasure of Fra Giocondo. The matter coming to the ears of the King, he first laughed over the jest with the courtiers, and then, after thanking the monk for what he had done to please him, gave him a present of such a kind that he was consoled. [Illustration: THE MAGDALENE WITH SAINTS (_After the painting by =Liberale da Verona=. Verona: S. Anastasia_) _Anderson_] Fra Giocondo was a man of saintly and most upright life, much beloved by all the great men of letters of his age, and in particular by Domizio Calderino, Matteo Bosso, and Paolo Emilio, the writer of the History of France, all three his compatriots. Very much his friends, likewise, were Sannazzaro, Budé, and Aldus Manutius, with all the Academy of Rome; and he had a disciple in Julius Cæsar Scaliger, one of the most learned men of our times. Finally, being very old, he died, but precisely at what time and in what place this happened, and consequently where he was buried, is not known. Even as it is true that the city of Verona is very similar to Florence in situation, manners, and other respects, so it is also true that in the first as well as in the second there have always flourished men of the finest genius in all the noblest and most honourable professions. Saying nothing of the learned, for with them I have nothing to do here, and continuing to speak of the men of our arts, who have always had an honourable abode in that most noble city, I come to Liberale of Verona, a disciple of Vincenzio di Stefano, a native of the same city, already mentioned in another place, who executed for the Church of Ognissanti, belonging to the Monks of S. Benedict, at Mantua, in the year 1463, a Madonna that was a very praiseworthy example of the work of those times. Liberale imitated the manner of Jacopo Bellini, for when a young man, while the said Jacopo was painting the Chapel of S. Niccolò at Verona, he gave his attention under Bellini to the studies of design in such thorough fashion that, forgetting all that he had learned from Vincenzio di Stefano, he acquired the manner of Bellini and retained it ever after. The first paintings of Liberale were in the Chapel of the Monte della Pietà in S. Bernardino, in his native city; and there, in the principal picture, he painted a Deposition from the Cross, with certain Angels, some of whom have in their hands the Mysteries (for so they are called) of the Passion, and all with their weeping faces show grief at the Death of the Saviour. Very natural, in truth, are these figures, as are other works of the same kind by this master, who strove to show in many places that he was able to paint weeping countenances. This may also be seen in S. Anastasia, a church of Friars of S. Dominic, likewise in Verona, where he painted a Dead Christ with the Maries mourning for Him on the pediment of the Chapel of the Buonaveri; and he executed many pictures in the same manner of painting as the work mentioned above, which are dispersed among the houses of various gentlemen in Verona. In the same chapel he painted a God the Father surrounded by many Angels who are playing instruments and singing, with three figures on either side--S. Peter, S. Dominic, and S. Thomas Aquinas on one side, and S. Lucia, S. Agnese, and another female Saint on the other; but the first three are much the finer, being executed in a better manner and with more relief. On the main wall of that chapel he painted Our Lady, with the Infant Christ marrying S. Catharine, the Virgin-Martyr; and in this work he made a portrait of Messer Piero Buonaveri, the owner of the chapel. Around this group are some Angels presenting flowers, with some heads that are smiling, executed with such grace in their gladness, that they prove that he was able to paint a smiling face as well as he had painted tears in other figures. In the altar-piece of the same chapel he painted S. Mary Magdalene in the air, supported by some Angels, with S. Catharine below--a work which was held to be very beautiful. On the altar of the Madonna in the Church of S. Maria della Scala, belonging to the Servite Friars, he executed the story of the Magi on two folding-doors that enclose that Madonna, which is held in vast veneration in that city; but the work did not long remain there, for it was removed because it was being spoilt by the smoke of the candles, and placed in the sacristy, where it is much admired by the painters of Verona. In the tramezzo[4] of the Church of S. Bernardino, above the Chapel of the Company of the Magdalene, he painted in fresco the story of the Purification, wherein is a figure of Simeon that is much extolled, as also is that of the Infant Christ, who with great affection is kissing that old man, who is holding Him in his arms; and very beautiful, likewise, is a priest standing there on one side, who, with his arms extended and his face uplifted towards Heaven, appears to be thanking God for the salvation of the world. Beside this chapel is a picture of the story of the Magi by the hand of the same Liberale; and in the pediment of the picture there is the Death of the Madonna, executed with little figures, which are highly extolled. Great, indeed, was his delight in painting works with little figures, with which he always took such pains that they seem to be the work rather of an illuminator than of a painter, as may be seen in the Duomo of the same city, where there is a picture by his hand of the story of the Magi, with a vast number of little figures, horses, dogs, and various other animals, and near them a group of rosy-coloured Cherubim, who serve as a support to the Mother of Jesus. In this picture the heads are so finished, and everything is executed with such diligence, that, as I have said, it appears to be the work of an illuminator. He also painted stories of Our Lady on a small predella, likewise after the manner of miniatures, for the Chapel of the Madonna in the Duomo. But this was afterwards removed from that chapel by order of Monsignor Messer Giovan Matteo Giberti, Bishop of Verona, and placed in the Palace of the Vescovado, which is the residence of the Bishops, in that chapel wherein they hear Mass every morning. And there that predella stands in company with a most beautiful Crucifix in relief, executed by Giovanni Battista Veronese, a sculptor, who now lives in Mantua. Liberale also painted a panel-picture for the Chapel of the Allegni in S. Vitale, containing a figure of S. Mestro, the Confessor, a Veronese and a man of great sanctity, whom he placed between a S. Francis and a S. Dominic. For the Chapel of S. Girolamo in the Vittoria, a church and convent of certain Eremite Friars, he executed at the commission of the Scaltritegli family an altar-piece of S. Jerome in the habit of a Cardinal, with a S. Francis and a S. Paul, all much extolled. And in the tramezzo[5] of the Church of S. Giovanni in Monte he painted the Circumcision of Christ and other works, which were destroyed not long since, because it was considered that the tramezzo impaired the beauty of the church. Being then summoned to Siena by the General of the Monks of Monte Oliveto, Liberale illuminated many books for that Order; and in these he succeeded so well, that he was commissioned in consequence to illuminate some that had been left unfinished--that is to say, only written--in the library of the Piccolomini. He also illuminated some books of plain-song for the Duomo of that city, where he would have remained longer, executing many works that he had in hand; but, being driven away by envy and persecution, he set off to return to Verona, with eight hundred crowns that he had earned, which he lent afterwards to the Monks of Monte Oliveto at S. Maria in Organo, from whom he drew interest to support him from day to day. Having thus returned to Verona, he gave his attention for the rest of his life more to illumination than to any other kind of work. At Bardolino, a place on the Lake of Garda, he painted a panel-picture which is now in the Pieve; and another for the Church of S. Tommaso Apostolo. For the Chapel of S. Bernardo, likewise, in the Church of S. Fermo, a convent of Friars of S. Francis, he painted a panel-picture of the first-named Saint, with some scenes from his life in the predella. In the same place, also, and in others, he executed many nuptial pictures, one of which, containing the Madonna with the Child in her arms marrying S. Catharine, is in the house of Messer Vincenzio de' Medici at Verona. On the corner of the house of the Cartai, on the way from the Ponte Nuovo to S. Maria in Organo, in Verona, he painted a Madonna and S. Joseph in fresco, a work which was much extolled. Liberale would have liked to paint the Chapel of the Riva family, which had been built in order to honour the memory of Giovanni Riva, a captain of men-at-arms at the battle of the Taro, in the Church of S. Eufemia; but he did not receive the commission, which was given to some strangers, and he was told that he was too old and that his sight was failing him. When this chapel was opened, a vast number of faults were perceived in it, and Liberale said that he who had given the commission had been much more blind than himself. [Illustration: MINIATURE (_After_ Liberale da Verona. _Siena: Duomo Library_) _Anderson_] Finally, being eighty-four years of age, or even more, Liberale allowed himself to be ruled by his relatives, and particularly by a married daughter, who, like the rest, treated him very badly. At which, having grown angry both with her and with his other relatives, and happening to have under his charge one Francesco Turbido, called Il Moro, then a young man, who was a diligent painter and much affected towards him, he appointed him as heir to the house and garden that he had at S. Giovanni in Valle, a very pleasant part of the city; and with him he took up his quarters, saying that he would rather give the enjoyment of his property to one who loved virtue than to those who ill-treated their nearest of kin. But no long time passed before he died, which was on the day of S. Chiara in the year 1536, at the age of eighty-five; and he was buried in S. Giovanni in Valle. His disciples were Giovan Francesco Caroto and Giovanni Caroto, Francesco Turbido, called Il Moro, and Paolo Cavazzuola, of whom, since they were truly excellent masters, I shall make mention in their due order. Giovan Francesco Caroto was born at Verona in the year 1470, and after having learned the first rudiments of letters, being drawn to painting, he abandoned the studies of grammar and placed himself to learn painting under the Veronese Liberale, undertaking to recompense him for his pains. Young as he was, then, Giovan Francesco devoted himself with such love and diligence to design, that even in his earliest years he was a great assistance to Liberale both in that and in colouring. No long time after, when his judgment had increased with his years, he saw the works of Andrea Mantegna in Verona; and thinking, as indeed was the truth, that these were of another manner and better than those of his master, he so wrought upon his father that he was given leave, with the gracious consent of Liberale, to apprentice himself to Mantegna. Having gone to Mantua, therefore, and having placed himself under Mantegna, in a short time he made such proficience that Andrea sent out works by Caroto as works by his own hand. In short, before many years had passed by, he had become an able master. The first works that he executed after leaving the discipline of Mantegna were on the altar of the three Magi in the Church of the Hospital of S. Cosimo at Verona, where he painted on the folding-doors that enclose that altar the Circumcision of Christ and the Flight into Egypt, with other figures. In the Church of the Frati Ingiesuati, called S. Girolamo, in two angles of a chapel, he painted the Madonna and the Angel of the Annunciation. And for the Prior of the Friars of S. Giorgio he executed a little panel-picture of the Manger, in which he may be seen to have greatly improved his manner, since the heads of the shepherds and of all the other figures have expressions so sweet and so beautiful, that this work was much extolled, and that rightly; and if it were not that the priming of gesso is peeling off through having been badly prepared, so that the picture is gradually perishing, it would be enough by itself to keep him alive for ever in the memory of his fellow-citizens. Next, having been commissioned by the men who governed the Company of the Angel Raphael to paint their chapel in the Church of S. Eufemia, he executed therein two stories of the Angel Raphael in fresco, and in the altar-piece, in oils, three large Angels, Raphael in the centre, and Gabriel and Michael on either side, and all with good draughtsmanship and colouring. He was reproached, indeed, for having made the legs of those Angels too slender and wanting in softness; to which he made a pleasant and gracious answer, saying that even as Angels were represented with wings and with bodies, so to speak, celestial and ethereal, as if they were birds, so it was only right to make their legs lean and slender, to the end that they might fly and soar upwards with greater ease. For that altar of the Church of S. Giorgio where there is a Christ bearing His Cross, he painted S. Rocco and S. Sebastian, with some scenes in the predella executed with very beautiful little figures. And by order of the Company of the Madonna he painted on the predella of the altar of that Company, in S. Bernardino, the Nativity of the Madonna and the Massacre of the Innocents, with a great variety of attitudes in the murderers and in the groups of children whom their mothers are defending with all their might. This work is held in great veneration, and is kept covered, the better to preserve it; and it was the reason that the men of the Fraternity of S. Stefano commissioned him to paint three pictures with similar figures for their altar in the old Duomo of Verona, containing three little scenes from the life of Our Lady--her Marriage, the Nativity of Christ, and the story of the Magi. [Illustration: GIOVAN FRANCESCO CAROTO: ELISABETTA GONZAGA, DUCHESS OF MANTUA (_Florence: Uffizi, 1121. Panel_)] After these works, thinking that he had gained enough credit in Verona, Giovan Francesco was minded to depart and make trial of other places; but his friends and relatives, pressing him much, persuaded him to take to wife a young woman of noble birth, the daughter of Messer Braliassarti Grandoni, whom he married in 1505. In a short time, however, after he had had a son by her, she died in child-birth; and Giovan Francesco, thus left free, departed from Verona and went off to Milan, where Signor Anton Maria Visconti received him into his house and caused him to execute many works for its adornment. Meanwhile there was brought to Milan by a Fleming a head of a young man, taken from life and painted in oils, which was admired by everyone in that city; but Giovan Francesco, seeing it, laughed and said: "I am confident that I can do a better." At which the Fleming mocked him, but after many words the matter came to this, that Giovan Francesco was to try his hand, losing his own picture and twenty-five crowns if he lost, and winning the Fleming's head and likewise twenty-five crowns if he won. Setting to work, therefore, with all his powers, Giovan Francesco made a portrait of an aged gentleman with shaven face, with a falcon on his wrist; but, although this was a good likeness, the head of the Fleming was judged to be the better. Giovan Francesco did not make a good choice in executing his portrait, for he took a head that could not do him honour; whereas, if he had chosen a handsome young man, and had made as good a likeness of him as he did of the old man, he would at least have equalled his adversary's picture, even if he had not surpassed it. But for all this the head of Giovan Francesco did not fail to win praise, and the Fleming showed him courtesy, for he contented himself with the head of the shaven old man, and, being a noble and courteous person, would by no means accept the five-and-twenty crowns. This picture came after some time into the possession of Madonna Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua, who paid a very good price for it to the Fleming and placed it as a choice work in her study, in which she had a vast number of very beautiful coins, pictures, works in marble, and castings. After completing his work for Visconti, Giovan Francesco, being invited by Guglielmo, Marquis of Montferrat, went willingly to serve him, as Visconti straitly besought him to do. On his arrival, a fine provision was assigned to him; and, setting to work, he painted for that noble at Casale, in a chapel where he heard Mass, as many pictures as were necessary to fill it and adorn it on every side, with subjects from the Old Testament and the New, which were executed by him with supreme diligence, as was also the chief altar-piece. He then executed many works throughout the apartments of that Castle, which brought him very great fame. And in S. Domenico, by order of that Marquis, he painted the whole of the principal chapel for the adornment of the tomb wherein he was to be laid to rest; in which work Giovan Francesco acquitted himself so well, that he was rightly rewarded with honourable gifts by the liberality of his patron, who also favoured him by making him one of his own chamberlains, as may be seen from an instrument that is in the possession of his heirs at Verona. He made portraits of that lord and of his wife, with many pictures that they sent to France, and also the portrait of Guglielmo, their eldest child, who was then a boy, and likewise portraits of their daughters and of all the ladies who were in the service of the Marchioness. On the death of the Marquis Guglielmo, Giovan Francesco departed from Casale, after first selling all the property that he had in those parts, and made his way to Verona, where he so arranged his affairs and those of his son, to whom he gave a wife, that in a short time he found himself in possession of more than seven thousand ducats. But he did not therefore abandon his painting; indeed, having a quiet mind, and not being obliged to rack his brain for a livelihood, he gave more attention to it than ever. It is true that either from envy or for some other reason he was accused of being a painter who could do nothing but little figures; wherefore, in executing the altar-piece of the Chapel of the Madonna in S. Fermo, a convent of Friars of S. Francis, wishing to show that the accusation was a calumny, he painted the figures larger than life, and so well, that they were the best that he had ever done. In the air is Our Lady seated in the lap of S. Anne, with some Angels standing upon clouds, and beneath are S. Peter, S. John the Baptist, S. Rocco, and S. Sebastian; and not far away, in a most beautiful landscape, is S. Francis receiving the Stigmata. This work, indeed, is held by craftsmen to be not otherwise than good. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD WITH S. ANNE AND SAINTS (_After the painting by =Giovan Francesco Caroto=. Verona: S. Fermo Maggiore_) _Alinari_] For the Chapel of the Cross in S. Bernardino, a seat of the Frati Zoccolanti, he painted Christ kneeling on one knee and taking leave of His Mother. In this work, stirred to emulation by the many notable pictures by the hands of other masters that are in that place, he strove to surpass them all; wherefore, in truth, he acquitted himself very well, and was praised by all who saw it, save only by the Guardian of that convent, who, like the boorish and solemn fool that he was, reproved Giovan Francesco with biting words, saying that he had made Christ show such little reverence to His Mother as to kneel only upon one knee. To which Giovan Francesco answered by saying: "Father, first do me the favour of kneeling down and rising up again, and I will then tell you for what reason I have painted Christ so." The Guardian, after much persuasion, knelt down, placing on the ground first his right knee and then his left; and in rising up he raised first the left and then the right. Which done, Giovan Francesco said: "Did you observe, Father Guardian, that you neither knelt down nor rose up with both knees together? I tell you, therefore, that this Christ of mine is right, because one might say that He is either coming to His knees before His Mother, or beginning, after having knelt a while, to raise one leg in order to rise." At which the Guardian had to appear a little appeased, although he went off muttering under his breath. Giovan Francesco was very sharp in his answers; and it is also related of him that once, being told by a priest that his figures were too seductive for altar-pieces, he replied: "A lusty fellow you must be, if painted figures so move you. Think how much you are to be trusted in places where there are living people for you to touch." At Isola, a place on the Lake of Garda, he painted two panel-pictures for the Church of the Zoccolanti; and at Malsessino, a township above that same lake, he painted a very beautiful Madonna over the door of a church, and some Saints within the church, at the request of Fracastoro, a very famous poet, who was much his friend. For Count Giovan Francesco Giusti, executing a subject conceived by that nobleman, he painted a young man wholly naked except for the parts of shame, and in an attitude of indecision as to whether he shall rise up or not; and on one side he had a most beautiful young woman representing Minerva, who with one hand was pointing out to him a figure of Fame on high, and with the other was urging him to follow her; but Sloth and Idleness, who were behind the young man, were striving to detain him. Below these was a figure with an uncouth face, rather that of a slave and a plebeian than of one of noble blood, who had two great snails clinging to his elbows and was seated on a crab, and near him was another figure with the hands full of poppies. This invention, in which are other beautiful details and fancies, was executed by Giovan Francesco with supreme diligence and love; and it serves as the head-board of a bedstead at that nobleman's lovely place near Verona, which is called S. Maria in Stella. The same master painted the whole of a little chamber with various scenes in little figures, for Count Raimondo della Torre. And since he delighted to work in relief, he executed not only models for his own purposes and for the arrangement of draperies, but also other things of his own fancy, of which there are some to be seen in the house of his heirs, and in particular a scene in half-relief, which is not otherwise than passing good. He also executed portraits on medallions, and some are still to be seen, such as that of Guglielmo, Marquis of Montferrat, which has on the reverse a Hercules slaying ..., with a motto that runs: "Monstra domat." He painted portraits of Count Raimondo della Torre, Messer Giulio his brother, and Messer Girolamo Fracastoro. But when Giovan Francesco became old, he began gradually to lose his mastery over art, as may be seen from the organ-doors in S. Maria della Scala, from the panel-picture of the Movi family, wherein is a Deposition from the Cross, and from the Chapel of S. Martino in S. Anastasia. Giovan Francesco had always a great opinion of himself, and not for anything in the world would he have ever copied another man's work in his own. Now Bishop Giovan Matteo Giberti wished him to paint some stories of the Madonna in the great chapel of the Duomo, and had the designs for these drawn in Rome by Giulio Romano, who was very much his friend (for Giberti was Datary to Pope Clement VII). But, when the Bishop had returned to Verona, Giovan Francesco would never consent to execute these designs; at which the Bishop, in disdain, caused them to be put into execution by Francesco, called Il Moro. Giovan Francesco held an opinion, in which he was not far from the truth, that varnishing pictures spoiled them, and made them become old sooner than they otherwise would; and for this reason he used varnish in the darks while painting, together with certain purified oils. He was also the first who executed landscapes well in Verona; wherefore there are some by his hand to be seen in that city, which are very beautiful. Finally, when seventy-six years of age, Giovan Francesco died the death of a good Christian, leaving his grandchildren and his brother, Giovanni Caroto, passing well provided. This Giovanni, after first applying himself to art under his brother, and then spending some time in Venice, had just returned to Verona when Giovan Francesco passed to the other life; and thus he took a hand with the grandchildren in inspecting the things of art that had been left to them. Among these they found a portrait of an old man in armour, very beautiful both in drawing and in colour, which was the best work by the hand of Giovan Francesco that was ever seen; and likewise a little picture containing a Deposition from the Cross, which was presented to Signor Spitech, a man of great authority with the King of Poland, who had come at that time to some baths that are in the territory of Verona. Giovan Francesco was buried in the Madonna dell' Organo, in the Chapel of S. Niccolò, which he himself had adorned with his paintings. Giovanni Caroto, brother of Giovan Francesco, although he followed the manner of the latter, yet gained less reputation in the practice of painting. This master painted the altar-piece in the above-mentioned Chapel of S. Niccolò, wherein is the Madonna enthroned on clouds; and below this he placed a portrait of himself, taken from life, and that of his wife Placida. He also painted some little figures of female Saints for the altar of the Schioppi in the Church of S. Bartolommeo, together with a portrait of Madonna Laura degli Schioppi, who had caused that chapel to be built, and who was much celebrated by the writers of those times no less for her virtues than for her beauty. Giovanni likewise painted a S. Martin in a little altar-piece for S. Giovanni in Fonte, near the Duomo; and he made a portrait of Messer Marc' Antonio della Torre (who afterwards became a man of learning and gave public lectures at Padua and Pavia) as a young man, and also one of Messer Giulio; which heads are in the possession of their heirs at Verona. For the Prior of S. Giorgio he painted a picture of Our Lady, which, as a good painting, has been kept ever since, as it still is, in the chamber of the Priors. And he painted another picture, representing the transformation of Actæon into a stag, for the organist Brunetto, who afterwards presented it to Girolamo Cicogna, an excellent embroiderer, and engineer to Bishop Giberti; and it now belongs to Messer Vincenzio Cicogna, his son. Giovanni took ground-plans of all the ancient buildings of Verona, with the triumphal arches and the Colosseum. These were revised by the Veronese architect Falconetto, and they were meant for the adornment of the book of the Antiquities of Verona, which had been written after his own original research by Messer Torello Saraina, who afterwards had the book printed. This book was sent to me by Giovanni Caroto when I was in Bologna (where I was executing the work of the Refectory of S. Michele in Bosco), together with the portrait of the reverend Father, Don Cipriano da Verona, who was twice General of the Monks of Monte Oliveto; and the portrait, which was sent to me by Giovanni to the end that I might make use of it, as I did, for one of those pictures, is now in my house at Florence, with other paintings by the hands of various masters. Finally, having lived without children and without ambition, but with good means, Giovanni died at about the age of sixty, full of gladness because he saw some of his disciples, particularly Anselmo Canneri and Paolo Veronese, already in good repute. Paolo is now working in Venice, and is held to be a good master; and Anselmo has executed many works both in oils and in fresco, and in particular at the Villa Soranza on the Tesino, and in the Palace of the Soranzi at Castelfranco, and also in many other places, but more at Vicenza than anywhere else. But to return to Giovanni; he was buried in S. Maria dell' Organo, where he had painted a chapel with his own hand. Francesco Turbido, called Il Moro, a painter of Verona, learned the first rudiments of art, when still quite young, from Giorgione da Castelfranco, whom he imitated ever afterwards in colouring and in softness of painting. But just when Il Moro was making progress, he came to words with I know not whom, and handled him so roughly, that he was forced to leave Venice and return to Verona. There, abandoning his painting, since he was somewhat ready with his hands and associated with the young noblemen, being a person of very good breeding, he lived for a time without doing any work. And associating in this way, in particular, with the Counts Sanbonifazi and the Counts Giusti, two illustrious families of Verona, he became so intimate with them that he lived in their houses as if he had been born in them; and, what is more, no long time passed before Count Zenovello Giusti gave him a natural daughter of his own for a wife, and granted him a commodious apartment in his own house for himself, his wife, and the children that were born to them. It is said that Francesco, while living in the service of those noblemen, always carried a pencil in his pouch; and wherever he went, if only he had time, he would draw a head or something else on the walls. Wherefore the same Count Zenovello, seeing him to be so much inclined to painting, relieved him of his other duties, like the generous nobleman that he was, and made him give his whole attention to art; and since Francesco had all but forgotten everything, he placed himself, through the good offices of that patron, under Liberale, a famous painter and illuminator of that time. And thus, practising under that master without ever ceasing, he went on making such progress from one day to another, that not only did all that he had forgotten awaken in his memory, but he also acquired in a short time as much more knowledge as sufficed to make him an able craftsman. It is true, however, that, although he always held to the manner of Liberale, he yet imitated the softness and well-blended colouring of Giorgione, his first instructor, believing that the works of Liberale, while good in other respects, suffered from a certain dryness. Now Liberale, having recognized the beauty of Francesco's spirit, conceived such an affection for him, that he loved him ever afterwards as a son, and, when death came upon him, left him heir to all his possessions. And thus, after the death of Liberale, Francesco followed in his steps and executed many works, which are dispersed among various private houses. Of those in Verona which deserve to be extolled above all others, the first is the great chapel of the Duomo, on the vaulting of which are four large pictures painted in fresco, wherein are the Nativity of the Madonna and the Presentation in the Temple, and, in the picture in the centre, which appears to recede inwards, three Angels in the air, who are seen foreshortened from below, and are holding a crown of stars wherewith to crown the Madonna, who is in the recess, in the act of ascending into Heaven, accompanied by many Angels, while the Apostles are gazing upwards in attitudes of great variety; and these Apostles are figures twice the size of life. All these pictures were executed by Il Moro after the designs of Giulio Romano, according to the wish of Bishop Giovan Matteo Giberti, who gave the commission for the work, and who, as has been said, was very much the friend of that same Giulio. After this Il Moro painted the façade of the house of the Manuelli, which stands on the abutment of the Ponte Nuovo, and a façade for Torello Saraina, the doctor, who wrote the above-mentioned book of the Antiquities of Verona. In Friuli, likewise, he painted in fresco the principal chapel of the Abbey of Rosazzo, for Bishop Giovan Matteo, who held it "in commendam," and, being a noble and truly religious dignitary, rebuilt it; for it had been allowed to fall completely into ruin, as such buildings are generally found to be, by those who had held it "in commendam" before him, attending only to the drawing of the revenues and spending not a farthing in the service of God and of the Church. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A MAN (_After the painting by =Francesco Turbido [Il Moro]=. Munich: Pinacoteca, 1125_) _Bruckmann_] Il Moro afterwards painted many works in oils at Verona and in Venice. On the outer wall (of a chapel) in S. Maria in Organo he executed in fresco the figures that are still there, with the exception of the Angel Michael and the Angel Raphael, which are by the hand of Paolo Cavazzuola. For the same chapel he painted an altar-piece in oils, wherein he made a portrait of Messer Jacopo Fontani, who gave the commission for the work, in a figure of S. James, in addition to the Madonna and other very beautiful figures. And in a large semicircle above that altar-piece, occupying the whole width of the chapel, he painted the Transfiguration of Our Lord, and the Apostles beneath, which were held to be among the best figures that he ever executed. For the Chapel of the Bombardieri, in S. Eufemia, he painted an altar-piece with S. Barbara in the heavens, in the centre, and a S. Anthony below, with his hand on his beard, which is a most beautiful head, and on the other side a S. Rocco, which is also held to be a very good figure; whence this work is rightly looked upon as one executed with supreme diligence and unity of colouring. In a picture on the altar of the Santificazione, in the Madonna della Scala, he painted a S. Sebastian, in competition with Paolo Cavazzuola, who executed a S. Rocco in another picture; and he afterwards painted an altar-piece that was taken to Bagolino, a place in the mountains of Brescia. Il Moro executed many portraits, and his heads are in truth beautiful to a marvel, and very good likenesses of those whom they were meant to represent. At Verona he executed a portrait of Count Francesco Sanbonifazio, who, on account of the length of his body, was called the Long Count; with that of one of the Franchi, which was an amazing head. He also painted the portrait of Messer Girolamo Verità, which remained unfinished, because Il Moro was inclined to be dilatory in his work; and this, still unfinished, is in the possession of the sons of that good nobleman. Among many other portraits, likewise, he executed one of the Venetian, Monsignor de' Martini, a knight of Rhodes, and to the same man he sold a head of marvellous beauty and excellence, which he had painted many years before as the portrait of a Venetian gentleman, the son of one who was then Captain in Verona. This head, through the avarice of the Venetian, who never paid him, was left in the hands of Francesco, and he disposed of it to Monsignor de' Martini, who had the Venetian dress changed into that of a shepherd or herdsman. It is as rare a portrait as ever issued from the hand of any craftsman, and it is now in the house of the heirs of the same Monsignor de' Martini, where it is rightly held in vast veneration. In Venice he painted a portrait of Messer Alessandro Contarini, Procurator of S. Mark and Proveditor of the forces, and one of Messer Michele San Michele for one of Messer Michele's dearest friends, who took the portrait to Orvieto; and it is said that he executed another of the same architect, Messer Michele, which is now in the possession of Messer Paolo Ramusio, the son of Messer Giovan Battista. He also painted a portrait of Fracastoro, a very famous poet, at the instance of Monsignor Giberti, by whom it was sent to Giovio, who placed it in his museum. Il Moro executed many other works, of which there is no need to make mention, although they are all well worthy of remembrance, because he was as diligent a colourist as any master that lived in his day, and because he bestowed much time and labour on his work. So great, indeed, was his diligence, that it brought upon him more blame than praise, as may also be seen at times to happen to others, for the reason that he accepted any commission and took the earnest-money from every patron, and trusted to the will of God to finish the work; and if he did this in his youth, everyone may imagine what he must have done in his last years, when to his natural slowness there was added that which old age brings in its train. By this method of procedure he brought upon himself more entanglements and annoyances than he cared for; and Messer Michele San Michele, therefore, moved by compassion for him, took him into his house in Venice and treated him like a friend and man of talent. Finally, having been invited back to Verona by his former patrons, the Counts Giusti, Il Moro died among them in their beautiful Palace of S. Maria in Stella, and was buried in the church of that villa, being accompanied to his tomb by all those loving noblemen, and even laid to rest with extraordinary affection by their own hands; for they loved him as a father, since they had all been born and brought up while he was living in their house. In his youth Il Moro was very courageous and agile in body, and handled all kinds of arms with great skill. He was most faithful to his friends and patrons, and he showed spirit in all his actions. His most intimate friends were the architect, Messer Michele San Michele, Danese da Carrara, an excellent sculptor, and the very reverend and most learned Fra Marco de' Medici, who often went after his studies to sit with him, watching him at work, and discoursing lovingly with him, in order to refresh his mind when he was weary with labour. A disciple and son-in-law of Il Moro, who had two daughters, was Battista d' Agnolo, who was afterwards called Battista del Moro. This master, although he had his hands full for a time with the complications of the inheritance that Il Moro bequeathed to him, has yet executed many works which are not otherwise than passing good. In Verona he has painted a S. John the Baptist in the Church of the Nuns of S. Giuseppe, and in the tramezzo[6] of S. Eufemia, above the altar of S. Paolo, a scene in fresco showing the latter Saint presenting himself to Ananias after being converted by Christ; which work, although he executed it when still a lad, is much extolled. For the noble Counts Canossi he painted two apartments, and in a hall two friezes with battle-pieces, which are very beautiful and praised by everyone. In Venice he painted the façade of a house near the Carmine, a work of no great size, but much extolled, in which he executed a figure of Venice crowned and seated upon a lion, the device of that Republic. For Camillo Trevisano he painted the façade of his house at Murano, and in company with his son Marco he decorated the inner court with very beautiful scenes in chiaroscuro. And in competition with Paolo Veronese he painted a large chamber in the same house, which proved to be so beautiful that it brought him much honour and profit. The same master has also executed many works in miniature, of which the most recent is a very beautiful drawing of S. Eustachio adoring Christ, who has appeared to him between the horns of a deer, with two dogs near him, which could not be more excellent, and a landscape full of trees, receding and fading away little by little into the distance, which is an exquisite thing. This drawing has been very highly praised by the many persons who have seen it, and particularly by Danese da Carrara, who saw it when he was in Verona, carrying out the work of the Chapel of the Signori Fregosi, which is one of rare distinction among all the number that there are in Italy at the present day. Danese, I say, having seen this drawing, was lost in astonishment at its beauty, and exhorted the above-mentioned Fra Marco de' Medici, his old and particular friend, not for anything in the world to let it slip through his hands, but to contrive to place it among the other choice examples of all the arts in his possession. Whereupon Battista, having heard that Fra Marco desired it, and knowing of his friendship with his father-in-law, gave it to him, almost forcing him to accept it, in the presence of Danese; nor was that good Father ungrateful to him for so much courtesy. However, since that same Battista and his son Marco are alive and still at work, I shall say nothing more of them for the present. Il Moro had another disciple, called Orlando Fiacco, who has become a good master and a very able painter of portraits, as may be seen from the many that he has painted, all very beautiful and most lifelike. He made a portrait of Cardinal Caraffa when he was returning from Germany, which he took secretly by torch-light while the Cardinal was at supper in the Vescovado of Verona; and this was such a faithful likeness that it could not have been improved. He also painted a very lifelike portrait of the Cardinal of Lorraine, when, coming from the Council of Trent, he passed through Verona on his return to Rome; and likewise portraits of the two Bishops Lippomani of Verona, Luigi the uncle and Agostino the nephew, which Count Giovan Battista della Torre now has in a little apartment. Other portraits that he painted were those of Messer Adamo Fumani, a Canon and a very learned gentleman of Verona, of Messer Vincenzio de' Medici of Verona, and of his consort, Madonna Isotta, in the guise of S. Helen, and of their grandson, Messer Niccolò. He has likewise executed portraits of Count Antonio della Torre, of Count Girolamo Canossi, and his brothers, Count Lodovico and Count Paolo, of Signor Astorre Baglioni, Captain-General of all the light cavalry of Venice and Governor of Verona, the latter clad in white armour and most beautiful in aspect, and of his consort, Signora Ginevra Salviati. In like manner, he has portrayed the eminent architect Palladio and many others; and he still continues at work, wishing to become in the art of painting as true an Orlando as once was that great Paladin of France. [Illustration: BONSIGNORI (MONSIGNORI): PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN (_London: National Gallery, 736. Tempera Panel_)] In Verona, where an extraordinary degree of attention has been given to design ever since the death of Fra Giocondo, there have flourished at all times men excellent in painting and architecture, as will now be seen, in addition to what has been observed hitherto, in the Lives of Francesco Monsignori, of Domenico Morone and his son Francesco, of Paolo Cavazzuola, of the architect Falconetto, and, lastly, of the miniaturists Francesco and Girolamo. Francesco Monsignori, the son of Alberto, was born at Verona in the year 1455; and when he was well grown he was advised by his father, who had always delighted in painting, although he had not practised it save for his own pleasure, to give his attention to design. Having, therefore, gone to Mantua to seek out Mantegna, who was then working in that city, he exerted himself in such a manner, being fired by the fame of his instructor, that no long time passed before Francesco II, Marquis of Mantua, who found an extraordinary delight in painting, took him into his own service; and in the year 1487 he gave him a house for his habitation in Mantua, and assigned him an honourable provision. For these benefits Francesco was not ungrateful, for he always served that lord with supreme fidelity and lovingness; whence the Marquis came to love and favour him more and more every day, insomuch that he could not leave the city without having Francesco in his train, and was once heard to say that Francesco was as dear to him as the State itself. Francesco painted many works for that lord in his Palace of S. Sebastiano at Mantua, and also in the Castello di Gonzaga and in the beautiful Palace of Marmirolo without the city. In the latter Francesco had finished painting in the year 1499, after a vast number of other pictures, some triumphs and many portraits of gentlemen of the Court; and on Christmas Eve, on which day he had finished those works, the Marquis presented to him an estate of a hundred fields in the territory of Mantua, at a place called La Marzotta, with a mansion, garden, meadows, and other things of great beauty and convenience. He was most excellent at taking portraits from life, and the Marquis caused him to paint many portraits, of himself, of his sons, and of many other lords of the house of Gonzaga, which were sent to France and Germany as presents for various Princes. And many of these portraits are still in Mantua, such as those of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa; of Doge Barbarigo of Venice; of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan; of Massimiliano, also Duke of Milan, who died in France; of the Emperor Maximilian; of Signor Ercole Gonzaga, who afterwards became a Cardinal; of his brother, Duke Federigo (then a young man); of Signor Giovan Francesco Gonzaga; of Messer Andrea Mantegna, the painter; and of many others; of all which Francesco preserved copies drawn on paper in chiaroscuro, which are now in the possession of his heirs at Mantua. Above the pulpit of S. Francesco de' Zoccolanti, in the same city, is a picture that he painted of S. Louis and S. Bernardino holding a large circle that contains the name of Jesus; and in the refectory of those friars there is a picture on canvas as large as the whole of the head-wall, of the Saviour in the midst of the twelve Apostles, painted in perspective and all very beautiful, and executed with many proofs of consideration. Among them is the traitor Judas, with a face wholly different from those of the others, and in a strange attitude; and the others are all gazing intently at Jesus, who is speaking to them, being near His Passion. On the right hand of this work is a S. Francis of the size of life, a very beautiful figure, the countenance of which is the very presentment of that sanctity which was peculiar to that most saintly man; and he is presenting to Christ the Marquis Francesco, who is kneeling at his feet, portrayed from life in a long coat pleated and worked with a curly pattern, according to the fashion of those times, and embroidered with white crosses, perchance because he may have been at that time Captain of the Venetians. And in front of the Marquis is a portrait, with the hands clasped, of his eldest son, who was then a very beautiful boy, and afterwards became Duke Federigo. On the other side is painted a S. Bernardino, equal in excellence to the figure of S. Francis, and likewise presenting to Christ the brother of the Marquis, Cardinal Sigismondo Gonzaga, a very beautiful kneeling figure, robed in the habit of a Cardinal, with the rochet, which is also a portrait from life; and in front of that Cardinal is a portrait of Signora Leonora, the daughter of the same Marquis, who was then a girl, and afterwards became Duchess of Urbino. This whole work is held by the most excellent painters to be a marvellous thing. [Illustration: S. SEBASTIAN (_After the painting by =Francesco Monsignori [Bonsignori]=. Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 46 c_) _Hanfstaengl_] The same master painted a picture of S. Sebastian, which was afterwards placed in the Madonna delle Grazie, without the city of Mantua; and to this he devoted extraordinary pains, copying many things in it from the life. It is related that the Marquis, going one day, while Francesco was executing this picture, to see him at work, as he used often to do, said to him: "Francesco, you must take some fine figure as your model in painting this Saint." To which Francesco answered: "I am using as my model a porter with a very handsome figure, whom I bind in a fashion of my own in order to make the work natural." "But the limbs of this Saint of yours," rejoined the Marquis, "are not true to life, for they have not the appearance of being strained by force or by that fear which one would expect in a man bound and shot with arrows; and by your leave I will undertake to show you what you ought to do in order to make this figure perfect." "Nay, but I beg you to do it, my lord," said Francesco; and the Marquis added: "When you have your porter bound here, send for me, and I will show you what you must do." The next day, therefore, when Francesco had the porter bound in the manner that he wished, he sent a secret summons to the Marquis, but without knowing what he intended to do. And the Marquis, bursting out of a neighbouring room in a great fury, with a loaded cross-bow in his hand, rushed towards the porter, crying out at the top of his voice, "Traitor, prepare to die! At last I have caught thee as I would have thee," and other suchlike words; which hearing, the wretched porter, thinking himself as good as dead, struggled in a frenzy of terror with the ropes wherewith he was bound, and made frantic efforts to break them, thus truly representing one about to be shot with arrows, and revealing fear in his face and the horror of death in his strained and distorted limbs, as he sought to escape from his peril. This done, the Marquis said to Francesco, "There he is in the state that he ought to be: the rest is for you to do"; which the painter having well considered, made his figure as perfect as could be imagined. Francesco painted in the Gonzaga Palace, besides many other things, the Election of the first Lords of Mantua, with the jousts that were held on the Piazza di S. Piero, which is seen there in perspective. When the Grand Turk sent one of his men with a most beautiful dog, a bow, and a quiver, as presents for the Marquis, the latter caused the dog, the Turk who had brought it, and the other things, to be painted in the same Gonzaga Palace; and, this done, wishing to see whether the painted dog were truly lifelike, he had one of his own dogs, of a breed very hostile to the Turkish dog, brought to the place where the other one stood on a pedestal painted in imitation of stone. The living dog, then, arriving there, had no sooner seen the painted one than, precisely as if it had been a living animal and the very one for whom he had a mortal hatred, he broke loose from his keeper and rushed at it with such vehemence, in order to bite it, that he struck his head full against the wall and dashed it all to pieces. [Illustration: GIOVAN FRANCESCO MORONE: MADONNA AND CHILD (_London: National Gallery, 285. Panel_)] Another story is told by persons who were present at the scene, of a little picture by the hand of Francesco, little more than two span in height, and belonging to his nephew Benedetto Baroni, in which is a Madonna painted in oils, from the breast upwards, and almost life-size, and, lower down, in the corner of the picture, the Child, seen from the shoulders upwards, with one arm uplifted and in the act of caressing His Mother. It is related, I say, that, when the Emperor was master of Verona, Don Alfonso of Castille and Alarcon, a very famous Captain, happened to be in that city on behalf of His Majesty and the Catholic King; and that these lords, being in the house of the Veronese Count Lodovico da Sesso, said that they had a great desire to see that picture. Whereupon it was sent for; and one evening they were standing contemplating it in a good light, and admiring its masterly workmanship, when Signora Caterina, the wife of the Count, entered into the room where those noblemen were, together with one of her sons, who had on his wrist one of those green birds--called in Verona "terrazzani,"[7] because they make their nests on the ground--which learn to perch on the wrist, like hawks. It happened, then, that, while she stood with the others contemplating the picture, the bird, seeing the extended arm and wrist of the painted Child, flew to perch upon it; but, not having been able to find a hold on the surface of the painting, and having therefore fallen to the ground, it twice returned to settle on the wrist of that painted Child, precisely as if it had been one of those living children who were always holding it on their wrists. At which those noblemen, being amazed, offered to pay a great price to Benedetto for the picture, if only he would give it to them; but it was not possible by any means to wrest it from him. Not long afterwards the same persons planned to have it stolen from him on the day of the festival of S. Biagio in S. Nazzaro; but the owner was informed of this, and their design did not succeed. For S. Paolo, in Verona, Francesco painted a panel-picture in gouache, which is very beautiful, and another, also most beautiful, for the Chapel of the Bandi in S. Bernardino. In Mantua he executed for Verona a picture with two most lovely nudes, a Madonna in the sky, with the Child in her arms, and some Angels, all marvellous figures, which is in the chapel where S. Biagio is buried, in the Black Friars Church of S. Nazzaro. Francesco was a man of saintly life, and the enemy of every vice, insomuch that he would never on any account paint licentious works, although he was very often entreated to do so by the Marquis; and equal to him in goodness were his brothers, as will be related in the proper place. Finally, being old, and suffering in the bladder, Francesco, with the leave of the Marquis and by the advice of the physicians, went with his wife and many servants to the Baths of Caldero, in the territory of Verona, to take the waters. There, one day, after he had drunk the water, he allowed himself to be overcome by drowsiness, and slept a little, being indulged in this by his wife out of compassion; whereupon, a violent fever having come upon him in consequence of his sleeping, which is a deadly thing for one who has just taken that water, he finished the course of his life on the second day of July, 1519; which having been reported to the Marquis, he straightway sent orders by a courier that the body of Francesco should be brought to Mantua. This was done, although it gave little pleasure to the people of Verona; and he was laid to rest with great honour in the burial-place of the Compagnia Segreta in S. Francesco at Mantua. Francesco lived to the age of sixty-four, and the portrait of him which belongs to Messer Fermo was executed when he was fifty. Many compositions were written in his praise, and he was mourned by all who knew him as a virtuous and saintly man, which he was. He had for wife Madonna Francesca Gioacchini of Verona, but he had no children. The eldest of his three brothers was called Monsignore; and he, being a person of culture and learning, received offices with good salaries in Mantua from the Marquis, on account of that nobleman's love of Francesco. He lived to the age of eighty, and left children, who keep the family of the Monsignori alive in Mantua. Another brother of Francesco had the name of Girolamo when in the world, and of Fra Cherubino among the Frati Zoccolanti di San Francesco; and he was a very beautiful calligrapher and illuminator. The third, who was a Friar of S. Dominic and an Observantine, and was called Fra Girolamo, chose out of humility to become a lay-brother. He was not only a man of good and holy life, but also a passing good painter, as may be seen in the Convent of S. Domenico in Mantua, where, besides other works, he executed a most beautiful Last Supper in the refectory, with a Passion of Christ, which remained unfinished on account of his death. The same friar painted the beautiful Last Supper that is in the refectory of the very rich abbey which the Monks of S. Benedict possess in the territory of Mantua. In S. Domenico he painted the altar of the Rosary; and in the Convent of S. Anastasia, in Verona, he painted in fresco the Madonna, S. Remigio the Bishop, and S. Anastasia; with a Madonna, S. Dominic, and S. Thomas Aquinas, all executed with mastery, on a little arch over the second door of entrance in the second cloister. [Illustration: THE CRUCIFIXION (_After the painting by =Giovan Francesco Morone=. Verona: S. Bernardino_) _Alinari_] Fra Girolamo was a person of great simplicity, wholly indifferent to the things of the world. He lived in the country, at a farm belonging to his convent, in order to avoid all noise and disturbance, and the money sent to him in return for his works, which he used for buying colours and suchlike things, he kept in a box without a cover, hung from the ceiling in the middle of his chamber, so that all who wished could take some; and in order not to have the trouble of thinking every day what he was to eat, he used to cook a pot of beans every Monday to last him the whole week. When the plague came to Mantua and the sick were abandoned by all, as happens in such cases, Fra Girolamo, with no other motive but the purest love, would never desert the poor plague-stricken monks, and even tended them all day long with his own hands. And thus, careless of his life for the love of God, he became infected with that malady and died at the age of sixty, to the great grief of all who knew him. But to return to Francesco Monsignori: he painted a life-size portrait, which I forgot to mention above, of Count Ercole Giusti of Verona, in a robe of cloth of gold, such as he was wont to wear; and this is a very beautiful likeness, as may be seen in the house of his son, Count Giusto. Domenico Morone, who was born at Verona about the year 1430, learned the art of painting from some masters who were disciples of Stefano, and from works by the same Stefano, by Jacopo Bellini, by Pisano, and by others, which he saw and copied. Saying nothing of the many pictures that he executed after the manner of those times, which are now in monasteries and private houses, I begin by recording that he painted in chiaroscuro, with "terretta verde," the façade of a house belonging to the city of Verona, on the square called the Piazza de' Signori; and in this may be seen many ornamental friezes and scenes from ancient history, with a very beautiful arrangement of figures and costumes of bygone days. But the best work to be seen by the hand of this master is the Leading of Christ to the Cross, with a multitude of figures and horses, which is in S. Bernardino, on the wall above the Chapel of the Monte di Pietà, for which Liberale painted the picture of the Deposition with the weeping Angels. The same Domenico received a commission to paint the chapel that is next to that one, both within and without, at great expense and with a lavish use of gold, from the Chevalier, Messer Niccolò de' Medici, who was considered to be the richest man of his day in Verona, and who spent great sums of money on other pious works, being a man who was inclined to this by nature. This gentleman, after he had built many monasteries and churches, and had left scarcely any place in that city where he had not executed some noble and costly work to the honour of God, chose as his burial-place the chapel mentioned above, for the ornamentation of which he availed himself of Domenico, at that time more famous than any other painter in that city, Liberale being in Siena. Domenico, then, painted in the interior of this chapel the Miracles of S. Anthony of Padua, to whom it is dedicated, and portrayed the Chevalier in an old man with shaven face and white hair, without any cap, and wearing a long gown of cloth of gold, such as Chevaliers used to wear in those times. All this, for a work in fresco, is very well designed and executed. Then, in certain medallions in the outer vaulting, which is all overlaid with gold, he painted the four Evangelists; and on the pilasters both within and without he executed figures of Saints, among which are S. Elizabeth of the Third Order of S. Francis, S. Helen, and S. Catharine, which are very beautiful figures, and much extolled for the draughtsmanship, colouring, and grace. This work, then, can bear witness to the talent of Domenico and to the magnificent liberality of that Chevalier. Domenico died very old, and was buried in S. Bernardino, wherein are the works by his hand described above, leaving his son, Francesco Morone, heir to his property and his talents. This Francesco, who learned the first principles of art from his father, afterwards exerted himself in such a manner that in a short time he became a much better master than his father had been, as the works that he executed in emulation of those of his father clearly demonstrate. Below his father's work on the altar of the Monte, in the aforesaid Church of S. Bernardino, Francesco painted in oils the folding-doors that enclose the altar-piece of Liberale; on the inner side of which he depicted in one the Virgin, and in the other S. John the Evangelist, both life-size figures, with great beauty in the faces, which are weeping, in the draperies, and in every other part. In the same chapel, at the foot of the face of that wall which serves as head-wall to the tramezzo,[8] he painted the Miracle that Our Lord performed with the five loaves and two fishes, which satisfied the multitude; and in this are many beautiful figures and many portraits from life, but most of all is praise given to a S. John the Evangelist, who is very slender, and has his back partly turned towards the spectator. He then executed in the same place, beside the altar-piece, in the vacant spaces on the wall against which it rests, a S. Louis, Bishop and Friar of S. Francis, and another figure; with some heads in foreshortening in a sunk medallion on the vaulting. All these works are much extolled by the painters of Verona. And for the altar of the Cross, on which are so many painted pictures, between that chapel and the Chapel of the Medici, in the same church, he executed a picture which is in the centre above all the others, containing Christ on the Cross, the Madonna, and S. John, and very beautiful. In another picture, which is above that of Caroto, on the left-hand side of the same altar, he painted Our Lord washing the feet of the Apostles, who are seen in various attitudes; in which work, so men say, this painter made a portrait of himself in the figure of one who is serving Christ by bringing water. For the Chapel of the Emilii, in the Duomo, Francesco executed a S. James and a S. John, one on either side of Christ, who is bearing His Cross; and the beauty and excellence of these two figures leave nothing to be desired. The same master executed many works at Lonico, in an abbey of Monks of Monte Oliveto, whither great multitudes flock together to adore a figure of the Madonna which performs many miracles in that place. Afterwards, Francesco being very much the friend, and, as it were, the brother of Girolamo dai Libri, the painter and illuminator, they undertook to paint in company the organ-doors of S. Maria in Organo, a church of Monks of Monte Oliveto. In one of these, on the outer side, Francesco painted a S. Benedict clothed in white, and S. John the Evangelist, and on the inner side the Prophets Daniel and Isaiah, with two little Angels in the air, and a ground all full of very beautiful landscapes. And then he executed the great altar-piece of the altar of the Muletta, painting therein a S. Peter and a S. John, which are little more than one braccio in height, but wrought so well and with such diligence, that they have the appearance of miniatures. The carvings of this work were executed by Fra Giovanni da Verona, a master of tarsia and carving. In the same place, on the wall of the choir, Francesco painted two scenes in fresco--one of Our Lord riding on an ass into Jerusalem, and the other of His Prayer in the Garden, wherein, on one side, is the armed multitude coming to take Him, guided by Judas. But more beautiful than all the rest is the vaulted sacristy, which is all painted by the same master, excepting only the S. Anthony being scourged by Demons, which is said to be by the hand of his father, Domenico. In this sacristy, then, besides the Christ and some little Angels that are seen in foreshortening on the vaulting, he painted in the lunettes, two in each niche, and robed in their pontifical vestments, the various Popes who have been exalted to the Pontificate from the Order of S. Benedict. Round the sacristy, below the lunettes of the vaulting, is drawn a frieze four feet high, and divided into compartments, wherein are painted in the monastic habit various Emperors, Kings, Dukes, and other Princes, who have abandoned the States and Principalities that they ruled, and have become monks. In these figures Francesco made portraits from life of many of the monks who had their habitation or a temporary abode in that monastery, the while that he was working there; and among them are portraits of many novices and other monks of every kind, which are heads of great beauty, and executed with much diligence. In truth, by reason of these ornaments, that was then the most beautiful sacristy that there was in all Italy, since, in addition to the beauty of the room, which is of considerable size and well proportioned, and the pictures described above, which are also very beautiful, there is at the foot of the walls a range of panelled seats adorned with fine perspective-views, so well executed in tarsia and carving, that there is no work to be seen of those times, and perchance even of our own, that is much better. For Fra Giovanni da Verona, who executed this work, was most excellent in that art, as was said in the Life of Raffaello da Urbino, and as is demonstrated not only by his many other works in houses of his Order, but also by those that are in the Papal Palace at Rome, in Monte Oliveto di Chiusuri in the territory of Siena, and in other places. But those of this sacristy are the best of all the works that Fra Giovanni ever executed, for the reason that it may be said that in them he surpassed himself by as much as he excelled in the rest every other master. Among other things, Fra Giovanni carved for this place a candelabrum more than fourteen feet in height to hold the Paschal candle, all made of walnut-wood, and wrought with such extraordinary patience that I do not believe that there is a better work of the same kind to be seen. But to return to Francesco: he painted for the same church the panel-picture which is in the Chapel of the Counts Giusti, in which he depicted the Madonna, with S. Augustine and S. Martin in pontifical robes. And in the cloister he executed a Deposition from the Cross, with the Maries and other Saints, works in fresco which are much extolled in Verona. In the Church of the Vittoria he painted the Chapel of the Fumanelli, which is below the wall that supports the choir which was built by the Chevalier Messer Niccolò de' Medici; and a Madonna in fresco in the cloister. And afterwards he painted a portrait from life of Messer Antonio Fumanelli, a physician very famous for the works written by him in connection with his profession. He painted in fresco, also, on a house which is seen on the left hand as one crosses the Ponte delle Navi on the way to S. Paolo, a Madonna with many Saints, which is held to be a very beautiful work, both in design and in colouring; and on the house of the Sparvieri, in the Brà, opposite to the garden of the Friars of S. Fermo, he painted another like it. Francesco painted a number of other works, of which there is no need to make mention, since the best have been described; let it suffice to say that he gave grace, unity, and good design to his pictures, with a colouring as vivid and pleasing as that of any other painter. Francesco lived fifty-five years, and died on May 16, 1529. He chose to be carried to his tomb in the habit of a Friar of S. Francis, and he was buried in S. Domenico, beside his father. He was so good a man, so religious, and so exemplary, that there was never heard to issue from his mouth any word that was otherwise than seemly. A disciple of Francesco, and much more able than his master, was the Veronese Paolo Cavazzuola, who executed many works in Verona; I say in Verona, because it is not known that he ever worked in any other place. In S. Nazzaro, a seat of Black Friars at Verona, he painted many works in fresco near those of his master Francesco; but these were all thrown to the ground when that church was rebuilt by the pious munificence of the reverend Father, Don Mauro Lonichi, a nobleman of Verona and Abbot of that Monastery. On the old house of the Fumanelli, in the Via del Paradiso, Paolo painted, likewise in fresco, the Sibyl showing to Augustus Our Lord in the heavens, in the arms of His Mother; which work is beautiful enough for one of the first that he executed. On the outer side of the Chapel of the Fontani, in S. Maria in Organo, he painted, also in fresco, two Angels--namely, S. Michael and S. Raphael. In the street into which there opens the Chapel of the Angel Raphael, in S. Eufemia, over a window that gives light to a recess in the staircase of that chapel, he painted the Angel Raphael, and with him Tobias, whom he guided on his journey; which was a very beautiful little work. And in S. Bernardino, in a round picture over the door where there is the bell, he painted a S. Bernardino in fresco, and in another round picture on the same wall, but lower down, and above the entrance to a confessional, a S. Francis, which is beautiful and well executed, as is also the S. Bernardino. These are all the works that Paolo is known to have painted in fresco. [Illustration: THE DEPOSITION (_After the panel by =Paolo Cavazzuola=. Verona: Museo Civico, 392_) _Anderson_] As for his works in oils, he painted a picture of S. Rocco for the altar of the Santificazione in the Church of the Madonna della Scala, in emulation of the S. Sebastian which Il Moro painted for the other side of the same place; which S. Rocco is a very beautiful figure. But the best figures that this painter ever executed are in S. Bernardino, where all the large pictures that are on the altar of the Cross, round the principal altar-piece, are by his hand, excepting that with the Christ Crucified, the Madonna, and S. John, which is above all the others, and is by the hand of his master Francesco. Beside it, in the upper part, are two large pictures by the hand of Paolo, in one of which is Christ being scourged at the Column, and in the other His Coronation, painted with many figures somewhat more than life-size. In the principal picture, which is lower down, in the first range, he painted a Deposition from the Cross, with the Madonna, the Magdalene, S. John, Nicodemus, and Joseph; and he made a portrait of himself, so good that it has the appearance of life, in one of these figures, a young man with a red beard, who is near the Tree of the Cross, with a coif on his head, such as it was the custom to wear at that time. On the right-hand side is a picture by Paolo of Our Lord in the Garden, with the three Disciples near Him; and on the left-hand side is another of Christ with the Cross on His shoulder, being led to Mount Calvary. The excellence of these works, which stand out strongly in comparison with those by the hand of his master that are in the same place, will always give Paolo a place among the best craftsmen. On the base he painted some Saints from the breast upwards, which are all portraits from life. The first figure, wearing the habit of S. Francis, and representing a Beato, is a portrait of Fra Girolamo Rechalchi, a noble Veronese; the figure beside the first, painted to represent S. Bonaventura, is the portrait of Fra Bonaventura Rechalchi, brother of the aforesaid Fra Girolamo; and the head of S. Joseph is the portrait of a steward of the Marchesi Malespini, who had been charged at that time by the Company of the Cross to see to the execution of this work. All these heads are very beautiful. For the same church Paolo painted the altar-piece of the Chapel of S. Francesco, in which work, the last that he executed, he surpassed himself. There are in it six figures larger than life; one being S. Elizabeth, of the Third Order of S. Francis, who is a most beautiful figure, with a smiling air and a gracious countenance, and with her lap full of roses; and she seems to be rejoicing at the sight of the bread that she, great lady as she was, had been carrying to the poor, turned by a miracle of God into roses, in token that her humble charity in thus ministering to the poor with her own hands was acceptable to God. This figure is a portrait of a widowed lady of the Sacchi family. Among the other figures are S. Bonaventura the Cardinal and S. Louis the Bishop, both Friars of S. Francis. Near these are S. Louis, King of France, S. Eleazar in a grey habit, and S. Ivo in the habit of a priest. Then there is the Madonna on a cloud above them all, with S. Francis and other figures round her; but it is said that these are not by the hand of Paolo, but by that of a friend who helped him to execute the picture; and it is evident, indeed, that these figures are not equal in excellence to those beneath. And in this picture is a portrait from life of Madonna Caterina de' Sacchi, who gave the commission for the work. Now Paolo, having set his heart on becoming great and famous, made to this end such immoderate exertions that he fell ill and died at the early age of thirty-one, at the very moment when he was beginning to give proofs of what might be expected from him at a riper age. It is certain that Paolo, if Fortune had not crossed him at the height of his activity, would without a doubt have attained to the highest, best, and greatest honours that could be desired by a painter. His loss, therefore, grieved not only his friends, but all men of talent and everyone who knew him, and all the more because he had been a young man of excellent character, untainted by a single vice. He was buried in S. Paolo, after making himself immortal by the beautiful works that he left behind him. Stefano Veronese, a very rare painter in his day, as has been related, had a brother-german, called Giovanni Antonio, who, although he learned to paint from that same Stefano, nevertheless did not become anything more than a mediocre painter, as may be seen from his works, of which there is no need to make mention. To this Giovanni Antonio was born a son, called Jacopo, who likewise became a painter of commonplace works; and to Jacopo were born Giovan Maria, called Falconetto, whose Life we are about to write, and Giovanni Antonio. The latter, devoting himself to painting, executed many works at Rovereto, a very famous township in the Trentino, and many pictures at Verona, which are dispersed among the houses of private citizens. He also painted many works in the valley of the Adige, above Verona, and a panel-picture of S. Nicholas, with many animals, at Sacco, opposite to Rovereto, with many others; after which he finally died at Rovereto, where he had gone to live. This master was particularly excellent in making animals and fruits, of which many very beautiful drawings, executed in miniature, were taken to France by the Veronese Mondella; and many of them were given by Agnolo, the son of Giovanni Antonio, to Messer Girolamo Lioni, a Venetian gentleman of noble spirit. But to come at last to Giovan Maria, the brother of Giovanni Antonio. He learned the rudiments of painting from his father, whose manner he rendered no little better and grander, although even he was not a painter of much reputation, as is evident from the Chapels of the Maffei and of the Emilii in the Duomo of Verona, from the upper part of the cupola of S. Nazzaro, and from works in other places. This master, recognizing the little value of his work in painting, and delighting beyond measure in architecture, set himself with great diligence to study and draw all the antiquities in his native city of Verona. He then resolved to visit Rome, and to learn architecture from its marvellous remains, which are the true masters; and he made his way to that city, and stayed there twelve whole years. That time he spent, for the most part, in examining and drawing all those marvellous antiquities, searching out in every place all the ground-plans that he could see and all the measurements that he could find. Nor did he leave anything in Rome, either buildings or their members, such as cornices, capitals, and columns, of whatsoever Order, that he did not draw with his own hand, with all the measurements; and he also drew all the sculptures which were discovered in those times, insomuch that when he returned to his own country, after those twelve years, he was rich in all the treasures of his art. And, not content with the things in the city of Rome itself, he drew all that was good and beautiful in the whole of the Roman Campagna, going even as far as the Kingdom of Naples, the Duchy of Spoleto, and other parts. It is said that Giovan Maria, being poor, and therefore having little wherewith to live or to maintain himself in Rome, used to spend two or three days every week in assisting some painter with his work; and with his earnings, since at that time masters were well paid and living was cheap, he was able to live the other days of the week, pursuing the studies of architecture. Thus, then, he drew all those antiquities as if they were complete, reconstructing them in his drawings from the parts and members that he saw, from which he imagined all the other parts of the buildings in all their perfection and integrity, and all with such true measurements and proportions, that he could not make an error in a single detail. Having returned to Verona, and finding no opportunity of exercising himself in architecture, since his native city was in the throes of a change of government, Giovan Maria gave his attention for the time to painting, and executed many works. On the house of the Della Torre family he painted a large escutcheon crowned by some trophies; and for two German noblemen, counsellors of the Emperor Maximilian, he executed in fresco some scenes from the Scriptures on a wall of the little Church of S. Giorgio, and painted there life-size portraits of those two Germans, one kneeling on one side and one on the other. He executed a number of works at Mantua, for Signor Luigi Gonzaga; and some others at Osimo, in the March of Ancona. And while the city of Verona was under the Emperor, he painted the imperial arms on all the public buildings, and received for this from the Emperor a good salary and a patent of privilege, from which it may be seen that many favours and exemptions were granted to him, both on account of his good service in matters of art, and because he was a man of great spirit, brave and formidable in the use of arms, with which he might likewise be expected to give valiant and faithful service: and all the more because he drew after him, on account of the great credit that he had with his neighbours, the whole mass of the people who lived in the Borgo di San Zeno, a very populous part of the city, in which he had been born and had taken a wife from the family of the Provali. For these reasons, then, he had all the inhabitants of his district as his following, and was called throughout the city by no other name but that of the "Red-head of San Zeno." Now, when the city again changed its government and returned to the rule of its ancient masters the Venetians, Giovan Maria, being known as one who had served the party of the Emperor, was forced to seek safety in flight; and he went, therefore, to Trento, where he passed some time painting certain pictures. Finally, however, when matters had mended, he made his way to Padua, where he was first received in audience and then much favoured by the very reverend Monsignor Bembo, who presented him not long afterwards to the illustrious Messer Luigi Cornaro, a Venetian gentleman of lofty spirit and truly regal mind, as is proved by his many magnificent enterprises. This gentleman, who, in addition to his other truly noble qualities, delighted in the study of architecture, the knowledge of which is worthy of no matter how great a Prince, had therefore read the works of Vitruvius, Leon Batista Alberti, and others who have written on this subject, and he wished to put what he had learned into practice. And when he saw the designs of Falconetto, and perceived with what profound knowledge he spoke of these matters, and rendered clear all the difficulties that can arise through the variety of the Orders of architecture, he conceived such a love for him that he took him into his own house and kept him there as an honoured guest for twenty-one years, which was the whole of the rest of Giovan Maria's life. During this time Falconetto executed many works with the help of the same Messer Luigi. The latter, desiring to see the antiquities of Rome on the spot, even as he had seen them in the drawings of Giovan Maria, went to Rome, taking him with him; and there he devoted himself to examining everything minutely, having him always in his company. After they had returned to Padua, a beginning was made with building from the design and model of Falconetto that most beautiful and ornate loggia which is in the house of the Cornari, near the Santo; and the palace was to be erected next, after the model made by Messer Luigi himself. In this loggia the name of Giovan Maria is carved on a pilaster. The same architect built a very large and magnificent Doric portal for the Palace of the Captain of that place; and this portal is much praised by everyone as a work of great purity. He also erected two very beautiful gates for the city, one of which, called the Porta di S. Giovanni, and leading to Vicenza, is very fine, and commodious for the soldiers who guard it; and the other, which is very well designed, was called the Porta Savonarola. He made, likewise, for the Friars of S. Dominic, the design and model of the Church of S. Maria delle Grazie, and laid the foundations; and this work, as may be seen from the model, is so beautiful and well designed, that one of equal size to rival it has perhaps never been seen up to our own day in any other place. And by the same master was made the model of a most superb palace for Signor Girolamo Savorgnano, at his well fortified stronghold of Usopo in Friuli; for which all the foundations were then laid, and it had begun to rise above the ground, when, by reason of the death of that nobleman, it was left in that condition without being carried further; but if this building had been finished, it would have been a marvel. About the same time Falconetto went to Pola, in Istria, for the sole purpose of seeing and drawing the theatre, amphitheatre, and arch that are in that most ancient city. He was the first who made drawings of theatres and amphitheatres and traced their ground-plans, and those that are to be seen, particularly in the case of Verona, came from him, and were printed at the instance of others after his designs. Giovan Maria was a man of exalted mind, and, being one who had never done anything else but draw the great works of antiquity, he desired nothing save that there should be presented to him opportunities of executing works similar to those in greatness. He would sometimes make ground-plans and designs for them, with the very same pains that he would have taken if he had been commissioned to put them into execution at once; and in this he lost himself so much, so to speak, that he would not deign to make designs for the private houses of gentlemen, either in the country or in the city, although he was much besought to do so. Giovan Maria was in Rome on many occasions besides those described above; whence that journey was so familiar to him, that when he was young and vigorous he would undertake it on the slightest opportunity. Persons who are still alive relate that, falling one day into a discussion with a foreign architect, who happened to be in Verona, about the measurements of I know not what ancient cornice in Rome, after many words Giovan Maria said, "I will soon make myself certain in this matter," and then went straight to his house and set out on his way to Rome. [Illustration: PALAZZO DEL CAPITANIO (_After_ Falconetto. _Padua_) _Anderson_] This master made for the Cornaro family two very beautiful designs of tombs, which were to be erected in S. Salvatore, at Venice--one for the Queen of Cyprus, a lady of that family, and the other for Cardinal Marco Cornaro, who was the first of that house to be honoured with that dignity. And in order that these designs might be carried out, a great quantity of marble was quarried at Carrara and taken to Venice, where the rough blocks still are, in the house of the same Cornari. Giovan Maria was the first who brought the true methods of building and of good architecture to Verona, Venice, and all those parts, where before him there had not been one who knew how to make even a cornice or a capital, or understood either the measurements or the proportions of a column or of any Order of architecture, as is evident from the buildings that were erected before his day. This knowledge was afterwards much increased by Fra Giocondo, who lived about the same time, and it received its final perfection from Messer Michele San Michele, insomuch that those parts are therefore under an everlasting obligation to the people of Verona, in which city were born and lived at one and the same time these three most excellent architects. To them there then succeeded Sansovino, who, not resting content with architecture, which he found already grounded and established by the three masters mentioned above, also brought thither sculpture, to the end that by its means their buildings might have all the adornments that were proper to them. And for this a debt of gratitude--if one may use such a word--is due to the ruin of Rome, by reason of which the masters were dispersed over many places and the beauties of these arts communicated throughout all Europe. Giovan Maria caused some works in stucco to be carried out in Venice, and taught the method of executing them. Some declare that when he was a young man he had the vaulting of the Chapel of the Santo, at Padua, decorated with stucco by Tiziano da Padova and many others, and also had similar works executed in the house of the Cornari, which are very beautiful. He taught his work to two of his sons, Ottaviano, who was, like himself, also a painter, and Provolo. Alessandro, his third son, worked in his youth at making armour, and afterwards adopted the calling of a soldier; he was three times victor in the lists, and finally, when a captain of infantry, died fighting valiantly before Turin in Piedmont, having been wounded by a harquebus-ball. Giovan Maria, on his part, after being crippled by gout, finished the course of his life at Padua, in the house of the aforesaid Messer Luigi Cornaro, who always loved him like a brother, or rather, like his own self. And to the end that there might be no separation in death between the bodies of those whose minds had been united together in the world by friendship and love of art, Messer Luigi had intended that Giovan Maria should be laid to rest beside himself in the tomb that was to be erected for his own burial, together with that most humorous poet, Ruzzante, his very familiar friend, who lived and died in his house; but I do not know whether this design of the illustrious Cornaro was ever carried into effect. Giovan Maria was a fine talker, pleasant and agreeable in conversation, and very acute in repartee, insomuch that Cornaro used to declare that a whole book could have been made with his sayings. And since, although he was crippled by gout, he lived cheerfully, he preserved his life to the age of seventy-six, dying in 1534. He had six daughters, five of whom he gave in marriage himself, and the sixth was married by her brothers, after his death, to Bartolommeo Ridolfi of Verona, who executed many works in stucco in company with them, and was a much better master than they were. This may be seen from his works in many places, and in particular at Verona, in the house of Fiorio della Seta on the Ponte Nuovo, in which he decorated some apartments in a very beautiful manner. There are others in the house of the noble Counts Canossi, which are amazing; and such, also, are those that he executed in the house of the Murati, near S. Nazzaro; and for Signor Giovan Battista della Torre, for Cosimo Moneta, the Veronese banker, at his beautiful villa, and for many others in various places, all works of great beauty. Palladio, most excellent of architects, declares that he knows no person more marvellous in invention or better able to adorn apartments with beautiful designs in stucco, than this Bartolommeo Ridolfi. Not many years since, Spitech Giordan, a nobleman of great authority with the King of Poland, took Bartolommeo with him to that King; and there, enjoying an honourable salary, he has executed, as he still does, many works in stucco, large portraits, medallions, and many designs for palaces and other buildings, with the assistance of a son of his own, who is in no way inferior to his father. [Illustration: GIROLAMO DAI LIBRI: MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH S. ANNE (_London: National Gallery, 748. Canvas_)] The elder Francesco dai Libri of Verona lived some time before Liberale, although it is not known exactly at what date he was born; and he was called "Dai Libri"[9] because he practised the art of illuminating books, his life extending from the time when printing had not yet been invented to the very moment when it was beginning to come into use. Since, therefore, there came to him from every quarter books to illuminate--a work in which he was most excellent--he was known by no other surname than that of "Dai Libri"; and he executed great numbers of them, for the reason that whoever went to the expense of having them written, which was very great, wished also to have them adorned as much as was possible with illuminations. This master illuminated many choral books, all beautiful, which are at Verona, in S. Giorgio, in S. Maria in Organo, and in S. Nazzaro; but the most beautiful is a little book, or rather, two little pictures that fold together after the manner of a book, on one side of which is a S. Jerome, a figure executed with much diligence and very minute workmanship, and on the other a S. John in the Isle of Patmos, depicted in the act of beginning to write his Book of the Apocalypse. This work, which was bequeathed to Count Agostino Giusti by his father, is now in S. Leonardo, a convent of Canons Regular, of which Don Timoteo Giusti, the son of that Count, is a member. Finally, after having executed innumerable works for various noblemen, Francesco died, content and happy for the reason that, in addition to the serenity of mind that his goodness brought him, he left behind him a son, called Girolamo, who was so excellent in art that before his death he saw him already a much greater master than himself. This Girolamo, then, was born at Verona in the year 1472, and at the age of sixteen he painted for the Chapel of the Lischi, in S. Maria in Organo, an altar-piece which caused such marvel to everyone when it was uncovered and set in its place, that the whole city ran to embrace and congratulate his father Francesco. In this picture is a Deposition from the Cross, with many figures, and among the many beautiful weeping heads the best of all are a Madonna and a S. Benedict, which are much commended by all craftsmen; and he also made therein a landscape, with a part of the city of Verona, drawn passing well from the reality. Then, encouraged by the praises that he heard given to his work, Girolamo painted the altar of the Madonna in S. Paolo in a masterly manner, and also the picture of the Madonna with S. Anne, which is placed between the S. Sebastian of Il Moro and the S. Rocco of Cavazzuola in the Church of the Scala. For the family of the Zoccoli he painted the great altar-piece of the high-altar in the Church of the Vittoria, and for the family of the Cipolli the picture of S. Onofrio, which is near the other, and is held to be both in design and in colouring the best work that he ever executed. For S. Leonardo nel Monte, also, near Verona, he painted at the commission of the Cartieri family the altar-piece of the high-altar, which is a large work with many figures, and much esteemed by everyone, above all for its very beautiful landscape. Now a thing that has happened very often in our own day has caused this work to be held to be a marvel. There is a tree painted by Girolamo in the picture, and against it seems to rest the great chair on which the Madonna is seated. This tree, which has the appearance of a laurel, projects considerably with its branches over the chair, and between the branches, which are not very thick, may be seen a sky so clear and beautiful, that the tree seems to be truly a living one, graceful and most natural. Very often, therefore, birds that have entered the church by various openings have been seen to fly to this tree in order to perch upon it, and particularly swallows, which had their nests among the beams of the roof, and likewise their little ones. Many persons well worthy of credence declare that they have seen this, among them Don Giuseppe Mangiuoli of Verona, a person of saintly life, who has twice been General of his Order and would not for anything in the world assert a thing that was not absolutely true, and also Don Girolamo Volpini, likewise a Veronese, and many others. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS (_After the painting by =Girolamo dai Libri=. Verona: Museo Civico, 290_) _Brogi_] In S. Maria in Organo, where was the first work executed by Girolamo, he also painted two Saints on the outer side of one of the folding doors of the organ--the other being painted by Francesco Morone, his companion--and on the inner side a Manger. And afterwards he painted the picture that is opposite to his first work, containing the Nativity of Our Lord, with shepherds, landscapes, and very beautiful trees; but most lifelike and natural of all are two rabbits, which are executed with such diligence that each separate hair may actually be seen in them. He painted another altar-piece for the Chapel of the Buonalivi, with a Madonna seated in the centre, two other figures, and some Angels below, who are singing. Then, in the ornamental work made by Fra Giovanni da Verona for the altar of the Sacrament, the same Girolamo painted three little pictures after the manner of miniatures. In the central picture is a Deposition from the Cross, with two little Angels, and in those at the sides are painted six Martyrs, kneeling towards the Sacrament, three in each picture, these being saints whose bodies are deposited in that very altar. The first three are Cantius, Cantianus, and Cantianilla, who were nephews of the Emperor Diocletian, and the others are Protus, Chrysogonus, and Anastasius, who suffered martyrdom at Aquæ Gradatæ, near Aquileia; and all these figures are in miniature, and very beautiful, for Girolamo was more able in that field of art than any other master of his time in Lombardy and in the State of Venice. Girolamo illuminated many books for the Monks of Montescaglioso in the Kingdom of Naples, some for S. Giustina at Padua, and many others for the Abbey of Praia in the territory of Padua; and also some at Candiana, a very rich monastery of the Canons Regular of S. Salvatore, to which place he went in person to work, although he would never go to any other place. While he was living there, Don Giulio Clovio, who was a friar in that place, learned the first rudiments of illumination; and he has since become the greatest master of that art that is now alive in Italy. Girolamo illuminated at Candiana a sheet with a Kyrie, which is an exquisite work, and for the same monks the first leaf of a psalter for the choir; with many things for S. Maria in Organo and for the Friars of S. Giorgio, in Verona. He executed, likewise, some other very beautiful illuminations for the Black Friars of S. Nazzaro at Verona. But that which surpassed all the other works of this master, which were all divine, was a sheet on which was depicted in miniature the Earthly Paradise, with Adam and Eve driven forth by the Angel, who is behind them with a sword in his hand. One would not be able to express how great and how beautiful is the variety of the trees, fruits, flowers, animals, birds, and all the other things that are in this amazing work, which was executed at the commission of Don Giorgio Cacciamale of Bergamo, then Prior of S. Giorgio in Verona, who, in addition to the many other courtesies that he showed to Girolamo, gave him sixty crowns of gold. This work was afterwards presented by that Father to a Roman Cardinal, at that time Protector of his Order, who showed it to many noblemen in Rome, and they all declared it to be the best example of illumination that had ever been seen up to that day. Girolamo painted flowers with such diligence, and made them so true, so beautiful, and so natural, that they appeared to all who beheld them to be real; and he counterfeited little cameos and other engraved stones and jewels in such a manner, that there was nothing more faithfully imitated or more diminutive to be seen. Among his little figures there are seen some, as in his imitations of cameos and other stones, that are no larger than little ants, and yet all the limbs and all the muscles can be perceived so clearly that one who has not seen them could scarcely believe it. Girolamo used to say in his old age that he knew more in his art then than he had ever known, and saw where every stroke ought to go, but that when he came to handle the brushes, they went the wrong way, because neither his eye nor his hand would serve him any longer. He died on the 2nd of July in the year 1555, at the age of eighty-three, and was laid to rest in the burial-place of the Company of S. Biagio in S. Nazzaro. He was a good and upright man, who never had a quarrel or dispute with anyone, and his life was very pure. He had, besides other children, a son called Francesco, who learned his art from him, and executed miracles of illumination when still a mere lad, so that Girolamo declared that he had not known as much at that age as his son knew. But this young man was led away from him by a brother of his mother, who, being passing rich, and having no children, took him with him to Vicenza and placed him in charge of a glass-furnace that he was setting up. When Francesco had spent his best years in this, his uncle's wife dying, he fell from his high hopes, and found that he had wasted his time, for the uncle took another wife, and had children by her, and thus Francesco did not become his uncle's heir, as he had thought to be. Thereupon he returned to his art after an absence of six years, and, after acquiring some knowledge, set himself to work. Among other things, he made a large globe, four feet in diameter, hollow within, and covered on the outer side, which was of wood, with a glue made of bullock's sinews, which was of a very strong admixture, so that there should be no danger of cracks or other damage in any part. This sphere, which was to serve as a terrestrial globe, was then carefully measured and divided under the personal supervision of Fracastoro and Beroldi, both eminent physicians, cosmographers, and astrologers; and it was to be painted by Francesco for Messer Andrea Navagiero, a Venetian gentleman, and a most learned poet and orator, who wished to make a present of it to King Francis of France, to whom he was about to go as Ambassador from his Republic. But Navagiero had scarcely arrived in France after a hurried journey, when he died, and this work remained unfinished. A truly rare work it would have been, thus executed by Francesco with the advice and guidance of two men of such distinction; but it was left unfinished, as we have said, and, what was worse, in its incomplete condition it received some injury, I know not what, in the absence of Francesco. However, spoiled as it was, it was bought by Messer Bartolommeo Lonichi, who has never consented to give it up to anyone, although he has been much besought and offered vast prices. Before this, Francesco had made two smaller globes, one of which is in the possession of Mazzanti, Archpriest of the Duomo of Verona, and the other belonged to Count Raimondo della Torre, and is now in the hands of his son, Count Giovan Batista, who holds it very dear, because this one, also, was made with the measurements and personal assistance of Fracastoro, who was a very familiar friend of Count Raimondo. Finally, growing weary of the extraordinary labour that miniatures demand, Francesco devoted himself to painting and to architecture, in which he became very skilful, executing many works in Venice and in Padua. About that time the Bishop of Tournai, a very rich and noble Fleming, had come to Italy in order to study letters, to see the country, and to learn our manners and ways of living. This man, delighting much in architecture, and happening to be in Padua, became so enamoured of the Italian method of building that he resolved to take the modes of our architecture with him to his own country; and in order to facilitate this purpose, he drew Francesco, whose ability he had recognized, into his service with an honourable salary, meaning to take him to Flanders, where he intended to carry out many magnificent works. But when the time came to depart, poor Francesco, who had caused designs to be made of all the best and greatest and most famous buildings in Italy, was overtaken by death, while still young and the object of the highest expectations, leaving his patron much grieved by his loss. Francesco left an only brother, in whom, being a priest, the Dai Libri family became extinct, after producing in succession three men most excellent in their field of art. Nor have any disciples survived them to keep this art alive, excepting the above-mentioned churchman, Don Giulio, who, as we have related, learned it from Girolamo when he was working at Candiana, where the former was a friar; and this Don Giulio has since raised it to a height of excellence which very few have reached and no one has ever surpassed. I knew for myself some of the facts about the excellent and noble craftsmen mentioned above, but I would never have been able to learn the whole of what I have related of them if the great goodness and diligence of the reverend and most learned Fra Marco de' Medici of Verona, a man profoundly conversant with all the most noble arts and sciences, and with him Danese Cattaneo of Carrara, a sculptor of great excellence, both being very much my friends, had not given me that complete and perfect information which I have just written down, to the best of my ability, for the convenience and advantage of all who may read these our Lives, in which the courtesy of many friends, who have taken pains with the investigation of these matters in order to please me and to benefit the world, has been, as it still is, of great assistance to me. And let this be the end of the Lives of these craftsmen of Verona, the portraits of each of whom I have not been able to obtain, because this full notice did not reach my hands until I found myself almost at the close of my work. FOOTNOTE: [1] Canal of the slaughter-houses. [2] Small canal of the corn-magazines. [3] Scarpagnino. [4] See note on page 57, Vol. I. [5] See note on page 57, Vol. I. [6] See note on page 57, Vol. I. [7] From "terra," earth. [8] See note on page 57, Vol. I. [9] _I.e._, "of the books." FRANCESCO GRANACCI (IL GRANACCIO) LIFE OF FRANCESCO GRANACCI (IL GRANACCIO) PAINTER OF FLORENCE Great, indeed, is the good fortune of those craftsmen who are brought into contact, either by their birth or by the associations that are formed in childhood, with those men whom Heaven has chosen out to be distinguished and exalted above all others in our arts, for the reason that a good and beautiful manner can be acquired with the greatest facility by seeing the methods and works of men of excellence, not to mention that rivalry and emulation, as we have said elsewhere, have great power over our minds. Francesco Granacci, of whom we have already spoken, was one of those who were placed by the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici to learn in his garden; whence it happened that, recognizing, boy as he was, the great genius of Michelagnolo, and what extraordinary fruits he was likely to produce when full grown, he could never tear himself away from his side, and even strove with incredible attention and humility to be always following that great brain, insomuch that Michelagnolo was constrained to love him more than all his other friends, and to confide so much in him, that there was no one with whom he was more willing to confer touching his works or to share all that he knew of art at that time, than with Granacci. Then, after they had been companions together in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandajo, it came to pass that Granacci, because he was held to be the best of Ghirlandajo's young men, the strongest draughtsman, and the one who had most grace in painting in distemper, assisted David and Benedetto Ghirlandajo, the brothers of Domenico, to finish the altar-piece of the high-altar in S. Maria Novella, which had been left unfinished at the death of the same Domenico. By this work Granacci gained much experience, and afterwards he executed in the same manner as that altar-piece many pictures that are in the houses of citizens, and others which were sent abroad. And since he was very gracious, and made himself very useful in certain ceremonies that were performed in the city during the festivals of the Carnival, he was constantly employed by the Magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici in many similar works, and in particular for the masquerade that represented the Triumph of Paulus Emilius, which was held in honour of the victory that he gained over certain foreign nations. In this masquerade, which was full of most beautiful inventions, Granacci acquitted himself so well, although he was a mere lad, that he won the highest praise. And here I will not omit to tell that the same Lorenzo de' Medici, as I have said in another place, was the first inventor of those masquerades that represent some particular subject, and are called in Florence "Canti";[10] for it is not known that any were performed in earlier times. In like manner Granacci was employed in the sumptuous and magnificent preparations that were made in the year 1513 for the entry of Pope Leo X, one of the Medici, by Jacopo Nardi, a man of great learning and most beautiful intellect, who, having been commanded by the Tribunal of Eight to prepare a splendid masquerade, executed a representation of the Triumph of Camillus. This masquerade, in so far as it lay in the province of the painter, was so beautifully arranged and adorned by Granacci that no man could imagine anything better; and the words of the song, which Jacopo composed, began thus: Contempla in quanta gloria sei salita, Felice alma Fiorenza, Poichè dal Ciel discesa, with what follows. For the same spectacle Granacci executed a great quantity of theatrical scenery, as he did both before and afterwards. And while working with Ghirlandajo he painted standards for ships, and also banners and devices for certain Knights of the Golden Spur, for their public entry into Florence, all at the expense of the Captains of the Guelph Party, as was the custom at that time, and as has been done in our own day, not long since. [Illustration: FRANCESCO GRANACCI: THE HOLY FAMILY (_Florence: Pitti, 199. Panel_)] In like manner he made many beautiful embellishments and decorations of his own invention for the Potenze[11] and their tournaments. These festivals were of a kind which is peculiar to the Florentines, and very pleasing, and in them were seen men standing almost upright on horseback, with very short stirrups, and breaking a lance with the same facility as do the warriors firmly seated on their saddles; and all this was done for the above-mentioned visit of Leo to Florence. Granacci also made, besides other things, a most beautiful triumphal arch opposite to the door of the Badia, covered with scenes in chiaroscuro and very lovely things of fancy. This arch was much extolled, and particularly for the invention of the architecture, and because he had made an imitation of that same door of the Badia for the entrance of the Via del Palagio, executed in perspective with the steps and every other thing, so that the painted and supposititious door was in no way different from the real and true one. To adorn the same arch he executed with his own hand some very beautiful figures of clay in relief, and on the summit of the arch he placed a great inscription with these words: LEONI X PONT. MAX. FIDEI CULTORI. But to come at length to some works by Granacci that are in existence, let me relate that, having studied the cartoon of Michelagnolo Buonarroti while the latter was executing it for the Great Hall of the Palace, he found it so instructive and made such proficience, that, when Michelagnolo was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II to the end that he might paint the vaulting of the Chapel in his Palace, Granacci was one of the first to be sent for by Buonarroti to help him to paint that work in fresco after the cartoons that he himself had prepared. It is true that Michelagnolo, being dissatisfied with the manner and method of every one of his assistants, afterwards found means to make them all return to Florence without dismissing them, by closing the door on them all and not allowing himself to be seen. In Florence Granacci painted for Pier Francesco Borgherini a scene in oils on the head-board of a couch which stood in an apartment wherein Jacopo da Pontormo, Andrea del Sarto, and Francesco Ubertini had painted many stories from the life of Joseph, in Pier Francesco's house in Borgo Sant' Apostolo; and in this scene were little figures representing a story of the same Joseph, executed with extraordinary finish and with great charm and beauty of colouring, and a building in perspective, wherein he depicted Joseph ministering to Pharaoh, which could not be more beautiful in any part. For the same man, also, he painted a round picture, likewise in oils, of the Trinity, or rather, God the Father supporting a Christ Crucified. And in the Church of S. Piero Maggiore there is a picture of the Assumption by his hand, with many Angels and a S. Thomas, to whom the Madonna is giving the Girdle. The figure of S. Thomas is very graceful, turning to one side in a beautiful attitude worthy of the hand of Michelagnolo, and such, also, is that of Our Lady. The drawing for these two figures by the hand of Granacci is in our book, together with others likewise by him. On either side of this picture are figures of S. Paul, S. Laurence, S. James, and S. John, which are all so beautiful that the work is held to be the best that Francesco ever painted; and in truth this work alone, even if he had never executed another, would ensure his being considered to be, as indeed he was, an excellent painter. For the Church of S. Gallo, without the Gate of the same name, and formerly a seat of the Eremite Friars of S. Augustine, he painted an altar-piece with the Madonna and two children, S. Zanobi, Bishop of Florence, and S. Francis. This altar-piece, which was in the Chapel of the Girolami, to which family that S. Zanobi belonged, is now in S. Jacopo tra Fossi at Florence. Michelagnolo Buonarroti, having a niece who was a nun in S. Apollonia at Florence, had therefore executed an ornament for the high-altar of that church, and a design for the altar-piece; and Granacci painted there some scenes in oils with figures large and small, which gave much satisfaction to the nuns at that time, and also to the other painters. For the same place he painted another altar-piece, which stood lower down, but this was burned one night, together with some draperies of great value, through some lights being inadvertently left on the altar; which was certainly a great loss, seeing that the work was much extolled by craftsmen. And for the Nuns of S. Giorgio in sulla Costa he executed the altar-piece of their high-altar, painting in it the Madonna, S. Catharine, S. Giovanni Gualberto, S. Bernardo Uberti the Cardinal, and S. Fedele. Granacci also executed many pictures, both square and round, which are dispersed among the houses of gentlemen in the city; and he made many cartoons for glass-windows, which were afterwards put into execution by the Frati Ingiesuati of Florence. He delighted much in painting on cloth, either alone or in company with others; wherefore, in addition to the works mentioned above, he painted many church-banners. And since he practised art more to pass the time than from necessity, he worked at his ease, always consulting his own convenience, and avoiding discomforts as much as he was able, more than any other man; and yet, without being covetous of the goods of others, he always preserved his own. Allowing but few cares to oppress him, he was a merry fellow, and took his pleasures with a glad heart. He lived sixty-seven years, at the end of which he finished the course of his life after an ordinary malady, a kind of fever; and he was buried in the Church of S. Ambrogio at Florence, on the day of S. Andrew the Apostle, in 1544. [Illustration: THE MADONNA GIVING THE GIRDLE TO S. THOMAS (_After the panel by =Francesco Granacci=. Florence: Uffizi, 1280_) _Alinari_] FOOTNOTE: [10] From the "canti," or "songs," that were sung in them. [11] The "Potenze" were merry companies composed of the men of the various quarters in costume. Each quarter had its own, representing an Emperor, King, or Prince, and his Court. BACCIO D' AGNOLO LIFE OF BACCIO D' AGNOLO ARCHITECT OF FLORENCE Great is the pleasure that I take in studying at times the beginnings of our craftsmen, for one sees some rising from the lowest depth to the greatest height, and especially in architecture, a science which has not been practised for several years past save by carvers and cunning impostors who profess to understand perspective without knowing even its terms or its first principles. The truth, indeed, is that architecture can never be practised to perfection save by those who have an excellent judgment and a good mastery of design, or have laboured much in painting, sculpture, or works in wood, for the reason that in it have to be executed with true measurements the dimensions of their figures, which are columns, cornices, and bases, and all the ornaments, which are made for the adornment of the figures, and for no other reason. And thus the workers in wood, by continually handling such things, in course of time become architects; and sculptors likewise, by having to find positions for their statues and by making ornaments for tombs and other works in the round, come in time to a knowledge of architecture; and painters, on account of their perspectives, the variety of their inventions, and the buildings that they draw, are compelled to take the ground-plans of edifices, seeing that they cannot plant houses or flights of steps on the planes where their figures stand, without in the first place grasping the order of the architecture. Working in his youth excellently well at wood-inlaying, Baccio executed the backs of the stalls in the choir of S. Maria Novella, in the principal chapel, wherein are most beautiful figures of S. John the Baptist and S. Laurence. In carving, he executed the ornaments of that same chapel, those of the high-altar in the Nunziata, the decorations of the organ in S. Maria Novella, and a vast number of other works, both public and private, in his native city of Florence. Departing from that city, he went to Rome, where he applied himself with great zeal to the study of architecture; and on his return he made triumphal arches of wood in various places for the visit of Pope Leo X. But for all this he never gave up his workshop, where there were often gathered round him, in addition to many citizens, the best and most eminent masters of our arts, so that most beautiful conversations and discussions of importance took place there, particularly in winter. The first of these masters was Raffaello da Urbino, then a young man, and next came Andrea Sansovino, Filippino, Maiano, Cronaca, Antonio da San Gallo and Giuliano da San Gallo, Granaccio, and sometimes, but not often, Michelagnolo, with many young Florentines and strangers. Having thus given his attention to architecture in so thorough a manner, and having made some trial of his powers, Baccio began to be held in such credit in Florence, that the most magnificent buildings that were erected in his time were entrusted to him and were put under his direction. When Piero Soderini was Gonfalonier, Baccio took part, with Cronaca and others, as has been related above, in the deliberations that were held with regard to the great Hall of the Palace; and with his own hand he executed in wood the ornament for the large panel-picture which was begun by Fra Bartolommeo, after the design by Filippino. In company with the same masters he made the staircase that leads to that Hall, with a very beautiful ornamentation of stone, and also the columns of variegated marble and the doors of marble in the hall that is now called the Sala de' Dugento. He built a palace for Giovanni Bartolini, which is very ornate within, on the Piazza di S. Trinità; and he made many designs for the garden of the same man in Gualfonda. And since that palace was the first edifice that was built with ornaments in the form of square windows with pediments, and a portal with columns supporting architrave, frieze, and cornice, these things were much censured by the Florentines with spoken words and sonnets, and festoons of boughs were hung upon them, as is done in churches for festivals, men saying that the façade was more like that of a temple than of a palace; so that Baccio was like to go out of his mind. However, knowing that he had imitated good examples, and that his work was sound, he regained his peace of mind. It is true that the cornice of the whole palace proved, as has been said in another place, to be too large; but in every other respect the work has always been much extolled. For Lanfredino Lanfredini he erected a house on the bank of the Arno, between the Ponte a S. Trinità and the Ponte alla Carraja; and on the Piazza de' Mozzi he began the house of the Nasi, which looks out upon the sandy shore of the Arno, but did not finish it. For Taddeo, of the Taddei family, he built a house that was held to be very beautiful and commodious. For Pier Francesco Borgherini he made the designs of the house that he built in Borgo S. Apostolo, in which he caused ornaments for the doors and most beautiful chimney-pieces to be executed at great expense, and made for the adornment of one chamber, in particular, coffers of walnut-wood covered with little boys carved with supreme diligence. Such a work it would now be impossible to execute with such perfection as he gave to it. He also prepared the design for the villa that Borgherini caused to be built on the hill of Bellosguardo, which was very beautiful and commodious, and erected at vast expense. For Giovan Maria Benintendi he executed an antechamber, with an ornamental frame for some scenes painted by excellent masters, which was a rare thing. The same Baccio made the model of the Church of S. Giuseppe near S. Nofri, and directed the construction of the door, which was his last work. He also caused to be built of masonry the campanile of S. Spirito in Florence, which was left unfinished, and is now being completed by order of Duke Cosimo after the original design of Baccio; and he likewise erected the campanile of S. Miniato sul Monte, which was battered by the artillery of the camp, but never destroyed, on which account it gained no less fame for the affront that it offered to the enemy than for the beauty and excellence with which Baccio had caused it to be built and carried to completion. Next, having been appointed on account of his abilities, and because he was much beloved by the citizens, as architect to S. Maria del Fiore, Baccio gave the design for constructing the gallery that encircles the cupola. This part of the work Filippo Brunelleschi, being overtaken by death, had not been able to execute; and although he had made designs even for this, they had been lost or destroyed through the negligence of those in charge of the building. Baccio, then, having made the design and model for this gallery, carried into execution all the part that is to be seen facing the Canto de' Bischeri. But Michelagnolo Buonarroti, on his return from Rome, perceiving that in carrying out this work they were cutting away the toothings that Filippo Brunelleschi, not without a purpose, had left projecting, made such a clamour that the work was stopped; saying that it seemed to him that Baccio had made a cage for crickets, that a pile so vast required something grander and executed with more design, art, and grace than appeared to him to be displayed by Baccio's design, and that he himself would show how it should be done. Michelagnolo having therefore made a model, the matter was disputed at great length before Cardinal Giulio de' Medici by many craftsmen and competent citizens; and in the end neither the one model nor the other was carried into execution. Baccio's design was censured in many respects, not that it was not a well-proportioned work of its kind, but because it was too insignificant in comparison with the size of the structure; and for these reasons that gallery has never been brought to completion. Baccio afterwards gave his attention to executing the pavement of S. Maria del Fiore, and to his other buildings, which were not a few, for he had under his particular charge all the principal monasteries and convents of Florence, and many houses of citizens, both within and without the city. Finally, when near the age of eighty-three, but still of good and sound judgment, he passed to a better life in 1543, leaving three sons, Giuliano, Filippo, and Domenico, who had him buried in S. Lorenzo. Of these sons, who all gave their attention after the death of Baccio to the art of carving and working in wood, Giuliano, who was the second, was the one who applied himself with the greatest zeal to architecture both during his father's lifetime and afterwards; wherefore, by favour of Duke Cosimo, he succeeded to his father's place as architect to S. Maria del Fiore, and continued not only all that Baccio had begun in that temple, but also all the other buildings that had remained unfinished at his death. At that time Messer Baldassarre Turini da Pescia was intending to place a panel-picture by the hand of Raffaello da Urbino in the principal church of Pescia, of which he was Provost, and to erect an ornament of stone, or rather, an entire chapel, around it, and also a tomb; and Giuliano executed all this after his own designs and models, and also restored for the same patron his house at Pescia, making in it many beautiful and useful improvements. For Messer Francesco Campana, formerly First Secretary to Duke Alessandro, and afterwards to Duke Cosimo de' Medici, the same Giuliano built at Montughi, without Florence, beside the church, a house which is small but very ornate, and so well situated, that it commands from its slight elevation a view of the whole city of Florence and the surrounding plain. And a most beautiful and commodious house was built at Colle, the native place of that same Campana, from the design of Giuliano, who shortly afterwards began for Messer Ugolino Grifoni, Lord of Altopascio, a palace at San Miniato al Tedesco, which was a magnificent work. For Ser Giovanni Conti, one of the secretaries of the Lord Duke Cosimo, he made many useful and beautiful improvements in his house at Florence; although it is true that in the two ground-floor windows, supported by knee-shaped brackets, which open out upon the street, Giuliano departed from his usual method, and so cut them up with projections, little brackets, and off-sets, that they inclined rather to the German manner than to the true and good manner of ancient or modern times. Works of architecture, without a doubt, must first be massive, solid, and simple, and then enriched by grace of design and by variety of subject in the composition, without, however, disturbing by poverty or by excess of ornamentation the order of the architecture or the impression produced on a competent judge. Meanwhile Baccio Bandinelli, having returned from Rome, where he had finished the tombs of Leo and Clement, persuaded the Lord Duke Cosimo, then a young man, to make at the head of the Great Hall of the Ducal Palace a façade full of columns and niches, with a range of fine marble statues; and this façade was to have windows of marble and grey-stone looking out upon the Piazza. The Duke having resolved to have this done, Bandinelli set his hand to making the design; but finding that the hall, as has been related in the Life of Cronaca, was out of square, and having never given attention to architecture, which he considered an art of little value, marvelling and even laughing at those who gave their attention to it, he was forced, on recognizing the difficulty of this work, to confer with Giuliano with regard to his model, and to beseech him that he, as an architect, should direct the work. And so all the stone-cutters and carvers of S. Maria del Fiore were set to work, and a beginning was made with the structure. Bandinelli had resolved, with the advice of Giuliano, to let the work remain out of square, following in part the course of the wall. It came to pass, therefore, that he was forced to make all the stones irregular in shape, preparing them with great labour by means of the pifferello, which is the instrument otherwise called the bevel-square; and this made the work so clumsy, that, as will be related in the Life of Bandinelli, it has been difficult to bring it to such a form as might be in harmony with the rest. Such a thing would not have happened if Bandinelli had possessed as much knowledge in architecture as he did in sculpture; not to mention that the great niches in the side-walls at each end proved to be squat, and that the one in the centre was not without defect, as will be told in the Life of that same Bandinelli. This work, after having been pursued for ten years, was abandoned, and so it remained for some time. It is true that the profiled stones as well as the columns, both of Fossato stone and of marble, were wrought with the greatest diligence by the stone-cutters and carvers under the care of Giuliano, and were afterwards so well built in that it would not be possible to find any masonry better put together, all the stones being accurately measured. In this respect Giuliano may be celebrated as most excellent; and the work, as will be related in the proper place, was finished in five months, with an addition, by Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo. Giuliano, meanwhile, not neglecting his workshop, was giving his attention, together with his brothers, to the execution of many carvings and works in wood, and also to pressing on the making of the pavement of S. Maria del Fiore; and since he was superintendent and architect of that building, he was requested by the same Bandinelli to make designs and models of wood, after some fantasies of figures and other ornaments of his own, for the high-altar of that same S. Maria del Fiore, which was to be constructed of marble; which Giuliano did most willingly, being a good and kindly person and one who delighted in architecture as much as Bandinelli despised it, and being also won over by the lavish promises of profit and honour that Bandinelli made him. Setting to work, therefore, on that model, Giuliano made it much after the simple pattern formerly designed by Brunelleschi, save that he enriched it by doubling both the columns and the arch above. And when he had brought it to completion, and the model, together with many designs, had been carried by Bandinelli to Duke Cosimo, his most illustrious Excellency resolved in his regal mind to execute not only the altar, but also the ornament of marble that surrounds the choir, following its original octagonal shape, with all those rich adornments with which it has since been carried out, in keeping with the grandeur and magnificence of that temple. Giuliano, therefore, with the assistance of Bandinelli, made a beginning with that choir, without altering anything save the principal entrance, which is opposite to the above-mentioned altar; for which reason he wished that it should be exactly similar to that altar, with the same arch and decorations. He also made two other similar arches, which unite with the entrance and the altar in forming a cross; and these were for two pulpits, which the old choir also had, serving for music and other ceremonies of the choir and of the altar. In this choir, around the eight faces, Giuliano made an ornament of the Ionic Order, and placed at every corner a pilaster bent in the middle, and one on every face; and since each pilaster so narrowed that the extension-lines of its side-faces met in the centre of the choir, from inside it looked narrow and bent in, and from outside broad and pointed. This invention was not much extolled, nor can it be commended as beautiful by any man of judgment; and for a work of such cost, in a place so celebrated, Bandinelli, if he despised architecture, or had no knowledge of it, should have availed himself of someone living at that time with the knowledge and ability to do better. Giuliano deserves to be excused in the matter, because he did all that he could, which was not a little; but it is very certain that one who has not strong powers of design and invention in himself, will always be too poor in grace and judgment to bring to perfection great works of architecture. Giuliano made for Filippo Strozzi a couch of walnut-wood, which is now at Città di Castello, in the house of the heirs of Signor Alessandro Vitelli. For an altar-piece which Giorgio Vasari painted for the high-altar of the Abbey of Camaldoli in the Casentino, he made a very rich and beautiful frame, after the design of Giorgio; and he carved another ornamental frame for a large altar-piece that the same Giorgio executed for the Church of S. Agostino in Monte Sansovino. The same Giuliano made another beautiful frame for another altar-piece by the hand of Vasari, which is in the Abbey of Classi, a seat of the Monks of Camaldoli, at Ravenna. He also executed the frames for the pictures by the hand of the same Giorgio of Arezzo that are in the refectory of the Monks of the Abbey of S. Fiore at Arezzo; and in the Vescovado in the same city, behind the high-altar, he made a most beautiful choir of walnut-wood, after the design of Giorgio, which provided for the bringing forward of the altar. And, finally, a short time before his death, he made the rich and beautiful Ciborium of the most Holy Sacrament for the high-altar of the Nunziata, with the two Angels of wood, in full-relief, which are on either side of it. This was the last work that he executed, and he passed to a better life in the year 1555. Nor was Domenico, the brother of that Giuliano, inferior to him in judgment, seeing that, besides carving much better in wood, he was also very ingenious in matters of architecture, as may be seen from the house that was built for Bastiano da Montaguto in the Via de' Servi after his design, wherein there are also many works in wood by Domenico's own hand. The same master executed for Agostino del Nero, in the Piazza de' Mozzi, the buildings that form the street-corner and a very beautiful terrace for that house of the Nasi formerly begun by his father Baccio. And it is the common belief that, if he had not died so young, he would have surpassed by a great measure both his father and his brother Giuliano. VALERIO VICENTINO, GIOVANNI DA CASTEL BOLOGNESE, MATTEO DAL NASSARO OF VERONA, AND OTHER EXCELLENT ENGRAVERS OF CAMEOS AND GEMS LIVES OF VALERIO VICENTINO, GIOVANNI DA CASTEL BOLOGNESE, MATTEO DAL NASSARO OF VERONA, AND OTHER EXCELLENT ENGRAVERS OF CAMEOS AND GEMS Since the Greeks were such divine masters in the engraving of Oriental stones and so perfect in the cutting of cameos, it seems to me certain that I should commit no slight error were I to pass over in silence those of our own age who have imitated those marvellous intellects; although among our moderns, so it is said, there have been none who in this present and happy age have surpassed the ancients in delicacy and design, save perchance those of whom we are about to give an account. But before making a beginning, it is proper for me to discourse briefly on this art of engraving hard stones and gems, which was lost, together with the other arts of design, after the ruin of Greece and Rome. Of this work, whether engraved in intaglio or in relief, we have seen examples discovered daily among the ruins of Rome, such as cameos, cornelians, sardonyxes, and other most excellent intagli; but for many and many a year the art remained lost, there being no one who gave attention to it, and even if any work was done, it was not in such a manner as to be worthy to be taken into account. So far as is known, it is not found that anyone began to do good work or to attain to excellence until the time of Pope Martin V and Pope Paul II; after which the art continued to grow little by little down to the time of Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, who greatly delighted in the engraved cameos of the ancients. Lorenzo and his son Piero collected a great quantity of these, particularly chalcedonies, cornelians, and other kinds of the choicest engraved stones, which contained various fanciful designs; and in consequence of this, wishing to establish the art in their own city, they summoned thither masters from various countries, who, besides restoring those stones, brought to them other works which were at that time rare. By these masters, at the instance of the Magnificent Lorenzo, this art of engraving in intaglio was taught to a young Florentine called Giovanni delle Corniole,[12] who received that surname because he engraved them excellently well, of which we have testimony in the great numbers of them by his hand that are to be seen, both great and small, but particularly in a large one, which was a very choice intaglio, wherein he made the portrait of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was adored in Florence in his day on account of his preaching. A rival of Giovanni was Domenico de' Cammei,[13] a Milanese, who, living at the same time as Duke Lodovico, Il Moro, made a portrait of him in intaglio on a balas-ruby greater than a giulio, which was an exquisite thing and one of the best works in intaglio that had been seen executed by a modern master. This art afterwards rose to even greater excellence in the pontificate of Pope Leo X, through the talents and labours of Pier Maria da Pescia, who was a most faithful imitator of the works of the ancients; and he had a rival in Michelino, who was no less able than Pier Maria in works both great and small, and was held to be a graceful master. These men opened the way in this art, which is so difficult, for engraving in intaglio is truly working in the dark, since the craftsman can use nothing but impressions of wax, as spectacles, as it were, wherewith to see from time to time what he is doing. And finally they brought it to such a condition that Giovanni da Castel Bolognese, Valerio Vicentino, Matteo dal Nassaro, and others, were able to execute the many beautiful works of which we are about to make mention. Let me begin, then, by saying that Giovanni Bernardi of Castel Bolognese, who worked in his youth in the service of Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, made for him, in the three years of honourable service that he gave him, many little works, of which there is no need to give any description. Of his larger works the first was an intaglio on a piece of crystal, in which he represented the whole of the action of Bastia, which was very beautiful; and then he executed the portrait of that Duke in a steel die for the purpose of making medals, with the Taking of Jesus Christ by the Multitude on the reverse. Afterwards, urged by Giovio, he went to Rome, and obtained by favour of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici and Cardinal Giovanni Salviati the privilege of taking a portrait of Clement VII, from which he made a die for medals, which was very beautiful, with Joseph revealing himself to his brethren on the reverse; and for this he was rewarded by His Holiness with the gift of a Mazza, an office which he afterwards sold in the time of Paul III, receiving two hundred crowns for it. For the same Clement he executed figures of the four Evangelists on four round crystals, which were much extolled, and gained for him the favour and friendship of many prelates, and in particular the good-will of Salviati and of the above-mentioned Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, that sole refuge for men of talent, whose portrait he made on steel medals, besides executing for him on crystal the Presentation of the Daughter of Darius to Alexander the Great. After this, when Charles V went to Bologna to be crowned, Giovanni made a portrait of him in steel, from which he struck a medal of gold. This he carried straightway to the Emperor, who gave him a hundred pistoles of gold, and sent to inquire whether he would go with him to Spain; but Giovanni refused, saying that he could not leave the service of Clement and of Cardinal Ippolito, for whom he had begun some work that was still unfinished. Having returned to Rome, Giovanni executed for the same Cardinal de' Medici a Rape of the Sabines, which was very beautiful. And the Cardinal, knowing himself to be much indebted to him for all these things, rewarded him with a vast number of gifts and courtesies; but the greatest of all was this, that the Cardinal, when departing for France in the midst of a company of many lords and gentlemen, turned to Giovanni, who was there among the rest, and, taking from his own neck a little chain to which was attached a cameo worth more than six hundred crowns, he gave it to him, telling him that he should keep it until his return, and intending to bestow upon him afterwards such a recompense as he knew to be due to the talent of Giovanni. On the death of the Cardinal, that cameo fell into the hands of Cardinal Farnese, for whom Giovanni afterwards executed many works in crystal, and in particular a Christ Crucified for a Cross, with a God the Father above, Our Lady and S. John at the sides, and the Magdalene at the foot; and in a triangle at the base of the Cross he made three scenes of the Passion of Christ, one in each angle. For two candelabra of silver he engraved six round crystals. In the first is the Centurion praying Christ that He should heal his son, in the second the Pool of Bethesda, in the third the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, in the fourth the Miracle of the five loaves and two fishes, in the fifth the scene of Christ driving the traders from the Temple, and in the last the Raising of Lazarus; and all were exquisite. The same Cardinal Farnese afterwards desired to have a very rich casket made of silver, and had the work executed by Manno, a Florentine goldsmith, of whom there will be an account in another place; but he entrusted all the compartments of crystal to Giovanni, who made them all full of scenes, with marble in half-relief; and he made figures of silver and ornaments in the round, and all with such diligence, that no other work of that kind was ever carried to such perfection. On the body of this casket are the following scenes, engraved in ovals with marvellous art by the hand of Giovanni: The Chase of Meleager after the Calydonian Boar, the Followers of Bacchus, a naval battle, Hercules in combat with the Amazons, and other most beautiful fantasies of the Cardinal, who caused finished designs of them to be executed by Perino del Vaga and other masters. Giovanni then executed on a crystal the triumph of the taking of Goletta, and the War of Tunis on another. For the same Cardinal he engraved, likewise on crystal, the Birth of Christ and the scenes when He prays in the Garden; when He is taken by the Jews; when He is led before Annas, Herod, and Pilate; when He is scourged and then crowned with thorns; when He carries the Cross; when He is nailed upon it and raised on high; and, finally, His divine and glorious Resurrection. All these works were not only very beautiful, but also executed with such rapidity, that every man was struck with astonishment. [Illustration: CASSETTA FARNESE (_After_ Giovanni da Castel Bolognese (Giovanni Bernardi). _Naples: Museo Nazionale_) _Brogi_] Michelagnolo had made for the above-mentioned Cardinal de' Medici a drawing, which I forgot to mention before, of a Tityus whose heart was being devoured by a vulture; and Giovanni engraved this beautifully on crystal. And he did the same with another drawing by Buonarroti, in which Phaethon, not being able to manage the chariot of the Sun, has fallen into the Po, and his weeping sisters are transformed into trees. Giovanni executed a portrait of Madama Margherita of Austria, daughter of the Emperor Charles V, who had been the wife of Duke Alessandro de' Medici, and was then the consort of Duke Ottavio Farnese; and this he did in competition with Valerio Vicentino. For these works executed for Cardinal Farnese, he received from that lord a reward in the form of the office of Giannizzero, from which he drew a good sum of money; and, in addition, he was so beloved by that Cardinal that he obtained a great number of other favours from him, nor did the Cardinal ever pass through Faenza, where Giovanni had built a most commodious house, without going to take up his quarters with him. Having thus settled at Faenza, in order to rest after a life of much labour in the world, Giovanni remained there ever afterwards; and his first wife, by whom he had not had children, being dead, he took a second. By her he had two sons and a daughter; and with them he lived in contentment, being well provided with landed property and other revenues, which yielded him more than four hundred crowns, until he came to the age of sixty, when he rendered up his soul to God on the day of Pentecost, in the year 1555. Matteo dal Nassaro, who was born in Verona, and was the son of Jacopo dal Nassaro, a shoemaker, gave much attention in his early childhood not only to design, but also to music, in which he became excellent, having had as his masters in that study Marco Carrà and Il Tromboncino, both Veronese, who were then in the service of the Marquis of Mantua. In matters of intaglio he was much assisted by two Veronese of honourable family, with whom he was continually associated. One of these was Niccolò Avanzi, who, working privately in Rome, executed cameos, cornelians, and other stones, which were taken to various Princes; and there are persons who remember to have seen a lapis-lazuli by his hand, three fingers in breadth, containing the Nativity of Christ, with many figures, which was sold as a choice work to the Duchess of Urbino. The other was Galeazzo Mondella, who, besides engraving gems, drew very beautifully. After Matteo had learned from these two masters all that they knew, it chanced that there fell into his hands a beautiful piece of green jasper, marked with red spots, as the good pieces are; and he engraved in it a Deposition from the Cross with such diligence, that he made the wounds come in those parts of the jasper that were spotted with the colour of blood, which caused that work to be a very rare one, and brought him much commendation. That jasper was sold by Matteo to the Marchioness Isabella d'Este. He then went to France, taking with him many works by his own hand which might serve to introduce him to the Court of King Francis I; and when he had been presented to that Sovereign, who always held in estimation every manner of man of talent, the King, after taking many of the stones engraved by him, received him into his service and ordained him a good salary; and he held Matteo dear no less because he was an excellent musician and could play very well upon the lute, than for his profession of engraving stones. Of a truth, there is nothing that does more to kindle men's minds with love for the arts than to see them appreciated and rewarded by Princes and noblemen, as has always been done in the past, and is done more than ever at the present day, by the illustrious House of Medici, and as was also done by that truly magnanimous Sovereign, King Francis. Matteo, thus employed in the service of that King, executed many rare works, not only for His Majesty, but also for almost all the most noble lords and barons of the Court, of whom there was scarcely one who did not have some work by his hand, since it was much the custom at that time to wear cameos and other suchlike gems on the neck and in the cap. For the King he made an altar-piece for the altar of the chapel which His Majesty always took with him on his journeys; and this was full of figures of gold, partly in the round and partly in half-relief, with many engraved gems distributed over the limbs of those figures. He also engraved many pieces of crystal in intaglio, impressions of which in sulphur and gesso are to be seen in many places, and particularly in Verona, where there are marvellous representations of all the planets, and a Venus with a Cupid that has the back turned, which could not be more beautiful. In a very fine chalcedony, found in a river, Matteo engraved divinely well the head of a Deianira almost in full-relief, wearing the lion's skin, the surface being tawny in colour; and he turned to such good advantage a vein of red that was in that stone, representing with it the inner side of the lion's skin at its junction with the head, that the skin had the appearance of one newly flayed. Another spot of colour he used for the hair, and the white for the face and breast, and all with admirable mastery. This head came into the possession of King Francis, together with the other things; and there is an impression of it at the present day in Verona, which belongs to the goldsmith Zoppo, who was Matteo's disciple. Matteo was a man of great spirit and generosity, insomuch that he would rather have given his works away than sold them for a paltry price. Wherefore when a baron, for whom he had made a cameo of some value, wished to pay him a wretched sum for it, Matteo besought him straitly that he should accept it as a present. To this the other would not consent, and yet wished to have it for the same miserable price; whereupon Matteo, flying into a rage, crushed it to powder with a hammer in his presence. For the same King Matteo executed many cartoons for tapestries, and with these, to please His Majesty, he was obliged to go to Flanders, and to stay there until they had been woven in silk and gold; which being finished and taken to France, they were held to be very beautiful. Finally, Matteo returned to his own country, as almost all men do, taking with him many rare things from those foreign parts, and in particular some landscapes on canvas painted in Flanders in oils and in gouache, and executed by very able hands, which are still preserved and treasured in Verona, in memory of him, by Signor Luigi and Signor Girolamo Stoppi. Having returned to Verona, Matteo took up his abode in a cave hollowed out under a rocky cliff, above which is the garden of the Frati Ingiesuati--a place which, besides being very warm in winter and very cool in summer, commands a most beautiful view. But he was not able to enjoy that habitation, thus contrived after his own fancy, as long as he would have liked, for King Francis, as soon as he had been released from his captivity, sent a special messenger to recall Matteo to France, and to pay him his salary even for all the time that he had been in Verona; and when he had arrived there, the King made him master of dies for the Mint. Taking a wife in France, therefore, Matteo settled down to live in those parts, since such was the pleasure of the King his master. By that wife he had some children, but all so unlike himself that he had little satisfaction from them. Matteo was so gentle and courteous, that he welcomed with extraordinary warmth anyone who arrived in France, not only from his own city of Verona, but from every part of Lombardy. His dearest friend in those regions was Paolo Emilio of Verona, who wrote the history of France in the Latin tongue. Matteo taught many disciples, among them a fellow-Veronese, the brother of Domenico Brusciasorzi, two of his nephews, who went to Flanders, and many other Italians and Frenchmen, of whom there is no need to make mention. And finally he died, not long after the death of King Francis of France. But to come at length to the marvellous art of Valerio Vicentino, of whom we have now to speak: this master executed so many works, both great and small, either in intaglio or in relief, and all with such a finish and such facility, that it is a thing incredible. If Nature had made Valerio a good master of design, even as she made him most excellent in engraving, in which he executed his works with extraordinary patience, diligence, and rapidity, he would not merely have equalled the ancients, as he did, but would have surpassed them by a great measure; and even so he had such judgment, that he always availed himself in his works of the designs of others or of the intagli of the ancients. [Illustration: CASKET OF ROCK CRYSTAL (_After_ Valerio Vincentino (Valerio Belli). _Florence; Uffizi, Cabinet of Gems_) _Alinari_] Valerio fashioned for Pope Clement VII a casket entirely of crystal, wrought with admirable mastery, for which he received two thousand crowns of gold from that Pontiff in return for his labour. In those crystals Valerio engraved the whole Passion of Jesus Christ, after the designs of others; and that casket was afterwards presented by Pope Clement to King Francis at Nice, at the time when his niece went to be married to the Duke of Orleans, who afterwards became King Henry. For the same Pope Valerio made some most beautiful paxes, and a divine cross of crystal, and likewise dies for striking medals, containing the portrait of Pope Clement, with very beautiful reverses; and through him that art produced in his day many masters, both from Milan and from other parts, who had grown to such a number before the sack of Rome, that it was a marvel. He made the medals of the twelve Emperors, with their reverses, copying the most beautiful antiques, with a great number of Greek medals; and he engraved so many other works in crystal, that the shops of the goldsmiths, or rather, the whole world, may be seen to be full of impressions taken in gesso, sulphur, or other compositions, from the intagli in which he made scenes, figures, or heads. He had, indeed, a skill of hand so extraordinary, that there was never anyone in his profession who executed more works than Valerio. He also fashioned many vases of crystal for Pope Clement, who presented some to various Princes, and others were placed in the Church of S. Lorenzo at Florence, together with many vases that were formerly in the Palace of the Medici and had belonged to the elder Lorenzo, the Magnificent, and to other members of that most illustrious family, that they might serve to contain the relics of many Saints, which that Pontiff presented to that church in memory of himself. It would not be possible to find anything more varied than the curves of those vases, some of which are of sardonyx, agate, amethyst, and lapis-lazuli, and some of plasma, heliotrope, jasper, crystal, and cornelian, so that in point of value or beauty nothing more could be desired. For Pope Paul III he made a cross and two candelabra, likewise of crystal, engraved with scenes of the Passion of Jesus Christ in various compartments; with a vast number of stones, both great and small, of which it would take too long to make mention. And in the collection of Cardinal Farnese may be seen many things by the hand of Valerio, who left no fewer finished works than did the above-named Giovanni. At the age of seventy-eight he performed miracles, so sure were his eye and hand; and he taught his art to a daughter of his own, who works very well. He so delighted to lay his hands on antiquities in marble, impressions in gesso of works both ancient and modern, and drawings and pictures by rare masters, that he shrank from no expense; wherefore his house at Vicenza is adorned by such an abundance of various things, that it is a marvel. It is clearly evident that when a man bears love to art, it never leaves him until he is in the grave; whence he gains praise and his reward during his lifetime, and makes himself immortal after death. Valerio was well remunerated for his labours, and received offices and many benefits from those Princes whom he served; and thus those who survived him are able, thanks to him, to maintain an honourable state. And in the year 1546, when, by reason of the infirmities that old age brings in its train, he could no longer attend to his art, or even live, he rendered up his soul to God. At Parma, in times past, lived Marmita, who gave his attention for a period to painting, and then turned to intaglio, in which he imitated the ancients very closely. Many most beautiful works by his hand are to be seen, and he taught the art to a son of his own, called Lodovico, who lived for a long time in Rome with Cardinal Giovanni de' Salviati. Lodovico executed for that Cardinal four ovals of crystal engraved with figures of great excellence, which were placed on a very beautiful casket of silver that was afterwards presented to the most illustrious Signora Leonora of Toledo, Duchess of Florence. He made, among many other works, a cameo with a most beautiful head of Socrates, and he was a great master at counterfeiting ancient medals, from which he gained extraordinary advantage. There followed, in Florence, Domenico di Polo, a Florentine and an excellent master of intaglio, who was the disciple of Giovanni delle Corniole, of whom we have spoken. In our own day this Domenico executed a divine portrait of Duke Alessandro de' Medici, from which he made dies in steel and most beautiful medals, with a reverse containing a Florence. He also made a portrait of Duke Cosimo in the first year after his election to the government of Florence, with the sign of Capricorn on the reverse; and many other little works in intaglio, of which there is no need to make record. He died at the age of sixty-five. [Illustration: MEDALS (_London: British Museum_) 1. POPE JULIUS III (_After_ Alessandro Cesati) 2. PIETRO BEMBO 3. POPE CLEMENT VII (_After_ Benvenuto Cellini)] [Illustration: MEDALS (_London: British Museum_) 1. IPPOLITO D'ESTE 2. TITIAN 3. MARGARET, DUCHESS OF MANTUA 4. LUCREZIA DE' MEDICI (_After_ Pastorino of Siena) 5. BENEDETTO VARCHI 6. COSIMO DE' MEDICI (_After_ Domenico Poggini)] Domenico, Valerio, Marmita, and Giovanni da Castel Bolognese being dead, there remained many who have surpassed them by a great measure; one in Venice, for example, being Luigi Anichini of Ferrara, who, with the delicacy of his engraving and the sharpness of his finish, has produced works that are marvellous. But far beyond all others in grace, excellence, perfection, and versatility, has soared Alessandro Cesati, surnamed Il Greco, who has executed cameos in relief and gems in intaglio in so beautiful a manner, as well as dies of steel in incavo, and has used the burin with such supreme diligence and with such mastery over the most delicate refinements of his art, that nothing better could be imagined. Whoever wishes to be amazed by his miraculous powers, should study a medal that he made for Pope Paul III, with his portrait on one side, which has all the appearance of life, and on the reverse Alexander the Great, who has thrown himself at the feet of the High-Priest of Jerusalem, and is doing him homage--figures which are so marvellous that it would not be possible to do anything better. And Michelagnolo Buonarroti himself, looking at them in the presence of Giorgio Vasari, said that the hour of death had come upon the art, for nothing better could ever be seen. This Alessandro made the medal of Pope Julius III for the holy year of 1550, with a reverse showing the prisoners that were released in the days of the ancients at times of jubilee, which was a rare and truly beautiful medal; with many other dies and portraits for the Mint of Rome, which he kept busily employed for many years. He executed portraits of Pier Luigi Farnese, Duke of Castro, and his son, Duke Ottavio; and he made a portrait of Cardinal Farnese in a medal, a very choice work, the head being of gold and the ground of silver. The same master engraved for Cardinal Farnese in intaglio, on a cornelian larger than a giulio, a head of King Henry of France, which has been considered in point of design, grace, excellence, and perfection of finish, one of the best modern intagli that have ever been seen. There may also be seen many other stones engraved by his hand, in the form of cameos; truly perfect is a nude woman wrought with great art, and another in which is a lion, and likewise one of a boy, with many small ones, of which there is no need to speak; but that which surpassed all the others was the head of the Athenian Phocion, which is marvellous, and the most beautiful cameo that is to be seen. A master who gives his attention to cameos at the present day is Giovanni Antonio de' Rossi, an excellent craftsman of Milan, who, in addition to the various beautiful works that he has engraved in relief and in intaglio, has executed for the most illustrious Duke Cosimo de' Medici a very large cameo, one-third of a braccio in height and the same in width, in which he has cut two figures from the waist upwards--namely, His Excellency and the most illustrious Duchess Leonora, his consort, who are both holding with their hands a medallion containing a Florence, and beside them are portraits from life of the Prince Don Francesco, Don Giovanni the Cardinal, Don Garzia, Don Ernando, and Don Pietro, together with Donna Isabella and Donna Lucrezia, all their children. It would not be possible to find a more amazing or a larger work in cameo than this; and since it surpasses all the other cameos and smaller works that he has made, I shall make no further mention of them, for they are all to be seen. Cosimo da Trezzo, also, has executed many works worthy of praise in this profession, and has won much favour on account of his rare gifts from Philip, the great Catholic King of Spain, who retains him about his person, honouring and rewarding him in return for his ability in his vocation of engraving in intaglio and in relief. He has no equal in making portraits from life; and in other kinds of work, as well as in that, his talent is extraordinary. Of the Milanese Filippo Negrolo, who worked at chasing arms of iron with foliage and figures, I shall say nothing, since copper-engravings of his works, which have given him very great fame, may be seen about. By Gasparo and Girolamo Misuroni, engravers of Milan, have been seen most beautiful vases and tazze of crystal. For Duke Cosimo, in particular, they have executed two that are marvellous; besides which, they have made out of a piece of heliotrope a vase extraordinary in size and admirable for its engraving, and also a large vase of lapis-lazuli, which deserves infinite praise. Jacopo da Trezzo practises the same profession in Milan; and these men, in truth, have brought great beauty and facility to this art. Many masters could I mention who, in executing in incavo heads and reverses for medals, have equalled and even surpassed the ancients; as, for example, Benvenuto Cellini, who, during the time when he exercised the goldsmith's art in Rome under Pope Clement, made two medals with a head of Pope Clement that is a living likeness, and on the reverse of one a figure of Peace that has bound Fury and is burning her arms, and on the other Moses striking the rock and causing water to flow to quench the thirst of his people: beyond which it is not possible to go in that art. And the same might be said of the coins and medals that Benvenuto afterwards made for Duke Alessandro in Florence. Of the Chevalier, Leone Aretino, who has done equally well in the same art, and of the works that he has made and still continues to make, there will be an account in another place. The Roman Pietro Paolo Galeotto, also, has executed for Duke Cosimo, as he still does, medals with portraits of that lord, dies for coins, and works in tarsia, imitating the methods of Maestro Salvestro, a most excellent master, who produced marvellous works in that profession at Rome. Pastorino da Siena, likewise, has executed so many heads from life, that he may be said to have made portraits of every kind of person in the whole world, great nobles, followers of the arts, and many people of low degree. He discovered a kind of hard stucco for making portraits, wherewith he gave them the colouring of nature, with the tints of the beard, hair, and flesh, so that they had the appearance of life itself; but he deserves much more praise for his work in steel, in which he has made excellent dies for medals. It would take too long if I were to speak of all those who execute portrait-medals of wax, seeing that every goldsmith at the present day makes them, and a number of gentlemen have given their attention to this, and still do so; such as Giovan Battista Sozzini at Siena, Rosso de' Giugni at Florence, and very many others, of whom I shall not now say more. And, to bring this account to conclusion, I return to the steel-engravers, of whom one is Girolamo Fagiuoli of Bologna, a master of chasing and of copper-engraving, and another, at Florence, is Domenico Poggini, who has made, as he still does, dies for the Mint, with medals of Duke Cosimo, and who also executes statues of marble, imitating, in so far as he is able, the rarest and most excellent masters who have ever produced choice works in these professions. FOOTNOTE: [12] Giovanni of the Cornelians. [13] Domenico of the Cameos. MARC' ANTONIO BOLOGNESE AND OTHER ENGRAVERS OF PRINTS LIVES OF MARC' ANTONIO BOLOGNESE AND OF OTHER ENGRAVERS OF PRINTS Seeing that in the Treatise on the Technique of Painting there was little said of copper-plate engraving, since it was enough at that time to describe the method of engraving silver with the burin, which is a square tool of iron, cut on the slant, with a sharp point, I shall use the occasion of this Life to say as much on that subject as I may consider to be sufficient. The beginning of print-engraving, then, came from the Florentine Maso Finiguerra, about the year of our salvation 1460; for of all the works which that master engraved in silver with designs to be filled up with niello, he took impressions in clay, over which he poured melted sulphur, which reproduced the lines of the design; and these, when filled with smoke-black mixed with oil, produced the same effect as the silver. He also did the same with damped paper and with the same tint, going over the whole with a round and smooth roller, which not only gave the designs the appearance of prints, but they also came out as if drawn with the pen. This master was followed by Baccio Baldini, a goldsmith of Florence, who, not having much power of design, took all that he did from the invention and design of Sandro Botticelli. And this method, coming to the knowledge of Andrea Mantegna in Rome, was the reason that he made a beginning with engraving many of his works, as was said in his Life. This invention having afterwards passed into Flanders, a certain Martin, who was held to be an excellent painter in Antwerp at that time, executed many works, and sent to Italy a great number of printed designs, which were all signed in the following manner: "M.C." The first of these were the Five Foolish Virgins with their lamps extinguished, the Five Wise Virgins with their lamps burning, and a Christ Crucified, with S. John and the Madonna at the foot of the Cross, which was so good an engraving, that Gherardo, the Florentine illuminator, set himself to copy it with the burin, and succeeded very well; but he went no further with this, for he did not live long. Martin then published four round engravings of the four Evangelists, and Jesus Christ with the twelve Apostles, in small sheets, Veronica with six Saints, of the same size, and some coats of arms of German noblemen, supported by men, both naked and clothed, and also by women. He published, likewise, a S. George slaying the Dragon, a Christ standing before Pilate, who is washing his hands, and a Passing of Our Lady, with all the Apostles, a work of some size, which was one of the best designs that this master ever engraved. In another he represented S. Anthony beaten by Devils, and carried through the air by a vast number of them in the most varied and bizarre forms that could possibly be imagined; which sheet so pleased Michelagnolo, when he was a mere lad, that he set himself to colour it. [Illustration: CHRIST AND THE VIRGIN ENTHRONED (_After the engraving by =Martin Schongauer=. London: British Museum, B. 71_) _M.S._] After this Martin, Albrecht Dürer began to give attention to prints of the same kind at Antwerp, but with more design and better judgment, and with more beautiful invention, seeking to imitate the life and to draw near to the Italian manners, which he always held in much account. And thus, while still quite young, he executed many works which were considered as beautiful as those of Martin; and he engraved them with his own hand, signing them with his name. In the year 1503 he published a little Madonna, in which he surpassed both Martin and his own self; and afterwards many other sheets with horses, two in each sheet, taken from nature and very beautiful. In another he depicted the Prodigal Son, in the guise of a peasant, kneeling with his hands clasped and gazing up to Heaven, while some swine are eating from a trough; and in this work are some most beautiful huts after the manner of German cottages. He engraved a little S. Sebastian, bound, with the arms upraised; and a Madonna seated with the Child in her arms, with the light from a window falling upon her, a small work, than which there is nothing better to be seen. He also made a Flemish woman on horseback, with a groom at her feet; and on a larger copper-plate he engraved a nymph being carried away by a sea-monster, while some other nymphs are bathing. On a plate of the same size he engraved with supreme delicacy of workmanship, attaining to the final perfection of this art, a Diana beating a nymph, who has fled for protection to the bosom of a satyr; in which sheet Albrecht sought to prove that he was able to make nudes. [Illustration: HERCULES (_After the engraving by =Albrecht Dürer=. London: British Museum, B. 73_) _M.S._] But although those masters were extolled at that time in those countries, in ours their works are commended only for the diligent execution of the engraving. I am willing, indeed, to believe that Albrecht was perhaps not able to do better because, not having any better models, he drew, when he had to make nudes, from one or other of his assistants, who must have had bad figures, as Germans generally have when naked, although one sees many from those parts who are fine men when in their clothes. In various little printed sheets he executed figures of peasant men and women in different Flemish costumes, some playing on the bagpipes and dancing, some selling fowls and suchlike things, and others in many other attitudes. He also drew a man sleeping in a bathroom who has Venus near him, leading him into temptation in a dream, while Love is diverting himself by mounting on stilts, and the Devil blows into his ears with a pair of bellows. And he engraved two different figures of S. Christopher carrying the Infant Christ, both very beautiful, and executed with much diligence in the close detail of the hair and in every other respect. [Illustration: CHRIST TAKING LEAVE OF HIS MOTHER (_After the woodcut by =Albrecht Dürer=. London: British Museum, B. 92_) _M.S._] After these works, perceiving how much time he consumed in engraving on copper, and happening to have in his possession a great abundance of subjects drawn in various ways, he set himself to making woodcuts, a method of working in which those who have the greatest powers of design find the widest field wherein to display their ability in its perfection. And in the year 1510 he published two little prints in this manner, in one of which is the Beheading of S. John, and in the other the scene of the head of the same S. John being presented in a charger to Herod, who is seated at table; with other sheets of S. Christopher, S. Sixtus the Pope, S. Stephen, and S. Laurence. Then, having seen that this method of working was much easier than engraving on copper, he pursued it and executed a S. Gregory chanting the Mass, accompanied by the deacon and sub-deacon. And, growing in courage, in the year 1510 he represented on a sheet of royal folio part of the Passion of Christ--that is, he executed four pieces, with the intention of afterwards finishing the whole, these four being the Last Supper, the Taking of Christ by Night in the Garden, His Descent into the Limbo of Hell in order to deliver the Holy Fathers, and His glorious Resurrection. That second piece he also painted in a very beautiful little picture in oils, which is now at Florence, in the possession of Signor Bernardetto de' Medici. As for the eight other parts, although they were afterwards executed and printed with the signature of Albrecht, to us it does not seem probable that they are the work of his hand, seeing that they are poor stuff, and bear no resemblance to his manner, either in the heads, or in the draperies, or in any other respect. Wherefore it is believed that they were executed after his death, for the sake of gain, by other persons, who did not scruple to father them on Albrecht. That this is true is also proved by the circumstance that in the year 1511 he represented the whole life of Our Lady in twenty sheets of the same size, executing it so well that it would not be possible, whether in invention, in the composition of the perspective-views, in the buildings, in the costumes, or in the heads of old and young, to do better. Of a truth, if this man, so able, so diligent, and so versatile, had had Tuscany instead of Flanders for his country, and had been able to study the treasures of Rome, as we ourselves have done, he would have been the best painter of our land, even as he was the rarest and most celebrated that has ever appeared among the Flemings. In the same year, continuing to give expression to his fantasies, Albrecht resolved to execute fifteen woodcuts of the same size, representing the terrible vision that S. John the Evangelist described in his Apocalypse on the Isle of Patmos. And so, setting his hand to the work, with his extravagant imagination, so well suited to such a subject, he depicted all those things both of heaven and of earth so beautifully, that it was a marvel, and with such a variety of forms in those animals and monsters, that it was a great light to many of our craftsmen, who have since availed themselves of the vast abundance of his beautiful fantasies and inventions. By the hand of the same master, also, is a woodcut that is to be seen of a nude Christ, who has round Him the Mysteries of His Passion, and is weeping for our sins, with His hands to His face; and this, for a small work, is not otherwise than worthy of praise. Then, having grown both in power and in courage, as he saw that his works were prized, Albrecht executed some copper-plates that astonished the world. He also set himself to make an engraving, for printing on a sheet of half-folio, of a figure of Melancholy, with all the instruments that reduce those who use them, or rather, all mankind, to a melancholy humour; and in this he succeeded so well, that it would not be possible to do more delicate engraving with the burin. He executed three small plates of Our Lady, all different one from another, and most subtle in engraving. But it would take too long if I were to try to enumerate all the works that issued from Albrecht's hand; let it be enough for the present to tell that, having drawn a Passion of Christ in thirty-six parts, and having engraved these, he made an agreement with Marc' Antonio Bolognese that they should publish the sheets in company; and thus, arriving in Venice, this work was the reason that marvellous prints of the same kind were afterwards executed in Italy, as will be related below. While Francesco Francia was working at his painting in Bologna, there was among his many disciples a young man called Marc' Antonio, who, being more gifted than the others, was much brought forward by him, and, from having been many years with Francia and greatly beloved by him, acquired the surname of De' Franci. This Marc' Antonio, who was more able in design than his master, handled the burin with facility and grace, and executed in niello girdles and many other things much in favour at that time, which were very beautiful, for the reason that he was indeed most excellent in that profession. Having then been seized, as happens to many, with a desire to go about the world and see new things and the methods of other craftsmen, with the gracious leave of Francia he went off to Venice, where he was well received by the craftsmen of that city. About the same time there arrived in Venice some Flemings with many copper-plate engravings and woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer, which were seen by Marc' Antonio on the Piazza di S. Marco; and he was so amazed at the manner and method of the work of Albrecht, that he spent on those sheets almost all the money that he had brought from Bologna. Among other things, he bought the Passion of Jesus Christ, which had been engraved on thirty-six wood-blocks and printed not long before on sheets of quarter-folio by the same Albrecht. This work began with the Sin of Adam and the scene of the Angel expelling him from Paradise, and continued down to the Descent of the Holy Spirit. Marc' Antonio, having considered what honour and profit might be acquired by one who should apply himself to that art in Italy, formed the determination to give his attention to it with all possible assiduity and diligence. He thus began to copy those engravings by Albrecht Dürer, studying the manner of each stroke and every other detail of the prints that he had bought, which were held in such estimation on account of their novelty and their beauty, that everyone sought to have some. Having then counterfeited on copper, with engraving as strong as that of the woodcuts that Albrecht had executed, the whole of the said Life and Passion of Christ in thirty-six parts, he added to these the signature that Albrecht used for all his works, which was "A.D.," and they proved to be so similar in manner, that, no one knowing that they had been executed by Marc' Antonio, they were ascribed to Albrecht, and were bought and sold as works by his hand. News of this was sent in writing to Albrecht, who was in Flanders, together with one of the counterfeit Passions executed by Marc' Antonio; at which he flew into such a rage that he left Flanders and went to Venice, where he appeared before the Signoria and laid a complaint against Marc' Antonio. But he could obtain no other satisfaction but this, that Marc' Antonio should no longer use the name or the above-mentioned signature of Albrecht on his works. [Illustration: S. JEROME IN HIS STUDY (_After the engraving by =Albrecht Dürer=. London: British Museum, B. 60_) _M.S._] After this affair, Marc' Antonio went off to Rome, where he gave his whole attention to design; and Albrecht returned to Flanders, where he found that another rival had already begun to execute many most delicate engravings in competition with him. This was Lucas of Holland,[14] who, although he was not as fine a master of design as Albrecht, was yet in many respects his equal with the burin. Among the many large and beautiful works that Lucas executed, the first were two in 1509, round in shape, in one of which is Christ bearing the Cross, and in the other His Crucifixion. Afterwards he published a Samson, a David on horseback, and a S. Peter Martyr, with his tormentors; and then he made a copper-plate engraving of Saul seated with the young David playing in his presence. And not long after, having made a great advance, he executed a very large plate with the most delicate engraving, of Virgil suspended from the window in the basket, with some heads and figures so marvellous, that they were the reason that Albrecht, growing more subtle in power through this competition, produced some printed sheets of such excellence, that nothing better could be done. In these, wishing to display his ability, Albrecht made an armed man on horseback, representing Human Strength, which is so well finished, that one can see the lustre of the arms and of the black horse's coat, which is a difficult thing to reproduce in design. This stalwart horseman had Death, hour-glass in hand, beside him, and the Devil behind. There was also a long-haired dog, executed with the most subtle delicacy that can possibly be achieved in engraving. In the year 1512 there issued from the hand of the same master sixteen little scenes of the Passion of Jesus Christ, engraved so well on copper, that there are no little figures to be seen that are more beautiful, sweet, and graceful, nor any that are stronger in relief. Spurred likewise by rivalry, the same Lucas of Holland executed twelve similar plates, very beautiful, and yet not so perfect in engraving and design; and, in addition to these, a S. George who is comforting the Maiden, who is weeping because she is destined to be devoured by the Dragon; and also a Solomon, who is worshipping idols; the Baptism of Christ; Pyramus and Thisbe; and Ahasuerus with Queen Esther kneeling before him. Albrecht, on his part, not wishing to be surpassed by Lucas either in the number or in the excellence of his works, engraved a nude figure on some clouds, and a Temperance with marvellous wings, holding a cup of gold and a bridle, with a most delicate little landscape; and then a S. Eustachio kneeling before the stag, which has the Crucifix between its horns, a sheet which is amazing, and particularly for the beauty of some dogs in various attitudes, which could not be more perfect. Among the many children of various kinds that he made for the decoration of arms and devices, he engraved some who are holding a shield, wherein is a Death with a cock for crest, the feathers of which are rendered in such detail, that it would be impossible to execute anything more delicate with the burin. Finally, he published the sheet with S. Jerome in the habit of a Cardinal, writing, with the Lion sleeping at his feet. In this work Albrecht represented a room with windows of glass, through which stream the rays of the sun, falling on the place where the Saint sits writing, with an effect so natural, that it is a marvel; besides which, there are books, timepieces, writings, and so many other things, that nothing more and nothing better could be done in this field of art. Not long afterwards, in the year 1523, he executed a Christ with the twelve Apostles, in little figures, which was almost the last of his works. There may also be seen prints of many heads taken from life by him, such as that of Erasmus of Rotterdam, that of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, Elector of the Empire, and also his own. Nor, with all the engravings that he produced, did he ever abandon painting; nay, he was always executing panels, canvases, and other paintings, all excellent, and, what is more, he left many writings on matters connected with engraving, painting, perspective, and architecture. [Illustration: THE _ECCE HOMO_ OF 1610 (_After the engraving by =Lucas van Leyden=. London: British Museum_) _M.S._] But to return to the subject of engraving: the works of Albrecht Dürer induced Lucas of Holland to follow in his steps to the best of his power. After the works already mentioned, Lucas engraved on copper four scenes from the life of Joseph, and also the four Evangelists, the three Angels who appeared to Abraham in the Valley of Mamre, Susannah in the Bath, David praying, Mordecai riding in Triumph on Horseback, Lot made drunk by his Daughters, the Creation of Adam and Eve, God commanding them that they shall not eat of the Fruit from the Tree that He points out to them, and Cain killing his brother Abel; all which sheets were published in the year 1529. But that which did more than anything else to bring renown and fame to Lucas, was a large sheet in which he represented the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ; with another wherein Pilate is showing Him to the people, saying, "Ecce Homo!" These sheets, which are large, and contain a great number of figures, are held to be excellent; as are, likewise, one with a Conversion of S. Paul, and another showing him being led, blind, into Damascus. And let these works suffice to prove that Lucas may be numbered among those who have handled the burin with ability. The scenes of Lucas are very happy in composition, being executed with such clearness and so free from confusion, that it seems certain that the action represented could not have taken place in any other way; and they are arranged more in accordance with the rules of art than those of Albrecht. Besides this, it is evident that he used a wise discretion in the engraving of his works, for the reason that all those parts which recede little by little into the distance are less strongly defined in proportion as they are lost to view, even as natural objects become less clear to the eye when seen from afar. Indeed, he executed them with such thoughtful care, and made them so soft and well blended, that they would not be better in colour; and his judicious methods have opened the eyes of many painters. The same master engraved many little plates: various figures of Our Lady, the twelve Apostles with Christ, many Saints, both male and female; arms and helmet-crests, and other suchlike things. Very beautiful is a peasant who is having a tooth drawn, and is feeling such pain, that he does not notice that meanwhile a woman is robbing his purse. All these works of Albrecht and Lucas have brought it about that many other Flemings and Germans after them have printed similar sheets of great beauty. But returning to Marc' Antonio: having arrived in Rome, he engraved on copper a most lovely drawing by Raffaello da Urbino, wherein was the Roman Lucretia killing herself, which he executed with such diligence and in so beautiful a manner, that Raffaello, to whom it was straightway carried by some friends, began to think of publishing in engravings some designs of works by his hand, and then a drawing that he had formerly made of the Judgment of Paris, wherein, to please himself, he had drawn the Chariot of the Sun, the nymphs of the woods, those of the fountains, and those of the rivers, with vases, the helms of ships, and other beautiful things of fancy all around; and when he had made up his mind, these were engraved by Marc' Antonio in such a manner as amazed all Rome. After them was engraved the drawing of the Massacre of the Innocents, with most beautiful nudes, women and children, which was a rare work; and then the Neptune, with little stories of Æneas around it, the beautiful Rape of Helen, also after a drawing by Raffaello, and another design in which may be seen the death of S. Felicita, who is being boiled in oil, while her sons are beheaded. These works acquired such fame for Marc' Antonio, that his engravings were held in much higher estimation, on account of their good design, than those of the Flemings; and the merchants made very large profits out of them. Raffaello had kept an assistant called Baviera for many years to grind his colours; and since this Baviera had a certain ability, Raffaello ordained that he should attend to the printing of the engravings executed by Marc' Antonio, to the end that all his compositions might thus be finished, and then sold in gross and in detail to all who desired them. And so, having set to work, they printed a vast number, which brought very great profit to Raffaello; and all the plates were signed by Marc' Antonio with the following signatures, "R.S." for the name of Raffaello Sanzio of Urbino, and "M.F." for that of Marc' Antonio. Among these works were a Venus embraced by Love, after a drawing by Raffaello, and a scene in which God the Father is blessing the seed of Abraham, with the handmaiden and two children. Next were engraved all the round pictures that Raffaello had painted in the apartments of the Papal Palace, such as the Universal Knowledge, Calliope with the musical instrument in her hand, Foresight, and Justice; and then, after a small drawing, the scene which Raffaello had painted in the same apartment, of Mount Parnassus, with Apollo, the Muses, and the Poets; and also that of Æneas carrying Anchises on his back while Troy is burning, of which Raffaello had made the drawing in order to paint a little picture. After this they engraved and printed another work of Raffaello, Galatea in a car drawn over the sea by Dolphins, with some Tritons who are carrying off a Nymph. These works finished, Marc' Antonio engraved many separate figures, likewise on copper, and after drawings by Raffaello; an Apollo with a lyre in his hand; a figure of Peace, to whom Love is offering an olive-branch; the three Theological and the four Moral Virtues, and a Jesus Christ with the twelve Apostles, of the same size; a half-folio plate of the Madonna that Raffaello had painted in the altar-piece of the Araceli, and likewise one of that which went to S. Domenico in Naples, with Our Lady, S. Jerome, the Angel Raphael, and Tobias; and a little plate of Our Lady seated on a chair and embracing the Infant Christ, who is half clothed, with many other figures of the Madonna copied from the pictures which Raffaello had painted for various persons. After these he engraved a young S. John the Baptist, seated in the desert, and then the picture which Raffaello executed for S. Giovanni in Monte, of S. Cecilia with other Saints, which was held to be a most beautiful sheet. When Raffaello had finished all the cartoons of the tapestries for the Papal Chapel, which were afterwards woven in silk and gold, with stories of S. Paul, S. Peter, and S. Stephen, Marc' Antonio engraved the Preaching of S. Paul, the Stoning of S. Stephen, and the Blind Man receiving his Sight; which plates, what with the invention of Raffaello, the grace of the design, and the diligent engraving of Marc' Antonio, were so beautiful, that there was nothing better to be seen. He then engraved, after the invention of the same Raffaello, a most beautiful Deposition from the Cross, with a Madonna in a swoon, who is marvellous; and not long afterwards a plate, which is very beautiful, of that picture by Raffaello which went to Palermo, of a Christ who is bearing the Cross, and also one of a drawing that Raffaello had executed of a Christ in the air, with Our Lady, S. John the Baptist, and S. Catharine kneeling on the ground, and S. Paul the Apostle standing, which was a large and very lovely engraving. This and the others, after becoming spoiled and almost worn out through being too much used, were carried away by Germans and others in the sack of Rome. The same Marc' Antonio engraved the portrait of Pope Clement VII in profile, with the face shaved, in the form of a medallion; one of the Emperor Charles V at the time when he was a young man, and another of him at a riper age; and also one of Ferdinand, King of the Romans, who afterwards succeeded Charles V as Emperor. He also made in Rome a portrait from life of Messer Pietro Aretino, a very famous poet, which was the most beautiful that Marc' Antonio ever executed; and, not long afterwards, portraits of the twelve ancient Emperors in medallions. Of these sheets Raffaello sent some into Flanders to Albrecht Dürer, who praised Marc' Antonio highly, and sent in return to Raffaello, in addition to many other sheets, his own portrait, which was held to be a miracle of beauty. Now, the fame of Marc' Antonio having grown very great, and the art of engraving having come into credit and repute, many disciples had placed themselves under him in order to learn it. And of their number, two who made great proficience were Marco da Ravenna, who signed his plates with the signature of Raffaello, "R.S.," and Agostino Viniziano, who signed his works in the following manner: "A.V." These two engraved and printed many designs by Raffaello, such as one of Our Lady with Christ lying dead at full length, and at His feet S. John, the Magdalene, Nicodemus, and the other Maries; and they engraved another plate of greater size, in which is a Madonna, with the arms outstretched and the eyes raised towards Heaven, in an attitude of supreme pity and sorrow, with Christ, in like manner, lying dead at full length. Agostino afterwards engraved a large plate of the Nativity, with the Shepherds and Angels about the hut, and God the Father above; and he executed many vases, both ancient and modern, and also a censer, or rather, two women with a vase perforated at the top. He engraved a plate with a man transformed into a wolf, who is stealing towards a bed in order to kill one who is sleeping in it. And he also executed one of Alexander with Roxana, to whom that Prince is presenting a royal crown, while some Loves are hovering about her and adorning her head, and others are playing with the arms of Alexander. [Illustration: THE DEATH OF LUCRETIA (_After the engraving by =Marcantonio Bolognese=. London: British Museum, B. 192_) _M.S._] The same masters together engraved the Last Supper of Christ with the twelve Apostles, on a plate of some size, and an Annunciation, all after the designs of Raffaello; and then two stories of the Marriage of Psyche, which had been painted by Raffaello not long before. In the end, Agostino and the above-mentioned Marco between them engraved almost all the works that Raffaello ever drew or painted, and made prints of them; and also many of the pictures painted by Giulio Romano, after copies drawn for that purpose. And to the end that there might remain scarcely a single work of Raffaello that had not been engraved by them, they finally made engravings of the scenes that Giulio had painted in the Loggie after the designs of Raffaello. There may still be seen some of the first plates, with the signature "M.R." for Marco Ravignano, and others with the signature "A.V." for Agostino Viniziano, re-engraved by others after them, such as the Creation of the World, and God forming the Animals; the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel, and the Death of Abel; Abraham sacrificing Isaac; Noah's Ark, the Deluge, and the Animals afterwards issuing from the Ark; the Passage of the Red Sea; the Delivery of the Laws from Mount Sinai through Moses, and the Manna; David slaying Goliath, already engraved by Marc' Antonio; Solomon building the Temple; the Judgment of the same Solomon between the two women, and the Visit of the Queen of Sheba; and, from the New Testament, the Nativity and the Resurrection of Christ, and the Descent of the Holy Spirit. All these were engraved and printed during the lifetime of Raffaello. After the death of Raffaello, Marco and Agostino separated, and Agostino was retained by Baccio Bandinelli, the Florentine sculptor, who caused him to engrave after his design an anatomical figure that he had formed out of lean bodies and dead men's bones; and then a Cleopatra. Both these were held to be very good plates. Whereupon, growing in courage, Baccio drew, and caused Agostino to engrave, a large plate--one of the largest, indeed, that had ever been engraved up to that time--full of women clothed, and of naked men who are slaughtering the little innocents by command of King Herod. Marc' Antonio, meanwhile, continuing to work at engraving, executed some plates with small figures of the twelve Apostles, in various manners, and many Saints, both male and female, to the end that the poor painters who were weak in design might be able to avail themselves of these in their need. He also engraved a nude young man, who has a lion at his feet, and is seeking to furl a large banner, which is swollen out by the wind in a direction contrary to his purpose; another who is carrying a pedestal on his back; and a little S. Jerome who is meditating on death, placing a finger in the hollow of a skull that he has in his hand, the invention and design of which were by Raffaello. Then he executed a figure of Justice, which he copied from the tapestries of the Chapel; and afterwards an Aurora, drawn by two horses, on which the Hours are placing bridles. He also copied the Three Graces from the antique; and he engraved a scene of Our Lady ascending the steps of the Temple. After these things, Giulio Romano, who in his modesty would never have any of his works engraved during the lifetime of his master Raffaello, lest he should seem to wish to compete with him, caused Marc' Antonio, after the death of Raffaello, to engrave two most beautiful battles of horsemen on plates of some size, and all the stories of Venus, Apollo, and Hyacinthus, which he had painted in the bathroom that is at the villa of Messer Baldassarre Turini da Pescia. And he did the same with the four stories of the Magdalene and the four Evangelists that are in the vaulting of the chapel of the Trinità, which were executed for a courtezan, although the chapel now belongs to Messer Agnolo Massimi. By the same master was drawn and reproduced in engraving a very beautiful ancient sarcophagus containing a lion-hunt, which was formerly at Maiano, and is now in the court of S. Pietro; as well as one of the ancient scenes in marble that are under the Arch of Constantine; and, finally, many scenes that Raffaello had designed for the corridor and Loggie of the Palace, which have since been engraved once more by Tommaso Barlacchi, together with those of the tapestries that Raffaello executed for the public Consistory. [Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF S. LAWRENCE (_Engraved after Bandinelli by =Marcantonio Bolognese=. London: British Museum_) _M.S._] After this, Giulio Romano caused Marc' Antonio to engrave twenty plates showing all the various ways, attitudes, and positions in which licentious men have intercourse with women; and, what was worse, for each plate Messer Pietro Aretino wrote a most indecent sonnet, insomuch that I know not which was the greater, the offence to the eye from the drawings of Giulio, or the outrage to the ear from the words of Aretino. This work was much censured by Pope Clement; and if, when it was published, Giulio had not already left for Mantua, he would have been sharply punished for it by the anger of the Pope. And since some of these sheets were found in places where they were least expected, not only were they prohibited, but Marc' Antonio was taken and thrown into prison; and he would have fared very badly if Cardinal de' Medici and Baccio Bandinelli, who was then at Rome in the service of the Pope, had not obtained his release. Of a truth, the gifts of God should not be employed, as they very often are, in things wholly abominable, which are an outrage to the world. Released from prison, Marc' Antonio finished engraving for Baccio Bandinelli a large plate that he had previously begun, with a great number of nude figures engaged in roasting S. Laurence on the gridiron, which was held to be truly beautiful, and was indeed engraved with incredible diligence, although Bandinelli, complaining unjustly of Marc' Antonio to the Pope while that master was executing it, said that he was committing many errors. But for this sort of gratitude Bandinelli received the reward that his lack of courtesy deserved, for Marc' Antonio, having heard the whole story, and having finished the plate, went, without Baccio being aware of it, to the Pope, who took infinite delight in the arts of design; and he showed him first the original drawing by Bandinelli, and then the printed engraving, from which the Pope recognized that Marc' Antonio not only had committed no errors, but had even corrected with great judgment many committed by Bandinelli, which were of no small importance, and had shown more knowledge and craftsmanship in his engraving than had Baccio in his drawing. Wherefore the Pope commended him greatly and ever afterwards received him with favour; and it is believed that he might have done much for him, but the sack of Rome supervening, Marc' Antonio became little less than a beggar, seeing that, besides losing all his property, he was forced to disburse a good ransom in order to escape from the hands of the Spaniards. Which done, he departed from Rome, never to return; and there are few works to be seen which were executed by him after that time. Our arts are much indebted to Marc' Antonio, in that he made a beginning with engraving in Italy, to the advantage and profit of art and to the convenience of her followers, in consequence of which others have since executed the works that will be described hereafter. Now Agostino Viniziano, of whom we have already spoken, came to Florence, after the circumstances described above, with the intention of attaching himself to Andrea del Sarto, who was held to be about the best painter in Italy after Raffaello. And so Andrea, persuaded by this Agostino to have his works engraved, made a drawing of a Dead Christ supported by three Angels; but since the attempt did not succeed exactly according to his fancy, he would never again allow any work of his to be engraved. After his death, however, certain persons published engravings of the Visitation of S. Elizabeth and of the Baptism of the people by S. John, taken from the work in chiaroscuro that Andrea painted in the Scalzo at Florence. Marco da Ravenna, likewise, in addition to the works already mentioned, which he executed in company with Agostino, also engraved many others by himself, which are all good and worthy of praise, and are known by his signature, which has been described above. Many others, also, have there been after these, who have worked very well at engraving, and have brought it about that every country has been able to see and enjoy the honoured labours of the most excellent masters. Nor has there been wanting one who has had the enterprise to execute with wood-blocks prints that possess the appearance of having been made with the brush after the manner of chiaroscuro, which is an ingenious and difficult thing. This was Ugo da Carpi, who, although he was a mediocre painter, was nevertheless a man of most subtle wit in strange and fanciful inventions. He it was, as has been related in the thirtieth chapter of the Treatise on Technique, who first attempted, and that with the happiest result, to work with two blocks, one of which he used for hatching the shadows, in the manner of a copper-plate, and with the other he made the tint of colour, cutting deeply with the strokes of the engraving, and leaving the lights so bright, that when the impression was pulled off they appeared to have been heightened with lead-white. Ugo executed in this manner, after a design drawn by Raffaello in chiaroscuro, a woodcut in which is a Sibyl seated who is reading, with a clothed child giving her light with a torch. Having succeeded in this, Ugo took heart and attempted to make prints with wood-blocks of three tints. The first gave the shadow; the second, which was lighter in tone, made the middle tint, and the third, cut deeply, gave the higher lights of the ground and left the white of the paper. And the result of this, also, was so good, that he executed a woodcut of Æneas carrying Anchises on his back, while Troy is burning. He then made a Deposition from the Cross, and the story of Simon Magus, which had been used by Raffaello for the tapestries of the above-mentioned Chapel; and likewise David slaying Goliath, and the Flight of the Philistines, of which Raffaello had prepared the design in order to paint it in the Papal Loggie. And after many other works in chiaroscuro, he executed in the same manner a Venus, with many Loves playing about her. Now since, as I have said, he was a painter, I must not omit to tell that he painted in oils, without using a brush, but with his fingers, and partly, also, with other bizarre instruments of his own, an altar-piece which is on the altar of the Volto Santo in Rome. Upon this altar-piece, being one morning with Michelagnolo at that altar to hear Mass, I saw an inscription saying that Ugo da Carpi had painted it without a brush; and I laughed and showed the inscription to Michelagnolo, who answered, also with a laugh, that it would have been better if he had used a brush, for then he might have done it in a better manner. The method of executing these two kinds of woodcuts, in imitation of chiaroscuro, thus invented by Ugo da Carpi, was the reason that, many following in his steps, a great number of most beautiful prints were produced by others. For after him Baldassarre Peruzzi, the painter of Siena, made a similar woodcut in chiaroscuro, which was very beautiful, of Hercules driving Avarice, a figure laden with vases of gold and silver, from Mount Parnassus, on which are the Muses in various lovely attitudes. And Francesco Parmigiano engraved a Diogenes for a sheet of royal folio laid open, which was a finer print than any that Ugo ever produced. The same Parmigiano, having shown the method of making prints from three blocks to Antonio da Trento, caused him to execute a large sheet in chiaroscuro of the Beheading of S. Peter and S. Paul. And afterwards he executed another, but with two blocks only, of the Tiburtine Sibyl showing the Infant Christ in the lap of the Virgin to the Emperor Octavian; a nude man seated, who has his back turned in a beautiful attitude; and likewise an oval print of the Madonna lying down, with many others by his hand that may be seen in various places, printed after his death by Joannicolo Vicentino. But the most beautiful were executed later by Domenico Beccafumi of Siena, after the death of Parmigiano, as will be related at greater length in the Life of Domenico. Not otherwise than worthy of praise, also, is the method that has been invented of making engravings more easily than with the burin, although they do not come out so clear--that is, with aquafortis, first laying on the copper a coat of wax, varnish, or oil-colour, and then drawing the design with an iron instrument that has a sharp point to cut through the wax, varnish, or colour, whichever it may be, after which one pours over it the aquafortis, which eats into the copper in such a manner that it leaves the lines of the design hollow, and impressions can be taken from it. With this method Francesco Parmigiano executed many little things, which are full of grace, such as the Nativity of Christ, a Dead Christ with the Maries weeping over Him, and one of the tapestries executed for the Chapel after the designs of Raffaello, with many other works. After these masters, fifty sheets with varied and beautiful landscapes were produced by Battista, a painter of Vicenza, and Battista del Moro of Verona. In Flanders, Hieronymus Cock has executed engravings of the liberal arts; and in Rome, engravings have been done of the Visitation in the Pace, painted by Fra Sebastiano Viniziano, of that by Francesco Salviati in the Misericordia, and of the Feast of Testaccio; besides many works that have been engraved in Venice by the painter Battista Franco, and by many other masters. But to return to the simple copper-plate engravings; after Marc' Antonio had executed the many works that have been mentioned above, Rosso arrived in Rome, and Baviera persuaded him that he should have some of his works engraved; wherefore he commissioned Gian Jacopo Caraglio of Verona, who was one of the most skilful craftsmen of that day, and who sought with all diligence to imitate Marc' Antonio, to engrave a lean anatomical figure of his own, which holds a death's head in the hand, and is seated on a serpent, while a swan is singing. This plate succeeded so well, that the same Rosso afterwards caused engravings to be made, on plates of considerable size, of some of the Labours of Hercules: the Slaying of the Hydra, the Combat with Cerberus, the Killing of Cacus, the Breaking of the Bull's Horns, the Battle with the Centaurs, and the Centaur Nessus carrying off Deianira. And these plates proved to be so beautiful and so well engraved, that the same Jacopo executed, likewise after the design of Rosso, the story of the daughters of Pierus, who, for seeking to contend with the Muses and to sing in competition with them, were transformed into crows. Baviera having then caused Rosso to draw twenty Gods in niches, with their attributes, for a book, these were engraved by Gian Jacopo Caraglio in a very beautiful and graceful manner; and also, not long afterwards, their Transformations; but of these Rosso did not make the drawings, save only of two, for he had a difference with Baviera, and Baviera had ten of them executed by Perino del Vaga. The two by Rosso were the Rape of Proserpine and the Transformation of Philyra into a horse; and all were engraved with such diligence by Caraglio, that they have always been prized. Caraglio afterwards began for Rosso the Rape of the Sabines, which would have been a very rare work, but, the sack of Rome supervening, it could not be finished, for Rosso went away, and the plates were all lost. And although this work has since come into the hands of the printers, it has proved a miserable failure, for the engraving has been done by one who had no knowledge of the art, and thought only of making money. After this, Caraglio engraved for Francesco Parmigiano a plate of the Marriage of Our Lady, and other works by the same master; and then another plate for Tiziano Vecelli, which was very beautiful, of a Nativity that Tiziano had formerly painted. This Gian Jacopo Caraglio, after having executed many copper-plates, being an ingenious spirit, gave his attention to engraving cameos and crystals, in which he became no less excellent than he had been in the engraving of copper-plates. And since then, having entered the service of the King of Poland, he has occupied himself no longer with engraving on copper, now in his opinion a mean art, but with the cutting of gems, with working in incavo, and with architecture; for which having been richly rewarded by the liberality of that King, he has spent large sums in investments in the territory of Parma, in order to be able to retire in his old age to the enjoyment of his native country among his friends and disciples, after the labours of so many years. After these masters came another excellent copper-plate engraver, Lamberto Suave,[15] by whose hand are thirteen plates of Christ and the twelve Apostles, in which the execution of the engraving is perfect in its delicacy. If Lamberto had possessed a more thorough mastery of design in addition to the industry, patience, and diligence that he showed in all other points, he would have been marvellous in every respect; as may be perceived clearly from a little sheet of S. Paul writing, and from a larger sheet with the story of the Raising of Lazarus, in which there are most beautiful things to be seen. Worthy of note, in particular, are the hollow rock in the cavern which he represented as the burial-place of Lazarus, and the light that falls upon some figures, all of which is executed with beautiful and fanciful invention. No little ability, likewise, has been shown in this profession by Giovan Battista Mantovano, a disciple of Giulio Romano; among other works, in a Madonna who has the Child in her arms and the moon under her feet, and in some very beautiful heads with helmet-crests after the antique; in two sheets, in which are a captain of mercenaries on foot and one on horseback, and also in a sheet wherein is a Mars in armour, who is seated upon a bed, while Venus gazes on a Cupid whom she is suckling, which has in it much that is good. Very fanciful, also, are two large sheets by the hand of the same master, in which is the Burning of Troy, executed with extraordinary invention, design, and grace. These and many other sheets by the same hand are signed with the letters "J.B.M." And no less excellent than any of those mentioned above has been Enea Vico of Parma, who engraved the well-known copper-plate of the Rape of Helen by Rosso, and also another plate after the design of the same painter, of Vulcan with some Loves, who are fashioning arrows at his forge, while the Cyclopes are also at work, which was truly a most beautiful engraving. He executed the Leda of Michelagnolo on another, and also an Annunciation after the design of Tiziano, the story of Judith that Michelagnolo painted in the Chapel, the portrait of Duke Cosimo de' Medici as a young man, in full armour, after the drawing by Bandinelli, and likewise the portrait of Bandinelli himself; and then the Contest of Cupid and Apollo in the presence of all the Gods. And if Enea had been maintained and rewarded for his labours by Bandinelli, he would have engraved many other beautiful plates for him. Afterwards, Francesco, a protégé of the Salviati, and an excellent painter, being in Florence, and assisted by the liberality of Duke Cosimo, commissioned Enea to engrave the large plate of the Conversion of S. Paul, full of horses and soldiers, which was held to be very beautiful, and gave Enea a great name. The same Enea then executed the portrait of Signor Giovanni de' Medici, father of Duke Cosimo, with an ornament full of figures. He engraved, also, the portrait of the Emperor Charles V, with an ornament covered with appropriate Victories and trophies, for which he was rewarded by His Majesty and praised by all; and on another plate, very well engraved, he represented the victory that the Emperor gained on the Elbe. For Doni he executed some heads from nature in the manner of medallions, with beautiful ornaments: King Henry of France, Cardinal Bembo, Messer Lodovico Ariosto, the Florentine Gello, Messer Lodovico Domenichi, Signora Laura Terracina, Messer Cipriano Morosino, and Doni himself. He also engraved for Don Giulio Clovio, a most excellent illuminator, a plate of a S. George on horseback who is slaying the Dragon, in which, although it was, one might say, one of the first works that he engraved, he acquitted himself very well. Afterwards, being a man of lofty genius, and desiring to pass on to greater and more honourable undertakings, Enea applied himself to the study of antiquities, and in particular of ancient medals, of which he has published several books in engraving, wherein are the true effigies of many Emperors and their wives, with every kind of inscription and reverse that could bring all who delight in them to a clear understanding of their stories; for which he has rightly won great praise, as he still does. And those who have found fault with him for his books of medals have been in the wrong, for whoever shall consider the labours that he has performed, and how useful and beautiful these are, must perforce excuse him, even though he may have erred in a few matters of little importance; and such errors, which are not committed save from faulty information, from a too ready credulity, or from having opinions differing from others with some show of reason, are worthy to be excused, seeing that Aristotle, Pliny, and many others have been guilty of the like. Enea also designed to the common satisfaction and benefit of all mankind fifty costumes of different nations, such as were worn by men and women, peasants and citizens, in Italy, in France, in Spain, in Portugal, in England, in Flanders, and in other parts of the world; which was an ingenious work, both fanciful and beautiful. He executed, also, a genealogical tree of all the Emperors, which was a thing of great beauty. And finally, after much toil and travailing, he now lives in repose under the shadow of Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara, for whom he has made a genealogical tree of all the Marquises and Dukes of the House of Este. For all these works and many others that he has executed, as he still continues to do, I have thought it right to make this honourable record of him among so many other men of the arts. Many others have occupied themselves with copper-plate engraving, who, although they have not attained to such perfection, have none the less benefited the world with their labours, by bringing many scenes and other works of excellent masters into the light of day, and by thus giving the means of seeing the various inventions and manners of the painters to those who are not able to go to the places where the principal works are, and conveying to the ultramontanes a knowledge of many things that they did not know. And although many plates have been badly executed through the avarice of the printers, eager more for gain than for honour, yet in certain others, besides those that have been mentioned, there may be seen something of the good; as in the large design of the Last Judgment of Michelagnolo Buonarroti on the front wall of the Papal Chapel, engraved by Giorgio Mantovano, and in the engravings by Giovan Battista de' Cavalieri of the Crucifixion of S. Peter and the Conversion of S. Paul painted in the Pauline Chapel at Rome. This Giovan Battista has also executed copper-plate engravings, besides other designs, of the Meditation of S. John the Baptist, of the Deposition from the Cross that Daniello Ricciarelli of Volterra painted in a chapel in the Trinità at Rome, of a Madonna with many Angels, and of a vast number of other works. Moreover, many things taken from Michelagnolo have been engraved by others at the commission of Antonio Lanferri, who has employed printers for the same purpose. These have published books of all the kinds of fishes, and also the Phaethon, the Tityus, the Ganymede, the Archers, the Bacchanalia, the Dream, the Pietà, and the Crucifix, all done by Michelagnolo for the Marchioness of Pescara; and, in addition, the four Prophets of the Chapel and other scenes and drawings have been engraved and published, but executed so badly, that I think it well to be silent as to the names of those engravers and printers. But I must not be silent about the above-mentioned Antonio Lanferri and Tommaso Barlacchi, for they, as well as others, have employed many young men to engrave plates after original drawings by the hands of a vast number of masters, insomuch that it is better to say nothing of these works, lest it should become wearisome. And in this manner have been published, among other plates, grotesques, ancient temples, cornices, bases, capitals, and many other suchlike things, with all their measurements. Seeing everything reduced to a miserable manner, and moved by compassion, Sebastiano Serlio, an architect of Bologna, has engraved on wood and copper two books of architecture, in which, among other things, are thirty doors of the Rustic Order, and twenty in a more delicate style; which book is dedicated to King Henry of France. Antonio L'Abacco, likewise, has published plates in a beautiful manner of all the notable antiquities of Rome, with their measurements, executed with great mastery and with very subtle engraving by ... Perugino. Nor has less been accomplished in this field by the architect Jacopo Barozzo of Vignola, who in a book of copper-plate engravings has shown with simple rules how to enlarge or to diminish in due proportion every part of the five Orders of Architecture, a work most useful in that art, for which we are much indebted to him; even as we are to Giovanni Cugini[16] of Paris for his engravings and writings on architecture. In Rome, besides the masters named above, Niccolò Beatricio[17] of Lorraine has given so much attention to engraving with the burin, that he has executed many plates worthy of praise; such as two pieces of sarcophagi with battles of horsemen, engraved on copper, and other plates full of various animals very well executed, and a scene showing the Widow's Daughter being restored to life by Jesus Christ, engraved in a bold manner from the design of Girolamo Mosciano, a painter of Brescia. The same master has engraved an Annunciation from a drawing by the hand of Michelagnolo, and has also executed prints of the Navicella of mosaic that Giotto made in the portico of S. Pietro. From Venice, likewise, have come many most beautiful engravings on wood and on copper; on wood, after Tiziano, many landscapes, a Nativity of Christ, a S. Jerome, and a S. Francis; and on copper the Tantalus, the Adonis, and many other plates, which have been engraved by Giulio Bonasone of Bologna, together with some others by Raffaello, by Giulio Romano, by Parmigiano, and by all the other masters whose drawings he has been able to obtain. And Battista Franco, a painter of Venice, has engraved, partly with the burin and partly with aquafortis, many works by the hands of various masters, such as the Nativity of Christ, the Adoration of the Magi, the Preaching of S. Peter, some plates from the Acts of the Apostles, and many stories from the Old Testament. So far, indeed, has this practice of making prints been carried, that those who make a profession of it keep draughtsmen continually employed in copying every beautiful work as it appears, and put it into prints. Wherefore there came from France, after the death of Rosso, engravings of all the work by his hand that could be found, such as Clelia with the Sabine women passing the river; some masks after the manner of the Fates, executed for King Francis; a bizarre Annunciation; a Dance of ten women; and King Francis advancing alone into the Temple of Jupiter, leaving behind him Ignorance and other similar figures, which were executed during the lifetime of Rosso by the copper-plate engraver Renato.[18] And many more have been drawn and engraved since Rosso's death; among many other works, all the stories of Ulysses, and, to say nothing of the rest, vases, chandeliers, candelabra, salt-cellars, and a vast number of other suchlike things made in silver after designs of Rosso. Luca Penni, also, has published engravings of two Satyrs giving drink to a Bacchus, a Leda taking the arrows from the quiver of a Cupid, Susannah in the Bath, and many other plates copied from the designs of the same Rosso and of Francesco Primaticcio of Bologna, now Abbot of S. Martin in France. And among these engravings are the Judgment of Paris, Abraham sacrificing Isaac, a Madonna, Christ marrying S. Catharine, Jove changing Callisto into a bear, the Council of the Gods, Penelope weaving with her women, and other things without number, engraved on wood, and executed for the most part with the burin; by reason of which the wits of the craftsmen have become very subtle, insomuch that little figures have been engraved so well, that it would not be possible to give them greater delicacy. And who can see without marvelling the works of Francesco Marcolini of Forlì? Who, besides other things, printed the book of the Garden of Thoughts from wood-blocks, placing at the beginning an astrologer's sphere and a head of himself after the design of Giuseppe Porta of Castelnuovo della Garfagnana; in which book are various fanciful figures, such as Fate, Envy, Calamity, Timidity, Praise, and many others of the same kind, which were held to be most beautiful. Not otherwise than praiseworthy, also, were the figures that Gabriele Giolito, a printer of books, placed in the Orlando Furioso, for they were executed in a beautiful manner of engraving. And even such, likewise, were the eleven large anatomical plates that were done by Andrea Vessalio after the drawings of Johann of Calcar, a most excellent Flemish painter, which were afterwards copied on smaller sheets and engraved on copper by Valverde, who wrote on anatomy after Vessalio. Next, among the many plates that have issued from the hands of Flemings within the last ten years, very beautiful are some drawn by one Michele,[19] a painter, who worked for many years in two chapels that are in the Church of the Germans at Rome. These plates contain the story of Moses and the Serpents, and thirty-two stories of Psyche and Love, which are held to be most beautiful. Hieronymus Cock, also a Fleming, has engraved a large plate after the invention and design of Martin Heemskerk, of Delilah cutting off the locks of Samson; and not far away is the Temple of the Philistines, in which, the towers having fallen, one sees ruin and destruction in the dead, and terror in the living, who are taking to flight. The same master has executed in three smaller plates the Creation of Adam and Eve, the Eating of the Fruit, and the Angel driving them out of Paradise; and in four other plates of the same size, in the first the Devil imprinting avarice and ambition into the heart of man, and in the others all the passions that result from those two. There may also be seen twenty-seven plates of the same size by his hand, with stories from the Old Testament after the expulsion of Adam from Paradise, drawn by Martin in a bold, well-practised, and most resolute manner, which is very similar to the Italian. Hieronymus afterwards engraved six round plates with the history of Susannah, and twenty-three other stories from the Old Testament, similar to those of Abraham already mentioned--namely, six plates with the story of David, eight plates with that of Solomon, four with that of Balaam, and five with those of Judith and Susannah. And from the New Testament he engraved twenty-nine plates, beginning with the Annunciation of the Virgin, and continuing down to the whole Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. He also engraved, after the drawings of the same Martin, the seven Works of Mercy, and the story of the rich Lazarus and the poor Lazarus, and four plates with the Parable of the Samaritan wounded by thieves, with four other plates of the Parable of the Talents, written by S. Matthew in his eighteenth chapter. At the time when Hans Liefrinck executed in competition with him ten plates of the Life and Death of S. John the Baptist, he engraved the Twelve Tribes on an equal number of plates; Reuben upon a hog, representing Sensuality; Simeon with a sword as a symbol of Homicide; and in like manner the other heads of Tribes with attributes appropriate to the nature of each. He then executed ten plates, engraved with greater delicacy, with the stories and acts of David, from the time of his being anointed by Samuel to his going before Saul; and he engraved six other plates with the story of how Amnon became enamoured of his sister Tamar and ravished her, and the death of that same Amnon. And not long afterwards he executed ten plates of similar size with the history of Job; and from thirteen chapters of the Proverbs of Solomon he drew subjects for five plates of the same kind. He also engraved the story of the Magi; and then, on six plates, the Parable that is in the twelfth chapter of S. Matthew, of those who for various reasons refused to go to the King's Feast, and of him who went without having a wedding-garment; and six plates of equal size with some of the acts of the Apostles. And in eight similar plates he engraved figures of women of perfect excellence, in various costumes: six from the Old Testament--Jael, Ruth, Abigail, Judith, Esther, and Susannah; and two from the New--Mary the Virgin, Mother of Jesus Christ, and Mary Magdalene. After these works he carried out the engraving of the Triumphs of Patience in six plates, with various things of fancy. In the first, in a chariot, is Patience, who has in her hand a standard, on which is a rose among thorns. In the second may be seen a burning heart, beaten by three hammers, upon an anvil; and the chariot of this second plate is drawn by two figures--namely, by Desire, who has wings upon the shoulders, and by Hope, who has an anchor in the hand, and behind them Fortune, with her wheel broken, is led as a prisoner. In the next plate is Christ on a chariot, with the standard of the Cross and of His Passion, with the Evangelists at the corners in the form of animals; and this chariot is drawn by two lambs, and has behind it four prisoners--the Devil, the World, or rather, the Flesh, Sin, and Death. In another Triumph is Isaac, nude, upon a camel; on the banner that he holds in his hand are a pair of prisoner's irons; and behind him is drawn the altar with the ram, the knife, and the fire. In the next plate he made Joseph riding in triumph on an ox crowned with ears of corn and fruits, with a standard on which is a bee-hive; and the prisoners that are led behind him are Anger and Envy, who are devouring a heart. He engraved in another Triumph David on a lion, with the harp, and with a standard in his hand, on which is a bit; and behind him is Saul as a prisoner, and Shimei, with his tongue protruding. In another plate is Tobias riding in triumph on an ass, and holding in his hand a banner, on which is a fountain; and behind him Poverty and Blindness, bound, are led as prisoners. And in the last of the six Triumphs is S. Stephen the Proto-martyr, who is riding in triumph on an elephant, and has a standard with a figure of Charity; and the prisoners behind him are his persecutors. All these were inventions full of fancy, and very ingenious; and they were all engraved by Hieronymus Cock, whose hand is very bold, sure, and resolute. The same master engraved a plate of Fraud and Avarice, fantastic and beautiful, and another very lovely plate of a Feast of Bacchanals, with children dancing. On another he represented Moses passing across the Red Sea, according as it had been painted by Agnolo Bronzino, a painter of Florence, in the upper chapel in the Palace of the Duke of Florence; and in competition with him, also after the design of Bronzino, Giorgio Mantovano engraved a Nativity of Jesus Christ, which was very beautiful. After these works, Hieronymus engraved twelve plates of the victories, battles, and deeds of arms of Charles V, for him who was the inventor of the subjects; and for Verese, a painter and a great master of perspective in those parts, twenty plates with various buildings. For Hieronymus Bosch he executed a plate of S. Martin, with a barque full of Devils in the most bizarre forms. And he made another of an alchemist who loses all his possessions, distilling away his brains and consuming all that he has in various ways, insomuch that in the end he takes refuge in the hospital with his wife and children; which plate was designed for him by a painter, who caused him to engrave the Seven Mortal Sins, with Demons of various forms, which was a fantastic and laughable work. He also engraved a Last Judgment; an old man who is seeking with a lantern for peace among the wares of the world, and finds it not; likewise a great fish that is devouring some little fishes; a figure of Carnival enjoying the pleasures of the table with many others, and driving Lent away, and another of Lent driving away Carnival; and so many other whimsical and fantastic inventions, that it would be wearisome to attempt to speak of them all. Many other Flemings have imitated the manner of Albrecht Dürer with the greatest care and subtlety, as may be seen from their engravings, and in particular from those of ...[20] who has engraved in little figures four stories of the Creation of Adam, four of the lives of Abraham and of Lot, and four others of Susannah, which are very beautiful. In like manner, G... P...[21] has engraved the Seven Works of Mercy in seven small round plates, eight stories taken from the Books of Kings, Regulus placed in the barrel filled with nails, and an Artemisia, which is a plate of great beauty. J... B...[22] has executed figures of the four Evangelists, which are so small that it seems scarcely possible that he could have done them; and also five other very fine plates, in the first of which is a Virgin drawn into the grave by Death in all the freshness of her youth, and in the second is Adam, in the third a peasant, in the fourth a Bishop, and in the fifth a Cardinal, each, like the Virgin, called by Death to his last account. And in some others are many Germans going on parties of pleasure with their wives, and some beautiful and fantastic Satyrs. By ... are plates of the four Evangelists, engraved with great care, and no less beautiful than are twelve stories of the Prodigal Son executed with much diligence by the hand of M.... And, finally, Franz Floris, a painter famous in those parts, has produced a great number of works and drawings which have since been engraved, for the most part by Hieronymus Cock, such as ten plates of the Labours of Hercules, a large plate with all the activities of the life of man, another with the Horatii and Curiatii engaged in combat in the lists, the Judgment of Solomon, and the Battle between Hercules and the Pygmies. The same master, also, has engraved a Cain who has killed Abel, over whose body Adam and Eve are weeping; an Abraham who is about to sacrifice Isaac on the altar, and a vast number of other plates, so full of variety and invention, that it is indeed marvellous to think of all that has been done in engravings on copper and wood. Lastly, it is enough to draw attention to the engravings of the portraits of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects in this our book, which were drawn by Giorgio Vasari and his pupils, and engraved by Maestro Cristofano ...,[23] who has executed in Venice, as he still continues to do, a vast number of works worthy of record. In conclusion, for all the assistance that the ultramontanes have received from seeing the various Italian manners by means of engravings, and that the Italians have received from having seen those of the ultramontanes and foreigners, thanks should be rendered, for the most part, to Marc' Antonio Bolognese, in that, besides the circumstance that he played a great part in the beginning of this profession, as has been related, there has not as yet been one who has much surpassed him, although some few have equalled him in certain points. This Marc' Antonio died at Bologna, not long after his departure from Rome. In our book are some drawings of Angels by his hand, done with the pen, and some other very beautiful sheets drawn from the apartments that Raffaello da Urbino painted. In one of these apartments Marc' Antonio, as a young man, was portrayed by Raffaello in one of those grooms who are carrying Pope Julius II, in that part where the High-Priest Onias is praying. And let this be the end of the Lives of Marc' Antonio Bolognese and of all the other engravers of prints mentioned above, of whom I have thought it right to give this long but necessary account, in order to satisfy not only the students of our arts, but also all those who delight in works of that kind. FOOTNOTE: [14] Luca di Leyden. [15] Lambert Zutmann. [16] Jean Cousin. [17] Nicolas Beautrizet. [18] René Boyvin. [19] Michael Coxie. [20] Albrecht Aldegrever. [21] Georg Pencz. [22] Hans Beham. [23] Cristofano Coriolano. ANTONIO DA SAN GALLO (THE YOUNGER) LIFE OF ANTONIO DA SAN GALLO (THE YOUNGER) ARCHITECT OF FLORENCE How many great and illustrious Princes, abounding with infinite wealth, would leave behind them a name renowned and glorious, if they possessed, together with their store of the goods of Fortune, a mind filled with grandeur and inclined to those things that not only embellish the world, but also confer vast benefit and advantage on the whole race of men! And what works can or should Princes and great persons undertake more readily than noble and magnificent buildings and edifices, both on account of the many kinds of men that are employed upon them in the making, and because, when made, they endure almost to eternity? For of all the costly enterprises that the ancient Romans executed at the time when they were at the supreme height of their greatness, what else is there left to us save those remains of buildings, the everlasting glory of the Roman name, which we revere as sacred things and strive to imitate as the sole patterns of the highest beauty? And how much these considerations occupied the minds of certain Princes who lived in the time of the Florentine architect, Antonio da San Gallo, will now be seen clearly in the Life of him that we are about to write. Antonio, then, was the son of Bartolommeo Picconi of Mugello, a maker of casks; and after having learned the joiner's craft in his boyhood, hearing that his uncle, Giuliano da San Gallo, was working at Rome in company with his brother Antonio, he set out from Florence for that city. And there, having devoted himself to the matters of the art of architecture with the greatest possible zeal, and pursuing that art, he gave promise of those achievements that we see in such abundance throughout all Italy, in the vast number of works executed by him at a more mature age. Now it happened that Giuliano was forced by the torment that he suffered from the stone to return to Florence; and Antonio, having become known to the architect Bramante of Castel Durante, began to give assistance to that master, who, being old and crippled in the hands by palsy, was not able to work as before in the preparation of his designs. And these Antonio executed with such accuracy and precision that Bramante, finding that they were correct and true in all their measurements, was constrained to leave to him the charge of a great number of works that he had on his hands, only giving him the order that he desired and all the inventions and compositions that were to be used in each work. In these he found himself served by Antonio with so much judgment, diligence, and expedition, that in the year 1512 he gave him the charge of the corridor that was to lead to the ditches of the Castello di S. Angelo; for which he began to receive a salary of ten crowns a month; but the death of Julius II then took place, and the work was left unfinished. However, the circumstance that Antonio had already acquired a name as a person of ability in architecture, and one who had a very good manner in matters of building, was the reason that Alessandro, who was first Cardinal Farnese, and afterwards Pope Paul III, conceived the idea of commissioning him to restore the old palace in the Campo di Fiore, in which he lived with his family; and for that work Antonio, desiring to grow in reputation, made several designs in different manners. Among which, one that was arranged with two apartments was that which pleased his very reverend Highness, who, having two sons, Signor Pier Luigi and Signor Ranuccio, thought that he would leave them well accommodated by such a building. And, a beginning having been made with that work, a certain portion was constructed regularly every year. At this time a church dedicated to S. Maria di Loreto was being built at the Macello de' Corbi, near the Column of Trajan, in Rome, and it was brought to perfection by Antonio, with decorations of great beauty. After this, Messer Marchionne Baldassini caused a palace to be erected from the model and under the direction of Antonio, near S. Agostino, which is arranged in such a manner that, small though it may be, it is held to be, as indeed it is, the finest and most convenient dwelling in Rome; and in it the staircases, the court, the loggie, the doors, and the chimney-pieces, are all executed with consummate grace. With which Messer Marchionne being very well satisfied, he determined that Perino del Vaga, the Florentine painter, should decorate one of the halls in colour, with scenes and other figures, as will be related in his Life; which decorations have given it infinite grace and beauty. And near the Torre di Nona Antonio directed and finished the building of the house of the Centelli, which is small, but very convenient. No long time passed before he went to Gradoli, a place in the dominions of the very reverend Cardinal Farnese, where he caused a most beautiful and commodious palace to be erected for that Cardinal. On that journey he did a work of great utility in restoring the fortress of Capo di Monte, which he surrounded with low and well-shaped walls; and at the same time he made the design of the fortress of Caprarola. And the very reverend Monsignor Farnese, finding himself served by Antonio in all these works in a manner so satisfactory, was constrained to wish him well, and, coming to love him more and more, he showed him favour in his every enterprise whenever he was able. After this, Cardinal Alborense, wishing to leave a memorial of himself in the church of his nation, caused a chapel of marble, with a tomb for himself, to be erected and brought to completion by Antonio in S. Jacopo degli Spagnuoli; which chapel, as has been related, was all painted in the spaces between the pilasters by Pellegrino da Modena, and on the altar stood a most beautiful S. James of marble executed by Jacopo Sansovino. This is a work of architecture that is held to be truly worthy of the highest praise, since the marble ceiling is divided very beautifully into octagonal compartments. Nor was it long before M. Bartolommeo Ferratino, for his own convenience and for the benefit of his friends, and also in order to leave an honourable and enduring memorial of himself, commissioned Antonio to build a palace on the Piazza d' Amelia, which is a beautiful and most imposing work; whereby Antonio acquired no little fame and profit. During this time Antonio di Monte, Cardinal of Santa Prassedia, was in Rome, and he desired that the same architect should build for him the palace that he afterwards occupied, looking out upon the Agone, where there is the statue of Maestro Pasquino; and in the centre, which looks over the Piazza, he wished to erect a tower. This was planned and brought to completion for him by Antonio with a most beautiful composition of pilasters and windows from the first floor to the third--a good and graceful design; and it was adorned both within and without by Francesco dell' Indaco with figures and scenes in terretta. And Antonio having meanwhile become the devoted servant of the Cardinal of Arimini, that lord caused him to erect a palace at Tolentino in the March, for which, in addition to the rewards that Antonio received, the Cardinal ever afterwards held himself indebted to him. While these matters were in progress, and the fame of Antonio was growing and spreading abroad, it happened that old age and various infirmities made Bramante a citizen of the other world; at which three architects were appointed straightway by Pope Leo for the building of S. Pietro--Raffaello da Urbino, Giuliano da San Gallo, the uncle of Antonio, and Fra Giocondo of Verona. But no long time passed before Fra Giocondo departed from Rome, and Giuliano, being old, received leave to return to Florence. Whereupon Antonio, who was in the service of the very reverend Cardinal Farnese, besought him very straitly that he should make supplication to Pope Leo, to the end that he might grant the place of his uncle Giuliano to him, which proved to be a thing very easy to obtain, first because of the abilities of Antonio, which were worthy of that place, and then by reason of the cordial relations between the Pope and the very reverend Cardinal Farnese. And thus, in company with Raffaello da Urbino, he continued that building, but coldly enough. The Pope then went to Cività Vecchia, in order to fortify it, and in his company were many lords; among others, Giovan Paolo Baglioni and Signor Vitello, and such persons of ability as Pietro Navarra and Antonio Marchissi, the architect for fortifications at that time, who had come from Naples at the command of the Pope. Discussions arising as to the fortification of that place, many and various were the opinions about this, one man making one design, and another a different one; but among so many, Antonio displayed before them a plan which was approved by the Pope and by those lords and architects as superior to all the others in strength and beauty and in the handsome and useful character of its arrangements; wherefore Antonio came into very great credit with the Court. After this, the genius of Antonio repaired a great mischief brought about in the following manner: Raffaello da Urbino, in executing the Papal Loggie and the apartments that are over the foundations, had left many empty spaces in the masonry in order to oblige some friends, to the serious damage of the whole building, by reason of the great weight that had to be supported above them; and the edifice was already beginning to show signs of falling, on account of the weight being too great for the walls. And it would certainly have fallen down but for the genius of Antonio, who filled up those little chambers with the aid of props and beams, and refounded the whole fabric, thus making it as firm and solid as it had ever been in the beginning. Meanwhile the Florentine colony had begun their church in the Strada Giulia, behind the Banchi, from the design of Jacopo Sansovino. But they had chosen a site that extended too far into the river, so that, compelled by necessity, they spent twelve thousand crowns on foundations in the water, which were executed in a very secure and beautiful manner by Antonio, who found the way after Jacopo had failed to discover it; and several braccia of the edifice were built over the water. Antonio made a model so excellent, that, if the work had been carried to completion, it would have been something stupendous. Nevertheless, it was a great error, giving proof of little judgment, on the part of those who were at that time the heads of that colony in Rome, for they should never have allowed the architects to found so large a church in so terrible a river, for the sake of gaining twenty braccia of length, and to throw away so many thousands of crowns on foundations, only to be compelled to contend with that river for ever; particularly because, by bringing that church forward and giving it another form, they might have built it on solid ground, and, what is more, might have carried the whole to completion with almost the same expense. And if they trusted in the riches of the merchants of that colony, it was seen afterwards how fallacious such a hope was, for in all the years that the pontificate was held by Leo and Clement of the Medici family, by Julius III, and by Marcellus, who all came from Florentine territory, although the last-named lived but a short time, and for all the greatness of so many Cardinals and the riches of so many merchants, it remained, as it still does, in the same condition in which it was left by our San Gallo. It is clear, therefore, that architects and those who cause buildings to be erected should look well to the end and to every matter, before setting their hands to works of importance. But to return to Antonio: the fortress of Monte Fiascone had been formerly built by Pope Urban, and he restored it at the commission of the Pope, who took him to those parts one summer in his train. And at the request of Cardinal Farnese he built two little temples on the island of Visentina in the Lake of Bolsena, one of which was constructed as an octagon without and round within, and the other was square on the outer side and octagonal on the inner, with four niches in the walls at the corners, one to each; which two little temples, executed in so beautiful a manner, bore testimony to the skill with which Antonio was able to give variety to the details of architecture. While these temples were building, Antonio returned to Rome, where he made a beginning with the Palace of the Bishop of Cervia, which was afterwards left unfinished, on the Canto di S. Lucia, where the new Mint stands. He built the Church of S. Maria di Monferrato, which is held to be very beautiful, near the Corte Savella, and likewise the house of one Marrano, which is behind the Cibo Palace, near the houses of the Massimi. Meanwhile Leo died, and with him all the fine and noble arts, which had been restored to life by him and by his predecessor, Julius II; and his successor was Adrian VI, in whose pontificate all arts and talents were so crushed down, that, if the government of the Apostolic Seat had remained long in his hands, that fate would have come upon Rome under his rule which fell upon her on another occasion, when all the statues saved from the destruction of the Goths, both the good and the bad, were condemned to be burned. Adrian, perhaps in imitation of the Pontiffs of those former times, had already begun to speak of intending to throw to the ground the Chapel of the divine Michelagnolo, saying that it was a bagnio of nudes; and he despised all good pictures and statues, calling them vanities of the world, and shameful and abominable things, which circumstance was the reason that not only Antonio, but all the other beautiful intellects were kept idle, insomuch that, not to mention other works, scarcely anything was done in the time of that Pontiff on the building of S. Pietro, to which at least he should have been friendly, since he wished to prove himself so much the enemy of worldly things. For that reason, therefore, attending under that Pontiff to works of no great importance, Antonio restored the aisles of the Church of S. Jacopo degli Spagnuoli, and furnished the façade with most beautiful windows. He also caused a tabernacle of travertine to be constructed for the Imagine di Ponte, which, although small, is yet very graceful; and in it Perino del Vaga afterwards executed a beautiful little work in fresco. The poor arts had already come to an evil pass through the life of Adrian, when Heaven, moved to pity for them, resolved by the death of one to give new life to thousands; wherefore it removed him from the world and caused him to surrender his place to one who would fill that position more worthily and would govern the affairs of the world in a different spirit. And thus a new Pope was elected in Clement VII, who, being a man of generous mind, and desiring to follow in the steps of Leo and of the other members of his illustrious family who had preceded him, bethought himself that, even as he had created beautiful memorials of himself as Cardinal, so as Pope he should surpass all others in restoring and adorning buildings. That election, then, brought consolation to many men of talent, and infused a potent and heaven-sent breath of life in those ingenious but timid spirits who had sunk into abasement; and they, thus revived, afterwards executed the beautiful works that we see at the present day. And first, having been set to work at the commission of His Holiness, Antonio straightway reconstructed a court in front of the Loggie, which had been painted previously under the direction of Raffaello, in the Palace; which court was a vast improvement in beauty and convenience, for it was formerly necessary to pass through certain narrow and tortuous ways, and Antonio, widening these and giving them better form, made them spacious and beautiful. But this part is not now in the condition in which Antonio left it, for Pope Julius III took away the columns of granite that were there, in order to adorn his villa with them, and altered everything. Antonio also executed the façade of the old Mint of Rome, a work of great beauty and grace, in the Banchi, making a rounded corner, which is held to be a difficult and even miraculous thing; and in that work he placed the arms of the Pope. And he refounded the unfinished part of the Papal Loggie, which had remained incomplete at the death of Pope Leo, and had not been continued, or even touched, through the negligence of Adrian. And thus, at the desire of Clement, they were carried to their final completion. His Holiness then resolving to fortify Parma and Piacenza, after many designs and models had been made by various craftsmen, Antonio was sent to those places, and with him Giuliano Leno, the supervisor of those fortifications. When they had arrived there, Antonio having with him his pupil L'Abacco, Pier Francesco da Viterbo, a very able engineer, and the architect Michele San Michele of Verona, all of them together carried the designs of those fortifications into execution. Which done, the others remaining, Antonio returned to Rome, where Pope Clement, since the Palace was poorly supplied in the matter of apartments, ordained that Antonio should begin those in which the public consistories are held, above the Ferraria, which were executed in such a manner, that the Pontiff was well satisfied with them, and caused other apartments to be constructed above them for the Chamberlains of His Holiness. Over the ceilings of those apartments, likewise, Antonio made others which were very commodious--a work which was most dangerous, because it necessitated so much refounding. In this kind of work Antonio was in truth very able, seeing that his buildings never showed a crack; nor was there ever among the moderns any architect more cautious or more skilful in joining walls. In the time of Pope Paul II, the Church of the Madonna of Loreto, which was small, and had its roof immediately over brick piers of rustic work, had been refounded and brought to that size in which it may be seen at the present day, by means of the skill and genius of Giuliano da Maiano; and it had been continued from the outer string-course upwards by Sixtus IV and by others, as has been related; but finally, in the time of Clement, in the year 1526, without having previously shown the slightest sign of falling, it cracked in such a manner, that not only the arches of the tribune were in danger, but the whole church in many places, for the reason that the foundations were weak and wanting in depth. Wherefore Antonio was sent by the said Pope Clement to put right so great a mischief; and when he had arrived at Loreto, propping up the arches and fortifying the whole, like the resolute and judicious architect that he was, he refounded all the building, and, making the walls and pilasters thicker both within and without, he gave it a beautiful form, both as a whole and in its well-proportioned parts, and made it strong enough to be able to support any weight, however great. He adhered to one and the same order in the transepts and in the aisles of the church, making superb mouldings on the architraves, friezes, and cornices above the arches, and he rendered beautiful and well constructed in no common way the socles of the four great piers around the eight sides of the tribune which support the four arches--namely, three in the transepts, where the chapels are, and the larger one in the central nave. This work certainly deserves to be celebrated as the best that Antonio ever executed, and that not without sufficient reason, seeing that those who erect some new building, or raise one from the foundations, have the power to make it high or low, and to carry it to such perfection as they desire or are able to achieve, without being hindered by anything; which does not fall to the lot of him who has to rectify or restore works begun by others and brought to a sorry state either by the craftsman or by the circumstances of Fortune; whence it may be said that Antonio restored a dead thing to life, and did that which was scarcely possible. Having finished all this, he arranged that the church should be covered with lead, and gave directions for the execution of all that still remained to do; and thus, by his means, that famous temple received a better form and more grace than it had possessed before, and the hope of a long-enduring life. He then returned to Rome, just after that city had been given over to sack; and the Pope was at Orvieto, where the Court was suffering very greatly from want of water. Thereupon, at the wish of the Pontiff, Antonio built in that city a well all of stone, twenty-five braccia wide, with two spiral staircases cut in the tufa, one above the other, following the curve of the well. By these two spiral staircases it is possible to descend to the bottom of the well, insomuch that the animals that go there for water, entering by one door, go down by one of the two staircases, and when they have come to the platform where they receive their load of water, they pass, without turning round, into the other branch of the spiral staircase, which winds above that of the descent, and emerge from the well by a different door, opposite to the other. This work, which was an ingenious, useful, and marvellously beautiful thing, was carried almost to completion before the death of Clement; and the mouth of the well, which alone remained to be executed, was finished by order of Pope Paul III, but not according to the directions drawn up by Clement with the advice of Antonio, who was much commended for so beautiful a work. Certain it is that the ancients never built a structure equal to this in workmanship or ingenuity, seeing, above all, that the central shaft is made in such a way that even down to the bottom it gives light by means of certain windows to the two staircases mentioned above. While this work was in progress, the same Antonio directed the construction of the fortress of Ancona, which in time was carried to completion. Afterwards, Pope Clement resolving, at the time when his nephew Alessandro de' Medici was Duke of Florence, to erect an impregnable fortress in that city, Signor Alessandro Vitelli, Pier Francesco da Viterbo, and Antonio laid out that castle, or rather, fortress, which is between the Porta al Prato and the Porta a S. Gallo, and caused it to be built with such rapidity, that no similar structure, whether ancient or modern, was ever completed so quickly. In a great tower, which was the first to be founded, and was called the Toso, were placed many inscriptions and medals, with the most solemn pomp and ceremony; and this work is now celebrated over all the world, and is held to be impregnable. By order of Antonio were summoned to Loreto the sculptor Tribolo, Raffaello da Montelupo, Francesco da San Gallo, then a young man, and Simone Cioli, who finished the scenes of marble begun by Andrea Sansovino. To the same place Antonio summoned the Florentine Mosca, a most excellent carver of marble, who was then occupied, as will be related in his Life, with a chimney-piece of stone for the heirs of Pellegrino da Fossombrone, which proved to be a divine work of carving. This master, I say, at the entreaty of Antonio, made his way to Loreto, where he executed festoons that are absolutely divine. Thus, with rapidity and diligence, the ornamentation of that Chamber of Our Lady was completely finished, although Antonio had five works of importance on his hands at one and the same time, to all of which, notwithstanding that they were in different places, distant one from another, he gave his attention in such a manner that he never neglected any of them; for when at any time he could not conveniently be there in person, he availed himself of the assistance of his brother Battista. These five works were the above-mentioned Fortress of Florence, that of Ancona, the work at Loreto, the Apostolic Palace, and the well at Orvieto. After the death of Clement, when Cardinal Farnese was elected supreme Pontiff under the title of Paul III, Antonio, having been the friend of the Pope while he was a Cardinal, came into even greater credit; and His Holiness, having created his son, Signor Pier Luigi, Duke of Castro, sent Antonio to make the designs of the fortress which that Duke caused to be founded in that place; of the palace, called the Osteria, that is on the Piazza; and of the Mint, built of travertine after the manner of that in Rome, which is in the same place. Nor were these the only designs that Antonio made in that city, for he prepared many others of palaces and other buildings for various persons, both natives and strangers, who erected edifices of such cost that it would seem incredible to one who has not seen them, so ornate are they all, so commodious, and built with so little regard for expense; which was done by many, without a doubt, in order to please the Pope, seeing that even by such means do many contrive to procure favours for themselves, flattering the humour of Princes; and this is a thing not otherwise than worthy of praise, for it contributes to the convenience, advantage, and pleasure of the whole world. Next, in the year in which the Emperor Charles V returned victorious from Tunis, most magnificent triumphal arches were erected to him in Messina, in Apulia, and in Naples, in honour of so great a victory; and since he was to come to Rome, Antonio, at the commission of the Pope, made a triumphal arch of wood at the Palace of S. Marco, of such a shape that it might serve for two streets, and so beautiful that a more superb or better proportioned work in wood has never been seen. And if in such a work splendid and costly marbles had been added to the industry, art, and diligence bestowed on its design and execution, it might have been deservedly numbered, on account of its statues, painted scenes, and other ornaments, among the Seven Wonders of the world. This arch, which was placed at the end of the corner turning into the principal Piazza, was of the Corinthian Order, with four round columns overlaid with silver on each side, and capitals carved in most beautiful foliage, completely overlaid with gold. There were very beautiful architraves, friezes, and cornices placed with projections over every column; and between each two columns were two painted scenes, insomuch that there were four scenes distributed over each side, which, with the two sides, made eight scenes altogether, containing, as will be described elsewhere in speaking of those who painted them, the deeds of the Emperor. In order to enhance this splendour, also, and to complete the pediment above that arch on each side, there were two figures in relief, each four braccia and a half in height, representing Rome, with two Emperors of the House of Austria on either side, those on the front part being Albrecht and Maximilian, and those on the other side Frederick and Rudolph. And upon the corners, likewise, were four prisoners, two on each side, with a great number of trophies, also in relief, and the arms of His Holiness and of His Majesty; which were all executed under the direction of Antonio by excellent sculptors and by the best painters that there were in Rome at that time. And not only this arch was executed under the direction of Antonio, but also all the preparations for the festival that was held for the reception of so great and so invincible an Emperor. The same Antonio then set to work on the Fortress of Nepi for the aforesaid Duke of Castro, and on the fortification of the whole city, which is both beautiful and impregnable. He laid out many streets in the same city, and made for its citizens the designs of many houses and palaces. His Holiness then causing the bastions of Rome to be constructed, which are very strong, and the Porta di S. Spirito being included among those works, the latter was built with the direction and design of Antonio, with rustic decorations of travertine, in a very solid and beautiful manner, and so magnificent, that it equals the works of the ancients. After the death of Antonio, there were some who sought, moved more by envy than by any reasonable motive, and employing extraordinary means, to have this structure pulled down; but this was not allowed by those in power. Under the direction of the same architect was refounded almost the whole of the Apostolic Palace, which was in danger of ruin in many other parts besides those that have been mentioned; in particular, on one side, the Sistine Chapel, in which are the works of Michelagnolo, and likewise the façade, which he did in such a way that not the slightest crack appeared--a work richer in danger than in honour. He enlarged the Great Hall of that same Sistine Chapel, making in two lunettes at the head of it those immense windows with their marvellous lights, and with compartments pushed up into the vaulting and wrought in stucco; all executed at great cost, and so well, that this hall may be considered the richest and the most beautiful that there had been in the world up to that time. And he added to it a staircase, by which it might be possible to go into S. Pietro, so commodious and so well built that nothing better, whether ancient or modern, has yet been seen; and likewise the Pauline Chapel, where the Sacrament has to be placed, which is a work of extraordinary charm, so beautiful and so well proportioned and distributed, that through the grace that may be seen therein it appears to present itself to the eye with a festive smile. Antonio built the Fortress of Perugia, at the time when there was discord between the people of that city and the Pope; and that work, for which the houses of the Baglioni were thrown to the ground, was finished with marvellous rapidity, and proved to be very beautiful. He also built the Fortress of Ascoli, bringing it in a few days to such a condition that it could be held by a garrison, although the people of Ascoli and others did not think that it could be carried so far in many years; wherefore it happened that, when the garrison was placed in it so quickly, those people were struck with astonishment, and could scarce believe it. He also refounded his own house in the Strada Giulia at Rome, in order to protect himself from the floods that rise when the Tiber is swollen; and he not only began, but in great part completed, the palace that he occupied near S. Biagio, which now belongs to Cardinal Riccio of Montepulciano, who has finished it, adding most ornate apartments, and spending upon it vast sums in addition to what had been spent by Antonio, which was some thousands of crowns. But all that Antonio did to the benefit and advantage of the world is as nothing in comparison with the model of the venerable and stupendous fabric of S. Pietro at Rome, which, planned in the beginning by Bramante, he enlarged and rearranged with a new plan and in an extraordinary manner, giving it dignity and a well-proportioned composition, both as a whole and in its separate parts, as may be seen from the model made of wood by the hand of his disciple, Antonio L'Abacco, who carried it to absolute perfection. This model, which gave Antonio a very great name, was published in engraving after the death of Antonio da San Gallo, together with the ground-plan of the whole edifice, by the said Antonio L'Abacco, who wished to show in this way how great was the genius of San Gallo, and to make known to all men the opinion of that architect; for new plans had been proposed in opposition by Michelagnolo Buonarroti, and out of this change of plans many contentions afterwards arose, as will be related in the proper place. It appeared to Michelagnolo, and also to many others who saw the model of San Gallo, and such parts as were carried into execution by him, that Antonio's composition was too much cut up by projections and by members which are too small, as are also the columns, the arches upon arches, and the cornices upon cornices. Besides this, it seems not to be approved that the two bell-towers in his plan, the four little tribunes, and the principal cupola, should have that ornament, or rather, garland of columns, many and small. In like manner, men did not much approve, nor do they now, of those innumerable pinnacles that are in it as a finish to the work; and it appears that in that model he imitated the style and manner of the Germans rather than the good manner of the ancients, which is now followed by the best architects. The above-mentioned model of S. Pietro was finished by L'Abacco a short time after the death of Antonio; and it was found that, in so far as appertained merely to the woodwork and the labour of the carpenters, it had cost four thousand one hundred and eighty-four crowns. In executing it, Antonio L'Abacco, who had charge of the work, acquitted himself very well, having a good knowledge of the matters of architecture, as is proved by the book of the buildings of Rome that he printed, which is very beautiful. This model, which is now to be found in the principal chapel of S. Pietro, is thirty-five palme[24] in length, twenty-six in breadth, and twenty palme and a half in height; wherefore, according to the model, the work would have been one thousand and forty palme in length, or one hundred and four canne,[25] and three hundred and sixty palme in breadth, or thirty-six canne, for the reason that the canna which is used in Rome, according to the measure of the masons, is equal to ten palme. For the making of this model and of many designs, there were assigned to Antonio by the Wardens of the building of S. Pietro fifteen hundred crowns, of which he received one thousand in cash; but the rest he never drew, for a short time after that work he passed to the other life. He strengthened the piers of the same Church of S. Pietro, to the end that the weight of the tribune might be supported securely; and he filled all the scattered parts of the foundations with solid material, and made them so strong, that there is no reason to fear that the building may show any more cracks or threaten to fall, as it did in the time of Bramante. This masterly work, if it were above the ground instead of being hidden below, would amaze the boldest intellect. And for these reasons the name and fame of this admirable craftsman should always have a place among the rarest masters. We find that ever since the time of the ancient Romans the men of Terni and those of Narni have been deadly enemies with one another, as they still are, for the reason that the lake of the Marmora, becoming choked up at times, would do injury to one of those communities; and thus, when the people of Narni wished to release the waters, those of Terni would by no means consent to it. On that account there has always been a difference between them, whether the Pontiffs were governing Rome, or whether it was subject to the Emperors; and in the time of Cicero that orator was sent by the Senate to compose that difference, but it remained unsettled. Wherefore, after envoys had been sent to Pope Paul III in the year 1546 for the same purpose, he despatched Antonio to them to settle that dispute; and so, by his good judgment, it was resolved that the lake should have an outlet on the side where the wall is, and Antonio had it cut, although with the greatest difficulty. But it came to pass by reason of the heat, which was great, and other hardships, that Antonio, being now old and feeble, fell sick of a fever at Terni, and rendered up his spirit not long after; at which his friends and relatives felt infinite sorrow, and many buildings suffered, particularly the Palace of the Farnese family, near the Campo di Fiore. [Illustration: PALAZZO FARNESE (_After_ Antonio di San Gallo (_with_ Michelangelo). _Rome_.) _Anderson_] Pope Paul III, when he was Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, had carried that palace a considerable way towards completion, and had finished part of the first range of windows in the façade and the inner hall, and had begun one side of the courtyard; but the building was yet not so far advanced that it could be seen in its perfection, when the Cardinal was elected Pontiff, and Antonio altered the whole of the original design, considering that he had to make a palace no longer for a Cardinal, but for a Pope. Having therefore pulled down some houses that were round it, and the old staircase, he rebuilt it with a more gentle ascent, and increased the courtyard on every side and also the whole palace, making the halls greater in extent and the rooms more numerous and more magnificent, with very beautiful carved ceilings and many other ornaments. And he had already brought the façade, with the second range of windows, to completion, and had only to add the great cornice that was to go right round the whole, when the Pope, who was a man of exalted mind and excellent judgment, desiring to have a cornice richer and more beautiful than any that there had ever been in any other palace whatsoever, resolved that, in addition to the designs that Antonio had made, all the best architects of Rome should each make one, after which he would choose the finest, but would nevertheless have it carried into execution by Antonio. And so one morning, while he was at table at the Belvedere, all those designs were brought before him in the presence of Antonio, the masters who had made them being Perino del Vaga, Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, Michelagnolo Buonarroti, and Giorgio Vasari, who was then a young man and in the service of Cardinal Farnese, at the commission of whom and of the Pope he had prepared for that cornice not one only, but two different designs. It is true that Buonarroti did not bring his own himself, but sent it by the same Giorgio Vasari, who had gone to show him his designs, to the end that he might express his opinion on them as a friend; whereupon Michelagnolo gave him his own design, asking that he should take it to the Pope and make his excuses for not going in person, on the ground that he was indisposed. And when all the designs had been presented to the Pope, his Holiness examined them for a long time, and praised them all as ingenious and very beautiful, but that of the divine Michelagnolo above all. Now all this did not happen without causing vexation to Antonio, who was not much pleased with this method of procedure on the part of the Pope, and who would have liked to do everything by himself. But even more was he displeased to see that the Pope held in great account one Jacomo Melighino of Ferrara, and made use of him as architect in the building of S. Pietro, although he showed neither power of design nor much judgment in his works, giving him the same salary as he paid to Antonio, on whom fell all the labour. And this happened because this Melighino had been the faithful servant of the Pope for many years without any reward, and it pleased His Holiness to recompense him in that way; not to mention that he had charge of the Belvedere and of some other buildings belonging to the Pope. After the Pope, therefore, had seen all the designs mentioned above, he said, perchance to try Antonio: "These are all beautiful, but it would not be amiss for us to see another that our Melighino has made." At which Antonio, feeling some resentment, and believing that the Pope was making fun of him, replied: "Holy Father, Melighino is but an architect in jest." Which hearing, the Pope, who was seated, turned towards Antonio, and, bowing his head almost to the ground, answered: "Antonio, it is our wish that Melighino should be an architect in earnest, as you may see from his salary." Having said this, he dismissed the company and went away; and by these words he meant to show that it is very often by Princes rather than by their own merits that men are brought to the greatness that they desire. The cornice was afterwards executed by Michelagnolo, who reconstructed the whole of that palace almost in another form, as will be related in his Life. After the death of Antonio there remained alive his brother Battista Gobbo, a person of ability, who spent all his time on the buildings of Antonio, although the latter did not behave very well towards him. This Battista did not live many years after Antonio, and at his death he left all his possessions to the Florentine Company of the Misericordia in Rome, on the condition that the men of that Company should cause to be printed a book of Observations on Vitruvius that he had written. That book has never come into the light of day, but it is believed to be a good work, for he had a very fine knowledge of the matters of his art, and was a man of excellent judgment, and he was also upright and true. But returning to Antonio: having died at Terni, he was taken to Rome and carried to the grave with the greatest pomp, followed by all the craftsmen of design and by many others; and then, at the instance of the Wardens of S. Pietro, his body was placed in a tomb near the Chapel of Pope Sixtus in S. Pietro, with the following epitaph: ANTONIO SANCTI GALLI FLORENTINO, URBE MUNIENDA AC PUB. OPERIBUS, PRÆCIPUEQUE D. PETRI TEMPLO ORNAN. ARCHITECTORUM FACILE PRINCIPI, DUM VELINI LACUS EMISSIONEM PARAT, PAULO PONT. MAX. AUCTORE, INTERAMNÆ INTEMPESTIVE EXTINCTO, ISABELLA DETA UXOR MOESTISS. POSUIT 1546, III. CALEND. OCTOBRIS. And in truth Antonio, who was a most excellent architect, deserves to be celebrated and extolled, as his works clearly demonstrate, no less than any other architect, whether ancient or modern. FOOTNOTE: [24] The "palma" as used here is equal to about nine inches. [25] The "canna" is equal to four braccia. GIULIO ROMANO LIFE OF GIULIO ROMANO PAINTER Among his many, or rather innumerable, disciples, the greater number of whom became able masters, Raffaello da Urbino had not one who imitated him more closely in manner, invention, design, and colouring, than did Giulio Romano, nor one who was better grounded, more bold, resolute, prolific, and versatile, or more fanciful and varied than Giulio; not to mention for the present that he was very pleasant in his conversation, gay, amiable, gracious, and supremely excellent in character. These qualities were the reason that he was so beloved by Raffaello, that, if he had been his son, he could not have loved him more; wherefore it came to pass that Raffaello always made use of him in his most important works, and, in particular, in executing the Papal Loggie for Leo X; for after Raffaello had made the designs for the architecture, the decorations, and the scenes, he caused Giulio to paint many of the pictures there, among which are the Creation of Adam and Eve, that of the animals, the Building of Noah's Ark, his Sacrifice, and many other works, which are known by the manner, such as the one in which the daughter of Pharaoh, with her ladies, finds Moses in the little ark, which had been cast adrift on the river by the Hebrews--a work that is marvellous on account of a very well executed landscape. Giulio also assisted Raffaello in painting many things in that apartment of the Borgia Tower which contains the Burning of the Borgo, more particularly the base, which is painted in the colour of bronze, with the Countess Matilda, King Pepin, Charlemagne, Godfrey de Bouillon, King of Jerusalem, and other benefactors of the Church--all excellent figures; and prints of a part of this scene, taken from a drawing by the hand of Giulio, were published not long since. The same Giulio also executed the greater part of the scenes in fresco that are in the Loggia of Agostino Chigi; and he worked in oils on a very beautiful picture of S. Elizabeth, which was painted by Raffaello and sent to King Francis of France, together with another picture, of S. Margaret, painted almost entirely by Giulio after the design of Raffaello, who sent to the same King the portrait of the Vice-Queen of Naples, wherein Raffaello did nothing but the likeness of the head from life, and the rest was finished by Giulio. These works, which were very dear to that King, are still in the King's Chapel at Fontainebleau in France. Working in this manner in the service of his master Raffaello, and learning the most difficult secrets of art, which were taught to him by Raffaello himself with extraordinary lovingness, before a long time had passed Giulio knew very well how to draw in perspective, take the measurements of buildings, and execute ground-plans; and Raffaello, designing and sketching at times inventions after his own fancy, would afterwards have them drawn on a larger scale, with the proper measurements, by Giulio, in order to make use of them in his works of architecture. And Giulio, beginning to delight in that art, gave his attention to it in such a manner, that he afterwards practised it and became a most excellent master. At his death, Raffaello left as his heirs Giulio and Giovan Francesco, called Il Fattore, on the condition that they should finish the works begun by him; and they carried the greater part of these to completion with honour. [Illustration: THE BATTLE OF CONSTANTINE (_Detail, after the fresco by =Giulio Romano=. Rome: The Vatican_) _Anderson_] Now Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, who afterwards became Pope Clement VII, took a site under Monte Mario at Rome, in which, besides a beautiful view, there were running waters, with some woods on the banks and a lovely plain which, running along the Tiber as far as the Ponte Molle, formed on either side a wide expanse of meadowland that extended almost to the Porta di S. Pietro; and on the highest point of the bank, where there was a level space, he proposed to build a palace with all the best and most beautiful conveniences and adornments that could be desired in the form of apartments, loggie, gardens, fountains, groves, and other things. Of all this he gave the charge to Giulio, who, undertaking it willingly, and setting his hand to the work, brought that palace, which was then called the Vigna de' Medici, and is now known as the Villa Madama, to that condition which will be described below. Accommodating himself, then, to the nature of the site and the wishes of the Cardinal, he made the façade in the form of a semicircle, after the manner of a theatre, with a design of niches and windows of the Ionic Order; which was so excellent, that many believe that Raffaello made the first sketch for it, and that the work was afterwards pursued and carried to completion by Giulio. The same Giulio painted many pictures in the chambers and elsewhere; in particular, in a very beautiful loggia beyond the first entrance vestibule, which is adorned all around with niches large and small, wherein are great numbers of ancient statues; and among these was a Jupiter, a rare work, which was afterwards sent by the Farnese family to King Francis of France, with many other most beautiful statues. In addition to those niches, the said loggia is all wrought in stucco and has the walls and ceilings all painted with grotesques by the hand of Giovanni da Udine. At the head of this loggia Giulio painted in fresco an immense Polyphemus with a vast number of children and little satyrs playing about him, for which he gained much praise, even as he did for all the designs and works that he executed for that place, which he adorned with fish-ponds, pavements, rustic fountains, groves, and other suchlike things, all most beautiful and carried out with fine order and judgment. It is true that, the death of Leo supervening, for a time this work was carried no further, for when a new Pontiff had been elected in Adrian, and Cardinal de' Medici had returned to Florence, it was abandoned, together with all the public works begun by Adrian's predecessor. During this time Giulio and Giovan Francesco brought to completion many things that had been left unfinished by Raffaello, and they were preparing to carry into execution some of the cartoons that he had made for the pictures of the Great Hall of the Palace--in which he had begun to paint four stories from the life of the Emperor Constantine, and had, when he died, covered one wall with the proper mixture for painting in oils--when they saw that Adrian, being a man who took no delight in pictures, sculptures, or in any other good thing, had no wish that the Hall should be finished. Driven to despair, therefore, Giulio and Giovan Francesco, and with them Perino del Vaga, Giovanni da Udine, Sebastiano Viniziano, and all the other excellent craftsmen, were almost like to die of hunger during the lifetime of Adrian. But by the will of God, while the Court, accustomed to the magnificence of Leo, was all in dismay, and all the best craftsmen, perceiving that no art was prized any longer, were beginning to consider where they might take refuge, Adrian died, and Cardinal Giulio de' Medici was elected Supreme Pontiff under the name of Clement VII; and with him all the arts of design, together with the other arts, were restored to life in one day. Giulio and Giovan Francesco, full of joy, set themselves straightway by order of the Pope to finish the above-mentioned Hall of Constantine, and threw to the ground the preparation that had been laid on one wall for painting in oils; but they left untouched two figures that they had painted previously in oils, which serve as adornments to certain Popes; and these were a Justice and another similar figure. The distribution of this Hall, which is low, had been designed with much judgment by Raffaello, who had placed at the corners, over all the doors, large niches with ornaments in the form of little boys holding various devices of Leo, such as lilies, diamonds, plumes, and other emblems of the House of Medici. In the niches were seated some Popes in pontificals, each with a canopy in his niche; and round those Popes were some little boys in the form of little angels, holding books and other appropriate things in their hands. And each Pope had on either side of him a Virtue, chosen according to his merits; thus, the Apostle Peter had Religion on one side and Charity, or rather Piety, on the other, and so all the others had similar Virtues; and the said Popes were Damasus I, Alexander I, Leo III, Gregory, Sylvester, and some others. All these figures were so well placed in position and executed by Giulio, who painted all the best parts of this work in fresco, that it is clear that he endured much labour and took great pains with them; as may also be seen from a drawing of S. Sylvester, which was designed very well by his own hand, and is perhaps a much more graceful work than the painted figure. It may be affirmed, indeed, that Giulio always expressed his conceptions better in drawings than in finished work or in paintings, for in the former may be seen more vivacity, boldness, and feeling; and this may have happened because he made a drawing in an hour, in all the heat and glow of working, whereas on paintings he spent months, and even years, so that, growing weary of them, and losing that keen and ardent love that one has at the beginning of a work, it is no marvel that he did not give them that absolute perfection that is to be seen in his drawings. But to return to the stories: Giulio painted on one of the walls Constantine making an address to his soldiers; while in the air, in a splendour of light, appears the Sign of the Cross, with some little boys, and letters that run thus: "In hoc signo vinces." And there is a dwarf at the feet of Constantine, placing a helmet on his head, who is executed with great art. Next, on the largest wall, there is the battle of horsemen which took place at the Ponte Molle, in which Constantine routed Maxentius. This work is worthy of the highest praise, on account of the dead and wounded that may be seen in it, and the various extravagant attitudes of the foot-soldiers and horsemen who are fighting in groups, all painted with great spirit; not to mention that there are many portraits from life. And if this scene were not too much darkened and loaded with blacks, which Giulio always delighted to use in colouring, it would be altogether perfect; but this takes away much of its grace and beauty. In the same scene he painted the whole landscape of Monte Mario, and the River Tiber, in which Maxentius, who is on horseback, proud and terrible, is drowning. In short, Giulio acquitted himself in such a manner in this work, that it has been a great light to all who have painted battle-pieces of that kind since his day. He himself learned so much from the ancient columns of Trajan and Antoninus that are in Rome, that he made much use of this knowledge for the costumes of soldiers, armour, ensigns, bastions, palisades, battering-rams, and all the other instruments of war that are painted throughout the whole of that Hall. And beneath these scenes, right round, he painted many things in the colour of bronze, which are all beautiful and worthy of praise. On another wall he painted S. Sylvester the Pope baptizing Constantine, representing there the very bath made by Constantine himself, which is at S. Giovanni Laterano at the present day; and he made a portrait from life of Pope Clement in the S. Sylvester who is baptizing, with some assistants in their vestments, and a crowd of people. Among the many attendants of the Pope of whom he painted portraits there, also from life, was the Cavalierino, who was very influential with His Holiness at that time, and Messer Niccolò Vespucci, a Knight of Rhodes. And below this, on the base, he painted a scene with figures in imitation of bronze, of Constantine causing the Church of S. Pietro to be built at Rome, in allusion to Pope Clement. There he made portraits of the architect Bramante and of Giuliano Lemi,[26] holding the design of the ground-plan of the said church, and this scene is very beautiful. On the fourth wall, above the chimney-piece of that Hall, he depicted in perspective the Church of S. Pietro at Rome, with the Pope's throne exactly as it appears when His Holiness chants the Pontifical Mass; the body of Cardinals and all the other prelates of the Court; the chapel of singers and musicians; and the Pope seated, represented as S. Sylvester, with Constantine kneeling at his feet and presenting to him a figure of Rome made of gold in the manner of those that are on the ancient medals, by which Giulio intended to signify the dowry which that Constantine gave to the Roman Church. In this scene Giulio painted many women kneeling there to see that ceremony, who are very beautiful; a beggar asking for alms; a little boy amusing himself by riding on a dog; and the Lancers of the Papal Guard, who are making the people give way and stand back, as is the custom. And among many portraits that are in this work may be seen portraits from life of Giulio himself, the painter; of Count Baldassarre Castiglioni, the author of the "Cortigiano," and very much his friend; of Pontano and Marullo; and of many other men of letters and courtiers. Right round the Hall and between the windows Giulio painted many devices and poetical compositions, which were pleasing and fanciful; and everything was much to the satisfaction of the Pope, who rewarded him liberally for his labours. While this Hall was being painted, Giulio and Giovan Francesco, although they could not meet the demands of their friends even in part, executed an altar-piece with the Assumption of Our Lady, a very beautiful work, which was sent to Perugia and placed in the Convent of the Nuns of Monteluci. Then, having withdrawn to work by himself, Giulio painted a picture of Our Lady, with a cat that was so natural that it appeared to be truly alive; whence that picture was called the Picture of the Cat. In another picture, of great size, he painted a Christ being scourged at the Column, which was placed on the altar of the Church of S. Prassedia at Rome. And not long after this, M. Giovan Matteo Giberti, who was then Datary to Pope Clement, and afterwards became Bishop of Verona, commissioned Giulio, who was his very familiar friend, to make the design for some rooms that were built of brick near the gate of the Papal Palace, looking out upon the Piazza of S. Pietro, and serving for the accommodation of the trumpeters who blow their trumpets when the Cardinals go to the Consistory, with a most commodious flight of steps, which can be ascended on horseback as well as on foot. For the same M. Giovan Matteo he painted an altar-piece of the Stoning of S. Stephen, which M. Giovan Matteo sent to a benefice of his own, called S. Stefano, in Genoa. In this altar-piece, which is most beautiful in invention, grace, and composition, the young Saul may be seen seated on the garments of S. Stephen while the Jews are stoning him; and, in a word, Giulio never painted a more beautiful work than this, so fierce are the attitudes of the persecutors and so well expressed the patience of Stephen, who appears to be truly seeing Jesus Christ on the right hand of the Father in the Heaven, which is painted divinely well. This work, together with the benefice, M. Giovan Matteo gave to the Monks of Monte Oliveto, who have turned the place into a monastery. The same Giulio executed at the commission of the German Jacob Fugger, for a chapel that is in S. Maria de Anima at Rome, a most lovely altar-piece in oils, in which are the Madonna, S. Anne, S. Joseph, S. James, S. John as a little boy kneeling, and S. Mark the Evangelist with a lion at his feet, which is lying down with a book, its hair curving in accordance with its position, which was a beautiful consideration, and difficult to execute; not to mention that the same lion has short wings on its shoulders, with feathers so soft and plumy, that it seems almost incredible that the hand of a craftsman could have been able to imitate nature so closely. Besides this, he painted there a building that curves in a circular form after the manner of a theatre, with some statues so beautiful and so well placed that there is nothing better to be seen. Among other figures there is a woman who is spinning and gazing at a hen with some chickens, than which nothing could be more natural; and above Our Lady are some little boys, very graceful and well painted, who are upholding a canopy. And if this picture, also, had not been so heavily loaded with black, by reason of which it has become very dark, it would certainly have been much better; but this blackness has brought it about that the greater part of the work that is in it is lost or destroyed, and that because black, even when fortified with varnish, is the ruin of all that is good, always having in it a certain desiccative quality, whether it be made from charcoal, burnt ivory, smoke-black, or burnt paper. Among the many disciples that Giulio had while he was executing these works, such as Bartolommeo da Castiglione, Tommaso Papacello of Cortona, and Benedetto Pagni of Pescia, those of whom he made the most particular use were Giovanni da Lione and Raffaello dal Colle of Borgo a San Sepolcro, both of whom assisted him in the execution of many things in the Hall of Constantine and in the other works of which we have spoken. Wherefore I do not think it right to refrain from mentioning that these two, who were very dexterous in painting, and followed the manner of Giulio closely in carrying into execution the works that he designed for them, painted in colours after his design, near the old Mint in the Banchi, the escutcheon of Pope Clement VII, each of them doing one-half, with two terminal figures, one on either side of that escutcheon. And the same Raffaello, not long after, painted in fresco from a cartoon drawn by Giulio, in a lunette within the door of the Palace of Cardinal della Valle, a Madonna who is covering the Child, who is sleeping, with a piece of drapery, with S. Andrew the Apostle on one side and S. Nicholas on the other, which was held, with justice, to be an excellent picture. Giulio, meanwhile, being very intimate with Messer Baldassarre Turini da Pescia, built for him on Mount Janiculum, where there are some villas that have a most beautiful view, after making the design and model, a palace so graceful and so well appointed, from its having all the conveniences that could be desired in such a place, that it defies description. Moreover, the apartments were adorned not only with stucco, but also with paintings, for he himself painted there some stories of Numa Pompilius, who was buried on that spot; and in the bathroom of this palace, with the help of his young men, Giulio painted some stories of Venus, Love, Apollo, and Hyacinthus, which are all to be seen in engraving. After having separated himself completely from Giovan Francesco, he executed various architectural works in Rome, such as the design of the house of the Alberini in the Banchi (although some believe that the plan of this work came from Raffaello), and likewise a palace that may be seen at the present day on the Piazza della Dogana in Rome, which, being beautiful in design, has been reproduced in engraving. And for himself, on a corner of the Macello de' Corbi, where stood his own house, in which he was born, he made a beginning with a beautiful range of windows, which is a small thing, but very graceful. By reason of all these excellent qualities, Giulio, after the death of Raffaello, was celebrated as the best craftsman in Italy. And Count Baldassarre Castiglioni, who was then in Rome as ambassador from Federigo Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, and was much the friend, as has been related, of Giulio, having been commanded by his master the Marquis to send him an architect of whom he might avail himself for the necessities of his palace and of the city, the Marquis adding that he would particularly like to have Giulio--the Count, I say, so wrought upon him with entreaties and promises, that Giulio said that he would go, provided that he could do this with the leave of Pope Clement; which leave having been obtained, the Count, setting out for Mantua, from which he was then to go on behalf of the Pope to the Emperor, took Giulio with him; and having arrived there, he presented him to the Marquis, who, after welcoming him warmly, caused an honourably appointed house to be given to him, together with a salary and also a good table for himself, for his disciple Benedetto Pagni, and for another young man who was in his service; and, what is more, the Marquis sent him several canne of velvet, satin, and other kinds of silk and cloth wherewith to clothe himself. Then, hearing that he had no horse to ride, he sent for a favourite horse of his own, called Luggieri, and presented it to him; and when Giulio had mounted upon it, they rode to a spot a bow-shot beyond the Porta di S. Bastiano, where His Excellency had a place with some stables, called the Tè, standing in the middle of a meadow, in which he kept his stud of horses and mares. Arriving there, the Marquis said that he would like, without destroying the old walls, to have some sort of place arranged to which he might resort at times for dinner or supper, as a recreation. Giulio, having heard the will of the Marquis, and having examined the whole place, took a ground-plan of that site and set his hand to the work. Availing himself of the old walls, he made in the principal part the first hall that is to be seen at the present day as one enters, with the suite of rooms that are about it. And since the place has no living rock, and no quarries from which to excavate material for hewn and carved stone, such as are used in building by those who can obtain them, he made use of brick and baked stone, which he afterwards worked over with stucco; and with this material he made columns, bases, capitals, cornices, doors, windows, and other things, all with most beautiful proportions. And he executed the decorations of the vaults in a new and fantastic manner, with very handsome compartments, and with richly adorned recesses, which was the reason that the Marquis, after a beginning so humble, then resolved to have the whole of that building reconstructed in the form of a great palace. [Illustration: THE MARRIAGE BANQUET OF CUPID AND PSYCHE (_After the fresco by =Giulio Romano=. Mantua: Palazzo del Tè_) _Alinari_] Thereupon Giulio made a very beautiful model, all of rustic work both without and within the courtyard, which pleased that lord so much, that he assigned a good sum of money for the building; and after Giulio had engaged many masters, the work was quickly carried to completion. The form of the palace is as follows: The building is quadrangular, and has in the centre an open courtyard after the manner of a meadow, or rather, of a piazza, into which open four entrances in the form of a cross. The first of these traverses straightway, or rather, passes, into a very large loggia, which opens by another into the garden, and two others lead into various apartments; and these are all adorned with stucco-work and paintings. In the hall to which the first entrance gives access the vaulting is wrought in various compartments and painted in fresco, and on the walls are portraits from life of all the favourite and most beautiful horses from the stud of the Marquis, together with the dogs of the same coat or marking as the horses, with their names; which were all designed by Giulio, and painted in fresco on the plaster by the painters Benedetto Pagni and Rinaldo Mantovano, his disciples, and so well, in truth, that they seem to be alive. From this hall one passes into a room which is at one corner of the palace, and has the vaulting most beautifully wrought with compartments in stucco-work and varied mouldings, touched in certain places with gold. These mouldings divide the surface into four octagons, which enclose a picture in the highest part of the vaulting, in which is Cupid marrying Psyche in the sight of Jove, who is on high, illumined by a dazzling celestial light, and in the presence of all the Gods. It would not be possible to find anything executed with more grace or better draughtsmanship than this scene, for Giulio foreshortened the figures so well, with a view to their being seen from below, that some of them, although they are scarcely one braccio in length, appear when seen from the ground to be three braccia high; and, in truth, they are wrought with marvellous art and ingenuity, Giulio having succeeded in so contriving them, that, besides seeming to be alive (so strong is the relief), they deceive the human eye with a most pleasing illusion. In the octagons are all the earlier stories of Psyche, showing the adversities that came upon her through the wrath of Venus, and all executed with the same beauty and perfection; in other angles are many Loves, as likewise in the windows, producing various effects in accordance with the spaces where they are; and the whole of the vaulting is painted in oils by the hands of the above-mentioned Benedetto and Rinaldo. The rest of the stories of Psyche are on the walls below, and these are the largest. In one in fresco is Psyche in the bath; and the Loves are bathing her, and then wiping her dry with most beautiful gestures. In another part is Mercury preparing the banquet, while Psyche is bathing, with the Bacchantes sounding instruments; and there are the Graces adorning the table with flowers in a beautiful manner. There is also Silenus supported by Satyrs, with his ass, and a goat lying down, which has two children sucking at its udder; and in that company is Bacchus, who has two tigers at his feet, and stands leaning with one arm on the credence, on one side of which is a camel, and on the other an elephant. This credence, which is barrel-shaped, is adorned with festoons of verdure and flowers, and all covered with vines laden with bunches of grapes and leaves, under which are three rows of bizarre vases, basins, drinking-cups, tazze, goblets, and other things of that kind in various forms and fantastic shapes, and so lustrous, that they seem to be of real silver and gold, being counterfeited with a simple yellow and other colours, and that so well, that they bear witness to the extraordinary genius and art of Giulio, who proved in this part of the work that he was rich, versatile, and abundant in invention and craftsmanship. Not far away may be seen Psyche, who, surrounded by many women who are serving and attiring her, sees Phoebus appearing in the distance among the hills in the chariot of the sun, which is drawn by four horses; while Zephyr is lying nude upon some clouds, and is blowing gentle breezes through a horn that he has in his mouth, which make the air round Psyche balmy and soft. These stories were engraved not many years since after the designs of Battista Franco of Venice, who copied them exactly as they were painted from the great cartoons of Giulio by Benedetto of Pescia and Rinaldo Mantovano, who carried into execution all the stories except the Bacchus, the Silenus, and the two children suckled by the goat; although it is true that the work was afterwards retouched almost all over by Giulio, so that it is very much as if it had been all painted by him. This method, which he learned from Raffaello, his instructor, is very useful to young men, who in this way obtain practice and thereby generally become excellent masters. And although some persuade themselves that they are greater than those who keep them at work, such fellows, if their guide fails them before they are at the end, or if they are deprived of the design and directions for the work, learn that through having lost or abandoned that guidance too early they are wandering like blind men in an infinite sea of errors. But to return to the apartments of the Tè; from that room of Psyche one passes into another full of double friezes with figures in low-relief, executed in stucco after the designs of Giulio by Francesco Primaticcio of Bologna, then a young man, and by Giovan Battista Mantovano, in which friezes are all the soldiers that are on Trajan's Column at Rome, wrought in a beautiful manner. And on the ceiling, or rather soffit, of an antechamber is painted in oils the scene when Icarus, having been taught by his father Dædalus, seeks to rise too high in his flight, and, after seeing the Sign of Cancer and the chariot of the sun, which is drawn by four horses in foreshortening, near the Sign of Leo, is left without his wings, the wax being consumed by the heat of the sun; and near this the same Icarus may be seen hurtling through the air, and almost falling upon those who gaze at him, his face dark with the shadow of death. This invention was so well conceived and imagined by Giulio, that it seems to be real and true, for in it one sees the fierce heat of the sun burning the wretched youth's wings, the flaming fire gives out smoke, and one almost hears the crackling of the burning plumes, while death may be seen carved in the face of Icarus, and in that of Dædalus the most bitter sorrow and agony. In our book of drawings by various painters is the original design of this very beautiful scene, by the hand of Giulio himself, who executed in the same place the stories of the twelve months of the year, showing all that is done in each of them in the arts most practised by mankind--paintings which are notable no less for their fantastic and delightful character and their beauty of invention than for the judgment and diligence with which they were executed. After passing the great loggia, which is adorned with stucco-work and with many arms and various other bizarre ornaments, one comes to some rooms filled with such a variety of fantasies, that the brain reels at the thought of them. For Giulio, who was very fanciful and ingenious, wishing to demonstrate his worth, resolved to make, at an angle of the palace which formed a corner similar to that of the room of Psyche described above, an apartment the masonry of which should be in keeping with the painting, in order to deceive as much as possible all who might see it. He therefore had double foundations of great depth sunk at that corner, which was in a marshy place, and over that angle he constructed a large round room, with very thick walls, to the end that the four external angles of the masonry might be strong enough to be able to support a double vault, round after the manner of an oven. This done, he caused to be built at the corners right round the room, in the proper places, the doors, windows, and fireplace, all of rustic stones rough-hewn as if by chance, and, as it were, disjointed and awry, insomuch that they appeared to be really hanging over to one side and falling down. Having built this room in such strange fashion, he set himself to paint in it the most fantastic composition that he was able to invent--namely, Jove hurling his thunderbolts against the Giants. And so, depicting Heaven on the highest part of the vaulting, he placed there the throne of Jove, representing it as seen in foreshortening from below and from the front, within a round temple, supported by open columns of the Ionic Order, with his canopy over the centre of the throne, and with his eagle; and all was poised upon the clouds. Lower down he painted Jove in anger, slaying the proud Giants with his thunderbolts, and below him is Juno, assisting him; and around them are the Winds, with strange countenances, blowing towards the earth, while the Goddess Ops turns with her lions at the terrible noise of the thunder, as also do the other Gods and Goddesses, and Venus in particular, who is at the side of Mars; and Momus, with his arms outstretched, appears to fear that Heaven may be falling headlong down, and yet he stands motionless. The Graces, likewise, are standing filled with dread, and beside them, in like manner, the Hours. All the Deities, in short, are taking to flight with their chariots. The Moon, Saturn, and Janus are going towards the lightest of the clouds, in order to withdraw from that terrible uproar and turmoil, and the same does Neptune, who, with his dolphins, appears to be seeking to support himself on his trident. Pallas, with the nine Muses, stands wondering what horrible thing this may be, and Pan, embracing a Nymph who is trembling with fear, seems to wish to save her from the glowing fires and the lightning-flashes with which the heavens are filled. Apollo stands in the chariot of the sun, and some of the Hours seem to be seeking to restrain the course of his horses. Bacchus and Silenus, with Satyrs and Nymphs, betray the greatest terror, and Vulcan, with his ponderous hammer on one shoulder, gazes towards Hercules, who is speaking of this event with Mercury, beside whom is Pomona all in dismay, as are also Vertumnus and all the other Gods dispersed throughout that Heaven, in which all the effects of fear are so well expressed, both in those who are standing and in those who are flying, that it is not possible, I do not say to see, but even to imagine a more beautiful fantasy in painting than this one. In the parts below, that is, on the walls that stand upright, underneath the end of the curve of the vaulting, are the Giants, some of whom, those below Jove, have upon their backs mountains and immense rocks which they support with their stout shoulders, in order to pile them up and thus ascend to Heaven, while their ruin is preparing, for Jove is thundering and the whole Heaven burning with anger against them; and it appears not only that the Gods are dismayed by the presumptuous boldness of the Giants, upon whom they are hurling mountains, but that the whole world is upside down and, as it were, come to its last day. In this part Giulio painted Briareus in a dark cavern, almost covered with vast fragments of mountains, and the other Giants all crushed and some dead beneath the ruins of the mountains. Besides this, through an opening in the darkness of a grotto, which reveals a distant landscape painted with beautiful judgment, may be seen many Giants flying, all smitten by the thunderbolts of Jove, and, as it were, on the point of being overwhelmed at that moment by the fragments of the mountains, like the others. In another part Giulio depicted other Giants, upon whom are falling temples, columns, and other pieces of buildings, making a vast slaughter and havoc of those proud beings. And in this part, among those falling fragments of buildings, stands the fireplace of the room, which, when there is a fire in it, makes it appear as if the Giants are burning, for Pluto is painted there, flying towards the centre with his chariot drawn by lean horses, and accompanied by the Furies of Hell; and thus Giulio, not departing from the subject of the story with this invention of the fire, made a most beautiful adornment for the fireplace. In this work, moreover, in order to render it the more fearsome and terrible, Giulio represented the Giants, huge and fantastic in aspect, falling to the earth, smitten in various ways by the lightnings and thunderbolts; some in the foreground and others in the background, some dead, others wounded, and others again covered by mountains and the ruins of buildings. Wherefore let no one ever think to see any work of the brush more horrible and terrifying, or more natural than this one; and whoever enters that room and sees the windows, doors, and other suchlike things all awry and, as it were, on the point of falling, and the mountains and buildings hurtling down, cannot but fear that everything will fall upon him, and, above all, as he sees the Gods in the Heaven rushing, some here, some there, and all in flight. And what is most marvellous in the work is to see that the whole of the painting has neither beginning nor end, but is so well joined and connected together, without any divisions or ornamental partitions, that the things which are near the buildings appear very large, and those in the distance, where the landscapes are, go on receding into infinity; whence that room, which is not more than fifteen braccia in length, has the appearance of open country. Moreover, the pavement being of small round stones set on edge, and the lower part of the upright walls being painted with similar stones, there is no sharp angle to be seen, and that level surface has the effect of a vast expanse, which was executed with much judgment and beautiful art by Giulio, to whom our craftsmen are much indebted for such inventions. In this work the above-mentioned Rinaldo Mantovano became a perfect colourist, for he carried the whole of it into execution after the cartoons of Giulio, as well as the other rooms. And if this painter had not been snatched from the world so young, even as he did honour to Giulio during his lifetime, so he would have done honour (to himself) after Giulio's death. [Illustration: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE GIANTS BY THE THUNDERBOLTS OF JOVE (_After the fresco by =Giulio Romano=. Mantua: Palazzo del Tè, Sala dei Giganti_) _Alinari_] In addition to this palace, in which Giulio executed many other works worthy to be praised, of which, in order to avoid prolixity, I shall say nothing, he reconstructed with masonry many rooms in the castle where the Duke lives at Mantua, and made two very large spiral staircases, with very rich apartments adorned all over with stucco. In one hall he caused the whole of the story of Troy and the Trojan War to be painted, and likewise twelve scenes in oils in an antechamber, below the heads of the twelve Emperors previously painted there by Tiziano Vecelli, which are all held to be excellent. In like manner, at Marmirolo, a place five miles distant from Mantua, a most commodious building was erected after the design of Giulio and under his direction, with large paintings no less beautiful than those of the castle and of the palace of the Tè. The same master painted an altar-piece in oils for the Chapel of Signora Isabella Buschetta in S. Andrea at Mantua, of Our Lady in the act of adoring the Infant Jesus, who is lying on the ground, with S. Joseph, the ass and the ox near a manger, and on one side S. John the Evangelist, and S. Longinus on the other, figures of the size of life. Next, on the walls of the same chapel, he caused Rinaldo to paint two very beautiful scenes after his own designs; on one, the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, with the Thieves, some Angels in the air, and on the ground the ministers of the Crucifixion and the Maries, with many horses, in which he always delighted, making them beautiful to a marvel, and many soldiers in various attitudes; and, on the other, the scene when the Blood of Christ was discovered in the time of the Countess Matilda, which was a most beautiful work. Giulio then painted with his own hand for Duke Federigo a picture of Our Lady washing the little Jesus Christ, who is standing in a basin, while a little S. John is pouring out the water from a vase. Both of these figures, which are of the size of life, are very beautiful; and in the distance are small figures, from the waist upwards, of some ladies who are coming to visit the Madonna. This picture was afterwards presented by the Duke to Signora Isabella Buschetta, of which lady Giulio subsequently made a most beautiful portrait in a little picture of the Nativity of Christ, one braccio in height, which is now in the possession of Signor Vespasiano Gonzaga, together with another picture presented to him by Duke Federigo, and likewise by the hand of Giulio, in which are a young man and a young woman embracing each other on a bed, in the act of caressing one another, while an old woman peeps at them secretly from behind a door--figures which are little less than life-size, and very graceful. In the house of the same person is another very excellent picture of a most beautiful S. Jerome, also by the hand of Giulio. And in the possession of Count Niccola Maffei is a picture of Alexander the Great, of the size of life, with a Victory in his hand, copied from an ancient medal, which is a work of great beauty. After these works, Giulio painted in fresco over a chimney-piece, for M. Girolamo, the organist of the Duomo at Mantua, who was very much his friend, a Vulcan who is working his bellows with one hand and holding with the other, with a pair of tongs, the iron head of an arrow that he is forging, while Venus is tempering in a vase some already made and placing them in Cupid's quiver. This is one of the most beautiful works that Giulio ever executed; and there is little else in fresco by his hand to be seen. For S. Domenico, at the commission of M. Lodovico da Fermo, he painted an altar-piece of the Dead Christ, whom Joseph and Nicodemus are preparing to lay in the sepulchre, and near them are His Mother, the other Maries, and S. John the Evangelist. And a little picture, in which he also painted a Dead Christ, is in the house of the Florentine Tommaso da Empoli at Venice. At the same time when he was executing these and other pictures, it happened that Signor Giovanni de' Medici, having been wounded by a musket-ball, was carried to Mantua, where he died. Whereupon M. Pietro Aretino, who was the devoted servant of that lord, and very much the friend of Giulio, desired that Giulio should mould a likeness of him with his own hand as he lay dead; and he, therefore, having taken a cast from the face of the dead man, executed a portrait from it, which remained for many years afterwards in the possession of the same Aretino. For the entry of the Emperor Charles V into Mantua, Giulio, by order of the Duke, made many most beautiful festive preparations in the form of arches, scenery for dramas, and a number of other things; in which inventions Giulio had no equal, nor was there ever any man more fanciful in preparing masquerades and in designing extravagant costumes for jousts, festivals, and tournaments, as was seen at that time with amazement and marvel by the Emperor Charles and by all who were present. Besides this, at different times he gave so many designs for chapels, houses, gardens, and façades throughout the whole of Mantua, and he so delighted to embellish and adorn the city, that, whereas it was formerly buried in mud and at times full of stinking water and almost uninhabitable, he brought it to such a condition that at the present day, thanks to his industry, it is dry, healthy, and altogether pleasing and delightful. While Giulio was in the service of that Duke, one year the Po, bursting its banks, inundated Mantua in such a manner, that in certain low-lying parts of the city the water rose to the height of nearly four braccia, insomuch that for a long time frogs lived in them almost all the year round. Giulio, therefore, after pondering in what way he might put this right, so went to work that for the time being the city was restored to its former condition; and to the end that the same might not happen another time, he contrived to have the streets on that side raised so much, by command of the Duke, that they came above the level of the water, and the buildings stood in safety. In that part of the city the houses were small, slightly built, and of no great importance, and he gave orders that they should be pulled down, in order to raise the streets and bring that quarter to a better state, and that new houses, larger and more beautiful, should be built there, to the advantage and improvement of the city. To this measure many opposed themselves, saying to the Duke that Giulio was doing too much havoc; but he would not hear any of them--nay, he made Giulio superintendent of the streets at that very time, and decreed that no one should build in that city save under Giulio's direction. On which account many complaining and some even threatening Giulio, this came to the ears of the Duke, who used such words in his favour as made it known that if they did anything to the despite or injury of Giulio, he would count it as done to himself, and would make an example of them. The Duke was so enamoured of the excellence of Giulio, that he could not live without him; and Giulio, on his part, bore to that lord the greatest reverence that it is possible to imagine. Wherefore he never asked a favour for himself or for others without obtaining it, and when he died it was found that with all that he had received from the Duke he had an income of more than a thousand ducats. Giulio built a house for himself in Mantua, opposite to S. Barnaba, on the outer side of which he made a fantastic façade, all wrought with coloured stucco, and the interior he caused to be all painted and wrought likewise with stucco; and he found place in it for many antiquities brought from Rome and others received from the Duke, to whom he gave many of his own. He made so many designs both for Mantua and for places in its neighbourhood, that it was a thing incredible; for, as has been told, no palaces or other buildings of importance could be erected, particularly in the city, save after his design. He rebuilt upon the old walls the Church of S. Benedetto, a rich and vast seat of Black Friars at Mantua, near the Po; and the whole church was embellished with most beautiful paintings and altar-pieces from designs by his hand. And since his works were very highly prized throughout Lombardy, it pleased Gian Matteo Giberti, Bishop of Verona, to have the tribune of the Duomo of that city all painted, as has been related in another place, by Il Moro the Veronese, after designs by Giulio. For the Duke of Ferrara, also, he executed many designs for tapestries, which were afterwards woven in silk and gold by Maestro Niccolò and Giovan Battista Rosso, both Flemings; and of these there are engravings to be seen, executed by Giovan Battista Mantovano, who engraved a vast number of things drawn by Giulio, and in particular, besides three drawings of battles engraved by others, a physician who is applying cupping-glasses to the shoulders of a woman, and the Flight of Our Lady into Egypt, with Joseph holding the ass by the halter, and some Angels bending down a date-palm in order that Christ may pluck the fruit. The same master engraved, also after the designs of Giulio, the Wolf on the Tiber suckling Romulus and Remus, and four stories of Pluto, Jove and Neptune, who are dividing the heavens, the earth, and the sea among them by lot; and likewise the goat Amaltheia, which, held by Melissa, is giving suck to Jove, and a large plate of many men in a prison, tortured in various ways. There were also printed, after the inventions of Giulio, Scipio and Hannibal holding a parley with their armies on the banks of the river; the Nativity of S. John the Baptist, which was engraved by Sebastiano da Reggio, and many other works engraved and printed in Italy. In Flanders and in France, likewise, have been printed innumerable sheets from designs by Giulio, of which, although they are very beautiful, there is no need to make mention, nor of all his drawings, seeing that he made them, so to speak, in loads. Let it be enough to say that he was so facile in every field of art, and particularly in drawing, that we have no record of any one who has produced more than he did. Giulio, who was very versatile, was able to discourse on every subject, but above all on medals, upon which he spent large sums of money and much time, in order to gain knowledge of them. And although he was employed almost always in great works, this did not mean that he would not set his hand at times to the most trifling matters in order to oblige his patron and his friends; and no sooner had one opened his mouth to explain to him his conception than he had understood it and drawn it. Among the many rare things that he had in his house was the portrait from life of Albrecht Dürer on a piece of fine Rheims cloth, by the hand of Albrecht himself, who sent it, as has been related in another place, as a present to Raffaello da Urbino. This portrait was an exquisite thing, for it had been coloured in gouache with much diligence with water-colours, and Albrecht had executed it without using lead-white, availing himself in its stead of the white of the cloth, with the delicate threads of which he had so well rendered the hairs of the beard, that it was a thing scarcely possible to imagine, much less to do; and when held up to the light it showed through on either side. This portrait, which was very dear to Giulio, he showed to me himself as a miracle, when I went during his lifetime to Mantua on some affairs of my own. At the death of Duke Federigo, by whom Giulio had been beloved beyond belief, he was so overcome with sorrow, that he would have left Mantua, if the Cardinal, the brother of the Duke, on whom the government of the State had descended because the sons of Federigo were very young, had not detained him in that city, where he had a wife and children, houses, villas, and all the other possessions that are proper to a gentleman of means. And this the Cardinal did (aided by those reasons) from a wish to avail himself of the advice and assistance of Giulio in renovating, or rather building almost entirely anew, the Duomo of that city; to which work Giulio set his hand, and carried it well on in a very beautiful form. At this time Giorgio Vasari, who was much the friend of Giulio, although they did not know one another save only by reputation and by letters, in going to Venice, took the road by Mantua, in order to see Giulio and his works. And so, having arrived in that city, and going to find his friend, when they met, although they had never seen each other, they knew one another no less surely than if they had been together in person a thousand times. At which Giulio was so filled with joy and contentment, that for four days he never left him, showing him all his works, and in particular all the ground-plans of the ancient edifices in Rome, Naples, Pozzuolo, and Campania, and of all the other fine antiquities of which anything is known, drawn partly by him and partly by others. Then, opening a very large press, he showed to Giorgio the ground-plans of all the buildings that had been erected after his designs and under his direction, not only in Mantua and in Rome, but throughout all Lombardy, which were so beautiful, that I, for my part, do not believe that there are to be seen any architectural inventions more original, more lovely, or better composed. After this, the Cardinal asking Giorgio what he thought of the works of Giulio, Giorgio answered in the presence of Giulio that they were such that he deserved to have a statue of himself placed at every corner of the city, and that, since he had given that city a new life, the half of the State would not be a sufficient reward for the labours and abilities of Giulio; to which the Cardinal answered that Giulio was more the master of that State than he was himself. And since Giulio was very loving, especially towards his friends, there was no mark of love and affection that Giorgio did not receive from him. The same Vasari, having left Mantua and gone to Venice, returned to Rome at the very time when Michelagnolo had just uncovered his Last Judgment in the Chapel; and he sent to Giulio by M. Nino Nini of Cortona, the secretary of the aforesaid Cardinal of Mantua, three sheets containing the Seven Mortal Sins, copied from that Last Judgment of Michelagnolo, which were welcome in no ordinary manner to Giulio, both as being what they were, and because he had at that time to paint a chapel in the palace for the Cardinal, and they served to inspire him to greater things than those that he had in mind. Putting forward all possible effort, therefore, to make a most beautiful cartoon, he drew in it with fine fancy the scene of Peter and Andrew leaving their nets at the call of Christ, in order to follow Him, and to be thenceforward, not fishers of fishes, but fishers of men. And this cartoon, which proved to be the most beautiful that Giulio had ever made, was afterwards carried into execution by the painter Fermo Ghisoni, a pupil of Giulio, and now an excellent master. Not long afterwards the superintendents of the building of S. Petronio at Bologna, being desirous to make a beginning with the façade of that church, succeeded after great difficulty in inducing Giulio to go there, in company with a Milanese architect called Tofano Lombardino, a man in great repute at that time in Lombardy for the many buildings by his hand that were to be seen in that country. These masters, then, made many designs, those of Baldassarre Peruzzi of Siena having been lost; and one that Giulio made, among others, was so beautiful and so well ordered, that he rightly received very great praise for it from that people, and was rewarded with most liberal gifts on his return to Mantua. Meanwhile, Antonio da San Gallo having died at Rome about that time, the superintendents of the building of S. Pietro had been thereby left in no little embarrassment, not knowing to whom to turn or on whom to lay the charge of carrying that great fabric to completion after the plan already begun; but they thought that no one could be more fitted for this than Giulio Romano, for they all knew how great were his worth and excellence. And so, surmising that he would accept such a charge more than willingly in order to repatriate himself in an honourable manner and with a good salary, they caused some of his friends to approach him, but in vain, for the reason that, although he would have gone with the greatest willingness, two things prevented him--the Cardinal would in no way consent to his departure, and his wife, with her relatives and friends, used every possible means to dissuade him. Neither of these two reasons, perchance, would have prevailed with him, if he had not happened to be in somewhat feeble health at that time; for, having considered how much honour and profit he might secure for himself and his children by accepting so handsome a proposal, he was already fully disposed to make every effort not to be hindered in the matter by the Cardinal, when his malady began to grow worse. However, since it had been ordained on high that he should go no more to Rome, and that this should be the end and conclusion of his life, in a few days, what with his vexation and his malady, he died at Mantua, which city might well have allowed him, even as he had embellished her, so also to honour and adorn his native city of Rome. Giulio died at the age of fifty-four, leaving only one male child, to whom he had given the name of Raffaello out of regard for the memory of his master. This young Raffaello had scarcely learned the first rudiments of art, showing signs of being destined to become an able master, when he also died, not many years after, together with his mother, Giulio's wife; wherefore there remained no descendant of Giulio save a daughter called Virginia, who still lives in Mantua, married to Ercole Malatesta. Giulio, whose death was an infinite grief to all who knew him, was given burial in S. Barnaba, where it was proposed that some honourable memorial should be erected to him; but his wife and children, postponing the matter from one day to another, themselves died for the most part without doing anything. It is indeed a sad thing that there has been no one who has treasured in any way the memory of a man who did so much to adorn that city, save only those who availed themselves of his services, who have often remembered him in their necessities. But his own talent, which did him so much honour in his lifetime, has secured for him after death, in the form of his own works, an everlasting monument which time, with all its years, can never destroy. Giulio was neither tall nor short of stature, and rather stout than slight in build. He had black hair, beautiful features, and eyes dark and merry, and he was very loving, regular in all his actions, and frugal in eating, but fond of dressing and living in honourable fashion. He had disciples in plenty, but the best were Giovanni da Lione, Raffaello dal Colle of Borgo, Benedetto Pagni of Pescia, Figurino da Faenza, Rinaldo Mantovano, Giovan Battista Mantovano, and Fermo Ghisoni, who still lives in Mantua and does him honour, being an excellent painter. And the same may be said for Benedetto, who has executed many works in his native city of Pescia, and an altar-piece for the Duomo of Pisa, which is in the Office of Works, and also a picture of Our Lady in which, with a poetical invention full of grace and beauty, he painted a figure of Florence presenting to her the dignities of the House of Medici; which picture is now in the possession of Signor Mondragone, a Spaniard much in favour with that most illustrious lord the Prince of Florence. Giulio died on the day of All Saints in the year 1546, and over his tomb was placed the following epitaph: ROMANUS MORIENS SECUM TRES JULIUS ARTES ABSTULIT, HAUD MIRUM, QUATUOR UNUS ERAT. FOOTNOTE: [26] Giuliano Leno. FRA SEBASTIANO VINIZIANO DEL PIOMBO LIFE OF FRA SEBASTIANO VINIZIANO DEL PIOMBO PAINTER The first profession of Sebastiano, so many declare, was not painting, but music, since, besides being a singer, he much delighted to play various kinds of instruments, and particularly the lute, because on that instrument all the parts can be played, without any accompaniment. This art made him for a time very dear to the gentlemen of Venice, with whom, as a man of talent, he always associated on intimate terms. Then, having been seized while still young with a desire to give his attention to painting, he learned the first rudiments from Giovanni Bellini, at that time an old man. And afterwards, when Giorgione da Castelfranco had established in that city the methods of the modern manner, with its superior harmony and its brilliancy of colouring, Sebastiano left Giovanni and placed himself under Giorgione, with whom he stayed so long that in great measure he acquired his manner. He thus executed in Venice some portraits from life that were very like; among others, that of the Frenchman Verdelotto, a most excellent musician, who was then chapel-master in S. Marco, and in the same picture that of his companion Uberto, a singer, which picture Verdelotto took with him to Florence when he became chapel-master in S. Giovanni; and at the present day the sculptor Francesco da San Gallo has it in his house. About that time he also painted for S. Giovanni Grisostomo at Venice an altar-piece with some figures which incline so much to the manner of Giorgione, that they have been sometimes held by people without much knowledge of the matters of art to be by the hand of Giorgione himself. This altar-piece is very beautiful, and executed with such a manner of colouring that it has great relief. The fame of the abilities of Sebastiano thus spreading abroad, Agostino Chigi of Siena, a very rich merchant, who had many affairs in Venice, hearing him much praised in Rome, sought to draw him to that city, being attracted towards him because, besides his painting, he knew so well how to play on the lute, and was sweet and pleasant in his conversation. Nor was it very difficult to draw Sebastiano to Rome, since he knew how much that place had always been the benefactress and common mother-city of all beautiful intellects, and he went thither with no ordinary willingness. Having therefore gone to Rome, Agostino set him to work, and the first thing that he caused him to do was to paint the little arches that are over the loggia which looks into the garden of Agostino's palace in the Trastevere, where Baldassarre of Siena had painted all the vaulting, on which little arches Sebastiano painted some poetical compositions in the manner that he had brought from Venice, which was very different from that which was followed in Rome by the able painters of that day. After this work, Raffaello having executed a story of Galatea in the same place, Sebastiano, at the desire of Agostino, painted beside it a Polyphemus in fresco, in which, spurred by rivalry with Baldassarre of Siena and then with Raffaello, he strove his utmost to surpass himself, whatever may have been the result. He likewise painted some works in oils, for which, from his having learned from Giorgione a method of colouring of no little softness, he was held in vast account at Rome. [Illustration: FRA SEBASTIANO VINIZIANO DEL PIOMBO: PORTRAIT OF A LADY (_Florence; Uffizi, 1123. Canvas_)] While Sebastiano was executing these works in Rome, Raffaello da Urbino had risen into such credit as a painter, that his friends and adherents said that his pictures were more in accord with the rules of painting than those of Michelagnolo, being pleasing in colour, beautiful in invention, and charming in the expressions, with design in keeping with the rest; and that those of Buonarroti had none of those qualities, with the exception of the design. And for such reasons these admirers judged that in the whole field of painting Raffaello was, if not more excellent than Michelagnolo, at least his equal; but in colouring they would have it that he surpassed Buonarroti without a doubt. These humours, having spread among a number of craftsmen who preferred the grace of Raffaello to the profundity of Michelagnolo, had so increased that many, for various reasons of interest, were more favourable in their judgments to Raffaello than to Michelagnolo. But Sebastiano was in no way a follower of that faction, since, being a man of exquisite judgment, he knew the value of each of the two to perfection. The mind of Michelagnolo, therefore, drew towards Sebastiano, whose colouring and grace pleased him much, and he took him under his protection, thinking that, if he were to assist Sebastiano in design, he would be able by this means, without working himself, to confound those who held such an opinion, remaining under cover of a third person as judge to decide which of them was the best. While the matter stood thus, and some works that Sebastiano had executed were being much extolled, and even exalted to infinite heights on account of the praise that Michelagnolo bestowed on them, besides the fact that they were in themselves beautiful and worthy of praise, a certain person from Viterbo, I know not who, much in favour with the Pope, commissioned Sebastiano to paint a Dead Christ, with a Madonna who is weeping over Him, for a chapel that he had caused to be built in S. Francesco at Viterbo. That work was held by all who saw it to be truly most beautiful, for the invention and the cartoon were by Michelagnolo, although it was finished with great diligence by Sebastiano, who painted in it a dark landscape that was much extolled, and thereby Sebastiano acquired very great credit, and confirmed the opinions of those who favoured him. Wherefore Pier Francesco Borgherini, a Florentine merchant, who had taken over a chapel in S. Pietro in Montorio, which is on the right as one enters the church, allotted it at the suggestion of Michelagnolo to Sebastiano, because Borgherini thought that Michelagnolo would execute the design of the whole work, as indeed he did. Sebastiano, therefore, having set to work, executed it with such zeal and diligence, that it was held to be, as it is, a very beautiful piece of painting. From the small design by Michelagnolo he made some larger ones for his own convenience, and one of these, a very beautiful thing, which he drew with his own hand, is in our book. Thinking that he had discovered the true method of painting in oils on walls, Sebastiano covered the rough-cast of that chapel with an incrustation which seemed to him likely to be suitable for this purpose; and the whole of that part in which is Christ being scourged at the Column he executed in oils on the wall. Nor must I omit to tell that many believe not only that Michelagnolo made the small design for this work, but also that the above-mentioned Christ who is being scourged at the Column was outlined by him, for there is a vast difference between the excellence of this figure and that of the others. Even if Sebastiano had executed no other work but this, for it alone he would deserve to be praised to all eternity, seeing that, in addition to the heads, which are very well painted, there are in the work some hands and feet of great beauty; and although his manner was a little hard, on account of the labour that he endured in the things that he counterfeited, nevertheless he can be numbered among the good and praiseworthy craftsmen. Above this scene he painted two Prophets in fresco, and on the vaulting the Transfiguration; and the two Saints, S. Peter and S. Francis, who are on either side of the scene below, are very bold and animated figures. It is true that he laboured for six years over this little work, but when works are executed to perfection, one should not consider whether they have been finished quickly or slowly, although more praise is due to him who carries his labours to completion both quickly and well; and he who pleads haste as an excuse when his works do not give satisfaction, unless he has been forced to it, is accusing rather than excusing himself. When this work was uncovered, it was seen that Sebastiano had done well, although he had toiled much over painting it, so that the evil tongues were silenced and there were few who found fault with him. [Illustration: THE FLAGELLATION (_After the oil fresco by =Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del Piombo=. Rome: S. Pietro in Montorio_) _Anderson_] After this, when Raffaello painted for Cardinal de' Medici, for sending to France, that altar-piece containing the Transfiguration of Christ which was placed after his death on the principal altar of S. Pietro a Montorio, Sebastiano also executed at the same time another altar-piece of the same size, as it were in competition with Raffaello, of Lazarus being raised from the dead four days after death, which was counterfeited and painted with supreme diligence under the direction of Michelagnolo, and in some parts from his design. These altar-pieces, when finished, were publicly exhibited together in the Consistory, and were vastly extolled, both the one and the other; and although the works of Raffaello had no equals in their perfect grace and beauty, nevertheless the labours of Sebastiano were also praised by all without exception. One of these pictures was sent by Cardinal Giulio de' Medici to his episcopal palace at Narbonne in France, and the other was placed in the Cancelleria, where it remained until it was taken to S. Pietro a Montorio, together with the ornamental frame that Giovan Barile executed for it. By means of this work Sebastiano became closely connected with the Cardinal, and was therefore honourably rewarded during his pontificate. Not long afterwards, Raffaello having passed away, the first place in the art of painting was unanimously granted by all, thanks to the favour of Michelagnolo, to Sebastiano, and Giulio Romano, Giovan Francesco of Florence, Perino del Vaga, Polidoro, Maturino, Baldassarre of Siena, and all the others had to give way. Wherefore Agostino Chigi, who had been having a chapel and tomb built for himself under the direction of Raffaello in S. Maria del Popolo, came to an agreement with Sebastiano that he should paint it all; whereupon the screen was made, but the chapel remained covered, without ever being seen by anyone, until the year 1554, at which time Luigi, the son of Agostino, resolved that, although his father had not been able to see it finished, he at least would do so. And so, the chapel and the altar-piece being entrusted to Francesco Salviati, he carried the work in a short time to that perfection which it had not received from the dilatory and irresolute Sebastiano, who, so far as one can see, did little work there, although we find that he obtained from the liberality of Agostino and his heirs much more than would have been due to him even if he had finished it completely, which he did not do, either because he was weary of the labours of art, or because he was too much wrapped up in comforts and pleasures. And he did the same to M. Filippo da Siena, Clerk of the Chamber, for whom he began a scene in oils on the wall above the high-altar of the Pace at Rome, and never finished it; wherefore the friars, in despair about it, were obliged to take away the staging, which obstructed their church, to cover the work with a cloth, and to have patience for as long as the life of Sebastiano lasted. After his death, the friars uncovered the work, and it was found that what he had done was most beautiful painting, for the reason that in the part where he represented Our Lady visiting S. Elizabeth, there are many women portrayed from life that are very beautiful, and painted with consummate grace. But it may be seen here that this man endured extraordinary labour in all the works that he produced, and that he was not able to execute them with that facility which nature and study are wont at times to give to him who delights in working and exercises his hand continually. And of the truth of this there is also a proof in the same Pace, in the Chapel of Agostino Chigi, where Raffaello had executed the Sibyls and Prophets; for Sebastiano, wishing to paint some things on the stone in the niche that remained to be painted below, in order to surpass Raffaello, caused it to be incrusted with peperino-stone, the joinings being filled in with fired stucco; but he spent so much time on cogitations that he left the wall bare, for, after it had remained thus for ten years, he died. It is true that a few portraits from life could be obtained with ease from Sebastiano, because he could finish these with more facility and promptitude; but it was quite otherwise with stories and other figures. To tell the truth, the painting of portraits from life was his proper vocation, as may be seen from the portrait of Marc' Antonio Colonna, which is so well executed that it seems to be alive, and also from those of Ferdinando, Marquis of Pescara, and of Signora Vittoria Colonna, which are very beautiful. He likewise made a portrait of Adrian VI when he first arrived in Rome, and one of Cardinal Hincfort. That Cardinal desired that Sebastiano should paint for him a chapel in S. Maria de Anima at Rome; but he kept putting him off from one day to another, and the Cardinal finally had it painted by the Fleming Michael, his compatriot, who painted there in fresco stories from the life of S. Barbara, imitating our Italian manner very well; and in the altar-piece he made a portrait of the same Cardinal. But returning to Sebastiano: he also took a portrait of Signor Federigo da Bozzolo, and one of a captain in armour, I know not who, which is in the possession of Giulio de' Nobili at Florence. He painted a woman in Roman dress, which is in the house of Luca Torrigiani; and Giovan Battista Cavalcanti has a head by the same master's hand, which is not completely finished. He executed a picture of Our Lady covering the Child with a piece of drapery, which was a rare work; and Cardinal Farnese now has it in his guardaroba. And he sketched, but did not carry to completion, a very beautiful altar-piece of S. Michael standing over a large figure of the Devil, which was to be sent to the King of France, who had previously received a picture by the hand of the same master. Then, after Cardinal Giulio de' Medici had been elected Supreme Pontiff and had taken the name of Clement VII, he gave Sebastiano to understand through the Bishop of Vasona that the time to show him favour had come, and that he would become aware of this when the occasion arose. And in the meantime, while living in these high hopes, Sebastiano, who had no equal in portrait-painting, executed many from life, and among others one of Pope Clement, who was not then wearing a beard, or rather, two of him, one of which came into the possession of the Bishop of Vasona, and the other, which is much larger, showing a seated figure from the knees upwards, is in the house of Sebastiano at Rome. He also painted a portrait of the Florentine Anton Francesco degli Albizzi, who happened to be then in Rome on some business, and he made it such that it appeared to be not painted but really alive; wherefore Anton Francesco sent it to Florence as a pearl of great price. The head and hands of this portrait were things truly marvellous, to say nothing of the beautiful execution of the velvets, the linings, the satins, and all the other parts of the picture; and since Sebastiano was indeed superior to all other men in the perfect delicacy and excellence of his portrait-painting, all Florence was amazed at this portrait of Anton Francesco. At this same time he also executed a portrait of Messer Pietro Aretino, and made it such that, besides being a good likeness, it is an astounding piece of painting, for there may be seen in it five or six different kinds of black in the clothes that he is wearing--velvet, satin, ormuzine, damask, and cloth--and, over and above those blacks, a beard of the deepest black, painted in such beautiful detail, that the real beard could not be more natural. This figure holds in the hand a branch of laurel and a scroll, on which is written the name of Clement VII; and in front are two masks, one of Virtue, which is beautiful, and another of Vice, which is hideous. This picture M. Pietro presented to his native city, and the people of Arezzo have placed it in their public Council Chamber, thus doing honour to the memory of their talented fellow-citizen, and also receiving no less from him. After this, Sebastiano made a portrait of Andrea Doria, which was in like manner an admirable work, and a head of the Florentine Baccio Valori, which was also beautiful beyond belief. In the meantime Fra Mariano Fetti, Friar of the Piombo, died, and Sebastiano, remembering the promises made to him by the above-mentioned Bishop of Vasona, master of the household to His Holiness, asked for the office of the Piombo; whereupon, although Giovanni da Udine, who had also done much in the service of His Holiness "in minoribus," and still continued to serve him, asked for the same office, the Pope, moved by the prayers of the Bishop, and also thinking that the talents of Sebastiano deserved it, ordained that Sebastiano should have the office, but should pay out of it to Giovanni da Udine an allowance of three hundred crowns. Thus Sebastiano assumed the friar's habit, and straightway felt his soul changed thereby, for, perceiving that he now had the means to satisfy his desires, he spent his time in repose without touching a brush, and recompensed himself with his comforts and his revenues for many misspent nights and laborious days; and whenever he happened to have something to do, he would drag himself to the work with such reluctance, that he might have been going to his death. From which one may learn how much our reason and the little wisdom of men are deceived, in that very often, nay, almost always, we covet the very opposite to that which we really need, and, as the Tuscan proverb has it, in thinking to cross ourselves with a finger, poke it into our own eyes. It is the common opinion of men that rewards and honours spur the minds of mortals to the studies of those arts which they see to be the best remunerated, and that, on the contrary, to see that those who labour at these arts are not recompensed by such men as have the means, causes the same students to grow negligent and to abandon them. And for this reason both ancients and moderns censure as strongly as they are able those Princes who do not support every kind of man of talent, and who do not give due honour and reward to all who labour valiantly in the arts. But, although this rule is for the most part a good one, it may be seen, nevertheless, that at times the liberality of just and magnanimous Princes produces the contrary effect, for the reason that many are more useful and helpful to the world in a low or mediocre condition than they are when raised to greatness and to an abundance of all good things. And here we have an example, for the magnificent liberality of Clement VII, bestowing too rich a reward on Sebastiano Viniziano, who had done excellent work as a painter in his service, was the reason that he changed from a zealous and industrious craftsman into one most idle and negligent, and that, whereas he laboured continually while he was living in poor circumstances and the rivalry between him and Raffaello da Urbino lasted, he did quite the opposite when he had enough for his contentment. Be this as it may, let us leave it to the judgment of wise Princes to consider how, when, towards whom, in what manner, and by what rule, they should exercise their liberality in the case of craftsmen and men of talent, and let us return to Sebastiano. After he had been made Friar of the Piombo, he executed for the Patriarch of Aquileia, with great labour, Christ bearing the Cross, a half-length figure painted on stone--a work which was much extolled, particularly for the head and the hands, parts in which Sebastiano was truly most excellent. Not long afterwards the niece of the Pope, who in time became Queen of France, as she still is, having arrived in Rome, Fra Sebastiano began a portrait of her; but this remained unfinished in the guardaroba of the Pope. And a short time after this, Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici having become enamoured of Signora Giulia Gonzaga, who was then living at Fondi, that Cardinal sent Sebastiano to that place, accompanied by four light horsemen, to take her portrait; and within a month he finished that portrait, which, being taken from the celestial beauty of that lady by a hand so masterly, proved to be a divine picture. Wherefore, after it had been carried to Rome, the labours of that craftsman were richly rewarded by the Cardinal, who declared that this portrait surpassed by a great measure all those that Sebastiano had ever executed up to that day, as indeed it did; and the work was afterwards sent to King Francis of France, who had it placed in his Palace of Fontainebleau. [Illustration: ANDREA DORIA (_After the painting by =Fra Sebastiano del Piombo=. Rome: Palazzo Doria_) _Anderson_] This painter then introduced a new method of painting on stone, which pleased people greatly, for it appeared that by this means pictures could be made eternal, and such that neither fire nor worms could harm them. Wherefore he began to paint many pictures on stone in this manner, surrounding them with ornaments of variegated kinds of stone, which, being polished, formed a very beautiful setting; although it is true that these pictures, with their ornaments, when finished, could not be transported or even moved, on account of their great weight, save with the greatest difficulty. Many persons, then, attracted by the novelty of the work and by the beauty of his art, gave him earnest-money, in order that he might execute some for them; but he, delighting more to talk about such pictures than to work at them, always kept delaying everything. Nevertheless he executed on stone a Dead Christ with the Madonna, with an ornament also of stone, for Don Ferrante Gonzaga, who sent it to Spain. The whole work together was held to be very beautiful, and Sebastiano was paid five hundred crowns for the painting by Messer Niccolò da Cortona, agent in Rome for the Cardinal of Mantua. In this kind of painting Sebastiano was truly worthy of praise, for the reason that whereas Domenico, his compatriot, who was the first to paint in oils on walls, and after him Andrea dal Castagno, Antonio Pollaiuolo, and Piero Pollaiuolo, failed to find the means of preventing the figures executed by them in this manner from becoming black and fading away very quickly, Sebastiano did find it; wherefore the Christ at the Column, which he painted in S. Pietro in Montorio, has never changed down to our own time, and has the same freshness of colouring as on the first day. For he went about the work with such diligence that he used to make the coarse rough-cast of lime with a mixture of mastic and colophony, which, after melting it all together over the fire and applying it to the wall, he would then cause to be smoothed over with a mason's trowel made red-hot, or rather white-hot, in the fire; and his works have therefore been able to resist the damp and to preserve their colour very well without suffering any change. With the same mixture he worked on peperino-stone, white and variegated marble, porphyry, and slabs of other very hard kinds of stone, materials on which paintings can last a very long time; not to mention that this has shown how one may paint on silver, copper, tin, and other metals. This man found so much pleasure in cogitating and discoursing, that he would spend whole days without working; and when he did force himself to work, it was evident that he was suffering greatly in his mind, which was the chief reason that he was of the opinion that no price was large enough to pay for his works. For Cardinal Rangoni he painted a picture of a nude and very beautiful S. Agatha being tortured in the breasts, which was an exquisite work, and this picture is now in the guardaroba of Signor Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, and is in no way inferior to the many other most beautiful pictures that are there, by the hands of Raffaello da Urbino, Tiziano, and others. He also made a portrait from life of Signor Piero Gonzaga, painted in oils on stone, which was a very fine work; but he toiled for three years over finishing it. Now, when Michelagnolo was in Florence in the time of Pope Clement, engaged in the work of the new Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, Giuliano Bugiardini wished to paint for Baccio Valori a picture with the head of Pope Clement and that of Baccio himself, and another for Messer Ottaviano de' Medici of the same Pontiff and the Archbishop of Capua. Michelagnolo therefore sent to Sebastiano to ask him to despatch from Rome a head of the Pope painted in oils with his own hand; and Sebastiano painted one, which proved to be very beautiful, and sent it to him. After Giuliano had made use of the head and had finished his pictures, Michelagnolo, who was a close companion of the said Messer Ottaviano, made him a present of it; and of a truth, among the many heads that Fra Sebastiano executed, this is the most beautiful of all and the best likeness, as may be seen in the house of the heirs of Messer Ottaviano. The same master also took the portrait of Pope Paul Farnese, as soon as he was elected Supreme Pontiff; and he began one of the Duke of Castro, his son, but left it unfinished, as he did with many other works with which he had made a beginning. Fra Sebastiano had a passing good house which he had built for himself near the Popolo, and there he lived in the greatest contentment, without troubling to paint or work any more. He used often to say that it was a great fatigue to have to restrain in old age those ardours which in youth craftsmen are wont to welcome out of emulation and a desire for profit and honour, and that it was no less wise for a man to live in peace than to spend his days in restless labour in order to leave a name behind him after death, for all his works and labours had also in the end, sooner or later, to die. And even as he said these things, so he carried them into practice as well as he was able, for he always sought to have for his table all the best wines and the rarest luxuries that could be found, holding life in more account than art. Being much the friend of all men of talent, he often had Molza and Messer Gandolfo to supper, making right good cheer. He was also the intimate friend of Messer Francesco Berni, the Florentine, who wrote a poem to him; to which Fra Sebastiano answered with another, passing well, for, being very versatile, he was even able to set his hand to writing humorous Tuscan verse. Having been reproached by certain persons, who said that it was shameful that he would no longer work now that he had the means to live, Fra Sebastiano replied in this manner: "Why will I not work now that I have the means to live? Because there are now in the world men of genius who do in two months what I used to do in two years; and I believe that if I live long enough, and not so long, either, I shall find that everything has been painted. And since these stalwarts can do so much, it is well that there should also be one who does nothing, to the end that they may have the more to do." With these and similar pleasantries Fra Sebastiano was always diverting himself, being a man who was never anything but humorous and amusing; and, in truth, a better companion never lived. Sebastiano, as has been related, was much beloved by Michelagnolo. But it is also true that when the front wall of the Papal Chapel, where there is now the Last Judgment by the same Buonarroti, was to be painted, there did arise some disdain between them, for Fra Sebastiano had persuaded the Pope that he should make Michelagnolo paint it in oils, whereas the latter would only do it in fresco. Now, Michelagnolo saying neither yea nor nay, the wall was prepared after the fashion of Fra Sebastiano, and Michelagnolo stood thus for some months without setting his hand to the work. But at last, after being pressed, he said that he would only do it in fresco, and that painting in oils was an art for women and for leisurely and idle people like Fra Sebastiano. And so, after the incrustation laid on by order of the friar had been stripped off, and the whole surface had been covered with rough-cast in a manner suitable for working in fresco, Michelagnolo set his hand to the work; but he never forgot the affront that he considered himself to have received from Fra Sebastiano, against whom he felt hatred almost to the day of the friar's death. Finally, after Fra Sebastiano had come to such a state that he would not work or do any other thing but attend to the duties of his office as Friar of the Piombo, and enjoy the pleasures of life, at the age of sixty-two he fell sick of a most acute fever, which, being a ruddy person and of a full habit of body, threw him into such a heat that he rendered up his soul to God in a few days, after making a will and directing that his body should be carried to the tomb without any ceremony of priests or friars, or expenditure on lights, and that all that would have been spent thus should be distributed to poor persons, for the love of God; and so it was done. He was buried in the Church of the Popolo, in the month of June of the year 1547. Art suffered no great loss in his death, seeing that, as soon as he assumed the habit of Friar of the Piombo, he might have been numbered among those lost to her; although it is true that he was regretted for his pleasant conversation by many friends as well as craftsmen. Many young men worked under Sebastiano at various times in order to learn art, but they made little proficience, for from his example they learned little but the art of good living, excepting only Tommaso Laureti, a Sicilian, who, besides many other works, has executed a picture full of grace at Bologna, of a very beautiful Venus, with Love embracing and kissing her, which picture is in the house of M. Francesco Bolognetti. He has also painted a portrait of Signor Bernardino Savelli, which is much extolled, and some other works of which there is no need to make mention. PERINO DEL VAGA LIFE OF PERINO DEL VAGA PAINTER OF FLORENCE A truly great gift is art, who, paying no regard to abundance of riches, to high estate, or to nobility of blood, embraces, protects, and uplifts from the ground a child of poverty much more often than one wrapped in the ease of wealth. And this Heaven does in order to show how much power the influences of its stars and constellations have over us, distributing more of its favours to one, and to another less; which influences are for the most part the reason that we mortals come to be born with dispositions more or less fiery or sluggish, weak or strong, fierce or gentle, fortunate or unfortunate, and richer or poorer in talent. And whoever has any doubt of this, will be enlightened in this present Life of Perino del Vaga, a painter of great excellence and genius. This Perino, the son of a poor father, having been left an orphan as a little child and abandoned by his relatives, was guided and governed by art, whom he always acknowledged as his true mother and honoured without ceasing. And the studies of the art of painting were pursued by him with such zeal and diligence, that he was enabled in due time to execute those noble and famous decorations which have brought so much glory to Genoa and to Prince Doria. Wherefore we may believe without a doubt that it is Heaven that raises men from those infinite depths in which they were born, to that summit of greatness to which they ascend, when they prove by labouring valiantly at their works that they are true followers of the sciences that they have chosen to learn; even as Perino chose and pursued as his vocation the art of design, in which he proved himself full of grace and most excellent, or rather, absolutely perfect. And he not only equalled the ancients in stucco-work, but also equalled the best modern craftsmen in the whole field of painting, displaying all the excellence that could possibly be desired in a human intellect that seeks, in solving the difficulties of that art, to achieve beauty, grace, charm, and delicacy with colouring and with every other kind of ornament. But let us speak more particularly of his origin. There lived in the city of Florence one Giovanni Buonaccorsi, who entered the service of Charles VIII, King of France, and fought in his wars, and, being a spirited and open-handed young man, spent all that he possessed in that service and in gaming, and finally lost his life therein. To him was born a son, who received the name of Piero; and this son, after being left as an infant of two months old without his mother, who died of plague, was reared in the greatest misery at a farm, being suckled by a goat, until his father, having gone to Bologna, took as his second wife a woman whose husband and children had died of plague; and she, with her plague-infected milk, finished nursing Piero, who was now called Pierino[27] (a pet name such as it is a general custom to give to little children), and retained that name ever afterwards. He was then taken to Florence by his father, who, on returning to France, left him with some relatives; and they, either because they had not the means, or because they would not accept the burdensome charge of maintaining him and having him taught some ingenious vocation, placed him with the apothecary of the Pinadoro, to the end that he might learn that calling. But, not liking that profession, he was taken as shop-boy by the painter Andrea de' Ceri, who was pleased with the air and the ways of Perino, and thought that he saw in him a certain lively spirit of intelligence from which it might be hoped that in time some good fruits would issue from him. Andrea was no great painter; quite commonplace, indeed, and one of those who stand openly and publicly in their workshops, executing any kind of work, however mean; and he was wont to paint every year for the festival of S. John certain wax tapers which were carried as offerings, as they still are, together with the other tributes of the city; for which reason he was called Andrea de' Ceri, and from that name Perino was afterwards called for some time Perino de' Ceri. Andrea, then, took care of Perino for some years, teaching him the rudiments of art as well as he could; but when the boy had reached the age of eleven, he was forced to seek for him some master better than himself. And so, having a straight friendship with Ridolfo, the son of Domenico Ghirlandajo, who, as will be related, was held to be able and well practised in painting, Andrea de' Ceri placed Perino with him, to the end that he might give his attention to design, and strive with all the zeal and love at his command to make in that art the proficience of which his great genius gave promise. Whereupon, pursuing his studies, among the many young men whom Ridolfo had in his workshop, all engaged in learning art, in a short time Perino came to surpass all the rest, so great were his ardour and his eagerness. Among them was one named Toto del Nunziata, who was to him as a spur to urge him on continually; which Toto, likewise attaining in time to equality with the finest intellects, departed from Florence and made his way with some Florentine merchants to England, where he executed all his works, and was very richly rewarded by the King of that country, whom he also served in architecture, erecting, in particular, his principal palace. He and Perino, then, working in emulation of one another, and pursuing the studies of art with supreme diligence, after no long time became very excellent. And Perino, drawing from the cartoon of Michelagnolo Buonarroti in company with other young men, both Florentines and strangers, won and held the first place among them all, insomuch that he was regarded with that expectation which was afterwards fulfilled in the beautiful works that he executed with so much excellence and art. There came to Florence at that time the Florentine painter Vaga, a master of no great excellence, who was executing commonplace works at Toscanella in the province of Rome. Having a superabundance of work, he was in need of assistance, and he desired to take back with him a companion and also a young man who might help him in design, in which he was wanting, and in the other matters of art. Now this painter, having seen Perino drawing in the workshop of Ridolfo together with the other young men, found him so superior to them all, that he was astonished; and, what is more, he was pleased with his appearance and his ways, for Perino was a very beautiful youth, most courteous, modest, and gentle, and every part of his body was in keeping with the nobility of his mind; wherefore Vaga was so charmed with him, that he asked him whether he would go with him to Rome, saying that he would not fail to assist him in his studies, and promising him such benefits and conditions as he might demand. So great was the desire that Perino had to attain to excellence in his profession, that, when he heard Rome mentioned, through his eagerness to see that city, he was deeply moved; but he told him that he must speak to Andrea de' Ceri, who had supported him up to that time, so that he was loth to abandon him. And so Vaga, having persuaded Ridolfo, Perino's master, and Andrea, who maintained him, so contrived that in the end he took Perino, with the companion, to Toscanella. There Perino began to work and to assist them, and they finished not only the work that Vaga had undertaken, but also many that they undertook afterwards. But Perino complained that the promise of seeing Rome, by which he had been brought from Florence, was not being fulfilled, in consequence of the profit and advantage that Vaga was drawing from his services, and he resolved to go thither by himself; which was the reason that Vaga, leaving all his works, took him to Rome. And there, through the love that he bore to art, Perino returned to his former work of drawing and continued at it many weeks, growing more ardent every day. But Vaga wished to return to Toscanella, and therefore made him known, as one belonging to himself, to many commonplace painters, and also recommended him to all the friends that he had there, to the end that they might assist and favour him in his absence; from which circumstance he was always called from that day onward Perino del Vaga. [Illustration: THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA (_After the fresco by =Perino del Vaga=. Rome: The Vatican, Loggia_) _Anderson_] Thus left in Rome, and seeing the ancient works of sculpture and the marvellous masses of buildings, reduced for the most part to ruins, Perino stood lost in admiration at the greatness of the many renowned and illustrious men who had executed those works. And so, becoming ever more and more aflame with love of art, he burned unceasingly to attain to a height not too far distant from those masters, in order to win fame and profit for himself with his works, even as had been done by those at whom he marvelled as he beheld their beautiful creations. And while he contemplated their greatness and the depths of his own lowliness and poverty, reflecting that he possessed nothing save the desire to rise to their height, and that, having no one who might maintain him and provide him with the means to live, he was forced, if he wished to remain alive, to labour at work for those ordinary shops, now with one painter and now with another, after the manner of the day-labourers in the fields, a mode of life which so hindered his studies, he felt infinite grief and pain in his heart at not being able to make as soon as he would have liked that proficience to which his mind, his will, and his necessities were urging him. He made the resolve, therefore, to divide his time equally, working half the week at day work, and during the other half devoting his attention to design; and to this second half he added all the feast-days, together with a great part of the nights, thus stealing time from time itself, in order to become famous and to escape from the hands of others so far as it might be possible. Having carried this intention into execution, he began to draw in the Chapel of Pope Julius, where the vaulting had been painted by Michelagnolo Buonarroti, following both his methods and the manner of Raffaello da Urbino. And then, going on to the ancient works in marble and also to the grotesques in the grottoes under the ground, which pleased him through their novelty, he learned the methods of working in stucco, gaining his bread meanwhile by grievous labour, and enduring every hardship in order to become excellent in his profession. Nor had any long time passed before he became the best and most finished draughtsman that there was among all who were drawing in Rome, for the reason that he had, perhaps, a better knowledge of muscles and of the difficult art of depicting the nude than many others who were held to be among the best masters at that time; which was the reason that he became known not only to the men of his profession, but also to many lords and prelates. And, in particular, Giulio Romano and Giovan Francesco, called Il Fattore, disciples of Raffaello da Urbino, having praised him not a little to their master, roused in him a desire to know Perino and to see his works in drawing; which having pleased him, and together with his work his manner, his spirit, and his ways of life, he declared that among all the young men that he had known, Perino would attain to the highest perfection in that art. Meanwhile Raffaello da Urbino had built the Papal Loggie, by the command of Leo X; and the same Pope ordered that Raffaello should also have them adorned with stucco, painted, and gilded, according as it should seem best to him. Thereupon Raffaello placed at the head of that enterprise, for the stucco-work and the grotesques, Giovanni da Udine, who was very excellent and without an equal in such works, but mostly in executing animals, fruits, and other little things. And since he had chosen in Rome and summoned from other parts a great number of masters, he had assembled together a company of men each very able at his own work, one in stucco, another in grotesques, a third in foliage, a fourth in festoons, another in scenes, and others in other things; and according as they improved they were brought forward and paid higher salaries, so that by competing in that work many young men attained to great perfection, who were afterwards held to be excellent in their various fields of art. Among that company Perino was assigned to Giovanni da Udine by Raffaello, to the end that he might execute grotesques and scenes together with the others; and he was told that according as he should acquit himself, so he would be employed by Giovanni. And thus, labouring out of emulation and in order to prove his powers and make proficience, before many months had passed Perino was held to be the first among all those who were working there, both in drawing and in colouring; the best, I say, the most perfect in grace and finish, and he who could execute both figures and grotesques in the most delicate and beautiful manner; to which clear testimony and witness are borne by the grotesques, festoons, and scenes by his hand that are in that work, which, besides surpassing the others, are executed in much more faithful accord with the designs and sketches that Raffaello made for them. This may be seen from a part of those scenes in the centre of the loggia, on the vaulting, where the Hebrews are depicted crossing over the Jordan with the sacred Ark, and also marching round the walls of Jericho, which fall into ruin; and the other scenes that follow, such as that of Joshua causing the sun to stand still during the combat with the Amorites. Among those painted in imitation of bronze on the base the best are likewise those by the hand of Perino--namely, Abraham sacrificing his son, Jacob wrestling with the Angel, Joseph receiving his twelve brethren, the fire descending from Heaven and consuming the sons of Levi, and many others which there is no need to name, for their number is very great, and they can be distinguished from the rest. At the beginning of the loggia, also, where one enters, he painted scenes from the New Testament, the Nativity and the Baptism of Christ, and His Last Supper with the Apostles, which are very beautiful; besides which, below the windows, as has been said, are the best scenes painted in the colour of bronze that there are in the whole work. These labours cause every man to marvel, both the paintings and the many works in stucco that he executed there with his own hand; and his colouring, moreover, is much more pleasing and more highly finished than that of any of the others. This work was the reason that he became famous beyond all belief, yet this great praise did not send him to sleep, but rather, since genius grows with praise, inspired him with even more zeal, and made him almost certain that by persisting he would come to win those fruits and honours that he saw every day in the possession of Raffaello da Urbino and Michelagnolo Buonarroti. And he laboured all the more willingly, because he saw that he was held in estimation by Giovanni da Udine and by Raffaello, and was employed in works of importance. He always showed extraordinary deference and obedience towards Raffaello, honouring him in such a manner that he was beloved by Raffaello as a son. There was executed at this time, by order of Pope Leo, the vaulting of the Hall of the Pontiffs, which is that through which one passes by way of the Loggie into the apartments of Pope Alexander VI, formerly painted by Pinturicchio; and that vaulting was painted by Giovanni da Udine and Perino. They executed in company the stucco-work and all those ornaments, grotesques, and animals that are to be seen there, in addition to the varied and beautiful inventions that were depicted by them in the compartments of the ceiling, which they had divided into certain circles and ovals to contain the seven Planets of Heaven drawn by their appropriate animals, such as Jupiter drawn by Eagles, Venus by Doves, the Moon by Women, Mars by Wolves, Mercury by Cocks, the Sun by Horses, and Saturn by Serpents; besides the twelve Signs of the Zodiac, and some figures from the forty-eight Constellations of Heaven, such as the Great Bear, the Dog Star, and many others, which, by reason of their number, we must pass over in silence, without recounting them all in their order, since anyone may see the work; which figures are almost all by the hand of Perino. In the centre of the vaulting is a circle with four figures representing Victories, seen foreshortened from below upwards, who are holding the Pope's Crown and the Keys; and these are very well conceived and wrought with masterly art, to say nothing of the delicacy with which he painted their vestments, veiling the nude with certain light draperies that partly reveal the naked legs and arms, a truly graceful and beautiful effect. This work was justly held, as it still is at the present day, to be very magnificent and rich in craftsmanship, and also cheerful and pleasing; worthy, in short, of that Pontiff, who did not fail to reward their labours, which truly deserved some signal remuneration. Perino decorated a façade in chiaroscuro--a method brought into use at that time by the example of Polidoro and Maturino--which is opposite to the house of the Marchioness of Massa, near Maestro Pasquino, executing it with great boldness of design and with supreme diligence. In the third year of his pontificate Pope Leo paid a visit to Florence, for which many triumphal preparations were made in that city, and Perino went thither before the Court, partly in order to see the pomps of the city, and partly from a wish to revisit his native country; and on a triumphal arch at S. Trinità he made a large and very beautiful figure, seven braccia high, while another was executed in competition with him by Toto del Nunziata, who had already been his rival in boyhood. But to Perino every hour seemed a thousand years until he could return to Rome, for he perceived that the rules and methods of the Florentine craftsmen were very different from those that were customary in Rome; wherefore he departed from Florence and returned to Rome, where he resumed his usual course of work. And in S. Eustachio dalla Dogana he painted a S. Peter in fresco, which is a figure that has very strong relief, executed with a simple flow of folds, and yet wrought with much design and judgment. There was in Rome at this time the Archbishop of Cyprus, a man who was a great lover of the arts, and particularly of painting; and he, having a house near the Chiavica, where he had laid out a little garden with some statues and other antiquities of truly noble beauty, and desiring to enhance their effect with some fine decorations, sent for Perino, who was very much his friend, and they came to the decision that he should paint round the walls of that garden many stories of Bacchantes, Satyrs, Fauns, and other wild things, in reference to an ancient statue of Bacchus, seated beside a tiger, which the Archbishop had there. And so Perino adorned that place with a variety of poetical fancies; and, among other things, he painted there a little loggia with small figures, various grotesques, and many landscapes, coloured with supreme grace and diligence. This work has been held by craftsmen, as it always will be, to be worthy of the highest praise; and it was the reason that he became known to the Fugger family, merchants of Germany, who, having built a house near the Banchi, on the way to the Church of the Florentines, and having seen Perino's work and liked it, caused him to paint there a courtyard and a loggia, with many figures, all worthy of the same praise as the other works by his hand, for in them may be seen much delicacy and grace and great beauty of manner. At this same time M. Marchionne Baldassini, having caused a house to be built for him near S. Agostino, as has been related, by Antonio da San Gallo, who designed it very well, desired that a hall which Antonio had constructed there should be painted all over; and after passing in review many of the young painters, to the end that it might be well and beautifully done, he finally resolved to give it to Perino. Having agreed about the price, Perino set his hand to it, nor did he turn his attention from that work to any other until he had brought it to a very happy conclusion in fresco. In that hall he made compartments by means of pilasters which have between them niches great and small; in the larger niches are various figures of philosophers, two in each niche, and in some one only, and in the smaller niches are little boys, partly naked and partly draped in veiling, while above those small niches are some heads of women, painted in imitation of marble. Above the cornice that crowns the pilasters there follows a second series of pictures, separated from the first series below, with scenes in figures of no great size from the history of the Romans, beginning with Romulus and ending with Numa Pompilius. There are likewise various ornaments in imitation of different kinds of marble, and over the beautiful chimney-piece of stone is a figure of Peace burning arms and trophies, which is very lifelike. This work was held in much estimation during the lifetime of M. Marchionne, as it has been ever since by all those who work in painting, and also by many others not of the profession, who give it extraordinary praise. In the Convent of the Nuns of S. Anna, Perino painted a chapel in fresco with many figures, which was executed by him with his usual diligence. And on an altar in S. Stefano del Cacco he painted in fresco, for a Roman lady, a Pietà with the Dead Christ in the lap of Our Lady, with a portrait from life of that lady, which still has the appearance of a living figure; and the whole work is very beautiful, and executed with great mastery and facility. In those days Antonio da San Gallo had built at the corner of a house in Rome, which is known as the Imagine di Ponte, a tabernacle finely adorned with travertine and very handsome, in which something beautiful in the way of painting was to be executed; and he received a commission from the owner of that house to give the work to one whom he should consider capable of painting some noble picture there. Wherefore Antonio, who knew Perino to be the best of the young men who were in Rome, allotted it to him. And he, setting his hand to the work, painted there a Christ in the act of crowning the Madonna, and in the background he made a Glory, with a choir of Seraphim and Angels clothed in light and delicate draperies, who are scattering flowers, and other children of great beauty and variety; and on the sides of the tabernacle he painted Saints, S. Sebastian on one side and S. Anthony on the other. This work was executed truly well, and was equal to the others by his hand, which were always full of grace and charm. A certain protonotary had erected a chapel of marble on four columns in the Minerva, and, desiring to leave an altar-piece there in memory of himself, even if it were but a small one, he came to an agreement with Perino, whose fame he had heard, and commissioned him to paint it in oils. And he chose that the subject should be the Deposition of Christ from the Cross, which Perino set himself to execute with the greatest possible zeal and diligence. In this picture he represented Him as already laid upon the ground, surrounded by the Maries weeping over Him, in whose gestures and attitudes he portrayed a melting pity and sorrow; besides which there are the Nicodemuses[28] and other figures that are much admired, all woeful and afflicted at seeing the sinless Christ lying dead. But the figures that he painted most divinely were those of the two Thieves, left fixed upon the crosses, which, besides appearing to be real dead bodies, reveal a very good mastery over muscles and nerves, which this occasion enabled him to display; wherefore, to the eyes of him who beholds them, their limbs present themselves all drawn in that violent death by the nerves, and the muscles by the nails and cords. There is, in addition, a landscape wrapped in darkness, counterfeited with much judgment and art. And if the inundation which came upon Rome after the sack had not done damage to this work, covering more than half of it, its excellence would be clearly seen; but the water so softened the gesso, and caused the wood to swell in such sort, that all the lower part that was soaked has peeled off too much for the picture to give any pleasure; nay, it is a grief and a truly heartrending sorrow to behold it, for it would certainly have been one of the most precious things in all Rome. There was being rebuilt at this time, under the direction of Jacopo Sansovino, the Church of S. Marcello in Rome, a convent of Servite Friars, which still remains unfinished; and when they had carried the walls of some chapels to completion, and had roofed them, those friars commissioned Perino to paint in one of these, as ornaments for a Madonna that is worshipped in that church, two figures in separate niches, S. Joseph and S. Filippo, a Servite friar and the founder of that Order, one on either side of the Madonna. These finished, he painted above them some little boys that are perfect, and in the centre of the wall he placed another standing upon a dado, who has upon his shoulders the ends of two festoons, which he directs towards the corners of the chapel, where there are two other little boys who support them, being seated upon them, with their legs in most beautiful attitudes. All this he executed with such art, such grace, and so beautiful a manner, and gave to the flesh a tint of colour so fresh and soft, that one might say that it was real flesh rather than painted. And certainly these figures may be held to be the most beautiful that ever any craftsman painted in fresco, for the reason that there is life in their eyes and movement in their attitudes, and with the mouth they make as if to break into speech and say that art has conquered Nature, and that even art declares that nothing more than this can be done in her. This work was so excellent in the sight of all good judges of art, that he acquired a great name thereby, although he had executed many works and what was known of his great genius in his profession was well known; and he was therefore held in much more account and greater estimation than ever before. For this reason Lorenzo Pucci, Cardinal Santiquattro, who had taken over a chapel on the left hand beside the principal chapel in the Trinità, a convent of Calabrian and French Friars who wear the habit of S. Francis of Paola, allotted it to Perino, to the end that he might paint there in fresco the life of Our Lady. Which having begun, Perino finished all the vaulting and a wall under an arch; and on the outer side, also, over an arch of the chapel, he painted two Prophets four braccia and a half in height, representing Isaiah and Daniel, who in their great proportions reveal all the art, excellence of design, and beauty of colouring that can be seen in their perfection only in a picture executed by a great craftsman. This will be clearly evident to one who shall consider the Isaiah, in whom, as he reads, may be perceived the thoughtfulness that study infuses in him, and his eagerness in reading new things, for he has his gaze fixed upon a book, with one hand to his head, exactly as a man often is when he is studying; and Daniel, likewise, is motionless, with his head upraised in celestial contemplation, in order to resolve the doubts of his people. Between these figures are two little boys who are upholding the escutcheon of the Cardinal, a shield of beautiful shape: and these boys, besides being so painted as to seem to be of flesh, also have the appearance of being in relief. The vaulting is divided into four scenes, separated one from another by the cross--that is, by the ribs of the vaulting. In the first is the Conception of Our Lady, in the second her Nativity, in the third the scene when she ascends the steps of the Temple, and in the fourth S. Joseph marrying her. On a wall-space equal in extent to the arch of the vaulting is her Visitation, in which are many figures that are very beautiful, but above all some who have climbed on certain socles and are standing in very spirited and natural attitudes, the better to see the ceremonious meeting of those women; besides which, there is something of the good and of the beautiful in the buildings and in every gesture of the other figures. He pursued this work no further, illness coming upon him; and when he was well, there began the plague of the year 1523, which raged so violently in Rome, that, if he wished to save his life, it became expedient for him to make up his mind to depart. There was in the city of Rome at that time the goldsmith Piloto, who was much the friend and intimate companion of Perino, and he was desirous of departing; and so one morning, as they were breakfasting together, he persuaded Perino to take himself off and go to Florence, on the ground that it was many years since he had been there, and that it could not but bring him great honour to make himself known there and to leave some example of his excellence in that city; saying also that, although Andrea de' Ceri and his wife, who had brought him up, were dead, nevertheless, as a native of that country, if he had no possessions there, he had his love for it. Wherefore, after no long time, one morning Perino and Piloto departed and set out on the way to Florence. And when they had arrived there, Perino took the greatest pleasure in seeing once again the old works painted by the masters of the past, which had been as a school to him in the days of his boyhood, and likewise those of the masters then living who were the most celebrated and held to be the best in that city, in which, through the interest of friends, a work was allotted to him, as will be related below. It happened one day that many craftsmen having assembled in his presence to do him honour, painters, sculptors, architects, goldsmiths, and carvers in wood and marble, who had gathered together according to the ancient custom, some to see Perino, to keep him company, and to hear what he had to say, many to learn what difference in practice there might be between the craftsmen of Rome and those of Florence, but most of them to hear the praise and censure that craftsmen are wont often to give to one another; it happened, I say, that thus discoursing together of one thing and another, and examining the works, both ancient and modern, in the various churches, they came to that of the Carmine, in order to see the chapel of Masaccio. There everyone gazed attentively at the paintings, and many various opinions were uttered in praise of that master, all declaring that they marvelled that he should have possessed so much judgment as to be able in those days, without seeing anything but the work of Giotto, to work with so much of the modern manner in the design, in the colouring, and in the imitation of Nature, and that he should have solved the difficulties of his art in a manner so facile; not to mention that among all those who had worked at painting, there had not as yet been one who had equalled him in strength of relief, in resoluteness, and in mastery of execution. This kind of discourse much pleased Perino, and to all those craftsmen who spoke thus he answered in these words: "I do not deny that what you say, and even more, may be true; but that there is no one among us who can equal this manner, that I will deny with my last breath. Nay, I will declare, if I may say it with the permission of the company, not in contempt, but from a desire for the truth, that I know many both more resolute and richer in grace, whose works are no less lifelike in the painting than these, and even much more beautiful. And I, by your leave, I who am not the first in this art, am grieved that there is no space near these works wherein I might be able to paint a figure; for before departing from Florence I would make a trial beside one of these figures, likewise in fresco, to the end that you might see by comparison whether there be not among the moderns one who has equalled him." Among their number was a master who was held to be the first painter in Florence; and he, being curious to see the work of Perino, and perhaps wishing to lower his pride, put forward an idea of his own, which was this: "Although," said he, "all the space here is full, yet, since you have such a fancy, which is certainly a good one and worthy of praise, there, on the opposite side, where there is the S. Paul by his hand, a figure no less good and beautiful than any other in the chapel, is a space in which you may easily prove what you say by making another Apostle, either beside that S. Peter by Masolino or beside the S. Paul of Masaccio, whichever you may prefer." The S. Peter was nearer the window, and the space beside it was greater and the light better; besides which, it was a figure no less beautiful than the S. Paul. Everyone, therefore, urged Perino to do it, because they had a great desire to see that Roman manner; besides which, many said that he would be the means of taking out of their heads the fancy that they had nursed in their minds for so many decades, and that if his figure should prove to be the best all would run after modern works. Wherefore, persuaded by that master, who told him at last that he ought not to disappoint the entreaties and expectations of so many lofty intellects, particularly since it would not take longer than two weeks to execute a figure in fresco, and they would not fail to spend years in praising his labours, Perino resolved to do it, although he who spoke thus had an intention quite contrary to his words, being persuaded that Perino would by no means execute anything much better than the work of those craftsmen who were considered to be the most excellent at that time. Perino, then, undertook to make this attempt; and having summoned by common consent M. Giovanni da Pisa, the Prior of the convent, they asked him for the space for the execution of the work, which he granted to them with truly gracious courtesy; and thus they took measurements of the space, with the height and breadth, and went away. An Apostle was then drawn by Perino in a cartoon, in the person of S. Andrew, and finished with the greatest diligence; whereupon Perino, having first caused the staging to be erected, was prepared to begin to paint it. But before this, on his arrival in Florence, his many friends, who had seen most excellent works by his hand in Rome, had contrived to obtain for him the commission for that work in fresco which I mentioned, to the end that he might leave some example of his handiwork in Florence, which might demonstrate how spirited and how beautiful was his genius for painting, and also to the end that he might become known and perchance be set to work on some labour of importance by those who were then governing. There were at that time certain craftsmen who used to assemble in a company called the Company of the Martyrs, in the Camaldoli at Florence; and they had proposed many times to have a wall that was in that place painted with the story of the Martyrs being condemned to death before two Roman Emperors, who, after they had been taken in battle, caused them to be crucified in the wood and hanged on trees. This story was suggested to Perino, and, although the place was out of the way, and the price small, so much was he attracted by the possibilities of invention in the story and by the size of the wall, that he was disposed to undertake it; besides which, he was urged not a little by those who were his friends, on the ground that the work would establish him in that reputation which his talent deserved among the citizens, who did not know him, and among his fellow-craftsmen in Florence, where he was not known save by report. Having then determined to do the work, he accepted the undertaking and made a small design, which was held to be a thing divine; and having set his hand to making a cartoon as large as the whole work, he never left off labouring at it, and carried it so far that all the principal figures were completely finished. And so the Apostle was abandoned, without anything more being done. Perino drew this cartoon on white paper, well shaded and hatched, leaving the paper itself for the lights, and executing the whole with admirable diligence. In it were the two Emperors on the seat of judgment, condemning to the cross all the prisoners, who were turned towards the tribunal, some kneeling, some standing, and others bowed, but all naked and bound in different ways, and writhing with piteous gestures in various attitudes, revealing the trembling of the limbs at the prospect of the severing of the soul from the body in the agony and torment of crucifixion; besides which, there were depicted in those heads the constancy of faith in the old, the fear of death in the young, and in others the torture that they suffer from the strain of the cords on their bodies and arms. And there could also be seen the swelling of the muscles and even the cold sweat of death, all depicted in that design. Then in the soldiers who were leading them there was revealed a terrible fury, most impious and cruel, as they presented them at the tribunal for condemnation and led them to the cross. The Emperors and the soldiers were wearing cuirasses after the ancient manner and garments very ornate and bizarre, with buskins, shoes, helmets, shields, and other pieces of armour wrought with all that wealth of the most beautiful ornamentation to which a craftsman can attain in imitating and reproducing the antique, and drawn with the greatest lovingness, subtlety, and delicacy that the perfection of art can display. When this cartoon was seen by the craftsmen and by other judges of discernment, they declared that they had never seen such beauty and excellence in design since the cartoon drawn by Michelagnolo Buonarroti in Florence for the Council Chamber; wherefore Perino acquired the greatest fame that he could have gained in art. And while he was engaged in finishing that cartoon, he amused himself by causing oil-colours to be prepared and ground in order to paint for his dearest friend, the goldsmith Piloto, a little picture of no great size, containing a Madonna, which he carried something more than half-way towards completion. For many years past Perino had been intimately acquainted with a certain lame priest, Ser Raffaello di Sandro, a chaplain of S. Lorenzo, who always bore love to the craftsmen of design. This priest, then, persuaded Perino to take up his quarters with him, seeing that he had no one to cook for him or to keep house for him, and that during the time that he had been in Florence he had stayed now with one friend and now with another; wherefore Perino went to lodge with him, and stayed there many weeks. Meanwhile the plague began to appear in certain parts of Florence, and filled Perino with fear lest he should catch the infection; on which account he determined to go away, but wished first to recompense Ser Raffaello for all the days that he had eaten at his table. But Ser Raffaello would never consent to take anything, only saying: "I would be fully paid by having a scrap of paper from your hand." Seeing him to be determined, Perino took about four braccia of coarse canvas, and, after having it fixed to the wall between two doors in the priest's little room, painted on it in a day and a night a scene coloured in imitation of bronze. On this canvas, which was to serve as a screen for the wall, he painted the story of Moses passing the Red Sea and Pharaoh being submerged with his horses and his chariots; and Perino painted therein figures in most beautiful attitudes, some swimming in armour and some naked, others swimming while clasping the horses round the neck, with their beards and hair all soaked, crying out in the fear of death and struggling with all their power to escape. On the other side of the sea are Moses, Aaron, and all the other Hebrews, male and female, who are thanking God, and a number of vases that he counterfeited, carried off by them from Egypt, varied and beautiful in form and shape, and women with head-dresses of great variety. Which finished, he left it as a mark of lovingness to Ser Raffaello, to whom it was as dear as the Priorate of S. Lorenzo would have been. This canvas was afterwards much extolled and held in estimation, and after the death of Ser Raffaello it passed, together with his other possessions, to his brother Domenico di Sandro, the cheesemonger. Departing, then, from Florence, Perino abandoned the work of the Martyrs, which caused him great regret; and certainly, if it had been in any other place but the Camaldoli, he would have finished it; but, considering that the officials of health had taken that very Convent of Camaldoli for those infected with the plague, he thought it better to save himself than to leave fame behind him in Florence, being satisfied that he had proved how much he was worth in the design. The cartoon, with his other things, remained in the possession of the goldsmith Giovanni di Goro, his friend, who died in the plague; and after that it fell into the hands of Piloto, who kept it spread out in his house for many years, showing it readily as a very rare work to every person of intelligence; but I do not know what became of it after the death of Piloto. Perino stayed for many months in various places, seeking to avoid the plague, but for all this he never spent his time in vain, for he was continually drawing and studying the secrets of art; and when the plague had ceased, he returned to Rome and gave his attention to executing little works of which I shall say nothing more. In the year 1523 came the election of Pope Clement VII, which was the greatest of blessings for the arts of painting and sculpture, which had been so kept down by Adrian VI during his lifetime, that not only had nothing been executed for him, but, as has been related in other places, not delighting in them, or rather, holding them in detestation, he had brought it about that no other person delighted in them, or spent money upon them, or employed a single craftsman. Then, therefore, after the election of the new Pontiff, Perino executed many works. Afterwards it was proposed that Giulio Romano and Giovan Francesco, called Il Fattore, should be made heads of the world of art in place of Raffaello, who was dead, to the end that they might distribute the various works to the others, according to the previous custom. But Perino, in executing an escutcheon of the Pope in fresco over the door of Cardinal Cesarino, after the cartoon of Giulio Romano, acquitted himself so excellently well, that they doubted whether he would not be preferred to themselves, because, although they were known as the disciples of Raffaello and as the heirs to his possessions, they had not inherited the whole of the art and grace that he used to give to his figures with colours. Giulio and Giovan Francesco therefore made up their minds to attach Perino to themselves; and so in the holy year of Jubilee, 1525, they gave him Caterina, the sister of Giovan Francesco, for wife, to the end that the perfect friendship which had been maintained between them for so long might be converted into kinship. Thereupon, continuing the works that he had in hand, no long time had passed when, on account of the praises bestowed upon him for the first work executed by him in S. Marcello, it was resolved by the Prior of that convent and by certain heads of the Company of the Crocifisso, which has a chapel there built by its members as a place of assembly, that the chapel should be painted; and so they allotted this work to Perino, in the hope of having some excellent painting by his hand. Perino, having caused the staging to be erected, began the work; and in the centre of the barrel-shaped vaulting he painted the scene when God, after creating Adam, takes his wife Eve from his side. In this scene Adam, a most beautiful naked figure painted with perfect art, is seen lying overcome by sleep, while Eve, with great vivacity, rises to her feet with the hands clasped and receives the benediction of her Maker, the figure of whom is depicted grave in aspect and sublime in majesty, standing with many draperies about Him, which curve round His nude form with their borders. On one side, on the right hand, are two Evangelists, S. Mark and S. John, the first of whom Perino finished entirely, and also the second with the exception of the head and a naked arm. Between these two Evangelists, by way of ornament, he made two little boys embracing a candelabrum, which are truly of living flesh; and the Evangelists, likewise, in the heads, the draperies, the arms, and all that he painted in them with his own hand, are very beautiful. While he was executing this work, he suffered many interruptions from illness and from other misfortunes, such as happen every day to all who live in this world; besides which, it is said that the men of the Company also ran short of money. And so long did this business drag on, that in the year 1527 there came upon them the ruin of Rome, when that city was given over to sack, many craftsmen were killed, and many works destroyed or carried away. Whereupon Perino, caught in that turmoil, and having a wife and a baby girl, ran from place to place in Rome with the child in his arms, seeking to save her, and finally, poor wretch, was taken prisoner and reduced to paying a ransom, which hit him so hard that he was like to go out of his mind. When the fury of the sack had abated, he was so crushed down by the fear that still possessed him, that all thought of art was worlds away from him, but nevertheless he painted canvases in gouache and other fantasies for certain Spanish soldiers; and after regaining his composure, he lived like the rest in some poor fashion. Alone among so many, Baviera, who had the engravings of Raffaello, had not lost much; wherefore, moved by the friendship that he had with Perino, and wishing to employ him, he commissioned him to draw some of the stories of the Gods transforming themselves in order to achieve the consummation of their loves. These were engraved on copper by Jacopo Caraglio, an excellent engraver of prints, who acquitted himself so well in the matter of these designs, that, preserving the outlines and manner of Perino, and hatching the work with beautiful facility, he sought also to impart to the engravings that grace and that delicacy which Perino had given to the drawings. While the havoc of the sack had destroyed Rome and driven away the inhabitants and the Pope himself, who was living at Orvieto, not many remaining in the city, and no business of any kind being done there, there arrived in Rome one Niccola Viniziano, a rare and even unrivalled master of embroidery, the servant of Prince Doria. He, moved by his long-standing friendship with Perino, and being a man who always favoured and wished well to the men of our arts, persuaded him to leave that misery and set out for Genoa, promising that he would so go to work with that Prince, who was a lover of art and delighted in painting, that he would commission Perino to execute some big works, and saying, moreover, that His Excellency had often told him that he would like to have a suite of rooms adorned with handsome decorations. It did not take much to persuade Perino, for he was oppressed by want and burning with desire to leave Rome; and he determined to depart with Niccola. Having therefore made arrangements for leaving his wife and daughter well cared for by relatives in Rome, and having put all his affairs in order, he set off for Genoa. Arriving there, and making himself known to that Prince by means of Niccola, his coming was as welcome to His Excellency as any agreeable experience that he had ever had in all his life. He was received, therefore, with the greatest possible warmth and gladness, and after many conversations and discussions they finally arranged that he should begin the work; and they decided that he should execute a palace adorned with stucco-work and with pictures in fresco, in oils, and of every kind, which I will strive to describe as briefly as I am able, with all the rooms, pictures, and general arrangement, saying nothing as to where Perino first began to labour, to the end that I may not obscure this work, which is the best of all those by his hand, with words. I begin, then, by saying that at the entrance of the Prince's Palace there is a marble portal composed in the Doric Order, and built after designs and models by the hand of Perino, with all its appurtenances of pedestals, socles, shafts, capitals, architrave, frieze, cornice and pediment, and with some most beautiful seated figures of women, who are supporting an escutcheon. The masonry and carving of this work were executed by Maestro Giovanni da Fiesole, and the figures were finished to perfection by Silvio, the sculptor of Fiesole, a bold and resolute master. Entering within the portal, one finds over the vestibule a vault covered with stucco-work, varied scenes, and grotesques, and little arches in each of which are scenes of war and various kinds of battles, some fighting on foot and others on horseback, and all wrought with truly extraordinary diligence and art. On the left one finds the staircase, which has decorations of little grotesques after the antique that could not be richer or more beautiful, with various scenes and little figures, masks, children, animals, and other things of fancy, executed with that invention and judgment that always marked his work, insomuch that of their kind they may well be called divine. Having ascended the staircase, one comes into a most beautiful loggia, which has at each end a very handsome door of stone; and over each of these doors, in the pediment, are painted two figures, one male and the other female, represented in directly opposite attitudes, one showing the front view and the other the back. The vaulting has five arches, and is wrought superbly in stucco, and it is also divided by pictures in certain ovals, containing scenes executed with the most perfect beauty that could be achieved; and the walls are painted down to the floor with many seated figures of captains in armour, some drawn from life and some from imagination, and representing all the ancient and modern captains of the house of Doria, and above them are large letters of gold, which run thus--"Magni viri, maximi duces, optima fecere pro patria." In the first hall, which opens into the loggia and is entered by one of the two doors, that on the left hand, there are most beautiful ornaments of stucco on the corners of the vaulting, and in the centre there is a large scene of the Shipwreck of Æneas in the sea, in which are nude figures, living and dead, in attitudes of infinite variety, besides a good number of ships and galleys, some sound and some shattered by the fury of the tempest; not without beautiful considerations in the figures of the living, who are striving to save themselves, and expressions of terror that are produced in their features by the struggle with the waves, the danger of death, and all the emotions aroused by the perils of the sea. This was the first scene and the first work that Perino began for the Prince. It is said that when he arrived in Genoa, Girolamo da Treviso had already appeared there in advance of him in order to execute certain pictures, and was painting a wall that faced towards the garden. And after Perino had begun to draw the cartoon for the scene of the Shipwreck that has been described above, while he was taking his time about it, amusing himself and seeing Genoa, and labouring only at intervals at the cartoon, although a great part was finished in various ways and those nudes were drawn, some in chiaroscuro, some in charcoal, and others in black chalk, some being drawn in imitation of gradine-work, others shaded, and others again only outlined; while, I say, Perino was going on in this way, without beginning to paint, Girolamo da Treviso murmured against him, saying, "Cartoons, and nothing but cartoons! I have my art at the tip of my brush." Decrying him very often in this or some other similar manner, it came to the ears of Perino, who, taking offence, straightway caused his cartoon to be fixed to the vaulting where the scene was to be painted, and the boards of his staging to be removed in many places, to the end that the work might be seen from below; and then he threw open the hall. Which hearing, all Genoa ran to see it, and, amazed by Perino's grand design, they praised him to the skies. Thither, among others, went Girolamo da Treviso, who saw what he had never thought to see from the hand of Perino; whereupon, dumbfoundered by the beauty of the work, he departed from Genoa without asking leave of Prince Doria, and returned to Bologna, where he lived. Perino was thus left alone in the service of the Prince, and finished that hall, painting it in oils on the surface of the walls; and it was held to be, as indeed it is, a thing unrivalled in its beauty, with its lovely work in stucco in the centre of the vaulting and all around, even below the lunettes, as I have described. In the other hall, into which one enters by the right-hand door in the loggia, he executed on the vaulting works in stucco almost similar in design to those of the other, and painted pictures in fresco of Jove slaying the Giants with his thunderbolts, in which are many very beautiful nudes, larger than life. In the Heaven, likewise, are all the Gods, who are making gestures of great vivacity and truly appropriate to their natures, amid the terrible uproar of the thunder; besides which, the stucco-work is executed with supreme diligence, and the fresco-colouring could not be more beautiful, seeing that Perino was very able--indeed, a perfect master--in that field. Near this he adorned four chambers, the ceilings of which are all wrought in stucco, and distributed among them, in fresco, are the most beautiful fables from Ovid, which have all the appearance of reality, nor could any one imagine the beauty, the abundance, the variety, and the great numbers of the little figures, animals, foliage, and grotesques that are in them, all executed with lively invention. Beside the other hall, likewise, he adorned four more chambers, but only directing the work, which was carried out by his assistants, although he gave them the designs both of the stucco-decorations and of the scenes, figures, and grotesques, upon which a vast number of them worked, some little and some much; such as Luzio Romano, who did much work in stucco there and many grotesques, and a number of Lombards. Let it suffice to say that there is no room there that has not something by his hand and is not full of ornaments, even to the space below the vaulting, with various compositions full of children, bizarre masks, and animals, which all defies description; not to mention that the little studies, the antechambers, the closets, and all other parts of the palace, are painted and made beautiful. From the palace one passes into the garden and into a low building, which has the most ornate decorations in all the rooms, even below the ceilings, and so also the halls, chambers, and anterooms, all adorned by the same hand. In this work Pordenone also took a part, as I said in his Life, and likewise Domenico Beccafumi of Siena, a very rare painter, who showed that he was not inferior to any of the others, although the works by his hand that are in Siena are the most excellent among the vast number that he painted. But to return to the works that Perino executed after those that he did in the Palace of the Prince; he executed a frieze in a room in the house of Giannetin Doria, containing most beautiful women, and he did many works for various gentlemen throughout the city, both in fresco and in oil-colours. He painted a most beautiful altar-piece, very finely designed, for S. Francesco, and another for a church called S. Maria "de Consolatione," at the commission of a gentleman of the house of Baciadonne: in which picture he painted the Nativity of Christ, a work that is much extolled, but it was placed in a position so dark, that, by reason of the light not being good enough, one is not able to recognize its perfection, and all the more because Perino strove to paint it in a dark manner, so that it has need of a strong light. He also made drawings of the greater part of the Æneid, with the stories of Dido, from which tapestries were woven; and he likewise drew beautiful ornaments for the poops of galleys, which were carved and finished to perfection by Carota and Tasso, wood-carvers of Florence, who proved excellently well how able they were in that art. And in addition to all these things he also executed a vast number of works on cloth for the galleys of the Prince, and the largest standards that could be made for their adornment and embellishment. Wherefore he was so beloved by that Prince for his fine qualities, that, if he had continued to serve him, the Prince would have richly rewarded his abilities. But while he was working in Genoa, the fancy came to him to fetch his wife from Rome, and so he bought a house in Pisa, being pleased with that city and half thinking of choosing it as his place of habitation when old age should come upon him. Now at that time the Warden of the Duomo at Pisa was M. Antonio di Urbano, who had a very great desire to embellish that temple, and had already caused a beginning to be made with some very beautiful ornaments of marble for the chapels of the church, which had been executed by the hand of Stagio da Pietrasanta, a very able and well practised carver of marble: removing some old, clumsy, and badly proportioned chapels that were there. Having thus made a beginning, the Warden proposed to fill up those ornaments in the interior with altar-pieces in oils, and on the outer side with a series of scenes in fresco and decorations in stucco, by the hands of the best and most excellent masters that he could find, without grudging any expense that might be incurred. He had already set to work on the sacristy, which he had placed in the great recess behind the high-altar, and there the ornamentation of marble was already finished, and many pictures had been painted by the Florentine painter Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, the rest of which, together with the altar-pieces and the chapels that were wanting, were finished many years afterwards by order of M. Sebastiano della Seta, the Warden of the Duomo in those days. At that time Perino returned from Genoa to Pisa, and, having seen that beginning, at the instance of Battista del Cervelliera, a person well conversant with art and a most ingenious master of wood-carving, perspective, and inlaying, he was presented to the Warden. After they had discoursed together on the subject of the works of the Duomo, Perino was asked to paint an altar-piece for an ornament immediately within the ordinary door of entrance, the ornamental frame being already finished, and above that a scene of S. George slaying the Dragon and delivering the King's Daughter. Perino therefore made a most beautiful design, which included a row of children and other ornaments in fresco between one chapel and the other, and niches with Prophets and scenes of various kinds; and this design pleased the Warden. And so, having made the cartoon for one of them, the first one, that opposite to the door mentioned above, he began to execute it in colour, and finished six children, which are very well painted. He was to have continued this right round, which would have made a very rich and very beautiful decoration; and the whole work together would have proved to be something very handsome. But he was seized with a desire to return to Genoa, where he had involved himself in love affairs and other pleasures, to which he was inclined at certain times: and on his departure he gave to the Nuns of S. Maffeo a little altar-piece that he had painted for them in oils, which is now in their possession in the convent. Then, having arrived in Genoa, he stayed there many months, executing other works for the Prince. His departure from Pisa displeased the Warden greatly, and even more the circumstance that the work remained unfinished; wherefore he did not cease to write to him every day that he should return, or to make inquiries from Perino's wife, whom he had left in Pisa. But finally, perceiving that the matter would never end, Perino neither answering nor returning, he allotted the altar-piece of that chapel to Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, who finished it and set it into its place. Not long after this Perino returned to Pisa, and, seeing the work of Sogliani, flew into a rage, and would on no account continue what he had begun, saying that he did not choose that his pictures should serve as ornaments for those of other masters; wherefore, so far as concerned him, that work remained unfinished. Giovanni Antonio carried it on to such purpose that he painted four altar-pieces: but these, at a later date, appeared to Sebastiano della Seta, the new Warden, to be all in the same manner, and somewhat less beautiful than the first, and he allotted to Domenico Beccafumi of Siena--after proving his worth from some pictures that he painted round the sacristy, which are very beautiful--an altar-piece which he executed in Pisa. This not giving as much satisfaction as the first pictures, he caused the two last that were wanting to be painted by Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo; and they were placed at the two doors beside the corner-walls of the main façade of the church. Of these, as well as of many other works, both large and small, that are dispersed throughout Italy and various places abroad, it does not become me to say more, and I will leave the right of free judgment about them to all who have seen or may see them. The loss of this work caused real vexation to Perino, he having already made the designs for it, which gave promise that it would prove to be something worthy of him, and likely to give that temple great fame over and above that of its antiquities, and also to make Perino immortal. During the many years of his sojourn in Genoa, although he drew both profit and pleasure from that city, Perino had grown weary of it, as he remembered Rome in the happy days of Leo. But although, during the lifetime of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, he had received letters inviting him into his service, and he had been disposed to enter it, the death of that lord brought it about that he hesitated to repatriate himself. While matters stood thus, with his many friends urging his return, himself desiring it infinitely more than any of them, and several letters being exchanged, one morning, in the end, the fancy took him, and without saying a word he set off from Pisa and made his way to Rome. There, after making himself known to the most reverend Cardinal Farnese, and then to Pope Paul, he stayed many months without doing anything; first, because he was put off from one day to another, and then because he was attacked by some infirmity in one of his arms, on account of which he spent several hundreds of crowns, to say nothing of the discomfort, before he could be cured of it. Wherefore, having no one to maintain him, and being vexed by his cold welcome from the Court, he was tempted many times to go away; but Molza and many other friends exhorted him to have patience, telling him that Rome was no longer what she had been, and that now she expected that a man should be exhausted and weary of her before she would choose and cherish him as her own, and particularly if he were pursuing the path of some fine art. At this time M. Pietro de' Massimi bought a chapel in the Trinità, with the vaulting and the lunettes painted and adorned with stucco, and the altar-piece painted in oils, all by Giulio Romano and Perino's brother-in-law, Giovan Francesco; and that gentleman was desirous to have it finished. In the lunettes were four stories of S. Mary Magdalene in fresco, and in the altar-piece in oils was Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene in the form of a gardener; and M. Pietro first caused a gilt frame of wood to be made for the altar-piece, which had a miserable one of stucco, and then allotted the walls to Perino, who, having caused the staging and the screen to be erected, set his hand to the work, and after many months brought it to completion. He made a design of bizarre and beautiful grotesques, partly in low-relief and partly painted; and he executed two little scenes of no great size, one on each wall, surrounding them with an ornament in stucco of great variety. In one scene was the Pool of Bethesda, with all the cripples and sick persons, and the Angel who comes to move the waters, the porticoes seen most beautifully foreshortened in perspective, and the movements and vestments of the priests, all painted with great grace and vivacity, although the figures are not very large. In the other, he painted the Raising of Lazarus after he had been dead four days, wherein he is seen newly restored to life, and still marked by the pallor and fear of death: and round him are many who are unswathing him, and not a few who are marvelling, and others struck with awe, besides which the scene is adorned with some little temples that recede into the distance, executed with supreme lovingness, as are also the works in stucco all around. There are likewise four very small scenes, two to each wall, and one on either side of the larger scene; in one of which is the Centurion beseeching Christ that He should heal with a word his son who is dying, in another Christ driving the traders from the Temple, in a third the Transfiguration, and in the last a similar scene. And on the projections of the pilasters within the chapel he painted four figures in the guise of Prophets, which, in their proportions, their excellence, and their beauty, are as well executed and finished as they could well be. In a word, the whole work was carried out with such diligence, and is so delicate, that it resembles miniature rather than painting. In it may be seen much charm and vivacity of colouring, and signs of great patience in its execution, revealing that true love which should be felt for art; and he painted this whole work with his own hand, although he had a great part of the stucco-work executed after his designs by Guglielmo Milanese, whom he had formerly had with him at Genoa, loving him much, and once even offering to give him his daughter in marriage. This Guglielmo, in reward for restoring the antiquities of the house of Farnese, has now been made Friar of the Piombo, in the place of Fra Sebastiano Viniziano. I must not omit to tell that against one wall of this chapel was a most beautiful tomb of marble, with a dead woman of marble, beautifully carved by the sculptor Bologna, on the sarcophagus, and two little naked boys at the sides. The countenance of that woman was a lifelike portrait of a very famous courtezan of Rome, who left that memorial of herself, which was removed by the friars because they felt scruples that such a woman should have been laid to rest there with so much honour. This work, with many designs that he made, was the reason that the very reverend Cardinal Farnese began to give him an allowance and to make use of him in many works. By order of Pope Paul, a chimney-piece that was in the Chamber of the Burning of the Borgo was placed in that of the Segnatura, where there were the panellings with perspective views in wood executed by the hand of the carver Fra Giovanni for Pope Julius. Raffaello had painted both of those chambers; but it became necessary to repaint all the base to the scenes in the Chamber of the Segnatura, which is that in which is the picture of Mount Parnassus. On which account a decorative design in imitation of marble was painted by Perino, with various terminal figures, festoons, masks, and other ornaments; and, in certain spaces, scenes painted to look like bronze, which are very beautiful for works in fresco. In these scenes, even as above them were Philosophers discoursing on Philosophy, Theologians on Theology, and Poets on Poetry, were all the actions of those who have been eminent in those professions. And although he did not execute them all with his own hand, he retouched them so much "a secco," besides making perfectly finished cartoons, that they may almost be said to be entirely by his hand; which method he employed because, being troubled by a catarrh, he was not fit for so much labour. Whereupon the Pope, recognizing that he deserved something both on account of his age and for all his work, and hearing him much recommended, gave him an allowance of twenty-five ducats a month, which lasted up to his death, on the condition that he should have charge of the Palace and of the house of the Farnese family. By this time Michelagnolo Buonarroti had uncovered the wall with the Last Judgment in the Papal Chapel, and there remained still unpainted the base below, where there was to be fixed a screen of arras woven in silk and gold, like the tapestries that adorn the Chapel. Wherefore, the Pope having ordained that the weaving should be done in Flanders, it was arranged with the consent of Michelagnolo that Perino should begin to paint a canvas of the same size, which he did, executing in it women, children and terminal figures, holding festoons, and all very lifelike, with the most bizarre things of fancy; but this work, which was truly worthy of him and of the divine picture that it was to adorn, remained unfinished after his death in some apartments of the Belvedere. After this, Antonio da San Gallo having finished the building of the Great Hall of Kings in front of the Chapel of Sixtus IV in the Papal Palace, Perino divided the ceiling into a large pattern of octagonal compartments, crosses, and ovals, both sunk and in relief; which done, Perino was also commissioned to adorn it with stucco-work, with the richest and most beautiful ornaments that could be produced by all the resources of that art. He thus began it, and in the octagons, in place of rosettes, he made four little boys in full relief, who, with their feet pointing to the centre and their arms forming a circle, make a most beautiful rosette, and in the rest of the compartments are all the devices of the house of Farnese, with the arms of the Pope in the centre of the vaulting. And this work in stucco may be said with truth to have surpassed in mastery of execution, in beauty, and in delicacy, all those that have ever been done by ancients or moderns, and to be truly worthy of the head of the Christian religion. After the designs of the same man, likewise, the glass windows were executed by Pastorino da Siena, an able master of that craft; and Perino caused the walls below to be prepared with very beautiful ornaments in stucco, intending to paint scenes there with his own hand, which were afterwards continued by the painter Daniello Ricciarelli of Volterra, who, if death had not cut short the noble aspirations that he had, would have proved how the moderns have the courage not only to equal the ancients with their works, but perhaps even to surpass them by a great measure. While the stucco-work of this vaulting was in progress, and Perino was considering the designs for his scenes, the old walls of the Church of S. Pietro at Rome were being pulled down to make way for those of the new building, and the masons came to a wall where there was a Madonna, with other pictures, by the hand of Giotto; which being seen by Perino, who was in the company of Messer Niccolò Acciaiuoli, a Florentine doctor and much his friend, both of them were moved to pity for that picture and would not allow it to be destroyed; nay, having caused the wall to be cut away around it, they had it well braced with beams and bars of iron and deposited below the organ of S. Pietro, in a place where there was neither altar nor any other consecrated object. And before the wall that had been round the Madonna was pulled down, Perino copied the figure of Orso dell' Anguillara, the Roman Senator who had crowned M. Francesco Petrarca on the Campidoglio, and who was at the feet of that Madonna. Round the picture of the Madonna were to be made some ornaments in stucco and painting, and together with them a memorial to a certain Niccolò Acciaiuoli, who had formerly been a Roman Senator; and Perino, having made the designs, straightway set his hand to the work, and, assisted by his young men and by Marcello Mantovano, his disciple, carried it out with great diligence. In the same S. Pietro the Sacrament did not occupy, with regard to masonry, a very honourable position; wherefore certain deputies were appointed from the Company of the Sacrament, who ordained that a chapel should be built in the centre of the old church by Antonio da San Gallo, partly with remains in the form of ancient marble columns, and partly with other ornaments of marble, bronze, and stucco, placing in the centre a tabernacle by the hand of Donatello, by way of further adornment; and Perino executed there a very beautiful ceiling with many minute scenes full of figures from the Old Testament, symbolical of the Sacrament. In the middle of it, also, he painted a somewhat larger scene, containing the Last Supper of Christ with the Apostles, and below it two Prophets, one on either side of the body of Christ. The same master, likewise, caused his young men to paint in the Church of S. Giuseppe, near the Ripetta, the chapel of that church, which was afterwards retouched and finished by himself; and he also had a chapel painted after his designs in the Church of S. Bartolommeo in Isola, which he retouched in like manner, and caused some scenes to be painted at the high-altar of S. Salvatore del Lauro, with some grotesques on the vaulting, and likewise an Annunciation on the façade outside, which was executed by his pupil, Girolamo Sermoneta. Thus, then, partly because he was not able, and partly because the labour wearied him, liking to design his works rather than to execute them, he pursued the same course that Raffaello da Urbino had formerly followed at the end of his life. How harmful and how blameworthy is this practice, is proved by the Chigi works and by all those carried out by other hands, and is also shown by those that Perino caused to be executed in the same way; besides which, those works of Giulio Romano's that he did not paint with his own hand have not done him much honour. And although this method pleases Princes, giving them their works quickly, and perhaps benefits the craftsmen who labour upon them, yet, if they were the ablest men in the world, they could never feel that love for the works of others which a man feels for his own. Nor, however well drawn the cartoons may be, can they be imitated as exactly and as thoroughly as by the hand of their author, who, seeing the work going to ruin, in despair leaves it to fall into complete destruction. He, then, who thirsts for honour, should do his own painting. This I can say from experience, for after I had laboured with the greatest possible pains on the cartoons for the Hall of the Cancelleria in the Palace of S. Giorgio in Rome, the work having to be executed with great haste in a hundred days, a vast number of painters were employed to paint it, who departed so far from their outlines and their true form, that I made a resolution, to which I have adhered, that from that time onward no one should lay a hand on any works of mine. Whoever, therefore, wishes to ensure long life for his name and his works, should undertake fewer and do them all with his own hand, if he desires to obtain that full meed of honour that a man of exalted genius seeks to acquire. I say, then, that Perino, by reason of the number of the labours committed to his care, was forced to employ many persons; and he thirsted rather for gain than for glory, considering that he had thrown away his life and had saved nothing in his youth. And it vexed him so much to see young men coming forward to undertake work, that he sought to enroll them all under his own command, to the end that they might not encroach on his position. Now in the year 1546 there came to Rome the Venetian Tiziano da Cadore, a painter highly celebrated for his portraits, who, having formerly taken a portrait of Pope Paul at the time when His Holiness went to Busseto, without exacting any remuneration either for that or for some others that he had executed for Cardinal Farnese and Santa Fiore, was received by those prelates with the greatest honour in the Belvedere; at which a rumour arose in the Court, and then spread throughout Rome, to the effect that he had come in order to paint scenes with his own hand in the Hall of Kings in the Palace, where Perino was to paint them and the stucco-work was already in progress. This arrival caused much vexation to Perino, and he complained of it to many of his friends, not because he believed that Tiziano was likely to surpass him at painting historical scenes in fresco, but because he desired to occupy himself with that work peacefully and honourably until his death, and, if he was to do it, he wished to do it without competition, the wall and the vaulting by Michelagnolo in the Chapel close by being more than enough for him by way of comparison. That suspicion was the reason that while Tiziano stayed in Rome, Perino always avoided him, and remained in an ill-humour until his departure. The Castellan of the Castello di S. Angelo, Tiberio Crispo, who was afterwards made a Cardinal, being a person who delighted in our arts, made up his mind to beautify the Castle, and rebuilt loggie, chambers, halls, and apartments in a very handsome manner, in order to be able to receive His Holiness more worthily when he went there. Many rooms and other ornaments were executed from the designs and under the direction of Raffaello da Montelupo, and then in the end by Antonio da San Gallo, and a loggia was wrought in stucco under the supervision of Raffaello, who also made the Angel of marble, a figure six braccia high, which was placed on the summit of the highest tower in the Castle. Tiberio then caused the said loggia, which is the one facing the meadows, to be painted by Girolamo Sermoneta; which finished, the rest of the rooms were entrusted in part to Luzio Romano, and finally the halls and other important apartments were finished partly by Perino with his own hand, and partly by others after his cartoons. The principal hall is very pleasing and beautiful, being wrought in stucco and all filled with scenes from Roman history, executed for the most part by Perino's young men, and not a few by the hand of Marco da Siena, the disciple of Domenico Beccafumi; and in certain rooms there are most beautiful friezes. Perino, when he could find young men of ability, was wont to make use of them willingly in his works; but for all that he never ceased to execute any commonplace commission. He very often painted pennons for trumpets, banners for the Castle, and those of the fleet of the Militant Order; and he executed hangings, tabards, door-curtains, and the most insignificant works of art. He began some canvases from which tapestries were to be woven for Prince Doria, and he painted a chapel for the very reverend Cardinal Farnese, and a writing-study for the most illustrious Madama Margherita of Austria. He caused an ornamental frame to be made round the Madonna in S. Maria del Pianto, and also another ornamental frame round the Madonna in Piazza Giudea; and he executed many other works, of which, by reason of their number, I will not now make any further mention, particularly because he was accustomed to accept any sort of work that came to his hand. This disposition of Perino's, which was well known to the officials of the Palace, was the reason that he always had something to do for one or another of them, and he did it willingly, in order to bind them to himself, so that they might be obliged to serve him in the payment of his allowances and in his other requirements. In addition to this, Perino had acquired such authority that all the work in Rome was allotted to him, for the reason that, besides the circumstance that it appeared to be in a certain sense his due, he would sometimes execute commissions for the most paltry prices; whereby he did little good, nay rather, much harm, to himself and to art. That these words are true is proved by this, that if he had undertaken to paint the Hall of Kings in the Palace on his own account, and had worked at it together with his own assistants, he would have saved several hundreds of crowns, which all went to the overseers who had charge of the work and paid the daily wages to those who worked there. Thus, having undertaken a burden so heavy and so laborious, and being infirm and enfeebled by catarrh, he was not able to endure such discomforts, having to draw day and night and to meet the demands of the Palace, and, among other things, to make the designs of embroideries, of engravings for banner-makers, and of innumerable ornaments required by the caprice of Farnese and other Cardinals and noblemen. In short, having his mind incessantly occupied, and being always surrounded by sculptors, masters in stucco, wood-carvers, seamsters, embroiderers, painters, gilders, and other suchlike craftsmen, he had never an hour of repose; and the only happiness and contentment that he knew in this life was to find himself at times with some of his friends at a tavern, which was his favourite haunt in all the places where it fell to his lot to live, considering that this was the true blessedness and peace of this world, and the only repose from his labours. And thus, having ruined his constitution by the fatigues of his art and by his excesses in eating and in love, he was attacked by asthma, which, sapping his strength little by little, finally caused him to sink into consumption; and one evening, while talking with a friend near his house, he fell dead of an apoplectic seizure in his forty-seventh year. At this many craftsmen felt infinite sorrow, it being a truly great loss that art suffered; and he received honourable burial from his son-in-law, M. Gioseffo Cincio, the physician of Madama, and from his wife, in the Chapel of S. Giuseppe in the Ritonda at Rome, with the following epitaph: PERINO BONACCURSIO VAGÆ FLORENTINO, QUI INGENIO ET ARTE SINGULARI EGREGIOS CUM PICTORES PERMULTOS, TUM PLASTAS OMNES FACILE SUPERAVIT, CATHERINA PERINI CONJUGI, LAVINIA BONACCURSIA PARENTI, JOSEPHUS CINCIUS SOCERO CARISSIMO ET OPTIMO FECERE. VIXIT ANN. 46, MEN. 3, DIES 21. MORTUUS EST 14 CALEND. NOVEMB. ANN. CHRIST. 1547. The place of Perino was filled by Daniello of Volterra, who had worked much with him, and who finished the two other Prophets that are in the Chapel of the Crocifisso in S. Marcello. Daniello has also adorned a chapel in S. Trinità most beautifully with stucco-work and painting, for Signora Elena Orsina; with many other works, of which mention will be made in the proper place. Perino, then, as may be seen from the works described and from many others that might be mentioned, was one of the most versatile painters of our times, in that he assisted the craftsmen to work excellently in stucco, and executed grotesques, landscapes, animals, and all the other things of which a painter can have knowledge, using colours in fresco, in oils, and in distemper. Whence it may be said that he was the father of these most noble arts, seeing that his talents live in those who are continually imitating him in every honourable field of art. After Perino's death were published many prints taken from his drawings, such as the Slaying of the Giants that he executed in Genoa, eight stories of S. Peter taken from the Acts of the Apostles, of which he made designs for the embroidering of a cope for Pope Paul III, and many other things, which are known by the manner. Perino made use of many young men, and taught the secrets of art to many disciples; but the best of them all, and the one of whom he availed himself more than of any other, was Girolamo Siciolante of Sermoneta, of whom there will be an account in the proper place. His disciple, likewise, was Marcello Mantovano, who executed on a wall at the entrance of the Castello di S. Angelo, after the design and under the direction of Perino, a Madonna with many Saints in fresco, which was a very beautiful thing; but of his works as well there will be an account elsewhere. Perino left many designs at his death, some by his hand and some by others; among the latter, one of the whole Chapel of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, drawn by the hand of Leonardo Cungi of Borgo a San Sepolcro, which was an excellent work. All these designs, with other things, were sold by his heirs; and in our book are many drawings done by him with the pen, which are very beautiful. FOOTNOTE: [27] Or Perino. [28] Vasari sometimes groups under this name all the male figures that appear in a picture of the Deposition from the Cross. GIORGIO VASARI TO THE CRAFTSMEN IN DESIGN TO THE CRAFTSMEN IN DESIGN GIORGIO VASARI EXCELLENT AND WELL-BELOVED BROTHER-CRAFTSMEN-- So great has always been the delight, to say nothing of the profit and honour, that I have derived from practising my hand to the best of my ability in this most noble art of ours, that I have not only had a burning desire to exalt and to celebrate her, and to honour her in every manner open to me, but have also been full of affection for all those who have taken the same pleasure in her and have succeeded in practising her more happily than I, perhaps, have been able to do. And from this my good will, so full of the most sincere affection, it appears to me that I have gathered hitherto fruits that are an ample reward, for I have been always loved and honoured by you all, and we have been united in the most perfect intimacy or brotherhood, I know not which to call it; mutually showing our works to one another, I to you and you to me, and helping one another with counsel and assistance whenever the occasion has presented itself. Wherefore I have always felt myself deeply bound by this loving fellowship, and much more by your excellent abilities, and no less, also, by this my inclination, by nature, and by a most powerful attraction, to assist and serve you in every way and every matter wherein I have considered myself able to bring you pleasure or advantage. To this end I published in the year 1550 the Lives of our best and most famous Craftsmen, moved by a cause that has been mentioned in another place, and also, to tell the truth, by a generous indignation that so much talent should have been for so long a time, and should still remain, buried in oblivion. And this my labour appears not to have been in any way unwelcome; on the contrary, so acceptable, that, not to mention what has been said and written to me from many quarters, out of the vast number that were printed at that time, there is not one single volume to be found at the booksellers. Thus, therefore, receiving every day requests from many friends, and understanding no less clearly the unexpressed desires of many others, once more, although in the midst of most important undertakings, I have applied myself to the same labour, with the intention not only of adding those masters who have passed to a better world between that time and the present, thus giving me the opportunity of writing their Lives in full, but also of supplying that which may have been wanting to the perfection of my first work. For since then I have had leisure to come to a better knowledge of many matters, and to re-examine others, not only by the favour of these my most illustrious Lords, whom I serve, the true refuge and protection of all the arts, but also through the facilities that they have given me to search the whole of Italy once again and to see and understand many things which had not before come under my notice. I have been able, therefore, not merely to make corrections, but also to add so many things, that many of the Lives may be said to have been almost written anew; while some, indeed, even of the old masters, which were not there before, have been added. Nor, the better to revive the memory of those whom I so greatly honour, have I grudged the great labour, pains and expense of seeking out their portraits, which I have placed at the head of their Lives. And for the greater satisfaction of many friends not of our profession, who are yet devoted lovers of art, I have included in a compendium the greater part of the works of those who are still living and are worthy to be for ever renowned on account of their abilities; for that scruple which formerly restrained me can have no place here in the opinion of any thoughtful reader, since I deal with no works save those that are excellent and worthy of praise. And this may perchance serve as a spur to make every craftsman continue to labour worthily and advance unceasingly from good to better; insomuch that he who shall write the rest of this history, may be able to give it more grandeur and majesty, having occasion to describe those rarer and more perfect works which, begun from time to time through the desire of immortality, and finished by the loving care of intellects so divine, the world in days to come shall see issuing from your hands. And the young men who follow with their studies, incited by hope of glory (if hope of gain has not enough force), may perchance be inspired by such an example to attain to excellence. And to the end that this work may prove to be in every way complete, and that there may be no need to seek anything outside its pages, I have added a great part of the works of the most celebrated craftsmen of antiquity, both Greek and of other nations, whose memory has been preserved down to our own day by Pliny and other writers, without whose pens they would have been buried, like many others, in eternal oblivion. And this consideration, also, may perchance increase the willingness of men in general to labour valiantly, and may impel and inspire us all, as we behold the nobility and greatness of our art, and how she has always been prized and rewarded by all nations, and particularly by the most lofty minds and the most powerful Princes, to leave the world adorned by works infinite in number and unsurpassed in excellence; whence, rendered beautiful by us, it may give to us that rank which it has given to those ever marvellous and celebrated spirits. Accept, then, with a friendly mind, these my labours, which, whatever they may be, have been lovingly carried to conclusion by me for the glory of art and for the honour of her craftsmen, and take them as a sure token and pledge of my heart, which is desirous of nothing more ardently than of your greatness and glory, in which, seeing that I also have been received by you into your company (for which I render my thanks to you, and congratulate myself not a little on my own account), I shall always consider myself in a certain sense a participator. DOMENICO BECCAFUMI LIFE OF DOMENICO BECCAFUMI OF SIENA PAINTER AND MASTER OF CASTING That same quality, the pure gift of nature, which has been seen in Giotto and in some others among those painters of whom we have spoken hitherto, has been revealed most recently in Domenico Beccafumi, the painter of Siena, in that he, while guarding some sheep for his father Pacio, the labourer of the Sienese citizen Lorenzo Beccafumi, was observed to practise his hand by himself, child as he was, in drawing sometimes on stones and sometimes in other ways. It happened that the said Lorenzo saw him one day drawing various things with a pointed stick on the sand of a small stream, where he was watching his little charges, and he asked for the child from his father, meaning to employ him as his servant, and at the same time to have him taught. The boy, therefore, who was then called Mecherino, having been given up by his father Pacio to Lorenzo, was taken to Siena, where Lorenzo caused him for a while to spend all the spare time that he had after his household duties in the workshop of a painter who was his neighbour. This painter, who was no great craftsman, caused Mecherino to learn all that he could not himself teach him from designs by eminent painters that he had in his possession, of which he availed himself for his own purposes, as those masters are wont to do who are not very able in design. Exercising his hand, therefore, in this manner, Mecherino gave promise of being destined to become an excellent painter. During this time Pietro Perugino, then a famous painter, came to Siena, where, as has been related, he painted two altar-pieces; and his manner pleased Domenico greatly, so that he set himself to study it and to copy those altar-pieces, and no long time passed before he had caught that manner. Then, after the Chapel of Michelagnolo and the works of Raffaello da Urbino had been thrown open in Rome, Domenico, who desired nothing so much as to learn, and knew that he was losing his time in Siena, took leave of Lorenzo Beccafumi, from whom he acquired the family name of Beccafumi, and made his way to Rome. There he placed himself under a painter, who gave him board and lodging, and executed many works in company with him, giving his attention at the same time to studying the works of Michelagnolo, Raffaello, and other eminent masters, and the marvellous statues and sarcophagi of antiquity. No long time passed, therefore, before he became a bold draughtsman, fertile in invention, and a very pleasing colourist; but during this period, which did not exceed two years, he did nothing worthy of record save a façade in the Borgo with an escutcheon of Pope Julius II in colour. Meanwhile, there had been brought to Siena by a merchant of the Spannocchi family, as will be related in the proper place, the painter Giovanni Antonio of Vercelli, a young man of passing good ability, who was much employed, particularly in making portraits from life, by the gentlemen of that city, which has always been the friend and patron of all men of talent. Domenico, who was very desirous of returning to his own country, having heard this news, made his way back to Siena; and when he saw that Giovanni Antonio was very well grounded in drawing, which he knew to be the essence of the excellence of a craftsman, not resting content with what he had done in Rome, he set himself with the utmost zeal to follow him, devoting himself much to anatomy and to drawing nudes; which helped him so much, that in a short time he began to be greatly esteemed in that most noble city. Nor was he beloved less for his goodness and his character than for his art, for the reason that, whereas Giovanni Antonio was coarse, licentious, and eccentric, being called Il Sodoma because he always mixed and lived with beardless boys, and answering willingly enough to that name, Domenico, on the other hand, was a pattern of good conduct and uprightness, living like a Christian and keeping very much to himself. But such persons as are called merry fellows and good companions are very often more esteemed by men than the virtuous and orderly, and most of the young men of Siena followed Sodoma, extolling him as a man of originality. And this Sodoma, being an eccentric, and wishing to please the common herd, always kept at his house parrots, apes, dwarf donkeys, little Elba horses, a talking raven, barbs for running races, and other suchlike creatures; from which he had won such a name among the vulgar, that they spoke of nothing but his follies. Sodoma, then, had painted with colours in fresco the façade of the house of M. Agostino Bardi, and Domenico at the same time, in competition with him, painted the façade of a house of the Borghese, close to the Postierla column, near the Duomo, with which he took very great pains. Below the roof, in a frieze in chiaroscuro, he executed some little figures that were much extolled; and in the spaces between the three ranges of windows of travertine that adorn that palace, he painted many ancient gods and other figures in imitation of bronze, in chiaroscuro and in colour, which were more than passing good, although the work of Sodoma was more extolled. Both these façades were executed in the year 1512. Domenico afterwards painted for S. Benedetto, a seat of Monks of Monte Oliveto, without the Porta a Tufi, an altar-piece of S. Catharine of Siena in a building receiving the Stigmata, with a S. Benedict standing on her right hand, and on her left a S. Jerome in the habit of a Cardinal; which altar-piece, being very soft in colouring and strong in relief, was much praised, as it still is. In the predella of this picture, likewise, he painted some little scenes in distemper with incredible boldness and vivacity, and with such facility of design, that they could not be more graceful, and yet they have the appearance of having been executed without the slightest effort in the world. In one of these little scenes is the Angel placing in the mouth of that same S. Catharine part of the Host consecrated by the priest; in another is Jesus Christ marrying her, in a third she is receiving the habit from S. Dominic, and there are other stories. For the Church of S. Martino the same master painted a large altar-piece with Christ born and being adored by the Virgin, by Joseph, and by the Shepherds; and above the hut is a most beautiful choir of Angels dancing. In this work, which is much extolled by craftsmen, Domenico began to show to those who had some understanding that his works were painted with a different foundation from those of Sodoma. He then painted in fresco, in the Great Hospital, the Madonna visiting S. Elizabeth, in a manner very pleasing and very natural. And for the Church of S. Spirito he executed an altar-piece of the Madonna holding in her arms the Child, who is marrying the above-mentioned S. Catharine of Siena, and at the sides S. Bernardino, S. Francis, S. Jerome, and S. Catharine the Virgin-Martyr, with S. Peter and S. Paul upon some marble steps in front, on the polished surface of which he counterfeited with great art some reflections of the colour of their draperies. This work, which was executed with fine judgment and design, brought him much honour, as did also some little figures painted on the predella of the picture, in which is S. John baptizing Christ, a King causing the wife and children of S. Gismondo to be thrown into a well, S. Dominic burning the books of the heretics, Christ presenting to S. Catharine of Siena two crowns, one of roses and the other of thorns, and S. Bernardino of Siena preaching on the Piazza of Siena to a vast multitude. [Illustration: DOMENICO BECCAFUMI: S. CATHARINE BEFORE THE CRUCIFIX (_Siena_: _Pinacoteca_, 420. _Canvas_)] Next, by reason of the fame of these works, there was allotted to Domenico an altar-piece that was to be placed in the Carmine, in which he had to paint a S. Michael doing vengeance on Lucifer; and he, being full of fancy, set himself to think out a new invention, in order to display his talent and the beautiful conceptions of his brain. And so, seeking to represent Lucifer and his followers driven for their pride from Heaven to the lowest depths of Hell, he began a shower of nude figures raining down, which is very beautiful, although, from his having taken too great pains with it, it appears if anything rather confused. This altar-piece, which remained unfinished, was taken after the death of Domenico to the Great Hospital and placed at the top of some steps near the high-altar, where it is still regarded with marvel on account of some very beautiful foreshortenings in the nudes. In the Carmine, where this picture was to have been set up, was placed another, in the upper part of which is counterfeited a God the Father above the clouds with many Angels round Him, painted with marvellous grace; and in the centre of the picture is the Angel Michael in armour, flying, and pointing to Lucifer, whom he has driven to the centre of the earth, where there are burning buildings, rugged caverns, and a lake of fire, with Angels in various attitudes, and nude figures of lost souls, who are swimming with different gestures of agony in that fire. All this is painted with such beauty and grace of manner, that it appears that this marvellous work, in its thick darkness, is illuminated by the fire; wherefore it is held to be a rare picture. Baldassarre Peruzzi of Siena, an excellent painter, could never have his fill of praising it, and I myself, one day that I saw it uncovered in his company, while passing through Siena, was struck with astonishment by it, as I also was by the five little scenes that are in the predella, painted with distemper in a judicious and beautiful manner. For the Nuns of Ognissanti in the same city Domenico painted another altar-piece, in which is Christ on high in the heavens, crowning the Glorified Virgin, and below them are S. Gregory, S. Anthony, S. Mary Magdalene, and S. Catharine the Virgin-Martyr; and in the predella, likewise, are some very beautiful little figures executed in distemper. In the house of Signor Marcello Agostini Domenico painted some very lovely works in fresco on the ceiling of an apartment, which has three lunettes on each main side and two at each end, with a series of friezes that go right round. The centre of the ceiling is divided into two quadrangular compartments; in the first, where a silken arras is counterfeited as upheld by the ornament, there may be seen, as if woven upon it, Scipio Africanus restoring the young woman untouched to her husband, and in the other the celebrated painter Zeuxis, who is copying several nude women in order to paint his picture, which was to be placed in the Temple of Juno. In one of the lunettes, painted with little figures only about half a braccio high, but very beautiful, are the two Roman Brothers who, having been enemies, became friends for the public good and for the sake of their country. In that which follows is Torquatus,[29] who, in order to observe the laws, when his son has been condemned to lose his eyes, causes one of his son's and one of his own to be put out. In the next is the Petition of ...,[30] who, after hearing the recital of his crimes against his country and the Roman people, is put to death. In the lunette beside that one is the Roman people deliberating on the expedition of Scipio to Africa; and next to this, in another lunette, is an ancient sacrifice crowded with a variety of most beautiful figures, with a temple drawn in perspective, which has no little relief, for in that field Domenico was a truly excellent master. In the last is Cato killing himself after being overtaken by some horsemen that are most beautifully painted there. And in the recesses of the lunettes, also, are some little scenes very well finished. The excellence of this work was the reason that Domenico was recognized as a rare painter by those who were then governing, and was commissioned to paint the vaulting of a hall in the Palace of the Signori, to which he devoted all the diligence, study, and effort of which any man is capable, in order to prove his worth and to adorn that celebrated building of his native city, which was honouring him so much. This hall, which is two squares long and one square wide, has the ceiling made not with lunettes, but after the manner of a groined vaulting; wherefore Domenico executed the compartments in painting, thinking that this would give the best result, with friezes and cornices overlaid with gold, and all so beautifully, that, without any stucco-work or other ornaments, they are so well painted and so graceful that they appear to be really in relief. On each of the two ends of this hall there is a large picture with an historical scene, and on each main wall there are two, one on either side of an octagon; and thus the pictures are six and the octagons two, and in each of the latter is a scene. At each corner of the vaulting, where the rib is, there is drawn a round compartment, which extends half on one wall and half on the other, so that these compartments, being divided by the ribs of the vaulting, form eight spaces, in each of which are large seated figures, representing distinguished men who have defended their Republic and have observed her laws. The highest part of the surface of the vaulting is divided into three parts, in such a manner as to form a circular compartment in the centre, immediately above the octagons, and two square compartments over those on the walls. In one of the octagons, then, is a woman with some children round her, who holds a heart in her hand, representing the love that men owe to their country. In the other octagon is another woman, with an equal number of children, as a symbol of civic concord. And these are one on either side of a Justice that is in the circle, with the sword and scales in her hands, and seen from below in such bold foreshortening that it is a marvel, for at the feet she is dark both in drawing and in colour, and about the knees she becomes lighter, and so continues little by little towards the torso, the shoulders, and the arms, until she rises into a celestial splendour at the head, which makes it appear as if that figure dissolves gradually in a mist: wherefore it is not possible to imagine, much less to see, a more beautiful figure than this one, or one executed with greater judgment and art, among all that were ever painted to be seen in foreshortening from below. As for the stories, in the first, at the end of the hall and on the left hand as one enters, are M. Lepidus and Fulvius Flaccus the Censors, who, after being at enmity with one another, as soon as they became colleagues in the office of the Censorship, laid aside their private hatred for the good of their country, and acted in that office like the closest friends. And Domenico painted them on their knees, embracing each other, with many figures round them, and with a most beautiful prospect of buildings and temples drawn in perspective so ingeniously and so well, that one may see in them what a master of perspective was Domenico. On the next wall there follows a picture with the story of the Dictator Postumius Tiburtius, who, having left his only son at the head of his army in place of himself, commanding him that he should do nothing else but guard the camp, put him to death for having been disobedient and having with a fair occasion attacked the enemy and gained a victory. In this scene Domenico painted Postumius as an old man with shaven face, with the right hand on his axe, and with the left showing to the army his son lying dead upon the ground, and depicted very well in foreshortening; and below this picture, which is most beautiful, is an inscription very well composed. In the octagon that follows, in the centre of the wall, is the story of Spurius Cassius, whom the Roman Senate, suspecting that he was plotting to become King, caused to be beheaded, and his house to be pulled down; and in this scene the head, which is beside the executioner, and the body, which is on the ground in foreshortening, are very beautiful. In the next picture is the Tribune Publius Mucius, who caused all his fellow-tribunes, who were conspiring with Spurius to become tyrants of their country, to be burned; and here the fire that is consuming their bodies is painted very well and with great art. At the other end of the hall, in another picture, is the Athenian Codrus, who, having heard from the oracle that the victory would fall to that side whose King should be killed by the enemy, laid aside his robes, entered unknown among the enemy, and let himself be slain, thus giving the victory to his people by his own death. Domenico painted him seated, with his nobles round him as he puts off his robes, near a most beautiful round temple; and in the distant background of the picture he is seen dead, with his name in an epitaph below. Then, as one turns to the other long wall, opposite to the two pictures with the octagon in the centre between them, in the first scene one finds Prince Zaleucus, who, in order not to break the law, caused one of his own eyes to be put out, and one of his son's; and here many are standing round him, praying him that he should not do that cruelty to himself and his son, and in the distance is his son offering violence to a maiden, and below is his name in an inscription. In the octagon that is beside that picture is the story of Marcus Manilius being hurled down from the Capitol; and the figure of the young Marcus, who is being thrown down from a kind of balcony, is painted so well in foreshortening, with the head downwards, that it seems to be alive, as also seem some figures that are below. In the next picture is Spurius Melius, who belonged to the Equestrian Order, and was killed by the Tribune Servilius because the people suspected that he was conspiring to become tyrant of his country; which Servilius is seated with many round him, and one who is in the centre points to Spurius lying dead upon the ground, a figure painted with great art. Then, in the circles at the corners, where there are the eight figures mentioned above, are many men who have been distinguished for their defence of their country. In the first part is the famous Fabius Maximus, seated and in armour; and on the other side is Speusippus, Prince of the Tegeatæ, who, being exhorted by a friend that he should rid himself of his rival and adversary, answered that he did not wish, at the bidding of his own private interest, to deprive his country of such a citizen. In the circle that is at the next corner, in one part, there is the Prætor Celius, who, for having fought against the advice and wish of the soothsayers, although he had won and had gained a victory, was punished by the Senate; and beside him sits Thrasybulus, who with the aid of some friends valorously slew thirty tyrants, in order to free his country. Thrasybulus is an old man, shaven, with white locks, and has his name written beneath him, as have also all the others. In a circle at one corner of the lower end of the hall is the Prætor Genutius Cippus, who having had a bird with wings in the form of horns miraculously alight on his head, was told by the oracle that he would become King of his country, whereupon, although already an old man, he chose to go into exile, in order not to take away her liberty; and Domenico therefore painted a bird upon his head. Beside him sits Charondas, who, having returned from the country, and having gone straightway into the Senate without disarming himself, in violation of a law which ordained that one who entered the Senate with arms should be put to death, killed himself on perceiving his error. In the second circle on the other side are Damon and Phintias, whose unexampled friendship is so well known, and with them is Dionysius, Tyrant of Sicily; and beside these figures sits Brutus, who from love of his country condemned his two sons to death, because they were conspiring to bring the Tarquins back to their country. This work, then, so truly extraordinary, made known to the people of Siena the ability and worth of Domenico, who showed most beautiful art, judgment, and genius in all that he did. The first time that the Emperor Charles V came to Italy, it was expected that he would go to Siena, for he had declared such an intention to the Ambassadors of that Republic; and among other vast and magnificent preparations that were made for the reception of so great an Emperor, Domenico fashioned a horse eight braccia high and in full relief, all of paste-board and hollow within. The weight of that horse was supported by an armature of iron, and upon it was the statue of the Emperor, armed in the ancient fashion, with a sword in his hand. And below it were three large figures--vanquished by him, as it were--which also supported part of the weight, the horse being in the act of leaping with the front legs high in the air; which three figures represented three provinces conquered and subdued by the Emperor. In that work Domenico showed that he was a master no less of sculpture than of painting; to which it must be added that he had placed the whole work upon a wooden structure four braccia high, with a number of wheels below it, which, being set in motion by men concealed within, caused the whole to move forward; and the design of Domenico was that at the entry of His Majesty this horse, having been set in motion as has been described, should accompany him from the gate as far as the Palace of the Signori, and should then come to rest in the middle of the Piazza. This horse, after being carried by Domenico so near completion that there only remained to gild it, was left in that condition, because His Majesty after all did not at that time go to Siena, but left Italy after being crowned at Bologna; and the work remained unfinished. But none the less the art and ingenuity of Domenico were recognized, and all men greatly praised the grandeur and excellence of that great structure, which stood in the Office of Works of the Duomo from that time until His Majesty, returning from his victorious enterprise in Africa, passed through Messina and then Naples, Rome, and finally Siena; at which time Domenico's work was placed on the Piazza del Duomo, to his great honour. The fame of the ability of Domenico being thus spread abroad, Prince Doria, who was with the Court, after seeing all the works by his hand that were in Siena, besought him that he should go to Genoa to work in his palace, where Perino del Vaga, Giovanni Antonio of Pordenone, and Girolamo da Treviso had worked. But Domenico could not promise that lord that he would go to serve him at that time, although he engaged himself for another time, for in those days he had set his hand to finishing a part of the marble pavement in the Duomo, which Duccio, the painter of Siena, had formerly begun in a new manner of work. The figures and scenes were already in great part designed on the marble, the outlines being hollowed out with the chisel and filled with a black mixture, with ornaments of coloured marble all around, and likewise the grounds for the figures. But Domenico, with fine judgment, saw that this work could be much improved, and he therefore took grey marbles, to the end that these, profiled with the chisel and placed beside the brilliancy of the white marble, might give the middle shades; and he found that in this way, with white and grey marble, pictures of stone could be made with great perfection after the manner of chiaroscuro. Having then made a trial, the work succeeded so well in invention, in solidity of design, and in abundance of figures, that he made a beginning after this fashion with the grandest, the most beautiful, and the most magnificent pavement that had ever been made; and in the course of his life, little by little, he executed a great part of it. Round the high-altar he made a border of pictures, in which, in order to follow the order of the stories begun by Duccio, he executed scenes from Genesis; namely, Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise and tilling the earth, the Sacrifice of Abel, and that of Melchizedek. In front of the altar is a large scene with Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac, and this has round it a border of half-length figures, carrying various animals which they seem to be going to sacrifice. Descending the steps, one finds another large picture, which serves to accompany that above, and in it Domenico represented Moses receiving the Laws from God on Mount Sinai; and below this is the scene when, having found the people worshipping the Golden Calf, he is seized with anger and breaks the Tables on which those Laws were written. Below this scene, opposite to the pulpit, and right across the church, is a frieze with a great number of figures, which is composed with so much grace and such design that it defies description; and in this is Moses, who, striking the rock in the desert, causes water to gush out and gives drink to his thirsty people. Here, along the whole length of the frieze, Domenico represented the stream of water, from which the people are drinking in various ways with a vivacity so pleasing, that it is almost impossible to imagine any effect more lovely, or figures in more graceful and beautiful attitudes than are those in this scene--some stooping to the ground to drink, some kneeling before the rock that is spouting with water, some drawing it in vases and others in cups, and others, finally, drinking with their hands. There are, moreover, some who are leading animals to drink, amid the great rejoicing of that people; and, among other things, most marvellous is a little boy who has taken a little dog by the head and neck and plunges its muzzle into the water, in order to make it drink, after which the dog, having drunk, and not wishing to drink any more, shakes its head so naturally that it seems to be alive. In short, this frieze is so beautiful, that for a work of that kind it could not be executed with greater art, seeing that the various kinds of shadows that may be seen in these figures are not merely beautiful, but miraculous; and although the whole work, on account of the fantastic nature of its craftsmanship, is one of great beauty, this part is held to be the most beautiful and the best. Below the cupola, moreover, there is a hexagonal compartment, which is divided into seven hexagons and six rhombs, of which hexagons Domenico finished four before he died, representing in them the stories and sacrifices of Elijah, and doing all this much at his leisure, because this work was as a school and a pastime to Domenico, nor did he ever abandon it altogether for his other works. While he was thus labouring now at this work and now elsewhere, he painted a large altar-piece in oils which is in S. Francesco on the right hand as one enters into the church, containing Christ descending in Glory to the Limbo of Hell in order to deliver the Holy Fathers; wherein, among many nudes, is a very beautiful Eve, and a Thief who is behind Christ with the cross is a very well-executed figure, while the cavern of Limbo and the demons and fires of that place are fantastic to a marvel. And since Domenico was of the opinion that pictures painted in distemper preserved their freshness better than those painted in oils, saying that it seemed to him that the works of Luca da Cortona, of the Pollaiuoli, and of the other masters who painted in oils in those days, had suffered from age more than those of Fra Giovanni, Fra Filippo, Benozzo, and the others before their time who painted in distemper--for this reason, I say, having to paint an altar-piece for the Company of S. Bernardino on the Piazza di S. Francesco, he resolved to do it in distemper; and in this way he executed it excellently well, painting in it Our Lady with many Saints. In the predella, which is very beautiful, and painted by him likewise in distemper, he depicted S. Francis receiving the Stigmata; S. Anthony of Padua, who, in order to convert some heretics, performs the miracle of the Ass, which makes obeisance before the sacred Host; and S. Bernardino of Siena, who is preaching to the people of his city on the Piazza de' Signori. And on the walls of this Company, also, he painted two stories of Our Lady in fresco, in competition with some others that Sodoma had executed in the same place. In one he represented the Visitation of S. Elizabeth, and in the other the Passing of Our Lady, with the Apostles all around; and both of these are much extolled. Finally, after having been long expected in Genoa by Prince Doria, Domenico made his way there, but with great reluctance, being a man who was accustomed to a life of peace and contented with that which his wants required, and nothing more; besides which, he was not much used to making journeys, for the reason that, having built himself a little house in Siena, and having also a vineyard a mile beyond the Porta a Camollia, which he cultivated with his own hand as a recreation, going there often, it was a long time since he had gone far from Siena. Having then arrived in Genoa, he painted a scene there, beside that of Pordenone, in which he succeeded very well, and yet not in such a manner that it could be counted among his best works. But, since the ways of the Court did not please him, being used to a life of freedom, he did not stay very willingly in that place, and, indeed, appeared as if he were stupefied. Wherefore, having come to the end of that work, he sought leave of the Prince and set out to return home; and passing by Pisa, in order to see that city, he met with Battista del Cervelliera and was shown all the most noteworthy things in the city, and in particular the altar-pieces of Sogliani and the pictures that are in the recess behind the high-altar of the Duomo. Meanwhile Sebastiano della Seta, the Warden of Works of the Duomo, having heard from Cervelliera of the qualities and abilities of Domenico, and being desirous to finish the work so long delayed by Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, allotted two of the pictures for that recess to Domenico, to the end that he might execute them at Siena and send them finished to Pisa; and so it was done. In one is Moses, who, having found that the people had sacrificed to the Golden Calf, is breaking the Tables; and in this Domenico painted some nudes that are figures of great beauty. In the other is the same Moses, with the earth opening and swallowing up a part of the people; and in this, also, are some nudes killed by flaming thunderbolts, which are marvellous. These pictures, when taken to Pisa, led to Domenico painting four pictures for the front of that recess--namely, two on each side--of the four Evangelists, which were four very beautiful figures. Whereupon Sebastiano della Seta, who saw that he had been served quickly and well, commissioned Domenico, after these pictures, to paint the altar-piece of one of the chapels in the Duomo, Sogliani having by that time painted four. Settling in Pisa, therefore, Domenico painted in that altar-piece Our Lady in the sky with the Child in her arms, upon some clouds supported by some little Angels, with many Saints both male and female below, all executed passing well, but yet not with that perfection which marked the pictures described above. But he, excusing himself for this to many of his friends, and particularly on one occasion to Giorgio Vasari, said that since he was away from the air of Siena and from certain comforts of his own, he did not seem to be able to do anything. Having therefore returned home, determined that he would never again go away to work elsewhere, he painted for the Nuns of S. Paolo, near S. Marco, an altar-piece in oils of the Nativity of Our Lady, with some nurses, and S. Anne in a bed that is foreshortened and represented as standing within a door; and in a dark shadow is a woman who is drying clothes, without any other light but that which comes from the blaze of the fire. In the predella, which is full of charm, are three scenes in distemper--the Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple, her Marriage, and the Adoration of the Magi. In the Mercanzia, a tribunal in that city, the officials have a little altar-piece which they say was painted by Domenico when he was young; it is very beautiful, and it contains in the centre a S. Paul seated, and on one side his Conversion, in little figures, and on the other the scene of his Beheading. Finally, Domenico was commissioned to paint the great recess of the Duomo, which is at the end behind the high-altar. In this he first made a decoration of stucco with foliage and figures, all with his own hand, and two Victories in the vacant spaces in the semicircle; which decoration was in truth a very rich and beautiful work. Then in the centre he painted in fresco the Ascension of Christ into Heaven; and from the cornice downwards he painted three pictures divided by columns in relief, and executed in perspective. In the middle picture, which has above it an arch in perspective, are Our Lady, S. Peter, and S. John; and in the spaces at the sides are ten Apostles, five on each side, all in various attitudes and gazing at Christ, who is ascending into Heaven; and above each of the two pictures of the Apostles is an Angel in foreshortening, the two together representing those two Angels who, after the Ascension, declared that He had risen into Heaven. This work is certainly admirable, but it would have been even more so if Domenico had given beautiful expressions to the heads; as it is, they have something in the expressions that is not very pleasing, and it appears that in his old age he adopted for his countenances an expression of terror by no means agreeable. This work, I say, if there had been any beauty in the heads, would have been so beautiful that there would have been nothing better to be seen. But in this matter of the expressions of the heads, in the opinion of the people of Siena, Sodoma was superior to Domenico, for the reason that Sodoma made them much more beautiful, although those of Domenico had more design and greater force. And, in truth, the manner of the heads in these our arts is of no little importance, and by painting them with graceful and beautiful expressions many masters have escaped the censure that they might have incurred for the rest of their work. This was the last work in painting executed by Domenico, who, having taken it into his head in the end to work in relief, began to give his attention to casting in bronze, and went so far with this that he executed, although with extraordinary labour, six Angels of bronze in the round, little less than life-size, for the six columns nearest the high-altar of the Duomo. These Angels, which are very beautiful, are holding tazze, or rather little basins, which support candelabra containing lights, and in the last of them he acquitted himself so well, that he was very highly praised for them. Whereupon, growing in courage, he made a beginning with figures of the twelve Apostles, which were to be placed on the columns lower down, where there are now some of marble, old and in a bad manner; but he did not continue them, for he did not live long after that. And since he was a man of infinite ingenuity, and succeeded well in everything, he engraved wood-blocks by himself in order to make prints in chiaroscuro, and there are to be seen prints of two Apostles engraved by him excellently well, of which we have one in our book of drawings, together with some sheets drawn divinely by his hand. He also engraved copper-plates with the burin, and he executed with aquafortis some very fanciful little stories of alchemy, in which Jove and the other Gods, wishing to congeal Mercury, place him bound in a crucible, and Vulcan and Pluto make fire around him; but when they think that he must be fixed, Mercury flies away and goes off in smoke. Domenico, in addition to the works described above, executed many others of no great importance, pictures of the Madonna and other suchlike chamber-pictures, such as a Madonna that is in the house of the Chevalier Donati, and a picture in distemper in which Jove changes himself into a shower of gold and rains into the lap of Danaë. Piero Catanei, likewise, has a round picture in oils of a very beautiful Virgin by the hand of the same master. He also painted a most beautiful bier for the Confraternity of S. Lucia, and likewise another for that of S. Antonio; nor should anyone be astonished that I make mention of such works, for the reason that they are beautiful to a marvel, as all know who have seen them. Finally, having come to the age of sixty-five, he hastened the end of his life by toiling all by himself day and night at his castings in metal, polishing them himself without calling in any assistance. He died, then, on the 18th of May, 1549, and was given burial by his dearest friend, the goldsmith Giuliano, in the Duomo, where he had executed so many rare works. And he was carried to the tomb by all the craftsmen of his city, which recognized even then the great loss that she had suffered in the death of Domenico, and now, as she admires his works, recognizes it more than ever. Domenico was an orderly and upright person, fearing God and studious in his art, although solitary beyond measure; wherefore he well deserved to be honourably celebrated by his fellow-citizens of Siena, who have always won great praise by their attention to noble studies and to poetry, with verses both in Latin and in the vulgar tongue. FOOTNOTE: [29] Zaleucus. [30] Here there is a blank in the text. GIOVANNI ANTONIO LAPPOLI LIFE OF GIOVANNI ANTONIO LAPPOLI PAINTER OF AREZZO Rarely does it happen that from an old stock there fails to sprout some good shoot, which, growing with time, revives and reclothes with its leaves that desolate stem, and reveals with its fruits to those who taste them the same savour that was once known in the ancient tree. And that this is true is proved in this present Life of Giovanni Antonio, who, at the death of his father Matteo, who was a painter of passing good repute in his day, was left with a good income under the guardianship of his mother, and lived thus up to the age of twelve. Having come to that period of his life, and not caring to choose any other pursuit than that of painting, to which he was drawn, besides other reasons, by a wish to follow the footsteps of his father in that art, Giovanni Antonio began to learn the first rudiments of design under Domenico Pecori, a painter of Arezzo, who had been, together with his father Matteo, a disciple of Clemente,[31] and who was his first master. Then, after having been some time with him, desiring to make greater proficience than he was making under the discipline of that master and in that place, where he was not able to learn by himself, although he had a strong natural inclination, he turned his thoughts towards the idea of settling in Florence. To this intention, not to mention that he was left alone by the death of his mother, Fortune was favourable enough, for a young sister that he had was married to Leonardo Ricoveri, one of the first and richest citizens that there were at that time in Arezzo; and so he went off to Florence. There, among the works of many that he saw, the manner of Andrea del Sarto and of Jacopo da Pontormo pleased him more than that of all the others who had worked at painting in that city. Wherefore he resolved to place himself under one of those two, and was hesitating as to which of them he should choose as his master, when there were uncovered the Faith and Charity painted by Pontormo over the portico of the Nunziata in Florence, and he became fully determined to go to work under Pontormo, thinking that his manner was so beautiful that it might be expected that Jacopo, who was still a young man, was destined to surpass all the young painters of his own age, as, indeed, was the firm belief of everyone at that time. Lappoli, then, although he might have gone to work under Andrea, for the said reasons attached himself to Pontormo, under whose discipline he was for ever drawing, spurred to incredible exertions, out of emulation, by two motives. One of these was the presence of Giovan Maria dal Borgo a San Sepolcro, who was studying design and painting under the same master, and who, always advising him for his own good, brought it about that he changed his manner and adopted the good manner of Pontormo. The other--and this spurred him more strongly--was the sight of Agnolo, who was called Bronzino, being much brought forward by Jacopo on account of his loving submissiveness and goodness and the untiring diligence that he showed in imitating his master's works, not to mention that he drew very well and acquitted himself in colouring in such a manner, that he aroused hopes that he was destined to attain to that excellence and perfection which have been seen in him, and still are seen, in our own day. Giovanni Antonio, then, being desirous to learn, and impelled by the reasons mentioned above, spent many months in making drawings and copies of the works of Jacopo da Pontormo, which were so well executed, so good, and so beautiful, that it is certain that if he had persevered, what with the assistance that he had from Nature, his wish to become eminent, the force of competition, and the good manner of his master, he would have become most excellent; and to this some drawings in red chalk by his hand, which may be seen in our book, can bear witness. But pleasure, as may often be seen to happen, is in young men generally the enemy of excellence, and brings it about that their intellects are led astray; wherefore he who is engaged in the studies of any faculty, science, or art whatsoever should have no relations save with those who are of the same profession, and good and orderly besides. Giovanni Antonio, then, in order that he might be looked after, had gone to live in the house of one Ser Raffaello di Sandro, a lame chaplain, in S. Lorenzo, to whom he paid so much a year, and he abandoned in great measure the study of painting, for the reason that the priest was a man of the world, delighting in pictures, music, and other diversions, and many persons of talent frequented the rooms that he had at S. Lorenzo; among others, M. Antonio da Lucca, a most excellent musician and performer on the lute, at that time a very young man, from whom Giovanni learned to play the lute. And although the painter Rosso and some others of the profession also frequented the same place, Lappoli attached himself rather to the others than to the men of his art, from whom he might have learned much, while at the same time amusing himself. Through these distractions, therefore, the love of painting of which Giovanni Antonio had given proof cooled off in great measure; but none the less, being the friend of Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, who was a disciple of Andrea del Sarto, he went sometimes with him to the Scalzo to draw the pictures and nudes from life. And no long time passed before he applied himself to colouring and executed pictures of Jacopo's, and then by himself some Madonnas and portraits from life, among which were that of the above-mentioned M. Antonio da Lucca and that of Ser Raffaello, which are very good. In the year 1523, the plague being in Rome, Perino del Vaga came to Florence, and he also settled down to lodge with Ser Raffaello del Zoppo; wherefore Giovanni Antonio having formed a strait friendship with him and having recognized the ability of Perino, there was reawakened in his mind the desire to attend to painting, abandoning all other pleasures, and he resolved when the plague had ceased to go with Perino to Rome. But this design was never fulfilled, for the plague having come to Florence, at the very moment when Perino had finished the scene of the Submersion of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, painted in the colour of bronze in chiaroscuro for Ser Raffaello, during the execution of which Lappoli was always present, they were forced both the one and the other to fly from Florence, in order not to lose their lives there. Thereupon Giovanni Antonio returned to Arezzo, and set himself, in order to pass the time, to paint on canvas the scene of the death of Orpheus, killed by the Bacchantes: he set himself, I say, to paint this scene in chiaroscuro of the colour of bronze, after the manner in which he had seen Perino paint the picture mentioned above, and when the work was finished it brought him no little praise. He then set to work to finish an altar-piece that his former master Domenico Pecori had begun for the Nuns of S. Margherita: in which altar-piece, now to be seen in their convent, he painted an Annunciation. And he made two cartoons for two portraits from life from the waist upwards, both very beautiful; one was Lorenzo d' Antonio di Giorgio, at that time a pupil and a very handsome youth, and the other was Ser Piero Guazzesi, who was a convivial person. The plague having finally somewhat abated, Cipriano d' Anghiari, a rich man of Arezzo, who in those days had caused a chapel with ornaments and columns of grey-stone to be built in the Abbey of S. Fiore at Arezzo, allotted the altar-piece to Giovanni Antonio at the price of one hundred crowns. Meanwhile, Rosso passed through Arezzo on his way to Rome, and lodged with Giovanni Antonio, who was very much his friend; and, hearing of the work that he had undertaken to do, he made at the request of Lappoli a very beautiful little sketch full of nudes. Whereupon Giovanni Antonio, setting his hand to the work and imitating the design of Rosso, painted in that altar-piece the Visitation of S. Elizabeth, and in the lunette above it a God the Father and some children, copying the draperies and all the rest from life. And when he had brought it to completion, he was much praised and commended for it, and above all for some heads copied from life, painted in a good manner and with much profit to himself. Then, recognizing that if he wished to make greater proficience in his art he must take his leave of Arezzo, he determined, after the plague had ceased entirely in Rome, to go to that city, where he knew that Perino, Rosso, and many others of his friends had already returned and were employed in a number of important works. While of this mind, a convenient occasion of going there presented itself to him, for there arrived in Arezzo M. Paolo Valdambrini, the Secretary of Pope Clement VII, who, in returning from France in great haste, passed through Arezzo in order to see his brothers and nephews; and when Giovanni Antonio had gone to visit him, M. Paolo, who was desirous that there should be in his native city of Arezzo men distinguished in all the arts, who might demonstrate the genius which that air and that sky give to those who are born there, exhorted him, although there was not much need for exhortation, that he should go in his company to Rome, where he would obtain for him every convenience to enable him to attend to the studies of his art. Having therefore gone with M. Paolo to Rome, he found there Perino, Rosso, and others of his friends; and besides this he was able by means of M. Paolo to make the acquaintance of Giulio Romano, Sebastiano Viniziano, and Francesco Mazzuoli of Parma, who arrived in Rome about that time. This Francesco, delighting to play the lute, and therefore conceiving a very great affection for Giovanni Antonio and consorting continually with him, brought it about that Lappoli set himself with great zeal to draw and paint and to profit by the good fortune that he enjoyed in being the friend of the best painters that there were in Rome at that time. And he had already carried almost to completion a picture containing a Madonna of the size of life, which M. Paolo wished to present to Pope Clement in order to make Lappoli known to him, when, as Fortune would have it, who often sets herself in opposition to the designs of mankind, there took place on the 6th of May, in the year 1527, the accursed sack of Rome. On that miserable day M. Paolo galloped on horseback, and Giovanni Antonio with him, to the Porta di S. Spirito in the Trastevere, in order to prevent the soldiers of Bourbon for a time from entering by that gate; and there M. Paolo was killed and Lappoli was taken prisoner by the Spaniards. And in a short time, everything being given over to sack, the picture was lost, together with the designs executed in the chapel and all that poor Giovanni Antonio possessed. He, after having been much tormented by the Spaniards to induce him to pay a ransom, escaped in his shirt one night with some other prisoners, and, after suffering desperate hardships and running in great danger of his life, because the roads were not safe, finally made his way to Arezzo, where he was received by M. Giovanni Pollastra, a man of great learning, who was his uncle; but he had all that he could do to recover himself, so broken was he by terror and suffering. Then in the same year there came upon Arezzo the great plague in which four hundred persons died every day, and Giovanni Antonio was forced once more to fly, all in despair and very loth to go, and to stay for some months out of the city. But finally, when that pestilence had abated to such an extent that people could begin to mix together, a certain Fra Guasparri, a Conventual Friar of S. Francis, who was then Guardian of their convent in that city, commissioned Giovanni Antonio to paint the altar-piece of the high-altar in that church for one hundred crowns, stipulating that he should represent in it the Adoration of the Magi. Whereupon Lappoli, hearing that Rosso, having also fled from Rome, was at Borgo a San Sepolcro, and was there executing an altar-piece for the Company of S. Croce, went to visit him; and after showing him many courtesies and causing some things to be brought for him from Arezzo, of which he knew him to stand in need, since he had lost everything in the sack of Rome, he obtained for himself from Rosso a very beautiful design of the above-mentioned altar-piece that he had to paint for Fra Guasparri. And when he had returned to Arezzo he set his hand to the work, and finished it within a year from the day of the commission, according to the agreement, and that so well, that he was very highly praised for it. That design of Rosso's passed afterwards into the hands of Giorgio Vasari, and from him to the very reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, Director of the Hospital of the Innocenti in Florence, who has it in his book of drawings by various painters. Not long afterwards, having become surety for Rosso to the amount of three hundred crowns, in the matter of some pictures that the said Rosso was to paint in the Madonna delle Lagrime, Giovanni Antonio found himself in a very evil pass, for Rosso went away without finishing the work, as has been related in his Life, and Lappoli was constrained to restore the money; and if his friends had not helped him, and particularly Giorgio Vasari, who valued at three hundred crowns the part that Rosso had left finished, Giovanni Antonio would have been little less than ruined in his effort to do honour and benefit to his native city. These difficulties over, Lappoli painted an altar-piece in oils containing the Madonna, S. Bartholomew, and S. Matthew at the commission of Abbot Camaiani of Bibbiena, for a chapel in the lower church at S. Maria del Sasso, a seat of the Preaching Friars in the Casentino; and he acquitted himself very well, counterfeiting the manner of Rosso. And this was the reason that a Confraternity at Bibbiena afterwards caused him to paint on a banner for carrying in processions a nude Christ with the Cross on His shoulder, who is shedding blood into the Chalice, and on the other side an Annunciation, which was one of the best things that he ever did. In the year 1534, Duke Alessandro de' Medici being expected in Arezzo, the Aretines, with Luigi Guicciardini, the commissary in that city, wishing to honour the Duke, ordained that two comedies should be performed. The charge of arranging one of those festivals was in the hands of a Company of the most noble young men in the city, who called themselves the Umidi; and the preparations and scenery for this comedy, which had for its subject the Intronati of Siena, were made by Niccolò Soggi, who was much extolled for them, and the comedy was performed very well and with infinite satisfaction to all who saw it. The festive preparations for the other were executed in competition by another Company of young men, likewise noble, who called themselves the Company of the Infiammati. And they, in order to be praised no less than the Umidi, performed a comedy by M. Giovanni Pollastra, a poet of Arezzo, under his management, and entrusted the making of the scenery to Giovanni Antonio, who acquitted himself consummately well; and thus their comedy was performed with great honour to that Company and to the whole city. Nor must I pass over a lovely notion of that poet's, who was certainly a man of beautiful ingenuity. While the preparations for these and other festivals were in progress, on many occasions the young men of the two Companies, out of rivalry and for various other reasons, had come to blows, and several disputes had arisen; wherefore Pollastra arranged a surprise (keeping the matter absolutely secret), which was as follows. When all the people, with the gentlemen and their ladies, had assembled in the place where the comedy was to be performed, four of those young men who had come to blows with one another in the city on other occasions, dashing out with naked swords and cloaks wound round their arms, began to shout on the stage and to pretend to kill one another: and the first of them to be seen rushed out with one temple as it were smeared with blood, crying out: "Come forth, traitors!" At which uproar all the people rose to their feet, men began to lay hands on their weapons, and the kinsmen of the young men, who appeared to be giving each other fearful thrusts, ran towards the stage; when he who had come out first, turning towards the other young men, said: "Hold your hands, gentlemen, and sheathe your swords, for I have taken no harm; and although we are at daggers drawn and you believe that the play will not be performed, yet it will take place, and I, wounded as I am, will now begin the Prologue." And so after this jest, by which all the spectators and the actors themselves, only excepting the four mentioned above, were taken in, the comedy was begun and played so well, that afterwards, in the year 1540, when the Lord Duke Cosimo and the Lady Duchess Leonora were in Arezzo, Giovanni Antonio had to prepare the scenery anew on the Piazza del Vescovado and have it performed before their Excellencies. And even as the performers had given satisfaction on the first occasion, so at that time they gave so much satisfaction to the Lord Duke, that they were afterwards invited to Florence to perform at the next Carnival. In these two scenic preparations, then, Lappoli acquitted himself very well, and he was very highly praised. He then made an ornament after the manner of a triumphal arch, with scenes in the colour of bronze, which was placed about the altar of the Madonna delle Chiavi. After a time Giovanni Antonio settled in Arezzo, fully determined, now that he had a wife and children, to go roaming no more, and living on his income and on the offices that the citizens of that city enjoy; and so he continued without working much. Not long, indeed, after these events, he sought to obtain the commissions for two altar-pieces that were to be painted in Arezzo, one for the Church and Company of S. Rocco, and the other for the high-altar of S. Domenico; but he did not succeed, for the reason that both those pictures were allotted to Giorgio Vasari, whose designs, among the many that were made, gave more satisfaction than any of the others. For the Company of the Ascension in that city Giovanni Antonio painted on a banner for carrying in processions Christ in the act of Resurrection, with many soldiers round the Sepulchre, and His Ascension into Heaven, with the Madonna surrounded by the twelve Apostles, which was all executed very well and with diligence. At Castello della Pieve he painted an altar-piece in oils of the Visitation of Our Lady, with some Saints about her, and in an altar-piece that was painted for the Pieve a San Stefano he depicted the Madonna and other Saints; which two works Lappoli executed much better than the others that he had painted up to that time, because he had been able to see at his leisure many works in relief and casts taken in gesso from the statues of Michelagnolo and from other ancient works, and brought by Giorgio Vasari to his house at Arezzo. The same master painted some pictures of Our Lady, which are dispersed throughout Arezzo and other places, and a Judith who is placing the head of Holofernes in a basket held by her serving-woman, which now belongs to Mons. M. Bernardetto Minerbetti, Bishop of Arezzo, who loved Giovanni Antonio much, as he loves all other men of talent, and received from him, besides other things, a young S. John the Baptist in the desert, almost wholly naked, which is held dear by him, since it is an excellent figure. Finally, recognizing that perfection in this art consists in nothing else but seeking in good time to become rich in invention and to study the nude continually, and thus to render facile the difficulties of execution, Giovanni Antonio repented that he had not spent in the study of art the time that he had given to his pleasures, perceiving that what can be done easily in youth cannot be done well in old age. But although he was always conscious of his error, yet he did not recognize it fully until, having set himself to study when already an old man, he saw a picture in oils, fourteen braccia long and six braccia and a half high, executed in forty-two days by Giorgio Vasari, who painted it for the Refectory of the Monks of the Abbey of S. Fiore at Arezzo; in which work are painted the Nuptials of Esther and King Ahasuerus, and there are in it more than sixty figures larger than life. Going therefore at times to see Giorgio at work, and staying to discourse with him, Giovanni Antonio said: "Now I see that continual study and work is what lifts men out of laborious effort, and that our art does not come down upon us like the Holy Ghost." Giovanni Antonio did not work much in fresco, for the reason that the colours changed too much to please him; nevertheless, there may be seen over the Church of Murello a Pietà with two little naked Angels by his hand, executed passing well. Finally, after having lived like a man of good judgment and one not unpractised in the ways of the world, he fell sick of a most violent fever at the age of sixty, in the year 1552, and died. A disciple of Giovanni Antonio was Bartolommeo Torri, the scion of a not ignoble family in Arezzo, who, making his way to Rome, and placing himself under Don Giulio Clovio, a most excellent miniaturist, devoted himself in so thorough a manner to design and to the study of the nude, but most of all to anatomy, that he became an able master, and was held to be the best draughtsman in Rome. And it is not long since Don Silvano Razzi related to me that Don Giulio Clovio had told him in Rome, after having praised this young man highly, the very thing that he has often declared to me--namely, that he had turned him out of his house for no other reason but his filthy anatomy, for he kept so many limbs and pieces of men under his bed and all over his rooms, that they poisoned the whole house. Besides this, by neglecting himself and thinking that living like an unwashed philosopher, accepting no rule of life, and avoiding the society of other men, was the way to become great and immortal, he ruined himself completely; for nature will not tolerate the unreasonable outrages that some men at times do to her. Having therefore fallen ill at the age of twenty-five, Bartolommeo returned to Arezzo, in order to regain his health and to seek to build himself up again; but he did not succeed, for he continued his usual studies and the same irregularities, and in four months, a little after the death of Giovanni Antonio, he died and went to join him. The loss of this young man was an infinite grief to the whole city, for if he had lived, to judge from the great promise of his works, he was like to do extraordinary honour to his native place and to all Tuscany; and whoever sees any of the drawings that he made when still a mere lad, stands marvelling at them and full of compassion for his untimely death. FOOTNOTE: [31] Don Bartolommeo della Gatta, Abbot of S. Clemente. NICCOLÒ SOGGI LIFE OF NICCOLÒ SOGGI PAINTER Among the many who were disciples of Pietro Perugino, there was not one, after Raffaello da Urbino, who was more studious or more diligent than Niccolò Soggi, whose Life we are now about to write. This master was born in Florence, the son of Jacopo Soggi, a worthy person, but not very rich; and in time he entered the service of M. Antonio dal Monte in Rome, because Jacopo had a farm at Marciano in Valdichiana, and, passing most of his time there, associated not a little with that same M. Antonio dal Monte, their properties being near together. Jacopo, then, perceiving that this son of his was much inclined to painting, placed him with Pietro Perugino; and in a short time, by means of continual study, he learned so much that it was not long before Pietro began to make use of him in his works, to the great advantage of Niccolò, who devoted himself in such a manner to drawing in perspective and copying from nature, that he afterwards became very excellent in both the one field and the other. Niccolò also gave much attention to making models of clay and wax, over which he laid draperies and soaked parchment: which was the reason that he rendered his manner so dry, that he always held to the same as long as he lived, nor could he ever get rid of it for all the pains that he took. The first work that this Niccolò executed after the death of his master Pietro was an altar-piece in oils in the Hospital for Women, founded by Bonifazio Lupi, in the Via San Gallo at Florence--that is, the side behind the altar, wherein is the Angel saluting Our Lady, with a building drawn in perspective, in which there are arches and a groined vaulting rising above pilasters after the manner of Pietro. Then, in the year 1512, after having executed many pictures of Our Lady for the houses of citizens, and other little works such as are painted every day, hearing that great things were being done in Rome, he departed from Florence, thinking to make proficience in art and also to save some money, and went off to Rome. There, having paid a visit to the aforesaid M. Antonio dal Monte, who was then a Cardinal, he was not only welcomed warmly, but also straightway set to work to paint, in those early days of the pontificate of Leo, on the façade of the palace where there is the statue of Maestro Pasquino, a great escutcheon of Pope Leo in fresco, between that of the Roman People and that of the Cardinal. In that work Niccolò did not acquit himself very well, for in painting some nude figures and others clothed that he placed there as ornaments for those escutcheons, he recognized that the study of models is bad for him who wishes to acquire a good manner. Thereupon, after the uncovering of that work, which did not prove to be of that excellence which many expected, Niccolò set himself to execute a picture in oils, in which he painted the Martyr S. Prassedia squeezing a sponge full of blood into a vessel; and he finished it with such diligence that he recovered in part the honour that he considered himself to have lost in painting the escutcheons described above. This picture, which was executed for the above-mentioned Cardinal dal Monte, who was titular of S. Prassedia, was placed in the centre of that church, over an altar beneath which is a well of the blood of Holy Martyrs--a beautiful idea, the picture alluding to the place where there was the blood of those Martyrs. After this Niccolò painted for his patron the Cardinal another picture in oils, three-quarters of a braccio in height, of Our Lady with the Child in her arms, S. John as a little boy, and some landscapes, all executed so well and with such diligence, that the whole work appears to be done in miniature, and not painted; which picture, one of the best works that Niccolò ever produced, was for many years in the apartment of that prelate. Afterwards, when the Cardinal arrived in Arezzo and lodged in the Abbey of S. Fiore, a seat of the Black Friars of S. Benedict, in return for the many courtesies that were shown to him, he presented that picture to the sacristy of that place, in which it has been treasured ever since, both as a good painting and in memory of the Cardinal. Niccolò himself went with the Cardinal to Arezzo, where he lived almost ever afterwards. At the time he formed a friendship with the painter Domenico Pecori, who was then painting an altar-piece with the Circumcision of Christ for the Company of the Trinità; and such was the intimacy between them that Niccolò painted for Domenico in that altar-piece a building in perspective with columns and arches supporting a ceiling full of rosettes, according to the custom of those days, which was held at that time to be very beautiful. Niccolò also painted for the same Domenico a round picture of the Madonna with a multitude below, in oils and on cloth, for the baldachin of the Confraternity of Arezzo, which was burned, as has been related in the Life of Domenico Pecori,[32] during a festival that was held in S. Francesco. Then, having received the commission for a chapel in that same S. Francesco, the second on the right hand as one enters the church, he painted there in distemper Our Lady, S. John the Baptist, S. Bernard, S. Anthony, S. Francis, and three Angels in the air who are singing, with God the Father in a pediment; which were executed by Niccolò almost entirely in distemper, with the point of the brush. But since the work has almost all peeled off on account of the strength of the distemper, it was labour thrown away. Niccolò did this in order to try new methods; and when he had recognized that the true method was working in fresco, he seized the first opportunity, and undertook to paint in fresco a chapel in S. Agostino in that city, beside the door on the left hand as one enters the church. In this chapel, which was allotted to him by one Scamarra, a master of furnaces, he painted a Madonna in the sky with a multitude beneath, and S. Donatus and S. Francis kneeling; but the best thing that he did in this work was a S. Rocco at the head of the chapel. This work giving great pleasure to Domenico Ricciardi of Arezzo, who had a chapel in the Church of the Madonna delle Lagrime, he entrusted the painting of the altar-piece of that chapel to Niccolò, who, setting his hand to the work, painted in it with much care and diligence the Nativity of Jesus Christ. And although he toiled a long time over finishing it, he executed it so well that he deserves to be excused for this, or rather, merits infinite praise, for the reason that it is a most beautiful work; nor would anyone believe with what extraordinary consideration he painted every least thing in it, and a ruined building, near the hut wherein are the Infant Christ and the Virgin, is drawn very well in perspective. In the S. Joseph and some Shepherds are many heads portrayed from life, such as Stagio Sassoli, a painter and the friend of Niccolò, and Papino della Pieve, his disciple, who, if he had not died when still young, would have done very great honour both to himself and to his country; and three Angels in the air who are singing are so well executed that they would be enough by themselves to demonstrate the talent of Niccolò and the patience with which he laboured at this work up to the very last. And no sooner had he finished it than he was requested by the men of the Company of S. Maria della Neve, at Monte Sansovino, to paint for that Company an altar-piece wherein was to be the story of the Snow, which, falling on the site of S. Maria Maggiore at Rome on the 5th of August, was the reason of the building of that temple. Niccolò, then, executed that altar-piece for the above-mentioned Company with much diligence; and afterwards he executed at Marciano a work in fresco that won no little praise. Now in the year 1524, after M. Baldo Magini had caused Antonio, the brother of Giuliano da San Gallo, to build in the Madonna delle Carceri, in the town of Prato, a tabernacle of marble with two columns, architrave, cornice, and a quarter-round arch, Antonio resolved to bring it about that M. Baldo should give the commission for the picture which was to adorn that tabernacle to Niccolò, with whom he had formed a friendship when he was working in the Palace of the above-mentioned Cardinal dal Monte at Monte Sansovino. He presented him, therefore, to M. Baldo, who, although he had been minded to have it painted by Andrea del Sarto, as has been related in another place, resolved, at the entreaties and advice of Antonio, to allot it to Niccolò. And he, having set his hand to it, strove with all his power to make a beautiful work, but he did not succeed; for, apart from diligence, there is no excellence of design to be seen in it, nor any other quality worthy of much praise, because his hard manner, with his labours over his models of clay and wax, almost always gave a laborious and displeasing effect to his work. And yet, with regard to the labours of art, that man could not have done more than he did or shown more lovingness; and since he knew that none ...[33] for many years he could never bring himself to believe that others surpassed him in excellence. In this work, then, there is a God the Father who is sending down the crown of virginity and humility upon the Madonna by the hands of some Angels who are round her, some of whom are playing various instruments. Niccolò made in the picture a portrait from life of M. Baldo, kneeling at the feet of S. Ubaldo the Bishop, and on the other side he painted S. Joseph; and those two figures are one on either side of the image of the Madonna, which worked miracles in that place. Niccolò afterwards painted a picture three braccia in height of the same M. Baldo Magini from life, standing with the Church of S. Fabiano di Prato in his hand, which he presented to the Chapter of the Canons of the Pieve; and this Niccolò executed for that Chapter, which, in memory of the benefit received, caused the picture to be placed in the sacristy, an honour well deserved by that remarkable man, who with excellent judgment conferred benefits on that church, the principal church of his native city, and so renowned for the Girdle of the Madonna, which is preserved there. This portrait was one of the best works that Niccolò ever executed in painting. It is also the belief of some that a little altar-piece that is in the Company of S. Pier Martire on the Piazza di S. Domenico, at Prato, in which are many portraits from life, is by the hand of the same Niccolò; but in my opinion, even if this be true, it was painted by him before any of the other pictures mentioned above. After these works, Niccolò--under whose discipline Domenico Giuntalodi, a young man of excellent ability belonging to Prato, had learned the rudiments of the art of painting, although, in consequence of having acquired the manner of Niccolò, he never became a great master in painting, as will be related--departed from Prato and came to work in Florence; but, having seen that the most important works in art were given to better and more eminent men than himself, and that his manner was not up to the standard of Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, Rosso, and the others, he made up his mind to return to Arezzo, in which city he had more friends, greater credit, and less competition. Which having done, no sooner had he arrived than he made known to M. Giuliano Bacci, one of the chief citizens of that place, a desire that he had in his heart, which was this, that he wished that Arezzo should become his country, and that therefore he would gladly undertake to execute some work which might maintain him for a time in the practice of his art, whereby he hoped to demonstrate to that city the nature of his talents. Whereupon Messer Giuliano, an ingenious man who desired that his native city should be embellished and should contain persons engaged in the arts, so went to work with the men then governing the Company of the Nunziata, who in those days had caused a great vaulting to be built in their church, with the intention of having it painted, that one arch of the wall-surface of that vaulting was allotted to Niccolò; and it was proposed that he should be commissioned to paint the rest, if the first part, which he had to do then, should please the men of the aforesaid Company. Having therefore set his hand to this work with great diligence, in two years Niccolò finished the half, but not more, of one arch, on which he painted in fresco the Tiburtine Sibyl showing to the Emperor Octavian the Virgin in Heaven with the Infant Jesus Christ in her arms, and Octavian in reverent adoration. In the figure of Octavian he portrayed the above-mentioned M. Giuliano Bacci, and his pupil Domenico in a tall young man draped in red, and others of his friends in other heads; and, in a word, he acquitted himself in this work in such a manner that it did not displease the men of that Company and the other men of that city. It is true, indeed, that everyone grew weary of seeing him take so long and toil so much over executing his works; but notwithstanding all this the rest would have been given to him to finish, if that had not been prevented by the arrival in Arezzo of the Florentine Rosso, a rare painter, to whom, after he had been put forward by the Aretine painter Giovanni Antonio Lappoli and M. Giovanni Pollastra, as has been related in another place, much favour was shown and the rest of that work allotted. At which Niccolò felt such disdain, that, if he had not taken a wife the year before and had a son by her, so that he was settled in Arezzo, he would have departed straightway. However, having finally become pacified, he executed an altar-piece for the Church of Sargiano, a place two miles distant from Arezzo, where there are Frati Zoccolanti; in which he painted the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven, with many little Angels supporting her, and S. Thomas below receiving the Girdle, while all around are S. Francis, S. Louis, S. John the Baptist, and S. Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary. In some of these figures, and particularly in some of the little Angels, he acquitted himself very well; and so also in the predella he painted some scenes with little figures, which are passing good. He executed, likewise, in the Convent of the Nuns of the Murate, who belong to the same Order, in that city, a Dead Christ with the Maries, which is wrought with a high finish for a picture in fresco. In the Abbey of S. Fiore, a seat of Black Friars, behind the Crucifix that is placed on the high-altar, he painted in oils, on a canvas, Christ praying in the Garden and the Angel showing to Him the Chalice of the Passion and comforting Him, which was certainly a work of no little beauty and excellence. And for the Nuns of S. Benedetto, of the Order of Camaldoli, at Arezzo, on an arch above a door by which one enters the convent, he painted the Madonna, S. Benedict, and S. Catharine, a work which was afterwards thrown to the ground in order to enlarge the church. In the township of Marciano in Valdichiana, where he passed much of his time, living partly on the revenues that he had in that place and partly on what he could earn there, Niccolò began an altar-piece of the Dead Christ and many other works, with which he occupied himself for a time. And meanwhile, having with him the above-mentioned Domenico Giuntalodi of Prato, whom he loved as a son and kept in his house, he strove to make him excellent in the matters of art, teaching him so well how to draw in perspective, to copy from nature, and to make designs, that he was already becoming very able in all these respects, showing a good and beautiful genius. And this Niccolò did, besides being moved by the love and affection that he bore to that young man, in the hope of having one who might help him now that he was nearing old age, and might give him some return in his last years for so much labour and lovingness. Niccolò was in truth most loving with every man, true by nature, and much the friend of those who laboured in order to attain to something in the world of art; and what he knew he taught to them with extraordinary willingness. No long time after this, when Niccolò had returned from Marciano to Arezzo and Domenico had left him, the men of the Company of the Corpo di Cristo, in that city, had a commission to give for the painting of an altar-piece for the high-altar of the Church of S. Domenico. Now, Niccolò desiring to paint it, and likewise Giorgio Vasari, then a mere lad, the former did something which probably not many of the men of our art would do at the present day, which was as follows: Niccolò, who was one of the members of the above-mentioned Company, perceiving that many were disposed to have it painted by Giorgio, in order to bring him forward, and that the young man had a very great desire for it, resolved, after remarking Giorgio's zeal, to lay aside his own desire and need and to have the picture allotted by his companions to Giorgio, thinking more of the advantage that the young man might gain from the work than of his own profit and interest; and even as he wished, so exactly did the men of that Company decide. In the meantime Domenico Giuntalodi, having gone to Rome, found Fortune so propitious that he became known to Don Martino, the Ambassador of the King of Portugal, and went to live with him; and he painted for him a canvas with some twenty portraits from life, all of his followers and friends, with himself in the midst of them, engaged in conversation; which work so pleased Don Martino, that he looked upon Domenico as the first painter in the world. Afterwards Don Ferrante Gonzaga, having been made Viceroy of Sicily, and desiring to fortify the towns of that kingdom, wished to have about his person a man who might draw and put down on paper for him all that he thought of from day to day; and he wrote to Don Martino that he should find for him a young man who might be both able and willing to serve him in this way, and should send him off as soon as possible. Don Martino, therefore, first sent to Don Ferrante some designs by the hand of Domenico, among which was a Colosseum, engraved on copper by Girolamo Fagiuoli of Bologna for Antonio Salamanca, but drawn in perspective by Domenico; an old man in a child's go-cart, drawn by the same hand and published in engraving, with letters that ran thus, "Ancora imparo"; and a little picture with the portrait of Don Martino himself. And shortly afterwards he sent Domenico, at the wish of the aforesaid lord, Don Ferrante, who had been much pleased with that young man's works. Having then arrived in Sicily, there were assigned to Domenico an honourable salary, a horse, and a servant, all at the expense of Don Ferrante; and not long afterwards he was set to work on the walls and fortresses of Sicily. Whereupon, abandoning his painting little by little, he devoted himself to something else which for a time was more profitable to him; for, being an ingenious person, he made use of men who were well adapted to heavy labour, kept beasts of burden in the charge of others, and caused sand and lime to be collected and furnaces to be set up; and no long time had passed before he found that he had saved so much that he was able to buy offices in Rome to the extent of two thousand crowns, and shortly afterwards some others. Then, after he had been made keeper of the wardrobe to Don Ferrante, it happened that his master was removed from the government of Sicily and sent to that of Milan; whereupon Domenico went with him, and, working on the fortifications of that State, contrived, what with being industrious and with being something of a miser, to become very rich; and what is more, he came into such credit that he managed almost everything in that government. Hearing of this, Niccolò, who was at Arezzo, now an old man, needy, and without any work to do, went to find Domenico in Milan, thinking that even as he had not failed Domenico when he was a young man, so Domenico should not fail him now, but should avail himself of his services, since he had many in his employ, and should be both able and willing to assist him in his poverty-stricken old age. But he found to his cost that the judgments of men, in expecting too much from others, are often deceived, and that the men who change their condition also change more often than not their nature and their will. For after arriving in Milan, where he found Domenico raised to such greatness that he had no little difficulty in getting speech of him, Niccolò related to him all his troubles, and then besought him that he should help him by making use of his services; but Domenico, not remembering or not choosing to remember with what lovingness he had been brought up by Niccolò as if he had been his own son, gave him a miserably small sum of money and got rid of him as soon as he was able. And so Niccolò returned to Arezzo very sore at heart, having recognized that with the labour and expense with which, as he thought, he had reared a son, he had formed one who was little less than an enemy. In order to earn his bread, therefore, he went about executing all the work that came to his hand, as he had done many years before, and he painted among other things a canvas for the Commune of Monte Sansovino, containing the said town of Monte Sansovino and a Madonna in the sky, with two Saints at the sides; which picture was set up on an altar in the Madonna di Vertigli, a church belonging to the Monks of the Order of Camaldoli, not far distant from the Monte, where it has pleased and still pleases Our Lord daily to perform many miracles and to grant favours to those who recommend themselves to the Queen of Heaven. Afterwards, Julius III having been created Supreme Pontiff, Niccolò, who had been much connected with the house of Monte, made his way to Rome, although he was an old man of eighty, and, having kissed the foot of His Holiness, besought him that he should deign to make use of him in the buildings which were to be erected, so men said, at the Monte, a place which the Lord Duke of Florence had given in fief to the Pontiff. The Pope, then, having received him warmly, ordained that the means to live in Rome should be given to him without exacting any sort of exertion from him; and in this manner Niccolò spent several months in Rome, drawing many antiquities to pass the time. Meanwhile the Pope resolved to increase his native town of Monte Sansovino, and to make there, besides many ornamental works, an aqueduct, because that place suffered much from want of water; and Giorgio Vasari, who had orders from the Pope to cause those buildings to be begun, recommended Niccolò Soggi strongly to His Holiness, entreating him that Niccolò should be given the office of superintendent over those works. Whereupon Niccolò went to Arezzo filled with these hopes, but he had not been there many days when, worn out by the fatigues and hardships of this world and by the knowledge that he had been abandoned by him who should have been the last to forsake him, he finished the course of his life and was buried in S. Domenico in that city. Not long afterwards Domenico Giuntalodi, Don Ferrante Gonzaga having died, departed from Milan with the intention of returning to Prato and of passing the rest of his life there in repose. However, finding there neither relatives nor friends, and recognizing that Prato was no abiding place for him, he repented too late that he had behaved ungratefully to Niccolò, and returned to Lombardy to serve the sons of Don Ferrante. But no long time passed before he fell sick unto death; whereupon he made a will leaving ten thousand crowns to his fellow-citizens of Prato, to the end that they might buy property to that amount and form a fund wherewith to maintain continually at their studies a certain number of students from Prato, in the manner in which they maintained certain others, as they still do, according to the terms of another bequest. And this has been carried out by the men of that town of Prato, who, grateful for such a benefit, which in truth has been a very great one and worthy of eternal remembrance, have placed in their Council Chamber the image of Domenico, as that of one who has deserved well of his country. FOOTNOTE: [32] See p. 208, Vol. III. [33] These words are missing in the text. INDEX INDEX OF NAMES OF THE CRAFTSMEN MENTIONED IN VOLUME VI Abacco, Antonio L', 113, 114, 130, 136, 137 Abbot of S. Clemente (Don Bartolommeo della Gatta), 255 Agnolo, Baccio d' (Baccio Baglioni), _Life_, 65-68. 69, 72 Agnolo, Battista d' (Battista del Moro), _Life_, 27-28. 108 Agnolo, Domenico di Baccio d', 68, 70, 72 Agnolo, Filippo di Baccio d', 68, 70 Agnolo, Giuliano di Baccio d', _Life_, 68-72 Agnolo, Marco di Battista d', 27, 28 Agnolo Bronzino, 118, 256 Agostino Viniziano (Agostino de' Musi), _Life_, 102-103. 106 Aimo, Domenico (Il Bologna), 217 Alberti, Leon Batista, 45 Alberto Monsignori (Bonsignori), 29 Albrecht (Heinrich) Aldegrever, 119 Albrecht Dürer, _Life_, 92-98. 99, 102, 119, 165 Aldegrever, Albrecht (Heinrich), 119 Alessandro Cesati (Il Greco), _Life_, 85 Alessandro Falconetto, 47, 48 Alessandro Filipepi (Sandro Botticelli), 91 Andrea Contucci (Andrea Sansovino), 66, 133 Andrea dal Castagno, 182 Andrea de' Ceri, 190-192, 201 Andrea del Sarto, 60, 106, 255-257, 272, 273 Andrea Mantegna, 15, 29, 30, 91 Andrea Palladio, 28, 48 Andrea Sansovino (Andrea Contucci), 66, 133 Angelico, Fra (Fra Giovanni da Fiesole), 246 Anichini, Luigi, 85 Anselmo Canneri, 22 Antoine Lafrery (Antonio Lanferri), 113 Antonio da San Gallo (the elder), 66, 123, 272 Antonio da San Gallo (the younger), _Life_, 123-141. 167, 197, 198, 219, 220, 222 Antonio da Trento (Antonio Fantuzzi), 108 Antonio del Pollaiuolo, 182, 246 Antonio di Giorgio Marchissi, 126 Antonio di Marco di Giano (Il Carota), 213 Antonio Fantuzzi (Antonio da Trento), 108 Antonio l'Abacco, 113, 114, 130, 136, 137 Antonio Lanferri (Antoine Lafrery), 113 Antonio (or Vittore) Pisano (or Pisanello), 35 Antonio Salamanca, 276 Antonio Scarpagni (Scarpagnino or Zanfragnino,) 10 Aretino, Leone (Leone Lioni), 87 Aretusi, Pellegrino degli (Pellegrino da Modena, or de' Munari), 125 Avanzi, Niccolò, 79, 80 Bacchiacca, Il (Francesco Ubertini), 60 Baccio Baglioni (Baccio d' Agnolo), _Life_, 65-68. 69, 72 Baccio Baldini, 91 Baccio Bandinelli, 69-71, 103, 105, 111 Baccio d' Agnolo (Baccio Baglioni), _Life_, 65-68. 69, 72 Baldassarre Peruzzi, 107, 167, 174, 177, 239 Baldini, Baccio, 91 Bandinelli, Baccio, 69-71, 103, 105, 111 Barile, Giovan, 177 Barlacchi, Tommaso, 104, 113 Barozzo, Jacopo, 114 Bartolommeo da Castiglione, 152 Bartolommeo della Gatta, Don (Abbot of S. Clemente), 255 Bartolommeo di San Marco, Fra, 66 Bartolommeo Ridolfi, 48 Bartolommeo Torri, 264, 265 Battista d' Agnolo (Battista del Moro), _Life_, 27-28. 108 Battista del Cervelliera, 214, 247, 248 Battista del Moro (Battista d' Agnolo), _Life_, 27-28. 108 Battista del Tasso, 213 Battista Franco, 108, 114, 156 Battista Gobbo, 133, 140 Battista of Vicenza (Battista Pittoni), 108 Baviera, 100, 101, 109, 209 Bazzi, Giovanni Antonio (Il Sodoma), 236-238, 247, 249 Beatricio, Niccolò (Nicolas Beautrizet), 114 Beccafumi, Domenico (Domenico di Pace), _Life_, 235-251. 108, 213, 215, 223, 235-251 Beham, Hans, 119 Belli, Valerio (Valerio Vicentino), _Life_, 82-84. 76, 79 Bellini, Giovanni, 173 Bellini, Jacopo, 11, 35 Benedetto da Maiano, 66 Benedetto Ghirlandajo, 57 Benedetto Pagni, 152, 154-156, 169 Benozzo Gozzoli, 246 Benvenuto Cellini, 86, 87 Bernardi, Giovanni (Giovanni da Castel Bolognese), _Life_, 76-79. 83, 84 Bernardino Pinturicchio, 195 Bologna, Il (Domenico Aimo), 217 Bolognese, Marc' Antonio (Marc' Antonio Raimondi, or de' Franci), _Life_, 95-96, 99-106. 108, 109, 120 Bonasone, Giulio, 114 Bonsignori (Monsignori), Alberto, 29 Bonsignori (Monsignori), Fra Cherubino, 34 Bonsignori (Monsignori), Fra Girolamo, _Life_, 34-35 Bonsignori (Monsignori), Francesco, _Life_, 29-35 Borgo, Raffaello dal (Raffaello dal Colle), 152, 169 Borgo a San Sepolcro, Giovan Maria dal, 256 Bosch, Hieronymus, 118 Botticelli, Sandro (Alessandro Filipepi), 91 Boyvin, René (Renato), 115 Bramante da Urbino, 6, 124, 126, 136, 138 Brescianino (Girolamo Muziano, or Mosciano), 114 Bronzino, Agnolo, 118, 256 Brunelleschi, Filippo, 68, 71 Brusciasorzi, Domenico (Domenico del Riccio), 82 Bugiardini, Giuliano, 183 Buonaccorsi, Perino (Perino del Vaga, or Perino de' Ceri), _Life_, 189-225. 78, 109, 125, 129, 139, 148, 177, 189-225, 244, 257-259 Buonarroti, Michelagnolo, 57, 59, 60, 66, 68, 78, 79, 85, 92, 107, 111, 113, 114, 129, 135, 136, 139, 140, 167, 174-177, 183, 185, 191, 193, 195, 205, 218, 219, 222, 225, 236, 263 Cadore, Tiziano da (Tiziano Vecelli), 109, 111, 114, 161, 183, 222 Calcar, Johann of (Jan Stephanus van Calcker), 116 Caliari, Paolo (Paolo Veronese), 22, 27 Cammei, Domenico de', 76 Canneri, Anselmo, 22 Caraglio, Gian Jacopo, 109, 110, 209 Caravaggio, Polidoro da, 177, 196 Carota, Il (Antonio di Marco di Giano), 213 Caroto, Giovan Francesco, _Life_, 15-21. 37 Caroto, Giovanni, _Life_, 21-22. 15 Carpi, Ugo da, 106, 107 Carrara, Danese da (Danese Cattaneo), 26-28, 54 Carrucci, Jacopo (Jacopo da Pontormo), 60, 255-257, 273 Castagno, Andrea dal, 182 Castel Bolognese, Giovanni da (Giovanni Bernardi), _Life_, 76-79. 83, 84 Castelfranco, Giorgione da, 23, 173, 174 Castiglione, Bartolommeo da, 152 Catanei, Piero, 250 Cattaneo, Danese (Danese da Carrara), 26-28, 54 Cavalieri, Giovan Battista de', 113 Cavazzuola, Paolo (Paolo Morando), _Life_, 39-42. 15, 24, 25, 29, 39-42, 50 Cellini, Benvenuto, 86, 87 Ceri, Andrea de', 190-192, 201 Ceri, Perino de' (Perino del Vaga, or Perino Buonaccorsi), _Life_, 189-225. 78, 109, 125, 129, 139, 148, 177, 189-225, 244, 257-259 Cervelliera, Battista del, 214, 247, 248 Cesati, Alessandro (Il Greco), _Life_, 85 Cherubino Monsignori (Bonsignori), Fra, 34 Cicogna, Girolamo, 22 Cioli, Simone, 133 Clovio, Don Giulio, 51, 54, 111, 264 Cock, Hieronymus, _Life_, 116-120. 108 Colle, Raffaello dal (Raffaello dal Borgo), 152, 169 Contucci, Andrea (Andrea Sansovino), 66, 133 Coriolano, Cristofano, 120 Corniole, Giovanni delle, 76, 84 Cortona, Luca da (Luca Signorelli), 246 Cosimo (Jacopo) da Trezzo, 86 Cosini, Silvio, 210 Cousin, Jean (Giovanni Cugini), 114 Coxie, Michael (Michele), 116, 178 Cristofano Coriolano, 120 Cristofano Lombardi (Tofano Lombardino), 167 Cronaca, Il (Simone del Pollaiuolo), 66, 70 Cugini, Giovanni (Jean Cousin), 114 Cungi, Leonardo, 225 Danese Cattaneo (Danese da Carrara), 26-28, 54 Daniello Ricciarelli, 113, 219, 224 David Ghirlandajo, 57 Dente, Marco (Marco da Ravenna), _Life_, 102-103. 106 Domenico Aimo (Il Bologna), 217 Domenico Beccafumi (Domenico di Pace), _Life_, 235-251. 108, 213, 215, 223, 235-251 Domenico Brusciasorzi (Domenico del Riccio), 82 Domenico de' Cammei, 76 Domenico del Riccio (Domenico Brusciasorzi), 82 Domenico di Baccio d' Agnolo, 68, 70, 72 Domenico di Pace (Domenico Beccafumi), _Life_, 235-251. 108, 213, 215, 223, 235-251 Domenico di Polo, 84 Domenico Ghirlandajo, 57, 58, 191 Domenico Giuntalodi, 273-279 Domenico Morone, _Life_, 35-36. 29, 38 Domenico Pecori, 255, 258, 271 Domenico Poggini, 87 Domenico Viniziano, 182 Don Bartolommeo della Gatta (Abbot of S. Clemente), 255 Don Giulio Clovio, 51, 54, 111, 264 Donato (Donatello), 220 Duccio, 245 Dürer, Albrecht, _Life_, 92-98. 99, 102, 119, 165 Enea Vico, _Life_, 111-112 Faenza, Figurino da, 169 Fagiuoli, Girolamo, 87, 276 Falconetto, Alessandro, 47, 48 Falconetto, Giovan Maria, _Life_, 43-48. 22, 29, 42, 43-48 Falconetto, Giovanni Antonio (the elder), 42 Falconetto, Giovanni Antonio (the younger), 42, 43 Falconetto, Jacopo, 42, 43 Falconetto, Ottaviano, 47, 48 Falconetto, Provolo, 47, 48 Fantuzzi, Antonio (Antonio da Trento), 108 Fattore, Il (Giovan Francesco Penni), 146-148, 150, 151, 153, 177, 193, 194, 207, 216 Fermo Ghisoni, 34, 167, 169 Fiacco (or Flacco), Orlando, _Life_, 28 Fiesole, Fra Giovanni da (Fra Angelico), 246 Fiesole, Maestro Giovanni da, 210 Figurino da Faenza, 169 Filipepi, Alessandro (Sandro Botticelli), 91 Filippino (Filippo Lippi), 66 Filippo Brunelleschi, 68, 71 Filippo di Baccio d' Agnolo, 68, 70 Filippo Lippi (Filippino), 66 Filippo Lippi, Fra, 246 Filippo Negrolo, 86 Finiguerra, Maso, 91 Flacco (or Fiacco), Orlando, _Life_, 28 Floris, Franz (Franz de Vrient), 119, 120 Fra Angelico (Fra Giovanni da Fiesole), 246 Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco, 66 Fra Cherubino Monsignori (Bonsignori), 34 Fra Filippo Lippi, 246 Fra Giocondo, _Life_, 3-11. 28, 47, 126 Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (Fra Angelico), 246 Fra Giovanni da Verona, 38, 39, 51, 218 Fra Girolamo Monsignori (Bonsignori), _Life_, 34-35 Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del Piombo (Sebastiano Luciani), _Life_, 173-186. 108, 139, 148, 173-186, 217, 259 Francesco Bonsignori (Monsignori), _Life_, 29-35 Francesco da San Gallo, 133, 173 Francesco dai Libri (the elder), _Life_, 49. 29 Francesco dai Libri (the younger), _Life_, 52-54 Francesco de' Rossi (Francesco Salviati), 108, 111, 177 Francesco dell' Indaco, 126 Francesco Francia, 95 Francesco Granacci (Il Granaccio), _Life_, 57-61. 66 Francesco Marcolini, 115 Francesco Mazzuoli (Parmigiano), 107-109, 114, 259 Francesco Monsignori (Bonsignori), _Life_, 29-35 Francesco Morone, _Life_, 36-39. 29, 36-39, 40, 41, 50 Francesco Primaticcio, 115, 157 Francesco Salviati (Francesco de' Rossi), 108, 111, 177 Francesco Turbido (Il Moro), _Life_, 22-28. 14, 15, 21, 22-28, 40, 50, 164 Francesco Ubertini (Il Bacchiacca), 60 Franci, Marc' Antonio de' (Marc' Antonio Bolognese, or Raimondi), _Life_, 95-96, 99-106. 108, 109, 120 Francia, Francesco, 95 Franco, Battista, 108, 114, 156 Franz Floris (Franz de Vrient), 119, 120 Gabriele Giolito, 115 Galeazzo Mondella, 42, 80 Galeotto, Pietro Paolo, 87 Gasparo Misuroni (Misceroni), 86 Gatta, Don Bartolommeo della (Abbot of S. Clemente), 255 Georg Pencz, 119 Gherardo, 92 Ghirlandajo, Benedetto, 57 Ghirlandajo, David, 57 Ghirlandajo, Domenico, 57, 58, 191 Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo, 191, 192 Ghisi (Mantovano), Giorgio, 113, 118 Ghisoni, Fermo, 34, 167, 169 Gian Jacopo Caraglio, 109, 110, 209 Giannuzzi, Giulio Pippi de' (Giulio Romano), _Life_, 145-169. 20, 24, 103-105, 110, 114, 145-169, 177, 193, 194, 207, 216, 221, 259 Giannuzzi, Raffaello Pippi de', 168 Giano, Antonio di Marco di (Il Carota), 213 Giocondo, Fra, _Life_, 3-11. 28, 47, 126 Giolito, Gabriele, 115 Giorgio Mantovano (Ghisi), 113, 118 Giorgio Vasari. See Vasari (Giorgio) Giorgione da Castelfranco, 23, 173, 174 Giotto, 114, 202, 219, 220, 235 Giovan Barile, 177 Giovan Battista de' Cavalieri, 113 Giovan Battista de' Rossi (Il Rosso), 109, 111, 115, 257-261, 273, 274 Giovan Battista Mantovano (Sculptore), 110, 111, 157, 164, 165, 169 Giovan Battista Rosso (or Rosto), 164 Giovan Battista Sozzini, 87 Giovan Francesco Caroto, _Life_, 15-21. 37 Giovan Francesco Penni (Il Fattore), 146-148, 150, 151, 153, 177, 193, 194, 207, 216 Giovan Maria dal Borgo a San Sepolcro, 256 Giovan Maria Falconetto, _Life_, 43-48. 22, 29, 42, 43-48 Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (Il Sodoma), 236-238, 247, 249 Giovanni Antonio de' Rossi, 86 Giovanni Antonio Falconetto (the elder), 42 Giovanni Antonio Falconetto (the younger), 42, 43 Giovanni Antonio Lappoli, _Life_, 255-265 Giovanni Antonio Licinio (Pordenone), 213, 244, 247 Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, 214, 215, 247, 248 Giovanni Battista Veronese, 13 Giovanni Bellini, 173 Giovanni Bernardi (Giovanni da Castel Bolognese), _Life_, 76-79. 83, 84 Giovanni Caroto, _Life_, 21-22. 15 Giovanni Cugini (Jean Cousin), 114 Giovanni da Castel Bolognese (Giovanni Bernardi), _Life_, 76-79. 83, 84 Giovanni da Fiesole, Fra (Fra Angelico), 246 Giovanni da Fiesole, Maestro, 210 Giovanni da Lione, 152, 169 Giovanni da Udine (Giovanni Nanni, or Ricamatori), 147, 148, 180, 194-196 Giovanni da Verona, Fra, 38, 39, 51, 218 Giovanni delle Corniole, 76, 84 Giovanni di Goro, 206 Giovanni Ricamatori (Giovanni da Udine, or Nanni), 147, 148, 180, 194-196 Girolamo Cicogna, 22 Girolamo da Treviso, 211, 212, 244 Girolamo dai Libri, _Life_, 49-52. 29, 37, 49-52, 54 Girolamo Fagiuoli, 87, 276 Girolamo Misuroni (Misceroni), 86 Girolamo Monsignori (Bonsignori), Fra, _Life_, 34-35 Girolamo Mosciano (Girolamo Muziano, or Brescianino), 114 Girolamo Siciolante (Girolamo Sermoneta), 221, 222, 225 Giugni, Rosso de', 87 Giuliano Bugiardini, 183 Giuliano da Maiano, 131 Giuliano da San Gallo, 6, 66, 123, 124, 126 Giuliano di Baccio d' Agnolo, _Life_, 68-72 Giuliano (di Niccolò Morelli), 251 Giuliano Leno, 130, 150 Giulio Bonasone, 114 Giulio Clovio, Don, 51, 54, 111, 264 Giulio Romano (Giulio Pippi de' Giannuzzi), _Life_, 145-169. 20, 24, 103-105, 110, 114, 145-169, 177, 193, 194, 207, 216, 221, 259 Giuntalodi, Domenico, 273-279 Giuseppe del Salviati (Giuseppe Porta), 115 Giuseppe Niccolò (Joannicolo) Vicentino, 108 Giuseppe Porta (Giuseppe del Salviati), 115 Gobbo, Battista, 133, 140 Goro, Giovanni di, 206 Gozzoli, Benozzo, 246 Granacci, Francesco (Il Granaccio), _Life_, 57-61. 66 Greco, Il (Alessandro Cesati), _Life_, 85 Guglielmo Milanese, 217 Hans Beham, 119 Hans Liefrinck, 117 Heemskerk, Martin, 116 Heinrich (Albrecht) Aldegrever, 119 Hieronymus Bosch, 118 Hieronymus Cock, _Life_, 116-120. 108 Holland, Lucas of (Luca di Leyden, or Lucas van Leyden), _Life_, 96-99 Il Bacchiacca (Francesco Ubertini), 60 Il Bologna (Domenico Aimo), 217 Il Carota (Antonio di Marco di Giano), 213 Il Cronaca (Simone del Pollaiuolo), 66, 70 Il Fattore (Giovan Francesco Penni), 146-148, 150, 151, 153, 177, 193, 194, 207, 216 Il Granaccio (Francesco Granacci), _Life_, 57-61. 66 Il Greco (Alessandro Cesati), _Life_, 85 Il Moro (Francesco Turbido), _Life_, 22-28. 14, 15, 21, 22-28, 40, 50, 164 Il Rosso (Giovan Battista de' Rossi), 109, 111, 115, 257-261, 273, 274 Il Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi), 236-238, 247, 249 Indaco, Francesco dell', 126 Jacomo Melighino, 139, 140 Jacopo Barozzo, 114 Jacopo Bellini, 11, 35 Jacopo da Pontormo (Jacopo Carrucci), 60, 255-257, 273 Jacopo da Trezzo, 86 Jacopo (Cosimo) da Trezzo, 86 Jacopo Falconetto, 42, 43 Jacopo Sansovino, 47, 125, 127, 199 Jan Stephanus van Calcker (Johann of Calcar), 116 Jean Cousin (Giovanni Cugini), 114 Joannicolo (Giuseppe Niccolò) Vicentino, 108 Johann of Calcar (Jan Stephanus van Calcker), 116 Lafrery, Antoine (Antonio Lanferri), 113 Lamberto Suave (Lambert Zutmann), 110 Lanferri, Antonio (Antoine Lafrery), 113 Lappoli, Giovanni Antonio, _Life_, 255-265 Lappoli, Matteo, 255 Laureti, Tommaso (Tommaso Siciliano), 186 Leno, Giuliano, 130, 150 Leon Batista Alberti, 45 Leonardo Cungi, 225 Leone Aretino (Leone Lioni), 87 Leyden, Luca di (Lucas of Holland, or Lucas van Leyden), _Life_, 96-99 Liberale, _Life_, 11-15. 23, 24, 35, 36, 49 Libri, Francesco dai (the elder), _Life_, 49. 29 Libri, Francesco dai (the younger), _Life_, 52-54 Libri, Girolamo dai, _Life_, 49-52. 29, 37, 49-52, 54 Licinio, Giovanni Antonio (Pordenone), 213, 244, 247 Liefrinck, Hans, 117 Lione, Giovanni da, 152, 169 Lioni, Leone (Leone Aretino), 87 Lippi, Filippo (Filippino), 66 Lippi, Fra Filippo, 246 Lodovico Marmita, 84 Lombardino, Tofano (Cristofano Lombardi), 167 Luca da Cortona (Luca Signorelli), 246 Luca di Leyden (Lucas of Holland, or Lucas van Leyden), _Life_, 96-99 Luca Penni, 115 Luca Signorelli (Luca da Cortona), 246 Lucas of Holland (Luca di Leyden, or Lucas van Leyden), _Life_, 96-99 Luciani, Sebastiano (Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del Piombo), _Life_, 173-186. 108, 139, 148, 173-186, 217, 259 Luigi Anichini, 85 Luzio Romano, 212, 222 Maestro Giovanni da Fiesole, 210 Maestro Niccolò, 164 Maestro Salvestro, 87 Maiano, Benedetto da, 66 Maiano, Giuliano da, 131 Manno, 78 Mantegna, Andrea, 15, 29, 30, 91 Mantovano (Ghisi), Giorgio, 113, 118 Mantovano (Sculptore), Giovan Battista, 110, 111, 157, 164, 165, 169 Mantovano, Marcello (Marcello Venusti), 220, 225 Mantovano, Rinaldo, 155, 156, 160, 161, 169 Marc' Antonio Bolognese (Marc' Antonio Raimondi, or de' Franci), _Life_, 95-96, 99-106. 108, 109, 120 Marcello Mantovano (Marcello Venusti), 220, 225 Marchissi, Antonio di Giorgio, 126 Marco da Ravenna (Marco Dente), _Life_, 102-103. 106 Marco da Siena, 223 Marco Dente (Marco da Ravenna), _Life_, 102-103. 106 Marco di Battista d' Agnolo, 27, 28 Marcolini, Francesco, 115 Marmita, 84 Marmita, Lodovico, 84 Martin Heemskerk, 116 Martin Schongauer, _Life_, 91-92 Masaccio, 202, 203 Maso Finiguerra, 91 Masolino da Panicale, 203 Matteo dal Nassaro, _Life_, 79-82. 76 Matteo Lappoli, 255 Maturino, 177, 196 Mazzuoli, Francesco (Parmigiano), 107-109, 114, 259 Melighino, Jacomo, 139, 140 Michael (Michele Coxie), 116, 178 Michelagnolo Buonarroti, 57, 59, 60, 66, 68, 78, 79, 85, 92, 107, 111, 113, 114, 129, 135, 136, 139, 140, 167, 174-177, 183, 185, 191, 193, 195, 205, 218, 219, 222, 225, 236, 263 Michele (Michael Coxie), 116, 178 Michele San Michele, 25, 26, 47, 130 Michelino, 76 Milanese, Guglielmo, 217 Minio, Tiziano (Tiziano da Padova), 47 Misuroni (Misceroni), Gasparo, 86 Misuroni (Misceroni), Girolamo, 86 Modena, Pellegrino da (Pellegrino degli Aretusi, or de' Munari), 125 Mondella, Galeazzo, 42, 80 Monsignori (Bonsignori), Alberto, 29 Monsignori (Bonsignori), Fra Cherubino, 34 Monsignori (Bonsignori), Fra Girolamo, _Life_, 34-35 Monsignori (Bonsignori), Francesco, _Life_, 29-35 Montelupo, Raffaello da, 133, 222 Morando, Paolo (Paolo Cavazzuola), _Life_, 39-42. 15, 24, 25, 29, 39-42, 50 Morelli, Giuliano di Niccolò, 251 Moro, Battista del (Battista d' Agnolo), _Life_, 27-28. 108 Moro, Il (Francesco Turbido), _Life_, 22-28. 14, 15, 21, 22-28, 40, 50, 164 Morone, Domenico, _Life_, 35-36. 29, 38 Morone, Francesco, _Life_, 36-39. 29, 36-39, 40, 41, 50 Mosca, Simone, 133 Mosciano, Girolamo (Girolamo Muziano, or Brescianino), 114 Munari, Pellegrino de' (Pellegrino da Modena, or degli Aretusi), 125 Musi, Agostino de' (Agostino Viniziano), _Life_, 102-103. 106 Muziano, Girolamo (Girolamo Mosciano, or Brescianino), 114 Nanni, Giovanni (Giovanni da Udine, or Ricamatori), 147, 148, 180, 194-196 Nassaro, Matteo dal, _Life_, 79-82. 76 Navarra, Pietro, 126 Negrolo, Filippo, 86 Niccola Viniziano, 209 Niccolò (called Tribolo), 133 Niccolò, Maestro, 164 Niccolò Avanzi, 79, 80 Niccolò Beatricio (Nicolas Beautrizet), 114 Niccolò Soggi, _Life_, 269-279. 261 Nicolas Beautrizet (Niccolò Beatricio), 114 Nunziata, Toto del, 191, 196 Orlando Fiacco (or Fiacco), _Life_, 28 Ottaviano Falconetto, 47, 48 Pace, Domenico di (Domenico Beccafumi), _Life_, 235-251. 108, 213, 215, 223, 235-251 Padova, Tiziano da (Tiziano Minio), 47 Pagni, Benedetto, 152, 154-156, 169 Palladio, Andrea, 28, 48 Panicale, Masolino da, 203 Paolo Caliari (Paolo Veronese), 22, 27 Paolo Cavazzuola (Paolo Morando), _Life_, 39-42. 15, 24, 25, 29, 39-42, 50 Paolo Veronese (Paolo Caliari), 22, 27 Papacello, Tommaso, 152 Papino della Pieve, 272 Parmigiano (Francesco Mazzuoli), 107-109, 114, 259 Pastorino da Siena, 87, 219 Pecori, Domenico, 255, 258, 271 Pellegrino da Modena (Pellegrino degli Aretusi, or de' Munari), 125 Pencz, Georg, 119 Penni, Giovan Francesco (Il Fattore), 146-148, 150, 151, 153, 177, 193, 194, 207, 216 Penni, Luca, 115 Perino del Vaga (Perino Buonaccorsi, or Perino de' Ceri), _Life_, 189-225. 78, 109, 125, 129, 139, 148, 177, 189-225, 244, 257-259 Perugino, Pietro (Pietro Vannucci), 235, 269 Peruzzi, Baldassarre, 107, 167, 174, 177, 239 Pescia, Pier Maria da, 76 Pier Francesco da Viterbo, 130, 132 Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, 257 Pier Maria da Pescia, 76 Piero Catanei, 250 Piero del Pollaiuolo, 182, 246 Pietrasanta, Stagio da, 214 Pietro Navarra, 126 Pietro Paolo Galeotto, 87 Pietro Perugino (Pietro Vannucci), 235, 269 Pieve, Papino della, 272 Piloto, 201, 205, 207 Pinturicchio, Bernardino, 195 Piombo, Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del (Sebastiano Luciani), _Life_, 173-186. 108, 139, 148, 173-186, 217, 259 Pisano (or Pisanello), Vittore (or Antonio), 35 Pittoni, Battista (Battista of Vicenza), 108 Poggini, Domenico, 87 Polidoro da Caravaggio, 177, 196 Pollaiuolo, Antonio del, 182, 246 Pollaiuolo, Piero del, 182, 246 Pollaiuolo, Simone del (Il Cronaca), 66, 70 Polo, Domenico di, 84 Pontormo, Jacopo da (Jacopo Carrucci), 60, 255-257, 273 Pordenone (Giovanni Antonio Licinio), 213, 244, 247 Porta, Giuseppe (Giuseppe del Salviati), 115 Primaticcio, Francesco, 115, 157 Provolo Falconetto, 47, 48 Raffaello da Montelupo, 133, 222 Raffaello da Urbino (Raffaello Sanzio), 6, 38, 66, 69, 99-104, 106-108, 114, 120, 126, 127, 130, 145-148, 153, 156, 165, 174-178, 181, 183, 193-195, 207, 209, 218, 221, 236, 269 Raffaello dal Colle (Raffaello dal Borgo), 152, 169 Raffaello Pippi de' Giannuzzi, 168 Raffaello Sanzio (Raffaello da Urbino), 6, 38, 66, 69, 99-104, 106-108, 114, 120, 126, 127, 130, 145-148, 153, 156, 165, 174-178, 181, 183, 193-195, 207, 209, 218, 221, 236, 269 Raimondi, Marc' Antonio (Marc' Antonio Bolognese, or de' Franci), _Life_, 95-96, 99-106. 108, 109, 120 Ravenna, Marco da (Marco Dente), _Life_, 102-103. 106 Reggio, Sebastiano da, 165 Renato (René Boyvin), 115 Ricamatori, Giovanni (Giovanni da Udine, or Nanni), 147, 148, 180, 194-196 Ricciarelli, Daniello, 113, 219, 224 Riccio, Domenico del (Domenico Brusciasorzi), 82 Ridolfi, Bartolommeo, 48 Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, 191, 192 Rinaldo Mantovano, 155, 156, 160, 161, 169 Romano, Giulio (Giulio Pippi de' Giannuzzi), _Life_, 145-169. 20, 24, 103-105, 110, 114, 145-169, 177, 193, 194, 207, 216, 221, 259 Romano, Luzio, 212, 222 Rossi, Francesco de' (Francesco Salviati), 108, 111, 177 Rossi, Giovan Battista de' (Il Rosso), 109, 111, 115, 257-261, 273, 274 Rossi, Giovanni Antonio de', 86 Rosso (or Rosto), Giovan Battista, 164 Rosso, Il (Giovan Battista de' Rossi), 109, 111, 115, 257-261, 273, 274 Rosso de' Giugni, 87 Rosto (or Rosso), Giovan Battista, 164 Salamanca, Antonio, 276 Salvestro, Maestro, 87 Salviati, Francesco (Francesco de' Rossi), 108, 111, 177 Salviati, Giuseppe del (Giuseppe Porta), 115 S. Clemente, Abbot of (Don Bartolommeo della Gatta), 255 San Gallo, Antonio da (the elder), 66, 123, 272 San Gallo, Antonio da (the younger), _Life_, 123-141. 167, 197, 198, 219, 220, 222 San Gallo, Francesco da, 133, 173 San Gallo, Giuliano da, 6, 66, 123, 124, 126 San Marco, Fra Bartolommeo di, 66 San Michele, Michele, 25, 26, 47, 130 Sandro, Pier Francesco di Jacopo di, 257 Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro Filipepi), 91 Sansovino, Andrea (Andrea Contucci), 66, 133 Sansovino, Jacopo, 47, 125, 127, 199 Sanzio, Raffaello (Raffaello da Urbino), 6, 38, 66, 69, 99-104, 106-108, 114, 120, 126, 127, 130, 145-148, 153, 156, 165, 174-178, 181, 183, 193-195, 207, 209, 218, 221, 236, 269 Sarto, Andrea del, 60, 106, 255-257, 272, 273 Sassoli, Stagio, 272 Scarpagni, Antonio (Scarpagnino or Zanfragnino), 10 Schongauer, Martin, _Life_, 91-92 Sculptore (Mantovano), Giovan Battista, 110, 111, 157, 164, 165, 169 Sebastiano da Reggio, 165 Sebastiano Luciani (Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del Piombo), _Life_, 173-186. 108, 139, 148, 173-186, 217, 259 Sebastiano Serlio, 113 Sebastiano Viniziano del Piombo, Fra (Sebastiano Luciani), _Life_, 173-186. 108, 139, 148, 173-186, 217, 259 Serlio, Sebastiano, 113 Sermoneta, Girolamo (Girolamo Siciolante), 221, 222, 225 Siciliano, Tommaso (Tommaso Laureti), 186 Siciolante, Girolamo (Girolamo Sermoneta), 221, 222, 225 Siena, Marco da, 223 Siena, Pastorino da, 87, 219 Signorelli, Luca (Luca da Cortona), 246 Silvio Cosini, 210 Simone Cioli, 133 Simone del Pollaiuolo (Il Cronaca), 66, 70 Simone Mosca, 133 Sodoma, Il (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi), 236-238, 247, 249 Soggi, Niccolò, _Life_, 269-279. 261 Sogliani, Giovanni Antonio, 214, 215, 247, 248 Sozzini, Giovan Battista, 87 Stagio da Pietrasanta, 214 Stagio Sassoli, 272 Stefano, Vincenzio di, 11 Stefano Veronese (Stefano da Zevio), 35, 42 Suave, Lamberto (Lambert Zutmann), 110 Tasso, Battista del, 213 Tiziano da Cadore (Tiziano Vecelli), 109, 111, 114, 161, 183, 222 Tiziano da Padova (Tiziano Minio), 47 Tiziano Vecelli (Tiziano da Cadore), 109, 111, 114, 161, 183, 222 Tofano Lombardino (Cristofano Lombardi), 167 Tommaso Barlacchi, 104, 113 Tommaso Laureti (Tommaso Siciliano), 186 Tommaso Papacello, 152 Tommaso Siciliano (Tommaso Laureti), 186 Torri, Bartolommeo, 264, 265 Toto del Nunziata, 191, 196 Trento, Antonio da (Antonio Fantuzzi), 108 Treviso, Girolamo da, 211, 212, 244 Trezzo, Cosimo (Jacopo) da, 86 Trezzo, Jacopo da, 86 Tribolo (Niccolò), 133 Turbido, Francesco (Il Moro), _Life_, 22-28. 14, 15, 21, 22-28, 40, 50, 164 Ubertini, Francesco (Il Bacchiacca), 60 Udine, Giovanni da (Giovanni Nanni, or Ricamatori), 147, 148, 180, 194-196 Ugo da Carpi, 106, 107 Urbino, Bramante da, 6, 124, 126, 136, 138 Urbino, Raffaello da (Raffaello Sanzio), 6, 38, 66, 69, 99-104, 106-108, 114, 120, 126, 127, 130, 145-148, 153, 156, 165, 174-178, 181, 183, 193-195, 207, 209, 218, 221, 236, 269 Vaga, 191, 192 Vaga, Perino del (Perino Buonaccorsi, or Perino de' Ceri), _Life_, 189-225. 78, 109, 125, 129, 139, 148, 177, 189-225, 244, 257-259 Valerio Vicentino (Valerio Belli), _Life_, 82-84. 76-79 Valverde, 116 Vannucci, Pietro (Pietro Perugino), 235, 269 Vasari, Giorgio-- as art-collector, 3, 22, 54, 60, 120, 157, 175, 225, 230, 250, 256, 260, 263 as author, 3, 6, 10, 11, 13, 15, 22, 23, 27, 28, 32, 35, 39, 42, 46, 48, 53, 54, 57-59, 65, 75, 76, 79, 82, 84-87, 91, 93-95, 105-107, 112, 113, 120, 123, 133, 152, 153, 159, 161, 165-167, 175, 176, 178, 190, 194, 196, 202, 204, 207, 210-213, 215, 217, 221, 223, 229-231, 235, 239, 246, 248-250, 258, 261, 264, 269, 273 as painter, 22, 72, 120, 215, 221, 263, 264, 276 as architect, 70, 139, 278 Vecelli, Tiziano (Tiziano da Cadore), 109, 111, 114, 161, 183, 222 Venusti, Marcello (Marcello Mantovano), 220, 225 Verese, 118 Verona, Fra Giovanni da, 38, 39, 51, 218 Veronese, Giovanni Battista, 13 Veronese, Paolo (Paolo Caliari), 22, 27 Veronese, Stefano (Stefano da Zevio), 35, 42 Vicentino, Joannicolo (Giuseppe Niccolò), 108 Vicentino, Valerio (Valerio Belli), _Life_, 82-84. 76, 79 Vicenza, Battista of (Battista Pittoni), 108 Vico, Enea, _Life_, 111-112 Vincenzio di Stefano, 11 Viniziano, Agostino (Agostino de' Musi), _Life_, 102-103. 106 Viniziano, Domenico, 182 Viniziano, Niccola, 209 Viterbo, Pier Francesco da, 130, 132 Vitruvius, 5, 45, 140 Vittore (or Antonio) Pisano (or Pisanello), 35 Vrient, Franz de (Franz Floris), 119, 120 Zanfragnino (Antonio Scarpagni, or Scarpagnino), 10 Zeuxis, 239 Zevio, Stefano da (Stefano Veronese), 35, 42 Zoppo, 81 Zutmann, Lambert (Lamberto Suave), 110 END OF VOL VI. PRINTED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF CHAS. T. JACOBI OF THE CHISWICK PRESS, LONDON. THE COLOURED REPRODUCTIONS ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY HENRY STONE AND SON, LTD., BANBURY 
8707	----	THE DORE GALLERY OF BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrated by Gustave Dore Volume 7. JESUS WALKING ON THE WATER. And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray. And when, even was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land. And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourths watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed: by them. But when they saw him walking upon the sea, they supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out: for they all saw him, and were troubled. And immediately he talked with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid. And he went up unto them into the ship; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered. For they considered not the miracle of the loaves; for their heart was hardened.--Mark vi, 46-52. CHRIST'S ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM. And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring the unto me. And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them. All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass'; and a colt the foal of an ass. And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches; from the trees, and strewed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest. And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.--Matthew xxi, I-II. JESUS AND THE TRIBUTE MONEY. And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words. And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it. And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar's. And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marveled at him.--Mark xii, 13-17. THE WIDOW'S MITE. And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: for all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.--Mark xii, 13-17 RAISING OF THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS. And, behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw him, he fell at his feet, and besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed and she shall live. And Jesus went with him; and much people followed him, and thronged him. And a certain woman which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew, worse, when she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment. For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes? And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing. But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth. And he said unto her Daughter, thy faith hath made the whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague. While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further? As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe. And he suffered no man to follow him, save Peter, and James, and John the brother of James. And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly. And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. But when he had put them all out, he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entereth in where the damsel was lying. And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. And straightway the damsel arose, and walked; for she was of the age of twelve years. And they were astonished with a great astonishment. And he charged them straitly that no man should know it; and commanded that something should be given her to eat.--Mark v, 22-43. THE GOOD SAMARITAN. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him. And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.--Luke x, 29-37. ARRIVAL OF THE SAMARITAN AT THE INN. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. Luke x, 33-34 THE PRODIGAL SON. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. And he said, a certain man had two sons: and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.--Luke xv, 10-32 LAZARUS AND THE RICH MAN. There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.--Luke xvi, 19-31 THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others. Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican; The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up as much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every: one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Luke xviii, 9-14. JESUS AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly. The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. And upon this came his disciples, and marveled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things, that ever I did: is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.--John iv 5-30 
5771	----	This eBook was produced by David Schwan. The Art of the Exposition Personal Impressions of the Architecture, Sculpture, Mural Decorations, Color Scheme & Other Aesthetic Aspects of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition By Eugen Neuhaus University of California Chairman of the Western Advisory Committee and Member of the San Francisco Jury in the Department of Fine Arts of the Exposition To the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. A Great Work of Peace. These lines are appreciatively dedicated May the First 1915 Publisher's Announcement The following pages have grown out of many talks given during the year by Mr. Neuhaus to his students at the University of California. Presented to the public in the form of a series of evening lectures at the University, and repeated before many other organizations throughout California, his interpretation of the Art of the Exposition roused a demand for its repetition so widespread as only to be met by the aid of the printing press. San Francisco, California May 1, 1915 Contents The Architecture The architectural scheme, the setting and the style of the architecture. The Sculpture Its relation to the architecture, its artistic meaning and its symbolism. The Color Scheme and the Landscape Gardening The color elements as furnished by the artist and by nature; the horticultural effects. The Mural Decorations The intellectual emphasis of the color scheme, and the significance of the mural decorations. The Illumination - Conclusion The Exposition at night. Appendix Guide to Sculpture, The Mural decorations, Biographical notes. List of Illustrations The Tower in the Court of Abundance. Louis Christian Mullgardt, Architect. (Frontispiece) Under the Arch of the Tower of Jewels. McKim, Mead and White, Architects View Through the Great Arches of the Court of the Universe. McKim, Mead and White, Architects Niche Detail from the Court of the Four Seasons. Henry Bacon, Architect The Court of the Four Seasons. Henry Bacon, Architect Northern Doorway in the Court of Palms. George Kelham, Architect Entrance into the Palace of Education. Bliss and Faville, Architects Detail from the Court of Abundance. Louis Christian Mullgardt, Architect The Palace of Fine Arts. Bernard R. Maybeck, Architect Colonnade, Palace of Fine Arts. Bernard R. Maybeck, Architect. Portal of Vigor in the Palace of Food Products (in the distance). Bliss and Faville, Architects Colonnade, Palace of Fine Arts. Bernard R. Maybeck, Architect The Setting Sun. Adolph A. Weinman, Sculptor The Nations of the West. A. Stirling Calder, Frederick C. R. Roth, Leo Lentelli, Sculptors The Mermaid. Arthur Putnam, Sculptor The Adventurous Bowman Supported by Frieze of Toilers Details from the Column of Progress. Hermon A. MacNeil, Sculptor The End of the Trail. James Earl Fraser, Sculptor Autumn, in the Court of the Four Seasons. Furio Piccirilli, Sculptor The Pacific-Detail from the Fountain of Energy. A. Stirling Calder, Sculptor The Alaskan-Detail from Nations of the West. Frederick C. R. Roth, Sculptor The Feast of Sacrifice. Albert Jaegers, Sculptor Youth - From the Fountain of Youth. Edith Woodman Burroughs, Sculptor Truth - Detail from the Fountain of the Rising Sun. Adolph A. Weinman, Sculptor The Star. A. Stirling Calder, Sculptor The Triton - Detail of the Fountains of the Rising and the Setting Sun. Adolph A. Weinman, Sculptor Finial Figure in the Court of Abundance. Leo Lentelli, Sculptor Atlantic and Pacific and the Gateway of all Nations. William de Leftwich Dodge, Painter Commerce, Inspiration, Truth and Religion. Edward Simmons, Painter The Victorious Spirit. Arthur F. Mathews, Painter The Westward March of Civilization. Frank V. Du Mond, Painter The Pursuit of Pleasure. Charles Holloway, Painter Primitive Fire. Frank Brangwyn, Painter Night Effect - Colonnade of the Palace of Fine Arts. Bernard R. Maybeck, Architect Official Poster. Perham W. Nahl Ground Plan of the Exposition The Art of the Exposition The Architecture It is generally conceded that the essential lesson of the Exposition is the lesson of art. However strongly the industrial element may have asserted itself in the many interesting exhibits, no matter how extensive the appeal of the applied sciences may be, the final and lasting effect will be found in the great and enduring lesson of beauty which the Exposition so unforgetably teaches. The visitor is at once stirred by the many manifestations of art, presented so harmoniously by the architect, the sculptor, the landscape architect, and the painter-decorator, and his attention is kept throughout by artistic appeals at every turn. It must be said in the very start that few will realize what is the simple truth - that artistically this is probably the most successful exposition ever created. It may indeed prove the last. Large international expositions are becoming a thing of the past on account of the tremendous cost for relatively temporary purposes. There is still much of the popular conception abroad that the West has only very recently emerged from a state of semi-civilization inimical to the finer things of life, and to art in particular. But we may rest assured that the fortunate outsider who allows himself the luxury of travel will proclaim that the gospel of beauty has been preached most eloquently through the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The critic who prefers to condemn things will find small opportunity here, no matter how seriously he may take himself. The first sight of that great mosaic, from the Fillmore-street hill, at once creates a nerve-soothing impression most uncommon in international expositions, and for that matter, in any architectural aggregate. One is at once struck with the fitness of the location and of the scheme of architecture. Personally, I am greatly impressed with the architectural scheme and the consistency of its application to the whole. I fear that the two men, Mr. Willis Polk and Mr. Edward Bennett, who laid the foundation for the plan, will never receive as much credit as is really due them. I hope this appreciation may serve that purpose in some small way. It was a typically big western idea, an idea that as a rule never gets any farther than being thought of, or possibly seeing daylight as an "esquisse" - but seldom any farther than that. The Burnham plan for San Francisco was such an unrealized dream, but here the dream has achieved concrete form. The buildings as a group have all the big essential qualities that art possesses only in its noblest expression. Symmetry, balance, and harmony work together for a wonderful expression of unity, of oneness, that buildings devoted to profane purposes seldom show. I do not know how many people who visit the Exposition are so constituted as to derive an aesthetic thrill from artistic balance, but I imagine that any person, no matter how inexperienced in matters of art, will rejoice at the fine feeling of orderly arrangement of major forms which runs through the entire grouping. It is simplicity itself, and it serves an excellent practical purpose, enabling one to visit the Exposition without being left a nervous wreck at the end. The main entrance leads one into the physical center of the Exposition. From there, on the first visit, one realizes the existence of an equally large area on either side, covered with objects of interest. The main exposition, composed of a compactly arranged group of large buildings of approximately equal size, is symmetrically placed on either side of the main central court, the Court of the Universe. This sends out its avenues into two equally proportioned side courts - the Court of the Four Seasons on the west and the Court of Abundance on the east. While the main court rests right in the center of the eight buildings, the side courts fit snugly into the center of the four buildings on either side. This arrangement of large masses, comprising the bulk of the Exposition, creates a grateful feeling of repose and of order, without being in the least uninteresting, for while there is perfect symmetry, on the one hand, in the larger masses, there is plenty and ever changing variety in the minor architectural forms and embellishments. The same balance, the same interesting distribution of architectural masses, continues on either side of the main building. In Machinery Hall, on the one hand, and the Fine Arts Palace on the western side, perfect balance is again maintained. That is, however, not the end of it all. Loosening up in a very subtle way, we find cleverly arranged the buildings of the various States of the Union and of Foreign Nations on the western side of the Fine Arts Palace, while at the other extremity of the main group, screened by Machinery Hall, is the amusement section, officially labeled "The Zone." I do not suspect that the Zone is intended to give any artistic thrills. If so, I would propose to call it "The Limit," and so I drop it as a subject for further artistic, reference. It is invaluable, however, as an object lesson in showing the fatal results of the utter disregard of all those fundamental laws of balance, harmony, and unity so uniformly and persistently applied through the seriously designed main body of the Exposition. There is no harmony whatever in the Zone anywhere, either in the form, style, or color, unless it be the harmony of ugliness which is carried through this riotous mêlée of flimsiness and sham. I cannot help but feel that this hodgepodge will convince the most doubting Thomas who might believe in the mob rule of hundreds of conflicting tastes. The Zone is not an improvement on similar things in former Expositions. Save for certain minor exceptions at the entrance, it will serve as a wonderfully effective illustration of the taste of the great masses of the people, and as a fine business investment. So far, we have moved only along the east and west axis of the Exposition. The north and south development is not without its charm. The terraced city of San Francisco, on the south, without a doubt looks best on a densely foggy day. With its fussy, incongruous buildings - I hesitate to call them architecture - it serves hardly as a background for anything, let alone a group of monumental buildings. The opposite side, where nature reigns, atones for multitudes of sins that man committed on the city's hills. But how great an opportunity there was lost! There are, however, some indications at the western end of Broadway that give fine promise for the future. The bay and its background of rising hills and blue mountain sides provide, the wonderful setting that so charmingly holds the Exposition. The general arrangement of the Exposition pays its respects to the bay at every possible angle. The vistas from the three courts towards the bay are the pièces de résistance of the whole thing. It was a fine idea, not alone from an economic point of view, to eliminate the two arches which appeared in the original plan at the end of the avenues running north from the Court of the Four Seasons and the Court of Abundance. There is hardly anything more inspiring than to stand in any of the three courts and to look north through those well proportioned colonnades over the blue bay towards the purple foothills of Marin County, crowned by the graceful slopes of Mount Tamalpais on one side and the many islands of the bay on the other. It is surprising into how many enchanting vistas the whole arrangement resolves itself. For the city-planner the Exposition contains a wonderful lesson. What fine cities we might have if some artistic control could be exercised over the buildings which are to stand opposite the junction of one street with another, not only at right angles, but also at lesser degrees - for instance, in all cases of streets running into Market street from the northwest. To point out some particularly fine vistas, among many, we should mention that from the Orchestral Niche in the Court of the Four Seasons, looking toward the bay, or from the same court toward the Fine Arts Palace - and many more. The natural background seems to have been considered always, even in the arrangements of the smallest apertures. One should not overlook the two open courts which run off the main avenue, like charming coves in an island, into the main group of buildings, connecting at their ends with the Court of the Four Seasons at the west and the Court of Abundance toward the east. These two, the Court of Palms and the Court of Flowers, have not so much the charm of seclusion of the more centrally located courts, but their architecture makes them of great interest. As to the style of the architecture of the main group of eight buildings, it has been called classic. If one means by that something excellent, something in good taste, we must admit that it is classic indeed. However, on closer examination it becomes very evident that the individuality of many men has found expression in the architectural structural forms, as well as in the minor and decorative forms. The main Tower of Jewels, by Carrère and Hastings, marking the center of the whole scheme, has a distinct character of its own. There is no doubt that it is effective, but while its chief merit lies in its colossal proportions and its relative position, I feel that it lacks that oneness of conception that characterizes almost every other architectural unit in the Exposition. One feels too much the stacking up of story after story, that effort to fill the requirements of a given great height, very much as a boy sets up blocks of diminishing size, one on top of the other, until he can go no further because there are no smaller blocks. The whole effect of the tower is too static. Of its architectural motives, almost too many seem devoid of much interest, and like the column motive, repeated too often. The very effective and decorative employment of "jewels" tends to loosen up and enliven the structure very much. On a sunny day the effect is dazzling and joyous. The tower has a feeling of dignity and grandeur, commensurate with its scale and setting. However, its great height is not apparent, owing largely to its breadth of base. The Sather Campanile in Berkeley looks higher, though it is actually one hundred and thirty-three feet lower. The side towers at the entrances of the Court of Palms and the Court of Flowers, while not so imaginative as the main tower, are far more sky-reaching. As towers go, John Galen Howard's tower at the Buffalo Exposition in 1901 stands unsurpassed in every way as an Exposition tower. The main Court of Honor, or Court of the Universe, as it is also called, designed by McKim, Mead and White, impresses by its tremendous dimensions, which operate somewhat against its proper enjoyment. I believe that the court is too large - so many things are lost in it, and it does not convey the quality of shelter that the two lesser courts possess in such marked degree. The Court of the Universe will never be the resting place of the masses of the people, in spite of the recently added attraction of the band stand, a mixture of Roman and Arabic architecture out of keeping with the surroundings. The conventional architectural motives of this great court do not help very much in tempting one to stay, and if it were not for the great arches on the east and west and the very fine view toward the Column of Progress, I would feel tempted to classify it as a piece of architectural design of the stereotyped variety. It has all the great qualities and faults of the court in front of St. Peter's in Rome. There is too little play of landscape gardening in and near the Court of the Universe, a condition which will remedy itself with the breaking into bloom of the great masses of rhododendron which have been installed in the sunken garden in the center. Like all careful interpretations in the classic architectural traditions, the Court of the Universe has a great feeling of dignity and grandeur, which gives the visitor a feeling of the big scale of the rest of the architecture. The court lacks, however, the individual note of the two side courts. Toward the west, passing through a very characteristic avenue, in the style of the happiest phases of the Italian Renaissance to be found in Florence, one enters the Court of the Four Seasons, by Henry Bacon of New York. The chief quality of this court is that of intimacy. While by no means so original as the Court of Abundance, it has a charm all of its own, in spite of its conventional architectural characteristics, which are really not different from those of the main Court of Honor. However, a very happy combination of gardening effects and architecture, together with the interesting wall-fountains, screened by stately rows of columns, make for a picture of great loveliness. Of all the courts, it has the most inviting feeling of seclusion. The plain body of water in the center, without statuary of any kind, is most effective as a mirror reflecting the play of lights and shadows, which are so important an asset in this enchanting retreat. During the Exposition it will serve as a recreation center for many people who will linger in the seclusion of the groups of shrubbery and watch the shadows of the afternoon sun creep slowly up the surrounding walls. As an Exposition feature, the Court of the Four Seasons is a decided innovation. At St. Louis, for instance, in 1904, everything seemed to have been done to excite, to overstimulate, to develop a craving for something new, to make one look for the next thing. Here, in the Court of the Four Seasons, one wants to stay. Most emphatically one wants to rest for awhile and give one's self over entirely to that feeling of liberation that one experiences in a church, in the forest, or out on the ocean. I could stay in this court forever. To wander into this Court of the Four Seasons from any one of the many approaches is equally satisfactory, and it will prove a very popular and successful Exposition innovation. Speaking of the courts, one is bound to yield to the individual note of Louis Mullgardt's Court of Abundance, on the east of the Court of the Universe. Of all the courts it has, without a doubt, the strongest individual note. It seems on first acquaintance to be reminiscent of the Gothic, of which it has, no doubt, the quality of lightness, the laciness, and the play of many fine apertures and openings. It has, however, neither the Gothic arch nor the buttresses of that period, and so far as its ground plan goes, it is thoroughly original. It looks as if carved out of a solid block of stone. This monolithic quality is particularly well brought out in the tower on the north. While not quite so intimate as the Court of the Four Seasons, it conveys, a feeling of shelter and seclusion very well by showing an uninterrupted wall motive on all sides. The sculpture symbolism of this court is particularly fine. We shall return to it in a consideration of sculpture. The two minor courts by George Kelham are particularly fortunate in their open location toward the south. Their sheltered and warm atmosphere is quite in keeping with the suggestion of Spanish Renaissance which has been employed in the constructive and in the many decorative motives. The western court, or Court of Palms, is made particularly attractive by a sunken garden effect and pool. The effect of the Court of Flowers is similar in every way to its mate on the east. A consideration of these two courts, with their towers, leads easily into a study of the outer façade, which, so to speak, ties all of the eight Palaces together into a compact, snug arrangement, so typical of the Exposition. Bliss and Faville of San Francisco are responsible for the very skillful use of simple, plain surfaces, accentuated and relieved here and there by ornate doorways, wall-fountains, niches, and half-domes. On the south, along the Avenue of Palms, are found some very fine adaptations of old Spanish doorways, which deserve to be preserved. It is regrettable that we have no large museum on the coast where these fine doorways in the outer walls of the Palace of Varied Industries could be preserved permanently. The travertine marble has nowhere been used more effectively than in just such details. The entrance of the Palace of Education at the western end of the south façade is also of great beauty of design. On the western end two huge niches or half domes command attention by their noble beauty and fine setting amidst great clumps of eucalyptus. On the north, no special effort has been made. There is, however, a decorative emphasis of the doorways along the entire front. On the east, facing the Palace of Machinery, some very fine doorways, very much like some of the minor ones on the south, furnish the decoration. It was no small task to bridge the many diversified architectural motives which penetrate into the outer wall from within, in the shape of many avenues and courts, and one can appreciate the difficulties of the designer who met so well these conflicting requirements. Of the detached palaces outside of the eight forming the rectangular block nucleus, the Palace of Machinery attracts by its enormous size. I am not interested in how many kegs of nails and iron bolts and washers went into its anatomy. They add nothing to the artistic enjoyment of this very massive building. One point, however, in connection with the liberal use of the raw material is of artistic significance, and that is that the internal structural aspects of this great palace, as well as of the others, are not without charm and interest. It is only in recent years, and particularly in America, that the engineer has dared to invade the realm of the artist by attempting to make the constructive, anatomical material, like uprights, bracings, trusses, and beams, assume artistic responsibilities. It has been for many years the custom to expect the engineer to do his share in obscurity with the idea that it ultimately will be covered up by the work of the architect. The extraordinary development of engineering in this country, to meet new and original problems, sometimes of colossal proportions, particularly in the field of concrete design, has resulted in some conditions heretofore entirely unknown. I feel with much satisfaction that the unobscured appearance of the wood construction in the Palace of Machinery is very pleasing, owing to its sound constructive elements, as well as to a very fine regard for pattern-making in the placing of the bolts and braces. Here we discover the engineer in the role of the artist, which he seems to enjoy, and which offers endless new opportunities, particularly in the field of concrete construction, as well as in wood. The great size of the Machinery Palace is much more enjoyable from within, on account of the constructive patterns left in the raw, than from without, where there is not enough animation in the many plain surfaces of the outer walls. I do not know that it is customary to put the engineer's name, together with that of the architect, on a building; the time s approaching very rapidly when we shall be in duty bound to do so. Aside from the structural charm of the inside, the outer façade of Machinery Hall is not entirely devoid of architectural interest. Its general forms are apparently those of an early Christian church, although its decorative motives are all indicative of the profane purposes for which it is used. Festival Hall, by Farquhar, of Los Angeles, at the east end of the south gardens, does not look particularly festive, and it is not original enough to shine by itself, like its very happy mate at the south end, the Horticultural Palace. There is nothing like this Horticultural Palace anywhere on the grounds in its gorgeous richness of decorative adornment. It has no relation to any other building on the site. It is very happy, with its many joyous garlands, flower-baskets, and suggestions of horticultural forms - all very well done - so very much better done than so many of the cheap period imitations so common to our residence districts. It is so decidedly joyous in character that people looking for Festival Hall wander over to the Horticultural Palace, attracted by the very joyousness of its scheme. Good rococo ornamentation is rare abroad and even rarer in this country, which is essentially opposed in its tendencies and in its civilization to those luxurious days of the French kings who created the conditions under which this very delightful style could flourish. The Horticultural Palace is a great success as an interpretation of a style which rarely finds a sympathetic expression in this country. I do not feel at all that it ought, but in a case of this kind where a temporary purpose existed, it was happily chosen. Of all isolated units, none causes greater admiration than the Fine Arts Palace. It presents the astounding spectacle of a building which violates the architectural conventions on more than one occasion, and in spite of it, or possibly for that very reason, it has a note of originality that is most conspicuous. Everybody admits that it is most beautiful, and very few seem to know just how this was accomplished. Many of the "small fry" of the architectural profession enjoy themselves in picking out its faults, which are really, as suggested above, the reason for its supreme beauty. Save for Mullgardt's court, it is the only building that seems to be based on the realization of a dream of a true artistic conception. With many other of the buildings one feels the process of their creation in the time-honored, pedantic way. They are paper-designed by the mechanical application of the "T" square and the triangle. They do not show the advantage of having been experienced as a vision. With Bernard Maybeck's Palace of Fine Arts, one has the feeling that this great temple is a realized dream; that it was imagined irrespective of time, cost, or demand. Like all of Maybeck's buildings, it is thoroughly original. Of course the setting contributes much to the picturesque effect, but aside from that, the colonnades and the octagonal dome in the center of the semicircular embracing form of the main building present many interesting features There is a very fine development of vistas, which are so provided as to present different parts of the building in many ever-changing aspects. On entering the outer colonnade one forgets the proximity of everyday things; one is immediately in an atmosphere of religious devotion, which finds its noblest expression in that delicate shrine of worship, by Ralph Stackpole, beneath the dome. This spiritual quality puts the visitor into the proper frame of mind for the enjoyment of the other offerings of art within the building. Mr. Maybeck has demonstrated once again that his talent is equal to any task in the field of architectural art. I wish we had more of his rare kind and more people to do justice to his genius. Not far from the Palace of Fine Arts, on the shores of the bay, the monumental tower of the California building fits well into the scheme of things. Seen from a distance, from numerous points across the lagoon, it offers a great many effective compositions in connection with some very decorative groups of old acacia trees, the legacy of an old amusement park of the bygone days of San Francisco - the old Harbor View Gardens. In the shade of these old trees a fine old formal garden of exquisite charm, screened from the eyes of the intruder by an old clipped Monterey cypress hedge, really constitutes the unique note of this typically Mission building. The architect, Mr. Burditt, deserves great credit for an unusually respectful treatment of a very fine architectural asset. This very enchanting old flower garden, with its sundial and cozy nooks, has an intimate feeling throughout, and it furnishes the delightful suggestive note of old age, of historical interest, without which it would never have been convincing. Aside from the outdoor features, the building, exclusive of the county annex, discloses a very fine talent in a very happy combination of classic tradition and modern tendencies. The building is altogether very successful, in a style which is so much made use of but which is really devoid of any distinct artistic merit. Most of the examples of the so-called "Mission style" in California are very uninteresting in their decorative motives, however big their ground plans may be in their liberal use of space. The Oregon building is just across the way from the California building, and as an object of artistic analysis it is a most interesting single unit. Personally, I am not enthusiastic over it. It was most decidedly a very illogical idea to select a building to represent Oregon from a country which has nothing whatever in common with this northern state. One could hardly discover a more arid country, devoid of vegetation, particularly of trees, than Greece; and to compare it with the apparently inexhaustible wealth of virgin forests of Oregon makes the contrast almost grotesque. Besides, a building like the Parthenon, designed to grace and terminate the top of a hill, is surely not adapted for a flat piece of ground like the Exposition field. And in the choice of material used in its construction it shows a lack of appreciation for the fitness of things generally. The Parthenon was designed to be made in stone, as much for the construction as for the light color effect of the marble. Only the light color play of its exterior would do against a placid blue sky to relieve the otherwise exceedingly simple rigidity of its massive forms of construction. To make an imitation of this great building in uncouth, somber, almost black pine logs of dubious proportions is hardly an artistically inspired accomplishment. There must always be a certain regard for the use of the right material in the right place. A wooden bridge will disclose its material even to the uninitiated at a very great distance, because everybody knows that certain things can be done only in wood. A stone, concrete, iron, or cable bridge, for example, will each always look its part, out of sheer material and structural necessity. A log house would have been far better and more successful than this pseudo Parthenon. It is in the same class with the statues of Liberty made from walnuts that are the great attractions in our autumnal agricultural shows. The State of Oregon, however, is well represented by a fine immense flagpole, which could hardly have been cut anywhere else than on the Pacific Coast. Of other state buildings in this neighborhood, a number are impressive by their cost, like the New York building; others, again, by historical suggestions of great charm. There are several which reflect in a very interesting way the Colonial days of early American history; and buildings like those of New Jersey and Virginia, in spite of their unpretentiousness, are very successful. Nobody would take them for anything else but what they represent. The Pennsylvania building shows a very fine combination of the classic and of the modern. It was originally designed to hold the Liberty Bell. In order to avoid the necessity of building a fireproof building, the open hail was adopted, with its inviting spaciousness, and two lower enclosing wings at the side. The arrangement of the Pennsylvania building is formal, owing to its symmetry, but not at all heavy. Its decorative detail is full of interest, and to discover Hornbostel of New York, the designer of the Oakland City Hall, as the author of this building, is a pleasant surprise. Of most of the other state buildings, really nothing original could be claimed. They are, on the whole, dignified in their classic motives, and in most cases, in better taste than the many foreign buildings. Among these, the buildings representing Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Italy, and Bolivia, must claim particular attention. It must seem strange that the three northern countries named first should excel in originality of architecture, as well as in the allied arts. The Swedish building, designed by Ferdinand Boberg, presents admirably his great talent. The name "Boberg" means nothing to most people out here, but anybody at all familiar with the development of modern architecture abroad will always think of Boberg as the greatest living master of Swedish architecture. His very talented wife, Anna Boberg, is equally well represented in another department, that of the Fine Arts. The plan of the Swedish building is unsymmetrical, but well balanced, nevertheless. The typical northern wood tower, at one side, has a very fine outline, and like the roof, has a very fine decorative shingle covering, interesting in pattern as well as in color. I am very much tempted to speak of the treasures found inside of this building, but we must go on to Denmark's building. This building, situated near the southern end of the Fine Arts Colonnade, has a far more advantageous location than the Swedish building. Situated on a narrow tongue of triangular shape, the architect has taken the fullest advantage of this original piece of ground. The building gives a very good idea of some of the very best tendencies in the modern art of Europe, without being bizarre, like some recent American attempts, in the most wrongly labeled of all art expressions - the "Art Nouveau." The Norwegian building, somewhat remotely situated, back of the French building and near the Presidio entrance, has very much in common with the Swedish building, and offers the same attractive features of wood and stone construction as the building representing its sister state. Historical traditions and everything else are so much alike in these two countries that it must not surprise one to find the two buildings have so many points of interest in common. The north of Europe has given to the world many very excellent and genuine expressions of architecture, which, owing to their fine constructive qualities, have been absorbed wherever wood is the principal building material. The art contributions of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark will long remain in the memory of all Exposition visitors. Holland makes considerable pretensions as to originality of style in a curiously incongruous creation at the north of the Fine Arts Palace. During the last twenty years a peculiarly inadaptable type of building has been developed in Holland by a group of younger architects. Many of these buildings are suggestive of stone rather than of brick construction, and they do not fit in very well into the architectural traditions of the Dutch - builders traditionally of the finest brick structures in the world. The Holland building at the Exposition is not typical of that great and independent people. It looks cheap and has all the faults of the Art Nouveau, which has, unfortunately, been much discredited, by just such things in our own country, where classical traditions are so firmly and so persistently entrenched. While structurally this building is of a peculiar, affected, ultra-modern note, the general scheme of decoration inside as well as outside compels much praise. The general feeling of refinement, of serenity, that so strongly characterizes the interior is due to the able work of Hermann Rosse, a capable decorator-painter, who designed and supervised the entire color scheme. The color scheme inside the Holland building, while daring, is most original in using an unusual combination of steel-blue and warm grey silver tones. These two relatively cold notes are enhanced in a complementary color sense by touches of orange and yellow. A constructive stencil pattern based on the two national plants of Holland, the orange tree and the tulip, add richness to the general effect. Mr. Rosse's very decorative wall painting opposite the main entrance represents the Industries of Peace. While somewhat severe, it adds dignity in motive as well as in treatment. On the outside some fine decorative tile panels reflect one of the chief industries of the Dutch and also tell of the influence that Dutch art has long received from Holland's East Indian possessions. These tile panels are very decorative. To us, out here, they suggest artistic ceramic possibilities for architectural purposes of which we have taken little advantage. Considering the fact that we have quantities of good clay and that so much original good decorative design is lying idle, this inactivity in architectural ceramics in California is distressing. So far as I know, Batchelder, in Pasadena, still has the monopoly on architectural tiles for the entire Pacific coast. Other European countries besides Holland are interestingly represented. The Italian building is a dignified building of pure Florentine Renaissance lines, with here and there a modern note. This should rather be called a group of buildings, since it is a combination of some of the finest bits of Italian Renaissance architecture. The architects of this building succeeded admirably in giving a feeling of antiquity to the general treatment of the whole arrangement, which, under the blue sky of California, brings one straight back into the land of sunshine and artistic tradition. The whole arrangement of this Italian group seems somewhat bewildering at first, but on closer inspection resolves itself into a very interesting scheme which takes full advantage of the irregularly shaped site. There is a most impressive noble dignity in the hall of the main building, where mural decorations of figural character add much to the sumptuousness of the general effect. It is remarkable how in this age of low ceilings a return to great height for rooms, as in these, Italian chambers, produces a marked note of originality. The light effect created in this way, in all of these replicas of the mansions of the wealthy of the Renaissance period, is most helpful in the display of a multitude of lovely objects - furniture, jewelry, ceramics, tapestries, and yet more. The sculptural imitations of so many old pieces of statuary are not in very good taste. They bear too much the traces of the pneumatic drill, and most of them are cold and devoid of the spirit of the original. Some of the very modern marbles in the various rooms are almost pathetic in their disregard for the standards established by the forefathers of their creators. France, unfortunately, does not rise above the commonplace, in an extensive building hastily constructed. And Portugal is shining in all the glory of wedding-cake ornamentation that the plaster of Paris artist could produce. South America appears in a very typical building representing Bolivia. It is evident that it was not a costly building, but its dignified Spanish façade and the court effect inside are far more agreeable than the pretentious palace erected by the Argentine Republic. The Orient, with the oldest art traditions in the world, can justly be expected to outdo the rest of the world. We find Japan again, as on previous occasions, excelling in its typical arrangement of a number of small pavilions in an irregular garden. The entire Japanese display, architectural and all, is so perfect a unit that one cannot speak of the buildings alone without thinking of the gardens. The Japanese sense of detail and love of the picturesque are disclosed at every turn. We still have with us in San Francisco, as a memento of the Midwinter Fair of 1894, the Japanese Garden in Golden Gate Park, and while this new creation at the Exposition is not so extensive, it is none the less charming. In contrast to the Japanese wonderland near the Inside Inn, the new Republic of China seems to be very unhappily represented, not very far away. The whole Chinese ensemble seems a riot of terrible colors, devoid of all the mellow qualities of Oriental art. If China's art was retired with the Manchu dynasty, then I hope the new Republic will soon die a natural death. The Sculpture The sculptural decorations of the Exposition are so much a part of the architectural scheme that their consideration must no longer be delayed. The employment of sculpture has been most judicious and has never lost sight of certain architectural requirements, so frequently overlooked. While there are a great many examples of sculptural decorations at the Exposition, there does not seem to be that over-abundance of ornamentation so often confused by the public with artistic effect. The best compliment that can be paid to the Exposition sculpture is that it is not evident at first and that one becomes aware of it only in the course of studying the architecture. I do not think that, with the exception of the Column of Progress and the groups of the Nations of the East and of the West, the Exposition has produced, through its very unusual and novel opportunities, any great work, or presented any new talent heretofore not recognized; but it will most certainly stand a critical examination and comparison with other Exposition sculpture and not suffer thereby. As a matter of fact, a number of the sculptors of our Exposition were commissioned to do similar work at St. Louis. In one respect our Exposition must immediately claim originality - that is, in the elimination of the glaring white, with its many ugly and distracting reflected lights, insisted upon for years, in practically all the great expositions of the past. This absence of white is surely a very novel and very helpful feature, from an artistic point of view. The Travertine staff material used, the highly successful work of Mr. Paul Denneville, with its innumerable fine accidental effects, so reminiscent of the tone and the weather-beaten qualities of really old surfaces, is an asset that the sculptors among all the collaborating artists gratefully acknowledge. The artistic value of the Travertine lies in its beautiful expression of architecture as well as of sculpture. A plain wall becomes a matter of interest and comfort. An ornamental feature or sculpture obtains a wonderful charm and delicacy in this material which is particularly unique in sculpture. The natural Travertine is a sedimentary deposit dating back, it is claimed, to the glacial ages. That imitated here forms the bed of the River Tiber near Rome and was extensively used for ages in the early Roman and Greek era as a building stone for their temples and works of art. While a poor material in cold climates, because of its striation, it was always sought in Italy for its wonderful texture and tone. It was used in the Coliseum and in many other buildings erected during the Roman period. It is evident that there has been a very happy and close co-operation between the architect and the sculptor - a desirable condition that, unfortunately, does not always exist. Architects will sometimes not allow the sculptor to give full expression to his ideas, will put unwarranted restrictions upon him, and the result is very one-sided. I had the pleasure of seeing much of the sculpture grow from the sketch to the finished full-scale work, and the kindliness and the vigorous personality of Mr. Stirling Calder added much charm and interest to this experience. Mr. Calder has been the director of the department of sculpture and the inspiration of his own work penetrates that of all his fellow-artists. Among them are many specialists, such as Frederick Roth, for instance, as a modeler of animals, who shows in the very fine figure of "The Alaskan" in the Nations of the West that he is not afraid nor unable to model human figures. Practically all of the animals in the grounds show the hand of Roth. Like Roth, Leo Lentelli did a good share of the task. His work is characterized by much animation and spirit, but well balanced wherever necessary, by a feeling of wise restraint. I remember with much horror some of the sculptural atrocities of former expositions that seemed to jump off pedestals they were intended to inhabit for a much longer period than they were apparently willing. Repose and restraint, as a rule, are lacking in much of our older American sculpture, as some of our Market-street statuary testifies. It seems that our unsettled conditions find an echo in our art. It is much to be hoped that a certain craving for temporary excitement will be replaced by a wholesome appreciation of those more enduring qualities of repose and balance. Calder's work, no matter how animated, no matter how full of action, is always reposeful. His "Fountain of Energy" gives a good idea of what I mean. It is the first piece of detached sculpture that greets the Exposition visitor. Its position at the main gate, in the South Gardens, in front of the Tower of Jewels, is the most prominent place the Exposition offers. It is worthy of its maker's talent. Its main quality is a very fine, stimulating expression of joyousness that puts the visitor at once in a festive mood. The Fountain of Energy is a symbol of the vigor and daring of our mighty nation, which carried to a successful ending a gigantic task abandoned by another great republic. The whole composition is enjoyable for its many fine pieces of detail. Beginning at the base, one observes the huge bulks of fanciful sea-beasts, carrying on their backs figures representing the four principal oceans of the world: the North and South Arctic, the Atlantic, and the Pacific. Some are carrying shells and their attitudes express in unique fashion a spirit of life and energy which makes the whole fountain look dynamic, in contrast with the static Tower of Jewels. Everything else in this fountain has the dynamic quality, from its other inhabitants of the lower bowls, those very jolly sea-nymphs, mermaids, or whatever one may want to call them. They are even more fantastically, shaped than the larger figures. In their bizarre motives some of the marine mounts look like a cross between a submarine and a rockcod. Rising from the very center of the fountain basin, a huge sphere, supported by a writhing mass of aquatic beasts, continues the scheme upwards, culminating in the youth on horseback as the dominating figure of the whole scheme. The sphere is charmingly decorated with reclining figures of the two hemispheres and with a great number of minor interesting motives of marine origin. The youth on horseback is not exactly in harmony with the fountain; one feels that the aquatic feeling running through the rest of the fountain is not equally continued in this exceedingly well-modeled horse and youth and those two smaller-scaled figures on his shoulders - I feel that the very clever hand of a most talented artist has not been well supported by a logical idea. Their decorative effect is very marked, taken mainly as a silhouette from a distance. They are no doubt effective in carrying upwards a vertical movement which is to some extent interfered with by the outstretched arms of the youth. Mr. Calder has given us so very many excellent things, alone and in collaboration with others throughout the Exposition, that we must allow him this little bizarre note as an eccentricity of an otherwise well-balanced genius. As long as we are in the South Gardens, we might take the time to investigate the two fountains on either side of the center, towards the Horticultural Palace on the left and Festival Hall on the right. There we find a very lithe mermaid, used alike on either side, from a model by Arthur Putnam. Many of us who for years looked forward to the great opportunity of the Exposition, which would give Arthur Putnam a worthy field for his great genius, will be disappointed to know that the mermaid is his only contribution, and scarcely representative of his original way in dealing with animal forms. The untimely breakdown, some two years ago, of his robust nature prevented his giving himself more typically, for his real spirit is merely suggested in this graceful mermaid. Sherry Fry's figural compositions on the west of Festival Hall might well be worthy of a little more attention than their somewhat remote location brings them. The two reclining figures on the smaller domes are reposeful and ornate. A stroll through the flower carpets of the South Gardens, amidst the many balustrade lighting Hermae, discloses a wealth of good architectural sculpture, which in its travertine execution is doubly appealing. There are four equestrian statues in different places on the north side of the Avenue of Palms. Two are in front of the Tower of Jewels, the "Cortez" by Charles Niehaus, and "Pizarro," by Charles Cary Rumsey. The third is in front of the Court of Flowers, and the last at the entrance to the Court of Palms. The two latter, Solon Borglum's "Pioneer," and James Earl Fraser's "The End of the Trail," belong as much together as the two relatively conventional Spanish conquerors guarding the entrance to the Court of the Universe. The symbolism of the "Pioneer" and "The End of the Trail" is, first of all, a very fine expression of the destinies of two great races so important in our historical development. The erect, energetic, powerful man, head high, with a challenge in his face, looking out into early morning, is very typical of the white man and the victorious march of his civilization. His horse steps lightly, prancingly, and there is admirable expression of physical vigor and hopeful expectation. The gun and axe on his arm are suggestive of his preparedness for any task the day and the future may bring. Contrast this picture of life with the overwhelming expression of physical fatigue, almost exhaustion, that Fraser gives to his Indian in "The End of the Trail." It is embodied in rider and horse. Man and beast seem both to have reached the end of their resources and both are ready to give up the task they are not equal to meet. The psychology of this great group is particularly fine. It is in things like these that our American sculpture will yet find its highest expression, rather than in the flamboyant type of technically skillful work so abundantly represented everywhere. "The End of the Trail" could have been placed more effectively in the midst of, or against, groups of shrubbery in a more natural surrounding, where so close a physical inspection as one is invited to in the present location would not be possible. The Tower of Jewels, however, with its lofty arch and suggestion of hidden things behind it encourages the spirit of investigation. On entering this great arch, one is suddenly attracted by the pleasing sound of two fountains, sheltered in the secluded abutting walls of the great tower. Minor arches, piercing the base of the tower west and east, open up a view toward these sheltered niches, harboring on the right the Fountain of Youth, by Mrs. Edith Woodman Burroughs, and the Fountain of Eldorado at the left, by Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney. These two fountains are totally different in character, and they could well afford to be so, since they are not visible as a whole at the same time, although physically not far apart. Mrs. Burrough's fountain is very naïve in feeling, very charming in the graceful modeling of the little girl. The decorative scheme of this poetic unit is very simple and well-sustained throughout its architectural parts. Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney's fountain is of the intellectual, dramatic kind. The treatment of this almost theatrical subject is well balanced. While it does not possess any too much repose, it is very effective. In general there are three parts to this fountain; the central doorway of Eldorado, just ajar, disclosing faintly this land of happiness; while on either side are two long panels showing great masses of humanity in all manner of positions and attitudes, all striving toward the common goal. Some are shown almost at the end of their journey, overtaken with exhaustion; others more vigorous are lending a willing arm to the support of their less successful brothers and sisters about to fall by the wayside. The whole composition of those two friezes shows Mrs. Whitney as a very skillful and imaginative artist. It is a gratifying spectacle to see a woman such as Mrs. Whitney, so much heralded, possibly against her own inclinations, in the society columns of New York, find the time to devote herself to so serious and professional a piece of work as the Fountain of Eldorado. Passing through the Tower of Jewels into the Court of the Universe, one's attention will be attracted to a number of pieces of detached statuary. The most important among them is "The Four Elements," by Robert Aitken. We all remember Aitken as the very promising young man who left us before the fire to make a career in the East, after having exhausted all local possibilities, the Bohemian Club included. His figures of the Four Elements are typical of his temperament and he acknowledges in them his indebtedness to Michael Angelo without being in the least imitative. These four figures are allegorically full of meaning, and taken simply as sculpture, they are excellently modeled. His "Fire," showing a Greek warrior defending himself from the fiery breath of a vicious reptile, is novel in its motive, while "Water" discloses Father Neptune bellowing out into the briny air, accompanied by dolphins in rhythmic motions. "Air," on the south, discloses Aitken as the skillful modeler of less muscular forms of a winged female figure, which in itself, without the birds, is suggestive of its meaning. It was very daring to introduce the story of "Icarus" in this group, by the small-scaled figure of this first mythological aviator on the outside of the wings of the larger figure. It helps to add a note of interest to an otherwise not so interesting part of the group. The Fountains of the Rising and the Setting Sun are most impressive by their architectonic quality, and Weinman's clear style of modeling is seen at its best in the Tritons in the fountain bowl. The figure of the Setting Sun is one of the finest figures of the entire Exposition. The suggestion of the termination of day, indicated in the folding of the wings and in the suggestion of physical fatigue, is very well conveyed. A fine relaxation runs through the whole figure. The Rising Sun, on the other side, has all the buoyancy of an energetic youth ready for his daily task. With widespread wings, looking squarely out into the world, he seems ready to soar into the firmament. The contrast is admirable in these two figures, and Weinman deserves all the popular applause bestowed upon his work. Paul Manship has contributed two groups at the head of the east and west steps leading to the sunken gardens, each group consisting of two figures, one representing Festivity, the other, Art and Music. These groups are used alike on either side. Manship deserves to be better represented in the Exposition than by these two groups alone. His position as one of the very successful of our younger men would have warranted a more extensive employment of his very strong talent. It is rather a flight from those Manship figures to the colossal groups of the Nations of the East and of the West, but one is irresistibly drawn to these wonderfully effective compositions. Their location makes them the most prominent groups in the Exposition ensemble. The harmonious co-operation of Calder, Roth, and Lentelli has resulted in the creation of a modern substitute for the old Roman quadriga, which so generally crowns triumphal arches. Both groups are so skillfully composed as to have a similar silhouette against the blue sky, but individually considered they are full, of a great variety of detail. It was an accomplishment to balance the huge bulk of an elephant by a prairie schooner on the opposite side of the court. Considering the almost painful simplicity of the costumes and general detail of the western nations as contrasted with the elaborately decorative accessories, trappings, and tinsel of the Orient, it was no small task to produce a feeling of balance between these two foreign motives. But what it lacked in that regard was made up by allegorical figures, like those on top of the prairie schooner, used not so much to express an idea as to fill out the space occupied by the howdah on the other side. There is a great deal of fine modeling in the individual figures on horse and camel back and on foot. In either one of the two groups much has been lost in the great height of the arches. Figures like "The Alaskan," "The Trapper," and "The Indian," for instance, are particularly fine and they would be very effective by themselves. "The Mother of Tomorrow" in the Nations of the West is a beautifully simple piece of sculpture. The Nations of the East, like the West, in its entirety, is the conception of A. Stirling Calder, who modeled the pedestrian figures. With Mr. Calder, Messrs. Frederick G. R. Roth and Leo Lentelli collaborated. The huge elephant in the center of the group was modeled by Mr. Roth, also the camels. The mounted horsemen were modeled by Leo Lentelli. From left to right the figures are - an Arab warrior, a Negro servitor bearing baskets of fruit, a camel and rider (the Egyptian), a falconer, an elephant with a howdah containing a figure embodying the spirit of the East, attended by Oriental mystics representing India, a Buddhist Lama bearing his emblem of authority, a camel and rider (Mahometan), a Negro servitor, and a Mongolian warrior. The size of the group, crowning a triumphal arch one hundred and sixty feet in height, may be inferred from the fact that the figure of the Negro servitor is thirteen feet six inches in height. On the arch beneath this group are inscribed these lines by Kalidasa: "The moon sinks yonder in the west, while in the east the glorious sun behind the herald dawn appears. Thus rise and set in constant change those shining orbs and regulate the very life of this our world." The Nations of the West, crowning the arch of the Setting Sun, is also the conception of A. Stirling Calder, who modeled the imaginative figures of "the Mother of Tomorrow," "Enterprise," and "Hopes of the Future."' Messrs. Leo Lentelli and Frederick G. R. Roth collaborated in their happiest style, the former producing the four horsemen and one pedestrian, the Squaw, and the latter the oxen, the wagon, and the three pedestrians. From left to right the figures are, the French Trapper, the Alaskan, the Latin-American, the German, the Hopes of the Future (a white boy and a Negro, riding on a wagon), Enterprise, the Mother of Tomorrow, the Italian, the Anglo-American, the Squaw, the American Indian. The group is is conceived in the same large monumental style as the Nations of the East. The types of those colonizing nations that at one time or place or another have left their stamp on our country have been selected to form the composition. The following lines by Walt Whitman are inscribed on the arch beneath the group of the Nations of the West: "Facing west from California's shores, inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound, I a child, very old, over waves towards the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar: look off the shores of my western sea, the circle almost circled." It is popularly conceded that these two groups are magnificently daring conceptions, richly worked out. They are probably the largest groups of the kind ever made, the dimensions of the base being fifty-two by thirty-eight feet, and the height forty-two feet. Looking seaward from the Court of the Universe the Column of Progress commands attention, crowned by the "Adventurous Bowman" and decorated at the base with a frieze symbolizing achievement, or progress. The very fine symbolism in this column deserves to be studied. The position of the column itself is most artistic in its relation to the surroundings. It is too bad, however, to see the view from the main court toward the column spoiled by a music pavilion of dubious architectural merit. The effect of the column as seen from any point is inspiring in its monumental grandeur. The group on top, the Bowman, represents man's supreme effort in life. He is supported on the left by his fellow-man, adding strength and steadiness to his aim, while on the right the crouching figure of a woman watches anxiously the sureness of his aim. She holds ready in her hand the laurel wreath which she confidently feels will be his just reward. The great Column of Progress is the first column in the world, so far as I know, whose design was inspired by a purely imaginative motive, and the first sculpture column at any exposition. It must be considered the most splendid expression of sculpture and architectural art in the Exposition. Mr. Calder may justly feel proud of this great idea and Mr. Hermon MacNeil has added new laurels to his many accomplishments in the free modeling of the very daring group on top. The column itself is decorated with the spiral ascending motive of the Ship of Life, while at the base Isadore Konti expresses the striving for achievement in four well modeled panels of huge scale, representing human life in its progressive stages, showing men and women in attitudes of hope and despair, of strength and weakness, in the never ending task of trying to realize human destiny. The Court of the Four Seasons harbors four groups by Piccirilli, representing the seasons in the conventional way, dividing the year into four distinct parts - spring, summer, autumn, and winter. These four groups of Piccirilli are not equally successful. By far the most effective is the one representing winter. The severe rigidity of the lovely central standing figure expresses well that feeling of suspended activity which we associate with the conventional conceptions of the season of dormant life. The kneeling side figures are in full harmony of expression with the central figure. They support very well the general scheme. The next best, to my mind, seems "Spring," on account of the very fine psychological quality of the standing figure in giving expression in a very graceful fashion to that invigorating and reviving quality of our loveliest season. The two side figures seem to be gradually awakening to the full development of their powers. Next to "Spring," "Fall," by the fullness of the decorative scheme, suggests Peace and Plenty in the preparation for the Harvest Festival and in the touch of family life of the mother and child on the right. Mr. Piccirilli's naturalistic modeling does not express itself so well in "Summer." There is so little strictly architectural feeling in that group. I think that Albert Jaegers, with his two single figures on top of the two columns flanking the Orchestral Niche, actually represents our own two seasons much more successfully than does Piccirilli. Jaegers' "Rain and Sunshine" should be used to name the court properly - "The Court of the Two Seasons," as we know them in California - the dry season, the season of harvest; and the wet season, the one of recuperation. I regret that here an opportunity was lost to add distinction to the many different features of a great undertaking. Jaegers has contributed also the figure of "Nature" on top of the music niche and the capital bulls on the pylons toward the north of the court. These terra cotta bulls are surely worthy of the adjective derived from them. Their relative size is very good, and to see them in the richness of their color against the upper regions of a dark blue sky is very effective. Directly north of the Court of the Four Seasons stands Miss Beatrice Evelyn Longman's Fountain of Ceres, originally planned for the center of the court, but so very effective all by itself between the dignified colonnades of the avenue. The fountain is most impressive by its fine architectural feeling, so uncommon in the work of many women sculptors. The general feeling of it is refinement, combined with great strength. It is fully deserving of monopolizing a fine setting of dignified architecture, so richly emphasized by some of the finest old yew trees in the grounds. In the Court of Abundance a riot of interesting architectural sculptural details invites the attention of the visitor. Beginning with the lower animal forms, such as crabs and crayfish, etc., the entire evolution of Nature has been symbolized, reaching its climax in the tower, where the scheme is continued in several groups in Chester Beach's best style. The lowest of these groups shows the Primitive Age, followed above by the Middle Ages and Modernity. The great charm of this finest of all the towers in the Exposition is its wonderful rhythmic feeling. The graceful flow of line from the base toward the top is never interrupted, in spite of the many sculptural adornments used on all sides. In front of the tower are two very ornate illuminating shafts, showing Leo Lentelli's diabolical cleverness in making ornament out of human figures. Leo Lentelli's style is particularly well adapted to Mullgardt's Court of Abundance. Its care-free, subtle quality, full of animation, presenting new motives at every turn, is most helpful in the general spirit of festivity which characterizes this most interesting of all the courts. Aitken's Fountain of Life in the center of the court is totally different. Full of intellectual suggestion, it is almost bewildering in the storytelling quality of its many details. Aitken's fountain, which is situated in the center of a basin a hundred and fifty feet long by sixty-five feet wide, rises directly from the water. The main structure consists of a series of four groups of heroic-sized figures, carved in pierced relief, each flanked by colossal bronze Hermes, their arms reaching around the structure and held together by animal forms of reptilian or fishy origin. All these forms and figures surround a globe of enormous size, typifying the Earth, over the surface of which streams of water are thrown from the reptilian chain motive. Leading up to the main structure is a group of ten crouching figures, symbolizing Destiny in the shape of two enormous arms and hands, giving life with one and taking it with the other. Here, on the left side, are arranged figures suggesting the Dawn of Life, while on the right are men and women depicting the fullness and the end of existence. In the first, Prenatal Sleep, is the crouched form of a woman, while successively come the Awakening, the Ecstatic Joy of Being - or it may be the Realization of Living; the Kiss of Life, with the human pair offering up their children, representative of the beginnings of fecundity; a female, strong of limb and superb of physique, enfolds in her arms two infants, while her mate, of no less powerful build and rude force, kneeling beside her, gives her an embrace typical of the overpowering parental instinct. Here is the suggestion of the elemental feelings, the beginnings of things. Between the first group and the central one comes a gap, a space typical of that unknown time in history when conjecture alone permits speculation, and the story is taken up again with the first of the central groups, wherein stands a figure of Vanity, glass in hand, symbolizing the compelling motive of so much in human endeavor. To her left, in enormous contrast, are primitive man and woman, treated with great realism, these two carrying their burdens of life, in the form of their progeny, into the unknown future, their expression that of rude but questioning courage, the man splendid in his virility, superb in the attitude of his awkward strength, ready to meet whatever be the call of earth. His mate meanwhile suggests the overwhelming and eternal instincts of motherhood. An archaic Hermes, dividing these figures from the next group, allows for a space of time to elapse, and we come to their children, now grown to manhood and womanhood, in their rude strength finding themselves, with the result of Natural Selection. This is a group of five personages, the center figure a man of splendid youth and vigor, suggesting the high state both of physical and intellectual perfection, unconsciously attracting the female, two of whom regard him with favor, while two males on either side, deserted for this finer type, give vent to deep regret, despair, and anger. One attempts by brute force to hold the woman; the other reluctantly gives up his choice, in the obvious futility of his unequal intellectual endowment to comprehend. From this to the Survival of the Fittest we have a militant group, in which physical strength begins to play its part, and perhaps discloses the first awakening of the war spirit, the woman in this case being the exciting cause. The powerful chieftains struggle for supremacy of their time and tribe, their women making futile efforts to separate them. Here the sense of conquest receives its first impression and is finely indicated, with admirable action, while there is the symbolism of the conflict of the nations that has ever gone on, for one cause or another, and that struggle for the female which has ever been the actuating motive in war, conquest, and, for that matter, peace. The next group - always separated by the solemn and dignified Hermae - discloses "The Lesson of Life," wherein the elders, with the experience of the years, offer to hot-headed youth and to the lovelorn the benefit of their own trials and struggles. A beautiful woman is the central figure. She draws to her side splendid manhood, the Warrior, willing to fight for his love and his faith. To his left his mother offers him her affectionate advice, while to the right a father restrains a wayward offspring who, rejected by the female, is in a state of frenzied jealousy. Finally two figures represent Lust, a man struggling to caress the unwilling woman who shrinks from his embraces, and we are led down from this pair out of the composition to the crouching group at the approach of the structure, referred to at the beginning of this description, who here are departing from the central composition. First is a figure of Greed looking back on the Earth. He holds in his hands a mass suggestive of his futile and unsavory worldly possessions, the unworthy bauble toward which his efforts have been directed. Back of him we have the group of Faith, wherein kneels a Patriarch, who offers consolation to a woman to whom he presents the hope of immortality, holding in his hands a scarab, ancient symbol of renewed life. Next come two recumbent figures, a man and a woman, the first, Sorrow, the other typifying Final Slumber. These are about to be drawn into oblivion by the relentless hand of Destiny. In the center of a formal parapet at the end of the basin of water, sixty feet from the fountain, is a colossal figure symbolic of the setting sun, Helios, the great orb having thrown off the nebulous mass that subsequently resolved itself into the earth. In the immediate neighborhood of this Court of Abundance is found Sherry Fry's figure of Neptune's Daughter, in the open court north of the tower. The figure is not in keeping with the scheme of Mullgardt's court, extending in this direction. The effect of this figure, no matter how graceful it may be, is unquestionably too physical, in a certain measure owing to the opportunity for close inspection. On the south of the Court of Abundance, in the Court of Flowers, Edgar Walter's fountain has been placed. "Beauty and the Beast" have been combined in contrasting fashion, with much effect, by associating the youthful charms of a graceful maid with the angular ugliness of a dragon, who seems to feel honored by having been selected as the resting-place of a creature from outside his realm. He seems to be almost hypnotized into a state of abject lifelessness. The effect of this juxtaposition of the round forms of the human body and the almost geometrical angularity of the fabulous beast is very interesting and adds a new note to the many other ideas presented. The architectural scheme of the fountain is made doubly interesting by a rich use of animal forms of humorous character. The immediate vicinity of the Laguna remains still to be investigated in regard to sculptural adornments. The dozen or so niches in the west front of the main building present a repetition of two individual groups by Charles Harley, of New York, of decidedly archaeological character "The Triumph of the Field" and "Abundance." They are most serious pieces of work, possibly too serious, and they are in great danger of remaining caviar to the masses on account of the complexity of their symbolism and the intellectual character of their motives. Their setting is most attractive, amongst groups of trees and shrubs. Maybeck's Palace of Fine Arts is so overwhelming in its architectural effects that one seldom feels like doing justice to the fine sculptural detail everywhere in this building. Ralph Stackpole's interesting Shrine of Inspiration is the most charming bit of sculpture, more detached in its effect than most of the other motives. Bruno Zimm's eight fine friezes, showing the development and influences of the arts in a very severe, almost archaic style of modeling, add a fine note to the dome, and Ulric Ellerhusen's equally architectonic friezes are in good style and are in thorough harmony with the classic quality of this great palace. It is, of course, not possible to name all of the many pieces of architectural sculpture used at the Exposition. The general effect one receives is that it represents the best that is possible in Exposition sculpture today. It gives evidence of the increasing development of the qualities of design, as contrasted with the so much looser work of former expositions. Seldom before have sculptors anywhere, since sculpture and architecture first worked hand in hand, so played their most important roles together in the ensemble setting that constitutes our Exposition visually. On arch or column, in niches, in fountains, and in free-standing groups, they sing of many themes, and always in harmony, but with no loss of character or individuality. There is no doubt of it, that, for an Exposition, sculpture is the most important of all the arts, because it is the most human. Without it, architecture would be cold and without appeal. I foresee a great future for sculpture in America, where our temperament demands it. The educational value of sculpture at an exposition is incalculable. It is a school for the sculptors, too, as well as for the public. The Color Scheme & Landscape Gardening Nothing excites the Exposition visitor more than the color scheme of the buildings. But "excite" is really not the proper word, because there is nothing exciting about it. Nothing was farther from Mr. Guérin's mind than to create excitement, unrest, or any of those sensations that might lead to fatigue or even to a nervous breakdown. We understand fully by this time that it was Jules Guérin who is the responsible artist, and who supervised the putting into existence of the first real "Guérin" that ever was. Mr. Guérin has the distinction of being the first director of color and of decoration ever appointed for an international exposition. It must become evident to any person who is at all familiar with the fascinating tonal designs Guérin produces for many of our leading magazines that what he did was nothing but to paint nature as he has been used to represent it in his pictures. Guérin must have had a glorious time with that first great opportunity, so seldom to happen, of putting all those pet colors of his into the actual outdoors, there to feast his eyes upon them. It was a daring and novel undertaking, most successful in a large way. I hope we are going to benefit by this successful experiment and begin to give life to our dreary cement façades, mournful roofs, and lifeless window-sashes, ornamentations, and what not. We are, I admit, hopelessly at the mercy of the housepainter, who knows much about estimates, something about paint, and little about color. I hope we are going to learn the difference between paint and color, the purely physical, meaningless thing on the one hand, and the intelligence-conveying, pleasure-giving element on the other. Guérin certainly knows color, and I take it for granted that a man of his training and experience knows how to use paint. His exposition buildings look for all the world like a live Guérin print taken from the Century Magazine and put down alongside of the bay which seems to have responded, as have the other natural assets, for a blending of the entire creation into one harmonious unit. I fancy such a thing was possible only in California, where natural conditions invite such a technical and artistic innovation. The general effect is one of great warmth. The basic tone of the travertine furnishes a very rich foundation for the other colors added. The whole range of color is very simple and it is simplicity and repetition over large areas that make the colors so effective. There are three different greens, for instance - the patina green on many minor domes, suggesting aged copper surfaces; a very strong primary green, on the small doors of the palaces and most of the lattice work; and another very pale, pinkish green, a sort of an abalone shell green, used on all the flagpole bases, always topped off with a light pinkish red, used above the light green base on all the flagpoles. Then there are the reds, a number of different reds, running from a pinkish brick color to a darker russet red, to be found exclusively in all vertical panels serving as background for detailed statuary - for instance, in all the courts. Next to the red there is a brilliant orange, used in relatively small quantities here and there in the mouldings, as around the Brangwyn paintings in the Court of Abundance. This leaves yet to be named the few soothing blues that abound in the ceilings, in the deep recesses of the walls, and the coffered arches, serving as backgrounds for the many richly-modeled terra cotta rosettes. This is practically the entire range of colors, but they assume, of course, endless variations of tone and intensity, owing to the difference of the surfaces and the play of light and shadow. The relation of the whole color scheme to the colors furnished by nature is by no means accidental. The effect of the ensemble, on a calm, sunny day, is hard to describe in its gorgeous beauty. The pressing into service of nature as applied to color was particularly inviting, of course, on the bay side, where simple sweeps of skies, foothills, and plain bodies of water furnish almost ideal conditions. This is true in a similar way for the background in the west, but toward the south - well, we had better forget such mournful outward aspects of our great city of San Francisco, known around the world for its gay temperament. Appreciating the importance of detail, Guérin extended his color treatment to practically everything presenting surface. Nothing could escape his vigilant eyes. Even the sand covering of the asphalted roads is of a peculiarly attractive blend. It seems like a mixture of ordinary sand with a touch of cinnamon. Even that corps of stalwart guards had to submit to a tonal harmony of drabs, with touches of yellow metal, warm red puttees, and neat little yellow Spanish canes. They all seem very proud and appreciative of their part in the concert of colors. And they speak of it with feeling and reverence. Not long ago, during a rather stormy, wet day, I happened to notice several of these cicerones hiding in a doorway of one of the palaces, looking most disconsolate. The reason for it became immediately apparent; the un-Californian weather had forced them to put on civilian overcoats of indescribable hues, and the shame of being out of color was plainly written in their faces. It shows that art is largely a matter of education. I fancy that all that a respectful and appreciative public could do, in order to live up to the occasion, would be to have Exposition suits built of pongee silk, or some other harmonious material. So far, on all of my visits, I observed a shocking preponderance of black, which I hope will eventually yield to the softer colors of lighter materials, with the arrival of warmer weather. The careful observer will find that the crimson vermilion red of the fire alarm boxes had to yield to a more refined vivid orange, much, I understand, to the consternation of the Exposition fire marshal, who must have been shocked at this intrusion. The horticultural effect of the grounds, flower beds, and shrubbery will always adapt itself properly to the color scheme, and a preponderance of warm yellows, reds, and orange will simultaneously fill out the garden areas. At first yellow pansies and daffodils had control, to be replaced in due season by the uniform appearance of tulips, hyacinths, and successions of other flowers. This progressive appearance of new flower carpets will provide ever-changing elements of interest throughout the entire period of the Exposition. It seems only right at this time to speak of the great and modestly contributed services of John McLaren. He, with his wide experience and unceasing energy, created the garden setting which ties all the buildings into a natural harmony. Hardly ever have trees, shrubs, and flowers been used in such profusion in an Exposition. Conventional in aspect, all great expositions in the past have been lacking in the invigorating elements, no matter how naturalistic the site may have been. The few scraggly pines of St. Louis looked more like undesirable left-overs of a former forest than like a supporting feature of the Exposition picture. The stony look of many former expostions is not evident at San Francisco. Considering the fact that the exposition is largely on made ground, it is amazing what has been accomplished. With the exception of the few scattering remains of an old amusement park - the Harbor View Gardens - so charmingly utilized in the courtyard of the California building, practically all the trees and shrubs had to be brought in from the outside. How well Mr. McLaren succeeded in moving whole gardens "en bloc" to the Exposition is shown by the fact that with the exception of a few Monterey cypresses on one of the lagoon islands, not a single tree has died. It was no small task to transplant eucalypti forty feet high, and aged yew trees, and the tradition that it is impossible to transplant old trees has again been demonstrated as in the same class with other old sayings based on the experience of the past, but applying no longer to our own conditions. The stately rows of palms on the south avenue contain some specimens of the Canary Island palms which must be nearly forty years old, and some of the yews in the colonnade between the Court of the Four Seasons and the Marina, near Miss Longman's Fountain of Ceres, are probably even older. The massing of large groups of black acacia, Monterey pines, and cypresses, filled in at the edge with veronica and many other flowering shrubs, gives many interesting notes, and serves frequently as backgrounds for statuary. Like everything else, from the architecture down, the garden aspect of the Exposition is not frugal nor skimpy, whatever floral effects are used. Like shrubbery, trees occur in great profusion, and without regard for difficulties in transplanting. The Court of the Universe did not receive the generous treatment from Mr. McLaren that it almost cries for. The few isolated Italian cypresses in the Court, near the tower, no doubt help a good deal, but one is tempted to ask why there are not more of them. Italian cypresses are hard to transplant, particularly if their feet have become accustomed to the peaceful conditions of Santa Clara Valley cemeteries, where most of them, I understand, enjoyed an undisturbed existence until they were used so very effectively in the Exposition. These successfully moved old trees are by far the most useful trees in architectural schemes, as anybody who knows the Villa Borghese in Rome must admit. I would like to see a law passed that every person at a certain age must plant six Italian cypresses. I humbly suggest this to our legislators, who seem to be suffering from a lack of measures to be introduced and passed for the benefit of the people. The Italian cypress is our most picturesque tree, and for combination with architecture, is unrivaled by any other tree. They grow rather slowly, but do not take much space, on account of their vertical habit. The making of the Court of Palms is due largely to the liberal use of these elegant trees, with their somber stateliness. The lover of outdoors will find no end to his pleasurable investigations in the many fine, luxurious groupings of flowering shrubs. Heather, which does so well with us, and blooms when only few flowers brighten our gardens, has been profusely used in solid beds at the base of the Kelham towers, around Festival Hall, and in many other places. The dainty, glistening foliage, interspersed with red berries of another acclimated alien from the Himalaya Mountains - the Cotoneaster - makes fine borders around the pool in the Court of the Four Seasons, in the Court of Palms, and in several of the colonnades. Evergreen plants and shrubs are the dominant features of the two Italian Avenues connecting the big court with the side courts. The rich and luxuriant carpets of the many varieties of box, thuya, taxus, and dwarf pine, in dark, somber greens and many lighter color variations, are superb. In the Court of Abundance great masses of orange trees furnish the dominant note. They are most effective with their branches heavily laden with fruit. They are not only a surprise to the outsider, but even to the Californian, who wonders at the skill and experience which made this feat possible. Mural Decorations In connection with the color, scheme, the mural decorations invite attention at many places. The outdoor character of the Exposition has given unusual locations to some of these decorations. There are in all some thirty. Mr. Guérin, as the director of color, had full charge of their production, and all of them were painted by men he trusted personally as regards their ability to execute and to finish on time. That his choice fell largely on Eastern men was only too natural. Few people have a proper idea of the magnitude of the work involved in painting a huge decoration, and Mr. Guérin can hardly be blamed for his choice of the men of experience who finally did the work, although not all of them justified the confidence placed in them. The work of painting such huge decorations is necessarily a big undertaking, involving many preliminary studies and much physical and mechanical labor in the end. Many painter-decorators employ large numbers of trained men, apprentices and independent artists, to assist in the execution of their commissions, and very frequently the temptation of yielding the pleasure of execution to other hands is the cause of the lowering of standards. Probably, none of the canvases by Mr. Robert Reid, in the dome of the Fine Arts Palace, can be said to do justice to the remarkable decorative talent of Mr. Reid. He is so well and prominently known as a painter of many successful decorations, in the East, that it is to be regretted that he was not in a happier mood when he came to the task of painting his eight panels of irregular shape for the Exposition. The very scattered style of painting so effective in many of his easel paintings, which show all the fine qualities of a modern impressionistic school, is not of great help in pictures intended to be viewed from a great distance. His decorations present very little opportunity for the eye to rest upon them, and they are altogether too involved, in their turbulent compositions. Their color is not unattractive, no matter how cold, and of sufficient interest to atone for the lack of dignified design. The subjects of all of these are by no means unattractive, and a description of them reads far better than the pictures look. The birth of European art is symbolized in the first panel. There are five dominant figures, grouped about an altar on which burns the sacred fire. An earthly messenger leans from his chariot to receive in his right hand from the guardian of the flame the torch of inspiration, while with his left hand he holds back his rearing steeds. In front of these a winged attendant checks for an instant their flight. The central figure, the guardian of the altar, still holds the torch, and below her are three satellites, one clasping a cruse of oil, another pouring oil upon the altar, while she holds in her hand a flaming brand, ready to renew the flame should it falter, a third zealously watching the fire as it burns. Opposite these a figure holds a crystal gazing-globe, in which the future has been revealed to her, but her head is turned to watch the flight of the earthly messenger. The birth of Oriental art is symbolized in the second panel. The forces of the earth, wresting inspiration from the powers of the air, are pictured by a contest between a joyous figure in ancient Chinese armor, mounted upon a golden dragon, combating an eagle. A female figure under a huge umbrella represents Japan, while on either side are two other Oriental figures, in gorgeous attire, symbolic of the long periods of Oriental art. The third panel represents the Ideals in Art. There are seven figures, the Greek ideal of beauty dominating all in a classic nude. Below this Religion is portrayed, in a Madonna and Child. Heroism is shown in Jeanne d'Arc, mounted on a war-horse and flinging abroad her victorious pennant. A young girl represents youth and material beauty, while at her side a flaunting peacock stands for absolute nature, without ideal or inspiration. A mystic figure in the background holds the cruse of oil. Over all of them floats a winged figure holding a laurel wreath for the victorious living, while a shadowy figure in the foreground holds a palm for the dead. The fourth panel represents the inspirations of all Art, five figures symbolizing Music, Painting, Architecture, Poetry, and Sculpture. Flying above these are two winged figures, one holding a torch flaming with the sacred oil that has been brought from the altar, the other drawing back the veil of darkness, revealing the tangible, visible expression of Art to mortal eyes. The four single panels symbolize the four golds of California; the poppies, the citrus fruits, the metallic gold, and the golden wheat. The idea of the four golds is particularly novel and will some day yield far more interesting results, and I hope the subject will not be allowed to lie idle. It is a very fine idea, too good not to be used permanently in some dignified building in California. The Court of the Four Seasons offers a decorative scheme of eight panels above the doorways in the colonnades and two large panels in the orchestral niche on the south. All of these ten paintings were done by Milton Bancroft, one of the younger of the Eastern decorator-painters, who took his task seriously enough, without rising in any of his decorations above the conventional, with the exception of the "Autumn" and the two larger panels in the half dome. All of the seven decorations belonging to the set of eight smaller ones are rather academic in their monotony of symmetrical compositions, not sufficiently relieved by variety of detail. These decorations have to excess what Reid's decorations are lacking in, namely, repose. Their coloring is quiet and in thorough harmony with the architecture. Bancroft's two more importantly placed decorations are, fortunately, his best efforts. "Art Crowned by Time" and "Man Receiving Instruction in the Laws of Nature" are very effective in their stateliness and thoroughly decorative quality. They show the artist's allegiance to the great decorations of the Renaissance in many quaint ways of filling out the background spaces by puttos holding tablets, simple bits of architecture, and conventionalized trees. His figure of "Art" is unique among his figures in the decorative pattern used on the mantle which falls gracefully from her shoulders. All the other Bancroft decorations are devoid of this use of surface patterns, which are so helpful and interesting in decorative arrangement. It is only a few steps from the Court of the Four Seasons into the Court of Palms. In entering through the orchestral niche one passes directly underneath the lunette which holds the very decorative canvas by Arthur Mathews, the acknowledged leader in the art of California. It must be said that it does not seem right, in the light of what has been contributed by men from elsewhere, that Mathews' superb talent should have been employed only in one panel. His "Victorious Spirit," a rich and noble composition, has certain enduring qualities which are not to be found in a single one of any of the others. Simply taken as a decoration, his picture is most effective by its richness of color, and without going into the question of its meaning, it is thoroughly satisfactory as a decoration. Childe Hassam's lunette, said to represent "Fruit and Flowers," is almost anaemic alongside Mathews' fullness of expression. Nobody ever suspected Childe Hassam of being a decorator, no matter how admittedly important a place he holds in the field of easel painting. The composition of his decorations is frugal in every sense, largely owing to the small scale of his figures. In the physical center of the composition nothing of interest happens, and the composition breaks almost in two. The coloring is insipid, and altogether not in keeping, in its extreme coldness, with the happy warmth of the travertine surrounding it. Directly opposite, Charles Holloway presents himself in a very happy painting called "The Pursuit of Pleasure." A study of this picture can result in nothing but complete satisfaction. It is well and interestingly composed, lively in arrangement, in good scale, and not lacking in a certain feeling of repose, so essential in a good decoration, and, for that matter, in any work of art. In the great arch of the Tower of Jewels the most elaborate decorations of Mr. William de Leftwich Dodge, of New York, command attention first of all by their fine and lively colors. These decorations show a most experienced artist, treating a wide variety of interrelated subjects with great skill. These enormous canvases, sixteen by ninety-six feet in size, are divided into a triptych, each picture continuing its central scheme into two smaller side panels. The great composition to the left is labeled "The Atlantic and the Pacific," with a picture of "The Purchase" on the right and "The Discovery" on the left. Opposite we have the "Gateway of all Nations," with "Labor Crowned" and "The Achievement" on either side. Mr. Dodge has a very fine sense of decoration, which he used with much skill. His command of human forms, together with the complete mastery of all other detail, enables him to paint very easily decorations which leave no doubt as to his long and varied experience in this field. "The Atlantic and the Pacific" is very interesting in its formal symmetry, splendidly relieved by the individual treatment of the eastern and western nations which receive with expressions of joy the completion of the great waterway which means so much for the furthering of their mutual interests. "The Gateway of all Nations" on the opposite side is less symmetrical, but very well balanced in its arrangement of many elements, naturalistic as well as allegorical. On the left, in the middle picture, one sees the retiring forces of labor, proudly watching the great procession of varied ships, moving in a joyous parade, led by Father Neptune and attendants, towards the recently opened gate. Preceding Father Neptune are allegorical figures, rhythmically swinging away into the sky. All of Dodge's decorations are good for their sound decorative treatment, always sustaining well the architectural surrounding frame, so particularly important in this great and massive tower. Dodge's backgrounds are devoid of any naturalistic suggestion, which so often destroys otherwise effective decorations. The function of a decoration must always be to preserve the feeling of the wall, as opposed to the work of the easel painter, who wants to assist in forgetting that there is a canvas and to suggest that we are looking into the far distance. A good decoration should, as it were, allow the driving of a nail into any part of its surface - it should not make a hole in the wall. In the two triumphal arches of the Nations of the East and the West, Frank Vincent Du Mond and Edward Simmons, respectively, contributed to the scheme of decorations. In the western arch, DuMond painted a continuous frieze of the march of civilization towards the great West. His work is most conscientiously done, very intellectual, and most effective in color, as well as in arrangement. You see in his continued scheme the entire story of western development. It begins with the youth departing from his old father, who only reluctantly - feeling the infirmities of old age - stays behind. Preceding the young man, the historical prairie-schooner, accompanied by pioneers, continues the procession. This is developed further in historical groups of soldiers, priests, and men representing the intellectual rise of the great West. There is William Keith, with the palette, Bishop Taylor, Bret Harte, Captain Anza, and other well known western figures, taking their place in the procession of tent wagons and allegorical figures, all striving towards that very fine group representing California in all the gorgeousness and splendor of the Golden State. This composition of "California," taken by itself, is one of the very best passages in the whole decoration, and could very effectively be used all by itself. On the east, Edward Simmons presents two very charming compositions, full of great refinement and delicacy. The refined coloring of his decorations, so very delightful by themselves, is not in accord with the architecture, and in the overawing surroundings of the great arch they do not look as well as they might in a more intimate scheme of smaller scale. The one to the left, as seen from the Court of the Universe, tells of the dreams which led to the exploring and exploiting of the great West. Carefully designed figures of great refinement. represent "Hope" and "Illusory Hope," scattering tempting bubbles, heading the procession of stately women. They are followed by "Adventure," "Art," "Imagination," "Truth," and "Religion" and a group suggesting family life. On the opposite side the westward trend of War, Commerce, Conquest, Imagination, and Religion from all corners of the earth is typified. Mr. Simmons in all his work employs a very unusual technique of broken columns, without losing a certain desirable simplicity of surface. His allegorical theme on the north side will linger in the minds of the people as one of the best of the Exposition decorations, particularly for its graceful drawing. It seems hardly possible to do adequate justice to the very unusual genius of Frank Brangwyn, who charms thousands of Exposition visitors with his eight panels, representing the Four Elements, in the Court of Abundance. Brangwyn's pictures have one great advantage over all of the others, which lies in their accessible location, well controlled by daylight. All the other decorations seem to me to be situated too high above the ground. Brangwyn's have no such disadvantage to contend with. How much more important, for instance, Mathews' lunette would look, placed somewhere nearer the level of the eye. Brangwyn's canvases are a veritable riot of color, full of animation and life. They are almost dynamic. There seems to be something going on in all of them, all the time, and one hardly knows whether it is the composition, the color, or the subject, or all three, which gives them this very pronounced feeling of animation. He knows how to approach the extreme possibilities in pictorial decoration without losing sight of certain elements of repose. Seen from a distance, their effect at first is somewhat startling, owing to their new note, not reminiscent in the very least of the work of any other living - or past - painter. On closer examination they disclose a great wealth of form, very skillfully treated. There is every indication that it gave the artist the utmost pleasure to paint them. This spirit of personal enjoyment, which all of them convey in a remarkably sustained fashion, is contagious, and disarms all criticism. They are primarily great paintings in a technical sense. Added to that quality is a passionate love of pure color, juxtaposed with fine feeling for complementary colors of great intensity. Brangwyn's glass window technique, of separation into many primary and secondary colors by many broad contrasts of neutral browns and grays, is very effective in bringing a feeling of harmony in all of his paintings, no matter how intense their individual color notes may be. His pictures are not intellectual in the least, and all of the people in his pictures are animals, more or less, and merely interested in having a square meal and being permitted to enjoy life in general, to the fullest extent. The quality of enjoyment that runs through all of Brangwyn's work is extremely useful in the general atmosphere of Mullgardt's court. In the northwest corner, Nature is represented, in all the fecundity of the earth. Only in our wildest dreams, and only in the advertisements of California farm lands and orchards, do such grapes, pumpkins, pears, and apples exist. The picture to the left shows the grape-treaders, in the old-fashioned and unhygienic practice of crushing grapes by dancing on them in enormous vats. Others are seen gathering and delivering more grapes. As in the other picture, showing the harvest of fruit, more people are shown. Brangwyn never hesitates to use great numbers of people, which seem to give him no trouble whatever in their modeling and characterization. Following on to the right, "Fire," represented as the primitive fire and as industrial fire, in two pictures, continues the scheme. That group of squatting woodmen carefully nursing a little fire is almost comical, with their extended cheeks, and one can almost feel the effort of their lungs in the strained anatomy of their backs. There does not seem to be anything too difficult for Brangwyn. "Industrial Fire" is interesting from the decorative note of many pieces of pottery in the foreground. They seem to have come from the kiln which muscular men are attending. "Water" is unusually graceful and delicate in its vertical arrangement of trees and the curve of the fountain stream, coming from the side of a hill. Women, children, and men have congregated, taking their turn in filling all sorts of vessels, some carried on their heads, some in their arms. Brangwyn's clever treatment of zoölogical and botanical detail is well shown in flowers in the foreground, such as foxglove and freesia, and the graceful forms of a pair of pinkish flamingoes. In the other panel of the same subject, a group of men on the shore are hauling in their nets. The last of the four, "Air," represents this element in two totally different ways; the one on the left gives the more tender, gentle movement of this element, in the suggestion of the scent of the bowmen screened by trees, moving toward their prospective prey, while the other very bold composition is of a windmill turned away from the destructive power of an impending windstorm. In the foreground people are rushed along by gusts of wind, while children, unaware of the impending storm, are flying kites. The masterful and varied treatment of these eight canvases show Brangwyn as the great painter he is known to be. We should rejoice to have such excellent examples of his brush permanently with us. While not exactly belonging to the number of official decorations, Edward Trumbull's wall paintings in the unique Pennsylvania building are of great interest. Thoroughly dignified in their composition, they are most descriptive in their subject-matter. The "Pennsylvania Industries" are on the west side and "Penn's Treaty with the Indians" on the other. It is evident that Trumbull is a disciple of Brangwyn, though a personal note is not lacking in his work. The tea-room of the California building harbors some mural decorations by Miss Florence Lundborg which the male part of the population can enjoy only by special invitation. I regret that they are not placed somewhere where the casual Exposition stroller can see them, because they are deserving of more attention than they are apt to receive. Miss Lundborg's artistic contributions have for many years been along the lines of decorations and in this big, well-composed figural scheme she discloses again a very fine, sympathetic understanding of the problems of a wall decoration. The color scheme is very refreshing and gives life to a large hall which has been endowed with unusual distinction by Miss Lundborg's art. A number of decorative floral medallions complete a scheme which is characterized throughout by dignity and sympathy. The Illumination Conclusion While a daytime investigation of the Exposition no doubt has its rewards, the full meaning of the Exposition reveals itself at night. Never before has an Exposition been illuminated in the unique fashion of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Former exposition lighting consisted of a lavish display of lighting fixtures, and of unavoidable millions of glaring bulbs, the number of which nobody was permitted to forget. The offensive glare of the direct light had to be eliminated to preserve that feeling of tonality, of restfulness, so impressive in daytime. In other words, the sources of all lights at night have been concealed, or so concentrated that they could be far removed, so as not directly to offend the eye. The effect is very much like the flood of light of a full-moon summer night. In speaking of the rich mellowness of the lighting effect, one feels again compelled to speak of the travertine stucco as the artistic foundation of not only the architecture, sculpture, painting, and landscape garden effects, but also of the illuminating effects designed by Mr. W. D'A. Ryan, and executed by Mr. Guy L. Bayley. Without the mellow walls and rich orange sculptural details, no such picture of tonal beauty could have been produced. It is difficult to single out, among the many suggestive pictures, the most alluring one, but I may safely say that the first half hour after the close of day, as enjoyed around the lagoon, with the Fine Arts Building in the background, reflected in the waters, will linger forever in the minds of all who are privileged to see it. Such blues I have seen only in pictures by Maxfield Parrish. Combined with the rich gold of the colonnade, they are almost supernatural. The whole effect, as reflected in the placid surface of the lagoon, occasionally broken here and there by a slowly moving waterfowl, or the protruding mouth of a carp, is inspiring, and must awaken an aesthetic response in the soul of the most ordinary mortal. Very quickly, however, does this colorful picture change, and the very intense blue of the early evening sky rapidly changes into a colorless black. The Palace of Fine Arts, above all others, offers many wonderful bits of enchantment at night. It seems to have been thought out not only for its daytime effect but for the night as well. Of the inner courts, those with larger and smaller bodies of water are most effective at night. The Court of the Four Seasons, with its placid, shrub-encircled pool, is doubly interesting at night. The four wall-fountains add much to the outdoor feeling that this court possesses, by reason of the suggestive murmur of the waters, descending in gentle splashes from bowl to bowl. The most striking court, in its mysteriousness, is Mullgardt's Court of Abundance, particularly so on a foggy night. Large volumes of vapor are lazily rising from huge bowls and torches, below, and in the tower, suggesting the early days of the cosmic All, cooling off from the turbulent period of its creation. The fogs sweeping from the bay add more mystery, and with the gorgeous perfume of the hyacinth carpet in the garden spaces, the effect is almost narcotic. The whole court, under these conditions, seems heavy with the atmosphere of abundance, of physical well-being, of slumbering natural powers. At the same time, it is truly religious in its effect of turning the mind away from the ordinary world into the realm of the mystic and the supernatural. I never realized what our San Francisco fogs could produce in artistic effects until I visited Mullgardt's court on a foggy night. The effect of the fog is absolutely ennobling. So many things like these, possibly not originally thought of, have added, together with the illumination, rare charm to the Exposition. Great masses of pigeons, attracted by the light thrown upon the two great groups of the Nations of the West and of the East, give an unusually inspiring touch to the Exposition at night. The spectacle of these graceful birds encircling rhythmically the great sculptural piles, apparently enjoying the bath of light, will never be forgotten. These pigeons seem to have decided to live in the Exposition; they are there always, and apparently glad to play their part in the Exposition ensemble. The lesson of the Exposition will be far reaching in its many demonstrations of the commercial value of artistic assets. The whole Exposition is really a city-planning exposition of the first order. Any city-builder, by the respectful use of the great fundamental principles of balance, harmony, and unity, cannot help but do on a large scale what the Exposition presents in a more condensed fashion. I admit that we have made tremendous strides in the remodeling of many of our large cities, particularly in the East, but we are still constantly starting new cities in the old planless way. Our only practical and lasting effort in San Francisco along the lines of civic progress has been made in the civic center, where a far-reaching plan has been adopted and partly put into existence, and in some of our very charming newer restricted residence districts in the western end of the city, like St. Francis Wood, or in Northbrae and Claremont, in Berkeley, and elsewhere around the bay. There is no doubt that we must better capitalize our own artistic assets, which we often allow to lie idle before we ever utilize them properly. The water front, Telegraph hill, the ocean shore, Sutro Heights, and Lincoln Park are all waiting to be developed in such a way as the Exposition suggests. The talk of cost is idle twaddle. If the Exposition, as an artistic investment, pays - and I see no reason whatever why it should not pay for itself - then we cannot do anything better than to invest our money wisely in other artistic improvements of a permanent character. San Francisco is known all the world over for its unique location, rivaled only by that of Marseilles, and we have now the responsibility to use this natural asset, for which many envy us. The Exposition will start an avalanche of improvements along artistic lines which will be given increasing momentum by the development of long periods of prosperity. The most urgent need, no, doubt, is the establishment of a municipal art gallery in the civic center, the only ideal place for it, where the workingman from the Mission and the merchant from west of Van Ness avenue will find it equally convenient of access. If a smaller number of citizens could raise the money for a municipal opera house, there should be no trouble in getting funds for a building devoted to a far more extensive public benefit, like an art gallery. People generally will want to know why it is that certain things can be given to them for one year, so successfully, and why it should not be possible to have them with us permanently. The inspiring lesson of beauty, expressed so simply and intelligently, will sink deep into the minds of the great masses, to be reborn in an endless stream of aesthetic expression in the spiritual and physical improvement of the people. We, out here in the West, have been measuring the tide of human progress in biological terms. We have almost forgotten the days of our great calamity, and still speak of them in that typical expression of apprehension of the "earthquake babies." Let us think now of the future and its bright prospects, inaugurated so auspiciously for the benefit of our Exposition generation. Appendix Guide to Sculpture South Gardens: Fountain of Energy (center) - A. Stirling Caller Directly opposite the main entrance, the most conspicuously placed fountain in the grounds. The four major figures in the bowl represent the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the two Arctic oceans. The minor eight figures suggest the marine character of the fountain. The reclining figures on the sphere typify the two hemispheres. The youth on horseback represents energy and strength. The Mermaid (fountains in long pools) - Arthur Putnam The same figure is used twice, near the Horticultural Palace on the west and Festival Hall on the east. Equestrian Statue, "Cortez" - Charles Niehaus Guarding the Tower of Jewels. This statue represents the great Spanish conqueror. As one faces the tower, this figure is on the left. Equestrian Statue of "Pizarro" - Charles Cary Rumsey Similar in type and feeling to the preceding statue on the right, in front of the Tower of Jewels. Horticultural Building: Frieze at Base of the Spires - Eugene Louis Boutier Loose arrangement of standing female figures surrounding the bases of the spires on all sides of the Horticultural Palace, with no other meaning than that of decoration. Pairs of Caryatides - John Bateman Architectural vertical members supporting the pergola around the Horticultural Palace. Used also on the Young Women's Christian Association and the Press buildings, near the main entrance. Tower of Jewels: Statues of "Priest," "Soldier," "Philosopher," and "Adventurer" - John Flanagan Four figures suggestive of the forces which influenced the destinies of our country. Very big in scale - about twice life size. They are standing on a row of columns below the cornice on the tower and are repeated on all four sides. The Armored Horseman (Terrace of the Tower) - F. M. L. Tonetti A decorative equestrian statue on the lower terrace of the tower above the preceding figures - repeated sixteen times. Tower Colonnades: Fountain of Youth (east end) - Edith Woodman Burroughs Snugly placed inside the abutting walls, east of the Tower of Jewels. Naive in character and simple in treatment, without any further symbolical meaning than that suggested by the name. Motif in side panels, "Ship of Life." Fountain of El Dorado (west end) - Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney In position similar to the preceding, west of the Tower of Jewels. A triptych of dramatic expression, naturalistically treated. Festival Hall: Figure crowning the minor Domes - Sherry E. Fry A standing finial figure, on the minor domes, of graceful pose. Two groups in front of the Pylons - Sherry E. Fry Practically conceived as wall fountains, they are composed of the figure of a girl, suggesting the joy of life, emphasized by young Pan, with a lizard, at the base on the left, and a seated young girl on the right. Cartouche over the entrance (figures only) - Sherry E. Fry An architectural unit over the big arch of the main central dome, outside the building, for decorative effect. Reclining figures on Pylons - Sherry E. Fry A male and a female figure, reclining, crowning the architectural units projecting into the South Gardens. Suggestive of life and pleasure. Court of Palms: Equestrian statue, "The End of the Trail" - James Earl Fraser At the entrance of the Court of Palms, off the main avenue opposite the Horticultural Palace. Symbolical figure, representing the destinies of the vanishing red race; to be considered in connection with the "Pioneer" at the entrance of the Court of Flowers. The Fairy (Italian Towers - Palms and Flowers) - Carl Grupp A figural termination of the four towers guarding the entrances to the Courts of Palms and of Flowers. Caryatides - John Bateman and Mr. Calder Winged half-figure in the attic-space, repeated all around the court. Spandrels - Albert Weinert Reclining decorative figures composed into the triangular spaces over all the doorways in the corridor. Court of Flowers: Equestrian statue, "The Pioneer" - Solon Borglum At the entrance of this court. Representing the white man and his victorious civilization. (To be studied with "The End of the Trail.") Lions (at the entrances) - Albert Laessle Very conventional architectural decorative animal forms at the entrance inside the Court of Flowers - used six times. The Fairy (above the Italian Towers) - Carl Gruppe [See Fairy under Court of Palms by the same artist.] Central Fountain, "Beauty and the Beast" - Edgar Walter Decorative fountain inside the court, with crowning figure of a young woman, reposing on a fabulous beast. Flower Girls (in niches) - A. Stirling Calder Repeated figures, conventionally treated, of young women, decorated profusely with flower garlands, in the attic space. Court of Abundance: Groups on the altar in the main tower - Chester Beach These groups constitute the historical composition in the tower on the north side of the court. Beginning with the lower one, they represent the primitive ages, the middle ages, and modern times. Group at column bases and finials - Leo Lentelli Decorative figures. Used four times at the base of the shaft near the tower. A single finial figure of a girl with a bow is used on top of the same column. Fountain of the Earth (central pool) - Robert I. Aitken An architectural composition telling the story of human life in its many phases. The outstretched arms on the south side represent destiny giving and taking life. Figures on top of the Arcade - Albert Weinert Primitive men, with the pelican and deer; the mother with a child is repeated all around the court. Aquatic Life (north extension) - Sherry B. Fry A figure which might represent Neptune's daughter. This figure stands north of the tower in the open space toward the Marina below, between the Palaces of Transportation and Mines. Court of the Universe: The Nations of the East; The Nations of the West - A. Stirling Calder, Leo Lentelli, and Frederick C. R. Roth, collaborators. Colossal groups on top of the two great arches, representing, in many types, Western and Eastern civilization. Statues on columns (eastern and western arches) - Leo Lentelli Winged statues standing on top of columns on the inside as well as the outside of the two great arches. Spandrels, Pegasus - Frederick G. R. Roth Triangular compositions spanning the arches, repeated on both sides. Medallion - B. Bufano Circular decorations of male figures on the left side of the arch without any meaning other than architectural effect. Medallion - A. Stirling Calder Same as above, of female figures, on the right side of the arches. The Stars (colonnades) - A. Stirling Calder Very conventional standing figure, with hands united above the head, forming a star with radiated head-dress, placed on the balustrades of buildings adjoining the court and in the avenue leading north from the court. Frieze on corner pavilions, "Signs of the Zodiac" - Hermon A. MacNeil Decorative friezes on four sides of the four corner pavilions, of mythological character. Two fountains, "The Rising Sun" and "The Setting Sun" - Adolph A. Weinman Two columns rising from fountain bowls and crowned by winged figures, of a woman, representing the Setting Sun, on the left, and of a winged male figure, the Rising Sun, on the right. Four reclining figures, "The Elements" - Robert I. Aitken At the head of the stairs leading into the sunken garden; on the left, near the Music Pavilion, "Fire;" on the right, "Water;" on the left, near the tower, "Air;" on the right, "Earth." Two Groups - Paul Manship Near the arches at the head of the steps, two figural groups. One is of female figures, suggesting pleasure; the other, music and art. Western Plaza, in Front of Machinery Palace: Monument, "Genius of Creation" - Daniel Chester French Group of allegorical figures, suggestive of the development of the human race. Court of the Four Seasons: Four groups representing "The Seasons" - Furio Piccirilli In niches. Southeast corner, "Winter;" northeast corner, "Fall;" southwest corner, "Spring;" northwest corner, "Summer." The Harvest (above the half dome) - Albert Jaegers Seated figure with a horn of plenty and other agricultural emblems. Rain and Sunshine (figures on columns) - Albert Jaegers Standing female figures on columns on either side of the half dome. Sunshine, holding a palm branch, is on the left, and Rain, holding up a shell, on the right. Groups, "Feast of Sacrifice," on the pylons in the forecourt - Albert Jaegers The two groups on top of the building, in which huge bulls predominate, led by a young woman and a young man; very decorative. Fountain, "Ceres" - Evelyn Beatrice Longman Situated halfway between the Court of the Four Seasons and the Marina, in an avenue leading north; architectural in character. Spandrels (arcade) - August Jaegers Reclining female figures above the arches at the west and east entrance of the Court of the Four Seasons. Attic figures - August Jaegers Standing decorative figures of architectonic feeling, in the attic above the preceding figures. Varied Industries Palace: Tympanum group in the doorway - Ralph Stackpole Groups of men and women in the lunette of the ornate doorway on the south side. Secondary group, doorway - Ralph Stackpole Groups above the preceding one, showing Age transferring his burden to Youth. Figure for niches, doorway (man with the pick) - Ralph Stackpole A repeated figure of a miner, of relatively small scale, on the consoles in the doorway. Figure for keystone in doorway - Ralph Stackpole A small seated figure of a laborer, on the headstone. Figure for niches, on the east façade of this Palace and of the Palace of Mines - Albert Weinert Standing figure in niches above doors, also used in avenue leading into the Court of Abundance from the east. West Wall of the Palaces (facing Fine Arts): Motifs for wall niches ("Triumph of the Field" and "Abundance") - Charles R. Harley Seated male and female figures surrounded by a great wealth of emblematic forms. The male represents "Triumph of the Field;" the female, "Abundance." Figures on columns (flanking the half domes): Philosophy and Physical Vigor - Ralph Stackpole A colossal figure of a youth, on top of free-standing columns on the west wall of the main buildings. Palace of Fine Arts: Standing figure, inside of the rotunda on top of columns - Herbert Adams Figures in the attic of the rotunda - Ulric H. Ellerhusen Standing females and males between architectural friezes immediately below the cupola of the dome. Frieze on the altar - Bruno Louis Zimm Figural frieze at the base of the rotunda facing the Laguna can only be seen from a great distance across the water. Relief panels for the rotunda - Bruno Louis Zimm Eight panels on the outside, of strictly architectural character, representing a procession, showing the development and influence of art. Friezes around the base on the ground - Ulric H. Ellerhusen Figures with garlands, used everywhere at the base of the building. Figures on the flower boxes - Ulric H. Ellerhusen Standing figures, looking inward, representing introspection. Kneeling figure on the altar - Ralph Stackpole The shrine of worship. That delicate small figure seen best from across the laguna in front of the rotunda. North Façade, Main Group of Exhibit Palaces: Figure for central niches, "Conquistador" - Allen Newman A Spanish soldier, with helmet and sword and a large mantle. Figure for side niches, "The Pirate" - Allen Newman A coarsely shaped man, in small niches on the north side of the main buildings near the preceding one. Column of Progress: Bas-relief (four sides of the pedestal) - Isidore Konti Four allegorical friezes depicting man's striving for achievement. Finial group, "The Adventurous Bowman," frieze and decoration - Hermon A. MacNeil The group on top of the column suggests man's supreme effort in life, the supporting frieze is "The Toilers." Palace of Machinery: Figures on columns (four "Powers") - Haig Patigian Repeated large scale figures of men, representing the industries exhibited within the building. Friezes for columns, vestibule - Haig Patigian Decorative architectural figure compositions of similar subjects. Spandrels (two pairs) - Haig Patigian Reclining figures filling out the triangular spaces above the doors in the vestibule reflecting the purpose of the building. Palace of Education: Repeated figure within the Half Dome, of Thought - Albert Weinert Standing figure of a maiden with a scroll inside the portal, repeated eight times. Palace of Food Products: Repeated figure within the Half Dome, "Physical Vigor" - Earl Cummings Similar to that above, inside the Portal of Vigor, showing a standing young man, with an oak wreath. Friezes and figures in niches, main south entrance (portals of the Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Palaces) - Mahonri Young Figures representing domestic life and industries like foundry work, smithing, spinning, and sculpture. Figures in the niches: woman with spindles and men with hammers. Tympanum panels (north and south entrances of the Palace of Education) - Gustave Gerlach Decorative panels above the doors outside of the building showing maternal instruction. Panels inlaid in the walls over the minor entrances Pupils of the School of Sculpture of the Society of Beaux Arts Architects and National Sculpture Society. Decorative panels of school life and of science. Figure, "Victory," on the gables of the palaces - Louis Ulrich A winged figure used on top of all the palaces. Mural Decorations Court of Abundance: Earth - Frank Brangwyn Northwest corner of the corridor, two panels: grape-crushers on the left and fruit-pickers on the right. Fire - Frank Brangwyn Two panels in the northeast corner of the corridor. Primitive Fire on the left and Industrial Fire on the right. Water - Frank Brangwyn Two panels in the southeast corner of the corridor. Fountain motive on the left and fishermen hauling nets on the right. Air - Frank Brangwyn Two panels in the southwest corner of the corridor. In the left panel, the scent of hunters carried toward their prospective prey. A windmill on the right. Court of the Four Seasons: Spring - H. Milton Bancroft Two murals above the doorway in the colonnade (southwest corner). To the left, Spring; to the right, Seedtime. Summer - H. Milton Bancroft Two murals similar to those in the northwest corner of the court. Fruition on the right; Summer on the left. Autumn - H. Milton Bancroft In the northeast corner of the court, two panels: Autumn on the right; Harvest on the left. Winter - H. Milton Bancroft Similar in location to the preceding, in southeast corner. Two murals, Festivity on the right; Winter on the left. Man Receiving Instruction in Nature's Laws - H. Milton Bancroft One upright panel, in the half dome on the right. Art Crowned by Time - H. Milton Bancroft On the left opposite the preceding. Eastern Arch, Court of the Universe: Hope and Attendants: (On the north wall) - Edward Simmons Historical types: (On the south wall) - Edward Simmons Representing Greece, Italy, Spain, England and France, on the south wall. Tower of Jewels: The Atlantic and Pacific (in the center); The Discovery (on the left;) The Purchase (on the right) - William de Leftwich Dodge Gateway of All Nations (in the center); Labor Crowned (on the left); Achievement (on the right) - William de Leftwich Dodge Six panels inspired by the construction of the Panama Canal. The first group is on the west wall, the second on the east. Western Arch, Court of the Universe: The Westward March of Civilization, in two panels by - Frank V. DuMond Beginning in the north panel and continued in the opposite one. Court of Palms: Fruits and Flowers - Childe Hassam Painting in a lunette over the entrance into the Palace of Education. The Pursuit of Pleasure - Charles Holloway A painting of the same shape as the preceding, over the entrance into the Palace of Liberal Arts. The Victorious Spirit - Arthur Mathews In the lunette over the doorway into the Court of the Four Seasons. Rotunda, Palace of the Fine Arts: The Four Golds of California (Golden Metal, Wheat, Citrus Fruits, and Poppies) - Robert Reid In the ceiling inside the rotunda. Art, born of flame, expresses its ideals to the world through music, poetry, architecture, painting, and sculpture - Robert Reid In the same location. Birth of European Art. Birth of Oriental Art - Robert Reid Belonging to the preceding group of eight pictures by the same artist. Pennsylvania Building: Decorative Paintings - Edward Trumbull In the east and west walls of the center court of the building, showing Penn's Treaty with the Indians on the right and Pennsylvania Industries on the left. Biographical Notes Adams, Herbert (Sculptor) New York. Born in West Concord, Vermont 1858. Studied in Paris. Figures on columns inside of Rotunda, Palace of Fine Arts. Aitken, Robert I. (Sculptor) New York. Born in San Francisco, California, 1878. Studied in Mark Hopkins Institute, San Francisco, and Paris. The Four Elements, in Court of the Universe, and Fountain of Earth in Court of Abundance. Bacon, Henry (Architect) New York. Born in Watseka Illinois, 1866. Studied at the University of Illinois and in Europe. Court of the Four Seasons. Bakewell and Brown (Architects). John Bakewell, Jr. San Francisco. Born in Topeka, Kansas 1872. Studied at the Beaux Arts Paris. Arthur Brown, Jr. San Francisco. Born in Oakland, California, 1874. Studied in the University of California and at the Beaux Arts in Paris. Horticultural Palace. Bateman, John (Sculptor) New York. Born in Cedarville New Jersey 1877. Studied in the School of Industrial Art. Philadelphia and in Paris. Caryatides outside of Horticultural Building. Bayley, Guy L. (Electrical Engineer) San Francisco. Born in Vacaville, California, 1875. Studied at University of California. Chief of Electric and Mechanical Department. Beach, Chester (Sculptor) New York. Born in San Francisco, California, 1881. Studied in Paris, New York and Rome. Groups on tower on Court of Abundance. Bennett, Edward (Architect) Chicago. Preliminary Plans of Exposition. Bitter, Karl (Sculptor). Born in Vienna, Austria, 1867. Died April 10, 1915, New York. Studied at Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Chief of Sculpture. Bliss and Faville (Architects) Walter D. Bliss, San Francisco. Born in Nevada, 1868. Studied in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and abroad. William B. Faville, San Francisco. Born 1866. Studied in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Main Buildings forming center unit of eight Palaces. Boberg, Ferdinand (Architect) Stockholm. Born in Falun, Sweden, 1860. Swedish Building. Borglum, Solon H. (Sculptor) New York. Born in Ogden, Utah, 1868. Studied in Art Academy of Cincinnati, and in Paris. The Pioneer. Bourgeois, Jean Louis (Architect) Born in Autun, France, 1876. Died February 26, 1915, in France. Collaborated with Bakewell and Brown in Horticultural Building design. Boutier, Eugene Louis (Sculptor) Frieze at Base of Spires on Horticultural Building. Brangwyn, Frank (Painter) London. Born in Bruges, Belgium, 1867. Mural paintings of the Four Elements in the Court of Abundance. Bufano, B. (Sculptor) New York. Medallions on the arches in Court of the Universe. Burditt, Thomas H. (Architect) San Francisco. Born in Nellore, India, 1886. California State Building. Burroughs, Mrs. Edith Woodman (Sculptor) Flushing, Long Island. Born in Riverdale-on-Hudson 1871. Studied in Art Students League of few York and in Paris. Fountain of Youth. Calder, A. Stirling (Sculptor) New York. Born in Philadelphia 1870. Studied in Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and in Paris. Acting Chief of Sculpture. Fountain of Energy; The Star in Court of the Universe; Flower Girl in Court of Flowers; Nations of the East; Nations of the West, in collaboration with F. Roth and Leo Lentelli. Carrere and Hastings (Architects) John M. Carrere, deceased. Thomas Hastings, New York. Born New York, 1860. Studied in Beaux Arts, Paris. Tower of Jewels. Cummings, M. Earl (Sculptor) San Francisco. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, 1876. Studied in San Francisco and Paris. Repeated figure in Portal of Vigor. Palace of Food Products. Denneville, Paul E. (Architectural Sculptor) New York. Born in Ancy France, 1873. Studied Cooper Institute New York, and abroad. Travertine finish of buildings. Dodge, William De Leftwich (Mural Painter) New York. Born in Liberty, Virginia, 1867. Studied in Munich and Paris. Two Murals in Tower of Jewels. Dumond, Frank V. (Painter) New York. Born in Rochester New York, 1865. Studied in Paris. Two Murals in arch of Setting Sun. Ellerhusen, Ulric H. (Sculptor) New York. Figures in attic of Rotunda and repeated frieze at base of Fine Arts Building. Farquhar, Robert David (Architect) Los Angeles. Born in Brookline. Massachusetts, 1872. Studied at Harvard and at Beaux Arts, Paris. Festival Hall. Flanagan, John (Sculptor) New York. Born in Newark, New Jersey, 1865. Studied in Boston, New York and Paris. Figures on Tower of Jewels. Fraser, James Earl (Sculptor) New York. Born in Winona. Minnesota, 1876. Studied in Paris. The End of the Trail. French, Daniel Chester (Sculptor) New York. Born in Exeter, New Hampshire, 1850. Studied in Boston, New York and Florence. Genius of Creation. Fry, Sherry E. (Sculptor) New York. Born in Creston, Iowa 1879. Studied in Art Institute, Chicago, and in Paris. Figural decorations on Festival Hall. Garnett, Porter (Writer) Berkeley. Born in San Francisco, California, 1871. Selection of inscriptions on monuments and arches. Gerlach. Gustave (Sculptor) Weehawken, New Jersey. Tympanum panels north and south entrances Palace of Education. Gruppe, Carl (Sculptor) New York. Fairy figure on Italian towers. Guerin, Jules (Painter) New York. Born in St. Louis Missouri, 1866. Studied in America and abroad. Director of color and decoration. Color scheme. Harley, Charles R. (Sculptor) New York. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1864. Studied in Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and in Paris. "The Triumph of the Field" and "Abundance," on west facade of main buildings. Hassam, Childe (Painter) New York. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, 1859. Studied in Paris. Lunette, Fruits and Flowers, in Court of Palms. Holloway, Charles (Painter). Lunette, The Pursuit of Pleasure, in Court of Palms. Hornbostel, Henry (Architect) New York. Born in Brooklyn New York, 1867. Studied in New York and Paris. Pennsylvania State Building. Howard, John Galen (Architect) Berkeley. Born in Chelmsford Massachusetts, 1864. Studied in Boston and Beaux Arts, Paris. Exposition Auditorium in the Civic Center in collaboration with Frederick Meyer and John Reid, Jr. Jaegers, Albert (Sculptor) New York. Born in Elberfeld, Germany, 1867. Studied abroad. Figures of Harvest Rain and Sunshine, and Bulls in Court of Four Seasons. Jaegers, August (Sculptor) New York. Born in Barmen, Germany, 1878. Studied in Paris. Spandrels and attic figures in Court of Four Seasons. Kelham, George W. (Architect) San Francisco. Born in Manchester, Massachusetts, 1871. Studied at Harvard. Director of Architecture. Courts of Palms and Flowers. Konti, Isidore (Sculptor) New York. Born in Vienna, Austria, 1862. Studied in Imperial Academy, Vienna. Frieze at base of Column of Progress. Laessle, Albert (Sculptor) Philadelphia. Born in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, 1877. Studied in Philadelphia. Lions in Court of Flowers. Lentelli, Leo (Sculptor) New York. Born in Bologna, Italy, 1879. Figures on decorative shafts in Court of Abundance; Nations of the East and Nations of the West in collaboration with Stirling Calder and Frederick Roth. Longman, Miss Evelyn Beatrice (Sculptor) New York. Born in Winchester, Ohio, 1874. Studied in Chicago and New York. Fountain of Ceres. Lundborg, Florence (Painter) San Francisco. Born in San Francisco. Studied in San Francisco and in Paris. Mural decorations in Tea Room of the California Building. McKim, Mead and White (Architects) New York. Living members of the firm: William R. Mead. Born in Battleboro, Vermont 1846. Studied at Amherst and in Europe. W. Symmes Richardson. W. Mitchell Kendall. Court of the Universe. McLaren, John (Landscape Engineer) San Francisco. Born in Scotland. Horticultural effects. MacNeil, Hermon A. (Sculptor) New York. Born in Everett, Massachusetts, 1866. Studied in Boston and Paris. Adventurous Bowman and frieze of Toilers on Column of Progress. Manship, Paul (Sculptor) New York. Groups in Court of Universe. Markwart, Arthur (Engineer) San Francisco. Born in Illinois, 1880. Studied at University of California. Assistant Chief of Construction. Structural design of Machinery Palace. Mathews, Arthur F. (Painter) San Francisco. Born in Wisconsin, 1860. Studied in Paris. Lunette, the Victorious Spirit, in Court of Palms. Maybeck, Bernard R. (Architect) San Francisco. Born in New York, 1862. Studied in Beaux Arts, Paris. Palace of Fine Arts. Meyer, Frederick (Architect) San Francisco. Born in San Francisco, California, 1875. Studied in America. Exposition Auditorium in Civic Center in collaboration with John Galen Howard and John Reid, Jr. Mullgardt, Louis Christian (Architect) San Francisco. Born in Washington, Missouri, 1866. Studied at Harvard. Court of the Ages, also named Court of Abundance. Nahl, Perham W. (Painter) Berkeley. Born in San Francisco, California, 1869. Studied in Hopkins Institute, San Francisco, and in Europe. Exposition Poster, "The Thirteenth Labor of Hercules." Newman, Allen G. (Sculptor) New York. Born in New York, 1875. Pupil of J. Q. A. Ward. Conquistador and Pirate on north facade main buildings. Niehaus, Charles H. (Sculptor) New Rochelle, New York. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1855. Studied in Cincinnati and Munich. Cortez. Patigian, Haig (Sculptor) San Francisco. Born in Armenia 1876. Studied in Paris. Decorations of Machinery Hall. Piccirilli, Furio (Sculptor) New York. Born in Massa, Italy, 1866. Pupil of Accademia San Luca, Rome. Groups of Four Seasons in Court of the Four Seasons. Polk, Willis (Architect) San Francisco. Preliminary plans of Exposition. Putnam, Arthur (Sculptor) San Francisco. Born in New Orleans, 1874. Mermaid in South Gardens. Reid, John, Jr. (Architect) San Francisco. Born in San Francisco 1880. Studied in the University of California and the Beaux Arts, Paris. Exposition Auditorium in Civic Center in collaboration with John Galen Howard and Frederick Meyer. Reid, Robert (Painter) New York. Born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 1862. Studied in Boston, New York, and Paris. Decorations in Rotunda of Fine Arts Palace. Rosse, Hermann (Designer and decorator) Palo Alto. Born in The Hague, Holland, 1887. Studied at The Hague, at Delft, Holland, and South Kensington, London. Decorative color scheme and mural painting in Netherlands Building. Roth, Frederick G. R. (Sculptor) Englewood New Jersey. Born in Brooklyn, New York, 1872. Studied in Vienna, Nations of the East and Nations of the West in collaboration with Stirling Calder and Leo Lentelli. Rumsey, Charles Cary (Sculptor) New York. Pizarro. Ryan, Walter. D'Arcy (Electrical Engineer) San Francisco. Born in Kentville, Nova Scotia, 1870. Educated in Canada. Chief of Illumination. Lighting scheme. Simmons, Edward (Mural Painter) New York. Born in Concord, Massachusetts 1852. Studied in Paris. Murals in Arch of the Rising Sun. Stackpole, Ralph W. (Sculptor) San Francisco. Born in Oregon, 1885. Studied in Paris. Kneeling figure in front of Fine Arts rotunda. Figures on columns flanking Portal of Thought and Portal of Vigor. Figures in doorway of Palace of Varied Industries. Tonetti, F. M. L. (Sculptor) New York. Born in Paris, France, in 1863. Studied in Paris. Armored horseman on Tower of Jewels. Trumbull, Edward (Painter) Pittsburgh. Born in Stonington, Connecticut, in 1884. Mural decorations, Penn's Treaty and Pittsburgh Industries, in Pennsylvania Building. Ulrich, Louis (Sculptor) New York. Winged Victory on gables of all palaces. Walter, Edgar (Sculptor) San Francisco. Born in San Francisco, in 1877. Studied in Paris. Fountain of Beauty and the Beast in Court of Flowers. Weinert, Albert (Sculptor) New York. Born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1863. Studied in Leipzig and Brussels. Spandrels in Court of Palms; Decorative finial figure, in Court of Abundance repeated figure in Portal of Thought, etc. Weinman, Adolph A. (Sculptor) New York. Born in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1870. Studied in Art Students League, New York. Rising and Setting Sun. Ward and Blohme (Architects) Clarence R. Ward San Francisco. Born in Niles Michigan, in 1976. Studied in America. J. H. Blohme, San Francisco. Born in San Francisco in 1878. Studied in America. Machinery Palace. Whitney, Mrs. Harry Payne (Sculptor) New York. Fountain of El Dorado Young, Mahonri (Sculptor) New York. Born in Salt Lake City Utah, in 1877. Studied in New York and Paris. Frieze over main portals Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Palaces. Zimm, Bruno Louis (Sculptor) New York. Frieze, Rotunda, Fine Arts Building. The Art of the Exposition, by Eugen Neuhaus, published by Paul Elder and Company, San Francisco, was printed at their Tomoye Press, under the direction of John Swart, in May and reprinted in June and again in August Nineteen Hundred and Fiftee 
7411	----	An Art-Lover's Guide to the Exposition Explanations of the Architecture, Sculpture and Mural Paintings, With a Guide for Study in the Art Gallery By Sheldon Cheney Berkeley At the Sign of the Berkeley Oak 1915 Copyright 1915 by Sheldon Cheney Printed and Engraved by Sunset Publishing House San Francisco Contents Foreword The Architecture and Art as a Whole Court of Abundance Court of the Universe Court of the Four Seasons Court of Palms and Court of Flowers Tower of Jewels, and Fountain of Energy Palaces Facing the Avenue of Palms Palaces Facing the Marina, and the Column of Progress Palace of Machinery South Gardens, Festival Hall, and Palace of Horticulture Palace of Fine Arts Outdoor Gallery of Sculpture Fine Arts Galleries State and Foreign Buildings, and Scattered Art Exhibits Index Foreword This handbook is designed to furnish the information necessary for intelligent appreciation of the purely artistic features of the Exposition. It is planned first to explain the symbolism of the architecture, sculpture and painting; and second, to point out the special qualities that give each artistic unit its individual appeal. It is made for the intelligent observer who, having enjoyed the purely aesthetic impression of the various works of art, feels a legitimate curiosity about their meaning. Everything possible has been done to make the volume a guide rather than merely a general treatise. The chapter groupings are the most obviously serviceable ones. Running heads will be found at the tops of the pages, and the sub-headings and catch-titles in each chapter are designed to make reference. to individual features as easy as possible. A complete index is added at the end. Purely destructive criticism and ridicule have been carefully avoided. But if the writer did not pretend to a power of artistic discrimination which is lacking in the average layman who has not specialized in art and architecture, there would be little excuse for preparing the guide. The praise and criticism alike are such, it is hoped, as will aid the less practiced eye to see new beauties or to establish sounder standards of judgment. Acknowledgment is made to the official Exposition press bureau for courtesies received, and to those artists who have supplied information about their own work. For obvious reasons no material has been accepted direct from articles and books already published. If certain explanations of the symbolism seem familiar, it is only because all wordings of the ideas echo the artists' interpretations as given out by the press bureau. Acknowledgment is due also to the Cardinell-Vincent Company, official photographers, since most of the illustrations are from their prints. S. C. The Architecture and Art as a Whole In the art of the Exposition the great underlying theme is that of achievement. The Exposition is being held to celebrate the building of the Panama Canal, and to exhibit to the world evidences of the progress of civilization in the decade since the last great exposition-a period among the richest in the history of civilization. So the ideas of victory, achievement, progress and aspiration are expressed again and again: in the architecture with its triumphal arches and aspiring towers; in the sculpture that brings East and West face to face, and that shows youth rising with the morning sun, eager and unafraid; and in the mural paintings that portray the march of civilization, and that tell the story of the latest and greatest of mankind's triumphs over nature. But perhaps the most significant thing of all is the wonderfully harmonious and unified effect of the whole, that testifies so splendidly to the perfect co-operation of American architects, sculptors and painters. The dominant note artistically is harmony. At no other exposition have the buildings seemed to "hold together" so well; and at no other has there been the same perfect unity of artistic impression. The Chicago Exposition of 1893 focused the artistic expression of the nation at that time. It brought about the first great awakening of the country in artistic matters, and it practically revolutionized American architecture. The St. Louis Exposition of 1904, while less unified in plan, gave another great stimulus to architecture, and especially to sculpture. But the Panama-Pacific Exposition should have a more far-reaching effect than either of these, because its great lesson is not in the field of any one art, but in showing forth the immense value of coordination of all the arts in the achievement of a single glorious ideal. The great thing here is the complete harmony of purpose, of design, and of color, in the combined work of architects, sculptors, painters, and landscape gardeners. The sensible plan that results in perfect convenience in getting about, the clothing of this plan in noble and fitting architectural forms, the use of sculpture and painting as an integral part of the architectural scheme, the tying in of buildings to site with appropriate planting, and the pulling together of the whole composition with harmonious color-these are the things that will leave their impress on American art for all time to come. If each student of the art of the Exposition takes home with him an understanding of the value of this synthesis, of this co-ordination of effort, he will have the key to the Exposition's most valuable heritage to the American people. Physically there are three distinct parts to the Exposition: the main group of exhibit palaces, the Zone, and the state and foreign buildings. The art-lover will be concerned almost entirely with the first of these; for artistically the Zone expresses anarchy, and the state and foreign pavilions are given over almost entirely to social and commercial interests. Architecture The architecture of the central group of palaces and courts is a notable departure from that of most of the expositions of the past. There are none of the over decorated facades, none of the bizarre experiments in radical styles, and little of the riot of extraneous ornament, that have been characteristic of typical "exposition architecture." The whole spirit here is one of seriousness, of dignity, of permanency. The effects are obtained by the use of long unbroken lines, blank wall spaces, perfect proportioning, and a restrained hand in decoration. Color alone is relied upon to add the spirit of gayety without which the architecture might be too somber for its joyous purpose. The ground plan is remarkable for its perfect symmetry. On the main east and west axis are grouped eight palaces, about three interior courts. At the east end the axis is terminated by the Palace of Machinery, which cuts off the main group from the Zone. On the west the axis is terminated by the Fine Arts Palace, which separates the central group from the state and foreign buildings. The main cross axis is terminated at the south by the Tower of Jewels and the Fountain of Energy, and at the north by the Column of Progress on the Marina. The two minor cross axes end at the south in the Horticulture Palace and Festival Hall-the two great domed structures that naturally would separate themselves from the main plan and at the north these axes open on the Marina and the beautiful bay view. This plan is admirably compact. It has the effect of a walled city, giving a sense of oneness from without, and a sense of shelter from within. The plan eliminated the usual great distances between exhibit halls, at the same time providing protection against the winds that occasionally sweep over the Exposition area. More important still, the throwing of the finer architectural effects into the inner courts allowed freedom in individual expression. In the court system the architects obtained unity with great variety of style, and harmony without monotony. The plan was worked out by a commission of architects. But the greatest credit must be given to Edward H. Bennett, who first conceived the walled-city idea, and who brought his long experience in city-planning to serve in determining the best method of utilizing the magnificent site. The style of architecture cannot be summed up in any one name. Practically every historic style has been drawn upon, but there are very few direct copies from older buildings. The old forms have been used with new freedom, and occasionally with very marked originality. As one looks down on the whole group of buildings, the Oriental feeling dominates, due to the many Byzantine domes. In the courts and facades the Renaissance influence is strongest, usually Italian, occasionally Spanish. Even where the classic Greek and Roman elements are used, there is generally a feeling of Renaissance freedom in the decoration. One court is in a wonderful new sort of Spanish Gothic, perfectly befitting California. In the styles of architecture, as in the symbolism of painting and sculpture and in the exhibits, one feels that the East and West have met, with a new fusion of national ideals and forms. The material used in the buildings is a composition, partaking of the nature of both plaster and concrete, made in imitation of Travertine, a much-prized building marble of Italy. This composition has the warm ochre tone and porous texture of the original stone, thus avoiding the unpleasant smoothness and glare which characterize stucco, the usual Exposition material. Sculpture In one way more than any other, the sculpture here surpasses that of other expositions: it is an integral part of the larger artistic conception. It not only tells its individual stories freely and beautifully, but it fits perfectly into the architectural scheme, adding the decorative touch and the human element without which the architecture would seem bare. The late Karl Bitter was chief of the department of sculpture, and although there is no single example of his work on the grounds, it was he who, more than any other, insisted upon a close relationship between the architecture and the sculpture. A. Stirling Calder was acting chief, and he had charge of the actual work of enlarging the models of the various groups and placing each one properly. The material of the sculptures is the same as that of the buildings, Travertine, thus adding to the close relationship of the two. Mural Paintings The mural paintings as a whole are not so fine as either the architecture or the sculpture. The reason can be traced perhaps to the fact that painting does not readily bow to architectural limitations. In this case the artists, with the exception of Frank Brangwyn, who painted the canvases for the Court of Abundance, were limited to a palette of five colors, in order that the panels should harmonize with the larger color scheme. Color Never before was there an exposition in which color played such a part. Here for the first time a director of color was placed above architect and sculptor and painter. Jules Guerin, chief of color decoration, has said that he went to work just as a painter starts to lay out a great picture, establishing the warm buff of the building walls as a ground tone, and considering each dome or tower or portal as a detail which should add its brilliant or subdued note to the color harmony. Not only do the paintings and sculpture take proper place in the tone scheme, but every bit of planting, every strip of lawn and every bed of flowers or shrubs, has its duty to perform as color accent or foil. Even the gravel of the walks was especially chosen to shade in with the general plan. As seen from the heights above the Exposition-and no visitor should go away without seeing this view-the grounds have the appearance of a great Oriental rug. The background color is warm buff, with various shades of dull red against it, accented by domes and columns of pale green, with occasional touches of blue and pink to heighten the effect. In the courts the columns and outer walls are in the buff, or old ivory, tone, while the walls inside the colonnades have a "lining color" of Pompeian red; the ceilings are generally cerulean blue; the cornices are touched with orange, blue and gold; and occasional columns of imitation Siena marble, and bronzed statues, set off the whole. In connection with the color scheme, great credit must be given to John McLaren, chief of the department of landscape gardening, who has worked so successfully in co-operation with architects and color director. The Exposition is built almost entirely on filled ground, just reclaimed from the bay; and it was a colossal task to set out the hundreds of thousands of flowers, shrubs and trees which now make the gardens seem permanent, and which set off the architecture so perfectly. Lighting When one's soul has been drenched all day in the beauty of courts and palaces and statues and paintings, dusk is likely to bring welcome rest; but when the lights begin to appear there comes a new experience-a world made over, and yet quite as beautiful as the old. Walls are lost where least interesting, bits of architecture are brought out in relief against the velvet sky, and sculptures take on a new softness and loveliness of form. Under the wonderfully developed system of indirect illumination, no naked light is seen by the eye; only the soft reflected glow, intense when desired, but never glaring. If this lighting is not in itself an art, it is at least the informing spirit that turns prose to poetry, or the instrumental accompaniment without which the voice of the artist would be but half heard. Too much credit cannot be given to the lighting wizard of the Exposition, W. D'Arcy Ryan. The Court of Abundance The Court of Abundance is the most original, and perhaps the most consistently beautiful, of all the Exposition courts. No other is so clearly complete in itself, without the intrusion of features from surrounding buildings and courts. No other has the same effect of cloistered seclusion partly because each of the others is open on one side. And certainly no other indicates so clearly the touch of the artist, of the poet-architect, from the organic structural plan to the finest bit of detail. Even the massive central fountain, though conceived in such different spirit, has no power to dispel the almost ethereal charm that hovers over the place. The distinctive note of the court is one of exquisite richness. As one enters from any side the impression grows that this is the most decorative of all the courts; and yet one is not conscious of any individual bit of decoration as such. Everything fits perfectly: arches, tower, cornices, finials, statues, planting-it all goes to enrich the one impression. Someone has said that the court is not architecture, but carving; and that suggests perfectly the decorative wealth of the composition. Architecture The style of architecture has been guessed at as everything from Romanesque and Gothic to Flamboyant Renaissance and Moorish. The truth is that the court is a thoroughly original conception; and the architect has clothed his pre-conceived design in forms that he has borrowed from all these styles as they happened to suit his artistic purpose. The spirit of the court is clearly Gothic, due to the accentuation of the vertical lines-and one will note how the slender cypresses help the architecture to convey this impression. The rounded arches, modified in feeling by the decorative pendent lanterns, hint of the awakening of the Renaissance period in Spain, during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, when the vertical lines, and decorative leaf and other symbolic ornaments of the severer Gothic, were so charmingly combined with classic motives. The architecture here is inspiring as a symbol of the American "melting-pot." It is a distinct and original evolution, recalling the great arts of Europe, and yet eluding classification. The court shows that the designer was master of the styles of the past, but refused to be a slave to them; at the same time he had an original conception but did not let it run into the blatant and bizarre. It is from such fusions of individual genius with the traditions of the past that a distinctive American architecture is most likely to flower. The tower is a magnificent bit of architectural design. It is massive and yet delicate. It dominates the court, and yet it fits perfectly into the cloister. The rich sculpture is so much a part of the decorative scheme that there is no impression of the structure having been "ornamented." One must search long in the histories of architecture to find a tower more satisfying. The architect who designed the Court of Abundance is Louis Christian Mullgardt, one of the two most original geniuses among California's architects. It is well to enjoy this court at first for its beauty alone, without regard to its rich symbolism. One who has thus considered it, merely as a delight to the eye, usually is surprised to find that it has a deeper underlying meaning than any of the other courts. The present name, "Court of Abundance," is not the original one. The architect conceived it as "The Court of The Ages." It is said that the Exposition directors, for the rather foolish reason that a Court of the Ages would not fit into the scheme of a strictly contemporaneous exposition, re-christened it "The Court of Abundance." But it is the former name that sums up the thought behind the decorative features. The underlying idea is that of evolution. The tower sculptures, which will be more fully explained in following paragraphs, represent successive ages in the development of man-the Stone Age, the Mediaeval Age, and the Present Age. The decoration of the cloisters may be taken as symbolizing the evolution of primitive man from the lower forms of life. Thus the ornamental garlands that run up the sides of the arches are of seaweed, while other parts of the decoration show crabs, lobsters and other of the lower forms of sea life. Higher up the ornament includes conventionalized lilies suggestive of higher plant life. And surmounting the colonnade, one over each pier, are the repeated figures of primitive man and primitive woman. It is at this height that the tower sculptures begin, carrying on the story of man up to the present age. At a level between the Stone Age group and the Mediaeval Age is a row of cocks, symbols of the rise of Christianity. Perhaps the whole aspiring feeling of the court is meant to further suggest the upward rise of man-but after all, the purely sensuous beauty of the architecture is sufficient to warrant its being, without any straining after symbolism. Sculpture Groups on the Tower. The three main groups typify the rise of man, and especially the rise of man's civilization through religion. The lowest group, over the main arch, is called The Stone Age. Along the base are prehistoric monsters, and above are figures representing various phases of primitive life, as a man strangling an animal with his hands, and a figure that may suggest the rude beginnings of art or industry. The heads indicate a period of evolution when man was not very different from the ape; but the central figures suggest the development of family life, and a new outlook and a seeking for something higher. The middle group, The Mediaeval Age, shows an armored figure with sword and shield, a crusader perhaps, with the force of religion symbolized in the priest or monk at one side, and the force of arms suggested by the archer at the other, these being the two forces by which man was rising in that age. The third and highest group represents The Spirit of the Present Age enthroned. At one side a child holds the book of learning, while at the other a child holds the wheel of industry. The group also carries inevitably a suggestion of motherhood. Flanking the middle group are two figures, in which the whole idea of human evolution is suggested by a modern man and woman outgrowing their old selves. On the east and west faces of the tower are figures representing "Thought." All the sculpture on the tower is by Chester Beach. Figures Surmounting Colonnade. Two figures of "The Primitive Man" and one of "The Primitive Woman" are repeated above the cloister all around the court. The woman carries a child on her back, one man is feeding a pelican, and the other is a hunter returning with a club in one hand and his quarry in the other. These figures are remarkably well suited to their purpose, balancing one another exactly; they are so much a part of the decorative scheme, indeed, that the average person is likely to overlook their merits as individual statues. Albert Weinert was the sculptor. The Water Sprites. At the tower side of the court, flanking the stairway that leads to the archway under the tower, are two free-standing monuments that were designed as fountains. The original plan called for cascades from below the Stone Age group on the tower to these monuments. Although the elimination of this feature made the court more simple and satisfying as a whole, the figures of the Water Sprites were left high and dry, so that now there is a certain incongruity in their position. Still one may admire the very spirited girl archers surmounting the two columns, even if they are apparently launching arrows at their sister sprites below, instead of into jets of water as was intended. The figures at the bases of the columns, while lacking the grace and the joyous verve of those above, still are very decorative. All are the work of Leo Lentelli. The Fountain of Earth. In the large basin in the center of the Court of Abundance is Robert Aitken's "Fountain of Earth." While plainly out of keeping with the spirit of the court, this is in itself one of the most powerful and most interesting sculptural compositions at the Exposition. It is deeply intellectual, and more than any other group it requires an explanation of the symbolism before one can appreciate it. The fountain is really in two compositions. The larger, and central, one is composed of a globe representing the earth, with four panels of figures on the four sides, representing certain of the incidents of life on earth, or certain riddles of existence. The secondary composition lies to the south of the central one, on the same pedestal; and this is divided into two groups by a formalized wing through the center. The two scenes here represent life before and after earthly existence. The two huge arms and the wing are all that can be seen of Destiny, the force with which the allegorical story begins and ends. To "read" the fountain in proper sequence, one must start with the west face of the secondary group. This represents The Beginning of Things. The arm of Destiny is calling forth life and points the way to the earth. The three women figures next to the hand show the gradual awakening from Oblivion. The adjoining two figures represent the kiss of life or of love, and the woman is holding forth to the earth the children created of that love. The entire group on this west face, considered in relation to the main composition, may be taken as representing the peopling of the earth. There is now a gap which one must pass over, to reach the South panel of the central composition. This gap represents the lost period of time between the peopling of the earth and the beginning of history. The South panel of the main structure has as its central figure Vanity with her hand-glass. Whether the artist intended it as a pessimistic commentary on all human life, or not, his series of episodes on earth begins and ends with the figure of Vanity. Reading to the left on this same panel one sees a man and a woman starting the journey of life on earth, apparently with suffering but certainly with courage perhaps for the sake of the children they carry. The West panel now shows the first of three incidents or problems of life on earth. This is entitled Natural Selection. Two women turn to one man who is clearly superior to the two men they are leaving. The two who have been spurned as mates cling to the hands of the women even while they are turning away. The North panel represents The Survival of the Fittest. Two men are in combat, the woman at the left evidently to be the prize of the victor. At the other side a woman tries to draw away one of the combatants. The sculptor has given this group a second title, "The Awakening of the War Spirit," which is equally applicable. The East panel is entitled The Lesson of Life. A young man and a young woman turn to each other through natural impulse, while an older woman with the experience of life attempts to counsel them. On the other side an old man restrains an impetuous youth who evidently would fight for the girl. Turning the corner now to the South panel again, there are two figures representing Lust trying to embrace a reluctant woman. Then one comes to Vanity once more, and the story of life on earth is done. Again there is a gap, and the scene leaves the earth for the unknown world after physical death. The East face of the minor group first shows the figure of Greed, with his worldly goods now turned literally to a ball of clay in his hands, gazing back at earth in puzzlement. The next two figures show Faith offering the hope of immortality (as symbolized in the scarab) as consolation to a sorrowing woman. Finally there are two figures sinking back into Oblivion, drawn by the hand of Destiny. Thus the cycle from Oblivion through life and back to Oblivion is completed. In the same basin, at the far south end, is a figure of The Setting Sun. This was part of the artist's conception of the Fountain of Earth, the relation to the main group being found in the supposition that the earth is a mass thrown off by the sun. Thus is emphasized the idea that the earth and life on earth are but a very small part of the wider unknown universe and life. At the four corners of the main composition of the fountain, separating the four panels, are Hermae, terminal pillars such as the Greeks and Romans were fond of, decorated with the head of Hermes, god of boundaries. Having worked out the story, it is well to go back to appreciate the purely aesthetic qualities of the fountain. Note especially the feeling of strength in the figures, the firm modeling, and the fine way in which the figures are grouped. The composition of the west face of the minor monument is especially fine, and the very graceful lines here make an intimate appeal that is not evident in some of the other groups. The whole monument is austere and strongly compelling rather than intimately charming. If it is the first duty of art to make people think, this is the most successful bit of sculpture on the grounds. Mural Paintings The mural paintings in, the Court of Abundance consist of eight panels by Frank Brangwyn, perhaps the greatest living mural decorator, placed in the four corners of the cloister. Though not entirely in key with the color scheme and not an integral part of the court as a whole, these are distinctly the works of a master. Ultra-learned critics will tell you that they fail as decorations, since they are interesting as individual pictures rather than as panels heightening the architectural charm. But their placing shows clearly that there was no intention that they should appear as part of the architectural scheme. It is better to accept them as pictures, forgetting the set standards by which one ordinarily judges mural painting. The eight paintings represent the elements: two panels each for Fire, Earth, Air and Water. There are no conventional figures here personifying the elements, but scenes from the life of intensely human people, typifying the uses to which man has put the elements. Fire. Beginning on the tower side of the court, at the northeast corner, are the two panels representing Fire. The one on the north wall is called "Primitive Fire." A group of figures surround a fire, some nursing it and some holding out their hands to the heat, while a man at the back brings fagots. Note the color accents in the robes of the three standing figures. "Industrial Fire," on the east wall, represents the bringing of fire into the service of man. In some particulars this is among the finest of the paintings, but the transverse cloud of smoke seems to break it awkwardly. Earth is represented in the two panels in the northwest corner. The one on the north wall is entitled "The Fruit Pickers," typifying the wealth of products that man obtains from the earth. This is perhaps the richest of the panels, in the profusion of color and of alluring form. The panel on the west wall is "The Dancing of the Grapes," a variation of the theme of "The Fruit Pickers." It tells the story of the grape: above are the pickers and the harvesters with baskets; at the right two figures dancing to crush the juices from the grapes; and in the foreground a group with the finished wine. The confusion of figures at first is puzzling; but viewed simply as a spotting of bright colors there is no finer panel among them all. It is better to stand well back along the colonnade, and forgetting the subject, to delight in the purely sensuous impression. Air is represented in the two panels in the southwest corner. The one on the south wall is called "The Hunters." The theme is suggested in the idea of the arrows fleeing on the wings of the air, and also by the flight of birds above. The panel on the west wall is called "The Windmill." Note how the feeling of moving air is suggested everywhere: in the skies at the back, in the clouds and the kites, in the trees and the grain-field, in the draperies, and even in the figures themselves that are braced against the wind. The coloring is glorious, and the composition fine. The disposition of masses of light and dark is notable the dark figures grouped against the golden grain, and the gold-brown windmill against the dark sky. No panel in the grounds will better repay intensive study. Water is represented in the panels of the southwest corner of the court. The one on the south wall is called "The Net," and typifies the wealth that man draws from the water. A group of fishermen are hauling in a net, and carriers bring baskets at the back. "The Fountain," the panel on the east wall, shows a group of people who have come to fill their jars at a spring. The colors here are softer, though quite as rich as elsewhere. The lower half of the painting is, indeed, like a richly colored mosaic. After examining "The Fountain" at close range it is well to step back to the middle of this south corridor. Look first at "The Windmill" and then turn to look again at "The Fountain." Note, how, when the subjects are once understood, the great distance increases rather than decreases the charm of the paintings. Note especially how beautiful each one is when considered merely as a pattern of color. These two panels, if not the finest of all, at least must take rank among the best three or four. The North Court of Abundance Passing under the tower from the Court of Abundance one comes out in the little north court that is conceived in the same spirit, and which likewise is dominated by the Mullgardt tower. The architecture here is like an echo of that of the main court, the decorated spaces alternating with bare spaces. The tower sculptures are all repeated on this side. The only sculpture within the north court is Sherry Fry's personification of Aquatic Life. The statue is of a heavy sort that should be anywhere but in this place of ethereal mood and exquisite detailed workmanship. Blot out the background and you can see that the figure has a certain solid grace. But if designed for this court it fails of its decorative purpose. Court of the Universe The Court of the Universe is the most magnificent of the courts. Considering the many units-the noble arches, the long colonnades with their corner pavilions, the sunken garden with its fountains and decorative sculpture, and the vista to the Column of Progress and the Marina-it is by far the richest in artistic interest. But is it so imposing, so vast, that it necessarily lacks the sense of quiet restfulness and intimacy of appeal of the smaller courts. It is in a sense the Civic Center of the great Exposition model city, and as such it offers many suggestions of wise planning-and one or two of poor planning, as in the case of the obtrusive band-stand. The meaning of the court is to be found in the symbolism of the groups surmounting the two triumphal arches-the Nations of the East meeting the Nations of the West. With the opening of the Panama Canal the peoples of the universe have met at last; West faces East on this shore of the Pacific. The idea is finely expressed in the lines by Walt Whitman, inscribed on the west arch, in which the spirit of the Aryan race, having traveled this far, is supposed to speak as she gazes westward to Asia, "the house of maternity," her original home: Facing west from California's shores, Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound, I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar, Look off the shores of my Western Sea, the circle almost circled. Variations of this theme may be found in the murals under the arches, and in those under the Tower of Jewels near by. Other universal themes are treated in the Fountains of the Rising Sun and of the Setting Sun, and in The Elements at the edge of the sunken garden. The idea of achievement, of victory in conquering the universe, is also suggested in the triumphal arches. Architecture The style of architecture is in general Roman; though, as is true almost throughout the Exposition buildings, there is an admixture of Renaissance motives. Even on the massive Roman arches there is a trace of Moorish lightness and color in the green lattices; and the domes of the corner pavilions are clearly Eastern in feeling. The East and West arches are, of course, reminiscent of the triumphal arches of the Roman Conquerors. A comparison with pictures of the famous Arch of Constantine and the Arch of Titus at Rome, will show how thoroughly the architects have mastered the feeling of the classic examples, while largely modifying the decorative features. To properly see either of the arches in this court as a single unit, it is best to stand at the side of the sunken garden, near one of the figures of "The Elements," where the fountain columns do not obstruct the view. The long colonnade, with its fine Corinthian columns and its surmounting row of "Star-girls," can best be appreciated when one stands facing north, with back to the Tower of Jewels-since the architecture of that was clearly conceived by another mind and built in a different spirit. It is from the two corner pavilions on the tower side, perhaps, that the best general views of the court can be obtained. Unfortunately the attractive view down the straight colonnades of the north extension of the court is marred by a gaudy band pavilion, which is quite out of keeping with the pervading mood of simple dignity. The little corner pavilions are worthy of study alone, as a graceful and unusual bit of architectural design. The Court of the Universe was designed by McKim, Mead and White. Sculpture The Court of the Universe has more than its share of the best sculpture of the Exposition. In this court more than anywhere else one can obtain an idea of the remarkable scope of the sculptured groups. It is a good place to linger in if one has heretofore had pessimistic doubts about the ultimate flowering of the art of sculpture in America. The Fountain of the Rising Sun is at the east end of the sunken garden. Its tall shaft is surmounted by the figure of a youth typifying the Rising Sun-a figure of irresistible appeal. The morning of day and the morning of life, the freshness of the dawn and the aspiration of youth-- these things are remarkably suggested in the figure. With head up and winged arms outstretched, the youth is poised on tiptoe, the weight thrown forward, as if just on the point of soaring. The Fountain of the Setting Sun is just opposite, at the west end of the sunken garden. The surmounting figure here, though officially called "The Setting Sun," is more appropriately named "Descending Night"-the title the artist has given to the bronze replica in the Fine Arts gallery. The closing in of night-that is what is so perfectly suggested in the relaxed body, the folding-in wings, and the remarkable sense of drooping that characterizes the whole statue. There is, too, an enveloping sense of purity and sweetness about the figure. These two statues which surmount the Fountains of the Rising Sun and the Setting Sun are among the most charming sculptures at the Exposition. They have not the strength of the figures of the Elements, or the massive nobility and repose of the Genius of Creation, or the purely modern native appeal of the works of Stackpole and Young and Fraser. But for those of us who are sculpture lovers without asking why, they come closer to our hearts and dwell more intimately in our minds than any of these. "Descending Night" especially has a sensuous charm of graceful line, a maidenly loveliness, that appeals irresistibly. Both figures are by Adolph A. Weinman. Above the higher basin of each fountain the column drum is decorated with figures in relief. While the two friezes are meant to be decorative primarily, the artist has employed in each case a symbolism in keeping with the crowning figure. The frieze in the Fountain of the Rising Sun represents "Day Triumphant." The symbolic figures typify the awakening of man's finer instincts and energies at the call of the morning, and the shrinking of the vices when the darkness of night gives place to the light of day. The relief-frieze of the "Fountain of the Setting Sun" is entitled "The Gentle Powers of Night." It represents Descending Night bringing with her the Stars, the Moon-goddess, Dreams, and similar beautiful things. The lower basins of both fountains contain figures of centaurs (a new sea-variety, with fins) holding sea-monsters. Groups surmounting arches. The monumental groups surmounting the two triumphal arches are "The Nations of the East," on the Arch of the Rising Sun, and "The Nations of the West," on the Arch of the Setting Sun. The symbolic idea behind the two compositions thus placed facing each other, is that of the nations of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres at last meeting on this Pacific shore. The Nations of the East is made up of five mounted and four unmounted figures, all typical of the Orient. Reading from the spectator's left to right, the mounted figures are: 1. an Arab tribal chief on a horse; 2. a Mohammedan standard bearer on a camel; 3. the East Indian on his richly-caparisoned elephant; 4. another Mohammedan standard-bearer on a camel; 5. a Mongolian horseman. Between the mounted figures are the following on foot: 1. a servant with a basket of fruits; 2. an Arab falconer; 3. a Thibetan lama or priest; 4. another servant with fruit. The Nations of the West represents typical figures from the European nations which have helped to develop America, together with two American Indians and an Alaskan. A central composition shows the Mother of Tomorrow and a surmounting group typifying the Spirit of Enterprise which has led the Aryan race to conquer the West. The figures, from left to right, are: 1. the French-Canadian (sometimes called "The Trapper"), on horseback; 2. the Alaskan, carrying totem poles, on foot; 3. the Spanish-American conqueror, mounted; 4. the German-American, on foot; 5. the Mother of Tomorrow, on the tongue of the ox-drawn prairie schooner; 6. the Italian-American, on foot; 7. the English-American, mounted; 8. an Indian squaw; 9. the American Indian, mounted. On top of the prairie schooner the Spirit of Enterprise is represented by a spirited winged figure, with a boy at either hand. The way in which the two groups balance each other at the two ends of the court is worthy of study-the elephant of the one offset by the prairie schooner of the other. Indeed each feature of one is balanced in the other so that the two will mass against the sky with the same general decorative effect. "The Nations of the East," considered as a whole, seems the more satisfying group-richer in feeling, more unified in design, and more massive; in short, more monumental and therefore better fitted to crown the noble arch. But if this fits its setting better, and masses against the sky more satisfyingly, "The Nations of the West" will be found on close examination to contain the better individual figures. The Alaskan (unfortunately almost lost to view in the present placing of the group), the Canadian Trapper, and the mounted Indian are all worthy of prolonged study; and the figure of the Mother of Tomorrow is one of the finest bits of sculpture at the Exposition. In these figures, and only slightly less so in the other figures of this and the opposite group, there is ample evidence that the American sculptors have outgrown the traditions of by-gone "schools" and have developed a genuine native medium of expression. The two groups are the work of A. Stirling Calder, Leo Lentelli, and Frederick G. R. Roth in collaboration. Figures at north and south of sunken garden. Flanking the stairways to the sunken garden at north and south are four large figures by Robert Aitken, typifying "The Elements." Air is at the west end of the south stairway, and is represented as a huge winged female figure putting a star in her hair. Two birds, old-time symbols of the air, complete the suggestion. At the back a man has tied himself to the wings of the figure typifying man's effort to put to his own use the wings of the air. Earth is placed at the east end of the south stairway. A huge female figure rests on conventionalized rocks, and a formalized tree partially supports her. At the back two small struggling figures are seen, typifying man's struggle with the forces of earth. Water is placed at the east end of the north stairway. The sea-god, with his trident in one hand and sea-weed in the other, rides on a wave, with a dolphin beside him. Fire at the west end of the north stairway-is typified by the figure of a man in agony, with one hand grasping the flame, and with jagged lightning in the other, symbolizing man's terror of fire as well as his conquering of it. A salamander completes the main design, while at the back the phoenix, bird fabled to rise from fire, helps support the figure. These four figures are of the sort of art that is likely to turn the unthinking person away, though a study of them will bring out new beauties with riper acquaintance. Because people fail to get far enough away from them to obtain the proper perspective, the statues seem too huge, too strong, too terrible, ever to be attractive. They are, it is true, out of scale, and thus mar the effect of the court to a certain extent. But there is in them something of the noble and compelling strength of the statues of Michael Angelo-to whom the sculptor clearly owes his inspiration. Stand between the columns at the corner of the Transportation Palace, and you will see that the figure of Fire not only is imaginatively conceived but is a fine line composition as well. Study of the other three from corresponding viewpoints will well repay in increased understanding and pleasure. Figures at east and west of sunken gardens. Flanking the east and west stairways are two groups by Paul Manship. The one representing two girls dancing or running is called sometimes "Festivity," sometimes "Motion." Here the artist has welded the figures into an ornamental design in a way unparalleled in the work of other American sculptors. Note the finely varied outline, the sense of rhythmic motion, and the rich feeling that every part is decorative. The opposite group is called "Music" or "Music and Poetry." It lacks the flowing grace and something of the richness of feeling of the other, though it is more dignified. There is the same conventionalization in treatment, again charming. These groups are not for people who look for realism in art above all else; but for those who care for the classic, who see in formalization a short-cut to the expression of the spirit of a thing, there are few more appealing groups in the grounds. The figures are repeated at the east and west entrances to the garden. Minor Sculptures. The slender "Stars" along the top of the colonnade are the work of A. Stirling Calder. When one remembers that this is the Court of the Universe, they seem to fit in with the meaning of the whole, and architecturally their symmetry of form fits them well for repetition. The low relief friezes on the corner pavilions represent "The Signs of the Zodiac," and are by Hermon A. MacNeil. A formalized Atlas is represented in the center, and at each side are seven of his daughters, the Pleiades and the Hyades, whom the gods changed into stars. Twelve of the maidens have plaques bearing the symbols of the Zodiac. The frieze is well composed and beautifully modeled, but the rough Travertine does not do it justice. The minor sculptures on the triumphal arches consist of a repeated winged angel with sword down-turned, by Leo Lentelli; spirited spandrels over the arches, representing "Pegasus," by Frederick G. R. Roth; and two well-adapted medallions by A. Stirling Calder and B. Bufano. All of these decorative features are repeated on both sides of both arches. Mural Paintings The four mural paintings of the Court of the Universe, two under each of the triumphal arches, represent the progress of civilization from the old world to the American far West. The two under the Arch of the Rising Sun, at the east of the court, represent the nations that crossed the Atlantic and their ideals, while those under the western arch show the march of the pioneers from New England to California. To obtain the proper sequence of thought the ones under the eastern arch should be examined first. Murals in Arch of the Rising Sun. On the south wall of the arch is a panel representing the nations that have dared to cross the Atlantic to bring their civilization to America. The figure farthest to the spectator's right represents the spirit of adventure or "The Call to Fortune." Then follow representatives of the nations, in this order: 1. the half-savage of the lost Continent of Atlantis; 2. the Roman conqueror; 3. the Spanish explorer, typified by a figure resembling Columbus; 4. the English explorer, resembling Raleigh; 5. a priest, typifying the bringing of European religion to America; 6. the artist, bringing the arts; and 7. the workman-immigrant of today. Then follows an allegorical veiled figure, with hand to ear, listening to the hopes and ideals of the men who are following the call to fortune. The opposite panel shows what the veiled figure has heard-depicts the hopes and ideals that have led men to cross the Atlantic. At the far left are figures symbolizing True Hope and False Hope. Soap bubbles are being scattered by False Hope, and the third figure, typifying Adventure, tries to pick them up. Then follow the true ideals and hopes in this order: 1. Commerce 2. Imaginative Inspiration; 3. Truth and Beauty (one figure); 4. Religion; 5. Wealth; and 6. Family joys (a woman with babes). In this panel the background contains suggestions of Asiatic and American cities. In the other panel the background shows a group of ships, ranging from those of the earliest times to the modern liner. These two paintings are worthy of study for the historical and symbolic interest. Artistically they are notable chiefly for the remarkable freshness of coloring and rich mosaic effect. Both are by Edward Simmons. Murals in Arch of the Setting Sun, at the west side of the court. The painting on the north wall should be viewed first. This represents pioneers from a New England village starting for California. There are four groups of figures, as follows: 1. two workmen, and a woman holding a child; 2. a symbolic figure of the Call to Fortune; 3. a group showing the types of those who crossed the continent-the driver first, and then the Preacher, the Pioneer, the Judge, and the Schoolmistress (there are four children also in this group, and at the back is a wagon filled with household goods); and 4. a youth bidding farewell to his parents as he starts to join the band of emigrants. At the back of the last group is seen a typical New England home, and in the distance a New England meeting-house. "The Arrival on the Pacific Coast" is the title of the painting on the opposite wall, which represents the immigrants being welcomed as they reach California. Here again there are four groups of figures. The first shows two Spanish-American soldiers and their captain, following a priest, typical of the days of Spanish rule in California and of the Mission period. Second, there is a symbolic figure, "The Spirit of Enlightenment." The third and main group shows types of immigrants. The men here are: 1. the scientist; 2. the architect; 3. the writer; 4. the sculptor; 5. the painter; 6. the agriculturist; and 7. the miner (or other manual worker). A woman and several children complete the group, and at the back is a prairie schooner, from which a girl waves a flag. The fourth group represents California welcoming the immigrants, the state being symbolized by tokens of the wealth it has to offer settlers: the orange tree, sheaves of grain, and fruits-the figures including the miner, the farmer, fruit pickers, and the California bear. This last group is the most colorful, and in many ways the most appealing, of all those in the two panels under the west arch. It is interesting to compare the golden warmth here and indeed throughout the California panel-with the cold atmosphere of the New England one. Those who are familiar with the historical characters of the West will be able to recognize in the California panel idealized portraits of William Keith as the painter, Bret Harte as the writer, and Junipero Serra as the priest. In the New England panel may be found William Taylor, famous street preacher of the early days in California, as the preacher, and "Grizzly" Adams as the pioneer. Both murals under the Arch of the Setting Sun are by Frank Vincent Dumond. The Side Courts The two small connecting courts, or aisles, at the east and west of the Court of the Universe are known as the Florentine Court and the Venetian Court respectively. Both are in Italian Renaissance architecture, and both are remarkably rich in color. The patterns on the shafts of the columns, while doubtless adding to the feeling of richness, are a little too pronounced, tending to destroy that restfulness which is felt in the other Italian courts, the Court of Flowers and the Court of Palms. In both the Florentine Court and the Venetian Court the planting schemes harmonize unusually well with the architecture. - Size of the Court of the Universe For the sake of those who find added interest in knowing on what scale a work of art is built, the following facts are added: The area of the Court of the Universe is about seven acres. On its east and west axis, from arch to arch, it is six hundred and fifty feet; on its north and south axis, from the Tower of Jewels to the Column of Progress, it is nearly twelve hundred feet. The Arches of the Rising Sun and the Setting Sun have a total height, to the top of the surmounting sculpture, of two hundred and three feet. The Tower of Jewels is 433 feet in height, while the main archway beneath is 110 feet high. Court of the Four Seasons The Court of the Four Seasons, unlike the other main courts, does not immediately call forth one's exclamations of surprise and delight. It is not so compellingly beautiful as either of the others. Nevertheless it has a distinctive charm of its own-a reposeful atmosphere and a simplicity of form that become more and more appealing with riper acquaintance. It is a good place to come to when one is satiated with the beauties of the other courts, for restfulness is the keynote. The simple massive style of the architecture and the simple planting scheme combine to produce a spirit of calm. The ideas of energy, achievement, progress, effort-so insistently emphasized elsewhere-are left behind, and everything breathes a sense of peace and orderliness, of things happening all in good season. The primary idea underlying the decorative features of the court is sufficiently indicated in the name, "The Four Seasons;" and this idea is symbolically expressed in the sculpture and mural paintings in the four corners of the colonnade. But a study of the other decorations shows that the idea of abundance, or fruitfulness, was equally in the minds of architect and sculptors. The purely architectural ornaments, such as the capitals and the running borders, employ the symbols of agriculture and fruitfulness, while no less than five of the main sculptural groups or figures deal directly with harvest themes. Architecture The style of architecture is in general Roman. The half-dome and the colonnades are almost severely classic. The column capitals are Ionic. But in the freedom of some of the architectural forms, particularly in the archways at east and west, there is a suggestion of Renaissance influence. The plan with its four cut-corners with fountains, and its half-dome facing down the long colonnade to the bay, is ingenious. The half-dome itself, dominating feature of the court, is exceptionally dignified and impressive. To obtain the best view of it as a single unit, one should stand between two columns of the colonnade near either the Fountain of Summer or the Fountain of Autumn-as from these points the eye is not carried through the doorway at the back of the dome, to the detriment of a unified impression. Henry Bacon is the architect who designed the Court of the Four Seasons. Sculpture Bulls on pylons. The finest sculpture here is to be found in the groups capping the pylons at the entrance to the minor north court. Though called by the artist "The Feast of Sacrifice," these are commonly known as "The Bulls." The group, which is duplicated, shows a bull being led to sacrifice by a youth and a maid, and is reminiscent of the harvest-time celebrations of ancient peoples. But it is just as well to forget the subject, and to admire purely for the sensuous charm-for the beauty of outline, the fine modeling, and the remarkable sense of spirited action. Note the three figures individually: the nobly animated bull, the magnificently set-up youth, and the strong yet graceful maiden; then note how the sacrificial garland holds the whole group together and makes it richer. Note, too, how the forward-moving lines of the bull are accentuated on one side by the similar lines of the youth's body, and on the other by the contrasting lines of the girl's. Putting aside any question of meaning, there is not in any of the courts a nobler bit of decorative work than this. Albert Jaegers was the sculptor. Figures surmounting columns. On the two columns before the half-dome are Albert Jaegers' figures of "Rain" and "Sunshine." At the right, as one faces the dome, Rain is typified by a woman shielding her head with her mantle and holding out a shell to catch the water. At the left Sunshine is represented by a woman shielding her head from the sun's rays with a palm-branch. Both figures are characterized by a sense of richness, of fullness, that is perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the court. In commenting on these statues, in one of his lectures on the art of the Exposition, Eugen Neuhaus, the well-known California painter, suggested very appropriately that the court should have been named for them "The Court of the Two Seasons" since in California the only noticeable seasonal change is from a sunny period to a rainy period. Group surmounting half-dome. This shows a conventional seated figure of Harvest, with an overflowing cornucopia. At one side a child-figure bows under a load of fruit. This group also is by Albert Jaegers. Here, as in "Rain" and "Sunshine," there is a sense of fruitfulness, of profuseness, a maternal suggestion that helps to carry out the symbolism of the court. In all three of these statues, too, there is something of the nobility and massiveness that distinguish the same artist's "bull" groups across the court. All are eminently suited to the massive Roman architecture; nowhere else have sculptor and architect worked together more successfully. Fountains of the Seasons. In the niches formed at the corners of the court by the diagonal colonnades are novel fountains, surmounted by groups representing the four seasons. It is well to go first to the southwest corner, to the "Fountain of Spring"; then to the northwest corner, for "Summer"; and so on around the court. If one is ever puzzled to understand from the figures which season is represented, a glance at the labeled murals up above in the corridor will give the proper title for statue and murals of each season are grouped together. Spring. A young woman draws a floral garland over her head, while at her right a love-lorn youth turns a pleading face to her, and at her left a girl brings armfuls of flowers. Summer. To a man a woman holds up a babe, symbol of the summer of human life, while at one side a crouching figure holds a sheaf of full-headed grain. Autumn. The central figure is a woman of generous build with a jar on her shoulder-quite the usual personification of Autumn or fruitfulness. At one side a young woman holds a garland of grapes, and at the other is a girl with a babe. This last figure is perhaps the most graceful in all the four groups, though the same sort of loveliness distinguishes to a certain extent the two flower-girls of "Spring." Altogether, this "Autumn" fountain is probably the finest of the four. Winter. The central figure is Nature, in the nakedness of winter, resting after the harvests of autumn and waiting for the birth of spring. At one side a man with a spade rests, while on the other a man with a seed-bag is already beginning to sow. Although all the figures of "The Fountains of the Seasons" are nude, there is about this group a sense of cold nakedness that well accords with the season it portrays. These four groups are very properly alike in composition and feeling-suggesting perhaps that the differences between the seasons in California are but slight. There is throughout a conventional touch, and all are in pastoral mood. The groups are by Furio Piccirilli. The Fountain of Ceres is in the north extension of the court, between the Palace of Food Products and the Palace of Agriculture. The surmounting figure is of Ceres, Greek goddess of the fields and especially of corn. The bas-relief frieze represents a group of dancers, suggestive of the seasonal festivals of the Greeks. The main figure has been much criticized, but an unbiased critic may find much in the fountain to praise. The pedestal and the crowning figure are well thought out, and the proportions of the whole are good; and there is a feeling of classic simplicity throughout. The frieze of dancing girls, too, is exceptionally graceful. If, then, one discovers that Ceres is more mature than a goddess ever ought to be, or that her face suggests that of an exasperated school-teacher, or if one finds the cornstalk in her hand a realistic thing incompatible with any poetic conception, it is well to step back until one gets only the general effect. For there is much to admire in the poise of the figure, in the decorative outline, and in the sculptor's lightness of touch. The fountain was designed by Evelyn Beatrice Longman. Minor Sculptures. On the archways at east and west of the court a high-relief figure by August Jaegers is repeated eight times, and the spandrels over the arches are by the same artist. In both cases the idea of abundance or fruitfulness again supplies the motive. The boxes at the bases of the columns on which "Rain" and "Sunshine" stand are decorated with agricultural scenes in low relief. The capitals at the tops of these columns are enriched with groups of agricultural figures. Within the archways at east and west the ceilings are decorated with delicate bas-relief designs, patterned after the famous ones at Villa Maderna, Rome. Mural Paintings All the murals in the Court of the Four Seasons are by H. Milton Bancroft. In general they are less interesting than those of any other court. The Seasons. In the four corners of the colonnade there are eight panels, grouped by twos as follows: Spring and Seed Time; Summer and Fruition; Autumn and Harvest; and Winter and Festivity. There is little to hold the attention either in richness of color or in unusual grace of composition. Moreover, the artist has left nothing to the imagination in the symbolism by which he expresses the several ideas. The devices are so hackneyed, and the meaning so obvious, that any sort of interpretation would be entirely superfluous. Panels under half-dome. On the east wall under the dome is the panel Art Crowned by Time. Father Time crowns Art, while on one side stand figures representing Weaving, Jewelry, and Glasswork, and on the other Printing, Pottery, and Smithery. On the opposite wall is the panel Man Receiving Instruction in Nature's Laws. A woman holds before a babe a tablet inscribed "Laws of Nature," while on one side are figures of Fire, Earth and Water, and on the other figures of Death, Love, and Life. These two larger panels are more pleasing than the eight representing the Seasons, both in coloring and in figure composition; and they make pleasing spots of bright color in the dome. But again the artist is tediously careful to make his meanings plain. Not only does each figure hold its obvious symbol prominently in view, but there are labels naming the figures. To the art student the painter's stipple-and-line method, producing vibration of light and a certain freshness of atmosphere, will be of interest, as being out of the usual run of mural technique. Before leaving the Court of the Four Seasons one should stand under the central arch of the triple portal at the east, and look first to the east through the Arch of the Setting Sun to the group "Nations of the East;" and then to the west along the vista that ends with the kneeling figure before the Fine Arts temple. The arrangement of architectural and sculptural units in both vistas is worthy of study. The Court of Palms and the Court of Flowers In these two courts, which pierce the walled city on the south, opposite the Palace of Horticulture and opposite Festival Hall, is to be found the purest expression of that spirit of the Italian Renaissance which hovers over so much of the Exposition architecture. Here, too, one finds Jules Guerin's color scheme at its richest. Both courts necessarily lack the cloistral charm of the Court of Abundance, since they have the fourth sides open. But what they lack in the sense of enclosure they make up in sunniness and joyous color. They are restful and warm and quiet-and artistically they are among the most perfect and most harmonious units on the grounds. The Court of Palms The Court of Palms is directly opposite the Palace of Horticulture, between the Education and Liberal Arts Palaces, and adjoins the Court of the Four Seasons. The charming sunken garden and simple pool reflect the colored colonnade, arches and towers with a sense of rest that is a relief and stimulant after walking miles of exhibit halls. Although really nearly two acres in area, the court seems small and intimate. The proportions are good, and the planting particularly fortunate. The architecture is Renaissance, and is suggestive of the interior courts of the palaces of the Italian nobles. The colonnade columns are Ionic. The high attic story or frieze above the colonnade is remarkably rich, with its orange brown panels garlanded with green and red fruits, and decorated with Caryatid pilasters. It is worthy of study for the way in which architect, sculptor and color director have co-operated. The Italian Towers, terminating the colonnades, are among the finest bits of architectural design in the whole building group. Though only a fraction of the height of the Tower of Jewels, they convey much better the impression of reaching high into the heavens, of aspiration and uplift. They are more satisfying, too, in their combination of architectural forms, and they carry out notably well the delicate but luxuriant color scheme of the court. The unusual repeated pattern which fills the large wall panels of the towers is worthy of attention. The architect of the court was George W. Kelham. Sculpture. The only really important statue in the court is that which stands at the opening on the Avenue of Palms-called The End of the Trail. An Indian, bowed at last under the storm, sits astride a dejected horse utter weariness, discouragement, lost hope, expressed in every line of man and animal. Some see in the statue only the abject despair of a horse and rider when the consciousness finally comes that the trail is definitely lost in the wilderness; and it is notable enough as an expression of this tragic theme. But others, remembering the history of the Indian, see here an eloquent and pathetic reminder of a race that has seemingly come to the end of its trail. As a portrayal of this racial tragedy the group is even more remarkable than as an expression of the hopelessness of a lost man and horse. The statue is hardly in key with its architectural surroundings; but its comparatively isolated position prevents it from seeming an intrusive element in the court. Considered alone it is more individual, more expressive of independent and deep moving thought, than any other sculpture in the grounds. There is far more of real earnestness here than is usual in exposition sculpture. The thing is significant, too, for the native note. It is worthy of serious study as indicating one of the most important tendencies of American sculpture when not tied to the purely decorative. The sculptor was James Earl Fraser. The minor sculptures in this court consist of the Caryatides by John Bateman and A. Stirling Calder; the spandrels, by Albert Weinert; "The Fairy," by Carl Gruppe, which crowns the Italian Towers; and the classic vases at the portals. The mural paintings in this court are disappointing. Two are surprisingly poor, considering the high reputation of the artists, and the third is badly placed. The tympanum in the portal at the east side of the court is filled by Charles W. Holloway's panel, The Pursuit of Pleasure. This is a conventional treatment of the subject, in which a number of youths and maidens turn lackadaisically to a winged figure of Pleasure. There is a pleasing lightness of touch, and the bright reds and blues are in keeping with the spirit of the court-but the thing is, somehow, insipid. This panel is more pleasing under illumination. In the opposite portal is Childe Hassam's painting, Fruits and Flowers. This again is a conventional treatment, showing very obviously vegetable and human fruits and flowers. The arrangement is tediously symmetric, the coloring is rather weak, and there is a wooden stiffness about the figures. The panel makes a pleasant spot of color, but is by no means up to the standard of the canvases in Hassam's room in the Palace of Fine Arts. The panel over the main doorway, at the north end of the court, is by Arthur F. Mathews, and is far superior to the other two, though unfortunately placed in a dark spot. It is called by the artist A Victorious Spirit. The central figure, gorgeously suggesting the Spirit of Enlightment, protects Youth from the discordant elements of life from materialism and brute force, as represented by the rearing horse and militant rider. Youth is attended by the peace-bringing elements of life, by Religion, Philosophy or Education, and the Arts. The symbolism here is sound, the composition and drawing unusually good, and the coloring quite wonderful-especially in the orange-yellow robe of the Spirit. The full deep colors are in sharp contrast with those of most of the Exposition murals. No one should leave this court without first pausing to enjoy the vista through the north doorway, showing Albert Jaeger's spirited Sacrificial Bulls on the Agriculture and Food Products Palaces, the long colonnade of the Court of the Four Seasons, and the bit of bay and hills beyond. The Court of Flowers The Court of Flowers is opposite to Festival Hall, between the Mines and Varied Industries Palaces. The first impression, as one comes to it, is that here is a replica of the colorful Court of Palms. But many differences become evident after a few moments' study. The architecture is Italian Renaissance, but of a more richly decorative sort than in the Court of Palms. There is more overlaid ornament, and on the whole, less simplicity and quietness and more varied interest. The columns here are Corinthian, arranged in pairs. The gallery above the colonnade adds to the suggestion of the sunny South. The Italian Towers, while similar in feeling to those of the other court, are different in the arrangement of elements, though equally successful. The color decoration is again notable. It is hardly necessary to add that George W. Kelham designed this court too. Sculpture. The center of the court is dominated by Edgar Walter's Beauty and the Beast Fountain. The surmounting statue is a curious combination of graceful lines and grotesque effects. The strange Beast is no less fantastic than the young lady herself-she who has adorned her fair body with nothing more than a Spring hat and a pair of sandals. It is probably this near-nudeness, without pure nakedness, that creates the jarring note of the group Certainly there is a bizarre touch that somewhat offsets the sinuous charm of the figure. Under the upper basin are four piping Pans, not notable individually, but adding to the decorative effect. The wall around the lower pool carries a playful frieze of animals in low relief. The Pioneer is the title of the equestrian statue at the south end of the court, on the Avenue of Palms. The man is typically the Western pioneer, as every resident of the Pacific Coast has known him-a patriarchal figure who foreran civilization here in the West of America as he has in all other new lands. Head up, axe and gun in hand, looking straight forward, he is a fine visualization of the "Forty-niner." He is, too, an interesting racial contrast to the Indian of "The End of the Trail." One wonders, however, about the horse, with the elaborate trappings that clearly belong to another era-to the days of Spanish conquest, perhaps. Certainly horse and rider do not seem to be conceived in the same spirit. The group lacks, too, that vital intensity of feeling and that emotional strength which distinguish "The End of the Trail," the companion-statue in the Court of Palms. The "Pioneer" is by Solon Borglum. The minor sculpture here consists of A. Stirling Calder's attractive "Flower Girl," repeated in the niches along the loggia; dignified Lions, by Albert Laessle, flanking the three portals; and again Carl Gruppe's "The Fairy," atop the Italian Towers. The Tower of Jewels, and the Fountain of Energy It was planned that the Tower of Jewels should be the great dominating feature of the architectural scheme of the Exposition; that this unit more than any other should stand as a triumphal monument to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. The mural paintings, the sculpture and the inscriptions all carry out this idea, but the tower, in its architectural aspect alone, fails to live up fully to its purpose. It serves well to "center" the whole scheme, and to afford an imposing pile at the main entrance. Nevertheless it falls short of the high architectural standard of the courts and palaces. Architecture The architectural forms used in the design of the tower are in general classic; but the architect has shown considerable originality in their arrangement and massing. The lower portion, embracing the imposing arch and flanking colonnades, is very dignified and quite satisfying. Standing close to the structure, on the south side, so that one is conscious chiefly of this lower portion, there comes the proper sense of nobility-the feeling that one obtains from a successful triumphal arch. The chief fault of the tower above is that it lacks the long lifting lines that would give a sense of aspiration. It seems just a little squat and fat-as if it were too heavy on top and splayed out at the sides and bottom. It is also somewhat "showy," with too much hung-on ornament; and the green columns against red walls are not satisfying-this being one of the very few failures of the color scheme in the entire group of buildings. At night the tower takes on a new and unexpected beauty. The outline softens under the illumination, and the feeling of over-decoration and broken lines is lost. The whole structure becomes a huge finger of light, reaching up into the dark heavens-with softer indirect lighting below, and glowing brilliantly above. Even the hundred thousand pendent jewels, which at best are but flashy in the day time, add to the exquisite fairy like effect at night. The illumination here is such, indeed, that it must be one of the most impressive and lasting memories to be carried away by the visitor. The Tower of Jewels was designed by Thomas Hastings, of the firm Carrere and Hastings of New York. Sculpture The sculpture, like the mural paintings, deals in general with the winning of the Americas and the achievement of the canal project. Sculpture on the tower. As one stands in the South Gardens facing the tower, one sees above the first cornice, reading from left to right, four statues of The Adventurer, The Priest, The Philosopher, and The Soldier. These finely realized figures, which are by John Flanagan, represent four types of the early conquerors of America. On the next story is a repeated equestrian statue of the Spanish Conqueror, called The Armored Horseman, by F. M. L. Tonetti. These five statues are repeated on the other three faces of the tower. There is much other sculpture of a purely decorative sort, the motives used being those usually found in triumphal monuments, such as eagles, wreaths, and the beaks of ships with which the Romans ornamented the columns celebrating their naval successes. Equestrian statues at entrance. In front of the two side colonnades are spirited equestrian statues. As one faces the tower, the figure at the left is of Pizarro, who conquered the richest portion of South America for Spain. This figure is heroically decorative, and is by Charles Carey Rumsey. At the other side of the main arch is Charles Niehaus' vigorous statue of Cortez, who won Mexico for Spain. This figure, carrying a flag and pennon on a lance, and perfectly seated on the strong horse, has a live sense of movement, and the whole group is informed with the spirit of the lordly conqueror. Fountains under the tower. Within the colonnades to east and west of the main archway are respectively the Fountain of Youth and the Fountain of El Dorado. The Fountain of Youth consists of a central figure on a pedestal, and two rounded side panels with figures in relief. Youth is symbolized as a girl, an immature figure, beautifully modeled. She stands, perfectly poised, among rising blossoms. On the pedestal are more flowers in relief, and two dimly indicated half-figures of a man and woman may be discovered. The side panels show old people being drawn away in ships manned by cherubs-old people who gaze back wistfully at the Youth they are leaving. Really the fountain is far more charming if one forgets all but the central figure. There is in that a sweet tenderness, a maidenly loveliness, that makes it the perfect embodiment of Youth-an embodiment to be remembered with delight again and again. The fountain was designed by Edith Woodman Burroughs. The Fountain of El Dorado is on the other side of the archway, and is by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. It represents, as a whole, mankind's pursuit of the unattainable. The legend of El Dorado is that there once lived in South America a prince, "The Gilded One," who had so much gold that daily he had his body covered with gold dust. Many Spanish explorers spent fruitless years in search of the fabulously rich country of this prince. The idea of the fountain is that the Gilded One, representing the unattainable, the advantages of wealth and power which deluded men and women seek without value given to the world in return, has just disappeared through the gateway, the gates closing after him. On either side processions of seekers who have glimpsed the Gilded One, strain toward the gateway. Some loiter in love or play, some drop from fatigue, some fight their way along; and the first two, finding that the pursuit is fruitless after all, have dropped to their knees in anguish. The two standing figures beside the gates are said by the sculptor to have no significance beyond the fact that they are "just guardians." The fountain is notable for its symbolism and for the modeling of the many nude figures. The panel on the right is especially decorative, and has some notably fine individual figures and groups. The spirit of the fountain, with its realism and its note of hopelessness, is not in keeping with that pervading most of the Exposition sculpture. After looking at the work for a time, turn and look back through the two archways at the central figure of Youth at the other side. Certainly no figure in the Fountain of El Dorado has the appeal and charm of that. Mural Paintings On the walls of the archway under the Tower of Jewels are eight paintings celebrating the building of the Canal. All are by William de Leftwich Dodge. On the west wall the first panel is called Discovery. It portrays the discovery of the Pacific Ocean by Balboa. The second panel is called Atlantic and Pacific. A huge figure of Labor, having brought together the oceans, is opening a waterway from West to East. On the left an ox-drawn prairie schooner has arrived at the shore, with types of Western civilization. On the opposite shore types of the nations of the East, in a colorful group, are straining forward to meet the West. The third panel is entitled The Purchase. A figure representing the United States is taking over the canal project from France. The French laborers are throwing down their tools, and Americans press forward to take them up. In the group on the opposite wall the first panel is called Labor Crowned. Victorious Labor is being crowned by the angel of Success, while soldier and workers come to pay homage. The second panel is entitled The Gateway of All Nations. Figures symbolizing Progress call the world to pass through the Canal. Neptune holds garlands by which he draws ships of the various nations toward the waterway. Two laborers rest on their machines and watch the procession which they have made possible. The last panel is called Achievement. A woman with the symbols of knowledge, or wisdom, sits enthroned, while about her are grouped figures representing the forces instrumental in building the Canal. At the left are laborers; at the right figures typifying Engineering, Medical Science (with the Caduceus, the wand of Mercury, god of medicine), and Commerce or Munificence. These mural paintings are among the most interesting and most imaginative of all those at the Exposition. Some of the groups are particularly fine in coloring. Note the method of obtaining the right effect of "flatness" by employing a conventional diaper pattern for the background throughout. The panels here are much more effective under full illumination at night than by daylight. The Fountain of Energy The Fountain of Energy in the South Gardens was designed to be the crowning feature of the sculpture of the Exposition, just as the Tower of Jewels was designed to dominate the architectural scheme; and it fails of its high purpose in much the same way. It is closely allied with the tower in symbolic meaning, celebrating man's victory over the forces of nature in the successful building of the canal. In the pool at the base of the fountain are a number of graceful groups of water sprites on dolphins, and four larger groups representing the four great seas. The one to the east of the main fountain represents The Atlantic Ocean as a woman with sea-horses in one hand and coral like hair, on the back of a conventionalized dolphin. At the north The North Sea is represented by a sort of sea-man, with occasional fins and with a three-pronged spear in hand, riding on a walrus. At the west The Pacific Ocean is typified by a woman on a remarkable sea monster. And on the south a sea-man with negro-like features, and with an octopus in one hand, rides on a sea-elephant, representing The South Seas. The main pedestal of the statue is a globe, representing the earth. This is supported by a series of figures of mermaids and mermen. The Eastern and Western Hemispheres are represented by figures reclining on the globe, the one to the east a cat-headed woman, the one to the west a bullheaded man. The band, decorated with aquatic figures, which encircles the globe, suggests the final completion of a waterway about the earth. Energy, the Victor, the surmounting group, typifies the indomitable spirit that has achieved the building of the Canal. The nude figure of Energy with arms outstretched rides a horse through the waves, while on his shoulders stand smaller figures of Valor (with a wreath) and Fame (with a sword) heralding the triumph. These small figures are unfortunate they hardly belong, and instinctively one is worried for their equilibrium. The whole fountain is instinct with energy, and expresses joyous achievement, as was meant. Moreover it is remarkable in its breadth of conception, in imaginative interpretation of the theme. But it lacks that sense of repose which would make it intimately satisfying. The fountain was designed by A. Stirling Calder. Palaces Facing the Avenue of Palms The adoption of the "walled-city" plan for the Exposition meant the grouping of the more imposing architectural effects in the interior courts, the outer facades simply forming parts of a practically continuous wall about the whole. Inspired by Spanish architecture of the Renaissance, the intention was to keep the wall spaces in general quite bare, concentrating the decorative effects in rich "spots" at carefully chosen intervals. Thus the outer facades of the central group of palaces combine a simple general form with a series of richly ornamental portals. The architect who as entrusted with the designing of the wall and all the portals was W. B. Faville of Bliss and Faville. Certain architectural and sculptural units are repeated throughout the central group. Each building has a low central dome, seldom seen when one is close to any of the main buildings, but adding greatly to the decorative effect from a slight distance. These domes are of Byzantine style, and are colored in harmonizing shades of green and pink. The small repeated corner domes add another Eastern touch, and are especially effective at night. The outer wall is edged all the way around with a simple cornice and a few rows of dull red tiles, distinctly Southern in feeling, and therefore harmonizing with both the Spanish and the Italian Renaissance doorways. The Winged Victory is the fine decorative figure that crowns the gables of all the palaces of the walled-city. It is broadly modelled, massive and yet refined, and from any viewpoint stands out in beautiful silhouette against the sky. It is by Louis Ulrich. Palace of Varied Industries Before turning to the more important south facade, it is well to look at the east wall, with its dignified and colorful portal. This is Roman in style of architecture, to harmonize with the Palace of Machinery opposite. It is similar in general form to the memorial arches and gateways of the Romans, but in the use of architectural motives and in decoration it is of Italian Renaissance style. The niches at each end of the gallery contain figures of The Miner, by Albert Weinert. The facade is ornamented with buttresses at regular intervals, carrying figures of the California Bear holding a scutcheon with the state seal. Returning to the Avenue of Palms and the south facade, one sees the most important artistic feature of the building, the central portal. This is a copy, except for the figures filling the niches, of the famous doorway of the Hospital of Santa Cruz at Toledo, Spain. It is in Spanish Renaissance style, of that especially rich type known as "Plateresque," due to its likeness to the work of the silversmiths of the time. For its grace of composition, its exquisite detail, its total effect of richness and depth, this portal is worthy of long study. The sculpture of the portal is all by Ralph Stackpole. In the lower niches are replicas of "The Man with a Pick," a figure that has been justly admired as a sincere portrayal of a simple laboring type. The relief panel in the tympanum represents various types of industry. From left to right the figures typify Spinning, Building, and Agriculture (or the clothing, sheltering and feeding of mankind), and Manual Labor, and Commerce. The group in the niche above the arch shows a young laborer taking the load from the shoulders of an old man. The single figure at the top of the arch shows the laborer thinking, and is called "Power." Note how all these sculptures, while having individual interest, fit unobtrusively into the lace-like portal. Palace of Manufactures The wall of this building is broken by pilasters and inset decorative panels, and by a series of niches with animal head fountains. The central portal is pure Renaissance architecture, again suggestive of the Roman gateway in form. The sculptures of the doorway, including the two figures of male and female labor in the niches, and the long high-relief panel, are by Mahonri Young, who is noted for his simple, powerful treatment of modern themes. The panel represents various branches of manufacture, including metal work, blacksmithing, pottery-making, spinning, and architectural sculpture. Palace of Liberal Arts The facade here exactly duplicates that just described, even to the niche figures and panel in the portal. Palace of Education The Palace of Education has three Renaissance portals on the south facade. These are more Spanish in feeling than those of the two palaces just passed. The tympanum panel of the central doorway may be taken to represent kindergarten teaching, instruction of boys and girls, and self-education in young manhood. It is by Gustave Gerlach. The two panels in the walls over the minor doorways treat very obviously of educational subjects. They are flat in more senses than one, lacking the life of the central tympanum group. They are by students of two American art schools. The west facade of the Palace of Education is dominated by an immense half-dome, impressive in size and attractively decorated. The style of architecture here is mainly Roman, to harmonize with the Fine Arts Palace which it faces across the lagoon. There are two splendid architectural fountains, under the half-dome here and under, that of the Palace of Food Products. Sculpture. Flanking the great arch are columns carrying the nude figure of a man, with hands crossed, gazing fixedly in thought. In the official list this is called "Philosophy" or "Thought," and from it the immense portal is called "The Half-dome of Philosophy." But the same figure occupies the corresponding position before the Food Products Palace, and is there called "Physical Vigor." The truth is that the artist designed the statue to suggest that finest of all unions of strength, the physically powerful man thinking. Thus the figure is appropriate to both a food products building and an education building. The figure is strong, but is not so convincing or appealing as the same artist's "Man with a Pick," in the Varied Industries portal. Within the half-dome is a repeated figure with a scroll inscribed "Libris," by Albert Weinert. The six niches in the west wall have two repeated statues by Charles R. Harley, known as "The Triumph of the Field" and "Abundance." They are simply repeated from the Food Products Palace to the north, where they properly belong, and will be treated in the next chapter in connection with that building. On the north facade of the Palace of Education are duplicates of the three south portals, with the same sculptured panels. Palaces Facing the Marina, and the Column of Progress The walled-city idea, which throws most of the fine architecture into interior courts, is even more severely carried out in the north facades than in the south. The palaces on the Marina, indeed, present a wall unbroken except by the central doorways and the slight corner projections. The small domes at the corners give a Moorish touch, reminiscent of Southern Spain, and the portals are direct adaptations from Spanish masterpieces. Palace of Mines The north facade of the Palace of Mines is free from all ornament except the richly decorative central portal. This is worthy of prolonged study, being one of the finest bits of architectural ornament at the Exposition. It is designed very closely after Spanish models, and is of that transitional period of Spanish architecture that came between the Gothic and the Renaissance, when Gothic had been enriched through the influence of Moorish art, and was just beginning to feel the impulse of the Italian Renaissance. Note how rich is every part of the detail; then note how all detail is subordinated to the mass effect of the whole. The statues in the niches of the portal are by Allen Newman. The central mantled figure is called the "Conquistador," or conqueror. The artist has here portrayed in spirited fashion a fine type of Spanish nobility. The figure in the side niches, with an old-style pistol in his belt and a rope in his hand, is "The Pirate." The east facade of the Palace of Mines duplicates that of the Varied Industries Palace, and the west facade forms one side of the north Court of Abundance. Palace of Transportation Here the one notably artistic feature is the central portal on the north side, which is an exact replica of the Spanish doorway of the Palace of Mines. The Column of Progress This monument symbolizes the energy, the unconquerable spirit that is forever pressing forward to overcome new obstacles, which has led to the building of the Canal. The idea of such a monument was conceived by A. Stirling Calder, the architectural design is from the hand of W. Symmes Richardson, the reliefs at the base are by Isidore Konti, and the crowning statue is by Hermon A. MacNeil. The Column of Progress as a whole is among the finest artistic achievements of the Exposition, and more than any other, perhaps, is worthy of perpetuation in permanent materials to commemorate for all time the opening of the Panama Canal and the holding of the Exposition. Reliefs at base. The high relief frieze on the square base of the column represents mankind heeding the call to achievement. On the south face are allegoric figures calling mankind to the struggle, the two women holding palm branches, the insignia of victory. On the other three faces are shown groups of figures striving forward at the call, pressing on to achievement, some joyously, some laboriously, some stopped altogether in thought. The whole frieze suggests the beginning of progress. In the spiral that winds about the column certain interpreters have found a symbol of the upward march of human achievement; but as this spiral decoration is found on the Column of Trajan and the Column of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman prototypes of the Column of Progress, there probably is no special significance in its use here. Supporting the crowning group is a drum with crouching figures of toilers in relief, entitled "The Burden Bearers." The Adventurous Bowman is the title of the surmounting statue. The heroic Bowman, facing the skies and the seas, and launching his arrow into the unknown, is the symbol of the impulse that leads men to dare all to achieve victory. At the left of the central figure is a man of smaller stature, leaning against the Bowman to give him support. On the other side a woman crouches, looking up as the arrow speeds on its way. The ring-like object in the woman's hand, which is so hard to identify when one views the group from the ground, is a wreath. There is about the Bowman a remarkable sense of movement, of energy, of pressing forward, no matter what the view point of the spectator. The monument should be seen from as far north as possible, near the corner of the California building, perhaps. From here, from the Esplanade as one approaches from either east or west, and from the Court of the Universe at the rear, the group has the same inspirational quality, the same sense of joyous effort, of courageous striving toward achievement. The placing of the monument where it closes three important vistas is commended for study to those who have in charge the artistic destinies of our cities. Palace of Agriculture The north facade of the Palace of Agriculture is bare except for the central portal, which again duplicates that of the Palace of Mines. Palace of Food Products The north facade of this palace duplicates that of the Palace of Agriculture. But when one turns the west corner into Administration Avenue, one finds an entirely different atmosphere, where the Spanish architecture has given way to Italian. The dominating feature of the building's west facade is an immense half-dome, officially called "The Half-dome of Physical Vigor." This is an exact replica of the "Half-dome of Philosophy" on the Education Palace. Sculpture. Before the half-dome here, on columns, are replicas of Ralph Stackpole's statue of the physically vigorous man in thought. Inside the half-dome is a repeated figure of a man with a wreath, by Earl Cummings. In the niches along the walls are two alternating compositions, "Abundance" and "The Triumph of the Field," by Charles R. Harley. Abundance is typified by a seated woman, with the conventional overflowing cornucopias beside her, as well as a conglomeration of details suggestive of the riches of land and sea. This group certainly belongs to the Food Products building, but it really ought to be inside, with the flowers made of butter and the tower of raisins. The Triumph of the Field shows a man seated, and around him a museum of ancient symbols of agriculture, and of agricultural triumph, such as were once carried in the annual harvest festivals. These two groups are among the most amusing things at the Exposition; but artistically they can hardly be said to count at all. The Palace of Machinery The Palace of Machinery, largest of all the structures at the Exposition, terminates the main building axis at the East. It is monumental in proportions, and is well suited to its purpose of housing an immense display of machines. Architecture The architecture was evidently inspired by the great baths of ancient Rome, which were similar in style, size, and detail. The scale is so great-this is said to be the largest wooden building in the world- that it is something of an achievement to have made the structure anything but barn like. By the richness of the cornices and the careful spacing of the openings the architect has made it ornamental, and has given it a sort of noble dignity-though one hesitates to compare it with the palaces of the central group. The most interesting architectural bit in connection with the Palace of Machinery is the entrance vestibule under the three central archways. Standing at either end of the portico one obtains a remarkable impression of spaciousness combined with decorative completeness. The coloring within the high vestibule is particularly pleasing. Within the building the unconcealed trussing, instead of giving a sense of barrenness and lack of finish, resolves itself into a sort of lace-like decorative scheme, the whole effect being peculiarly ornamental. The Palace of Machinery was designed by Clarence R. Ward. Sculpture The sculpture here consists of the series of four nude male figures on the column drums, and spandrels for the main and minor doorways, and a widely different group, "The Genius of Creation," before the main western portal. All but the latter group represent "Types of Power." The figures surmounting columns, flanking the three arches of the central doorway, represent "Steam Power," "Invention," "Electricity," and "Imagination." Steam is symbolized as a man holding a long lever. Invention is represented as a man holding forth a miniature winged figure at which he gazes steadily. The figure of Electricity holds jagged lightning, conventional symbol of electricity. Imagination, primal power back of all machinery design, is represented by a figure with arm thrown back of head, and seemingly with eyes closed. Considered simply as portrayals of power, these four virile figures are very successful, and they serve well to carry out the sense of immensity and strength that characterizes the entire building. But they are not at all polished or subtle, lacking the refinement that would make them interesting as something besides vigorous types. All four figures are by Haig Patigian. They are repeated in different order on columns before the north and south portals of the building. The bas-relief friezes about the bases of the vestibule columns are also by Haig Patigian. The winged figure, typifying "Machinery," lends itself to decorative uses better than the purely human type, and the artist has worked in various mechanical symbols quite cleverly. The cardinal principle in sculptural decoration of this sort is that the frieze, like the whole column, must carry an impression of support. It will be noticed that no room has been left above the head or below the feet; and the disposition of the wings and arms further adds to the feeling that the figures are a true structural unit rather than mere ornament stuck on. The spandrels over the minor arches in the vestibule, again typifying "Machinery," are equally successful in serving an architectural purpose. Mural sculpture, like mural painting, must never be allowed to "make a hole" in the wall. Notice how fully the figures cover the given space, without any background to draw the eye beyond the surface. These spandrels are also by Haig Patigian. The column reliefs and the spandrels are repeated at the minor doorways of the building. The Genius of Creation, a magnificently conceived group of sculpture, has been placed, rather unfortunately, in front of the main west portal of the Palace of Machinery. It is by Daniel Chester French, who is generally considered the dean of American sculptors. The Genius of Creation is portrayed as a huge winged figure, enthroned over the formless mass of earth, with head bowed and arms outstretched, calling human life into being. At the two sides a man and a woman, fine strong figures both, stand looking forth, the man courageously, the woman a little more timidly. And at the back, as if to signify the mutual dependence of man and woman, the hands seek to touch. A serpent encircles the base of the group, symbolizing wisdom-or as some prefer to interpret it, everlasting life. This serpent is probably not the one that had so much to do with the life of the first couple on earth. The statue expresses, of course, the orthodox idea of creation, and it is interesting to contrast it with the sculpture of the Court of Abundance, which in general gives expression to the doctrine of evolution. The strong, almost severe, motherly figure is finely religious in feeling. The sculptor himself has commented on the religious tone that runs through much of the Exposition sculpture, remarking especially the prevalence of winged angel-figures. The reader is left to decide how far this has resulted from the fact that the winged form is essentially decorative, and how far from reverence. Viewed entirely from the aesthetic side, without regard to the symbolism, the Genius of Creation is one of the most satisfying works on the grounds. It is too bad that it was placed before a background of broken spaces, and before a colorful facade that makes it seem pale. But in it is that reposeful strength which characterizes so much of French's work-a sense of completeness, of fullness, that is perhaps the most soul-satisfying quality of great sculpture. The South Gardens, Festival Hall, and the Palace of Horticulture If there is one portion of the Exposition building scheme that does not seem to "belong" to the main group of palaces, it is that which lies south of the Avenue of Palms, including the South Gardens, Festival Hall, and the Palace of Horticulture. The relation of the two buildings to the main courts and palaces is clear: Festival Hall terminating the cross axis through the Court of Abundance and the Court of Flowers; the Palace of Horticulture terminating the cross axis through the Court of the Four Seasons and the Court of Palms. But though the organic relationship is apparent, the least discriminating of critics can see that these buildings are of an architectural style not in harmony with the central group of palaces. Both structures lack that fine sense of proportion and that simple and impressive dignity which characterize the architecture of the courts; and both are more or less pretentious and ornate. The South Gardens The South Gardens, like the buildings, have a certain magnificence but at the same time lack any distinctive appeal. The three basins with their fountains are imposing, and the individual beds of flowers are gorgeous in their profuse massing of color; but the distances are so great, and the sense of enclosure that means so much to gardens is so far lacking, that the lover of formal gardening will be less satisfied here than at several other places in the grounds. Sculpture. The sculpture of the South Gardens is all on the three fountains. The immense central group, the Fountain of Energy, already has been described. In the other two basins the Mermaid Fountain is repeated. This is an attractively ornate bit of decorative design, surmounted by the figure of a mermaid with a dolphin. The figure was modeled from designs by Arthur Putnam. It is typical of the fine strength of his work, and at the same time appealing by the grace of its sinuous lines. Festival Hall Festival Hall, designed for the many conventions and musical festivals of the Exposition period, is of typically French architecture of the modern school. The building is not unpleasing, but there is little about it to hold the interest. Robert Farquhar was the architect. Sculpture. All the sculpture on Festival Hall is the work of Sherry E. Fry. The figures are well suited to their purpose, from the slender "Torch-Bearer," surmounting the minor domes, to the heavy reclining figures on the pylons at the main entrance. Most of the statues are too roughly finished to have more than a decorative interest, but the two groups flanking the main stairway are worthy of study. These two "Flower Girls," one on either side, have a beautiful flowing grace. But quite the most appealing things here are the two minor figures before the pedestals on which the Flower Girls stand. Before the one at the north is a captivating boy Pan with a lizard. Half hidden in the shrubbery at the other side is the sitting figure of a girl, attractively immature and charming in line. Palace of Horticulture The Palace of Horticulture is characterized by that combination of Eastern and Western architectural motives which is so noticeable throughout the buildings. The dome is Byzantine, while the rest of the building is of Renaissance, or modern, French architecture. The dome considered alone is an almost perfect bit of design, beautifully proportioned and finely simple. The rest of the building is in general over-decorated, the portals especially being heavily loaded down with meaningless ornament. Apologists for the building say that the profuse ornateness rightly suggests the richness of California's horticulture. Perhaps the best view of the dome is from the east end of the Avenue of the Nations, near the Denmark building, because from there one can see it unobstructed, escaping the disturbing effect of the portals and their spires. The Palace of Horticulture was designed by Bakewell and Brown of San Francisco. Sculpture. All of the sculpture here is purely decorative. The frieze at the base of each spire, consisting of heavy female figures modeled in pairs, is by E. L. Boutier. The ornamental Caryatides of the porches are by John Bateman. Palace of Fine Arts The Fine Arts Palace has been more admired, probably, than any other architectural unit at the Exposition. The reasons are not far to seek. The architect has used those classic forms which for ages have been recognized as best suited to monumental structures, and yet he has used them with originality. The building is classically noble, but without classic austerity or coldness. It is at once beautiful in form, rich in decorative detail, and satisfyingly warm in color. Moreover, it has the finest setting of all the Exposition buildings. The bigness of conception, the boldness with which the largest architectural elements have been handled, the perfect arrangement of architecture, planting, and reflecting waters-all these combine to create the most compelling picture on the grounds. The arrangement of the building is deceptive. As one looks at it across the lagoon, it seems like a single unit, so well does the planting tie it together, though there are really four unconnected structures: the rotunda, two detached peristyles at the sides, and the art gallery proper at the back. Architecture The style of architecture is Classic, freely treated. The rotunda is Roman. The peristyle is more Greek in feeling, in the simplicity of general form, with splendidly modeled capitals, full strong columns, and dignified cornice. The curved facade of the main building, facing the rotunda and peristyle, is very original in its arrangement of classic architectural motives and masses of foliage, with a Pompeian pergola on top. The color scheme of the whole building is worthy of study. And although the structure when seen by day deserves all the praise that has been bestowed upon it, by night its beauty is beyond description. One should sit long at the edge of the lagoon opposite the rotunda, and watch the illuminated building itself and its reflection in the waters below, to feel the full spell of it. No one should miss, either, the walk between the peristyle and the main building on one of those nights when there is soft local illumination, for nowhere else on the grounds has the poetry of lighting been so perfectly realized. The architect of the Fine Arts Palace was Bernard R. Maybeck, a Californian. Sculpture The sculpture about the lagoon, including that under the peristyle and rotunda, is to be treated in the next chapter, except that which is definitely a part of the building's integral decorative scheme. The reliefs outside the rotunda, on the attic above the cornice, represent man's effort to gain the ideal of art. To see these reliefs best, one should stand directly across the lagoon from the rotunda. In the panel facing East one sees the figure of Art personified. On either side is a group showing the champions of art combating centaurs, that stand for the commonplace, materialistic things of life. In the next panel to the left, facing Southeast, is represented the bridling of the winged horse Pegasus, which to the Greeks symbolized the attainment of poetic inspiration. Here also are figures representing the arts of literature, sculpture and music, by the familiar symbols, a lamp, a statuette and a lute. The panel to the right of the center one shows Apollo, sun-god and patron-god of the arts, drawn in his chariot, with a procession of devotees. These panels are repeated on the other five faces about the dome. They are among the finest reliefs on the Exposition buildings, and are by Bruno Louis Zimm. The figures within the rotunda, surmounting the eight columns are "Priestesses of Culture," by Herbert Adams. The flower-box sculptures are by Ulric H. Ellerhusen-both those on the ground and those at the corners of the boxes surmounting the peristyle. The ladies on the latter, looking so steadily into the boxes, do not represent "Curiosity." The plan was to have masses of foliage overflowing, and half-covering the figures; and when this was given up, the decorative women gave the unexpected impression of being deeply absorbed in something happening out of sight of the spectator below. An explanation which has gained some currency is that the figures represent "Introspection," which seems quite apropos. The kneeling figure (unnamed) on the edge of the lagoon before the rotunda is by Ralph Stackpole. It is one of the most appealing bits of all the Exposition sculpture, well expressing devotion and reverence. It cannot be reached from the rotunda side, this portion of the shore being closed to the public. The figure over the doorway of the gallery is Leo Lentelli's "Aspiration." During the early months of the Exposition this statue was suspended from behind, the base on which it now stands having been placed late in the Spring. As the figure first appeared, hanging in air, it caused more comment than any other sculpture on the grounds. The most appropriate explanation was that since the figure lacked any visible means of support it probably was meant to represent "California Art." Even the recent alterations have failed to save it from seeming graceless and out of place. Mural Paintings The eight panels in the dome of the rotunda are by Robert Reid. There are two series of four paintings each, called "The Birth and Influence of Art," and "The Four Gold's of California." They form perhaps the least interesting of the several groups of murals, being vague in meaning, unpleasantly restless in composition, and only occasionally attractive in coloring. The easiest panel to identify is that called "The Birth of Oriental Art," which is on the west wall, closest to the doorway of the main building. Starting with this and following around the dome to the right, the pictures are in this order: 1. The Birth of Oriental Art. A man in armor on a fanciful, dragon is attacking an eagle, symbolizing man's effort to attain the inspiration of the heavens. Below, China can be recognized in the man with a brilliant colored robe, and Japan in the woman with the bright parasol. 2. Gold is symbolized by a woman with a wand, on a cornucopia overflowing with gold. 3. The Ideals of All Art. The ideals which animate artists are shown: Truth with her glass; Religion typified in the Madonna and child; Beauty, with the peacock; and the Militant Ideal with a flag. Above and below are figures carrying the wreath and the palm, the artist's tokens of success in attaining the ideal. 4. Poppies, the second "gold" of California. 5. The Birth of European Art. Four figures surround an altar on which burns the sacred fire, three being merely attendants preserving the flame, and the fourth the guardian holding high a torch lit at the altar. A man from earth grasps this torch as he leans from his flying chariot. A woman in the lower corner holds a crystal gazing-globe, wherein the future of art has been revealed, and she turns to gaze after the man who is carrying the sacred fire to earth. 6. Citrus Fruits, the third "gold" of California. 7. The Inspiration of All Art. Two Angels of Inspiration are at the top, while below to the left are Sculpture, with a winged statuette, and Architecture, with the scroll and compass; and to the right, Painting, with brush and palette, Music, with a lyre, and Poetry, with a book. 8. Wheat, the fourth "gold" of California. The Outdoor Gallery of Sculpture Many of the finest bronzes and marbles of the sculpture section are given an adequate setting which would be impossible within the gallery building, by being placed in the open, along the two ends of the lagoon, through the peristyles, and under the Fine Arts rotunda. As this group of sculpture embraces all types from the playful to the very serious, it is foolish to try to appreciate the whole series at one time. Perhaps the best way is to start first to familiarize oneself with the smaller bronzes of the purely lyric type, the charming garden figures, sun-dials, and miniature fountains, that make up such an attractive part of the collection. Note how often the names of Edward Berge, Janet Scudder and Anna Coleman Ladd recur in connection with this graceful, intimately appealing sort of sculpture. On another day, when life seems soberer, spend all your time in study of the more serious works, such as Saint Gaudens' "Seated Lincoln," and McKenzie's "The Young Franklin," noting how the dignity, sureness of touch, and sound purpose of these make them more appealing with longer acquaintance. On another day take the intermediate group, that is dignified but less austere in theme-such works as Sherry Fry's "Peace," and Berge's "Muse Finding the Head of Orpheus." Studied systematically, there is in this series of statues a broad education in the appreciation of sculpture. For convenience in reference the whole series is listed here. In regard to those works which the labels make self-explanatory, no comment is added, unless to call attention to some special quality which the unpracticed eye might miss. Where the symbolism or "story" is obscure, an explanation is given. South of the lagoon are: 1. Sea Lions by Frederick G. R. Roth. 2. The Scout by Cyrus E. Dallin. Note the remarkable clean-cut quality of this equestrian statue. 3. Wind and Spray fountain, by Anna Coleman Ladd. 4. Diana by Haig Patigian-a graceful statue of the Greek goddess of the hunt, which is in marked contrast to the same artist's strong figures on the Palace of Machinery. 5. Peace by Sherry E. Fry. This beautifully modeled figure has a classic simplicity that is worthy of study. 6. American Bison by A. P. Proctor. Beyond the second Bison, beside the roadway that runs behind the Fine Arts Palace, is a model of the Kirkpatrick Monument, at Syracuse, New York, by Gail Sherman Corbett. The central figures represent an Indian discovering to a Jesuit priest the waters of an historic salt spring at Syracuse. In the circle at the south end of the peristyle are: 1. Seated Lincoln by Augustus St. Gaudens generally considered one of the noblest works of the greatest American sculptor. Note especially the dignity of the whole, and the sympathetic modeling of the face. 2. Bust of Halsey C. Ives by Victor S. Holm. 3. Bust of William Howard Taft by Robert Aitken. 4. Henry Ward Beecher by John Quincy Adams Ward-a dignified and well-known life-size statue. Along the south peristyle are (at the right) 1. Piping Pan by Louis St. Gaudens. 2. Flying Cupid by Janet Scudder. 3. Muse Finding the Head of Orpheus by Edward Berge-a marble well expressive of gentle grief. Orpheus, sweetest musician of Greek mythology, after failing to recover his beloved Eurydice from the underworld, in his sorrow scorned the Thracian nymphs, who in their anger dismembered him. His head was washed up by the sea and found by the sorrowing Muses. 4. (At the left) Michael Angelo by Robert Aitken, showing the master-sculpture at work on one of his famous figures. 5. (At the right) Young Pan by Janet Scudder. 6. (At the left) Wood Nymph by Isidore Konti. 7. Young Mother with Child by Furio Piccirilli. 8. (At the right) Wild Flower by Edward Berge. 9. (At the left) Eurydice by Furio Piccirilli. 10. (At the right) Boy and Frog by Edward Berge. 11. (At the left) Dancing Nymphs by Olin L. Warner. 12. Idyl by Olga Popoff Muller. 13. An Outcast by Attilio Piccirilli. 14. (Beside the doorway) Youth by Charles Carey Rumsey. Before the doorway is to be placed The Pioneer Mother Monument by Charles Grafly. About the rotunda are: 1. (Outside the southwest archway) Thomas Jefferson by Karl Bitter. 2. (In center of rotunda) Lafayette by Paul Wayland Bartlett-the statue given by America to France. 3. Lincoln by Daniel Chester French, a dignified portrayal that cannot be justly judged from the plaster model here exhibited. 4. Relief by Richard H. Recchia, representing "Architecture." 5. Commodore Barry Memorial by John J. Boyle. 6. Relief by Richard H. Recchia, representing "Architecture." 7. Princeton Student Memorial by Daniel Chester French a noble treatment of a difficult theme. 8. The Young Franklin by Robert Tait McKenzie. This is a fine conception, in which the sculptor has escaped from the conventional path of monumental portraiture. 9. (On walls of west archway) Reliefs by Bela L. Pratt, representing "Sculpture." 10. (Outside west archway) Portrait of a Boy by Albin Polasek. 11. The Awakening by Lindsey Morris Sterling. 12. (Beside northwest archway) William Cullen Bryant by Herbert Adams. Along the north peristyle are: 1. (Beside main doorway of gallery) Beyond by Chester Beach. 2. The Sower by Albin Polasek. 3. The Centaur by Olga Popoff Muller. 4. Boy with Fish by Bela L. Pratt. 5. (At the right) Returning from the Hunt by John J. Boyle. 6. (At the left) L'Amour by Evelyn Beatrice Longman-a marble wherein the woman's figure is tenderly beautiful. 7. Garden Figure by Edith Woodman Burroughs. 8. (At the right) Fighting Boys Fountain by Janet Scudder. 9. Soldier of Marathon by Paul Noquet. 10. (At the left) Youth by Victor D. Salvatore. 11. (At the right) Primitive Man by Olga Popoff Muller. 12. The Scalp by Edward Berge-an unpleasant bit of realism. 13. (At the left) Apollo by Haig Patigian. 14. (At the right) A Faun's Toilet by Attilio Piccirilli. 15. Duck Baby Fountain by Edith Barretto Parsons. 16. Maiden of the Roman Campagna by Albin Polasek-a figure instinct with the spirit of the antique. On the circle at the north end of the peristyle are: 1. (At the right) Young Diana by Janet Scudder-a young goddess of the hunt, conceived in modern spirit, with remarkable freedom and grace of movement. 2. Great Danes by Anna Vaughan Hyatt. 3. (In walk) Sundial by Harriet W. Frishmuth. 4. Bondage by Carl Augustus Heber. 5. Boy Pan with Frog by Clement J. Barnhorn. 6. Sundial by Gail Sherman Corbett. 7. Three fountain groups in one basin, all by Anna Coleman Ladd. Of these the Sun God and Python has been especially admired as a spirited and graceful bit of work. 8. (On the lagoon side of the circle) Mother of the Dead by C. S. Pietro-a sincere and powerfully realistic work, and quite unlike anything else in the outdoor gallery. 9. (In walk) Chief Justice Marshall by Herbert Adams. 10. Destiny by C. Percival Dietsch. 11. Sundial by Edward Berge. 12: Daughter of Pan by R. Hinton Perry. 13. Head of Lincoln by Adolph A. Weinman. Along the roadway to the left, as one leaves the circle, are two sculptures: Bird Fountain by Caroline Risque, and Prima Mater by Victor S. Holm. North of the lagoon are: 1. Fragment of the Fountain of Time by Lorado Taft. 2. Nymph by Edmond T. Quinn. 3. Dying Lion by Paul Wayland Bartlett. 4. Rock and Flower Group by Anna Coleman Ladd. 5. Whale-man by Bela L. Pratt. On the island at the north end of the lagoon is a fountain by Robert Paine. The Fine Arts Galleries Do not visit the Fine Arts exhibits blindly, without knowing what they are aimed to show; and do not try to see the whole exhibition in one day. First understand the scope and arrangement of the displays, and then follow some definite system by which you are sure to get the best out of each individual section. It is better to see one part thoroughly than to carry away a confused impression of the whole. The scope of the exhibit is limited to painting, sculpture and print-making, except in the Oriental sections. In painting the primary aim has been to make a representative display of contemporary work. Most of the galleries contain only canvases painted within the last ten years. But in order to correct the common misconception that American art is entirely a thing of today, without historical background, a few rooms are given up to historic works of the various early American schools, and to works of the foreign schools that have influenced the development of American art. The arrangement of the galleries should be mastered before one starts to study. In general there are three divisions of exhibits. At each end is a group of foreign sections, and the great middle space is given up to American art. The accompanying diagram is designed primarily to make clear the location of the several divisions. The visitor will find it worth while to remember that a main central corridor runs the whole length of the United States Section. By continually referring to this corridor, one can keep one's bearings fairly well. The method of seeing the galleries that is suggested in this guide is based on the official classification as far as possible: the foreign sections are taken in order, and the historical section is treated in that chronological sequence which the directors intended to show forth. But there is no system in the arrangement of the twenty-eight general rooms of contemporary American work, In treating these the guide aims to suggest tendencies and influences, rather than to point out this or that canvas as a good or bad one. Nevertheless it is believed that every really important picture or artist is individually mentioned-so that one who has used the manual consistently may be sure of having enjoyed the cream of the collection, at the same time gaining the wider knowledge of the main currents of development. It is necessary to use to a certain extent the arbitrary subject-divisions, such as portrait, landscape, and figure painting; and to refer also to realistic painting, which tends to depict things as they are, as opposed to the academic, which recognizes the wisdom of conventionalization or idealization. But the most important distinction, for the student of contemporary tendencies, is that which concerns the term "Impressionism." This name in its original and technical sense applied to the works of the men who, instead of mixing shades, placed different colors side by side on their canvases to give the effect of the right shade at a distance. As the experiments of these artists were directed chiefly to the solution of problems of light, the term naturally was widened to include that whole division of painting which is concerned with atmospheric aspects and color harmonies rather than with subject-interest and line composition. Terms which express the same idea in general or in part, are "luminism" and "plein-air painting." Impressionism has had more effect on the current of art than has any other movement in history. Not only in the handling of light and in freshness of coloring has the whole of painting been profoundly changed, but there is a general tendency to paint the impression rather than the actuality, the harmonious effect rather than the literal fact-and these things are notably illustrated in the Exposition galleries. For the sake of the visitor who comes to the gallery with practically no knowledge of art, a word may profitably be said about critical standards. First remember that there are many qualities which may make a painting worth while: pleasing design, beautiful color, a compelling expression of emotion or thought, or a poetic suggestion of a fleeting aspect or mood. It is necessary to judge each particular work by the artist's intention, and not by untrained personal tastes. Before passing judgment learn to know the picture well. You may find that you have been attracted by something superficial. On the other hand, you may find that the seemingly less attractive picture, which has been recommended by people of trained judgment, grows more and more pleasing with riper acquaintance. Go slowly, study thoroughly what you study, and keep an open mind-for that way leads to the widest enjoyment. United States Section: Painting The United States Section consists chiefly of contemporary work, but includes a small historical section, which is to be found to the left as one enters at the main doorway. It is in this part of the exhibit that one should start. The Historical Section consists of two well-defined parts. The first contains examples of foreign schools of painting that have influenced American art. The second contains the works of American painters from the beginnings to the early Twentieth Century. The Foreign Historical Section occupies rooms 91-92 and 61-63. Gallery 91-Early Schools. A gallery of old paintings, chiefly of the Italian, Flemish and Dutch Schools, designed to suggest the earliest roots of American art. Practically all the canvases are mere echoes of the "old masters," and they may well be passed over hastily by all but the most thorough historical student. Gallery 92-French Influence. This gallery and the next two are designed to show works of those schools, chiefly French, that have had direct influence upon American art. On wall A is a painting by Courbet, interesting in the light of that artist's influence on Whistler's early work. But most important here are the examples of the Barbizon School, romantic landscape painters of the mid-Nineteenth Century, who had much to do with the development of the Inness-Wyant group in America. On wall B are two canvases by Corot, both badly placed, one of which (1486) is typically poetic and beautiful. The examples by Daubigny and Rousseau on wall C are not satisfying. On wall D the two Monticellis suggest the source of some of the rich qualities of the work of Keith and similar American painters. Gallery 62, adjoining 92, shows the best example of Barbizon work, in Troyon's beautiful "Landscape and Cattle" on wall C. On wall A is a small painting, interesting but not characteristic, by Millet, who influenced the whole world of art toward sincerity. On wall B is Sir Laurens Alma-Tadema's "Among the Ruins," sole representative here of the English School of "polished" painters that strongly influenced a number of American artists. On wall D are two very interesting portrait studies by Franz von Lenbach, intended to suggest the influence of the Munich School on American art, before Americans began to flock to Paris to study. Gallery 61-Recent French Influence. On wall A is an uneven collection by Monet, the greatest apostle of Impressionism. This group, with the exception perhaps of the sea-shore scene, should be studied thoroughly, in regard to the technique that juxtaposes colors to give the right resultant tone at a distance; in regard to the general tendency to subordinate subject interest to the expression of fleeting aspects; and in regard to the masterly handling of light. No other group will be referred to so often in connection with the American galleries. On wall B is a typically joyous canvas by Gaston La Touche, who carries Impressionism into figure work. On walls C and D are other examples of the Impressionist School, by Pissarro and Renoir and the English Sisley. On wall C is a portrait by Eugene Carriere. On wall D is a panel by Puvis de Chavannes, who has influenced modern mural painting more than any other artist. This picture has the typical union of the classic feeling with very modern technique, but it is representative of de Chavannes' manner rather than of his whole art at its best. Gallery 63-English Influence. This is the richest of the historical rooms. Although there is a scattered collection including the names of Van Dyke, Guido Reni, Tiepolo, Ribera, Velasquez, Goya, and Turner, on walls A and B, the important thing is the fine collection of the English portraitists. Here are examples, many of them among the finest, by Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, Lawrence, and Hoppner. It is hardly necessary to point out the close connection between the work of this English group and early American painting, since a visit to the adjoining gallery 60 will show how the first important development in the States grew out of the art of the mother country. The American Historical Section covers the entire development of American painting from the beginning to the early years of the present century. To obtain the proper sequence, one should start in room 60, working gradually down to 57, then visiting 64 and 54. Gallery 60 contains a profusion of fine examples of the early portrait school, which was so closely connected with English art of the time. Gilbert Stuart, the most important figure, is represented by an extensive collection on wall A. In this room, too, are canvases by West, Peale, Copley, and their followers well into the Nineteenth Century. Gallery 59 contains chiefly the work of that barren mid-century period when portraiture and landscape painting alike became hard and labored. Insofar as any foreign influences can be detected here, they are of the "tight" schools of England and Germany. Gallery 58 contains some interesting work of the latter half of the Nineteenth Century-notably the paintings by Eastman Johnson, an important figure of the time when American art was finding itself. Albert Bierstadt's two landscapes are typical of the so-called Hudson River School, the mechanical forerunner of the Inness-Wyant group. An interesting contrast is offered here by H. J. Breuer's "Santa Inez Mountains," a contemporary landscape that is full of the freshness and light of present-day American painting. Gallery 57 shows another great step in advance. A generous portion of the space is given to Edwin A. Abbey, an American-born artist who really was more a part of English art. The exhibit shows clearly that Abbey was greater as illustrator than as painter, the finest things here being the exquisite pen drawings. Wall D has five paintings by John LaFarge, who by his work and by his theories greatly influenced American art at the end of the century. Worthy of study, too, are the more modern landscapes of Theodore Robinson. From this room one should turn back into the central line of galleries. Gallery 64 contains historical American paintings that range through the latter half of the last century and into this, with such well-known names as Parrish, Gifford, Hunt, Wylie, Martin, the Morans, Eakins, and even the more recent Frederic Remington. Such pictures as F. E. Church's "Niagara Falls" (wall A), J. G. Brown's "The Detective Story" (wall B), and Thomas Hovenden's "Breaking Home Ties" (wall D), are typical of what was accepted as the best work a generation or two ago. Passing through room 65, one should next go to 54. Gallery 54 is the most important in the American Historical Section, for it shows the work of the men who really emancipated American painting from the old hardness and tightness of technique, and from the old sentimentalism. Wall A is given up to the work of the late Winslow Homer, who has been called "the most American of painters." The seashore scenes alone of the things here are representative of this big man at his best. Wall B has a varied assortment by lesser painters, but ones of importance: Blakelock, Currier, William Morris Hunt, and Fuller. On walls C and D the very important canvases are those by Inness and Wyant, men who were deeply influenced by the French Barbizon School, but whose individual achievement marked the first great stride toward the bigness, freedom and lightness of present-day American landscape painting. Contemporary American Painting. Leaving aside the one-man rooms for the present, it is just as well to turn from the last historical room, 54, into 55, and progress in natural order through 56, 65, 85, 66 (the central hall), and 80. The contemporary rooms north of the central hall can be best visited in three groups, each following the official room numbering: first, 67 to 74; then 43 to 51; and finally the detached section at the far north end of the building, 117 to 120. Gallery 55 has a well assorted collection of contemporary canvases, but includes no outstanding features. Gallery 56 is a typical modern American room, with good landscapes in the work of Breuer, Borg, Davol, and Stokes. Gallery 65 contains some of the best American figure paintings in the building. The finest group is that by Cecilia Beaux on wall D, which well displays that remarkable artist's brilliant technique and "flair." It is notable how many of the really virile paintings here are by women -many of them of the younger groups. From Marion Pooke's polished but free "Silhouettes," and Alice Kent Stoddard's appealing "Sisters," to M. Jean McLane's joyously brilliant canvases on wall C, there is a wide range of achievement and promise. Gallery 85. On walls A and B are five canvases by Horatio Walker that are worthy of attention. But finer are Charles W. Hawthorne's four paintings on walls B and D. Their bigness of conception, sincerity and soundness of technique mark a coming master. Wall C is given up to a display by Charles Walter Stetson, which shows, more strongly than any other in the American section, that tendency to the decorative and the idyllic which is to be noted as so strong in recent painting. On wall D are three works of George deForest Brush, a man who has been but little influenced by the more radical tendencies. "The Potter" is interesting for the painstaking and minute finish of varying surface textures. Gallery 66-Central Hall. Although the important places here are given to sculpture, there are a few very interesting paintings: some representative landscapes, and at the ends decorative panels by Alexander Harrison and by Howard Cushing. Gallery 80 is notable for the work of painters who have followed rather closely the old academic traditions: for the smooth and polished canvases of W. M. Paxton and Philip Leslie Hale. There are also seven landscapes by Willard L. Metcalf, fresh attractive work of the "plein-air" school. Gallery 67 is rich in fine landscapes, and contains the best of the exhibition's marines. Here are the only works of Charles H. Davis, a notable follower of the poetic Inness School, and of Leonard Ochtman and Ben Foster, who stand well to the fore among the more vigorous landscapists. Also worthy of attention are the landscapes of Braun, Borg, White, Wendt, J. F. Carlson, Rosen and Browne. The marines represent well a department of painting in which Americans have long excelled; on wall A are four by Paul Dougherty, on B and C three by Frederick J. Waugh, and on D one by Emil Carlsen. Of the other paintings the most interesting is the idyllic bit by Hugo Ballin on wall C, representative of the decorative tendency. Gallery 68 contains as its most important exhibit three portraits by J. C. Johansen, on wall B, all typical of the brilliant fluency of this remarkable painter. Among the landscapes here the most important are the two Schofields on wall D, typical of the best and sanest phase of Impressionism in America. Very important too are the canvases by Daniel Garber on wall C. Gallery 69 contains a mixed collection, with such different good things as Lawton Parker's polished figure studies (wall B) and J. Francis Murphy's poetic landscape (wall C). On wall C is a painting by John W. Alexander, one of the leaders in American art, which is typical of his method of subordinating subject interest to line arrangement and color composition. Gallery 70-Portrait Room. On wall C are three portraits by Irving R. Wiles, and on D two by Julian Story-both names long well-known in American art. But the surprising thing is that several of the canvases by less known men stand up with, or even surpass, these. Gallery 71 is notable chiefly for some good landscapes. Gallery 72 contains little to hold the attention, unless it is the group of canvases by Walter McEwen, who shows adherence to the older traditions, not only in smoothness of technique, but in sentimentalism and general prettiness. Gallery 73 is given up chiefly to Alson Clark's over-sketchy and intemperately colored Panama pictures. The most interesting thing here is Ernest Lawson's "Beginning of Winter," on wall B, a representative work by one of the most successful American followers of Impressionism. Gallery 74 is a room of good landscapes, with a few outstanding canvases like Will S. Robinson's "Group of White Birches" on wall C. A new start should be made here by passing through rooms 70 and 71 to 43, from which the numerical order can be followed back to room 51, adjoining the central hall. Galleries 43 and 44 have a range from many mediocre to a few really good things, lacking anything that demands special attention. Gallery 45 is a room rich in comparative values. Note the delicacy of treatment and of color in William Sartain's three landscapes, on wall A, and in Birge Harrison's atmospheric paintings on wall D. Compare these with the heavily painted and richly colored canvases by Walter Griffin on wall C, and then with the more straightforward, vigorous work of Charles Morris Young on wall B. Harrison, Griffin and Young, at least, are of the distinctly modern school; but note how individually each has utilized his inheritance of vibrating color and light. On wall A are two fine figure studies by Robert Reid, an innovator and a really great painter, though he did not show it when he painted the panels for the Fine Arts rotunda. Gallery 46. There is much poor material here; but on walls B and C are some paintings by Frank Vincent Dumond that are interesting for their fresh coloring and their solving of light problems. Gallery 47 contains evidences of progress in varied lines, from E. L. Blumenschein's big Indian pictures, and Cohn Campbell Cooper's studies of American cities, to the experiment in painting flesh against a richly varied background, by Richard Miller, a gifted American who has long lived in Paris. Gallery 48 contains much promising work of various tendencies, but no outstanding features. Gallery 49 contains, on wall A, a splendid collection of the work of Dwight W. Tryon, one of the older school of landscapists, who helped to break the way for the moderns and has kept up with them to a great extent. With the exception of one canvas, the pictures on walls B and D are by J. Alden Weir, another roadbreaker, and an experimenter with new effects of light and atmosphere. In such canvases as "June" and "White Oak" one finds some of the best that American art has built on the theories of Monet. Gallery 50 contains some good landscapes, but nothing that demands special attention aside from Sergeant Kendall's refined figure studies. Gallery 51 is given over in general to the independents and extremists of American art. Here are canvases by Glackens, Sloan, and Breckenridge, rather disappointing to one who has watched hopefully the movement they represent. Certainly their exhibits are suggestive of a rather undisciplined vigor and freedom. On wall C the five canvases in the lower row are by Robert Henri. They are the experiments of a master, rather than his best works. The truly representative Henri picture is the "Lady in Black Velvet," on wall D. This has a wonderful synthetic quality, a suppression of detail and a spotting of interest at the important point. There is, too, a spiritual quality that is lacking in the other canvases. On the other side of the doorway is Gertrude Lambert's "Black and Green," a notably fine canvas. The only other general rooms of the contemporary American section are those at the far north end of the building, beyond the foreign sections, numbered from 117 to 120. Gallery 117 is a sort of catch-all room, in which are many things that never should have been admitted to the galleries. The really interesting feature is the series of canvases by Frieseke, full of light and freedom. Gallery 118 is less mediocre on the whole, but lacks any features of special appeal. Gallery 119 includes a surprising conglomeration of paintings and drawings in all mediums, wherein the extremists have their say. There is a wealth of interest here, but one must have time to separate the bad from the good. Gallery 120 is also marked generously by the newer tendencies. The important feature is the group of virile paintings by George Bellows, on wall C. These mark the most successful American attempt to grasp sanely the bigness and freedom of the post-Impressionist movements. One-man Rooms. As a part of the plan to show the various influences on the course of American art, it was decided to give up a number of rooms to individual displays by leaders of the several well-marked tendencies. Galleries 75-79, 87-90, and 93, at the east side of the building on either side of the center, contain these "one-man shows." Gallery 75-Sargent. Here are shown a number of canvases by the man generally considered the greatest living American painter-certainly the greatest of the portraitists. Though containing none of the really famous paintings, there are portraits which show the typical Sargent brilliancy-the swift sureness and the perfect balance of restraint and freedom. The James portrait is especially worthy of study. Gallery 76-Mathews. In this room are shown a number of canvases by Arthur F. Mathews, most important of the California painters, as well as a few by Francis MacComas, another Californian. Mathews stands primarily for the decorative tendency. His canvases have a noble sense of repose that is too often lacking in contemporary work, and there is remarkable color harmony here. Gallery 77-Melchers. Here are representative works by Gari Melchers, a famous American who has long lived abroad. Unmistakably these canvases are from a masterly brush; but the coloring is not always good, and the room is somewhat disappointing. Gallery 78-Hassam. By common consent Childe Hassam is considered the greatest American follower of Impressionism. He is an innovator who has carved a sure place for himself by adding a new vigor to the methods of the original Impressionists. Such decorative canvases as 2033 on wall B, and such delicate ones as 2029 on wall D, should be compared with the Monets in room 61. Gallery 79-Chase. This room is designed to show the work of an American who was greatly influenced by the Munich School of painters. William M. Chase, both in his portraits and in his remarkable still-life studies, shows the fine German thoroughness rather than French brilliancy. The four canvases that hold the places of honor on all four walls show clearly the influence of Whistler. Gallery 87-Duveneck. Here are works by Frank Duveneck, who like Chase studied at Munich. Sound in draughtsmanship, steady, and well-thought out, they maintain a remarkable standard of excellence. It is instructive to step from here into the adjoining large gallery, where the French influence is predominant. Gallery 88-Redfield. In the winter scenes of E. W. Redfield one finds the sure touch of a master of the new and vigorous school of American landscapists. Redfield has modified Impressionism, clinging to a certain reality, and yet achieving the sparkling atmospheric effects of the luminists. Gallery 89-Tarbell. In contrast to Hassam and Redfield and Twachtman is Edmund C. Tarbell, who has taken but little from the Impressionist group. His most characteristic and most appealing work can be seen in the canvases on wall A, beautifully lighted interiors which show the academic tendency, but in a new and delightful way. Gallery 90-Keith. This collection of canvases, with its sameness of subject and arrangement, is hardly typical of the late William Keith at his best. He was the western representative of the Inness-Wyant school of the late Nineteenth Century, though he leaned more to the romantic than did the others. Gallery 93-Twachtman. Here are the works of a painter who is closer to Monet than to the more vigorous American school of modified Impressionism. It is well to study one wall, A perhaps, and then to go to the Redfield and Hassam rooms, and then to the group of Monets, to see the various ways in which Impressionism has spread. Gallery 26-Whistler. The Whistler room is quite appropriately placed with the foreign historical rooms, rather than with the other one-man galleries-as if Whistler should be grouped with the influences rather than the influenced. The room contains none of the artist's finest paintings, but is well representative of the several sides of his work. Wall D shows Whistler the portraitist, with "his faces and figures that emerge from a soft black background, very much as one sees a person in the gathering twilight." On walls A and B it is Whistler the colorist, and on wall B especially, Whistler the rediscoverer of Japanese color and figure composition. On wall D is the "Study of Jo," an uncharacteristic early work, which shows the influence of Courbet. American Section: Prints The American prints occupy rooms 29 to 34, along the west wall of the building just south of the central vestibule. The exhibit is very representative, and contains both historical and contemporary sections. Gallery 29-Prints by Whistler. Here is a collection of Whistler's etchings and lithographs, with a few drawings. The distinguishing quality is an exquisite delicacy. Gallery 30-Historical Prints. In this room one can trace the development of American engraving and etching from the beginnings to the present day. Starting on wall D one finds steel engraving illustrated from the days of Paul Revere to its decadence; then the history of wood-engraving to its flowering in Cole and Wolf; early and recent American etching; and a few modern copper engravings and lithographs. Gallery 31-Prints by Pennell. This room contains a splendid collection of prints from all of Joseph Pennell's important series, in etching, lithography and mezzotint-a remarkable display by one of the world's greatest etchers. Galleries 32 and 33-Contemporary Etchers. These two rooms contain a rich collection of contemporary American work that should be studied print by print. Even a superficial look will indicate that even without Pennell and Whistler the American etchers are doing work universally worth while. Gallery 34-Color Prints. Here is an interesting collection of color prints in both etching and wood engraving. It shows the achievement of the younger artists in mediums that were practically unknown in this country ten years ago. American Section: Illustration Galleries 41 and 42 are given up to drawings and paintings by Howard Pyle, who has been called "the father of modern American illustration." Gallery 26, adjoining the Italian section, contains a small but fairly interesting group of original drawings for illustration. In the work of Wyeth, Schoonover, Elizabeth Shippen Green, Jessie Wilcox Smith, and others, there is very strong evidence of Howard Pyle's influence. On wall B of this room, and in the adjoining gallery 27, there is a collection of photographs of American sculpture and mural paintings. Gallery 36, adjoining the main west vestibule, has a miscellaneous collection of drawings and paintings in all mediums, ranging from the most delicate and polished to caricature and sketchiness run riot. There is a great deal of interest, but little that is important in a big way. American Section: Miniatures Galleries 37 and 40 contain an excellent collection of miniatures, ranging from a work by Malbone, the first important American in this field, to that of such notable contemporaries as W. J. Baer, Laura C. Hills, and Lucia Fairchild Fuller. In both miniature rooms there are a number of paintings and drawings, in various mediums, including, in room 40, a few oils by Jules Guerin, the color wizard of the Exposition. American Section: Sculpture Of the monumental sculpture of the American Section most of the finest examples are out-of-doors. The central hall of the gallery building contains a collection that is worth studying piece by piece, including such notable things as Daniel Chester French's "Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial," Karl Bitter's "Signing the Louisiana Purchase Treaty" and "Tappan Memorial," and Robert Aitken's "Mausoleum Door." But by far the most notable thing about the sculpture display is the extensive collection of charming small bronzes, which is scattered through the many rooms. The visitor should especially make sure of seeing certain individual group exhibits, such as the very freely rendered figures by Paul Troubetzkoy in the International Room (108), Paul Manship's groups, with their touch of classic appeal, in gallery 93, and the cases of statuettes by Abastenia St. Leger Eberle and Bessie Potter Vonnoh, in gallery 65. Very rich in interest, too, is the collection of medals and plaques, shown in galleries 38 and 39. Foreign Sections The foreign sections are in two groups, at the two ends of the building. There is no system in their arrangement, and they are treated here in the order in which they happen to be placed, beginning at the far south end. The Japanese Section occupies galleries 1 to 10. To appreciate Japanese art it is necessary to become accustomed to the conventionalization of treatment-to understand what the artist was after, and to judge from that standpoint. It is well to begin by studying works that are more like Western art-such things as "Moving Clouds" (15) and "Evening: Nawa Harbor" (12) in room 1-and then to progress to the works in which the conventions are more pronounced. Note, throughout the paintings in rooms 1, 2 and 3, the delicacy of tone, the color harmony, and the fine sense of composition and pattern. In galleries 8 and 10 are collections of Japanese sculpture and painting, done in the Western manner. It is interesting to see what the Oriental artist can accomplish in an alien medium; but neither for the Japanese nor for the American can these works have the same genuine appeal as those in galleries 1 to 3. The other rooms contain a varied collection of porcelain, embroidery, wood and ivory carving, and prints. The French Section is one of the most interesting, but is hardly representative of the best that country has achieved in art. The general average is such that it upholds France's traditional standing as the home of "good painting," but this is by no means a collection of masterpieces. The most noticeable tendency is that toward the decorative. The galleries of the French section have been re-numbered, beginning with 1. Gallery 1 is a rather poor room on the whole, though it, contains two canvases on the north wall by Lucien Simon, typical of that artist's masterly breadth of treatment. On the west wall, beside the doorway, are two of Aman-Jean's portraits. The little landscape (429) under one of these, by Marcel-Clement, is notable, as are also Jean Domerque's decorative canvas on the south wall and Maury's three nude girls on the north. Gallery 2 is most interesting for the group on the north wall, where the place of honor is given to Henri Martin's work. Here is an artist who has carried Impressionism to its limit of vibrating light and color. The large central canvas should be seen from the Japanese room. The self-portrait (433) is even more interesting. On this wall are pictures that offer a striking comparison of methods of painting. Gallery 3 is made especially interesting by the domination of one man, Maurice Denis, who is the leader among the "advanced" decorators of France. There is much that is worthy of study in the simplicity and in the color of his panels here. The room contains also a number of examples of the new and ultra-new schools, from Monet and Degas to Redon and Puy. Gallery 4 contains few outstanding features, the more conservative element predominating. There is charming color in Caro-Delvaille's canvas on the East wall (279), and there is a Lucien Simon on the south wall. Gallery 5 likewise is not very important. Gallery 6 especially illustrates the decorative tendency. On the north wall are panels by Auburtin, a follower of de Chavannes, and by Devoux, which are pure decorations. On the south wall is a large canvas by the celebrated Menard; but his little seascape on the west wall (445) is more appealing, being one of the most attractive things in the section. Note how the decorative tendency characterizes not only these outdoor pictures, but the neighboring portraits as well. On the east wall is a canvas by le Sidaner, a leader of the plein-air school, which reminds one that good French landscapes are few in this exhibit. The Italian Section is the best arranged in the galleries. There is a general feeling of orderliness and rest that is quite welcome as one comes from the overcrowded American rooms. The Italian paintings do not give the impression of an exhibition of masterpieces-indeed there are very few canvases that demand special notice-but they are well up to the average set in the other sections. Gallery 21 is the most interesting. On the wall facing the main doorway are five pictures by Ettore Tito, perhaps the greatest and certainly the most popular, of Italian painters. All are strong, and they are painted with a bigness and a sureness of touch that are compelling. Very interesting too are the canvases on the adjoining wall by Camillo Innocenti, who has achieved the vibrating light and fresh coloring of the Impressionist School in an individual way. Gallery 22 contains a varied collection, ranging from the academic to the radical. Here are two canvases by Arturo Noci, one of the leaders of the Italian Secession. Gallery 23 is given up mainly to sculpture. The most compelling thing is d'Orsi's realistic "Tired Peasant." With the exception of some of the small bronzes, the rest of the sculpture of the section is hardly notable. Gallery 24 contains a very interesting canvas in Plinio Nomellini's picture of a woman and child in a boat drawn up under a tree. The thing is full of sunlight and sparkling color; and it strikes a good medium between the old tight painting and that which carries Impressionism too far-both of which extremes can be seen in plenty in this room. Gallery 25 is an average room, without special features. The Cuban Section occupies gallery 20, next to the Italian section. There is hardly a picture here that does not seem labored in comparison with the freedom elsewhere. The Uruguay Section, in the adjoining gallery 19, is just the opposite full of freshness and vigor, and brilliant in color. But the gift of brilliancy is rather undisciplined, and while there is unmistakable promise, one feels that the art of Uruguay has not yet found itself. The Chinese Section occupies galleries 94 to 97, and is notable for the paintings on silk and paper, the cloisonne, and the lacquer. There is a wealth of interesting material in the display, but it really requires a great amount of study for full appreciation. The Chinese Commission has prepared a special catalogue, which can be had in the rooms if one is specially interested. The Philippine Section, in the adjoining gallery 98, is almost negligible in a building where there is so much really worth seeing though some of the paintings by Felix Hidalgo have a dramatic interest. The Swedish Section, in galleries 99 to 107, is one of the most important in the building. One who likes a gentle, polished sort of art will not be at home here; but for virile, fresh and colorful painting there is no other section that achieves the same high standard. Many of the pictures are so strong and big that they never should have been put in these box-like little rooms, where a proper perspective is impossible. In the paintings there are traces of French and German training, and especially of Impressionism; but the exhibit shows more true national feeling and more individual independence than any other in the building. The two featured groups are the remarkable paintings and tapestries of Gustav Adolf Fjaestad in gallery 107-well worthy of long study-and the paintings and prints of Carl Larsson in gallery 101. But there are many other things quite as important: the brilliant and fresh canvases of Carlburg, the snow scenes touched with late sunlight, by Schultzberg, and the compelling autumn decorations by Osslund, all in gallery 102; the illustrations by Bauer in gallery 104; the big landscapes by Hesselborn in gallery 105; and the deep-toned studies by Anna Boberg, and the virile portraits, in gallery 106. If you doubt that these Swedish painters can do the polished, poetic thing, as well as the big vigorous sort, go back to gallery 103, and look at Bergstrom's atmospheric "Spring Day." The Swedish sculpture is not so remarkable as the painting; but the print section in gallery 99 contains a number of very interesting etchings and wood engravings. The Argentine Section, in gallery 112, shows much that is fresh, strong, and brilliant in color. It is interesting to see how much closer these South American painters are to Spain than to France and Germany. Here are many echoes, not only of Velasquez and Goya, but of the vital modern Spaniards like Zuloaga. The collection is very uneven; but in the work of men like Jorge Bermudez and Hector Nava there is a mighty promise if not any great achievement. The few sculptures are unusually strong and interesting. The Portuguese Section, in galleries 109 to 111, has the appearance of belonging to an older period in the history of art than the present. One feels that the artists who show pictures here have not that mastery of light which marks the Nineteenth Century's greatest advance in painting. Certainly there is evidence of a general reliance on the older standards. Perhaps the best works are those of Columbano, in the central gallery. Here too, and in the next room, are some realistic works of Malhoa that compel attention. The International Room, gallery 108, contains all that the Exposition has of German work. On wall C are such splendid things as Leo Putz' "The Shore" and Heinrich von Zugel's "In the Rhine Meadows;" and on wall A is Franz Stuck's "Summer Night"-by no means one of this decorator's best works, though characteristically rich and deep-toned. But one feels the lack of those others who have lately lifted Germany back among the greatest nations artistically: von Uhde, Liebermann, von Gebhardt, Klinger, Erler, and von Hofmann. In the same way the young and virile English group is not represented, though in this room is a passable portrait by the great John Lavery. On wall D are two Spanish works of Lopez-Mezquita, that are worthy of attention but nothing of Zuloaga or Sorolla. The Holland Section, occupying galleries 113-116, contains a display that is well balanced but without outstanding features. There are echoes of many departed glories, of Rembrandt, of Hals, and even of the French Barbizon men, and a few typical beautifully lighted Dutch interiors. But there is none of the work of the men whom the art magazines have taught us to consider the representative Dutch painters of today: Israels, the Maris brothers, and Mauve. The print room is likewise good rather than splendid, unless one excepts M. A. J. Bauer's fine Rembrandtian etchings. Charles van Wyck's small bronzes are notable among the sculptures. Scattered Art Exhibits State and Foreign Buildings The Palace of Fine Arts has been reserved exclusively for painting, sculpture and prints, with the result that the material of the usual "arts and crafts" exhibitions has been badly scattered. Certain exhibits have been taken to the state and foreign buildings, some of which are also of interest architecturally; but most of the craftswork is to be found in the four exhibition palaces on the Avenue of Palms. The Palace of Varied Industries contains, between 5th and 6th Streets, three important displays: at Avenue A is Denmark's exhibition of porcelain and pottery, with a small section devoted to the book arts; at Avenue B is an excellent display of German porcelain; and at Avenue D is the Netherlands exhibit of porcelain and pottery. At 4th Street and Avenue C is the exhibition of Chinese arts and crafts. The American section of so-called "Domestic Arts and Crafts" is at 1st Street and Avenue C, and contains a very small but select showing of all the usual handicrafts. Elsewhere in the building there are minor displays of textiles, ceramics, tapestries, silver work, and interior decoration, installed by commercial firms. One can see looms working, jewelry being made, and China being painted. The Palace of Manufactures is notable for the extensive arts and crafts exhibit of Japan, which covers almost one-quarter of the building's floor space; for that of Italy, which includes a large number of statuettes besides the usual departments; and for those of France, and Great Britain and Ireland. One will find all of these displays by walking along Avenue C. The Palace of Liberal Arts contains a few exhibits of the book arts and architecture. The most important architectural display is that in the United States Government Section, shown by the National Fine Arts Commission. On Avenue D between 1st and 5th Streets there are displays of fine photography. The Palace of Education contains the exhibition of the American art schools, at Avenue B and 6th Street. At Avenue E and 3rd Street pottery is made. In the group of palaces on the Marina there is little to interest in art matters. In the Mines Palace the Government's exhibit of coins and medals is of some interest. In the Transportation Palace the student of applied art can find much to think about in the relation of art to automobile design. In the Agriculture and Food Products Palaces there is little to attract the art-lover except at meal-time. The Italian Buildings contain an extensive museum of national historic art and archaeology, which is well worth seeing. The mural painting in the Royal Salon represents "The Glorification of Italy." The buildings reproduce historic Italian styles of architecture. The charming central court, the gardens, and the buildings contain many replicas of masterpieces of sculpture. The French Building was unfinished at the time this was written (June first), but it is to contain an extensive art display. There are to be a number of statues by Rodin, the greatest of modern sculptors, which alone would make a visit imperative for every art lover. The Swedish Building is one of the most interesting architecturally, suggesting the fine originality of recent Scandinavian architecture. It is worthy of note too, that the Norwegian and Danish buildings strike a note of freshness that is in fine contrast with most of the foreign pavilions. In all three of these buildings there are small exhibits of painting and handiwork. The Turkish Building contains an attractive exhibit of rugs; and in the Philippine Building there is a display of metal work and basketry. The State Buildings are in general designed for social purposes. That of Pennsylvania is an interesting bit of Colonial architecture, and contains two virile and colorful decorations by John Trumbull, representing "Penn's Treaty with the Indians" and "The Industries of Pennsylvania." The Maryland Building is also a simple, dignified bit of Colonial design. The Massachusetts Building reproduces the famous "Bulfinch front" of the Boston State House. The Mission style of architecture is pleasingly exemplified in the California Building. Index "Abundance"-61 Adams, Herbert-70 "Adventurous Bowman"-60 Aitken, Robert-17, 30, 74 "Aquatic Life"-22 Architecture as a Whole-9 Argentine Fine Arts Section-94 "Armored Horseman"-49 Arts and Crafts Exhibits-97 Bacon, Henry-37 Bakewell & Brown-67 Bancroft, H. Milton-40 Bateman, John-44, 67 Beach, Chester-16 "Beauty and the Beast-47 Bennett, Edward H.-10 Berge, Edward-72, 73 Bitter, Karl-11, 91 Borglum, Solon-47 Boutier, E. L.-67 Brangwyn, Frank-19 Bufano, B.-32 "Bulls, The"-37 Burroughs, Edith Woodman-51 Calder, A. Stirling-11, 30, 31, 32, 44, 47, 53, 60 Chase, William M.-88 Chinese Fine Arts Section-94 Color Scheme-11 Column of Progress-60 Corbett, Gail Sherman-73 "Cortez"-49 Court of Abundance-13 Court of Flowers-45 Court of Four Seasons-35 Court of Palms-43 Court of Universe-23 Crafts Exhibits-97 Cuban Fine Arts Section-93 Cummings, Earl-61 Dallin, Cyrus E.-73 Diagram of Art Galleries-76 Diagram of Grounds-8 Dodge, W. deL.-52 Dumond, F. V.-34 Duveneck, Frank-88 "Elements, The"-21, 30 Ellerhusen, Ulric H.-70 "End of the Trail"-44 Farquhar, Robert-67 Faville, W. B.-55 "Feast of Sacrifice"-37 Festival Hall-67 "Festivity"-31 Fine Arts Galleries-77 Flanagan, John-49 Florentine Court-34 Foreign Buildings-98 Fountain of Ceres-40 Fountain of Earth-17 Fountain of El Dorado-51 Fountain of Energy-53 Fountain of Rising Sun-25 Fountain of Setting Sun-27 Fountain of Youth-49 Fountains of the Seasons-39 Fraser, James Earl-44 French, Daniel Chester-74 French Building-98 French Fine Arts Section-92 Fry, Sherry E.-22, 67, 73 "Genius of Creation"-65 Gerlach, Gustave-57 Gruppe, Carl-44, 47 Half-dome of Philosophy-57 Half-dome of Physical Vigor-61 Harley, Charles R.-61 "Harvest"-39 Hassam, Childe-45, 88 Hastings, Thomas-49 Historical Fine Arts-79 Holland Fine Arts Section-95 Holloway, Charles W.-44 Illustration Section-90 International Room-95 Italian Building-98 Italian Fine Arts Section-93 Italian Towers-43 Jaegers, Albert-37, 39 Jaegers, August-40 Japanese Fine Arts Section-91 Keith, William-88 Kelham, George W.-44, 47 Konti, Isidore-60 Ladd, Anna Coleman-72, 75 Laessle, Albert-47 Lentelli, Leo-17, 30, 31, 71 Lighting-12 Longnan, Evelyn B.-40, 74 Manship, Paul-31, 91 Mathews, Arthur F.-45, 87 Maybeck, Bernard R.-70 McKenzie, Robert T.-72, 74 McKim, Mead & White-25 McLaren, John-12 MacNeil, Hermon A.-31, 60 Medals-91 Melchers, Gari-88 Mermaid Fountain-66 Miniature Section-90 "Mother of Tomorrow"-30 "Motion"-31 Mullgardt, Louis C.-15 Mullgardt Tower-15 Murals-In Arches-32 Murals-Court of Abundance-19 Murals-Court of Four Seasons-40 Murals-Court of Palms-44 Murals-Fine Arts Rotunda-71 Murals-Tower of Jewels-52 "Music"-31 "Nations of the East"-29 "Nations of the West"-29 Newman, Allen-59 Niehaus, Charles-49 Outdoor Gallery of Sculpture-72 Palace of Agriculture-61 Palace of Education-57, 97 Palace of Fine Arts-69 Palace of Food Products-69 Palace of Horticulture-67 Palace of Liberal Arts-56, 97 Palace of Machinery-62 Palace of Manufactures-56, 97 Palace of Mines-59 Palace of Transportation-59 Palace of Varied Industries-55, 97 Patigian, Haig-63, 73 Pennell, Joseph-89 Philippine Fine Arts Section-94 Piccirilli, Furio-40 Pietro, C. S.-75 "Pioneer, The-47 "Pizarro"-49 Portal of Varied Industries-56 Portals of North Facades-59 Portuguese Fine Arts Section-95 Print Section-89 Putnam, Arthur-66 Pyle, Howard-90 Redfield, E. W.-88 Reid, Robert-71 Richardson, W. Symmes-60 Rodin-98 Roth, F. G. R.-30, 32 Rumsey, Charles C.-49 Ryan, W. D'Arcy-12 St. Gaudens-72, 73 Sargent, John Singer-87 Scudder, Janet-75 Sculpture Section-72, 90 "Signs of the Zodiac"- 31 Simmons, Edward-33 South Gardens-66 Stackpole, Ralph-56, 57, 61, 71 "Stars"-31 State Buildings-98 Swedish Building-98 Swedish Fine Arts Section-94 Tarbell, Edmund C.-88 Tonetti, F. M. L.-49 "Torch Bearer"-67 Tower of Jewels-48 Tower of Jewels-Height-34 "Triumph of the Field"-61 Troubetzkoy, Paul-91 Twachtman-89 "Types of Power"-62 Ulrich, Louis-55 U. S. Fine Arts Section-79 Uruguay Fine Arts Section-93 Venetian Court-34 "Victorious Spirit"-45 Walter, Edgar-47 Ward, Clarence R.-62 Ward, J. Q. A.-73 "Water Sprites"-17 Weinert, Albert-17, 44, 56, 57 Whistler-89 Whitney, Gertrude V.-51 "Winged Victory"-55 Young, Mahonri-56 Zimm, Bruno Louis-70 Copies of this guide can be obtained from any bookseller or newsdealer, or will be sent postpaid on receipt of 50 cent, by The Sign of the Berkeley Oak, 2241 College Avenue, Berkeley, California 
8706	----	THE DORE GALLERY OF BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrated by Gustave Dore Volume 6. THE NATIVITY. And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid: And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it, wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.--Luke ii. THE STAR IN THE EAST. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him; In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem! in the land of Juda, are not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of the shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently, what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king, they parted; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.--Matthew ii, I-10. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: and was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.--Matthew ii 13-15. THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.--Matthew ii, 16-18. JESUS QUESTIONING THE DOCTORS. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother, knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that, ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my father's business? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Luke ii, 41-52. JESUS HEALING THE SICK. And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy;--and he healed them.--Matthew iv, 23--24. SERMON ON THE MOUNT. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him. And he opened his mouth and taught them. And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.--Matthew iv, 25; v, 1-2, 28-29, viii, I. CHRIST STILLING THE TEMPEST. And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marveled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?--Matthew viii, 23-27. THE DUMB MAN POSSESSED. As they went out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil. And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake: and the multitudes marveled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel. But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.--Matthew ix, 32-34 CHRIST IN THE SYNAGOGUE. And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence. And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house. And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.--Matthew xiii, 53-58 THE DISCIPLES PLUCKING CORN ON THE SABBATH. And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungered, he, and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.--Mark ii, 23-28. 
8523	----	VAL D'ARNO BY JOHN RUSKIN, M.A. LECTURE I. NICHOLAS THE PISAN LECTURE II. JOHN THE PISAN LECTURE III. SHIELD AND APRON LECTURE IV. PARTED PER PALE LECTURE V. PAX VOBISCUM LECTURE VI. MARBLE COUCHANT LECTURE VII. MARBLE RAMPANT LECTURE VIII. FRANCHISE LECTURE IX. THE TYRRHENE SEA LECTURE X. FLEUR DE LYS APPENDIX LIST OF PLATES. THE ANCIENT SHORES OF ARNO I. THE PISAN LATONA II. NICCOLA PISANO'S PULPIT III. THE FOUNTAIN OF PERUGIA IV. NORMAN IMAGERY V. DOOR OF THE BAPTISTERY. PISA VI. THE STORY OF ST. JOHN. ADVENT VII. " " " " " DEPARTURE VIII. "THE CHARGE TO ADAM" GIOVANNI PISANO IX. " " " " MODERN ITALIAN X. THE NATIVITY. GIOVANNI PISANO XI. " " MODERN ITALIAN XII. THE ANNUNCIATION AND VISITATION VAL D'ARNO TEN LECTURES ON THE TUSCAN ART DIRECTLY ANTECEDENT TO THE FLORENTINE YEAR OF VICTORIES GIVEN BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN MICHAELMAS TERM, 1873 LECTURE I. NICHOLAS THE PISAN. 1. On this day, of this month, the 20th of October, six hundred and twenty-three years ago, the merchants and tradesmen of Florence met before the church of Santa Croce; marched through the city to the palace of their Podesta; deposed their Podesta; set over themselves, in his place, a knight belonging to an inferior city; called him "Captain of the People;" appointed under him a Signory of twelve Ancients chosen from among themselves; hung a bell for him on the tower of the Lion, that he might ring it at need, and gave him the flag of Florence to bear, half white, and half red. The first blow struck upon the bell in that tower of the Lion began the tolling for the passing away of the feudal system, and began the joy-peal, or carillon, for whatever deserves joy, in that of our modern liberties, whether of action or of trade. 2. Within the space of our Oxford term from that day, namely, on the 13th of December in the same year, 1250, died, at Ferentino, in Apulia, the second Frederick, Emperor of Germany; the second also of the two great lights which in his lifetime, according to Dante's astronomy, ruled the world,--whose light being quenched, "the land which was once the residence of courtesy and valour, became the haunt of all men who are ashamed to be near the good, or to speak to them." "In sul paese chadice e po riga solea valore e cortesia trovar si prima che federigo Bavessi briga, or puo sicuramente indi passarsi per qualuuche lasciassi per vergogna di ragionar co buoni, e appressarsi." PURO., Cant. 16. 3. The "Paese che Adice e Po riga" is of course Lombardy; and might have been enough distinguished by the name of its principal river. But Dante has an especial reason for naming the Adige. It is always by the valley of the Adige that the power of the German Caesars descends on Italy; and that battlemented bridge, which doubtless many of you remember, thrown over the Adige at Verona, was so built that the German riders might have secure and constant access to the city. In which city they had their first stronghold in Italy, aided therein by the great family of the Montecchi, Montacutes, Mont-aigu-s, or Montagues; lords, so called, of the mountain peaks; in feud with the family of the Cappelletti,--hatted, or, more properly, scarlet-hatted, persons. And this accident of nomenclature, assisted by your present familiar knowledge of the real contests of the sharp mountains with the flat caps, or petasoi, of cloud, (locally giving Mont Pilate its title, "Pileatus,") may in many points curiously illustrate for you that contest of Frederick the Second with Innocent the Fourth, which in the good of it and the evil alike, represents to all time the war of the solid, rational, and earthly authority of the King, and State, with the more or less spectral, hooded, imaginative, and nubiform authority of the Pope, and Church. 4. It will be desirable also that you clearly learn the material relations, governing spiritual ones,--as of the Alps to their clouds, so of the plains to their rivers. And of these rivers, chiefly note the relation to each other, first, of the Adige and Po; then of the Arno and Tiber. For the Adige, representing among the rivers and fountains of waters the channel of Imperial, as the Tiber of the Papal power, and the strength of the Coronet being founded on the white peaks that look down upon Hapsburg and Hohenzollern, as that of the Scarlet Cap in the marsh of the Campagna, "quo tenuis in sicco aqua destituisset," the study of the policies and arts of the cities founded in the two great valleys of Lombardy and Tuscany, so far as they were affected by their bias to the Emperor, or the Church, will arrange itself in your minds at once in a symmetry as clear as it will be, in our future work, secure and suggestive. 5. "Tenuis, in sicco." How literally the words apply, as to the native streams, so to the early states or establishings of the great cities of the world. And you will find that the policy of the Coronet, with its tower-building; the policy of the Hood, with its dome-building; and the policy of the bare brow, with its cot-building,--the three main associations of human energy to which we owe the architecture of our earth, (in contradistinction to the dens and caves of it,)--are curiously and eternally governed by mental laws, corresponding to the physical ones which are ordained for the rocks, the clouds, and the streams. The tower, which many of you so well remember the daily sight of, in your youth, above the "winding shore" of Thames,--the tower upon the hill of London; the dome which still rises above its foul and terrestrial clouds; and the walls of this city itself, which has been "alma," nourishing in gentleness, to the youth of England, because defended from external hostility by the difficultly fordable streams of its plain, may perhaps, in a few years more, be swept away as heaps of useless stone; but the rocks, and clouds, and rivers of our country will yet, one day, restore to it the glory of law, of religion, and of life. 6. I am about to ask you to read the hieroglyphs upon the architecture of a dead nation, in character greatly resembling our own,--in laws and in commerce greatly influencing our own;--in arts, still, from her grave, tutress of the present world. I know that it will be expected of me to explain the merits of her arts, without reference to the wisdom of her laws; and to describe the results of both, without investigating the feelings which regulated either. I cannot do this; but I will at once end these necessarily vague, and perhaps premature, generalizations; and only ask you to study some portions of the life and work of two men, father and son, citizens of the city in which the energies of this great people were at first concentrated; and to deduce from that study the conclusions, or follow out the inquiries, which it may naturally suggest. 7. It is the modern fashion to despise Vasari. He is indeed despicable, whether as historian or critic,--not least in his admiration of Michael Angelo; nevertheless, he records the traditions and opinions of his day; and these you must accurately know, before you can wisely correct. I will take leave, therefore, to begin to-day with a sentence from Vasari, which many of you have often heard quoted, but of which, perhaps, few have enough observed the value. "Niccola Pisano finding himself under certain Greek sculptors who were carving the figures and other intaglio ornaments of the cathedral of Pisa, and of the temple of St. John, and there being, among many spoils of marbles, brought by the Pisan fleet, [1] some ancient tombs, there was one among the others most fair, on which was sculptured the hunting of Meleager." [2] [Footnote 1: "Armata." The proper word for a land army is "esercito."] [Footnote 2: Vol. i., p. 60, of Mrs. Foster's English translation, to which I shall always refer, in order that English students may compare the context if they wish. But the pieces of English which I give are my own direct translation, varying, it will be found, often, from Mrs. Foster's, in minute, but not unimportant, particulars.] Get the meaning and contents of this passage well into your minds. In the gist of it, it is true, and very notable. 8. You are in mid thirteenth century; 1200-1300. The Greek nation has been dead in heart upwards of a thousand years; its religion dead, for six hundred. But through the wreck of its faith, and death in its heart, the skill of its hands, and the cunning of its design, instinctively linger. In the centuries of Christian power, the Christians are still unable to build but under Greek masters, and by pillage of Greek shrines; and their best workman is only an apprentice to the 'Graeculi esurientes' who are carving the temple of St. John. 9. Think of it. Here has the New Testament been declared for 1200 years. No spirit of wisdom, as yet, has been given to its workmen, except that which has descended from the Mars Hill on which St. Paul stood contemptuous in pity. No Bezaleel arises, to build new tabernacles, unless he has been taught by Daedalus. 10. It is necessary, therefore, for you first to know precisely the manner of these Greek masters in their decayed power; the manner which Vasari calls, only a sentence before, "That old Greek manner, blundering, disproportioned,"--Goffa, e sproporzionata. "Goffa," the very word which Michael Angelo uses of Perugino. Behold, the Christians despising the Dunce Greeks, as the Infidel modernists despise the Dunce Christians. [1] [Footnote 1: Compare "Ariadne Floreutina," § 46.] 11. I sketched for you, when I was last at Pisa, a few arches of the apse of the duomo, and a small portion of the sculpture of the font of the Temple of St. John. I have placed them in your rudimentary series, as examples of "quella vecchia maniera Greca, goffa e sproporzionata." My own judgment respecting them is,--and it is a judgment founded on knowledge which you may, if you choose, share with me, after working with me,--that no architecture on this grand scale, so delicately skilful in execution, or so daintily disposed in proportion, exists elsewhere in the world. 12. Is Vasari entirely wrong then? No, only half wrong, but very fatally half wrong. There are Greeks, and Greeks. This head with the inlaid dark iris in its eyes, from the font of St. John, is as pure as the sculpture of early Greece, a hundred years before Phidias; and it is so delicate, that having drawn with equal care this and the best work of the Lombardi at Venice (in the church of the Miracoli), I found this to possess the more subtle qualities of design. And yet, in the cloisters of St. John Lateran at Rome, you have Greek work, if not contemporary with this at Pisa, yet occupying a parallel place in the history of architecture, which is abortive, and monstrous beyond the power of any words to describe. Vasari knew no difference between these two kinds of Greek work. Nor do your modern architects. To discern the difference between the sculpture of the font of Pisa, and the spandrils of the Lateran cloister, requires thorough training of the hand in the finest methods of draughtsmanship; and, secondly, trained habit of reading the mythology and ethics of design. I simply assure you of the fact at present; and if you work, you may have sight and sense of it. 13. There are Greeks, and Greeks, then, in the twelfth century, differing as much from each other as vice, in all ages, must differ from virtue. But in Vasari's sight they are alike; in ours, they must be so, as far as regards our present purpose. As men of a school, they are to be summed under the general name of 'Byzantines;' their work all alike showing specific characters of attenuate, rigid, and in many respects offensively unbeautiful, design, to which Vasari's epithets of "goffa, e sproporzionata" are naturally applied by all persons trained only in modern principles. Under masters, then, of this Byzantine race, Niccola is working at Pisa. 14. Among the spoils brought by her fleets from Greece, is a sarcophagus, with Meleager's hunt on it, wrought "con bellissima maniera," says Vasari. You may see that sarcophagus--any of you who go to Pisa;--touch it, for it is on a level with your hand; study it, as Niccola studied it, to your mind's content. Within ten yards of it, stand equally accessible pieces of Niccola's own work and of his son's. Within fifty yards of it, stands the Byzantine font of the chapel of St. John. Spend but the good hours of a single day quietly by these three pieces of marble, and you may learn more than in general any of you bring home from an entire tour in Italy. But how many of you ever yet went into that temple of St. John, knowing what to look for; or spent as much time in the Campo Santo of Pisa, as you do in Mr. Ryman's shop on a rainy day? 15. The sarcophagus is not, however, (with Vasari's pardon) in 'bellissima maniera' by any means. But it is in the classical Greek manner instead of the Byzantine Greek manner. You have to learn the difference between these. Now I have explained to you sufficiently, in "Aratra Pentelici," what the classical Greek manner is. The manner and matter of it being easily summed--as those of natural and unaffected life;--nude life when nudity is right and pure; not otherwise. To Niccola, the difference between this natural Greek school, and the Byzantine, was as the difference between the bull of Thurium and of Delhi, (see Plate 19 of "Aratra Pentelici"). Instantly he followed the natural fact, and became the Father of Sculpture to Italy. 16. Are we, then, also to be strong by following the natural fact? Yes, assuredly. That is the beginning and end of all my teaching to you. But the noble natural fact, not the ignoble. You are to study men; not lice nor entozoa. And you are to study the souls of men in their bodies, not their bodies only. Mulready's drawings from the nude are more degraded and bestial than the worst grotesques of the Byzantine or even the Indian image makers. And your modern mob of English and American tourists, following a lamplighter through the Vatican to have pink light thrown for them on the Apollo Belvidere, are farther from capacity of understanding Greek art, than the parish charity boy, making a ghost out of a turnip, with a candle inside. 17. Niccola followed the facts, then. He is the Master of Naturalism in Italy. And I have drawn for you his lioness and cubs, to fix that in your minds. And beside it, I put the Lion of St. Mark's, that you may see exactly the kind of change he made. The Lion of St. Mark's (all but his wings, which have been made and fastened on in the fifteenth century), is in the central Byzantine manner; a fine decorative piece of work, descending in true genealogy from the Lion of Nemea, and the crested skin of him that clothes the head of the Heracles of Camarina. It has all the richness of Greek Daedal work,--nay, it has fire and life beyond much Greek Daedal work; but in so far as it is non-natural, symbolic, decorative, and not like an actual lion, it would be felt by Niccola Pisano to be imperfect. And instead of this decorative evangelical preacher of a lion, with staring eyes, and its paw on a gospel, he carves you a quite brutal and maternal lioness, with affectionate eyes, and paw set on her cub. 18. Fix that in your minds, then. Niccola Pisano is the Master of Naturalism in Italy,--therefore elsewhere; of Naturalism, and all that follows. Generally of truth, common-sense, simplicity, vitality,--and of all these, with consummate power. A man to be enquired about, is not he? and will it not make a difference to you whether you look, when you travel in Italy, in his rough early marbles for this fountain of life, or only glance at them because your Murray's Guide tells you,--and think them "odd old things"? 19. We must look for a moment more at one odd old thing--the sarcophagus which was his tutor. Upon it is carved the hunting of Meleager; and it was made, or by tradition received as, the tomb of the mother of the Countess Matilda. I must not let you pass by it without noticing two curious coincidences in these particulars. First, in the Greek subject which is given Niccola to read. The boar, remember, is Diana's enemy. It is sent upon the fields of Calydon in punishment of the refusal of the Calydonians to sacrifice to her. 'You have refused _me_,' she said; 'you will not have Artemis Laphria, Forager Diana, to range in your fields. You shall have the Forager Swine, instead.' Meleager and Atalanta are Diana's servants,--servants of all order, purity, due sequence of season, and time. The orbed architecture of Tuscany, with its sculptures of the succession of the labouring months, as compared with the rude vaults and monstrous imaginations of the past, was again the victory of Meleager. 20. Secondly, take what value there is in the tradition that this sarcophagus was made the tomb of the mother of the [Illustration: PLATE I:--THE PISAN LATONA. Angle of Panel of the Adoration, in Niccola's Pulpit.] Countess Matilda. If you look to the fourteenth chapter of the third volume of "Modern Painters," you will find the mythic character of the Countess Matilda, as Dante employed it explained at some length. She is the representative of Natural Science as opposed to Theological. 21. Chance coincidences merely, these; but full of teaching for us, looking back upon the past. To Niccola, the piece of marble was, primarily, and perhaps exclusively, an example of free chiselling, and humanity of treatment. What else it was to him,--what the spirits of Atalanta and Matilda could bestow on him, depended on what he was himself. Of which Vasari tells you nothing. Not whether he was gentleman or clown--rich or poor--soldier or sailor. Was he never, then, in those fleets that brought the marbles back from the ravaged Isles of Greece? was he at first only a labourer's boy among the scaffoldings of the Pisan apse,--his apron loaded with dust--and no man praising him for his speech? Rough he was, assuredly; probably poor; fierce and energetic, beyond even the strain of Pisa,--just and kind, beyond the custom of his age, knowing the Judgment and Love of God: and a workman, with all his soul and strength, all his days. 22. You hear the fame of him as of a sculptor only. It is right that you should; for every great architect must be a sculptor, and be renowned, as such, more than by his building. But Niccola Pisano had even more influence on Italy as a builder than as a carver. For Italy, at this moment, wanted builders more than carvers; and a change was passing through her life, of which external edifice was a necessary sign. I complained of you just now that you never looked at the Byzantine font in the temple of St. John. The sacristan generally will not let you. He takes you to a particular spot on the floor, and sings a musical chord. The chord returns in prolonged echo from the chapel roof, as if the building were all one sonorous marble bell. Which indeed it is; and travellers are always greatly amused at being allowed to ring this bell; but it never occurs to them to ask how it came to be ringable:--how that tintinnabulate roof differs from the dome of the Pantheon, expands into the dome of Florence, or declines into the whispering gallery of St. Paul's. 23. When you have had full satisfaction of the tintinnabulate roof, you are led by the sacristan and Murray to Niccola Pisano's pulpit; which, if you have spare time to examine it, you find to have six sides, to be decorated with tablets of sculpture, like the sides of the sarcophagus, and to be sustained on seven pillars, three of which are themselves carried on the backs of as many animals. All this arrangement had been contrived before Niccola's time, and executed again and again. But behold! between the capitals of the pillars and the sculptured tablets there are interposed five cusped arches, the hollow beneath the pulpit showing dark through their foils. You have seen such cusped arches before, you think? Yes, gentlemen, _you_ have; but the Pisans had _not_. And that intermediate layer of the pulpit means--the change, in a word, for all Europe, from the Parthenon to Amiens Cathedral. For Italy it means the rise of her Gothic dynasty; it means the duomo of Milan instead of the temple of Paestum. 24. I say the duomo of Milan, only to put the change well before your eyes, because you all know that building so well. The duomo of Milan is of entirely bad and barbarous Gothic, but the passion of pinnacle and fret is in it, visibly to you, more than in other buildings. It will therefore serve to show best what fulness of change this pulpit of Niccola Pisano signifies. In it there is no passion of pinnacle nor of fret. You see the edges of it, instead of being bossed, or knopped, or crocketed, are mouldings of severest line. No vaulting, no clustered shafts, no traceries, no fantasies, no perpendicular flights of aspiration. Steady pillars, each of one polished block; useful capitals, one trefoiled arch between them; your panel above it; thereon your story of the founder of Christianity. The whole standing upon beasts, they being indeed the foundation of us, (which Niccola knew far better than Mr. Darwin); Eagle to carry your Gospel message--Dove you think it ought to be? [Illustration: PLATE II.--NICCOLA PISANO'S PULPIT.] Eagle, says Niccola, and not as symbol of St. John Evangelist only, but behold! with prey between its claws. For the Gospel, it is Niccola's opinion, is not altogether a message that you may do whatever you like, and go straight to heaven. Finally, a slab of marble, cut hollow a little to bear your book; space enough for you to speak from at ease,--and here is your first architecture of Gothic Christianity! 25. Indignant thunder of dissent from German doctors,--clamour from French savants. 'What! and our Treves, and our Strasburg, and our Poictiers, and our Chartres! And you call _this_ thing the first architecture of Christianity!' Yes, my French and German friends, very fine the buildings you have mentioned are; and I am bold to say I love them far better than you do, for you will run a railroad through any of them any day that you can turn a penny by it. I thank you also, Germans, in the name of our Lady of Strasburg, for your bullets and fire; and I thank you, Frenchmen, in the name of our Lady of Rouen, for your new haberdashers' shops in the Gothic town;--meanwhile have patience with me a little, and let me go on. 26. No passion of fretwork, or pinnacle whatever, I said, is in this Pisan pulpit. The trefoiled arch itself, pleasant as it is, seems forced a little; out of perfect harmony with the rest (see Plate II.). Unnatural, perhaps, to Niccola? Altogether unnatural to him, it is; such a thing never would have come into his head, unless some one had shown it him. Once got into his head, he puts it to good use; perhaps even he will let this somebody else put pinnacles and crockets into his head, or at least, into his son's, in a little while. Pinnacles,--crockets,--it may be, even traceries. The ground-tier of the baptistery is round-arched, and has no pinnacles; but look at its first story. The clerestory of the Duomo of Pisa has no traceries, but look at the cloister of its Campo Santo. 27. I pause at the words;--for they introduce a new group of thoughts, which presently we must trace farther. The Holy Field;--field of burial. The "cave of Machpelah which is before Mamre," of the Pisans. "There they buried Abraham, and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac, and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah." How do you think such a field becomes holy,--how separated, as the resting-place of loving kindred, from that other field of blood, bought to bury strangers in? When you have finally succeeded, by your gospel of mammon, in making all the men of your own nation not only strangers to each other, but enemies; and when your every churchyard becomes therefore a field of the stranger, the kneeling hamlet will vainly drink the chalice of God in the midst of them. The field will be unholy. No cloisters of noble history can ever be built round such an one. 28. But the very earth of this at Pisa was holy, as you know. That "armata" of the Tuscan city brought home not only marble and ivory, for treasure; but earth,--a fleet's burden,--from the place where there was healing of soul's leprosy: and their field became a place of holy tombs, prepared for its office with earth from the land made holy by one tomb; which all the knighthood of Christendom had been pouring out its life to win. 29. I told you just now that this sculpture of Niccola's was the beginning of Christian architecture. How do you judge that Christian architecture in the deepest meaning of it to differ from all other? All other noble architecture is for the glory of living gods and men; but this is for the glory of death, in God and man. Cathedral, cloister, or tomb,--shrine for the body of Christ, or for the bodies of the saints. All alike signifying death to this world;--life, other than of this world. Observe, I am not saying how far this feeling, be it faith, or be it imagination, is true or false;--I only desire you to note that the power of all Christian work begins in the niche of the catacomb and depth of the sarcophagus, and is to the end definable as architecture of the tomb. 30. Not altogether, and under every condition, sanctioned in doing such honour to the dead by the Master of it. Not every grave is by His command to be worshipped. Graves there may be--too little guarded, yet dishonourable;--"ye are as graves that appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them." And graves too much guarded, yet dishonourable, "which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but are within full of all uncleanness." Or graves, themselves honourable, yet which it may be, in us, a crime to adorn. "For they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres." Questions, these, collateral; or to be examined in due time; for the present it is enough for us to know that all Christian architecture, as such, has been hitherto essentially of tombs. It has been thought, gentlemen, that there is a fine Gothic revival in your streets of Oxford, because you have a Gothic door to your County Bank: Remember, at all events, it was other kind of buried treasure, and bearing other interest, which Niccola Pisano's Gothic was set to guard. LECTURE II. JOHN THE PISAN. 31. I closed my last lecture with the statement, on which I desired to give you time for reflection, that Christian architecture was, in its chief energy, the adornment of tombs,--having the passionate function of doing honour to the dead. But there is an ethic, or simply didactic and instructive architecture, the decoration of which you will find to be normally representative of the virtues which are common alike to Christian and Greek. And there is a natural tendency to adopt such decoration, and the modes of design fitted for it, in civil buildings. [1] [Footnote: "These several rooms were indicated by symbol and device: Victory for the soldier, Hope for the exile, the Muses for the poets, Mercury for the artists, Paradise for the preacher."--(Sagacius Gazata, of the Palace of Can Grande. I translate only Sismondi's quotation.)] 32. _Civil_, or _civic_, I say, as opposed to military. But again observe, there are two kinds of military building. One, the robber's castle, or stronghold, out of which he issues to pillage; the other, the honest man's castle, or stronghold, into which he retreats from pillage. They are much like each other in external forms;--but Injustice, or Unrighteousness, sits in the gate of the one, veiled with forest branches, (see Giotto's painting of him); and Justice or Righteousness _enters_ by the gate of the other, over strewn forest branches. Now, for example of this second kind of military architecture, look at Carlyle's account of Henry the Fowler, [1] and of his building military towns, or burgs, to protect his peasantry. In such function you have the first and proper idea of a walled town,--a place into which the pacific country people can retire for safety, as the Athenians in the Spartan war. Your fortress of this kind is a religious and civil fortress, or burg, defended by burgers, trained to defensive war. Keep always this idea of the proper nature of a fortified city:--Its walls mean protection,--its gates hospitality and triumph. In the language familiar to you, spoken of the chief of cities: "Its walls are to be Salvation, and its gates to be Praise." And recollect always the inscription over the north gate of Siena: "Cor magis tibi Sena pandit."--"More than her gates, Siena opens her heart to you." [Footnote 1: "Frederick," vol. i.] 33. When next you enter London by any of the great lines, I should like you to consider, as you approach the city, what the feelings of the heart of London are likely to be on your approach, and at what part of the railroad station an inscription, explaining such state of her heart, might be most fitly inscribed. Or you would still better understand the difference between ancient and modern principles of architecture by taking a cab to the Elephant and Castle, and thence walking to London Bridge by what is in fact the great southern entrance of London. The only gate receiving you is, however, the arch thrown over the road to carry the South-Eastern Railway itself; and the only exhibition either of Salvation or Praise is in the cheap clothes' shops on each side; and especially in one colossal haberdasher's shop, over which you may see the British flag waving (in imitation of Windsor Castle) when the master of the shop is at home. 34. Next to protection from external hostility, the two necessities in a city are of food and water supply;--the latter essentially constant. You can store food and forage, but water must flow freely. Hence the Fountain and the Mercato become the centres of civil architecture. Premising thus much, I will ask you to look once more at this cloister of the Campo Santo of Pisa. 35. On first entering the place, its quiet, its solemnity, the perspective of its aisles, and the conspicuous grace and precision of its traceries, combine to give you the sensation of having entered a true Gothic cloister. And if you walk round it hastily, and, glancing only at a fresco or two, and the confused tombs erected against them, return to the uncloistered sunlight of the piazza, you may quite easily carry away with you, and ever afterwards retain, the notion that the Campo Santo of Pisa is the same kind of thing as the cloister of Westminster Abbey. 36. I will beg you to look at the building, thus photographed, more attentively. The "long-drawn aisle" is here, indeed,--but where is the "fretted vault"? A timber roof, simple as that of a country barn, and of which only the horizontal beams catch the eye, connects an entirely plain outside wall with an interior one, pierced by round-headed openings; in which are inserted pieces of complex tracery, as foreign in conception to the rest of the work as if the Pisan armata had gone up the Rhine instead of to Crete, pillaged South Germany, and cut these pieces of tracery out of the windows of some church in an advanced stage of fantastic design at Nuremberg or Frankfort. 37. If you begin to question, hereupon, who was the Italian robber, whether of marble or thought, and look to your Vasari, you find the building attributed to John the Pisan; [1]--and you suppose the son to have been so pleased by his father's adoption of Gothic forms that he must needs borrow them, in this manner, ready made, from the Germans, and thrust them into his round arches, or wherever else they would go. [Footnote 1: The present traceries are of fifteenth century work, founded on Giovanni's design.] We will look at something more of his work, however, before drawing such conclusion. 38. In the centres of the great squares of Siena and Perugia, rose, obedient to engineers' art, two perennial fountains Without engineers' art, the glens which cleave the sand-rock of Siena flow with living water; and still, if there be a hell for the forger in Italy, he remembers therein the sweet grotto and green wave of Fonte Branda. But on the very summit of the two hills, crested by their great civic fortresses, and in the centres of their circuit of walls, rose the two guided wells; each in basin of goodly marble, sculptured--at Perugia, by John of Pisa, at Siena, by James of Quercia. 39. It is one of the bitterest regrets of my life (and I have many which some men would find difficult to bear,) that I never saw, except when I was a youth, and then with sealed eyes, Jacopo della Quercia's fountain. [1] The Sienese, a little while since, tore it down, and put up a model of it by a modern carver. In like manner, perhaps, you will some day knock the Elgin marbles to pieces, and commission an Academician to put up new ones,--the Sienese doing worse than that (as if the Athenians were _themselves_ to break their Phidias' work). [Footnote 1: I observe that Charles Dickens had the fortune denied to me. "The market-place, or great Piazza, is a large square, with a great broken-nosed fountain in it." ("Pictures from Italy.")] But the fountain of John of Pisa, though much injured, and glued together with asphalt, is still in its place. 40. I will now read to you what Vasari first says of him, and it. (I. 67.) "Nicholas had, among other sons, one called John, who, because he always followed his father, and, under his discipline, intended (bent himself to, with a will,) sculpture and architecture, in a few years became not only equal to his father, but in some things superior to him; wherefore Nicholas, being now old, retired himself into Pisa, and living quietly there, left the government of everything to his son. Accordingly, when Pope Urban IV. died in Perugia, sending was made for John, who, going there, made the tomb of that Pope of marble, the which, together with that of Pope Martin IV., was afterwards thrown down, when the Perugians [Illustration: PLATE III.--THE FOUNTAIN OF PERUGIA.] enlarged their vescovado; so that only a few relics are seen sprinkled about the church. And the Perugians, having at the same time brought from the mountain of Pacciano, two miles distant from the city, through canals of lead, a most abundant water, by means of the invention and industry of a friar of the order of St. Silvester, it was given to John the Pisan to make all the ornaments of this fountain, as well of bronze as of marble. On which he set hand to it, and made there three orders of vases, two of marble and one of bronze. The first is put upon twelve degrees of twelve-faced steps; the second is upon some columns which put it upon a level with the first one;" (that is, in the middle of it,) "and the third, which is of bronze, rests upon three figures which have in the middle of them some griffins, of bronze too, which pour water out on every side." 41. Many things we have to note in this passage, but first I will show you the best picture I can of the thing itself. The best I can; the thing itself being half destroyed, and what remains so beautiful that no one can now quite rightly draw it; but Mr. Arthur Severn, (the son of Keats's Mr. Severn,) was with me, looking reverently at those remains, last summer, and has made, with help from the sun, this sketch for you (Plate III.); entirely true and effective as far as his time allowed. Half destroyed, or more, I said it was,--Time doing grievous work on it, and men worse. You heard Vasari saying of it, that it stood on twelve degrees of twelve-faced steps. These--worn, doubtless, into little more than a rugged slope--have been replaced by the moderns with four circular steps, and an iron railing; [1] the bas-reliefs have been carried off from the panels of the second vase, and its fair marble lips choked with asphalt:--of what remains, you have here a rough but true image. [Footnote 1: In Mr. Severn's sketch, the form of the original foundation is approximately restored.] In which you see there is not a trace of Gothic feeling or design of any sort. No crockets, no pinnacles, no foils, no vaultings, no grotesques in sculpture. Panels between pillars, panels carried on pillars, sculptures in those panels like the Metopes of the Parthenon; a Greek vase in the middle, and griffins in the middle of that. Here is your font, not at all of Saint John, but of profane and civil-engineering John. This is _his_ manner of baptism of the town of Perugia. 42. Thus early, it seems, the antagonism of profane Greek to ecclesiastical Gothic declares itself. It seems as if in Perugia, as in London, you had the fountains in Trafalgar Square against Queen Elinor's Cross; or the viaduct and railway station contending with the Gothic chapel, which the master of the large manufactory close by has erected, because he thinks pinnacles and crockets have a pious influence; and will prevent his workmen from asking for shorter hours, or more wages. 43. It _seems_ only; the antagonism is quite of another kind,--or, rather, of many other kinds. But note at once how complete it is--how utterly this Greek fountain of Perugia, and the round arches of Pisa, are opposed to the school of design which gave the trefoils to Niccola's pulpit, and the traceries to Giovanni's Campo Santo. The antagonism, I say, is of another kind than ours; but deep and wide; and to explain it, I must pass for a time to apparently irrelevant topics. You were surprised, I hope, (if you were attentive enough to catch the points in what I just now read from Vasari,) at my venturing to bring before you, just after I had been using violent language against the Sienese for breaking up the work of Quercia, that incidental sentence giving account of the much more disrespectful destruction, by the Perugians, of the tombs of Pope Urban IV., and Martin IV. Sending was made for John, you see, first, when Pope Urban IV. died in Perugia--whose tomb was to be carved by John; the Greek fountain being a secondary business. But the tomb was so well destroyed, afterwards, that only a few relics remained scattered here and there. The tomb, I have not the least doubt, was Gothic;--and the breaking of it to pieces was not in order to restore it afterwards, that a living architect might get the job of restoration. Here is a stone out of one of Giovanni Pisano's loveliest Gothic buildings, which I myself saw with my own eyes dashed out, that a modern builder might be paid for putting in another. But Pope Urban's tomb was not destroyed to such end. There was no qualm of the belly, driving the hammer,--qualm of the conscience probably; at all events, a deeper or loftier antagonism than one on points of taste, or economy. 44. You observed that I described this Greek profane manner of design as properly belonging to _civil_ buildings, as opposed not only to ecclesiastical buildings, but to military ones. Justice, or Righteousness, and Veracity, are the characters of Greek art. These _may_ be opposed to religion, when religion becomes fantastic; but they _must_ be opposed to war, when war becomes unjust. And if, perchance, fantastic religion and unjust war happen to go hand in hand, your Greek artist is likely to use his hammer against them spitefully enough. 45. His hammer, or his Greek fire. Hear now this example of the engineering ingenuities of our Pisan papa, in his younger days. "The Florentines having begun, in Niccola's time, to throw down many towers, which had been built in a barbarous manner through the whole city; either that the people might be less hurt, by their means, in the fights that often took place between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, or else that there might be greater security for the State, it appeared to them that it would be very difficult to ruin the Tower of the Death-watch, which was in the place of St. John, because it had its walls built with such a grip in them that the stones could not be stirred with the pickaxe, and also because it was of the loftiest; whereupon Nicholas, causing the tower to be cut, at the foot of it, all the length of one of its sides; and closing up the cut, as he made it, with short (wooden) under-props, about a yard long, and setting fire to them, when the props were burned, the tower fell, and broke itself nearly all to pieces: which was held a thing so ingenious and so useful for such affairs, that it has since passed into a custom, so that when it is needful, in this easiest manner, any edifice may be thrown down." 46. 'When it is needful.' Yes; but when is that? If instead of the towers of the Death-watch in the city, one could ruin the towers of the Death-watch of evil pride and evil treasure in men's hearts, there would be need enough for such work both in Florence and London. But the walls of those spiritual towers have still stronger 'grip' in them, and are fireproof with a vengeance. "Le mure me parean die ferro fosse, . . . e el mi dixe, il fuoco eterno Chentro laffoca, le dimostra rosse." But the towers in Florence, shattered to fragments by this ingenious engineer, and the tombs in Perugia, which his son will carve, only that they also may be so well destroyed that only a few relics remain, scattered up and down the church,--are these, also, only the iron towers, and the red-hot tombs, of the city of Dis? Let us see. 47. In order to understand the relation of the tradesmen and working men, including eminently the artist, to the general life of the thirteenth century, I must lay before you the clearest elementary charts I can of the course which the fates of Italy were now appointing for her. My first chart must be geographical. I want you to have a clearly dissected and closely fitted notion of the natural boundaries of her states, and their relations to surrounding ones. Lay hold first, firmly, of your conception of the valleys of the Po and the Arno, running counter to each other--opening east and opening west,--Venice at the end of the one, Pisa at the end of the other. 48. These two valleys--the hearts of Lombardy and Etruria--virtually contain the life of Italy. They are entirely different in character: Lombardy, essentially luxurious and worldly, at this time rude in art, but active; Etruria, religious, intensely imaginative, and inheriting refined forms of art from before the days of Porsenna. 49. South of these, in mid-Italy, you have Romagna,--the valley of the Tiber. In that valley, decayed Rome, with her lust of empire inextinguishable;--no inheritance of imaginative art, nor power of it; dragging her own ruins hourly into more fantastic ruin, and defiling her faith hourly with more fantastic guilt. South of Romagna, you have the kingdoms of Calabria and Sicily,---Magna Graecia, and Syracuse, in decay;----strange spiritual fire from the Saracenic east still lighting the volcanic land, itself laid all in ashes. 50. Conceive Italy then always in these four masses: Lombardy, Etruria, Romagna, Calabria. Now she has three great external powers to deal with: the western, France--the northern, Germany--the eastern, Arabia. On her right the Frank; on her left the Saracen; above her, the Teuton. And roughly, the French are a religious chivalry; the Germans a profane chivalry; the Saracens an infidel chivalry. What is best of each is benefiting Italy; what is worst, afflicting her. And in the time we are occupied with, all are afflicting her. What Charlemagne, Barbarossa, or Saladin did to teach her, you can trace only by carefullest thought. But in this thirteenth century all these three powers are adverse to her, as to each other. Map the methods of their adversity thus:--- 51. Germany, (profane chivalry,) is vitally adverse to the Popes; endeavouring to establish imperial and knightly power against theirs. It is fiercely, but frankly, covetous of Italian territory, seizes all it can of Lombardy and Calabria, and with any help procurable either from robber Christians or robber Saracens, strives, in an awkward manner, and by open force, to make itself master of Rome, and all Italy. 52. France, all surge and foam of pious chivalry, lifts herself in fitful rage of devotion, of avarice, and of pride. She is the natural ally of the church; makes her own monks the proudest of the Popes; raises Avignon into another Rome; prays and pillages insatiably; pipes pastoral songs of innocence, and invents grotesque variations of crime; gives grace to the rudeness of England, and venom to the cunning of Italy. She is a chimera among nations, and one knows not whether to admire most the valour of Guiscard, the virtue of St. Louis or the villany of his brother. 53. The Eastern powers--Greek, Israelite, Saracen--are at once the enemies of the Western, their prey, and their tutors. They bring them methods of ornament and of merchandise, and stimulate in them the worst conditions of pugnacity, bigotry, and rapine. That is the broad geographical and political relation of races. Next, you must consider the conditions of their time. 54. I told you, in my second lecture on Engraving, that before the twelfth century the nations were too savage to be Christian, and after the fifteenth too carnal to be Christian. The delicacy of sensation and refinements of imagination necessary to understand Christianity belong to the mid period when men risen from a life of brutal hardship are not yet fallen to one of brutal luxury. You can neither comprehend the character of Christ while you are chopping flints for tools, and gnawing raw bones for food; nor when you have ceased to do anything with either tools or hands, and dine on gilded capons. In Dante's lines, beginning "I saw Bellincion Berti walk abroad In leathern girdle, with a clasp of bone," you have the expression of his sense of the increasing luxury of the age, already sapping its faith. But when Bellincion Berti walked abroad in skins not yet made into leather, and with the bones of his dinner in a heap at his door, instead of being cut into girdle clasps, he was just as far from capacity of being a Christian. 55. The following passage, from Carlyle's "Chartism," expresses better than any one else has done, or is likely to do it, the nature of this Christian era, (extending from the twelfth to the sixteenth century,) in England,--the like being entirely true of it elsewhere:-- "In those past silent centuries, among those silent classes, much had been going on. Not only had red deer in the New and other forests been got preserved and shot; and treacheries [1] of Simon de Montfort, wars of Red and White Roses, battles of Crecy, battles of Bosworth, and many other battles, been got transacted and adjusted; but England wholly, not without sore toil and aching bones to the millions of sires and the millions of sons of eighteen generations, had been got drained and tilled, covered with yellow harvests, beautiful and rich in possessions. The mud-wooden Caesters and Chesters had become steepled, tile-roofed, compact towns. Sheffield had taken to the manufacture of Sheffield whittles. Worstead could from wool spin yarn, and knit or weave the same into stockings or breeches for men. England had property valuable to the auctioneer; but the accumulate manufacturing, commercial, economic skill which lay impalpably warehoused in English hands and heads, what auctioneer could estimate? [Footnote 1: Perhaps not altogether so, any more than Oliver's dear papa Carlyle. We may have to read _him_ also, otherwise than the British populace have yet read, some day.] "Hardly an Englishman to be met with but could do something; some cunninger thing than break his fellow-creature's head with battle-axes. The seven incorporated trades, with their million guild-brethren, with their hammers, their shuttles, and tools, what an army,--fit to conquer that land of England, as we say, and hold it conquered! Nay, strangest of all, the English people had acquired the faculty and habit of thinking,--even of believing; individual conscience had unfolded itself among them;--Conscience, and Intelligence its handmaid. [1] Ideas of innumerable kinds were circulating among these men; witness one Shakspeare, a wool-comber, poacher or whatever else, at Stratford, in Warwickshire, who happened to write books!--the finest human figure, as I apprehend, that Nature has hitherto seen fit to make of our widely Teutonic clay. Saxon, Norman, Celt, or Sarmat, I find no human soul so beautiful, these fifteen hundred known years;--our supreme modern European man. Him England had contrived to realize: were there not ideas? [Footnote 1: Observe Carlyle's order of sequence. Perceptive Reason is the Handmaid of Conscience, not Conscience hers. If you resolve to do right, you will soon do wisely; but resolve only to do wisely, and you will never do right.] "Ideas poetic and also Puritanic, that had to seek utterance in the notablest way! England had got her Shakspeare, but was now about to get her Milton and Oliver Cromwell. This, too, we will call a new expansion, hard as it might be to articulate and adjust; this, that a man could actually have a conscience for his own behoof, and not for his priest's only; that his priest, be he who he might, would henceforth have to take that fact along with him." 56. You observe, in this passage, account is given you of two things--(A) of the development of a powerful class of tradesmen and artists; and, (B) of the development of an individual conscience. In the savage times you had simply the hunter, digger, and robber; now you have also the manufacturer and salesman. The ideas of ingenuity with the hand, of fairness in exchange, have occurred to us. We can do something now with our fingers, as well as with our fists; and if we want our neighbours' goods, we will not simply carry them off, as of old, but offer him some of ours in exchange. 57. Again; whereas before we were content to let our priests do for us all they could, by gesticulating, dressing, sacrificing, or beating of drums and blowing of trumpets; and also direct our steps in the way of life, without any doubt on our part of their own perfect acquaintance with it,--we have now got to do something for ourselves--to think something for ourselves; and thus have arrived in straits of conscience which, so long as we endeavour to steer through them honestly, will be to us indeed a quite secure way of life, and of all living wisdom. 58. Now the centre of this new freedom of thought is in Germany; and the power of it is shown first, as I told you in my opening lecture, in the great struggle of Frederick II. with Rome. And German freedom of thought had certainly made some progress, when it had managed to reduce the Pope to disguise himself as a soldier, ride out of Rome by moonlight, and gallop his thirty-four miles to the seaside before [Illustration: PLATE IV.--NORMAN IMAGERY.] summer dawn. Here, clearly, is quite a new state of things for the Holy Father of Christendom to consider, during such wholesome horse-exercise. 59. Again; the refinements of new art are represented by France--centrally by St. Louis with his Sainte Chapelle. Happily, I am able to lay on your table to-day--having placed it three years ago in your educational series--a leaf of a Psalter, executed for St. Louis himself. He and his artists are scarcely out of their savage life yet, and have no notion of adorning the Psalms better than by pictures of long-necked cranes, long-eared rabbits, long-tailed lions, and red and white goblins putting their tongues out. [1] But in refinement of touch, in beauty of colour, in the human faculties of order and grace, they are long since, evidently, past the flint and bone stage,--refined enough, now,--subtle enough, now, to learn anything that is pretty and fine, whether in theology or any other matter. [Footnote 1: I cannot go to the expense of engraving this most subtle example; but Plate IV. shows the average conditions of temper and imagination in religious ornamental work of the time.] 60. Lastly, the new principle of Exchange is represented by Lombardy and Venice, to such purpose that your Merchant and Jew of Venice, and your Lombard of Lombard Street, retain some considerable influence on your minds, even to this day. And in the exact midst of all such transition, behold, Etruria with her Pisans--her Florentines,--receiving, resisting, and reigning over all: pillaging the Saracens of their marbles--binding the French bishops in silver chains;--shattering the towers of German tyranny into small pieces,--building with strange jewellery the belfry tower for newly-conceived Christianity;--and, in sacred picture, and sacred song, reaching the height, among nations, most passionate, and most pure. I must close my lecture without indulging myself yet, by addition of detail; requesting you, before we next meet, to fix these general outlines in your minds, so that, without disturbing their distinctness, I may trace in the sequel the relations of Italian Art to these political and religious powers; and determine with what force of passionate sympathy, or fidelity of resigned obedience, the Pisan artists, father and son, executed the indignation of Florence and fulfilled the piety of Orvieto. LECTURE III. SHIELD AND APRON. 61. I laid before you, in my last lecture, first lines of the chart of Italian history in the thirteenth century, which I hope gradually to fill with colour, and enrich, to such degree as may be sufficient for all comfortable use. But I indicated, as the more special subject of our immediate study, the nascent power of liberal thought, and liberal art, over dead tradition and rude workmanship. To-day I must ask you to examine in greater detail the exact relation of this liberal art to the illiberal elements which surrounded it. 62. You do not often hear me use that word "Liberal" in any favourable sense. I do so now, because I use it also in a very narrow and exact sense. I mean that the thirteenth century is, in Italy's year of life, her 17th of March. In the light of it, she assumes her toga virilis; and it is sacred to her god Liber. 63. To her god _Liber_,--observe: not Dionusos, still less Bacchus, but her own ancient and simple deity. And if you have read with some care the statement I gave you, with Carlyle's help, of the moment and manner of her change from savageness to dexterity, and from rudeness to refinement of life, you will hear, familiar as the lines are to you, the invocation in the first Georgic with a new sense of its meaning:-- "Vos, O clarissima mundi Lumina, labentem coelo quae ducitis annum, Liber, et alma Ceres; vestro si munere tellus Chaoniam pingui glandem mutavit arista, Poculaqu' inventis Acheloia miscuit uvis, Munera vestra cano." These gifts, innocent, rich, full of life, exquisitely beautiful in order and grace of growth, I have thought best to symbolize to you, in the series of types of the power of the Greek gods, placed in your educational series, by the blossom of the wild strawberry; which in rising from its trine cluster of trine leaves,--itself as beautiful as a white rose, and always single on its stalk, like an ear of corn, yet with a succeeding blossom at its side, and bearing a fruit which is as distinctly a group of seeds as an ear of corn itself, and yet is the pleasantest to taste of all the pleasant things prepared by nature for the food of men, [1]--may accurately symbolize, and help you to remember, the conditions of this liberal and delightful, yet entirely modest and orderly, art, and thought. [Footnote 1: I am sorry to pack my sentences together in this confused way. But I have much to say; and cannot always stop to polish or adjust it as I used to do.] 64. You will find in the fourth of my inaugural lectures, at the 98th paragraph, this statement,--much denied by modern artists and authors, but nevertheless quite unexceptionally true,--that the entire vitality of art depends upon its having for object either to _state a true thing_, or _adorn a serviceable one_. The two functions of art in Italy, in this entirely liberal and virescent phase of it,--virgin art, we may call it, retaining the most literal sense of the words virga and virgo,--are to manifest the doctrines of a religion which now, for the first time, men had soul enough to understand; and to adorn edifices or dress, with which the completed politeness of daily life might be invested, its convenience completed, and its decorous and honourable pride satisfied. 65. That pride was, among the men who gave its character to the century, in honourableness of private conduct, and useful magnificence of public art. Not of private or domestic art: observe this very particularly. "Such was the simplicity of private manners,"--(I am now quoting Sismondi, but with the fullest ratification that my knowledge enables me to give,)--"and the economy of the richest citizens, that if a city enjoyed repose only for a few years, it doubled its revenues, and found itself, in a sort, encumbered with its riches. The Pisans knew neither of the luxury of the table, nor that of furniture, nor that of a number of servants; yet they were sovereigns of the whole of Sardinia, Corsica, and Elba, had colonies at St. Jean d'Acre and Constantinople, and their merchants in those cities carried on the most extended commerce with the Saracens and Greeks." [1] [Footnote 1: Sismondi; French translation, Brussels, 1838; vol. ii., p. 275.] 66. "And in that time," (I now give you my own translation of Giovanni Villani,) "the citizens of Florence lived sober, and on coarse meats, and at little cost; and had many customs and playfulnesses which were blunt and rude; and they dressed themselves and their wives with coarse cloth; many wore merely skins, with no lining, and _all_ had only leathern buskins; [1] and the Florentine ladies, plain shoes and stockings with no ornaments; and the best of them were content with a close gown of coarse scarlet of Cyprus, or camlet girded with an old-fashioned clasp-girdle; and a mantle over all, lined with vaire, with a hood above; and that, they threw over their heads. The women of lower rank were dressed in the same manner, with coarse green Cambray cloth; fifty pounds was the ordinary bride's dowry, and a hundred or a hundred and fifty would in those times have been held brilliant, ('isfolgorata,' dazzling, with sense of dissipation or extravagance;) and most maidens were twenty or more before they married. Of such gross customs were then the Florentines; but of good faith, and loyal among themselves and in their state; and in their coarse life, and poverty, did more and braver things than are done in our days with more refinement and riches." [Footnote 1: I find this note for expansion on the margin of my lecture, but had no time to work it out:--'This lower class should be either barefoot, or have strong shoes--wooden clogs good. Pretty Boulogne sabot with purple stockings. Waterloo Road--little girl with her hair in curlpapers,--a coral necklace round her neck--the neck bare--and her boots of thin stuff, worn out, with her toes coming through, and rags hanging from her heels,--a profoundly accurate type of English national and political life. Your hair in curlpapers--borrowing tongs from every foreign nation, to pinch you into manners. The rich ostentatiously wearing coral about the bare neck; and the poor--cold as the stones and indecent.'] 67. I detain you a moment at the words "scarlet of Cyprus, or camlet." Observe that camelot (camelet) from _kamaelotae_, camel's skin, is a stuff made of silk and camel's hair originally, afterwards of silk and wool. At Florence, the camel's hair would always have reference to the Baptist, who, as you know, in Lippi's picture, wears the camel's skin itself, made into a Florentine dress, such as Villani has just described, "col tassello sopra," with the hood above. Do you see how important the word "Capulet" is becoming to us, in its main idea? 68. Not in private nor domestic art, therefore, I repeat to you, but in useful magnificence of public art, these citizens expressed their pride:--and that public art divided itself into two branches--civil, occupied upon ethic subjects of sculpture and painting; and religious, occupied upon scriptural or traditional histories, in treatment of which, nevertheless, the nascent power and liberality of thought were apparent, not only in continual amplification and illustration of scriptural story by the artist's own invention, but in the acceptance of profane mythology, as part of the Scripture, or tradition, given by Divine inspiration. 69. Nevertheless, for the provision of things necessary in domestic life, there developed itself, together with the group of inventive artists exercising these nobler functions, a vast body of craftsmen, and, literally, _man_ufacturers, workers by hand, who associated themselves, as chance, tradition, or the accessibility of material directed, in towns which thenceforward occupied a leading position in commerce, as producers of a staple of excellent, or perhaps inimitable, quality; and the linen or cambric of Cambray, the lace of Mechlin, the wool of Worstead, and the steel of Milan, implied the tranquil and hereditary skill of multitudes, living in wealthy industry, and humble honour. 70. Among these artisans, the weaver, the ironsmith, the goldsmith, the carpenter, and the mason necessarily took the principal rank, and on their occupations the more refined arts were wholesomely based, so that the five businesses may be more completely expressed thus: The weaver and embroiderer, The ironsmith and armourer, The goldsmith and jeweller, The carpenter and engineer, The stonecutter and painter. You have only once to turn over the leaves of Lionardo's sketch book, in the Ambrosian Library, to see how carpentry is connected with engineering,--the architect was always a stonecutter, and the stonecutter not often practically separate, as yet, from the painter, and never so in general conception of function. You recollect, at a much later period, Kent's description of Cornwall's steward: "KENT. You cowardly rascal!--nature disclaims in thee, a tailor made thee! CORNWALL. Thou art a strange fellow--a tailor make a man? KENT. Ay, sir; a stonecutter, or a painter, could not have made him so ill; though they had been but two hours at the trade." 71. You may consider then this group of artizans with the merchants, as now forming in each town an important Tiers Etat, or Third State of the people, occupied in service, first, of the ecclesiastics, who in monastic bodies inhabited the cloisters round each church; and, secondly, of the knights, who, with their retainers, occupied, each family their own fort, in allied defence of their appertaining streets. 72. A Third Estate, indeed; but adverse alike to both the others, to Montague as to Capulet, when they become disturbers of the public peace; and having a pride of its own,--hereditary still, but consisting in the inheritance of skill and knowledge rather than of blood,--which expressed the sense of such inheritance by taking its name habitually from the master rather than the sire; and which, in its natural antagonism to dignities won only by violence, or recorded only by heraldry, you may think of generally as the race whose bearing is the Apron, instead of the shield. 73. When, however, these two, or in perfect subdivision three, bodies of men, lived in harmony,--the knights remaining true to the State, the clergy to their faith, and the workmen to their craft,--conditions of national force were arrived at, under which all the great art of the middle ages was accomplished. The pride of the knights, the avarice of the priests, and the gradual abasement of character in the craftsman, changing him from a citizen able to wield either tools in peace or weapons in war, to a dull tradesman, forced to pay mercenary troops to defend his shop door, are the direct causes of common ruin towards the close of the sixteenth century. 74. But the deep underlying cause of the decline in national character itself, was the exhaustion of the Christian faith. None of its practical claims were avouched either by reason or experience; and the imagination grew weary of sustaining them in despite of both. Men could not, as their powers of reflection became developed, steadily conceive that the sins of a life might be done away with, by finishing it with Mary's name on the lips; nor could tradition of miracle for ever resist the personal discovery, made by each rude disciple by himself, that he might pray to all the saints for a twelvemonth together, and yet not get what he asked for. 75. The Reformation succeeded in proclaiming that existing Christianity was a lie; but substituted no theory of it which could be more rationally or credibly sustained; and ever since, the religion of educated persons throughout Europe has been dishonest or ineffectual; it is only among the labouring peasantry that the grace of a pure Catholicism, and the patient simplicities of the Puritan, maintain their imaginative dignity, or assert their practical use. 76. The existence of the nobler arts, however, involves the harmonious life and vital faith of the three classes whom we have just distinguished; and that condition exists, more or less disturbed, indeed, by the vices inherent in each class, yet, on the whole, energetically and productively, during the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. But our present subject being Architecture only, I will limit your attention altogether to the state of society in the great age of architecture, the thirteenth century. A great age in all ways; but most notably so in the correspondence it presented, up to a just and honourable point, with the utilitarian energy of our own days. 77. The increase of wealth, the safety of industry, and the conception of more convenient furniture of life, to which we must attribute the rise of the entire artist class, were accompanied, in that century, by much enlargement in the conception of useful public works: and--not by _private_ enterprise,--that idle persons might get dividends out of the public pocket,--but by _public_ enterprise,--each citizen paying down at once his share of what was necessary to accomplish the benefit to the State,--great architectural and engineering efforts were made for the common service. Common, observe; but not, in our present sense, republican. One of the most ludicrous sentences ever written in the blindness of party spirit is that of Sismondi, in which he declares, thinking of these public works only, that 'the architecture of the thirteenth century is entirely republican.' The architecture of the thirteenth century is, in the mass of it, simply baronial or ecclesiastical; it is of castles, palaces, or churches; but it is true that splendid civic works were also accomplished by the vigour of the newly risen popular power. "The canal named Naviglio Graude, which brings the waters of the Ticino to Milan, traversing a distance of thirty miles, was undertaken in 1179, recommended in 1257, and, soon after, happily terminated; in it still consists the wealth of a vast extent of Lombardy. At the same time the town of Milan rebuilt its walls, which were three miles round, and had sixteen marble gates, of magnificence which might have graced the capital of all Italy. The Genovese, in 1276 and 1283, built their two splendid docks, and the great wall of their quay; and in 1295 finished the noble aqueduct which brings pure and abundant waters to their city from a great distance among their mountains. There is not a single town in Italy which at the same time did not undertake works of this kind; and while these larger undertakings were in progress, stone bridges were built across the rivers, the streets and piazzas were paved with large slabs of stone, and every free government recognized the duty of providing for the convenience of the citizens." [1] [Footnote 1: Simondi, vol ii. chap. 10.] 78. The necessary consequence of this enthusiasm in useful building, was the formation of a vast body of craftsmen and architects; corresponding in importance to that which the railway, with its associated industry, has developed in modern times, but entirely different in personal character, and relation to the body politic. Their personal character was founded on the accurate knowledge of their business in all respects; the ease and pleasure of unaffected invention; and the true sense of power to do everything better than it had ever been yet done, coupled with general contentment in life, and in its vigour and skill. It is impossible to overrate the difference between such a condition of mind, and that of the modern artist, who either does not know his business at all, or knows it only to recognize his own inferiority to every former workman of distinction. 79. Again: the political relation of these artificers to the State was that of a caste entirely separate from the noblesse; [1] paid for their daily work what was just, and competing with each other to supply the best article they could for the money. And it is, again, impossible to overrate the difference between such a social condition, and that of the artists of to-day, struggling to occupy a position of equality in wealth with the noblesse,--paid irregular and monstrous prices by an entirely ignorant and selfish public; and competing with each other to supply the worst article they can for the money. [Footnote 1: The giving of knighthood to Jacopo della Quercia for his lifelong service to Siena was not the elevation of a dexterous workman, but grace to a faithful citizen.] I never saw anything so impudent on the walls of any exhibition, in any country, as last year in London. It was a daub professing to be a "harmony in pink and white" (or some such nonsense;) absolute rubbish, and which had taken about a quarter of an hour to scrawl or daub--it had no pretence to be called painting. The price asked for it was two hundred and fifty guineas. 80. In order to complete your broad view of the elements of social power in the thirteenth century, you have now farther to understand the position of the country people, who maintained by their labour these three classes, whose action you can discern, and whose history you can read; while, of those who maintained them, there is no history, except of the annual ravage of their fields by contending cities or nobles;--and, finally, that of the higher body of merchants, whose influence was already beginning to counterpoise the prestige of noblesse in Florence, and who themselves constituted no small portion of the noblesse of Venice. The food-producing country was for the most part still possessed by the nobles; some by the ecclesiastics; but a portion, I do not know how large, was in the hands of peasant proprietors, of whom Sismondi gives this, to my mind, completely pleasant and satisfactory, though, to his, very painful, account:-- "They took no interest in public affairs; they had assemblies of their commune at the village in which the church of their parish was situated, and to which they retreated to defend themselves in case of war; they had also magistrates of their own choice; but all their interests appeared to them enclosed in the circle of their own commonality; they did not meddle with general politics, and held it for their point of honour to remain faithful, through all revolutions, to the State of which they formed a part, obeying, without hesitation, its chiefs, whoever they were, and by whatever title they occupied their places." 81. Of the inferior agricultural labourers, employed on the farms of the nobles and richer ecclesiastics, I find nowhere due notice, nor does any historian seriously examine their manner of life. Liable to every form of robbery and oppression, I yet regard their state as not only morally but physically happier than that of riotous soldiery, or the lower class of artizans, and as the safeguard of every civilized nation, through all its worst vicissitudes of folly and crime. Nature has mercifully appointed that seed must be sown, and sheep folded, whatever lances break, or religions fail; and at this hour, while the streets of Florence and Verona are full of idle politicians, loud of tongue, useless of hand and treacherous of heart, there still may be seen in their market-places, standing, each by his heap of pulse or maize, the grey-haired labourers, silent, serviceable, honourable, keeping faith, untouched by change, to their country and to Heaven. [1] [Footnote 1: Compare "Sesame and Lilies," sec. 38, p. 58. (P. 86 of the small edition of 1882.)] 82. It is extremely difficult to determine in what degree the feelings or intelligence of this class influenced the architectural design of the thirteenth century;--how far afield the cathedral tower was intended to give delight, and to what simplicity of rustic conception Quercia or Ghiberti appealed by the fascination of their Scripture history. You may at least conceive, at this date, a healthy animation in all men's minds, and the children of the vineyard and sheepcote crowding the city on its festa days, and receiving impulse to busier, if not nobler, education, in its splendour. [1] [Footnote 1: Of detached abbeys, see note on Education of Joan of Arc, "Sesame and Lilies," sec. 82, p. 106. (P. 158 of the small edition of 1882.)] 83. The great class of the merchants is more difficult to define; but you may regard them generally as the examples of whatever modes of life might be consistent with peace and justice, in the economy of transfer, as opposed to the military license of pillage. They represent the gradual ascendancy of foresight, prudence, and order in society, and the first ideas of advantageous national intercourse. Their body is therefore composed of the most intelligent and temperate natures of the time,--uniting themselves, not directly for the purpose of making money, but to obtain stability for equal institutions, security of property, and pacific relations with neighbouring states. Their guilds form the only representatives of true national council, unaffected, as the landed proprietors were, by merely local circumstances and accidents. 84. The strength of this order, when its own conduct was upright, and its opposition to the military body was not in avaricious cowardice, but in the resolve to compel justice and to secure peace, can only be understood by you after an examination of the great changes in the government of Florence during the thirteenth century, which, among other minor achievements interesting to us, led to that destruction of the Tower of the Death-watch, so ingeniously accomplished by Niccola Pisano. This change, and its results, will be the subject of my next lecture. I must to-day sum, and in some farther degree make clear, the facts already laid before you. 85. We have seen that the inhabitants of every great Italian state may be divided, and that very stringently, into the five classes of knights, priests, merchants, artists, and peasants. No distinction exists between artist and artizan, except that of higher genius or better conduct; the best artist is assuredly also the best artizan; and the simplest workman uses his invention and emotion as well as his fingers. The entire body of artists is under the orders (as shopmen are under the orders of their customers), of the knights, priests, and merchants,--the knights for the most part demanding only fine goldsmiths' work, stout armour, and rude architecture; the priests commanding both the finest architecture and painting, and the richest kinds of decorative dress and jewellery,--while the merchants directed works of public use, and were the best judges of artistic skill. The competition for the Baptistery gates of Florence is before the guild of merchants; nor is their award disputed, even in thought, by any of the candidates. 86. This is surely a fact to be taken much to heart by our present communities of Liverpool and Manchester. They probably suppose, in their modesty, that lords and clergymen are the proper judges of art, and merchants can only, in the modern phrase, 'know what they like,' or follow humbly the guidance of their golden-crested or flat-capped superiors. But in the great ages of art, neither knight nor pope shows signs of true power of criticism. The artists crouch before them, or quarrel with them, according to their own tempers. To the merchants they submit silently, as to just and capable judges. And look what men these are, who submit. Donatello, Ghiberti, Quercia, Luca! If men like these submit to the merchant, who shall rebel? 87. But the still franker, and surer, judgment of innocent pleasure was awarded them by all classes alike: and the interest of the public was the _final _rule of right,--that public being always eager to see, and earnest to learn. For the stories told by their artists formed, they fully believed, a Book of Life; and every man of real genius took up his function of illustrating the scheme of human morality and salvation, as naturally, and faithfully, as an English mother of to-day giving her children their first lessons in the Bible. In this endeavour to teach they almost unawares taught themselves; the question "How shall I represent this most clearly?" became to themselves, presently, "How was this most likely to have happened?" and habits of fresh and accurate thought thus quickly enlivened the formalities of the Greek pictorial theology; formalities themselves beneficent, because restraining by their severity and mystery the wantonness of the newer life. Foolish modern critics have seen nothing in the Byzantine school but a barbarism to be conquered and forgotten. But that school brought to the art-scholars of the thirteenth century, laws which had been serviceable to Phidias, and symbols which had been beautiful to Homer: and methods and habits of pictorial scholarship which gave a refinement of manner to the work of the simplest craftsman, and became an education to the higher artists which no discipline of literature can now bestow, developed themselves in the effort to decipher, and the impulse to re-interpret, the Eleusinian divinity of Byzantine tradition. 88. The words I have just used, "pictorial scholarship," and "pictorial theology," remind me how strange it must appear to you that in this sketch of the intellectual state of Italy in the thirteenth century I have taken no note of literature itself, nor of the fine art of Music with which it was associated in minstrelsy. The corruption of the meaning of the word "clerk," from "a chosen person" to "a learned one," partly indicates the position of literature in the war between the golden crest and scarlet cap; but in the higher ranks, literature and music became the grace of the noble's life, or the occupation of the monk's, without forming any separate class, or exercising any materially visible political power. Masons or butchers might establish a government,--but never troubadours: and though a good knight held his education to be imperfect unless he could write a sonnet and sing it, he did not esteem his castle to be at the mercy of the "editor" of a manuscript. He might indeed owe his life to the fidelity of a minstrel, or be guided in his policy by the wit of a clown; but he was not the slave of sensual music, or vulgar literature, and never allowed his Saturday reviewer to appear at table without the cock's comb. 89. On the other hand, what was noblest in thought or saying was in those times as little attended to as it is now. I do not feel sure that, even in after times, the poem of Dante has had any political effect on Italy; but at all events, in his life, even at Verona, where he was treated most kindly, he had not half so much influence with Can Grande as the rough Count of Castelbarco, not one of whose words was ever written, or now remains; and whose portrait, by no means that of a man of literary genius, almost disfigures, by its plainness, the otherwise grave and perfect beauty of his tomb. LECTURE IV. PARTED PER PALE. 90. The chart of Italian intellect and policy which I have endeavoured to put into form in the last three lectures, may, I hope, have given you a clear idea of the subordinate, yet partly antagonistic, position which the artist, or merchant,--whom in my present lecture I shall class together,--occupied, with respect to the noble and priest. As an honest labourer, he was opposed to the violence of pillage, and to the folly of pride: as an honest thinker, he was likely to discover any latent absurdity in the stories he had to represent in their nearest likelihood; and to be himself moved strongly by the true meaning of events which he was striving to make ocularly manifest. The painter terrified himself with his own fiends, and reproved or comforted himself by the lips of his own saints, far more profoundly than any verbal preacher; and thus, whether as craftsman or inventor, was likely to be foremost in defending the laws of his city, or directing its reformation. 91. The contest of the craftsman with the pillaging soldier is typically represented by the war of the Lombard League with Frederick II.; and that of the craftsman with the hypocritical priest, by the war of the Pisans with Gregory IX. (1241). But in the present lecture I wish only to fix your attention on the revolutions in Florence, which indicated, thus early, the already established ascendancy of the moral forces which were to put an end to open robber-soldiership; and at least to compel the assertion of some higher principle in war, if not, as in some distant day may be possible, the cessation of war itself. The most important of these revolutions was virtually that of which I before spoke to you, taking place in mid-thirteenth century, in the year l250,--a very memorable one for Christendom, and the very crisis of vital change in its methods of economy, and conceptions of art. 92. Observe, first, the exact relations at that time of Christian and Profane Chivalry. St. Louis, in the winter of 1248-9, lay in the isle of Cyprus, with his crusading army. He had trusted to Providence for provisions; and his army was starving. The profane German emperor, Frederick II., was at war with Venice, but gave a safe-conduct to the Venetian ships, which enabled them to carry food to Cyprus, and to save St. Louis and his crusaders. Frederick had been for half his life excommunicate,--and the Pope (Innocent IV.) at deadly spiritual and temporal war with him;--spiritually, because he had brought Saracens into Apulia; temporally, because the Pope wanted Apulia for himself. St. Louis and his mother both wrote to Innocent, praying him to be reconciled to the kind heretic who had saved the whole crusading army. But the Pope remained implacably thundrous; and Frederick, weary of quarrel, stayed quiet in one of his Apulian castles for a year. The repose of infidelity is seldom cheerful, unless it be criminal. Frederick had much to repent of, much to regret, nothing to hope, and nothing to do. At the end of his year's quiet he was attacked by dysentery, and so made his final peace with the Pope, and heaven,--aged fifty-six. 93. Meantime St. Louis had gone on into Egypt, had got his army defeated, his brother killed, and himself carried captive. You may be interested in seeing, in the leaf of his psalter which I have laid on the table, the death of that brother set down in golden letters, between the common letters of ultramarine, on the eighth of February. 94. Providence, defied by Frederick, and trusted in by St. Louis, made such arrangements for them both; Providence not in anywise regarding the opinions of either king, but very much regarding the facts, that the one had no business in Egypt, nor the other in Apulia. No two kings, in the history of the world, could have been happier, or more useful, than these two might have been, if they only had had the sense to stay in their own capitals, and attend to their own affairs. But they seem only to have been born to show what grievous results, under the power of discontented imagination, a Christian could achieve by faith, and a philosopher by reason. [1] [Footnote 1: It must not be thought that this is said in disregard of the nobleness of either of these two glorious Kings. Among the many designs of past years, one of my favorites was to write a life of Frederick II. But I hope that both his, and that of Henry II. of England, will soon be written now, by a man who loves them as well as I do, and knows them far better.] 95. The death of Frederick II. virtually ended the soldier power in Florence; and the mercantile power assumed the authority it thenceforward held, until, in the hands of the Medici, it destroyed the city. We will now trace the course and effects of the three revolutions which closed the reign of War, and crowned the power of Peace. 96. In the year 1248, while St. Louis was in Cyprus, I told you Frederick was at war with Venice. He was so because she stood, if not as the leader, at least as the most important ally, of the great Lombard mercantile league against the German military power. That league consisted essentially of Venice, Milan, Bologna, and Genoa, in alliance with the Pope; the Imperial or Ghibelline towns were, Padua and Verona under Ezzelin; Mantua, Pisa, and Siena. I do not name the minor towns of north Italy which associated themselves with each party: get only the main localities of the contest well into your minds. It was all concentrated in the furious hostility of Genoa and Pisa; Genoa fighting really very piously for the Pope, as well as for herself; Pisa for her own hand, and for the Emperor as much as suited her. The mad little sea falcon never caught sight of another water-bird on the wing, but she must hawk at it; and as an ally of the Emperor, balanced Venice and Genoa with her single strength. And so it came to pass that the victory of either the Guelph or Ghibelline party depended on the final action of Florence. 97. Florence meanwhile was fighting with herself, for her own amusement. She was nominally at the head of the Guelphic League in Tuscany; but this only meant that she hated Siena and Pisa, her southern and western neighbours. She had never declared openly against the Emperor. On the contrary, she always recognized his authority, in an imaginative manner, as representing that of the Caesars. She spent her own energy chiefly in street-fighting,--the death of Buondelmonti in 1215 having been the root of a series of quarrels among her nobles which gradually took the form of contests of honour; and were a kind of accidental tournaments, fought to the death, because they could not be exciting or dignified enough on any other condition. And thus the manner of life came to be customary, which you have accurately, with its consequences, pictured by Shakspeare. Samson bites his thumb at Abraham, and presently the streets are impassable in battle. The quarrel in the Canongate between the Leslies and Seytons, in Scott's 'Abbot,' represents the same temper; and marks also, what Shakspeare did not so distinctly, because it would have interfered with the domestic character of his play, the connection of these private quarrels with political divisions which paralyzed the entire body of the State.--Yet these political schisms, in the earlier days of Italy, never reached the bitterness of Scottish feud, [1] because they were never so sincere. Protestant and Catholic Scotsmen faithfully believed each other to be servants of the devil; but the Guelph and Ghibelline of Florence each respected, in the other, the fidelity to the Emperor, or piety towards the Pope, which he found it convenient, for the time, to dispense with in his own person. The street fighting was therefore more general, more chivalric, more good-humoured; a word of offence set all the noblesse of the town on fire; every one rallied to his post; fighting began at once in half a dozen places of recognized convenience, but ended in the evening; and, on the following day, the leaders determined in contended truce who had fought best, buried their dead triumphantly, and better fortified any weak points, which the events of the previous day had exposed at their palace corners. Florentine dispute was apt to centre itself about the gate of St. Peter, [2] the tower of the cathedral, or the fortress-palace of the Uberti, (the family of Dante's Bellincion Berti and of Farinata), which occupied the site of the present Palazzo Vecchio. But the streets of Siena seem to have afforded better barricade practice. They are as steep as they are narrow--extremely both; and the projecting stones on their palace fronts, which were left, in building, to sustain, on occasion, the barricade beams across the streets, are to this day important features in their architecture. [Footnote 1: Distinguish always the personal from the religious feud; personal feud is more treacherous and violent in Italy than in Scotland; but not the political or religious feud, unless involved with vast material interests.] [Footnote 2: Sismondi, vol. ii., chap. ii.; G. Villani, vi., 33.] 98. Such being the general state of matters in Florence, in this year 1248, Frederick writes to the Uberti, who headed the Ghibellines, to engage them in serious effort to bring the city distinctly to the Imperial side. He was besieging Parma; and sent his natural son, Frederick, king of Antioch, with sixteen hundred German knights, to give the Ghibellines assured preponderance in the next quarrel. The Uberti took arms before their arrival; rallied all their Ghibelline friends into a united body, and so attacked and carried the Guelph barricades, one by one, till their antagonists, driven together by local defeat, stood in consistency as complete as their own, by the gate of St. Peter, 'Scheraggio.' Young Frederick, with his German riders, arrived at this crisis; the Ghibellines opening the gates to him; the Guelphs, nevertheless, fought at their outmost barricade for four days more; but at last, tired, withdrew from the city, in a body, on the night of Candlemas, 2nd February, 1248; leaving the Ghibellines and their German friends to work their pleasure,--who immediately set themselves to throw down the Guelph palaces, and destroyed six-and-thirty of them, towers and all, with the good help of Niccola Pisano,--for this is the occasion of that beautiful piece of new engineering of his. 99. It is the first interference of the Germans in Florentine affairs which belongs to the real cycle of modern history. Six hundred years later, a troop of German riders entered Florence again, to restore its Grand Duke; and our warmhearted and loving English poetess, looking on from Casa Guidi windows, gives the said Germans many hard words, and thinks her darling Florentines entirely innocent in the matter. But if she had had clear eyes, (yeux de lin [1] the Romance of the Rose calls them,) she would have seen that white-coated cavalry with its heavy guns to be nothing more than the rear-guard of young Frederick of Antioch; and that Florence's own Ghibellines had opened her gates to them. Destiny little regards cost of time; she does her justice at that telescopic distance just as easily and accurately as close at hand. [Footnote 1: Lynx.] 100. "Frederick of _Antioch_." Note the titular coincidence. The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch; here we have our lieutenant of Antichrist also named from that town. The anti-Christian Germans got into Florence upon Sunday morning; the Guelphs fought on till Wednesday, which was Candlemas;--the Tower of the Death-watch was thrown down next day. It was so called because it stood on the Piazza of St John; and all dying people in Florence called on St. John for help; and looked, if it might be, to the top of this highest and best-built of towers. The wicked anti-Christian Ghibellines, Nicholas of Pisa helping, cut the side of it "so that the tower might fall on the Baptistery. But as it pleased God, for better reverencing of the blessed St. John, the tower, which was a hundred and eighty feet high, as it was coming down, plainly appeared to eschew the holy church, and turned aside, and fell right across the square; at which all the Florentines marvelled, (pious or impious,) and the _people_ (anti-Ghibelline) were greatly delighted." 101. I have no doubt that this story is apocryphal, not only in its attribution of these religious scruples to the falling tower; but in its accusation of the Ghibellines as having definitely intended the destruction of the Baptistery. It is only modern reformers who feel the absolute need of enforcing their religious opinions in so practical a manner. Such a piece of sacrilege would have been revolting to Farinata; how much more to the group of Florentines whose temper is centrally represented by Dante's, to all of whom their "bel San Giovanni" was dear, at least for its beauty, if not for its sanctity. And Niccola himself was too good a workman to become the instrument of the destruction of so noble a work,--not to insist on the extreme probability that he was also too good an engineer to have had his purpose, if once fixed, thwarted by any tenderness in the conscience of the collapsing tower. The tradition itself probably arose after the rage of the exiled Ghibellines had half consented to the destruction, on political grounds, of Florence itself; but the form it took is of extreme historical value, indicating thus early at least the suspected existence of passions like those of the Cromwellian or Garibaldian soldiery in the Florentine noble; and the distinct character of the Ghibelline party as not only anti-Papal, but profane. 102. Upon the castles, and the persons of their antagonists, however, the pride, or fear, of the Ghibellines had little mercy; and in their day of triumph they provoked against themselves nearly every rational as well as religious person in the commonwealth. They despised too much the force of the newly-risen popular power, founded on economy, sobriety, and common sense; and, alike by impertinence and pillage, increased the irritation of the civil body; until, as aforesaid, on the 20th October, 1250, all the rich burgesses of Florence took arms; met in the square before the church of Santa Croce, ("where," says Sismondi, "the republic of the dead is still assembled today,") thence traversed the city to the palace of the Ghibelline podesta; forced him to resign; named Uberto of Lucca in his place, under the title of Captain of the People; divided themselves into twenty companies, each, in its own district of the city, having its captain [1] and standard; and elected a council of twelve ancients, constituting a seniory or signoria, to deliberate on and direct public affairs. [Footnote 1: 'Corporal,' literally'.] 103. What a perfectly beautiful republican movement! thinks Sismondi, seeing, in all this, nothing but the energy of a multitude; and entirely ignoring the peculiar capacity of this Florentine mob,--capacity of two virtues, much forgotten by modern republicanism,--order, namely; and obedience; together with the peculiar instinct of this Florentine multitude, which not only felt itself to need captains, but knew where to find them. 104. Hubert of Lucca--How came they, think you, to choose _him _out of a stranger city, and that a poorer one than their own? Was there no Florentine then, of all this rich and eager crowd, who was fit to govern Florence? I cannot find any account of this Hubert, Bright mind, of Ducca; Villani says simply of him, "Fu il primo capitano di Firenze." They hung a bell for him in the Campanile of the Lion, and gave him the flag of Florence to bear; and before the day was over, that 20th of October, he had given every one of the twenty companies their flags also. And the bearings of the said gonfalons were these. I will give you this heraldry as far as I can make it out from Villani; it will be very useful to us afterwards; I leave the Italian when I cannot translate it:-- 105. A. Sesto, (sixth part of the city,) of the other side of Arno. Gonfalon 1. Gules; a ladder, argent. 2. Argent; a scourge, sable. 3. Azure; (una piazza bianca con nicchi vermigli). 4. Gules; a dragon, vert. B. Sesto of St. Peter Scheraggio. 1. Azure; a chariot, or. 2. Or; a bull, sable. 3. Argent; a lion rampant, sable. 4. (A lively piece, "pezza gagliarda") Barry of (how many?) pieces, argent and sable. You may as well note at once of this kind of bearing, called 'gagliarda' by Villani, that these groups of piles, pales, bends, and bars, were called in English heraldry 'Restrial bearings,' "in respect of their strength and solid substance, which is able to abide the stresse and force of any triall they shall be put unto." [1] And also that, the number of bars being uncertain, I assume the bearing to be 'barry,' that is, having an even number of bars; had it been odd, as of seven bars, it should have been blazoned, argent; three bars, sable; or, if so divided, sable, three bars argent. [Footnote 1: Guillim, sect. ii., chap. 3.] This lively bearing was St. Pulinari's. C. Sesto of Borgo. 1. Or; a viper, vert. 2. Argent; a needle, (?) (aguglia) sable. 3. Vert; a horse unbridled; draped, argent, a cross, gules. D. Sesto of St. Brancazio. 1. Vert; a lion rampant, proper. 2. Argent; a lion rampant, gules. 3. Azure; a lion rampant, argent. E. Sesto of the Cathedral gates. 1. Azure; a lion (passant?) or. 2. Or; a dragon, vert. 3. Argent; a lion rampant, azure, crowned, or. F. Sesto of St. Peter's gates. 1. Or; two keys, gules. 2. An Italian (or more definitely a Greek and Etruscan bearing; I do not know how to blazon it;) concentric bands, argent and sable. This is one of the remains of the Greek expressions of storm; hail, or the Trinacrian limbs, being put on the giant's shields also. It is connected besides with the Cretan labyrinth, and the circles of the Inferno. 3. Parted per fesse, gules and vai (I don't know if vai means grey--not a proper heraldic colour--or vaire). 106. Of course Hubert of Lucca did not determine these bearings, but took them as he found them, and appointed them for standards; [1] he did the same for all the country parishes, and ordered them to come into the city at need. "And in this manner the old people of Florence ordered itself; and for more strength of the people, they ordered and began to build the palace which is behind the Badia,--that is to say, the one which is of dressed stone, with the tower; for before there was no palace of the commune in Florence, but the signory abode sometimes in one part of the town, sometimes in another. [Footnote 1: We will examine afterwards the heraldry of the trades, chap, xi., Villani.] 107. "And as the people had now taken state and signory on themselves, they ordered, for greater strength of the people, that all the towers of Florence--and there were many 180 feet high [1]--should be cut down to 75 feet, and no more; and so it was done, and with the stones of them they walled the city on the other side Arno." [Footnote: 120 braccia.] 108. That last sentence is a significant one. Here is the central expression of the true burgess or townsman temper,--resolute maintenance of fortified peace. These are the walls which modern republicanism throws down, to make boulevards over their ruins. 109. Such new order being taken, Florence remained quiet for full two months. On the 13th of December, in the same year, died the Emperor Frederick II.; news of his death did not reach Florence till the 7th January, 1251. It had chanced, according to Villani, that on the actual day of his death, his Florentine vice-regent, Rinieri of Montemerlo, was killed by a piece of the vaulting [1] of his room falling on him as he slept. And when the people heard of the Emperor's death, "which was most useful and needful for Holy Church, and for our commune," they took the fall of the roof on his lieutenant as an omen of the extinction of Imperial authority, and resolved to bring home all their Guelphic exiles, and that the Ghibellines should be forced to make peace with them. Which was done, and the peace really lasted for full six months; when, a quarrel chancing with Ghibelline Pistoja, the Florentines, under a Milanese podesta, fought their first properly communal and commercial battle, with great slaughter of Pistojese. Naturally enough, but very unwisely, the Florentine Ghibellines declined to take part in this battle; whereupon the people, returning flushed with victory, drove them all out, and established pure Guelph government in Florence, changing at the same time the flag of the city from gules, a lily argent, to argent, a lily gules; but the most ancient bearing of all, simply parted per pale, argent and gules, remained always on their carroccio of battle,--"Non si muto mai." [Footnote 1: "Una volta ch' era sopra la camera."] 110. "Non si muto mai." Villani did not know how true his words were. That old shield of Florence, parted per pale, argent and gules, (or our own Saxon Oswald's, parted per pale, or and purpure,) are heraldry changeless in sign; declaring the necessary balance, in ruling men, of the Rational and Imaginative powers; pure Alp, and glowing cloud. Church and State--Pope and Emperor--Clergy and Laity,--all these are partial, accidental--too often, criminal--oppositions; but the bodily and spiritual elements, seemingly adverse, remain in everlasting harmony, Not less the new bearing of the shield, the red fleur-de-lys, has another meaning. It is red, not as ecclesiastical, but as free. Not of Guelph against Ghibelline, but of Labourer against Knight. No more his serf, but his minister. His duty no more 'servitium,' but 'ministerium,' 'mestier.' We learn the power of word after word, as of sign after sign, as we follow the traces of this nascent art. I have sketched for you this lily from the base of the tower of Giotto. You may judge by the subjects of the sculpture beside it that it was built just in this fit of commercial triumph; for all the outer bas-reliefs are of trades. 111. Draw that red lily then, and fix it in your minds as the sign of the great change in the temper of Florence, and in her laws, in mid-thirteenth century; and remember also, when you go to Florence and see that mighty tower of the Palazzo Vecchio (noble still, in spite of the calamitous and accursed restorations which have smoothed its rugged outline, and effaced with modern vulgarisms its lovely sculpture)--terminating the shadowy perspectives of the Uffizii, or dominant over the city seen from Fésole or Bellosguardo,--that, as the tower of Giotto is the notablest monument in the world of the Religion of Europe, so, on this tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, first shook itself to the winds the Lily standard of her liberal,--because honest,--commerce. LECTURE V. PAX VOBISCUM. 112. My last lecture ended with a sentence which I thought, myself, rather pretty, and quite fit for a popular newspaper, about the 'lily standard of liberal commerce.' But it might occur, and I hope did occur, to some of you, that it would have been more appropriate if the lily had changed colour the other way, from red to white, (instead of white to red,) as a sign of a pacific constitution and kindly national purpose. 113. I believe otherwise, however; and although the change itself was for the sake of change merely, you may see in it, I think, one of the historical coincidences which contain true instruction for us. Quite one of the chiefest art-mistakes and stupidities of men has been their tendency to dress soldiers in red clothes, and monks, or pacific persons, in black, white, or grey ones. At least half of that mental bias of young people, which sustains the wickedness of war among us at this day, is owing to the prettiness of uniforms. Make all Hussars black, all Guards black, all troops of the line black; dress officers and men, alike, as you would public executioners; and the number of candidates for commissions will be greatly diminished. Habitually, on the contrary, you dress these destructive rustics and their officers in scarlet and gold, but give your productive rustics no costume of honour or beauty; you give your peaceful student a costume which he tucks up to his waist, because he is ashamed of it; and dress your pious rectors, and your sisters of charity, in black, as if it were _their_ trade instead of the soldier's to send people to hell, and their own destiny to arrive there. 114. But the investiture of the lily of Florence with scarlet is a symbol,--unintentional, observe, but not the less notable,--of the recovery of human sense and intelligence in this matter. The reign of war was past; this was the sign of it;--the red glow, not now of the Towers of Dis, but of the Carita, "che appena fora dentro al fuoco nota." And a day is coming, be assured, when the kings of Europe will dress their peaceful troops beautifully; will clothe their peasant girls "in scarlet, with other delights," and "put on ornaments of gold upon _their_ apparel;" when the crocus and the lily will not be the only living things dressed daintily in our land, and the glory of the wisest monarchs be indeed, in that their people, like themselves, shall be, at least in some dim likeness, "arrayed like one of these." 115. But as for the immediate behaviour of Florence herself, with her new standard, its colour was quite sufficiently significant in that old symbolism, when the first restrial bearing was drawn by dying fingers dipped in blood. The Guelphic revolution had put her into definite political opposition with her nearest, and therefore,--according to the custom and Christianity of the time,--her hatefullest, neighbours,--Pistoja, Pisa, Siena, and Volterra. What glory might not be acquired, what kind purposes answered, by making pacific mercantile states also of those benighted towns! Besides, the death of the Emperor had thrown his party everywhere into discouragement; and what was the use of a flag which flew no farther than over the new palazzo? 116. Accordingly, in the next year, the pacific Florentines began by ravaging the territory of Pistoja; then attacked the Pisans at Pontadera, and took 3000 prisoners; and finished by traversing, and eating up all that could be ate in, the country of Siena; besides beating the Sienese under the castle of Montalcino. Returning in triumph after these benevolent operations, they resolved to strike a new piece of money in memory of them,--the golden Florin! 117. This coin I have placed in your room of study, to be the first of the series of coins which I hope to arrange for you, not chronologically, but for the various interest, whether as regards art or history, which they should possess in your general studies. "The Florin of Florence," (says Sismondi), "through all the monetary revolutions of all neighbouring countries, and while the bad faith of governments adulterated their coin from one end of Europe to the other, has always remained the same; it is, to-day," (I don't know when, exactly, he wrote this,--but it doesn't matter), "of the same weight, and bears the same name and the same stamp, which it did when it was struck in 1252." It was gold of the purest title (24 carats), weighed the eighth of an ounce, and carried, as you see, on one side the image of St. John Baptist, on the other the Fleur-de-lys. It is the coin which Chaucer takes for the best representation of beautiful money in the Pardoner's Tale: this, in his judgment, is the fairest mask of Death. Villani's relation of its moral and commercial effect at Tunis is worth translating, being in the substance of it, I doubt not, true. 118. "And these new florins beginning to scatter through the world, some of them got to Tunis, in Barbary; and the King of Tunis, who was a worthy and wise lord, was greatly pleased with them, and had them tested; and finding them of fine gold, he praised them much, and had the legend on them interpreted to him,--to wit, on one side 'St. John Baptist,' on the other 'Florentia.' So seeing they were pieces of Christian money, he sent for the Pisan merchants, who were free of his port, and much before the King (and also the Florentines traded in Tunis through Pisan agents),--[see these hot little Pisans, how they are first everywhere,]--and asked of them what city it was among the Christians which made the said florins. And the Pisans answered in spite and envy, 'They are our land Arabs.' The King answered wisely, "It does not appear to me Arab's money; you Pisans, what golden money have _you_ got?" Then they were confused, and knew not what to answer. So he asked if there was any Florentine among them. And there was found a merchant from the other-side-Arno, by name Peter Balducci, discreet and wise. The King asked him of the state and being of Florence, of which the Pisans made their Arabs,--who answered him wisely, showing the power and magnificence of Florence; and how Pisa, in comparison, was not, either in land or people, the half of Florence; and that they had no golden money; and that the gold of which those florins had been made was gained by the Florentines above and beyond them, by many victories. Wherefore the said Pisans were put to shame, and the King, both by reason of the florin, and for the words of our wise citizen, made the Florentines free, and appointed for them their own Fondaco, and church, in Tunis, and gave them privileges like the Pisans. And this we know for a truth from the same Peter, having been in company with him at the office of the Priors." 119. I cannot tell you what the value of the piece was at this time: the sentence with which Sismondi concludes his account of it being only useful as an example of the total ignorance of the laws of currency in which many even of the best educated persons at the present day remain. "Its value," he says always the same, "answers to eleven francs forty centimes of France." But all that can be scientifically said of any piece of money is that it contains a given weight of a given metal. Its value in other coins, other metals, or other general produce, varies not only from day to day, but from instant to instant. 120. With this coin of Florence ought in justice to be ranked the Venetian zecchin; [1] but of it I can only thus give you account in another place,--for I must at once go on now to tell you the first use I find recorded, as being made by the Florentines of their new money. [Footnote 1: In connection with the Pisans' insulting intention by their term of Arabs, remember that the Venetian 'zecca,' (mint) came from the Arabic 'sehk,' the steel die used in coinage.] They pursued in the years 1253 and 1254 their energetic promulgation of peace. They ravaged the lands of Pistoja so often, that the Pistojese submitted themselves, on condition of receiving back their Guelph exiles, and admitting a Florentine garrison into Pistoja. Next they attacked Monte Reggione, the March-fortress of the Sienese; and pressed it so vigorously that Siena was fain to make peace too, on condition of ceasing her alliance with the Ghibellines. Next they ravaged the territory of Volterra: the townspeople, confident in the strength of their rock fortress, came out to give battle; the Florentines beat them up the hill, and entered the town gates with the fugitives. 121. And, for note to this sentence, in my long-since-read volume of Sismondi, I find a cross-fleury at the bottom of the page, with the date 1254 underneath it; meaning that I was to remember that year as the beginning of Christian warfare. For little as you may think it, and grotesquely opposed as this ravaging of their neighbours' territories may seem to their pacific mission, this Florentine army is fighting in absolute good faith. Partly self-deceived, indeed, by their own ambition, and by their fiery natures, rejoicing in the excitement of battle, they have nevertheless, in this their "year of victories,"--so they ever afterwards called it,--no occult or malignant purpose. At least, whatever is occult or malignant is also unconscious; not now in cruel, but in kindly jealousy of their neighbours, and in a true desire to communicate and extend to them the privileges of their own new artizan government, the Trades of Florence have taken arms. They are justly proud of themselves; rightly assured of the wisdom of the change they have made; true to each other for the time, and confident in the future. No army ever fought in better cause, or with more united heart. And accordingly they meet with no check, and commit no error; from tower to tower of the field fortresses,--from gate to gate of the great cities,--they march in one continuous and daily more splendid triumph, yet in gentle and perfect discipline; and now, when they have entered Volterra with her fugitives, after stress of battle, not a drop of blood is shed, nor a single house pillaged, nor is any other condition of peace required than the exile of the Ghibelline nobles. You may remember, as a symbol of the influence of Christianity in this result, that the Bishop of Volterra, with his clergy, came out in procession to meet them as they began to run [1] the streets, and obtained this mercy; else the old habits of pillage would have prevailed. [Footnote 1: Corsona la citta senza contesto niuno."--_Villani._] 122. And from Volterra, the Florentine army entered on the territory of Pisa; and now with so high prestige, that the Pisans at once sent ambassadors to them with keys in their hands, in token of submission. And the Florentines made peace with them, on condition that the Pisans should let the Florentine merchandize pass in and out without tax;--should use the same weights as Florence,--the same cloth measure,--and the same alloy of money. 123. You see that Mr. Adam Smith was not altogether the originator of the idea of free trade; and six hundred years have passed without bringing Europe generally to the degree of mercantile intelligence, as to weights and currency, which Florence had in her year of victories. The Pisans broke this peace two years afterwards, to help the Emperor Manfred; whereupon the Florentines attacked them instantly again; defeated them on the Serchio, near Lucca; entered the Pisan territory by the Val di Serchio; and there, cutting down a great pine tree, struck their florins on the stump of it, putting, for memory, under the feet of the St. John, a trefoil "in guise of a little tree." And note here the difference between artistic and mechanical coinage. The Florentines, using pure gold, and thin, can strike their coin anywhere, with only a wooden anvil, and their engraver is ready on the instant to make such change in the stamp as may record any new triumph. Consider the vigour, popularity, pleasantness of an art of coinage thus ductile to events, and easy in manipulution. 124. It is to be observed also that a thin gold coinage like that of the English angel, and these Italian zecchins, is both more convenient and prettier than the massive gold of the Greeks, often so small that it drops through the fingers, and, if of any size, inconveniently large in value. 125. It was in the following year, 1255, that the Florentines made the noblest use of their newly struck florins, so far as I know, ever recorded in any history; and a Florentine citizen made as noble refusal of them. You will find the two stories in Giovanni Villani, Book 6th, chapters 61, 62. One or two important facts are added by Sismondi, but without references. I take his statement as on the whole trustworthy, using Villani's authority wherever it reaches; one or two points I have farther to explain to you myself as I go on. 126. The first tale shows very curiously the mercenary and independent character of warfare, as it now was carried on by the great chiefs, whether Guelph or Ghibelline. The Florentines wanted to send a troop of five hundred horse to assist Orvieto, a Guelph town, isolated on its rock, and at present harrassed upon it. They gave command of this troop to the Knight Guido Guerra de' Conti Guidi, and he and his riders set out for Orvieto by the Umbrian road, through Arezzo, which was at peace with Florence, though a Ghibelline town. The Guelph party within the town asked help from the passing Florentine battalion; and Guido Guerra, without any authority for such action, used the troop of which he was in command in their favour, and drove out the Ghibellines. Sismondi does not notice what is quite one of the main points in the matter, that this troop of horse must have been mainly composed of Count Guido's own retainers, and not of Florentine citizens, who would not have cared to leave their business on such a far-off quest as this help to Orvieto. However, Arezzo is thus brought over to the Florentine interest; and any other Italian state would have been sure, while it disclaimed the Count's independent action, to keep the advantage of it. Not so Florence. She is entirely resolved, in these years of victory, to do justice to all men so far she understands it; and in this case it will give her some trouble to do it, and worse,--cost her some of her fine new florins. For her counter-mandate is quite powerless with Guido Guerra. He has taken Arezzo mainly with his own men, and means to stay there, thinking that the Florentines, if even they do not abet him, will take no practical steps against him. But he does not know this newly risen clan of military merchants, who quite clearly understand what honesty means, and will put themselves out of their way to keep their faith. Florence calls out her trades instantly, and with gules, a dragon vert, and or, a bull sable, they march, themselves, angrily up the Val d'Arno, replace the adverse Ghibellines in Arezzo, and send Master Guido de' Conti Guido about his business. But the prettiest and most curious part of the whole story is their equity even to him, after he had given them all this trouble. They entirely recognize the need he is under of getting meat, somehow, for the mouths of these five hundred riders of his; also they hold him still their friend, though an unmanageable one; and admit with praise what of more or less patriotic and Guelphic principle may be at the root of his disobedience. So when he claims twelve thousand lire,--roughly, some two thousand pounds of money at present value,--from the Guelphs of Arezzo for his service, and the Guelphs, having got no good of it, owing to this Florentine interference, object to paying him, the Florentines themselves lend them the money,--and are never paid a farthing of it back. 127. There is a beautiful "investment of capital" for your modern merchant to study! No interest thought of, and little hope of ever getting back the principal. And yet you will find that there were no mercantile "panics," in Florence in those days, nor failing bankers, [1] nor "clearings out of this establishment--any reasonable offer accepted." [Footnote: Some account of the state of modern British business in this kind will be given, I hope, in some number of "Fors Clavigera" for this year, 1874.] 128. But the second story, of a private Florentine citizen, is better still. In that campaign against Pisa in which the florins were struck on the root of pine, the conditions of peace had been ratified by the surrender to Florence of the Pisan fortress of Mutrona, which commanded a tract of seaboard below Pisa, of great importance for the Tuscan trade. The Florentines had stipulated for the right not only of holding, but of destroying it, if they chose; and in their Council of Ancients, after long debate, it was determined to raze it, the cost of its garrison being troublesome, and the freedom of seaboard all that the city wanted. But the Pisans feeling the power that the fortress had against them in case of future war, and doubtful of the issue of council at Florence, sent a private negotiator to the member of the Council of Ancients who was known to have most influence, though one of the poorest of them, Aldobrandino Ottobuoni; and offered him four thousand golden florins if he would get the vote passed to raze Mutrona. The vote _had_ passed the evening before. Aldobrandino dismissed the Pisan ambassador in silence, returned instantly into the council, and without saying anything of the offer that had been made to him, got them to reconsider their vote, and showed them such reason for keeping Mutrona in its strength, that the vote for its destruction was rescinded. "And note thou, oh reader," says Villani, "the virtue of such a citizen, who, not being rich in substance, had yet such continence and loyalty for his state." 129. You might, perhaps, once, have thought me detaining you needlessly with these historical details, little bearing, it is commonly supposed, on the subject of art. But you are, I trust, now in some degree persuaded that no art, Florentine or any other, can be understood without knowing these sculptures and mouldings of the national soul. You remember I first begun this large digression when it became a question with us why some of Giovanni Pisano's sepulchral work had been destroyed at Perugia. And now we shall get our first gleam of light on the matter, finding similar operations carried on in Florence. For a little while after this speech in the Council of Ancients, Aldobrandino died, and the people, at public cost, built him a tomb of marble, "higher than any other" in the church of Santa Reparata, engraving on it these verses, which I leave you to construe, for I cannot:-- Fons est supremus Aldobrandino amoenus. Ottoboni natus, a bono civita datus. Only I suppose the pretty word 'amoenus' may be taken as marking the delightfulness and sweetness of character which had won all men's love, more, even, than their gratitude. 130. It failed of its effect, however, on the Tuscan aristocratic mind. For, when, after the battle of the Arbia, the Ghibellines had again their own way in Florence, though Ottobuoni had been then dead three years, they beat down his tomb, pulled the dead body out of it, dragged it--by such tenure as it might still possess--through the city, and threw the fragments of it into ditches. It is a memorable parallel to the treatment of the body of Cromwell by our own Cavaliers; and indeed it seems to me one of the highest forms of laudatory epitaph upon a man, that his body should be thus torn from its rest. For he can hardly have spent his life better than in drawing on himself the kind of enmity which can so be gratified; and for the most loving of lawgivers, as of princes, the most enviable and honourable epitaph has always been [Greek: "_oide plitai anton emisoun anton_." 131. Not but that pacific Florence, in her pride of victory, was beginning to show unamiableness of temper also, on her so equitable side. It is perhaps worth noticing, for the sake of the name of Correggio, that in 1257, when Matthew Correggio, of Parma, was the Podesta of Florence, the Florentines determined to destroy the castle and walls of Poggibonzi, suspected of Ghibelline tendency, though the Poggibonzi people came with "coregge in collo," leathern straps round their necks, to ask that their cattle might be spared. And the heartburnings between the two parties went on, smouldering hotter and hotter, till July, 1258, when the people having discovered secret dealings between the Uberti and the Emperor Manfred, and the Uberti refusing to obey citation to the popular tribunals, the trades ran to arms, attacked the Uberti palace, killed a number of their people, took prisoner, Uberto of the Uberti, Hubert of the Huberts, or Bright-mind of the Bright-minds, with 'Mangia degl' Infangati, ('Gobbler [1] of the dirty ones' this knight's name sounds like,)--and after they had confessed their guilt, beheaded them in St. Michael's corn-market; and all the rest of the Uberti and Ghibelline families were driven out of Florence, and their palaces pulled down, and the walls towards Siena built with the stones of them; and two months afterwards, the people suspecting the Abbot of Vallombrosa of treating with the Ghibellines, took him, and tortured him; and he confessing under torture, "at the cry of the people, they beheaded him in the square of St. Apollinare." For which unexpected piece of clangorous impiety the Florentines were excommunicated, besides drawing upon themselves the steady enmity of Pavia, the Abbot's native town; "and indeed people say the Abbot was innocent, though he belonged to a great Ghibelline house. And for this sin, and for many others done by the wicked people, many wise persons say that God, for Divine judgment, permitted upon the said people the revenge and slaughter of Monteaperti." [Footnote: At least, the compound 'Mangia-pane,' 'munch-bread,' stands still for a good-for-nothing fellow.] 132. The sentence which I have last read introduces, as you must at once have felt, a new condition of things. Generally, I have spoken of the Ghibellines as infidel, or impious; and for the most part they represent, indeed, the resistance of kingly to priestly power. But, in this action of Florence, we have the rise of another force against the Church, in the end to be much more fatal to it, that of popular intelligence and popular passion. I must for the present, however, return to our immediate business; and ask you to take note of the effect, on actually existing Florentine architecture, of the political movements of the ten years we have been studying. 133. In the revolution of Candlemas, 1248, the successful Ghibellines throw down thirty-six of the Guelph palaces. And in the revolution of July, 1258, the successful Guelphs throw down _all_ the Ghibelline palaces. Meantime the trades, as against the Knights Castellans, have thrown down the tops of all the towers above seventy-five feet high. And we shall presently have a proposal, after the battle of the Arbia, to throw down Florence altogether. 134. You think at first that this is remarkably like the course of republican reformations in the present day? But there is a wide difference. In the first place, the palaces and towers are not thrown down in mere spite or desire of ruin, but after quite definite experience of their danger to the State, and positive dejection of boiling lead and wooden logs from their machicolations upon the heads below. In the second place, nothing is thrown down without complete certainty on the part of the overthrowers that they are able, and willing, to build as good or better things instead; which, if any like conviction exist in the minds of modern republicans, is a wofully ill-founded one: and lastly, these abolitions of private wealth were coincident with a widely spreading disposition to undertake, as I have above noticed, works of public utility, _from which no dividends were to be received by any of the shareholders_; and for the execution of which the _builders received no commission on the cost_, but payment at the rate of so much a day, carefully adjusted to the exertion of real power and intelligence. 135. We must not, therefore, without qualification blame, though we may profoundly regret, the destructive passions of the thirteenth century. The architecture of the palaces thus destroyed in Florence contained examples of the most beautiful round-arched work that had been developed by the Norman schools; and was in some cases adorned with a barbaric splendour, and fitted into a majesty of strength which, so far as I can conjecture the effect of it from the few now existing traces, must have presented some of the most impressive aspects of street edifice ever existent among civil societies. 136. It may be a temporary relief for you from the confusion of following the giddy successions of Florentine temper, if I interrupt, in this place, my history of the city by some inquiry into technical points relating to the architecture of these destroyed palaces. Their style is familiar to us, indeed, in a building of which it is difficult to believe the early date,--the leaning tower of Pisa. The lower stories of it are of the twelfth century, and the open arcades of the cathedrals of Pisa and Lucca, as well as the lighter construction of the spire of St. Niccol, at Pisa, (though this was built in continuation of the older style by Niccola himself,) all represent to you, though in enriched condition, the general manner of buidling in palaces of the Norman period in Val d'Arno. That of the Tosinghi, above the old market in Florence, is especially mentioned by Villani, as more than a hundred feet in height, entirely built with little pillars, (colonnelli,) of marble. On their splendid masonry was founded the exquisiteness of that which immediately succeeded them, of which the date is fixed by definite examples both in Verona and Florence, and which still exists in noble masses in the retired streets and courts of either city; too soon superseded, in the great thoroughfares, by the effeminate and monotonous luxury of Venetian renaissance, or by the heaps of quarried stone which rise into the ruggedness of their native cliffs, in the Pitti and Strozzi palaces. LECTURE VI. MARBLE COUCHANT. 137. I told you in my last lecture that the exquisiteness of Florentine thirteenth century masonry was founded on the strength and splendour of that which preceded it. I use the word 'founded' in a literal as well as figurative sense. While the merchants, in their year of victories, threw down the walls of the war-towers, they as eagerly and diligently set their best craftsmen to lift higher the walls of their churches. For the most part, the Early Norman or Basilican forms were too low to please them in their present enthusiasm. Their pride, as well as their piety, desired that these stones of their temples might be goodly; and all kinds of junctions, insertions, refittings, and elevations were undertaken; which, the genius of the people being always for mosaic, are so perfectly executed, and mix up twelfth and thirteenth century work in such intricate harlequinade, that it is enough to drive a poor antiquary wild. 138. I have here in my hand, however, a photograph of a small church, which shows you the change at a glance, and attests it in a notable manner. You know Hubert of Lucca was the first captain of the Florentine people, and the march in which they struck their florin on the pine trunk was through Lucca, on Pisa. Now here is a little church in Lucca, of which the lower half of the façade is of the twelfth century, and the top, built by the Florentines, in the thirteenth, and sealed for their own by two fleur-de-lys, let into its masonry. The most important difference, marking the date, is in the sculpture of the heads which carry the archivolts. But the most palpable difference is in the Cyclopean simplicity of irregular bedding in the lower story; and the delicate bands of alternate serpentine and marble, which follow the horizontal or couchant placing of the stones above. 139. Those of you who, interested in English Gothic, have visited Tuscany, are, I think, always offended at first, if not in permanence, by these horizontal stripes of her marble walls. Twenty-two years ago I quoted, in vol. i. of the "Stones of Venice," Professor Willis's statement that "a practice more destructive of architectural grandeur could hardly be conceived;" and I defended my favourite buildings against that judgement, first by actual comparison in the plate opposite the page, of a piece of them with an example of our modern grandeur; secondly, (vol. i., chap. v.,) by a comparison of their aspect with that of the building of the grandest piece of wall in the Alps,--that Matterhorn in which you all have now learned to take some gymnastic interest; and thirdly, (vol. i., chap. xxvi.,) by reference to the use of barred colours, with delight, by Giotto and all subsequent colourists. 140. But it did not then occur to me to ask, much as I always disliked the English Perpendicular, what would have been the effect on the spectator's mind, had the buildings been striped vertically instead of horizontally; nor did I then know, or in the least imagine, how much _practical_ need there was for reference from the structure of the edifice to that of the cliff; and how much the permanence, as well as propriety, of structure depended on the stones being _couchant_ in the wall, as they had been in the quarry: to which subject I wish to-day to direct your attention. 141. You will find stated with as much clearness as I am able, in the first and fifth lectures in "Aratra Pentelíci," the principles of architectural design to which, in all my future teaching, I shall have constantly to appeal; namely, that architecture consists distinctively in the adaptation of form to resist force;--that, practically, it may be always thought of as doing this by the ingenious adjustment of various pieces of solid material; that the perception of this ingenious adjustment, or structure, is to be always joined with our admiration of the superadded ornament; and that all delightful ornament is the honouring of such useful structures; but that the beauty of the ornament itself is independent of the structure, and arrived at by powers of mind of a very different class from those which are necessary to give skill in architecture proper. 142. During the course of this last summer I have been myself very directly interested in some of the quite elementary processes of true architecture. I have been building a little pier into Coniston Lake, and various walls and terraces in a steeply sloping garden, all which had to be constructed of such rough stones as lay nearest. Under the dextrous hands of a neighbour farmer's son, the pier projected, and the walls rose, as if enchanted; every stone taking its proper place, and the loose dyke holding itself as firmly upright as if the gripping cement of the Florentine towers had fastened it. My own better acquaintance with the laws of gravity and of statics did not enable me, myself, to build six inches of dyke that would stand; and all the decoration possible under the circumstances consisted in turning the lichened sides of the stones outwards. And yet the noblest conditions of building in the world are nothing more than the gradual adornment, by play of the imagination, of materials first arranged by this natural instinct of adjustment. You must not lose sight of the instinct of building, but you must not think the play of the imagination depends upon it. Intelligent laying of stones is always delightful; but the fancy must not be limited to its contemplation. [Illustration: PLATE V.--DOOR OF THE BAPTISTERY. PISA.] 143. In the more elaborate architecture of my neighbourhood, I have taken pleasure these many years; one of the first papers I ever wrote on architecture was a study of the Westmoreland cottage;--properly, observe, the cottage of West-mereland, of the land of western lakes. Its principal feature is the projecting porch at its door, formed by two rough slabs of Coniston slate, set in a blunt gable; supported, if far projecting, by two larger masses for uprights. A disciple of Mr. Pugin would delightedly observe that the porch of St. Zeno at Verona was nothing more than the decoration of this construction; but you do not suppose that the first idea of putting two stones together to keep off rain was all on which the sculptor of St. Zeno wished to depend for your entertainment. 144. Perhaps you may most clearly understand the real connection between structure and decoration by considering all architecture as a kind of book, which must be properly bound indeed, and in which the illumination of the pages has distinct reference in all its forms to the breadth of the margins and length of the sentences; but is itself free to follow its own quite separate and higher objects of design. 145. Thus, for instance, in the architecture which Niccola was occupied upon, when a boy, under his Byzantine master. Here is the door of the Baptistery at Pisa, again by Mr. Severn delightfully enlarged for us from a photograph. [1] The general idea of it is a square-headed opening in a solid wall, faced by an arch carried on shafts. And the ornament does indeed follow this construction so that the eye catches it with ease,--but under what arbitrary conditions! In the square door, certainly the side-posts of it are as important members as the lintel they carry; but the lintel is carved elaborately, and the side-posts left blank. Of the facing arch and shaft, it would be similarly difficult to say whether the sustaining vertical, or sustained curve, were the more important member of the construction; but the decorator now reverses the distribution of his care, adorns the vertical member with passionate elaboration, and runs a narrow band, of comparatively uninteresting work, round the arch. Between this outer shaft and inner door is a square pilaster, of which the architect carves one side, and lets the other alone. It is followed by a smaller shaft and arch, in which he reverses his treatment of the outer order by cutting the shaft delicately and the arch deeply. Again, whereas in what is called the decorated construction of English Gothic, the pillars would have been left plain and the spandrils deep cut,--here, are we to call it decoration of the construction, when the pillars are carved and the spandrils left plain? Or when, finally, either these spandril spaces on each side of the arch, or the corresponding slopes of the gable, are loaded with recumbent figures by the sculptors of the renaissance, are we to call, for instance, Michael Angelo's Dawn and Twilight, only the decorations of the sloping plinths of a tomb, or trace to a geometrical propriety the subsequent rule in Italy that no window could be properly complete for living people to look out of, without having two stone people sitting on the corners of it above? I have heard of charming young ladies occasionally, at very crowded balls, sitting on the stairs,--would you call them, in that case, only decorations of the construction of the staircase? [Footnote 1: Plate 5 is from the photograph itself; the enlarged drawing showed the arrangement of parts more clearly, but necessarily omitted detail which it is better here to retain.] 146. You will find, on consideration, the ultimate fact to be that to which I have just referred you;--my statement in "Aratra," that the idea of a construction originally useful is retained in good architecture, through all the amusement of its ornamentation; as the idea of the proper function of any piece of dress ought to be retained through its changes in form or embroidery. A good spire or porch retains the first idea of a roof usefully covering a space, as a Norman high cap or elongated Quaker's bonnet retains the original idea of a simple covering for the head; and any extravagance of subsequent fancy may be permitted, so long as the notion of use is not altogether lost. A girl begins by wearing a plain round hat to shade her from the sun; she ties it down over her ears on a windy day; presently she decorates the edge of it, so bent, with flowers in front, or the riband that ties it with a bouquet at the side, and it becomes a bonnet. This decorated construction may be discreetly changed, by endless fashion, so long as it does not become a clearly useless riband round the middle of the head, or a clearly useless saucer on the top of it. 147. Again, a Norman peasant may throw up the top of her cap into a peak, or a Bernese one put gauze wings at the side of it, and still be dressed with propriety, so long as her hair is modestly confined, and her ears healthily protected, by the matronly safeguard of the real construction. She ceases to be decorously dressed only when the material becomes too flimsy to answer such essential purpose, and the flaunting pendants or ribands can only answer the ends of coquetry or ostentation. Similarly, an architect may deepen or enlarge, in fantastic exaggeration, his original Westmoreland gable into Rouen porch, and his original square roof into Coventry spire; but he must not put within his splendid porch, a little door where two persons cannot together get in, nor cut his spire away into hollow filigree, and mere ornamental perviousness to wind and rain. 148. Returning to our door at Pisa, we shall find these general questions as to the distribution of ornament much confused with others as to its time and style. We are at once, for instance, brought to a pause as to the degree in which the ornamentation was once carried out in the doors themselves. Their surfaces were, however, I doubt not, once recipients of the most elaborate ornament, as in the Baptistery of Florence; and in later bronze, by John of Bologna, in the door of the Pisan cathedral opposite this one. And when we examine the sculpture and placing of the lintel, which at first appeared the most completely Greek piece of construction of the whole, we find it so far advanced in many Gothic characters, that I once thought it a later interpolation cutting the inner pilasters underneath their capitals, while the three statues set on it are certainly, by several tens of years, later still. 149. How much ten years did at this time, one is apt to forget; and how irregularly the slower minds of the older men would surrender themselves, sadly, or awkwardly, to the vivacities of their pupils. The only wonder is that it should be usually so easy to assign conjectural dates within twenty or thirty years; but, at Pisa, the currents of tradition and invention run with such cross eddies, that I often find myself utterly at fault. In this lintel, for instance, there are two pieces separated by a narrower one, on which there has been an inscription, of which in my enlarged plate you may trace, though, I fear, not decipher, the few letters that remain. The uppermost of these stones is nearly pure in its Byzantine style; the lower, already semi-Gothic. Both are exquisite of their kind, and we will examine them closely; but first note these points about the stones of them. We are discussing work at latest of the thirteenth century. Our loss of the inscription is evidently owing to the action of the iron rivets which have been causelessly used at the two horizontal joints. There was nothing whatever in the construction to make these essential, and, but for this error, the entire piece of work, as delicate as an ivory tablet, would be as intelligible to-day as when it was laid in its place. [1] [Footnote: Plates 6 and 7 give, in greater clearness, the sculpture of this lintel, for notes on which see Appendix.] 150. _Laid_. I pause upon this word, for it is an important one. And I must devote the rest of this lecture to consideration merely of what follows from the difference between laying a stone and setting it up, whether we regard sculpture or construction. The subject is so wide, I scarcely know how to approach it. Perhaps it will be the pleasantest way to begin if I read you a letter from one of yourselves to me. A very favourite pupil, who travels third class always, for sake of better company, wrote to me the other day: "One of my fellow-travellers, who was a builder, or else a master mason, told me that the way in which red sandstone buildings last depends entirely on the way in which the stone is laid. It must lie as it does in the quarry; but he said that very few workmen could always tell the difference between the joints of planes of cleavage and the--something else which I couldn't catch,--by which he meant, I suppose planes of stratification. He said too that some people, though they were very particular [Illustration: PLATE VI.--THE STORY OF ST. JOHN. ADVENT.] [Illustration: PLATE VII.--THE STORY OF ST. JOHN. DEPARTURE.] about having the stone laid well, allowed blocks to stand in the rain the wrong way up, and that they never recovered one wetting. The stone of the same quarry varies much, and he said that moss will grow immediately on good stone, but not on bad. How curious,--nature helping the best workman!" Thus far my favourite pupil. 151. 'Moss will grow on the best stone.' The first thing your modern restorer would do is to scrape it off; and with it, whatever knitted surface, half moss root, protects the interior stone. Have you ever considered the infinite functions of protection to mountain form exercised by the mosses and lichens? It will perhaps be refreshing to you after our work among the Pisan marbles and legends, if we have a lecture or two on moss. Meantime I need not tell you that it would not be a satisfactory natural arrangement if moss grew on marble, and that all fine workmanship in marble implies equal exquisiteness of surface and edge. 152. You will observe also that the importance of laying the stone in the building as it lay in its bed was from the first recognised by all good northern architects, to such extent that to lay stones 'en delit,' or in a position out of their bedding, is a recognized architectural term in France, where all structural building takes its rise; and in that form of 'delit' the word gets most curiously involved with the Latin delictum and deliquium. It would occupy the time of a whole lecture if I entered into the confused relations of the words derived from lectus, liquidus, delinquo, diliquo, and deliquesco; and of the still more confused, but beautifully confused, (and enriched by confusion,) forms of idea, whether respecting morality or marble, arising out of the meanings of these words: the notions of a bed gathered or strewn for the rest, whether of rocks or men; of the various states of solidity and liquidity connected with strength, or with repose; and of the duty of staying quiet in a place, or under a law, and the mischief of leaving it, being all fastened in the minds of early builders, and of the generations of men for whom they built, by the unescapable bearing of geological laws on their life; by the ease or difficulty of splitting rocks, by the variable consistency of the fragments split, by the innumerable questions occurring practically as to bedding and cleavage in every kind of stone, from tufo to granite, and by the unseemly, or beautiful, destructive, or protective, effects of decomposition. [1] The same processes of time which cause your Oxford oolite to flake away like the leaves of a mouldering book, only warm with a glow of perpetually deepening gold the marbles of Athens and Verona; and the same laws of chemical change which reduce the granites of Dartmoor to porcelain clay, bind the sands of Coventry into stones which can be built up halfway to the sky. [Footnote 1: This passage cannot but seem to the reader loose and fantastic. I have elaborate notes, and many an unwritten thought, on these matters, but no time or strength to develop them. The passage is not fantastic, but the rapid index of what I know to be true in all the named particulars. But compare, for mere rough illustration of what I mean, the moral ideas relating to the stone of Jacob's pillow, or the tradition of it, with those to which French Flamboyant Gothic owes its character.] 153. But now, as to the matter immediately before us, observe what a double question arises about laying stones as they lie in the quarry. First, how _do_ they lie in the quarry? Secondly, how can we lay them so in every part of our building? A. How do they lie in the quarry? Level, perhaps, at Stonesfield and Coventry; but at an angle of 45° at Carrara; and for aught I know, of 90° in Paros or Pentelicus. Also, the _bedding_ is of prime importance at Coventry, but the _cleavage_ at Coniston. [1] [Footnote 1: There are at least four definite cleavages at Coniston, besides joints. One of these cleavages furnishes the Coniston slate of commerce; another forms the ranges of Wetherlam and Yewdale crag; a third cuts these ranges to pieces, striking from north-west to south-east; and a fourth into other pieces, from north-east to south-west.] B. And then, even if we know what the quarry bedding is, how are we to keep it always in our building? You may lay the stones of a wall carefully level, but how will you lay those of an arch? You think these, perhaps, trivial, or merely curious questions. So far from it, the fact that while the bedding in Normandy is level, that at Carrara is steep, and that the forces which raised the beds of Carrara crystallized them also, so that the cleavage which is all-important in the stones of my garden wall is of none in the duomo of Pisa,--simply determined the possibility of the existence of Pisan sculpture at all, and regulated the whole life and genius of Nicholas the Pisan and of Christian art. And, again, the fact that you can put stones in true bedding in a wall, but cannot in an arch, determines the structural transition from classical to Gothic architecture. 154. The _structural_ transition, observe; only a part, and that not altogether a coincident part, of the _moral_ transition. Read carefully, if you have time, the articles 'Pierre' and 'Meneau' in M. Violet le Duc's Dictionary of Architecture, and you will know everything that is of importance in the changes dependent on the mere qualities of _matter_. I must, however, try to set in your view also the relative acting qualities of _mind_. You will find that M. Violet le Duc traces all the forms of Gothic tracery to the geometrical and practically serviceable development of the stone 'chassis,' chasing, or frame, for the glass. For instance, he attributes the use of the cusp or 'redent' in its more complex forms, to the necessity, or convenience, of diminishing the space of glass which the tracery grasps; and he attributes the reductions of the mouldings in the tracery bar under portions of one section, to the greater facility thus obtained by the architect in directing his workmen. The plan of a window once given, and the moulding-section,--all is said, thinks M. Violet le Duc. Very convenient indeed, for modern architects who have commission on the cost. But certainly not necessary, and perhaps even inconvenient, to Niccola Pisano, who is himself his workman, and cuts his own traceries, with his apron loaded with dust. 155. Again, the _re_dent--the 'tooth within tooth' of a French tracery--may be necessary, to bite its glass. But the cusp, cuspis, spiny or spearlike point of a thirteenth century illumination, is not in the least necessary to transfix the parchment. Yet do you suppose that the structural convenience of the redent entirely effaces from the mind of the designer the aesthetic characters which he seeks in the cusp? If you could for an instant imagine this, you would be undeceived by a glance either at the early redents of Amiens, fringing hollow vaults, or the late redents of Rouen, acting as crockets on the _outer_ edges of pediments. 156. Again: if you think of the tracery in its _bars_, you call the cusp a redent; but if you think of it in the _openings_, you call the apertures of it foils. Do you suppose that the thirteenth century builder thought only of the strength of the bars of his enclosure, and never of the beauty of the form he enclosed? You will find in my chapter on the Aperture, in the "Stones of Venice," full development of the aesthetic laws relating to both these forms, while you may see, in Professor Willis's 'Architecture of the Middle Ages,' a beautiful analysis of the development of tracery from the juxtaposition of aperture; and in the article 'Meneau,' just quoted of M. Violet le Duc, an equally beautiful analysis of its development from the masonry of the chassis. You may at first think that Professor Willis's analysis is inconsistent with M. Violet le Duc's. But they are no more inconsistent than the accounts of the growth of a human being would be, if given by two anatomists, of whom one had examined only the skeleton and the other only the respiratory system; and who, therefore, supposed--the first, that the animal had been made only to leap, and the other only to sing. I don't mean that either of the writers I name are absolutely thus narrow in their own views, but that, so far as inconsistency appears to exist between them, it is of that partial kind only. 157. And for the understanding of our Pisan traceries we must introduce a third element of similarly distinctive nature. We must, to press our simile a little farther, examine the growth of the animal as if it had been made neither to leap, nor to sing, but only to think. We must observe the transitional states of its nerve power; that is to say, in our window tracery we must consider not merely how its ribs are built, (or how it stands,) nor merely how its openings are shaped, or how it breathes; but also what its openings are made to light, or its shafts to receive, of picture or image. As the limbs of the building, it may be much; as the lungs of the building, more. As the _eyes_ [1] of the building, what? [Footnote 1: I am ashamed to italicize so many words; but these passages, written for oral delivery, can only be understood if read with oral emphasis. This is the first aeries of lectures which I have printed as they were to be spoken; and it is a great mistake.] 158. Thus you probably have a distinct idea--those of you at least who are interested in architecture--of the shape of the windows in Westminster Abbey, in the Cathedral of Chartres, or in the Duomo of Milan. Can any of you, I should like to know, make a guess at the shape of the windows in the Sistine Chapel, the Stanze of the Vatican, the Scuola di San Rocco, or the lower church of Assisi? The soul or anima of the first three buildings is in their windows; but of the last three, in their walls. All these points I may for the present leave you to think over for yourselves, except one, to which I must ask yet for a few moments your further attention. 159. The trefoils to which I have called your attention in Niccola's pulpit are as absolutely without structural office in the circles as in the panels of the font beside it. But the circles are drawn with evident delight in the lovely circular line, while the trefoil is struck out by Niccola so roughly that there is not a true compass curve or section in any part of it. Roughly, I say. Do you suppose I ought to have said carelessly? So far from it, that if one sharper line or more geometric curve had been given, it would have caught the eye too strongly, and drawn away the attention from the sculpture. But imagine the feeling with which a French master workman would first see these clumsy intersections of curves. It would be exactly the sensation with which a practical botanical draughtsman would look at a foliage background of Sir Joshua Reynolds. But Sir Joshua's sketched leaves would indeed imply some unworkmanlike haste. We must not yet assume the Pisan master to have allowed himself in any such. His mouldings may be hastily cut, for they are, as I have just said, unnecessary to his structure, and disadvantageous to his decoration; but he is not likely to be careless about arrangements necessary for strength. His mouldings may be cut hastily, but do you think his _joints_ will be? 160. What subject of extended inquiry have we in this word, ranging from the cementless clefts between the couchant stones of the walls of the kings of Rome, whose iron rivets you had but the other day placed in your hands by their discoverer, through the grip of the stones of the Tower of the Death-watch, to the subtle joints in the marble armour of the Florentine Baptistery! Our own work must certainly be left with a rough surface at this place, and we will fit the edges of it to our next piece of study as closely as we may. LECTURE VII. MARBLE RAMPANT. 161. I closed my last lecture at the question respecting Nicholas's masonry. His mouldings may be careless, but do you think his joints will be? I must remind you now of the expression as to the building of the communal palace--"of _dressed_ stones" [1]--as opposed to the Tower of the Death-watch, in which the grip of cement had been so good. Virtually, you will find that the schools of structural architecture are those which use cement to bind [Footnote 1: "Pietre conce." The portion of the has-reliefs of Orvieto, given in the opposite plate, will show the importance of the jointing. Observe the way in which the piece of stone with the three principal figures is dovetailed above the extended band, and again in the rise above the joint of the next stone on the right, the sculpture of the wings being carried across the junction. I have chosen this piece on purpose, because the loss of the broken fragment, probably broken by violence, and the only serious injury which the sculptures have received, serves to show the perfection of the uninjured surface, as compared with northern sculpture of the same date. I have thought it well to show at the same time the modern German engraving of the subject, respecting which see Appendix.] [Illustration: PLATE VIII.--"THE CHARGE TO ADAM." GIOVANNI PISANO.] their materials together, and in which, therefore, balance of _weight_ becomes a continual and inevitable question. But the schools of sculptural architecture are those in which stones are fitted without cement, in which, therefore, the question of _fitting_ or adjustment is continual and inevitable, but the sustainable weight practically unlimited. 162. You may consider the Tower of the Death-watch as having been knit together like the mass of a Roman brick wall. But the dressed stone work of the thirteenth century is the hereditary completion of such block-laying, as the Parthenon in marble; or, in tufo, as that which was shown you so lately in the walls of Romulus; and the decoration of that system of couchant stone is by the finished grace of mosaic or sculpture. 163. It was also pointed out to you by Mr. Parker that there were two forms of Cyclopean architecture; one of level blocks, the other of polygonal,--contemporary, but in localities affording different material of stone. I have placed in this frame examples of the Cyclopean horizontal, and the Cyclopean polygonal, architecture of the thirteenth century. And as Hubert of Lucca was the master of the new buildings at Florence, I have chosen the Cyclopean horizontal from his native city of Lucca; and as our Nicholas and John brought their new Gothic style into practice at Orvieto, I have chosen the Cyclopean polygonal from their adopted city of Orvieto. Both these examples of architecture are early thirteenth century work, the beginnings of its new and Christian style, but beginnings with which Nicholas and John had nothing to do; they were part of the national work going on round them. 164. And this example from Lucca is of a very important class indeed. It is from above the east entrance gate of Lucca, which bears the cross above it, as the doors of a Christian city should. Such a city is, or ought to be, a place of peace, as much as any monastery. This custom of placing the cross above the gate is Byzantine-Christian; and here are parallel instances of its treatment from Assisi. The lamb with the cross is given in the more elaborate arch of Verona. 165. But farther. The mosaic of this cross is so exquisitely fitted that no injury has been received by it to this day from wind or weather. And the horizontal dressed stones are laid so daintily that not an edge of them has stirred; and, both to draw your attention to their beautiful fitting, and as a substitute for cement, the architect cuts his uppermost block so as to dovetail into the course below. Dovetail, I say deliberately. This is stone carpentry, in which the carpenter despises glue. I don't say he won't use glue, and glue of the best, but he feels it to be a nasty thing, and that it spoils his wood or marble. None, at least, he determines shall be seen outside, and his laying of stones shall be so solid and so adjusted that, take all the cement away, his wall shall yet stand. Stonehenge, the Parthenon, the walls of the Kings, this gate of Lucca, this window of Orvieto, and this tomb at Verona, are all built on the Cyclopean principle. They will stand without cement, and no cement shall be seen outside. Mr. Burgess and I actually tried the experiment on this tomb. Mr. Burgess modelled every stone of it in clay, put them together, and it stood. 166. Now there are two most notable characteristics about this Cyclopean architecture to which I beg your close attention. The first: that as the laying of stones is so beautiful, their joints become a subject of admiration, and great part of the architectural ornamentation is in the beauty of lines of separation, drawn as finely as possible. Thus the separating lines of the bricks at Siena, of this gate at Lucca, of the vault at Verona, of this window at Orvieto, and of the contemporary refectory at Furness Abbey, are a main source of the pleasure you have in the building. Nay, they are not merely engravers' lines, but, in finest practice, they are mathematical lines--length without breadth. Here in my hand is a little shaft of Florentine mosaic executed at the present day. The separations between the stones are, in dimension, mathematical lines. And the two sides of the thirteenth century porch of St. Anastasia at Verona are built in this manner,--so exquisitely, that for some time, my mind not having been set at it, I passed them by as painted! 167. That is the first character of the Florentine Cyclopean But secondly; as the joints are so firm, and as the building must never stir or settle after it is built, the sculptor may trust his work to two stones set side by side, or one above another, and carve continuously over the whole surface, disregarding the joints, if he so chooses. Of the degree of precision with which Nicholas of Pisa and his son adjusted their stones, you may judge by this rough sketch of a piece of St. Mary's of the Thorn, in which the design is of panels enclosing very delicately sculptured heads; and one would naturally suppose that the enclosing panels would be made of jointed pieces, and the heads carved separately and inserted. But the Pisans would have considered that unsafe masonry,--liable to the accident of the heads being dropped out, or taken away. John of Pisa did indeed use such masonry, of necessity, in his fountain; and the bas-reliefs _have_ been taken away. But here one great block of marble forms part of two panels, and the mouldings and head are both carved in the solid, the joint running just behind the neck. 168. Such masonry is, indeed, supposing there were no fear of thieves, gratuitously precise in a case of this kind, in which the ornamentation is in separate masses, and might be separately carved. But when the ornamentation is current, and flows or climbs along the stone in the manner of waves or plants, the concealment of the joints of the pieces of marble becomes altogether essential. And here we enter upon a most curious group of associated characters in Gothic as opposed to Greek architecture. 169. If you have been able to read the article to which I referred you, 'Meneau,' in M. Violet le Duc's dictionary, you know that one great condition of the perfect Gothic structure is that the stones shall be 'en de-lit,' set up on end. The ornament then, which on the reposing or couchant stone was current only, on the erected stone begins to climb also, and becomes, in the most heraldic sense of the term, rampant. In the heraldic sense, I say, as distinguished from the still wider original sense of advancing with a stealthy, creeping, or clinging motion, as a serpent on the ground, and a cat, or a vine, up a tree-stem. And there is one of these reptile, creeping, or rampant things, which is the first whose action was translated into marble, and otherwise is of boundless importance in the arts and labours of man. 170. You recollect Kingsley's expression,--now hackneyed, because admired for its precision,--the '_crawling foam_,' of waves advancing on sand. Tennyson has somewhere also used, with equal truth, the epithet 'climbing' of the spray of breakers against vertical rock. [1] In either instance, the sea action is literally 'rampant'; and the course of a great breaker, whether in its first proud likeness to a rearing horse, or in the humble and subdued gaining of the outmost verge of its foam on the sand, or the intermediate spiral whorl which gathers into a lustrous precision, like that of a polished shell, the grasping force of a giant, you have the most vivid sight and embodiment of literally rampant energy; which the Greeks expressed in their symbolic Poseidon, Scylla, and sea-horse, by the head and crest of the man, dog, or horse, with the body of the serpent; and of which you will find the slower image, in vegetation, rendered both by the spiral tendrils of grasping or climbing plants, and the perennial gaining of the foam or the lichen upon barren shores of stone. [Footnote: Perhaps I am thinking of Lowell, not Tennyson; I have not time to look.] 171. If you will look to the thirtieth chapter of vol. i. in the new edition of the "Stones of Venice," which, by the gift of its publishers, I am enabled to lay on your table to be placed in your library, you will find one of my first and most eager statements of the necessity of inequality or change in form, made against the common misunderstanding of Greek symmetry, and illustrated by a woodcut of the spiral ornament on the treasury of Atreus at Mycenae. All that is said in that chapter respecting nature and the ideal, I now beg most earnestly to recommend and ratify to you; but although, even at that time, I knew more of Greek art than my antagonists, my broken reading has given me no conception of the range of its symbolic power, nor of the function of that more or less formal spiral line, as expressive, not only of the waves of the sea, but of the zones of the whirlpool, the return of the tempest, and the involution of the labyrinth. And although my readers say that I wrote then better than I write now, I cannot refer you to the passage without asking you to pardon in it what I now hold to be the petulance and vulgarity of expression, disgracing the importance of the truth it contains. A little while ago, without displeasure, you permitted me to delay you by the account of a dispute on a matter of taste between my father and me, in which he was quietly and unavailingly right. It seems to me scarcely a day, since, with boyish conceit, I resisted his wise entreaties that I would re-word this clause; and especially take out of it the description of a sea-wave as "laying a great white tablecloth of foam" all the way to the shore. Now, after an interval of twenty years, I refer you to the passage, repentant and humble as far as regards its style, which people sometimes praised, but with absolue re-assertion of the truth and value of its contents, which people always denied. As natural form is varied, so must beautiful ornament be varied. You are not an artist by reproving nature into deathful sameness, but by animating your copy of her into vital variation. But I thought at that time that only Goths were rightly changeful. I never thought Greeks were. Their reserved variation escaped me, or I thought it accidental. Here, however, is a coin of the finest Greek workmanship, which shows you their mind in this matter unmistakably. Here are the waves of the Adriatic round a knight of Tarentum, and there is no doubt of their variableness. 172. This pattern of sea-wave, or river whirlpool, entirely sacred in the Greek mind, and the [Greek: *bostruchos*] or similarly curling wave in flowing hair, are the two main sources of the spiral form in lambent or rampant decoration. Of such lambent ornament, the most important piece is the crocket, of which I rapidly set before you the origin. 173. Here is a drawing of the gable of the bishop's throne in the upper church at Assisi, of the exact period when the mosaic workers of the thirteenth century at Rome adopted rudely the masonry of the north. Briefly, this is a Greek temple pediment, in which, doubtful of their power to carve figures beautiful enough, they cut a trefoiled hold for ornament, and bordered the edges with harlequinade of mosaic. They then call to their help the Greek sea-waves, and let the surf of the Ægean climb along the slopes, and toss itself at the top into a fleur-de-lys. Every wave is varied in outline and proportionate distance, though cut with a precision of curve like that of the sea itself. From this root we are able--but it must be in a lecture on crockets only--to trace the succeeding changes through the curl of Richard II.'s hair, and the crisp leaves of the forests of Picardy, to the knobbed extravagances of expiring Gothic. But I must to-day let you compare one piece of perfect Gothic work with the perfect Greek. 174. There is no question in my own mind, and, I believe, none in that of any other long-practised student of mediæval art, that in pure structural Gothic the church of St. Urbain at Troyes is without rival in Europe. Here is a rude sketch of its use of the crocket in the spandrils of its external tracery, and here are the waves of the Greek sea round the son of Poseidon. Seventeen hundred years are between them, but the same mind is in both. I wonder how many times seventeen hundred years Mr. Darwin will ask, to retrace the Greek designer of this into his primitive ape; or how many times six hundred years of such improvements as we have made on the church of St. Urbain, will be needed in order to enable our descendants to regard the designers of that, as only primitive apes. 175. I return for a moment to my gable at Assisi. You see that the crest of the waves at the top form a rude likeness of a fleur-de-lys. There is, however, in this form no real intention of imitating a flower, any more than in the meeting of the tails of these two Etruscan griffins. The notable circumstance in this piece of Gothic is its advanced form of crocket, and its prominent foliation, with nothing in the least approaching to floral ornament. 176. And now, observe this very curious fact in the personal character of two contemporary artists. See the use of my manually graspable flag. Here is John of Pisa,--here Giotto. They are contemporary for twenty years;--but these are the prime of Giotto's life, and the last of John's life: virtually, Giotto is the later workman by full twenty years. But Giotto always uses severe geometrical mouldings, and disdains all luxuriance of leafage to set off interior sculpture. John of Pisa not only adopts Gothic tracery, but first allows himself enthusiastic use of rampant vegetation;--and here in the façade of Orvieto, you have not only perfect Gothic in the sentiment of Scripture history, but such luxurious ivy ornamentation as you cannot afterwards match for two hundred years. Nay, you can scarcely match it then--for grace of line, only in the richest flamboyant of France. 177. Now this fact would set you, if you looked at art from its aesthetic side only, at once to find out what German artists had taught Giovanni Pisano. There _were_ Germans teaching him,--some teaching him many things; and the intense conceit of the modern German artist imagines them to have taught him all things. But he learnt his luxuriance, and Giotto his severity, in another school. The quality in both is Greek; and altogether moral. The grace and the redundance of Giovanui are the first strong manifestation of those characters in the Italian mind which culminate in the Madonnas of Luini and the arabesques of Raphael. The severity of Giotto belongs to him, on the contrary, not only as one of the strongest practical men who ever lived on this solid earth, but as the purest and firmest reformer of the discipline of the Christian Church, of whose writings any remains exist. 178. Of whose writings, I say; and you look up, as doubtful that he has left any. Hieroglyphics, then, let me say instead; or, more accurately still, hierographics. St. Francis, in what he wrote and said, taught much that was false. But Giotto, his true disciple, nothing but what was true. And where _he_ uses an arabesque of foliage, depend upon it it will be to purpose--not redundant. I return for the time to our soft and luxuriant John of Pisa. 179. Soft, but with no unmanly softness; luxuriant, but with no unmannered luxury. To him you owe as to their first sire in art, the grace of Ghiberti, the tenderness of Raphael, the awe of Michael Angelo. Second-rate qualities in all the three, but precious in their kind, and learned, as you shall see, essentially from this man. Second-rate he also, but with most notable gifts of this inferior kind. He is the Canova of the thirteenth century; but the Canova of the thirteenth, remember, was necessarily a very different person from the Canova of the eighteenth. The Cauova of the eighteenth century mimicked Greek grace for the delight of modern revolutionary sensualists. The Canova of the thirteenth century brought living Gothic truth into the living faith of his own time. Greek truth, and Gothic 'liberty,'--in that noble sense of the word, derived from the Latin 'liber,' of which I have already spoken, and which in my next lecture I will endeavour completely to develope. Meanwhile let me show you, as far as I can, the architecture itself about which these subtle questions arise. 180. Here are five frames, containing the best representations I can get for you of the façade of the cathedral of Orvieto. I must remind you, before I let you look at them, of the reason why that cathedral was built; for I have at last got to the end of the parenthesis which began in my second lecture, on the occasion of our hearing that John of Pisa was sent for to Perugia, to carve the tomb of Pope Urban IV.; and we must now know who this Pope was. 181. He was a Frenchman, born at that Troyes, in Champagne, which I gave you as the centre of French architectural skill, and Royalist character. He was born in the lowest class of the people, rose like Wolsey; became Bishop of Verdun; then, Patriarch of Jerusalem; returned in the year 1261, from his Patriarchate, to solicit the aid of the then Pope, Alexander IV., against the Saracen. I do not know on what day he arrived in Rome; but on the 25th of May, Alexander died, and the Cardinals, after three months' disputing, elected the suppliant Patriarch to be Pope himself. 182. A man with all the fire of France in him, all the faith, and all the insolence; incapable of doubting a single article of his creed, or relaxing one tittle of his authority; destitute alike of reason and of pity; and absolutely merciless either to an infidel, or an enemy. The young Prince Manfred, bastard son of Frederick II., now representing the main power of the German empire, was both; and against him the Pope brought into Italy a religious French knight, of character absolutely like his own, Charles of Anjou. 183. The young Manfred, now about twenty years old, was as good a soldier as he was a bad Christian; and there was no safety for Urban at Rome. The Pope seated himself on a worthy throne for a thirteenth-century St. Peter. Fancy the rock of Edinburgh Castle, as steep on all sides as it is to the west; and as long as the Old Town; and you have the rock of Orvieto. 184. Here, enthroned against the gates of hell, in unassailable fortitude, and unfaltering faith, sat Urban; the righteousness of his cause presently to be avouched by miracle, notablest among those of the Roman Church. Twelve miles east of his rock, beyond the range of low Apennine, shone the quiet lake, the Loch Leven of Italy, from whose island the daughter of Theodoric needed not to escape--Fate seeking her there; and in a little chapel on its shore a Bohemian priest, infected with Northern infidelity, was brought back to his allegiance by seeing the blood drop from the wafer in his hand. And the Catholic Church recorded this heavenly testimony to her chief mystery, in the Festa of the Corpus Domini, and the Fabric of Orvieto. 185. And sending was made for John, and for all good labourers in marble; but Urban never saw a stone of the great cathedral laid. His citation of Manfred to appear in his presence to answer for his heresy, was fixed against the posts of the doors of the old Duomo. But Urban had dug the foundation of the pile to purpose, and when he died at Perugia, still breathed, from his grave, calamity to Manfred, and made from it glory to the Church. He had secured the election of a French successor; from the rock of Orvieto the spirit of Urban led the French chivalry, when Charles of Anjou saw the day of battle come, so long desired. Manfred's Saracens, with their arrows, broke his first line; the Pope's legate blessed the second, and gave them absolution of all their sins, for their service to the Church. They charged for Orvieto with their old cry of 'Mont-Joie, Chevaliers!' and before night, while Urban lay sleeping in his carved tomb at Perugia, the body of Manfred lay only recognizable by those who loved him, naked among the slain. 186. Time wore on and on. The Suabian power ceased in Italy; between white and red there was now no more contest;--the matron of the Church, scarlet-robed, reigned, ruthless, on her seven hills. Time wore on; and, a hundred years later, now no more the power of the kings, but the power of the people,--rose against her. St. Michael, from the corn market,--Or San Michele,--the commercial strength of Florence, on a question of free trade in corn. And note, for a little bye piece of botany, that in Val d'Arno lilies grow among the corn instead of poppies. The purple gladiolus glows through all its green fields in early spring. 187. A question of free trade in corn, then, arose between Florence and Rome. The Pope's legate in Bologna stopped the supply of polenta, the Florentines depending on that to eat with their own oil. Very wicked, you think, of the Pope's legate, acting thus against quasi-Protestant Florence? Yes; just as wicked as the--not quasi-Protestants--but intensely positive Protestants, of Zurich, who tried to convert the Catholic forest-cantons by refusing them salt. Christendom has been greatly troubled about bread and salt: the then Protestant Pope, Zuinglius, was killed at the battle of Keppel, and the Catholic cantons therefore remain Catholic to this day; while the consequences of this piece of protectionist economy at Bologna are equally interesting and direct. 188. The legate of Bologna, not content with stopping the supplies of maize to Florence, sent our own John Hawkwood, on the 24th June, 1375, to burn all the maize the Florentines had got growing; and the abbot of Montemaggiore sent a troop of Perugian religious gentlemen-riders to ravage similarly the territory of Siena. Whereupon, at Florence, the Gonfalonier of Justice, Aloesio Aldobrandini, rose in the Council of Ancients and proposed, as an enterprise worthy of Florentine generosity, the freedom of all the peoples who groaned under the tyranny of the Church. And Florence, Siena, Pisa, Lucca, and Arezzo,--all the great cities of Etruria, the root of religion in Italy,--joined against the tyranny of religion. Strangely, this Etrurian league is not now to restore Tarquin to Rome, but to drive the Roman Tarquin into exile. The story of Lucretia had been repeated in Perugia; but the Umbrian Lucretia had died, not by suicide, but by falling on the pavement from the window through which she tried to escape. And the Umbrian Sextus was the Abbot of Montemaggiore's nephew. 189. Florence raised her fleur-de-lys standard: and, in ten days, eighty cities of Romagua were free, out of the number of whose names I will read you only these--Urbino, Foligno, Spoleto, Narni, Camerino, Toscanella, Perugia, Orvieto. And while the wind and the rain still beat the body of Manfred, by the shores of the Rio Verde, the body of Pope Urban was torn from its tomb, and not one stone of the carved work thereof left upon another. 190. I will only ask you to-day to notice farther that the Captain of Florence, in this war, was a 'Conrad of Suabia,' and that she gave him, beside her own flag, one with only the word 'Libertas' inscribed on it. I told you that the first stroke of the bell on the Tower of the Lion began the carillon for European civil and religious liberty. But perhaps, even in the fourteenth century, Florence did not understand, by that word, altogether the same policy which is now preached in France, Italy, and England. What she did understand by it, we will try to ascertain in the course of next lecture. LECTURE VIII. FRANCHISE. 191. In my first lecture of this course, you remember that I showed you the Lion of St. Mark's with Niccola Pisano's, calling the one an evangelical-preacher lion, and the other a real, and naturally affectionate, lioness. And the one I showed you as Byzantine, the other as Gothic. So that I thus called the Greek art pious, and the Gothic profane. Whereas in nearly all our ordinary modes of thought, and in all my own general references to either art, we assume Greek or classic work to be profane, and Gothic, pious, or religious. 192. Very short reflection, if steady and clear, will both show you how confused our ideas are usually on this subject, and how definite they may within certain limits become. First of all, don't confuse piety with Christianity. There are pious Greeks and impious Greeks; pious Turks and impious Turks; pious Christians and impious Christians; pious modern infidels and impious modern infidels. In case you do not quite know what piety really means, we will try to know better in next lecture; for the present, understand that I mean distinctly to call Greek art, in the true sense of the word, pious, and Gothic, as opposed to it, profane. 193. But when I oppose these two words, Gothic and Greek, don't run away with the notion that I necessarily mean to oppose _Christian_ and Greek. You must not confuse Gothic blood in a man's veins, with Christian feeling in a man's breast. There are unconverted and converted Goths; unconverted and converted Greeks. The Greek and Gothic temper is equally opposed, where the name of Christ has never been uttered by either, or when every other name is equally detested by both. I want you to-day to examine with me that essential difference between Greek and Gothic temper, irrespective of creed, to which I have referred in my preface to the last edition of the "Stones of Venice," saying that the Byzantines gave law to Norman license. And I must therefore ask your patience while I clear your minds from some too prevalent errors as to the meaning of those two words, law and license. 194. There is perhaps no more curious proof of the disorder which impatient and impertinent science is introducing into classical thought and language, than the title chosen by the Duke of Argyll for his interesting study of Natural History--'The Reign of Law.' Law cannot reign. If a natural law, it admits no disobedience, and has nothing to put right. If a human one, it can compel no obedience, and has no power to prevent wrong. A king only can reign;--a person, that is to say, who, conscious of natural law, enforces human law so far as it is just. 195. Kinghood is equally necessary in Greek dynasty, and in Gothic. Theseus is every inch a king, as well as Edward III. But the laws which they have to enforce on their own and their companions' humanity are opposed to each other as much as their dispositions are. The function of a Greek king was to enforce labour. That of a Gothic king, to restrain rage. The laws of Greece determine the wise methods of labour; and the laws of France determine the wise restraints of passion. For the sins of Greece are in Indolence, and its pleasures; and the sins of France are in fury, and its pleasures. 196. You are now again surprised, probably, at hearing me oppose France typically to Greece. More strictly, I might oppose only a part of France,--Normandy. But it is better to say, France, [1] as embracing the seat of the established Norman power in the Island of our Lady; and the province in which it was crowned,--Champagne. [Footnote 1: "Normandie, la franche." "France, la solue;" (chanson de Roland). One of my good pupils referred me to this ancient and glorious French song.] France is everlastingly, by birth, name, and nature, the country of the Franks, or free persons; and the first source of European frankness, or franchise. The Latin for franchise is libertas. But the modern or Cockney-English word liberty,--Mr. John Stuart Mill's,--is not the equivalent of libertas; and the modern or Cockney-French word liberté,--M. Victor Hugo's,--is not the equivalent of franchise. 197. The Latin for franchise, I have said, is libertas; the Greek is [Greek: *eleupheria*]. In the thoughts of all three nations, the idea is precisely the same, and the word used for the idea by each nation therefore accurately translates the word of the other: [Greek: *eleupheria*]--libertas--franchise--reciprocally translate each other. Leonidas is characteristically [Greek: *eleupheros*] among Greeks; Publicola, characteristically liber, among Romans; Edward III. and the Black Prince, characteristically frank among French. And that common idea, which the words express, as all the careful scholars among you will know, is, with all the three nations, mainly of deliverance from the slavery of passion. To be [Greek: *eleupheros*], liber, or franc, is first to have learned how to rule our own passions; and then, certain that our own conduct is right, to persist in that conduct against all resistance, whether of counter-opinion, counter pain, or counter-pleasure. To be defiant alike of the mob's thought, of the adversary's threat, and the harlot's temptation,--this is in the meaning of every great nation to be free; and the one condition upon which that freedom can be obtained is pronounced to you in a single verse of the 119th Psalm, "I will walk at liberty, for I seek Thy precepts." 198. Thy precepts:--Law, observe, being dominant over the Gothic as over the Greek king, but a quite different law. Edward III. feeling no anger against the Sieur de Ribaumont, and crowning him with his own pearl chaplet, is obeying the law of love, _restraining_ anger; but Theseus, slaying the Minotaur, is obeying the law of justice, and _enforcing_ anger. The one is acting under the law of the charity, [Greek: *charis*] or grace of God; the other under the law of His judgment. The two together fulfil His [Greek: *krisis*] and [Greek: *agapae*]. 199. Therefore the Greek dynasties are finally expressed in the kinghoods of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus, who judge infallibly, and divide arithmetically. But the dynasty of the Gothic king is in equity and compassion, and his arithmetic is in largesse, "Whose moste joy was, I wis, When that she gave, and said, Have this." So that, to put it in shortest terms of all, Greek law is of Stasy, and Gothic of Ecstasy; there is no limit to the freedom of the Gothic hand or heart, and the children are most in the delight and the glory of liberty when they most seek their Father's precepts. 200. The two lines I have just quoted are, as you probably remember, from Chaucer's translation of the French Romance of the Rose, out of which I before quoted to you the description of the virtue of Debonnaireté. Now that Debonnaireté of the Painted Chamber of Westminster is the typical figure used by the French sculptors and painters for 'franchise,' frankness, or Frenchness; but in the Painted Chamber, Debonnaireté, high breeding, 'out of goodnestedness,' or gentleness, is used, as an English king's English, of the Norman franchise. Here, then, is our own royalty,--let us call it Englishness, the grace of our proper kinghood;--and here is French royalty, the grace of French kinghood--Frenchness, rudely but sufficiently drawn by M. Didron from the porch of Chartres. She has the crown of fleur-de-lys, and William the Norman's shield. 201. Now this grace of high birth, the grace of his or her Most Gracious Majesty, has her name at Chartres written beside her, in Latin. Had it been in Greek, it would have been [Greek: *elevtheria*]. Being in Latin, what do you think it must be necessarily?--Of course, Libertas. Now M. Didron is quite the best writer on art that I know,--full of sense and intelligence; but of course, as a modern Frenchman,--one of a nation for whom the Latin and Gothic ideas of libertas have entirely vanished,--he is not on his guard against the trap here laid for him. He looks at the word libertas through his spectacles;--can't understand, being a thoroughly good antiquary, [1] how such a virtue, or privilege, could honestly be carved with approval in the twelfth century;--rubs his spectacles; rubs the inscription, to make sure of its every letter; stamps it, to make surer still;--and at last, though in a greatly bewildered state of mind, remains convinced that here is a sculpture of 'La Liberte' in the twelfth century. "C'est bien la liberte!" "On lit parfaitement libertas." [Footnote 1: Historical antiquary; not art-antiquary I must limitedly say, however. He has made a grotesque mess of his account of the Ducal Palace of Venice, through his ignorance of the technical characters of sculpture.] 202. Not so, my good M. Didron!--a very different personage, this; of whom more, presently, though the letters of her name are indeed so plainly, 'Libertas, at non liberalitas,' liberalitas being the Latin for largesse, not for franchise. This, then, is the opposition between the Greek and Gothic dynasties, in their passionate or vital nature; in the _animal_ and _inbred_ part of them;--Classic and romantic, Static and exstatic. But now, what opposition is there between their divine natures? Between Theseus and Edward III., as warriors, we now know the difference; but between Theseus and Edward III, as theologians; as dreaming and discerning creatures, as didactic kings,--engraving letters with the point of the sword, instead of thrusting men through with it,--changing the club into the ferula, and becoming schoolmasters as well as kings; what is, thus, the difference between them? Theologians I called them. Philologians would be a better word,--lovers of the [Greek: *Logos*], or Word, by which the heavens and earth were made. What logos, _about_ this Logos, have they learned, or can they teach? 203. I showed you, in my first lecture, the Byzantine Greek lion, as descended by true unblemished line from the Nemean Greek; but with this difference: Heracles kills the beast, and makes a helmet and cloak of his skin; the Greek St. Mark converts the beast, and makes an evangelist of him. Is not that a greater difference, think you, than one of mere decadence? This 'maniera goffa e sproporzionata' of Vasari is not, then, merely the wasting away of former leonine strength into thin rigidities of death? There is another change going on at the same time,--body perhaps subjecting itself to spirit. I will not teaze you with farther questions. The facts are simple enough. Theseus and Heracles have their religion, sincere and sufficient,--a religion of lion-killers, minotaur-killers, very curious and rude; Eleusinian mystery mingled in it, inscrutable to us now,--partly always so, even to them. 204. Well; the Greek nation, in process of time, loses its manliness,--becomes Graeculus instead of Greek. But though effeminate and feeble, it inherits all the subtlety of its art, all the cunning of its mystery; and it is converted to a more spiritual religion. Nor is it altogether degraded, even by the diminution of its animal energy. Certain spiritual phenomena are possible to the weak, which are hidden from the strong;--nay, the monk may, in his order of being, possess strength denied to the warrior. Is it altogether, think you, by blundering, or by disproportion in intellect or in body, that Theseus becomes St. Athanase? For that is the kind of change which takes place, from the days of the great King of Athens, to those of the great Bishop of Alexandria, in the thought and theology, or, summarily, in the spirit of the Greek. Now we have learned indeed the difference between the Gothic knight and the Greek knight; but what will be the difference between the Gothic saint and Greek saint? Franchise of body against constancy of body. Franchise of thought, then, against constancy of thought. Edward III. against Theseus. And the Frank of Assisi against St. Athanase. 205. Utter franchise, utter gentleness in theological thought. Instead of, 'This is the faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved,' 'This is the love, which if a bird or an insect keep faithfully, _it_ shall be saved.' Gentlemen, you have at present arrived at a phase of natural science in which, rejecting alike the theology of the Byzantine, and the affection of the Frank, you can only contemplate a bird as flying under the reign of law, and a cricket as singing under the compulsion of caloric. I do not know whether you yet feel that the position of your boat on the river also depends entirely on the reign of law, or whether, as your churches and concert-rooms are privileged in the possession of organs blown by steam, you are learning yourselves to sing by gas, and expect the Dies Irae to the announced by a steam-trumpet. But I can very positively assure you that, in my poor domain of imitative art, not all the mechanical or gaseous forces of the world, nor all the laws of the universe, will enable you either to see a colour, or draw a line, without that singular force anciently called the soul, which it was the function of the Greek to discipline in the duty of the servants of God, and of the Goth to lead into the liberty of His children. 206. But in one respect I wish you were more conscious of the existence of law than you appear to be. The difference which I have pointed out to you as existing between these great nations, exists also between two orders of intelligence among men, of which the one is usually called Classic, the other Romantic. Without entering into any of the fine distinctions between these two sects, this broad one is to be observed as constant: that the writers and painters of the Classic school set down nothing but what is known to be true, and set it down in the perfectest manner possible in their way, and are thenceforward authorities from whom there is no appeal. Romantic writers and painters, on the contrary, express themselves under the impulse of passions which may indeed lead them to the discovery of new truths, or to the more delightful arrangement or presentment of things already known: but their work, however brilliant or lovely, remains imperfect, and without authority. It is not possible, of course, to separate these two orders of men trenchantly: a classic writer may sometimes, whatever his care, admit an error, and a romantic one may reach perfection through enthusiasm. But, practically, you may separate the two for your study and your education; and, during your youth, the business of us your masters is to enforce on you the reading, for school work, only of classical books: and to see that your minds are both informed of the indisputable facts they contain, and accustomed to act with the infallible accuracy of which they set the example. 207. I have not time to make the calculation, but I suppose that the daily literature by which we now are principally nourished, is so large in issue that though St. John's "even the world itself could not contain the books which should be written" may be still hyperbole, it is nevertheless literally true that the world might be _wrapped_ in the books which are written; and that the sheets of paper covered with type on any given subject, interesting to the modern mind, (say the prospects of the Claimant,) issued in the form of English morning papers during a single year, would be enough literally to pack the world in. 208. Now I will read you fifty-two lines of a classical author, which, once well read and understood, contain more truth than has been told you all this year by this whole globe's compass of print. Fifty-two lines, of which you will recognize some as hackneyed, and see little to admire in others. But it is not possible to put the statements they contain into better English, nor to invalidate one syllable of the statements they contain. [1] [Footnote 1: 'The Deserted Village,' line 251 to 302.] 209. Even those, and there may be many here, who would dispute the truth of the passage, will admit its exquisite distinctness and construction. If it be untrue, that is merely because I have not been taught by my modern education to recognize a classical author; but whatever my mistakes, or yours, may be, there _are_ certain truths long known to all rational men, and indisputable. You may add to them, but you cannot diminish them. And it is the business of a University to determine what books of this kind exist, and to enforce the understanding of them. 210. The classical and romantic arts which we have now under examination therefore consist,--the first, in that which represented, under whatever symbols, truths respecting the history of men, which it is proper that all should know; while the second owes its interest to passionate impulse or incident. This distinction holds in all ages, but the distinction between the franchise of Northern, and the constancy of Byzantine, art, depends partly on the unsystematic play of emotion in the one, and the appointed sequence of known fact or determined judgment in the other. You will find in the beginning of M. Didron's book, already quoted, an admirable analysis of what may be called the classic sequence of Christian theology, as written in the sculpture of the Cathedral of Chartres. You will find in the treatment of the façade of Orvieto the beginning of the development of passionate romance,--the one being grave sermon writing; the other, cheerful romance or novel writing: so that the one requires you to think, the other only to feel or perceive; the one is always a parable with a meaning, the other only a story with an impression. 211. And here I get at a result concerning Greek art, which is very sweeping and wide indeed. That it is all parable, but Gothic, as distinct from it, literal. So absolutely does this hold, that it reaches down to our modern school of landscape. You know I have always told you Turner belonged to the Greek school. Precisely as the stream of blood coming from under the throne of judgment in the Byzantine mosaic of Torcello is a sign of condemnation, his scarlet clouds are used by Turner as a sign of death; and just as on an Egyptian tomb the genius of death lays the sun down behind the horizon, so in his Cephalus and Procris, the last rays of the sun withdraw from the forest as the nymph expires. And yet, observe, both the classic and romantic teaching may be equally earnest, only different in manner. But from classic art, unless you understand it, you may get nothing; from romantic art, even if you don't understand it, you get at least delight. 212. I cannot show the difference more completely or fortunately than by comparing Sir Walter Scott's type of libertas, with the franchise of Chartres Cathedral, or Debonnaireté of the Painted Chamber. At Chartres, and Westminster, the high birth is shown by the crown; the strong bright life by the flowing hair; the fortitude by the conqueror's shield; and the truth by the bright openness of the face: "She was not brown, nor dull of hue, But white as snowe, fallen newe." All these are symbols, which, if you cannot read, the image is to you only an uninteresting stiff figure. But Sir Walter's Franchise, Diana Vernon, interests you at once in personal aspect and character. She is no symbol to you; but if you acquaint yourself with her perfectly, you find her utter frankness, governed by a superb self-command; her spotless truth, refined by tenderness; her fiery enthusiasm, subdued by dignity; and her fearless liberty, incapable of doing wrong, joining to fulfil to you, in sight and presence, what the Greek could only teach by signs. 213. I have before noticed--though I am not sure that you have yet believed my statement of it--the significance of Sir Walter's as of Shakspeare's names; Diana 'Vernon, semper viret,' gives you the conditions of purity and youthful strength or spring which imply the highest state of libertas. By corruption of the idea of purity, you get the modern heroines of London Journal--or perhaps we may more fitly call it 'Cockney-daily'--literature. You have one of them in perfection, for instance, in Mr. Charles Reade's 'Griffith Gaunt'--"Lithe, and vigorous, and one with her great white gelding;" and liable to be entirely changed in her mind about the destinies of her life by a quarter of an hour's conversation with a gentleman unexpectedly handsome; the hero also being a person who looks at people whom he dislikes, with eyes "like a dog's in the dark;" and both hero and heroine having souls and intellects also precisely corresponding to those of a dog's in the dark, which is indeed the essential picture of the practical English national mind at this moment,--happy if it remains doggish,--Circe not usually being content with changing people into dogs only. For the Diana Vernon of the Greek is Artemis Laphria, who is friendly to the dog; not to the swine. Do you see, by the way, how perfectly the image is carried out by Sir Walter in putting his Diana on the border country? "Yonder blue hill is in Scotland," she says to her cousin,--not in the least thinking less of him for having been concerned, it may be, in one of Bob Roy's forays. And so gradually you get the idea of Norman franchise carried out in the free-rider or free-booter; not safe from degradation on that side also; but by no means of swinish temper, or foraging, as at present the British speculative public, only with the snout. 214. Finally, in the most soft and domestic form of virtue, you have Wordsworth's ideal: "Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin liberty." The distinction between these northern types of feminine virtue, and the figures of Alcestis, Antigone, or Iphigenia, lies deep in the spirit of the art of either country, and is carried out into its most unimportant details. We shall find in the central art of Florence at once the thoughtfulness of Greece and the gladness of England, associated under images of monastic severity peculiar to herself. And what Diana Vernon is to a French ballerine dancing the Cancan, the 'libertas' of Chartres and Westminster is to the 'liberty' of M. Victor Hugo and Mr. John Stuart Mill. LECTURE IX. THE TYRRHENE SEA. 215. We may now return to the points of necessary history, having our ideas fixed within accurate limits as to the meaning of the word Liberty; and as to the relation of the passions which separated the Guelph and Ghibelline to those of our own days. The Lombard or Guelph league consisted, after the accession of Florence, essentially of the three great cities--Milan, Bologna, and Florence; the Imperial or Ghibelline league, of Verona, Pisa, and Siena. Venice and Genoa, both nominally Guelph, are in furious contention always for sea empire while Pisa and Genoa are in contention, not so much for empire, as honour. Whether the trade of the East was to go up the Adriatic, or round by the Gulf of Genoa, was essentially a mercantile question; but whether, of the two ports in sight of each other, Pisa or Genoa was to be the Queen of the Tyrrhene Sea, was no less distinctly a personal one than which of two rival beauties shall preside at a tournament. 216. This personal rivalry, so far as it was separated from their commercial interests, was indeed mortal, but not malignant. The quarrel was to be decided to the death, but decided with honour; and each city had four observers permittedly resident in the other, to give account of all that was done there in naval invention and armament. 217. Observe, also, in the year 1251, when we quitted our history, we left Florence not only Guelph, as against the Imperial power, (that is to say, the body of her knights who favoured the Pope and Italians, in dominion over those who favoured Manfred and the Germans), but we left her also definitely with her apron thrown over her shield; and the tradesmen and craftsmen in authority over the knight, whether German or Italian, Papal or Imperial. That is in 1251. Now in these last two lectures I must try to mark the gist of the history of the next thirty years. The Thirty Years' War, this, of the middle ages, infinitely important to all ages; first observe, between Guelph and Ghibelline, ending in the humiliation of the Ghibelline; and, secondly, between Shield and Apron, or, if you like better, between Spear and Hammer, ending in the breaking of the Spear. 218. The first decision of battle, I say, is that between Guelph and Ghibelline, headed by two men of precisely oppposite characters, Charles of Anjou and Manfred of Suabia. That I may be able to define the opposition of their characters intelligibly, I must first ask your attention to some points of general scholarship. I said in my last lecture that, in this one, it would be needful for us to consider what piety was, if we happened not to know; or worse than that, it may be, not instinctively to feel. Such want of feeling is indeed not likely in you, being English-bred; yet as it is the modern cant to consider all such sentiment as useless, or even shameful, we shall be in several ways advantaged by some examination of its nature. Of all classical writers, Horace is the one with whom English gentlemen have on the average most sympathy; and I believe, therefore, we shall most simply and easily get at our point by examining the piety of Horace. 219. You are perhaps, for the moment, surprised, whatever might have been admitted of Æneas, to hear Horace spoken of as a pious person. But of course when your attention is turned to the matter you will recollect many lines in which the word 'pietas' occurs, of which you have only hitherto failed to allow the force because you supposed Horace did not mean what he said. 220. But Horace always and altogether means what he says. It is just because--whatever his faults may have been--he was not a hypocrite, that English gentlemen are so fond of him. "Here is a frank fellow, anyhow," they say, "and a witty one." Wise men know that he is also wise. True men know that he is also true. But pious men, for want of attention, do not always know that he is pious. One great obstacle to your understanding of him is your having been forced to construct Latin verses, with introduction of the word 'Jupiter' always, at need, when you were at a loss for a dactyl. You always feel as if Horace only used it also when he wanted a dactyl. 221. Get quit of that notion wholly. All immortal writers speak out of their hearts. Horace spoke out of the abundance of his heart, and tells you precisely what he is, as frankly as Montaigne. Note then, first, how modest he is: "Ne parva Tyrrhenum per aequor, vela darem;--Operosa parvus, carmina fingo." Trust him in such words; he absolutely means them; knows thoroughly that he cannot sail the Tyrrhene Sea,--knows that he cannot float on the winds of Matinum,--can only murmur in the sunny hollows of it among the heath. But note, secondly, his pride: "Exegi monumentum sere perennius." He is not the least afraid to say that. He did it; knew he had done it; said he had done it; and feared no charge of arrogance. 222. Note thirdly, then, his piety, and accept his assured speech of it: "Dis pietas mea, et Musa, cordi est." He is perfectly certain of that also; serenely tells you so; and you had better believe him. Well for you, if you can believe him; for to believe him, you must understand him first; and I can tell you, you won't arrive at that understanding by looking out the word 'pietas' in your White-and-Riddle. If you do you will find those tiresome contractions, Etym. Dub., stop your inquiry very briefly, as you go back; if you go forward, through the Italian pieta, you will arrive presently in another group of ideas, and end in misericordia, mercy, and pity. You must not depend on the form of the word; you must find out what it stands for in Horace's mind, and in Virgil's. More than race to the Roman; more than power to the statesman; yet helpless beside the grave,--"Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te, Restitvet pietas." Nay, also what it stands for as an attribute, not only of men, but of gods; nor of those only as merciful, but also as avenging. Against Æneas himself, Dido invokes the waves of the Tyrrhene Sea, "si quid pia numina possunt." Be assured there is no getting at the matter by dictionary or context. To know what love means, you must love; to know what piety means, you must be pious. 223. Perhaps you dislike the word, now, from its vulgar use. You may have another if you choose, a metaphorical one,--close enough it seems to Christianity, and yet still absolutely distinct from it,--[Greek: *christos*]. Suppose, as you watch the white bloom of the olives of Val d'Arno and Val di Nievole, which modern piety and economy suppose were grown by God only to supply you with fine Lucca oil, you were to consider, instead, what answer you could make to the Socratio question, [Greek: *pothen un tis tovto to chrisma labot*]. [1] [Footnote 1: Xem. Conviv., ii.] 224. I spoke to you first of Horace's modesty. All piety begins in modesty. You must feel that you are a very little creature, and that you had better do as you are bid. You will then begin to think what you are bid to do, and who bids it. And you will find, unless you are very unhappy indeed, that there is always a quite clear notion of right and wrong in your minds, which you can either obey or disobey, at your pleasure. Obey it simply and resolutely; it will become clearer to you every day: and in obedience to it, you will find a sense of being in harmony with nature, and at peace with God, and all His creatures. You will not understand how the peace comes, nor even in what it consists. It is the peace that passes understanding;--it is just as visionary and imaginative as love is, and just as real, and just as necessary to the life of man. It is the only source of true cheerfulness, and of true common sense; and whether you believe the Bible, or don't,--or believe the Koran, or don't--or believe the Vedas, or don't--it will enable you to believe in God, and please Him, and be such a part of the [Greek: *eudokia*] of the universe as your nature fits you to be, in His sight, faithful in awe to the powers that are above you, and gracious in regard to the creatures that are around. 225. I will take leave on this head to read one more piece of Carlyle, bearing much on present matters. "I hope also they will attack earnestly, and at length extinguish and eradicate, this idle habit of 'accounting for the moral sense,' as they phrase it. A most singular problem;--instead of bending every thought to have more, and ever more, of 'moral sense,' and therewith to irradiate your own poor soul, and all its work, into something of divineness, as the one thing needful to you in this world! A very futile problem that other, my friends; futile, idle, and far worse; leading to what moral ruin, you little dream of! The moral sense, thank God, is a thing you never will 'account for;' that, if you could think of it, is the perennial miracle of man; in all times, visibly connecting poor transitory man, here on this bewildered earth, with his Maker who is eternal in the heavens. By no greatest happiness principle, greatest nobleness principle, or any principle whatever, will you make that in the least clearer than it already is;--forbear, I say, or you may darken it away from you altogether! 'Two things,' says the memorable Kant, deepest and most logical of metaphysical thinkers, 'two things strike me dumb: the infinite starry heavens; and the sense of right and wrong in man.' Visible infinites, both; say nothing of them; don't try to 'account for them;' for you can say nothing wise." 226. Very briefly, I must touch one or two further relative conditions in this natural history of the soul. I have asked you to take the metaphorical, but distinct, word '[Greek: *chrisma*]' rather than the direct but obscure one 'piety'; mainly because the Master of your religion chose the metaphorical epithet for the perpetual one of His own life and person. But if you will spend a thoughtful hour or two in reading the scripture, which pious Greeks read, not indeed on daintily printed paper, but on daintily painted clay,--if you will examine, that is to say, the scriptures of the Athenian religion, on their Pan-Athenaic vases, in their faithful days, you will find that the gift of the literal [Greek: *chrisma*], or anointing oil, to the victor in the kingly and visible contest of life, is signed always with the image of that spirit or goddess of the air who was the source of their invisible life. And let me, before quitting this part of my subject, give you one piece of what you will find useful counsel. If ever from the right apothecary, or [Greek: muropolaes]', you get any of that [Greek: *chrisma*],--don't be careful, when you set it by, of looking for dead dragons or dead dogs in it. But look out for the dead flies. 227. Again; remember, I only quote St. Paul as I quote Xenophon to you; but I expect you to get some good from both. As I want you to think what Xenophon means by '[Greek: *manteia*],' so I want you to consider also what St. Paul means by '[Greek: *prophetia*].' He tells you to prove all things,--to hold fast what is good, and not to despise 'prophesyings.' 228. Now it is quite literally probable, that this world, having now for some five hundred years absolutely refused to do as it is plainly bid by every prophet that ever spoke in any nation, and having reduced itself therefore to Saul's condition, when he was answered neither by Urim nor by prophets, may be now, while you sit there, receiving necromantic answers from the witch of Endor. But with that possibility you have no concern. There is a prophetic power in your own hearts, known to the Greeks, known to the Jews, known to the Apostles, and knowable by you. If it is now silent to you, do not despise it by tranquillity under that privation; if it speaks to you, do not despise it by disobedience. 229. Now in this broad definition of Pietas, as reverence to sentimental law, you will find I am supported by all classical authority and use of this word. For the particular meaning of which I am next about to use the word Religion, there is no such general authority, nor can there be, for any limited or accurate meaning of it. The best authors use the word in various senses; and you must interpret each writer by his own context. I have myself continually used the term vaguely. I shall endeavour, henceforward, to use it under limitations which, willing always to accept, I shall only transgress by carelessness, or compliance with some particular use of the word by others. The power in the word, then, which I wish you now to notice, is in its employment with respect to doctrinal divisions. You do not say that one man is of one piety, and another of another; but you do, that one man is of one religion, and another of another. 230. The religion of any man is thus properly to be interpreted, as the feeling which binds him, irrationally, to the fulfilment of duties, or acceptance of beliefs, peculiar to a certain company of which he forms a member, as distinct from the rest of the world. 'Which binds him _irrationally_,' I say;--by a feeling, at all events, apart from reason, and often superior to it; such as that which brings back the bee to its hive, and the bird to her nest. A man's religion is the form of mental rest, or dwelling-place, which, partly, his fathers have gained or built for him, and partly, by due reverence to former custom, he has built for himself; consisting of whatever imperfect knowledge may have been granted, up to that time, in the land of his birth, of the Divine character, presence, and dealings; modified by the circumstances of surrounding life. It may be, that sudden accession of new knowledge may compel him to cast his former idols to the moles and to the bats. But it must be some very miraculous interposition indeed which can justify him in quitting the religion of his forefathers; and, assuredly, it must be an unwise interposition which provokes him to insult it. 231. On the other hand, the value of religious ceremonial, and the virtue of religious truth, consist in the meek fulfilment of the one as the fond habit of a family; and the meek acceptance of the other, as the narrow knowledge of a child. And both are destroyed at once, and the ceremonial or doctrinal prejudice becomes only an occasion of sin, if they make us either wise in our own conceit, or violent in our methods of proselytism. Of those who will compass sea and land to make one proselyte, it is too generally true that they are themselves the children of hell, and make their proselytes twofold more so. 232. And now I am able to state to you, in terms so accurately defined that you cannot misunderstand them, that we are about to study the results in Italy of the victory of an impious Christian over a pious Infidel, in a contest which, if indeed principalities of evil spirit are ever permitted to rule over the darkness of this world, was assuredly by them wholly provoked, and by them finally decided. The war was not actually ended until the battle of Tagliacozzo, fought in August, 1268; but you need not recollect that irregular date, or remember it only as three years after the great battle of Welcome, Benevento; which was the decisive one. Recollect, therefore, securely: 1250. The First Trades Revolt in Florence. 1260. Battle of the Arbia. 1265. Battle of Welcome. Then between the battle of Welcome and of Tagliacozzo, (which you might almost English in the real meaning of it as the battle of Hart's Death: 'cozzo' is a butt or thrust with the horn, and you may well think of the young Conradin as a wild hart or stag of the hills)--between those two battles, in 1266, comes the second and central revolt of the trades in Florence, of which I have to speak in next lecture. 233. The two German princes who perished in these two battles--Manfred of Tarentum, and his nephew and ward Conradin--are the natural son, and the legitimate grandson of Frederick II.: they are also the last assertors of the infidel German power in south Italy against the Church; and in alliance with the Saracens; such alliance having been maintained faithfully ever since Frederick II.'s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and cornation as its king. Not only a great number of Manfred's forts were commanded by Saracen governors, but he had them also appointed over civil tribunals. My own impression is that he found the Saracens more just and trustworthy than the Christians; but it is proper to remember the allegations of the Church against the whole Suabian family; namely, that Manfred had smothered his father Frederick under cushions at Ferentino; and that, of Frederick's sons, Conrad had poisoned Henry, and Manfred had poisoned Conrad. You will, however, I believe, find the Prince Manfred one of the purest representatives of northern chivalry. Against his nephew, educated in all knightly accomplishment by his mother, Elizabeth of Bavaria, nothing could be alleged by his enemies, even when resolved on his death, but the splendour of his spirit and the brightness of his youth. 234. Of the character of their enemy, Charles of Anjou, there will remain on your minds, after careful examination of his conduct, only the doubt whether I am justified in speaking of him as Christian against Infidel. But you will cease to doubt this when you have entirely entered into the conditions of this nascent Christianity of the thirteenth century. You will find that while men who desire to be virtuous receive it as the mother of virtues, men who desire to be criminal receive it as the forgiver of crimes; and that therefore, between Ghibelline or Infidel cruelty, and Guelph or Christian cruelty, there is always this difference,--that the Infidel cruelty is done in hot blood, and the Christian's in cold. I hope (in future lectures on the architecture of Pisa) to illustrate to you the opposition between the Ghibelline Conti, counts, and the Guelphic Visconti, viscounts or "against counts," which issues, for one thing, in that, by all men blamed as too deliberate, death of the Count Ugolino della Gherardesca. The Count Ugolino was a traitor, who entirely deserved death; but another Count of Pisa, entirely faithful to the Ghibelline cause, was put to death by Charles of Anjou, not only in cold blood, but with resolute infliction of Ugolino's utmost grief;--not in the dungeon, but in the full light of day--his son being first put to death before his eyes. And among the pieces of heraldry most significant in the middle ages, the asp on the shield of the Guelphic viscounts is to be much remembered by you as a sign of this merciless cruelty of mistaken religion; mistaken, but not in the least hypocritical. It has perfect confidence in itself, and can answer with serenity for all its deeds. The serenity of heart never appears in the guilty Infidels; they die in despair or gloom, greatly satisfactory to adverse religious minds. 235. The French Pope, then, Urban of Troyes, had sent for Charles of Anjou; who would not have answered his call, even with all the strength of Anjou and Provence, had not Scylla of the Tyrrhene Sea been on his side. Pisa, with eighty galleys (the Sicilian fleet added to her own), watched and defended the coasts of Rome. An irresistible storm drove her fleet to shelter; and Charles, in a single ship, reached the mouth of the Tiber, and found lodgings at Rome in the convent of St. Paul. His wife meanwhile spent her dowry in increasing his land army, and led it across the Alps. How he had got his wife, and her dowry, we must hear in Villani's words, as nearly as I can give their force in English, only, instead of the English word pilgrim, I shall use the Italian 'romeo' for the sake both of all English Juliets, and that you may better understand the close of the sixth canto of the Paradise. 236. "Now the Count Raymond Berenger had for his inheritance all Provence on this side Rhone; and he was a wise and courteous signor, and of noble state, and virtuous; and in his time they did honourable things; and to his court came by custom all the gentlemen of Provence, and France, and Catalonia, for his courtesy and noble state; and there they made many cobbled verses, and Provençal songs of great sentences." 237. I must stop to tell you that 'cobbled' or 'coupled' verses mean rhymes, as opposed to the dull method of Latin verse; for we have now got an ear for jingle, and know that dove rhymes to love. Also, "songs of great sentences" mean didactic songs, containing much in little, (like the new didactic Christian painting,) of which an example (though of a later time) will give you a better idea than any description. "Vraye foy de necessité, Non tant seulement d'equité, Nous fait de Dieu sept choses croire: C'est sa doulce nativité, Son baptesme d'humilité, Et sa mort, digne de mémoire: Son descens en la chartre noire, Et sa resurrection, voire; S'ascencion d'auctorité, La venue judicatoire, Ou ly bons seront mis en gloire, Et ly mals en adversité." 238. "And while they were making these cobbled verses and harmonious creeds, there came a romeo to court, returning from the shrine of St. James." I must stop again just to say that he ought to have been called a pellegrino, not a romeo, for the three kinds of wanderers are,--Palmer, one who goes to the Holy Land; Pilgrim, one who goes to Spain; and Romeo, one who goes to Rome. Probably this romeo had been to both. "He stopped at Count Raymond's court, and was so wise and worthy (valoroso), and so won the Count's grace, that he made him his master and guide in all things. Who also, maintaining himself in honest and religious customs of life, in a little time, by his industry and good sense, doubled the Count's revenues three times over, maintaining always a great and honoured court. Now the Count had four daughters, and no son; and by the sense and provision of the good romeo--(I can do no better than translate 'procaccio' provision, but it is only a makeshift for the word derived from procax, meaning the general talent of prudent impudence, in getting forward; 'forwardness,' has a good deal of the true sense, only diluted;)--well, by the sense and--progressive faculty, shall we say?--of the good pilgrim, he first married the eldest daughter, by means of money, to the good King Louis of France, saying to the Count, 'Let me alone,--Lascia-mi-fare--and never mind the expense, for if you marry the first one well, I'll marry you all the others cheaper, for her relationship." 239. "And so it fell out, sure enough; for incontinently the King of England (Henry III.) because he was the King of France's relation, took the next daughter, Eleanor, for very little money indeed; next, his natural brother, elect King of the Romans, took the third; and, the youngest still remaining unmarried,--says the good romeo, 'Now for this one, I will you to have a strong man for son-in-law, who shall be thy heir;'--and so he brought it to pass. For finding Charles, Count of Anjou, brother of the King Louis, he said to Raymond, "'Give her now to him, for his fate is to be the best man in the world,'--prophesying of him. And so it was done. And after all this it came to pass, by envy which ruins all good, that the barons of Provence became jealous of the good romeo, and accused him to the Count of having ill-guided his goods, and made Raymond demand account of them. Then the good romeo said, 'Count, I have served thee long, and have put thee from little state into mighty, and for this, by false counsel of thy people, thou art little grateful. I came into thy court a poor romeo; I have lived honestly on thy means; now, make to be given to me my little mule and my staff and my wallet, as I came, and I will make thee quit of all my service.' The Count would not he should go; but for nothing would he stay; and so he came, and so he departed, that no one ever knew whence he had come, nor whither he went. It was the thought of many that he was indeed a sacred spirit." 240. This pilgrim, you are to notice, is put by Dante in the orb of justice, as a just servant; the Emperor Justinian being the image of a just ruler. Justinian's law-making turned out well for England; but the good romeo's match-making ended ill for it; and for Borne, and Naples also. For Beatrice of Provence resolved to be a queen like her three sisters, and was the prompting spirit of Charles's expedition to Italy. She was crowned with him, Queen of Apulia and Sicily, on the day of the Epiphany, 1265; she and her husband bringing gifts that day of magical power enough; and Charles, as soon as the feast of coronation was over, set out to give battle to Manfred and his Saracens. "And this Charles," says Villani, "was wise, and of sane counsel; and of prowess in arms, and fierce, and much feared and redoubted by all the kings in the world;--magnanimous and of high purposes; fearless in the carrying forth of every great enterprise; firm in every adversity; a verifier of his every word; speaking little,--doing much; and scarcely ever laughed, and then but a little; sincere, and without flaw, as a religious and catholic person; stern in justice, and fierce in look; tall and nervous in person, olive coloured, and with a large nose, and well he appeared a royal majesty more than other men. Much he watched, and little he slept; and used to say that so much time as one slept, one lost; generous to his men-at-arms, but covetous to acquire land, signory, and coin, come how it would, to furnish his enterprises and wars: in courtiers, servants of pleasure, or jocular persons, he delighted never." 241. To this newly crowned and resolute king, riding south from Rome, Manfred, from his vale of Nocera under Mount St. Augelo, sends to offer conditions of peace. Jehu the son of Nimshi is not swifter of answer to Ahaziah's messenger than the fiery Christian king, in his 'What hast thou to do with peace?' Charles answers the messengers with his own lips: "Tell the Sultan of Nocera, this day I will put him in hell, or he shall put me in paradise." 242. Do not think it the speech of a hypocrite. Charles was as fully prepared for death that day as ever Scotch Covenanter fighting for his Holy League; and as sure that death would find him, if it found, only to glorify and bless. Balfour of Burley against Claverhouse is not more convinced in heart that he draws the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. But all the knightly pride of Claverhouse himself is knit together, in Charles, with fearless faith, and religious wrath. "This Saracen scum, led by a bastard German,--traitor to his creed, usurper among his race,--dares it look me, a Christian knight, a prince of the house of France, in the eyes? Tell the Sultan of Nocera, to-day I put him in hell, or he puts me in paradise." They are not passionate words neither; any more than hypocritical ones. They are measured, resolute, and the fewest possible. He never wasted words, nor showed his mind, but when he meant it should be known. 243. The messenger returned, thus answered; and the French king rode on with his host. Manfred met him in the plain of Grandella, before Benevento. I have translated the name of the fortress 'Welcome.' It was altered, as you may remember, from Maleventum, for better omen; perhaps, originally, only [Greek: *maloeis*]--a rock full of wild goats?--associating it thus with the meaning of Tagliacozzo. 244. Charles divided his army into four companies. The captain of his own was our English Guy de Montfort, on whom rested the power and the fate of his grandfather, the pursuer of the Waldensian shepherds among the rocks of the wild goats. The last, and it is said the goodliest, troop was of the exiled Guelphs of Florence, under Guido Guerra, whose name you already know. "These," said Manfred, as he watched them ride into their ranks, "cannot lose to-day." He meant that if he himself was the victor, he would restore these exiles to their city. The event of the battle was decided by the treachery of the Count of Caserta, Manfred's brother-in-law. At the end of the day only a few knights remained with him, whom he led in the last charge. As he helmed himself, the crest fell from his helmet. "Hoc est signum Dei," he said,--so accepting what he saw to be the purpose of the Ruler of all things; not claiming God as his friend. not asking anything of Him, as if His purpose could be changed; not fearing Him as an enemy; but accepting simply His sign that the appointed day of death was come. He rode into the battle armed like a nameless soldier, and lay unknown among the dead. 245. And in him died all southern Italy. Never, after that day's treachery, did her nobles rise, or her people prosper. Of the finding of the body of Manfred, and its casting forth, accursed, you may read, if you will, the story in Dante. I trace for you to-day rapidly only the acts of Charles after this victory, and its consummation, three years later, by the defeat of Conradin. The town of Benevento had offered no resistance to Charles, but he gave it up to pillage, and massacred its inhabitants. The slaughter, indiscriminate, continued for eight days; the women and children were slain with the men, being of Saracen blood. Manfred's wife, Sybil of Epirus, his children, and all his barons, died, or were put to death, in the prisons of Provence. With the young Conrad, all the faithful Ghibel-line knights of Pisa were put to death. The son of Frederick of Antioch, who drove the Guelphs from Florence, had his eyes torn out, and was hanged, he being the last child of the house of Suabia. Twenty-four of the barons of Calabria were executed at Gallipoli, and at Home. Charles cut off the feet of those who had fought for Conrad; then--fearful lest they should be pitied--shut them into a house of wood, and burned them. His lieutenant in Sicily, William of the Standard, besieged the town of Augusta, which defended itself with some fortitude, but was betrayed, and all its inhabitants, (who must have been more than three thousand, for there were a thousand able to bear arms,) massacred in cold blood; the last of them searched for in their hiding-places, when the streets were empty, dragged to the sea-shore, then beheaded, and their bodies thrown into the sea. Throughout Calabria the Christian judges of Charles thus forgave his enemies. And the Mohammedan power and heresy ended in Italy, and she became secure in her Catholic creed. 246. Not altogether secure under French dominion. After fourteen years of misery, Sicily sang her angry vespers, and a Calabrian admiral burnt the fleet of Charles before his eyes, where Scylla rules her barking Salamis. But the French king died in prayerful peace, receiving the sacrament with these words of perfectly honest faith, as he reviewed his past life: "Lord God, as I truly believe that you are my Saviour, so I pray you to have mercy on my soul; and as I truly made the conquest of Sicily more to serve the Holy Church than for my own covetousness, so I pray you to pardon my sins." 247. You are to note the two clauses of this prayer. He prays absolute mercy, on account of his faith in Christ; but remission of purgatory, in proportion to the quantity of good work he has done, or meant to do, as against evil. You are so much wiser in these days, you think, not believing in purgatory; and so much more benevolent,--not massacring women and children. But we must not be too proud of not believing in purgatory, unless we are quite sure of our real desire to be purified: and as to our not massacring children, it is true that an English gentleman will not now himself willingly put a knife into the throat either of a child or a lamb; but he will kill any quantity of children by disease in order to increase his rents, as unconcernedly as he will eat any quantity of mutton. And as to absolute massacre, I do not suppose a child feels so much pain in being killed as a full-grown man, and its life is of less value to it. No pain either of body or thought through which you could put an infant, would be comparable to that of a good son, or a faithful lover, dying slowly of a painful wound at a distance from a family dependent upon him, or a mistress devoted to him. But the victories of Charles, and the massacres, taken in sum, would not give a muster-roll of more than twenty thousand dead; men, women, and children counted all together. On the plains of France, since I first began to speak to you on the subject of the arts of peace, at least five hundred thousand men, in the prime of life, have been massacred by the folly of one Christian emperor, the insolence of another, and the mingling of mean rapacity with meaner vanity, which Christian nations now call 'patriotism.' 248. But that the Crusaders, (whether led by St. Louis or by his brother,) who habitually lived by robbery, and might be swiftly enraged to murder, were still too savage to conceive the spirit or the character of this Christ whose cross they wear, I have again and again alleged to you; not, I imagine, without question from many who have been accustomed to look to these earlier ages as authoritative in doctrine, if not in example. We alike err in supposing them more spiritual or more dark, than our own. They had not yet attained to the knowledge which we have despised, nor dispersed from their faith the shadows with which we have again overclouded ours. Their passions, tumultuous and merciless as the Tyrrhene Sea, raged indeed with the danger, but also with the uses, of naturally appointed storm; while ours, pacific in corruption, languish in vague maremma of misguided pools; and are pestilential most surely as they retire. LECTURE X. FLEUR DE LYS. 249. Through all the tempestuous winter which during the period of history we have been reviewing, weakened, in their war with the opposed rocks of religious or knightly pride, the waves of the Tuscan Sea, there has been slow increase of the Favonian power which is to bring fruitfulness to the rock, peace to the wave. The new element which is introduced in the thirteenth century, and perfects for a little time the work of Christianity, at least in some few chosen souls, is the law of Order and Charity, of intellectual and moral virtue, which it now became the function of every great artist to teach, and of every true citizen to maintain. 250. I have placed on your table one of the earliest existing engravings by a Florentine hand, representing the conception which the national mind formed of this spirit of order and tranquillity, "Cosmico," or the Equity of Kosmos, not by senseless attraction, but by spiritual thought and law. He stands pointing with his left hand to the earth, set only with tufts of grass; in his right hand he holds the ordered system of the universe--heaven and earth in one orb;--the heaven made cosmic by the courses of its stars; the earth cosmic by [Illustration: PLATE IX.--THE CHARGE TO ADAM. MODERN ITALIAN. ] the seats of authority and fellowship,--castles on the hills and cities in the plain. 251. The tufts of grass under the feet of this figure will appear to you, at first, grotesquely formal. But they are only the simplest expression, in such herbage, of the subjection of all vegetative force to this law of order, equity, or symmetry, which, made by the Greek the principal method of his current vegetative sculpture, subdues it, in the hand of Cora or Triptolemus, into the merely triple sceptre, or animates it, in Florence, to the likeness of the Fleur-de-lys. 252. I have already stated to you that if any definite flower is meant by these triple groups of leaves, which take their authoritatively typical form in the crowns of the Cretan and Laciuian Hera, it is not the violet, but the purple iris; or sometimes, as in Pindar's description of the birth of Ismus, the yellow water-flag, which you know so well in spring, by the banks of your Oxford streams. [1] But, in general, it means simply the springing of beautiful and orderly vegetation in fields upon which the dew falls pure. It is the expression, therefore, of peace on the redeemed and cultivated earth, and of the pleasure of heaven in the uncareful happiness of men clothed without labour, and fed without fear. [Footnote 1: In the catalogues of the collection of drawings in this room, and in my "Queen of the Air" you will find all that I would ask you to notice about the various names and kinds of the flower, and their symbolic use.--Note only, with respect to our present purpose, that while the true white lily is placed in the hands of the Angel of the Annunciation even by Florentine artists, in their general design, the fleur-de-lys is given to him by Giovaiini Pisano on the façade of Orvieto; and that the flower in the crown-circlets of European kings answers, as I stated to you in my lecture on the Corona, to the Narcissus fillet of early Greece; the crown of abundance and rejoicing.] 253. In the passage, so often read by us, which announces the advent of Christianity as the dawn of peace on earth, we habitually neglect great part of the promise, owing to the false translation of the second clause of the sentence. I cannot understand how it should be still needful to point out to you here in Oxford that neither the Greek words [Greek: *"en anthriopois evdokia,"*] nor those of the vulgate, "in terra pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis," in the slightest degree justify our English words, "goodwill to men." Of God's goodwill to men, and to all creatures, for ever, there needed no proclamation by angels. But that men should be able to please _Him_,--that their wills should be made holy, and they should not only possess peace in themselves, but be able to give joy to their God, in the sense in which He afterwards is pleased with His own baptized Son;--this was a new thing for Angels to declare, and for shepherds to believe. 254. And the error was made yet more fatal by its repetition in a passage of parallel importance,--the thanksgiving, namely, offered by Christ, that His Father, while He had hidden what it was best to know, not from the wise and prudent, but from some among the wise and prudent, and had revealed it unto babes; not 'for so it seemed good' in His sight, but 'that there might be well pleasing in His sight,'--namely, that the wise and simple might equally live in the necessary knowledge, and enjoyed presence, of God. And if, having accurately read these vital passages, you then as carefully consider the tenour of the two songs of human joy in the birth of Christ, the Magnificat, and the Nunc dimittis, you will find the theme of both to be, not the newness of blessing, but the equity which disappoints the cruelty and humbles the strength of men; which scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts; which fills the hungry with good things; and is not only the glory of Israel, but the light of the Gentiles. 255. As I have been writing these paragraphs, I have been checking myself almost at every word,--wondering, Will they be restless on their seats at this, and thinking all the while that they did not come here to be lectured on Divinity? You may have been a little impatient,--how could it well be otherwise? Had I been explaining points of anatomy, and showing you how you bent your necks and straightened your legs, you would have thought me quite in my proper function; because then, when you went with a party of connoisseurs through the Vatican, you could point out to them the insertion of the clavicle in the Apollo Belvidere; and in the Sistine Chapel the perfectly accurate delineation of the tibia in the legs of Christ. Doubtless; but you know I am lecturing at present on the goffi, and not on Michael Angelo; and the goffi are very careless about clavicles and shin-bones; so that if, after being lectured on anatomy, you went into the Campo Santo of Pisa, you would simply find nothing to look at, except three tolerably well-drawn skeletons. But if after being lectured on theology, you go into the Campo Santo of Pisa, you will find not a little to look at, and to remember. 256. For a single instance, you know Michael Angelo is admitted to have been so far indebted to these goffi as to borrow from the one to whose study of mortality I have just referred, Orcagna, the gesture of his Christ in the Judgment, He borrowed, however, accurately speaking, the position only, not the gesture; nor the meaning of it. [1] You all remember the action of Michael Angelo's Christ,--the right hand raised as if in violence of reprobation; and the left closed across His breast, as refusing all mercy. The action is one which appeals to persons of very ordinary sensations, and is very naturally adopted by the Renaissance painter, both for its popular effect, and its capabilities for the exhibition of his surgical science. But the old painter-theologian, though indeed he showed the right hand of Christ lifted, and the left hand laid across His breast, had another meaning in the actions. The fingers of the left hand are folded, in both the figures; but in Michael Angelo's as if putting aside an appeal; in Orcagna's, the fingers are bent to draw back the drapery from the right side. The right hand is raised by Michael Angelo as in anger; by Orcagna, only to show the wounded palm. And as, to the believing disciples, He showed them His hands and His side, so that they were glad,--so, to the unbelievers, at their judgment, He shows the wounds in hand and side. They shall look on Him whom they pierced. [Footnote: I found all this in M. Didron's Iconographie, above quoted; I had never noticed the difference between the two figures myself.] 257. And thus, as we follow our proposed examination of the arts of the Christian centuries, our understanding of their work will be absolutely limited by the degree of our sympathy with the religion which our fathers have bequeathed to us. You cannot interpret classic marbles without knowing and loving your Pindar and Æschylus, neither can you interpret Christian pictures without knowing and loving your Isaiah and Matthew. And I shall have continually to examine texts of the one as I would verses of the other; nor must you retract yourselves from the labour in suspicion that I desire to betray your scepticism, or undermine your positivism, because I recommend to you the accurate study of books which have hitherto been the light of the world. 258. The change, then, in the minds of their readers at this date, which rendered it possible for them to comprehend the full purport of Christianity, was in the rise of the new desire for equity and rest, amidst what had hitherto been mere lust for spoil, and joy in battle. The necessity for justice was felt in the now extending commerce; the desire of rest in the now pleasant and fitly furnished habitation; and the energy which formerly could only be satisfied in strife, now found enough both of provocation and antagonism in the invention of art, and the forces of nature. I have in this course of lectures endeavoured to fasten your attention on the Florentine Revolution of 1250, because its date is so easily memorable, and it involves the principles of every subsequent one, so as to lay at once the foundations of whatever greatness Florence afterwards achieved by her mercantile and civic power. But I must not close even this slight sketch of the central history of Val d'Aruo without requesting you, as you find time, to associate in your minds, with this first revolution, the effects of two which followed it, being indeed necessary parts of it, in the latter half of the century. 259. Remember then that the first, in 1250, is embryonic; and the significance of it is simply the establishment of order, and justice against violence and iniquity. It is equally against the power of knights and priests, so far as either are unjust,--not otherwise. When Manfred fell at Benevento, his lieutenant, the Count Guido Novello, was in command of Florence. He was just, but weak; and endeavoured to temporize with the Guelphs. His effort ought to be notable to you, because it was one of the wisest and most far-sighted ever made in Italy; but it failed for want of resolution, as the gentlest and best men are too apt to fail. He brought from Bologna two knights of the order--then recently established--of joyful brethren; afterwards too fatally corrupted, but at this time pure in purpose. They constituted an order of chivalry which was to maintain peace, obey the Church, and succour widows and orphans; but to be bound by no monastic vows. Of these two knights, he chose one Guelph, the other Ghibelline; and under their balanced power Gruido hoped to rank the forces of the civil, manufacturing, and trading classes, divided into twelve corporations of higher and lower arts. [1] But the moment this beautiful arrangement was made, all parties--Guelph, Ghibelline, and popular,--turned unanimously against Count Guido Novello. The benevolent but irresolute captain indeed gathered his men into the square of the Trinity; but the people barricaded the streets issuing from it; and Guido, heartless, and unwilling for civil warfare, left the city with his Germans in good order. And so ended the incursion of the infidel Tedeschi for this time. The Florentines then dismissed the merry brothers whom the Tedeschi had set over them, and besought help from Orvieto and Charles of Anjou; who sent them Guy de Montfort and eight hundred French riders; the blessing of whose presence thus, at their own request, was granted them on Easter Day, 1267. [Footnote: The seven higher arts were, Lawyers, Physicians, Bankers, Merchants of Foreign Goods, Wool Manufacturers, Silk Manufacturers, Furriers. The five lower arts were, Retail Sellers of Cloth, Butchers, Shoemakers, Masons and Carpenters, Smiths.] On Candlemas, if you recollect, 1251, they open their gates to the Germans; and on Easter, 1267, to the French. 260. Remember, then, this revolution, as coming between the battles of Welcome and Tagliacozzo; and that it expresses the lower revolutionary temper of the trades, with English and French assistance. Its immediate result was the appointment of five hundred and sixty lawyers, woolcombers, and butchers, to deliberate upon all State questions,--under which happy ordinances you will do well, in your own reading, to leave Florence, that you may watch, for a while, darling little Pisa, all on fire for the young Conradin. She sent ten vessels across the Gulf of Genoa to fetch him; received his cavalry in her plain of Sarzana; and putting five thousand of her own best sailors into thirty ships, sent them to do what they could, all down the coast of Italy. Down they went; startling Gaeta with an attack as they passed; found Charles of Anjou's French and Sicilian fleet at Messina, fought it, beat it, and burned twenty-seven of its ships. 261. Meantime, the Florentines prospered as they might with their religious-democratic constitution,--until the death, in the odour of sanctity, of Charles of Anjou, and of that Pope Martin IV. whose tomb was destroyed with Urban's at Perugia. Martin died, as you may remember, of eating Bolsena eels,--that being his share in the miracles of the lake; and you will do well to remember at the same time, that the price of the lake eels was three soldi a pound; and that Niccola of Pisa worked at Siena for six soldi a day, and his son Giovanni for four. 262. And as I must in this place bid farewell, for a time, to Niccola and to his son, let me remind you of the large commission which the former received on the occasion of the battle of Tagliacozzo, and its subsequent massacres, when the victor, Charles, having to his own satisfaction exterminated the seed of infidelity, resolves, both in thanksgiving, and for the sake of the souls of the slain knights for whom some hope might yet be religiously entertained, to found an abbey on the battle-field. In which purpose he sent for Niccola to Naples, and made him build on the field of Tagliacozzo, a church and abbey of the richest; and caused to be buried therein the infinite number of the bodies of those who died in that battle day; ordering farther, that, by many monks, prayer should be made for their souls, night and day. In which fabric the king was so pleased with Niccola's work that he rewarded and honoured him highly. 263. Do you not begin to wonder a little more what manner of man this Nicholas was, who so obediently throws down the towers which offend the Ghibelliues, and so skilfully puts up the pinnacles which please the Guelphs? A passive power, seemingly, he;--plastic in the hands of any one who will employ him to build, or to throw down. On what exists of evidence, demonstrably in these years here is the strongest brain of Italy, thus for six shilling a day doing what it is bid. 264. I take farewell of him then, for a little time, ratifying to you, as far as my knowledge permits, the words of my first master in Italian art, Lord Lindsay. "In comparing the advent of Niccola Pisano to that of the sun at his rising, I am conscious of no exaggeration; on the contrary, it is the only simile by which I can hope to give you an adequate impression of his brilliancy and power relatively to the age in which he flourished. Those sons of Erebus, the American Indians, fresh from their traditional subterranean world, and gazing for the first time on the gradual dawning of the day in the East, could not have been more dazzled, more astounded, when the sun actually appeared, than the popes and podestas, friars and freemasons must have been in the thirteenth century, when from among the Biduinos, Bonannos, and Antealmis of the twelfth, Niccola emerged in his glory, sovereign and supreme, a fount of light, diffusing warmth and radiance over Christendom. It might be too much to parallel him in actual genius with Dante and Shakspeare; they stand alone and unapproachable, each on his distinct pinnacle of the temple of Christian song; and yet neither of them can boast such extent and durability of influence, for whatever of highest excellence has been achieved in sculpture and painting, not in Italy only, but throughout Europe, has been in obedience to the impulse he primarily gave, and in following up the principle which he first struck out. "His latter days were spent in repose at Pisa, but the precise year of his death is uncertain; Vasari fixes it in 1275; it could not have been much later. He was buried in the Campo Santo. Of his personal character we, alas! know nothing; even Shakspeare is less a stranger to us. But that it was noble, simple, and consistent, and free from the petty foibles that too frequently beset genius, may be fairly presumed from the works he has left behind him, and from the eloquent silence of tradition." 265. Of the circumstances of Niccola Pisano's death, or the ceremonials practised at it, we are thus left in ignorance. The more exemplary death of Charles of Aujou took place on the 7th of January, then, 1285; leaving the throne of Naples to a boy of twelve; and that of Sicily, to a Prince of Spain. Various discord, between French, Spanish, and Calabrese vices, thenceforward paralyzes South Italy, and Florence becomes the leading power of the Guelph faction. She had been inflamed and pacified through continual paroxysms of civil quarrel during the decline of Charles's power; but, throughout, the influence of the nobles declines, by reason of their own folly and insolence; while the people, though with no small degree of folly and insolence on their own side, keep hold of their main idea of justice. In the meantime, similar assertions of law against violence, and the nobility of useful occupation, as compared with that of idle rapine, take place in Bologna, Siena, and even at Rome, where Bologna sends her senator, Branca Leone, (short for Branca-di-Leone, Lion's Grip,) whose inflexible and rightly guarded reign of terror to all evil and thievish persons, noble or other, is one of the few passages of history during the middle ages, in which the real power of civic virtue may be seen exercised without warping by party spirit, or weakness of vanity or fear. 266. And at last, led by a noble, Giano della Bella, the people of Florence write and establish their final condemnation of noblesse living by rapine, those 'Ordinamenti della Giustizia,' which practically excluded all idle persons from government, and determined that the priors, or leaders of the State, should be priors, or leaders of its arts and productive labour; that its head 'podesta' or 'power' should be the standard-bearer of justice; and its council or parliament composed of charitable men, or good men: "boni viri," in the sense from which the French formed their noun 'bonte.' The entire governing body was thus composed, first, of the Podestas, standard-bearer of justice; then of his military captain; then of his lictor, or executor; then of the twelve priors of arts and liberties--properly, deliberators on the daily occupations, interests, and pleasures of the body politic;--and, finally, of the parliament of "kind men," whose business was to determine what kindness could be shown to other states, by way of foreign policy. 267. So perfect a type of national government has only once been reached in the history of the human race. And in spite of the seeds of evil in its own impatience, and in the gradually increasing worldliness of the mercantile body; in spite of the hostility of the angry soldier, and the malignity of the sensual priest, this government gave to Europe the entire cycle of Christian art, properly so called, and every highest Master of labour, architectural, scriptural, or pictorial, practised in true understanding of the faith of Christ;--Orcagna, Giotto, Brunelleschi, Lionardo, Luini as his pupil, Lippi, Luca, Angelico, Botticelli, and Michael Angelo. 268. I have named two men, in this group, whose names are more familiar to your ears than any others, Angelico and Michael Angelo;--who yet are absent from my list of those whose works I wish you to study, being both extravagant in their enthusiasm,--the one for the nobleness of the spirit, and the other for that of the flesh. I name them now, because the gifts each had were exclusively Florentine; in whatever they have become to the mind of Europe since, they are utterly children of the Val d'Arno. 269. You are accustomed, too carelessly, to think of Angelico as a child of the Church, rather than of Florence. He was born in l387,--just eleven years, that is to say, after the revolt of Florence _against_ the Church, and ten after the endeavour of the Church to recover her power by the massacres of Faenza and Cesena. A French and English army of pillaging riders were on the other side of the Alps,--six thousand strong; the Pope sent for it; Robert Cardinal of Geneva brought it into Italy. The Florentines fortified their Apennines against it; but it took winter quarters at Cesena, where the Cardinal of Geneva massacred five thousand persons in a day, and the children and sucklings were literally dashed against the stones. 270. That was the school which the Christian Church had prepared for their brother Angelica. But Fèsole, secluding him in the shade of her mount of Olives, and Florence revealing to him the true voice of his Master, in the temple of St. Mary of the Flower, taught him his lesson of peace on earth, and permitted him his visions of rapture in heaven. And when the massacre of Cesena was found to have been in vain, and the Church was compelled to treat with the revolted cities who had united to mourn for her victories, Florence sent her a living saint, Catherine of Siena, for her political Ambassador. 271. Of Michael Angelo I need not tell you: of the others, we will read the lives, and think over them one by one; the great fact which I have written this course of lectures to enforce upon your minds is the dependence of all the arts on the virtue of the State, and its kindly order. The absolute mind and state of Florence, for the seventy years of her glory, from 1280 to 1350, you find quite simply and literally described in the ll2th Psalm, of which I read you the descriptive verses, in the words in which they sang it, from this typically perfect manuscript of the time:-- Gloria et divitie in domo ejus, justitia ejus manet in seculum seculi. Exortum est in tenebris lumen reotis, misericors, et miserator, et Justus. Jocundus homo, qui miseretur, et commodat: disponet sermones suos in judicio. Dispersit, dedit pauperibus; justitia ejus manet in seculum seculi; cornu ejus exaltabitur in gloria. I translate simply, praying you to note as the true one, the _literal_ meaning of every word:-- Glory and riches are in his house. His justice remains for ever. Light is risen in darkness for the straightforward people. He is merciful in heart, merciful in deed, and just. A jocund man; who is merciful, and lends. He will dispose his words in judgment. He hath dispersed. He hath given to the poor. His justice remain! for ever. His horn shall be exalted in glory. 272. With vacillating, but steadily prevailing effort, the Florentines maintained this life and character for full half a century. You will please now look at my staff of the year 1300, [Footnote: Page 33 in my second lecture on Engraving.] adding the names of Dante and Orcagna, having each their separate masterful or prophetic function. That is Florence's contribution to the intellectual work of the world during these years of justice. Now, the promise of Christianity is given with lesson from the fleur-de-lys: Seek ye first the royalty of God, and His justice, "and all these things," material wealth, "shall be added unto you." It is a perfectly clear, perfectly literal,--never failing and never unfulfilled promise. There is no instance in the whole cycle of history of its not being accomplished,--fulfilled to the uttermost, with full measure, pressed down, and running over. 273. Now hear what Florence was, and what wealth she had got by her justice. In the year 1330, before she fell, she had within her walls a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, of whom all the men--(laity)--between the ages of fifteen and seventy, were ready at an instant to go out to war, under their banners, in number twenty-four thousand. The army of her entire territory was eighty thousand; and within it she counted fifteen hundred noble, families, every one absolutely submissive to her gonfalier of justice. She had within her walls a hundred and ten churches, seven priories, and thirty hospitals for the sick and poor; of foreign guests, on the average, fifteen hundred, constantly. From eight to ten thousand children were taught to read in her schools. The town was surrounded by some fifty square miles of uninterrupted garden, of olive, corn, vine, lily, and rose. And the monetary existence of England and France depended upon her wealth. Two of her bankers alone had lent Edward III. of England five millions of money (in sterling value of this present hour). 274. On the 10th of March, 1337, she was first accused, with truth, of selfish breach of treaties. On the l0th of April, all her merchants in France were imprisoned by Philip Valois; and presently afterwards Edward of England failed, quite in your modern style, for his five millions. These money losses would have been nothing to her; but on the 7th of August, the captain of her army, Pietro de' Rossi of Parma, the unquestioned best knight in Italy, received a chance spear-stroke before Monselice, and died next day. He was the Bayard of Italy; and greater than Bayard, because living in a nobler time. He never had failed in any military enterprise, nor ever stained success with cruelty or shame. Even the German troops under him loved him without bounds. To his companions he gave gifts with such largesse, that his horse and armour were all that at any time he called his own. Beautiful and pure as Sir Galahad, all that was brightest in womanhood watched and honoured him. And thus, 8th August, 1337, he went to his own place.--To-day I trace the fall of Florence no more. I will review the points I wish you to remember; and briefly meet, so far as I can, the questions which I think should occur to you. 275. I have named Edward III. as our heroic type of Franchise. And yet I have but a minute ago spoken of him as 'failing' in quite your modern manner. I must correct my expression:--he had no intent of failing when he borrowed; and did not spend his money on himself. Nevertheless, I gave him as an example of frankness; but by no means of honesty. He is simply the boldest and royalest of Free Riders; the campaign of Crecy is, throughout, a mere pillaging foray. And the first point I wish you to notice is the difference in the pecuniary results of living by robbery, like Edward III., or by agriculture and just commerce, like the town of Florence. That Florence can lend five millions to the King of England, and loose them with little care, is the result of her olive gardens and her honesty. Now hear the financial phenomena attending military exploits, and a life of pillage. 276. I give you them in this precise year, 1338, in which the King of England failed to the Florentines. "He obtained from the prelates, barons, and knights of the [Illustration: PLATE X.--THE NATIVITY. GIOVANNI PISANO. ] shires, one half of their wool for this year--a very valuable and extraordinary grant. He seized all the tin "(above-ground, you mean Mr. Henry!)" in Cornwall and Devonshire, took possession of the lands of all priories alien, and of the money, jewels, and valuable effects of the Lombard merchants. He demanded certain quantities of bread, corn, oats, and bacon, from each county; borrowed their silver plate from many abbeys, as well as great sums of money both abroad and at home; and pawned his crown for fifty thousand florins." [1] [Footnote 1: Henry's "History of England," book iv., chap. i.] He pawns his queen's jewels next year; and finally summons all the gentlemen of England who had forty pounds a year, to come and receive the honour of knighthood, or pay to be excused! 277. II. The failures of Edward, or of twenty Edwards, would have done Florence no harm, had she remained true to herself, and to her neighbouring states. Her merchants only fall by their own increasing avarice; and above all by the mercantile form of pillage, usury. The idea that money could beget money, though more absurd than alchemy, had yet an apparently practical and irresistibly tempting confirmation in the wealth of villains, and the success of fools. Alchemy, in its day, led to pure chemistry; and calmly yielded to the science it had fostered. But all wholesome indignation against usurers was prevented, in the Christian mind, by wicked and cruel religious hatred of the race of Christ. In the end, Shakspeare himself, in his fierce effort against the madness, suffered himself to miss his mark by making his usurer a Jew: the Franciscan institution of the Mount of Pity failed before the lust of Lombardy, and the logic of Augsburg; and, to this day, the worship of the Immaculate Virginity of Money, mother of the Omnipotence of Money, is the Protestant form of Madonna worship. 278. III. The usurer's fang, and the debtor's shame, might both have been trodden down under the feet of Italy, had her knights and her workmen remained true to each other. But the brotherhoods of Italy were not of Cain to Abel--but of Cain to Cain. Every man's sword was against his fellow. Pisa sank before Genoa at Meloria, the Italian Ægos-Potamos; Genoa before Venice in the war of Chiozza, the Italian siege of Syracuse. Florence sent her Brunelleschi to divert the waves of Serchio against the walls of Lucca; Lucca her Castruccio, to hold mock tournaments before the gates of vanquished Florence. The weak modern Italian reviles or bewails the acts of foreign races, as if his destiny had depended upon these; let him at least assume the pride, and bear the grief, of remembering that, among all the virgin cities of his country, there has not been one which would not ally herself with a stranger, to effect a sister's ruin. 279. Lastly. The impartiality with which I have stated the acts, so far as known to me, and impulses, so far as discernible by me, of the contending Church and Empire, cannot but give offence, or provoke suspicion, in the minds of those among you who are accustomed to hear the cause of Religion supported by eager disciples, or attacked by confessed enemies. My confession of hostility would be open, if I were an enemy indeed; but I have never possessed the knowledge, and have long ago been cured of the pride, which makes men fervent in witness for the Church's virtue, or insolent in declamation against her errors. The will of Heaven, which grants the grace and ordains the diversities of Religion, needs no defence, and sustains no defeat, by the humours of men; and our first business in relation to it is to silence our wishes, and to calm our fears. If, in such modest and disciplined temper, you arrange your increasing knowledge of the history of mankind, you will have no final difficulty in distinguishing the operation of the Master's law from the consequences of the disobedience to it which He permits; nor will you respect the law less, because, accepting only the obedience of love, it neither hastily punishes, nor pompously rewards, with what men think reward or chastisement. Not always under the feet of Korah the earth is rent; not always at the call of Elijah the clouds gather; but the guarding mountains for ever stand round about Jerusalem; and the rain, miraculous evermore, makes green the fields for the evil and the good. 280. And if you will fix your minds only on the conditions of human life which the Giver of it demands, "He hath shown thee, oh man, what is good, and what doth thy Lord require of thee, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God," you will find that such obedience is always acknowledged by temporal blessing. If, turning from the manifest miseries of cruel ambition, and manifest wanderings of insolent belief, you summon to your thoughts rather the state of unrecorded multitudes, who laboured in silence, and adored in humility, widely as the snows of Christendom brought memory of the Birth of Christ, or her spring sunshine, of His Resurrection, you may know that the promise of the Bethlehem angels has been literally fulfilled; and will pray that your English fields, joyfully as the banks of Arno, may still dedicate their pure lilies to St. Mary of the Flower. APPENDIX. (NOTES ON THE PLATES ILLUSTRATING THIS VOLUME.) In the delivery of the preceding Lectures, some account was given of the theologic design of the sculptures by Giovanni Pisano at Orvieto, which I intended to have printed separately, and in more complete form, in this Appendix. But my strength does not now admit of my fulfilling the half of my intentions, and I find myself, at present, tired, and so dead in feeling, that I have no quickness in interpretation, or skill in description of emotional work. I must content myself, therefore, for the time, with a short statement of the points which I wish the reader to observe in the Plates, and which were left unnoticed in the text. The frontispiece is the best copy I can get, in permanent materials, of a photograph of the course of the Arno, through Pisa, before the old banks were destroyed. Two arches of the Ponte-a-Mare which was carried away in the inundation of 1870, are seen in the distance; the church of La Spina, in its original position overhanging the river; and the buttressed and rugged walls of the mediaeval shore. Never more, any of these, to be seen in reality, by living eyes. PLATE I.--A small portion of a photograph of Nicolo Pisano's Adoration of the Magi, on the pulpit of the Pisan Baptistery. The intensely Greek character of the heads, and the severely impetuous chiselling (learned from Late Roman rapid work), which drives the lines of the drapery nearly straight, may be seen better in a fragment of this limited measure than in the crowded massing of the entire subject. But it may be observed also that there is both a thoughtfulness and a tenderness in the features, whether of the Virgin or the attendant angel, which already indicate an aim beyond that of Greek art. PLATE II--The Pulpit of the Baptistery (of which the preceding plate represents a portion). I have only given this general view for convenience of reference. Beautiful photographs of the subject on a large scale are easily attainable. PLATE III.--The Fountain of Perugia. Executed from a sketch by Mr. Arthur Severn. The perspective of the steps is not quite true; we both tried to get it right, but found that it would be a day or two's work, to little purpose, and so let them go at hazard. The inlaid pattern behind is part of the older wall of the cathedral; the late door is of course inserted. PLATE IV., LETTER E.--From Norman Bible in the British Museum; showing the moral temper which regulated common ornamentation in the twelfth century. PLATE V.--Door of the Baptistery at Pisa. The reader must note that, although these plates are necessarily, in fineness of detail, inferior to the photographs from which they are taken, they have the inestimable advantage of permanence, and will not fade away into spectres when the book is old. I am greatly puzzled by the richness of the current ornamentation on the main pillars, as opposed to the general severity of design. I never can understand how the men who indulged in this flowing luxury of foliage were so stern in their masonry and figure-draperies. PLATE VI.--Part of the lintel of the door represented on Plate V., enlarged. I intended, in the Lecture on Marble Couchant, to have insisted, at some length, on the decoration of the lintel and side-posts, as one of the most important phases of mystic ecclesiastical sculpture. But I find the materials furnished by Lucca, Pisa, and Florence, for such an essay are far too rich to be examined cursorily; the treatment even of this single lintel could scarcely be enough explained in the close of the Lecture. I must dwell on some points of it now. Look back to Section 175 in "Aratra Pentelici," giving statement of the four kinds of relief in sculpture. The uppermost of these plinths is of the kind I have called 'round relief'; you might strike it out on a coin. The lower is 'foliate relief'; it looks almost as if the figures had been cut out of one layer of marble, and laid against another behind it. The uppermost, at the distance of my diagram, or in nature itself, would scarcely be distinguished at a careless glance from an egg-and-arrow moulding. You could not have a more simple or forcible illustration of my statement in the first chapter of "Aratra," that the essential business of sculpture is to produce a series of agreeable bosses or rounded surfaces; to which, if possible, some meaning may afterwards be attached. In the present instance, every egg becomes an angel, or evangelist, and every arrow a lily, or a wing. [1] The whole is in the most exquisitely finished Byzantine style. [Footnote: In the contemporary south door of the Duomo of Genoa, the Greek moulding is used without any such transformation.] I am not sure of being right in my interpretation of the meaning of these figures; but I think there can be little question about it. There are eleven altogether; the three central, Christ with His mother and St. Joseph; then, two evangelists, with two alternate angels, on each side. Each of these angels carries a rod, with a fleur-de-lys termination; their wings decorate the intermediate ridges (formed, in a pure Greek moulding, by the arrows); and, behind the heads of all the figures, there is now a circular recess; once filled, I doubt not, by a plate of gold. The Christ, and the Evangelists, all carry books, of which each has a mosaic, or intaglio ornament, in the shape of a cross. I could not show you a more severe or perfectly representative piece of _architectural_ sculpture. The heads of the eleven figures are as simply decorative as the ball flowers are in our English Gothic tracery; the slight irregularity produced by different gesture and character giving precisely the sort of change which a good designer wishes to see in the parts of a consecutive ornament. The moulding closes at each extremity with a palm-tree, correspondent in execution with those on coins of Syracuse; for the rest, the interest of it consists only in these slight variations of attitude by which the figures express wonder or concern at some event going on in their presence. They are looking down; and I do not doubt, are intended to be the heavenly witnesses of the story engraved on the stone below,--The Life and Death of the Baptist. The lower stone on which this is related, is a model of skill in Fiction, properly so called. In Fictile art, in Fictile history, it is equally exemplary. 'Feigning' or 'affecting' in the most exquisite way by fastening intensely on the principal points. Ask yourselves what are the principal points to be insisted on, in the story of the Baptist. He came, "preaching the Baptism of Repentance for the remission of sins." That is his Advice, or Order-preaching. And he came, "to bear witness of the Light." "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." That is his declaration, or revelation-preaching. And the end of his own life is in the practice of this preaching--if you will think of it--under curious difficulties in both kinds. Difficulties in putting away sin--difficulties in obtaining sight. The first half of the stone begins with the apocalyptic preaching. Christ, represented as in youth, is set under two trees, in the wilderness. St. John is scarcely at first seen; he is only the guide, scarcely the teacher, of the crowd of peoples, nations, and languages, whom he leads, pointing them to the Christ. Without doubt, all these figures have separate meaning. I am too ignorant to interpret it; but observe generally, they are the thoughtful and wise of the earth, not its ruffians or rogues. This is not, by any means, a general amnesty to blackguards, and an apocalypse to brutes, which St. John is preaching. These are quite the best people he can find to call, or advise. You see many of them carry rolls of paper in their hands, as he does himself. In comparison with the books of the upper cornice, these have special meaning, as throughout Byzantine design. "Adverte quod patriarchæ et prophetse pinguntur cum rotulis in manibus; quidam vero apostoli cum libris, et quidam cum rotulis. Nempe quia ante Christi adventum fides figurative ostendebatur, et quoad multa, in se implicita erat. Ad quod ostendendum patriarchse et prophetæ pinguntur cum rotulis, per quos quasi qusedam imperfecta cognitio design atur; quia vero apostoli a Christo perfecte edocti suut, ideo libris, per quos designatur perfecta cognitio, uti possunt." WILLIAM DURANDUS, quoted by Didron, p. 305. PLATE VII.--Next to this subject of the preaching comes the Baptism: and then, the circumstances of St. John's death. First, his declaration to Herod, "It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife:" on which he is seized and carried to prison:--next, Herod's feast,--the consultation between daughter and mother, "What shall I ask?"--the martyrdom, and burial by the disciples. The notable point in the treatment of all these subjects is the quiet and mystic Byzantine dwelling on thought rather than action. In a northern sculpture of this subject, the daughter of Herodias would have been assuredly dancing; and most probably, casting a somersault. With the Byzantine, the debate in her mind is the only subject of interest, and he carves above, the evil angels, laying their hands on the heads, first of Herod and Herodias, and then of Herodias and her daughter. PLATE VIII.--The issuing of commandment not to eat of the tree of knowledge. (Orvieto Cathedral.) This, with Plates X. and XII., will give a sufficiently clear conception to any reader who has a knowledge of sculpture, of the principles of Giovanni Pisano's design. I have thought it well worth while to publish opposite two of them, facsimiles of the engravings which profess to represent them in Gruiier's monograph [1] of the Orvieto sculptures; for these outlines will, once for all, and better than any words, show my pupils what is the real virue of mediaeval work,--the power which we medievalists rejoice in it for. Precisely the qualities which are _not_ in the modern drawings, are the essential virtues of the early sculpture. If you like the Gruner outlines best, you need not trouble yourself to go to Orvieto, or anywhere else in Italy. Sculpture, such as those outlines represent, can be supplied to you by the acre, to order, in any modern academician's atelier. But if you like the strange, rude, quaint, Gothic realities (for these photographs are, up to a certain point, a vision of the reality) best; then, don't study mediaeval art under the direction of modern illustrators. Look at it--for however short a time, where you can find it--veritable and untouched, however mouldered or shattered. And abhor, as you would the mimicry of your best friend's manners by a fool, all restorations and improving copies. For remember, none but fools think they can restore--none, but worse fools, that they can improve. [Footnote: The drawings are by some Italian draughtsman, whose name it is no business of mine to notice.] Examine these outlines, then, with extreme care, and point by point. The things which they have refused or lost, are the things you have to love, in Giovanni Pisano. I will merely begin the task of examination, to show you how to set about it. Take the head of the commanding Christ. Although inclined forward from the shoulders in the advancing motion of the whole body, the head itself is not stooped; but held entirely upright, the line of forehead sloping backwards. The command is given in calm authority; not in mean anxiety. But this was not expressive enough for the copyist,--"How much better _I_ can show what is meant!" thinks he. So he puts the line of forehead and nose upright; projects the brow out of its straight line; and the expression then becomes,--"Now, be very careful, and mind what I say." Perhaps you like this 'improved' action better? Be it so; only, it is not Giovanni Pisano's design; but the modern Italian's. Next, take the head of Eve. It is much missed in the photograph--nearly all the finest lines lost--but enough is got to show Giovanni's mind. It appears, he liked long-headed people, with sharp chins and straight noses. It might be very wrong of him; but that was his taste. So much so, indeed, that Adam and Eve have, [Illustration: PLATE XI.--THE NATIVITY. MODERN ITALIAN.] both of them, heads not much shorter than one-sixth of their entire height. Your modern Academy pupil, of course, cannot tolerate this monstrosity. He indulgently corrects Giovanni, and Adam and Eve have entirely orthodox one-eighth heads, by rule of schools. But how of Eve's sharp-cut nose and pointed chin, thin lips, and look of quiet but rather surprised attention--not specially reverent, but looking keenly out from under her eyelids, like a careful servant receiving an order? Well--those are all Giovanni's own notions;--not the least classical, nor scientific, nor even like a pretty, sentimental modern woman. Like a Florentine woman--in Giovanni's time--it may be; at all events, very certainly, what Giovanni thought proper to carve. Now examine your modern edition. An entirely proper Greco-Roman academy plaster bust, with a proper nose, and proper mouth, and a round chin, and an expression of the most solemn reverence; always, of course, of a classical description. Very fine, perhaps. But not Giovanni. After Eve's head, let us look at her feet. Giovanni has his own positive notions about those also. Thin and bony, to excess, the right, undercut all along, so that the profile looks as thin as the mere elongated line on an Etruscan vase; and the right showing the five toes all well separate, nearly straight, and the larger ones almost as long as fingers! the shin bone above carried up in as severe and sharp a curve as the edge of a sword. Now examine the modern copy. Beautiful little fleshy, Venus-de'-Medici feet and toes--no undercutting to the right foot,--the left having the great-toe properly laid over the second, according to the ordinances of schools and shoes, and a well-developed academic and operatic calf and leg. Again charming, of course. But only according to Mr. Gibson or Mr. Power--not according to Giovanni. Farther, and finally, note the delight with which Giovanni has dwelt, though without exaggeration, on the muscles of the breast and ribs in the Adam; while he has subdued all away into virginal severity in Eve. And then note, and with conclusive admiration, how in the exact and only place where the poor modern fool's anatomical knowledge should have been shown, the wretch loses his hold of it! How he has entirely missed and effaced the grand Greek pectoral muscles of Giovanni's Adam, but has studiously added what mean fleshliness he could to the Eve; and marked with black spots the nipple and navel, where Giovanni left only the severe marble in pure light. These instances are enough to enable you to detect the insolent changes in the design of Giovanni made by the modern Academy-student in so far as they relate to form absolute. I must farther, for a few moments, request your attention to the alterations made in the light and shade. You may perhaps remember some of the passages. They occur frequently, both in my inaugural lectures, and in "Aratra Pentelici," in which I have pointed out the essential connection between the schools of sculpture and those of chiaroscuro. I have always spoken of the Greek, or essentially sculpture-loving schools, as chiaroscurist; always of the Gothic, or colour-loving schools, as non-chiaroscurist. And in one place, (I have not my books here, and cannot refer to it,) I have even defined sculpture as light-and-shade drawing with the chisel. Therefore, the next point you have to look to, after the absolute characters of form, is the mode in which the sculptor has placed his shadows, both to express these, and to force the eye to the points of his composition which he wants looked at. You cannot possibly see a more instructive piece of work, in these respects, than Giovanni's design of the Nativity, Plate X. So far as I yet know Christian art, this is the central type of the treatment of the subject; it has all the intensity and passion of the earliest schools, together with a grace of repose which even in Ghiberti's beautiful Nativity, founded upon it, has scarcely been increased, but rather lost in languor. The motive of the design is the frequent one among all the early masters; the Madonna lifts the covering from the cradle to show the Child to one of the servants, who starts forward adoring. All the light and shade is disposed [Illustration: PLATE XII.--THE ANNUNCIATION AND VISITATION.] to fix the eye on these main actions. First, one intense deeply-cut mass of shadow, under the pointed arch, to throw out the head and lifted hand of the Virgin. A vulgar sculptor would have cut all black behind the head; Giovanni begins with full shadow; then subdues it with drapery absolutely quiet in fall; then lays his fullest possible light on the head, the hand, and the edge of the lifted veil. He has undercut his Madonna's profile, being his main aim, too delicately for time to spare; happily the deep-cut brow is left, and the exquisitely refined line above, of the veil and hair. The rest of the work is uninjured, and the sharpest edges of light are still secure. You may note how the passionate action of the servant is given by the deep shadows under and above her arm, relieving its curves in all their length, and by the recess of shade under the cheek and chin, which lifts the face. Now take your modern student's copy, and look how _he_ has placed his lights and shades. You see, they go as nearly as possible exactly where Giovanni's _don't_. First, pure white under this Gothic arch, where Giovanni has put his fullest dark. Secondly, just where Giovanni has used his whole art of chiselling, to soften his stone away, and show the wreaths of the Madonna's hair lifting her veil behind, the accursed modern blockhead carves his shadow straight down, because he thinks that will be more in the style of Michael Angelo. Then he takes the shadows away from behind the profile, and from under the chin, and from under the arm, and puts in two grand square blocks of dark at the ends of the cradle, that you may be safe to look at that, instead of the Child. Next, he takes it all away from under the servant's arms, and lays it all behind above the calf of her leg. Then, not having wit enough to notice Giovanni's undulating surface beneath the drapery of the bed on the left, he limits it with a hard parallel-sided bar of shade, and insists on the vertical fold under the Madonna's arm, which Giovanni has purposely cut flat that it may not interfere with the arm above; finally, the modern animal has missed the only pieces of womanly form which Giovanni admitted, the rounded right arm and softly revealed breast; and absolutely removed, as if it were no part of the composition, the horizontal incision at the base of all--out of which the first folds of the drapery rise. I cannot give you any better example, than this modern Academy-work, of the total ignorance of the very first meaning of the word 'Sculpture' into which the popular schools of existing art are plunged. I will not insist, now, on the uselessness, or worse, of their endeavours to represent the older art, and of the necessary futility of their judgment of it. The conclusions to which I wish to lead you on these points will be the subject of future lectures, being of too great importance for examination here. But you cannot spend your time in more profitable study than by examining and comparing, touch for touch, the treatment of light and shadow in the figures of the Christ and sequent angels, in Plates VIII. and IX., as we have partly examined those of the subject before us; and in thus assuring yourself of the uselessness of trusting to any ordinary modern copyists, for anything more than the rudest chart or map--and even that inaccurately surveyed--of ancient design. The last plate given in this volume contains the two lovely subjects of the Annunciation and Visitation, which, being higher from the ground, are better preserved than the groups represented in the other plates. They will be found to justify, in subtlety of chiselling, the title I gave to Giovanni, of the Canova of the thirteenth century. I am obliged to leave without notice, at present, the branch of ivy, given in illustration of the term 'marble rampant,' at the base of Plate VIII. The foliage of Orvieto can only be rightly described in connection with the great scheme of leaf-ornamentation which ascended from the ivy of the Homeric period in the sculptures of Cyprus, to the roses of Botticelli, and laurels of Bellini and Titian. 
45504	----	WHERE ART BEGINS _Crown 8vo. cloth extra, 2s. 6d._ LESSONS IN ART. By HUME NISBET. _With 22 Illustrations by the Author._ 'A book which merits prompt and hearty recognition.... Mr. Nisbet is himself an accomplished artist, and the book is the outcome of long years spent in the attempt to teach others the principles and laws of painting and drawing.... Mr. Nisbet possesses such an enviable faculty of clear and attractive exposition that this little book is sure to make its own welcome.'--LEEDS MERCURY. 'A readable little volume.... The author has endeavoured to write out some of the strictly necessary rules and laws of drawing and painting for the use of students, so that they may be able to work at home, and spare their masters a number of questions if they are at art schools. The book deals with drawing and painting in water and oil colour, and concludes with "Hints on General Art."... Art students will, no doubt, find the little work helpful, and the general reader may dip into it with pleasure.'--PALL MALL GAZETTE. 'A very useful book for young students.... Mr. Nisbet has a knack of explanation so clear and pointed that few can fail to understand the many practical hints with which the little book abounds.... The book may be cordially commended.'--SCOTSMAN. 'A most entertaining as well as instructive book, that will commend itself to young and old alike. To the author's experience as an art teacher is doubtless due the lucid manner in which he writes. The completeness and range of the lessons are remarkable.'--MANCHESTER EXAMINER. 'The advice given will certainly succeed in its aim of enabling art students to work at home and "spare their masters a number of questions." Equally helpful will be the examples of drawing and painting with which the letterpress is relieved, and which is invariably of a high order of merit.'--SCOTTISH LEADER. 'Quite one of the best books of the kind which we have recently encountered is Mr. Nisbet's "Lessons in Art"; a little volume filled with sound and practical advice, and charmingly illustrated.... This little book possesses distinct merit, and that of a kind which is never too common in popular manuals.'--SPEAKER. 'With this book at hand no one need be at a loss, and may, by attending to the valuable instructions given, become not only proficient, but attain to a meritorious position as an artist.'--STIRLING JOURNAL. 'The first part of the book treats of drawing, and is in the main practical in aim and useful as guidance.'--SATURDAY REVIEW. 'A very useful handbook for beginners.'--GRAPHIC. 'A book written by a teacher who is an artist, and who fortunately remembers that he has been a student, and doubtless this is why the sympathies of his readers are promptly enlisted.'--DAILY CHRONICLE. '"Lessons in Art" should prove of use to both pupils and teachers.'--MORNING POST. 'As a teacher in the old School of Arts, Edinburgh, Mr. Nisbet may be credited with knowing the kind of questions which students are likely to ask, and he has here answered them in theoretical and practical detail.'--GLASGOW HERALD. London: CHATTO & WINDUS, 214 Piccadilly, W. [Illustration: A NEW ZEALAND FERN-TREE GULLY [_p._ 129]] WHERE ART BEGINS BY HUME NISBET AUTHOR OF 'LESSONS IN ART', 'LIFE AND NATURE STUDIES' ETC. [Illustration] _WITH 27 ILLUSTRATIONS_ LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1892 DEDICATED WITH AFFECTIONATE REGARDS TO MY DEAR FRIEND AND WELL-WISHER EDMUND J. BAILLIE, F.L.S. OF CHESTER [Illustration] INTRODUCTION When a few really congenial spirits meet together, it is astonishing how quickly the subject which perhaps one of the party starts will grow, and how many branches it will shoot out before its vitality can be considered exhausted. My present subject has grown up in a very congenial atmosphere. A number of sympathetic students, who learnt to appreciate my practical work, continued to draw from me some ideas partly practical, partly theoretical, on the subject which has always been a part religion with me, whether in my working or my dreaming moments--Art and its all-permeating influence over humanity in the social and spiritual conditions. I take it that Art permeates the entire body of humanity, from the flesh-devouring savage to the asphodel-adoring æsthetic, in a greater or lesser degree, according to the sanitary conditions of their lives; and as it permeates, so it brings us closer to what we regard as human perfection. In this spirit I have written out the following reflections, blending the practical with the theoretical and personal, as a pendant to my 'Lessons in Art' and 'Life and Nature Studies.' In the first book I have attempted to give the Alpha of Art; in the second I have given the Omega, as far as I myself know about Art; and in the present I have sought to give something of what lies between. Whether I have been lucid enough to enable the reader to follow me, or sympathetic enough to interest him in my subject, I must leave to his own judgment. I can only say that my views are the reflections of one item appealing to other items in the big sum of humanity, written out honestly as the outcome of his own personal experience of the subject which interests him most deeply, and with the hope that he may find some readers who have had similar thoughts upon Art and Mankind, although they may not have been tempted to write them down. With this hope I leave my book to the consideration and judgment of each reader. HUME NISBET. HOGARTH CLUB: _June 1892_. [Illustration] CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION ix A WORD BEFORE 1 I. WHERE ART BEGINS 5 II. A STUDY IN LIGHT AND SHADOW 26 III. THE PRIMARIES: YELLOW, RED, AND BLUE 56 IV. ART IN ITS RELATIONSHIP TO EVERYDAY LIFE 97 V. ON PICTURE LIGHTING 119 VI. SHIPS: ANCIENT AND MODERN 132 VII. ILLUSTRATIVE ART: PAST AND PRESENT 150 VIII. ART IN MINOR DIRECTIONS 176 IX. DRESS AND DECORATION 196 X. SOME OF THE OLD MASTERS 229 XI. THE SACRED AND THE COMIC SIDES OF ART 250 XII. ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH ART 272 XIII. NATURE WORSHIP 297 INDEX 317 [Illustration] ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE A NEW ZEALAND FERN-TREE GULLY. _Frontispiece_ REPOSE. _Vignette for title-page_ GROUP OF FISHER-FOLK. _From a photograph by John Foster of Coldstream_ 5 A GROUP OF WORKING HORSES. _From a photograph by John Foster of Coldstream_ 26 ANCIENT ASSYRIAN HALL: THE FEAST OF SARDANAPALUS. _From a sepia sketch by the Author_ 56 AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CORRIDOR. _From a sepia sketch by the Author_ 61 ON THE ESK RIVER, TASMANIA. _From a photograph by Major Aikenhead, Launceston_ 97 A NEW GUINEA VILLAGE. _A study of lighting from behind_ 125 NOAH'S ARK. _A process paper drawing_ 132 SHIP-OF-THE-LINE, 1815. _Pen and ink_ 134 A VIKING BOAT. _Process paper_ 138 FISHING BOATS. _Pen and ink_ 142 HOMEWARD BOUND. _Process paper_ 143 THE STORM. _Pen and ink_ 147 AT REST. _Pen and ink_ 148 FROM BREYDENBACH'S TRAVELS 150 ST. CHRISTOPHER. _From 'A Treatise on Wood-Engraving,' page 46_ 153 HISTORY OF THE VIRGIN MARY. _From 'A Treatise on Wood-Engraving,' page 72_ 154 ALBERT DÜRER'S APOCALYPSE 156 BY CHRISTOPHER JEGHER, AFTER RUBENS 158 A PANEL OF BLACK AND GOLD 176 INITIAL LETTER O, AND MOONLIGHT 196 THE AVENUE--HOBBEMA 229 HARMONY. _A night effect_ 250 ART SUBJECTS 272 A GARDEN SCENE 297 THE ANCIENT NILE 300 _Note A._--John Foster, of Coldstream, is one of the most accomplished of photographic artists, who has made a specialty of cattle groups, and whose studies are nearly always perfect in their grouping and effect. _Note B._--Major W. Aikenhead, of the Launceston Rifle Regiment, Tasmania, favoured me with some of his finest specimens, with permission to reproduce them. His aerial effects are wonderful and delicate, too tender in most instances for reproduction by process: therefore I have been compelled to give one of his most positive pictures as a specimen of his art and the beauties of the country in which he works. [Illustration] WHERE ART BEGINS _A WORD BEFORE_ [Illustration: I]N the first flush of youth our imaginative faculties are very active. In childhood we rove through Fairyland and play with the little elves; in youth the tiny elves have grown up to be nymphs of our own size and age, and from the summer moonlight we step into the rosy dawn, all fragrant and lightsome, with a glamour over everything which is delicious to our senses. By-and-by, as youth falls from us, we step out from the glades and meadows into the dry and dusty highway of life, our bags upon our backs and our rakes in our hands, with a long stretch of uninteresting country before us and a shadeless sky above us; we go out to gather specimens and dissect everything which we cannot understand. Then comes the twilight, when we sit down to rest upon the cliffs at the end of the road, with a limitless ocean in front of us, and what we have left behind. In childhood, youth, and manhood we are for ever looking forward; in age we are apt to look behind. In childhood, youth, and manhood we have very little room in our hearts for pity or charity, but when we sit down calmly to rest and look back, if the angels of divine pity and universal charity are not near to us to counsel and condone, our case is hopeless in the extreme. The world has lost its childhood, and so there are no longer fairies in it; it is quickly losing its youth, and Love does not now flutter through the sky, a living cherub, but lies on the ground motionless, denuded of its wings, waiting shiveringly for the sharp knife of the vivisector. Everything sacred or emotional is put to the test of reason, and we are growing so hard and matter-of-fact, that what might have made us weep before only affords matter for discussion now. Yet misery and poverty and suffering are with us still, as they were always; perhaps more so now, when the few are becoming richer and the many poorer and less able to fight. Still, one softening relic of the past remains to us, although it is taking on the garments of the age--Art, which, however much it may strive to imitate the emotionless present, no more can exist without emotion than could the rainbow without colour. True art is like what religion ought to be--all-sufficing and all-embracing. Within its magic circle live the virtues and the vices, so that when the student approaches he may take his choice with which to walk through life. If he takes the virtues as his guides, he paints and understands only beauty, and thus raises himself and his audience towards faith, love, and charity. If he takes the vices, he becomes brutishly realistic and degraded, inspiring his audience with unbelief, passion, and hopeless selfishness. And therefore, as charity is the greatest of all the virtues, I take my art as the direct inspiration towards charity; feeling that if this angel follows me along the dry highway, and shelters me with her spreading wings, when I come to the cliffs and sit down to rest I may look behind and see the sins I have left covered with white flowers and that limitless ocean bathed in the golden glory of the setting day--a day not all mis-spent or profitless. How to do the best for art, since art can do so much for us, is the intention I have had in the writing of these chapters. How to live so that we may be in the best condition to fulfil our obligations without losing a moment of the time at our disposal, this is the motive of these self-reflections. Looking round upon nature, I find that the animals nearest perfection are graminivorous--that is, nearest to that state of peace and purity which we believe Heaven to be--whilst the carnivora represent the vices of unrest, passion, cruelty, and ambition. Reasoning out this observation further, I think that if man could live naturally, without excitement and haste or the voracious desire for place and fortune, he would become more poetic, more art-loving, and charitable; therefore, nearer to a state of perfection by imitating the graminivora than he will by following the habits of the carnivora. Still, I must admit that before this can be accomplished society must be altogether changed. From experience as a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian, I have come to the conclusion that unless man can afford to step aside from the rushing stream of competition, and the thousand excitements which hurry us along in a mad race with every nerve on the strain, he cannot possibly be a vegetarian, or, in its highest sense, a true artist. I think that climate has nothing whatever to do with this question, but that the false conditions of life have everything to do with it. The most God-like man is the one who can abnegate without feeling the sacrifice. This is the ideal man, and he will be a vegetarian. But he who is forced into the arena of life by circumstances, and who is compelled to fight, must live as the fighting animals live, and be carnivorous. This is the choice in life which some of us have before us at the start, and to those who can choose I mainly address these chapters. For the rest, who, like myself, must run at breakneck pace until we fall down and die, I can only pray for indulgence from the angels of pity and charity. [Illustration] [Illustration: GROUP OF FISHER-FOLK (_From a photograph by John Foster of Coldstream_)] CHAPTER I _WHERE ART BEGINS_ [Illustration: S]TANDING, as I do at present, in front of the partly opened gateway to that land of wonders--photographic discovery--I should like to begin my remarks, before looking through the narrow aperture, with a glance backwards, say twenty years, to what the science and art were then, and what they have since become, before we surmise what it--photography--may be twenty years hereafter. I mean to take up photography only where it joins hands with my own work--painting--in the broad sense of the word, which, I may safely assert, is taking it nearly all round. When I look back twenty years to the time at which I first began to mix with the professors of the sun-craft--'Brothers of the Light,' to use an occult term--and compare the work of those days with the results of this day, and think upon all it may yet be, it is with a feeling of profound astonishment, not unmixed with admiring envy, that I regard the young scientist beginning a career so filled with possibilities and future discoveries. It seems as if I, the painter, walked upon a highway tramped down by countless travellers, leading to an end definite and unavoidable, while he has before him only a little distance marked out, with a vast country to explore, as his mind and genius may best determine. Many years ago my father took it into his head to begin a photographic business. He did not know much about it himself, although he had a good knowledge of chemistry; but he was an enthusiast in experiments and a credulous believer in the honesty of mankind. Therefore, through the advice of a friend, he built a glass-house, bought some cameras and chemicals (it was in the wet-plate days), laid in a stock of handsomely-designed mounts, &c., and advertised for an operator. I dare say a great number of photographers have gone through a similar experience, thinking, as he did, that this was about the whole which was required to start a future flourishing business, and that the operator, like the cameras, would be equally easy to procure, provided the money was there to pay for them. He bought cameras and hired operators. I think he got through about a dozen of the one, and about half a hundred of the other, before he woke up to the knowledge that something else was required before the business could be built up on a firm basis or the public satisfied with the efforts made to please them. In those days backgrounds and accessories were not greatly considered as the means towards an artistic end. One plain background and one a little complicated were all that the operator considered needful, with a carved chair or fluted pilaster; and thus the multitude were turned out with a set, fixed stare, full front, bolt upright. If male, a lenient photographer might permit one leg to cross the other by way of ease. The female portion generally sat with hands meekly crossed over the lap and a curtain falling gracefully on one side, like the heroic portraits of the times of Sir Benjamin West. When I had painted the fancy background--a room with a bay-window partly open, revealing an Italian lake with a 'palace lifting to eternal summer' its (half concealed) 'marble walls'--and got a house painter to do the plain subject, we were ready to begin work, and to turn out your Dick and Harry by the rose-tinted dozen, all as visitors to that wire-work painted Italian lake. I had not then learned the value of suggestive mystery, nor did I do justice to the imagination of our public. I considered then that a fact could not be too plainly told--a mistake often committed by ardent youth. We changed our operators rapidly. Some had been old positive men, who had no sympathy with the negative system, therefore, out of principle, spoilt all the negatives they took; some had a weakness for ardent spirits and strong tobacco while at work, and, in consequence, made mistakes with their solutions; others, again, developed such an extraordinary appetite for gold and silver, that the most profitable business in the world could never have supplied the baths they required to go on with. We tried a number of wandering workers, who, having pawned their own stock-in-trade, came with arms out at elbow, and stayed with us just long enough to do away with most of our stock as well as with the feebly growing trade; yet my father held out, tried another and another, and sunk a lot of money in that glass-house, before he eventually came to the conclusion that it would be much more satisfactory and less expensive to devote it entirely to plants and the growing of grape-vines. While those experiments were going on, I was picking up some stray crumbs of knowledge. My artistic instincts and a fair education made me revolt against that instrument of torture, the head-rest, and I tried to pose the sitters a little more naturally than by the rigid regimental rule. Of course, the time required for the sitter to remain steady in those wet-plate days necessitated a rest of some sort, so, considering all things, I suppose they took portraits then passably well; one point to be specially regarded with regret being, that the young photographer had more chance of learning the details of his trade thoroughly than he has now, with all the facilities for ease and comfort in the prepared dry-plate processes, for I contend that in all trades and professions a man to be thorough ought to learn the way to prepare his materials from the very foundation, as well as to be able to work with them after they are ready for his hand, as the old Masters did with their canvases and colours, and the old positive men with their collodion and other chemicals. We must look back with the same admiration on these men fighting so manfully with difficulties, now all smoothed away by our instantaneous plate manufacturers, as a modern tourist crossing the Atlantic (saloon fashion) may recall the same passage made by Christopher Columbus in his fishing-boat of a Spanish galley. Of the many experimentalists migrating through that glass-house during their earthly pilgrimages and its photographic existence, I can recall two who stand out most prominently; one an Italian pantomimist and Jack-of-all-trades, who did the most damage in the shortest space of time, and the other a German atheistic disciple of Voltaire, scouter of Providence and blind believer in chance, who stayed the longest, and taught me, as the serpent of old did Mother Eve, the greatest amount of good and evil. The pantomimist brought with him a wife and a large family, squatted upon the premises _en masse_, and cleared it out as completely as a cloud of locusts are said to demolish the track of country they settle upon; he was an ingratiating man, who could do almost anything from pitch-and-toss down to swallowing a camera, stand and all; and his fascinating family were equally handy in the art of stowing away. If the grocer's and butcher's bills had not, after their hasty departure, come in to be settled by my father, I should have been convinced that they devoured nitrate of silver for their dinner, aiding the digestion by a dessert of chloride of gold, so much of those two articles was consumed during that brief visit to the paternal roof of these interesting and noble refugees. The little German could work, but objected strongly to my introducing any novelties in the way of pose or accessories. He had been brought up to regard a fluted pilaster as a necessity of life, likewise a cushioned, carved easy chair with the marble palace, whether the sitter was a clerk or a clodhopper; there they stood, full front, fixed at attention, with an excruciating and ghastly grin distorting each face, flooded with light; the pilaster on the right, easy chair on the left, and the smiling lake with its startling detail all in the foreground, and brought out regardless of consistency or sentiment. I used to argue the point, and strive to surround a sitter with the accessories to which his daily occupations entitled him, but without avail; the operator would turn me off with a piece of Voltairean philosophy, or, what was harder to endure, a smack on the ear, the artist and the photographer standing then as distinctly apart as now they are so closely united. But, with all his faults, he was a good chemist and a reader of books; had he been less of an investigator he might have been more of an artist, but so long as he could overcome the chemical changes in his baths and emulsions, conquer fogs and frillings, and produce a clear, undeniable likeness, he rested on his laurels, saved his money, and blasphemed creation. Twice a year he took a week's leave of absence, during which time I posed sitters to my entire satisfaction, and ruined plates innumerable. These holidays he invariably devoted to the racecourse; ridiculing a God, he worshipped Dame Fortune; put his entire half-year's savings, without fail, on the wrong horse, got kicked about by the welshers, and returned to his duty ornamented with a pair of blackened eyes and bruised frontispiece, a sadder but never a wiser man; his faith in his particular crotchets being as pathetic and unbounded as was his utter disbelief in a future state. In those early days photographers did not trouble themselves much about light and shadow--_i.e._ the subtleties and refinements of light and shadow. To me, an artist, the sight of a good daguerreotype, with its silver lustre, soft light, and indefinite masses of shadow, is infinitely superior to the crude attempts at _carte_-printing in its early stages; the finest studio work of to-day harks back to those chance effects of imperfect knowledge, or time-workings, as the great painter strives to cultivate the freshness of early attempts, or the mellowing upon the canvases of the old painters. I have seen effects hit by chance from young pupils, who regarded them as failures through want of experience, which I would give a great deal to have been able to imitate; and so, the longer a man lives, thinks, and works, the more eagerly he watches immature attempts, and the more he can learn from seeming failures; for when a man is struggling with all his might to get at an object, he is wrestling with an angel, as Jacob did, and though he may be lamed, as Jacob was lamed, yet the failure is so illuminated with a divine light that success may be read between the lines. He thinks he has failed, and that the ground is strewn only with the shattered pieces of his frail armour, whereas it is covered with the jewels which he has torn from his mighty antagonist; as he lies back panting and oblivious from exhaustion, he can see nothing of all this, but to the onlooker it seems a triumph, to the after-gleaners it means success. You all know from experience how photography has grown, what giant strides it has made year after year, and how it is marching on. First a shadow on a metal plate; an impression upon glass, when all that art attempted was a little coloured powder to give it a life-like look; a staring print upon paper, where art sometimes stepped in and painted over. Then the modelling upon the negative, where art must reign supreme, where anatomy must be studied and mind dominate, and which, as far as I can see, has no ending in the way of possibilities. There is no need for a man to use paints and canvases to write artist, in the fullest sense of the term, after his name, if he is master of the art of manipulating a negative; here art begins, after the posing, and has a delicate and very great mission to fulfil. When I think upon the vastness of this field where an artist may wander at will, and how little really has yet been done in comparison to what may be done, I could almost wish that this had been my lot in life rather than what it is. Ambition! why, a man may have the desires of a Napoleon, and yet find relief for them all in the great art of remodelling: but of that anon. POSING It is a very difficult matter to take a point in the career of a photograph--from the moment the sitter enters the studio until the _carte_ is packed up--where art does not occupy the principal share. To begin when the sitter enters, and the artist looks upon him or her, as the case may be, as a subject upon which to expend all his skill, imagination, and brain force--in somewhat the same sense as a subject painter regards his model, so the photographic artist ought to regard his sitter; yet in somewhat of a reverse sense also; for whereas the painter suits his model to his subject, and therefore has the easier task, that of working out a preconceived idea, the photographic artist must be an impromptu man--he must improvise his subject to suit his sitter. To a true artist the strain upon the reflective and imaginative faculties must be tremendous, for he needs to vary and strike subjects for every sitter who enters; and yet this is his imperative duty if he is an enthusiast in his art, which all great photographers must be. It has amused me often to hear painters attempt to sneer at the photographer who called himself an artist: painters who are content with one or two subject ideas for twelve months, resting with an air of infinite superiority upon this painfully conceived and, in many cases, rather stale idea, and gazing down from the stucco pedestal of their own arrogance upon the photographic artist with his ten and often twenty ideas per day! Of course I understand that they, the single-idea men, do this through ignorance and want of due reflection, and that the more barren they are themselves, the more they are likely to sneer at the fertility of others; this I take to be one of the natural laws of nature. A sitter enters--a lady, young, good-looking, and handsomely dressed, to meet another young, good-looking lady just going out. Fashion rules both fair subjects much in the same way as regards costume; a change of colour perhaps, but cut in much the same tyrannical style. The colour may make a slight difference in the two photographs, yet not sufficient to redeem the artist, who has only light and shadow to work with, if he cannot strike out something in the posing and accessories to individualise the different subjects or sitters. But the photographic artist, perhaps, has had six or seven young ladies, similarly dressed, one after another, during that forenoon, each sitter with her own ideas how she ought to be taken--ideas gleaned from someone else's pose, or something she has seen in a shop window or an album--ideas which the original instincts of the artist rebel against. The same may be said of the portrait painter, only that he has days, sometimes weeks, to study his subject, whereas the photographer is only allowed moments to collect his well-nigh scattered faculties. Again, the painter has variety of colour with which to cover over a repetition of design; but with black and white, a repetition will be at once discovered. This I mention as one only of many difficulties besetting the studio of a photographic artist from the moment the sitter enters, which renders his task all the more harassing, and which cannot trouble the layer-on of colours. A true photographer seems to me to rank with, and resemble, the troubadours of the middle ages, poets who poured out their impromptu verses to the call of the audience. He ought to be a reader of faces--a close scrutiniser of the inner workings of the subject before him; catch with an eagle glance the peculiarities of gait, the tricks of motion; and be gifted with the rare discrimination which can separate the natural habits from the society affectations. I think a photographer ought never to be in the studio when the sitter first enters. He or she ought to be left a little time alone, or rather, a special chamber ought to be set apart where the sitter may enter, with artistic objects to attract the attention placed about the room, while the artist, for a few moments, from an unseen point, may watch and study his subjects when they think themselves unobserved; afterwards let an employé enter and address the sitter while the photographer still watches from his point of observation, by which means he may judge and learn what is the difference between the sitter when alone and when in society. And so he may wait, after the instantaneous plate is in the camera, for the moment when the sitter unconsciously looks natural, to flash the light upon her or him; indeed, I have thought if the studios could be so constructed that the operator need never enter the room at all, but have the camera so adjusted from an outside room that the sitters might not know the moment they were taken, it would be best--for, to me, naturalism is always before even a first-class sighted likeness. However, if the photographer knows the peculiarities of his sitter, and these be comely peculiarities, he will pose so as to bring them sufficiently out for his purpose. There are many rules laid down by Rubens, Titian, Reynolds, and other masters for the composition and arrangement of pictures; but of all the stiff, conventional laws laid down, I incline to the jerky, spirited, and contradictory sentences of the American painter, William Hunt, in his 'Talks about Art,' for I never yet knew a law in art which ought not to be ruled by circumstances and the good taste of the artist. The moment a man allows a law to govern him, independent of the great law of reason, he becomes a feeble imitator, and no longer dares launch out into the unknown regions of originality. Of course, it is strictly necessary to learn all about rules before we dare infringe upon them, for our own convenience and the good of our object, the first and great consideration of the artist, whether of the brush or of the lens. We must learn the laws of lines and directions--we must know exactly how far we dare intrude the angles or blend the orders without being accused of barbarism; yet, to me, there is nothing so delightful as to fling a defiance in the face of time-worn laws, if my art knowledge and common sense acquits me of sin in the matter of taste--_i.e._ my own ideal of what taste ought to be, not Michael Angelo's, or Titian's, or Reynolds'. Knowing their habits by heart, I would not hesitate to turn my back upon them if they did not lie in the lines of my own observations of the multitudinous and ever-crossing laws of nature. Still, I would have the artist learn all those laws. As the doctor studies botany, so would I have the photographer learn thoroughly the laws of chemistry, physiognomy, and face anatomy, which alone can make him master of his great profession; for no man can defy a law who only knows the half of its capabilities and powers. The object in art justifies the means always; but we must not use illegitimate if legitimate means will answer the same end. In arranging a sitter or model, both painters and photographers are apt to do just a little too much--adjusting this fold and planting that accessory so as to get them within the form they have determined. I like purity of style as well as anyone, yet it is very disgusting to hear all the twaddle talked about fine lines of direction, ellipses, pyramids, and serpentine lines. The painter or photographer who cannot thank God for a lucky chance or an accidental fold is at the best only a smart mechanic, and no artist. My advice in posing would be:--Try to arrange as little as possible. Leave well as much alone as you can, for, depend upon it, all your adjusting will never better what chance and nature have arranged between them for your use, but will only tire out the subject and render the picture artificial. If not according to your preconceived ideas, accept the change as something better, and work your best upon it as a servant who has got a new task set by a great and unquestionable mistress. LIGHTING After posing comes the lighting up of your picture. This portion of the art of photography has become so very far advanced, and there are still so many difficulties in the way of perfect control, that I feel a little timid about suggesting any improvement, lest I should be met by the scientific reply that the thing is not possible; and yet I have such faith in the future of photography that I do not consider anything impossible to the operator who flings his whole soul into the discovery of nature's secrets. Light to be manipulated at will, lenses to grasp objects in and out of the present focus with equal intensity and proportion: as a painter places objects upon his canvas at what distance and under what shadow he pleases, so I think the photographer will yet do, and that before long, as he will, I am sure, yet be able to reproduce by the camera and his chemicals all the colours in the object set up before him, as he sees it reflected upon his ground-glass focussing plate. In painting, for instance, the great duty of the worker is to have one pure light as small as possible as a focussing point for the eye to go out to first, with a point of darkness to balance that light, as the light is more striking than the dark. A very small spot of white will serve as a balance to a larger proportion of black, so the wise painter is very chary of his pure white. In landscape this rule is exactly the same, grey predominating in its various degrees over all. Of course I am aware that in landscape photography we have _as yet_ no means of controlling the lens, that objects must just be reproduced as they stand, and that the utmost the artist can do is to choose a good stand-point with a favourable light, and make the best of it. Yet I foresee the time when the operator shall have instruments so constructed that he will be able to leave out what is objectionable by means of shades and blinds for the plate, so that he may do as the painter does--alter and transfer his foreground as he pleases. Inside, the operator has the light more at his control, with his shutters, blinds, tissue-paper fans, and other contrivances to throw the shadow over what portion of the picture he wishes; and yet, with all the softening of harsh lines and gentle mergings of shadows, he has not nearly reached the inner circle of light and shade yet. There are lenses still to be manufactured which will penetrate to a deeper shadow than he has yet attained, deep although he may have gone in that direction; lenses which will wait and not over expose the highest lights until the deepest depth has been gained. With remodelling, it is now easy to make light; and what the photographer ought to aim at are the greys, or half-tones, and the blacks, leaving all dead lights and subtle gradations towards light for the remodeller. Grey is a very precious as well as a plentiful quality in nature; beyond the point where light streams from, we seldom, in fact never, see white, and even the point of light is blended with gradations of prismatic flashes. There are also throughout nature great spaces; in spite of the multiplicity of detail, to me nature seems to delight in isolation. Take what you please, as an example,--a street scene crowded with people,--what is it to the looker out of a window? Simply dark masses (black always predominates in an English crowd), with here and there intersections of space; if you look for it, you will find detail enough, but you must look for it. The general appearances are simple masses of shadow under you, drifting out to the grey, with gradations of grey isolation all round. Take landscape, the ocean in turmoil--grey stretches, gradating from deeper to lighter tones. A mountain and lake scene: the sea-gull coming inland from the stormy North Sea is the only speck of white we trace throughout it, with the vulture or crow looking jet-black as it intercepts the mellow light. Space and half-tones seem to me the two great qualities to be sought after by the artist; in focussing, avoid sharp or high lights, but seek to pierce and collect as large and full masses of shadow as your tricks and appliances can give you. A clear and sunless day outside for landscape work, that sort of lustre which drifts soft shadows under trees, and causes the distance to float away indefinitely, where detail is brought out by under-tones, and high lights are left to the remodeller. So with figures; as the subject sits or stands, pour all your light upon the obstruction, so as to give depth in the shadow, blend in accessories with the figure and background with reflected lights, just enough to redeem blackness, then soften over the high lights, so that in the negative there is not a single white, all grey, even to the cambric handkerchief carelessly left out of the pocket--although I trust no operator of to-day ever will permit his subject to exhibit such a speck of vulgarity. I would have all such objects as white flowers, lace, or handkerchief changed, or a dye kept on the premises to stain them brown before the negative was taken, so that nothing could be lighter than the hands or face, unless, like Rubens' work, the subject was to be seen dark against white, in which case the white ought to surround the object, never to cut it in two. In portraits, as yet, the art of beauty seems to be the ruling idea of the operator; court favourites such as those of Sir Thomas Lawrence and Sir Joshua Reynolds are the examples set before the photographer. To flatter the subject is what both subject and worker seem to strive after; when they look to Rembrandt it is for a shadow picture, which, by the way, is no more Rembrandtesque than it is Rubenesque. Rembrandt did not make shadows like the shadow portraits, so called; look at his etchings and works and you will see what I mean. Rembrandt's lights were not shiny whites, but tender tones, as his shadows were not blots of dark, but gradations of depth. There is a portrait of Thomas Carlyle by James McNeill Whistler, where the old sage is sitting against a grey background with a perfect simplicity of space, which is nearer to the work of Rembrandt than anything I have seen since that grand old Dutchman passed to glory. RETOUCHING Before concluding my remarks on the negative, I feel the necessity of devoting a few moments to the great art of retouching--the portion of photography at present too much entrusted to the charge of young ladies; but, if the photographer in any department of the science deserves the name of artist, it is here, when with his pencil he begins to create. I thought when I began to write that I had little to say on photography, but now that I have got into the spirit of the subject, the possibilities, utilities, and various uses of photography start out before me from the chaos of unthought creation, all importuning me to take them up, one after the other, like a legion of undressed skeletons: photography as connected with etching, wood-engraving, lithography, zincography, typography, and a dozen other uses where photography is not only united in marriage to art, but must be regarded as the husband--_i.e._ the leading spirit, rather than the wife, in the indissoluble bond; but these for the present I must push back into their vague home, until I can at a future time take them up by themselves, which I trust to do, as they are far too important to tack on as a fag end to this chapter; yet before I close I must speak of the negative after it has been developed. It is the misfortune of all large and prosperous businesses that, as in the making of a pin, the establishment has to be divided into departments--the poser, not the operator--and so the plate has to go through different hands. It is a pity, but I see no way to avoid the evil, except in special cases, where the artist can afford time to follow up his work personally from the first to the last stage. Were time and money no object, I would have each man or woman assistant in the photographic studio qualified to pose, focus, develop, retouch, print, and mount, with a complete knowledge of all the branches, and a thorough artistic knowledge besides. I would also have them all consider nothing too trivial for their talents in the progress of the photograph, but each to take alternately their turn at the different departments with their own plates; without this I cannot see how the art enthusiasm, which a really good photograph requires, can be kindled and kept up. I think modest photographers in country places, loving their profession, and not troubled with too many commissions, have a better chance, if possessed of equal talents, of reaching perfection than their bustled and prosperous town brethren; in the same sense that I consider the painter, who has genius, to paint better pictures when he is selling for twenty pounds than when he is hunted after and getting two thousand pounds--but this is a matter of opinion. I know also that it was long considered by some professional men to be false art to touch a plate after developing, as it is sometimes still regarded as wrong for an artist to use the compasses or straight-edge to save time with a drawing, but I consider these as silly prejudices, to laugh at. Personally, I would not hesitate for a moment to use either a pair of compasses, a straight-edge, or a photograph, if the so doing served me better than my eye, or my sketch, in the making of my picture; neither would I hesitate to call the man a fool who objected to me doing so on the ground that it was not legitimate art. Retouching is exactly the same work on the negative as if the artist sat down before any other material. Upon it, if he has the genius, he can do almost anything, so that he has shadow enough as a basis. Here he becomes, as I have said, the creator, and of all the different operations of a negative, this is the portion where the artist stands out most prominently and proves what stuff he or she is made of. There is no end to the variety of work they may introduce as they work on--grains to look like engravings, hatchings, stippling, brush work. It is not enough to be able to remove spots and blemishes, or soften off harsh contrasts; girls mostly get up to this mark of excellence, and produce those smooth, meaningless, pleasant portraits of everyday life. The retoucher must learn to keep an expression of the negative, or make one if not there, and this is the lofty calling of a true retoucher. He must put a soul into his model, else he cannot call himself an artist any more than the painter can claim the title who only daubs potboilers. But if the retoucher can do this, and has art enough in himself to prefer soul to beauty or beautifying, then he has as much claim to call himself a painter or an artist (if he prefers that title) as any R.A. in the clique divine. Expression, or soul, is what photographers are as yet deficient in, and that is the province of the retoucher. I want to see a photographer rise above the prejudice of the flattery-loving public, and lead them by intensity: give to the public faces ugly as Rembrandt's portraits, yet pregnant with character. I want to see seams, and wrinkles, and warts, as the Great Creator left them--indexes to the wearer's character--and not doll faces, which simper and mean nothing. I want noses in all their varieties, with their own individuality intensified; cheek-bones standing out as they may be in the originals. I want men and women sent down to posterity as they are and not as they would like to be; for I never yet saw a face in its natural state that I could call ugly, although I have seen faces made hideous by rouge, and cosmetics, and false eyebrows, and also by the retouching which they were themselves so delighted about. Vice and crime darken the souls which sit behind the eyes--make chins hard, and lips thin or coarse--destroy curves which are upon all lips when innocent; yet, to me, the most demoniac face that ever peered out upon a haunting world is better in its sombre gloom than that same face smoothed by a bad or mechanical retoucher. Beauty is expression, not chiselled features. A baby is not beautiful until it can notice its mother; then the meaningless bit of flesh is lighted up with a ray from heaven. That God-beam the photographer must catch; yet it is not a smooth surface, but a light breaking through torn-up cloud mists. The other day I saw the photograph of a child, supposed to be a city waif. She was bare-footed and bare-armed, with a rent in her _pinafore_--a city waif with a pinafore! The photographer had studied his lines, and posed his model according to the rules he had learnt; everything was in its right place about that picture, but, like the mountains about Borrowdale, just a little too exactly as they ought to be. He had taken the trouble of dirtying the hands and face and legs, but I saw at a glance that, although it was all right according to art, it was not all right according to nature. She was not a real city waif, and to me, who had seen the real article, very far from it. In Edinburgh, one winter morning, I saw a picture that needed no adjusting, only the camera, to render it immortal--a man out of work, saying good-bye to his wife and child before he went on the tramp. Where the Old Cross of Edinburgh used to stand (before the new malformation was put up), at its base in the High Street they stood--that group of two, with the speck of humanity in her arms; the man, in shirt sleeves, leaning against the railings, snow-laden, with his shoeless feet blue-black against the mud-coloured snow on the pavement. In his left hand he held a very small bundle, roughly bound in a red spotted rag of a handkerchief, while with the tattered sleeves of his dirty shirt he was attempting to wipe the eyes of the child, that poor little pinched and smeared-faced baby, who was crying with hunger and cold. The mother who held it in her thin arms had turned her face from her husband to where I could see it as I passed by. She was oblivious to spectators in the silent abandonment of her own woe. A wisp of fair hair fell down from the old bashed hat upon her head, and hung against her clay-coloured cheek. Two tears, half congealed, lay just above the quivering lips. But there were no words of parting passing between those two. In London one night, in the East-end, about the month of May, I saw another picture. It was down by the side of a hoarding covered over with gay-coloured placards, and over which a lamp shone. A man, a woman, and a little girl all huddled in a confused mass together. I could not see the faces, for they were hidden on their breasts, but I saw limp hands lying on the pavement, and the light night wind fluttered shreds of rags about. Presently I beheld amongst the passers a woman stop to look at them--one of those outcasts, all the more pathetic for the furs and silks that enveloped her. She stooped down to put a sixpence into the crouching figure's open hand, and for a moment bistre rags and cardinal silk flounce fluttered together; then she passed on to her sin, leaving them in their misery. The hand closed on the coin instinctively, but the brain was too apathetic to take in the significance of the gift all at once. A moment or two passed as I watched, then I saw the hand slowly lifted and the head listlessly raised; there was a dazed look into the palm, then a start into life, and, woman-like, a clutch at the arm of her husband. Then both heads were lifted to the light, and I caught an expression of wolfish joy on the faces, which I thought must have condoned for a deal of vice on the part of that unreclaimed Magdalen, as the pair staggered to their feet and dragged off the little one to where they could buy sixpence-worth of oblivion. These were two pictures which required no arranging of lines or alteration of lighting up, although faulty according to art, perhaps. The humanity about them redeemed them; and it is pictures like these, to be found every hour, which the artist--be he painter or photographer--only requires to go out and secure, to make art immortal. [Illustration: A GROUP OF WORKING HORSES (_From a photograph by John Foster of Coldstream_)] CHAPTER II _A STUDY IN LIGHT AND SHADOW_ [Illustration: M]Y subject--the Union of Painting and Photography--is not so short as you or I might wish it to be, yet I have tried to make it as terse as a subject so crammed with incident, and so exhaustless in matter, could be made. If you will try to endure it to the end, I trust you may not be disappointed. Photographers, as far as I have seen them, are a jealous-minded race. They don't think enough of their art, or of themselves. They are too apt to think that painters despise them, while in reality the painters of to-day hang on to them as a drunken husband is apt to hang on to his good-templar wife during the festive New Year season, or, to be more poetic in simile, as a half-drowned sailor will clutch on, teeth and nails, to the hard rock, which may have broken up his rotten old boat, but now keeps him alive in the midst of the surf. The painters of to-day have become realists, and photography is realism, or nothing. A photographer, to be able to produce a good picture, must be a true painter in the highest sense of the word; therefore, a painter ought to know the right qualities about a good photograph, whether he knows the mixing of the chemicals, or length of exposure, or process of focussing, &c., or not; although, to be able to compete, the tricks of the trade have to be learned. Witness Sarony, Mora, and such men, with their fancy dodges and splendid effects, and Seavey with his unapproachable backgrounds. Thus my title is almost superfluous, for painting and photography, requiring the same direction of talent, are already united; only it may be of a little service to hear a painter publicly avow the marriage which is so constantly being consummated on the quiet. It is in your work, as in ours, the doom to be often annoyed with talented triflers who dip a finger into all the sciences, and are for ever ready to dispute the point with the originators--buyers of brains, who imagine that their cash gives them full liberty to find all sorts of faults, or suggest improvements upon the worker's designs; who will not buy unless their idiotic improvements are executed to the last letter, and who afterwards lay the whole blame of the spoiling of the pie upon the baker, when the guests condemn. Having a direct object in view, I need not trouble you about chemicals or lenses, aurora lights, or secrets that you all now know much better than I could for years unborn, but come direct to what is of vital interest to us both in our wedded state-viz. the seeking how we may put as much as possible of the soul of nature, with her innate force of feeling and motion, into our pictures; the men, modern and ancient, who may best aid us by the examples and teachings they have left as a legacy to us; a quiet consideration of what they really have done for us; a right straight look at the men themselves, unbiassed by veneration or prejudice, with a consideration as to how much we have taken advantage of the legacies left to us. The first aim of our investigation is therefore The Exact Imitation of Nature--_i.e._ the outward form and appearances of nature, the body, in fact, of that mystic Deity whom all men worship, no matter what is their dogma, whether they have a creed or whether they be creedless. Secondly, The Feeling, Sentiment, or Sensations of Nature--how her appearance touches us, as we look upon her in the wealth and loveliness of her colouring; also how we may keep that sentiment alive in our light and shade. Here the painter, with his colours, gets a better hand and a long start ahead of the photographer, engraver, and etcher; and it is here that, if those workers in light and shade can keep the sentiment as well as the painter in colours, they gain a double and richer triumph--the triumph of a racer who has been heavily and unfairly handicapped at the beginning of the race. Thirdly, The Motions, Actions, Passages, Expressions, and Impressions of Nature. There both in photographer and painter the man himself is brought out, whether he is a trained mechanic or a born genius. Lastly, The Perfect Image, the whole innate force, which is the spirit and soul of that matchless creation toward which we must all constantly turn (as the sun-flower turns or the daisy opens to the glance of day) for the life and light of our artistic beings. Let us drop the weak word artist out of our consideration altogether. Personally I abhor it, as denoting nigger minstrel, sword-swallower, or that undefinable member of society who plays with foils and sable hairs inside a studio enriched with Turkey ruggery, old armour, and marble busts. Let us, who are workers, be plain painters and photographers, never heeding the comforts of our surroundings, having only to do with objects as accessories to our work, thinking only upon the _utility_ of every nick-nack we may have, aiming only at the result without considering the trouble or the inconvenience to the animal who is bringing it all about; every conception or experiment being an undiscovered country which we mean to find out and make our own--Stanleys or Thompsons with our Africas; Pizzaros conquering and annexing our Mexicos; plain, hardworking, earnest painters and photographers; brothers in one grand service--Art. I think, at the present day, painters recognise this fraternal stand even more than photographers give them credit for doing; they know how much they are indebted to the camera for making matters lucid which were before obscure. Witness the galloping horses done by instantaneous process, the shape of waves in full action, the rushing of waterfalls, and the contortions of muscles in moments of great excitement. How many of the old masters knew what a horse at full speed was like! and what eye-openers to battle painters those photographs have been! None of the sea painters were able to draw a wave in all its subtleties and froth accessories as painters nowadays may do if they study the imprint of a flying second; we may also have clouds in their strata, as they actually are, with shadows perfect, in those artistic studies which, like the institution of Christmas cards, are coming more and more into vogue every year that we live. And painters do use them constantly, whether they admit the fact or, induced by a false pride, pretend that they do not. I see in every exhibition glaring evidences of hay carts and field horses, yachts and ships of all degrees, blankly copied, with hardly any disguise, from the photographic studies suspended in the shop windows: clear photographic studies, faithfully drawn out, and in the painting knocked about a little, sometimes not so true as the original to nature, blurred and mystified into that obscurity which does for feeling with the crowd; the most original bit of painting being the man's signature who sells it, that being strictly his own, and not the copyright of either the photographer or the horse. And why not? Clouds will not wait on our pencils and palettes being set; horses will not stand until we draw out a faithful enough study of their forms, nor ships pause until we get in all the rigging. The winds are against it, and the waves. The hours flying along and tearing down the sun-shadows before we have fixed one line of them on our paper or canvas join in the protest, jeering at our deliberation, and mocking us as slow-coaches, in these steam-engine days, for trying to crawl on at six miles an hour, and dreaming that we can enter into competition with the mile-a-minute express. The pride which keeps the artist silent, or makes him deny the charge of photo-borrowing, is an utterly false pride, and the sooner it is knocked out of sight the better for all parties. Why should we not correct our sketches--done for the sake of the colour and feeling, and not for the form--from faithful photographs? It does not hinder us from being original in the after-treatment, although it may save us much time in the elaboration of sketch-details. Why not save our precious time for something so much more worthy of it--the picture?[1] Hitherto I have wanted so much to be original that, from conscientious scruples, I would not use the photographic studies which some of my friends had sent me. I looked upon them longingly, and put them out of sight reluctantly, and so went down to sea-boards and meadows, catching rheumatics and toothache, and wasting hours upon hours, and many valuable sheets of Whatman's hand-made paper, trying to draw out all the riggings of ships, and the shapes of cows, losing the effect often in my endeavours to get the manipulation, and in reality not getting a hundredth part of what I might have got with half-an-hour's rapid dashing on of colour effects and a moment's focussing. At present I know just a little about the art of photography, but I intend to make it my duty to learn a great deal more--enough to be able to sight a picture correctly; take and develop a dry plate, and afterwards fix a print; for I can perceive plainly that Time is coming on with rapid strides to the point when, along with his present utensils of colour-boxes and sketching block, the painter will require to carry his camera and stand, box of dry plates, and head covering. And how proper it is that it should be so, a little experience will prove to every one. An old castle or abbey, or the view of a town, or even the markings upon the trees, would take us days to outline--the buildings of the town, the fret-work about the abbey and castle, or the knots and gnarling of the woodland--and even then they would be incomplete. To illustrate my meaning, look at even the most careful outline pencil drawings of Turner, one of the most delicate of outline draughtsmen _when he liked_, or the scrupulous and untiring delicacy of his admirer, Professor John Ruskin, with his pencil, and compare those efforts with the lines about even the most commonplace photograph of a building or tree-trunk, and I need say no more on that point. The painter has lost the half, and distorted the rest; and although the drawing may appear more attractive at first sight, the photograph will be the better, for it embodies the first grand principle of a painter's training--faithful imitation of the object which he desires to represent. Photographers are apt to labour under the mistaken notion that we do not recognise this plain fact of artistic necessity; but we do, and if we have not the manliness to own it, that is our cowardice and not our blindness. Be content, therefore, when you go into exhibitions and see the misty result of your photographic studies in the realism of to-day hanging all round, that this is recognition enough of the obligations Palette owes to Camera. To consider the first of our united art aims--viz., '_The Exact Imitation of Nature_,' as she appears to us and as she appears to others. The eye is the organ to which we all appeal, and I do not know a more fickle umpire--except perhaps the ear. Many people are colour-blind, yet not entirely so, and more is the pity, but just on one point, _like the sun-stroke of Sir Roger Tichborne_; and the worst is, they are not aware of the particular point, and feel quite put out if it is explained to them. They will think the man a fool who tries to prove them wrong, for if they are strong upon any point, it is upon that particular point. I have proved it dozens of times in cases of partial sun-stroke and colour-blindness. I mean, just a slight wipe-out of the mental slate, a blurring, or, as it were, a Dutch effect, in the case of sun-stroke; or a delicacy of perception a-wanting in the colour-blindness, a gauze veil dropped over, not nearly so apparent as the blue glasses, or the lack of distinction between red and green, for Daltonism like this ought to be palpable both to the sufferer and his suffering friends. There is also a distortion of vision apart from nearness or longness of sight, which is a very troublesome agent to fight against for the producer of pictures: a little nerve gone aglee, through partial paralysis or an accident before birth, and everything is different to him from what it is to anyone else; or it may be that it is spasmodic and occasional in its effects, and then woe to the picture that comes under his lash (if a critic) at the moment when the twisted fit is on him. Ten artists sit down to one landscape and make ten different pictures, and the camera drops in and makes the eleventh, like none of the ten, but wonderfully like the original, as those ten different pairs of eyes must testify, in spite of their varied distortions. Ten different critics look at a picture and find out different faults, each praising as virtues the faults of the nine others. Ten women will look upon one man, and ten chances to one they will all find different uglinesses about him, with the exception of the tenth, _whom he may have chosen_, and yet they will all unite in agreeing that she wasn't worthy of him; which clearly proves, I think, that this form-distortion of vision is only partial. Realism is the passion of the day, both in writers and painters; and this passion photography is only too well qualified to gratify. To note down a scene, or describe an emotion, by the aid of its most minute outer symbolism, as faithfully and as free from complexity as possible, seems to be the greatest virtue and highest aim of the modern school. The names which I would select as samples of this style of work will be those names which, by engravings and etchings, are best known to us, and so likely to be of most use in our search after excellent examples. Amongst the old masters I would quote Albert Dürer, for stern realism, combining a symbolism and spirituality so refined that it is no wonder his qualities have been so long unseen by critics such as Pilkington, who says of him, 'He was a man of extreme ingenuity, without being a genius--in composition copious without taste; anxiously precise in parts, but unmindful of the whole, he has rather shown us what to avoid than what to follow.' Rembrandt I would take next, as we all know about him and his powers, also because he seems to be the model chosen, but in few cases followed out correctly, by photographers who desire to produce striking effects. David Teniers I would point out next, as a type of naturalism without much straining after force or effect, no elevating force or symbolic influence. I take these three great names as samples, because their manners are distinctly separate, because their systems and tricks for reaching effect are easily penetrated, and because, while I am describing characteristic works by them, and explaining as well as I can how they may be followed out with original force by photographers, you will be able, I dare say, to recall some specimens of their brush-work, and so follow me more easily. All good original work is got from copying and following those who have gone before. I could quote scores of painters since the days of Dürer, Rembrandt, and Teniers, down to the present hour, who gain fame only through being Dürerites, Rembrandtists, or Tenierians, with a little of their own personalities thrown in, to make them masters. Dürer flung in and mixed up a part of himself (which he could not keep out) along with the training of Michael Wohlgemuth. Rembrandt hashed up Zwanenburg, Lastman, Pinas, with a host of others, along with the son of his own mother, to produce the mightiest giant of the art race, whom we all try to copy whenever we want to feel free from the feeding-bottle. It is the fate of all great men to copy. Blake says, 'The difference between a bad artist and a good is that the bad artist _seems_ to copy a great deal, and the good one _does_ copy a great deal.' Spending lots of time drawing after the antique and winning gold medals and certificates; fiddling over false niceties; trying _to finish_, when there is no such thing as finish in creation, far less in art; being so careful that they lose all freedom of action, freedom of thought, and produce _nothing_;--that is the rubbish they are turning out of the Government schools nowadays; students who labour five years at freehand outline, ten years at antique casts, and niggle the rest of their useful years amongst nude models in life schools, while the real active copyists are vaulting over their silly heads, and digging out niches to enshrine themselves in, down Time. William Hunt, the Yankee, in his 'Talks about Art,' tells us about Dürer and copying in his own terse way thus: 'Albert Dürer, with an outline, knew how to make an outline look like a firm, full figure. He began with firmness, and finished with delicacy.... But he didn't get it in a day. Hercules may have strangled a serpent when he was a baby, but there was a time when he couldn't. "Dürer worked in his own way!" No! nor did anybody else at first. They all worked in the manner of someone else, in the way they were shown: Raphael after Perugino, Vandyke after Rubens. If Albert Dürer had lived in Venice he would have been a Venetian painter. As it was, he worked as the old German artists had worked.' 'The Lord and his Lady,' 'Melancholy,' and 'The Virgin and Child' are the engravings by Albert Dürer which represent his clear, concise style as well as any others of his works for our present purpose. In the first picture, 'The Lord and his Lady,' we have a simple arrangement of straight perpendicular lines--the lady seen profile, with sloping unbroken lines of drapery; the lord almost full-face, looking upon her, a straight sword hung in front and slanting in unison with the folds of the lady's drapery; a plant at right side with split top, growing straight so far, yet inclining towards the direction of dress, sword, and figures; a tree-trunk at left wing with gnarling, repeating the folds of dress, with the figure of Death behind the tree holding up his hour-glass:--they are passing from Death's corner, yet by the hour-glass he knows that, as the shadows travel round, so surely will they both return. The light and shade are simple as the arrangement, directly falling from above and to the left; the light divides the direct half of tree, dress, clock, and flower, and the other half is in broad shadow, a light foreground and light distance and a clear sky; all the shade relief rests about the central objects of interest. As a sample of unaffected masterly ease of management and restraint I do not know its equal; nor have I yet seen a photograph treated (although it might easily be so) in the same possessed way, except perhaps the first efforts of the amateur before he had learned how to manage his lighting up. If experienced men would only learn to come back to the effects of their days of ignorance, bringing their gained knowledge to rectify the defects _outside_ the accidental effects; if old painters would only take lessons from the natural attempts of their little sons and daughters--how great we might all become, and how original! 'Melancholy.' This is a more complex composition, an arrangement of crowded shadow, worth studying for the effect of dying light, trailing from the folds of a woman's skirt. It is too much filled with symbolic objects to describe just now, and the great point of interest is the glitter upon the folds, the broken lines which make up these folds, and the universal gloom over the rest. It is not like the obscurity of Rembrandt, for every object is distinctly manipulated, yet from it Rembrandt may have got the first idea for the development of his style. 'The Virgin and the Child' I like for its extreme delicacy and lightness, and also for the power of reflections which it contains. The old house on the other side of the river is a useless disturbance, and mainly useful in its historical architectural evidence, and also to prove that even the most astute self-critic may make mistakes and just work too much. How suggestive is that monkey at her side, chained prisoner like the struggling dove in the grasp of the mischievous Baby Christ--the dove, symbol of captured truth, and the infant with his humanity only as yet made manifest! I wish we could have a photograph with this subtlety of realism, this absence of shadow, this clear depth of transparency. It seems to me as if photographers could do it if they liked, and were not afraid of the public. That pale white subtlety, stealing gently upon us, not much to look upon at first sight, almost a blank, yet growing gaze by gaze, until we cannot let it out of our thoughts, like a white rose against a whitewashed wall, with the green leaves and the crimson stalk bleached vert-grey with the midday sun-blaze, and the shadow under it of the softest of purple greys. I would like to linger over Albert Dürer and his influence, not only on art as regards painting, but on art as regards literature: Goethe working up his Faust; tales of mediæval chivalry; of demons and spirits, solemn, truth-loving souls beset by false decoys; knights sore tempted and yielding just for a moment, to fill out long years of repentance; honour ever rising up and choking love; love shadowed over by despair; death ever present and ever sweet as the surcease from labour and years. But it would tire you, for we have it going on still, only much of the honour is forgotten and the tenderness of the love is brutalised; but we have the work, and the want, and the woe unutterable, with us ever, and for ever, and we who can will rush from it as the steam-engine rushes on iron lines, drowning the sounds of the wailing behind us in our own loud puffing, hiding the sight of the weeping behind us in the dense smoke of our own importance. I turn from Dürer to Rembrandt, as from a nature refined and gentle to a nature rugged and strong, as from a woman to a man, whose firm hand I like to grasp even better than the tender clasp of the other. Rembrandt, the master of painting--even more than Rubens--of etching and photography, who when better understood will benefit us all more than any one of the others, with one exception, which I shall name presently. 'The Painter's Mother,' a head with white cap, ruffle, and black dress, one of many which either he or his disciples painted often, strongly marked, a study in the modelling of wrinkles and reflections. 'Interior, with Woman plucking a Fowl.' The figure sits fronting us with face down-turned, a black cap casting deep shadows over the whole features, with the exception of a half-light playing upon the under-side of the cheek, and portion of the back of the neck seen from the white ruffled collar, open at the neck. Satin-textured body, with dull red sleeves, and amber lining on the upturned skirt; this is very dark green or black. She holds the fowl with one hand, plucking with the other, while between her feet rests the basket to catch the feathers. At the left corner lies a bunch of carrots, breaking up the copper Dutch pan behind; farther back is a basket supporting a board with flat fish upon it. Still deeper in shadow is a large boiler with earthenware jars and a chain hanging over; behind those again, a very dark background. There is not much in this subject--a fowl half plucked and a harsh-featured woman plucking; the most commonplace incident, without moral, except the moral that life is very uncertain and mortality sure--in a hen-coop particularly. Without any pathos, save the pathetic tracing of those hard scorings of care on that matron's face; not much to make sentiment out of in an ordinary hand; what we may see any hour if we live where such acts are continued from day to day. Yet in the hands which have made it what it is, what may we, the lookers-on, not make out of it? The secret of Rembrandt lies here exposed, if we can only read him aright. It is not the mass of shadow and isolated light which stamp the power and individuality of the man. These are only his tricks of trade, repeated when he saw how well they took with the public. It is the vigour and command of this master which strike us as we probe the breadth and extreme simplicity of his accessories. He is content with a bunch of carrots when they serve his purpose. The gigantic copper stew-pan would have been enough if he could have hidden a part of the exact circle; but he wanted the woman to stand out alone; the other objects were put in to support a blankness, as a little by-play, an incident by the way: the working woman is the aim of his setting up that large canvas. He got it all in an afternoon, the time she was plucking the fowl--that is, the master touches; the rest might be done by anyone. To imitate Rembrandt properly, get hold of the first East-end basket-woman that you chance to meet--a herring or orange vendor will do; take her as she sits, without arranging a single fold, adding to or removing one iota about her; take her in the street or in the close, or as she squats down inside the half-darkened doorway of her own little shop. She can neither have too little nor too much about her if she struck you distinctly while you passed as being picturesque. Never mind the lighting, and don't think to be original; as she stands, or sits, or squats, she is the woman for your camera; out with it, and secure her before she can wink or know what you are up to, and you have caught the whole secret of Rembrandt's power and realistic talent. In hatching and touching your plate, which to me seems to represent the second working, think upon all the dodges of the etchers, Haydon, Hamerton, Herkomer, Whistler, &c. If you have a chemical to eat down certain parts of it broadly, leaving the prominent parts (be sparing of prominent parts) standing out dense, do not niggle with your pencil-point over-much, except it is to blur out an accessory which may be too distinct. I do not know much about printing photographs, yet I am inclined to think that it is here where the genius of the photographer may be brought out. If I were a photographer I'd never for a second leave a plate while it was printing. I'd try all sorts of dodges upon the sun with pieces of paper having little eccentric holes torn out where I wanted an artificial shadow to fall across my plate, by exposing the print altogether at times, so as to mellow any extreme lights, painting touches of white on it to bar out the sun altogether where I wanted a mysterious gleam, whether it was on my picture or not, and never rest until I had made it my own. I may be wrong, of course, in all this; but it is the idea which now strikes me; or all this may have been done already, or considered _infra dig._ or illegitimate; yet here, I think, as in the treating of a painted picture, the photographer can liberate himself entirely from the trammels of custom, and never be at a loss for fresh tracks. In landscape photography I constantly observe good pictures rendered imperfect through the fatal power of the camera, which must print every object before it, and yet in the printing even more than in the sorting of the plate I think much, if not all, of this might be obviated by a careful study and following up of the tricks of Rembrandt; if it is the foreground which is too plainly marked, why not take another foreground plate, and, clearing off all not required, place it over the other plate, and so let the sun strike through both and blurr that corner?[2] or make a dark shower cloud as in the engraving 'The Three Trees,' by covering boldly portions of the plate with paper and allow the rest to print darker; or by adroit covering and exposing, simplify the whole arrangement and create divisions where you want them; a ray of light, or a part blackened, or any device that occurs to you, which is what we call inspiration? The magic of Rembrandt rests in this--that he seldom creates, _but he takes advantage of circumstances and local incidents_ to intensify the story he is telling you. To illustrate my meaning by three short quotations from celebrated authors, whose tragedies are intensified and minutely expressed by the working up of the commonest accessories, as we see in every tragedy of daily life--a clock striking at the tensioned second; or a mouse peering out of its hole; or the crack of a distant whip; the rumbling of a cart; a laugh or a careless oath heard outside; something unimportant seen or heard that fixes it all into its compact run or place; the sledge bells of Mathias in the Polish Jew; or the ragged stick of Eugène Aram. My intention in giving these quotations is to prove to you how writers know the value of common objects, and how few of them are wanted for the purpose, so that in choosing our accessories we may so choose that the link is carried on, yet nothing uselessly put in to distract the attention; the object being to draw the eyes and thoughts, _for a moment_, from the main act, so that we may return again better prepared for the tragedy. Zola, that Rembrandt of modern French literature, in one of his novels, 'La Belle Lisa,' describes the return to Paris of an escaped political martyr called Florent. Florent, having passed through fearful sufferings, is picked up exhausted by one of the Paris market women and taken to Paris in her cart. He is in a starving condition, but, being proud, will not tell the woman about his wants, and, leaving her, gets into company with a hard-up artist called Claude, who, although also hungry and _sou_-less, yet is carried away by the artistic glow of light and shade and wealth of colour about a coffee and soup stall which they pause to admire. 'I tell you,' says Claude, 'a man should paint what he sees, and as he sees it. Now, look there. Is this not a better picture than their--consumptive saints?' 'Women were selling coffee and soup. A small crowd of customers had gathered round a large kettle of cabbage soup which smoked on a tiny brazier. The woman, armed with a long ladle, first put into a yellow bowl thin slices of bread, which she took from a basket covered with a napkin, and then filled up the bowl with soup. There were clean market-gardeners in blouses; dirty porters with their shoulders soiled by the burdens they had carried; poor devils in rags--in short, all sorts of people--eating their breakfast, and scalding themselves with the hot soup. The painter was delighted, and half shut his eyes to compose his picture. But the smell of the cabbage soup was terribly strong. Florent turned away his head--the sight made him dizzy.' Here we have a Rembrandtesque study of hunger and endurance, with all the accessories put into quiet order. The second sketch which I take is from an essay by Walt Whitman on the death of President Lincoln. We all know how he (Abraham Lincoln) was shot in the theatre, and in those few jerky commonplace sentences Walt Whitman, the American Michael Angelo of words, presents to us as grim and gruesome a picture as I know anywhere. It has more of the loose but massive work of our English realist, Millais, about it than the compacter work of Rembrandt. It has a day-light or surrounding gas-light effect about it also, and little shadow or mystery, but it is to me blood-curdling in its startling distinctness.[3] You have here a scene as filled out with detail in the light as Albert Dürer's 'Melancholy' in the shadow. Walt Whitman has not omitted a single object which impressed him at the time--in fact, he tells us the whole dire tragedy by the aid of animate or inanimate objects not at all connected, except by association, with the murder; and this I wish you to remember strictly--how, by the placing and building up of objects, chairs, tables, flags, as here, all leading out from the centre of sight, which is the tale, you may suggest a deed without showing the main actors of it at all. Witness here that the principal figure, Abraham Lincoln, is never seen. The third illustration which I take is from that well-known poem by Bell on Mary Queen of Scots. I choose the closing act, her execution, as it embraces within the lines leading up to the climax the incidents of the verses going before, and because it is here that you see distinctly surrounding the principal character (our unfortunate Queen) trivial and more important items, all leading up to the loneliness of the victim and the fickleness of fortune. In the centre of the hall is placed the block and the masked headsman, axe in hand. The scene is decidedly Rembrandtesque in its light and shade; to be treated as Rembrandt has treated his 'Descent from the Cross.' A strong light falls upon block, axe, and headsman; the rest is in shadow, the carved woodwork and tapestry hangings of the hall fading off towards the distant door; as the royal victim and her dog near, she comes from the shadow which covers her attendants and other witnesses into the full glare which falls upon that empty foreground; and, as it streams over her pale face and grey hair and becomes muffled in the thick folds of her velvet dress, the picture is complete.[4] The third picture of Rembrandt's is of little use to us, so it is needless going into detail with it. It has been misnamed 'A Jewish Bride,' as, from the general outline of the figure, loosely holding a bunch of flowers in the left hand and the symbolic vine-twisted staff in the right, we must conclude that the honeymoon has been for a considerable time passed, and that another joy awaits the expectant husband. It is a portrait of the painter's second wife, and a very lovely second wife she must have been, with her soft fair tresses, rich dark eyes, creamy complexion, and seductive chin--a much nicer Dutch frau than a Jewish bride. But before leaving this master I would like to call your attention particularly to, and ask you to remember, 'An Old Woman.' This is more in the distinct manner of Rembrandt than his 'Jewish Bride,' who might have any other name attached to it as well as that of Van Ryn. Here the old tanned face is seen in profile; the square-cut nose and harsh mouth, subdued by toil, sullenised by hardship, with early hours when the frost-breath hardened that parchment skin: a pitiful face, without one ennobling trace upon it. Just such an air of patient suffering as we have seen of a winter morning on the stooping, shawl-bound head of the aged hag raking amongst the cinders and offal of the street. It is thankless toil which does this sort of painting and carving--a spring-time of labour and lust, a summer-time of labour and curses, an autumn-time of labour and treachery, and a winter-time of labour, starvation, and neglect. Is it not all equally pitiful in its progression as we watch the stages? The girl with her load making merchandise of her love; the woman with her load toiling on for the thankless male; the mother with her load selfishly laying as much of it as she can upon the delicate shoulders of her young offspring; and that toothless old hag stooping down amongst the shadows, square, gaunt, hopeless, resting from her load alone in her tenth hour, crouching amidst the shadows with the ashes of her wasted past crowning that hoary, honourless, neglected age. This is passing realism and getting into the sublime, and this is what the gross, coarse, miserly old master has done, with his innate force and living soul, while his strong, bold brush, with its low, sad tones, has painted an obscure interior and an old woman sitting brooding in the cold and dark, clad in a dirty white-grey cloak, with a dirty grey skirt faded to grim black-grey with newer black, patched sleeves, a few jars on a darkened shelf overhead, all dark and hopeless except where the one ray starts out that gaunt profile and what is seen of the shrivelled neck. TENIERS.--I take David Teniers after Rembrandt as an instance and example of successful and easy grouping; I take him as the type of a school embracing a long list of painters ancient and modern--Wilkie, Faed, Orchardson, Cameron, Pettie, &c. &c.; and why I prefer him to our own Sir David Wilkie is not so much that Teniers was before Wilkie, because Teniers was by no means the first in that line of business. If you can recall the delicate and silvery half-tones and open composition of 'La Tourneuse,' and compare this with the hot colouring, slushy handling, and forced composition of 'The Penny Wedding' and 'Blind Man's Buff,' we must agree that here Teniers has the best of it. Yet I would by no means decry Sir David Wilkie, except where comparison is forced, as in this case; for I consider Sir David Wilkie, Tom Faed, and Orchardson to be the very best models a painter or a photographer can have for the composition of groups. I am not at all prejudiced in favour of old masters or of old things, or big names, or advertised brains or dry bones; rather the reverse. I like young flesh and fresh blood, quick-beating pulses, and impetuous motions. I would rather have a living mistake than a dead perfection any day; yet, when I see the old ones far ahead of the young ones, it is both a duty and a joy to bend the knee and adore the vanished past. Orchardson and Hugh Cameron have come up the truest to the silver and opals of Teniers, and for chaste deliberation and simplicity I can commend no one before Orchardson: he always stops painting just at the point where people should stop eating and drinking--the point this side of repletion. Study his best-known examples--Christopher Sly, from 'Taming of the Shrew,' some articles of clothing and a pair of shoes in the left-hand corner, to continue the slanting line of feet of the servants waiting on Christopher; a walking-stick lying in the same line as the feet of the negro, and people behind the screen; a sheet of paper on the floor farther in takes exactly the same line of direction, and the eye is no more troubled with details; we can all laugh without let. In the 'Queen of Swords,' a more crowded composition, the ground lines are the same, with the queen forming the point of the angle and a clear foreground, with the exception of a fan that carries on the same lines. In that scene from 'Henry IV.,' Part I., Prince Henry, Poins, and Falstaff, we have one of the simplest, openest, and most refined specimens of humorous composition on record. A straight, horizontal line of tapestry, broken up at the exact limit by the burly hind-part view of Sir John, the buffoonery expressed in that capacious broad waist-belt, and the rounded folds of the doublet below it, is worthy of the mighty creator of that inflated sponge, Falstaff. A table and chair behind it keep the horizontal line, while relieving the emptiness of the floor between Falstaff and his companions. The wall starts out towards us at an angle, while, along with a chair, the Prince and Poins keep within the vanishing lines from the point of sight, which is exactly in the centre of the back view of Falstaff's waist, so that we must look (whether we like or not) first and last at him, even although, with Orchardson's usual love of refinement, he is modestly cast into half-shadow. They say Thackeray could draw a gentleman and Dickens could not. I deny this sweeping assertion in the existence of Mr. Chester of 'Barnaby Rudge'; but one thing I do think, which is, that Orchardson is the painter who gives us the nearest approach to the easy insolence and _bonhomie_ of a well-bred man of the world. To return to Teniers (for a moment in passing), I cannot bring to mind one of his pictures which I have seen that could in any way be improved in the composition, added to, or taken from; every accessory tells its own portion of the general story, and this I would once more point out to the composer of a picture, along with a few simple laws which occur to me as I write. The principal object is the first object which rises up before the mind's eye, and fixes the composition when the story is heard or read, therefore the main object to be considered and first set up or drawn in--as the figure of the queen in Orchardson's 'Queen of Swords'; the philosopher nearest us in 'Bacchanalian Philosophers,' by Teniers; the two front figures in Rembrandt's 'Night Watch,' one dark, one light, the dark one put in by Rembrandt first; and the child with its cart even before the lighted-up woman and child who come before 'The Blind Fiddler,' by Wilkie. There is too much in this composition, particularly that group of foreground objects, which bear such evident traces of having been so carefully selected and placed in such a variety of artificial carelessness--watering-pan, cabbage, box and utensils, basin, stool, with little bat, and knife, placed so exactly as they ought to be, like the hills of Borrowdale--all being, after consideration, painty improvements, never dropped upon accidentally and not at all required. You will find nothing of this sort in Rembrandt's pictures, or in Rubens' (lavish though he is), or in Teniers', and seldom in Pettie's or Orchardson's. In Vandyke's you may, or in Wilkie's, because both Vandyke and Wilkie, being Court favourites, permitted their own individuality and good taste to be oftener biassed by the buzzing of the gartered insects about them; yielding to make this or that improvement to suit a foolish patron, until their own gifts became obscured, and their taste perverted to the level of a pair of Court breeches. Rembrandt and Rubens were strong enough men always to lead the fashion, and too strong ever to be led. But the times are changed with us now, so that I do not think there is any danger of Orchardson getting spoilt by good fortune; he is not in any way hurt by it yet, at all events. After we get the first object set up, the others all fall into place to suit that central or main object, and this rule holds with the arranging of light and shadow, as well as form--one minute centre of light round which the half-lights range, and the deepest shadow where you can best afford it. The central form, the central light, is of paramount importance--all the rest are matters of convenience, chance, and discretion. Think less about what you may put in to help your picture than upon what you may keep out, to give it importance and repose. Every sitter has a fine point about him, or her: find it out--the best side of the face, a nice arm, or good hand; they will reveal it to you unconsciously before you have sighted them--and make that your first object, and all the rest subordinate and to help that out. Don't seize two points in one model; decide which is the most useful, and take that; without regret, discarding all the others. It may be that the only good bit is a hat, or a feather, or a pair of gloves, or a brooch. The point that first attracts your eye pleasantly is the point upon which to make your centre of vision, and around which you will arrange the rest. If it is an article of dress, of jewellery, then bring the light to bear upon it, and make all the rest in half-shades. Study nature for ever, if you would have any photographs you take different from the last photograph. Never take a sitter at once; leave them alone to knock about your studio while you pretend to be sorting something else, but watch them unawares: you will see a natural touch before long, a peculiar habit which they are not aware of, but by which many of their friends know them. Fix on that as your character keynote, and work up features, position, and accessories, so as not to lose sight of this peculiarity; and with this borne always in mind and a good knowledge of face and neck anatomy, without which I cannot see how anyone can touch up a negative properly, I know of no reason wherefore a photographer should not give us as complete a character study as any painter, ancient or modern, from Millais back to Albert Dürer. Yet before that state of perfection can be acquired, permit me, as one of the public and also as a frequent sufferer, to enter my protest against head-rests and long-sighting, to those who still practise these abominations. No natural expression or easy posture can ever be gained until instantaneous plates are used for everyone. Before they can well settle in their self-chosen places and posture, have them down and risk it--the chance of a spoilt picture is better than a conventional position. Also this debasing system of smoothing away wrinkles, and blotches, and character traces. I never can see a real harsh, wrinkled face nowadays, except in some of the tintypes. Of course I know the cry is raised that the public will have those wax productions; but as one of the public I have not yet had my own likeness taken quite right. For instance, in repose, I hang my head on one side, and I have always been made to hold it straight up, like a soldier at 'attention.' Again, my nose is neither of a Greek nor Roman caste, and yet I never do get that nose put in as I see it in a mirror, or as its humpy shadow is cast upon the wall; or, as a gentleman once closed up a wordy, if not very convincing number of reasons against my having the qualities to make a poet, painter, or passable labourer, by exclaiming, 'Why, just look at your nose; did you ever know a clever man with a nose like that?' This photographed nose of mine has afforded me and others some amusement; sometimes it has been so refined that I fell to reviling nature for being so far inferior to the artist who finished it off so well. Once it came home a splendid Roman, with the light upon it so intensified by pencil-work that it stood out in bold enough relief to have won a Waterloo, if big noses could have done that. I have one portrait, which I am keeping to leave to posterity: it is so Byronic and spiritual that future young ladies will no longer wonder why my wife married me. This refined likeness and my love-songs together ought to do the trick. Yet I have some photographs very near perfection: one representing my two little daughters, done by Tunny. Professor John Ruskin writes: 'The face of the child on the spectator's right hand is the loveliest in expression I ever saw in a photograph.' Also some by my friend Mr. John Foster[5] of Coldstream cattle-pieces, and landscapes breathing of balmy atmospheric effect. He gets up to work outside at three o'clock on summer mornings, the hour when nature is like a blushing virgin, all dewy loveliness and purity. In France and England there is a school rising, who with the brush are trying to compete with the camera--_the Impressionists_, who, along with the camera, are yet fated to produce a great revolution in art. They aim at giving the impression, effect, or sensation of an instantaneous action or emotion or phase; not the phase exactly, but the swift impression which it leaves upon the mind of the spectator, with form, as it were--that is, with paints and brushes striving to embody the soul of nature, and when the two are joined the result will be _perfection_. To finish by bringing up the name which I have hitherto kept back, the exception, about which some time ago I promised to tell you: the sweetest, tenderest, mightiest art soul that ever was chained inside a mortal body, and prompted the fingers to move as it wanted; the purest, saddest mind that ever writhed neglected and found its reward so late, the soul now free and stirring up a crowd with its pathetic activity, to be like it pure and true--I mean _Jean-Francois Millet, the French peasant painter_. Mr. Hunt says of him, 'For years Millet painted beautiful things, and nobody looked at them. They fascinated me, and I would go to Barbizon and spend all the money I could get in buying his pictures. I brought them to Boston. _"What is that horrid thing?" "Oh, its a sketch by a friend of mine!"_ Now he is the greatest painter in Europe.' That is a painter's verdict about a painter. One of his pictures is vivid in my mind just now. There is a print of it in that wonderful illustrated magazine, 'Scribner's Monthly,' where engravings look like paintings or idealised photographs. It is called 'The Sower,' the dim figure of a labourer scattering seed over a ploughed field with one hand, and holding his apron filled with embryo life in the other. In the distance, and lighted up by the sun, a team of bullocks are dragging the plough, and a flight of birds over beyond the seed. That is the whole composition put into bald words. But as it has been rendered by this painter, it is an embodiment of all which I have tried to explain, the spirit and body of living, working, suffering nature. What would I not give (if I had it) to see a photograph done like that! and it can be done if you labour enough, know enough, and feel enough. 'The Sower!' As I look upon it I am drawn into it, mesmerised and rendered clairvoyant. I am _en rapport_ with the freed spirit which has left along with the delicate aroma of its departing wings a portion of its own personality, its own immortality--vague and tender--greater than Raphael, or Rembrandt, or Albert Dürer, for it has taken the deepest root within humanity. Tenderly I look upon it, not too boldly, for it seems vibrating with a sensuous existence; it clutches at my heart--sinews as it reveals the parables of Christ, accompanied by sobbing notes of melancholy spirit-music; the far-off strikings of angel harp-strings, indefinite but ravishing. And the painter's body, that St. John face, with its misty development of hair, lies under the earth. A maddened stag was driven by the hunters and the hounds over the garden fence into the snow-covered garden on that January morning of 1875[6], past the dying man's window, and ruthlessly slaughtered under the eyes of the dying man--yielding up its noble life for a bit of sport; the hot-red blood sinking through the cold, white snow, and soaking into the covered hearts of the green plants beneath. One up-turned glance of the glazing eyes met the down-turned glance of the glazing eyes, and so, filled with despair and pity, two souls--the soul of a stag and the soul of a painter--drifted out into the morning light. [Illustration: ANCIENT ASSYRIAN HALL: THE FEAST OF SARDANAPALUS (_From a sepia sketch by the Author_)] CHAPTER III _THE PRIMARIES: YELLOW, RED, AND BLUE_ I. AN APOLOGY TO THE AUTHOR OF 'MODERN PAINTERS,' ETC. [Illustration: W]E may love a man for himself, and admire his gifts, and yet differ altogether from his beliefs. We may go fifteen miles out of twenty with a guide, and turn off our own way the remaining five. Surely it cannot be called inconsistency to go the fifteen miles and break off at the five; to revere the genius of John Ruskin and love his character, and yet take a stand against him when he directs painting! to coincide with his abstract theories of art, and oppose his practical hints! to praise him in the preface and blame him in the pamphlet! This is a paradox which the student of man may easily comprehend. The exhibition of vanity, or meanness, or pettiness which last year may have filled me with just indignation or contempt, this year may be met in my mind with over-balancing excuses and reasons. I was close upon it when it loomed up, and it looked a mountain, hiding with its black shadow all the rest; but my distance of to-day has reduced it to its correct size, a dirty mud-heap at the foot of the mountain of nobility,--or the wisdom of the ages has added another year to my growing mind. Yet I do not regret what I have said, for if we cannot pick the beam from our own eyes, is it not something that we are able to point out the mote in the eye of our brother? It is a compliment which we expect him to return by helping us to clear the more ponderous encumbrances from our sense of vision. John Ruskin I regard as a master at whose feet no man, however strong, need be ashamed to sit: one as nearly the ideal man as we may expect frail humanity to be--self-sacrificing, devoted, single in the pursuit of his object; microscopic in his vision (herein lies his fault as a general teacher--_he cannot stand far enough back from his picture_), seeking to the core before he will be satisfied, becoming the disciple of the man he would criticise, never trusting to a casual glance of the subject he would describe, going patiently all round it, getting into it if he can. A word to trust as you might the Spirit of Truth--_as far as he can see it_. He is a bigot, being in deep earnest, as all reformers must be, _having only one right road which they are treading_, but (I put my finger on the weak spot) he has disciples who are too completely satisfied with him, who, having fallen in love, have become blind, and he has the weakness to be satisfied with their satisfaction. The gold is pure which he has refined, the armour is bright which Faith has clasped upon him--but there is a red rust that will get upon the brightest armour if the damp breath of adulation be allowed to rest upon its surface, the arrogant vanity which eats into the soul. As a philanthropist and moral leader, as a poet and beautiful example, set up John Ruskin. If the world could follow it, the shepherds more than the sheep, then would it be nearer the standard set up by the Founder of Christianity, further from forms, falsehoods, luxuries. But the world has its own standards of morality, as he fixes his about art; only, John Ruskin is sincere: but, alas for the others! He is wrong from my point of sight as regards painting, therefore I say so; he is not all gold, but so great is my love of the gold that it forces me to hate in proportion the clay; but would that I could walk in his footsteps for all the rest! II. THE PRIMARIES: YELLOW, RED, AND BLUE I dare say you have all stood at times to look at a street showman throwing up three balls in the air, and spinning them about from one hand to the other. I wish that I could demonstrate this feat, but unfortunately I am not clever enough, neither have I been able to find any friend who could do it, else it would have been a great pleasure to me, and I doubt not also to you, if I could have aided my symbol by introducing to you at this point the model of some long-haired gentleman, with his symmetrical person glittering with spangles and bright textures, who, tossing up the yellow, red, and blue balls, would thus have added amusement to instruction. However, since I have not this artifice to help me, I must trust to your memories of such a sight as I go on. Yellow, red, and blue: these are the three colours that I wish to begin the game, and with which you are likely also to end it. The showman pitches up the coloured balls, and as they slowly cross one another we can trace their course and local tints perfectly, even while we are soothed with the harmony they produce all together. Red passes yellow, and an image of orange flashes in front of us, even while we see both red and yellow quite distinctly apart; red passes blue, and purple at once dashes between the blue and the red; yellow passes blue, and green is the result. Yellow, red, and blue are the primary colours; orange, purple, and green are the direct mixtures of the primary colours, or secondary tints. The showman gets animated, and the three balls are sent spinning rapidly from hand to hand: they seem all to be in the air at once, blending and dashing about each other until there is no red, or yellow, or blue, no distinct orange, purple, or green, but a thousand indefinite shafts and ripples of colour. Is it red, blue, green, orange, purple, yellow, or gems and sparkles of fire? They are only three, three that are a host, three that have become brown, grey, black, all sorts of browns, every description of that subtle and endless grey. Can the painter do any better than imitate the street showman with the three colours? Start fair, mix slowly and decidedly, get animated, and dash along, with his entire heart in his work, some thought in his head, and his eye steadfastly fixed on nature, and nature only, while his fingers run over the keyboard to the music she sets before him. He will not require to trouble himself about much else, for it will all come out of the mist in very good time, when he has learned the trick of keeping the three in unity and motion. The child, when he gets a paint-box, as a rule, begins quite right, although he does it unconsciously. He will paint his picture-book with a red face, yellow coat, and blue decorations. Most likely you will find him disdain all mixtures, except perhaps green, which impresses him as nice--no doubt from its association with the fields, where he likes to run about and play. The savage, with his tattooing and war-paints, does the same exactly, with the superior significance of his symbols: every twist of the ornament meaning a grade or a power, every streak a motive or a threat. His gods are reverenced only as the mementoes or symbols of the unseen or divine, not because they are stones or sticks, as we so often misunderstand heathenism. Old Egypt stands to-day, mighty monument of the grandeur of simplicity: with its solid works that defy time, its glaring colours that defy criticism. Assyria comes after, with her purples, her gold, and her greater refinements. 'White, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble: the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble.'[7] [Illustration: AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CORRIDOR (_From a sepia sketch by the Author_)] These are ladybird wings that send us fluttering back nearly three thousand years, to the hanging gardens by the Tigris, the broad walls and the open streets where the war-chariots jostled and the broad moon hung like a golden lamp between heaven and earth, and mingled her silver shafts with the ruddy sparkles of the perfumed torches, as they shivered and vanished into the darkness of the shadows of the painted boats, down by the porphyry steps that led from the old palace of the king. Is it the sound of the instruments we are listening to? the voices of the singers? the tinkle of the silver ornaments round the ankles of the dancers? the laughter of the drinking guests of Ahasuerus?--or the snapping and snarling of the jackals over the few spare bones that the last caravan for Baghdad has left on that earth-mound by the river at Mosul? Egypt stands the queen, with her ageless pyramids and her sphinxes, because Egypt came up first with her first principles in art and science, to which, as we gain knowledge and confidence in ourselves, we must return. The youth grows out of his pinafores and his first paint-boxes, he gains a _partial_ knowledge of art, and like us all when only half educated on our subject, grows arrogant and developes into a very fierce critic. He also becomes a fine customer to the art-colour merchants, fills his boxes and palette with every conceivable colour that is made, particularly the more expensive sort; cadmiums and rose madders are his delight; he wallows in paint. He has become so very knowing that where poetry may have been able to fire his fancy before, only paint can now content him. If pre-Raphaelism is the fashion, he will lay in a set of sables and pick away at little threads like a weaver until he is half blind; if it is the low-toned school he affects, then daylight becomes obnoxious, sunlight abhorrent to him; he riots in November fogs and dismal rainy weather, grovels in shapeless symphonies, and the dingy harmonies of the Dutch. I have tried to like the pre-Raphaelite school, because the man whose word is considered law beyond dispute has said it is the right thing in true art. I have seen Holman Hunt's great picture, the 'Shadow of the Cross,' and could see in it nothing but hard lines and forced symbols as hard as the lines. In Millais' picture of 'Effie Deans' I saw a fair young girl with a world of hopeless woe in her face that brought tears to my eyes. In Hunt's 'Boy Christ' I saw nothing but china-blue eyes and hard little touches, hair like bits of wire, and all devotion worked out of it by the multitude of its pitiful details: I saw time and drawing and infinite work on it, but nothing else. I never saw the original of the 'Light of the World,' but I have seen engravings from it, and although five hundred greater men than John Ruskin were to write that it is 'the most perfect instance of expressional purpose with technical power which the world has yet produced,' I would hold to my own idea--that, if it is painted as the 'Shadow of the Cross' is painted, it is no more than a man dressed in Eastern costume standing at a door with a lamp in his hand, a few creepers beside him, and all worked to death with hard little lines, without anything exalted about it or wonderful in its composition.[8] There is a world of false humility and gross want of self--assertion in this weakness of bending down to the opinions of acknowledged authorities or time-honoured superstitions, particularly in matters to be seen, as pictures or statuary. The old masters are regarded as infallible, yet in the exhibition of autotypes from the Queen's drawings from old masters, at one time exhibited at the Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh, I saw many samples of bad drawing, weak handling, timidity, slow-dragging invention--all that marked the draughtsmen as faulty mortals in spite of their great names, and nothing in the whole collection to prove them any greater, but rather less, than our modern men, even although it does approach blasphemy to say this. Speaking of low tones, I must confess to a fondness for this fascinating affectation. Jozef Israels is more than nice, although I require the mist which gets into my eyes when I try on a pair of spectacles before I can see outlines so soft and hazy, and colours so undecided and sombre, as his are. Corot I cannot see to be the prince of landscape painters, although the critics did call him so, if the pictures which they were then lauding to the skies are samples of his princely style, for I could see nothing more in them than a lot of dirty scrubbing about with his hog hair--and not too much paint wasted either. To a certain extent this low-toned school seems to have reason on its side, for when we compare our scale of colours with the scale of nature, we find how limited we are, how boundless she is. White is our only semblance to light, and what a leaden symbol it is when we regard the brightness of our example! Black is our deepest dark, and how shallow it is when we try to look into the depth of the shadows about us! And so it seems but right that, being so utterly unable to reach the heights or the depths of what we wish to depict, we ought to send back and keep down every step or key of our board in the same proportion as our lights and our darks are--make our picture, in fact, not so much the imitation as the dim reflection that we see in a window sometimes when there is a dark cloth hung behind it, or in the camera obscura. Were I comparing styles, I would say that Turner struck a high note in his scale, and rippling up lost himself in white. Rembrandt struck a low key, and went out of sight in his blacks. The low-toned school strike a faint half-note, and playing falsetto, lose themselves in dingy obscurity at both ends, never venturing very high or very low. All are right from their own standpoint, but the Turner and the Rembrandt schools are nearest truth, because they look straight at nature and not on her reflections; and because, as our whites are already so far below nature's light, the sooner we strike our nearest approach, the sooner we shall arrive at our imitation, and _vice versâ_. To return, though, to our paint: I would fain ask you to regard all beauty as so much mixed colour, something in the same way that the youthful anatomist sees only a lovely dissection in the arm or face that may be sending some other sentimental youth into poetic fits. I here quote a little from John Ruskin--a man noble and self-sacrificing, whom I can admire, not blindly, like a reasonless lover, but with the qualified reverence of a sensible helpmate. I like to fall in with the fashion when I can. In writing on colour as the test of a painter he says: 'If he can colour, he is a painter, though he can do nothing else.... The man who can see all the greys, and reds, and purples in a peach will paint the peach rightly round, and rightly altogether; but the man who has only studied its roundness may not see its purples and greys, and if he does not, will never get it to look like a peach; so that great power over colour is always a sign of large art intellect: every other gift may be erroneously cultivated, but this will guide to all healthy, natural, and forcible truth. The student may be led into folly by philosophers' (the worthy Professor here holds up unconsciously the red light against his own dangers), 'and into falsehoods by purists, but he is always safe when he holds the hand of a colourist.' ('Modern Painters,' vol. iv. part v. chap. iii.) The young man is perfectly right to revel in his many colours as long as he can, to dabble about with them to his heart's content, send his shafts of madder and cobalt, terre verte and siennas, and all that he can range out in battle-order, across his canvas. Time mellows painters as it does paint, and where the colour offended them in their lavish youth, in their riper manhood they see, beyond this, many qualities which they never thought of looking for before. I think a painter is about the very worst critic we can set before a picture; perhaps this may serve as some sort of excuse for the faults of Ruskin. He will be able to dissect the picture, tell you how this part has been worked, and with what, but he can hardly stand on impartial ground, the only position for a judge or critic. If his forte is colour, he must stop dead at this, and because his sensitive and cultivated taste is offended by some flaw in his particular hobby and firmly fixed habits, he will get no further, and see nothing else; just as a sensitive ear will be offended by a jar in the playing, and lose in the irritation the whole of the composition and thought. You say, But a picture ought to be perfect. True; so ought the man who has painted it, and perhaps would have been had Eve not eaten the apple. I never saw a perfect action in my life, far less a perfect picture. And so also with the pre-Raphaelite; he condemns the bold and broad style, and the rugged painter sees only paltry crotchet work in the pre-Raphaelite. They are all right, and so of course it stands to reason that they must be all wrong to each other.[9] However, to return to our picture on hand. We have gone over it with our chalk, charcoal, or pencil, and in doing so we must try to be very particular in drawing it thoroughly. First, we will block in our subject roughly and slightly, as a sculptor would begin to hack out his stone or shape his clay. It does not make any difference whether it is a landscape or a figure we are aiming at; we must begin it first with a few marks of distance, put it into squares, divide it with straight lines, measure it with our eye in its broadest sense, box it up, and put rigidly from us all temptations at this stage to enter into details. Leave all the fine curves until we are sure that we have room for them with our square lines; a rough touch for a nose, a mouth, a branch, or a house, it is all the same, and all that we require for the present; more will only distract our attention from the duty before us, which is the exact proportions of the masses, and the position they hold towards each other. Second stage--go over it carefully bit by bit, use our mental point, measure it all again with our eye, compare very minutely this part with some other part, the breadth of this window or nose with their length, and the breadth and length of something else; look at the relative position of two parts, the angles of imaginary lines that you mentally pass between them, and so on, and so on; in fact, be our own harshest critics, and leave not the smallest space unmeasured or unthought of, previous to our filling it in. Next we go into details, and by degrees walk carefully over our clumsy outsides, cutting gradually in farther and farther, until we have lost the square angles without losing the firmness which they have given to us, and with perfect assurance and ease dash in our beautiful quivers and curves, not with the harsh, hard, clear lines of a copy-book, but with the soft, broad, breathing lines of nervous talent. We are now ready for paint, so we will begin to set our palette. We start with white, and put it nearest to the thumb-hole, as it is what we shall use most; next we take the yellows, being nearest the light in colour--the brightest first, our lemons and chromes, Naples yellows, ochres, cadmiums, and raw siennas. You will not need the half of these unless you like. Next follow the reds--vermilion, crimsons, roses, light and Indian reds, or whatever else you please, in decreasing scale of brightness to our browns, and our blues, cobalts, ultramarine or permanent, Prussian, indigo, &c., and so wind up with the darks and blacks. You can paint a picture with three colours, and you can use all that are in the colour list; only have a method and reason for everything you do, and if a good reason, it will be the proper thing to do. We set our palette thus, because our tints are thus in harmonious gradations from us; and also, if by mistake our brush comes into contact with two colours at once, it will not do so much damage as it otherwise would if such colours as yellow and blue were placed side by side; both in such a case would be dirtied past any further service. In setting your palette, you may use your own discretion, as I have said, and cram it with all the high-sounding, high-priced range to be found in the many-leaved colour list-books, but one thing time and experience alone can teach you--that the greater your art knowledge, the more limited will be your range of colours and implements. You may begin with the rainbow, but you will return eventually to your earths; for what I hold to be the great secret in painting, poetry, and literature is--simplicity. Fine words, dear colours, only mystify the student and prove the weakness of the worker. For brushes, in oils try to acquire the use of hog-hair brushes if you would make effective and vigorous work; sables and soft brushes are sure to tempt you, being so much pleasanter to a beginner. But if it is not miniature, pre-Raphaelite, or tea-tray painting which you aspire to, keep from them as long as you can. Do not use softeners either, but rather place your colours firmly, and separately, and purely, so as to produce the effect you desire by knowledge and skill, and not by trickery. Make your lines rather suggestively than literally, and the larger your brushes the finer your work will be; for if we look at nature we cannot find lines, or if there seem lines they are formed by many cross-divisions so minute and filled with gradations that the finest sable-hair is like rope-work beside them. We cannot copy the delicacy of nature, for we cannot trace it, therefore we must content ourselves with attempting to give a little of the effect and feeling that we from our distance can trace. This is why, _from my point of view_, pre-Raphaelitism is a clumsy, abortive imitation of the upper surface, and not so true a translation of the whole as the painting of the broad and suggestive worker. In water-colour we require to use sables for our washes--that is, if it is water-colour and not opaque painting we are attempting. Now for the subject. There are two ways of approaching it: one with fear and trembling, thinking of all the poetry that is in it, or rather the sham sentiment that we fancy is in ourselves, and would fain make other people believe to be our own outpourings, while in reality it is the effect left on our dazzled mind after reading the matchless cloud-and-water poetry to be found in the pages of 'Modern Painters' and other works by the same author. How fondly we are apt to imagine, as we quote, that we have seen countless miles of transparent cloud beyond cloud, vistas opening up as we gaze, and think so it ought to be painted, as if mortal hand or manufactured paint could do it, while all the time we are only miserable waiters serving up in a flashy way the utterly impossible dishes Ruskin has so finely spiced in his own private kitchen! Do you think that Turner painted half the beauties Ruskin _sees_ in his pictures, thought out half the mountains of thought his admirer makes him think, had a quarter of the intentions the Professor fathers him with? No! Turner was a poet, and painted, as Shakespeare wrote, on the spur of the moment, with the same glorious knack of being able to leave alone '_happy flukes_', which chance and accident gave them, and this knack, if not the spirit of genius, is a very good substitute for it. I do not mean to say that Turner painted from impulse only. I have not the slightest doubt that he had intentions, and most carefully planned out all his conceptions, as Shakespeare planned out the fabric, or bones, of his plays; but the great bits of detail, the compact word, the chance touch, the sparkle of wit, the sweep of the hog-hair that made the veins upon the little shell by the sea-shore, the twist of the palette knife that broke the colours into prismatic ripples on the rounded wave--all that his admirer writes as forethought I do not believe. He must have thought on the clouds and waves and sands which he so often watched, the varying shapes and tints they took, the mixture of all he had seen sweeping into shore, and thinking of all this while his deft hand laboured hard to produce the semblance, so it took shape and grew into being; or else he worked away and tried other methods and experiments until the results came, and more wondrous results do come thus by chance than the forced and mechanical labour of mere industry. We spoil a good deal of good work through overwork. If we could but let well alone we should not suffer the bitter reflections and heartburn of a remembered chance cast away. We go on polishing and working, rounding off this energetic sentence, touching over that harsh brush-mark, until we have refined all spirit out of our work, and finish it off with a smooth surface and nothing else. To quote once more from Ruskin when he is for a moment sensible; he speaks of the value of finish in the 'Stones of Venice' thus: 'Never demand an exact finish when it does not lead to a noble end. If you have the thought of a rough or untaught man, you must have it in a rough and untaught way; but from an educated man, who can without effort express his thoughts in an educated way, take the graceful expression and be thankful, only get the thought and do not silence the peasant because he cannot speak good grammar, or until you have taught him his grammar. Grammar and refinement are good things both, only be sure of the better things first.... Always look for invention first, and after that for such execution as will help the invention and as the inventor is capable of, without painful effort, and _no more_; above all, demand no refinement of execution where there is no thought, for that is slaves' work unredeemed. Rather choose rough work than smooth work, so that the practical purpose is answered, and never imagine there is reason to be proud of anything that may be accomplished by patience and sand-paper!' We can desire to read nothing broader or finer than this from any man, for the man must write or paint roughly who cannot do better through his want of education; but if the thoughts are there, it must be well. The man also must write and paint roughly, no matter what his education has been, when his thoughts are quicker and fuller than his power of execution, and it is better to have the rough work and the full thought than the finished work and something lost. But, no matter whether it be science or art that the man is treating, I would reverse the advice Ruskin gives in his introduction to 'Proserpina,' and tell the man to write it in the language that he and his neighbours are most familiar with, and not waste his time locking it up in a dead language that only a few can understand. As to taking a month to each page, if heaven has gifted him with ideas, he will find this as impossible to do as it will be for the man or woman who have the spirit of men or women, and not the essence of fools and apes, to cut the acquaintance who may be in reduced circumstances, or engaged in honest, therefore holy, labour. The other way of coming before nature is the tersely realistic, that regards the changing glories of the sunset or moonrise with a callous, critical, investigating glance, indulging in no idle visions or fancy images, but dividing the glories into degrees of colour and gradation. The school of Shelley sings-- When sunset may breathe From the lit sea beneath Its ardours of rest and of love. This cool hand cuts down all the ardours, and dots them lemon, orange, chrome, rose madder, vermilion, raw umber, and cobalt. And yet we must approach nature with a certain amount of awe and veneration, if we would be painters and not painting-machines. If we have any sentiment in our composition at all, we can no more gaze upon the beautiful or grand without a responsive something being stirred within us than we can hope to eat pork chops the last thing at night and escape the nightmare. The dash of the waterfall must produce in us more than the _dry_ estimate of its sparkling colours, or we are not far removed from the fern that draggles by its edge. A lovely face or graceful form must teach us more than carnation and ochre, or we deserve to be the hero of Campbell's melancholy poem 'The Last Man.' If we do not feel the spirit of the whole while we watch the form, the colour, and lights and shades, we are worse off than the shadowless man, for we have pawned our souls without redeeming that faithful follower. It may be the spirit and beauty of peachy golden youth, or the spirit and beauty of gnarled silver age, that we are watching. We see the lights and the shadows playing about, the greens, the purples, the browns, the reds, the yellows, the whites, but we _feel_ that there is more than this. We dissect hair, we see in the dark the rich brown madder shadows with the purple half-lights and blue gleams, and we know this makes the raven's plume from the right standpoint; or the golden tress, with its mixtures of ochre, green, and red, and we thrill at the dusky loveliness that is crouching in the silky masses, or the angel glory that is hovering round the fair, and so we drink in all the poetry that we must have to refine and gild our realistic common sense before we can appreciate it enough to paint it. Once with a friend I watched a glorious sunset, and as I stood setting my two palettes--one, imagery, where I was spreading out all my mental stock of jewels, pearls, and opals for the greys, rubies, and cairngorms, and a great many other precious stones from my castle in Spain; with the other palette seeking to snatch from the weak little tubes that intense dun and purple rolling about through the thunder-drift,--seeking to bring down the waves of variation, the orange and the gold and the green and burning flames subdivided ten thousandfold, to my rule of three, seeking to draw down heaven and shut it inside my paint-box,--I was somewhat amused by hearing my colour-blind friend murmur pensively, 'Red-lead and lamp-black.' That settled the whole conundrum, and I passed on. How to paint a picture, that is the question. Although imagination ought to be brought with us when we come to nature, it should be as our own bicycle under us, and not like our neighbour's bicycle, riding over us. We must give the spirit of what we see, and no more; for we shall commit a hundred errors if we vainly attempt to give the spirit of the oak while we are painting its bark. Of course we know what the oak has done, we recall all that we have read of Nelson, Collingwood, and other hearts of oak who have spilt good blood to prove that 'Britons never shall be slaves'; and although, perhaps, it ought to give an oak-tree an air of all this as it stands before us, yet there it stands before us, full of knots and wrinkles, with its gnarled limbs flung about it, and its green moss, silver lichen, and amber and purple darting between; and I take it, this is what our painter has to get into his head and imitate. We cannot see past its bark unless it is torn open, and then we may not see the bark, and we must never think of painting what we cannot see. If, by the help of our poetic taste, we can convey to the spectator the sentiment we do see about it, of a hardy, sturdy, rugged sentinel that has done duty there before our grandfathers were born, which goes on in the same impassive way while we lie dead in sleep, and may go on ever the same when perhaps we make up part of the earth and fungus about its roots, unless God's swift telegram, the mighty lightning-flash, or man's paltry axe, gives it its furlough,--if we can do this, as well as give an image of the reality, we have done all we can do--made a noble work and created a poem. Never mind what anyone else sees in the subject, stick resolutely to what your own eyes tell you, and you must be right. Say someone tells you there is a man coming along the road; you think it does look like a man, but you only see a splash of mixed colours with a _certain_ sweep about it; put that in, and someone else looking at your picture will say, 'You have made a man.' This is the grand trick of landscape figure painting, for if anyone can see a single line of detail about your figure more than the tree, or stone, or hedge beside him, your figure is a failure and should come out, for it is spoiling the unity of your picture. So with clouds, water, mountains, trees, everything created above us, beneath us, about us. My harp has only three strings, and were I to finger it for a thousand hours, to a thousand different tunes, it would be with the same variations. What paints sunset, paints sunrise, midday, moonlight; the same colours that sparkle in the bright patch sparkle in the deep shadow, and the variations of yellow, red, and blue are as pronounced and apart in each blade of grass as they are in the white clouds rolling above it, and as distinct in the dazzling snowdrift as in the burning sunset skies,--there is not an inch without its variety, but only a variety of three. Return as soon as you can to the child with his first paint-box, the savage in his woods, grand old Egypt that must stand for ever; but bring back all your knowledge, so that you may know _why_ you painted as you did when you began. Thus will you learn humility, which is only taught by true and great wisdom, and the charity that has a hundred eyes. We should begin our subject as we first see it. As we enter a room, the first thing that strikes us is the great masses of light and shadows before us; objects are all divided thus, and so we should paint our first stage or working. This is the effect we are securing. Afterwards objects proclaim themselves: they start out of the masses--chairs, tables, pictures, people. That is our second stage or working--the broadest fact of the individuals. Thirdly, we see the details, ornaments, patterns, textures. Lastly, as we get to look more closely, we see in each shadow a world of colour, all the sparkles and gems, and the same in every light. This is our finishing stage, and may be prolonged as far as we like and can go. With landscape also it is the same. We would paint a tree: the first thing that strikes us is its general shape--first working. Next its great divisions of light and shadow, when some masses come out and other masses go back, also a general idea of its prevailing tone. Second working--Then, as we work and watch, come indications of branches, the large limbs first, then the less, and so on, until we lose the lines of the smallest branches and can only guess where they have gone to. There are also suggestions of leaves which we know are leaves, although, as they lie about in all directions, they get mixed up into all sorts of shapes, and come gradually upon us: and this is the third stage of working. If we paint in the leaves as we know they are shaped, we must get a stiff and unnatural picture, because we are not painting what we see, but what we think should be there; and if we paint each individual leaf as we would copy one set before us, or as we see them in Christmas cards, we must paint in an abortive, unnatural, and exaggerated manner, because, as our tree is so greatly smaller than the tree before us, if each leaf was also in proportion less we could not make them out with the naked eye. How, then, ought we to do it? Not like a pre-Raphaelite or teatray painter, but as we see it--broadly and in masses, doing what we can with our own clumsy fingers and clumsier tools; and since we cannot get all the details of nature, best leave them alone with true humility as beyond us, and do what we can, and as nearly in proportion as we can. To do this use hog-hair brushes, stand well back from your picture, and try to keep the spectator back also. Tell him, like Salvator Rosa, that the smell of paint is not good for him, or say he will never be able to see the landscape if he pushes himself so amongst the branches and leaves of the tree, or that it is rude to get so close to a lady's face--anything, only keep him back the proper distance. If shortsighted, let him be content with the description of other people about it, and deplore his own misfortune, for a picture that is painted to be looked at two inches from the eyes can never be a 'thing of joy.' When before nature, it is strictly proper to adhere as closely to facts as we can, put into our sketch everything that we can see before us, and even at our closest following up we shall not get in a hundredth part. True, the student is none the worse for a little fancy to help him out of the road with any very ungainly object in front of him, but I doubt if he will find a much better substitute than the objection he wishes away. The telegraph-post does its part in the composition of the picture as conscientiously as the lovely silver birch, and at a place where the birch would be too much. We are searching after the picturesque, and stop, caught by something that is fine, and yet when we dissect it we may find it full of the objections and faults which we have been taught to reverence. Shall we alter what nature has done so well, introduce our poor little rules, and tailorise the picture until it stands reproachless? Rules! nothing seems to me so forced, so curbing as this word. We ought not to draw this as it is, because some of the lines are running counter to what they ought to be. It is a sin against precedent if we put that wall or fence as it at present stands. Good taste and the example of the old masters forbid us to put on this colour, to do that. At every turn we are met by a ticket marked 'Trespassers will be prosecuted to the utmost rigour of the law.' Keep on the beaten track, or else you must expect to suffer the consequences. I hate all precedents and rules in art, and my advice would be, 'Put in all that looks well in nature, and it will be your own bad work if it does not look well in your picture.' As to this veneration for the old masters, were they infallible, were they more gifted than we are, had they more advantages for learning art than we have? Yes, one great advantage over us--they had no old masters to annoy them, only the spirit that God gave them to struggle on with, as we should also have did the world not bid us bow down and worship these time-stained old idols. They were great, and so may we become when we are dust and ashes, and time has deified us and stained our pictures to the golden duskiness that is fashionable, and tradition has distorted our sayings and exalted our prolonged labours into sudden flashes of genius. It is very good practice to copy some pictures when there is something in them that we wish to learn, yet cannot see how to do from nature. For instance, you may learn how to glaze and scumble better from a picture than from nature, because the glazings and scumblings of nature are too subtle for us to follow always so directly. You will also learn how painters of repute managed a certain phase or effect of colour, subject, or composition. Rubens will liberate you from many a stiffness, and give you in his own buoyant style the liberty and joyful colouring you may be deficient in. Vandyke will teach you refinement and dignity; Tintoretto, richness; Michael Angelo, the boldness and firmness of handling and drawing, the severity and squareness needful for majestic grandeur. Amongst our own men, I quote John Pettie for a strength and richness that have never been surpassed, bring what master of long-ago you like to the competition; Orchardson for pure and delicate texture; Sir Frederick Leighton for finish; Millais for realism in its best sense; Alma-Tadema for imitation and learning; and a host of other men, both good and true, who must improve the mind, the eye, and the hand. Millais has said that an artist ought to begin as he did, pre-Raphaelite, if only to learn the quality of Job. Nature eventually must make him, as she has made that great realistic master, broad and strong, if it is to be, though a whole world of critics were to chorus against it. Speaking of critics, I think we may divide them into two classes--the psychological and the destroying, or vermin, species. The first class look at a painting or a book as we ought to look at everything--with the bee spirit, to suck out all the honey there is in it. They are of equal use to the public and to the worker; for, leaving one to see the errors that all man's work has, they lay the good before the other, benefiting equally themselves in the instruction they have gained. As for the other class, do they help the work done, or that has to be done? do they add to the pleasure of the spectator, or instruct the worker by their pertness or sneers? Do moths add to the value of clothes? does mildew improve walls? does rust assist the brightness of polished steel? or do white ants strengthen the rafters they bed in? True, these are all works of nature and creatures of God. The decay must be as useful as the life, or it would not be. But what made critics of this class? From what? For what? Discreet copying, as I have said, is very good; but there is only one other practice as pernicious as indiscriminate and constant copying, and that I will speak of presently. What is glazing and scumbling? Scumbling is going over distance with white or grey, rubbing it hard and dry, so as to obscure the parts that stand too prominently out; it softens harshnesses, sends back portions, and does its part in aiding the general harmony of the distance and middle distance. Glazing is the use of transparent colours with some sort of medium, such as madders, siennas, browns, to give richness to the depths, lower the tone in places needful, as foregrounds and such like, that come direct with all their local hues about them; it brings things forward, as scumbling sends objects back. Tone is the cast of your scale of colour, the setting of your key, the tuning of the pitchfork, to be determined on before you begin your picture, and remembered all through it; and it is the forgetting of this at times which stamps the amateur. Style.--Of course everyone has his own taste to consult in this, and what you admire you will, consciously or not, imitate, until nature rectifies it and gives you a style of your own. The artist must fluctuate among several styles, always following and trying to understand nature, even while he admires other painters, until at last the scales fall from his eyes, and he relies only on the powers given him when he least expected it. A spark of what is to be will show out here and there until the _to be_ has come. That is, unless when, in their frantic efforts to be original, painters hunt heaven and earth for the most startling effect, subject, or treatment; then they become like French cooks--continually stirring their minds for new mixtures to catch and astonish the public taste, spending all their foolish energies in the spicing of old stale thoughts. It may be we admire Sam Bough, with his versatile fancy and vigorous touch; or Lockhart, Macdonald, Fildes, &c., with their strong, healthy 'go'; or Herdman, Faed, &c., with their sweet touch and poetic minds; or Sir Noel Paton, with his exquisite drawing, radiant colouring, and originality of conception; or Waller Paton, with his purple and gold; or the late lamented Paul Chalmers, who flung everything into the scale against colour and made it weigh them down; or Harvey, who chose the moral thought; or Gustave Doré, who revels in the image. I could go on naming hosts who have styles distinct by power or affectation, for it is in the style that we show our affectation, as we do it in our walking and our talking; but I would only say that if you wish to be natural and great, think very little upon the style you would take, and more upon the thought you wish to express; be earnest in your work, and by earnestness you will forget your delivery, and so be both natural and original. And, after all, what does it matter whether people say we are like So-and-so or not, if we are doing our very best? We must find the true _peace with honour_, and the repose that ever follows honest, earnest exertions. It is also good practice to draw with the point, pencil, or pen as rapidly as possible all that partakes of motion--ships sailing, engines puffing out the volumes of steam and smoke, clouds, water, waving trees, and reeds. Fill up your books and scraps of paper with all sorts of shorthand notes; very likely you will not be able to decipher the wild scratchings again, but they have done their duty while you were scribbling them in by fixing something in your mind. Watch closely as you sketch, and after you get home think it all out and write down as nearly as possible all about it--the colours you think should be used for it, the shape of it, the comparative size, and also, _if you can_, the poetry and emotions it awoke in you. Books on painting, as a rule, are only confusing to the mind of the novice--filled with words difficult to comprehend, and of very little use when the conundrum is solved. Like recipe and cookery books, they serve, after you know your subject without them, to warn you against what they advise, also to advertise the many colours you are to flounder amongst for a season. But nature is the best recipe-book: her problems are as easy to unravel, and when read, serve your lifetime. Sir Joshua Reynolds is very good and sensible on painting, although I cannot answer for his remarks on pictures. John Ruskin's books are entertaining, splendidly and carefully prepared inside and outside, even to the colour of the morocco and calf-skin; the language as select and carefully weighed as the shade of the edges, and the title as maturely considered as the material on which it has to be printed. It is a great pleasure to handle one of his books, or even to see one of the backs on our shelves; they are like greyhounds amongst rough tykes; in fact, I have often felt sorry to open them, the bindings are such masterpieces of thought. When opened the pleasure is not diminished, although mystification may set in at times. We sail smoothly over page after page, soothed with the harmony, exalted with the poetry, thralled with the exquisite grace, diction, and finish; we can hardly think of stopping to inquire what it is all about, it is all so delightful, so ethereal--the work of a great master of the pen. Read and moralise, if you will, upon such beautiful touches as this: 'Morning breaks as I write along those Coniston Fells, and the level mists, motionless and grey beneath the rose of the moorlands, veil the lower woods, and the sleeping village, and the long lawns by the lake--shore.' This passage is only one of many that remind me of splinters from the big diamond that was supposed in olden times to flash out of the head of the toad. Copy it if you can with your brush, for it is very perfect in its word-painting, and true to mornings I have seen in Cumberland. But when he tells you how to paint, beware! for here he is a perfect will-o'-the-wisp, sparkling out with his lovely lights, and luring you on, now over dry land, now over marsh; giving at times good advice, following it up by bad; telling you practical truths or ethical fallacies. If he was a consistent wrecker, we should get to know his fires and steer clear of them in time; if he was all theory, we should enjoy him as we do other poets; but he is like a man who has built a fine house with chaste design and perfect decoration: it looks all that one can desire, and has only one fault, but that is a grave one--the rafters and supports are _rotten_. He may be justly praising the old muddy Venetian glass, with its ever-varied though clumsily-finished designs, as compared with the sameness of our superior quality and finish; and putting absurdly silly questions into the mouth of his supposed audience, as if a scavenger who does his work honestly and comports himself uprightly could not be as good a gentleman as the aristocrat who paces by him; and making out what is done for economy, and justly so, to be the result of a false shame, forgetting the parable of the talents, or the utility of working the one as well as the five. He may speak of the sanctity of colour, and go on abusing the coarseness of Rubens, or the sensuality of Titian and Correggio, to be perhaps followed up by the information that Titian and Tintoretto, when they looked at a human being, saw the whole of its nature inside and out, and painted it so. He may abuse low tones, and tell us that all which is vile, and deadly, and evil is sombre in colour, although in the same breath he will admit that the tiger-skin is rather pretty, and that some bright flowers and berries are poisonous, and also that there have been lovely women not quite all honey, past and present. He is abusing Salvator Rosa, although comparing him with painters of his time--I don't know why; or in his own graceful way changing his tune, and telling us that all good colour is pensive, and that it is blasphemy to be gay. He may abuse the past painters of storms and gloom, to turn with gloating rapture to the tempests and gloom of Turner. He may remorselessly plunge Teniers into the bottomless abyss for his degrading subjects, yet praise Turner for his wallowing and grovelling amongst the litter of Covent Garden; advocating his slanting steeples as if that were the proper way for steeples to stand, or reviling some one else for the same thing. How he raves throughout his books on the great man! and how the great man, like old Samuel Johnson with his Boswell, must have laughed, when not too much mystified or aggravated, at the high-flown discoveries of his ardent admirer! He may tell us that the chief power of Rembrandt was his character drawing, and that he knew nothing of light and shade; or indulge in such weak and heartless exhibitions of the fop wit as when he replies to Constable's remark about chiaroscuro: 'The sacrifice was accepted by the Fates, but the prayer denied. His pictures had nothing else, but they had not chiaroscuro.' I think I see this great critic leaning back after polishing off this pert, unfeeling, and untrue bit of little smartness, with all the complacence of having written a clever thing; it is on a par with his dress-coat retort to the _Blackwood_ critic of October, 1843, about the silver spoon and the orange; on a par with his intolerable remarks on the pictures of Whistler--who, however, did not improve matters by his pamphlet. He may write about the utter meanness and humiliation of the imitators of woods and marbles, as if a bit of wood or marble was not of as much importance to the art student and as much a part of nature's graining as the bark outside, or the blade of grass that engrossed his microscopic eye so completely that he could not see the majesty of the Alps above him. I can grain a little, and I feel as proud of this accomplishment as I do when I paint a tree or a mountain something like, and never felt degradation either in one or the other. He may assume the lofty, and retire to his immaculate shell when asked his advice on art, disdaining to give an opinion to a people who dare to tolerate Frith's 'Derby Day,' and live there with his saints and kings, or come forth with mighty condescension and tell the nations to hurry up and avail themselves of his priceless services while yet there is time. I admit all his greatness with true humility, yet I think we must allow that before he was born good works were done in art, and even after the lustre of his presence is withdrawn from amongst us I do not despair. I know it is the fashion to quote Ruskin and Carlyle. I like them both--Carlyle, because he is cut out of bigger stuff, and, like all colossal work, rougher in his finish; but it is jarring to hear at every turn in life, 'as Ruskin says,' 'as Carlyle remarks,' when Solomon has said it all before, and perhaps many wise sages before him. God has given minds to us as well as to Carlyle or Ruskin, and surely it is better to say in our own way the old truths than recite from books that other people can read as well as ourselves, if they like, merely to show how clever, how ethical, or how well read we are. Read as much as you can, but think out truths for yourselves. Modesty sometimes compels us to state our authority when we dread to be called the author of something not our own; also there may be times when, like the use of a foreign word, it is inevitable--but the less the better, both for our own selves and our listeners. It is good at times to do a little wholesome penance, compare our work with that of others, to try, for instance, how our picture looks in comparison with some other picture of the same or a similar subject. Modesty will perhaps point out many faults and shortcomings that we could not find out in any other way; but the most vicious habit in young painters is the perpetual running about each other's studios. To quote the words of Solomon with a slight alteration, I would say, 'Put not your feet too often into your neighbour's studio, lest individuality be left outside.' We see the effects of this practice in many of the pictures around us every day: all good work in themselves, but with so little difference of style that the only surprise is, the one name is not at the corner of the lot. It is good to exchange ideas at times, but only at times. On the whole, I am of opinion that originality and individuality are more precious than good workmanship, but both are best. It is good to be able to copy a tree, or a stone, or a wall faithfully and well, bring out all its variations and time-scars with fidelity; but it is better to paint a moral and a thought, even although it is only half expressed, for the spectators may fill out of their own mines of thought all that you have left unsaid, although it is best to be able to express it to the last letter. All have different minds, as they have different tastes and habits. Some are literal, and content with the fairness of the earth; they are poets and painters of the real. Wordsworth is a realistic poet, Millais a realistic painter; others are purely imaginative, and paint and write about visions and the unseen, steadfast and serene dreamers of the ideal. Shelley and Coleridge are imaginative poets, William Blake and David Scott imaginative painters. Fancy sways others, and flings them about, half on earth, half in air; excitement like that of the footlights or champagne others, such as Byron and Gustave Doré. All are to be admired, and are admired, and it becomes a question impossible to answer, which have the five talents and which have the three. Imagination seems to me a very sublime quality, without much joy or mirth in its composition; it does not require images to suggest creation--'out of nothing it creates'; yet I dare not say that it is a quality more to be desired than the merry fancy that builds its domes and castles out of the clouds, or from the rocks and surroundings draws images of other creations; neither would I say that there was less of power or poetry in the mind that keeps strictly to reality and renders the spirit and the being of all about them. They are all great gifts, to be honoured one as much as another, but none partaking in that fantastic unfinish and impotency called Mystery. Goethe writes:-- Pure intellect and earnest thought Express themselves with little art. And I think him right, for, though mystery may be in vogue and considered fine, I hold to my theory of Egypt, the child, and simplicity in all things. It is good at times to yield to the inner promptings, and attempt to illustrate our thoughts, imaginings, dreams, and embody the images raised in our minds when we read a story or listen to a description. The scene rises before us quite distinctly, vague but vivid in its colouring. We try to seize something special, and the whole vanishes; that is our first experience, but by practice and perseverance you will find the characters come to be less shy, and at last range themselves to method, and stay while you are drawing their arms and legs with exemplary patience. It is good to be orthodox when we can in all that we do, to follow out as far as is consistent with our own sense of manliness the fashions of the day; but it is not good to enslave ourselves either for fashion, popularity, or money. If we cannot do our work consistently, let us do what we can. If a certain mode of painting is termed proper and 'good colour,' or an affectation of uncertainty or mystery that may look like unfinish, but in reality requires more work than the apparent finish, and we desire to please the artists and picture-dealers, and live as it were for the hour, we may acquire this affectation, if it does not cost too much _thought_; _that_ must ever rank above all technicality. But it is a matter of choice which ought to be studied most--ourselves, the public, or the professors. When a line can be drawn without offence to either, it is policy to draw it. Public opinion is fashion, and not much to be depended upon. What is abused to-day may be lauded another day. It may be led by one man who constitutes himself the leader, and he will be followed if enduring enough to place himself in the front, and brave enough not to be crushed by the sneering and the growling that must assail him for a time. Titian's flesh tints were called chalky by the critics of his day. David Cox could not please anyone, not even the children; his pictures got turned out or skied in exhibitions, he was glad to sell a sketch for a tube of paint; and we have seen what David Cox's little water-colour daubs sell at now. As with painting, so with poetry. Did Milton look the poet to Cromwell that he is to us? The relations of Robert Burns thought the kindest action towards him would be to burn his ungodly rubbish. Is Whistler wrong in his mode of expressing himself? is the natural question that comes up here. I do not know, although I have seen much of his work; but _it_ seemed to me all right, only Ruskin says it is wrong, and I do know that Ruskin is not always right. But, whether right or wrong--and he will be both, as we all are to our different critics with their different tastes--the opinion of one man, or of ten thousand men, can neither make him wrong nor right. No man ought to buy a name and grumble afterwards if the picture becomes of less value. Even such names as Raphael ought to weigh as nothing when before their pictures. If the thing is bad in Raphael, it is bad in Whistler; if it is good in Raphael, it could not be bad if it was Whistler. If a picture is worth 200_l._ to the man who paid that sum for it, it can never be worth a farthing less to him afterwards. If a man buy a coat, a house, a horse, or a picture, he ought to know _why_ he is buying it; and if it is value in his eyes, it cannot, or ought not to, be made valueless by all the newspapers or critics in the world. And if he has no knowledge on the matter, no likings, no opinions, he ought to depend on some one whom he can trust who has knowledge, and never alter afterwards; or he ought to spend his money only on what he has fixed ideas about, or give it away in the cause of charity, about which we all, as human beings, even the weakest, have surely some sentiment clinging about us as a forecast of heaven. If he spends his money only for fashion's sake, he deserves not only to lose it, but to lose also the respect of every man of sense and purpose, for he is a fool incurable. We cannot all be educated on every subject, but we can all tell what pleases us, and it is our duty to manhood to say so, and not take the opinion of others against our feelings. For instance, if we are eating something nice, is it no longer nice if our neighbour says it is not? or ought we weakly to take the fashionable dish that we abhor, and pay ever so much more for it, with our mouth watering after the cheap dish that we can understand and relish? Water-colour painting is the use of transparent colours with the ground or paper serving as our white. The treatment may either be by wash or stippling and hatching. Stippling and hatching is the going over our work with dots or crossed lines. Like engraving, its chief merit is the vast labour it costs, if that is a merit; yet at times it has to be done where washes fail to bring the effect. Opaque or body colour, like fresco painting, is the mixing of Chinese or zinc white with the colours. A little chemistry should be studied in this work, as some of the other metals do not agree with zinc. The farther we keep two systems apart, the better and the purer both will be, although the effect is the main object, and all other considerations of less consequence. The more we glaze in water-colour, the more subtle will be our work; the less we glaze in oil, the more satisfactory and firmer will be the result. Yet, obey no arbitrary laws; do whatever brings the conclusion quickest, and it must be legitimate. If your knife does better than your brush, use it; if your fingers, use them. Scratch, scrape, rub, cut, polish, shave, do whatever you think will succeed, and if it does not, try some other experiment until it does come up to your wishes. If the colour you have put on is not the one you need, put its complementary tint beside it and change its character, or dash it over or about it. Have only your object firmly fixed in your mind, and scruple at nothing in the way of experiment. The more methods you employ, the nearer you will be to the ever-changing method of nature. I have not touched upon half my points, and only _touched_ those I have gone over. I could go into details about the manner of mixing up the colours, and how to treat some of the special effects of nature, but that I have already done.[10] I am tempted to draw a sunset, or a storm, or a calm, with all their different objects in the background, middle distance, and foreground, dissect them into paint as I pass down, tell you what is sitting in the flank of one cloud and the total change of shadow in the next, also why it is so, and must be so according to this rule of three. I should like also to show you the same sportive three nestling in the sun-kissed breast of the same air-billow; quivering in the blue-grey haze of the far distance; floating on the glittering ocean, or diving amongst the deep reflections of the lake; peeping out of the froth and the heavy curl of the advancing wave; dashed into pieces on the dulsy sands; darting about the broad masses of the middle distance; playing at hide-and-seek amongst the branches, leaves, and weeds and rocks of the foreground. The three are everywhere, and infinite in their sport--two ever subordinate and obedient, advising, enhancing, leading; one ever acting the monarch, yet ever being dethroned and supplanted by one of the two counsellors, to join the other in obedience and then conspiracy, to leap up, take the reins, sink down vanquished, and all this for ever and for ever. And on Perspective; for although Gainsborough has said that the painter's eye is the best guide, we must have rules here, if only that we may forget them discreetly. We must draw our horizontal line, and be guided by it; also know where to fix and keep in mind our points of sight, stand-point, and dots of distance; be able to place our vanishing lines, know where they are going, and why they are so going. We must also know where to drift our shadows, and when to trail them; how long our reflections ought to be, and why at one time we make them longer than the object, and why at another time so much shorter. This is all imperative to the art student, although it may be overdone. The rules are not so hard as some imagine, and, like painting, are best demonstrated in nature. Sit down to draw part of a city with two or three streets slanting different directions, pass lines about from your horizontal line, until you fix on the right slope, and you have gleaned all that there is to get practically out of Perspective. Many a good picture is spoiled by the painter 'showing off' his knowledge in this line, where a little deviation from the stiff law would have redeemed the whole; just as many a clever speech is often spoiled by the speaker weighing it down with complex and ornate words. And on Anatomy; for, although the classic Greeks are supposed to be all ignorant on this subject, it is no excuse for our ignorance; the science is now established, and it is our duty to learn it if we would be perfect draughtsmen of the human body and its exertions. Gustave Doré, through his great knowledge of anatomy, can take the liberties he does with his figures, and yet be to a certain extent natural. Look at his thousands of figures, with their countless twists and contortions, if you desire to know the ease and power the study of anatomy gives to a man. The Greeks had perfect models. Their customs, exercises, abstinence and games gave them this advantage over us; but times have changed: our climate, our costumes, our habits are all against us, and without the knowledge of bones and muscles we should never discern between the natural and the deformed, and just picture Venus rising from the salt foam with a corset-curbed waist or the traces of a badly-set joint! And how should we know what ought to be, and what ought not to be, in our model, if we are ignorant of his or her construction? True, the Greek statues are there, to copy and educate our eyes to the true and lovely; but how are we to know whether the Greek statues are perfect, if we do not know why that lump starts out when the arm or leg is planted so? The study of the Greek statues is about as long as the study of anatomy, and not so satisfactory, but both are best. And now one word on Exhibitions and Academies. _Exhibitions._--It is good for ourselves to get pictures hung in exhibitions, independent of the good it does to our pockets, that is, when we can. Although I think the intelligent public do not pay so much heed as to whether your name is in the catalogue or not, yet the great mass who get all their ideas from the morning news, and read all the criticism as gospel, lay a stress upon it. But to see your picture alongside of many, is to see many of your faults; and yet only to a certain extent, for the best pictures for rooms are not always the pictures that look best in exhibitions. They may have qualities too original, or striking, or fine for the glare, and the distance, and the surroundings. The qualities for exhibition purposes are soberness, not too much individuality or variety, qualities that dovetail their single part with other single-part pictures, so as to make a pleasing harmony of the whole. It is the student's own choice whether he will, therefore, sacrifice his idea for a place in the catalogue, or run the chance of missing that and keeping his ideas. Of course when he is famous he may do as he likes, and the world will say all is perfect that his hand touches. _Academies_ must be good when they foster the art youth, encourage originality, train his eye and his hand, and keep active his mind to the true principles of art and the animation of thought; bad if, while they train the hand, they crush out spirit, originality and thought. [Illustration: ON THE ESK RIVER, TASMANIA (_From a photograph by Major Aikenhead, Launceston_)] CHAPTER IV _ART IN ITS RELATIONSHIP TO EVERYDAY LIFE_ [Illustration: I] DO not suppose many, amongst even observant people (unless they take the trouble to investigate the matter specially), can realise what an important factor art has become to the most trivial object of everyday life, or how impossible it is for us to do without its aid at every turn. By art I mean the embellishment or beautifying of articles of utility or necessity, and the imitation of nature as far as it is possible for us to copy or translate the beautiful and perfect so lavishly spread about us, and bring it within the scope of our hourly necessities. As an instinct, this craving after the beautiful is developed very early in man and woman. The first instinct of the child, of course, is for food, but the second will be for ornament; it cries for its mother's milk first, and when satisfied with this craving, next becomes attracted towards the fringes and buttons of its mother's dress, or the pendant dangling from the end of its father's watch-chain. To gratify this early taste, the baby becomes possessor of a gum-stick; but I very much doubt if the baby has yet been born who would be satisfied with a plain, unadorned bit of stiff indiarubber, if it can have its choice between this and the attractive carved coral, with its ornaments of glittering bells. Amongst early nations--our own for instance, which I put upon the same level as the aboriginals of Australia or the natives of New Guinea--we find the same instinct for art and observation of nature: there is no nation so low or primitive that it does not indulge in ornament. It is also a curious point in natives, that, the more primitive they are, the more refined they are in their taste, the nearer they are to nature and each other; it is the half-civilised only who depart from the imitation of what they see about them, and indulge in eccentricities and extravagances. This directness and simplicity stamp each effort of the child and the savage when they attempt to express their ideas--ideas which are prompted by what they see; and the same directness and simplicity are the sign-marks on all the most perfect work of the finished artist, whether he is the designer of pictures, churches, pleasure-grounds, or the costumier who strives to cover the defects of his wealthy patron. Talking about clothes and the near affinity between nature and art--even in this minor department I remember once the great Parisian autocrat of costumes, Mr. Worth, coming to Melrose especially to study the ruins of that fine abbey to get ideas for future designs in ladies' dresses. His system is to look at the woman who comes to him for advice in this all-important matter, see how she walks backwards and forwards, studying as she does so all her good points and defects; then, being a poet in his own line, he imagines her as the ideal woman, and, without troubling himself about her own tastes or inclinations, he creates a dress in shape and colour which will make her as nearly approaching to his ideal woman as she can be made. This is his great secret and the cause of his success and popularity: he always strives to work up to his ideal of beauty and the perfection of nature in the most direct and easiest way possible. As proof of this, a friend of mine once went to him to get a costume. This lady could never get any dress to suit her; something was for ever amiss with either the tone or shape. Nature had not been over kind to her either in form or colour, and her dressmakers, as she did herself, always attired her according to the fashion of the hour, which, of course, not being originated for her specially, could not be expected to suit her. Worth was at last caught in a moment of leisure by this applicant, who had lingered about the threshold of his palace of fashion for some weary weeks before she could gain her point. The great man looked her over critically, as one might examine a horse for sale at a fair; then he made her walk before him twice, and, telling her 'that would do,' consigned her to an assistant, who took her measurements, her name and address, and gave her a receipt for her fee of one hundred guineas. A week or so passed, and then the dreamt-about costume came to hand. As the lady remarked, 'It was the plainest and shabbiest-looking frock that ever I saw, _but when I tried it on I looked better than ever I had done in my life_.' Worth's idea suited this lady because it was fashioned only for her, but ten chances to one it would not have suited anyone else. Why?--because there are no replicas in nature. This is where a ruling fashion is so ridiculous; it may answer the one who is important enough to bring it into vogue, but it cannot possibly, for the reason I have stated, answer anyone else. Look along the street at the faces and figures which are constantly hurrying past, each one different in nose, eyes, mouth, expression, and gait; it is wonderful how it can be, but so it is! Look at any park, you cannot find two oak trees alike, nor even two blades of grass. It is this variety which makes the world so charming, and the world's Maker so worthy of our profoundest adoration; it is all the perfection of art and limitless design, before which we may abase ourselves with proud humility as being a portion of this great originality, and try to imitate some of it with confidence: for, depend upon it, this infinite variety does not stop with outside objects, but is carried on within to our minds, thoughts, and observations. As there are no two objects alike, so no two onlookers can see the same object exactly in the same way, or reflect exactly alike; therefore we must stand apart from all others and be original, whether we wish to be or not. This is the consolation which I would give to young artists who may imagine, because they are born in the nineteenth century, that they are born a few centuries too late to make their mark in the world. We are never too late for anything unless we make ourselves too late through sloth or timidity; as long as we work with an intention we must always move on, as we were intended to move on. Remember this when your hearts are inclined to grow weak, and you fancy that you are going along too slowly. King Solomon thought that he knew everything and had been born too late when he wrote 'There is nothing new under the sun,' yet after Solomon came many others who discovered fresh objects to admire--Shakespeare and Milton, and after them Carlyle and Ruskin; and still the busy minds keep turning up fresh and new, fitting exactly to the day which has been made for them. In Solomon's day the countless daisies opened their petals to greet the sunbeam and closed them again at nightfall, each daisy different from all other daisies, while the sparrows hopped about in all their subtle varieties, as the daisies and sparrows have continued to come and go down the ages, and as they must continue while this ever-renovating world lasts, as fresh, as perfect, and as startlingly new as when man first opened his eyes and beheld that wonderful nature of which he was part and portion. I hold that we have all original ideas, as much as Solomon or Shakespeare had, if we like to use our own minds and our own eyes as they did. We have all our limit, as they had theirs, for Solomon proved that he had reached his limit, else he would never have written that sentence; he had seen all that he could comprehend, and so gave the rest up as vanity and vexation of spirit. Job saw more than Solomon, for sorrow had opened his eyes and expanded his senses, drawing him into the heart of nature, therefore he became a wiser and, at the end, a happier man, dying while still a student of the wonders all around him; and this is the religion which we must all seek to embrace if we would advance in wisdom. We must begin, continue, and end as students, with our comprehensions growing as we grow older, never resting in our work or investigations, ever trying to grasp the lessons set before us, and to express as far as we are able what we have learnt. These lessons in art are constantly about us in our everyday life. We walk through the forest in summer time, under the canopy of green arches, with the upstanding boughs of trees spreading away until they become indistinct in the shadowy distance. What does this suggest, if not the grand cathedrals with their pillars and arched domes? and this is what the early Fathers saw and tried to reproduce in their churches and abbeys. We look up and see the clouds floating above us, sometimes with shapes like cherubs and angels, at other times like demons and evil spirits: so the old painters and poets watched, and got their ideas of heaven and hell. It is now more than twenty years since I first went amongst those people whom we call savages. I mixed amongst the tribes of Australia, the South Sea Islanders, and the Maoris. I had no better reason for going at first than a boy's wish to see the world, when I began my wanderings, but I was not long before I got a definite purpose, which has moved me ever since. I had taken lessons in drawing and painting before I left home, otherwise I do not think my travels would have been of much service to me. I also had a habit of not only sketching what struck me as peculiar or useful, but of writing down carefully the descriptions of what I saw as I went along. At first I wrote down the observations at random, such as, if I saw a sunset I would write something like this: 'Sun half only seen, vermilion growing to glaze of lake, lower half purple spreading out to dun, upper space ochre to orange with lemon; light edges of clouds near the sun, and shadow sides of warm purple grey; above, green back space growing to pearly grey, with rays shooting up cream-tinted, and filmy feathery clouds creamy and flesh-coloured.' This for the colours; then I would describe the shapes of the cloud-masses from their likeness to something else. Sometimes they would look like trees; then I thought what kind of tree they resembled, or it might be a flying figure, with a distorted hunchback rushing after it. As I followed these fancies it was wonderful what a tragic story that sunset sometimes told me before I was done with it. Once I was staying with a gentleman who added phrenology to his other accomplishments. He asked me if I never tried to write poetry, and I said, 'I had not'; to which he replied, 'Then try it, for I think you have the gift.' I sat down that night and attempted to make rhyme, but as I did not know much about the rules, and had no subject, I cudgelled my brains for words and rhymes without considering what was my theme, and therefore I failed because I had nothing definite to write about. As far as I can now remember, I think that my first attempt was a love-poem; but as I had never been in love, and had no woman to stand before me as a model, and no experience to serve me for the emotional part, it was all vague, and the result was exactly what might have been expected--meaningless words. Had I contented myself with writing about what I saw and knew, I might have made something. And this was what I learnt afterwards, after many failures: never to take up my brush or pen unless I had something definite to do--that is, never to depend altogether upon inspirations; have the object first vividly before me, and then it is not difficult to describe it, so long as one does not try to improve upon the model, or go out of the way to write or paint too finely. I discovered, after a great many failures, that nature cannot be improved upon, or even approached very near, and that the utmost my imagination could do was to put into recognisable, if faulty, shape whatever stood before my eyes, or the feelings which I myself experienced--in fact, I learnt that what we call imagination is not the gift of creating things out of chaos, but rather the remembering of emotions and scenes and real personages, and that the more vividly I could remember, the better work I did. Then I knew that Shakespeare's mighty genius lay in his vast powers of observation and in his direct simplicity of expression, and that the great charm of his characters lay in their reality, for they were people whom he had met and studied. But I did not learn this all at once, as I have said. I had to go through the preliminary stages of vanity and vexation of spirit, stages when I wallowed in paint and ink, fancying myself heaven-inspired, and beyond the necessity of using my eyes if I desired to do anything fine. It was all very well for sketches to look somewhat like nature and to be particular with them, but for finished work much more than this must be accomplished. So I struggled on spoiling canvases and good paper, before the age of common sense arrived, and never valuing the best works of all, which were my direct notes and sketches from nature. It was the aboriginals of Australia who put me first upon the right track; a miserable, low-caste race they appear to those who see them hanging about the white settlements, clad in fantastic rags, the cast-off garments of the white fellow, and taking, with the rags, all the debasing vices of the conquerors, but a very different race when in their native wilds, with their mystic institutions and hereditary laws. We are so apt to despise these black fellows, and to classify them all as savages and benighted heathens, particularly if we know nothing about them--as we did with the Indians and Peruvians, Chinese and Japanese, before our eyes became opened to their wonderful arts and ancient mysteries, their sciences, philosophies, and spiritualisms. Nowadays, like all people who take extreme views, we are rushing into the opposite direction, and adopting, with blind credulity, all which we formerly as blindly despised. Our markets are crowded with Eastern and Japanese wares; our apartments are becoming Oriental, and crammed with those artistic realisations of nightmare monstrosities which the opium-smoking children of the sun delight in. Fortunately, we can purchase specimens of these eccentric artists cheaply, and, for the money, marvellously well done; yet, graceful or quaint as these designs may be, to the art mind they are as dangerous as the opium habit from which they are generated. They are all morbid outcomes of an unwholesome and unnatural taste, suggestive only of that refinement which is _blasé_ of tenderness, humanity, or morality, and which is nearly past all excitements except such as are monstrous and beastly, the demoralising refinement of decay. Artistic?--yes; we must grant to them the praise of artistic execution; but this is the whole length which we can go in the matter of praise, and this is not enough for art to be of real utility to daily life and its hourly obligations. Oriental art is pitiless and cruel as a reasonless monster in the lesson which it inculcates--cruel, fatalistic, and emotionless, therefore to us Westerns enervating and demoralising. The real philosophers and humanitarians of the East are contemplators of nature direct, and they only represent the objects of their veneration by obscure symbols, never by blasphemous caricatures; it is the unbelievers of the East and the demon-worshippers who give us these nightmare creations, and who have gone beyond the dreams of Paradise. No flower-land opens up to them in their periods of opium-stupor; it is a land of gloomy shadows and dank, dead leaves, through which crawl reptiles and noxious insects, or ghouls loom up grotesque and horrible, and these weird remembrances they embody in artistic shapes on bronzes, rare lacquer-work and tapestry, and send out broadcast to demoralise the world of modern culture. And now let us consider the result of all this siren false art upon our daily lives. Insensibly the deadly poison is imbibed in small doses, until the strength and clearness of daylight look garish to us, the direct colouring of nature appears too raw, and we can no longer inhale a full breath of life as it is given to us, unfettered, into our vitiated lungs. The faith which was all-sufficient for our ancestors is discarded, not for atheism, but for a mysticism infinitely more childish and superstitious than the religion which we superciliously term superstitious. Witness such pitiful exhibitions as those impostors, so-called 'Aissouas,' who recently disgraced London with their disgusting and fraudulent tricks--such-like flimsy performances as we have been accustomed to see at penny shows at country fairs since our boyhood, only in the case of these Eastern shams not half so cleverly executed as the feats done by the ordinary country showman. This is where art has such a resistless influence upon our daily lives, and why we should be careful to discriminate between the true and the false. False art will make us cruel and remorseless--that is, the personating and choosing of monstrosities; and the more artfully they are designed, the more degraded and callous we must become, and the more deeply we must sink in our moral perception of what is good and noble in humanity. And while we sink step by step, the more morbidly vivisecting must we become, and as we have grown accustomed to the study and contemplation of distortion, the more distorted will be our views of everyday life: humanity will represent only a field for the investigation of developed or undeveloped vices and ignoble desires; there can be no possible room for virtue or lofty aspirations in the life which we take up to vivisect; in fact, before we have got half-way through with our cold-blooded, one-sided investigation, it is no longer life which we are cutting about, but a putrid corpse. So much for those who are artistic or literary under these distorted circumstances. The others, who are not so gifted in intellectual qualities--but who have the same aspirations, and develop in action as the others do in thought--become by unnatural progression such epicures in horrors as the White-chapel monster whom we have come to know as 'Jack the Ripper.' True or healthy art is content with the directness of the example which nature sets before it, the result of which is faith in beauty, faith in virtue, and a hopeful toleration of vice. Vice to these students is no more the natural aspect of humanity than blight is the natural state of the leaves upon the trees or flowers; it is a diseased state, which must be endured, but may be eradicated. By constantly watching the healthy life they come to comprehend the causes for the unhealthy more quickly than do those who morbidly brood upon the blighted portions only--i.e. their comprehensions become more vivid, and their minds more robust, for our health depends entirely upon the food we feed upon. People may accustom themselves to feed upon poisons, but if they do, it is utterly impossible for them ever to live upon anything else or to be able to exist without their daily dose. To come back to my own experience in my search after nature. When mixing among the natives of Australia I got the first revelation of what I ought to do. I saw that they had many wise laws, blending with much that was ugly, gross, and superstitious. Some of their rites appeared contemptible, but even these rites perhaps appeared so owing to my own imperfect knowledge of their origin and the secretiveness of the natives themselves regarding them; yet some of their laws were clear enough and good enough to be adopted by the most civilised races with advantage. Their marriage laws and stern strictness regarding consanguinity stand, with singular force of natural wisdom, out from a mass of apparently reasonless rites and mysteries. In their wild state the Australian tribes are a muscular and well-formed race, considering the privations from want of food and water which they have to undergo at times. This scarcity of food and long intervals between rains have forced them to become nomadic in their habits, and account naturally for the want of homes or villages and the rudeness of their places of shelter. Where people are compelled to shift often, they do not care to adorn their temporary homes--a few shards of gum-tree bark are good enough to keep the dew from them at nights, and the sun-rays are never too strong for them during the day. They are accustomed to take long marches and endure hunger and thirst on the way, so that they have no place for weakly members. If such are born, they are promptly killed as soon as the fact is discovered. If they become weakly afterwards, then such are doomed to a life of celibacy, so that the tribe may not deteriorate. I noticed that their ideas never went beyond what they were accustomed to see constantly about them; that the origin of their characteristic weapon, the boomerang, was the eucalyptus leaf, that long leaf which turns its thin edge to the light, and when it falls from the tree circles in its descent as do those formidable implements of defence; that in their songs and dances they told a tale of nature as they saw it; and then I began to understand that where their strength lay I might find mine also, and so I became a realist, and learnt never to begin a sentence or paint a sketch unless I had a definite object, with its shape, size, colouring, and character vividly before me. Then I advanced another step in this primitive school of nature. I learnt that these people never wasted words when they wished to express themselves, and so I began to see how much stronger brevity is than ornate and laboured phraseology, and how much finer an ornament is when standing isolated and in no way disguised by superfluous flourishes; and then I think my education was complete as far as the Australian aboriginal could instruct me. I very soon found plenty to do, and never afterwards wanted a subject. I studied the gum-tree, with its perfect flower, where the male and female are united from birth, and those medicinal leaves which look so sparse, but are so closely put together, the density of which can only be seen when the hurricane blows them about until they are like our willow-trees at home. I watched the sturdy, twisted, gleaming branches, like great white snakes, so different from any other branches of trees, until I grew to love them. (I remember how an all-wise art editor once objected to one of my representations of a gum-tree because he said that the branches were so _serpentine_, and therefore not like the trees which he had been accustomed to see. I might have overlooked his ignorant remark, but I found it difficult to forgive his sending my drawing to another artist, who took the _serpentine_ appearance out of the branches, and so made them appear like the trees to which he had been accustomed, before it was allowed to be seen in print, and I have often wondered what the people accustomed to real gum-trees have said about this London-manufactured gum-tree.) Those wonderful gum-trunks, with the bark hanging in long strips from them like fluttering rags of brown sails! Mighty trees, some of them rising four hundred feet into the blue-grey sky, and large enough in girth to make good-sized houses, yet appearing beside their giant brethren just like ordinary trees, until we began to measure their circumference--size is so deceptive in this strange and vast sun-bathed land, Australia. What a deal I have written already about this one tree of Australia, in all its many varieties, and yet I feel so much more than I can ever express, either with brush or pen; it has grown so much a part of myself. What poetry may yet be written over its glory, as it has been felt and written about the grand old oak of England! The gum-tree of Australia, with its twisted limbs and tough heart, as broad-spreading as the glorified tree of the Druids, as mighty as the gigantic pine of California, with a character all its own and stamping it alone as a king of trees; an iron monarch against which the axes of the woodmen break their edges and turn aside; a beneficent ruler, for at its foot lie wells of water to quench the thirsty, and in its leaves the most potent medicine to cure disease.[11] How I have studied it in the rosy dawn when the hidden sun changed the upper branches to vermilion, and the crowds of paroquets and cockatoos which it had sheltered all night woke up at the welcome sight of day; how I have watched it in the sun-glare, with each outline sharply defined, while the strong-beaked laughing jackass bent, over a bare, snowy limb, and watched keenly amongst the underwood for its victim, the venomous snake; and I have been often startled by the bird's uncanny burst of mockery, when, after darting down and grabbing the snake, it swiftly soared high in air, and from a great height dropped the wriggling reptile: it was then the bird, misnamed a jackass, laughed wildly as it watched the snake fall prone to earth and break its back. I have seen it too in the afterglow, when the gaunt limbs became salmon-tinted with a ghostly gleam over the forest, where deep shadows were gathering fast; and in the dazzling moonlight, when they stood out like great pillars, row upon row, mile after mile, as I rode along, without seemingly a termination, some with the leaves drooping in black masses, while in other parts great tracts of country were covered with dead wood, where the forest fires had passed and shrivelled up their lives, or the squatter had destroyed them for the sake of his herds; but dead or alive, they stand year after year majestic and assertive of their rank as lords, like solemn sentinels keeping guard over a silent land. What I mastered in Australia I carried with me to other lands, trying to learn what the tattoo markings and tapu laws meant amongst the Maoris of New Zealand, the punctilios and ceremonies of the South Sea Islanders, and always getting my attention turned back to nature direct when I was inclined to wander from this purpose or grow at all self-sufficient or inclined to lean upon my own resources. It was my failures which ever and again proved to me that I had no resources of my own to fall back upon, and that I was only wasting my talents when I tried to take my eyes from the face of nature; she had proved herself all-sufficient for every imagination which I could ever hope to conceive, no matter how long I lived, her school the best college, and herself the only instructress which I needed at this advanced stage. It is a glorious experience this spread-out nature college, which I recommend to everyone desirous of being regarded as original; an ever-varied series of lessons, the chief charm of which is that each student can only take away a little to call his own, leaving a full treasury for whoever cares to come after him. Copy great masters and read the best authorities; you will see what they were able to take out of this treasury without diminishing its riches; but do not borrow or try to wear their jewelry, for on you they will be second-hand adornments; besides, to do so will be as foolish an act on your part as if you were to put on a suit of clothes made for and worn by someone else, instead of taking the clothes which have been measured and made expressly for yourself. Of course you must learn to understand how to choose what is best suited for you, and for this purpose you must go into strict training, so as to learn the laws and rules which these masters all had to learn first, and improve upon as they progressed through the preliminary stages towards that wider school in which no earthly master could guide them. Like 'Johnny Ducks' in my story of 'Eight Bells,' I left home pretty early to begin my wanderings, but before I left home I had gone through a stiff training with different masters; in fact, I cannot remember the time when I began to study drawing and painting, but it must have been long before I began the alphabet, for I can recollect that event very clearly, with a few of the ordinary incidents connected with it. Both my parents were artistic and lovers of literature and art. The love for books had been in both families for generations, as well as the taste for travelling; many of my ancestors had been great travellers, while not a few of them had paid the penalty of their lives for their curiosity to see the world. My father painted mostly in oil-colours, landscape and figure, and he had gone through a very careful training under some of the best masters; my mother painted in water-colours, and her _forte_ was flowers and fruit; so that I had the benefit of watching them, and getting trained almost insensibly to myself. I painted my first landscape in oils when I was six years old, a copy of a picture lent to me by my first outside master, before he sent his own to the exhibition, and which he allowed me to sell afterwards for two guineas--to me at the time a very large sum. I can remember this picture most vividly, for the reason that I had to do it twice over before my father was satisfied. The first canvas was so badly done and enraged him so much that he broke it over my head as a warning to me to be more careful; the second attempt must have been better, for, although he did not praise it (he never praised anything I did), yet he did not condemn it, while one day, as I was sitting under the table unseen, he brought in a gentleman to look at it, who said 'it was wonderful.' My next master was a German designer from Munich, who taught me ornamental drawing; he would not let me touch my paint-box at all while he was present, but kept me strictly for over three years to charcoal, pencil, and cartridge paper. At first it was straight and curved lines only; next ornaments and friezes in relief; in my third year he allowed me to draw leaves and blades of grass from nature also in the wintry time the bare trees; finally, before he turned me off his hands he made me arrange flowers and shrubs into groups, drawing them first exactly, and next turning them into ornamental shapes and designs. After him, I passed through the hands of a portrait-painter, drawing and shading with charcoal only from the life. Then I painted the same in monochrome in oils (I did not attempt water-colours, except to do flowers in the wash style which my mother had painted for many years). As a relaxation my father allowed me sometimes to paint pictures in oil from nature. With some of my boy friends, I went out on Saturdays sketching. We formed a club, and saved up our pocket-money to reward the best painter, the umpire being the landscape-painter who had all along been my friend and instructor in landscape-painting. While thus trying to master in practice the A B C of art, through the long winter nights, after I had learnt my school lessons for next day, my father made me read all sorts of books on the theory of art in its many branches. He used to mark off portions which he wished to impress upon my memory and make me write them in my exercise-book. In this way I copied off the greater part of M. Chevreul's 'Harmony and Contrast of Colours,' a very long work indeed. Then came the rules of perspective and measurements, also artistic anatomy. I worked first from Dr. Knox's book and that of Leonardo da Vinci. Ships had always a great fascination for me, and I used to read and copy from all sorts of books on this subject, principally shipbuilders' manuals and seamen's navigation guides. My father, besides his painting, had also studied many other sciences--geology, mathematics, astronomy, and botany. I fancy his favourite pastime was botany. He saved me twice from being poisoned, through his knowledge of plants. He used to tell me about the stars and their distances, and how, by the aid of mathematics, he was able to measure space, and from that I began to have, what has been a passion with me ever since, a desire to know all about the early nations and how they grew, with their myths and religions. So my daily life was impregnated with art and science--art chiefly, into which all the others merge. I may say that I was twelve years grinding at the preliminary portions of my art education. It took me nearly eight years to write the twelve parts of my 'Life and Nature Studies,' after I had gone over the world for the first time, and in this book I have tried to write what I had learnt during my travels and before them--that is, about twenty-six years of art study, and I do not think that I can advise anyone to attempt to master the principles of art in a shorter space of time. I would divide the time thus: Five years to hard outline drawing (the younger the student begins, the more facile his hand will grow), five years to anatomy and the life, and the rest of the time to the countless difficulties which he will constantly encounter, and which will give so much pleasure in the conquering. It must be admitted that, at the first, straight and curved lines are no more interesting to the art student than are the pot-hooks in the preliminary stages of calligraphy, but they are both equally necessary for the making of a free and pure draughtsman and writer. By-and-by, when persevered with, these lines become a positive pleasure to indulge in; so much so, that the veteran artist when he is idling an hour away, if he has a piece of paper before him, or with his walking cane, will unconsciously revert to this early practice, and draw flowing parallel lines upon the paper or on the sand. What was once a severe task has thus become a relaxation. I would not also insist upon only dry and hard grinding during these preliminary years (some authorities do), any more than I could expect a man wishing to exercise one muscle to leave all the rest of the body inactive. I would rather advise students to exercise all their faculties as well--colours, gradation, outside sketching from nature, copying in galleries and from the life; only never let them forget that this is the one muscle which they _must_ exercise regularly and without intermission, for it is the all-important factor of their future lives. Everything helps art, as art enters into everything: music, poetry, science, history, romance; in every walk of life which we may enter upon, it must be ennobled by art, while the draughtsman has a decided advantage over the man who cannot draw. Are you a gardener? To be a master of the craft you must learn the laws of form, colours, arrangement, and symmetry. A tailor? If you can draw well you will become a cutter-out. In fact, I do not know the profession or trade where it does not enter into and advantage the man who has it to command. All this it does in its practical, money-making, worldly side, which is to me the under-side of art; for, after all, money-making, although a very useful accomplishment as far as the world goes, is not a very noble or high gift, excepting for the power which it gives to the lucky possessor to do good to his less fortunate fellow-creatures. Where art comes in and fulfils its highest mission is the almost limitless range which it imparts to the votary of intellectual pleasure and ethic enjoyments. We are all born with eyes and senses of taste, smell, and sight, &c., it is true--that is, all healthy beings are so blessed--but it is art which takes the grosser films from these senses and renders them acute, so that each pleasure may be multiplied a thousandfold. The ears can distinguish sounds as they are given to us. Art makes them appreciate music. The eyes can see hills and valleys. Art makes them take exquisite pleasure in forms and colours, a keener appreciation in all which comes within their range. It is the education and refinement of all the five material senses. But it also passes these outer gates, and impregnates the soul until the imprisoned Psyche can burst from her fetters and spread out her gossamer wings to the warmth and golden light of the Love-world. Whoever is once really touched by the purifying kiss of art can no more go back to the fog-land of debased desires or commonplace than can the butterfly return to her caterpillar state of crawling. He must soar over the heads of the grubs, joyous and free, basking all the days of his life in the sunlight of sensitive impressions. Pity claims him as her favourite child, and Charity, the divine, breathes upon him for ever with her fragrant, life-giving breath. [Illustration] CHAPTER V _ON PICTURE LIGHTING_ [Illustration: E]VERY art-worker, whether his materials be palette and brushes or camera and dry-plates, must feel the greatest interest in the subject with which we have now to deal. Lighting is the art of placing the sitter or choosing the landscape under the most favourable aspects for effect. From this we are able to grasp the form in all its firmness, and see the finest play of colour, or, if ignorant, embody only a disjointed object, apparently badly drawn because it is badly lighted, with the finest passages of colour, and all the poetry and pathos of our intentions lost through lack of a little consideration. Some painters, in breaking from the Academy rules, show their independence and immature audacity by revealing to the public ugly slant-laws and unpoetic phases of realism; but with those who discard knowledge for a purpose we have at present nothing to do, our task being to speak about a few of the necessary lines of action, and to prove their utility by the effects as seen in nature every day and in the works of those men who have left a halo round their names by their faithful adherence to the laws and truthful translations of the revelations of nature; for the great men of the past and present are those who grew strong by looking on the face of this divine mother, whilst the little men, who are forgotten or may be passing into oblivion, are those who were mighty in their own conceit, who depended only on themselves, and hearkened weakly to the chirruping of flatterers. This point I wish to place before you rigidly, the unflinching adherence to nature, for it is a much wiser thing to risk forgetfulness by the faithful rendering of commonplace effects and forms than to lose yourselves altogether, seeking after a beauty that is not of heaven or earth. In the first case you may be passed over without comment, yet you know that you have used the one talent bestowed upon you, and if so, you cannot die altogether unknown; but in the other case you will only startle a crowd, as the fiery meteor may startle, to drop out of sight without a trace, excepting, it may be, the trace of a stain. In light and shade there are what we may term _phenomenal_ laws, as rigid in their demands as those rules which can be regulated by measurement and proportion, and which the artist ought to observe as closely as he may do the more ordinary or everyday phases of lighting; for example, a fly darting suddenly from the deep shadow into the strong light will in the first startled glance assume the proportions of a crow. In a picture of the 'Tercentenary Students' Torchlight Procession of Edinburgh, 1884,' I intentionally made the horses and portions of the crowd unduly large, on the same principle as the exaggeration of the fly. My reasons for doing so were just and strictly according to the reality of a momentary effect; I state my reasons in order to show you that I was right in doing so, and also because I dare say this may be one of the objections to my treatment of this particular subject. I take up the position of a spectator whose pupils have been dilated by the semi-darkness, and who, with imagination active, is suddenly startled by the flaring and irregular flashing of the waving torches; shadows dart up to colossal proportions, also prominent objects, such as the mounted police, and it is only by means of this distortion of size that I have been able to give motion to the crowd, along with the weirdness of such an effect. I would ask all who have seen a torchlight procession to recall the sensation, as closely as they can, when the first burst of torchlight came upon them, for that is the moment I have attempted to fix upon my canvas; and those who have not seen a large crowd under these conditions may imagine what it would be like by the aid of fire or torchlights which they have seen at other times. I would ask you to exercise the faculties of memory or imagination while I give you a brief description of the emotions it roused in my mind as one of the many thousand spectators, and the effect it had upon my seeing faculties, which will enable you to comprehend my motives for working as I did, preferring the _strict reality_ of the instantaneous phase or impression to the _actuality_ of the known form. (This I give you, not as an apology or explanation for my picture, but as the nearest illustration I can think about, at present, of one of the phenomenal laws of lighting.) We were standing upon a house roof, looking over the city. Right and left lay Princes Street, with the Mound at our feet, and Scott's Monument in the middle distance. Most of the time we were in darkness, with the exception of one or two straggling candles at windows here and there, at wide intervals. A mellow glow at the south end of the North Bridge, a blue light behind the Monument, an occasional rocket fizzing from Calton Hill, also faintly illumined with white and blue fire, into the umber-tinted darkness of that starless, cloud-bulging sky, and the alternating glaring from Hanover Street of rose-coloured, white, and green lights, which dyed the upturned faces of the crowd and the columns of the Institution in a broad line with the scarlet or emerald colour of the fire then burning, for a few pulsating moments of eye-nerve-straining. Then fell a deeper wave of darkness as the light passed from us, rushing over the heaving masses below, whence rose up that sympathetic thrilling sound which ever grips and holds the hearts of a crowd like one heart, and over the houses, with their lights dashed out for a moment by the passing away of that more intense light, all preparing me for the fantastic sight we were awaiting. Then increased the murmuring louder in its hoarseness with the sound of many feet trampling, and as we looked towards the North Bridge, where the lamp-lights showed faintly, the yellow glare of the advancing torches gilded the sides of the opposite shops, while the houses on this side became more jetty in their intervening blackness, and in another moment they were blazing over the parapet of the bridge with a motion like the walking of a centipede of fire; and so on, with the slow appearance which distance always gives to all rapid motion, the procession crossed the bridge, hiding behind the shops and houses between the bridge and Princes Street, reappearing again by the Post Office, gliding along to Calton Hill; then they paused for a moment, turned round and came towards us, foreshortened, but growing vaster as they neared, until, with a sudden burst, they were rolling along beneath us, a heaving mass of upturned faces, crimson-tinted, with a river of yellow light rolling along the centre, white flames with orange terminations and wreaths of blurring rose and purple smoke, coats reversed, shirt sleeves or bare arms waving about the torch-sticks, smut-grimed faces, more like sweeps than students, with here and there a colossal blue-vestured guardian angel of order bestriding an exaggerated horse. This is how it appeared to me and how I treated my picture--as I conceived it ought to be treated; not as I knew the men and horses to be, men and horses, but like the perturbed legions of spectres they for the moment became: ghosts of giants and dwarfs, and other strange forms, like those extinct monsters of the past, all whirling madly past me, a vision of passion and flame crossing a chaos of darkness; an invasion of demons, unreal, yet fascinating--a nightmare of glittering phantasmagoria of light and shadow, blending colour with intense blackness. In this illustration I have given you the two most direct specimens of lighting a picture that I can think of; in the one portion you have the light coming from behind and making the objects stand out dark, as in sunrises, sunsets, moonlights, or artificial lights behind figures; in the other portion you have the light thrown into the picture, as from the spectator, or in open daylight, sunshine, or lamp-light effects, when the light is in front, and shadows fall behind or from the side. I have divided both effects, as equally as they can be divided, into light and shadow, the light occupying an equal space with the dark. These are by no means the most satisfactory methods of dividing a picture, as they are apt to be mannered and fixed; what I would rather advise is, to allow either shadow or light to predominate--shadow, if force is required; light, if air and delicacy are the aims you wish to strive for. Yet, as they contain within them the primal divisions of all lighting, they are the most appropriate for my present purpose. In both effects the treatment is extremely simple, yet in the one, when the light comes from behind, simplicity and directness are the more strictly necessary; indeed, in painting a subject with the light from the back, the energy of the painter should principally be directed to the gradation of the shadows from misty distance to direct foreground, having as few lights as can be dispensed with for the sake of form. In the other, the time of day must be considered with the direction of the light, so that it may pass directly and consistently throughout all parts of the picture. * * * * * [Illustration: A NEW GUINEA VILLAGE (_A study of lighting from behind_)] There is one strict rule I would have you bear in mind when sketching outside; remember that the whole of your picture only represents a second of time, the flapping of a drop-shutter over an instantaneous plate. It will never be like nature if the light upon one part falls half an hour before the light falls on another portion; so in planning out the dispositions of your light you must do as the photographic camera does. Fix one second upon the plate of your memory all over the scene, and try to work up to this second. The mechanical worker, who thinks he is a much more conscientious artist and lover of nature than the impressionist, because he sits down with his palette and canvas to his easel before nature six or ten hours at a stretch, is much more unfaithful, even to the image he so patiently tries to copy, than the impressionist, who, glancing rapidly and comprehensively round, makes a few swift notes, catches the spirit of the effect, and depends upon his memory, or a faithful photograph of his image, for his detail afterwards. We may blink at this as much as we choose, yet pre-Raphaelitism must come to its proper place in good time, and be shut in with the antique casts of the schoolroom, with the young men and women student days, shut in along with their cross-hatchings and point-stipplings, to be laid carefully in their boxes along with their gold, silver, and bronze medals, and other school prizes, when they come out to face flesh and blood, broad daylight, and the world that will not wait upon the crochet-meshes of meaningless patience. I would not have a painter work a single line without having a direct meaning for that line--not only a direct meaning, but a very potent intention, which cannot be laid aside without injuring all the other parts of the composition; so in lighting, I wish to impress upon all the necessity for the strictest economy in the placing of the lights and shadows; too much protestation will ever weaken an assurance, so also too many lights will destroy the effect of light. The other day I passed along a road when the sun was shining, a broad daylighty forenoon sun-effect, and yet that stretch of road only received the full force of it on one portion; silver-grey it spread from my feet into distance; in mid-distance it took the gleam of quicksilver upon it, growing blue-grey as it receded, and fawn-coloured as it neared me, darkening with the ruts and markings of the foreground--detail always produces darkness unless the light shines full and nearly upon it, and then it will be full of acute shadow and strong light. * * * * * Let us now divide our present subject, as Burnet has done, into five parts--light, half-light, middle-tint, half-dark, and dark. He tells us that, 'When a picture is chiefly composed of light and half-light, the dark will have more force and point, but without the help of strong colour to give it solidity it will be apt to look feeble; and when a picture is composed mainly of dark and half-dark, the lights will be more brilliant, but they will be apt to look spotty for want of half-light to spread and connect them, and the piece be in danger of becoming black and heavy; and when a picture is composed chiefly of middle-tint, the dark and light portions have a more equal chance of coming into notice, but the general effect is in danger of being common and insipid. 'Light and shade are capable of producing many results, but the three principal are relief, harmony, and breadth. By the first the artist is enabled to give his works the distinctness and solidity of nature, the second is the result of a union and consent of one part with another, and the third, a general breadth, is the necessary attendant on extent and magnitude. A judicious management of these three properties is to be found in the best pictures of the Italian, Venetian, and Flemish schools, and ought to employ the most attentive examination of the student, for by giving too much relief, he will produce a dry, hard effect; by too much softness and blending of the parts, woolliness and insipidity; and in a desire to preserve a breadth of effect, he may produce flatness. 'Relief is most necessary in large works, as their being seen from a greater distance than easel pictures prevents them looking harsh or cutting, and gives them that sharpness and clearness of effect so necessary to counteract heaviness. 'Not only the works of Raphael and those of the Italian school possess this quality, but we find it in the greatest perfection in the pictures of Paulo Veronese and Tintoretto; and even the larger works of Titian and Correggio have a flatness and precision which we look for in vain in the succeeding school of Caracci and their disciples, Guido excepted. 'Harmony, or a union of the different parts of a composition, depends upon the intermediate parts serving as a link or chain, either by conveying a sensation of the same colours with those in immediate contact, or by neutralising and breaking down the harsh asperities of the two extremes, and thus producing a connection or agreement. Breadth of effect is only to be produced by a great extent of light or shade pervading the picture. If an open daylight appearance is intended, such as we see in Cuyp, &c., it will be best produced by leaving out part of the middle tint, and allowing a greater spread of light and half-light; this will also give the darks the relative force which they possess in nature. If a breadth of shadow is required, such as we find in Rembrandt, &c., the picture ought to be made up of middle tint and half-dark. In the one treatment the dark ought to tell sharp and cutting, which is the characteristic of sturdy daylight; in the other, the light ought to appear powerful and brilliant, enveloped in masses of obscurity.'[12] Burnet, in his treatise, gives also examples of light and shade taken from the different masters. Light coming from the centre in a bright spot or focus, with darkness surrounding it, as in some of the Dutch pictures, where the light comes through a window, from a bright fire, a lamp, or a candle, the effect will be a splash of white upon a ground of dark grey and black; light coming from behind, where the effect is open air with the ground light and the dark work starting out. Light falling diagonally, almost equally divided, the light portion with the dark. Light striking into the picture, and falling upon the most prominent object, if in a room, the effect will be dark background; if outside, gloomy skies, as in autumn, winter, or storm effects. In landscape, this effect is apt to produce solemnity, weirdness, or grandeur; if in a room, the sombre yet rich depth of Rembrandt.[13] Light falling perpendicularly and horizontally, as in doorways and narrow passages, where the light comes in with difficulty. Light striking across the picture horizontally, as in sunrises, when the ground is in shadow. Light striking sharply on one side, as when a lantern picture is thrown obliquely against a wall, making the nearest edge sharp against a deep dark, and drifting into shadow by degrees, thus founding the principles of light and shadow. Light-acute, half-light, middle-tint, dark-acute, half-dark, and middle-tint. Burnet gives a great number of examples to prove the justice of his theory, which to give here would only be a loss of time, as they repeat those different orders of lighting, yet I may with benefit quote the wise advice of Rubens to his students, where he says, 'Begin by painting in your shadows lightly, taking care that no white is suffered to glide into them, for it is the poison of a picture except in the lights; if even your shadows are corrupted by the introduction of this baneful colour, your tones will no longer be warm and transparent, but heavy and leady. It is not the same in the lights, they may be loaded with colour as much as you think proper.' A sheet of white paper or a clean piece of primed canvas will give us a good idea of the value of shadow: make a stain upon any portion of its surface, say two shades deeper grey than the canvas, and you have the effect of light and half-tint. In open-air effects be sparing of your darks, so that strength and force may be the consequence. A sheet of grey tone paper is about the best medium to impress upon you the value of tone. Make a mark with white chalk and a few darks, and the ground will give all the other qualifying powers needful; the fewer markings you make the more strength you must get in your effect. In planning your picture, your first care, after the form has been seen to, is to ascertain where the lights are to come from, and upon what they are likely to fall; nature is our best guide in this, yet nature must be followed with great caution, owing, as I have said before, to the rapidity of her changes; also the superiority of light over white, and shadow under black; we see, for example, degrees of light without shadow, and degrees of shadow after the greatest depth of darkness has been attained, and these we can no more follow than we can follow the separate blade-markings on a grass-field; as in the one case so in the other, we must suit ourselves to our limited means and simplify the whole matter, gather our lights into a narrower and more concentrated focus, and depend upon the half-tints and reflections for the greater part of our picture. If we see a dozen ripples of light, be content with the capture of one light, and let the other eleven become half-lights or vanish altogether; so shall we secure force. Devote our skill to those half-tones which in reality mean the labour, pride, and test of the painter, even although it is the high lights and deep darks that finish the picture. As I have said, there are only about half a dozen ways of lighting up a picture--eight at the most--and all the pictures in the world, when painted scientifically, work upon those eight direct or combination arrangements, as in composition the varieties turn upon two primary laws, angular and circular arrangements, and in colours upon three colours, and it is in the strict observance of those scientific ground lines that the entire success of our design or picture depends; but, above all, the whole secret of scientific and artistic success lies in the extreme singleness of our aim; we must not confuse or combine two opposite laws in one composition, or else the blending will end either in utter failure, or in a doubtful success which will not be worth the trouble and labour expended. [Illustration] CHAPTER VI _SHIPS: ANCIENT AND MODERN_ [Illustration: I]T may be that I am prejudiced by love in favour of the sea and the burden which it bears upon its bosom, but to my mind, man has only been able once to compete successfully with the designs of nature, and that was in his ship-building. When he completed those masterpieces which helped to make Nelson and England famous, he reached the apex of his attempts to rival nature--indeed, artistically speaking, he eclipsed nature's most picturesque effects when he put out such beautiful and perfect creations as those which sailed into Trafalgar, after which he proved his mortality by becoming commonplace; while nature, the calm and unimpassioned, continued her work of beauty and devastation unconcerned, permitting him to blot her plains with his mastless ironclad monstrosities, until her hour of retaliation arrived. Look at his cities, houses, churches, palaces, and castles in their newness, and you behold objects on the landscape without which it would be more complete; nor until Time has laid his artistic touch upon them--painting them over with delicious grey tones and rusty stains; dismantling doorways and windows, causing a rent here and a crumbling there, like arabesque work of an old-world character; putting the same vividly fantastic faces and figures upon the once smoothly masoned block that he cuts out on the cliff-face, and so harmonising the uncouth evenness with the grandly mosaicked boulder; festooning bare and gaunt spaces with wreaths of ivy, clustering ferns, and gnarled branches, and generally qualifying the russet shades with fresh patches of moss or silver glistenings of lichens--do the crumbling castle and deserted cottage begin to take their places as items in the unity and harmony of general creation. But the ships of Nelson's and Collingwood's period Time cannot add to or improve; their newness and freshness only help the perfection of their grace and loveliness; from the moment they glided between the greased slips of the building-yard to the solemn hour when they settled down to their last repose, they were objects of interest and beauty. See them riding on the smooth waters and repeating themselves from the tapering top-masts with the fairy mesh-work of cordage, like a forest of graceful trees in the winter-time, to their massive hulls, all gilt-work, colour and ornament, animate with latent strength and active grace; see them parting the curling billows with the snow-white sails bellied out, as they rush jocundly on their journey to triumph or to death, looking like winged angels in the sun-filled air: it was this appearance of life and joy which raised man at that period from the imitator to the original creator, and so for the moment lifted him out of himself, and beyond still nature; there is nothing else resembling a full-rigged line-of-battle frigate on the surface of the earth. [Illustration: Ship.of.the.line.1815.] See them sweeping into battle so stately and confident; the sentiment of fear or indecision cannot find a lodgment on one of their orderly yards as they swing round so defiantly; when they advance it is with calm pride in their conscious power, when they retreat it appears only as if to test their speed against the sailing powers of their chasers; in the hour of action how imposingly they gather up the clouds of white smoke, like the goddess Juno; and when wounded, how grandly they droop with their broken wings, enduring the buffets of the tempest with majestic protest, or settling down on the quicksand with the calmness of martyrs. There is something mean-looking about even St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey if we compare them with the Alps, but the ship cannot look contemptible in any position when upon her own element, the ocean. The earliest vessel on record is the Ark, which was about eighty-eight feet less in length than our 'Great Eastern,' thirteen feet less in breadth of deck, and about the same height from keel to deck. History does not enlighten us as to its exact shape, excepting that it had three decks, and we are accustomed to depict it with sloping roof and mastless. Yet at the time it was built the inhabitants of the earth had advanced to a high state of civilisation and wicked inventions of violence and luxury, so that we must suppose they went down to the sea and to war with each other in great ships for Noah to have worked out this monster on scientific principles, otherwise he could not have balanced it from theory only. When it first began to float, he would require a rudder in order to keep it clear of the promontories which were as yet uncovered; therefore, although it is not mentioned, we naturally suppose that it was provided with steering gear. That he built it on the edge of a gopher-wood forest is also a reasonable conjecture, and on a flat, because of the unnecessary labour which it would have entailed to drag so much wood up to a mountain-top; therefore, although the builder and owner had no definite destination, he would require sails to carry him along past the obstructions, otherwise his steering gear would have been practically useless, and he would have been wrecked at the onset of his voyage. Taking all these matters into consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the ancient Ark was not the clumsy floating shed generally depicted, but that it sailed away from the land of the wicked giants to its lonely destination, Mount Ararat, something after the fashion that I have pictured it, leaving the highly ornamented but deckless galleys of the doomed races to fill up and scuttle. Like the building of the tower of Babel, that damp voyage must have had a demoralising effect upon Noah and his sons, because after landing we hear no more about ship-building until such times as the merchants of Tyre and Sidon began to navigate the world. The Egyptians had boats with masts and sails for river traffic, as we sometimes see depicted on their monuments and carvings, straight-built, decked boats with slanting prows and sterns, flat-bottomed, and with square cabins raised up in the centre of the decks; these were row-boats generally, and used mostly to carry mummies and mourners to the city of the dead from the living quarters, and for the transporting of cargo up the Nile. They had no war-vessels in ancient Egypt, yet some of their pleasure and state barges, although exceedingly stiff and formal in outline, were richly decorated and gaily bedizened, as were also their solid square houses and walls. Cleopatra's barge was a blending of the Greek galley and the orthodox Nile boat. Indeed, it is very difficult at the present time to realise the banks of the Nile in the days of the Pharaohs, when on the one side of the river lay the palaces of the princes and nobility, and on the other lay the city of the departed, those vast buildings and high walls, emblazoned with painted figures of heroic actions, so that we may comprehend why the artists preferred flat surfaces to ornate walls; the broad steps leading to the reedy and lily-lined waters, and those gondola-like boats and gilded barges lying anchored beside every wharf, with the dazzling sun laving over the flatness of the land, and grateful shadows cast along every side street or covered mart. Egypt suited this style of architecture and that description of shipping exactly; afterwards, when the Greeks came with their rounded hulls, crowned prows, and general lightness, traders of silks and purple cloths, the character of the country changed, and incongruities occurred which required the hardy Romans to correct. When the ornate galleys of Alexander covered Father Nile, Egypt lost her air of everlasting repose; but when the shield-lined galleys of Rome swept in, all became right again--the rightness of the castle which has been dismantled; the paint on the walls became dingy, the slime encrusted the granite wharf-posts, and Egypt settled down to her mystical decline. At the great battle of Salamis, men had learnt to build war-vessels of great utility. The wily Greeks knew the value of small compact ships with strong sharp prows and swift-sailing qualities, because they had become a race of hardy pirates, whereas the voluptuous Persians, studying pomp and show, as did the Spanish later on, sent out an armada of mighty ships, great floating castles, which towered over the waves and were difficult to manage; so the agile Greeks darted in amongst the ponderous giants, and cut them up as our own sea-hero Drake did with the Dons. It must have been a fine sight from the hill-top where Xerxes watched the defeat of his armada, with the combat clear to the view and unobscured by smoke, those mighty hulls lying helpless on the waves with their purple sails, and the dauntless Greeks rushing down upon them, while the blood-red sun went down upon the hapless scene of destruction. [Illustration: A Viking Boat] The Romans took their cue from the Greeks, and built small ships, vessels that walked the waters like centipedes; an ugly but ominous sight they must have appeared in their snake-like approach upon the enemy, dangerous in their steady utility when drawing over quiet waters, but almost useless in a storm. After this time ships returned greatly to their primitive condition, and, like the Vikings, sea-rovers went in for small craft, deckless boats about the size of fishing craft, with easily managed sails; boats which could be worked quickly in rough or calm weather by a few men. These were the ships which devastated Europe and taught the shore-dwellers a lesson in naval warfare. From the Bayeux Tapestry we are able to form a fair idea of the kind of craft which William of Normandy used to invade England--small one-masted boats, holding on an average a dozen men easily, although, I dare say, on this occasion they would be crammed like herrings in a barrel. An uncommonly uncomfortable voyage that must have been to the mail-clad warriors, with their war-steeds to look after in those cramped quarters; it must have made them doubly resolved to stay in England once they had reached it. We see another example in Froissart of vessels of the fourteenth century, in which they had increased the size of the ships somewhat, without altering their shape much, but having three masts, instead of one, with single lateen sails on each. The anchor as we use it now comes into prominence in these pictures; but, if the men are drawn in proportion to the size of the ships, exercise was not one of the benefits of a sea-voyage in the fourteenth century, and one is apt to sympathise with the Crusaders on their journey to Palestine. To us, who have gazed ruefully on the stormy waters of Biscay Bay, even from the lofty deck of a P. and O. packet, the experience has been a sad one; but such a voyage must have been simply pandemonium to those brave knights of the Cross in their cockle-shells, trying to look dignified before their esquires, with the weight of chain-armour added to sea-sickness, and no space to turn about. During the time of the Lancasters and Plantagenets times improved a little with seafarers. We have the long awning-covered oar-galleys, capable of seating fifty or eighty slaves below, with accommodation for the passengers above; also properly decked vessels, with forecastles and stern cabins and deck houses; and shrouds for the use of the seamen when raising or lowering sails. They still used the single sails on the masts, and required a number of sailors to work them properly; here also we find the first appearance of tops where men could be placed for fighting purposes. At this period the ship as a picturesque object was beginning to take shape, but it was far from being a 'thing of beauty.' In the fifteenth century we come upon the 'Henri Grâce à Dieu,' built for Henry VII., which is the nearest approach to a ship as we understand it. It is a four-master, with bowsprit, and three yards on each mast, with main and fore tops, and shrouds reaching up to the caps; a vessel fairly bristling with guns, and having seven decks to the cabin and eleven to the top deck of the forecastle. At this time Columbus had discovered the New World, and men were paying attention to navigation as a science. The next advance is the 'Sovereign of the Seas,' built in 1637 for Charles I.: a three-master, and very nearly perfect in the matter of symmetry. Between the building of the 'Sovereign' and the 'Grâce à Dieu' England had made her first bold bid for the supremacy of the seas, and distinguished herself as a great maritime nation by giving birth to such heroes as Drake and Frobisher; after this she steadily advanced in her sea craft. The Armada was won by splendid sailors and very sorry ships, as far as appearance went; but after this date they improved until they reached perfection, as we can see in such ships as the 'Royal William,' 1670, on to the splendid wooden frigates and man-of-war ships carrying from seventy-four to one hundred and twenty guns, such as the 'Victory,' immortalised by the death of Nelson. Those grand old days, when the ship and the men she carried were one and indivisible, are a dream of the past. When we began to sheathe our ships with iron and reduce our masts and rigging until they became shapeless monsters, the pride and security of the sailor vanished. The ship is no longer a portion of himself, it has become a dangerous machine, and he is only a passenger on board. In olden times, when the ball tore up the ship's side, the heart of the British seaman bled with her, and while she waited like a wounded lioness on his aid, and he rushed with his plugs and oakum to stop the rent or fix up the broken yard or mast, they were as man and wife; now, like a treacherous monster, the ship goes to the bottom when hit, and destroys all on board. [Illustration: Fishing Boats.] There was give and take in the olden days, like a bout at fists, and Englishmen appreciated the manly sport; now it is treacherous massacre and destruction to friend and enemy alike. The ironclad is as much the enemy of her inhabitants as she is of the rival against whom she wages war. What pride could the true British tar take in that pitiful siege of Alexandria, when all he had to do was to batter down a defenceless city from a safe distance, compared with the sailing into action at Trafalgar, where it was give and take? While, as for the next great naval engagement, when ironclad faces ironclad, what chance will they have for their lives? One sure discharge from the latest invention, and the doomed vessel will go to the bottom of the sea, like shot-laden and sewn-up corpses of messmates already 'gone aloft.' It is cowardly murder, not daring warfare, that we have arrived at in this nineteenth century of science. It was in the olden days of sailing vessels, when the seaman controlled every portion and worked lovingly upon every object of his ship, that the sympathetic affection for each plank grew upon him, until it became dearer than a landsman's house to him--indeed, it not infrequently usurped all other ties, and became to him wife and relations as well as house. As I come myself from a sailor breed, I know the engrossment well, and can understand the feelings of the captain who would rather sink with his beloved vessel than abandon her in the dark hour of danger. [Illustration: Homeward Bound] But when ships became propelling machines, they no longer belonged exclusively to the sailor: he is only husband of the upper decks and now almost useless yards. The engineer is really the master of the position, while the sailor has become merely a scullery-maid. The same may be said about iron ships. What sailor of the grand old school can take a pride in cold iron or cast steel? Dibdin's songs are a dead letter here. Indeed, I don't know any modern poet who could wake up enthusiasm over wrought or cast metal when it is used as a floating machine. 'Hearts of oak' we can all understand as Englishmen, for the oak is ours by birthright. But who can grow affectionate over 'plates of iron'? It is cold and deadly in its passive state, and when damaged it is beyond repair; it has to be taken back to the smelting factory. Therefore, thinking upon this subject in an artistic sense, and regarding the future of great guns, torpedoes, and metal plates from a humanitarian point of view, while admitting that we have floating mantraps and murder machines nowadays, I place the limit on ship-progress as objects of gallantry and perfection at the date when we introduced steam machinery into them. They then sacrificed their poetic and artistic characteristics for commercial utility; while, as for their use as war-machines, that is a doubtful point upon which they have yet to be tried. One thing we do know, however, and that is--war no longer depends upon personal bravery; it is entirely a question of scientific accuracy and mathematical knowledge. As a painter, I prefer to go back to the wooden walls of England for my inspirations; to the engagements between the giants and the plucky pigmies in the glorious fight of 1588, when the pigmies, like the Greeks at Salamis, knocked the giants into cocked hats; to the battles of the Nile, St. Vincent, Trafalgar, where each man had to do his duty without the dread of being blown up to the sky by some underhand torpedoes, or sent, without a moment for prayers, to the bottom of the sea by some superior and longer-ranged guns. I like best to think upon the days when men got heated up by glory, and fought hand-to-hand with their cutlasses and pikes, swarming over the sides of the grappled enemy with true British shouts, rather than to picture them standing in silent and grim order five or ten miles away from the enemy, waiting upon their doom. It does not seem sailor-like to see them watching like automata on the effect of each shot; to my mind, as an artist and a warm-blooded Englishman, it is too cold-blooded for Jack Tar. We all know, from the original or from reproductions, Turner's picture of the Last Voyage of the 'Téméraire,' with its stately yet helpless dignity, compared with the fussy impudence of the long-chimneyed little tug-steamer which is towing her to her last home; the hoary veteran is doubly pathetic to me in view of all the _improvements_ which have taken place in war-ships since that splendid sunset which the great painter thus depicted: compare the 'Téméraire,' symbol of its kind and age, with, say, the 'Royal Sovereign' of 1891. The 'Royal Sovereign,' with her solid smooth sides and back-sloping bows denuded of bowsprit and jib, with her stunted masts and mean-looking cordage, is a poor thing by the side of a first-rate man-of-war of any date up to 1855, with its filmy intricacies of rope-work, yards, and uppers. Do the waves and the winds claim a unity with the ship now as they did then? Compare a fleet lying in the roads now with one a hundred years ago, as depicted on some of the canvases of Loutherbourg, Stanfield, or Turner, for the best reply to my melancholy question. Even the Bay of Biscay has been shorn of its grandeur by the introduction of those great hulks, which cut over its gigantic waves with hardly a shake. Twenty-five years ago I could appreciate its might from the deck of an Aberdonian clipper; last time I passed through it and saw its raging from the saloon deck of a P. and O. steam liner, it would have looked ridiculous in its mimic wrath only for a passing glimpse I had of a little brig which it was playing high jinks with, as it tossed it up and down like a toy boat on a cauldron of boiling water. I am sorry that we have had, so far, the best of the ocean, because we have lost a great pleasure when we go to sea--the thrilling excitement of being in a proper gale. I find it very hard when I now go upon the ocean to recall the fury of the storms which I have been in during past years;--that time I rounded Cape Horn, when the ice-charged waves appeared like mountains and valleys as we looked at them from the deck of our almost doomed vessel; that time when we were driven from the shores of Africa almost to within sight of America in one furious tempest; when the tropical typhoon broke upon us, and our three-master appeared like a dingey in the trough of those curded waves, while the lightning blazed and the fire-balls dropped from heaven and went past our creaking sides like red-hot shot into the seething turmoil. Ah! we cannot half appreciate the marvels and majesty of the ocean nowadays; it has become a sycophant to us, and only expends a little bombast for our benefit, as a relaxation after those superb ocean dinners, while we smoke our pipes or cigars on deck. And yet not quite a passive slave is this mighty ocean to us modern epicures; there still remain the Goodwin Sands, the iron cliffs and the sunken rocks, to prove that man, in spite of his advancement in mechanics, is not yet complete master of the situation. [Illustration: The Storm] Biscay Bay may look played out as it vainly tries to curl its yeasty fury over the comfortable decks of the two-wave-long liner, which passes serenely over the crests with hardly a vibration more than the propellers give us; but if the screw chances to snap, as I have known it do in other waters, then what is she?--a huge log battered to death by the savage fury she has so long defied. Sunken reefs start up at times when least expected, and then, with one rasp, the ironclad hotel becomes a death-trap, whereas a wooden ship might have floated. As for those mysterious, treasure-crammed sands, the Goodwins, like the poor, they are always with us, and always ready to drown their victims. Every year they claim their due of sacrifice, from the skittish smack to the ponderous East Indiaman, from the coast steamer to the heavy ironclad. Once the ship touches fairly with this siren, there is no parting; it is a gentle but tenacious embrace, and then come the rending of hair and the throwing up of arms as the sins of our past rush back upon us and prepare us for the choking of the remorseless slime. [Illustration: At Rest.] And those iron cliffs, that, in the honesty of their rugged rage, break the masterpieces of man to fragments, they are better than the treacherous sands, for they do their work quickly, and with the aid of the angry waves. There she is, the full-rigged piece of perfection, driving gallantly to her doom, with her curved bows, glistening sides, and ornamented stern, and aloft the forest of light wood and lichen-like tracery of cordage, her sails all furled, like a beautiful woman who has gathered up her skirts and means recklessly to run on in spite of wind or weather; so she rises over the crest of the shore-hurrying billow, and looks her best in that last supreme second of time. A lurid instant the lightning plays about her perfect symmetry as she steadfastly gathers herself for the plunge; there is no fear or timidity about her as she rises for the last time, only the defiance of desperation; then the clash of doom comes, and she has dissolved like a spirit in the midst of the dazzling white mist. [Illustration: FROM BREYDENBACH'S TRAVELS] CHAPTER VII _ILLUSTRATIVE ART: PAST AND PRESENT_ [Illustration: I]T is not my purpose, nor is it within my province as an artist and illustrator, to give the history of illustrative art, with its rise and development; I leave that side of the subject to such masters as William Andrew Chatto, Austin Dobson, and David Croal Thomson, with the other specialists who devote themselves to the historical as well as the critical qualities of artists, past and present. My present intention is to write as a workman about the work he is constantly engaged upon. I wish to describe the qualities of the different illustrators as they have impressed and influenced my work, trusting that in this I have a fair, open, and useful field before me. I approach the subject with the greatest diffidence, because, when a man begins to analyse his own particular work, he occupies the peculiar position of being his own critic, and must either make a sacrifice of his feelings--i.e. his vanity, and natural desire to cover up his weaknesses and pose only on his few strong parts,--for, of course, every man who has had experience must know in his inmost consciousness his strength and failings (although it may not always be advisable to reveal the knowledge even to himself, far less to his critical friends),--or else be ruthless and strip himself bare for the benefit of those coming after him. If I were only a critic, I could enter the lists in a jocund spirit and tilt away right and left as critics mostly do, satisfied that no one could pierce my armour and place me _hors de combat_; but when a knight goes to the tournament with armour a little worse designed than many of the coats of mail he is facing, or, at least, when he is aware of the sad fact, he does not ride forth so joyfully. Nevertheless I shall endeavour, as far as possible, to lay aside my _amour propre_ for the sake of my readers and give them the benefit of my experience, even although I may be wounded badly while I am doing so. I take a few of the illustrated books which lie handiest to me at this moment, and make them the text for my remarks, which, as I have already said, I intend to make strictly practical rather than historical; therefore, I shall only touch upon illustrative work in the more distant past in so far as it may apply to the canons which I have laid down for myself to follow, and no further. An illustrated book, to be perfect, ought to have nothing intrusive about it; no single picture ought to assert itself unduly, and so make the text with the other illustrations appear mean, washy, or weak. If the keynote struck is to be rugged strength, let there be no incongruity of super-refined and delicate lines; let the text be bold and assertive enough to suit the quality of the illustrations from the title-page to the end, so that the reader's eye may get accustomed at once to take a distant view of the whole, and not have to push the book back from him to arm's length on the one page, and bring it close to his eyes at the next. Books are like pictures, or ought to be--either gallery works, or produced for the cabinet; either to be admired from the distance, or else examined with a microscopic lens. [Illustration: ST. CHRISTOPHER] A coarsely painted picture requires a strongly designed frame; a book with coarse or strong effects in its illustrations also requires a strong text, deep head-lines, massive headings and title-page, and ornate binding; and to see the full beauty of this, and how perfect is the harmony of the lettering and edge-lines, I can only refer my readers to one of the earliest of wood engravings--the 'St. Christopher,' dated 1423 (original in the possession of Earl Spencer).[14] This seems to me a very perfect specimen of what ought to be, in quality and just balance. The drawing is in outline, massive and decided all through, without a single unnecessary line; the descriptive lettering is black-letter with broad band round it. In its present position, in the centre of the modern text, it suggests two ideas--either that it is too coarse for its present surroundings, or else that the text is too fine; therefore, to be seen to proper advantage it ought to be enclosed in a black-letter text. Contrast this as to general harmony with the two _reduced_ copies of outline work on page 72 in the same work; here the illustrations, although bold in the original, by reason of the reduction, have been brought more into unity with the modern type. You can see both pictures and text in the first glance without any extra effort, whereas in the 'St. Christopher' page, the picture intrudes itself, and almost requires to be covered before the reader can enjoy or settle down to the text. Of course, in a work of this kind, where different specimens of engraving must be shown, the authors have no choice in the matter, and perfect unity cannot be studied.[15] [Illustration: HISTORY OF THE VIRGIN MARY] Looking over these old engravings, one cannot help being struck, not only with the boldness and decision of the technique, but also with the consummate restraint and knowledge of effect displayed by the worker. Perhaps amongst our modern living men Walter Crane is the only artist who exhibits a similar courage and grasp of the essentials. (See his 'Queen Summer,' published by Cassell & Co., for some of the best and most characteristic work he has yet given to the public in book form.) The next stage in illustrative art which we have to mention is where cross-hatching has been introduced, to give depth and richness to the shadows. The earliest style of work shows only outlines, which are in many cases to be preferred to more elaborate work, particularly when inserted with the text; after this, shadows are suggested by single lines, as in the specimens which I have quoted. Cross-hatching appears to have been used first in the year 1486, in a frontispiece to the Latin edition of 'Breydenbach's Travels,' which was printed at Mentz by Erhard Reuwich. The name of the artist is not known--a sample of modesty characteristic of the early inventors; for the work upon this plate is as beautiful and elaborate as it is unique at this early date. With the introduction of cross-hatching, used at first directly, horizontally and perpendicularly, we get the _feeling_ of colour and tone in illustrative work which are its most pronounced features at the present day. In this we have advanced, and are still advancing, day by day to a perfection of feebleness, with lack of distinctive character and force. In outline drawing we have not improved since the close of the fifteenth century--to wit, the Poliphili of 1499, where the lines are perfectly modulated to suggest light edges and shadows. [Illustration: ALBERT DÜRER'S APOCALYPSE] We next come to the beautiful work of Albert Dürer, where he uses the cross-hatching diagonally, as it is executed at the present day, with broken lines and dots, where such were required. In fact, this rare artist seems to have had all the tricks of the trade at his command, and to have paused at no device in order to gain his effect. I shall not describe any of his work here, as it is sufficiently well known, with the influence it brought to bear upon illustrative art generally. When taking up the practical side of an art, it is only a waste of time to enumerate all the different workers who may have left their own particular, if not always very prominent, marks in the pages of its history. I would rather call attention, in the short space at my disposal, to the men identified with the different great epochs, such as the unknown outline workers, the men who aimed at tone and colour, dating distinctly from the time of Albert Dürer; the distinctive chiaro-oscuro workers, amongst whom I would exemplify Rembrandt; the purely tone artists such as Turner, the grotesque in Hogarth and Cruikshank; and next take our modern men who carry on the art at the present day, and exemplify a few such prominent workers as Small, Parsons, Barnard, and Abbey, although the army of first-class illustrators is so large at the present day that it becomes a difficult and ungracious task for me to mention names at all. The different stages of progression in illustrative art may be broadly defined after this fashion: the time when artists drew directly on the wood with pencil or pen only, and engravers followed their hard lines; the date when bold effects with Indian ink and Chinese white were introduced, and engravers were permitted to use their own lines, and so became liberated from the trammels, and could first lay claim to being original artists, as well as the men who drew the designs which they cut; the last and most satisfactory stage, when photography stepped in and became the umpire between artist and engraver. In the first stage the engraver was a mechanic pure and simple, unless he drew his own design, or could take the liberty of improving upon the artist's lines. If, however, it was an experienced artist, the engraver simply copied, and did not trouble himself to think much, so long as he got his lines out clean. In the second stage, when he had wash drawings on the block, there was seldom any appeal from the artist; he had, it is true, the option of lightening up his picture on the proof and saving his reputation somewhat by making a few bold and hard lights where his other effect had been lost; but this was all that was left to him, because _his original drawing_ had been cut up. [Illustration: BY CHRISTOPHER JEGHER, AFTER RUBENS] Now the original drawing is seldom destroyed; it stands to the bitter end, and settles any disputes between engraver and artist, because the engraver works only upon a photograph from the original sketch, and has it all along beside him to work from as a copy as well as to confute him if he is a bungler, which is a right and proper state of things; for now the indifferent artist cannot flatter himself or steal the reputation of the skilful engraver, and the unqualified engraver cannot lay his faults on the shoulders of the artist; each tub must stand upon its own bottom. After Albert Dürer, with his delicacy and finish, as well as spirituality and suggestiveness, we come to Rembrandt as the most perfect master of chiaro-oscuro that the world has produced. At the present day we cannot hope to surpass him; we are satisfied if we approach somewhat near to his matchless gradations, depth of shadow, and lustre. There was considerably over a century between these two influences; but it was a progressive century, as the numerous book-plates throughout Europe can show. The school of Dürer gave the illustrator the first real hint about colour; Rembrandt showed how much power may be had out of a flat surface. From Rembrandt to Bewick the merits of the different book plates vary. Nature, however, did not occupy much room in their calculations. Bewick was, perhaps, our first great realist, for all his studies were drawn uncompromisingly from the object itself. Before his advent the illustrators, like the novelists, were content to interest their audience; but after Bewick it was found necessary to study accuracy as well as sentiment and effect, and this we continue and try to improve upon at the present day. Hogarth, as an illustrator, gave a turn to art which it had not before. It is always a pleasant thought to me, as a native of Britain, that, while looking towards Germany and Holland for our early inspiration in illustrative art, we must return to our own shores once again for its revival, to Hogarth, Bewick, and Turner, with Constable (as a painter), for the apostles of that realism, suggestiveness, and satire with which the other nations now strive to lead off. As in literature, so in art, we were the original creators of those styles, to acquire which our students now go to France and Belgium. Shakespeare made Goethe, Schiller, Hugo, and Zola. Constable and Turner created the modern French school of Impressionists; Bewick the realistic draughtsmen; Hogarth the satirists of the pencil. We may be a heavy nation and apt to take a joke sadly, yet we have had our humourists also who have been appreciated by other nations as well as by their own, and perhaps a little more so. Amongst modern men--that is, comparatively modern men--who have had a great influence in book pictures, I would mention, in landscape art, Turner as the first; in caricature, Cruikshank; and in general force of black and white, Doré. These three, I think, I may safely place as having the greatest influence in their different walks. Turner I now quote as the most imitated painter and illustrator that ever lived, which is about the surest test of his individuality that can be given. Individualism as well as mannerism, alas! for the main body of the imitators could pick up only the mannerisms, without getting one touch of the genius which made him great--those bald sunlight effects which somehow remind us after a grotesque and wearisome fashion of the master whom they have vainly attempted to follow. How often have we taken up a volume of steel engravings in the half light, thinking that we had found a collection of Turner's works, until we brought them to the light and realised our mistake at one stunning instant! The invention and poetry were totally lacking, the effect dry and empty, and the design meaningless. Ruskin is quite right to go into raptures over the great genius of Turner, and in this he shows his own perception of true poetic power, inasmuch as he makes a mistake in overestimating Creswick's black-and-white work; but that he should close his eyes to the glaring faults of Turner, or rather, that he should call these faults virtues, is simply reducing the weight of his critical influence until it is not worth using. If he _will_ hold up for praise blemishes which even the most ignorant can see for themselves, how is it possible for them to set him up for a guide in matters which lie beyond their knowledge? The tree work in most of Turner's illustrations and pictures is not drawn from nature, and the trees have no natural characteristic about them--in fact, they are monstrosities in the vegetable sense, and no preacher in the world, no matter how eloquently he may discourse, would be able to convince a gardener that these are the correct sort of trees for these landscapes, or that the pictures would not have been improved by properly-drawn trees in place of these unnatural monstrosities; and, like the realistic gardener, I must also say that Mr. Ruskin could never convince me that a single breath of the poetry would have been lost had Turner drawn real instead of imaginary trees. His ships are not the kind of craft which practical seamen would care to venture beyond the harbour-bar in, if they even cared to risk their lives so far to sea, although they may look very nice and picturesque to a landsman's eye. Stanfield was a much more correct painter of ships, in spite of all that Mr. Ruskin may have written to the contrary, as any sailor could tell him; and, therefore, I contend that the drawings and paintings of Turner would not have lost any of their poetic charm even although he had tried a little more to please the sailors, and given to them ships in which they might have been able to sail and fight. At times, also, in spite of his exquisite drawing, his architectural work is not beyond reproach, and may be pecked at by a very immature and even budding professor of that exact science; yet in this department his faults are trivial compared to his frailties in other departments. The shapeless dolls which he introduced and so often crowded into his compositions (with a few exceptions) are simply atrocious, and would not have been tolerated from an inferior artist. In his illustrative work he is seen at his very worst in this respect; witness most of the plates in Moore's 'Epicurean,' the 'Rivers of France' series, &c. But in his effects he stands unapproachable,--in his dreamy delicacy and subtlety, his skies and water and aerial perspective,--in his suggestiveness, multiplicity of detail and complete unity of the many parts in one harmonious whole: the colour with which his black-and-whites are invested is so thorough that any artist can define each tint with which he would have coloured his black-and-whites, or what he used in the sketches from which so many of his illustrations were made. For these great qualities Mr. Ruskin could not indeed praise him too extravagantly, for these raised him leagues above any other landscapist, before or after him, and might well excuse any other faults in detail; but for all that, no critic has a right to extol in one artist what he would justly condemn in any other. His direct influence on illustrative art made a distinct epoch in this branch. Artists no longer stuck to the hard-and-fast laws which had curtailed them before; they became suggestive and poetic, and no longer confined themselves to the stationary effects of mid-day, when objects are seen photographically, but gave their pictures the atmosphere which they so often lacked before. Turner is the father of the suggestive and impressionist schools, and perhaps one of the ablest of his modern disciples is Alfred Parsons, an artist who has had the genius to pick out the best of his master without taking any of his faults; he has imbibed the poetry and discarded the extravagance, and never in his most dreamy effect does he lose his grip of nature. For the truth of my remarks I would ask you to study two illustrations which lie handy to me at this moment, where the effects are somewhat similar: the 'Rouen' (from the Seine) by J. M. W. Turner; and 'Still Glides the Stream and Shall for Ever Glide' (the River Duddon), by Alfred Parsons, which was engraved in Vol. 75 of 'Harper's Magazine.' I would now select a few of the illustrations from the most modern of our artists and books to show how these lessons of Turner have been utilised in the best sense at the present day, along with that rigid adherence to nature which is one of the most prominent characteristics of the nineteenth century, an exactitude for which we as artists are indebted to the revelations of photography perhaps more than to any advance in our own personal knowledge of nature, for I dare say the artists of past times looked as lovingly and as keenly at nature as we do to-day, only that they had no realistic camera to put them right in their impressions, as we now have. We know from the camera how a lightning-flash really looks, what a horse is like when at full speed, the different actions of a bird's wing when flying, the true shape of each wave in a storm, also the swing of drapery in a high wind, and how men and women really appear when excited; for before the days of instantaneous photography the painter was apt to be deceived, and take as one several motions and effects. When speaking of the direct influence of a great inventive genius like Turner's or Constable's, I may point to works which do not bear the smallest resemblance to their style and mannerisms; for instance, I may point out a piece of work marked by all the characteristics of the modern Flemish or French schools, or I may point to the work of a figure-painter, and quote him as a conscious or unconscious follower of Turner or Constable. It is very likely that the artist has gone to France or Holland for his own art finish; nevertheless, those schools which gave him his finish borrowed their own manipulative qualities from either or both these rival painters. In the new illustrated edition of 'Lorna Doone'--that masterpiece of Blackmore's--I notice nine or ten Devonshire landscapes which are more distinctly Turneresque than many of the modern books exhibit. They are drawn as a rule with fidelity to nature, and engraved with sympathetic tenderness, perhaps in some cases too tenderly and over-finished for the purpose and effect. The most imitative and to me the least satisfactory effect is 'Watchet on a Regatta Day'; the best, as far as sky-work is concerned, is 'Dunkerry Beacon Fire.' In this same volume W. Small exhibits his powers at their full strength in his colossal figures, startling effects, rich shadows, and tender backgrounds; the last picture of all simply swims in the colour and lustre of mid-day. C. W. Wyllie is another free and faithful worker who has had the best of Turner and Constable measured out to him in a French fashion, as most of our modern English work is fashioned. Davidson Knowles displays this also in his dreamy suggestive work; William Hatherell, too; with a host of others whom I cannot mention for want of space. The modern tone or wash work, as exhibited in the 'American Magazine,' 'The Century,' 'Harper's,' 'Scribner's,' and in 'The Magazine of Art,' shows the effect of Turner more and more every day. Fortunately the hard and laborious reign of steel engraving is over; as, I think, nothing can be more unsuitable to book illustrations than steel engraving, and nothing more suitable than a first-class woodcut, when carefully mounted and clearly printed. The steel is always hard and metallic, whereas the wood gives all the tone and colour of the drawing; and now that we have the numerous process inventions to reproduce pen-and-ink drawings, and so give all the characteristics of the artist, it becomes only a waste of time and money to employ an engraver of any talent to produce any other kind of work except tone drawing; and as for the indifferent workmanship which might have satisfied the public before the advent of such magazines and papers as 'The Graphic,' 'Black and White,' 'The English Illustrated Magazine,' 'The Magazine of Art,' with the American works already mentioned, and others of the same class, the less expensive process work, such as I generally use in my own books, is infinitely to be preferred. In speaking of George Cruikshank as an illustrator, I do not refer to his qualities as a caricaturist, as those are sufficiently well known from the numerous works he has left behind him, and of which some of the finest specimens may be possessed for a few shillings by anyone so desirous, in the re-issue of his 'Comic Almanack' published by Chatto & Windus, where in the two bulky volumes may be had this artist's best work during the best eighteen years of his art life. It is his delicate outline and etching qualities that I would call attention to, which have influenced the pen-and-ink workers of the present day. Most of his designs were done on copper, but in a few cases he worked for the engravers, and these do not show up so satisfactorily. Indeed, although I believe it to be a law with 'Punch's' proprietors to have all their pen-work engraved on wood, and thus keep to the old traditions; artistically speaking, I think they are wrong, and suffer accordingly, now that zincography is able to give the artist's work line for line, with less of his delicate work lost and none of his characteristics destroyed, as must be the case in many instances, even with the finest wood-engraver. Indeed, I would rather have some of the best work as given sometimes in 'Ally Sloper's Half Holiday' and 'Pick-me-up,' pure and simple as it is, than I would have the wood-engraving imitations of pen-work in our national comic leader, 'Punch.' 'Punch,' as a high-class paper, appeals to a certain and select order of readers, but in the sense that Cruikshank was comic it is not at all funny. 'Ally Sloper' is the only paper of the present day to whom the peculiar genius of the old caricaturists has descended; his Hogarthian satire and Rabelaisian humour is, in this much-illustrated weekly paper, reproduced in modernised costume and surroundings. Parisian nattiness and smartness blend with the broad buffoonery with which Cruikshank delighted his audience of the past generation. We are not so simple in our tastes (more is the pity); therefore, instead of the horseplay of the clown and harlequin, we have Tootsie Sloper and her erratic but impecunious and disreputable parent, with her own Frivolity friends to disport themselves through the pages; yet, inasmuch as 'The Comic Almanack' faithfully held up, in its own particularly good-natured way, the weaknesses and follies of the day in which it was produced, so does this happy-go-lucky paper exhibit the froth of ours. Ally Sloper is a distinct creation, as I may say also the Elder McNab is; and as the first hits off the shady cockney, so, as a Scotchman, I must own to the grotesque fidelity of the latter. For the past twenty years I have watched the natural progress of the old humbug, Ally, and at the present day can read about his ever-varied doings with undiminished pleasure. To continue such a character without wearying old readers for twenty years is, to me, the surest test of his vitality. Like Rembrandt, Cruikshank's correctness of drawing might be objected to, yet, like that other great master of the needle, no one could surpass him in his knowledge of chiaro-oscuro and balancing of parts; but it is in the subtlety of his lines, and the expression which he was able to give with the least labour, that he stands unapproachable. At the present day those who admire the dexterity with which Mr. Harry Furniss can cram in multitudes of characters into his cartoons for 'Punch,' may only look at one of the crowded scenes on a small scale, such as 'Lord Mayor's Day' in Cruikshank's 'Comic Almanack,' to see where the inspiration comes from. Before the revolution which photography caused in illustrative art, that wonderful native of Strasburg, Gustave Doré, burst upon the art world like a flaming meteor, and gave quite a turn to artists and engravers. Before his coming, draughtsmen had worked on a white ground with a thin first wash, afterwards hatching up the details with a four or six H pencil; but Doré, in his frantic hurry to produce his exuberant fancies, discarded all these slow methods, and used a black ground with a few dashes of light and half-tone to express himself, as in some of his Inferno scenes, or a thin wash of light grey and some lighter touches, as in his Paradise pictures. For example, 'The Vision of Death,' for flimsy yet immensely clever touches of half-light and high-light on a jet-black block: here the figure of Death with his scythe sits astride a reinless horse, with figures of dragons, angels, and demons coming after him like vultures on the wing. This is one of the most effortless yet best balanced pictures in his collection. As Doré worked, I should say he produced this conception in about half an hour, if not less. The figures are rushing along pell-mell amongst dark rolling clouds, and the artist has been in a similar hurry. It is extravagant and theatrical, as all his work was, and sketchy in the extreme: but it is about as good a sample as I can call attention to for this description of art. Doré's system was an extremely simple one, and straightforward. He fixed on a single light, and set to gathering as much shadow about it as possible,--a broad light, in which he placed as many of his characters as he could cram,--and then set to fill out the shadows with as much detail as he could cram into them; for a sample of this, see his 'The Prince in the Banqueting Hall' (I quote from Cassell's Doré Gallery), 'The Mouth of Hell,' 'The Gathering of the Waters,' &c. &c. The composition is of the same naïve character throughout most of his weird and fantastic conceptions. The workmanship, compared with the artistic work of to-day, is atrociously coarse and unsatisfactory, although it suited his original and fevered genius as no other style of work could have done. He flung out his imaginings with a lavish hand, after the manner in which Rubens painted many of his pictures, and he could not wait to finish off; yet, take him all in all, he gave an impulse to book-plate work such as no other illustrator had given before him, and made the workers coming after him more courageous and less afraid of their masses. In his Francesca groups, however, we have not this reproach to make against him, and as for the drawing from which his masterpiece was painted, or which was drawn from his picture, we can only stand and admire. This is a perfect poem, and lifts his pencil from the ruck of his other wreckage as much as the few exquisite lines which relate that romantic episode rise out of the dreary monotony and catalogue of woes which the Italian poet Dante treats us to in his faulty Inferno. This Doré Gallery is not the book I would recommend a young artist to have beside him as a guide unless he has been cramping his hand and mind over such examples as Bewick; yet to anyone getting too finicky in his work a brief study of Doré will do the same good that a short course of scene-painting will do the landscape-painter; it will set him free, and give him a little more 'go.' In such pictures as 'Samson destroying the Philistines' he will learn how to make a vast crowd on a small scale as well as, if not better than, from any other source. Doré worked always at a furious pace and without much meditation; his memory was so retentive that he could reproduce, or rather translate, whatever he once looked upon. I believe he took no notes or sketches, but trusted to his wonderful memory entirely. I have been told that he went through Spain when preparing for his 'Don Quixote' at express speed; that he painted his 'Christian Martyr' picture in six hours, and did not retouch it. Salvator Rosa did the same with his work, painted a picture between daylight and dark, and composed a poem when the lamps were lit. Doré could not paint directly from the model or from nature, as all true artists ought to do, or else _force themselves_ to do. A student of mine was once sketching outside when Doré came upon him and asked to have a try at his sketch. My pupil was working in oil at the time, and, in about five minutes after Doré had taken the brushes in his hand, he returned them (with the oil and turpentine running down the handles, and the canvas in a hopeless mess) with an impatient groan. When a boy I met him once in London and raised him to the seventh heaven of delight by my enthusiasm over his 'Christ leaving the Prætorium.' Doré never ceased being a boy; but he was a very extravagant youngster. What an overpowering crowd of lions he gives us in his 'Strange Nations slain by the Lions of Samaria'! There were enough in that circumscribed space to demolish an empire, almost as many lions as the 'Daily Graphic' correspondent, the daring 'Randolph,' encountered during his late trip to Africa: 'The glade appeared to be alive with them.' Doré drew directly on the wood, as did all artists of his time, and as I also did when I commenced illustrative work, and by his example taught us brush-work instead of laborious pencil-work--_i.e._ we _painted_ our subject, with perhaps the exception of a few finishing touches with a fine brush, on to the block, choosing a light or dark tone for the groundwork, as the subject required; and the less we did in the way of finish, or rather pencil strokes, the better the engraver liked our work and the better he worked himself. It is eighteen years ago since I did my last drawing directly on the wood, and I for one was not sorry when photography did this part of the work for me, for after that I could work as I had been accustomed to do with my sketches, on paper and cardboard. To Mr. Bolton is due the honour of being the inventor of printing by photography on to the wood, and this invention of his gave the biggest push forward to book-work that it ever had. Formerly when an artist had to paint his subject on the block, he was forced to hold his brush and not lay on too much colour, or else the engraver could not cut through his crust of Chinese white without danger of taking off large scales. He had also to be careful not to wet the block too much, as that would spoil it. The block sucked in the moisture like blotting paper if he painted thinly; so that this, with a hundred other troubles, curbed his dash very seriously. Now we can pile on the paint as much as ever we like to get up our effect, and leave adroit brush marks all over our original. The good engraver likes the bold dash and characteristic brush-work of the painter, and I must say he imitates it with rare skill and sympathy. The photographic print on his block reproduces all these eccentricities of the artist, and gives the appearance of the lumpy lights without troubling the engraver to cut through any crust, for the film on the block is infinitesimal in thickness. He works away at that film without any unnecessary vexation, with the double advantage of having the artist's sketch before him to study from as he goes along; the result of all this being that the public have the opportunity of comparing the artist's original work with the engravings, when they are shown in exhibitions; and also the benefit of purchasing the original sketches for their smoking-rooms or libraries; while the publisher or artist has the decided advantage of being able to get some more money for the designs, instead of having them totally destroyed by the engraver's chisel--a boon all round which we owe to Mr. Bolton and his timely invention. I have often been asked how a book ought to be illustrated, and I wish now to answer that question to the best of my artistic ability. When a tradesman, a plumber for instance, is asked by a foolish proprietor how many pipes he ought to lay on to his new property, it would not be unnatural if even the honestest of that mysterious craft were to reply, 'As many as you can afford, sir; the more the better!' Perhaps I ought to go on that safe rule also; but as a foolish artist, with a rigid sense of propriety, I must sink my own interest and regard the book only as something outside myself. My opinion is, that if a book is to be illustrated with more than a frontispiece and vignette, it ought to be illustrated thoroughly throughout. It ought to be an _édition de luxe_, or else a book with only a frontispiece and vignette. I think that every book bound in cloth ought to have a frontispiece at least; if possible, also a vignette for the title-page. When I publish a book I always try to persuade my publishers to go to this expense. If it is a novel of a sensational or exciting nature it does not require any more. The tasteful reader, when he takes up a book, likes to be introduced to it with a well-drawn, finely-executed frontispiece; he naturally looks at that first because it opens first to him. He lingers for a space over that frontispiece, and is either attracted or repelled by it. If it is a bald, commonplace group of figures, without action or sentiment, something that he is in the habit of seeing on every hand, if he is artistic or romantic he will be indebted to that frontispiece; for, taking that as an index to the character of the work, if he does not want commonplace, he will lay it down respectfully and seek out some other amusement. If the frontispiece has been drawn by a sympathetic artist, the interest of the reader is touched straight off and he turns next to the title-page. Here he may find something to linger over, a dreamy vignette _à la_ Turner, or an artistic commonplace which may suit his purpose. I prefer, as a book collector and a member of the Ex-Libris Society, a vignette either quaint and unique, or else one dreamy, soft, and suggestive, something of the style of the best editions of Sir Walter Scott, or of the old world of art, such as Walter Crane can give us, or a delicious Birket Foster, a Turner, or a Bewick; something which will tempt us, providing the binding is good enough, to paste our book-plate inside the cover and put it tenderly among the other kind friends of our solitude on our shelves, _after_ we have read it--something, in fact, which may tempt us to order from the publishers a special copy bound in morocco, so that we may honour the artist who has delighted our eyes, as Esther did Ahasuerus. As a good man who has gained an audience by a favourable introduction I would leave the author to do the rest. When once the reader has started on the story, he (the reader) does not feel grateful for any distraction. If the book is worth reading he wants to get right on with it without any interruption; if, however, it fails to interest him, he will lay it down after a few chapters and most likely send it on to some friend, or lend it out, or bestow it upon some charitable institution, or sell it with other works of the same kind to a second-hand bookseller. In a scientific work or a book treating on special subjects which strictly require illustrations, so that the reader and author may be _en rapport_, the illustrations may be few or many as the text requires. This may be left to the author and the publisher entirely, because the reader lays aside his artistic sense of unity for the sake of the information he requires. A properly illustrated book should be illustrated on every page. My ideal of such a book is to have to every chapter a head and tail piece, with marginal designs, running up and down wherever the text appears, in pen-and-ink or etching, for I hold that only outline drawing can harmonise with type as highly ornamental as possible. No tone-drawing should ever be introduced where type appears; but each chapter or poem ought to be separated by a full-page plate in tone, wood-engraving if possible, or the best process tone-work. As much attention should be paid to the index and fly-leaves as to the other portions, whilst the binding should be in perfect harmony. So the _édition de luxe_ will be looked at and admired with the respectful care shown to a lady at a ball, while the book with frontispiece and vignette will be fondled over as affectionate husbands ought to fondle their well-dressed, but not over-dressed, wives. [Illustration: A PANEL OF BLACK AND GOLD] CHAPTER VIII _ART IN MINOR DIRECTIONS_ THE ART OF GRAINING [Illustration: C]HARLES READE, in one of his smart romances, makes his Bohemian hero learn the art of graining in an _hour or two_, sufficiently well to be able to go about the country and make a good living by giving lessons to and painting show panels for the master painters. This lively novelist, with his customary happy Hibernian manner of jumping at conclusions, reveals his own ignorance of the subject he had taken up, by giving the reader minute details as to the way his hero worked. Thus, he landed at a country shop, had a panel planed and prepared, and grained it _the same day_, getting his cash and the admiration of the country house-painter, and striking another village or town the next day. I do not know who gave Charles Reade this information, but that it was the most wanton nonsense any apprentice in the trade might have proved to him in five minutes; indeed, if he had used his own eyes when the painters were working in any of his residences, he must have seen that the feat was impossible, even for the smartest hero of his collection. Ergo, Charles Reade, on this particular occasion, sat down to write about a matter of which he knew nothing whatever, however much he may have probed into other subjects. Let me explain how far he erred, for the benefit of those outside the trade. A panel, which is intended to be a show panel, or indeed, any panel, when it leaves the joiner's hands planed and dressed, has to undergo the following preparation before it can be grained. It first gets what is called the _priming_--i.e. a thin coat of lead, oil, and turpentine with drier, which will take, in warm weather, a full day and night before it is in a condition for the second stage. In winter weather it may take two or more days. If any knots are in the wood, these have to be coated with a preparation called _knotting_ before even this priming is put on, which makes the delay longer. When the first coat or priming is dry or hard enough to stand being sand-papered, it is then made smooth by this process, the holes are filled up with putty, and the second coat, a mixture of white lead tinted to the colour of the intended graining-ground, and used a little thicker than the priming, is laid on and allowed to dry thoroughly, fifteen or twenty-four hours being the shortest space of time for this second stage before it is ready for the third. Again, when hard enough it is sand-papered and reputtied, and then it gets the third coat. In cheap jobs this might be the graining-ground, but in the case of a show panel, a fourth coat would be required, or perhaps a fifth, before that panel would be ready for the grainer; thus four to six or eight days would be the time wanted before that panel was ready to operate upon. The panel being ready, the grainer would commence with his imitation; the first day he would grain, if oak, with oil graining; if soft woods, he would use distemper colour, which would be thinly varnished over, and so require at least another day to dry. The next day would be devoted to over-graining with distemper and varnishing. Thus that panel would take the smartest workman from six to ten days from the hour it was planed until it was finished, as any practical reader will bear me out in saying. There is a legend related about one of Murillo's pictures, the 'Virgin and Child,' of the same description, and with about as much probability. It is related that once upon a time Murillo had been well entertained by an abbot, and in returning his thanks for the hospitality received, he expressed his regret that he had no canvas with him, otherwise he would have repaid the kindness with a picture. The abbot at once presented the painter with his own table-napkin, and told him to use that, which Murillo did, producing in the same day a picture which for richness and effect he never himself surpassed. I will not say that Murillo did not use that napkin as a canvas: I only assert positively that he never painted that picture upon it the same day, for the simple reason that it would have to be primed, either with distemper or oil, and receive several coatings, each coat requiring to dry, be smoothed down, and recoated before ever he started painting, even if a stretcher was not made for it. He may have painted the picture in one day after the napkin had been prepared, but I venture to say, without fear of contradiction from any practical artist-colourman, that Murillo was the guest of that hospitable abbot for several days after the napkin had been presented to him. Although that autocrat of art, John Ruskin, has declared vehemently against the imitation of woods and marbles as an art, yet as a protest against his hasty and unprofessional verdict, and as one who has spent years in acquiring the art and teaching it afterwards to my house-painter students, I now take up this subject as a very important one, and will try, as far as a practical teacher can put them upon paper, to give a few of my own methods in this branch of art, for the sake of those whom it may concern. Let me suppose that my readers are students and young house-painters or amateurs, who have not had the opportunity of getting instruction in this highest branch of their trade. I suppose, however, that they know enough of the preliminaries to be able to prime and prepare their panels, and have made them all ready for the purpose of trying to grain upon them. THE ART OF OAK IMITATION--OAK GRAINING We will take oak first, as it is the most generally used in the business, as well as one of the hardest to master, although as an imitation it is more mechanical and less truly artistic than any of the other imitations. The ground required for oak is buff colour, either light or dark, according as the age of the wood is intended to be represented. To make this light tint, a little yellow ochre, with white lead, drier, oil, and turpentine, are all that are required; while if it is very new wood, the ground should be the colour of rich cream; if old oak, the ground colour can be darkened according to taste with Roman ochre, light red, and burnt umber. One precaution must be strictly observed if the grainer wishes to produce clean work, and that is, to be sure that his ground is perfectly firm and dry before he begins, so that this ground is not likely to be torn or rubbed off with the combing or veining. I like a ground to be dry but not too hard or oily, as when dry, but soft, it will produce more feeling work, particularly if the grainer is using the most useful of all his tools, the thumb-nail. A grainer's thumb, like a miller's, has a great deal to do with the making of sham oak; therefore you may easily distinguish a professional oak-grainer by the length, strength, and tender care which he lavishes on his thumb-nail. It ought for this purpose to be kept long, and carefully rounded and smoothed. The tools required for this work are a box of assorted combs, two or three pieces of soft cork cut with notches, plenty of soft cotton or linen rags, and that properly trimmed thumb-nail. He will also require for oak-over-graining the same brushes which he uses in the soft woods; camel-hair softeners, grainers and over-grainers, with wipers-out and sash-tools, &c. The next thing he will make up is his scumble. This is composed of burnt umber, yellow ochre, drier, boiled oil, a little beat-up putty or whiting, and a small quantity of water. By mixing all this up together you produce something like a stained megilp, and may thin it with oil and water as you go on. A little of this goes a long way, as it has to be spread over very sparingly and equally. Get a good specimen of real oak, well coursed with _champs_ or 'veins,' and set it up before you where the light will fall best upon it; then, after rubbing down your grounded panel with fine sandpaper, and dusting it carefully, you will put a little 'scumble' upon it with your sash-tool, and spread that over equally and thinly with a larger brush until the panel is covered. Take your largest toothed comb, and trail it steadily down the panel from top to bottom, wiping the comb carefully after every passage. It is better to trail the large comb in straight lines, and afterwards use the smaller or finer toothed combs with a shake to produce wavy lines. When you have passed the combs over the panel in this way, first the coarse comb straight, next the medium size with a wave, and lastly, in portions, the finest size comb, your panel is ready for the artistic portion of the work. Combing does not take long to learn if the worker is cleanly in his habits, but to make a natural and pleasing variety in 'champing' or veining takes a great deal of practice; indeed, unless the worker has artistic gifts, he will never be able to master this part of the work perfectly. A young grainer ought to keep a sketch-book always in his pocket, and wherever he sees a fine bit of work, make a careful drawing with his pencil of it; he will thus be able to get variety in the markings of his wood. He ought also to practise constantly when he is at home on a panel with his thumb-nail at _rat tails_, so as to get dexterity and grace, because there is a vast amount of freehand drawing required in this portion of the work. The first thing he has to study is the composition of that panel; the large markings come first. Here he may linger tenderly for a time with his rag-covered nail wiping out square, oblong, and round patches, and softening and half cleaning out parts with his narrowest and finest toothed comb, also rag-covered. At this portion of the work the true artist comes in with his manipulations, like the manipulations of the etching printer with his ink on the plate; and I am positive that if John Ruskin had but tried to copy a piece of real oak with the same tenderness and patience with which he has so often copied old masters, he would never have dared to decry the art of graining. As in etching, perfect cleanliness and an unlimited supply of white, well-worn rags are indispensable to a grainer if he wishes to succeed in his art; yet, as the professional grainer is generally a dashing-looking fellow with artistically long and bushy tresses and Vandyke beard and moustachios, the maid-servant's heart generally succumbs to his charms before even he has unpacked his traps, so that he is not at all likely to run short of clean rags during his campaign. If any of my readers will take up and examine a piece of polished oak, they will be surprised to see what a multitude of strange devices there are in it; cabalistic signs and figures which are for ever varying as they shift about in the light; strong markings in places, with a crowd of slender flourishes trailing away from the bolder designs. These slender flourishes are vulgarly termed '_rat-tails_.' Now, to comb a panel properly requires some practice and taste, but to be able to wipe out these rat-tails requires a great deal of practice and a greater degree of discretion, so as neither to crowd the panel nor make it appear meagre; the bolder figures with the softened parts require about as much real talent as is expended upon making an original sketch from nature, and a great deal more than would be wanted over the copying of an old master. The comber and rat-tail draughtsman might easily qualify himself to copy an old master, but the adroit inventor of the bolder '_champs_,' which occupy the centre of the panel, is already qualified to produce a monochrome direct from nature; if gifted with the colour-faculty, and if his power of making these 'champs' prove that he has mastered form, he might aspire to any height on the artistic ladder. The panel being combed, grained, and cleaned, is left to dry, probably one or two days, as the weather chances to be, after which the grainer proceeds with the finishing off. If he has been imitating a piece of real wood, like the artist with his picture, he will select one of the many changes which the different lights reveal to him on that bit of wood: thus, where the light strikes direct, the figures will shine out whitely; but out of the range of light they will appear dark. The grainer who is an artist will take as his guide the light falling from the windows, and where they touch directly upon the doors or dadoes or skirting-boards, there he will place his highest lights, leaving the darker portions to be put on during the second stage. If it is a door he is graining, he will put the 'champs' and rat-tails in the panels, plain comb the upright 'styles' or sides, and make knot-work on the cross-bars; to make knots he uses his finger with a dab first, then with his notched cork _draws_ the outer waves which recede from the central knot, finishing off with a few flourishes with his nail. When this is done he will soften the whole effect by trailing his finest comb over the cork-work. To do this with more artistic effect he will use a comb of which he has purposely broken the teeth at intervals. Every grainer breaks his own combs and cuts his own peculiar notches in his corks to suit his own fancy, and, like a good painter with his brushes, he does not like any other worker to use them. The over-graining may be finished in one working, or if the job is an expensive one, continued, in a very subtle spirit, over several workings. For this he requires in water-colour Vandyke brown, raw and burnt siennas, a little blue-black, some stale beer, a sponge, a piece of chamois leather, one over-grainer or more, a couple of wipers, sash-tool, camel-hair softener, and a few sable or camel-hair pencils or 'riggers.' The stale beer he uses as a medium to keep the door or panel from 'sissing,' or running off in globules--i.e. to make the distemper colours lie flat and cover the oil paint below; also to act as a fixative when the pigments dry. Before the grainer begins to work he soaks his chamois leather in the stale beer and washes his work carefully over; this stops the 'sissing' tendency. He next dips his sash-tool charged with beer into his water-colours. Vandyke brown will be the tint mostly used in oak, although as he proceeds he may require in portions touches of raw or burnt sienna, or where he wants to represent the effect of damp and green in the wood, a little blue-black or even a touch of Antwerp blue. The over-grainer must be an artist, or he had better shade his work plainly with Vandyke brown, and do as little over-graining as possible. He will next with his sponge wipe out lights here and there, and with his scumblers or over-grainers trail them over the underwork, softening the harshnesses out discreetly with his softener. With his wipers--i.e. short stumpy flat brushes--he will take out straight horizontal lights here and there on the styles, draw shadows together with his softener on the cross-bars, and generally work or _fake_ about so as to produce the effect of light and shadow. When this is dry, which will be in about half an hour, the work is ready for the finishing stages, the pencilling of shadow veins and 'champs,' and loose over-graining. He uses his riggers or long-haired pencils with a free but careful hand, still keeping in his mind how the lights from the windows are likely to strike upon his work. After this is dry, he takes his longest over-grainer, and having charged it with a thin wash of colour, he first draws a hair comb through it to separate the hairs, and next passes this wash in tremulous lines over his work, _where required_, softening the lines adroitly with his softener as he goes along. The work is now ready for the final stage of all, the coat of varnish. This is how a piece of imitation oak is wrought up by a skilful workman, very similar to the way in which a drawing or a painting is produced. If the workman is hurried, through cheapness of price, or ignorance, the work may be like the abominations which so often greet us on common doors, or those awful oleographs which decorate the walls of workmen's cottages; but if well done the result is such that it must gratify the eye of any lover of nature, because he can then look upon the very best sample, or rather translation, of the wood, in the same sense that a fine picture is the translation of the finest and most select portions of nature. My friend, and in many points my revered master, John Ruskin, writes about the degradation of work of this description. I protest against this view as erroneous. There can be no more degradation in imitating a brass kettle or a cut cabbage than there can be in imitating the Alps or the ocean in its different phases, if the imitation is a conscientious one; and certainly, if this is permitted on a canvas, why should it be condemned on a door, or a mantelpiece? Get the very best of the real article if it is possible, of course, in preference to the imitation; but rather than get a faulty slab of marble or an uninteresting panel of wood, try to rest content with the imitation and selection of the rarest and best. I would personally much sooner live with sham virtue than open vice; we may live on and glean happiness from the first, but we can get nothing save disgust and misery from the last. Besides, if truth and reality are to be the standards set up, art must be abolished at one fell swoop, for art is the embodiment of falsehood, as falsehood is the imitation of truth. The portrait is not the man or woman any more than that false oak panel is the wood it represents, or the shilling any more than the symbol of the pleasure or comfort it stands for. We are all dealing in shams and equivalents; even the outside landscape which charms us so greatly is not reality--it is only a combination of light and optical illusion. THE IMITATION OF SOFT WOODS Under this heading I take maple, walnut, mahogany, satin-wood, and all the other foreign and home woods which serve to decorate our houses and ornaments, for the same materials and tools are required in them all. MAPLE WOOD The ground of this wood, like light oak, should be of a delicate cream tint. I think the imitation of maplewood is one of the most delightful and artistic of all; there is so much variety in it and so much play for the fancy; it also liberates the hand of an artist as much as scene-painting. Some painters do this work with oil-colours and spoil the whole pleasure of the work. I must insist that all soft woods ought to be worked in water-colour, because oil cannot give the delicacy of the more transparent medium. Begin as I have already written about over-graining, with the stale beer and chamois leather. Then dash in your ground, composed of a thin mixture of Vandyke brown and raw sienna. You will have your colours placed in separate pots, so as to dip your sash-tool into one or the other tint, always using your stale beer as a medium. Pitch your sash-tool, fully charged with moisture, about your panel with free and reckless splashes, twirling it about in parts, until the whole effect appears like a thunderstorm in sepia. Then, while it is still wet, fold your hand in a loose way and knock the backs of the fingers slackly and flatly against the panel, making long dabs all over it, yet more leading to the centre towards which you have drawn your shadows with your sash-tool, somewhat after the form of a tree with the branches spreading out. Soften these flat dabs, and also the coarse work of the sash-tool, lightly and delicately with your softener; then take the tips of your four fingers and dab the 'eyes' about, softening these off still more delicately with the 'badger' or softener. After this is dry, proceed to over-grain it as I have described in the oak, only with your pencils accentuate some of the eyes where you think it is needful. The styles and cross-styles you must do according to fancy, wiping out parts, trailing the over-grainer over other portions, putting in an eye where wanted for variety, or a knot, yet taking great care not to crowd the work; and always bear in mind that, although knots may look attractive to you, they are considered blemishes from a cabinet-maker's point of view. When you have done as much as you can, varnish. MAHOGANY AND WALNUT These two woods are manipulated in exactly the same way, a groundwork dashed in with the sash-tool in the form of a tree, and wiped out and over-grained. Mahogany is simpler in the over-graining and softer than walnut. For mahogany you require burnt sienna and Vandyke brown over a salmon-tinted ground; for walnut, Vandyke brown alone, over a yellow or buff ground. In mahogany most of your work is done with the badger or camel-hair softener, with just a little over-graining. With walnut most of the work will be accomplished with the over-grainer and riggers or pencils, after the groundwork is dry; if portions are stippled with the badger in the first working it will be all the better. To stipple is to hold the badger or sash-tool firmly sideways, and strike smartly against the panel with it; this gives the appearance of a great deal of minute work. When over-graining, study how the lines run in a real piece of walnut, and try to imitate them closely with the knots. Satin-wood and most other woods are imitated in the same way, with distemper colour and stale beer. Practice, with perhaps a few practical lessons, is all that is required, provided the worker has adaptability, to produce a good grainer. ON THE IMITATION OF MARBLES--BLACK AND GOLD I take this marble first, partly because it is my favourite marble, and partly because it leads directly from the working in of soft woods, as I like to see it done. Many painters lay in their ground with black in oil, and when dry go over that again with yellow and white, also in oil. This is the way to do it cheaply and inartistically, and, therefore, not the way that I would recommend as an artist. My groundwork for this marble would be exactly the same as that used for oak--a rich cream colour. Over this I would splash and stipple about roughly in water, or rather stale beer, colour, a changing coat of raw and burnt sienna, with an adroit blending of Vandyke brown; in fact, produce the wild thunderstorm effect in warm tones that I did on my maple panel in the first working. Then, while the water-colour hurricane was drying, I would get my hen's feathers and hog-haired softener in order, with the fitches and colours required; for the next stage, as it is done in oil-colour, a hog-hair softener is required. Then for materials. A hog-hair softener, two or three small flat brushes--i.e. fitches, with a small sable brush, half a dozen stiff hen's feathers, a mixture of Japan gold size, turpentine and oil, and some lamp-black and white-lead. The black and white spread upon your palette separately from each other, the medium make thin with the turpentine, something in this proportion: one-third oil, two-thirds turpentine, and a sixth portion of Japan gold size. The rust markings or gold-tinted veins in this marble usually take the form of a shallow, half-dried stream of water meandering amongst boulders and pebbles; fill in these boulders and pebbles, large and small, with your black paint, leaving the underground like a rich golden stream to follow its course between them. Then, when you have done this to your satisfaction, blend a little white with the black so as to produce an unequal grey over the black markings; soften very slightly so as not to break the sharp edges, which must be kept firm and hard at this stage; next take a sharp-pointed stick--i.e. your brush-handle will do if it is pointed like a blunt pencil, and scratch out some small veins through the larger masses. By using the Japan gold size the paint will very soon _set_ and become 'tacky'--that is, when you touch it with your finger it will be found sticky, therefore dry enough for the next working, the scumbling with the feathers. Dip a feather into the thin mixture and draw it across the white so as to get a thin film; flip this in a free way over the marble, half obscuring some parts, leaving others clear and hard, and only a thin semi-transparent and milky-like film over other portions; soften these films as they run, and the result will be an exceedingly rich effect, like shells and fossils and grey veins passing over and through the black and gold. When this is dry, varnish it, and you will have produced a marble which for richness and lucidity cannot well be surpassed. The method which I describe is old-fashioned, and rather slow, but where time and prices are not to be considered, it is well worth the extra labour in the satisfaction it gives to the worker, and its infinite superiority over the other method, which will always lack purity, richness of detail, and all the other added beauties of variety; for to paint light colours over black is always bad form, and a mistake, as the black absorbs the light colours and gives them a dull and heavy appearance. DOVE MARBLE This is another lovely marble if properly done, as it is filled with fossils of all kinds, and the imitation of these natural curiosities is an artistic task which brings out the best qualities of the grainer. Generally the ground for this is stone-colour, and the materials are the same as for the black and gold marble--i.e. black and white in oil-colour. Spread over the slab or mantelpiece a thin and carelessly mixed blending of the black, white, and medium, so that when it is covered the ground shines generally through that scumbly coating with portions all irregular; then take a long studying look at your work, and with your sash-tool put in the dark grey portions loosely, leaving the covered ground for the light as you might if painting a picture; rub in your larger masses roughly; soften these off lightly, and next proceed with a feather smeared with white to put on your light veins; again soften with your hog-hair tool, and with another feather, dipped amongst the black, make dark veins, crossing light and dark where needful, until the effect is all filmy and delicate. Finish off with little touches and flecks of black and white on your feather-tips, so as to produce stronger veins, remains of fish, shells, and the other fossilised life with which this marble is crowded. The Italian marbles, such as sienna and other varieties, are done in a similar way, with the difference of colour. All marbles, with the exception of the first working of black and gold, are worked in oil-colour, although, of course, as in wall-papers, they may be worked, after a style, in body colours, and when done in distemper they are finished off while the colour is wet. Granites may be imitated either by sparking the colours on by striking the charged brush lightly with a stick, or else dabbing them on with a sponge; a nice blending of the two methods produces the most natural effects. I often pass painters producing on shop fronts marbles of green, blue, and red, which, although pretty, represent no earthly stones. I have stopped to ask them what they were making, but they could not classify it or give it a name. They had learnt to work from other grainers, and never paused to inquire what they were producing. Many of these grainers never studied a piece of real marble in their lives, and possibly would not like the sober reality if they did come across a specimen or so in a museum. The subtleties and time-markings would mean nothing to them, in the same sense that a real bit of Nature would not appeal to the man who had spent his efforts in copying flashy oleographs. Now, this sort of graining is very abominable to me, as I dare say it would be to John Ruskin, or any other diligent searcher after truth. Every grainer ought to know where the specimen he is imitating or reproducing comes from, and what has caused those veins and markings which he is putting in; then he will be able to instruct the masses and satisfy the botanist and geologist: for as he paints he will be preaching a sermon on the stone, and writing out a record of the world's history before man came on the scene. He will not then put meaningless figures into his marble, but every flick and curl of his feather will sketch in the broken remains of an extinct race: and in this way we distinguish between the artist-grainer and the unreasoning mechanic. Alma Tadema has shown how an artist can imitate marble, in his Roman masterpieces, by his care and tender manipulation. He has raised the art of the grainer to a very lofty pedestal indeed. In the Royal Academy Exhibition, where crowds gather round his antique revivals, it is not so much the noble Roman men and maidens who force the cries of admiration from them, as the broad spaces of white and coloured marbles which predominate in these compositions; those time-stained, rusted blocks, with the slight suggestion of a flaw here and there; the iron-stains showing through the subdued lustre of the Roman limestone; the polished pillars and inlaid floors all kept under control, with the veins offered only as an apology at rare intervals. This art of fidelity to nature and rigid restraint have made him the grand master-grainer of the age. And yet I have seen as fine specimens of imitation marble as ever Tadema produced on his canvases wrought upon a show panel, only that I have not seen the same masterly modesty and restraint. The producer of the show panel, as a rule, exerts himself too much, and attempts to put into one panel the results of a whole palace, and that is the mistake which makes his work appear superficial and unreal. Alma Tadema puts no more work in his slab than what appeared in the slab he copied so literally, because he never permits his imagination to run away with him, while he has nature to guide him, and that is the secret of his wonderful success. And this example I would impress upon every grainer, young and old, who may aspire to produce something great in his own line of life; for the work on a door, a dado, shutter, skirting-board, or mantelpiece, is of as much importance as the fresco on the plaster above--those frescoes which have been the pride and glory of the best of our old masters. The grainer who desires to be remembered must possess himself with the true diffidence of the uncompromising realist. After he has mastered the freehand of his craft--i.e. the technicality and manipulation, he must set diligently to learn the causes for those effects which he has been trying to imitate, and aim at giving a specimen as free from blemishes as possible--that is, he must give his patron only the most perfect specimens of the stone or wood which he is striving to realise. He must learn that a block of white marble which has stains and veins in it is rejected by the sculptor and the monumental mason as faulty. In the cemetery at Stirling there is a very lovely piece of sculpture-work, representing an angel watching over Margaret Wilson, the virgin martyr, which was purchased comparatively cheap by the donor, William Drummond, because it had a flaw or vein in the knee. If this statue had not been thus blemished, it would have been considered perfect, and much more valuable. Veins and blemishes in white marble are often caught at by the grainer to emphasise his work and make it more marble-like, but the great grainer will try his hardest to make his work look like marble without introducing this blemish. The other marbles are easy if he will but be faithful to his copy, and guard himself from exaggeration and the crowding in of details--the rocks upon which so many split. But when the grainer can produce a panel of white marble to look so like marble that it can deceive the spectator and yet be flawless, then he may take his seat amongst those immortals who painted fruit to deceive the birds; and whatever any other critic may say against it, I hold that he is a great and a true painter. [Illustration] CHAPTER IX _DRESS AND DECORATION_ DRESS [Illustration: O]F all the many matters which require reform in this world, I place the two above mentioned, and, while holding my own opinions with respect, demand of everyone to reverence his or her opinions with equal respect. I think that we dress altogether wrongly, and would point out as an artist to artists the ugliness of it: to the broad masses whom we delight to serve, the folly and unwholesomeness of it. I hold that we eat and drink altogether wrongly, and would like to point out as an artist to artists the brain-clogging effect of it: to the people, the expense and _unmanliness_ of our customs. I would fain, while exposing my own follies, hold up a mirror to others, showing as a warning where I cannot be a guide. In decoration, my second subject, I would fain point you directly to nature; look straight at her, each with the desiring eyes of a lover, and she will satisfy you all. I suppose, in spite of the melancholy groans of some and the cynical snarls of other dyspeptic subjects, that we all agree, without exception, to love this life when we can have it tolerably free from pain, or the pinching of poverty, and find this much-abused world quite good enough for us and our purposes. The weather is never altogether just what we would like it to be: it is either too wet or too dry, too hot or too cold, to be exactly to our taste; the direction of the wind bothers us--in fact, there is a happy medium which we cannot strike; and yet, with all the shortcomings, I doubt if there is a single sane Christian who would like to go to heaven one second before his or her time. Of course, we except the unfortunate insane, who rush away on the spur of an evil moment. For my own part, I wish I could live a thousand years, and envy the constitutions of the antediluvians, who could take time to do their work properly, although I will confess to moments--neither few nor far between--when I make myself as miserable and disagreeable as anyone could imagine, and yet live. The earth is all right about me, the weather is passable, the machinery which moves me along would be perfection, if custom, and fashion, and general _debility of will_ would only let it alone, and permit it to do its work in its own way, and with its own conditions. Nature endows us with tastes as simply correct as the horse's; and custom teaches us to endure, with martyr persistence, habits that are as difficult and dangerous to learn as they are hard to break from. Nature bestows upon us skin all over our body, like that upon our face, and custom covers up part of it, until it is so sensitive that it cannot be exposed; and fashion bids us bare it at the wrong moment, or else load it with all kinds of unwholesomenesses. True Art stands by the side of Nature, both ridiculed, both lamenting; while Fashion and Custom, ever capricious, ride on triumphant. For example, take the feet: I prefer to raise my eyes from the earth--to begin, as men begin to build houses, from the groundwork upwards. We muffle them in wool or cotton, and cramp them inside the stiffest of tanned skins--dead skins over living skins--and think that this can be healthy; we shape them according to a fashion--square, round, or pointed toes--never according to nature and the foot which we ought to imitate, therefore not at all according to true art, which must follow after nature, never after fashion, which must always be utterly false and ugly until it emanates directly from nature, and then there can be no god Fashion; for every man and woman will create their own ideal from themselves, and not from any brainless _demi-monde_, and their modesty will not run counter to the virtue which the great Creator planted within the human mind, nor shame be created over what He said was well done. We hobble about within our wrappings with feet that swell and sweat and steam unwholesomely, bathing them when they have become intolerable with the exhalations from the living skin, and the impurities which they have drawn out of the dead hides. We hobble about with our raised heels and our square toes, admiring one another, or envying one another, for the smallness and the tightness of the cramping, never revealing, till some one tramps upon them, the painful fact of bunions and corns, which, in silence and with Spartan endurance, we are growing all to ourselves, in order to reach the ideal that the world has set up for us to follow. A host of other ailments are the lively produce of our efforts; but, as beauty is my aim, I will pass them over, content to regard the ugly abortion which that most lovely portion of a faultless machine has become. The overpowering influence of fashion even on well-balanced minds must not be overlooked. When crinolines were in vogue, even men of taste were weak enough to admire the fearsome abomination--at least, they admired the creature inside that circumference, to which usage made them blind. None of us admire the Chinese ideal of a foot, yet we are ready to grow poetic over the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of a shoemaker; we sing to the boot, for of course it would be impossible, not to say imprudent, to sing about the foot. Once I lived near a woman who had lost her nose. At first I thought this a great disfigurement, and did not like to look in her face, but by degrees I grew to lose the first horror, and I dare say might have grown to think the want an improvement in the way of faces, had I lived near her _long enough_. We admire the Greek ideal, because the Greeks had perfect untrammelled nature to copy. Their models were not curbed by stays or tight-lacings; their training was severe, and their eyes were accustomed to flowers. Luxury and sloth were crimes in Greece; in the high times of Greece, I mean, when simplicity was admired, and slaves were the Sybarites, naked men and women vied to show perfect limbs, not rich attire. The barbarians were the fashion-mongers. What so like the classic ideal as the Highland woman who puts on boots at the church-door, and doffs them again with the benediction?--useless to her amongst her native hills--an agony endured, because the poor thing imagines that it looks respectable and religious-like. What so unlike this idea as the fashionable votary, while she strangles and strains to get out of the superfine, creaseless kid cages? Did they look like mice peeping in and out as she tripped (limped) along according to the poet? Who wants to see mice under petticoats? Who, with poetry or taste, cares to see feet that can be compared to mice? And can those long, splay, aristocratic, high-heeled, superbly-arched, pointed-toed, tightly, so tightly-fitting, importations from tinsel Paris be called feet? Alas! they are all that the envied, favoured one has to represent what God Almighty was already pleased with. He gave her roundness, which she has flattened--fulness, which she has reduced--softness, which she has made hard; all that He did she has attempted to undo, until what she is dipping into the tepid and aromatic bath is neither useful for walking nor tempting to the eye. They are white enough--almost white enough for leprosy, except when the boot has been perchance extra hard; then they are red or horny, according to the time the bruise has been endured. Soft underneath, where nature meant them to be hard--so soft and useless that a crumb under the carpet causes them to double up--hard and lumpy where nature intended them to be soft! How modest fashion is to hide all the uglinesses she creates, and what fools men are to rave about a piece of leather! Our Highland girl, with her boots slung over her shoulders, and the marks all washed away in the streamlet she has just passed, is springy in her gait as a young stag, lithe in her movement as a young panther--every fleshfold has its own room to move and make grace; the heels are broad to meet emergencies, round where they rise, flat where they press the earth; the soles hard, as they ought to be, to encounter the roughnesses, with an instep just big enough to skim the ground, not high enough to attract the eye--nature is far too subtle for that; flexible and free, the toes are dimpled loves, each carrying his own pink sea-shell, with blue veins that run over strong sinews, and appear mellow under the gold of the sun-flush--an ankle that is godlike in its concealed strength, and the portion of a leg that might serve the painter as his model for the huntress Diana. Fashion makes us bond-slaves. We put on boots to keep out the cold, and they soak in the damp; stockings to help the absorbing process, and thus confirm the risk of consumption. Nature makes us all beautiful, or would do so if we gave her a fair chance; and we spend years in bringing nature down to a level not to be described in any simile. Nature meant to endow us with sinews and muscles to give and take a squeeze, and we poultice them all over until they are flaccid, and shrink at the slightest force. Nature made the Greeks, and the Greeks owed what powers they possessed to the restraint they displayed in letting nature alone. Art, having no human nature now left unspoilt, points to the old Greeks. Taste admits art to be right, yet yields to fashion, while that graven calf stands with senseless hoof upon the roses and the lilies, calling itself the God of Modesty, Purity, and Taste--a modesty which ordains the female to cover her hands and feet, and lay bare her breast; purity which can show a naked arm, and blush to show a naked foot. We cannot improve upon the naked foot. The hand may wear rings, and to degraded senses look improved (we who look straight to nature, and find the finish of the Creator finish enough, doubt this--but let that pass); the neck may have its chains, the ears, the arms, and ankles, even the nose, rings, according to the fancy of the wearer or the taste of the nation. I do not like rings, or anything that divides the lines of symmetry, yet if one part be covered, gold may be worn with advantage on other portions; but I defy any cover or ornament yet invented by man to improve the foot which God has already so beautifully covered. The world is all false--false aims, false motives, false pride, false modesty, shame bred from impurity, blushing at what it should be proud of. If we dared, we would fain set up woman as she dawned upon primitive man. Imagination pictures to us the first male and female, without a physical flaw, in the perfection which the Creator considered costume sufficient. Reason may bring forward scientific theories respecting the origin of man, but the poetry of our natures will not permit us to accept of them. We like to see that young man fresh from the hands of his Creator, meeting his mate with her first blush of womanhood in those spring-tinted glades of Paradise; we like to think of the child-minds waking up, each drinking in the other's fascination, each unconscious of its own perfection, filled with the new-breathed life, the joy of existence, the lavishness of surrounding nature, alone in their joint humanity, the centre of myriad wondering eyes, with the great Eye of dawning Day laving them and all creation in that rosy light. We like to see her standing breathless before the splendour of that youthful manhood, soft mists wreathing from her like a bridal veil, her blue eyes like the forget-me-nots, into which her tender feet are sinking, pushing back with those shell-tipped, tapering fingers the wealth of golden tresses which roll from the azure-veined, ivory forehead, that she may be the better able to peer within those wells of amber brown, all unknowing of the loveliness she is herself revealing. But the world has fallen from that state of purity, and we have the sordid substitute, shame, to warn us against any return; therefore we must perforce drape our ideal before we can present her to the many eyes. Yet in our draping we would consult nature with grace, rather than fashion; cover our woman without losing her identity; imitate naught except her own lines, in her drapery; let her breathe freely, move easily, and appear before us as she ought to do, wide-waisted, a woman with the look of a future matron, and not the rickety imitation of a wasp. Fashion is a mighty power, and yet, after all the periods and changes with the world, we must return to our admiration of the ancients. We must love our girls, no matter how they are costumed, and love will make the costumes appear becoming; yet, can we compare the intricate flounces of to-day with the grandeur and grace of those simple antique folds, without deploring the influence of that 'Monster, Fashion,' which compels _Love_ to make such an effort? Think of our gigantic headpieces, and then of the classic plait and coil; in the one case measuring four instead of the classic eight heads to the figure. Compare the gigantic hoop, with the clinging robe which revealed sufficient for grace without offending modesty; the easy swing of the antique, with the affected limp of the modern. Although we know the story of the first body covering of foliage, it is difficult to trace back to the first foot cramp. An old legend has it that when Adam was forced from Eden he bruised his foot, in the hurry, against a bar of the massy gate, and so, with the pain, thought upon a bandage. Pain is mostly our first, and most effectual, instructor. The red-hot poker must be a pretty sight to the eye of innocent childhood; the touch generally suggests the necessity of cultivating the organ of caution. So with man, the ignorant; he covered his body because sin showed him it was naked, and tied up the wound upon his bruised foot because it smarted. Granted that the roads are hard, and the feet of the wanderers unfit to encounter the roughness, the sandal of the ancients comes nearest to our ideal of a graceful protection. To those who must have luxury, who have wealth to spend and like to spend it on themselves, what a glorious opportunity is here!--straps inlaid with gold and gems, the poetry of the jeweller expended in chaste designs and ornate extravagances--straps that catch a thousand sun rays, and break them into prismatic splinters; gems that get loosened from their elaborate settings, and, rolling amongst the grey dust, attract the beggar's eye with their flashing, and fire the hearts of the finders' friends with the fleeting joy of possession; straps that leave the toes free room to move, and be seen, open to the fresh airs of heaven, like the hands and face, with the same advantages of getting dust-grimed, and the same chance of getting often washed; straps that may cost a fortune, or be had at a quarter of the price of boots. What a delightful custom after the sandals were doffed, when the guest entered, and the women of the household brought water and towel as the welcome home! Think of it, on a summer march, with your feet sweltering and blistering inside cramping boots--the comfort of it, the beauty of it, when the tired feet were placed on the mat, or amongst the rushes, rosy, fragrant, and purified! In summer, ay, or in winter either, are we warmer gloved or ungloved on a winter day? Which protects the nose most in a frost, a veil or a handful of snow rubbed briskly over that organ? Which feels the cold most, the Highlander with his kilt and bare legs, or the Sassenach with his drawers and breeches? With the hands and the feet, habit solves the problem; our summer is a Calcutta winter. Fashion is for ever changing. Why? Because men and women cannot feel satisfied with their inventions--because the instinct of the True is in us all, and we are miserable when we attempt to beat it down. God gave man a costume which man cannot rival, and man must come back to it before he is satisfied. It is well to foster a taste for china or old books, to rave of the quaintness of Queen Anne, the shepherdesses of Watteau, the flowered vests and cocked hats of the beaux, the patches and periwigs of the be-hooped and be-bustled belles, cracked plates with fragile morals, manners of the stage--all that the idiots who get up the forced ecstasies rave about; but the talk grows low-toned, and the tinsel tongues are hushed, as the Apollo and Achilles, or the Venus and Andromeda of the Greeks, loom up, with the grandeur of their God-beauty clinging to them like an imperishable robe. Where is the mock modesty that dares to blush before these perfections? Gaze upon them long, and learn the secret of the changing fashions. Men and women must yet learn to dress so as to move and breathe freely and naturally before they reach the point where fashion will stand still--having folds that fall simply, short for action, long for show. Woman must appear yet before us as she should do, supple and free. The world must yet wake up to the truth and purity of beauty, and to do so must come back to its Creator--delicacy weighed in the scales with the virtues of nature; the beauty of strength admired, before the whiteness and softness of the drooping flower. We must love all that is beautiful. The naked form of a woman is beautiful, but the folds of a loosely-fitting, simply plain costume are also beautiful, and perhaps the whiteness and softness gained, if it can be gained without loss of strength, by shading it from the sun, is a point gained; for it is lovely in its fragility--a loveliness which the air of heaven would roughen, which the eye of day would cover as thoroughly as a veil--subtle gradations which are never seen except by the painter. Cover it, if you will, with soft folds that will fit to the motions, not with the snaky outer skin which reveals the shape completely, but without a touch of the multitude of colour charms. We can never return to the innocence of Eden until we fling off the clay portion of us, and look upon life with spiritual eyes. Then the ugliness of sin and crime will make us droop our eyes, but never the perfection of nature. I have seen people turn with blushing faces at the sight of a naked child, as if it was something to be guilty about. Education had debased their minds. In the South Seas I have watched the sexes together plunge into the coral-washed waves, and discourse on passing events ashore, and they had no thought of shame. Nature had left them where education will bring us all, if the time ever comes when knowledge can be surmounted. Choose, while you must dress, each a fashion to suit yourselves. Begin with the figure which your Maker has given you, and assimilate as nearly as your material will permit your fashion to that figure. Consult the hygiene of that form, and make your fashion subordinate to those laws. Perfect health and perfect grace go together. Consult the colour which nature has given to you, and place the colour of your costume in harmony with that, to keep that colour, when dressed, exactly in the same position as it is when you are nude; for depend upon it, if you are in health, no heightening or lowering will ever become you so well. Remember that fashionable colours may have suited the particular woman who made the fashion; seldom anyone else. Think you are as good a woman as any other, and bring pride to the rescue. You have equal right, through the royalty of your perfect womanhood, to make a fashion as any duchess or _demi-mondaine_ in the land. Banish false hair, which only heats your brains and wears away your own hair, besides carrying dead impressions and nameless diseases into your system. Banish hats that hide or _kill_ faces, or weigh down heads. A light cover for the sun, if fierce: _yet the hair was given to man for this purpose_. Banish stays, which murder not only yourselves, but the races coming after you. Banish waist-bands and petticoats, which are deforming your hips. Look to the waist and hips of the Venus of Milo for my meaning. Live for yourselves, and for the future. Be the founders of virtuous and wise Titans. Saturn is not nearly dead yet, and Rhea is still kind, if you will. But as Jove fought for life, so must you. On the milk of goats he grew strong to defy Father Time, the devourer. Be strong to defy the laughter and the sneers. Set up an Image of Life and worship this only, for this is the earth-symbol of God. DECORATION Art, in the general acceptance of the term, is all that is apart from mechanical dexterity; as the man is not his brain or heart or muscles, but the immeasurable force which controls and moves all these parts, so Art is that immeasurable force that appeals to and speaks through all our senses. Truth is the primary principle of art; the lever of life, the mainspring of society. If we are not true to ourselves, we cannot be true to one another; therefore, our plans must come to naught. Madame Modjeska, one of the greatest of living actresses, is said to be able to do two things at once--to present to the public a face expressive of the most intense agony, shedding tears, and _seemingly_ writing a letter which is breaking her heart, and _actually_ making comic caricatures on the sheet of note-paper. Admiring this gifted woman as I do, this is a knowledge to shudder over. I hope it cannot be true, for if I thought of art reaching this doubtful state of perfection, I could never again see all the agony of that acting, only the mockery of the caricatures. Falsehood is not power; it may impose, but unless the actor, or the poet, or the painter, can lose himself or herself in the part with which they are involved, all the rest is only nerve-twisting, meaning nothing, conveying nothing. Beauty is the embodiment of truth, as man palpable is the embodiment of soul. Falsehood may come draped in the appearance of truth, which is beauty, but that only testifies to the rigid impersonation of truth; falsehood, being hideous, has to come like truth before it can impose. Beauty being thus the incarnation of truth, and the mission of art being to present this body to the senses, it becomes the stern duty of artists to find out what she is before they attempt to reproduce her. Hence also art takes its proper position in the world; hence its utility to society. Truth is the binder of society, the leader upwards; Beauty, the form of that divine force; Art, the interpretation of that holy principle; Honour, Faith, Trust, Love which casteth out fear--all are outsprings from the spirit of Truth, which Art has to present to the people, and teach them to see and love. Beauty, therefore, is the chief quality of art, and while the standard of beauty rests in our eyes--a perfectly formed face often appearing repulsive, and a figure seemingly faultless devoid of grace, whilst the expression and the action transform the plain face and common figure into beauty and grace--so old age can be as beautiful as early youth, and the ugliness of power made to embody rugged grandeur. But although we create our own ideal of beauty, it is the mission of the painter, poet, sculptor, novelist, and dramatist to educate the world, and refine and elevate their creations and ideals; and this mission is not fulfilled in the mind that merely reports the tittle-tattle of everyday life and no more, or that relates the improbable adventures, frivolities, and vices of a fashionable upper ten thousand, nor the burlesque or comic opera, that turns to buffoonery all those sentiments which tend to melt or ennoble in the language and moral of the tragedy, from which they draw their ribald nonsense. Nor is it fulfilled in the poem that only deals in mystery and new-forged words, that mean nothing unless the suggestion of a harmonious sound--unless the reader fills it up with his own suppositions; or, if meaning anything, only suggestions which the writer is too cowardly to tell out openly and therefore knavishly sends forth to engender its own poison under its specious and subtle mufflings of musical jargon. Nor is this mission fulfilled in the picture that speaks a soft, hazy blending of harmonious tints, because a weaver can do and mean as much with his loom, or the display of a dexterous manipulation learnt, as any other dexterity in craft, by rule. Neither is it fulfilled in the scant imitation of a bit of nature, although here more than in the meaningless blendings, because any old stump lying by the roadside, with its moss and time-dressing, must look beautiful, although with no great credit because of no great effort of the imitator, and presenting none of his mind, which is the vital force we look to for elevation. We turn to the Greeks for our ideas of refinement. They have left nearly perfect forms in ornament, architecture, and sculpture, and they have also left examples, in their habits and mode of living, that they were simple to severity. When I speak thus I except the debauched followers of Bacchus and Venus; for these poets, like Anacreon, belong to the decline of Greek life, and therefore must only be looked at as the foul fungi and rotten growths bred from decay. The early Greeks fulfilled their mission, because they gave us beautiful forms to look upon, beautiful lines, beautiful curves; the Egyptians and Assyrians fulfilled their mission, because they gave us massive forms and gorgeous tints; the savage tribes fulfil their mission in their fantastic images of terror; the early painters fulfilled their mission, because they sought to raise up feelings of devotion, or pity, or horror in the spectator; the modern painters, bowing down to the golden calf, paint what will suit best, and sink their art into a trade and traffic. Give painters commissions, is one suggestion to create high art; so far, good for the buyer. Painters must live, as preachers must live, and the labourer is worthy of his hire; but the painter who is also a preacher ought not to think of the price of his picture. Robert Burns had the true estimate of his poetry. We cannot judge a picture by its price. If it is a true effort, it is part of the painter's soul, which cannot be bought. Let him not say it is worth 400_l._ or 3_l._; rather say it is not money-worth; take it and give me what I need to live: it is mine for ever, because I made it, and I only give it up to hang on your walls, in that I need your help to be able to live and work. Ornament or decoration being one of the many outcomes of art-teaching which can be applied to the continuance and comfort of ordinary life, we take it up in its broadest meaning. To ornament our persons rightly, first studying the laws of health, cleanliness, and sympathetic attraction; to bring grace into our language, and actions, and morals; after we have administered to the sense of sight and smell, that we may always be lovers and ideals to our wives, banishing from us utterly all habits and liberties that tend to destroy the lovely gloss of that first love; words that may lower or corrupt; jests that may rub off the modesty of first friendship; actions that may tend to deaden the finer romance of the tender dream; all these come within the category of Decoration, and require to be carefully studied. To ornament our house discreetly, so that we may always find a pleasure in the sitting down, a harmony all over that will soothe us after our day's work; a quiet _colourless_ patterned paper will be as cheap as a gaudy glaring, and will _comfort_ you where the other will not;--a knowledge of how little is wanted to make life pleasant, a method to get true style, and save money, an idea of the decoration or useful laws of colour;--a taste in the way of books and dress and behaviour, a general _blandness_, which etiquette aims at, improving the high _tone_, which some aristocrats have, and some must pretend to learn, and which may be acquired by any one studying the first law of Christianity, which selfishness, and coarseness, and falseness cannot successfully imitate or keep up for long, no matter what title comes before or after their names, or the pedigree they may be able to tot up, or the appearance their tailor or dressmaker may give to them;--which only require the instincts of honour and truth to do it all to perfection. It does not really matter whether you use your bread or fork or knife at the orthodox moment; if you can keep down the scoff or the sneer where another has tripped. The fork or knife mistakes only want a hint to rectify, the sneer or scoff cannot be rectified, for the one has been the want of knowledge, while the other has been the want of soul: the one is a _novice_, to be trained; the other a _cad_, to be kicked. That there are tastes acquired, and instincts born in us, we all have hourly and abundant proofs. But the love of ornament I take to be an instinct bred in the bone and born with the breath. We have records when and how the world began, but never a record of the beginning of ornament. Adam saw that Eve was fair to look upon, and she, I doubt not, long before the serpent tempted her, knew of a method to deck up her tresses so as to increase the fascination. In this world, and age, and short life, when science has taught us the fallacy of our eyesight, and the imperfection of those organs which the Creator gave to us and called good; when knowledge must be concentrated and bottled into the mind like a quintessence, over-proof, we have no time for wandering amongst words; with our girls, scientific and exact, Cupid must learn to be brief with what he has to tell and not dally with soft nothings. Language must be chosen for its directness rather than for its elegance, if the speaker would not be flung aside like the useless rubbish his weak flourishes have made him. Pure ornament, like pure language, should be simple in its construction and expression, clear in its meaning, with just sufficient embellishment about it to interest the imagination, leaving the intention honestly revealed to the passing glance. The truest lines of grace are the plainest; the most majestic designs are those freest from detail; the greatest charm about the disposal of drapery is in the fewest folds, big folds, falling straight; the best dressed men or women are those costumed the quietest. The sign of a lady and gentleman is simple, unaffected ease--an ease which embraces the comfort of all round so completely that the effort cannot be observed, only the effect, which is kindness and equality. The cynic cannot be a lady or a gentleman, for the province of a cynic is to wound, therefore what cynics gain through being feared they must lose in one boon, that of being loved. Culture or education does not make a lady or a gentleman; much oftener it makes prigs and insufferable pedantic bores, by rendering the woman and man--through her or his very surface _cramming_ of technical names and scientific phrases, without the more complete training of restraint or the polish of consideration--offensive by the air of utter knowledge they put on during conversation, or worse than offensive by the patronising leniency they assume towards the ignorance supposed to be around them. I have seen fearsome clowns whose boorishness raised all the brute within me before I had talked to them five minutes, to whom Euclid was a relaxation, and a volume of Tyndall or Huxley regarded in the form of light literature. The utility, or rather the necessity, for ornament runs like an artery throughout our lives, not only in our houses, and dresses, and persons, and possessions, but in our morals and manners; hence my passing observation upon the latter, first: The savage, with his tattoo and war instruments, attaches a religious importance to it. The lines in the face of the Maori, which mean each curve a grade in his knighthood, or caste dignity, until the face and the body are covered with symmetrical designs, tell to the initiated a family history of sustained honours and glory; and this is the utility of the ornaments of the Maori: indeed, it ought to be the intention of ornament, as of all arts, to serve another purpose than mere show, which is only the flashing of a paste brilliant. From the days when man, like Jacob, set up his immortal stone, to the classic altars of gold which the Greeks and Romans set before the statues of their gods, it marks an epoch, and points towards an aim. I cannot conceive man content with his rough tanned skins, and his knobbed branch club, or sharp stone fixed into an uncarved handle; void of the instinct of decoration, his woman, like himself, squatting in the sun, without any other intention than to eat, fight, and sleep. No race on earth has been so low, no time so primitive, that love did not lighten it--love the subduer, the purifier, the knight creator. And love never yet shot his arrow where squalid contentment reigned. The women wove their mats, and the men cut out the handles of their tomahawks. The moist-eyed young Kotori listened to the pipe of the stalwart Toa, and thought of flowers to adorn her braided locks. And the warrior plucked the tendril from the tree as he passed through the forest, and wound it round his brows that the maiden might like him all the better. Cupid first, and afterwards Mars, breathed into the spirit of man the stern necessity of ornament. Primitive man then looked straight at nature in his adorning of his surroundings. Inspired by love, he became more sympathetic in his tendencies, courteous to the female, zealous of his self-constituted rights, like the Count Falko in that matchless German poem-story of Sintram, more appreciative of the beautiful about him. Fruit attracted him by its colouring, and bloom, and shape, when before he had only thought upon its taste; he fondled the dog which before he only noticed by his rigid discipline; and from the twisting of the real leaves and flowers round himself and his accoutrements, he grew to imitate them in relief and colours, so that he might have the remembrance always with him when the originals lay withered into dust; bringing to the wigwam, wharè, hut, or palace, the green of June in the white sheet of December, stamping on the icy heart of winter the glowing monogram of festive summer. So with his animals. The favourite dog was immortalised in this rude, primitive way; the wild beast whom he had fought and conquered single-handed, as David did the lion--boasting about it at camp-meetings, taking it as his ensign, with the motto, 'I did it all.' So every man became his own sculptor, historian, poet, and herald; and when language failed, he attempted, by carved ornament and painted symbol, to fill out the want. I like a consistent boaster. He is honest if not modest, and honesty is far to be preferred to that contemptible mock-modesty which inclines a man to hide what he must have been proud to inherit. Hereward the Wake, in Charles Kingsley's romance, is a fresh boisterous character whom we must like better when he rode sarkless out to meet the foe than Hereward the false lover and astute politician, who could forsake the woman who had suffered by his side. I cannot appreciate the poet who is so modest that he requires pressing to read his manuscript. He must have felt that he was doing something worthy of being read or listened to, or surely he would never have wasted his time over the elaboration of the thought; and thinking this, he is an impostor to pretend to cover that honest outcome of his pride and not seek his reward. Does not the painter paint his picture to be seen, and can anyone admire the modesty that will not hold it up to the passer-by? Give me the Hereward of the brush and pen; the man who button-holes you like Coleridge, and, shutting his eyes, recites all the ideas which he thinks are fine; the Swinburne who can see his own beauties and not be ashamed to point them out; the Walt Whitman who sings about _himself_; the man who works for praise and is not ashamed to ask for his reward. Is it subtlety to mask over your meaning with words? Is it the mark of high-toned education and refinement to pretend to comprehend this category of manufactured and meaningless words, this jingling of obscurities? Is it a sign of ignorance to frankly confess that this sort of thing is beyond you? Then I don't admire subtlety; I don't pretend to be high-toned, I glory in my ignorance. 'Sartor Resartus' does not seem to me to have any special mission. There are strong passages in it, disconnected pieces that I look upon as a vocabulary, and use accordingly; but the author to me represents neither a seer, a prophet, nor a moral teacher, but only a used-up, tobacco-smoking, ill-natured old man, who ill-used himself, his wife, his friends, and did nothing beyond stringing together a few volumes of vivid expressions to enlighten the nineteenth century. But he understood the ornamental part of language, and for that I like him, if for nothing more. To leave a modern savage and return to man the primitive. War taught him the utility of ornament, how to make objects and curves to inspire the foeman with horror; and in this we see the first departure from direct nature watching, to invention; the lion or boar was not fearful enough, so he combined their ferociousness and made a mixture. Religion stepped in next with stiff rules and unalterable decrees, and man no longer sought to imitate nature, but gazed beyond her to the mystic symbol of the unseen. An error in the first instance, in the ornamental expression of her imagery, became a fixed law, as in Egypt and India, where century after century the lines were repeated without the slightest variation, and a conventional false symbol served instead of the clumsy but truthful imitation of the savage. The Greeks stand the exception to all the barbarism of the world about them; they rose to perfection by quick degrees, and that is about all we can say of their art history. They were refined and simple in their manners, rigid in their habits, before the Olympian court was arranged into order or Homer had invented poetry. Hardy health was their aim and stalwart beauty their standard. The flowing grace of their own unfettered limbs taught them the purity of true art lines. Vintage time was a joyous season to be remembered during winter, so they raised pillars to mark their joy, and cut upon them memories of the vine leaves and honeysuckle which they had watched clinging over their porches in the golden hours. Very early in the world's history man found the use of metals, and learned by mingling to harden them. The first statues and ornaments were formed by hammering the metals and beating them into plates and cords to lay upon or twist round blocks of wood and stone--a slow, hard, laborious process with little effect. These were the days when Vulcan and his demons burrowed in the earth's vaults to forge the armour of Mars. Gods with glass eyes and the stiffest of limbs yet bore a resemblance to human beings. Egypt was working away content with her foldless draperies and indiscriminate finishing of detail, handing down from father to son their arts and sciences--everything hereditary, from the many grades of the priesthood to the low office of the accursed dissector of the sacred body to be embalmed; building her mighty monuments and laying on her rigid tyrannic colours--the harmony of law that was right by chance. Phoenicia was waking up and gaining a name amongst nations; the dyed stuffs and embossed golden cups and clean-cut coins of Tyre, Sidon, and Carthage, which sent out laden ships and grew rich through industry. Greece was striding on through wars and revolutions and conquests, art and ornament grew strong and refined, and thus became daily a stricter necessity. Their own habits were simple, but their gods were extravagantly administered to. Homer taught them to sing, and to work broadly and delicately. Homer, the grand old man, the blind beggar who could look with those spirit eyes into centuries, who assembled the gods in order, placed the immortal stragglers in poetic arrangement, utilised the court of love to his own imperial cadence, and became the father, not of his own tribes only, but of all nations. What had their battles done but for his pen? Helen were a forgotten sin, Troy a fleck of white dust--all the heroes of that deathless romance only the vanished marshalling of an ant-hill; for what are we after our lives have gone unless the poet or the novelist creates us afresh and gives us actions that will not die? What is our pain or our pleasure to the partner of it all? We cannot feel theirs, they cannot know ours. My sorrow will not let me judge of yours, for I look upon yours from the outside--a sight, the glimpse of a covered volcano--while mine is here where I can see it no more than you can, but my living soul is writhing in the flames. Will my pain give me yours? No! and so the griefs and passions of two centuries dead and unchronicled cannot stir a thought. The writer lives and cries: 'Come out, O Lazarus! shake from you the dead cerements, live as you lived, think again; and as you think so shall your thoughts be fixed and roll through Time.' Homer lived and sang, and heroes rose, and virtue became tangible, and right was fixed, and wrong grew a thing. The painter and the worker in stone and metal had a theory. Beauty was fixed by the Judgment of Paris, mythology became a living creed; while he, the blind father, spake on, sang on, unheeded, yet insensibly becoming the educating founder of a school where the world must enter and learn till the end has come. As Homer did to the Greeks, so the novelist does for us--presenting to our eyes the world we have not seen, society we may not enter, manners we could not know but for him; virtue gets the reward, vice gets the punishment, the knight of chivalry inspires us with the desire to emulate. The noble path of honour is pointed out, and we glow as we read, with the desire to follow: what sermon could teach us more? The theatre is a church of refinement and morality, teaching us how to act in this world, which, as inhabitants, we require as much as the tenets of the next, about which we know nothing: so the novel. I have read all kinds of fiction: George Eliot, who tells us things as objectionable as the author of 'The Lady of the Camellias'; Dumas, who points out the virtue of fidelity even in a _demi-monde_, that false heroine; Zola, the needful man with the muck-rake. I have seen the novel-reader world-wise, and the philosophy-devourer a fool. Novels are the histories of humanity: they teach us a wisdom that years of sorrow only could reveal; through them we may look into the hearts of men and women and not be deceived by the smiling mask of deceit; they bring to us a world we dare not visit, telling us what we ought to know about sin and suffering; they inculcate knowledge in a pleasant way, preaching to us virtue and nobility, warning us of falsehood; in them we go out to the Valley of the Shadow of Death and are able to conquer the Monster without any risk of scars, to pass through the world and yet be pure, to know all things without tasting of the forbidden tree: and can the preacher do more? Ornament your houses, ornament your persons, your manners, and your morals; even morality can be made very ugly if it is presented to us gaunt and square--without the undulating lines of forethought and forbearance, without the graceful folds of divine charity. I have seen morality brought out and held up such a forbidding skeleton that the soul artistically inclined shrank back aghast from the weird spectre. Take one short half-hour to glance over your own faults of a morning, and you will be astonished at the perfection you see around you. Think but for a few moments upon the wisdom you have gained in your earth sojourn, and I defy you to open your mouths when even ignorance boasts. It is so nice to be sure of our subject, to sit down and listen to a tinkle of babble and know what ought to be, to enter the room we have decorated and feel that there is nothing wanted, to look into the mirror and feel we are dressed, to clasp our friend by the hand and feel we are united: that this is contrast sufficient, and harmony through it all. I have said nearly all that is required about ornament, because I intended to speak to you in a general way. True, I might tell you about the rules of the Greeks regarding ornament; how they modelled, punctured, painted, and fired their vases; how they preferred a cameo to a costly stone, a bit of mind to a rare flash; but what would that avail to what I want? I want my friends to be men and women, to have a reason for all things, to know why the scarf goes round their neck or the boots upon their feet. I don't want them to like Henry Irving only because he is fashionable, or to talk cant about pictures. I want them to be honest--to like, and openly say so, in their ignorance the things of ignorance, and come from the outer to the inner circle by degrees and openly. I want my friends to eat, drink, dress, and sleep as they ought to, as creatures who have inherited an immortality; who are all one (except by learning), patrician or plebeian, and who aim at refinement; not to be dazzled like weak moths by a glitter, but to enjoy the light if it is a good light, yet not to mistake the farthing dip for the electric flame; to look past the splendid expression in a poem or speech and see if the centre line is straight; see what the motive is, for that is the soul of the poem or picture. I have met men and women with souls so colourless that, but for the bodies which gave them a place, they would never be observed; souls which could never reach a heaven or be carried the length of a hell, but with the dissolution of the carcase; which might, through an outside effort, be able to flicker up for a moment, but must eventually collapse, and be blotted out as completely as the droppings of a meteor on a midnight sky. The _reflection_ of a _religious_ or an _atheistic_ colour may pass over them, as the sky colour is cast upon a fragment of jellyfish lying in a sea-side puddle, but they are no more than that shugging mass; the colour goes or the tide leaves them, and they are immediately rendered void. The Egyptian has a dog who sits waiting on souls of this description, who repeat other people's words, who borrow brains from books, and can neither feel wicked nor good of themselves. The forty-two avengers relate their actions, the Judge weighs them in the scales: there is no heaven for them, for the heaven wants self-illuminated spirits; there is no hell for them, for they are not bad enough; so the Judge scoops up the scales and the limp soul flops into the watchdog's open jaws, is gobbled up at a gulp, and so there is an end of that poor ghost. The Hindoo, the Chinese, the Moor, and the Oriental like gorgeous colouring and intricate lines and twistings in their ornament, because they have been accustomed to see nature in her most lavish way. The sun never blinks his eye, or seeks to cover his full strength where they are; straight down he flings himself upon Rhea, and she, the earth, responds with the fervency of a consuming passion, or the love fever of a sea-voyage. There is no place for grey here--it must be white, yellow, red, greens of the richest, russet of the most positive, purples that are not disguised: the fumes of the panting mid-day may be pallid, yet it is not the pallor of ashes, but the gas-haze which quivers above the white intensity of the bloom. Jungles, and closely-knitted bush-tracks, where the speckled adder swelters in the rayless fire; up, down, over-laced, across, there is not an inch which is not covered with its tendril patterns--not a patch where light can pierce that has not its cluster of orange or vermilion blossoming. Life is a delirium in those tropics, the night a fever, and the day a dream; and can we expect calm thoughts to be displayed, or reposeful hues, when even the moonlight is a golden thrill, and stars are shining globes of magnifying power? Those who live in the north, where the skies are softened veils, and the lakes are placid sheets--where the soul is braced by the north wind, and subdued by the gently wafted west--may well be refined. They are classic born, and to love the simple in ornament or life should only be the effortless yielding of their wills to the instincts of our race. Study comfort first when you plan your ornaments: if it is a garden or a park, plant the trees that will shelter you best without hurting your health or offending the eye. Build your houses for the sake of the street, the street for the sake of the town, the town for the sake of the land in which it is cast. Assimilate your taste with the taste of other people, sacrificing a little yourself to get some things from them, but not too much; for Jerusalem was kept clean (if it ever was kept clean) by every man looking after his own doorstep. Plan out your rooms for health: first must come cleanliness and fresh air, next grace and comfort--be comfortable before you are beautified. Get space first. Put out as much furniture and accessories as you can; no more chairs than you want for visitors, no more tables than you strictly need; look round your walls and relieve the blankness with a picture, or a plate, or a vase, or a cast, just to fill up a bareness, not to call attention. We cram on ornaments when we want to cover or screen a defect. Have your furniture consistent with your room. If you are Orientally inclined, and like a glare, be Oriental to the uttermost--do not stop short at a footstool or a tea-cup; but if you like to rest in your houses, and to be able to think while you rest, have all things plain and sober. Homer and Milton were both blind, and the great serenity of a noble purpose shines like an unflickering alabaster lamp from both. Do not mix things if you can avoid it; if it is a lion you are making, never blend it with an ape. Observe the flowers and fruits of a season when you plan out a scroll of flowers and fruits, and never bind winter to summer; they cannot agree, and it is better never to join than have to divorce. Every ornament must have a backbone to start with, or it will fall to pieces as surely as a society-girl would collapse without her whalebone stays, the modern substitute for the backbone of Mother Eve. Therefore, if you wish to exercise an influence on the world about you, and raise the ideas of beauty, seek after health first, comfort next, and beauty will follow of its own accord. Every man and woman ought to be able to draw as well as see a straight line; should be able to take down the impression of the place they visit as well as they are able to write out descriptions of it in their letters home; they ought to study painting, and know the reason for certain colours being mixed and put on, because taste, although a natural gift, is also an acquired habit up to a point. Imagination is a universal power shared by the lower world as well as man: the dog dreams and hunts or fights, thereby proving that his brain is repainting a scene gone by. I may describe a picture in words, and you will all see the image of it vividly in your brains, thereby proving that you might reproduce it if you had been trained. As I briefly describe some view in words, your brains will have photographed the picture, for it is instantaneous work with the brain; and the wondrous part of it all will be, that the picture I describe and the picture I draw will not be as you think it is going to be--at least, I cannot hope to be so vivid in my word-painting, for every mind has its own way of calling up the pictures which we hear or read about, each mind taking up its own standpoint, and seeing differently the general aspect and self-constituted aspect. In fancy I take up a piece of charcoal (the most delightful and freest of all art work), and with a few dashes of my charred vine wand may transport you to the balmy South, where ice the thickness of a sixpenny piece is a sight to boast about, and mosquitoes are an incontestable fact. This piece of charcoal, which we take on faith to be the remains of a vine stalk, even as I name it conjures up the vineyards I have seen, and my memory is flung under avenues where the broad leaves and the purple clusters hung down, and, interlacing, broke the intensity of the mid-day glaring. I look down a clustering summit to a gleam of deep blue ocean and snow-white strand beyond. This is what the word vine has done to me, and something like this, or perhaps, if not so realistic, more beautiful, would have been the mind-picture even if I had never actually witnessed the vine lanes. Memory is brought into action in my case; in yours, who may not have seen it all, it becomes the higher quality, creation or imagination. The human mind is the most perfect painter we can have, without a limit to its invention or a stop to its rapidity--each word becomes a fixed photograph, instantaneously drawn out in all its parts, and coloured to the last hair-stroke. You see it all, but take a pencil and try to make it corporeal. As you sharpen the lead it is all there, vividly distinct; but while you are thinking where to begin to reduce it into form, it becomes a slender suggestion of dancing outlines--you dash in the first stroke, and it has become an indefinite blurry mess. That is our difficulty--the reader and myself--for I can see before me just now a full round golden moon in the softest of green-grey hazes, with the thrilling effect of the theatrical limelight all around it; not a cloud in the misty atmosphere shows above that balloon-like ball; it is lying light as a Chinese lantern on the exotic-freighted air; floating over the dim film which represents a mountain in the mid distance; pouring down a flood of white ripples on the river or lake; making a mass of indistinct shadow under the tree roots--liquid shadow where the water laps the winds, velvet shadow where the grasses and plants are all mixed up; an ebony line of carving runs up the shafts of the feathery-crowned palm and the bulby banana tree; a broad black fan drops across the outer rim of that electric circle, as the banana leaf quits the shelter of the broken shade-work and asserts its independence; the tendrils are twisting about, but a pale sparkle alone reveals them; the big spider is hanging from his lair, but a diamond point only shows us where the dew is caught upon the gossamer web--all is breadth and shadow, or glittering silver flame, but our hearts go into the shade that is manifold, into the thickness of that impalpability, and our nostrils drink in the swimming perfume of the lilies and trumpet tree; and although it is but suggested, we can see the tracing of the palm fringes overhead, we can feel the heat of that languid night. To recapitulate. Dress for your own comfort, and you must please everyone round about you. Eat for the sake of health--that is, eat to live--and you will have sound teeth, sweet breath, and merry months. Love will come to you early and stay long beside you, for years are only grains of sand in the calculating glass of Cupid, if the hand which holds it is steady and moist. Time limps, and an hour is lingering pain; or else flies, and the brown locks change to silver in a song of joy. [Illustration: THE AVENUE-HOBBEMA] CHAPTER X _SOME OF THE OLD MASTERS_ A CURSORY EXAMINATION [Illustration: W]E will, in this chapter, take a quick run round the walls of our great National Exhibition, at least round that portion of it where the early masters of painting are at present represented. I am going to give my impressions about those masterpieces which have been secured by experts for the benefit and pride of the nation; speak about them without any more reverence than the modern art critic might talk about a Millais or a Leighton, or any other living master who by reason of his body being still with us, and being still able to eat and drink, places his work within reach of the everyday critic; and in this spirit of independent impartiality I wish my readers to try to follow me. I intend to give to these old pictures all the praise that I can bestow consistently with my own art knowledge, because being one of the owners of them I do not wish to decry my own property. Indeed, as a painter I should like to make every allowance for the faults of men who, coming before the modern masters, had so many more technical difficulties to overcome than their successors had at the start of their professional education; but I wish to look at their works as the production of human beings who lived in their own times as we do in ours; in fact, I want to look straight at them, without regard for their names, and tell you, as students, the pictures which are of the greatest value to you as well as to me, and point out why, in my opinion, they are thus valuable. Therefore, if you are not prepared to follow me in this spirit, you had better read no more of this chapter, for I may shock your sensibilities with my remarks. If you cannot look past the halo which Time has placed round the head of Raphael, for instance, and view the man in the same independent spirit in which you would look at the work of a man whom you might meet any day in the street, do not go on, for I shall only rouse in you a fury of scorn or indignant pity; and although I do not mind personally being considered a presumptuous fool and iconoclast, still I have no desire to lash anyone into fury or make him stain his soul by hatred. I would rather keep the whole world happy and at peace with me than rudely disturb the serenity of their pet delusions. Still, in spite of my own inclination towards comfort, I must tell the truth for the sake of those who wish to see things as they really are, and not as they have been taught to believe they are. I will try to be plain if terse, and while extolling the virtues, point out the smaller vices, without considering my own private feelings in the matter. For instance, I have been taught from my earliest years to regard Raphael as removed beyond criticism, to accept all that came from his brush as almost divine--himself as the perfect painter of perfect pictures. Judge, then, and pity my feelings, when, with a temerity approaching to the suicidal, I begin my critical and analytical remarks with the picture which, 'by common consent, is considered to be one of the most perfect pictures in the world,' as 'it is also one of the noblest embodiments of Christianity.' I refer to the 'Ansidei Madonna,' No. 1171,[16] purchased for the nation from the Duke of Marlborough for 70,000_l._: the highest-priced old master perhaps in existence. Let us regard this great picture quietly for a few moments, and try, if we can, to forget its price and its painter, while we analyse its composition and other artistic qualities, i.e. bring it down to the standpoint of a picture painted by a living artist, and exhibited, say, in last year's Academy; for that is the way I am going to treat them all, for the benefit of the student who may wish to copy them as well as of the ordinary owner, who desires to learn why his representatives have paid so much for his property. From a decorative point of view I readily admit that this is a fine work. As the design for an altar window, to be reproduced in stained glass, it seems to be much more suitable than as it is at present, inside a frame. But it is not the finest picture in the world; it is not even the best example of the same master that we have in the National Gallery; it is greatly inferior as a painting to 'Pope Julius II.,' No. 27, which is, in technique, the best work we have of Raphael's. It is not nearly so good in its design as the Garvagh 'Madonna,' No. 744; nor in expression can it be compared to the 'St. Catherine of Alexandria,' No. 168. As a painting it is not a success; in design it is stiff and commonplace in the extreme. The throne of the Virgin Mother is an ugly dividing blot in the picture, allegorical although it may be in its accessories and details; it is a hideous box which breaks the picture into three parts, and utterly destroys all sense of unity and harmony. The emblems, although freely enough painted, are forced and badly placed. The Virgin Mother's face has no expression, unless it be that of inane contentment. She is certainly not studying the book which she holds on her knee and fingers so affectedly. The baby Christ is well painted and good as a baby, but He is held with too careless and limp a hand by his emotionless and expressionless mother. I have no fault to find with the figure of the good Bishop Nicholas of Bari; it is realistic and natural, and stands as a Bishop might stand if reading aloud from his prayer-book to his congregation. But St. John the Baptist is not nearly so satisfactory a piece of work; the position is strained even for ecstatic contemplation; the advanced leg does not seem to be connected enough with the body, and in its pose appears to be pointed with the exaggerated attempt at grace of a dancing master; therefore, although the general colouring is _pleasing_, and the manipulation of detail easily managed, without too much minuteness and labour, this picture is not a work which I would advise students to copy, if they wish to cultivate good composition, perfect drawing, and general unity. As to its intrinsic value, I should price it at 8,000_l._ instead of 70,000_l._, because I do not think the best picture in the world is intrinsically worth more than 10,000_l._, no matter how rare it may be as a picture pure and simple. In consideration of its merits, which certainly counterbalance its demerits, I would fix its price as it now stands at 500_l._; but because it was painted by Raphael Santi, and therefore has its value over and above its merits as a work of art, I put it at the figure I have named--500_l._ for the picture and frame, and 7,500_l._ for the name of the painter _and the antiquity of the article_. I limit the price of this work of art because, while the great bulk of the nation, to whom this Raphael belongs, are writhing under the awful ills of the direst poverty and affliction, it becomes us as units to consider whether we have a right to spend so much money upon a single picture with the starving owners of it all round us; to weigh it in the balance and think whether the spiritual or artistic pleasure which the contemplation of that work gives or may give to the educated masses is a just and fair equivalent for the starving or slaughtered thousands which the money that purchased it might have kept in comfort and life. If the work of the ever-living Raphael is not sufficient equivalent for a starved thousand or two, if it does not yield complete satisfaction to all, in their every phase of contemplation, then I hold that the dead and gone Raphael has cost the nation 62,000_l._ too much, which might have been expended better in other art directions. Personally, in spite of all that I have read in praise of it, this picture does not give me complete satisfaction as an artist, and none whatever as a devotionalist. Perhaps it may affect the general masses differently, however. Returning to my favourite, or, as I consider it, the best National Gallery example of Raphael, 'Pope Julius II.,' this is a work of art which may be examined by both artist and amateur with unqualified pleasure and instruction. It ranks with such realistic masterpieces as Rembrandt produced, and it is almost as unaffected as the 'Portrait of a Tailor,' by Moroni, No. 697. It is painted in a rich colour scheme of red; warm, ruddy complexion, scarlet cap, and cape lined with white fur, and a soft, creamy under robe of some woolly material, with red and gold tassels on the chair behind. The hands and finger rings are splendidly painted, the expression is masterly in its combination of power and repose. Anyone can tell at a glance that this is a true likeness of the Pope, taken when he had an hour of leisure, and faithfully reproduced without any attempt to idealise. It is said not to be so well authenticated as some of the other works by this painter, but for the purpose with which I now write it is better than any of the others, and of most value as a study for the copyist. The Garvagh Raphael, 744, 'The Madonna, Infant Christ and St. John,' is a picture not too dear at the price it was bought for, viz. 9,000_l._, for it is well worth 2,000_l._ more than the 'Ansidei Madonna,' in consideration of its superior composition, chiaroscuro, drawing, and colour. It is all beautiful and human. The comely mother with two lovely children beside her gives us the true divinity of holy maternity; the landscape behind is deliciously and tenderly painted, and the only blemish in the composition is that discordant and mannered pillar behind the Madonna, placed there for the too obvious reason of throwing her face, with that of Christ, into better relief, as in the Ansidei picture, and, like it, spoiling the concord with its heaviness and the stiff, stage-wing-like uniformity of the two windows behind. 168, 'St. Catherine of Alexandria,' is a sentimental study of a robust and soft-handed young woman, with a sketchy background in umbery tones. It looks like an experiment of Raphael's, and in pose is almost grotesque in its lackadaisical rapture, yet it is finely painted as to flesh tones and other details. So also is No. 269, 'The Vision of a Knight,' which is, as an example of this painter at the age of seventeen, positively marvellous; yet for all that, although the design is good, and the composition freer than the general laws at the time laid down, as a study for the young painter it is not good; it will make him too easily satisfied with himself and with his drawing. Still, it has its special interest to the painter, as revealing what Raphael could do in his early student days. My present task, however, is not to waste time going over the indifferent works in the Gallery, but rather to point out, as they occur to me, those masterpieces, the studying of which may educate the mind of the outsider to whom Art is a mystic term, and advance the student in his education as a painter. I therefore turn from the formal and affected Ansidei to a picture which at the present time is placed near at hand in the same room, as I think it will make your minds rebound with real relief; at any rate, I know that it will go far to educate you in the knowledge of what a good piece of masterly work is. I refer to No. 1315, 'Admiral Adrian Pulido Pareja,' by Velasquez. For a full and sympathetic account of this great painter's work, the student cannot do better than read 'Annals of the Artists of Spain,' by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, published by John C. Nimmo, in four vols. This portrait comes upon us like a revelation of ease and masterly handling. There is nothing like it in this respect in the whole Gallery; indeed, it was considered so life-like when it was first painted that King Philip mistook it for the man himself, and gave it a royal chiding for wasting his time at Madrid. Sir Joshua Reynolds says of this master: 'What we are all attempting to do with great labour, Velasquez does at once.' I fix upon this portrait because the copyist will learn more from a single figure than from a crowded composition, and the drawing out and copying of this work will do more to make a master of him than any other study. It is like painting direct from nature, with a teacher of great experience at your elbow to prompt you as to the right brushes and colours to use. It is all fire, dash, and vigour, bold and free as the best work of our own contemporary, James McNeill Whistler. The drawing is perfect and the colours are nearly as brilliant as when they were first put on. Here, as in the works of Shakespeare, we have the 'mirror held up to nature.' Opposite to this work in the present arrangement of the pictures we have a companion as to size and quality, although not quite so simply treated, No. 1316, 'An Italian Nobleman,' by Moroni--the painter of the most perfectly natural portrait in the National Gallery, No. 697, 'Portrait of a Tailor.' In the 'Italian Nobleman' the quality is so good and unforced, the art so covered up, unobtrusive, and natural, that the student is apt to begin copying without considering the difficulties before him; therefore I would advise him or her to turn first to the Tailor's portrait before he tackles this less perfect, yet more difficult, 'Nobleman.' This, the Tailor portrait, looks at you to-day as quietly and modestly as if still waiting for your instructions, with his shears in his hand, as the original must have done more than three hundred years ago; it is so highly finished in all its details, so perfect in its expression and pose, and, as I have said, so undemonstrative on the part of the master, that one is apt not to wonder he had no honour in his own country. It takes a painter of some experience to appreciate Moroni properly, as Titian did, although ordinary spectators will hardly pass it over without saying 'How natural!' The other pictures of this rarely gifted master all bear the same stamp-mark of matchless workmanship and power of depicting character: No. 1023, 'Portrait of an Italian Lady,' in red satin dress; 742, 'Portrait of a Lawyer,' in black velvet; 1024, 'Portrait of an Italian Ecclesiastic;' and 1022, 'Portrait of an Italian Nobleman.' While the student may satisfy his cravings with that likeness of 'Pope Julius II.,' No. 27, and perhaps one of Raphael's infants, he cannot do better for himself than take the whole of the Moroni works, and follow up with what he can get of Velasquez. While giving these hints to students about single subjects, I will run over those heads or portraits which have mostly impressed me as being more or less useful to take in this course of study for their special qualities, after which I shall take up some of the larger compositions, and finish up with the old landscape and seascape painters. No. 852, the 'Chapeau de Poil,' by Rubens. For ease and strong colouring, as well as expression, this is one of the best for a young artist who _has experience enough_ with his brush to paint it quickly. You may labour with improvement upon the portraits of Moroni, but you must work quickly and decidedly when you attempt to reproduce Velasquez or Rubens. There are two portraits which I have always been fascinated with for their delicacy of execution. One is 585, 'Portrait of Isotta da Rimini,' by Piero della Francisca, and the other 'The Doge Leonardo Loredano,' No. 189, by Giovanni Bellini. Both have been painted about the same period, at least within the same century, the fifteenth, and are distinguished by their high and minute finish and tenderness of outline; they are both well worth copying. The 'Ecce Homo,' No. 271, of Guido Reni, is a good study of pain, and also good for the copyist because of its free and sketchy execution; it ought to be copied, as it was painted, in one working. Thus, the student who desires to be successful in his work ought to study the original well, and determine, _if he possibly can_, how many workings the master took to complete his work. In this case, Guido Reni began and finished his sketch at one sitting, meaning it only as a rough study for some larger work. Rubens did a number of his in the same method; indeed, if the artist is decided enough about his effects and intentions, he will endeavour to finish his work as far as possible in the one working, for oil-painting, like fresco-painting, is apt to look hard, artificial, and waxy, if worked over too much; in water-colour the artist need not place any limit to his different workings. The best and richest colourists, with perhaps the exception of Rembrandt, finished as they went along, particularly in the flesh portions. The drapery and accessories may be retouched without so much damage, but excepting those masters who cultivated and depended upon the art of glazing,[17] most of the best men finished their backgrounds and draperies before they touched the figures, i.e. their pupils did all that was in those days considered subordinate parts, and left the flesh for the masters to do at the last: a great mistake on the part of the masters. The other pictures of Guido Reni are not worth much consideration. His 'The Magdalen,' 177, is a fascinating study for young people, as it is intensely sentimental, with lavish masses of fair hair floating about, while the face expresses a sweet abandonment of _large-eyed_ sorrow. I am afraid that I must echo John Ruskin's sweeping verdict on his 'Susannah and the Elders,' and say also that it is 'a work devoid alike of art and decency.' The 'Portrait of Himself,' 690, by Andrea del Sarto, is a piece of rich, quiet colouring and fine drawing; so also is his other example. No. 17, 'The Holy Family.' He was counted one of the faultlessly correct painters of his age, and his pictures command high prices. They are excellent alike in tone and the other academical qualities which are useful to young painters who aim rather at mastering the technical difficulties of their art than the imitating of style; therefore, I recommend this portrait particularly as an early subject before grappling with such overpowering masters as Rembrandt, Velasquez, Murillo, or Moroni. For a young artist wishing to form a good manner on the old masters before he takes to the new, I would recommend him to take as a course the following masters in the order in which I place them. Begin with Fra Filippo Lippi. I do not mean the whole of his compositions, but a few of the solitary figures. Take next that spiritual and melancholy picture, No. 275, 'The Virgin and Child,' &c., by Sandro Filipepi Botticelli, and copy it all through carefully, particularly the _soft, yet artificial, outlines_ which he gives. Take next the Venus in that splendid masterpiece by Angelo Bronzino, No. 651, 'All is Vanity.' I do not know anywhere in the whole National Gallery a picture where the flesh tones on a nude figure are more perfectly painted. There is hardly any shadow at all about this figure, and hardly any positive colour, yet the flesh stands out voluptuously and softly, and the drawing is exquisite. Next take Moroni, whom I have already described, and after working at him conscientiously, release yourselves by taking up Murillo and Correggio--his 'Mercury instructing Cupid in the presence of Venus,' No. 10. Rubens, copy just a little. Velasquez, copy the whole of his examples, and lastly try Rembrandt. You may then study one or two of the living masters, if you think fit, _and have the time_. If you have worked conscientiously with the earlier masters and in the spirit of the later ones, I can trust your own judgment to choose which modern man you are inclined to follow for a little while; but if you have got the gift of the true painter in you at all, after the course which I have prescribed, I expect you will dash along and try for academical honours, without any further delay, by aiming at originality; for amongst the mighty circle whom I have mentioned you will have discovered a style all your own, and I predict that it will be a good style. Hans Holbein, the younger, is a fine man to copy if you wish to get a firm grip of your subject: there is little or no sentiment about him, but what he saw he painted with fidelity and care. No. 1314, 'The Two Ambassadors,' is a picture which is not only interesting as a painting, but also for the uncouth historical object which occupies the centre of the foreground, a kind of _ex libris_ puzzle, meaning the painter's name, which does not improve the painting as a work of art, even although Shakespeare does mention it, or puzzles of the like description. It appears to me unworthy of any painter to spoil his picture with such a childish mystery as this elongated or distorted projection of a human skull, hollow-bone, or _hohl bein_ represents. I do not pretend that this is a great picture--none of Holbein's are. Henry the Eighth was a man of strong material tendencies, who liked things tangible, and who was without a particle of imagination, tenderness, or ideality in his composition, and therefore this German materialist exactly suited him. Hans painted men and women as he saw them, without attempting much in the way of grouping or posing; he painted them hard and fast in their extravagant costumes, with all their family jewelry upon them, and as many accessories round them as he could possibly cram in, because he loved to work and did not think to spare himself a week or two longer of patient energy, care, and labour; but he painted well what he did paint; therefore I recommend him to the young student who is disposed to become ambitious, Frenchy, dashy, and careless before he has learnt how much, or rather how little, his brushes can do to bring his ideal to fruition. In 'The Two Ambassadors' the student will find all sorts of articles crammed in for the purpose of giving the painter something more to do. He had no higher aspiration than his august master had, therefore he exactly suited him, but he possessed the talent of infinite patience; and so I offer you Hans Holbein as the best mechanical workman of his country. He is a typical German in the hardy sense, as much as his countryman, Albert Dürer, was in another and a loftier sense; for they are, like the Scotch, either sure or hard-headed materialists or else seers and dreamers: often both combined. We turn from hard Holbein to Murillo with a sigh of relief. We have done our dry-as-dust task; now let us take our fill of solid pleasure, of which there is no let in the works which this painter has given us: 'A Spanish Peasant Boy,' 74; 'St. John and the Lamb,' 176; 'The Birth of the Virgin,' 1257; and 'Boys Drinking,' 1287. I like all his pictures, but I like his boy best of all; in fact, if you want good solid practical painting--stuff which will help you on in life, and give you real comfort as a painter or as a looker-on--go either to the Dutchmen or the Spaniards. Look at that kneeling figure, 'A Franciscan Monk,' 230, by Francisco Zurbaran, for chiaroscuro and bluff power; 'The Dead Christ,' 235, by Spagnoletto, for vigour and strength of touch; 'The Dead Warrior,' 741, by Velasquez. Could any man want to paint better? For the Dutch and Flemish, turn to Gallery XII., and be satisfied that you have got real men to deal with and to copy, instead of flimsy Italian sentimentalists, like the Church-bred early masters. Take Teniers, with his delicious silvery tones and crisp touch, the man who paid his dinner with a picture, and painted his picture first while the dinner was cooking: compare David Wilkie with him, and see how David Wilkie shrivels up with heat before the cool tones of David Teniers the younger. Consider Cuyp, with his precise touch; Van Eyck, the father of oils, with his quaint mediævalism and patient symbolism; Weyden, as in 653, with his rigid adherence to facts; Quintin Matsys, with his hard high finish; Rubens, the lavish and exuberant; Vandyke, the refined; Gerard Dow, with his exquisite delicacy; Frans Hals, with his vigorous handling and open colouring; and lastly, the greatest master of all, the immortal Rembrandt, whom, for his portraits, chiaroscuro, colour, and vigour, I cannot find words to praise enough. No one has a right to speak as an art critic about pictures unless he can paint a picture himself, or at least is able to copy faithfully the picture which he criticises. I trust that I may say, by way of apology for my present free criticism, without being carped at as a vain boaster, that I have painted original pictures in landscape, seascape, and composition. I can also say that I have copied some of the masters whom I recommend, and can copy any picture ever painted, provided I have the leisure; and also I can tell you, after I have copied a picture carefully, exactly how the master painted his picture, the number of times he worked over it, and sometimes also not only the time he took to do it, but also his moments of hesitation and inspiration, depression and artistic exultation. But before I can tell you all these secrets about the mystic dead, I must first study his work by copying it; it would be only guesswork were I to content myself with looking at his canvas or panel; and what I am unable to do with my long and extensive training as a painter, I defy any non-painting art-critical dilettante to be able to do. John Ruskin qualified himself as an art critic by learning to draw and paint, and when bigotry or bilious bad temper does not interfere with his critical vision, he stands, and must for ever stand, pre-eminent amongst art critics. No human being, however gifted he may be, is able to see colours or any other merit in either a picture or a book when he has a fit of indigestion or dyspepsia. The blue appears green, the clouds heavy, the firm lines shaky, the composition vile, the chiaroscuro gloomy, and the general colours dirty and unsatisfactory. A proper pill taken in time by the critic has often saved the reputation of the painter, poet, or novelist. As one patent medicine advertisement has announced, with a wisdom which should go far with sensible thinkers to recommend the drug: 'Dyspepsia leads more often to the divorce court than vice.' To return, however, from these reflections to Rembrandt, the master whom I am at present examining. We have fourteen examples of this art-Shakespeare in our Gallery at present, and I only wish that we had an apartment devoted entirely to him, as we have to Turner. I should have been well content, and should never have uttered a word about the indigent poor, had the 70,000_l._ been spent on Rembrandts, and the 'Ansidei Madonna' still remained in the Marlborough or some other private gallery, because I think that the British public would then have had better value for its money. I will grant at once that his drawing is abominable in his larger compositions and his figures taken _individually_ are undignified and often even ludicrous, or rather they would be all this in any other painter who had not his scheme of chiaroscuro and colour-intentions, but with him I would not have them altered. As they are, they all go to complete the harmony; indeed, I believe that he gave them this grotesque appearance intentionally, because his portraits prove that no man could draw more perfectly, as no other man could use the brushes as he could. No. 51, 'Portrait of a Jew Merchant,' three-quarter length; 166, 'A Capuchin Friar;' 190, 'A Jewish Rabbi;' 221, 'His own Portrait;' 237, 'A Woman's Portrait;' 243, 'An Old Man;' 672, 'His own Portrait' (1640); 775, 'An Old Woman' (1634); 850, 'A Man's Portrait:' all these portraits are so splendid in their qualities, and appeal at once so strongly to the sympathies of artists and ordinary sightseers, that I must leave them to speak for themselves. You look into the frames as through a window into a shady room, and see the living characters sitting before you; the texture of their clothing is reality rather than realism; there is no attempt on the part of the painter to assert himself; he has buried himself in his subject. As for the skill involved in all this unaffected simplicity, begin to copy one of these portraits, and you will find out a portion of it, and as you finish off with your glazings then you will look vainly into your colour-box for browns and siennas and lakes to get at that translucent depth, and at your colour lists with dissatisfaction. This master will be too much for you to penetrate through all his films, yet rest content if you are able to dive a little way below the surface without stirring up the mud. James McNeill Whistler alone has been able to approach Rembrandt in his etching qualities; no one _yet_ has been able to come near him in his wonderful shadows, except George Paul Chalmers. Yet we must not forget that Time has to be taken into consideration with much of the depth and richness of the old masters. With paint we may, after a measure, imitate a painter as he left his picture when finished; but Time, the constant worker, has put on subtle gradations of glazings which no madder or brown can imitate, and this must be your consolation. Before leaving the portraits I must call your attention to Vandyke's masterpiece in this walk--52, 'Portrait of a Gentleman,' a head only, therefore we are not aggravated by the display of any of those unnaturally refined hands which disfigure so many of his full-lengths; this portrait may take its place with any other likeness in the world. We have nothing of Michael Angelo Buonarroti in the form of painting worth looking twice at in the Gallery; he did not like oils and he did not succeed with that vehicle. Leonardo da Vinci is represented by one specimen, 1093, 'Our Lady of the Rocks.' It is a heavy but fine piece of work, and well composed--all excepting the rocks, which are not good. 698, 'The Death of Procris,' is a masterly study of a satyr; the other portions of this picture are also fine, particularly the landscape behind. There are two specimens of Tiepolo, Nos. 1192 and 1193, sketches for altar-pieces, than which no works in the Gallery are more useful to the young painter. His scheme of colour is low-toned and restrained, yet delightfully good and pure, while his handling is masterly and free. Tintoretto and Titian come next; the latter is the most lavishly represented, and the former not seen at his best, even in the three specimens we have, yet they are worth looking at. Titian of course is always masterly, both in his landscape and in his figures. Tintoretto unfortunately was forced by necessity to paint too many pot-boilers, and his fame suffers accordingly. Amongst the many masterpieces in the Gallery, for majestic composition or fine colouring, I place Fra Filippo Lippi's 'Vision of St. Bernard,' 248; 'The Circumcision of Christ,' 1128, by Luca Signorelli; 'Venus and Adonis,' 34, by Titian; 'The Crucifixion,' 1107, by Niccolo of Fuligno; 'The Marriage of St. Catherine,' by Lorenzo da San Severino; 'The Virgin and Child, with Saints and Angels,' 1103, by Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (I name this early painting for its exquisite decorative qualities and its harmonious combination of carving, gold and paint, as well as for the general design); 'Bacchus and Ariadne,' No. 35, by Titian; 'Mercury, Venus, and Cupid,' No. 10, by Correggio, for its fine drawing and colour; 'San Arnolfina and his Wife,' No. 186, by Jan van Eyck, for its minute detail and realism; 'The Virgin and Child,' 274, by Mantegna; 'Madonna and Child, with Saints,' 1119, by Ercole de Giulio Grandi, another rich and decorative combination of gold leaf, colour, and carving; 'Christ at the Column,' 1148, by Velasquez; 'The Nursing of Hercules,' 1313, by Tintoretto; and 'The Raising of Lazarus,' by Sebastiano del Piombo and Michael Angelo, No. 1. This last picture is one of the most vigorous in design and execution in the whole Gallery. About the landscape-work of the old masters there is not very much to be said, as they are mostly conventional, and were painted in the studio from studies; therefore, nature was always falsified and improved (?) upon. Hobbema ranks first amongst the old landscape painters for fresh, pure colour, and close adherence to nature. 'The Avenue, Middelharnis,' 830, is as fine a piece of work as any modern work; it is true and rigid to facts, with a fine command of drawing, perspective and colour--one of the few landscapes really worth copying in the Gallery. Salvator Rosa is perhaps one of the most spontaneous amongst these early landscapists, and the most reckless. He painted a picture at the one working, and composed a poem afterwards by way of relaxation, and although almost as exaggerated and theatrical in his effects as Gustave Doré, yet his works have an appearance of nature about them, even if it is nature convulsed, which is often lacking about the manufactured efforts of his contemporaries, Claude Lorraine and Gaspard Poussin. 'Mercury and the Woodman,' 84; 'Tobias and the Angel,' 811; and 'A River Scene,' 935, are fair examples of this vigorous artist and versifier. That of 'Mercury and the Woodman' I like the best. Gaspard Poussin ranks between Salvator Rosa and Claude, not because he was not so good a workman, but because he was not so original in his style as either. His two best examples in the Gallery are 'The Sacrifice of Isaac,' 31, and 'A Land Storm,' 36. 'Dido and Æneas taking shelter from the Storm,' 95, is also a fine work. Everyone who admires Turner must certainly honour Claude Lorraine; and as I am one of those admirers, I look upon the earlier painter of sunsets, classical temples, and artistically arranged trees with much interest. He does not, of course, paint atmosphere; only one master did this properly, and that was Turner, but he presents to us a placid and smiling world which promotes comforting thoughts of rest and joy, and so I give him all due honour as a pretty landscape painter and also an original master. What he did came from his own invention, and if Turner painted better, that was only because he commenced where Claude, his first master, had left off. The 'Landscape with Figures,' 12, and 'Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba,' 14, are two of Claude's best examples. Turner was a daring man to risk the test of Time with the four pictures; at present his two look the best, but in another hundred years, while Claude's will still appear almost as fresh, Turner's will have vanished, as all his pictures must, and leave only a few stains and cracks behind. So much for the modern masters when they try to compete with their manufactured tube colours against the wise men of old, who ground their own paints, studied the chemistry of colours, and knew how to prepare their own canvases. A century after this, readers of old books will wonder what John Ruskin meant by praising Turner so extravagantly, when they go down to the vaults where the Trustees are vainly trying to keep the remains of those fugitive masterpieces, by secluding them from the light, while Claude Lorraine will still hang on in his old places, calm, fresh, sunny and metallic. So much for atmosphere against artifice. [Illustration: HARMONY] CHAPTER XI _THE SACRED AND THE COMIC SIDES OF ART_ PART I.--THE SACRED SIDE OF ART [Illustration: Y]OU have doubtless all seen a photograph of that fine head of our Saviour by Gabriel Max, illustrative of the legend of St Veronica. The story tells us that Veronica wiped the face of Christ with her napkin as He passed along cross-laden, blood-stained, mud-stained, and sweating to Calvary, and in token of her kindness the Lord left the impression of that world-wasted face upon the napkin. It is a beautiful legend, and Gabriel Max has illustrated it as, without exception, no man before him ever did. The dimness and uncertainty have aided the painter's conception. It is not so much a face as the shadow of a face which is presented to us--the shadow of a lamb-like face, full of infinite meekness and patience, dirty and wounded, with masses of hair draggled and stuck with the blood which has trickled down the brow and cheeks to that indefinite beard. This, to me, constitutes the great charm of this masterly work; that the painter has left to the spectator the task of embodying this divine shade. The trick about the eyes is the weak and common portion of an otherwise matchless work of subtlety. It may please the people, and make a multitude of inartistic minds marvel at the cleverness of the illusion, but it is only a small trick at the best, and unworthy the mind which could conceive and execute all the rest. Sacred art, from the specimens I have seen, has not yet fulfilled its aim or intention. Those Madonnas of Raphael are only pretty women nursing their babies; that is, if you can tear down the mystery and veneration which time has thrown about those dead masters and darkened masterpieces; so perhaps it is as well not to dwell at length upon olden art, which represented sacred art, but to come to my present purpose, which is art sacred, or the sacredness of art as a life calling. I have often wondered whether there are many young men or women showing pictures in exhibitions who think seriously upon the calling they are devoting themselves to; do they think upon the duties before them, and the obligations they are binding themselves to fulfil? To be a painter means a great deal more than to have learned the blending of a few harmonies, the proportions of a model, or some years of outline practice; more than sitting down before an object and reproducing it faithfully, as far as the outward eye sees. It means the subduing of self, and the taking up of a daily cross; the following of an ideal in spite of all obstacles, jeers, laughter, or pity. It does not mean to be able to sell well to the public or to dealers, as any clever mechanic can learn to paint to sell: you have only to acquire the fashion and the trickery of the trade, which, with a little practice, will make you popular. Sacred art means patience--not that patience which is composed of pitiful detail or painstaking, but the patience which will make you follow out your ideal, regardless of all consequences. This is where young artists err in taking to the brush. A little dexterity is acquired, and they imagine that they are done, and able to criticise all and sundry. I generally know a novice from an earnest seeker after the truth. The beginner laughs outright at first sight, and the learned student looks and probes; the intention being gravely weighed in the balance with the execution, and the worker getting all the benefit of the doubt. When an artist first begins to tread his journey (after he has left school, I mean), it has mostly a very pleasant and sunny appearance. Of course he can draw and copy casts nearly as well as the master, a great deal more neatly than most artists who are half-way down the road; all the maxims are fresh in his memory, with the colour blendings, which he has learnt by rule. Hope sits lightly in his heart, because he has one or two commissions, or perceives the distant promise of a few. So the morning sky above him arches without a cloud, and the early rays are falling slantingly upon countless diamonds at his feet. There is a valley in front of him (but that is far off), a place of darkness, where high rocks are cleft to meet again overhead so that the sunlight cannot pierce through the gloom; a place of skulls--the Golgotha of the painter--where the armour of conceit is broken into pieces and left amongst the wreckage with which the place is strewn. Those who come out of this valley of humiliation live on for ever afterwards grave men, who look more after their own imperfections than the faults of their neighbours. Countless hordes rush into the darkness and are never seen again; the bones of some whiten there, pits on the roadside swallow up others, while others again get into false tracks and are never able to retrace their steps. A number shirk it and go by this side backwards, as happy in their ignorance and foolish laughter as when they began so hopefully. And the world is so blind that it consents to honour and pay those shirkers, oftentimes better than it does those grave survivors of the black valley. When the artist first begins his pursuit he ought to begin with the high sense that his profession is a calling, and that he is the eye-preacher of beauty as the pastor is the ear-preacher of religion; he must go out with the intention always to do his very best in his own natural way, for no other man's habit of walking will do for him. To be a painter is a great pleasure and a great pain; pleasure in the summer, when the sun is ripening the pale golden ears of corn, and the painter walks out amongst the lights and shadows, the fresh air and the singing of birds, and, fixing upon something beautiful, sits down to listen to the divine concert and sketch it all in--the _music_ and the magic changes of Mother Earth; pleasure when he gets up in the night-time, thralled with his great idea, yet unborn, and labours to bring it out--those gracious hours of ecstasy when the charcoal smudges over the paper, and the brain is reeling with the intoxication of the Creator. _IMAGINATION_ Gift of God to erring mortal, promise of a life divine, When the creature is admitted to that awful inner shrine; There is naught of earth remaining, kings and princes hedged about With divinity the circle, leaving lesser beings out. Gifted with the Maker's magic, out of nothing they create Crowded earths which rise before them, void, until they animate. They are passed in scorn or pity, beggars in their fellows' eyes. What are rags and empty purses when to heights like these they rise? For alas! with this gift comes too often _tactlessness_, a glorious capacity to build castles in the air, with a most deplorable incapacity of being able to reduce those splendid edifices to any marketable value. When the artist has laboured at his idea until it takes a form, not quite the matchless creation he dreamt, but as nearly approaching to it as his skill or paints can come, a glow of unearthly passion and wonderment at his own work comes over him; he has caught something more than he dreamt about, even although it be not quite so fair; for the vague indefinite is always more perfect than the embodied reality. He looks at his work with awe and wonderment. _SOUL_ Yes! the image is completed, every feature there is caught, Death is conquered, and immortal we have made it out of naught; And from that strange spark within us, that strange spark of inner fire, It is like ourselves, immortal, it can grovel or aspire. What is that which we have given it? something that we cannot tell, Something of a life beyond us, for we feel it oft rebel; Something thrilling, something noble, something leading to a goal, Ours--and yet beyond explaining, call it Heart or call it Soul. The artist wonders at himself, and, with the excitement, sees past the form to the ideal. It is like a draught of nectar to him, that Olympian wine which made the gods mad in the pleasant court of old Jove. _ADORATION_ I have made it. Have I made it? It is noble, it is good. It seems perfect, can I wonder that it is not understood? There were pangs in its out-coming, efforts of the clouded Will, But it forced its way to being, all my frame is trembling still. I have made it. Have I made it? Can the _wish_ engender power? I am humble, yet adore it; it was in me scarce an hour. I but yielded up volition, not one effort did it cost, Only pangs of indecision when I feared the thought was lost. He is exhausted with the effort and goes to bed, sleeping a dreamless sleep, while the dormant mind sobers down; and now comes the hour of reaction and icy pain, when he rises changed and cool to review the fevered work of yesterday. Reflection sets in, and he tastes of the cup of doubt and despair. _REFLECTION_ From the clouds we have descended, time hath cooled our fevered brains, Reason pounces on her victim, rivets round him iron chains, Pointing out each imperfection with a finger tipped in ice, Jeering tells him his creation cannot bear the looking twice, Sets him up, his harshest critic; now the labour has begun, Hours of thinking, watching, working, when the spirit part is done, Timid touches, happy chances, beatings of the fearful heart; First creation, second motion, then the patient tricks of art. Last state, repose. When he has done his very utmost, listened to the opinions of doubtful friends, with friendly and hostile critics; when he has altered and re-altered as far as _he_ possibly dare go, he lays down his brush with a defiant gasp, dogged in his resolve to spoil it no further, deaf to any further suggestions; he is as contented as his sacred but exacting art will permit him to be. _REPOSE_ It is finished, all imperfect, but it is our very best, We can come no nearer Nature, here are all our sins confess'd. If we spent another hair-stroke something precious would be lost, Ye that see it but a second cannot reckon up the cost. 'Twas an altar of the passions, burning hopes were offered up, Prayers and fastings followed after, we drank deep from sorrow's cup. Through dark hours of cold affliction, from sharp thorns we pulled the rose; Marvel you at our assurance, at the pride of our repose? Unfriendly critics are not much trouble to a true painter; he hears them talk with the consciousness that he will benefit from their jeers when they jeer with discretion, and be able to trip them up when they display their ignorance. The public, not appreciative, does not move him much either, further than he has the gaunt wolf to keep back, and must study their wishes so that they may help him to kill this monster. What is his great grief and tribulation?--the inner voice which tells him every step of the way that he is so far behind, that he has so much to learn and so little time to learn it in. Every picture he sees by another artist seems so much better than his last picture, that his life would be a constant misery if it were not for those poetic visions and sunny hours of open-air exercise. To be able to paint a tree or a street or a face does not fulfil all the mission of sacred art. It demands more. Nature, which for ever changes, demands from her votaries constant change of subject and constant change of treatment, and the hour which finds the painter contented with what he has learnt, and satisfied to go on reproducing his effects, finds him a hopeless invalid as far as art-progress is concerned. Like the poet, he must go on, go upwards for ever; for nothing can remain stationary either in this or the next world; if we do not climb upwards we are bound to descend. As Buddha tells us: 'The devils in the under worlds wear out deeds that were wicked in an age gone by. Nothing endures.' We must go on, or _go out_, go on searching after purity and elevation and beauty in its highest sense; not the beauty of an inane face or fashion-plate figure, not even the ideal beauty of the Greeks, but the beauty to which we are most adapted in each stage of progression as we mount toward the infinite. _BEAUTY_ What is Beauty? the perfection of the type it represents, And the true fulfilment of the picture that the mind contents. It is in the babbling streamlet, with its birch and fern-lined strands, It is in the factory chimney which against the cloud gaunt stands, In the blasted trunk that fork-like rears its bleached bare arms on high, Framing sedgy moors and uplands past soft tones that melt in sky. Nestling in the yellow short-gown, couched in costly wreaths of lace, In the heart, voice, walk, and gesture, more than in the form or face. The painter must work out his own redemption in this pursuit of the beautiful. No imitation of the beauty of another will help him; his sense must be innate and out-coming; from him the well must spring which has to quench the thirst of nations--living water and quenchless fire--to flow on and light on, long after his own creative powers have ended. As Buddha again tells us: 'Ask not from the silence, for it cannot speak; vex not your mournful minds with pious pains. Ah! brothers, sisters, seek naught from the helpless gods by gift or hymn, nor bribe with blood, nor feed with fruit and cakes. Within yourselves deliverance must be sought. Each man his prison makes.' As I have said, the beginning of painting is very easy. A straight line done fairly well, drawn with the full comprehension of the mind, and a flowing hand which can pause and run on at will, the knowledge of the rainbow colours and blendings, are the alphabet of the artist. Afterwards, as he grows in stature, his wants and wishes grow in proportion; and the nearer we seem (to the eyes of those behind us) to be approaching the goal, Perfection, the farther away it is from us. To the public, for whose instruction and pleasure the artists paint, I would fain close this by saying just a few words. Beware how you are satisfied with a picture; misjudge your own eyes when they are gratified only. Is the painted cornfield exactly like the cornfields you have seen? Is it a _dead_ or a _living_ portrait of the corn-ears? Has the painter, in letting go the exact facsimile, not given you something beyond and better--the motion and soul of that cornfield? Are those eyes exactly like the eyes of the one you love or mourn for? They may be the exact shape and size and shade, but are they the eyes you used to look into and let out your soul after? Or has the painter been careless about the shape or shade or size, and yet given you a gleam of the heart-longings that cling to your heart-longings with unseen angel-claspings? Weigh it all carefully, whether you want the shape and number of the houses in the home of your childhood, or the indefinite thrill which shall wake into the active music of long ago. Do you want the cold clay that is lying under the senseless stones, or the spirit which is hovering about you still? This is the mission of sacred art--to teach us to be better and not to go back; to bring us from the fierce chasing after the world, and make us forget the golden links we are striving to forge for the sinking of our manhood or womanhood; to tell us how the nations long ago lived and loved and laboured, and now lie dead in spite of all their pomp, as we shall be in spite of all our hankerings after what is ours no longer than a day of Time. To give us gleams of sunshine and green fields and cooling streams, when we are parched by the dust of the streets. To give us glimpses into the wisdom of innocence, when we are blinded by guilt and shame and crusted selfishness. To give us glowings of chivalry and patriotism, when we are forgetting all these inspirations in the ignorance of this book philosophy. To make us more merciful to the poor and unfortunate, the maimed in mind as well as body; to make us love all as our brothers and sisters, no matter what their faults may be. 'Living pure, reverent, patient, pitiful, loving all things that live, even as themselves, letting unkindness die, and greed and wrath.'--Buddha. This is the mission of our sacred art--to educate each soul, painters and people; to subdue the self that is now dominant, and plant the other on its throne; to make men and women of us all, in the highest, truest, grandest sense. PART II.--THE COMIC SIDE OF ART Art is many-sided, but with the exception of one, or perhaps two, of the sides, all the rest are comic. Viewed from the outside, that is, the standpoint of the buyer and the critic, the ludicrousness of it is almost appalling. It would be tragic in the intensity of its farcical characters, even as a very hearty laugh sometimes will cause sudden death by choking, were it not for the shades of the pitiful or contemptible which relieve it of the load of laughter, and change the downward curve of the broad grin into a decided upward smiling termination. I dare say you will think my subject should be composed of illustrations from Cruikshank, Gillray, Leech, and other masters of the comic muse, and so it ought to be, perhaps, and for that very reason I do not feel inclined to treat it so. I do not like to see ladies dress all by the month's fashion-plates, whether it suits them or not, nor men do exactly the things expected of them. Where would be those delightful throbs of surprise if it were not for the tangent starts of the unconfined lunatics who pass for men and women of talent on this very superficial, thin-crusted globe of ours? One of the most amusing sides of art is the method people have of judging a picture. Say an old gentleman with his wife and two or three daughters come by mistake into an exhibition with the catalogue of some other exhibition in their possession. They glance at a picture, and fall into raptures over it: 'Beautiful, the _feeling_ is delightful. What force of touch, strength of character! Who is it by? Number So-and-So. Ah! I knew it.' (The number in the wrong catalogue points to a well-known name.) 'I felt that I could not be mistaken.' (The old gentleman adjusts his glasses and looks at the title with triumphant conviction.) 'Odd title, though, for the subject; eccentricity of genius, I suppose. No matter, it is splendid. Quite Dutch-like in its subtlety; quite Israely in its character; delicate, refined, realistic, bold, masterly!' One of the daughters, blessed with keener vision, has here discovered another signature on the corner of this masterpiece, a name not in the fashion, in fact one despised. 'Papa, it isn't by Mr. Smudge, R.A.; it is by Ernest Tyro.' 'Eh! what? Nonsense! why, the catalogue says Smudge.' The mistake is discovered, and at once the tune changes. 'Ah! vulgar, coarse, commonplace. Let us go out before we are contaminated.' Now, this is the comic part of it, with a dash of the pitiful. What difference did that signature make in the merit of the picture? If it was delicate, refined, bold, masterly before, how could it be vulgar, coarse, or commonplace afterwards? A man with piles of money to spend and a moderate modicum of brains gets hauled into the artistic stream, and goes gasping and spluttering around, spending his money on what he knows nothing about, and never will while God blesses him with cash, and his tongue can patter cant. Somebody takes him kindly in hand and educates him, as Buchanan did James VI.; he raves about the painter he has been taught to consider the master. 'Look at it! what colour, what masterly brush-marks. Did you ever see the like of that?' Never, except in a white-washer with his broad brush, or a scavenger sweeping a crossing. In his natural state he may get a picture which he can comprehend, because the houses are like the houses he sees every day, and the trees have branches and leaves definitely painted on them; that picture represented Nature as he saw her, therefore he considered it good. But under training he is taught to despise this sort of thing, and obediently despises it; the old love is turned out or with its face to the wall, and the splashes which have neither form nor finish are doted upon. Would this man care to have a wife without a nose or with indefinite features? Would he be charmed with the colour of a mashed-up bit of flesh? It is all right enough for musicians to rave over the sweetness of a piece of catgut, but the world wants to hear the whole tune, and what we as artists know to be good quality is comical affectation on their part. Artists are no exception in this curious alteration of opinion. I have heard artists shouting with contemptuous laughter over a picture, calling it rubbish, and crying that the man who painted it ought to get six months for doing such deeds; taking it to pieces, running down the drawing, the composition, and the colour, until some authority said it was good, and then they saw as by a miracle beauties in the very faults. What was bad drawing before this became a splendid piece of handling; what before had no composition now teemed with poetry, and from bad it became beautiful colouring; and I have wondered how it all came to pass, seeing that _they_ ought to know what is good. There is a story told of Tintoretto, who was kept down and scoffed at nearly all his life by the school of Titian; for even in those far-off balmy days fashion ruled the roost, and the great masters acted about as contemptibly as do the little masters now. Poor Tintoretto could not paint to please anyone, and when he did sell, it was only for canvas and stuff, if he got a patron generous enough to give him so much, brains and labour being flung in by way of apology. It was the price of a spoilt bit of cloth he generally managed to get from his patrons. Sometimes, when the people were surprised out of their habitual doubt and suspicion by some brilliant flash of fancy, and the wealthy controllers of men's destinies were inclined to pitch the poor wretch a sop, it was passed over his head to the hangers-on of the school then in repute; what the decorated old Titian could not swallow himself he handed over to some of his satellites, and left Tintoretto outside. Tintoretto, although an amiable sort of fellow, was not altogether an angel, and, therefore, naturally resented this sort of starving process, and kicking out, as some of us still do, got laughed at for his pains, as I dare say is as much the habit still as it was in those golden days of old in Italy. Jerusalem is not the only city where donkeys thrive by braying. Notwithstanding the constant snubbing to which he was subjected, Tintoretto was generous enough to be able to see and appreciate the good qualities of Titian a great deal better than the prosperous painter could see his beauties in return. If I had to express an opinion on the two men, I should say, 'Tintoretto was the prince of painters, and the lucky man was Titian.' Amongst Tintoretto's few possessions was a picture by his tyrant, and Tintoretto had the meekness to copy it so carefully that he was pretty well pleased with it himself; so he hung them up together, with 'original' on the one and 'copy' on the other. The critics came in, as usual, to laugh or encourage the mighty but stricken heart with words like this: 'Ah, if you could only paint like Titian!' or, 'Not the least degree like the original.' Now, Tintoretto had his own opinion about his abilities, as we all have, I dare say, about ours, and he thought at nights, when he looked over his creations, that they were as good as Titian's, and some of them better, if not nearly so well paid for; and after all these years a great number of sensible people have come to see and believe the same as the poor old man did of himself. Of course it wasn't much consolation to him, this conviction, seeing it didn't change the sour wine and black bread of his table into the Cyprus and cake of his rivals. No matter; the old man determined to have his joke, if he could have nothing else out of the gold-laden quadrupeds; so he wrote on the original 'copy,' and on the copy 'original,' and waited for the kindly-disposed visitors to come and comfort him, as usual. 'Ah, a very far way behind, old man! it won't do; you haven't the go of the master in you. It wants strength and purity; the chiaroscuro is shallow as a summer stream. Why can't you do it like this, now?' pointing contemptuously from the original to the copy. That was the method of judging pictures long ago, as it is now. If a man paints something that becomes the fashion, then he may do what he likes with his paper or canvas. A drunken smudge or a meaningless splash of the brush will be raved over as if the man had wrought a miracle. And how a man gets into fashion is often as great an astonishment to himself as it is to the people coming after him. One artist tried everything, from still life to a vision of the infernal regions, and still he could neither please the public nor pay for a respectable suit. One day, in a moment of frolic, he put a priest's robe upon a brother artist, and painted him in that fashion, sending it into Paris, as usual, to stand in the windows for an indefinite time. A distinguished English art patron passed, looked at it, praised it, and gave the dealer the price asked for it. Presto! the painter was famous, and found his vocation marked out for him for ever after; and I suppose now drinks absinthe and smokes cigarettes during the intervals of priest-making without a single care for to-morrow. A man may paint and paint until he is white-headed, or has worn the hair off his scalp altogether, and all to no purpose. He may rack his brains until the cords crack to invent a new subject, and propitiate fickle fortune, and not be able to earn salt for his broth. He may produce picture after picture, with all the conceptive power of a Michael Angelo and the colouring of a Titian, and still be no nearer his aim. And, in a fit of desperation, he may dash off a piece of brainless rubbish, and for that hasty bit of caprice become the lion of the day. And when he does succeed, has he not justice on his side if he curses the goddess Fame, and laughs to derision the senseless crowd of worshippers who have raised him up on high? When he thinks on the guineas he is making now, and the coppers he was not able to earn before; when he thinks upon the pictures which he created before, and the worthless daubs which he is flinging off now; when he thinks upon what might have been, or upon the woman he might have married, or, if married, on the woman who might have been still alive, if his deserts had been rewarded as his folly is--the woman who pined and grew haggard with anxiety, and starved to death through the want of the paltry gold that now curses his present blasted life--this is the kind of comedy to make men stand up and blaspheme, and to make women lay down their heads and weep themselves blind. The painter who _was_ a man, and has become a machine; the man who grew by his earnestness near to God, and now must work for an earth-idol! It is a comic sight to see pictures which are the fashion; colour-blendings, the outcome of craft only; men who have had aspirations after great things content to lay down a noble purpose before an order. One trick or one accident did it, and so they must run the vein threadbare or else starve. I remember once three young fellows who went gold-hunting; they bought a digger's claim and dug away for six months without a single sight of gold-earth colour, and at last caved in. Two new chums came along and took the claim on chance; the ex-proprietors had pocketed the transfer-money, and squatted on the surface to take a final pipe before leaving. The new hands went down and filled the bucket; it came up bulging with a fifty-six pound nugget of pure gold in it. The old hands had worked six months without avail, and the new chums struck at first sight. Art is like gold-digging, all a blind chance. It isn't good work that takes, it isn't earnest thought; it is all a turn of the wheel, and the man may be a genius or a jackass. If his turn comes up he wins the hour. Gold! Ah, when will the power of it cease? The first digger who saw the nugget appear clasped his hands in front of him and took a header down the pit, dashing his brains out in the paroxysm of his disappointment. I remember once a man who had made a fortune came on board ship with the load converted into sovereigns and sewn inside a broad belt round his waist. He tried to be calm and reasonable, but it was of no use; he went frantic with his good luck, and one day, after being three weeks out at sea, he came up on deck in a frenzied condition, took off his valuable belt, opened it, and pouring the glittering contents overboard, sprang in after them, and so settled the grand problem. There was one painter who knew the difficulties of art and the capriciousness of fortune very exactly. In early life his good pictures could hardly bring him in 30_s._ a week, and latterly, when he could sell all he put his name upon, he used to say that the British Lion would give fifty pounds for a dirty piece of paper if it only had his name on the corner. It is this truckling to gold that makes art comic and common, this buying and selling custom which takes all the inspiration out of it and renders the pursuit of it a few degrees below the honest efforts of the mechanic, just as we know the glory of womanhood loses all its sacredness when it is made the end of a commercial bargain. If the beauty is not beyond price it is worthless; so, if the picture is not too precious to sell, it is nothing greater than the price it brings. Artists will for ever imitate tradesmen, and want to stand on their dignity at the same time, which is an impossible combination. It is a very curious trouble, this disease of Dignity. A man may do a thousand mean contemptible actions, and yet stand back indignant at the one over and above. He may sin his soul away, traffic his manliness for a few paltry shillings, and yet feel fearfully outraged because someone proposes one other shabby trick to him; as if it mattered much one shuffle more amongst the others, one more dirty spot amongst the many defilements with which his soul is smudged over. He may feel no shame, for instance, in taking away characters, and yet stand out very rigidly against taking a purse; as if the stealing the paltry contents of the one were one-tenth part as great a wrong as the other. A man may feel very much ashamed of a parcel because it isn't done up in brown paper, or feel very unhappy over a collar half dirty, when he would think nothing at all about the bit of villainy that is so much uglier than the half-dirty collar. You all know those pictures and engravings of Hogarth, who painted like the moral preacher that he always was. He is of the comic tribe who set up vice as a warning, and with a laugh give you a lesson to make you grave. That is the sort of art I should like you to study when you are too self-satisfied. David Teniers and the other Dutchmen only half did their work, for they just painted the merry outside of iniquity without giving us a single glimpse of the soul, which is Ruin. All along, art has been a mystery and a problem for the wisest to solve, and I do not know anyone yet who could point out the real good of it. A man may exercise the brains God has given him, and make a chair or a table, and no one thinks he has any cause to feel proud; and another may take a paint-brush, and, with less of the God gift, dabble over a bit of canvas, and feel qualified thereby to strut along and feel mighty. What about? Just because he used paints and brushes and the other man used wood and glue. As if the one wasn't as much to be boasted about as the other. Again, an artist paints away and thinks he is doing splendidly, and that all the other work in the world is rubbish compared to his; or he may be painting away splendidly, and thinking all the time that he is wasting good colour, and producing rubbish. Or you may hear a man who has not a vestige of colour-perception in his eye or mind pooh-poohing a piece of perfect colouring as being devoid of the very quality which it possesses, if it possesses any merit at all. We see something done and we jump to conclusions right away, or we take offence without rhyme or reason, and never give the offender the benefit of a single doubt. What is clean colour to us, through force of habit, looks a singularly dirty combination to someone else. With a jump the artist sees what he thinks is an oversight or weak spot without giving his own mind time to investigate, or the picture time to explain its intention. A black spot is wanted there, or a white splash, or a spark of red, or a dash of blue, to make a picture of it. How does he know that the painter has not tried all these stale old tricks, and, rejecting them, chosen something better, newer, more subtle, if not quite so apparent? It isn't jealousy that is troubling the artist when he laughs or condemns the work of a brother; it is prejudice, that will not let him look more than one way out, that fastens upon him like a pair of blinkers, and makes of him an animal under control--drawing him along in the one direction in spite of his eyes or judgment. The thing is bad; it looks good, but it must be bad. This is one of the comic sides to Art. A man has learnt to paint and draw, and ought to know when the work set before him is good or not, and yet, like other people, he will look at the name in the corner, and heroically strangle the knowledge which he must have, in order to chime in with the clanging bells of Fashion. Or he will see one unfortunate picture, a poor example, crop up at a sale or hanging on someone's walls, and straightway judge all that the man does from that, knowing, as every artist must, that all have sins of the past to repent of, that there are pictures which they have painted of which they are themselves ashamed, but which some purchaser has taken willy-nilly, and necessity has forced them to part with. Knowing this of themselves, it does seem strange that they never take into consideration these probabilities when looking at the works of some other man in or out of the Art upper ten. A painter cannot paint well when starving, neither will he paint well when replete; so the time to regard a man at his very best is just that happy moment when the big elephant Public Opinion kneels down to take him up. He is elated, but not puffed up; eager to deserve the honours which he has won, not yet arrogant with success, or content to bestow a swish of the brush for sovereigns, or think that he is composed of some finer kind of material than the house-decorator who makes his walls and woodwork beautiful, without considering the value of hog-hair as he works. Be faithful to yourselves and your intentions, and you don't need to care much whether the people about you consider you an object to be comic over or not; hold fast to your purpose, and never truckle to a whim or a caprice, and your art will be true and grand whether you are painters or plasterers. Yield to be the toy of the hour, and whether you are making for yourselves guineas or grins, you are only the shadow in a poor, low comedy; and your art is comic without a single point about it to raise it from the burlesque, which serves no higher end in creation than does the bashed hat of Ally Sloper. [Illustration: ART SUBJECTS] CHAPTER XII _ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH ART_ EX LIBRIS [Illustration: I]T is only when a man settles down in life that he begins to gather books around him, and to think about the outside as well as the contents of his favourite volumes. First editions, and rare, early volumes, as well as _éditions deluxe_, occupy his attention during his leisure from business cares. The young man is quite content with a yellow cover and a thrilling or racy inside, while the elder man views these abominations in the shape of binding and get-up with horror. Artists as a rule are not great readers of books, and the more modern and realistic they are, the less they read; their eyes are occupied solely in watching and studying passing effects, while they can always depend upon some bookworm friend to give them the particulars if they want a subject from history. They take their characters from their models, the bookworm friend provides them with all the other information about costumes and historical details which they may require; therefore unless, like Alma Tadema, Walter Crane, or my old friend Sir J. Noel Paton, his art inclines towards antiquity, decoration, or history, the true painter is not much of a book authority. I have found also, from observation, that the man who is fond of his garden does not care much for his library; indeed, although no man can reach middle age without having some hobby, he is a very unfortunate man who has more than one. My own life has been so arranged by Providence that I have never had long enough time to get firmly rooted on any special soil, for always when I have just been settling down I have been transplanted quickly and ruthlessly, and the tender mosses about my roots have been torn ruthlessly from their premature clinging and scattered. At one period I took to collecting delf and china, one of the most seductive, extravagant, and dangerous of all passions; in this direction my artistic instinct of colour found vent. But having inherited a love for books, I indulged in that habit also when I could afford it--often, alas! sacrificing other interests for the gratification of these two absorbing passions. Fortunately for my peace of mind, a clumsy joiner cured me of my hobby for china. He had lined a room with shelves from ceiling to floor, assuring me that his work was strong enough to carry the contents of the British Museum; and foolishly I believed him. At this time I had about four and a half tons weight of books, and about five hundred pounds worth of china; therefore, to make my library attractive, I placed the books above and below the centre shelf, which I devoted to my specimens of china, so as to bring them, as it were, on the line. On the second night after I had arranged my treasures I was awoke by a fearful crash, and on going into my library, I found shelves, books, and rare china, now a confused blending of fragments on the floor, as complete a mass of wreckage as mine enemy could have desired to see. The books were not much damaged, nor the shelves, but the fragile loveliness which I had doted on with such uxoriousness had taken wings and left me for ever. No man born of woman dare indulge in two grand passions with impunity. That ogre joiner added the last blow to my vanished delusion when he generously offered to put up my shelves again without extra charge. I have loved china ever since, but never since that hour with the unholy desire of possession. I have been content to admire it in the cabinets of my friends. The true collector of china does not trouble himself greatly about the artistic qualities of his wares; it is the rarity which he runs after, and this is one of the most pitiful of human follies, unless he chances to be a dealer. What fascinated me in this pursuit was the beauty of the designs or the richness of the colouring. I delighted to make my room one complete and harmonious picture, rather than divide it into different pictures; and in this, while it lasted, I had the most unalloyed pleasure that mortal man could have. And this is how I should like to recommend men, who are rich enough to afford the luxury, to decorate the rooms in which they study or think; for while pictures may tell their own story, they are apt to become assertive in time, while the stories grow stale. But with beautiful works of china, tastefully assorted and harmoniously arranged in combination with finely bound books of favourite authors, no matter whether they are first or last editions or contemptibly modern in the estimation of the china-maniac, you will find yourself constantly surrounded with old friends who are never prosy, and by an orchestra of ever-changing songs without words--silent harmonies and poetic suggestions without limit. I like my shelves to be open and roomy, so as to hold any size of volume; made plain and dark coloured, with little ornament, and attached to the wall. Yet the beau idéal of a perfect library is to have it made mediæval in its design, in old and unpolished oak, with Gothic carvings where bare spaces occur; the ceiling divided into oak panels and rich with design, the furniture in harmony, so that nothing may distract the eye from the richness of the binder's art, or the tender flower-like glowing of the vases, cups, saucers, and plates, stirring up while they at the same time soothe the jaded imagination of the wearied thinker with their vague suggestions. BOOK PLATES [Illustration: T]HIS is an old art or taste which is being once more revived with great activity through the timely efforts of the Ex Libris Society. It is a pursuit which is most educative to the lover of books, because it is filled with symbols and leads on to the noble art of heraldry and spiritual intellectualism, in which such men as Albert Dürer stand so pre-eminent. At first sight it may appear like the pandering to the vanity of book possessors, but it is not so in any sense; rather is it the connecting link which binds men of taste and research to each other, and which leads them on to that higher level of humanitarianism and faith for which purpose the grand laws of Heraldry and Masonry were first instituted. ARTISTIC ASTRONOMY [Illustration: I] THINK that a man to be a painter, more than any other student of life-lore, ought to probe a little into every science; anatomy he must have, geology, botany, and astronomy he ought to know something about. I do not mean the very painful and exact knowledge which is begun and ended in learning the names and probable distances of the planets, or the exact theories which books teach; that sort of lore is very well in its place, so that it does not interfere with the gracious if delusive investments of fancy. But none of us like to hear a discourse upon the exact sciences from the lips of young love; we would rather have her more ignorant and responsive to our extravagance--think that her 'eyes are stars, and would in heaven stream so bright that birds would sing and think it were not night'--than to be reminded that this Romeo nonsense is exploded, and be told the scientific composition of those sapphire or amber orbs, and the cold attractions and revulsions of those rolling earths. The painter and the poet, like the lover, should be impassioned and impulsive, keeping his knowledge only for similes and parts of the glowing idea. He ought to know all things, but be, besides, 'Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, the love of love,' able to see through life and death, through good and ill, and into his own soul. Regarding the stars, we must indulge in fancy, for science will not enlighten us much, with all the help its magnificent telescopes can give us; for, after all is said and done, the wisest of scientists are forced to admit that the truth is not quite certain, either one way or the other. Before the Beginning, we will suppose this earth to have been a molten globe of fused material, perhaps the fragment of some other vast globe, one of many sparks flung from the great flame that had spun round for myriads of centuries with other fires in the black space. To attempt in words to produce an estimate of the magnitude of this stupendous scene would be as weak a failure as to attempt by figures to describe Eternity. The circle is our only sign in the one case; let imagination's broadest and vaguest conception grasp the other as it best can. The fearful concussion as two fires met and clashed and became a blazing shower, the weird effect as the sparks, to us monster planets and measureless suns, fell whirling into the chaos of that awful night! All are silent as the stars are in their distance, and we watch at night the shining and the sparkling, giving them, with our intense narrow egotism, a place in our emotions and our sentiments, as if they were ministers of fate for earth, so trifling do they seem to our mite world. Science blunders on, one generation of savants giving us theories and blinding themselves to prove them correct, which another generation of as wise men flatly contradict, and set up fresh theories to be again knocked down. I pay thirty shillings for a valuable work on astronomy to-day that next year I find not worth a sixpence. They coolly inform us that at length the distance to some star is certainly discovered--at least, with the slight margin of some tens of thousands of millions of miles, to be afterwards determined as they think best, and that is our knowledge of the stars. This is science. A man makes himself a mole, scratching up a mound of earth, boring and thinking and wasting his eyes and his brains for fifty or sixty or seventy years to try to find out what he never can while his body consumes bread, and what the most ignorant clown will discover with a single flap of the wing of Death, if our belief in a future state is fact. The poet is the wisest astronomer. He gazes an hour on the stars, with his eye rapt and his mind fallow, and the spirits or the spirit of inspiration ploughs it up and fills him with the knowledge unconsciously, and if the withered old astronomer with his lines and earth laws is so far astray in his conclusions, seeing the poet cannot wander much farther, why may he not be the only one correct, in that he writes what he knows nothing about? We, reading it, call it deep, mystical, splendid, because we cannot understand it; while the poet, poor fellow! reading our criticism, and thinking that we understand it from our subtle explanation, rests perfectly content, feels it is all right, and that he is a very clever fellow. To us these stars are serene, as all action is when viewed from distance. The carnage of the battle-field is but an ant-covered spot of the landscape to the spectator ten miles away; a little puff of blue smoke here and there, blotting out the insignificant black and red dots, is the whole picture of the fierce drunkenness and savage lust of blood which transform men into devils; those desolate hearths where the curse of the widow and the wail of the orphan are the most enduring, trophies of victory. Myriads of miles away, and all the thunders and rapidity become silver pin points: yet they joined in that warfare, or watched it as we do them, saw it cooling down until it died from their range, until the white glare that it once gave out became a crimson glow, to be swallowed in the oceans of steam that rolled about it. And so we are told that the slow stages went on--the fire, the steam, the waters, the sediment and slime that bred the life, the life that was rank and low, the preparation for other life, the light which was forcing its passage through the mists, that came and made the life robust; the convulsions that overthrew the whole, and the work that began once more, ever growing higher, as death purified and blotted out the errors, until the first perfection stood up from the other animals, and, as man, continued the work of creation. Sciences so blend together that it is impossible to take up one without finding tendons of another passing through it. Astronomy teaches the student that this earth is only one of a cluster; that our sun is not the sole candle of the universe, nor our moon the only Luna who touches the brains of men and poisons the flesh of fish; that on each of those countless needle and pin points, love, war, and work may be going on while our tiny star is out of the range of their glasses, and speculation sets to work filling up all the blanks, and tinkering up the broken links, while imagination gilds the repairs until we can behold worlds like our own, but larger and fairer; for man ever takes himself for his model of an angel, and his world for the image of the hereafter. Fairer, because imagination hangs up a gauze veil to soften the general effect and the blemishes. We look at the sky; mellow grey at the horizon, going through gentle gradations towards the deepest ultramarine overhead, and science tells us that this is formed by miles of atmosphere, and behind the ether belt spreads the black vacuum. Sometimes we think we can almost trace the airwaves, one behind the other, until the last thin layer is reached, and the glance is lured on as through a crystal, and we are soaring lark-like through the azure fields, the world beneath us lost, as when the swimmer in mid-ocean turns his face from the ship that represents land, and floats away on a blue sea under a blue sky, a solemn silence over all, the heart filled with the trembling delight and awesome majesty of boundless space. But to the poet they are angels; to the prisoned wisher they are fairy barks to wing him away from this earth, which is too small for his immortal cravings and desires. We like the science of the child, the lover, and the savage the best, for we think it as near truth as any other, and ten myriad times more satisfactory to the feelings. Claud Melnotte is our best guide to astronomy. 'To sit at nights beneath those arching heavens, and guess what star shall be our home when love becomes immortal.' That is the sort of astronomy for the poet, the child, and the quivering heart. I would fain bring back the world to its belief in fairies--tear it now and then from the hard facts which are being now so constantly driven into aching brains. Were they not happy times when Jack the Giant-Killer was the veritable history of a brave boy? Were they not sunny hours when you peered under toadstools for the little fairy who was to build you up a crystal palace, where gorgeous cakes were to be served on service of gold? Is there no cause for regret that the time is past when out of glowing embers on winter nights sprang forth knights on their war-steeds, or funny little old men and women with high-crowned hats, who you knew were all there, because you had _been told about them_?--days when falsehood was an unknown quality, and 'yes' meant surely 'yes,' and only 'no' was possible to doubt. Now it has become the large 'no,' with many a 'yes' much more than doubtful. What were stars to you then but golden lamps of heaven; shining ornaments on the foreheads of angels; windows of another beautiful world; or little sparks put up there all for your own special delight? And that vast immensity, to contemplate which the horrified brain of the astronomer reels with madness, and reason is nearly dethroned: what was it to you then but a cosy curtain of the earth's bed, drawn over it at nights to keep it warm while it slept, decorated with all those pretty spangles that people might count them until they fell asleep? What did those worlds teach you in the hours of your young romance, as you turned up your flushed face, after parting for the night, and sought out the brightest one to say your prayers to--young idolaters that you were? Did they not comfort you more then than now when you know what they really are, as you watched them grow moist with their great sympathy? It was a flick of vapour crossing them, or a tender tear creeping up to your eye in reality, but to you it was a star watching over you both, and carrying the wishes of the one to the other. Science tells us that those fantastic shapes flying above us are caused by the vapours absorbed from the ocean, condensed up there, and sent down again in the form of those grateful showers upon which the sun paints the prismatic rainbow, the sign of grace and hope, the index of the painter. We see the sun rising out of the vapour in the morning, a pale disk, surrounded by wreaths of the softest grey, here of the pearly ash, there of the citron bloom, broken by the salmon and the amber, while over them gleam the golden spokes and white bars of the wheels of glory, surrounded again by the curtains of grey to the chastened fringes of azure and silver, the golden car into which the king of the morning leaps, guiding his winged horses out into the day with a lustre overpowering, flinging his glittering shafts down the mountain sides, into the streams and torrents, into the mists of the valleys, breaking up the solid masses, tearing ragged edges from them, and scattering them until they fly away round the rocks, amongst the furze, in a panic of confusion, and the marble wall of an hour ago has become but a little smoke amongst the heather. We see the mid-day lights and shades, the clouds that trail slowly along like a flock of tired sheep with languid motion and drooping head, now like chubby infants flinging about their dimpled limbs, and casting fat depths of purple over the ivory shoulders of the children underneath; white-skinned cherubs whose antics have diverted us during a sleepy afternoon sermon, as they rolled past the diamond panes and cast their gigantic grey shadows on the whitewashed church walls opposite; or the drift of dapple and scumbly white overhead, like snow-flakes melting on a deep river, stippled all over with the ripples between. Then comes the night, and we know that the earth is turning round, and that it will soon be dawn with our friends in Australia, but to us it is the sun which is sinking behind the waves. It was a white flame on a blue field before, then the blue passes through changes of grey to gold, and the gold deepens to orange, and the orange glows to crimson, and the sun has become a blood-red eye glaring out of a purple mask, while overhead gather armies clad in regimentals of every shade. The red coats are struggling with the black and green, and the yellow and white facings are savagely torn off and sent flying after the tattered banners stained with the clotted gore of the slain, and the castles they were swarming about are crumbling to pieces. Then the battle is over and the stillness of death settles down, the purple grows grey, the amber afterglow is cooling behind it, and those wonderful little spark worlds are coming out to watch. On the earth long lines of silver vapour lie like stretches of water with fen-lands between; the tree trunks are submerged in the deluge, and only the tops of brown ranges float above. A sigh comes over the land, that enters into our spirits and finds an echo there, as we turn to the east to watch the mellow moon rise out of its umber grey background, giving us thoughts of rest after the day's work is over, bringing out young lovers, imparting to rosy cheeks the spiritual pallor of tender sympathy, throwing into dark eyes, that might flash mischievously in the sunlight, the melancholy languor that rivets the pensive chains, and a host of vague forms to the dreamy student, as he leans back, while the thin wreaths created by his meerschaum pipe circle heavenward from his meditative lips. ARTISTIC BOTANY [Illustration: I] It is astonishing how insensibly we are drawn on to moralise when in the mood. A stone in our path, over which we stumble, may become the text for a long sermon; a little piece of crumpled, torn newspaper may lead us along a train that seems endless--the power of the critic and the abuse of that power, the art of printing, and how people got on without the use of type to spread their gossip, the machinery used for it, and the boon steam will be to the poor horses who may yet become our friends instead of our slaves; the garment that scrap of paper once was, and the romance of the wearer, the loom where it was spun, and the weavers, the vessel that bore the little balls of cotton from the western fields where the lash of the overseer once cursed the land--and we have taken up the science of botany all in a single thought, and fly backward by flashes until we come to the period when earth was like a fair garden waiting upon its owner when the work was all but finished, and the nameless lion and lamb together grazed by the Tree of Knowledge. The great hush of fifty centuries hangs over it all, flinging before it the haze of a far distance. The date-palm waves like feathers in the silver space, the cocoanut hangs from the roof of its fan-like branches. The banana is green, or ripens without the decay of a leaf; the many bright-winged songsters are sparkling with their hundred warm tints, and the fresh first spring, for they have suddenly burst into joyous animation to hail the new life. We mingle with the morning mists, the white forms of the angels who watched that great work, and the diamond drops of dew which are lying in the mouth of the lilies get between us and the starry diadems which crown their glowing heads, until we cannot separate the flowers from the deathless host. Shall we break it all up with our relentless science, get out our trowels and our tin cases, and scatter the angels until we classify some of the unknown specimens? This purple flower with its drooping bells, to the half-open mouth of which the black-and-amber coated bee hangs sucking, is our own foxglove, a useful foreground ornament for the painter. Adam has yet to christen it, so I may be homely in my title and leave the Latin to the professors. An orange and scarlet toadstool rests against its grey green leaves, while the greyer boulder against which they grow absorbs the grey from the green until the leaf seems as bright as the fern-tree overhead, for after this manner ring out the chimes of colour in Nature, the high note only high until we strike the next. Yes, it is amazing upon how slight a foundation a very plausible and fine theory may be built up. I had almost fancied, while I was watching the rich crimson juice oozing like blood from the cracks of that dragon-tree, that the finale had come, and that it was our forefather Adam who clung in that most undignified fashion between me and the sky to that high branch of the upas, until I perceived the long hair upon his arms as he reached to the cocoanut alongside of him, while his graceful tail like a black snake twined round the white stem; then I recognised with feelings of relief that it was only our familiar caricature the monkey. How familiar it all seems as we ponder! This gnarled tree trunk is the oak of England, while yonder faint mountain-top, that we can just see between its twisted limbs, looks like the cobbler at work on the lofty Ben Lomond, giving us almost the right to claim our little island as the original site of Paradise, did not those many pillars which are shooting up and drooping down from the archways of this mighty banyan stop our ideas from going farther in that direction. Let us pause for a moment to regard the vegetation around with the draughtsman's glance. The oak rising like a pyramid, with its rugged horizontal masses, light, raw siennaish-green leaves clustering round the spreading knotty branches at right angles to its corrugated trunk. The elm, lime, and chestnut, not unlike in general outline, yet with distinctive shapes that separate them all. The rough trunks of the elm, pine, and fir may be distinguished at once from the smooth bark of the plane, chestnut, beech, birch, bamboo, and upas. The branches of the fir and beech are straight; the weeping willow and birch droop under their light load to kiss the river. Then there are the serpentine ash, and the irregular elm, cedar, and poplar, the long tapering leaves of the ash and willow, the round flakes of the beech and cedar, the fan-like masses of the chestnut, the little needle points of the fir. All these stand out stamped with their type marks, and proclaim what they are by their form and by their colour. We see, too, the dark olive duskiness of the fir crown, with its flesh-like arms flung outwards, and the warm glow of the upper limbs dying out of its body as it nears the brown earth, reddened like the bed of the larch with the dropping spray of cast-off shreds; the fir and the larch, that never change their entire garments winter or summer, but only cast away the worn bits they have done with; the willow, that grows paler as the summer advances and the other trees flush, until she stands out white amongst the orange and the russet, and the intense purple fumes of the passing year; the fairy birch, lady of the lee, with her indefinite toned festoons, her delicate madder-brown branches, and her silver crackle bracelets, reflecting all the colours in our paint boxes. Under foot we trample a perfect world in miniature--the velvet moss and grey lichen, the vivid sparks of green amongst the bronze, the rose and golden hairs that shake brown balls at us, and lure us into grottoes where nymphs and lady-birds slumber together. The ferns are making themselves studies in foreshortening as they spread over the broad-leaved docken, under which the eye may penetrate the damp shadows to find that the range is endless; furry rosaries swing on green strings, little leaved tendrils that half smother blue and pink stars with white centres, brambles and ivy shooting over knotty roots upon which cling verdigris, tinted cactuses, and perfect gardens of flowers and grasses, trailing like auburn tresses, all in the space of a square inch, and veiled with the close meshes of that great spider web on which the dewdrops swing by thousands. That wonderful dew, flashing like the purest diamonds under foot, glowing like rare opals a little way off, glittering like powdered snow farther off still, floating over the roses like the gauze webs away in mid-distance, bringing us back again to the scene we left to burrow in details! Let us bundle up our specimens, and try not to feel any smaller than we can help while we put our trowels and tin cases out of sight, and crouch down with the hot-eyed monster cat panther within his leafy shelter, and in company with the cunning cobra watch the work that is being done out there in the broad sunlight. Is it the heat fumes which are growing denser as the day advances? Can the sunlight filtering down between those green fringes make those shapes upon the grass and on the trunks of the trees?--trailing robes of filmy white, dove-like wings of faintest pink that sweep across the glade and crowd in circles round. The lioness does not think this strange, for she squats and blinks lazily in the light like an over-fed yellow mastiff. There is a rustling like birds rising. The locust chirps in the grass; the bee is busy, so does not hum; the red-coated soldier ants defile along in rigid order, and are allowed to pass by the active little black-coats. Those that have work to do, do it, and all the rest sleep. We have surely been dozing also, for the picture is finished, the dewdrops are almost dry, the mists are sweeping away, and the red man lies in his death-like slumber, while bending over him, with the staring eyes of a newly-awoke baby, stands that white wonder of creation, woman. THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY [Illustration: T] There is nothing more interesting in all the sights which bountiful nature provides for the entertainment of man than the shapes, colours, frolics, and labours of the insect world; and nothing more dastardly and contemptible than the way man has of enjoying those pleasures, trapping the spirit of liberty, mutilating the exquisite bodies, ruthlessly cutting short their transient lives and merry pranks, brushing away the subtle delicacy of that matchless colouring, leaving only stiff, tattered corpses, that may appear fair in comparison with the clumsy work of their destroyers, but bear no resemblance to the sportive specks of splendour they were before: melancholy specimens stuck upon a card or in a glass case in order to gratify a latent lust of cruelty or acquisition, which is rechristened 'the curiosity of science,' or worse still, when it is to minister to the vilest of all vain passions, the empty desire to be thought oracles. To the sensitive mind the spectacle of a show case of these poor little insect samples, pierced through with thin pins and having their Latin titles attached to each, is almost as excruciating a sight as a vision of Calvary would be, with the mockery of that Greek, Latin, and Hebrew superscription suspended from the freighted Cross; and the utility of these crucifixions is about as great to the private collector and his narrow circle of admirers as the deliberate vivisection of a fly is to the idle mind of the vicious boy, who dismembers a being of more exquisite formation and greater usefulness than he may ever become, with those instincts, in order to see how it can wriggle along after the power of walking and flying has been torn piecemeal from its quivering sides. What can all this wanton waste of the spirit of life teach them that they may not read in the works of others, or see in any museum where the sacrifice has already been made, that they must trample like savage senseless cattle through fields already carefully gone over by men who have devoted their lives to this branch of science? We all know that science must at times be unsparing and merciless in its hunt after knowledge, but the discovery once with certainty gained, cruelty ought to cease for ever, and the mind rest satisfied; or if unsatisfied with the dead example, seek to learn the grace and beauty of the life, the motion that must be preserved alone by memory, for the corpse can tell us nothing of life, and it is life we are most interested in knowing. We can learn from death only decay, and any hour's walk will show us that without our paltry aid towards its manifestation. When education costs the student labour or even agony and self-loss, consider no exertion lost time, for experience must ever be better than theory; but if it is at the cost of a single life, or even a thrill of agony to another life, then let him pause, for no life is trivial that the spirit animates, and where the mechanism is so perfect; and the lowest form of life may be of greater value in the universal scheme than the life that destroys it. Let him pause, for the experience is too costly, the sacrifices already made should satisfy; for what is the life of a man, except that the shell is larger and coarser and clumsier, more than the life of the tiny midge that sings about our ears in the sundown, or the silent insect that, all unconscious of its danger, crawls under our feet? I speak here with all due reverence for science, when it is science that demands the sacrifice, and not the ostentatious vanity of superficial ignorance; also with reserve, for we know how men's lives have been the price of many trivial discoveries, and while we may lament, we must yield to the relentless force of circumstances. THE BUTTERFLY SYMBOL OF ART [Illustration: T] The butterfly is the symbol of the painter and the poet, and so I choose it as my present symbol. As it must first be a caterpillar, and devour greedily leaf, fibre, and all that can be devoured by caterpillars, so the student must settle down and devour all the knowledge that he can find, and crawl slowly along unheeded, or be looked at perhaps with contempt. As it changes its skin many times while growing, so must he change the style of his admiration. As it carries within it the wings and the colours in the egg state, so the light wings of fancy and the pure instinct of colour must be born in the painter, or it cannot be altogether trained: a perception which, like the perception of music, will cause his nerves to quiver at a discordancy, although he never handled a brush. 'Full many a poet never penned a line,' and so with the painters who have lived and died with their dreams unchronicled, the perception being too fine for the material contact of earth, which must pollute, even while it embodies; a perception ever running before the knowledge, ever torturing the possessor with the innate consciousness of his errors before he has learnt enough to perceive them. Form is the grammar of art--a thing of measurements, which can be tested, corrected, and satisfied by the exact laws which govern it; but colour is too fitful a possession to be tested or controlled by rule or education beyond a certain stage. We have it when we least expect it, and find it slipping from our grasp, after a life-long experience renders us confident of its control. It is a quality far too subtle to be described by words; a sensitive gift which will torture the gifted, as George Paul Chalmers, the Scottish Rembrandt, was tortured until his spirit became unnerved with the galling longing, and his brush blundered and would not finish. It is not the wings of the butterfly but the golden dust which covers them, and which is so easy to rub away; not the genius of the painter, but the precious garment of his genius, to which genius is as much indebted as her mortal sisters are to the costumes of a more terrestrial texture; too fine a fabric for earth looms to spin, too delicate to be measured or shaped by fashion; and even as the caterpillar must suffer the throes and self-efforts of Nature, and lie under the wearied languor of spent exertion, so must the student painter torture and weary his heart out with his many struggles to do that which his instinct tells him must be. Many caterpillars perish from their own efforts, many are destroyed by enemies, many are killed by their own kind; and how like is all this experience to that of the student painter! And the critics, who fawn upon the rich and powerful, while they sneer in their meaningless fashion at the student who adds poverty to the crimes of daring and young impotency; who, besides being devoured by the gnawing consciousness of failure, has the gall and wormwood of witnessing greater ignorance, because talentless ignorance, in the favoured, praised up as virtues; the bitterness to see them airing all the paltry tricks which their money has brought them from the studios, while his poor attempts have to be sent forth bare and ragged, because he has had to find out all that they have had held up before them, for what is given eagerly to the rich is charged double rate to the poor! His dreams are as great as theirs, but theirs are nursed and dressed while his are sent beggars to the icy atmosphere. The world says, What right has he to attempt art, a clown, an apprentice, an ignorant ragamuffin, while the pets have been to college and Paris life schools? and it is very well for him to read up in his garret that men have risen from his level, that Murillo was a half-naked peasant boy, Homer a poor blind beggar, Claude a cook, Angelo a mason's apprentice, Mahomet a camel-driver, and long lists of illustrious characters, originally nothings like himself--if, when he appears and presumes on these great precedents, the cold iron wedge of derision is driven into his heart. If a man, his sense of purpose will support him through it all, but precedent will not much console him. And yet, what does it matter in the end what we have to do in order to keep up the life, if the life is devoted to the thought? What though we hold horses like Shakespeare, or blacken boots, or sweep chimneys, sell cloth or make it up, prime doors and panels for others to decorate or decorate them ourselves? If a painter he is a painter, whether he splits up or imitates rails, cuts down or copies trees, whitewashes ceilings or paints skies; it is all right and proper if he is keeping himself devoted to the end. The dexterous workman is not the artist, tricks are not talents, craft is not art, any more than the dress is the woman, although men do buy tricks and pass by talents, as men often court and marry dresses. In both cases they are all the better for the tricks and the dressing: but keep the facts separate if you can. It is the innate impulse and power that makes the painter in spite of his own efforts otherwise, or the advice of his friends--the impulse that forces him on in the face of all omens. As an artist he requires no peculiar cut of hair or livery to mark him so. Art is above, therefore quite careless of, keeping up her dignity. She is quite as ready to sit and hob-nob with the beggar as with the baronet. Again, if he succeeds in a very slight degree, for no man jumps at success or perfection, he is like the little caterpillar crawling out of his shelter and shadow to be pounced upon by the large caterpillars, torn in pieces and gobbled up; for although most of us have generosity enough to pity, and perhaps help, misfortune, how few are there with sufficient philanthropy to crown success! He will suffer all the pangs of conception to hear his infant called an abortion, he must endure all the suggestions of puffed up, purse-proud ignorance, which imagines it can comprehend, with a glance through its gold glasses, what has taken months to plan. He must make the alterations the patron may desire, although his whole being shudders at the sight of a spoilt idea, or else starve; while the favoured caterpillar can laugh them to scorn in his plenty, condemn the treason of the poor, and deride the weakness of his necessity. If he remains firm to himself he will be a martyr without the small consolation of the martyr's niche; he will see his original failures ignored for pretty imitations, and so he may struggle on to the bitter end, to be forgotten, a dead chrysalis to be blown about by the world's winds, or drifted under the wheels and crushed. But what of all that? Whether he lives despised, or dies unknown, this would be a grief to the glory worshipper, but not to the true painter, because the consolation of the painter rests in a higher pleasure than the trickster's craving after renown. The painter labours to satisfy his ideal: he knows that fame is not the reward of merit, that it has nothing to do with merit, although merit is sometimes crowned by mistake. If he gains the laurel he knows that it is the accident of chance, or the degradation of influence, and he wears it with the indifference which it deserves, or blushes at the shame of it; for if by influence it has been bought at too great a price, the cost of self-respect, he must wear it with deceit, while he struggles for ever after, not to please his own consciousness, but to prove to unbiassed posterity that it was his by right of worth. This is the image of fame to the true painter, a pillar whereon he is set by blind admirers, who crowd about its base and shout at the image they cannot see, while the strangers who look on at a distance behold its imperfections bare and ghastly in the sunshine. But still, for all the frost and the evil influences brought to bear against the chrysalis, if it is to be, its time comes, and we see the butterfly breaking from its gloomy death, and fluttering away gaily through the summer air, happy, careless, beautiful, every hour an effortless success, its sole mission pleasure, working good unconsciously, rocking in the breast of the rose, rising to light up some shady nook like a fleck of sunshine, hovering over the lemon-coloured grain fields like animated scarlet poppy flowers, settling down like winged pansies in our gardens, hovering overhead like the spirit of the lovely things it sports with a golden gleam upon the violet, a sapphire on the buttercup, a velvet page amongst the lilies, a giddy flirt with all, blending, harmonising, contrasting wherever it lights upon to kiss and beautify; thus it passes on, doing the duty of its creation, aspiration, and fitful fancy. And so with the painter. He may take up the traces of custom, chain himself with laws and methods, go out with his buckler of tinsel, and his bindings of green withes, to watch the sun setting, to reckon up its strength and classify its dyes, gauge all the glories with his measuring tapes, and bring his weak knowledge to the mighty test, when, even as he seeks for precedents, he is caught up by the spirit, as Philip was of old, and borne, not to the chariot of a great eunuch, but unto a chariot all his own, made of pure beaten gold, lined with purple and crimson, and studded over with the richest of gems, and thus rolled like a conqueror through the glowing gateways of the eternal space, his frame quivering with the intoxicating joy of that fleeting hour, his tinsel buckler and green withes shrivelled up and cast behind, and his unshackled mind sent bounding through the endless vistas of dreamland. [Illustration: A GARDEN SCENE] CHAPTER XIII NATURE WORSHIP [Illustration: L]ABOUR being done, we naturally look for reward, which is the legitimate termination of work. This reward may be rest, or wealth, or fame; it is the spur of our exertion, the caviare of our ambition; upon it we exist through the famishings and the anxieties, the hard roads and long miles; it is the destination which fills our imagination from the very first step of our journey, else would we have fainted twenty times over. It is the day's wage or week's wages which supports the toiler or the workman through all the hours between him and the hour of pay. And this is not wrong. Buddha bids us seek truth and morality without hope. The sentimentalist would say, 'Work for the love of labour;' but we hold that this is not inducement enough. Walk hard, because fatigue ought to be a pleasure? No! walk to produce the fatigue, that you may be able to know to the full extent the delightful flavour of rest. Work, be it at painting or writing, that you may see the idea embodied and perpetuated; if it be at bricklaying, that you may see the wall rise up, layer by layer; help the needy and afflicted, that you may comfort them; raise the fallen, that you may see them rise. Be pure and charitable and as sinless as you can with the help of God, that you may stand holy in that holy Light. Use your influence to make those purer around you, that you may have only the incense of purity surrounding you now and hereafter. Thus, to be virtuous after the creed of Gautama is work such as Hercules worked at the stables of Augeas; to be virtuous, as Jesus Christ taught, is to be inspired with the presence of God all through earth's life and stand unsubdued at its close. When Hannibal, and after him Napoleon, crossed the Alps, Italy lay to their hand; the certain prospect of Italy, fertile and rich, aided them in the removal of fearsome barriers, imparted to them the daring to brave toppling crags, slipping ice-ridged streams, appalling heights, quivering avalanches, swaying to and fro as they passed, swinging over in their rear with that muffled soul-sickening thud which they knew meant a snowy grave to those behind. Italy, the grape-hung, the sun-laved, was before them on the other side, with its wealth and power--nay, it was with them, in their hunger and bitter cold, as the presence of God is with the devout every hour of his earth-life. But when Bonaparte came within sight of Moscow, the vision of which had supported him and his famished army all through those awful icy leagues, and beheld in the light of those blazing domes the destruction of his hopes, then, and only then, the full bitterness of that winter march began. So with the warrior prince-leader of Israel, when he stood up face to face with God and cried out in the passionate strength of his man-thirst, 'Let me go over and see the good land'--the land he had worked and walked so long to see, for which he had given up all the pomp of the Egyptian court, and, still greater sacrifice, the erudite society of the sumptuous priesthood, to consort with a nation of spiritless, ignorant, and discontented slaves. I like to embody this great leader of Israel, not as his countrymen knew him when he led them out of the land of bondage, the snowy-bearded grave statesman and law-giver, but as the Prince Rameses, the mighty Egyptian Lord of Lords, the favoured son of the Queen Amense, always the companion of philosophers and sages, hearing the petitions of his people in the outer courts, driving his gold-embossed chariot between long avenues of sphinxes, reviewing his countless hosts in the open plain outside the great royal city of On, crowned victor as he swept home from battle, over garlands of roses and lilies, with armies of white-vestured priests of Ptah, dancing girls, singing maidens, and the sacred women of Bast (the lady of Auchta), all surrounding with fumes of incense and hymns of praise Egypt's pride Rameses the Mighty. [Illustration: THE ANCIENT NILE] I think of him in the palace of his adopted mother; on the terrace, decorated with chaste designs of lapis lazuli, malachite, and precious stones; sitting upon ebony-carved byssus-draped couches, Rameses, with the royal lady, gazing over their good land. Away in the distance the red-tinged hills lifted above the tawny sands; between the palace and the Libyan hills are hordes of slaves brickmaking and temple-raising, with a white-grey sky above them and choking dust all round; slaves toiling on foot, mostly female; strong young women whom labour will not tame; dark-skinned matrons who find a joy in that they have once more sons to suckle, even in that hour of quenchless thirst; wrinkled-skinned old women who have grown passive to rebuke, and deadened to the lash; old men sweating and dropping dead or afaint, some digging trenches for the fancy lakes, some dragging the stones that have come down the Nile. The girls and boys are the brickmakers, and the strong men are the drivers, copper-tinted Egyptians who sit on chairs which the strong women bear, while others hold up the great sun-shades, or fan with ostrich fans the heat which the lashing exercise brings upon them. It is a good land. Nile spreads along in sight of all, prince and slave, with its sweet treasures and its clouds of bird-life, and by its banks rise those columned buildings. Colour is over all, rich tints in yellow, blue, red, and black, grounded with white, symbolic in design, each tint a law unchanging. Over red and white walls the fruit trees hang, and the spreading Nile bears upon its breast the echoings of fertile gardens, and the barges ever passing from the city of the dead to the city of the living, pleasure boats with golden-wigged ladies and jewelled men, and the sounds of instruments joining and jarring upon the groans of the afflicted. I think more of Moses as Rameses, discussing with his queen-mother that vexing conundrum of the day, increasing Israel, than of Moses solving the question later on. I seem to see his aged father and unknown mother amongst that seething mass, hiding their secret between their hearts, shouting with the crowd, Hosanna to the king of kings, their God-like son. And then my vision shifts, and I see him taking leave of his people, none there now who knew him in his royal pomp and splendid manhood. What a life of abnegation! Bred for a king, laying down his crown, happy in his desert freedom, giving up his rest, daring in his faith, becoming the chief of a horde of ignorant serfs and advocating their rights in the throne-room--once his own--leading them out from the tyrant power, yielding but a little when sorely tried, creating reason in brains all reasonless, wandering through a land of doom, with his God ever beside him, helping that mighty work. Think on the task of raising the serfs of Russia to reason out their own condition and so help themselves! Hundreds of earnest souls have been hard at the work for hundreds of years, and yet they are still hundreds of years from the promised land. Imagine a lower state, viler than any race you can bring up as an example on earth's face, more hopelessly sunk in the satisfaction of apathy and degradation, and you have not reached the moral level of Israel when Rameses put forth his hand to lift them out of their slough: slaves of centuries to be educated in forty years; slaves with all the whip-checked vices of slavery let loose by an acquired power. The first instinct of liberty was the beast instinct of destruction running and tingling like mixed wines through every vein. Moses and Aaron, with the Lord about and before them, led out of Egypt a congregation of mind-crusted, unreasoning serfs. But now his task is done and he can go to his well-earned repose; the slaves and slave-binders are dead who came out of Egypt, and are buried by the way; the rest are free men now, and under control. They have their laws and obligations, which makes them a people; they have their leaders appointed, which makes them a state. Pharaoh is a thing of the past, Egypt a myth-land, Canaan the good country towards which their wishes tend. Already have their souls crossed the Jordan; and though they wear sack-cloth for thirty days on the plains of Moab for the old man who has gone from them up the hill of Nebo, though their tears flow apace, yet the strong men are grinding their steel, with their hearts soaked in triumph and conquest. Up the mountain the great old seer passed. I think Joshua supported him up so far, to the foot of Pisgah, and then they parted. A thin mist was creeping from the brow of the hill, and even as the warrior gazed it caught the statesman, and drew him from the sight of all. No man saw within that veil of mist, for God was there. Yes, once it parted, when he reached the top. That mist was made of angels' wings. They drew aside, and for a time permitted him to view the promised land, and the Lord was with him, pointing it all out. A voice from the mist of the angels' wings told him of the presence of God, so he stood up, clutching to the rock beyond which he gazed, the shadow of the mountain over the plains of Moab and the last fiery ray of evening laving the land in front. He saw all Gilead unto Dan, to the utmost sea, where the line of unbroken amethyst crossed the scarlet clouds; Naphtali, Ephraim, Manasseh, the valley of Jericho, and the city of palm-trees. His back was to the sun, and for a moment it fell upon him, casting his shadow over the hill-edge, a statuesque, white-clad, unbent figure, with rolling tresses of grey and streaming beard, looking out. Then the legions closed upon him and the sun went down. To the poet the death of Moses is filled with glorious imagery. Nature is here absorbing a grand portion of her own spirit to give it out again to other souls. God is the mighty mover of all, but He is indefinite--in the wind bearing melancholy sounds and bodes, in the waters lapping the shingle or rushing over the great rocks, in the vague dreams which possess him as he gazes out upon the countless planets, in the wild yearning to be solved by that overpowering impregnation of silence. To the painter it all comes in a vision of colour; it is a blending of spirit harmonies, rainbow shades, a sense of the eye that embodies the spirit into a definite pleasure. By faith he sees revelations, the golden streets and crystal rivers, and, above all, the great prismatic light. To the utilitarian Nature represents a scheme of economy and utility. We are one of a countless cluster of planets. The sun which shines over us is but one of a vast chain of reflections and magnetic communications, the moon is but one of many discs; the world swims in chaos; all partake of the bountiful provision of an unchangeable law; not one world is to be considered more than another, not one accident to be deplored, from the combustion of a globe to the crushing of a worm, while it only affects its _own destiny_. It was good that the Son of Man should die for men, good for the minority to suffer, if by their pangs the harmony of the majority is secured. Virtue is only according to circumstances; morality is a thing of adjustment; there are no fixed laws of conduct. If vice conduce to the happiness of men, then it has become a virtue; if the removal of a man lead to the restoration of peace, then to kill him is not murder. The end justifies the means: a Jesuitical policy, which has been flung in their teeth as a sign of distrust; the policy of England's Commonwealth, when Oliver Cromwell, with the other members of Parliament, signed away the life of their king. To the utilitarian the earth is a garden for the use of mankind; it is the religion, since men began to herd together; it recognises only the Gods or God of the day. It is the keynote to the sacred bond of Freemasonry. Love is good for the community; set up love and friendship, and rear an altar to them. Unity is well for man, so lay down all private likes and dislikes, annihilate all personal speculations which may breed discord; for the spirit of Truth as she hovers in mid-heaven has the hues of the chameleon, and changes in shape to each eye. What I see, you cannot. Therefore the fact must be carried by vote if you would be perfectly utilitarian in your aims. The reformer is a disturber of concord always. Cassandra disturbed Troy, Jesus Christ disturbed Jew and Gentile; so for the sake of utilitarian peace Pilate washed his hands, and the crucifiers had it all their own way. Henry George is a utilitarian in principle, but as he speaks as yet in the minority, albeit advocating the welfare of the majority, until men are convinced as to his line of argument he is a disturber of the peace of present society. Whether his scheme for the regulation of mankind would be successful is as yet doubtful in the extreme, seeing that he ignores all other means except his pet theory. As we find man at present, poverty is in many cases a protection rather than a curse. With passions paramount by ages of contamination, and habits confirmed, opportunity would only sink them deeper in the mire. Drink reformers, food reformers, crime reformers, have before them superhuman labour ere the Henry George jubilee will be of utility to the lower strata. Sanitation, knowledge, morality must be universally taught first, and what is good will follow as a consequence. To us it seems that poverty is of greater utility for the redemption of mankind than wealth. We would see all men poor and sacrificing. It is better for the rich to become poor than for the poor to become rich. To the utilitarian Nature has a spirit, but it is a spirit of convenience. Floods rush, not to destroy houses, but to water districts. Hurricanes come, not to strew strands with wrecks and wasted lives, but to carry off infections, clear the poisons from the atmosphere. Nature is a great manufactory, where benefits are created for the use of man; and the Spirit is the worker who is busily coining good for the greater number. Trees are admired, not for the waving of the foliage, not for the serpentine curvature of the branches, the half tones about the boles, or glad tints on the leaves, but for the uses of that tree when it is cut down. A true utilitarian is the direct antithesis of the poet or painter. To the agnostic Nature is a solemn image set up before the eye; the veiled Isis, soulless, or endowed with a spirit unseen and therefore unknown. 'Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness.'--Job x. 21. The agnostic does not deny God or the possibility of eternity; Genesis is not a legend to be laughed at; soul is not to be disputed. Agnostics only stand upon the platform of their senses; they know by geological research that earth was not created in six days; they know by astronomical observation that the sun and moon could not stand still, that if the earth paused one second of time in its velocity it would be destroyed--blotted out utterly from the clusters of stars; by naturalistic knowledge they have proved that the fauna of the earth could not be gathered together or carried inside the Ark; souls have not returned to them from that dark land beyond the grave; if there be secrets, death has locked them up, and they cannot get past it and return to tell their tale. They doubt not, because they know not, neither do they believe. Faith is a sentiment, as love is, or fear, only built up on a more slender foundation; what they can see and touch they testify to, all beyond that is beyond them. Some say that agnostic means atheist; it does not. There are no atheists, nor could any human mind capable of reason be atheistic, because to be one it must be convinced beyond dispute and declared definitely that there is no futurity and no God, and the most that incredulous science can assert is that there is no evidence palpable of the existence of a God. The atheist would be a fool unredeemed and unredeemable, like to the man who, shutting his eyes, shouts out insanely that it is dark to everyone, whether it is or not. The agnostic by research has proved that he knows nothing, and there he stops; there may or may not be. If bold he takes his risk of that 'to be'; from the evidences of the beneficent order of Nature, he trusts his case in the unknown hands: if it is Providence, that Providence is too all-wise to revenge ignorance; if it is chance, he counts upon the hour. Youth and strength and beauty and health are the aims of life to strive after, the golden hours of summer, when sunshine lights up the heart of all creation, and man, with the plants, feels the divine instinct of life surging in him. He pauses irresolute at the first stratum of earth's crust; beneath that metal plate seethes the fire; that represents to him the beginning. Yet he knows that it was not. The world revolves the portion of a circle; yet why that circle of a sun-centre, or that wider circle within which both suns and earths revolve, or what the centre which controls the entire system of immensity may be, he dares not affirm. Our lives are miracles, yet we are habituated to them, and name them chance. That the earth revolves is no greater wonder than that it should stop and roll again; yet that it revolves constantly and only stopped once, is the point that they will not approve. They learn that era after era the earth was destroyed, and species created without connecting links. Theorists as mad in their dogmatism and desire to prove evolution, as they consider the devotionalist to be in his supernatural credences, try to hang facts upon threads and dovetail corner-pieces and centres, but science gives no encouragement to theory. The agnostic, to be consistent, must hold aloof from Darwinism as he holds back from faith doctrines; he must be content to use his eyes, ears, nostrils, fingers, and mouth. Instinct or surmise with him cannot be sense. It is a fair day and a blue sky. The mountains are piles of softest velvet, grey, mauve, olive green, and bistre; a soft air that inebriates the brain and shakes the petals of the flush-rose; a day amongst fine days to be hereafter long remembered, for the woman of his choice has listened to his words Eros-shafted, and yielded up her will to his discretion; is she not a type of more than earth-life as she stands before him in the clear lustre of her maidenhood love-glorified? It is not flesh-worship which sways him now, for her beauty has about it to him the sanctity of the religion he cannot receive; in the humbleness of his awe-freighted triumph he could forget his naturalism and cry out, 'Be thou my God!' Around them wafts the odour of gardens and fields, the spirit of the flowers is floating around, the soul of the sunbeam is kissing them both, the union of outer beauty and inner life wraps them in the all-pervading, everlasting folds; for who dare say that the soul of a perfume can fade? His spirit clasps with her spirit, and both soar away, with the multitudinous souls of things gone by, and things drifting on, up those ladders of light into the presence of God. In this moment the agnostic is an agnostic no longer, for he has seen heaven, whether he believes it hereafter or not. So love has opened to him the vision of St. John. It is woman who has become the typified divinity, love which embraces faith and hope, casting out self, yet surrounded by barricades of fears; it is an instinct of humanity, as pity, grief, or that innate combination which modern philosophy terms superstition, an elevated instinct of humanity, for it is not the woman-flesh which inspires him with this rapturous awe; it is the magnetic influence of the woman-soul over the man-soul, and this the agnostic feels, in spite of all his former scientific rant about body and brain. At the present hour we stand on the threshold of mysteries, with the rusted key in our hands which will open the closed door. Four thousand years ago man halted here, with the key in his hand, only it was new and glittering then, and used to that easily turned lock. Behind that door waited legions of souls, upon the opening by man, when they would come and tell him all that lay beyond the good land, his by right of gift, theirs by right of heritage, and they brought with their knowledge great power. That was the hour when myriads of agencies--each agency strong enough to stop a planet--waited on the voice of the man who held the key of the portals between their worlds and his; that was the hour when Abraham and Lot spake with angels, when Pharaoh bent his scientific neck before the miracles of calamity; that was the hour when the pillar of fire passed through the sea, and unseen forces swept back the water till they reared up great protecting walls--wondrous walls of sea-shells and conglomerate, like some rare kind of polished marble, the specimens alive but struck death-still with amazement, the roaring hushed as they passed under the arching crests, a gleam of starry space far above, and a glare along the watersides from that crimson pillar in front. That was the hour when familiarity made remonstrance possible, and man gauged the strength of his science against Almighty prescience, as he does still, only then prescience replied directly to reason, and power refuted by immediate evidence of cause and effect, for then reason did not wilfully close its eyes upon possibility, and man owned the superiority of his Creator. It was a good land when the angels of God visited man upon the plains, when the voice of God was heard within the mountains, when Enoch, by preparation, body and soul, became spiritual enough to dispense with the services of death; when Moses went up, with clear eye and upright head, to make the last peace-offering--himself, on Mount Nebo: Moses who by philosophy had rendered his mind fit to consort with the inner circle around the throne, who by abnegation had rendered his body fit to offer up the last great sacrifice for his people in the land of darkness, with soul ready to be redeemed. Ah! what an audience waited upon that solemn change, upon the dimming of that eagle eye, the relaxing of that upright figure! No man can find his grave--no man knows his end; yet we may conjecture that as he looked and longed, with his body chained to Mount Nebo and his spirit flying over the land, held to the mortal portion but by a thread, as the falcon is held to wrist, an elastic cord that elongated as he flew, waxing thinner as it farther stretched, until it was almost unseen; then death came from that white-draped crowd, draped in the red robe of man's passionate desire, flitting over, like a gleam of sunset, from the midst of cherubim and seraphim, angel and archangel, flitting over his 'abeiyeh' with gleaming fingers, lighting up his 'kefiyeh' as it sought for the source of that unseen cord--the shears of death--red, golden shears have clipped the link, and Moses is in Canaan, the heaven of his present desires, and the supine clay is being attended to. Nearly two thousand years ago the climax came to all that mystic intercourse: from the supernatural unseen Teacher, God became the natural sure friend and teacher of man, and so He has continued ever since--amongst men when they like to have Him, imparting the knowledge of the supernatural to those who choose to learn, holding out a key all unrusted, in exchange for the key which we have ourselves left to lie and become thickly clotted with rust. There are angels passing still, for men have used that key; when the lives are pure and the habits simple, when charity extends to wider circles than humanity, and mercy embraces all creation; at times and in obscure places, where God can speak, the Son of God instruct, and the angels work miracles, as they did of old, where faith is paramount and science can only gibber and scoff outside. It is a good land to all; even to the agnostic, as he waits for darkness, or annihilation, the sun shines hope, the west wind breathes peace, the dew speaks promise when he walks abroad. Science is like the mole, it must bore; it has no affinity with moving creation, it has no interest with life or hope, it lives and battens with the ghouls amongst the dead; yet the deepest borer in philosophy is but a man, and the man part of him must enjoy light as long as science keeps from blinding him entirely. But to the devotionalist, the Christian, the God-worshipper, what a land of bounty it is! I do not mean those narrow souls who dwell in a vale of tears, those dyspeptic souls who can no more enjoy this world than they will the next, but the man who honours God sufficiently to know that all He created must be perfect--this world for man, the other worlds for those who inhabit them, heaven only fair to the spirit to whom this earth is good. Are not the summer clouds as they float through the atmospheric belt the emblems of the angel forms which are ever passing to and fro in the state beyond--the hills, and rivers, and valleys, the ever-changing landscapes and aerial effects, all created for the pleasure of man by the good Father, all symbolic and typical of the pleasures of the future? It matters little what are the individual or sect ideals of that Creator or futurity toward which they are wending, whether they sit down in ecstatic contemplation, in the midst of Nature's splendour, with the moment of final merging into the great light before them, or look forward to that future when individuality is retained and time alone is merged into eternity. To the man who believes in immortality this earth smiles her sweetest, because there are no melancholy surmises mingling with the present enjoyments. Virtue appeals alike to believers and unbelievers as the wisest guide to follow, the consequences of departure from her laws being immediate and independent of the fear of future punishment. It is not hell which appals the intellectual sinner and deters him from crime, but earth; manhood, not morality; the pride of honour rather than the hope of everlasting reward. But to the hopeless, or spirits who cannot rest upon a hope, what are the pleasures of time but days spent in a condemned cell to the doomed? Every sunset which glorifies the world is a day stolen from precious existence. They glance backwards upon the past with yearning pathos, to the hour when boyhood bounded along the track of life, and religion was the pabulum of custom and Sunday-school the turning point of the week. How foolish it all appears in their intellectual advance, yet how joyous; with what hopeless envy they hear of the ambition of young men and women, who rest their fame upon a class-prize or the applause attending a choir-concert! Ah! those were days when the Son of Man came near enough almost to be seen with the earthly eyes, and the divine messages were palpable. To the Christian poet and painter nature appears animated by the spirit of a deathless Creator; the body dies, the seasons fade, but another body as real comes forth, and nature spiritualised is revived as the spring drapes the limbs of winter. To the poet and painter to whom this earth means all, to whom the spirit of nature is but the Greek soul that goes out with the change, never more to be revived unless in the soul left behind, it is all beautiful, but filled with woe; a soul of spring dying before the breath of summer, summer shrinking before the chill of autumn, autumn crouching under the iron heel of winter; death over all--death and despair; and this is the creed of the agnostic. But to believers, what is it but a continuation of everlasting joy? In pain they see the blessed surcease; in sorrow the golden alleviation; in death, the balmy sleep, and afterwards the glorious waking up; earth, the garden of the Lord, where æsthetic tastes are gratified, where love is generated and friendships are formed to be continued and cemented in eternity, where soul-philosophy, and not pitiful brain-logic, is begun to be followed out without an end, where problems are given to be hereafter solved. Is it not a good land to poet, painter, utilitarian, agnostic, and devotionalist? When the sun rears from the ocean-bed and rides over the fleecy clouds of morning, while all the ground is teeming with the silver evaporation of pearly night dews; to the poet and painter as they watch the tender colour-shafts, the subtle play of light and delicate blue-grey shadows on the meadows where the cattle graze, over the furrows that the plough is turning up, amongst the dancing ripples adown the waste of heaving waters. A good land, despite the evils which erring man has brought upon it--the drink-devil who riots in palace and den and wanders even to the verge of pellucid springs, the demon who is sapping the manhood from the human race, who is making bare and bleak the fairest spots, the most consecrated things on earth, whose lank talons spread beyond the grave and rob Paradise of its rarest flowers; despite the smoke-fiend who is aiding and abetting his brother drink to enervate the brain of workers; the devils called luxury and indulgence in all their thousand disguises, whether it be in eating, or drinking, or dressing; despite the vampire called poverty, who squats hand in hand with crime, attended by despair and utter misery. A good land, where we can cast aside the trammels of cities and get out to see it; where we can forget our brothers in iniquity, our brothers in sorrow and starvation, depths which charity cannot cure, or investigation eradicate, which rise up like black waves against our stemming and threaten in the future to engulf us all. A good land, where we can abnegate desire, learn to be poor as Christ was poor in order to correct poverty; where we can conquer ourselves, lay down the most clinging habit, for the sake of mankind, and by example teach others at the lower level to be content with God's air, and God's light, and go out to get them; where we can live with less comfort, fewer tastes, and greater simplicity. A good land, where the great social problem is solved and self-abolished for cause, and men, proud of being poor, as now they grow arrogant in wealth, join hands as little children, forgetting that bat-ghoul philosophy, taking the gifts which God has given to them as the foretaste of better things in store. A good land here; but what is there to come, where Art begins? INDEX Abbey, 157 A B C of art, 115 Aberdonian clipper, 146 Academies, 96 Actions of nature, 28 Adoration in art, 255 Age of romance, 281 Agnosticism, 306-9 Aikenhead (Major), 97 Aissouas, the, 107 'Ally Sloper's Half Holiday,' 166, 167 Alma-Tadema, his work, 80, 193, 194, 273 Almanack, Comic, 166 Anatomy, 95 Ancient Egypt, style of, 299-301 'Ansidei Madonna,' its value, 231 Apocalypse, Albert Dürer's, 156 Ark, dimensions of, 135 Art, realism in, 34; fashion in, 90; instinct of, 98; lessons in, 102; savage, 102, 214-16; Eastern, 105; false, 107; true aim of, 108, 252; A B C of, 115; uses of, 117-18; practical, 157; individualism in, 160; influence of Turner on illustrative, 163; sacred, 250; sacrifices of, 252; imagination in, 254; adoration in, 255; soul in, 255; comic, 260; Dutch, 268; dignity in, 268, 293; symbol of, 291 Art course, time of, 116 Artist and butterfly, 291 Artists as readers, 273 Assyria, styles of, 60 Astronomy, artistic, 276 Atheism, 307 Australian experience, 108-12 Backgrounds, old style, 7 Barnard (F.), 157 Bayeux Tapestry, the, 139 Beauty, 209, 257; spirit of, 289 Bell, his 'Mary Queen of Scots,' 45 Bellini (Giovanni), 238 Bewick, 159, 160, 173 Black and gold marble, 189 'Black and White,' 165 Blake (William), 35, 89 Blemishes in marbles, 195 Blunders of science, 278 Boats, Egyptian, 136 Body colour, 92 Bolton, 171 Book, an illustrated, 152, 172-5 ---- plates, 276 Books on painting, 83 Boots and feet, 200, 201, 203 Botany, artistic, 284 Botticelli (Sandro F.), 240 Bough (Sam), 82 Breydenbach's Travels, 155 Bronzino (Angelo), 240 Brushes, 69 Buddha, 298 Burnett on painting, 127, 129 Burns (Robert), 211 Byron (Lord), 89 Cameron (Hugh), 47, 48 Canvas, preparing a, 179 Carlyle (Thomas), 20, 87, 101 Cassell & Co., 155, 169 Centre line, the, 225 Chalmers (George Paul), 82, 239, 246, 292 Champs and champing, 183, 184 Chatto (W. A.), 150, 152 Chatto & Windus, 166 Chemistry of colour, 92 Chevreul, his book, 115 China collecting, 273 Classification of light, 129 Coleridge, 89, 217 Colour, body, 92; chemistry of, 92 ---- perception, 269 Colours, blending of, 59; the primaries, 58 Combing, 181, 182 Comfort in ornament, 224 Comic Almanack, 166 ---- art, 260 Consistency in ornament, 225 Constable (John), 86, 160 Contrast of ships, 142-5 Contrivance for lighting, 18 Copying, benefit of, 35; its use and abuse, 81 Correggio (Allegri, A. da), 85, 240, 247 Cox (David), 91 Crane (Walter), his work, 155, 173, 273 Creswick (Thomas), 161 Critics, 80 Cromwell, 305 Cross-bars, 184 Cross-hatching, 155 Cruelty of science, 290 Cruikshank (George), 157, 160, 166, 167, 260 'Daily Graphic,' 170 'Death of Procris,' 246 Decoration, 208 Designing, 114 Details, 77; of foregrounds, 268 Dignity in art, 268, 293 Distortion of vision, 33 Dobson (Austin), 150 Doré (Gustave), 82, 89, 95, 160, 168-171, 248 Dove marble, 191, 192 Dow (Gerard), 243 Drawing, 114; on the wood, 157 Dress, 99, 196; modesty in, 201; fashion in, 203-7 Drummond (William), 195 Dumas (A.), fils, 220 Dürer (Albert), 34-9, 44, 52, 155-7, 242, 274 Dutch Art, 268 Eastern Art, 105 Economy in Ornament, 224 'Editions de Luxe,' 175 Egypt, style of, 60 ---- ancient, style of, 299-301 Egyptian boats, 136 'Eight Bells,' 113 Eliot (George), 220 'English Illustrated Magazine,' 165 Etching and Etchers, 41 Ex Libris, 272, 276 Ex Libris Society, 173 Exhibitions, 96, 261 Expression, 23 Eyck (Jan van), 243, 247 Faed (Thomas), 47, 82 Failures, the benefit of, 112 Faith, 312 False art, 107 Fashion in art, 90; in dress, 203-7 Feeling, 28 Fildes (Luke), 82 Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, 247 First coating, 178 Foreground flowers, 285 Foster (Birket), 173 ---- (John), 53 Francesca (Piero della), 238 Frith, his 'Derby Day,' 87 Fuligno (Niccolo di), 247 Furniss (Harry), 167 Gainsborough (Thomas), 94 Galleys, Greek, 137 Garvagh 'Madonna,' the, 232, 234 George (Henry), 305 Gillray, 260 Glazing, 81 Goethe, 89 Goodwin Sands, 148 Gradation of shadows, 124 Graining, 86, 176, 178 Grammar of Art, the, 292 Grandi (Ercole de Giulio), 247 Granite, 192 'Graphic' (Daily), 170; (Weekly), 165 Greek ideals, 199 ---- ships and galleys, 137 Grey, the quality of, 18 ---- paper, the value of, 130 Ground for black and gold marble, 189 ---- for maplewood, 187 ---- for oak, 180 Gum tree, the, 110-2 Hag, the, 46 Half-tones, 19 Hals (Frans), 243 Hamerton, 41 Hannibal, 296 Harmony, 128 'Harper's Monthly,' 165 Harvey (Sir George), 82 Hatching work, 92 Hatherell (William R. I.), 165 Hayden (Dr. G.), 41 'Henri Grâce à Dieu,' 140 Henry the Eighth, 241 Heraldry, 276 Herdman, 82 Herkomer, 41 Hobbema, his work, 248 Hogarth (William), 157, 159, 160, 268 Holbein (Hans), his work, 241, 244 Homer, 218-220, 293 Hunt (Holman), 63 ---- (William), 15, 36, 54 Huxley, 214 Illusive Effects, 123 Illustrative art, Turner's influence on, 163 Image, the, 29 ---- of Fame, the, 295 Imagination in art, 254 Imitation of nature, 28 Impressionists, school of, 53 Impressions of pictures, 230 Individualism in art, 160 Insects, 289 Instantaneous effects of nature, 126 ---- photography, 29, 164 Instinct of art, 98 Irving (Henry), 222 Israels (Jozef), 64 Italian marbles, 192 ---- school of painters, 128 Jackson, 152 Job, 102 Judgment in painting, 270 'Julius II. (Pope),' 234 Kingsley (Charles), 216 Knotting, 177 Knowles (Davidson), 145 Knox (Dr.), his work, 115 Landscape Photography, 42 Lastman (Peter), 35 Lawrence (Sir Thomas), 19 Leech (John), 260 Leighton (Sir F.), 80 Lessons in art, 102 Libraries, arrangement of, 275 Lichens, mosses, &c., 287 Life and nature studies, 116 Light, classification of, 129 ---- and shadow, proportions of, 17; the effect of, 127 Lighting, 16; contrivances for, 18 phenomenal laws of, 120 Lippi (Fra Filippo), 240, 247 Lockhart, 82 Lorenzo da San Severino, 247 'Lorna Doone' (Blackmore's), 164 Lorraine, Claude, 248, 249, 293 Loutherbourg (P. J. de), 146 Love the revealer, 309 Low-toned School, the, 64 Macdonald, 82 Madonna, Ansidei, its value, 231 'Magazine of Art,' 165 Mahogany, to grain, 188, 189 Mahomet, 293 Mannerism, 160 Mantegna (Cav. Andrea), 247 Maple wood, to grain, 187, 188 Marble, black and gold, 189; blemishes in, 195; method of working black and gold, 189-191 Marbles, Italian, 192 Masonry, 276 Matsys (Quintin), 243 Max (Gabriel), 250, 251 Mechanical workers, 126 Memory, 226 Michael Angelo (Buonarroti), 15, 80, 246, 247, 293 Millais (Sir John), 52, 80, 89 Millet (J. F.), 54 Milton, 101 Modern painters, 66 Modesty in dress, 201 Modjeska (Madame), her art, 208 Mora, his photographic work, 27 Moroni, his work, 234, 237, 238, 240 Moses, as Prince Rameses, 299-304; death of (word picture), 311 Murillo (Bartolomeo Esteban), 179, 189, 240, 242, 293 Napoleon, 298, 299 National Gallery, 229 Nature, imitation of, 28; sketching from, 31; how to approach, 73-5; instantaneous effects of, 126; the guide to taste, 189; different methods of seeing, 313, 314 Nature worship, 297, 304 Nimmo (John C.), 236 Notes, shorthand, 83; how to take, 103, 104 Oak graining, the art of, 180; tools required for, 181 Oil painting, 115 Operators, photographic, 6, 7 Orchardson, 47, 48, 49, 50, 80 Original ideas, 101 Ornament, 211-3; comfort in, 224; economy in, 225; consistency in, 225 Outline work, 154 Over-graining, 184 Overwork, danger of, 71 Painters, modern, 66; Italian School of, 128 Painting, books on, 83; water-colour, 92; oil, 115; judgment in, 270 Paper, a scrap of, 284 Parsons (Alfred), 157, 163 Paton (Sir J. Noel), 82, 273 ---- (Waller), 82 P. and O. Liners, 144 Perspective, 94 Perugino (P. V.), 36 Pettie (John), 47, 80 Phoenicia, 219 Photographic operators, 6, 7 Photography, instantaneous, 29, 164; landscape, 42 Picture, what to seek in a, 258 Pictures, the buying of, 91; impressions of, 230 Pilkington, 34 Piombo (S. del), 247 Poliphili, the, 155 'Pope Julius II.,' 234 Popularity, 245 'Portrait of a Tailor,' 234 Posing, 12 Poussin (G.), 248 Practical art, 157 Pre-Raphaelitism, 63; mistaken efforts of, 126 Primaries, the, 58 Priming, 177 'Procris, Death of,' 246 Proportions of light and shadow, 17 'Proserpina,' 72 Public opinion, 271 'Punch,' 166 Rameses, Prince (Moses), 299-304 Raphael, 36, 91, 231-5, 251 Rat-tails, 182, 183 Reade (Charles), 176, 177 Realism in art, 34 Reflection, 255, 256 Relief, 128 Rembrandt, 20, 23, 35, 39-42, 45-50, 65, 86, 129, 157, 159, 234, 239, 240, 243-5 Reni (Guido), 238, 239 Repose, 256 Retouching, 20 Reuwich (Erhard), 155 Reynolds (Sir J.), 15, 19, 83, 236 Riggers, 185 'Rivers of France' series, 162 Road, effect of light upon, 127 Roman ships, 137 Romance, age of, 281 Rosa (Salvator), 78, 85, 248 Rubens (Sir Peter Paul), 15, 19, 80, 85, 238, 240, 243 Rules, 79 Ruskin (John), 32, 53, 56-8, 65, 66, 70-2, 83-7, 91, 101, 179, 186, 193, 239, 244, 249 Sacred Art, 250 Sacrifice of art, 252 Sandals, 204 Sarony, his photographs, 27 Sarto (Andrea del), 239, 240 Savage art, 102, 214-7 Science, blunders of, 278; cruelty of, 290 Scott (David), 89 'Scribner's Monthly,' 54 Scumbling, 81; for oak, 181 Seavey, his backgrounds, 27 Second coating, 178 Shadows, gradation of, 129 Shakespeare, 70, 101, 104, 160 Shelley, 73, 89 Ships, 133, 134, 140, 161; Greek, 137; Roman, 137; contrast of, 142-5 Signorelli (Luca), 247 Sketching from nature, 31 Sky pictures, 280, 282-4 Small (William), 157, 165 Social problems, 314-5 Soul in art, 255 Spagnoletto, 242 Spirit of beauty, 289 Stages of painting, 67; of the globe, 279, 280 Stanfield (W. C.), 146 Stanley (H. M.), 29 Stars, 277 Stippling, 92 Stirling-Maxwell (Sir W.), 236 'Stones of Venice,' 71 Studio visiting, 88 Style, 82 Styles, 184 Subject, confidence in, 221 Subtlety, 217 Swinburne, 217 Symbol of art, 291 Teniers (David), 35, 47-9, 243, 268 Third coating, 178 Thomson (D. C.), 150 Thomson (Joseph), 29 Tiepolo, 246 Time for art course, 116 Tintoretto, 80, 85, 247, 263, 264 Titian, 15, 85, 91, 247, 263, 264 Tone, 81 Tones, half, 19 Tools required for oak graining, 181 Torchlight, effect of, 121 Trees, 286, 287 True aims of art, 108, 252 Tunny, 53 Turner (J. M. W.), 32, 65, 70, 86, 157, 161, 173, 244, 248, 249; his influence on illustrative art, 163 Tyndall, 214 Uses of Art, 117, 118 Utilitarianism, 305, 306 Vandyke (Sir A.), 36, 80, 243, 244 Velasquez, 236, 240, 241, 247 Viking craft, 138, 139 Vinci (Leonardo da), 115, 246 Vision, distortion of, 33 Walnut, how to grain, 188, 189 Water-colour painting, 92 Weyden, 243 Whistler (J. McNeill), 20, 86, 91, 236, 245 Whitman (Walt), 44, 45, 217 Wilkie (Sir David), 50, 243 Wohlgemuth (Michael), 35 Wood, drawing on the, 157 Word-painting, 303, 304, 311 Wordsworth, 89 Worth, 99, 100 Wyllie (C. W.), 165 Youth and Age, 313 Zola, 43, 44, 221 Zurbaran (Francisco), 242 Zwanenburg, 35 THE END PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [1] Only, not to the encouragement of lazy habits; at times (for the sake of practice) a painter ought to draw the most minute point-detail with the pencil, as a singer practises his scales; otherwise, for the object, the photo is most to be relied upon for truth in all, _except in perspective_. [2] For an example of what I mean, see the effects in 'Choice Blends' in 'The Idler'. [3] See 'Specimen Days and Collects,' by Walt Whitman, page 306 of Collects. Want of room prevents me giving the specimen in full, and I dare not mutilate such a literary masterpiece. [4] See 'Mary Queen of Scots,' by Bell--last scene. [5] The snow scenes are exquisite, and one exhibited, of a camp fire with figures, a perfect triumph of misty refinement; the faces seen through the smoke particularly to be observed. I would also call the reader's attention to his cattle studies, and the printing done on rough hand-made paper--flat and like sepia and Indian-ink work, only far more refined than hand-work could be. [6] Some days before the death of Millet, a stag was chased by hunters and dogs into a neighbour's garden and butchered before the dying man's gaze. 'I take it as an omen,' he said mournfully, and prepared for the earth-end. [7] Esther i. 6. [8] I have seen this picture since writing these remarks, but without changing my opinion concerning it. [9] As a worker of broad effects, I lay myself open to be charged with bigotry when I condemn the pre-Raphaelites, and accept the risk. [10] See _Life and Nature Studies_. [11] I called attention to the marvellous medicinal virtues of this Eucalyptus-tree long before it was generally accepted by the Faculty. See 'Picturesque Australasia' and 'A Colonial Tramp,' &c. [12] _See_ 'A New Guinea Village,' p. 125. [13] _See_ Frontispiece: 'A New Zealand Fern Gully.' [14] See also _A Treatise on Wood Engraving_, by Chatto & Jackson, p. 46. [15] The same excuse applies to this present work. [16] The numbers in this chapter are those of February 1892. [17] George Paul Chalmers, an Edinburgh artist, is the only colourist who really followed Rembrandt in his method. He used sometimes to take sixty sittings to one portrait, and hardly ever finished any of his works, so fastidious was he; yet as far as he perfected he was very perfect as a colourist. * * * * * Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: thum-bhole=> thumb-hole {pg 68} thes ame=> the same {pg 191} Niccolo of Fuligno;=> by Niccolo of Fuligno; {pg 247} No. 35, Titian; 'Mercury=> No. 35, by Titian; 'Mercury {pg 247} Savage art, 102, 214-1=> Savage art, 102, 214-7 {pg index} 
39264	----	produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) THE GROTESQUE IN CHURCH ART. Only 400 copies of this Book published for Sale, and this is No. 315 [Illustration: THE STORY OF JONAH, RIPON.] The Grotesque in Church Art By T. Tindall Wildridge [Illustration] LONDON: WILLIAM ANDREWS & CO., 5, FARRINGDON AVENUE, E.C. 1899. Preface. The designs of which this book treats have vast fields outside the English church works to which it has been thought good to limit it. Books and buildings undoubtedly mutually interchanged some forms of their ornaments, yet the temple was the earlier repository of man's ideas expressed in art, and the proper home of the religious symbolism which forms so large a proportion of my subject. In view also of the ground I have ventured to hint may be taken up as to the derivation, of a larger number than is generally supposed, of church designs from heathen prototypes by the hands of apprenticed masons, it is fitting that the evidences should be from their chisels. The only exceptions are a few wall-paintings, which serve to point a difference in style and origin. In every case the examples are from churches in our own land. The conclusions do not nearly approach a complete study of the questions, the research to the present, great as it is, chiefly shewing how much has yet to be learned in order to accurately compare the extant with the long-forgotten. The endeavour has been to present sufficient to enable general inferences to be drawn in the right direction. Of the numerous works consulted in the course of this essay, the most useful has been "Choir Stalls and their Carvings," sketched by Miss Emma Phipson. While tendering my acknowledgments for much assistance obtained from that lady's book, I would add that the 'second series' suggested cannot but equal the first as a service to the cause of comparative mythology and folk-lore. This place may be taken to dispose of two kinds of grotesques in church art which belong to my title, though not to my intention. The memorial erections put into so many churches after the middle of the sixteenth century are to be placed in the same category as the less often ludicrous effigies of earlier times, and may be dismissed as "ugly monumental vanities, miscalled sculpture." The grotesqueness of some of these sepulchral excrescences may in future centuries be still more apparent, though to many even time cannot supply interest. Not all are like the imposing monument to a doctor in Southwark Cathedral, on which, by the way, the epitaph is mainly devoted to laudation of his _pills_. Yet, though the grotesque is not entirely wanting in even these monuments, it is chiefly through errors of taste. The worst of them are more pathetic than anything else. The grotesque proper implies a proportion of levity, whereas the earnestness evinced by these effigies are more in keeping with the solemnity of the church's purpose than the infinitely more artistic and unobtrusive ornament of the fabric. The other class of grotesque is the modern imitation of mediæval carving, with original design. Luckily, it is somewhat rare to find the spirit of the old sculptors animating a modern chisel. One of the best series of modern antiques of this kind is a set of gargoyles at St. Nicholas's, Abingdon, executed about 1881, of which I think it worth while to append a warning sample. These two classes are left out of account in the following pages. [Illustration: MODERN GARGOYLE, ABINGDON, 1881.] Contents. PAGE PREFACE v INTRODUCTION 1 DEFINITIONS OF THE GROTESQUE 5 THE CARVERS 9 THE ARTISTIC QUALITIES OF CHURCH GROTESQUES 19 GOTHIC ORNAMENT NOT DIDACTIC 24 INGRAINED PAGANISM 27 MYTHIC ORIGIN 34 HELL'S MOUTH 60 SATANIC REPRESENTATIONS 64 THE DEVIL AND THE VICES 78 ALE AND THE ALEWIFE 99 SATIRES WITHOUT SATAN 106 SCRIPTURAL ILLUSTRATIONS 112 MASKS AND FACES 121 THE DOMESTIC AND POPULAR 134 THE PIG AND OTHER ANIMAL MUSICIANS 152 COMPOUND FORMS 157 NONDESCRIPTS 169 REBUSES 173 TRINITIES 175 THE FOX IN CHURCH ART 184 SITUATIONS OF GROTESQUE ORNAMENT IN CHURCH ART 213 INDEX 219 [Illustration: A ROOF SUPPORTER, EWELME, OXON.] The Grotesque in Church Art. Introduction. [Illustration: GORGONIC MASK, EWELME.] The more lofty the earlier manifestations of man's intellect, the more complete and immediate seems to have been their advancement. That is to say, where the products of genius depend mainly upon the recognition of great principles and deliberate adherence to them, they are more satisfying than when success depends upon dexterous manipulation of material. What I have in view in this respect in connection with architecture has its co-relative in language. The subtlety and poetic force of Ayran roots shew a refined application of principle--that of imagery--in far advance of the languages rising from them. The successive growths of the detail of language, for use or ornament,--and the useful of one age would seem to become the ornamental of another--necessarily often forsake the high purity of the primeval standard, and give rise, not only to the commonplace, but, by misconception or wantonness, to perversion of taste. So in architecture. Temples were noble before their ornaments. The grotesque is the slang of architecture. Nowhere so much as in Gothic architecture has the grotesque been fostered and developed, for, except for a blind adherence to ancient designs, due to something like gild continuity, the whole detail was introduced apropos of nothing. The assisting circumstance would appear to have been the indifference of the architects to the precise significance of the detail ornaments of their buildings. Gothic, or in fact any architecture admitting ornament, calls for crisp sub-regular projections, which shall, by their prominence and broken surface, attract the eye, but by the vagueness of their general form attract it so slightly as to lose individuality in a general view. These encrusting ornaments, by their opposition to the light of what the carvers call a "busy" surface, increase and accentuate rather than detract from the effect of the sweep of arches or dying vistas of recurring pillars. They afford a sort of punctuation, or measurers of the rhythm of the composition. Led from point to point, the eye gathers an impression of rich elaboration that does not interfere with its appreciation of the orderliness of the main design. These objects gained, the architects did not, apparently, enquire what the lesser minds, who carved the boss or dripstone, considered appropriate ornament. Hence we have a thousand fancies, often beautifully worked out, but often utterly incongruous with the intent of the edifice they are intended to adorn, and unworthy of the architecture of which they are a part. As in language the grotesque is sometimes produced by inadvertency and misconception, so in ornament not all the grotesque is of set purpose, and here the consideration of the less development of the less idea has its chief example. As original meaning became lost, the real merit of earnestness decreased, and the grotesque became an art. Moreover, the execution of Gothic ornament is excellent in proportion to its artistic easiness. Thus the foliate and florate designs are better carved than the animal forms, and both better than the human. With the exception of little else besides the Angel Choir at Lincoln, and portions of the Percy Shrine at Beverley, there is nothing in Gothic representation of sentient form really worthy of the perfect conceptions of architecture afforded by scores of English churches. It may, of course, be considered that anything but conventional form is out of place as architectural ornament; on the other hand, it must not be ignored that conventionality is a growth. It is only to be expected, therefore, that where the artist found character beyond his reach he fell readily into caricature, though it is a matter for surprise to find such a high standard of ability in that, and in the carved work generally. We find no instances of carving so low in absolute merit as are the best of the wall-paintings of the same periods. The sources from which the artists obtained their material are as wide as the air. A chief aim of this volume is to indicate those sources, and this is done in some cases rather minutely, though not in any exhaustively. The point of view from which the subject is surveyed is that the original detail of the temples entirely consisted of symbols of worship and attributes, founded chiefly upon astronomical phenomena: that owing to the gild organization of the masons, the same forms were mechanically perpetuated long after the worship of the heavenly bodies had given way to Christianity, often with the thinnest veil of Christian symbolism thrown over them. To this material, descended from remote antiquity, came gradually to be added a multitude of designs from nature and from fancy. [Illustration: HARPY, EXETER.] [Illustration: RAGE AND TERROR, RIPON.] Definitions of the Grotesque. The term "Grotesque," which conveys to us an idea of humourous distortion or exaggeration, is simply _grotto-esque_, being literally the style of art found in the grottos or baths of the ancients. The term rose towards the end of the fifteenth century, when exhumation brought to light the fantastic decorations of the more private apartments of the licentious Romans. The use at that period of a similar style for not unsimilar purposes gave the word common currency, and it has spread to everything which, combined with wit or not, provokes a smile by a real or pretended violation of the laws of Nature and Beauty. In its later, and not in its original, meaning is the word applied to the extraordinary productions of church art. We may usefully inquire as to the causes of those remarkable characteristics of Gothic art which have caused the word Grotesque to fittingly describe so much of its detail. The joke has a different meaning for every age. The capacity for simultaneously recognizing likeness and contrast between things the most incongruous and wide-sundered, which is at the root of our appreciation of wit, humour, or the grotesque, is a quality of slow growth among nations. No doubt early man enjoyed his laugh, but it was a different thing from the laughter of our day. Many races have left no suspicion of their ever having smiled; even where there are ample pictorial remains, humour is generally unrepresented. The Assyrians have left us the smallest possible grounds for crediting them with its possession. Instances have been adduced of Egyptian humour, but some are doubtful, and in any case the proportion of fun per acre of picture is infinitesimally small. The Greeks, perhaps, came the nearest to what we consider the comic, but with both Greek and Roman the humour has something of bitterness and sterility; even in what was professedly comic we cannot always see any real fun. Where it strikes out unexpectedly in brief flashes it is with a cold light that leaves no impression of warmth behind. The mechanical character of their languages, with a multitude of fixed formulæ, is perhaps an index to their mental development. The subtleties of wit ran in the direction of gratifying established tastes and prejudices by satirical references, but rarely condescending to amuse for mere humour's sake. Where is found the nearest approach to merriness is in what now-a-days we regard as the least interesting and meritorious grade of humour, the formal parody. The Greeks had, outside their fun, let it be noted, something better than jococity, and that was joyousness. The later Romans became humourous in a low way which has had a permanent influence upon literature and art. Sense of humour grew with the centuries, and by the time that the Gothic style of architecture arose, appreciation of the ludicrous-in-general (_i.e._ that which is without special reference to an established phase of thought) is traceable as a characteristic of, at least, the Teuton nations. It must be admitted that the popular verbal fun of the middle ages is not always easy to grasp, but it cannot be denied that where understood, or where its outlet is found in the graphic or glyphic arts, there is allied to the innocent coarseness and unscrupulousness, a richness of conceit, a wealth of humour, and a delicate and accurate sense of the laughable far beyond Greek wit or Roman jocularity. It is to the embodiments of the spirit of humour as found in our mediæval churches that our present study is directed. It may be as well to first say a little upon those comicalities which may be styled 'grotesques by misadventure.' This is a branch of the subject to be approached with some diffidence, for it is in many cases difficult to discriminate between that which was intended to be grotesque, and that which was executed with serious or often devout feelings, but for one of several causes often presenting to us an irresistibly comic effect. The causes may be five. First, the varying mechanical and constructive incompetency of the artists to embody their ideas. Second, the copying of an earlier work with executive ability, with strong perception of its unintentional and latent humour, but without respect to, or without knowledge of, its serious meaning. Third, the use of symbolic representation, in which the greater the skill, often the greater the ludicrous effect. Fourth, the change of fashion, manners, and customs. Fifth, a bias of mind which impelled to whimsical treatment. Consideration of the causes thus roughly analysed will explain away a large proportion of the irreverence of the irreverent paintings and carvings which excite such surprise, and sometimes disgust, in the minds of many modern observers of ecclesiological detail. It will be seen that the placing of carvings in any one of these five classes, or in the category of intentional grotesques, must, in many cases, be a mere matter of opinion. For the present purpose it will not be necessary to separate them, except so far as the plan of the work does it automatically. Many ecclesiastical and other seals afford familiar instances of the 'comic without intention,' parallel to what is said above as to carvings. The Carvers. [Illustration: LINCOLN, _14th cent._] Seemingly probability and evidence go hand in hand to shew that a great bulk of the church mason work of this country was the work of foreigners. Saxon churches were probably first built by Roman workmen, whose erections would teach sufficient to enable Saxons to afterward build for themselves. Imported talent, however, is likely to have been constantly employed. Edward the Confessor brought back with him from France new French designs for the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey, and doubtless he brought French masons also. Anglo-Norman is strongly Byzantine in character, and though the channels through which it passed may be various, there is little doubt that its origin was the great Empire of the East. Again, the great workshop of Europe, where Eastern ideas were gathered together and digested, and which supplied cathedrals and cathedral builders at command, was Flanders; and there is little doubt that during some five centuries after the Norman Conquest, Flemings were employed, in a greater or less degree, on English work. Italians were largely employed. The Angel Choir of Lincoln is one distinct witness to that. The workmen who executed the finely-carved woodwork of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, King's College, Cambridge, and Westminster Abbey, in the sixteenth century, were chiefly Italians, under the superintendence of Torregiano, a Florentine artist. He was a fellow-pupil of Michael Angelo, and is best known by the dastardly blow he dealt him with a mallet, disfiguring him for life. The resentment of Lorenzo de Medici at this caused Torregiano to leave Florence. He came to England in 1503. The architect, however, of King Henry VII.'s Chapel was Bishop Alcock, an Englishman, born at Hull, the already existing Grammar School of which place he endowed, and, perhaps, rebuilt. Many other architects of English buildings were Englishmen, probably the majority, and doubtless a large proportion of the workmen also,[1] but it would be idle to deny that imported art speaks loudly from work of all the styles. The carved detail may be relied upon to tell us something, and it speaks of an original reliance upon the East, which was never outgrown. The carvings found in England are not marked by anything at all approaching a national spirit, even in the limited degree that was possible. Except for a few carvings of armorial designs, and still fewer with slight local reference, there are none in wood or stone which would not be equally in place in any Romance country in Europe. The carvings, also, in the Continental churches present familiar aspects to the student of English ornament. But if we have yet to wait some fortunate discovery of rolls of workmen's names, with their rate of wages, we are not without such interesting information concerning the old carvers as is contained in portraits they have left of themselves. Just as authors sometimes recognize how satisfactory it is to have their "effigies" done at the fronts of their books, so have the carvers of old sometimes attached to their works portraits of themselves or their fellows, in their habits as they lived, in their attitudes as they laboured. [Illustration: AN INDUSTRIOUS CARVER, LYNN.] Our first carver hails from Lincolnshire. In 1852, when the Church of St. Nicholas, Lynn, was restored, the misericordes were taken out and not replaced, but passed as articles of commerce eventually to the Architectural Museum, Tufton Street, London. Among these is a view of a carver's studio, shewing the industrious master seated, tapping carefully away at a design upon the bench before him. There are three apprentices in the background working at benches; there are at the back some incised panels, and a piece of open screen-work. Perhaps we may suppose the weather to be cold, for the carver has on an exceedingly comfortable cloak or surcoat. At his feet reposes his dog. [Illustration: CARVER'S INITIALS, ST. NICHOLAS'S, LYNN.] There is an interesting peculiarity about these Lynn carvings; the sides of the misericordes are designs in the fashion of monograms, or rebuses. The sides supporting the carver are his initials, pierced with his carving tools, a saw and a chisel. The difficulty is the same in all of the set; the meaning of the monograms is not to be lightly determined. In this case it may be U.V., or perhaps U is twice repeated. [Illustration: COMMUNICATING A STRIKING IDEA, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] The next carvers belong to the following century. Here also we see the principal figures in the midst of work. In this case, however, there has arrived an interruption. Either one of the workers is about to commit mock assault and battery upon another with a mallet, or a brilliant idea for a grotesque has just struck him, and he hastens to impart it. From the expression of the faces, and the attitudes for which two other workmen have stood as models, at the sides, the latter may be the more likely. It is not impossible that the carver of the fine set of sixty-eight misericordes in Beverley Minster had in mind the incident of the blow given to Michael Angelo, and it would be interesting to know if any of Torregiano's Italians worked at Beverley. This aproned, noisy, jocular crew are very different from the dignified artist we have just left, but doubtless they turned out good work of the humorous class. The two "sidesmen" are occupied in the two ways of shewing intelligence and contempt known as "taking a sight," etc. [Illustration: MUTUAL CONTEMPT, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] The next carver is a figure at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. This is locally known as the Wellingborough shoemaker, but nearly all local designations of such things are wrong, and this is no exception. Elsewhere in speaking of this sedate figure, I have conjectured he may be cutting something out of leather, and not making shoes. However, I have since arrived at Miss Phipson's conclusion: the figure can only be that of a carver. He is fashioning not a leather rosette, but a Tudor rose in oak, to be afterwards pinned with an oak pin in some spandrel. He is rather a reserved-looking individual, but a master of his craft, if we may suppose he has "turned out" the two eagles at his right and left. [Illustration: A PIECE OF FINE WORK, WELLINGBOROUGH.] No doubt there were several ways of building churches, or supplying them with their art decorations. Some masons would be attached to a cathedral, and be lent or sent here and there by arrangement. Others would be ever wandering, seeking church work. Others might come from abroad for particular work, and return with the harvest of English money when the work was done. For special objects there were depôts. It is an acknowledged fact that the black basalt fonts of Norman times were imported from Flanders. There are occasionally met other things of this material with the same class of design, evidently from the same source, such as the sculptured coffin-lid at Bridlington Priory, given on a following page. I have not seen it noted, but I think it will be established that "brasses," so much alike all over the country, were mostly ready-made articles also from Flanders. From the stereotyped conventionality of the altar-tomb effigies, they also may be judged to be the productions of workshops doing little but this work, and probably foreign. What is required to determine the general facts on these points is a return from various fabric accounts. We shall probably find both English and foreign carvers. There is little or no doubt that the carvers of our grotesques were members of the mysterious society which has developed into the modern body of Freemasons. It would be interesting--if it were not so apparently impossible--to trace in the records of early Freemasonry, not only the names and nationalities of the masons and carvers, but the details of that fine organization which enabled them to develope ideas and improvements simultaneously throughout Europe; and which would tell us, moreover, something of the master minds which conceived and directed the changes of style. But the masonic history of our carvers is much enveloped in error to the outside world. Thus we are told that in the minority of Henry VI. the masons were suppressed by statute, but that on his assuming the control of affairs he repealed the Act, and himself became a mason; moreover, we are told he wrote out "Certayne Questyons with Awnsweres to the same concerning the Mystery of Maconrye" which was afterwards "copyed by me Johan Leylande Antiquarius," at the command of Henry VIII.; the MS. being gravely stated to be in the Bodleian Library. No such MS. exists at the Bodleian Library. If it did, its diction and spelling (which is all on pretended record in certain books probably repudiated by the masonic body proper) would instantly condemn it as a forgery. Certainly an Act was passed, 3 Henry VI., which is in itself a historical monument to the importance of Freemasonry. It is a brief enactment that the yearly meetings of the masons, being contrary to the Statute of Labourers (of 25 Edward III., 1351) fixing the rates of labour, which the masons varied and apparently increased, were no longer to be held; offenders to be judged guilty of felony. The Commons did not quite know what to style the meetings, using in this short Act the following terms for them: Chapters, Assemblies, Congregations, and Confederacies. But important though this proves the masons to have been, there is no account of the statute being repealed until the 5 Elizabeth, when another took its place equally intolerant to the spirit of Freemasonry, and Freemasonry really only became legal by the Act of 6 George IV. But the prohibition of 1424 was not abolition. If the masons were debarred from being allowed to exercise their advanced notions of remuneration, or to have any legal recognition whatever, it scarcely seems to have affected their action. For if they had refrained from exercising their freedom, and submitted to being put down by statute, it is probable we should have met them in the form of more ordinary gilds as instituted by other craftsmen. But we do not meet them thus, and the inference is that they went on in their own way, at their own time, and at their own price. It may be presumed that the more or less migratory habits of the masons made the Act impossible to be rigidly enforced. Coming down towards the end of Gothic times, we find, at any rate, there was one place where images might be ordered. In the Stanford churchwardens' accounts for 1556 there occur the following entries:-- "It. In expences to Abyndon to speke for ymages vijd. It. for iij ymages, the Rode, Mare, and John xxijs. iiijd." It will have been noticed that the portraits of the carvers are Late. It is a great merit, on antiquarian grounds, that Gothic work, prior to the revival in art, was too much unconscious to admit anything so self-personal as a thought of the workers themselves, though frequently their 'marks' are unobtrusively set upon their works. By the sixteenth century, the sculptor's art developed with the rest of mental effort, and the artists drank fresh draughts from the springs coming by way of Rome, springs whose waters had been concerned in the existence of nearly all the art that had been in Europe for ten centuries. [Illustration: DOG AND BONE, BRECHIN.] The Artistic Quality of Church Grotesques. The grotesque has been pronounced a false taste, and not desirable to be perpetuated. Reflection upon the causes and meanings of Gothic grotesque will shew that perpetuation is to be regretted for other than artistic reasons. If the taste be false yet the work is valuable on historic grounds, for what it teaches of its own time and much more for what it hints of earlier periods of which there is meagre record anywhere. Therefore it would be well not to confuse the student of the future with our clever variations of imperfectly understood ideas. Practically the grotesque and emblematic period ended at the Reformation; and it was well. But while leaving the falseness of the taste for grotesques an open question, there is something to be said for them without straining fact. For it is certain that there is underlying Gothic grotesque ornament a unique and, if not understood, an uncopiable beauty, be the subject never so ugly. The fascinating element appear to be, first, the completeness of the genius which was exercised upon it. It not only conveys the travestying idea, but also sufficiently conveys the original thought travestied. What is it at which we laugh? It shall be a figure which is of a kind generally dignified, now with no dignity; generally to be respected, but now commanding no respect; capable of being feared, but now inspiring no fear; usually lovable, but now provoking no love. It shall be a figure of which the preconceived idea was either worthy or dreadful--which suddenly we have presented to us shorn of its superior attributes. Ideals are unconsciously enshrined in the mind, and when images proclaiming themselves the same ideals appear in sharp degraded contrast--we laugh. Thus we affirm the correctness of the original judgments both as to the great and the contemptible imitating it, for laughter is the effect of appreciation of incongruity. Custom overrides nearly all, and blunts contrast of ideas, yet wit, darting here and there among men, ever finds fresh contrasts and fresh laughter. [Illustration: DOG AND BONE, CHRISTCHURCH, HAMPSHIRE.] Further counts for something the excellence of the artistic management, which in the treatment of the most unpromising subjects filled the composition with beautiful lines. It was left to Hogarth's genius to insist on the reality of "the line of beauty" as governing all loveliness, and he suggests that a perceptive recognition of this existed on the part of the classic sculptors. This applies to their work in general, but he also mentions their frequent addition of some curved object connected with the subject, as though it were a kind of key to the artistic composition. Whether consciously or not, the ancients used many such adjunctive curved lines, and Hogarth's conclusions cannot be styled fanciful. The helmet, plume, and serpent-edged ægis of Minerva, the double-bowed bolt and serpents of Jupiter, the ornaments of the trident, the aplustre and the twisted rope of Neptune, the bow and serpent of Apollo, the plume of Mars, the caduceus of Mercury, the ship-prow of Saturn, the gubernum or rudder of Venus, the drinking horn of Pan, together with many another form to be observed in particular works of the ancients, is each a definite and perfect example of the faultless line. Now, to repeat, many--an infinite number--of the ornaments of Gothic architecture, and not less the grotesque than any other description, are likewise composed of the most beautiful lines conceivable, either entirely, or combined with lines of abrupt and ungraceful turn that seem to deliberately provoke one's artistic protest; and yet the whole composition shall, by its curious mixture of beauty and bizarre, its contrast of elegance with awkwardness, leave a real and unique sense of pleasure in the mind. Doubtless the root of this pleasure is the gratification of the mind at having secretly detected itself responding to the call of art to exercise itself in appreciative discrimination. This may be unconsciously done; and in a great measure the qualities which give the pleasure would be bestowed upon the work in similar happy unconsciousness of the exact why and wherefore. Often, as in the ancient statues, a small curved form is introduced as an appendage to a mediæval grotesque. [Illustration: HAWKS OR EAGLES? WELLINGBOROUGH, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.] Thus we see that there are combinations of two kinds of contrast which make Gothic grotesques agreeable, the artistic contrasts among the mere lines of the carvings, and the significatory contrasts evolved by the meanings of the carvings. As far back as the twelfth century, a critic of church grotesques recognized their combination of contrasts. This was St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who, speaking of the ecclesiastical decoration of his time, paid the grotesques of church art the exact tribute they so often merit; probably the greater portion of what he saw has given place to succeeding carvings, though of precisely the same characteristics. He calls them "a wonderful sort of hideous beauty and beautiful deformity." He, moreover, put a question, many times since repeated by hundreds who never heard of him, asking the use of placing ridiculous monstrosities in the cloisters before the eyes of the brethren when occupied with their studies. It is not possible to explain the "use" of perpetuating the barbarous symbols of a long-forgotten past; but it will be interesting to shew that there were actual causes accounting for their continued existence and their continued production, unknown ages after their own epoch. Gothic Ornaments not Didactic. Reflection will not lead us to believe carvings to have been placed in churches with direct intent to teach or preach. Many writers have coincided in producing a general opinion that the churches, as containing these carvings, were practically the picture (or sculpture) galleries and illustrated papers for the illiterate of the past. This supposition will not bear examination. It would mean that in the days when humble men rarely travelled from home, and then mostly by compulsion, to fight for lord or king, or against him, the inhabitant of a village or town had for the (say) forty years sojourn in his spot of Merrie England, a small collection of composite animals, monsters, mermaids, impossible flowers, etc.--with perhaps one doubtful domestic scene of a lady breaking a vessel over the head of a gentleman who is inquisitive as to boots--with which to improve his mind. Sometimes his church would contain not half-a-dozen forms, and mostly not one he could understand or cared to interpret. Misericordes, the secondary seats or shelves allowed as a relaxation during the ancient long standing services, are invariably carved, and episode is more likely to be found there than anywhere else in the church. Hence, misericordes have been specially selected for this erroneous consideration of ornament to be the story-book of the Middle Ages. This is unfortunate for the theory, for they were placed only in churches having connection with a monastic or collegiate establishment. They are in the chancels, where the feet of laymen rarely trod, and, moreover, there would be few hours out of the twenty-four when the stalls would not be occupied by the performers of the daily offices or celebrations. The fact appears to be that the carvings were the outcome of causes far different from an intention to produce genre pictures. It is patent that anything which kept within its proper mechanical and architectural outline, was admitted. What was offered depended upon a multitude of considerations, but chiefly upon the traditions of mason-craft. The Rev. Charles Boutell has an apt description touching upon the origin of the carvings: calling them "chronicles," he says they were "written by men who were altogether unconscious of being chroniclers at all.... They worked under the impulse of motives altogether devoid of the historical element. They were influenced by the traditions of their art, by their own feelings, and were directed by their own knowledge, experience, and observation, and also by the associations of their every-day lives." This appears to explain in general terms the sources of iconography. In brief, the sculptor had a stock-in-trade of designs, which he varied or supplemented, according to his ability and originality. That the stock-in-trade, or traditions of the art, handed down from master to apprentice, generation after generation, persistently retained an immense amount of intellectualia thus derived from a remote antiquity, is but an item of this subject, but the most important of which this work has cognizance. [Illustration: SEA-HORSE DRAGONZED, LINCOLN, _14th cent._] Ingrained Paganism. We at this day may be excused for not participating in the good St. Bernard's dislike to the "hideous beauties" of the grotesque, and for not deploring, as he does, the money expended on their production. For many of them are the embodiments of ideas which the masons had perpetuated from a period centuries before his time, and which could in no other way have been handed down to us. There are many reasons why books were unlikely media for early times; for later, the serious import of the origin of the designs would be likely to be doubted; and for the most part the special function of the designs has been the adornment of edifices of religion. They were, in fact, religious symbols which in various ages of the world have been used with varying degrees of purity. One of the Rabbis, Maimonides, has an instructive passage on the rise of symbolic images. Speaking of men's first falling away from a presumed early pure religion he says:--"They began to build temples to the stars, ... and this was the root of idolatry ... and the false prophet showed them the image that he had feigned out of his own heart, and said it was the image of that star which was made known to him by prophecy; and they began after this manner to make images in temples and under trees ... and this thing was spread throughout the world--to serve images with services different one from another and to sacrifice unto, and worship them. So in process of time the glorious and fearful name was forgotten out of the mouth of all living ... and there was found on earth no people that knew aught save images of wood and stone, and temples of stone which they built." The ancient Hindoo fables also indicate how imagery arose; they speak of the god Ram, "who, having no shape, is described by a similitude." The worship of the "Host of Heaven" was star-worship, or "Baalim." The Sabean idolatry was the worship of the stars, to which belongs much of the earlier image carving, for the household gods of the ancient Hebrews, the Teraphim (as the images of Laban stolen by Rachel), were probably in the human form as representing planets, even in varying astronomical aspects of the same planet. They are said to have been of metal. The ancient Germans had similar household gods of wood, carved out of the root of the mandragora plant, or alraun as they called it, from the superstition kindred to that of the East, that the images would answer questions (from _raunen_ to whisper in the ear). Examination of many ancient Attic figurines appears to shew that they had a not unsimilar origin, reminding us that both Herodotus and Plato state the original religion of the Greeks to have been star-worship, and hence is derived the [Greek: Theos] god, from [Greek: Thein] to run. Thus in other than the poet's sense are the stars "elder scripture." A large number of the forms met in architectural ornament, it may be fittingly reiterated, have a more or less close connection with the worships which existed in times long prior to Christianity. A portion of them was continuously used simply because the masons were accustomed to them, or in later Gothic on account of the universal practice of copying existing works; unless we can take it for granted in place of that practice, that there existed down to Reformation days "portfolios" of carver's designs which were to the last handed down from master to apprentice, as must have undoubtedly been the case in earlier times. Other portions of the ancient worship designs are found in Christian art because they were received and grafted upon the symbolic system of the Church's teaching. The retention of these fragments of superseded paganism does not always appear to have been of deliberate or willing intention. The early days of the Church even after its firm establishment, were much occupied in combating every form of paganism. The converts were constantly lapsing into their old beliefs, and the thunders of the early ecclesiastical councils were as constantly being directed against the ancient superstitions. Sufficient remains on record to shew how hard the gods died. To near the end of the fourth century the chief intelligence of Rome publicly professed the Olympic faith. With the next century, however, commenced a more or less determined programme of persecutory repression. Thus, councils held at Arles about 452 ruled that a bishop was guilty of sacrilege who neglected to extirpate the custom of adoring fountains, trees, and stones. At that of Orleans in 533 Catholics were to be excommunicated who returned to the worship of idols or ate flesh offered to idols. At Tours in 567 several pagan superstitions were forbidden, and at Narborne in 590; freemen who transgressed were to have penance, but slaves to be beaten. At Nicea in 681 image worship was allowed of Christ.[2] At Augsburgh (?) in 742 the Count Gravio was associated with the Bishop to watch against popular lapses into paganism. In 743 Pepin held a council in which he ruled, as his father had done before, that he who practised any pagan rites be fined 15 sous (15/22 of a livre). To the orders was attached the renunciation, in German, of the worship of Odin by the Saxons, and a list of the pagan superstitions of the Germans. The Council of Frankfort in 794 ordered the sacred woods to be destroyed. Constantinople had apparently already not only become a channel for the conveyance of oriental paganism in astro-symbolic images, but was also evidently nearer to the lower idolatry of heathenism than the Church of the West. Thus we find the bishops of Gaul, Germany, and Italy in council at Frankfort, rejecting with anathema, and as idolatrous, the doctrines of the Council of Constantinople upon the worship of images. While all this repression was going on, the Church was making itself acceptable, just as the Mosaic system had done in its day, by assimilating the symbols of the forbidden faiths. Itself instituted without formularies or ceremonial, both were needed when it became a step-ladder of ambition and the expedient displacer of the corrupt idolatries into which sun-worship had disintegrated. Hence among the means of organization, observance and symbol took the place of original simplicity, and it is small wonder that ideas were adopted which were already in men's minds. Elements of heathenism which, after the lapse of centuries, still clung to the Church's robes, became an interwoven part of her dearest symbolism. If men did not burn what they had adored, they in effect adored that which they had burned. In spite, however, of edicts and adoptions, paganism has never been entirely rooted out; what Sismondi calls the "rights of long possession, the sacredness of time-hallowed opinion, and the potency of habit," are not yet entirely overcome in the midst of the most enlightened peoples. The carvings which point back to forgotten myths have their parallels in curious superstitions and odd customs which are not less venerable. There were many compromises made on account of the ineradicable attachment of the people to religious customs into which they were born. Christian festivals were erected on the dates of heathen observances. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory sent word to Augustine, then in England, that the idolatrous temples of the English need not be destroyed, though the idols should, and that the cattle sacrificed to the heathen deities should be killed on the anniversary of dedication or on the nativities of the saints whose relics were within the church. It is said that it was, later, usual to bring a fat buck into St. Paul's, London, with the hunters' horns blowing, in the midst of divine service, for the cathedral was built on or near the site of a former temple of Diana. This custom was made the condition of a feudal tenure. The story of Prosperine, another form of Diana, was the subject of heathen plays, and down to the sixteenth century the character appears in religious mystery plays as the recipient of much abuse. Ancient mythology points in one chief direction. "Omnes Deos referri ad solem," says Macrobius, "All Gods refer to the sun," and in the light of that saying a thousand complicated fables of antiquity melt into simplicity. The ancient poets called the sun (at one time symbolically of a First Great Cause, at another absolutely) the Leader, the Moderator, the Depository of Light, the Ordainer of human things; each of his virtues was styled a different god, and given its distinct name. The moon also, and the stars were made the symbols of deities. These symbols put before the people as vehicles for abstract ideas, were quickly adopted as gods, the symbolism being disregarded, and the end was practically the same as that narrated by the ancient rabbi just quoted. But it may be doubted whether the pantheism of the classic nations was ever entirely gross. The great festivals of the gods were accompanied by the initiation of carefully selected persons into certain mysteries of which no description is extant. Thirlwall hazards the conjecture "that they were the remains of a worship which preceded the rise of the Hellenic mythology ... grounded on a view of nature less fanciful, more earnest and better fitted to awaken both philosophical thought and religious feeling." Whether a purer system was unfolded to the initiated on these occasions or not, there is little doubt that it had existed and was at the root of the symbol rites. [Illustration: AN IMP ON CUSHIONS, CHRISTCHURCH, HANTS., _early 16th cent._] Mythic Origin of Church Carvings. [Illustration: TAU CROSS, WELLINGBOROUGH.] The discoveries in Egypt in recent years undoubtedly press upon us the fact that there was in Europe an early indigenous civilization, and that the exchange of ideas between East and West was at least equal. For the purpose of this study, however, the theory of independence is not accepted absolutely; it is premised that though there were in numerous parts of the old world early native systems of worship of much similarity, yet that such relics of them as are met in architecture came from the East. The mythic ideas at the root of Gothic decoration were probably early disseminated through Europe in vague and varying ways, whose chief impress is in folk-lore; but the concrete forms themselves appear to have been introduced later, after being brought, as it were, to a focus, being selected and assimilated at some great mental centre. Alexandria was the place where Eastern and Western culture impinged on each other, and resulted in a conglomerate of ideas. These ideas, however, were not essentially different in their nature, though each school, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, and Hebrew, had diverged widely if they came from an unknown common source. But if Alexandria was the furnace in which the material was fused, Byzantium appears to have been the great workshop where the results were utilized, and from whence they were issued to Europe. Sculptured ornament is not alone in the fact of its being a direct legacy from remotely ancient forms, though, on comparing that with any of the other arts hitherto recognized as of Eastern origin, it will be found that none bears such distinct marks of its parentage, or shews such continuity of form. Thus examination of European glazed pottery, which comes perhaps the nearest to our subject, shews that the ornamenting devices occasionally betray an acquaintance with the old symbolic patterns, but there is less recognition of meaning, scarcely any intention to perpetuate idea, and no continuity of design. It was not in the nature of the potter's purpose that there should be any of these, the difference being that for the mason's and the sculptor's art there was a very close association with the gild system. The first Christian sculptors would be masons brought up in pagan gilds, and the gild instincts and traditions had undoubtedly as strong an effect upon their work, on the whole, as any religious beliefs they might possess. The symbolism of the animals of the church in the late points of view of the Bestiaries and of the expository writers of the Middle Ages, is not here to be made the subject of special attention. That is a department well treated in other works, particularly in the volume, "Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture," by Mr. E. P. Evans, which yet remains to be equalled. It is to be noted, however, that the early Christians, seeing the animals and their compounds so integral a portion of pagan imagery, endeavoured to twist every meaning to one sufficiently Christian: but what is chiefly worthy of note is the unconscious resistance of the sculptors to the treatment. Although a multitude of figures can be traced as used symbolically in accordance with the Christian dicta, there are at least as many which shew stronger affinity to pagan myth. There is evidence that this was early recognized by the propogandists. The Council of Nice in 787, in enjoining upon the faithful the due regard of images, ordered that the works of art were not to be drawn from the imagination of the painters, but to be only such as were approved by the rules and traditions of the Catholic Church. So also ordained the Council of Milan in 1565. The Artists, however, did not invent the images so much as use old material, and, the injunctions of the Council notwithstanding, the ancient symbols apparently held their ground. The protests of St. Nilus, in the fifth century, against animal figures in the sanctuary, were echoed by the repudiations of St. Bernard in the twelfth and Gautier de Coinsi in the thirteenth, a final condemnation being made at the Council of Milan in 1565, all equally in vain. Though the force of the myth symbols has passed away, they have left another legacy than the grotesques of church art. The art works of the Greeks arose from the same materials, the glorious statues and epics being the highest embodiment of the symbolic, so loftily overtopping all other forms by the force of supreme physical beauty as to almost justify and certainly purify the religion of which they were the outcome; so, later, the same ideas clothed with the moral beauty of supreme unselfishness enabled Christianity to take hold of the nations. By the diatribes of Bernard we can see what materials were extant in the twelfth century for a study of worship-symbols and of the grotesque, though he ignores any possible meaning they may have. He says, "Sometimes you may see many bodies under one head; at other times, many heads to one body; here is seen the tail of a serpent attached to the body of a quadruped; there the head of a quadruped on the body of a fish. In another place appears an animal, the fore half of which represents a horse, and the hinder portion a goat. Elsewhere you have a horned animal with the hinder parts of a horse; indeed there appears everywhere so multifarious and so wonderful a variety of diverse forms that one is more apt to con over the sculptures than to study the scriptures, to occupy the whole day in wondering at these than in meditating upon God's law." It has now to be observed how far the symbolic fancies of ancient beliefs have left their impress on the grotesque art of our churches. A common representation of the great sun-myth was that of two eagles, or dragons, watching one at each side of an altar. These were the powers of darkness, one at each limit of the day, waiting to destroy the light. This poetic idea has come down to us in many forms. Greek art was unconsciously frequent in its use of the form, and mediæval sculptors, being often quite ignorant of the significance of the design, use it in a variety of ways, in many of which the likeness to the original is entirely lost, the composition ending in but a semi-natural representation of birds pecking at fruit. In the above block from Lincoln Minster, the altar is well preserved. In the next block, which is from a carving connected with the preceding one, the idea is more distantly hinted at. [Illustration: THE ALTAR OF LIGHT AND THE BIRDS OF DARKNESS, LINCOLN.] [Illustration: SYMBOLS OF DARKNESS, LINCOLN.] At Exeter, an ingenious grotesque composition of two duck-footed harpies, one on either side of a _fleur-de-lis_, is evidently from the same source. Examples of this could be multiplied very readily. [Illustration: THE ALTAR OF LIGHT AND THE BIRDS OF DARKNESS, EXETER.] The Cat and the Fiddle are subjects of carvings at Beverley and at Wells. Man has an almost universal passion for the oral transmission of the fruits of his mental activity. In the particular instances of many lingual compositions this passion has become an inveterate race habit, and the rhymes or reasons have been transmitted verbally to posterity long after their original meaning has been lost or obscured. It is no new thing that a nursery rhyme has been found to be the relic of an archaic poem long misunderstood or perverted. The lines as to "the cat and the fiddle" are an excellent instance of the aptitude to continue the use of metrical composition the sense of which has departed. The full verse is, as it stands, a curious jumble of disconnected sentences. "Hey, diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon, The little dog laughed to see such sport, While the dish run away with the spoon." [Illustration: THE WEEKS DANCING TO THE MUSIC OF THE MONTH, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] [Illustration: HEY, DIDDLE, DIDDLE, THE CAT AND THE FIDDLE, WELLS.] I am not aware that any attempt has yet been made to explain this extraordinary verse. Examination seemingly shews that it was originally a satire in derision of the worship of Diana. The moon-goddess had a three-fold existence. On the earth she was Diana. Among the Egyptians we find her as Isis, and her chief symbol was the cat. Apuleius calls her the mother of the gods. In the worship of Isis was used a musical instrument, the sistrum, which had four metal bars loosely inserted in a frame so as to be shaken; on the apex of this frame, which was shaped not unlike a horse-shoe, was carved the figure of a cat, as emblematic of the moon. The four bars are said by Plutarch to represent the elements, but it is more likely they were certain notes of the diapason. The worship of Isis passed to Italy, though the Greeks had previously connected the cat with the moon. The fiddle, as an instrument played with a bow, was not known to classic times, but the word for fiddle--_fides_--was applied to a lyre. It is equivalent to a Greek word for gut-string. In the light of what follows, I suggest that "the Cat and the Fiddle" is a mocking allusion to the worship of Diana upon earth. In the heavens the moon-goddess had the name of Luna, and her chief symbol was the crescent, which is sometimes met figured as a pair of cow's horns. Images of Isis were crowned with crescent horns; she was believed to be personified in the cow, as Osiris was in the bull, and her symbol, a crescent moon, is met in sculpture over the back of the animal. This apparently suggested the second line. The third personality of the goddess was Hecate, which was the name by which she was known in the infernal regions,--which means of course, in nature, when she was below the horizon. Now another name by which she was known was Prosperine (Roman), and Persephone (Greek), and her carrying down into Hades by Pluto (Roman), or Dis (Greek), was the fable wrought out of the simple phenomenon of moon-set. I suggest that the last line of the verse is a grotesque rendering of the statement that-- "Dis ran away with Persephone." Dis is equivalent to Serapis the Bull, otherwise Ammon, Æsculapius, Nilus, etc., that is, the Sun. Why the little dog laughed to see such sport is not easy to explain. It may be an allusion to one of the heads of Hecate, that of a dog, to indicate the watchfulness of the moon. There is another Hecate (a bad, as the above-mentioned was considered a beneficient deity), but which was originally no doubt the same, whose attributes were two black dogs, _i.e._, the darkness preceding and following the moonlight in short lunar appearances. Or it may be an allusion to the fact that the dog was associated with Dis, being considered the impersonation of Sirius the Dog-star. In various representations of the rape of Prosperine, Dis is accompanied by a dog, _e.g._, the grinning hound in Titian's picture. Prosperine's symbol of a crescent moon was adopted as one of those of the Virgin Mary, and Candlemas Day, 2nd February, takes the place of the Roman festival, the candles used to illustrate the text, "a light to lighten the Gentiles," being the representatives of the torches carried in the processions which affected to search for the lost Prosperine. Hindoo mythology has also a three-fold Isis, or moon-goddess; namely, Bhu on earth, Swar in heaven, Pátála, below the earth. The moon-deity has not come down to us as in every case a female personation. This is, however, explained by an early fable [in the Puránas] of the Hindoos, in which it is narrated that Chandra, or Lunus, lost his sex in the forest of Gauri, and became Chandri, or Luna. The origin of this has yet to be discovered; it may be nothing more than the account of an etymological change, produced by a transcript of dialect. Whether the Beverley artist knew that the cat was a moon-symbol may be doubted. The fiddle has four strings, as the sistrum had four bars. As well as the elements and the four seasons of the year, the four may mean the four weeks. It will be observed that as the Hours are said to dance by the side of the chariot of the sun, so here four weeks dance to the music of the moon-sphere; the word moon means the measurer, and the cat is playing a dance measure! The cat is not a very frequent subject. At Sherborne she is shewn hanged by mice, one of the retributive pieces which point to a confidence in the existence of something called justice, not always self-evident in the olden-time. Rats and mice are the emblem of St. Gertrude. The dog had a higher place in ancient estimation than his mention in literature would warrant; the fact that among the Romans he was the emblem of the Lares, the household gods, is a weighty testimonial to that effect, while the Egyptians had a city named after and devoted to the dog. Among the pre-existing symbols seized by the Christians, the Egyptian Cross and Druidical Tau must not be overlooked. It is found on the capitals of pillars at Canterbury and other places; the example given in the initial on page 34 is perhaps the latest example in English Gothic. Its admission as a grotesque is due to its, perhaps merely accidental, use as a mask as noted in the chapter on "Masks and Faces." The sinuous course of the sun among the constellations is mentioned in literature as far back as Euripides as an explanation of the presence of the dragon in archaic systems of mythology. This may have been the origin of the figure. Yet in addition to that there always seems to have been the recognition of an evil principle, of which by a change of meaning, the dragonic or serpentine star-path of the sun was made the personification or symbol. According to Pausanius the "dragon" of the Greeks was only a large snake. It might not be impossible to collect several hundreds of names by which the deistic character of the sun has been expressed by various peoples; and the same applies, though in a less degree, to the Darkness, Storm, Cold, and Wet, which are taken as his antithesis. One of the oldest of these Dragon-names is Typhon, which is met in Egyptian mythology. Typhon is said to be the Chinese _Tai-fun_, the hot wind, and, if this be so, doubtless the adverse principle was taken to be the spirit of the desert which ever seeks to embrace Egypt in its arid arms. The symbol of Typhon was the crocodile, and doubtless the dragon form thus largely rose. Ráhu, an evil deity in Hindoo mythology, though generally called a dragon, is sometimes met represented as a crocodile, and his numerous progeny are styled crocodiles. The constellation called by the Japanese the crocodile is that known to us as the dragon. Can it be that in the universal dragon we have a chronicle of our race's dim recollection of some survival of the terrible Jurassic reptiles, and hence of their period? But the myth has ever one ending; the power of the evil one is destroyed for a time by the coming of the sun-god, though eventually the evil triumphs, that is dearth recurs. In the Scandinavian myth, Odin the son of Bur, broke for a season the strength of the great serpent Jörmungard, who, however, eventually swallowed the hero. Thus was Odin the sun; and his companions, the other Asir, were more or less sun attributes. In the case of Egypt the god is Horus (the sun-light), the youthful son of Osiris and Isis, who drives back Typhon to the deserts; for that country the rising of the Nile is the happy crisis. Horus is sometimes called Nilus. Whether the above derivation of the word Typhon be correct or not, which may be doubtful,[3] that of Horus from the root _Hur_ light, connected with the Sanscrit _Ush_ to burn (whence also Aurora, etc.,) is certain. When the great myth became translated to different climates, the evil principle took on different forms of dread. Water, the rainy season in some countries, the darkness and cold of winter in others, were the Dragon which the Hero-god, the Sun, had to overcome--out of which conflict arose myths innumerable, yet one and the same in essence. Apollo slew the Python, the sunbeams drying up the waters being his arrows; Perseus slew the Dragon, by turning him to stone, which perhaps means that the spring sun dried up the mud of the particular locality where the fable rose. Later, Sigurd slew the Dragon Fafnir. When the Christians found themselves by expediency committed to adopt the form, and to a certain degree the spirit, of heathen beliefs, the Sun _versus_ Darkness, or the Spring _versus_ Winter myth was a difficulty in very many places. At first the idea was kept up of a material victory over the adverse forces of nature, and we find honourable mention of various bishops and saints, who--by means of which there is little detail, but which may be supposed to be that great monastic beneficence, intelligent drainage--conquered the dragons of flood and fen. It is somewhat odd that the Psalmist attributes to the Deity the victory of breaking the heads of the "dragons in the waters." Thus St. Romain of Rouen slew there the Dragon Gargouille, which is but the name of a draining-gutter after all, and hence the grotesque waterspouts of our churches are mostly dragons. St. Martha slew the Dragon Tarasque at Aix-la-chapelle, but that name is derived from _tarir_, to drain. St. Keyne slew the Cornish Dragon, and, to be brief, at least twelve other worthies slew dragons, and doubtless for their respective districts supplied the place of the older myth. Among these, St. George is noteworthy. He is said to have been born at Lydda, in Syria, where his legend awaited the Crusaders, who took him as their patron, bringing him to the west, as the last Christian adoption of a sun-myth idea, to become the patron saint of England. A figure of St. George was a private badge of English kings till the time of the Stuarts. On the old English angel the combat is between St. Michael and the Dragon, and though St. George is generally shewn mounted, as was also sometimes Horus, the Egyptian deity, he is sometimes represented on foot, like St. Michael. The Dragon is generally the same in the two cases, being the Wyvern or two-legged variety. Another form of dragon is drake. Certain forms of cannon were called both dragons and drakes. Sometimes the dragon is found termed the Linden-worm, or Lind-drake, in places as widely sundered as Scotland and Germany. It is said this is on account of the dragon dwelling under the linden, a sacred tree, but this is probably only, as yet, half explained. Perhaps through all time the sun-myth was accompanied by a constant feeling that good and evil were symbolised by the alternation of season. It is to be expected that the feeling would increase and solidify upon the advent of Christianity, for the periodic dragon of heathendom was become the permanent enemy of man, the Devil. The frequent combats between men (and other animals) and the dragons, met among church grotesques, though their models, far remote in antiquity, were representations of sun-myths, would be carved and read as the ever-continuing fight between good and evil. That, however, it is reasonable to see in these Dragon sculptures direct representatives of the ancient cult, we know from a fact of date. The festival of Horus, the Egyptian deity, was the 23rd of April. That is the date of St. George's Day. Less than the foregoing would scarcely be sufficient to explain the frequency and significance of the Dragon forms which crowd our subject. During the three Rogation days, which took the place of the Roman processional festivals of the Ambarvalia and Cerealia, the Dragon was carried as a symbol both in England and on the continent. When the Mystery pageantry of Norwich was swept away, an exception was made in favour of the Dragon, who, it was ordained, "should come forth and shew himself as of old." The Rogation Dragon in France was borne, during the first two days of the three, before the cross, with a great tail stuffed with chaff, but on the third day it was carried behind the cross, with the tail emptied of its contents. This signified, it is said, the undisturbed dominion of Satan over the world during the two days that Christ was in Hell, and his complete humiliation on the third day. In some countries the figure of the Dragon, or another of the Devil, after the procession, was placed on the altar, then drawn up to the roof, and being allowed to fall was broken into pieces. Early Keltic and other pastoral staves end in two Dragons' heads, recalling the caduceus of Mercury and rod of Moses; the Dragon was a Keltic military or tribal ensign. Henry VII. assumed a red dragon as one of the supporters of the royal arms, on account of his Welsh descent; Edward IV. had as one of his numerous badges a black dragon. A dragon issuing from a chalice is the symbol of St. John the Evangelist, an allusion to the dragon of the Apocalypse. [Illustration: THE SLAYER OF THE DRAGON, IFFLEY.] The Dragon combat here presented is from the south doorway of Iffley Church, near Oxford. In this example of Norman sculpture, the humour intent is more marked than usual. The hero is seated astride the dragon's back, and, grasping its upper and lower jaws, is tearing them asunder. The dragon is rudely enough executed, but the man's face and extremities have good drawing. The cloak flying behind him shew that he has leaped into the quoin of vantage, and recalls the classic. The calm exultation with which the hero seizes his enemy is only equalled by the good-natured amusement which the creature evinces at its own undoing. We now arrive at a form of the sun-myth which appears to have come down without much interference. The god Horus is alluded to as a child, and in a curious series of carvings the being attacked by a Dragon is a child. It is attempted, and with considerable success, to be represented as of great beauty. The point to explain is the position of the child, rising as it does from a shell. This leads us further into the various contingent mythologies dealing with the Typhon story. Horus (also called Averis, or Orus), was in Egyptian lore also styled Caimis, and is equivalent to Cama, the Cupid of the Hindoos. Typhon (also known as Smu, and as Sambar) is stated to have killed him, and left him in the waters, where Isis restored him to life. That is the account of Herodotus, but Ælian says that Osiris threw Cupid into the ocean, and gave him a shell for his abode. After which he at length killed Typhon. Hence the shell in the myth-carvings to be found to-day in mediæval Christian churches. The Greeks represented Cupid, and also Nerites, as living in shells, and, strangely enough, located them on the Red Sea coast, adjacent to the home of the Typhon myth. It is probable that the word _sancha_, a sea-shell, used in this connection, is from _suca_, a cave, a tent; and we may conjecture that there is an allusion to certain dwellers in tents, who, coming westward, worked, after a struggle, a political and dynastic revolution, carrying with it great changes in agriculture. This is a conjecture we may, however, readily withdraw in favour of another, that the shell itself is merely a symbol of the ocean, and that Cupid emerging is a figure of the sun rising from the sea at some particular zodiacal period. [Illustration: THE CHILD AND DRAGON, LINCOLN.] Another story kindred to that of Typhon and Horus is that of Sani and Aurva, met in Hindoo literature. They were the sons of Surya, regent of the Sun (Vishnu); Sani was appointed ruler, but becoming a tyrant was deposed, and Aurva reigned in his place. This recalls that one of the names given to Typhon in India was Swarbhánu, "light of heaven," from which it is evident that he is Lucifer, the fallen angel; so that accepting the figurative meaning of all the narratives, we can see even a propriety in the Gothic transmission of these symbolic representations. It may be added to this that the early conception of Cupid was as the god of Love in a far wider and higher sense than indicated in the later poetical and popular idea. He was not originally considered the son of Venus, whom he preceded in birth. It is scarcely too much to say that he personified the love of a Supreme Unknown for creation; and hence the assumption by Love of the character of a deliverer. There are other shell deities in mythology. Venus had her shell, and her Northern co-type, Frigga, the wife of the Northern sun-god, Odin, rode in a shell chariot. The earliest of our examples is the most serious and precise. The Dragon is a very bilious and repulsive reptile, while the child form, thrice repeated in the same carving, has grace and originality. This is from Lincoln Minster. The next is also on a misericorde, and is in Manchester Cathedral. Here the shell is different in position, being upright. The Child in this has long hair. [Illustration: DRAGON AND CHILD, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] The third example is from a misericorde at Beverley Minster, the series at which place shews strong evidence of having been executed from the same set of designs as those of Manchester Cathedral, and were carved some twelve years later. Many of the subjects are identically the same, but in this case it will be seen how a meaning may be lost by a carver's misapprehension. The shell would not be recognizable without comparison with the other instances, and the Dragon has become two. The head of the Child in this carving appears to be in a close hood, or Puritan infantile cap, which, as the "foundling cap," survived into this century. In all the three carvings, the Dragons are of the two-legged kind, which St. George is usually shewn slaying. It is a little remarkable that the Child's weapon in all three cases is broken away. The object borne sceptre-wise by the left hand child in the Lincoln carving, is apparently similar to the Egyptian hieroglyphic [symbol], the Greek [Greek: z], European s. It may be worth while to suggest that the greatly-discussed collar of ss, worn by the lords chief justices, and others in authority, may have its origin in this hieroglyphic as a symbol of sovereignty, rather than in any of the arbitrary ascriptions of a mediæval initial. [Illustration: THE CHILD AND DRAGON, MANCHESTER.] [Illustration: THE SLAYING OF THE SNAIL, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] The weapon is evidently a form of the falx, or falcula, for it was with such a one (and here we see further distribution of the myth) that Jupiter wounded Typhon, and such was the instrument with which Perseus slew the sea-dragon: the falx, the pruning-hook, sickle or scythe, is an emblem of Saturn, and the oldest representation of it in that connection shew it in simple curved form. Saturn's sickle became a scythe, and the planet deity thus armed became, on account of the length of his periodical revolution, our familiar figure of Father Time. Osiris, the father of Horus, is styled "the cause of Time." An Egyptian regal coin bears a man cutting corn with a sickle of semi-circular blade. In many parts of England, the sickle is spoken of simply as "a hook." [Illustration: GROTESQUE OF HORUS IN THE SHELL. THE PALMER FOX EXHIBITING HOLY WATER. NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.] Apparently the carver of the Beverley misericorde was conscious he had rendered the shell very badly, for in the side supporter of the carving he had placed, by way of reminder as to an attack upon the occupant of a shell, a man in a fashionable dress, piercing a snail as it approaches him. In mediæval carvings, as in many of their explanations, it is scarcely a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. One other carving which seems to point to the foregoing is at New College, Oxford. It is a genuine grotesque, and may be a satire upon the more serious works. It represents, seated in the same univalve kind of shell as the others, a fox or ape in a religious habit, displaying a bottle containing, perhaps, water from the Holy Land, the Virgin's Milk, or other wondrous liquid. One of the side carvings is an ape in a hood bringing a bottle. Hell's Mouth. [Illustration: HELL'S MOUTH, HOLY CROSS, STRATFORD-ON-AVON.] Hell's Mouth was one of the most popular conceptions of mediæval times. Except so far as concerns the dragon form of the head whose mouth was supposed to be the gates of Hell, the idea appears to be entirely Christian. "Christ's descent into Hell" was a favourite subject of Mystery plays. In the Coventry pageant the "book of words" contained but six verses, in which Hell is styled the "cindery cell." The Chester play is much longer, and is drawn from the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus. This gospel, which has a version in Anglo-Saxon of A.D. 950, is no doubt the source from which is derived a prevalent form of Hell's Mouth in which Christ is represented holding the hand of one of the persons engulped in the infernal jaws. This is seen in a carving on the east window of Dorchester Abbey. The Mouth is here scarcely that of a dragon, but that of an exceedingly well-studied serpent; for intent and powerful malignity the expression of this fine stone carving would be difficult to surpass. The Descent into Hell is one of a series, on the same window, of incidents in the life of Christ; all are exceedingly quaint, but their distance from the ground improves them in a more than ordinary degree, and their earnest intention prevails over their accidental grotesqueness. The beautiful curves in this viperous head are well worthy of notice in connection with the remarks upon the artistic qualities of Gothic grotesques. [Illustration: HELL'S MOUTH, DORCHESTER, OXON.] The verse of the Gospel (xix., 12), explains who the person is. "And [the Lord] taking hold of Adam by his right hand he ascended from hell and all the saints of God followed him." The female figure is of course Eve, who is shewn with Adam in engravings of the subject by Albert Durer (1512, etc.,) and others. The vision of Piers Ploughman (_circa_ 1362), has particular mention of Adam and Eve among Satan's captive colony. Satan, on hearing the order of a voice to open the gates of Hell, exclaims:-- "Yf he reve me of my ryght he robbeth me by mastrie, For by ryght and reson the reukes [rooks] that be on here Body and soul beth myne both good and ille For he hyms-self hit seide that Syre is of Helle, That Adam and Eve and al hus issue Sholden deye with deol [should die with grief] and here dwell evere Yf thei touchede a tree othr toke ther of an appel." A MS. volume in the British Museum, of poems written in the thirty-fourth year of the reign of Henry VI., has "Our Lady's Song of the Chyld that soked hyr brest," in which other persons than Adam and Eve are stated to have been taken out of hell on the same occasion:-- "Adam and Eve wyth hym he take, Kyng David, Moyses and Salamon And haryed hell every noke, Wythyn hyt left he soulys non." The belief in the descent in Hell can be traced back to the second century. The form of Hell as a mouth is much later. There is mention of a certain "Mouth of Hell," which in 1437 was used in a Passion play in the plain of Veximiel; this Mouth was reported as very well done, for it opened and shut when the devils required to pass in or out, and it had two large eyes of steel. The great east window of York Cathedral, the west front and south doorway of Lincoln, and the east side of the altar-screen, Beverley Minster, have representations of the Mouth of Hell. The chancel arch of Southleigh has a large early fresco of the subject, in which two angels, a good and a bad (white and black), are gathering the people out of their graves; the black spirit is plucking up certain bodies (or souls) with a flesh-hook, and his companions are conveying them to the adjacent Mouth. In a Flemish Book of Hours of the fifteenth century (in the Bodleian Library) there is a representation with very minute details of all the usual adjuncts of the Mouth, and, in addition, several basketsful of children (presumably the unbaptized) brought in on the backs of wolf-like fiends, and on sledges, a common mediæval method of conveyance. Sackvil mentions Hell as "an hideous hole" that-- "With ougly mouth and griesly jawes doth gape." Further instances of Hell's Mouth are in the block of the Ludlow ale-wife on a following page. Satanic Representations. [Illustration: WINCHESTER COLLEGE, _14th century_.] Quaint as are the grotesques derived from the great symbolic Dragon, there is another series of delineations of Evil, which are still more curious. These are the representations of Evil which are to be regarded not so much symbolic as personal. The constant presence of Satan and his satellites on capital and corbel, arcade and misericorde, is to be explained by the exceedingly strong belief in their active participation in mundane affairs in robust physical shapes. [Illustration: SATAN AND A SOUL, DORCHESTER, OXON.] It would, perhaps, not seem improper to refer the class of carving instanced by the three cuts, next following, to the Typhon myth. I think, however, a distinction may be drawn between such carvings as represent combat, and such as represent victimization; the former I would attribute to the myth, the latter to the Christian idea of the torments consequent on sin. At the same time, the victim-carving, generally easily disposed of by styling it "Satan and a Soul," is undoubtedly largely influenced by the myth-idea of Typhon (by whatever name known) as a _seizer_, as indicated definitely in one of his general names, Gráha. The figure was naturally one according well with the mediæval understanding of spiritual punishment, and its varieties in carving are numerous enough to furnish an adequate inferno. The Dorchester example is a small boss in the groined ceiling of the sedilia of celebrants; that at Ewelme is a weather-worn parapet-ornament on the south of the choir; the carving at Farnsham is on a misericorde. [Illustration: SATAN AND A SOUL, EWELME, OXON.] Not entirely, though in some degree, the two next illustrations support the theory, of punishment rather than conflict, for the others. [Illustration: REMORSE, YORK.] The carving in York Cathedral is of a graceful type; there is one closely resembling it at Wells. The Glasgow sketch is from the drawing of a fragment of the cathedral; it is more vivid and ludicrous than the other. A comparison of these two affords a good idea of the excellent in Gothic ornament. The Glasgow carving lacks everything but vigor; the York production, though no exceptional example, has vigor, poetry, and grace. We will now revert to the more personal and "human" aspect of Satan. [Illustration: REMORSE, GLASGOW.] A writer[4] in the _Art Journal_ some years ago offered excellent general observations upon the ideas of the Evil One found at various periods. He pointed out that the frolicsome character of the mediæval demon was imparted by Christianity, with its forbidden Satan coming into contact with the popular belief in hobgoblins and fairies which were common in the old heathen belief of this island, and so the sterner teaching was tinged by more popular fancies. There is much truth in this, except that for the hobgoblins and fairies we may very well read ancient deities, for the ultimate effect of Christianity upon Pagan reverence was to turn it into contempt and abhorrence for good and bad deities alike. We can read this in the slender records of ancient worships whose traces are left in language. Thus _Bo_ is apparently one of the ancient root-words implying divinity; _Bod_, the goddess of fecundity; _Boivani_, goddess of destruction; _Bolay_, the giant who overcame heaven, earth and hell; _Bouders_, or _Boudons_, the genii guarding Shiva, and _Boroon_, a sea-god, are in Indian mythology. _Bossum_ is a good deity of Africa. _Borvo_ and _Bormania_ were guardians of hot springs, and with _Bouljanus_ were gods of old Gaul. _Borr_ was the father of Odin, and _Bure_ was Borr's sister. The _Bo_-tree of India is the sacred tree of wisdom. In Sumatra _boo_ is a root-word meaning good (as in _booroo_). _Bog_ is the Slavonic for god. These are given to shew a probable connection among wide-spread worships. [Illustration: SATAN AND A SOUL, DORCHESTER.] We are now chiefly concerned with the last instance. The Slavonic _Bog_, a god, is met in Saxon as a goblin, for the "boy" who came into the court of King Arthur and laid his wand upon a boar's head was clearly a "bog" (the Saxon _g_ being exchanged erroneously for _y_, as in _dag's aeg_, day's eye, etc). In Welsh, similarly, _Brog_ is a goblin, and we have the evil idea in _bug_. "Warwick was a bug that feared us all." --_Shakespeare. Henry IV., v., 2._ That is "Warwick was a goblin that made us all afraid." The Boggart is a fairy still believed in by Staffordshire peasants. We have yet _bugbear_, as the Russians have _Buka_, and the Italians _Buggaboo_, of similar meaning. As with the barbaric gods, so with the classic deities, who equally supplied material of which to make foul fiends. Bacchus, with the legs and sprouting horns of a goat, that haunter of vine-yards, then his fauns constructed on the same symbolic principle, gave rise to the satyrs. These, offering in their form disreputable points for reprobation, were found to be a sufficiently appropriate symbol of the Devil. The reasons of variety in the satyr figure are not far to seek, beyond the constant tendency of the mediæval artist to vary form while preserving essence. Every artist had his idea of the devil, either drawn from the rich depths of a Gothic imagination, from the descriptions accumulated by popular credulity, and most of all from that result of both--the Devil of the Mystery or Miracle Plays. The plays were performed by trade gilds. Every town had many of these gilds, though several would sometimes join at the plays; and even very small villages had both gild and plays. There are yet existing some slight traces of the reputation which obscure villages had in their own vicinity for their plays, of which Christmas mumming contains the last tattered relic. So that, the Devil being a favourite character in the pieces so widely performed, it is not surprising to find him equally at home among the works of the carvers, who, according to the nature of artists of all time, would doubtless holiday it with the best, and look with more or less appreciation upon such drama as was set before them. Where we see Satan as the satyr, he is the rollicking fiend of the Mystery stage, tempting with sly good-humour, tormenting with a grim and ferocious joy, or often merely posturing and capering in a much to be envied height of the wildest animal spirits. There is in popular art no trace, so far as the writer's observation extends, of that lofty sorrow at man's unworthiness, which has occasionally been attributed to Satan. The general feeling is that indicated by the semi-contemptuous epithets applied to the satyr-idea of "Auld Clootie" (cloven-footed), and "Auld Hornie," of our Northern brethren. [Illustration: A MAN-GOAT, ALL SOULS, OXFORD.] Horns were among all ancient nations symbolic of power and dignity. Ancient coinages shew the heads of kings and deities thus adorned. The Goths wore horns. Alexander frequently wore an actual horn to indicate his presumption of divine descent. The head dress of priests was horned on this account. This may point to a pre-historic period when the horned animals were not so much of a prey as we find them in later days; thus the aurochs of Western Europe appears to have been more dreaded by the wild men of its time, than has been, say, the now fast-disappearing bison by the North American Indians. On the other hand, the marvellous continuity of nature's designs lead us to recognize that the carnivorous animals must always have had the right to be the symbols of physical power. Therefore, the idea of power, originally conveyed by the horns, is that carried by the possession of riches in the shape of flocks and herds. The pecunia were the means of power, and their horns the symbol of it. With the Egyptians, the ox signified agriculture and subsistence. Pharaoh saw the kine coming out of the Nile because the fertility of Egypt depends upon that river. So that it is easy to see how the ox became the figure of the sun, and of life. Similar significance attached to the sheep, the goat, and the ram. Horus is met as "Orus, the Shepherd." Ammon wore the horns of a ram. Mendes was worshipped as a goat. [Illustration: A CHERISHED BEARD, CHICHESTER.] The goat characteristics are well carved on a seat in All Souls. A goat figure of the thirteenth century at Chichester has the head of a man with a curious twisted or tied beard, clutched by one of the hands in which the fore feet terminate. The clutching of the beard is not uncommon among Gothic figures, and has doubtless some original on a coin, or other ancient standard design. At St. Helen's, Abingdon, Berkshire, in different parts of the church, three heads, one being a king, another a bishop, are shewn grasping or stroking each his own beard. It is to be remembered that the stroking of the beard is a well-known Eastern habit. Of close kindred to the goat form is the bull form. Just as Ceres symbolized the fecundity of the earth in the matter of cereals, so Pan was the emblem by which was figured its productiveness of animal life. Thus Priapus was rendered in goat form, as the ready type of animal sexual vigor; but not less familiar in this connection was the bull, and that animal also symbolizes Pan, who became, when superstition grew out of imagery, the protector of cattle in general. An old English superstition was that a piece of horn, hung to the stable or cowhouse key, would protect the animals from night-fright and other ills. When the pagan Gods were skilfully turned into Christian devils, we find the bull equally with the goat as a Satanic form, and several examples will be seen in the drawings. The ox, as the symbol of St. Luke, is stated to refer, on account of its cud-chewing, to the eclectic character of this evangelist's gospel. Irenæus, speaking of the second cherubim of the Revelation, which is the same animal, says the calf signifies the sacerdotal office of Christ; but the fanciful symbolisms of the fathers and of the Bestiaries are often indifferent guides to original meaning. It may be that in the ox forms we have astronomical allusions to Taurus, Bacchus, to Diana, or to Pan. A note on the emblems of the Evangelists follows in the remarks on the combinatory forms met in grotesque art. Before passing on to consider particular examples of satyr or bull-form fiends, a few words may be said as to another form which, though allied to the dragon-shape embodiments, has the personal character. This is the Serpent. The origin of this appears to be the translation of the word _Nachasch_ for serpent in the Biblical account of the momentous Eden episode, a rendering which, without philological certainty, is countenanced by the general presence of the serpent in one form or another in every system of theology in the world. Jewish tradition states that the serpent, with beauty of form and power of flight, had no speech, until in the presence of Eve he ate of the fruit of the Tree, and so acquired speech, immediately using the gift to tempt Eve. Other traditions say that Nachasch was a camel, and became a serpent by the curse. Adam Clarke maintained that Nachasch was a monkey. The traditional and mystic form of the angels was that of a serpent. _Seraph_ means a fiery serpent. In Isaiah's vision, the seraphim are human-headed serpents. One of the most remarkable items in the history of worship is the account of the symbolic serpent erected by Moses, and the subsequent use of it as an idol until the time of Hezekiah. In the first satire of Perseus, he says, "paint two snakes, the place is sacred!" [Illustration: THE SERPENT, ELY.] The use of the serpent as the Church symbol of regeneration and revival of health or life is not common in carvings. In these senses it was used by the Greeks, though chiefly as the symbol of the Supreme Intellect, being the special attribute and co-type of Minerva. The personal apparition which confronted Eve is not so infrequent, though without much variety. In a representation of the temptation of Adam and Eve among the misericordes of Ely, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is shewn of a very peculiar shape. The serpent, whose coils are difficult to distinguish from the foliage of the tree, has the head of a saturnine Asiatic, who is taking the least possible notice of "our first parents," as they stand eating apples and being ashamed, one on each side of the composition. [Illustration: THE OLD SERPENT, CHICHESTER. _13th century._] A carving in the choir of Chichester Cathedral shews in a double repetition, one half of which is here shewn, the evil head with an attempt at the legendary comeliness, mingled with debased traits, that is artistically very creditable to the sculptor. As though dissatisfied with the amount of beauty he had succeeded in imparting to the heads on the serpents, he adds, on the side-pieces of the carving, two other heads of females in eastern head-dresses, to which he has imparted a demure Dutch beauty, due perhaps to his own nationality. Human-headed serpents are in carvings at Norwich and at Bridge, Kent. [Illustration: DEMURENESS MEDITATING MISCHIEF. DEUTCHO-EGYPTIAN MASK, CHICHESTER.] With regard to Satan's status as an angel, a considerable number of representations of him are to be found, in which he conforms to a prevalent mediæval idea as to the plumage of the spirit race. Angels are found clothed entirely with feathers, as repeated some scores of times in the memorial chapel, at Ewelme, of Alice, Duchess of Suffolk, grand-daughter of Chaucer, who died in 1475. The annexed block shews a small archangel which surmounts the font canopy, and is of the same character as the chapel angels. At All Souls, Oxford, is a carving of a warrior-visaged person wearing a morion, and armed with a falchion and buckler. He is clad in feathers only, appearing to be flying downward, and is either a representation of St. Michael or Lucifer. [Illustration: ANGEL, EWELME.] [Illustration: ST. MICHAEL, ALL SOULS, OXFORD.] Satan is often similarly treated. Loki, the tempter of the Scandinavian Eden, who was ordered to seek the lost Idun he had deceived, had to go forth clad in borrowed garments of falcon's feathers with wings. When the pageant at the Setting of the Midsummer Watch at Chester was forbidden by the Mayor, in 1599, one of the prohibited figures was "the Devil and his Feathers." There may be a connection between the final punishment of Loki and the idea embodied in the carvings mentioned above as being at, among other places, Wells, York, and Glasgow, and which have been considered as conceptions of Remorse. Loki was condemned to be fastened to a rock to helplessly endure the eternal dropping upon his brow of poison from the jaws of a serpent; only that there is neither in these carvings, nor any others noted to the present, any indication of the presence of the ministering woman-spirit who for even the fiend Loki stood by to catch the death-drops in a cup of mercy. The Devil and the Vices. [Illustration: RECORDING IMP. ST. KATHERINE'S, REGENT'S PARK. (_Initial added_).] Having examined the various lower forms given by man to his great enemy, and now noting that to such forms may be added the human figure in whole or part, we will next take in review a few of the sins which bring erring humanity into the clutches of Satan; for we find some of the most grotesque of antique carvings devoted to representation of what may be called the finale of the Sinner's Progress. These are probably largely derived from the Mystery Plays; for the moral teaching has the same direct soundness. The ideas are often jocosely put, but the principle is one of mere retribution. The Devil cannot hurt the Saint and he pays out to the Wicked the exact price of his wrong-doing. Thus in nearly all of what may be termed the Sin series there is a Recording Imp who bears a tablet or scroll, on which we are to suppose the evil commissions and omissions of the sinner are duly entered, entitling the fiend to take possession. This reminds of the Egyptian Mercury, Thoth, who recorded upon his tablets the actions of men, in order that at the Judgment there might be proper evidence. [Illustration: THE UNSEEN WITNESS, ELY. The Account Presented. Satan Satisfied. The Record of Sin.] There is a series of carvings, examplified at Ely, New College, Oxford, St. Katherine's (removed from near the Tower to the Regent's Park) and Gayton, which have Satan encouraging or embracing two figures apparently engaged in conversation. I have placed these among the Sins, for though no very particular explanation is forthcoming as to the meaning of the group, it is clear that the two human beings are engaged in some occupation highly agreeable to the fiend. This evidently has a connection with the monkish story told of St. Britius. One day, while St. Martin was saying mass, Britius, who was officiating as deacon, saw the devil behind the altar, writing on a slip of parchment "as long as a proctor's bill" the sins which the congregation were then and there committing. The people, both men and women, appear to have been doing many other things besides listening to St. Martin, for the devil soon filled his scroll on both sides. Thus far our carvings. The story goes further, and states that the devil, having further sins to record, but no further space on which to write them, attempted to stretch the parchment with teeth and claws, which, however, broke the record, the devil falling back against a wall. The story then betrays itself. Britius laughed loudly, whereat St. Martin, highly displeased, demanded the reason, when Britius told him what he had seen, which relation the other saint accepted as being true. This story is one of a class common among mediæval pulpit anecdotes. It cannot well be considered that the carvings arose from the story, nor the story from the carvings. Probably both arose from something else, accounting for the number of sinners being uniformly two, and for the attitude of the fiend in each case being so similar. With regard to the latter I must leave the matter as it is. I venture, as to the signification of the two figures, to make a suggestion to stand good until a better be found. In the Mystery Play entitled the "Trial of Mary and Joseph" (Cotton MS., Pageant xiv., amplified out of the Apocryphal New Testament, _Protevan_, xi.), the story runs that Mary and Joseph, particularly the former, are defamed by two Slanderers. The Bishop sends his Summoner for the two accused persons, and orders that they drink the water of vengeance "which is for trial," a kind of miraculous ordeal by poison. Joseph drinks and is unhurt; Mary likewise and is declared a pure maid in spite of facts. One of the Slanderers declares that the drink has been changed because the Virgin was of the High Priest's kindred, upon which the Slanderer is himself ordered to drink what is left in the cup. Doing so he instantly becomes frantic. All ask pardon of Mary for their suspicions, and, that being granted, the play is ended. Now the play commences with the meeting of the Two Slanderers. A brief extract or two will shew their method. 1ST DETRACTOR.--To reyse blawthyr is al my lay, Bakbyter is my brother of blood Dede he ought come hethyr in al this day Now wolde God that he were here, And, by my trewth, I dare well say That if we tweyn to gethyr apere Mor slawndyr we t[w]o schal a rere With in an howre thorwe outh this town, Than evyr ther was this thouwsand yer, Now, be my trewth, I have a sight Evyn of my brother ... Welcome ... 2ND DETRACTOR.--I am ful glad we met this day. 1ST DETRACTOR.--Telle all these pepyl [the audience] what is yor name-- 2ND DETRACTOR.--I am Bakbyter, that spyllyth all game, Both hyd and known in many a place. Then they fall to, and in terms of some wit and much freedom describe the physical condition of she who was "calde mayd Mary." The Two Slanderers in this play are undoubtedly men, for each styles the other "brother." Yet there are words in their dialogue, not suited to these pages, which could properly only be used by women. As in at least one of the carvings the sinners are women, if my hypothesis has any correctness there must be some other form of the story in which the detractors are female. It is to be noted, also, that the play from which I have quoted has no mention of the devil. [Illustration: A BACKBITER, ST. KATHERINE'S.] Years before I met with the play of the trial of Joseph and Mary, I considered that the sin of the Two might be scandal, and put down a curious carving adjoining the St. Katherine group as a reference to it, and suggested it might be a humorous rendering of a Backbiter. This is shewn in the accompanying block. It was therefore agreeable to find one of the Mystery detractors actually named Backbiter. Against that it may be mentioned that the composite figure with a head at the rear is not unique. At Rothwell, Northamptonshire, is a dragon attempt, rude though probably of late fifteenth century work, with a similar head in the same anatomical direction; this is not connected with anything that can be considered bearing upon the subject of the Mystery, unless the heads on the same misericorde are meant to be those of Jews. The example at Ely shews the fiend closely embracing the two sinners who are evidently in the height of an impressive conversation. One figure has a book on its knee, the other is telling the beads of a rosary. At the sides are two imps of a somewhat Robin Goodfellow-like character, each bearing a scroll with the account of the misdeeds of the sinners, and which we may presume are the warrants by which Satan is entitled to seize his prey. He is the picture of jovial good-nature. [Illustration: A BACKBITER, ROTHWELL, NORTHANTS.] New College, Oxford, has a misericorde of the subject in which the figures, female in appearance, are seated in a sort of box. This reminds us of Baldini and Boticelli's picture of Hell, which is divided into various ovens for different vices. That may be the idea here, or perhaps the object is a coffin and is used to emphasize what the wages of sin are. They, like the two sinners of Ely, are in animated conversation. Satan here is of a bull-headed form with wings rather like those of a butterfly. These are of the end of the fifteenth century. [Illustration: THE UNSEEN WITNESS, NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.] There are foreign carvings described by Mr. Evans as being of the devil taking notes of the idle words of two women during mass. This is, perhaps, the simple meaning of all this series, and an evidence of the resentment of ecclesiastics against the irreverent. There is considerable evidence that religious service was scarcely a solemn thing in mediæval times. If this is the signification the box arrangement described above may be some sort of early pew. The next example, from St. Katherine's (lately) by the Tower, has the fiend in a fashionable slashed suit. The ladies here are only in bust, and though of demurely interested expression they have not that rapport and animation which distinguish the two previously noticed. Satan does not embrace them, but stands behind with legs outstretched and hands, or rather claws, on knees, ready to clutch them at the proper moment. [Illustration: THE UNSEEN WITNESS, ST. KATHERINE'S.] At Gayton, Northants, is a further curious instance of this group. The two Sinners are in this case unquestionably males, and, but for the coincidence with the preceding examples, the men might have been supposed to have been engaged in some game of chance. It will be observed that the one to the right has a rosary as in the first-named carving. Satan here is well clothed in feathers, and in his left wing is the head of what is probably one of the instruments of torture awaiting the very much overshadowed victims. It is a kind of rake or flesh-hook, with three sharp, hooked teeth; perhaps a figure of the tongue of a slanderer, materialized for his own subsequent scarification; it may be added as a kind of satanic badge. Satan bears on his right arm a leaf-shaped shield. [Illustration: THE UNSEEN WITNESS, GAYTON, NORTHANTS.] The vice next to be regarded is Avarice. In a misericorde at Beverley Minster we have three scenes from the history of the Devil. One gives us the avaricious man bending before his coffers. He has taken out a coin; if we read aright his contemplative and affectionate look, it is gold. Hidden behind the chest behold Satan, one of whose bullock horns is visible as he lurks out of the miser's sight, grinning to think how surely the victim is his. At the opposite end of the carving is the other extreme, Gluttony. A man is drinking out of a huge flask, which he holds in his right hand, while in the other he grasps a ham (or is it not impossible that this is a second bottle). In this the devil is likewise present; he is apparently desperately anxious the victim should have enough. [Illustration: THE DEVIL AND THE MISER, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] [Illustration: SATAN AND A SOUL, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] Between these two reliefs appears Satan seizing a naked soul. In the original all that remains of the Devil's head is the outline and one horn; of the soul's head there remains only the outline; the two faces I have ventured to supply, also the fore-arm of the Devil. The fiend is here again presented with the attributes of a bullock, rather than a goat. Satan has had placed on his abdomen a mask or face, a somewhat common method of adding to the startling effect of his boisterous personality. The fine rush which the fiend is making upon the soul, and the shrinking horror of the latter, are exceedingly well rendered. The moral is, we may suppose, that the sinners on either side will come to the same bad end. [Illustration: THE DEVIL AND THE GLUTTON, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] Among the seat-carvings of Henry VII's. Chapel, Westminster Abbey, we have the vice of Avarice more fully treated, there being two carvings devoted to the subject. In the first we see a monk suddenly seized by a quaint and curious devil (to whom I have supplied his right fore-arm). The monk, horror-stricken, yet angry, has dropped his bag of sovereigns, or nobles, and the coins fall out. He would escape if he could, but the claws of the fiend have him fast. [Illustration: DISMAY, WESTMINSTER.] In the companion carving we have the incident--and the monk--carried a little further. The devil has picked him up, thrown him down along his conveniently horizontal back, and strides on with him through a wild place of rocks and trees, holding what appears to be a flaming torch, which he also uses as a staff. The monk has managed to gather up his dearly-loved bag of money, and is frantically clutching at the rocks as he is swiftly borne along. Satan in the first carving has rather a benevolent human face, in the second a debased beast face, unknown to natural history. There is no explanation of how Sathanus has disposed in the second scene of the graceful dragon wings he wears in the first. It is probable that two of the Italians who carved this set each took the same subject, and we have here their respective renderings. I mention with diffidence that if the mild and timorous face of Bishop Alcock (which may be seen at Jesus College, Cambridge), the architect of this part of the abbey, could be supposed to have unfortunately borne at any time the expressions upon either of these two representations of the monk, the likeness would, in my opinion, be rather striking. [Illustration: THE OVERTAKING OF AVARICE, WESTMINSTER.] [Illustration: THE TAKING OF THE AVARICIOUS, WESTMINSTER.] [Illustration: DEMONIACAL DRUMMER, WESTMINSTER.] On the side carving of the carrying-away scene is shewn a woman, dismayed at the sight. On the opposite side a fiend is welcoming the monk with beat of drum, just as we shall see the ale-wife saluted with the drone of the bagpipes. [Illustration: VANITY, ST. MARY'S MINSTER.] A carving at St. Mary's Minster, Isle of Thanet, has the devil looking out with a vexed frown from between the horns of a lofty head-dress, which is on a lady's head. Whether this be a rendering of the dishonest ale-wife, or a separate warning against the vice of Vanity, cannot well be decided. There was a popular opinion at one time that the bulk of church carvings were jokes at the expense of clergy, probably largely because every hood was thought to be a cowl. There is, however, no doubt as to the carving here presented. It may represent the consecration of a bishop. The presence of Satan dominating both the individuals, and pulling forward the cowl of the seated figure, appears to declare that this is to illustrate the vice of Hypocrisy. It is at New College, Oxford. [Illustration: HYPOCRISY, NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.] Ale and the Ale-wife. [Illustration: THE JOLLY TAPSTER, LUDLOW.] Ale, good old ale, has formed the burden of more songs and satires ancient and modern, than will ever be brought together. Ale was the staple beverage for morning, noon, and evening meals. It is probable that swollen as is the beer portion of the Budget, the consumption of ale, man for man, is much less than that of any mediæval time. The records of all the authoritative bodies who dealt with the liquor traffic of the olden time are crowded with rules and regulations that plainly demonstrate not only the universal prevalence of beer drinking in a proper and domestic degree, but also the constant growing abuse of the sale of the liquor. In the reign of Elizabeth the evils of the tavern had become so notorious, that in some places women were forbidden to keep ale-houses. As far back as A.D. 794, ale-houses had become an institution, for we find the orders passed at the Council of Frankfort in that year included one by which ecclesiastics and monks were forbidden to drink in an ale-house. St. Adrian was the patron of brewers. In some boroughs (Hull may be given as an instance) in the fifteenth century, the Mayor was not allowed to keep a tavern in his year of office. Brewers and tavern keepers, with many nice distinctions of grade among them, were duly licensed and supervised, various penalties meeting attempts at illicit trade. The quality of ale was also an object of solicitude, and an official, called the ale-taster, was in nearly every centre of population made responsible for the due strength and purity of the national beverage. It was customary in some places in the fifteenth century for the ale-taster to be remunerated by a payment of 4d. a year from each brewer. It has to be remembered ale was drunk at the meals at which we now use tea, coffee, and cocoa; it will be interesting to glance at an instance of the rate at which it was consumed. At the Hospital of St. Cross, founded in 1132, at Winchester, thirteen "impotent" men had each a daily allowance of a gallon and a half of good small beer, with more on holidays; this was afterwards reduced to three quarts with some two quarts extra for holidays. The porter at the gate had only three quarts to give away to beggars. There was great idea of continuity at this establishment; even in 1836 there was spent £133 5s. for malt and hops for the year's brewing. The happy thirteen had each yet three quarts every day as well as a jack (say four gallons) extra among them on holidays, with 4s. for beer money. Two gallons of beer were also daily dispensed at the gate at the rate of a horn of not quite half a pint to each applicant. [Illustration: LETTICE LITTLETRUST AND A SIMPLE SIMON. WELLINGBOROUGH, _14th century_.] Ale, no more than other things, could be kept out of church. A carving at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, shews us an interview between a would-be customer on the one part and an ale-wife on the other part. There is, in a list of imaginary names in an epilogue or "gagging" summons to a miracle play, mention of one Letyce Lytyltrust, whom surely we see above. Evidently the man is better known than trusted, and while a generous supply of the desired refreshment is "on reserve" in a dear old jug, some intimation has been made that cash is required; he, like one Simon on a similar occasion, has not a penny, and with one hand dipped into his empty pocket, he scratches his head with the other. His good-natured perplexity contrasts well with the indifferent tradeswoman-like air of the ale-wife, who while she rests the jug upon a bench, does not relinquish the handle. He is saying to himself, "Nay, marry, an I wanted a cup o' ale aforetime I was ever served. A thirsty morn is this. I know not what to say to t' jade;" while she is muttering, "An he wipe off the chalk ahint the door even, he might drink and welcome, sorry rogue tho' he be. But no use to cry pay when t' barrel be empty." At Edgeware in 1558, an innkeeper, was fined for selling a pint and a half of ale at an exorbitant price, namely, one penny. A quart was everywhere the proper quantity, and that of the strongest; small ale sold at one penny for two quarts. With regard to the then higher value of money, however, the prices may be considered to be about the same as at present, and the same may be said of many commodities which appear in records at low figures. Of an earlier date is the tapster of the initial block, from Ludlow, who furnishes a comfortable idea of a congenial, and to judge from his pouch, a profitable occupation. It is to be presumed the smallness of the barrel as compared with that of the jug--probably of copper, and dazzlingly bright--was the artist's means of getting its full outline within the picture, and not an indication of the relations of supply and demand. Alas for the final fate of the dishonest woman who could cheat men in the important matter of ale! At Ludlow we are shewn such a one, stripped of all but the head dress and necklace of her vanity, and carried ignominiously and indecorously to Hell's Mouth on the shoulders of a stalwart demon (whose head is supplied in the block). In her hand, and partaking of her own reverse, she bears the hooped tankard with which she defrauded her customers. It is the measure of her woe. The demon thus loaded with mischief is met by another, armed with the bagpipes. With hilarious air and fiendish grin he welcomes the latest addition to the collection of evil-doers within. To the right are the usual gaping jaws of Hell's Mouth, into which are disappearing two nude females, who, we may suppose, are other ale-wifes not more meritorious than the lady of the horned head dress. To the left is the Recording Imp. [Illustration: THE END OF THE ALE-WIFE, LUDLOW.] [Illustration: THE FEMALE DRAWER, ALL SOULS, OXFORD.] There is allusion in a copy of the Chester Mystery of Christ's Descent into Hell, among the Harleian MSS., to an ale-wife of Chester, which doubtless suggested this carving. This lady, a little-trust and a cheater in her day, laments having to dwell among the fiends; she endeavours to propitiate one of them by addressing him as "My Sweet Master Sir Sattanas," who returns the compliment by calling her his "dear darling." She announces that:-- "Some tyme I was a tavernere, A gentill gossipe and a tapstere, Of wyne and ale a trustie brewer, Which wo hath me wroughte. Of cannes I kepte no trewe measuer My cuppes I soulde at my pleasuer, Deceaving manye a creature, Tho' my ale were naughte." The Devil then delivers a short speech, which is one of the earliest temperance addresses on record. He says:-- "Welckome, dere ladye, I shall thee wedd, For many a heavye and droncken head Cause of thy ale were broughte to bed Farre worse than anye beaste." There is an old saying "pull Devil, pull Baker" connected with the representation of a baker who sold his bread short of weight, and was carried to the lower regions in his own basket; the ale-wife, of our carving, however, does not appear to have retained any power of resistance, however slight or ineffectual. [Illustration: A HORN OF ALE, ELY.] At All Souls, Oxford, there is a good carving of a woman drawing ale. It is not, apparently, the ale-wife herself, but the maid sent down into the cellar. The maid, perhaps after a good draught of the brew, seems to be blowing a whistle to convey, to the probably listening ears of her mistress upstairs, the impression that the jug has not received any improper attention from her. The artful expression of the ale-loving maid lends countenance to the conjecture that the precaution has not been entirely efficacious. It is to this day a jocular expression in Oxfordshire, and perhaps elsewhere, "You had better whistle while you are drawing that beer." A carving at Ely represents Pan as an appreciative imbiber from a veritable horn of ale. Satires without Satan. [Illustration: THE SLUMBERING PRIEST, NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.] There are numbers of grotesques which are satires evidently aimed at sins, but which have not the visible attendance of the evil one himself. Among these must be included a curious carving from Swine, in Holderness. The priory of Swine was a Cistercian nunnery of fifteen sisters and a prioress. Mr. Thomas Blashill states, "There were, however, two canons at least, to assist in the offices of religion, who did not refrain from meddling in secular affairs."[5] There was also a small community of lay-brethren. The female in the centre of the carving is a nun; her hood is drawn partly over her face, so that only one eye is fully visible, but with the other eye she is executing a well-known movement of but momentary duration. The two ugly animals between which she peers are intended for hares, a symbol of libidinousness, as well as of timidity. Another carving in the same chancel may be in derision of some official of the papal court, which, in the thirteenth century, on an occasion of the contumacy of the nuns in refusing to pay certain tithes, caused the church, with that adjoining, of the lay brethren, to be closed. The nuns defied all authority, broke open the chapels, and in general during the long contest acted in a curiously ungovernable, irresponsible manner. [Illustration: A PAPAL MONSTER, SWINE, YORKSHIRE.] At Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, are some misericordes, which, says Miss Phipson, are stated to have originally belonged to Old St. Paul's. Among them is the annexed subject. The wicked expression of the face, and the general incorrectness of the composition, are a historical evidence of indecorum akin to the gestures of the Beverley carvers. [Illustration: IMPUDENCE, BISHOP'S STORTFORD, HERTFORDSHIRE.] From the fine choir carvings of Westminster Abbey yet another example is given. It is one in which the spirit of the old _Comptes a Plaisance_ is well illustrated. A well-clad man, suggesting Falstaff in his prime, is seated with a lady among luxurious foliage. His arm is right round his companion's waist, while his left hand dips into his capacious and apparently well-lined pouch, or gipciere. He has been styled a merchant. He is manifestly making a bargain. The lady is evidently a daughter of the hireling (_hirudo!_), and is crying, "Give, give." In spite of this being the work of an Italian artist, the artistic feeling about it would seem to recall slightly the lines of Holbein. [Illustration: THE WINKING NUN, SWINE, YORKSHIRE.] [Illustration: A QUESTION OF PRICE, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.] The small carving to the right of the above is a highly-elate pig, playing the pipe. This is shewn in a short chapter hereafter given on Animal Musicians. The initial at the head of this chapter is illustrated with the "slumbering priest," the carving of whom is at the right of that of the 'Unseen Witness,' drawn on page 85. This doubtless implies that some portion of the sin of the people was to be attributed to the indifference of the clergy. Balancing this, there is in the original carving an aged person kneeling, and, supported by a crutch, counting her beads. In a subsequent chapter (on Compound Forms in Gothic) the harpy is mentioned, and shewn to be a not uncommon subject of church art, either as from the malignant classic form which symbolized fierce bad weather, or as the more beneficient though not unsimilar figure which was the symbol of Athor, the Egyptian Venus. A Winchester example which might seem in place among the remarks on the Compounds, is included here, as it is evidently intended to embody a sin. It serves to show that a modern use of the word harpy was well understood in mediæval times. The design is simple, the vulture wings being made to take the position of the hair of the woman head. She lies in wait spider-wise, her great claws in readiness for the prey; and is evidently a character-sketch of a coarse, insatiable daughter of the horse-leech. [Illustration: THE HARPY IN WAIT, WINCHESTER.] Scriptural Illustrations. [Illustration: ADAM AND EVE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] Mystery Plays, we have seen, drew upon the Apocryphal New Testament for subjects, but it has simply happened that the examples of vice carvings illustrate those writings, for Mystery Plays were in general founded upon the canonical scriptures. There are many carvings which have Biblical incidents for their subject, but it is often impossible to say whether the text were the sole material of the designer, or whether his ideas were formed by representations he had seen on the Mystery stage. It may be presumed that the effect would not be greatly different in one case from the other. The story of Jonah furnishes a subject for two misericordes in Ripon Cathedral. One is in the frontispiece of this volume. In the first the prophet is being pushed by three men unceremoniously over the side of the vessel which has the usual mediæval characteristics, and, in which, plainly, there is no room for a fourth person. The ship is riding easily on by no means tumultuous waves, out of which protrudes the head of the great fish. The fish and Jonah appear to regard the situation with equal complacency. In the sequel carving Jonah is shewn being cast out by the fish, of which, as in the other, the head only is visible. The monster of the deep has altered its appearance slightly during the period of Jonah's incarceration, its square upper teeth having become pointed. The prophet is represented kneeling among the teeth, apparently offering up thanks for his deliverance. The sea is bounded by a rocky shore on which stand trees of the well-known grotesque type in which they are excellent fir-cones. [Illustration: THE STORY OF JONAH. THE CASTING OUT.] These two carvings are of somewhat special interest, as their precise origin is known. They are both exceedingly close copies of engravings in the Biblia Pauperum, or Poor Man's Bible, otherwise called "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis," or the Mirror of Human Salvation. Other Biblical subjects in the Ripon Series of Misericordes are from the same source. Did the Sculptor or Sculptors of the series fall short of subjects, or were their eyes caught by the definite outlines of the prints in the "Picture Bible" as it lay chained in the Minster? The Adoration, in a carving in the choir of Worcester, comes under the head of unintentional grotesques. It is a proof that though the manipulative skill of the artist may be great, that may only accentuate his failure to grasp the true spirit of a subject; and render what might have been only a piece of simplicity, into an elaborate grotesque. The common-place, ugly features--where not broken away--the repeated attitudes and the symmetric arrangement join to defeat the artist's aim. Add to those the anachronisms, the ancient Eastern rulers in Edward III. crowns and gowns, seated beneath late Gothic Decorated Arches offering gifts, and the absurdity is nearly complete. It is difficult to quite understand the presence of the lady with gnarled features, on the left, bearing the swathed infant (headless) which seems to demonstrate that this was carved by a foreigner, or was from a foreign source; for though swathing was practised to some extent in England, I can only find that in Holland, Germany, etc., and more especially in Italy, the children were swathed to this extent, in the complete mummy fashion styled "bambino." Perhaps the reason of the two figures right and left was that the artist went with the artistic tide in representing the recently-born infant as a strapping boy of four or five; yet his common-sense telling him that was a violation of fact he put the other figure in with the strapped infant to show what--in his own private opinion--the child would really be like at the time. We might have supposed it to be St. John, but he was older and not younger than the Divine Child. In the Scandinavian mythology, Vali, the New Year, is represented as a child in swaddling clothes. [Illustration: ADORATION OF THE MAGI, WORCHESTER.] The Scriptural subjects in carved work may be compared with the wall paintings which in a few instances have survived the reforming zeal of bygone white-washing churchwardens. The comparison is infinitely to the advantage of the carvings. These paintings are in distemper and were the humble inartistic precursors of noble frescoes in the continental fanes, but which had in England no development. To what extent there was merit in the mural decoration of the English cathedrals cannot well be stated. Such examples, as in a few churches are left to us, are simply curiosities. Though changing with the styles they are more crude than the sculptures, and the modern eye in search of the grotesque, finds here compositions infinitely more excruciatingly imbecile than in any other department of art-work of pretension. [Illustration: BAPTISMAL SCENE, GUILDFORD.] At the same time when they are considered in conjunction with the most perfect of the paintings of their period they are by no means so low in the scale of merit as at the first thought might be supposed. Outside the present purpose of looking at them as unintentional grotesques they are very valuable specimens of the English art of painting of dates which have, except in illuminations, no other examples. Those of St. Mary's, Guildford, are very quaint. The first selected from the series is a representation of Christ attending the ministration of St. John the Baptist. St. John has apparently taken down to the river bank a classic font, in which is seated a convert. The Baptist himself, wearing a Phrygian cap (probably Saxon), is turning away from the figures of Christ and the man in the font, and is apparently addressing a company which does not appear in the picture. Just as the font was put in to make the idea of baptism easily understood, so, we may suppose, the curious buttons on thongs, or whatever they are, were shewn attached to St. John's wrist, to indicate that he is speaking of the "shoe-latchets." The waters and bank of the Jordan are indicated in a few lines. [Illustration: CASTING OUT OF DEVILS, GUILDFORD.] The other selection is still more bizarre. It evidently portrays Christ casting out devils. The chief point of interest in this painting is the original conception of the devils. Anything more vicious, degraded, and abhorrent, it would be difficult to produce in so few lines. Roughly speaking, they are a compound of the hawk, the hog, and the monkey; this curious illustration is an excellent pendant to the marks made upon early Satanic depictions on a previous page. The faces are Saxon, except in the case of the man with the sword, who is a distinct attempt at a Roman. The artist had evidently in his mind one who was set in authority. The churches of the Midlands are rich in wall-paintings. A fine example is in North Stoke Church, Oxfordshire, which has two Scriptural subjects, a series of angelic figures, and several other figures, etc., only fragmentally visible. They were all found accidentally under thick coats of whitewash. It may be doubted whether they were ever finished. The two Biblical subjects are "Christ betrayed in the Garden," and "Christ before Pilate." Christ is a small apparently blind-folded figure, of which only the head and one shoulder remains. Pilot is the Saxon lord, posing as the seated figure of legal authority, poising a hiltless sword in his right hand. The figure addressing Pilate is apparently a Roman (Saxon) official; his hand is very large, but there is a simple force about his drawing. The fourth figure in a mitre is doubtless meant for a Jewish priest, and he has a nasty, clamorous look. Pilate, unfortunately, has no pupils to his eyes, but his general appearance is as though he was expostulating with the priest. There is a carol, printed in 1820, which has a woodcut of the subject not less rude and not less of an anachronism than this: but what is curious, as illustrating the main theory of the present volume--the tenacity with which form is adhered to in unconscious art--is that the disposition of the figures is exactly the same in both pictures. Where the Saxon lord is seated, imagine a bearded magistrate, at a sort of Georgian quarter-sessions bench, with panelled front. For the simple Saxon, with vandyked shirt, suppose a Roman half-soldier, half-village-policeman. Then comes the figure of Christ, with the head much lower than those of the others because he is nearer. Lastly, there is an incomplete figure behind. In this case the perfect correspondence may be mere coincidence; it is difficult to explain otherwise. The design, however, is the same, only the Anglo-Norman filled in his detail from his observation of a manorial court, the Moorfield engraver from his knowledge of Bow Street police-court. To conclude, although these paintings are ludicrous in the extreme, the artists, who had no easy task, were absolutely serious, and their works, divested of the comic aspect conferred by haste and manipulative incompetence, are marked by bold impressiveness. The initial to this chapter is from one of a series of similar ornaments on the parapet of the south side of the nave of Beverley Minster; it illustrates the toilsome nature of the later portion of Adam's life. Masks and Faces. [Illustration: FOLIATE MASK, THE CHOIR, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] The merriest, oddest, most ill-assorted company in the world meet together in the masks and faces of Gothic ornament. Space could always be found for a head, and skill to execute it. Yet though the variety is immense, the faces of Gothic art will be found to classify themselves very definitely. [Illustration: FOLIATE MASK, DORCHESTER, OXON.] Perhaps the most prevalent type is the classic mask with leaves issuing from the mouth. This may be an idea of the mask which every player in the ancient drama wore, displayed as an ornament with laurel, bay, oak, ivy, or what not, inserted in the mouth, because it was pierced for speaking through, and the only aperture in which the decorative branches could be inserted. Or seeds might germinate in sculptured masks and so have suggested the idea. Masks were hung in vineyards, etc. [Illustration: FOLIATE MASK, ST. MARY'S MINSTER, ISLE OF THANET.] [Illustration: FOLIATE MASK, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] A mask above the internal tower-doorway in the Lady Chapel of Dorchester Abbey has a close resemblance to the classic mask in the protruding lips, which, for the conveying of the voice for the great distance necessary in the arrangement of the ancient theatres, were often shaped like a shallow speaking-trumpet. The leaves appear to be the vine, and so the head, perhaps, that of Bacchus. Between the eyebrows will be noticed an angular projection. This is probably explained by a mask in a misericorde in St. Mary's Minster, in which some object, perhaps the nasal of a helmet, comes down the middle of the forehead. The leaves in this case appear to be oak, which is, indeed, the prevailing tree used for the purpose. [Illustration: INDIAN MASK, ST. MARY'S, BEVERLEY.] [Illustration: LATE ITALIAN FOLIATE MASK, WESTMINSTER.] Occasionally a mask with leaves has the tongue protruding. Perhaps one of the most remarkable masks in Gothic is on another misericorde in the same town, but in St. Mary's Church; in which the features, the head-dress, the treatment of the ears, are all Indian, while the leaves are those of the palm. This is, perhaps, unique as an instance of Gothic work so nearly purely Indian in its form. [Illustration: RIPON, _late Fifteenth Century_.] Sometimes the leaves are much elaborated as in one of the late misericordes of Westminster Abbey; in a few cases the original simplicity is quite lost, and we have, as at Ripon, the mask idea run mad, inverted, and the leaves become a graceful composition of foliage, flower, and fruit. A rosette from the tomb of Bishop de La Wich, Chichester, has four animal faces in an excellent design. [Illustration: ROSETTE ON TOMB OF BISHOP DE LA WICH, CHICHESTER.] Often masks are of the simple description known as the Notch-head; these are of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They are generally found in exposed situations at some elevation, as among the series of corbels (_corbula_ a small basket) or brackets called the corbel-table, supporting a stone course or cornice. The likeness to the human face caused by the shadows of the T varies in different examples. That below, by curving back at the base, suggests the idea of a mouth. Occasionally, as at Finedon, Northamptonshire, the notch-head has its likeness to a face increased by the addition of ears. [Illustration: MASK, BUCKLE, OR NOTCH HEAD, CULHAM, YORKSHIRE.] Norman masks are interesting, as they explain some odd appearances in later work. In many churches are faces scored with lines across the cheeks, regardless of the ordinary lines of expression, in a manner closely resembling the tattoo incisions of the New Zealand warrior. This appearance, however, is simply the too faithful copying of crude Norman masks, in which the lines are meant to be the semi-circles round eyes and mouth. Moreover, the Norman heads are most often the heads of animals grinning to shew the teeth, although their general effect is that of grotesque human heads. Iffley west doorway furnishes the best example. Here we have the well-known "beak head" ornament. The semicircle and upper portion of the jambs have single heads, not two of which are exactly alike, though all closely resemble each other. They are heads of the eagle or gryphon order, with a forehead ornament very Assyrian in character. The heads of the jambs are compound, being the head of a grinning beast, probably a lion, from the mouth of which emerges a gryphon head of small size. These are sometimes called "Cat-heads," and the gryphon head is sometimes considered (and perhaps occasionally shewn as such) a tongue. A fine doorway of beak-heads is at St. Peter's-in-the-East, Oxford, which church was probably executed by the workmen who were responsible for Iffley. [Illustration: BEAK HEADS, IFFLEY.] It is probable that the symbolism of this is the swallowing up of night by day or _vice versâ_. The outer arch of the Iffley doorway consists of zodiacal signs, and at the south doorway are other designs elsewhere mentioned in this volume, far removed from Christian intent. [Illustration: NORMAN MASK, ROCHESTER.] The grotesqueness of Norman work is almost entirely unconscious. The workers were full of Byzantine ideas, and the severe and awful was their object rather than the comic. They frequently attempted pretty detail in their symbolic designs, but in all the forms which have come from their chisels it is easy to see how incomplete an embodiment they gave to their conceptions, or rather to the conceptions of their traditional school. Norman work, beyond the Gothic, irrespective of the architectural peculiarities, has traces of its eastern origin in the classic connection of its designs. Adel Church, near Leeds, is peculiar in having co-mingled with its eastern designs more than ordinarily tangible references to ancient Keltic worship, but nearly all Norman ideographic detail concerns itself with old-world myths. [Illustration: GORGONIC MASK, EWELME.] An excellent conception, well carried out, is in a mask which is one of a series of late carvings alternating with the gargoyles of Ewelme. In this, instead of leaves issuing from the mouth of the mask, there are two dragons. If those with leaves are deities, this surely must be one of the Furies. It is on the north side of the nave; on the exterior of the aisle, at the same side, other sculptures form a kind of irregular corbel-table, and special attention may be drawn to them as affording an indication of the derivation of such ornaments from the "antefixes" or decorated tiles occupying a nearly corresponding position in classic architecture. [Illustration: FOLIATE MASK, EWELME.] One of those on the aisle offers a further explanation of the mark before mentioned as being on the foreheads of some masks. In this case the prominences of the eyebrows branch off into foliage. This appears also to be the intention in a capital carving in Lincoln Chapter House. Roslyn Chapel has some very realistic heads, notably of apes or gorillas near the south doorway, of which one is drawn (opposite). [Illustration: FOLIATE MASK, LINCOLN.] Norman work has frequently some very grotesque heads in corbel tables and tower corners, to the odd appearance of which the decay by weather has no doubt much contributed. Two examples from Sutton Courtney, Oxfordshire, illustrate this weather-worn whimsicality. [Illustration: GORILLA, ROSLYN CHAPEL.] Then comes a crowd of faces which have no particular significance, being simply the outcome of the unrestrainable fun of the carver. Some are merely oddities, while others are full of life-like character. [Illustration: GARGOYLE, SUTTON COURTNEY.] [Illustration: WEATHER-WORN NORMAN, SUTTON COURTNEY, BERKSHIRE.] [Illustration: HUMOUR, YORK.] [Illustration: MASK WITH SAUSAGE, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON.] [Illustration: A JEALOUS EYE, YORK.] The knight with the twisted beard, from Swine, may be a portrait, and the Gargantuan-faced dominus from St. Mary's Minster certainly is. An old barbarian head from a croche or elbow-rest at Bakewell is rude and worn, but yet bold and fine. [Illustration: A BEARD WITH A TWIST, SWINE, YORKSHIRE.] [Illustration: A QUIZZICAL VISAGE, BAKEWELL.] [Illustration: GRIMACE MAKER, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] [Illustration: FOOL'S HEADS, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] Some of these are better than the joculators and mimes' faces in which the artist seriously set himself a humorous task, as in the three heads (page 130) from Beverley Minster, though the latter are in some respects more grotesque. [Illustration: A PORTRAIT, ST. MARY'S MINSTER. ISLE OF THANET.] [Illustration: A ROUGH CHARACTER, BAKEWELL.] Another curious instance of a grimace and posture maker, assisting his countenance's contortions by the use of his fingers, is at Dorchester Abbey. In this the artist has not been master of the facial anatomy, and shows a double pair of lips, one pair in repose, the other pulled back at the corners. [Illustration: GRIMACE MAKER, DORCHESTER, OXON.] Often a grotesque face will be found added to a beautiful design of foliage, either as the conventional mask, as in the design in Lincoln Chapter House, or a realistic head, as the following grim, dour visage between graceful curves on a misericord at King's College, Cambridge. [Illustration: GRACE AND THE GRACELESS, KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.] The Domestic and Popular. [Illustration: THE WEAKER VESSEL, SHERBORNE.] Domestic and popular incidents are plentiful among the carvings, of which they form, indeed, a distinct class; and they afford a considerable amount of material with which might be built up, in a truly Hogarthian and exaggerated spirit, an elaborate account of mediæval manners in general. In the majority of cases the incidents have a familiar, if not an endearing suggestiveness. [Illustration: DOMESTIC DISCIPLINE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] The records of mankind are not wanting in stormy incidents in which the gentle female spirit has chafed under some presumed foolishness or wickedness of the head of the house, and at length breaking bounds, inflicted on him personal reminders that patience endureth but for a season. An example of this is given above, which shews the possibility of such a thing as far back as 1520, the date of the Beverley Minster misericordes. While the lady is devoting her attention to the flagellation of her unfortunate and perhaps entirely blameless spouse, a dog avails himself of the opportunity to rifle the caldron. [Illustration: AN UNKIND FARE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] The picture in the initial, taken from a carving in the choir of Sherborne Minster, shews another domestic incident in which the lady administers castigation. Though in itself no more than a vulgar satire, it is probable that this carving was copied from some representation of St. Lucy, who is sometimes shewn with a staff in her hand, and behind her the devil prostrate. It is not easy to say what is the meaning of another carving in Beverley Minster, or whether it has any connection with that just noted. The probability is that it has not. This may be a shrewish wife being wheeled in the tumbril to the waterside, there to undergo for the better ruling of her tongue, a punishment the authority for which was custom older than law. But I am inclined to think that another reading will be nearer the truth. The vehicle is not the tumbril but a wheelbarrow, and the man propelling it is younger than the lady, who is pulling his hair. I imagine the man is apprentice or husband, and is not very cheerfully trundling his companion home. A similar, but more definite misericorde is in Ripon Cathedral. In this barrow, the old woman, wearing a cap with hat on the top, as yet occasionally seen in country places, is seated in a mistress-like way. She is not committing any violence, but apparently is offering the man (call him the bridegroom) his choice of either a bag of money with dutiful obedience, or a huge cudgel, which she wields with muscular power, with dereliction. The gem of the carving is the man's face. He smiles a quiet, amused, satirical smile, as of one who would say, "'Tis no harm to humour these foolish old bodies, and must be done, I trow." [Illustration: THE CHARIOT, RIPON.] But the object called a bag of money is as likely to be a bottle, and the whole subject may be something quite different. She may be going to the doctor, or offering the man a drink; or it may be Noah wheeling his wife into the Ark, which, it was one of the jokes in a Mystery play to suppose she was very unwilling to enter. [Illustration: PILGRIMAGE IN COMFORT, CANTERBURY.] [Illustration: MARTINMAS. CHRISTMAS. HOLY TRINITY, HULL.] The block from the capital of a column in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, tells us little of its history. It is given as an example of a cheerful grace and ease not common in early work. The hunting of the boar is a frequent subject of the Gothic carver, being generally considered the sport of September, though Sir Edward Coke says the season for the boar was from Christmas to Candlemas. It is uncommon to find the boar's head shewn treated as in the accompanying block, struck off, and with the lemon in his mouth, ready for the table. These quatrefoils are the only two with a special design upon them, out of twelve on the font of Holy Trinity Church, Hull, the others having rosettes. There is no rule in this, but there are other examples in which small portions of fonts are picked out for significant decoration, and possibly on the side originally intended to be turned towards the door of the church, or the altar. [Illustration: HUNTSMAN AND DEER, YORK.] Hunting scenes frequently occur. A boss in York Minster shews a huntsman "breaking" a deer as it hangs from a tree. The wild sweetness of one stringed and one wind instrument--not uncommonly met as harp and piccolo near London "saloon bars"--was a usual duet of the middle ages. In Stoeffler's _Calendarum Romanorum Magnum_ (of 1518) in a series of woodcuts illustrating the months, and which are otherwise reasonable, he gives one of these duets performed in a field as a proper occupation of the month of April with the following highly appropriate distich-- "Aprilis patule nucis sub umbra post convivia dormio libenter." [Illustration: A CURIOUS DUET, CHICHESTER.] In this carving, however, the musicians appear to be within doors and to be giving a set duet. To the interest of the ear they add a curious spectacle for the eye, for they are seated in chairs which have no fore-legs, and their balance is kept by the flageoletist taking hold of the harp as the players sit facing, so that while leaning back they form a counter-poise to each other. The chairs are a curious study in mediæval furniture. It is not unlikely that the sculptor in the case of the annexed block had in his mind something similar to the saying-- "When a man's single he lives at his ease." [Illustration: BACHELOR QUARTERS, WORCESTER.] A man come in from, we may presume, frost and snow, has taken off his boots, and warms his feet as, seated on his fald-stool by the fire, he stirs the pot with lively anticipation of the meal preparing inside. He is probably a shepherd or swine-herd; on one side is seated his dog, at the other are hung two fat gammons of bacon. [Illustration] Shepherds and shepherding furnish frequent subjects to the carver. In a Coventry Corpus Christi play of 1534 one of the three shepherds presents his gloves to the infant Saviour in these words-- "Have here my myttens, to pytt en thi hondis, Other treysure have I none to present thee with." This carving has been called the Good Shepherd. If the artist really meant Christ by this shepherd with a hood over his head and hat over that, with great gloves and shoes, with a round beardless face, with his arms round the necks of two sheep, holding their feet in his hands, it is the finest piece of religious burlesque extant. But it is not to be supposed that the idea even occurred to the sculptor. The Feast of Fools was a kind of religious farce, a "mystery" run riot. Cedranus, a Byzantine historian, who wrote in the eleventh century, records that it was introduced into the Greek Church A.D. 990, by Theophylact, patriarch of Constantinople. We can partly understand that the popular craving for the wild liberties of the Saturnalia might be met, and perhaps modified, by a brief removal of the solemn constraint of the Christian priest-rule. But licentiousness in church worship was no new thing, and, long before the time of Theophylact, the Church of the West, and probably the Greek Church also, had been rendered scandalous by the laxity with which the church services were conducted. At the Council of Orleans, in A.D. 533, it was found necessary to rule that no person in a church shall sing, drink, or do anything unbecoming; at another in Châlons, in A.D. 650, women were forbidden to sing indecent songs in church. There is in fact every evidence, including the sculptures of our subject, that religion was not, popularly, a thing solemn in itself. Cedranus mentions the "diabolic dances" among the enormities practised at the Feast of Fools, which was generally held about Christmas, though not confined to that festival. In the twelfth century, the abuse increased; songs of the most indecent and offensive character were sung in the midst of the mock services; puddings were eaten, and dice rattled on the altar, and old shoes burnt as incense. [Illustration: DANCING FOOLS, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] This observance, so evidently an expedient parody of the old-time festivals, is traceable in England, and said to have been abolished about the end of the fourteenth century. The carvings in Beverley Minster, here presented, are supposed to refer to the Feast, and at any rate give us a good idea of the mediæval fool. There were innumerable classic dances. The Greeks send down the names of two hundred kinds. A dance with arms was the Pyrrhic dance, which was similar in some of its varieties to the military dance known as the Morris. The Morris was introduced into Spain by the Moors, and brought into England by John of Gaunt in 1332. It was, however, little used until the reign of Henry VII. There were other vivacious dances, called Bayle, of Moorish origin, which, as well as various kinds of the stately Court dance, were used by the Spaniards. It is difficult, from general sources, to ascertain the dances in vogue in old England. A drawing in the Cotton MSS. shews a Saxon dancing a reel. The general inference is, however, that the Morris (of the Moors or Moriscoes) was the chief dance of the English, and perhaps it is that in which the saltatory fools of the carving are engaged. [Illustration: AN ABJECT OBJECT. WINCHESTER COLLEGE CHAPEL.] Probably the extraordinary monstrosity shewn in the annexed block had an actual existence. There are fairly numerous accounts of such malformities in mediæval times, and it was a function of mediæval humour to make capital out of unfortunate deformity. This poor man has distorted hands instead of feet, and he moves about on pattens or wooden clogs strapped to his hands and legs. There is little meaning in the side carvings. The fool-ape, making an uncouth gesture, is perhaps to shew the character of those who mock misfortune. The man with the scimitar may represent the alarm of one who might suddenly come upon the sight of the abortion, and fearing some mystery or trap, draw his blade. In a sense this is a humourous carving--yet there is a quality for which it is much more remarkable, and that is its element of forcible and realistic pathos. [Illustration: A MYTHOLOGICAL EPISODE, YORK.] Two reliefs from York Minster are presumably scenes from classic mythology, from, in regard to the costumes, a Saxon point of view. One may be supposed to be the rape of Ganymede. Oak leaves are an attribute of Jupiter, as is also the eagle which bore Ganymede to Olympus. The other may be Vulcan giving Venus "a piece of his mind." [Illustration: MARITAL VIOLENCE, YORK.] If these readings are correct these two carvings are among the very few instances of representations of circumstantial detail of the Olympian mythology. Most of the church references to mythology have more connection with the earlier symbolic meanings than with the later narrative histories into which the cults degenerated. Other examples are in the references to Hercules in the sixteenth century stalls of Henry VII.'s Chapel, Westminster. There is in mediæval art several examples remaining of what may be called topsy-turveyism, in which two figures mutually lent their parts to each other in such a way that four figures may be found. An excellent example of this is at New College, Oxford, in which, though the four figures are so apparent when once seen, the two (taken as upper and lower), are in a natural and ingenious acrobatic position. The grotesque head at the base is put in to balance the composition, and perhaps to prevent the trick being discerned at once. [Illustration: A CONTINUOUS GROUP OF FOUR FIGURES, OXFORD.] The grace of the free if somewhat meagre Corinthian acanthus as used in Early English work is often rendered more marked by the introduction of an extraneous subject. Thus at Wells the foliate design is relieved by the ungainly figure of a melancholy individual, who, before retiring to rest, pursues an examination into his pedal callosities, or extracts the poignant thorn. Or can it be that we have here a reminder of the Egyptian monarch, Sómarája, mentioned in the Hindoo accounts of the Egyptian mythology, who was dissolute and outcast, and who, to shew his repentance and patience, stood twelve days upon one leg? [Illustration: A PILGRIM'S PAINS, WELLS.] This discursive chapter would not be complete without a reference to the alleged impropriety of church grotesques. Though it is not to be denied that in the wide range of subjects a considerable number of indecent subjects have crept in, yet their proportion is small. Examination would lead to the belief that upon the whole the art of the churches is much purer than the literature or the popular taste of the respective periods. Though there may be sometimes met examples of grossness of humour and a frank want of reserve, such as in the annexed drawing from the chapel of All Souls, Oxford, yet these are rarely of the most gross or least reserved character. [Illustration: A POSTURIST, ALL SOULS, OXFORD.] It may be well to note, in this connection that the literature from which we draw the bulk of our ideas as to mediæval life, are foreign, and that, although English manners would not be remotely different in essentials, yet there would be as many absolute differences as there are yet remaining to our eyes in architecture and in art generally. The Pig and other Animal Musicians. [Illustration: APE AS PIPER, BEVERLEY.] One might count in the churches animal musicians, perhaps, by thousands, and the reason of their presence is doubtless the same as that which explains the frequency of the serious carvings of musicians which adorn the arches of nave and choir throughout the country--namely the prevalent use of various kinds of instrumental music in the service of the church. The animal musicians are the burlesques of the human, and the fact that the pig is the most frequent performer may perhaps suggest that the ability of the musician had overwhelmed the consideration of other qualities which might be expected, but were not found, in the harmony-producing choristers. Clever as musicians, they may have become merely functionaries as regards interest in the church, as we see to-day in the case of our bell-ringers, who for the most part issue from the churches as worshippers enter them. It may also be that the frequency of suilline musicians may have derisive reference to the ancient veneration in which the pig was held in the mythologies. It was a symbol of the sun, and, derivatively, of fecundity. Perhaps the strongest trace of this is in Scandinavian mythology. The northern races sacrificed a boar to Freyr, the patron deity of Sweden and of Iceland, the god of fertility; he was fabled to ride upon a boar named Gullinbrusti, or Golden Bristle. Freyr's festival was at Yule-tide. Yule is _jul_ or _heol_, the sun, and Gehul is the Saxon "Sunfeast." The gods of Scandinavia were said to nightly feast upon the great boar Sæhrimnir, which eaten up, was every morning found whole again. This seems somewhat akin to the Hindoo story of Crórásura, a demon with the face of a boar, who continually read the Vedas and was so devout that Vishnu (the sun god) gave him a boon. He asked that no creature existing in the three worlds might have power to slay him, which was granted. [Illustration: SOW AND FIDDLE, WINCHESTER.] The special sacrifice of the pig was not peculiar to Scandinavia, for the Druids and the Greeks also offered up a boar at the winter solstice. The sacrifice of a pig was a constant preliminary of the Athenian assemblies. As a corn destroyer the same animal was sacrificed to Ceres. The above explains the recurrence of the pig rather than the pig musician. A pregnant sow was, however, yearly sacrificed to Mercury, the inventor of the harp, and a sow playing the harp is among the rich set of choir carvings in Beverley Minster. The chase of the boar was the sport of September, the ordinary killing season, the swine being then in condition after their autumn feed of _bucon_, or beechmast (hence _bacon_), "His Martinmas has come" passed into a proverb. The prevalence of the pig as a food animal had undoubtedly its share in the frequency of art reference. [Illustration: SOW AS HARPIST, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] In the Christian adoption of pagan attributes, the pig was apportioned to St. Anthony, it is said, variously, because he had been a swine-herd, or lived in woods. The smallest or weakling pig in a litter, called in the north "piggy-widdy" (small white pig), and in the south midlands the "dillin" (perhaps equivalent to _delayed_), and is elsewhere styled the Anthony pig, as specially needing the protection of his patron. [Illustration: MUSIC AT DINNER, WINCHESTER.] A common representation of the pig musician is a sow who plays to her brood. At Winchester, the feast of the little ones is enlivened by the strains of the double flute. At Durham Castle, in a carving formerly in Aucland Castle Chapel, the sow plays the bagpipes while the young pigs dance. At Ripon, a vigorous carving has the same subject, and another at Beverley, in which a realistic trough forms the foreground. [Illustration: SOW AND BAGPIPES, DURHAM CASTLE.] [Illustration: PIGS AND PIPES, RIPON.] The "Pig and Whistle" forms an old tavern sign. Dr. Brewer explains this as the pot, bowl, or cup (the _pig_), and the wassail it contained. The earthenware vessel used to warm the feet in bed is in Scotland yet called "the pig," and to southern strangers the use of the word has caused a temporary embarrassment. If this explanation is not coincident with some other not at present to hand, the carving of the pig and whistle in the sixteenth century carving in Henry VII.'s chapel shows that the corruption of the "pig and wassail" was accepted in ignorance as far back as that period. [Illustration: PIG AND WHISTLE, WESTMINSTER.] But too much stress is not to be laid upon the pig as a musician, for at Westminster the bear plays the bagpipes, just as at Winchester the ape performs on the harp. In the Beverley Minster choir an ape converts a cat into an almost automatic instrument by biting its tail. [Illustration: APE AS HARPIST, WESTMINSTER.] Compound Forms. [Illustration: ATHOR, CHICHESTER.] In nearly every church compound forms are met which in a high degree merit the designation of grotesque. Few religions have been without these symbolic representations of complex characters. If the Egyptian had its cat-headed and hawk-headed men, the Assyrian its human-headed bull, the Mexican its serpent-armed tiger-men, so also the Scandinavian mythology had its horse-headed and vulture-headed giants, and its human-headed eagle. Horace, who doubtless knew the figurative meaning of what he satirizes, viewed the representations of such compounds in his days, and asks-- "If in a picture you should see A handsome woman with a fishes tail, Or a man's head upon a horse's neck, Or limbs of beasts of the most diff'rent kind, Cover'd with feathers of all sorts of birds Would you not laugh?"[6] It is, perhaps, a little remote from our subject to inquire whether the poet or the priest came the first in bringing about these archaic combinations; yet a word or two may be devoted to suggesting the inquiry. It is probable that the religious ideas and artistic forms met in ancient worships first solely existed in poetic expressions of the qualities of the sun--of the other members of the solar system--of the gods. Thus the swiftness of the sun in his course and in his light induced the mention of wings. Hence the wings of an eagle added to a circular form arose as the symbol in one place; in another arose the God Mercury; while Jove the great sun-god is shewn accompanied by an eagle. The fertility of the earth became as to corn Ceres, as to vines Bacchus, as to flowers Flora, and so forth. The human personification, in cases where a combination of qualities or functions was sought to be indicated, resulted in more or less abstruse literary fables; on the other hand the artist or symbol seeker found it easier to select a lower plane of thought for his embodiments. Thus, while swiftness suggested the eagle, strength was figured by the lion: so when a symbol of swiftness and strength was required arose the compound eagle-lion, the gryphon. The gryphon, however, though constantly met in Gothic, is rarely grotesque in itself. Another form which also, to a certain extent, is incorruptible, is that of the sphinx. This is a figure symbolic of the sun from the Egyptian point of view, in which the Nile was all-important. Nilus, or Ammon, the Egyptian Jove, was the sun-god, an equivalent to Osiris, and the sphinx was similar in estimation, being, it is reasonably conjectured, a compound of Leo and Virgo, at whose conjunction the Nile has yearly risen. According to Dr. Birch, the sphinx is to be read as being the symbol of Harmachis or "the sun on the horizon." It may be that the Child rising from the Shell is sunrise over the sea, and the Sphinx sunrise over the land. It has been conjectured that the cherubim of the tabernacle were sphinx-form. The cherubim on the Mosaic Ark are among the subjects of the earliest mention of composite symbols. Ezekiel says they were composed of parts of the figures of a man (wisdom, intellect), a lion (dominion), a bull (strength), and an eagle (sharp-sightedness, swiftness.) The Persians and Hindoos had similar figures. A man with buffalo horns is painted in the Synhedria of the American Indians in conjunction with that of a panther or puma-like beast, and these are supposed to be a contraction of the cherubimical figures of the man, the bull, and the lion; these, renewed yearly, are near the carved figures of eagles common in the Indian sun-worship. [Illustration: SPHINX AND BUCKLER, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] [Illustration: SPHINX FIGURE, DORCHESTER, OXON.] A carving in the arm-rest of one of the stalls of Beverley Minster, suggested in the block on page 159, shews a sphinx with a shield; there are in the same church several fine examples seated in the orthodox manner. On a capital in the sedilia of Dorchester Abbey is a curious compound which may be classed as a sphinx. One of the hands (or paws) is held over the eyes of a dog, which suggests the manner in which animals were anciently sacrificed. Another sphinx in the same sedilia is of the winged variety. It has the head cowled; many of the mediæval combinatory forms are mantled. In Worcester Cathedral is a compound of man, ox, and lion, very different from the sphinx or cherubim shapes, being a grotesque deprived of all the original poetry of the conception. [Illustration: COWLED SPHINX, DORCHESTER, OXON.] Virgil describes Scylla (the Punic _Scol_, destruction) as a beautiful figure upwards, half her body being a beautiful virgin; downwards, a horrible fish with a wolf's belly (utero). Homer similarly. The mermaid is a frequent subject, but more monotonous in its form and action than any other creature, and is generally found executed with a respectful simplicity that scarcely ever savours of grotesqueness. The mermaid, "the sea wolf of the abyss," and the "mighty sea-woman" of Boewulf, has an early origin as a deity of fascinating but malignant tendencies. The centaur, perhaps, ranks next to the sphinx in artistic merit. To the early Christians the centaur was merely a symbol of unbridled passions, and all mediæval reference classes it as evil. Virgil mentions it as being met in numbers near the gates of Hades, and the Parthenon sculptures shew it as the enemy of men. [Illustration: GROTESQUE CHERUBIM, WORCESTER.] The story of the encyclopedias regarding centaurs is that they were Thessalonian horsemen, whom the Greeks, ignorant of horsemanship, took to be half-men, half-animals. They were called, it is said, centaurs, from their skill in killing the wild bulls of the Pelion mountains, and, later, hippo-centaurs. This explanation may, in the presence of other combinatory forms, be considered doubtful, as it is more probable that this, like those, arose out of a poetic appreciation of the qualities underlying beauty of form, that is, out of an intelligent symbolism. The horse, where known, was always a favourite animal among men. Innumerable coinages attest this fact. Early Corinthian coins have the figure of Pegasus. In most the horse is shewn alone. In the next proportion he is attached to a chariot. In few is he shewn being ridden, as it is his qualities that were intended to be expressed, and not those of the being who has subjected him. One of the old Greek gold staters has a man driving a chariot in which the horse has a human head; while the man is urging the horse with the sacred three-branched rod, each branch of which terminates in a trefoil. The centaur has a yet unallotted place in the symbolism of the sun-myth. Classic mythology says Chiron the centaur was the teacher of Apollo in music, medicine, and hunting, and centaurs are mostly sagittarii or archers, whose arrows, like those of Apollo, are the sunbeams. The centaur met in Gothic ornament is the Zodiacal Sagittarius, and true to this original derivation, the centaur is generally found with his bow and arrow. It is said that the Irish saints, Ciaran and Nessan, are the same with the centaurs Chiron and Nessus. [Illustration: MATERNAL CARES OF THE CENTAUR, IFFLEY.] A capital of the south doorway, Iffley, has a unique composition of centaurs. A female centaur, armed with bow (broken) and arrow, is suckling a child centaur after the human manner. The equine portions of the figures are in exceptionally good drawing, though the tremendous elongation of the human trunks, and the ill-rendered position, render the group very grotesque. Both the mother and child wear the classic cestus or girdle. The bow carried by the mother is held apparently in readiness in the left hand, while it is probable that the right breast was meant to be shown removed, as was stated of the Amazons. The mother looks off, and there is an air of alertness about the two, which is explained by the sculpture on the return of the capital, where the father-centaur is seen slaying a wolf, lion, or other beast. [Illustration: CENTAUR AS DRAGON SLAYER, EXETER.] On a centaur at Exeter of the thirteenth century, the mythical idea is somewhat retained; the centaur has shot an arrow into the throat of a dragon, which is part of the ornament. This is a very rude but suggestive carving. Is the centaur but a symbol of Apollo himself? The next block (at Ely) is also of the centaur order, though not suggestive of aggression. The figure is female, and she is playing the zither. This is of the fourteenth century. [Illustration: MUSICAL CENTAUR, ELY.] [Illustration: HARPY, WINCHESTER.] Another classic conception which has been perpetuated in Gothic is the harpy, though in most cases without any apparent recognition of the harpy character. Exceptions are such instances as that of the harpy drawn in the chapter "Satires without Satan." In one at Winchester a fine mediæval effect is produced by putting a hood on the human head. [Illustration: IBIS-HEADED FIGURE FROM AN UNKNOWN CHURCH.] Another curious bird combination is in a carving in the Architectural Museum, Tufton Street, London, from an unknown church. This is a semi-human figure, whose upper part is skilfully draped. The head, bent towards the ground, is that of a bird of the ibis species, and it is probable that we have here a relic of the Egyptian Mercury Thoth, who was incarnated as an ibis. Thoth is called the God of the Heart (the conscience), and the ibis was said to be sacred to him because when sleeping it assumes the shape of a heart. [Illustration: THE SWAN SISTER, ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL, WINDSOR.] An unusual compound is that of a swan with the agreeable head of a young woman, in St. George's Chapel, Windsor. This may be one of the swan-sisters in the old story of the "Knight of the Swan." The initial letter of this section is a fine grotesque rendering of the Egyptian goddess Athor, Athyr, or Het-her (meaning the dwelling of God.) She was the daughter of the sun, and bore in images the sun's disc. Probably through a lapse into ignorance on the part of the priest-painters, she became of less consideration, and the signification even of her image was forgotten. She had always had as one of her representations, a bird with a human head horned and bearing the disc; but the disc began to be shewn as a tambourine, and she herself was styled "the mistress of dance and jest." As in the cosmogony of one of the Egyptian Trinities she was the Third Person, as Supreme Love, the Greeks held her to be the same as Aphrodite. The name of the sun-disc was Aten, and its worship was kindred to that of Ra, the mid-day sun. The Hebrew Adonai and the Syriac Adonis have been considered to be derived from this word Aten. Several examples of bird-compounds are in the Exeter series of misericordes of the thirteenth century. They are renderings in wood of the older Anglo-Saxon style of design, and are ludicrously grotesque. It is scarcely to be considered that the compound figures were influenced by the prevalence of mumming in the periods of the various carvings. In this, as in many other respects, the traditions of the carvers' art protected it from being coloured by the aspect of the times, except in a limited degree, shewn in distinctly isolated examples. [Illustration: BIRD-COMPOUND, EXETER.] Non-descripts. [Illustration: A BEARDED BIPED, ST. KATHERINE'S.] There is a large number of bizarre works which defy natural classification, and though in many cases they are a branch of the compound order of figures, yet they are frequently well defined as non-descripts. These, though in one respect the most grotesque of the grotesques, do not claim lengthy description. Where they are not traceable compounds, they are often apparently the creatures of fancy, without meaning and without history. It may be, however, that could we trace it, we should find for each a pedigree as interesting, if not as old, as that of any of the sun-myths. Among the absurd figures which scarcely call for explanation are such as that shown in the initial, from the Hospital and Collegiate Church of St. Katherine by the Tower (now removed to a substituted hospital in Regent's Park). [Illustration: A CLOAKED SIN, TUFTON STREET.] In the Architectural Museum, Tufton Street, London, is a carving from an unknown church, in which appear two figures which were not an uncommon subject for artists of the odd. These are human heads, to which are attached legs without intermediary bodies, and with tails depending from the back of the heads. [Illustration: THE WORM OF CONSCIENCE. (_From an unknown Church._)] In the "Pilgremage of the Sowle," printed by Caxton in 1483, translated from a French manuscript of 1435 or earlier, is a description of a man's conscience, which, there is little doubt, furnished the idealic material for these carvings. A "sowle" being "snarlyed in the trappe" of Satan, is being, by a travesty on the forms of a court of law, claimed by both the "horrible Sathanas" and its own Warden or Guardian Angel. The Devil calls for his chief witness by the name of Synderesys, but the witness calls himself the Worm of Conscience. The following is the soul's description:--"Then came forth by me an old one, that long time had hid himself nigh me, which before that time I had not perceived. He was wonderfully hideous and of cruel countenance; and he began to grin, and shewed me his jaws and gums, for teeth he had none, they all being broken and worn away. He had no body, but under his head he had only a tail, which seemed the tail of a worm of exceeding length and greatness." This strange accuser tells the Soul that he had often warned it, and so often bitten it that all his teeth were wasted and broken, his function being "to bite and wounde them that wrong themselves."[7] The above examples are scarcely unique. In Ripon Cathedral, on a misericorde of 1489, representing the bearing of the grapes of Eschol on a staff, are two somewhat similar figures, likewise mere "nobodies," though without tails. These are a covert allusion to the wonderful stories of the spies, which, it is thus hinted, are akin to the travellers' tales of mediæval times, as well as a pun on the report that they had seen nobody. [Illustration: NOBODIES, RIPON.] It is evident that the idea of men without bodies came from the East, and also that it had credence as an actual fact. In the _Cosmographiæ Universalis_, printed in 1550, they are alluded to in the following terms:--"Sunt qui cervicibus carent et in humeris habet oculos; De India ultra Gangem fluvium sita." [Illustration: NON-DESCRIPT, CHRIST CHURCH, HANTS.] There are many carvings which are more or less of the same character, and probably intended to embody the idea of conscience or sins. The two rather indecorous figures shewn in the following block from Great Malvern are varieties doubtless typifying sins. [Illustration: SINS IN SYMBOL, GREAT MALVERN.] Rebuses. [Illustration: BOLT-TON.] [Illustration: WILLIAM WHITE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] Rebuses are often met among Gothic sculptures, but not in such frequency, or with an amount of humour to claim any great attention here. They are almost entirely, as in the case of the canting heraldry of seals, of late date, being mostly of the 15th and 16th centuries. They are often met as the punning memorial of the name of a founder, builder, or architect, as the bolt-ton of Bishop Bolton in St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield, the many-times-repeated cock of Bishop Alcock in Henry VII's. Chapel, the eye and the slip of a tree, and the man slipping from a tree, for Bishop Islip, Westminster; and others well known. In the series of misericordes in Beverley Minster, there are _arma palantes_ of the dignitaries of the Church in 1520. William White, the Chancellor, has no less than seven different renderings of the pun upon his name, all being representations of weights, apparently of four-stone ponderosity. Thomas Donnington, the Precentor, whose name would doubtless often be written Do'ington, has a doe upon a ton or barrel. John Sperke, the Clerk of the Fabric, has a dog with a bone, and a vigilant cock; this, however, is not a name-rebus so much as an allusion to the exigencies of his office. The Church of St. Nicholas, Lynn, had misericordes (some of which are now in the Architectural Museum) which have several monograms and rebuses. Unfortunately, they are somewhat involved, and there is at present no key by which to read them. The least doubtful is that given below. [Illustration: WEIGHT, REBUS FOR WHITE, BEVERLEY MINSTER.] It has a "ton" rebus which will admit, however, of perhaps three different renderings. It is most likely Thorn-ton, less so Bar-ton, and still less Hop-ton, all Lincolnshire names. [Illustration: MERCHANT MARK, COGNIZANCE AND REBUS, ST. NICHOLAS'S, LYNN.] Trinities. [Illustration: LARVA-LIKE DRAGON, ST. PAUL'S, BEDFORD.] Repeatedly has the statement been made that the various mythologies are only so many corruptions of the Mosaic system. Manifestly if this could be admitted there would be little interest in enquiring further into their details. But there are three arguments against the statement, any one of which is effective. Although it is perhaps totally unnecessary to contradict that which can be accepted by the unreflective only, it is sufficiently near the purpose of this volume to slightly touch upon the matter, as pointing strong distinctions among ancient worships. First, there is the simple fact recorded in the Mosaic account itself, that there existed at that time, and had done previously, various religious systems, the rooting out of which was an important function of the liberated Hebrews. The only reply to this is that, by a slight shift of ground, the mythologies were corruptions of the patriarchal religion, not the Mosaic system. Yet paganism surrounded the patriarchs. The second point is that most of the mythologies had crystallized into taking the sun as the main symbol of worship, and into taking the equinoxes and other points of the constellation path as other symbols and reminders of periodic worship; whereas in the Mosaic system the whole structure of the solar year is ignored, all the calculations being lunar. If it be objected that Numbers ix. 6-13, and II. Chronicles xxx. 2, refer indirectly to an intercalary month, that, if admitted, could only for expediency's sake, and has no bearing upon the general silence as to the solar periods. This second point is an important testimony to what may be termed Mosaic originality. The third point is that in most of the mythologies there is the distinct mention of a Trinity; in the Mosaic system, the system of the Old Testament, none. With the question as to whether the New Testament supports the notion of a Trinity, we need not concern ourselves here; it is enough that it has been adopted as an item of the Christian belief. The mythological Trinities are vague and, of course, difficult or impossible to understand. Most of them appear to be attempts of great minds of archaic times to reconcile the manifest contradictions ever observable in the universe. This is done in various ways. Some omit one consideration, some another; but they generally agree that to have a three-fold character in one deity is necessary in explaining the phenomenon of existence. Some of the Trinities may be recited. PERSIAN. OROMASDES, Goodness, the deviser of Creation. MITHRAS, Eternal Intellect, the architect and ruler of the world, literally "the Friend." ARIMANES, the mundane soul (Psyche). GRECIAN. ZEUS. PALLAS. HERA. ROMAN. JUPITER, Power. MINERVA, Wisdom, Eternal Intellect. JUNO, Love. SCANDINAVIAN. ODIN, Giver of Life. HÆNIR, Giver of motion and sense. LODUR, Giver of speech and the senses. AMERICAN INDIAN. OTKON. MESSOU. ATAHUATA. EGYPTIAN. CNEPH, the Creator, Goodness. PTA (Opas), the active principle of Creation (= Vulcan). EICTON. The Egyptians had other Trinities than the above, each chief city having its own form; in these, however, the third personality appears to be supposed to proceed from the other two, which scarcely seems to have been intended in the instances already given. Some of the city Trinities were as follow:-- THEBES. AMUN-RA (= Jupiter), (RA = the Mid-day Sun.) MANT or MENTU (= "the mother," Juno.) CHONSO (= Hercules.) PHILAE & ABYDOS. OSIRIS (= Pluto). ISIS (= Prosperine). HORUS, the Saviour, the Shepherd (the Rising Sun). ABOO-SIMBEL. PTA or PHTHAH. AMUM-RA. ATHOR, Love (the wife of HORUS). So that it is no coincidence that both Hercules and Horus are met in Gothic carvings as deliverers from dragons. ELEPHANTINE. KHUM or CHNOUMIS. ANUKA. HAK. MEMPHIS. PTAH. MERENPHTAH. NEFER-ATUM. HELIOPOLIS. TUM (Setting Sun.) NEBHETP. HORUS. Another Egyptian triad, styled "Trimorphous God!" was:-- BAIT. ATHOR. AKORI. Another:-- TELEPHORUS. ESCULAPIUS. SALUS. VEDIC HINDOO. AGNI, Fire, governing the Earth. INDRA, The Firmament, governing Space or Mid Air. SURYA, The Sun, governing the Heavens. BRAHMINIC HINDOO. BRAHMA, the Creator. VISHNU, the Preserver. SIVA, the Destroyer (the Transformer) (= Fire). The Platonic and other philosophic Trinities need not detain us; it has been asserted that by their means the doctrine of the pagan Trinity was grafted on to Christianity. Right down through the ages the number three has always been regarded as of mystic force. Wherever perfection or efficiency was sought its means were tripled; thus Jove's thunderbolt had three forks of lightning, Neptune's lance was a trident, and Pluto's dog had three heads. The Graces, the Fates, and the Furies were each three. The trefoil was held sacred by the Greeks as well as other triad forms. In the East three was almost equally regarded. Three stars are frequently met upon Asiatic seals. The Scarabæus was esteemed as having thirty joints. Mediæval thought, in accepting the idea of the Christian Trinity, lavishly threw its symbolism everywhere; writers and symbolists, architects and heralds, multiplied ideas of three-fold qualities. Heraldry is permeated with three-fold repetitions, a proportion of at least one-third of the generality of heraldic coats having a trinity of one sort or another. In all probability the stars and bars of America rose from the coat-armour of an English family in which the stars were three, the bars three. St. Nicholas had as his attributes three purses, three bulls of gold, three children. Sacred marks were three dots, sometimes alone, sometimes in a triangle, sometimes in a double triangle; three balls attached, making a trefoil; three bones in a triangle crossing at the corners; a fleur-de-lys in various designs of three conjoined; three lines crossed by three lines; and many other forms. God, the symbolists said, was symbolized by a hexagon, whose sides were Glory, Power, Majesty, Wisdom, Blessing, and Honor. The three steps to heaven were Oratio, Amor, Imitatio. The three steps to the altar, the three spires of the cathedral, the three lancets of an Early English window, were all supposed to refer to the Trinity. Having seen that the idea of the Trinity is a part of most of the ancient religious systems, it remains to point to one or two instances where, in common with other ideas from that source, the Trinity has a place among church grotesques. There is a triune head in St. Mary's Church, Faversham, Kent, which was doubtless executed as indicative of the Trinity. The _Beehive of the Romishe Church_, in 1579, says: "They in their churches and Masse Bookes doe paint the Trinitie with three faces; for our mother the holie Church did learn that at Rome, where they were wont to paint or carve Janus with two faces." In the Salisbury Missal of 1534 is a woodcut of the Trinity triangle surmounted by a three-faced head similar to the above. Hone reproduces it in his _Ancient Mysteries Described_, and asks, "May not the triune head have been originally suggested by the three-headed Saxon deity named "Trigla"?" The Faversham tria, it will be noticed, has the curled and formal beards of the Greek mask. [Illustration: A TRINITY, ST. MARY'S, FAVERSHAM.] Another instance of a three-fold head similar to the Faversham carving is at Cartmel. A still more remarkable form of the same thing occurs as a rosette on the tomb of Bishop de la Wich, in Chichester Cathedral, in which the trinity of faces is doubled and placed in a circle in an exceedingly ingenious and symmetrical manner. This has oak leaves issuing from the mouths, which we have seen as a frequent adjunct of the classic mask as indicating Jupiter. [Illustration: DOUBLE TRINITY OF FOLIATE MASKS, CHICHESTER.] In carvings three will often be found to be a favourite number without a direct reference to the Trinity. The form of the misericorde is almost invariably a three-part design, and, being purely arbitrary, its universal adoption is one of the evidences of the organization of the craft gild. As with the misericorde, so with its subjects. At Exeter we have seen (page 4) the tail of the harpy made into a trefoil ornament, while she grasps a trefoil-headed rod (just as among Assyrian carvings we should have met a figure bearing the sacred three-headed poppy). At Gayton (page 87) we have the three-toothed flesh-hook; at Maidstone is another. Chichester Cathedral and Chichester Hospital have each three groups. Beverley Minster has three fish interlaced, and three hares running round inside a circle. In Worcester Cathedral there are three misericordes, in each of which there are three figures, in which groups the number is evidently intentional. Three till the ground, three reap corn with sickles, three mow with scythes. [Illustration: TRINITY OF MOWERS, WORCESTER.] From them as being unusual in treatment, even in this stiff Flemish set, is selected the trinity of mowers. Groups of three in mowing scenes is a frequent number. Doubtless this carving is indicative of July, that being the "Hey-Monath" of early times. One of the side supporters or pendant carvings of this is a hare riding upon the back of a leoparded lion, perhaps some reference to Leo, the sign governing July. The three mowers do not make a pleasing carving, owing to the repetition and want of curve. Other instances of triplication in Gothic design might be given, particularly in the choice of floral forms in which nature has set the pattern. This section, however, is chiefly important as a convenient means of incorporating a record of something further of the fundamental beliefs of the world's youth, connected with and extending the question of the remote origin of the ideas at the root of so many grotesques in church art. The Fox in Church Art. [Illustration: PREACHING FOX, CHRISTCHURCH, HAMPSHIRE.] The Fox, apostrophized as follows: "O gentle one among the beasts of prey O eloquent and comely-faced animal!" as an important subject in mediæval art, has two distinct places. There is a general impression that there was a great popular literary composition, running through many editions and through many centuries, having its own direct artistic illustration, and a wide indirect illustration which, later, by its ability to stand alone, had broken away from close connection with the epic, yet possessed a derivative identity with it. Closer examination, however, proves that there is indeed the Fox in its particular literature with its avowed illustrations, but also that there is the Fox in mediæval art, illustrative of ideas partly found in literature, but illustrative of no particular work, and yet awaiting a key. Each is a separate and distinct thing. Among the grotesques of our churches there are some references to the literary "Reynard the Fox," but they are few and far between; while numerous most likely and prominent incidents of Reynard's career, as narrated in the poem, have no place among the carvings. The subjects of the carvings are mostly so many variations of the idea of the Fox turned ecclesiastic and preying upon his care and congregation; and in this he is assisted by the ape, who also takes sides with him in carvings of other proceedings; but in none of these scenes is there evidence of reference to the epic. A great point of difference, too, lies in the conclusion of the epic, and the conclusion of Reynard's life as shewn in the carvings. In the epic, the King makes Reynard the Lord Chancellor and favourite. The end of the Fox of church art, however, is far different; several sculptures agree in shewing him hanged by a body of geese. In the epic, Reynard's victims are many. The deaths of the Hare and the Ram afford good circumstantial pictures, yet in the carvings there is neither of these; and it is scarcely Reynard who plots, and sins, and conceals, but a more vulgar fox who concerns himself, chiefly about geese, in an open, verminous way, while many of the sculptures are little more than natural history illustrations, in which we see _vulpes_, but not the Fox. To enable, however, a fair comparison to be made between literature and art in this byway, it will be as well to glance at the history of the poem, and lay down a brief analysis of its episodes; and, next, to present sketches of some typical examples from the carvings. Much of ancient satire owes its origin to that description of fable which bestows the attributes and capacities of the human race upon the lower animals, which are made to reason and to speak. Their mental processes and their actions are entirely human, although their respective animal characteristics are often used to accentuate their human character. In every animal Edward Carpenter sees varying sparks of the actual mental life we call human, in, it may be added, arrested or perverted development, in which, in each instance, one characteristic has immeasurably prevailed. For the animal qualities, whether human or not in kind, man has ever had a sympathetic recognition, which has made both symbol and fable easily acceptable. Perhaps symbolism, which for so many ages has taken the various animals as figures to intelligibly express abstract qualities, gave rise to fable. If so, fable may be considered the grotesque of symbolism. The same ideas--of certain qualities--are taken from their original serious import, and used to amuse, and, while amusing, to strike. On the other hand, Grimm asserts that animal-fable arose in the Netherlands, North France, and West Germany, extending neither to the Romance countries, nor to the Keltic; whereas we find animal symbolism everywhere. Grimm's statement may be taken to speak, perhaps, of a certain class of fable, and the countries he names are certainly where we should expect to find the free-est handling of superstitions. His arguments are based on the Germanic form of the names given to the beasts, but his localities seem to follow the course of the editions. Perhaps special causes, and not the influence of race, decided the localities. The earliest trace of a connected animal-fable is of that which is also the most wide-spread and popular--the history of the Fox. This early production is a poem, called _Isengrinus_, in Latin hexameters, by a cleric of South Flanders, whose name has not survived. It was written in the first half of the twelfth century, and first printed, it is said, so late as 1834. In this, the narrative is briefly as follows:--The Lion is sick, and calls a court to choose his successor. Reynard is the only animal that does not appear. The Wolf, Isengrinus, to ruin Reynard's adherents, the Goat and the Ram, prescribes as a remedy for the Lion's disorder a medicine of Goat and Ram livers. They defend the absent Reynard, and pronounce him a great doctor, and, to save their livers, drive the Wolf by force from before the throne. Reynard is summoned. He comes with herbs, which, he says, will only be efficacious if the patient is wrapped in the skin of a wolf four years old. The Wolf is skinned, the Lion is cured, and Fox made Chancellor. In this story is neatly dovetailed another, narrating how the Wolf had been prevented from devouring a party of weak pilgrim animals by the judicious display of a wolf's head. This head was cut off a wolf found hanging in a tree, and, at Reynard's instigation, the party, on the strength of possessing it, led the Wolf to believe them to be a company of professional wolf-slayers. After this poem followed another at the end of the same century with numerous additions and alterations, by a monk of Ghent. Next came a high German poem, also of the twelfth century, expanded, but without great addition. After this came the French version, Roman de Renart, which, with supplementary compositions, enlarged the matter to no less than 41,748 verses. There is another French version, called Renart le Contrefet, of nearly the same horrible length. A Flemish version, written in the middle of the thirteenth century, and continued in the fourteenth, became the great father of editions. All these were in verse, but on the invention of printing the Flemish form was re-cast into prose, and printed at Gouda in 1479, and at Delft in 1485; abridged and mutilated it was often re-printed in Holland. Caxton printed a translation in 1481, and another a few years later. The English quarto, like the Dutch, also gave rise in time to a call for a cheap abridgment, and it appeared in 1639, as "The Most delectable history of Reynard the Fox." Meanwhile a Low Saxon form had appeared, "Reinche Bos," first printed at Lubeck in 1498, and next at Rostock in 1517, a translation, with alterations, from the Flemish publication. Various other editions in German followed, with cuts by Amman. In all these and their successors the incidents were varied. Having seen that, within at least certain limits, the story must have been exceedingly well-known and popular, we will run through the incidents narrated in the most popular of the German Reynard poems, chiefly taken from Goethe's rendering. Nouvel, the Lion, calls a parliament, and the Fox does not appear, and is accused of various crimes. The Wolf accuses him of sullying the honour of his wife, and blinding his three children. A little Dog accuses him of stealing a pudding end (this the Cat denies, stating that the pudding was one of her own stealing). The Leopard accuses him of murder, having only the day before rescued the Hare from his clutch as he was throttling him, under pretence of severity in teaching the Creed. The Badger, Grimbart, now comes forward in defence. "An ancient proverb says, quoth he, Justice in an enemy Is seldom to be found." He accuses the Wolf in his turn of violating the bonds of partnership. The Fox and the Wolf had arranged to rob a fish-cart. The Fox lay for dead on the road, and the carter, taking him up, threw him on the top of the load of fish, turning to his horse again. Reynard then threw the fish on to the road, and jumping down to join in the feast found left for him but fin and scales. The Badger explains away also the story of Reynard's guilt as to Dame Isengrin, and, with regard to the Hare, asks if a teacher shall not chastise his scholars. In short, since the King proclaimed a peace, Reynard was thoroughly reformed, and but for being absorbed in penance would no doubt have been present to defend himself from any false reports. Unfortunately for this justification, at the very moment of its conclusion a funeral procession passes; "On sable bier The relics of a Hen appear," while Henning, the Cock, makes a piteous complaint of Reynard's misdeeds. He said how the Fox had "Assured him he'd become a friar, And brought a letter from his prior; Show'd him his hood and shirt of hair, His rosary and scapulaire; Took leave of him with pious grace, That he might hasten to his place To read the nona and the sept, And vesper too before he slept; And as he slowly took his way, Read in his pocket breviary." all of which ended in the devout penitent eating nineteen of Henning's brood. The Lion invites his council's advice. It is decided to send an envoy to Reynard, and Bruno, the Bear, is selected to summon him to court. Bruno finds him at his castle of Malepart, and thunders a summons. Reynard, by plausible speech and a story of honey, disarms some of his hostility, and entices him off to a carpenter's yard, where an oak trunk, half split, yet has the wedge in. Reynard declaring the honey is in the cleft, Bruno puts his head and paws in. Reynard draws out the wedge. The Bear howls till the whole village is aroused, and Bruno, to save his life, draws himself out minus skin from head and paws. In the confusion the parson's cook falls into the stream, and the parson offers two butts of beer to the man who saves her. While this is being done, the Bear escapes, and the Fox taunts him. The Bear displaying his condition at court, the King swears to hang Reynard, this time sending Hinge, the Cat, to summon Reynard to trial. Hinge is lured to the parson's house in hopes of mice, and caught in a noose fixed for Reynard. The household wake, and beat the Cat, who dashes underneath the priest's robe, revenging himself in a cruel and unseemly way. The Cat is finally left apparently dead, but reviving, gnaws the cord, and crawls back to court. "The King was wroth, as wroth could be." The Badger now offers to go, three times being the necessary number for summoning a peer of the realm. He puts the case plainly before Reynard, who agrees to come, and they set out together. On the way Reynard has a fit of remorse, and confesses his sins. Grimbart plucks a twig, makes the Fox beat himself, leap over it three times, kiss it; and then declares him free from his sins. All the time Reynard casts a greedy eye on some chickens, and makes a dash at one shortly after. Accused by Grimbart, he declares he had only looked aside to murmur a prayer for those who die in "yonder cloister." "And also I would say A prayer for the endless peace Of many long-departed geese, Which, when in a state of sin, I stole from the nuns who dwell therein." The Fox arrives at court with a proud step and a bold eye. He is accused, but "Tried every shift and vain pretence To baffle truth and common sense, And shield his crimes with eloquence." In vain. He is condemned to die. His friend Martin the Ape, Grimbart the Badger, and others withdraw in resentment, and the King is troubled. At the gallows Reynard professes to deliver a dying confession, and introduces a story of seven waggon-loads of gold and jewels which had been a secret hoard of his father, stolen for the purpose of bribing chiefs to depose the Lion and place the Bear on the throne. Reynard is pardoned on condition of pointing out the treasure. He declares it to be in Husterlo, but excuses himself from accompanying the King on his way there, as he, Reynard, is excommunicated for once assisting the Wolf to escape from a monastery, and must, therefore, go to Rome to get absolution. The King announces his pardon to the court. The Bear and Wolf are thrown into prison, and Reynard has a scrip made of a piece of the Bear's hide, and shoes of the skin of the feet of the Wolf and his wife. Blessed by Bellin the Ram, who is the King's chaplain, and accompanied a short distance by the whole court, he sets out for Rome. The chaplain Ram and Lampe the Hare, accompany him home to bid his wife farewell. He inveigles the Hare inside, and the family eat him. He puts the Hare's head in the bear-skin wallet, and taking it to the impatient Bellin outside, asks him to take it to the King, as it contains letters of state policy. The satchel is opened in full court, and Reynard once more proclaimed a traitor, accursed and banned, the Bear and Wolf restored, and the Ram and all his race given to them for atonement. A twelve-day tourney is held. On the eighth day the Coney and the Crow present complaint against Reynard; he had wounded the Coney, and eaten the Crow's wife. It is resolved, in spite of the Lioness's second intercession, to besiege Malepart and hang Reynard. Grimbart secretly runs off to warn Reynard, who decides to return to court once more and plead his cause. They set out together, and Reynard again confesses his sins. This introduces a story of how he once fooled the Wolf. Isengrin coveted to eat a foal, and sent the Fox to inquire the price from the mare. She replied the price was written on her hinder hoof. The Fox, seeing the trick, returned to the Wolf saying he could not understand the inscription. The Wolf boasts of his learning, having long ago taken his degrees as Doctor of Both Faculties. The Wolf bends down to examine the newly-shod hoof, and the rest may be supposed. On their way to court, Reynard and Grimbart meet Martin the Ape, who is bound for Rome, and promises his gold shall buy Reynard's absolution. Arrived at court, Reynard boldly explains away the stories of the Coney and the Crow, and demands the trial by battle. The Coney and Crow, having no witnesses, and being averse to battle, withdraw. Reynard accuses the dead Bellin of killing the Hare Lampe and secreting rare jewels he sent to the King. His story is half believed in the hope that the jewels, which he described at great length, may be found. Reynard's former services to the state are remembered, and he is about to depart triumphant, when the Wolf, unable to restrain his rage, accuses him afresh. In the end, as each accusation is smoothly foiled, he accepts the wager of battle. They withdraw to prepare for the lists. Reynard is shorn and shaven, all but his tail, by his relatives the Apes. He is well oiled. He is also enjoined to drink plentifully overnight. They meet in the lists. Reynard kicks up the dust to blind the Wolf, draws his wet tail across his eyes, and at length tears an eye out. He is, however, seized by the Wolf's strong jaw, and is about to be finished off when he takes advantage of a word of parley to seize the wolf in a tender part with his hand, and the fight recommences, ending in the total overthrow of Isengrin. The King orders the fray to be stayed and the Wolf's life spared. The Wolf is carried off. All fly to congratulate the victor, "All gazed in his face with fawning eyes, And loaded him with flatteries." The King makes him the Lord Chancellor and takes him to his close esteem. The tale winds up: "To wisdom now let each one turn, Avoid the base and virtue learn; This is the end of Reynard's story, May God assist us to His glory." [Illustration: THE FOX RETURNING FROM HUNTING, MANCHESTER.] The above is the gist of the matter dealing with the Fox in letters; from these lively images we will turn to the more wooden achievements of the carvers. The general fact that the Fox is a marauder specially fond of the flesh of that bird of long descent, the goose, but also partial to that of other birds, is frequently illustrated by church carvings. In the churches at the following places he is carved as having seized his prey:--Beverley (Minster), Boston, Fairford, Faversham, Gloucester, Hereford, Norwich, Oxford (Magdalen), Peterborough, Ripon, Wellingborough, Winchester, and Windsor (St. George's Chapel). At the last-named he is also shewn as preying upon a hen. At Beverley (Minster) Ely, Manchester, and Thanet (St. Mary's Minster) the picture of the abduction of the goose is heightened in interest by his pursuit by a woman armed with a distaff. Doubtless there are others; the object throughout is to give examples, not an exhaustive list. A somewhat unusual subject is one in Manchester Cathedral, in which the Fox is returning from hunting. A carving where the Fox is used to point a moral is another, in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, in which three monks, conveyed in a wheel-barrow into Hell's Mouth, are accompanied by a Fox with a goose in his mouth. Probably the idea here broadly expressed is intended to be quietly suggested by some of the above. Next in frequency is the more definite satire of the Fox preaching to Geese. We find it at Beverley (both the Minster and St. Mary's), Boston, Bristol, Cartmel, Ely, Etchingham, Nantwich, Ripon, Stowlangcroft, and Windsor (St. George's Chapel). In the last he has a goose in his cowl. All those need for their completion the supposition that the text of the Fox's sermon is the same as was given at length in a representation of a preaching scene on an ancient stained-glass window in the church of St. Martin, Leicester, which was unhappily destroyed in the last century. In this, from the Fox's mouth proceeded the words "Testis est mihi Deus, quam cupiam vos omnes visceribus meus" (God is my witness how I desire you all in my bowels.--Philippians, i., 8). In Wolfius, A.D. 1300, is a description of another such representation, in a MS. of Æsop's Fables. It may accord quite well with the theory of the transmission of designs by the continuity of the artificers' gild system to suppose that some proportion of the material found its way into their repertoire through the medium of manuscripts (not necessarily original in them), especially for such subjects as were essentially mediæval. We have seen how the carvings of Jonah and of Samson, at Ripon, were taken from the Poor Man's Bible; here we have the Preaching Fox mentioned in a book of 1300 as being in an earlier work. A Fox bearing two Cocks by the neck on a staff is the initial T in a MS. considered by Montflaucon to be of the ninth century. Fredegarius, the Frankish historian, in the middle of the seventh century, has a fable of a Fox at the court of the Lion, repeated by others in the tenth and eleventh. Paulin Paris and Thomas Wright agreed in thinking the whole fable of French origin, and first in the Latin tongue. So that we may reasonably suppose that the countless tons of books and MSS. (though it is useless to grope now among the mere memories of ashes), burnt at the Reformation, would contain much that would have made clearer our understanding of this subject of Gothic grotesques. It is clear, however, that the Fox was used as a means of satirical comment before the writing of the Isengrine Fable, and that most of the church carvings refer to what we may call pre-Fable or co-Fable conceptions. There may be other material lying hidden in our great libraries, but search for early Reynard drawings produces almost nothing. At Ripon the Fox is shewn without vestments, in a neat Gothic pulpit adorned with carvings of the trefoil.[8] His hands, and what they may have held, are gone. His congregation is to his right a goose, to his left a cock, who appear to be uttering responses, while his face is significant of conscious slyness. [Illustration: THE PREACHING FOX, RIPON.] In Beverley Minster the Preaching Fox is in a square panelled pulpit on four legs; before him are seven geese, one of whom slumbers peacefully. He wears a gown and cowl, has a rosary in his right hand, and appears to be performing his part with some animation. Behind the pulpit stands an ape with a goose hung on a stick, while another fox--to give point to the lesson--is slinking off with a goose slung over his back. At St. Mary's, Beverley, the various carvings have a decidedly manuscript appearance. The one of the Preaching Fox has labels, upon which, in some unknown original, may have been inscribed texts or other matter. Here the Fox wears only his "scapulaire," and has his right hand raised in correct exhortative manner; his pulpit is of stone, and is early. Behind stand two persons, perhaps male and female, whose religious dress would lead us to suppose them to represent the class to whose teaching a fox-like character is to be attributed. At the front are seated two apes, also in scapularies, or hoods, who, as well as the Fox, may be here to shew the real character of the supposed sanctified. [Illustration: THE RULE AND THE ROAST CONTRASTED, ST. MARY'S, BEVERLEY.] It will have been noticed how frequently the carvings evade explanation; all these satires on the clergy may mean either that the system was bad, or that there was much abuse of it. A remarkable instance of this is in another misericorde in St. Mary's, Beverley. Here we have the Benedictine with mild and serene countenance, without a sign of sin, and bearing the scroll of truth and simplicity of life--call it the rule of his order. Yet how do many of his followers act? With greed for the temporalities, they aspire to the pastoral crook, and devour their flocks with such rapacity as to threaten the up-rooting of the whole order. [Illustration: THE PREACHING FOX, ST. MARY'S, BEVERLEY.] Such might be one rendering; yet the placid cleric may be simply introduced to shew the outward appearance of the ravening ones. It has been a favourite explanation of these anti-cleric carvings to say that they were due to the jealousy which existed between the regular orders and the preaching friars. But carvings such as this last are sufficient to prove the explanation erroneous; preaching friars carried no croziers. Yet another instance from St. Mary's shews us two foxes in scapularies reading from a book placed on an eagle-lectern. [Illustration: FOXES AT THE LECTERN, ST. MARY'S, BEVERLEY.] The bird--lectern or not--has round its head a kind of aureola or glory; it is probably an eagle, but who shall say it is not a dove? The religiously-garbed foxes are alone unmistakable. At Boston we have a mitred Fox, enthroned in the episcopal seat in full canonicals, clutching at a cock which stands near, while another bird is at the side. Close by the throne, another fox, in a cowl only, is reading from a book. At Christchurch, Hampshire, we see the Fox on a seat-elbow, in a pulpit of good design, and near him, on a stool, the Cock; it appears in the initial of this article. At Worcester, a scapularied Fox is kneeling before a small table or altar, laying his hand with an affectation of reverence upon--a sheep's head. This is one of the side carvings to the misericorde of the three mowers, considered under the head of "Trinities." [Illustration: EPISCOPAL HYPOCRISY, BOSTON.] The Fox seizing the Hen, at Windsor, reminds of the Fable, yet in so many other instances it is the Cock who is the prey. Still further removing the carvings out of the sphere of the Fable is a carving at Chicester of the Fox playing the harp to a goose, while an ape dances; and another at St. George's, Windsor, in which it is an ape who wears the stole, and is engaged in the laying on of hands. In the Fable the Fox teaches the Hare the Creed, yet in a carving at Manchester it is his two young cubs whom he is teaching from a book. The Fox in the Shell of Salvation, artfully discoursing on the merits of a bottle of holy water, as drawn on page 58, may be considered a Preaching Fox. There is at Nantwich a carving which, unlike any of those already noticed, is closely illustrative of an incident of the epic. It represents the story told to Nouvel's court by the widower Crow. He and his wife, in travelling through the country, came across what they thought was the dead body of Reynard on the heath. He was stiff, his tongue protruded, his eyes were inverted. They lamented his unhappy fate, and "course so early run." The lady approached his chin, not, indeed, with any idea of commencing a meal; far from that, it was to ascertain if perchance any signs of life remained, when--snap! Her head was off! The Crow himself had the melancholy luck to fly to a tree, there to sit and watch his wife eaten up. In the carving we have the crows first coming upon the sight of the counterfeit carrion as it lies near a rabbit warren. To shew how perfect is Reynard's semblance of death, the rear portions of two rabbits are to be seen as they hurry into their holes on the approach of the crows, the proximity of the Fox not having previously alarmed them. The side figures have no simultaneous connection with the central composition, being merely representations of Reynard, once more as a larder regarder. The pilgrim's hat, borne by one of the figures, is a further reminder of the Fable, and the monkish garb is of course in keeping. These two are somewhat singular in being fox-headed men. At Chester, also, is a Fox feigning death. [Illustration: THE FOX FEIGNING DEATH, NANTWICH.] [Illustration: THE TEMPTATION. THE PUNISHMENT. THE WAKE KNOT. BEVERLEY MINSTER.] Thus far the examples have been of Reynard's crimes; we will now survey his punishment. In the fable he was to be hanged, but was not, the Wolf and the Bear, whom he always outwitted, being the disappointed executioners. In the carvings he is really hanged, and the hangsmen are the geese of his despoliation. Beverley Minster has among its fine carvings an admirable rendering of this subject. Reynard is hanged on a square gallows, a number of birds, geese, taking a beak at the rope. To the left of the gallows stand two official geese, with mace and battle-axe. The left supplementary carving gives a note of the crime; Reynard is creeping upon two sleeping geese. The right hand supporting carving gives us the Fox after being cut down. His friend, the Ape, is untying the rope from his neck. Observe the twist of the rope at the end; it declares that Reynard is dead, for it is a Wake Knot! Also at Boston, Bristol, Nantwich, and Sherborne are carvings of the hanging by geese. The gallows of the Sherborne execution is square, and made of rough trees. The general action is less logical than in the Beverley scene, but the geese are full of vivacity, evidently enjoying the thoroughness with which they are carrying out their intentions. [Illustration: EXECUTION OF REYNARD, SHERBORNE.] In the hanging scenes there is no suggestion of the religious dress. Reynard has lost his Benefit of Clergy. Besides the carving of the Ape laying out the dead Fox, at Beverley there are also others where the Ape is riding on the Fox's back, and again where he is tending him in bed. The Ape succouring the Fox is also instanced at Windsor. However, after the two broad classes of carvings are exhausted--the Fox deluding or eating birds, and the Fox hanged by birds, there is little left to tell of him. It may be added that his hanging by his one-time victims has suggested to the carver another subject of the same kind--the hanging of the cat by mice, or, more probably, rats, mentioned on page 43. It is there stated to be at Sherborne, in error, the place being Great Malvern. [Illustration: EXECUTION OF THE CAT, GREAT MALVERN.] The following curious scene from the Fox-fruitful church of St. Mary's, Beverley, is perplexing, and gives the Fox receiving his quietus under unique circumstances. He is, with anxiety, awaiting the diagnosis of an ape-doctor, who is critically examining urinary deposits; his health has been evidently not all he could wish. When, lo, an arrow, from the bow of an archer in quilted leather, pierces him through the heart! What more this carving means is a mystery. [Illustration: REYNARD IN DANGER, ST. MARY'S, BEVERLEY.] Carvings of the ordinary fables in which the Fox is concerned are not unknown. At Faversham, Kent, is one of the Fox and the Grapes; at Chester is the Fox and the Stork. The latter is, again, on a remarkable slab, probably a coffin lid, in the Priory Church of Bridlington, East Yorkshire, the strange combination of designs on which may be described. At the head appear two curious dragon forms opposed over an elaborate embattled temple, suggestive of Saxon and Byzantine derivation, with a central pointed arch. This may be a rendering of the sun-myth, noted on page 37. At the foot is a reversed lion, the curls and twists of whose mane and tail closely resembles those of the white porcelain lions used by the Chinese as incense-burners. Between the temple and the lion is incised an illustration of the fable of the Fox and the Stork. The slab, of which a rough sketch is annexed, is of black basaltic marble, similar to that of the font of the church, which is of the type generally considered to be Norman, and to have been imported ready made from Flanders, and on which dragons are sometimes the ornament. The Fox on this slab is the earliest sculptured figure of the animal known in England. [Illustration: COFFIN LID, BRIDLINGTON, YORKSHIRE.] There are also hunting scenes in which the fox is shot with bow and arrow, as in Beverley Minster; or chased with hounds in a way more commending itself to modern sporting ideas, as at Ripon. In conclusion, the satirical intent of the fox inventions, as we find them in the library or in the church, may be summed up, for here indeed lies the whole secret of their prevalence and popularity. The section of society satirized by the epic is large, but is principally covered by the feudal institution. The notes struck are its greed of wealth and its greed of the table, its injustice under the pretext of laws, its expedient lying, the immunity from punishment afforded by riches, the absolute yet revolution-fearing power of the sovereign, the helplessness of nobles single-handed, and the general influence of religion thrown over everything, while for its own sake being allowed to really influence nothing. The chief point of the epic is generally considered to be that power in the hands of the feudal barons was accompanied by a trivial amount of intelligence, which was easily deceived by the more astute element of society. The carvings give no note of this. A further object, however, may be seen. The whole story of the Fox is meant not only to shew that "It is not strength that always wins, For wit doth strength excel," by playing on the passions and weaknesses of mankind, but in particular to hold up to scorn the immunity procured by professional religion, though it is fair to note that the Fox does not adopt a religious life because suited to his treacherous and deceitful character, but to conceal it. Thus so far as they elucidate the general "foxiness" of religious hypocrisy, the carvings and the epic illustrate the same theme, but it is evident that they embodied and developed already-existing popular recognition of the evil, each in its own way, and without special reference one to the other. Situations of the Grotesque Ornament in Church Art. The places chosen for the execution of the work which, by reason of its intention or its want of conformity with what we now consider a true taste in art, may be styled Grotesque, do not seem to be in any marked degree different from the situations selected for other ornamental work. It may, however, be permitted to glance at those situations, and enquire as to such comparisons as they afford, though the conclusions to be arrived at must necessarily be loose and general. In Norman work the chief iconographical interest is to be found in the capitals of pilasters and pillars, for here is often told a story of some completeness. Other places are the arches, chiefly of doorways; bosses of groining, and the horizontal corners of pillar plinths; exteriorly, the gargoyles are most full of meaning, seconded by the corbels of the corbel-table. We may expect in Norman grotesque some reference to ancient mystics; the forms are bold and rugged, such appearance of delicacy as exists being attained by interlacing lines in conventional patterns, with, also, the effect of distance upon repeating ornament. Transitional Norman retained all the characteristic ornament of the purer style, but with the development of Early English the grotesque for a time somewhat passed out of vogue, slight but eminently graceful modifications of the Corinthian acanthus supplying most of the places where strange beasts had formerly presented their bewildering shapes. It might not be impossible to connect this partial purification of ornament with a phase of church history. [Illustration: APE CORBEL, CARRYING ROOF TIMBER, EWELME.] But in some portions of structure, as the gargoyles, and in the woodwork of the choirs, the grotesque still held its own. As Early English grew distinctly into the Decorated, every available spot was enriched with carving. The collections (called "portfolios" elsewhere) of the old carvers would seem to have been ransacked and exhausted, all that had gone before receiving fresh rendering in wood and stone, while life and nature were now often called upon to furnish new material. The pointed arch remained, however, an undecorated sweep of mouldings, and the plinth corners were rarely touched; in fact there was here scarcely now the same squareness of space which before had asked for ornament. All the other places ornamented in Norman work were filled up in Decorated with the new designs of old subjects. The resting-places of ornament were multiplied; the dripstones of every kind of arch, and the capitals of every kind of pillar, whether in the arcading of the walls, the heaped-up richness of the reredos, or the single subject of the piscina, became nests of the grotesque. In a single group of sedilia all the architecture of a great cathedral may be seen in miniature, in arch, column, groined roof, boss, window-tracery, pinnacle, and finial, each part with its share of ornament, of grotesque. In the choirs the carvers had busied themselves with summoning odd forms from out the hard oak, till the croches or elbow-rests, the bench ends, the stall canopies, and below all, and above all, the misericordes, swarmed with all the ideas of Asia and Europe past and present. Musicians are everywhere, but most persistently on the intersections of the choir arches, and somewhat less so on those of the nave. [Illustration: MISERICORDE--LION COMPOSITION, WELLINGBOROUGH.] A favourite place for humourous figures was on the stone brackets or corbels which bear up timber roofs; examples are in the ape corbel in this article, and the responsible yet happy-looking saint at the end of the list of Contents. When the Perpendicular style came with other arts from Italy, and the lavish spread of the Decorated was chastened and over-chastened into regularity, there came for the second or third time the same ideas from the never-dying mythologies, their concrete embodiments sometimes with eloquence rendered, nearly always with vigour. They came to the old places, but in most fulness to that most full place, the dark recess where lurks the misericorde. Upon the whole it would appear that the grotesque, be it in the relics of a long-forgotten symbolism, in crude attempts at realism, or in the fantastic whimseys of irresponsibility, is chiefly met in the portions of the church where would occur, in the development of architecture, the problems and difficulties. They occur, so to speak, at the joints of construction. It may be that the pluteresques (grotesque and other ornaments made of metal) employed in many Spanish churches are to be accounted for in this way on the score of the facility of attachment. Where it may be questioned that the ornament was to conceal juncture, it is often to be acknowledged that it was to give external apparent lightness to masses which are in themselves joints or centres of weight. To conclude--to whatever extent we may carry our inquiries into the meaning of the grotesques in church art, we have in them undoubtedly objects whose associations are among the most ancient of the human race; whatever our opinion of their fitness for a place in the temple, it is plain that practically they could be nowhere else. [Illustration: MUSICIAN ON THE INTERSECTION OF NAVE ARCHES, ST. HELEN'S, ABINGDON, BERKSHIRE.] INDEX. Index. Abdominal Mask, 91 Abingdon, 18, 72, 218, and Preface Aboo-Simbel Trinity, 177 Abydos Trinity, 177 Acanthus, 149-50, 214 Adam, 61, 62, 74; and Eve, 112, 120 Adam Clarke, 74 Adel, Yorkshire, 127 Adonai, 168 Adonis, 168 Adoration, the, 113-5 Ælian, 50 Æsculapius, 42 _Æsop's Fables_, 196 Africa, 66 Agni, 178 Aix-la-Chapelle, 46 Akori, 178 Alcock, Bishop, 10, 92, 173 Ale and the Alewife, 99-105 Alewife, 97 Alehouses, 99 Ale-taster, 100 Alexander, 71 Alexandria, 34 All Souls, Oxford, 71, 76, 104-5, 150-1 Alraun images, 28 Altar of the Sun, 37-39 Ambarvalia, 48 American Arms, 179 American-Indian mythology, 159 American-Indian Trinity, 177 Amman, Justus, 188 Ammon, 42, 72, 158 Amun-Ra, 177 _Ancient Mysteries described_, 180 Ancient Worships, 27-59, 64-77, 152-3, 157-168, 175-183 Angel Choir, Lincoln, 3, 9 Angel (coin), 47 Angels, 63 Animal Musicians, 152-6 Animal symbolism, 35 Anthony pig, the, 154 Anuka, 178 Archers, 205, 209-10 Ape, the, 59, 28-9, 145, 152, 156, 192-4, 198, 201, 203, 207-10, 214 Aphrodite, 168 Apocryphal New Testament, the, 60, 112 Apollo, 21, 46, 162, 165 April, 141 Apuleius, 41 Architectural Museum, Tufton Street, the, 12, 167, 169, 174 Arimanes, 176 Arles, the Council of, 29 Arma palantes, 173 Arthur, King, 69 Artistic quality of Church grotesques, 19-23, 61 _Art Journal, the_, 66 Asir, 45 Assyrian myth, 34, 157, 181 Assyrians, no record of their humour, 6 Astronomical symbols a source of Gothic design, 4, 27-8, 37-59, 73, 157-68, 177 Atahuata, 177 Aten, 168 Athor, 111, 157, 167, 177-8 Athyr, 167 Attic figurines, 28 Auckland Castle, 155 Augsburgh, (?) Council of, 30 "Auld Clootie," 70 "Auld Hornie," 70 Aurva, 53 Avarice, 87, 91-95 Averus (Horus), 50 Baalim, 28 Babylonian myth, 34 Bacon, 142, 154 Bacchus, 69, 73, 158 Backbiter, 82-84 Badger Grimbart, 189, 191-3 Bagpipes, 103, 152, 155 Ba-it, 178 Baker, 105 Bakewell, Derbyshire, 130-1 Baldini and Boticelli, 84 Baptism of John, the, 117-8 Barton, Lincs., 174 Basketsful of Children, 63 Bayle, a kind of dance, 147 Beakheads, 125-6 Bear Bruno, 190-3 Bear, the, 152-156 Beard, the, 72 Bedford, 175 _Beehive of the Romishe Church_, 180 Bellin the Ram, 192 Berkshire, 18, 72, 125, 129, 218 Bestiaries, the, 73 Beverley, Percy Shrine at, 3; Carvings at, 13, 39, 40, 54, 57, 63, 87, 112, 120-3, 130, 133-6, 144, 152, 154-5, 159, 173, 182, 195-6, 198-9, 201-2, 208-11 Bhu, 42 Bible (as Old and New Testaments), 176 Biblia Pauperum, 113 Birch, Dr., 158 Birds, 4, 9, 22, 38, 39 Bishop Foxes, 199, 203 Bishops Stortford, 109 Blashill, Mr. Thomas, 106 Bo, Bo-tree. Bod, Bog, Boggart, Boivani, Bolay, Boo, Bouders, Boudons, Boroon, Bormania, Borr, Borvo, Bouljanus, Brog, Bug, Bugbear, Buggaboo, Buka, 66, 69 Boar, 139-40, 152 Boar's Head, 69, 139 Bodleian Library, 16, 63 Bolton, Bishop, 173 Boston, Lincolnshire, 195, 196, 202, 208 Boutell, Rev. C., 25 Bow and arrow, 162-5 Boy (Bog), 69 Brahma, 178 Brahminic Trinity, 178 Breast, removal of, 165 Bridge, Kent, 75 Bridlington Priory Church, Yorks, 15, 210-1 Bristol, 196, 208 British Museum, 62 Bruno the Bear, 190-3 Buckle Mask, 125 Bull, the, 41-2, 72-3, 85, 88-9, 91, 159 Bur, 45 Byzantine ideas, 127 Byzantium, 35 Caimis, 50 _Calendarum Romanorum Magnum_, 141 Calf, 73 Cama, 50 Cambridge, 10, 92, 133 Cambridgeshire, 74 Candlemas, 42, 140 Canterbury, 139 Canting heraldry, 173 Caricature in part explained, 3 Carpenter, Mr. Edward, 186 Cartmel, 180, 196 Carvers, 9-18 Cat, the, 156, 189, 191, 209 Cat and Fiddle, the, 39-43 Cat-heads, 126 Caxton, 170, 188 Cedranus, 143-4 Centaur, 161-6 Cerealia, 48 Ceres, 72, 153, 158 Cestus, 165 Chairs, 141 Châlons, Council of, 143 Chandra, Chandri, 43 Cherubim, 73, 159, 161 Chester, 60, 77, 103, 207, 210 Chichester, 72, 75, 124, 141, 157, 181, 182, 203 Chiron the Centaur, 162 Chnoumis, 178 Chonso, 177 Christ, 30, 48, 60-62, 104, 114-20 Christchurch (Hants), 21, 33, 172, 184, 202 Christmas, 139-40, 144 _Chronicles, the Book of_, 176 Church symbolism, expediency, etc., 31 Ciaran (St.), 162 Clergy, the, 97, 111 Cneph, 177 Cock, the, 184, 197-8, 202-3 Compound Forms, 37, 111, 157-168 Coney, the, 193, 204-5 Conscience, 170-1 Constantinople, Council of, 30; Byzantium, 35 Continuous group, 149 Conventional form a matter of development, 3 Corinthian Acanthus, 149-50, 214 Corpus Christi Play, 142-3 _Cosmographiæ Universalis_, 172 Cotton MSS., 82, 147 Councils, Arles, 29; Augsburgh (?), 30; Constantinople, 30; Frankfurt, 30, 99; Narbonne, 30; Nicea, 30; Orleans, 29; Tours, 30; Nice, 36; Milan, 36 Coventry, 60, 142 Cow, the, 41 Creators, Mythological, 176-8 Crescent, the, 41, 42 Cripple, 145, 147 Crocodile, 44-5 Crórásura, 153 Cross, the, 43 Crow and his wife, the, 193, 204-5 Croziers, 198, 202 Crusaders, 47 Culham, Berkshire, 125 Cupid, 50, 51, 53-55 Dance, 40, 43, 144, 147 David, King, 62 Decorated Carvings, 214-217 Deer, 140 Definitions of the Grotesque, 5-8 De la Wich, Bishop, 181 Delft, 188 Derbyshire, 130-1 Design, Continuity of Gothic, 4 Detractors, 82-3 Devil and the Vices, the, 78-98 Devil, the, 47, 69, 70, 77, 103-5 Devils, 63, 119 Diana, 32, 40-43, 73 Diapason, the, 41 Dillin pig, the, 154 Disc of the Sun, 167-8 Distaff, 195 Dog, 5, 19, 21, 40, 42, 142, 159-60, 189 Domestic and Popular, the, 134-151 Donnington, Thomas (1520), 174 Dorchester Abbey, Oxon., 60, 64-5, 121-2, 133, 159-60 Dragons, 26, 37, 44-57, 60, 64-66, 84, 127, 165, 177, 211 Drake (dragon), 47 Druidical Tau, 43-4 Drum (Tabor), 97 Durer, Albert, 61 Durham, 155 Eagle, the, 22, 37, 148, 158-9, 202 Early English Carvings, 214 Eastern ideas, 9-10, 34-5 Eden, 73, 76 Edgeware, 102 Edward the Confessor, 9 Edward III., 17 Edward IV., 49 Egypt, 34, 43-45 Egyptians, little record of their humour, 6 Egyptian myth, etc., 34, 41-5, 47-8, 50-6, 157-8, 177-8 Egyptian Trinities, 177-8 Eicton, 177 Elephantine Trinity, 178 Ely, 74, 80-1, 84, 105, 166, 195-6 Equinoxes, the, 175 Eschol, 171 Esculapius, 178 Etchingham, 196 Evans, Mr. E. P., 35, 85 Evil, Images of, 1, 26, 33 Eve, 62, 74 Ewelme, Oxon., Carvings at, 1, 65, 67 (not Dorchester), 76, 127-8, 214 Exeter, 4, 39, 165, 168, 181 Ezekiel, 159 Fable, 186 Fafnir the Dragon, 46 Fairford, 195 Fairies, 66 Falx, the, 57 Farnsham, 65 Fates, the, 178 Fauns, 69 Faversham, Kent, 180, 195, 210 Feast of Fools, the, 143-7 Feathered Angels, 75-7 Fecundity, Goddess of, 66, 72 Fiddle, 40, 41, 153 Figurines as _lares_, 28 Finedon, Northamptonshire, 125 Fire, 178 Fish, 182 Flagellation, 134 Flanders, a church workshop, 9, 15 Flesh hook, 63, 87, 182 Fleur-de-lys, 39, 179 Flora, 158 Fools, 130 Fools, the Feast of, 143-7 Foreign carvers, 9-18 Fox, the, 58-9, 184-212 Fox and Grapes, the, 210 Fox and Stork, the, 210-1 France, 48 Frankfort, Council of, 30, 99 Fredegarius, 197 Freemasonry, 16, 17 French work for Saxons, 9 Frigga, 53 Freyr, 153 Furies, the, 178 Gallows, the, 207-9 Ganges, the, 172 Gargonilles, 46, 129 Gaul, 66 Gaul, Bishops of, 30 Gauri, 43 Gautier de Coinsi, 36 Gayton, Northants, 81, 86, 87 Geese, Reynard's theft of, etc., 191, 195, 198, 203 Gehul, 153 George IV., 17 German "teraphim," 28; paganism, 30 Germany, Bishops of, 30 Ghent, 188 Gild, continuity the explanation of continuity of design, 4, 35, 196 (_see_ Freemasonry) Gilds, 70 Glasgow, 65, 66, 77 Gloucester, 195 Gluttony, 88 Goat, the, 69, 71-3, 187 Goethe, 189 Golden Bristle, 153 Gorgon, 127 Gothic ornament, uses of, etc., 2, 3; some characteristics of, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 19-23, 24-26, 35-39, 49, 54; not didactic, 24-26; situations of, 213, 218 Gouda, 188 Graces, the, 178 Gravio, Count, 30 Great Malvern, 172, 209 Grecian Trinity, 177 Greek wit, 6; star-worship, 28; myth, 34, 41, 177-8; art, 36-37; symbolism 74; dances, 147 Grimace-makers, 130, 133 Grimbart, the Badger, 189, 191-3 Grimm, 186 Gryphon, 125, 158 Guildford, Surrey, 117-8 Gullinbrusti, 153 Hades, 42, 161 Hænir, 177 Hak, 178 Hampshire, 21, 33, 172 Hanging of the Cat, 209 Hanging of the Fox, 207-8 Hare, the, 106-7, 182, 189, 192, 194, 203 Harleian MSS., 104 Harmachis, 158 Harp, the, 140-1, 153, 154, 155 Harpy, the, 4, 111, 166, 181 Hebrew Teraphim, 28 Hecate, 41, 42 Heliopolis, Trinity of, 178 Hell, 48, 84, 104 Hell's Mouth, 60-63, 103, 196 Hen, the, 195, 203 Henning the Cock, 190 Henry VI., 16, 62 Henry VII.'s Chapel, 10, 91, 95, 148, 156, 173 Henry VIII., 16, 49 Hera, 177 Heraldry, canting, 173 Heraldry and three-fold repetitions, 179 Hercules, 148, 177 Hereford, 195 Herodotus, 28, 50 Hertfordshire, 109 Het-her, 167 Hexagon, symbolic, 179 Hezekiah, 74 Hindoo myth, 28, 42-45, 50, 53, 153, 178 Hinge the Cat, 191 Hippocampus, Lincoln, 26 Hippo-centaurs, 161 Hobgoblins, 66 Hogarth, 20, 21 Holy Cross, Stratford-on-Avon, 60 Holy Trinity, Hull, 139-40 Holderness, 106 Homer, 160 Hone, 180 Hopton, 174 Horace, 157 Horns, 70; Horn, 73 Horse, the, 162, 139 Horse-leech, 110-1 Horus, 45, 48, 50-56, 57, 72, 177, 178 Hull, 10, 100, 139-40 Humour, of nations, 6, 7; defined, 20 Hunting, 140 Huntsman, 139 Husterlo, 192 Hypocrisy, 98 Ibis, 167 Iceland, 153 Idun, 76 Iffley, 49, 126, 162, 163 Imagery in Architecture and Language compared, 1-3 Impudence, 109 Indecency in church, 143-7, 150-1 India, 172 Indian mask, 123-4 Indian mythology, East, 66, 69, 178 Indian Trinity, American, 177 Indra, 178 Irenæus, 73 Irreverence in art explained in part, 8 _Isaiah_, 74 _Isengrinus_, 187 Isis, 41, 42, 45, 50, 177 Islip, Bishop, 173 Italian workers in England, 9, 10, 13 Italy, 41 Italy, Bishops of, 30 Janus, 180 Japanese (crocodile), 45 Jesus College, Cambridge, 92 Joke, the, 6 Jonah, 112-3, 197 Jörmungard, 45 Jove (Jupiter), 11 July, 183 Juno, 177 Jupiter, 21, 57, 148, 158, 177, 178, 181 Jurassic reptiles, 145 Keltic dragons, 49 Kent, 75, 180, 182 Khum, 178 King Arthur, 69 King Edward the Confessor, 9 King Edward III., 17 King Edward IV., 49 King George IV., 17 King Henry VI., 16, 62 King Henry VII., 147 King Henry VII. Chapel, 10, 173 King Henry VIII., 16, 49 King's College, Cambridge, 10, 133 Lampe the Hare, 192, 194 Lares, 43 Laughter of nations, 6-7; defined, 20 Lectern, 202 Leicester, 196 Leland, John, 16 Lemon, 139-40 Leo, 158 Leopard, The, 189 Lincoln Cathedral, 3, 9, 38, 51, 54, 63, 128, 133 Lincolnshire, 11, 174 Lind-drake, 47 Linden worm, 47 Linden tree, 47 Line of Beauty, 20 Lion, 5, 158, 183, 187, 189-90, 210-1, 215 Lioness, The, 193 Little-trust, Lettice, 101 Lodur, 177 Loki, 76, 77 Love, 53 Lubeck, 188 Lucifer, 53, 76 Ludlow, 99, 102, 103 Luna, 41, 43 Lunar calculations of Mosaic system, 176 Lunus, 43 Lydda, 47 Lynn, 11, 174 Macrobius, 32 Magdalen College, Oxford, 195 Magi, Adoration of the, 113-5 Maidstone, 182 Maimonides, the Rabbi, 27 Malepart, 190, 193 Malvern, Great, 172, 209 Manchester, 54, 55, 203-4, 195, 196 Mandragora images, 28 Mann, Mr. Robert, 66 Mant, 177 Mare and foal, the story of, 193 Mars, 21 Marks, sculptors', ignored; an example is on p. 103 Martinmas, 139, 154 Martin the Ape, 192-3 Mary, the Virgin, 34, 42, 82, 83 Masks and Faces, 121-133 Meaux Abbey, Yorkshire, 10 Memphis, Trinity of, 178 Mendes, 72 Mentu, 177 Merchant mark, 174 Mercury, 21, 49, 78, 153, 158, 167 Merenphtah, 178 Mermaid, 160 Messon, 177 Mexican myth, 157 Mice, 40, 43, 209 Michael Angelo, 10, 13 Midsummer Watch, 77 Milan, Council of, 36 Minerva, 21, 74, 177 Miracle Plays, 70 _Mirror of Human Salvation, the_, 113 Misericordes, 24-5, 181, 215, 217 Mithras, 176 Monstrosity, 147 Montflaucon, 197 Moon worship, 32, 40, 43 Morris Dance, 144, 147 Mosaic system, 31; Ark, 159, 175; not the original of pagan myth, 175-6 Moses, 62, 74, 175 Mouth of Hell, 60, 63 Mowers, 182 Mumming, 70, 168 Music, 140, 152 Monograms, 12 Mystery Plays, 32, 48, 70, 82, 103, 112, 142-3 Mythic origin of Church carvings, 34-59 Nachasch, 73 Nantwich, Cheshire, 196, 204-5, 208 Narbonne, the Council of, 30 Nebhetp, 178 Nefer-Atum, 178 Neptune, 21, 178 Nerites, 50 Nessus the Centaur, 162 New College, Oxford, 58-9, 81, 84-5, 98, 106, 149 Nice, 36 Nicea, the Council of, 30 _Nicodemus, the Gospel of_, 60 Nile, the River, 45, 71, 158 Nilus, 45, 158; St. Nilus, _see_ Saints Nobodies, 171 Non-descripts, 169-172 Norfolk, 48, 75, 195 Norman carvings, 49, 125, 127, 129, 163, 211, 213; fonts 15 North Stoke, 119 Northamptonshire, 14, 22, 81, 84, 86-7, 101, 125 Norwich, 48, 75, 195 Notch-heads, 124-5 Nouvel the Lion, 189 _Numbers, the Book of_, 176 Nuns, 106-7 Nursery Rhymes, 39 Oak, the, 148, 181 Odin, 45, 53, 69, 177 Opas, 177 Orleans, the Council of, 143 Ornament, the use of Gothic, 2 Oromasdes, 176 Orus (_see_ Horus), 50, 72 Osiris, 41, 45, 50, 57, 158, 177 Otkon, 177 Ox, 71, 73, 160 Oxford, 58, 59, 71, 76, 81, 84, 85, 97, 104-6, 149, 151, 195 Oxfordshire, 49, 60, 64-5, 67, 105, 121-2, 133, 159 Paganism, ingrained among nations, 27 Pallas, 177 Palmer Fox, 58 Pan, 21, 72-3, 105 Pantheism, 32 Panther, the, 159 Paris, Paulin, 197 Parody, a characteristic of Greek wit, 7 Pátála, 42 Pastoral staves, 49 Pausanius, 44 Pegasus, 162 Pepin, 30 Percy Shrine, 3 Perpendicular Ornament, 217 Persephone, 41 Perseus, 46, 57 Persian Trinity, 176 Peterborough, 195 Philæan Trinity, 176 _Philippians, the Epistle to the_, 196 Phipson, Miss, 14, 109, and preface Phyrric Dance, the, 147 _Picture Bible, the_, 113, 197 Pig and Whistle, 155, 156 Pig, and other Animal Musicians, the, 110, 152-6 Piggy-widdy, 154 _Pilgremage of the Sowle, the_, 170 Pipes, Double, 155 Planet symbols, 28 Plato, 28 Plutarch, 41 Pluteresques, 218 Pluto, 42, 177-8 _Poor Man's Bible, the_, 113, 197 Poppy, Assyrian, 182 Pottery, 35 Preaching Fox, the, 184, 196-204 Priapus, 73 Prideaux, Bishop, 30 Priest sleeping, 106, 110-1 Prosperine, 32, 41-2, 177 Protevan, 82 Psyche, 176 Pta, 177-8 Pulpits, 184, 197-8, 201 Puránas, 43 Python, the, 46 Ra, 168, 177 Rabbi Maimonides, 27 Ráhu, 44 Ram, the, 72, 187, 192 Ram Bellin, 192-3 Ram's Head, 19 Ram, the Hindoo deity, 28 Rebuses, 12, 173-4 Recording Imps, 78-9, 81, 84-5, 103 Red Sea, the, 50 _Reinche Bos_, 188 _Renart le Contrefet_, 188 _Reynard the Fox_, 184 _Reynard the Fox, the most delectable history of_, 188 Ripon, 5, 112-3, 124, 136-7, 155, 171, 195-8, 211 Rochester, 127 Rogation, 48 _Roman de Renart_, 188 Roman Trinity, 177 Roman, Wit bitter and low, 6-7; myth, 42-3 Roman work for Saxons, 9 Roscommon, the Poet, 157 Roslyn Chapel, 128-9 Rostock, 188 Rothwell, Northants, 84 Sabean Idolatry, 28 Sackville the Poet, 63 Sacred Marks, 103 (block), 179 Sæhrimnir, 153 Sagittarius, 162-5 Saints--Adrian, 99 Anthony, 154 Augustine, 31 Bartholomew's, Smithfield, 173 Bernard of Clairvaux, 23, 27, 36-7 Britius, 81 Ciaran, 162 Cross, Hospital of, Winchester, 100 George, 47-8, 57 George's Chapel, Windsor, 10, 167, 195-6, 203 Gertrude, 43 Helen's, Abingdon, 218 John, 49, 118 Katherine's, Regent's Park, 78, 81, 83, 86, 169 Keyne, 46 Lucy, 134-5 Luke, 73 Martha, 46 Michael, 47, 76 Martin's, Leicester, 196 Martin, 81 Mary's, Beverley, 123 (_see_ Beverley) Mary's, Faversham, 180 Mary's Minster, Thanet, 97, 122-3, 130-1, 195 Nessan, 162 Nicholas's, Lynn, 11-2, 174 Nicholas, 179 Nilus, 36 Paul's, Bedford, 175 Paul's, London, 32, 109 Peter's-in-the-East, Oxford, 126 Romain, 46 Salus, 178 Sambar, 50 Samson, 198 Sani, 53 Satan, 48, 62, 70, 104-6, 170 Satanic Representations, 64-77, 78-105 Sathanus, 170 Satire, 185 Satires without Satan, 106-11 Satyrs, 69 Saturn, 21, 57 Saturnalia, 143 Saxon work, 9 Scandinavian mythology, 45, 76, 153, 157; Trinity, 177 Scarabæus, 178 Scriptural Illustrations, 112-120 Scylla, 160 Scythes, 182 Sea-horse (hippocampus), 26 Seals, 8, and end of Index September, 140, 154 Seraphim, 74 Serapis, 42 Serpent, the, 44-5, 60-1, 73-5, 77 Sex of the Moon, 43 Sheep, 72, 142 Shell, 50-1, 54-5, 57-9, 159 Shell Child, the, 50-9, 159 Shepherd, 72, 142 Sherborne, 134-5, 208 Shiva, 66 Sigurd, 46 Sin series of carvings, 78-111 Sirius, 42 Sismondi, 31 Sistrum, 41, 43 Situations of Church Grotesques, 213-8 Siva, 178 Slanderers, 82 Sledges, 63 Smu, 50 Snail, 57-8 Solomon, King, 62 Sources of material for Gothic grotesques, General, 4 Southleigh, 63 _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_, 113 Sperke, John (1520), 174 Spinx, the, 158-9 Springs, 66 SS., the letter, and Collar of, 57 Stanford, Berkshire, 18 Star Worship, 27-8 Stars and Stripes, 179 Statute of Labourers, 17 Stoeffler, 141 Stowlangcroft, 196 Stratford-on-Avon, 60, 129 Suffolk, Duchess of (ob. 1475), 76 Sun, 167 Sun Feast, 153 Sun Worship, 32, 37, 42, 44-59, 71, 153, 158, 162, 175, 210-1 Superstition, Horn, 73 Supreme Intellect, the, 74 Surya, 53, 178 Sutton Courtney, 128-9 _Sutton-in-Holderness_, 106 Swan, 167 Swar, 42 Swathing of Infants, 114 Swarhánu, 53 Sweden, 153 Swine, Yorkshire, 106-7, 109, 129-30 Symbolism and Fable, 186 Symbols of worship a general source of Gothic ornament, 4, 27 Syderesys, 170 Syria, 47 Tabor (drum), 97 Tarasque, 46 Tau Cross, the, 34, 43-4 Taurus, 73 Telephorus, 178 Teraphim, 28 Teutonic appreciation of humour, 7 Thanet, Isle of, 97, 122, 130-1, 195 Theban Trinity, 177 Theophylact, 143 Thirlwall, 33 Thoth, 78, 167 Three, the number, 162 (_see_ Trinities) Three branched rod, 103 (block), 162, 181-2 Time, Father, 57 Titian, 42 Topsey-turveyism, 149 Torregiano, 10 Tree of Knowledge, the, 74 Trefoil, the, 162, 178-9 _Trial of Mary and Joseph_, 82 Trigla, 180 Trinities, 168, 175-183 Tufton Street Architectural Museum, 12 Tum, the Setting Sun, 178 Typhon, 44-57, 64-5 Unseen Witness, the, 79, 85, 86, 87 Vali, 114 Vanity, 97 Vedie Trinity, 178 Venus, 21, 53, 111, 148 Veximiel, 62 Virgil, the, 160-1 Virgin Mary, the, 30, 42, 82-3 Virgo, 158 Vishnu, 53, 153, 178 Vulcan, 148, 177 Wall paintings compared with carvings, 114-117, 119-20 Wake Knot, 207-8 Wellingborough, 14, 15, 22, 34, 101, 195, 215 Wells, 65, 77, 150 Westminster Abbey, 9, 10, 91-95, 97, 109-110, 123-4, 156, 173 Wheelbarrows, 135-7, 196 Whistling Maid, the, 104-5 Whistling while drawing ale, 105 White, Wm. (1520), 173-4 Wich, Bishop de la, 124, 181 Winchester, 64, 100, 111, 145, 154, 166, 195 Windsor, 10, 167, 195, 203, 208 Winking Nun, the, 106-7 Wolf, the, 187, 189, 192; story of the wolf's head, 187 Wolfius, 196 Worcester, 113-5, 142, 160, 161, 182-3, 203 Worm of conscience, the, 170 Wright, Thomas, 197 Wyvern, the, 47 York, 63, 65, 77, 129-30, 140, 148 Yorkshire, 10, 63, 65, 77, 106-7, 109, 127 (_see_ Beverley) Yule, 153 Zeus, 177 Zither, 166 Zodiac, 45, 53 FOOTNOTES: [1] Early in the thirteenth century unruly converts of the Abbey of Meaux, Yorkshire, were, to humble their pride, made stonemasons, etc. [2] Of Christ, the Virgin, and saints only. It is here quoted as evidence of a tendency. It is plain that the council protected itself, for the following distich is attributed to it, which sums up the original intent of all images-- "Id Deus est, quod Imago docet, sed non deus ipse; Hanc Videas, sed mente colas; quod cemis in ipse." which Prideaux, Bishop of Worcester, translates (1681): "A God the Image represents, But is no God in kind; That's the eye's object, what it shews The object of the mind." [3] Yet the Hindoo signification of Typhon is "the power of destruction by heat." In this we have another piece of evidence that both the good and the bad of the fable are referrable to the sun as his varying attributes, and probably describe his particular effects at various portions of the zodiacal year. The true, or rather the close, meaning of the various accounts is obscured and confused; firstly, by imperfect knowledge as to the geographical situations where the idea of the zodiac was conceived and developed; secondly, by the gradual precession of the Equinoxes during the ages which have elapsed since such conception. [4] Mr. Robert Mann. [5] "Sutton-in-Holderness." [6] Roscommon. [7] Hone. [8] The Church Treasury, by William Andrews, 1898, p. 193. Transcriber's Notes: Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations. The original text contains a hieroglyph. This is noted in this text as [symbol]. 
39380	----	FAMOUS EUROPEAN ARTISTS BY SARAH K. BOLTON AUTHOR OF "POOR BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS," "GIRLS WHO BECAME FAMOUS," "STORIES FROM LIFE," "FAMOUS AMERICAN AUTHORS," "FAMOUS AMERICAN STATESMEN," "SOCIAL STUDIES IN ENGLAND," "FROM HEART AND NATURE," "FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE," ETC. "Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live, and it is in your power."--MARCUS AURELIUS. NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 46 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. C. J. PETERS & SON, TYPOGRAPHERS AND ELECTROTYPERS, 146 HIGH STREET, BOSTON. TO MISS ELIZABETH C. BULLARD WITH THE APPRECIATION AND ESTEEM OF THE AUTHOR. [Illustration: MICHAEL ANGELO.] PREFACE. Hermann Grimm says, "Reverence for what is great is a universal feeling.... When we look at great men, it is as if we saw a victorious army, the flower of a people, marching along.... They all speak one common language, know nothing of castes, of noble or pariah; and he who now or in times to come thinks or acts like them rises up to them, and is admitted into their circle." Possibly, by reading of these great men some may be led to "think and act like them," and thus "be admitted into their circle." All of these possessed untiring industry and a resolute purpose to succeed. Most were poor in early life. S. K. B. CONTENTS. PAGE. MICHAEL ANGELO 7 LEONARDO DA VINCI 66 RAPHAEL OF URBINO 105 TITIAN 155 MURILLO 203 RUBENS 246 REMBRANDT 286 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 318 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER 367 TURNER 396 MICHAEL ANGELO. Who has ever stood in Florence, and been warmed by her sunlight, refreshed by her fragrant flowers, and ennobled by her divine art, without saying with the poet Rogers,-- "Of all the fairest cities of the earth, None is so fair as Florence. 'Tis a gem Of purest ray; and what a light broke forth When it emerged from darkness! Search within, Without, all is enchantment! 'Tis the Past Contending with the Present; and in turn Each has the mastery." Pitiful in her struggles for freedom, the very centre of art and learning in the fifteenth century, she has to-day a charm peculiarly her own. "Other though not many cities have histories as noble, treasures as vast; but no other city has them living, and ever present in her midst, familiar as household words, and touched by every baby's hand and peasant's step, as Florence has. "Every line, every road, every gable, every tower, has some story of the past present in it. Every tocsin that sounds is a chronicle; every bridge that unites the two banks of the river, unites also the crowds of the living with the heroism of the dead. "The beauty of the past goes with you at every step in Florence. Buy eggs in the market, and you buy them where Donatello bought those which fell down in a broken heap before the wonder of the crucifix. Pause in a narrow by-street in a crowd, and it shall be that Borgo Allegri, which the people so baptized for love of the old painter and the new-born art. Stray into a great dark church at evening time, where peasants tell their beads in the vast marble silence, and you are where the whole city flocked, weeping, at midnight, to look their last upon the dead face of their Michael Angelo. Buy a knot of March anemones or April arum lilies, and you may bear them with you through the same city ward in which the child Ghirlandaio once played amidst the gold and silver garlands that his father fashioned for the young heads of the Renaissance. Ask for a shoemaker, and you shall find the cobbler sitting with his board in the same old twisting, shadowy street-way where the old man Toscanelli drew his charts that served a fair-haired sailor of Genoa, called Columbus." Florence, Shelley's "Smokeless City," was the ardently loved home of Michael Angelo. He was born March 6, 1475, or, according to some authorities, 1474, the Florentines reckoning time from the incarnation of Christ, instead of his birth. Lodovico Buonarotti, the father of Michael Angelo, had been appointed governor of Caprese and Chiusi, and had moved from Florence to the Castle of Caprese, where this boy, his second child, was born. The mother, Francesca, was, like her husband, of noble family, and but little more than half his age, being nineteen and he thirty-one. After two years they returned to Florence, leaving the child at Settignano, three miles from the city, on an estate of the Buonarottis'. He was intrusted to the care of a stone-mason's wife, as nurse. Living among the quarrymen and sculptors of this picturesque region, he began to draw as soon as he could use his hands. He took delight in the work of the masons, and they in turn loved the bright, active child. On the walls of the stone-mason's house he made charcoal sketches, which were doubtless praised by the foster-parents. Lodovico, who was quite too proud for manual labor, designed that his son should become a dealer in silks and woollens, as probably he would thus amass wealth. With such a project in mind, he was certainly unwise to place the child in the exhilarating air of the mountains, where nature would be almost sure to win him away from the counting-room. When the boy was old enough he was sent by his father to a grammar school in Florence, kept by Francesco of Urbino, a noted grammarian. He made little progress in his studies, for nearly all of his time was spent in drawing and in visiting the _ateliers_ of the different artists of the city. Vasari says he was beaten by his father and other elders; but the beatings did no good,--indeed, they probably made the quiet, self-poised lad more indifferent to trade and more devoted to art. Fortunately, in these early years, as has so often happened to men of genius, Michael Angelo found a congenial friend, Francesco Granacci, a talented youth of good family, lovable in nature, and a student in art. He was a pupil of one of the best painters in Italy, Domenico Ghirlandaio. He loaned drawings to Michael Angelo, and made the boy of fourteen more anxious than ever to be an artist. Lodovico at last saw that a lad so absorbed in art would probably be a failure in silk and wool, and placed him in the studio of Ghirlandaio, with the promise of his receiving six gold florins the first year, eight the second, and ten the third. Granacci, who was nineteen, and Michael Angelo now worked happily together. The master had undertaken to paint the choir of the Church of Santa Maria Novella, and thus the boys were brought into important work. One day, when the painters were absent, Michael Angelo drew the scaffolding, with all who worked on it, so perfectly that Ghirlandaio exclaimed, when he saw it: "This youth understands more than I do myself." He also corrected one of the master's drawings, the draped form of a woman. Sixty years afterwards, when this sketch was shown to Michael Angelo, he said, "I almost think that I knew more art in my youth than I do in my old age." The young artist now painted his first picture, a plate of Martin Schöngauer's of Germany, representing St. Anthony tormented by devils. One pulls his hair, one his garments, one seizes the book hanging from his girdle, one snatches a stick from his hand, while others pinch, and tease, and roll over him. Claws, scales, horns, and the like, all help to make up these monsters. Michael Angelo went to the fish-market, and carefully studied the eyes and scales of the fish, with their colors, and painted such a picture that it was mistaken for the original. After a year spent with Ghirlandaio, the master seems to have become envious, and the three-years' contract was mutually broken, through a fortunate opening for Michael Angelo. Cosmo de' Medici, "Pater Patriæ," had collected ancient and modern sculptures and paintings, and these art treasures were enriched by his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, who opened them to students, with prizes for the best work. He founded an academy and placed it under the charge of Bertoldo, the favorite disciple of Donatello. Lorenzo made himself the idol of the people by his generosity, consideration, and unquestioned ability to lead. He arranged public festivities, and wrote verses to be sung by girls as they danced in the public square, in the month of May. All the young people knew and loved him. On one of these festive occasions, when the triumphal procession of Paulus Æmilius was being represented, Granacci found an opportunity of winning Lorenzo's favor, and thereby gained access to the art treasures. At once he thought of his friend, and Michael Angelo was soon studying the marbles and pictures of the great Medici. The boy of fifteen quickly made friends with the stone-masons, and, getting from them a piece of marble, began to copy the antique masque of a faun. However, his work was not like the original, but the mouth was open so that the teeth were visible. When Lorenzo came among the pupils he observed the masque and praised it, but said to the boy, "You have made your faun so old, and yet you have left him all his teeth; you should have known that at such an advanced age there are generally some wanting." At once Michael Angelo broke out a tooth, filling the gum as though it had dropped out. When Lorenzo came again he was delighted, and told the boy to send for his father. Lodovico came reluctantly, for he was not yet reconciled to the choice of "art and poverty" which his son had made. Lorenzo received him cordially and asked his occupation. "I have never followed any business," was the reply; "but I live upon the small income of the possessions left me by my ancestors. These I endeavor to keep in order, and, so far as I can, to improve them." "Well," said Lorenzo, "look around you; and, if I can do anything for you, only apply to me. Whatever is in my power shall be done." Lodovico received a vacant post in the customhouse, and Michael Angelo was taken into the Medici palace and treated as a son. For three years he lived in this regal home, meeting all the great and learned men of Italy: Politian, the poet and philosopher; Ficino, the head of the Platonic Academy; Pico della Mirandola, the prince and scholar, and many others. Who can estimate such influence over a youth? Who can measure the good that Lorenzo de' Medici was doing for the world unwittingly? To develop a grand man from a boy, is more than to carve a statue from the marble. Michael Angelo was now of middle height, with dark hair, small gray eyes, and of delicate appearance, but he became robust as he grew older. Politian was the tutor of the two Medici youths, Giovanni and Giulio, who afterwards became Leo X. and Clement VII. He encouraged Michael Angelo, when eighteen, to make a marble bas-relief of the battle of Hercules with the Centaurs. This is still preserved in the Buonarotti family, as the sculptor would never part with it. The head of the faun is in the Uffizi gallery. Michael Angelo now executed a Madonna in bronze, and copied the wonderful frescos of Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel of Santa Maria del Carmine (usually called the Carmine Chapel), the same which inspired Fra Angelico, Raphael, and Andrea del Sarto. "The importance of these frescos arises from the fact that they hold the same place in the history of art during the fifteenth century as the works of Giotto, in the Arena Chapel at Padua, hold during the fourteenth. Each series forms an epoch in painting, from which may be dated one of those great and sudden onward steps which have in various ages and countries marked the development of art. The history of Italian painting is divided into three distinct and well-defined periods, by the Arena and Brancacci Chapels, and the frescos of Michael Angelo and Raphael in the Vatican." While Michael Angelo was copying these paintings of Masaccio, he took no holidays, and gave the hours of night to his labors. Ambition made work a delight. He studied anatomy like a devotee. Dead bodies were conveyed from the hospital to a cell in the convent of Santo Spirito, the artist rewarding the prior by a crucifix almost as large as life, which he carved from wood. The youth could but know his superiority to others, and was not always wise enough to conceal his contempt for mediocrity, or for the young men who played at life. One of his fellow-students, Torrigiani, grew so angry at him, probably from some slighting remark, that he struck him with his fist, disfiguring his face for life. Michael Angelo is said to have merely replied to this brutal assault, "You will be remembered only as the man who broke my nose." Torrigiani was at once banished, and died miserably in the Spanish Inquisition. In April, 1492, Lorenzo the Magnificent died, in the very prime of his life. Michael Angelo was so overcome that for a long time he was unable to collect his thoughts for work. The self-reliant young man, cold outwardly, had a warm and generous heart. He went home to the Buonarotti mansion, opened a studio, purchased a piece of marble and made a Hercules four feet in height. It stood for many years in the Strozzi Palace in Florence, was sold to France, and is now lost. Piero de' Medici succeeded to his father Lorenzo, who is said to have remarked that "he had three sons: the first good, the second clever, the third a fool. The good one was Giuliano, thirteen years old at the death of his father; the clever one was Giovanni, seventeen years old, but a cardinal already by favor of the pope, whose son had married a daughter of Lorenzo's; and the fool was Piero." In January, 1494, an unusual storm occurred in Florence, and the snow lay from four to six feet deep. Piero, with childish enthusiasm, sent for Michael Angelo and bade him form a statue of snow in the courtyard of the palace. The Medici was so pleased with the result that he brought the artist to sit at his own table, and to live in the same rooms assigned to him by Lorenzo his father. Piero is said, however, to have valued equally with the sculptor a Spaniard who served in his stables, because he could outrun a horse at full gallop. Piero was proud, without the virtues of his father, and soon alienated the affections of the Florentines. Savonarola, the Dominican monk of San Marco, was preaching against the luxuries and vices of the age. So popular was he, says Burlamacchi, that "the people got up in the middle of the night to get places for the sermon, and came to the door of the cathedral, waiting outside till it should be opened, making no account of any inconvenience, neither of the cold, nor the mud, nor of standing in winter with their feet on the marble; and among them were young and old, women and children, of every sort, who came with such jubilee and rejoicing that it was bewildering to hear them, going to the sermon as to a wedding. "Then the silence was great in the church, each one going to his place; and he who could read, with a taper in his hand, read the service and other prayers. And though many thousand people were thus collected together, no sound was to be heard, not even a 'hush,' until the arrival of the children who sang hymns with so much sweetness that heaven seemed to have opened. Thus they waited three or four hours till the _padre_ entered the pulpit, and the attention of so great a mass of people, all with eyes and ears intent upon the preacher, was wonderful; they listened so that when the sermon reached its end it seemed to them that it had scarcely begun." Piero's weakness and Savonarola's power soon bore fruit. Michael Angelo foresaw the fall of the Medici, and, unwilling to fight for a ruler whom he could not respect, fled to Venice. But his scanty supply of money was soon exhausted, and he returned to Bologna, on his way back to Florence. At Bologna, the law required that every foreigner entering the gates should have a seal of red wax on his thumb, showing permission. This Michael Angelo and his friends neglected to obtain, and were at once arrested and fined. They would have been imprisoned save that Aldovrandi, a member of the council, and of a distinguished family, set them free, and invited the sculptor to his own house, where he remained for a year. Together they read Dante and Petrarch, and the magistrate soon became ardently attached to the bright youth of nineteen. In the Church of San Petronio are the bones of St. Domenico in a marble coffin; on the sarcophagus two kneeling figures were to be placed by Nicolo Pisano, a contemporary of Cimabue. One was unfinished in its drapery, and the other, a kneeling angel holding a candelabrum, was not even begun. At Aldovrandi's request Michael Angelo completed this work. So exasperated were the artists of Bologna at his skill that he felt obliged to leave their city, and return to Florence. What a pitiful exhibition of human weakness! Meantime Piero had fled from Florence. Charles VIII. of France had made a triumphal entrance into the city, and Savonarola had become lawgiver. "Jesus Christ is the King of Florence," was written over the gates of the Palazzo Vecchio, hymns were sung in the streets instead of ballads, the sacrament was received daily, and worldly books, even Petrarch and Virgil, and sensuous works of art, were burned on a huge pile. "Even Fra Bartolomeo was so carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment as to bring his life-academy studies to be consumed on this pyre, forgetful that, in the absence of such studies, he could never have risen above low mediocrity. Lorenzo di Credi, another and devoted follower of Savonarola, did the same." Michael Angelo, though an ardent admirer of Savonarola, and an attendant upon his preaching, seems not to have lost his good judgment, or to have considered the making of a sleeping Cupid a sin. When the beautiful work was completed, at the suggestion of a friend, it was buried in the ground for a season, to give it the appearance of an antique, and then sold to Cardinal San Giorgio for two hundred ducats, though Michael Angelo received but thirty as his share. Soon after, the cardinal ascertained how he had been imposed upon, and invited the artist to Rome, with the hope that the hundred and seventy ducats could be obtained from the dishonest agent who effected the sale. Vasari states that many persons believed that the agent, and not Michael Angelo, buried the statue for gain, which seems probable from all we know of the artist's upright character. Michael Angelo went to the Eternal City in June, 1496. He was still young, only twenty-one. "The idea," says Hermann Grimm, in his scholarly life of the artist, "that the young Michael Angelo, full of the bustle of the fanatically excited Florence, was led by his fate to Rome, and trod for the first time that soil where the most corrupt doings were, nevertheless, lost sight of in the calm grandeur of the past, has something in it that awakens thought. It was the first step in his actual life. He had before been led hither and thither by men and by his own indistinct views; now, thrown upon his own resources, he takes a new start for his future, and what he now produces begins the series of his masterly works." Michael Angelo's first efforts in Rome were for a noble and cultivated man, Jacopo Galli: a Cupid, now lost, and a Bacchus, nearly as large as life, which Shelley declared "a revolting misunderstanding of the spirit and the idea of Bacchus." Perhaps the artist did not put much heart into the statue of the intoxicated youth. His next work, however, the Pietà, executed for Cardinal St. Denis, the French ambassador at Rome, who desired to leave some monument of himself in the great city, made Michael Angelo famous. Sonnets were written to the Pietà, the Virgin Mary holding the dead Christ. Of this work Grimm says: "The position of the body, resting on the knees of the woman; the folds of her dress, which is gathered together by a band across the bosom; the inclination of the head, as she bends over her son in a manner inconsolable and yet sublime, or his, as it rests in her arms dead, exhausted, and with mild features,--we feel every touch was for the first time created by Michael Angelo, and that that in which he imitated others in this group, was only common property, which he used because its use was customary.... "Our deepest sympathy is awakened by the sight of Christ,--the two legs, with weary feet, hanging down sideways from the mother's knee; the falling arm; the failing, sunken body; the head drooping backwards,--the attitude of the whole human form lying there, as if by death he had again become a child whom the mother had taken in her arms; at the same time, in the countenance there is a wonderful blending of the old customary Byzantine type,--the longish features and parted beard, and the noblest elements of the national Jewish expression. None before Michael Angelo would have thought of this; the oftener the work is contemplated, the more touching does its beauty become,--everywhere the purest nature, in harmony both in spirit and exterior. "Whatever previously to this work had been produced by sculptors in Italy passes into shadow, and assumes the appearance of attempts in which there is something lacking, whether in idea or in execution; here, both are provided for. The artist, the work, and the circumstances of the time, combine together; and the result is something that deserves to be called perfect. Michael Angelo numbered four and twenty years when he had finished his Pietà. He was the first master in Italy, the first in the world from henceforth, says Condivi; indeed, they go so far as to maintain, he says further, that Michael Angelo surpassed the ancient masters." How could Michael Angelo have carved this work at twenty-four? His knowledge of anatomy was surprising. He had become imbued with great and noble thoughts from Savonarola's preaching, and from his ardent reading of Dante and Petrarch; he was eager for fame, and he believed in his own power. And, besides all this, he was in love with art. When a friend said to him, years afterwards, "'Tis a pity that you have not married, that you might have left children to inherit the fruit of these honorable toils," he replied, "I have only too much of a wife in my art, and she has given me trouble enough. As to my children, they are the works that I shall leave; and if they are not worth much, they will at least live for some time. Woe to Lorenzo Ghiberti if he had not made the gates of San Giovanni; for his children and grandchildren have sold or squandered all that he left; but the gates are still in their place. These are so beautiful that they are worthy of being the gates of Paradise." The Pietà is now in St. Peter's. When some person criticised the youthful appearance of the Virgin, and captiously asked where a mother could be found, like this one, younger than her son, the painter answered, "In Paradise." "The love and care," says Vasari, "which Michael Angelo had given to this group were such that he there left his name--a thing he never did again for any work--on the cincture which girdles the robe of Our Lady; for it happened one day that Michael Angelo, entering the place where it was erected, found a large assemblage of strangers from Lombardy there, who were praising it highly; one of them, asking who had done it, was told, 'Our Hunchback of Milan;' hearing which, Michael Angelo remained silent, although surprised that his work should be attributed to another. But one night he repaired to St. Peter's with a light and his chisels, to engrave his name on the figure, which seems to breathe a spirit as perfect as her form and countenance." Michael Angelo was now urged by his father and brother to return to Florence. Lodovico, his father, writes him: "Buonarotto tells me that you live with great economy, or rather penury. Economy is good, but penury is bad, because it is a vice displeasing to God and to the people of this world, and, besides, will do harm both to soul and body." However, when his son returned, after four years in Rome, carrying the money he had saved to establish his brothers in business, the proud father was not displeased with the "penury." This self-denial the great artist practised through life for his not always grateful or appreciative family. He said in his old age, "Rich as I am, I have always lived like a poor man." Matters had greatly changed in Florence. Savonarola and his two principal followers, excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI., because they had preached against the corruptions of Rome, calling his court the Romish Babylon, had been burned at the stake. While the mob had assisted at the death of the great and good friar, the people of Florence were sad at heart. Michael Angelo, who loved him and deeply loved republican Florence, was sad also, and perhaps thereby wrought all the more earnestly, never being frivolous either in thought or work. Upon his return to Florence, Cardinal Piccolomini, afterwards Pius III., made a contract with him for fifteen statues of Carrara marble to embellish the family chapel in the cathedral of Siena. Three years were allowed for this work. The artist finished but four statues, Peter, Paul, Gregory, and Pius, because of other labors which were pressed upon him. The marble Madonna in the Church of Notre Dame at Bruges was carved about this time. "This," says Grimm, "is one of Michael Angelo's finest works. It is life-size. She sits there enveloped in the softest drapery; the child stands between her knees, leaning on the left one, the foot of which rests on a block of stone, so that it is raised a little higher than the right. On this stone the child also stands, and seems about to step down. His mother holds him back with her left hand, while the right rests on her lap with a book. She is looking straight forward; a handkerchief is placed across her hair, and falls softly, on both sides, on her neck and shoulders. In her countenance, in her look, there is a wonderful majesty, a queenly gravity, as if she felt the thousand pious glances of the people who look up to her on the altar." An opportunity now presented itself for the already famous sculptor to distinguish himself in his own city. Years before a marble block, eighteen feet high, had been brought from Carrara to Florence, from which the wool-weavers' guild intended to have a prophet made for Santa Maria del Fiore. One sculptor had attempted and failed. Others to whom it was offered said nothing could be done with the one block, but more pieces of marble should be added. Michael Angelo was willing to undertake the making of a statue. He was allowed two years in which to complete it, with a monthly salary of six gold florins. His only preparation for the work was a little wax model which he moulded, now in the Uffizi. He worked untiringly, so that he often slept with his clothes on, to be ready for his beloved statue as soon as the morning dawned. He had shut himself away from the public gaze by planks and masonry, and worked alone, not intrusting a stroke to other hands. He felt what Emerson preached years later, that "society is fatal." The great essayist urged that while we may keep our hands in society "we must keep our head in solitude." Great thoughts are not born usually in the whirl of social life. Finally, when the statue was finished in January, 1504, and the colossal David stood unveiled before the people, they said: "It is as great a miracle as if a dead body had been raised to life." Vasari says Michael Angelo intended, by this work, to teach the Florentines that as David "had defended his people and governed justly, so they who were then ruling that city should defend it with courage and govern it uprightly." The statue weighed eighteen thousand pounds, and required forty men four days to drag it by ropes a quarter of a mile to the place where it was to stand in the Piazza della Signoria. Notwithstanding that the praise of the sculptor was on every lip, still there was so much jealousy among the artists that some of their followers threw stones at the statue during the nights when it was being carried to the Piazza, and eight persons were arrested and put in prison. Vasari tells a story which, whether true or false, illustrates the character of those who profess much because they know little. "When the statue was set up, it chanced that Soderini, whom it greatly pleased, came to look at it while Michael Angelo was retouching it at certain points, and told the artist that he thought the nose too short. Michael Angelo perceived that Soderini was in such a position beneath the figure that he could not see it conveniently; yet, to satisfy him, he mounted the scaffold with his chisel and a little powder gathered from the floor in his hand, when striking lightly with the chisel, but without altering the nose, he suffered a little of the powder to fall, and then said to the gonfaloniere, who stood below, 'Look at it now.' "'I like it better now,' was the reply; 'you have given it life.' Michael Angelo then descended, not without compassion for those who desire to appear good judges of matters whereof they know nothing." But the artist very wisely made no remarks, and thus retained the friendship of Soderini. In 1873, after nearly four centuries, this famous statue was removed to the Academy of Fine Arts in the old Monastery of St. Mark, lest in the distant future it should be injured by exposure. Work now poured in upon Michael Angelo. In three years he received commissions to carve thirty-seven statues. For the cathedral of Florence he promised colossal statues of the twelve apostles, but was able to attempt only one, St. Matthew, now in the Florentine Academy. For Agnolo Doni he painted a Madonna, now in the Tribune at Florence. The price was sixty ducats, but the parsimonious Agnolo said he would give but forty, though he knew it was worth more. Michael Angelo at once sent a messenger demanding a hundred ducats or the picture, but, not inclined to lose so valuable a work by a famous artist, Agnolo gladly offered the sixty which he at first refused to pay. Offended by such penuriousness, Michael Angelo demanded and received one hundred and forty ducats! In 1504, Gonfaloniere Soderini desired to adorn the great Municipal Hall with the paintings of two masters, Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo. The latter was only twenty-nine, while Da Vinci was over fifty. He had recently come from Milan, where he had been painting the "Last Supper," which, Grimm says, "in moments of admiration, forces from us the assertion that it is the finest and sublimest composition ever produced by an Italian master." And now with this "first painter in Italy" the first sculptor, Michael Angelo, was asked to compete, and he dared to accept the offer. He chose for his subject an incident of the Pisan war. As the weather was very warm, the Florentines had laid aside their armor and were bathing in the Arno. Sir John Hawkwood, the commander of the opposing forces, seized this moment to make the attack. The bathers rushed to the shore, and Michael Angelo has depicted them climbing the bank, buckling on their armor, and with all haste returning the assault. "It is not possible," says Grimm, "to describe all the separate figures, the fore-shortenings, the boldness with which the most difficult attitude is ever chosen, or the art with which it is depicted. This cartoon was the school for a whole generation of artists, who made their first studies from it." Da Vinci's painting represented a scene at the battle of Anghiari, where the Florentines had defeated the Milanese in 1440. "While these cartoons thus hung opposite to each other," says Benvenuto Cellini, "they formed the school of the world." Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, and others made studies from them. Da Vinci's faded, and Michael Angelo's was cut in pieces by some enemy. Before the artist had finished his painting he was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II., the great patron of art and literature, who desired a monument for himself in St. Peter's. The mausoleum was to be three stories high; with sixteen statues of the captive liberal arts, and ten statues of Victory treading upon conquered provinces, for the first story; the sarcophagus of the pope, with his statue and attendant angels, for the second; and, above all, more cherubs and apostles. "It will cost a hundred thousand crowns," said the artist. "Let it cost twice that sum," said the pope. At once Michael Angelo hastened to the marble quarries of Carrara, in the most northern part of Tuscany, where he remained for eight months. His task was a difficult one. He wrote to his father after he had gone back to Rome, "I should be quite contented here if only my marble would come. I am unhappy about it; for not for two days only, but as long as I have been here, we have had good weather. A few days ago, a bark, which has just arrived, was within a hair's-breadth of perishing. When from bad weather the blocks were conveyed by land, the river overflowed, and placed them under water; so that up to this day I have been able to do nothing. I must endeavor to keep the pope in good humor by empty words, so that his good temper may not fail. I hope all may soon be in order, and that I may begin my work. God grant it!" When the marble reached Rome, the people were astonished, for there seemed enough to build a temple, instead of a tomb. The sculptor resided in a house near the Vatican, a covered way being constructed by the pope between the _atelier_ and the palace, that he might visit the artist familiarly and see him at his work. Meantime an envious artist was whispering in the ears of Julius that it was an evil omen to build one's monument in one's lifetime, and that he would be apt to die early. This was not agreeable news, and when Michael Angelo returned from a second journey to Carrara the pope refused to advance any money, and even gave orders that he should not be admitted to the palace. With commendable pride the artist left Rome at once, and hastened to Florence, leaving a letter in which he said, "Most Holy Father,--If you require me in the future, you can seek me elsewhere than in Rome." The proud Julius at once perceived his mistake, and sent a messenger to bid him return, on pain of his displeasure. But Michael Angelo paid no attention to the mandate. Then Julius II. applied to Soderini the Gonfaloniere, who said to the sculptor, "You have treated the pope in a manner such as the King of France would not have done! There must be an end of trifling with him now. We will not for your sake begin a war with the pope, and risk the safety of the state." The Sultan Bajazet II., who had heard of Michael Angelo's fame, now urged him to come to Turkey and build a bridge between Constantinople and Pera, across the Golden Horn. Soderini tried to persuade him that he had better "die siding with the pope, than live passing over to the Turk," and meantime wrote Julius that he could do nothing with him. The pope saw that kindness alone would win back the self-reliant and independent artist, and finally prevailed upon him to return to Rome. When he arrived, Julius, half angry, said, "You have waited thus long, it seems, till we should ourselves come to seek you." An ecclesiastic standing near officiously begged his Holiness not to be too severe with Michael Angelo, as he was a man of no education, and as artists did not know how to behave except where their own art was concerned. The pope was now fully angry, and exclaimed, "Do you venture to say things to this man which I would not have said to him myself? You are yourself a man of no education, a miserable fellow, and this he is not. Leave our presence." The man was borne out of the hall, nearly fainting. Michael Angelo was at once commissioned to make a bronze statue of Julius, fourteen feet high, to be placed before the Church of St. Petronio, in Bologna. When the pope wished to know the cost, the artist told him he thought it would be about three thousand ducats, but was not sure whether the cast would succeed. "You will mould it until it succeeds," said the pope, "and you shall be paid as much as you require." When the clay model was ready for the pope to look at, he was asked if he would like to be represented holding a book in his left hand. "Give me a sword!" he exclaimed; "I am no scholar. And what does the raised right hand denote? Am I dispensing a curse, or a blessing?" "You are advising the people of Bologna to be wise," replied Michael Angelo. The bronze statue was a difficult work. The first cast was unsuccessful. The sculptor wrote home, "If I had a second time to undertake this intense work, which gives me no rest night or day, I scarcely think I should be able to accomplish it. I am convinced that no one else upon whom this immense task might have been imposed would have persevered. My belief is that your prayers have kept me sustained and well. For no one in Bologna, not even after the successful issue of the cast, thought that I should finish the statue satisfactorily; before that no one thought that the cast would succeed." After the statue was completed, Michael Angelo, at the earnest request of the helpless Buonarotti family, went back to Florence, and carried there what he had earned. Grimm naïvely remarks, "I could almost suppose that it had been designed by Fate, as may be often observed in similar cases, to compensate for Michael Angelo's extraordinary gifts by a corresponding lack of them in the family." The case of Galileo, struggling through life for helpless relatives, is similar to that of Michael Angelo. He was soon summoned again to Rome, not to complete the monument, as he had hoped, but to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He hesitated to undertake so important a work in painting, and begged that Raphael be chosen; but the pope would not consent. He therefore began to make designs, and sent for some of his boyhood friends to aid him, Granacci and others. His method was to make the first draught in red or black chalk on a very small scale. From this he marked out the full-sized cartoons or working drawings, nailing these to the wall, and cutting away the paper around the figures. He soon found that his assistants were a hinderance rather than a help, and, unable to wound their feelings by telling them, he shut up the chapel and went away. They understood it, and, if some were hurt or offended, Granacci was not, but always remained an earnest friend. Michael Angelo now worked alone, seeing nobody except his color-grinder and the pope. His eyes became so injured by holding his head back for his work that for a long period afterwards he could read only by keeping the page above his head. After he had painted for some time the walls began to mould, and, discouraged, he hastened to the pope, saying, "I told your Holiness, from the first, that painting was not my profession; all that I have painted is destroyed. If you do not believe it, send and let some one else see." It was soon found that he had made the plaster too wet, but that no harm would result. He worked now so constantly that he scarcely took time to eat or sleep, and became ill from overexertion. In the midst of his labors and illness, he writes his father, "Do not lose courage, and let not a trace of inward sadness gain ground in you; for, if you have lost your property, life is not lost, and I will do more for you than all you have lost. Still, do not rely upon it; it is always a doubtful matter. Use, rather, all possible precaution; and thank God that, as this chastisement of heaven was to come, it came at a time when you could better extricate yourself from it than you would perhaps have been earlier able to do. Take care of your health, and rather part with all your possessions than impose privations on yourself. For it is of greater consequence to me that you should remain alive, although a poor man, than that you should perish for the sake of all the money in the world. Your MICHAEL ANGELO." He writes also to his younger brother, Giovanni Simone, who appears to have spent much and earned little: "If you will take care to do well, and to honor and revere your father, I will aid you like the others and will soon establish you in a good shop.... I have gone about through all Italy for twelve years, leading a dog's life; bearing all manner of insults, enduring all sorts of drudgery, lacerating my body with many toils, placing my life itself under a thousand perils, solely to aid my family; and now that I have commenced to raise it up a little, thou alone wishest to do that which shall confound and ruin in an hour everything that I have done in so many years and with so many fatigues." Meantime the pope, as eager as a child to see the painting which he knew would help to immortalize himself, urged the artist to work faster, and continually asked when it would be finished and the scaffolding taken down. "When I can, holy father," replied the artist. "When I can--when I can! I'll make thee finish it, and quickly, as thou shalt see!" And he struck Michael Angelo with the staff which he held in his hand. The sculptor at once left the painting and started for Florence. But Julius sent after him, and gave him five hundred crowns to pacify him. It certainly would have been a pecuniary saving to the pontiff not to have given way to his temper and used his staff! When half the ceiling was completed, at Julius's request the scaffolding was removed, and all Rome crowded to see the wonderful work on All Saints' Day, 1509. Kugler says, "The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel contains the most perfect works done by Michael Angelo in his long and active life. Here his great spirit appears in its noblest dignity, in its highest purity; here the attention is not disturbed by that arbitrary display to which his great power not unfrequently seduced him in other works." The paintings represent God the Father separating the light from the darkness; he creates the sun and moon; surrounded by angels, he commands the waters to bring forth all kinds of animals which can live in the sea; he breathes into man the breath of life; he forms Eve; both are driven from the garden; Abel is sacrificed; the flood comes; Noah and his family are saved in the ark. Grimm thus describes a portion of this marvellous painting: "Adam lies on a dark mountain summit. His formation is finished; nothing more remains than that he should rise, and feel for the first time what life and waking are. It is as if the first emotion of his new condition thrilled through him; as if, still lying almost in a dream, he divined what was passing around him. God hovers slowly down over him from above, softly descending like an evening cloud. Angel forms surround him on all sides, closely thronging round him as if they were bearing him; and his mantle, as if swelled out by a full gust of wind, forms a flowing tent around them all. These angels are children in appearance, with lovely countenances: some support him from below, others look over his shoulder. More wonderful still than the mantle which embraces them all is the garment which covers the form of God himself, violet-gray drapery, transparent as if woven out of clouds, closely surrounding the mighty and beautiful form with its small folds, covering him entirely down to the knees, and yet allowing every muscle to appear through it. I have never seen the portrait of a human body which equalled the beauty of this. Cornelius justly said that since Phidias its like has not been formed.... "God commands and Adam obeys. He signs him to rise, and Adam seizes his hand to raise himself up. Like an electric touch, God sends a spark of his own spirit, with life-giving power, into Adam's body. Adam lay there powerless; the spirit moves within him; he raises his head to his Creator as a flower turns to the sun, impelled by that wonderful power which is neither will nor obedience.... "The next picture is the creation of Eve. Adam lies on his right side sunk in sleep, and completely turned to the spectator. One arm falls languidly on his breast, and the back of the fingers rest upon the ground.... Eve stands behind Adam; we see her completely in profile.... We feel tempted to say she is the most beautiful picture of a woman which art has produced.... She is looking straight forward; and we feel that she breathes for the first time: but it seems as if life had not yet flowed through her veins, as if the adoring, God-turned position was not only the first dream-like movement, but as if the Creator himself had formed her, and called her from her slumber, in this position." The pope was anxious to have the scaffolding again erected, and the figures touched with gold. "It is unnecessary," said Michael Angelo. "But it looks poor," said Julius, who should have thought of this before he insisted on its being shown to the public. "They are poor people whom I have painted there," said the artist; "they did not wear gold on their garments," and Julius was pacified. Raphael was now working near Michael Angelo in the Vatican palace, but it is probable that they did not become friends, though each admired the genius of the other, and Raphael "thanked God that he had been born in the same century as Michael Angelo." But there was rivalry always between the followers of the two masters. Raphael was gentle, affectionate, sympathetic, intense, lovable; Michael Angelo was tender at heart but austere in manner, doing only great works, and thinking great thoughts. "Raphael," says Grimm, "had one excellence, which, perhaps, as long as the world stands, no other artist has possessed to such an extent,--his works suit more closely the average human mind. There is no line drawn above or below. Michael Angelo's ideals belong to a nobler, stronger generation, as if he had had demigods in his mind, just as Schiller's poetical forms, in another manner, often outstep the measure of the ordinary mortal.... Leonardo sought for the fantastic, Michael Angelo for the difficult and the great; both labored with intense accuracy, both went their own ways, and impressed the stamp of nature on their works. Raphael proceeded quietly, often advancing in the completion only to a certain point, at which he rested, apparently not jealous at being confounded with others. He paints at first in the fashion of Perugino, and his portraits are in the delicate manner of Leonardo: a certain grace is almost the only characteristic of his works. At length he finds himself in Rome, opposed alone to Michael Angelo; then only does the true source of power burst out within him; and he produces works which stand so high above all his former ones that the air of Rome which he breathed seemed to have worked wonders in him.... Raphael served the court with agreeable obsequiousness; but under the outward veil of this subservient friendliness there dwelt a keen and royal mind, which bent before no power, and went its own way solitarily, like the soul of Michael Angelo." The Sistine Chapel was finished, probably, in 1512, and Michael Angelo returned with ardor to the Julius monument, which, however, had been reduced in plan from the original. He worked on the central figure, Moses, with great joy, believing it would be his masterpiece. "This statue," says Charles Christopher Black of Trinity College, Cambridge, "takes rank with the Prometheus of Æschylus, with the highest and noblest conceptions of Dante and Shakespeare." "He sits there," says Grimm, "as if on the point of starting up, his head proudly raised; his hand, under the arm of which rest the tables of the law, is thrust in his beard, which falls in heavy, waving locks on his breast; his nostrils are wide and expanding, and his mouth looks as if the words were trembling on his lips. Such a man could well subdue a rebellious people, drawing them after him, like a moving magnet, through the wilderness and through the sea itself. "What need we information, letters, supposititious records, respecting Michael Angelo, when we possess such a work, every line of which is a transcript of his mind?" Emerson truly said, "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." No work either in literature or art can ever be great, or live beyond a decade or two, unless the author or artist puts himself into it,--his own glowing heart and earnest purpose. Mr. Black well says, "The highest aim of art is not to produce a counterpart of nature, but to convey by a judicious employment of natural forms, and a wise deviation where required, the sentiment which it is the artist's object to inculcate." The statues of the two chained youths, or "Fettered Slaves," which were too large after the monument had been reduced in size, were sent to France. The "Dying Slave" will be recalled by all who have visited the Renaissance sculptures of the Louvre. Grimm says, "Perhaps the tender beauty of this dying youth is more penetrating than the power of Moses.... When I say that to me it is the most elevated piece of statuary that I know, I do so remembering the masterpieces of ancient art. Man is always limited. It is impossible, in the most comprehensive life, to have had everything before our eyes, and to have contemplated that which we have seen, in the best and worthiest state of feeling.... I ask myself what work of sculpture first comes to mind if I am to name the best, and at once the answer is ready,--the dying youth of Michael Angelo.... What work of any ancient master do we, however, know or possess which touches us so nearly as this,--which takes hold of our soul so completely as this exemplification of the highest and last human conflict does, in a being just developing? The last moment, between life and immortality,--the terror at once of departing and arriving,--the enfeebling of the powerful youthful limbs, which, like an empty and magnificent coat of mail, are cast off by the soul as she rises, and which, still losing what they contained, seem nevertheless completely to veil it! "He is chained to the pillar by a band running across the breast, below the shoulders; his powers are just ebbing; the band sustains him; he almost hangs in it; one shoulder is forced up, and towards this the head inclines as it falls backwards. The hand of this arm is placed on his breast; the other is raised in a bent position behind the head, in such an attitude as in sleep we make a pillow of an arm, and it is fettered at the wrist. The knees, drawn closely together, have no more firmness; no muscle is stretched; all has returned to that repose which indicates death." A year after the Sistine Chapel was finished, Pope Julius died, and was succeeded by Leo X., at whose side the artist had sat when a boy, in the palace of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was a man of taste and culture, and desired to build a monument to himself in his native Florence. He therefore commissioned Michael Angelo to build a beautiful, sculptured façade for the Church of San Lorenzo, erected by Cosmo de' Medici from designs of Brunelleschi. For nearly four years the sculptor remained among the mountains of Carrara, and the adjacent ones of Serravezza, taking out heavy blocks of marble, making roads over the steep rocks for their transportation, and studying architecture with great assiduity. Meantime, Michael Angelo writes to his "Dearest father: Take care of your health, and see whether you are not still able to get your daily bread; and, with God's help, get through, poor but honest. I do not do otherwise; I live shabbily, and care not for outward honor; a thousand cares and works burden me; and thus I have now gone on for fifteen years without having a happy, quiet hour. And I have done all for the sake of supporting you, which you have never acknowledged or believed. God forgive us all! I am ready to go on working as long as I can, and as long as my powers hold out." Later he hears that his father is ill, and writes anxiously to his brother, "Take care, also, that nothing is lacking in his nursing; for I have exerted myself for him alone, in order that to the last he might have a life free of care. Your wife, too, must take care of him, and attend to his necessities; and all of you, if necessary, must spare no expenses, even if it should cost us everything." Finally the façade of San Lorenzo was abandoned by Leo X., who decided to erect a new chapel north of the church, for the reception of monuments to his brother and nephew, Giuliano and Lorenzo. The artist built the new sacristy, bringing thither three hundred cart-loads of marble from Carrara. Leo died in 1521, and was succeeded by Adrian, who lived only a year, and then by Clement VII., the cousin of Leo X. He was a warm friend of Michael Angelo, and so desirous was he of keeping the artist in his service that he endeavored to have him take holy orders, but the offer was refused. Like the other popes he wished to immortalize his name, and therefore gave the artist the building of the Laurentian library, adjoining San Lorenzo. Meantime the relatives of Pope Julius were justly angry because his tomb was not completed, and threatened to imprison the sculptor for not fulfilling his contract. All art work was soon discontinued through the sacking of Rome by Charles V. of Germany, in 1527. Upon the inlaid marble floor of the Vatican the German soldiers lighted their fires, and with valuable documents made beds for their horses which stood in the Sistine Chapel. Rome had ninety thousand inhabitants under Leo X. A year after the conquest, she had scarcely a third of that number. The Florentines now expelled the Medici, revived the republic, and appointed Michael Angelo to superintend the fortifications and defences of Florence. He had always loved liberty. Now he loaned his funds freely to the republic, fortified the hill of San Miniato, was sent to Ferrara by the government to study its fortifications, and also on an embassy to Venice. He showed himself as skilful in engineering as in architecture or painting. With quick intuition he soon perceived that Malatesta Baglioni, the captain-general of the republic, was a traitor, and, warned that he himself was to be assassinated, he fled to Venice. Here, in exile, he probably wrote his beautiful sonnets to Dante, whose works he so ardently admired. "How shall we speak of him? for our blind eyes Are all unequal to his dazzling rays. Easier it is to blame his enemies, Than for the tongue to tell his highest praise. For us he did explore the realms of woe; And, at his coming, did high heaven expand Her lofty gates, to whom his native land Refused to open hers. Yet shall thou know, Ungrateful city, in thine own despite, That thou hast fostered best thy Dante's fame; For virtue, when oppressed, appears more bright. And brighter, therefore, shall his glory be, Suffering of all mankind most wrongfully, Since in the world there lives no greater name." SOUTHEY. Venice offered Michael Angelo all possible inducements to remain, and Francis I. of France eagerly besought the artist to live at his court; but his heart was in Florence, and thither he returned, and bravely helped to defend her to the last. When the Medici were again triumphant, and freedom was dead, the artist being too great a man to imprison or kill, he was publicly pardoned by the pope, and went sadly to his work on the monuments in the Medici Chapel of San Lorenzo. Here he labored day and night, eating little and sleeping less, ill in body and suffering deeply in heart for his beloved Florence; working into the speaking stone his sorrow and his hopes. In 1534 the Medici Chapel was completed,--a massive piece of architecture, executed at an almost fabulous expense. On one side is the tomb of Giuliano de' Medici, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, with his statue in a sitting posture, holding in his hand the bâton of a general. Beneath him, over the tomb, are the statues Day and Night. Opposite is the tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici, the grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and the father of Catherine de' Medici. It is clad in armor, with a helmet overshadowing the grave features. The Italians call it Il Pensiero ("Thought," or "Meditation"). Hawthorne said of this statue, "No such grandeur and majesty have elsewhere been put into human shape. It is all a miracle--the deep repose, and the deep life within it. It is as much a miracle to have achieved this as to make a statue that would rise up and walk.... This statue is one of the things which I look at with highest enjoyment, but also with grief and impatience, because I feel that I do not come at all to that which it involves, and that by and by I must go away and leave it forever. How wonderful! To take a block of marble, and convert it wholly into thought, and to do it through all the obstructions and impediments of drapery." Some authorities believe that the statue usually called Lorenzo was intended for Giuliano. Michael Angelo himself, when remonstrated with because the portraits were not correct likenesses, replied that he "did not suppose people a hundred years later would care much how the dukes looked!" Under this statue are Dawn and Twilight. Ruskin calls these, with Night and Day, "Four ineffable types, not of darkness nor of day--not of morning nor evening, but of the departure and the resurrection, the twilight and the dawn, of the souls of men." Day is a gigantic figure of a man; Night, of a woman in a profound sleep, with her foot resting on a thick bundle of poppy-heads. When this statue was exhibited for the first time, Giovanni Batista Strozzi wrote a verse, and attached it to the marble:-- "Carved by an Angel, in this marble white Sweetly reposing, lo, the Goddess Night! Calmly she sleeps, and so must living be: Awake her gently; she will speak to thee." To which Michael Angelo wrote the following reply:-- "Grateful is sleep, whilst wrong and shame survive More grateful still in senseless stone to live; Gladly both sight and hearing I forego; Oh, then, awake me not. Hush--whisper low." Of Day, Mrs. Oliphant says, in her "Makers of Florence," "Bursting herculean from his strong prison, half heroic, nothing known of him but the great brow and resolute eyes, and those vast limbs, which were not yet free from the cohesion of the marble, though alive with such strain of action." Twilight is the strong figure of a man. Dawn, or Morning, Grimm considers "the most beautiful of all. She is lying outstretched on the gently sloping side of the lid of the sarcophagus. Not, however, resting, but as if, still in sleep, she had moved towards us; so that, while the upper part of the back is still reclining, the lower part is turned to us. She is lying on her right side; the leg next us, only feebly bent at the knee is stretching itself out; the other is half drawn up, and with the knee bent out, as if it was stepping forward and seeking for sure footing. An entire symphony of Beethoven lies in this statue." In 1534, the same year in which the Medici statues were finished, Michael Angelo's father died, at the age of ninety. The artist gave him a costly burial, and wrote a pathetic poem in his memory. The beloved brother, Buonarotto, had died in Michael Angelo's arms. His young mother had died years before when he went to Rome, scarcely more than a boy. "Already had I wept and sighed so much, I thought all grief forever at an end, Exhaled in sighs, shed forth in bitter tears. * * * * * For thee, my brother, and for him who was Of thee and me the parent, love inspires A grief unspeakable to vex and sting. * * * * * Full ninety times the sun had bathed his face In the wet ocean, ending his annual round Ere thou attainedst to the Peace Divine. * * * * * There, where (to Him be thanks!) I think thee now, And hope to see again if my cold heart Be raised from earthly mire to where thou art. * * * * * And if 'twixt sire and son the noblest love Still grows in Heaven, where every virtue grows, While giving glory to my heavenly Lord, I shall rejoice with thee in Heaven's bliss." Clement was now dead, and Paul III. was in the papal chair. He, like the others, desired that Michael Angelo should do some great work to immortalize his reign. Clement had wished the artist to paint the "Last Judgment" in the Sistine Chapel, and when Paul urged the carrying-out of this plan, Michael Angelo excused himself on account of the contract with the heirs of Julius II. "It is now thirty years," cried Paul III., "that I have had this desire; and, now that I am pope, shall I not be able to effect it? Where is the contract, that I may tear it?" One day he appeared in the studio of the painter, bringing with him eight cardinals, all of whom wished to see the designs for the "Last Judgment." The artist was still at work on Moses. "This one statue is sufficient to be a worthy monument to Pope Julius," said the cardinal of Mantua. Paul III. refused to release Michael Angelo, and he began work on the Sistine Chapel. The painting was not completed until nearly eight years had passed. There are three hundred figures and heads in this vast fresco. Says M. F. Sweetser, in his concise and excellent life of Michael Angelo, "About Christ are many renowned saints,--the Madonna, gazing mildly at the blessed and redeemed souls; Adam and Eve, curiously regarding the Judge; and a group of pleading apostles, bearing their emblems. These are surrounded by a vast throng of saints and martyrs, safe in Heaven, all of whom exemplify the saying that 'Michael Angelo nowhere admits, either into heaven or hell, any but the physically powerful.' Below the Judge are four angels blowing trumpets towards the four quarters of the universe, and four others holding the books by which the dead are to be judged. Under these the land and sea are giving up their dead.... As a work of art, the Last Judgment was one of the grandest productions of the famous art-century." Biagio da Cesena, the pope's master of ceremonies, complained that so many naked figures made the painting more appropriate for bath-rooms and stables than for a chapel. What was the surprise of Biagio, when the painting was thrown open to the public, to find that the infernal judge Minos, with ass's ears, was his own portrait! He begged the pope to punish the artist; but Paul replied, "If the painter had placed thee in purgatory, I should have used every effort to help thee; but since he has put thee in hell, it is useless to have recourse to me, because _ex infernis nulla est redemptio_." Paul IV. later complained that the figures were shamefully nude, and desired to have them covered. "Tell his Holiness," said Michael Angelo, "that this is a mere trifle, and can be easily done; let him mend the world, paintings are easily mended." Paul finally had the nude figures draped by Daniele da Volterra, who thereupon bore the nickname of "the breeches-maker." While painting this picture, the artist fell from the scaffold and injured his leg seriously. He refused to allow anything to be done for him, but his friend, the surgeon Rontini, forced his way into the house, and cared for him until he recovered. These eight years had been the happiest of Michael Angelo's life. Before this time he had been cold in manner, often melancholy, and sometimes overbearing; now he was gentle, cheerful, and affectionate. He had written home in early life, "I have no friends; I need none, and wish to have none." Now he had found, what every human being needs, a friend whose tastes and aspirations were like his own. At sixty, he met and loved Vittoria Colonna, a woman whose mind was henceforward to be his inspiration, and whose sweet nature was to be his rest and satisfaction forever. For such a mind as Michael Angelo's there are few kindred spirits. Fortunate was he that the blessed gift came, even though late in life. Vittoria was the daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, and the widow of Marchese di Pescara, the two highest nobles and generals of her time. Tenderly reared and highly educated, she had married at nineteen, her husband soon after engaging in the wars of the time. He was wounded at Pavia, and died before his young wife could reach him. He was buried at Milan, but the body was afterwards removed to Naples with great magnificence. Vittoria, childless, well-nigh heart-broken, turned to literature as her solace. She desired to enter a convent; but the bishop of Carpentros, afterwards a cardinal, and an intimate friend of Vittoria, hastened to Paul III., who forbade the abbess and nuns of San Silvestro, on pain of excommunication, to permit her to take the veil. Vittoria must not be lost to the world. When her poems were published, says T. Adolphus Trollope, in his life of this charming woman, "copies were as eagerly sought for as the novel of the season at a nineteenth-century circulating library. Cardinals, bishops, poets, wits, diplomatists, passed them from one to another, made them the subject of their correspondence with each other and with the fair mourner." Hallam says, "The rare virtues and consummate talents of this lady were the theme of all Italy in that brilliant age of her literature." Vittoria Colonna is one of the best illustrations in history of what a noble and intellectual woman can do for the upbuilding of society. Many gifted men gave her a sincere affection, and she held that affection while life lasted. She was well read in history, religious matters, and classic literature. Her first visit to Rome was a continued ovation. Even the Emperor Charles V. called upon her. Unselfish, sympathetic, with a gentle and winsome manner that drew every one into confidence, she proved herself a companion for the most highly educated, and a helper for the lowly. When she visited Ferrara, Duke Hercules II., who had married Renée of France, the daughter of Louis XII., received her, says Trollope, "with every possible distinction on the score of her poetical celebrity, and deemed his city honored by her presence. He invited, we are told, the most distinguished poets and men of letters of Venice and Lombardy to meet her at Ferrara. And so much was her visit prized that when Cardinal Giberto sent thither his secretary, Francesco della Torre, to persuade her to visit his episcopal city, Verona, that ambassador wrote to his friend Bembo, at Venice, that he had like to have been banished by the Duke, and stoned by the people, for coming there with the intention of robbing Ferrara of its most precious treasure, for the purpose of enriching Verona."... The learned and elegant Bembo writes of her that he considered her poetical judgment as sound and authoritative as that of the greatest masters of the art of song.... Bernardo Tasso made her the subject of several of his poems. Giovio dedicated to her his life of Pescara, and Cardinal Pompeo Colonna his book on "The Praises of Women;" and Contarini paid her the far more remarkable compliment of dedicating to her his work "On Free Will." "Paul III. was," as Muratori says, "by no means well disposed towards the Colonna family. Yet Vittoria must have had influence with the haughty and severe old Farnese. For both Bembo and Fregoso, the Bishop of Naples, have taken occasion to acknowledge that they owed their promotion to the purple in great measure to her." It is probable that she first met Michael Angelo in the year 1536. He was then sixty-one, and she forty-six. "A woman," says Grimm, "needs not extreme youth to captivate the mind of a man who discovers in her the highest intelligence.... She belonged to that class of women who, apparently with no will of their own, never seek to extort anything by force, and yet obtain everything which is placed before them.... How tenderly she exercised her authority over Michael Angelo, who had never before been approached; whom she now for the first time inspired with the happiness of yielding to a woman, and for whom the years which she passed at that time in Rome she made a period of happiness, which he had never before known.... Whenever we contemplate the life of great men, the most beautiful part of their existence is that, when meeting with a power equal to their own, they find one worthy of measuring the depths of their mind.... There is no deeper desire than that of meeting such a mind; no greater happiness than having found it; no greater sorrow than to resign this happiness, whether it be that it has never been enjoyed, or that it has been lost." Francesco d'Ollanda, a portrait-painter, has described one of the Sundays which he spent in the company of Michael Angelo and Vittoria, "the latter of whom he calls beautiful, pure in conduct, and acquainted with the Latin tongue; in short, she is adorned with every grace which can redound to a woman's praise." When Michael Angelo arrived at her home on that Sunday, Vittoria, "who could never speak without elevating those with whom she conversed and even the place where she was, began to lead the conversation with the greatest art upon all possible things, without, however, touching even remotely upon painting. She wished to give Michael Angelo assurance." She said to him, "I cannot but admire the manner in which you withdraw yourself from the world, from useless conversation, and from all the offers of princes who desire paintings from your hand,--how you avoid it all, and how you have disposed the labor of your whole life as one single, great work." "Gracious lady," replied Michael Angelo, "these are undeserved praises; but, as the conversation has taken this turn, I must here complain of the public. A thousand silly reproaches are brought against artists of importance. They say that they are strange people, that they are not to be approached, that there is no bearing with them. No one, on the contrary, can be so natural and human as great artists.... How should an artist, absorbed in his work, take from it time and thought to drive away other people's ennui?... An artist who, instead of satisfying the highest demands of his art, tries to suit himself to the great public, who has nothing strange or peculiar in his personal exterior, or rather what the world calls so,--will never become an extraordinary mind. It is true, as regards the ordinary race of artists, we need take no lantern to look for them; they stand at the corner of every street throughout the world, ready for all who seek them.... True art is made noble and religious by the mind producing it. For, for those who feel it, nothing makes the soul so religious and pure as the endeavor to create something perfect, for God is perfection, and whoever strives after it is striving after something divine. True painting is only an image of the perfection of God, a shadow of the pencil with which he paints,--a melody, a striving after harmony." And then, says d'Ollanda, "Vittoria began a eulogium upon painting; she spoke of its ennobling influence upon a people,--how it led them to piety, to glory, to greatness, until the tears came into her eyes from the emotion within." For ten or twelve years, in the midst of long separations and many sorrows, this affection of Vittoria and Michael Angelo shed its transcendent light over two great lives. It was impossible not to love a woman with such tenderness, sympathy, and sincerity. We may admire a beautiful or a brilliant woman, but if she lacks tenderness and sincerity the world soon loses its allegiance. When political changes made it necessary for her to leave Rome and go to the Convent of St. Catherine at Viterbo, Michael Angelo wrote her daily, while he painted in the Pauline Chapel, after the "Last Judgment" was finished, the "Crucifixion of Peter," and the "Conversion of Paul." In 1542 she wrote him tenderly, "I have not answered your letter before, thinking that if you and I continue to write according to my obligation and your courtesy, it will be necessary that I leave St. Catherine's Chapel, without finding myself with the sisters at the appointed hours, and that you must abandon the Pauline Chapel, and not keep yourself all the day long in sweet colloquy with your paintings ... so that I from the brides of Christ, and you from his vicar, shall fall away." However she may chide him for writing too frequently, his words and works are most precious to her. When he paints for her a picture, she writes, "I had the greatest faith in God, that he would give you a supernatural grace to paint this Christ; then I saw it, so wonderful that it surpassed in every way my expectations. Being emboldened by your miracles, I desired that which I now see marvellously fulfilled, that is, that it should stand in every part in the highest perfection, and that one could not desire more nor reach forward to desire so much. And I tell you that it gave me joy that the angel on the right hand is so beautiful; for the Archangel Michael will place you, Michael Angelo, on the right hand of the Lord at the judgment day. And meanwhile I know not how to serve you otherwise than to pray to this sweet Christ, whom you have so well and perfectly painted, and to entreat you to command me as altogether yours in all and through all." What delicate appreciation of the genius of the man she loved! How it must have stimulated and blessed him! But more than all else she loved Michael Angelo for the one thing women value most in men, the strength and constancy of a nature that gives a single and lasting devotion. She gave to Michael Angelo a vellum book, containing one hundred and three of her sonnets, and sent him forty new ones which she composed at the convent of Viterbo. These he had bound up in the same book which he received from her; her for whom, he said, "I would have done more than for any one else whom I could name in the world." He wrote back his thanks with the sweet self-abnegation of love. "And well I see how false it were to think That any work, faded and frail, of mine, Could emulate the perfect grace of thine. Genius, and art, and daring, backward shrink. A thousand works from mortals like to me Can ne'er repay what Heaven has given thee." She inspired him to write poetry. "The productions of our great artist's pen," says John Edward Taylor, "rank unquestionably in the number of the most perfect of his own or any subsequent age. Stamped by a flow of eloquence, a purity of style, an habitual nobleness of sentiment, they discover a depth of thought rarely equalled, and frequently approaching to the sublimity of Dante." Several of his most beautiful sonnets were to Vittoria:-- "If it be true that any beauteous thing Raises the pure and just desire of man From earth to God, the eternal fount of all, Such I believe my love: for, as in her So fair, in whom I all besides forget, I view the gentle work of her Creator; I have no care for any other thing Whilst thus I love. Nor is it marvellous, Since the effect is not of my own power, If the soul doth by nature, tempted forth, Enamored through the eyes, Repose upon the eyes which it resembleth, And through them riseth to the primal love, As to its end, and honors in admiring: For who adores the Maker needs must love his work." "If a chaste love, exalted piety, If equal fortune between two who love, Whose every joy and sorrow are the same, One spirit only governing two hearts,-- If one soul in two bodies made eterne, Raising them both to Heaven on equal wings,-- If the same flame, one undivided ray, Shine forth to each, from inward unity,-- If mutual love, for neither's self reserved, Desiring only the return of love,-- If that which one desires the other swift Anticipates, impelled by an unconscious power,-- Are signs of an indissoluble faith, Shall aught have power to loosen such a bond?" JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR. In 1544 the Colonna estates were confiscated by the pope, after a contest between Paul III. and the powerful Colonnas, in which the latter were defeated, and Vittoria retired to the Benedictine Convent of St. Anna. Here her health failed. The celebrated physician and poet Fracastoro said, "Would that a physician for her mind could be found! Otherwise, the fairest light in this world will, from causes by no means clear, be extinguished and taken from our eyes." At the beginning of 1547 she became dangerously ill, and was conveyed to the palace of her relative Giuliano Cesarini, the only one of her kindred in Rome. She died towards the last of February, 1547, at the age of fifty-seven. She requested to be buried like the sisters with whom she last resided, and so entirely were her wishes carried out that her place of sepulture is unknown. Michael Angelo staid beside her to the very last. When she was gone he almost lost his senses. Says his pupil, Condivi, "He bore such a love to her that I remember to have heard him say that he grieved at nothing so much as that when he went to see her pass from this life he had not kissed her brow or her face, as he kissed her hand. After her death he frequently stood trembling and as if insensible." He wrote several sonnets to her memory. "When the prime mover of my many sighs Heaven took through death from out her earthly place, Nature, that never made so fair a face, Remained ashamed, and tears were in all eyes. O fate, unheeding my impassioned cries! O hopes fallacious! O thou spirit of grace, Where art thou now? Earth holds in its embrace Thy lovely limbs, thy holy thoughts the skies. Vainly did cruel Death attempt to stay The rumor of thy virtuous renown, That Lethe's waters could not wash away! A thousand leaves, since he hath stricken thee down, Speak of thee, nor to thee would heaven convey, Except through death, a refuge and a crown." HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. The monument of Julius had at last been completed, and placed in the Church of San Pietro in Vincola. In 1546, Antonio di San Gallo, the director of the building of St. Peter's, died, and Michael Angelo was commissioned to carry forward the work. Fortunately Vittoria lived to see this honor conferred upon him. He was now seventy-one years old. For the remaining eighteen years of his life, he devoted himself to this great labor, without compensation. When Paul III., with Cardinal Marcello, summoned Michael Angelo to talk over some alleged defects, the aged artist boldly replied to the cardinal, "I am not nor will I consent to be obliged to tell, to your eminence or any one else, what I ought or wish to do. Your office is to bring money and guard it from thieves, and the designing of the building is left to me." Then he said to the pope, "Holy Father, you see what I gain; if these fatigues which I endure do not benefit my soul, I lose both time and labor." The pope, who loved him, placed his hands on his shoulders, saying, "You benefit both soul and body: do not doubt." When asked if the new dome would not surpass that of the Duomo of Florence, by Brunelleschi, he said, "It will be more grand, but not more beautiful." Michael Angelo lived very simply in Rome, though he had amassed a large property, most of which he left to his nephew Leonardo, to whom and his family he was tenderly attached. When this nephew was married, the sculptor wrote him "not to care about a great dowry, but that you should look to a healthy mind, a healthy body, good blood, and good education, and what sort of family it is.... Above all, seek the counsel of God, for it is a great step." Michael Angelo was devotedly attached to Urbino, who had been his servant for twenty-six years, and who loved him so much, says Vasari, "that he had nursed him in sickness, and slept at night in his clothes beside him, the better to watch for his comforts." One day the artist said to him, "When I die, what wilt thou do?"--"Serve some one else," was the reply. "Thou poor creature, I must save thee from that," said the sculptor, and immediately gave him two thousand crowns. At Urbino's death, when his master was about eighty, Michael Angelo wrote Vasari, in deep grief, of his "infinite loss." "Nor have I now left any other hope than that of rejoining him in Paradise. But of this God has given me a foretaste, in the most blessed death that he has died; his own departure did not grieve him, as did the leaving me in this treacherous world, with so many troubles. Truly is the best part of my being gone with him, nor is anything now left me except an infinite sorrow." The artist was again and again urged to return to Florence, by the reigning dukes, but he replied, "You must see by my handwriting that I touch the twenty-fourth hour, and no thought is now born in my mind in which death is not mixed." He was implored on every side to carve statues and paint pictures. He promised Francis I. of France a work in marble, in bronze, and in painting. "Should death interrupt this desire," said Michael Angelo, "then, if it be possible to sculpture or paint in the other world, I shall not fail to do so, where no one becomes old." He furnished plans for several Roman gates which Pius IV., who succeeded Paul IV., wished to rebuild, and made designs for various other buildings and public squares. He erected the Church of St. Mary of the Angels, amid the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian. "Nothing exists in architecture," says Mr. Heath Wilson, "which exceeds the plan of this church in beauty and variety of form. The general proportions are so harmonious, the lines of the plan so gracefully disposed, the form of the whole so original, that, without looking at the elevations, the eye is delighted by the evidence on all sides of the imagination, taste, and skill shown by the venerable architect in this superb work." The great sculptor never ceased to work or to study. When old he drew a picture representing himself as an aged man in a cart, with these words underneath: _Ancora impara_ (still learning). He painted but two portraits, one of Vittoria Colonna, and one of young Tommaso dei Cavalieri, whom he tenderly loved. To this youth, whom Varchi, the Florentine professor and court scholar, declared to be the most attractive young man he had ever known, Michael Angelo wrote this beautiful sonnet:-- "Through thee I catch a gleam of tender glow, Which with my own eyes I had failed to see; And walking onward step by step with thee, The once oppressing burdens lighter grow. With thee, my grovelling thoughts I heavenward raise, Borne upward by thy bold, aspiring wing; I follow where thou wilt,--a helpless thing, Cold in the sun, and warm in winter days. My will, my friend, rests only upon thine; Thy heart must every thought of mine supply; My mind expression finds in thee alone. Thus like the moonlight's silver ray I shine: We only see her beams on the far sky, When the sun's fiery rays are o'er her thrown." His last work was a group of the Virgin and the dead Christ, which he intended should be placed on an altar over his own tomb; but it was left unfinished from a flaw in the marble, and is now in the cathedral in Florence. Vasari found the aged artist working at it late at night, when he had arisen from his bed because he could not sleep. A tallow candle was placed in his pasteboard cap, so as to leave his hands free for work. Once, as they were looking at the statue, Michael Angelo suffered the lantern which he held in his hand to fall, and they were left in darkness. He remarked, "I am so old that Death often pulls me by the cape, and bids me go with him; some day I shall fall myself, like this lamp, and the light of life will be extinguished." To the last Michael Angelo was always learning. He used often to visit the Vatican to study the Torso Belvedere, which he declared had been of the greatest benefit to him. In 1563-64 he was elected vice-president of the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts. That winter his strength failed rapidly, though all was done for him that love and honor could possibly do, for he had many devoted friends among all classes, and was constantly aiding artists and others. He did not fear death, for he said, "If life be a pleasure, since death also is sent by the hand of the same master, neither should that displease us." Between three and four o'clock in the afternoon of the 18th of February, 1564, the same month in which Vittoria died, the great man passed away, in the ninetieth year of his age. Daniele da Volterra, Condivi, and Cavalieri stood by his bedside. His last words to them were, "I give my soul to God, my body to the earth, and my worldly possessions to my nearest of kin." The pope and the Romans were determined to keep the dead Michael Angelo in Rome; but his wish had been to lie in Florence. The body, therefore, was conveyed to the latter city, disguised as a bale of merchandise, and buried in Santa Croce, on Sunday night, March 12th, the Tuscan artists following with their lighted torches, accompanied by thousands of citizens. In the month of July a grand memorial service was held, in the Church of San Lorenzo, for the illustrious dead, paintings and statuary surrounding a catafalque fifty-four feet high. After thirty years of voluntary exile, the melancholy, solitary, great-souled man lay in his native Florence. He had loved liberty and uprightness. He had been ambitious, and devoted to his masterly work, with the will-power and intensity which belong to genius. He had allowed no obstacles to stand in his path,--neither lack of money nor jealousy of artists. He had faith in himself. He spoke sometimes too plainly, but almost always justly. Cold and unapproachable though he was, children loved him, and for them he would stop and make sketches on the street. He had the fearlessness of one who rightly counts manhood above all titles. He was too noble to be trifling, or petty, or self-indulgent. Great in sculpture, painting, poetry, architecture, engineering, character, he has left an imperishable name. Taine says, "There are four men in the world of art and of literature exalted above all others, and to such a degree as to seem to belong to another race; namely, Dante, Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Michael Angelo." LEONARDO DA VINCI. "The world perhaps contains no example of a genius so universal, so creative, so incapable of self-contentment, so athirst for the infinite, so naturally refined, so far in advance of his own and of subsequent ages. His countenances express incredible sensibility and mental power; they overflow with unexpressed ideas and emotions. Michael Angelo's personages alongside of his are simply heroic athletes; Raphael's virgins are only placid children, whose sleeping souls have not yet lived." Thus writes Taine of Da Vinci, in his "Travels in Italy." [Illustration: LEONARDO DA VINCI.] Mrs. Jameson calls Leonardo da Vinci, in her "Early Italian Painters," "_The_ miracle of that age of miracles. Ardent and versatile as youth; patient and persevering as age; a most profound and original thinker; the greatest mathematician and most ingenious mechanic of his time; architect, chemist, engineer, musician, poet, painter!" Hallam, in his "History of the Literature of Europe," says of the published extracts from the great volumes of manuscript left by Leonardo, "These are, according to our common estimate of the age in which he lived, more like revelations of physical truths vouchsafed to a single mind, than the superstructure of its reasoning upon any established basis. The discoveries which made Galileo, Kepler, Castelli, and other names illustrious--the system of Copernicus--the very theories of recent geologists, are anticipated by Da Vinci within the compass of a few pages, not perhaps in the most precise language, or on the most conclusive reasoning, but so as to strike us with something like the awe of preternatural knowledge. In an age of so much dogmatism, he first laid down the grand principle of Bacon, that experiment and observation must be the guides to just theory in the investigation of nature. "If any doubt could be harbored, not as to the right of Leonardo da Vinci to stand as the first name of the fifteenth century, which is beyond all doubt, but as to his originality in so many discoveries, which probably no one man, especially in such circumstances, has ever made, it must be by an hypothesis, not very untenable, that some parts of physical science had already attained a height which mere books do not record." This man, whom Vasari thinks "specially endowed by the hand of God himself," was born in 1452, at Castello da Vinci, a village in the Val d'Arno, near Florence. His father, Piero Antonio da Vinci, was a notary of the republic, a man of considerable property and influence. When he was twenty-five, he married the first of his four wives, Albiera di Giovanni Amadori, in 1452, and brought home his illegitimate son, Leonardo, born the same year, whom she tenderly cared for as her own. Of Leonardo's mother, Caterina, little is known, save that five years later she married, presumably in her own circle. Among the twelve other children who came into the home of the advocate, Leonardo was the especial pet and pride, probably because he seemed to have been given all the talents originally intended for the Da Vinci family. The handsome boy, whose "beauty of person," says Vasari, "was such that it has never been sufficiently extolled," and with "a grace beyond expression," cheerful, eager, enthusiastic, and warmhearted, when sent to school, learned everything with avidity. "In arithmetic he often confounded the master who taught him, by his reasonings and by the difficulty of the problems he proposed." He had that omnivorous appetite for books which Higginson calls the sure indication of genius. He loved nature intensely. He studied every flower and tree about the country home; made companions of the river Arno, the changing clouds, and the snow-capped mountains. Passionately fond of music, he not only learned to play on the guitar and lute, but invented a lyre of his own, on which he improvised both the song and the air. On the margins of his books he sketched such admirable drawings that his father took them to Andrea Verrochio, a famous Florentine artist, who was "amazed," and advised that the youth become a painter. Leonardo entered the studio of Verrochio when he was about eighteen, and at once became deeply absorbed in his work. He began to make models in clay, arranging on these soft drapery dipped in plaster, which he drew carefully in black and white on fine linen; also heads of smiling women and children out of terra cotta: already he had that divine gift of painting the "Da Vinci smile," which seems to have been born with him and to have died with him. He studied perspective, and with his fellow-students made chemical researches into the improvement of colors. Verrochio was engaged in painting a picture of St. John baptizing Christ, for the monks of Vallombrosa, and requested Leonardo to paint an angel in the left-hand corner, holding some vestments. When the work was finished, and Verrochio looked upon Leonardo's angel, "a space of sunlight in the cold, labored old picture," as W. H. Pater says, in his "Studies in the History of the Renaissance," Verrochio became so discouraged "because a mere child could do more than himself," that he would never touch the brush again. This work is now in the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. About this time, according to Vasari, Leonardo made his famous shield _Rotella del Fico_. "Ser Piero da Vinci, being at his country house, was there visited by one of the peasants on his estate, who, having cut down a fig-tree on his farm, had made a shield from part of it with his own hands, and then brought it to Ser Piero, begging that he would be pleased to cause the same to be painted for him in Florence. This the latter very willingly promised to do, the countryman having great skill in taking birds and in fishing, and being often very serviceable to Ser Piero in such matters. Having taken the shield with him to Florence, therefore, without saying anything to Leonardo as to whom it was for, he desired the latter to paint something upon it. "Accordingly, he one day took it in hand, but, finding it crooked, coarse, and badly made, he straightened it at the fire, and, giving it to a turner, it was brought back to him smooth and delicately rounded, instead of the rude and shapeless form in which he had received it. He then covered it with gypsum, and, having prepared it to his liking, he began to consider what he could paint upon it that might best and most effectually terrify whomsoever might approach it, producing the same effect with that formerly attributed to the head of Medusa. For this purpose, therefore, Leonardo carried to one of his rooms, into which no one but himself ever entered, a number of lizards, hedgehogs, newts, serpents, dragon-flies, locusts, bats, glow-worms, and every sort of strange animal of similar kind on which he could lay his hands; from this assemblage, variously adapted and joined together, he formed a hideous and appalling monster, breathing poison and flames, and surrounded by an atmosphere of fire; this he caused to issue from a dark and rifted rock, with poison reeking from the cavernous throat, flames darting from the eyes, and vapors rising from the nostrils in such sort that the result was indeed a most fearful and monstrous creature; at this he labored until the odors arising from all those dead animals filled the room with a mortal fetor, to which the zeal of Leonardo and the love which he bore to art rendered him insensible or indifferent. "When this work, which neither the countryman nor Ser Piero any longer inquired for, was completed, Leonardo went to his father and told him that he might send for the shield at his earliest convenience, since, so far as he was concerned, the work was finished; Ser Piero went accordingly one morning to the room for the shield, and, having knocked at the door, Leonardo opened it to him, telling him nevertheless to wait a little without, and, having returned into the room, he placed the shield on the easel, and, shading the window so that the light falling on the painting was somewhat dimmed, he made Ser Piero step within to look at it. But the latter, not expecting any such thing, drew back, startled at the first glance, not supposing that to be the shield, or believing the monster he beheld to be a painting; he therefore turned to rush out, but Leonardo withheld him, saying,--'The shield will serve the purpose for which it has been executed; take it, therefore, and carry it away, for this is the effect it was designed to produce.' "The work seemed something more than wonderful to Ser Piero, and he highly commended the fanciful idea of Leonardo; but he afterwards silently bought from a merchant another shield, whereon there was painted a heart transfixed with an arrow, and this he gave to the countryman, who considered himself obliged to him for it to the end of his life. Some time after, Ser Piero secretly sold the shield painted by Leonardo to certain merchants for one hundred ducats, and it subsequently fell into the hands of the Duke of Milan, sold to him by the same merchants for three hundred ducats." Leonardo painted also the "Head of Medusa," in the Uffizi Gallery, twined about with green, hissing serpents. For the King of Portugal he painted a cartoon for a tapestry curtain,--"Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden." Of the flowers and fruits in this picture, Vasari says, "For careful execution and fidelity to nature, they are such that there is no genius in the world, however godlike, which could produce similar results with equal truth." This cartoon is lost. The "Madonna della Caraffa," celebrated for the exquisite beauty of the flowers with dew upon them, which stood in a vase by the Virgin, and was highly prized by Clement VII., has also disappeared. The "Adoration of the Magi" and a "Neptune in his Chariot drawn by Sea-horses" were among Da Vinci's works at this time. He was also studying military engineering, completed a book of designs for mills and other apparatus working by water, invented machines for dredging seaports and channels, and urged the making of a canal from Pisa to Florence, by changing the course of the Arno, a thing accomplished two hundred years later. Still he did not neglect his painting. He went about the streets of Florence looking for picturesque or beautiful faces, which he transferred to his sketch-book, always carried at his girdle. He attended the execution of criminals to catch the expression of faces or contortion of limbs in agony. Yet so tender-hearted was he, that, Vasari says, "When he passed places where birds were sold, he would frequently take them from their cages, and, having paid the price demanded for them by the sellers, would then let them fly into the air, thus restoring to them the liberty they had lost." He loved art. He said, "In the silence of the night, recall the ideas of the things which you have studied. Design in your spirit the contours and outlines of the figures that you have seen during the day. When the spirit does not work with the hands, there is no artist.... Do not allege as an excuse your poverty, which does not permit you to study and become skilful; the study of art serves for nourishment to the body as well as the soul.... When all seems easy, it is an unerring sign that the workman has but scant ability and that the task is above his comprehension." Enjoying all athletic exercises; so strong that he could bend a horseshoe in his hands; exceedingly fond of horses, of which he owned several,--he still found time to be the life and joy of the brilliant society of Florence; always leading, always fascinating with his intelligent conversation and elegant address. And yet the ambitious Leonardo was not satisfied in Florence. The Medici did not encourage him as they did Michael Angelo. Possibly they felt that he lacked a steady and dominant purpose. He finally made up his mind to try his fortune elsewhere, and wrote the following letter to Lodovico Sforza, Regent of Milan:-- "MY MOST ILLUSTRIOUS LORD,--Having seen and duly considered the experiments of all those who repute themselves masters and constructors of warlike instruments, and that the inventions and operations of the said instruments are not different from those in common use, I will endeavor, without derogating from any one else, to make known to your Excellency certain secrets of my own, and, at an opportune time, I shall hope to put them into execution, if they seem valuable to you. I briefly note these things below:-- "1. I have a method of making very light bridges, fit to be carried most easily, with which to follow the flight of enemies; and others, strong and secure against fire and battle; easy and commodious to lift up and to place in position. I have methods also to burn and destroy those of the enemy. "2. I know, in case of the siege of a place, how to take away the water from the ditches, and to make an infinite variety of scaling-ladders and other instruments pertinent to such an expedition. * * * * * "4. I have also kinds of cannon most commodious and easy to carry, with which to throw inflammable matters, whose smoke causes great fright to the enemy, with serious injury and confusion. "5. I have means, by excavations and straight and winding subterranean ways, to come to any given point without noise, even though it be necessary to pass under moats and rivers. * * * * * "8. When the operations of artillery are impossible, I shall construct mangonels, balistæ, and other engines of marvellous efficacy, and out of the common use; and, in short, according to the variety of events, I shall build various and infinite means of offence. "9. And when it shall happen to be upon the sea, I have means of preparing many instruments most efficient in attack or defence, and vessels that shall make resistance to the most powerful bombardment; and powders and smokes. "10. In time of peace I believe I can satisfy very well and equal all others in architecture, in designing public edifices and private houses, and in conducting water from one place to another. I can carry on works of sculpture, in marble, bronze, or terra cotta, also in pictures. I can do what can be done equal to any other, whoever he may be. Also, I shall undertake the execution of the bronze horse, which will be the immortal glory and eternal honor of the happy memory of my lord your father, and of the illustrious honor of Sforza." The result of this letter was a summons to the court at Milan, where Lodovico, though dissolute, was proud to surround himself with the most brilliant men and women of the age. Leonardo took with him a silver lyre, made in the shape of a horse's head, designed by himself, on which he played so skilfully that the duke and his court were enchanted. "Whatever he did," says Vasari, "bore an impress of harmony, truthfulness, goodness, sweetness, and grace, wherein no other man could ever equal him." Such a union of gentleness and sincerity with genius! Who could withstand its influence! At Milan Leonardo remained for nineteen years, and here some of his most remarkable works were done. One of the first pictures painted for the Regent was a portrait of a favorite, the beautiful Cecilia Gallerani, a gifted woman, skilled in music and poetry. Leonardo painted for her a picture of the Virgin, for which she probably was the model. The infant Saviour is represented as blessing a new-blown Madonna rose, the emblem of St. Cecilia. The next portrait--it is now in the Louvre--was that of another beauty, loved by the duke, Lucrezia Crivelli, formerly called La Belle Féronnière, who was a favorite of Francis I. "The face," says Mr. Sweetser, "is at once proud and melancholy, with a warm and brilliant coloring and soft pure lines, the head full of light, and even the shadows transparent." In honor of both these portraits Latin poems were written by the poets of the time. Leonardo also painted two fine portraits of the lawful duke, Gian Galeazzo Sforza, and his wife, Isabella of Aragon, the latter picture "beyond all description beautiful and charming," now preserved in the Ambrosian Library. When these persons were married, Leonardo invented for the entertainment of the guests at the wedding feast a mechanical device called "The Paradise," a representation of the heavens and the revolving planets, which opened as the bride and bridegroom approached, while a person in imitation of the Deity recited complimentary verses. Leonardo now began on the great equestrian statue of the warrior Francesco Sforza. He studied ancient works of art, especially the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, made almost countless drawings of horses in repose or on the battle-field, many of which are still preserved at Windsor Castle, studied every movement of live horses and every muscle of dead ones, and did not complete his clay model for ten long years. A genius like Da Vinci spends ten years on the model of an equestrian statue, and yet some artists of the present day, men and women, paint and mould horses or human beings after a few weeks or months of study, and expect to win fame! When the clay model was exhibited in public at the royal wedding of the sister of Gian Galeazzo to the Emperor Maximilian, the enthusiasm was very great. All Italy talked of it, and poets and critics extolled it as beyond the works of Greece or Rome. Unfortunately the ensuing wars depleted the treasury of Milan, and prevented the work from being cast in bronze. When the French entered Milan in 1499, it became a target for the archers. Two years later the Duke of Ferrara asked the use of the model that a bronze horse with a statue of himself might be made; but the King of France refused, and the model finally disappeared. During these years Leonardo founded the Milan Academy. Probably many of the manuscript volumes which he left were notes of lectures delivered to the students. He must have spoken to them on botany, optics, mechanics, astronomy, hydrostatics, anatomy, perspective, proportion, and other matters. He wrote a book on the anatomy of the horse. "He also," says Vasari, "filled a book with drawings in red crayons, outlined with the pen, all copies made with the utmost care from bodies dissected by his own hand. In this book he set forth the entire structure, arrangement and disposition of the bones, to which he afterwards added all the nerves, in their due order, and next supplied the muscles, of which the first are affixed to the bones, the second give the power of cohesion or holding firmly, and the third impart the motion." Leonardo said in his notes, "The painter who has obtained a perfect knowledge of the nature of the tendons and muscles, and of those parts which contain the most of them, will know to a certainty, in giving a particular motion to any part of the body, which and how many of the muscles give rise and contribute to it; which of them, by swelling, occasion their shortening, and which of the cartilages they surround. He will not imitate those who, in all the different attitudes they adopt or invent, make use of the same muscles in the arms, back, or chest, or any other parts.... It is necessary that a painter should be a good anatomist, that in his attitudes and gestures he may be able to design the naked parts of the human frame, according to the just rules of the anatomy of the nerves, bones, and muscles; and that, in his different positions, he may know what particular nerve or muscle is the cause of such a particular movement, in order that he may make that only marked and apparent, and not all the rest, as many artists are in the habit of doing; who, that they may appear great designers, make the naked limbs stiff and without grace, so that they have more the appearance of a bag of nuts than the human superficies, or, rather, more like a bundle of radishes than naked muscles." Leonardo irrigated the dry plains of Lombardy by utilizing the waters of the Ticino River, visiting many cities and towns throughout Lombardy for this purpose, and carefully studying the canals of Egypt under the Ptolemies. He studied ancient architecture also. In his epitaph, composed in his lifetime, he calls himself, "The admirer of the ancients, and their grateful disciple. One thing is lacking to me, their science of proportion. I have done what I could; may posterity pardon me." He designed a palace for Count Giovanni Melzi, at Vaprio, which became a favorite home for him, especially in the time of war--the residence of his beloved pupil, Francesco Melzi. In 1492, after Leonardo had been eleven years at the Court of Milan, Lodovico, unscrupulous and immoral, married the gentle and saintly Beatrice d'Este. Leonardo conducted the grand wedding festivities, and designed and decorated the bride's apartments in the Castello della Rocca, making a beautiful bath-room in the garden, adorned with colored marbles and a statue of Diana. While the regent in no wise discontinued his profligate habits, he yet desired to please his wife, by gratifying her taste for religious things. As she had shown an especial fondness for the Dominican church and convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Lodovico ordered them reconstructed and embellished for her. In the refectory, the artist painted kneeling portraits of Beatrice, her husband, and their two little children, Maximilian and Francesco; but they have long since faded. About the year 1496, Leonardo began his immortal work in the refectory, The "Last Supper." Here, where daily the sweet and broken-hearted wife came to remain for hours in meditation and prayer before the tomb of the Duchess Bianca, from which she sometimes had to be removed by force, Leonardo came daily to his masterpiece. Sometimes he would go to his work at daybreak, and never think of descending from his scaffolding to eat or drink till night, so completely absorbed was he in his work. "At other times," says Bandello, "he would remain three or four days without touching it, only coming for an hour or two, and remaining with crossed arms contemplating his figures, as if criticising them himself. I have also seen him at midday, when the sun in the zenith causes all the streets of Milan to be deserted, set out in all haste from the citadel, where he was modelling his colossal horse, and, without seeking the shade, take the shortest road to the convent, where he would add a few strokes to one of his heads, and then return immediately." Leonardo made a cartoon of the whole picture, and separate studies of each figure. Ten of these are now in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. He was long absorbed in his head of Christ. He used to say that his hand trembled whenever he attempted to paint it. At last, in despair, he asked counsel of a friend, Bernardo Zenale, who comforted him by saying, "Oh, Leonardo, the error into which thou hast fallen is one from which only the Divine Being himself can deliver thee; for it is not in thy power nor in that of any one else to give greater divinity and beauty to any figures than thou hast done to these of James the Greater and the Less; therefore, be of good cheer, and leave the Christ imperfect, for thou wilt never be able to accomplish the Christ after such apostles." Leonardo finished the work in about three years. Beatrice, as might have been expected from such an ill-assorted union, died of sorrow in five years after her marriage. Lodovico, as has been often the case before and since in the world's history, realized too late the wrong he had done, and now strove to remedy it by causing a hundred masses a day to be said for her soul, shutting himself up in remorse for two weeks in a chamber hung with black, only coming forth to do penance at the sanctuaries where his lovely and neglected wife had worshipped. He now wished to make her last resting-place, Santa Maria delle Grazie, as beautiful as possible, and hastened Leonardo at his work on the "Last Supper" that he might see it completed, meantime raising a magnificent tomb to the memory of his neglected Beatrice. The prior of the convent could not understand why Leonardo should meditate over his work, and, likewise in haste to have the picture finished, complained to Lodovico, who courteously entreated the artist to go on as rapidly as possible. Vasari says, "Leonardo, knowing the prince to be intelligent and judicious, determined to explain himself fully on the subject with him, although he had never chosen to do so with the prior. He therefore discoursed with him at some length respecting art, and made it perfectly manifest to his comprehension that men of genius are sometimes producing most when they seem to be laboring least, their minds being occupied in the elucidation of their ideas, and in the completion of those conceptions to which they afterwards give form and expression with the hand. He further informed the duke that there were still wanting to him two heads, one of which, that of the Saviour, he could not hope to find on earth.... "The second head still wanting was that of Judas, which also caused him some anxiety, since he did not think it possible to imagine a form of feature that should properly render the countenance of a man who, after so many benefits received from his Master, had possessed a heart so depraved as to be capable of betraying his Lord, and the Creator of the world; with regard to that second, however, he would make search, and after all--if he could find no better--he need never be at any great loss, for there would always be the head of that troublesome and impertinent prior. This made the duke laugh with all his heart; he declared Leonardo to be completely in the right: and the poor prior, utterly confounded, went away to drive on the digging in his garden, and left Leonardo in peace." The "Last Supper" was painted in oils instead of fresco, and soon began to fade. In 1515, when Francis I. was in Milan, he was so impressed with the picture that he determined to carry it back to France, and tried to find architects who could secure it from injury by defences of wood and iron so that it could be transported, but none could be found able to do it, and the project was abandoned. The painting was soon damaged by the refectory lying for some time under water. Later one of the monks made a doorway through it, cutting off the feet of Christ. In 1726 an artist named Belotti restored(?) it, leaving nothing untouched but the sky. His work proved unsatisfactory, and Mazza repainted everything except the heads of Matthew, Thaddeus, and Simon. The indignant people soon compelled him to cease, and the prior who had permitted it was banished from the convent. In 1796, when Napoleon entered Italy, the troops used the refectory as a stable. Three or four years later, it again lay under water for two weeks. At present, one is able to perceive only the general design as the work of Leonardo. Excellent copies were made by Da Vinci's pupils, so that the great picture has found its way into thousands of homes. The Saviour and his apostles are seated at a long table, in a stately hall. On the left is Bartholomew; next, James the Less; then Andrew, Peter, Judas holding the money-bag, John, with Christ in the centre, Thomas on his right hand, then James the Greater, Philip, Matthew, Thaddeus, and Simon. The moment chosen by the painter is that given by Matthew: "And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I?" Mrs. C. W. Heaton says of this picture, in her valuable life of Da Vinci, "In his dramatic rendering of the disciples, Leonardo has shown the boldest and grandest naturalism. They are all of them real, living men with passions like unto us--passions called for the moment by the fearful words of the Master, 'One of you shall betray me,' into full and various play." Most who visit Milan to see the lace-work in stone of its exquisite cathedral, go also to the famous painting which tells alike the story of a great artist struggling to put immortal thoughts into his faces, and the story of the remorse of a human being in breaking the heart of a lovely woman. Had it not been to atone to Beatrice, probably the "Last Supper" would never have been painted in Santa Maria delle Grazie. Thus strangely has the bitterness of one soul led to the joy and inspiration of thousands! In 1498, Louis XII. came to the throne of France, and laid claim to the duchy of Milan, enforcing his claim by arms. Lodovico fled, but was captured by the French, and kept a prisoner for ten years, until his death. Leonardo went back to his old home in Florence, taking with him two persons, his friend Luca Paciolo, who had lived with him three years at Milan, the author of _De Divina Proportione_, for which book the artist made sixty drawings; and his beautiful pupil Salaï, his son as he called him, "a youth of singular grace and beauty of person, with curling and wavy hair, a feature of personal beauty by which Leonardo was greatly pleased." From this dear disciple the artist painted many of his angels' heads. Florence had changed since he went away, scarcely more than a boy. Now he was in middle life, forty-eight years old, the famous painter of the "Last Supper," the polished and renowned scholar. His first work on his return was an altar-piece for the Annunciata Church,--the Madonna, St. Anna, and the infant Christ. The cartoon, now in the Royal Academy at London, caused the greatest delight. "When finished, the chamber wherein it stood was crowded for two days by men and women, old and young, as if going to a solemn festival, all hastening to behold this marvel of Leonardo's, which amazed the whole population." He now painted two noble Florentine ladies, Ginevra Benci, a famous beauty, and the Mona Lisa, the third wife of Francesco del Giocondo, the latter of whom it is conjectured that Leonardo loved. Vasari says, "Whoever shall desire to see how far art can imitate nature, may do so to perfection in this head, wherein every peculiarity that could be depicted by the utmost subtlety of the pencil has been faithfully reproduced. The eyes have the lustrous brightness and moisture which is seen in life, and around them are those pale, red, and slightly livid circles, also proper to nature, with the lashes, which can only be copied as these are with the greatest difficulty; the eyebrows also are represented with the closest exactitude, where fuller and where more thinly set, with the separate hairs delineated as they issue from the skin, every turn being followed and all the pores exhibited in a manner that could not be more natural than it is; the nose, with its beautiful and delicately roseate nostrils, might be easily believed to be alive; the mouth, admirable in its outline, has the lips uniting the rose-tints of their color with that of the face in the utmost perfection, and the carnation of the cheek does not appear to be painted, but truly of flesh and blood; he who looks earnestly at the pit of the throat cannot but believe that he sees the beating of the pulses, and it may be truly said that this work is painted in a manner well calculated to make the boldest master tremble, and astonishes all who behold it, however well accustomed to the marvels of art. "Mona Lisa was exceedingly beautiful; and while Leonardo was painting her portrait, he took the precaution of keeping some one constantly near her, to sing or play on instruments, or to jest and otherwise amuse her, to the end that she might continue cheerful, and so that her face might not exhibit the melancholy expression often imparted by painters to the likenesses they take. In this portrait of Leonardo's, on the contrary, there is so pleasing an expression, and a smile so sweet, that while looking at it one thinks it rather divine than human, and it has ever been esteemed a wonderful work, since life itself could exhibit no other appearance." No wonder Grimm says, "He who has seen the Mona Lisa smile is followed forever by this smile, just as he is followed by Lear's fury, Macbeth's ambition, Hamlet's melancholy, and Iphigenia's touching purity." Pater says of the Mona Lisa, "'La Gioconda' is, in the truest sense, Leonardo's masterpiece, the revealing instance of his mode of thought and work. In suggestiveness, only the 'Melancholia' of Dürer is comparable to it; and no crude symbolism disturbs the effect of its subdued and graceful mystery. We all know the face and hands of the figure, set in its marble chair, in that cirque of fantastic webs, as in some faint light under sea. Perhaps of all ancient pictures time has chilled it least. * * * * * "The fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping together ten thousand experiences, is an old one; and modern thought has conceived the idea of humanity as wrought upon by, and summing up in itself, all modes of thought and life. Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea." One feels with Michelet, when he says, "It fascinates and absorbs me. I go to it in spite of myself, as the bird is drawn to the serpent." I have found myself going day after day to the Louvre to linger before two masterpieces; to grow better through the womanhood of the Venus de Milo, and to rest in the peaceful, contented smile of the Mona Lisa. Nobody can forget the perfect hand. One seems to feel the delicacy of the loving touch which Leonardo gave as he painted through those long yet short four years, leaving the portrait, as he declared, unfinished, because of his high ideal of what a painting should be. The husband did not purchase the picture of the artist--did he not value the beauty? It was finally sold to Francis I., for four thousand gold crowns, an enormous sum at that day. After Da Vinci had been two years in Florence, Cæsar Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI., appointed him architect and general engineer. He travelled through Central Italy, making ramparts and stairways for the citadel of Urbino, machinery at Pesaro, designing a house and better methods of transporting grapes at Cesena, and finer gates at Cesenatico. At one place he lingered to enjoy the regular cadence of the waves beating on the shore; at another, his soul filled with music, he was soothed by the murmur of the fountains. But Cæsar was soon obliged to flee into Spain, and Leonardo could no longer hold the position of engineer. Pietro Soderini, who had been elected gonfaloniere for life, was the friend of both Leonardo and Michael Angelo. He wished to have these two greatest artists paint each a wall in the Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio. Michael Angelo chose for his subject a group of soldiers surprised by the enemy while bathing in the Arno; Leonardo, a troop of horsemen fighting round a standard, a scene from the battle of Anghiari, fought by the Florentines against the North Italians. Vasari says, "Not only are rage, disdain, and the desire for revenge apparent in the men, but in the horses also; two of those animals, with their fore-legs intertwined, are attacking each other with their teeth, no less fiercely than do the cavaliers who are fighting for the standard." Vasari thinks it "scarcely possible adequately to describe ... the wonderful mastery he exhibits in the forms and movements of the horses.... The muscular development, the animation of their movements, and their exquisite beauty, are rendered with the utmost fidelity." When the rival cartoons of Michael Angelo and Da Vinci were publicly exhibited, the excitement was great between the followers of each artist. When Da Vinci began to paint upon the wall, in oils, as in the "Last Supper," the colors so sank into it that he abandoned the work. Soderini accused him of having received money and not rendering an equivalent, which so wounded the pride, of the artist that his friends raised the amount which had been advanced to him, and offered it to the gonfaloniere, who generously refused to accept it. Da Vinci had already become offended with Soderini's treasurer, who offered him a portion of his pay in copper money. Leonardo would not take it, saying, "I am no penny-painter." In 1504, Da Vinci's father died, and the artist became involved in lawsuits with the other twelve children, who seem to have disputed his share in the property. At this time Leonardo made drawings for the raising of the Church of San Giovanni (the Baptistery), and the placing of steps beneath it. "He supported his assertions with reasons so persuasive that while he spoke the undertaking seemed feasible, although every one of his hearers, when he had departed, could see for himself that such a thing was impossible." They could not understand that they had a genius in their midst some centuries in advance of his age. He made three bronze figures over the portal of the Baptistery, "without doubt the most beautiful castings that have been seen in these latter days." Tired of lawsuits, and his ineffectual efforts toward the raising of the Baptistery, he gladly went back to Milan, having been invited thither by Maréchal de Chaumont, the French governor, after an absence in Florence of six years. He seems to have been straitened in circumstances, for he had but thirty crowns left, and of these he generously gave thirteen to make up the marriage portion of the sister of his beloved Salaï. For seven years during this second sojourn in Milan, he was prosperous and happy. He built large docks and basins, planned many mills, enlarged and improved the great Martesan canal, two hundred miles long, "which brings the waters of the Adda through the Valtellina and across the Chiavenna district, contributing greatly to the fertility of the garden of Northern Italy," and painted several pictures. "La Monaca," now in the Pitti Palace, is the half-length figure of a young nun. Taine says, "The face is colorless excepting the powerful and strange red lips, and the whole physiognomy is calm, with a slight expression of disquietude. This is not an abstract being, emanating from the painter's brain, but an actual woman who has lived, a sister of Mona Lisa, as complex, as full of inward contrasts, and as inexplicable." "Flora," a beautiful woman in blue drapery, holding a flower in her left hand, believed by many to be a portrait of Diana of Poitiers, is at the Hague, where the Hollanders call it "Frivolity" or "Vanity." Leda, the bride of Jupiter, with the twins, Castor and Pollux, "playing among the shell-chips of their broken egg," is also at the Hague. Probably the celebrated _La Vierge aux Rochers_ ("The Virgin among the Rocks") was painted at this time. Of this Théophile Gautier says, "The aspect of the Virgin is mysterious and charming. A grotto of basaltic rocks shelters the divine group, who are sitting on the margin of a clear spring, in the transparent depths of which we see the pebbles of its bed. Through the arcade of the grotto, we discover a rocky landscape, with a few scattered trees, and crossed by a stream, on the banks of which rises a village. All this is of a color as indefinable as those mysterious countries one traverses in a dream, and accords marvellously with the figures. What more adorable type than that of the Madonna! it is especially Leonardo's, and does not in any way recall the Virgins of Perugino or Raphael. Her head is spherical in form; the forehead well developed; the fine oval of her cheeks is gracefully rounded so as to enclose a chin most delicately curved; the eyes with lowered eyelids encircled with shadow, and the nose, not in a line with the forehead, like that of a Grecian statue, but still finely shaped; with nostrils tenderly cut, and trembling as though her breathing made them palpitate; the mouth a little large, it is true, but smiling with a deliciously enigmatic expression that Da Vinci gives to his female faces, a tiny shade of mischief mingling with the purity and goodness. The hair is long, loose, and silky, and falls in crisp meshes around the shadow-softened cheeks, according with the half-tints with incomparable grace." This picture was originally on wood, but has been transferred to canvas. There are three pictures of this scene; the one in the collection of the Duke of Suffolk is believed to be the original, while that in the Louvre is best known. Of the Virgin seated on the knees of St. Anne, now in the Louvre, Taine says, "In the little Jesus of the picture of St. Anne, a shoulder, a cheek, a temple, alone emerge from the shadowy depth. Leonardo da Vinci was a great musician. Perhaps he found in that gradation and change of color, in that vague yet charming magic of chiaroscuro, an effect resembling the crescendoes and decrescendoes of grand musical works." "St. John the Baptist," in the Louvre, is one of the few pictures, among the many attributed to Leonardo, which critics regard as authentic. "St. Sebastian," now in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, was purchased by the Tsar of Russia in 1860, for twelve thousand dollars. When the French were driven out of Lombardy, Da Vinci left Milan, in 1514, and, taking his devoted pupils, Salaï, Francesco Melzi, and a few others with him, started for Rome, whither Michael Angelo and Raphael had already gone. Leo X. was on the papal throne: he cordially welcomed him, and bade him "work for the glory of God, Italy, Leo X., and Leonardo da Vinci." However, the pope gave him very little to do. "The pontiff," says Vasari, "was much inclined to philosophical inquiry, and was more especially addicted to the study of alchemy. Leonardo, therefore, having composed a kind of paste from wax, made of this, while it was still in its half-liquid state, certain figures of animals, entirely hollow and exceedingly slight in texture, which he then filled with air. When he blew into these figures he could make them fly through the air, but when the air within had escaped from them they fell to the earth. "One day the vine-dresser of the Belvedere found a very curious lizard, and for this creature Leonardo constructed wings made from the skins of other lizards, flayed for the purpose; into these wings he put quicksilver, so that when the animal walked the wings moved also, with a tremulous motion; he then made eyes, horns, and a beard for the creature, which he tamed and kept in a case; he would then show it to the friends who came to visit him, and all who saw it ran away terrified." When the pope asked him to paint a picture, Leonardo immediately began to distil oils and herbs for the varnish, whereupon the pontiff exclaimed, "Alas! this man will assuredly do nothing at all, since he is thinking of the end before he has made a beginning to his work." It is supposed that Leonardo painted for Leo X. the "Holy Family of St. Petersburg," with the bride of Giuliano de Medici as the St. Catherine. Louis XII. of France having died, the brilliant young Francis I. succeeded him January 1, 1515, and soon after won back Lombardy to himself in battle. At once Leonardo, who had been painter to King Louis while in Milan, joined himself to Francis, not wishing to remain in Rome. He was received by that monarch with the greatest delight, and given the Château of Cloux with its woods, meadows, and fish-ponds, just outside the walls of the king's castle at Amboise. Here he abode with his dear pupils, who were content to live in any country so they were with Da Vinci; and was allowed a pension of seven hundred crowns of gold and the title of Painter to the King. He was sixty-three. He had done many great things, but now, with ease and every comfort, perchance his genius would be more brilliant than ever. When about this age, Michael Angelo had completed his wonderful statues in the Medici chapel, and later even painted his "Last Judgment" and planned the great dome of St. Peter's. But Leonardo, the versatile, luxury-loving, "divine Leonardo," no longer urged to duty by necessity, did nothing further for the world. He mingled in the gayeties of the court, walked arm in arm in his gardens with the beautiful Salaï, his long white hair falling to his shoulders, and made a unique automaton for the great festivities of the conquering young king at Pavia, a lion filled with hidden machinery by means of which it walked up to the throne, and, opening its breast, showed it filled with a great number of fleurs-de-lis. He soon fell into a kind of languor that presaged the sure coming of death. In early life he had been so devoted to science that Vasari tells us "by this means he conceived such heretical ideas that he did not belong to any religion, but esteemed it better to be a philosopher than a Christian." Now he turned his thoughts toward the Catholic church, and made his will, which recommends his soul "to God, the glorious Virgin Mary, his lordship St. Michael, and all the beautiful angels and saints of Paradise." He wishes that at his obsequies "there shall be sixty torches carried by sixty poor persons, who shall be paid for carrying them according to the discretion of the said Melzi, which torches shall be shared among the four churches above named." To his beloved pupils, ever with him, he gives his property. Nine days after this, says Vasari, May 2, 1519, at the age of sixty-seven, Leonardo died in the arms of his devoted King, Francis I.; but later historians have considered this doubtful. He was buried under the flag-stones in the Church of St. Florentin at Amboise. In the religious wars which followed, the church was demolished, the gravestones sold, and the lead coffins melted for their metal. Many persons have tried to find the grave of the great master, and M. Arsène Houssaye made a last and perhaps successful attempt in 1863. He says, "More than one Italian had gone to Amboise for the purpose of finding the tomb of Leonardo da Vinci, and had gazed sadly on the spot where the church once stood, now covered by thick growing covert. "The gardener's daughter had been often questioned, and it was she who first gave me the idea, some years ago, of seeking for the tomb of the painter of the 'Last Supper,' but I do not know whether the fact of her having the painter's name sometimes on her lips arose from the fact of her hearing him spoken of by her father or by visitors. She it was who pointed out to me the spot where the great painter of Francis I. might be found; a white-cherry tree was growing there, whose fruit was so rich from the fact of its growing above the dead. "On Tuesday, the 23d of June, 1863, the first spadeful of earth was turned up before the mayor and the archbishop of Amboise. I set the men to work on three different spots, some to reconnoitre the foundations of the church, others to look for the ossuary, and the rest to search the tombs. It was necessary to dig down deeply, the soil having risen over the site of the church to the height of two or three yards.... "The 20th of August we lighted on a very old tomb, which had been, at the demolition of St. Florentin, covered with unequal stones. No doubt the original tombstone had been broken, and, out of respect for the dead, replaced by slabs belonging to the church, and bearing still some rude traces of fresco painting.... It was in the choir of the church, close to the wall, and toward the top of the plantation, where grew the white-cherry tree. "We uncovered the skeleton with great respect; nothing had occurred to disturb the repose of death, excepting that towards the head the roots of the tree had overturned the vase of charcoal. After displacing a few handfuls of earth, we saw great dignity in the attitude of the majestic dead.... The head rested on the hand as if in sleep. This is the only skeleton we discovered in this position, which is never given to the dead, and appears that of a deep thinker tired with study.... I had brought with me from Milan a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci ... and the skull we had taken from its tomb corresponded exactly with the drawing. Many doctors have seen it, and consider it to be the skull of a septuagenarian. Eight teeth still remain in the jaws, four above and four below.... The brow projects over the eyes, and is broad and high; the occipital arch was ample and purely defined. Intellect had reigned there, but no especial quality predominated. "We collected near the head some fragments of hair or beard, and a few shreds of brown woollen material. On the feet were found some pieces of sandals, still keeping the shape of the feet.... "The skeleton, which measured five feet eight inches, accords with the height of Leonardo da Vinci. The skull might have served for the model of the portrait Leonardo drew of himself in red chalk a few years before his death. M. Robert Fleury, head master of the Fine Art School of Rome, has handled the skull with respect, and recognized in it the grand and simple outline of this human yet divine head, which once held a world within its limits." In 1873 Italy raised a monument to her great genius, at Milan. His statue stands on a lofty pedestal, which has four bas-reliefs, representing scenes from his life. At the four corners are placed statues of his principal scholars,--Cesare da Sesto, Marco d' Oggione, Beltraffio, and Andrea Solario. All Leonardo's precious manuscripts were bequeathed to Francesco Melzi, and unfortunately became scattered. About the end of the seventeenth century they were mostly in the Ambrosian Library at Milan; but the French under Napoleon took fourteen of the principal manuscripts, leaving only two, which now form the "Codex Atlantico" at Milan. The latter is a collection of four hundred of Leonardo's drawings and manuscripts. One volume on mathematics and physics is among the Arundel Manuscripts, at the British Museum. At Holkham is a manuscript of the _Libro Originali di Natura_. In 1651 Raphael Trichet Dupresne, of Paris, published a selection from Da Vinci's works on painting, the _Trattato della Pittura_, which has been reprinted twenty-two times in six different languages, "one of the best guides and counsellors of the painter." A "Treatise on the Motion and Power of Water" was published later. In 1883 Jean Paul Richter, Knight of the Bavarian Order of St. Michael, after years of labor over the strange handwriting of Da Vinci, from right to left across the page, published much of the work of the great painter, reproducing his sketches by photogravure. He had access to the manuscripts in the Royal Library at Windsor, the Institute of France, the Ambrosian Library at Milan, the Louvre, the Academy of Venice, the Uffizi, the Royal Library of Turin, the British and South Kensington Museums, and Christ Church College, Oxford. Richter says, "Da Vinci has been unjustly accused of having squandered his powers by beginning a variety of studies, and then, having hardly begun, thrown them aside. The truth is that the labors of three centuries have hardly sufficed for the elucidation of some of the problems which occupied his mighty mind." Leonardo's astronomical speculations, his remarks on fossils, at that time believed to be mere freaks of nature, his close study of botany, his researches in chemistry, color, heat, light, mechanics, anatomy, music, acoustics, and magnetism, have been an astonishment to every reader. Among his inventions were "a proportional compass, a lathe for turning ovals, an hygrometer; an ingenious surgical probe, a universal joint, dredging machines, wheelbarrows, diving-suits, a porphyry color-grinder, boats moved by paddle-wheels, a roasting-jack worked by hot air, a three-legged sketching-stool which folded up, a revolving cowl for chimneys, ribbon-looms, coining presses, saws for stone, silk spindles and throwers, wire-drawing and file-cutting, and plate-rolling machines." No wonder he was called the "all-knowing Leonardo." All his work as a poet is lost, save one sonnet:-- "Who cannot do as he desires, must do What lies within his power. Folly it is To wish what cannot be. The wise man holds That from such wishing he must free himself. Our joy and grief consist alike in this: In knowing what to will and what to do; But only he whose judgment never strays Beyond the threshold of the right learns this. Nor is it always good to have one's wish; What seemeth sweet full oft to bitter turns. My tears have flown at having my desire. Therefore, O reader of these lines, if thou Wouldest be good, and be to others dear, Will always to be able to do right." In Richter's works of Leonardo are many fables: "A razor, having come out of the sheath in which it was usually concealed, and placed itself in the sunlight, saw how brightly the sun was reflected from its surface. Mightily pleased thereat, it began to reason with itself after this fashion: 'Shall I now go back to the shop which I have just quitted? Certainly it cannot be pleasing to the gods that such dazzling beauty should be linked to such baseness of spirit. What a madness it would be that should lead me to shave the soaped beards of country bumpkins! Is this a form fitted to such base mechanical uses? Assuredly not. I shall withdraw myself into some secluded spot, and, in calm repose, pass away my life.' "Having therefore concealed itself for some months, on leaving its sheath one day and returning to the open air, it found itself looking just like a rusty saw, and totally unable to reflect the glorious sun from its tarnished surface. It lamented in vain this irreparable loss, and said to itself, 'How much better had I kept up the lost keenness of my edge, by practising with my friend the barber. What has become of my once brilliant surface? This abominable rust has eaten it all up.' If genius chooses to indulge in sloth, it must not expect to preserve the keen edge which the rust of ignorance will soon destroy." Richter also gives many pages of terse moral sentiments, showing that Da Vinci, in his more than thirty years of writing,--he began to write when he was about thirty,--had thought deeply and probably conformed his life to his thoughts. "It is easier to contend with evil at the first than at the last. "You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself. "If the thing loved is base, the lover becomes base. "That is not riches which may be lost; virtue is our true good, and the true reward of its possessor. That cannot be lost, that never deserts us, but when life leaves us. As to property and external riches, hold them with trembling; they often leave their possessor in contempt, and mocked at for having lost them. "Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment. "The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect; because it may thus drive out useless things, and retain the good. "Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker. "Reprove your friend in secret, and praise him openly." In the midst of the corruption of that age, we hear no word breathed against the character of this eager, brilliant, many-sided man. He won from his pupils the most complete devotion, and he seems to have given as fond an affection in return. This possibly satisfied the craving of the human heart for love. Perhaps, after all, life did not appear as satisfactory as he could have wished, with all his worship of the beautiful, for he says, "When I thought I was learning to live, I was but learning to die." He seemed at the zenith of his powers when death came; but who shall estimate the value of a life by its length? He said, "As a day well spent gives a joyful sleep, so does life well employed give a joyful death.... A life well spent is long." RAPHAEL OF URBINO. "In the history of Italian art Raphael stands alone, like Shakespeare in the history of our literature; and he takes the same kind of rank--a superiority not merely of degree, but of quality.... His works have been an inexhaustible storehouse of ideas to painters and to poets. Everywhere in art we find his traces. Everywhere we recognize his forms and lines, borrowed or stolen, reproduced, varied, imitated,--never improved. [Illustration: RAPHAEL OF URBINO.] "Some critic once said, 'Show me any sentiment or feeling in any poet, ancient or modern, and I will show you the same thing either as well or better expressed in Shakespeare.' In the same manner one might say, 'Show me in any painter, ancient or modern, any especial beauty of form, expression, or sentiment, and in some picture, drawing, or painting after Raphael I will show you the same thing as well or better done, and that accomplished which others have only sought or attempted.' "To complete our idea of this rare union of greatness and versatility as an artist with all that could grace and dignify the man, we must add such personal qualities as very seldom meet in the same individual--a bright, generous, genial, gentle spirit; the most attractive manners, the most winning modesty." Thus writes Mrs. Jameson of the man of whom Vasari said, "When this noble artist died, well might Painting have departed also, for when he closed his eyes, she too was left, as it were, blind.... To him of a truth it is that we owe the possession of invention, coloring, and execution, brought alike, and altogether, to that point of perfection for which few could have dared to hope; nor has any man ever aspired to pass before him." Raphael of Urbino was born at Colbordolo, a small town in the Duchy of Urbino, April 6, 1483. His father, Giovanni Santi, was a painter of considerable merit, and was possessed also of poetic ability, as he wrote an epic of two hundred and twenty-four pages, in honor of Federigo of Montefeltro, then Duke of Urbino. This duke was a valiant soldier, and a patron of art and literature, who for years kept twenty or thirty persons copying Greek and Latin manuscripts for his library. The mother of Raphael, Magia, the daughter of Battista Ciarla, a merchant at Urbino, was a woman of unusual sweetness of disposition and beauty of character. Unfortunately she died when Raphael was eight years old. Her three other children died young. These years must have been happy ones to the gentle, loving child. Their home was in the midst of the snowy peaks of the Apennines, looking towards the blue Adriatic. It is not strange that he became a worshipper of the beautiful. Nature soon grows to be an inspiring companion to those who love her. She warms the heart with her exquisite pictures of varied earth and sky; she caresses us with the glow of sunlight and the fragrance of flowers; she sings us to rest with the melody of the sea and the murmur of the trees and the brooks. Giovanni Santi married for his second wife Bernardina, the daughter of the goldsmith, Pietro di Parte, a woman of strong character, but lacking the gentleness of Magia. Two years after this marriage he died, leaving Raphael doubly orphaned at eleven years of age. What prospect was there that this boy, without father or mother, without riches or distinguished family, would work his way to renown? The will of Giovanni left the Santi home to Bernardina as long as she remained a widow, and the child to her care and that of his brother, a priest, Don Bartolomeo. The latter does not appear to have been a very saintly minister, for he and Bernardina quarrelled constantly over the property, quite forgetting the development of the boy left in their charge. Finally Magia's brother, Simone di Battista Ciarla, came to an understanding with the disputants, and arranged that the lad, who had worked somewhat in his father's studio, should be placed under some eminent painter. Pietro Perugino was chosen, an artist who had one of the largest schools in Italy, and who was noted especially for his coloring and profound feeling. It is said that when he examined the sketches of the boy, he exclaimed, "Let him be my pupil: he will soon become my master." Perugino had been a follower of Savonarola, but after he had seen that good man put to death, he gave up his faith in God and man. When he was on his death-bed, he refused to see a confessor, saying, "I wish to see how a soul will fare in that Land, which has not been confessed." For nine years Raphael worked under Perugino at Perugia, studying perspective and every department of art, and winning the love of both master and pupils. When he was seventeen, Passavant, in his life of Raphael, says, the young artist painted his first works, his master being in Florence: a banner for the church of the Trinita of Città di Castello, and the "Crucifixion." The banner has the "Trinity" on one sheet of canvas, and the "Creation of Man" on the other. The "Crucifixion" was bought by Cardinal Fesch at Rome, and at the sale of his paintings, in 1845, was purchased for about twelve thousand five hundred dollars. It is now in Earl Dudley's collection. About this time the "Coronation of the Virgin" was painted for Madonna Maddalina degli Oddi, a lady of great influence, who obtained for Raphael several commissions, concerning which he expresses great joy in his letters. How many are willing to employ an artist after he is famous; how few before! A woman had the heart and the good sense to help him in these early years, and she helped the whole art world thereby. This picture was kept in the Franciscan church at Perugia until 1792, when it was sent to Paris, but was restored to Italy by the treaty of 1815, and is now in the Vatican. For a friend of Perugia he painted the beautiful Connestabile Madonna. "The mother of the Saviour," says Passavant, "a figure of virginal sweetness, is walking in the country, in early spring, when the trees are still bare, and the distant mountains are covered with snow. She is walking along pensively, reading in a little book, in which the child in her arms also looks attentively. Nothing could be found more exquisite. Everything in it shows that Raphael must have devoted himself to it with especial ardor." This picture, only six and three-fourths inches square, was sold in 1871 to the Emperor of Russia for sixty-six thousand dollars. Raphael left the studio of Perugino in the beginning of 1504, before he was twenty-one, and painted for the Franciscans, at Città di Castello, the "Marriage of the Virgin," now the chief ornament of the Brera gallery at Milan, and called the "Sposalizio." "The Virgin is attended by five women, and St. Joseph by five young men who were once Mary's suitors. The despair of the lovers is shadowed forth by the reeds they hold; they will never flower; and the handsomest youth is breaking his across his knees." Grimm says of this picture, "Next to the Sistine Madonna, it may be considered Raphael's most popular work. In the figures of this composition we recognize types of all the different ages of man, which allow every one who stands before it, whether young or old, to feel as if the artist had been the confidant of all the thoughts and feelings appropriate to his period of life.... Raphael's elegance obtrudes itself nowhere, as with other artists is so often the case. Beside this, the harmony of his colors, which, although hitting against one another almost sharply, still have the effect of a bed of flowers whose varied hues combine agreeably. A youthful delight in the brilliancy of color is apparent, which later yielded to a different taste. Like Dürer, Raphael might have confessed, in his ripest years, that while young he loved a certain garishness of coloring, such as he had afterward renounced." Raphael now returned to Urbino, where he painted for the reigning duke, "St. George slaying the Dragon" and "St. Michael attacking Satan." He made many friends among the noted people of the court, but, full of ambition, and having heard of the works of Da Vinci and Michael Angelo at Florence, he was extremely anxious to go to that city. A lady, as previously, took interest in the boyish artist, and wrote to Pietro Soderini, the Gonfaloniere of Florence, the following letter of introduction:-- "_Most magnificent and powerful lord, whom I must ever honor as a father_,-- "He who presents this letter to you is Raphael, a painter of Urbino, endowed with great talent in art. He has decided to pass some time in Florence, in order to improve himself in his studies. As the father, who was dear to me, was full of good qualities, so the son is a modest young man of distinguished manners; and thus I bear him an affection on every account, and wish that he should attain perfection. This is why I recommend him as earnestly as possible to your Highness, with an entreaty that it may please you, for love of me, to show him help and protection on every opportunity. I shall regard as rendered to myself, and as an agreeable proof of friendship to me, all the services and kindness that he may receive from your Lordship. "From her who commends herself to you, and is willing to render any good offices in return. "JOANNA FELTRA DE RUVERE, [_sic._] "Duchess of Sora, and Prefectissa of Rome." With this cordial letter from the sister of the Duke of Urbino, he entered the City of Flowers. He was now a youth of twenty-one, slight in figure, five feet eight inches tall, with dark brown eyes and hair, perfect teeth, and the kindest of hearts. He was received into the homes of the patricians, and was asked to paint pictures for them. Meantime he used every spare moment in study. Especially did the works of Masaccio and Leonardo da Vinci, says Passavant, "reveal to Raphael his own wonderful powers, until then almost concealed. Awakened suddenly, and excited with the inspiration that seemed all at once to flow in on him from every side, he pushed forward at once towards the perfection he was so soon to attain." He copied the horsemen in Da Vinci's battle of Anghiari; made sketches from life of the children of the Florentines, in his book of drawings, now to be seen in the Academy of Venice; stood entranced before the gates of Ghiberti, and that marvel of beauty, the Campanile of Giotto. Raphael now painted for his friend, Lorenzo Nasi, the "Madonna della Gran Duca," now in the Pitti Palace. Until the end of the last century this picture was in the possession of a poor widow, who sold it to a bookseller for twelve scudi. Finally the Grand Duke Ferdinand III. of Tuscany bought it, and carried it with him through all his journeys, praying before it night and morning. "The bold, commanding, and luminous style," says Passavant, "in which the painting stands out from the background, makes the figure and divine expression of the head still more impressive. Thanks to all these qualities united, this Madonna produces the effect of a supernatural apparition. In short, it is one of the masterpieces of Raphael." Another Madonna on wood, thirty-five inches in diameter, owned by the Terranuova family until 1854, was purchased for the Berlin Museum, for thirty-four thousand dollars. After some other works, Raphael went back to Urbino and Perugia, but, eager and restless for Florence, he soon returned to that city and was cordially welcomed. His enthusiasm inspired every artist, and his modest deference to the opinions of others won him countless friends; "the only very distinguished man," as Mrs. Jameson says, "of whom we read, who lived and died without an enemy or a detractor!" Between 1506 and 1508, besides the Temfi Madonna now of Munich, and the Colonna Madonna at Berlin, the Ansidei Madonna was painted for the Ansidei family of Perugia as an altar-piece in the church of S. Fiorenzo. It represents the Virgin on a throne, with Jesus on her right knee, and an open book on her left, from which mother and child are reading. The painting was purchased in 1884 by the National Gallery for the Duke of Marlborough for the enormous sum of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. On the marriage of his patrician friend, Lorenzo Nasi, he painted for him the "Madonna with the Goldfinch," called also the "Madonna del Cardellino," now in the Uffizi. The Virgin is seated holding a book, while St. John is offering to the infant Saviour a goldfinch, which the child is about to caress. Another picture, painted for his intimate friend Taddeo Taddei, a learned Florentine, "The Holy Family under the Palm Tree," round, and forty-two and three-fourths inches in diameter, was purchased by the Duke of Bridgewater, for sixty thousand dollars, and is now in the possession of Lord Ellesmere, in London. Again Raphael returned to the court of Urbino, always winning to himself the most educated and the noblest among the distinguished men and women. Pietro Bembo, secretary to Leo X. and a cardinal under Paul III., one of the most celebrated writers of the time, was very fond of Raphael; Count Baldassare Castiglione, a writer and diplomatist, was one of the artist's most loved companions; Bernardo Divizio da Bibiena, author of "La Calandra," the first prose comedy written in Italy, loved him as a brother; Francesco Francia and Fra Bartolomeo, the noted artists, were his ardent friends. Something beside genius drew all these men and scores of others to Raphael. Vasari says, "Every vile and base thought departed from the mind before his influence. There was among his extraordinary gifts one of such value and importance that I can never sufficiently admire it, and always think thereof with astonishment. This was the power accorded to him by Heaven, of bringing all who approached his presence into harmony; an effect inconceivably surprising in our calling, and contrary to the nature of our artists, yet all, I do not say of the inferior grades only, but even those who lay claim to be great personages, became as of one mind once they began to labor in the society of Raphael, continuing in such unity and concord, that all harsh feelings and evil dispositions became subdued and disappeared at the sight of him.... Such harmony prevailed at no other time than his own. And this happened because all were surpassed by him in friendly courtesy as well as in art; all confessed the influence of his sweet and gracious nature, which was so replete with excellence, and so perfect in all the charities, that not only was he honored by men, but even by the very animals, who would constantly follow his steps and always loved him." "We find it related that whenever any other painter, whether known to Raphael or not, requested any design or assistance of whatever kind at his hands, he would invariably leave his work to do him service; he continually kept a large number of artists employed, all of whom he assisted and instructed with an affection which was rather as that of a father to his children than merely as of an artist to artists. From these things it followed that he was never seen to go to court, but surrounded and accompanied, as he left his house, by some fifty painters, all men of ability and distinction, who attended him thus to give evidence of the honor in which they held him. He did not, in short, live the life of a painter, but that of a prince. "Wherefore, O art of painting! well mightest thou for thy part, then, esteem thyself most happy, having, as thou hadst, one artist, among thy sons, by whose virtues and talents thou wert thyself exalted to heaven. Thrice blessed indeed mayest thou declare thyself, since thou hast seen thy disciples, by pursuing the footsteps of a man so exalted, acquire the knowledge of how life should be employed, and become impressed with the importance of uniting the practice of virtue to that of art." Raphael allowed people to pursue their own course, without attempting to dominate. He said to Cesare da Sesto, one of Da Vinci's most distinguished pupils, "How does it happen, dear Cesare, that we live in such good friendship, but that in the art of painting we show no deference to each other." Finally, however, Cesare adopted Raphael's methods from choice. Raphael was modest in manner, never monopolizing the time or conversation of others. He made the best of things, overlooking the petty matters which some persons allow to wear and imbitter their dispositions. He worked hard, performing an amount of labor which has been the astonishment of the world ever since his death; he was somewhat frail in body; he was not rich in this world's goods; sweet in nature and refined in spirit, it is to be presumed that he kept his troubles in his own heart, unspoken to others. He loved ardently, and was as ardently loved in return. He was appreciative, sympathetic, tender, and gracious. Herrmann Grimm says, "Such men pass through life as a bird flies through the air. Nothing hinders them. It is all one to the stream whether it flows through the plain smoothly in one long line, or meanders round rocks in its winding course. It is no circuitous way for it, thus to be driven right and left in its broad course; it is sensible of no delay when its course is completely dammed. Swelling easily, it widens out into the lake, until at length it forces a path for its waves; and the power with which it now dashes on is just as natural as the repose with which it had before changed its course. "Raphael, Goethe, and Shakespeare had scarcely outward destinies. They interfered with no apparent power in the struggles of their people. They enjoyed life; they worked; they went their way, and compelled no one to follow them. They obtruded themselves on none; and they asked not the world to consider them, or to do as they did. But the others all came of themselves, and drew from their refreshing streams. Can we mention a violent act of Raphael's, Goethe's, or Shakespeare's? "Goethe, who seems so deeply involved in all that concerns us, who is the author of our mental culture, nowhere opposed events; he turned wherever he could advance most easily. He was diligent. He had in his mind the completion of his works. Schiller wished to produce and to gain influence; Michael Angelo wished to act, and could not bear that lesser men should stand in the front, over whom he felt himself master. The course of events moved Michael Angelo, and animated or checked his ideas. It is not possible to extricate the consideration of his life from the events going on in the world, while Raphael's life can be narrated separately like an idyl." Raphael, while still under Perugino, had received from Donna Atalanta Baglioni the order for an "Entombment" for the Church of the Franciscans. This he painted in 1507. A century later the monks sold it to Pope Paul V., who had it removed to the Borghese Palace in Rome. The body of Christ is being borne to the tomb by two men. The weeping Magdalen is holding his hand, and the Virgin is fainting in the arms of three women. Grimm says, "The bearers of the body move along, conscious of carrying a noble burden. And Christ, himself, beauty, serenity, and mercy dwell in him in fullest measure, as if his spirit still both informed his body and glorified it. Only Raphael could undertake to paint this. No one before or after him could so simply and naturally picture the earthly form, irradiated with heavenly light." "St. Catherine of Alexandria," painted at this time, now in the National Gallery of London, says Passavant, "is one of the works which nothing can describe; neither words nor a painted copy, nor engravings, for the fire in it appears living, and is perfectly beyond the reach of imitation." "La Belle Jardinière," in the Louvre, considered one of the best and most beautiful of Raphael's works, represents the Virgin in the midst of rich landscape, the ground covered with grass and flowers, while the infant Christ looks up to her with great tenderness. It is said that the model was a lovely flower-girl to whom the painter was much attached. While finishing this picture he was called to Rome by the famous Pope Julius II., and went to the Eternal City with great hope and delight. He was now twenty-five, and the most important work of his life lay before him. Julius II. had refused to take possession of the rooms in the Vatican which had been used by the depraved Alexander VI. He said, when it was suggested to remove the mural portraits of that pope, "Even if the portraits were destroyed, the walls themselves would remind me of that Simoniac, that Jew!" Michael Angelo was already at work upon the great monument for Julius. Now the pope desired to enlarge and beautify the Vatican, and make that his monument as well. He received Raphael with the greatest cordiality. It is said that when Raphael knelt down before him, his chestnut locks falling upon his shoulders, the pope exclaimed, "He is an innocent angel. I will give him Cardinal Bembo for a teacher, and he shall fill my walls with historical pictures." Julius commissioned him to fresco the hall of the judicial assembly, called "La Segnatura." The first fresco, done between 1508 and 1509, is called "Theology" or the "Dispute on the Holy Sacrament" (_La Disputa_). "In the upper part appear the three figures of the Holy Trinity, each surrounded by a glory. Above all is the Almighty Father, in the midst of the seraphim, cherubim, and a countless host of angels, who sing the 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts.' Below the Father, amidst the saints of the celestial kingdom, the Saviour is enthroned; a little lower, the Holy Spirit is descending on men. "At the right of the Saviour, the Virgin is seated, bending towards him in adoration; and at her left is St. John the Baptist, who is pointing towards him. On a large half-circle of clouds, which extends to the extreme limits of the picture, are seated patriarchs, prophets, and martyrs, representing the communion of saints. Commencing at the extreme point to the right of Christ, we see the apostle St. Peter, holding the Holy Scriptures and the two keys.... At his side, in the expectation of mercy and pardon, is Adam, the father of the human race. Near Adam is St. John, the apostle loved by Christ, writing down his divine visions; afterwards, David, the head of the terrestrial family of our Lord, the sweet psalmist who sang the praises of God; then St. Stephen, the first martyr; and lastly, a saint half concealed by the clouds. "On the other side, at the right of the spectator, is St. Paul, holding a sword in remembrance of his martyrdom, and also as a symbol of the penetrating power of his doctrine. By his side is Abraham, with the knife to sacrifice Isaac, the first type of the sacrifice of Christ; then the apostle St. James, the third witness of the transfiguration of the Saviour, the religious type of hope, as St. Peter is of faith and St. John of love. Moses follows with the tables of the law. St. Lawrence corresponds to St. Stephen; and lastly we perceive a warlike figure, which is believed to be St. George, the patron saint of Liguria; in honor, no doubt, of Julius II., who was born in that country. "The Holy Spirit, under the form of a dove, surrounded by four cherubim, who hold the four books of the Gospel open, is descending upon the assembly of believers. "This sort of council, expressing theological life, is united in a half-circle around the altar, on which the Eucharist is exposed on a monstrance. Nearest to the altar, on both sides, come the four great fathers of the church, the columns of Roman Catholicism; to the left, St. Jerome, the type of contemplative life, absorbed in profound meditation on the Scriptures; near him are two books, one containing his 'Letters,' the other the Vulgate. Opposite is St. Ambrose, active especially in the militant church: he is raising his eyes and hands towards heaven, as if delighted with the angelic harmonies. St. Augustine, whom he converted to Christianity, is beside him, and is dictating his thoughts to a young man seated at his feet. His book on the 'City of God' is lying by him. St. Gregory the Great, clothed in the tiara and pontifical mantle, is opposite St. Augustine. His book on Job, with the superscription, 'Liber Moralium,' is also on the ground beside him." Besides these, among the fifty or more figures, are other priests and philosophers, all discussing the great questions pertaining to the redemption of the world. The pope was so overjoyed on the completion of this picture that he is said to have thrown himself upon the ground, exclaiming, with uplifted hands, "I thank thee, great God, that thou hast sent me so great a painter!" With _La Disputa_ the romance of Raphael's life begins. While he was painting this, tradition says that he fell in love with Margherita, the daughter of a soda-manufacturer, who lived near Santa Cecilia, on the other side of the Tiber. Passavant says, quoting from Missirini, "A small house, No. 20, in the street of Santa Dorotea, the windows of which are decorated with a pretty framework of earthenware, is pointed out as the house where she was born. "The beautiful young girl was very frequently in a little garden adjoining the house, where, the wall not being very high, it was easy to see her from outside. So the young men, especially artists,--always passionate admirers of beauty,--did not fail to come and look at her, by climbing up above the wall. "Raphael is said to have seen her for the first time as she was bathing her pretty feet in a little fountain in the garden. Struck by her perfect beauty, he fell deeply in love with her, and, after having made acquaintance with her, and discovered that her mind was as beautiful as her body, he became so much attached as to be unable to live without her." She has been called "_Fornarina_," because she was long supposed to be the daughter of a baker (_fornajo_). On the rough studies made for the _Disputa_, now preserved in Vienna, London, and elsewhere, three love sonnets have been found in the artist's handwriting, showing that while he mused over heavenly subjects, with the faces of Peter and John before him, he had another face, more dear and beautiful than either, in his mind. Eugene Muntz, the librarian to the _École Nationale des Beaux-Arts_, who says of these sonnets, "So great is his delicacy of feeling, his reserve and discretion, that we can scarcely analyze his dominant idea," gives the following translation:-- "Love, thou hast bound me with the light of two eyes which torment me, with a face like snow and roses, with sweet words and tender manners. So great is my ardor that no river or sea could extinguish my fire. But I do not complain, for my ardor makes me happy.... How sweet was the chain, how light the yoke of her white arms around my neck. When those bonds were loosed, I felt a mortal grief. I will say no more; a great joy kills, and, though my thoughts turn to thee, I will keep silence." "Just as Paul, descended from the skies, was unable to reveal the secrets of God," so Raphael is unable to reveal the thoughts of his beating heart. He thanks and praises love, and yet the pain of separation is intense. He feels like "mariners who have lost their star." To this love he was probably constant through life, the short twelve years which remained. When he painted the Farnesina, the palace of the rich banker, Agostino Chigi, years afterward, Vasari says, "Raphael was so much occupied with the love which he bore to the lady of his choice, that he could not give sufficient attention to the work. Agostino, therefore, falling at length into despair of seeing it finished, made so many efforts by means of friends and by his own care that after much difficulty he at length prevailed on the lady to take up her abode in his house, where she was accordingly installed, in apartments near those which Raphael was painting; in this manner the work was ultimately brought to a conclusion." He painted her portrait, now in the Barberini Palace, it is believed, in 1509. It represents a girl "only half-clothed, seated in a myrtle and laurel wood. A striped yellow stuff surrounds her head as a turban, and imparts something distinguished and charming to her features," says Passavant. " ... With her right hand she holds a light gauze against her breast. Her right arm, encircled with a golden bracelet, rests on her knees, which are covered by red drapery. On the bracelet Raphael has inscribed his name with the greatest care." The face did not seem to me beautiful when I saw it in Rome a few years ago, but certainly does not lack expression, making one feel that the mind which Raphael discovered "to be as beautiful as the body" was equally potent with the warmhearted artist. Grimm says, "The portrait of the young girl or woman in the Barberini Palace is a wonderful painting. I call it so because it bears about it in a high degree the character of mysterious unfathomableness. We like to contemplate it again and again.... Her hair is brilliantly black, parted over the brow, and smoothly drawn over the temples, behind the ear; the head is encircled with a gay handkerchief, like a turban, the knots of which lie on one side above the ear, pressing it a little with their weight. "She is slightly bent forward. She sits there with her delicate shoulder a little turned to the left; she seems looking stealthily at her lover, to watch him as he paints, and yet not to stir from her position, because he has forbidden it. It seems to him, however, to be a source of the most intense pleasure to copy her accurately, and in no small matter to represent her otherwise than as he saw her before him. We fancy her to feel the jealousy, the vehemence, the joy, the unalterable good-humor, and the pride springing from the happiness of being loved by him. He, however, painted it all because he was capable of these feelings himself in their greatest depth. If his pictures do not betray this, his poems do." Muntz says, "From a technical point of view, the work is a masterpiece. Never, perhaps, has Raphael given such delicacy and subtlety to his carnations; never did he create a fuller life; we can see the blood circulate; we can feel the beating pulse. Thus the picture is a continual source of envy and despair to modern realists." Crowe and Cavalcaselle, in their life of Raphael, speak of the "warm tone of flesh burnished to a nicety and shaded with exceptional force," in this picture. "The coal-black eyes have a fascinating look of intentness, which is all the more effective as they are absolutely open, under brows of the purest curves.... The forehead has a grand arch, the cheeks are broad, the chin rounded and small. The contours are all circular. The flesh has a fulness which characterizes alike the neck, the drooping shoulders, and the arms and extremities." Passavant thus speaks of a portrait in Florence, which belonged to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. "This portrait in the Pitti Palace bears a strong resemblance to the Madonna di San Sisto (Dresden Museum), with this difference, however, that the features of the Virgin are ennobled. The woman in the portrait is a handsome Roman, but of quite individual character. Her form is powerful, her costume sumptuous, her beautiful black eyes flash, her mouth is refined and full of grace. "If this portrait, as may well be believed, represents the same person as that of the Barberini house, we are compelled to admit that the countenance, always intelligent, of this young girl, had become wonderfully animated in the time between the execution of the two portraits. However," he adds, "it would be indeed astonishing if constant intercourse with the author of so many masterpieces, and one of the most perfect human organizations that nature ever produced, should have failed to influence the facile character of a young girl. This second portrait, to judge by the manner in which it is painted, must belong to the last years of Raphael's life." With this fervent and lasting love for Margherita in his heart, Raphael painted the other three mural paintings in the Vatican hall: the "Parnassus," Apollo surrounded by the Nine Muses, Homer singing, Dante and Virgil conversing, with Pindar, Sappho, Horace, Petrarch, Ovid, and others; "Jurisprudence," with Emperor Justinian and Gregory IX., the one founding the laws of the State, the other the laws of the Church; the "School of Athens," with the masters of ancient philosophy and science assembled. On the left we see the most ancient of the philosophic schools gathered around Pythagoras. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are surrounded by their pupils; Archimedes and Zoroaster are the central figures of the interested group. Diogenes sits on the central steps of the grand hall where more than fifty great men are assembled. Passavant says, "In the 'School of Athens,' Raphael showed the full power of his genius, and that he was completely master both of his style and of his execution. In the part of this picture requiring great learning, it is possible, and indeed highly probable, that Raphael consulted the most erudite of his friends, and amongst others the Count Castiglione, who had just come to settle at Rome. "However this may be, to Raphael alone belongs the great honor of having succeeded in representing, in a single living and distinct image, the development of Greek philosophy. It was Raphael who conceived the idea of grouping the personages according to the rank they occupy in history, and rendered the tendencies of these philosophers apparent, not merely by ingenious grouping, but also by their actions, their attitudes, and countenances. "This fresco, in which he rose to such dignity and to such a grand style, is justly considered as the most magnificent work the master ever produced. It does, indeed, unite the technical experience of drawing, coloring, and touch--the conquests of the more modern schools--to the severity bequeathed to them by the more ancient ones.... "A great era in arts, as in literature, does not always follow the appearance of an extraordinary genius. It comes on gradually, and its progress may be noted. It has its infancy, and with it the simplicity belonging to that age; then its youth, with the grace and sentiments natural to youth; afterwards maturity, with its increased power. "Raphael was the highest expression of the art of the sixteenth century; he attained its greatest perfection. He was a continuation of the chain of artists in his time, and was its last and brightest link." Eugene Muntz calls this papal hall, the Stanza della Segnatura, "the most splendid sanctuary of modern art. The profundity of ideas, the nobility of the style, and the youthful vitality which prevails in every detail of the decoration, make up a monumental achievement which is without parallel in the annals of painting, without equal even among the other works of Raphael himself." During the three years' work in this hall, Raphael painted several other pictures: the magnificent portrait of Pope Julius II., now in the Pitti Palace; the "Madonna di Foligno," now in the Vatican, a large altar-piece for Sigismondo Conti di Foligno, private secretary to the pope; the Virgin seated on golden clouds surrounded by half-length angels against a blue sky. "A burning globe, with a rainbow above it, is falling from the sky. According to tradition this globe is a bomb, and bears reference to the danger incurred by Sigismondo at the siege of Foligno, his native town, and the rainbow may be considered symbolical of the reconciliation of the donor with God." The Madonna della Casa d'Alba, round, on wood, only nine and one-half inches in diameter, was originally in a church at Nocera de Pagani, in the Neapolitan States, and later was owned by the Duke of Alba, at Madrid. The Duchess of Alba gave it to her doctor, in her will, for curing her of a dangerous disease. She died very soon, and the doctor was arrested on suspicion of poison, but was finally liberated. The painting came into the possession of the Emperor of Russia, for seventy thousand dollars, and is in the Hermitage. The "Madonna del Pesce," the gem of the Italian Gallery of the Madrid Museum, which some persons rank equal to the Sistine Madonna, represents the Virgin holding the Child, who rests his hand on an open book. Tobias, holding a fish, and led by an angel, implores a cure for his father's blindness. Raphael also executed for the wealthy Agostino Chigi, the _protégé_ of Julius II. and Leo X., the frescos in the Church Santa Maria della Pace. Cinelli tells this anecdote: "Raphael of Urbino had painted for Agostino Chigi, at Santa Maria della Pace, some prophets and sibyls, on which he had received an advance of five hundred scudi. One day he demanded of Agostino's cashier (Giulio Borghesi) the remainder of the sum at which he estimated his work. The cashier, being astonished at this demand, and thinking that the sum already paid was sufficient, did not reply. 'Cause the work to be estimated by a judge of painting,' replied Raphael, 'and you will see how moderate my demand is.' "Giulio Borghesi thought of Michael Angelo for this valuation, and begged him to go to the church and estimate the figures of Raphael. Possibly he imagined that self-love, rivalry, and jealousy would lead the Florentine to lower the price of the pictures. "Michael Angelo went, accompanied by the cashier, to Santa Maria della Pace, and, as he was contemplating the fresco without uttering a word, Borghesi questioned him. 'That head,' replied Michael Angelo, pointing to one of the Sibyls, 'that head is worth a hundred scudi.'... 'And the others?' asked the cashier. 'The others are not less.' "Some who witnessed this scene related it to Chigi. He heard every particular, and, ordering, in addition to the five hundred scudi for five heads, a hundred scudi to be paid for each of the others, he said to his cashier, 'Go and give that to Raphael in payment for his heads, and behave very politely to him, so that he may be satisfied; for if he insists on my also paying for the drapery, we should probably be ruined.'" From 1512 to 1514, Raphael frescoed the second Vatican hall, La Stanza d'Eliodoro. The first mural painting was "The Miraculous Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple at Jerusalem," the angels attacking him as he is taking the money destined for widows and orphans. The second fresco is the "Miracle of Bolsena," where, in the reign of Urban IV., a priest, who doubted the reality of transubstantiation, saw the blood flow from the Host while he was celebrating mass. These are called the most richly colored frescos in the world, exceeding the celebrated ones of Titian in the Scuola di San Antonio, at Padua. The third fresco represents the "Deliverance of St. Peter from Prison," and the fourth, Attila arrested in his march on Rome in 452, by the apparition of St. Peter and St. Paul. A frightful hurricane is raging at the time, and the Huns are filled with terror. Leo X., who had succeeded Julius II., desired to be immortalized instead of St. Leo, so, with a touch of human nature not entirely spiritual, caused himself and his court, driving the French under Louis XII. out of Italy, to be painted in the picture. Passavant says, "A few very animated groups of soldiers had to be sacrificed; but on the whole the composition gained by the alteration, from the contrast of the calm gentleness of the pontiff with the ferocity of the barbarians. In execution this fresco may be considered as one of the most perfect by this master." While this second room in the Vatican was being painted, Raphael, as usual, was engaged also in other work. In the Chigi palace, or Farnesina, he painted the beautiful fresco, "Galatea." The subject is taken from the narrative of Philostratus about the Cyclops. "In the fresco," says Passavant, "Galatea is gently sailing on the waves. Love guides the shell, which is drawn by dolphins, and surrounded by tritons and marine centaurs, who bear the nymphs. Little cupids in the air are shooting arrows at them. All these figures form a contrast with the beautiful Galatea, whose languid eyes are raised to heaven, the centre of all noble aspirations. "Galatea is an image of beauty of soul united to that of the body. It is, indeed, a sort of glorified nature; or, rather, a goddess clad in human form. Raphael's genius defies all comparison, and has attained in this masterpiece a height which approaches very nearly to perfection." This fresco won the most enthusiastic praise. His friend, Count Castiglione, wrote him in hearty commendation, and Raphael replied,-- "As for 'the Galatea,' I should think myself a great master if it possessed one-half the merits of which you write, but I read in your words the love you bear to myself. To paint a figure truly beautiful, I should see many beautiful forms, with the further provision that you should be present to choose the most beautiful. But, good judges and beautiful women being rare, I avail myself of certain ideas which come into my mind. If this idea has any excellence in art I know not, although I labor heartily to acquire it." How modest the spirit of this letter, and how fully it shows that the young artist lived in an ideal world, filled with exquisite things of his own creating. Some natures always see roses instead of thorns, sunshine behind the clouds; believe in goodness and purity rather than in sin and sorrow; and such natures make the world lovelier by their uplifting words and hopes. The famous artist, now thirty-one, had become wealthy, and had built for himself a tasteful and elegant home on the Via di Borgo Nuova, not far from the Vatican. "The ground floor of the façade was of rustic architecture, with five arched doors, four of which were for the offices, and the one in the centre for the entrance to the house. The upper story was of Doric order, with coupled columns, and five windows surmounted by triangular pediments. The entablature which surmounted the whole was of a severe style; imitated from the antique. This beautiful building no longer exists. The angle of the right of the basement, which now forms a part of the Accoramboni palace, is the only part that remains." Raphael's friends, with that well-meant, but usually injudicious interference which is so common, were urging him to bring a wife into his home. His uncle, Simone di Battista di Ciarla, seems to have been anxious, for the artist writes him in 1514, "As to taking a wife, I will say, in regard to her whom you destined for me, that I am very glad and thank God for not having taken either her or another. And in this I have been wiser than you who wished to give her to me. I am convinced that you see yourself that I should not have got on as I have done." Another person seemed equally anxious for his marriage. Cardinal Bibiena, who had been Raphael's intimate friend when he lived in Urbino, had long been desirous that he should marry Maria, the daughter of Antonio Divizio da Bibiena, his nephew. Evidently Raphael was engaged to her, for he writes to this uncle, Simone, "I cannot withdraw my word; we are nearer than ever to the conclusion." As the matter was deferred year by year--as many writers believe, because Raphael, loving Margherita, was unwilling to marry another--he was saved from the seeming necessity of keeping his promise, by Maria's death some time previous to his own. She is buried in Raphael's chapel in the Pantheon, not far from his grave. He had met and loved Margherita in 1508, six years earlier, and possibly after his engagement to Maria. Margherita was in his house when he died, and to her he left an adequate portion of his property. This year, 1514, Bramante, the architect of St. Peter's, having died, Raphael was appointed his successor. Perceiving that the four columns which were to support the cupola had too weak a foundation, the first work was to strengthen these. He executed a plan of the church, which some think superior to that which Michael Angelo carried out after Raphael's death. He studied carefully the architectural works of Vitruvius, and planned several beautiful structures in Rome. Raphael also had the oversight of all the excavations in and around Rome, so that pieces of antique statuary, which were often found, might be carefully preserved. "To this end," wrote Leo X., "I command every one, of whatever condition or rank he may be, noble or not, titled or of low estate, to make you, as superintendent of this matter, acquainted with every stone or marble which shall be discovered within the extent of country designated by me, who desire that every one failing to do so shall be judged by you, and fined from one hundred to three hundred gold crowns." The third hall of the pope, called the Stanza del Incendio, was painted from 1514 to 1517. The first fresco is "The Oath of Leo III.," who, brought before the Emperor Charlemagne for trial, was acquitted through a supernatural voice proclaiming that no one had the right to judge the pope. The second fresco is "The Coronation of Charlemagne by Leo III.," thus signifying that the spiritual power is above the temporal power. The two principal portraits are, however, Leo X. and Francis I., who formed an alliance in 1515. The third and finest picture is "The Conflagration of the Borgo Vecchio at Rome." The other pictures were executed in part by the pupils of Raphael. This was by his own hand. In 847 a fire broke out in Rome, which extended from the Vatican to the Mausoleum of Adrian. The danger from the high wind was very great, when Pope Leo IV. implored divine aid, and at once the flames assumed the form of a cross, and the fire was quenched. "Several of the figures," says Passavant, "are considered as perfect and inimitable, amongst others the two beautiful and powerful women who are bringing water in vases, and whose forms are so admirably delineated under their garments agitated by the wind." The last fresco shows the "Victory of Leo IV. over the Saracens at Ostia." The pope, Leo IV., with the face of Leo X., is on the shore, engaged in prayer. At this time Raphael made sepia sketches for the Loggie leading to the apartments of the pope; thirteen arcades, each arcade containing four principal pictures. Forty-eight of these scenes are taken from the Old Testament, and four from the life of Christ. Taken together, they are called "Raphael's Bible." Vasari said of the decorations in the Loggie, "It is impossible to execute or to conceive a more exquisite work." Catherine II. of Russia had all these Loggie paintings copied on canvas, and placed in the Hermitage, in a gallery constructed for them, like that in the Vatican. This gallery cost a million and a half of dollars. In these busy years, 1515 to 1516, the famous cartoons for the Sistine Chapel were made. Sixtus IV. had built the chapel. Michael Angelo, under Julius II., had painted in it his "History of the Creation," and "Prophets and Sibyls." And now Raphael was asked to make cartoons for ten pieces of tapestry, to be hung before the wainscoting on high festivals. The cartoons are, "The Miraculous Draught of Fishes," "Christ's Charge to Peter," "The Martyrdom of St. Stephen," "The Healing of the Lame Man," "The Death of Ananias," "The Conversion of St. Paul," "Elymas struck with Blindness," "Paul and Barnabas at Lystra," "St. Paul Preaching at Athens," and "Saint Paul in Prison." The cartoons were sent to Arras, in Flanders, and wrought in wool, silk, and gold. Brought to Rome in 1519, they were hung in St. Peter's, on the feast of St. Stephen. The enthusiasm of the Romans was unbounded. Vasari says this work "seems rather to have been performed by miracle than by the aid of man." These tapestries, after many changes, are now in the Vatican, much soiled and faded. Of the cartoons, twelve feet by from fourteen to eighteen feet, with figures above life-size, seven of them are to be seen in the South Kensington Museum. They were purchased at Arras by Charles I., on the recommendation of Rubens. They are yearly studied by thousands of visitors. Grimm calls the cartoons "Raphael's greatest productions." He considers the "Death of Ananias" "as the most purely dramatic of all his compositions." "Compared with these," says Hazlitt, "all other pictures look like oil and varnish; we are stopped and attracted by the coloring, the pencilling, the finishing, the instrumentalities of art; but _here_ the painter seems to have flung his mind upon the canvas. His thoughts, his great ideas alone, prevail; there is nothing between us and the subject; we look through a frame and see Scripture histories, and are made actual spectators in miraculous events. "Not to speak it profanely, they are a sort of a revelation of the subjects of which they treat; there is an ease and freedom of manner about them which brings preternatural characters and situations home to us with the familiarity of every-day occurrences; and while the figures fill, raise, and satisfy the mind, they seem to have cost the painter nothing. Everywhere else we see the means; here we arrive at the end apparently without any means." Raphael was now overwhelmed with orders for pictures. He had shown worldly wisdom--a thing not always possessed by genius--in having his works engraved by men under his own supervision, so that they were everywhere scattered among the people. In 1516 he decorated the bath-room of his friend Cardinal Bibiena, who lived on the third floor of the Vatican. The first sketch represents the Birth of Venus; then Venus and Cupid, seated on dolphins, journey across the sea; she is wounded by Cupid's dart; she pulls out the thorn which has pierced her. The blood, falling on the white rose, gives us, according to tradition, the rich red rose. These paintings were certainly of a different nature from the others in the Vatican, and, while Passavant thinks it strange that a spiritually minded cardinal should have desired such pictures, they were nevertheless greatly admired and copied. This same year, 1516, one of Raphael's most celebrated Madonnas was painted, the one oftener copied, probably, than any other picture in the world, "The Madonna della Sedia," now in the Pitti Palace. The Virgin, with an uncommonly sweet and beautiful face, is seated in a chair (_sedia_), with both arms encircling the infant Saviour, his baby head resting against her own. Grimm says, "Mary has been painted by Raphael in different degrees of earthly rank; the Madonna della Sedia approaches the aristocratic, but only in outward show, for the poorest mother might sit there as she does. Gold and variegated colors have been used without stint.... The dress of the mother is light blue; the mantle which she has drawn about her shoulders is green, with red and willow-green stripes and gold-embroidered border; her sleeves are red faced with gold at the wrists. A grayish brown veil with reddish brown stripes is wound about her hair; the little dress of the child is orange-colored, and the back of the chair red velvet. The golden lines radiating from the halo around the head of the child form a cross, and over the mother's and John's float light golden rings. All the tones are flower-like and clear.... A harmonious glow irradiates it, which, partaking of a spiritual as well as a material nature, constitutes the peculiarity of this work, and defies all attempts at reproduction. Pictorial art has produced few such works which actually in their beauty exceed nature herself, who does not seem to wish to unite so many advantages in one person or place.... "Raphael's Madonnas have the peculiarity that they are not distinctively national. They are not Italians whom he paints, but women raised above what is national. Leonardo's, Correggio's, Titian's, Murillo's, and Rubens's Madonnas are all in some respects affected by their masters' nationality; a faint suggestion of Italian or Spanish or Flemish nature pervades their forms. Raphael alone could give to his Madonnas that universal human loveliness, and that beauty which is a possession common to the European nations compared with other races. "His Sistine Madonna soars above us as our ideal of womanly beauty; and yet, strange to say, despite this universality, she gives to each individual the impression that, owing to some special affinity, he has the privilege of wholly understanding her. Shakespeare's and Goethe's feminine creations inspire the same feeling.... "All Raphael's works are youthful works. After finishing the Sistine Madonna, he lived only three years. At thirty-five years of age (and he did not survive much beyond this), the largest portion of human life is often still in the future. The events of each day continue to surprise us, and to seem like adventures. Raphael was full of these fresh hopes and anticipations when a cruel fate snatched him away. His last works betray the same youthful exhilaration in labor as his first. His studies from nature made at this time have a freshness and grace which, regarded as personal manifestations of his genius, are as valuable as his paintings. He was still in process of development.... What in our later years we call illusions still enchanted him. The easy, untrammelled life at the court of the pope wore for him, to the last, a romantic glamour, and the admiration of those who only meant to flatter sounded sweet in his ears, even while he saw through it. Everything continued to serve him; with the gospel of defeat his soul was still unacquainted." The Sistine Madonna, with the Virgin standing on the clouds in the midst of myriads of cherubs' heads, St. Sixtus kneeling on the left, and St. Barbara on the right, was painted in 1518 for the Benedictine Monastery of San Sisto, at Piacenza, from which it was purchased in 1754 by Augustus III., Elector of Saxony, for forty thousand dollars. It was received at Dresden with great joy, the throne of Saxony being displaced in order to give this divine product of genius a fitting home. It is said that the famous Correggio, standing before this picture, exclaimed with pride, "I too am an artist!" Passavant says, "It was the last Virgin created by the genius of Raphael; and, as if he had foreseen that this Madonna would be his last, he made it an apotheosis." It is interesting to sit in the Dresden gallery alone, before the Sistine Madonna, which has the face of the beloved Margherita, and note the hush that comes upon the people when they pass over the threshold. They seem to enter into the feelings of the artist. It is said that many a poor and lonely woman, bent with years, has wept before this painting. The eyes of the Virgin look at you, but they do not see you. The eyes are thinking--looking back into her past with its mysteries; looking forward perchance into a veiled but significant future. These eyes, once seen, are never forgotten, and you go again and again to look at them. Raphael's "Christ Bearing the Cross" (_Lo Spasimo_) is considered a masterpiece, from its drawing and expression. Some think it equal to "The Transfiguration." The ship which was carrying it to Palermo was lost with all on board. Nothing was recovered save this picture, which, uninjured, floated in a box into the harbor of Genoa. It is now in Madrid. Another well-known work of Raphael is "St. Cecilia," listening to the singing of six angels, her eyes raised to heaven in ecstasy. A musical instrument is slipping from her hand while she listens, entranced, to playing so much more wonderful than her own. On her right are St. Paul and St. John; on her left Mary Magdalene, with St. Augustine. Cecilia was a rich and noble Roman lady who lived in the reign of Alexander Severus. She was married at sixteen to Valerian, who, with his brother Tiburtius, was converted to Christianity by her prayers. Both these men were beheaded because they refused to sacrifice to idols, and Cecilia was shortly after condemned to death by Almachius, Prefect of Rome. She was shut up in her own bath-room, and blazing fires kindled that the hot vapor might destroy her; but she was kept alive, says the legend, "for God sent a cooling shower which tempered the heat of the fire." The prefect then sent a man to her palace, to behead her, but he left her only half killed. The Christians found her bathed in her blood, and during three days she still preached and taught, like a doctor of the church, with such sweetness and eloquence that four hundred pagans were converted. On the third day she was visited by Pope Urban I., to whose care she tenderly committed the poor whom she nourished, and to him she bequeathed the palace in which she had lived, that it might be consecrated as a temple to the Saviour. She died in the third century. This masterpiece of color was sent to Bologna, having been ordered by a noble Bolognese lady, Elena Duglioni, for a chapel which she built to St. Cecilia. Raphael sent the picture to his artist friend Francesco Francia, asking that he "make any correction he pleased, if he noticed any defect." It is stated that Francia was so overcome at the sight of this picture that he died from excessive grief because he felt that he could never equal it. Shelley wrote concerning this work, "Standing before the picture of St. Cecilia, you forget that it is a picture as you look at it, and yet it is most unlike any of those things which we call reality. It is of the inspired and ideal kind, and seems to have been conceived and executed in a similar state of feeling to that which produced among the ancients those perfect specimens of poetry and sculpture which are the baffling models of succeeding generations. There is a unity and a perfection in it of an incommunicable kind. The central figure, St. Cecilia, seems wrapt in such inspiration as produced her image in the painter's mind; her deep, dark, eloquent eyes lifted up, her chestnut hair flung back from her forehead: she holds an organ in her hands; her countenance, as it were, calmed by the depth of her passion and rapture, and penetrated throughout with the warm and radiant light of life. She is listening to the music of heaven, and, as I imagine, has just ceased to sing, for the four figures that surround her evidently point, by their attitudes, towards her, particularly St. John, who, with a tender, yet impassioned gesture, bends his countenance towards her, languid with the depth of his emotion. At her feet lie various instruments of music, broken and unstrung. Of the coloring I do not speak; it eclipses Nature, yet it has all her truth and softness." Raphael was now loaded with honors. Henry VIII. urged him to visit England and become attached to his court. Francis I. was eager to make him court painter of France. Often the artist shut himself up in his palace, and applied himself so closely to his books and pictures that people said he was melancholy. He was so deeply interested in history that he thought of writing some historical works. He had planned and partially completed a book on ancient Rome, which should reproduce to the world the city in its former grandeur. He left a manuscript on art and artists, which Vasari found most valuable in his biographies. He sent artists into all the neighboring countries to collect studies from the antique. He loved poetry and philosophy. Several artists lived in his home, for whom he provided as though they were his children. Among others in his house lived Fabius of Ravenna, concerning whom Calcagnini, the pope's secretary, wrote, "He is an old man of stoical probity, and of whom it would be difficult to say whether his learning or affability is the greater. Through him Hippocrates speaks Latin, and has laid aside his ancient defective expressions. This most holy man has this peculiar and very uncommon quality of despising money so much as to refuse it when offered to him, unless forced to accept it by the most urgent necessity. However, he receives from the pope an annual pension, which he divides amongst his friends and relations. He himself lives on herbs and lettuces, like the Pythagoreans, and dwells in a hole which might justly be named the tub of Diogenes. He would far rather die than not pursue his studies.... "He is cared for as a child by the very rich Raphael da Urbino, who is so much esteemed by the pope; he is a young man of the greatest kindness and of an admirable mind. He is distinguished by the highest qualities. Thus he is, perhaps, the first of all painters, as well in theory as in practice; moreover, he is an architect of such rare talent that he invents and executes things which men of the greatest genius deemed impossible. I make an exception only in Vitruvius, whose principles he does not teach, but whom he defends or attacks with the surest proofs, and with so much grace that not even the slightest envy mingles in his criticism. "At present he is occupied with a wonderful work, which will be scarcely credited by posterity (I do not allude to the basilica of the Vatican, where he directs the works): it is the town of Rome, which he is restoring in almost its ancient grandeur; for, by removing the highest accumulations of earth, digging down to the lowest foundations, and restoring everything according to the descriptions of ancient authors, he has so carried Pope Leo and the Romans along with him as to induce every one to look on him as a god sent from heaven to restore to the ancient city her ancient majesty. "With all this he is so far from being proud that he comes as a friend to every one, and does not shun the words and remarks of any one; he likes to hear his views discussed in order to obtain instruction and to instruct others, which he regards as the object of life. He respects and honors Fabius as a master and a father, speaking to him of everything and following his counsels." A rare man, indeed, this Raphael; not proud, not envious, but confiding, learning from everybody, sincere and unselfish. For the fourth hall in the Vatican, the Sala di Costantino, Raphael made the cartoon for "The Battle of Constantine." In the centre of the picture Constantine is dashing across the battle-field on a white horse, with his spear levelled at Maxentius, who, with his army, is driven back into the Tiber. The whole picture is remarkable for life and spirit. Raphael now undertook the paintings in the Loggie of the Farnesina, for Agostino Chigi,--the fable of Cupid and Psyche, from Apuleius. "A certain king had three daughters, of whom Psyche, the youngest, excites the jealousy of Venus by her beauty. The goddess accordingly directs her son Cupid to punish the princess by inspiring her with love for an unworthy individual. Cupid himself becomes enamoured of her, shows her to the Graces, and carries her off. He visits her by night, warning her not to indulge in curiosity as to his appearance. Psyche, however, instigated by her envious sisters, disobeys the injunction. She lights a lamp, a drop of heated oil from which awakens her sleeping lover. Cupid upbraids her, and quits her in anger. Psyche wanders about, filled with despair. Meanwhile Venus has been informed of her son's attachment, imprisons him, and requests Juno and Ceres to aid her in seeking for Psyche, which both goddesses decline to do. She then drives in her dove-chariot to Jupiter, and begs him to grant her the assistance of Mercury. Her request is complied with, and Mercury flies forth to search for Psyche. Venus torments her in every conceivable manner, and imposes impossible tasks on her, which, however, with the aid of friends, she is enabled to perform. At length she is desired to bring a casket from the infernal regions, and even this, to the astonishment of Venus, she succeeds in accomplishing. Cupid, having at length escaped from his captivity, begs Jupiter to grant him Psyche; Jupiter kisses him, and commands Mercury to summon the gods to deliberate on the matter. The messenger of the gods then conducts Psyche to Olympus, she becomes immortal, and the gods celebrate the nuptial banquet. In this pleasing fable Psyche obviously represents the human soul purified by passions and misfortunes, and thus fitted for the enjoyment of celestial happiness." Raphael had time only to make cartoons for the greater part of this work, while his pupils executed them. The paintings were criticised, and it was said that the talent of Raphael was declining. Hurt by such an unwarrantable opinion, Raphael gladly accepted an order from Cardinal Giuliano de' Medici for a "Transfiguration" for the Cathedral of Narbonne. At the same time the cardinal ordered the "Raising of Lazarus" from Sebastiano del Piombo. Michael Angelo made the drawings for this picture, it is said, so that this work might equal or surpass that of Raphael. When the latter was apprised of this, he replied cheerfully, "Michael Angelo pays me a great honor, since it is in reality himself that he offers as my rival and not Sebastiano." The "Transfiguration," now in the Vatican, is in two sections. In the upper portion Christ has risen into the air above Mount Tabor, and has appeared to Peter, James, and John, on the mount. At this moment the voice is heard saying, "This is my beloved Son: hear him." At the foot of the mount, an afflicted father, followed by a crowd of people, has brought his demoniac boy to the Apostles, to be healed. The disciples point to the Saviour as the only one who has the power to cast out evil spirits. Vasari says, "In this work the master has of a truth produced figures and heads of such extraordinary beauty, so new, so varied, and at all points so admirable, that among the many works executed by his hand this, by the common consent of all artists, is declared to be the most worthily renowned, the most excellent, the most divine. Whoever shall desire to see in what manner Christ transformed into the Godhead should be represented, let him come and behold it in this picture.... But as if that sublime genius had gathered all the force of his powers into one effort, whereby the glory and the majesty of art should be made manifest in the countenance of Christ: having completed that, as one who had finished the great work which he had to accomplish, he touched the pencils no more, being shortly afterwards overtaken by death." Before the "Transfiguration" was completed, Raphael was seized with a violent fever, probably contracted through his researches among the ruins of Rome. Weak from overwork, he seems to have realized at once that his labors were finished. He made his will, giving his works of art to his pupils; his beautiful home to Cardinal Bibiena, though the cardinal died soon after without ever living in it; a thousand crowns to purchase a house whose rental should defray the expense of twelve masses monthly at the altar of his chapel in the Pantheon, which he had long before made ready for his body; and the rest of his property to his relatives and Margherita. He died on the night of Good Friday, April 6, 1520, at the age of thirty-seven. All Rome was bent with grief at the death of its idol. He lay in state in his beautiful home, on a catafalque surrounded by lighted tapers, the unfinished "Transfiguration" behind it. An immense crowd followed the body to the Pantheon; his last beautiful picture, its colors yet damp, being carried in the procession. His friend Cardinal Pietro Bembo wrote his epitaph in Latin: "Dedicated to Raphael Sanzio, the son of Giovanni of Urbino, the most eminent painter, who emulated the ancients. In whom the union of Nature and Art is easily perceived. He increased the glory of the pontiffs Julius II. and Leo X. by his works of painting and architecture. He lived exactly thirty-seven years, and died on the anniversary of his birth, April 6, 1520. "Living, great Nature feared he might outvie Her works, and, dying, fears herself to die." Count Castiglione wrote to his mother, "It seems as if I were not in Rome, since my poor Raphael is here no longer." The pope, Leo X., could not be comforted, and, it is said, burst into tears, exclaiming, "_Ora pro nobis._" The Mantuan Ambassador wrote home the day after Raphael's death, "Nothing is talked of here but the loss of the man who at the close of his three-and-thirtieth year [thirty-seventh] has now ended his first life; his second, that of his posthumous fame, independent of death and transitory things, through his works, and in what the learned will write in his praise, must continue forever." Three hundred and thirteen years after his death his tomb was opened, in 1833, and the complete skeleton was found. After five weeks, the precious remains were enclosed in a leaden coffin, and that in a marble sarcophagus, and reburied at night, the Pantheon being illuminated, and the chief artists and cultivated people of the city bearing torches in the reverent procession. Dead at thirty-seven, and yet how amazing the amount of work accomplished. He left two hundred and eighty-seven pictures and five hundred and seventy-six drawings and studies. Michael Angelo said Raphael owed more to his wonderful industry than to his genius. When asked once by his pupils how he accomplished so much, Raphael replied, "From my earliest childhood I have made it a principle never to neglect anything." Passavant says, "He was the most ideal artist that God has ever created." His maxim was, "We must not represent things as they are, but as they should be." Says Charles C. Perkins of Boston, "Throughout all his works there is not an expression of face, or a contour, whether of muscle or drapery, which is not exactly suited to its end; nor in the thousands of figures which he drew or painted can we recall an ungraceful or a mannered line or pose. This was because of all artists since the Greeks, he had the most perfect feeling for true beauty. The beautiful was his special field, and hence he is first among his kind. Leonardo had more depth, Michael Angelo more grandeur, Correggio more sweetness; but none of them approached Raphael as an exponent of beauty whether in young or old, in mortals or immortals, in earthly or divine beings. "Raphael was in truth the greatest of artists, because the most comprehensive, blending as he did the opposing tendencies of the mystics and the naturalists into a perfect whole by reverent study of nature and of the antique. Bred in a devotional school of art, and transferred to an atmosphere charged with classical ideas, he retained enough of the first, while he absorbed enough of the second, to make him a painter of works Christian in spirit and Greek in elegance and purity of form and style." Raphael will live, not only through his works but through the adoration we all pay to a lovable character. The perennial fountain of goodness and sweetness in Raphael's soul, which "won for him the favor of the great," as Giovio said, while living, has won for him the homage of the world, now that he is dead. He had by nature a sunny, kindly disposition: he had what every person living may have, and would do well to cultivate: a spirit that did not find fault, lips that spoke no censure of anybody, but praise where praise was possible, and such self-control that not an enemy was ever made by his temper or his lack of consideration for others. He was enthusiastic, but he had the self-poise of a great nature. True, his life was short. As Grimm says, "Four single statements exhaust the story of his life: he lived, he loved, he worked, he died young." He helped everybody, and what more is there in life than this? TITIAN. "If I were required," says Mrs. Jameson, "to sum up in two great names whatever the art of painting had contemplated and achieved of highest and best, I would invoke Raphael and Titian. The former as the most perfect example of all that has been accomplished in the expression of thought through the medium of form; the latter, of all that has been accomplished in the expression of life through the medium of color. Hence it is that, while _both_ have given us mind, and _both_ have given us beauty, _Mind_ is ever the characteristic of Raphael--_Beauty_, that of Titian. [Illustration: TITIAN.] "Considered under this point of view, these wonderful men remain to us as representatives of the two great departments of art. All who went before them, and all who follow after them, may be ranged under the banners of one or the other of these great kings and leaders. Under the banners of Raphael appear the majestic thinkers in art, the Florentine and Roman painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and Albert Dürer, in Germany. Ranged on the side of Titian appear the Venetian, the Lombard, the Spanish, and Flemish masters. When a school of art arose which aimed at uniting the characteristics of both, what was the result? A something second-hand and neutral--the school of the Academicians and the _mannerists_, a crowd of painters who neither felt what they saw, nor saw what they felt; who trusted neither to the God within them, nor the nature around them; and who ended by giving us Form without Soul--Beauty without Life." Ruskin says, "When Titian or Tintoret look at a human being, they see at a glance the whole of its nature, outside and in; all that it has of form, of color, of passion, or of thought; saintliness and loveliness; fleshly power and spiritual power; grace, or strength, or softness, or whatsoever other quality, those men will see to the full, and so paint that, when narrower people come to look at what they have done, every one may, if he chooses, find his own special pleasure in the work. The sensualist will find sensuality in Titian; the thinker will find thought; the saint, sanctity; the colorist, color; the anatomist, form; and yet the picture will never be a popular one in the full sense, for none of these narrower people will find their special taste so alone consulted as that the qualities which would insure their gratification shall be sifted or separated from others; they are checked by the presence of the other qualities, which insure the gratification of other men.... Only there is a strange undercurrent of everlasting murmur about the name of Titian, which means the deep consent of all great men that he is greater than they." Strong praise indeed!--"the deep consent of all great men that he is greater than they;"--strong praise for the tireless worker, of whom Ludovico Dolce wrote, who knew him personally, that "he was most modest; that he never spoke reproachfully of other painters; that, in his discourse, he was ever ready to give honor where honor was due; that he was, moreover, an eloquent speaker, having an excellent wit and a perfect judgment in all things; of a most sweet and gentle nature, affable and most courteous in manner; so that whoever once conversed with him could not choose but love him thenceforth forever." He was remarkably calm and self-poised through life, saying that a painter should never be agitated. And yet he was a man of strong feelings and tender affections. Titian, the lover of the beautiful, was born at Arsenale, in the Valley of Cadore, in the heart of the Venetian Alps, in the year 1477. His father, Gregorio Vecelli, was a brave soldier, a member of the Council of Cadore, inspector of mines, superintendent of the castle, and, though probably limited in means, was universally esteemed for wisdom and uprightness. Of the mother, Lucia, little is known, save that she bore to Gregorio four children, Caterina, Francesco, Orsa, and Titian. In this Alpine country, with its waterfalls and its rushing river, Piave, with its mountain wild-flowers, its jagged rocks and nestling cottages, the boy Titian grew to be passionately fond of nature; to idolize beauty of form and face, and to revel in color. The clouds, the sky, the cliffs, the greensward, were a constant delight. In after years he put all these changing scenes upon canvas, becoming the most famous idealist as well as the "greatest landscape-painter of the Venetian school." The story is told, though it has been denied by some authorities, that before he was ten years of age he had painted, on the walls of his home at Cadore, with the juice of flowers, a Madonna, the Child standing on her knee, while an angel kneels at her feet. The father and relatives were greatly surprised and pleased, and the lad was taken to Venice, seventy miles from Cadore, and placed with an uncle, so that he might study under the best artists. His first teacher seems to have been Sebastian Zuccato, the leader of the guild of mosaic-workers. He was soon, however, drawn to the studio of Gentile Bellini, an artist seventy years old, noted for his knowledge of perspective and skill in composition. He had travelled much, and had gathered into his home pictures and mosaics of great value: the head of Plato, a statue of Venus by Praxiteles, and other renowned works. What an influence has such a home on a susceptible boy of eleven or twelve years of age! Gentile was a man of tender heart as well as of refined taste. Asked to paint portraits of the sultan and sultana, the aged artist went to Constantinople in 1479 and presented the ruler with a picture of the decapitation of St. John. The sultan criticised the work, and, to show the painter the truth of the criticism, had the head of a slave struck off in his presence, whereupon the artist, sick at heart, returned at once to Venice. The young Cadorine studied carefully the minute drawings of Gentile Bellini, but, with an originality peculiar to himself, sketched boldly and rapidly. The master was displeased, and the boy sought the studio of his brother, Giovanni Bellini, an artist with more brilliant style, and broader contrasts in light and shade. Here he met Giorgione as a fellow-pupil, who soon became his warm friend. This man studied the works of Leonardo da Vinci, and became distinguished for boldness of design and richness of color. Titian was his assistant and devoted admirer. Another person who greatly influenced the early life of Titian was Palma Vecchio of Bergamo, eminent for his portraits of women. Perhaps there was a special bond between these two men, for it is asserted that Titian loved Palma's beautiful daughter, Violante. Palma had three daughters, whom he frequently painted; one picture, now at Dresden, shows Violante in the centre between her two sisters; another, St. Barbara in the church of Santa Maria Formosa in Venice, Palma's masterpiece, and still another, Violante, at Vienna, with a violet in her bosom. Titian's earliest works were a fresco of Hercules, on the front of the Morosini Palace; a Madonna, now in the Vienna Belvedere, which shows genuine feeling with careful finish; and portraits of his parents, now lost. His first important work was painted about the year 1500, when he was twenty-three, "Sacred and Profane Love," now in the Borghese Palace at Rome. Eaton says of this, "Out of Venice there is nothing of Titian's to compare to his 'Sacred and Profane Love.'... Description can give no idea of the consummate beauty of this composition. It has all Titian's matchless warmth of coloring, with a correctness of design no other painter of the Venetian school ever attained. It is nature, but not individual nature; it is ideal beauty in all its perfection, and breathing life in all its truth, that we behold." Crowe and Cavalcaselle, who have studied the more than one thousand pictures to which the name of Titian is attached, say in their life of the great painter, "The scene is laid in a pleasure ground surrounded by landscape, swathed in the balmy atmosphere of an autumnal evening. A warm glow is shed over hill, dale, and shore, and streaks of gray cloud alternate with bands of light in a sunset sky. To the right, in the distance, a church on an island, and a clump of cottages on a bend of land, bathed by the waters of the sea; and two horsemen on a road watch their hounds coursing a hare. To the left a block of buildings and a tower half illumined by a ray of sun crown the hillside, where a knight with his lance rides to meet a knot of villagers. "Nearer to the foreground, and at measured intervals, saplings throw their branches lightly on the sky, which, nearer still, is intercepted in the centre of the space by a group of rich-leaved trees, rising fan-like behind the marble trough of an antique fountain. Enchanting lines of hill and plain, here in shadow, there in light, lead us to the foreground, where the women sit on a lawn watered by the stream that issues from the fountain, and rich in weeds that shoot forked leaves and spikes out of the grass. "Artless (Sacred) Love, on one side, leans, half-sitting, on the ledge of the trough, a crystal dish at her side, symbolizing her thoughts. Her naked figure, slightly veiled by a length of muslin, is relieved upon a silken cloth hanging across the arm, and helping to display a form of faultless shape and complexion. The left hand holds aloft the vase and emblematic incense of love; the right, resting on the ledge, supports the frame as the maiden turns, with happy earnestness, to gaze at her companion. She neither knows nor cares to heed that Cupid is leaning over the hinder ledge of the fountain and plashing in the water.... Not without coquetry, or taste for sparkling color, the chestnut hair of the naked maiden is twisted in a rose-colored veil; the cloth at her loins is of that golden white which sets off so well the still more golden whiteness of her skin. The red silk falling from her arm, and partly waving in the air, is of that crimson tone which takes such wonderful carminated changes in the modulations of its surface, and brings out by its breaks the more uniform pearl of the flesh." To this figure of Sacred Love, into which the young painter evidently put his heart, he gave the beautiful and half-pensive face of Violante. Did he intend thus to immortalize her, while he immortalized himself? Very likely. "Sated (Profane) Love sits to the left, her back resolutely turned towards Cupid, her face determined, haughty, but serene; her charms veiled in splendid dress, her very hands concealed in gloves.... A plucked rose fades unheeded by the sated one's side, and a lute lies silent under her elbow.... She seems so grand in her lawns and silks; her bosom is fringed with such delicate cambric; her waist and skirt, so finely draped in satin of gray reflexes; the red girdle, with its jewelled clasp, the rich armlets, the bunch of roses in her gloved hand, all harmonize so perfectly." For the next six or seven years, while Venice was engaged in wars with the French and the Turks, little is known of the young Titian, save that he must have been growing in fame, as he painted the picture of the infamous Cæsar Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI., Jacopo da Pesaro, Bishop of Paphos, who had charge of the Papal squadron against the Turks, and other paintings, now lost. The picture of Pesaro was owned by Charles I. of England. In 1825 William I., King of the Netherlands, presented it to the city of Antwerp, where it is highly prized. In 1507 the State of Venice engaged Giorgione to fresco the new Fondaco de' Tedeschi, a large public structure for the use of foreign merchants, which had two halls, eighty rooms, and twenty-six warehouses. A portion of this work was transferred to Titian. Above the portal in the southern face of the building, Titian painted a "Judith," the figure of a woman seated on the edge of a stone plinth, in front of a stately edifice. In her right hand she waves a sword, while with her left foot she tramples on a lifeless head. Two other grand frescos were painted by him, all now despoiled by the northern or "Tramontana" winds. Says one writer, "Whilst Giorgione showed a fervid and original spirit, and opened up a new path, over which he shed a light that was to guide posterity, Titian exhibited in his creations a grander but more equable genius, leaning at first, indeed, on Giorgione's example, but expanding, soon after, with such force and rapidity as to place him in advance of his rival, on an eminence which no later craftsman was able to climb. Titian was characterized by this, that he painted flesh in which the blood appeared to mantle, whilst the art of the painter was merged in the power of a creator. "He imagined forms of grander proportions, of more sunny impast, of more harmonious hues, than his competitors. With incomparable skill he gave tenderness to flesh, by transitions of half-tone and broken contrasted colors. He moderated the fire of Giorgione, whose strength lay in resolute action, fanciful movement, and a mysterious artifice in disposing shadows contrasting darkly with hot red lights, blended, strengthened, or blurred so as to produce the semblance of exuberant life." It is said by some writers that Giorgione never forgave Titian for excelling him in the frescos of the Fondaco; but, however this may be, when the noted artist and poet died, soon after, at the age of thirty-four, Titian completed all his unfinished pictures. Giorgione loved tenderly a girl who deserted him through the influence of Morto da Feltri, an intimate friend, who lived under his roof. The latter was killed in the battle of Zara in 1519, after his friend Giorgione had died of a broken heart at the loss of his beloved. Between 1508 and 1511 Titian painted several Madonnas, one in the Belvedere at Vienna, one in Florence, one in the Louvre, and the beautiful "Madonna and St. Bridget" now at Madrid. "St. Bridget stands with a basin of flowers in her hand, in front of the infant Saviour, who bends out of the Virgin's arms to seize the offering, yet turns his face to his mother, as if inquiring shall he take it or not. Against the sky and white cloud of the distance, the form of St. Bridget alone is relieved. The Virgin and the saint in armor to the left stand out in front of hangings of that gorgeous green which seems peculiar in its brightness to the Venetians. With ease in action and movement, a charming expression is combined. The juicy tints and glossy handling are those of Titian's Palmesque period; and St. Bridget is the same lovely girl whose features Palma painted with equal fondness and skill in the panel called Violante, at the Belvedere of Vienna.... Titian shows much greater fertility of resource in the handling of flesh than Palma, being much more clever and subtle in harmonizing light with half-tint by tender and cool transitions of gray crossed with red, and much more effective in breaking up shadow with contrasting touches of livid tone, yet fusing and blending all into a polished surface, fresh as of yesterday, and of almost spotless purity, by the use of the clearest and finest glazings that it is possible to imagine." Titian was now thirty-four, with probably the same love for Violante in his heart, but still poor, and struggling with untiring industry for the great renown which he saw before him. At this time Titian painted one of his most noted works, thought by some to be his masterpiece, "The Tribute Money," now in the museum at Dresden. It was painted at the request of Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. Scanelli, who wrote in 1655, tells this story concerning the picture. "Titian was visited on a certain occasion by a company of German travellers, who were allowed to look at the pictures which his studio contained. On being asked what impression these works conveyed, these gentlemen declared that they only knew of one master capable of finishing as they thought paintings ought to be finished, and that was Dürer; their impression being that Venetian compositions invariably fell below the promise which they had given at their first commencement. "To these observations Titian smilingly replied, that if he had thought extreme finish to be the end and aim of art, he too would have fallen into the excesses of Dürer. But, though long experience had taught him to prefer a broad and even track to a narrow and intricate path, yet he would still take occasion to show that the subtlest detail might be compassed without sacrifice of breadth; and so produced the Christ of the Tribute Money." Crowe and Cavalcaselle say, "Vasari reflects an opinion which holds to this day, that the 'head of Christ is stupendous and miraculous.'" It was considered by all the artists of his time as the most perfect and best handled of any that Titian ever produced; but for us it has qualities of a higher merit than those of mere treatment. Single as the subject is, the thought which it embodies is very subtle. "Christ turns towards the questioning Pharisee, and confirms with his eye the gesture of his hand, which points to the coin. His face is youthful, its features and short curly beard are finely framed in a profusion of flowing locks. The Pharisee to the right stands in profile before Jesus, holds the coin, and asks the question. The contrast is sublime between the majestic calm and elevation and what Inandt calls the 'Godlike beauty' of Christ, and the low cunning and coarse air of the Pharisee; between the delicate chiselling of the features, the soft grave eye and pure-cut mouth of the Saviour, and the sharp aquiline nose or the crafty glance of the crop-haired, malignant Hebrew.... "The form of Christ was never conceived by any of the Venetians of such ideal beauty as this. Nor has Titian ever done better; and it is quite certain that no one, Titian himself included, within the compass of the North Italian schools, reproduced the human shape with more nature and truth, and with greater delicacy of modelling. Amidst the profusion of locks that falls to Christ's shoulders, there are ringlets of which we may count the hairs, and some of these are so light that they seem to float in air, as if ready to wave at the spectator's breath. Nothing can exceed the brightness and sheen or the transparent delicacy of the colors. The drapery is admirable in shade and fold, and we distinguish with ease the loose texture of the bright red tunic, and that of the fine broadcloth which forms the blue mantle. The most perfect easel picture of which Venice ever witnessed the production, this is also the most polished work of Titian." In 1511 Titian was called to Padua and Vicenza, where he executed some frescos, principally from the life of St. Anthony, returning to Venice in 1512. He was now famous, and Pope Leo X. naturally desired to draw him to Rome, where Raphael and Michael Angelo were the admired of all. Cardinal Bembo, the secretary of the pope, and the friend of Raphael, importuned Titian; but the Venetian loved his own state and preferred to serve her, sending, May 31, 1513, the following petition to the Council of Ten. "I, Titian of Cadore, having studied painting from childhood upwards, and desirous of fame rather than profit, wish to serve the Doge and Signori, rather than his highness the pope and other Signori, who in past days, and even now, have urgently asked to employ me. I am therefore anxious, if it should appear feasible, to paint in the Hall of Council, beginning, if it please their sublimity, with the canvas of the battle on the side towards the Piazza, which is so difficult that no one as yet has had the courage to attempt it." For this work Titian asked a moderate compensation, and the first vacant brokership for life, all of which the government granted. He moved into a studio in the old palace of the Duke of Milan, at San Samuele on the Grand Canal, where he remained for sixteen years. It seemed now as though comfort were guaranteed to the hard-working artist. But unfortunately rivalries arose. The Bellinis had worked in this Hall of Council in the Ducal Palace, till they felt the position to be theirs by right. After long discussions, Titian was successful, receiving from the Fondaco an annuity of one hundred ducats as a broker, and the privilege of exemption from certain taxes, while, on the other hand, he had to paint the Doge's portrait. Titian was now painting the following works for Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, who had married the handsome and celebrated Lucretia Borgia:-- The "Venus Worship," now in the Museum of Madrid, represents the goddess standing on a marble pedestal, with two nymphs at her feet, while winged cupids pluck the apples sacred to Venus, from the branches of great trees, "climbing boughs like boys, dropping down from them like thrushes, loading baskets, throwing and catching, tumbling, fighting, and dancing." This picture was a favorite study for artists, and it is said that Domenichino wept when he heard that it had been carried to Spain. "The Three Ages," now in the collection of Lord Ellesmere, has been frequently copied. A cupid steps on two sleeping children: a beautiful girl sits near her lover, "the holy feeling of youthful innocence and affection charmingly expressed in both:" an old man contemplates two skulls on the ground. "To the children, as to the lovers, the forms appropriate to their age are given; and the whole subject is treated with such harmony of means as to create in its way the impression of absolute perfection." The "Virgin's Rest, near Bethlehem," now in the National Gallery, shows the mother with the infant Christ on her lap, taking a bunch of flowers from St. John. The "Noli Me Tangere," also in the National Gallery, represents Christ with Mary Magdalene on her knees before him. "One cannot look without transport on the mysterious calm of this beautiful scene, which Titian has painted with such loving care, yet with such clever freedom. The picture is like a leaf out of Titian's journal, which tells us how he left his house on the canals, and wandered into the country beyond the lagoons, and lingered in the fresh sweet landscape at eventide, and took nature captive on a calm day at summer's end." While painting these pictures, besides various portraits of the poet Ariosto, Alfonso, and others, Titian was producing what is generally regarded as his masterpiece, "The Assumption of the Virgin," a colossal picture, now in the Academy of Arts at Venice. It was painted for Santa Maria di Frari, and was shown to the public, March 20, 1518, on St. Bernardino's Day, when all the public offices were closed by order of the Senate, and a great crowd thronged the church. "The gorgeous blue and red of Mary's tunic and mantle stand out brilliant on the silvery ether, vaulted into a dome, supported by countless cherubs. The ministry of the angels about her is varied and eager. One raises the corner of the mantle, some play the tabor, others hold the pipes, or sing in choir, whilst others again are sunk in wonderment, or point at the Virgin's majesty; and the rest fade into the sky behind, as the sound of bells fades sweetly upon the ear of the passing traveller.... All but the head and arms of the Eternal is lost in the halo of brightness towards which the Virgin is ascending. He looks down with serene welcome in his face, an angel on one side ready with a crown of leaves; an archangel swathed in drapery, on the other, eagerly asking leave to deposit on the Virgin's brow the golden cincture in his hands." Titian was at once declared to be the foremost painter in Venice, and was, indeed, the idol of the people. He now painted the "Annunciation" for the Cathedral of Treviso, and executed several frescos. Meantime, the Venetian Government threatened that unless he went forward with the work in the Ducal Palace it should be finished by others at his expense. Pressed on every hand for pictures, he still neglected the Palace, and painted the brilliant "Bacchanal," now at Madrid, for Duke Alfonso. Ariadne reposes on the ground, insensible from wine, while a company of Menads sport about her as Theseus sails away in the distance. The most beautiful Menad, with white muslin tunic and ruby-red bodice and skirt, has the exquisite face and form of Violante, with a violet or pansy on her breast. The painter was now over forty, and still seemed to bear Violante on his heart. Ariadne, daughter of Minos, King of Crete, according to the legend, fell in love with Theseus, when he came to Crete to kill the Minotaur, and gave him a thread by means of which he found his way out of the labyrinth. In gratitude he offered her his hand. She fled with him, and he deserted her on the Island of Naxos, where Bacchus found her and married her. On the "Bacchanal" a couplet shows its motive,-- "Who drinks not over and over again, Knows not what drinking is." Alfonso d'Este was delighted with this gay picture. Although Lucretia Borgia, whom he never loved, had been dead but a few months, he had married a girl in humble station, Laura Dianti, whom he loved tenderly, and who kept his fickle heart true till his death. She must have been a person of gentle and lovely nature, for the duke became kinder to everybody, and more devoted to art, literature, and the refining influences of life. It is believed that the famous picture in the Louvre called "Titian and his Mistress" represents Laura and Alfonso. "The girl stands behind a table or slab of stone, dressing her hair, whilst a man in the gloom behind her holds, with his left hand, a round mirror, the reflection of which he catches with a square mirror in his right. Into the second of these the girl gently bends her head to look, eagerly watched by her lover, as she twists a long skein of wavy golden hair. Over the white and finely plaited linen that loosely covers her bosom, a short green bodice is carelessly thrown, and a skirt of the same stuff is gathered to the waist by a sash of similar color. The left side of the girl's head is already dressed; she is finishing the right side, and a delightful archness and simplicity beam in the eyes as they turn to catch the semblance in the mirror. The coal-black eye and brow contrast with the ruddy hair; the chiselled nose projects in delicate line from a face of rounded, yet pure contour; and the lips, of a cherry redness, which Titian alone makes natural, are cut with surprising fineness. The light is concentrated with unusual force upon the face and bust of the girl, whilst the form and features of the man are lost in darkness. We pass with surprising rapidity from the most delicate silvery gradations of sunlit flesh and drapery, to the mysterious depths of an almost unfathomable gloom, and we stand before a modelled balance of light and shade that recalls Da Vinci, entranced by a chord of tonic harmony, as sweet and as thrilling as was ever struck by any artist of the Venetian school." Tired with his constant labor, Titian journeyed to Conegliano, at the foot of the Venetian Alps, and painted, at his leisure, a series of frescos on the front of the Scuola di Santa Maria Nuova, in return for which he received the gift of a house, where he rested ever after, when on his way to Cadore. In 1522 the great altar-piece of the "Resurrection" was finished for Brescia, and placed on the high altar of St. Nazaro e Celso, where it long remained an object of study by artists. Titian thought the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, in this picture, the best thing he had ever done. Seven years had now passed since he had received the commission to paint the Hall of the Great Council. His property was to be taken from him, and, alarmed at the prospect, he worked vigorously for several weeks on the "Battle of Cadore" or the other great painting, "The Humiliation of the Emperor Barbarossa by Pope Alexander III." Duke Alfonso was urging the overworked master for a new picture, the "Bacchus and Ariadne," now in the National Gallery of England: a picture five feet nine inches by six feet three inches. The scene is taken from the classic poem of Catullus, when Ariadne, near the shore of Naxos, flees from the presence of Bacchus, whose chariot is drawn by leopards. He was the son of Jupiter by Semele, whose death being caused by Juno, the god of the vintage was reared by nymphs in Thrace. He taught men the cultivation of the vine and the art of wine-making. Concerning this picture, Crowe and Cavalcaselle say, "Centuries have robbed the canvas of its freshness, and restorers have done their best to remove its brightest surfaces; yet no one who looks at it even now can fail to acknowledge the magic of its enchantment. Rich harmony of drapery tints and soft modelling, depth of shade and warm flesh, all combine to produce a highly colored glow; yet in the midst of this glow the form of Ariadne seems incomparably fair. Nature was never reproduced more kindly or with greater exuberance than it is in every part of this picture. What subtlety there is in the concentration of light on Ariadne, which alone gives a focus to the composition. What splendor in the contrasts of color, what wealth and diversity of scale in air and vegetation; how infinite is the space, how varied yet mellow the gradations of light and shade. "There is not a single composition by Titian up to this time in which the scene and the _dramatis personæ_ are more completely in unison; and, looking at these groves and cliffs and seas, or prying into the rich vegetation of the foreground, we are startled beyond measure to think that they were worked out piecemeal, that the figures were put in first and the landscape last. Nor is it without curiosity that we inquire where Titian got that landscape, where he studied that foreground; and we are forced to conclude that he forsook the workshop on the Grand Canal, where there certainly was no vegetation, even in the sixteenth century, and went to Ferrara, and there reproduced with 'botanical fidelity' the iris, the wild rose and columbine, which so exquisitely adorn the very edge of the ground on which the Satyrs tread." This picture has been copied by Rubens, Poussin, and other noted artists. About this time the "Flora" of the Uffizi was painted, a beautiful woman with the Violante face. "She is not yet dressed, but her hair is looped up with a silken cord so as to shape the most charming puffs above the ears, falling in short and plaited waves to the bosom, leaving bare the whole of the face, the neck, and throat. No one here holds the mirrors, yet the head is bent and the eyes are turned as if some one stood by to catch the glance, and stretch a hand for the flowers; for whilst with her left Flora strives by an intricate and momentary play of the fingers, to keep fast the muslin that falls from her shoulder and the damask that slips from her form, with the other she presents a handful of roses, jessamines, and violets to an unseen lover. The white dress, though muslin-fine and gathered into minute folds, is beyond measure graceful in fall, and contrasts in texture as well as harmonizes in color with the stiffer and more cornered stuff of the rose-tinged cloth which shows such fine damask reflexes on the left arm." At this time, also, Titian painted one of his most exquisite creations, the "Sleeping Venus," now at Darmstadt, a graceful nude figure asleep on a red couch strewn with roses, her arm under her head. The face is delicate, innocent, pensive, and refined--still the face of Violante,--one of the most beautiful, it seems to me, which an artist has ever put upon canvas. There are several replicas in England and elsewhere. The figure is not more perfect, perhaps, than the Venus of the Uffizi, painted later for the Duke of Urbino, or the Venus of Madrid; but the face is one which I have always felt an especial pleasure in possessing. Taine says of Titian, "He was endowed with that unique gift of producing Venuses who are real women, and colossi who are real men, a talent for imitating objects closely enough to win us with the illusion and of so profoundly transforming objects as to enkindle reverie. He has at once shown in the same nude beauty a courtesan, a patrician's mistress, a listless and voluptuous fisherman's daughter, and a powerful ideal figure, the masculine force of a sea-goddess, and the undulating forms of a queen of the empyrean.... "The infinite diversities of nature, with all her inequalities, are open to him; the strongest contrasts are within his range; each of his works is as rich as it is novel. The spectator finds in him, as in Rubens, a complete image of the world around him, a history, a psychology, in an epitomized form." The Venus Anadyomene, now in Lord Ellesmere's collection, rising new-born but full-grown from the sea, wringing her long hair, has the features of a new model, not Violante, but the same which Titian used in his famous Magdalen. This represents a woman of about twenty-five, "with finely rounded limbs and well-modelled figure, handsome face, and streaming golden hair, and the white splendor of the entire form thrown into bold relief by a dark and lonely background. The Magdalen is distinguishable from Venus only by her upturned face and tearful eyes." Who was this new model? Could it possibly have been Cecilia, the lady whom Titian married about this time? In 1525, a son, Pomponio, was born to him, who became a lifelong sorrow, and before 1530 two other children, Orazio and Lavinia. The happiness of this married life was of short duration, for on the fifth of August, 1530, after the birth of Lavinia, with a mournful heart, he buried Cecilia. One of his friends wrote to the warder of Mantua, "Our master, Titian, is quite disconsolate at the loss of his wife, who was buried yesterday. He told me that in the troubled time of her sickness he was unable to work at the portrait of the Lady Cornelia, or at the picture of the 'Nude,' which he is doing for our most illustrious lord." Left with three helpless children, Titian sent to Cadore for his sister Orsa, who came and cared for his household as long as she lived. He had grown tired of his home on the Grand Canal, and, longing for the open country, hired a house in the northern suburbs. A little later he took a piece of land adjoining, which extended to the shore, and which became famous in after years for its beauty as a garden and for the distinguished people who gathered there. Mrs. Jameson says, "He looked over the wide canal which is the thoroughfare between the city of Venice and the Island of Murano; in front, the two smaller islands of San Cristoforo and San Michele; and beyond them Murano, rising on the right, with all its domes and campanili like another Venice. Far off extended the level line of the mainland, and in the distance the towering chain of the Friuli Alps, sublime, half defined, with jagged snow-peaks soaring against the sky; and more to the left, the Euganean hills, Petrarch's home, melting like visions, into golden light. There, in the evening, gondolas filled with ladies and cavaliers, and resounding with music, were seen skimming over the crimson waves of the Lagoon, till the purple darkness came on rapidly--not, as in the north, like a gradual veil, but like a gemmed and embroidered curtain, suddenly let down over all. This was the view from the garden of Titian; so unlike any other in the world that it never would occur to me to compare it with any other. More glorious combinations of sea, mountain, shore, there may be--I cannot tell; _like_, it is nothing that I have ever beheld or imagined." Who does not recall such beautiful scenes in silent Venice! And yet one longs, while there, for the sound of the feet of horses, and the zest of a nineteenth-century city; one feels as though life were going by in a dream, and is anxious to awake and be a part of the world's eager, stirring thought. Gondolas and moonlight evenings delight one for a time, but not for long! Titian was now fifty-four. He had painted the "Entombment of Christ," which was a favorite with Van Dyck, and helped to form his style--a picture four feet and four inches by seven feet, now in the Louvre; the Madonna of San Niccolò di Frari, now in the Vatican, which Pordenone is reported to have said was "not painting, but flesh itself;" the "Madonna di Casa Pesaro," which latter especially won the heartiest praise. St. Peter, St. Francis, and St. Anthony of Padua implore the intercession of the Virgin in favor of the members of the Pesaro family. Crowe and Cavalcaselle thus speak of it: "High up on a spray of clouds that inwreathe the pillars of the temple, two angels playfully sport with the cross; and, with that wonderful insight which a painter gets who has studied cloud form flitting over Alpine crags, Titian has not only thrown a many-toned gradation of shade on the vapor, but shown its projected shadow on the pillar. The light falls on the clouds, illumines the sky between the pillars, and sheds a clear glow on the angels, casting its brightest ray on the Madonna and the body of the infant Christ.... Decompose the light or the shadow, and you find incredible varieties of subtlety, which make the master's art unfathomable. Both are balanced into equal values with a breadth quite admirable, the utmost darks being very heavy and strong without losing their transparency; the highest lights dazzling in brightness, yet broken and full of sparkle. Round the form of the infant Christ the play of white drapery is magic in effect.... "To the various harmonizing elements of hue, of light, and of shade, that of color superadded brings the picture to perfection; its gorgeous tinting so subtly wrought, and so wonderfully interweaving with sun and darkness and varied textures as to resolve itself with the rest into a vast and incomprehensible whole, which comes to the eye an ideal of grand and elevated beauty, a sublime unity, that shows the master who created it to have reached a point in art unsurpassed till now, and unattainable to those who come after him." "The Martyrdom of St. Peter Martyr," completed in 1529, where Titian "reproduced the human form in its grandest development," has been studied by generations of artists, from Benvenuto Cellini and Rubens to Sir Joshua Reynolds. So valued was it by Venice that the Signoria threatened with death any one who should dare to remove it. Unfortunately it was destroyed by fire in 1867, together with the chapel which contained it. The "Madonna del Coniglio," at the Louvre, is also much valued. "We ask ourselves, indeed, when looking at this picture, whether an artist with only fleeting ties could have created such a masterpiece; and the answer seems to be that nature here gushes from the innermost recesses of a man's heart who has begun to know the charms of paternity, who has watched a young mother and her yearling child, and seized at a glance those charming but minute passages which seldom or never meet any but a father's eye." In 1533 a most fortunate thing happened to Titian. Charles V. had come to Bologna, to receive the homage of Italy. The great emperor was an enthusiastic lover of art, had seen Titian's work, and desired a portrait from his hand. The artist hastened thither and painted Charles in armor, bare-headed. He used to say of himself that he was by nature ugly, but being painted so often uglier than he really was, he disappointed favorably many persons, who expected something most unattractive. Another portrait of him which Titian painted, now at Madrid, shows him in splendid gala dress, with red beard, pale skin, blue eyes, and protruding lower lip. The sculptor Lombardi was so anxious to look upon the emperor that he carried Titian's paintbox at the sittings, and slyly made a relief portrait of Charles on a tablet in wax, which he slipped into his sleeve. The emperor detected him, asked to see the work, praised it, and had Lombardi put it in marble for him. Charles was so pleased with the portraits by Titian that he would never sit to any other artist. He called him the Apelles of his time, and paid him one thousand scudi in gold for each portrait. He created Titian a Count of the Lateran Palace, of the Aulic Council, and of the Consistory; with the title of Count Palatine, and all the advantages attached to those dignities. His children were thereby raised to the rank of Nobles of the Empire, with all the honors appertaining to families with four generations of ancestors. He was also made a Knight of the Golden Spur, with the right of entrance to Court. The Cadorine youth had reached the temple of fame, unaided save by his skilful hand and inventive brain. He sat daily from morning till night at his easel, often ill from overwork, yet urged on by that undying aspiration which we call genius. He painted the beautiful portrait of the young Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, now in the Pitti Palace, whom Michael Angelo so tenderly loved, and whose untimely death by poison at the hand of his cup-bearer, at Itri, caused general sorrow. Ippolito sat to Titian at Bologna "in the red cap and variegated plumes of a Hungarian chief. His curved sabre hung from an Oriental sash wound round a red-brown coat with golden buttons, and he wielded with his right the mace of command. It appeared as if the burning sun of the Danube valley had bronzed the features of the chieftain, whose skin seemed to glow with a tropical heat, whilst its surface was smooth and burnished as that of the Bella Gioconda." Ippolito urged Titian to come to Rome; Francis I. wished him to visit France; but Titian loved his Venice gardens and his mountain resort at Cadore, and could not be induced to leave them. His father, Gregorio Vecelli, had died in 1527, three years before the death of Cecilia, and Francesco, the dearly loved artist brother, had gone to care for the Cadore home, where he often welcomed with enthusiastic admiration his famous brother, Titian. The next paintings from the great artist were the "Rape of Proserpina;" portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino, Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, the beautiful Eleonora Gonzaga, the twelve Cæsars for Duke Federigo Gonzaga of Mantua; the "Annunciation," for which he received two thousand scudi from the Emperor; "La Bella di Titiano," now in the Pitti, and the "Venus" of the Uffizi. "The face of the 'Bella' was so winning that it lurked in Titian's memory, and passed as a type into numerous canvases, in which the painter tried to realize an ideal of loveliness. The head being seen about two-thirds to the left, whilst the eyes are turned to the right, the spectator is fascinated by the glance in whatever direction he looks at the canvas. The eye is grave, serene, and kindly, the nose delicate and beautifully shaped, the mouth divine. Abundant hair of a warm auburn waves along the temples, leaving a stray curl to drop on the forehead. The rest is plaited and twisted into coils round a head of the most symmetrical shape. A gold chain falls over a throat of exquisite model, and the low dress, with its braided ornaments and slashed sleeves alternately tinted in blue and white and purple, is magnificent. One hand, the left, is at rest; the other holds a tassel hanging from a girdle. Nothing can exceed the delicacy and subtlety with which the flesh and dress are painted, the tones being harmonized and thrown into keeping by a most varied use and application of glazings and scumblings." Of the Uffizi "Venus," Crowe and Cavalcaselle say, "What the painter achieves, and no other master of the age achieves with equal success, is the representation of a beauteous living being, whose fair and polished skin is depicted with enamelled gloss, and yet with every shade of modulation which a delicate flesh comports: flesh not marbled or cold, but sweetly toned, and mantling with life's blood, flesh that seems to heave and rise and fall with every breath. Perfect distribution of space, a full and ringing harmony of tints, atmosphere both warm and mellow, are all combined in such wise as to bring us in contact with something that is real; and we feel, as we look into the canvas, that we might walk into that apartment and find room to wander in the gray twilight into which it is thrown by the summer sky that shows through the coupled windows." At the feet of Venus a little dog lies curled up on the couch. In the Venus of Madrid, she pats the back of a dog, while her lover plays an organ at the foot of the couch. It is interesting to learn how Titian produced such effects by his brush. Says Palma Giovine, "Titian prepared his pictures with a solid stratum of pigment, which served as a bed or fundament, upon which to return frequently. Some of these preparations were made with resolute strokes of a brush heavily laden with color, the half-tints struck in with pure red earth, the lights with white, modelled into relief by touches of the same brush dipped into red, black, and yellow. In this way he would give the promise of a figure in four strokes. After laying this foundation, he would turn the picture to the wall, and leave it there perhaps for months, turning it round again after a time, to look at it carefully, and scan the parts as he would the face of his greatest enemy. "If at this time any portion of it should appear to him to have been defective, he would set to work to correct it, applying remedies as a surgeon might apply them, cutting off excrescences here, super-abundant flesh there, redressing an arm, adjusting or setting a limb, regardless of the pain which it might cause. In this way he would reduce the whole to a certain symmetry, put it aside, and return again a third or more times, till the first quintessence had been covered over with its padding of flesh. It was contrary to his habit to finish at one painting, and he used to say that a poet who improvises cannot hope to form pure verses. But of 'condiments,' in the shape of last retouches, he was particularly fond. Now and then he would model the light into half-tint with a rub of his finger, or with a touch of his thumb he would dab a spot of dark pigment into some corner to strengthen it; or throw in a reddish stroke--a tear of blood, so to speak--to break the parts superficially. In fact, when finishing, he painted much more with his fingers than with his brush." Titian used to say, "White, red, and black, these are all the colors that a painter needs, but one must know how to use them." Titian painted rapidly. One of his best friends said that "he could execute a portrait as quickly as another could scratch an ornament on a chest." In 1537 the Council of Ten, angered at Titian's delays in frescoing the ducal palace, gave a portion of the work to the noted artist Pordenone, took away his brokership, and decreed that he should refund his revenues from that source for the past twenty years. In dismay, Titian left his orders from emperors and princes, and went to work in the great halls. Two years later his broker's patent was restored, and, Pordenone having died in 1538, the patronage of the Republic came again into his hands. Titian now painted the "Angel and Tobit," of San Marciliano at Venice, and the "Presentation in the Temple," now at the Venice Academy, the latter "the finest and most complete creation of Venetian art since the 'Peter Martyr,' and the 'Madonna di Casa Pesaro.'" This picture is one of the largest of the master's works, being twenty-five feet long. "Mary, in a dress of celestial blue, ascends the steps of the temple in a halo of radiance. She pauses on the first landing-place, and gathers her skirts to ascend to the second. The flight is in profile before us. At the top of it the high-priest, in Jewish garments, yellow tunic, blue undercoat and sleeves, and white robe, looks down at the girl with serene and kindly gravity, a priest in cardinal's robes at his side, a menial in black behind him, and a young acolyte in red and yellow holding the book of prayer. At the bottom there are people looking up, some of them leaning on the edge of the step, others about to ascend." Titian painted several portraits of himself, one now at Berlin, another at Madrid, still another in Florence, and others. They show a bold, high forehead, finely cut nose, penetrating eyes, and much dignity of bearing. Duke Alfonso of Ferrara and Duke Federigo Gonzaga of Mantua, his noble patrons, had both died; but Pope Paul III. now became an ardent admirer of Titian's work, invited him to Rome, where he spent several months lodged in the Belvedere Palace, and sat to him for a portrait. It is said, after the picture of Paul was finished and set to dry on the terrace of the palace, that the passing crowd doffed their hats, thinking that it was the living pope. While in Rome, Titian painted many portraits in the pontiff's family, and a "Danaë receiving the Golden Rain," now in the museum of Naples, for Ottavio Farnese, grandson of Paul III., who was married to Margaret, daughter of Emperor Charles V. Danaë was the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos. An oracle had predicted that her son would one day kill Acrisius; therefore, to prevent the fulfilment of the prophecy, Danaë was shut up in a brazen tower. But Jupiter transformed himself into a shower of gold, and descended through the roof of her tower. She became the mother of Perseus, and she and her son were put into a chest and cast into the sea. Jupiter rescued them, and Perseus finally killed his grandfather. Titian was now sixty-eight years of age,--growing old, but never slacking in energy or industry. He had painted for the Church of San Spirito "Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac," "The Murder of Abel," "David's Victory over Goliath," "The Descent of the Holy Spirit," "The Four Christian Fathers," and "The Four Evangelists." "His figures are not cast in the supernatural mould of those of Michael Angelo at the Sistine, they are not shaped in his sculptural way, or foreshortened in his preternatural manner. They have not the elegance of Raphael, nor the conventional grace of Correggio; but they are built up, as it were, of flesh and blood, and illumined with a magic effect of light and shade and color which differs from all else that was realized elsewhere by selection, outline, and chiaroscuro. They form pictures peculiar to Titian, and pregnant with his, and only his, grand and natural originality." The "Ecce Homo," twelve feet by eight, in the gallery of Vienna, was painted for Giovanni d' Anna, a wealthy merchant. When Henry III. passed through Venice in 1574, he saw this picture, and offered eight hundred ducats for it. When Sir Henry Wotton was English envoy at Venice in 1620, he bought the painting for the Duke of Buckingham, who refused thirty-five thousand dollars offered for it by the Earl of Arundel. In 1546, on the return of the artist from Rome to his home, Casa Grande, in Venice, he painted the portraits of his lovely daughter Lavinia, now in the Dresden Museum, and in the Berlin gallery. "From the first to the last this beautiful piece (in Dresden) is the work of the master, and there is not an inch of it in which his hand is not to be traced. His is the brilliant flesh, brought up to a rosy carnation by wondrous kneading of copious pigment; his the contours formed by texture, and not defined by outline; his again the mixture of sharp and blurred touches, the delicate modelling in dazzling light, the soft glazing, cherry lip, and sparkling eye. Such a charming vision as this was well fitted to twine itself round a father's heart. "Lavinia's hair is yellow, and strewed with pearls, showing a pretty wave, and irrepressible curls in stray locks on the forehead. Ear-rings, a necklace of pearls, glitter with gray reflections on a skin incomparably fair. The gauze on the shoulders is light as air, and contrasts with the stiff richness of a white damask silk dress and skirt, the folds of which heave and sink in shallow projections and depressions, touched in tender scales of yellow or ashen white. The left hand, with its bracelet of pearls, hangs gracefully as it tucks up the train of the gown, whilst the right is raised no higher than the waist, to wave the stiff, plaited leaf of a palmetto fan."... Lavinia, at Berlin, "is dressed in yellowish flowered silk, with slashed sleeves, a chiselled girdle round her waist, and a white veil hanging from her shoulders. Seen in profile, she raises with both hands, to the level of her forehead, a silver dish piled with fruit and flowers. Her head is thrown back, and turned so as to allow three-quarters of it to be seen, as she looks from the corners of her eyes at the spectator. Auburn hair is carefully brushed off the temples, and confined by a jewelled diadem, and the neck is set off with a string of pearls." The Titian home had joys and sorrows in it like other homes. Pomponio, the eldest child, though a priest, was dissolute and a spendthrift, constantly incurring debts which his devoted father paid to mitigate the disgrace. Orazio, a noble son, had become an artist, his father's assistant and confidant. He had married and brought his young wife to Casa Grande. Lavinia, a beauty, the only daughter, was about to be married to Cornelio Sarcinella of Serravalle, receiving from her father a dowry of fourteen hundred ducats, a regal sum for a painter. In January of 1548, Titian, now past seventy, was summoned to Augsburg, where Charles V. had convened the Diet of the Empire. He painted the portrait of Charles on the field of Muhlberg "in burnished armor-inlaid with gold, his arms and legs in chain mail, his hands gauntleted, a morion with a red plume, but without a visor, on his head. The red scarf with gold stripes--cognizance of the House of Burgundy--hung across his shoulders, and he brandished with his right hand a sharp and pointed spear. The chestnut steed, half hid in striped housings, had a head-piece of steel topped by a red feather similar to that of its master." Titian also painted, while at Augsburg, King Ferdinand, the brother of Charles, Queen Mary of Hungary, "Prometheus," "Sisyphus," "Ixion," and "Tantalus" at her request, besides many other pictures. Charles so honored Titian that once when the artist dropped his brush the emperor picked it up and handed it to him, saying that "Titian was worthy of being served by Cæsar." On a second visit to Augsburg Titian painted a portrait of Philip II. of Spain, the son of Charles. This was sent to Queen Mary of England, when Philip was her suitor, and quite won her heart, presumably more than the man himself when he afterwards became her husband. When Titian parted from his patron, Charles gave him a Spanish pension of five hundred scudi. He returned to Venice "rich as a prince instead of poor as a painter." Philip II. was as much a patron of art as his father, and was constantly soliciting paintings from Titian. It is best, probably, that most of us are worked to our utmost capacity, for work rarely kills people; worry frequently destroys both body and brain. For Philip he painted a "St. Margaret," now in the museum at Madrid; a "Danaë," where an old woman sits beside the couch and gathers Jupiter's golden shower in her apron; a "Perseus and Andromeda," the princess bound to a rock, and Perseus saving her; and a "Venus and Adonis," now at Madrid. For the enfeebled Emperor Charles he painted "The Grieving Virgin," now in the Madrid Museum, which represents the mother lamenting over the sufferings of the Saviour, and the "Trinity," now at Madrid, showing the Virgin interceding before the Father and Son for the imperial family,--a picture upon which the emperor used to gaze with intense feeling when he had retired to die in the Convent of Yuste. Thither he carried nine of Titian's paintings for his consolation. He died in 1558, with his eyes resting lovingly upon a picture of the emperor painted by Titian, and upon "The Trinity." "Christ appearing to the Magdalen" was sent to Queen Mary of Hungary. Titian was now seventy-nine years of age, honored and loved by many countries. While his life had been one of almost unceasing labor, he had found time to receive at Casa Grande, poets and artists, dukes and kings, at his delightful garden-parties. Henry III. of France came to see him, and received as a gift any pictures in the studio of which he asked the price. When Cardinal Granvelle and Pacheco came to dine at Casa Grande, Titian flung a purse to his steward, and bade him prepare a feast, since "all the world was dining with him." Titian attached to himself a few most devoted friends: Aretino, a writer, who had many faults, but must have had some virtues to have been loved by Titian for thirty years; Sansovino, an architect; Speroni, a philosopher, and a few others who met frequently for cultured conversation and good-fellowship at Casa Grande. It is said by historians that at some of these garden parties the still beautiful Violante was to be seen among the distinguished guests. Had she been married to another, all these years? or was the old affection renewed in these latter days? In 1556 Aretino died, and Titian deeply lamented the man who had been an almost inseparable companion; three years later his beloved brother, Francesco, died at Cadore, and two years after this his beautiful daughter Lavinia, leaving six little children. Still the man past eighty painted on: "The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence," now in the Jesuits' Church at Venice, and "Christ Crowned with Thorns," now in the Louvre, where, "with undeniable originality, he almost attained to a grandeur of composition and bold creativeness equal to those of Buonarotti, whilst he added to his creations that which was essentially his own--the magic play of tints and lights and shadows which mark the true Venetian craftsman." At eighty-two he painted for Philip II. "Diana and Calisto," "Diana and Actæon," and "The Entombment of Christ." The Dianas are now in the Bridgewater collection at London, for which they were purchased for twelve thousand five hundred dollars. "Titian," says Crowe, "was never more thoroughly master of the secrets of the human framework than now that he was aged. Never did he less require the model. What his mind suggested issued from his hand as Minerva issued from the brain of Jove. His power was the outcome of years of experience, which made every stroke of his brush both sure and telling.... But the field of the earlier time, take it all in all, is sweeter and of better savor than that of the later period. Rich, exuberant, and bright the works of the master always were; but there is something mysterious and unfathomable in the brightness and sweetness of his prime which far exceeds in charm the cleverness of his old age." With loving care he painted Irene of Spilimberg, who died at twenty, and whose fame in classic learning, in music, painting, and poetry, was celebrated in sonnets and prose at her death. She was a pupil of Titian, a fit representative of an age which produced among learned men such women as Vittoria Colonna and Veronica Gambara. Irene is painted "almost at full length and large as life, in a portico, from which a view is seen of a landscape, with a shepherd tending his flock, and a unicorn to indicate the lady's maiden condition. Her head is turned to the left, showing auburn hair tied with a string of pearls. Round her throat is a necklace of the same. Her waist is bound with a chain girdle, and over her bodice of red stuff a jacket of red damask silk is embroidered with gold, and fringed at the neck with a high standing muslin collar. A band hanging from the shoulders and passing beneath one arm is held in the right hand, whilst the left is made to grasp a laurel crown, and 'Si fata tulissent' is engraved on the plinth of a pillar." The "Epiphany," now in Madrid, was sent to Philip II., in 1560; a "Magdalen," now in the Hermitage, in 1561; "Christ in the Garden," "Europa and the Bull," and "Jupiter and Antiope," in 1562. Titian wrote to Philip, "I had determined to take a rest for those years of my old age which it may please the majesty of God to grant me; still ... I shall devote all that is left of my life to doing reverence to your Catholic Majesty with new pictures." "Europa," says Sweetser, "is a lovely and scantily clad maiden sitting on the back of a flower-garlanded white bull, who is swimming proudly through the green sea, throwing a line of foaming surge before his breast. In the air are flying Cupids, and the nymphs on the distant shore bewail the loss of their companion." "Jupiter and Antiope," now in the Louvre, formerly called the "Venus of Pardo," is very celebrated. "Though injured by fire, travels, cleaning, and restoring," says Crowe, "the masterpiece still exhibits Titian in possession of all the energy of his youth, and leads us back involuntarily to the days when he composed the Bacchanals. The same beauties of arrangement, form, light, and shade, and some of the earlier charms of color, are here united to a new scale of effectiveness due to experience and a magic readiness of hand. Fifty years of practice were required to bring Titian to this mastery. Distribution, movement, outline, modelling, atmosphere and distance, are all perfect." The following year, 1563, Titian sent to Philip "The Last Supper," with thirteen life-sized figures, upon which he had worked for six years. When it was carried to the Escurial, in spite of the protests of the painter Navarrete, the monks cut off a large piece of the upper part of the canvas, to make it the size of the wall of the refectory! In 1565 he painted "The Transfiguration," in the San Salvadore at Venice, the "Annunciation" for the same church; "St. James of Compostella," in the Church of San Leo, and the "Cupid and Venus" of the Borghese Palace, the Queen of Love and two Graces teaching Cupid his vocation. "Venus is seated in front of a gorgeous red-brown drapery; her head is crowned with a diadem, and her luxuriant hair falls in heavy locks on her neck. Her arms are bare, but her tunic is bound with a sash, which meets in a cross at her bosom and winds away under the arms, whilst a flap of a blue mantle crosses the knees. With both hands she is binding the eyes of Eros leaning on her lap, whilst she turns to listen to the whispering of another Eros resting on her shoulder. A girl with naked throat and arm carries Cupid's quiver, whilst a second holds his bow. Behind the group a sky overcast with pearly clouds lowers over a landscape of hills.... Light plays upon every part," says Crowe, "creating, as it falls, a due projection of shadow, producing all the delicacies of broken tone and a clear silvery surface full of sparkle, recalling those masterpieces of Paolo Veronese, in which the gradations are all in the cinerine as opposed to the golden key." In 1566, the aged artist, now verging on ninety, heretofore exempt from taxation, was obliged to give a list of his property. He owned several houses, pieces of land, sawmills, and the like, and has been blamed because he did not state the full value of his possessions. Vasari, who visited him at this time, writes,--"Titian has enjoyed health and happiness unequalled, and has never received from heaven anything but favor and felicity. His house has been visited by all the princes, men of letters, and gentlemen who ever come to Venice. Besides being excellent in art, he is pleasant company, of fine deportment and agreeable manners.... Titian, having decorated Venice, and, indeed, Italy and other parts of the world, with admirable pictures, deserves to be loved and studied by artists, as one who has done and is still doing works deserving of praise, which will last as long as the memory of illustrious men." When he was ninety-one he sent to Philip II. a "Venus," the "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence," a large "Tarquin and Lucretia," and "Philip Presenting his Son to an Angel," now in the Madrid Museum. He also painted for himself "Christ Crowned with Thorns," a powerful work, now in Munich, which Rubens, Rembrandt, and Van Dyck carefully studied as a model. Tintoretto hung it later in his atelier, to show what a painting ought to be. His "Adam and Eve," now at Madrid, which Rubens greatly admired and copied, was painted at this time. In 1576, when Titian was ninety-nine, he began his last picture, the "Christ of Pity," for the Franciscans of the Frari, with whom he had bargained for a grave in their chapel. The Saviour rests in death on the lap of the Virgin. "We may suppose," says Donald G. Mitchell, "that a vision of Lavinia--long gone out of his household--of Cecilia, still longer gone--of Violante, a memory of his young days--may have flitted on his mind as he traced the last womanly face he was to paint." "On marble plinths at the sides of the niche are statues of Moses and the Hellespontic Sibyl, and on a scutcheon at the Sibyl's feet we see the arms of Titian, a set square sable on a field argent, beneath the double eagle on a field or. A small tablet leaning against the scutcheon contains the defaced portraits of Titian and his son Orazio, kneeling before a diminutive group of the 'Christ of Pity.'... It is truly surprising," says Crowe, "that a man so far advanced in years should have had the power to put together a composition so perfect in line, so elevated in thought, or so tragic in expression.... We see the traces of a brush manipulated by one whose hand never grew weary, and never learned to tremble.... In the group of the Virgin and Christ--a group full of the deepest and truest feeling--there lies a grandeur comparable in one sense with that which strikes us in the 'Pietà' of Michael Angelo. For the sublime conventionalism by which Buonarotti carries us into a preternatural atmosphere, Titian substitutes a depth of passion almost equally sublime, and the more real as it is enhanced by color." Titian did not live to complete this work, which was done by his pupil, Palma Giovine, who placed conspicuously upon it this touching inscription: "That which Titian left unfinished, Palma reverently completed, and dedicated the work to God." Age did not spoil the skill of the master. Aretino said, on looking at a portrait of a daughter of the rich Strozzio, "If I were a painter, I should die of despair.... But certain it is that Titian's pencil has waited on Titian's old age to perform its miracles." Tullia said, "I hold Titian to be not a painter--his creations not art, but his works to be miracles, and I think that his pigments must be composed of that wonderful herb which made Glaucus a god when he partook of it; since his portraits make upon me the impression of something divine, and, as heaven is the paradise of the soul, so God has transfused into Titian's colors the paradise of our bodies." In the summer of this year, 1576, Venice was stricken by a plague which destroyed fifty thousand people out of one hundred and ninety thousand; more than a quarter of the whole population. There was a general panic, the sick were left to die unattended, and a law was passed that no victims of the scourge should be buried in the churches. As the plague swept on it carried off Orazio, the son of Titian, and then the idol of Venice, Titian himself. He died suddenly August 27, 1576. The law of burial was quickly set aside by the supreme authorities, and, despite the fear of contagion, the canons of St. Mark bore his body in solemn procession to his grave in the Church of the Frari. In 1852, nearly three centuries later, the Emperor of Austria erected a magnificent mausoleum over his tomb. It is a vast canopy covering a statue of Titian, seated, with one hand resting on the Book of Art, while the other lifts the veil of Nature. Surrounding him are figures representing painting, wood-carving, sculpture, and architecture, while on the wall behind him are bas-reliefs of three of his greatest works, the "Assumption," the "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence," and the "Martyrdom of St. Peter." Two angels bear the simple inscription,-- "Titiano Ferdinandus I. MDCCCLII." Wonderful old man! self-made, a poet by nature, a marvel of industry, working to the very last on his beloved paintings, rich, tender to his family, true in his friendships. "The greatest master of color whom the world has known." MURILLO. In the picturesque city of Seville, "the glory of the Spanish realms," the greatest painter of Spain, Bartolomé Estéban Murillo, was born, probably on the last day of the year 1617. He was baptized on New Year's Day, 1618, in the Church of La Magdalena, destroyed in 1810 by the French troops under Marshal Soult. [Illustration: MURILLO.] His father, Gaspar Estéban, was a mechanic, renting a modest house which belonged to a convent, and keeping it in repair for the use of it. His mother, Maria Perez, seems to have been well connected, as her brother, Juan de Costillo, was one of the leaders of art in Seville. It is said that the family were once wealthy and distinguished, but now they were very poor. The boy, Bartolomé, was consecrated to the church, with the fond hope of his mother that he would become a priest. However, he soon exhibited such artistic talent that this project was abandoned. One day when the mother went to Church, leaving the child at home, he amused himself by taking a sacred picture, "Jesus and the Lamb," and painting his own hat on the Infant Saviour's head, and changing the lamb into a dog. Probably the reverent mother was shocked, but she thereby gained a knowledge of the genius of her only son. In school, the boy used to make sketches on the margins of his books and on the walls. Before he was eleven years old, both father and mother died, leaving him to the care of a surgeon, Juan Agustin Lagares, who had married his aunt, Doña Anna Murillo. Probably from this family name the boy derived his own. A little sister, Teresa, was also left an orphan. He was soon apprenticed to his uncle, Juan del Castillo, who taught him carefully all the details of his art,--correct drawing, how to prepare canvas, mix colors, and study patiently. The lad was very industrious, eager to learn, extremely gentle and amiable, and soon attached himself to both teacher and pupils. From this it is easy to judge that he had had a lovely mother, one who encouraged, who preserved a sweet nature in her son because sweet herself. How often have I seen a parent lose the confidence of a child by too often reproving, by over-criticism, by disparagement! Praise seldom harms anybody. We usually receive and give too little commendation all our lives. One of my most precious memories is the fact that my widowed mother made it her life-rule not to find fault with her two children. She loved us into obedience. She told us her wishes and her hopes for us, and the smile with which she spoke lingers in my heart like an exquisite picture. Long ago I learned that no home ever had too much love in it. For nine years the Spanish lad worked in his uncle's studio, studying nature as well as art, as shown in his inimitable "Beggar Boys" and other dwellers in the streets of Seville. When he was twenty, he painted two Madonnas, "The Virgin with St. Francis," for the Convent of Regina Angelorum, and the "Virgin del Rosario with San Domingo," for the Church of St. Thomas. It was natural that the young artist, loving the Catholic faith, should paint as one of his first pictures the "Story of the Rosary." Mrs. Jameson, in her "Legends of the Monastic Orders," thus gives the history of St. Dominick: "His father was of the illustrious family of Guzman. His mother, Joanna d'Aza, was also of noble birth.... Such was his early predilection for a life of penance that when he was only six or seven years old he would get out of his bed to lie on the cold earth. His parents sent him to study theology in the university of Valencia, and he assumed the habit of a canon of St. Augustine at a very early age. "Many stories are related of his youthful piety, his self-inflicted austerities, and his charity. One day he met a poor woman weeping bitterly, and when he inquired the cause she told him that her only brother, her sole stay and support in the world, had been carried into captivity by the Moors. Dominick could not ransom her brother; he had given away all his money, and even sold his books, to relieve the poor; but he offered all he could,--he offered up himself to be exchanged as a slave in place of her brother. The woman, astonished at such a proposal, fell upon her knees before him. She refused his offer, but she spread the fame of the young priest far and wide.... "He united with himself several ecclesiastics, who went about barefoot in the habit of penitents, exhorting the people to conform to the Church. The institution of the Order of St. Dominick sprang out of this association of preachers, but it was not united under an especial rule, nor confirmed, till some years later, by Pope Honorius, in 1216. "It was during his sojourn in Languedoc that St. Dominick instituted the Rosary. The use of a chaplet of beads, as a memento of the number of prayers recited, is of Eastern origin, and dates from the time of the Egyptian Anchorites. Beads were also used by the Benedictines, and are to this day in use among the Mohammedan devotees. Dominick invented a novel arrangement of the chaplet, and dedicated it to the honor and glory of the Blessed Virgin, for whom he entertained a most especial veneration. A complete rosary consists of fifteen large and one hundred and fifty small beads; the former representing the number of _Paternosters_, the latter the number of _Ave Marias_.... The rosary was received with the utmost enthusiasm, and by this single expedient Dominick did more to excite the devotion of the lower orders, especially of the women, and made more converts, than by all his orthodoxy, learning, arguments, and eloquence. "St. Dominick, in the excess of his charity and devotion, was accustomed, while preaching in Languedoc, to scourge himself three times a day,--once for his own sins; once for the sins of others; and once for the benefit of souls in purgatory." He preached in all the principal cities of Europe, and died at Bologna in 1221. In 1640, when Murillo was twenty-two, the Castilli home was broken up, the uncle Juan going to Cadiz to reside. Without fame and poor, the youth was thrown upon his own resources. There were many artists in the city of Seville, and Murillo, shy and retiring, could not expect much patronage. He decided to go to the _Feria_, a weekly market, held in front of the Church of All Saints, and there, in the midst of stalls where eatables, old clothes, and other wares were sold, he set up his open-air studio, and worked among the gypsies and the muleteers. Rough, showy pictures were painted to order and sold to those who frequented the market-place. For two long years he lived among this humble class, earning probably but a scanty subsistence. Here, doubtless, he learned to paint flower-girls and squalid beggars. "There was no contempt," says Sweetser, "in Murillo's feelings towards these children of nature; and his sentiments seemed to partake almost of a fraternal sympathy for them. No small portion of his popularity among the lower classes arose from the knowledge that he was their poet and court painter, who understood and did not calumniate them. Velasquez had chosen to paint superb dukes and cardinals, and found his supporters in a handful of supercilious grandees; but Murillo illustrated the lives of the poorest classes on Spanish soil, and was the idol of the masses. With what splendor of color and mastery of design did he thus illuminate the annals of the poor! Coming forth from some dim chancel or palace-hall in which he had been working on a majestic Madonna-picture, he would sketch in, with the brush still loaded with the colors of celestial glory, the lineaments of the beggar crouching by the wall or the gypsy calmly reposing in the black shadow of the archway. Such versatility had never before been seen west of the Mediterranean, and commanded the admiration of his countrymen. "We do not find in his pictures the beggar of Britain and America, cold, lowering, gloomy, and formidable; but the laughing child of the sunlight, full of joy and content, preferring to bask rather than to work, yet always fed somehow, and abundantly; crop-haired, brown-footed, clad in incoherent rags, but bright-eyed, given to much joviality, and with an affluence of white teeth, often shown in merry moods; not so respectable as the staid burghers of Nuremberg and Antwerp, but far more picturesque and perhaps quite as happy." But for Murillo's life of poverty he could not have had this sympathy with the poor. Doubtless every experience is given us with a purpose, that either through the brush or the pen, or by word or deed, we may the better do our part for the elevation of mankind. In 1642, Murillo had a new inspiration. A fellow-pupil in Castillo's school, Pedro de Moya, after joining the Spanish army and campaigning in Flanders, had spent six months in London under Van Dyck. Now he came back to Seville aglow with his delights in travel and the wonders of the Flemish painters. Murillo was fired with ambition. He too would see famous painters and renowned cities, and become as great as his young friend Moya. But how? He had no money and no influential friends. He would make the effort. He might stay forever at the _Feria_, and never be heard of beyond Seville. He bought a piece of linen, cut it into pieces of various sizes, and, in some obscure room, painted upon them saints, flowers, fruit, and landscapes. Then he sallied forth to find purchasers. One wonders whether the young man did not sometimes become discouraged in these years of toil; if he did not sometimes look at the houses of the grandees and sigh because he was not rich or because he was homeless and unknown? He sold most of his pictures to a ship-owner, by whom they were sent to the West Indies and other Catholic portions of America. Then he started on foot over the Sierras,--a long and tedious journey to Madrid. In the Spanish capital he could find the works of art which he wished to study. He had no money nor friends when he arrived in the great city, but he had courage. He had learned early in life a most valuable lesson,--to depend on himself. To whom should he go? Velasquez, formerly of Seville, was at the height of his fame, the favorite of the king, the friend of the wealthy and the distinguished. Murillo determined to seek the great artist in his own home; at least he could only be refused admittance. Velasquez kindly received the young man, who told him how he had come on foot over the mountains to study. There was no jealousy in the heart of the painter, no fear of rivalry. He was pleased with the modesty, frankness, and aspiration of the youth, and, strange to say, took him into his own home to reside. What a contrast to painting in the _Feria_, and living in a garret! Murillo at once began to study in the royal galleries where Philip II. and his father Charles V. had gathered their Titians, their Rubenses, and their Van Dycks. For three years, through the kindness of Velasquez, he met the leading Spanish artists and the prominent people of the court. The king admired his work, and greatly encouraged him. Murillo was fortunate,--yes; but Fortune did not seek him, he sought her! Ambition and action made him successful. Early in 1645, Murillo returned to Seville. Velasquez offered to give him letters of introduction to eminent artists in Rome, but he preferred to go back to his native city. Probably he longed for the old Cathedral, with La Giralda, the Alcazar, the Moorish palaces, and the Guadalquivir. The Alcazar, says Hare, in his "Wanderings in Spain," begun in 1181, was in great part rebuilt by Pedro the Cruel, 1353-64. "The history of this strange monarch gives the Alcazar its chief interest. Hither he fled with his mother as a child from his father, Alonzo XI., and his mistress, Leonora de Guzman. They were protected by the minister, Albuquerque, at whose house he met and loved Maria de Padilla, a Castilian beauty of noble birth, whom he secretly married. Albuquerque was furious, and, aided by the queen-mother, forced him into a political marriage with the French princess, Blanche de Bourbon. He met her at Valladolid; but three days after his nuptials fled from the wife he disliked to the one he loved, who ever after held royal court at Seville, while Queen Blanche,--a sort of Spanish Mary Stuart,--after being cruelly persecuted and imprisoned for years, was finally put to death at Medina-Sidonia. "In this Alcazar, Pedro received the Red King of Granada, with a promise of safe-conduct, and then murdered him for the sake of his jewels, one of which--a large ruby--he gave to the Black Prince after Navarete, and which is 'the fair ruby, great like a rachet-ball,' which Elizabeth showed to the ambassador of Mary of Scotland, and now adorns the royal crown of England.... "It was in the Alcazar, also, that Pedro murdered his illegitimate brother, the master of Santiago, who had caused him much trouble by a rebellion. Maria de Padilla knew his coming fate, but did not dare to tell him, though from the beautiful _ajimez_ window over the gate she watched for his arrival, and tried to warn him by her tears. Six years after, this murder was avenged by Henry of Trastamare, the brother of the slain, who stabbed Pedro to the heart. But Maria de Padilla was already dead, and buried with queens in the royal chapel, when Pedro publicly acknowledged her as his lawful wife, and the marriage received the sanction of the Spanish Church.... "Within the Alcazar all is still fresh and brilliant with light and color. It is like a scene from the 'Arabian Nights,' or the wonderful creation of a kaleidoscope.... The Hall of Ambassadors is perfectly glorious in its delicate lace-like ornaments and the rich color of its exquisite _azulejos_." "The cathedral," says Hare, "stands on a high platform, girdled with pillars, partly brought from Italica and partly relics of the mosques, of which two existed on this site. The last, built by the Emir Yusuf in 1184, was pulled down in 1401, when the cathedral was begun, only the Giralda, the Court of Oranges, and some of the outer walls being preserved. The chapter, when convened for the building of the cathedral, determined, like religious Titans, to build 'one of such size and beauty that coming ages should proclaim them mad for having undertaken it.'... "Far above houses and palaces, far above the huge cathedral itself, soars the beautiful Giralda, its color a pale pink, incrusted all over with delicate Moorish ornament, so high that its detail is quite lost as you gaze upward; so large that you may easily ride on horseback to the summit, up the broad roadway in the interior.... "In the interior everything is vast, down to the Paschal candle, placed in a candlestick twenty-five feet high, and weighing twenty-five hundred pounds, of wax, while the expenditure of the chapter may be estimated by the fact that eighteen thousand seven hundred and fifty litres of wine are consumed annually in the sacrament. Of the ninety-three stained windows many are old and splendid. Their light is undimmed by curtains, for there is an Andalusian proverb that the ray of the sun has no power to injure within the bounds in which the voice of prayer can be heard. In the centre of the nave, near the west door, surrounded by sculptured caravelas, the primitive ships by which the New World was discovered, is the tomb of Ferdinand Columbus, son of the great navigator (who himself rests in Havanna), inscribed,-- "'A CASTILLA Y Á LEON MUNDO NUEVO DIO COLON.' At the opposite end of the church is the royal chapel, where St. Ferdinand, who was canonized in 1627, 'because he carried fagots with his own hands for the burning of heretics,' rests beneath the altar, in a silver sarcophagus. Here also are his Queen, Beatrix, his son Alonzo el Sabio, father of our Queen Eleanor, and Maria de Padilla, the beautiful Morganatic wife of Pedro the Cruel.... "Many of the services in this church reach a degree of splendor which is only equalled by those of St. Peter's; and the two organs, whose gigantic pipes have been compared to the columns of Fingal's Cave, peal forth magnificently. But one ceremony, at least, is far more fantastic than anything at Rome." Frances Elliot, in her "Diary of an Idle Woman in Spain," thus describes this remarkable ceremony: "To the left, within the bars, I am conscious of the presence of a band of stringed instruments,--not only violins and counter-bass, but flutes, flageolets, and hautboys, even a serpent, as they call a quaint instrument associated with my earliest years, forthwith all beginning to play in a most ancient and most homely way, for all the world like a simple village choir, bringing a twang of damp, mouldy, country churches to my mind, sunny English afternoons, and odors of lavender and southern-wood. "As they play--these skilled musicians--a sound of youthful voices comes gathering in, fresh, shrill, and childlike, rising and falling to the rhythm. "All at once the music grows strangely passionate, the voices and the stringed instruments seem to heave and sigh in tender accents, long-drawn notes and sobs wail out melodious cries for mercy and invocations for pardon, growing louder and intenser each moment. "Then, I know not how, for the great darkness gathers round even to the gates of the altar, a band of boys, the owners of the voices, appears as in a vision in the open space between the benches on which the chapter sits, and, gliding down the altar steps, move in a measure fitting in softly with the music. "How or when they begin to dance, singing as if to the involuntary movement of their feet, I know not; at first 'high-disposedly,' their bodies swaying to and fro to the murmur of the band, which never leaves off playing a single instant, in the most heavenly way. Then, as the music quickens and castanets click out, the boys grow animated, and move swifter to and fro, raising their arms in curves and graceful interlacing rounds. Still faster the music beats, and faster and faster they move, crossing and recrossing in mazy figures, the stringed instruments following them with zeal, the castanets, hautboys, and flutes, their interlacing forms knotting in a kind of ecstasy, yet all as grave and solemn as in a song of praise, a visible rejoicing of the soul at Christmas time and the Divine birth. As David danced before the ark for joy, so do these boys dance now with holy gladness. "I made out something of their costume,--broad Spanish hats, turned up with a _panache_ of blue feathers, the Virgin's color, a flowing mantle of the same hue over one shoulder, glittering in the light, white satin vests, and white hose and shoes. "The dance is most ancient, _archi-old_, as one may say--of an origin Phoenician or Arab, sanctified to Christian use. The music, like the dance, quaint and pathetic, with every now and then a solo so sweet it seems as if an angel had come down unseen to play it. I have inquired on all hands what is the origin of this singular rite, which takes place twice a year, at Advent and Easter, but no one can tell me. About two centuries ago an Archbishop of Seville objected to the dance as giddy and mundane, and forbade it in his cathedral, causing a terrible scandal. The Sevillians were enraged; their fathers had loved the dance, and their fathers before them, and they were ready to defend it with swords and staves. "As the Archbishop was inexorable, an appeal was made to Rome. The Pope of that day, a sensible man, replied that he could give no judgment without seeing the dance himself; so the whole troop--stringed instruments, castanets, serpent, cavalier hats and cloaks, and the boys who wore them--were carried off to Rome at the expense of rich citizens. Then the measure was tried before the Pope in the Vatican, and he approved. 'Let the citizens of Seville have their dance,' the Pope said; 'I see no harm in it. As long as the clothes last it shall continue.' "Need I add that those clothes never wore out, but, like the widow's curse, renewed themselves miraculously, to the delight of the town, and that they will continue to last fresh and new as long as the gigantic walls of the cathedral uprear themselves, and the sun of Andalusia shines on the flat plains!" Murillo loved this old cathedral, and later he painted for it some of his wonderful pictures, among them "The Guardian Angel," in which "a glorious seraph with spreading wings leads a little, trustful child by the hand, and directs him to look beyond earth into the heavenly light," and "St. Anthony of Padua visited by the infant Saviour." The saint is kneeling with outstretched arms, looking above to the child, who descends through a flood of glory filled with cherubs, drawn down by the prayers of the saint. On the table beside him is a vase of white lilies, which many persons averred were so natural that the birds flew down the cathedral aisles to peck at the flowers. For this picture the cathedral clergy paid ten thousand reals. Mrs. Jameson declares this the finest work ever executed in honor of St. Anthony, a subject chosen by Titian and scores of other artists. When the nephew of Murillo's first master, Castillo, looked upon this work, he exclaimed, "It is all over with Castillo! Is it possible that Murillo, that servile imitator of my uncle, can be the author of all this grace and beauty of coloring?" The canons told M. Viardot that the Duke of Wellington offered to pay for this picture as many gold pieces as would cover its surface of fifteen feet square, about two hundred and forty thousand dollars. In 1874 the figure of St. Anthony was cut out, stolen, and sold to a Mr. Schaus, a picture-dealer of New York, for two hundred and fifty dollars. He turned his purchase over to the Spanish consul, who restored it to the cathedral. St. Anthony was a Portuguese by birth, and taught divinity in the universities of Bologna, Toulouse, Paris, and Padua. Finally he became an eloquent preacher among the people. It is said that when they refused to listen he preached to the dwellers in the sea, "and an infinite number of fishes, great and little, lifted their heads above water, and listened attentively to the sermon of the saint!" Very many miracles are attributed to him. He restored to life by his prayers Carilla, a young maiden who was drowned; also a young child who was scalded to death; renewed the foot of a young man who had cut it off because the saint rebuked him for having kicked his brother; caused the body of a murdered youth to speak, and acquit an old man who had been accused of his death; made a glass cup remain whole when thrown against a marble slab, while the marble was shivered. "The legend of the mule," says Mrs. Jameson, "is one of the most popular of the miracles of St. Anthony, and is generally found in the Franciscan churches. A certain heretic called Bovidilla entertained doubts of the real presence in the sacrament, and, after a long argument with the saint, required a miracle in proof of this favorite dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. St. Anthony, who was about to carry the host in procession, encountered the mule of Bovidilla, which fell down on its knees at the command of the saint, and, although its heretic master endeavored to tempt it aside by a sieve full of oats, remained kneeling till the host had passed." After Murillo's return from the house of Velasquez to Seville, he worked incessantly for nearly three years upon eleven paintings for the convent of the Franciscans near Casa del Ayuntamiento. The cloisters contained three hundred marble columns. For the decoration of a minor cloister the priests offered so small an amount that no leading artist in Seville would attempt it. But Murillo, still poor, and not well known, gladly accepted the work. It was a laborious undertaking, with perhaps scarcely enough compensation to provide for his daily needs; but it made him famous. Henceforward there was neither poverty nor obscurity for the great Spanish master. The first picture for the Franciscans represented "St. Francis, on an iron bed, listening to an angel who is playing on a violin." The second portrayed "St. Diego blessing a pot of broth," which he is about to give to a group of beggars at the gate of his convent. Another picture, called, "The Angel Kitchen," now in the Louvre, represents a monk who fell in a state of ecstasy whilst cooking for the convent, and angels are doing his work. Still another represents a Franciscan praying over the dead body of a friar, as if to restore it to life. This is now owned by Mr. Richard Ford, of Devonshire, England. The finest picture of the series represents "The Death of St. Clara of Assisi." She was the daughter of a noble knight of great wealth, and much sought in marriage. Desiring to devote herself to a religious life, she repaired to St. Francis for counsel, who advised her to enter a convent. She fled from her home to where St. Francis dwelt, and he with his own hands cut off her luxuriant golden tresses, and threw over her his own penitential habit of gray wool. Her family sought to force her away, but later her sister Agnes and mother Ortolana joined her in the convent. On the death of her father, St. Clara gave all her wealth to the poor. She went, like the others of her order, barefoot or sandalled, slept on the hard earth, and lived in silence. The most notable event of her life was the dispersion of the Saracens. Emperor Frederic ravaged the shores of the Adriatic. In his army were a band of infidel Saracens, who attacked the Convent of San Damiano. The frightened nuns rushed to the side of "Mother Clara," who had long been unable to rise from her bed. At once she arose, took from the altar the pyx of ivory and silver which contained the Host, placed it on the threshold, knelt, and began to sing. The barbarians were overcome with fear, and tumbled headlong down their scaling-ladders. Mrs. Jameson says, "The most beautiful picture of St. Clara I have ever seen represents the death of the saint, or, rather, the vision which preceded her death, painted by Murillo.... St. Clara lies on her couch, her heavenly face lighted up with an ecstatic expression. Weeping nuns and friars stand around; she sees them not, her eyes are fixed on the glorious procession which approaches her bed: first, our Saviour, leading his Virgin-mother; they are followed by a company of virgin-martyrs, headed by St. Catharine, all wearing their crowns and bearing their palms, as though they had come to summon her to their paradise of bliss. Nothing can be imagined more beautiful, bright, and elysian than these figures, nor more divine with faith and transport than the head of St. Clara." These paintings of Murillo were the one topic of conversation in Seville. Orders for pictures came from every side; artists crowded to the convent to study works so unlike their own; the chief families of the city made the hitherto unknown young man a welcome guest at their palaces; fame and position had come when he was only thirty years old. For one hundred and seventy years these pictures were the pride of the convent, when they were taken by Marshal Soult under Napoleon, and eventually scattered through Northern Europe. The convent was destroyed by fire soon afterwards. The old adage that "blessings never come singly" was realized in the case of Murillo, for at this time he married a wealthy lady from a family of high renown, Doña Beatriz de Cobrera y Sotomayor, who dwelt at Pilas, about five leagues from Seville. It is said that he first saw her when painting an altar-piece in the Church of San Geronimo at Pilas, and portrayed her as an angel in his picture while he was winning her love. Their married life seems to have been an eminently happy one. Their home became a centre for artists and the best social circles of the city. Three children were born to them: Gabriel, who went to the West Indies; Francisca, who became a nun; and Gaspar, afterwards a canon of Seville Cathedral. Murillo's manner of painting changed now from what the Spanish call _frio_, or his cold style, to _cálido_, or his warm style, where the outlines were less pronounced, the figures rounder, and the coloring more luminous and tender. "The works of the new manner," says Sweetser, "are notable for graceful and well-arrayed drapery, skilfully disposed lights, harmonious tints, soft contours, and a portrait-like naturalness in the faces, lacking in idealism, but usually pure and pleasing. His flesh-tints were almost uniformly heightened by dark gray backgrounds, and were so amazingly true that one of his critics has said that they seemed to have been painted with blood and milk (_con sangre y leche_)." Many of the Madonnas which Murillo painted were evidently from the same sweet, pure-faced model, and it is believed that they are the likeness of his wife. His boys were his models for the infants Jesus and John. His first work in the so-called warm manner was "Our Lady of the Conception," a colossal picture for the Brotherhood of the True Cross. The monks were at first displeased, thinking that the finishing was not sufficiently delicate; but when Murillo caused it to be hung in the dome, for the high position for which it was intended, they were greatly delighted. Murillo, however, made them pay double the original price for their fault-finding. "Saints Leander and Isidore," two archbishops of Seville, in the sixth and seventh centuries, who fought the Arian heresy, was his next picture, followed by the "Nativity of the Virgin,"--a much admired work,--a group of women and angels dressing the new-born Mary. In 1656, for one of the canons of Santa Maria la Blanca, Murillo painted four large semicircular pictures, the "Immaculate Conception," where the Virgin is adored by several saints, "Faith," and two pictures, "The Dream" and "The Fulfilment," to illustrate Our Lady of the Snow, the two latter now in the Academy of San Fernando at Madrid. According to a fourth-century legend, the Virgin appeared by night to a wealthy Roman senator and his wife, commanding them to build a church in her honor on a certain spot on the Esquiline Hill, which they would find covered with August snow. They went to Pope Liberius, and, after obtaining his blessing, accompanied by a great concourse of priests and people, sought the hill, found the miraculous snow in summer, and gave all their possessions to build the church. One picture of Murillo represents the senator in a black velvet costume, asleep in his chair, while his wife reposes on the floor, the Madonna and Holy Child above them; the other picture shows them telling their dream to the Pope. Viardot calls these paintings the "miracles of Murillo." These were painted in the last of the three manners of Murillo, the method usually adopted in his Madonnas,--the "vapory" style, "with soft and tender outlines, velvety coloring, and shadows which are only softened lights." In 1660, Murillo founded an academy of art in Seville, of which he was president for two years. The students were required to abstain from swearing and ill behavior, and to give assent to the following: "Praised be the most Holy Sacrament and the pure conception of our Lady." Murillo was a most gentle and encouraging teacher. His colored slave, Sebastian Gomez, who had listened to the teaching which he gave to others, finished the head of the Virgin which his master had left on the easel. Murillo exclaimed on seeing it, "I am indeed fortunate, Sebastian; for I have created not only pictures, but a painter!" Many of the works of Gomez, whom Murillo made free, are still preserved and prized in Seville. During the next ten years, Murillo did much work for the cathedral clergy; eight oval, half-length pictures of saints, Justa, Rufina, Hermengild, Sidon, Leander, Archbishops Laureano and Pius, and King Ferdinand; the "Repose in Egypt;" the infants Christ and John for the Antigua Chapel, and other works. Saints Justa and Rufina were daughters of a potter, whom they assisted. Some women who worshipped Venus came to the shop to buy vessels for idolatrous sacrifice. The sisters declared that they had nothing to sell for such purposes, as all things should be used in the service of God. The Pagan women were so incensed that they broke all the earthenware in the place. The sisters then broke the image of Venus, and flung it into a kennel. For this act the populace seized them, and took them before the Prefect. Justa expired on the rack, and Rufina was strangled. These two saints have always guarded the beautiful tower Giralda. They are said to have preserved it from destruction in 1504, in a terrific thunder-storm. When Espartero bombarded Seville in 1843, the people believed that Giralda was encompassed by angels led by these sisters, who turned aside the bombs. Murillo was now fifty-two years old, in the prime of life, famous and honored. He was named by his admiring contemporaries "a better Titian," and it was asserted that even Apelles would have been proud to be called "the Grecian Murillo." He lived in a large and handsome house, still carefully preserved, near the Church of Santa Cruz, not far from the Moorish wall of the city. "The courtyard contains a marble fountain, amidst flowering shrubs, and is surrounded on three sides by an arcade upheld by marble pillars. At the rear is a pretty garden, shaded by cypress and citron trees, and terminated by a wall whereon are the remains of ancient frescos which have been attributed to the master himself. The studio is on the upper floor, and overlooks the Moorish battlements, commanding a beautiful view to the eastward, over orange-groves and rich corn-lands, out to the gray highlands about Alcalá." Murillo's only sister, Teresa, had married a noble of Burgos, a knight of Santiago, judge of the royal colonial court, a man of great cultivation, and later chief secretary of state at Madrid. The artist was also urged by King Charles II. to enter the royal service at Madrid, especially since a picture of the Immaculate Conception, exhibited during a festival of Corpus Christi, had awakened the greatest enthusiasm among the people. But he loved Seville, and would not leave it. And the Sevillians equally loved the man so generous that he gave all he earned to the poor; so diligent at his work that he had no time for evil speaking; with so much tact and sweetness and vital piety that he left no shadow upon his name. In 1670, Murillo began his great works for La Caridad, or the Hospital of St. George. The Brotherhood of Holy Charity built a church about 1450, but it had fallen into ruin. In 1661, Don Miguel Manura Vicentelo de Leca determined to restore and beautify the church and its adjacent buildings, and secured over half a million ducats for this purpose. His history was a strange one. Frances Elliot says of this dissolute man, "Returning at midnight from a revel given by some gallants, in the now ancient quarter of the Macarena, Don Miguel falls in with a funeral procession with torches and banners. Some grandee of high degree, doubtless, there are so many muffled figures, mutes carrying silver horns, the insignia of knighthood borne upon shields, a saddled horse led by a shadowy page, and the dim forms of priests and monks chanting death dirges. "Don Miguel can recall no death at court or among the nobles, and this is plainly a corpse of quality. Nor can he explain the midnight burial, a thing unknown except in warfare or in time of plague; so, advancing from the dark gateway where he had stood to let the procession pass, he addresses himself to one of the muffled figures, and asks, 'Whose body are they carrying to the Osario at this time of night?' "'Don Miguel de Mañara,' is the answer; 'a great noble. Will you follow us and pray for his sinful soul?' "As these words are spoken, the funeral procession seems to pause, and one advances who flings back the wreaths and flowers which shroud the face, and lo! Don Miguel gazes on his own visage. "Spellbound, he seems to join the ghostly throng which wends its slow way into the Church of Santa Inez, where spectral priests appear to meet it, and carry the bier into the nave, where, next morning, Don Miguel is found, by the nuns coming to matins, insensible upon the stones." He at once reformed his vicious life, erected a great cloistered hospital, with one of the most beautiful churches in Seville, and endowed it, so that a large company of priests, sisters of charity, physicians, and domestics could be provided for. Don Miguel caused this inscription to be cut on the façade of the hospital: "This house shall stand as long as God shall be feared in it, and Jesus Christ be served in the persons of His poor. Whoever enters here must leave at the door both avarice and pride." The noble was buried at the church door, so that all who passed in might trample upon his grave. The monumental slab bears the perhaps not inappropriate words, dictated by himself: "To the memory of the greatest sinner that ever lived, Don Miguel de Mañara." Murillo painted for the new Church of St. George eight pictures for the side walls, and three for the altars, for which he received over seventy-eight thousand reals. The "Annunciation," the "Infant Saviour," and the "Infant St. John" were destined for the side altars; the remaining eight, "Moses striking the Rock," the "Prodigal's Return," "Abraham receiving the Three Angels," the "Charity of San Juan de Dios," the "Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes," "Our Lord healing the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda," "St. Peter released from Prison by the Angel," and "St. Elizabeth of Hungary tending the Sick," were intended for the walls. Only three of these eight are left at La Caridad,--"Moses," the "Loaves and Fishes," and "San Juan,"--the rest having been carried to France by Marshal Soult. Of these three, "San Juan" is considered the "most spirited and powerful." This saint was the founder of the Hospitallers or Brothers of Charity. Born of very poor parents, at nine years of age he ran away from home with a priest, who deserted him on the road to Madrid, at a little village near Oropesa, in Castile. He hired himself to a shepherd; later he entered the wars between Charles V. and Francis I., and became a brave but profligate soldier. He was about to be hanged for allowing some booty to be carried off, over which he had been placed as sentinel. The rope was already around his neck, when an officer, touched with pity, interfered to save his life, on condition that he should quit the camp. After various wanderings, he returned to his native town, only to find that both his father and mother had died of grief in consequence of his flight. He nearly lost his reason through remorse, became converted, and began to devote his life to the poor and the sick. To the deserted shed which served for his home, he brought the starving and wretched whom he found in the streets, and worked for them and begged for them. He finally obtained a large building, where, in the winter, he kept a great fire to warm homeless travellers. "Thus passed ten years of his life," says Mrs. Jameson, "without a thought of himself; and when he died, exhausted in body, but still fervent and energetic in mind, he, unconsciously as it seemed, bequeathed to Christendom one of the noblest of all its religious institutions. "Under how many different names and forms has the little hospital of Juan de Dios been reproduced throughout Christian Europe, Catholic and Protestant! Our houses of refuge, our asylums for the destitute; the brotherhood of the 'Caridad,' in Spain; that of the 'Misericordia,' in Italy; the 'Maisons de Charité,' in France; the 'Barmherzigen Brüder,' in Germany,--all these sprang out of the little hospital of this poor, low-born, unlearned, half-crazed Juan de Dios! I wonder if those who go to visit the glories of the Alhambra, and dream of the grandeur of the Moors, ever think of _him_. "The only representation of this good saint which can rank high as a work of art is a famous picture by Murillo, painted for the Church of the Caridad, at Seville. In a dark, stormy night, Juan is seen staggering--almost sinking--under the weight of a poor dying wretch, whom he is carrying to his hospital. An angel sustains him on his way. The dark form of the burden and the sober gray frock of the bearer are dimly seen in the darkness, through which the glorious countenance of the seraph, and his rich yellow drapery, tell like a burst of sunshine." Of the five pictures removed by Marshal Soult, the "St. Elizabeth of Hungary," called "El Tiñoso," now in the Madrid Academy, is considered one of Murillo's finest works. It represents her dressed in her royal robes, washing the head of a leprous boy, while around her are beggars and the ladies of her court. "The St. Elizabeth," says John Hay, in his "Castilian Days," "is a triumph of genius over a most terribly repulsive subject. The wounds and sores of the beggars are painted with unshrinking fidelity, but every vulgar detail is redeemed by the beauty and majesty of the whole. I think in these pictures of Murillo (his Madonnas and others) the last word of Spanish art was reached. There was no further progress possible in life, even for him. 'Other heights in other lives, God willing.'" Of Murillo's "Marys of the Conception, that fill the room with light and majesty," Colonel Hay beautifully says: "They hang side by side, so alike and yet so distinct in character. One is a woman in knowledge and a goddess in purity; the other, absolute innocence, startled by the stupendous revelation, and exalted by the vaguely comprehended glory of the future. It is before this picture that the visitor always lingers longest. The face is the purest expression of girlish loveliness possible to art. (Supposed to be the face of his daughter, Francesca.) The Virgin floats, up-borne by rosy clouds; flocks of pink cherubs flutter at her feet, waving palm branches. The golden air is thick with suggestions of dim, celestial faces, but nothing mars the imposing solitude of the Queen of Heaven, shrined alone, throned in the luminous azure. Surely no man ever understood or interpreted, like this grand Andalusian, the power that the worship of woman exerts on the religions of the world. All the passionate love that has been poured out in all the ages at the feet of Ashtaroth and Artemis and Aphrodite and Freya found visible form and color at last on that immortal canvas, where, with his fervor of religion, and the full strength of his virile devotion to beauty, he created, for the adoration of those who should follow him, this type of the perfect feminine,-- "'Thee! standing loveliest in the open heaven! Ave Maria! only heaven and Thee!'" The story of St. Elizabeth is both touching and beautiful. The daughter of Andreas II., King of Hungary, born in 1207, she was betrothed, in her childhood, to Duke Louis of Thuringia. She early developed the most generous and spiritual character, giving to the poor, praying much, even at midnight, on the bare, cold earth, winning for herself the hatred of a fashionable court and the adoration of her subjects. Various legends are told of her. "When Elizabeth was ministering to her poor at Eisenach," says Mrs. Jameson, "she found a sick child cast out from among the others because he was a leper, and so loathsome in his misery that none would touch him or even go nigh him; but Elizabeth, moved with compassion, took him in her arms, carried him up the steep ascent to the castle, and, while her attendants fled at the spectacle, and her mother-in-law, Sophia, loaded her with reproaches, she laid the sufferer in her own bed. Her husband was then absent, but shortly afterwards his horn was heard to sound at the gate. Then his mother, Sophia, ran out to meet him, saying, 'My son, come hither! See with whom thy wife shares her bed!' And she led him up to the chamber, telling him what had happened. This time, Louis was filled with impatience and disgust; he rushed to the bed and snatched away the coverlid; but behold! instead of the leper, there lay a radiant infant, with the features of the New-born in Bethlehem; and while they stood amazed, the vision smiled, and vanished from their sight. "Elizabeth, in the absence of her husband, daily visited the poor, who dwelt in the suburbs of Eisenach and in the huts of the neighboring valleys. One day, during a severe winter, she left her castle with a single attendant, carrying in the skirts of her robe a supply of bread, meat, and eggs for a certain poor family; and, as she was descending the frozen and slippery path, her husband, returning from the chase, met her, bending under the weight of her charitable burden. 'What dost thou here, my Elizabeth?' he said. 'Let us see what thou art carrying away?' and she, confused and blushing to be so discovered, pressed her mantle to her bosom; but he insisted, and, opening her robe, he beheld only red and white roses, more beautiful and fragrant than any that grow on this earth, even at summer-tide; and it was now the depth of winter! "Then he was about to embrace his wife, but, looking in her face, he was overawed by a supernatural glory, which seemed to emanate from every feature, and he dared not touch her; he bade her go on her way and fulfil her mission; but, taking from her lap one of the roses of Paradise, he put it in his bosom, and continued to ascend the mountain slowly, with his head declined, and pondering these things in his heart. "In 1226, a terrible famine afflicted all Germany; but the country of Thuringia suffered more than any other. Elizabeth distributed to the poor all the corn in the royal granaries. Every day a certain quantity of bread was baked, and she herself served it out to the people, who thronged around the gates of the castle, sometimes to the number of nine hundred. Uniting prudence with charity, she so arranged that each person had his just share, and so husbanded her resources that they lasted through the summer; and when harvest-time came round again, she sent them into the fields, provided with scythes and sickles, and to every man she gave a shirt and a pair of new shoes. But, as was usual, the famine had been succeeded by a great plague and mortality, and the indefatigable and inexhaustible charity of Elizabeth was again at hand. "In the city of Eisenach, at the foot of the Wartburg, she founded an hospital of twenty beds, for poor women only; and another, called the Hospital of St. Anne, in which all the sick and poor who presented themselves were received; and Elizabeth herself went from one to the other, ministering to the wretched inmates with a cheerful countenance, although the sights of misery and disease were often so painful and so disgusting that the ladies who attended upon her turned away their heads, and murmured and complained of the task assigned to them. "She also founded a hospital especially for poor children. It is related by an eye-witness that whenever she appeared among them they gathered round her, crying 'Mutter! Mutter!' clinging to her robe and kissing her hands. She, mother-like, spoke to them tenderly, washed and dressed their ulcerated limbs, and even brought them little toys to amuse them. In these charities, she not only exhausted the treasury, but she sold her own robes and jewels, and pledged the jewels of the state. When the landgrave (her husband) returned, the officers and councillors went out to meet him, and, fearing his displeasure, they began to complain of the manner in which Elizabeth, in their despite, had lavished the public treasures. But Louis would not listen to them; he cut them short, repeating, 'How is my dear wife? how are my children? are they well? Let her give what she will, so long as she leaves me my castles of Eisenach, Wartburg, and Naumburg!' Then he hurried to the gates, and Elizabeth met him with her children, and threw herself into his arms, and kissed him a thousand times, and said to him tenderly, 'See! I have given to the Lord what is his, and he has preserved to us what is thine and mine!'" Louis was soon after killed in the Crusades, and she and her children were driven out of Thuringia by his brothers, Henry and Conrad. Later, some of her possessions were restored to her. She spun wool to earn more money to give away, and wore ragged clothes that she might help the destitute. She died at twenty-four, singing hymns, her sweet voice murmuring, "Silence!" at the last. "No sooner had Elizabeth breathed her last breath than the people surrounded her couch, tore away her robe, cut off her hair, even mutilated her remains for relics. She was buried amid miracles and lamentations, and four years after her death she was canonized by Gregory IX." Murillo's "Abraham receiving the Angels" and "The Prodigal's Return" were purchased of Marshal Soult by the Duke of Sutherland, and are now in Stafford House. "The Healing of the Paralytic" was purchased of Marshal Soult for thirty-two thousand dollars, and is now in the possession of Mr. Tomline of London. The head of the Christ is thought to be Murillo's best representation of our Lord. "The soft violet hue, so dear to Valencian art, of the Saviour's robe, is skilfully opposed to the deep brown of St. Peter's mantle, a rich tint then and still made by Andalusian painters from beef-bones." "The Release of St. Peter" is at the Hermitage, in St. Petersburg. Before the paintings for La Caridad were finished, Murillo was asked to decorate the new Capuchin church. For three years he worked here, not leaving the convent, it is said, for a single day. Such diligence is most suggestive to those persons who expect to win success without unremitting labor! Of the more than twenty pictures painted here by Murillo, nine formed the _retablo_ of the high altar, and eight were on the side altars. Seventeen of these are now in the Seville Museum. The immense altar-piece, "The Virgin granting to St. Francis the Jubilee of the Porciuncula," is now in the National Museum of Madrid. This was a feast in honor of the Cavern of St. Francis of Assisi, in which he received a visit from the Virgin and Child. Thirty-three beautiful cherubs are showering the kneeling St. Francis with red and white roses, blossoms from the briers with which he scourged himself. Over the high altar were pictures of "Saints Justa and Rufina," "St. Anthony of Padua," "St. John in the Desert," "St. Joseph," "St. Felix of Cantalicio," the "Veronica," "Saints Leander and Bonaventura," and a gem called "The Madonna of the Napkin." Murillo had so endeared himself to one of the lay brethren of the convent, a cook, that he begged some token of remembrance from the hand of the great artist. As he had no canvas, Murillo took the napkin which the cook had brought with his food, and, before nightfall, made a most beautiful Virgin, and a Child so natural that it seems, says E. G. Minor, in her life of Murillo, "as if it would spring from its mother's arms. The coloring of this picture, of which innumerable copies and engravings have been made, was never surpassed even by Murillo himself." St. Veronica was a noble-hearted woman, who, seeing the Saviour pass her door, on his way to Calvary, wiped the perspiration from his brow with her handkerchief or veil. To her surprise and delight, she found an image of the Lord's face upon it. She suffered martyrdom under Nero. The great pictures on the side altars of the church illustrated "St. Thomas of Villanueva," which the artist himself esteemed the best of all his works; "St. Francis of Assisi, embracing the Crucified Redeemer," "St. Anthony of Padua and the Infant Christ"; the "Vision of St. Felix," the "Annunciation," the "Immaculate Conception," the "Nativity," and the "Virgin with the Head of the Saviour on her Knee." St. Thomas is represented as at the door of his cathedral, giving alms to beggars. "In the year 1544," says Mrs. Jameson, "Charles V. showed his respect for him by nominating him Archbishop of Valencia. He accepted the dignity with the greatest reluctance. He arrived in Valencia in an old black cassock, and a hat which he had worn for twenty-one years; and as he had never in his life kept anything for himself beyond what was necessary for his daily wants, he was so poor that the canons of his cathedral thought proper to present him with four thousand crowns for his outfit; he thanked them gratefully, and immediately ordered the sum to be carried to the hospital for the sick and poor; and from this time forth we find his life one series of beneficent actions. He began by devoting two-thirds of the revenues of his diocese to purposes of charity. "He divided those who had a claim on him into six classes: first, the bashful poor who had seen better days, and who were ashamed to beg; secondly, the poor girls whose indigence and misery exposed them to danger and temptation; in the third class were the poor debtors; in the fourth, the poor orphans and foundlings; in the fifth, the sick, the lame, and the infirm; lastly, for the poor strangers and travellers who arrived in the city or passed through it, without knowledge where to lay their heads, he had a great kitchen open at all hours of the day and night, where every one who came was supplied with food, a night's rest, and a small gratuity to assist him on his journey. 'There were few churches or convents on the sunny side of the Sierra Morena without some memorial picture of this holy man,' but the finest beyond all comparison are those of Murillo." The "St. Francis" represents Christ appearing to the saint in his grotto on Mount Alvernus when he received the stigmata, wounds similar to those of the Saviour in the Crucifixion. In 1678, Murillo painted for the Hospital de los Venerables, at Seville, an asylum for aged priests, "St. Peter Weeping," the "Virgin and Child enthroned on Clouds," the portrait of his friend Don Justino Neve y Yevenes, and the "Immaculate Conception," now in the Louvre, for which the French government paid, in 1852, at the sale of Marshal Soult's collection, over one hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars. The beautiful Virgin, in her mantle of exquisite blue, over her white robe, floats upward toward the sky, attended by angels, her feet treading upon the crescent, showing her triumph over the other religions of the world. It is a marvel of color and pure saintly expression. Viardot says: "Murillo comes up, in every respect, to what our imagination could hope or conceive. His earthly daylight is perfectly natural and true; his heavenly day is full of radiance. We find in the attitude of the saints, and the expression of their features, all that the most ardent piety, all that the most passionate exaltation, can feel or express in extreme surprise, delight, and adoration. As for the visions, they appear with all the pomp of a celestial train, in which are marvellously grouped the different spirits of the immortal hierarchy, from the archangel with outspread wings to the bodiless heads of the cherubim. It is in these scenes of supernatural poetry that the pencil of Murillo, like the wand of an enchanter, produces marvels. If in scenes taken from human life, he equals the greatest colorists, he is alone in the imaginary scenes of eternal life. It might be said of the two great Spanish masters, that Velasquez is the painter of the earth, and Murillo of heaven." His next work was for the Augustinian convent church, the "Madonna appearing to St. Augustine," and "St. Augustine and the little Child on the Seashore," who is trying to fill a hole in the sand with water carried from the ocean in a shell. About this time, he painted the exquisite "St. John with the Lamb," now in the National Gallery, for which the government paid ten thousand dollars; "Los Niños de la Concha," the "Children of the Shell," where the Child Jesus holds the shell, filled with water, to the lips of St. John, now in the Prado Museum at Madrid; and "St. Ildefonso receiving the Chasuble from the Virgin," also at Madrid. This saint defended the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception at a time when it had many opponents. In token of her appreciation, the Virgin came to his cathedral, seated herself upon his ivory pulpit, and, with the angels about her, chanted a service from the Psalter. He bowed to the ground, and the Virgin said, "Come hither, most faithful servant of God, and receive this robe, which I have brought thee from the treasury of my Son." He knelt before her, and she threw over him a cassock of heavenly tissue. The ivory chair remained thereafter unoccupied, till the presumptuous Archbishop Sisiberto sat in it, and died a miserable death in consequence. Besides all this work, Murillo's various "Beggar Boys" are known wherever art is loved; one is in the Louvre, "El Piojoso"; several, in the Pinakothek at Munich; the "Flower-Girl" and a "Boy with a Basket and Dog," at the Hermitage; and others, in London and Madrid. The "Education of the Virgin," Mary kneeling by the side of St. Anna, her mother, the faces portraits, it is believed, of his wife and daughter, is in the Royal Gallery at Madrid. Five large paintings from the life of Jacob, "Isaac blessing Jacob," "Jacob's Dream," "Jacob and Laban's Sheep," "Laban searching for his Gods in the Tent of Rachel," and one other, are in various galleries. Murillo was now growing old. All the time which he could possibly spare from his work he passed in devotion. He often visited the Church of Santa Cruz, where he spent hours before the altar-piece, "The Descent from the Cross," by Pedro Campaña. When lingering late one night, he was asked by the sacristan why he thus tarried. He replied: "I am waiting till those men have brought the body of our blessed Lord down the ladder." His last picture, the "Marriage of St. Catharine," was begun in 1680, in the Capuchin Church at Cadiz, when he was sixty-two years of age. He had finished the centre group of the Madonna and Child and St. Catharine, when he fell from the scaffold on which he was climbing to his work, and fatally injured himself. Whether this accident occurred in the chapel at Cadiz, or in his own studio, is not positively known, but he died soon afterward, at Seville, April 3, 1682, in the arms of his friend Canon Neve and his pupil Pedro Nuñez de Villavicencio. His wife was dead, and his daughter had become a nun six years previous, but his second son, Gaspar, stood beside the bed of death. He was buried with distinguished honors, the bier being carried by two marquises and four knights, and followed by a great concourse of people. At his own request, he was buried beneath his favorite picture, the "Descent from the Cross." His grave was covered with a stone slab on which were carved his name, a skeleton, and the words, "Vive moriturus," "Live as one who is about to die." During the French occupation, the Church of Santa Cruz was destroyed, and its site is now occupied by the Plaza Santa Cruz. A tablet was placed in the adjacent wall in 1858, stating that Murillo was buried there. A bronze statue of the painter has been erected by the city of Seville, near the Provincial Museum. More than five hundred of the works of Murillo are scattered through Europe. Self-made, he left a name honored alike for great genius and great beauty of character. Says Emelyn W. Washburn, in "Spanish Masters," "We shall not err when we say that Murillo is the sweetest and richest painter of his day.... He has a glowing fancy, an eye for all beauty of nature and life, and a lofty mind and moral purpose. His magic pencil writes the heart of his saints on the face; none better than he can draw the pure brow of childhood; and, above all, his conceptions suggest a mystery hidden beneath the outward coloring. "His name recalls Spanish art in the noon of its glory. There is in that series of great and small artists not one who has so won the heart of all time; none depicts so much of that personal beauty which gives life to the past. We approach Zurbaran with somewhat of awe; Velasquez is the grand historical painter. But in Murillo we see the mingling of the two, with a milder grace. In him, we see the sweet singer with the golden harp strung always before him, the man with all the chords of his fine nature touched by the Holy Ghost. "There is, perhaps, no point where Murillo appears in more winning beauty than in his relations with other painters. He shows the most generous soul, the rarest gentleness, a heart where the struggles of youth have only brought forth the richest fruits. We see the picture of a man too great for little hates. His is a character shaped by the mild spirit of Christ's religion.... "Murillo stands forth as a mind which most faithfully represents Spanish genius, art, religion; who lived a Spaniard of the Spaniards in that brilliant world; who wore the same long cloak and grave dignity as is now met with in the narrow, dirty lanes of Seville; nay, more, who had a living human heart, and who pondered as we now ponder the problems of art and life; who taught a nation and an age." RUBENS. Taine says, in his "Philosophy of Art in the Netherlands": "Rubens is to Titian what Titian was to Raphael, and Raphael was to Phidias. Never did artistic sympathy clasp nature in such an open and universal embrace. Ancient boundaries, already often extended, seem removed purposely to expose an infinite career. He shows no respect for historic proprieties: he groups together allegoric with real figures, and cardinals with a naked Mercury. [Illustration: RUBENS.] "There is no deference to the moral order; he fills the ideal heaven of mythology and of the Gospel with coarse or mischievous characters; a Magdalen resembling a nurse, and a Ceres whispering some pleasant gossip in her neighbor's ear. There is no dread of exciting physical sensibility; he pushes the horrible to extremes, ... all the animal instincts of human nature appear; those which had been excluded as gross he reproduces as true, and in him, as in nature, they encounter the others. Nothing is wanting but the pure and the noble; the whole of human nature is in his grasp, save the loftiest heights. Hence it is that this creativeness is the vastest we have seen, comprehending as it does all types, Italian cardinals, Roman emperors, contemporary citizens, peasants and cowherds, along with the innumerable diversities stamped on humanity by the play of natural forces, and which more than fifteen hundred pictures did not suffice to exhaust. "For the same reason, in the representation of the body, he comprehended more profoundly than any one the essential characteristic of organic life; he surpasses in this the Venetians as they surpass the Florentines; he feels still better than they that flesh is a changeable substance in a constant state of renewal; and such, more than any other, is the Flemish body, lymphatic, sanguine, and voracious; more fluid, more rapidly tending to accretion and waste than those whose dry fibre and radical temperance preserve permanent tissues. "Hence it is that nobody has depicted its contrasts in stronger relief, nor as visibly shown the decay and bloom of life; at one time the dull, flabby corpse, a genuine clinical mass, empty of blood and substance; livid, blue, and mottled through suffering, a clot of blood on the mouth, the eye glassy, and the feet and hands clayish, swollen, and deformed because death seized them first; at another, the freshness of living carnations, the handsome, blooming, and smiling athlete, the mellow suppleness of a yielding torso in the form of a well-fed youth, the soft rosy cheeks and placid candor of a girl whose blood was never quickened or eyes bedimmed by thought, flocks of dimpled cherubs and merry cupids, the delicacy, the folds, the exquisite melting rosiness of infantile skin, seemingly the petal of a flower moistened with dew and impregnated with morning light. "His personages speak; their repose itself is suspended on the verge of action; we feel what they have just accomplished, and what they are about to do. The present with them is impregnated with the past and big with the future; not only the whole face, but the entire attitude conspires to manifest the flowing stream of their thought, feeling, and complete being; we hear the inward utterance of their emotion; we might repeat the words to which they give expression. The most fleeting and most subtle shades of sentiment belong to Rubens; in this respect he is a treasure for novelist and psychologist; he took note of the passing refinements of moral expression as well as of the soft volume of sanguine flesh; no one has gone beyond him in knowledge of the living organism and of the animal man.... "There is only one Rubens in Flanders, as there is only one Shakespeare in England. Great as the others are, they are deficient in some one element of his genius." This great painter, Peter Paul Rubens, whom Sir Joshua Reynolds called "the best workman with his tools that ever managed a pencil," was born at Siegen, June 29, 1577, on the day commemorating the martyrdom of these saints at Rome, hence the names given to the child. Antwerp and Cologne have claimed his birth, but subsequent historical investigation has shown Siegen as his birthplace. Jans Rubens, the father of Peter, was a distinguished councilman and alderman of Antwerp, having taken his degree of Doctor of Laws at Rome when he was thirty-one. When he was about that age he married Marie Pypelincx, a woman of good family, unusual force of character, and the idol of her son Peter as long as she lived. Antwerp was now the scene of a desolating war. Charles V., Emperor of Germany and King of Spain, had abdicated, leaving the Netherlands to his son Philip II. Religious dissensions, the presence of Spanish soldiers, and other matters, led to revolts, which the Duke of Alva, with twenty thousand soldiers, was sent to suppress in 1576. Seven thousand of the people of Antwerp were slain, and five hundred houses burned. Jans Rubens had been accused of Calvinistic tendencies, and thought it prudent to retire to Cologne before the arrival at Antwerp of the Roman Catholic Duke of Alva, placing himself on the side of Prince William of Orange, the Silent, who had married Annie of Saxony. She had quarrelled with her husband, had come to Cologne, and had employed Jans Rubens as one of her counsellors in obtaining her property, which Philip II. had confiscated. Forgetting his high position and his family, Jans Rubens sacrificed his good name and character by his immorality, was arrested and thrown into prison by Count John of Nassau, the brother of Prince William, and Annie was divorced by her husband. By German law Rubens was under the penalty of death. He wrote to his wife, confessing his guilt and imploring her pardon. She determined at once to save his life, if possible. The noble-hearted woman wrote him tenderly--only great souls know how to forgive,-- "How could I push severity to the point of paining you when you are in such affliction that I would give my life to relieve you from it? Even had this misfortune not been preceded by a long affection, ought I to show so much hatred as not to be able to pardon a fault against me?... Be, then, assured that I have entirely forgiven you, and would to Heaven that your deliverance depended on this, for then we should soon be happy again. "Alas! it is not what your letter announces that affects me. I could scarcely read it. I thought my heart would break. I am so distressed, I hardly know what I write. This sad news so overwhelms me it is with difficulty I can bear it. If there is no more pity in this world, to whom shall I apply? I will implore Heaven with tears and groans, and hope that God will grant my prayer by touching the hearts of these gentlemen, so that they may spare us, may have compassion on us; otherwise, they will kill me as well as you, my soul is so linked to yours that you cannot suffer a pain without my suffering as much as you. I believe that if these good lords saw my tears they would have pity on me, even if they were of stone; and, when all other means fail, I will go to them, although you write me not to do so." Marie could not reach William the Silent, for he was away in the country, consolidating the Dutch Republic; but she visited in person his mother, and his brother, Count John. All her entreaties availed nothing. It was publicly stated that Jans Rubens had been imprisoned for political treason to Prince William, and must suffer death. Marie was forbidden access to any of William's family, and for two years was not allowed to enter the dungeon where her husband was confined. At length she declared that the whole truth should be told, and Annie of Saxony be forever disgraced. This threat moved the proud Orange family, and procured the release of Jans Rubens, under bonds of six thousand thalers, that he would never go outside the little town of Siegen. Here he lived for some years, broken in health by his prison life, and under the strict surveillance of Count John. Finally, Marie obtained permission for them to reside in Cologne, where he died in 1587, when his boy Peter was ten years of age. The next year Marie Rubens returned to their old home at Antwerp, and by her good sense and persistence recovered the estates of her husband, which had been confiscated during the wars, thus placing her family in very comfortable circumstances. Peter entered a Jesuits' college, where he showed great aptitude for languages. In childhood he had been taught Latin by his father, and French by a tutor. Later, he learned Italian, Spanish, German, and English, besides, of course, speaking his native Flemish. His mother had destined him for the law, but it was distasteful to him. At the age of thirteen, as was often the custom, the frank and handsome boy was made a page in the household of his godmother, the Countess Lalaing, but he took no pleasure in mere fashionable surroundings, and begged his mother that he might become an artist. This choice did not attract the mother, whose ambitions and hopes centred largely in her enthusiastic Peter, but she had the wisdom to lead rather than to dictate. Parents who break the wills of their children usually have spoiled children as the result. She placed her boy with Tobias Verhaeght, a landscape painter, from whom the lad learned that close study of nature which made him thereafter a reader of her secrets. Conrad Busken Huet says, in his "Land of Rubens": "Man and nature as the Creator made them were quite sufficient for Rubens's inspiration, no matter where he found them, far from home or close to it. What attracted him most in nature was the unchangeable, the imperishable, and the grand. He knew how to find these everywhere. Artists less gifted and born by the seashore have before now felt the want of sniffing the mountain breeze. Did their cradle stand among the meadows, they longed for running streams and rivers. Rubens's pictures prove that such contrasts had no value for him. "Within the narrow limits of his native soil, he found every condition necessary to the practice of his art. His imagination had no need of anything more stirring than that presented to him by the recollection of human vicissitudes amidst glebe and glade. The twinkling of the eye sufficed to transform them into battlefields in his productions.... "When the sun shines, he shines everywhere. Such is Rubens's motto. He knows but one moon, but one starry vault, but one gloaming, but one morning dew. Every raindrop on which there falls a ray of light reminds him of a diamond. Each stubble-field whence uprises the lark supplies music to his ears. Each swan to which he flings bread-crumbs on his arrival at 'Steen' (his country home) teaches him to keep the most sublime song of his art for the end." "It is curious to note that Rubens," says Charles W. Kett, in his "Life of Rubens," "who began with scenes of country life, returned in his last days to his first love, so that when he could no longer cover his huge canvases with heroic figures, he would retire to his château at Steen, and paint landscapes, even though the gout almost incapacitated him from holding his brushes." After about ten years spent with Verhaeght, young Rubens, thinking that he would devote himself to historical subjects, became a pupil of Adam van Noort, a teacher skilled in drawing, and in the use of brilliant color, with study of light and shade. He is said to have been intemperate and quick-tempered, but for four years Rubens found him a useful teacher. "It is related," says George H. Calvert, "that one day, when the master was absent, the pupil took a fresh canvas to try what he could do by himself towards representing a weeping Madonna. He worked for hours, and so intently that he did not hear the returning footsteps of the master, who from behind gazed in admiration and wonder at his performance." The young painter was restless, not an unnatural condition for an ardent, ambitious boy or girl. Such a life, fruitful for good or evil, must be filled with the best activities. When Rubens was nineteen, he entered the studio of Otto Venius, a kind and learned man, of courtly manners, a free-master of the Guild of St. Luke, and court painter to Archduke Albert of Austria and the Infanta Isabella of Spain. She was the daughter of Philip II., to whom he had ceded the "Spanish Netherlands." They were distinguished patrons of art, and did everything to restore the war-worn country to peace and prosperity. Venius became deeply attached to his pupil, made him acquainted with the Regents Albert and Isabella, and inspired him to go to Italy to study art, the country in which he had studied for seven years. Rubens had already painted some admirable works: the "Adoration of the Three Kings," a "Holy Trinity," a "Dead Christ in the Arms of the Father," and a portrait of Marie Pypelincx, "the true-hearted wife," says Mr. Kett, "of the faithless Jans, the mother of the artist, the upholder of the family after the death of the father, the educator of his children, and the restorer of the fallen greatness of the name of Rubens. Calmly and beautifully does the pale face still look forth from the canvas as of old. She must have smiled with satisfaction on the rising fame of her youngest surviving son, now going forth into the world to have those talents acknowledged which her maternal heart was assured were in his keeping. Carefully attired, like a matron of good family, in velvet dress, mourning coif, and muslin cuffs, denoting her widowed state, she carries in her face the traits of a shrewd woman of the world, who has battled bravely with the times, and now sees victory crowning her endeavors. "Her very chair, somewhat similar to the one still preserved in the Academy at Antwerp as the gift of her son, speaks of a home of comfort; her book, held in her still handsome hand, a forefinger marking the page she has not finished reading, tells of a certain amount of learned leisure; and her whole surroundings recall a home whence an artist, a man of culture, and a courteous gentleman might derive those early impressions and first inspirations which would develop, when he came in contact with a larger world, into masterpieces of art." On May 8, 1600, Rubens, at twenty-three years of age, having said good-by to his fond mother, started for Italy. His first visit was to Venice, where he studied the wonderful colorists, Titian, Paul Veronese, and Tintoretto. He is said to have copied twenty portraits by Titian, so earnest was he in obtaining the secret of these marvellous tints. While here he became the friend of a Mantuan, an officer at the court of Vincenzo de Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. This duke was thirty-seven years old, rich, handsome, somewhat of a poet, the patron of artists and authors, a brilliant and extravagant ruler. Through this friend, and also by letters of introduction from Archduke Albert, Rubens met Gonzaga, who was surprised at the learning of the attractive and distinguished-appearing young artist. Hearing him repeat a passage from Virgil, Gonzaga addressed him in Latin, and was answered in the same language, fluently and correctly. The duke had made a fine collection of paintings and antiques, and these Rubens was glad to study. A most fortunate thing resulted from this acquaintance; Rubens was appointed painter to the court and a member of the ducal household. This was not the result merely of fortuitous circumstances. Rubens had been a student. He was called later by scholars, "the antiquary and Apelles of our time." He was also a most industrious worker. Philip Rubens, his nephew, says in his life of his uncle, "He never gave himself the pastime of going to parties where there was drinking and card-playing, having always had a dislike for such." So fond was he of reading the best books, that in after years, when he painted, Seneca and Plutarch were often read to him. He had studied the technique of painting since he was thirteen years old. He was especially charming in manner, being free from harshness or censoriousness, and, withal, a person of much tact and consideration. He had prepared himself for a great work, and was ready to embrace his opportunity when it came. Besides painting several originals for the Duke of Mantua, Rubens was sent to Rome to make copies of some of the masterpieces. He took letters of introduction to Cardinal Alessandro Montalto, the nephew of Sixtus V., very rich, and a great patron of art. Besides this work for Gonzaga, Rubens painted for the chapel of St. Helena, in the Church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, at Rome, at the request of Archduke Albert, formerly its cardinal, three pictures: "St. Helena embracing the Cross," "Christ crowned with Thorns," and a "Crucifixion." On his return to Mantua, he copied the "Triumph of Julius Cæsar," by Andrea Mantegna; in one of the series, in place of a sheep walking by the side of an elephant, he painted a lion. Dr. Waagen says in his "Life of Rubens": "His love of the fantastic and pompous led him to choose that with the elephant carrying the candelabra, but his ardent imagination, ever directed to the dramatic, could not be content with this; instead of a harmless sheep, which in Mantegna is walking by the side of the foremost elephant, Rubens has introduced a lion and lioness, which growl angrily at the elephant. The latter, on his part, is not idle, but, looking furiously round, is on the point of striking the lion a blow with his trunk. The severe pattern he had before him in Mantegna has moderated Rubens in his taste for very full forms, so that they are here more noble and slender than is usual with him. The coloring, as in his earliest pictures, is more subdued than in the later, and yet more powerful. Rubens himself seems to have set a high value upon this study, for it was among his effects at his death." In 1603, Rubens was sent by the Duke of Mantua on a pleasant mission to Spain, with costly presents to Philip III., the indolent son of Philip II., and his powerful favorite, the Duke of Lerma. For the king there was a "gorgeous coach and seven beautiful horses, twelve arquebuses, six of whalebone and six variegated, and a vase of rock crystal filled with perfumes." For the Duke of Lerma, "a number of pictures, a silver vase of large dimensions inwrought with colors, and two vases of gold. For the Countess of Lerma, a cross and two candelabra of rich crystal. For the secretary, Pedro Franqueza, two vases of rock crystal, and a complete set of damask hangings, the edges of gold tissue." After a long journey, with continuous rain for twenty-five days, Rubens and his gifts reached Valladolid. When the paintings were unpacked, they were nearly ruined, from the colors having peeled off. At the request of Iberti, resident at the Court of Madrid from Mantua, Rubens undertook the work of restoration, and, better still, painted two originals for the Duke of Lerma, a "Democritus," and a "Heraclitus," both life-size, now in the gallery of Madrid. He also painted an equestrian likeness of the duke himself, several ladies of the court, for the gallery of beauties possessed by Gonzaga, and probably many other pictures on this first visit, as more than one hundred and twenty of Rubens's paintings are known to have existed in Spain. On his return to Italy he was loaded with gifts from the King of Spain and grandees, so much were his works esteemed and so greatly was the young Fleming admired. Once more in Italy, Rubens painted an altar-piece for the Church of the Holy Trinity at Mantua, in which the mother of the duke was buried; three pictures, the "Baptism of our Saviour," the "Mystery of the Transfiguration," and a central picture, the "Mystery of the Trinity," which latter contained portraits of Duke Vincenzo, his Duchess Leonora, his parents, and his children. When the French took Mantua in 1797, this church was used as a storehouse for food for the horses. A French commissary cut this picture in pieces, the better to carry it, and, when about to send it to France, was prevented by the Academy of Mantua. Some of the pieces have disappeared. Rubens also painted, for the Church of Santa Maria in Valicella, Rome, an altar-piece, representing the "Madonna and Child," with side pictures of the pope and several saints. In co-operation with his brother Philip, he published, in 1608, a book on Roman antiquities, with six copper-plate illustrations. The pope was so pleased with Rubens that he desired to keep him in Rome permanently. For the Grand Duke Ferdinand I. of Florence, Rubens painted several pictures, among them a "Hercules between Venus and Minerva." In Spain he executed a series called "The Labors of Hercules," besides three separate ones, representing the slaying of the dragon, the struggle with Antæus, and the combat with a lion. He also copied the celebrated cartoon of Leonardo da Vinci, called "The Battle of the Standard," and made a valuable portrait of himself for the Grand Ducal collection of self-painted heads of artists. At Genoa he made drawings of her remarkable palaces and churches, which he published later in a volume with one hundred and thirty-nine illustrations. After an absence of eight years in Italy, Rubens was recalled to Antwerp by the illness of his mother. He started homeward October 28, 1608, with a heavy heart. On his way he learned that she had died nine days before he began his long journey. On reaching Antwerp, he shut himself up for four months in the Abbey of St. Michael's, where she had been buried. He had given her no ordinary affection, and his was no ordinary loss. He met this loss in the silence of his own thoughts in the abbey, and when he had gained the self-control necessary for his work, he came out into the world. Most of us learn to bear our sorrows in our own hearts, without laying our burdens upon others, finding, sooner or later, that the world has enough of its own. He talked of returning to Italy, but Archduke Albert and Isabella, proud of his genius and his attainments, invited him to court, sat for their portraits, and made him their official painter. One of his first works for them was a "Holy Family," which was so much admired that the Society of St. Ildefonso of Brussels, Archduke Albert being its head, ordered an altar-piece for the Chapel of the order of St. James. "This picture," says Dr. Waagen, "which is at present in the Imperial gallery at Vienna, represents the Virgin Mary enthroned, and putting the cloak of the order on the shoulders of St. Ildefonso. She is surrounded by four female saints. On the interior of the wings are the portraits of Albert and Isabella, with their patron saints. This work, one of the most admirable ever painted by Rubens, displays in a remarkable degree the qualities praised in the one painted for the Archduke." The association were so pleased that they offered the artist a purse of gold, which, having been made a member, he would not receive, saying that his only desire was to be useful to his brother members. Lonely from the death of his mother, a new affection came into his heart to sustain and console him. Philip, his brother, now secretary of Antwerp, had taken as his wife Maria de Moy, whose sister, Clara, much older, had married a former secretary of Antwerp, Jan Brandt. Their daughter, Isabella Brandt, was a young woman of attractive face and sweet disposition. Peter naturally met the niece of his brother Philip's wife, loved her, and married her October 13, 1609, in the Abbey Church of St. Michael, when he was thirty-two. He soon built a house, costing sixty thousand florins, in the Italian style of architecture, with a spacious studio, and a separate building or rotunda, like the Pantheon at Rome, lighted from the top, where he arranged the pictures, marbles, vases, and gems which he had collected in Italy. Adjoining this he laid out a large garden, planted with flowers and choice trees. "The celebrated picture of Rubens and his first wife," says Mr. Kett, "now in the Pinakothek at Munich, must have been painted within the first few years of their married life, and is a striking example of the painter's manner at this period. His calm serenity and thoughtful expression, combined with beauty and force of character, are well balanced by the placid contentment and happy dignity of his wife, as the pair sit under their own vine and fig-tree, prepared to receive their visitors. There is no affected demonstration of feeling, no bashful restraint. A couple well-to-do and able to enjoy themselves are happy to share their pleasure with others." In 1611, Rubens met with a severe loss in the death of his greatly beloved brother, Philip. All the seven children of Jans Rubens and Maria Pypelincx were now dead save Peter Paul. In 1614, Rubens's heart was made glad by the birth of a son, to whom Archduke Albert became godfather, and gave him his own name. Four years later his only other child by Isabella Brandt was born, both of whom survived their father. A beautiful painting of these two children is now in the Liechtenstein Gallery, in Vienna. The rich and famous painter was now happy, surrounded by his loved ones, busy constantly with his work, which poured in upon him. In summer he rose at four o'clock, heard mass, and went to work early. Says Dr. Waagen, "This was the time when he generally received his visitors, with whom he entered willingly into conversation on a variety of topics, in the most animated and agreeable manner. An hour before dinner he always devoted to recreation, which consisted either in allowing his thoughts to dwell as they listed on subjects connected with science or politics, which latter interested him deeply, or in contemplating his treasures of art. From anxiety not to impair the brilliant play of his fancy, he indulged but sparingly in the pleasures of the table, and drank but little wine. After working again till the evening, he usually, if not prevented by business, mounted a spirited Andalusian horse, and rode for an hour or two. "This was his favorite exercise; he was extremely fond of horses, and his stables generally contained some of remarkable beauty. On his return home, it was his custom to receive a few friends, principally men of learning or artists, with whom he shared his frugal meal, and afterwards passed the evening in instructive and cheerful conversation. This active and regular mode of life could alone have enabled Rubens to satisfy all the demands that were made upon him as an artist, and the astonishing number of works that he completed, the genuineness of which is beyond all doubt, can only be accounted for by this union of extraordinary diligence with his unusually fertile powers of production." In building his home, Rubens encroached a little on land owned by the Company of Arquebusiers of Antwerp. A lawsuit was threatened, but finally a compromise was effected whereby Rubens agreed to paint a triptych, that is, a picture in three parts, of their patron St. Christopher, to be hung in the cathedral. In fulfilment of this contract, he painted the renowned "Descent from the Cross," now in the south end of the transept of the cathedral, with St. Simon on one wing of the triptych, and "The Visitation" on the other, with St. Christopher in person. Says Huet: "Playing upon the name of a patron saint, he has represented a threefold 'bearing of Christ'; Christ borne from the Cross in the centre; Christ borne by old Simon on the right; Christ borne ''neath his mother's heart' on the left wing.... There is no need to insist as to how Rubens acquitted himself of his task in the centre piece. Da Vinci's 'Last Supper' and Rubens's 'Descent from the Cross' are the two most popular altarpieces of Christianity, admired alike by Protestant and Catholic. For the history of Flemish art this 'Descent' possesses as much value as does Goethe's 'Faust' for the history of German literature. No one has succeeded in painting subsequent to Rubens a 'Descent from the Cross' without paying toll to the master.... It is the triumph of human sympathy expressed in accordance with the theory of line and color. The painter had no other aim than to limn a perfect group of loving people, occupied in taking down the body of Christ. He does not portray your sorrow, but theirs. What he tenders us is sentiment, not sentimentality; emotion, not intellect. The allusion to St. Christopher must be disinterred from encyclopædias; the recollection of John in his red cloak, carrying his burden, of the fair-haired Mary Magdalen, of the disciple with the winding-sheet betwixt his teeth, has become immortal. "The lovely mother-virgin of the left-hand side leaf deserves particular attention.... I know of no more fascinating female figure from Rubens's brush; none which in its Flemish guise is so original, so wholly his. The 'Descent from the Cross' itself one might still believe to be the work of one of the great Italians. No such mistake is possible with the side leaf. What excites our wonder in Goethe is his succeeding in raising a Leipzig girl of the lower classes to the rank of a tragic heroine, the very mention of whose name suffices to remind us of an imperishable type. Rubens's pregnant Mary is an honorable Gretchen. He created her out of the most hidden depths of human nature, where blood and soul, mind and matter, melt into one. When Jordaens wishes to paint fertility, he resorts to the allegory of the schools. To Rubens life itself is the best of all allegories. Mary's clinging for support to the railing of the staircase, as she ascends it, is a hymn in honor of maternity. In the course of ages pictorial art has produced many beautiful works, none more beautiful than that scene." About this time Rubens painted some of his greatest works. "Our Saviour giving the Keys to St. Peter" was originally placed in the Cathedral of St. Gudule; it was sold in 1824 to the Prince of Orange, for one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. An "Elevation of the Cross," an immense picture, executed for the Church of St. Walburg, at Antwerp, is now in the north transept of the cathedral. He painted an "Adoration of the Magi" for the choir of the Abbey Church of St. Michael, dear to him from the burial of his mother and his own marriage, and a similar picture for the Church of St. John at Malines. Of an "Adoration of the Magi" in the Museum at Antwerp, Eugène Fromentin says: "It is truly a _tour de force_, especially if one recalls the rapidity of this work of improvisation. Not a gap, not a strain; a vast, clear half-tint and lights without excess envelop all the figures, supporting one the other; all the colors are visible and multiply values the most rare, the least sought and yet the most fit, the most subtle and yet the most distinct. By the side of types that are very ugly swarm superior types. With his square face, his thick lips, his reddish skin, big eyes strongly lighted up, and his stout body girt in green pelisse with sleeves of peacock blue, this African among the Magi is a figure entirely new, before which, assuredly, Tintoretto, Titian, Veronese would have clapped their hands. "On the left stand in dignified solemnity two colossal cavaliers of a singular Anglo-Flemish style, the most extraordinary piece of color in the picture, with its dull harmony of black, greenish blue, of brown and white. Add the profile of the Nubian camel-drivers, the supernumeraries, men in helmets, negroes, the whole in the most ample, the most transparent, the most natural of atmospheres. Spider-webs float in the framework, and quite low down the head of the ox,--a sketch achieved by a few strokes of the brush in bitumen,--without more importance and not otherwise executed than would be a hasty signature. The Child is delicious; to be cited as one of the most beautiful among the purely picturesque compositions of Rubens, the last word of his knowledge as to color, of his skill as to technique, when his sight was clear and instantaneous, his hand rapid and careful, and when he was not too exacting, the triumph of rapture and science--in a word, of self-confidence." Rubens had courage. He used to say: "Every one according to his gift; my talent is such that never yet has an undertaking, however extraordinary in size or diversity of subjects, daunted my courage." The "Assumption of the Virgin" in the Antwerp Cathedral, Dr. Waagen says, "may be said to produce the same effect as a symphony, in which the united sounds of all the instruments blend together joyously, divinely, mightily. No other painter has ever known how to produce such a full and satisfactory tone of light, such a deep chiaro-oscuro united with such general brilliancy." "St. Theresa pleading for the Souls in Purgatory," "St. Anne instructing the Virgin," and the "Dead Saviour laid on a Stone," are now at Antwerp. Five of the above pictures and three others, "Christ on the Cross," "The Resurrection of our Saviour," and "The Adoration of the Shepherds," were painted in eighteen days, Rubens receiving as compensation fifty dollars per day, his usual price. For a magnificent church built by the Jesuits, Rubens painted two works for the high altar, pictures for two other altars, and thirty-nine ceilings with Bible scenes, including the "Assumption" and "Coronation of the Virgin," the "Translation of Elijah," and the "Archangel Michael triumphing over the Serpent." These works with the church were all destroyed by fire, caused by lightning, in 1718. With all this prosperity it was not strange that envy and jealousy should now and then confront Rubens. One of his rivals invited him to paint a picture on some chosen subject, and allow umpires to decide which was the better work. Rubens replied to the challenge: "My attempts have been subjected to the scrutiny of _connoisseurs_ in Italy and Spain. They are to be found in public collections and private galleries in those countries; gentlemen are at liberty to place their works beside them, in order that the comparison be made." The great artist used to say, "Do well, and people will be jealous of you; do better, and you confound them." He employed several pupils to help him constantly. He would make sketches and superintend the work, adding the finishing touches. Having been asked to paint for the Cathedral of Malines a "Last Supper," Rubens made the drawing and sent it to one of his pupils, Juste van Egmont, to lay on the ground color. The canon of the cathedral said to Van Egmont, "Why did your master not come himself?" "Don't be uneasy," was the reply. "He will, as is his custom, finish the picture." Egmont went on with the work, when finally the canon, in a rage, ordered him to stop, while he wrote to Rubens: "'Twas a picture by your own hand I ordered, not an attempt by an apprentice. Come, then, and handle the brush yourself: or recall your Juste van Egmont, and tell him to take with him his sketch; my intention being not to accept it, you can keep it for yourself." Rubens wrote back: "I proceed always in this way; after having made the drawing, I let my pupils begin the picture, finish even, according to my principles; then I retouch it, and give it my stamp. I shall go to Malines in a few days; your dissatisfaction will cease." Rubens came, and the canon was satisfied. Mr. Kett says: "Rubens's method of painting was his own. Some of his fellow-countrymen, who were jealous of him, said he did not use paints, but colored varnishes, and that his pictures would not last; of the latter point we are the better judges. He used light grounds, almost, if not quite white; his outlines were drawn with a brush in color (often red for the flesh), and very transparent glazes were laid over all the shadows, the lights being sometimes, not always, painted thicker. He exposed his pictures to the sun for short spaces of time, between the paintings, to dry out the oil. They received several coats of color, and then, finally, he put in the stronger touches himself, the light ones now thick. All his works, however, do not seem to have been done in this way, but many have solid painting from the first." Rubens had become both rich and famous. When an alchemist visited him, urging that he furnish a laboratory and apparatus for the process of transmutation of metals, and share the profits, the painter replied: "You have come twenty years too late; I found out the secret long ago;" and then, pointing to his palette and brushes, he added, "Everything I touch with these turns to gold." A new honor was now conferred upon Rubens. Marie de' Medici, the sister of the Duchess Leonora of Mantua, wished to adorn her palace of the Luxembourg, in Paris, with great magnificence. Henry, Baron Vicq, the ambassador of the Archduke Albert and Isabella, spoke to Queen Marie of Rubens. She must have known of his work, also, when he was the court painter of Mantua. He was summoned to Paris, and took the order for twenty-two immense pictures, illustrative of her life. These are now in the Louvre, full of vigor, brilliant in imagery, and rich in color. In the first picture the three Fates spin the fortunes of Marie de' Medici; the second represents her birth at Florence, in 1575, Lucina, the goddess of births, being present with her torch, while Florentia, the goddess of the city, holds the new-born infant; the third, her education, conducted by Minerva, Apollo, and Mercury; fourth, Love shows the princess the portrait of Henry IV., whom she married in 1600, after he had been divorced from Margaret of Valois, in the preceding year; above are Jupiter and Juno; beside the king appears Gallia; fifth shows the nuptials; the Grand Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany acts as proxy for his niece's husband; sixth, the queen lands at Marseilles; seventh, the wedding festival, at Lyons, with Henry IV. as Jupiter, and Marie as Juno; eighth, the birth of Louis XIII., in 1601, with Fortuna behind the queen; ninth, Henry IV. starting on his campaign against Germany, in 1610, when he makes the queen regent; tenth, coronation of the queen at St. Denis; eleventh, apotheosis of Henry IV., who was stabbed by Ravaillac, it is said, not against the queen's wishes, who, nevertheless, in the picture is enthroned in mourning robes between Minerva and Wisdom; twelfth, regency of the queen under the protection of Olympus; Mars, Apollo, and Minerva drive away the hostile powers, while Juno and Jupiter cause the chariot of France to be drawn by gentle doves; thirteenth, the queen in the field during the civil war in France; fourteenth, treaty between France and Spain; fifteenth, prosperity during the regency, the queen bearing the scales of justice with Minerva, Fortuna, and Abundantia on the right, Gallia and Time on the left, while below are Envy, Hatred, and Stupidity; sixteenth, the queen commits the rudder of the Ship of State, rowed by the Virtues, to Louis XIII., who certainly must have deserted these virtues early in his career; seventeenth, flight of the queen, in 1619, to Blois, where the wily Cardinal Richelieu joined her as a pretended friend; eighteenth, Mercury presents himself to the queen as a messenger of peace; nineteenth, the queen is conducted into the temple of peace; twentieth, Marie and Louis XIII. on Olympus, with the dragon of rebellion below them; twenty-first, the king giving his mother a chaplet of peace; twenty-second, portrait of Marie; followed by portraits of her parents, Grand Duke Francis and Johanna, Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Fortunately, Rubens could not paint the sad future of Marie de' Medici. She died in a poor apartment at Cologne, deserted by her family. The queen was delighted with Rubens's pictures, taking lessons of him in drawing, and often conversing with him while he made the sketches, the painting being done by himself and his pupils in his studio at Antwerp, in about two years and a half. The queen had intended to adorn another gallery at the Luxembourg with the life of Henry IV., but the project was abandoned in consequence of the quarrel between Marie and Cardinal Richelieu. Rubens painted other pictures while at work on the Medici allegory: "Susannah and the Elders," "Lot's Daughters," a beautiful "Virgin and Child" for Baron de Vicq, who had recommended him to Marie de' Medici, and several other works. In his "Kermess" now in the Louvre, a peasant festival in Flanders, "in front of a village inn about fourscore persons of both sexes are depicted, intermingled in varieties of groups, in the full swing of boisterous enjoyment after a better meal than peasants are used to, singing, dancing, talking, shouting, gambolling, love-making. A large, serious dog tries to get his share by prying into a pail half filled with empty platters. An abounding scene of rustic revelry, in the groups and individuals a character and expression which only warm genius animating rich intellectual resources could give." Rubens delighted in painting animals. "It is related," says Calvert, "that he caused to be brought to his house a very fine and powerful lion that he might study him in his various attitudes. But what he had still greater delight in painting than animals was children. Here, too, as with animals, and in a higher form, he had what a healthy, juicy mind like his revelled in, nature unsophisticated. It may have been in front of one of his canvases glowing with the luminous rosiness of half a dozen of these happy soul-buds that Guido exclaimed, 'Does Rubens mix blood with his paint?' The mobility of children, their naturalness, their unveiled life and innocence, humanity in its heavenly promise, laughing incarnations of hope, all appealed to his liveliest sympathies, as to his artistic preferences." He was skilled, also, in portraits. Mr. Kett says the picture of his mother, in the Dulwich Gallery, the "Spanish Hat," in the National Gallery, and the portrait called "General Velasquez" "are three that could scarcely be excelled by any master of any time." Dr. Waagen says of "_Le Chapeau de Poil_" ("The Spanish Hat"), "No picture justifies more than this the appellation which Rubens has obtained of 'The Painter of Light.' No one who has not beheld this masterpiece of painting can form any conception of the transparency and brilliancy with which the local coloring in the features and complexion, though under the shadow of a broad-brimmed Spanish beaver hat, are brought out and made to tell, while the different parts are rounded and relieved with the finest knowledge and use of reflected lights. The expression of those youthful features, beaming with cheerfulness, is so full of life, and has such a perfect charm, that one is inclined to believe the tradition that Rubens fell in love with the original (a young girl of the Lunden family, at Antwerp) whilst she was sitting to him." Mrs. Jameson says, "The picture as a picture is miraculous, all but life itself.... Rubens, during his life, would never part with this picture.... After the death of his widow, it passed into the possession of the Lunden family, whose heir, M. Van Havre, sold it in 1817, for sixty thousand francs, to another descendant of the family, M. Stier d'Artselaer. At his death, in 1822, it was sold by auction and purchased by M. Niewenhuys for seventy-five thousand francs, and brought to England, where, after being offered in vain to George IV., it was bought by Sir Robert Peel for three thousand five hundred guineas.... "To venture to judge Rubens, we ought to have seen many of his pictures. His defects may be acknowledged once for all. They are in all senses gross, open, palpable; his florid color, dazzling and garish in its indiscriminate excess; his exaggerated, redundant forms; his coarse allegories; his historical improprieties; his vulgar and prosaic versions of the loftiest and most delicate creations of poetry; let all these be granted, but this man painted that sublime history (a series of six pictures), almost faultless in conception and in costume, the 'Decius' in the Liechtenstein Gallery. This man, who has been called unpoetical, and who was a born poet, if ever there was one, conceived that magnificent epic, the 'Battle of the Amazons;' that divine lyric, the 'Virgin Mary' trampling sin and the dragon, in the Munich Gallery, which might be styled a Pindaric Ode in honor of the Virgin, only painted instead of sung; and those tenderest moral poems, the 'St. Theresa' pleading for the souls in Purgatory, and the little sketch of 'War,' where a woman sits desolate on the black, wide heath, with dead bodies and implements of war heaped in shadowy masses around her, while, just seen against the lurid streak of light left by the setting sun, the battle rages in the far distance.... "Though thus dramatic in the strongest sense, yet he is so without approaching the verge of what we call theatrical. With all his flaunting luxuriance of color, and occasional exaggeration in form, we cannot apply that word to him. Le Bran is theatrical; Rubens, never. His sins are those of excess of daring and power; but he is ever the reverse of the flimsy, the artificial, or the superficial. His gay magnificence and sumptuous fancy are always accompanied by a certain impress and assurance of power and grandeur, which often reaches the sublime, even when it stops short of the ideal." A few months after the paintings were finished for Marie de' Medici, a great sorrow came to the Rubens mansion. Isabella Brandt, his wife, died in the middle of the year 1626, leaving two sons, Albert and Nicholas, twelve and eight years of age. She was buried with much display in the Abbey Church of St. Michael, where she had been married,--in the same tomb with his mother and his brother Philip, and her husband dedicated a beautiful "Virgin and Child" to her memory. He wrote to a friend, sadly, in regard to her whom he had lost, as one "not having any of the vices of her sex. She was without bad temper or feminine frivolity, but was in every way good and honorable--in life loved on account of her virtues, and since her death universally bewailed by all. Such a loss seems to me worthy of sympathy, and because the true remedy for all evils is forgetfulness, the daughter of time, one must without doubt hope for relief; but I find the separation of grief for the departed from the memory of a person whom I ought to revere and honor whilst I live, to be very difficult." Partly to distract his mind from his grief, and partly to assist his own country, to which he was devotedly attached, to keep peace with the powers at war, which made Belgium their battle-ground, at the request of the Infanta Isabella he visited Holland on a diplomatic mission, and, a little later, Spain and England. The King of Spain had already ennobled Rubens. "Regard being had to the great renown which he has merited and acquired by excellence in the art of painting, and rare experience in the same, as also by the knowledge which he has of histories and languages, and other fine qualities and parts which he possesses, and which render him worthy of our royal favor, we have granted and do grant to the said Peter Paul Rubens and his children and posterity, male and female, the said title and degree of nobility." In consequence of this, Isabella had made him "gentleman of her household." In this his second visit to Spain, he is said to have painted forty pictures in nine months. Rubens and Velasquez became intimate friends, although the former was fifty-one, and the latter twenty-eight. A little later he was sent by Philip IV. of Spain, who had appointed Rubens secretary to his privy council, on a mission to England. Here he was discovered by a courtier, one morning, busy at his painting. "Ho!" said the courtier, "does his Most Catholic Majesty's representative amuse himself with painting?" "No," answered Rubens, "the artist sometimes amuses himself with diplomacy." Rubens painted for King Charles I., "Diana and her Nymphs surprised by Satyrs," and "Peace and Plenty," which latter, after remaining in Italy for a century, was finally bought by the Marquis of Stafford, for fifteen thousand dollars, and by him presented to the National Gallery. Rubens also made nine sketches for pictures ordered by the king to decorate the ceiling of the throne-room of Whitehall, illustrating the deeds of James I. These cost fifteen thousand dollars. King Charles knighted the famous painter, and after the ceremony presented him with the sword, a handsome service of plate, a diamond ring, and a rich chain to which was attached a miniature of the king; this he ever afterwards wore round his neck. At Cambridge University he was received by Lord Holland, the Chancellor, and admitted to the honorary degree of Master of Arts. As a diplomatist, M. Villoamil says, "Rubens had great tact, was prudent, active, forbearing, and patient to the last degree, and, above all, throwing aside all personality, how exclusively careful he was neither to exceed nor fall short of the line laid down to him from Spain, softening, when it seemed harsh, what the Count Duke (Olivarezs) had charged him to communicate, and even taking on himself faults and errors which he had not committed, when by such assumption he could advance his objects and gain the ends he had in view in the service of Spain." How few in this world learn the beauty and the power of being "patient to the last degree!" How few learn early in life to avoid gossip, to speak well of others, and to make peace! In 1630, four years after the death of Isabella Brandt, Rubens married her sister's daughter, Helena Fourment, a wealthy girl of sixteen, while the painter was fifty-three. He seems to have thought her beautiful, as she appears in nearly all his subsequent paintings. At Blenheim are two portraits of the fair Helena: one, representing himself and his wife in a flower garden with their little child, Dr. Waagen regards as one of the most perfect family pictures in the world. In the Belvidere, Vienna, is a magnificent portrait of Helena Fourment. She bore to Rubens five children in the ten remaining years of his life. He soon bought a lovely country home, the Château de Steen at Elewyt, which was sold at his death for forty thousand dollars. "It was," says Huet, "a feudal castle, surrounded on all sides with water. Rubens, though nothing need have prevented him from demolishing the castle and erecting an Italian villa on its site, respected its mediæval architecture. One may take it that the mediæval turrets and the mediæval moat made up, according to him, an agreeable whole with the sylvan surroundings. An imagination like his felt at home everywhere. The principal charm of 'Steen' lay in its being but a day's journey from Antwerp,--that there wife and children could breathe the beneficent country air in unstinted draughts, and the artist himself could indulge his leisure and find new subjects. It is all but certain that the idyl of 'The Rainbow' and the bacchanalia of 'The Village Fair' were painted nowhere else but at Steen.... "Though the two centuries and a half that have elapsed since then have altered the means of locomotion and communication so thoroughly as to make them difficult of recognition, it needs no great effort of the imagination to follow the Rubens family from stage to stage on its flitting to the summer quarters. We can fancy him sitting one of those splendid horses he so magnificently bestrode. A team of four or six less costly, but well-fed, well-groomed, and well-equipped cattle drags through the loose sand or heavy clay the still heavier coach, where, between children and nursemaids, thrones the mistress of the house, not very securely; for she, like the rest, is considerably jolted. She wears the large hat with feathers, beneath which the charming face meets the spectators, as in the picture in the Louvre. A solid train with provisions for the long journey brings up the rear of the procession. Proud of his young wife, anxious as to her every want, the great artist, whose hair and beard are plentifully besprinkled with gray, does not leave the carriage door by her side." During the last years of his life Rubens suffered much from gout, but, with the help of his pupils, he accomplished a great amount of work. Many of his scholars became famous: Van Dyck, Jordaens, Snyders, Teniers, and others. Van Dyck was twenty-two years younger than Rubens, and entered his studio when he was seventeen. In four years his works began to be almost as much esteemed as those of his master. It is said that one day, during the absence of Rubens from his studio, the pupils, crowding around a freshly painted picture, pushed against it, thus effacing the arm and chin of a Virgin. They were greatly distressed over the matter, when Van Hoeck cried out: "Van Dyck is the handiest; he must repair the mischief." The restoration was so deftly made that Rubens did not observe the accident. Later, when Van Dyck came back from Italy, after five years of study there, he found little sale for his pictures, and was depressed. Rubens went to his studio, comforted him, and bought all his paintings which were finished. He did the same thing with a rival who had maligned him because he was not as successful as the great painter. When Rubens died, he owned in his gallery over three hundred pictures, many by Titian, Paul Veronese, Tintoretto, and Van Dyck, and ninety by his own hand. In 1635, when Philip IV. of Spain had appointed as governor of the Netherlands his own brother, the Cardinal Infanta Ferdinand, Sir Peter Paul Rubens was deputed to design the triumphal arches and ornamental temples for his solemn entry into Antwerp. These beautiful designs were afterwards engraved and published, with a learned Latin description by his friend Gevaerts, though they were not ready for the press till the year after Rubens's death. On the day when Ferdinand entered Antwerp, Rubens was ill at his house, but the new governor showed his appreciation of his talent and learning by calling upon him in his own home, as Queen Marie de' Medici, the Infanta Isabella, and other famous persons had done. His last piece of work was the "Crucifixion of St. Peter," for St. Peter's Church at Cologne. He asked for a year and a half to complete the picture, but death came before it was finished. It represents the apostle nailed to the cross with his head downwards, surrounded by six executioners. "He has proved," says Gustave Planche, "over and over again that he knew all the secrets of the human form, but never has he proved it so clearly as in the Crucifixion of Peter." May 30, 1640, Antwerp was in mourning for her world-renowned painter. He was buried at night, as was the custom, a great concourse of citizens, all the artistic and literary societies, and sixty orphan children with torches, following his body to the grave. It was temporarily placed in the vault of the Fourment family, and March 4, 1642, was removed to a special chapel built by his wife in the Church of St. James in Antwerp. At his own request, made three days before his death, a "Holy Family," one of his best works, was hung above his resting-place. In the picture, St. George is a portrait of himself, St. Jerome of his father, an angel of his youngest son, and Martha and Mary of Isabella and Helena, his two wives. "A group of tiny angels, floating in the air, crown the Holy Child with a wreath of flowers." The learned nephew of Rubens, Gevaerts, wrote the following epitaph, in Latin, now inscribed on his monument:-- "Here lies Peter Paul Rubens, knight, and Lord of Steen, son of John Rubens, a senator of this city. Gifted with marvellous talents, versed in ancient history, a master of all the liberal arts and of the elegancies of life, he deserved to be called the Apelles of his age and of all ages. He won for himself the good will of monarchs and of princely men. Philip IV., King of Spain and the Indies, appointed him secretary of his Privy Council, and sent him on an embassy to the King of England in 1629, when he happily laid the foundation of the peace that was soon concluded between those two sovereigns. He died in the year of salvation 1640, on the 30th of May, aged sixty-three years." The wife of Rubens afterwards married John Baptist Broechoven, Baron van Bergeyck, an ambassador in England in the reign of Charles II. Rubens left his large collection of sketches to whichever of his sons might become an artist, or whichever of his daughters might marry an artist, but not one fulfilled the conditions. Two hundred years after Rubens's death, in 1870, a monument was erected to his memory in one of the public squares of Antwerp, and in 1877 a memorial festival was held in his honor in the same city. REMBRANDT. Edmondo De Amicis, that wonderful word-painter, says in his "Holland and its People:" "However one may be profane in art, and have made a vow never more to offend in too much enthusiasm, when one is in the presence of Rembrandt van Rhijn, one can but raise a little, as the Spaniards say, the key of one's style. Rembrandt exercised a particular prestige. Fra Angelico is a saint, Michael Angelo a giant, Raphael an angel, Titian a prince; Rembrandt is a supernatural being. How otherwise shall we name that son of a miller? Born in a windmill, rising unheralded, without master, without examples, without any derivation from schools, he became a universal painter, embraced all the aspects of life, painted figures, landscapes, marine views, animals, saints in paradise, patriarchs, heroes, monks, wealth and misery, deformity and decrepitude, the ghetto, the tavern, the hospital, death; made, in short, a review of heaven and earth, and rendered all things visible by a light from the arcana of his own imagination. [Illustration: REMBRANDT.] "It was said that the contrast of light and shadow corresponded in him to diverse movements of thought. Schiller, before beginning a work, heard within himself a harmony of indistinct sounds, which were like a prelude to inspiration; in like manner, Rembrandt, when in the act of conceiving a picture, had a vision of rays and shadows, which spoke to his soul before he animated them with his personages. There is in his pictures a life, and what may almost be called a dramatic action, quite apart from the human figures. Vivid rays of light break into the darkness like cries of joy; the darkness flies in terror, leaving here and there fragments of shadow full of melancholy, tremulous reflections that seem like lamentations; profound obscurity full of dim threatenings; spurts of light, sparkles, ambiguous shadows, doubtful transparencies, questionings, sighs, words of a supernatural language, heard like music, and not understood, and remaining in the memory like the vague relics of a dream. "And in this atmosphere he plants his figures, of which some are clothed in the dazzling light of a theatrical apotheosis, others veiled like phantoms, others revealed by one stroke of light upon the face; dressed in habits of luxury or misery, but all with something strange and fantastic; without distinctness of outline, but loaded with powerful colors, sculptural reliefs, and bold touches of the brush; and everywhere a warmth of expression, a fury of violent inspiration, the superb, capricious, and profound imprint of a free and fearless genius." This strange, great painter, Rembrandt, was born, not in a windmill, as Amicis says, but in Leyden, Holland, July 15, 1607. His father, Gerrit Harmen van Rhijn, a miller, was then forty years old, in easy circumstances, married to the daughter of the baker Willems van Snydtbrouck, then thirty-five, a vigorous, strong-charactered woman, whom the boy, in after years, loved to paint, over and over again. Of their six children, Adriaen, who became a miller, Gerrit, Machteld, Cornelis, Willem, who became a baker, and Rembrandt, the latter was destined for the law. He was early taught Latin, as a preparation for the Leyden Academy, but before he was twelve he showed such decided taste for painting and designing that his parents removed the lad from school, and placed him with a relative, who was an artist, Jacob van Swanenburg. He had returned from study in Italy in 1617, and Rembrandt entered his studio, probably in 1620, the year in which our forefathers left Holland. For three years the boy bent himself closely to the work he loved. He made such remarkable progress that, at the end of this time, he was sent to the well-known painter, Pieter Lastman of Amsterdam. He remained there but six months, and then returned to his home in Leyden. From the age of seventeen to twenty, while in his Leyden home, we know little of the youth, save that he studied nature with loving fidelity, wandered over the low, picturesque country with its canal and windmills, and observed people and skies and landscapes. The first work attributed to Rembrandt was painted in 1627, when he was twenty years old, "St. Paul in Prison," showing care in detail and richness in color. During the next two years, he made etchings of himself and of his mother, who appears to have been his ideal. His first oil paintings were done in 1630; one, now lost, showing a philosopher in a grotto; and the "Bust of an Old Man," which, says Prof. John W. Mollett of France, in his Life of Rembrandt, "is the most interesting of all the Rembrandts in the Cassel Gallery, from the fact that it first displayed his knowledge of the great secret, which he subsequently so wonderfully developed, of concentrating light upon the heads of his portraits. He painted other old men's heads at the same date, and all are remarkable for indefatigable elaboration and care. In this same year, Rembrandt produced more than thirty etchings." After several years passed at Leyden, Rembrandt removed his studio to Amsterdam, a rich and flourishing city of one hundred thousand people at that time, whither his fame had preceded him. He hired apartments over a shop on the Bloemgracht, a quay in the western part of the city, where numerous pupils soon came to him, and commissions from the wealthy. One of his first principal works was "The Presentation in the Temple," now in the museum at the Hague. "The picture," says Mr. Sweetser, "presents a great temple interior, with groups of citizens and prelates, and, in the centre, massed under a bright light, the Holy Family, with the richly robed Simeon adoring the child Jesus. It is full of the strong shades and contrasting brightness of the new school of art, replete with poetic power and fresh personality, warm in golden lights, and in certain parts showing a rare minuteness of finish in detail. This subject was always a favorite with Rembrandt, and several other paintings thereof are preserved, together with numerous sketches and engravings, showing the venerable Simeon in the Temple at Jerusalem. "The 'Susannah' was executed during the same year, and is now at the Hague. The shrinking, naked figure of the fair bather, though lacking in statuesque beauty and symmetry, is thoroughly natural and tender, palpitating with life, and lighted with a warm and harmonious glow. This, also, was a favorite theme with Rembrandt, and conveniently replaced the Diana and Actæon of the classical painters with a subject not less alluring, and perhaps more permissible." Rembrandt also painted "St. Jerome," now at Aix-la-Chapelle, the lost pictures of "Lot and his Daughters," and the "Baptism of the Eunuch;" "The Young Man," now at Windsor; the "Prophetess Anna," in the Oldenbourg Gallery; the "Portrait of a Man," in the Brunswick Museum; and about forty etchings, among them two portraits of his mother, several of himself; the "Bath of Diana," and the Meeting of "Danaë and Jupiter." In 1632, Rembrandt painted his famous "School of Anatomy," now at the Hague, for which the Dutch government, two centuries later, gave thirty-two thousand florins. "This picture represents the celebrated anatomist, Nicolaus Tulp, a friend and patron of Rembrandt, in a vaulted saloon, engaged in explaining the anatomy of the arm of a corpse. He wears a black cloak with a lace collar, and a broad-brimmed soft hat. With his half-raised left hand, he makes a gesture of explanation, while with his right he is dissecting a sinew of the arm of his subject. The corpse lies on a table before him. To the right of Tulp is a group of five figures; and two other men are sitting at the table in front. These listeners are not students, but members of the guild of surgeons of Amsterdam, as shown by a paper held by one of them. They are attending to the lecture with very various expressions. "They are all bare-headed, dressed in black, and with turned-over collars except one, who still wears the old-fashioned upright ruff. There are, perhaps, other persons present in the hall, as Tulp appears to be looking beyond the picture, as if about to address an audience not visible to the spectator; and it is here worthy of remark that Rembrandt's compositions are never imprisoned in their frames, but convey an idea of a wide space beyond them. It is somewhat singular that the spectator seems hardly to notice the corpse lying before him at full length, the feet of which he can almost touch, although it is strongly lighted in contrast to the surrounding black garments, and most faithfully presents the peculiar hue of a dead body, leaving no doubt that it was painted from nature, as well as the living heads. The admirable art of the composition consists in its power of riveting the attention to the living in the presence of death." Amicis says: "It is difficult to express the effect produced by this picture. The first feeling is that of horror and repulsion from the corpse. The forehead is in shadow, the eyes open with the pupils turned upwards, the mouth half open as if in astonishment, the chest sunken, the legs and feet stiff, the flesh livid, and looking as if, should you touch it with your hand, it would feel cold. With this rigid body a powerful contrast is produced by the vivacious attitudes, the youthful faces, the bright, attentive eyes, full of thought, of the disciples, revealing in different degrees the avidity for knowledge, the joy of learning, curiosity, wonder, the strength of intelligence, the suspense of the mind. The master has the tranquil face, the serene eye, and the almost smiling lip of one who feels the complacency of knowledge. There is in the complexion of the group an air of mystery, gravity, and scientific solemnity, which inspires reverence and silence. "The contrast between the light and shadow is as marvellous as that between life and death. It is all done with extraordinary finish; one can count the folds of the ruffs, the lines of the face, the hairs of the beards. It is said that the foreshortening of the corpse is wrong, and that in some points the finish runs into dryness, but universal judgment places the 'Lesson in Anatomy' among the greatest triumphs of human genius. "Rembrandt was only twenty-six years old when he painted this picture, which, therefore, belongs to his first manner, in which there are not yet apparent that fire and audacity, that sovereign security in his own genius, which shine in the works of his maturer years: but there is already that luminous potency, that marvellous _chiaroscuro_, that magic of contrasts, which form the most original trait of his genius." I remember, in standing before this picture, to have had the same "repulsion" of which Amicis speaks. How differently one feels before that other marvel of the Hague, Paul Potter's "Bull," so at one with nature, so tender, so restful! What wonder that it once hung in the Louvre, beside the "Transfiguration" of Raphael, the "St. Peter Martyr," of Titian, and the "Communion of St. Jerome" by Domenichino? During this year, 1632, Rembrandt executed several portraits of men; the "Rape of Proserpine," in the Berlin Gallery; "Moses saved from the Nile;" "Christ and Nicodemus;" the "Oriental Standing," in the gallery of the King of Holland; the "Betrothed Jewess;" the "Rape of Europa;" and portraits of six women. His etchings this year were, "Man on Horseback," "Cottage with White Palings" his first landscape, "Seller of Rat's Poison," "Jesus being carried to the Tomb," and the "Resurrection of Lazarus." In the following year he painted "Susannah Surprised by the Elders," which is now in Russia; "The Boat of St. Peter," a powerful conception, showing dark storm-shadows surrounding the sea-tossed bark, with a high light thrown on the nearer mountain-like waves and on the men at the sails; "The Elevation of the Cross," and "The Descent from the Cross," bought by Prince Frederick Henry of Holland, and now in Munich; "The Good Samaritan," now in Sir Richard Wallace's collection; "The Philosophers in Meditation," two delicate pictures, now in the Louvre; "The Master Shipbuilder and his Pipe," now at Buckingham Palace, sold for sixteen thousand five hundred francs, in 1810; portraits of Madame Grotius, a youth at Dresden, another in the Pourtales Collection, sold for seven thousand dollars in 1865; and no less than sixteen others, besides many etchings. One of these portraits, that of a young boy, was bought by J. de Rothschild, in 1865, for five thousand dollars; and a portrait of Saskia, now at Cassel, for ten thousand dollars. Of the picture of Saskia in the Dresden Museum, painted this year, Professor Mollett says: "The head in this portrait is slightly inclined, the long chestnut curls are covered by a cherry-colored bonnet ornamented with white feathers. The light falling on the figure from above illuminates the rim of the bonnet and the lower part of the face, while the forehead is covered by the shadow thrown by the hat." Of the large portrait in the Cassel Gallery, painted the same year, he says: "In this picture Saskia is very richly dressed, and covered with a profusion of pearls and precious stones. The face, a delicate profile of a bright, fresh color, drawn against a dark brown background, is entirely in the light, almost without shadows." The portrait of her in the late Fesch Gallery, says Sweetser, "displays the maiden's snowy complexion, great deep eyes, rosy lips, and rich auburn hair, adorned with white and green plumes, and wearing pearls on her neck, and a chain of gold on her green silk mantilla." Who was Saskia? The lovely and beautiful woman whose life was to Rembrandt like the transcendent light he threw into his pictures; whose death left him forever in the shadow of shadows, which he, of all painters, knew best how to paint. Saskia van Ulenburgh was the orphan daughter of Rombertus Ulenburgh, a Frisian lawyer of high standing, envoy from Friesland to the court of William of Orange. She was wealthy, of lovely character, and attractive in face and in manner. Her brother-in-law, the painter Nijbrand de Geest, was a man of influence, and her cousin, Hendrik Ulenburgh, was the publisher of Rembrandt's engravings. They therefore naturally met each other. She was young and of distinguished family; the young artist, who fell in love with her, had his genius alone to offer her. The devoted love of Rembrandt won the happy-hearted, refined Saskia. They were married June 5, 1634, when she was twenty-one and Rembrandt twenty-seven, and went to live in his pleasant home in Amsterdam. The next eight years were given to arduous work, blessed by the well-nigh omnipotent influence of a seemingly perfect love. In his marriage year he painted "Queen Artemisia," now in Madrid; "The Incredulity of St. Thomas," now at the Hermitage; "Repentance of Peter," "Judas and the Blood Money;" a larger "Descent from the Cross," now at St. Petersburg; "Rev. Mr. Ellison and Wife of the English Church at Amsterdam," sold in London, in 1860, for about nine thousand dollars; several portraits of himself and several of Saskia. In the large "Jewish Wife," in "Bathsheba receiving David's Message," in the long lost "Vertumnus and Pomona," Saskia, the beloved Saskia, is always the model. At the same time were made five sketches and sixteen engravings, the most notable being "The Annunciation to the Shepherds." "This," says Professor Mollett, "is a night effect, with a mass of trees on the right hand, and a distance in which a city is seen, with its factories and bridges in a nest of foliage, and fires reflected in water. In the foreground the shepherds and their flocks are alarmed by the sudden appearance of the celestial glory, in the luminous circles of which thousands of cherubim are flying; an angel is advancing, and, with the right hand raised, is announcing the news to the shepherds. The whole composition is wonderful for the energy it displays, and appears as if it had been thrown on the copper with swift, nervous, inspired touches, but always accurate and infallible." In 1635 a son was born to Rembrandt and Saskia, named Rombertus, after her father, but the child soon died, the first shadow in the famous artist's home. This year he painted "Samson menacing his Father-in-law," now in the Berlin Museum; the "Rape of Ganymede," now at Dresden; "Christ driving out the Money-changers;" "The Martyrdom of St. Stephen;" in all, eight portraits, seven other paintings, nine designs, and twenty-three etchings. One of the most attractive of the pictures about this time is Rembrandt at home, with Saskia, life-size, and full of happiness, seated upon his knee. Three scenes from the history of Tobias follow. The first, the blind father awaiting his son's return, is in the Berlin Museum; the second contains Tobias and his wife seated in a chamber; the third illustrates Tobias restoring sight to his father. In 1636 he painted "The Entombment," "The Resurrection," and "The Ascension," companion pictures to the "Crucifixion" painted for Prince Frederick Henry four years previously; "The Repose in Egypt," now at Aix-la-Chapelle; "The Ascension," in the Munich Pinakothek; "Samson blinded by the Philistines, with Delilah in Flight;" and "St. Paul," in the Vienna Belvidere, besides three portraits and ten etchings. The finest etching of this period was "Ecce Homo," a marvellous composition, consisting of an immense number of figures admirably disposed. Our Lord is seen in front standing, surrounded by guards. His eyes are raised to heaven, his hands are manacled and clasped together, and on his head is the crown of thorns. "It is," says Mollett, "one of the painter's grandest works." "The 'Ecce Homo,'" says Wilmot Buxton, "to say nothing of the splendor, the light and shade and richness of execution, has never been surpassed for dramatic expression; and we forgive the commonness of form and type, in the expression of touching pathos in the figure of the Saviour; nor would it be possible to express with greater intensity the terrible raging of the crowd, the ignobly servile and cruel supplications of the priests, or the anxious desire to please on the part of Pilate." The following year, "The Lord of the Vineyard," now in the Hermitage, was painted, representing the master in a chamber flooded with light, listening to the complaints of the laborers; "Abraham sending away Hagar and Ishmael;" and several portraits of himself and Saskia. Now she is seated at a table face to face with her husband, her blue eyes looking pleased and happy into his; now they walk hand in hand in a beautiful landscape. In July, 1638, a second child gladdened the Rembrandt household, this time a daughter, named Cornelia after the artist's mother. In less than four weeks she passed out of Saskia's arms, leaving them again childless. Rembrandt's father had died six years before, and of his brothers and sisters, Gerrit, Machteld, and Cornelis were dead also. Still the painter worked on bravely, for did he not have the one inspiration that gave almost superhuman power to overcome obstacles, and made work a pleasure,--the love of his blue-eyed Saskia? During this year some lawsuits occurred in the family over her property, and Rembrandt sued some of her relatives for slander, because they had insinuated that Saskia "has squandered her heritage in ornaments and ostentation." How little the Friesland people knew of the poetry of the painter's heart, which, for the love he bore Saskia, decked, with his rich imagination, every picture of her with more than royal necklaces, and covered her robes with priceless gems, because she was his idol! This year, 1638, he painted the great picture "The Feast of Ahasuerus," or "The Wedding of Samson," now at Dresden, where at the middle of the table sits the joyous queen, Esther or Delilah, robed in white silk, and richly jewelled, of course with Saskia's face; "Christ as a Gardener," long owned by the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, presented to Josephine at Malmaison, and bought by George IV. for Buckingham Palace, where it still remains; "Joseph telling his Dream;" "The Little Jewish Bride," representing St. Catherine and her wheel of martyrdom (the hair, the pearls, the face are all Saskia's), and other works. The next year among his many superb portraits are three of his mother: one in Vienna, painted a year before her death, in a furred cloak, resting her folded hands on a staff; another with a red shawl on her head; and still another seated, with her hands joined;--both the latter in the Hermitage. He also finished "The Entombment" and "The Resurrection," begun three years before. He said, "These two pieces are now finished with much of study and of zeal, ... because it is in these that I have taken care to express the utmost of naturalness and action; and this is the principal reason why I have been occupied so long on them." He urged that they be hung in a strong light, for he said, "A picture is not made to be smelt of. The odor of the colors is unhealthy." He etched "The Death of the Virgin," "The Presentation," "Youth surprised by Death," and others. The next year, 1640, a baby's voice was again heard in the handsome Rembrandt home, a little daughter named, for the second time, Cornelia, but in a few short months the household was again stricken by death. Rembrandt's activity was now marvellous. In the next two years he painted "Le Doreur," a portrait of his artist friend Domer, which was sold in 1865 for over thirty thousand dollars; it is also called "The Gilder," and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the portrait of an aged woman, purchased in 1868 for the Narishkine Collection, for eleven thousand dollars; "Woman with the Fan," of Buckingham Palace; the mysterious "Witch of Endor," Schönborn Gallery in 1867, for five thousand dollars; "The Carpenter's Household," now in the Louvre, representing Joseph at work, with the tender mother nursing her child; "The Salutation," in the Grosvenor Gallery; "Susannah at the Bath;" "The Offering of Manoah," at the Dresden Museum, showing Manoah and his wife prostrate before the altar, from which an angel crowned with flowers is ascending; a magnificent portrait of himself at thirty, in the National Gallery, in a black cap and fur robe, his arms crossed on a window-sill; sixteen fine etchings, among them three lion-hunts, the preacher Anslo and his wife seated at a book-laden table; several exquisite portraits of ladies, and two of the beloved Saskia: one is full of life and health, with the sweetest expression, and carefully finished; the other, in 1642, is richly dressed, but the face is delicate and dreamy, like that of one who may have received a message from the unseen world. Professor Mollett says of these, "The first represents Saskia in all the freshness of her beauty, seen through the prism of love and art; in her rich dress, fresh color, and bright smile, bearing a strong resemblance to the Saskia on her husband's knee. It is difficult to imagine a more charming and amiable face, or a portrait more happy in color and expression. The work is very carefully finished without being minute, the tone profound, the touch broad and melting. No greater contrast can be conceived to this picture bathed in light, radiant with happiness and health, than the 'Saskia' of Antwerp. This portrait has an indefinable charm. The very soul of the painter seems to have entered into the picture, to which a melancholy interest is attached. It bears the same date as the year of Saskia's death, 1642. The face no longer shows the serene beauty of youth and strength, but its etherealized and delicate features have a thoughtful and dreamy expression. It was probably painted from memory, after Saskia's death." In September, 1641, a son was born to Saskia, Titus, named for her sister Titia van Ulenburgh. The latter died the same year. On the 19th of the next June, Saskia was buried from the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, leaving her son, not a year old, and her husband, to whom her loss was irreparable. This year he had completed his greatest work, "The Night Watch," now in the Amsterdam Museum, and stood at the very zenith of his fame. From this time, while he did much remarkable work, he seems like a man on a mountain top, looking on one side to sweet meadows filled with flowers and sunlight, and on the other to a desolate landscape over which a clouded sun is setting. With Saskia died the best of Rembrandt. Before her death he had painted various pictures of himself, all joyous, even fantastic, sometimes as a warrior, sometimes with jewelled robes and courtly attire. Now for five years he made no portrait of himself, and then one simple and stern, like a man who lives and does his work because he must. "The Night Watch," or the "Sortie of the Banning Cock Company," represents Captain Frans Banning Cock's company of arquebusiers emerging from their guild-house on the Singel. Amicis says of it, "It is more than a picture; it is a spectacle, and an amazing one. All the French critics, to express the effect which it produces, make use of the phrase, '_C'est écrasant!_' ('It is overpowering!') A great crowd of human figures, a great light, a great darkness--at the first glance this is what strikes you, and for a moment you know not where to fix your eyes in order to comprehend that grand and splendid confusion. "There are officers, halberdiers, boys running, arquebusiers loading and firing, youths beating drums, people bowing, talking, calling out, gesticulating--all dressed in different costumes, with round hats, pointed hats, plumes, casques, morions, iron gorgets, linen collars, doublets embroidered with gold, great boots, stockings of all colors, arms of every form; and all this tumultuous and glittering throng start out from the dark background of the picture and advance towards the spectator. "The two first personages are Frans Banning Cock, Lord of Furmerland and Ilpendam, captain of the company, and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruijtenberg, Lord of Vlaardingen, the two marching side by side. The only figures that are in full light are this lieutenant, dressed in a doublet of buffalo-hide, with gold ornaments, scarf, gorget, and white plume, with high boots; and a girl who comes behind, with blond hair ornamented with pearls, and a yellow satin dress; all the other figures are in deep shadow, excepting the heads, which are illuminated. By what light? Here is the enigma. Is it the light of the sun? or of the moon? or of the torches? "There are gleams of gold and silver, moonlight, colored reflections, fiery lights; personages which, like the girl with blond tresses, seem to shine by a light of their own; faces that seem lighted by the fire of a conflagration; dazzling scintillations, shadows, twilight, and deep darkness, all are there, harmonized and contrasted with marvellous boldness and insuperable art.... In spite of censure, defects, conflicting judgments, it has been there for two centuries triumphant and glorious; and the more you look at it, the more it is alive and glowing; and, even seen only at a glance, it remains forever in the memory, with all its mystery and splendor, like a stupendous vision." Charles Blanc says of the picture: "To tell the truth, this is only a dream of night, and no one can decide what the light is that falls on the groups of figures. It is neither the light of the sun nor of the moon, nor does it come from torches; it is rather the light from the genius of Rembrandt." The home of the artist at that time, of brick and cut stone, four stories high, on one of the quays of the river Amstel, must have been most attractive and happy until the death of Saskia. Says Mr. Sweetser: "The house still stands, and, by the aid of an existing legal inventory (dated 1656), we can even refurnish it as it was in the days of Rembrandt. Entering the vestibule, we find the flagstone paving covered with fir-wood, with black-cushioned Spanish chairs for those who wait, and to amuse their leisure several busts and twenty-four paintings--four each by Brouwer and Lievens, the rest mostly by Rembrandt. "The ante-chamber, or saloon, was a large room furnished with seven Spanish chairs upholstered in green velvet, a great walnut table covered with Tournay cloth, an ebony-framed mirror, and a marble wine-cooler. The walls were covered with thirty-nine pictures, many of which were in massive and elegant frames. There were religious scenes, landscapes, architectural sketches, works of Pinas, Brouwer, Lucas van Leyden, and other Dutch masters; sixteen pictures by Rembrandt; and costly paintings by Palma Vecchio, Bassano, and Raphael. "The next room was a perfect little museum of art, containing a profusion of the master's pictures, with rare works of Van Leyden, Van Dyck, Aartgen, Parsellis, Seghers, and copies from Annibale Caracci. The oaken press and other furnishings indicated that the marvellous etchings of our artist were engraved and printed here. "The next saloon was the gem of the establishment, and was equipped with a great mirror, an oaken table with an embroidered cloth, six chairs with blue coverings, a bed with blue hangings, a cedar-wood wardrobe, and a chest of the same wood. The walls even here showed the profound artistic taste of the occupant, for they were overlaid with twenty-three pictures by Aartgen, Lievens, Seghers, and other northern painters; The 'Concordi,' 'Resurrection,' and 'Ecce Homo' of Rembrandt; a Madonna by Raphael; and Giorgione's great picture of 'The Samaritan.' "On the next floor the master had his studio and museum. The great art-chamber contained materials for weeks of study; the walls were covered with rich and costly _bric-à-brac_--statuettes in marble, porcelain, and plaster; the Roman emperors; busts of Homer, Aristotle, and Socrates: Chinese and Japanese porcelains and drawings; Venetian glass; casts from nature; curious weapons and armor, with a shield attributed to Quentin Matsys; minerals, plants, stuffed birds, and shells; rare fans, globes, and books. Another feature was a noble collection of designs, studies, and engravings, filling sixty leather portfolios, and including specimens of the best works of the chief Italian, German, and Dutch artists and engravers." To gain this beautiful collection of works of art, Rembrandt spared no money, paying eighty-six dollars for a single engraving of Lucas van Leyden's, and fourteen hundred florins for fourteen proofs from the same painter. After Saskia died, the tide of fortune seemed to turn. Several artists who had studied in Italy returned to Holland, and popularized the Italian style, so that the works of Rembrandt seemed to fade somewhat from the public gaze. With pride and sorrow he went on painting, but he must have been deeply wounded. In 1643 and '44, he painted "Bathsheba at the Bath." "The nude figure of Bathsheba," says Professor Mollett, "stands out in a dazzling effect of light from a background of warm, confused shadows. The figure is not beautiful to a sculptor's eye, nor in the Italian style; but in animation, in the flesh color, and in the modelling it is superb. The harmony of the tints and of the general tone is very beautiful; tints of bronze and gold combine with shades of violet, brown, green, and yellow ochre into a warm, poetic, and mysterious gamut. 'This picture should be hung in a strong light, that the eye may penetrate into the shadows,' said Rembrandt." The other works of this time were the "Diana and Endymion" of the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna; "Philemon and Baucis;" the "Old Woman Weighing Gold," now in the Dresden Museum; "The Woman taken in Adultery," which brought thirty thousand dollars at public sale, and is now in the English National Gallery; a portrait of Jan Cornelis Sylvius, which was sold in 1872 for nearly eight thousand dollars, and the "Burgomaster Six" for six thousand dollars. The latter was the portrait of Jan Six, a young patrician, an enthusiastic student and poet, married to Margaret the daughter of the famous surgeon Dr. Tulp. Other pictures in the next few years were "The Tribute Money;" the "Burgomaster Pancras giving a Collar of Pearls to his Wife," now owned by Queen Victoria; "Abraham receiving the Three Angels;" two paintings of the "Adoration of the Shepherds," one now in Munich and one in the National Gallery; "The Good Samaritan," and "The Pilgrims of Emmaus," now in the Louvre; and "The Peace of the Land," celebrating the peace of Westphalia, now in the Boymans Museum at Rotterdam. "It represents the enclosure of a fortress, the walls of which are visible in the right-hand background, where cannons are blazing and a group of soldiers fighting; the right-hand foreground is entirely occupied by a group of horsemen, of remarkable vigor and truth; on the left are two thrones, on one of which leans a figure of Justice, clasping her hands as if in supplication. The centre, which is in the light, is occupied by a couchant lion growling, his one paw on a bundle of arrows, the symbol of the United Provinces. The lion is bound by two chains, the one attached to the thrones, the other fastened to an elevation, bearing on a shield the arms of Amsterdam, surrounded by the words, 'Soli Deo Gloria.'" "Samuel taught by his Mother," "Christ appearing to Mary," "The Prophetess Anna," "Jesus blessing Little Children," purchased for the National Gallery for thirty-five thousand dollars;--"The Bather," in the National Gallery, of which Landseer says: "It is the most artful thing ever done in painting, and the most unsophisticated;" a likeness of Rembrandt's son Titus, now twelve years old, were his next works. Fifty-seven etchings were made between 1649 and 1655, the most celebrated being the "Hundred-Guilder Print," or "Jesus healing the Sick." "The subject of this etching is taken from the words, 'And Jesus went about all Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.' The serene and calm figure of Jesus stands out from the shadow of the background, preaching to the people around him. By a superb antithesis, the Pharisees and Sadducees, the priests and the curious and unbelieving, are standing on Christ's right hand, bathed in light, while from the shadows that envelop the left side of the picture are coming the sick, the possessed, and unfortunates of all kinds. The composition is full of feeling, drawn and executed with a rare genius, the details revealing a world of expression and character: the lights and shadows, disposed in large masses, are of wonderful softness. The etching, commenced with aqua-fortis, is finished with the dry point, the silvery neutral tints of Christ's robe and the soft shadows being produced in this manner." Frederick Wedmore says in his "Masters of Genre-Painting," "I should be thankful for the 'Hundred-Guilder Print,' were it only because of the half-dozen lines in which Rembrandt has etched one figure, to me the central one, a tall man, old and spare, and a little bent, with drooped arms, and hands clasped together in gesture of mild awe and gently felt surprise, as of one from whose slackened vitality the power of _great_ surprise or of _very_ keen interest has forever gone. On his face there is the record of much pain, of sufferings not only his own, not only of the body, but of saddening experiences which have left him quelled and forever grave." The name arose from the fact that a Roman merchant gave Rembrandt for one engraving seven Marc Antonio engravings, which were valued at a hundred guilders, and the artist would never sell any of these pictures below this price. Only eight impressions of the first plate are in existence; two are in the British Museum, one is in Paris, one in Amsterdam, one in Vienna, one in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch, one in Mr. Holford's, and one owned by M. Eugene Dutuit of Rouen, sold in 1867 for about six thousand dollars. When Saskia died, she left her property--she had brought Rembrandt forty thousand florins--to her infant son Titus, with the condition that her husband should have the use of the money until his death or his second marriage. If the boy died, Rembrandt was to receive the whole estate, save in case of a second marriage, when half should go to her sister. Already Saskia's friends saw the money passing away from the artist, and they brought suits for Titus's sake, to recover it. Finally, in 1656, he transferred his house and land to Titus, with the privilege of remaining there during the pleasure of Saskia's relatives. Matters did not improve, and the following year all the rich collection of art works and household goods were sold by auction to meet the demands of creditors. The next year his engravings and designs were sold in the same way, and the year following the house was disposed of, Rembrandt being allowed to remove two stoves only and some screens. These must have been bitter days for the once happy artist. It was fortunate that Saskia did not live to see such a direful change. During all the struggle and disgrace Rembrandt kept on working. In 1656 and '57 he painted for the Surgeons' Guild, a large picture, "Lesson on Anatomy of Joan Deyman," containing the portraits of nine celebrated doctors; "St. John the Baptist Preaching," a canvas with over one hundred small figures; "The Adoration of the Magi," now in Buckingham Palace and greatly admired; "Joseph accused by Potiphar's Wife," and "Jacob blessing Ephraim and Manasseh." Professor Mollett says that the "Jacob" "belongs as much to all times and all nations as the masterpieces of Greek sculpture. This touching scene, which is simply rendered with all the power of Rembrandt's art, represents the aged patriarch extending his hands, which Joseph is guiding, towards the boys, who are kneeling before him. Behind the bed stands their mother, Asenath, with clasped hands. The light falling from behind Jacob, on the left, leaves his face in the shade. His head is covered by a yellowish cap, bordered with clear-colored fur; the sleeve of the right arm is of a beautiful gray; the hand painted with large, broad touches. The bed is covered with a sheet and a counterpane of pale red and fawn color. "Joseph wears a turban, and his wife a high cap, long veil, and robe of gray and fawn-colored brown. The fair child has a yellow vest; and his head, bright with reflected lights, is very fine in tone, and of extreme delicacy. We see the colors here employed are gray and fawn-colored brown, which, in the highest notes, only reach subdued red or yellow. The whole bears a mysterious air; in a fine and luminous light, filled with tones and half-tones that are indefinable. The touch is of such surpassing boldness and ease, that, when viewed in detail, the picture might be called a sketch, if the harmony and completeness of the whole did not indicate the maturity and profundity of the work." After Rembrandt's home was sold, he hired a house on the Rosengracht, a retired but respectable part of the city, two blocks away from the Bloemgracht, where he began life with his beloved Saskia. Here, as elsewhere, he gathered admiring pupils about him, and kept diligently at his work. It is probable that he was married at this time, or later, for in 1663 he painted a picture known as "Rembrandt and his Family," now in the Brunswick Museum, where a rosy and smiling lady is seated with a child on her lap, while two little girls of perhaps five and seven stand by her. The man with brown hair stands on the left, giving a flower to one of the girls. Rembrandt's chief works now were "Moses descending from Sinai, and breaking the Tables of the Law," "Jacob wrestling with the Angels," a striking picture of "Ziska and his Adherents swearing to avenge the Death of Huss," and "The Syndics of the Guild of Clothmakers," now in the Amsterdam Museum. Professor Springer writes concerning the latter picture, the "School of Anatomy," and "The Night Watch:" "Art has never again created a greater wealth of stirring imagery or poetry of color so entrancing as these three pictures reveal to us. Unconsciously our thoughts return to Shakspeare's familiar creations, and we recognize in these two mighty art champions of the north kindred natures and a corresponding bent of fancy." In 1668, Titus, now twenty-seven years old,--he studied painting, but became a merchant,--was married to his cousin Magdalena van Loo, one of the Frisian families, and died in September of the same year. The next March, his widow bore a daughter who received the name of Titia, for her dead father. Magdalena died in the same year in which her child was born. Thus frequently did sorrow shadow the path of the great master of shadows. This year, Rembrandt painted several portraits of himself. "In that of the Pitti Palace, we see him wrapped in fur, a medal is hung about his neck, and he is wearing a close-fitting cap, from which his ample white hair escapes. His face is furrowed with age, but the brightness of the eye is not diminished.... "In the splendid portrait in the Double Collection at Rouen, he again stands before us, with bending attitude and slightly inclined head, in theatrical costume, with his maulstick in his hand, laughing heartily. And this is Rembrandt's farewell! His face is wrinkled across and across by time and care, but it is no gloomy misanthrope crushed by evil fortune whom we see, but the man who opposed to all fortunes the talisman of Labor, and thus paints the secret of his life in his final portrait of himself, in the midst of his work, scorning destiny." A year after Titus died, death came to Rembrandt, at sixty-two. He was buried simply in the West Church, so simply that the registered expense of his burial is fifteen florins! His power of work was marvellous. He painted over six hundred and twenty pictures, executed three hundred and sixty-five etchings, besides two hundred and thirty-seven variations of these, with hundreds of drawings and sketches scattered over Europe. Among the best known etchings are "Rembrandt's Portrait with the Sword," "Lazarus rising from the Dead," the "Hundred-Florin Plate," "Annunciation," "Ecce Homo," "The Good Samaritan," "The Great Descent from the Cross," the landscape with the mill, and that with the three trees. That he was a man of great depth of feeling is shown by his love of his mother, his worship of Saskia, and his tenderness to his brothers and sisters after they had lost their fortunes. He was also passionately fond of nature and of animals. Sweetser tells this incident: "One day he was making a portrait group of a notable family, when he was informed that his favorite monkey had died. The grieving artist caused the body to be brought to the studio, and made its portrait on the same canvas on which he was engaged. The family, aforesaid, was naturally incensed at such an interpolation, and demanded that it should be effaced; but Rembrandt preferred to keep the whole work himself, and let his patrons seek a more accommodating artist." Taine pays Rembrandt this glowing tribute in his "Art in the Netherlands:" "Rembrandt, constantly collecting his materials, living in solitude and borne along by the growth of an extraordinary faculty, lived, like our Balzac, a magician and a visionary in a world fashioned by his own hand, and of which he alone possessed the key. Superior to all painters in the native delicacy and keenness of his optical perceptions, he comprehended this truth and adhered to it in all its consequence,--that, to the eye, the essence of a visible object consists of the spot (_tache_), that the simplest color is infinitely complex, that every visual sensation is the product of its elements coupled with its surroundings, that each object on the field of sight is but a single spot modified by others, and that in this wise the principal feature of a picture is the ever-present, tremulous, colored atmosphere into which figures are plunged like fishes in the sea.... "Free of all trammels and guided by the keen sensibility of his organs, he has succeeded in portraying in man not merely the general structure and the abstract type which answers for classic art, but again that which is peculiar and profound in the individual, the infinite and indefinable complications of the moral being, the whole of that changeable imprint which concentrates instantaneously on a face the entire history of a soul, and which Shakespeare alone saw with an equally prodigious lucidity. "In this respect he is the most original of modern artists, and forges one end of the chain of which the Greeks forged the other; the rest of the masters, Florentine, Venetian, and Flemish, stand between them; and when, nowadays, our over-excited sensibility, our extravagant curiosity in the pursuit of subtleties, our unsparing search of the true, our divination of the remote and the obscure in human nature, seeks for predecessors and masters, it is in him and in Shakespeare that Balzac and Delacroix are able to find them." SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. In Plympton, Devonshire, July 16, 1723, the great English painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, was born. His father, Samuel, and his grandfather, John, were both ministers, while his mother and grandmother were both daughters of clergymen. [Illustration: SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.] Samuel Reynolds was a gentle, kindly man, master of the grammar school at Plympton, supporting his eleven children on the meagre income of seven hundred and fifty dollars a year. He had married Theophila Potter, when she was twenty-three, the lovely daughter of a lovely young mother, Theophila Baker, who, marrying against the consent of her father, was disinherited by him, and at the early death of her devoted husband wept herself blind, and died broken-hearted. Joshua, the seventh child of Samuel and Theophila, was a thoughtful, aspiring boy, who cared more for drawing than for Ovid, and spent his early years in copying the illustrations from "Plutarch's Lives" and Jacob Cats's "Book of Emblems," which his grandmother, on his father's side, had brought with her from Holland. His sisters were also fond of drawing, and as pencils and paper could not be afforded in the minister's family, they drew on the whitewashed walls of a long passage, with burnt sticks. The boy's sketches were the poorest, and he was therefore nicknamed "the clown." On the back of a Latin exercise, the lad drew a wall with a window in it. Under it, the not highly delighted father, who wished his boy to be a learned doctor, wrote: "This is drawn by Joshua in school, out of pure idleness." But when in his eighth year the boy made a fine sketch of the grammar school with its cloister, having studied carefully the Jesuit's "Treatise on Perspective," the astonished father said, "Now, this exemplifies what the author of the 'Perspective' says in his preface, 'that, by observing the rules laid down in this book, a man may do wonders;' for this is wonderful." Joshua was fond of literary composition, and early composed some rules of conduct for himself, which influenced him through life. He said, "The great principle of being happy in this world is not to mind or be affected with small things," a maxim which he carried out in his peaceful, self-poised, and remarkably happy life. "If you take too much care of yourself, nature will cease to take care of you," he said, and thus without excessive self-consciousness he did his great work and reaped his great reward. A book did for Joshua what a book has often done before, became an inspiration, and therefore led to grand results. He read Richardson's "Theory of Painting," wherein was expressed the hope and belief that there was a future for England in art. "No nation under heaven so nearly resembles the ancient _Greeks_ and _Romans_ as we. There is a haughty courage, an elevation of thought, a greatness of taste, a love of liberty, a simplicity and honesty amongst us which we inherit from our ancestors, and which belong to us as _Englishmen_; and 'tis in these this resemblance consists.... A time may come when future writers may be able to add the name of an _English_ painter.... I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but, considering the necessary connection of causes and effects, and upon seeing some links of that fatal chain, I will venture to pronounce (as exceedingly probable) that if ever the ancient, great, and beautiful taste in painting revives, it will be in _England_; but not till _English_ painters, conscious of the dignity of their country and of their profession, resolve to do honor to both by Piety, Virtue, Magnanimity, Benevolence, and a contempt of everything that is really unworthy of them. "And now I cannot forbear wishing that some younger painter than myself, and one who has had greater and more early advantages, would practise the magnanimity I have recommended, in this single instance of attempting and hoping only to equal the greatest masters of whatsoever age or nation. What were they which we are not or may not be? What helps had any of them which we have not?" The boy Joshua was electrified by these words. Perhaps he could become "equal to the greatest masters." He told a friend, Edmond Malone, that this book so delighted and inflamed his mind "that Raphael appeared to him superior to the most illustrious names of ancient or modern time." Young Reynolds painted his first oil painting, now in the possession of Deble Boger, Esq., of Anthony, near Plymouth, when he was twelve years old. It was a portrait of Rev. Thomas Smart, a tutor in the family of Lord Edgcumbe. In church, while Smart was preaching, Joshua made a sketch on his thumb-nail of the minister. He enlarged this sketch in a boat-house, using part of the sail for his canvas. Good Samuel Reynolds began to wonder whether a boy who could paint at twelve would make a successful apothecary, and, not being able to decide the question alone, he consulted Mr. Craunch. This gentleman, of small fortune, resided at Plympton, and was the father of pretty Betsy Craunch, a sweetheart of Peter Pindar (Dr. Wolcot). The lad himself said, "he would rather be an apothecary than an _ordinary_ painter; but if he could be bound to an eminent master, he should choose the latter." Mr. Craunch advised the study of art, and through his influence and that of his friend, a lawyer, Mr. Cutcliffe of Bideford, the lad was sent to Thomas Hudson, the principal portrait painter in England, living in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn, London. He was the pupil of Richardson, married his daughter, and thus Reynolds was brought again under a kindred influence to that which had inspired him in the "Theory of Painting." Hudson was to receive six hundred dollars for care of his pupil, half of which was loaned by a married sister till he should be able to repay her. The boy made drawings from ancient statuary and from Guercino, and was delighted with his work, writing home to his father, "While I am doing this I am the happiest creature alive." One morning, while purchasing some pictures for Hudson at an auction room, he was overjoyed to see a great poet, Alexander Pope, enter the place, and bow to the crowd, who opened a passage for him. Among others, Pope shook hands with the ardent young artist. He described the poet as "about four feet six inches high; very hump-backed and deformed. He wore a black coat, and, according to the fashion of that time, had on a little sword. He had a large and very fine eye, and a long, handsome nose; his mouth had those peculiar marks which are always found in the mouths of crooked persons, and the muscles which run across the cheek were so strongly marked that they seemed like small cords." Though bound to Hudson for four years, at the end of two years Joshua was dismissed, ostensibly for neglect to carry a picture at the time ordered, but in reality, it is believed, because the master was jealous that he had painted so admirably the portrait of an elderly serving-woman in the house. He returned to Devonshire, and settled at Plymouth, where he soon painted about thirty portraits of the magnates of the neighborhood, at fifteen dollars apiece. He worked earnestly, saying, "Those who are determined to excel must go to their work whether willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and night, and they will find it to be no play, but, on the contrary, very hard labor." Young Reynolds made a portrait in 1746 of Captain Hamilton, father of the Marquis of Abercorn, which was the first of his pictures which brought the artist into notice. He also painted Hamilton in a picture with Lord and Lady Eliot. The latter married Hamilton after her husband's death. "This Captain Hamilton," we find in Prior's Life of Malone, "was a very uncommon character; very obstinate, very whimsical, very pious, a rigid disciplinarian, yet very kind to his men. He lost his life as he was proceeding from his ship to land at Plymouth. The wind and sea were extremely high; and his officers remonstrated against the imprudence of venturing in a boat where the danger seemed imminent. But he was impatient to see his wife, and would not be persuaded. In a few minutes after he left the ship, the boat was upset and turned keel upwards. "The captain, being a good swimmer, trusted to his skill, and would not accept a place on the keel, in order to make room for others, and then clung to the edge of the boat. Unluckily, he had kept on his great-coat. At length, seeming exhausted, those on the keel exhorted him to take a place beside them, and he attempted to throw off the coat; but, finding his strength fail, told the men he must yield to his fate, and soon afterwards sank, while _singing a psalm_." This year, young Reynolds, now twenty-three, painted his own portrait. Says Tom Taylor, in his "Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds," begun by Charles Robert Leslie, the royal academician, and finished by Taylor, "It is masterly in handling, and powerful, almost Rembrandtesque, in _chiaro-oscuro_. The hair flows, without powder, in long ringlets over the shoulders. The white collar and ruffled front of the shirt are thrown open. A dark cloak is flung over the shoulders." This year, 1746, Samuel Reynolds died, and the young painter took his two unmarried sisters to Plymouth to provide for them in his new home. Reynolds learned much at this time from William Gandy, whose father had been a successful pupil of Van Dyck. One of this painter's maxims, which Joshua never forgot, was that "a picture ought to have a richness in its texture, as if the colors had been composed of cream or cheese, and the reverse of a hard and husky or dry manner." Three years later, an unlooked-for pleasure came to Reynolds. He had always longed to visit Rome for study, but his father was too poor to provide the means, and artists, as a rule, do not grow rich early in their career, if at all. The famous Admiral Keppel, then a commodore only twenty-four years old, appointed to a command in the Mediterranean, put into Plymouth for repairs to his ship. Here, at the house of Lord Edgcumbe, he met the young painter, and was so pleased with his courteous manner and frank kindly nature that he offered him passage on his vessel. The offer was gladly accepted, and they sailed for Lisbon, May 11, 1749. From here they went to Cadiz, Gibraltar, Tetuan, Algiers, the Island of Minorca, where Reynolds painted nearly all the officers of the garrison, then to Genoa, Leghorn, Florence, and, finally, Rome. "Now," he said, "I am at the height of my wishes, in the midst of the greatest works of art that the world has produced." He remained at Rome two years, his married sisters, Mrs. Palmer and Mrs. Johnson, advancing the money for his expenses. He studied and copied many of the works of Raphael, Michael Angelo, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, and others, and filled several journals with his art notes. Two of these books are now carefully preserved in the British Museum, two in the Sloane Museum, and several in the Lenox Gallery in New York. At first, Reynolds was disappointed in the works of Raphael, but, said he, "I did not for a moment conceive or suppose that the name of Raphael, and those admirable paintings in particular, owed their reputation to the ignorance and the prejudice of mankind; on the contrary, my not relishing them as I was conscious I ought to have done was one of the most humiliating things that ever happened to me. I found myself in the midst of works executed upon principles with which I was unacquainted. "I felt my ignorance, and stood abashed. All the indigested notions of painting which I had brought with me from England, where the art was at the lowest ebb,--it could not, indeed, be lower,--were to be totally done away with and eradicated from my mind. It was necessary, as it is expressed on a very solemn occasion, that I should become as _a little child_. Notwithstanding my disappointment, I proceeded to copy some of those excellent works. I viewed them again and again; I even affected to feel their merits, and to admire them more than I really did. In a short time a new taste and new perceptions began to dawn upon me, and I was convinced that I had originally formed a false opinion of the perfection of art, and that this great painter was entitled to the high rank which he holds in the estimation of the world.... "Having since that period frequently revolved the subject in my mind, I am now clearly of opinion that a relish for the higher excellences of the art is an acquired taste, which no man ever possessed without long cultivation and great labor and attention.... It is the florid style which strikes at once, and captivates the eye, for a time, without ever satisfying the judgment. Nor does painting in this respect differ from other arts. A just and poetical taste and the acquisition of a nice discriminative musical ear are equally the work of time." In making the studies from Raphael in the Vatican, Reynolds caught so severe a cold as to produce deafness, from which he never recovered, and was obliged to use an ear-trumpet all his life. He could not help observe the superficiality of the average tourist. He said, "Some Englishmen, while I was in the Vatican, came there, and spent above six hours in writing down whatever the antiquary dictated to them. They scarcely ever looked at the paintings the whole time. Instead of examining the beauties of the works of fame, and why they were esteemed, they only inquire the subject of the picture and the name of the painter, the history of a statue and where it is found, and write that down." Later, Reynolds journeyed to Bologna, Modena, Parma, and Venice, studying the methods of the Venetian painters. He says, "When I observed an extraordinary effect of light and shade in any picture, I took a leaf out of my pocketbook, and darkened every part of it in the same gradation of light and shade as the picture, leaving the white paper untouched to represent the light, and this without any attention to the subject, or to the drawing of the figures. A few trials of this kind will be sufficient to give their conduct in the management of their lights. After a few experiments, I found the paper blotted nearly alike. Their general practice appeared to be, to allow not above a quarter of the picture for the light, including in this portion both the principal and secondary lights; another quarter to be kept as dark as possible; and the remaining half kept in mezzotint or half-shadow. Rubens appears to have admitted rather more light than a quarter, and Rembrandt much less, scarcely an eighth: by this conduct, Rembrandt's light is extremely brilliant, but it costs too much; the rest of the picture is sacrificed to this one object." Reynolds longed to be at home again. So great was his love for England that when, at Venice, he heard at the opera a ballad that had been popular in London, it brought tears to his eyes. Reynolds settled in London on his return from the Continent, after spending three months in Devonshire. He took a suite of handsome apartments in St. Martin's Lane, his sister Frances, six years younger than himself, being his housekeeper. She failed to make her brother happy, through her peculiar temperament. She was, says Madame d'Arblay, "a woman of worth and understanding, but of a singular character; who, unfortunately for herself, made, throughout life, the great mistake of nourishing a singularity which was her bane, as if it had been her greatest blessing.... It was that of living in an habitual perplexity of mind and irresolution of conduct, which to herself was restlessly tormenting, and to all around her was teasingly wearisome. "Whatever she suggested or planned one day was reversed the next; though resorted to on the third, as if merely to be again rejected on the fourth; and so on almost endlessly; for she rang not the changes on her opinions and designs, in order to bring them into harmony and practice, but wavering, to stir up new combinations and difficulties, till she found herself in the midst of such chaotic obstructions as could chime in with no given purpose, but must needs be left to ring their own peal, and to begin again just where they began at first." Frances copied her brother's pictures, which copies, Reynolds said, "make other people laugh, and me cry." Dr. Samuel Johnson said she was "very near to purity itself;" and of her "Essay on Taste," "There are in these few pages or remarks such a depth of penetration, such nicety of observation, as Locke or Pascal might be proud of." Reynolds now painted the portraits of Sir James Colebrooke, the Duchess of Hamilton, the Countess of Coventry, and the Dukes of Devonshire and Grafton. The two ladies were two beautiful Irish sisters. Horace Walpole tells us "how even the noble mob in the drawing-room clambered upon chairs and tables to look at them; how their doors were mobbed by crowds eager to see them get into their chairs, and places taken early at the theatres when they were expected; how seven hundred people sat up all night, in and about a Yorkshire inn, to see the Duchess of Hamilton get into her post-chaise in the morning; while a Worcester shoemaker made money by showing the shoe he was making for the Countess of Coventry." The latter, the elder and lovelier, died seven years after her marriage, from consumption. The Duchess of Hamilton, Reynolds painted again five years later, and a third time in a red dress and hat, on horseback, the Duke standing near her. "The evident desire which Reynolds had," writes Northcote, his pupil and biographer, "to render his pictures perfect to the utmost of his ability, and in each succeeding instance to surpass the former, occasioned his frequently making them inferior to what they had been in the course of the process; and when it was observed to him that probably he had never sent out to the world any one of his paintings in as perfect a state as it had been, he answered 'that he believed the remark was very just; but that, notwithstanding, he certainly gained ground by it on the whole, and improved himself by the experiment;' adding, 'if you are not bold enough to run the risk of losing, you can never hope to gain.' "With the same wish of advancing himself in the art, I have heard him say that whenever a new sitter came to him for a portrait, he always began it with a full determination to make it the best picture he had ever painted; neither would he allow it to be an excuse for his failure to say 'the subject was a bad one for a picture;' there was always nature, he would observe, which, if well treated, was fully sufficient for the purpose." The portrait of his friend Admiral Keppel, standing on a sandy beach, and back of him a tempestuous sea, did much to establish the reputation of Reynolds. He painted eight other pictures of this brave man, who entered the navy at ten and at eighteen had been round the world. "Keppel was the first of many heroes painted by Reynolds," writes Leslie, "who was never excelled, even by Velasquez, in the expression of heroism. So anxious was he to do all possible justice to his gallant friend, and so difficult did he find it to please himself, that after several sittings he effaced all he had done, and began the picture again.... "From an early period Reynolds adopted what he strongly recommended in his Discourses, the practice of drawing with the hair pencil instead of the port-crayon; and this constant use of the brush gave him a command of the instrument, if ever equalled, certainly never exceeded, for there are marvels of delicacy and of finish in his execution, combined with a facility and a spirit unlike anything upon the canvases of any other painter. I am far from meaning that in the works of other great masters there are not many excellences which Reynolds did not possess; but what I would note is that, though he was all his life studying the works of other artists, he could not, and it was fortunate that he could not, escape from his own manner into theirs." Reynolds once said to Northcote, "There is not a man on earth who has the least notion of coloring; we all of us have it equally to seek for and find out, as at present it is totally lost to the art.... I had not an opportunity of being early initiated in the principles of coloring; no man, indeed, could teach me. If I have never been settled with respect to coloring, let it at the same time be remembered that my unsteadiness in this respect proceeded from an inordinate desire to possess every kind of excellence that I saw in the works of others, without considering that there are in coloring, as in style, excellences which are incompatible with each other; however, this pursuit, or, indeed, any similar pursuit, prevents the artist from being tired of his art.... I tried every effect of color; and, leaving out every color in its turn, showed every color that I could do without it. As I alternately left out every color, I tried every new color, and often, it is well known, failed.... "I considered myself as playing a great game; and, instead of beginning to save money, I laid it out faster than I got it, in purchasing the best examples of art that could be produced, for I even borrowed money for this purpose. The possession of pictures by Titian, Vandyck, Rembrandt, etc., I considered as the best kind of wealth." He said, in order to obtain one of Titian's best works he "would be content to ruin himself." Reynolds was probably never surpassed in the drawing of the face, but was not always correct in the human form, because of insufficient knowledge of anatomy. During Reynolds's second year in London, he had one hundred and twenty sitters, dukes and duchesses, members of Parliament, and reigning beauties. That of Mrs. Bonfoy, daughter of the first Lord Eliot, is, says Leslie, "one of his most beautiful female portraits, and in perfect preservation. The lady is painted as a half-length, in a green dress, with one hand on her hip, and the head turned, with that inimitable grace of which Reynolds was master beyond all the painters who ever painted women." Already Reynolds had become the friend of the great-hearted, great-minded Dr. Samuel Johnson, who came and went at all hours to the artist's home, and who, when about to be arrested for trivial debts, was again and again befriended by the artist's purse. In 1756, Reynolds painted for himself a half-length of Johnson, with a pen in his hand, sitting at a table. This picture is used in Boswell's Life. For Johnson's "Idler" Reynolds wrote three papers, sitting up one whole night to complete them, and by so doing was made ill for a time. He also painted a young lad, the son of Dr. Mudge, who was very anxious to visit his father on his sixteenth birthday, but was prevented through illness. "Never mind, _I_ will send you to your father," said Reynolds, and he sent a speaking likeness, which was of course a gift. He seldom, however, made presents of his pictures, for he said they were usually not valued unless paid for. About this time, Sir William Lowther, a young millionnaire, died, leaving twenty-five thousand dollars to each of thirteen companions. Each companion very properly commissioned Reynolds to paint for him the portrait of so considerate and generous a friend. In 1758 and 1759, the artist was overwhelmed with work. In one year there were one hundred and fifty sitters, among them the Prince of Wales, afterwards George III.; Lady Mary Coke, afterwards believed to have been secretly married to the Duke of York, brother of George III.; and the fair and frail Kitty Fisher, very agreeable and vivacious, speaking French with great fluency, who died five years after her marriage, "a victim of cosmetics," it is said. Sir Joshua painted seven beautiful portraits of her. The most interesting represents her holding a dove in her lap, while its mate is about to descend to it from a sofa on which she is reclining. There are three of these, one being in the Lenox collection in New York. Reynolds also painted the famous Garrick this year, and thirteen years later Garrick and his wife. Leslie writes: "Reynolds had to light the eyes with that meteoric sensibility, and to kindle the features with that fire of life which would deepen into the passion of Lear, sparkle in the vivacity of Mercutio, or tremble in the fatuousness of Abel Drugger. He had to paint the man who, of all men that ever lived, presents the most perfect type of the actor; quick in sympathy, vivid in observation, with a body and mind so plastic that they could take every mould, and give back the very form and pressure of every passion, fashion, action; delighted to give delight, and spurred to ever higher effort by the reflection of the effect produced on others, no matter whether his audience were the crowd of an applauding theatre, a table full of noblemen and wits, a nursery group of children, or a solitary black boy in an area; of inordinate vanity, at once the most courteous, genial, sore, and sensitive of men; full of kindliness, yet always quarrelling; scheming for applause even in the society of his most intimate friends; a clever writer, a wit and the friend of wits. "Mrs. Garrick, though always the delight and charm of Garrick's house, was now no longer the lovely, light-limbed, laughing Eva Maria Violette, for love of whom Garrick, twenty-five years before, had dressed in woman's clothes that he might slip a letter into her chair, without compromising her, or offending her watchful protectress, Lady Burlington, and who had witched the world as a dancer, while she won friends among the titled and the great by her grace, good-humor, and modest sweetness of disposition. In Lord Normanton's gallery is a most fascinating sketch of her, which must have been painted in the first years of Sir Joshua's acquaintance with her. Slight as it is, those who have seen will not easily forget it. In the picture of her sitting with her husband, painted this year, she appears of matronly character, with a handsome, sensitive, kindly face; the dress is painted with singular force and freedom." In 1759, Reynolds painted his first Venus, reclining in a wooded landscape, while Cupid looks in through the boughs. Mason, the poet, writes: "When he was painting his first Venus, I was frequently near his easel; and although before I came to town his picture was in some forwardness, and the attitude entirely decided, yet I happened to visit him when he was finishing the head from a beautiful girl of sixteen, who, as he told me, was his man Ralph's daughter, and whose flaxen hair, in fine natural curls, flowed behind her neck very gracefully. "But a second casual visit presented me with a very different object; he was then painting the body, and in his sitting chair a very squalid beggar-woman was placed, with a child, not above a year old, quite naked, upon her lap. As may be imagined, I could not help testifying my surprise at seeing him paint the carnation of the goddess of beauty from that of a little child, which seemed to have been nourished rather with gin than with milk, and saying that 'I wondered he had not taken some more healthy-looking model;' but he answered, with his usual _naïveté_, that, 'whatever I might think, the child's flesh assisted him in giving a certain _morbidezza_ to his own coloring, which he thought he should hardly arrive at had he not such an object, when it was extreme (as it certainly was), before his eyes." Among the many famous portraits of this year and the next was that of the Countess Waldegrave, Horace Walpole's beautiful niece Maria, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester. The earl was the most trusted friend of George II., and, for a short time, prime minister. Walpole mentions the countess being mobbed in the park one Sunday when in company with Lady Coventry, so that several sergeants of the guards marched before and behind them to keep off the admiring crowd. Also that of the beautiful Elizabeth Gunning, afterward Duchess of Argyle, and the sister of Admiral Keppel, afterwards Marchioness of Tavistock. "This is one of the painter's loveliest and best preserved female portraits. The dress is white, with a rose in the bosom, and the expression inimitably maidenly and gentle." This year, Reynolds removed to a fine home in Leicester Square, where he remained as long as he lived, having a suburban home at Richmond Villa. His own painting-room was octagonal, "about twenty feet long and sixteen in breadth. The window which gave the light to the room was square, and not much larger than one-half the size of a common window in a private house; whilst the lower part of this window was nine feet four inches from the floor. The chair for his sitters was raised eighteen inches from the floor, and turned on casters. His palettes were those which are held by a handle, not those held on the thumb. The stocks of his pencils were long, measuring about nineteen inches. He painted in that part of the room nearest to the window, and never sat down when he worked." He had now raised his prices to twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred guineas for the three classes of portraits,--head, half-length, and full-length, and his income from his work was thirty thousand dollars a year. He purchased, says Northcote, "a chariot on the panels of which were curiously painted the four seasons of the year in allegorical figures. The wheels were ornamented with carved foliage and gilding; the liveries also of his servants were laced with silver. But, having no spare time himself to make a display of this splendor, he insisted on it that his sister Frances should go out with it as much as possible, and let it be seen in the public streets to make a show, which she was much averse to, being a person of great shyness of disposition, as it always attracted the gaze of the populace, and made her quite ashamed to be seen in it. This anecdote, which I heard from this very sister's own mouth, serves to show that Sir Joshua Reynolds knew the use of quackery in the world. He knew that it would be inquired whose grand chariot this was, and that, when it was told, it would give a strong indication of his great success, and, by that means, tend to increase it." The next year, Reynolds painted, among others, the Rev. Laurence Sterne, "at this moment the lion of the town, engaged fourteen deep to dinner, 'his head topsy-turvy with his success and fame,' consequent on the appearance of the first instalment of his 'Tristram Shandy.'" The picture is now in the gallery of the Marquis of Lansdowne, by whom it was purchased on the death of Lord Holland. "Sterne's wig," writes Leslie, "was subject to odd chances from the humor that was uppermost in its wearer. When by mistake he had thrown a fair sheet of manuscript into the fire instead of the foul one, he tells us that he snatched off his wig, 'and threw it perpendicularly, with all imaginable violence, up to the top of the room.' While he was sitting to Reynolds, this same wig had contrived to get itself a little on one side; and the painter, with that readiness in taking advantage of accident, to which we owe so many of the delightful novelties in his works, painted it so, for he must have known that a mitre would not sit long bishop-fashion on the head before him, and it is surprising what a Shandean air this venial impropriety of the wig gives to its owner.... "In 1768, Sterne lay dying at the 'Silk bag shop in Old Bond Street,' without a friend to close his eyes. No one but a hired nurse was in the room, when a footman, sent from a dinner table where was gathered a gay and brilliant party--the Dukes of Roxburgh and Grafton, the Earls of March and Ossory, David Garrick and David Hume--to inquire how Dr. Sterne did, was bid to go upstairs by the woman of the shop. He found Sterne just a-dying. In ten minutes, 'Now it is come,' he said, put up his hand as if to stop a blow, and died in a minute. "His laurels--such as they were--were still green. The town was ringing with the success of the 'Sentimental Journey,' just published.... Sterne's funeral was as friendless as his death-bed. Becket, his publisher, was the only one who followed the body to its undistinguished grave, in the parish burial-ground of Marylebone, near Tyburn gallows-stand.... His grave was marked down by the body-snatchers, the corpse dug up, and sold to the professor of anatomy at Cambridge. A student present at the dissection recognized under the scalpel the face of the brilliant wit and London lion of a few seasons before." In 1761, the year of the marriage and coronation of George III., Reynolds painted three of the most beautiful of the ten bridesmaids,--Lady Elizabeth Keppel; Lady Caroline Russell, "in half-length, sitting on a garden-seat, in a blue ermine-embroidered robe over a close white-satin vest. She is lovely, with a frank, joyous, innocent expression, and has a pet Blenheim spaniel in her lap--a love-gift, I presume, from the Duke of Marlborough, whom she married next year;" and Lady Sarah Lenox, whom George III. had loved, and would have married had not his council prevented. She married, six years later, Sir Joshua's friend, Sir Charles Bunbury, was divorced, married General Napier, and became the mother of two illustrious sons, Sir William and Sir Charles. Four years later, Reynolds painted another exquisite picture of her "kneeling at a footstool before a flaming tripod, over which the triad of the Graces look down upon her as she makes a libation in their honor.... Lady Sarah was still in the full glow of that singular loveliness which, it was whispered, had four years ago won the heart of the king, and all but placed an English queen upon the throne. Though the coloring has lost much of its richness, the lakes having faded from Lady Sarah's robes, and left what was once warm rose-color a cold, faint purple, the picture takes a high place among the works of its class--the full-length allegorical." Five years after this, Lord Tavistock, a young man of rare promise, who had married Lady Keppel, was killed by falling from his horse. His beautiful wife never recovered from this bereavement, and died in a few months at Lisbon, of a broken heart. All these years were extremely busy ones for the distinguished artist. He disliked idle visitors, saying: "These persons do not consider that my time is worth, to me, five guineas an hour." He belonged to several literary and social clubs, and was a lifelong and devoted friend to such men as Edmund Burke, Johnson, and Goldsmith. When he was ill, Johnson wrote him: "If the amusement of my company can exhilarate the languor of a slow recovery, I will not delay a day to come to you, for I know not how I can so effectually promote my own pleasure as by pleasing you, in whom, if I should lose you, I should lose almost the only man whom I call a friend." Reynolds had now raised his prices to thirty guineas for a head, seventy for a half-length, and one hundred and fifty for a full-length, one half to be paid at the first sitting. In 1766, when he was forty-three, a frequent visitor to the studio was Angelica Kauffman, the pretty Swiss artist, whom he usually enters in his notebooks as "Miss Angel," and whom it is believed he loved and wished to marry. She was, at this time, twenty-five years old, very attractive, and admired by everybody for her genius and loveliness. Mrs. Ellet, in her "Women Artists," says: "At the age of nine, this child of genius was much noticed on account of her wonderful pastel pictures. When her father left Morbegno, in Lombardy, in 1752, to reside in Como, she found greater scope for her ingenious talent, and better instruction in that city; and, in addition to her practice with the brush and pencil, she devoted herself to studies in general literature and in music. Her proficiency in the latter was so rapid, and the talent evinced so decided, besides the possession of a voice unusually fine, that her friends, a few years afterward, urged that her life should be devoted to music. She was herself undecided for some time to which vocation she should consecrate her powers." In the native city of her father, Schwarzenberg, Angelica painted in fresco the figures of the Twelve Apostles after copper engravings from Piazetta, an unusual work for a woman. After some years in Milan and Florence, Angelica went to Rome in 1763, where she painted the portrait of Winkelmann, then sixty years old, and other famous people, and was taken to London by the accomplished Lady Wentworth, wife of the British resident. Here, says Mrs. Ellet, "she found open to her a career of brilliant success, productive of much pecuniary gain. Her talents and winning manners raised her up patrons and friends among the aristocracy. Persons attached to the court engaged her professional services, and the most renowned painter in England, Sir Joshua Reynolds, was of the circle of her friends.... She was numbered among the painters of the Royal Society, and received the rare honor, for a woman, of an appointment to a professorship in the Academy of Arts in London, being, meanwhile, universally acknowledged to occupy a brilliant position in the best circles of fashionable society." Reynolds painted her portrait twice, and she painted his for his friend, Mr. Parker of Saltram. She was declared by some persons to be "a great coquette." Once she professed to be enamoured of Nathaniel Dance; to the next visitor she would disclose the great secret, "that she was dying for Sir Joshua Reynolds." When at the height of her fame, either because she had refused a prominent lord, who sought to be revenged, or through the jealousy of another artist, a fearful deception was practised upon her. "A low-born adventurer," says Mrs. Ellet, "who assumed the name of a gentleman of rank and character--that of his master, Count Frédéric de Horn--played a conspicuous part at that time in London society, and was skilful enough to deceive those with whom he associated. He approached our artist, who was then about twenty-six, and in the bloom of her existence. He paid his respects as one who rendered the deepest homage to her genius; then he passed into the character of an unassuming and sympathizing friend. Finally, he appealed to her romantic generosity, by representing himself as threatened with a terrible misfortune, from which she only could save him by accepting him as her husband. A sudden and secret marriage, he averred, was necessary. "Poor Angelica, who had shunned love on the banks of Como and under the glowing skies of Italy, and since her coming to London had rejected many offers of the most advantageous alliance, that she might remain free to devote herself to her art, was caught in the fine-spun snare, and yielded to chivalrous pity for one she believed worthy of her heart's affection. The marriage was celebrated by a Catholic priest, without the formality of writings and without witnesses. "Angelica had received commissions to paint several members of the royal family and eminent personages of the court, and her talents had procured her the favorable notice of the Queen of England. One day, while she was painting at Buckingham Palace, her Majesty entered into conversation with her, and Angelica communicated to her royal friend the fact of her marriage. The queen congratulated her, and sent an invitation to the Count de Horn to present himself at court. The impostor, however, dared not appear so openly, and he kept himself very close at home, for he well knew that it could not be long before the deception would be discovered. "At length, the suspicions of Angelica's father, to whom her marriage had been made known, led him to inquiries, which were aided by friends of influence. About this time, some say, the real count returned, and was surprised at being frequently congratulated on his marriage. Then came the mortifying discovery that the pretended count was a low impostor. The queen informed Angelica, and assured her of her sympathy. "The fellow had been induced to seek the poor girl's hand from motives of cupidity alone, desiring to possess himself of the property she had acquired by her labors. He now wished to compel her to a hasty flight from London. Believing herself irrevocably bound to him, Angelica resolved to submit to her fate; but her firmness and strength of nature enabled her to evade compliance with his requisition that she should leave England, till the truth was made known to her--that he who called himself her husband was already married to another woman, still living. This discovery made it dangerous for the impostor to remain in London, and he was compelled to fly alone, after submitting unwillingly to the necessity of restoring some three hundred pounds obtained from his victim, to which he had no right. "The false marriage was, of course, immediately declared null and void. These unhappy circumstances in no way diminished the interest and respect manifested for the lady who, in plucking the rose of life, had been so severely wounded by its thorns; on the contrary, she was treated with more attention than ever, and received several unexceptionable offers of marriage. But all were declined; she chose to live only for her profession.... "After fifteen years' residence in England, when the physician who attended her suffering father advised return to Italy, and the invalid expressed his fear of dying and leaving her unprotected, Angelica yielded to her parent's entreaties, and bestowed her hand upon the painter Antonio Zucchi." He was then fifty-three, and she forty. He lived fourteen years after this, and the marriage seems to have been a happy one. Much of the time was spent in Rome, where Angelica became the friend of Goethe, Herder, and others. Goethe said of her: "The good Angelica has a most remarkable, and, for a woman, really unheard-of talent; one must see and value what she does, and not what she leaves undone. There is much to learn from her, particularly as to work, for what she effects is really marvellous.... The light and pleasing in form and color, in design and execution, distinguish the numerous works of our artist. No living painter excels her in dignity, or in the delicate taste with which she handles the pencil." Her "Allegra" and "Penserosa," "Venus and Adonis," "The Death of Heloïse," "Sappho Inspired by Love," "Leonardo da Vinci dying in the arms of Francis I.," "The Return of Arminius," painted for Joseph II., and the "Vestal Virgin," are among her best known works. She died seven years after her husband, and, as at the funeral of Raphael, her latest pictures were borne after her bier. She was buried in St. Andrea della Fratte, and her bust was preserved in the Pantheon. Such is the sad history of the woman whom it is believed Reynolds loved, and wished to marry. In 1768 the Royal Academy was founded, chiefly by the exertions of West, the painter, and Sir William Chambers. Reynolds was unanimously chosen its first president, and was immediately knighted by the king. He left a sitter to go to St. James's and receive the honor, and then returned to his sitter. When the president delivered his first discourse, probably on account of his deafness, he did not speak loud enough to be heard. A nobleman said to him, "Sir Joshua, you read your discourse in a tone so low that I scarce heard a word you said." "That was to my advantage," said Sir Joshua, with a smile. Reynolds suggested the addition of a few distinguished honorary members to the Academy: Dr. Johnson, as professor of Ancient Literature; Goldsmith, professor of Ancient History, and others. Goldsmith wrote his brother, says Allan Cunningham, in his Life of Reynolds: "I took it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to myself. Honors to one in my situation are something like ruffles to a man who wants a shirt." Goldsmith was very fond of Reynolds, and dedicated to him his "Deserted Village," in these words: "I can have no expectations, in an address of this kind, either to add to your reputation or to establish my own. You can gain nothing from my admiration, as I am ignorant of the art in which you are said to excel, and I may lose much by the severity of your judgment, as few have a juster taste in poetry than you. Setting interest, therefore, aside, to which I never paid much attention, I must be indulged at present in following my affections. The only dedication I ever made was to my brother, because I loved him better than most other men. He is since dead. Permit me to inscribe this poem to you." At the first exhibition of the Academy, among the pictures which attracted the most notice were Sir Joshua's Miss Morris as Hope nursing Love,--the lady was the daughter of a governor of one of the West-India Islands, and, going upon the stage as Juliet, was so overpowered by timidity that she fainted and died soon afterwards,--the Duchess of Manchester and her son, as Diana disarming Cupid; and pretty Mrs. Crewe, the daughter of Fulke Greville, whom he had painted at sixteen as Psyche, and at nineteen as St. Genevieve reading in the midst of her flock. Tom Taylor says: "The Mrs. Crewe should class as one of his loveliest pictures--most touching and pathetic in the expression given by the attitude rather than the face; for the eyes are cast down on the book, and the features are nearly hidden by the hand which supports the head. The landscape is beautiful in color, and powerfully relieves the figure, clothed in a simple white dress, the light of which is distributed through the picture by the sheep feeding or resting about their pretty shepherdess. Walpole notes the harmony and simplicity of the picture, and calls it, not unjustly, 'one of his best.'" Each year, Reynolds's discourses were eagerly listened to at the Academy. "A great part of every man's life," he said, "must be spent in collecting materials for the exercise of genius. Invention is little but new combination. Nothing can come of nothing. Hence the necessity for acquaintance with the works of your predecessors. But of these, who are to be models--the guides?" The answer is, "Those great masters who have travelled with success the same road.... Try to imagine how a Michael Angelo or a Raphael would have conducted themselves, and work yourself into a belief that your picture is to be seen and observed by them. Even enter into a kind of competition with these great masters; paint a subject like theirs; a companion to any work you think a model. Test your own work with the model.... Let your port-crayon be never out of your hands. Draw till you draw as mechanically as you write. But, on every opportunity, _paint_ your studies instead of _drawing_ them. Painting comprises both drawing and coloring. The Venetians knew this, and have left few sketches on paper.... Have no dependence on your own genius; if you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. Nothing is denied to well-directed labor--nothing is to be obtained without it.... Without the love of fame you can never do anything excellent; but by an excessive and undistinguishing thirst after it you will come to have vulgar views; you will degrade your style, and your taste will be entirely corrupted.... I mention this because our exhibitions, while they produce such admirable effects by nourishing emulation and calling out genius, have also a mischievous tendency by seducing the painter to an ambition of pleasing indiscriminately the mixed multitude of people who resort to them." To Barry, the artist, who was in Rome, he wrote: "Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed in any other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object, from the moment he rises till he goes to bed. The effect of every object that meets the painter's eye may give a lesson, provided his mind is calm, unembarrassed with other objects, and open to instruction. This general attention, with other studies connected with the art, which must employ the artist in his closet, will be found sufficient to fill up life, if it were much longer than it is.... Whoever has great views, I would recommend to him, whilst at Rome, rather to live on bread and water than lose those advantages which he can never hope to enjoy a second time, and which he will find only in the Vatican.... The Capella Sistina is the production of the greatest genius that was ever employed in the arts.... If you neglect visiting the Vatican often, and particularly the Capella Sistina, you will neglect receiving that peculiar advantage which Rome can give above all other cities in the world. In other places you will find casts from the antique, and capital pictures of the great masters, but it is _there_ only that you can form an idea of the dignity of the art, as it is there only that you can see the works of Michael Angelo and Raphael. If you should not relish them at first, which may probably be the case, as they have none of those qualities which are captivating at first sight, never cease looking till you feel something like inspiration come over you, till you think every other painter insipid in comparison, and to be admired only for petty excellences." In 1770, Sir Joshua painted a picture called "The Babes in the Woods," which is now in the collection of Viscount Palmerston. Reynolds loved to find picturesque beggar children on the street, and would send them to his studio to be painted. Northcote says he would often hear the voice of a little waif, worn with sitting, say plaintively, "Sir,--sir,--I'm tired!" "It happened once," says Leslie, "as it probably often did, that one of these little sitters fell asleep, and in so beautiful an attitude that Sir Joshua instantly put away the picture he was at work on, and took up a fresh canvas. After sketching the little model as it lay, a change took place in its position; he moved his canvas to make the change greater, and, to suit the purpose he had conceived, sketched the child again. The result was the picture of the 'Babes in the Wood.'" This year, Sir Joshua brought the thirteen-year-old daughter, Theophila, of his widowed sister, Mrs. Palmer, to live with him in London, and three years later her elder sister, Mary, who afterward became the Marchioness of Thomond. He painted Theophila, called Offy, as "A Girl Reading," at which the young miss was offended, saying, "I think they might have put 'A Young Lady.'" Sir Joshua offered to take to his home the sons of his other sister, Mrs. Johnson--he had not forgotten how these two sisters had loaned him money when he was poor--but Mrs. Johnson declined his offer, fearing the temptations of London, and being greatly opposed to her brother's habit of painting on Sundays. One son went into the church and died young; another went to India, and Reynolds took great interest in his welfare. Later, two of Mrs. Johnson's daughters lived with Sir Joshua. In 1773, he painted and exhibited "The Strawberry Girl," which represents Offy Palmer, creeping timidly along, and looking anxiously around with her great black eyes. Sir Joshua always maintained that this was one of the "half-dozen original things" which he said no man ever exceeded in his life's work. Later the picture was purchased by the Marquis of Hertford for ten thousand five hundred dollars. F. S. Pulling, of Exeter College, Oxford, says, in his Life of Sir Joshua: "What a love Reynolds had for children, childless though he was himself! What a marvellous knowledge of their ways, and, even of their thoughts! With the peer's son or the beggar's child it was the same. The most fastidious critic finds it impossible to discover faults in these child portraits; the whole soul of the painter has gone into them, and he is as much at home with the gypsy child as with little Lord Morpeth. As Mr. Stephens well observes, 'Reynolds, of all artists, painted children best ... knew most of childhood, depicted its appearances in the truest and happiest spirit of comedy, entered into its changeful soul with the tenderest, heartiest sympathy, played with the playful, sighed with the sorrowful, and mastered all the craft of infancy.... His 'Child Angels' was not painted till 1786. It consists of simply five different representations of the same face, that of Frances Gordon. The perfect loveliness of this picture is beyond dispute.... These are human faces, it is true, but can you imagine any purer, more innocent, more gentle faces?... I, for one, am perfectly content to accept these faces as those of the most lovely beings God ever created." A picture of a nymph with a young Bacchus, really the portrait of the beautiful young actress, Mrs. Hartley, "whose lovely face and lithe, tall, delicate figure had rapidly won for her the leading place at Covent Garden," is now in the possession of Mr. Bentley, who refused an offer of ten thousand dollars for it. Sir Joshua was now elected mayor of Plympton, his native town, an honor which he greatly prized; and received the degree of D. C. L. from Oxford University. Oliver Goldsmith had died, and on the day of his death Sir Joshua did not touch a pencil, "a circumstance the most extraordinary for him," says Northcote, "who passed no day without a line." He acted as executor for his dead friend, and found, to his amazement, that his debts were ten thousand dollars. Reynolds was as ever the centre of a charming circle. Miss Burney, the author of "Evelina," liked his countenance and manners; the former she pronounced "expressive, soft, and sensible; the latter, gentle, unassuming, and engaging." Hannah More, too, was greatly pleased with the distinguished painter. "Foremost among the beauties of this brilliant time," says Leslie, "was Sir Joshua's pet in childhood, now the irresistible young queen of _ton_, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. She effaced all her rivals, Walpole tells us, without being a beauty. 'Her youth, figure, glowing good-nature, sense, lively modesty, and modest familiarity make her a phenomenon.' The young duchess was now sitting to him in the full flush of her triumph as arbitress of fashion, the most brilliant of the gay throng who danced and played the nights away at the Ladies' Club, masqueraded at the Pantheon, and promenaded at Ranelagh. Marie Antoinette herself had scarcely a gayer, more devoted, and more obsequious court. It was this beautiful young duchess who set the fashion of the feather headdresses, now a mark for all the witlings of the time. Sir Joshua has painted her in her new-fashioned plumes, in the full-length now at Spencer House.... "Another beautiful sitter of this year was Eliza, the youthful wife of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The young couple were now emerging from the first difficulties of their married life. Her exquisite and delicate loveliness, all the more fascinating for the tender sadness which seemed, as a contemporary describes it, to project over her the shadow of early death; her sweet voice, and the pathetic expression of her singing; the timid and touching grace of her air and deportment, had won universal admiration for Eliza Ann Linley. From the days when, a girl of nine, she stood with her little basket at the pump-room door, timidly offering the tickets for her father's benefit concerts, to those when in her teens she was the belle of the Bath assemblies, none could resist her beseeching grace. Lovers and wooers flocked about her; Richard Walter Long, the Wiltshire miser, laid his thousands at her feet.... "Nor had she resisted only the temptation of money; coronets, it was whispered, had been laid at her feet as well as purses. When she appeared at the Oxford oratorios, grave dons and young gentlemen commoners were alike subdued. In London, where she sang at Covent Garden in the Lent of 1773, the king himself was said to have been fascinated as much by her eyes and voice as by the music of his favorite Händel. From all this homage Miss Linley had withdrawn to share love in a cottage with Sheridan at East Burnham, after a runaway match in March, 1772, and after her husband had fought two duels in her cause with a Captain Matthews. When she began to sit to Sir Joshua, Richard Brinsley Sheridan was only known as a witty, vivacious, easy-tempered, and agreeable young man of three and twenty, with nothing but his wits to depend on; but, before the picture was finished, he was famous as the author of 'The Rivals.'" Sir Joshua painted Mrs. Sheridan as St. Cecilia. "She had a way of gathering little children about her, and singing their childish songs, with 'such a playfulness of manner, and such a sweetness of look and voice,' says one, in describing her so engaged, 'as was quite enchanting.'... Mrs. Sheridan was gentleness personified, and sang without pressing; but her husband, proud of her as he was, would never allow her to sing in public after their marriage, and was even chary of permitting her to delight their friends with her sweet voice in private. She was the lovely model for the Virgin in Reynolds's 'Nativity,' for which the young Duke of Rutland paid him six thousand dollars, an unexampled price for an English picture at that time. It was burnt at Belvoir Castle. She died a few years later, living long enough to witness her husband's great success, and not long enough to see him overwhelmed with debts, partly the result of drink." In 1780, Sir Joshua painted the ladies Maria, Laura, and Horatia Waldgrave, grand-nieces of Horace Walpole. "He never had more beautiful sitters," says Leslie; "and in none of his pictures has he done more justice to beauty. Their bright faces are made to tell with wonderful force, by the white dresses and powdered _têtes_ worn by all three. They are sitting round a work-table. Lady Laura, in the centre, winds silk on a card from a skein held by Lady Horatia; while Lady Maria, on the right, bends over her tambouring frame. The action admits of a natural arrangement of the heads, in full-face, three-quarters, and profile; and it is impossible to conceive an easier, prettier way of grouping three graceful, high-bred young ladies." At this time, all three of these young ladies were in sorrow. The young Duke of Ancaster, to whom Horatia was betrothed, had just died suddenly, and two prominent lords to whom the other sisters were engaged had broken their promises. Lady Maria married, four years later, the Earl of Euston; Laura, her cousin, Lord Chewton; and Horatia, Lord Hugh Seymour. Sir Joshua painted two years later the beautiful but unhappy Mrs. Musters, whose son John married Mary Chaworth, Byron's first love. "The fine full-length of her as Hebe, with the eagle, still hangs at Colwich Hall. Another full-length, with a spaniel at her feet, painted in 1777, the year of her marriage, is at Petworth. It is interesting to compare the two, and note the wear and tear of five years in the reign of a queen of fashion." The eagle was a pet of Sir Joshua, kept in a yard outside the studio. In 1783, when Mrs. Siddons was the leading actress of the time, she sat to Reynolds. Taking her hand, he led her up to his platform with the words, "Ascend your undisputed throne: bestow on me some idea of the Tragic Muse." "On which," she said, "I walked up the steps, and instantly seated myself in the attitude in which the Tragic Muse now appears." He inscribed his name on the border of her drapery, saying, "I could not lose the honor this opportunity afforded me of going down to posterity on the hem of your garment." Sir Thomas Lawrence called this the finest portrait in the world of a woman, and Mrs. Jameson says, "It was painted for the universe and posterity." This picture was purchased, in 1822, by the first Marquis of Westminster, for nearly nine thousand dollars. Reynolds also painted Miss Kemble, her sister, "a very sweet and gentle woman." This year, 1784, a friendship of thirty years was severed by the death of Dr. Johnson. On his death-bed, he made three requests of Sir Joshua: never to use his pencil on Sundays; to read the Bible whenever possible, and always on Sundays; and to forgive him a debt of thirty pounds, which he had borrowed of him, as he wished to leave the money to a poor family. Reynolds was present at the funeral, when his friend was laid beside Garrick, in the south transept of Westminster Abbey. Reynolds said of his friend: "His pride had no meanness in it; there was nothing little or mean about him. "Truth, whether in great or little matters, he held sacred. From the violation of truth, he said, in great things your character or your interest was affected, in lesser things your pleasure is equally destroyed. I remember, on his relating some incident, I added something to his relation, which I supposed might likewise have happened: 'It would have been a better story,' says he, 'if it had been so; but it was not.' Our friend, Dr. Goldsmith, was not so scrupulous; but he said he only indulged himself in white lies, light as feathers, which he threw up in the air, and, on whomever they fell, nobody was hurt. 'I wish,' says Dr. Johnson, 'you would take the trouble of moulting your feathers.' "As in his writings not a line can be found which a saint would wish to blot, so in his life he would never suffer the least immorality or indecency of conversation, or anything contrary to virtue or piety, to proceed without a severe check, which no elevation of rank exempted them from. "The Christian religion was with him such a certain and established truth that he considered it as a kind of profanation to hold any argument about its truth." At sixty-three years of age, Reynolds was as busy as ever. Miss Palmer wrote to her cousin in Calcutta: "My uncle seems more bewitched than ever with his palette and pencils. He is painting from morning till night, and the truth is that every picture he does seems better than the former. He is just going to begin a picture for the Empress of Russia, who has sent to desire he will paint her an historical one. The subject is left to his own choice, and at present he is undetermined what to choose." He chose "The Infant Hercules strangling the Serpents." Rogers says: "Reynolds, who was always thinking of his art, was one day walking with Dr. Lawrence, near Beaconsfield, when they met a fine rosy little peasant boy--a son of Burke's bailiff. Reynolds patted him on the head, and, after looking earnestly in his face, said: 'I must give more color to my Infant Hercules.'" He took such great pains with this work that he used to say of the picture: "There are ten under it, some better, some worse." The Empress sent him as pay for this a gold box, with her cipher in diamonds, and seven thousand five hundred dollars. In his "Gleaners," painted in 1788, the centre figure, with a sheaf of corn on her head, was the portrait of a beautiful girl, Miss Potts, who afterwards became the mother of Sir Edwin Landseer. In 1789, he lost the sight of his left eye, through overwork, but he still preserved the sweet serenity of his nature, and was not depressed. He amused himself with his canary bird, which was so tame that it would sit upon his hand; but one morning it flew out of the window, and never returned. On December 10, 1790, Reynolds gave his fifteenth and last Discourse to the Academy. In closing, he said to the crowded audience: "I reflect, not without vanity, that these Discourses bear testimony of my admiration of that truly divine man; and I should desire that the last words I should pronounce in this Academy and from this place might be the name of MICHAEL ANGELO." As Reynolds descended from the chair, Edmund Burke stepped forward, and, taking his hand, addressed him in the words of Milton,-- "The angel ended, and in Adam's ear So charming left his voice, that he awhile Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear." This year, he allowed Sheridan to buy the picture of his wife, "St. Cecilia," at half-price. Reynolds said it was "the best picture he ever painted," and added, in the letter to Sheridan: "However, there is now an end of the pursuit; the race is over, whether it is won or lost." The next year, in May, 1791, Sir Joshua sat for his picture for the last time to the Swedish artist, Beda, at the request of the Royal Academy of Sweden. He had sent his picture to Florence, on being elected an honorary member of that famous Academy. In October of this year he became almost totally blind. Burke wrote to his son Richard in January, 1792: "Our poor friend, Sir Joshua, declines daily. For some time past he has kept his bed.... At times he has pain; but for the most part is tolerably easy. Nothing can equal the tranquillity with which he views his end. He congratulates himself on it as a happy conclusion of a happy life. He spoke of you in a style that was affecting. I don't believe there are any persons he values more sincerely than you and your mother." Reynolds died tranquilly between eight and nine on Thursday evening, February 23, 1792. He was buried in St. Paul's, on Saturday, March 3, ninety-one carriages following the body to the grave. There were ten pall-bearers, the Duke of Dorset, Duke of Leeds, Duke of Portland, Marquis Townshend, Marquis of Abercorn, Earl of Carlisle, Earl of Inchiquin, Earl of Upper Ossory, Lord Viscount Palmerston, and Lord Eliot. By will he left to his niece Offy, who had married, in 1781, a wealthy Cornish gentleman, Mr. Gwatkin, fifty thousand dollars; to his sister Frances the use, for life, of twelve thousand five hundred dollars; to Burke, ten thousand dollars, and cancelled a bond for the same amount of money borrowed; a thousand dollars to each of his executors; five thousand dollars to a servant who had lived with him more than thirty years; all the remainder of his property, about five hundred thousand dollars, to his niece, Miss Palmer. Such an amount of money earned by an artist, making his own way in life from poverty, was indeed wonderful. The number of his pictures is estimated at three thousand. Burke wrote of him, the pages blurred with his tears: "Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on very many accounts, one of the most memorable men of his time. He was the first Englishman who added the praise of the elegant arts to the other glories of his country. In taste, in grace, in facility, in happy invention, and in the richness and harmony of coloring, he was equal to the great masters of the renowned ages. In portrait he went beyond them; for he communicated to that description of the art, in which English artists are the most engaged, a variety, a fancy, and a dignity derived from the higher branches, which even those who professed them in a superior manner did not always preserve when they delineated individual nature. His portraits remind the spectator of the invention of history and the amenity of landscape. He possessed the theory as perfectly as the practice of his art. To be such a painter, he was a profound and penetrating philosopher. "In full affluence of foreign and domestic fame, admired by the expert in art and by the learned in science, courted by the great, caressed by sovereign powers, and celebrated by distinguished poets, his native humility, modesty, and candor never forsook him, even on surprise or provocation; nor was the least degree of arrogance or assumption visible to the most scrutinizing eye in any part of his conduct or discourse. "His talents of every kind, powerful from nature, and not meanly cultivated by letters, his social virtues in all the relations and all the habitudes of life, rendered him the centre of a very great and unparalleled variety of agreeable societies, which will be dissipated by his death. He had too much merit not to excite some jealousy, too much innocence to provoke any enmity. The loss of no man of his time can be felt with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow." Mrs. Jameson says: "The pictures of Reynolds are, to the eye, what delicious melodies are to the ear,--Italian music set to English words; for the color, with its luxurious, melting harmony, is Venetian, and the faces and the associations are English.... More and more we learn to sympathize with that which is his highest characteristic, and which alone has enabled him to compete with the old masters of Italy; the amount of mind, of sensibility, he threw into every production of his pencil, the genial, living soul he infused into forms, giving to them a deathless vitality." One secret of Reynolds's popularity, outside his genius, was the fact that he never spoke ill of the work of other painters. Northcote says he once asked Sir Joshua what he thought of two pictures by Madame Le Brun, who at that time was the most popular artist in France in portraiture. "'They are very fine,' he answered. "'How fine?' I said. "'As fine as those of any painter.' "'Do you mean living or dead?' "'Either living or dead,' he answered briskly. "'As fine as Van Dyke?' "He answered tartly, 'Yes, and finer.' "I said no more, perceiving he was displeased at my questioning him." Leslie says of him: "He felt deeply and almost impatiently the gulf between the technical merits of his pictures and those of the great Venetians or Rembrandt, whom at different epochs he worshipped with equal reverence. I have no doubt his inferiority to these men in power, in mastery of materials, and in certainty of method was just as apparent to Sir Joshua as it is to any unbiassed judge who now compares his pictures with those of Titian, Rembrandt, or Velasquez.... "Estimating Reynolds at his best, he stands high among the great portrait painters of the world, and has achieved as distinct a place for himself in their ranks as Titian or Tintoret, Velasquez or Rembrandt." SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. Sir Edwin Landseer, born in 1802, in London, on or about March 7, was the fifth child in a family of seven children. The father, John Landseer, a most skilful engraver, was the author of some books on the art of engraving and archæology. He once gave a course of lectures before the Royal Institution. The mother, whose maiden name was Miss Potts, was a gifted and beautiful woman, whose portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. [Illustration: SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.] The boy Edwin began to draw very early in life. Miss Meteyard quotes these words from John Landseer: "These two fields were Edwin's first studio. Many a time have I lifted him over this very stile. I then lived in Foley Street, and nearly all the way between Marylebone and Hampstead was open fields. It was a favorite walk with my boys; and one day when I had accompanied them, Edwin stopped by this stile to admire some sheep and cows which were quietly grazing. At his request I lifted him over, and, finding a scrap of paper and a pencil in my pocket, I made him sketch a cow. He was very young indeed then--not more than six or seven years old. "After this we came on several occasions, and as he grew older this was one of his favorite spots for sketching. He would start off alone, or with John (Thomas?) or Charles, and remain till I fetched him in the afternoon. I would then criticise his work, and make him correct defects before we left the spot. Sometimes he would sketch in one field, sometimes in the other, but generally in the one beyond the old oak we see there, as it was more pleasant and sunny." While still very young, the lad learned the process of etching from his father and elder brother Thomas, the latter one of the most eminent of engravers. At seven, he drew and etched the heads of a lion and a tiger, "in which," says Frederick G. Stephens, "the differing characters of the beasts are given with marvellous craft, that would honor a much older artist than the producer. The drawing of the tiger's whiskers--always difficult things to manage--is admirable in its rendering of foreshortened curves." At thirteen he drew a magnificent St. Bernard dog. Edwin saw him in the streets of London, in charge of a man servant. He followed the dog to the residence of his owner, and obtained permission to make a sketch of him. The animal was six feet four inches long, and, at the middle of his back, stood two feet seven inches in height. These creatures are capable of carrying one hundredweight of provisions from a neighboring town to the monks at the Monastery of St. Bernard, eighteen miles. Stephens says: "It is really one of the finest drawings of a dog that have ever been produced. We do not think that even the artist at any time surpassed its noble workmanship. The head, though expansive and domical in its shape, is small in proportion to that of a Newfoundland dog; the brow is broad and round; the eyes, according to the standard commonly assumed for large dogs, are far from being large, and are very steadfast in their look, without fierceness; the ears are pendulous, placed near to the head, and fleshy in substance." A live dog, admitted into the room with this picture, became greatly excited. When Edwin was thirteen, in 1815, he exhibited some pictures at the Royal Academy; a mule, and a dog with a puppy. The following year he became a student at the Royal Academy. He was a bright, manly boy, with light, curly hair, gentle and graceful in manner, and diligent in his work. Fuseli, the keeper of the Academy, was much pleased with him, and, looking around the room upon the students, would say, "Where is my little dog boy?" This was in allusion to the picture of Edwin's favorite dog, Brutus, lying at full length of his chain, near a red earthenware dish. The picture, though very small, was sold in 1861 for seventy guineas. In 1818, "Fighting Dogs Getting Wind" was exhibited at Spring Gardens, and caused a great sensation. The _Examiner_ said, in a review of the works of the Society of Painters in Oil and Water-Colors, "Landseer's may be called the great style of animal painting, as far as it relates to the execution and color, and the natural, as far as it concerns their portraiture. Did we see only the dog's collar, we should know that it was produced by no common hand, so good is it, and palpably true. But the gasping and cavernous and redly stained mouths, the flaming eyes, the prostrate dog, and his antagonist standing exultingly over him; the inveterate rage that superior strength inflames but cannot subdue, with the broad and bright relief of the objects, give a wonder-producing vitality to the canvas." Landseer also exhibited this year the "White Horse in a Stable." It disappeared from the studio, and twenty-four years later, in 1842, it was discovered in a hayloft, where it had been hidden by a dishonest servant. It was sent to Honorable H. Pierrepont, for whom it was painted, with a letter from Landseer, saying that he had not retouched the picture, "thinking it better when my early style was unmingled with that of my old age." In 1819, "The Cat Disturbed" was exhibited, afterwards engraved with the title of "The Intruder." It represents a cat chased to the upper part of a stable by a dog, into whose place she had ventured. Dr. Waagen said, "This picture exhibits a power of coloring and a solidity of execution recalling such masters as Snyders and Fyt." About this time a lion in the Exeter Change Menagerie died, and the young artist succeeded in getting the body and dissecting it, acting upon Haydon's advice, of years before, to "dissect animals, the only mode of acquiring a knowledge of their construction." The result was the painting of two large pictures, six feet by eight, and six feet by seven feet six inches respectively: "A Lion Disturbed at his Repast," and "A Lion Enjoying his Repast," followed by a third, "A Prowling Lion." In 1821, the chief pictures exhibited were "The Rat-Catchers," where four dogs are catching rats in an old barn; and "Pointers, To-ho," a hunting-scene, which sold in 1872 for over ten thousand dollars. The following year, Landseer received from the directors of the British Institution seven hundred and fifty dollars as a prize for "The Larder Invaded." Eighteen other pictures came from Landseer's studio this year. The most famous of Sir Edwin's early works was "The Cat's-Paw," sold for five hundred dollars, and now owned by the Earl of Essex. Its present value is over fifteen thousand dollars. "The scene," says Stephens, "is a laundry or ironing-room, probably in some great house, to which a monkey of most crafty and resolute disposition has access. The place is too neat and well maintained to be part of a poor man's house. The ironing-woman has left her work, the stove is in full combustion, and the hand of some one who appreciated the good things of life has deposited on its level top, together with a flatiron, half a dozen ripe, sound chestnuts. To the aromatic, appetizing odor of the fruit was probably due the entrance of the monkey, a muscular, healthy beast, who came dragging his chain and making his bell rattle. He smelt the fruit and coveted them; tried to steal them off the cooking-place with his own long, lean digits, and burnt his fingers. "He looked about for a more effective means, and, heedless of the motherhood of a fine cat, who with her kittens was ensconced in a clothes-basket, where she blandly enjoyed the coverings and the heat, pounced upon puss, entangled as she was in the wrappings of her ease. Puss resisted at first with offended dignity and wrath at being thus treated before the faces of her offspring. She resisted as a cat only can, with lithe and strenuous limbs; the muscular, light, and vigorous frame of the creature quivered with the stress of her energy; she twisted, doubled her body, buckled herself, so to say, in convulsions of passion and fear, but still, surely, without a notion of the object of her captor. "Yet he had by far the best of the struggle, for her tiger-like claws were enveloped in the covering which erst served her so comfortably; and, kicking, struggling, squalling, and squealing as strength departed from her, she flounced about the room, upset the coal-scuttle on the floor, and hurled her mistress's favorite flower-pot in hideous confusion on the 'ironing-blanket.' It was to no purpose, for the quadruped, with muffled claws, was no match for her four-handed foe. He dragged her towards the stove, and dreadful notions of a fate in its fiery bowels must have arisen in her heart as nearer and still more near the master of the situation brought his victim. "Stern, resolute, with no more mercy than the cat had when some unhappy mouse felt her claws--claws now to be deftly yet painfully employed, Pug grasped her in three of his powerful hands, and, as reckless of struggles as of yells, squeals, and squalls, with the fourth stretched out her soft, sensitive, velvety forepaw--the very mouse-slayer itself--to the burning stove and its spoils. What cared he for the bared backs or the spiteful mewlings of her miserable offspring, little cats as they were? He made their mother a true 'cat's-paw.'" Soon after the exhibition of this picture, Sir Walter Scott came to London and took the young painter to Abbotsford. The novelist greatly admired Landseer's work, saying, "His dogs are the most magnificent things I ever saw, leaping and bounding and grinning all over the canvas." After this, Landseer visited Scotland nearly every year, charmed by its scenery and enjoying the hospitality of the nobles. In his thirty-second year, it seemed necessary that the painter should have a home removed from the soot and noisy traffic of London. A small house and garden, with a barn suitable for a studio, were purchased at No. 1 St. John's Wood, a suburban region, which derives its name from having been owned by the priors of the Hospital of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. A premium of a hundred pounds being demanded for the house, Landseer was about to break off negotiations, when a friend said: "If that is the only obstacle, I will remove it. Go to the lawyers, and tell them to make out the lease, and that as soon as it is ready for signatures, you will pay the sum required; and I will lend you the money, which you can repay when it suits you, without interest." The painter returned the money loaned, in instalments of twenty pounds each. Here he lived for nearly fifty years, his sister, Mrs. Mackenzie, being his housekeeper. Here he received more famous people than any other English painter save Joshua Reynolds. Here, as he grew wealthy, he brought his dogs and other pets; here the father, John Landseer, to whom the son was ever devotedly attached, died. A writer in _Cornhill_ says: "There were few studios formerly more charming to visit than Landseer's. Besides the genial artist and his beautiful pictures, the _habitués_ of his workshop (as he called it) belonged to the _élite_ of London society, especially the men of wit and distinguished talents--none more often there than D'Orsay, with his good-humored face, his ready wit and delicate flattery. 'Landseer,' he would call out at his entrance, 'keep de dogs off me' (the painted ones). 'I want to come in, and some of dem will bite me--and dat fellow in de corner is growling furiously.'" In 1826, when Landseer was twenty-four years old, "Chevy Chase" was painted, now at Woburn Abbey, the property of the Duke of Bedford. It is an illustration of the old ballad:-- "To drive the deer with hound and horne Erle Percy took his way, The chiefest harts in Chevy Chase To kill and bear away." This year, he was made an associate of the Royal Academy, an honor seldom given to so young a man. He was made a full member at thirty. His first important picture exhibited after this, in 1827, was "The Chief's Return from Deer-stalking." "It is," says Stephens, "one of the best of his compositions, the subject giving scope to all his powers in dealing with dogs, deer, and horses. Across the backs of a white and a black pony two magnificent antlered deer are bound. A young chief and his old companion, a mountaineer,--with traces of the wear and tear of a hard life on his cheeks and in his gaunt eyes,--step by the head of one of the horses. They go slowly and heedfully down the hill. Two dogs pace with them; one of these turns to a deer's skull which lies in the herbage." "The Monkey who had seen the World" appeared at the same time as "The Chief's Return," and was engraved by Gibbon as "The Travelled Monkey." The monkey, who has returned from his travels and meets his friends, is dressed in a cocked hat and laced coat, with a wide cravat, breeches, buckled shoes, and a pendent eyeglass. The latter, especially, astonishes his friends. Thomas Baring gave fifteen hundred guineas for this painting, and bequeathed it to Lord Northbrook. Another picture of this time, engraved by John Pye, was thus described in the Catalogue: "William Smith, being possessed of combativeness, and animated by a love of glory, enlisted in the 101st Regiment of Foot. At the Battle of Waterloo, on the 18th of July following, a cannon-ball carried off one of his legs; thus commenced and terminated William's military career. As he lay wounded on the field of battle, the dog here represented, blind with one eye, and having also a leg shattered apparently by a musket-ball, came and sat beside him, as 'twere for sympathy. "The dog became William's prisoner, and, when a grateful country rewarded William's services by a pension and a wooden leg, he stumped about accompanied by the dog, his friend and companion. On the 15th of December, 1834, William died. His name never having been recorded in an extraordinary Gazette, this public monument, representing the dog at a moment when he was ill, and reclining against the mattress on which his master died, is erected to his memory by Edwin Landseer and John Pye." In this year, 1827, there was also exhibited the well-known "Scene at Abbotsford," with the celebrated Maida, Sir Walter Scott's favorite dog, in the foreground. Six weeks after the picture was painted, the dog died. "High Life" and "Low Life," exhibited in 1831, noteworthy on account of their size, being eighteen inches by thirteen and a half, were bequeathed by Robert Vernon to the nation, and are now in the National Gallery. "High Life" represents a gentle and slender stag-hound in a handsome home; "Low Life," a brawny bulldog, in a rude stone doorway. Hamerton says: "Everything that can be said about Landseer's knowledge of animals, and especially of dogs, has already been said. There was never very much to say, for there was no variety of opinion and nothing to discuss. Critics may write volumes of controversy about Turner and Delacroix, but Landseer's merits were so obvious to every one that he stood in no need of critical explanations. The best commentators on Landseer, the best defenders of his genius, are the dogs themselves; and so long as there exist terriers, deer-hounds, bloodhounds, his fame will need little assistance from writers upon art." In 1832, "Spaniels of King Charles's Breed" was exhibited; now in the National Gallery, as a gift from Mr. Vernon. Both these spaniels, pets of Mr. Vernon, came to a violent end. The white Blenheim spaniel fell from a table and was killed; the true "King Charles" fell through the railings of a staircase, and was picked up dead at the bottom. The picture was painted in two days, illustrating Landseer's wonderful rapidity of execution. Yet this power, as Stephens well says, "followed more than twenty years' hard study." Stephens records an amazing instance of Landseer's power. "A large party was assembled one evening at the house of a gentleman in the upper ranks of London society; crowds of ladies and gentlemen of distinction were present, including Landseer, who was, as usual, a lion; a large group gathered about the sofa where he was lounging. The subject turned on dexterity and facility in feats of skill with the hand. No doubt, the talk was ingeniously led in this direction by some who knew that Sir Edwin could do wonders of dexterous draughtsmanship, and were not unwilling to see him draw, but they did not expect what followed. "A lady, lolling back on a settee, and rather tired of the subject, as ladies are apt to become when conversation does not appeal to their feelings or their interests, exclaimed, after many instances of manual dexterity had been cited: 'Well, there's one thing nobody has ever done, and that is to draw two things at once.' She had signalized herself by quashing a subject of conversation, and was about to return to her most becoming attitude, when Landseer said: 'Oh, I can do that; lend me two pencils, and I will show you.' "The pencils were got, a piece of paper was laid on the table, and Sir Edwin, a pencil in each hand, drew simultaneously, and without hesitation, with the one hand the profile of a stag's head, and all its antlers complete, and with the other hand the perfect profile of a horse's head. Both drawings were full of energy and spirit, and, although, as the occasion compelled, not finished, they were, together and individually, quite as good as the master was accustomed to produce with his right hand alone; the drawing by the left hand was not inferior to that by the right." In 1834, "Suspense," a bloodhound watching at a closed door for his wounded master, "A Highland Shepherd Dog rescuing Sheep from a Snowdrift," and "A Scene of the Old Time at Bolton Abbey" were exhibited. For the last, Landseer was paid two thousand dollars. It is now owned by the Duke of Devonshire, and is valued at more than fifteen thousand dollars. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert made etchings from this and from several others of Landseer's works. In 1835, "A Sleeping Bloodhound" (Countess) was exhibited. It was bequeathed by Mr. Jacob Bell to the National Gallery. "The hound was, one dark night (at Wandsworth), anxiously watching her master's return from London. She heard the wheels of his gig and his voice, but, in leaping from the balcony where she watched, she missed her footing, and fell all but dead at her master's feet. Mr. Bell (the owner of the dog) placed the hound in his gig and returned to London, called Sir Edwin Landseer from his bed, and had a sketch made then and there of the dying animal." In 1837 came "The Highland Shepherd's Chief Mourner," representing the interior of a plain Highland home, the coffin of the shepherd in the centre, covered by his maud for a pall, his only mourner the dog who rests his head upon the coffin. A well-worn Bible is on a stool in front, with a pair of spectacles. Ruskin calls this picture "one of the most perfect poems or pictures (I use the words as synonymous) which modern times have seen. Here the exquisite execution of the crisp and glossy hair of the dog, the bright, sharp touching of the green bough beside it, the clear painting of the wood of the coffin and the folds of the blanket, are language,--language clear and expressive in the highest degree. But the close pressure of the dog's breast against the wood; the convulsive clinging of the paws, which has dragged the blanket off the trestle; the total powerlessness of the head, laid close and motionless upon its folds; the fixed and tearful fall of the eye in its utter hopelessness; the rigidity of repose, which marks that there has been no motion nor change in the trance of agony since the last blow was struck upon the coffin-lid; the spectacles marking the place where the Bible was last closed, indicating how lonely has been the life, how unwatched the departure, of him who is now laid solitary in his sleep,--these are all thoughts; thoughts by which the picture is separated at once from hundreds of equal merit as far as the mere painting goes,--by which it ranks as a work of high merit, and stamps its author, not as the neat imitator of the texture of a skin or the fold of a drapery, but as a Man of Mind." "The Portrait of the Marquis of Stafford and the Lady Evelyn Gower," in 1838, is considered Landseer's best portrait-picture. "A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society," exhibited in 1838, is the picture of a large Newfoundland dog named Paul Pry. "He lies in the broad sunlight, and the shadow of his enormous head is cast sideways on his flank as white as snow. He looks seaward with a watchful eye, and his quickness of attention is hinted at by the gentle lifting of his ears. The painting of the hide, here rigid and there soft; here shining with reflected light, there like down; the masses of the hair, as the dog's habitual motions caused them to grow; the foreshortening of his paws as they hang over the edge of the quay, and the fine sense of _chiaro-oscuro_ displayed in the whole, induce us to rank it," says Stephens, "with the painter's masterpieces." Landseer was now thirty-six years old, famous and honored, a welcome guest at the palaces of royalty. In 1835 he had painted Dash, the favorite spaniel of the Duchess of Kent, the pet of whom Leslie speaks in his autobiography: "The Queen [Victoria], I am told, had studied her part very diligently, and she went through it extremely well. I don't know why, but the first sight of her in her robes brought tears into my eyes, and it had this effect upon many people; she looked almost like a child. She is very fond of dogs, and has one very favorite little spaniel, who is always on the lookout for her return when she has been from home. She had of course been separated from him on that day longer than usual, and when the state coach drove up to the steps of the palace, she heard him barking with joy in the hall, and exclaimed, 'There's Dash!' and was in a hurry to lay aside the sceptre and ball she carried in her hands, and take off the crown and robes, to go and wash little Dash." In 1839 Landseer painted a picture of the Queen, which she gave to Prince Albert; the next year, the Queen and the Duke of Wellington reviewing a body of troops; in 1842, "The Queen and Children;" the Princess Royal with her pony and dog; the Queen and the Princess Royal; "Windsor Castle in the Present Time;" Islay, the Queen's pet terrier; Sharp, her favorite; Princess Alice in a cradle, with the dog Dandie Dinmont; Alice with the greyhound Eos, belonging to Prince Albert, and later "Her Majesty the Queen in the Highlands," "Prince Albert at Balmoral," which was engraved for the Queen's book, "Leaves from a Diary in the Highlands;" Princess Beatrice on horseback, the Queen at Osborne, and the Queen on a white horse. Landseer was always a favorite with the royal family. In the last painful years of his life, when he suffered from overtaxed nerves, they were his devoted friends. He writes to his sister from Balmoral, June, 1867: "The Queen kindly commands me to get well here. She has to-day been twice to my room to show additions recently added to her already rich collection of photographs. Why, I know not, but since I have been in the Highlands I have for the first time felt wretchedly weak, without appetite. The easterly winds, and now again the unceasing cold rain, may possibly account for my condition, but I can't get out. Drawing tires me; however, I have done a little better to-day. The doctor residing in the castle has taken me in hand, and gives me leave to dine to-day with the Queen and the rest of the royal family.... Flogging would be mild compared to my sufferings. No sleep, fearful cramp at night, accompanied by a feeling of faintness and distressful feebleness." When Landseer was in good health, he was the most genial of companions. He was the intimate friend of Dickens, Thackeray, Browning, and other noted men. Leslie tells the following incident at a dinner party at the house of Sir Francis Chantrey, the sculptor. "Edwin Landseer, the best of mimics, gave a capital specimen of Chantrey's manner, and at Chantrey's own table. Dining at his house with a large party, after the cloth was removed from the beautifully polished table,--Chantrey's furniture was all beautiful,--Landseer's attention was called by him to the reflections, in the table, of the company, furniture, lamps, etc. 'Come and sit in my place and study perspective,' said our host, and went himself to the fire. As soon as Landseer was seated in Chantrey's chair, he turned round, and, imitating his voice and manner, said to him: 'Come, young man, you think yourself ornamental; now make yourself useful, and ring the bell.' Chantrey did as he was desired; the butler appeared, and was perfectly bewildered at hearing his master's voice, from the head of the table, order some claret, while he saw him standing before the fire." Some one urged Sydney Smith to sit to Landseer for his portrait. He is said to have replied in the words of the Syrian messenger to the prophet Elisha: "Is thy servant a _dog_, that he should do this great thing?" At another time Landseer was talking to Sydney Smith about the drama, and said: "With your love of humor, it must be an act of great self-denial to abstain from going to the theatres." The witty clergyman replied, "The managers are very polite; they send me free admissions which I can't use, and, in return, I send them free admissions to St. Paul's." Bewick, the artist, said: "Sir Edwin has a fine hand, a correct eye, refined perceptions, and can do almost anything but dance on the slack wire. He is a fine billiard-player, plays at chess, sings when with his intimate friends, and has considerable humor. "Landseer is sensitive, delicate, with a fine hand for manipulation,--up to all the _finesse_ of the art; has brushes of all peculiarities for all difficulties; turns his picture into all manner of situation and light; looks at it from between his legs,--and all with the strictly critical view of discovering hidden defects, falsities of drawing, or imperfections. See to what perfection he carries his perception of surface, hair, silk, wool, rock, grass, foliage, distance, fog, mist, smoke! how he paints the glazed or watery eye!" A writer in the _London Daily News_ says: "Sir Edwin's method of composition was remarkably like Scott's, except in the point of the early rising of the latter. Landseer went late to bed, and rose very late, coming down to breakfast at noon; but he had been composing perhaps for hours. Scott declared that the most fertile moments for resources, in invention especially, were those between sleeping and waking, or rather before opening the eyes from sleep, while the brain was wide awake. This, much prolonged, was Landseer's time for composing his pictures. His conception once complete, nothing could exceed the rapidity of his execution." In 1840, at the country house of Mr. William Wells, Landseer had his first violent illness associated with severe depression, to which attacks he was subject all the rest of his life. He went abroad for a time, travelling in France, Switzerland, and Austria, but he was constantly longing for his studio, where, he said, "his works were starving for him." "Coming events cast their shadows before them," sometimes called "The Challenge," a vigorous stag bellowing his defiance to hunters or other animals of his kind; "Shoeing," which has been engraved many times, the mare, Old Betty, belonging to his friend Mr. Jacob Bell; and "The Otter Speared," a huntsman surrounded by yelping dogs, while he uplifts a poor otter on his spear, were all exhibited in 1844, and won great praise. From Sir Edwin's sporting-scenes many persons gained the impression that he was a keen sportsman, which was not the case. Ewen Cameron, an old forest keeper of Glencoe, who for more than twenty-four years accompanied Landseer with the sketch-book and gun, tells how the highland gillies were annoyed when a magnificent stag came bounding toward them, and Sir Edwin hastily thrust his gun into their hands, saying, "Here! take! take this!" while he pulled out his book and began to sketch. They murmured greatly in Gaelic, but, says Cameron, "Sir Edwin must have had some Gaelic in him, for he was _that angry_ for the rest of the day, it made them very careful of speaking Gaelic in his hearing after." The companion pictures "Peace" and "War," painted in 1846--the former a beautiful scene on a cliff overlooking Dover harbor, the latter a ruined cottage with a dying horse and dead rider near the door--were sold to Mr. Vernon for seventy-five hundred dollars. The publishers of the engravings from these pictures paid Landseer fifteen thousand dollars for them. "The Stag at Bay," belonging to the Marquis of Breadalbane, one of Landseer's strongest pictures, appeared the same year. In 1848, "A Random Shot," one of the artist's most pathetic pictures, was painted. Stephens thus describes it: "It is a snow piece, the scene high on the mountain, whose most distant ridges rise above the mist. The snow lies smooth; and for miles, so far as the eye can penetrate the vapor, there is nothing but snow, which covers, but does not hide, the shapes of the hilltops. A few footprints show that a doe has come hither, attracted, doubtless, by her knowledge of a pool of unfrozen water which would assuage her thirst. Some careless shooter, firing into a herd of deer, had hit the doe, whose fawn was with her, and, mortally wounded, she came to die; the poor fawn had followed. There the victim fell; there the innocent one strove, long after the mothers form was cold, to obtain milk where an unfailing source had been. The mother has fallen on her side; the long limbs, that once went so swiftly, are useless, and the last breath of her nostrils has melted the snow, so that, stained with her blood, the water trickled downwards until it froze again." Monkhouse says, in his "Landseer Studies": "He painted dogs and deer as no man ever painted them before; he inspired one with a humor and both with a poetry beyond all parallel in art; he added to this a feeling for the grandeur and sublimity of nature, which gave to his pictures a charm and a sentiment which all can feel; he never painted anything false or ignoble, vulgar or unmanly; he won as an artist purely the affection and admiration of a whole people as scarcely any man, _not_ a poet, or a soldier, or a statesman, or a philosopher, has ever won them before.... "Landseer may be said to have mastered other animals, but the deer mastered him. He raised dogs almost to the scale of humanity, but deer raised him to a level of higher being. His love for the deer may not have been so deep, but it was more elevating, less self-regarding, and it ended at last in stimulating his imagination to produce pictures deeper in thought and more awful in sentiment than any attempted by an animal painter before." A writer in _Cornhill_ says: "Landseer's perceptions of character were remarkably acute. Not only did he know what was passing in the hearts of dogs, but he could read pretty closely into those of men and women also. The love of truth was an instinct with him; his common phrase about those he estimated highly was that 'they had the true ring.' This was most applicable to himself; there was no alloy in his metal; he was true to himself and to others. This was proved in many passages of his life, when nearly submerged by those disappointments and troubles which are more especially felt by sensitive organizations such as that which it was his fortune--or misfortune--to possess. "It was a pity that Landseer, who might have done so much for the good of the animal kind, never wrote on the subject of their treatment. He had a strong feeling against the way some dogs are tied up, only allowed their freedom now and then. He used to say a man would fare better tied up than a dog, because the former can take his coat off, but a dog lives in his forever. He declared a tied-up dog, without daily exercise, goes mad, or dies, in three years. "His wonderful power over dogs is well known. An illustrious lady asked him how it was that he gained his knowledge. 'By peeping into their hearts, ma'am,' was his answer. I remember once being wonderfully struck with the mesmeric attraction he possessed with them. A large party of his friends were with him at his house in St. John's Wood; his servant opened the door; three or four dogs rushed in, one a very fierce-looking mastiff. The ladies recoiled, but there was no fear; the creature bounded up to Landseer, treated him like an old friend, with most expansive demonstrations of delight. Some one remarking 'how fond the dog seemed of him,' he said, 'I never saw it before in my life.' "Would that horse-trainers could have learned from him how horses could be broken in or trained more easily by kindness than by cruelty. Once when visiting him he came in from his meadow looking somewhat dishevelled and tired. 'What have you been doing?' we asked him. 'Only teaching some horses tricks for Astley's, and here is my whip,' he said, showing us a piece of sugar in his hand. He said that breaking in horses meant more often breaking their hearts, and robbing them of all their spirit...." In 1850, the "Dialogue of Waterloo" was produced, with the Duke of Wellington and his daughter-in-law, the Marchioness Douro, on the battlefield. It is said that eighteen thousand dollars were paid for the copyright of this painting. This year, Landseer was made a knight, at the age of forty-eight. The next year, 1851, he painted the well-known "Monarch of the Glen." "The Midsummer Night's Dream" of the same year, painted for the great engineer, Isambard K. Brunel, who ordered a series of Shakespearian subjects from different artists, at four hundred guineas each, was afterwards sold to Earl Brownlow for fourteen thousand dollars. In 1857, in "Scene in Brae-mar--Highland Deer," we have, says Stephens, "the grandest stag which came from his hands. This was sold in 1868 for four thousand guineas." "The Maid and the Magpie," painted for Jacob Bell, and by him presented to the nation, appeared in 1858. The pretty girl is about to milk a cow, but turns to listen to her lover, when a magpie steals a silver spoon from one of the wooden shoes at her side. In connection with this picture, M. F. Sweetser tells this incident: "Sir Edwin once painted a picture for Jacob Bell for one hundred guineas, which the latter soon afterwards sold for two thousand guineas. Placing the latter amount in Landseer's bank, Mr. Bell narrated the circumstance, suppressing both his own name and that of the purchaser, and adding that the seller would not keep the money, but wanted another picture painted for it. The master was so charmed with this generous act that he said, 'Well, he shall have a good one.' And afterwards, pressing Bell to tell him who his benefactor was, the latter exclaimed, in the words of Nathan, the Israelite: 'I am the man.' The picture which resulted was 'The Maid and the Magpie.'" In 1860, "Flood in the Highlands," called by Stephens "probably the strongest of all his pictures," was painted. He was now fifty-eight. "I remember him," says Stephens, "during the painting of this picture, on the Tuesday before it was sent to the Academy,--putting a few touches on the canvas. He looked as if about to become old, although his age by no means justified the notion; it was not that he had lost activity or energy, or that his form had shrunk, for he moved as firmly and swiftly as ever,--indeed he was rather demonstrative, stepping on and off the platform in his studio with needless display,--and his form was stout and well filled. "Nevertheless, without seeming to be overworked, he did not look robust, and he had a nervous way remarkable in so distinguished a man, one who was usually by no means unconscious of himself, and yet, to those he liked, full of kindness. The wide green shade which he wore above his eyes projected straight from his forehead, and cast a large shadow on his plump, somewhat livid features, and, in the shadow, one saw that his eyes had suffered. The gray 'Tweed' suit, and its sober trim, a little emphatically 'quiet,' marked the man; so did his stout, not fat nor robust, figure; rapid movements, and utterances that glistened with prompt remarks, sharp, concise, with quiet humor, but not seeking occasions for wit, and imbued throughout with a perfect frankness, distinguished the man." In 1864, "Man proposes, God disposes," was painted, an Arctic incident suggested by the finding of the relics of Sir John Franklin. The purchaser of this picture, Sweetser says, paid Landseer twenty-five hundred pounds for it. In 1865, "The Connoisseurs" was painted, and presented by Sir Edwin to the Prince of Wales. It represents two dogs looking over the shoulders of the artist, while he makes a drawing. Monkhouse says: "The man behind his work was seen through it,--sensitive, variously gifted, manly, genial, tender-hearted, simple, and unaffected, a lover of animals and children and humanity; and if any one wishes to see at a glance nearly all we have written, let him look at his own portrait, painted by himself, with a canine connoisseur on either side." "Lady Godiva's Prayer," painted in 1866, was sold in 1874 for £3360, or nearly seventeen thousand dollars. This year, Sir Edwin first appeared as a sculptor, in a vigorous model of a "Stag at Bay." In 1867 his bronze Lions were placed at the base of the Nelson monument in Trafalgar Square, thus associating two great names. The government had commissioned him to execute this work eight years before, in 1859, but sickness and other matters had prevented. That this commission was a care to him, is shown by a letter to a friend: "I have got trouble enough; ten or twelve pictures about which I am tortured, and a large national monument to complete.... If I am bothered about anything and everything, no matter what, I know my head will not stand it much longer." Again he writes: "My health (or rather condition) is a mystery beyond human intelligence. I sleep well seven hours, and awake tired and jaded, and do not rally till after luncheon. J. L. came down yesterday and did her best to cheer me.... I return to my own home in spite of a kind invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone to meet Princess Louise at breakfast." "The Swannery invaded by Sea-Eagles" was one of Landseer's most notable later works. "The Sick Monkey," painted in 1870, was purchased by Thomas Baring for three thousand guineas, and bequeathed to Lord Northbrook, the Viceroy of India. When Sir Charles Eastlake died, the presidency of the Royal Academy was urged upon Landseer, but he declined. He had become wealthy through his painting, his property amounting to about one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which he left mostly to his brothers and sisters. Sir Edwin's life was now drawing to its close. Miss Mackey says, in _Cornhill_, concerning his last long illness: "Was ever any one more tenderly nursed and cared for? Those who had loved him in his bright wealth of life now watched the long days one by one telling away its treasure. He was very weak in body latterly, but sometimes he used to go into the garden and walk round the paths, leaning on his sister's arm. One beautiful spring morning, he looked up and said: 'I shall never see the green leaves again;' but he did see them, Mrs. Mackenzie, his sister, said. He lived through another spring. He used to lie in his studio, where he would have liked to die. To the very end he did not give up his work; but he used to go on, painting a little at a time, faithful to his task. "When he was almost at his worst, so some one told me, they gave him his easel and his canvas, and left him alone in the studio, in the hope that he might take up his work and forget his suffering. When they came back, they found that he had painted the picture of a little lamb lying beside a lion. This and 'The Font' were the last pictures ever painted by that faithful hand. "'The Font' is an allegory of all creeds and all created things coming together into the light of truth. The Queen is the owner of 'The Font.' She wrote to her old friend and expressed her admiration for it, and asked to become the possessor. Her help and sympathy brightened the sadness of those last days for him. It is well known that he appealed to her once, when haunted by some painful apprehensions, and that her wise and judicious kindness came to the help of his nurses. She sent him back a message, bade him not be afraid, and to trust to those who were doing their best for him, and in whom she herself had every confidence.... "He wished to die in his studio, his dear studio, for which he used to long when he was away, and where he lay so long expecting the end; but it was in his own room that he slept away. His brother was with him. His old friend came into the room. He knew him and pressed his hand." Landseer died on the morning of October 1, 1873, and was buried October 11, with distinguished honors, in St. Paul's Cathedral. TURNER. "Turner was unquestionably, in his best time, the greatest master of water color who had ever lived. He may have been excelled since then in some special departments of the art, in some craft of execution, or in the knowledge of some particular thing in nature; but no one has ever deserved such generally high rank as Turner in the art of water-color painting. His superiority even goes so far that the art, in his hands, is like another art, a fresh discovery of his own. [Illustration: TURNER.] "The color, in his most delicate work, hardly seems to be laid on the paper by any means known to us, but suggests the idea of a vaporous deposit, and besides the indescribable excellence of those parts of Turner's water-colors which do not look as if they were painted at all, there is excellence of another kind in those parts which exhibit dexterities of execution. Nor is the strange perfection of his painting in water color limited to landscape; his studies of still life, birds and their plumage, bits of interiors at Petworth, etc., are evidence enough that, had he chosen to paint objects rather than effects, he might have been as wonderful an object painter as William Hunt was, though in a different and more elevated manner." Thus writes Philip Gilbert Hamerton. Turner was born April 23, 1775, in Maiden Lane, London, over a barber shop, in which his father, William Turner, lived and worked. The latter was an economical, good-natured, uneducated man, who taught his boy to be honest and saving. The mother, Mary Turner, belonged to a family of Marshalls or Mallords near Nottingham, superior in position to the family of William Turner. She had an ungovernable temper, and is said to have led the barber "a sad life." Later, she became insane, and was sent to an asylum. The boy William very early began to show his skill in drawing. In his first school at New Brentford, when he was ten years old, his birds, flowers, and trees on the walls of the room attracted attention, so that his schoolmates often did his work in mathematics for him while he made sketches. His father had intended him to be a barber, but, perceiving the lad's talent, encouraged him, hung his drawings in his shop windows, and sold them for a few pence or shillings each. At twelve years of age, William was sent to "Mr. Palice, a floral drawing-master" in Soho; at thirteen, to a Mr. Coleman at Margate, where he loved and studied the sea; and at fourteen, to the Royal Academy. Meanwhile, he earned money by coloring prints, making backgrounds and skies for architects' plans, and copying pictures for Dr. Munro, who lived in one of the palaces on the Strand. This physician owned many Rembrandts and Gainsboroughs, with sketches by Claude, Titian, Vandevelde, and others. This house proved a valuable place for study to the barber's son, who considered himself fortunate to receive half a crown and a supper for each evening's work. When pitied by some one in later life, because of the hard work of his boyhood, he said, "Well! And what could be better practice?" In 1792, when he was seventeen, he received a commission from Mr. J. Walker, an engraver, to make drawings for his _Copperplate Magazine_, and soon after from Mr. Harrison for his _Pocket Magazine_. To make these sketches, the youth travelled through Wales, on a pony lent him by a friend, and on foot, with his baggage in his handkerchief tied to the end of a stick, through Nottingham, Cambridge, Lincoln, Peterborough, Windsor, Ely, the Isle of Wight, and elsewhere. "The result of these tours," says W. Cosmo Monkhouse, "may be said to have been the perfection of his technical skill, the partial displacement of traditional notions of composition, and the storing of his memory with infinite effects of nature." His first water color at the Royal Academy Exhibition was a picture of Lambeth Palace, when he was fifteen, and his first oil painting at the exhibition, according to Redgrave, the "Rising Squall, Hot Wells," when he was eighteen. Hamerton thinks "Moonlight," a study in Milbank, was his first exhibited work in oil. "The picture," he says, "shows not the least trace of genius, yet it has always been rather a favorite with me for its truth to nature in one thing. All the ordinary manufacturers of moonlights--and moonlights have been manufactured in deplorably large quantities for the market--represent the light of our satellite as a blue and cold light; whereas in nature, especially in the southern summer, it is often pleasantly rich and warm. Turner did not follow the usual receipt, but had the courage to make his moonlight warm, though he had not as yet the skill to express the ineffably mellow softness of the real warm moonlights in nature." At twenty-one, Turner hired a house in Hand Court, and began to teach drawing in London and elsewhere at ten shillings a lesson. But he soon grew impatient of his fashionable pupils, and the teaching was abandoned. At twenty-two, he journeyed into the counties of Yorkshire and Kent, and soon produced "Morning on the Coniston Fells," in 1798; "Cattle in Water; Buttermere Lake," 1798; and "Norham Castle on the Tweed." Twenty years afterward, as he was passing Norham Castle, with Cadell, an Edinburgh publisher, he took off his hat to the castle. Cadell expressed surprise. "Oh," said Turner, "I made a drawing or painting of Norham several years ago. It took; and from that day to this I have had as much to do as my hands could execute." In Yorkshire, the rising young artist, natural and genial in manner, though small and somewhat plain in person, made many warm friends. He was often a guest at Farnley Hall, owned by Mr. Hawkesworth Fawkes, who afterward adorned his home with fifty thousand dollars' worth of Turner's pictures. Mr. Fawkes's son speaks of "the fun, frolic, and shooting we enjoyed together, and which, whatever may be said by others of his temper and disposition, have proved to me that he was, in his hours of distraction from his professional labors, as kindly-hearted a man, and as capable of enjoyment and fun of all kinds, as any I ever knew." Mrs. Wheeler, a friend in these early years, says: "Of all the light-hearted, merry creatures I ever knew, Turner was the most so; and the laughter and fun that abounded when he was an inmate of our cottage was inconceivable, particularly with the juvenile members of the family." Somewhere between the ages of nineteen and twenty-three, a sorrow came which seemed completely to change Turner's nature. While at the Margate school, he had fallen in love with the sister of a schoolmate; the love had been reciprocated, and an engagement followed a few years later. During a long absence in his art work, their letters were intercepted by the young lady's stepmother, who finally prevailed upon her to become engaged to another. A week before the wedding, Turner arrived at Margate, and besought her to marry him; but his betrothed considered herself in honor bound to the new lover. The marriage proved a most unhappy one, and Turner remained a disappointed and solitary man through life. His art now became his one absorbing thought; he worked early and late, often rising for work at four o'clock in the morning, saying sadly that there were "no holidays for him." In 1799, when he was twenty-four, he was made an associate of the Royal Academy, and a full academician in 1802. Hamerton says: "His election is the more remarkable, that he had done nothing whatever to bring it about, except his fair hard work in his profession. He was absolutely incapable of social courtiership in any of its disguises. He gave no dinners, he paid no calls, he did nothing to make the academicians believe that he would be a credit to their order in any social sense. Even after his election, he would not go to thank his electors, in obedience to the established usage. 'If they had not been satisfied with my pictures,' he said to Stothard, 'they would not have elected me. Why, then, should I thank them? Why thank a man for performing a simple duty?' His views on the subject were clearly wrong, for the rules of good manners very frequently require us to thank people for performing simple duties, and the academicians were not under any obligation to elect the young painter so soon; but how completely Turner's conduct in this matter proves that he can only have been elected on his merits!... "His elevation to the full membership was of immense value to him in his career, and he knew this so well that he remained deeply attached to the Academy all his life. He was associate or member of it for a full half-century, and during fifty years was only three times absent from its exhibitions." This year, 1802, he removed to 64 Harley Street, taking his plain old father home to live with him. He took his first tour on the Continent, this year, making studies of Mont Blanc, the Swiss lakes and mountain passes. The exhibitions of 1803 to 1806 contained, among other pictures, "The Vintage at Macon," the celebrated "Calais Pier" in a gale; "The Source of the Arveiron," "Narcissus and Echo," "Edinburgh from Calton Hill;" his famous "Shipwreck," now in the National Gallery; and the magnificent "Goddess of Discord choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of Hesperides," also in the National Gallery. In 1807, Turner began, at the suggestion of his friend, Mr. W. F. Wells, the _Liber Studiorum_, issued in dark blue covers, each containing five plates, the whole series of one hundred plates to be divided into historical, landscape, pastoral, mountainous, marine, and architectural. The work was intended as a rival to Claude Lorraine's _Liber Veritatis_. After seventy plates had been published, the project came to an end in 1816, because of disagreement with engravers, and lack of patronage. The principal pictures were "Æsacus and Hesperia," "Jason," "Procris and Cephalus," the "Fifth and Tenth Plagues of Egypt," "Christ and the Woman of Samaria," "Rizpah," "Raglan Castle," the "River Wye," "Solway Moss," "Inverary," the "Yorkshire Coast," "Mer de Glace," the "Lake of Thun," "St. Gothard Pass," the "Alps from Grenoble," "Dunstanborough Castle," and others. "So hopeless and worthless did the enterprise seem, at one time," says M. F. Sweetser, "that Charles Turner, the engraver, used the proofs and trials of effect as kindling paper. Many years later, Colnaghi, the great print-dealer, caused him to hunt up the remaining proofs in his possession, and gave him fifteen hundred pounds for them. 'Good God!' cried the old engraver, 'I have been burning bank-notes all my life.'... In later days three thousand pounds had been paid for a single copy of the _Liber_." "The most obvious intention of the work," says Monkhouse, "was to show Turner's own power, and there never was, and perhaps never will be again, such an exhibition of genius in the same direction. No rhetoric can say for it as much as it says for itself in those ninety plates, twenty of which were never published. If he did not exhaust art or nature, he may be fairly said to have exhausted all that was then known of landscape art, and to have gone further than any one else in the interpretation of nature.... "Amongst his more obvious claims to the first place among landscape artists are his power of rendering atmospherical effects, and the structure and growth of things. He not only knew how a tree looked, but he showed how it grew. Others may have drawn foliage with more habitual fidelity, but none ever drew trunks and branches with such knowledge of their inner life.... Others have drawn the appearance of clouds, but Turner knew how they formed. Others have drawn rocks, but he could give their structure, consistency, and quality of surface, with a few deft lines and a wash; others could hide things in a mist, but he could reveal things through mist. Others could make something like a rainbow, but he, almost alone, and without color, could show it standing out, a bow of light arrested by vapor in mid-air, not flat upon a mountain, or printed on a cloud.... If we seek the books from which his imagination took fire, we have the Bible and Ovid; the first of small, the latter of great and almost solitary power. Jason, daring the huge glittering serpent; Syrinx, fleeing from Pan; Cephalus and Procris; Æsacus and Hesperia; Glaucus and Scylla; Narcissus and Echo. If we want to know the artists he most admired and imitated, or the places to which he had been, we shall find easily nearly all the former, and sufficient of the latter to show the wide range of his travel. In a word, one who has carefully studied the _Liber_ has indeed little to learn of the range and power of Turner's art and mind, except his color and his fatalism." In 1808, Turner was appointed professor of perspective in the Royal Academy, which position he held for thirty years, though he rarely gave lectures to students, owing to his confused manner and obscurity in the use of language. Ruskin says: "The zealous care with which Turner endeavored to do his duty is proved by a large existing series of drawings, exquisitely tinted, and often completely colored, all by his own hand, of the most difficult perspective subjects; illustrating not only directions of line, but effects of light, with a care and completion which would put the work of any ordinary teacher to utter shame. In teaching generally, he would neither waste time nor spare it; he would look over a student's drawing at the Academy, point to a defective part, make a scratch on the paper at the side, say nothing. If the student saw what was wanted, and did it, Turner was delighted; but if the student could not follow, Turner left him." Turner this year moved to the Upper Mall, Hammersmith, where his garden extended to the Thames. In this he had a summer-house, where some of his best work was done. He still retained the Harley-Street house, and lived in it much the life of a recluse. Mr. Thornbury tells the following incident:-- "Two ladies called upon Turner while he lived in Harley Street. On sending in their names, after having ascertained that he was at home, they were politely requested to walk in, and were shown into a large sitting-room without a fire. This was in the depth of winter; and lying about in various places were several cats without tails. In a short time our talented friend made his appearance, asking the ladies if they felt cold. The youngest replied in the negative; her companion, more curious, wished she had stated otherwise, as she hoped they might have been shown into his sanctum or studio. After a little conversation he offered them wine and biscuits, which they partook of for the novelty, such an event being almost unprecedented in his house. One of the ladies bestowing some notice upon the cats, he was induced to remark that he had seven, and that they came from the Isle of Man." Turner was fond of his pet cats, and would let no harm come to them. After he had moved, in 1812, to 47 Queen-Anne Street, one of his favorite pictures, "Bligh Shore" was used as a covering for a window. A cat desiring to enter the window scratched the picture severely, and was about to be punished for the offence, by Mrs. Danby, the housekeeper, when Turner said, "Never mind," and saved the cat from the whipping. At his house in Twickenham, which he bought and rebuilt in 1813 or 1814, calling it Solus Lodge on account of his desire to be alone, and afterwards Sandycomb Lodge, the boys named him "Blackbirdy," because he protected the blackbirds in the adjacent trees, not allowing their nests to be robbed. Turner sold this place after having owned it about twelve years, because his aged father, whom he always called "Dad," was always working in the garden and catching cold. The eccentric artist must have been at this time quite rich, as well as famous. He had painted "The Sun rising in Mist," in 1807; the well-known "Wreck of the Minotaur," in 1810; "Apollo killing the Python," in 1811; "Hannibal and his Army crossing the Alps in a Snowstorm," in 1812; and "Crossing the Brook," and "Dido building Carthage," in 1815. "The first ('Crossing the Brook')," says Monkhouse, "is the purest and most beautiful of all his oil pictures of the loveliness of English scenery, the most simple in its motive, the most tranquil in its sentiment, the perfect expression of his enjoyment of the exquisite scenery in the neighborhood of Plymouth. The latter ('Dido building Carthage'), with all its faults, was the finest of the kind he ever painted, and his greatest effect in the way of color before his visit to Italy." It is said that "Crossing the Brook" was painted for a gentleman who ordered it with the promise of paying twenty-five hundred dollars for it, but was disappointed in it when finished, and refused to take it. Turner was afterwards offered eight thousand dollars for it, but would not sell it. In 1815, the artist, now forty years old, was again disappointed in love. He wrote to one of his best friends, Rev. H. Scott Trimmer, vicar of Heston, concerning his sister, Miss Trimmer: "If she would but waive her bashfulness, or, in other words, make an offer instead of expecting one, the same (Sandycomb Lodge) might change occupiers." But Miss Trimmer had, at this time, another suitor, whom she married, and Turner never again attempted to win a wife. In 1817, "The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire" was exhibited, a companion piece to the Building of Carthage. Years later, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Hardinge, and others, offered twenty-five thousand dollars to Turner for the two pictures, intending to present them to the National Gallery. "It's a noble offer," said the painter, "but I have willed them." He had already made his will, privately, giving these and other pictures to the nation. The artist is said to have once remarked to his friend Chantrey, the sculptor: "Will you promise to see me rolled up in the 'Carthage' at my burial?" "Yes," was the reply; "and I promise you also that, as soon as you are buried, I will see that you are taken up and unrolled." In 1819, Turner made his first visit to Italy, after which his works became remarkable for their color. In 1823, says Monkhouse, "he astonished the world with the first of those magnificent dreams of landscape loveliness with which his name will always be specially associated: 'The Bay of Baiæ, with Apollo and the Sibyl.'" The "Rivers of England" was published in 1826, with sixteen engravings after Turner's designs. Monkhouse says: "For perfect balance of power, for the mirroring of nature as it appears to ninety-nine out of every hundred, for fidelity of color to both sky and earth, and form (especially of trees), for carefulness and accuracy of drawing, for work that neither startles you by its eccentricity nor puzzles you as to its meaning, which satisfies without cloying, and leaves no doubt as to the truth of its illusion, there is none to compare with these drawings of his of England after his first visit to Italy." During this year, 1826, among other pictures, Turner exhibited his "Cologne--the Arrival of a Packet-boat--Evening." "There were," says Hamerton, "such unity and serenity in the work, and such a glow of light and color, that it seemed like a window opened upon the land of the ideal, where the harmonies of things are more perfect than they have ever been in the common world." The picture was hung between two of Sir Thomas Lawrence's portraits, the golden color of the "Cologne" dulling their effect. Turner at once covered his picture with lampblack, thereby spoiling it for the public view. When reproached by the critics, he said: "Poor Lawrence was so unhappy. It will all wash off after the Exhibition." "Was there ever," says Hamerton, "a more exquisitely beautiful instance of self-sacrifice?" The "Cologne" was sold, in 1854, to Mr. John Naylor, for two thousand guineas. Turner made designs for twenty illustrations in Rogers's poem of "Italy," for which, it is asserted, he would accept but five guineas each, as the execution of the work pleased him so well; thirteen illustrations for "The Provincial Antiquities of Scotland," for which Sir Walter Scott wrote the letter-press; and twenty-six pictures for Finden's "Illustrations of the Bible." Turner generally received from twenty to one hundred guineas for each drawing used, which was returned to him that he might sell it, if he so desired. In 1827 the first part of his largest series of prints was published: "England and Wales." The work was discontinued twelve years later, because it was not a pecuniary success. Bohn offered twenty-eight hundred pounds for the copper plates and stock, but Turner himself bid them in, at the auction, for three thousand pounds, saying to Bohn: "So, sir, you were going to buy my 'England and Wales' to sell cheap, I suppose--make umbrella prints of them, eh? But I have taken care of that." He disliked steel engravings, or any plan to cheapen or popularize art. He once told Sir Thomas Lawrence that he "didn't choose to be a basket engraver." Being asked what he meant, he replied: "When I got off the coach t'other day at Hastings, a woman came up with a basketful of your 'Mrs. Peel,' and wanted to sell me one for a sixpence." The painter's hard-working life, with little comfort save what fame brings to a man who eagerly seeks it, received its greatest shock in the death of the aged father, in 1830. Turner said, "The loss was like that of an only child." His friends the Trimmers said, "He never appeared the same man after his father's death." The plain barber had lived with his son for thirty years, and had seen him gain wealth and renown. He could do little save to encourage with his affection and be proud and grateful for the painter's success. And this was enough. He was buried in St. Paul's, Covent Garden, the artist writing this inscription for his monument:-- IN THE VAULT BENEATH AND NEAR THIS PLACE ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS OF WILLIAM TURNER, MANY YEARS AN INHABITANT OF THIS PARISH, WHO DIED SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1830. TO HIS MEMORY AND OF HIS WIFE, MARY ANN, THEIR SON J. M. W. TURNER, R. A., HAS PLACED THIS TABLET, AUGUST, 1832. In 1832, Turner exhibited his memorable "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; Italy," in which he seemed to combine the mountains, the trees, the cities, and the skies he had loved in that beautiful country. From 1833 to 1835 he produced his exquisite series, "The Rivers of France." Ruskin says: "Of all foreign countries, Turner has most entirely entered into the spirit of France; partly because here he found more fellowship of scene with his own England; partly because an amount of thought which will miss of Italy or Switzerland will fathom France; partly because there is in the French foliage and forms of ground much that is especially congenial with his own peculiar choice of form.... He still remains the only, but in himself the sufficient, painter of French landscape." In 1833 Turner exhibited the first of his eleven remarkable Venetian pictures, one of the finest being, "The Sun of Venice going to Sea." "The characteristics which they have in common," says Hamerton, "are splendor of color and carelessness of form; the color being, in most instances, really founded upon the true Venetian color, but worked up to the utmost brilliance which the palette would allow, the forms simply sketched, exactly on the principles of the artist's own free sketching in water colors.... It is believed, and with probability, that he blocked out the picture almost entirely in pure white, with only some very pale tinting, just to mark the position of the objects, and that this white preparation was thick and loaded from the beginning. On this he afterwards painted thinly in oil or water-color, or both, so that the brilliance of the white shone through the color, and gave it that very luminous quality which it possesses. This is simply a return to the early Flemish practice of painting thinly on a light ground, with the difference, however, that Turner made a fresh ground of his own between the canvas and his bright colors, and that the modelling of the impasto with the brush was done in this thick white. The result was to unite the brilliance of water-color to the varied and rich surface of massive oil-painting." These pictures called forth much adverse criticism, but they soon had a Herculean defender in the "Oxford Undergraduate" of 1836, the Ruskin of "Modern Painters." In 1839, Turner exhibited "The fighting _Téméraire_ tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838." Thornbury tells how the subject was suggested to Turner. "In 1838, Turner was with Stanfield and a party of brother artists on one of those holiday excursions, in which he so delighted, probably to end with whitebait and champagne at Greenwich. It was at these times that Turner talked and joked his best, snatching, now and then, a moment to print on his quick brain some tone of sky, some gleam of water, some sprinkling light of oar, some glancing sunshine cross-barring a sail. Suddenly there moved down upon the artist's boat the grand old vessel that had been taken prisoner at the Nile and that led the van at Trafalgar. She loomed pale and ghostly, and was being towed to her last moorings at Deptford by a little fiery, puny steam-tug. "'There's a fine subject, Turner,' said Stanfield," and the suggestion was gladly acted upon. Hamerton says: "The picture is, both in sentiment and execution, one of the finest of the later works. The sky and water are both magnificent, and the shipping, though not treated with severe positive truth, is made to harmonize well with the rest, and not stuck _upon_ the canvas, as often happens in the works of bad marine painters. The sun sets in red, and the red, by the artist's craft, is made at the same time both decided in hue and luminous, always a great technical difficulty. Golden sunsets are easy in comparison, as every painter knows. This picture has more than once been associated by critics with the magnificent 'Ulysses deriding Polyphemus,' which was painted ten years earlier. Both are splendid in sky and water, and both are florid in color. Mr. Ruskin's opinion is that the period of Turner's central power, 'entirely developed and entirely unabated, begins with the Ulysses, and closes with the _Téméraire_.' "This decade had been a time of immense industry for Turner. In that space he had made more than four hundred drawings for the engraver, had exhibited more than fifty pictures in the Royal Academy, and had executed, besides, some thousands of sketches, and probably many private commissions which cannot easily be ascertained." One reason of his aversion to society was his desire to save time for this great amount of work. The _Téméraire_, though sought by several persons, the artist refused to sell at any price, and bequeathed it to the nation. From 1840 to 1845, Turner painted a few pictures of great power. The "Slave Ship, slavers throwing overboard the dead and dying, typhoon coming on," was exhibited in 1840. It became the property of Mr. Ruskin, who sold it, and it is now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It represents a sunset on the Atlantic after a storm. It is gorgeous in color, and is regarded by many as the grandest sea which Turner ever painted. The "Snowstorm," in 1842, was harshly criticised, and called "soapsuds and whitewash." The picture represents a steamer off a harbor in a storm, making signals. Ruskin says: "Turner was passing the evening at my father's house, on the day this criticism came out; and after dinner, sitting in his armchair, I heard him muttering low to himself at intervals, 'Soapsuds and whitewash!' again, and again, and again. At last I went to him, asking 'why he minded what they said.' Then he burst out: 'Soapsuds and whitewash! what would they have? I wonder what they think the sea's like? I wish they'd been in it!'" Turner had been in the storm, and knew that he had painted truthfully. One night, when the Ariel left Harwich, he "got the sailors to lash him to the mast, to observe the storm," and remained there four hours, not expecting to survive it. "Peace--Burial at Sea," now in the National Gallery, was exhibited also in 1842. It was painted to commemorate the funeral of Sir David Wilkie, the Scottish artist, which had taken place in June, 1841, off Gibraltar, some distance from shore. Whilst the picture was on the easel, Stanfield entered Turner's studio and said, "You're painting the sails very black," to which the artist made answer, "If I could find anything blacker than black, I'd use it." The deaths of Chantrey, in 1841, and of Callcott, in 1844, deeply affected Turner. "In the death-chamber of the former," says George Jones, "he wrung my hands, tears streaming from his eyes, and then rushed from the house without uttering a word." When William Frederick Wells, the artist, died a few years previously, Turner went to the house, sobbing like a child, and saying to the daughter, "O Clara, Clara! these are iron tears. I have lost the best friend I ever had in my life." In 1843, he took his last journey to the Continent, making many sketches about Lake Lucerne, which was very dear to him. From 1847 to 1849, he paid several visits to the photographic artist Mayall, calling himself a master in chancery, as he did not wish to be recognized. He was deeply interested in the progress of photography. When Mayall was in pecuniary trouble in consequence of a lawsuit about patent rights, Turner, unasked, brought him fifteen hundred dollars, telling him to repay it sometime if he could. He gladly accepted the loan and paid it. After nearly two years, Turner found that his personality had become known, and could never be induced to visit the place again. In 1850, he sent his last pictures to the Academy: "Æneas relating his Story to Dido," "Mercury sent to admonish Æneas," "The Departure of the Trojan Fleet," and "The Visit to the Tomb." He was now seventy-five years old. In 1851, he exhibited no pictures, and ceased to attend the Academy meetings, which had always given him so much pleasure. David Roberts, the artist, wrote him, and begged to be allowed to see him. Two weeks later, Turner called at the studio. "I tried to cheer him up," says Roberts, "but he laid his hand upon his heart and replied, 'No, no; there is something here which is all wrong.' As he stood by the table in my painting-room, I could not help looking attentively at him, peering in his face, for the small eye (blue) was brilliant as that of a child, and unlike the glazed and 'lack-lustre eye' of age. This was my last look." For several months, the aged artist was absent from his home in Queen-Anne Street. Finally, Hannah Danby, who had been his housekeeper for fifty years, and was said to have been his mistress, found a letter in the pocket of an old coat, which led her to believe he was in Chelsea. She and a relative sought him, and found him, December 18, 1851, very ill, in a small plain cottage on the banks of the Thames, owned by Sophia Caroline Booth. He was called "Admiral Booth" by her neighbors, who thought him an admiral in reduced circumstances. He died the day after his friends found him. An hour before his death, he was wheeled to the window to look out upon the Thames, and bathe in the sunshine which he so dearly loved. "So died," says Monkhouse, "the great solitary genius, Turner, the first of all men to endeavor to paint the full power of the sun, the greatest imagination that ever sought expression in landscape, the greatest pictorial interpreter of the elemental forces of nature that ever lived.... Sunlight was his discovery; he had found its presence in shadow; he had studied its complicated reflections before he commenced to work in color. From monochrome he had adopted the low scale of the old masters, but into it he carried his light; the brown clouds, and shadows and mists, had the sun behind them, as it were, in veiled splendor. Then it came out and flooded his drawings and his canvases with a glory unseen before in art. But he must go on, refine upon this; having eclipsed all others, he must now eclipse himself. His gold must turn to yellow, and yellow almost into white, before his genius could be satisfied with its efforts to express pure sunlight." Turner was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, between the tombs of Sir Joshua Reynolds and James Barry, the service being read by Dean Milman. By his will, he left all his pictures and drawings to the nation, to be preserved in a "Turner Gallery," specifying that "The Sun Rising in Mist" and "Dido building Carthage" should be hung between the two pictures painted by Claude, the "Seaport" and "Mill." During his life he is said to have refused two offers of five hundred thousand dollars for the pictures in his Queen-Anne Street house. He left one hundred thousand dollars to the Royal Academy, five thousand dollars for a monument to himself in St. Paul's, a few small bequests for relatives, money for a medal to be given for the best landscape exhibited at the Academy every two or three years, and the remainder of a large fortune for the maintenance of "poor and decayed male artists being born in England and of English parents only, and lawful issue;" the latter gift to be known as "Turner's Gift." The will was contested by relatives, and, after four years of litigation, the testator's intention to provide for aged artists was disregarded, and the property given to the "nearest of kin." Such instances are teaching our great men to carry out their benevolent wishes in _their lifetime_. Though Turner had great faults,--it is stated that he drank to excess in later years,--he had great virtues. Though parsimonious with himself, he was generous to others. Ruskin tells these incidents: "There was a painter of the name of Bird, and when Bird first sent a picture to the Academy for exhibition, Turner was on the hanging committee. Bird's picture had great merit; but no place for it could be found. Turner pleaded hard for it. No, the thing was impossible. Turner sat down and looked at Bird's picture a long time; then insisted that a place must be found for it. He was still met by the assertion of impracticability. He said no more, but took down one of his own pictures, sent it to the Academy, and hung Bird's in its place.... At the death of a poor drawing-master, Mr. Wells, whom Turner had long known, he was deeply affected, and lent money to the widow until a large sum had accumulated. She was both honest and grateful, and, after a long period, was happy enough to be able to return to her benefactor the whole sum she had received from him. She waited on him with it; but Turner kept his hands in his pocket. 'Keep it,' he said, 'and send your children to school and to church.' He said this in bitterness; he had himself been sent to neither." Once, after sending an importunate beggar from his house, he relented, ran after her, and gave her a five-pound note. Says Thornbury: "An early patron of Turner, when he was a mere industrious barber's son, working at three-shilling drawings in his murky bedroom, had seen some of them in a window in the Haymarket, and had bought them. From that time he had gone on buying and being kind to the rising artist, and Turner could not forget it. Years after, he heard that his old benefactor had become involved, and that his steward had received directions to cut down some valued trees. Instantly Turner's generous impulses were roused; his usual parsimony (all directed to one great object) was cast behind him. He at once wrote to the steward, concealing his name, and sent him the full amount; many, many thousands--as much as twenty thousand pounds, I believe. "The gentleman never knew who was his benefactor; but, in time, his affairs rallied, and he was enabled to pay the whole sum back. Years again rolled on, and now the son of Turner's benefactor became involved. Again the birds of the air brought the news to the guardian angel of the family; again he sent the necessary thousands anonymously; again the son stopped the leak, righted himself, and returned the whole sum with thanks." Ruskin says: "He had a heart as intensely kind and as nobly true as God ever gave to one of his creatures.... Having known Turner for ten years, and that during the period of his life when the highest qualities of his mind were in many respects diminished, and when he was suffering most from the evil speaking of the world, I never heard him say one depreciating word of living man or man's work. I never saw him look an unkind or blameful look. I never saw him let pass, without some sorrowful remonstrance or endeavor at mitigation, a blameful word spoken by another. Of no man but Turner whom I have ever known could I say this; and of this kindness and truth came, I repeat, all his highest power; and all his failure and error, deep and strange, came of his _faithlessness_." Probably Mr. Ruskin means lack of religious faith, as Mr. Thornbury says Turner feared that he would be annihilated. Turner was a most pains-taking worker. "Every quarter of an inch of Turner's drawings," says Ruskin, "will bear magnifying; and much of the finer work in them can hardly be traced, except by the keenest sight, until it is magnified. In his painting of 'Ivy Bridge,' the veins are drawn on the wing of a butterfly not three lines in diameter; and I have one of his smaller drawings of 'Scarborough' in my own possession, in which the muscle shells on the beach are rounded, and some shown as shut, some as open, though none are as large as the letters of this type: and yet this is the man who was thought to belong to the 'dashing' school, literally because most people had not patience or delicacy of sight enough to trace his endless details." He loved poetry, and sometimes attempted to write it. He was seldom true to nature in his work. Hamerton says: "With an immense and unwearied industry, Turner accumulated thousands and thousands of memoranda to increase his knowledge of what interested him, especially in the mountains, rivers, and cities of the Continent, and the coasts of his native island. Amidst all this wealth of gathered treasure, his imagination reigned and revelled with a poet's freedom. With a knowledge of landscape vaster than any mortal ever possessed before him, his whole existence was a succession of dreams. Even the hardest realities of the external world itself, granite and glacier, could not awaken him; but he would sit down before them and sketch another dream, there, in the very presence of the reality itself. Notwithstanding all the knowledge and all the observation which they prove, the interest of Turner's twenty thousand sketches is neither topographic nor scientific, but entirely psychological. It is the soul of Turner that fascinates the student, and not the material earth." With little education from the schools, without distinguished ancestry, in the midst of many disappointments and much censure, Turner came to great renown. He had talent, but he had also untiring industry and unlimited perseverance. NEW BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 1 JED. A Boy's Adventures in the Army of '61-'65. A story of battle and prison, of peril and escape. By WARREN LEE GOSS, author of "The Soldier's Story of his Captivity at Andersonville and other Prisons," "The Recollections of a Private" (in the Century War Series). Fully illustrated. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50. In this story the author has aimed to furnish true pictures of scenes in the great Civil War, and not to produce sensational effects. The incidents of the book are real ones, drawn in part from the writer's personal experiences and observations as a soldier of the Union, during that war. The descriptions of the prison are especially truthful, for in them the author briefly tells what he himself saw. One of the best war stories ever written. Boys will read it with avidity. 2 THE WALKS ABROAD OF TWO YOUNG NATURALISTS. From the French of Charles Beaugrand. By DAVID SHARP, M.B., F.L.S., F.Z.S., President of the Entomological Society of London. Fully illustrated. 8vo. $2.00. A fascinating narrative of travel and adventure, in which is introduced much valuable information on natural history subjects, and a reading of the book will tend to foster an interest in zoölogy. 3 FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE. By SARAH K. BOLTON, author of "Poor Boys who became Famous," etc, Short biographical sketches of Galileo, Newton, Linnæus, Cuvier, Humboldt, Audubon, Agassiz, Darwin, Buckland, and others. Illustrated with 15 portraits. 12mo. $1.50. 4 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Pictures of the Reign of Terror. By LYDIA HOYT FARMER, author of "Boys' Book of Famous Rulers," etc. With 35 illustrations. 12mo. $1.50. To those who have not the leisure to make an exhaustive study of this remarkable epoch in the world's history, this volume offers a rapid and clear _résumé_ of its most important events and thrilling scenes. 5 ROLF AND HIS FRIENDS. By J A K, author of "Birchwood," "Fitch Club," etc. Illustrated, 12mo. $1.25. A healthful, stimulating story, showing the advantage that every boy must necessarily gain from association with intelligent, progressive young people, no matter what their color or condition in life may be. The incidents are fresh and natural, the conversations bright and piquant, and the interest well sustained, while incidentally there is a valuable leaven of information. 6 CECIL'S KNIGHT. By E. B. HOLLIS, author of "Cecil's Cousins," etc. A story of no impossible knight, but of a very real, natural, and manly boy, who, through perseverance, good sense, and genuine courage, fought his way from poverty to success. Illustrated, 12mo. $1.25. "We recommend 'Cecil's Knight' as an excellent book to put into a boy's hand."--_Beacon._ 7 RED CARL. By J. J. MESSMER. A story dealing with the labor question, socialism, and temperance, and one of the best, all points considered, that treats of these subjects popularly. Illustrated, 12mo. $1.25. "It would be difficult to find a healthier, more stimulating, and more suggestive story to put into the hands of the young." For sale by all booksellers. THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. NEW YORK. FAMOUS BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE. By SARAH K. BOLTON. Short biographical sketches of Galileo, Newton, Linnæus, Cuvier, Humboldt, Audubon, Agassiz, Darwin, Buckland, and others. Illustrated with 15 portraits. 12mo. $1.50. POOR BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS. By SARAH K. BOLTON. Short biographical sketches of George Peabody, Michael Faraday, Samuel Johnson, Admiral Farragut, Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison, Garibaldi, President Lincoln, and other noted persons who, from humble circumstances, have risen to fame and distinction, and left behind an imperishable record. Illustrated with 21 portraits. 12mo. $1.50. GIRLS WHO BECAME FAMOUS. By SARAH K. BOLTON. A companion book to "Poor Boys Who Became Famous." Biographical sketches of Harriet Beecher Stowe, George Eliot, Helen Hunt Jackson, Harriet Hosmer, Rosa Bonheur, Florence Nightingale, Maria Mitchell, and other eminent women. Illustrated with portraits. 12mo. $1.50. FAMOUS AMERICAN AUTHORS. By SARAH K. BOLTON. Short biographical sketches of Holmes, Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, Aldrich, Mark Twain, and other noted writers. Illustrated with portraits. 12mo. $1.50. FAMOUS AMERICAN STATESMEN. By SARAH K. BOLTON. A companion book to "Famous American Authors." Biographical sketches of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Webster, Sumner, Garfield, and others. Illustrated with portraits. 12mo. $1.50. BOYS' BOOK OF FAMOUS RULERS. By LYDIA HOYT FARMER. Lives of Agamemnon, Julius Cæsar, Charlemagne, Frederick the Great, Richard Coeur de Lion, Robert Bruce, Napoleon, and other heroes of historic fame. Fully illustrated with portraits and numerous engravings. 12mo. $1.50. GIRLS' BOOK OF FAMOUS QUEENS. By LYDIA HOYT FARMER. A companion book to "Boys' Book of Famous Rulers." Lives of Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth, Catherine de Medici, Josephine, Victoria, Eugénie, etc. 12mo, cloth. 85 illustrations. $1.50. LIFE OF LA FAYETTE, the Knight of Liberty. By LYDIA HOYT FARMER. A glowing narrative of the life of this renowned general, with 58 illustrations. 12mo. $1.50. As a large portion of the material presented in this volume has been gathered from French works never before translated and which are now out of print, and also from original files of newspapers, and various manuscripts written by members of the La Fayette family, a more complete life of General La Fayette is here offered than has before appeared, either in this country or in Europe. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Pictures of the Reign of Terror. By LYDIA HOYT FARMER. With 35 illustrations. 12mo. $1.50. To those who have not the leisure to make an exhaustive study of this remarkable epoch in the world's history, this volume offers a rapid and clear _résumé_ of its most important events and thrilling scenes. THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO., NEW YORK 
31845	----	[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected. Hyphenation and accentuation have been standardised, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained. Bold text is marked with =.] LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT PAINTERS SCULPTORS & ARCHITECTS BY GIORGIO VASARI: VOLUME VII. TRIBOLO TO IL SODOMA 1914 NEWLY TRANSLATED BY GASTON Du C. DE VERE. WITH FIVE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS: IN TEN VOLUMES [Illustration: 1511-1574] PHILIP LEE WARNER, PUBLISHER TO THE MEDICI SOCIETY, LIMITED 7 GRAFTON ST. LONDON, W. 1912-14 CONTENTS OF VOLUME VII PAGE NICCOLÒ, CALLED TRIBOLO 1 PIERINO [PIERO] DA VINCI 39 BACCIO BANDINELLI 53 GIULIANO BUGIARDINI 105 CRISTOFANO GHERARDI, CALLED DOCENO 115 JACOPO DA PONTORMO 145 SIMONE MOSCA 183 GIROLAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO GENGA, AND GIOVAN BATTISTA SAN MARINO 197 MICHELE SAN MICHELE 215 GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI, CALLED IL SODOMA 243 INDEX OF NAMES 259 ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME VII PLATES IN COLOUR FACING PAGE GIULIANO BUGIARDINI Portrait of a Lady Florence: Pitti, 140 106 JACOPO DA PONTORMO Portrait of an Engraver Paris: Louvre, 1241 174 PAOLO VERONESE (PAOLINO _or_ CALIARI) Industry Venice: Doges' Palace, Sala Anticollegio 216 GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI (IL SODOMA) The Vision of S. Catharine Siena: S. Domenico 244 PLATES IN MONOCHROME NICCOLÒ (TRIBOLO) The Hercules Fountain Florence: Villa Reale di Castello 24 NICCOLÒ (TRIBOLO) The Assumption of the Virgin Bologna: S. Petronio [1] [Footnote 1: Illustrated with _Two Angels_, by Madonna Properzia de' Rossi, vol. v., p. 126.] PIERINO (PIERO) DA VINCI Ugolino della Gherardesca and his Sons in the Tower of Famine Oxford: Ashmolean Museum 48 BACCIO BANDINELLI The Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo Hereford: W. J. Davies' Collection 64 BACCIO BANDINELLI Statue of Hercules and Cacus Florence: Piazza della Signoria 72 BACCIO BANDINELLI Statue of Giovanni delle Bande Nere Florence: Piazza di S. Lorenzo 80 BACCIO BANDINELLI Reliefs from the Choir Screen Florence: Duomo 88 GIULIANO BUGIARDINI The Martyrdom of S. Catharine Florence: S. Maria Novella, Rucellai Chapel 110 GIORGIO VASARI and CRISTOFANO GHERARDI (DOCENO) Detail: The Supper of S. Gregory the Great Bologna: Accademia, 198 122 JACOPO DA PONTORMO The Adoration of the Magi Siena: S. Agostino 146 JACOPO DA PONTORMO Duke Cosimo I. de' Medici Florence: Uffizi, 1270 152 JACOPO DA PONTORMO The Visitation Florence: SS. Annunziata, Cloister 154 JACOPO DA PONTORMO Joseph and his Kindred in Egypt London: N. G., 1131 158 JACOPO DA PONTORMO Detail: Vertumnus Fresco Poggio a Caiano: Villa Reale 160 JACOPO DA PONTORMO Detail: Vertumnus Fresco Poggio a Caiano: Villa Reale 162 JACOPO DA PONTORMO The Descent From the Cross Florence: S. Felicita 168 JACOPO DA PONTORMO The Martyrdom of the Forty Saints Florence: Pitti, 182 170 SIMONE MOSCA and MICHELE SAN MICHELE The Altar of the Three Kings Orvieto: Duomo 190 SIMONE MOSCA The Salutation Orvieto: Duomo 192 GIROLAMO GENGA Madonna and Child with Saints Milan: Brera, 202 200 MICHELE SAN MICHELE Porta del Palio Verona 222 MICHELE SAN MICHELE Cappella de' Pellegrini Verona: S. Bernardino 224 MICHELE SAN MICHELE _See also at p. 190 above_ Palazzo Grimani Venice 230 PAOLO VERONESE (PAOLINO _or_ CALIARI) The Feast in the House of Levi Venice: Accademia, 203 238 PAOLO VERONESE (PAOLINO _or_ CALIARI) Venice Enthroned, with Justice and Peace Venice: Ducal Palace 240 GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI (IL SODOMA) Scene from the Life of S. Benedict Monte Oliveto Maggiore 246 GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI (IL SODOMA) Scene from the Life of S. Benedict Monte Oliveto Maggiore 246 GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI (IL SODOMA) Detail: the Marriage of Alexander and Roxana Rome: Villa Farnesina 248 GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI (IL SODOMA) S. Sebastian Florence: Uffizi, 1279 250 GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI (IL SODOMA) S. Ansano Siena: Palazzo Pubblico 252 GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI (IL SODOMA) S. Francis Siena: S. Bernardino, Oratory 252 GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI (IL SODOMA) The Adoration of the Magi Siena: S. Agostino 254 GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI (IL SODOMA) The Sacrifice of Isaac Pisa: Duomo 256 NICCOLÒ, CALLED TRIBOLO LIFE OF NICCOLÒ, CALLED TRIBOLO SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT Raffaello the carpenter, surnamed Il Riccio de' Pericoli, who lived near the Canto a Monteloro in Florence, had born to him in the year 1500, as he used to tell me himself, a male child, whom he was pleased to call at baptism, like his own father, Niccolò; and having perceived that the boy had a quick and ready intelligence and a lofty spirit, he determined, although he was but a poor artisan, that he should begin straightway by learning to read and write well and cast accounts. Sending him to school, therefore, it came about, since the child was very vivacious and so high-spirited in his every action, that he was always cramped for room and was a very devil both among the other boys at school and everywhere else, always teasing and tormenting both himself and others, that he lost his own name of Niccolò and acquired that of Tribolo[2] to such purpose, that he was called that ever afterwards by everyone. [Footnote 2: Teasel.] Now, Tribolo growing, his father, in order both to make use of him and to curb the boy's exuberance, took him into his workshop and taught him his own trade; but having seen in a few months that he was ill suited for such a calling, being somewhat delicate, thin, and feeble in health, he came to the conclusion that if he wished to keep him alive, he must release him from the heavier labours of his craft and set him to wood-carving. Having heard that without design, the father of all the arts, the boy could not become an excellent master therein, Raffaello resolved that he should begin by devoting all his time to design, and therefore made him draw now cornices, foliage, and grotesques, and now other things necessary to such a profession. And having seen that in doing this the boy was well served both by his head and by his hand, and reflecting, like a man of judgment, that with him Niccolò could at best learn nothing else but to work by the square, Raffaello first spoke of this with the carpenter Ciappino, who was the very familiar friend of Nanni Unghero; and with his advice and assistance, he placed Niccolò for three years with the said Nanni, in whose workshop, where both joiner's work and carving were done, there were constantly to be found the sculptor Jacopo Sansovino, the painter Andrea del Sarto, and others, who afterwards became such able masters. Now Nanni, who had in those days a passing good reputation for excellence, was executing many works both in joinery and in carving for the villa of Zanobi Bartolini at Rovezzano, without the Porta alla Croce, for the palace of the Bartolini, which Giovanni, the brother of that Zanobi, was having built at that time on the Piazza di S. Trinita, and for the house and garden of the same man in Gualfonda; and Tribolo, who was made to work by Nanni without discretion, always having to handle saws, planes, and other common tools, and not being capable, by reason of the feebleness of his body, of such exertions, began to feel dissatisfied and to say to Riccio, when he asked for the cause of his discontent, that he did not think that he could remain with Nanni in that craft, and that therefore Raffaello should see to placing him with Andrea del Sarto or Jacopo Sansovino, whom he had come to know in Unghero's workshop, for the reason that with one or the other of them he hoped to do better and to be sounder in health. Moved by these reasons, then, and again with the advice and assistance of Ciappino, Riccio placed Tribolo with Jacopo Sansovino, who took him willingly, because he had known him in the workshop of Nanni Unghero, and had seen that he worked well in design and even better in relief. Jacopo Sansovino, when Tribolo, now restored to health, went to work under him, was executing in the Office of Works of S. Maria del Fiore, in competition with Benedetto da Rovezzano, Andrea da Fiesole, and Baccio Bandinelli, the marble statue of S. James the Apostle which is still to be seen at the present day at that place together with the others. And thus Tribolo, with these opportunities of learning, by working in clay and drawing with great diligence, contrived to make such proficience in that art, for which he felt a natural inclination, that Jacopo, growing to love him more and more every day, began to encourage him and to bring him forward by making him execute now one thing and now another. Whereupon, although Sansovino had in his workshop at that time Solosmeo da Settignano and Pippo del Fabro, young men of great promise, seeing that Tribolo, having added skill in the use of chisels to his good knowledge of working in clay and in wax, not only equalled them but surpassed them by a great measure, he began to make much use of him in his works. And after finishing the Apostle and a Bacchus that he made for the house of Giovanni Bartolini in Gualfonda, and undertaking to make for M. Giovanni Gaddi, his intimate friend, a chimney-piece and a water-basin of hard sandstone for his house on the Piazza di Madonna, he caused some large figures of boys in clay, which were to go above the great cornice, to be made by Tribolo, who executed them so extraordinarily well, that M. Giovanni, having seen the beautiful manner and the genius of the young man, commissioned him to execute two medallions of marble, which, finished with great excellence, were afterwards placed over certain doors in the same house. Meanwhile there was a commission to be given for a tomb, a work of great magnitude, for the King of Portugal; and since Jacopo had been the disciple of Andrea Contucci of Monte Sansovino, and had the reputation not only of having equalled his master, a man of great renown, but of having a manner even more beautiful, that work, through the good offices of the Bartolini, was allotted to him. Whereupon Jacopo made a most superb model of wood, all covered with scenes and figures of wax, which were executed for the most part by Tribolo; and these proving to be very beautiful, the young man's fame so increased that Matteo di Lorenzo Strozzi--Tribolo having now left Sansovino, thinking that he was by that time able to work by himself--commissioned him to make some children of stone, and shortly afterwards, being much pleased with them, two of marble that are holding a dolphin which pours water into a fish-pond, a work that is now to be seen at San Casciano, a place eight miles distant from Florence, in the villa of that M. Matteo. While these works were being executed by Tribolo in Florence, M. Bartolommeo Barbazzi, a Bolognese gentleman who had gone there on some business, remembered that a search was being made in Bologna for a young man who could work well, to the end that he might be set to making figures and scenes of marble for the façade of S. Petronio, the principal church of that city. Wherefore he spoke to Tribolo, and having seen some of his works, which pleased him, as also did the young man's ways and other qualities, he took him to Bologna, where Tribolo, with great diligence and with much credit to himself, in a short time made the two Sibyls of marble that were afterwards placed in the ornament of that door of S. Petronio which leads to the Della Morte Hospital. These works finished, arrangements were being made to give him greater things to do, and he was receiving many proofs of love and affection from M. Bartolommeo, when the plague of the year 1525 began in Bologna and throughout all Lombardy; whereupon Tribolo, in order to avoid that plague, made his way to Florence. After living there during all the time that this contagious and pestilential sickness lasted, he departed as soon as it had ceased, and returned, in obedience to a summons, to Bologna, where M. Bartolommeo, not allowing him to set his hand to any work for the façade, resolved, seeing that many of his friends and relatives had died, to have a tomb made for himself and for them. And so Tribolo, after finishing the model, which M. Bartolommeo insisted on seeing completed before he did anything else, went in person to Carrara to have the marbles excavated, intending to rough-hew them on the spot and to lighten them in such a manner, that they might not only be easier to transport, as indeed they were, but also that the figures might come out larger. In that place, in order not to waste his time, he blocked out two large children of marble, which were taken to Bologna with beasts of burden, unfinished as they were, together with the rest of the work; and after the death of M. Bartolommeo, which caused such grief to Tribolo that he returned to Tuscany, they were placed, with the other marbles, in a chapel in S. Petronio, where they still are. Having thus departed from Carrara, Tribolo, on his way back to Florence, stayed in Pisa to visit the sculptor Maestro Stagio da Pietrasanta, his very dear friend, who was executing in the Office of Works of the Duomo in that city two columns with capitals of marble all in open work, which were to stand one on either side of the high-altar and the Tabernacle of the Sacrament; and each of these was to have upon the capital an Angel of marble one braccio and three quarters in height, with a candelabrum in the hand. At the invitation of the said Stagio, having nothing else to do at that time, he undertook to make one of those Angels: which being finished with all the perfection that could be given to a delicate work of that size in marble, proved to be such that nothing more could have been desired, for the reason that the Angel, with the movement of his person, has the appearance of having stayed his flight in order to uphold that light, and the nude form has about it some delicate draperies which are so graceful in their effect, and look so well on every side and from every point of view, that words could not express their beauty. But, having consumed much time in executing this work, since he cared for nothing but his delight in art, and not having received for it from the Warden the payment that he expected, he resolved that he would not make the other Angel, and returned to Florence. There he met with Giovan Battista della Palla, who at that time was not only causing all the sculptures and pictures that he could to be executed for sending to King Francis I in France, but was also buying antiques of all sorts and pictures of every kind, provided only that they were by the hands of good masters; and every day he was packing them up and sending them off. Now, at the very moment when Tribolo returned, Giovan Battista had an ancient vase of granite, of a very beautiful shape, which he wished to arrange in such a manner that it might serve for a fountain for that King. He therefore declared his mind to Tribolo, and what he proposed to have done; and he, setting to work, made him a Goddess of Nature, who, raising one arm, holds that vase, the foot of which she has upon her head, with the hands, the first row of breasts being adorned with some boys standing out entirely detached from the marble, who are in various most beautiful attitudes, holding certain festoons in their hands, while the next range of breasts is covered with quadrupeds, and at her feet are many different kinds of fishes. That figure was finished with such diligence and such perfection, that it well deserved, after being sent to France together with other works, to be held very dear by the King, and to be placed, as a rare thing, in Fontainebleau. Afterwards, in the year 1529, when preparations were being made for the war against Florence and the siege, Pope Clement VII, wishing to study the exact site of the city and to consider in what manner and in what places his forces could be distributed to the best advantage, ordained that a plan of the city should be made secretly, with all the country for a mile around it--the hills, mountains, rivers, rocks, houses, churches, and other things, and also the squares and streets within, together with the walls and bastions surrounding it, and the other defences. The charge of all this was given to Benvenuto di Lorenzo della Volpaia, an able maker of clocks and quadrants and a very fine astrologer, but above all a most excellent master in taking ground-plans. This Benvenuto chose Tribolo as his companion, and that with great judgment, for the reason that it was Tribolo who suggested that this plan, for the better consideration of the height of the mountains, the depth of the low-lying parts, and all other particulars, should be made in relief; the doing of which was not without much labour and danger, in that, staying out all night to measure the roads and to mark the number of braccia between one place and another, and also to measure the height of the summits of the belfries and towers, drawing intersecting lines in every direction by means of the compass, and going beyond the walls to compare the height of the hills with that of the cupola, which they had marked as their centre, they did not execute such a work save after many months; but they used great diligence, for they made it of cork, for the sake of lightness, and limited the whole plan to the space of four braccia, and measured everything to scale. Having then been finished in this manner, and being made in pieces, that plan was packed up secretly and smuggled out of Florence in some bales of wool that were going to Perugia, being consigned to one who had orders to send it to the Pope, who made use of it continually during the siege of Florence, keeping it in his chamber, and seeing from one day to another, from letters and despatches, where and how the army was quartered, where skirmishes took place, and, in short, all the incidents, arguments, and discussions that occurred during that siege; all greatly to his satisfaction, for it was in truth a rare and marvellous work. The war finished--during the progress of which Tribolo executed some works in clay for his friends, and for Andrea del Sarto, his dearest friend, three figures of wax in the round, of which Andrea availed himself in painting in fresco, on the Piazza, near the Condotta, portraits from nature of three captains who had fled with the pay-chests, depicted as hanging by one foot--Benvenuto, summoned by the Pope, went to Rome to kiss the feet of his Holiness, and was placed by him in charge of the Belvedere, with an honourable salary. In that office, having often conversations with the Pope, Benvenuto, when the occasion arose, did not fail to extol Tribolo as an excellent sculptor and to recommend him warmly; insomuch that, the siege finished, Clement made use of him. For, designing to give completion to the Chapel of Our Lady at Loreto, which had been begun by Leo and then abandoned on account of the death of Andrea Contucci of Monte Sansovino, he ordained that Antonio da San Gallo, who had the charge of executing that fabric, should summon Tribolo and set him to complete some of those scenes that Maestro Andrea had left unfinished. Tribolo, then, thus summoned by San Gallo by order of Clement, went with all his family to Loreto, whither there likewise went Simone, called Mosca, a very rare carver of marble, Raffaello da Montelupo, Francesco da San Gallo the younger, Girolamo Ferrarese the sculptor, a disciple of Maestro Andrea, Simone Cioli, Ranieri da Pietrasanta, and Francesco del Tadda, all invited in order to finish that work. And to Tribolo, in the distribution of the labours, there fell, as the work of the greatest importance, a scene in which Maestro Andrea had represented the Marriage of Our Lady. Thereupon Tribolo made an addition to that scene, and had the notion of placing among the many figures that are standing watching the Marriage of the Virgin, one who in great fury is breaking his rod, because it had not blossomed; and in this he succeeded so well, that the suitor could not display with greater animation the rage that he feels at not having had the good fortune that he desired. Which work finished, and also that of the others, with great perfection, Tribolo had already made many models of wax with a view to executing some of those Prophets that were to go in the niches of that chapel, which was now built and completely finished, when Pope Clement, after seeing those works and praising them much, and particularly that of Tribolo, determined that they should all return without loss of time to Florence, in order to finish under the discipline of Michelagnolo Buonarroti all those figures that were wanting in the sacristy and library of S. Lorenzo, and the rest of the work, after the models of Michelagnolo and with his assistance, with the greatest possible speed, to the end that, having finished the sacristy, they might all together be able, thanks to the proficience made under the discipline of so great a man, also to finish the façade of S. Lorenzo. And in order that there might be no manner of delay in doing this, the Pope sent Michelagnolo back to Florence, and with him Fra Giovanni Angelo de' Servi, who had executed some works in the Belvedere, to the end that he might assist him in carving the marbles and might make some statues, according as he should receive orders from Michelagnolo, who caused him to make a S. Cosimo, which was to stand on one side of the Madonna, with a S. Damiano, allotted to Montelupo, on the other. These commissions given, Michelagnolo desired that Tribolo should make two nude statues, which were to be one on either side of that of Duke Giuliano, which he himself had already made; one was to be a figure of Earth crowned with cypress, weeping with bowed head and with the arms outstretched, and lamenting the death of Duke Giuliano, and the other a figure of Heaven with the arms uplifted, all smiling and joyful, and showing her gladness at the adornment and splendour that the soul and spirit of that lord conferred upon her. But Tribolo's evil fortune crossed him at the very moment when he was about to begin to work on the statue of Earth; for, whether it was the change of air, or his feeble constitution, or because he had been irregular in his way of living, he fell ill of a grievous sickness, which, ending in a quartan fever, hung about him many months, to his infinite vexation, since he was tormented no less by his grief at having had to abandon the work, and at seeing that the friar and Raffaello had taken possession of the field, than by the illness itself. However, wishing to conquer that illness, in order not to be left behind by his rivals, whose name he heard celebrated more and more every day, feeble as he was, he made a large model of clay for the statue of Earth, and, when he had finished it, began to execute the work in marble, with such diligence and assiduity, that the statue could be seen already all cut out in front, when Fortune, who is always ready to oppose herself to any fair beginning, by the death of Clement at a moment when nothing seemed less likely, cut short the aspirations of all those excellent masters who were hoping to acquire under Michelagnolo, besides boundless profits, immortal renown and everlasting fame. Stupefied by this misfortune and robbed of all his spirit, and being also ill, Tribolo was living in utter despair, seeming not to be able either in Florence or abroad to hit upon anything that might be to his advantage; but Giorgio Vasari, who was always his friend and loved him from his heart, and helped him all that he could, consoled him, saying that he should not lose heart, because he would so contrive that Duke Alessandro would give him something to do, by means of the favour of the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, into whose service Giorgio had introduced him on terms of no little intimacy. Wherefore Tribolo, having regained a little courage, occupied himself, while measures were being taken to assist him, with copying in clay all the figures of marble in the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo which Michelagnolo had executed--namely, Dawn, Twilight, Day, and Night. And he succeeded in doing them so well, that M. Giovan Battista Figiovanni, the Prior of S. Lorenzo, to whom he presented the Night in return for having the sacristy opened for him, judging it to be a rare work, presented it to Duke Alessandro, who afterwards gave it to Giorgio Vasari, who was living with his Excellency, knowing that Giorgio gave his attention to such studies; which figure is now in his house at Arezzo, with other works of art. Having afterwards copied, likewise in clay, the Madonna made by Michelagnolo for the same sacristy, Tribolo presented it to the above-named M. Ottaviano de' Medici, who had a most beautiful ornament in squared work made for it by Battista del Cinque, with columns, cornices, brackets, and other carvings very well executed. Meanwhile, by the favour of him who was Treasurer to his Excellency, and at the commission of Bertoldo Corsini, the proveditor for the fortress which was being built at that time, out of three escutcheons that were to be made by order of the Duke for placing on the bastions, one on each, one four braccia in height was given to Tribolo to execute, with two nude figures representing Victories; which escutcheon, finished by him with great diligence and promptitude, with the addition of three great masks that support the escutcheon and the figures, so pleased the Duke, that he conceived a very great love for Tribolo. Now shortly afterwards the Duke went to Naples to defend himself before the Emperor Charles V, who had just returned from Tunis, against many calumnies that had been laid upon him by some of his citizens; and, having not only defended himself, but also obtained from his Majesty his daughter Signora Margherita of Austria for wife, he wrote to Florence that four men should be appointed who might cause vast and splendid decorations to be prepared throughout the city, in order to receive the Emperor, who was coming to Florence, with proper magnificence. And I, having to distribute the various works at the commission of his Excellency--who ordained that I should act in company with the said four men, who were Giovanni Corsi, Luigi Guicciardini, Palla Rucellai, and Alessandro Corsini--gave the greatest and most difficult labours for that festival to Tribolo to execute, which were four large statues. The first was a Hercules that has just killed the Hydra, six braccia in height, in the round and overlaid with silver, which was placed at that corner of the Piazza di S. Felice that is at the end of the Via Maggio, with the following inscription in letters of silver on the base: UT HERCULES LABORE ET ÆRUMNIS MONSTRA EDOMUIT, ITA CÆSAR VIRTUTE ET CLEMENTIA, HOSTIBUS VICTIS SEU PLACATIS, PACEM ORBI TERRARUM ET QUIETEM RESTITUIT. Two others were colossal figures eight braccia high, one representing the River Bagrada, which was resting upon the skin of the serpent that was brought to Rome, and the other representing the Ebro, with the horn of Amaltheia in one hand and in the other the helm of a ship; both coloured in imitation of bronze, with inscriptions on the bases; below the Ebro, HIBERUS EX HISPANIA, and below the other, BAGRADAS EX AFRICA. The fourth was a statue five braccia in height, on the Canto de' Medici, representing Peace, who had in one hand an olive branch and in the other a lighted torch, with which she was setting fire to a pile of arms heaped up on the base on which she was placed; with the following words: FIAT PAX IN VIRTUTE TUA. He did not finish, as he had hoped to do, the horse seven braccia in length that was set up on the Piazza di S. Trinita, upon which was to be placed the statue of the Emperor in armour, because Tasso the wood-carver, who was much his friend, did not show any promptitude in executing the base and the other things in the way of wood-carving that were to be included in the work, being a man who let time slip through his fingers in arguing and jesting; and there was only just time to cover the horse alone with tin-foil laid upon the still fresh clay. On the base were to be read the following words: IMPERATORI CAROLO AUGUSTO VICTORIOSISSIMO, POST DEVICTOS HOSTES, ITALIÆ PACE RESTITUTA ET SALUTATO FERDIN. FRATRE, EXPULSIS ITERUM TURCIS AFRICAQUE PERDOMITA, ALEXANDER MED. DUX FLORENTIÆ, D.D. His Majesty having departed from Florence, a beginning was made with the preparations for the nuptials, in expectation of his daughter, and to the end that she and the Vice-Queen of Naples, who was in her company, might be commodiously lodged according to the orders of his Excellency in the house of M. Ottaviano de' Medici, an addition was made to his old house in four weeks, to the astonishment of everyone; and Tribolo, the painter Andrea di Cosimo, and I, in ten days, with the help of about ninety sculptors and painters of the city, what with masters and assistants, completed the preparations for the wedding in so far as appertained to the house and its decorations, painting the loggie, courtyards, and other spaces in a manner suitable for nuptials of such importance. Among these decorations, Tribolo made, besides other things, two Victories in half-relief that were one on either side of the principal door, supported by two large terminal figures, which also upheld the escutcheon of the Emperor, pendent from the neck of a very beautiful eagle in the round. The same master also made certain boys, likewise in the round, and large in size, which were placed on either side of some heads over the pediments of various doors; and these were much extolled. Meanwhile, as the nuptials were in progress, Tribolo received letters from Bologna, in which Messer Pietro del Magno, his devoted friend, besought him that he should consent to go to Bologna, in order to make for the Madonna di Galliera, where a most beautiful ornament of marble was already prepared, a scene likewise of marble three braccia and a half in extent. Whereupon Tribolo, happening to have nothing else to do at that time, went thither, and after making a model of a Madonna ascending into Heaven, with the Apostles below in various attitudes, which, being very beautiful, gave great satisfaction, he set his hand to executing it; but with little pleasure for himself, since the marble that he was carving was that Milanese marble, saline, full of emery, and bad in quality; and it seemed to him that he was wasting his time, without feeling a particle of that delight that men find in working those marbles which are a pleasure to carve, and which in the end, when brought to completion, show a surface that has the appearance of the living flesh itself. However, he did so much that it was already almost finished, when I, having persuaded Duke Alessandro to recall Michelagnolo from Rome, and also the other masters, in order to finish the work of the sacristy begun by Clement, was arranging to give him something to do in Florence; and I would have succeeded, but in the meantime, by reason of the death of Alessandro, who was murdered by Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici, not only was this design frustrated, but the greatness and prosperity of art were thrown into utter ruin. Having heard of the Duke's death, Tribolo condoled with me in his letters, beseeching me, after he had exhorted me to bear with resignation the death of that great Prince, my gracious master, that if I went to Rome, as he had heard that I, being wholly determined to abandon Courts and to pursue my studies, was intending to do, I should obtain some commission for him, for the reason that, if assisted by my friends, he would do whatever I told him. But it so chanced that it became in no way necessary for him to seek commissions in Rome. For Signor Cosimo de' Medici, having been created Duke of Florence, as soon as he had freed himself from the troubles that he had in the first year of his rule by routing his enemies at Monte Murlo, began to take some diversion, and in particular to frequent not a little the villa of Castello, which is little more than two miles distant from Florence. There he began to do some building, in order that he might be able to live there comfortably with his Court, and little by little--being encouraged in this by Maestro Pietro da San Casciano, who was held to be a passing good master in those days, and was much in the service of Signora Maria, the mother of the Duke, and had also always been the master-builder and the former servant of Signor Giovanni--he resolved to conduct to that place certain waters that he had desired long before to bring thither. Whereupon a beginning was made with building an aqueduct that was to receive all the waters from the hill of Castellina, which was at a distance of a quarter of a mile or more from Castello; and the work was pursued vigorously with a good number of men. But the Duke recognizing that Maestro Pietro had neither invention nor power of design enough to make in that place a beginning that might afterwards in time receive that ornamentation which the site and the waters required, one day that his Excellency was on the spot, speaking of this with such men as Messer Ottaviano de' Medici and Cristofano Rinieri, the friend of Tribolo and the old servant of Signora Maria and of the Duke, they extolled Tribolo in such a manner, as a man endowed with all those parts that were requisite in the head of such a fabric, that the Duke gave Cristofano a commission to make him come from Bologna. Which having been straightway done by Rinieri, Tribolo, who could not have received any better news than that he was to serve Duke Cosimo, set out immediately for Florence, and, arriving there, was taken to Castello, where his most illustrious Excellency, having heard from him what he thought should be done in the way of decorative fountains, gave him a commission to make the models. Whereupon he set his hand to these, and was engaged upon them, while Maestro Pietro da San Casciano was executing the aqueduct and bringing the waters to the place, when the Duke, who meanwhile had begun, for the security of the city, to surround with a very strong wall the bastions erected on the hill of San Miniato at the time of the siege after the designs of Michelagnolo, ordained that Tribolo should make an escutcheon of hard stone, with two Victories, for an angle of the summit of a bastion that faces Florence. But Tribolo had scarcely finished the escutcheon, which was very large, and one of those Victories, a figure four braccia high, which was held to be a very beautiful thing, when he was obliged to leave that work incomplete, for the reason that, Maestro Pietro having carried well on the making of the aqueduct and the bringing of the waters, to the full satisfaction of the Duke, his Excellency wished that Tribolo should begin to put into execution, for the adornment of that place, the designs and models that he had already shown to him, ordaining him for the time being a salary of eight crowns a month, the same that was paid to San Casciano. Now, in order that I may not become confused in describing the intricacies of the aqueducts and of the ornaments of the fountains, it may be well to say briefly some few words about the site and position of Castello. The villa of Castello stands at the roots of Monte Morello, below the Villa della Topaia, which is halfway up the slope; it has before it a plain that descends little by little, for the space of a mile and a half, down to the River Arno, and exactly where the ascent of the mountain begins stands the palace, which was built in past times by Pier Francesco de' Medici, after a very good design. The principal front faces straight towards the south, overlooking a vast lawn with two very large fish-ponds full of running water, which comes from an ancient aqueduct made by the Romans in order to conduct water from Valdimarina to Florence, and provided with a vaulted cistern under the ground; and so it has a very beautiful and very pleasing view. The fish-ponds in front are divided in the middle by a bridge twelve braccia wide, which leads to an avenue of the same width, bounded at the sides and covered above by an unbroken vault of mulberry-trees, ten braccia in height, thus making a covered avenue three hundred braccia in length, delightful for its shade, which opens on to the high road to Prato by a gate placed between two fountains that serve to give water to travellers and animals. On the eastern side the same palace has a very beautiful pile of stable-buildings, and on the western side a private garden into which one goes from the courtyard of the stables, passing straight through the ground-floor of the palace by way of the loggie, halls, and chambers on the level of the ground; from which private garden one can enter by a door on the west side into another garden, very large and all filled with fruit-trees, and bounded by a forest of fir-trees that conceals the houses of the labourers and others who live there, engaged in the service of the palace and of the gardens. Next, that part of the palace which faces north, towards the mountain, has in front of it a lawn as long as the palace, the stables, and the private garden altogether, and from this lawn one climbs by steps to the principal garden, a place enclosed by ordinary walls, which, rising in a gentle slope, stretches so well clear of the palace as it rises, that the mid-day sun searches it out and bathes it all with its rays, as if there were no palace in front; and at the upper end it stands so high that it commands a view not only of the whole palace, but also of the plain that is in front and around it, and likewise about the city. In the middle of this garden is a forest of very tall and thickly-planted cypresses, laurels, and myrtles, which, laid out in a circular shape, have the form of a labyrinth, all surrounded by box-hedges two braccia and a half in height, so even and grown with such beautiful order that they have the appearance of a painting done with the brush; in the centre of which labyrinth, at the desire of the Duke, Tribolo, as will be described below, made a very beautiful fountain of marble. At the principal entrance, where there is the first-mentioned lawn with the two fish-ponds and the avenue covered with mulberry-trees, Tribolo wished that the avenue should be so extended that it might stretch for a distance of more than a mile, covered and shaped in like manner, and might reach as far as the River Arno, and that the waters which ran away from all the fountains, flowing gently in pleasant channels at the sides of the avenue, and filled with various kinds of fishes and crayfish, might accompany it down to that river. As for the palace--to describe what has still to be done as well as that which has been finished--he wished to make a loggia in front of it, which, passing by an open courtyard, was to have on the side where the stables are another palace as large as the old one, with the same proportion of apartments, loggie, private garden, and the rest; which addition would have made it a vast palace, with a most beautiful façade. After passing the court from which one enters into the large garden of the labyrinth, at the main entrance, where there is a vast lawn, after climbing the steps that lead to that labyrinth, there came a level space thirty braccia square, on which there was to be--and has since been made--a very large fountain of white marble, which was to spout upwards above ornaments fourteen braccia in height, while from the mouth of a statue at the highest point was to issue a jet of water rising to the height of six braccia. At either end of the lawn was to be a loggia, one opposite to the other, each thirty braccia in length and fifteen in breadth; and in the middle of each loggia was to be placed a marble table twelve braccia in length, and on the outside a basin of eight braccia, which was to receive the water from a vase held by two figures. In the middle of the above-mentioned labyrinth Tribolo had thought to achieve the most decorative effect with water by means of jets and a very beautiful seat round the fountain, the marble basin of which was to be, even as it was afterwards made, much smaller than that of the large principal fountain; and at the summit it was to have a figure of bronze spouting water. At the end of this garden, in the centre, there was to be a gate with some children of marble on both sides spouting water, with a fountain on either side, and in the corners double niches in which statues were to be placed, as in the others that are in the walls at the sides, at the opposite ends of the avenues that cross the garden, which are all covered with greenery distributed in various ways. Through the above-mentioned gate, which is at the upper end of this garden, above some steps, one enters into another garden, as wide as the first, but of no great depth in the direct line, in comparison with the mountain beyond. In this garden were to be two other loggie, one on either side, and in the wall opposite to the gate, which supports the soil of the mountain, there was to be in the centre a grotto with three basins, with water playing into them in imitation of rain. The grotto was to be between two fountains placed in the same wall, and opposite to these, in the lower wall of the garden, were to be two others, one on either side of the gate; so that the fountains of this garden would have been equal in number to those of the other, which is below it, and receives its water from the first, which is higher. And this garden was to be all full of orange-trees, which would have had--and will have, whenever that may be--a most favourable situation, being defended by the walls and by the mountain from the north wind and other harmful winds. From this garden one climbs by two staircases of flint, one on either side, to a forest of cypresses, fir-trees, holm-oaks, laurels, and other evergreen trees, distributed with beautiful order, in the middle of which, according to Tribolo's design, there was to be a most lovely fish-pond, which has since been made. And because this part, gradually narrowing, forms an angle, that angle, to the end that it might be made flat, was to be blunted by the breadth of a loggia, from which, after climbing some steps, might be seen in front the palace, the gardens, the fountains, and all the plain below and about them, as far as the Ducal Villa of Poggio a Caiano, Florence, Prato, Siena, and all that is around for many miles. Now the above-named Maestro Pietro da San Casciano, having carried his work of the aqueduct as far as Castello, and having turned into it all the waters of Castellina, was overtaken by a violent fever, and died in a few days. Whereupon Tribolo, undertaking the charge of directing all the building by himself, perceived that, although the waters brought to Castello were in great abundance, nevertheless they were not sufficient for all that he had made up his mind to do; not to mention that, coming from Castellina, they did not rise to the height that he required for his purposes. Having therefore obtained from the Lord Duke a commission to conduct thither the waters of Petraia, a place more than one hundred and fifty braccia above Castello, which are good and very abundant, he caused a conduit to be made, similar to the other, and so high that one can enter into it, to the end that thus those waters of Petraia might come to the fish-pond through another aqueduct with enough fall for the fish-pond and the great fountain. This done, Tribolo began to build the above-mentioned grotto, proposing to make it with three niches, in a beautiful architectural design, and likewise the two fountains that were one on either side of it. In one of these there was to be a large statue of stone, representing Monte Asinaio, which, pressing its beard, was to pour water from its mouth into a basin that was to be in front of it; from which basin the water, issuing by a hidden channel, and passing under the wall, was to flow to the fountain that there is at the present day behind the wall, at the end of the slope of the garden of the labyrinth, pouring into the vase on the shoulder of the figure of the River Mugnone, which is in a large niche of grey-stone decorated with most beautiful ornaments, and all covered with sponge-stone. This work, if it had been finished in all its perfection, even as it is in part, would have had great similarity to the reality, since the Mugnone rises from Monte Asinaio. For the Mugnone, then, to describe that which has been done, Tribolo made a figure of grey-stone, four braccia in length, and reclining in a very beautiful attitude, which has upon one shoulder a vase that pours water into a basin, and rests the other on the ground, leaning upon it, with the left leg crossed over the right. And behind this river is a woman representing Fiesole, wholly naked, issuing from among the sponge-stones and rocks in the middle of the niche, and holding in the hand a moon which is the ancient emblem of the people of Fiesole. Below this niche is a very large basin supported by two great Capricorns, which are one of the devices of the Duke; from which Capricorns hang some festoons and masks of great beauty, and from their lips issues the water from that basin, which is convex in the middle, and has outlets at the sides; and all the water that overflows pours away from the sides through the mouths of the Capricorns, and then, after falling into the hollow base of the vase, flows through the herb-beds that are round the walls of the garden of the labyrinth, where there are fountains between the niches, and between the fountains espaliers of oranges and pomegranates. In the second garden described above, where Tribolo had intended that there should be made the Monte Asinaio that was to supply water to the Mugnone, there was to be on the other side, beyond the gate, a similar figure of the Monte della Falterona; and even as this mountain is the source of the River Arno, so the statue representing that river in the garden of the labyrinth, opposite to the Mugnone, was to receive the water from the Falterona. But since neither the figure of that mountain nor its fountain has ever been finished, let us speak of the fountain and figure of the River Arno, which were completed by Tribolo to perfection. This river, then, holds its vase upon one thigh, lying down and leaning with one arm on a lion, which holds a lily in its paw, and the vase receives its water through the perforated wall, behind which there was to be the Falterona, exactly in the manner in which, as has been described, the statue of the River Mugnone also receives its water; and since the long basin is in every way similar to that of the Mugnone, I shall say no more about it, save this, that it is a pity that the art and excellence of these works, which are truly most beautiful, are not embodied in marble. Then, continuing the work of the conduit, Tribolo caused the water from the grotto to pass under the orange-garden and then under the next garden, and thus brought it into the labyrinth, where, forming a circle round all the middle of the labyrinth, in a good circumference round the centre, he laid down the central pipe, through which the fountain was to spout water. After which, taking the waters from the Arno and the Mugnone, and bringing them together under the level of the labyrinth by means of certain bronze pipes that were distributed in beautiful order throughout that space, he filled that whole pavement with very fine jets, in such a manner that it was possible by turning a key to drench all those who came near to see the fountain. Nor is one able to escape either quickly or with ease, because Tribolo made round the fountain and the pavement, in which are the jets, a seat of grey-stone supported by lion's paws, between which are sea monsters in low-relief; which was a difficult thing to do, because he chose, since the place was sloping and the square lay on the slant, to make it level, and the same with the seat. Having then set his hand to the fountain of the labyrinth, he made on the shaft, in marble, an interwoven design of sea monsters cut out in full relief, with tails intertwined so well, that nothing better of that kind could be done. And this finished, he executed the tazza with a piece of marble brought long before to Castello, together with a large table, also of marble, from the Villa dell'Antella, which M. Ottaviano de' Medici formerly bought from Giuliano Salviati. By reason of this opportunity, then, Tribolo made that tazza sooner than he might otherwise have done, fashioning round it a dance of little children attached to the moulding which is beside the lip of the tazza; which children are holding festoons of products of the sea, cut out of the marble with beautiful art. And so also the shaft which he made over the tazza, he executed with much grace, with some very beautiful children and masks to spout water. Upon that shaft it was the intention of Tribolo to place a bronze statue three braccia high, representing Florence, in order to signify that from the above-named Mounts Asinaio and Falterona the waters of the Arno and Mugnone come to Florence; of which figure he had made a most beautiful model which, pressing the hair with the hands, caused water to pour forth. Then, having brought the water as far as the space thirty braccia square, below the labyrinth, he made a beginning with the great fountain, which, made with eight sides, was to receive all the above-mentioned waters into its lowest basin--namely, those from the waterworks of the labyrinth, and likewise those of the great conduit. Each of these eight sides, then, rises above a step one-fifth of a braccio in height, and each angle of the eight sides has a projection, as have also the steps, which, thus projecting, rise at each angle in a great step of two-fifths of a braccio, in such a way that the central face of the steps withdraws into the projections, and their straight line is thus broken, which produces a bizarre effect, and makes the ascent very easy. The edges of the fountain have the shape of a vase, and the body of the fountain--that is, the inner part where the water is--curves in the form of a circle. The shaft begins with eight sides, and continues with eight seats almost up to the base of the tazza, upon which are seated eight children of the size of life, all in the round and in various attitudes, who, linked together with the legs and arms, make a rich adornment and a most beautiful effect. And since the tazza, which is round, projects to the extent of six braccia, the water of the whole fountain, pouring equally over the edge on every side, sends a very beautiful rain, like the drippings from a roof, into the octagonal basin mentioned above, and those children that are on the shaft of the tazza are not wetted, and they appear to be there in order not to be wetted by the rain, almost like real children, full of delight and playing as they shelter under the lip of the tazza, which could not be equalled in its simplicity and beauty. Opposite to the four paths that intersect the garden are four children of bronze lying at play in various attitudes, which are after the designs of Tribolo, although they were executed afterwards by others. Above this tazza begins another shaft, which has at the foot, on some projections, four children of marble in the round, who are pressing the necks of some geese that spout water from their mouths; and this water is that of the principal conduit coming from the labyrinth, and rises exactly to this height. Above these children is the rest of the shaft of this pedestal, which is made with certain cartouches which spurt forth water in a most bizarre manner; and then, regaining a quadrangular form, it rises over some masks that are very well made. Above this, then, is a smaller tazza, on the lip of which, on all four sides, are fixed by the horns four heads of Capricorns, making a square, which spout water through their mouths into the large tazza, together with the children, in order to make the rain which falls, as has been told, into the first basin, which has eight sides. Still higher there follows another shaft, adorned with other ornaments and with some children in half-relief, who, projecting outwards, form at the top a round space that serves as base to the figure of a Hercules who is crushing Antæus, which was designed by Tribolo and executed afterwards by others, as will be related in the proper place. From the mouth of this Antæus he intended that, instead of his spirit, there should gush out through a pipe water in great abundance, as indeed it does; which water is that of the great conduit of Petraia, which comes with much force, and rises sixteen braccia above the level where the steps are, and makes a marvellous effect in falling back into the greater tazza. In that same aqueduct, then, come not only those waters from Petraia, but also those that go to the fish-pond and the grotto, and these, uniting with those from Castellina, go to the fountains of the Falterona and Monte Asinaio, and thence to the fountains of the Arno and Mugnone, as has been related; after which, being reunited at the fountain of the labyrinth, they go to the centre of the great fountain, where are the children with the geese. From there, according to the design of Tribolo, they were to flow through two distinct and separate conduits into the basins of the loggie, where the tables are, and then each into a separate private garden. The first of these gardens--that towards the west--is all filled with rare and medicinal plants; wherefore at the highest level of that water, in that garden of simples, in the niche of the fountain, and behind a basin of marble, there was to be a statue of Æsculapius. The principal fountain described above, then, was completely finished in marble by Tribolo, and carried to the finest and greatest perfection that could be desired in a work of this kind. Wherefore I believe that it may be said with truth that it is the most beautiful fountain, the richest, the best proportioned, and the most pleasing that has ever been made, for the reason that in the figures, in the vases, in the tazze, and, in short, throughout the whole work, are proofs of extraordinary diligence and industry. After this, having made the model of the above-mentioned statue of Æsculapius, Tribolo began to execute it in marble, but, being hindered by other things, he did not finish that figure, which was completed afterwards by the sculptor Antonio di Gino, his disciple. [Illustration: THE HERCULES FOUNTAIN (_After =Niccolò [Tribolo]=. Florence: Villa Reale di Castello_)] On the side towards the east, in a little lawn without the garden, Tribolo arranged an oak in a most ingenious manner, for, besides the circumstance that it is so thickly covered both above and all around with ivy intertwined among the branches, that it has the appearance of a very dense grove, one can climb up it by a convenient staircase of wood similarly covered with ivy, at the top of which, in the middle of the oak, there is a square chamber surrounded by seats, the backs of which are all of living verdure, and in the centre is a little table of marble with a vase of variegated marble in the middle, from which, through a pipe, there flows and spurts into the air a strong jet of water, which, after falling, runs away through another pipe. These pipes mount upwards from the foot of the oak so well hidden by the ivy, that nothing is seen of them, and the water can be turned on or off at pleasure by means of certain keys; nor is it possible to describe in full in how many ways that water of the oak can be turned on, in order to drench anyone at pleasure with various instruments of copper, not to mention that with the same instruments one can cause the water to produce various sounds and whistlings. Finally, all these waters, after having served so many different purposes, and supplied so many fountains, are collected together, and flow into the two fish-ponds that are without the palace, at the beginning of the avenue, and thence to other uses of the villa. Nor will I omit to tell what was the intention of Tribolo with regard to the statues that were to be as ornaments in the great garden of the labyrinth, in the niches that may be seen regularly distributed there in various spaces. He proposed, then--acting in this on the judicious advice of M. Benedetto Varchi, who has been in our times most excellent as poet, orator, and philosopher--that at the upper and lower ends there should be placed the four Seasons of the year--Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter--and that each should be set up in that part where its particular season is most felt. At the entrance, on the right hand, beside the Winter, and in that part of the wall which stretches upwards, were to go six figures that were to demonstrate the greatness and goodness of the house of Medici, and to denote that all the virtues are to be found in Duke Cosimo; and these were Justice, Compassion, Valour, Nobility, Wisdom, and Liberality, which have always dwelt in the house of Medici, and are all united together at the present day in the most excellent Lord Duke, in that he is just, compassionate, valorous, noble, wise, and liberal. And because these qualities have made the city of Florence, as they still do, strong in laws, peace, arms, science, wisdom, tongues, and arts, and also because the said Lord Duke is just in the laws, compassionate in peace, valorous in arms, noble through the sciences, wise in his encouragement of tongues and other culture, and liberal to the arts, Tribolo wished that on the other side from the Justice, Compassion, Valour, Nobility, Wisdom, and Liberality, on the left hand, as will be seen below, there should be these other figures: Laws, Peace, Arms, Sciences, Tongues, and Arts. And it was most appropriately arranged that in this manner these statues and images should be placed, as they would have been, above the Arno and Mugnone, in order to signify that they do honour to Florence. It was also proposed that in the pediments there should be placed portrait-busts of men of the house of Medici, one in each--over Justice, for example, the portrait of his Excellency, that being his particular virtue, over Compassion that of the Magnificent Giuliano, over Valour Signor Giovanni, over Nobility the elder Lorenzo, over Wisdom the elder Cosimo or Clement VII, and over Liberality Pope Leo. And in the pediments on the other side it was suggested that there might be placed other heads from the house of Medici, or of persons of the city connected with that house. But since these names make the matter somewhat confused, they have been placed here in the following order: SUMMER. THE MUGNONE. GATE. THE ARNO. SPRING. ARTS. L L LIBERALITY. TONGUES. O O WISDOM. SCIENCES. G G NOBILITY. ARMS. G G VALOUR. PEACE. I I COMPASSION. LAWS. A A JUSTICE. AUTUMN. GATE. LOGGIA. GATE. WINTER. All these ornaments would have made this in truth the richest, the most magnificent, and the most ornate garden in Europe; but these works were not carried to completion, for the reason that Tribolo was not able to take measures to have them finished while the Duke was in the mind to continue them, as he might have done in a short time, having men in abundance and the Duke ready to spend money, and not suffering from those hindrances that afterwards stopped him. The Duke, indeed, not being contented at that time with the great quantity of water that is to be seen there, was thinking of trying to obtain the water of Valcenni, which is very abundant, in order to join it with the rest, and then to conduct it from Castello by an aqueduct similar to the one which he had made to the Piazza in front of his Palace in Florence. And of a truth, if this work had been pressed forward by a man with greater energy and more desire of glory, it would have been carried at least well on; but since Tribolo, besides that he was much occupied with various affairs of the Duke's, had not much energy, nothing more was done. And in all the time that he worked at Castello, he did not execute with his own hand anything save the two fountains, with the two rivers, the Arno and the Mugnone, and the statue of Fiesole; this arising from no other cause, so far as one can see, but his being too much occupied, as has been related, with the many affairs of the Duke. Among other things, the Duke caused him to make a bridge over the River Mugnone on the high road that goes to Bologna, without the Porta a S. Gallo. This bridge, since the river crosses the road obliquely, Tribolo caused to be built with an arch likewise oblique, in accordance with its oblique line across the river, which was a new thing, and much extolled, above all because he had the arch put together of stones cut on the slant on every side in such a manner that it proved to be very strong and very graceful; in short, this bridge was a very beautiful work. Not long before, the Duke had been seized with a desire to make a tomb for Signor Giovanni de' Medici, his father, and Tribolo, being eager to have the commission, made a very beautiful model for it, in competition with one that had been executed by Raffaello da Montelupo, who had the favour of Francesco di Sandro, the master of arms to his Excellency. And then, the Duke having resolved that the one to be put into execution should be Tribolo's, he went off to have the marble quarried at Carrara, where he also caused to be quarried the two basins for the loggie at Castello, a table, and many other blocks of marble. Meanwhile, Messer Giovan Battista da Ricasoli, now Bishop of Pistoia, being in Rome on business of the Lord Duke's, he was sought out by Baccio Bandinelli, who had just finished the tombs of Pope Leo X and Clement VII in the Minerva; and he was asked by Baccio to recommend him to his Excellency. Whereupon Messer Giovan Battista wrote to the Duke that Bandinelli desired to serve him, and his Excellency wrote in reply that on his return he should bring him in his company. And Bandinelli, having therefore arrived in Florence, so haunted the Duke in his audacity, making promises and showing him designs and models, that the tomb of the above-named Signor Giovanni, which was to have been made by Tribolo, was allotted to him; and so, taking some pieces of marble of Michelagnolo's, which were in the Via Mozza in Florence, he hacked them about without scruple and began the work. Wherefore Tribolo, on returning from Carrara, found that in consequence of his being too leisurely and good-natured, the commission had been taken away from him. In the year when bonds of kinship were formed between the Lord Duke Cosimo and the Lord Don Pedro di Toledo, Marquis of Villafranca, at that time Viceroy of Naples, the Lord Duke taking Don Pedro's daughter, Signora Leonora, to wife, preparations were made in Florence for the nuptials, and Tribolo was given the charge of constructing a triumphal arch at the Porta al Prato, through which the bride, coming from Poggio, was to enter; which arch he made a thing of beauty, very ornate with columns, pilasters, architraves, great cornices, and pediments. That arch was to be all covered with figures and scenes, in addition to the statues by the hand of Tribolo; and all those paintings were executed by Battista Franco of Venice, Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, and Michele, his disciple. Now the principal figure that Tribolo made for this work, which was placed at the highest point in the centre of the pediment, on a dado wrought in relief, was a woman five braccia high, representing Fecundity, with five little boys, three clinging to her legs, one on her lap, and another in her arms; and beside her, where the pediment sloped away, were two figures of the same size, one on either side. Of these figures, which were lying down, one was Security, leaning on a column with a light wand in her hand, and the other was Eternity, with a globe in her arms, and below her feet a white-haired old man representing Time, and holding in his arms the Sun and Moon. I shall say nothing as to the works of painting that were on that arch, because everyone may read about them for himself in the description of the festive preparations for those nuptials. And since Tribolo had particular charge of all decorations for the Palace of the Medici, he caused many devices to be executed in the lunettes of the vaulting of the court, with mottoes appropriate to the nuptials, and all those of the most illustrious members of the house of Medici. Besides this, he had a most sumptuous decoration made in the great open court, all full of stories; on one side of the Greeks and Romans, and on the other sides of deeds done by illustrious men of that house of Medici, which were all executed under the direction of Tribolo by the most excellent young painters that there were in Florence at that time--Bronzino, Pier Francesco di Sandro, Francesco Il Bacchiacca, Domenico Conti, Antonio di Domenico, and Battista Franco of Venice. On the Piazza di S. Marco, also, upon a vast pedestal ten braccia in height (in which Bronzino had painted two very beautiful scenes of the colour of bronze on the socle that was above the cornices), Tribolo erected a horse of twelve braccia, with the fore-legs in the air, and upon it an armed figure, large in proportion; and this figure, which had below it men dead and wounded, represented the most valorous Signor Giovanni de' Medici, the father of his Excellency. This work was executed by Tribolo with so much art and judgment, that it was admired by all who saw it, and what caused even greater marvel was the speed with which he finished it; among his assistants being the sculptor Santi Buglioni, who was crippled for ever in one leg by a fall, and came very near dying. Under the direction of Tribolo, likewise, for the comedy that was performed, Aristotile da San Gallo executed marvellous scenery, being truly most excellent in such things, as will be told in his Life; and for the costumes in the interludes, which were the work of Giovan Battista Strozzi, who had charge of the whole comedy, Tribolo himself made the most pleasing and beautiful inventions that it is possible to imagine in the way of vestments, buskins, head-dresses, and other wearing apparel. These things were the reason that the Duke afterwards availed himself of Tribolo's ingenuity in many fantastic masquerades, as in that of the bears, in a race of buffaloes, in the masquerade of the ravens, and in others. In like manner, in the year when there was born to the said Lord Duke his eldest son, the Lord Don Francesco, there was to be made in the Temple of S. Giovanni in Florence a very magnificent decoration which was to be marvellous in its grandeur, and capable of accommodating one hundred most noble young maidens, who were to accompany the Prince from the Palace as far as the said temple, where he was to receive baptism. The charge of this was given to Tribolo, who, in company with Tasso, adapting himself to the place, brought it about that the temple, which in itself is ancient and very beautiful, had the appearance of a new temple designed very well in the modern manner, with seats all round it richly adorned with pictures and gilding. In the centre, beneath the lantern, he made a great vase of carved woodwork with eight sides, the base of which rested on four steps, and at the corners of the eight sides were some large caulicoles, which, springing from the ground, where there were some lions' paws, had at the top of them certain children of large size in various attitudes, who were holding with their hands the lip of the vase, and supporting with their shoulders some festoons which hung like a garland right round the space in the middle. Besides this, Tribolo had made in the middle of the vase a pedestal of wood with beautiful things of fancy round it, upon which, to crown the work, he placed the S. John the Baptist of marble, three braccia high, by the hand of Donatello, which was left by him in the house of Gismondo Martelli, as has been related in the Life of Donatello himself. In short, this temple was adorned both within and without as well as could possibly be imagined, and the only part neglected was the principal chapel, where there is an old tabernacle with those figures in relief that Andrea Pisano made long ago; by reason of which it appeared that, every other part being made new, that old chapel spoilt all the grace that the other things together displayed. Wherefore the Duke, going one day to see those decorations, after praising everything like a man of judgment, and recognizing how well Tribolo had adapted himself to the situation and to every other feature of the place, censured one thing only, but that severely--that no thought had been given to the principal chapel. And then he ordained on the spot, like a person of resolute character and beautiful judgment, that all that part should be covered with a vast canvas painted in chiaroscuro, with S. John the Baptist baptizing Christ, and the people standing all around to see them or to be baptized, some taking off their clothes, and others putting them on again, in various attitudes; and above this was to be a God the Father sending down the Holy Spirit, with two fountains in the guise of river-gods, representing the Jor and the Dan, which, pouring forth water, were to form the Jordan. Jacopo da Pontormo was requested to execute this work by Messer Pier Francesco Riccio, at that time major-domo to the Duke, and by Tribolo, but he would not do it, on the ground that he did not think that the time given, which was only six days, would be enough for him; and the same refusal was made by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Bronzino, and many others. Now at this time Giorgio Vasari, having returned from Bologna, was executing for Messer Bindo Altoviti the altar-piece of his chapel in S. Apostolo at Florence, but he was not held in much consideration, although he had friendship with Tribolo and Tasso, because certain persons had formed a faction under the protection of the above-named Messer Pier Francesco Riccio, and whoever was not of that faction had no share in the favours of the Court, although he might be able and deserving. This was the reason that many who, with the aid of so great a Prince, would have become excellent, found themselves neglected, none being employed save those chosen by Tasso, who, being a gay person, got Riccio so well under his thumb with his jokes, that in certain affairs he neither proposed nor did anything save what was suggested by Tasso, who was architect to the Palace and did all the work. These men, then, having a sort of suspicion of Giorgio, who laughed at their vanities and follies, and sought to make a position for himself rather by means of the studies of art than by favour, gave no thought to his claims; but he was commissioned by the Lord Duke to execute that canvas, with the subject described above. This work he executed in chiaroscuro, in six days, and delivered it finished in the manner known to those who saw what grace and adornment it conferred on the whole decoration, and how much it enlivened that part of the temple that stood most in need of it, amid the magnificence of that festival. Tribolo, then (to return to the point whence, I know not how, I digressed), acquitted himself so well, that he rightly won the highest praise; and the Duke commanded that a great part of the ornaments that he placed between the columns should be left there, where they still are, and deservedly. For the Villa of Cristofano Rinieri at Castello, while he was occupied with the fountains of the Duke, Tribolo made for a niche over a fish-pond which is at the head of a fowling-place, a river-god of grey-stone, of the size of life, which pours water into a very large basin of the same stone; which figure is made of pieces, and put together with such diligence and art, that it appears to be all of one block. Tribolo then set his hand, at the command of his Excellency, to attempting to finish the staircase of the library of S. Lorenzo--that, namely, which is in the vestibule before the door; but after he had placed four steps in position, not finding either the plan or the measurements of Michelagnolo, by order of the Duke he went to Rome, not only to hear the opinion of Michelagnolo with regard to that staircase, but also to make an effort to bring him to Florence. But he did not succeed either in the one object or in the other, for Michelagnolo, not wishing to leave Rome, excused himself in a handsome manner, and as for the staircase he declared that he remembered neither the measurements nor anything else. Tribolo, therefore, having returned to Florence, and not being able to continue the work of that staircase, set himself to make the pavement of the said library with white and red bricks, after the manner of some pavements that he had seen in Rome; but he added a filling of red clay to the white clay mixed with bole, in order to produce various effects of carving in those bricks; and thus he made in that pavement a copy of the ceiling and coffered work above--a notion that was highly extolled. He then began, but did not finish, a work that was to be placed on the main tower of the defences of the Porta a Faenza, for Don Giovanni di Luna, the castellan at that time--namely, an escutcheon of grey-stone, and a large eagle in full relief with two heads, which he made in wax to the end that it might be cast in bronze, but nothing more was done with it, and of the escutcheon only the shield was finished. Now it was the custom in the city of Florence to have almost every year on the principal piazza, on the evening of the festival of S. John the Baptist, towards nightfall, a girandola--that is, a contrivance full of fire-trumpets, rockets, and other fireworks; which girandola had the form now of a temple, now of a ship, sometimes of rocks, and at times of a city or of an inferno, according as it pleased the designer; and one year the charge of making one was given to Tribolo, who, as will be described below, made it very beautifully. Of the various manners of these fireworks, and particularly of set pieces, Vannoccio of Siena and others give an account, and on this subject I shall enlarge no further; but I must say something as to the nature of these girandole. The whole structure, then, is of wood, with broad compartments radiating outwards from the foot, to the end that the rockets, when they have been lighted, may not set fire to the other fireworks, but may rise in due order from their separate places, one after another, filling the heavens in proper succession with the fire that blazes in the girandola both above and below. They are distributed, I say, at wide intervals, to the end that they may not burn all at once, and may produce a beautiful effect; and the same do the mortars, which are bound to the firm parts of the girandola, and make the most beautiful and joyous noises. The fire-trumpets, likewise, are fitted in among the ornaments, and are generally contrived so as to discharge through the mouths of masks and other suchlike things. But the most important point is to arrange the girandola in such a manner that the lights that burn in certain vases may last the whole night, and illuminate the piazza; wherefore the whole work is connected together by a simple match of tow steeped in a mixture of powder full of sulphur and aquavitæ, which creeps little by little with its fire to every part which it has to set alight, one after another, until it has kindled the whole. Now, as I have said, the things represented are various, but all must have something to do with fire, and must be subject to its action; and long before this there had been counterfeited the city of Sodom, with Lot and his daughters flying from it, at another time Geryon, with Virgil and Dante on his back, according as Dante himself relates in the _Inferno_, and even earlier Orpheus bringing Eurydice with him from those infernal regions, with many other inventions. And his Excellency ordained that the work should not be given to any of the puppet-painters, who for many years past had made a thousand absurdities in the girandole, but that an excellent master should produce a work that might have in it something of the good; wherefore the charge of this was given to Tribolo, who, with the ingenuity and art wherewith he had executed all his other works, made one in the form of a very beautiful octagonal temple, rising with its ornaments to the total height of twenty braccia. This temple he represented as the Temple of Peace, placing on the summit an image of Peace, who was setting fire to a great pile of arms which she had at her feet; and these arms, the statue of Peace, and all the other figures that made this structure one of great beauty, were made of pasteboard, clay, and cloth steeped in glue, put together with extraordinary art. They were, I say, of these materials, to the end that the whole work might be the lighter, since it was to be suspended at a great height from the ground by a double rope that crossed the Piazza high in the air. It is true, indeed, that the fireworks having been placed in it too thickly, and the fuses of tow being too near one to another, when they were set alight, such was the fury of the conflagration, and so great and so violent the blaze, that everything caught fire all at once, and was burned in a flash, whereas it should have continued to burn for an hour at least; and what was worse, the fire seizing on the woodwork and on all that should have been preserved, the ropes and every other thing were consumed in a moment, which was no small loss, and gave little pleasure to the people. But with regard to workmanship, it was more beautiful than any other girandola that had ever been made up to that time. The Duke, then, resolving to erect the Loggia of the Mercato Nuovo for the convenience of his citizens and merchants, did not wish to lay a greater burden than he could bear on Tribolo, who, as chief engineer to the Capitani di Parte and the commissioners of the rivers and the sewers of the city, was always riding through the Florentine dominions, engaged in bringing back to their proper beds many rivers that did damage by breaking away from them, in repairing bridges, and in other suchlike works; and he gave the charge of this enterprise to Tasso, at the advice of the above-mentioned Messer Pier Francesco, his major-domo, in order to change that Tasso from a carpenter into an architect. This was certainly against the wishes of Tribolo, although he did not show it, and even acted as the close friend of Tasso; and a proof that this is true is that Tribolo perceived many errors in Tasso's model, but, so it is believed, would by no means tell him of them. Such an error, for example, was that of the capitals of the columns that are beside the pilasters, whereby, the columns not leaving enough space, when everything had been drawn up, and the capitals had to be set into position, the corona above those capitals would not go in, so that it was found necessary to cut away so much that the order of the architecture was ruined; besides many other errors, of which there is no need to speak. For the above-named Messer Pier Francesco the same Tasso executed the door of the Church of S. Romolo, and a window with knee-shaped brackets on the Piazza del Duca, in an order of his own, substituting capitals for bases, and doing so many other things without measure or order, that it might have been said that the German Order had begun to return to life in Tuscany by means of this man; to say nothing of the works that he did in the Palace in the way of staircases and apartments, which the Duke has been obliged to have destroyed, because they had no sort of order, measure, or proportion, and were, on the contrary, all shapeless, out of square, and without the least convenience or grace. All these things were not done without some responsibility falling on Tribolo, who, having considerable knowledge in such matters, should not, so it seemed, have allowed his Prince to throw away his money and to do him such an affront to his face; and, what was even more serious, he should not have permitted such things to Tasso, who was his friend. Well did men of judgment recognize the presumption and madness of the one in seeking to exercise an art of which he knew nothing, and the dissimulation of the other, who declared that he was pleased with that which he certainly knew to be bad; and of this a proof may be found in the works that Giorgio Vasari has had to pull down in the Palace, to the loss of the Duke and the great shame of those men. But the same thing happened to Tribolo as to Tasso, in that, even as Tasso abandoned wood-carving, a craft in which he had no equal, but never became a good architect, and thus won little honour by deserting an art in which he was very able, and applying himself to another of which he knew not one scrap, so Tribolo, abandoning sculpture, in which it may be said with truth that he was most excellent and caused everyone to marvel, and setting himself to attempt to straighten out rivers, ceased to win honour by pursuing the one, while the other brought him blame and loss rather than honour and profit. For he did not succeed in his tinkering with rivers, and he made many enemies, particularly in the district of Prato, on account of the Bisenzio, and in many places in the Val di Nievole. Duke Cosimo having then bought the Palace of the Pitti, of which there has been an account in another place, and his Excellency desiring to adorn it with gardens, groves, fountains, fish-ponds, and other suchlike things, Tribolo executed all the distribution of the hill in the manner in which it still remains, accommodating everything in its proper place with beautiful judgment, although various things in many parts of the garden have since been changed. Of this Pitti Palace, which is the most beautiful in Europe, mention will be made in another place with a more suitable occasion. After these things, Tribolo was sent by his Excellency to the island of Elba, not only that he might see the city and port that the Duke had caused to be built there, but also that he might make arrangements for the transport of a round piece of granite, twelve braccia in diameter, from which was to be made a tazza for the great lawn of the Pitti Palace, which might receive the water of the principal fountain. Tribolo, therefore, went thither and caused a boat to be made on purpose for transporting the tazza, and then, after giving the stone-cutters directions for the transportation, he returned to Florence; where he had no sooner arrived, than he found the whole country full of murmurings and maledictions against him, since about that time floods and inundations had done infinite havoc in the neighbourhood of those rivers that he had patched up, although it was, perhaps, not altogether through his fault that this had happened. However that may have been, whether it was the malignity of some of his assistants, or perchance envy, or that the accusation was indeed true, the blame for all that damage was laid on Tribolo, who, being a man of no great spirit, and rather wanting in resolution than otherwise, and doubting that the malice of some enemy might make him lose the favour of the Duke, was in a state of great despondency, when, being of a feeble habit of body, on the 20th of August in the year 1550, there came upon him a most violent fever. At that time Giorgio Vasari was in Florence, for the purpose of having sent to Rome the marbles for the tombs that Pope Julius III caused to be erected in S. Pietro a Montorio; and he, as one who sincerely esteemed the talents of Tribolo, visited and comforted him, beseeching him that he should think of nothing save his health, and that, when cured, he should return to finish the work of Castello, letting the rivers go their own way, for they were more likely to drown his fame than to bring him any profit or honour. This, which he promised to attempt to do, he would, I believe, have done at all costs, if he had not been prevented by death, which closed his eyes on the 7th of September in the same year. And so the works of Castello, begun and carried well forward by him, remained unfinished; for although some work has been done there since his day, now in one part and now in another, nevertheless they have never been pursued with the diligence and resolution that were shown when Tribolo was alive and when the Lord Duke was hot in the undertaking. Of a truth, he who does not press great works forward while those who are having them done are spending money willingly and devoting their best attention to them, brings it about that those works are put on one side and left unfinished, which zeal and solicitude could have carried to perfection. And thus, by the negligence of the workers, the world is left without its adornment, and they without their honour and fame, for the reason that it rarely happens, as it did to this work of Castello, that on the death of the first master he who succeeds to his place is willing to finish it according to his design and model with that modesty with which Giorgio Vasari, at the commission of the Duke, has caused the great fish-pond of Castello to be finished after the directions of Tribolo, even as he will do with the other things according as his Excellency may desire from time to time to have them done. Tribolo lived sixty-five years, and was interred by the Company of the Scalzo in their place of burial. He left behind him a son called Raffaello, who has not taken up art, and two daughters, one of whom is the wife of David, Tribolo's assistant in building all the works at Castello, who, being a man of judgment and capable in such matters, is now employed on the aqueducts of Florence, Pisa, and all the other places in the dominion, according as it may please his Excellency. PIERINO (PIERO) DA VINCI LIFE OF PIERINO (PIERO) DA VINCI SCULPTOR Although those men are generally the most celebrated who have executed some work excellently well, nevertheless, if the works already accomplished by any man foreshadow those that he did not achieve as likely to have been numerous and much more rare, if some accident, unforeseen and out of the common use, had not happened to interrupt him, it is certain that such a man, wherever there may be one willing to be just in his appreciation of the talent of another, will be rightly extolled and celebrated both on the one count and on the other, and as much for what he would have done as for what he did. The sculptor Vinci, therefore, should not suffer on account of the short duration of his life, or be robbed thereby of the praise due to him from the judgment of those who shall come after us, considering that he was only in the first bloom both of his life and of his studies at the time when he produced and gave to the world that which everyone admires, and was like to bring forth fruits in greater abundance, if a hostile tempest had not destroyed both the fruits and the tree. I remember having said in another place that in the township of Vinci, in the lower Valdarno, there lived Ser Piero, the father of Leonardo da Vinci, most famous of painters. To this Ser Piero, after Leonardo, there was born, as his youngest son, Bartolommeo, who, living at Vinci and attaining to manhood, took for his wife one of the first maidens of that township. Bartolommeo was desirous of having a male child, and spoke very often to his wife of the greatness of the genius with which his brother Leonardo had been endowed, praying God that He should make her worthy that from her there might be born in his house another Leonardo, the first being now dead. In a short time, therefore, according to his desire, there was born to him a gracious boy, to whom he wished to give the name of Leonardo; but, being advised by his relatives to revive the memory of his father, he gave him the name of Piero. Having come to the age of three years, the boy had a most beautiful countenance, with curly locks, and showed great grace in every movement, with a quickness of intelligence that was marvellous; insomuch that Maestro Giuliano del Carmine, an excellent astrologer, and with him a priest devoted to chiromancy, who were both close friends of Bartolommeo, having arrived in Vinci and lodged in Bartolommeo's house, looking at the forehead and hand of the boy, revealed to the father, both the astrologer and the chiromancer together, the greatness of his genius, and predicted that in a short time he would make extraordinary proficience in the mercurial arts, but that his life would also be very short. And only too true was their prophecy, for both in the one part and in the other (when one would have sufficed), in his life as well as in his art, it needs must be fulfilled. Then, continuing to grow, Piero had his father as his master in letters, but of himself, without any master, giving his attention to drawing and to making various little puppets in clay, he showed that the divine inclination of his nature recognized by the astrologer and the chiromancer was already awakening and beginning to work in him. By reason of which Bartolommeo judged that his prayer had been heard by God; and, believing that his brother had been restored to him in his son, he began to think of removing Piero from Vinci and taking him to Florence. Having then done this without delay, he placed Piero, who was now twelve years of age, with Bandinelli in Florence, flattering himself that Baccio, having been once the friend of Leonardo, would take notice of the boy and teach him with diligence; besides which, it seemed to him that Piero delighted more in sculpture than in painting. But afterwards, coming very often to Florence, he recognized that Bandinelli was not answering with deeds to his expectations, and was not taking pains with the boy or showing interest in him, although he saw him to be willing to learn. For which reason Bartolommeo took him away from Bandinelli, and entrusted him to Tribolo, who appeared to him to make more effort to help those who were seeking to learn, besides giving more attention to the studies of art and bearing even greater affection to the memory of Leonardo. Tribolo was executing some fountains at Castello, the villa of his Excellency; and thereupon Piero, beginning once more his customary drawing, through having there the competition of the other young men whom Tribolo kept about him, set himself with great ardour of spirit to study day and night, being spurred by his nature, which was desirous of excellence and honour, and being even more kindled by the example of the others like himself whom he saw constantly around him. Wherefore in a few months he made such progress, that it was a marvel to everyone; and, having begun to gain some experience with the chisels, he sought to see whether his hand and his tools would obey in practice the thoughts within him and the designs formed in his brain. Tribolo, perceiving his readiness, and having had a water-basin of stone made at that very time for Cristofano Rinieri, gave to Piero a small piece of marble, from which he was to make for that water-basin a boy that should spurt forth water from the private part. Piero, taking the marble with great gladness, first made a little model of clay, and then executed the work with so much grace, that Tribolo and the others ventured the opinion that he would become one of those who are counted as rare in that art. Tribolo then gave him a Ducal Mazzocchio[3] to make in stone, to be placed over an escutcheon with the Medici balls, for Messer Pier Francesco Riccio, the major-domo of the Duke; and he made it with two children with their legs intertwined together, who are holding the Mazzocchio in their hands and placing it upon the escutcheon, which is fixed over the door of a house that the major-domo then occupied, opposite to S. Giuliano, near the Priests of S. Antonio. When this work was seen, all the craftsmen of Florence formed the same judgment that Tribolo had pronounced before. [Footnote 3: See note on p. 132, Vol. II.] After this, he carved a boy squeezing a fish that is pouring water from its mouth, for the fountains of Castello. And then, Tribolo having given him a larger piece of marble, Piero made from it two children who are embracing each other and squeezing fishes, causing water to spout from their mouths. These children were so graceful in the heads and in their whole persons, and executed with so beautiful a manner in the legs, arms, and hair, that already it could be seen that he would have been able to execute the most difficult work to perfection. Taking heart, therefore, and buying a piece of grey-stone, two braccia and a half in length, which he took to his house on the Canto alla Briga, Piero began to work at it in the evenings, after returning from his labours, at night, and on feast-days, insomuch that little by little he brought it to completion. This was a figure of Bacchus, who had a Satyr at his feet, and with one hand was holding a cup, while in the other he had a bunch of grapes, and his head was girt with a crown of grapes; all after a model made by himself in clay. In this and in his other early works Piero showed a marvellous facility, which never offends the eye, nor is it in any respect disturbing to him who beholds it. This Bacchus, when finished, was bought by Bongianni Capponi, and his nephew Lodovico Capponi now has it in a courtyard in his house. The while that Piero was executing these works, few persons as yet knew that he was the nephew of Leonardo da Vinci; but his labours making him well known and renowned, by this means his parentage and his birth were likewise revealed. Wherefore ever afterwards, both from his connection with his uncle and from his own happy genius, wherein he resembled that great man, he was called by everyone not Piero, but Vinci. Now Vinci, while occupied in this manner, had often heard various persons speaking of the things connected with the arts to be seen in Rome, and extolling them, as is always done by everyone; wherefore a great desire had been kindled in him to see them, hoping to be able to derive profit by beholding not only the works of the ancients, but also those of Michelagnolo, and even the master himself, who was then alive and residing in Rome. He went thither, therefore, in company with some friends; but after seeing Rome and all that he wished, he returned to Florence, having reflected judiciously that the things of Rome were as yet too profound for him, and should be studied and imitated not so early in his career, but after a greater acquaintance with art. At that time Tribolo had finished a model for the shaft of the fountain in the labyrinth, in which are some Satyrs in low-relief, four masks in half-relief, and four little boys in the round, who are seated upon certain caulicoles. Vinci having then returned, Tribolo gave him this shaft to do, and he executed and finished it, making in it some delicate designs not employed by any other but himself, which greatly pleased all who saw them. Then, having had the whole marble tazza of that fountain finished, Tribolo thought of placing on the edge of it four children in the round, lying down and playing with their arms and legs in the water, in various attitudes; and these he intended to cast in bronze. Vinci, at the commission of Tribolo, made them of clay, and they were afterwards cast in bronze by Zanobi Lastricati, a sculptor and a man very experienced in matters of casting; and they were placed not long since around the fountain, where they make a most beautiful effect. There was in daily intercourse with Tribolo one Luca Martini, the proveditor at that time for the building of the Mercato Nuovo, who, praising highly the excellence in art and the fine character of Vinci, and desiring to help him, provided him with a piece of marble two-thirds of a braccio in height and one and a quarter in length. Vinci, taking the marble, made with it a Christ being scourged at the Column, in which the rules of low-relief and of design may be seen to have been well observed; and in truth it made everyone marvel, considering that he had not yet reached the age of seventeen, and had made in five years of study that proficience in art which others do not achieve save after length of life and great experience of many things. At this time Tribolo, having undertaken the office of superintendent of the drains in the city of Florence, ordained in that capacity that the drain in the old Piazza di S. Maria Novella should be raised from the ground, in such a way that, becoming more capacious, it might be better able to receive all the waters that ran into it from various quarters. For this work, then, he commissioned Vinci to make the model of a great mask of three braccia, which with its open mouth might swallow all the rain-water. Afterwards, by order of the Ufficiali della Torre, the work was allotted to Vinci, who, in order to execute it more quickly, summoned to his aid the sculptor Lorenzo Marignolli. In company with this master he finished it, making it from a block of hard-stone; and the work is such that it adorns the whole Piazza, with no small advantage to the city. It now appeared to Vinci that he had made such proficience in art, that it would be a great benefit to him to see the principal works in Rome, and to associate with the most excellent craftsmen living there; wherefore, an occasion to go there presenting itself, he seized it readily. There had arrived from Rome an intimate friend of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, Francesco Bandini, who, having come to know Vinci by means of Luca Martini, and having praised him highly, caused him to make a model of wax for a tomb of marble that he wished to erect in his chapel in S. Croce; and shortly afterwards, on returning to Rome, Vinci having spoken his mind to Luca Martini, Bandini took him in his company. There Vinci remained a year, studying all the time, and executed some works worthy of remembrance. The first was a Christ on the Cross in low-relief, rendering up His spirit to His Father, which was copied from a design done by Michelagnolo. For Cardinal Ridolfi he added to an antique head a breast in bronze, and made a Venus of marble in low-relief, which was much extolled. For Francesco Bandini he restored an ancient horse, of which many pieces were wanting, and made it complete. And in order to give some proof of gratitude, where he could, to Luca Martini, who was writing to him by every courier, and continually recommending him to Bandini, it seemed good to Vinci to make a copy in wax, in the round and two-thirds (of a braccio) in height, of the Moses of Michelagnolo that is on the tomb of Pope Julius II in S. Pietro in Vincula, than which there is no more beautiful work to be seen; and so, having made the Moses of wax, he sent it as a present to Luca Martini. At the time when Vinci was living in Rome and executing the works mentioned above, Luca Martini was made by the Duke of Florence proveditor of Pisa, and in his office he did not forget his friend, and therefore wrote to him that he was preparing a room for him and was providing a block of marble of three braccia, so that he might return from Rome at his pleasure, seeing that while with him he should want for nothing. Vinci, attracted by this prospect and by the love that he bore to Luca, resolved to depart from Rome and to take up his abode for some time in Pisa, where he looked to find opportunities of practising his hand and making trial of his ability. Having therefore gone to Pisa, he found that the marble was already in his room, prepared according to the orders of Luca; but, on proceeding to begin to carve from it an upright figure, he perceived that the marble had in it a crack that diminished it by a braccio. Wherefore, having resolved to change it into a recumbent figure, he made a young River God holding a vase that is pouring out water, the vase being upheld by three children, who are assisting the River God to pour the water forth; and beneath his feet runs a copious stream of water, in which may be seen fishes darting about and water-fowl flying in various parts. This River God finished, Vinci made a present of it to Luca, who presented it to the Duchess, to whom it was very dear; and then, her brother Don Garzia di Toledo being at that time in Pisa, whither he had gone by galley, she gave it to that brother, who accepted it with much pleasure for the fountains of his garden in the Chiaia at Naples. In those days Luca Martini was writing some observations on the Commedia of Dante, and he pointed out to Vinci the cruelty described by Dante, which the Pisans and Archbishop Ruggieri showed towards Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, causing him to die of hunger with his four sons in the tower that is therefore called the Tower of Hunger; whereby he offered to Vinci the occasion for a new work and the idea of a new design. Wherefore, while he was still working at the River God described above, he set his hand to making a scene in wax more than a braccio in height and three-quarters in breadth, to be cast in bronze, in which he represented two of the Count's sons already dead, one in the act of expiring, and the fourth overcome by hunger and near his end, but not yet reduced to the last breath; with the father in a pitiful and miserable attitude, blind and heavy with grief, and groping over the wretched bodies of his sons stretched upon the ground. In this work Vinci displayed the excellence of design no less than did Dante the perfection of poetry in his verses, for no less compassion is stirred by the attitudes shaped in wax by the sculptor in him who beholds them, than is roused in him who listens to the words and accents imprinted on the living page by the poet. And in order to mark the place where the event happened, he made at the foot of the scene the River Arno, which occupies its whole width, for the above-named tower is not far distant from the river in Pisa; while upon that tower he placed an old woman, naked, withered, and fearsome, representing Hunger, much after the manner wherein Ovid describes her. The wax model finished, he cast the scene in bronze, and it gave consummate satisfaction, being held by the Court and by everyone to be no ordinary work. Duke Cosimo was then intent on enriching and beautifying the city of Pisa, and he had already caused the Piazza del Mercato to be built anew, with a great number of shops around it, and had placed in the centre a column ten braccia high, upon which, according to the design of Luca, was to stand a statue representing Abundance. Martini, therefore, having spoken to the Duke and presented Vinci to his notice, easily obtained for him from his Excellency the commission for that statue, the Duke being always eager to assist men of talent and to bring fine intellects forward. Vinci executed a statue of travertine, three braccia and a half in height, which was much extolled by everyone; for at the feet of the figure he placed a little child, who assists her to support the Cornucopia, carved with much softness and facility, although the stone is rough and difficult to work. [Illustration: UGOLINO DELLA GHERARDESCA AND HIS SONS IN THE TOWER OF FAMINE (_After the wax relief by =Pierino [Piero] da Vinci=. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum_) _Reproduced by permission of the Visitors of the Ashmolean Museum._] Luca afterwards sent to Carrara to have a block of marble quarried five braccia in height and three in breadth, from which Vinci, who had once seen some sketches by Michelagnolo of Samson slaying a Philistine with the jawbone of an ass, proposed to make two figures of five braccia from his own fancy, after that subject. Whereupon, while the marble was on its way, he set himself to make several models, all varying one from another, and then fixed on one of them; and after the block had arrived he began to carve it, and carried it well on, imitating Michelagnolo in cutting his conception and design little by little out of the stone, without spoiling it or making any sort of error. He executed all the perforation in this work, whether undercut or at an easy angle, with great facility, laborious as it was, and the manner of the whole work was very delicate. But since the labour was very fatiguing, he sought to distract himself with other studies and works of less importance; and thus he executed during the same time a little tablet of marble in low-relief, in which he represented Our Lady with Christ, S. John, and S. Elizabeth, which was held, as it still is, to be a rare work. This came into the hands of the most illustrious Duchess, and it is now among the choice things in the study of the Duke. He then set his hand to a scene of marble, one braccio high and one and a half wide, partly in half-relief and partly in low-relief, in which he represented the restoration of Pisa by the Duke, who is in the work present in person at the restoration of that city, which is being pressed forward by his presence. Round the Duke are figures of his virtues; in particular a Minerva representing his wisdom and also the arts revived by him in that city of Pisa, who is surrounded by many evils and natural defects of the site, which besiege her on every side, and afflict her in the manner of enemies; but from all these that city has since been delivered by the above-mentioned virtues of the Duke. All these virtues round the Duke, with all the evils round Pisa, were portrayed by Vinci in his scene with most beautiful gestures and attitudes; but he left it unfinished, to the great regret of those who saw it, on account of the perfection of the things in it that were completed. The fame of Vinci having grown and spread abroad by reason of these works, the heirs of Messer Baldassarre Turini da Pescia besought him that he should make a model of a marble tomb for Messer Baldassarre; which finished, it pleased them, whereupon they made an agreement that the tomb should be executed, and Vinci sent Francesco del Tadda, an able master of marble-carving, to have the marble quarried at Carrara. And when that master had sent him a block of marble, Vinci began a statue, and carved out of the stone a figure blocked out in such a manner that one who knew not the circumstances would have said that it was certainly blocked out by Michelagnolo. The name of Vinci was now very great, and his genius was admired by all, being much more perfect than could have been expected in one so young, and it was likely to grow even more and to become greater, and to equal that of any other man in his art, as his own works bear witness, without any other testimony; when the term prescribed for him by Heaven, being now close at hand, interrupted all his plans, and caused his rapid progress to cease at one blow, not suffering that he should climb any higher, and depriving the world of many excellent works of art with which, had Vinci lived, it would have been adorned. It happened at this time, while Vinci was intent on the tomb of another, not knowing that his own was preparing, that the Duke had to send Luca Martini to Genoa on affairs of importance; and Luca, both because he loved Vinci and wished to have him in his company, and also in order to give him some diversion and recreation, and to enable him to see Genoa, took him with him on his journey. There, while Martini was transacting his business, at his suggestion Messer Adamo Centurioni commissioned Vinci to execute a figure of S. John the Baptist, of which he made the model. But soon he was attacked by fever, and, to increase his distress, at the same time his friend was also taken away from him; perchance to provide a way in which fate might be fulfilled in the life of Vinci. For it became necessary that Luca, in the interests of the business entrusted to him, should go to Florence to find the Duke; wherefore he parted from his sick friend, to the great grief of both the one and the other, leaving him in the house of the Abate Nero, to whom he straitly recommended him, although Piero was very unwilling to remain in Genoa. But Vinci, feeling himself growing worse every day, resolved to have himself removed from Genoa; and, having caused an assistant of his own, called Tiberio Cavalieri, to come from Pisa, with his help he had himself carried to Livorno by water, and from Livorno to Pisa in a litter. Arriving in Pisa at the twenty-second hour in the evening, all exhausted and broken by the journey, the sea-voyage, and the fever, during the night he had no repose, and the next morning, at the break of day, he passed to the other life, not having yet reached the age of twenty-three. The death of Vinci was a great grief to all his friends, and to Luca Martini beyond measure; and it grieved all those who had hoped to see from his hands such works as are not often seen. And Messer Benedetto Varchi, who was much the friend of his abilities and of those of every master, afterwards wrote the following sonnet in memory of his fame: Come potrò da me, se tu non presti O forza, o tregua al mio gran duolo interno, Soffrirlo in pace mai, Signor superno, Che fin quì nuova ognor pena mi desti? Dunque de' miei più cari or quegli, or questi, Verde sen voli all'alto Asilo eterno, Ed io canuto in questo basso inferno A pianger sempre e lamentarmi resti? Sciolgami almen tua gran bontade quinci, Or che reo fato nostro, o sua ventura, Ch' era ben degno d' altra vita, e gente, Per far più ricco il cielo, e la scultura Men bella, e me col buon Martin dolente, N' ha privi, o pietà, del secondo Vinci. BACCIO BANDINELLI LIFE OF BACCIO BANDINELLI SCULPTOR OF FLORENCE In the days when the arts of design flourished in Florence by the favour and assistance of the elder Lorenzo de' Medici the Magnificent, there lived in the city a goldsmith called Michelagnolo di Viviano of Gaiuole, who worked excellently well at chasing and incavo for enamels and niello, and was very skilful in every sort of work in gold and silver plate. This Michelagnolo had a great knowledge of jewels, and set them very well; and on account of his talents and his versatility all the foreign masters of his art used to have recourse to him, and he gave them hospitality, as well as to the young men of the city, insomuch that his workshop was held to be, as it was, the first in Florence. Of him the Magnificent Lorenzo and all the house of Medici availed themselves; and for the tourney that Giuliano, the brother of that Magnificent Lorenzo, held on the Piazza di S. Croce, he executed with subtle craftsmanship all the ornaments of helmets, crests, and devices. Wherefore he acquired a great name and much intimacy with the sons of the Magnificent Lorenzo, to whom his work was ever afterwards very dear, and no less useful to him their acquaintance and friendship, by reason of which, and also by the many works that he executed throughout the whole city and dominion, he became a man of substance as well as one of much repute in his art. To this Michelagnolo the Medici, on their departure from Florence in the year 1494, entrusted much plate in silver and gold, which was all kept in safe hiding by him and faithfully preserved until their return, when he was much extolled by them for his fidelity, and afterwards recompensed with rewards. In the year 1487 there was born to Michelagnolo a son, whom he called Bartolommeo, but afterwards, according to the Florentine custom, he was called by everyone Baccio. Michelagnolo, desiring to leave his son heir to his art and connection, took him into his own workshop in company with other young men who were learning to draw; for that was the custom in those times, and no one was held to be a good goldsmith who was not a good draughtsman and able to work well in relief. Baccio, then, in his first years, gave his attention to design according to the teaching of his father, being assisted no less to make proficience by the competition of the other lads, among whom he chose as his particular companion one called Piloto, who afterwards became an able goldsmith; and with him he often went about the churches drawing the works of the good painters, but also mingling work in relief with his drawing, and counterfeiting in wax certain sculptures of Donato and Verrocchio, besides executing some works in clay, in the round. While still a boy in age, Baccio frequented at times the workshop of Girolamo del Buda, a commonplace painter, on the Piazza di S. Pulinari. There, at one time during the winter, a great quantity of snow had fallen, which had been thrown afterwards by the people into a heap in that piazza; and Girolamo, turning to Baccio, said to him jestingly: "Baccio, if this snow were marble, could we not carve a fine giant out of it, such as a Marforio lying down?" "We could so," answered Baccio, "and I suggest that we should act as if it were marble." And immediately, throwing off his cloak, he set his hands to the snow, and, assisted by other boys, taking away the snow where there was too much, and adding some in other places, he made a rough figure of Marforio lying down, eight braccia in length. Whereupon the painter and all the others stood marvelling, not so much at what he had done as at the spirit with which he had set his hand to a work so vast, and he so young and so small. Baccio, indeed, having more love for sculpture than for goldsmith's work, gave many proofs of this; and when he went to Pinzirimonte, a villa bought by his father, he would often plant himself before the naked labourers and draw them with great eagerness, and he did the same with the cattle on the farm. At this time he continued for many days to go in the morning to Prato, which was near the villa, where he stayed the whole day drawing in the Chapel of the Pieve from the work of Fra Filippo Lippi, and he did not cease until he had drawn it all, imitating the draperies of that master, who did them very well. And already he handled with great skill the style and the pen, and also chalk both red and black, which last is a soft stone that comes from the mountains of France, and with it, when cut to a point, drawings can be executed with great delicacy. These things making clear to Michelagnolo the mind and inclination of his son, he also changed his intention, like the boy himself, and, being likewise advised by his friends, placed him under the care of Giovan Francesco Rustici, one of the best sculptors in the city, whose workshop was still constantly frequented by Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo, seeing the drawings of Baccio and being pleased with them, exhorted him to persevere and to take to working in relief; and he recommended strongly to him the works of Donato, saying also that he should execute something in marble, such as a head or a low-relief. Baccio, encouraged by the comforting advice of Leonardo, set himself to copy in marble an antique head of a woman, of which he had shaped a model from one that is in the house of the Medici. This, for his first work, he executed passing well, and it was held very dear by Andrea Carnesecchi, who received it as a present from Baccio's father and placed it in his house in the Via Larga, over that door in the centre of the court which leads into the garden. Now, Baccio continuing to make other models of figures in clay in the round, his father, wishing not to fail in his duty towards the praiseworthy zeal of his son, sent for some blocks of marble from Carrara, and caused to be built for him, at the end of his house at Pinti, a room with lights arranged for working, which looked out upon the Via Fiesolana. Whereupon he set himself to block out various figures in those marbles, and one, among others, he carried well on from a piece of marble of two braccia and a half, which was a Hercules that is holding the dead Cacus beneath him, between his legs. These sketches were left in the same place in memory of him. At this time was thrown open to view the cartoon of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, full of nude figures, which Michelagnolo had executed at the commission of Piero Soderini for the Great Council Chamber, and, as has been related in another place, all the craftsmen flocked together to draw it on account of its excellence. Among these came Baccio, and no long time passed before he outstripped them all, for the reason that he understood nudes, and outlined, shaded, and finished them, better than any of the other draughtsmen, among whom were Jacopo Sansovino, Andrea del Sarto, Il Rosso, who was then very young, and Alfonso Berughetta the Spaniard, together with many other famous craftsmen. Baccio frequented the place more than any of the others, and had a counterfeit key; and it happened that, Piero Soderini having been deposed from the government about this time, in the year 1512, and the house of Medici having been restored to power, during the confusion caused in the Palace by the change of government, Baccio entered in secret, all by himself, and tore the cartoon into many pieces. Of which not knowing the reason, some said that Baccio had torn it up in order to have some pieces of the cartoon in his possession for his own convenience, some declared that he wished to deprive the other young men of that advantage, so that they might not be able to profit by it and make themselves a name in art, others said that he was moved to do this by his affection for Leonardo da Vinci, from whom Michelagnolo's cartoon had taken much of his reputation, and others, again, perhaps interpreting his action better, attributed it to the hatred which he felt against Michelagnolo and afterwards demonstrated as long as he lived. The loss of the cartoon was no light one for the city, and very heavy the blame that was rightly laid upon Baccio by everyone, as an envious and malicious person. Baccio then executed some pieces of cartoon with lead-white and charcoal, among which was a very beautiful one of a nude Cleopatra, which he presented to the goldsmith Piloto. Having already acquired a name as a great draughtsman, he was desirous of learning to paint in colours, having a firm belief that he would not only equal Buonarroti, but even greatly surpass him in both fields of art. Now he had executed a cartoon of a Leda, in which Castor and Pollux were issuing from the egg of the swan embraced by her, and he wished to colour it in oils, in such a way as to make it appear that the methods of handling the colours and mixing them together in order to make the various tints, with the lights and shades, had not been taught to him by others, but that he had found them by himself, and, after pondering how he could do this, he thought of the following expedient. He besought Andrea del Sarto, who was much his friend, that he should paint a portrait of him in oils, flattering himself that he would thereby gain two advantages in accordance with his purpose; one was that he would see the method of mixing the colours, and the other was that the painted picture would remain in his hands, which, having seen it executed and understanding it, would assist him and serve him as a pattern. But Andrea perceived Baccio's intention as he made his request, and was angry at his want of confidence and astuteness, for he would have been willing to show him what he desired, if Baccio had asked him as a friend; wherefore, without making any sign that he had found him out, and refraining from mixing the colours into tints, he placed every sort of colour on his palette and mingled them together with the brush, and, taking some now from one and now from another with great dexterity of hand, counterfeited in this way the vivid colouring of Baccio's face. The latter, both through the artfulness of Andrea and because he had to sit still where he was if he wished to be painted, was never able to see or learn anything that he wished: and it was a fine notion of Andrea's, thus at the same time to punish the deceitfulness of his friend and to display with this method of painting, like a well-practised master, even greater ability and experience in art. For all this, however, Baccio did not abandon his determination, in which he was assisted by the painter Rosso, whom he afterwards asked more openly for the help that he desired. Having thus learned the methods of colouring, he painted a picture in oils of the Holy Fathers delivered from the Limbo of Hell by the Saviour, and also a larger picture of Noah drunk with wine and revealing his nakedness in the presence of his sons. He tried his hand at painting on the wall, on fresh plaster, and executed on the walls of his house heads, arms, legs, and torsi, coloured in various ways; but, perceiving that this involved him in greater difficulties than he had expected, through the drying of the plaster, he returned to his former study of working in relief. He made a figure of marble, three braccia in height, of a young Mercury with a flute in his hand, with which he took great pains, and it was extolled and held to be a rare work; and afterwards, in the year 1530, it was bought by Giovan Battista della Palla and sent to France to King Francis, who held it in great estimation. Baccio devoted himself with great study and solicitude to examining and reproducing the most minute details of anatomy, persevering in this for many months and even years. And certainly one can praise highly in this man his desire for honour and excellence in art, and for working well therein; spurred by which desire, and by the most fiery ardour, with which, rather than with aptitude or dexterity in art, he had been endowed by nature from his earliest years, Baccio spared himself no fatigue, never relaxed his efforts for a moment, was always intent either on preparing for work or on working, always occupied, and never to be found idle, thinking that by continual work he would surpass all others who had ever practised his art, and promising this result to himself as the reward of his incessant study and endless labour. Continuing, therefore, his zealous study, he not only produced a great number of sheets drawn in various ways with his own hand, but also contrived to get Agostino Viniziano, the engraver of prints, to engrave for him a nude Cleopatra and a larger plate filled with various anatomical studies, in order to see whether this would be successful; and the latter plate brought him great praise. He then set himself to make in wax, in full-relief, a figure one braccio and a half in height of S. Jerome in Penitence, lean beyond belief, which showed on the bones the muscles all withered, a great part of the nerves, and the skin dry and wrinkled; and with such diligence was this work executed by him, that all the craftsmen, and particularly Leonardo da Vinci, pronounced the opinion that there had never been seen a better thing of its kind, nor one wrought with greater art. This figure Baccio carried to Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici and to his brother the Magnificent Giuliano, and by its means he made himself known to them as the son of the goldsmith Michelagnolo; and they, besides praising the work, showed him many other favours. This was in the year 1512, when they had returned to their house and their government. At this same time there were being executed in the Office of Works of S. Maria del Fiore certain Apostles of marble, which were to be set up within the marble tabernacles in those very places in that church where there are the Apostles painted by the painter Lorenzo di Bicci. At the instance of the Magnificent Giuliano there was allotted to Baccio a S. Peter, four braccia and a half in height, which after a long time he brought to completion; and, although it has not the highest perfection of sculpture, nevertheless good design may be seen in it. This Apostle remained in the Office of Works from the year 1513 down to 1565, in which year Duke Cosimo, in honour of the marriage of Queen Joanna of Austria, his daughter-in-law, was pleased to have the interior of S. Maria del Fiore whitewashed, which church had never been touched from the time of its erection down to that day, and to have four Apostles set up in their places, among which was the S. Peter mentioned above. Now in the year 1515, Pope Leo X passing through Florence on his way to Bologna, the city, in order to do him honour, ordained, among many other ornaments and festive preparations, that there should be made a colossal figure of nine braccia and a half, which was to be placed under an arch of the Loggia in the Piazza near the Palace; and this was given to Baccio. This colossal figure was a Hercules, and from the premature words of Baccio men expected that it would surpass the David of Buonarroti, which stood there near it; but the act did not correspond to the word, nor the work to the boast, and it robbed Baccio of much of the estimation in which he had previously been held by the craftsmen and by the whole city. Pope Leo had allotted the work of the ornamentation in marble that surrounds the Chamber of Our Lady at Loreto, with the statues and scenes, to Maestro Andrea Contucci of Monte Sansovino, who had already executed some of these with great credit to himself, and was then engaged on others. Now at this time Baccio took to Rome, for the Pope, a very beautiful model of a nude David who was holding Goliath under him and was cutting off his head; which model he intended to execute in bronze or in marble for that very spot in the court of the house of the Medici in Florence where there once stood the David of Donato, which, at the spoiling of the Medici Palace, was taken to the Palace that then belonged to the Signori. The Pope, having praised Baccio, but not thinking that the time had come to execute the David, sent him to Loreto to Maestro Andrea, to the end that Andrea might give him one of those scenes to do. Having arrived in Loreto, he was received lovingly by Maestro Andrea and shown much kindness, both on account of his fame and because the Pope had recommended him, and a piece of marble was assigned to him from which he should carve the Nativity of Our Lady. Baccio, after making the model, began the work; but, being a person who was not able to endure a colleague or an equal, and had little praise for the works of others, he also began to speak hardly before the other sculptors who were there of the works of Maestro Andrea, saying that he had no design, and he said the same of the others, insomuch that in a short time he made himself disliked by them all. Whereupon, all that Baccio had said of Maestro Andrea having come to his ears, he, like a wise man, answered him lovingly, saying that works are done with the hands and not with the tongue, that good design is to be looked for not in drawings but in the perfection of the work finished in stone, and, finally, that in future Baccio should speak of him in a different tone. But Baccio answering him arrogantly with many abusive words, Maestro Andrea could endure no more, and rushed upon him in order to kill him; but Bandinelli was torn away from him by some who intervened between them. Being therefore forced to depart from Loreto, Baccio had his scene carried to Ancona; but he grew weary of it, although it was near completion, and he went away leaving it unfinished. This work was finished afterwards by Raffaello da Montelupo, and placed together with the others of Maestro Andrea; but it is by no means equal to them in excellence, although even so it is worthy of praise. Baccio, having returned to Rome, obtained a promise from the Pope, through the favour of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, always ready to assist the arts and their followers, that he should be commissioned to execute some statue for the court of the Medici Palace in Florence. Having therefore come to Florence, he made an Orpheus of marble, who with his playing and his singing is charming Cerberus, and moving Hell itself to compassion. He imitated in this work the Apollo of the Belvedere at Rome, and it was very highly praised, and rightly, because, although the Orpheus of Baccio is not in the attitude of the Apollo Belvedere, nevertheless it reproduces very successfully the manner of the torso and of all the members. The statue, when finished, was carried by order of Cardinal Giulio, while he was governing Florence, into the above-mentioned court, and placed on a carved base executed by the sculptor Benedetto da Rovezzano. But since Baccio never paid any attention to the art of architecture, he took no heed of the genius of Donatello, who had made for the David that was there before a simple column on which rested a cleft base in open-work, to the end that one entering from without might see from the street-door the inner door, that of the other court, opposite to him; and, not having such foresight, he caused his statue to be placed on a broad and wholly solid base, of such a kind that it blocks the view of him who enters and covers the opening of the inner door, so that in passing through the first door one does not see whether the palace extends farther inwards or finishes in the first court. Cardinal Giulio had caused a most beautiful villa to be erected below Monte Mario at Rome, and wished to set up two giants in this villa; and he had them executed in stucco by Baccio, who was always delighted to make giants. These figures, eight braccia in height, stand one on either side of the gate that leads into the wood, and they were held to be reasonably beautiful. While Baccio was engaged on these works, never abandoning his practice of drawing, he caused Marco da Ravenna and Agostino Viniziano, the engravers of prints, to engrave a scene drawn by him on a very large sheet, in which was the Slaughter of the Innocents, so cruelly done to death by Herod. This scene, which was filled by him with a quantity of nudes, both male and female, children living and dead, and women and soldiers in various attitudes, made known the fine draughtsmanship that he showed in figures and his knowledge of muscles and of all the members, and it won him great fame over all Europe. He also made a most beautiful model of wood, with the figures in wax, of a tomb for the King of England, which in the end was not carried out by Baccio, but was given to the sculptor Benedetto da Rovezzano, who executed it in metal. [Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF S. LORENZO (_After the painting by =Baccio Bandinelli=. Hereford: W. J. Davies' Collection_) _M.S._] There had recently returned from France Cardinal Bernardo Divizio of Bibbiena, who, perceiving that King Francis possessed not a single work in marble, whether ancient or modern, although he much delighted in such things, had promised his Majesty that he would prevail on the Pope to send him some beautiful work. After this Cardinal there came to the Pope two Ambassadors from King Francis, and they, having seen the statues of the Belvedere, lavished all the praise at their command on the Laocoon. Cardinals de' Medici and Bibbiena, who were with them, asked them whether the King would be glad to have a work of that kind; and they answered that it would be too great a gift. Then the Cardinal said to them: "There shall be sent to his Majesty either this one or one so like it that there shall be no difference." And, having resolved to have another made in imitation of it, he remembered Baccio, whom he sent for and asked whether he had the courage to make a Laocoon equal to the original. Baccio answered that he was confident that he could make one not merely equal to it, but even surpassing it in perfection. The Cardinal then resolved that the work should be begun, and Baccio, while waiting for the marble to come, made one in wax, which was much extolled, and also executed a cartoon in lead-white and charcoal of the same size as the one in marble. After the marble had come and Baccio had caused an enclosure with a roof for working in to be erected for himself in the Belvedere, he made a beginning with one of the boys of the Laocoon, the larger one, and executed this in such a manner that the Pope and all those who were good judges were satisfied, because between his work and the ancient there was scarcely any difference to be seen. But after setting his hand to the other boy and to the statue of the father, which is in the middle, he had not gone far when the Pope died. Adrian VI being then elected, he returned with the Cardinal to Florence, where he occupied himself with his studies in design. After the death of Adrian and the election of Clement VII, Baccio went post-haste to Rome in order to be in time for his coronation, for which he made statues and scenes in half-relief by order of his Holiness. Then, having been provided by the Pope with rooms and an allowance, he returned to his Laocoon, a work which was executed by him in the space of two years with the greatest excellence that he ever achieved. He also restored the right arm of the ancient Laocoon, which had been broken off and never found, and Baccio made one of the full size in wax, which so resembled the ancient work in the muscles, in force, and in manner, and harmonized with it so well, that it showed how Baccio understood his art; and this model served him as a pattern for making the whole arm of his own Laocoon. This work seemed to his Holiness to be so good, that he changed his mind and resolved to send other ancient statues to the King, and this one to Florence; and to Cardinal Silvio Passerino of Cortona, his Legate in Florence, who was then governing the city, he sent orders that he should place the Laocoon at the head of the second court in the Palace of the Medici. This was in the year 1525. This work brought great fame to Baccio, who, after finishing the Laocoon, set himself to draw a scene on a sheet of royal folio laid open, in order to carry out a design of the Pope, who wished to have the Martyrdom of S. Cosimo and S. Damiano painted on one wall of the principal chapel of S. Lorenzo in Florence, and on the other that of S. Laurence, when he was put to death by Decius on the gridiron. Baccio then drew with great subtlety the story of S. Laurence, in which he counterfeited with much judgment and art figures both clothed and nude, different attitudes and gestures in the bodies and limbs, and various movements in those who are standing about S. Laurence, engaged in their dreadful office, and in particular the cruel Decius, who with threatening brow is urging on the fiery death of the innocent Martyr, who, raising one arm to Heaven, recommends his spirit to God. With this scene Baccio so satisfied the Pope, that he took steps to have it engraved on copper by Marc'Antonio Bolognese, which was done by Marc'Antonio with great diligence; and his Holiness created Baccio, in order to do honour to his talents, a Chevalier of S. Pietro. After these things Baccio returned to Florence, where he found that Giovan Francesco Rustici, his first master, was painting a scene of the Conversion of S. Paul; for which reason he undertook to make in a cartoon, in competition with his master, a nude figure of a young S. John in the desert, who is holding a lamb with the left arm and raising the right to Heaven. Then, having caused a panel to be prepared, he set himself to colour it, and when it was finished he exposed it to view in the workshop of his father Michelagnolo, opposite to the descent that leads from Orsanmichele to the Mercato Nuovo. The design was praised by the craftsmen, but not so much the colouring, because it was somewhat crude and painted in no beautiful manner. But Baccio sent it as a present to Pope Clement, who had it placed in his guardaroba, where it may still be found. As far back as the time of Leo X there had been quarried at Carrara, together with the marbles for the façade of S. Lorenzo in Florence, another block of marble nine braccia and a half high and five braccia wide at the foot. With this block of marble Michelagnolo Buonarroti had thought of making a giant in the person of Hercules slaying Cacus, intending to place it in the Piazza beside the colossal figure of David formerly made by him, since both the one and the other, David and Hercules, were emblems of the Palace. He had made several designs and various models for it, and had sought to gain the favour of Pope Leo and of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, saying that the David had many defects caused by the sculptor Maestro Andrea, who had first blocked it out and spoiled it. But by reason of the death of Leo the façade of S. Lorenzo was for a time abandoned, and also this block of marble. Now afterwards, Pope Clement having conceived a desire to avail himself of Michelagnolo for the tombs of the heroes of the house of Medici, which he wished to have constructed in the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, it became once more necessary to quarry marbles; and the head of these works, keeping the accounts of the expenses, was Domenico Buoninsegni. This man tried to tempt Michelagnolo to make a secret partnership with him in the matter of the stone-work for the façade of S. Lorenzo; but Michelagnolo refused, not consenting that his genius should be employed in defrauding the Pope, and Domenico conceived such hatred against him that he went about ever afterwards opposing his undertakings, in order to annoy and humiliate him, but this he did covertly. He thus contrived to have the façade discontinued and the sacristy pushed forward, which two works, he said, were enough to keep Michelagnolo occupied for many years. And as for the marble for the making of the giant, he urged the Pope that it should be given to Baccio, who at that time had nothing to do; saying that through the emulation of two men so eminent his Holiness would be served better and with more diligence and promptitude, rivalry stimulating both the one and the other in his work. The counsel of Domenico pleased the Pope, and he acted in accordance with it. Baccio, having obtained the marble, made a great model in wax, which was a Hercules who, having fixed the head of Cacus between two stones with one knee, was constraining him with great force with the left arm, holding him crouching under his legs in a distorted attitude, wherein Cacus revealed his suffering and the strain of the weight of Hercules upon him, which was rending asunder every least muscle in his whole body. Hercules, likewise, with his head bent down close against his enemy, grinding and gnashing his teeth, was raising the right arm and with great vehemence giving him another blow with his club, in order to dash his head to pieces. Michelagnolo, as soon as he had heard that the marble had been given to Baccio, was very much displeased; but, for all the efforts that he made in this matter, he was never able to turn the Pope from his purpose, so completely had he been satisfied by Baccio's model; to which reason were added his promises and boasts, for he boasted that he would surpass the David of Michelagnolo, and he was also assisted by Buoninsegni, who said that Michelagnolo desired everything for himself. Thus was the city deprived of a rare ornament, such as that marble would undoubtedly have been when shaped by the hand of Buonarroti. The above-mentioned model of Baccio is now to be found in the guardaroba of Duke Cosimo, by whom it is held very dear, and by the craftsmen as a rare work. Baccio was sent to Carrara to see this marble, and the Overseers of the Works of S. Maria del Fiore were commissioned to transport it by water, along the River Arno, as far as Signa. The marble having been conveyed there, within a distance of eight miles from Florence, when they set about removing it from the river in order to transport it by land, the river being too low from Signa to Florence, it fell into the water, and on account of its great size sank so deep into the sand, that the Overseers, with all the contrivances that they used, were not able to drag it out. For which reason, the Pope wishing that the marble should be recovered at all costs, by order of the Wardens of Works Pietro Rosselli, an old builder of great ingenuity, went to work in such a manner that, having diverted the course of the water into another channel and cut away the bank of the river, with levers and windlasses he moved it, dragged it out of the Arno, and brought it to solid ground, for which he was greatly extolled. Tempted by this accident to the marble, certain persons wrote verses, both Tuscan and Latin, ingeniously ridiculing Baccio, who was detested for his loquacity and his evil-speaking against Michelagnolo and all the other craftsmen. One among them took for his verses the following subject, saying that the marble, after having been approved by the genius of Michelagnolo, learning that it was to be mangled by the hands of Baccio, had thrown itself into the river out of despair at such an evil fate. While the marble was being drawn out of the water, a difficult process which took time, Baccio found, on measuring it, that it was neither high enough nor wide enough to enable him to carve the figures of his first model. Whereupon he went to Rome, taking the measurements with him, and made known to the Pope how he was constrained by necessity to abandon his first design and make another. He then made several models, and out of their number the Pope was most pleased with one in which Hercules had Cacus between his legs, and, grasping his hair, was holding him down after the manner of a prisoner; and this one they resolved to adopt and to carry into execution. On returning to Florence, Baccio found that the marble had been conveyed into the Office of Works of S. Maria del Fiore by Pietro Rosselli, who had first placed on the ground some planks of walnut-wood planed square, and laid lengthways, which he kept changing according as the marble moved forward, under which and upon those planks he placed some round rollers well shod with iron, so that by pulling the marble with three windlasses, to which he had attached it, little by little he brought it with ease into the Office of Works. The block having been set up there, Baccio began a model in clay as large as the marble and shaped according to the last one which he had made previously in Rome; and he finished it, working with great diligence, in a few months. But with all this it appeared to many craftsmen that there was not in this model that spirited vivacity that the action required, nor that which he had given to his first model. Afterwards, beginning to work at the marble, Baccio cut it away all round as far as the navel, laying bare the limbs in front, and taking care all the time to carve the figures in such a way that they might be exactly like those of the large model in clay. At this same time Baccio had undertaken to execute in painting an altar-piece of considerable size for the Church of Cestello, and for this he had made a very beautiful cartoon containing a Dead Christ surrounded by the Maries, with Nicodemus and other figures; but, for a reason that we shall give below, he did not paint the altar-piece. He also made at this time, in order to paint a picture, a cartoon in which was Christ taken down from the Cross and held in the arms of Nicodemus, with His Mother, who was standing, weeping for Him, and an Angel who was holding in his hands the Nails and the Crown of Thorns. Setting himself straightway to colour it, he finished it quickly and placed it on exhibition in the workshop of his friend Giovanni di Goro, the goldsmith, in the Mercato Nuovo, in order to hear the opinions of men and particularly what Michelagnolo said of it. Michelagnolo was taken by the goldsmith Piloto to see it, and, after he had examined every part, he said that he marvelled that so good a draughtsman as Baccio should allow a picture so crude and wanting in grace to leave his hands, that he had seen the most feeble painters executing their works in a better manner, and that this was no art for Baccio. Piloto reported Michelagnolo's judgment to Baccio, who, for all the hatred that he felt against him, recognized that he spoke the truth. Certainly Baccio's drawings were very beautiful, but in colours he executed them badly and without grace, and he therefore resolved to paint no more with his own hand; but he took into his service one who handled colours passing well, a young man called Agnolo, the brother of the excellent painter Franciabigio, who had died a few years before. To this Agnolo he desired to entrust the execution of the altar-piece for Cestello, but it remained unfinished, the reason of which was the change of government in Florence, which took place in the year 1527, when the Medici left Florence after the sack of Rome. For Baccio did not think himself safe, having a private feud with a neighbour at his villa of Pinzirimonte, who was of the popular party; and after he had buried at that villa some cameos and little antique figures of bronze, which belonged to the Medici, he went off to live in Lucca. There he remained until the time when the Emperor Charles V came to receive his crown at Bologna; whereupon he presented himself before the Pope and then went with him to Rome, where he was given rooms in the Belvedere, as before. While Baccio was living there, his Holiness resolved to fulfil a vow that he had made when he was shut up in the Castello di S. Angelo; which vow was that he would place on the summit of the great round tower of marble, which is in front of the Ponte di Castello, seven large figures of bronze, each six braccia in length, and all lying down in different attitudes, as it were vanquished by an Angel that he wished to have set up on the centre of the tower, upon a column of variegated marble, the Angel being of bronze with a sword in the hand. By this figure of the Angel he wished to represent the Angel Michael, the guardian and protector of the Castle, whose favour and assistance had delivered him and brought him out of that prison; and the seven recumbent figures were to personify the seven Mortal Sins, demonstrating that with the help of the victorious Angel he had conquered and thrown to the ground his enemies, evil and impious men, who were represented by those seven figures of the seven Mortal Sins. For this work his Holiness caused a model to be made; which having pleased him, he ordained that Baccio should begin to make the figures in clay of the size that they were to be, in order to have them cast afterwards in bronze. Baccio began the work, and finished in one of the apartments in the Belvedere one of those figures in clay, which was much extolled. At the same time, also, in order to divert himself, and wishing to see how he would succeed in casting, he made many little figures in the round, two-thirds of a braccio in height, as of Hercules, Venus, Apollo, Leda, and other fantasies of his own, which he caused to be cast in bronze by Maestro Jacopo della Barba of Florence; and they succeeded excellently well. He presented them afterwards to his Holiness and to many lords; and some of them are now in the study of Duke Cosimo, among a collection of more than a hundred antique figures, all very choice, and others that are modern. At this same time Baccio had made a scene of the Deposition from the Cross with little figures in low-relief and half-relief, which was a rare work; and he had it cast with great diligence in bronze. When finished, he presented it in Genoa to Charles V, who held it very dear; and a sign of this was that his Majesty gave Baccio a Commandery of S. Jago, and made him a Chevalier. From Prince Doria, also, he received many courtesies; and from the Republic of Genoa he had the commission for a statue of marble six braccia high, which was to be a Neptune in the likeness of Prince Doria, to be set up on the Piazza in memory of the virtues of that Prince and of the extraordinary benefits that his native country of Genoa had received from him. This statue was allotted to Baccio at the price of a thousand florins, of which he received five hundred at that time; and he went straightway to Carrara to block it out at the quarry of Polvaccio. While the popular government was ruling Florence, after the departure of the Medici, Michelagnolo Buonarroti was employed on the fortifications of the city; and there was shown to him the marble that Baccio had blocked out, together with the model of the Hercules and Cacus, the intention being that if the marble had not been cut away too much Michelagnolo should take it and carve from it two figures after his own design. Michelagnolo, having examined the block, thought of a different subject; and, abandoning the Hercules and Cacus, he chose the subject of Samson holding beneath him two Philistines whom he had cast down, one being already dead, and the other still alive, against whom he was aiming a blow with the jawbone of an ass, seeking to kill him. But even as it often happens that the minds of men promise themselves at times certain things the opposite of which is determined by the wisdom of God, so it came to pass then, for, war having arisen against the city of Florence, Michelagnolo had other things to think about than polishing marble, and was obliged from fear of the citizens to withdraw from the city. Afterwards, the war being finished and peace made, Pope Clement caused Michelagnolo to return to Florence in order to finish the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, and sent Baccio to see to the completion of the giant. Baccio, while engaged in this, took up his abode in the Palace of the Medici; and, writing almost every week to his Holiness in order to make a show of devotion, he entered, besides dealing with matters of art, into particulars relating to the citizens and those who were administering the government, with an odious officiousness likely to bring upon him even more ill-will than he had awakened before. Whereupon, when Duke Alessandro returned from the Court of his Majesty to Florence, the citizens made known to him the sinister policy that Baccio was pursuing against them; from which it followed that his work of the giant was hindered and retarded by the citizens by every means in their power. [Illustration: HERCULES AND CACUS (_After the marble by =Baccio Bandinelli=. Florence: Piazza della Signoria_) _Alinari_] At this time, after the war of Hungary, Pope Clement and the Emperor Charles held a conference at Bologna, whither there went Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici and Duke Alessandro; and it occurred to Baccio to go and kiss the feet of his Holiness. He took with him a panel, one braccio high and one and a half wide, of Christ being scourged at the Column by two nude figures, which was in half-relief and very well executed; and he gave this panel to the Pope, together with a portrait-medal of his Holiness, which he had caused to be made by Francesco dal Prato, his familiar friend, the reverse of the medal being the Flagellation of Christ. This gift was very acceptable to his Holiness, to whom Baccio described the annoyances and impediments that he had experienced in the execution of his Hercules, praying him that he should prevail upon the Duke to give him the means to carry it to completion. He added that he was envied and hated in that city; and, being a very devil with his wit and his tongue, he persuaded the Pope to induce the Duke to see that his work should be brought to completion and set up in its place in the Piazza. Death had now snatched away the goldsmith Michelagnolo, the father of Baccio, who during his lifetime had undertaken to make for the Wardens of Works of S. Maria del Fiore, by order of the Pope, a very large cross of silver, all covered with scenes in low-relief of the Passion of Christ. This cross, for which Baccio had made the figures and scenes in wax, to be afterwards cast in silver, Michelagnolo had left unfinished at his death; and Baccio, having the work in his hands, together with many libbre of silver, sought to persuade his Holiness to have it finished by Francesco dal Prato, who had gone with him to Bologna. But the Pope, perceiving that Baccio wished not only to withdraw from his father's engagements, but also to make something out of the labours of Francesco, gave Baccio orders that the silver and the scenes, those merely begun as well as those finished, should be given to the Wardens of Works, that the account should be settled, and that the Wardens should melt all the silver of that cross, in order to make use of it for the necessities of the church, which had been stripped of its ornaments at the time of the siege; and to Baccio he caused one hundred florins of gold and letters of recommendation to be given, to the end that he might return to Florence and finish the work of the giant. While Baccio was at Bologna, Cardinal Doria, having heard that he was about to depart, went to the pains of seeking him out, and threatened him with many reproaches and abusive words, for the reason that he had broken his pledge and failed in his duty by neglecting to finish the statue of Prince Doria and leaving it only blocked out at Carrara, after taking five hundred crowns in payment; on which account, said the Cardinal, if Andrea could get Baccio into his hands, he would make him pay for it at the galleys. Baccio defended himself humbly and with soft words, saying that he had been delayed by a sufficient hindrance, but that he had in Florence a block of marble of the same height, from which he had intended to carve that figure, and that when he had carved and finished it he would send it to Genoa. And so well did he contrive to speak and to excuse himself that he succeeded in escaping from the presence of the Cardinal. After this he returned to Florence, and caused the base for the giant to be taken in hand; and, himself working continuously at the figure, in the year 1534 he finished it completely. But Duke Alessandro, on account of the hostile reports of the citizens, did not take steps to have it set up in the Piazza. The Pope had returned to Rome many months before this, and desired to erect two tombs of marble in the Minerva, one for Pope Leo and one for himself; and Baccio, seizing this occasion, went to Rome. Thereupon the Pope resolved that Baccio should make those tombs after he had succeeded in setting up the giant on the Piazza; and his Holiness wrote to the Duke that he should give Baccio every convenience for placing his Hercules in position there. Whereupon, after an enclosure of planks had been made all round, the base was built of marble, and at the foot of it they placed a stone with letters in memory of Pope Clement VII, and a good number of medals with the heads of his Holiness and of Duke Alessandro. The giant was then taken from the Office of Works, where it had been executed; and in order to convey it with greater ease, without damaging it, they made round it a scaffolding of wood, with ropes passing under the legs and cords supporting it under the arms and at every other part; and thus, suspended in the air between the beams in such a way that it did not touch the wood, little by little, by means of compound pulleys and windlasses and ten pairs of oxen, it was drawn as far as the Piazza. Great assistance was rendered by two thick, semi-cylindrical beams, which were fixed lengthways along the foot of the scaffolding, in the manner of a base, and rested on other similar beams smeared with soap, which were withdrawn and replaced by workmen in succession, according as the structure moved forward; and with these ingenious contrivances the giant was conveyed safely and without much labour to the Piazza. The charge of all this was given to Baccio d'Agnolo and the elder Antonio da San Gallo, the architects to the Office of Works, who afterwards with other beams and a double system of compound pulleys set the statue securely on its base. It would not be easy to describe the concourse and multitude that for two days occupied the whole Piazza, flocking to see the giant as soon as it was uncovered; and various judgments and opinions were heard from all kinds of men, every one censuring the work and the master. There were also attached round the base many verses, both Latin and Tuscan, in which it was pleasing to see the wit, the ingenious conceits, and the sharp sayings of the writers; but they overstepped all decent limits with their evil-speaking and their biting and satirical compositions, and Duke Alessandro, considering that, the work being a public one, the indignity was his, was forced to put in prison some who went so far as to attach sonnets openly and without scruple to the statue; which proceeding soon stopped the mouths of the critics. When Baccio examined his work in position, it seemed to him that the open air was little favourable to it, making the muscles appear too delicate. Having therefore caused a new enclosure of planks to be made around it, he attacked it again with his chisels, and, strengthening the muscles in many places, gave the figures stronger relief than they had before. Finally, the work was uncovered for good; and by everyone able to judge it has always been held to be not only a triumph over difficulties, but also very well studied, with every part carefully considered, and the figure of Cacus excellently adapted to its position. It is true that the David of Michelagnolo, which is beside Baccio's Hercules, takes away not a little of its glory, being the most beautiful colossal figure that has ever been made; for in it is all grace and excellence, whereas the manner of Baccio is entirely different. But in truth, considering Baccio's Hercules by itself, one cannot but praise it highly, and all the more because it is known that many sculptors have since tried to make colossal statues, and not one has attained to the standard of Baccio, who, if he had received as much grace and facility from nature as he took pains and trouble by himself, would have been absolutely perfect in the art of sculpture. Desiring to know what was being said of his work, he sent to the Piazza a pedagogue whom he kept in his house, telling him that he should not fail to report to him the truth of what he might hear said. The pedagogue, hearing nothing but censure, returned sadly to the house, and, when questioned by Baccio, answered that all with one voice were abusing the giants, and that they pleased no one. "And you," asked Baccio, "what do you say of them?" "I speak well of them," he replied, "and say, may it please you, that they please me." "I will not have them please you," said Baccio, "and you, also, must speak ill of them, for, as you may remember, I never speak well of anyone; and so we are quits." Thus Baccio concealed his vexation, and it was always his custom to act thus, pretending not to care for the censure that any man laid on his works. Nevertheless, it is likely enough that his resentment was considerable, because when a man labours for honour, and then obtains nothing but censure, one cannot but believe, although that censure may be unjust and undeserved, that it afflicts him secretly in his heart and torments him continually. He was consoled in his displeasure by an estate, which was given to him in addition to his payment, by order of Pope Clement. This gift was doubly dear to him, first because it was useful for its revenue and was near his villa of Pinzirimonte, and then because it had previously belonged to Rignadori, his mortal enemy, who had just been declared an outlaw, and with whom he had always been at strife on account of the boundary of this property. At this time a letter was written to Duke Alessandro by Prince Doria, asking that he should prevail upon Baccio to finish his statue, now that the giant was completely finished, and saying that he was ready to revenge himself on Baccio if he did not do his duty; at which Baccio was so frightened that he would not trust himself to go to Carrara. However, having been reassured by Cardinal Cibo and Duke Alessandro, he went there, and, working with some assistants, proceeded to carry the statue forward. The Prince had himself informed every day as to how much Baccio was doing; wherefore, receiving a report that the statue was not of that excellence which had been promised, he gave Baccio to understand that, if he did not serve him well, he would make him smart for it. Baccio, hearing this, spoke very ill of the Prince; which having come to the Prince's ears, he determined to get him into his hands at all costs, and to take vengeance upon him by putting him in wholesome fear of the galleys. Whereupon Baccio, seeing certain persons spying and keeping a watch upon him, became suspicious, and, being a shrewd and resolute man, left the work as it was and returned to Florence. About this time a son was born to Baccio from a woman whom he kept in his house, and to this son, Pope Clement having died in those days, he gave the name of Clemente, in memory of that Pontiff, who had always loved and favoured him. After the death of Pope Clement, he heard that Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, Cardinal Innocenzio Cibo, Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, and Cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi, together with Messer Baldassarre Turini da Pescia, being the executors of the Pope's will, had commissions to give for the two marble tombs of Leo and Clement, which were to be placed in the Minerva. For these tombs Baccio in the past had already made the models; but the work had been promised recently to the Ferrarese sculptor Alfonso Lombardi through the favour of Cardinal de' Medici, whose servant he was. This Alfonso, by the advice of Michelagnolo, had changed the design of the tombs, and he had already made the models for them, but without any contract for the commission, relying wholly on promises, and expecting every day to have to go to Carrara to quarry the marble. While the time was slipping away in this manner, it happened that Cardinal Ippolito died of poison on his way to meet Charles V. Baccio, hearing this, went without wasting any time to Rome, where he was first received by the sister of Pope Leo, Madonna Lucrezia Salviati de' Medici, to whom he strove to prove that no one could do greater honour to the remains of those great Pontiffs than himself, with his ability in art, adding that Alfonso was a sculptor without power of design and without skill and judgment in the handling of marble, and that he was not able to execute so honourable an undertaking save only with the help of others. He also used many other devices, and so went to work in various ways and by various means that he succeeded in changing the purpose of those lords, who finally entrusted to Cardinal Salviati the charge of making an agreement with Baccio. At this time the Emperor Charles V had arrived in Naples, and in Rome Filippo Strozzi, Anton Francesco degli Albizzi, and the other exiles were seeking to arrange with Cardinal Salviati to go and set his Majesty against Duke Alessandro; and they were with the Cardinal at all hours. Baccio was also all day long in Salviati's halls and apartments, waiting to have the contract made for the tombs, but not able to bring matters to a head, because of the Cardinal's preoccupation with the affairs of the exiles; and they, seeing Baccio in those rooms morning and evening, grew suspicious of this, and, fearing lest he might be there to spy upon their movements and give information to the Duke, some of the young men among them agreed to follow him secretly one evening and put him out of the way. But Fortune, coming to his aid in time, brought it about that the two other Cardinals, with Messer Baldassarre da Pescia, undertook to finish Baccio's business. Knowing that Baccio was worth little as an architect, they had caused a design to be made by Antonio da San Gallo, which pleased them, and had ordained that all the mason's work to be done in marble should be executed under the direction of the sculptor Lorenzetto, and that the marble statues and scenes should be allotted to Baccio. Having arranged the matter in this way, they finally made the contract with Baccio, who therefore appeared no more about the house of Cardinal Salviati, withdrawing himself just in time; and the exiles, the occasion having passed by, thought nothing more about him. After these things Baccio made two models of wood, with the statues and scenes in wax. These models had the bases solid, without projections, and on each base were four fluted Ionic columns, which divided the space into three compartments, a large one in the middle, where in each there was a Pope in full pontificals seated upon a pedestal, who was giving the benediction, and smaller spaces, each with a niche containing a figure in the round and standing upright, four braccia high; which figures, representing Saints, stood on either side of those Popes. The order of the composition had the form of a triumphal arch, and above the columns that supported the cornice was a marble tablet three braccia in height and four braccia and a half in width, in which was a scene in half-relief. In the scene above the statue of Pope Leo, which statue had on either side of it in the niches S. Peter and S. Paul, was his Conference with King Francis at Bologna, and this story of Leo in the middle, above the columns, was accompanied by two smaller scenes, in one of which, that above S. Peter, was the Saint restoring a dead man to life, and in the other, that above S. Paul, that Saint preaching to the people. In the scene above Pope Clement, which corresponded to that mentioned above, was that Pontiff crowning the Emperor Charles at Bologna, and on either side of it are two smaller scenes, in one of which is S. John the Baptist preaching to the people, and in the other S. John the Evangelist raising Drusiana from the dead; and these have below them in the niches the same Saints, four braccia high, standing on either side of the statue of Pope Clement, as with that of Leo. In this structure Baccio showed either too little religion or too much adulation, or both together, in that he thought fit that the first founders--after Christ--of our religion, men deified and most dear to God, should give way to our Popes, and placed them in positions unworthy of them and inferior to those of Leo and Clement. Certain it is that this design of his, even as it was displeasing to God and to the Saints, so likewise gave no pleasure to the Popes or to any other man, for the reason, it appears to me, that religion--and I mean our own, the true religion--should be placed by mankind before all other interests and considerations. And, on the other hand, he who wishes to exalt and honour any other person, should, I think, be temperate and restrained, and confine himself within certain limits, so that his praise and honour may not become another thing--I mean senseless adulation, which first disgraces the praiser, and also gives no pleasure to the person praised, if he has any proper feeling, but does quite the contrary. Baccio, in doing what I have described, made known to everyone that he had much goodwill and affection indeed towards the Popes, but little judgment in exalting and honouring them in their sepulchres. The models described above were taken by Baccio to the garden of Cardinal Ridolfi at S. Agata on Monte Cavallo, where his lordship was entertaining Cibo, Salviati, and Messer Baldassarre da Pescia to dinner, they having assembled together there in order to settle all that was necessary in the matter of the tombs. While they were at table, then, there arrived the sculptor Solosmeo, an amusing and outspoken person, who was always ready to speak ill of anyone, and little the friend of Baccio. When the message was brought to those lords that Solosmeo was seeking admittance, Ridolfi ordered that he should be ushered in, and then, turning to Baccio, said to him: "I wish that we should hear what Solosmeo says of our bestowal of these tombs. Raise that door-curtain, Baccio, and stand behind it." Baccio immediately obeyed, and, when Solosmeo had entered and had been invited to drink, they then turned to the subject of the tombs allotted to Baccio; whereupon Solosmeo reproached the Cardinals for having made a bad choice, and went on to speak all manner of evil against Baccio, taxing him with ignorance of art, avarice, and arrogance, and going into many particulars in his criticisms. Baccio, who stood hidden behind the door-curtain, was not able to contain himself until Solosmeo should have finished, and, bursting out scowling and full of rage, said to Solosmeo: "What have I done to you, that you should speak of me with such scant respect?" Dumbfounded at the appearance of Baccio, Solosmeo turned to Ridolfi and said: "What tricks are these, my lord? I want nothing more to do with priests!" and took himself off. The Cardinals had a hearty laugh both at the one and at the other; and Salviati said to Baccio: "You hear the opinion of your brothers in art. Go and give them the lie with your work." [Illustration: STATUE OF GIOVANNI DELLE BANDE NERE (_After the marble by =Baccio Bandinelli=. Florence: Piazza di S. Lorenzo_) _Brogi_] Baccio then began the work of the statues and scenes, but his performances by no means corresponded to his promises and his duty towards those Pontiffs, for he used little diligence in the figures and scenes, and left them badly finished and full of defects, being more solicitous about drawing his money than about working at the marble. Now his patrons became aware of Baccio's procedure, and repented of what they had done; but the two largest pieces of marble remained, those for the two statues that were still to be executed, one of Leo seated and the other of Clement, and these they ordered him to finish, beseeching him that he should do better in them. But Baccio, having already drawn all the money, entered into negotiations with Messer Giovan Battista da Ricasoli, Bishop of Cortona, who was in Rome on business of Duke Cosimo's, to depart from Rome and go to Florence in order to serve Cosimo in the matter of the fountains of his villa of Castello and the tomb of his father, Signor Giovanni. The Duke having answered that Baccio should come, he set off for Florence without a word, leaving the work of the tombs unfinished and the statues in the hands of two assistants. The Cardinals, hearing of this, allotted those two statues of the Popes, which still remained to be finished, to two sculptors, one of whom was Raffaello da Montelupo, who received the statue of Pope Leo, and the other Giovanni di Baccio, to whom was given the statue of Clement. They then gave orders that the masonry and all that was prepared should be put together, and the work was erected; but the statues and scenes were in many parts neither pumiced nor polished, so that they brought Baccio more discredit than fame. Arriving in Florence, Baccio found that the Duke had sent the sculptor Tribolo to Carrara to quarry the marble for the fountains of Castello and the tomb of Signor Giovanni; and he so wrought upon the Duke that he wrested the tomb of Signor Giovanni from the hands of Tribolo, demonstrating to his Excellency that the marbles for such a work were already in great measure in Florence. Thus, little by little, he penetrated into the confidence of the Duke, insomuch that both for this reason and for his arrogance everyone was afraid of him. He then proposed to the Duke that the tomb of Signor Giovanni should be erected in the Chapel of the Neroni, a narrow, confined, and mean place, in S. Lorenzo, being too ignorant or not wishing to suggest that for so great a Prince it was proper that a new chapel should be built on purpose. He also prevailed on the Duke to demand from Michelagnolo, on Baccio's behalf, many pieces of marble that he had in Florence; and when the Duke had obtained them from Michelagnolo, and Baccio from the Duke, among those marbles being some blocked out figures and a statue carried well on towards completion by Michelagnolo, Bandinelli, taking them all over, hacked and broke to pieces everything that he could find, thinking that by so doing he was avenging himself on Michelagnolo and causing him displeasure. He found, moreover, in the same room in S. Lorenzo wherein Michelagnolo worked, two statues in one block of marble, representing Hercules crushing Antæus, which the Duke was having executed by the sculptor Fra Giovanni Agnolo. These were well advanced; but Baccio, saying to the Duke that the friar had spoilt that marble, broke it into many pieces. In the end, he constructed all the base of the tomb, which is an isolated pedestal about four braccia on every side, and has at the foot a socle with a moulding in the manner of a base, which goes right round, and with a fillet at the top, such as is generally made for pedestals; and above this a cyma three-quarters of a braccio in height, which goes inwards in a concave curve, inverted, after the manner of a frieze, on which are carved some horse's skulls bound one to another with draperies; and above the whole was to be a smaller pedestal, with a seated statue of four braccia and a half, armed in the ancient fashion, and holding in the hand the baton of a condottiere captain of armies, which was to represent the person of the invincible Signor Giovanni de' Medici. This statue was begun by him from a block of marble, and carried well on, but never finished or placed on the base built for it. It is true that on the front of that base he finished entirely a scene of marble in half-relief, with figures about two braccia high, in which he represented Signor Giovanni seated, to whom are being brought many prisoners, soldiers, women with dishevelled hair, and nude figures, but all without invention and without revealing any feeling. At the end of the scene, indeed, there is a figure with a pig on the shoulder, which is said to have been made by Baccio to represent Messer Baldassarre da Pescia, in derision; for Baccio looked upon him as his enemy, since about this time Messer Baldassarre, as has been related above, had allotted the two statues of Leo and Clement to other sculptors, and, moreover, had so gone to work in Rome that Baccio had perforce to restore at great inconvenience the money that he had received beyond his due for those statues and figures. During this time Baccio had given his attention to nothing else but demonstrating to Duke Cosimo how much the glory of the ancients had lived through their statues and buildings, saying that his Excellency should seek to obtain in the same way immortality for himself and his actions in the ages to come. Then, after he had brought the tomb of Signor Giovanni near completion, he set about planning to make the Duke begin some great and costly work, which might take a very long time. Duke Cosimo had ceased to inhabit the Palace of the Medici, and had returned with his Court to live in the Palace in the Piazza, which was formerly occupied by the Signoria; and this he was daily rearranging and adorning. Now he had said to Baccio that he had a desire to make a public audience-chamber, both for the foreign Ambassadors and for his citizens and the subjects of the State; and Baccio, with Giuliano di Baccio d'Agnolo, went about thinking how to suggest to him that he should erect an ornamental work of Fossato stone and marble, thirty-eight braccia in width and eighteen in height. This ornamental work, they proposed, should serve as the audience-chamber, and should be in the Great Hall of the Palace, at that end which looks towards the north. The audience-chamber was to have a space of fourteen braccia in depth, the ascent to which was to be by seven great steps; and it was to be closed in front by a balustrade, excepting the entrance in the middle. At the end of the hall were to be three great arches, two of which were to serve for windows, being divided up by columns, four to each, two of Fossato stone and two of marble; and above this was to curve a round arch with a frieze of brackets, which were to form on the outer side the ornament of the façade of the Palace, and on the inner side to adorn in the same manner the façade of the hall. The arch in the middle, forming not a window, but a niche, was to be accompanied by two other similar niches, which were to be at the ends of the audience-chamber, one on the east and the other on the west, and adorned with four round Corinthian columns, which were to be ten braccia high and to form a projection at the ends. In the central façade were to be four pilasters, which were to serve as supports between one arch and another to the architrave, frieze, and cornice running right round both above the arches and above the columns. These pilasters were to have between one and another a space of about three braccia, and in each of these spaces was to be a niche four braccia and a half in height, to contain statues, by way of accompaniment to the great niche in the middle of the façade and the two at the sides; in each of which niches Baccio wished to place three statues. Baccio and Giuliano had in mind, in addition to the ornament of the inner façade, another larger ornament of extraordinary cost and grandeur for the outer façade. The hall being awry and out of square, this ornament was to reduce that outer side to a square form; and there was to be a projection of six braccia right round the walls of the Palazzo Vecchio, with a range of columns fourteen braccia high supporting other columns, between which were to be arches, forming a loggia below, right round the Palace, where there are the Ringhiera and the Giants. Above this, again, was to be another range of pilasters, with arches between them in the same manner, running all the way round the windows of the Palazzo Vecchio, so as to make a façade right round the Palace; and above these pilasters was to be yet another range of arches and pilasters, after the manner of a theatre, with the battlements of that Palace, finally, forming a cornice to the whole structure. Knowing that this was a work of vast expense, Baccio and Giuliano consulted together that they should not reveal their conception to the Duke, save only with regard to the ornament of the audience-chamber within the hall, and that of the façade of Fossato stone on the side towards the Piazza, stretching to the length of twenty-four braccia, which is the breadth of the hall. Designs and plans of this work were made by Giuliano, and with these in his hand Baccio spoke to the Duke, to whom he pointed out that in the large niches at the sides he wished to place statues of marble four braccia high, seated on pedestals--namely, Leo X in the act of restoring peace to Italy, and Clement VII crowning Charles V, with two statues in smaller niches within the large ones, on either side of the Popes, which should represent the virtues practised and put into action by them. For the niches four braccia high between the pilasters, in the central façade, he wished to make upright statues of Signor Giovanni, Duke Alessandro, and Duke Cosimo, together with many decorations of various fantasies in carving, and a pavement all of variegated marbles of different colours. This ornament much pleased the Duke, thinking that with this opportunity it should be possible in time to bring to completion, as has since been done, the body of that hall, with the rest of the decorations and the ceiling, in order to make it the most beautiful hall in Italy. And so great was his Excellency's desire that this work should be done, that he assigned for its execution such a sum of money as Baccio wished and demanded every week. A beginning was made with the quarrying and cutting of the Fossato stone, in order to make the ornamentation in the form of the base, columns, and cornices; and Baccio required that all should be done and carried to completion by the stone-cutters of the Office of Works of S. Maria del Fiore. This work was certainly executed by those masters with great diligence; and if Baccio and Giuliano had urged it on, they would have finished and built in all the ornaments of stone very quickly. But Baccio gave his attention to nothing save to having the statues blocked out, finishing few of them entirely, and to drawing his salary, which the Duke gave him every month, besides paying for his assistants and meeting every sort of expense that he incurred in the work, and giving him five hundred crowns for one of the statues finished by him in marble; wherefore the end of this work was never in sight. Even so, if Baccio and Giuliano, being engaged on a work of such importance, had brought the head of that hall into square, as they could have done, instead of putting right only half of the eight braccia by which it was awry, and leaving several parts badly proportioned, such as the central niche and the two large ones at the sides, which are squat, and the members of the cornices, which are too slight for so great a body; if, as they might have done, they had gone higher with the columns, thus giving greater grandeur, a better manner, and more invention to that work; and if, also, they had brought the uppermost cornice into touch with the level of the original old ceiling above, they would have shown more art and judgment, nor would all that labour have been spent in vain and wasted so thoughtlessly, as has since been evident to those to whom, as will be related, it has fallen to put it right and finish it. For, in spite of all the pains and thought afterwards devoted to it, there are many defects and errors in the door of entrance and in the relation of the niches in the side-walls, in which it has since been seen to be necessary to change the form of many parts, although it has never yet been found possible, without demolishing the whole, to correct the divergence from the square or to prevent this from being revealed in the pavement and the ceiling. It is true that in the manner in which they arranged it, even as it now stands, there is proof of great craftsmanship and pains, and it deserves no little praise for the many stones worked with the bevel-square, which slant away obliquely by reason of the hall being awry; and as for diligence and excellence in the working, laying, and joining together of the stones, nothing better could be seen or done. But the whole work would have succeeded much better if Baccio, who never held architecture in any account, had availed himself of some judgment more able than that of Giuliano, who, although he was a good master in wood and had some knowledge of architecture, was yet not the sort of man to be suitable for such a work as that was, as experience has proved. For this reason the work was pursued over a period of many years, without much more than half being built. Baccio finished and placed in the smaller niches the statue of Signor Giovanni and that of Duke Alessandro, both in the principal façade, and on a pedestal of bricks in the great niche the statue of Pope Clement; and he also brought to completion the statue of Duke Cosimo. In the last he took no little pains with the head, but for all this the Duke and the gentlemen of the Court said that it did not resemble him in the least. Wherefore Baccio, having already made one of marble, which is now in one of the upper apartments in the same Palace, and which looked very well and was the best head that he ever made, defended himself and sought to cover up the defects and worthlessness of the new head with the excellence of the old. However, hearing that head censured by everyone, one day in a rage he knocked it off, with the intention of making another and fixing it in its place; but in the end he never made it at all. It was a custom of Baccio's to add pieces of marble both small and large to the statues that he executed, feeling no annoyance in doing this, and making light of it. He did this with one of the heads of Cerberus in the group of Orpheus; in the S. Peter that is in S. Maria del Fiore he let in a piece of drapery; in the case of the Giant of the Piazza, as may be seen, he joined two pieces--a shoulder and a leg--to the Cacus, and in many other works he did the same, holding to such ways as generally damn a sculptor completely. Having finished these statues, he set his hand to the statue of Pope Leo for this work, and carried it well forward. Then, perceiving that the work was proving very long, that he was now never likely to attain to the completion of his original design for the façades right round the Palace, that a great sum of money had been spent and much time consumed, and that for all this the work was not half finished and gained little approval from the people, he set about thinking of some new fantasy, and began to attempt to remove from the Duke's mind the thought of the Palace, believing that his Excellency also was weary of that work. Thus, then, having made enemies of the proveditors and of all the stone-cutters in the Office of Works of S. Maria del Fiore, which was under his authority, while the statues that were destined for the audience-chamber were, after his fashion, some only blocked out and others finished and placed in position, and the ornamentation in great part built up, wishing to conceal the many defects that were in the work and little by little to abandon it, he suggested to the Duke that the Wardens of Works of S. Maria del Fiore were throwing away his money and no longer doing anything of any importance. He said that he had therefore thought that his Excellency would do well to divert all that useless expenditure of the Office of Works into making the octagonal choir of the church and the ornaments of the altar, the steps, the daïses of the Duke and the magistrates, and the stalls in the choir for the canons, chaplains, and clerks, according as was proper for so honourable a church. Of this choir Filippo di Ser Brunellesco had left the model in that simple framework of wood which previously served as the choir in the church, intending in time to have it executed in marble, in the same form, but more ornate. Baccio reflected, besides the considerations mentioned above, that in this choir he would have occasion to make many statues and scenes in marble and in bronze for the high-altar and all around the choir, and also for two pulpits of marble that were to be in the choir, and that the base of the outer side of the eight faces might be adorned with many scenes in bronze let into the marble ornamentation. Above this he thought to place a range of columns and pilasters to support the cornice right round, and four arches distributed according to the cross of the church; of which arches one was to form the principal entrance, opposite to another rising above the high-altar, and the two others were to be at the sides, one on the right hand and another on the left, and below these last two were to be placed the pulpits. Over the cornice was to be a range of balusters, curving right round above the eight sides, and over the balusters a garland of candelabra, in order, as it were, to crown the choir with lights according to the seasons, as had always been the custom while the wooden model of Brunelleschi was there. [Illustration: RELIEFS FROM THE CHOIR SCREEN (_After =Baccio Bandinelli=. Florence: Duomo_) _Alinari_] Pointing out all this to the Duke, Baccio said that his Excellency, with the revenues of the Office of Works--namely, of S. Maria del Fiore and of its Wardens--and with that which his liberality might add, in a short time could adorn that temple and give great grandeur and magnificence to the same, and consequently to the whole city, of which it was the principal temple, and would leave an everlasting and honourable memorial of himself in such a structure; and besides all this, he said, his Excellency would be giving him an opportunity of exerting his powers and of making many good and beautiful works, and also, by displaying his ability, of acquiring for himself name and fame with posterity, which should be pleasing to his Excellency, since he was his servant and had been brought up by the house of the Medici. With these designs and these words Baccio so moved the Duke, that, consenting that such a structure should be erected, his Excellency commissioned him to make a model of the whole choir. Departing from the Duke, then, Baccio went to his architect, Giuliano di Baccio d'Agnolo, and discussed the whole matter with him; and, after they had gone to the place and examined everything with diligence, they resolved not to depart from the form of Filippo's model, but to follow it, adding only other ornaments in the shape of columns and projections, and enriching it as much as they could while preserving the original design and form. But it is not the number of parts and ornaments that renders a fabric rich and beautiful, but their excellence, however few they may be, provided also that they are set in their proper places and arranged together with due proportion; it is these that give pleasure and are admired, and, having been executed with judgment by the craftsman, afterwards receive praise from all others. This Giuliano and Baccio do not seem to have considered or observed, for they chose a subject involving much labour and endless pains, but wanting in grace, as experience has proved. The design of Giuliano, as may be seen, was to place at the corners of all the eight sides pilasters bent round the angles, the whole work being composed in the Ionic Order; and these pilasters, since in the ground-plan they were made, with all the rest of the work, to diminish towards the centre of the choir and were not even, necessarily had to be broad on the outer side and narrow on the inner, which is a breach of proportionate measurement. And since each pilaster was bent according to the inner angles of the eight sides, the extension-lines towards the centre so diminished it that the two columns that were one on either side of the pilaster at the corner caused it to appear too slender, and produced an ungraceful effect both in it and in the whole work, both on the outer side and likewise on the inner, although the measurements there are correct. Giuliano also made the model of the whole altar, which stood at a distance of one braccio and a half from the ornament of the choir. For the upper part of this Baccio afterwards made in wax a Christ lying dead, with two Angels, one of whom was holding His right arm and supporting His head on one knee, and the other was holding the Mysteries of the Passion; which statue of Christ occupied almost the whole altar, so that there would scarcely have been room to celebrate Mass, and Baccio proposed to make this statue about four braccia and a half in length. He made, also, a projection in the form of a pedestal behind the altar, attached to it in the centre, with a seat upon which he afterwards placed a seated figure of God the Father, six braccia high and giving the benediction, and accompanied by two other Angels, each four braccia high, kneeling at the extreme corners of the predella of the altar, on the level on which rested the feet of God the Father. This predella was more than a braccio in height, and on it were many stories of the Passion of Jesus Christ, which were all to be in bronze, and on the corners of the predella were the Angels mentioned above, both kneeling and each holding in the hands a candelabrum; which candelabra of the Angels served to accompany eight large candelabra placed between the Angels, and three braccia and a half in height, which adorned that altar; and God the Father was in the midst of them all. Behind God the Father was left a space of half a braccio, in order that there might be room to ascend to kindle the lights. Under the arch that stood opposite to the principal entrance of the choir, on the base that ran right round, on the outer side, Baccio had placed, directly under the centre of that arch, the Tree of the Fall, round the trunk of which was wound the Ancient Serpent with a human face, and two nude figures were about the Tree, one being Adam and the other Eve. On the outer side of the choir, to which those figures had their faces turned, there ran lengthways along the base a space about three braccia long, which was to contain the story of their Creation, either in marble or in bronze; and this was to be pursued along the faces of the base of the whole work, to the number of twenty-one stories, all from the Old Testament. And for the further enrichment of this base he had made for each of the socles upon which stood the columns and pilasters, a figure of some Prophet, either draped or nude, to be afterwards executed in marble--a great work, truly, and a marvellous opportunity, likely to reveal all the art and genius of a perfect master, whose memory should never be extinguished by any lapse of time. This model was shown to the Duke, and also a double series of designs made by Baccio, which, both from their variety and their number, and likewise from their beauty--for the reason that Baccio worked boldly in wax and drew very well--pleased his Excellency, and he ordained that the masonry-work should be straightway taken in hand, devoting to it all the expenditure administered by the Office of Works, and giving orders that a great quantity of marble should be brought from Carrara. Baccio, on his part, also set to work to make a beginning with the statues; and among the first was an Adam who was raising one arm, and was about four braccia in height. This figure was finished by Baccio, but, since it proved to be narrow in the flanks and somewhat defective in other parts, he changed it into a Bacchus, and afterwards gave it to the Duke, who kept it in his Palace many years, in his chamber; and not long ago it was placed in a niche in the ground-floor apartments which his Excellency occupies in summer. He had also made a seated figure of Eve of the same size, which he had half finished: but it was abandoned on account of the Adam, which it was to have accompanied. For, having made a beginning with another Adam, in a different form and attitude, it became necessary for him to change also the Eve, and the original seated figure was converted by him into a Ceres, which he gave to the most illustrious Duchess Leonora, together with an Apollo, which was another nude that he had executed; and her Excellency had them placed in the ornament in front of the fish-pond, the design and architecture of which are by Giorgio Vasari, in the gardens of the Pitti Palace. Baccio worked at these two figures with very great zeal, thinking to satisfy the craftsmen and all the world as well as he had satisfied himself; and he finished and polished them with all the diligence and lovingness that were in him. He then set up these figures of Adam and Eve in their place, but, when uncovered, they experienced the same fate as his other works, and were torn to pieces with savage bitterness in sonnets and Latin verses, one going to the length of suggesting that even as Adam and Eve, having defiled Paradise by their disobedience, deserved to be driven out, so these figures, defiling the earth, deserved to be expelled from the church. Nevertheless the statues are well-proportioned, and beautiful in many parts; and although there is not in them that grace which has been spoken of in other places, and which he was not able to give to his works, yet they display so much art and design, that they deserve no little praise. A lady who had set herself to examine these statues, being asked by some gentlemen what she thought of these naked bodies, answered, "About the man I can give no judgment;" and, being pressed to give her opinion of the woman, she replied that in the Eve there were two good points, worthy of considerable praise, in that she was white and firm; whereby she contrived ingeniously, while seeming to praise, covertly to deal a shrewd blow to the craftsman and his art, giving to the statue the praise proper to the female body, which it is also necessary to apply to the marble, the material, and which is true of it, but not of the work or of the craftsmanship, for by such praise the craftsmanship is not praised. Thus, then, that shrewd lady hinted that in her opinion nothing could be praised in that statue save the marble. Baccio afterwards set his hand to the statue of the Dead Christ, which likewise not succeeding as he had expected, he abandoned it when it was already well advanced, and, taking another block of marble, began another Christ in an attitude different from the first, and together with that the Angel who supports the head of Christ on one leg and with one hand His arm; and he did not rest until he had finished entirely both the one figure and the other. When arrangements were made to set it up on the altar, it proved to be so large that it occupied too much space, and there was no room left for the ministrations of the priest; and although this statue was passing good, and even one of Baccio's best, nevertheless the people--the ordinary citizens no less than the priests--could never have their fill of speaking ill of it and picking it to pieces. Recognizing that to uncover unfinished works injures the reputation of a craftsman in the eyes of all those who are not of the profession, or have no knowledge of art, or have not seen the models, Baccio resolved, in order to accompany the statue of Christ and to complete the altar, to make the statue of God the Father, for which a very beautiful block of marble had come from Carrara. And he had already carried it well forward, making it half nude after the manner of a Jove, when, since it did not please the Duke and appeared to Baccio himself to have certain defects, he left it as it was, and even so it is still to be found in the Office of Works. Baccio cared nothing for the words of others, but gave his attention to making himself rich and buying property. He bought a most beautiful farm, called Lo Spinello, on the heights of Fiesole, and another with a very beautiful house called Il Cantone, in the plain above San Salvi, on the River Affrico, and a great house in the Via de' Ginori, which he was enabled to acquire by the moneys and favours of the Duke. Having thus secured his own position, Baccio thenceforward cared little to work or to exert himself; and although the tomb of Signor Giovanni was unfinished, the audience-chamber of the Great Hall only begun, and the choir and altar behindhand, he paid little attention to the words of others or to the censure that was laid upon him on that account. However, having erected the altar and set into position the marble base upon which was to stand the statue of God the Father, he made a model for this and finally began it, and, employing stone-cutters, proceeded to carry it slowly forward. There came from France in those days Benvenuto Cellini, who had served King Francis in the matter of goldsmith's work, of which he was the most famous master of his day; and he had also executed some castings in bronze for that King. Benvenuto was introduced to Duke Cosimo, who, desiring to adorn the city, showed also to him much favour and affection, and commissioned him to make a statue of bronze about five braccia high, of a nude Perseus standing over a nude woman representing Medusa, whose head he had cut off; which work was to be placed under one of the arches of the Loggia in the Piazza. While he was executing the Perseus, Benvenuto also did other things for the Duke. Now, even as it happens that the potter is always the jealous enemy of the potter, and the sculptor of the sculptor, Baccio was not able to endure the various favours shown to Benvenuto. It appeared to him a strange thing, also, that Benvenuto should have thus changed in a moment from a goldsmith into a sculptor, nor was he able to grasp in his mind how a man who was used to making medals and little things, could now execute colossal figures and giants. Baccio could not conceal his thoughts, but expressed them freely, and he found a man able to answer him; for, Baccio saying many of his biting words to Benvenuto in the presence of the Duke, Benvenuto, who was no less proud than himself, took pains to be even with him. And thus, arguing often on the matters of art and their own works, and pointing out each other's defects, they would utter the most slanderous words of one another in the presence of the Duke, who, because he took pleasure in this and recognized true genius and acuteness in their biting phrases, had given them full liberty and licence to say whatever they pleased about one another before him, provided that they did not remember their quarrel elsewhere. This rivalry, or rather, enmity, was the reason that Baccio pressed forward his statue of God the Father; but he was no longer receiving from the Duke those favours to which he had been accustomed, and he consoled himself for this by paying court and doing service to the Duchess. One day, among others, that they were railing at one another as usual and laying bare many of each others' actions, Benvenuto, glaring at Baccio and threatening him, said: "Prepare yourself for another world, Baccio, for I mean to send you out of this one." And Baccio answered: "Let me know a day beforehand, so that I may confess and make my will, and may not die like the sort of beast that you are." By reason of which the Duke, who for many months had found amusement in their quarrels, bade them be silent, fearing some evil ending, and caused them to make a portrait-bust of himself from the girdle upwards, both to be cast in bronze, to the end that he who should succeed best should carry off the honours. Amid this rivalry and contention Baccio finished his figure of God the Father, which he arranged to have placed in the church on the base beside the altar. This figure was clothed and six braccia high, and he erected and completely finished it. But, in order not to leave it unaccompanied, he summoned from Rome the sculptor Vincenzio de' Rossi, his pupil, wishing to execute in clay for the altar all that remained to be done in marble; and he caused Vincenzio to assist him in finishing the two Angels who are holding the candelabra at the corners, and the greater part of the scenes on the predella and the base. Having then set everything upon the altar, in order to see how his work, when finished, was to stand, he strove to prevail on the Duke to come and see it, before he should uncover it. But the Duke would never go, and, although entreated by the Duchess, who favoured Baccio in this matter, he would never let himself be shaken, and did not go to see it, being angered because among so many works Baccio had never finished one, even after his Excellency had made him rich and had won odium among the citizens by honouring him highly and doing him many favours. For all this his Excellency was disposed to assist Clemente, the natural son of Baccio--a young man of ability, who had made considerable proficience in design--because it was likely to fall to him in time to finish his father's works. At this same time, which was in the year 1554, there came from Rome, where he had been working for Pope Julius III, Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo, in order to serve his Excellency in many works that he was intending to execute, and in particular to decorate the Palace on the Piazza, and to renovate it with new constructions, and to finish the Great Hall, as he was afterwards seen to do. In the following year Giorgio Vasari summoned from Rome and engaged in the Duke's service the sculptor Bartolommeo Ammanati, to the end that he might execute the other façade in the above-named Hall, opposite to the audience-chamber begun by Baccio, and a fountain in the centre of that façade; and a beginning was straightway made with executing a part of the statues that were to go into that work. Baccio, perceiving that the Duke was employing others, recognized that he did not wish to use his services any longer; at which, feeling great displeasure and vexation, he had become so strange and so irritable that no one could have any dealings with him either in his house or out of it, and to his son Clemente he behaved very strangely, keeping him in want of everything. For this reason Clemente, who had made a large head of his Excellency in clay, in order to execute it in marble for the statue of the audience-chamber, sought leave of the Duke to depart and go to Rome, on account of his father's strangeness; and the Duke said that he would not fail him. Baccio, at the departure of Clemente, who had asked leave of him, would not give him anything, although the young man had been a great help to him in Florence, and, indeed, Baccio's right hand in every matter; nevertheless, he thought nothing of getting rid of him. The young man, having arrived in Rome at an unfavourable season, died in the same year both from over-study and from wild living, leaving in Florence an example of his handiwork in an almost finished head of Duke Cosimo in marble, which is very beautiful, and was afterwards placed by Baccio over the principal door of his house in the Via de' Ginori. Clemente also left well advanced a Dead Christ who is supported by Nicodemus, which Nicodemus is a portrait from life of Baccio; and these statues, which are passing good, Baccio set up in the Church of the Servites, as we shall relate in the proper place. The death of Clemente was a very great loss to Baccio and to art, and Bandinelli recognized this after he was dead. Baccio uncovered the altar of S. Maria del Fiore, and the statue of God the Father was criticized. The altar has remained as was described above, nor has anything more been done to it since; but the work of the choir has been continued. Many years before, there had been quarried at Carrara a great block of marble ten braccia and a half in height and five braccia in width, of which having received notice, Baccio rode to Carrara and made a contract for it with him to whom it belonged, giving him fifty crowns as earnest-money. He then returned to Florence and so pestered the Duke, that, by the favour of the Duchess, he obtained the commission to make from it a giant, which was to be placed in the Piazza, at the corner where the Lion was; on which spot was to be made a great fountain to spout water, in the middle of which was to be a Neptune in his chariot, drawn by sea-horses, and this figure was to be carved out of the above-mentioned block of marble. For this figure Baccio made more than one model, and showed them to his Excellency; but the matter stood thus, without anything more being done, until the year 1559, at which time the owner of the marble, having come from Carrara, asked to be paid the rest of the money, saying that otherwise he would give back the fifty crowns and break it into several pieces, in order to sell it, since he had received many offers. Orders were given by the Duke to Giorgio Vasari that he should have the marble paid for; which having been heard throughout the world of art, and also that the Duke had not yet made a free gift of the marble to Baccio, Benvenuto, and likewise Ammanati, bestirring themselves, each besought the Duke that he should be allowed to make a model in competition with Baccio, and that his Excellency should deign to give the marble to him who had shown the greatest ability in his model. The Duke did not deny to either of them the right to make a model, or deprive them of the hope that he who should acquit himself the best might be chosen to execute the statue. His Excellency knew that in ability, judgment, and design Baccio was still better than any of the sculptors who were in his service, if only he would consent to take pains, and he welcomed this competition, in order to incite Baccio to acquit himself better and to do the most that he could. Bandinelli, having seen this competition on his shoulders, was greatly troubled by it, fearing the loss of the Duke's favour more than any other thing, and once more he set himself to making models. He was most assiduous in waiting on the Duchess, and so wrought upon her, that he obtained leave to go to Carrara in order to make arrangements for having the marble brought to Florence. Having arrived in Carrara, he had the marble so reduced in size--as he had planned to do--that he made it a sorry thing, and robbed both himself and the others of a noble opportunity and of the hope of ever making from it a beautiful and magnificent work. On returning to Florence, there was a long contention between Benvenuto and him, Benvenuto saying to the Duke that Baccio had spoilt the marble before it had been assigned to him. Finally the Duchess so went to work that the marble became Baccio's; and orders were given that it should be taken from Carrara to the sea-shore, and a boat was made ready with the proper appliances, which was to convey it up the Arno as far as Signa. Baccio also caused a room to be built up in the Loggia of the Piazza, wherein to work at the marble. In the meantime he had set his hand to executing cartoons, in order to have some pictures painted which were to adorn the apartments of the Pitti Palace. These pictures were painted by a young man called Andrea del Minga, who handled colour passing well. The stories painted in the pictures were the Creation of Adam and Eve, and their Expulsion from Paradise by the Angel, a Noah, and a Moses with the Tables; which finished, he then presented them to the Duchess, seeking to obtain her favour in his difficulties and contentions. And, in truth, if it had not been for that lady, who loved him for his abilities and held him on his feet, Baccio would have fallen headlong down and would have lost completely the favour of the Duke. The Duchess also made much use of Baccio in the Pitti garden, where she had caused to be constructed a grotto full of tufa and sponge-stone formed by the action of water, and containing a fountain; and for this Baccio had caused his pupil, Giovanni Fancelli, to execute in marble a large basin and some goats of the size of life, which spout forth water, and likewise, for a fish-pond, after a model made by himself, a countryman who is emptying a barrel full of water. For these reasons the Duchess was constantly helping and favouring Baccio with the Duke, who finally gave him leave to begin the great model of the Neptune; on which account he once more sent to Rome for Vincenzio de' Rossi, who had previously departed from Florence, with the intention of making him help to execute it. While these preparations were in progress, Baccio was seized with a desire to finish the statue of the Dead Christ supported by Nicodemus, which his son Clemente had carried well forward; for he had heard that Buonarroti was finishing one in Rome that he had begun to carve from a large block of marble, containing five figures, which was to be placed on his tomb in S. Maria Maggiore. Out of emulation with him Baccio set to work on his group with the greatest assiduity, with assistants, until he had finished it. And meanwhile he was going about among the principal churches of Florence, seeking for a place where he might set up that work and also make a tomb for himself; but for long he found no place for the tomb that could content him, until he resolved on a chapel in the Church of the Servites which belongs to the family of the Pazzi. The owners of this chapel, at the request of the Duchess, granted the place to Baccio, without divesting themselves of the rights of ownership and of the devices of their house that were there; and they granted him only this, that he should erect an altar of marble and place upon it the statues mentioned above, and make his tomb at the foot of it. Afterwards, also, he came to an agreement with the friars of that convent with regard to the other matters appertaining to the celebration of Mass. During this time, then, Baccio was causing the altar and the marble base to be built, in order to place upon it the above-named statues; and, when he had finished it, he proposed to lay in that tomb, in which he wished to be laid himself together with his wife, the bones of his father Michelagnolo, which, at his death, he had caused to be placed in a vault in the same church. These bones of his father he chose to lay piously in that tomb with his own hands; whereupon it happened that either because he felt sorrow and a shock to his mind in handling his father's bones, or because he exerted himself too much in transferring those bones with his own hands and in rearranging the marbles, or from both reasons together, he was so overcome that he felt ill and had to go home, and, his malady growing daily worse, in eight days he died, at the age of seventy-two, having been up to that time robust and vigorous, and without having ever suffered much illness during the whole of his life. He was buried with honourable obsequies, and laid beside his father's bones in the above-mentioned tomb constructed by himself, on which is this epitaph:-- D. O. M. BACCIUS BANDINELL. DIVI JACOBI EQUES SUB HAC SERVATORIS IMAGINE, A SE EXPRESSA, CUM JACOBA DONIA UXORE QUIESCIT, AN. S. MDLIX. He left behind him both sons and daughters, who were the heirs to his many possessions in lands, houses, and money, which he bequeathed to them; and to the world he left the works in sculpture described by us, and designs in great numbers, which are in the possession of his family, and in our book there are some executed with the pen and with chalk, than which it is certain that nothing better could be done. The marble for the giant was left more in dispute than ever, because Benvenuto was always about the Duke, and wished, in virtue of a little model that he had made, that the Duke should give it to him. On the other hand, Ammanati, being a sculptor of marbles and more experienced in such works than Benvenuto, considered for many reasons that this work belonged to him. Now it happened that Giorgio Vasari had to go to Rome with the Cardinal, the son of the Duke, when he went to receive his hat, and Ammanati gave to Vasari a little model of wax showing the shape in which he desired to carve that figure from the marble, and a piece of wood reproducing the exact proportions--the length, breadth, thickness, and inclination from the straight--of the marble, to the end that Giorgio might show them in Rome to Michelagnolo Buonarroti and persuade him to declare his opinion in the matter, and so move the Duke to give him the marble. All this Giorgio did most willingly, and it was the reason that the Duke gave orders that an arch should be partitioned off in the Loggia of the Piazza, and that Ammanati should make a great model as large as the giant was to be. Having heard this. Benvenuto rode in a great fury to Pisa, where the Duke was, and said to him that he could not suffer that his genius should be trampled underfoot by one who was inferior to himself, and that he desired to make a great model in competition with Ammanati, in the same place; and the Duke, wishing to pacify him, granted him leave to have another arch of the Loggia partitioned off, and caused to be given to him materials for making, as he desired, a large model in competition with Ammanati. While these masters were engaged in making their models, after having made fast their enclosures in such a manner that neither the one nor the other could see what his rival was doing, although these enclosures were attached to each other, there rose up the Flemish sculptor Maestro Giovan Bologna, a young man not inferior in ability or in spirit to either of the others. This master, being in the service of the Lord Don Francesco, Prince of Florence, asked his Excellency to enable him to make a giant which might serve as a model, of the same size as the marble; and the Prince granted him this favour. Maestro Giovan Bologna had as yet no thought of having the giant to execute in marble, but he wished at least to display his ability and to make himself known for what he was worth; and, having received permission from the Prince, he, also, began a model in the Convent of S. Croce. Nor was Vincenzio Danti, the sculptor of Perugia, a younger man than any of the others, willing to fail to compete with these three masters, not in the hope of obtaining the marble, but in order to demonstrate his spirit and genius. And so, having set to work on his own account in the house of Messer Alessandro, the son of M. Ottaviano de' Medici, he executed a model good in many parts and as large as the others. The models finished, the Duke went to see those of Ammanati and of Benvenuto; and, being more pleased with that of Ammanati than with that of Benvenuto, he resolved that Ammanati should have the marble and make the giant, because he was younger than Benvenuto and more practised in marble. The disposition of the Duke was strengthened by Giorgio Vasari, who did many good offices with his Excellency for Ammanati, having perceived that, in addition to his knowledge, he was ready to endure any labour, and hoping that from his hands there would issue an excellent work finished in a short time. The Duke would not at that time see the model of Maestro Giovan Bologna, because, not having seen any work by him in marble, it did not seem to him that he could entrust to that master, as his first work, so great an undertaking, although he heard from many craftsmen and other men of judgment that Giovan Bologna's model was in many parts better than the others. But if Baccio had been alive, there would not have been all that contention among those masters, because without a doubt it would have fallen to him to make the model of clay and the giant of marble. This work, then, was snatched from Baccio by death, but the same circumstance brought him no little glory, in that it revealed by means of those four models--the reason of the making of which was that Baccio was not alive--how much better were the design, judgment and ability of him who placed on the Piazza the Hercules and Cacus, as it were living in the marble; the excellence of which work has been made evident and brought to light even more by the works that have been executed since Baccio's death by those others, who, although they have acquitted themselves in a manner worthy of praise, have yet not been able to attain to the beauty and excellence that he placed in his work. Afterwards Duke Cosimo, for the marriage of Queen Joanna of Austria, his daughter-in-law, seven years after the death of Baccio, caused the audience-chamber in the Great Hall, begun by Baccio, of which we have spoken above, to be finished; and he chose that the head of this work of completion should be Giorgio Vasari, who has sought with all diligence to put right the many defects that would have been in it if it had been continued and finished after the original design followed in the beginning by Baccio. Thus that imperfect work has now been carried with the help of God to completion, and is enriched on its side faces by the addition of niches and pilasters, and statues set in their places. Moreover, since it was laid out awry and out of square, we have taken pains to make it even in so far as has been possible, and have raised it considerably with a corridor of Tuscan columns at the top; and as for the statue of Leo begun by Baccio, his pupil Vincenzio de' Rossi has finished it. Besides this, that work has been adorned with friezes full of stucco-work, with many figures large and small, and with devices and other ornaments of various kinds, and under the niches and in the partitions of the vaulting have been made many and various designs in stucco and many beautiful inventions in carving; all which things have enriched the work in such a manner, that it has changed its form and has gained not a little in beauty and grace. For whereas, according to the first design, the ceiling of the Hall being twenty-one braccia above the floor, the audience-chamber did not rise higher than eighteen braccia, so that between it and the old ceiling there was a space of only three braccia; now, after our design, the ceiling of the Hall has been raised so much that it has risen twelve braccia above the old ceiling and fifteen above the audience-chamber of Baccio and Giuliano, so that the ceiling is now thirty-three braccia above the floor of the Hall. And it certainly showed great spirit in his Excellency, that he should resolve to cause to be finished in the space of five months for the above-named nuptials the whole of a work of which more than a third still remained to do, although it had taken more than fifteen years to arrive at the condition in which it was at that time; so eager was he to carry it to completion. But it was not only Baccio's work that his Excellency caused to be completely finished, but also all the rest of what Giorgio Vasari had designed; beginning again from the base that runs over the whole of that work, with a border of balusters in the open spaces, which forms a corridor that passes above the work in the Hall, and commands a view on the outer side of the Piazza and on the inner side of the whole Hall. Thus the Princes and other lords will be able to see, without being seen, all the festivals that may be held there, with much pleasure and convenience for themselves, and then to retire to their apartments, passing by the private and public staircases through all the rooms in the Palace. Nevertheless, to many it has caused dissatisfaction that in a work of such beauty and grandeur that structure was not made square, and many would have liked to have it pulled down and then rebuilt true to square. But it has been judged to be better to continue the work in that way, in order not to appear presumptuous and malign towards Baccio, and also because otherwise we would have seemed not to have the power to correct the errors and defects found by us but committed by others. But, returning to Baccio, we must say that his abilities were always recognized during his lifetime, yet will be recognized and regretted much more now that he is dead. And even more would he have been acknowledged for what he was, when alive, and beloved, if he had been so favoured by nature as to be more amiable and more courteous, because his being the contrary, and very rough with his tongue, robbed him of the goodwill of other persons, obscured his talents, and brought it about that his works were regarded with ill will and a prejudiced eye, and therefore could never please anyone. And although he served one nobleman after another, and was enabled by his talent to serve them well, nevertheless he rendered his services with such bad grace, that there was no one who felt grateful to him for them. Moreover, his always decrying and maligning the works of others brought it about that no one could endure him, and, whenever another was able to pay him back in his own coin, it was returned to him with interest; and before the magistrates he spoke all manner of evil without scruple about the other citizens, and received from them as good as he gave. He brought suits and went to law about everything with the greatest readiness, living in one long succession of law-suits, and appearing to triumph in them. But since his drawing, to which it is evident that he gave his attention more than to any other thing, was of such a kind and of such excellence that it atones for his every natural defect and makes him known as a rare master of our art, we therefore not only count him among the greatest craftsmen, but also have always paid respect to his works, and have sought not to destroy but to finish them and do them honour, for the reason that it appears to us that Baccio was in truth one of those who deserve honourable praise and everlasting fame. We have deferred to the end the mention of his family name, because it was not always the same, but varied, Baccio having himself called now De' Brandini, and now De' Bandinelli. In his early prints the name De' Brandini may be seen engraved after that of Baccio; but afterwards he preferred the name De' Bandinelli, which he retained to the end and still retains, and he used to say that his ancestors were of the Bandinelli of Siena, who once removed to Gaiuole, and from Gaiuole to Florence. GIULIANO BUGIARDINI [Illustration: GIULIANO BUGIARDINI: PORTRAIT OF A LADY (_Florence: Pitti, 140. Panel_)] LIFE OF GIULIANO BUGIARDINI PAINTER OF FLORENCE Before the siege of Florence the population had multiplied in such great numbers that the widespread suburbs which lay without every gate, together with the churches, monasteries, and hospitals, formed as it were another city, inhabited by many honourable persons and by good craftsmen of every kind, although for the most part they were less wealthy than those of the city, and lived there with less expense in the way of customs-dues and the like. In one of these suburbs, then, without the Porta a Faenza, was born Giuliano Bugiardini, who lived there, even as his ancestors had done, until the year 1529, when all the suburbs were pulled down. But before that, when still a mere lad, he began his studies in the garden of the Medici on the Piazza di S. Marco, in which, attending to the study of art under the sculptor Bertoldo, he formed such strait friendship and intimacy with Michelagnolo Buonarroti, that he was much beloved by Buonarroti ever afterwards; which Michelagnolo did not so much because of any depth that he saw in Giuliano's manner of drawing, as on account of the extraordinary diligence and love that he showed towards art. There was in Giuliano, besides this, a certain natural goodness and a sort of simplicity in his mode of living, free from all envy and malice, which vastly pleased Buonarroti; nor was there any notable defect in him save this, that he loved too well the works of his own hand. For, although all men are wont to err in this respect, Giuliano in truth passed all due bounds, whatever may have been the reason--either the great pains and diligence that he put into executing them, or some other cause. Wherefore Michelagnolo used to call him blessed, since he appeared to be content with what he knew, and himself unhappy, in that no work of his ever fully satisfied him. After Giuliano had studied design for some time in the above-named garden, he worked, together with Buonarroti and Granacci, under Domenico Ghirlandajo, at the time when he was painting the chapel in S. Maria Novella. Then, having made his growth and become a passing good master, he betook himself to work in company with Mariotto Albertinelli in Gualfonda; in which place he finished a panel-picture that is now at the door of entrance of S. Maria Maggiore in Florence, containing S. Alberto, a Carmelite friar, who has under his feet the Devil in the form of a woman, a work that was much extolled. It was the custom in Florence before the siege of 1530, at the burial of dead persons of good family and noble blood, to carry in front of the bier a string of pennons fixed round a panel that a porter bore on his head; which pennons were afterwards left in the church in memory of the deceased and of his family. Now, when the elder Cosimo Rucellai died, Bernardo and Palla, his sons, in order to have something new, thought of having not pennons, but in place of them a quadrangular banner four braccia wide and five braccia high, with some pennons at the foot containing the arms of the Rucellai. These men therefore giving this work to Giuliano to execute, he painted on the body of the said banner four great figures, executed very well--namely, S. Cosimo, S. Damiano, S. Peter, and S. Paul, which were truly most beautiful paintings, and done with more diligence than had ever been shown in any other work on cloth. These and other works of Giuliano's having been seen by Mariotto Albertinelli, he recognized how careful Giuliano was in following the designs that were put before him, without departing from them by a hair's breadth, and, since he was preparing in those days to abandon art, he gave him to finish a panel-picture that Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco, his friend and companion, had formerly left only designed and shaded with water-colours on the gesso of the panel, as was his custom. Giuliano, then, setting his hand to this work, executed it with supreme diligence and labour, and it was placed at that time in the Church of S. Gallo, without the gate of that name. The church and convent were afterwards pulled down on account of the siege, and the picture was carried into the city and placed in the Priests' Hospital in the Via di S. Gallo, and then from there into the Convent of S. Marco, and finally into S. Jacopo tra Fossi on the Canto degli Alberti, where it stands at the present day on the high-altar. In this picture is the Dead Christ, with the Magdalene, who is embracing His feet, and S. John the Evangelist, who is holding His head and supporting it on one knee. There, likewise, are S. Peter, who is weeping, and S. Paul, who, stretching out his arms, is contemplating his Dead Master; and, to tell the truth, Giuliano executed this picture with so much lovingness and so much consideration and judgment, that he will be always very highly extolled for it, even as he was at that time, and that rightly. And after this he finished for Cristofano Rinieri a picture with the Rape of Dina that had been likewise left incomplete by the same Fra Bartolommeo; and he painted another picture like it, which was sent to France. Not long afterwards, having been drawn to Bologna by certain friends, he executed some portraits from life, and, for a chapel in the new choir of S. Francesco, an altar-piece in oils containing Our Lady and two Saints, which was held at that time in Bologna, from there not being many masters there, to be a good work and worthy of praise. Then, having returned to Florence, he painted for I know not what person five pictures of the life of Our Lady, which are now in the house of Maestro Andrea Pasquali, physician to his Excellency and a man of great distinction. Messer Palla Rucellai having commissioned him to execute an altar-piece that was to be placed on his altar in S. Maria Novella, Giuliano began to paint in it the Martyrdom of S. Catharine the Virgin. Mountains in labour! He had it in hand for twelve years, but never carried it to completion after all that time, because he had no invention and knew not how to paint the many various things that had a part in that martyrdom; and, although he was always racking his brain as to how those wheels should be made, and how he should paint the lightning and the fire that consumed them, constantly changing one day what he had done the day before, in all that time he was never able to finish it. It is true that in the meantime he executed many works, and among others, for Messer Francesco Guicciardini--who had returned from Bologna and was then living in his villa at Montici, writing his history--a portrait of him, which was a passing good likeness and pleased him much. He took the portrait, likewise, of Signora Angela de' Rossi, the sister of the Count of Sansecondo, for Signor Alessandro Vitelli, her husband, who was then on garrison-duty in Florence. For Messer Ottaviano de' Medici he painted in a large picture, copied from one by Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, two full-length portraits, Pope Clement seated and Fra Niccolò della Magna standing; and in another picture, likewise, with incredible pains and patience, he portrayed Pope Clement seated, and before him Bartolommeo Valori, who is kneeling and speaking to him. [Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF S. CATHARINE (_After the painting by =Giuliano Bugiardini=. Florence: S. Maria Novella, Rucellai Chapel_) _Alinari_] Next, the above-named Messer Ottaviano de' Medici having besought Giuliano privately that he should take for him the portrait of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, he set his hand to it; and, after he had kept Michelagnolo, who used to take pleasure in his conversation, sitting for two hours, Giuliano said to him: "Michelagnolo, if you wish to see yourself, get up and look, for I have now fixed the expression of the face." Michelagnolo, having risen and looked at the portrait, said to Giuliano, laughing: "What the devil have you been doing? You have painted me with one of my eyes up in the temple. Give a little thought to what you are doing." Hearing this, Giuliano, after standing pensive for a while and looking many times from the portrait to the living model, answered in serious earnest: "To me it does not seem so, but sit you down again, and I shall see a little better from the life whether it be true." Buonarroti, who knew whence the defect arose and how small was the judgment of Bugiardini, straightway resumed his seat, grinning. And Giuliano looked many times now at Michelagnolo and now at the picture, and then finally, rising to his feet, declared: "To me it seems that the thing is just as I have drawn it, and that the life is in no way different." "Well, then," answered Buonarroti, "it is a natural deformity. Go on, and spare neither brush nor art." And so Giuliano finished the picture and gave it to Messer Ottaviano, together with the portrait of Pope Clement by the hand of Fra Sebastiano, as Buonarroti desired, who had sent to Rome for it. Giuliano afterwards made for Cardinal Innocenzio Cibo a copy of the picture in which Raffaello da Urbino had formerly painted portraits of Pope Leo, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, and Cardinal de' Rossi; but in place of Cardinal de' Rossi he painted the head of Cardinal Cibo, in which he acquitted himself very well, and he executed the whole picture with great diligence and labour. At that time, likewise, he took the portrait of Cencio Guasconi, who was then a very beautiful youth. And after this he painted at the villa of Baccio Valori, at Olmo a Castello, a tabernacle in fresco, which, although it had not much design, was well and very carefully executed. Meanwhile Palla Rucellai was pressing him to finish his altar-piece, of which mention has been made above, and Giuliano resolved to take Michelagnolo one day to see it. And so, after he had brought him to the place where he kept it, and had described to him with what pains he had executed the lightning-flash, which, coming down from Heaven, shivers the wheels and kills those who are turning them, and also a sun, which, bursting from a cloud, delivers S. Catharine from death, he frankly besought Michelagnolo, who could not keep from laughing as he heard poor Bugiardini's lamentations, that he should tell him how to make eight or ten principal figures of soldiers in the foreground of this altar-piece, drawn up in line after the manner of a guard, and in the act of flight, some being prostrate, some wounded, and others dead; for, said Giuliano, he did not know for himself how to foreshorten them in such a manner that there might be room for them all in so narrow a space, in the fashion that he had imagined, in line. Buonarroti, then, having compassion on the poor man and wishing to oblige him, went up to the picture with a piece of charcoal and outlined with a few strokes, lightly sketched in, a line of marvellous nude figures, which, foreshortened in different attitudes, were falling in various ways, some backward and others forward, with some wounded or dead, and all executed with that judgment and excellence that were peculiar to Michelagnolo. This done, he went away with the thanks of Giuliano, who not long afterwards took Tribolo, his dearest friend, to see what Buonarroti had done, telling him the whole story. But since, as has been related, Buonarroti had drawn his figures only in outline, Bugiardini was not able to put them into execution, because there were neither shadows in them nor any other help; whereupon Tribolo resolved to assist him, and thus made some sketch-models in clay, which he executed excellently well, giving them that boldness of manner that Michelagnolo had put into the drawing, and working them over with the gradine, which is a toothed instrument of iron, to the end that they might be somewhat rough and might have greater force; and, thus finished, he gave them to Giuliano. However, since that manner did not please the smooth fancy of Bugiardini, no sooner had Tribolo departed than he took a brush and, dipping it from time to time in water, so smoothed them that he took away the gradine-marks and polished them all over, insomuch that, whereas the lights should have served as contrasts to make the shadows stronger, he contrived to destroy all the excellence that made the work perfect. Which having afterwards heard from Giuliano himself, Tribolo laughed at the foolish simplicity of the man; and Giuliano finally delivered the work finished in such a manner that there is nothing in it to show that Michelagnolo ever looked at it. In the end, being old and poor, and having very few works to do, Giuliano applied himself with extraordinary and even incredible pains to make a Pietà in a tabernacle that was to go to Spain, with figures of no great size, and executed it with such diligence, that it seems a strange thing to think of an old man of his age having the patience to do such a work for the love that he bore to art. On the doors of that tabernacle, in order to depict the darkness that fell at the death of the Saviour, he painted a Night on a black ground, copied from the one by the hand of Michelagnolo which is in the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo. But since that statue has no other sign than an owl, Giuliano, amusing himself over his picture of Night by giving rein to his fancy, painted there a net for catching thrushes by night, with the lantern, and one of those little vessels holding a candle, or rather, a candle-end, that are carried about at night, with other suchlike things that have something to do with darkness and gloom, such as night-caps, coifs, pillows, and bats; wherefore Buonarroti was like to dislocate his jaw with laughing when he saw this work and considered with what strange caprices Bugiardini had enriched his Night. Finally, after having always been that kind of man, Giuliano died at the age of seventy-five, and was buried in the Church of S. Marco at Florence, in the year 1556. Giuliano once relating to Bronzino how he had seen a very beautiful woman, after he had praised her to the skies, Bronzino said, "Do you know her?" "No," answered Giuliano, "but she is a miracle of beauty. Just imagine that she is a picture by my hand, and there you have her." CRISTOFANO GHERARDI, CALLED DOCENO LIFE OF CRISTOFANO GHERARDI [CALLED DOCENO] OF BORGO SAN SEPOLCRO PAINTER While Raffaello dal Colle of Borgo San Sepolcro, who was a disciple of Giulio Romano and helped him to paint in fresco the Hall of Constantine in the Papal Palace at Rome, and the apartments of the Te in Mantua, was painting, after his return to the Borgo, the altar-piece of the Chapel of SS. Gilio e Arcanio (in which, imitating Giulio and Raffaello da Urbino, he depicted the Resurrection of Christ, a work that was much extolled), with another altar-piece of the Assumption for the Frati de' Zoccoli without the Borgo, and some other works for the Servite Friars at Città di Castello; while, I say, Raffaello was executing these and other works in the Borgo, his native place, acquiring riches and fame, a young man sixteen years of age, called Cristofano, and by way of by-name, Doceno, the son of Guido Gherardi, a man of honourable family in that city, was attending from a natural inclination and with much profit to painting, drawing and colouring so well and with such grace, that it was a marvel. Wherefore the above-named Raffaello, having seen some animals by the hand of this Cristofano, such as dogs, wolves, hares, and various kinds of birds and fishes, executed very well, and perceiving that he was most agreeable in his conversation and very witty and amusing, although he lived a life apart, almost like a philosopher, was well pleased to form a friendship with him and to have him frequent his workshop in order to learn. Now, after Cristofano had spent some time drawing under the discipline of Raffaello, there arrived in the Borgo the painter Rosso, with whom he contracted a friendship, and received some of his drawings; and these Doceno studied with great diligence, considering, as one who had seen no others but those by the hand of Raffaello, that they were very beautiful, as indeed they were. But these studies were broken off by him, for, when Giovanni de' Turrini of the Borgo, at that time Captain of the Florentines, went with a band of soldiers from the Borgo and from Città di Castello to the defence of Florence, which was besieged by the armies of the Emperor and of Pope Clement, Cristofano went thither among the other soldiers, having been led away by his many friends. It is true that he did this no less in the hope of having some occasion to study the works in Florence than with the intention of fighting; but in this he failed, for his captain, Giovanni, had to guard not a place within the city, but the bastions on the hill without. That war finished, and the guard of Florence being commanded not long afterwards by Signor Alessandro Vitelli of Città di Castello, Cristofano, drawn by his friends and by his desire to see the pictures and sculptures of the city, enlisted as a soldier in that guard. And while he was in that service, Signor Alessandro, having heard from Battista della Bilia, a painter and soldier from Città di Castello, that Cristofano gave his attention to painting, and having obtained a beautiful picture by his hand, determined to send him with that same Battista della Bilia and with another Battista, likewise of Città di Castello, to decorate with sgraffiti and paintings a garden and loggia that he had begun at Città di Castello. But the one Battista having died while that garden was being built up, and the other Battista having taken his place, for the time being, whatever may have been the reason, nothing more was done. Meanwhile Giorgio Vasari had returned from Rome, and was passing his time with Duke Alessandro in Florence, until his patron Cardinal Ippolito should return from Hungary; and he had received rooms in the Convent of the Servites, that he might make a beginning with the execution of certain scenes in fresco from the life of Cæsar in the chamber at the corner of the Medici Palace, where Giovanni da Udine had decorated the ceiling with stucco-work and pictures. Now Cristofano, having made Giorgio's acquaintance at the Borgo in the year 1528, when he went to see Rosso in that place, where he had shown him much kindness, resolved that he would attach himself to Vasari and thus find much more opportunity for giving attention to art than he had done in the past. Giorgio, then, after a year's intercourse with him as his companion, finding that he was likely to make an able master, and that he was pleasant and gentle in manners and a man after his own heart, conceived an extraordinary affection for him. Wherefore, having to go not long afterwards, at the commission of Duke Alessandro, to Città di Castello, in company with Antonio da San Gallo and Pier Francesco da Viterbo (who had been in Florence to build the castle, or rather, citadel, and on their return were taking the road by Città di Castello), in order to repair the walls of the above-mentioned garden of Vitelli, which were threatening to fall, he took Cristofano with him, to the end that after Vasari himself had designed and distributed in their due order the friezes that were to be executed in certain apartments, and likewise the scenes and compartments of a bath-room, and other sketches for the walls of the loggia, Gherardi and the above-named Battista might carry the whole to completion. All this they did so well and with such grace, and particularly Cristofano, that a past master in art, well practised in his work, could not have done so much; and, what is more, experimenting in that work, he became facile and able to a marvel in drawing and colouring. Then, in the year 1536, the Emperor Charles V coming to Italy and to Florence, as has been related in other places, the most magnificent festive preparations were ordained, among which Vasari, by order of Duke Alessandro, received the charge of the decorations of the Porta a S. Piero Gattolini, of the façade at S. Felice in Piazza, at the head of the Via Maggio, and of the pediment that was erected over the door of S. Maria del Fiore; and, in addition, of a standard of cloth for the castle, fifteen braccia in depth and forty in length, into the gilding of which there went fifty thousand leaves of gold. Now the Florentine painters and others who were employed in these preparations, thinking that Vasari was too much in favour with Duke Alessandro, and wishing to leave him disgraced in that part of the decorations--a part truly great and laborious--which had fallen to him, so went to work that he was not able to enlist the services of any master of architectural painting, whether young or old, among all those that were in the city, to assist him in any single thing. Of which having become aware, Vasari sent for Cristofano, Raffaello dal Colle, and Stefano Veltroni of Monte Sansovino, his kinsman; and with their assistance and that of other painters from Arezzo and other places, he executed the works mentioned above, in which Cristofano acquitted himself in such a manner, that he caused everyone to marvel, doing honour to himself and also to Vasari, who was much extolled for those works. After they were finished, Cristofano remained many days in Florence, assisting the same Vasari in the preparations that were made in the Palace of Messer Ottaviano de' Medici for the nuptials of Duke Alessandro; wherein, among other things, Cristofano executed the coat of arms of the Duchess Margherita of Austria, with the balls, upheld by a most beautiful eagle, with some boys, very well done. Not long afterwards, when Duke Alessandro had been assassinated, a compact was made in the Borgo to hand over one of the gates of the city to Piero Strozzi, when he came to Sestino, and letters were therefore written to Cristofano by some soldiers exiled from the Borgo, entreating him that he should consent to help them in this: which letters received, although Cristofano did not grant their request, yet, in order not to do a mischief to the soldiers, he chose rather to tear them up, as he did, than to lay them, as according to the laws and edicts he should have done, before Gherardo Gherardi, who was then Commissioner for the Lord Duke Cosimo in the Borgo. When the troubles were over and the matter became known, many citizens of the Borgo were exiled as rebels, and among them Doceno; and Signor Alessandro Vitelli, who knew the truth of this affair and could have helped him, did not do so, to the end that Cristofano might be as it were forced to serve him in the work of his garden at Città di Castello, of which we have spoken above. After having consumed much time in this service, without any profit or advantage, Cristofano finally took refuge, almost in despair, with other exiles, in the village of S. Giustino in the States of the Church, a mile and a half distant from the Borgo and very near the Florentine frontier. In that place, although he stayed there at his peril, he painted for Abbot Bufolini of Città di Castello, who has most beautiful and commodious apartments there, a chamber in a tower, with a pattern of little boys and figures very well foreshortened to be seen from below, and with grotesques, festoons, and masks, the most lovely and the most bizarre that could be imagined. This chamber, when finished, so pleased the Abbot that he caused him to do another, in which, desiring to make some ornaments of stucco, and not having marble to grind into powder for mixing it, for this purpose he found a very good substitute in some stones from a river-bed, veined with white, the powder from which took a good and very firm hold. And within these ornaments of stucco Cristofano then painted some scenes from Roman history, executing them so well in fresco that it was a marvel. At that time Giorgio Vasari was painting in fresco the upper part of the tramezzo[4] of the Abbey of Camaldoli, and two panel-pictures for the lower part; and, wishing to make about these last an ornament in fresco full of scenes, he would have liked to have Cristofano with him, no less to restore him to the favour of the Duke than to make use of him. But, although Messer Ottaviano de' Medici pleaded strongly with the Duke, it proved impossible to bend him, so ugly was the information that had been given to him about the behaviour of Cristofano. Not having succeeded in this, therefore, Vasari, as one who loved Cristofano, set himself to contrive to remove him at least from S. Giustino, where he, with other exiles, was living in the greatest peril. In the year 1539, then, having to execute for the Monks of Monte Oliveto, for the head of a great refectory in the Monastery of S. Michele in Bosco without Bologna, three panel-pictures in oils with three scenes each four braccia in length, and a frieze in fresco three braccia high all round with twenty stories of the Apocalypse in little figures, and all the monasteries of that Order copied from the reality, with partitions of grotesques, and round each window fourteen braccia of festoons with fruits copied from nature, Giorgio wrote straightway to Cristofano that he should go from S. Giustino to Bologna, together with Battista Cungi of the Borgo, his compatriot, who had also served Vasari for seven years. These men, therefore, having gone to Bologna, where Giorgio had not yet arrived--for he was still at Camaldoli, where, having finished the tramezzo, he was drawing the cartoon for a Deposition from the Cross, which was afterwards executed by him and set up on the high-altar in that same place--set themselves to prime the said three panels with gesso and to lay on the ground, until such time as Giorgio should arrive. [Footnote 4: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.] Now Vasari had given a commission to Dattero, a Jew, the friend of Messer Ottaviano de' Medici, who was then a banker in Bologna, that he should provide Cristofano and Battista with everything that they required. And since this Dattero was very obliging and most courteous, he did them a thousand favours and courtesies; wherefore those two at times went about Bologna in his company in very familiar fashion, and, Battista having prominent eyes and Cristofano a great speck in one of his, they were thus taken for Jews, as Dattero was in fact. One morning, therefore, a shoemaker, who had to bring a pair of new shoes at the commission of the above-named Jew to Cristofano, arriving at the monastery, said to Cristofano himself, who was standing at the gate looking on at the distribution of alms, "Sir, could you show me the rooms of those two Jew painters who are working in there?" "Jews or no Jews," said Cristofano, "what have you to do with them?" "I have to give these shoes," he answered, "to one of them called Cristofano." "I am he," replied Cristofano, "an honest man and a better Christian than you are." "You may be what you please," answered the shoemaker. "I called you Jews, because, besides that you are held and known as Jews by everyone, that look of yours, which is not of our country, convinced me of it." "Enough," said Cristofano, "you shall see that we do the work of Christians." [Illustration: THE SUPPER OF S. GREGORY THE GREAT (_After the panel by =Giorgio Vasari=, with details by =Cristofano Gherardi [Doceno]=. Bologna: Accademia, 198_) _Poppi_] But to return to the work: Vasari having arrived in Bologna, not a month had passed before, Giorgio designing, and Cristofano and Battista laying in the panels in colour, all three were completely laid in, with great credit to Cristofano, who acquitted himself in this excellently well. The laying in of the panels being finished, work was begun on the frieze, in which Cristofano had a companion, although he was to have executed it all by himself; for there came from Camaldoli to Bologna the cousin of Vasari, Stefano Veltroni of Monte Sansovino, who had laid in the panel-picture of the Deposition, and the two executed that work together, and that so well, that it proved a marvel. Cristofano painted grotesques so well, that there was nothing better to be seen, but he did not give them that particular finish that would have made them perfect; and Stefano, on the contrary, was wanting in resolution and grace, for the reason that his brush-strokes did not fix his subjects in their places at one sweep, but, since he was very patient, in the end, although he endured greater labour, he used to execute his grotesques with more neatness and delicacy. Labouring in competition, then, at the work of this frieze, these two took such pains, both the one and the other, that Cristofano learned to finish from Stefano, and Stefano learned from Cristofano to be more resolute and to work like a master. Work being then begun on the broad festoons that were to run in clusters round the windows, Vasari made one with his own hand, keeping real fruits in front of him, that he might copy them from nature. This done, he ordained that Cristofano and Stefano should go on with the rest, holding to the same design, one on one side of the window, and the other on the other side, and should thus, one by one, proceed to finish them all; promising to him who might prove at the end of the work to have acquitted himself best a pair of scarlet hose. And so, competing lovingly for both honour and profit, they set themselves to copy everything, from the large things down to the most minute, such as millet-seed, hemp-seed, bunches of fennel, and the like, in such a manner that those festoons proved to be very beautiful; and both of them received from Vasari the prize of the scarlet hose. Giorgio took great pains to persuade Cristofano to execute by himself part of the designs for the scenes that were to go into the frieze, but he would never do it. Wherefore, the while that Giorgio was drawing them himself, Gherardi executed the buildings in two of the panel-pictures, with much grace and beauty of manner, and such perfection, that a master of great judgment, even if he had had the cartoons before him, could not have done what Cristofano did. And, in truth, there never was a painter who could do by himself, and without study, the things that he contrived to do. After having finished the execution of the buildings in the two panel-pictures, the while that Vasari was carrying to completion the twenty stories from the Apocalypse for the above-mentioned frieze, Cristofano, taking in hand the panel-picture in which S. Gregory (whose head is a portrait of Pope Clement VII) is eating with his twelve poor men, executed the whole service of the table, all very lifelike and most natural. Then, a beginning having been made with the third panel-picture, while Stefano was occupied with the gilding of the ornamental frames of the other two, a staging was erected upon two trestles of wood, from which, while Vasari was painting on one side, in a glory of sunlight, the three Angels that appeared to Abraham in the Valley of Mamre, Cristofano painted some buildings on the other side. But he was always making some contraption with stools and tables, and at times with basins and pans upside down, on which he would climb, like the casual creature that he was; and once it happened that, seeking to draw back in order to look at what he had done, one of his feet gave way under him, the whole contraption turned topsy-turvy, and he fell from a height of five braccia, bruising himself so grievously that he had to be bled and properly nursed, or he would have died. And, what was worse, being the sort of careless fellow that he was, one night there slipped off the bandages that were on the arm from which the blood had been drawn, to the great danger of his life, so that, if Stefano, who was sleeping with him, had not noticed this, it would have been all up with him; and even so Stefano had something to do to revive him, for the bed was a lake of blood, and he himself was reduced almost to his last gasp. Vasari, therefore, taking him under his own particular charge, as if he had been his brother, had him tended with the greatest possible care, than which, indeed, nothing less would have sufficed; and with all this he was not restored until that work was completely finished. After that, returning to S. Giustino, Cristofano completed some of the apartments of the Abbot there, which had been left unfinished, and then executed at Città di Castello, all with his own hand, an altar-piece that had been allotted to Battista, his dearest friend, and a lunette that is over the side-door of S. Fiorido, containing three figures in fresco. Giorgio being afterwards summoned to Venice at the instance of Messer Pietro Aretino, in order to arrange and execute for the nobles and gentlemen of the Company of the Calza the setting for a most sumptuous and magnificent festival, and the scenery of a comedy written by that same Messer Pietro Aretino for those gentlemen, Giorgio, I say, knowing that he was not able to carry out so great a work by himself alone, sent for Cristofano and the above-mentioned Battista Cungi. And they, having finally arrived in Venice after being carried by the chances of the sea to Sclavonia, found that Vasari not only had arrived there before them, but had already designed everything, so that there was nothing for them to do but to set hand to painting. Now the said gentlemen of the Calza had taken at the end of the Canareio a large house which was not finished--it had nothing, indeed, save the main walls and the roof--and in a space forming an apartment seventy braccia long and sixteen braccia wide, Giorgio caused to be made two ranges of wooden steps, four braccia in height from the floor, on which the ladies were to be seated. The walls at the sides he divided each into four square spaces of ten braccia, separated by niches each four braccia in breadth, within which were figures, and these niches had each on either side a terminal figure in relief, nine braccia high; insomuch that the niches on either side were five and the terminal figures ten, and in the whole apartment there were altogether ten niches, twenty terminal figures, and eight square pictures with scenes. In the first of these pictures (which were all in chiaroscuro), that on the right hand, next the stage, there was, representing Venice, a most beautiful figure of Adria depicted as seated upon a rock in the midst of the sea, with a branch of coral in the hand. Around her stood Neptune, Thetis, Proteus, Nereus, Glaucus, Palæmon, and other sea gods and nymphs, who were presenting to her jewels, pearls, gold, and other riches of the sea; and besides this there were some Loves that were shooting arrows, and others that were flying through the air and scattering flowers, and the rest of the field of the picture was all most beautiful palms. In the second picture were the Rivers Drava and Sava naked, with their vases. In the third was the Po, conceived as large and corpulent, with seven sons, representing the seven branches which, issuing from the Po, pour into the sea as if each of them were a kingly river. In the fourth was the Brenta, with other rivers of Friuli. On the other wall, opposite to the Adria, was the Island of Candia, wherein was to be seen Jove being suckled by the Goat, with many Nymphs around. Beside this, and opposite to the Drava, were the River Tagliamento and the Mountains of Cadore. Beyond this, opposite to the Po, were Lake Benacus and the Mincio, which were pouring their waters into the Po; and beside them, opposite to the Brenta, were the Adige and the Tesino, falling into the sea. The pictures on the right-hand side were divided by these Virtues, placed in the niches--Liberality, Concord, Compassion, Peace, and Religion; and opposite to these, on the other wall, were Fortitude, Civic Wisdom, Justice, a Victory with War beneath her, and, lastly, a Charity. Above all, then, were a large cornice and architrave, and a frieze full of lights and of glass globes filled with distilled waters, to the end that these, having lights behind them, might illuminate the whole apartment. Next, the ceiling was divided into four quadrangular compartments, each ten braccia wide in one direction and eight braccia in the other; and, with a width equal to that of the niches of four braccia, there was a frieze which ran right round the cornice, while in a line with the niches there came in the middle of all the spaces a compartment three braccia square. These compartments were in all twenty-three, without counting one of double size that was above the stage, which brought the number up to twenty-four; and in them were the Hours, twelve of the night, namely, and twelve of the day. In the first of the compartments ten braccia in length, which was above the stage, was Time, who was arranging the Hours in their places, accompanied by Æolus, God of the Winds, by Juno, and by Iris. In another compartment, at the door of entrance, was the Car of Aurora, who, rising from the arms of Tithonus, was scattering roses, while the Car itself was being drawn by some Cocks. In the third was the Chariot of the Sun; and in the fourth was the Chariot of Night, drawn by Owls, and Night had the Moon upon her head, some Bats in front of her, and all around her darkness. Of these pictures Cristofano executed the greater part, and he acquitted himself so well, that everyone stood marvelling at them: particularly in the Chariot of Night, wherein he did in the way of oil-sketches that which was, in a manner of speaking, not possible. And in the picture of Adria, likewise, he painted those monsters of the sea with such beauty and variety, that whoever looked at them was struck with astonishment that a craftsman of his rank should have shown such knowledge. In short, in all this work he bore himself beyond all expectation like an able and well-practised painter, and particularly in the foliage and grotesques. After finishing the preparations for that festival, Vasari and Cristofano stayed some months in Venice, painting for the Magnificent Messer Giovanni Cornaro the ceiling, or rather, soffit, of an apartment, into which there went nine large pictures in oils. Vasari being then entreated by the Veronese architect, Michele San Michele, to stay in Venice, he might perhaps have consented to remain there for a year or two; but Cristofano always dissuaded him from it, saying that it was not a good thing to stay in Venice, where no account was taken of design, nor did the painters in that city make any use of it, not to mention that those painters themselves were the reason that no attention was paid there to the labours of the arts; and he declared that it would be better to return to Rome, the true school of noble arts, where ability was recognized much more than in Venice. The dissuasions of Cristofano being thus added to the little desire that Vasari had to stay there, they went off together. But, since Cristofano, being an exile from the State of Florence, was not able to follow Giorgio, he returned to S. Giustino, where he did not remain long, doing some work all the time for the above-mentioned Abbot, before he went to Perugia on the first occasion when Pope Paul III went there after the war waged with the people of that city. There, in the festive preparations that were made to receive his Holiness, he acquitted himself very well in several works, and particularly in the portal called after Frate Rinieri, where, at the wish of Monsignore della Barba, who was then governor there, Cristofano executed a large Jove in Anger and another Pacified, which are two most beautiful figures, and on the other side he painted an Atlas with the world on his back, between two women, one of whom had a sword and the other a pair of scales. These works, with many others that Cristofano executed for those festivities, were the reason that afterwards, when the citadel had been built in Perugia by order of the same Pontiff, Messer Tiberio Crispo, who was governor and castellan at that time, when causing many of the rooms to be painted, desired that Cristofano, in addition to that which Lattanzio, a painter of the March, had executed in them up to that time, should also work there. Whereupon Cristofano not only assisted the above-named Lattanzio, but afterwards executed with his own hand the greater part of the best works that are painted in the apartments of that fortress, in which there also worked Raffaello dal Colle and Adone Doni of Assisi, an able and well-practised painter, who has executed many things in his native city and in other places. Tommaso Papacello also worked there; but the best that there was among them, and the one who gained most praise there, was Cristofano, on which account he was recommended by Lattanzio to the favour of the said Crispo, and was ever afterwards much employed by him. Meanwhile, that same Crispo having built in Perugia a new little church known as S. Maria del Popolo, but first called Del Mercato, Lattanzio had begun for it an altar-piece in oils, and in this Cristofano painted with his own hand all the upper part, which is indeed most beautiful and worthy of great praise. Then, Lattanzio having been changed from a painter into the Constable of Perugia, Cristofano returned to S. Giustino, where he stayed many months, again working for the above-named Lord Abbot Bufolini. After this, in the year 1543, Giorgio Vasari, having to execute a panel-picture in oils for the Great Cancelleria by order of the most illustrious Cardinal Farnese, and another for the Church of S. Agostino at the commission of Galeotto da Girone, sent for Cristofano, who went very willingly, as one who had a desire to see Rome. There he stayed many months, doing little else but go about seeing everything; but nevertheless he thus gained so much, that, after returning once more to S. Giustino, he painted in a hall some figures after his own fancy which were so beautiful, that it appeared that he must have studied at them twenty years. Then, in the year 1545, Vasari had to go to Naples to paint for the Monks of Monte Oliveto a refectory involving much more work than that of S. Michele in Bosco at Bologna, and he sent for Cristofano, Raffaello dal Colle, and Stefano, already mentioned as his friends and pupils; and they all came together at the appointed time in Naples, excepting Cristofano, who remained behind because he was ill. However, being pressed by Vasari, he made his way to Rome on his journey to Naples; but he was detained by his brother Borgognone, who was likewise an exile, and who wished to take him to France to enter the service of the Colonel Giovanni da Turrino, and so that occasion was lost. But when Vasari returned from Naples to Rome in the year 1546, in order to execute twenty-four pictures that were afterwards sent to Naples and placed in the Sacristy of S. Giovanni Carbonaro, in which he painted stories from the Old Testament, and also from the life of S. John the Baptist, with figures of one braccio or little more, and also in order to paint the doors of the organ of the Piscopio, which were six braccia in height, he availed himself of Cristofano, who was of great assistance to him and executed figures and landscapes in those works excellently well. Giorgio had also proposed to make use of him in the Hall of the Cancelleria, which was painted after cartoons by his hand, and entirely finished in a hundred days, for Cardinal Farnese, but in this he did not succeed, for Cristofano fell ill and returned to S. Giustino as soon as he had begun to mend. And Vasari finished the Hall without him, assisted by Raffaello dal Colle, the Bolognese Giovan Battista Bagnacavallo, the Spaniards Roviale and Bizzerra, and many others of his friends and pupils. After returning from Rome to Florence and setting out from that city to go to Rimini, to paint a chapel in fresco and an altar-piece in the Church of the Monks of Monte Oliveto for Abbot Gian Matteo Faettani, Giorgio passed through S. Giustino, in order to take Cristofano with him: but Abbot Bufolini, for whom he was painting a hall, would not let him go for the time being, although he promised Giorgio that he should send Cristofano to him soon all the way to Romagna. But, notwithstanding such a promise, the Abbot delayed so long to send him, that Cristofano, when he did go, found that Vasari had not only finished all the work for the other Abbot, but had also executed an altar-piece for the high-altar of S. Francesco at Rimini, for Messer Niccolò Marcheselli, and another altar-piece in the Church of Classi, belonging to the Monks of Camaldoli, at Ravenna, for Don Romualdo da Verona, the Abbot of that abbey. In the year 1550, not long before this, Giorgio had just executed the story of the Marriage of Esther in the Black Friars' Abbey of S. Fiore, that is, in the refectory, at Arezzo, and also, at Florence, for the Chapel of the Martelli in the Church of S. Lorenzo, the altar-piece of S. Gismondo, when, Julius III having been elected Pope, he was summoned to Rome to enter the service of his Holiness. Thereupon he thought for certain that by means of Cardinal Farnese, who went at that time to stay in Florence, he would be able to reinstate Cristofano in his country and restore him to the favour of Duke Cosimo. But this proved to be impossible, so that poor Cristofano had to stay as he was until 1554, at which time, Vasari having been invited into the service of Duke Cosimo, there came to him an opportunity of delivering Cristofano. Bishop da' Ricasoli, who knew that he would be doing a thing pleasing to his Excellency, had set to work to have the three façades of his palace, which stands on the abutment of the Ponte alla Carraja, painted in chiaroscuro, when Messer Sforza Almeni, Cup-bearer as well as first and favourite Chamberlain to the Duke, resolved that he also would have his house in the Via de' Servi painted in chiaroscuro, in emulation of the Bishop. But, not having found in Florence any painters according to his fancy, he wrote to Giorgio Vasari, who had not then arrived in Florence, that he should think out the inventions and send him designs of all that it might seem to him best to paint on that façade of his. Whereupon Giorgio, who was much his friend, for they had known each other from the time when they were both in the service of Duke Alessandro, having thought out the whole according to the measurements of the façade, sent him a design of most beautiful invention, which embellished the windows and joined them together with a well-varied decoration in a straight line from top to bottom, and filled all the spaces in the façade with rich scenes. This design, I say, which contained, to put it briefly, the whole life of man from birth to death, was sent by Vasari to Messer Sforza; and it so pleased him, and likewise the Duke, that, in order that it might have all its perfection, they resolved that they would not have it taken in hand until such time as Vasari himself should have arrived in Florence. Which Vasari having at last come and having been received by his most illustrious Excellency and by the above-named Messer Sforza with great friendliness, they began to discuss who might be the right man to execute that façade. Whereupon Giorgio, not allowing the occasion to slip by, said to Messer Sforza that no one was better able to carry out that work than Cristofano, and that neither in that nor in the works that were to be executed in the Palace, could he do without Cristofano's aid. And so, Messer Sforza having spoken of this to the Duke, after many inquiries it was found that Cristofano's crime was not so black as it had been painted, and the poor fellow was at last pardoned by his Excellency. Which news having been received by Vasari, who was at Arezzo, revisiting his native place and his friends, he sent a messenger expressly to Cristofano, who knew nothing of the matter, to give him that good news; and when he heard it, he was like to faint with joy. All rejoicing, therefore, and confessing that no one had ever been a better friend to him than Vasari, he went off next morning from Città di Castello to the Borgo, where, after presenting his letters of deliverance to the Commissioner, he made his way to his father's house, where his mother and also his brother, who had been recalled from exile long before, were struck with astonishment. Then, after passing two days there, he went off to Arezzo, where he was received by Giorgio with more rejoicing than if he had been his own brother, and recognized that he was so beloved by Vasari that he resolved that he would spend the rest of his life with him. They then went from Arezzo to Florence together, and Cristofano went to kiss the hands of the Duke, who received him readily and was struck with amazement, for the reason that, whereas he had thought to see some great bravo, he saw the best little man in the world. Cristofano was likewise made much of by Messer Sforza, who conceived a very great affection for him; and he then set his hand to the above-mentioned façade. In that work, Giorgio, because it was not yet possible to work in the Palace, assisted him, at his own request, to execute some designs for the scenes in the façade, also designing at times during the progress of the work, on the plaster, some of the figures that are there. But, although there are in it many things retouched by Vasari, nevertheless the whole façade, with the greater part of the figures and all the ornaments, festoons, and large ovals, is by the hand of Cristofano, who in truth, as may be seen, was so able in handling colours in fresco, that it may be said--and Vasari confesses it--that he knew more about it than Giorgio himself. And if Cristofano, when he was a lad, had exercised himself continuously in the studies of art--for he never did a drawing save when he had afterwards to carry it into execution--and had pursued the practice of art with spirit, he would have had no equal, seeing that his facility, judgment and memory enabled him to execute his works in such a way, without any further study, that he used to surpass many who in fact knew more than he. Nor could anyone believe with what facility and resolution he executed his labours, for, when he set himself to work, no matter how long a time it might take, he so delighted in it that he would never lift his eyes off his painting; wherefore his friends might well expect the greatest things from him. Besides this, he was so gracious in his conversation and his jesting as he worked, that Vasari would at times stay working in his company from morning till night, without ever growing weary. Cristofano executed this façade in a few months, not to mention that he sometimes stayed away some weeks without working there, going to the Borgo to see and enjoy his home. Now I do not wish to grudge the labour of describing the distribution and the figures of this work, which, from its being in the open air and much exposed to the vagaries of the weather, may not have a very long life; scarcely, indeed, was it finished, when it was much injured by a terrible rain and a very heavy hail-storm, and in some places the wall was stripped of plaster. In this façade, then, there are three compartments. The first, to begin at the foot, is where the principal door and the two windows are; the second is from the sill of those windows to that of the second range of windows; and the third is from those last windows to the cornice of the roof. There are, besides this, six windows in each range, which give seven spaces; and the whole work was divided according to this plan in straight lines from the cornice of the roof down to the ground. Next to the cornice of the roof, then, there is in perspective a great cornice, with brackets that project over a frieze of little boys, six of whom stand upright along the breadth of the façade--namely, one above the centre of the arch of each window; and these support with their shoulders most beautiful festoons of fruits, leaves, and flowers, which run from one to another. Those fruits and flowers are arranged in due succession according to the seasons, symbolizing the periods of our life, which is there depicted; and on the middle of the festoons, likewise, where they hang down, are other little boys in various attitudes. This frieze finished, between the upper windows, in the spaces that are there, there were painted the seven Planets, with the seven celestial Signs above them as a crown and an ornament. Beneath the sill of these windows, on the parapet, is a frieze of Virtues, who, two by two, are holding seven great ovals; in which ovals are seven distinct stories representing the Seven Ages of Man, and each Age is accompanied by two Virtues appropriate to her, and beneath the ovals in the spaces between the lower windows there are the three Theological and the four Moral Virtues. Below this, in the frieze that is above the door and the windows supported by knee-shaped brackets, are the seven Liberal Arts, each of which is in a line with the oval in which is the particular story of the Life of Man appropriate to it; and in the same straight lines, continued upwards, are the Moral Virtues, Planets, Signs, and other corresponding symbols. Next, between the windows with knee-shaped brackets, there is Life, both the active and the contemplative, with scenes and statues, continued down to Death, Hell, and our final Resurrection. In brief, Cristofano executed almost all by himself the whole cornice, the festoons, the little boys, and the seven Signs of the Planets. Then, beginning on one side, he painted first the Moon, and represented her by a Diana who has her lap full of flowers, after the manner of Proserpine, with a moon upon her head and the Sign of Cancer above her. Below, in the oval wherein is the story of Infancy, there are present at the Birth of Man some nurses who are suckling infants, and newly-delivered women in bed, executed by Cristofano with much grace; and this oval is supported by Will alone, who is a half-nude young woman, fair and beautiful, and she is sustained by Charity, who is also suckling infants. And beneath the oval, on the parapet, is Grammar, who is teaching some little boys to read. Beginning over again, there follows Mercury with the Caduceus and with his Sign, who has below him in the oval some little boys, some of whom are going to school and some playing. This oval is supported by Truth, who is a nude little girl all pure and simple, who has on one side a male figure representing Falsehood, with a variety of girt-up garments and a most beautiful countenance, but with the eyes much sunken. Beneath the oval of the windows is Faith, who with the right hand is baptizing a child in a conch full of water, and with the left hand is holding a cross; and below her, on the parapet, is Logic covered by a veil, with a serpent. Next follows the Sun, represented by an Apollo who has the lyre in his hand, with his Sign in the ornament above. In the oval is Adolescence, represented by two boys of equal age, one of whom, holding a branch of olive, is ascending a mountain illumined by the sun, and the other, halting halfway up to admire the beauties that Fraud displays from the middle upwards, without perceiving that her hideous countenance is concealed behind a smooth and beautiful mask, is caused by her and her wiles to fall over a precipice. This oval is supported by Sloth, a gross and corpulent man, who stands all sleepy and nude in the guise of a Silenus; and also by Toil, in the person of a robust and hard-working peasant, who has around him the implements for tilling the earth. These are supported by that part of the ornament that is between the windows, where Hope is, who has the anchors at her feet; and on the parapet below is Music, with various musical instruments about her. There follows in due order Venus, who has clasped Love to her bosom, and is kissing him; and she, also, has her Sign above her. In the oval that she has beneath her is the story of Youth; that is, in the centre a young man seated, with books, instruments for measuring, and other things appertaining to design, and in addition maps of the world and cosmographical globes and spheres; and behind him is a loggia, in which are young men who are merrily passing the time away with singing, dancing, and playing, and also a banquet of young people all given over to enjoyment. On one side this oval is supported by Self-knowledge, who has about her compasses, armillary spheres, quadrants, and books, and is gazing at herself in a mirror; and, on the other side, by Fraud, a hideous old hag, lean and toothless, who is mocking at Self-knowledge, and in the act of covering her face with a smooth and beautiful mask. Below the oval is Temperance, with a horse's bridle in her hand, and beneath her, on the parapet, is Rhetoric, who is in a line with the other similar figures. Next to these comes Mars in armour, with many trophies about him, and with the Sign of the Lion above him. In his oval, which is below him, is Virility, represented by a full-grown man, standing between Memory and Will, who are holding before him a basin of gold containing a pair of wings, and are pointing out to him the path of deliverance in the direction of a mountain; and this oval is supported by Innocence, who is a maiden with a lamb at her side, and by Hilarity, who, all smiling and merry, reveals herself as what she really is. Beneath the oval, between the windows, is Prudence, who is making herself beautiful before a mirror; and she has below her, on the parapet, a figure of Philosophy. Next there follows Jove, with his thunderbolt and his bird, the Eagle, and with his Sign above him. In the oval is Old Age, who is represented by an old man clothed as a priest and kneeling before an altar, upon which he is placing the basin of gold with the two wings; and this oval is supported by Compassion, who is covering some naked little boys, and by Religion, enveloped in sacerdotal vestments. Below these is a Fortitude in armour, who, planting one of her legs in a spirited attitude on a fragment of a column, is placing some balls in the mouth of a lion; and beneath her, on the parapet, she has a figure of Astrology. The last of the seven Planets is Saturn, depicted as an old man heavy with melancholy, who is devouring his own children, with a great serpent that is seizing its own tail with its teeth; which Saturn has above him the Sign of Capricorn. In the oval is Decrepitude, and here is depicted Jove in Heaven receiving a naked and decrepit old man, kneeling, who is watched over by Felicity and Immortality, who are casting his garments into the world. This oval is supported by Beatitude, who is upheld by a figure of Justice in the ornament below, who is seated and has in her hand the sceptre and upon her shoulders the stork, with arms and laws around her; and on the parapet below is Geometry. In the lowest part at the foot, which is about the windows with knee-shaped brackets and the door, is Leah in a niche, representing the Active Life, and on the other side of the same place is Industry, who has a Cornucopia and two goads in her hands. Near the door is a scene in which many masters in wood and stone, architects, and stone-cutters have before them the gate of Cosmopolis, a city built by the Lord Duke Cosimo in the island of Elba, with a representation of Porto-Ferrajo. Between this scene and the frieze in which are the Liberal Arts, is Lake Trasimene, round which are Nymphs who are issuing from the water with tench, pike, eels, and roach, and beside the lake is Perugia, a nude figure holding with her hands a dog, which she is showing to a figure of Florence corresponding to her, who stands on the other side, with a figure of Arno beside her who is embracing and fondling her. And below this is the Contemplative Life in another scene, in which many philosophers and astrologers are measuring the heavens, appearing to be casting the horoscope of the Duke; and beside this, in the niche corresponding to that of Leah, is her sister Rachel, the daughter of Laban, representing the Contemplative Life. The last scene, which is likewise between two niches and forms the conclusion of the whole invention, is Death, who, mounted on a lean horse and holding the scythe, and accompanied by War, Pestilence, and Famine, is riding over persons of every kind. In one niche is the God Pluto, and beneath him Cerberus, the Hound of Hell; and in the other is a large figure rising again from a sepulchre on the last day. After all these things Cristofano executed on the pediments of the windows with knee-shaped brackets some nude figures that are holding the devices of his Excellency, and over the door a Ducal coat of arms, the six balls of which are upheld by some naked little boys, who twine in and out between each other as they fly through the air. And last of all, in the bases at the foot, beneath all the scenes, the same Cristofano painted the device of M. Sforza; that is, some obelisks, or rather triangular pyramids, which rest upon three balls, with a motto around that reads--Immobilis. This work, when finished, was vastly extolled by his Excellency and by Messer Sforza himself, who, like the courteous gentleman that he was, wished to reward with a considerable present the art and industry of Cristofano; but he would have none of it, being contented and fully repaid by the goodwill of that lord, who loved him ever afterwards more than I could say. While the work was being executed, Vasari had Cristofano with him, as he had always done in the past, in the house of Signor Bernardetto de' Medici, who much delighted in painting; which having perceived, Cristofano painted two scenes in chiaroscuro in a corner of his garden. One was the Rape of Proserpine, and in the other were Vertumnus and Pomona, the deities of agriculture; and besides this Cristofano painted in this work some ornaments of terminal figures and children of such variety and beauty, that there is nothing better to be seen. Meanwhile arrangements had been made for beginning to paint in the Palace, and the first thing that was taken in hand was a hall in the new apartments, which, being twenty braccia wide, and having a height, according as Tasso had constructed it, of not more than nine braccia, was raised three braccia with beautiful ingenuity by Vasari, that is, to a total height of twelve braccia, without moving the roof, which was half a pavilion roof. But because in doing this, before it could become possible to paint, much time had to be devoted to reconstructing the ceilings and to other works in that apartment and in others, Vasari himself obtained leave to go to Arezzo to spend two months there together with Cristofano. However, he did not succeed in being able to rest during that time, for the reason that he could not refuse to go in those days to Cortona, where he painted in fresco the vaulting and the walls of the Company of Jesus with the assistance of Cristofano, who acquitted himself very well, and particularly in the twelve different sacrifices from the Old Testament which they executed in the lunettes between the spandrels of the vaulting. Indeed, to speak more exactly, almost the whole of this work was by the hand of Cristofano, Vasari having done nothing therein beyond making certain sketches, designing some parts on the plaster, and then retouching it at times in various places, according as it was necessary. This work finished, which is not otherwise than grand, worthy of praise, and very well executed, by reason of the great variety of things that are in it, they both returned to Florence in the month of January of the year 1555. There, having taken in hand the Hall of the Elements, while Vasari was painting the pictures of the ceiling, Cristofano executed some devices that bind together the friezes of the beams in perpendicular lines, in which are heads of capricorns and tortoises with the sail, devices of his Excellency. But the works in which he showed himself most marvellous were some festoons of fruits that are in the friezes of the beams on the under side, which are so beautiful that there is nothing better coloured or more natural to be seen, particularly because they are separated one from another by certain masks, that hold in their mouths the ligatures of the festoons, than which one would not be able to find any more varied or more bizarre; in which manner of work it may be said that Cristofano was superior to any other who has ever made it his principal and particular profession. This done, he painted some large figures on that part of the walls where there is the Birth of Venus, but after the cartoons of Vasari, and many little figures in a landscape, which were executed very well. In like manner, on the wall where there are the Loves as tiny little children, fashioning the arrows of Cupid, he painted the three Cyclopes forging thunderbolts for Jove. Over six doors he executed in fresco six large ovals with ornaments in chiaroscuro and containing scenes in the colour of bronze, which were very beautiful; and in the same hall, between the windows, he painted in colours a Mercury and a Pluto, which are likewise very beautiful. Work being then begun in the Chamber of the Goddess Ops, which is next to that described above, he painted the four Seasons in fresco on the ceiling, and, in addition to the figures, some festoons that were marvellous in their variety and beauty, for the reason that, even as those of Spring were filled with a thousand kinds of flowers, so those of Summer were painted with an infinite number of fruits and cereals, those of Autumn were of leaves and bunches of the grape, and those of Winter were of onions, turnips, radishes, carrots, parsnips, and dried leaves, not to mention that in the central picture, in which is the Car of Ops, he coloured so beautifully in oils four lions that are drawing the Car, that nothing better could be done; and, in truth, in painting animals he had no equal. Then in the Chamber of Ceres, which is beside the last-named, he executed in certain angles some little boys and festoons that are beautiful to a marvel. And in the central picture, where Vasari had painted Ceres seeking for Proserpine with a lighted pine torch, upon a car drawn by two serpents, Cristofano carried many things to completion with his own hand, because Vasari was ill at that time and had left that picture, among other things, unfinished. Finally, when it came to decorating a terrace that is beyond the Chamber of Jove and beside that of Ops, it was decided that all the history of Juno should be painted there; and so, after all the ornamentation in stucco had been finished, with very rich carvings and various compositions of figures, wrought after the cartoons of Vasari, the same Vasari ordained that Cristofano should execute that work by himself in fresco, desiring, since it was a work to be seen from near, and of figures not higher than one braccio, that Gherardi should do something beautiful in this, which was his peculiar profession. Cristofano, then, executed in an oval on the vaulting a Marriage with Juno in the sky, and in a picture on one side Hebe, Goddess of Youth, and on the other Iris, who is pointing to the rainbow in the heavens. On the same vaulting he painted three other quadrangular pictures, two to match the others, and a larger one in a line with the oval in which is the Marriage, and in the last-named picture is Juno seated in a car drawn by peacocks. In one of the other two, which are on either side of that one, is the Goddess of Power, and in the other Abundance with the Cornucopia at her feet. And in two other pictures on the walls below, over the openings of two doors, are two other stories of Juno--the Transformation of Io, the daughter of the River Inachus, into a Cow, and of Callisto into a Bear. During the execution of that work his Excellency conceived a very great affection for Cristofano, seeing him zealous and diligent in no ordinary manner at his work; for the morning had scarcely broken into day when Cristofano would appear at his labour, of which he had such a love, and it so delighted him, that very often he would not finish dressing before setting out. And at times, nay, frequently, it happened that in his haste he put on a pair of shoes--all such things he kept under his bed--that were not fellows, but of two kinds; and more often than not he had his cloak wrong side out, with the hood on the inside. One morning, therefore, appearing at an early hour at his work, where the Lord Duke and the Lady Duchess were standing looking at it, while preparations were being made to set out for the chase, and the ladies and others of the Court were making themselves ready, they noticed that Cristofano had as usual his cloak wrong side out and the hood inside. At which both laughing, the Duke said: "What is your idea in always wearing your cloak inside out?" "I know not, my Lord," answered Cristofano, "but I mean to find some day a kind of cloak that shall have neither right side nor wrong side, and shall be the same on both sides, for I have not the patience to think of wearing it in any other way, since in the morning I generally dress and go out of the house in the dark, besides that I have one eye so feeble that I can see nothing with it. But let your Excellency look at what I paint, and not at my manner of dressing." The Duke said nothing in answer, but within a few days he caused to be made for him a cloak of the finest cloth, with the pieces sewn and drawn together in such a manner that there was no difference to be seen between outside and inside, and the collar worked with braid in the same manner both inside and out, and so also the trimming that it had round the edges. This being finished, he sent it to Cristofano by a lackey, commanding the man that he should give it to him on the part of the Duke. Having therefore received the cloak very early one morning, Cristofano, without making any further ceremony, tried it on and then said to the lackey: "The Duke is a man of sense. Tell him that it suits me well." Now, since Cristofano was thus careless of his person and hated nothing more than to have to put on new clothes or to go about too tightly constrained and confined in them, Vasari, who knew this humour of his, whenever he observed that he was in need of any new clothes, used to have them made for him in secret, and then, early one morning, used to place these in his chamber and take away the old ones; and so Cristofano was forced to put on those that he found. But it was marvellous sport to stand and hear him raging with fury as he dressed himself in the new clothes. "Look here," he would say, "what devilments are these? Devil take it, can a man not live in his own way in this world, without the enemies of comfort giving themselves all this trouble?" One morning among others, Cristofano having put on a pair of white hose, the painter Domenico Benci, who was also working in the Palace with Vasari, contrived to persuade him to go with himself, in company with other young men, to the Madonna dell'Impruneta. There they walked, danced, and enjoyed themselves all day, and in the evening, after supper, they returned home. Then Cristofano, who was tired, went off straightway to his room to sleep; but, when he set himself to take off his hose, what with their being new and his having sweated, he was not able to pull off more than one of them. Now Vasari, having gone in the evening to see how he was, found that he had fallen asleep with one leg covered and the other bare; whereupon, one servant holding his leg and the other pulling at the stocking, they contrived to draw it off, while he lay cursing clothes, Giorgio, and him who invented such fashions as--so he said--kept men bound in chains like slaves. Nay, he grumbled that he would take leave of them all and by hook or by crook return to S. Giustino, where he was allowed to live in his own way and had not all these restraints; and it was the devil's own business to pacify him. It pleased him to talk seldom, and he loved that others also should be brief in speaking, insomuch that he would have gone so far as to have men's proper names very short, like that of a slave belonging to M. Sforza, who was called "M." "These," said Cristofano, "are fine names, and not your Giovan Francesco and Giovanni Antonio, which take an hour's work to pronounce;" and since he was a good fellow at heart, and said these things in his own jargon of the Borgo, it would have made the Doleful Knight himself laugh. He delighted to go on feast-days to the places where legends and printed pictures were sold, and he would stay there the whole day; and if he bought some, more often than not, while he went about looking at the others, he would leave them at some place where he had been leaning. And never, unless he was forced, would he go on horseback, although he was born from a noble family in his native place and was rich enough. Finally, his brother Borgognone having died, he had to go to the Borgo; and Vasari, who had drawn much of the money of his salary and had kept it for him, said to him: "See, I have all this money of yours, it is right that you should take it with you and make use of it in your requirements." "I want no money," answered Cristofano, "take it for yourself. For me it is enough to have the luck to stay with you and to live and die in your company." "It is not my custom," replied Vasari, "to profit by the labour of others. If you will not have it, I shall send it to your father Guido." "That you must not do," said Cristofano, "for he would only waste it, as he always does." In the end, he took the money and went off to the Borgo, but in poor health and with little contentment of mind; and after arriving there, what with his sorrow at the death of his brother, whom he had loved very dearly, and a cruel flux of the reins, he died in a few days, after receiving the full sacraments of the Church and distributing to his family and to many poor persons the money that he had brought. He declared a little before his death that it grieved him for no other reason save that he was leaving Vasari too much embarrassed by the great labours to which he had set his hand in the Palace of the Duke. Not long afterwards, his Excellency having heard of the death of Cristofano, and that with true regret, he caused a head of him to be made in marble and sent it with the underwritten epitaph from Florence to the Borgo, where it was placed in S. Francesco: D. O. M. CHRISTOPHORO GHERARDO BURGENSI PINGENDI ARTE PRÆSTANTISS. QUOD GEORGIUS VASARIUS ARETINUS HUJUS ARTIS FACILE PRINCEPS IN EXORNANDO COSMI FLORENTIN. DUCIS PALATIO ILLIUS OPERAM QUAM MAXIME PROBAVERIT, PICTORES HETRUSCI POSUERE. OBIIT A.D. MDLVI. VIXIT AN. LVI, M. III, D. VI. JACOPO DA PONTORMO [Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI (_After the painting by =Jacopo da Pontormo=. Siena: S. Agostino_) _Anderson_] LIFE OF JACOPO DA PONTORMO PAINTER OF FLORENCE The ancestors--or rather, the elders of Bartolommeo di Jacopo di Martino, the father of Jacopo da Pontormo, whose Life we are now about to write--had their origin, so some declare, in Ancisa, a township in the Upper Valdarno, famous enough because from it the ancestors of Messer Francesco Petrarca likewise derived their origin. But, whether it was from there or from some other place that his elders came, the above-named Bartolommeo, who was a Florentine, and, so I have been told, of the family of the Carrucci, is said to have been a disciple of Domenico Ghirlandajo, and, after executing many works in the Valdarno, as a painter passing able for those times, to have finally made his way to Empoli to carry out certain labours, living there and in the neighbouring places, and taking to wife at Pontormo a most virtuous girl of good condition, called Alessandra, the daughter of Pasquale di Zanobi and of his wife Monna Brigida. To this Bartolommeo, then, there was born in the year 1493 our Jacopo. But the father having died in the year 1499, the mother in the year 1504, and the grandfather in the year 1506, Jacopo was left to the care of his grandmother, Monna Brigida, who kept him for several years at Pontormo, and had him taught reading, writing, and the first rudiments of Latin grammar; and finally, at the age of thirteen, he was taken by the same guardian to Florence, and placed with the Pupilli, to the end that his small property might be safeguarded and preserved by that board, as is the custom. And after settling the boy himself in the house of one Battista, a shoemaker distantly related to him, Monna Brigida returned to Pontormo, taking with her a sister of Jacopo's. But not long after that, Monna Brigida herself having died, Jacopo was forced to bring that sister to Florence, and to place her in the house of a kinsman called Niccolaio, who lived in the Via de' Servi; and the girl, also, following the rest of her family, died in the year 1512, before ever she was married. But to return to Jacopo; he had not been many months in Florence when he was placed by Bernardo Vettori with Leonardo da Vinci, and shortly afterwards with Mariotto Albertinelli, then with Piero di Cosimo, and finally, in the year 1512, with Andrea del Sarto, with whom, likewise, he did not stay long, for the reason that, after Jacopo had executed the cartoons of the little arch for the Servites, of which there will be an account below, it appears that Andrea never again looked favourably upon him, whatever may have been the reason. The first work, then, that Jacopo executed at that time was a little Annunciation for one his friend, a tailor; but the tailor having died before the work was finished, it remained in the hands of Jacopo, who was at that time with Mariotto, and Mariotto took pride in it, and showed it as a rare work to all who entered his workshop. Now Raffaello da Urbino, coming in those days to Florence, saw with infinite marvel the work and the lad who had done it, and prophesied of Jacopo that which was afterwards seen to come true. Not long afterwards, Mariotto having departed from Florence and gone to Viterbo to execute the panel-picture that Fra Bartolommeo had begun there, Jacopo, who was young, solitary, and melancholy, being thus left without a master, went by himself to work under Andrea del Sarto, at the very moment when Andrea had finished the stories of S. Filippo in the court of the Servites, which pleased Jacopo vastly, as did all his other works and his whole manner and design. Jacopo having then set himself to make every effort to imitate him, no long time passed before it was seen that he had made marvellous progress in drawing and colouring, insomuch that from his facility it seemed as if he had been many years in art. Now Andrea had finished in those days a panel-picture of the Annunciation for the Church of the Friars of S. Gallo, which is now destroyed, as has been related in his Life; and he gave the predella of that panel-picture to Jacopo to execute in oils. Jacopo painted in it a Dead Christ, with two little Angels who are weeping over Him and illuminating Him with two torches, and, in two round pictures at the sides, two Prophets, which were executed by him so ably, that they have the appearance of having been painted not by a mere lad but by a practised master; but it may also be, as Bronzino says, that he remembers having heard from Jacopo da Pontormo himself that Rosso likewise worked on this predella. And even as Andrea was assisted by Jacopo in executing the predella, so also was he aided by him in finishing the many pictures and works that Andrea continually had in hand. In the meantime, Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici having been elected Supreme Pontiff under the title of Leo X, there were being made all over Florence by the friends and adherents of that house many escutcheons of the Pontiff, in stone, in marble, on canvas, and in fresco. Wherefore the Servite Friars, wishing to give some sign of their service and devotion to that house and Pontiff, caused the arms of Leo to be made in stone, and placed in the centre of the arch in the first portico of the Nunziata, which is on the piazza; and shortly afterwards they arranged that it should be overlaid with gold by the painter Andrea di Cosimo, and adorned with grotesques, of which he was an excellent master, and with the devices of the house of Medici, and that, in addition, on either side of it there should be painted a Faith and a Charity. But Andrea di Cosimo, knowing that he was not able to execute all these things by himself, thought of giving the two figures to some other to do; and so, having sent for Jacopo, who was then not more than nineteen years of age, he gave him those two figures to execute, although he had no little trouble to persuade him to undertake to do it, seeing that, being a mere lad, he did not wish to expose himself at the outset to such a risk, or to work in a place of so much importance. However, having taken heart, although he was not as well practised in fresco as in oil-painting, Jacopo undertook to paint those two figures. And, withdrawing--for he was still working with Andrea del Sarto--to draw the cartoons at S. Antonio by the Porta a Faenza, where he lived, in a short time he carried them to completion; which done, one day he took his master Andrea to see them. Andrea, after seeing them with infinite marvel and amazement, praised them vastly; but afterwards, as has been related, whether it was from envy or from some other reason, he never again looked with a kindly eye on Jacopo; nay, Jacopo going several times to his workshop, either the door was not opened to him or he was mocked at by the assistants, insomuch that he retired altogether by himself, beginning to live on the least that he could, for he was very poor, and to study with the greatest assiduity. [Illustration: DUKE COSIMO I. DE' MEDICI (_After the painting by =Jacopo da Pontormo=. Florence: Uffizi, 1270_) _Anderson_] When Andrea di Cosimo, then, had finished gilding the escutcheon and all the eaves, Jacopo set to work all by himself to finish the rest; and being carried away by the desire to make a name, by his joy in working, and by nature, which had endowed him with extraordinary grace and fertility of genius, he executed that work with incredible rapidity and with such perfection as could not have been surpassed by an old, well-practised, and excellent master. Wherefore, growing in courage through this experience, and thinking that he could do a much better work, he took it into his head that he would throw to the ground all that he had done, without saying a word to anyone, and paint it all over again after another design that he had in his brain. But in the meantime the friars, having seen that the work was finished and that Jacopo came no more to his labour, sought out Andrea, and so pestered him that he resolved to uncover it. Having therefore looked for Jacopo, in order to ask him whether he wished to do any more to the work, and not finding him, for the reason that he stayed shut up over his new design and would not answer to anyone, Andrea had the screen and scaffolding removed and the work uncovered. The same evening Jacopo, having issued from his house in order to go to the Servite convent, and, when it should be night, to throw to the ground the work that he had done, and to put into execution the new design, found the scaffolding taken away and everything uncovered, and a multitude of people all around gazing at the work. Whereupon, full of fury, he sought out Andrea, and complained of his having uncovered it without his consent, going on to describe what he had in mind to do. To which Andrea answered, laughing: "You are wrong to complain, because the work that you have done is so good that, if you had it to do again, you may take my word for it that you would not be able to do it better. You will not want for work, so keep these designs for another occasion." That work, as may be seen, was of such a kind and so beautiful, what with the novelty of the manner, the sweetness in the heads of those two women, and the loveliness of the graceful and lifelike children, that it was the most beautiful work in fresco that had ever been seen up to that time; and, besides the children with the Charity, there are two others in the air holding a piece of drapery over the escutcheon of the Pope, who are so beautiful that nothing better could be done, not to mention that all the figures have very strong relief and are so executed in colouring and in every other respect that one is not able to praise them enough. And Michelagnolo Buonarroti, seeing the work one day, and reflecting that a youth of nineteen had done it, said: "This young man, judging from what may be seen here, will become such that, if he lives and perseveres, he will exalt this art to the heavens." This renown and fame being heard by the men of Pontormo, they sent for Jacopo, and commissioned him to execute in their stronghold, over a gate placed on the main road, an escutcheon of Pope Leo with two little boys, which was very beautiful; but already it has been little less than ruined by rain. [Illustration: THE VISITATION (_After the fresco by =Jacopo da Pontormo=. Florence: SS. Annunziata, Cloister_) _Anderson_] At the Carnival in the same year, all Florence being gay and full of rejoicing at the election of the above-named Leo X, many festive spectacles were ordained, and among them two of great beauty and extraordinary cost, which were given by two companies of noblemen and gentlemen of the city. One of these, which was called the Diamante,[5] had for its head the brother of the Pope, Signor Giuliano de' Medici, who had given it that name because the diamond had been a device of his father, the elder Lorenzo; and the head of the other, which had as name and device the Broncone,[6] was Signor Lorenzo, the son of Piero de' Medici, who had for his device a Broncone--that is, a dried trunk of laurel growing green again with leaves, as it were to signify that he was reviving and restoring the name of his grandfather. [Footnote 5: Diamond.] [Footnote 6: Trunk or branch.] By the Company of the Diamante, then, a commission was given to M. Andrea Dazzi, who was then lecturing on Greek and Latin Letters at the Studio in Florence, to look to the invention of a triumphal procession; whereupon he arranged one similar to those that the Romans used to have for their triumphs, with three very beautiful cars wrought in wood, and painted with rich and beautiful art. In the first was Boyhood, with a most beautiful array of boys. In the second was Manhood, with many persons who had done great things in their manly prime. And in the third was Old Age, with many famous men who had performed great achievements in their last years. All these persons were very richly apparelled, insomuch that it was thought that nothing better could be done. The architects of these cars were Raffaello delle Vivole, Il Carota the wood-carver, the painter Andrea di Cosimo, and Andrea del Sarto; those who arranged and prepared the dresses of the figures were Ser Piero da Vinci, the father of Leonardo, and Bernardino di Giordano, both men of beautiful ingenuity; and to Jacopo da Pontormo alone it fell to paint all the three cars, wherein he executed various scenes in chiaroscuro of the Transformations of the Gods into different forms, which are now in the possession of Pietro Paolo Galeotto, an excellent goldsmith. The first car bore, written in very clear characters, the word "Erimus," the second "Sumus," and the third "Fuimus"--that is, "We shall be," "We are," and "We have been." The song began, "The years fly on...." Having seen these triumphal cars, Signor Lorenzo, the head of the Company of the Broncone, desiring that they should be surpassed, gave the charge of the whole work to Jacopo Nardi, a noble and most learned gentleman, to whom, for what he afterwards became, his native city of Florence is much indebted. This Jacopo prepared six triumphal cars, in order to double the number of those executed by the Diamante. The first, drawn by a pair of oxen decked with herbage, represented the Age of Saturn and Janus, called the Age of Gold; and on the summit of the car were Saturn with the Scythe, and Janus with the two heads and with the key of the Temple of Peace in the hand, and at his feet a figure of Fury bound, with a vast number of things around appertaining to Saturn, all executed most beautifully in different colours by the genius of Pontormo. Accompanying this car were six couples of Shepherds, naked but for certain parts covered by skins of marten and sable, with footwear of various kinds after the ancient manner, and with their wallets, and on their heads garlands of many kinds of leaves. The horses on which these Shepherds sat were without saddles, but covered with skins of lions, tigers, and lynxes, the paws of which, overlaid with gold, hung at their sides with much grace and beauty. The ornaments of their croups and of the grooms were of gold cord, the stirrups were heads of rams, dogs, and other suchlike animals, and the bridles and reins made with silver cord and various kinds of verdure. Each Shepherd had four grooms in the garb of shepherd-boys, dressed more simply in other skins, with torches fashioned in the form of dry trunks and branches of pine, which made a most beautiful sight. Upon the second car, drawn by two pairs of oxen draped in the richest cloth, with garlands on their heads and great paternosters hanging from their gilded horns, was Numa Pompilius, the second King of Rome, with the books of religion and all the sacerdotal instruments and the things appertaining to sacrifices, for the reason that he was the originator and first founder of religion and sacrifices among the Romans. This car was accompanied by six priests on most beautiful she-mules, their heads covered with hoods of linen embroidered with silver and gold in a masterly pattern of ivy-leaves; and on their bodies they had sacerdotal vestments in the ancient fashion, with borders and fringes of gold all round, and in the hands one had a thurible, another a vase of gold, and the rest other similar things. At their stirrups they had attendants in the guise of Levites, and the torches that these had in their hands were after the manner of ancient candelabra, and wrought with beautiful artistry. The third car represented the Consulate of Titus Manlius Torquatus, who was Consul after the end of the first Carthaginian war, and governed in such a manner, that in his time there flourished in Rome every virtue and every blessing. That car, upon which was Titus himself, with many ornaments executed by Pontormo, was drawn by eight most beautiful horses, and before it went six couples of Senators clad in the toga, on horses covered with cloth of gold, accompanied by a great number of grooms representing Lictors, with the fasces, axes, and other things appertaining to the administration of justice. The fourth car, drawn by four buffaloes disguised as elephants, represented Julius Cæsar in Triumph for the victory gained over Cleopatra, the car being all painted by Pontormo with his most famous deeds. That car was accompanied by six couples of men-at-arms clad in rich and brightly shining armour all bordered with gold, with their lances on their hips; and the torches that the half-armed grooms carried had the form of trophies, designed in various ways. The fifth car, drawn by winged horses that had the form of gryphons, bore upon it Cæsar Augustus, the Lord of the Universe, accompanied by six couples of Poets on horseback, all crowned, as was also Cæsar, with laurel, and dressed in costumes varying according to their provinces; and these were there because poets were always much favoured by Cæsar Augustus, whom they exalted with their works to the heavens. And to the end that they might be recognized, each of them had across his forehead a scroll after the manner of a fillet, on which was his name. On the sixth car, drawn by four pairs of heifers richly draped, was Trajan, that just Emperor, before whom, as he sat on the car, which was painted very well by Pontormo, there rode upon beautiful and finely caparisoned horses six couples of Doctors of Law, with togas reaching to their feet and with capes of miniver, such as it was the ancient custom for Doctors to wear. The grooms who carried their torches, a great number, were scriveners, copyists, and notaries, with books and writings in their hands. After these six came the car, or rather, triumphal chariot, of the Age or Era of Gold, wrought with the richest and most beautiful artistry, with many figures in relief executed by Baccio Bandinelli, and very beautiful paintings by the hand of Pontormo; among those in relief the four Cardinal Virtues being highly extolled. From the centre of the car rose a great sphere in the form of a globe of the world, upon which there lay prostrate on his face, as if dead, a man clad in armour all eaten with rust, who had the back open and cleft, and from the fissure there issued a child all naked and gilded, who represented the new birth of the age of gold and the end of the age of iron, from which he was coming forth into that new birth by reason of the election of that Pontiff; and this same significance had the dry trunk putting forth new leaves, although some said that the matter of that dry trunk was an allusion to the Lorenzo de' Medici who became Duke of Urbino. I should mention that the gilded boy, who was the son of a baker, died shortly afterwards through the sufferings that he endured in order to gain ten crowns. The chant that was sung in that masquerade, as is the custom, was composed by the above-named Jacopo Nardi, and the first stanza ran thus: Colui che da le leggi alla Natura E i varii stati e secoli dispone, D'ogni bene è cagione; E il mal, quanto permette, al Mondo dura; Onde questa figura Contemplando si vede, Come con certo piede L'un secol dopo l'altro al Mondo viene E muta il bene in male, e 'l male in bene. From the works that he executed for this festival Pontormo gained, besides the profit, so much praise, that probably few young men of his age ever gained as much in that city; wherefore, Pope Leo himself afterwards coming to Florence, he was much employed in the festive preparations that were made, for he had attached himself to Baccio da Montelupo, a sculptor advanced in years, who made an arch of wood at the head of the Via del Palagio, at the steps of the Badia, and Pontormo painted it all with very beautiful scenes, which afterwards came to an evil end through the scant diligence of those who had charge of them. Only one remained, that in which Pallas is tuning an instrument into accord with the lyre of Apollo, with great grace and beauty; from which scene one is able to judge what excellence and perfection were in the other works and figures. For the same festivities Ridolfo Ghirlandajo had received the task of fitting up and embellishing the Sala del Papa, which is attached to the Convent of S. Maria Novella, and was formerly the residence of the Pontiffs in the city of Florence; but being pressed for time, he was forced to avail himself in some things of the work of others, and thus, after having adorned all the other rooms, he laid on Jacopo da Pontormo the charge of executing some pictures in fresco in the chapel where his Holiness was to hear Mass every morning. Whereupon, setting his hand to the work, Jacopo painted there a God the Father with many little Angels, and a Veronica who had the Sudarium with the image of Jesus Christ; which work, thus executed by Jacopo in so short a time, was much extolled. He then painted in fresco, in a chapel of the Church of S. Ruffillo, behind the Archbishop's Palace in Florence, Our Lady with her Son in her arms between S. Michelagnolo and S. Lucia, and two other Saints kneeling; and, in the lunette of the chapel, a God the Father with some Seraphim about Him. Next, having been commissioned by Maestro Jacopo, a Servite friar, as he had greatly desired, to paint a part of the court of the Servites, because Andrea del Sarto had gone off to France and left the work of that court unfinished, he set himself with much study to make the cartoons. But since he was poorly provided with the things of this world, and was obliged, while studying in order to win honour, to have something to live upon, he executed over the door of the Hospital for Women--behind the Church of the Priest's Hospital, between the Piazza di S. Marco and the Via di S. Gallo, and exactly opposite to the wall of the Sisters of S. Catharine of Siena--two most beautiful figures in chiaroscuro, with Christ in the guise of a pilgrim awaiting certain women in order to give them hospitality and lodging; which work was deservedly much extolled in those days, as it still is, by all good judges. At this same time he painted some pictures and little scenes in oils for the Masters of the Mint, on the Carro della Moneta, which goes every year in the procession of S. John; the workmanship of which car was by the hand of Marco del Tasso. And over the door of the Company of Cecilia, on the heights of Fiesole, he painted a S. Cecilia with some roses in her hand, coloured in fresco, and so beautiful and so well suited to that place, that, for a work of that kind, it is one of the best paintings in fresco that there are to be seen. These works having been seen by the above-named Servite friar, Maestro Jacopo, he became even more ardent in his desire, and he determined at all costs to cause Jacopo to finish the work in that court of the Servites, thinking that in emulation of the other masters who had worked there he would execute something of extraordinary beauty in the part that remained to be painted. Having therefore set his hand to it, from a desire no less of glory and honour than of gain, Jacopo painted the scene of the Visitation of the Madonna, in a manner a little freer and more lively than had been his wont up to that time; which circumstance gave an infinite excellence to the work, in addition to its other extraordinary beauties, in that the women, little boys, youths, and old men are executed in fresco with such softness and such harmony of colouring, that it is a thing to marvel at, and the flesh-colours of a little boy who is seated on some steps, and, indeed, those likewise of all the other figures, are such that they could not be done better or with more softness in fresco. This work, then, after the others that Jacopo had executed, gave a sure earnest of his future perfection to the craftsmen, comparing them with those of Andrea del Sarto and Franciabigio. Jacopo delivered the work finished in the year 1516, and received in payment sixteen crowns and no more. Having then been allotted by Francesco Pucci, if I remember rightly, the altar-piece of a chapel that he had caused to be built in S. Michele Bisdomini in the Via de' Servi, Jacopo executed the work in so beautiful a manner, and with a colouring so vivid, that it seems almost impossible to credit it. In this altar-piece Our Lady, who is seated, is handing the Infant Jesus to S. Joseph, in whose countenance there is a smile so animated and so lifelike that it is a marvel; and very beautiful, likewise, is a little boy painted to represent S. John the Baptist, and also two other little children, naked, who are upholding a canopy. There may be seen also a S. John the Evangelist, a most beautiful old man, and a S. Francis kneeling, who is absolutely alive, for, with the fingers of one hand interlocked with those of the other, and wholly intent in contemplating fixedly with his eyes and his mind the Virgin and her Son, he appears really to be breathing. And no less beautiful is the S. James who may be seen beside the others. Wherefore it is no marvel that this is the most beautiful altar-piece that was ever executed by this truly rare painter. I used to believe that it was after this work, and not before, that the same Jacopo had painted in fresco the two most lovely and graceful little boys who are supporting a coat of arms over a door within a passage on the Lungarno, between the Ponte S. Trinita and the Ponte alla Carraja, for Bartolommeo Lanfredini; but since Bronzino, who may be supposed to know the truth about these matters, declares that they were among the first works that Jacopo executed, we must believe that this is so without a doubt, and praise Pontormo for them all the more, seeing that they are so beautiful that they cannot be matched, and yet were among the earliest works that he did. But to resume the order of our story: after these works, Jacopo executed for the men of Pontormo an altar-piece wherein are S. Michelagnolo and S. John the Evangelist, which was placed in the Chapel of the Madonna in S. Agnolo, their principal church. At this time one of two young men who were working under Jacopo--that is, Giovan Maria Pichi of Borgo a S. Sepolcro, who was acquitting himself passing well, and who afterwards became a Servite friar, and executed some works in the Borgo and in the Pieve a S. Stefano--while still working, I say, under Jacopo, painted in a large picture a nude S. Quentin in martyrdom, in order to send it to the Borgo. But since Jacopo, like a loving master to his disciple, desired that Giovan Maria should win honour and praise, he set himself to retouch it, and so, not being able to take his hands off it, and retouching one day the head, the next day the arms, and the day after the body, the retouching became such that it may almost be said that the work is entirely by his hand. Wherefore it is no marvel that this picture, which is now in the Church of the Observantine Friars of S. Francis in the Borgo, is most beautiful. [Illustration: JOSEPH AND HIS KINDRED IN EGYPT (_After the painting by =Jacopo da Pontormo=. London: National Gallery, 1131_) _Hanfstaengl_] The second of the two young men, who was Giovanni Antonio Lappoli of Arezzo, of whom there has been an account in another place, like a vain fellow had taken a portrait of himself with a mirror, also while he was working under Jacopo. But his master, thinking that the portrait was a poor likeness, took it in hand himself, and executed a portrait that is so good that it has the appearance of life; which portrait is now at Arezzo, in the house of the heirs of that Giovanni Antonio. Pontormo also portrayed in one and the same picture two of his dearest friends--one the son-in-law of Beccuccio Bicchieraio, and another, whose name likewise I do not know; it is enough that the portraits are by the hand of Pontormo. He then executed for Bartolommeo Ginori, in anticipation of his death, a string of pennons, according to the custom of the Florentines; and in the upper part of all these, on the white taffeta, he painted a Madonna with the Child, and on the coloured fringe below he painted the arms of that family, as is the custom. For the centre of the string, which was of twenty-four pennons, he made two all of white taffeta without any fringe, on which he painted two figures of S. Bartholomew, each two braccia high. The size of all these pennons and their almost novel manner caused all the others that had been made up to that time to appear poor and mean; and this was the reason that they began to be made of the size that they are at the present day, with great grace and much less expense for gold. At the head of the garden and vineyard of the Friars of S. Gallo, without the gate that is called after that Saint, in a chapel that is in a line with the central entrance, he painted a Dead Christ, a Madonna weeping, and two little Angels in the air, one of whom was holding the Chalice of the Passion in his hands, and the other was supporting the fallen head of Christ. On one side was S. John the Evangelist, all tearful, with the arms stretched out, and on the other S. Augustine in episcopal robes, who, leaning with the left hand on the pastoral staff, stood in an attitude truly full of sorrow, contemplating the Dead Saviour. And for Messer Spina, the familiar friend of Giovanni Salviati, he executed in a courtyard, opposite to the principal door of his house, the coat of arms of that Giovanni (who had been made a Cardinal in those days by Pope Leo), with the red hat above and two little boys standing--works in fresco which are very beautiful, and much esteemed by Messer Filippo Spina, as being by the hand of Pontormo. Jacopo also worked, in competition with other masters, on the ornamentation in wood that was formerly executed in a magnificent manner, as has been related elsewhere, in some apartments of Pier Francesco Borgherini; and, in particular, he painted there with his own hand on two coffers some stories from the life of Joseph in little figures, which were truly most beautiful. And whoever wishes to see the best work that he ever did in all his life, in order to consider how able and masterly was Jacopo in giving liveliness to heads, in grouping figures, in varying attitudes, and in beauty of invention, let him look at a scene of some size, likewise in little figures, in the corner on the left hand as one enters through the door, in the chamber of Borgherini, who was a nobleman of Florence; in which scene is Joseph in Egypt, as it were a Prince or a King, in the act of receiving his father Jacob with all his brethren, the sons of that Jacob, with extraordinary affection. Among these figures he portrayed at the foot of the scene, seated upon some steps, Il Bronzino, who was then a boy and his disciple--a figure with a basket, which is lifelike and beautiful to a marvel. And if this scene were on a greater scale, on a large panel or a wall, instead of being small, I would venture to say that it would not be possible to find another picture executed with the grace, excellence, and even perfection wherewith this one was painted by Jacopo; wherefore it was rightly regarded by all craftsmen as the most beautiful picture that Pontormo ever executed. Nor is it to be wondered at that Borgherini should have prized it as he did, and should have been besought to sell it by great persons as a present for mighty lords and princes. [Illustration: VERTUMNUS FRESCO (DETAIL) (_After =Jacopo da Pontormo=. Poggio a Caiano: Villa Reale_) _Alinari_] On account of the siege of Florence Pier Francesco retired to Lucca, and Giovan Battista della Palla, who desired to obtain, together with other things that he was transporting into France, the decorations of this chamber, so that they might be presented to King Francis in the name of the Signoria, received such favours, and went to work so effectively with both words and deeds, that the Gonfalonier granted a commission that they should be taken away after payment to the wife of Pier Francesco. Whereupon some others went with Giovan Battista to execute the will of the Signori; but, when they arrived at the house of Pier Francesco, his wife, who was in the house, poured on Giovan Battista the greatest abuse that was ever spoken to any man. "So you make bold, Giovan Battista," said she, "you vile slop-dealer, you little twopenny pedlar, to strip the ornaments from the chambers of noblemen and despoil our city of her richest and most honoured treasures, as you have done and are always doing, in order to embellish with them the countries of foreigners, our enemies! At you I do not marvel, you, a base plebeian and the enemy of your country, but at the magistrates of this city, who aid and abet you in these shameful rascalities. This bed, which you would seize for your own private interest and for greed of gain, although you keep your evil purpose cloaked with a veil of righteousness, this is the bed of my nuptials, in honour of which my husband's father, Salvi, made all these magnificent and regal decorations, which I revere in memory of him and from love for my husband, and mean to defend with my very blood and with life itself. Out of this house with these your cut-throats, Giovan Battista, and go to those who sent you with orders that these things should be removed from their places, for I am not the woman to suffer a single thing to be moved from here. If they who believe in you, a vile creature of no account, wish to make presents to King Francis of France, let them go and strip their own houses, and take the ornaments and beds from their own chambers, and send them to him. And you, if you are ever again so bold as to come to this house on such an errand, I will make you smart sorely for it, and teach you what respect should be paid by such as you to the houses of noblemen." Thus spoke Madonna Margherita, the wife of Pier Francesco Borgherini, and the daughter of Ruberto Acciaiuoli, a most noble and wise citizen; and she, a truly courageous woman and a worthy daughter of such a father, with her noble ardour and spirit, was the reason that those gems are still preserved in that house. Giovan Maria Benintendi, about this same time, had adorned an antechamber in his house with many pictures by the hands of various able men; and after the work executed for Borgherini, incited by hearing Jacopo da Pontormo very highly praised, he caused a picture to be painted by him with the Adoration of the Magi, who went to Bethlehem to see Christ; which work, since Jacopo devoted to it much study and diligence, proved to be well varied and beautiful in the heads and in every other part, and to be truly worthy of all praise. Afterwards he executed for Messer Goro da Pistoia, then Secretary to the Medici, a picture with the portrait of the Magnificent Cosimo de' Medici, the elder, from the knees upwards, which is indeed worthy to be extolled; and this portrait is now in the house of Messer Ottaviano de' Medici, in the possession of his son, Messer Alessandro, a young man--besides the distinction and nobility of his blood--of most upright character, well lettered, and the worthy son of the Magnificent Ottaviano and of Madonna Francesca, the daughter of Jacopo Salviati and the maternal aunt of the Lord Duke Cosimo. By means of this work, and particularly this head of Cosimo, Pontormo became the friend of Messer Ottaviano; and the Great Hall at Poggio a Caiano having then to be painted, there were given to him to paint the two ends where the round openings are that give light--that is, the windows--from the vaulting down to the floor. Whereupon, desiring to do himself honour even beyond his wont, both from regard for the place and from emulation of the other painters who were working there, he set himself to study with such diligence, that he overshot the mark, for the reason that, destroying and doing over again every day what he had done the day before, he racked his brains in such a manner that it was a tragedy; but all the time he was always making new discoveries, which brought credit to himself and beauty to the work. Thus, having to execute a Vertumnus with his husbandmen, he painted a peasant seated with a vine-pruner in his hand, which is so beautiful and so well done that it is a very rare thing, even as certain children that are there are lifelike and natural beyond all belief. On the other side he painted Pomona and Diana, with other Goddesses, enveloping them perhaps too abundantly with draperies. However, the work as a whole is beautiful and much extolled; but while it was being executed Leo was overtaken by death, and so it remained unfinished, like many other similar works at Rome, Florence, Loreto, and other places; nay, the whole world was left poor, being robbed of the true Mæcenas of men of talent. [Illustration: VERTUMNUS FRESCO (DETAIL) (_After =Jacopo da Pontormo=. Poggio a Caiano: Villa Reale_) _Alinari_] Having returned to Florence, Jacopo painted in a picture a seated figure of S. Augustine as a Bishop, who is giving the benediction, with two little nude Angels flying through the air, who are very beautiful; which picture is over an altar in the little Church of the Sisters of S. Clemente in the Via di S. Gallo. He carried to completion, likewise, a picture of a Pietà with certain nude Angels, which was a very beautiful work, and held very dear by certain merchants of Ragusa, for whom he painted it; but most beautiful of all in this picture was a landscape taken for the most part from an engraving by Albrecht Dürer. He also painted a picture of Our Lady with the Child in her arms, and some little Angels about her, which is now in the house of Alessandro Neroni; and for certain Spaniards he executed another like it--that is, of the Madonna--but different from the one described above and in another manner, which picture, being for sale in a second-hand dealer's shop many years after, was bought by Bartolommeo Panciatichi at the suggestion of Bronzino. Then, in the year 1522, there being a slight outbreak of plague in Florence, and many persons therefore departing in order to avoid that most infectious sickness and to save themselves, an occasion presented itself to Jacopo of flying the city and removing himself to some distance, for a certain Prior of the Certosa, a place built by the Acciaiuoli three miles away from Florence, had to have some pictures painted in fresco at the corners of a very large and beautiful cloister that surrounds a lawn, and Jacopo was brought to his notice; whereupon the Prior had him sought out, and he, having accepted the work very willingly at such a time, went off to Certosa, taking with him only Bronzino. There, after a trial of that mode of life, that quiet, that silence, and that solitude--all things after the taste and nature of Jacopo--he thought with such an occasion to make a special effort in the matters of art, and to show to the world that he had acquired greater perfection and a different manner since those works that he had executed before. Now not long before there had come from Germany to Florence many sheets printed from engravings done with great subtlety with the burin by Albrecht Dürer, a most excellent German painter and a rare engraver of plates on copper and on wood; and, among others, many scenes, both large and small, of the Passion of Jesus Christ, in which was all the perfection and excellence of engraving with the burin that could ever be achieved, what with the beauty and variety of the vestments and the invention. Jacopo, having to paint at the corners of those cloisters scenes from the Passion of the Saviour, thought to avail himself of the above-named inventions of Albrecht Dürer, in the firm belief that he would satisfy not only himself but also the greater part of the craftsmen of Florence, who were all proclaiming with one voice and with common consent and agreement the beauty of those engravings and the excellence of Albrecht. Setting himself therefore to imitate that manner, and seeking to give to the expressions of the heads of his figures that liveliness and variety which Albrecht had given to his, he caught it so thoroughly, that the charm of his own early manner, which had been given to him by nature, all full of sweetness and grace, suffered a great change from that new study and labour, and was so impaired through his stumbling on that German manner, that in all these works, although they are all beautiful, there is but a sorry remnant to be seen of that excellence and grace that he had given up to that time to all his figures. At the entrance to the cloister, then, in one corner, he painted Christ in the Garden, counterfeiting so well the darkness of night illumined by the light of the moon, that it appears almost like daylight; and while Christ is praying, not far distant are Peter, James, and John sleeping, executed in a manner so similar to that of Dürer, that it is a marvel. Not far away is Judas leading the Jews, likewise with a countenance so strange, even as the features of all those soldiers are depicted in the German manner with bizarre expressions, that it moves him who beholds it to pity for the simplicity of the man, who sought with such patience to learn that which others avoid and seek to lose, and all to lose the manner that surpassed all others in excellence and gave infinite pleasure to everyone. Did not Pontormo know, then, that the Germans and Flemings came to these parts to learn the Italian manner, which he with such effort sought to abandon as if it were bad? Beside this scene is one in which is Christ led by the Jews before Pilate, and in the Saviour he painted all the humility that could possibly be imagined in the Person of Innocence betrayed by the sins of men, and in the wife of Pilate that pity and dread for themselves which those have who fear the divine judgment; which woman, while she pleads the cause of Christ before her husband, gazes into His countenance with pitying wonder. Round Pilate are some soldiers so characteristic in the expressions of the faces and in the German garments, that one who knew not by whose hand was that work would believe it to have been executed in reality by ultramontanes. It is true, indeed, that in the distance in this scene there is a cup-bearer of Pilate's that is descending some steps with a basin and a ewer in his hands, carrying to his master the means to wash the hands, who is lifelike and very beautiful, having in him something of the old manner of Jacopo. Having next to paint the Resurrection of Christ in one of the other corners, the fancy came to Jacopo, as to one who had no steadfastness in his brain and was always cogitating new things, to change his colouring; and so he executed that work with a colouring in fresco so soft and so good, that, if he had done the work in another manner than that same German, it would certainly have been very beautiful, for in the heads of those soldiers, who are in various attitudes, heavy with sleep, and as it were dead, there may be seen such excellence, that one cannot believe that it is possible to do better. Then, continuing the stories of the Passion in another of the corners, he painted Christ going with the Cross upon His shoulder to Mount Calvary, and behind Him the people of Jerusalem, accompanying Him; and in front are the two Thieves, naked, between the ministers of justice, who are partly on foot and partly on horseback, with the ladders, the inscription for the Cross, hammers, nails, cords, and other suchlike instruments. And in the highest part, behind a little hill, is the Madonna with the Maries, who, weeping, are awaiting Christ, who has fallen to the ground in the middle of the scene, and has about Him many Jews that are smiting Him, while Veronica is offering to Him the Sudarium, accompanied by some women both young and old, all weeping at the outrage that they see being done to the Saviour. This scene, either because he was warned by his friends, or perhaps because Jacopo himself at last became aware, although tardily, of the harm that had been done to his own sweet manner by the study of the German, proved to be much better than the others executed in the same place, for the reason that certain naked Jews and some heads of old men are so well painted in fresco, that it would not be possible to do more, although the same German manner may be seen constantly maintained in the work as a whole. After these he was to have gone on with the Crucifixion and the Deposition from the Cross in the other corners; but, putting them aside for a time, with the intention of executing them last, he painted in their stead Christ taken down from the Cross, keeping to the same manner, but with great harmony of colouring. In this scene, besides that the Magdalene, who is kissing the feet of Christ, is most beautiful, there are two old men, representing Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, who, although they are in the German manner, have the most beautiful expressions and heads of old men, with beards feathery and coloured with marvellous softness, that there are to be seen. Now Jacopo, besides being generally slow over his works, was pleased with the solitude of the Certosa, and he therefore spent several years on these labours; and, after the plague had finished and he had returned to Florence, he did not for that reason cease to frequent that place constantly, and was always going and coming between the Certosa and the city. Proceeding thus, he satisfied those fathers in many things, and, among others, he painted in their church, over one of the doors that lead into the chapels, in a figure from the waist upwards, the portrait of a lay-brother of that monastery, who was alive at that time and one hundred and twenty years old, executing it so well and with such finish, such vivacity, and such animation, that through it alone Pontormo deserves to be excused for the strange and fantastic new manner with which he was saddled by that solitude and by living far from the commerce of men. Besides this, he painted for the Prior of that place a picture of the Nativity of Christ, representing Joseph as giving light to Jesus Christ in the darkness of the night with a lantern, and this in pursuit of the same notions and caprices which the German engravings put into his head. Now let no one believe that Jacopo is to blame because he imitated Albrecht Dürer in his inventions, for the reason that this is no error, and many painters have done it and are continually doing it; but only because he adopted the unmixed German manner in everything, in the draperies, in the expressions of the heads, and in the attitudes, which he should have avoided, availing himself only of the inventions, since he had the modern manner in all the fullness of its beauty and grace. For the Stranger's Apartment of the same monks he painted a large picture on canvas and in oil-colours, without straining himself at all or forcing his natural powers, of Christ at table with Cleophas and Luke, figures of the size of life; and since in this work he followed the bent of his own genius, it proved to be truly marvellous, particularly because he portrayed among those who are serving at that table some lay-brothers of the convent, whom I myself have known, in such a manner that they could not be either more lifelike or more animated than they are. Bronzino, meanwhile (that is, while his master was executing the works described above in the Certosa), pursuing with great spirit the studies of painting, and encouraged all the time by Pontormo, who was very loving with his disciples, executed on the inner side over an arch above the door of the cloister that leads into the church, without having ever seen the process of painting in oil-colours on the wall, a nude S. Laurence on the gridiron, which was so beautiful that there began to be seen some indication of that excellence to which he has since attained, as will be related in the proper place; which circumstance gave infinite satisfaction to Jacopo, who already saw whither that genius would arrive. Not long afterwards there returned from Rome Lodovico di Gino Capponi, who had bought that chapel in S. Felicita, on the right hand of the entrance into the church, which the Barbadori had formerly caused to be built by Filippo di Ser Brunellesco; and he resolved to have all the vaulting painted, and then to have an altar-piece executed for it, with a rich ornament. Having therefore consulted in the matter with M. Niccolò Vespucci, knight of Rhodes, who was much his friend, the knight, who was also much the friend of Jacopo, and knew, into the bargain, the talent and worth of that able man, did and said so much that Lodovico allotted that work to Pontormo. And so, having erected an enclosure, which kept that chapel closed for three years, he set his hand to the work. On the vaulted ceiling he painted a God the Father, who has about Him four very beautiful Patriarchs; and in the four medallions at the angles he depicted the four Evangelists, or rather, he executed three of them with his own hand, and Bronzino one all by himself. And with this occasion I must mention that Pontormo used scarcely ever to allow himself to be helped by his assistants, or to suffer them to lay a hand on that which he intended to execute with his own hand; and when he did wish to avail himself of one of them, chiefly in order that they might learn, he allowed them to do the whole work by themselves, as he allowed Bronzino to do here. In the works that Jacopo executed in the said chapel up to this point, it seemed almost as if he had returned to his first manner; but he did not follow the same method in painting the altar-piece, for, thinking always of new things, he executed it without shadows, and with a colouring so bright and so uniform, that one can scarcely distinguish the lights from the middle tints, and the middle tints from the darks. In this altar-piece is a Dead Christ taken down from the Cross and being carried to the Sepulchre. There is the Madonna who is swooning, and the Maries, all executed in a fashion so different from his first work, that it is clearly evident that his brain was always busy investigating new conceptions and fantastic methods of painting, not being content with, and not fixing on, any single method. In a word, the composition of this altar-piece is altogether different from the figures on the vaulting, and likewise the colouring; and the four Evangelists, which are in the medallions on the spandrels of the vaulting, are much better and in a different manner. [Illustration: THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS (_After the painting by =Jacopo da Pontormo=. Florence: S. Felicita_) _Alinari_] On the wall where the window is are two figures in fresco, on one side the Virgin, and on the other the Angel, who is bringing her the Annunciation, but so distorted, both the one and the other, that it is evident that, as I have said, that bizarre and fantastic brain was never content with anything. And in order to be able to do as he pleased in this, and to avoid having his attention distracted by anyone, all the time that he was executing this work he would never allow even the owner of the chapel himself to see it, insomuch that, having painted it after his own fancy, without any of his friends having been able to give him a single hint, when it was finally uncovered and seen, it amazed all Florence. For the same Lodovico he executed a picture of Our Lady in that same manner for his chamber, and in the head of a S. Mary Magdalene he made the portrait of a daughter of Lodovico, who was a very beautiful young woman. Near the Monastery of Boldrone, on the road that goes from there to Castello, and at the corner of another that climbs the hill and goes to Cercina (that is, at a distance of two miles from Florence), he painted in fresco in a shrine Christ Crucified, Our Lady weeping, S. John the Evangelist, S. Augustine, and S. Giuliano; all which figures, his caprice not being yet satisfied, and the German manner still pleasing him, are not very different from those that he executed at the Certosa. He did the same, also, in an altar-piece that he painted for the Nuns of S. Anna, at the Porta a S. Friano, in which altar-piece is Our Lady with the Child in her arms, and S. Anne behind her, with S. Peter, S. Benedict, and other Saints, and in the predella is a small scene with little figures, which represent the Signoria of Florence as it used to go in procession with trumpeters, pipers, mace-bearers, messengers, and ushers, with the rest of the household; and this he did because the commission for that altar-piece was given to him by the Captain and the household of the Palace. The while that Jacopo was executing this work, Alessandro and Ippolito de' Medici, who were both very young, having been sent to Florence by Pope Clement VII under the care of the Legate, Silvio Passerini, Bishop of Cortona, the Magnificent Ottaviano, to whom the Pope had straitly recommended them, had the portraits of both of them taken by Pontormo, who served him very well, and made them very good likenesses, although he did not much depart from the manner that he had learned from the Germans. In the portrait of Ippolito he also painted a favourite dog of that lord, called Rodon, and made it so characteristic and so natural, that it might be alive. He took the portrait, likewise, of Bishop Ardinghelli, who afterwards became a Cardinal; and for Filippo del Migliore, who was much his friend, he painted in fresco in his house on the Via Larga, in a niche opposite to the principal door, a woman representing Pomona, from which it appeared that he was beginning to seek to abandon in part his German manner. Now Giovan Battista della Palla perceived that by reason of many works the name of Jacopo was becoming every day more celebrated; and, since he had not succeeded in sending to King Francis the pictures executed by that same master and by others for Borgherini, he resolved, knowing that the King had a desire for them, at all costs to send him something by the hand of Pontormo. Whereupon he so went to work that he persuaded Jacopo to execute a most beautiful picture of the Raising of Lazarus, which proved to be one of the best works that he ever painted and that was ever sent by Giovan Battista, among the vast number that he sent, to King Francis of France. For, besides that the heads were most beautiful, the figure of Lazarus, whose spirit as he returned to life was re-entering his dead flesh, could not have been more marvellous, for about the eyes he still had the hue of corruption, and the flesh cold and dead at the extremities of the hands and feet, where the spirit had not yet come. [Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF THE FORTY SAINTS (_After the panel by =Jacopo da Pontormo=. Florence: Pitti, 182_) _Alinari_] In a picture of one braccio and a half he painted for the Sisters of the Hospital of the Innocenti, with an infinite number of little figures, the story of the eleven thousand Martyrs who were condemned to death by Diocletian and all crucified in a wood. In this Jacopo represented a battle of horsemen and nude figures, very beautiful, and some most lovely little Angels flying through the air, who are shooting arrows at the ministers of the crucifixion; and in like manner, about the Emperor, who is pronouncing the condemnation, are some most beautiful nude figures who are going to their death. This picture, which in every part is worthy to be praised, is now held in great price by Don Vincenzio Borghini, the Director of that Hospital, who once was much the friend of Jacopo. Another picture similar to that described above he painted for Carlo Neroni, but only with the Battle of the Martyrs and the Angel baptizing them; and then the portrait of Carlo himself. He also executed a portrait, at the time of the siege of Florence, of Francesco Guardi in the habit of a soldier, which was a very beautiful work; and on the cover of this picture Bronzino afterwards painted Pygmalion praying to Venus that his statue, receiving breath, might spring to life and become--as, according to the fables of the poets, it did--flesh and blood. At this time, after much labour, there came to Jacopo the fulfilment of a desire that he had long had, in that, having always felt a wish to have a house that might be his own, so that he should no longer live in the house of another, but might occupy his own and live as pleased himself, finally he bought one in the Via della Colonna, opposite to the Nuns of S. Maria degli Angeli. The siege finished, Pope Clement commanded Messer Ottaviano de' Medici that he should cause the hall of Poggio a Caiano to be finished. Whereupon, Franciabigio and Andrea del Sarto being dead, the whole charge of this was given to Pontormo, who, after having the staging and the screens made, began to execute the cartoons; but, for the reason that he went off into fantasies and cogitations, beyond that he never set a hand to the work. This, perchance, would not have happened if Bronzino had been in those parts, who was then working at the Imperiale, a place belonging to the Duke of Urbino, near Pesaro; which Bronzino, although he was sent for every day by Jacopo, nevertheless was not able to depart at his own pleasure, for the reason that, after he had executed a very beautiful naked Cupid on the spandrel of a vault in the Imperiale, and the cartoons for the others, Prince Guidobaldo, having recognized the young man's genius, ordained that his own portrait should be taken by him, and, seeing that he wished to be portrayed in some armour that he was expecting from Lombardy, Bronzino was forced to stay with that Prince longer than he could have wished. During that time he painted the case of a harpsichord, which much pleased the Prince, and finally Bronzino executed his portrait, which was very beautiful, and the Prince was well satisfied with it. Jacopo, then, wrote so many times, and employed so many means, that in the end he brought Bronzino back; but for all that the man could never be induced to do any other part of this work than the cartoons, although he was urged to it by the Magnificent Ottaviano and by Duke Alessandro. In one of these cartoons, which are now for the most part in the house of Lodovico Capponi, is a Hercules who is crushing Antæus, in another a Venus and Adonis, and in yet another drawing a scene of nude figures playing football. In the meantime Signor Alfonso Davalos, Marchese del Vasto, having obtained from Michelagnolo Buonarroti by means of Fra Niccolò della Magna a cartoon of Christ appearing to the Magdalene in the garden, moved heaven and earth to have it executed for him in painting by Pontormo, Buonarroti having told him that no one could serve him better than that master. Jacopo then executed that work to perfection, and it was accounted a rare painting by reason both of the grandeur of Michelagnolo's design and of Jacopo's colouring. Wherefore Signor Alessandro Vitelli, who was at that time Captain of the garrison of soldiers in Florence, having seen it, had a picture painted for himself from the same cartoon by Jacopo, which he sent to Città di Castello and caused to be placed in his house. It thus became evident in what estimation Michelagnolo held Pontormo, and with what diligence Pontormo carried to completion and executed excellently well the designs and cartoons of Michelagnolo, and Bartolommeo Bettini so went to work that Buonarroti, who was much his friend, made for him a cartoon of a nude Venus with a Cupid who is kissing her, in order that he might have it executed in painting by Pontormo and place it in the centre of a chamber of his own, in the lunettes of which he had begun to have painted by Bronzino figures of Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio, with the intention of having there all the other poets who have sung of love in Tuscan prose and verse. Jacopo, then, having received this cartoon, executed it to perfection at his leisure, as will be related, in the manner that all the world knows without my saying another word in praise of it. These designs of Michelagnolo's were the reason that Pontormo, considering the manner of that most noble craftsman, took heart of grace, and resolved that by hook or by crook he would imitate and follow it to the best of his ability. And then it was that Jacopo recognized how ill he had done to allow the work of Poggio a Caiano to slip through his hands, although he put the blame in great measure on a long and very troublesome illness that he had suffered, and finally on the death of Pope Clement, which brought that undertaking completely to an end. Jacopo having executed after the works described above a picture with the portrait from life of Amerigo Antinori, a young man much beloved in Florence at that time, and that portrait being much extolled by everyone, Duke Alessandro had him informed that he wished to have his portrait taken by him in a large picture. And Jacopo, for the sake of convenience, executed his portrait for the time being in a little picture of the size of a sheet of half-folio, and with such diligence and care, that the works of the miniaturists do not in any way come up to it; for the reason that, besides its being a very good likeness, there is in that head all that could be desired in the rarest of paintings. From that little picture, which is now in the guardaroba of Duke Cosimo, Jacopo afterwards made a portrait of the same Duke in a large picture, with a style in the hand, drawing the head of a woman; which larger portrait Duke Alessandro afterwards presented to Signora Taddea Malespina, the sister of the Marchesa di Massa. Desiring at all costs to reward liberally the genius of Jacopo for these works, the Duke sent him a message by Niccolò da Montaguto, his servant, that he should ask whatever he wished, and it would be granted to him. But such was the poor spirit or the excessive respect and modesty of the man, I know not which to call it, that he asked for nothing save as much money as would suffice him to redeem a cloak that he had pledged; which having heard, the Duke, not without laughing at the character of the man, commanded that fifty gold crowns should be given and a salary offered to him; and even then Niccolò had much ado to make him accept it. Meanwhile Jacopo had finished painting the Venus from the cartoon belonging to Bettini, which proved to be a marvellous thing, but it was not given to Bettini at the price for which Jacopo had promised it to him, for certain tuft-hunters, in order to do Bettini an injury, took it almost by force from the hands of Jacopo and gave it to Duke Alessandro, restoring the cartoon to Bettini. Which having heard, Michelagnolo felt much displeasure for love of the friend for whom he had drawn the cartoon, and he bore a grudge against Jacopo, who, although he received fifty crowns for it from the Duke, nevertheless cannot be said to have defrauded Bettini, seeing that he gave up the Venus at the command of him who was his lord. But of all this some say that Bettini himself was in great measure the cause, from his asking too much. [Illustration: JACOPO DA PONTORMO: PORTRAIT OF AN ENGRAVER (_Paris: Louvre, 1241. Panel_)] The occasion having thus presented itself to Pontormo, by means of these moneys, to set his hand to the fitting up of his house, he made a beginning with his building, but did nothing of much importance. Indeed, although some persons declare that he had it in mind to spend largely, according to his position, and to make a commodious dwelling and one that might have some design, it is nevertheless evident that what he did, whether this came from his not having the means to spend or from some other reason, has rather the appearance of a building erected by an eccentric and solitary creature than of a well-ordered habitation, for the reason that to the room where he used to sleep and at times to work, he had to climb by a wooden ladder, which, after he had gone in, he would draw up with a pulley, to the end that no one might go up to him without his wish or knowledge. But that which most displeased other men in him was that he would not work save when and for whom he pleased, and after his own fancy; wherefore on many occasions, being sought out by noblemen who desired to have some of his work, and once in particular by the Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, he would not serve them; and then he would set himself to do anything in the world for some low and common fellow, at a miserable price. Thus the mason Rossino, a person of no small ingenuity considering his calling, by playing the simpleton, received from him in payment for having paved certain rooms with bricks, and for having done other mason's work, a most beautiful picture of Our Lady, in executing which Jacopo toiled and laboured as much as the mason did in his building. And so well did the good Rossino contrive to manage his business, that, in addition to the above-named picture, he got from the hands of Jacopo a most beautiful portrait of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, copied from one by the hand of Raffaello, and, into the bargain, a very beautiful little picture of a Christ Crucified, which, although the above-mentioned Magnificent Ottaviano bought it from the mason Rossino as a work by the hand of Jacopo, nevertheless is known for certain to be by the hand of Bronzino, who executed it all by himself while he was working with Jacopo at the Certosa, although it afterwards remained, I know not why, in the possession of Pontormo. All these three pictures, won by the industry of the mason from the hands of Jacopo, are now in the house of M. Alessandro de' Medici, the son of the above-named Ottaviano. Now, although this procedure of Jacopo's and his living solitary and after his own fashion were not much commended, that does not mean that if anyone wished to excuse him he would not be able, for the reason that for those works that he did we should acknowledge our obligation to him, and for those that he did not choose to do we should not blame or censure him. No craftsman is obliged to work save when and for whom he pleases; and, if he suffered thereby, the loss was his. As for solitude, I have always heard say that it is the greatest friend of study; and, even if it were not so, I do not believe that much blame is due to him who lives in his own fashion without offence to God or to his neighbour, dwelling and employing his time as best suits his nature. But to return, leaving these matters on one side, to the works of Jacopo: Duke Alessandro had caused to be restored in some parts the Villa of Careggi, formerly built by the elder Cosimo de' Medici, at a distance of two miles from Florence, and had carried out the ornamentation of the fountain and the labyrinth, which wound through the centre of an open court, into which there opened two loggie, and his Excellency ordained that those loggie should be painted by Jacopo, but that company should be given him, to the end that he might finish them the quicker, and that conversation with others, keeping him cheerful, might be a means of making him work without straying so much into vagaries and distilling away his brains. Nay, the Duke himself sent for Jacopo and besought him that he should strive to deliver that work completely finished as soon as possible. Jacopo, therefore, having summoned Bronzino, caused him to paint a figure on each of five spandrels of the vaulting, these being Fortune, Justice, Victory, Peace, and Fame; and on the other spandrel, for they are in all six, Jacopo with his own hand painted a Love. Then, having made the design for some little boys that were going in the oval space of the vaulting, with various animals in their hands, and all foreshortened to be seen from below, he caused them all, with the exception of one, to be executed in colour by Bronzino, who acquitted himself very well. And since, while Jacopo and Bronzino were painting these figures, the ornaments all around were executed by Jacone, Pier Francesco di Jacopo, and others, the whole of that work was finished in a short time, to the great satisfaction of the Lord Duke. His Excellency wished to have the other loggia painted, but he was not in time, for the reason that the above-named work having been finished on the 13th of December in the year 1536, on the 6th of the January following that most illustrious lord was assassinated by his kinsman Lorenzino; and so this work and others remained without their completion. The Lord Duke Cosimo having then been elected, and the affair of Montemurlo having passed off happily, a beginning was made with the works of Castello, according as has been related in the Life of Tribolo, and his most illustrious Excellency, in order to gratify Signora Donna Maria, his mother, ordained that Jacopo should paint the first loggia, which one finds on the left hand in entering the Palace of Castello. Whereupon, setting to work, Jacopo first designed all the ornaments that were to be painted there, and had them executed for the most part by Bronzino and the masters who had executed those of Careggi. Then, shutting himself up alone, he proceeded with that work after his own fancy and wholly at his leisure, studying with all diligence, to the end that it might be much better than that of Careggi, which he had not executed entirely with his own hand. This he was able to do very conveniently, having eight crowns a month for it from his Excellency, whom he portrayed, young as he was, in the beginning of that work, and likewise Signora Donna Maria, his mother. Finally, after that loggia had been closed for five years, no one being able to have even a glance at what Jacopo had done, one day the above-named lady became enraged against him, and commanded that the staging and the screen should be thrown to the ground. But Jacopo, having begged for grace and having obtained leave to keep it covered for a few days more, first retouched it where it seemed to him to be necessary, and then caused a cloth of his own contriving to be made, which should keep that loggia covered when those lords were not there, to the end that the weather might not, as it had done at Careggi, eat away those pictures, which were executed in oils on the dry plaster; and at last he uncovered it, amid the lively expectation of everyone, all thinking that in that work Jacopo must have surpassed himself and done something altogether stupendous. But the effect did not correspond completely to the expectations, for the reason that, although many parts of the work are good, the general proportion of the figures appears very poor in form, and certain distorted attitudes that are there seem to be wanting in measure and very strange. But Jacopo excused himself by saying that he had never worked very willingly in that place, for the reason that, being without the city, it seemed much exposed to the fury of the soldiery and to other suchlike dangers; but there was no need for him to be afraid of that, seeing that time and the weather, from the work having been executed in the manner already described, are eating it away little by little. In the centre of the vaulting, then, he painted a Saturn with the Sign of Capricorn, and a Hermaphrodite Mars in the Sign of the Lion and of the Virgin, and some little Angels who are flying through the air, like those of Careggi. He then painted in certain gigantic women, almost entirely nude, Philosophy, Astrology, Geometry, Music, Arithmetic, and a Ceres; with some little scenes in medallions, executed with various tints of colour and appropriate to the figures. Although this work, so fatiguing and so laboured, did not give much satisfaction, or, if a certain measure of satisfaction, much less than was expected, yet his Excellency declared that it pleased him, and availed himself of Jacopo on every occasion, chiefly because that painter was held in great veneration by the people on account of the very good and beautiful works that he had executed in the past. The Lord Duke then brought to Florence the Flemings, Maestro Giovanni Rosso and Maestro Niccolò, excellent masters in arras-tapestries, to the end that the art might be learned and practised by the Florentines, and he ordained that tapestries in silk and gold should be executed for the Council Hall of the Two Hundred at a cost of 60,000 crowns, and that Jacopo and Bronzino should make the cartoons with the stories of Joseph. But, when Jacopo had made two of them, in one of which is the scene when the death of Joseph is announced to Jacob and the bloody garments are shown to him, and in the other the Flight of Joseph from the wife of Potiphar, leaving his garment behind, they did not please either the Duke or those masters who had to put them into execution, for they appeared to them to be strange things and not likely to be successful when executed in woven tapestries. And so Jacopo did not go on to make any more cartoons, but returned to his usual labours and painted a picture of Our Lady, which was presented by the Duke to Signor Don ..., who took it to Spain. Now his Excellency, following in the footsteps of his ancestors, has always sought to embellish and adorn his city; and he resolved, the necessity having come to his notice, to cause to be painted all the principal chapel of the magnificent Temple of S. Lorenzo, formerly built by the great Cosimo de' Medici, the elder. Whereupon he gave the charge of this to Jacopo da Pontormo, either of his own accord, or, as was said, at the instance of Messer Pier Francesco Ricci, his major-domo; and Jacopo was very glad of that favour, for the reason that, although the greatness of the work, he being well advanced in years, gave him food for thought and perhaps dismayed him, on the other hand he reflected how, in a work of such magnitude, he had a fair field to show his ability and worth. Some say that Jacopo, finding that the work had been allotted to him notwithstanding that Francesco Salviati, a painter of great fame, was in Florence and had brought to a happy conclusion the painting of that hall in the Palace which was once the audience-chamber of the Signoria, must needs declare that he would show the world how to draw and paint, and how to work in fresco, and, besides this, that the other painters were but ordinary hacks, with other words equally insolent and overbearing. But I myself always knew Jacopo as a modest person, who spoke of everyone honourably and in a manner proper to an orderly and virtuous craftsman, such as he was, and I believe that these words were imputed to him falsely, and that he never let slip from his mouth any such boastings, which are for the most part the marks of vain men who presume too much upon their merits, in which manner of men there is no place for virtue or good breeding. And, although I might have kept silent about these matters, I have not chosen to do so, because to proceed as I have done appears to me the office of a faithful and veracious historian; it is enough that, although these rumours went around, and particularly among our craftsmen, nevertheless I have a firm belief that they were the words of malicious persons, Jacopo having always been in the experience of everyone modest and well-behaved in his every action. Having then closed up that chapel with walls, screens of planks, and curtains, and having given himself over to complete solitude, he kept it for a period of eleven years so well sealed up, that excepting himself not a living soul entered it, neither friend nor any other. It is true, indeed, that certain lads who were drawing in the sacristy of Michelagnolo, as young men will do, climbed by its spiral staircase on to the roof of the church, and, removing some tiles and the plank of one of the gilded rosettes that are there, saw everything. Of which having heard, Jacopo took it very ill, but took no further notice beyond closing up everything with greater care; although some say that he persecuted those young men sorely, and sought to make them regret it. Imagining, then, that in this work he would surpass all other painters, and perchance, so it was said, even Michelagnolo, he painted in the upper part, in a number of scenes, the Creation of Adam and Eve, the Eating of the Forbidden Fruit, their Expulsion from Paradise, the Tilling of the Earth, the Sacrifice of Abel, the Death of Cain, the Blessing of the Seed of Noah, and the same Noah designing the plan and the measurements of the Ark. Next, on one of the lower walls, each of which is fifteen braccia in each direction, he painted the inundation of the Deluge, in which is a mass of dead and drowned bodies, and Noah speaking with God. On the other wall is painted the Universal Resurrection of the Dead, which has to take place on the last and final day; with such variety and confusion, that the real resurrection will perhaps not be more confused, or more full of movement, in a manner of speaking, than Pontormo painted it. Opposite to the altar and between the windows--that is, on the central wall--there is on either side a row of nude figures, who, clinging to each other's bodies with hands and legs, form a ladder wherewith to ascend to Paradise, rising from the earth, where there are many dead in company with them, and at the end, on either side, are two dead bodies clothed with the exception of the legs and also the arms, with which they are holding two lighted torches. At the top, in the centre of the wall, above the windows, he painted in the middle Christ on high in His Majesty, who, surrounded by many Angels all nude, is raising those dead in order to judge them. But I have never been able to understand the significance of this scene, although I know that Jacopo had wit enough for himself, and also associated with learned and lettered persons; I mean, what he could have intended to signify in that part where there is Christ on high, raising the dead, and below His feet is God the Father, who is creating Adam and Eve. Besides this, in one of the corners, where are the four Evangelists, nude, with books in their hands, it does not seem to me that in a single place did he give a thought to any order of composition, or measurement, or time, or variety in the heads, or diversity in the flesh-colours, or, in a word, to any rule, proportion, or law of perspective; for the whole work is full of nude figures with an order, design, invention, composition, colouring, and painting contrived after his own fashion, and with such melancholy and so little satisfaction for him who beholds the work, that I am determined, since I myself do not understand it, although I am a painter, to leave all who may see it to form their own judgment, for the reason that I believe that I would drive myself mad with it and would bury myself alive, even as it appears to me that Jacopo in the period of eleven years that he spent upon it sought to bury himself and all who might see the painting, among all those extraordinary figures. And although there may be seen in this work some bit of a torso with the back turned or facing to the front and some attachments of flanks, executed with marvellous care and great labour by Jacopo, who made finished models of clay in the round for almost all the figures, nevertheless the work as a whole is foreign to his manner, and, as it appears to almost every man, without proportion, the torsi for the most part being large and the legs and arms small, to say nothing of the heads, in which there is not a trace to be seen of that singular excellence and grace that he used to give to them, so greatly to the satisfaction of those who examine his other pictures. Wherefore it appears that in this work he paid no attention to anything save certain parts, and of the other more important parts he took no account whatever. In a word, whereas he had thought in this work to surpass all the paintings in the world of art, he failed by a great measure to equal his own works that he had executed in the past; whence it is evident that he who seeks to strive beyond his strength and, as it were, to force nature, ruins the good qualities with which he may have been liberally endowed by her. But what can we or ought we to do save have compassion upon him, seeing that the men of our arts are as much liable to error as others? And the good Homer, so it is said, even he sometimes nods; nor shall it ever be said that there is a single work of Jacopo's, however he may have striven to force his nature, in which there is not something good and worthy of praise. He died shortly before finishing the work, and some therefore declare that he died of grief, ending his life very much dissatisfied with himself; but the truth is that, being old and much exhausted by making portraits and models in clay and labouring so much in fresco, he sank into a dropsy, which finally killed him at the age of sixty-five. After his death there were found in his house many designs, cartoons, and models in clay, all very beautiful, and a picture of Our Lady executed by him excellently well and in a lovely manner, to all appearance many years before, which was sold by his heirs to Piero Salviati. Jacopo was buried in the first cloister of the Church of the Servite Friars, beneath the scene of the Visitation that he had formerly painted there; and he was followed to the grave by an honourable company of the painters, sculptors, and architects. Jacopo was a frugal and sober man, and in his dress and manner of life he was rather miserly than moderate; and he lived almost always by himself, without desiring that anyone should serve him or cook for him. In his last years, indeed, he kept in his house, as it were to bring him up, Battista Naldini, a young man of fine spirit, who took such care of Jacopo's life as Jacopo would allow him to take; and under his master's discipline he made no little proficiency in design, and became such, indeed, that a very happy result is looked for from him. Among Pontormo's friends, particularly in this last period of his life, were Pier Francesco Vernacci and Don Vincenzio Borghini, with whom he took his recreation, sometimes eating with them, but rarely. But above all others, and always supremely beloved by him, was Bronzino, who loved him as dearly, being grateful and thankful for the benefits that he had received from him. Pontormo had very beautiful manners, and he was so afraid of death, that he would not even hear it spoken of, and avoided having to meet dead bodies. He never went to festivals or to any other places where people gathered together, so as not to be caught in the press; and he was solitary beyond all belief. At times, going out to work, he set himself to think so profoundly on what he was to do, that he went away without having done any other thing all day but stand thinking. And that this happened to him times without number in the work of S. Lorenzo may readily be believed, for the reason that when he was determined, like an able and well-practised craftsman, he had no difficulty in doing what he desired and had resolved to put into execution. SIMONE MOSCA LIFE OF SIMONE MOSCA SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT From the times of the ancient Greek and Roman sculptors to our own, no modern carver has equalled the beautiful and difficult works that they executed in their bases, capitals, friezes, cornices, festoons, trophies, masks, candelabra, birds, grotesques, or other carved cornice-work, save only Simone Mosca of Settignano, who in our own days has worked in such a manner in those kinds of labour, that he has made it evident by his genius and art that all the diligence and study of the modern carvers who had come before him had not enabled them up to that time to imitate the best work of those ancients or to adopt the good method in their carvings, for the reason that their works incline to dryness, and the turn of their foliage to spikiness and crudeness. He, on the other hand, has executed foliage with great boldness, rich and abundant in new curves, the leaves being carved in various manners with beautiful indentations and with the most lovely flowers, seeds and creepers that there are to be seen, not to speak of the birds that he has contrived to carve so gracefully in various forms among his foliage and festoons, insomuch that it may be affirmed that Simone alone--be it said without offence to the others--has been able to remove from the marble that hardness which craftsmen are wont very often to leave in their sculptures, and has brought his works by his handling of the chisel to such a point that they have the appearance of things real to the touch, and the same may be said of the cornices and other suchlike labours, executed by him with most beautiful grace and judgment. This Simone, having given his attention to design in his childhood with much profit, and having then become well-practised in carving, was taken by Maestro Antonio da San Gallo, who recognized his genius and noble spirit, to Rome, where he caused him to execute, as his first works, some capitals and bases and several friezes of foliage for the Church of S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini, and some works for the Palace of Alessandro, the first Cardinal Farnese. Simone meanwhile devoting himself, particularly on feast-days, and whenever he could snatch the time, to drawing the antiquities of that city, no long time passed before he was drawing and tracing ground-plans with more grace and neatness than did Antonio himself, insomuch that, having applied himself heart and soul to the study of designing foliage in the ancient manner, of giving a bold turn to the leaves, and of perforating his works in such a way as to make them perfect, taking the best from the best examples, one thing from one and one from another, in a few years he formed a manner of composition so beautiful and so catholic, that afterwards he did everything well, whether in company or by himself. This may be seen in some coats of arms that were to be placed in the above-named Church of S. Giovanni in the Strada Giulia; in one of which coats of arms, making a great lily, the ancient emblem of the Commune of Florence, he carved upon it some curves of foliage with creepers and seeds executed so well that they made everyone gasp with wonder. Nor had any long time passed when Antonio da San Gallo--who was directing for Messer Agnolo Cesis the execution of the marble ornaments of a chapel and tomb for himself and his family, which were afterwards erected in the year 1550 in the Church of S. Maria della Pace--caused part of certain pilasters and socles covered with friezes, which were going into that work, to be wrought by Simone, who executed them so well and with such beauty, that they make themselves known among the others, without my saying which they are, by their grace and perfection; nor is it possible to see any altars for the offering of sacrifices after the ancient use more beautiful and fanciful than those that he made on the base of that work. Afterwards the same San Gallo, who was superintending the execution of the mouth of the well in the cloister of S. Pietro in Vincula, caused Mosca to make the borders with some large masks of great beauty. Not long afterwards he returned one summer to Florence, having a good name among craftsmen, and Baccio Bandinelli, who was making the Orpheus of marble that was placed in the court of the Medici Palace, after having the base for that work carried out by Benedetto da Rovezzano, caused Simone to execute the festoons and other carvings therein, which are very beautiful, although one festoon is unfinished and only worked over with the gradine. Having then done many works in grey sandstone, of which there is no need to make record, he was planning to return to Rome, when in the meantime the sack took place, and he did not go after all. But, having taken a wife, he was living in Florence with little to do: wherefore, being obliged to support his family, and having no income, he was occupying himself with any work that he could obtain. Now in those days there arrived in Florence one Pietro di Subisso, a master-mason of Arezzo, who always had under him a good number of workmen, for the reason that all the building in Arezzo passed through his hands; and he took Simone, with many others, to Arezzo. There he set Simone to making a chimney-piece of grey sandstone and a water-basin of no great cost, for a hall in the house of the heirs of Pellegrino da Fossombrone, a citizen of Arezzo; which house had been formerly erected by M. Piero Geri, an excellent astrologer, after the design of Andrea Sansovino, and had been sold by his nephews. Setting to work, therefore, and beginning with the chimney-piece, Simone placed it upon two pilasters, making two niches in the thickness of the wall, in the direction of the fire, and laying upon those pilasters architrave, frieze, and great cornice, and over all a pediment with festoons and with the arms of that family. And thus, proceeding with it, he executed it with carvings of such a kind and so well varied, and with such subtle craftsmanship, that, although that work was of grey sandstone, under his hands it became more beautiful than if it had been of marble, and more astounding; which, indeed, came to pass the more readily because that stone is not as hard as marble and, if anything, rather sandy. Putting extraordinary diligence, therefore, into the work, he executed on the pilasters trophies in half-relief and low-relief, than which nothing more bizarre or more beautiful could be done, with helmets, buskins, shields, quivers, and various other arms; and he likewise made there masks, sea monsters, and other graceful fantasies, all so well figured and cut out that they have the appearance of silver. The frieze that is between the architrave and the great cornice, he made with a most beautiful turn of foliage, all pierced through and full of birds that are executed so well, that they seem to be flying through the air; and it is a marvellous thing to see their little legs, no larger than life, and yet completely in the round and detached from the stone in such a way as one cannot believe to be possible; and, in truth, the work seems rather a miracle than a product of human art. Besides all this, he made there in a festoon some leaves and fruits so well cut out, and wrought with such delicacy and care, that in a certain sense they surpass the reality. Lastly, the work is finished off by some great masks and candelabra, which are truly most beautiful. Although Simone need not have given such care to a work of that kind, for which he was to be but poorly paid by those patrons, who could not afford much, yet, drawn by the love that he bore to art and by the pleasure that a man feels in working well, he chose to do so; but he did not do the same with the water-basin for the same patrons, for he made it beautiful enough, but simple. At the same time he assisted Pietro di Subisso, who did not know much, to make many designs of buildings and plans of houses, doors, windows, and other things appertaining to that profession. On the Canto degli Albergotti, below the school and university of the Commune, there is a window of considerable beauty constructed after his design; and there are two of them in the house of Ser Bernardino Serragli in the Pelliceria. On the corner of the Palazzo de' Priori there is a large escutcheon of Pope Clement VII in grey sandstone, by the hand of the same master; and under his direction, and partly by his hand, was executed for Bernardino di Cristofano da Giuovi a chapel of grey sandstone in the Corinthian Order, which was erected in the Abbey of S. Fiore, a passing handsome monastery of Black Friars in Arezzo. For this chapel the patron wished to have the altar-piece painted by Andrea del Sarto, and then by Rosso, but in this he never succeeded, seeing that, being hindered now by one thing and now by another, they were not able to serve him. Finally Bernardino turned to Giorgio Vasari, but with him also he had difficulties, and there was much trouble in finding a way of arranging the matter, for the reason that, the chapel being dedicated to S. James and S. Christopher, he wished to have in the picture Our Lady with the Child in her arms, and also the giant S. Christopher with another little Christ on his shoulder; which composition, besides that it appeared monstrous, could not be accommodated, nor was it possible to paint a giant of six braccia in an altar-piece of four braccia. Giorgio, then, being desirous to serve Bernardino, made him a design in this manner: he placed Our Lady upon some clouds, with a sun behind her back, and on the ground he painted S. Christopher kneeling on one side of the picture, with one leg in the water, and with the other in the act of moving in order to rise, while Our Lady is placing upon his shoulders the Infant Christ with the globe of the world in His hands. In the rest of the altar-piece, also, were to be S. James and the other Saints, accommodated in such a manner that they would not have been in the way; and this design, pleasing Bernardino, would have been put into execution, but Bernardino in the meantime died, and the chapel was left in that condition to his heirs, who have not done anything more. Now, while Simone was labouring at that chapel, there passed through Arezzo Antonio da San Gallo, who was returning from the work of fortifying Parma and was going to Loreto to finish the work of the Chapel of the Madonna, to which he had sent Tribolo, Raffaello da Montelupo, the young Francesco da San Gallo, Girolamo da Ferrara, Simone Cioli, and other carvers, masons, and stone-cutters, in order to finish that which Andrea Sansovino at his death had left incomplete; and he contrived to take Simone to work there. He ordained that Simone should have charge not only of the carvings, but also of the architecture and of the other ornaments of that work; in which commissions Mosca acquitted himself very well, and, what is more, executed many things perfectly with his own hands, particularly some little boys of marble in the round, which are on the pediments of the doors; and although there are also some by the hand of Simone Cioli, the best--and rare indeed they are--are all by Mosca. He made, likewise, all the festoons of marble that are around all that work, with most beautiful artistry and carvings full of grace and worthy of all praise; wherefore it is no marvel that these works are so esteemed and admired, that many craftsmen from distant parts have set off in order to go to see them. Antonio da San Gallo, then, recognizing how much Mosca was worth, made use of him in any undertaking of importance, with the intention of remunerating him some day when the occasion might present itself, and of giving him to know how much he loved him for his abilities. When, therefore, after the death of Pope Clement, a new Supreme Pontiff had been elected in Paul III of the Farnese family, who ordained that, the mouth of the well at Orvieto having remained unfinished, Antonio should have charge of it, Antonio took Mosca thither, to the end that he might carry that work to completion, which presented some difficulties, and particularly in the ornamentation of the doors, for the reason that, the curve of the mouth being round, convex without and concave within, those two circles conflicted with each other and caused a difficulty in accommodating the squared doors with the ornaments of stone. But the virtue of that singular genius of Simone's solved every difficulty, and executed the whole work with such grace and perfection, that no one could see that there had ever been any difficulty. He finished off the mouth and border of the well in grey sandstone, filled in with bricks, together with some very beautiful inscriptions on white stone and other ornaments, making the doors correspond with one another. He also made there in marble the arms of the above-named Pope Paul Farnese, or rather, where they had previously been made of balls for Pope Clement, who had carried out that work, Mosca was forced--and he succeeded excellently well--to make lilies out of the balls in relief, and thus to change the arms of the Medici into those of the house of Farnese; notwithstanding, as I have said (for so do things go in this world), that the author of that vast, regal, and magnificent work was Pope Clement VII, of whom in this last and most imposing part no mention whatever was made. [Illustration: THE ALTAR OF THE THREE KINGS (_After =Simone Mosca= and =Michele San Michele=. Orvieto: Duomo_) _Alinari_] While Simone was engaged in finishing this well, the Wardens of Works of S. Maria, the Duomo of Orvieto, desiring to give completion to the chapel of marble that had been carried as far as the socle under the direction of Michele San Michele of Verona, with some carvings, besought Simone, whom they had come to know as a master of true excellence, that he should attend to it. Whereupon they came to terms, and Simone, liking the society of the people of Orvieto, brought his family thither, in order to live in greater comfort; and then he set himself to work with a quiet and composed mind, being greatly honoured by everyone in that place. When, therefore, as it were by way of sample, he had made a beginning with some pilasters and friezes, the excellence and ability of Simone were recognized by those men, and there was assigned to him a salary of two hundred crowns of gold a year, and with this, continuing to labour, he carried that work well forward. Now in the centre, to fill up the ornaments, there was to go a scene of marble in half-relief, representing the Adoration of the Magi; and there was summoned at the suggestion of Simone his very dear friend Raffaello da Montelupo, the Florentine sculptor, who, as has been related, executed half of that scene in a very beautiful manner. In the ornamentation of this chapel, then, are certain socles, each two and a half braccia in breadth, which are on either side of the altar, and upon these are pilasters five braccia high, two on either side, between which is the story of the Magi; and on the pilasters next to the story, of which two of the faces are seen, are carved some candelabra, with friezes of grotesques, masks, little figures, and foliage, which are things divine. In the predella at the foot, which runs right over the altar from pilaster to pilaster, is a little half-length Angel who is holding an inscription with his hands, with festoons over all, between the capitals of the pilasters, where the architrave, frieze and great cornice project to the extent of the depth of the pilasters. Above those in the centre, in a space equal to their breadth, curves an arch that serves as an ornament to the above-named story of the Magi, and in this, namely, in the lunette, are many Angels; and above the arch is a cornice, which runs from one pilaster to another, that is, from those on the outside, which form a frontispiece to the whole work. In this part is a God the Father in half-relief; and at the sides, where the arch rises over the pilasters, are two Victories in half-relief. All this work, then, is so well composed, and executed with such a wealth of carvings, that one cannot have enough of examining the minute details of the perforations and the excellence of all the things that are in the capitals, cornices, masks, festoons, and candelabra in the round, which form the completion of a work truly worthy to be admired as something rare. Simone Mosca thus dwelling in Orvieto, a son of his called Francesco, and as a bye-name Il Moschino, a boy fifteen years of age, who had been produced by nature with chisels in his hand, as it were, and with so beautiful a genius, that he did with supreme grace whatsoever thing he desired to do, executed in this work under the discipline of his father, miraculously, so to speak, the Angels that are holding the inscriptions between the pilasters, then the God the Father in the pediment, as well as the Angels that are in the lunette of that work, above the Adoration of the Magi executed by Raffaello da Montelupo, and finally the Victories at the sides of the lunette; by which works he caused everyone to wonder and marvel. All this was the reason that, when the chapel was finished, Simone was commissioned by the Wardens of Works of the Duomo to make another similar to it, on the other side, to the end that the space of the Chapel of the High-Altar might be suitably set off, on the understanding that the figures should be varied without varying the architecture, and that in the centre there should be the Visitation of Our Lady, which was allotted to the above-named Moschino. Then, having made an agreement about every matter, the father and son set their hands to the work; and, while they were engaged upon it, Mosca was very helpful and useful to that city, making for many citizens architectural designs of houses and many other edifices. Among other things, he executed in that city the ground-plan and façade of the house of Messer Raffaello Gualtieri, father of the Bishop of Viterbo, and of Messer Felice, both noblemen and lords of great excellence and reputation; and likewise the ground-plans of some houses for the honourable Counts della Cervara. He did the same in many places near Orvieto, and made, in particular, the models of many structures and buildings for Signor Pirro Colonna da Stripicciano. [Illustration: THE SALUTATION (_After =Simone Mosca=. Orvieto: Duomo_) _Alinari_] The Pope then causing the fortress to be built in Perugia where there had stood the houses of the Baglioni, Antonio da San Gallo, having sent for Mosca, gave him the charge of making the ornaments; where there were executed after his designs all the doors, windows, chimney-pieces, and other suchlike things, and in particular two large and very beautiful escutcheons of his Holiness. In that work Simone formed a connection with M. Tiberio Crispo, who was Castellan there; and he was sent by M. Tiberio to Bolsena, where, on the highest point of that stronghold, overlooking the lake, he arranged a large and beautiful habitation, partly on the old structure and partly founding anew, with a very handsome flight of steps and many ornaments of stone. Nor did any long time pass before Messer Tiberio, having been made Castellan of the Castello di S. Angelo, caused Mosca to go to Rome, where he made use of him in many matters in renovating the apartments of that castle; and, among other things, he caused him to make over the arches that rise over the new loggia, which faces towards the meadows, two escutcheons of the above-named Pope in marble, which are so well wrought and perforated in the mitre, or rather, triple crown, in the keys, and in certain festoons and little masks, that they are marvellous. Having then returned to Orvieto in order to finish the work of the chapel, he laboured there continuously all the time that Pope Paul was alive, executing it in such a manner that it proved to be, as may be seen, no less excellent than the first, and perhaps even better. For Mosca, as has been said, bore such love to art, and took such pleasure in working, that he could never have enough of it, almost striving after the impossible, and that rather from a desire for glory than from any wish to accumulate gold, for he was more pleased to work well at his profession than to acquire property. Finally, Julius III having been elected Pope in the year 1550, and all men thinking that work would be begun in earnest on the building of S. Pietro, Mosca went off to Rome and sought to obtain at a fixed price from the superintendents of that building the commission for some capitals of marble, but more to accommodate Gian Domenico, his son-in-law, than for any other reason. Now Giorgio Vasari, who always bore love to Mosca, found him in Rome, whither he also had been summoned to the service of the Pope, and he thought that without fail he would have some work to offer him, for the reason that the old Cardinal dal Monte, when he died, had left directions with his heirs that a tomb of marble should be built for him in S. Pietro a Montorio, and the above-named Pope Julius, his nephew and heir, had ordained that this should be done, and had given the charge of the matter to Vasari; and Giorgio wished that in that tomb Mosca should execute some extraordinary work in carving. But, after Giorgio had made some models for that tomb, the Pope discussed the whole matter with Michelagnolo Buonarroti before he would make up his mind; whereupon Michelagnolo told his Holiness that he should not involve himself with carvings, saying that, although they enrich a work, they confuse the figures, whereas squared work, when it is well done, is much more beautiful than carving and is a better accompaniment for the figures, for the reason that figures do not brook other carvings about them: and even so did his Holiness order the work to be done. Wherefore Vasari was not able to give Mosca anything to do in that work, and he was dismissed; and the tomb was finished without any carvings, which made it much better than it would have been with them. Simone having then returned to Orvieto, arrangements were made to erect after his designs, in the cross at the head of the church, two great tabernacles of marble, works truly graceful, beautiful, and well-proportioned, for one of which Raffaello da Montelupo made in marble a nude Christ with the Cross on His shoulder in a niche, and for the other Moschino made a S. Sebastian, likewise nude. Work being then continued on the execution of the Apostles for the church, Moschino made a S. Peter and a S. Paul of the same size, which were held to be creditable statues. Meanwhile the work of the above-mentioned Chapel of the Visitation was not abandoned, and it was carried so far forward during the lifetime of Mosca, that there was nothing left to do save two birds, and even these would not have been wanting, had not M. Bastiano Gualtieri, Bishop of Viterbo, as has been related, kept Simone occupied with an ornament of marble in four pieces, which, when finished, he sent to France to the Cardinal of Lorraine, who held it very dear, for it was beautiful to a marvel, all full of foliage and wrought with such diligence, that it is believed to have been one of the best that Simone ever executed. Not long after he had finished that work, in the year 1554, Simone died, at the age of fifty-eight, to the no small loss of that church of Orvieto, in which he was buried with honour. Francesco Moschino was then elected to his father's place by the Wardens of Works of that same Duomo, but, thinking nothing of it, he left it to Raffaello da Montelupo, and went to Rome, where he finished for M. Ruberto Strozzi two very graceful figures in marble, the Mars and Venus, namely, which are in the court of his house in the Banchi. Afterwards he executed a scene with little figures, almost in full-relief, in which is Diana bathing with her Nymphs, who changes Actæon into a stag, and he is devoured by his own hounds; and then Francesco came to Florence, and gave the work to the Lord Duke Cosimo, whom he much desired to serve. Whereupon his Excellency, having accepted and much commended it, did not disappoint the desire of Moschino, even as he has never disappointed anyone who has sought to work valiantly in any calling. For he was attached to the Works of the Duomo at Pisa, and has laboured up to the present day with great credit to himself in the Chapel of the Nunziata, formerly built by Stagio da Pietrasanta, executing the Angel and the Madonna in figures of four braccia, together with the carvings and every other thing; in the centre, Adam and Eve, who have the apple-tree between them; and a large God the Father with certain little boys on the vaulting of that chapel, which is all of marble, as are also the two statues, which have gained for Moschino no little fame and honour. And since that chapel is little less than finished, his Excellency has given orders that the chapel opposite to it should be taken in hand, which is called the Chapel of the Incoronata and stands immediately at the entrance of the church, on the left hand. The same Moschino, in connection with the nuptial festivities of her most serene Majesty Queen Joanna and the most illustrious Prince of Florence, has acquitted himself very well in those works that were given him to do. GIROLAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO GENGA, AND GIOVAN BATTISTA SAN MARINO, SON-IN-LAW OF GIROLAMO LIVES OF GIROLAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO GENGA, AND OF GIOVAN BATTISTA SAN MARINO, SON-IN-LAW OF GIROLAMO Girolamo Genga, who was of Urbino, was apprenticed by his father at the age of ten to the wool trade, but he followed it with the greatest ill-will, and, according as he could find time and place, he was for ever drawing in secret with charcoal or an ordinary pen. Which circumstance being observed by some friends of his father, they exhorted him to remove the boy from that trade and to set him to painting; wherefore he placed Girolamo with certain masters of little reputation in Urbino. But, having seen his beautiful manner, and that he was like to make proficience, when the boy was fifteen years of age the father apprenticed him to Maestro Luca Signorelli of Cortona, an excellent master in painting of that time; with whom he stayed many years, following him to the March of Ancona, to Cortona, and to many other places where he executed works, and in particular to Orvieto, in the Duomo of which city, as has been related, Luca painted a chapel of Our Lady with an infinite number of figures. At this our Girolamo worked continually, and he was always one of the best disciples that Luca had. Then, having parted from Signorelli, he placed himself with Pietro Perugino, a much esteemed painter, with whom he stayed about three years, giving considerable attention to perspective, which was so well grasped and understood by him, that it may be said that he became very excellent therein, even as is evident from his works in painting and architecture. This was at the same time that there was with Pietro the divine Raffaello da Urbino, who was much the friend of Girolamo. After leaving Pietro, he went off to live in Florence, where he studied for some considerable time. Then, having gone to Siena, he stayed there for months and even years with Pandolfo Petrucci, in whose house he painted many rooms, which, from their being very well designed and coloured in a pleasing manner, were rightly admired and praised by all the people of Siena, and particularly by the above-named Pandolfo, by whom he was always looked upon with great favour and cherished most dearly. Pandolfo having died, he then returned to Urbino, where Guidobaldo, the second Duke, retained him for a considerable time, causing him to paint horse's caparisons, such as were used in those times, in company with Timoteo da Urbino, a painter of passing good name and much experience, together with whom he painted a chapel of S. Martino in the Vescovado for Messer Giovan Piero Arrivabene of Mantua, then Bishop of Urbino. In this, both the one and the other of them gave proof of very beautiful genius, as the work itself demonstrates, in which is a portrait of the above-named Bishop, which has all the appearance of life. Genga was also particularly employed by the same Duke to execute scenery and settings for comedies, which, since he had a very good understanding of perspective and was well-grounded in architecture, he made marvellously beautiful. He then departed from Urbino and went to Rome, where he executed in painting, in S. Caterina da Siena on the Strada Giulia, a Resurrection of Christ, wherein he made himself known as a rare and excellent master, having done it with good design and with figures foreshortened in beautiful attitudes and well coloured, to which those who are of the profession and have seen it are able to bear ample testimony. While living in Rome, he gave much attention to measuring the antiquities there, as is proved by writings in the possession of his heirs. [Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS (_After the painting by =Girolamo Genga=. Milan: Brera, 202_) _Alinari_] At this time, Duke Guido having died, and having been succeeded by Francesco Maria, third Duke of Urbino, Girolamo was recalled from Rome by Francesco Maria, and constrained to return to Urbino at the time when the above-named Duke took to wife and brought into his dominions Leonora Gonzaga, the daughter of the Marquis of Mantua; and he was employed by his Excellency in making triumphal arches, festive preparations, and scenery for comedies, which were all so well arranged and carried into execution by him, that Urbino could be likened to a Rome in triumph; from which he gained very great fame and honour. Afterwards, in due course, the Duke was expelled from his state for the last time, when he went to Mantua, and Girolamo followed him, even as he had already done in his other periods of exile, always sharing one and the same fortune with him; and he retired with his family to Cesena. There he painted for the high-altar of S. Agostino an altar-piece in oils, at the top of which is an Annunciation, and below that a God the Father, and still lower down a Madonna with the Child in her arms, between the four Doctors of the Church--a work truly beautiful and worthy to be esteemed. He then painted in fresco a chapel on the right hand in S. Francesco at Forlì, containing the Assumption of the Madonna, with many Angels and other figures--Prophets, namely, and Apostles--around; in this, also, it is evident how admirable was his genius, and the work was judged to be very beautiful. He also painted there the story of the Holy Spirit, which he finished in the year 1512, for Messer Francesco Lombardi, a physician; and other works throughout Romagna, for all which he gained honour and rewards. The Duke having then returned to his state, Girolamo also returned, and was retained by him and employed as architect in restoring an old palace on the Monte dell'Imperiale, above Pesaro, and adding to it another tower. That palace was adorned with scenes in painting from the actions of the Duke, after the directions and designs of Girolamo, by Francesco da Forlì and Raffaello dal Borgo, painters of good repute, and by Camillo Mantovano, a very rare master in painting landscapes and verdure; and the young Florentine Bronzino also worked there, among others, as has been related in the Life of Pontormo. Thither, likewise, were summoned the Dossi of Ferrara, and a room was assigned to them to paint; but since, when they had finished that room, it did not please the Duke, he had it thrown down and repainted by the masters mentioned above. Girolamo then erected the tower there, one hundred and twenty feet in height, with thirteen flights of wooden steps whereby to ascend to the top, so well fitted and concealed in the walls, that they can be withdrawn with ease from story to story, which renders that tower very strong and marvellous. A desire afterwards came to the Duke to fortify Pesaro, and he caused Pier Francesco da Viterbo, a most excellent architect, to be sent for; and Girolamo always taking part in the discussions that arose about the fortifications, his discourse and his opinions were held to be good and full of judgment. Wherefore, if I may be allowed to say it, the design of that fortress came rather from Girolamo than from any other, although that sort of architecture was always little esteemed by him, appearing to him to be of small value and dignity. The Duke, then, perceiving how rare a genius he had at his command, determined to build on the above-named Monte dell'Imperiale, near the old palace, a new palace; and so he built that to be seen there at the present day, which being a very beautiful and well-planned fabric, and full of apartments, colonnades, courts, loggie, fountains, and most delightful gardens, there is no Prince passes that way that does not go to see it. Wherefore it was right fitting that Pope Paul III, on his way to Bologna with all his Court, should go to see it and find it entirely to his satisfaction. From the design of this same master, the Duke caused the Palace at Pesaro to be restored, and also the little park, making within it a house representing a ruin, which is a very beautiful thing to see. Among other things, there is a staircase similar to that of the Belvedere in Rome, which is very handsome. By means of him the Duke had the fortress of Gradara restored, and likewise the Palace at Castel Durante, insomuch that all that is good in those works came from that admirable genius. Girolamo also built the corridor of the Palace at Urbino, above the garden, and he enclosed a courtyard on one side with perforated stone-work executed with great diligence. From the design of the same master, likewise, were begun the Convent of the Frati Zoccolanti at Monte Baroccio and S. Maria delle Grazie at Sinigaglia, which in the end remained unfinished by reason of the death of the Duke. And about the same time was begun after his directions and design the Vescovado of Sinigaglia, of which the model, made by him, is still to be seen. He also executed some works in sculpture and figures of clay and wax in the round, beautiful enough, which are in the house of his family at Urbino. For the Imperiale he made some Angels in clay, which he afterwards caused to be cast in bronze and placed over the doors of the rooms decorated with stucco-work in the new palace; and these are very beautiful. For the Bishop of Sinigaglia he executed some fantasies in wax in the form of drinking-cups, which were afterwards to be made in silver; and with greater diligence he made some others, most beautiful, for the Duke's credence. He showed fine invention in masquerades and costumes, as was seen in the time of the above-named Duke, by whom he was passing well rewarded, as he deserved, for his rare parts and good qualities. His son, Guidobaldo, who reigns at the present day, having then succeeded him as Duke, caused a beginning to be made by the above-named Genga with the Church of S. Giovan Battista at Pesaro, which, having been carried out according to the model of Girolamo by his son Bartolommeo, is of very beautiful architecture in every part, for he imitated the antique considerably, and made it in such a manner that it is the most beautiful temple that there is in those parts, as the work itself clearly demonstrates, being able to challenge comparison with the most famous buildings in Rome. After his designs and directions, likewise, there was executed in S. Chiara at Urbino by the Florentine sculptor Bartolommeo Ammanati, who was then very young, the tomb of Duke Francesco Maria, which, for a simple work of little cost, proved to be very beautiful. In like manner, the Venetian painter Battista Franco was summoned by him to paint the great chapel of the Duomo at Urbino, at the time when there was being made after his design the ornament of the organ of that Duomo, which is not yet finished. Shortly afterwards, the Cardinal of Mantua having written to the Duke that he should send him Girolamo, because he wished to restore the Vescovado of that city, Girolamo went thither and fitted it up very well with lights and with all that the above-named lord desired. Besides this, the Cardinal, wishing to make a beautiful façade for the Duomo, caused him to prepare a model for it, which was executed by him in such a manner, that it may be said that it surpassed all the architectural works of his time, for the reason that in it may be seen grandeur, proportion, grace, and great beauty of composition. Having then returned from Mantua, now an old man, he went to live at a villa of his own, called Le Valle, in the territory of Urbino, in order to rest and enjoy the fruits of his labours; in which place, not wishing to remain idle, he executed in chalk a Conversion of S. Paul with figures and horses of considerable size and in very beautiful attitudes, which was finished by him with such patience and diligence, that no greater could be either described or seen, as is evident from the work itself, now in the possession of his heirs, by whom it is treasured as a very dear and precious thing. There, while living with a tranquil mind, he was attacked by a terrible fever, and, after he had received all the Sacraments of the Church, finished the course of his life, to the infinite grief of his wife and children, on the 11th of July in the year 1551, at the age of about seventy-five. Having been carried from that place to Urbino, he was buried with honour in the Vescovado, in front of the Chapel of S. Martino formerly painted by him; and his death caused extraordinary sorrow to his relatives and to all the citizens. Girolamo was always an excellent man, insomuch that nothing was ever heard of any bad action committed by him. He was not only a painter, sculptor, and architect, but also a good musician and a fine talker, and his society was very agreeable. He was full of courtesy and lovingness towards his relatives and friends; and, what entitles him to no little praise, he laid the foundation of the house of Genga at Urbino with his good name and property. He left two sons, one of whom followed in his footsteps and gave his attention to architecture, in which, if he had not been hindered by death, he was like to become most excellent, as his beginnings demonstrate; and the other, who devoted himself to the cares of the family, is still alive at the present day. A disciple of Girolamo, as has been related, was Francesco Menzochi of Forlì, who first began to draw by himself when still a child, imitating and copying an altar-piece in the Duomo of Forlì, by the hand of Marco Parmigiano[7] of Forlì, containing a Madonna, S. Jerome, and other Saints, and held at that time to be the best of the modern pictures; and he occupied himself likewise with imitating the works of Rondinino[8] da Ravenna, a painter more excellent than Marco, who a little time before had placed on the high-altar of the above-named Duomo a most beautiful altar-piece, in which was painted Christ giving the Communion to the Apostles, and in a lunette above it a Dead Christ, and in the predella of that altar-piece very graceful scenes with little figures from the life of S. Helen. These works brought him forward in such a manner, that, when Girolamo Genga went, as we have said, to paint the chapel in S. Francesco at Forlì for M. Bartolommeo Lombardino, Francesco at that time went to live with Genga, seizing that opportunity of learning, and did not cease to serve him as long as he lived. There, and also at Urbino and in the work of the Imperiale at Pesaro, he laboured continually, as has been related, esteemed and beloved by Genga, because he acquitted himself very well, as many altar-pieces by his hand bear witness that are dispersed throughout the city of Forlì, and particularly three of them which are in S. Francesco, besides that there are some scenes of his in fresco in the hall of the Palace. [Footnote 7: Palmezzani.] [Footnote 8: Rondinello.] He painted many works throughout Romagna; and at Venice, also, for the very reverend Patriarch Grimani, he executed four large pictures in oils that were placed in the ceiling of a little hall in his house, round an octagon that Francesco Salviati painted; in which pictures are the stories of Psyche, held to be very beautiful. But the place where he strove to do his utmost and to put forth all his powers, was the Chapel of the most holy Sacrament in the Church of Loreto, in which he painted some Angels round a tabernacle of marble wherein rests the Body of Christ, and two scenes on the walls of that chapel, one of Melchizedek and the other of the Manna raining down, both executed in fresco; and over the vaulting he distributed fifteen little scenes of the Passion of Jesus Christ, nine of which he executed in painting, and six in half-relief. This was a rich work and well conceived, and he won for it such honour, that he was not suffered to depart until he had decorated another chapel of equal size in the same place, opposite to the first, and called the Chapel of the Conception, with the vaulting all wrought with rich and very beautiful stucco-work; in which he taught the art of stucco-work to his son Pietro Paolo, who has since done him honour and has become a well-practised master in that field. Francesco, then, painted in fresco on the walls the Nativity and the Presentation of Our Lady, and over the altar he painted S. Anne and the Virgin with the Child in her arms, and two Angels that are crowning her. And, in truth, his works are much extolled by the craftsmen, and likewise his ways and his life, which was that of a true Christian; and he lived in peace, enjoying that which he had gained with his labours. A pupil of Genga, also, was Baldassarre Lancia of Urbino, who, having given his attention to many ingenious matters, has since practised his hand in fortifications, at which he worked on a salary for the Signoria of Lucca, in which place he stayed for some time. He then attached himself to the most illustrious Duke Cosimo de' Medici, whom he came to serve in the fortifications of the states of Florence and Siena; and the Duke has employed and still employs him in many ingenious works, in which Baldassarre has laboured valiantly and with honour, winning remunerations from that grateful lord. Many others also served Girolamo Genga, of whom, from their not having attained to any great excellence, there is no need to speak. To the above-named Girolamo, at Cesena, in the year 1518, the while that he was accompanying the Duke his master in exile, there was born a son called Bartolommeo, who was brought up by him very decently, and then, when he was well grown, placed to learn grammar, in which he made more than ordinary proficience. Afterwards, when he was eighteen years of age, the father, perceiving that he was inclined more to design than to letters, caused him to study design under his own discipline for about two years: which finished, he sent him to study design and painting in Florence, where he knew that the true study of that art was to be found, on account of the innumerable works by excellent masters that are there, both ancient and modern. Living in that place, and attending to design and to architecture, Bartolommeo formed a friendship with Giorgio Vasari, the painter and architect of Arezzo, and with the sculptor Bartolommeo Ammanati, from whom he learned many things appertaining to art. Finally, after having been three years in Florence, he returned to his father, who was then attending to the building of S. Giovanni Battista at Pesaro. Whereupon, the father having seen the designs of Bartolommeo, it appeared to him that he acquitted himself much better in architecture, for which he had a very good inclination, than in painting; wherefore, keeping him under his own care some months, he taught him the methods of perspective. And afterwards he sent him to Rome, to the end that he might see the marvellous buildings, both ancient and modern, that are there, of which, in the four years that he stayed there, he took the measurements, and made therein very great proficience. Then, on his way back to Urbino, passing through Florence in order to see Francesco[9] San Marino, his brother-in-law, who was living there as engineer to the Lord Duke Cosimo, Signor Stefano Colonna da Palestrina, at that time general to that lord, having heard of his ability, sought to engage him with himself, with a good salary. But he, being much indebted to the Duke of Urbino, would not attach himself to others, and returned to Urbino, where he was received by that Duke into his service, and ever afterwards held very dear. [Footnote 9: Giovan Battista.] Not long afterwards, the Duke taking to wife Signora Vittoria Farnese, Bartolommeo received from the Duke the charge of executing the festive preparations for those nuptials, which he did in a truly honourable and magnificent manner. Among other things, he made a triumphal arch in the Borgo di Valbuona, so beautiful and so well wrought, that there is none larger or more beautiful to be seen; whence it became evident how much knowledge of architecture he had acquired at Rome. Then the Duke, having to go into Lombardy, as General to the Signoria of Venice, to inspect the fortresses of that dominion, took with him Bartolommeo, of whom he availed himself much in preparing designs and sites of fortresses, and in particular at the Porta S. Felice in Verona. Now, while Bartolommeo was in Lombardy, the King of Bohemia, who was returning from Spain to his kingdom, passed through that province and was received with honour by the Duke at Verona; and he saw those fortresses. And, since they pleased him, after he had become acquainted with Bartolommeo, he wished to take him to his kingdom, in order to make use of him in fortifying his territories, with a good salary; but the Duke would not give him leave, and the matter went no further. When they had returned to Urbino, no long time passed before Girolamo, the father, came to his death; whereupon Bartolommeo was set by the Duke in the place of his father over all the buildings of the state, and sent to Pesaro, where he continued the building of S. Giovanni Battista, after the model of Girolamo. During that time he built in the Palace of Pesaro, over the Strada de' Mercanti, a suite of rooms which the Duke now occupies; a fine work, with most beautiful ornaments in the form of doors, staircases, and chimney-pieces, of which things he was an excellent architect. Which having seen, the Duke desired that in the Palace of Urbino as well he should make another suite of apartments, almost entirely on the façade that faces towards S. Domenico; and this, when finished, proved to be the most beautiful suite in that court, or rather, palace, and the most ornate that is there. Not long afterwards, the Signori of Bologna having asked for him for some days from the Duke, his Excellency granted him to them very readily; and he, having gone, served them in what they desired in such a manner, that they remained very well satisfied and showed him innumerable courtesies. He then made for the Duke, who desired to construct a sea-port at Pesaro, a very beautiful model; and this was taken to Venice, to the house of Count Giovan Giacomo Leonardi, at that time the Duke's Ambassador in that place, to the end that it might be seen by many of the profession who often assembled, with other choice spirits, to hold discussions and disputations on various matters in the house of the above-named Count, who was a truly remarkable man. There, then, after that model had been seen and the fine discourse of Genga had been heard, the model was held by all without exception to be masterly and beautiful, and the master who had made it a man of the rarest genius. But, when he had returned to Pesaro, the model after all was not carried into execution, because new circumstances of great importance drove that project out of the Duke's mind. About that time Genga made the design of the Church of Monte L'Abbate, and also that of the Church of S. Piero in Mondavio, which was carried into execution by Don Pier Antonio Genga in such a manner, that, for a small work, I do not believe that there is anything better to be seen. These works finished, no long time passed before, Pope Julius III having been elected, and the Duke of Urbino having been created by him Captain General of Holy Church, his Excellency went to Rome, and Genga with him. There, his Holiness wishing to fortify the Borgo, at the request of the Duke Genga made some very beautiful designs, which, with a number of others, are in the collection of his Excellency at Urbino. For these reasons the fame of Bartolommeo spread abroad, and the Genoese, while he was living with the Duke in Rome, asked for him from his Excellency, in order to make use of him in some fortifications of their own; but the Duke would not grant him to them, either at that time or on another occasion when they again asked for him, after his return to Urbino. In the end, when he was near the close of his life, there were sent to Pesaro by the Grand Master of Rhodes two knights of that Order of Jerusalem, to beseech his Excellency that he should deign to lend them Bartolommeo, to the end that they might take him to the Island of Malta, in which they wished to construct not only very large fortifications wherewith to defend themselves against the Turks, but also two cities, so as to unite many villages that were there into one or two places. Whereupon the Duke, whom the above-named knights in two months had not been able to induce to grant them Bartolommeo, although they had availed themselves of the good services of the Duchess and others, finally complied with their request for a fixed period, at the entreaty of a good Capuchin father, to whom his Excellency bore a very great affection, and refused nothing that he asked; and the artifice that was used by that holy man, who made it a matter of conscience with the Duke, saying that it was in the interest of the Christian Republic, was not otherwise than highly commendable and worthy of praise. And thus Bartolommeo, who had never received any favour greater than this, departed with the above-named knights from Pesaro on the 20th of January, 1558; but they lingered in Sicily, being delayed by the fortune of the sea, and they did not reach Malta, where they were received with rejoicing by the Grand Master, until the 11th of March. Having then been shown what he was to do, he acquitted himself so well in those fortifications, that it could not be expressed in words; insomuch that to the Grand Master and all those noble knights it appeared that they had found another Archimedes, and this they proved by making him most honourable presents and holding him, as a rare master, in supreme veneration. Then, after having made the models of a city, of some churches, and of the palace and residence of the same Grand Master, with most beautiful invention and design, he fell sick of his last illness, for, having set himself one day in the month of July, the heat in that island being very great, between two doors to refresh himself, he had not been there long when he was assailed by insufferable pains of the body and by a cruel flux, which killed him in seventeen days, to the infinite sorrow of the Grand Master and all those most honourable and valiant knights, to whom it appeared that they had found a man after their own hearts, when he was snatched from them by death. The Lord Duke of Urbino, having been advised of this sad news, felt indescribable sorrow, and bewailed the death of poor Genga; and then, having resolved to demonstrate to the five children whom he had left behind him the love that he bore to him, he took them under his particular and loving protection. Bartolommeo showed beautiful invention in masquerades, and was a rare master in making scenic settings for comedies. He delighted to write sonnets and other compositions in verse and prose, and in none was he better than in the ottava rima, in which manner of writing he was an author of passing good renown. He died at the age of forty, in the year 1558. Giovan Battista Bellucci of San Marino having been the son-in-law of Girolamo Genga, I have judged that it would not be well to withhold what I have to say of him, after the Lives of Girolamo and Bartolommeo Genga, and particularly in order to show that men of fine intellect, if only they be willing, succeed in everything, even if they set themselves late in life to difficult and honourable enterprises; for study, when added to natural inclination, has often been seen to accomplish marvellous things. Giovan Battista, then, was born in San Marino on the 27th of September, 1506, to Bartolommeo Bellucci, a person of passing good family in that place; and after he had learned the first rudiments of the humanities, when eighteen years of age, he was sent by that same Bartolommeo, his father, to Bologna, to attend to the pursuit of commerce under Bastiano di Ronco, a merchant of the Guild of Wool. Having been there about two years, he returned to San Marino sick of a quartan fever, which hung upon him two years; of which being finally cured, he set up a wool business of his own, with which he continued up to the year 1535, at which time his father, perceiving that Giovan Battista was in good circumstances, gave him for a wife in Cagli a daughter of Guido Peruzzi, a person of considerable standing in that city. But she died not long afterwards, and Giovan Battista went to Rome to seek out Domenico Peruzzi, his brother-in-law, who was equerry to Signor Ascanio Colonna; and by means of him Giovan Battista lived for two years with that lord as a gentleman. He then returned home; and it came about that, as he frequented Pesaro, Girolamo Genga, having come to know him as an excellent and well-behaved young man, gave him a daughter of his own for wife and took him into his house. Whereupon Giovan Battista, being much inclined to architecture, and giving his attention with much diligence to the architectural works that his wife's father was executing, began to gain a very good grasp of the various manners of building, and to study Vitruvius; and thus, what with that which he acquired by himself and that which Genga taught him, he became a good architect, and particularly in the matter of fortifications and other things relating to war. Then, in the year 1541, his wife died, leaving him two boys; and he remained until 1543 without coming to any further resolution about his life. At that time, in the month of September, there appeared in San Marino one Signor Gustamante, a Spaniard, sent by his Imperial Majesty to that Republic on some affairs. Giovan Battista was recognized by him as an excellent architect, and at his instance he entered not long afterwards into the service of the most illustrious Lord Duke Cosimo, as engineer. And thus, having arrived in Florence, his Excellency made use of him for all the fortifications of his dominion, according to the necessities that arose every day; and, among other things, the fortress of the city of Pistoia having been begun many years before, San Marino, by the desire of the Duke, completely finished it, with great credit to himself, although it is no great work. Then, under the direction of the same architect, a very strong bastion was built at Pisa. Wherefore, his method of work pleasing the Duke, his Excellency caused him to construct--where, as has been related, there had been built on the hill of S. Miniato, without Florence, the wall that curves from the Porta S. Niccolò to the Porta S. Miniato--the fortification that encloses a gate by means of two bastions, and guards the Church and Monastery of S. Miniato; making on the summit of that hill a fortress that dominates the whole city and looks on the outer side towards the east and the south, a work that was vastly extolled. The same Giovan Battista made many designs and ground-plans of various fortifications for places in the states of his Excellency, and also various rough models in clay, which are in the possession of the Lord Duke. And since San Marino was a man of fine genius and very studious, he wrote a little book on the methods of fortifications; which work, a beautiful and useful one, is now in the possession of Messer Bernardo Puccini, a gentleman of Florence, who learned many things with regard to the matters of architecture and fortification from San Marino, who was much his friend. Giovan Battista, after having designed in the year 1554 many bastions that were to be built round the walls of the city of Florence, some of which were begun in earth, went with the most illustrious lord, Don Garzia di Toledo, to Monte Alcino, where, having made some trenches, he mined under a bastion and so shattered it, that he threw down the breastwork; but as it was falling to the ground a harquebus-ball struck San Marino in the thigh. Not long afterwards, his wound being healed, he went secretly to Siena and took the ground-plan of that city, and of the earthworks that the people of Siena had made at the Porta Camollia; which plan of fortifications he then showed to the Lord Duke and to the Marchese di Marignano, making it clear to them that the work was not difficult to capture or to secure afterwards on the side towards Siena. That this was true was proved by the fact, the night that it was taken by the above-named Marquis, with whom Giovan Battista had gone by order and commission of the Duke. On that account, then, the Marquis, having conceived an affection for him and knowing that he had need of his judgment and ability in the field (that is, in the war against Siena), so went to work with the Duke, that his Excellency sent Giovan Battista off as captain of a strong company of foot-soldiers; whereupon he served from that day onward in the field, as a valiant soldier and an ingenious architect. Finally, having been sent by the Marquis to Aiuola, a fortress in the Chianti, while disposing the artillery he was wounded in the head by a harquebus-ball; wherefore he was taken by his soldiers to the Pieve di S. Paolo, which belongs to Bishop da Ricasoli, and died in a few days, and was carried to San Marino, where he received honourable burial from his children. Giovan Battista deserves to be highly extolled, for the reason that, besides having been excellent in his profession, it is a marvellous thing that, having set himself to give attention to it late in life, at the age of thirty-five, he should have made in it the proficience that he did make; and it may be believed that if he had begun younger, he would have become a very rare master. Giovan Battista was something obstinate, so that it was a serious undertaking to move him from any opinion. He took extraordinary pleasure in reading stories, and turned them to very great advantage, writing down with great pains the most notable things in them. His death much grieved the Duke and his innumerable friends; wherefore his son Gian Andrea, coming to kiss his Excellency's hands, was received kindly by him and welcomed most warmly with very generous offers, on account of the ability and fidelity of the father, who died at the age of forty-eight. MICHELE SAN MICHELE [Illustration: PAOLO VERONESE: INDUSTRY (_Venice: Doges' Palace, Sala Anticollegio. Ceiling Painting_)] LIFE OF MICHELE SAN MICHELE ARCHITECT OF VERONA Michele San Michele, who was born at Verona in the year 1484, and learned the first principles of architecture from his father Giovanni and his uncle Bartolommeo, both excellent architects, went off at sixteen years of age to Rome, leaving his father and two brothers of fine parts, one of whom, called Jacopo, devoted himself to letters, and the other, named Don Camillo, was a Canon Regular and General of that Order. Having arrived there, he studied the ancient remains of architecture in such a manner, and with such diligence, observing and measuring everything minutely, that in a short time he became renowned and famous not only in Rome, but throughout all the places that are around that city. Moved by his fame, the people of Orvieto summoned him as architect to their celebrated temple, with an honourable salary; and while he was employed in their service, he was summoned for the same reason to Monte Fiascone, as architect for the building of their principal temple; and thus, serving both the one and the other of these places, he executed all that there is to be seen in these two cities in the way of good architecture. Among other works, a most beautiful tomb was built after his design in S. Domenico at Monte Fiascone--I believe, for one of the Petrucci, a nobleman of Siena--which cost a great sum of money, and proved to be marvellous. Besides all this, he made an infinite number of designs for private houses in those places, and made himself known as a man of great judgment and excellence. Thereupon Pope Clement VII, proposing to make use of him in the most important operations of the wars that were stirring at that time throughout all Italy, gave him as a companion to Antonio da San Gallo, with a very good salary, to the end that they might go together to inspect all the places of greatest importance in the States of the Church, and, wherever necessary, might see to the construction of fortifications; above all, at Parma and Piacenza, because those two cities were most distant from Rome, and nearest and most exposed to the perils of war. Which duty having been executed by Michele and Antonio to the full satisfaction of the Pontiff, there came to Michele a desire, after all those years, to revisit his native city and his relatives and friends, and even more to see the fortresses of the Venetians. Wherefore, after he had been a few days in Verona, he went to Treviso to see the fortress there, and then to Padua for the same purpose; but the Signori of Venice, having been warned of this, became suspicious that San Michele might be going about inspecting those fortresses with a hostile intent. Having therefore been arrested at Padua at their command and thrown into prison, he was examined at great length; but, when it was found that he was an honest man, he was not only liberated by them, but also entreated that he should consent to enter the service of those same Signori of Venice, with honourable rank and salary. He excused himself by saying that he was not able to do that for the present, being engaged to his Holiness; but he gave them fair promises, and then took his leave of them. Now he had not been away long, when he was forced to depart from Rome--to such purpose did those Signori go to work in order to secure him--and to go, with the gracious leave of the Pope, whom he first satisfied in full, to serve those most illustrious noblemen, his natural lords. Abiding with them, he gave soon enough a proof of his judgment and knowledge by making at Verona (after many difficulties which the work appeared to present) a very strong and beautiful bastion, which gave infinite satisfaction to those Signori and to the Lord Duke of Urbino, their Captain General. After these things, the same Signori, having determined to fortify Legnago and Porto, places most important to their dominion, and situated upon the River Adige, one on one side and the other on the opposite side, but joined by a bridge, commissioned San Michele to show them by means of a model how it appeared to him that those places could and should be fortified. Which having been done by him, his design gave infinite satisfaction to the Signori and to the Duke of Urbino. Whereupon, arrangements having been made for all that had to be done, San Michele executed the fortifications of those two places in such a manner, that among works of that kind there is nothing better to be seen, or more beautiful, or more carefully considered, or stronger, as whoever has seen them well knows. This done, he fortified in the Bresciano, almost from the foundations, Orzinuovo, a fortress and port similar to Legnago. San Michele being then sought for with great insistence by Signor Francesco Sforza, last Duke of Milan, the Signori consented to grant him leave, but for three months only. Having therefore gone to Milan, he inspected all the fortresses of that State, and gave directions in every place for all that it seemed to him necessary to do, and that with such credit and so much to the satisfaction of the Duke, that his Excellency, besides thanking the Signori of Venice, presented five hundred crowns to San Michele. And with this occasion, before returning to Venice, Michele went to Casale di Monferrato, in order to see that very strong and beautiful fortress and city, the architecture of which was the work of Matteo San Michele, an excellent architect, his cousin; and also an honoured and very beautiful tomb of marble erected in S. Francesco in the same city, likewise under the direction of Matteo. Having then returned home, he had no sooner arrived than he was sent with the above-named Duke of Urbino to inspect La Chiusa, a fortress and pass of much importance, above Verona, and then all the places in Friuli, Bergamo, Vicenza, Peschiera, and others, of all which, and of what seemed to him to be required, he gave minute information in writing to the Signori. Having next been sent by the same Signori to Dalmatia, to fortify the cities and other places of that province, he inspected everything, and carried out restorations with great diligence wherever he saw the necessity to be greatest; and, since he could not himself despatch all the work, he left there Gian Girolamo, his kinsman, who, after fortifying Zara excellently well, erected from the foundations the marvellous fortress of S. Niccolò, over the mouth of the harbour of Sebenico. Meanwhile Michele was sent in great haste to Corfu, and restored the fortress there in many parts; and he did the same in all the places in Cyprus and Candia. Even so, not long afterwards--on account of a fear that the island might be lost, by reason of the war with the Turks, which was imminent--he was forced to return there, after having inspected the fortresses of the Venetian dominion in Italy, to fortify, with incredible rapidity, Canea, Candia, Retimo, and Settia, but particularly Canea and Candia, which he rebuilt from the foundations and made impregnable. Napoli di Romania being then besieged by the Turks, what with the diligence of S. Michele in fortifying it and furnishing it with bastions, and the valour of Agostino Chisoni of Verona, a very valiant captain, in defending it with arms, it was not after all taken by the enemy or forced to surrender. These wars finished, San Michele went with the Magnificent M. Tommaso Mozzenigo, Captain General of the Fleet, to fortify Corfu once again; and they then returned to Sebenico, where the diligence of Gian Girolamo, shown by him in constructing the above-mentioned fortress of S. Niccolò, was much commended. San Michele having then returned to Venice, where he was much extolled for the works executed in the Levant in the service of that Republic, the Signori resolved to build a fortress on the Lido, at the mouth of the port of Venice. Wherefore, giving the charge of this to San Michele, they said to him that, if he had done such great things far away from Venice, he should think how much it was his duty to do in a work of such importance, which was to lie for ever under the eyes of the Senate and of so many great lords; and that in addition, besides beauty and strength in the work, there was expected of him particular industry in founding truly and well in a marshy spot, which was surrounded on all sides by the sea and exposed to the ebb and flow of the tide, a pile of such importance. San Michele having therefore not only made a very beautiful and solid model, but also considered the method of laying the foundations and carrying it into effect, orders were given to him that he should set his hand to the work without delay. Whereupon, after receiving from those Signori all that was required, he prepared the materials for filling in the foundations, and, besides this, caused great numbers of piles to be sunk in double rows, and then, with a vast number of persons well acquainted with those waters, he set himself to make the excavations, and to contrive by means of pumps and other instruments to keep the water pumped out, which was seen continually rising from below, because the site was in the sea. One morning, finally, resolving to make a supreme effort to begin the foundations, and assembling as many men fit for the purpose as could be obtained, with all the porters of Venice, and many of the Signori being present, in a moment, with incredible assiduity and promptitude, the waters were mastered for a little to such purpose, that the first stones of the foundations were thrown instantly upon the piles already driven in; which stones, being very large, took up much space and made an excellent foundation. And so, continuing to keep the water pumped out without losing any time, almost in a flash those foundations were laid, contrary to the expectation of many who had looked upon that work as absolutely impossible. The foundations, when finished, were allowed sufficient time to settle, and then Michele erected upon them a mighty and marvellous fortress, building it on the outer side all in rustic work, with very large stones from Istria, which are of an extreme hardness and able to withstand wind, frost, and the worst of weather. Wherefore that fortress, besides being marvellous with regard to the site on which it is built, is also, from the beauty of the masonry and from its incredible cost, one of the most stupendous that there are in Europe at the present day, rivalling the grandeur and majesty of the most famous edifices erected by the greatness of the Romans; for, besides other things, it appears as if made all from one block, and as though a mountain of living rock had been carved and given that form, so large are the blocks of which it is built, and so well joined and united together, not to speak of the ornaments and other things that are there, seeing that one would never be able to say enough to do them justice. Within it Michele afterwards made a piazza, divided by pilasters and arches of the Rustic Order, which would have proved to be a very rare work, if it had not been left unfinished. This vast pile having been carried to the condition that has been described, some malign and envious persons said to the Signoria that, although it was very beautiful and built with every possible consideration, nevertheless it would be useless for any purpose, and perhaps even dangerous, for the reason that on discharging the artillery--on account of the great quantity and weight of artillery that the place required--it was almost inevitable that the edifice should split open and fall to the ground. It therefore appeared to those prudent Signori that it would be well to make certain of this, the matter being one of great importance; and they caused to be taken there a vast quantity of artillery, the heaviest that could be found in the Arsenal. Then, all the embrasures both above and below having been filled with cannon, and the cannon charged more heavily than was usual, they were all fired off together; whereupon such were the noise, the thunder, and the earthquake that resulted, that it seemed as if the world had burst to pieces, and the fortress, with all those flaming cannon, had the appearance of a volcano and of Hell itself. But for all that the building stood firm in its former strength and solidity, whereby the Senate was convinced of the great worth of San Michele, and the evil-speakers were put to scorn as men of little judgment, although they had put such terror into everyone, that the ladies then pregnant, fearing some great disaster, had withdrawn from Venice. Not long afterwards a place of no little importance on the coast near Venice, called Marano, having returned under the dominion of the Venetians, was restored and fortified with promptitude and diligence under the direction of San Michele. And about the same time, the fame of Michele and of his kinsman, Gian Girolamo, spreading ever more widely, they were requested many times, both the one and the other, to go to live with the Emperor Charles V and with King Francis of France; but, although they were invited under most honourable conditions, they would not leave their own masters to enter into the service of foreigners. Indeed, continuing in their offices, they went about inspecting and restoring every year, wherever it was necessary, all the cities and fortresses of the State of Venice. [Illustration: PORTA DEL PALIO (_After =Michele San Michele=. Verona_) _Alinari_] But more than all the rest did Michele fortify and adorn his native city of Verona, making there, besides other things, those most beautiful gates of the city, which have no equal in any other place. One was the Porta Nuova, all in the Dorico-rustic Order, which in its solidity and massive firmness corresponds to the strength of the site, being all built of tufa and pietra viva,[10] and having within it rooms for the soldiers who mount guard there, and many other conveniences, never before added to that kind of building. That edifice, which is quadrangular and open above, serving with its embrasures as a cavalier, defends two great bastions, or rather, towers, which stand one on either side of the gate at proper distances; and all is done with so much judgment, cost, and magnificence, that no one thought that for the future there could be executed any work of greater grandeur or better design, even as none such had been seen in the past. But a few years afterwards the same San Michele founded and carried upwards the gate commonly called the Porta dal Palio, which is in no way inferior to that described above, but equally beautiful, grand, and magnificent, or even more so, and designed excellently well. And, in truth, in these two gates the Signori of Venice may be seen to have equalled, by means of the genius of this architect, the edifices and fabrics of the ancient Romans. [Footnote 10: Any kind of stone that is easily split.] This last gate, then, is on the outer side of the Doric Order, with immense projecting columns, all fluted according to the manner of that Order; and these columns, which are eight in all, are placed in pairs. Four serve to enclose the gate, with the arms of the Rectors of the city, between one and another, on either side, and the other four, likewise in pairs, make a finish to the angles of the gate, the façade of which is very wide and all of bosses, or rather, blocks, not rough, but made smooth, with very beautiful ornamentation; and the opening, or rather passage, through the gate, is left quadrangular, but of an architecture that is new, bizarre, and most beautiful. Above it is a great and very rich Doric cornice, with all its appurtenances, over which, as may be seen from the model, was to go a fronton with all its ornaments, forming a parapet for the artillery, since this gate, like the other, was to serve as a cavalier. Within the gate are very large rooms for the soldiers, with other apartments and conveniences. On the front that faces towards the city, San Michele made a most beautiful loggia, all of the Dorico-rustic Order on the outer side, and on the inner all in rustic work, with very large piers. that have as ornaments columns round on the outside and on the inside square and projecting to the half of their thickness, and all made of pieces in rustic masonry, with Doric capitals without bases; and at the top is a great cornice, likewise Doric, and carved, passing along the whole loggia, which is of great length, both within and without. In a word, this work is marvellous; wherefore it was well and truly spoken by the most illustrious Signor Sforza Pallavicino, Captain General of the Venetian forces, when he said that there was not to be found in all Europe any structure that could in any way compare with it. This was the last of Michele's marvels, for the reason that he had scarcely erected the whole of the first range described above, when he finished the course of his life. Wherefore the work remained unfinished, nor will it ever be finished at all, for there are not wanting certain malignant persons--as always happens with great works--who censure it, striving to diminish the glory of others by their malignity and evil-speaking, since they fail by a great measure to achieve similar things with their own powers. The same master built another gate at Verona, called the Porta di S. Zeno, which is very beautiful; in any other place, indeed, it would be marvellous, but in Verona its beauty and artistry are obscured by the two others described above. A work of Michele's, likewise, is the bastion, or rather rampart, that is near this gate, and also another that is lower down, opposite to S. Bernardino, and another between them, called Dell'Acquaio, which is opposite to the Campo Marzio; and also that surpassing all the others in size, which is placed by the Chain, where the Adige enters the city. [Illustration: CAPPELLA DE' PELLEGRINI (_After =Michele San Michele=. Verona: S. Bernardino_) _Alinari_] At Padua he built the bastion called the Cornaro, and likewise that of S. Croce, which are both of marvellous size, and constructed in the modern manner, according to the order invented by Michele himself. For the method of making bastions with angles was the invention of Michele, and before his day they were made round; and whereas that kind of bastion was very difficult to defend, at the present day, having an obtuse angle on the outer side, they can be defended with ease, either from the cavalier erected between the two bastions and near to them, or, indeed, from the other bastion, provided that it be near the one attacked and the ditch wide. His invention, also, was the method of making bastions with three platforms, whereby the two at the sides guard and defend the ditch and the curtains, with their open embrasures, and the merlon in the centre defends itself and attacks the enemy in front. This method of fortification has since been imitated by everyone, causing the abandonment of the ancient fashion of subterranean embrasures, called casemates, in which, on account of the smoke and other impediments, the artillery could not be well handled; not to mention that they often weakened the foundations of the towers and walls. The same Michele built two very beautiful gates at Legnago. He directed at Peschiera the work of the first foundation of that fortress, and likewise many works at Brescia; and he always did everything with such diligence and such good foundations, that not one of his buildings ever showed a crack. Finally, he restored the fortress of La Chiusa above Verona, making it possible for persons to pass by without entering the fortress, but yet in such a manner that, on the raising of a bridge by those who are within, no one can pass by against their will, or even show himself on the road, which is very narrow and cut out of the rock. He also built at Verona, just after he had returned from Rome, the very beautiful bridge over the Adige, called the Ponte Nuovo, doing this at the commission of Messer Giovanni Emo, at that time Podestà of that city; which bridge was on account of its strength, as it still is, a marvellous thing. Michele was excellent not only in fortifications, but also in private buildings and in temples, churches, and monasteries, as may be seen from many buildings at Verona and other places, and particularly from the most ornate and beautiful Chapel of the Guareschi in S. Bernardino, which is round after the manner of a temple, and in the Corinthian Order, with all the ornaments which that manner admits. That chapel, I say, he built all of that white pietra viva, which, from the sound that it makes when it is being worked, is called in that city "Bronzo"; and, in truth, that kind of stone, after fine marble, is the most beautiful that has been found down to our own times, being absolutely solid and without holes or spots that might spoil it. Since that chapel, then, is built on the inside all of that most beautiful stone, and wrought by excellent masters of carving, and put together very well, it is considered that among works of that kind there is at the present day no other more beautiful in all Italy. For Michele made the whole work curve in a circle in such a manner, that three altars which are in it, with their pediments and cornices, and likewise the space of the door, all turn in a perfect round, almost after the likeness of the entrances that Filippo Brunelleschi made in the Chapels of the Temple of the Angeli in Florence; which is a very difficult thing to do. Michele then made therein a gallery over the first range of columns, which circles right round the chapel, and there are to be seen most beautiful carvings in the form of columns, capitals, foliage, grotesques, little pilasters, and other things, carved with incredible diligence. The door of that chapel he made quadrangular on the outer side, of the Corinthian Order and very beautiful, and similar to an ancient door that he saw, so he used to say, in some place at Rome. It is true, indeed, that this work, after having been left unfinished by Michele, I know not for what reason, was given, either from avarice or from lack of judgment, to certain others to be finished, who spoiled it, to the infinite vexation of Michele, who in his lifetime saw it ruined before his very eyes, without being able to prevent it; wherefore he used to complain at times to his friends, but only on this account, that he had not thousands of ducats wherewith to buy it from the avaricious hands of a woman who, by spending less than she was able, was shamefully spoiling it. A work of Michele's was the design of the round Temple of the Madonna di Campagna, near Verona, which was very beautiful, although the parsimony, weakness, and little judgment of the Wardens of that building have since disfigured it in many parts; and even worse would they have done, if Bernardino Brugnuoli, a kinsman of Michele, had not had charge of it and made a complete model, after which the building of that temple, as well as of many others, is now being carried forward. For the Friars of S. Maria in Organo, or rather, the Monks of Monte Oliveto in Verona, he made a design of the Corinthian Order, which was most beautiful, for the façade of their church. This façade, after being carried to a certain height by Paolo San Michele, was left not long since in that condition, on account of many expenses that were incurred by those monks in other matters, but even more by reason of the death of him who had begun it, Don Cipriano of Verona, a man of saintly life and of much authority in that Order, of which he was twice General. At S. Giorgio in Verona, a convent of the Regular Priests of S. Giorgio in Alega, the same Michele directed the building of the cupola of that church, which was a very beautiful work, and succeeded against the expectations of many who did not think that the structure would ever remain standing, on account of the weakness of its supports; but these were then so strengthened by Michele, that there is no longer anything to fear. In the same convent he made the design and laid the foundations of a very beautiful campanile of hewn stone, partly tufa and partly pietra viva, which was carried well forward by him, and is now being continued by the above-mentioned Bernardino, his nephew, who is employed in carrying it to completion. Monsignor Luigi Lippomani, Bishop of Verona, having resolved to carry to completion the campanile of his church, which had been begun a hundred years before, caused a design for this to be made by Michele, who did it very beautifully, taking into consideration the preserving of the old part and the expense that the Bishop was able to incur. But a certain Messer Domenico Porzio, a Roman, and his vicar, a person with little knowledge of building, although otherwise a worthy man, allowed himself to be imposed upon by one who also knew little about it, and gave him the charge of carrying on that fabric. Whereupon that person built it of unprepared stone from the mountains, and made the stairs in the thickness of the walls, doing all this in such a manner, that everyone who was even slightly conversant with architecture foretold that which afterwards happened--namely, that the structure would not remain standing. And, among others, the very reverend Fra Marco de' Medici of Verona, who, in addition to his other more serious studies, has always delighted in architecture, as he still does, predicted what would happen to such a building; but he was answered thus: "Fra Marco counts for much in his own profession of letters, philosophy, and theology, wherein he is public lecturer, but in architecture he does not fish so deeply as to command belief." Finally, that campanile, having risen to the level where the bells were to be, opened out in four parts in such a manner, that, after having spent many thousands of crowns in building it, they had to give three hundred crowns to the builders to throw it to the ground, lest it should fall by itself, as it would have done in a few days, and destroy everything all around. And it is only right that this should happen to those who desert good and eminent masters, and mix themselves up with bunglers. The above-named Monsignor Luigi having afterwards been chosen Bishop of Bergamo, Monsignor Agostino Lippomani was made Bishop of Verona in his place, and he commissioned Michele to reconstruct almost anew the model of that campanile, and to set to work. And after him, according to the same model, Monsignor Girolamo Trivisani, a friar of S. Dominic, who succeeded the last-named Lippomani in the bishopric, has caused that work to be continued, which is now progressing passing slowly. The model is very beautiful, and the stairs are being accommodated within the tower in such a manner, that the fabric remains stable and very strong. For the noble Counts della Torre of Verona, Michele built a very beautiful chapel in the manner of a round temple, with the altar in the centre, at their villa of Fumane. And in the Church of the Santo, at Padua, a very handsome tomb was built under his direction for Messer Alessandro Contarini, Procurator of S. Mark, who had been Proveditor to the Venetian forces; in which tomb it would seem that Michele sought to show in what manner such works should be done, departing from a kind of commonplace method which, in his opinion, had in it more of the altar or chapel than of the tomb. This work, which is very rich in ornamentation, solid in composition, and warlike in character, has as ornaments a Thetis and two prisoners by the hand of Alessandro Vittoria, which are held to be good figures, and a head, or rather, effigy from life of the above-named lord, with armour on the breast, executed in marble by Danese da Carrara. There are, in addition, other ornaments in abundance; prisoners, trophies, spoils of war, and others, of which there is no need to make mention. In Venice he made the model of the Convent of the Nuns of S. Biagio Catoldo, which was much extolled. It was then resolved at Verona to rebuild the Lazzaretto, a dwelling, or rather, hospital, which serves for the sick in times of plague, the old one having been destroyed together with other edifices that had been in the suburbs; and Michele was commissioned to make a design for this (which proved to be beautiful beyond all expectations), to the end that it might be put into execution on a spot near the river, at some distance from the city and beyond the esplanade. But this design, truly most beautiful and excellently well considered in every part, which is now in the possession of the heirs of Luigi Brugnuoli, Michele's nephew, was not carried completely into execution by certain persons, by reason of their little judgment and poverty of spirit, but much restricted, curtailed, and reduced to mean proportions by those persons, who used the authority that they had received in the matter from the public in disfiguring the work, in consequence of the untimely death of some gentlemen who were in charge of it at the beginning, and who had a greatness of spirit equal to their nobility of blood. A work of Michele's, likewise, was the very beautiful palace that the noble Counts of Canossa have at Verona, which was built at the commission of the very reverend Monsignor di Bajus, who once was Count Lodovico Canossa, a man so much celebrated by all the writers of his time. For the same Monsignor Michele built another magnificent palace in the Villa of Grezzano, in the Veronese territory. Under the direction of the same architect the façade of the Counts Bevilacqua was reconstructed, and all the apartments were restored in the castle of those lords, called La Bevilacqua. And at Verona, likewise, he built the house and façade of the Lavezzoli, which were much extolled. In Venice he built from the foundations the very rich and magnificent palace of the Cornaro family, near S. Polo, and restored another palace, also of the Cornaro family, which is by S. Benedetto all'Albore, for M. Giovanni Cornaro, of whom Michele was much the friend; and this led to Giorgio Vasari painting nine pictures in oils for the ceiling of a magnificent apartment, all adorned with woodwork carved and richly overlaid with gold, in that palace. In like manner, he restored the house of the Bragadini, opposite to S. Marina, and made it very commodious and ornate. And in the same city he founded and raised above the ground after a model of his own, at incredible cost, the marvellous palace of the most noble M. Girolamo Grimani, near S. Luca, on the Grand Canal; but Michele, being overtaken by death, was not able to carry it to completion himself, and the other architects chosen in his stead by that nobleman altered his design and model in many parts. Near Castelfranco, on the borders of the territories of Padua and Treviso, there was built under the direction of the same Michele the most famous Palace of the Soranzi, called by that family La Soranza; which palace is held to be, for a country residence, the most beautiful and the most commodious that had been built in those parts up to that time. He also built the Casa Cornara at Piombino, in that territory, and so many other private houses, that it would make too long a story to attempt to speak of them all; let it be enough to have made mention of the most important. I will not, indeed, refrain from recording that he made most beautiful gates for two palaces, one of which was that of the Rectors and of the Captain, and the other that of the Palazzo del Podestà, both in Verona and worthy of the highest praise, although the latter, which is in the Ionic Order, with double columns and very ornate intercolumniations, and some Victories at the angles, has a somewhat dwarfed appearance by reason of the lowness of the site where it stands, particularly because it is without pedestals and very wide on account of the double columns; but such was the wish of Messer Giovanni Delfini, who had it made. While Michele was enjoying a tranquil ease in his native place, and the reputation and renown that his honourable labours had brought him, there came to him a piece of news that so afflicted him, that it finished the course of his life. But to the end that the whole may be better understood, and that all the beautiful works of the San Michele family may be made known in this Life, I shall say something of Gian Girolamo, the kinsman of Michele. [Illustration: PALAZZO GRIMANI (_After =Michele San Michele=. Venice_) _Anderson_] This Gian Girolamo, then, was the son of Paolo, the cousin of Michele, and, being a young man of very beautiful genius, was instructed with such diligence by Michele in the matters of architecture, and so beloved by him, that he would always have the young man with him in all undertakings of importance, and particularly in fortifications. Having therefore become in a short time so excellent, with the help of such a master, that the most difficult work of fortification could be entrusted to him, in which manner of architecture he took particular delight, his ability was recognized by the Signori of Venice, and he was placed with a good salary among the number of their architects, although he was very young, and then sent now to one place and now to another, to inspect and restore the fortresses of their dominion, and at times to carry into execution the designs of his kinsman Michele. And, among other places, he took part with much judgment and labour in the fortification of Zara, and in the marvellous fortress of S. Niccolò at Sebenico, placed, as has been mentioned, at the mouth of the port; which fortress, erected by him from the very foundations, is held to be, for a private fortress, one of the strongest and best designed that there are to be seen. He also reconstructed after his own designs, with the advice of his kinsman, the great fortress of Corfu, which is considered the key of Italy on that side. In this fortress, I say, Gian Girolamo rebuilt the two great towers that face towards the land, making them much larger and stronger than they were before, with open embrasures and platforms that flank the ditch in the modern manner, after the invention of his kinsman. He then caused the ditches to be made much wider than they were before, and had a hill levelled, which, being near the fortress, appeared to command it. But, besides the many other works that he did there with great consideration, what gave most satisfaction was that in one corner of the fortress he made a place of great size and strength, in which in time of siege the people of that island can stay in safety without any danger of being captured by the enemy. On account of these works Gian Girolamo came into such credit with the above-named Signori, that they ordained him a salary equal to that of his kinsman, judging him to be not inferior to Michele, and even superior in that work of fortification: which gave the greatest contentment to San Michele, who saw his own art advancing in the person of his relative in proportion as old age was taking away from himself the power to go further. Gian Girolamo, besides his great judgment in recognizing the nature of different sites, showed much industry in having them represented by designs and models in relief, insomuch that he enabled his patrons to see even the most minute details of his fortifications in very beautiful models of wood that he would cause to be made; which diligence pleased them vastly, for without leaving Venice they saw every day how matters were proceeding in the most distant parts of their State. In order that they might be the more readily seen by everyone, these models were kept in the Palazzo del Principe, in a place where the Signori could examine them at their convenience; and to the end that Gian Girolamo might continue to pursue that course, they not only reimbursed him the expenses that he incurred in making the above-mentioned models, but also showed him many other courtesies. Gian Girolamo could have gone to serve many lords, with large salaries, but he would never leave his Venetian Signori; nay, at the advice of his father and his kinsman Michele, he took a wife in Verona, a noble young woman of the Fracastoro family, with the intention of always living in those parts. But he had been not more than a few days with his beloved bride, who was called Madonna Ortensia, when he was summoned by his patrons to Venice, and thence sent in great haste to Cyprus to inspect every place in that island, orders having been given to all the officials that they should provide him with all that he might require for any purpose. Having then arrived in that island, in three months Gian Girolamo went all round it and diligently inspected everything, putting every detail into writing and drawing, in order to be able to give an account of the whole to his masters. But, while he was attending with too much care and solicitude to his office, paying little regard to his own life, in the burning heat which prevailed at that time in the island he fell sick of a pestilential fever, which robbed him of life in six days; although some said that he had been poisoned. However that may have been, he died content in being in the service of his masters and employed by them in works of importance, knowing that they had trusted more in his fidelity and his skill in fortification than in those of any other man. The moment that he fell sick, knowing that he was dying, he gave all the drawings and writings that he had prepared on the works in that island into the hands of the architect Luigi Brugnuoli, his kinsman by marriage (who was then engaged in the fortification of Famagosta, which is the key of that kingdom), to the end that he might carry them to his masters. When the news of Gian Girolamo's death arrived in Venice, there was not one of the Senate who did not feel indescribable sorrow at the loss of such a man, who had been so devoted to that Republic. Gian Girolamo died at the age of forty-five, and received honourable burial from his above-named kinsman in S. Niccolò at Famagosta. Then, having returned to Venice, Brugnuoli presented Gian Girolamo's drawings and writings; which done, he was sent to give completion to the fortifications of Legnago, where he had spent many years in executing the designs and models of his uncle. But he had not been long in that place when he died, leaving two sons, who are men of passing good ability in design and in the practice of architecture. Bernardino, the elder, has now many undertakings on his hands, such as the building of the campanile of the Duomo, that of S. Giorgio, and that of the church called the Madonna di Campagna, in which and other works that he is directing at Verona and other places, he is succeeding excellently well; and particularly in the ornamental work of the principal chapel of S. Giorgio at Verona, which is of the composite order, and such that in size, design, and workmanship, the people of Verona declare that they do not believe that there is one equal to it to be found in Italy. This work, which follows the curve of the recess, is of the Corinthian Order, with composite capitals and double columns in full relief, and pilasters behind. In like manner, the frontispiece which surmounts the whole also curves in very masterly fashion according to the shape of the recess, and has all the ornaments which that Order embraces. Wherefore Monsignor Barbaro, Patriarch-elect of Aquileia, a man with a great knowledge of the profession, who has written of it, on his return from the Council of Trent saw not without marvel all that had been done in that work, and that which was being done every day; and, after considering it several times, he had to say that he had never seen the like, and that nothing better could be done. And let this suffice as a proof of what may be expected from the genius of Bernardino, who was born on the mother's side from the San Michele family. But let us return to Michele, from whom we digressed, not without reason, some little time back. He was struck by such grief at the death of Gian Girolamo, in whom he saw the house of San Michele become extinct, since his kinsman left no children, that, although he strove to conquer or conceal it, in a few days he was overcome by a malignant fever, to the inconsolable sorrow of his country and of his most illustrious patrons. Michele died in the year 1559, and was buried in S. Tommaso, a church of Carmelite Friars, where there is the ancient burial-place of his forefathers; and at the present day Messer Niccolò San Michele, a physician, has set his hand to erecting him an honourable tomb, which is even now being carried into execution. Michele was a man of most upright life, and most honourable in his every action. He was a cheerful person, yet with an admixture of seriousness. He feared God, and was very religious, insomuch that he would never set himself to do anything in the morning without having first heard Mass devoutly and said his prayers; and at the beginning of any undertaking of importance, in the morning, before doing any other thing, he would always have the Mass of the Holy Spirit or of the Madonna solemnly chanted. He was very liberal, and so courteous with his friends, that they were as much masters of his possessions as he was himself. And I will not withhold a proof of his great loyalty and goodness, which I believe few others know besides myself. When Giorgio Vasari, of whom, as has been told, he was much the friend, parted from him for the last time in Venice, Michele said to him: "I would have you know, Messer Giorgio, that, when I was in my youth at Monte Fiascone, I became enamoured, as fortune would have it, of the wife of a stone-cutter, and received from her complaisance all that I desired; but no one ever heard of it from me. Now, having heard that the poor woman has been left a widow, with a daughter ready for a husband, whom she says she conceived by me, I wish--although it may well be that this is not true, and such is my belief--that you should take to her these fifty crowns of gold and give them to her on my part, for the love of God, to the end that she may use them for her advantage and settle her daughter according to her station." Giorgio, therefore, going to Rome, and arriving at Monte Fiascone, although the good woman freely confessed to him that the girl was not the daughter of Michele, insisted, in obedience to Michele's command, on paying her the fifty crowns, which were as welcome to that poor woman as five hundred would have been to another. Michele, then, was courteous beyond the courtesy of any other man, insomuch that he no sooner heard of the needs and desires of his friends, than he sought to gratify them, even to the spending of his life; nor did any person ever do him a service that was not repaid many times over. Giorgio Vasari once made for him in Venice, with the greatest diligence at his command, a large drawing in which the proud Lucifer and his followers, vanquished by the Angel Michael, could be seen raining headlong down from Heaven into the horrible depths of Hell; and at that time Michele did not do anything but thank Giorgio for it when he took leave of him. But not many days after, returning to Arezzo, Giorgio found that San Michele had sent long before to his mother, who lived at Arezzo, a quantity of presents beautiful and honourable enough to be the gifts of a very rich nobleman, with a letter in which he did her great honour for love of her son. Many times the Signori of Venice offered to increase his salary, but he refused, always praying that they should increase his kinsmen's salaries instead of his own. In short, Michele was in his every action so gentle, courteous, and loving, that he made himself rightly beloved by innumerable lords; by Cardinal de' Medici, who became Pope Clement VII, while he was in Rome; by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who became Paul III; by the divine Michelagnolo Buonarroti; by Signor Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino; and by a vast number of noblemen and senators of Venice. At Verona he was much the friend of Fra Marco de' Medici, a man of great learning and infinite goodness, and of many others of whom there is no need at present to make mention. Now, in order not to have to turn back in a short time to speak of the Veronese, taking the opportunity presented by the masters mentioned above, I shall make mention in this place of some painters from that country, who are still alive and worthy to be named, and by no means to be passed over in silence. The first of these is Domenico del Riccio, who has painted in fresco, mostly in chiaroscuro and partly in colour, three façades of the house of Fiorio della Seta at Verona, on the Ponte Nuovo--that is, the three that do not look out upon the bridge, the house standing by itself. In one, over the river, are battles of sea-monsters, in another the battles of the Centaurs and many rivers, and in the third two pictures in colour. In the first of these, which is over the door, is the Table of the Gods, and in the other, over the river, is the fable of the nuptials between the Benacus, called the Lake of Garda, and the Nymph Caris, in the person of Garda, from whom is born the River Mincio, which in fact issues from that lake. In the same house is a large frieze wherein are some Triumphs in colour, executed in a beautiful and masterly manner. In the house of Messer Pellegrino Ridolfi, also at Verona, the same master painted the Coronation of the Emperor Charles V, and the scene when, after being crowned in Bologna, he rides with the Pope through the city in great pomp. In oils he has painted the principal altar-piece of the church that the Duke of Mantua has built recently near the Castello, in which is the Beheading and Martyrdom of S. Barbara, painted with much diligence and judgment. And what moved the Duke to have that altar-piece executed by Domenico was his having seen and much liked his manner in an altar-piece that Domenico had painted long before for the Chapel of S. Margherita in the Duomo of Mantua, in competition with Paolino,[11] who painted that of S. Antonio, with Paolo Farinato, who executed that of S. Martino, and with Battista del Moro, who painted that of the Magdalene; all which four Veronese had been summoned thither by Cardinal Ercole of Mantua, in order to adorn that church, which had been reconstructed by him after the design of Giulio Romano. Other works has Domenico executed in Verona, Vicenza, and Venice, but it must suffice to have spoken of those named. He is an honest and excellent craftsman, and, in addition to his painting, he is a very fine musician, and one of the first in the most noble Philharmonic Academy of Verona. [Footnote 11: Paolo Caliari or Veronese.] Not inferior to him will be his son Felice, who, although still young, has proved himself a painter out of the ordinary in an altar-piece that he has executed for the Church of the Trinita, in which are the Madonna and six other Saints, all of the size of life. Nor is this any marvel, for the young man learned his art in Florence, living in the house of Bernardo Canigiani, a Florentine gentleman and a crony of his father Domenico. In the same Verona, also, lives Bernardino, called L'India, who, besides many other works, has painted the Fable of Psyche in most beautiful figures on the ceiling of a chamber in the house of Count Marc'Antonio del Tiene. And he has painted another chamber, with beautiful inventions and a lovely manner of painting, for Count Girolamo of Canossa. A much extolled painter, also, is Eliodoro Forbicini, a young man of most beautiful genius and of considerable skill in every manner of painting, but particularly in making grotesques, as may be seen in the two chambers mentioned above and in other places where he has worked. In like manner Battista da Verona, who is called thus, and not otherwise, out of his own country, after having learned the first rudiments of painting from an uncle at Verona, placed himself with the excellent Tiziano in Venice, under whom he has become a very good painter. When a young man, this Battista painted in company with Paolino a hall in the Palace of the Paymaster and Assessor Portesco at Tiene in the territory of Vicenza; where they executed a vast number of figures, which acquired credit and repute for both the one and the other. With the same Paolino he executed many works in fresco in the Palace of the Soranza at Castelfranco, both having been sent to work there by Michele San Michele, who loved them as his sons. And with him, also, he painted the façade of the house of M. Antonio Cappello, which is on the Grand Canal in Venice; and then, still together, they painted the ceiling, or rather, soffit in the Hall of the Council of Ten, dividing the pictures between them. Not long afterwards, having been summoned to Vicenza, Battista executed many works there, both within and around the city; and recently he has painted the façade of the Monte della Pietà, wherein he has executed an infinite number of nude figures in various attitudes, larger than life, with very good design, and all in so few months, that it has been a marvel. And if he has done so much at so early an age (for he is not yet past thirty), everyone may imagine what may be expected of him in the course of his life. A Veronese, likewise, is one Paolino, a painter who is in very good repute in Venice at the present day, in that, although he is not yet more than thirty years of age, he has executed many works worthy of praise. This master, who was born at Verona to a stone-cutter, or, as they say in those parts, a stone-hewer, after having learned the rudiments of painting from Giovanni Caroto of Verona, painted in fresco, in company with the above-named Battista, the hall of the Paymaster and Assessor Portesco at Tiene, in the Vicentino; and afterwards at the Soranza, with the same companion, many works executed with good design and judgment and a beautiful manner. At Masiera, near Asolo in the Trevisano, he has painted the very beautiful house of Signor Daniello Barbaro, Patriarch-elect of Aquileia. At Verona, for the Refectory of S. Nazzaro, a monastery of Black Friars, he has painted in a large picture on canvas the supper that Simon the Leper gave to Our Lord, when the woman of sin threw herself at His feet, with many figures, portraits from life, and very rare perspective-views; and under the table are two dogs so beautiful that they appear real and alive, and further away certain cripples executed excellently well. [Illustration: THE FEAST IN THE HOUSE OF LEVI (_After the painting by =Paolo Veronese [Paolino _or_ Caliari]=. Venice: Accademia, 203_) _Anderson_] By the hand of Paolino, in the Hall of the Council of Ten at Venice, in an oval that is larger than certain others that are there, placed, as the principal one, in the centre of the ceiling, is a Jove who is driving away the Vices, in order to signify that that supreme and absolute tribunal drives away vice and chastises wicked and vicious men. The same master painted the soffit, or rather, ceiling of the Church of S. Sebastiano, which is a very rare work, and the altar-piece of the principal chapel, together with some pictures that serve to adorn it, and likewise the doors of the organ; which are all pictures truly worthy of the highest praise. In the Hall of the Grand Council he painted a large picture of Frederick Barbarossa presenting himself to the Pope, with a good number of figures varied in their costumes and vestments, all most beautiful and representing worthily the Court of a Pope and an Emperor, and also a Venetian Senate, with many noblemen and Senators of that Republic, portrayed from life. In short, this work is such in its grandeur and design, and in the beauty and variety of the attitudes, that it is rightly extolled by everyone. After this scene, Paolino painted the ceilings of certain chambers, which are used by that Council of Ten, with figures in oils, which are much foreshortened and very rare. In like manner, he painted in fresco the façade of the house of a merchant, which was a very beautiful work, on the road from S. Maurizio to S. Moisè; but the wind from the sea is little by little destroying it. For Camillo Trevisani, at Murano, he painted a loggia and an apartment in fresco, which were much extolled. And in S. Giorgio Maggiore at Venice, at the head of a large apartment, he painted in oils the Marriage of Cana in Galilee, which was a marvellous work for its grandeur, the number of figures, the variety of costumes, and the invention; and, if I remember right, there are to be seen in it more than one hundred and fifty heads, all varied and executed with great diligence. The same Paolino was commissioned by the Procurators of S. Mark to paint certain angular medallions that are in the ceiling of the Nicene Library, which was left to the Signoria by Cardinal Bessarion, with a vast treasure of Greek books. Now the above-named lords, when they had the painting of that library begun, promised a prize of honour, in addition to the ordinary payment, to him who should acquit himself best in painting it; and the pictures were divided among the best painters that there were at that time in Venice. When the work was finished and the pictures painted had been very well considered, a chain of gold was placed round the neck of Paolino, he being the man who was judged to have done better than all the others. The picture that gave him the victory and the prize of honour was that wherein he painted Music, in which are depicted three very beautiful young women, one of whom, the most beautiful, is playing a great bass-viol, looking down at the fingerboard of the instrument, the attitude of her person showing that her ear and her voice are fixed intently on the sound; and of the other two, one is playing a lute, and the other singing from a book. Near these women is a Cupid without wings, who is playing a harpsichord, signifying that Love is born from Music, or rather, that Love is always in company with Music; and, because he never parts from her, Paolino made him without wings. In the same picture he painted Pan, the God, according to the poets, of shepherds, with certain pipes made of the bark of trees, as it were consecrated to him as votive offerings by shepherds who have been victorious in playing them. Two other pictures Paolino painted in the same place; in one is Arithmetic, with certain Philosophers dressed in the ancient manner, and in the other is Honour, seated on a throne, to whom sacrifices are being offered and royal crowns presented. But, seeing that this young man is at this very moment at the height of his activity and not yet in his thirty-second year, I shall say nothing more of him for the present. [Illustration: VENICE ENTHRONED, WITH JUSTICE AND PEACE (_After the painting by =Paolo Veronese [Paolino _or_ Caliari]=. Venice: Ducal Palace_) _Anderson_] Likewise a Veronese is Paolo Farinato, an able painter, who, after having been a disciple of Niccolò Ursino,[12] has executed many works at Verona. The most important are a hall in the house of the Fumanelli, which he filled with various scenes in fresco-colours at the desire of Messer Antonio, a gentleman of that family, most famous as physician over all Europe, and two very large pictures in the principal chapel of S. Maria in Organo. In one of these is the story of the Innocents, and in the other is the scene when the Emperor Constantine causes a number of children to be brought before him, intending to kill them and to bathe in their blood, in order to cure himself of his leprosy. Then in the recess of that chapel are two pictures, large, but smaller than the others, in one of which is Christ receiving S. Peter, who is walking towards Him on the water, and in the other the dinner that S. Gregory gives to certain poor men. In all these works, which are much to be extolled, is a vast number of figures, executed with good design, study, and diligence. By the hand of the same master is an altar-picture of S. Martino that was placed in the Duomo of Mantua, which he executed in competition with others his compatriots, as has just been related. [Footnote 12: Giolfino.] And let this be the end of the Lives of the excellent Michele San Michele and of those other able men of Verona, so truly worthy of all praise on account of their excellence in the arts and their great talents. GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI, CALLED IL SODOMA [Illustration: GIOVANNI ANTONIO (IL SODOMA): THE VISION OF S. CATHARINE (_Siena: S. Domenico. Fresco_)] LIFE OF GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI, CALLED IL SODOMA PAINTER OF VERCELLI If men were to recognize their position when Fortune presents to them the opportunity to become rich, obtaining for them the favour of great persons, and were to exert themselves in their youth to make their merit equal to their good fortune, marvellous results would be seen to issue from their actions; whereas very often the contrary is seen to happen, for the reason that, even as it is true that he who trusts only in Fortune generally finds himself deceived, so it is very clear, as experience teaches us every day, that merit alone, likewise, if not accompanied by Fortune, does not do great things. If Giovanni Antonio of Vercelli, even as he had good fortune, had possessed an equal dower of merit, as he could have done if he had studied, he would not have been reduced to madness and miserable want in old age at the end of his life, which was always eccentric and beastly. Now Giovanni Antonio was taken to Siena by some merchants, agents of the Spannocchi family, and his good fortune, or perhaps his bad fortune, would have it that, not finding any competition for a time in that city, he should work there alone; which, although it was some advantage to him, was in the end injurious, for the reason that he went to sleep, as it were, and never studied, but did most of his work by rule of thumb. And, if he did study a little, it was only in drawing the works of Jacopo della Fonte, which were much esteemed, and in little else. In the beginning he executed many portraits from life with that glowing manner of colouring which he had brought from Lombardy, and he thus made many friendships in Siena, more because that people is very kindly disposed towards strangers than because he was a good painter; and, besides this, he was a gay and licentious man, keeping others entertained and amused with his manner of living, which was far from creditable. In which life, since he always had about him boys and beardless youths, whom he loved more than was decent, he acquired the by-name of Sodoma; and in this name, far from taking umbrage or offence, he used to glory, writing about it songs and verses in terza rima, and singing them to the lute with no little facility. He delighted, in addition, to have about the house many kinds of extraordinary animals; badgers, squirrels, apes, marmosets, dwarf asses, horses, barbs for running races, little horses from Elba, jays, dwarf fowls, Indian turtle-doves, and other suchlike animals, as many as he could lay his hands on. But, besides all these beasts, he had a raven, which had learned from him to speak so well, that in some things it imitated exactly the voice of Giovanni Antonio, and particularly in answering to anyone who knocked at the door, doing this so excellently that it seemed like Giovanni Antonio himself, as all the people of Siena know very well. In like manner, the other animals were so tame that they always flocked round anybody in the house, playing the strangest pranks and the maddest tricks in the world, insomuch that the man's house looked like a real Noah's Ark. [Illustration: SCENE FROM THE LIFE OF S. BENEDICT (_After the fresco by =Giovanni Antonio Bazzi [Il Sodoma]=. Monte Oliveto Maggiore_) _Alinari_] Now this manner of living and his eccentric ways, with his works and pictures, wherein he did indeed achieve something of the good, caused him to have such a name among the people of Siena--that is, among the populace and the common herd, for the people of quality knew him better--that he was held by many to be a great man. Whereupon, Fra Domenico da Lecco, a Lombard, having been made General of the Monks of Monte Oliveto, Sodoma went to visit him at Monte Oliveto di Chiusuri, the principal seat of that Order, distant fifteen miles from Siena; and he so contrived with his persuasive words, that he was commissioned to finish the stories of the life of S. Benedict, part of which had been executed on a wall by Luca Signorelli of Cortona. This work he finished for a small enough price, besides the expenses that he incurred, and those of certain lads and colour-grinders who assisted him; nor would it be possible to describe the amusement that he gave while he was labouring at that place to those fathers, who called him Il Mattaccio,[13] in the mad pranks that he played. [Footnote 13: Madcap or buffoon.] [Illustration: SCENE FROM THE LIFE OF S. BENEDICT (_After the fresco by =Giovanni Antonio Bazzi [Il Sodoma]=. Monte Oliveto Maggiore_) _Alinari_] But to return to the work. Having executed there certain scenes, which he hurried over mechanically and without diligence, and the General complaining of this, Mattaccio said that he worked as he felt inclined, and that his brush danced to the tune of money, so that, if the General consented to spend more, he was confident that he could do much better. The General having therefore promised that he would pay him better for the future, Giovanni Antonio painted three scenes, which still remained to be executed in the corners, with so much more study and diligence than he had shown in the others, that they proved to be much finer. In one of these is S. Benedict departing from Norcia and from his father and mother, in order to go to study in Rome; in the second, S. Mauro and S. Placido as children, presented to him and offered to God by their fathers; and in the third, the Goths burning Monte Cassino. For the last, in order to do despite to the General and the Monks, he painted the story of the priest Fiorenzo, the enemy of S. Benedict, bringing many loose women to dance and sing around the monastery of that holy man, in order to tempt the purity of those fathers. In this scene Sodoma, who was as shameless in his painting as in his other actions, painted a dance of nude women, altogether lewd and shameful; and, since he would not have been allowed to do it, as long as he was at work he would never let any of the monks see it. Wherefore, when the scene was uncovered, the General wished by hook or by crook to throw it to the ground and utterly destroy it; but Mattaccio, after much foolish talk, seeing that father in anger, clothed all the naked women in that work, which is one of the best that are there. Under each of these scenes he painted two medallions, and in each medallion a friar, to represent all the Generals who had ruled that congregation. And, since he had not their portraits from life, Mattaccio did most of the heads from fancy, and in some he portrayed old friars who were in the monastery at that time, and in the end he came to paint the head of the above-named Fra Domenico da Lecco, who was their General in those days, as has been related, and was causing him to execute that work. But, after some of those heads had lost the eyes, and others had been damaged, Fra Antonio Bentivogli, the Bolognese, caused them all to be removed, for good reasons. Now, while Mattaccio was executing these scenes, there had gone thither, to assume the habit of a monk, a Milanese nobleman, who had a yellow cloak trimmed with black cords, such as was worn at that time; and, after he had put on the monk's habit, the General gave that cloak to Mattaccio, who, by means of a mirror, painted a portrait of himself with it on his back in one of the scenes, wherein S. Benedict, still almost a child, miraculously puts together and mends the corn-measure, or rather, tub, of his nurse, which she had broken. At the feet of the portrait he painted a raven, an ape, and others of his animals. This work finished, he painted the story of the five loaves and two fishes, with other figures, in the Refectory of the Monastery of S. Anna, a seat of the same Order, distant five miles from Monte Oliveto; which work completed, he returned to Siena. There, at the Postierla, he painted in fresco the façade of the house of M. Agostino de' Bardi of Siena, in which were some things worthy of praise, but for the most part they have been consumed by time and the weather. [Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF ALEXANDER AND ROXANA (_Detail, after the fresco by =Giovanni Antonio Bazzi [Il Sodoma]=. Rome: Villa Farnesina_) _Braun_] During this time there arrived in Siena Agostino Chigi, a very rich and famous merchant of that city, and he became acquainted with Giovanni Antonio, both on account of his follies and because he had the name of a good painter. Wherefore he took him in his company to Rome, where Pope Julius II was then causing the Papal apartments in the Palace of the Vatican, which Pope Nicholas V had formerly erected, to be painted; and Chigi so went to work with the Pope, that some painting was given also to Sodoma. Now Pietro Perugino, who was painting the ceiling of an apartment that is beside the Borgia Tower, was working at his ease, like the old man that he was, and was not able to set his hand to anything else, as he had been at first commanded to do: and there was given to Giovanni Antonio to paint another apartment, which is beside the one that Perugino was painting. Having therefore set his hand to it, he made the ornamentation of that ceiling with cornices, foliage, and friezes; and then, in some large medallions, he executed certain passing good scenes in fresco. But this animal, devoting his attention to his beasts and his follies, would not press the work forward; and therefore, after Raffaello da Urbino had been brought to Rome by the architect Bramante, and it had become known to the Pope how much he surpassed the others, his Holiness ordained that neither Perugino nor Giovanni Antonio should work any more in the above-named apartments; indeed, that everything should be thrown to the ground. But Raffaello, who was goodness and modesty in person, left standing all that had been done by Perugino, who had once been his master; and of Mattaccio's he destroyed nothing save the inner work and the figures of the medallions and scenes, leaving the friezes and the other ornaments, which are still round the figures that Raffaello painted there, which were Justice, Universal Knowledge, Poetry, and Theology. But Agostino, who was a gentleman, without paying any attention to the affront that Giovanni Antonio had received, commissioned him to paint in one of his principal apartments, which opens into the great hall in his Palace in the Trastevere, the story of Alexander going to sleep with Roxana. In that work, besides other figures, he painted a good number of Loves, some of whom are unfastening Alexander's cuirass, some are drawing off his boots, or rather, buskins, some are removing his helmet and dress, and putting them away; others scattering flowers over the bed, and others, again, doing other suchlike offices. Near the chimney-piece he painted a Vulcan forging arrows, which was held at that time to be a passing good and praiseworthy work; and if Mattaccio, who had beautiful gifts and was much assisted by Nature, had given his attention, after that reversal of fortune, to his studies, as any other man would have done, he would have made very great proficience. But he had his mind always set on his amusements, and he worked by caprice, caring for nothing so earnestly as for dressing in pompous fashion, wearing doublets of brocade, cloaks all adorned with cloth of gold, the richest caps, necklaces, and other suchlike fripperies only fit for clowns and charlatans; in which things Agostino, who liked the man's humour, found the greatest amusement in the world. Julius II having then come to his death, and Leo X having been elected, who took pleasure in eccentric and light-headed figures of fun such as our painter was, Mattaccio felt the greatest possible joy, particularly because he had an ill-will against Julius, who had done him that affront, wherefore, having set to work in order to make himself known to the new Pontiff, he painted in a picture the Roman Lucrece, nude, who was stabbing herself with a dagger; and, since Fortune takes care of madmen and sometimes aids the thoughtless, he succeeded in executing a most beautiful female body, and a head that was breathing. Which work finished, at the instance of Agostino Chigi, who was on terms of strait service with the Pope, he presented it to his Holiness, by whom he was made a Chevalier and rewarded for so beautiful a picture. Whereupon Giovanni Antonio, believing that he had become a great man, began to be disinclined to work any more, save when he was driven by necessity. But, after Agostino had gone on some business to Siena, taking Giovanni Antonio with him, while staying there he was forced, being a Chevalier without an income, to set himself to painting; and so he painted an altar-piece containing a Christ taken down from the Cross, on the ground Our Lady in a swoon, and a man in armour who, having his back turned, shows his front reflected in a helmet that is on the ground, bright as a mirror. This work, which was held to be, as it is, one of the best that he ever executed, was placed in S. Francesco, on the right hand as one enters the church. Then in the cloister that is beside the above-named church, he painted in fresco Christ scourged at the Column, with many Jews around Pilate, and with a range of columns drawn in perspective after the manner of wing-walls; in which work Giovanni Antonio made a portrait of himself without any beard--that is, shaven--and with the hair long, as it was worn at that time. Not long afterwards he executed some pictures for Signor Jacopo VI of Piombino, and, while living with him at that place, some other works on canvas. Wherefore by his means, besides many courtesies and presents that he received from him, Giovanni Antonio obtained from his island of Elba many little animals such as that island produces, all of which he took to Siena. [Illustration: S. SEBASTIAN (_After the painting by =Giovanni Antonio [Il Sodoma]=. Florence: Uffizi, 1279_) _Anderson_] Arriving next in Florence, a monk of the Brandolini family, Abbot of the Monastery of Monte Oliveto, which is without the Porta a S. Friano, caused him to paint some pictures in fresco on the wall of the refectory; but since, like a careless fellow, he did them without study, they proved to be such that he was derided and mocked at for his follies by those who were expecting that he would do some extraordinary work. Now, while he was engaged on that work, having taken a Barbary horse with him to Florence, he set it to run in the race of S. Barnaba; and, as fortune would have it, the horse ran so much better than the others, that it won. Whereupon, the boys having, as is the custom, to call out the name or by-name of the owner of the horse that had won, after the running of the race and the fanfare of trumpets, Giovanni Antonio was asked what name they were to call out; and, after he had replied, "Sodoma, Sodoma," the boys called out that name. But some honest old men, having heard that filthy name, began to protest against it and to say, "What filthy thing is this, and what ribaldry, that so vile a name should be cried through our city?" Insomuch that, a clamour arising, poor Sodoma came within an ace of being stoned by the boys and the populace, with his horse and the ape that he had with him on the crupper. Having in the space of many years got together many prizes, won in the same way by his horses, he took the greatest pride in the world in them, and showed them to all who came into his house; and very often he made a show of them at his windows. But to return to his works: he painted for the Company of S. Bastiano in Camollia, beyond the Church of the Umiliati, on a banner of cloth which is carried in processions, in oils, a nude S. Sebastian, bound to a tree, who is standing on the right leg, with the left in foreshortening, and raises the head towards an Angel who is placing a crown upon it. This work is truly beautiful, and much to be praised. On the reverse side is Our Lady with the Child in her arms, and below her are S. Gismondo, S. Rocco, and some Flagellants kneeling on the ground. It is said that some merchants of Lucca offered to give three hundred crowns of gold to the men of that Company for that picture, but did not obtain it, because the others did not wish to deprive their Company and the city of so rare a painting. And, in truth, in certain works--whether it was study, or good fortune, or chance--Sodoma acquitted himself very well; but of such he did very few. In the Sacristy of the Friars of the Carmine is a picture by the hand of the same master, wherein is a very beautiful Nativity of Our Lady, with some nurses; and on the corner near the Piazza de' Tolomei he painted in fresco, for the Guild of Shoemakers, a Madonna with the Child in her arms, S. John, S. Francis, S. Rocco, and S. Crispino, the Patron Saint of the men of that Guild, who has a shoe in his hand. In the heads of these figures, and in all the rest, Giovanni Antonio acquitted himself very well. In the Company of S. Bernardino of Siena, beside the Church of S. Francesco, he executed some scenes in fresco in competition with Girolamo del Pacchia, a Sienese painter, and Domenico Beccafumi--namely, the Presentation of Our Lady in the Temple, when she goes to visit S. Elizabeth, her Assumption, and when she is crowned in Heaven. In the angles of the same Company he painted a Saint in episcopal robes, S. Louis, and S. Anthony of Padua; but the best figure of all is a S. Francis, who, standing on his feet and raising his head, is gazing at a little Angel, who appears to be in the act of speaking to him; the head of which S. Francis is truly marvellous. In the Palazzo de' Signori at Siena, likewise, in a hall, he painted some little tabernacles full of columns and little children, with other ornaments; and within these tabernacles are various figures. In one is S. Vittorio armed in the ancient fashion, with the sword in his hand; near him, in the same manner, is S. Ansano, who is baptizing certain persons; in another is S. Benedict; and all are very beautiful. In the lower part of that Palace, where salt is sold, he painted a Christ who is returning to life, with some soldiers about the Sepulchre, and two little Angels, held to be passing beautiful in the heads. Farther on, over a door, is a Madonna with the Child in her arms, painted by him in fresco, and two Saints. [Illustration: S. ANSANO (_After the fresco by =Giovanni Antonio Bazzi [Il Sodoma]=. Siena: Palazzo Pubblico_) _Alinari_] In S. Spirito he painted the Chapel of S. Jacopo, which he did at the commission of the men of the Spanish colony, who have their place of burial there; depicting there an image of the Madonna after the ancient manner, with S. Nicholas of Tolentino on the right hand, and, on the left, the Archangel S. Michael, who is slaying Lucifer. Above these, in a lunette, he painted Our Lady placing the sacerdotal habit upon a Saint, with some Angels around. Over all these figures, which are in oils on panel, there is painted in fresco, in the semicircle of the vaulting, a S. James in armour on a galloping horse, who has grasped his sword with a fiery gesture, and below him are many Turks, dead and wounded. Below all this, on the sides of the altar, are painted in fresco S. Anthony the Abbot and a nude S. Sebastian at the Column, which are held to be passing good works. [Illustration: S. FRANCIS (_After the fresco by =Giovanni Antonio Bazzi [Il Sodoma]=. Siena: S. Bernardino, Oratory_) _Alinari_] In the Duomo of the same city, on the right hand as one enters the church, there is upon an altar a picture in oils by his hand, in which there are Our Lady with the Child on her knee, S. Joseph on one side, and S. Calixtus on the other; which work is likewise held to be very beautiful, because it is evident that in colouring it Sodoma showed much more diligence than he used to devote to his works. He also painted for the Company of the Trinity a bier for carrying the dead to burial, which was very beautiful; and he executed another for the Company of Death, which is held to be the most beautiful in Siena; and I believe that the latter is the finest that there is to be seen, for, besides that it is indeed much to be extolled, it is very seldom that such works are executed at much cost or with much diligence. In the Church of S. Domenico, in the Chapel of S. Caterina da Siena, where there is in a tabernacle the head of that Saint, enclosed in one of silver, Giovanni Antonio painted two scenes, which are one on either side of that tabernacle. In one, on the right hand, is that Saint when, having received the Stigmata from Jesus Christ, who is in the air, she lies half-dead in the arms of two of her sisters, who are supporting her; of which work Baldassarre Peruzzi, the painter of Siena, after considering it, said that he had never seen anyone represent better the expression of persons fainting and half-dead, or with more similitude to the reality, than Giovanni Antonio had contrived to do. And in truth it is so, as may be seen, apart from the work itself, from the design by Sodoma's own hand which I have in my book of drawings. On the left hand, in the other picture, is the scene when the Angel of God carries to the same Saint the Host of the most Holy Communion, and she, raising her head to Heaven, sees Jesus Christ and Mary the Virgin, while two of her sisters, her companions, stand behind her. In another scene, which is on the wall on the right hand, is painted the story of a criminal, who, going to be beheaded, would not be converted or commend himself to God, despairing of His mercy; when, the above-named Saint praying for him on her knees, her prayers were so acceptable to the goodness of God, that, when the felon's head was cut off, his soul was seen ascending to Heaven; such power with the mercy of God have the prayers of those saintly persons who are in His grace. In this scene is a very great number of figures, as to which no one should marvel if they are not of the highest perfection, for the reason that I have heard as a fact that Giovanni Antonio had sunk to such a pitch in his negligence and slothfulness, that he would make neither designs nor cartoons when he had any work of that kind to execute, but would attack the work by designing it with the brush directly on the plaster, which was a strange thing; in which method it is evident that this scene was executed by him. The same master also painted the arch in front of that chapel, making therein a God the Father. The other scenes in that chapel were not finished by him, partly from his own fault, he not choosing to work save by caprice, and partly because he had not been paid by him who was having the chapel painted. Below this is a God the Father, who has beneath Him a Virgin in the ancient manner, on panel, with S. Dominic, S. Gismondo, S. Sebastian, and S. Catharine. [Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI (_After the painting by =Giovanni Antonio Bazzi [Il Sodoma]=. Siena: S. Agostino_) _Alinari_] For S. Agostino, in an altar-piece that is on the right hand at the entrance into the church, he painted the Adoration of the Magi, which was held to be, and is, a good work, for the reason that, besides the Madonna, which is much extolled, the first of the three Magi, and certain horses, there is a head of a shepherd between two trees which has all the appearance of life. Over a gate of the city, called the Porta di S. Viene, he painted in fresco, in a large tabernacle, the Nativity of Jesus Christ, with some Angels in the air; and on the arch of that gate a child in foreshortening, very beautiful and in strong relief, which is intended to signify that the Word has been made Flesh. In this work Sodoma made a portrait of himself, with a beard, being now old, and with a brush in his hand, which is pointing to a scroll that says "Feci." He painted likewise in fresco the Chapel of the Commune at the foot of the Palace, in the Piazza, representing there Our Lady with the Child in her arms, upheld by some little Angels, S. Ansano, S. Vittorio, S. Augustine, and S. James; and above this, in a triangular lunette, he painted a God the Father with some Angels about Him. From this work it is evident that when he executed it he was beginning, as it were, to have no more love for art, having lost that certain quality of excellence that he used to have in his better days, by means of which he gave a certain air of beauty to his heads, which made them graceful and lovely. And this is manifestly true, for some works that he executed long before this one have quite another grace and another manner, as may be seen above the Postierla, from a wall in fresco over the door of the Captain Lorenzo Mariscotti, where there is a Dead Christ in the lap of His Mother, who has a marvellous divinity and grace. In like manner, a picture in oils of Our Lady, which he painted for Messer Enea Savini della Costerella, is much extolled, and also a canvas that he executed for Assuero Rettori of S. Martino, in which is the Roman Lucrece stabbing herself, while she is held by her father and her husband, all painted with much beauty of attitude and marvellous grace in the heads. Finally, perceiving that the devotion of the people of Siena was all turned to the talents and excellent works of Domenico Beccafumi, and possessing neither house nor revenues in Siena, and having by that time consumed almost all his property and become old and poor, Giovanni Antonio departed from Siena almost in despair and went off to Volterra. And there, as his good fortune would have it, chancing upon Messer Lorenzo di Galeotto de' Medici, a rich and honoured nobleman, he proceeded to live under his protection, with the intention of staying there a long time. And so, dwelling in the house of that nobleman, he painted for him on a canvas the Chariot of the Sun, which, having been badly guided by Phaëthon, is falling into the Po; but it is easy to see that he did that work to pass the time, and hurried through it by rule of thumb, without giving any thought to it, so entirely commonplace is it and so ill-considered. Then, having grown weary of living at Volterra and in the house of that nobleman, as one who was accustomed to being free, he departed and went off to Pisa, where, at the instance of Battista del Cervelliera, he executed two pictures for Messer Bastiano della Seta, the Warden of Works of the Duomo, which were placed in the recess behind the high-altar of that Duomo, beside those of Sogliani and Beccafumi. In one is the Dead Christ with Our Lady and the other Maries, and in the other Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac; but since these pictures did not succeed very well, the Warden, who had intended to make him paint some altar-pieces for the church, dismissed him, knowing that men who do not study, once they have lost in old age the quality of excellence that they had in their youth from nature, are left with a kind of facility of manner that is generally little to be praised. At that same time Giovanni Antonio finished an altar-piece that he had previously begun in oils for S. Maria della Spina, painting in it Our Lady with the Child in her arms, with S. Mary Magdalene and S. Catharine kneeling before her, and S. John, S. Sebastian, and S. Joseph standing at the sides; in all which figures he acquitted himself much better than in the two pictures for the Duomo. Then, having nothing more to do at Pisa, he made his way to Lucca, where, at S. Ponziano, a seat of the Monks of Monte Oliveto, an Abbot of his acquaintance caused him to paint a Madonna on the ascent of a staircase that leads to the dormitory. That work finished, he returned weary, old, and poor to Siena, where he did not live much longer; for he fell ill, through not having anyone to look after him or any means of sustenance, and went off to the Great Hospital, and there in a few weeks he finished the course of his life. [Illustration: THE SACRIFICE OF ISAAC (_After the painting by =Giovanni Antonio Bazzi [Il Sodoma]=. Pisa: Duomo_) _Alinari_] Giovanni Antonio, when young and in good repute, took for his wife in Siena a girl born of a very good family, and had by her in the first year a daughter. But after that, having grown weary of her, because he was a beast, he would never see her more; and she, therefore, withdrawing by herself, lived always on her own earnings and on the interest of her dowry, bearing with great and endless patience the beastliness and the follies of that husband of hers, who was truly worthy of the name of Mattaccio which, as has been related, the Monks of Monte Oliveto gave him. Riccio of Siena, the disciple of Giovanni Antonio, a passing able and well-practised painter, having taken as his wife his master's daughter, who had been very well and decently brought up by her mother, became the heir to all the possessions connected with art of his wife's father. This Riccio, I say, has executed many beautiful and praiseworthy works at Siena and elsewhere, and has decorated with stucco and pictures in fresco a chapel in the Duomo of the above-named city, on the left hand as one enters the church; and he now lives at Lucca, where he has done, as he still continues to do, many beautiful works worthy to be extolled. A pupil of Giovanni Antonio, likewise, was a young man who was called Giomo del Sodoma; but, since he died young, and was not able to give more than a small proof of his genius and knowledge, there is no need to say more about him. Sodoma lived seventy-five years, and died in the year 1554. INDEX OF NAMES OF THE CRAFTSMEN MENTIONED IN VOLUME VII Adone Doni, 128 Agnolo, Baccio d', 74 Agnolo, Battista d' (Battista del Moro), 236 Agnolo Bronzino, 29, 31, 113, 149, 158, 160, 163, 167, 168, 171, 172, 175, 176, 178, 182, 201 Agnolo di Cristofano, 70 Agnolo, Giuliano di Baccio d', 83-86, 88, 89, 102 Agostino Viniziano, 60, 63 Albertinelli, Mariotto, 108, 148 Albrecht Dürer, 163, 164, 166 Alessandro Vittoria, 228 Alfonso Berughetta (Alonzo Spagnuolo), 58 Alfonso Lombardi, 77 Alonzo Spagnuolo (Alfonso Berughetta), 58 Ammanati, Bartolommeo, 95, 96, 99, 100, 203, 206 Andrea, Maestro, 66 Andrea Contucci (Andrea Sansovino), 5, 9, 61, 62, 187, 189 Andrea da Fiesole (Andrea Ferrucci), 4 Andrea del Minga, 97 Andrea del Sarto, 4, 58, 59, 148-150, 152, 156, 157, 171, 188 Andrea di Cosimo Feltrini, 13, 149-152 Andrea Ferrucci (Andrea da Fiesole), 4 Andrea Pisano, 30 Andrea Sansovino (Andrea Contucci), 5, 9, 61, 62, 187, 189 Andrea Verrocchio, 56 Antonio da San Gallo (the elder), 74 Antonio da San Gallo (the younger), 9, 78, 119, 186, 189, 190, 193, 217, 218 Antonio di Domenico (Antonio di Donnino Mazzieri), 29 Antonio di Gino Lorenzi, 24 Antonio di Giovanni (Solosmeo da Settignano), 5, 79, 80 Antonio di Marco di Giano (Il Carota), 152 Aristotile (Bastiano) da San Gallo, 29 Bacchiacca, Il (Francesco Ubertini), 29 Baccio, Giovanni di (Nanni di Baccio Bigio), 81 Baccio Bandinelli (Baccio de' Brandini), _Life_, 55-103. 4, 27, 28, 42, 43, 55-103, 154, 187 Baccio d'Agnolo, 74 Baccio da Montelupo, 155 Baccio de' Brandini (Baccio Bandinelli), _Life_, 55-103. 4, 27, 28, 42, 43, 55-103, 154, 187 Bagnacavallo, Giovan Battista, 129 Baldassarre Lancia, 206 Baldassarre Peruzzi, 253 Bandinelli, Baccio (Baccio de' Brandini), _Life_, 55-103. 4, 27, 28, 42, 43, 55-103, 154, 187 Bandinelli, Clemente, 77, 94, 95, 98 Barba, Jacopo della, 71 Bartolommeo Ammanati, 95, 96, 99, 100, 203, 206 Bartolommeo di Jacopo di Martino, 147 Bartolommeo di San Marco, Fra, 108, 109, 148 Bartolommeo Genga, _Life_, 206-210. 203, 204 Bartolommeo Neroni (Riccio), 257 Bartolommeo San Michele, 217 Bastiano (Aristotile) da San Gallo, 29 Battista Cungi, 121, 122, 124, 125 Battista d'Agnolo (Battista del Moro), 236 Battista da Verona (Battista Farinati), 237, 238 Battista del Cervelliera, 256 Battista del Cinque, 12 Battista del Moro (Battista d'Agnolo), 236 Battista del Tasso, 13, 30, 31, 34, 35, 137 Battista della Bilia, 118 Battista Dossi, 201 Battista Farinati (Battista da Verona), 237, 238 Battista Franco, 28, 29, 203 Battista Naldini, 181, 182 Battista of Città di Castello, 118, 119 Bazzi, Giovanni Antonio (Il Sodoma), _Life_, 245-257 Beccafumi, Domenico, 252, 255, 256 Beceri, Domenico (Domenico Benci), 141 Bellucci, Giovan Battista (Giovan Battista San Marino), _Life_, 210-213. 207 Benci, Domenico (Domenico Beceri), 141 Benedetto da Rovezzano, 4, 63, 64, 187 Benvenuto Cellini, 93, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100 Bernardino Brugnuoli, 226, 227, 233, 234 Bernardino India, 237 Bersuglia, Gian Domenico, 193 Bertoldo, 107 Berughetta, Alfonso (Alonzo Spagnuolo), 58 Bicci, Lorenzo di, 61 Bigio, Nanni di Baccio (Giovanni di Baccio), 81 Bilia, Battista della, 118 Bizzerra, 129 Bologna, Giovan, 100, 101 Bolognese, Marc'Antonio, 65 Borgo, Raffaello dal (Raffaello dal Colle), 117, 118, 120, 128, 129, 201 Bramante da Urbino, 249 Brandini, Baccio de' (Baccio Bandinelli), _Life_, 55-103. 4, 27, 28, 42, 43, 55-103, 154, 187 Bronzino, Agnolo, 29, 31, 113, 149, 158, 160, 163, 167, 168, 171, 172, 175, 176, 178, 182, 201 Brugnuoli, Bernardino, 226, 227, 233, 234 Brugnuoli, Luigi, 229, 233 Brunelleschi, Filippo, 87, 88, 167, 226 Brusciasorzi, Domenico (Domenico del Riccio), 236, 237 Brusciasorzi, Felice (Felice del Riccio), 237 Buda, Girolamo del, 56 Bugiardini, Giuliano, _Life_, 107-113 Buglioni, Santi, 29 Buonarroti, Michelagnolo, 10, 11, 14, 16, 28, 32, 44, 46, 48, 49, 57, 58, 61, 66-68, 71, 72, 75, 77, 81, 98, 99, 107, 108, 110-113, 151, 172, 173, 179, 194, 235 Cadore, Tiziano da (Tiziano Vecelli), 237 Caliari, Paolino or Paolo (Paolo Veronese), 236-240 Camillo Mantovano, 201 Carota, Il (Antonio di Marco di Giano), 152 Caroto, Giovanni, 238 Carrara, Danese da (Danese Cattaneo), 228 Carrucci, Jacopo (Jacopo da Pontormo), _Life_, 147-182. 31, 201 Cattaneo, Danese (Danese da Carrara), 228 Cavalieri, Tiberio, 50 Cellini, Benvenuto, 93, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100 Cervelliera, Battista del, 256 Cinque, Battista del, 12 Cioli, Simone, 9, 10, 189 Clemente Bandinelli, 77, 94, 95, 98 Colle, Raffaello dal (Raffaello dal Borgo), 117, 118, 120, 128, 129, 201 Conti, Domenico, 29 Contucci, Andrea (Andrea Sansovino), 5, 9, 61, 62, 187, 189 Cosimo, Piero di, 148 Cristofano, Agnolo di, 70 Cristofano Gherardi (Doceno), _Life_, 117-143 Cungi, Battista, 121, 122, 124, 125 Danese da Carrara (Danese Cattaneo), 228 Danti, Vincenzio, 100 David Fortini, 37 Doceno (Cristofano Gherardi), _Life_, 117-143 Domenico, Antonio di (Antonio di Donnino Mazzieri), 29 Domenico Beccafumi, 252, 255, 256 Domenico Beceri (Domenico Benci), 141 Domenico Brusciasorzi (Domenico del Riccio), 236, 237 Domenico Conti, 29 Domenico del Riccio (Domenico Brusciasorzi), 236, 237 Domenico Ghirlandajo, 108, 147 Donato (Donatello), 30, 56, 57, 62 Doni, Adone, 128 Dossi, Battista, 201 Dossi, Dosso, 201 Dürer, Albrecht, 163, 164, 166 Eliodoro Forbicini, 237 Fabro, Pippo del, 5 Fancelli, Giovanni, 97 Farinati, Battista (Battista da Verona), 237, 238 Farinato, Paolo, 236, 240, 241 Felice del Riccio (Felice Brusciasorzi), 237 Feltrini, Andrea di Cosimo, 13, 149-152 Ferrarese, Girolamo (Girolamo da Ferrara), 9, 10, 189 Fiesole, Andrea da (Andrea Ferrucci), 4 Filippo Brunelleschi, 87, 88, 167, 226 Filippo Lippi, Fra, 57 Fonte, Jacopo della (Jacopo della Quercia), 245 Forbicini, Eliodoro, 237 Forlì, Francesco da (Francesco Menzochi), 201, 204-206 Fortini, David, 37 Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco, 108, 109, 148 Fra Filippo Lippi, 57 Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli, 10, 11, 81, 82 Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del Piombo, 110, 111 Francesco da Forlì (Francesco Menzochi), 201, 204-206 Francesco da San Gallo (the younger), 9, 10, 189 Francesco de' Rossi (Francesco Salviati), 178, 205 Francesco del Tadda, 9, 10, 49 Francesco di Girolamo dal Prato, 72, 73 Francesco Granacci, 108 Francesco Menzochi (Francesco da Forlì), 201, 204-206 Francesco Moschino, 192, 194, 195 Francesco Salviati (Francesco de' Rossi), 178, 205 Francesco Ubertini (Il Bacchiacca), 29 Franciabigio, 70, 157, 171 Franco, Battista, 28, 29, 203 Galeotto, Pietro Paolo, 152 Genga, Bartolommeo, _Life_, 206-210. 203, 204 Genga, Girolamo, _Life_, 199-206. 207, 208, 210, 211 Gherardi, Cristofano (Doceno), _Life_, 117-143 Ghirlandajo, Domenico, 108, 147 Ghirlandajo, Michele di Ridolfo, 28 Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo, 28, 31, 155, 156 Gian Domenico Bersuglia, 193 Gian Girolamo San Michele, 219, 220, 222, 230-234 Giano, Antonio di Marco di (Il Carota), 152 Giolfino, Niccolò (Niccolò Ursino), 240 Giomo del Sodoma, 257 Giorgio Vasari. See Vasari (Giorgio) Giovan Battista Bagnacavallo, 129 Giovan Battista Bellucci (Giovan Battista San Marino), _Life_, 210-213. 207 Giovan Battista de' Rossi (Il Rosso), 58, 59, 117, 118, 149, 188 Giovan Battista San Marino (Giovan Battista Bellucci), _Life_, 210-213. 207 Giovan Bologna, 100, 101 Giovan Francesco Rustici, 57, 66 Giovan Maria Pichi, 158 Giovanni, Antonio di (Solosmeo da Settignano), 5, 79, 80 Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli, Fra, 10, 11, 81, 82 Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (Il Sodoma), _Life_, 245-257 Giovanni Antonio Lappoli, 158, 159 Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, 256 Giovanni Caroto, 238 Giovanni da Udine, 118 Giovanni di Baccio (Nanni di Baccio Bigio), 81 Giovanni di Goro, 69 Giovanni Fancelli, 97 Giovanni Rosso (or Rosto), Maestro, 177 Giovanni San Michele, 217 Girolamo da Ferrara (Girolamo Ferrarese), 9, 10, 189 Girolamo del Buda, 56 Girolamo del Pacchia, 252 Girolamo Ferrarese (Girolamo da Ferrara), 9, 10, 189 Girolamo Genga, _Life_, 199-206. 207, 208, 210, 211 Giuliano Bugiardini, _Life_, 107-113 Giuliano di Baccio d'Agnolo, 83-86, 88, 89, 102 Giulio Romano, 117, 236 Goro, Giovanni di, 69 Granacci, Francesco, 108 Il Bacchiacca (Francesco Ubertini), 29 Il Carota (Antonio di Marco di Giano), 152 Il Rosso (Giovan Battista de' Rossi), 58, 59, 117, 118, 149, 188 Il Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi), _Life_, 245-257 India, Bernardino, 237 Jacone (Jacopo), 176 Jacopo da Pontormo (Jacopo Carrucci), _Life_, 147-182. 31, 201 Jacopo della Barba, 71 Jacopo della Fonte (Jacopo della Quercia), 245 Jacopo Sansovino, 4, 5, 58 Lancia, Baldassarre, 206 Lappoli, Giovanni Antonio, 158, 159 Lastricati, Zanobi, 45 Lattanzio di Vincenzio Pagani, 128 Leonardo da Vinci, 41-44, 57, 58, 60, 148, 152 Lippi, Fra Filippo, 57 Lombardi, Alfonso, 77 Lorenzetto, 78 Lorenzi, Antonio di Gino, 24 Lorenzo di Bicci, 61 Lorenzo Marignolli, 46 Luca Signorelli, 199, 246 Luigi Brugnuoli, 229, 233 Maestro Andrea, 66 Maestro Giovanni Rosso (or Rosto), 177 Maestro Niccolò, 177 Mantovano, Camillo, 201 Marc'Antonio Bolognese, 65 Marco da Ravenna, 63 Marco del Tasso, 156 Marco Palmezzani (Marco Parmigiano), 204, 205 Marignolli, Lorenzo, 46 Mariotto Albertinelli, 108, 148 Martino, Bartolommeo di Jacopo di, 147 Matteo San Michele, 219 Mazzieri, Antonio di Donnino (Antonio di Domenico), 29 Menzochi, Francesco (Francesco da Forlì), 201, 204-206 Menzochi, Pietro Paolo, 205, 206 Michelagnolo Buonarroti, 10, 11, 14, 16, 28, 32, 44, 46, 48, 49, 57, 58, 61, 66-68, 71, 72, 75, 77, 81, 98, 99, 107, 108, 110-113, 151, 172, 173, 179, 194, 235 Michelagnolo di Viviano, 55-57, 60, 66, 73, 98, 99 Michele di Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, 28 Michele San Michele, _Life_, 217-235. 127, 191, 217-235, 237, 241 Minga, Andrea del, 97 Montelupo, Baccio da, 155 Montelupo, Raffaello da, 9-11, 27, 62, 81, 189, 191, 192, 194, 195 Montorsoli, Fra Giovanni Agnolo, 10, 11, 81, 82 Moro, Battista del (Battista d'Agnolo), 236 Mosca, Simone, _Life_, 185-195. 9, 10 Moschino, Francesco, 192, 194, 195 Naldini, Battista, 181, 182 Nanni di Baccio Bigio (Giovanni di Baccio), 81 Nanni Unghero, 4 Neroni, Bartolommeo (Riccio), 257 Niccolò, Maestro, 177 Niccolò (called Tribolo), _Life_, 3-37. 43-45, 81, 112, 176, 189 Niccolò Giolfino (Niccolò Ursino), 240 Niccolò Rondinello (Rondinino da Ravenna), 204, 205 Niccolò Ursino (Niccolò Giolfino), 240 Pacchia, Girolamo del, 252 Pagani, Lattanzio di Vincenzio, 128 Palmezzani, Marco (Marco Parmigiano), 204, 205 Paolino or Paolo Caliari (Paolo Veronese), 236-240 Paolo Farinato, 236, 240, 241 Paolo San Michele, 227, 230, 232 Paolo Veronese (Paolino or Paolo Caliari), 236-240 Papacello, Tommaso, 128 Parmigiano, Marco (Marco Palmezzani), 204, 205 Perugino, Pietro, 199, 248, 249 Peruzzi, Baldassarre, 253 Pichi, Giovan Maria, 158 Pier Francesco da Viterbo, 119, 202 Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, 29, 176 Pierino (Piero) da Vinci, _Life_, 41-51 Piero di Cosimo, 148 Pietrasanta, Ranieri da, 9, 10 Pietrasanta, Stagio da, 7, 195 Pietro da San Casciano, 15, 16, 19 Pietro di Subisso, 187, 188 Pietro Paolo Galeotto, 152 Pietro Paolo Menzochi, 205, 206 Pietro Perugino, 199, 248, 249 Pietro Rosselli, 68, 69 Piloto, 56, 58, 69 Piombo, Fra Sebastiano Viniziano del, 110, 111 Pippo del Fabro, 5 Pisano, Andrea, 30 Pontormo, Jacopo da (Jacopo Carrucci), _Life_, 147-182. 31, 201 Prato, Francesco di Girolamo dal, 72, 73 Quercia, Jacopo della (Jacopo della Fonte), 245 Raffaello da Montelupo, 9-11, 27, 62, 81, 189, 191, 192, 194, 195 Raffaello da Urbino (Raffaello Sanzio), 111, 117, 148, 174, 199, 249 Raffaello dal Colle (Raffaello dal Borgo), 117, 118, 120, 128, 129, 201 Raffaello delle Vivole, 152 Raffaello Sanzio (Raffaello da Urbino), 111, 117, 148, 174, 199, 249 Ranieri da Pietrasanta, 9, 10 Ravenna, Marco da, 63 Ravenna, Rondinino da (Niccolò Rondinello), 204, 205 Riccio (Bartolommeo Neroni), 257 Riccio, Domenico del (Domenico Brusciasorzi), 236, 237 Riccio, Felice del (Felice Brusciasorzi), 237 Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, 28, 31, 155, 156 Romano, Giulio, 117, 236 Rondinino da Ravenna (Niccolò Rondinello), 204, 205 Rosselli, Pietro, 68, 69 Rossi, Francesco de' (Francesco Salviati), 178, 205 Rossi, Giovan Battista de' (Il Rosso), 58, 59, 117, 118, 149, 188 Rossi, Vincenzio de', 94, 98, 101 Rosso, Il (Giovan Battista de' Rossi), 58, 59, 117, 118, 149, 188 Rosto (or Rosso), Maestro Giovanni, 177 Rovezzano, Benedetto da, 4, 63, 64, 187 Roviale, 129 Rustici, Giovan Francesco, 57, 66 Salviati, Francesco (Francesco de' Rossi), 178, 205 San Casciano, Pietro da, 15, 16, 19 San Gallo, Antonio da (the elder), 74 San Gallo, Antonio da (the younger), 9, 78, 119, 186, 189, 190, 193, 217, 218 San Gallo, Bastiano (Aristotile) da, 29 San Gallo, Francesco da (the younger), 9, 10, 189 San Marco, Fra Bartolommeo di, 108, 109, 148 San Marino, Giovan Battista (Giovan Battista Bellucci), _Life_, 210-213. 207 San Michele, Bartolommeo, 217 San Michele, Gian Girolamo, 219, 220, 222, 230-234 San Michele, Giovanni, 217 San Michele, Matteo, 219 San Michele, Michele, _Life_, 217-235. 127, 191, 217-235, 237, 241 San Michele, Paolo, 227, 230, 232 Sandro, Pier Francesco di Jacopo di, 29, 176 Sansovino, Andrea (Andrea Contucci), 5, 9, 61, 62, 187, 189 Sansovino, Jacopo, 4, 5, 58 Santi Buglioni, 29 Sanzio, Raffaello (Raffaello da Urbino), 111, 117, 148, 174, 199, 249 Sarto, Andrea del, 4, 58, 59, 148-150, 152, 156, 157, 171, 188 Sebastiano Viniziano del Piombo, Fra, 110, 111 Settignano, Solosmeo da (Antonio di Giovanni), 5, 79, 80 Signorelli, Luca, 199, 246 Simone Cioli, 9, 10, 189 Simone Mosca, _Life_, 185-195. 9, 10 Sodoma, Giomo del, 257 Sodoma, Il (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi), _Life_, 245-257 Sogliani, Giovanni Antonio, 256 Solosmeo da Settignano (Antonio di Giovanni), 5, 79, 80 Spagnuolo, Alonzo (Alfonso Berughetta), 58 Stagio da Pietrasanta, 7, 195 Stefano Veltroni, 120, 123, 124, 129 Subisso, Pietro di, 187, 188 Tadda, Francesco del, 9, 10, 49 Tasso, Battista del, 13, 30, 31, 34, 35, 137 Tasso, Marco del, 156 Tiberio Cavalieri, 50 Timoteo da Urbino (Timoteo della Vite), 200 Tiziano Vecelli (Tiziano da Cadore), 237 Tommaso Papacello, 128 Tribolo (Niccolò), _Life_, 3-37. 43-45, 81, 112, 176, 189 Ubertini, Francesco (Il Bacchiacca), 29 Udine, Giovanni da, 118 Unghero, Nanni, 4 Urbino, Bramante da, 249 Urbino, Raffaello da (Raffaello Sanzio), 111, 117, 148, 174, 199, 249 Urbino, Timoteo da (Timoteo della Vite), 200 Ursino, Niccolò (Niccolò Giolfino), 240 Vasari, Giorgio-- as art-collector, 11, 99, 253 as author, 3, 11, 12, 14, 16, 21, 24, 25, 28, 31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 41, 79, 95, 96, 99-101, 103, 109, 117-125, 127-132, 137-139, 141, 142, 147, 155, 157-160, 167, 168, 172, 173, 175, 178-180, 186, 190, 202, 209, 210, 217, 225, 226, 230, 231, 234-236, 239, 240, 253, 254, 257 as painter, 13, 31, 95, 118-132, 137-139, 141-143, 188, 189, 206, 229, 230, 235 as architect, 35, 37, 85, 91, 95, 101, 102, 119, 137, 193, 194, 206 Vecelli, Tiziano (Tiziano da Cadore), 237 Veltroni, Stefano, 120, 123, 124, 129 Verona, Battista da (Battista Farinati), 237, 238 Veronese, Paolo (Paolino or Paolo Caliari), 236-240 Verrocchio, Andrea, 56 Vincenzio Danti, 100 Vincenzio de' Rossi, 94, 98, 101 Vinci, Leonardo da, 41-44, 57, 58, 60, 148, 152 Vinci, Pierino (Piero) da, _Life_, 41-51 Viniziano, Agostino, 60, 63 Vite, Timoteo della (Timoteo da Urbino), 200 Viterbo, Pier Francesco da, 119, 202 Vitruvius, 211 Vittoria, Alessandro, 228 Viviano, Michelagnolo di, 55-57, 60, 66, 73, 98, 99 Vivole, Raffaello delle, 152 Zanobi Lastricati, 45 END OF VOL. VII. PRINTED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF CHAS. T. JACOBI OF THE CHISWICK PRESS, LONDON. THE COLOURED REPRODUCTIONS ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY HENRY STONE AND SON, LTD., BANBURY 
47610	----	Distributed Proofreaders Canada team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net) Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS' DISCOURSES: Edited, with an Introduction, by HELEN ZIMMERN. Walter Scott London: 24 Warwick Lane Paternoster Row 1887 CONTENTS. DISCOURSE I. PAGE The advantages proceeding from the institution of a Royal Academy.--Hints offered to the consideration of the Professors and visitors.--That an implicit obedience to the rules of Art be exacted from the young students.--That a premature disposition to a masterly dexterity be repressed.--That diligence be constantly recommended, and (that it may be effectual) directed to its proper object 1 DISCOURSE II. The course and order of study.--The different stages of Art.--Much copying discountenanced.--The Artist at all times and in all places should be employed in laying up materials for the exercise of his Art 10 DISCOURSE III. The great leading principles of the grand style.--Of beauty.--The genuine habits of nature to be distinguished from those of fashion 25 DISCOURSE IV. General ideas the presiding principle which regulates every part of Art; Invention, Expression, Colouring, and Drapery.--Two distinct styles in history-painting; the grand and the ornamental.--The schools in which each is to be found.--The composite style.--The style formed on local customs and habits, or a partial view of nature 39 DISCOURSE V. Circumspection required in endeavouring to unite contrary excellencies.--The expression of a mixed passion not to be attempted.--Examples of those who excelled in the great style.--Raffaelle, Michel Angelo, those two extraordinary men compared with each other.--The characteristical style.--Salvator Rosa mentioned as an example of that style; and opposed to Carlo Maratti.--Sketch of the characters of Poussin and Rubens.--These two Painters entirely dissimilar, but consistent with themselves.--This consistency required in all parts of the Art 58 DISCOURSE VI. Imitation.--Genius begins where rules end.--Invention; acquired by being conversant with the inventions of others.--The true method of imitating.--Borrowing, how far allowable.--Something to be gathered from every school 74 DISCOURSE VII. The reality of a standard of taste as well as of corporal beauty.--Beside this immutable truth, there are secondary truths, which are variable; both requiring the attention of the Artist, in proportion to their stability or their influence 98 DISCOURSE VIII. The principles of Art, whether Poetry or Painting, have their foundation in the mind; such as novelty, variety, and contrast; these in their excess become defects.--Simplicity, its excess disagreeable.--Rules not to be always observed in their literal sense; sufficient to preserve the spirit of the law.--Observations on the Prize Pictures 129 DISCOURSE IX. On the removal of the Royal Academy to Somerset Place.--The advantages to Society from cultivating intellectual pleasure 154 DISCOURSE X. Sculpture: Has but one style.--Its objects, form, and character.--Ineffectual attempts of the modern Sculptors to improve the art.--Ill effects of modern dress in Sculpture 158 DISCOURSE XI. Genius: Consists principally in the comprehension of _A whole_; in taking general ideas only 174 DISCOURSE XII. Particular methods of study of little consequence--Little of the art can be taught.--Love of method often a love of idleness.--_Pittori improvvisatori_ apt to be careless and incorrect; seldom original and striking:--This proceeds from their not studying the works of other masters 190 DISCOURSE XIII. Art not merely imitation, but under the direction of the Imagination.--In what manner Poetry, Painting, Acting, Gardening, and Architecture depart from Nature 211 DISCOURSE XIV. Character of _Gainsborough_: his excellencies and defects 230 DISCOURSE XV. The _President_ takes leave of the Academy.--A Review of the Discourses.--The study of the Works of _Michel Angelo_ recommended 248 THE IDLER, No. 76. False Criticisms on Painting 269 ---- No. 79. The Grand Style of Painting 275 ---- No. 82. The true idea of Beauty 279 INTRODUCTION. Sir Joshua Reynolds--to whom is the name unfamiliar? to whom, hearing it, does not appear in mental vision the equally familiar autograph portrait of the deaf artist? This picture, painted originally for Mr. Thrale, shows us the painter "in his habit as he lived," spectacles on nose, ear-trumpet in hand--in short, exactly as he was known to his intimates in his latter days in domestic life. Another autograph picture of the artist in younger life hangs to-day in the National Gallery. Close by is seen the portrait by the same hand of his equally illustrious friend, bluff, common-sense Dr. Johnson, whom he represents as reading and holding his book close to his eyes after the manner of the short-sighted. It would seem that this mode of representation roused Dr. Johnson's ire. "It is not friendly," he remarked, "to hand down to posterity the imperfections of any person." This comment of the doctor's is equally characteristic of the man and his times. At so low an ebb was art and art criticism in those days, that people less learned than Johnson failed to grasp the truth of Reynolds' dictum, now become almost a commonplace, that a portrait but receives enhanced value as a human and historical document if it makes us acquainted with any natural peculiarity that characterises the person delineated. Johnson rebelled against the notion he deduced from this circumstance that Sir Joshua would make him known to posterity by his defects only; he vowed to Mrs. Thrale he would not be so known. "Let Sir Joshua do his worst, . . . he may paint himself as deaf as he chooses, but I will not be blinking Sam." In this anecdote, in this juxtaposition of two great names, each thoroughly representative of their epoch, can be traced both the cause of Sir Joshua's success, and of the difficulties against which he had to strive. Reynolds may with truth be named the father of modern English art, for before him English art can scarcely be said to have existed, since what was produced on British soil was chiefly the work of foreigners. The records even of this older art are sufficiently barren. It would appear that in the reign of Henry III. some foreign artists were invited over to decorate Winchester Castle, but of them and their works little trace remains. At the time when Italy was producing her masterpieces no native artist of whom we have record bedaubed canvas in Great Britain; and when the pomp-loving Henry VIII. wished to vie with his great contemporaries, Charles V., Leo X., and Francis I., he had to turn to the Continent for the men to execute his desires. That he himself had no true taste or love for the arts is well known; it was purely the spirit of emulation that prompted him. How crude were his own art notions may be gathered from the written instructions he left for a monument to his memory. They serve equally to illustrate the state of public taste in England at a period when Italy was inspired by the genius of Michael Angelo, of Raphael, and of Titian. The memorandum directs that "the king shall appear on horseback, of the stature of a goodly man; while over him shall appear the image of God the Father, holding the king's soul in his left hand, and his right extended in the act of benediction." This work was to have been executed in bronze, and was considerably advanced when Elizabeth put a stop to its progress. It was afterwards sold by the Puritan parliament for six hundred pounds. Still, for all his own artistic incapacity, it is more than probable that had not Henry, for private domestic reasons, adopted the Reformed faith, England under his reign might have witnessed a prosperous art period, which, it is true, would not have been native art, but might have given impetus towards its birth. Thackeray was fond of saying that it was no idle speculation to suppose what would have happened had Napoleon won the battle of Waterloo. To those who love such fruitless mental sports it may prove no idle speculation to ponder what would have happened had Henry's amorous desires not led him to liberate himself and his nation from the bosom of the Catholic Church. Enough that the facts are there, and that with the first ardour of Protestant zeal there also made itself felt a chilling influence, casting a blight over literature and art, and more especially over art, till then so almost exclusively the handmaiden of religion, that a work of art came to be regarded as a symbol and remembrance of popery, and "painting and sculpture were conscientiously discouraged as tending to encourage idolatry and superstition and to minister to passion and luxury." Queen Mary, Elizabeth, and James I., each in their way gave some encouragement to foreign artists, such as Moro, Zucchero, and Mytens, but their patronage was purely personal, and did not operate upon the taste of the nation. More extended influence was exercised by Charles I. This monarch had a real love and understanding for art, and under him Rubens and Vandyke employed their pencils. He also bought many pictures, and encouraged his nobles to do the like. At least, among the upper classes the narrow Puritan art views were greatly counteracted. But Charles had to lay his head upon the block, and Puritanism had fuller and more unchecked sway than ever before, creating influences which to this very day are not wholly extinct, though happily in their death throes. Their latest survival is the "British Matron" who writes to the _Times_ denouncing modern pictures that displease her individual taste, and the artists, happily rare and few, who preach that the study of the nude and anatomy is no essential part of a painter's education. After the death of Charles a general wreck of works of art ensued. Whatever survived the bigotry of the Puritans was sacrificed to supply their pecuniary necessities. A curious mixture of superstition and covetousness was displayed. The journals of the House of Commons of 1645 afford some interesting reading like the following:--"Ordered: that all pictures and sketches as are without superstition shall be forthwith sold for the benefit of Ireland and the north. Ordered: that all such pictures as have the representation of the Virgin Mary upon them shall be forthwith burnt. Ordered: that all such pictures as have the representation of the Second Person of the Trinity upon them shall be forthwith burnt." It seems, however, that these orders were not quite strictly executed. The Puritan conscience having been relieved by this edict, many prohibited pictures were sold at a high price to swell the coffers of the zealots. After this it is needless to remark that art did not flourish under the Commonwealth. With the Restoration we find Lely practising his method of portrait-painting, succeeded by Sir Godfrey Kneller, neither, however, being Englishmen. The era of George I. produced as native painters, Richardson and Sir James Thornhill; under George II. Hudson flourished; it was reserved to the long reign of George III. to see the birth of what can be truly termed art, of what alone can measure itself with the nations of the Continent. Hogarth was the first upon the list, but Hogarth, inimitable as he is, was rather a satirist than an artist in the full acceptation of the term. Of beauty of draughtmanship, of colour, we find next to nothing in his canvasses. Together with him flourished Hudson, and a little later Wilson and Gainsborough, who, like himself, and, indeed, like all English artists up to that time, had imbibed their teaching through the medium of Flanders, producing exact and careful work--indeed, in Gainsborough's case, work of real beauty--but lacking on the side of poetical feeling and elevation. Such a method must be regarded as the infancy of art, its purely observant but unthinking side. It was reserved to Reynolds to open out to English understanding the vista of Italian art, with its glories, its perfections, and it is owing to his Discourses, even more than to his works, that this mighty revolution came about; a revolution so mighty, so important, that for its sake alone, had he never limned a canvas, the name of Reynolds should stand forth proudly in the annals of England. It was he who, coming to Italy, already in mature manhood, as a finished artist in the eyes of his countrymen, had the perception and the courage to admit before the works of Raphael and Michael Angelo that it was needful for him "to become as a little child" and recommence his studies upon principles of which hitherto he was ignorant. Joshua Reynolds was born at Plympton, in Devonshire, July 16th, 1723, the tenth child of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, rector of Plympton and principal of the local grammar school. His father was the boy's only instructor. He had destined him, it would seem, for the medical profession, and Reynolds is known to have said in latter life that if this design had been carried out, "he should have felt the same determination to become the most eminent physician as he then felt to be the first painter of his age and country." It was, indeed, his decided opinion (an opinion modern psychology would hardly endorse) that "the superiority attainable in any pursuit whatever does not originate in an innate propensity of the mind for that pursuit in particular, but depends on the general strength of the intellect, and on the intense and constant application of that strength to a specific purpose." He held that ambition was the cause of eminence, but that accident pointed out the means. It is impossible to decide whether or no Reynolds illustrates his own theory, but from what he said in private, and also in his Discourses, many erroneous conclusions are drawn as to this point. As his biographer, Northcote, justly observes, Reynolds "never meant to deny the existence of genius, supposing the term to denote a greater degree of natural capacity in some minds than others; but he always contended strenuously against the vulgar and absurd interpretation of the word, which supposes that the same person may be a man of genius in one respect, but utterly unfit for, and almost an idiot in everything else; and that this singular and unaccountable faculty is a gift born with us, which does not need the assistance of pains or culture, time or accident, to improve and perfect it." Whatever Reynolds' private views on the subject of native taste asserting itself in the young, he himself undoubtedly showed a liking for art at an early age, and his taste was fostered by his father, himself an amateur possessing a small collection of anatomical and other prints. If Joshua's love of drawing did not interfere with his other studies, his father did not check it. Thus there is extant to this day a perspective drawing of a bookcase under which Mr. Reynolds has written, "Done by Joshua out of pure idleness." It is on the back of a Latin exercise. He copied such prints as he could find in his father's library, Jacob Cats's _Book of Emblems_ furnishing him with the richest store. This his grandmother, who was a native of Holland, had contributed to the family bookshelves. When he was only eight years old he read with eagerness _The Jesuit's Perspective_, and so thoroughly did he master its rules that he never afterwards had to study any other works on the subject. An application of these rules to practice is preserved in a drawing of the grammar school at Plympton. It was so well done that the father exclaimed, "Now this exemplifies what the author of the 'Perspective' asserts, that by observing the rules laid down in this book a man may do wonders, for this is wonderful." Visitors to the Reynolds' Exhibition, which was held in the Grosvenor Gallery in 1884, may remember this little drawing, which was among the exhibits. Portraits of his family and friends next occupied Reynolds' youthful pencil, while his love of art was influenced by reading Richardson's _Treatise of Painting_. This book first awoke in him his enthusiastic adoration of Raffaelle (of whose works he had till then seen nothing), a love he cherished until the end of his days. At seventeen his liking for art showing no diminution, the father decided he should follow a painter's career, and took him to London, where he placed him under Hudson, the most eminent artist England could then boast. By a curious accident he was entered at Hudson's on St. Luke's day, the patron saint of art and artists. Hudson set him at work at copying, a system Sir Joshua afterwards strenuously condemned. His words on this matter, written in the 2nd Discourse, should be "read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested" by all art professors and students--they are golden words of wisdom. Notwithstanding the master's inadequate teaching, the pupil made such progress that he aroused Hudson's jealousy, who, after two years' apprenticeship, found a pretext for dismissing him. Reynolds, with what he had learnt, continued to paint down in Devonshire, taking the portraits of the local magnates. How conventional his style was at first is proved by the following anecdote. It was a favourite attitude with the portrait-painters of the time to represent their model with one hand in waistcoat and the hat under the arm, convenient because it dispensed the artist from the difficult task of painting the hand. Now it happened that one gentleman, whose portrait Reynolds painted, desired to have his hat on his head. The picture, which was quickly finished and posed in a commonplace attitude, was done without much study. When sent home, it was discovered, on inspection, that although this gentleman in his portrait had one hat upon his head, there was another under his arm. For three years Reynolds painted in Devonshire, and certainly improved greatly under his own instructions and those of William Gandy of Exeter, so that some of the works of this period are undoubtedly fine. During these first years of seclusion he taught himself to think as well as to paint; and that the labour of the mind is the most essential requisite in forming a great painter is a doctrine he constantly inculcates in his Discourses, distinguishing it from that of the hand. He aptly applied the dictum of Grotius--"Nothing can come of nothing"--to demonstrate the necessity of teaching. The more Reynolds thought, however, the less was he satisfied with his own performances, and that he did not see himself progress with greater speed no doubt fretted him the more, inasmuch as he had early declared it his fixed opinion that if he did not prove himself the best painter of his time, when arrived at the age of thirty, he never should. For the completion of his studies he unceasingly felt that he must visit Italy, and behold with his own eyes those masterpieces of which he had heard so much. Chance offered him a passage to the Continent in the flagship of Viscount Keppel, and thus, at the age of twenty-six, May 11th, 1749, Reynolds first set sail for the Continent, and for the land of his desires and aspirations. On Sir Joshua's death papers were found on which were written a number of detached thoughts, jotted down as hints for a Discourse, never written, in which the artist intended to give a history of his mind, so far as it concerned his art, his progress, studies, and practice. One of these fragments narrates his feelings on first seeing the treasures of Italian art, and is sufficiently remarkable. "It has frequently happened," he writes, "as I was informed by the keeper of the Vatican, that many of those whom he had conducted through the various apartments of that edifice, when about to be dismissed, have asked for the works of Raffaelle, and would not believe that they had already passed through the rooms where they are preserved; so little impression had these performances made on them. One of the first painters in France told me that this circumstance happened to himself; though he now looks on Raffaelle with that veneration which he deserves from all painters and lovers of art. I remember very well my own disappointment when I first visited the Vatican; but on confessing my feelings to a brother student, of whose ingenuousness I had a high opinion, he acknowledged that the works of Raffaelle had the same effect on him; or rather, that they did not produce the effect which he expected. This was a great relief to my mind; and, on inquiring farther of other students, I found that those persons only who from natural imbecility appeared to be incapable of ever relishing these divine performances, made pretensions to instantaneous raptures on first beholding them. In justice to myself, however, I must add, that though disappointed and mortified at not finding myself enraptured with the works of this great master, I did not for a moment conceive or suppose that the name of Raffaelle and those admirable paintings in particular owed their reputation to the ignorance and prejudice of mankind; on the contrary, my not relishing them, as I was conscious I ought to have done, was one of the most humiliating things that ever happened to me. I found myself in the midst of works _executed upon principles_ _with which I was unacquainted_. I felt my ignorance, and stood abashed. "All the indigested notions of painting which I had brought with me from England, where the art was at the lowest ebb--it could not indeed be lower--were to be totally done away with and eradicated from my mind. It was necessary, as it is expressed on a very solemn occasion, that I should become _as a little child_. Notwithstanding my disappointment, I proceeded to copy some of those excellent works. I viewed them again and again; I even affected to feel their merits and to admire them more than I really did. In a short time a new taste and new perceptions began to dawn upon me, and I was convinced that I had originally formed a _false opinion of the perfection of art_, and that this great painter was well entitled to the high rank which he holds in the estimation of the world. "The truth is, that if these works had been really what I expected, they would have contained beauties superficial and alluring, but by no means such as would have entitled them to the great reputation which they have long and so justly obtained." It must, of course, be borne in mind, reading these words, that Sir Joshua Reynolds had not the advantages put into the way to-day, not only of art students, but of every person more or less interested in art, in the way of copies, photographs, autotypes, from the works and drawings of the great masters. He had to learn to understand, and he at once put himself into the attitude of the learner, humbly assured that the fault in appreciation must be in himself, not in those masterpieces. His good sense told him that "the duration and stability of their fame is sufficient to evince that it has not been suspended upon the slender thread of fashion and caprice, but bound to the human heart by every tie of sympathetic approbation." "Having since that period," continues Sir Joshua, "frequently revolved the subject in my mind, I am now clearly of opinion that a relish for the higher excellences of the art is an acquired taste, which no man ever possessed without long cultivation and great labour and attention. On such occasions as that which I have mentioned, we are often ashamed of our apparent dulness, as if it were expected that our minds, like tinder, should instantly catch fire from the divine spark of Raffaelle's genius. I flatter myself that _now_ it would be so, and that I have a just perception of his great powers; but let it be remembered that the excellence of his style is not on the surface, but lies deep, and at the first view is seen but mistily. It is the florid style which strikes at once, and captivates the eye, for a time, without ever satisfying the judgment. Nor does painting in this respect differ from other arts. A just poetical taste, and the acquisition of a nice discriminative musical ear, are equally the work of time. Even the eye, however perfect in itself, is often unable to distinguish between the brilliancy of two diamonds, though the experienced jeweller will be amazed at its blindness; not considering that there was a time when he himself could not have been able to pronounce which of the two was the most perfect, and that his own power of discrimination was acquired by slow and imperceptible degrees." From the first Reynolds avoided making copies, and had refused lucrative orders. He sketched portions of pictures, such as he thought would help his own comprehension, but he would do no slavish imitation. "The man of true genius," writes Sir Joshua, "instead of spending all his hours, as many artists do while they are at Rome, in measuring statues and copying pictures, soon begins to think for himself, and endeavour to do something like what he sees. I consider general copying," he adds, "as a delusive kind of industry: the student satisfies himself with the appearance of doing something; he falls into the dangerous habit of imitating without selecting, and labouring without a determinate object; as it requires no effort of mind, he sleeps over his work, and those powers of invention and disposition which ought particularly to be called out and put into action lie torpid, and lose their energy for want of exercise. How incapable of producing anything of their own those are who have spent most of their time in making finished copies, is an observation well known to all those who are conversant with our art." His own precise method of study is not known, but it may be assumed that he was chiefly occupied in reasoning on what he observed. Elsewhere he writes--"A painter should form his rules from pictures rather than from books or precepts; rules were first made from pictures, not pictures from rules. Every picture an artist sees, whether the most excellent or the most ordinary, he should consider whence that fine effect or that ill effect proceeds, and then there is no picture ever so indifferent but he may look at it to his profit." "The artist," he observes, "who has his mind filled with ideas, and his hand made expert by practice, works with ease and readiness; whilst he who would have you believe that he is waiting for the inspirations of genius, is in reality at a loss how to begin, and is at last delivered of his monsters with difficulty and pain. The well-grounded painter, on the contrary, has only maturely to consider his subject, and all the mechanical parts of his art will follow, without his exertion." The mode of study which Sir Joshua adopted himself he continually recommends to the students: "Instead of copying the touches of those great masters, copy only their conceptions; instead of treading in their footsteps, endeavour only to keep the same road; labour to invent on their general principles and way of thinking; possess yourself with their spirit; consider with yourself how a Michael Angelo or a Raffaelle would have treated this subject, and work yourself into a belief that your picture is to be seen and criticised by them when completed; even an attempt of this kind will raise your powers. "We all must have experienced how lazily, and consequently how ineffectually, instruction is received when forced upon the mind by others. Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers. We prefer those instructions which we have given ourselves from our affection to the instructor; and they are more effectual from being received into the mind at the very time when it is most open to receive them." Having stayed in Rome as long as his resources allowed, Sir Joshua visited Florence, Venice, and some of the smaller Italian towns, everywhere adopting the same careful, observant method of study. After an absence of nearly three years he returned to England, feeling himself indeed a mentally richer, wiser man than he set out. It was after his return from Italy that Reynolds took up his permanent abode in London, then, as now, the only true centre for art or literature. At first he met much opposition; Hudson especially was fiercely critical over Reynolds' new style, saying to him, "You don't paint so well now as you did before you went to Italy." Another eminent portrait-painter of the time, now long since consigned to oblivion, shook his head sadly on seeing one of Sir Joshua's finest portrait works, saying, "Oh, Reynolds, this will never answer: why, you don't paint in the least in the manner of Kneller." And when the artist tried to expose his reasons, his rival, not able to answer him, left the room in a fury, shouting, "Damme! Shakespeare in poetry, and Kneller in painting; damme!" Nevertheless, Reynolds soon became a favourite with the public, and his painting-room a fashionable resort. To this end his courtly manner and agreeable conversation may greatly have aided. By the year 1760 he had become the most sought for portraitist of his day, and was making as much as £6000 a-year, in those days a very large sum for an artist to earn, especially as the price he charged for his portraits was very low as compared with modern artistic demands. It was in 1759 that Reynolds first put down some of his artistic ideas in writing. He contributed three papers to the _Idler_, then edited by Dr. Johnson, with whom he had, on coming to London, formed that friendship which lasted all their lives. They are the Numbers 76, 79, and 82, and are reprinted in this volume. "These papers," observes Northcote, "may be considered as a kind of syllabus of all his future discourses; and they certainly occasioned him some thinking in their composition. I have heard Sir Joshua say that Johnson required them from him on a sudden emergency, and on that account he sat up the whole night to complete them in time; and by it he was so much disordered that it produced a vertigo in his head." The following year, 1760, the one in which Reynolds removed to his larger residence in Leicester Square, is memorable in the annals of English art. It witnessed the first public exhibition of modern paintings and sculptures, and proved so satisfactory that it was repeated, and finally laid the foundation for what became the Royal Academy. The catalogue to one of these first exhibitions was penned by Dr. Johnson, and is written in his usual pompous style. The worthy doctor had little appreciation for the fine arts, and in a private letter to Baretti, speaking of this innovation, he says: "This exhibition has filled the heads of artists and lovers of art. Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious; since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time--of that time which never can return." In 1768 the Royal Academy was founded by royal charter, and was opened January 1, 1769. Reynolds had been elected its President, and in accordance with the custom that prevails to this day, received, together with this dignity, the compliment of knighthood. On this occasion he delivered the first of his Discourses, in which, mingled with general instructions concerning the purpose and method of art, we find the needful servile adulation of the reigning sovereign. The second, far more able and to the point, was delivered at the end of the same year on the occasion of the distribution of prizes to the students. It contains his admirable views with regard to copying. From henceforth, on the same occasion, every two years, when the gold medals are given, up to December 1790, Sir Joshua delivered such an address to the students, making in all fifteen Discourses that are read with pleasure to this day. At the last the hall was so crowded that a beam supporting the floor actually gave way with the weight. That outsiders should have been so eager to come is astonishing on this account, that Reynolds, like most Englishmen, had no powers of elocution. His manner in delivering his speeches was shy and awkward, and he often spoke so low that those at some distance could not hear him. His deafness in a measure may have accounted for this, for, like all deaf people, he could not modulate his voice; but yet more, his truly British horror lest he should seem to be posing as an orator. It was no part of Sir Joshua's prescribed duty as President to deliver an address on the presentation of medals; but, "if prizes were to be given," he himself remarked in the last Discourse, "it appeared not only proper, but indispensably necessary, that something should be said by the President on the delivery of those prizes; and the President, for his own credit, would wish to say something more than mere words of compliment; which, by being frequently repeated, would soon become flat and uninteresting, and, by being uttered to many, would at last become a distinction to none. I thought, therefore, if I were to preface this compliment with some instructive observations on the art, when we crowned merit in the artists whom we rewarded, I might do something to animate and guide them in their future attempts." It was, perhaps, the fact that Reynolds intended this Discourse to be his last, his farewell to the Academy he had served so long and well, that attracted such a crowd. In it he takes a review of all his past Discourses, and ends with commending to the students the works of his idol, Michael Angelo. It was a source of joy to him that the last word he spoke in that hall was the name of this adored master. "I felt a self-congratulation in knowing myself capable of such sensations as he intended to excite. I reflect, not without vanity, that these Discourses bear testimony of my admiration of that truly divine man; and I should desire that the last words which I should pronounce in this Academy, and from this place, might be the name of _Michael Angelo_!" Before the next occasion for a Discourse occurred Reynolds was quietly sleeping his eternal sleep in St. Paul's Cathedral, having died February 23, 1792, after two years' suffering, borne with cheerful fortitude. There are those who think that English art has rather retrograded than progressed since the days of Reynolds. To those who speak thus it is only needful to tell that Pliny already spoke of painting as a "dying art." After this we need reason with such blind admirers of antiquity _quâ_ antiquity no farther. That Reynolds was a great artist is universally admitted beyond dispute; but to speak of him as the greatest, as unapproachable henceforward, is as absurd as to claim, as did his contemporaries, that anything so able as his art discourses had never been penned. These were above all impressed by the undoubted influence Johnson had upon Reynolds' style, giving it that pedantic ring, that monotony of cadence, that want of colour, which is precisely what we moderns least admire. We should hardly assent to the contemporary lines lauding Dr. Johnson and saying-- "To fame's proud cliff behold our Raphael rise, Hence Reynolds' pen with Reynolds' pencil vies." But then, in any case, such fulsome flattery is not in accordance with the spirit of our century. We might, too, now-a-days think it dubious praise that Johnson, after reading one of his friend's essays and praising it in general, should pick out one passage in particular with the remark--"I think I might as well have said this myself." More valuable we should consider the praise of Burke, who, writing to Mr. Malone, says, "I have read over some part of the discourses with an unusual sort of pleasure. . . . He is always the same man, the same philosophical, the same artist-like critic, the same sagacious observer, with the same minuteness, without the smallest degree of trifling." This is true; Sir Joshua's polished mind and calm philosophical observation makes itself felt in every line of his writings. There was a time when envious calumny disputed the authorship of these Discourses, attributing them now to Burke, now to Johnson. The imputation is too futile to need refutation. There are those who deny to any man the merit of having written his own works, commencing with Homer and Shakespeare. This is a strange craze of the critical mind. Seeing the work is the result of a human hand, why not, for example, allow that Shakespeare wrote what he claims as his own, in lieu of attributing the authorship to Lord Bacon? Again, why should there not have been a Homer as there was a Dante, in lieu of an aggregation of men? A very petty and despicable envy, or the frantic desire of saying something new and strange to attract attention to ourselves, may be pronounced the motor force of such theories. Reynolds' Discourses may be described as the first attempt in the English language at what may be called a philosophy of art. To this day there are in English few works of this character. A science corresponding to the German _Aesthetik_ does not exist in English, for what modern cant has dubbed æstheticism, the child's play of "passionate Brompton" and languishing South Kensington, must on no account be confounded with a real serious study that in German universities fills a special chair. The cause for this lack is no doubt to be sought in the vastly diverse genius of the two nations. The German is nothing if not abstract; the Englishman nothing if not positive; and on this account the English take art, as well as all else, from the practical side. To mention but a few German works of this character. Hegel has written a philosophy of the fine arts scarcely less valuable to art-students and painters, and perchance even as unknown to the latter--for artists are rarely readers--as the works of the same class written by Winckelmann and Lessing. Reynolds addressed an audience not merely of readers and theoreticians, but of actual workers, practical students; and he strove, therefore, to combine theory with positive facts, hoping thus to bridge over the gulf which made, and still unhappily makes, English art-students learn their profession too much by mere rule of thumb. That Reynolds' work is neither final nor all-embracing goes without saying. The mere fact that these lectures were delivered but rarely, forming no designed sequence, would have hindered such an end, even had Reynolds' knowledge been sufficient to accomplish it. Under the circumstances, it is sufficiently remarkable that they really form so complete a whole as they undoubtedly do. The one leading idea that informs them is the necessity for the student to study the works of the great masters, above all of the Roman and Tuscan schools; and on this doctrine, then so new, Reynolds could not insist enough. In his last Discourse, with great modesty he sums up so ably what he has achieved, that it is best to let him speak for himself. After saying how unequal he had been to the expression of his ideas, he continues:-- "To this work, however, I could not be said to come totally unprovided with materials; I had seen much, and I had thought much upon what I had seen; I had something of a habit of investigation, and a disposition to reduce all that I had observed and felt in my own mind to method and system; but I thought it indispensably necessary well to consider the opinions which were to be given out from this place, and under the sanction of a Royal Academy; I therefore examined not only my own opinions but likewise the opinions of others. "In revising my discourses, it is no small satisfaction to be assured that I have in no part of them lent my assistance to foster _newly-hatched unfledged opinions_, or endeavoured to support paradoxes, however tempting may have been their novelty, or however ingenious I might, for the minute, fancy them to be; nor shall I, I hope, anywhere be found to have imposed on the minds of young students declamation for argument, a smooth period for a sound precept. I have pursued a plain and _honest method_; I have taken up the art simply as I found it exemplified in the practice of the most approved painters. That approbation which the world has uniformly given, I have endeavoured to justify by such proofs as questions of this kind will admit; by the analogy which painting holds with the sister arts, and consequently by the common congeniality which they all bear to our nature. And though in what has been done no new discovery is pretended, I may still flatter myself that from the discoveries which others have made from their own intuitive good sense and native rectitude of judgment (in allusion to the works of the old masters) I have succeeded in establishing the rules and principles of our art on a more firm and lasting foundation than that on which they formerly had been placed." It is worthy of note, as yet another proof of Sir Joshua's justice of judgment and objectivity, that, speaking of portrait-painting (_Discourse III._), he puts it low in rank among the various departments of painting. He strove with all his power to elevate English art methods, to lead artists to practice what he named the "grand style," and it was on this account that he ever and always held up to imitation the gods of his idolatry, Michael Angelo and Raffaelle. What he writes concerning _pittori improvisatori_ may well be laid to heart to-day when Impressionism threatens to swamp genuine study and careful draughtsmanship. Indeed, looked at from all sides, Sir Joshua's _Discourses_ worthily take rank among the English classics, and it has been truly said that "with Reynolds' literature was the playmate of art, and art became the handmaiden of literature." That detractors have not been lacking is a matter of course, but Reynolds, like others, can console himself with Goethe's lines-- "Die schlechsten Früchte sindd es nichtt Woran die Wespen nagen." Some of these objections merit reproduction. Who can read, for instance, without a smile, the words of Blake, that sweet, childlike mind, which was at once so penetrative and so uncritical? The smile will of course be one of gentle sympathy, such as one ever accords to that wayward genius. He writes in his notes-- "Whether Reynolds knew what he was doing is nothing to me. The mischief is the same whether a man does it ignorantly or knowingly. I always considered true art and true artists particularly insulted and degraded by the reputation of these discourses; as much as they were degraded by the reputation of Reynolds' paintings, and that such artists as Reynolds are, at all times, hired by Satan for the depression of art; a pretence of art to destroy art." Once Blake finds a passage after his own heart: "A firm and determined outline is one of the characteristics of the great style of painting!" Against which is written, "Here is a noble sentence! a sentence which overthrows all his book." With no more than justice he remarks on the very weakest feature in Sir Joshua's system: "Reynolds' opinion was, that genius may be taught, and all pretence to inspiration is a lie or deceit, to say the least of it. If it is deceit, the whole Bible is madness." Of the _Third Discourse_ he energetically avers: "The following discourse is particularly interesting to blockheads, as it endeavours to prove that there is no such thing as inspiration, and that any man of plain understanding may, by thieving from others, become a Michael Angelo." Again-- "No real style of colouring now appears, Save through advertisements in the newspapers; Look there--you'll see Sir Joshua's colouring; Look at his pictures--all has taken wing." Again, when Reynolds tells his hearers that "enthusiastic admiration seldom promotes knowledge,"--"And such is the coldness with which Reynolds speaks! And such is his enmity! Enthusiastic admiration is the first principle of knowledge and its last. How he begins to degrade, to deny, and to mock! The man, who, on examining his own mind, finds nothing of inspiration, ought not to dare to be an artist. He is a fool and an amusing knave suited to the purposes of evil demons. The man who never in his mind and thought travelled to Heaven is no artist. It is evident that Reynolds wished none but fools to be in the arts, and in order to compass this, he calls all others rogues, enthusiasts, or madmen. What has reasoning to do with the art of painting?" It is evident that Blake has not always fully followed Reynolds' meaning. Indeed, Sir Joshua is at times a little obscure, a circumstance his detractors did not overlook, nicknaming him Sir Obadiah Twylight, and classifying his style as "sub-fusk." Concerning this _Third Discourse_, which deals with the grand style and the right imitation of nature, an anecdote is preserved. West was at the time painting his picture of the "Death of Wolfe." When it was understood that he meant to paint the characters as they actually appeared on the scene, the Archbishop of York called on Reynolds and asked his opinion concerning this. Both visited West and endeavoured to dissuade him. West, firm in his rejection of the classic dress, replied, "I want to mark the place, the time, and the people, and to do this I must abide by truth." When the picture was finished he called Sir Joshua to see it. Reynolds seated himself before the canvas and examined it with interest for half-an-hour, and then, rising, said, "West has conquered; he has treated the subject as it ought to be treated." So just was Reynolds' mind that he could admit the truth even when it opposed his own theories. Ruskin has also contributed his quota to the Reynolds controversy. Writing in his favourite antithetic style, he says:-- "Nearly every word that Reynolds wrote was contrary to his own practice; he seems to have been born to teach all error by his precept, and all excellence by his example; he enforced with his lips generalisation and idealism, while with his pencil he was tracing the patterns of the dresses of the belles of the day; he exhorted his pupils to attend only to the invariable, while he himself was occupied in distinguishing every variation of womanly temper; and he denied the existence of the beautiful at the same instant that he arrested it as it passed, and perpetuated it for ever." Thus to Sir Joshua's lot, as to all who put themselves before the world, has fallen a portion of praise and blame; but the best praise that can be accorded a man's work is that it should survive him, and continue to arouse interest long after his death. This most certainly is the case with regard to Reynolds' _Discourses_, and therefore to them may apply what he has himself said as to the duration of masterpieces. Not faultless, not all-embracing, but full of historical and individual interest, of keen and careful observation, of judicious thought, they merit the attention of the modern reading public--a public far more largely interested in art than ever existed in the day when their writer lived and painted and lectured. HELEN ZIMMERN. TO THE KING. The regular progress of cultivated life is from necessaries to accommodations, from accommodations to ornaments. By your illustrious predecessors were established Marts for manufactures, and Colleges for science; but for the arts of elegance, those arts by which manufactures are embellished, and science is refined, to found an Academy was reserved for Your Majesty. Had such patronage been without effect, there has been reason to believe that Nature had, by some insurmountable impediment, obstructed our proficiency; but the annual improvement of the Exhibitions which Your Majesty has been pleased to encourage, shows that only encouragement had been wanting. To give advice to those who are contending for royal liberality has been for some years the duty of my station in the Academy; and these Discourses hope for Your Majesty's acceptance, as well-intended endeavours to incite that emulation which your notice has kindled, and direct those studies which your bounty has rewarded. May it please Your MAJESTY, Your MAJESTY'S Most dutiful Servant And most faithful Subject, [1778.] JOSHUA REYNOLDS. TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. GENTLEMEN, That you have ordered the publication of this discourse is not only very flattering to me, as it implies your approbation of the method of study which I have recommended; but likewise, as this method receives from that act such an additional weight and authority, as demands from the Students that deference and respect which can be due only to the united sense of so considerable a BODY OF ARTISTS. I am, With the greatest esteem and respect, GENTLEMEN, Your most humble, And obedient Servant, JOSHUA REYNOLDS. DISCOURSES. SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS' DISCOURSES. DISCOURSE I. _Delivered at the Opening of the Royal Academy, January 2, 1769._ THE ADVANTAGES PROCEEDING FROM THE INSTITUTION OF A ROYAL ACADEMY.--HINTS OFFERED TO THE CONSIDERATION OF THE PROFESSORS AND VISITORS.--THAT AN IMPLICIT OBEDIENCE TO THE RULES OF ART BE EXACTED FROM THE YOUNG STUDENTS.--THAT A PREMATURE DISPOSITION TO A MASTERLY DEXTERITY BE REPRESSED.--THAT DILIGENCE BE CONSTANTLY RECOMMENDED, AND (THAT IT MAY BE EFFECTUAL) DIRECTED TO ITS PROPER OBJECT. An Academy, in which the Polite Arts may be regularly cultivated, is at last opened among us by Royal munificence. This must appear an event in the highest degree interesting, not only to the Artist, but to the whole nation. It is, indeed, difficult to give any other reason why an empire like that of Britain should so long have wanted an ornament so suitable to its greatness, than that slow progression of things, which naturally makes elegance and refinement the last effect of opulence and power. An Institution like this has often been recommended upon considerations merely mercantile; but an Academy, founded upon such principles, can never effect even its own narrow purposes. If it has an origin no higher, no taste can ever be formed in manufactures; but if the higher Arts of Design flourish, these inferior ends will be answered of course. We are happy in having a Prince who has conceived the design of such an Institution, according to its true dignity; and who promotes the Arts, as the head of a great, a learned, a polite, and a commercial nation; and I can now congratulate you, Gentlemen, on the accomplishment of your long and ardent wishes. The numberless and ineffectual consultations which I have had with many in this assembly to form plans and concert schemes for an Academy, afford a sufficient proof of the impossibility of succeeding but by the influence of Majesty. But there have, perhaps, been times when even the influence of Majesty would have been ineffectual; and it is pleasing to reflect, that we are thus embodied, when every circumstance seems to concur from which honour and prosperity can probably arise. There are, at this time, a greater number of excellent artists than were ever known before at one period in this nation; there is a general desire among our Nobility to be distinguished as lovers and judges of the Arts; there is a greater superfluity of wealth among the people to reward the professors; and, above all, we are patronised by a Monarch, who, knowing the value of science and of elegance, thinks every art worthy of his notice, that tends to soften and humanise the mind. After so much has been done by His Majesty, it will be wholly our fault if our progress is not in some degree correspondent to the wisdom and generosity of the Institution: let us show our gratitude in our diligence, that, though our merit may not answer his expectations, yet, at least, our industry may deserve his protection. But whatever may be our proportion of success, of this we may be sure, that the present Institution will at least contribute to advance our knowledge of the Arts, and bring us nearer to that ideal excellence, which it is the lot of genius always to contemplate, and never to attain. The principal advantage of an Academy is, that, besides furnishing able men to direct the Student, it will be a repository for the great examples of the Art. These are the materials on which Genius is to work, and without which the strongest intellect may be fruitlessly or deviously employed. By studying these authentic models, that idea of excellence which is the result of the accumulated experience of past ages may be at once acquired; and the tardy and obstructed progress of our predecessors may teach us a shorter and easier way. The Student receives, at one glance, the principles which many Artists have spent their whole lives in ascertaining; and, satisfied with their effect, is spared the painful investigation by which they came to be known and fixed. How many men of great natural abilities have been lost to this nation for want of these advantages! They never had an opportunity of seeing those masterly efforts of genius, which at once kindle the whole soul, and force it into sudden and irresistible approbation. Raffaelle, it is true, had not the advantage of studying in an Academy; but all Rome, and the works of Michel Angelo in particular, were to him an Academy. On the sight of the Capella Sistina, he immediately, from a dry, Gothic, and even insipid manner, which attends to the minute accidental discriminations of particular and individual objects, assumed that grand style of painting, which improves partial representation by the general and invariable ideas of nature. Every seminary of learning may be said to be surrounded with an atmosphere of floating knowledge, where every mind may imbibe somewhat congenial to its own original conceptions. Knowledge, thus obtained, has always something more popular and useful than that which is forced upon the mind by private precepts or solitary meditation. Besides, it is generally found, that a youth more easily receives instruction from the companions of his studies, whose minds are nearly on a level with his own, than from those who are much his superiors; and it is from his equals only that he catches the fire of emulation. One advantage, I will venture to affirm, we shall have in our Academy, which no other nation can boast. We shall have nothing to unlearn. To this praise the present race of Artists have a just claim. As far as they have yet proceeded, they are right. With us the exertions of genius will henceforward be directed to their proper objects. It will not be as it has been in other schools, where he that travelled fastest only wandered farthest from the right way. Impressed, as I am, therefore, with such a favourable opinion of my associates, in this undertaking, it would ill become me to dictate to any of them. But as these Institutions have so often failed in other nations; and as it is natural to think with regret how much might have been done, I must take leave to offer a few hints, by which those errors may be rectified, and those defects supplied. These the Professors and Visitors may reject or adopt as they shall think proper. I would chiefly recommend that an implicit obedience to the _Rules of Art_, as established by the practice of the great MASTERS, should be exacted from the _young_ Students. That those models, which have passed through the approbation of ages, should be considered by them as perfect and infallible guides; as subjects for their imitation, not their criticism. I am confident that this is the only efficacious method of making a progress in the Arts; and that he who sets out with doubting, will find life finished before he becomes master of the rudiments. For it may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on his own sense, has ended his studies as soon as he has commenced them. Every opportunity, therefore, should be taken to discountenance that false and vulgar opinion, that rules are the fetters of genius: they are fetters only to men of no genius; as that armour, which upon the strong is an ornament and a defence, upon the weak and misshapen becomes a load, and cripples the body which it was made to protect. How much liberty may be taken to break through those rules, and, as the poet expresses it, "To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art," may be a subsequent consideration, when the pupils become masters themselves. It is then, when their genius has received its utmost improvement, that rules may possibly be dispensed with. But let us not destroy the scaffold until we have raised the building. The Directors ought more particularly to watch over the genius of those Students, who, being more advanced, are arrived at that critical period of study, on the nice management of which their future turn of taste depends. At that age it is natural for them to be more captivated with what is brilliant than with what is solid, and to prefer splendid negligence to painful and humiliating exactness. A facility in composing, a lively, and what is called a masterly, handling of the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed, captivating qualities to young minds, and become, of course, the objects of their ambition. They endeavour to imitate these dazzling excellencies, which they will find no great labour in attaining. After much time spent in these frivolous pursuits, the difficulty will be to retreat; but it will be then too late; and there is scarce an instance of return to scrupulous labour, after the mind has been debauched and deceived by this fallacious mastery. By this useless industry they are excluded from all power of advancing in real excellence. Whilst boys, they are arrived at their utmost perfection: they have taken the shadow for the substance; and make the mechanical felicity the chief excellence of the art, which is only an ornament, and of the merit of which few but painters themselves are judges. This seems to me to be one of the most dangerous sources of corruption; and I speak of it from experience, not as an error which may possibly happen, but which has actually infected all foreign Academies. The directors were probably pleased with this premature dexterity in their pupils, and praised their despatch at the expense of their correctness. But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought masters of execution inciting them on one hand, but also their natural sloth tempting them on the other. They are terrified at the prospect before them of the toil required to attain exactness. The impetuosity of youth is disgusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They wish to find some shorter path to excellence, and hope to obtain the reward of eminence by other means than those which the indispensable rules of art have prescribed. They must, therefore, be told again and again, that labour is the only price of solid fame, and that whatever their force of genius may be, there is no easy method of becoming a good Painter. When we read the lives of the most eminent Painters, every page informs us that no part of their time was spent in dissipation. Even an increase of fame served only to augment their industry. To be convinced with what persevering assiduity they pursued their studies, we need only reflect on their method of proceeding in their most celebrated works. When they conceived a subject, they first made a variety of sketches; then a finished drawing of the whole; after that a more correct drawing of every separate part--heads, hands, feet, and pieces of drapery; they then painted the picture, and after all, retouched it from the life. The pictures, thus wrought with such pains, now appear like the effect of enchantment, and as if some mighty genius had struck them off at a blow. But, whilst diligence is thus recommended to the Students, the Visitors will take care that their diligence be effectual; that it be well directed, and employed on the proper object. A Student is not always advancing because he is employed; he must apply his strength to that part of the art where the real difficulties lie; to that part which distinguishes it as a liberal art; and not by mistaken industry lose his time in that which is merely ornamental. The Students, instead of vying with each other which shall have the readiest hand, should be taught to contend who shall have the purest and most correct outline; instead of striving which shall produce the brightest tint, or curiously trifling, shall give the gloss of stuffs, so as to appear real, let their ambition be directed to contend which shall dispose his drapery in the most graceful folds, which shall give the most grace and dignity to the human figure. I must beg leave to submit one thing more to the consideration of the Visitors, which appears to me a matter of very great consequence, and the omission of which I think a principal defect in the method of education pursued in all the Academies I have ever visited. The error I mean is, that the Students never draw exactly from the living models which they have before them. It is not, indeed, their intention, nor are they directed to do it. Their drawings resemble the model only in the attitude. They change the form according to their vague and uncertain ideas of beauty, and make a drawing rather of what they think the figure ought to be, than of what it appears. I have thought this the obstacle that has stopped the progress of many young men of real genius; and I very much doubt whether a habit of drawing correctly what we see will not give a proportionable power of drawing correctly what we imagine. He who endeavours to copy nicely the figure before him, not only acquires a habit of exactness and precision, but is continually advancing in his knowledge of the human figure; and though he seems to superficial observers to make a slower progress, he will be found at last capable of adding (without running into capricious wildness) that grace and beauty which is necessary to be given to his more finished works, and which cannot be got by the moderns, as it was not acquired by the ancients, but by an attentive and well-compared study of the human form. What I think ought to enforce this method is, that it has been the practice (as may be seen by their drawings) of the great Masters in the Art. I will mention a drawing of Raffaelle, _The Dispute of the Sacrament_, the print of which, by Count Cailus, is in every hand. It appears that he made his sketch from one model; and the habit he had of drawing exactly from the form before him appears by his making all the figures with the same cap, such as his model then happened to wear; so servile a copyist was this great man, even at a time when he was allowed to be at his highest pitch of excellence. I have seen also Academy figures by Annibale Caracci, though he was often sufficiently licentious in his finished works, drawn with all the peculiarities of an individual model. This scrupulous exactness is so contrary to the practice of the Academies, that it is not without great deference that I beg leave to recommend it to the consideration of the Visitors; and submit to them, whether the neglect of this method is not one of the reasons why Students so often disappoint expectation, and, being more than boys at sixteen, become less than men at thirty. In short, the method I recommend can only be detrimental where there are but few living forms to copy; for then Students, by always drawing from one alone, will by habit be taught to overlook defects, and mistake deformity for beauty. But of this there is no danger, since the Council has determined to supply the Academy with a variety of subjects; and indeed those laws which they have drawn up, and which the Secretary will presently read for your confirmation, have in some measure precluded me from saying more upon this occasion. Instead, therefore, of offering my advice, permit me to indulge my wishes, and express my hope, that this Institution may answer the expectation of its ROYAL FOUNDER; that the present age may vie in Arts with that of LEO the Tenth; and that _the dignity of the dying Art_ (to make use of an expression of Pliny) may be revived under the Reign of GEORGE THE THIRD. DISCOURSE II. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 11, 1769._ THE COURSE AND ORDER OF STUDY.--THE DIFFERENT STAGES OF ART.--MUCH COPYING DISCOUNTENANCED.--THE ARTIST AT ALL TIMES AND IN ALL PLACES SHOULD BE EMPLOYED IN LAYING UP MATERIALS FOR THE EXERCISE OF HIS ART. I congratulate you on the honour which you have just received, I have the highest opinion of your merits, and could wish to show my sense of them in something which possibly may be more useful to you than barren praise. I could wish to lead you into such a course of study as may render your future progress answerable to your past improvement; and, whilst I applaud you for what has been done, remind you how much yet remains to attain perfection. I flatter myself that from the long experience I have had, and the unceasing assiduity with which I have pursued those studies, in which, like you, I have been engaged, I shall be acquitted of vanity in offering some hints to your consideration. They are, indeed, in a great degree, founded upon my own mistakes in the same pursuit. But the history of errors, properly managed, often shortens the road to truth. And although no method of study that I can offer will of itself conduct to excellence, yet it may preserve industry from being misapplied. In speaking to you of the Theory of the Art, I shall only consider it as it has a relation to the _method_ of your studies. Dividing the study of painting into three distinct periods, I shall address you as having passed through the first of them, which is confined to the rudiments; including a facility of drawing any object that presents itself, a tolerable readiness in the management of colours, and an acquaintance with the most simple and obvious rules of composition. This first degree of proficiency is, in painting, what grammar is in literature, a general preparation for whatever species of the art the student may afterwards choose for his more particular application. The power of drawing, modelling, and using colours is very properly called the Language of the Art; and in this language, the honours you have just received prove you to have made no inconsiderable progress. When the Artist is once enabled to express himself with some degree of correctness, he must then endeavour to collect subjects for expression; to amass a stock of ideas, to be combined and varied as occasion may require. He is now in the second period of study, in which his business is to learn all that has been known and done before his own time. Having hitherto received instructions from a particular master, he is now to consider the Art itself as his master. He must extend his capacity to more sublime and general instructions. Those perfections which lie scattered among various masters are now united in one general idea, which is henceforth to regulate his taste, and enlarge his imagination. With a variety of models thus before him, he will avoid that narrowness and poverty of conception which attends a bigoted admiration of a single master, and will cease to follow any favourite where he ceases to excel. This period is, however, still a time of subjection and discipline. Though the Student will not resign himself blindly to any single authority, when he may have the advantage of consulting many, he must still be afraid of trusting his own judgment, and of deviating into any track where he cannot find the footsteps of some former master. The third and last period emancipates the Student from subjection to any authority, but what he shall himself judge to be supported by reason. Confiding now in his own judgment, he will consider and separate those different principles to which different modes of beauty owe their original. In the former period he sought only to know and combine excellence, wherever it was to be found, into one idea of perfection: in this he learns, what requires the most attentive survey, and the most subtle disquisition, to discriminate perfections that are incompatible with each other. He is from this time to regard himself as holding the same rank with those masters whom he before obeyed as teachers; and as exercising a sort of sovereignty over those rules which have hitherto restrained him. Comparing now no longer the performances of Art with each other, but examining the Art itself by the standard of nature, he corrects what is erroneous, supplies what is scanty, and adds by his own observation what the industry of his predecessors may have yet left wanting to perfection. Having well established his judgment, and stored his memory, he may now without fear try the power of his imagination. The mind that has been thus disciplined may be indulged in the warmest enthusiasm, and venture to play on the borders of the wildest extravagance. The habitual dignity which long converse with the greatest minds has imparted to him will display itself in all his attempts; and he will stand among his instructors, not as an imitator, but a rival. These are the different stages of the Art. But as I now address myself particularly to those Students who have been this day rewarded for their happy passage through the first period, I can with no propriety suppose they want any help in the initiatory studies. My present design is to direct your view to distant excellence, and to show you the readiest path that leads to it. Of this I shall speak with such latitude, as may leave the province of the professor uninvaded; and shall not anticipate those precepts, which it is his business to give, and your duty to understand. It is indisputably evident that a great part of every man's life must be employed in collecting materials for the exercise of genius. Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory: nothing can come of nothing: he who has laid up no materials can produce no combinations. A Student unacquainted with the attempts of former adventurers is always apt to overrate his own abilities; to mistake the most trifling excursions for discoveries of moment, and every coast new to him for a new-found country. If by chance he passes beyond his usual limits, he congratulates his own arrival at those regions which they who have steered a better course have long left behind them. The productions of such minds are seldom distinguished by an air of originality: they are anticipated in their happiest efforts; and if they are found to differ in any thing from their predecessors, it is only in irregular sallies and trifling conceits. The more extensive, therefore, your acquaintance is with the works of those who have excelled, the more extensive will be your powers of invention; and what may appear still more like a paradox, the more original will be your conceptions. But the difficulty on this occasion is to determine what ought to be proposed as models of excellence, and who ought to be considered as the properest guides. To a young man just arrived in Italy, many of the present painters of that country are ready enough to obtrude their precepts, and to offer their own performances as examples of that perfection which they affect to recommend. The modern, however, who recommends himself as a standard, may justly be suspected as ignorant of the true end, and unacquainted with the proper object, of the art which he professes. To follow such a guide will not only retard the Student, but mislead him. On whom, then, can he rely, or who shall show him the path that leads to excellence? The answer is obvious: those great masters who have travelled the same road with success are the most likely to conduct others. The works of those who have stood the test of ages have a claim to that respect and veneration to which no modern can pretend. The duration and stability of their fame is sufficient to evince that it has not been suspended upon the slender thread of fashion and caprice, but bound to the human heart by every tie of sympathetic approbation. There is no danger of studying too much the works of those great men: but how they may be studied to advantage is an inquiry of great importance. Some who have never raised their minds to the consideration of the real dignity of the Art, and who rate the works of an Artist in proportion as they excel or are defective in the mechanical parts, look on theory as something that may enable them to talk but not to paint better; and, confining themselves entirely to mechanical practice, very assiduously toil on in the drudgery of copying, and think they make a rapid progress while they faithfully exhibit the minutest part of a favourite picture. This appears to me a very tedious, and, I think, a very erroneous, method of proceeding. Of every large composition, even of those which are most admired, a great part may be truly said to be _commonplace_. This, though it takes up much time in copying, conduces little to improvement. I consider general copying as a delusive kind of industry: the Student satisfies himself with the appearance of doing something; he falls into the dangerous habit of imitating without selecting, and of labouring without any determinate object; as it requires no effort of the mind, he sleeps over his work: and those powers of invention and composition which ought particularly to be called out, and put in action, lie torpid, and lose their energy for want of exercise. How incapable those are of producing anything of their own who have spent much of their time in making finished copies, is well known to all who are conversant with our art. To suppose that the complication of powers and variety of ideas necessary to that mind which aspires to the first honours in the Art of Painting can be obtained by the frigid contemplation of a few single models, is no less absurd than it would be in him who wishes to be a poet to imagine, that by translating a tragedy he can acquire to himself sufficient knowledge of the appearances of nature, the operations of the passions, and the incidents of life. The great use in copying, if it be at all useful, should seem to be in learning to colour; yet even colouring will never be perfectly attained by servilely copying the model before you. An eye critically nice can only be formed by observing well-coloured pictures with attention; and by close inspection and minute examination you will discover, at last, the manner of handling, the artifices of contrast, glazing, and other expedients by which good colourists have raised the value of their tints, and by which nature has been so happily imitated. I must inform you, however, that old pictures, deservedly celebrated for their colouring, are often so changed by dirt and varnish that we ought not to wonder if they do not appear equal to their reputation in the eyes of unexperienced painters, or young Students. An artist whose judgment is matured by long observation considers rather what the picture once was than what it is at present. He has by habit acquired a power of seeing the brilliancy of tints through the cloud by which it is obscured. An exact imitation, therefore, of those pictures is likely to fill the Student's mind with false opinions, and to send him back a colourist of his own formation, with ideas equally remote from nature and from art, from the genuine practice of the masters and the real appearances of things. Following these rules, and using these precautions, when you have clearly and distinctly learned in what good colouring consists, you cannot do better than have recourse to nature herself, who is always at hand, and in comparison of whose true splendour the best coloured pictures are but faint and feeble. However, as the practice of copying is not entirely to be excluded, since the mechanical practice of painting is learned in some measure by it, let those choice parts only be selected which have recommended the work to notice. If its excellence consists in its general effect, it would be proper to make slight sketches of the machinery and general management of the picture. Those sketches should be kept always by you for the regulation of your style. Instead of copying the touches of those great masters, copy only their conceptions. Instead of treading in their footsteps, endeavour only to keep the same road. Labour to invent on their general principles and way of thinking. Possess yourself with their spirit. Consider with yourself how a Michel Angelo or a Raffaelle would have treated this subject, and work yourself into a belief that your picture is to be seen and criticised by them when completed. Even an attempt of this kind will rouse your powers. But as mere enthusiasm will carry you but a little way, let me recommend a practice that may be equivalent to and will, perhaps, more efficaciously contribute to your advancement than even the verbal corrections of those masters themselves, could they be obtained. What I would propose is, that you should enter into a kind of competition, by painting a similar subject, and making a companion to any picture that you consider as a model. After you have finished your work, place it near the model, and compare them carefully together. You will then not only see but feel your own deficiencies more sensibly than by precepts, or any other means of instruction. The true principles of painting will mingle with your thoughts. Ideas thus fixed by sensible objects will be certain and definitive; and, sinking deep into the mind, will not only be more just but more lasting than those presented to you by precepts only, which will always be fleeting, variable, and undetermined. This method of comparing your own efforts with those of some great master is, indeed, a severe and mortifying task, to which none will submit but such as have great views, with fortitude sufficient to forego the gratifications of present vanity for future honour. When the Student has succeeded in some measure to his own satisfaction, and has felicitated himself on his success, to go voluntary to a tribunal where he knows his vanity must be humbled, and all self-approbation must vanish, requires not only great resolution but great humility. To him, however, who has the ambition to be a real master, the solid satisfaction which proceeds from a consciousness of his advancement (of which seeing his own faults is the first step) will very abundantly compensate for the mortification of present disappointment. There is, besides, this alleviating circumstance: every discovery he makes, every acquisition of knowledge he attains, seems to proceed from his own sagacity: and thus he acquires a confidence in himself sufficient to keep up the resolution of perseverance. We all must have experienced how lazily, and, consequently, how ineffectually, instruction is received when forced upon the mind by others. Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers. We prefer those instructions which we have given ourselves, from our affection to the instructor; and they are more effectual, from being received into the mind at the very time when it is most open and eager to receive them. With respect to the pictures that you are to choose for your models, I could wish that you would take the world's opinion rather than your own. In other words, I would have you choose those of established reputation rather than follow your own fancy. If you should not admire them at first, you will, by endeavouring to imitate them, find that the world has not been mistaken. It is not an easy task to point out those various excellencies for your imitation which lie distributed amongst the various schools. An endeavour to do this may, perhaps, be the subject of some future discourse. I will, therefore, at present, only recommend a model for style in Painting, which is a branch of the art more immediately necessary to the young Student. Style in painting is the same as in writing, a power over materials, whether words or colours, by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed. And in this Ludovico Caracci (I mean his best works) appears to me to approach the nearest to perfection. His unaffected breadth of light and shadow, the simplicity of colouring, which, holding its proper rank, does not draw aside the least part of the attention from the subject, and the solemn effect of that twilight which seems diffused over his pictures, appear to me to correspond with grave and dignified subjects, better than the more artificial brilliancy of sunshine which enlightens the pictures of Titian; though Tintoret thought that Titian's colouring was the model of perfection, and would correspond even with the sublime of Michel Angelo; and that if Angelo had coloured like Titian, or Titian designed like Angelo, the world would once have had a perfect painter. It is our misfortune, however, that those works of Caracci which I would recommend to the Student are not often found out of Bologna. The _St. Francis in the Midst of his Friars_, _The Transfiguration_, _The Birth of St. John the Baptist_, _The Calling of St. Matthew_, the _St. Jerome_, _The Fresco Paintings_ in the Zampieri palace, are all worthy the attention of the Student. And I think those who travel would do well to allot a much greater portion of their time to that city than it has been hitherto the custom to bestow. In this art, as in others, there are many teachers who profess to show the nearest way to excellence; and many expedients have been invented by which the toil of study might be saved. But let no man be seduced to idleness by specious promises. Excellence is never granted to man, but as the reward of labour. It argues, indeed, no small strength of mind to persevere in habits of industry, without the pleasure of perceiving those advances; which, like the hands of a clock, whilst they make hourly approaches to their point, yet proceed so slowly as to escape observation. A facility of drawing, like that of playing upon a musical instrument, cannot be acquired but by an infinite number of acts. I need not, therefore, enforce by many words the necessity of continual application; nor tell you that the port-crayon ought to be for ever in your hands. Various methods will occur to you by which this power may be acquired. I would particularly recommend, that after your return from the Academy (where I suppose your attendance to be constant), you would endeavour to draw the figure by memory. I will even venture to add, that by perseverance in this custom you will become able to draw the human figure tolerably correctly, with as little effort of the mind as is required to trace with a pen the letters of the alphabet. That this facility is not unattainable some members in this Academy give a sufficient proof. And be assured, that, if this power is not acquired whilst you are young, there will be no time for it afterwards; at least, the attempt will be attended with as much difficulty as those experience who learn to read or write after they have arrived at the age of maturity. But while I mention the port-crayon as the Student's constant companion, he must still remember that the pencil is the instrument by which he must hope to obtain eminence. What, therefore, I wish to impress upon you is, that, whenever an opportunity offers, you paint your studies instead of drawing them. This will give you such a facility in using colours, that in time they will arrange themselves under the pencil, even without the attention of the hand that conducts it. If one act excluded the other, this advice could not with any propriety be given. But if Painting comprises both drawing and colouring, and if, by a short straggle of resolute industry, the same expedition is attainable in painting as in drawing on paper, I cannot see what objection can justly be made to the practice, or why that should be done by parts which may be done all together. If we turn our eyes to the several Schools of Painting, and consider their respective excellencies, we shall find that those who excel most in colouring pursued this method. The Venetian and Flemish schools, which owe much of their fame to colouring, have enriched the cabinets of the collectors of drawings with very few examples. Those of Titian, Paul Veronese, Tintoret, and the Bassans, are in general slight and undetermined. Their sketches on paper are as rude as their pictures are excellent in regard to harmony of colouring. Correggio and Baroccio have left few, if any, finished drawings behind them. And in the Flemish school, Rubens and Vandyck made their designs for the most part either in colours or in chiaro-oscuro. It is as common to find studies of the Venetian and Flemish Painters on canvas as of the schools of Rome and Florence on paper. Not but that many finished drawings are sold under the names of those masters. Those, however, are undoubtedly the productions either of engravers or their scholars, who copied their works. These instructions I have ventured to offer from my own experience; but as they deviate widely from received opinions, I offer them with diffidence, and when better are suggested shall retract them without regret. There is one precept, however, in which I shall only be opposed by the vain, the ignorant, and the idle. I am not afraid that I shall repeat it too often. You must have no dependence on your own genius. If you have great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. Nothing is denied to well-directed labour: nothing is to be obtained without it. Not to enter into metaphysical discussions on the nature or essence of genius, I will venture to assert, that assiduity unabated by difficulty, and a disposition eagerly directed to the object of its pursuit, will produce effects similar to those which some call the result of _natural powers_. Though a man cannot at all times, and in all places, paint or draw, yet the mind can prepare itself by laying in proper materials, at all times, and in all places. Both Livy and Plutarch, in describing Philopoemen, one of the ablest generals of antiquity, have given us a striking picture of a mind always intent on its profession, and by assiduity obtaining those excellencies which some all their lives vainly expect from nature. I shall quote the passage in Livy at length, as it runs parallel with the practice I would recommend to the Painter, Sculptor, and Architect:-- "Philopoemen was a man eminent for his sagacity and experience in choosing ground, and in leading armies; to which he formed his mind by perpetual meditation, in times of peace as well as war. When, in any occasional journey, he came to a strait, difficult passage, if he was alone, he considered with himself, and if he was in company he asked his friends, what it would be best to do if in this place they had found an enemy, either in the front or in the rear, on the one side or on the other? 'It might happen,' says he, 'that the enemy to be opposed might come on drawn up in regular lines, or in a tumultuous body formed only by the nature of the place.' He then considered a little what ground he should take; what number of soldiers he should use, and what arms he should give them; where he should lodge his carriages, his baggage, and the defenceless followers of his camp; how many guards, and of what kind, he should send to defend them: and whether it would be better to press forward along the pass, or recover by retreat his former station: he would consider likewise where his camp could most commodiously be formed; how much ground he should enclose within his trenches; where he should have the convenience of water, and where he might find plenty of wood and forage; and when he should break up his camp on the following day, through what road he could most safely pass, and in what form he should dispose his troops. With such thoughts and disquisitions he had from his early years so exercised his mind, that on these occasions nothing could happen which he had not been already accustomed to consider." I cannot help imagining that I see a promising young Painter equally vigilant, whether at home or abroad, in the streets or in the fields. Every object that presents itself is to him a lesson. He regards all nature with a view to his profession, and combines her beauties, or corrects her defects. He examines the countenance of men under the influence of passion; and often catches the most pleasing hints from subjects of turbulence or deformity. Even bad pictures themselves supply him with useful documents; and, as Lionardo da Vinci has observed, he improves upon the fanciful images that are sometimes seen in the fire, or are accidently sketched upon a discoloured wall. The Artist who has his mind thus filled with ideas, and his hand made expert by practice, works with ease and readiness; whilst he who would have you believe that he is waiting for the inspirations of Genius, is in reality at a loss how to begin; and is at last delivered of his monsters with difficulty and pain. The well-grounded Painter, on the contrary, has only maturely to consider his subject, and all the mechanical parts of his art follow without his exertion. Conscious of the difficulty of obtaining what he possesses, he makes no pretensions to secrets, except those of closer application. Without conceiving the smallest jealousy against others, he is contented that all shall be as great as himself who have undergone the same fatigue; and as his pre-eminence depends not upon a trick, he is free from the painful suspicions of a juggler who lives in perpetual fear lest his trick should be discovered. DISCOURSE III. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 14, 1770._ THE GREAT LEADING PRINCIPLES OF THE GRAND STYLE.--OF BEAUTY.--THE GENUINE HABITS OF NATURE TO BE DISTINGUISHED FROM THOSE OF FASHION. It is not easy to speak with propriety to so many Students of different ages and different degrees of advancement. The mind requires nourishment adapted to its growth; and what may have promoted our earlier efforts might retard us in our nearer approaches to perfection. The first endeavours of a young Painter, as I have remarked in a former discourse, must be employed in the attainment of mechanical dexterity, and confined to the mere imitation of the object before him. Those who have advanced beyond the rudiments may, perhaps, find advantage in reflecting on the advice which I have likewise given them, when I recommended the diligent study of the works of our great predecessors; but I at the same time endeavoured to guard them against an implicit submission to the authority of any one master, however excellent, or, by a strict imitation of his manner, precluding themselves from the abundance and variety of Nature. I will now add, that Nature herself is not to be too closely copied. There are excellencies in the art of painting beyond what is commonly called the imitation of Nature, and these excellencies I wish to point out. The Students who, having passed through the initiatory exercises, are more advanced in the art, and who, sure of their hand, have leisure to exert their understanding, must now be told that a mere copier of Nature can never produce anything great, can never raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator. The wish of the genuine Painter must be more extensive; instead of endeavouring to amuse mankind with the minute neatness of his imitations, he must endeavour to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas; instead of seeking praise, by deceiving the superficial sense of the spectator, he must strive for fame, by captivating the imagination. The principle now laid down, that the perfection of this art does not consist in mere imitation, is far from being new or singular. It is, indeed, supported by the general opinion of the enlightened part of mankind. The poets, orators, and rhetoricians of antiquity are continually enforcing this position,--that all the arts receive their perfection from an ideal beauty, superior to what is to be found in individual nature. They are ever referring to the practice of the painters and sculptors of their times, particularly Phidias (the favourite artist of antiquity), to illustrate their assertions. As if they could not sufficiently express their admiration of his genius by what they knew, they have recourse to poetical enthusiasm: they call it inspiration--a gift from heaven. The artist is supposed to have ascended the celestial regions, to furnish his mind with this perfect idea of beauty. "He," says Proclus,[1] "who takes for his model such forms as Nature produces, and confines himself to an exact imitation of them, will never attain to what is perfectly beautiful; for the works of Nature are full of disproportion, and fall very short of the true standard of beauty. So that Phidias, when he formed his Jupiter, did not copy any object ever presented to his sight, but contemplated only that image which he had conceived in his mind from Homer's description." And thus Cicero, speaking of the same Phidias:--"Neither did this artist," says he, "when he carved the image of Jupiter or Minerva, set before him any one human figure, as a pattern, which he was to copy; but having a more perfect idea of beauty fixed in his mind, this is steadily contemplated, and to the imitation of this all his skill and labour were directed." The Moderns are not less convinced than the Ancients of this superior power existing in the art; nor less sensible of its effects. Every language has adopted terms expressive of this excellence. The _gusto grande_ of the Italians, the _beau idéal_ of the French, and _great style_, _genius_, and _taste_ among the English, are but different appellations of the same thing. It is this intellectual dignity, they say, that ennobles the Painter's art; that lays the line between him and the mere mechanic; and produces those great effects in an instant, which eloquence and poetry, by slow and repeated efforts, are scarcely able to attain. Such is the warmth with which both the Ancients and Moderns speak of this divine principle of the art; but, as I have formerly observed, enthusiastic admiration seldom promotes knowledge. Though a Student by such praise may have his attention roused, and a desire excited, of running in this great career, yet it is possible that what has been said to excite may only serve to deter him. He examines his own mind, and perceives there nothing of that divine inspiration with which he is told so many others have been favoured. He never travelled to heaven to gather new ideas; and he finds himself possessed of no other qualifications than what mere common observation and a plain understanding can confer. Thus he becomes gloomy amidst the splendour of figurative declamation, and thinks it hopeless to pursue an object which he supposes out of the reach of human industry. But on this, as upon many other occasions, we ought to distinguish how much is to be given to enthusiasm, and how much to reason. We ought to allow for, and we ought to commend, that strength of vivid expression which is necessary to convey, in its full force, the highest sense of the most complete effect of art; taking care, at the same time, not to lose in terms of vague admiration that solidity and truth of principle upon which alone we can reason, and may be enabled to practise. It is not easy to define in what this great style consists; nor to describe, by words, the proper means of acquiring it, if the mind of the Student should be at all capable of such an acquisition. Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius. But though there neither are, nor can be, any precise invariable rules for the exercise, or the acquisition, of these great qualities, yet we may truly say, that they always operate in proportion to our attention in observing the works of Nature, to our skill in selecting, and to our care in digesting, methodising, and comparing our observations. There are many beauties in our art that seem, at first, to lie without the reach of precept, and yet may easily be reduced to practical principles. Experience is all in all: but it is not every one who profits by experience; and most people err, not so much from want of capacity to find their object, as from not knowing what object to pursue. This great ideal perfection and beauty are not to be sought in the heavens, but upon the earth. They are about us, and upon every side of us. But the power of discovering what is deformed in Nature, or, in other words, what is particular and uncommon, can be acquired only by experience; and the whole beauty and grandeur of the art consists, in my opinion, in being able to get above all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and details of every kind. All the objects which are exhibited to our view by Nature, upon close examination will be found to have their blemishes and defects. The most beautiful forms have something about them like weakness, minuteness, or imperfection. But it is not every eye that perceives these blemishes. It must be an eye long used to the contemplation and comparison of these forms; and which, by a long habit of observing what any set of objects of the same kind have in common, has acquired the power of discerning what each wants in particular. This long, laborious comparison should be the first study of the Painter who aims at the great style. By this means he acquires a just idea of beautiful forms; he corrects Nature by herself, her imperfect state by her more perfect. His eye being enabled to distinguish the accidental deficiencies, excrescences, and deformities of things, from their general figures, he makes out an abstract idea of their forms more perfect than any one original; and what may seem a paradox, he learns to design naturally by drawing his figures unlike to any one object. This idea of the perfect state of Nature, which the Artist calls the Ideal beauty, is the great leading principle by which works of genius are conducted. By this Phidias acquired his fame. He wrought upon a sober principle what has so much excited the enthusiasm of the world; and by this method you, who have courage to tread the same path, may acquire equal reputation. This is the idea which has acquired, and which seems to have a right to, the epithet of _divine_; as it may be said to preside, like a supreme judge, over all the productions of Nature, appearing to be possessed of the will and intention of the Creator, as far as they regard the external form of living beings. When a man once possesses this idea in its perfection, there is no danger but that he will be sufficiently warmed by it himself, and be able to warm and ravish every one else. Thus it is from a reiterated experience, and a close comparison of the objects in Nature, that an artist becomes possessed of the idea of that central form, if I may so express it, from which every deviation is deformity. But the investigation of this form, I grant, is painful, and I know but of one method of shortening the road; this is, by a careful study of the works of the ancient sculptors; who, being indefatigable in the school of Nature, have left models of that perfect form behind them, which an artist would prefer as supremely beautiful, who had spent his whole life in that single contemplation. But if industry carried them thus far, may not you also hope for the same reward from the same labour? We have the same school opened to us that was opened to them; for Nature denies her instructions to none who desire to become her pupils. This laborious investigation, I am aware, must appear superfluous to those who think everything is to be done by felicity and the powers of native genius. Even the great Bacon treats with ridicule the idea of confining proportion to rules, or of producing beauty by selection. "A man cannot tell," says he, "whether Apelles or Albert Durer were the more trifler: whereof the one would make a personage by geometrical proportions; the other, by taking the best parts out of divers faces, to make one excellent. . . The painter," he adds, "must do it by a kind of felicity . . . and not by rule."[2] It is not safe to question any opinion of so great a writer, and so profound a thinker, as undoubtedly Bacon was. But he studies brevity to excess; and therefore his meaning is sometimes doubtful. If he means that beauty has nothing to do with rule, he is mistaken. There is a rule, obtained out of general Nature, to contradict which is to fall into deformity. Whenever anything is done beyond this rule, it is in virtue of some other rule which is followed along with it, but which does not contradict it. Everything which is wrought with certainty, it is wrought upon some principle. If is not, it cannot be repeated. If by felicity is meant anything of chance or hazard, or something born with a man, and not earned, I cannot agree with this great philosopher. Every object which pleases must give us pleasure upon some certain principles: but as the objects of pleasure are almost infinite, so their principles vary without end, and every man finds them out, not by felicity or successful hazard, but by care and sagacity. To the principle I have laid down, that the idea of beauty in each species of beings is an invariable one, it may be objected, that in every particular species there are various central forms, which are separate and distinct from each other, and yet are undeniably beautiful; that in the human figure, for instance, the beauty of Hercules is one, of the Gladiator another, of the Apollo another; which makes so many different ideas of beauty. It is true, indeed, that these figures are each perfect in their kind, though of different characters and proportions; but still none of them is the representation of an individual, but of a class. And as there is one general form, which, as I have said, belongs to the human kind at large, so in each of these classes there is one common idea and central form, which is the abstract of the various individual forms belonging to that class. Thus, though the forms of childhood and age differ exceedingly, there is a common form in childhood, and a common form in age, which is the more perfect, as it is more remote from all peculiarities. But I must add further, that though the most perfect forms of each of the general divisions of the human figure are ideal and superior to any individual form of that class; yet the highest perfection of the human figure is not to be found in any one of them. It is not in the Hercules, nor in the Gladiator, nor in the Apollo; but in that form which is taken from all, and which partakes equally of the activity of the Gladiator, of the delicacy of the Apollo, and of the muscular strength of the Hercules. For perfect beauty in any species must combine all the characters which are beautiful in that species. It cannot consist in any one to the exclusion of the rest: no one, therefore, must be predominant, that no one may be deficient. The knowledge of these different characters, and the power of separating and distinguishing them, is undoubtedly necessary to the Painter, who is to vary his compositions with figures of various forms and proportions, though he is never to lose sight of the general idea of perfection in each kind. There is, likewise, a kind of symmetry, or proportion, which may properly be said to belong to deformity. A figure lean or corpulent, tall or short, though deviating from beauty, may still have a certain union of the various parts, which may contribute to make them on the whole not unpleasing. When the Artist has by diligent attention acquired a clear and distinct idea of beauty and symmetry; when he has reduced the variety of nature to the abstract idea; his next task will be to become acquainted with the genuine habits of nature, as distinguished from those of fashion. For in the same manner, and on the same principles, as he has acquired the knowledge of the real forms of nature, distinct from accidental deformity, he must endeavour to separate simple chaste nature from those adventitious, those affected and forced airs or actions, with which she is loaded by modern education. Perhaps I cannot better explain what I mean than by reminding you of what was taught us by the Professor of Anatomy, in respect to the natural position and movement of the feet. He observed that the fashion of turning them outwards was contrary to the intent of nature, as might be seen from the structure of the bones, and from the weakness that proceeded from that manner of standing. To this we may add the erect position of the head, the projection of the chest, the walking with straight knees, and many such actions, which we know to be merely the result of fashion, and what nature never warranted, as we are sure that we have been taught them when children. I have mentioned but a few of those instances, in which vanity or caprice have contrived to distort and disfigure the human form; your own recollection will add to these a thousand more of ill-understood methods, which have been practised to disguise nature among our dancing-masters, hairdressers, and tailors, in their various schools of deformity.[3] However the mechanic and ornamental arts may sacrifice to Fashion, she must be entirely excluded from the Art of Painting; the painter must never mistake this capricious challenging for the genuine offspring of nature; he must divest himself of all prejudices in favour of his age or country; he must disregard all local and temporary ornaments, and look only on those general habits which are everywhere and always the same; he addresses his works to the people of every country and every age, he calls upon posterity to be his spectators, and says, with Zeuxis, _In æternitatem pingo_. The neglect of separating modern fashions from the habits of nature leads to that ridiculous style which has been practised by some painters, who have given to Grecian heroes the airs and graces practised in the court of Louis XIV.; an absurdity almost as great as it would have been to have dressed them after the fashion of that court. To avoid this error, however, and to retain the true simplicity of nature, is a task more difficult than at first sight it may appear. The prejudices in favour of the fashions and customs that we have been used to, and which are justly called a second nature, make it too often difficult to distinguish that which is natural from that which is the result of education; they frequently even give a predilection in favour of the artificial mode; and almost every one is apt to be guided by those local prejudices, who has not chastised his mind, and regulated the instability of his affections by the eternal invariable idea of nature. Here, then, as before, we must have recourse to the ancients as instructors. It is from a careful study of their works that you will be enabled to attain to the real simplicity of nature; they will suggest many observations which would probably escape you, if your study were confined to nature alone. And, indeed, I cannot help suspecting, that, in this instance, the ancients had an easier task than the moderns. They had, probably, little or nothing to unlearn, as their manners were nearly approaching to this desirable simplicity; while the modern artist, before he can see the truth of things, is obliged to remove a veil, with which the fashion of the times has thought proper to cover her. Having gone thus far in our investigation of the great style in painting; if we now should suppose that the artist has found the true idea of beauty, which enables him to give his works a correct and perfect design; if we should suppose, also, that he has acquired a knowledge of the unadulterated habits of nature, which gives him simplicity; the rest of his task is, perhaps, less than is generally imagined. Beauty and simplicity have so great a share in the composition of a great style, that he who has acquired them has little else to learn. It must not, indeed, be forgotten that there is a nobleness of conception which goes beyond anything in the mere exhibition even of perfect form; there is an art of animating and dignifying the figures with intellectual grandeur, of impressing the appearance of philosophic wisdom, or heroic virtue. This can only be acquired by him that enlarges the sphere of his understanding by a variety of knowledge, and warms his imagination with the best productions of ancient and modern poetry. A hand thus exercised, and a mind thus instructed, will bring the art to a higher degree of excellence than, perhaps, it has hitherto attained in this country. Such a student will disdain the humbler walks of painting, which, however profitable, can never assure him a permanent reputation. He will leave the meaner artist servilely to suppose that those are the best pictures which are most likely to deceive the spectator. He will permit the lower painter, like the florist or collector of shells, to exhibit the minute discriminations, which distinguish one object of the same species from another; while he, like the philosopher, will consider nature in the abstract, and represent in every one of his figures the character of its species. If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art, there is no doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would be more apt to succeed; but it is not the eye, it is the mind which the painter of genius desires to address; nor will he waste a moment upon those smaller objects which only serve to catch the sense, to divide the attention, and to counteract his great design of speaking to the heart. This is the ambition which I wish to excite in your minds; and the object I have had in my view, throughout this discourse, is that one great idea which gives to painting its true dignity, which entitles it to the name of a liberal art, and ranks it as a sister of poetry. It may possibly have happened to many young students, whose application was sufficient to overcome all difficulties, and whose minds were capable of embracing the most extensive views, that they have, by a wrong direction originally given, spent their lives in the meaner walks of painting, without ever knowing there was a nobler to pursue. Albert Durer, as Vasari has justly remarked, would probably have been one of the first painters of his age (and he lived in an era of great artists) had he been initiated into those great principles of the art, which were so well understood and practised by his contemporaries in Italy. But, unluckily, having never seen nor heard of any other manner, he, without doubt, considered his own as perfect. As for the various departments of painting which do not presume to make such high pretensions, they are many. None of them are without their merit, though none enter into competition with this universal presiding idea of the art. The painters who have applied themselves more particularly to low and vulgar characters, and who express with precision the various shades of passion as they are exhibited by vulgar minds (such as we see in the works of Hogarth), deserve great praise; but as their genius has been employed on low and confined subjects, the praise which we give must be as limited as its object. The merrymaking or quarrelling of the Boors of Teniers; the same sort of productions of Brouwer or Ostade, are excellent in their kind; and the excellence and its praise will be in proportion, as, in those limited subjects and peculiar forms, they introduce more or less of the expression of those passions as they appear in general and more enlarged nature. This principle may be applied to the Battle-pieces of Bourgognone, the French Gallantries of Watteau, and even beyond the exhibition of animal life, to the Landscapes of Claude Lorraine, and the Sea-Views of Vandervelde. All these painters have, in general, the same right, in different degrees, to the name of a painter, which a satirist, an epigrammatist, a sonneteer, a writer of pastorals or descriptive poetry, has to that of a poet. In the same rank, and perhaps of not so great merit, is the cold painter of portraits. But his correct and just imitation of his object has its merit. Even the painter of still life, whose highest ambition is to give a minute representation of every part of those low objects which he sets before him, deserves praise in proportion to his attainment; because no part of this excellent art, so much the ornament of polished life, is destitute of value and use. These, however, are by no means the views to which the mind of the student ought to be _primarily_ directed. Having begun by aiming at better things, if from particular inclination, or from the taste of the time and place he lives in, or from necessity, or from failure in the highest attempts, he is obliged to descend lower, he will bring into the lower sphere of art a grandeur of composition and character that will raise and ennoble his works far above their natural rank. A man is not weak, though he may not be able to wield the club of Hercules; nor does a man always practice that which he esteems the best, but does that which he can best do. In moderate attempts there are many walks open to the artist. But as the idea of beauty is of necessity but one, so there can be but one great mode of painting; the leading principle of which I have endeavoured to explain. I should be sorry if what is here recommended should be at all understood to countenance a careless or undetermined manner of painting. For, though the painter is to overlook the accidental discriminations of nature, he is to exhibit distinctly, and with precision, the general forms of things. A firm and determined outline is one of the characteristics of the great style in painting; and, let me add, that he who possesses the knowledge of the exact form which every part of nature ought to have, will be fond of expressing that knowledge with correctness and precision in all his works. To conclude: I have endeavoured to reduce the idea of beauty to general principles; and I had the pleasure to observe that the Professor of Painting proceeded in the same method, when he showed you that the artifice of contrast was founded but on one principle. I am convinced that this is the only means of advancing science; of clearing the mind from a confused heap of contradictory observations, that do but perplex and puzzle the student, when he compares them, or misguide him if he gives himself up to their authority; bringing them under one general head can alone give rest and satisfaction to an inquisitive mind. FOOTNOTES: 1: Lib. 2, in Timæum Platonis, as cited by Junius de Pictura Veterum.--R. 2: _Essays_, p. 252, edit. 1625. 3: "Those," says Quintilian, "who are taken with the outward show of things, think that there is more beauty in persons who are trimmed, curled, and painted, than uncorrupt nature can give; as if beauty were merely the effect of the corruption of manners."--R. DISCOURSE IV. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1771._ GENERAL IDEAS, THE PRESIDING PRINCIPLE WHICH REGULATES EVERY PART OF ART; INVENTION, EXPRESSION, COLOURING, AND DRAPERY.--TWO DISTINCT STYLES IN HISTORY-PAINTING; THE GRAND AND THE ORNAMENTAL.--THE SCHOOLS IN WHICH EACH IS TO BE FOUND.--THE COMPOSITE STYLE.--THE STYLE FORMED ON LOCAL CUSTOMS AND HABITS, OR A PARTIAL VIEW OF NATURE. The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labour employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced by it. As this principle is observed or neglected, our profession becomes either a liberal art or a mechanical trade. In the hands of one man, it makes the highest pretensions, as it is addressed to the noblest faculties: in those of another, it is reduced to a mere matter of ornament; and the painter has but the humble province of furnishing our apartments with elegance. This exertion of mind, which is the only circumstance that truly ennobles our Art, makes the great distinction between the Roman and Venetian schools. I have formerly observed that perfect form is produced by leaving out particularities, and retaining only general ideas: I shall now endeavour to show that this principle, which I have proved to be metaphysically just, extends itself to every part of the Art; that it gives what is called the _grand style_ to Invention, to Composition, to Expression, and even to Colouring and Drapery. Invention, in Painting, does not imply the invention of the subject, for that is commonly supplied by the Poet or Historian. With respect to the choice, no subject can be proper that is not generally interesting. It ought to be either some eminent instance of heroic action or heroic suffering. There must be something, either in the action or in the object, in which men are universally concerned, and which powerfully strikes upon the public sympathy. Strictly speaking, indeed, no subject can be of universal, hardly can it be of general, concern; but there are events and characters so popularly known in those countries where our Art is in request, that they may be considered as sufficiently general for all our purposes. Such are the great events of Greek and Roman fable and history, which early education, and the usual course of reading, have made familiar and interesting to all Europe, without being degraded by the vulgarism of ordinary life in any country. Such, too, are the capital subjects of Scripture history, which, beside their general notoriety, become venerable by their connection with our religion. As it is required that the subject selected should be a general one, it is no less necessary that it should be kept unembarrassed with whatever may any way serve to divide the attention of the spectator. Whenever a story is related, every man forms a picture in his mind of the action and expression of the persons employed. The power of representing this mental picture on canvas is what we call invention in a Painter. And as, in the conception of this ideal picture, the mind does not enter into the minute peculiarities of the dress, furniture, or scene of action; so, when the Painter comes to represent it, he contrives those little necessary concomitant circumstances in such a manner that they shall strike the spectator no more than they did himself in his first conception of the story. I am very ready to allow that some circumstances of minuteness and particularity frequently tend to give an air of truth to a piece, and to interest the spectator in an extraordinary manner. Such circumstances, therefore, cannot wholly be rejected: but if there be anything in the Art which require peculiar nicety of discernment, it is the disposition of these minute circumstantial parts; which, according to the judgment employed in the choice, become so useful to truth, or so injurious to grandeur. However, the usual and most dangerous error is on the side of minuteness; and, therefore, I think caution most necessary where most have failed. The general idea constitutes real excellence. All smaller things, however perfect in their way, are to be sacrificed without mercy to the greater. The Painter will not inquire what things may be admitted without much censure; he will not think it enough to show that they may be there; he will show that they must be there; that their absence would render his picture maimed and defective. Thus, though to the principal group a second or third be added, and a second and third mass of light, care must be taken that these subordinate actions and lights, neither each in particular, nor all together, come into any degree of competition with the principal: they should merely make a part of that whole which would be imperfect without them. To every kind of painting this rule may be applied. Even in portraits, the grace, and, we may add, the likeness consists more in taking the general air than in observing the exact similitude of every feature. Thus figures must have a ground whereon to stand; they must be clothed; there must be a background; there must be light and shadow; but none of these ought to appear to have taken up any part of the artist's attention. They should be so managed as not even to catch that of the spectator. We know well enough, when we analyse a piece, the difficulty and the subtlety with which an artist adjusts the background drapery and masses of light; we know that a considerable part of the grace and effect of his picture depends upon them; but this art is so much concealed, even to a judicious eye, that no remains of any of these subordinate parts occur to the memory when the picture is not present. The great end of the art is to strike the imagination. The Painter, therefore, is to make no ostentation of the means by which this is done; the spectator is only to feel the result in his bosom. An inferior artist is unwilling that any part of his industry should be lost upon the spectator. He takes as much pains to discover, as the greater artist does to conceal, the marks of his subordinate assiduity. In works of the lower kind everything appears studied and encumbered; it is all boastful art and open affectation. The ignorant often part from such pictures with wonder in their mouths and indifference in their hearts. But it is not enough in Invention that the Artist should restrain and keep under all the inferior parts of his subject; he must sometimes deviate from vulgar and strict historical truth, in pursuing the grandeur of his design. How much the great style exacts from its professors to conceive and represent their subjects in a poetical manner, not confined to mere matter of fact, may be seen in the Cartoons of Raffaelle. In all the pictures in which the painter has represented the apostles, he has drawn them with great nobleness; he has given them as much dignity as the human figure is capable of receiving; yet we are expressly told in Scripture they had no such respectable appearance; and of St. Paul, in particular, we are told, by himself, that his _bodily_ presence was _mean_. Alexander is said to have been of a low stature: a Painter ought not so to represent him. Agesilaus was low, lame, and of a mean appearance: none of these defects ought to appear in a piece of which he is the hero. In conformity to custom, I call this part of the art History Painting; it ought to be called Poetical, as in reality it is. All this is not falsifying any fact; it is taking an allowed poetical license. A painter of portraits retains the individual likeness; a painter of history shows the man by showing his action. A Painter must compensate the natural deficiencies of his art. He has but one sentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit. He cannot, like the poet or historian, expatiate, and impress the mind with great veneration for the character of the hero or saint he represents, though he lets us know, at the same time, that the saint was deformed or the hero lame. The Painter has no other means of giving an idea of the dignity of the mind, but by that external appearance which grandeur of thought does generally, though not always, impress on the countenance; and by that correspondence of figure to sentiment and situation, which all men wish, but cannot command. The Painter who may in this one particular attain with ease what others desire in vain, ought to give all that he possibly can, since there are so many circumstances of true greatness that he cannot give at all. He cannot make his hero talk like a great man; he must make him look like one. For which reason he ought to be well studied in the analysis of those circumstances which constitute dignity of appearance in real life. As in Invention, so likewise in Expression, care must be taken not to run into particularities. Those expressions alone should be given to the figures which their respective situations generally produce. Nor is this enough; each person should also have that expression which men of his rank generally exhibit. The joy, or the grief, of a character of dignity is not to be expressed in the same manner as a similar passion in a vulgar face. Upon this principle, Bernini, perhaps, may be subject to censure. This sculptor, in many respects admirable, has given a very mean expression to his statue of David, who is represented as just going to throw the stone from the sling; and, in order to give it the expression of energy, he has made him biting his under lip. This expression is far from being general, and still farther from being dignified. He might have seen it in an instance or two; and he mistook accident for generality. With respect to Colouring, though it may appear at first a part of painting merely mechanical, yet it still has its rules, and those grounded upon that presiding principle which regulates both the great and the little in the study of a painter. By this, the first effect of the picture is produced; and as this is performed, the spectator, as he walks the gallery, will stop, or pass along. To give a general air of grandeur at first view, all trifling, or artful play of little lights, or an attention to a variety of tints, is to be avoided; a quietness and simplicity must reign over the whole work; to which a breadth of uniform and simple colour will very much contribute. Grandeur of effect is produced by two different ways, which seem entirely opposed to each other. One is, by reducing the colours to little more than chiaro-oscuro, which was often the practice of the Bolognian schools; and the other, by making the colours very distinct and forcible, such as we see in those of Rome and Florence; but still, the presiding principle of both those manners is simplicity. Certainly, nothing can be more simple than monotony; and the distinct blue, red, and yellow colours which are seen in the draperies of the Roman and Florentine schools, though they have not that kind of harmony which is produced by a variety of broken and transparent colours, have that effect of grandeur which was intended. Perhaps these distinct colours strike the mind more forcibly, from there not being any great union between them; as martial music, which is intended to rouse the nobler passions, has its effect from the sudden and strongly-marked transitions from one note to another which that style of music requires; whilst in that which is intended to move the softer passions, the notes imperceptibly melt into one another. In the same manner as the historical painter never enters into the detail of colours, so neither does he debase his conceptions with minute attention to the discriminations of drapery. It is the inferior style that marks the variety of stuffs. With him the clothing is neither woollen, nor linen, nor silk, satin, or velvet: it is drapery; it is nothing more. The art of disposing the foldings of the drapery makes a very considerable part of the painter's study. To make it merely natural is a mechanical operation, to which neither genius nor taste are required; whereas it requires the nicest judgment to dispose the drapery, so that the folds shall have an easy communication, and gracefully follow each other with such natural negligence as to look like the effect of chance, and at the same time show the figure under it to the utmost advantage. Carlo Maratti was of opinion that the disposition of drapery was a more difficult art than even that of drawing the human figure; that a student might be more easily taught the latter than the former; as the rules of drapery, he said, could not be so well ascertained as those for delineating a correct form. This, perhaps, is a proof how willingly we favour our own peculiar excellence. Carlo Maratti is said to have valued himself particularly upon his skill in this part of his art; yet in him, the disposition appears so ostentatiously artificial, that he is inferior to Raffaelle, even in that which gave him his best claim to reputation. Such is the great principle by which we must be directed in the nobler branches of our art. Upon this principle, the Roman, the Florentine, the Bolognese schools have formed their practice; and by this they have deservedly obtained the highest praise. These are the three great schools of the world in the epic style. The best of the French school, Poussin, Le Sueur, and Le Brun, have formed themselves upon these models, and consequently may be said, though Frenchmen, to be a colony from the Roman school. Next to these, but in a very different style of excellence, we may rank the Venetian, together with the Flemish and Dutch schools; all professing to depart from the great purposes of painting, and catching at applause by inferior qualities. I am not ignorant that some will censure me for placing the Venetians in this inferior class, and many of the warmest admirers of painting will think them unjustly degraded; but I wish not to be misunderstood. Though I can by no means allow them to hold any rank with the nobler schools of painting, they accomplished perfectly the thing they attempted. But as mere elegance is their principal object, as they seem more willing to dazzle than to affect, it can be no injury to them to suppose that their practice is useful only to its proper end. But what may heighten the elegant may degrade the sublime. There is a simplicity, and, I may add, severity, in the great manner, which is, I am afraid, almost incompatible with this comparatively sensual style. Tintoret, Paul Veronese, and others of the Venetian school, seem to have painted with no other purpose than to be admired for their skill and expertness in the mechanism of painting, and to make a parade of that art, which, as I before observed, the higher style requires its followers to conceal. In a conference of the French Academy, at which were present Le Brun, Sabastian Bourdon, and all the eminent Artists of that age, one of the Academicians desired to have their opinion on the conduct of Paul Veronese, who, though a painter of great consideration, had, contrary to the strict rules of art, in his picture of Perseus and Andromeda, represented the principal figure in shade. To this question no satisfactory answer was then given. But I will venture to say, that, if they had considered the class of the Artist, and ranked him as an ornamental Painter, there would have been no difficulty in answering--"It was unreasonable to expect what was never intended. His intention was solely to produce an effect of light and shadow; everything was to be sacrificed to that intent, and the capricious composition of that picture suited very well with the style which he professed." Young minds are indeed too apt to be captivated by this splendour of style; and that of the Venetians is particularly pleasing; for by them all those parts of the Art that gave pleasure to the eye or sense have been cultivated with care, and carried to the degree nearest to perfection. The powers exerted in the mechanical part of the Art have been called _the language of Painters_; but we may say, that it is but poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk. Words should be employed as the means, not as the end: language is the instrument, conviction is the work. The language of Painting must indeed be allowed these masters; but even in that they have shown more copiousness than choice, and more luxuriancy than judgment. If we consider the uninteresting subjects of their invention, or at least the uninteresting manner in which they are treated; if we attend to their capricious composition, their violent and affected contrasts, whether of figures or of light and shadow, the richness of their drapery, and, at the same time, the mean effect which the discrimination of stuffs gives to their pictures; if to these we add their total inattention to expression; and then reflect on the conceptions and the learning of Michel Angelo, or the simplicity of Raffaelle, we can no longer dwell on the comparison. Even in colouring, if we compare the quietness and chastity of the Bolognese pencil to the bustle and tumult that fills every part of a Venetian picture, without the least attempt to interest the passions, their boasted art will appear a mere struggle without effect; _a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing_. Such as suppose that the great style might happily be blended with the ornamental, that the simple, grave, and majestic dignity of Raffaelle could unite with the glow and bustle of a Paolo or Tintoret, are totally mistaken. The principles by which each is attained are so contrary to each other, that they seem, in my opinion, incompatible, and as impossible to exist together, as that in the mind the most sublime ideas and the lowest sensuality should at the same time be united. The subjects of the Venetian Painters are mostly such as give them an opportunity of introducing a great number of figures; such as feasts, marriages, and processions, public martyrdoms, or miracles. I can easily conceive that Paul Veronese, if he were asked, would say, that no subject was proper for an historical picture, but such as admitted at least forty figures; for in a less number, he would assert, there could be no opportunity of the Painter's showing his art in composition, his dexterity of managing and disposing the masses of light and groups of figures, and of introducing a variety of Eastern dresses and characters in their rich stuffs. But the thing is very different with a pupil of the greater schools. Annibale Caracci thought twelve figures sufficient for any story; he conceived that more would contribute to no end but to fill space; that they would be but cold spectators of the general action, or, to use his own expression, that they would be _figures to be let_. Besides, it is impossible for a picture composed of so many parts to have that effect so indispensably necessary to grandeur, that of one complete whole. However contradictory it may be in geometry, it is true in taste, that many little things will not make a great one. The Sublime impresses the mind at once with one great idea; it is a single blow: the Elegant, indeed, may be produced by repetition; by an accumulation of many minute circumstances. However great the difference is between the composition of the Venetian and the rest of the Italian schools, there is full as great a disparity in the effect of their pictures as produced by colours. And though in this respect the Venetians must be allowed extraordinary skill, yet even that skill, as they have employed it, will but ill correspond with the great style. Their colouring is not only too brilliant, but, I will venture to say, too harmonious, to produce that solidity, steadiness, and simplicity of effect, which heroic subjects require, and which simple or grave colours only can give to a work. That they are to be cautiously studied by those who are ambitious of treading the great walk of history, is confirmed, if it wants confirmation, by the greatest of all authorities, Michel Angelo. This wonderful man, after having seen a picture by Titian, told Vasari, who accompanied him, "that he liked much his colouring and manner;" but then he added, "that it was a pity the Venetian painters did not learn to draw correctly in their early youth, and adopt a better _manner of study_." By this it appears that the principal attention of the Venetian painters, in the opinion of Michel Angelo, seemed to be engrossed by the study of colours, to the neglect of the _ideal beauty of form_, or propriety of expression. But if general censure was given to that school from the sight of a picture of Titian, how much more heavily and more justly would the censure fall on Paolo Veronese, and more especially on Tintoret? And here I cannot avoid citing Vasari's opinion of the style and manner of Tintoret. "Of all the extraordinary geniuses," says he, "that have practised the art of painting, for wild, capricious, extravagant, and fantastical inventions, for furious impetuosity and boldness in the execution of his work, there is none like Tintoret; his strange whimsies are even beyond extravagance; and his works seem to be produced rather by chance than in consequence of any previous design, as if he wanted to convince the world that the art was a trifle, and of the most easy attainment." For my own part, when I speak of the Venetian painters, I wish to be understood to mean Paolo Veronese and Tintoret, to the exclusion of Titian; for though his style is not so pure as that of many other of the Italian Schools, yet there is a sort of senatorial dignity about him, which, however awkward in his imitators, seems to become him exceedingly. His portraits alone, from the nobleness and simplicity of character which he always gave them, will entitle him to the greatest respect, as he undoubtedly stands in the first rank in this branch of the art. It is not with Titian, but with the seducing qualities of the two former, that I could wish to caution you against being too much captivated. These are the persons who may be said to have exhausted all the powers of florid eloquence, to debauch the young and unexperienced; and have, without doubt, been the cause of turning off the attention of the connoisseur and of the patron of art, as well as that of the painter, from those higher excellencies of which the art is capable, and which ought to be required in every considerable production. By them, and their imitators, a style merely ornamental has been disseminated throughout all Europe. Rubens carried it to Flanders; Voet to France; and Lucca Giordano to Spain and Naples. The Venetian is indeed the most splendid of the schools of elegance; and it is not without reason that the best performances in this lower school are valued higher than the second-rate performances of those above them; for every picture has value when it has a decided character, and is excellent in its kind. But the student must take care not to be so much dazzled with this splendour as to be tempted to imitate what must ultimately lead from perfection. Poussin, whose eye was always steadily fixed on the sublime, has been often heard to say, "that a particular attention to colouring was an obstacle to the student, in his progress to the great end and design of the art; and that he who attaches himself to this principal end will acquire by practice a reasonably good method of colouring." Though it be allowed that elaborate harmony of colouring, a brilliancy of tints, a soft and gradual transition from one to another, present to the eye what an harmonious concert of music does to the ear, it must be remembered that painting is not merely a gratification of the sight. Such excellence, though properly cultivated, where nothing higher than elegance is intended, is weak and unworthy of regard, when the work aspires to grandeur and sublimity. The same reasons that have been urged to show that a mixture of the Venetian style cannot improve the great style, will hold good in regard to the Flemish and Dutch schools. Indeed, the Flemish school, of which Rubens is the head, was formed upon that of the Venetian; like them, he took his figures too much from the people before him. But it must be allowed in favour of the Venetians, that he was more gross than they, and carried all their mistaken methods to a far greater excess. In the Venetian school itself, where they all err from the same cause, there is a difference in the effect. The difference between Paolo and Bassano seems to be only, that one introduced Venetian gentlemen into his pictures, and the other the boors of the district of Bassano, and called them patriarchs and prophets. The painters of the Dutch school have still more locality. With them a history-piece is properly a portrait of themselves; whether they describe the inside or outside of their houses, we have their own people engaged in their own peculiar occupations; working or drinking, playing or fighting. The circumstances that enter into a picture of this kind are so far from giving a general view of human life, that they exhibit all the minute particularities of a nation differing in several respects from the rest of mankind. Yet let them have their share of more humble praise. The painters of this school are excellent in their own way; they are only ridiculous when they attempt general history on their own narrow principles, and debase great events by the meanness of their characters. Some inferior dexterity, some extraordinary mechanical power, is apparently that from which they seek distinction. Thus, we see that school alone has the custom of representing candle-light, not as it really appears to us by night, but red, as it would illuminate objects to a spectator by day. Such tricks, however pardonable in the little style, where petty effects are the sole end, are inexcusable in the greater, where the attention should never be drawn aside by trifles, but should be entirely occupied by the subject itself. The same local principles which characterise the Dutch school extend even to their landscape painters; and Rubens himself, who has painted many landscapes, has sometimes transgressed in this particular. Their pieces in this way are, I think, always a representation of an individual spot, and each in its kind a very faithful but a very confined portrait. Claude Lorrain, on the contrary, was convinced that taking nature as he found it seldom produced beauty. His pictures are a composition of the various draughts which he had previously made from various beautiful scenes and prospects. However, Rubens in some measure has made amends for the deficiency with which he is charged; he has contrived to raise and animate his otherwise uninteresting views, by introducing a rainbow, storm, or some particular accidental effect of light. That the practice of Claude Lorrain, in respect to his choice, is to be adopted by Landscape-painters in opposition to that of the Flemish and Dutch schools, there can be no doubt, as its truth is founded upon the same principle as that by which the Historical-painter acquires perfect form. But whether landscape-painting has a right to aspire so far as to reject what the painters call Accidents of Nature, is not easy to determine. It is certain Claude Lorrain seldom, if ever, availed himself of those accidents; either he thought that such peculiarities were contrary to that style of general nature which he professed, or that it would catch the attention too strongly, and destroy that quietness and repose which he thought necessary to that kind of painting. A Portrait-painter likewise, when he attempts history, unless he is upon his guard, is likely to enter too much into the detail. He too frequently makes his historical heads look like portraits; and this was once the custom amongst those old painters, who revived the art before general ideas were practised or understood. A History-painter paints man in general; a Portrait-painter, a particular man, and consequently a defective model. Thus an habitual practice in the lower exercises of the art will prevent many from attaining the greater. But such of us who move in these humbler walks of the profession are not ignorant that, as the natural dignity of the subject is less, the more all the little ornamental helps are necessary to its embellishment. It would be ridiculous for a painter of domestic scenes, of portraits, landscapes, animals, or still life, to say that he despised those qualities which has made the subordinate schools so famous. The art of colouring, and the skilful management of light and shadow, are essential requisites in his confined labours. If we descend still lower, what is the painter of fruit and flowers without the utmost art in colouring, and what the painters call handling; that is, a lightness of pencil that implies great practice, and gives the appearance of being done with ease? Some here, I believe, must remember a flower-painter whose boast it was, that he scorned to paint for the _million_: no, he professed to paint in the true Italian taste; and, despising the crowd, called strenuously upon the _few_ to admire him. His idea of the Italian taste was to paint as black and dirty as he could, and to leave all clearness and brilliancy of colouring to those who were fonder of money than immortality. The consequence was such as might be expected. For these petty excellencies are here essential beauties; and without this merit the artist's work will be more short-lived than the objects of his imitation. From what has been advanced, we must now be convinced that there are two distinct styles in History-painting: the grand, and the splendid or ornamental. The great style stands alone, and does not require, perhaps does not so well admit, any addition from inferior beauties. The ornamental style also possesses its own peculiar merit. However, though the union of the two may make a sort of composite style, yet that style is likely to be more imperfect than either of those which go to its composition. Both kinds have merit, and may be excellent though in different ranks, if uniformity be preserved, and the general and particular ideas of nature be not mixed. Even the meanest of them is difficult enough to attain; and the first place being already occupied by the great artists in each department, some of those who followed thought there was less room for them; and feeling the impulse of ambition and the desire of novelty, and being at the same time, perhaps, willing to take the shortest way, endeavoured to make for themselves a place between both. This they have effected by forming an union of the different orders. But as the grave and majestic style would suffer by an union with the florid and gay, so also has the Venetian ornament in some respect been injured by attempting an alliance with simplicity. It may be asserted, that the great style is always more or less contaminated by any meaner mixture. But it happens in a few instances that the lower may be improved by borrowing from the grand. Thus, if a Portrait-painter is desirous to raise and improve his subject, he has no other means than by approaching it to a general idea. He leaves out all the minute breaks and peculiarities in the face, and changes the dress from a temporary fashion to one more permanent, which has annexed to it no ideas of meanness from its being familiar to us. But if an exact resemblance of an individual be considered as the sole object to be aimed at, the Portrait-painter will be apt to lose more than he gains by the acquired dignity taken from general nature. It is very difficult to ennoble the character of a countenance but at the expense of the likeness, which is what is most generally required by such as sit to the painter. Of those who have practised the composite style, and have succeeded in this perilous attempt, perhaps the foremost is Correggio. His style is founded upon modern grace and elegance, to which is superadded something of the simplicity of the grand style. A breadth of light and colour, the general ideas of the drapery, an uninterrupted flow of outline, all conspire to this effect. Next to him (perhaps equal to him), Parmegiano has dignified the genteelness of modern effeminacy, by uniting it with the simplicity of the ancients and the grandeur and severity of Michel Angelo. It must be confessed, however, that these two extraordinary men, by endeavouring to give the utmost degree of grace, have sometimes, perhaps, exceeded its boundaries, and have fallen into the most hateful of all hateful qualities--affectation. Indeed, it is the peculiar characteristic of men of genius to be afraid of coldness and insipidity, from which they think they never can be too far removed. It particularly happens to these great masters of grace and elegance. They often boldly drive on to the very verge of ridicule; the spectator is alarmed, but at the same time admires their vigour and intrepidity:-- "Strange graces still, and stranger flights they had, * * * * * * Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create, As when they touch'd the brink of all we hate." The errors of genius, however, are pardonable, and none even of the more exalted painters are wholly free from them; but they have taught us, by the rectitude of their general practice, to correct their own affected or accidental deviation. The very first have not been always upon their guard, and perhaps there is not a fault but what may take shelter under the most venerable authorities; yet that style only is perfect, in which the noblest principles are uniformly pursued; and those masters only are entitled to the first rank in our estimation who have enlarged the boundaries of their art, and have raised it to its highest dignity, by exhibiting the general ideas of nature. On the whole, it seems to me that there is but one presiding principle which regulates and gives stability to every art. The works, whether of poets, painters, moralists, or historians, which are built upon general nature, live for ever; while those which depend for their existence on particular customs and habits, a partial view of nature, or the fluctuation of fashion, can only be coeval with that which first raised them from obscurity. Present time and future may be considered as rivals; and he who solicits the one must expect to be discountenanced by the other. DISCOURSE V. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1772._ CIRCUMSPECTION REQUIRED IN ENDEAVOURING TO UNITE CONTRARY EXCELLENCIES.--THE EXPRESSION OF A MIXED PASSION NOT TO BE ATTEMPTED.--EXAMPLES OF THOSE WHO EXCELLED IN THE GREAT STYLE.--RAFFAELLE, MICHEL ANGELO, THOSE TWO EXTRAORDINARY MEN COMPARED WITH EACH OTHER.--THE CHARACTERISTICAL STYLE.--SALVATOR ROSA MENTIONED AS AN EXAMPLE OF THAT STYLE; AND OPPOSED TO CARLO MARATTI.--SKETCH OF THE CHARACTERS OF POUSSIN AND RUBENS.--THESE TWO PAINTERS ENTIRELY DISSIMILAR, BUT CONSISTENT WITH THEMSELVES.--THIS CONSISTENCY REQUIRED IN ALL PARTS OF THE ART. I purpose to carry on in this discourse the subject which I began in my last. It was my wish upon that occasion to incite you to pursue the higher excellencies of the art. But I fear that in this particular I have been misunderstood. Some are ready to imagine, when any of their favourite acquirements in the art are properly classed, that they are utterly disgraced. This is a very great mistake: nothing has its proper lustre but in its proper place. That which is most worthy of esteem in its allotted sphere, becomes an object, not of respect, but of derision, when it is forced into a higher, to which it is not suited; and there it becomes doubly a source of disorder, by occupying a situation which is not natural to it, and by putting down from the first place what is in reality of too much magnitude to become with grace and proportion that subordinate station, to which something of less value would be much better suited. My advice, in a word, is this:--Keep your principal attention fixed upon the higher excellencies. If you compass them, and compass nothing more, you are still in the first class. We may regret the innumerable beauties which you may want; you may be very imperfect: but still you are an imperfect artist of the highest order. If, when you have got thus far, you can add any, or all, of the subordinate qualifications, it is my wish and advice that you should not neglect them. But this is as much a matter of circumspection and caution at least, as of eagerness and pursuit. The mind is apt to be distracted by a multiplicity of objects; and that scale of perfection which I wish always to be preserved, is in the greatest danger of being totally disordered, and even inverted. Some excellencies bear to be united, and are improved by union; others are of a discordant nature; and the attempt to join them only produces a harsh jarring of incongruent principles. The attempt to unite contrary excellencies (of form, for instance) in a single figure can never escape degenerating into the monstrous, but by sinking into the insipid; by taking away its marked character, and weakening its expression. This remark is true to a certain degree with regard to the passions. If you mean to preserve the most perfect beauty _in its most perfect state_, you cannot express the passions, all of which produce distortion and deformity, more or less, in the most beautiful faces. Guido, from want of choice in adapting his subject to his ideas and his powers, or from attempting to preserve beauty where it could not be preserved, has in this respect succeeded very ill. His figures are often engaged in subjects that require great expression; yet his Judith and Holofernes, the daughter of Herodias with the Baptist's head, the Andromeda, and some even of the Mothers of the Innocents, have little more expression than his Venus attired by the Graces. Obvious as these remarks appear, there are many writers on our art, who, not being of the profession, and consequently not knowing what can or cannot be done, have been very liberal of absurd praises in their descriptions of favourite works. They always find in them what they are resolved to find. They praise excellencies that can hardly exist together; and, above all things, are fond of describing, with great exactness, the expression of a mixed passion, which more particularly appears to me out of the reach of our art. Such are many disquisitions which I have read on some of the Cartoons and other pictures of Raffaelle, where the critics have described their own imaginations; or, indeed, where the excellent master himself may have attempted this expression of passions above the powers of the art, and has, therefore, by an indistinct and imperfect marking, left room for every imagination, with equal probability to find a passion of his own. What has been, and what can be done in the art, is sufficiently difficult; we need not be mortified or discouraged at not being able to execute the conceptions of a romantic imagination. Art has its boundaries, though imagination has none. We can easily, like the ancients, suppose a Jupiter to be possessed of all those powers and perfections which the subordinate deities were endowed with separately. Yet, when they employed their art to represent him, they confined his character to majesty alone. Pliny, therefore, though we are under great obligations to him for the information he has given us in relation to the works of the ancient artists, is very frequently wrong when he speaks of them, which he does very often, in the style of many of our modern connoisseurs. He observes, that in a statue of Paris, by Euphranor, you might discover, at the same time, three different characters; the dignity of a Judge of the Goddesses, the Lover of Helen, and the Conqueror of Achilles. A statue, in which you endeavour to unite stately dignity, youthful elegance, and stern valour, must surely possess none of these to any eminent degree. From hence it appears, that there is much difficulty, as well as danger, in an endeavour to concentrate, in a single subject, those various powers, which, rising from different points, naturally move in different directions. The summit of excellence seems to be an assemblage of contrary qualities, but mixed in such proportions, that no one part is found to counteract the other. How hard this is to be attained in every art, those only know who have made the greatest progress in their respective professions. To conclude what I have to say on this part of the subject, which I think of great importance, I wish you to understand that I do not discourage the younger Students from the noble attempt of uniting all the excellencies of art; but suggest to them, that, beside the difficulties which attend every arduous attempt, there is a peculiar difficulty in the choice of the excellencies which ought to be united. I wish to attend to this, that you may try yourselves, whenever you are capable of that trial, what you can and what you cannot do; and that, instead of dissipating your natural faculties over the immense field of possible excellence, you may choose some particular walk in which you may exercise all your powers in order that each of you may become the first in his way. If any man shall be master of such a transcendent, commanding, and ductile genius, as to enable him to rise to the highest, and to stoop to the lowest, flights of art, and to sweep over all of them, unobstructed and secure, he is fitter to give example than to receive instruction. Having said thus much on the _union_ of excellencies, I will next say something of the subordination in which various excellencies ought to be kept. I am of opinion that the ornamental style, which, in my discourse of last year, I cautioned you against considering as _principal_, may not be wholly unworthy the attention even of those who aim at the grand style, when it is properly placed and properly reduced. But this study will be used with far better effect, if its principles are employed in softening the harshness and mitigating the rigour of the great style, than if it attempt to stand forward with any pretensions of its own to positive and original excellence. It was thus Ludovico Caracci, whose example I formerly recommended to you, employed it. He was acquainted with the works both of Correggio and the Venetian painters, and knew the principles by which they produced those pleasing effects, which, at the first glance, prepossess us so much in their favour; but he took only as much from each as would embellish, but not overpower, that manly strength and energy of style which is his peculiar character. Since I have already expatiated so largely in my former discourse, and in my present, upon the _styles_ and _characters_ of Painting, it will not be at all unsuitable to my subject, if I mention to you some particulars relative to the leading principles, and capital works, of those who excelled in the _great style_, that I may bring you from abstraction nearer to practice, and, by exemplifying the positions which I have laid down, enable you to understand more clearly what I would enforce. The principal works of modern art are in _Fresco_, a mode of painting which excludes attention to minute elegancies: yet these works in Fresco are the productions on which the fame of the greatest masters depends. Such are the pictures of Michel Angelo and Raffaelle in the Vatican; to which we may add the Cartoons; which, though not strictly to be called Fresco, yet may be put under that denomination; and such are the works of Giulio Romano at Mantua. If these performances were destroyed, with them would be lost the best part of the reputation of those illustrious painters; for these are justly considered as the greatest effort of our art which the world can boast. To these, therefore, we should principally direct our attention for higher excellencies. As for the lower arts, as they have been once discovered, they may be easily attained by those possessed of the former. Raffaelle, who stands in general foremost of the first painters, owes his reputation, as I have observed, to his excellence in the higher parts of the art; his works in _Fresco_, therefore, ought to be the first object of our study and attention. His easel-works stand in a lower degree of estimation: for though he continually, to the day of his death, embellished his performances more and more with the addition of those lower ornaments, which entirely make the merit of some painters, yet he never arrived at such perfection as to make him an object of imitation. He never was able to conquer perfectly that dryness, or even littleness of manner, which he inherited from his master. He never acquired that nicety of taste in colours, that breadth of light and shadow, that art and management of uniting light to light, and shadow to shadow, so as to make the object rise out of the ground, with the plenitude of effect so much admired in the works of Correggio. When he painted in oil, his hand seemed to be so cramped and confined, that he not only lost that facility and spirit, but I think even that correctness of form, which is so perfect and admirable in his Fresco-works. I do not recollect any pictures of his of this kind, except the Transfiguration, in which there are not some parts that appear to be even feebly drawn. That this is not a necessary attendant on Oil-painting, we have abundant instances in more modern painters. Ludovico Caracci, for instance, preserved in his works in oil the same spirit, vigour, and correctness which he had in Fresco. I have no desire to degrade Raffaelle from the high rank which he deservedly holds; but by comparing him with himself, he does not appear to me to be the same man in Oil as in Fresco. From those who have ambition to tread in this great walk of the art, Michel Angelo claims the next attention. He did not possess so many excellencies as Raffaelle, but those which he had were of the highest kind. He considered the art as consisting of little more than what may be attained by sculpture; correctness of form and energy of character. We ought not to expect more than an artist intends in his work. He never attempted those lesser elegancies and graces in the art. Vasari says he never painted but one picture in oil, and resolved never to paint another, saying it was an employment only fit for women and children. If any man had a right to look down upon the lower accomplishments as beneath his attention, it was certainly Michel Angelo: nor can it be thought strange that such a mind should have slighted or have been withheld from paying due attention to all those graces and embellishments of art which have diffused such lustre over the works of other painters. It must be acknowledged, however, that together with these, which we wish he had more attended to, he has rejected all the false, though specious ornaments, which disgrace the works even of the most esteemed artists; and I will venture to say, that when those higher excellencies are more known and cultivated by the artists and the patrons of arts, his fame and credit will increase with our increasing knowledge. His name will then be held in the same veneration as it was in the enlightened age of Leo the Tenth: and it is remarkable that the reputation of this truly great man has been continually declining as the art itself has declined. For I must remark to you, that it has long been much on the decline, and that our only hope of its revival will consist in your being thoroughly sensible of its deprivation and decay. It is to Michel Angelo that we owe even the existence of Raffaelle; it is to him Raffaelle owes the grandeur of his style. He was taught by him to elevate his thoughts, and to conceive his subjects with dignity. His genius, however, formed to blaze and shine, might, like fire in combustible matter, forever have lain dormant, if it had not caught a spark by its contact with Michel Angelo; and though it never burst out with _his_ extraordinary heat and vehemence, yet it must be acknowledged to be a more pure, regular, and chaste flame. Though our judgment must, upon the whole, decide in favour of Raffaelle, yet he never takes such a firm hold and entire possession of the mind as to make us desire nothing else, and to feel nothing wanting. The effect of the capital works of Michel Angelo perfectly corresponds to what Bouchardon said he felt from reading Homer; his whole frame appeared to himself to be enlarged, and all nature which surrounded him, diminished to atoms. If we put these great artists in a light of comparison with each other, Raffaelle had more Taste and Fancy, Michel Angelo more Genius and Imagination. The one excelled in beauty, the other in energy. Michel Angelo has more of the poetical Inspiration; his ideas are vast and sublime; his people are a superior order of beings; there is nothing about them, nothing in the air of their actions, or their attitudes, or the style and cast of their limbs or features, that reminds us of their belonging to our own species. Raffaelle's imagination is not so elevated; his figures are not so much disjoined from our own diminutive race of beings, though his ideas are chaste, noble, and of great conformity to their subjects. Michel Angelo's works have a strong, peculiar, and marked character; they seem to proceed from his own mind entirely, and that mind so rich and abundant, that he never needed, or seemed to disdain, to look abroad for foreign help. Raffaelle's materials are generally borrowed, though the noble structure is his own. The excellency of this extraordinary man lay in the propriety, beauty, and majesty of his characters, the judicious contrivance of his Composition, his correctness of Drawing, purity of Taste, and skilful accommodation of other men's conception's to his own purpose. Nobody excelled him in that judgment, with which he united to his own observations on Nature the energy of Michel Angelo and the Beauty and Simplicity of the Antique. To the question, therefore, which ought to hold the first rank, Raffaelle or Michel Angelo, it must be answered, that if it is to be given to him who possessed a greater combination of the higher qualities of the art than any other man, there is no doubt but Raffaelle is the first. But if, as Longinus thinks, the sublime, being the highest excellence that human composition can attain to, abundantly compensates the absence of every other beauty, and atones for all other deficiencies, then Michel Angelo demands the preference. These two extraordinary men carried some of the higher excellencies of the art to a greater degree of perfection than probably they ever arrived at before. They certainly have not been excelled, nor equalled since. Many of their successors were induced to leave this great road as a beaten path, endeavouring to surprise and please by something uncommon or new. When this desire of novelty has proceeded from mere idleness or caprice, it is not worth the trouble of criticism; but when it has been the result of a busy mind of a peculiar complexion, it is always striking and interesting, never insipid. Such is the great style, as it appears in those who possessed it at its height; in this, search after novelty, in conception or in treating the subject, has no place. But there is another style, which, though inferior to the former, has still great merit, because it shows that those who cultivated it were men of lively and vigorous imagination. This, which may be called the original or characteristical style, being less referred to any true archetype existing either in general or particular nature, must be supported by the painter's consistency in the principles which he has assumed, and in the union and harmony of his whole design. The excellency of every style, but of the subordinate styles more especially, will very much depend on preserving that union and harmony between all the component parts, that they may appear to hang well together, as if the whole proceeded from one mind. It is in the works of art as in the characters of men. The faults or defects of some men seem to become them when they appear to be the natural growth, and of a piece with the rest of their character. A faithful picture of a mind, though it be not of the most elevated kind, though it be irregular, wild, and incorrect, yet if it be marked with that spirit and firmness which characterise works of genius, will claim attention, and be more striking than a combination of excellencies that do not seem to unite well together; or we may say, than a work that possesses even all excellencies, but those in a moderate degree. One of the strongest-marked characters of this kind, which must be allowed to be subordinate to the great style, is that of Salvator Rosa. He gives us a peculiar cast of nature, which, though void of all grace, elegance, and simplicity, though it has nothing of that elevation and dignity which belongs to the grand style, yet has that sort of dignity which belongs to savage and uncultivated nature: but what is most to be admired in him is the perfect correspondence which he observed between the subjects which he chose and his manner of treating them. Everything is of a piece: his Rocks, Trees, Sky, even to his handling, have the same rude and wild character which animates his figures. With him we may contrast the character of Carlo Maratti, who, in my opinion, had no great vigour of mind or strength of original genius. He rarely seizes the imagination by exhibiting the higher excellencies, nor does he captivate us by that originality which attends the painter who thinks for himself. He knew and practised all the rules of art, and from a composition of Raffaelle, Caracci, and Guido, made up a style, of which the only fault was, that it had no manifest defects and no striking beauties; and that the principles of his composition are never blended together so as to form one uniform body, original in its kind, or excellent in any view. I will mention two other painters, who, though entirely dissimilar, yet, by being each consistent with himself, and possessing a manner entirely his own, have both gained reputation, though for very opposite accomplishments. The painters I mean are Rubens and Poussin. Rubens I mention in this place, as I think him a remarkable instance of the same mind being seen in all the various parts of the art. The whole is so much of a piece, that one can scarce be brought to believe but that if any one of the qualities he possessed had been more correct and perfect, his works would not have been so complete as they now appear. If we should allow him a greater purity and correctness of Drawing, his want of Simplicity in Composition, Colouring, and Drapery, would appear more gross. In his Composition his art is too apparent. His figures have expression, and act with energy, but without simplicity or dignity. His colouring, in which he is eminently skilled, is, notwithstanding, too much of what we call tinted. Throughout the whole of his works there is a proportionable want of that nicety of distinction and elegance of mind, which is required in the higher walks of painting; and to this want it may be in some degree ascribed, that those qualities which make the excellency of this subordinate style appear in him with their greatest lustre. Indeed, the facility with which he invented, the richness of his composition, the luxuriant harmony and brilliancy of his colouring, so dazzle the eye, that whilst his works continue before us, we cannot help thinking that all his deficiencies are fully supplied. Opposed to this florid, careless, loose, and inaccurate style, that of the simple, careful, pure, and correct style of Poussin seems to be a complete contrast. Yet however opposite their characters, in one thing they agreed; both of them always preserving a perfect correspondence between all the parts of their respective manners; insomuch that it may be doubted whether any alteration of what is considered as defective in either would not destroy the effect of the whole. Poussin lived and conversed with the ancient statues so long that he may be said to have been better acquainted with them than with the people who were about him. I have often thought that he carried his veneration for them so far as to wish to give his works the air of Ancient Paintings. It is certain he copied some of the Antique Paintings, particularly the Marriage in the Aldobrandini Palace at Rome, which I believe to be the best relic of those remote ages that has yet been found. No works of any modern have so much of the air of Antique Painting as those of Poussin. His best performances have a remarkable dryness of manner, which though by no means to be recommended for imitation, yet seems perfectly correspondent to that ancient simplicity which distinguishes his style. Like Polidoro, he studied the ancients so much that he acquired a habit of thinking in their way, and seemed to know perfectly the actions and gestures they would use on every occasion. Poussin in the latter part of his life changed from his dry manner to one much softer and richer, where there is a greater union between the figures and ground; as in the Seven Sacraments in the Duke of Orlean's collection; but neither these, or any of his other pictures in this manner, are at all comparable to many in this dry manner which we have in England. The favourite subjects of Poussin were Ancient Fables; and no painter was ever better qualified to paint such subjects, not only from his being eminently skilled in the knowledge of the ceremonies, customs, and habits of the Ancients, but from his being so well acquainted with the different characters which those who invented them gave to their allegorical figures. Though Rubens has shown great fancy in his Satyrs, Silenuses, and Fauns, yet they are not that distinct separate class of beings, which is carefully exhibited by the Ancients, and by Poussin. Certainly, when such subjects of antiquity are represented, nothing in the picture ought to remind us of modern times. The mind is thrown back into antiquity, and nothing ought to be introduced that may tend to awaken it from the illusion. Poussin seemed to think that the style and the language in which such stories are told, is not the worse for preserving some relish of the old way of painting, which seemed to give a general uniformity to the whole, so that the mind was thrown back into antiquity not only by the subject, but the execution. If Poussin, in imitation of the Ancients, represents Apollo driving his chariot out of the sea by way of representing the Sun rising, if he personifies Lakes and Rivers, it is nowise offensive in him; but seems perfectly of a piece with the general air of the picture. On the contrary, if the figures which people his pictures had a modern air or countenance, if they appeared like our countrymen, if the draperies were like cloth or silk of our manufacture, if the landscape had the appearance of a modern view, how ridiculous would Apollo appear instead of the Sun; and an old Man, or a nymph with an urn, to represent a River or a Lake? I cannot avoid mentioning here a circumstance in portrait-painting which may help to confirm what has been said. When a portrait is painted in the Historical Style, as it is neither an exact minute representation of an individual, nor completely ideal, every circumstance ought to correspond to this mixture. The simplicity of the antique air and attitude, however much to be admired, is ridiculous when joined to a figure in a modern dress. It is not to my purpose to enter into the question at present, whether this mixed style ought to be adopted or not; yet if it is chosen, it is necessary it should be complete, and all of a piece; the difference of stuffs, for instance, which make the clothing, should be distinguished in the same degree as the head deviates from a general idea. Without this union, which I have so often recommended, a work can have no marked and determined character, which is the peculiar and constant evidence of genius. But when this is accomplished to a high degree, it becomes in some sort a rival to that style which we have fixed as the highest. Thus I have given a sketch of the characters of Rubens and Salvator Rosa, as they appear to me to have the greatest uniformity of mind throughout their whole work. But we may add to these, all those Artists who are at the head of a class, and have had a school of imitators from Michel Angelo down to Watteau. Upon the whole it appears that, setting aside the Ornamental Style, there are two different modes, either of which a Student may adopt without degrading the dignity of his art. The object of the first is to combine the higher excellencies and embellish them to the greatest advantage; of the other, to carry one of these excellencies to the highest degree. But those who possess neither must be classed with them, who, as Shakespeare says, are _men of no mark or likelihood_. I inculcate as frequently as I can your forming yourselves upon great principles and great models. Your time will be much misspent in every other pursuit. Small excellencies should be viewed, not studied; they ought to be viewed, because nothing ought to escape a Painter's observation: but for no other reason. There is another caution which I wish to give you. Be as select in those whom you endeavour to please, as in those whom you endeavour to imitate. Without the love of fame you can never do anything excellent; but by an excessive and undistinguishing thirst after it, you will come to have vulgar views; you will degrade your style; and your taste will be entirely corrupted. It is certain that the lowest style will be the most popular, as it falls within the compass of ignorance itself; and the Vulgar will always be pleased with what is natural, in the confined and misunderstood sense of the word. One would wish that such depravation of taste should be counteracted with that manly pride which actuated Euripides when he said to the Athenians who criticised his works, "I do not compose my works in order to be corrected by you, but to instruct you." It is true, to have a right to speak thus, a man must be an Euripides. However, thus much may be allowed, that when an Artist is sure that he is upon firm ground, supported by the authority and practice of his predecessors of the greatest reputation, he may then assume the boldness and intrepidity of genius; at any rate he must not be tempted out of the right path by any allurement of popularity, which always accompanies the lower styles of painting. I mention this, because our Exhibitions, while they produce such admirable effects by nourishing emulation, and calling out genius, have also a mischievous tendency, by seducing the Painter to an ambition of pleasing indiscriminately the mixed multitude of people who resort to them. DISCOURSE VI. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1774._ IMITATION.--GENIUS BEGINS WHERE RULES END.--INVENTION: ACQUIRED BY BEING CONVERSANT WITH THE INVENTIONS OF OTHERS.--THE TRUE METHOD OF IMITATING.--BORROWING, HOW FAR ALLOWABLE.--SOMETHING TO BE GATHERED FROM EVERY SCHOOL. When I have taken the liberty of addressing you on the course and order of your studies, I never proposed to enter into a minute detail of the art. This I have always left to the several Professors, who pursue the end of our institution with the highest honour to themselves, and with the greatest advantage to the Students. My purpose in the discourses I have held in the Academy has been to lay down certain general positions, which seem to me proper for the formation of a sound taste: principles necessary to guard the pupils against those errors into which the sanguine temper common to their time of life has a tendency to lead them: and which have rendered abortive the hopes of so many successions of promising young men in all parts of Europe. I wished also, to intercept and suppress those prejudices which particularly prevail when the mechanism of painting is come to its perfection; and which, when they do prevail, are certain utterly to destroy the higher and more valuable parts of this literate and liberal profession. These two have been my principal purposes; they are still as much my concern as ever; and if I repeat my own notions on the subject, you who know how fast mistake and prejudice, when neglected, gain ground upon truth and reason, will easily excuse me. I only attempt to set the same thing in the greatest variety of lights. The subject of this discourse will be IMITATION, as far as a painter is concerned in it. By imitation, I do not mean imitation in its largest sense, but simply the following of other masters, and the advantage to be drawn from the study of their works. Those who have undertaken to write on our art, and have represented it as a kind of _inspiration_, as a _gift_ bestowed upon peculiar favourites at their birth, seem to insure a much more favourable disposition from their readers, and have a much more captivating and liberal air, than he who attempts to examine, coldly, whether there are any means by which this art may be acquired; how the mind may be strengthened and expanded, and what guides will show the way to eminence. It is very natural for those who are unacquainted with the _cause_ of anything extraordinary to be astonished at the _effect_, and to consider it as a kind of magic. They, who have never observed the gradation by which art is acquired; who see only what is the full result of long labour and application of an infinite number and infinite variety of acts, are apt to conclude, from their entire inability to do the same at once, that it is not only inaccessible to themselves, but can be done by those only who have some gift of the nature of inspiration bestowed upon them. The travellers into the East tell us, that when the ignorant inhabitants of those countries are asked concerning the ruins of stately edifices yet remaining amongst them, the melancholy monuments of their former grandeur and long-lost science, they always answer that they were built by magicians. The untaught mind finds a vast gulf between its own powers and those works of complicated art, which it is utterly unable to fathom; and it supposes that such a void can be passed only by supernatural powers. And, as for artists themselves, it is by no means their interest to undeceive such judges, however conscious they may be of the very natural means by which their extraordinary powers were acquired; though our art, being intrinsically imitative, rejects this idea of inspiration, more perhaps than any other. It is to avoid this plain confession of the truth, as it should seem, that this imitation of masters, indeed almost all imitation, which implies a more regular and progressive method of attaining the ends of painting, has ever been particularly inveighed against with great keenness, both by ancient and modern writers. To derive all from native power, to owe nothing to another, is the praise which men who do not much think on what they are saying, bestow sometimes upon others, and sometimes on themselves; and their imaginary dignity is naturally heightened by a supercilious censure of the low, the barren, the groveling, the servile imitator. It would be no wonder if a student, frightened by these terrific and disgraceful epithets, with which the poor imitators are so often loaded, should let fall his pencil in mere despair (conscious as he must be, how much he has been indebted to the labours of others), how little, how very little of his art was born with him; and consider it as hopeless, to set about acquiring by the imitation of any human master, what he is taught to suppose is matter of inspiration from heaven. Some allowance must be made for what is said in the gaiety of rhetoric. We cannot suppose that any one can really mean to exclude all imitation of others. A position so wild would scarce deserve a serious answer; for it is apparent, if we were forbid to make use of the advantages which our predecessors afford us, the art would be always to begin, and consequently remain always in its infant state; and it is a common observation, that no art was ever invented and carried to perfection at the same time. But to bring us entirely to reason and sobriety, let it be observed, that a painter must not only be of necessity an imitator of the works of nature, which alone is sufficient to dispel this phantom of inspiration, but he must be as necessarily an imitator of the works of other painters; this appears more humiliating, but is equally true; and no man can be an artist, whatever he may suppose, upon any other terms. However, those who appear more moderate and reasonable, allow, that our study is to begin by imitation; but maintain that we should no longer use the thoughts of our predecessors, when we are become able to think for ourselves. They hold that imitation is as hurtful to the more advanced student, as it was advantageous to the beginner. For my own part, I confess, I am not only very much disposed to maintain the absolute necessity of imitation in the first stages of the art; but am of opinion that the study of other masters, which I here call imitation, may be extended throughout our whole lives, without any danger of the inconveniences with which it is charged, of enfeebling the mind, or preventing us from giving that original air which every work undoubtedly ought always to have. I am on the contrary persuaded that by imitation only, variety, and even originality of invention, is produced. I will go further; even genius, at least what generally is so called, is the child of imitation. But as this appears to be contrary to the general opinion, I must explain my position before I enforce it. Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellencies which are out of the reach of the rules of art; a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire. This opinion of the impossibility of acquiring those beauties, which stamp the work with the character of genius, supposes that it is something more fixed than in reality it is; and that we always do, and ever did agree in opinion, with respect to what should be considered as the characteristic of genius. But the truth is, that the _degree_ of excellence which proclaims _Genius_ is different, in different times and different places; and what shows it to be so is, that mankind have often changed their opinion upon this matter. When the Arts were in their infancy the power of merely drawing the likeness of any object was considered as one of its greatest efforts. The common people, ignorant of the principles of art, talk the same language even to this day. But when it was found that every man could be taught to do this, and a great deal more, merely by the observance of certain precepts; the name of Genius then shifted its application, and was given only to him who added the peculiar character of the object he represented; to him who had invention, expression, grace, or dignity; in short, those qualities, or excellencies, the power of producing which could not _then_ be taught by any known and promulgated rules. We are very sure that the beauty of form, the expression of the passions, the art of composition, even the power of giving a general air of grandeur to a work, is at present very much under the dominion of rules. These excellencies were, heretofore, considered merely as the effect of genius; and justly, if genius is not taken for inspiration, but as the effect of close observation and experience. He who first made any of these observations, and digested them, so as to form an invariable principle for himself to work by, had that merit, but probably no one went very far at once; and generally, the first who gave the hint, did not know how to pursue it steadily and methodically; at least not in the beginning. He himself worked on it, and improved it; others worked more, and improved further; until the secret was discovered, and the practice made as general as refined practice can be made. How many more principles may be fixed and ascertained we cannot tell; but as criticism is likely to go hand in hand with the art which is its subject, we may venture to say, that as that art shall advance, its powers will be still more and more fixed by rules. But by whatever strides criticism may gain ground, we need be under no apprehension that invention will ever be annihilated or subdued; or intellectual energy be brought entirely within the restraint of written law. Genius will still have room enough to expatiate, and keep always at the same distance from narrow comprehension and mechanical performance. What we now call Genius begins, not where rules abstractedly taken end, but where known vulgar and trite rules have no longer any place. It must of necessity be, that even works of Genius, like every other effect, as they must have their cause, must likewise have their rules; it cannot be by chance that excellencies are produced with any constancy or any certainty, for this is not the nature of chance; but the rules by which men of extraordinary parts, and such as are called men of Genius, work, are either such as they discover by their own peculiar observations, or of such a nice texture as not easily to admit being expressed in words; especially as artists are not very frequently skilful in that mode of communicating ideas. Unsubstantial, however, as these rules may seem, and difficult as it may be to convey them in writing, they are still seen and felt in the mind of the artist; and he works from them with as much certainty, as if they were embodied, as I may say, upon paper. It is true, these refined principles cannot be always made palpable, like the more gross rules of art; yet it does not follow, but that the mind may be put in such a train, that it shall perceive, by a kind of scientific sense, that propriety, which words, particularly words of unpractised writers, such as we are, can but very feebly suggest. Invention is one of the great marks of genius; but if we consult experience, we shall find that it is by being conversant with the inventions of others, that we learn to invent; as by reading the thoughts of others we learn to think. Whoever has so far formed his taste, as to be able to relish and feel the beauties of the great masters, has gone a great way in his study; for, merely from a consciousness of this relish of the right, the mind swells with an inward pride, and is almost as powerfully affected as if it had itself produced what it admires. Our hearts, frequently warmed in this manner by the contact of those whom we wish to resemble, will undoubtedly catch something of their way of thinking; and we shall receive in our own bosoms some radiation at least of their fire and splendour. That disposition, which is so strong in children, still continues with us, of catching involuntarily the general air and manner of those with whom we are most conversant; with this difference only, that a young mind is naturally pliable and imitative; but in a more advanced state it grows rigid, and must be warmed and softened before it will receive a deep impression. From these considerations, which a little of your own reflection will carry a great way further, it appears, of what great consequence it is, that our minds should be habituated to the contemplation of excellence; and that, far from being contented to make such habits the discipline of our youth only, we should, to the last moment of our lives, continue a settled intercourse with all the true examples of grandeur. Their inventions are not only the food of our infancy, but the substance which supplies the fullest maturity of our vigour. The mind is but a barren soil--a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilised and enriched with foreign matter. When we have had continually before us the great works of Art to impregnate our minds with kindred ideas, we are then, and not till then, fit to produce something of the same species. We behold all about us with the eyes of those penetrating observers whose works we contemplate; and our minds, accustomed to think the thoughts of the noblest and brightest intellects, are prepared for the discovery and selection of all that is great and noble in nature. The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock: he who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own, will be soon reduced, from mere barrenness, to the poorest of all imitations; he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what he has before often repeated. When we know the subject designed by such men, it will never be difficult to guess what kind of work is to be produced. It is vain for painters or poets to endeavour to invent without materials on which the mind may work, and from which invention must originate. Nothing can come of nothing. Homer is supposed to be possessed of all the learning of his time; and we are certain that Michel Angelo and Raffaelle were equally possessed of all the knowledge in the art which had been discovered in the works of their predecessors. A mind enriched by an assemblage of all the treasures of ancient and modern art will be more elevated and fruitful in resources, in proportion to the number of ideas which have been carefully collected and thoroughly digested. There can be no doubt but that he who has the most materials has the greatest means of invention; and if he has not the power of using them, it must proceed from a feebleness of intellect; or from the confused manner in which those collections have been laid up in his mind. The addition of other men's judgment is so far from weakening our own, as is the opinion of many, that it will fashion and consolidate those ideas of excellence which lay in embryo--feeble, ill-shaped, and confused--but which are finished and put in order by the authority and practice of those whose works may be said to have been consecrated by having stood the test of ages. The mind, or genius, has been compared to a spark of fire, which is smothered by a heap of fuel, and prevented from blazing into a flame. This simile, which is made use of by the younger Pliny, may be easily mistaken for argument or proof. But there is no danger of the mind being overburthened with knowledge, or the genius extinguished by any addition of images; on the contrary, these acquisitions may as well, perhaps better, be compared, if comparisons signified anything in reasoning, to the supply of living embers, which will contribute to strengthen the spark, that without the association of more fuel would have died away. The truth is, he whose feebleness is such, as to make other men's thoughts an incumbrance to him, can have no very great strength of mind or genius of his own to be destroyed; so that not much harm will be done at worst. We may oppose to Pliny the greater authority of Cicero, who is continually enforcing the necessity of this method of study. In his dialogue on Oratory, he makes Crassus say, that one of the first and most important precepts is, to choose a proper model for our imitation. _Hoc sit primum in proeceptis meis, ut demonstremus quem imitemur._ When I speak of the habitual imitation and continued study of masters, it is not to be understood that I advise any endeavour to copy the exact peculiar colour and complexion of another man's mind; the success of such an attempt must always be like his, who imitates exactly the air, manner, and gestures of him whom he admires. His model may be excellent, but the copy will be ridiculous; this ridicule does not arise from his having imitated, but from his not having chosen the right mode of imitation. It is a necessary and warrantable pride to disdain to walk servilely behind any individual, however elevated his rank. The true and liberal ground of imitation is an open field; where, though he who precedes has had the advantage of starting before you, you may always propose to overtake him; it is enough, however, to pursue his course; you need not tread in his footsteps, and you certainly have a right to outstrip him if you can. Nor whilst I recommend studying the art from artists, can I be supposed to mean that nature is to be neglected; I take this study in aid, and not in exclusion of the other. Nature is and must be the fountain which alone is inexhaustible, and from which all excellencies must originally flow. The great use of studying our predecessors is, to open the mind, to shorten our labour, and to give us the result of the selection made by those great minds of what is grand or beautiful in nature; her rich stores are all spread out before us; but it is an art, and no easy art, to know how or what to choose, and how to attain and secure the object of our choice. Thus, the highest beauty of form must be taken from nature; but it is an art of long deduction and great experience to know how to find it. We must not content ourselves with merely admiring and relishing; we must enter into the principles on which the work is wrought: these do not swim on the superficies, and consequently are not open to superficial observers. Art in its perfection is not ostentatious; it lies hid and works its effect, itself unseen. It is the proper study and labour of an artist to uncover and find out the latent cause of conspicuous beauties, and from thence form principles of his own conduct: such an examination is a continual exertion of the mind; as great, perhaps, as that of the artist whose works he is thus studying. The sagacious imitator does not content himself with merely remarking what distinguishes the different manner or genius of each master; he enters into the contrivance in the composition, how the masses of lights are disposed, the means by which the effect is produced, how artfully some parts are lost in the ground, others boldly relieved, and how all these are mutually altered and interchanged according to the reason and scheme of the work. He admires not the harmony of colouring alone, but examines by what artifice one colour is a foil to its neighbour. He looks close into the tints, examines of what colours they are composed, till he has formed clear and distinct ideas, and has learnt to see in what harmony and good colouring consists. What is learnt in this manner from the works of others becomes really our own, sinks deep, and is never forgotten; nay, it is by seizing on this clue that we proceed forward, and get further and further in enlarging the principles and improving the practice of our art. There can be no doubt but the art is better learnt from the works themselves, than from the precepts which are formed upon those works; but if it is difficult to choose proper models for imitation, it requires no less circumspection to separate and distinguish what in those models we ought to imitate. I cannot avoid mentioning here, though it is not my intention at present to enter into the art and method of study, an error which students are too apt to fall into. He that is forming himself must look with great caution and wariness on those peculiarities, or prominent parts, which at first force themselves upon view; and are the marks, or what is commonly called the manner, by which that individual artist is distinguished. Peculiar marks I hold to be, generally, if not always, defects; however difficult it may be wholly to escape them. Peculiarities in the works of art are like those in the human figure; it is by them that we are cognisable, and distinguished one from another, but they are always so many blemishes; which, however, both in real life and in painting, cease to appear deformities to those who have them continually before their eyes. In the works of art, even the most enlightened mind, when warmed by beauties of the highest kind, will by degrees find a repugnance within him to acknowledge any defects; nay, his enthusiasm will carry him so far, as to transform them into beauties and objects of imitation. It must be acknowledged that a peculiarity of style, either from its novelty or by seeming to proceed from a peculiar turn of mind, often escapes blame; on the contrary, it is sometimes striking and pleasing; but this it is a vain labour to endeavour to imitate, because novelty and peculiarity being its only merit, when it ceases to be new it ceases to have value. A manner, therefore, being a defect, and every painter, however excellent, having a manner, it seems to follow that all kinds of faults, as well as beauties, may be learned under the sanction of the greatest authorities. Even the great name of Michel Angelo may be used, to keep in countenance a deficiency, or rather neglect, of colouring, and every other ornamental part of the art. If the young student is dry and hard, Poussin is the same. If his work has a careless and unfinished air, he has most of the Venetian school to support him. If he makes no selection of objects, but takes individual nature just as he finds it, he is like Rembrandt. If he is incorrect in the proportions of his figures, Correggio was likewise incorrect. If his colours are not blended and united, Rubens was equally crude. In short, there is no defect that may not be excused, if it is a sufficient excuse that it can be imputed to considerable artists; but it must be remembered, that it was not by these defects they acquired their reputation; they have a right to our pardon, but not to our admiration. However, to imitate peculiarities, or mistake defects for beauties, that man will be most liable who confines his imitation to one favourite master; and even though he chooses the best, and is capable of distinguishing the real excellencies of his model, it is not by such narrow practice that a genius or mastery in the art is acquired. A man is as little likely to form a true idea of the perfection of the art by studying a single artist, as he would be to produce a perfectly beautiful figure, by an exact imitation of any individual living model. And as the painter, by bringing together in one piece those beauties which are dispersed among a great variety of individuals, produces a figure more beautiful than can be found in nature, so that artist who can unite in himself the excellencies of the various great painters, will approach nearer to perfection than any one of his masters. He who confines himself to the imitation of an individual, as he never proposes to surpass, so he is not likely to equal, the object of his imitation. He professes only to follow; and he that follows must necessarily be behind. We should imitate the conduct of the great artists in the course of their studies, as well as the works which they produced, when they were perfectly formed. Raffaelle began by imitating implicitly the manner of Pietro Perugino, under whom he studied: hence his first works are scarce to be distinguished from his master's; but soon forming higher and more extensive views, he imitated the grand outline of Michel Angelo: he learned the manner of using colours from the works of Leonardo da Vinci, and Fratre Bartolomeo: to all this he added the contemplation of all the remains of antiquity that were within his reach, and employed others to draw for him what was in Greece and distant places. And it is from his having taken so many models, that he became himself a model for all succeeding painters; always imitating, and always original. If your ambition, therefore, be to equal Raffaelle, you must do as Raffaelle did, take many models, and not even _him_ for your guide alone, to the exclusion of others.[4] And yet the number is infinite of those who seem, if one may judge by their style, to have seen no other works but those of their master, or of some favourite, whose _manner_ is their first wish, and their last. I will mention a few that occur to me of this narrow, confined, illiberal, unscientific, and servile kind of imitators. Guido was thus meanly copied by Elizabetta, Sirani, and Simone Cantarini; Poussin, by Verdier and Cheron; Parmeggiano by Jeronimo Mazzuoli. Paolo Veronese, and Iacomo Bassan, had for their imitators their brothers and sons. Pietro da Cortona was followed by Ciro Ferri, and Romanelli; Rubens, by Jacques Jordaens and Diepenbeke; Guercino, by his own family, the Gennari. Carlo Maratti was imitated by Giuseppe Chiari, and Pietro de Pietri; and Rembrandt, by Bramer, Eeckhout, and Flink. All these, to whom may be added a much longer list of painters, whose works among the ignorant pass for those of their masters, are justly to be censured for barrenness and servility. To oppose to this list a few that have adopted a more liberal style of imitation;--Pellegrino Tibaldi Rosso and Primaticcio did not coldly imitate, but caught something of the fire that animates the works of Michel Angelo. The Caraccis formed their style from Pellegrino Tibaldi, Correggio, and the Venetian school. Domenichino, Guido, Lanfranco, Albano, Guercino, Cavidone, Schidone, Tiarini, though it is sufficiently apparent that they came from the school of the Caraccis, have yet the appearance of men who extended their views beyond the model that lay before them, and have shown that they had opinions of their own, and thought for themselves, after they had made themselves masters of the general principles of their schools. Le Suer's first manner resembles very much that of his master Voüet; but as he soon excelled him, so he differed from him in every part of the art. Carlo Maratti succeeded better than those I have first named, and, I think, owes his superiority to the extension of his views; beside his master Andrea Sacchi, he imitated Raffaelle, Guido, and the Caraccis. It is true, there is nothing very captivating in Carlo Maratti; but this proceeded from a want which cannot be completely supplied; that is, want of strength of parts. In this certainly men are not equal; and a man can bring home wares only in proportion to the capital with which he goes to market. Carlo, by diligence, made the most of what he had; but there was undoubtedly a heaviness about him, which extended itself, uniformly, to his invention, expression, his drawing, colouring, and the general effect of his pictures. The truth is, he never equalled any of his patterns in any one thing, and he added little of his own. But we must not rest contented even in this general study of the moderns; we must trace back the art to its fountain-head; to that source from whence they drew their principal excellencies, the monuments of pure antiquity. All the inventions and thoughts of the ancients, whether conveyed to us in statues, bas-reliefs, intaglios, cameos, or coins, are to be sought after and carefully studied; the genius that hovers over these venerable relics may be called the father of modern art. From the remains of the works of the ancients the modern arts were revived, and it is by their means that they must be restored a second time. However it may mortify our vanity, we must be forced to allow them our masters: and we may venture to prophesy, that when they shall cease to be studied, arts will no longer flourish, and we shall again relapse into barbarism. The fire of the artist's own genius operating upon these materials which have been thus diligently collected, will enable him to make new combinations, perhaps superior to what had ever before been in the possession of the art; as in the mixture of the variety of metals, which are said to have been melted and run together at the burning of Corinth, a new and till then unknown metal was produced, equal in value to any of those that had contributed to its composition. And though a curious refiner should come with his crucibles, analyse and separate its various component parts, yet Corinthian brass would still hold its rank amongst the most beautiful and valuable of metals. We have hitherto considered the advantages of imitation as it tends to form the taste, and as a practice by which a spark of that genius may be caught which illumines those noble works that ought always to be present to our thoughts. We come now to speak of another kind of imitation; the borrowing a particular thought, an action, attitude, or figure, and transplanting it into your own work, this will either come under the charge of plagiarism, or be warrantable, and deserve commendation, according to the address with which it is performed. There is some difference, likewise, whether it is upon the ancient or moderns that these depredations are made. It is generally allowed, that no man need be ashamed of copying the ancients; their works are considered as a magazine of common property, always open to the public, whence every man has a right to take what materials he pleases; and if he has the art of using them, they are supposed to become to all intents and purposes his own property. The collection of the thoughts of the ancients which Raffaelle made with so much trouble, is a proof of his opinion on this subject. Such collections may be made with much more ease, by means of an art scarce known in this time; I mean that of engraving; by which, at an easy rate, every man may now avail himself of the inventions of antiquity. It must be acknowledged that the works of the moderns are more the property of their authors. He who borrows an idea from an ancient, or even from a modern artist not his contemporary, and so accommodates it to his own work, that it makes a part of it, with no seam or joining appearing, can hardly be charged with plagiarism; poets practise this kind of borrowing, without reserve. But an artist should not be contented with this only; he should enter into a competition with his original, and endeavour to improve what he is appropriating to his own work. Such imitation is so far from having anything in it of the servility of plagiarism, that it is a perpetual exercise of the mind, a continual invention. Borrowing or stealing with such art and caution, will have a right to the same lenity as was used by the Lacedæmonians; who did not punish theft, but the want of artifice to conceal. In order to encourage you to imitation, to the utmost extent, let me add, that very finished artists in the inferior branches of the art will contribute to furnish the mind and give hints, of which a skilful painter, who is sensible of what he wants, and is in no danger of being infected by the contact of vicious models, will know how to avail himself. He will pick up from dunghills what, by a nice chemistry, passing through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold; and under the rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even sublime inventions. The works of Albert Durer, Lucas Van Leyden, the numerous inventions of Tobias Stimmer, and Jost Ammon, afford a rich mass of genuine materials, which, wrought up, and polished to elegance, will add copiousness to what, perhaps, without such aid, could have aspired only to justness and propriety. In the luxuriant style of Paul Veronese, in the capricious compositions of Tintoret, he will find something that will assist his invention, and give points, from which his own imagination shall rise and take flight, when the subject which he treats will with propriety admit of splendid effects. In every school, whether Venetian, French, or Dutch, he will find either ingenious compositions, extraordinary effects, some peculiar expressions, or some mechanical excellence, well worthy of his attention, and, in some measure, of his imitation. Even in the lower class of the French painters, great beauties are often found, united with great defects. Though Coypel wanted a simplicity of taste, and mistook a presumptuous and assuming air for what is grand and majestic; yet he frequently has good sense and judgment in his manner of telling his stories, great skill in his compositions, and is not without a considerable power of expressing the passions. The modern affectation of grace in his works, as well as in those of Bosch and Watteau, may be said to be separated by a very thin partition from the more simple and pure grace of Correggio and Parmegiano. Among the Dutch painters, the correct, firm, and determined pencil, which was employed by Bamboccio and Jean Miel, on vulgar and mean subjects, might, without any change, be employed on the highest; to which, indeed, it seems more properly to belong. The greatest style, if that style is confined to small figures, such as Poussin generally painted, would receive an additional grace by the elegance and precision of pencil so admirable in the works of Teniers; and though the school to which he belonged more particularly excelled in the mechanism of painting; yet it produced many, who have shown great abilities in expressing what must be ranked above mechanical excellencies. In the works of Frank Hals, the portrait-painter may observe the composition of a face, the features well put together, as the painters express it; from whence proceeds that strong-marked character of individual nature, which is so remarkable in his portraits, and is not found in an equal degree in any other painter. If he had joined to this most difficult part of the art a patience in finishing what he had so correctly planned, he might justly have claimed the place which Vandyke, all things considered, so justly holds as the first of portrait-painters. Others of the same school have shown great power in expressing the character and passions of those vulgar people which were the subjects of their study and attention. Among those, Jan Steen seems to be one of the most diligent and accurate observers of what passed in those scenes which he frequented, and which were to him an academy. I can easily imagine, that if this extraordinary man had had the good fortune to have been born in Italy, instead of Holland; had he lived in Rome, instead of Leyden; and been blessed with Michel Angelo and Raffaelle for his masters, instead of Brouwer and Van Goyen; the same sagacity and penetration which distinguished so accurately the different characters and expression in his vulgar figures, would, when exerted in the selection and imitation of what was great and elevated in nature, have been equally successful; and he now would have ranged with the great pillars and supporters of our Art. Men who, although thus bound down by the almost invincible powers of early habits, have still exerted extraordinary abilities within their narrow and confined circle; and have, from the natural vigour of their mind, given a very interesting expression, and great force and energy to their works; though they cannot be recommended to be exactly imitated, may yet invite an artist to endeavour to transfer, by a kind of parody, their excellencies to his own performances. Whoever has acquired the power of making this use of the Flemish, Venetian, and French schools, is a real genius, and has sources of knowledge open to him which were wanting to the great artists who lived in the great age of painting. To find excellencies, however dispersed; to discover beauties, however concealed by the multitude of defects with which they are surrounded, can be the work only of him, who, having a mind always alive to his art, has extended his views to all ages and to all schools, and has acquired from that comprehensive mass which he has thus gathered to himself--a well-digested and perfect idea of his art, to which everything is referred. Like a sovereign judge and arbiter of art, he is possessed of that presiding power which separates and attracts every excellence from every school; selects both from what is great, and what is little; brings home knowledge from the East and from the West; making the universe tributary towards furnishing his mind, and enriching his works with originality and variety of inventions. Thus I have ventured to give my opinion of what appears to me the true and only method by which an artist makes himself master of his profession; which I hold ought to be one continued course of imitation, that is not to cease but with his life. Those, who either from their own engagements and hurry of business, or from indolence, or from conceit and vanity, have neglected looking out of themselves, as far as my experience and observation reaches, have from that time, not only ceased to advance, and improve in their performances, but have gone backward. They may be compared to men who have lived upon their principal till they are reduced to beggary, and left without resources. I can recommend nothing better, therefore, than that you endeavour to infuse into your works what you learn from the contemplation of the works of others. To recommend this has the appearance of needless and superfluous advice; but it has fallen within my own knowledge, that artists, though they were not wanting in a sincere love for their art, though they had great pleasure in seeing good pictures, and were well skilled to distinguish what was excellent or defective in them, yet have gone on in their own manner, without any endeavour to give a little of those beauties, which they admired in others, to their own works. It is difficult to conceive how the present Italian painters, who live in the midst of the treasures of art, should be contented with their own style. They proceed in their commonplace inventions, and never think it worth while to visit the works of those great artists with which they are surrounded. I remember, several years ago, to have conversed at Rome with an artist of great fame throughout Europe; he was not without a considerable degree of abilities, but those abilities were by no means equal to his own opinion of them. From the reputation he had acquired, he too fondly concluded that he stood in the same rank when compared with his predecessors, as he held with regard to his miserable contemporary rivals. In conversation about some particulars of the works of Raffaelle, he seemed to have, or to affect to have, a very obscure memory of them. He told me that he had not set his foot in the Vatican for fifteen years together; that he had been in treaty to copy a capital picture of Raffaelle, but that the business had gone off; however, if the agreement had held, his copy would have greatly exceeded the original. The merit of this artist, however great we may suppose it, I am sure would have been far greater, and his presumption would have been far less, if he had visited the Vatican, as in reason he ought to have done, at least once every month of his life. I address myself, Gentlemen, to you who have made some progress in the art, and are to be, for the future, under the guidance of your own judgment and discretion. I consider you as arrived to that period when you have a right to think for yourselves, and to presume that every man is fallible; to study the masters with a suspicion, that great men are not always exempt from great faults; to criticise, compare, and rank their works in your own estimation, as they approach to, or recede from, that standard of perfection which you have formed in your own minds, but which those masters themselves, it must be remembered, have taught you to make, and which you will cease to make with correctness, when you cease to study them. It is their excellencies which have taught you their defects. I would wish you to forget where you are, and who it is that speaks to you. I only direct you to higher models and better advisers. We can teach you here but very little; you are henceforth to be your own teachers. Do this justice, however, to the English Academy; to bear in mind, that in this place you contracted no narrow habits, no false ideas, nothing that could lead you to the imitation of any living master, who may be the fashionable darling of the day. As you have not been taught to flatter us, do not learn to flatter yourselves. We have endeavoured to lead you to the admiration of nothing but what is truly admirable. If you choose inferior patterns, or if you make your own _former_ works your patterns for your _latter_, it is your own fault. The purport of this discourse, and, indeed, of most of my other discourses, is, to caution you against that false opinion, but too prevalent among artists, of the imaginary powers of native genius, and its sufficiency in great works. This opinion, according to the temper of mind it meets with, almost always produces, either a vain confidence, or a sluggish despair--both equally fatal to all proficiency. Study, therefore, the great works of the great masters forever. Study, as nearly as you can, in the order, in the manner, and on the principles, on which they studied. Study nature attentively, but always with those masters in your company; consider them as models which you are to imitate, and at the same time as rivals with whom you are to contend. FOOTNOTES: 4: Sed non qui maxime imitandus, etiam solus imitandus est Quintilian. DISCOURSE VII. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1776._ THE REALITY OF A STANDARD OF TASTE, AS WELL AS OF CORPORAL BEAUTY.--BESIDE THIS IMMEDIATE TRUTH, THERE ARE SECONDARY TRUTHS, WHICH ARE VARIABLE; BOTH REQUIRING THE ATTENTION OF THE ARTIST, IN PROPORTION TO THEIR STABILITY OR THEIR INFLUENCE. It has been my uniform endeavour, since I first addressed you from this place, to impress you strongly with one ruling idea. I wished you to be persuaded that success in your art depends almost entirely on your own industry; but the industry which I principally recommended is not the industry of the _hands_, but of the _mind_. As our art is not a divine _gift_, so neither is it a mechanical _trade_. Its foundations are laid in solid science; and practice, though essential to perfection, can never attain that to which it aims, unless it works under the direction of principle. Some writers upon art carry this point too far, and suppose that such a body of universal and profound learning is requisite, that the very enumeration of its kinds is enough to frighten a beginner. Vitruvius, after going through the many accomplishments of nature, and the many acquirements of learning, necessary to an architect, proceeds with great gravity to assert that he ought to be well skilled in the civil law, that he may not be cheated in the title of the ground he builds on. But without such exaggeration, we may go so far as to assert, that a painter stands in need of more knowledge than is to be picked off his pallet, or collected by looking on his model, whether it be in life or in picture. He can never be a great artist who is grossly illiterate. Every man whose business is description ought to be tolerably conversant with the poets, in some language or other; that he may imbibe a poetical spirit, and enlarge his stock of ideas. He ought to acquire an habit of comparing and digesting his notions. He ought not to be wholly unacquainted with that part of philosophy which gives an insight into human nature, and relates to the manners, characters, passions, and affections. He ought to know _something_ concerning the mind, as well as _a great deal_ concerning the body of man. For this purpose it is not necessary that he should go into such a compass of reading as must, by distracting his attention, disqualify him for the practical part of his profession, and make him sink the performer in the critic. Reading, if it can be made the favourite recreation of his leisure hours, will improve and enlarge his mind, without retarding his actual industry. What such partial and desultory reading cannot afford, may be supplied by the conversation of learned and ingenious men, which is the best of all substitutes for those who have not the means or opportunities of deep study. There are many such men in this age; and they will be pleased with communicating their ideas to artists, when they see them curious and docile, if they are treated with that respect and deference which is so justly their due. Into such society, young artists, if they make it the point of their ambition, will, by degrees, be admitted. There, without formal teaching, they will insensibly come to feel and reason like those they live with, and find a rational and systematic taste imperceptibly formed in their minds, which they will know how to reduce to a standard by applying general truth to their own purposes, better, perhaps, than those to whom they owned the original sentiment. Of these studies, and this conversation, the desire and legitimate offspring, is a power of distinguishing right from wrong; which power, applied to works of art, is denominated TASTE. Let me, then, without further introduction, enter upon an examination, whether taste be so far beyond our reach as to be unattainable by care; or be so very vague and capricious, that no care ought to be employed about it. It has been the fate of arts to be enveloped in mysterious and incomprehensible language, as if it was thought necessary that even the terms should correspond to the idea entertained of the instability and uncertainty of the rules which they expressed. To speak of genius and taste, as in any way connected with reason or common-sense, would be, in the opinion of some towering talkers, to speak like a man who possessed neither; who had never felt that enthusiasm, or, to use their own inflated language, was never warmed by that Promethean fire, which animates the canvas and vivifies the marble. If, in order to be intelligible, I appear to degrade art by bringing her down from the visionary situation in the clouds, it is only to give her a more solid mansion upon the earth. It is necessary that at some time or other we should see things as they really are, and not impose on ourselves by that false magnitude with which objects appear when viewed indistinctly as through a mist. We will allow a poet to express his meaning, when his meaning is not well known to himself, with a certain degree of obscurity, as it is one sort of the sublime. But when, in plain prose, we gravely talk of courting the Muse in shady bowers; waiting the call and inspiration of Genius, finding out where he inhabits, and where he is to be invoked with the greatest success; of attending to times and seasons when the imagination shoots with the greatest vigour, whether at the summer solstice or the vernal equinox; sagaciously observing how much the wild freedom and liberty of imagination is cramped by attention to established rules; and how this same imagination begins to grow dim in advanced age, smothered and deadened by too much judgment; when we talk such language, or entertain such sentiments as these, we generally rest contented with mere words, or at best entertain notions not only groundless but pernicious. If all this means, what it is very possible was originally intended only to be meant, that in order to cultivate an art a man secludes himself from the commerce of the world, and retires into the country at particular seasons: or that at one time of the year his body is in better health, and, consequently, his mind fitter for the business of hard thinking than at another time; or that the mind may be fatigued and grow confused by long and unremitted application; this I can understand. I can likewise believe that a man, eminent when young for possessing poetical imagination, may, from having taken another road, so neglect its cultivation as to show less of its powers in his latter life. But I am persuaded that scarce a poet is to be found, from Homer down to Dryden, who preserved a sound mind in a sound body, and continued practising his profession to the very last, whose latter works are not as replete with the fire of imagination, as those which were produced in his more youthful days. To understand literally these metaphors, or ideas expressed in poetical language, seems to be equally absurd as to conclude, that because painters sometimes represent poets writing from the dictates of a little winged boy or genius, that this same genius did really inform him in a whisper what he was to write; and that he is himself but a mere machine, unconscious of the operations of his own mind. Opinions generally received and floating in the world, whether true or false, we naturally adopt and make our own: they may be considered as a kind of inheritance to which we succeed and are tenants for life, and which we leave to our posterity very nearly in the condition in which we received it, it not being much in any one man's power either to impair or improve it. The greatest part of these opinions, like current coin in its circulation, we are used to take without weighing or examining; but by this inevitable inattention many adulterated pieces are received, which, when we seriously estimate our wealth, we must throw away. So the collector of popular opinions, when he embodies his knowledge, and forms a system, must separate those which are true from those which are only plausible. But it becomes more peculiarly a duty to the professors of art not to let any opinions relating to _that_ art pass unexamined. The caution and circumspection required in such examination we shall presently have an opportunity of explaining. Genius and taste, in their common acceptation, appear to be very nearly related; the difference lies only in this, that genius has superadded to it a habit or power of execution; or we may say, that taste, when this power is added, changes its name, and is called genius. They both, in the popular opinion, pretend to an entire exemption from the restraint of rules. It is supposed that their powers are intuitive; that under the name of genius great works are produced, and under the name of taste an exact judgment is given, without our knowing why, and without our being under the least obligation to reason, precept, or experience. One can scarce state these opinions without exposing their absurdity; yet they are constantly in the mouths of men, and particularly of artists. They who have thought seriously on this subject do not carry the point so far; yet I am persuaded, that even among those few who may be called thinkers, the prevalent opinion allows less than it ought to the powers of reason; and considers the principles of taste, which give all their authority to the rules of art, as more fluctuating, and as having less solid foundations, than we shall find, upon examination, they really have. The common saying, that _tastes are not to be disputed_, owes its influence, and its general reception, to the same error which leads us to imagine this faculty of too high an original to submit to the authority of an earthly tribunal. It likewise corresponds with the notions of those who consider it as a mere phantom of the imagination, so devoid of substance as to elude all criticism. We often appear to differ in sentiments from each other, merely from the inaccuracy of terms, as we are not obliged to speak always with critical exactness. Something of this too may arise from want of words in the language in which we speak to express the more nice discrimination which a deep investigation discovers. A great deal, however, of this difference vanishes when each opinion is tolerably explained and understood by constancy and precision in the use of terms. We apply the term TASTE to that act of the mind by which we like or dislike, whatever be the subject. Our judgment upon an airy nothing, a fancy which has no foundation, is called by the same name which we give to our determination concerning those truths which refer to the most general and most unalterable principles of human nature; to the works which are only to be produced by the greatest effort of the human understanding. However inconvenient this may be, we are obliged to take words as we find them; all we can do is to distinguish the THINGS to which they are applied. We may let pass those things which are at once subjects of taste and sense, and which, having as much certainty as the senses themselves, give no occasion to inquiry or dispute. The natural appetite or taste of the human mind is for TRUTH; whether that truth results from the real agreement or equality of original ideas among themselves; from the agreement of the representation of any object with the thing represented; or from the correspondence of the several parts of any arrangement with each other. It is the very same taste which relishes a demonstration in geometry, that is pleased with the resemblance of a picture to an original and touched with the harmony of music. All these have unalterable and fixed foundations in nature, and are therefore equally investigated by reason, and known by study; some with more, some with less clearness, but all exactly in the same way. A picture that is unlike is false. Disproportionate ordonnance of parts is not right; because it cannot be true, until it ceases to be a contradiction to assert, that the parts have no relation to the whole. Colouring is true, when it is naturally adapted to the eye, from brightness, from softness, from harmony, from resemblance; because these agree with their object, NATURE, and therefore are true; as true as mathematical demonstration; but known to be true only to those who study these things. But besides real, there is also apparent truth, or opinion, or prejudice. With regard to real truth, when it is known, the taste which conforms to it is, and must be, uniform. With regard to the second sort of truth, which may be called truth upon sufferance, or truth by courtesy, it is not fixed, but variable. However, whilst these opinions and prejudices, on which it is founded, continue, they operate as truth; and the art, whose office it is to please the mind, as well as instruct it, must direct itself according to opinion, or it will not attain its end. In proportion as these prejudices are known to be generally diffused, or long received, the taste which conforms to them approaches nearer to certainty, and to a sort of resemblance to real science, even where opinions are found to be no better than prejudices. And since they deserve, on account of their duration and extent, to be considered as really true, they become capable of no small degree of stability and determination, by their permanent and uniform nature. As these prejudices become more narrow, more local, more transitory, this secondary taste becomes more and more fantastical; recedes from real science; is less to be approved by reason, and less followed by practice: though in no case perhaps to be wholly neglected, where it does not stand, as it sometimes does, in direct defiance of the most respectable opinions received amongst mankind. Having laid down these positions, I shall proceed with less method, because less will serve to explain and apply them. We will take it for granted, that reason is something invariable, and fixed in the nature of things; and without endeavouring to go back to an account of first principles, which for ever will elude our search, we will conclude that whatever goes under the name of taste, which we can fairly bring under the dominion of reason, must be considered as equally exempt from change. If, therefore, in the course of this inquiry, we can show that there are rules for the conduct of the artist which are fixed and invariable, it follows, of course, that the art of the connoisseur, or, in other words, taste, has likewise invariable principles. Of the judgment which we make on the works of art, and the preference that we give to one class of art over another, if a reason be demanded, the question is perhaps evaded by answering, I judge from my taste; but it does not follow that a better answer cannot be given, though, for common gazers, this may be sufficient. Every man is not obliged to investigate the cause of his approbation or dislike. The arts would lie open for ever to caprice and casualty, if those who are to judge of their excellencies had no settled principles by which they are to regulate their decisions, and the merit or defect of performances were to be determined by unguided fancy. And indeed we may venture to assert, that whatever speculative knowledge is necessary to the artist, is equally and indispensably necessary to the connoisseur. The first idea that occurs in the consideration of what is fixed in art, or in taste, is that presiding principle of which I have so frequently spoken in former discourses,--the general idea of nature. The beginning, the middle, and the end of everything that is valuable in taste, is comprised in the knowledge of what is truly nature; for whatever notions are not conformable to those of nature, or universal opinion, must be considered as more or less capricious. My notion of nature comprehends not only the forms which nature produces, but also the nature and internal fabric and organisation, as I may call it, of the human mind and imagination. The terms beauty, or nature, which are general ideas, are but different modes of expressing the same thing, whether we apply these terms to statues, poetry, or pictures. Deformity is not nature, but an accidental deviation from her accustomed practice. This general idea, therefore, ought to be called Nature; and nothing else, correctly speaking, has a right to that name. But we are sure so far from speaking, in common conversation, with any such accuracy, that, on the contrary, when we criticise Rembrandt and other Dutch painters, who introduced into their historical pictures exact representations of individual objects with all their imperfections, we say--Though it is not in a good taste, yet it is nature. This misapplication of terms must be very often perplexing to the young student. Is not art, he may say, an imitation of nature? Must he not, therefore, who imitates her with the greatest fidelity be the best artist? By this mode of reasoning Rembrandt has a higher place than Raffaelle. But a very little reflection will serve to show us that these particularities cannot be nature; for how can that be the nature of man, in which no two individuals are the same? It plainly appears, that as a work is conducted under the influence of general ideas, or partial, it is principally to be considered as the effect of a good or a bad taste. As beauty, therefore, does not consist in taking what lies immediately before you, so neither, in our pursuit of taste, are those opinions which we first received and adopted the best choice, or the most natural to the mind and imagination. In the infancy of our knowledge we seize with greediness the good that is within our reach; it is by after-consideration, and in consequence of discipline, that we refuse the present for a greater good at a distance. The nobility or elevation of all arts, like the excellency of virtue itself, consists in adopting this enlarged and comprehensive idea; and all criticism built upon the more confined view of what is natural may properly be called _shallow_ criticism, rather than false: its defect is, that the truth is not sufficiently extensive. It has sometimes happened that some of the greatest men in our art have been betrayed into errors by this confined mode of reasoning. Poussin, who upon the whole may be produced as an artist strictly attentive to the most enlarged and extensive ideas of nature, from not having settled principles on this point, has, in one instance at least, I think, deserted truth for prejudice. He is said to have vindicated the conduct of Julio Romano for his inattention to the masses of light and shade, or grouping the figures in THE BATTLE OF CONSTANTINE, as if designedly neglected, the better to correspond with the hurry and confusion of a battle. Poussin's own conduct in many of his pictures makes us more easily give credit to this report. That it was too much his own practice, THE SACRIFICE TO SILENUS, and THE TRIUMPH OF BACCHUS AND ARIADNE, may be produced as instances; but this principle is still more apparent, and may be said to be even more ostentatiously displayed in his PERSEUS and MEDUSA'S HEAD. This is undoubtedly a subject of great bustle and tumult, and that the first effect of the picture may correspond to the subject, every principle of composition is violated; there is no principal figure, no principal light, no groups; everything is dispersed, and in such a state of confusion, that the eye finds no repose anywhere. In consequence of the forbidding appearance, I remember turning from it with disgust, and should not have looked a second time, if I had not been called back to a closer inspection. I then indeed found, what we may expect always to find in the works of Poussin, correct drawing, forcible expression, and just character; in short, all the excellencies which so much distinguish the works of this learned painter. This conduct of Poussin I hold to be entirely improper to imitate. A picture should please at first sight, and appear to invite the spectator's attention: if, on the contrary, the general effect offends the eye, a second view is not always sought, whatever more substantial and intrinsic merit it may possess. Perhaps no apology ought to be received for offences committed against the vehicle (whether it be the organ of seeing or of hearing) by which our pleasures are conveyed to the mind. We must take care that the eye be not perplexed and distracted by a confusion of equal parts, or equal lights, or offended by an unharmonious mixture of colours, as we should guard against offending the ear by unharmonious sounds. We may venture to be more confident of the truth of this observation, since we find that Shakespeare, on a parallel occasion, has made Hamlet recommend to the players a precept of the same kind--never to offend the ear by harsh sounds: _In the very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of your passion_, says he, _you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness_. And yet, at the same time, he very justly observes, _The end of playing, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature_. No one can deny that violent passions will naturally emit harsh and disagreeable tones; yet this great poet and critic thought that this imitation of nature would cost too much, if purchased at the expense of disagreeable sensations, or, as he expresses it, of _splitting the ear_. The poet and actor, as well as the painter of genius, who is well acquainted with all the variety and sources of pleasure in the mind and imagination, has little regard or attention to common nature, or creeping after common-sense. By overleaping those narrow bounds, he more effectually seizes the whole mind, and more powerfully accomplishes his purpose. This success is ignorantly imagined to proceed from inattention to all rules, and a defiance of reason and judgment; whereas it is in truth acting according to the best rules and the justest reason. He who thinks nature, in the narrow sense of the word, is alone to be followed, will produce but a scanty entertainment for the imagination; everything is to be done with which it is natural for the mind to be pleased, whether it proceeds from simplicity or variety, uniformity or irregularity; whether the scenes are familiar or exotic; rude and wild, or enriched and cultivated; for it is natural for the mind to be pleased with all these in their turn. In short, whatever pleases has in it what is analogous to the mind, and is, therefore, in the highest and best sense of the word, natural. It is the sense of nature or truth which ought more particularly to be cultivated by the professors of art; and it may be observed, that many wise and learned men, who have accustomed their minds to admit nothing for truth but what can be proved by mathematical demonstration, have seldom any relish for those arts which address themselves to the fancy, the rectitude and truth of which is known by another kind of proof; and we may add, that the acquisition of this knowledge requires as much circumspection and sagacity as is necessary to attain those truths which are more capable of demonstration. Reason must ultimately determine our choice on every occasion; but this reason may still be exerted ineffectually by applying to taste principles which, though right as far as they go, yet do not reach the object. No man, for instance, can deny that it seems at first view very reasonable that a statue, which is to carry down to posterity the resemblance of an individual, should be dressed in the fashion of the times, in the dress which he himself wore: this would certainly be true, if the dress were part of the man; but after a time, the dress is only an amusement for an antiquarian; and if it obstructs the general design of the piece, it is to be disregarded by the artist. Common-sense must here give way to a higher sense. In the naked form, and in the disposition of the drapery, the difference between one artist and another is principally seen. But if he is compelled to exhibit the modern dress, the naked form is entirely hid, and the drapery is already disposed by the skill of the tailor. Were a Phidias to obey such absurd commands, he would please no more than an ordinary sculptor; in the inferior parts of every art the learned and the ignorant are nearly upon a level. These were probably among the reasons that induced the sculptor of that wonderful figure of Laocoon, to exhibit him naked, notwithstanding he was surprised in the act of sacrificing to Apollo, and consequently ought to have been shown in his sacerdotal habits, if those greater reasons had not preponderated. Art is not yet in so high estimation with us, as to obtain so great a sacrifice as the ancients made, especially the Grecians, who suffered themselves to be represented naked, whether they were generals, lawgivers, or kings. Under this head of balancing and choosing the greater reason, or of two evils taking the least, we may consider the conduct of Rubens in the Luxembourg gallery, where he has mixed allegorical figures with the representations of real personages, which must be acknowledged to be a fault; yet, if the artist considered himself as engaged to furnish this gallery with a rich, various, and splendid ornament, this could not be done, at least in an equal degree, without peopling the air and water with these allegorical figures: he therefore accomplished all that he purposed. In this case all lesser considerations, which tend to obstruct the great end of the work, must yield and give way. The variety which portraits and modern dresses, mixed with allegorical figures, produce, is not to be slightly given up upon a punctilio of reason, when that reason deprives the art in a manner of its very existence. It must always be remembered that the business of a great painter is to produce a great picture; he must therefore take especial care not to be cajoled by specious arguments out of his materials. What has been so often said to the disadvantage of allegorical poetry,--that it is tedious, and uninteresting,--cannot with the same propriety be applied to painting, where the interest is of a different kind. If allegorical painting produces a greater variety of ideal beauty, a richer, a more various and delightful composition, and gives to the artist a greater opportunity of exhibiting his skill, all the interest he wishes for is accomplished; such a picture not only attracts, but fixes the attention. If it be objected that Rubens judged ill at first in thinking it necessary to make his work so very ornamental, this puts the question upon new ground. It was his peculiar style; he could paint in no other; and he was selected for that work, probably because it was his style. Nobody will dispute but some of the best of the Roman or Bolognian schools would have produced a more learned and more noble work. This leads us to another important province of taste, that of weighing the value of the different classes of the art, and of estimating them accordingly. All arts have means within them of applying themselves with success both to the intellectual and sensitive part of our natures. It cannot be disputed, supposing both these means put in practice with equal abilities, to which we ought to give the preference; to him who represents the heroic arts and more dignified passions of man, or to him who, by the help of meretricious ornaments, however elegant and graceful, captivates the sensuality, as it may be called, of our taste. Thus the Roman and Bolognian schools are reasonably preferred to the Venetian, Flemish, or Dutch schools, as they address themselves to our best and noblest faculties. Well-turned periods in eloquence, or harmony of numbers in poetry, which are in those arts what colouring is in painting, however highly we may esteem them, can never be considered as of equal importance with the art of unfolding truths that are useful to mankind, and which make us better or wiser. Nor can those works which remind us of the poverty and meanness of our nature be considered as of equal rank with what excites ideas of grandeur, or raises and dignifies humanity; or, in the words of a late poet, which makes the beholder _learn to venerate himself as man_.[5] It is reason and good sense, therefore, which ranks and estimates every art, and every part of that art, according to its importance, from the painter of animated down to inanimated nature. We will not allow a man, who shall prefer the inferior style, to say it is his taste; taste here has nothing, or at least ought to have nothing, to do with the question. He wants not taste, but sense and soundness of judgment. Indeed, perfection in an inferior style may be reasonably preferred to mediocrity in the highest walks of art. A landscape of Claude Lorrain may be preferred to a history by Luca Giordano; but hence appears the necessity of the connoisseur's knowing in what consists the excellency of each class, in order to judge how near it approaches to perfection. Even in works of the same kind, as in history-painting, which is composed of various parts, excellence of an inferior species, carried to a very high degree, will make a work very valuable, and in some measure compensate for the absence of the higher kinds of merit. It is the duty of the connoisseur to know and esteem, as much as it may deserve, every part of painting: he will not then think even Bassano unworthy of his notice; who, though totally devoid of expression, sense, grace, or elegance, may be esteemed on account of his admirable taste of colours, which, in his best works, are little inferior to those of Titian. Since I have mentioned Bassano, we must do him likewise the justice to acknowledge, that though he did not aspire to the dignity of expressing the characters and passions of men, yet, with respect to facility and truth in his manner of touching animals of all kinds, and giving them what painters call _their character_, few have excelled him. To Bassano we may add Paul Veronese and Tintoret, for their entire inattention to what is justly thought the most essential part of our art, the expression of the passions. Notwithstanding these glaring deficiencies, we justly esteem their works; but it must be remembered, that they do not please from those defects, but from their great excellencies of another kind, and in spite of such transgressions. These excellencies, too, as far as they go, are founded in the truth of _general_ nature: they tell the _truth_, though not _the whole truth_. By these considerations, which can never be too frequently impressed, may be obviated two errors, which I observed to have been, formerly at least, the most prevalent, and to be most injurious to artists; that of thinking taste and genius to have nothing to do with reason, and that of taking particular living objects for nature. I shall now say something on that part of _taste_, which, as I have hinted to you before, does not belong so much to the external form of things, but is addressed to the mind, and depends on its original frame, or, to use the expression, the organisation of the soul; I mean the imagination and the passions. The principles of these are as invariable as the former, and are to be known and reasoned upon in the same manner, by an appeal to common-sense deciding upon the common feelings of mankind. This sense, and these feelings, appear to me of equal authority, and equally conclusive. Now this appeal implies a general uniformity and agreement in the minds of men. It would be else an idle and vain endeavour to establish rules of art; it would be pursuing a phantom, to attempt to move affections with which we were entirely unacquainted. We have no reason to suspect there is a greater difference between our minds than between our forms; of which, though there are no two alike, yet there is a general similitude that goes through the whole race of mankind; and those who have cultivated their taste can distinguish what is beautiful or deformed, or, in other words, what agrees with or deviates from the general idea of nature, in one case, as well as in the other. The internal fabric of our minds, as well as the external form of our bodies, being nearly uniform, it seems then to follow of course, that as the imagination is incapable of producing any thing originally of itself, and can only vary and combine those ideas with which it is furnished by means of the senses, there will be necessarily an agreement in the imaginations, as in the senses of men. There being this agreement, it follows, that in all cases, in our lightest amusements as well as in our most serious actions and engagements of life, we must regulate our affections of every kind by that of others. The well-disciplined mind acknowledges this authority, and submits its own opinion to the public voice. It is from knowing what are the general feelings and passions of mankind that we acquire a true idea of what imagination is; though it appears as if we had nothing to do but to consult our own particular sensations, and these were sufficient to ensure us from all error and mistake. A knowledge of the disposition and character of the human mind can be acquired only by experience; a great deal will be learned, I admit, by a habit of examining what passes in our bosoms, what are our own motives of action, and of what kind of sentiments we are conscious on any occasion. We may suppose an uniformity, and conclude that the same effect will be produced by the same cause in the mind of others. This examination will contribute to suggest to us matters of inquiry; but we can never be sure that our own sentiments are true and right, till they are confirmed by more extensive observation. One man opposing another determines nothing; but a general union of minds, like a general combination of the forces of all mankind, makes a strength that is irresistible. In fact, as he who does not know himself, does not know others, so it may be said with equal truth, that he who does not know others, knows himself but very imperfectly. A man who thinks he is guarding himself against prejudices by resisting the authority of others, leaves open every avenue to singularity, vanity, self-conceit, obstinacy, and many other vices, all tending to warp the judgment, and prevent the natural operation of his faculties. This submission to others is a deference which we owe, and, indeed, are forced involuntarily to pay. In fact, we never are satisfied with our opinions, whatever we may pretend, till they are ratified and confirmed by the suffrages of the rest of mankind. We dispute and wrangle for ever; we endeavour to get men to come to us when we do not go to them. He, therefore, who is acquainted with the works which have pleased different ages and different countries, and has formed his opinion on them, has more materials, and more means of knowing what is analogous to the mind of man, than he who is conversant only with the works of his own age or country. What has pleased, and continues to please, is likely to please again: hence are derived the rules of art, and on this immovable foundation they must ever stand. This search and study of the history of the mind ought not to be confined to one art only. It is by the analogy that one art bears to another that many things are ascertained, which either were but faintly seen, or, perhaps, would not have been discovered at all, if the inventor had not received the first hints from the practices of a sister art on a similar occasion.[6] The frequent allusions which every man who treats of any art is obliged to make to others, in order to illustrate and confirm his principles, sufficiently show their near connection and inseparable relation. All arts having the same general end, which is to please; and addressing themselves to the same faculties, through the medium of the senses; it follows that their rules and principles must have as great affinity as the different materials and the different organs or vehicles by which they pass to the mind will permit them to retain.[7] We may therefore conclude that the real substance, as it may be called, of what goes under the name of taste, is fixed and established in the nature of things; that there are certain and regular causes by which the imagination and passions of men are affected; and that the knowledge of these causes is acquired by a laborious and diligent investigation of nature, and by the same slow progress as wisdom or knowledge of every kind, however instantaneous its operations may appear when thus acquired. It has been often observed, that the good and virtuous man alone can acquire this true or just relish even of works of art. This opinion will not appear entirely without foundation, when we consider that the same habit of mind, which is acquired by our search after truth, in the more serious duties of life, is only transferred to the pursuit of lighter amusements. The same disposition, the same desire to find something steady, substantial, and durable, on which the mind can lean, as it were, and rest with safety, actuates us in both cases. The subject only is changed. We pursue the same method in our search after the idea of beauty and perfection in each; of virtue, by looking forward beyond ourselves to society, and to the whole; of arts, by extending our views in the same manner, to all ages and all times. Every art, like our own, has in its composition fluctuating as well as fixed principles. It is an attentive inquiry into their difference that will enable us to determine how far we are influenced by custom and habit, and what is fixed in the nature of things. To distinguish how much has solid foundation, we may have recourse to the same proof by which some hold that wit ought to be tried; whether it preserves itself when translated. That wit is false which can subsist only in one language; and that picture which pleases only one age or one nation owes its reception to some local or accidental association of ideas. We may apply this to every custom and habit of life. Thus, the general principles of urbanity, politeness, or civility, have been the same in all nations; but the mode in which they are dressed is continually varying. The general idea of showing respect is by making yourself less; but the manner, whether by bowing the body, kneeling, prostration, pulling off the upper part of our dress, or taking away the lower,[8] is a matter of custom. Thus, in regard to ornaments,--it would be unjust to conclude, that, because they were at first arbitrarily contrived, they are therefore undeserving of our attention; on the contrary, he who neglects the cultivation of those ornaments acts contrary to nature and reason. As life would be imperfect without its highest ornaments, the Arts, so these arts themselves would be imperfect without _their_ ornaments. Though we by no means ought to rank with these positive and substantial beauties, yet it must be allowed that a knowledge of both is essentially requisite towards forming a complete, whole, and perfect taste. It is in reality from their ornaments that arts receive their peculiar character and complexion; we may add, that in them we find the characteristical mark of a national taste; as, by throwing up a feather in the air, we know which way the wind blows, better than by a more heavy matter. The striking distinction between the works of the Roman, Bolognian, and Venetian schools consists more in that general effect which is produced by colours than in the more profound excellencies of the art; at least it is from thence that each is distinguished and known at first sight. Thus it is the ornaments rather than the proportions of architecture which at the first glance distinguish the different orders from each other; the Doric is known by its triglyphs, the Ionic by its volutes, and the Corinthian by its acanthus. What distinguishes oratory from a cold narration is a more liberal, though chaste, use of those ornaments which go under the name of figurative and metaphorical expressions; and poetry distinguishes itself from oratory by words and expressions still more ardent and glowing. What separates and distinguishes poetry is more particularly the ornament of _verse_; it is this which gives it its character, and is an essential without which it cannot exist. Custom has appropriated different metre to different kinds of composition, in which the world is not perfectly agreed. In England the dispute is not yet settled, which is to be preferred, rhyme or blank verse. But however we disagree about what these metrical ornaments shall be, that some metre is essentially necessary is universally acknowledged. In poetry or eloquence, to determine how far figurative or metaphorical language may proceed, and when it begins to be affectation or beside the truth, must be determined by taste; though this taste, we must never forget, is regulated and formed by the presiding feelings of mankind--by those works which have approved themselves to all times and all persons. Thus, though eloquence has undoubtedly an essential and intrinsic excellence, and immovable principles common to all languages, founded in the nature of our passions and affections; yet it has its ornaments and modes of address, which are merely arbitrary. What is approved in the eastern nations as grand and majestic would be considered by the Greeks and Romans as turgid and inflated; and they, in return, would be thought by the Orientals to express themselves in a cold and insipid manner. We may add, likewise, to the credit of ornaments, that it is by their means that Art itself accomplishes its purpose. Fresnoy calls colouring, which is one of the chief ornaments of painting, _lena sororis_, that which procures lovers and admirers to the more valuable excellencies of the art. It appears to be the same right turn of mind which enables a man to acquire the _truth_, or the just idea of what is right, in the ornaments, as in the more stable principles of art. It has still the same centre of perfection, though it is the centre of a smaller circle. To illustrate this by the fashion of dress, in which there is allowed to be a good or bad taste. The component parts of dress are continually changing from great to little, from short to long; but the general form still remains; it is still the same general dress, which is comparatively fixed, though on a very slender foundation; but it is on this which fashion must rest. He who invents with the most success, or dresses in the best taste, would probably, from the same sagacity employed to greater purposes, have discovered equal skill, or have formed the same correct taste, in the highest labours of art. I have mentioned taste in dress, which is certainly one of the lowest subjects to which this word is applied; yet, as I have before observed, there is a right even here, however narrow its foundation, respecting the fashion of any particular nation. But we have still more slender means of determining to which of the different customs of different ages or countries we ought to give the preference, since they seem to be all equally removed from nature. If an European, when he has cut off his beard, and put false hair on his head, or bound up his own natural hair in regular hard knots, as unlike nature as he can possibly make it; and after having rendered them immovable by the help of the fat of hogs, has covered the whole with flour, laid on by a machine with the utmost regularity; if, when thus attired, he issues forth, and meets a Cherokee Indian, who has bestowed as much time at his toilet, and laid on, with equal care and attention, his yellow and red ochre on particular parts of his forehead or cheeks, as he judges most becoming; whoever of these two despises the other for this attention to the fashion of his country, whichever first feels himself provoked to laugh, is the barbarian. All these fashions are very innocent; neither worth disquisition, nor any endeavour to alter them; as the change would, in all probability, be equally distant from nature. The only circumstance against which indignation may reasonably be moved, is, where the operation is painful or destructive of health; such as some of the practices at Otaheite, and the strait-lacing of the English ladies; of the last of which practices, how destructive it must be to health and long life the professor of anatomy took an opportunity of proving a few days since in this Academy. It is in dress as in things of greater consequence. Fashions originate from those only who have the high and powerful advantages of rank, birth, and fortune. Many of the ornaments of art, those at least for which no reason can be given, are transmitted to us, are adopted, and acquire their consequence from the company in which we have been used to see them. As Greece and Rome are the fountains from whence have flowed all kinds of excellence, to that veneration which they have a right to claim for the pleasure and knowledge which they have afforded us we voluntarily add our approbation of every ornament and every custom that belonged to them, even to the fashion of their dress. For it may be observed that, not satisfied with them in their own place, we make no difficulty of dressing statues of modern heroes or senators in the fashion of the Roman armour or peaceful robe; we go so far as hardly to bear a statue in any other drapery. The figures of the great men of those nations have come down to us in sculpture. In sculpture remain almost all the excellent specimens of ancient art. We have so far associated personal dignity to the persons thus represented, and the truth of art to their manner of representation, that it is not in our power any longer to separate them. This is not so in painting; because, having no excellent ancient portraits, that connection was never formed. Indeed, we could no more venture to paint a general officer in a Roman military habit than we could make a statue in the present uniform. But since we have no ancient portraits, to show how ready we are to adopt those kind of prejudices, we make the best authority among the moderns serve the same purpose. The great variety of excellent portraits with which Vandyke has enriched this nation, we are not content to admire for their real excellence, but extend our approbation even to the dress which happened to be the fashion of that age. We all very well remember how common it was a few years ago for portraits to be drawn in this fantastic dress; and this custom is not yet entirely laid aside. By this means it must be acknowledged very ordinary pictures acquired something of the air and effect of the works of Vandyke, and appeared therefore at first sight to be better pictures than they really were; they appeared so, however, to those only who had the means of making this association; and when made, it was irresistible. But this association is nature, and refers to that secondary truth that comes from conformity to general prejudice and opinion; it is therefore not merely fantastical. Besides the prejudice which we have in favour of ancient dresses, there may be likewise other reasons for the effect which they produce; among which we may justly rank the simplicity of them, consisting of little more than one single piece of drapery, without those whimsical capricious forms by which all other dresses are embarrassed. Thus, though it is from the prejudice we have in favour of the ancients, who have taught us architecture, that we have adopted likewise their ornaments; and though we are satisfied that neither nature nor reason are the foundation of those beauties which we imagine we see in that art, yet if any one, persuaded of this truth, should therefore invent new orders of equal beauty, which we will suppose to be possible, they would not please; nor ought he to complain, since the old has that great advantage of having custom and prejudice on its side. In this case we leave what has every prejudice in its favour, to take that which will have no advantage over what we have left, but novelty; which soon destroys itself, and at any rate is but a weak antagonist against custom. Ancient ornaments, having the right of possession, ought not to be removed, unless to make room for that which not only has higher pretensions, but such pretensions as will balance the evil and confusion which innovation always brings with it. To this we may add, that even the durability of the materials will often contribute to give a superiority to one object over another. Ornaments in buildings, with which taste is principally concerned, are composed of materials which last longer than those of which dress is composed; the former, therefore, make higher pretensions to our favour and prejudice. Some attention is surely due to what we can no more get rid of than we can go out of ourselves. We are creatures of prejudice; we neither can nor ought to eradicate it; we must only regulate it by reason; which kind of regulation is indeed little more than obliging the lesser, the local and temporal prejudices, to give way to those which are more durable and lasting. He, therefore, who in his practice of portrait-painting wishes to dignify his subject, which we will suppose to be a lady, will not paint her in the modern dress, the familiarity of which alone is sufficient to destroy all dignity. He takes care that his work shall correspond to those ideas and that imagination which he knows will regulate the judgment of others; and, therefore, dresses his figure something with the general air of the antique for the sake of dignity, and preserves something of the modern for the sake of likeness. By this conduct his works correspond with those prejudices which we have in favour of what we continually see; and the relish of the antique simplicity corresponds with what we may call the more learned and scientific prejudice. There was a statue made not long since of Voltaire, which the sculptor, not having that respect for the prejudices of mankind which he ought to have had, made entirely naked, and as meagre and emaciated as the original is said to be. The consequence was what might have been expected: it remained in the sculptor's shop, though it was intended as a public ornament and a public honour to Voltaire, for it was procured at the expense of his contemporary wits and admirers. Whoever would reform a nation, supposing a bad taste to prevail in it, will not accomplish his purpose by going directly against the stream of their prejudices. Men's minds must be prepared to receive what is new to them. Reformation is a work of time. A national taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally changed at once; we must yield a little to the prepossession which has taken hold on the mind, and we may then bring people to adopt what would offend them, if endeavoured to be introduced by violence. When Battista Franco was employed, in conjunction with Titian, Paul Veronese, and Tintoret, to adorn the library of St. Mark, his work, Vasari says, gave less satisfaction than any of the others: the dry manner of the Roman school was very ill calculated to please eyes that had been accustomed to the luxuriancy, splendour, and richness of Venetian colouring. Had the Romans been the judges of this work, probably the determination would have been just contrary; for in the more noble parts of the art Battista Franco was perhaps not inferior to any of his rivals. It has been the main scope and principal end of this discourse to demonstrate the reality of a standard in taste, as well as in corporeal beauty; that a false or depraved taste is a thing as well known, as easily discovered, as any thing that is deformed, misshapen, or wrong in our form or outward make; and that this knowledge is derived from the uniformity of sentiments among mankind, from whence proceeds the knowledge of what are the general habits of nature; the result of which is an idea of perfect beauty. If what has been advanced be true--that beside this beauty or truth, which is formed on the uniform, eternal, and immutable laws of nature, and which of necessity can be but _one_; that beside this one immutable verity there are likewise what we have called apparent or secondary truths, proceeding from local and temporary prejudices, fancies, fashions, or accidental connection of ideas; if it appears that these last have still their foundation, however slender, in the original fabric of our minds; it follows that all these truths or beauties deserve and require the attention of the artist, in proportion to their stability or duration, or as their influence is more or less extensive. And let me add, that as they ought not to pass their just bounds, so neither do they, in a well-regulated taste, at all prevent or weaken the influence of those general principles which alone can give to art its true and permanent dignity. To form this just taste is undoubtedly in your own power, but it is to reason and philosophy that you must have recourse; from them you must borrow the balance, by which is to be weighed and estimated the value of every pretension that intrudes itself on your notice. The general objection which is made to the introduction of Philosophy into the regions of taste, is, that it checks and restrains the flights of the imagination, and gives that timidity, which an over-carefulness not to err or act contrary to reason is likely to produce. It is not so. Fear is neither reason nor philosophy. The true spirit of philosophy, by giving knowledge, gives a manly confidence, and substitutes rational firmness in the place of vain presumption. A man of real taste is always a man of judgment in other respects; and those inventions which either disdain or shrink from reason are generally, I fear, more like the dreams of a distempered brain than the exalted enthusiasm of a sound and true genius. In the midst of the highest flights of fancy or imagination, reason ought to preside from first to last, though I admit her more powerful operation is upon reflection. Let me add, that some of the greatest names of antiquity, and those who have most distinguished themselves in works of genius and imagination, were equally eminent for their critical skill. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Horace; and among the moderns, Boileau, Corneille, Pope, and Dryden, are at least instances of genius not being destroyed by attention or subjection to rules and science. I should hope, therefore, that the natural consequence of what has been said would be, to excite in you a desire of knowing the principles and conduct of the great masters of our art, and respect and veneration for them when known. FOOTNOTES: 5: Dr. Goldsmith. 6: "Nulla ars, non alterius artis, aut mater, aut popinqua est."--TERTULL as cited by JUNIUS. 7: "Omnes artes quæ ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quoddam commune vinculum, et quasi cognatione inter se continentur."--CICERO. 8: "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."--EXODUS iii. 5. DISCOURSE VIII. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1778._ THE PRINCIPLES OF ART, WHETHER POETRY OR PAINTING, HAVE THEIR FOUNDATION IN THE MIND; SUCH AS NOVELTY, VARIETY, AND CONTRAST; THESE IN THEIR EXCESS BECOME DEFECTS.--SIMPLICITY, ITS EXCESS DISAGREEABLE.--RULES NOT TO BE ALWAYS OBSERVED IN THEIR LITERAL SENSE: SUFFICIENT TO PRESERVE THE SPIRIT OF THE LAW.--OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRIZE PICTURES. I have recommended in former[9] discourses that Artists should learn their profession by endeavouring to form an idea of perfection from the different excellencies which lie dispersed in the various schools of painting. Some difficulty will still occur, to know what is beauty, and where it may be found: one would wish not to be obliged to take it entirely on the credit of fame; though to this, I acknowledge, the younger students must unavoidably submit. Any suspicion in them of the chance of their being deceived will have more tendency to obstruct their advancement than even an enthusiastic confidence in the perfection of their models. But to the more advanced in the art, who wish to stand on more stable and firmer ground, and to establish principles on a stronger foundation than authority, however venerable or powerful, it may be safely told that there is still a higher tribunal, to which those great masters themselves must submit, and to which, indeed, every excellence in art must be ultimately referred. He who is ambitious to enlarge the boundaries of his art, must extend his views beyond the precepts which are found in books or may be drawn from the practice of his predecessors, to a knowledge of those precepts in the mind, those operations of intellectual nature--to which everything that aspires to please must be proportioned and accommodated. Poetry having a more extensive power than our art, exerts its influence over almost all the passions; among those may be reckoned one of our most prevalent dispositions--anxiety for the future. Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe. The painter's art is more confined, and has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally engaged. What is done by Painting must be done at one blow; curiosity has received at once all the satisfaction it can ever have. There are, however, other intellectual qualities and dispositions which the Painter can satisfy and affect as powerfully as the poet: among those we may reckon our love of novelty, variety, and contrast; these qualities, on examination, will be found to refer to a certain activity and restlessness which has a pleasure and delight in being exercised and put in motion. Art, therefore, only administers to those wants and desires of the mind. It requires no long disquisition to show that the dispositions which I have stated actually subsist in the human mind. Variety reanimates the attention, which is apt to languish under a continual sameness. Novelty makes a more forcible impression on the mind than can be made by the representation of what we have often seen before; and contrasts rouse the power of comparison by opposition. All this is obvious; but, on the other hand, it must be remembered, that the mind, though an active principle, has likewise a disposition to indolence; and though it loves exercise, loves it only to a certain degree, beyond which it is very unwilling to be led or driven; the pursuit, therefore, of novelty and variety may be carried to excess. When variety entirely destroys the pleasure proceeding from uniformity and repetition, and when novelty counteracts and shuts out the pleasure arising from old habits and customs, they oppose too much the indolence of our disposition; the mind, therefore, can bear with pleasure but a small portion of novelty at a time. The main part of the work must be in the mode to which we have been used. An affection to old habits and customs I take to be the predominant disposition of the mind, and novelty comes as an exception; where all is novelty, the attention, the exercise of the mind is too violent. Contrast, in the same manner, when it exceeds certain limits, is as disagreeable as a violent and perpetual opposition; it gives to the senses, in their progress, a more sudden change than they can bear with pleasure. It is then apparent, that those qualities, however they contribute to the perfection of Art, when kept within certain bounds, if they are carried to excess, become defects, and require correction: a work consequently will not proceed better and better as it is more varied; variety can never be the groundwork and principle of the performance--it must be only employed to recreate and relieve. To apply these general observations which belong equally to all arts, to ours in particular. In a composition, when the objects are scattered and divided into many equal parts, the eye is perplexed and fatigued, from not knowing where to find the principal action, or which is the principal figure; for where all are making equal pretensions to notice, all are in equal danger of neglect. The expression which is used very often on these occasions is, the piece wants repose; a word which perfectly expresses a relief of the mind from that state of hurry and anxiety which it suffers when looking at a work of this character. On the other hand, absolute unity--that is, a large work, consisting of one group or mass of light only--would be as defective as an heroic poem without episode, or any collateral incidents to recreate the mind with that variety which it always requires. An instance occurs to me of two painters (Rembrandt and Poussin), of characters totally opposite to each other in every respect, but in nothing more than in their mode of composition, and management of light and shadow. Rembrandt's manner is absolute unity; he often has but one group, and exhibits little more than one spot of light in the midst of a large quantity of shadow: if he has a second mass, that second bears no proportion to the principal. Poussin, on the contrary, has scarce any principal mass of light at all, and his figures are often too much dispersed, without sufficient attention to place them in groups. The conduct of these two painters is entirely the reverse of what might be expected from their general style and character; the works of Poussin being as much distinguished for simplicity as those of Rembrandt for combination. Even this conduct of Poussin might proceed from too great an affection to simplicity of _another kind_; too great a desire to avoid that ostentation of art, with regard to light and shadow, on which Rembrandt so much wished to draw the attention; however, each of them ran into contrary extremes, and it is difficult to determine which is the most reprehensible, both being equally distant from the demands of nature and the purposes of art. The same just moderation must be observed in regard to ornaments; nothing will contribute more to destroy repose than profusion, of whatever kind, whether it consists in the multiplicity of objects, or the variety and brightness of colours. On the other hand, a work without ornament, instead of simplicity, to which it makes pretensions, has rather the appearance of poverty. The degree to which ornaments are admissible must be regulated by the professed style of the work; but we may be sure of this truth,--that the most ornamental style requires repose to set off even its ornaments to advantage. I cannot avoid mentioning here an instance of repose, in that faithful and accurate painter of nature, Shakespeare--the short dialogue between Duncan and Banquo, whilst they are approaching the gates of Macbeth's castle. Their conversation very naturally turns upon the beauty of its situation, and the pleasantness of the air; and Banquo, observing the martlets' nests in every recess of the cornice, remarks, that where those birds most breed and haunt the air is delicate. The subject of this quiet and easy conversation gives that repose so necessary to the mind, after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes, and perfectly contrasts the scene of horror that immediately succeeds. It seems as if Shakespeare asked himself, What is a prince likely to say to his attendants on such an occasion? The modern writers seem, on the contrary, to be always searching for new thoughts, such as never could occur to man in the situation represented. This is also frequently the practice of Homer, who from the midst of battles and horrors relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, by introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of familiar domestic life. The writers of every age and country, where taste has begun to decline, paint and adorn every object they touch; are always on the stretch; never deviate or sink a moment from the pompous and the brilliant. Lucan, Statius, and Claudian (as a learned critic has observed) are examples of this bad taste and want of judgment; they never soften their tones, or condescend to be natural; all is exaggeration and perpetual splendour, without affording repose of any kind. As we are speaking of excesses, it will not be remote from our purpose to say a few words upon simplicity; which, in one of the senses in which it is used, is considered as the general corrector of excess. We shall at present forbear to consider it as implying that exact conduct which proceeds from an intimate knowledge of simple unadulterated nature, as it is then only another word for perfection, which neither stops short of, nor oversteps reality and truth. In our inquiry after simplicity, as in many other inquiries of this nature, we can best explain what is right by showing what is wrong; and, indeed, in this case it seems to be absolutely necessary; simplicity being only a negative virtue, cannot be described or defined. We must therefore explain its nature, and show the advantage and beauty which is derived from it, by showing the deformity which proceeds from its neglect. Though instances of this neglect might be expected to be found in practice, we should not expect to find in the works of critics precepts that bid defiance to simplicity and everything that relates to it. De Piles recommends to us portrait-painters, to add grace and dignity to the characters of those whose pictures we draw: so far he is undoubtedly right; but, unluckily, he descends to particulars, and gives his own idea of grace and dignity. "_If_," says he, "_you draw persons of high character and dignity, they ought to be drawn in such an attitude that the Portraits must seem to speak to us of themselves, and, as it were, to say to us, 'Stop, take notice of me, I am that invincible King, surrounded by Majesty:' 'I am that valiant commander, who struck terror everywhere:' 'I am that great minister, who knew all the springs of politics:' 'I am that magistrate of consummate wisdom and probity.'_" He goes on in this manner with all the characters he can think on. We may contrast the tumour of this presumptuous loftiness with the natural, unaffected air of the portraits of Titian, where dignity, seeming to be natural and inherent, draws spontaneous reverence, and instead of being thus vainly assumed, has the appearance of an unalienable adjunct; whereas such pompous and laboured insolence of grandeur is so far from creating respect, that it betrays vulgarity and meanness, and new-acquired consequence. The painters, many of them at least, have not been backward in adopting the notions contained in these precepts. The portraits of Rigaud are perfect examples of an implicit observance of these rules of De Piles; so that though he was a painter of great merit in many respects, yet that merit is entirely overpowered by a total absence of simplicity in every sense. Not to multiply instances, which might be produced for this purpose, from the works of history-painters, I shall mention only one,--a picture which I have seen, of the Supreme Being, by Coypell. This subject the Roman Catholic painters have taken the liberty to represent, however indecent the attempt, and however obvious the impossibility of any approach to an adequate representation; but here the air and character which the Painter has given, and he has doubtless given the highest he could conceive, are so degraded by an attempt at such dignity as De Piles has recommended, that we are enraged at the folly and presumption of the artist, and consider it as little less than profanation. As we have passed to a neighbouring nation for instances of want of this quality, we must acknowledge at the same time that they have produced great examples of simplicity, in Poussin and Le Sueur. But as we are speaking of the most refined and subtle notion of perfection, may we not inquire, whether a curious eye cannot discern some faults, even in those great men? I can fancy that even Poussin, by abhorring that affectation and that want of simplicity which he observed in his countrymen, has, in certain particulars, fallen into the contrary extreme, so far as to approach to a kind of affectation:--to what, in writing, would be called pedantry. When simplicity, instead of being a corrector, seems to set up for herself; that is, when an artist seems to value himself solely upon this quality; such an ostentatious display of simplicity becomes then as disagreeable and nauseous as any other kind of affectation. He is, however, in this case likely enough to sit down contented with his own work, for though he finds the world look at it with indifference or dislike, as being destitute of every quality that can recreate or give pleasure to the mind, yet he consoles himself that it has simplicity, a beauty of too pure and chaste a nature to be relished by vulgar minds. It is in art as in morals; no character would inspire us with an enthusiastic admiration of his virtue, if that virtue consisted only in an absence of vice; something more is required; a man must do more than merely his duty to be a hero. Those works of the ancients, which are in the highest esteem, have something beside mere simplicity to recommend them. The Apollo, the Venus, the Laocoon, the Gladiator, have a certain composition of action, have contrasts sufficient to give grace and energy in a high degree; but it must be confessed of the many thousand antique statues which we have, that their general characteristic is bordering at least on inanimate insipidity. Simplicity, when so very inartificial as to seem to evade the difficulties of art, is a very suspicious virtue. I do not, however, wish to degrade simplicity from the high estimation in which it has been ever justly held. It is our barrier against that great enemy to truth and nature, Affectation, which is ever clinging to the pencil, and ready to drop in and poison everything it touches. Our love and affection to simplicity proceeds in a great measure from our aversion to every kind of affectation. There is likewise another reason why so much stress is laid upon this virtue; the propensity which artists have to fall into the contrary extreme: we therefore set a guard on that side which is most assailable. When a young artist is first told that his composition and his attitudes must be contrasted, that he must turn the head contrary to the position of the body, in order to produce grace and animation; that his outline must be undulating, and swelling, to give grandeur; and that the eye must be gratified with a variety of colours; when he is told this, with certain animating words of Spirit, Dignity, Energy, Grace, greatness of Style, and brilliancy of Tints, he becomes suddenly vain of his newly-acquired knowledge, and never thinks he can carry those rules too far. It is then that the aid of simplicity ought to be called in to correct the exuberance of youthful ardour. The same may be said in regard to colouring, which in its pre-eminence is particularly applied to flesh. An artist, in his first essay of imitating nature, would make the whole mass of one colour, as the oldest painters did; till he is taught to observe not only the variety of tints, which are in the object itself, but the differences produced by the gradual decline of light to shadow; he then immediately puts his instruction in practice, and introduces a variety of distinct colours. He must then be again corrected and told, that though there is this variety, yet the effect of the whole upon the eye must have the union and simplicity of the colouring of nature. And here we may observe that the progress of an individual Student bears a great resemblance to the progress and advancement of the Art itself. Want of simplicity would probably be not one of the defects of an artist who had studied nature only, as it was not of the old masters, who lived in the time preceding the great Art of Painting; on the contrary, their works are too simple and too inartificial. The Art in its infancy, like the first work of a Student, was dry, hard, and simple. But this kind of barbarous simplicity would be better named Penury, as it proceeds from mere want--from want of knowledge, want of resources, want of abilities to be otherwise; their simplicity was the offspring, not of choice, but necessity. In the second stage they were sensible of this poverty; and those who were the most sensible of the want were the best judges of the measure of the supply. There were painters who emerged from poverty without falling into luxury. Their success induced others, who probably never would of themselves have had strength of mind to discover the original defect, to endeavour at the remedy by an abuse; and they ran into the contrary extreme. But however they may have strayed, we cannot recommend to them to return to that simplicity which they have justly quitted; but to deal out their abundance with a more sparing hand, with that dignity which makes no parade, either of its riches or of its art. It is not easy to give a rule which may serve to fix this just and correct medium; because, when we may have fixed, or nearly fixed, the middle point, taken as a general principle, circumstances may oblige us to depart from it, either on the side of Simplicity, or on that of Variety and Decoration. I thought it necessary in a former discourse, speaking of the difference of the sublime and ornamental style of painting--in order to excite your attention to the more manly, noble, and dignified manner--to leave perhaps an impression too contemptuous of those ornamental parts of our Art, for which many have valued themselves, and many works are much valued and esteemed. I said then what I thought it was right at that time to say; I supposed the disposition of young men more inclinable to splendid negligence than perseverance in laborious application to acquire correctness: and therefore did as we do in making what is crooked straight, by bending it the contrary way, in order that it may remain straight at last. For this purpose, then, and to correct excess or neglect of any kind, we may here add, that it is not enough that a work be learned; it must be pleasing; the painter must add grace to strength, if he desires to secure the first impression in his favour. Our taste has a kind of sensuality about it, as well as a love of the sublime; both these qualities of the mind are to have their proper consequence, as far as they do not counteract each other; for that is the grand error which much care ought to be taken to avoid. There are some rules, whose absolute authority, like that of our nurses, continues no longer than while we are in a state of childhood. One of the first rules, for instance, that I believe every master would give to a young pupil, respecting his conduct and management of light and shadow, would be what Lionardo da Vinci has actually given; that you must oppose a light ground to the shadowed side of your figure, and a dark ground to the light side. If Lionardo had lived to see the superior splendour and effect which has been since produced by the exactly contrary conduct--by joining light to light and shadow to shadow--though without doubt he would have admired it, yet, as it ought not, so probably it would not be the first rule with which he would have begun his instructions. Again; in the artificial management of the figures, it is directed that they shall contrast each other according to the rules generally given; that if one figure opposes his front to the spectator, the next figure is to have his back turned, and that the limbs of each individual figure be contrasted; that is, if the right leg be put forward, the right arm is to be drawn back. It is very proper that those rules should be given in the Academy; it is proper the young students should be informed that some research is to be made, and that they should be habituated to consider every excellence as reducible to principles. Besides, it is the natural progress of instruction to teach first what is obvious and perceptible to the senses, and from hence proceed gradually to notions large, liberal, and complete, such as comprise the more refined and higher excellencies in Art. But when students are more advanced, they will find that the greatest beauties of character and expression are produced without contrast; nay more, that this contrast would ruin and destroy that natural energy of men engaged in real action, unsolicitous of grace. St. Paul preaching at Athens, in one of the Cartoons, far from any affected academical contrast of limbs, stands equally on both legs, and both hands are in the same attitude: add contrast, and the whole energy and unaffected grace of the figure is destroyed. Elymas the sorcerer stretches both hands forward in the same direction, which gives perfectly the expression intended. Indeed, you never will find in the works of Raffaelle any of those school-boy affected contrasts. Whatever contrast there is, appears without any seeming agency of art, by the natural chance of things. What has been said of the evil of excesses of all kinds, whether of simplicity, variety, or contrast, naturally suggests to the painter the necessity of a general inquiry into the true meaning and cause of rules, and how they operate on those faculties to which they are addressed: by knowing their general purpose and meaning he will often find that he need not confine himself to the literal sense; it will be sufficient if he preserve the spirit of the law. Critical remarks are not always understood without examples: it may not be improper, therefore, to give instances where the rule itself, though generally received, is false, or where a narrow conception of it may lead the artists into great errors. It is given as a rule by Fresnoy, That _the principal figure of a subject must appear in the midst of the picture, under the principal light, to distinguish it from the rest_. A painter who should think himself obliged secretly to follow this rule, would encumber himself with needless difficulties; he would be confined to great uniformity of composition, and be deprived of many beauties which are incompatible with its observance. The meaning of this rule extends, or ought to extend, no further than this:--That the principal figure should be immediately distinguished at the first glance of the eye; but there is no necessity that the principal light should fall on the principal figure, or that the principal figure should be in the middle of the picture. It is sufficient that it be distinguished by its place, or by the attention of other figures pointing it out to the spectator. So far is this rule from being indispensable, that it is very seldom practised; other considerations of greater consequence often standing in the way. Examples in opposition to this rule are found in the Cartoons, in Christ's Charge to Peter, the Preaching of St. Paul, and Elymas the Sorcerer, who is undoubtedly the principal object in that picture. In none of those compositions is the principal figure in the midst of the picture. In the very admirable composition of the Tent of Darius, by Le Brun, Alexander is not in the middle of the picture, nor does the principal light fall on him; but the attention of all the other figures immediately distinguishes him, and distinguishes him more properly; the greatest light falls on the daughter of Darius, who is in the middle of the picture, where it is more necessary the principal light should be placed. It is very extraordinary that Felibien, who has given a very minute description of this picture, but indeed such a description as may be called rather panegyric than criticism, thinking it necessary (according to the precept of Fresnoy) that Alexander should possess the principal light, has accordingly given it to him; he might with equal truth have said that he was placed in the middle of the picture, as he seemed resolved to give this piece every kind of excellence which he conceived to be necessary to perfection. His generosity is here unluckily misapplied, as it would have destroyed, in a great measure, the beauty of the composition. Another instance occurs to me, where equal liberty may be taken, in regard to the management of light. Though the general practice is, to make a large mass about the middle of the picture surrounded by shadow, the reverse may be practised, and the spirit of the rule may still be preserved. Examples of this principle reversed may be found very frequently in the works of the Venetian School. In the great composition of Paul Veronese, THE MARRIAGE AT CANA, the figures are, for the most part, in half shadow; the great light is in the sky; and, indeed, the general effect of this picture, which is so striking, is no more than what we often see in landscapes, in small pictures of fairs and country feasts; but those principles of light and shadow, being transferred to a large scale, to a space containing near a hundred figures as large as life, and conducted to all appearance with as much facility, and with an attention as steadily fixed upon _the whole together_, as if it were a small picture immediately under the eye, the work justly excites our admiration; the difficulty being increased as the extent is enlarged. The various modes of composition are infinite; sometimes it shall consist of one large group in the middle of the picture, and the smaller groups on each side; or a plain space in the middle, and the groups of figures ranked round this vacuity. Whether this principal broad light be in the middle space of ground, as in THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS; or in the sky, as in THE MARRIAGE AT CANA, in THE ANDROMEDA, and in most of the pictures of Paul Veronese; or whether the light be on the groups; whatever mode of composition is adopted, every variety and license is allowable: this only is indisputably necessary, that to prevent the eye from being distracted and confused by a multiplicity of objects of equal magnitude, those objects, whether they consist of lights, shadows, or figures, must be disposed in large masses and groups properly varied and contrasted; that to a certain quantity of action a proportioned space of plain ground is required; that light is to be supported by sufficient shadow; and we may add, that a certain quantity of cold colours is necessary to give value and lustre to the warm colours: what those proportions are cannot be so well learnt by precept as by observation on pictures, and in this knowledge bad pictures will instruct as well as good. Our inquiry why pictures have a bad effect may be as advantageous as the inquiry why they have a good effect; each will corroborate the principles that are suggested by the other. Though it is not my _business_ to enter into the detail of our Art, yet I must take this opportunity of mentioning one of the means of producing that great effect which we observe in the works of the Venetian painters, as I think it is not generally known or observed. It ought, in my opinion, to be indispensably observed, that the masses of light in a picture be always of a warm mellow colour, yellow, red, or a yellowish-white; and that the blue, the grey, or the green colours be kept almost entirely out of these masses, and be used only to support and set off these warm colours; and for this purpose, a small portion of cold colours will be sufficient. Let this conduct be reserved; let the light be cold, and the surrounding colours warm, as we often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine painters, and it will be out of the power of art, even in the hands of Rubens or Titian, to make a picture splendid and harmonious. Le Brun and Carlo Maratti were two painters of great merit, and particularly what may be called Academical Merit, but were both deficient in this management of colours; the want of observing this rule is one of the causes of that heaviness of effect which is so observable in their works. The principal light in the Picture of Le Brun, which I just now mentioned, falls on Statira, who is dressed very injudiciously in a pale blue drapery: it is true, he has heightened this blue with gold, but that is not enough; the whole picture has a heavy air, and by no means answers the expectations raised by the print. Poussin often made a spot of blue drapery, when the general hue of the picture was inclinable to brown or yellow; which shows sufficiently that harmony of colouring was not a part of the art that had much engaged the attention of that great painter. The conduct of Titian in the picture of BACCHUS AND ARIADNE has been much celebrated, and justly, for the harmony of colouring. To Ariadne is given (say the critics) a red scarf, to relieve the figure from the sea, which is behind her. It is not for that reason alone, but for another of much greater consequence; for the sake of the general harmony and effect of the picture. The figure of Ariadne is separated from the great group, and is dressed in blue, which, added to the colour of the sea, makes that quantity of cold colour which Titian thought necessary for the support and brilliancy of the great group; which group is composed, with very little exception, entirely of mellow colours. But as the picture in this case would be divided into two distinct parts, one half cold, and the other warm, it was necessary to carry some of the mellow colours of the great group into the cold part of the picture, and a part of the cold into the great group; accordingly, Titian gave Ariadne a red scarf, and to one of the Bacchante a little blue drapery. The light of the picture, as I observed, ought to be of a warm colour; for though white may be used for the principal light, as was the practice of many of the Dutch and Flemish painters, yet it is better to suppose _that white_ illumined by the yellow rays of the setting sun, as was the manner of Titian. The superiority of which manner is never more striking than when in a collection of pictures we chance to see a portrait of Titian's hanging by the side of a Flemish picture (even though that should be of the hand of Vandyke), which, however admirable in other respects, becomes cold and grey in the comparison. The illuminated parts of objects are in nature of a warmer tint than those that are in the shade; what I have recommended, therefore, is no more than that the same conduct be observed in the whole, which is acknowledged to be necessary in every individual part. It is presenting to the eye the same effect as that which it has been _accustomed_ to feel, which, in this case, as in every other, will always produce beauty; no principle, therefore, in our art can be more certain, or is derived from a higher source. When I just now mentioned of the supposed reason why Ariadne has part of her drapery red, gives me occasion here to observe, that this favourite quality of giving objects relief, and which De Piles and all the Critics have considered as a requisite of the utmost importance, was not one of those objects which much engaged the attention of Titian; painters of an inferior rank have far exceeded him in producing this effect. This was a great object of attention, when art was in its infant state; as it is at present with the vulgar and ignorant, who feel the highest satisfaction in seeing a figure, which, as they say, looks as if they could walk round it. But however low I may rate this pleasure of deception, I should not oppose it, did it not oppose itself to a quality of a much higher kind, by counteracting entirely that fulness of manner which is so difficult to express in words, but which is found in perfection in the best works of Correggio, and we may add, of Rembrandt. This effect is produced by melting and losing the shadows in a ground still darker than those shadows; whereas that relief is produced by opposing and separating the ground from the figure, either by light, or shadow, or colour. This conduct of in-laying, as it may be called, figures on their ground, in order to produce relief, was the practice of the old Painters, such as Andrea Mantegna, Pietro Perugino, and Albert Durer; and to these we may add the first manner of Lionardo da Vinci, Giorgione, and even Correggio; but these three were among the first who began to correct themselves in dryness of style, by no longer considering relief as a principal object. As those two qualities, relief, and fulness of effect, can hardly exist together, it is not very difficult to determine to which we ought to give the preference. An artist is obliged forever to hold a balance in his hand, by which he must determine the value of different qualities; that, when _some_ fault must be committed, he may choose the least. Those painters who have best understood the art of producing a good effect have adopted one principle that seems perfectly conformable to reason; that a part may be sacrificed for the good of the whole. Thus, whether the masses consist of light or shadow, it is necessary that they should be compact and of a pleasing shape: to this end some parts may be made darker and some lighter, and reflections stronger than nature would warrant. Paul Veronese took great liberties of this kind. It is said, that being once asked why certain figures were painted in shade, as no cause was seen in the picture itself, he turned off the inquiry by answering, "_Una nuevola che passa_"--a cloud is passing, which has overshadowed them. But I cannot give a better instance of this practice than a picture which I have of Rubens; it is a representation of a Moonlight. Rubens has not only diffused more light over the picture than is in nature, but has bestowed on it those warm glowing colours by which his works are so much distinguished. It is so unlike what any other painters have given us of Moonlight, that it might be easily mistaken, if he had not likewise added stars, for a fainter setting sun. Rubens thought the eye ought to be satisfied in this case, above all other considerations; he might, indeed, have made it more natural, but it would have been at the expense of what he thought of much greater consequence--the harmony proceeding from the contrast and variety of colours. This same picture will furnish us with another instance, where we must depart from nature for a greater advantage. The Moon in this picture does not preserve so great a superiority in regard to its lightness over the subject which it illumines as it does in nature; this is likewise an intended deviation, and for the same reason. If Rubens had preserved the same scale of gradation of light between the Moon and the objects which is found in nature, the picture must have consisted of one small spot of light only, and at a little distance from the picture nothing but this spot would have been seen. It may be said, indeed, that this being the case, it is a subject that ought not to be painted; but then, for the same reason, neither armour, nor anything shining, ought ever to be painted; for though pure white is used in order to represent the greatest light of shining objects, it will not in the picture preserve the same superiority over flesh as it has in nature, without keeping that flesh colour of a very low tint. Rembrandt, who thought it of more consequence to paint light than the objects that are seen by it, has done this in a picture of Achilles which I have. The head is kept down to a very low tint, in order to preserve this due gradation and distinction between the armour and the face; the consequence of which is, that, upon the whole, the picture is too black. Surely too much is sacrificed here to this narrow conception of nature; allowing the contrary conduct a fault, yet it must be acknowledged a less fault than making a picture so dark that it cannot be seen without a peculiar light, and then with difficulty. The merit or demerit of the different conduct of Rubens and Rembrandt in those instances which I have given, is not to be determined by the narrow principles of nature, separated from its effect on the human mind. Reason and common-sense tell us, that before, and above all other considerations, it is necessary that the work should be seen, not only without difficulty or inconvenience, but with pleasure and satisfaction; and every obstacle which stands in the way of this pleasure and convenience must be removed. The tendency of this Discourse, with the instances which have been given, is not so much to place the Artist above rules, as to teach him their reason; to prevent him from entertaining a narrow, confined conception of Art; to clear his mind from a perplexed variety of rules and their exceptions, by directing his attention to an intimate acquaintance with the passions and affections of the mind, from which all rules arise, and to which they are all referable. Art effects its purpose by their means; an accurate knowledge, therefore, of those passions and dispositions of the mind is necessary to him who desires to affect them upon sure and solid principles. A complete essay or inquiry into the connection between the rules of Art and the eternal and immutable dispositions of our passions would be indeed going at once to the foundation of criticism;[10] but I am too well convinced what extensive knowledge, what subtle and penetrating judgment, would be required to engage in such an undertaking; it is enough for me if, in the language of painters, I have produced a slight sketch of a part of this vast composition, but that sufficiently distinct to show the usefulness of such a theory, and its practicability. Before I conclude, I cannot avoid making one observation on the pictures now before us. I have observed, that every candidate has copied the celebrated invention of Timanthes in hiding the face of Agamemnon in his mantle; indeed, such lavish encomiums have been bestowed on this thought, and that too by men of the highest character in critical knowledge--Cicero, Quintilian, Valerius, Maximus, and Pliny--and have been since re-echoed by almost every modern that has written on the Arts, that your adopting it can neither be wondered at nor blamed. It appears now to be so much connected with the subject, that the spectator would perhaps be disappointed in not finding united in the picture what he always united in his mind, and considered as indispensably belonging to the subject. But it may be observed, that those who praise this circumstance were not painters. They use it as an illustration only of their own art; it served their purpose, and it was certainly not their business to enter into the objections that lie against it in another Art. I fear _we_ have but very scanty means of exciting those powers over the imagination which make so very considerable and refined a part of poetry. It is a doubt with me, whether we should even make the attempt. The chief, if not the only occasion, which the painter has for this artifice, is, when the subject is improper, to be more fully represented, either for the sake of decency, or to avoid what would be disagreeable to be seen; and this is not to raise or increase the passions, which is the reason that is given for this practice, but, on the contrary, to diminish their effect. It is true, sketches, or such drawings as painters generally make for their works, give this pleasure of imagination to a high degree. From a slight, undetermined drawing, where the ideas of the composition and character are, as I may say, only just touched upon, the imagination supplies more than the painter himself, probably, could produce; and we accordingly often find that the finished work disappoints the expectation that was raised from the sketch; and this power of the imagination is one of the causes of the great pleasure we have in viewing a collection of drawings by great painters. These general ideas, which are expressed in sketches, correspond very well to the art often used in Poetry. A great part of the beauty of the celebrated description of Eve in Milton's "Paradise Lost" consists in using only general indistinct expressions, every reader making out the detail according to his own particular imagination,--his own idea of beauty, grace, expression, dignity, or loveliness: but a painter, when he represents Eve on a canvas, is obliged to give a determined form, and his own idea of beauty distinctly expressed. We cannot on this occasion, nor indeed on any other, recommend an undeterminate manner or vague ideas of any kind, in a complete and finished picture. This notion, therefore, of leaving anything to the imagination, opposes a very fixed and indispensable rule in our art--that everything shall be carefully and distinctly expressed, as if the painter knew, with correctness and precision, the exact form and character of whatever is introduced into the picture. This is what with us is called Science and Learning: which must not be sacrificed and given up for an uncertain and doubtful beauty, which, not naturally belonging to our Art, will probably be sought for without success. Mr. Falconet has observed, in a note on this passage in his translation of Pliny, that the circumstance of covering the face of Agamemnon was probably not in consequence of any fine imagination of the painter--which he considers as a discovery of the critics--but merely copied from the description of the sacrifice, as it is found in Euripides. The words from which the picture is supposed to be taken are these: _Agamemnon saw Iphigenia advance towards the fatal altar; he groaned, he turned aside his head, he shed tears, and covered his face with his robe._ Falconet does not at all acquiesce in the praise that is bestowed on Timanthes; not only because it is not his invention, but because he thinks meanly of this trick of concealing, except in instances of blood, where the objects would be too horrible to be seen; but, says he, "in an afflicted Father, in a King, in Agamemnon, you, who are a painter, conceal from me the most interesting circumstance, and then put me off with sophistry and a veil. You are (he adds) a feeble Painter, without resource: you do not know even those of your Art: I care not what veil it is, whether closed hands, arms raised, or any other action that conceals from me the countenance of the Hero. You think of veiling Agamemnon; you have unveiled your own ignorance. A Painter who represents Agamemnon veiled is as ridiculous as a Poet would be, who, in a pathetic situation, in order to satisfy my expectations, and rid himself of the business, should say, that the sentiments of his hero are so far above whatever can be said on the occasion, that he shall say nothing." To what Falconet has said, we may add, that supposing this method of leaving the expression of grief to the imagination to be, as it was thought to be, the invention of the painter, and that it deserves all the praise that has been given it, still it is a trick that will serve but once: whoever does it a second time will not only want novelty, but be justly suspected of using artifice to evade difficulties. If difficulties overcome make a great part of the merit of Art, difficulties evaded can deserve but little commendation. FOOTNOTES: 9: DISCOURSES II. and VI. 10: This was inadvertently said. I did not recollect the admirable treatise _On the Sublime and Beautiful_. DISCOURSE IX. _Delivered at the Opening of the Royal Academy, in Somerset Place, October 16, 1780._ ON THE REMOVAL OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY TO SOMERSET PLACE.--THE ADVANTAGES TO SOCIETY FROM CULTIVATING INTELLECTUAL PLEASURE. The honour which the Arts acquire by being permitted to take possession of this noble habitation is one of the most considerable of the many instances we have received of His Majesty's protection; and the strongest proof of his desire to make the Academy respectable. Nothing has been left undone that might contribute to excite our pursuit or to reward our attainments. We have already the happiness of seeing the Arts in a state to which they never before arrived in this nation. This Building, in which we are now assembled, will remain to many future ages an illustrious specimen of the Architect's[11] abilities. It is our duty to endeavour that those who gaze with wonder at the structure may not be disappointed when they visit the apartments. It will be no small addition to the glory which this nation has already acquired from having given birth to eminent men in every part of science, if it should be enabled to produce, in consequence of this institution, a School of English Artists. The estimation in which we stand in respect to our neighbours, will be in proportion to the degree in which we excel or are inferior to them in the acquisition of intellectual excellence, of which Trade and its consequential riches must be acknowledged to give the means; but a people whose whole attention is absorbed in those means, and who forget the end, can aspire but little above the rank of a barbarous nation. Every establishment that tends to the cultivation of the pleasures of the mind, as distinct from those of sense, may be considered as an inferior school of morality, where the mind is polished and prepared for higher attainments. Let us for a moment take a short survey of the progress of the mind towards what is, or ought to be, its true object of attention. Man, in his lowest state, has no pleasures but those of sense, and no wants but those of appetite; afterwards, when society is divided into different ranks, and some are appointed to labour for the support of others, those whom their superiority sets free from labour begin to look for intellectual entertainments. Thus, whilst the shepherds were attending their flocks, their masters made the first astronomical observations; so music is said to have had its origin from a man at leisure listening to the strokes of a hammer. As the senses, in the lowest state of nature, are necessary to direct us to our support, when that support is once secure there is danger in following them further; to him who has no rule of action but the gratification of the senses, plenty is always dangerous: it is therefore necessary to the happiness of individuals, and still more necessary to the security of society, that the mind should be elevated to the idea of general beauty, and the contemplation of general truth; by this pursuit the mind is always carried forward in search of something more excellent than it finds, and obtains its proper superiority over the common senses of life, by learning to feel itself capable of higher aims and nobler enjoyments. In this gradual exaltation of human nature, every art contributes its contingent towards the general supply of mental pleasure. Whatever abstracts the thoughts from sensual gratifications, whatever teaches us to look for happiness within ourselves, must advance in some measure the dignity of our nature. Perhaps there is no higher proof of the excellency of man than this--that to a mind properly cultivated, whatever is bounded is little. The mind is continually labouring to advance, step by step, through successive gradations of excellence, towards perfection, which is dimly seen, at a great, though not hopeless, distance, and which we must always follow, because we never can attain; but the pursuit rewards itself; one truth teaches another, and our store is always increasing, though nature can never be exhausted. Our art, like all arts which address the imagination, is applied to a somewhat lower faculty of the mind, which approaches nearer to sensuality: but through sense and fancy it must make its way to reason; for such is the progress of thought, that we perceive by sense, we combine by fancy, and distinguish by reason: and without carrying our art out of its natural and true character, the more we purify it from everything that is gross in sense, in that proportion we advance its use and dignity; and in proportion as we lower it to mere sensuality, we pervert its nature, and degrade it from the rank of a liberal art; and this is what every artist ought well to remember. Let him remember also, that he deserves just so much encouragement in the state as he makes himself a member of it virtuously useful, and contributes in his sphere to the general purpose and perfection of society. The Art which we profess has beauty for its object; this it is our business to discover and to express; the beauty of which we are in quest is general and intellectual; it is an idea that subsists only in the mind; the sight never beheld it, nor has the hand expressed it; it is an idea residing in the breast of the artist, which he is always labouring to impart, and which he dies at last without imparting; but which he is yet so far able to communicate, as to raise the thoughts and extend the views of the spectator; and which, by a succession of art, may be so far diffused, that its effects may extend themselves imperceptibly into public benefits, and be among the means of bestowing on whole nations refinement of taste: which, if it does not lead directly to purity of manners, obviates at least their greatest depravation, by disentangling the mind from appetite, and conducting the thoughts through successive stages of excellence, till that contemplation of universal rectitude and harmony, which, began by Taste, may, as it is exalted and refined, conclude in Virtue. FOOTNOTES: 11: Sir William Chambers. DISCOURSE X. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 11, 1780._ SCULPTURE:--HAS BUT ONE STYLE.--ITS OBJECTS, FORM, AND CHARACTER.--INEFFECTUAL ATTEMPTS OF THE MODERN SCULPTORS TO IMPROVE THE ART.--ILL EFFECTS OF MODERN DRESS IN SCULPTURE. I shall now, as it has been customary on this day, and on this occasion, communicate to you such observations as have occurred to me on the Theory of Art. If these observations have hitherto referred principally to Painting, let it be remembered that this Art is much more extensive and complicated than Sculpture, and affords therefore a more ample field for criticism; and as the greater includes the less, the leading principles of Sculpture are comprised in those of Painting. However, I wish now to make some remarks with particular relation to Sculpture; to consider wherein, or in what manner, its principles and those of Painting agree or differ; what is within its power of performing, and what it is vain or improper to attempt; that it may be clearly and distinctly known what ought to be the great purpose of the Sculptor's labours. Sculpture is an art of much more simplicity and uniformity than painting; it cannot with propriety, and the best effect, be applied to many subjects. The object of its pursuit may be comprised in two words--Form and Character; and those qualities are presented to us but in one manner, or in one style only; whereas the powers of Painting, as they are more various and extensive, so they are exhibited in as great a variety of manners. The Roman, Lombard, Florentine, Venetian, and Flemish Schools all pursue the same end by different means. But Sculpture having but one style, can only to one style of Painting have any relation; and to this (which is indeed the highest and most dignified that Painting can boast), it has a relation so close, that it may be said to be almost the same art operating upon different materials. The Sculptors of the last age, from not attending sufficiently to this discrimination of the different styles of Painting, have been led into many errors. Though they well knew that they were allowed to imitate, or take ideas for the improvement of their own Art from the grand style of Painting, they were not aware that it was not permitted to borrow in the same manner from the ornamental. When they endeavour to copy the picturesque effects, contrasts, or petty excellencies of whatever kind, which not improperly find a place in the inferior branches of Painting, they doubtless imagine themselves improving and extending the boundaries of their art by this imitation; but they are in reality violating its essential character, by giving a different direction to its operations, and proposing to themselves either what is unattainable, or at best a meaner object of pursuit. The grave and austere character of Sculpture requires the utmost degree of formality in composition; picturesque contrasts have here no place; everything is carefully weighed and measured, one side making almost an exact equipoise to the other: a child is not a proper balance to a full grown figure, nor is a figure sitting or stooping a companion to an upright figure. The excellence of every art must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose; and if by a false imitation of nature, or mean ambition of producing a picturesque effect or illusion of any kind, all the grandeur of ideas which this art endeavours to excite, be degraded or destroyed, we may boldly oppose ourselves to any such innovation. If the producing of a deception is the summit of this art, let us at once give to statues the addition of colour; which will contribute more towards accomplishing this end than all those artifices which have been introduced and professedly defended, on no other principle but that of rendering the work more natural. But as colour is universally rejected, every practice liable to the same objection must fall with it. If the business of Sculpture were to administer pleasure to ignorance, or a mere entertainment to the senses, the Venus or Medicis might certainly receive much improvement by colour; but the character of Sculpture makes it her duty to afford delight of a different, and, perhaps, of a higher kind; the delight resulting from the contemplation of perfect beauty: and this, which is in truth an intellectual pleasure, is in many respects incompatible with what is merely addressed to the senses, such as that with which ignorance and levity contemplate elegance of form. The Sculptor may be safely allowed to practise every means within the power of his art to produce a deception, provided this practice does not interfere with or destroy higher excellencies; on these conditions he will be forced, however loth, to acknowledge that the boundaries of his art have long been fixed, and that all endeavours will be vain that hope to pass beyond the best works which remain of ancient Sculpture. Imitation is the means, and not the end of art: it is employed by the Sculptor as the language by which his ideas are presented to the mind of the spectator. Poetry and elocution of every sort make use of signs, but those signs are arbitrary and conventional. The sculptor employs the representation of the thing itself; but still as a means to a higher end--as a gradual ascent, always advancing towards faultless form and perfect beauty. It may be thought at the first view, that even this form, however perfectly represented, is to be valued and take its rank only for the sake of a still higher object, that of conveying sentiment and character, as they are exhibited by attitude and expression of the passions. But we are sure from experience, that the beauty of form alone, without the assistance of any other quality, makes of itself a great work, and justly claims our esteem and admiration. As a proof of the high value we set on the mere excellence of form, we may produce the greatest part of the works of Michel Angelo, both in painting and sculpture; as well as most of the antique statues, which are justly esteemed in a very high degree, though no very marked or striking character or expression of any kind is represented. But, as a stronger instance that this excellence alone inspires sentiment, what artist ever looked at the Torso without feeling a warmth of enthusiasm, as from the highest efforts of poetry? From whence does this proceed? What is there in this fragment that produces this effect, but the perfection of this science of abstract form? A mind elevated to the contemplation of excellence, perceives in this defaced and shattered fragment, _disjecta membra poetæ_, the traces of superlative genius, the reliques of a work on which succeeding ages can only gaze with inadequate admiration. It may be said that this pleasure is reserved only to those who have spent their whole life in the study and contemplation of this art; but the truth is, that all would feel its effects, if they could divest themselves of the expectation of _deception_, and look only for what it really is--a _partial_ representation of nature. The only impediment of their judgment must then proceed from their being uncertain to what rank, or rather kind of excellence, it aspires; and to what sort of approbation it has a right. This state of darkness is, without doubt, irksome to every mind; but by attention to works of this kind the knowledge of what is aimed at comes of itself, without being taught, and almost without being perceived. The Sculptor's art is limited in comparison of others, but it has its variety and intricacy within its proper bounds. Its essence is correctness: and when to correct and perfect form is added the ornament of grace, dignity of character, and appropriated expression, as in the Apollo, the Venus, the Laocoon, the Moses of Michael Angelo, and many others, this art may be said to have accomplished its purpose. What Grace is, how it is to be acquired or conceived, are in speculation difficult questions; but _causa latet, res est notissima_: without any perplexing inquiry, the effect is hourly perceived. I shall only observe that its natural foundation is correctness of design; and though grace may be sometimes united with incorrectness, it cannot proceed from it. But to come nearer to our present subject. It has been said that the grace of the Apollo depends on a certain degree of incorrectness: that the head is not anatomically placed between the shoulders; and that the lower half of the figure is longer than just proportion allows. I know that Correggio and Parmegiano are often produced as authorities to support this opinion; but very little attention will convince us that the incorrectness of some parts which we find in their works does not contribute to grace, but rather tends to destroy it. The Madonna, with the sleeping Infant, and beautiful group of Angels, by Parmegiano, in the Palazzo Piti, would not have lost any of its excellence if the neck, fingers, and, indeed, the whole figure of the Virgin, instead of being so very long and incorrect, had preserved their due proportion. In opposition to the first of these remarks, I have the authority of a very able Sculptor of this Academy, who has copied that figure, consequently measured and carefully examined it, to declare that the criticism is not true. In regard to the last, it must be remembered that Apollo is here in the exertion of one of his peculiar powers, which is swiftness; he has therefore that proportion which is best adapted to that character. This is no more incorrectness than when there is given to an Hercules an extraordinary swelling and strength of muscles. The art of discovering and expressing grace is difficult enough of itself, without perplexing ourselves with what is incomprehensible. A supposition of such a monster as Grace, begot by Deformity, is poison to the mind of a young Artist, and may make him neglect what is essential to his art--correctness of Design--in order to pursue a phantom, which has no existence but in the imagination of affected and refined speculators. I cannot quit the Apollo without making one observation on the character of this figure. He is supposed to have just discharged his arrow at the Python; and, by the head retreating a little towards the right shoulder, he appears attentive to its effect. What I would remark is the difference of this attention from that of the Discobolus, who is engaged in the same purpose, watching the effect of his Discus. The graceful, negligent, though animated air of the one, and the vulgar eagerness of the other, furnish a signal instance of the judgment of the ancient sculptors in their nice discrimination of character. They are both equally true to nature, and equally admirable. It may be remarked that Grace, Character, and Expression, though words of different sense and meaning, and so understood when applied to the works of Painters, are indiscriminately used when we speak of Sculpture. This indecision we may suspect to proceed from the undetermined effects of the Art itself; those qualities are exhibited in Sculpture rather by form and attitude than by the features, and can therefore be expressed but in a very general manner. Though the Laocoon and his two sons have more expression in the countenance than perhaps any other antique statues, yet it is only the general expression of pain; and this passion is still more strongly expressed by the writhing and contortion of the body than by the features. It has been observed in a late publication, that if the attention of the Father in this group had been occupied more by the distress of his children than by his own sufferings, it would have raised a much greater interest in the spectator. Though this observation comes from a person whose opinion, in everything relating to the Arts, carries with it the highest authority, yet I cannot but suspect that such refined expression is scarce within the province of this Art; and in attempting it, the Artist will run great risk of enfeebling expression, and making it less intelligible to the spectator. As the general figure presents itself in a more conspicuous manner than the features, it is there we must principally look for expression or character; _patuit in corpore vultus_; and, in this respect, the Sculptor's art is not unlike that of Dancing, where the attention of the spectator is principally engaged by the attitude and action of the performer, and it is there he must look for whatever expression that art is capable of exhibiting. The Dancers themselves acknowledge this, by often wearing masks, with little diminution in the expression. The face bears so very inconsiderable a proportion to the effect of the whole figure, that the ancient Sculptors neglected to animate the features, even with the general expression of the passions. Of this the group of the Boxers is a remarkable instance; they are engaged in the most animated action with the greatest serenity of countenance. This is not recommended for imitation (for there can be no reason why the countenance should not correspond with the attitude and expression of the figure), but is mentioned in order to infer from hence, that this frequent deficiency in ancient Sculpture could proceed from nothing but a habit of inattention to what was considered as comparatively immaterial. Those who think Sculpture can express more than we have allowed, may ask, by what means we discover, at the first glance, the character that is represented in a Bust, Cameo, or Intaglio? I suspect it will be found, on close examination, by him who is resolved not to see more than he really does see, that the figures are distinguished by their _insignia_ more than by any variety of form or beauty. Take from Apollo his Lyre, from Bacchus his Thyrsus and Vine-leaves, and Meleager the Boar's Head, and there will remain little or no difference in their characters. In a Juno, Minerva, or Flora, the idea of the artist seems to have gone no further than representing perfect beauty, and afterwards adding the proper attributes, with a total indifference to which they gave them. Thus John de Bologna, after he had finished a group of a young man holding up a young woman in his arms, with an old man at his feet, called his friends together, to tell him what name he should give it, and it was agreed to call it The Rape of the Sabines; and this is the celebrated group which now stands before the old Palace at Florence.[12] The figures have the same general expression which is to be found in most of the antique Sculpture; and yet it would be no wonder if future critics should find out delicacy of expression which was never intended; and go so far as to see, in the old man's countenance, the exact relation which he bore to the woman who appears to be taken from him. Though Painting and Sculpture are, like many other arts, governed by the same general principles, yet in the detail, or what may be called the by-laws of each art, there seems to be no longer any connection between them. The different materials upon which those two arts exert their powers must infallibly create a proportional difference in their practice. There are many petty excellencies which the Painter attains with ease, but which are impracticable in Sculpture; and which, even if it could accomplish them, would add nothing to the true value and dignity of the work. Of the ineffectual attempts which the modern Sculptors have made by way of improvement, these seem to be the principal; The practice of detaching drapery from the figure, in order to give the appearance of flying in the air;-- Of making different plans in the same bas-relievos;-- Of attempting to represent the effects of perspective;-- To these we may add the ill effect of figures clothed in a modern dress. The folly of attempting to make stone sport and flutter in the air is so apparent, that it carries with it its own reprehension; and yet to accomplish this seemed to be the great ambition of many modern Sculptors, particularly Bernini: his art was so much set on overcoming this difficulty, that he was forever attempting it, though by that attempt he risked everything that was valuable in the art. Bernini stands in the first class of modern Sculptors, and therefore it is the business of criticism to prevent the ill effects of so powerful an example. From his very early work of Apollo and Daphne, the world justly expected he would rival the best productions of ancient Greece; but he soon strayed from the right path. And though there is in his works something which always distinguishes him from the common herd, yet he appears in his latter performances to have lost his way. Instead of pursuing the study of that ideal beauty with which he had so successfully begun, he turned his mind to an injudicious quest of novelty, attempted what was not within the province of the art, and endeavoured to overcome the hardness and obstinacy of his materials; which even supposing he had accomplished, so far as to make this species of drapery appear natural, the ill effect and confusion occasioned by its being detached from the figure to which it belongs ought to have been alone a sufficient reason to have deterred him from that practice. We have not, I think, in our Academy, any of Bernini's works, except a cast of the head of his Neptune; this will be sufficient to serve us for an example of the mischief produced by this attempt of representing the effects of the wind. The locks of the hair are flying abroad in all directions, insomuch that it is not a superficial view that can discover what the object is which is represented, or distinguish those flying locks from the features, as they are all of the same colour, of equal solidity, and consequently project with equal force. The same entangled confusion which is here occasioned by the hair is produced by drapery flying off; which the eye must, for the same reason, inevitably mingle and confound with the principal parts of the figure. It is a general rule, equally true in both Arts, that the form and attitude of the figure should be seen clearly, and without any ambiguity at the first glance of the eye. This the Painter can easily do by colour, by losing parts in the ground, or keeping them so obscure as to prevent them from interfering with the more principal objects. The sculptor has no other means of preventing this confusion than by attaching the drapery for the greater part close to the figure; the folds of which, following the order of the limbs, whenever the drapery is seen, the eye is led to trace the form and attitude of the figure at the same time. The drapery of the Apollo, though it makes a large mass, and is separated from the figure, does not affect the present question, from the very circumstance of its being so completely separated; and from the regularity and simplicity of its form, it does not in the least interfere with a distinct view of the figure. In reality, it is no more a part of it than a pedestal, a trunk of a tree, or an animal, which we often see joined to statues. The principal use of those appendages is to strengthen and preserve the statue from accidents; and many are of opinion that the mantle which falls from the Apollo's arm is for the same end; but surely it answers a much greater purpose, by preventing that dryness of effect which would inevitably attend a naked arm, extended almost at full length, to which we may add the disagreeable effect which would proceed from the body and arm making a right angle. The Apostles, in the church of St. John Lateran, appear to me to fall under the censure of an injudicious imitation of the manner of the painters. The drapery of those figures, from being disposed in large masses, gives undoubtedly that air of grandeur which magnitude or quantity is sure to produce. But though it should be acknowledged that it is managed with great skill and intelligence, and contrived to appear as light as the materials will allow, yet the weight and solidity of stone was not to be overcome. Those figures are much in the style of Carlo Maratti, and such as we may imagine he would have made if he had attempted Sculpture; and when we know he had the superintendence of that work, and was an intimate friend of one of the principal Sculptors, we may suspect that his taste had some influence, if he did not even give the designs. No man can look at those figures without recognising the manner of Carlo Maratti. They have the same defect which his works so often have, of being overlaid with drapery, and that too artificially disposed. I cannot but believe that if Ruscono, Le Gros, Monot, and the rest of the Sculptors employed in that work, had taken for their guide the simple dress, such as we see in the antique statues of the philosophers, it would have given more real grandeur to their figures, and would certainly have been more suitable to the characters of the Apostles. Though there is no remedy for the ill effect of those solid projections which flying drapery in stone must always produce in statues, yet in bas-relievos it is totally different; those detached parts of drapery the Sculptor has here as much power over as the Painter, by uniting and losing it in the ground, so that it shall not in the least entangle and confuse the figure. But here again the Sculptor, not content with this successful imitation, if it may be so called, proceeds to represent figures, or groups of figures, on different plans; that is, some on the foreground, and some at a greater distance, in the manner of Painters in historical compositions. To do this he has no other means than by making the distant figures of less dimensions, and relieving them in a less degree from the surface; but this is not adequate to the end; they will still appear only as figures on a less scale, but equally near the eye with those in the front of the piece. Nor does the mischief of this attempt, which never accomplishes its intention, rest here: by this division of the work into many minute parts, the grandeur of its general effect is inevitably destroyed. Perhaps the only circumstance in which the Modern have excelled the Ancient Sculptors is the management of a single group in basso-relievo; the art of gradually raising the group from the flat surface, till it imperceptibly emerges into alto-relievo. Of this there is no ancient example remaining that discovers any approach to the skill which Le Gros has shown in an Altar in the Jesuits' Church at Rome. Different plans or degrees of relief in the same group have, as we see in this instance, a good effect, though the contrary happens when the groups are separated, and are at some distance behind each other. This improvement in the art of composing a group in basso-relievo was probably first suggested by the practice of the modern Painters, who relieve their figures, or groups of figures, from their ground, by the same gentle gradation; and it is accomplished in every respect by the same general principles; but as the marble has no colour, it is the composition itself that must give its light and shadow. The ancient Sculptors could not borrow this advantage from their Painters, for this was an art with which they appear to have been entirely unacquainted: and in the bas-relievos of Lorenzo Ghiberti, the casts of which we have in the Academy, this art is no more attempted than it was by the Painters of his age. The next imaginary improvement of the moderns is the representing the effects of Perspective in bas-relief. Of this little need be said; all must recollect how ineffectual has been the attempt of modern Sculptors to turn the buildings which they have introduced as seen from their angle, with a view to make them appear to recede from the eye in perspective. This, though it may show indeed their eager desire to encounter difficulties, shows at the same time how inadequate their materials are even to this their humble ambition. The Ancients, with great judgment, represented only the elevation of whatever architecture they introduced into their bas-reliefs, which is composed of little more than horizontal or perpendicular lines; whereas the interruption of crossed lines, or whatever causes a multiplicity of subordinate parts, destroys that regularity and firmness of effect on which grandeur of style so much depends. We come now to the last consideration; in what manner Statues are to be dressed, which are made in honour of men, either now living, or lately departed. This is a question which might employ a long discourse of itself; I shall at present only observe, that he who wishes not to obstruct the Artist, and prevent his exhibiting his abilities to their greatest advantage, will certainly not desire a modern dress. The desire of transmitting to posterity the shape of modern dress must be acknowledged to be purchased at a prodigious price, even the price of everything that is valuable in art. Working in stone is a very serious business; and it seems to be scarce worth while to employ such durable materials in conveying to posterity a fashion of which the longest existence scarce exceeds a year. However agreeable it may be to the Antiquary's principles of equity and gratitude, that as he has received great pleasure from the contemplation of the fashions of dress of former ages, he wishes to give the same satisfaction to future Antiquaries; yet, methinks, pictures of an inferior style, or prints, may be considered as quite sufficient, without prostituting this great art to such mean purposes. In this town may be seen an Equestrian Statue in a modern dress, which may be sufficient to deter future artists from any such attempt: even supposing no other objection, the familiarity of the modern dress by no means agrees with the dignity and gravity of Sculpture. Sculpture is formal, regular, and austere; disdains all familiar objects, as incompatible with its dignity; and is an enemy to every species of affectation, or appearance of academical art. All contrast, therefore, of one figure to another, or of the limbs of a single figure, or even in the folds of the drapery, must be sparingly employed. In short, whatever partakes of fancy or caprice, or goes under the denomination of Picturesque (however to be admired in its proper place), is incompatible with that sobriety and gravity which is peculiarly the characteristic of this art. There is no circumstance which more distinguishes a well-regulated and sound taste, than a settled uniformity of design, where all the parts are compact, and fitted to each other, everything being of a piece. This principle extends itself to all habits of life, as well as to all works of art. Upon this general ground therefore we may safely venture to pronounce, that the uniformity and simplicity of the materials on which the Sculptor labours (which are only white marble), prescribes bounds to his art, and teaches him to confine himself to a proportionable simplicity of design. FOOTNOTES: 12: In the Loggia dei Lauzi at Florence.--Note, Ed. DISCOURSE XI. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1782._ GENIUS.--CONSISTS PRINCIPALLY IN THE COMPREHENSION OF A WHOLE; IN TAKING GENERAL IDEAS ONLY. The highest ambition of every Artist is to be thought a man of Genius. As long as this flattering quality is joined to his name, he can bear with patience the imputation of carelessness, incorrectness, or defects of whatever kind. So far, indeed, is the presence of Genius from implying an absence of faults, that they are considered by many as its inseparable companions. Some go such lengths as to take indication from them, and not only excuse faults on account of Genius, but presume Genius from the existence of certain faults. It is certainly true, that a work may justly claim the character of Genius, though full of errors; and it is equally true, that it may be faultless, and yet not exhibit the least spark of Genius. This naturally suggests an inquiry, a desire, at least, of inquiring, what qualities of a work and of a workman may justly entitle a Painter to that character. I have in a former discourse[13] endeavoured to impress you with a fixed opinion, that a comprehensive and critical knowledge of the works of nature is the only source of beauty and grandeur. But when we speak to Painters, we must always consider this rule, and all rules, with a reference to the mechanical practice of their own particular Art. It is not properly in the learning, the taste, and the dignity of the ideas, that Genius appears as belonging to a Painter. There is a Genius particular appropriated to his own trade, (as I may call it) distinguished from all others. For that power, which enables the Artist to conceive his subject with dignity, may be said to belong to general education; and is as much the Genius of a Poet, or the professor of any other liberal Art, or even a good critic in any of those arts, as of a Painter. Whatever sublime ideas may fill his mind, he is a Painter, only as he can put in practice what he knows, and communicate those ideas by visible representation. If my expression can convey my idea, I wish to distinguish excellence of this kind by calling it the Genius of mechanical performance. This Genius consists, I conceive, in the power of expressing that which employs your pencil, whatever it may be, _as a whole_; so that the general effect and power of the whole may take possession of the mind, and for a while suspend the consideration of the subordinate and particular beauties or defects. The advantage of this method of considering objects is what I wish now more particularly to enforce. At the same time I do not forget, that a Painter must have the power of contracting as well as dilating his sight; because, he that does not at all express particulars, expresses nothing; yet it is certain, that a nice discrimination of minute circumstances, and a punctilious delineation of them, whatever excellence it may have (and I do not mean to detract from it) never did confer on the Artist the character of Genius. Beside those minute differences in things which are frequently not observed at all, and when they are, made little impression, there are in all considerable objects great characteristic distinctions, which press strongly on the senses, and therefore fix the imagination. These are by no means, as some persons think, an aggregate of all the small discriminating particulars: nor will such an accumulation of particulars ever express them. These answer to what I have heard great lawyers call the leading points in a case, or the leading cases relative to those points. The detail of particulars, which does not assist the expression of the main characteristic, is worse than useless, it is mischievous, as it dissipates the attention, and draws it from the principal point. It may be remarked, that the impression which is left on our mind even of things which are familiar to us, is seldom more than their general effect; beyond which we do not look in recognising such objects. To express this in Painting, is to express what is congenial and natural to the mind of man, and what gives him by reflection his own mode of conceiving. The other presupposes _nicety_ and _research_, which are only the business of the curious and attentive, and therefore does not speak to the general sense of the whole species; in which common, and, as I may so call it, mother tongue, everything grand and comprehensive must be uttered. I do not mean to prescribe what degree of attention ought to be paid to the minute parts; this it is hard to settle. We are sure that it is expressing the general effect of the whole, which alone can give to objects their true and touching character; and wherever this is observed, whatever else may be neglected, we acknowledge the hand of a Master. We may even go further, and observe, that when the general effect only is presented to us by a skilful hand, it appears to express the object represented in a more lively manner than the minutest resemblance would do. These observations may lead to very deep questions, which I do not mean here to discuss; among others, it may lead to an inquiry, Why we are not always pleased with the most absolute possible resemblance of an imitation to its original object? Cases may exist in which such a resemblance may be even disagreeable. I shall only observe that the effect of figures in waxwork, though certainly a more exact representation than can be given by Painting or Sculpture, is a sufficient proof that the pleasure we receive from imitation is not increased merely in proportion as it approaches to minute and detailed reality; we are pleased, on the contrary, by seeing ends accomplished by seemingly inadequate means. To express protuberance by actual relief--to express the softness of flesh by the softness of wax, seems rude and inartificial, and creates no grateful surprise. But to express distances on a plain surface, softness by hard bodies, and particular colouring by materials which are not singly of that colour, produces that magic which is the prize and triumph of art. Carry this principle a step further. Suppose the effect of imitation to be fully compassed by means still more inadequate; let the power of a few well-chosen strokes, which supersede labour by judgment and direction, produce a complete impression of all that the mind demands in an object; we are charmed with such an unexpected happiness of execution, and begin to be tired with the superfluous diligence, which in vain solicits an appetite already satiated. The properties of all objects, as far as a Painter is concerned with them, are, the outline or drawing, the colour, and the light and shade. The drawing gives the form, the colour its visible quality, and the light and shade its solidity. Excellence in any one of these parts of art will never be acquired by an artist, unless he has the habit of looking upon objects at large, and observing the effect which they have on the eye when it is dilated, and employed upon the whole, without seeing any one of the parts distinctly. It is by this that we obtain the ruling characteristic, and that we learn to imitate it by short and dexterous methods. I do not mean by dexterity a trick or mechanical habit, formed by guess, and established by custom; but that science, which, by a profound knowledge of ends and means, discovers the shortest and surest way to its own purpose. If we examine with a critical view the manner of those painters whom we consider as patterns, we shall find that their great fame does not proceed from their works being more highly finished than those of other artists, or from a more minute attention to details, but from that enlarged comprehension which sees the whole object at once, and that energy of art which gives its characteristic effect by adequate expression. Raffaelle and Titian are two names which stand the highest in our art; one for Drawing, the other for Painting. The most considerable and the most esteemed works of Raffaelle are the Cartoons, and his Fresco works in the Vatican; those, as we all know, are far from being minutely finished: his principal care and attention seems to have been fixed upon the adjustment of the whole, whether it was the general composition, or the composition of each individual figure; for every figure may be said to be a lesser whole, though, in regard to the general work to which it belongs, it is but a part; the same may be said of the head, of the hands, and feet. Though he possessed this art of seeing and comprehending the whole, as far as form is concerned, he did not exert the same faculty in regard to the general effect, which is presented to the eye by colour, and light and shade. Of this the deficiency of his oil pictures, where this excellence is more expected than in Fresco, is a sufficient proof. It is to Titian we must turn our eyes to find excellence with regard to colour, and light and shade, in the highest degree. He was both the first and the greatest master of this art. By a few strokes he knew how to mark the general image and character of whatever object he attempted; and produced, by this alone, a truer representation than his master Giovanni Bellino, or any of his predecessors, who finished every hair. His great care was to express the general colour, to preserve the masses of light and shade, and to give by opposition the idea of that solidity which is inseparable from natural objects. When those are preserved, though the work should possess no other merit, it will have in a proper place its complete effect; but where any of these are wanting, however minutely laboured the picture may be in the detail, the whole will have a false and even an unfinished appearance, at whatever distance, or in whatever light, it can be shown. It is in vain to attend to the variation of tints, if, in that attention, the general hue of flesh is lost; or to finish ever so minutely the parts, if the masses are not observed, or the whole not well put together. Vasari seems to have had no great disposition to favour the Venetian Painters, yet he everywhere justly commends _il modo di fare, la maniera, la bella practica_; that is, the admirable manner and practice of that school. On Titian, in particular, he bestows the epithets of _giudicioso_, _bello_, _e stupendo_. This manner was then new to the world, but that unshaken truth on which it is founded has fixed it as a model to all succeeding Painters; and those who will examine into the artifice will find it to consist in the power of generalising, and in the shortness and simplicity of the means employed. Many artists, as Vasari likewise observes, have ignorantly imagined they are imitating the manner of Titian when they leave their colours rough, and neglect the detail; but, not possessing the principles on which he wrought, they have produced what he calls _goffe pitture_, absurd, foolish pictures; for such will always be the consequence of affecting dexterity without science, without selection, and without fixed principles. Raffaelle and Titian seem to have looked at nature for different purposes; they both had the power of extending their view to the whole; but one looked only for the general effect as produced by form, the other as produced by colour. We cannot entirely refuse to Titian the merit of attending to the general _form_ of his object, as well as colour; but his deficiency lay, a deficiency, at least, when he is compared with Raffaelle, in not possessing the power like him of correcting the form of his model by any general idea of beauty in his own mind. Of this his St. Sebastian is a particular instance. This figure appears to be a most exact representation both of the form and the colour of the model, which he then happened to have before him; it has all the force of nature, and the colouring is flesh itself; but, unluckily, the model was of a bad form, especially the legs. Titian has with as much care preserved these defects, as he has imitated the beauty and brilliancy of the colouring. In his colouring he was large and general, as in his design he was minute and partial: in the one he was a genius, in the other not much above a copier. I do not, however, speak now of all his pictures: instances enough may be produced in his works, where those observations on his defects could not with any propriety be applied; but it is in the manner or language, as it may be called, in which Titian and others of that school express themselves, that their chief excellence lies. This manner is in reality, in painting, what language is in poetry; we are all sensible how differently the imagination is affected by the same sentiment expressed in different words, and how mean or how grand the same object appears when presented to us by different Painters. Whether it is the human figure, an animal, or even inanimate objects, there is nothing, however unpromising in appearance, but may be raised into dignity, convey sentiment and produce emotion, in the hands of a Painter of genius. What was said of Virgil, that he threw even the dung about the ground with an air of dignity, may be applied to Titian: whatever he touched, however naturally mean and habitually familiar, by a kind of magic he invested with grandeur and importance. I must here observe, that I am not recommending a neglect of the detail; indeed, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to prescribe _certain_ bounds, and tell how far, or when, it is to be observed or neglected; much must, at last, be left to the taste and judgment of the artist. I am well aware that a judicious detail will sometimes give the force of truth to the work, and consequently interest the spectator. I only wish to impress on your minds the true distinction between essential and subordinate powers; and to show what qualities in the art claim your _chief_ attention, and what may, with the least injury to your reputation, be neglected. Something, perhaps, always must be neglected; the lesser ought then to give way to the greater; and since every work can have but a limited time allotted to it (for even supposing a whole life to be employed about one picture, it is still limited), it appears more reasonable to employ that time to the best advantage, in contriving various methods of composing the work,--in trying different effects of light and shadow,--and employing the labour of correction in heightening, by a judicious adjustment of the parts, the effects of the whole,--than that the time should be taken up in minutely finishing those parts. But there is another kind of high finishing, which may safely be condemned, as it seems to counteract its own purpose; that is, when the artist, to avoid that hardness which proceeds from the outline cutting against the ground, softens and blends the colours to excess; this is what the ignorant call high finishing, but which tends to destroy the brilliancy of colour, and the true effect of representation; which consists very much in preserving the same proportion of sharpness and bluntness that is found in natural objects. This extreme softening, instead of producing the effect of softness, gives the appearance of ivory, or some other hard substance, highly polished. The portraits of Cornelius Jansen appear to have this defect, and consequently want that suppleness which is the characteristic of flesh; whereas, in the works of Vandyke we find the true mixture of softness and hardness perfectly observed. The same defect may be found in the manner of Vanderwerf, in opposition to that of Teniers; and such also, we may add, is the manner of Raffaelle in his oil pictures, in comparison with that of Titian. The name which Raffaelle has so justly maintained as the first of Painters, we may venture to say was not acquired by this laborious attention. His apology may be made by saying that it was the manner of his country; but if he had expressed his ideas with the facility and eloquence, as it may be called, of Titian, his works would certainly not have been less excellent; and that praise, which ages and nations have poured out upon him, for possessing Genius in the higher attainments of art, would have been extended to them all. Those who are not conversant in works of art, are often surprised at the high value set by connoisseurs on drawings which appear careless, and in every respect unfinished; but they are truly valuable; and their value arises from this, that they give the idea of an whole; and this whole is often expressed by a dexterous facility which indicates the true power of a Painter, even though roughly exerted; whether it consists in the general composition, or the general form of each figure, or the turn of the attitude which bestows grace and elegance. All this we may see fully exemplified in the very skilful drawings of Parmegiano and Correggio. On whatever account we value these drawings, it is certainly not for high finishing, or a minute attention to particulars. Excellence in every part, and in every province of our art, from the highest style of history down to the resemblances of still-life, will depend on this power of extending the attention at once to the whole, without which the greatest diligence is vain. I wish you to bear in mind, that when I speak of an whole, I do not mean simply an _whole_ as belonging to composition, but an _whole_ with respect to the general style of colouring; an _whole_ with regard to the light and shade; an _whole_ of everything which may separately become the main object of a Painter. I remember a Landscape-painter in Rome, who was known by the name of STUDIO, from his patience in high finishing, in which he thought the whole excellence of art consisted; so that he once endeavoured, as he said, to represent every individual leaf on a tree. This picture I never saw; but I am very sure that an artist who looked only at the general character of the species, the order of the branches, and the masses of the foliage, would in a few minutes produce a more true resemblance of trees than this Painter in as many months. A Landscape-painter certainly ought to study anatomically (if I may use the expression) all the objects which he paints; but when he is to turn his studies to use, his skill, as a man of genius, will be displayed in showing the general effect, preserving the same degree of hardness and softness which the objects have in nature; for he applies himself to the imagination, not to the curiosity, and works not for the Virtuoso or the Naturalist, but for the common observer of life and nature. When he knows his subject, he will know not only what to describe, but what to omit: and this skill in leaving out is, in all things, a great part of knowledge and wisdom. The same excellence of manner which Titian displayed in History or Portrait-painting is equally conspicuous in his Landscapes, whether they are professedly such, or serve only as backgrounds. One of the most eminent of this latter kind is to be found in the picture of St. Pietro Martire. The large trees, which are here introduced, are plainly distinguished from each other by the different manner with which the branches shoot from their trunks, as well as by their different foliage; and the weeds in the foreground are varied in the same manner, just as much as variety requires, and no more. When Algarotii, speaking of this picture, praises it for the minute discriminations of the leaves and plants, even, as he says, to excite the admiration of a Botanist, his intention was undoubtedly to give praise even at the expense of truth; for he must have known that this is not the character of the picture; but connoisseurs will always find in pictures what they think they ought to find: he was not aware that he was giving a description injurious to the reputation of Titian. Such accounts may be very hurtful to young artists, who never have had an opportunity of seeing the work described; and they may possibly conclude that this great Artist acquired the name of the Divine Titian from his eminent attention to such trifling circumstances, which in reality would not raise him above the level of the most ordinary Painter. We may extend these observations even to what seems to have but a single, and that an individual object. The excellence of Portrait-painting, and, we may add, even the likeness, the character, and countenance, as I have observed in another place, depend more upon the general effect produced by the Painter than on the exact expression of the peculiarities, or minute discrimination of the parts. The chief attention of the artist is therefore employed in planting the features in their proper places, which so much contributes to giving the effect and true impression of the whole. The very peculiarities may be reduced to classes and general descriptions; and there are therefore large ideas to be found even in this contracted subject. He may afterwards labour single features to what degree he thinks proper, but let him not forget continually to examine, whether in finishing the parts he is not destroying the general effect. It is certainly a thing to be wished, that all excellence were applied to illustrate subjects that are interesting and worthy of being commemorated; whereas, of half the pictures that are in the world, the subject can be valued only as an occasion which set the artist to work; and yet, our high estimation of such pictures, without considering, or perhaps without knowing the subject, shows how much our attention is engaged by the art alone. Perhaps nothing that we can say will so clearly show the advantage and excellence of this faculty, as that it confers the character of Genius on works that pretend to no other merit; in which is neither expression, character, or dignity, and where none are interested in the subject. We cannot refuse the character of Genius to the marriage of Paolo Veronese without opposing the general sense of mankind (great authorities have called it the triumph of Painting), or to the altar of St. Augustine at Antwerp, by Rubens, which equally deserves that title, and for the same reason. Neither of those pictures have any interesting story to support them. That of Paolo Veronese is only a representation of a great concourse of people at a dinner; and the subject of Rubens, if it may be called a subject where nothing is doing, is an assembly of various Saints that lived in different ages. The whole excellence of those pictures consists in mechanical dexterity, working, however, under the influence of that comprehensive faculty which I have so often mentioned. It is by this, and this alone, that the mechanical power is ennobled, and raised much above its natural rank. And it appears to me, that with propriety it acquires this character, as an instance of that superiority with which mind predominates over matter, by contracting into one whole what nature has made multifarious. The great advantage of this idea of a whole is, that a greater quantity of truth may be said to be contained and expressed in a few lines or touches than in the most laborious finishing of the parts where this is not regarded. It is upon this foundation that it stands; and the justness of the observation would be confirmed by the ignorant in art, if it were possible to take their opinions unseduced by some false notion of what they imagine they ought to see in a Picture. As it is an art, they think they ought to be pleased in proportion as they see that art ostentatiously displayed; they will, from this supposition, prefer neatness, high-finishing, and gaudy colouring, to the truth, simplicity, and unity of nature. Perhaps, too, the totally ignorant beholder, like the ignorant artist, cannot comprehend an whole, nor even what it means. But if false notions do not anticipate their perceptions, they who are capable of observation, and who, pretending to no skill, look only straight forward, will praise and condemn in proportion as the Painter has succeeded in the effect of the whole. Here, general satisfaction, or general dislike, though perhaps despised by the Painter, as proceeding from the ignorance of the principles of art, may yet help to regulate his conduct, and bring back his attention to that which ought to be his principal object, and from which he has deviated for the sake of minuter beauties. An instance of this right judgment I once saw in a child, in going through a gallery where there were many portraits of the last ages, which, though neatly put out of hand, were very ill put together. The child paid no attention to the neat finishing or naturalness of any bit of drapery, but appeared to observe only the ungracefulness of the persons represented, and put herself in the posture of every figure which she saw in a forced and awkward attitude. The censure of nature, uninformed, fastened upon the greatest fault that could be in a picture, because it related to the character and management of the whole. I should be sorry if what has been said should be understood to have any tendency to encourage that carelessness which leaves work in an unfinished state. I commend nothing for the want of exactness; I mean to point out that kind of exactness which is the best, and which is alone truly to be esteemed. So far is my disquisition from giving countenance to idleness, that there is nothing in our art which enforces such continual exertion and circumspection, as an attention to the general effect of the whole. It requires much study and much practice; it requires the Painter's entire mind; whereas the parts may be finishing by nice touches, while his mind is engaged on other matters; he may even hear a play or a novel read without much disturbance. The artist who flatters his own indolence will continually find himself evading this active exertion, and applying his thoughts to the ease and laziness of highly finishing the parts, producing at last what Cowley calls "laborious effects of idleness." No work can be too much finished, provided the diligence employed be directed to its proper object; but I have observed that an excessive labour in the detail has, nine times in ten, been pernicious to the general effect, even when it has been the labour of great masters. It indicates a bad choice, which is an ill setting out in any undertaking. To give a right direction to your industry has been my principal purpose in this discourse. It is this which I am confident often makes the difference between two Students of equal capacities, and of equal industry. While the one is employing his labour on minute objects of little consequence, the other is acquiring the art, and perfecting the habit, of seeing nature in an extensive view, in its proper proportions, and its due subordination of parts. Before I conclude, I must make one observation sufficiently connected with the present subject. The same extension of mind which gives the excellence of Genius to the theory and mechanical practice of the art, will direct him likewise in the method of study, and give him the superiority over those who narrowly follow a more confined track of partial imitation. Whoever, in order to finish his education, should travel to Italy, and spend his whole time there only in copying pictures, and measuring statues or buildings (though these things are not to be neglected), would return with little improvement. He that imitates the _Iliad_, says Dr. Young, is not imitating Homer. It is not by laying up in the memory the particular details of any of the great works of art that any man becomes a great artist, if he stops without making himself master of the general principles on which these works are conducted. If he even hopes to rival those whom he admires, he must consider their works as the means of teaching him the true art of seeing nature. When this is acquired, he then may be said to have appropriated their powers, or, at least, the foundation of their powers, to himself; the rest must depend upon his own industry and application. The great business of study is, to form a _mind_, adapted and adequate to all times and all occasions; to which all nature is then laid open, and which may be said to possess the key of her inexhaustible riches. FOOTNOTES: 13: Discourse III. DISCOURSE XII. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1784._ PARTICULAR METHODS OF STUDY OF LITTLE CONSEQUENCE.--LITTLE OF THE ART CAN BE TAUGHT.--LOVE OF METHOD OFTEN A LOVE OF IDLENESS.--PITTORI IMPROVVISATORI APT TO BE CARELESS AND INCORRECT; SELDOM ORIGINAL AND STRIKING.--THIS PROCEEDS FROM THEIR NOT STUDYING THE WORKS OF OTHER MASTERS. In consequence of the situation in which I have the honour to be placed in this Academy, it has often happened that I have been consulted by the young Students who intend to spend some years in Italy, concerning the method of regulating their studies. I am, as I ought to be, solicitously desirous to communicate the entire result of my experience and observation; and though my openness and facility in giving my opinions might make some amends for whatever was defective in them, yet I fear my answers have not often given satisfaction. Indeed, I have never been sure that I understood perfectly what they meant, and was not without some suspicion that they had not themselves very distinct ideas of the object of their inquiry. If the information required was, by what means the path that leads to excellence could be discovered; if they wished to know whom they were to take for their guides; what to adhere to, and what to avoid; where they were to bait, and where they were to take up their rest; what was to be tasted only, and what should be their diet; such general directions are certainly proper for a Student to ask, and for me, to the best of my capacity, to give; but these rules have been already given; they have, in reality, been the subject of almost all my Discourses from this place. But I am rather inclined to think, that by _method of study_, it was meant (as several do mean) that the times and the seasons should be prescribed, and the order settled, in which everything was to be done: that it might be useful to point out to what degree of excellence one part of the Art was to be carried before the Student proceeded to the next; how long he was to continue to draw from the ancient statues, when to begin to compose, and when to apply to the study of colouring. Such a detail of instruction might be extended with a great deal of plausible and ostentatious amplification. But it would at best be useless. Our studies will be forever, in a very great degree, under the direction of chance; like travellers, we must take what we can get, and when we can get it; whether it is or is not administered to us in the most commodious manner, in the most proper place, or at the exact minute when we would wish to have it. Treatises on education and method of study have always appeared to me to have one general fault. They proceed upon a false supposition of life; as if we possessed not only a power over events and circumstances, but had a greater power over ourselves than I believe any of us will be found to possess. Instead of supposing ourselves to be perfect patterns of wisdom and virtue, it seems to me more reasonable to treat ourselves (as I am sure we must now and then treat others) like humorsome children, whose fancies are often to be indulged, in order to keep them in good humour with themselves and their pursuits. It is necessary to use some artifice of this kind in all processes which by their very nature are long, tedious, and complex, in order to prevent our taking that aversion to our studies which the continual shackles of methodical restraint are sure to produce. I would rather wish a student, as soon as he goes abroad, to employ himself upon whatever he has been incited to by any immediate impulse, than to go sluggishly about a prescribed task; whatever he does in such a state of mind, little advantage accrues from it, as nothing sinks deep enough to leave any lasting impression; and it is impossible that anything should be well understood, or well done, that is taken into a reluctant understanding, and executed with a servile hand. It is desirable, and indeed is necessary to intellectual health, that the mind should be recreated and refreshed with a variety in our studies; that in the irksomeness of uniform pursuit we should be relieved, and, if I may so say, deceived, as much as possible. Besides, the minds of men are so very differently constituted, that it is impossible to find one method which shall be suitable to all. It is of no use to prescribe to those who have no talents; and those who have talents will find methods for themselves--methods dictated to them by their own particular dispositions, and by the experience of their own particular necessities. However, I would not be understood to extend this doctrine to the younger students. The first part of the life of a student, like that of other school-boys, must necessarily be a life of restraint. The grammar, the rudiments, however unpalatable, must at all events be mastered. After a habit is acquired of drawing correctly from the model (whatever it may be) which he has before him, the rest, I think, may be safely left to chance; always supposing that the student is _employed_, and that his studies are directed to the proper object. A passion for his art, and an eager desire to excel, will more than supply the place of method. By leaving a student to himself he may possibly indeed be led to undertake matters above his strength; but the trial will at least have this advantage--it will discover to himself his own deficiencies; and this discovery alone is a very considerable acquisition. One inconvenience, I acknowledge, may attend bold and arduous attempts; frequent failure may discourage. This evil, however, is not more pernicious than the slow proficiency which is the natural consequence of too easy tasks. Whatever advantages method may have in despatch of business (and there it certainly has many), I have but little confidence of its efficacy in acquiring excellence in any art whatever. Indeed, I have always strongly suspected that this love of method, on which some persons appear to place so great independence, is, in reality, at the bottom, a love of idleness, a want of sufficient energy to put themselves into immediate action: it is a sort of an apology to themselves for doing nothing. I have known artists who may truly be said to have spent their whole lives, or at least the most precious part of their lives, in planning methods of study, without ever beginning; resolving, however, to put it all in practice at some time or other--when a certain period arrives--when proper conveniences are procured--or when they remove to a certain place better calculated for study. It is not uncommon for such persons to go abroad with the most honest and sincere resolution of studying hard, when they shall arrive at the end of their journey. The same want of exertion, arising from the same cause which made them at home put off the day of labour until they had found a proper scheme for it, still continues in Italy, and they consequently return home with little, if any, improvement. In the practice of art, as well as in morals, it is necessary to keep a watchful and jealous eye over ourselves; idleness, assuming the specious disguise of industry, will lull to sleep all suspicion of our want of an active exertion of strength. A provision of endless apparatus, a bustle of infinite inquiry and research, or even the mere mechanical labour of copying, may be employed, to evade and shuffle off real labour--the real labour of thinking. I have declined for these reasons to point out any particular method and course of study to young Artists on their arrival in Italy. I have left it to their own prudence, a prudence which will grow and improve upon them in the course of unremitted, ardent industry, directed by a real love of their profession, and an unfeigned admiration of those who have been universally admitted as patterns of excellence in the art. In the exercise of that general prudence, I shall here submit to their consideration such miscellaneous observations as have occurred to me on considering the mistaken notions or evil habits, which have prevented that progress towards excellence, which the natural abilities of several Artists might otherwise have enabled them to make. False opinions and vicious habits have done far more mischief to students, and to Professors too, than any wrong methods of study. Under the influence of sloth, or of some mistaken notion, is that disposition which always wants to lean on other men. Some Students are always talking of the prodigious progress they should make, if they could but have the advantage of being taught by some particular eminent Master. To him they would wish to transfer that care which they ought and must take of themselves. Such are to be told, that after the rudiments are past, very little of our Art can be taught by others. The most skilful Master can do little more than put the end of the clue into the hands of his Scholar, by which he must conduct himself. It is true, the beauties and defects of the works of our predecessors may be pointed out; the principles on which their works are conducted may be explained; the great examples of Ancient Art may be spread out before them; but the most sumptuous entertainment is prepared in vain, if the guests will not take the trouble of helping themselves. Even the Academy itself, where every convenience for study is procured and laid before them, may, from that very circumstance, from leaving no difficulties to be encountered in the pursuit, cause a remission of their industry. It is not uncommon to see young artists, whilst they are struggling with every obstacle in their way, exert themselves with such success as to outstrip competitors possessed of every means of improvement. The promising expectation which was formed, on so much being done with so little means, has recommended them to a Patron, who has supplied them with every convenience of study; from that time their industry and eagerness of pursuit has forsaken them; they stand still, and see others rush on before them. Such men are like certain animals, who will feed only when there is but little provender, and that got at with difficulty through the bars of a rack, but refuse to touch it when there is an abundance before them. Perhaps such a falling off may proceed from the faculties being overpowered by the immensity of the materials; as the traveller despairs ever to arrive at the end of his journey when the whole extent of the road which he is to pass is at once displayed to his view. Among the first moral qualities, therefore, which a Student ought to cultivate, is a just and manly confidence in himself, or rather in the effects of that persevering industry which he is resolved to possess. When Raffaelle, by means of his connection with Bramante, the Pope's Architect, was fixed upon to adorn the Vatican with his works, he had done nothing that marked in him any great superiority over his contemporaries; though he was then but young, he had under his direction the most considerable Artists of his age; and we know what kind of men those were; a lesser mind would have sunk under such a weight; and if we should judge from the meek and gentle disposition which we are told was the character of Raffaelle, we might expect this would have happened to him; but his strength appeared to increase in proportion as exertion was required; and it is not improbable that we are indebted to the good fortune which first placed him in that conspicuous situation for those great examples of excellence which he has left us. The observations to which I formerly wished, and now desire, to point your attention, relate not to errors which are committed by those who have no claim to merit, but to those inadvertencies into which men of parts only can fall by the overrating or the abuse of some real, though perhaps subordinate, excellence. The errors last alluded to are those of backward, timid characters; what I shall now speak of belong to another class--to those Artists who are distinguished for the readiness and facility of their invention. It is undoubtedly a splendid and desirable accomplishment to be able to design instantaneously any given subject. It is an excellence that I believe every Artist would wish to possess; but unluckily, the manner in which this dexterity is acquired habituates the mind to be contented with first thoughts without choice or selection. The judgment, after it has been long passive, by degrees loses its power of becoming active when exertion is necessary. Whoever, therefore, has this talent, must in some measure undo what he has had the habit of doing, or at least give a new turn to his mind: great works, which are to live and stand the criticism of posterity, are not performed at a heat. A proportionable time is required for deliberation and circumspection. I remember when I was at Rome looking at the fighting Gladiator, in company with an eminent Sculptor, and I expressed my admiration of the skill with which the whole is composed, and the minute attention of the Artist to the change of every muscle in that momentary exertion of strength: he was of opinion that a work so perfect required nearly the whole life of man to perform. I believe, if we look around us, we shall find, that in the sister art of Poetry, what has been soon done has been as soon forgotten. The judgment and practice of a great Poet on this occasion is worthy attention. Metastasio, who has so much and justly distinguished himself throughout Europe, at his outset was an _Improvvisatore_, or extempore Poet, a description of men not uncommon in Italy: it is not long since he was asked by a friend, if he did not think the custom of inventing and reciting _extempore_, which he practised when a boy in his character of an _Improvvisatore_, might not be considered as a happy beginning of his education; he thought it, on the contrary, a disadvantage to him: he said that he had acquired by that habit a carelessness and incorrectness, which it cost him much trouble to overcome, and to substitute in the place of it a totally different habit, that of thinking with selection, and of expressing himself with correctness and precision. However extraordinary it may appear, it is certainly true, that the inventions of the _Pittori improvvisatori_, as they may be called, have--notwithstanding the common boast of their authors, that all is spun from their own brain--very rarely anything that has in the least the air of originality:--their compositions are generally commonplace, uninteresting, without character or expression; like those flowery speeches that we sometimes hear, which impress no new ideas on the mind. I would not be thought, however, by what has been said, to oppose the use, the advantage, the necessity there is, of a Painter's being readily able to express his ideas by sketching. The further he can carry such designs the better. The evil to be apprehended is, his resting there, and not correcting them afterwards from nature, or taking the trouble to look about him for whatever assistance the works of others will afford him. We are not to suppose that when a Painter sits down to deliberate on any work, he has all his knowledge to seek; he must not only be able to draw _extempore_ the human figure in every variety of action, but he must be acquainted likewise with the general principles of composition, and possess a habit of foreseeing, while he is composing, the effect of the masses of light and shadow that will attend such a disposition. His mind is entirely occupied by his attention to the whole. It is a subsequent consideration to determine the attitude and expression of individual figures. It is in this period of his work that I would recommend to every artist to look over his portfolio, or pocket-book, in which he has treasured up all the happy inventions, all the extraordinary and expressive attitudes, that he has met with in the course of his studies; not only for the sake of borrowing from those studies whatever may be applicable to his own work, but likewise on account of the great advantage he will receive by bringing the ideas of great Artists more distinctly before his mind, which will teach him to invent other figures in a similar style. Sir Francis Bacon speaks with approbation of the pro-visionary methods Demosthenes and Cicero employed to assist their invention; and illustrates their use by a quaint comparison after his manner. These particular _Studios_ being not immediately connected with our art, I need not cite the passage I allude to, and shall only observe that such preparation totally opposes the general received opinions that are floating in the world concerning genius and inspiration. The same great man in another place, speaking of his own essays, remarks, that they treat of "those things, wherein both men's lives and persons are most conversant, whereof a man shall find much in experience, but little in books:" they are then what an artist would naturally call invention; and yet we may suspect that even the genius of Bacon, great as it was, would never have been enabled to have made those observations, if his mind had not been trained and disciplined by reading the observations of others. Nor could he without such reading have known that those opinions were not to be found in other books. I know there are many Artists of great fame who appear never to have looked out of themselves, and who probably would think it derogatory to their character to be supposed to borrow from any other Painter. But when we recollect, and compare the works of such men with those who took to their assistance the inventions of others, we shall be convinced of the great advantage of this latter practice. The two men most eminent for readiness of invention, that occur to me, are Luca Giordano and La Fage; one in painting, and the other in drawing. To such extraordinary powers as were possessed by both of those Artists, we cannot refuse the character of Genius; at the same time, it must be acknowledged, that it was that kind of mechanic Genius which operates without much assistance of the head. In all their works, which are (as might be expected) very numerous, we may look in vain for anything that can be said to be original and striking; and yet, according to the ordinary ideas of originality, they have as good pretensions as most Painters; for they borrowed very little from others, and still less will any Artist, that can distinguish between excellence and insipidity, ever borrow from them. To those men, and all such, let us oppose the practice of the first of Painters. I suppose we shall all agree, that no man ever possessed a greater power of invention, and stood less in need of foreign assistance, than Raffaelle; and yet, when he was designing one of his greatest as well as latest works, the Cartoons, it is very apparent that he had the studies which he had made from Masaccio before him. Two noble figures of St. Paul, which he found there, he adopted in his own work: one of them he took for St. Paul preaching at Athens; and the other for the same Saint when chastising the sorcerer Elymas. Another figure in the same work, whose head is sunk in his breast, with his eyes shut, appearing deeply wrapt up in thought, was introduced amongst the listeners to the preaching of St. Paul. The most material alteration that is made in those two figures of St. Paul is the addition of the left hands, which are not seen in the original. It is a rule that Raffaelle observed (and, indeed, ought never to be dispensed with), in a principal figure, to show both hands; that it should never be a question, what is become of the other hand. For the sacrifice at Listra, he took the whole ceremony much as it stands in an ancient Basso-relievo, since published in the ADMIRANDA. I have given examples from those pictures only of Raffaelle which we have among us, though many other instances might be produced of this great painter's not disdaining assistance; indeed, his known wealth was so great, that he might borrow where he pleased without loss of credit. It may be remarked, that this work of Masaccio, from which he has borrowed so freely, was a public work, and at no farther distance from Rome than Florence; so that if he had considered it a disgraceful theft, he was sure to be detected; but he was well satisfied that his character for Invention would be little affected by such a discovery; nor is it, except in the opinion of those who are ignorant of the manner in which great works are built. Those who steal from mere poverty; who having nothing of their own, cannot exist a minute without making such depredations; who are so poor that they have no place in which they can even deposit what they have taken; to men of this description nothing can be said; but such artists as those to whom I suppose myself now speaking, men whom I consider as completely provided with all the necessaries and conveniences of art, and who do not desire to steal baubles and common trash, but wish only to possess peculiar rarities which they select to ornament their cabinets, and take care to enrich the general store with materials of equal or of greater value than what they have taken; such men surely need not be ashamed of that friendly intercourse which ought to exist among artists, of receiving from the dead and giving to the living, and perhaps to those who are yet unborn. The daily food and nourishment of the mind of an artist is found in the great works of his predecessors. There is no other way for him to become great himself. _Serpens, nisi serpentem comederit, non fit draco_,[14] is a remark of a whimsical natural history, which I have read, though I do not recollect its title; however false as to dragons, it is applicable enough to artists. Raffaelle, as appears from what has been said, had carefully studied the works of Masaccio; and, indeed, there was no other, if we except Michel Angelo (whom he likewise imitated), so worthy of his attention; and though his manner was dry and hard, his compositions formal, and not enough diversified according to the custom of Painters in that early period, yet his works possess that grandeur and simplicity which accompany, and even sometimes proceed from, regularity and hardness of manner. We must consider the barbarous state of the Arts before his time, when skill in drawing was so little understood that the best of the painters could not even foreshorten the foot, but every figure appeared to stand upon his toes; and what served for drapery, had, from the hardness and smallness of the folds, too much the appearance of cords clinging round the body. He first introduced large drapery flowing in an easy and natural manner: indeed, he appears to be the first who discovered the path that leads to every excellence to which the Arts afterwards arrived, and may, therefore, be justly considered as one of the great Fathers of modern Art. Though I have been led on to a longer digression respecting this great Painter than I intended, yet I cannot avoid mentioning another excellence which he possessed in a very eminent degree; he was as much distinguished among his contemporaries for his diligence and industry as he was for the natural faculties of his mind. We are told that his whole attention was absorbed in the pursuit of his art, and that he acquired the name of Masaccio,[15] from his total disregard to his dress, his person, and all the common concerns of life. He is, indeed, a signal instance of what well-directed diligence will do in a short time; he lived but twenty-seven years; yet in that short space carried the art so far beyond what it had before reached, that he appears to stand alone as a model for his successors. Vasari gives a long catalogue of Painters and Sculptors, who formed their taste, and learned their Art, by studying his works; among those, he names Michel Angelo, Lionardi da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, Raffaelle, Bartolomeo, Andrea del Sarto, Il Rosso, and Pierino del Vaga. The habit of contemplating and brooding over the ideas of great geniuses, till you find yourself warmed by the contact, is the true method of forming an artist-like mind; it is impossible, in the presence of those great men, to think, or invent in a mean manner; a state of mind is acquired that receives those ideas only which relish of grandeur and simplicity. Besides the general advantage of forming the taste by such an intercourse, there is another of a particular kind, which was suggested to me by the practice of Raffaelle, when imitating the work of which I have been speaking. The figure of the Proconsul, Sergius Paulus, is taken from the Felix of Masaccio, though one is a front figure, and the other seen in profile; the action is likewise somewhat changed; but it is plain Raffaelle had that figure in his mind. There is a circumstance indeed, which I mention by-the-bye, which marks it very particularly: Sergius Paulus wears a crown of laurel; this is hardly reconcileable to strict propriety, and the _costume_, of which Raffaelle was in general a good observer; but he found it so in Masaccio, and he did not bestow so much pains in disguise as to change it. It appears to me to be an excellent practice, thus to suppose the figures which you wish to adopt in the works of those great Painters to be statues; and to give, as Raffaelle has here given, another view, taking care to preserve all the spirit and grace you find in the original. I should hope, from what has been lately said, that it is not necessary to guard myself against any supposition of recommending an entire dependence upon former masters. I do not desire that you should get other people to do your business, or to think for you; I only wish you to consult with, to call in, as counsellors, men the most distinguished for their knowledge and experience, the result of which counsel must ultimately depend upon yourself. Such conduct in the commerce of life has never been considered as disgraceful, or in any respect to imply intellectual imbecility; it is a sign, rather, of that true wisdom, which feels individual imperfection; and is conscious to itself how much collective observation is necessary to fill the immense extent, and to comprehend the infinite variety of nature. I recommend neither self-dependence nor plagiarism. I advise you only to take that assistance which every human being wants, and which, as appears from the examples that have been given, the greatest painters have not disdained to accept. Let me add, that the diligence required in the search, and the exertion subsequent in accommodating those ideas to your own purpose, is a business which idleness will not, and ignorance cannot, perform. But in order more distinctly to explain what kind of borrowing I mean, when I recommend so anxiously the study of the works of great masters, let us, for a minute, return again to Raffaelle, consider his method of practice, and endeavour to imitate him, in his manner of imitating others. The two figures of St. Paul which I lately mentioned are so nobly conceived by Masaccio, that perhaps it was not in the power even of Raffaelle himself to raise and improve them, nor has he attempted it; but he has had the address to change in some measure without diminishing the grandeur of their character; he has substituted, in the place of a serene composed dignity, that animated expression which was necessary to the more active employment he assigned them. In the same manner he has given more animation to the figure of Sergius Paulus, and to that which is introduced in the picture of St. Paul preaching, of which little more than hints are given by Masaccio, which Raffaelle has finished. The closing the eyes of this figure, which in Masaccio might be easily mistaken for sleeping, is not in the least ambiguous in the Cartoon: his eyes, indeed, are closed, but they are closed with such vehemence, that the agitation of a mind _perplexed in the extreme_ is seen at the first glance; but what is most extraordinary, and I think particularly to be admired, is, that the same idea is continued through the whole figure, even to the drapery, which is so closely muffled about him, that even his hands are not seen; by this happy correspondence between the expression of the countenance, and the disposition of the parts, the figure appears to think from head to foot. Men of superior talents alone are capable of thus using and adapting other men's minds to their own purposes, or are able to make out and finish what was only in the original a hint or imperfect conception. A readiness in taking such hints, which escape the dull and ignorant, makes, in my opinion, no inconsiderable part of that faculty of the mind which is called Genius. It often happens that hints may be taken and employed in a situation totally different from that in which they were originally employed. There is a figure of a Bacchante leaning backward, her head thrown quite behind her, which seems to be a favourite invention, as it is so frequently repeated in basso-relievos, cameos, and intaglios; it is intended to express an enthusiastic, frantic kind of joy. This figure Baccio Bandinelli, in a drawing that I have of that Master of the Descent from the Cross, has adopted (and he knew very well what was worth borrowing) for one of the Marys, to express frantic agony of grief. It is curious to observe, and it is certainly true, that the extremes of contrary passions are, with very little variation, expressed by the same action. If I were to recommend method in any part of the study of a Painter, it would be in regard to invention; that young Students should not presume to think themselves qualified to invent till they were acquainted with those stores of invention the world already possesses, and had by that means accumulated sufficient materials for the mind to work with. It would certainly be no improper method of forming the mind of a young artist, to begin with such exercises as the Italians call a _Pasticcio_ composition of the different excellencies which are dispersed in all other works of the same kind. It is not supposed that he is to stop here, but that he is to acquire by this means the art of selecting, first, what is truly excellent in Art, and then, what is still more excellent in Nature; a task which, without this previous study, he will be but ill qualified to perform. The doctrine which is here advanced is acknowledged to be new, and to many may appear strange. But I only demand for it the reception of a stranger; a favourable and attentive consideration, without that entire confidence which might be claimed under authoritative recommendation. After you have taken a figure, or any idea of a figure, from any of those great Painters, there is another operation still remaining, which I hold to be indispensably necessary--that is, never to neglect finishing from nature every part of the work. What is taken from a model, though the first idea may have been suggested by another, you have a just right to consider as your own property. And here I cannot avoid mentioning a circumstance in placing the model, though to some it may appear trifling. It is better to possess the model with the attitude you require, than to place him with your own hands: by this means it happens often that the model puts himself in an action superior to your own imagination. It is a great matter to be in the way of accident, and to be watchful and ready to take advantage of it: besides, when you fix the position of a model, there is danger of putting him in an attitude into which no man would naturally fall. This extends even to drapery. We must be cautious in touching and altering a fold of the stuff, which serves as a model, for fear of giving it inadvertently a forced form; and it is perhaps better to take the chance of another casual throw, than to alter the position in which it was at first accidentally cast. Rembrandt, in order to take the advantage of accident, appears often to have used the pallet-knife to lay his colours on the canvas, instead of the pencil. Whether it is the knife or any other instrument, it suffices if it is something that does not follow exactly the will. Accident in the hands of an artist who knows how to take the advantage of its hints, will often produce bold and capricious beauties of handling and facility, such as he would not have thought of, or ventured, with his pencil, under the regular restraint of his hand. However, this is fit only on occasions where no correctness of form is required, such as clouds, stumps of trees, rocks, or broken ground. Works produced in an accidental manner will have the same free, unrestrained air as the works of nature, whose particular combinations seem to depend upon accident. I again repeat, you are never to lose sight of nature; the instant you do, you are all abroad, at the mercy of every gust of fashion, without knowing or seeing the point to which you ought to steer. Whatever trips you make, you must still have nature in your eye. Such deviations as art necessarily requires, I hope in a future Discourse to be able to explain. In the meantime, let me recommend to you, not to have too great dependence on your practice or memory, however strong those impressions may have been which are there deposited. They are for ever wearing out, and will be at last obliterated, unless they are continually refreshed and repaired. It is not uncommon to meet with artists who, from a long neglect of cultivating this necessary intimacy with Nature, do not even know her when they see her; she appearing a stranger to them, from their being so long habituated to their own representation of her. I have heard Painters acknowledge, though in that acknowledgment no degradation of themselves was intended, that they could do better without Nature than with her; or, as they expressed it themselves, _that it only put them out_. A painter with such ideas and such habits is indeed in a most hopeless state. _The art of seeing Nature_, or, in other words, the art of using Models, is in reality the great object, the point to which all our studies are directed. As for the power of being able to do tolerably well, from practice alone, let it be valued according to its worth. But I do not see in what manner it can be sufficient for the production of correct, excellent, and finished Pictures. Works deserving this character never were produced, nor ever will arise, from memory alone; and I will venture to say, that an artist who brings to his work a mind tolerably furnished with the general principles of Art, and a taste formed upon the works of good Artists--in short, who knows in what excellence consists, will, with the assistance of Models, which we will likewise suppose he has learnt the art of using, be an overmatch for the greatest painter that ever lived who should be debarred such advantages. Our neighbours, the French, are much in this practice of _extempore_ invention, and their dexterity is such as even to excite admiration, if not envy; but how rarely can this praise be given to their finished pictures! The late Director of their Academy, _Boucher_, was eminent in this way. When I visited him some years since in France, I found him at work on a very large Picture, without drawings or models of any kind. On my remarking this particular circumstance, he said, when he was young, studying his art, he found it necessary to use models; but he had left them off for many years. Such Pictures as this was, and such as I fear always will be produced by those who work solely from practice or memory, may be a convincing proof of the necessity of the conduct which I have recommended. However, in justice I cannot quit this Painter without adding, that in the former part of his life, when he was in the habit of having recourse to nature, he was not without a considerable degree of merit--enough to make half the Painters of his country his imitators; he had often grace and beauty, and good skill in composition; but I think all under the influence of a bad taste: his imitators are indeed abominable. Those Artists who have quitted the service of nature (whose service, when well understood, is _perfect freedom_), and have put themselves under the direction of I know not what capricious fantastical mistress, who fascinates and overpowers their whole mind, and from whose dominion there are no hopes of their being ever reclaimed (since they appear perfectly satisfied, and not at all conscious of their forlorn situation), like the transformed followers of Comus-- "Not once perceive their foul disfigurement; But boast themselves more comely than before." Methinks, such men, who have found out so short a path, have no reason to complain of the shortness of life, and the extent of art; since life is so much longer than is wanted for their improvement, or, indeed, is necessary for the accomplishment of their idea of perfection. On the contrary, he who recurs to nature, at every recurrence renews his strength. The rules of art he is never likely to forget; they are few and simple; but nature is refined, subtle, and infinitely various, beyond the power and retention of memory; it is necessary, therefore, to have continual recourse to her. In this intercourse there is no end of his improvement; the longer he lives, the nearer he approaches to the true and perfect idea of art. FOOTNOTES: 14: In Ben Jonson's "Catiline" we find this aphorism, with a slight variation:-- "A serpent, ere he comes to be a dragon, Must eat a bat." 15: The addition of _accio_ denotes contempt, or some deformity or imperfection attending the person to whom it is applied. DISCOURSE XIII. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 11, 1786._ ART NOT MERELY IMITATION, BUT UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE IMAGINATION.--IN WHAT MANNER POETRY, PAINTING, ACTING, GARDENING, AND ARCHITECTURE DEPART FROM NATURE. To discover beauties, or to point out faults, in the works of celebrated Masters, and to compare the conduct of one Artist with another, is certainly no mean or inconsiderable part of criticism; but this is still no more than to know the art through the Artist. This test of investigation must have two capital defects; it must be narrow, and it must be uncertain. To enlarge the boundaries of the Art of Painting, as well as to fix its principles, it will be necessary that _that_ art, and _those_ principles, should be considered in their correspondence with the principles of the other arts, which, like this, address themselves primarily and principally to the imagination. When those connected and kindred principles are brought together to be compared, another comparison will grow out of this; that is, the comparison of them all with those of human nature, from whence arts derive the materials upon which they are to produce their effects. When this comparison of art with art, and of all arts with the nature of man, is once made with success, our guiding lines are as well ascertained and established as they can be in matters of this description. This, as it is the highest style of criticism, is at the same time the soundest; for it refers to the eternal and immutable nature of things. You are not to imagine that I mean to open to you at large, or to recommend to your research, the whole of this vast field of science. It is certainly much above my faculties to reach it; and though it may not be above yours to comprehend it fully, if it were fully and properly brought before you, yet perhaps the most perfect criticism requires habits of speculation and abstraction, not very consistent with the employment which ought to occupy, and the habits of mind which ought to prevail, in a practical Artist. I only point out to you these things, that when you do criticise (as all who work on a plan will criticise more or less), your criticism may be built on the foundation of true principles; and that though you may not always travel a great way, the way that you do travel may be the right road. I observe, as a fundamental ground, common to all the Arts with which we have any concern in this discourse, that they address themselves only to two faculties of the mind--its imagination and its sensibility. All theories which attempt to direct or to control the Art, upon any principles falsely called rational, which we form to ourselves upon a supposition of what ought in reason to be the end or means of Art, independent of the known first effect produced by objects on the imagination, must be false and delusive. For though it may appear bold to say it, the imagination is here the residence of truth. If the imagination be affected, the conclusion is fairly drawn; if it be not affected, the reasoning is erroneous, because the end is not obtained; the effect itself being the test, and the only test, of the truth and efficacy of the means. There is in the commerce of life, as in Art, a sagacity which is far from being contradictory to right reason, and is superior to any occasional exercise of that faculty; which supersedes it; and does not wait for the slow progress of deduction, but goes at once, by what appears a kind of intuition, to the conclusion. A man endowed with this faculty feels and acknowledges the truth, though it is not always in his power, perhaps, to give a reason for it; because he cannot recollect and bring before him all the materials that gave birth to his opinion; for very many and very intricate considerations may unite to form the principle, even of small and minute parts, involved in, or dependent on, a great system of things: though these in process of time are forgotten, the right impression still remains fixed in his mind. This impression is the result of the accumulated experience of our whole life, and has been collected, we do not always know how, or when. But this mass of collective observation, however acquired, ought to prevail over that reason, which, however powerfully exerted on any particular occasion, will probably comprehend but a partial view of the subject; and our conduct in life, as well as in the Arts, is, or ought to be, generally governed by this habitual reason: it is our happiness that we are enabled to draw on such funds. If we were obliged to enter into a theoretical deliberation on every occasion, before we act, life would be at a stand, and Art would be impracticable. It appears to me, therefore, that our first thoughts, that is, the effect which anything produces on our minds, on its first appearance, is never to be forgotten; and it demands for that reason, because it is the first, to be laid up with care. If this be not done, the Artist may happen to impose on himself by partial reasoning; by a cold consideration of those animated thoughts which proceed, not perhaps from caprice or rashness (as he may afterwards conceit), but from the fulness of his mind, enriched with the copious stores of all the various inventions which he had ever seen, or had ever passed in his mind. These ideas are infused into his design, without any conscious effort; but if he be not on his guard, he may reconsider and correct them, till the whole matter is reduced to a commonplace invention. This is sometimes the effect of what I mean to caution you against; that is to say, an unfounded distrust of the imagination and feeling, in favour of narrow, partial, confined, argumentative theories; and of principles that seem to apply to the design in hand; without considering those general impressions on the fancy in which real principles of _sound reason_, and of much more weight and importance, are involved, and, as it were, lie hid under the appearance of a sort of vulgar sentiment. Reason, without doubt, must ultimately determine everything; at this minute it is required to inform us when that very reason is to give way to feeling. Though I have often spoken of that mean conception of our art which confines it to mere imitation, I must add, that it may be narrowed to such a mere matter of experiment, as to exclude from it the application of science, which alone gives dignity and compass to any art. But to find proper foundations for science is neither to narrow or to vulgarise it; and this is sufficiently exemplified in the success of experimental philosophy. It is the false system of reasoning, grounded on a partial view of things, against which I would most earnestly guard you. And I do it the rather, because those narrow theories, so coincident with the poorest and most miserable practices, and which are adopted to give it countenance, have not had their origin in the poorest minds, but in the mistakes, or possibly in the mistaken interpretations, of great and commanding authorities. We are not, therefore, in this case misled by feeling, but by false speculation. When such a man as Plato speaks of Painting as only an imitative art, and that our pleasure proceeds from observing and acknowledging the truth of the imitation, I think he misleads us by a partial theory. It is in this poor, partial, and, so far, false view of the art, that Cardinal Bembo has chosen to distinguish even Raffaelle himself, whom our enthusiasm honours with the name of Divine. The same sentiment is adopted by Pope in his epitaph on Sir Godfrey Kneller; and he turns the panegyric solely on imitation, as it is a sort of deception. I shall not think my time misemployed, if by any means I may contribute to confirm your opinion of what ought to be the object of your pursuit; because, though the best critics must always have exploded this strange idea, yet I know that there is a disposition towards a perpetual recurrence to it, on account of its simplicity and superficial plausibility. For this reason I shall beg leave to lay before you a few thoughts on this subject; to throw out some hints that may lead your minds to an opinion (which I take to be the truth), that Painting is not only to be considered as an imitation, operating by deception, but that it is, and ought to be, in many points of view, and strictly speaking, no imitation at all of external nature. Perhaps it ought to be as far removed from the vulgar idea of imitation as the refined civilised state in which we live is removed from a gross state of nature; and those who have not cultivated their imaginations, which the majority of mankind certainly have not, may be said, in regard to arts, to continue in this state of nature. Such men will always prefer imitation to that excellence which is addressed to another faculty that they do not possess; but these are not the persons to whom a Painter is to look, any more than a judge of morals and manners ought to refer controverted points upon those subjects to the opinions of people taken from the banks of the Ohio, or from New Holland. It is the lowest style only of arts, whether of Painting, Poetry, or Music, that may be said, in the vulgar sense, to be naturally pleasing. The higher efforts of those arts, we know by experience, do not affect minds wholly uncultivated. This refined taste is the consequence of education and habit: we are born only with a capacity of entertaining this refinement, as we are born with a disposition to receive and obey all the rules and regulations of society; and so far it may be said to be natural to us, and no further. What has been said may show the Artist how necessary it is, when he looks about him for the advice and criticism of his friends, to make some distinction of the character, taste, experience, and observation in this Art, of those from whom it is received. An ignorant, uneducated man may, like Apelles's critic, be a competent judge of the truth of the representation of a sandal; or, to go somewhat higher, like Molière's old woman, may decide upon what is nature, in regard to comic humour; but a critic in the higher style of art ought to possess the same refined taste which directed the Artist in his work. To illustrate this principle by a comparison with other Arts, I shall now produce some instances to show that they, as well as our own Art, renounce the narrow idea of nature, and the narrow theories derived from that mistaken principle, and apply to that reason only which informs us not what imitation is--a natural representation of a given object--but what it is natural for the imagination to be delighted with. And perhaps there is no better way of acquiring this knowledge than by this kind of analogy: each art will corroborate and mutually reflect the truth on the other. Such a kind of juxtaposition may likewise have this use, that whilst the Artist is amusing himself in the contemplation of other Arts, he may habitually transfer the principles of those Arts to that which he professes: which ought to be always present to his mind, and to which everything is to be referred. So far is Art from being derived from, or having any immediate intercourse with particular nature as its model, that there are many Arts that set out with a professed deviation from it. This is certainly not so exactly true in regard to Painting and Sculpture. Our elements are laid in gross common nature--an exact imitation of what is before us; but when we advance to the higher state, we consider this power of imitation, though first in the order of acquisition, as by no means the highest in the scale of perfection. Poetry addresses itself to the same faculties and the same dispositions as Painting, though by different means. The object of both is to accommodate itself to all the natural propensities and inclinations of the mind. The very existence of Poetry depends on the license it assumes of deviating from actual nature, in order to gratify natural propensities by other means, which are found by experience full as capable of affording such gratification. It sets out with a language in the highest degree artificial, a construction of measured words, such as never is, nor ever was, used by man. Let this measure be what it may, whether hexameter or any other metre used in Latin or Greek--or Rhyme, or Blank Verse varied with pauses and accents, in modern languages--they are all equally removed from nature, and equally a violation of common speech. When this artificial mode has been established as the vehicle of sentiment, there is another principle in the human mind to which the work must be referred, which still renders it more artificial, carries it still further from common nature, and deviates only to render it more perfect. That principle is the sense of congruity, coherence, and consistency, which is a real existing principle in man; and it must be gratified. Therefore, having once adopted a style and a measure not found in common discourse, it is required that the sentiments also should be in the same proportion elevated above common nature, from the necessity of there being an agreement of the parts among themselves, that one uniform whole may be produced. To correspond, therefore, with this general system of deviation from nature, the manner in which poetry is offered to the ear, the tone in which it is recited, should be as far removed from the tone of conversation as the words of which that Poetry is composed. This naturally suggests the idea of modulating the voice by art, which, I suppose, may be considered as accomplished to the highest degree of excellence in the recitative of the Italian Opera; as we may conjecture it was in the Chorus that attended the ancient drama. And though the most violent passions, the highest distress, even death itself, are expressed in singing or recitative, I would not admit as sound criticism the condemnation of such exhibitions on account of their being unnatural. If it is natural for our senses, and our imaginations, to be delighted with singing, with instrumental music, with poetry, and with graceful action, taken separately (none of them being in the vulgar sense natural, even in that separate state); it is conformable to experience, and therefore agreeable to reason as connected and referred to experience, that we should also be delighted with this union of music, poetry, and graceful action, joined to every circumstance of pomp and magnificence calculated to strike the senses of the spectator. Shall reason stand in the way, and tell us that we ought not to like what we know we do like, and prevent us from feeling the full effect of this complicated exertion of art? This is what I would understand by poets and painters being allowed to dare everything; for what can be more daring than accomplishing the purpose and end of art, by a complication of means, none of which have their archetypes in actual nature? So far, therefore, is servile imitation from being necessary, that whatever is familiar, or in any way reminds us of what we see and hear every day, perhaps does not belong to the higher provinces of art, either in poetry or painting. The mind is to be transported, as Shakespeare expresses it, _beyond the ignorant present_, to ages past. Another and a higher order of beings is supposed; and to those beings everything which is introduced into the work must correspond. Of this conduct, under these circumstances, the Roman and Florentine schools afford sufficient examples. Their style by this means is raised and elevated above all others; and by the same means the compass of art itself is enlarged. We often see grave and great subjects attempted by artists of another school; who, though excellent in the lower class of art, proceeding on the principles which regulate that class, and not recollecting, or not knowing, that they were to address themselves to another faculty of the mind, have become perfectly ridiculous. The picture which I have at present in my thoughts is a sacrifice of Iphigenia, painted by Jan Steen, a painter of whom I have formerly had occasion to speak with the highest approbation; and even in this picture, the subject of which is by no means adapted to his genius, there is nature and expression; but it is such expression, and the countenances are so familiar, and consequently so vulgar, and the whole accompanied with such finery of silks and velvets, that one would be almost tempted to doubt whether the artist did not purposely intend to burlesque his subject. Instances of the same kind we frequently see in poetry. Parts of Hobbes's translation of Homer are remembered and repeated merely for the familiarity and meanness of their phraseology, so ill corresponding with the ideas which ought to have been expressed, and, as I conceive, with the style of the original. We may proceed in the same manner through the comparatively inferior branches of art. There are, in works of that class, the same distinction of a higher and a lower style; and they take their rank and degree in proportion as the artist departs more, or less, from common nature, and makes it an object of his attention to strike the imagination of the spectator by ways belonging especially to art--unobserved and untaught out of the school of its practice. If our judgments are to be directed by narrow, vulgar, untaught, or rather ill-taught, reason, we must prefer a portrait by Denner, or any other high finisher, to those of Titian or Vandyke; and a landscape of Vanderheyden to those of Titian or Rubens; for they are certainly more exact representations of nature. If we suppose a view of nature represented with all the truth of the _camera obscura_, and the same scene represented by a great artist, how little and mean will the one appear in comparison of the other, where no superiority is supposed from the choice of the subject! The scene shall be the same, the difference only will be in the manner in which it is presented to the eye. With what additional superiority, then, will the same artist appear when he has the power of selecting his materials as well as elevating his style? Like Nicholas Poussin, he transports us to the environs of ancient Rome, with all the objects which a literary education makes so precious and interesting to man; or, like Sebastian Bourdon, he leads us to the dark antiquity of the pyramids of Egypt; or, like Claude Lorrain, he conducts us to the tranquillity of Arcadian scenes and fairy-land. Like the history-painter, a painter of landscapes, in this style and with this conduct, sends the imagination back into antiquity; and, like the poet, he makes the elements sympathise with his subject: whether the clouds roll in volumes like those of Titian or Salvator Rosa, or like those of Claude, are gilded with the setting sun; whether the mountains have sudden and bold projections, or are gently sloped; whether the branches of his trees shoot out abruptly in right angles from their trunks, or follow each other with only a gentle inclination. All these circumstances contribute to the general character of the work, whether it be of the elegant or of the more sublime kind. If we add to this the powerful materials of lightness and darkness, over which the artist has complete dominion, to vary and dispose them as he pleases; to diminish or increase them as will best suit his purpose, and correspond to the general idea of his work; a landscape thus conducted, under the influence of a poetical mind will have the same superiority over the more ordinary and common views, as Milton's _Allegra_ and _Penseroso_ have over a cold prosaic narration or description; and such a picture would make a more forcible impression on the mind than the real scenes, were they presented before us. If we look abroad to other arts, we may observe the same distinction, the same division into two classes; each of them acting under the influence of two different principles, in which the one follows nature, the other varies it, and sometimes departs from it. The theatre, which is said _to hold the mirror up to nature_, comprehends both those ideas. The lower kind of comedy, or farce, like the inferior style of painting, the more naturally it is represented, the better; but the higher appears to me to aim no more at imitation, so far as it belongs to anything like deception, or to expect that the spectators should think that the events there represented are really passing before them, than Raffaelle in his Cartoons, or Poussin in his Sacraments, expected it to be believed, even for a moment, that what they exhibited were real figures. For want of this distinction the world is filled with false criticism. Raffaelle is praised for naturalness and deception, which he certainly has not accomplished, and as certainly never intended; and our late great actor, Garrick, has been as ignorantly praised by his friend Fielding; who doubtless imagined he had hit upon an ingenious device, by introducing, in one of his novels (otherwise a work of the highest merit), an ignorant man mistaking Garrick's representation of a scene in "Hamlet" for reality. A very little reflection will convince us, that there is not one circumstance in the whole scene that is of the nature of deception. The merit and excellence of Shakespeare, and of Garrick, when they were engaged in such scenes, is of a different and much higher kind. But what adds to the falsity of this intended compliment is, that the best stage-representation appears even more unnatural to a person of such a character, who is supposed never to have seen a play before, than it does to those who have had a habit of allowing for those necessary deviations from nature which the Art requires. In theatric representation great allowances must always be made for the place in which the exhibition is represented; for the surrounding company, the lighted candles, the scenes visibly shifted in your sight, and the language of blank verse, so different from common English; which merely as English must appear surprising in the mouths of Hamlet, and all the court and natives of Denmark. These allowances are made; but their being made puts an end to all manner of deception: and further, we know that the more low, illiterate, and vulgar any person is, the less he will be disposed to make these allowances, and of course to be deceived by any imitation; the things in which the trespass against nature and common probability is made in favour of the theatre being quite within the sphere of such uninformed men. Though I have no intention of entering into all the circumstances of unnaturalness in theatrical representations, I must observe that even the expression of violent passion is not always the most excellent in proportion as it is the most natural; so, great terror and such disagreeable sensations may be communicated to the audience, that the balance may be destroyed by which pleasure is preserved and holds its predominancy in the mind: violent distortion of action, harsh screamings of the voice, however great the occasions, or however natural on such occasions, are therefore not admissible in the theatric art. Many of these allowed deviations from nature arise from the necessity which there is, that everything should be raised and enlarged beyond its natural state; that the full effect may come home to the spectator, which otherwise would be lost in the comparatively extensive space of the Theatre. Hence the deliberate and stately step, the studied grace of action, which seems to enlarge the dimensions of the actor, and alone to fill the stage. All this unnaturalness, though right and proper in its place, would appear affected and ridiculous in a private room: _quid enim deformius quàm scenam, in vitam transferre?_ And here I must observe, and I believe it may be considered as a general rule, that no Art can be grafted with success on another Art. For though they all profess the same origin, and to proceed from the same stock, yet each has its own peculiar modes both of imitating nature, and of deviating from it, each for the accomplishment of its own particular purpose. These deviations, more especially, will not bear transplantation to another soil. If a Painter should endeavour to copy the theatrical pomp and parade of dress, and attitude, instead of that simplicity, which is not a greater beauty in life than it is in Painting, we should condemn such pictures, as painted in the meanest style. So, also, Gardening, as far as Gardening is an Art, or entitled to that appellation, is a deviation from nature; for if the true taste consists, as many hold, in banishing every appearance of Art, or any traces of the footsteps of man, it would then be no longer a Garden. Even though we define it, "Nature to advantage dressed," and in some sense is such, and much more beautiful and commodious for the recreation of man; it is, however, when so dressed, no longer a subject for the pencil of a Landscape-Painter, as all Landscape-Painters know, who love to have recourse to Nature herself, and to dress her according to the principles of their own Art; which are far different from those of Gardening, even when conducted according to the most approved principles; and such as a Landscape-Painter himself would adopt in the disposition of his own grounds, for his own private satisfaction. I have brought together as many instances as appear necessary to make out the several points which I wished to suggest to your consideration in this Discourse; that your own thoughts may lead you further in the use that may be made of the analogy of the Arts; and of the restraint which a full understanding of the diversity of many of their principles ought to impose on the employment of that analogy. The great end of all those arts is, to make an impression on the imagination and the feeling. The imitation of nature frequently does this. Sometimes it fails, and something else succeeds. I think, therefore, the true test of all the arts is not solely whether the production is a true copy of nature, but whether it answers the end of art, which is, to produce a pleasing effect upon the mind. It remains only to speak a few words of Architecture, which does not come under the denomination of an imitative art. It applies itself, like Music (and, I believe, we may add Poetry), directly to the imagination, without the intervention of any kind of imitation. There is in Architecture, as in Painting, an inferior branch of art, in which the imagination appears to have no concern. It does not, however, acquire the name of a polite and liberal art from its usefulness, or administering to our wants or necessities, but from some higher principle; we are sure that in the hands of a man of genius it is capable of inspiring sentiment, and of filling the mind with great and sublime ideas. It may be worth the attention of Artists to consider what materials are in their hands, that may contribute to this end; and whether this art has it not in its power to address itself to the imagination with effect, by more ways than are generally employed by Architects. To pass over the effect produced by that general symmetry and proportion, by which the eye is delighted, as the ear is with music, Architecture certainly possesses many principles in common with Poetry and Painting. Among those which may be reckoned as the first, is, that of affecting the imagination by means of association of ideas. Thus, for instance, as we have naturally a veneration for antiquity, whatever building brings to our remembrance ancient customs and manners, such as the castles of the Barons of ancient Chivalry, is sure to give this delight. Hence it is that _towers and battlements_[16] are so often selected by the Painter and the Poet to make a part of the composition of their ideal Landscape; and it is from hence, in a great degree, that, in the buildings of Vanbrugh, who was a Poet as well as an Architect, there is a greater display of imagination than we shall find, perhaps, in any other, and this is the ground of the effect we feel in many of his works, notwithstanding the faults with which many of them are justly charged. For this purpose, Vanbrugh appears to have had recourse to some of the principles of the Gothic Architecture; which, though not so ancient as the Grecian, is more so to our imagination, with which the Artist is more concerned than with absolute truth. The Barbaric splendour of those Asiatic Buildings, which are now publishing by a member of this Academy,[17] may possibly, in the same manner, furnish an Architect, not with models to copy, but with hints of composition and general effect, which would not otherwise have occurred. It is, I know, a delicate and hazardous thing (and, as such, I have already pointed it out) to carry the principles of one art to another, or even to reconcile in one object the various modes of the same art, when they proceed on different principles. The sound rules of the Grecian Architecture are not to be lightly sacrificed. A deviation from them, or even an addition to them, is like a deviation or addition to, or from, the rules of other Arts--fit only for a great master, who is thoroughly conversant in the nature of man, as well as all combinations in his own Art. It may not be amiss for the Architect to take advantage _sometimes_ of that to which I am sure the Painter ought always to have his eyes open--I mean the use of accidents: to follow when they lead, and to improve them, rather than always to trust to a regular plan. It often happens that additions have been made to houses, at various times, for use or pleasure. As such buildings depart from regularity, they now and then acquire something of scenery by this accident, which I should think might not unsuccessfully be adopted by an Architect, in an original plan, if it does not too much interfere with convenience. Variety and intricacy is a beauty and excellence in every other of the arts which address the imagination: and why not in Architecture? The forms and turnings of the streets of London and other old towns are produced by accident, without any original plan or design, but they are not always the less pleasant to the walker or spectator on that account. On the contrary, if the city had been built on the regular plan of Sir Christopher Wren, the effect might have been, as we know it is in some new parts of the town, rather unpleasing; the uniformity might have produced weariness, and a slight degree of disgust. I can pretend to no skill in the detail of Architecture. I judge now of the art, merely as a Painter. When I speak of Vanbrugh, I mean to speak of him in the language of our art. To speak, then, of Vanbrugh in the language of a painter, he had originality of invention, he understood light and shadow, and had great skill in composition. To support his principal object, he produced his second and third groups or masses; he perfectly understood in his art what is the most difficult in ours, the conduct of the background; by which the design and invention is set off to the greatest advantage. What the background is in Painting, in Architecture is the real ground on which the building is erected; and no Architect took greater care than he that his work should not appear crude and hard; that is, it did not abruptly start out of the ground without expectation or preparation. This is a tribute which a Painter owes to an Architect who composed like a painter; and was defrauded of the due reward of his merit by the wits of his time, who did not understand the principles of composition in poetry better than he; and who knew little, or nothing, of what he understood perfectly--the general ruling principles of Architecture and Painting. His fate was that of the great Perrault; both were the objects of the petulant sarcasms of factious men of letters; and both have left some of the fairest ornaments which to this day decorate their several countries; the façade of the Louvre, Blenheim, and Castle Howard. Upon the whole it seems to me, that the object and intention of all the Arts is to supply the natural imperfection of things, and often to gratify the mind by realising and embodying what never existed but in the imagination. It is allowed on all hands, that facts, and events, however they may bind the Historian, have no dominion over the Poet or the Painter. With us, History is made to bend and conform to this great idea of Art. And why? Because these Arts, in their highest province, are not addressed to the gross senses; but to the desires of the mind, to that spark of divinity which we have within, impatient of being circumscribed and pent up by the world which is about us. Just so much as our Art has of this, just so much of dignity, I had almost said of divinity, it exhibits; and those of our Artists who possessed this mark of distinction in the highest degree, acquired from thence the glorious appellation of DIVINE. FOOTNOTES: 16: "Towers and Battlements it sees Bosom'd high in tufted trees."--MILTON, L'ALL. 17: Mr. Hodges. DISCOURSE XIV. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1788._ CHARACTER OF GAINSBOROUGH:--HIS EXCELLENCIES AND DEFECTS. In the study of our art, as in the study of all arts, something is the result of _our own_ observation of nature; something, and that not a little, the effect of the example of those who have studied the same nature before us, and who have cultivated before us the same art, with diligence and success. The less we confine ourselves in the choice of those examples, the more advantage we shall derive from them; and the nearer we shall bring our performances to a correspondence with nature and the great general rules of art. When we draw our examples from remote and revered antiquity--with some advantage, undoubtedly, in that selection--we subject ourselves to some inconveniencies. We may suffer ourselves to be too much led away by great names, and to be too much subdued by overbearing authority. Our learning, in that case, is not so much an exercise of our judgment as a proof of our docility. We find ourselves, perhaps, too much overshadowed; and the character of our pursuits is rather distinguished by the tameness of the follower than animated by the spirit of emulation. It is sometimes of service that our examples should be _near_ us; and such as raise a reverence, sufficient to induce us carefully to observe them, yet not so great as to prevent us from engaging with them in something like a generous contention. We have lately lost Mr. Gainsborough, one of the greatest ornaments of our Academy. It is not our business here to make Panegyrics on the living, or even on the dead who were of our body. The praise of the former might bear the appearance of adulation; and the latter of untimely justice; perhaps of envy to those whom we have still the happiness to enjoy, by an oblique suggestion of invidious comparisons. In discoursing, therefore, on the talents of the late Mr. Gainsborough, my object is, not so much to praise or to blame him, as to draw from his excellencies and defects matter of instruction to the Students in our Academy. If ever this nation should produce genius sufficient to acquire to us the honourable distinction of an English School, the name of Gainsborough will be transmitted to posterity, in the history of the art, among the very first of that rising name. That our reputation in the Arts is now only rising must be acknowledged; and we must expect our advances to be attended with old prejudices, as adversaries, and not as supporters; standing in this respect in a very different situation from the late artists of the Roman School, to whose reputation ancient prejudices have certainly contributed; the way was prepared for them, and they may be said rather to have lived in the reputation of their country than have contributed to it; whilst whatever celebrity is obtained by English Artists can arise only from the operation of a fair and true comparison. And when they communicate to their country a share of their reputation, it is a portion of fame not borrowed from others, but solely acquired by their own labour and talents. As Italy has undoubtedly a prescriptive right to an admiration bordering on prejudice, as a soil peculiarly adapted, congenial, and, we may add, destined to the production of men of great genius in our Art, we may not unreasonably suspect that a portion of the great fame of some of their late artists has been owing to the general readiness and disposition of mankind to acquiesce in their original prepossessions in favour of the productions of the Roman School. On this ground, however unsafe, I will venture to prophesy, that two of the last distinguished painters of that country, I mean Pompeio Battoni and Raffaelle Mengs, however great their names may at present sound in our ears, will very soon fall into the rank of Imperiale, Sebastian Concha, Placido Constanza, Masaccio, and the rest of their immediate predecessors; whose names, though equally renowned in their lifetime, are now fallen into what is little short of total oblivion. I do not say that those painters were not superior to the artist I allude to, and whose loss we lament, in a certain routine of practice, which, to the eyes of common observers, has the air of a learned composition, and bears a sort of superficial resemblance to the manner of the great men who went before them. I know this perfectly well; but I know likewise, that a man looking for real and lasting reputation must unlearn much of the commonplace method so observable in the works of the artists whom I have named. For my own part, I confess, I take more interest in and am more captivated with the powerful impression of nature which Gainsborough exhibited in his portraits and in his landscapes, and the interesting simplicity and elegance of his little ordinary beggar-children, than with any of the works of that School, since the time of Andrea Sacchi, or perhaps we may say Carlo Maratti; two painters who may truly be said to be ULTIMI ROMANORUM. I am well aware how much I lay myself open to the censure and ridicule of the academical professors of other nations, in preferring the humble attempts of Gainsborough to the works of those regular graduates in the great historical style. But we have the sanction of all mankind in preferring genius in a lower rank of art to feebleness and insipidity in the highest. It would not be to the present purpose, even if I had the means and materials, which I have not, to enter into the private life of Mr. Gainsborough. The history of his gradual advancement, and the means by which he acquired such excellence in his art, would come nearer to our purposes and wishes, if it were by any means attainable; but the slow progress of advancement is in general imperceptible to the man himself who makes it; it is the consequence of an accumulation of various ideas which his mind has received, he does not perhaps know how or when. Sometimes, indeed, it happens that he may be able to mark the time when, from the sight of a picture, a passage in an author, or a hint in conversation, he has received, as it were, some new and guiding light, something like inspiration, by which his mind has been expanded; and is morally sure that his whole life and conduct has been affected by that accidental circumstance. Such interesting accounts we may, however, sometimes obtain from a man who has acquired an uncommon habit of self-examination, and has attended to the progress of his own improvement. It may not be improper to make mention of some of the customs and habits of this extraordinary man; points which come more within the reach of an observer: I, however, mean such only as are connected with his art, and indeed were, as I apprehend, the causes of his arriving to that high degree of excellence which we see and acknowledge in his works. Of these causes we must state, as the fundamental, the love which he had to his art; to which, indeed, his whole mind appears to have been devoted, and to which everything was referred; and this we may fairly conclude from various circumstances of his life, which were known to his intimate friends. Among others, he had a habit of continually remarking to those who happened to be about him whatever peculiarity of countenance, whatever accidental combination of figure, or happy effects of light and shadow, occurred in prospects, in the sky, in walking the streets, or in company. If, in his walks, he found a character that he liked, and whose attendance was to be obtained, he ordered him to his house: and from the fields he brought into his painting-room stumps of trees, weeds, and animals of various kinds; and designed them, not from memory, but immediately from the objects. He even framed a kind of model of landscapes on his table; composed of broken stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking-glass, which he magnified and improved into rocks, trees, and water. How far this latter practice may be useful in giving hints, the professors of landscape can best determine. Like every other technical practice, it seems to me wholly to depend on the general talent of him who uses it. Such methods may be nothing better than contemptible and mischievous trifling; or they may be aids. I think, upon the whole, unless we constantly refer to real nature, that practice may be more likely to do harm than good. I mention it only, as it shows the solicitude and extreme activity which he had about everything that related to his art; that he wished to have his objects embodied, as it were, and distinctly before him; that he neglected nothing which could keep his faculties in exercise, and derived hints from every sort of combination. We must not forget, whilst we are on this subject, to make some remarks on his custom of painting by night, which confirms what I have already mentioned,--his great affection to his art; since he could not amuse himself in the evening by any other means so agreeable to himself. I am, indeed, much inclined to believe that it is a practice very advantageous and improving to an artist; for by this means he will acquire a new and a higher perception of what is great and beautiful in nature. By candle-light, not only objects appear more beautiful, but from their being in a greater breadth of light and shadow, as well as having a greater breadth and uniformity of colour, nature appears in a higher style; and even the flesh seems to take a higher and richer tone of colour. Judgment is to direct us in the use to be made of this method of study; but the method itself is, I am sure, advantageous. I have often imagined that the two great colourists, Titian and Correggio, though I do not know that they painted by night, formed their high ideas of colouring from the effects of objects by this artificial light; but I am more assured that whoever attentively studies the first and best manner of Guercino, will be convinced that he either painted by this light, or formed his manner on this conception. Another practice Gainsborough had, which is worth mentioning, as it is certainly worthy of imitation; I mean his manner of forming all the parts of his picture together; the whole going on at the same time, in the same manner as nature creates her works. Though this method is not uncommon to those who have been regularly educated, yet probably it was suggested to him by his own natural sagacity. That this custom is not universal appears from the practice of a painter whom I have just mentioned, Pompeio Battoni, who finished his historical pictures part after part, and in his portraits completely finished one feature before he proceeded to another. The consequence was as might be expected; the countenance was never well expressed; and, as the painters say, the whole was not well put together. The first thing required to excel in our art, or I believe in any art, is not only a love for it, but even an enthusiastic ambition to excel in it. This never fails of success proportioned to the natural abilities with which the artist has been endowed by Providence. Of Gainsborough, we certainly know, that his passion was not the acquirement of riches, but excellence in his art; and to enjoy that honourable fame which is sure to attend it.--That _he felt this ruling passion strong in death_ I am myself a witness. A few days before he died, he wrote me a letter, to express his acknowledgments for the good opinion I entertained of his abilities, and the manner in which (he had been informed) I always spoke of him; and desired he might see me once more before he died. I am aware how flattering it is to myself to be thus connected with the dying testimony which this excellent painter bore to his art. But I cannot prevail on myself to suppress that I was not connected with him, by any habits of familiarity: if any little jealousies had subsisted between us, they were forgotten in those moments of sincerity; and he turned towards me as one who was engrossed by the same pursuits, and who deserved his good opinion, by being sensible of his excellence. Without entering into a detail of what passed at this last interview, the impression of it upon my mind was, that his regret at losing life was principally the regret of leaving his art; and more especially as he now began, he said, to see what his deficiencies were; which, he said, he flattered himself in his last works were in some measure supplied. When such a man as Gainsborough arrives to great fame, without the assistance of an academical education, without travelling to Italy, or any of those preparatory studies which have been so often recommended, he is produced as an instance how little such studies are necessary; since so great excellence may be acquired without them. This is an inference not warranted by the success of any individual; and I trust it will not be thought that I wish to make this use of it. It must be remembered that the style and department of art which Gainsborough chose, and in which he so much excelled, did not require that he should go out of his own country for the objects of his study; they were everywhere about him; he found them in the streets and in the fields, and from the models thus accidentally found, he selected with great judgment such as suited his purpose. As his studies were directed to the living world principally, he did not pay a general attention to the works of the various masters, though they are, in my opinion, always of great use, even when the character of our subject requires us to depart from some of their principles. It cannot be denied, that excellence in the department of the art which he professed may exist without them; that in such subjects, and in the manner that belongs to them, the want of them is supplied, and more than supplied, by natural sagacity, and a minute observation of particular nature. If Gainsborough did not look at nature with a poet's eye, it must be acknowledged that he saw her with the eye of a painter; and gave a faithful, if not a poetical, representation of what he had before him. Though he did not much attend to the works of the great historical painters of former ages, yet he was well aware that the language of the art--the art of imitation--must be learned somewhere; and as he knew that he could not learn it in an equal degree from his contemporaries, he very judiciously applied himself to the Flemish School, who are undoubtedly the greatest masters of one necessary branch of art; and he did not need to go out of his own country for examples of that school; from that he learnt the harmony of colouring, the management and disposition of light and shadow, and every means which the masters of it practised, to ornament and give splendour to their works. And to satisfy himself as well as others how well he knew the mechanism and artifice which they employed to bring out that tone of colour which we so much admire in their works, he occasionally made copies from Rubens, Teniers, and Vandyke, which it would be no disgrace to the most accurate connoisseur to mistake, at the first sight, for the works of those masters. What he thus learned, he applied to the originals of nature, which he saw with his own eyes; and imitated, not in the manner of those masters, but in his own. Whether he most excelled in portraits, landscapes, or fancy pictures, it is difficult to determine: whether his portraits were most admirable for exact truth of resemblance, or his landscapes for a portrait-like representation of nature, such as we see in the works of Rubens, Ruysdaal, and others of those schools. In his fancy pictures, when he had fixed on his object of imitation, whether it was the mean and vulgar form of a wood-cutter, or a child of an interesting character, as he did not attempt to raise the one, so neither did he lose any of the natural grace and elegance of the other; such a grace, and such an elegance, as are more frequently found in cottages than in courts. This excellence was his own, the result of his particular observation and taste; for this he was certainly not indebted to the Flemish School, nor, indeed, to any school; for his grace was not academical or antique, but selected by himself from the great school of nature; and there are yet a thousand modes of grace, which are neither theirs, nor his, but lie open in the multiplied scenes and figures of life, to be brought out by skilful and faithful observers. Upon the whole, we may justly say, that whatever he attempted he carried to a high degree of excellence. It is to the credit of his good sense and judgment, that he never did attempt that style of historical painting for which his previous studies had made no preparation. And here it naturally occurs to oppose the sensible conduct of Gainsborough in this respect to that of our late excellent Hogarth, who, with all his extraordinary talents, was not blessed with this knowledge of his own deficiency, or of the bounds which were set to the extent of his own powers. After this admirable artist had spent the greater part of his life in an active, busy, and, we may add, successful attention to the ridicule of life; after he had invented a new species of dramatic painting, in which probably he will never be equalled, and had stored his mind with infinite materials to explain and illustrate the domestic and familiar scenes of common life, which were generally, and ought to have been always, the subject of his pencil; he very imprudently, or rather presumptuously, attempted the great historical style, for which his previous habits had by no means prepared him: he was indeed so entirely unacquainted with the principles of this style, that he was not even aware that any artificial preparation was at all necessary. It is to be regretted that any part of the life of such a genius should be fruitlessly employed. Let his failure teach us not to indulge ourselves in the vain imagination, that by a momentary resolution we can give either dexterity to the hand, or a new habit to the mind. I have, however, little doubt, but that the same sagacity which enabled those two extraordinary men to discover their true object, and the peculiar excellence of that branch of art which they cultivated, would have been equally effectual in discovering the principles of the higher style, if they had investigated those principles with the same eager industry which they exerted in their own department. As Gainsborough never attempted the heroic style, so neither did he destroy the character and uniformity of his own style by the idle affectation of introducing mythological learning in any of his pictures. Of this boyish folly we see instances enough, even in the works of great painters. When the Dutch School attempt this poetry of our art in their landscapes, their performances are beneath criticism; they become only an object of laughter. This practice is hardly excusable even in Claude Lorrain, who had shown more discretion if he had never meddled with such subjects. Our late ingenious Academician, Wilson, has, I fear, been guilty, like many of his predecessors, of introducing gods and goddesses, ideal beings, into scenes which were by no means prepared to receive such personages. His landscapes were in reality too near common nature to admit supernatural objects. In consequence of this mistake, in a very admirable picture of a storm, which I have seen of his hand, many figures are introduced in the foreground, some in apparent distress, and some struck dead, as a spectator would naturally suppose, by the lightning; had not the painter injudiciously (as I think) rather chosen that their death should be imputed to a little Apollo, who appears in the sky, with his bent bow, and that those figures should be considered as the children of Niobe. To manage a subject of this kind, a peculiar style of art is required; and it can only be done without impropriety, or even without ridicule, when we adapt the character of the landscape, and that, too, in all its parts, to the historical or poetical representation. This is a very difficult adventure, and it requires a mind thrown back two thousand years, and, as it were, naturalised in antiquity, like that of Nicolo Poussin, to achieve it. In the picture alluded to, the first idea that presents itself is that of wonder, at seeing a figure in so uncommon a situation as that in which the Apollo is placed; for the clouds on which he kneels have not the appearance of being able to support him; they have neither the substance nor the form fit for the receptacle of a human figure; and they do not possess in any respect that romantic character which is appropriated to such an object, and which alone can harmonise with poetical stories. It appears to me that such conduct is no less absurd than if a plain man, giving a relation of real distress occasioned by an inundation accompanied with thunder and lightning, should, instead of simply relating the event, take it into his head, in order to give a grace to his narration, to talk of Jupiter Pluvius, or Jupiter and his thunderbolts, or any other figurative idea; an intermixture which, though in poetry, with its proper preparations and accompaniments, it might be managed with effect, yet in the instance before us would counteract the purpose of the narrator, and, instead of being interesting, would be only ridiculous. The Dutch and Flemish style of landscape, not even excepting those of Rubens, is unfit for poetical subjects; but to explain in what this ineptitude consists, or to point out all the circumstances that give nobleness, grandeur, and the poetic character, to style, in landscape, would require a long discourse of itself; and the end would be then perhaps but imperfectly attained. The painter who is ambitious of this perilous excellence must catch his inspiration from those who have cultivated with success the poetry, as it may be called, of the art; and they are few indeed. I cannot quit this subject without mentioning two examples which occur to me at present, in which the poetical style of landscape may be seen happily executed: the one is Jacob's Dream, by Salvator Rosa, and the other the return of the Ark from Captivity, by Sebastian Bourdon. With whatever dignity those histories are presented to us in the language of Scripture, this style of painting possesses the same power of inspiring sentiments of grandeur and sublimity, and is able to communicate them to subjects which appear by no means adapted to receive them. A ladder against the sky has no very promising appearance of possessing a capacity to excite any heroic ideas; and the Ark, in the hands of a second-rate master, would have little more effect than a common waggon on the highway: yet those subjects are so poetically treated throughout, the parts have such a correspondence with each other, and the whole and every part of the scene is so visionary, that it is impossible to look at them without feeling, in some measure, the enthusiasm which seems to have inspired the painters. By continual contemplation of such works, a sense of the higher excellencies of art will by degrees dawn on the imagination; at every review that sense will become more and more assured, until we come to enjoy a sober certainty of the real existence (if I may so express myself) of those almost ideal beauties; and the artist will then find no difficulty in fixing in his mind the principles by which the impression is produced; which he will feel and practise, though they are perhaps too delicate and refined, and too peculiar to the imitative art, to be conveyed to the mind by any other means. To return to Gainsborough; the peculiarity of his manner, or style, or we may call it--the language in which he expressed his ideas, has been considered by many as his greatest defect. But without altogether wishing to enter into the discussion--whether this peculiarity was a defect or not, intermixed, as it was, with great beauties, of some of which it was probably the cause, it becomes a proper subject of criticism and inquiry to a painter. A novelty and peculiarity of manner, as it is often a cause of our approbation, so likewise it is often a ground of censure; as being contrary to the practice of other painters, in whose manner we have been initiated, and in whose favour we have perhaps been prepossessed from our infancy; for, fond as we are of novelty, we are upon the whole creatures of habit. However, it is certain, that all those odd scratches and marks, which, on a close examination, are so observable in Gainsborough's pictures, and which even to experienced painters appear rather the effect of accident than design: this chaos, this uncouth and shapeless appearance, by a kind of magic, at a certain distance assumes form, and all the parts seem to drop into their proper places, so that we can hardly refuse acknowledging the full effect of diligence, under the appearance of chance and hasty negligence. That Gainsborough himself considered this peculiarity in his manner, and the power it possesses of exciting surprise, as a beauty in his works, I think may be inferred from the eager desire which we know he always expressed, that his pictures, at the Exhibition, should be seen near, as well as at a distance. The slightness which we see in his best works cannot always be imputed to negligence. However they may appear to superficial observers, painters know very well that a steady attention to the general effect takes up more time, and is much more laborious to the mind, than any mode of high finishing, or smoothness, without such attention. His _handling_, _the manner of leaving the colours_, or, in other words, the methods he used for producing the effect, had very much the appearance of the work of an artist who had never learned from others the usual and regular practice belonging to the art; but still, like a man of strong intuitive perception of what was required, he found out a way of his own to accomplish his purpose. It is no disgrace to the genius of Gainsborough to compare him to such men as we sometimes meet with, whose natural eloquence appears even in speaking a language which they can scarce be said to understand; and who, without knowing the appropriate expression of almost any one idea, contrive to communicate the lively and forcible impressions of an energetic mind. I think some apology may reasonably be made for his manner without violating truth, or running any risk of poisoning the minds of the younger students, by propagating false criticism, for the sake of raising the character of a favourite artist. It must be allowed, that this hatching manner of Gainsborough did very much contribute to the lightness of effect which is so eminent a beauty in his pictures; as, on the contrary, much smoothness, and uniting the colours, is apt to produce heaviness. Every artist must have remarked how often that lightness of hand which was in his dead colour, or first painting, escaped in the finishing when he had determined the parts with more precision; and another loss he often experiences, which is of greater consequence: whilst he is employed in the detail, the effect of the whole together is either forgotten or neglected. The likeness of a portrait, as I have formerly observed, consists more in preserving the general effect of the countenance than in the most minute finishing of the features, or any of the particular parts. Now Gainsborough's portraits were often little more, in regard to finishing, or determining the form of the features, than what generally attends a dead colour; but as he was always attentive to the general effect, or whole together, I have often imagined that this unfinished manner contributed even to that striking resemblance for which his portraits are so remarkable. Though this opinion may be considered as fanciful, yet I think a plausible reason may be given why such a mode of painting should have such an effect. It is presupposed that in this undetermined manner there is in the general effect enough to remind the spectator of the original; the imagination supplies the rest, and perhaps more satisfactorily to himself, if not more exactly, than the artist, with all his care, could possibly have done. At the same time it must be acknowledged there is one evil attending this mode; that if the portrait were seen previous to any knowledge of the original, different persons would form different ideas, and all would be disappointed at not finding the original correspond with their own conceptions; under the great latitude which indistinctness gives to the imagination to assume almost what character or form it pleases. Every artist has some favourite part, on which he fixes his attention, and which he pursues with such eagerness, that it absorbs every other consideration; and he often falls into the opposite error of that which he would avoid, which is always ready to receive him. Now Gainsborough, having truly a painter's eye for colouring, cultivated those effects of the art which proceed from colours: and sometimes appears to be indifferent to or to neglect other excellencies. Whatever defects are acknowledged, let him still experience from us the same candour that we so freely give upon similar occasions to the ancient masters; let us not encourage that fastidious disposition, which is discontented with everything short of perfection, and unreasonably require, as we sometimes do, a union of excellencies, not perhaps quite compatible with each other. We may, on this ground, say even of the divine Raffaelle, that he might have finished his picture as highly and as correctly, as was his custom, without heaviness of manner; and that Poussin might have preserved all his precision without hardness or dryness. To show the difficulty of uniting solidity with lightness of manner, we may produce a picture of Rubens in the church of St. Gudule, at Brussels, as an example; the subject is "Christ's Charge to Peter;" which, as it is the highest and smoothest finished picture I remember to have seen of that master, so it is by far the heaviest; and if I had found it in any other place, I should have suspected it to be a copy; for painters know very well, that it is principally by this air of facility, or the want of it, that originals are distinguished from copies. A lightness of effect produced by colour, and that produced by facility of handling, are generally united; a copy may preserve something of the one, it is true, but hardly ever of the other; a connoisseur, therefore, finds it often necessary to look carefully into the picture before he determines on its originality. Gainsborough possessed this quality of lightness of manner and effect, I think, to an unexampled degree of excellence; but it must be acknowledged, at the same time, that the sacrifice which he made to this ornament of our art was too great; it was, in reality, preferring the lesser excellencies to the greater. To conclude. However we may apologise for the deficiencies of Gainsborough (I mean particularly his want of precision and finishing), who so ingeniously contrived to cover his defects by his beauties; and who cultivated that department of art, where such defects are more easily excused; you are to remember, that no apology can be made for this deficiency, in that style which this Academy teaches, and which ought to be the object of your pursuit. It will be necessary for you, in the first place, never to lose sight of the great rules and principles of the art, as they are collected from the full body of the best general practice, and the most constant and uniform experience; this must be the groundwork of all your studies: afterwards you may profit, as in this case I wish you to profit, by the peculiar experience and personal talents of artists, living and dead; you may derive lights, and catch hints, from their practice; but the moment you turn them into models, you fall infinitely below them; you may be corrupted by excellencies, not so much belonging to the art, as personal and appropriated to the artist; and become bad copies of good painters, instead of excellent imitators of the great universal truth of things. DISCOURSE XV. _Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1790._ THE PRESIDENT TAKES LEAVE OF THE ACADEMY.--A REVIEW OF THE DISCOURSES.--THE STUDY OF THE WORKS OF MICHEL ANGELO RECOMMENDED. The intimate connection which I have had with the Royal Academy ever since its establishment, the social duties in which we have all mutually engaged for so many years, make any profession of attachment to this Institution, on my part, altogether superfluous; the influence of habit alone in such a connection would naturally have produced it. Among men united in the same body, and engaged in the same pursuit, along with permanent friendship occasional differences will arise. In these disputes men are naturally too favourable to themselves, and think, perhaps, too hardly of their antagonists. But composed and constituted as we are, those little contentions will be lost to others, and they ought certainly to be lost amongst ourselves in mutual esteem for talents and acquirements: every controversy ought to be, and I am persuaded will be, sunk in our zeal for the perfection of our common Art. In parting with the Academy, I shall remember with pride, affection, and gratitude, the support with which I have almost uniformly been honoured from the commencement of our intercourse. I shall leave you, Gentlemen, with unaffected cordial wishes for your future concord, and with a well-founded hope, that in that concord the auspicious and not obscure origin of our Academy may be forgotten in the splendour of your succeeding prospects. My age, and my infirmities still more than my age, make it probable that this will be the last time I shall have the honour of addressing you from this place. Excluded as I am, _spatiis iniquis_, from indulging my imagination with a distant and forward perspective of life, I may be excused if I turn my eyes back on the way which I have passed. We may assume to ourselves, I should hope, the credit of having endeavoured, at least, to fill with propriety that middle station which we hold in the general connection of things. Our predecessors have laboured for our advantage, we labour for our successors; and though we have done no more in this mutual intercourse and reciprocation of benefits than has been effected by other societies formed in this nation for the advancement of useful and ornamental knowledge, yet there is one circumstance which appears to give us an higher claim than the credit of merely doing our duty. What I at present allude to is the honour of having been, some of us, the first contrivers, and all of us the promoters and supporters, of the annual Exhibition. This scheme could only have originated from Artists already in possession of the favour of the public, as it would not have been so much in the power of others to have excited curiosity. It must be remembered that, for the sake of bringing forward into notice concealed merit, they incurred the risk of producing rivals to themselves; they voluntarily entered the lists, and ran the race a second time for the prize which they had already won. When we take a review of the several departments of the Institution, I think we may safely congratulate ourselves on our good fortune in having hitherto seen the chairs of our Professors filled with men of distinguished abilities, and who have so well acquitted themselves of their duty in their several departments. I look upon it to be of importance, that none of them should be ever left unfilled: a neglect to provide for qualified persons is to produce a neglect of qualifications. In this honourable rank of Professors I have not presumed to class myself; though in the Discourses which I have had the honour of delivering from this place, while in one respect I may be considered as a volunteer, in another view it seems as if I was involuntarily pressed into this service. If prizes were to be given, it appeared not only proper, but almost indispensably necessary, that something should be said by the President on the delivery of those prizes: and the President, for his own credit, would wish to say something more than mere words of compliment, which, by being frequently repeated, would soon become flat and uninteresting, and by being uttered to many, would at last become a distinction to none: I thought, therefore, if I were to preface this compliment with some instructive observations on the Art, when we crowned merit in the Artists whom we rewarded, I might do something to animate and guide them in their future attempts. I am truly sensible how unequal I have been to the expression of my own ideas. To develop the latent excellencies, and draw out the interior principles of our art requires more skill and practice in writing than is likely to be possessed by a man perpetually occupied in the use of the pencil and the pallet. It is for that reason, perhaps, that the sister Art has had the advantage of better criticism. Poets are naturally writers of prose. They may be said to be practising only an inferior department of their own art, when they are explaining and expatiating upon its most refined principles. But still such difficulties ought not to deter Artists, who are not prevented by other engagements, from putting their thoughts in order as well as they can, and from giving to the public the result of their experience. The knowledge which an Artist has of his subject will more than compensate for any want of elegance in the manner of treating it, or even of perspicuity, which is still more essential; and I am convinced that one short essay written by a Painter will contribute more to advance the theory of our art than a thousand volumes such as we sometimes see; the purpose of which appears to be rather to display the refinement of the Author's own conceptions of impossible practice, than to convey useful knowledge or instruction of any kind whatever. An Artist knows what is, and what is not, within the province of his art to perform; and is not likely to be for ever teasing the poor Student with the beauties of mixed passions, or to perplex him with an imaginary union of excellencies incompatible with each other. To this work, however, I could not be said to come totally unprovided with materials. I had seen much, and I had thought much upon what I had seen; I had something of an habit of investigation, and a disposition to reduce all that I observed and felt in my own mind to method and system; but never having seen what I myself knew distinctly placed before me on paper, I knew nothing correctly. To put those ideas into something like order was, to my inexperience, no easy task. The composition, the _ponere totum_ even of a single Discourse, as well as of a single statue, was the most difficult part, as perhaps it is of every other art, and most requires the hand of a master. For the manner, whatever deficiency there was, I might reasonably expect indulgence; but I thought it indispensably necessary well to consider the opinions which were to be given out from this place, and under the sanction of a Royal Academy; I therefore examined not only my own opinions, but likewise the opinions of others. I found in the course of this research many precepts and rules established in our art, which did not seem to me altogether reconcilable with each other, yet each seemed in itself to have the same claim of being supported by truth and nature; and this claim, irreconcilable as they may be thought, they do in reality alike possess. To clear away those difficulties, and reconcile those contrary opinions, it became necessary to distinguish the greater truth, as it may be called, from the lesser truth; the larger and more liberal idea of nature from the more narrow and confined; that which addresses itself to the imagination from that which is solely addressed to the eye. In consequence of this discrimination, the different branches of our art, to which those different truths were referred, were perceived to make so wide a separation, and put on so new an appearance, that they seemed scarcely to have proceeded from the same general stock. The different rules and regulations which presided over each department of art followed of course: every mode of excellence, from the grand style of the Roman and Florentine Schools down to the lowest rank of still life, had its due weight and value--fitted some class or other; and nothing was thrown away. By this disposition of our art into classes, that perplexity and confusion, which I apprehend every Artist has at some time experienced from the variety of styles and the variety of excellence with which he is surrounded, is, I should hope, in some measure removed, and the student better enabled to judge for himself what peculiarly belongs to his own particular pursuit. In reviewing my Discourses, it is no small satisfaction to be assured that I have, in no part of them, lent my assistance to foster _newly-hatched unfledged_ opinions, or endeavoured to support paradoxes, however tempting may have been their novelty, or however ingenious I might, for the minute, fancy them to be; nor shall I, I hope, anywhere be found to have imposed on the minds of young Students declamation for argument, a smooth period for a sound precept. I have pursued a plain and _honest method_: I have taken up the art simply as I found it exemplified in the practice of the most approved Painters. That approbation which the world has uniformly given, I have endeavoured to justify by such proofs as questions of this kind will admit; by the analogy which Painting holds with the sister Arts, and, consequently, by the common congeniality which they all bear to our nature. And though in what has been done no new discovery is pretended, I may still flatter myself, that from the discoveries which others have made by their own intuitive good sense and native rectitude of judgment, I have succeeded in establishing the rules and principles of our art on a more firm and lasting foundation than that on which they had formerly been placed. Without wishing to divert the Student from the practice of his Art to speculative theory, to make him a mere Connoisseur instead of a Painter, I cannot but remark, that he will certainly find an account in considering, once for all, on what ground the fabric of our art is built. Uncertain, confused, or erroneous opinions are not only detrimental to an Artist in their immediate operation, but may possibly have very serious consequences; affect his conduct, and give a peculiar character (as it may be called) to his taste, and to his pursuits, through his whole life. I was acquainted at Rome, in the early part of my life, with a Student of the French Academy, who appeared to me to possess all the qualities requisite to make a great Artist, if he had suffered his taste and feelings, and I may add even his prejudices, to have fair play. He saw and felt the excellencies of the great works of Art with which we were surrounded, but lamented that there was not to be found that Nature which is so admirable in the inferior schools; and he supposed with Felibien, De Piles, and other Theorists, that such an union of different excellencies would be the perfection of Art. He was not aware that the narrow idea of nature, of which he lamented the absence in the works of those great Artists, would have destroyed the grandeur of the general ideas which he admired, and which was, indeed, the cause of his admiration. My opinions being then confused and unsettled, I was in danger of being borne down by this kind of plausible reasoning, though I remember I then had a dawning of suspicion that it was not sound doctrine; and at the same time I was unwilling obstinately to refuse assent to what I was unable to confute. That the young Artist may not be seduced from the right path by following what, at first view, he may think the light of Reason, and which is indeed Reason in part, but not in the whole, has been much the object of these Discourses. I have taken every opportunity of recommending a rational method of study, as of the last importance. The great, I may say the sole use of an Academy is, to put, and for some time to keep, Students in that course, that too much indulgence may not be given to peculiarity, and that a young man may not be taught to believe, that what is generally good for others is not good for him. I have strongly inculcated in my former Discourses, as I do in this, my last, the wisdom and necessity of previously obtaining the appropriated instruments of the Art, in a first correct design, and a plain manly colouring before anything more is attempted. But by this I would not wish to cramp and fetter the mind, or discourage those who follow (as most of us may at one time have followed) the suggestion of a strong inclination: something must be conceded to great and irresistible impulses: perhaps every Student must not be strictly bound to general methods, if they strongly thwart the peculiar turn of his own mind. I must confess that it is not absolutely of much consequence whether he proceeds in the general method of seeking first to acquire mechanical accuracy, before he attempts poetical flights, provided he diligently studies to attain the full perfection of the style he pursues; whether, like Parmegiano, he endeavours at grace and grandeur of manner before he has learned correctness of drawing, if like him he feels his own wants, and will labour, as that eminent artist did, to supply those wants; whether he starts from the East or from the West, if he relaxes in no exertion to arrive ultimately at the same goal. The first public work of Parmegiano is the St. Eustachius, in the church of St. Petronius in Bologna, and was done when he was a boy; and one of the last of his works is the Moses breaking the tables in Parma. In the former there is certainly something of grandeur in the outline, or in the conception of the figure, which discovers the dawnings of future greatness; of a young mind impregnated with the sublimity of Michel Angelo, whose style he here attempts to imitate, though he could not then draw the human figure with any common degree of correctness. But this same Parmegiano, when in his more mature age he painted the Moses, had so completely supplied his first defects, that we are here at a loss which to admire most, the correctness of drawing or the grandeur of the conception. As a confirmation of its great excellence, and of the impression which it leaves on the minds of elegant spectators, I may observe, that our great Lyric Poet, when he conceived his sublime idea of the indignant Welsh Bard, acknowledged, that though many years had intervened, he had warmed his imagination with the remembrance of this noble figure of Parmegiano. When we consider that Michel Angelo was the great archetype to whom Parmegiano was indebted for that grandeur which we find in his works, and from whom all his contemporaries and successors have derived whatever they have possessed of the dignified and the majestic; that he was the bright luminary, from whom Painting has borrowed a new lustre; that under his hands it assumed a new appearance, and is become another and superior art; I may be excused if I take this opportunity, as I have hitherto taken every occasion, to turn your attention to this exalted Founder and Father of Modern Art, of which he was not only the inventor, but which, by the divine energy of his own mind, he carried at once to its highest point of possible perfection. The sudden maturity to which Michel Angelo brought our Art, and the comparative feebleness of his followers and imitators, might perhaps be reasonably, at least plausibly explained, if we had time for such an examination. At present I shall only observe, that the subordinate parts of our Art, and perhaps of other Arts, expand themselves by a slow and progressive growth; but those which depend on a native vigour of imagination generally burst forth at once in fulness of beauty. Of this Homer probably, and Shakespeare more assuredly, are singular examples. Michel Angelo possessed the poetical part of our art in a most eminent degree; and the same daring spirit which urged him first to explore the unknown regions of the imagination, delighted with the novelty, and animated by the success of his discoveries, could not have failed to stimulate and impel him forward in his career beyond those limits which his followers, destitute of the same incentives, had not strength to pass. To distinguish between correctness of drawing and that part which respects the imagination, we may say the one approaches to the mechanical (which in its way, too, may make just pretensions to genius), and the other to the poetical. To encourage a solid and vigorous course of study, it may not be amiss to suggest, that perhaps a confidence in the mechanic produces a boldness in the poetic. He that is sure of the goodness of his ship and tackle puts out fearlessly from the shore; and he who knows that his hand can execute whatever his fancy can suggest, sports with more freedom in embodying the visionary forms of his own creation. I will not say Michel Angelo was eminently poetical, only because he was greatly mechanical; but I am sure that mechanic excellence invigorated and emboldened his mind to carry painting into the regions of poetry, and to emulate that art in its most adventurous flights. Michel Angelo equally possessed both qualifications. Yet of mechanic excellence there were certainly great examples to be found in Ancient Sculpture, and particularly in the fragment known by the name of the Torso of Michel Angelo; but of that grandeur of character, air, and attitude, which he threw into all his figures, and which so well corresponds with the grandeur of his outline, there was no example; it could therefore proceed only from the most poetical and sublime imagination. It is impossible not to express some surprise that the race of Painters who preceded Michel Angelo, men of acknowledged great abilities, should never have thought of transferring a little of that grandeur of outline which they could not but see and admire in Ancient Sculpture, into their own works; but they appear to have considered Sculpture as the later Schools of Artists look at the inventions of Michel Angelo--as something to be admired, but with which they have nothing to do: _quod super nos, nihil ad nos_.--The Artists of that age, even Raffaelle himself, seemed to be going on very contentedly in the dry manner of Pietro Perugino; and if Michel Angelo had never appeared, the Art might still have continued in the same style. Beside Rome and Florence, where the grandeur of this style was first displayed, it was on this Foundation that the Caracci built the truly great Academical Bolognian school, of which the first stone was laid by Pellegrino Tibaldi. He first introduced this style amongst them; and many instances might be given in which he appears to have possessed, as by inheritance, the true, genuine, noble, and elevated mind of Michel Angelo. Though we cannot venture to speak of him with the same fondness as his countrymen, and call him, as the Caracci did, _Nostro Michel Angelo riformato_, yet he has a right to be considered amongst the first and greatest of his followers; there are certainly many drawings and inventions of his, of which Michel Angelo himself might not disdain to be supposed the author, or that they should be, as in fact they often are, mistaken for his. I will mention one particular instance, because it is found in a book which is in every young Artist's hand;--Bishop's _Ancient Statues_. He there has introduced a print, representing Polyphemus, from a drawing of Tibaldi, and has inscribed it with the name of Michel Angelo, to whom he has also in the same book attributed a Sybil of Raffaelle. Both these figures, it is true, are professedly in Michel Angelo's style and spirit, and even worthy of his hand. But we know that the former is painted in the _Institute a Bologna_ by Tibaldi, and the other in the _Pace_ by Raffaelle. The Caracci, it is acknowledged, adopted the mechanical part with sufficient success. But the divine part which addresses itself to the imagination, as possessed by Michel Angelo or Tibaldi, was beyond their grasp: they formed, however, a most respectable school, a style more on the level, and calculated to please a greater number; and if excellence of this kind is to be valued according to the number rather than the weight and quality of admirers, it would assume even a higher rank in art. The same, in some sort, may be said of Tintoret, Paolo Veronese, and others of the Venetian Painters. They certainly much advanced the dignity of their style by adding to their fascinating powers of colouring something of the strength of Michel Angelo; at the same time it may still be a doubt how far their ornamental elegance would be an advantageous addition to his grandeur. But if there is any manner of Painting which may be said to unite kindly with his style, it is that of Titian. His handling, the manner in which his colours are left on the canvas, appears to proceed (as far as that goes) from a congenial mind, equally disdainful of vulgar criticism. MICHEL ANGELO'S strength thus qualified, and made more palatable to the general taste, reminds me of an observation which I heard a learned critic make, when it was incidentally remarked that our translation of Homer, however excellent, did not convey the character, nor had the grand air of the original. He replied, that if Pope had not clothed the naked Majesty of Homer with the graces and elegancies of modern fashions--though the real dignity of Homer was degraded by such a dress, his translation would not have met with such a favourable reception, and he must have been contented with fewer readers. Many of the Flemish painters, who studied at Rome in that great era of our art, such as Francis Rloris, Hemskirk, Michael Coxis, Jerom Cock, and others, returned to their own country with as much of this grandeur as they could carry. But like seeds falling on a soil not prepared or adapted to their nature, the manner of Michel Angelo thrived but little with them; perhaps, however, they contributed to prepare the way for that free, unconstrained, and liberal outline, which was afterwards introduced by Rubens through the medium of the Venetian Painters. The grandeur of style has been in different degrees disseminated over all Europe. Some caught it by living at the time, and coming into contact with the original author, whilst others received it at second hand; and being everywhere adopted, it has totally changed the whole taste and style of design, if there could be said to be any style before his time. Our art, in consequence, now assumes a rank to which it could never have dared to aspire, if Michel Angelo had not discovered to the world the hidden powers which it possessed. Without his assistance we never could have been convinced that Painting was capable of producing an adequate representation of the persons and actions of the heroes of the Iliad. I would ask any man qualified to judge of such works, whether he can look with indifference at the personification of the Supreme Being in the centre of the Capella Sestina, or the figures of the Sybils which surround that chapel, to which we may add the statue of Moses; and whether the same sensations are not excited by those works, as what he may remember to have felt from the most sublime passages of Homer? I mention those figures more particularly, as they come nearer to a comparison with his Jupiter, his demi-gods, and heroes; those Sybils and Prophets being a kind of intermediate beings between men and angels. Though instances may be produced in the works of other Painters, which may justly stand in competition with those I have mentioned--such as the Isaiah, and the vision of Ezekiel, by Raffaelle, the St. Mark of Frate Bartolomeo, and many others; yet these, it must be allowed, are inventions so much in Michel Angelo's manner of thinking, that they may be truly considered as so many rays, which discover manifestly the centre from whence they emanated. The sublime in Painting, as in Poetry, so overpowers, and takes such a possession of the whole mind, that no room is left for attention to minute criticism. The little elegancies of art in the presence of these great ideas thus greatly expressed, lose all their value, and are, for the instant, at least, felt to be unworthy of our notice. The correct judgment, the purity of taste which characterise Raffaelle, the exquisite grace of Correggio and Parmegiano, all disappear before them. That Michel Angelo was capricious in his inventions cannot be denied; and this may make some circumspection necessary in studying his works; for though they appear to become him, an imitation of them is always dangerous, and will prove sometimes ridiculous. "Within that circle none durst walk but he." To me, I confess his caprice does not lower the estimation of his genius, even though it is sometimes, I acknowledge, carried to the extreme: and however those eccentric excursions are considered, we must at the same time recollect that those faults, if they are faults, are such as never could occur to a mean and vulgar mind: that they flowed from the same source which produced his greatest beauties, and were, therefore, such as none but himself was capable of committing: they were the powerful impulses of a mind unused to subjection of any kind, and too high to be controlled by cold criticism. Many see his daring extravagance who can see nothing else. A young Artist finds the works of Michel Angelo so totally different from those of his own master, or of those with whom he is surrounded, that he may be easily persuaded to abandon and neglect studying a style which appears to him wild, mysterious, and above his comprehension, and which he therefore feels no disposition to admire; a good disposition, which he concludes that he should naturally have, if the style deserved it. It is necessary, therefore, that students should be prepared for the disappointment which they may experience at their first setting out; and they must be cautioned, that probably they will not, at first sight, approve. It must be remembered, that this great style itself is artificial in the highest degree: it presupposes in the spectator, a cultivated and prepared artificial state of mind. It is an absurdity, therefore, to suppose that we are born with this taste, though we are with the seeds of it, which, by the heat and kindly influence of this genius, may be ripened in us. A late Philosopher and Critic[18] has observed, speaking of taste, that _we are on no account to expect that fine things should descend to us_--our taste, if possible, must be made to ascend to them. The same learned writer recommends to us _even to feign a relish, till we find a relish come_; _and feel, that what began in fiction, terminates in reality_. If there be in our Art anything of that agreement or compact, such as I apprehend there is in music, with which the Critic is necessarily required previously to be acquainted, in order to form a correct judgment: the comparison with this art will illustrate what I have said on these points, and tend to show the probability, we may say the certainty, that men are not born with a relish for those arts in their most refined state, which, as they cannot understand, they cannot be impressed with their effects. This great style of Michel Angelo is as far removed from the simple representation of the common objects of nature, as the most refined Italian music is from the inartificial notes of nature, from whence they both profess to originate. But without such a supposed compact, we may be very confident that the highest state of refinement in either of those arts will not be relished without a long and industrious attention. In pursuing this great Art, it must be acknowledged that we labour under greater difficulties than those who were born in the age of its discovery, and whose minds from their infancy were habituated to this style; who learned it as language, as their mother tongue. They had no mean taste to unlearn; they needed no persuasive discourse to allure them to a favourable reception of it, no abstruse investigation of its principles to convince them of the great latent truths on which it is founded. We are constrained, in these latter days, to have recourse to a sort of Grammar and Dictionary, as the only means of recovering a dead language. It was by them learned by rote, and perhaps better learned that way than by precept. The style of Michel Angelo, which I have compared to language, and which may, poetically speaking, be called the language of the Gods, now no longer exists, as it did in the fifteenth century; yet, with the aid of diligence, we may in a great measure supply the deficiency which I mentioned--of not having his works so perpetually before our eyes--by having recourse to casts from his models and designs in Sculpture; to drawings, or even copies of those drawings; to prints, which, however ill executed, still convey something by which this taste may be formed, and a relish may be fixed and established in our minds for this grand style of invention. Some examples of this kind we have in the Academy, and I sincerely wish there were more, that the younger students might in their first nourishment imbibe this taste, whilst others, though settled in the practice of the commonplace style of Painters, might infuse, by this means, a grandeur into their works. I shall now make some remarks on the course which I think most proper to be pursued in such a study. I wish you not to go so much to the derivative streams, as to the fountain-head; though the copies are not to be neglected; because they may give you hints in what manner you may copy; and how the genius of one man may be made to fit the peculiar manner of another. To recover this lost taste, I would recommend young Artists to study the works of Michel Angelo, as he himself did the works of the ancient Sculptors; he began when a child a copy of a mutilated Satyr's head, and finished in his model what was wanting in the original. In the same manner, the first exercise that I would recommend to the young artist when he first attempts invention is, to select every figure, if possible, from the inventions of Michel Angelo. If such borrowed figures will not bend to his purpose, and he is constrained to make a change to supply a figure himself, that figure will necessarily be in the same style with the rest; and his taste will by this means be naturally initiated, and nursed in the lap of grandeur. He will sooner perceive what constitutes this grand style by one practical trial than by a thousand speculations, and he will in some sort procure to himself the advantage which in these later ages has been denied him--the advantage of having the greatest of Artists for his master and instructor. The next lesson should be, to change the purpose of the figures without changing the attitude, as Tintoret has done with the Samson of Michel Angelo. Instead of the figure which Samson bestrides, he has placed an eagle under him: and instead of the jaw-bone, thunder and lightning in his right hand; and thus it becomes a Jupiter. Titian, in the same manner, has taken the figure which represents God dividing the light from the darkness in the vault of the Capella Sestina, and has introduced it in the famous battle of Cadore, so much celebrated by Vasari; and extraordinary as it may seem, it is here converted to a general falling from his horse. A real judge who should look at this picture would immediately pronounce the attitude of that figure to be in a greater style than any other figure of the composition. These two instances may be sufficient, though many more might be given in their works, as well as in those of other great Artists. When the Student has been habituated to this grand conception of the Art, when the relish for this style is established, makes a part of himself, and is woven into his mind, he will, by this time, have got a power of selecting from whatever occurs in nature that is grand, and corresponds with that taste which he has now acquired, and will pass over whatever is commonplace and insipid. He may then bring to the mart such works of his own proper invention as may enrich and increase the general stock of invention in our Art. I am confident of the truth and propriety of the advice which I have recommended; at the same time I am aware how much by this advice I have laid myself open to the sarcasms of those critics who imagine our Art to be a matter of inspiration. But I should be sorry it should appear even to myself that I wanted that courage which I have recommended to the Students in another way; equal courage, perhaps, is required in the adviser and the advised; they both must equally dare and bid defiance to narrow criticism and vulgar opinion. That the Art has been in a gradual state of decline, from the age of Michel Angelo to the present, must be acknowledged; and we may reasonably impute this declension to the same cause to which the ancient Critics and Philosophers have imputed the corruption of eloquence. Indeed, the same causes are likely at all times and in all ages to produce the same effects; indolence--not taking the same pains as our great predecessors took--desiring to find a shorter way--are the general imputed causes. The words of Petronius[19] are very remarkable. After opposing the natural chaste beauty of the eloquence of former ages to the strained, inflated style then in fashion, "neither," says he, "has the Art of Painting had a better fate, after the boldness of the Egyptians had found out a compendious way to execute so great an art." By _compendious_, I understand him to mean a mode of Painting such as has infected the style of the later Painters of Italy and France; commonplace, without thought, and with as little trouble, working as by a receipt; in contradistinction to that style for which even a relish cannot be acquired without care and long attention, and most certainly the power of executing cannot be obtained without the most laborious application. I have endeavoured to stimulate the ambition of Artists to tread in this great path of glory, and, as well as I can, have pointed out the track which leads to it, and have at the same time told them the price at which it may be obtained. It is an ancient saying, that labour is the price which the gods have set upon everything valuable. The great Artist who has been so much the subject of the present Discourse, was distinguished even from his infancy for his indefatigable diligence; and this was continued through his whole life, till prevented by extreme old age. The poorest of men, as he observed himself, did not labour from necessity more than he did from choice. Indeed, from all the circumstances related of his life, he appears not to have had the least conception that his art was to be acquired by any other means than great labour; and yet he, of all men that ever lived, might make the greatest pretensions to the efficacy of native genius and inspiration. I have no doubt that he would have thought it no disgrace that it should be said of him, as he himself said of Raffaelle, that he did not possess his art from nature, but by long study.[20] He was conscious that the great excellence to which he arrived was gained by dint of labour, and was unwilling to have it thought that any transcendent skill, however natural its effects might seem, could be purchased at a cheaper price than he had paid for it. This seems to have been the true drift of his observation. We cannot suppose it made with any intention of depreciating the genius of Raffaelle, of whom he always spoke, as Coudivi says, with the greatest respect: though they were rivals, no such illiberality existed between them; and Raffaelle, on his part, entertained the greatest veneration for Michel Angelo, as appears from the speech which is recorded of him, that he congratulated himself, and thanked God, that he was born in the same age with that painter. If the high esteem and veneration in which Michel Angelo has been held by all nations and in all ages should be put to the account of prejudice, it must still be granted that those prejudices could not have been entertained without a cause: the ground of our prejudice, then, becomes the source of our admiration. But from whatever it proceeds, or whatever it is called, it will not, I hope, be thought presumptuous in me to appear in the train, I cannot say of his imitators, but of his admirers. I have taken another course, one more suited to my abilities, and to the taste of the times in which I live. Yet however unequal I feel myself to that attempt, were I now to begin the world again, I would tread in the steps of that great master: to kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambitious man. I feel a self-congratulation in knowing myself capable of such sensations as he intended to excite. I reflect, not without vanity, that these Discourses bear testimony of my admiration of that truly divine man; and I should desire that the last words which I should pronounce in this Academy, and from this place, might be the name of--MICHEL ANGELO.[21] FOOTNOTES: 18: James Harris. 19: Pictura quoque non alium exitum fecit, postquam �gyptiorum audacia tam magnæ artis compendiariam invenit. 20: _Che Raffaelle non ebbe quest' arte da natura, ma per lungo studio._ 21: Unfortunately for mankind, these _were_ the last words pronounced by this great Painter from the Academical chair. He died about fourteen months after this Discourse was delivered. THREE LETTERS TO THE IDLER. THE IDLER. NUMBER 76. _Saturday, September 29, 1759._ TO THE IDLER. SIR--I was much pleased with your ridicule of those shallow Critics, whose judgment, though often right as far as it goes, yet reaches only to inferior beauties; and who, unable to comprehend the whole, judge only by parts, and from thence determine the merit of extensive works. But there is another kind of Critic still worse, who judges by narrow rules, and those too often false, and which though they should be true, and founded on nature, will lead him but a very little way towards the just estimation of the sublime beauties in works of Genius; for whatever part of an art can be executed or criticised by rules, that part is no longer the work of Genius, which implies excellence out of the reach of rules. For my own part, I profess myself an Idler, and love to give my judgment, such as it is, from my immediate perceptions, without much fatigue of thinking; and I am of opinion, that if a man has not those perceptions right, it will be vain for him to endeavour to supply their place by rules; which may enable him to talk more learnedly, but not to distinguish more acutely. Another reason which has lessened my affection for the study of Criticism is, that Critics, so far as I have observed, debar themselves from receiving any pleasure from the polite arts, at the same time that they profess to love and admire them; for these rules being always uppermost, give them such a propensity to criticise, that instead of giving up the reins of their imagination into their author's hands, their frigid minds are employed in examining whether the performance be according to the rules of art. To those who are resolved to be Critics in spite of nature, and at the same time have no great disposition to much reading and study, I would recommend to assume the character of Connoisseur, which may be purchased at a much cheaper rate than that of a Critic in poetry. The remembrance of a few names of Painters, with their general characters, and a few rules of the Academy, which they may pick up among the Painters, will go a great way towards making a very notable Connoisseur. With a gentleman of this cast I visited last week the Cartoons at Hampton Court; he was just returned from Italy, a Connoisseur, of course, and of course his mouth full of nothing but the Grace of Raffaelle, the Purity of Domenichino, the Learning of Poussin, the Air of Guido, the greatness of Taste of the Caraccis, and the Sublimity and grand Contorno of Michel Angelo; with all the rest of the cant of Criticism, which he emitted with that volubility which generally those orators have, who annex no ideas to their words. As we were passing through the rooms, in our way to the Gallery, I made him observe a whole length of Charles the First, by Vandyke, as a perfect representation of the character as well as the figure of the man. He agreed it was very fine, but it wanted spirit and contrast, and had not the flowing line, without which a figure could not possibly be graceful. When we entered the Gallery, I thought I could perceive him recollecting his Rules by which he was to criticise Raffaelle. I shall pass over his observation of the boats being too little, and other criticisms of that kind, till we arrived at St. _Paul preaching_. "This," says he, "is esteemed the most excellent of all the Cartoons: what nobleness, what dignity there is in that figure of St. Paul! and yet what an addition to that nobleness could Raffaelle have given, had the art of Contrast been known in his time; but above all, the flowing line, which constitutes Grace and Beauty! You would not then have seen an upright figure standing equally on both legs, and both hands stretched forward in the same direction, and his drapery, to all appearance, without the least art of disposition." The following Picture is the _Charge to Peter_. "Here," says he, "are twelve upright figures; what a pity it is that Raffaelle was not acquainted with the pyramidal principle! he would then have contrived the figures in the middle to have been on higher ground, or the figures at the extremities stooping or lying; which would not only have formed the group into the shape of a pyramid, but likewise contrasted the standing figures. Indeed," added he, "I have often lamented that so great a genius as Raffaelle had not lived in this enlightened age, since the art has been reduced to principles, and had his education in one of the modern Academies; what glorious works might we then have expected from his divine pencil!" I shall trouble you no longer with my friend's observations, which, I suppose, you are now able to continue by yourself. It is curious to observe, that at the same time that great admiration is pretended for a name of fixed reputation, objections are raised against those very qualities by which that great name was acquired. These Critics are continually lamenting that Raffaelle had not the Colouring and Harmony of Rubens, or the Light and Shadow of Rembrandt, without considering how much the gay harmony of the former, and affectation of the latter, would take from the Dignity of Raffaelle; and yet Rubens had great Harmony, and Rembrandt understood Light and Shadow; but what may be an excellence in a lower class of Painting, becomes a blemish in a higher; as the quick, sprightly turn, which is the life and beauty of epigrammatic compositions, would but ill suit with the majesty of heroic Poetry. To conclude; I would not be thought to infer from anything that has been said, that Rules are absolutely unnecessary, but to censure scrupulosity, a servile attention to minute exactness, which is sometimes inconsistent with higher excellence, and is lost in the blaze of expanded genius. I do not know whether you will think Painting a general subject. By inserting this letter, perhaps you will incur the censure a man would deserve, whose business being to entertain a whole room, should turn his back on a company, and talk to a particular person. I am, Sir, etc. NUMBER 79. _Saturday, October 20, 1759._ TO THE IDLER. SIR--Your acceptance of a former letter on Painting gives me encouragement to offer a few more sketches on the same subject. Amongst the Painters and the writers on Painting there is one maxim universally admitted and continually inculcated. _Imitate Nature_ is the invariable rule; but I know none who have explained in what manner this rule is to be understood; the consequence of which is, that every one takes it in the most obvious sense--that objects are represented naturally, when they have such relief that they seem real. It may appear strange, perhaps, to hear this sense of the rule disputed; but it must be considered, that if the excellency of a Painter consisted only in this kind of imitation, Painting must lose its rank, and be no longer considered as a liberal art, and sister to Poetry: this imitation being merely mechanical, in which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best; for the Painter of genius cannot stoop to drudgery, in which the understanding has no part; and what pretence has the Art to claim kindred with Poetry, but by its power over the imagination? To this power the Painter of genius directs his aim; in this sense he studies Nature, and often arrives at his end, even by being unnatural, in the confined sense of the word. The grand style of Painting requires this minute attention to be carefully avoided, and must be kept as separate from it as the style of Poetry from that of History. Poetical ornaments destroy that air of truth and plainness which ought to characterise History; but the very being of Poetry consists in departing from this plain narration, and adopting every ornament that will warm the imagination. To desire to see the excellencies of each style united, to mingle the Dutch with the Italian School, is to join contrarieties which cannot subsist together, and which destroy the efficacy of each other. The Italian attends only to the invariable, the great and general ideas which are fixed and inherent in universal Nature; the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal truth and a minute exactness in the detail, as I may say, of Nature, modified by accident. The attention to these petty peculiarities is the very cause of this naturalness so much admired in the Dutch pictures, which, if we suppose it to be a beauty is certainly of a lower order, that ought to give place to a beauty of a superior kind, since one cannot be obtained but by departing from the other. If my opinion were asked concerning the works of Michel Angelo, whether they would receive any advantage from possessing this mechanical merit, I should not scruple to say they would lose, in a great measure, the effect which they now have on every mind susceptible of great and noble ideas. His works may be said to be all genius and soul; and why should they be loaded with heavy matter, which can only counteract his purpose by retarding the progress of the imagination? If this opinion should be thought one of the wild extravagancies of enthusiasm, I shall only say, that those who censure it are not conversant in the works of the great Masters. It is very difficult to determine the exact degree of enthusiasm that the arts of Painting and Poetry may admit. There may perhaps be too great an indulgence, as well as too great a restraint of imagination; and if the one produces incoherent monsters, the other produces what is full as bad, lifeless insipidity. An intimate knowledge of the passions and good sense, but not common sense, must at last determine its limits. It has been thought, and I believe with reason, that Michel Angelo sometimes transgressed those limits; and I think I have seen figures by him, of which it was very difficult to determine whether they were in the highest degree sublime or extremely ridiculous. Such faults may be said to be the ebullition of genius; but at least he had this merit, that he never was insipid; and whatever passion his works may excite, they will always escape contempt. What I have had under consideration is the sublimest style, particularly that of Michel Angelo, the Homer of Painting. Other kinds may admit of this naturalness, which of the lowest kind is the chief merit; but in Painting, as in Poetry, the highest style has the least of common nature. One may safely recommend a little more enthusiasm to the modern Painters; too much is certainly not the vice of the present age. The Italians seem to have been continually declining in this respect from the time of Michel Angelo to that of Carlo Maratti, and from thence to the very bathos of insipidity to which they are now sunk; so that there is no need of remarking, that where I mentioned the Italian Painters in opposition to the Dutch, I mean not the moderns, but the heads of the old Roman and Bolognian Schools; nor did I mean to include in my idea of an Italian Painter, the Venetian School, which may be said to be the Dutch part of the Italian Genius. I have only to add a word of advice to the Painters--that however excellent they may be in painting naturally, they would not flatter themselves very much upon it; and to the Connoisseurs, that when they see a cat or a fiddle painted so finely, that, as the phrase is, _it looks as if you could take it up_, they would not for that reason immediately compare the Painter to Raffaelle and Michel Angelo. NUMBER 82. _Saturday, November 10, 1759._ TO THE IDLER. SIR--Discoursing in my last letter on the different practice of the Italian and Dutch Painters, I observed that "the Italian Painter attends only to the invariable, the great, and general ideas, which are fixed and inherent in universal nature." I was led into the subject of this letter by endeavouring to fix the original cause of this conduct of the Italian Masters. If it can be proved that by this choice they selected the most beautiful part of the creation, it will show how much their principles are founded on reason, and, at the same time, discover the origin of our ideas of beauty. I suppose it will be easily granted that no man can judge whether any animal be beautiful in its kind, or deformed, who has seen only one of that species; this is as conclusive in regard to the human figure; so that if a man, born blind, were to recover his sight, and the most beautiful woman were brought before him, he could not determine whether she was handsome or not; nor if the most beautiful and most deformed were produced, could he any better determine to which he should give the preference, having seen only those two. To distinguish beauty, then, implies the having seen many individuals of that species. If it is asked, how is more skill acquired by the observation of greater numbers? I answer, that, in consequence of having seen many, the power is acquired, even without seeking after it, of distinguishing between accidental blemishes and excrescences which are continually varying the surface of Nature's works, and the invariable general form which Nature most frequently produces, and always seems to intend in her productions. Thus amongst the blades of grass or leaves of the same tree, though no two can be found exactly alike, the general form is invariable: a Naturalist, before he chose one as a sample, would examine many; since if he took the first that occurred, it might have by accident or otherwise such a form as that it would scarce be known to belong to that species; he selects as the Painter does, the most beautiful, that is, the most general form of nature. Every species of the animal as well as the vegetable creation may be said to have a fixed or determinate form, towards which Nature is continually inclining, like various lines terminating in the centre; or it may be compared to pendulums vibrating in different directions over one central point: and as they all cross the centre, though only one passes through any other point, so it will be found that perfect beauty is oftener produced by Nature than deformity: I do not mean than deformity in general, but than any one kind of deformity. To instance in a particular part of a feature; the line that forms a ridge of the nose is beautiful when it is straight; this, then, is the central form, which is oftener found than either concave, convex, or any other irregular form that shall be proposed. As we are then more accustomed to beauty than deformity, we may conclude that to be the reason why we approve and admire it, as we approve and admire customs and fashions of dress for no other reason than that we are used to them; so that though habit and custom cannot be said to be the cause of beauty, it is certainly the cause of our liking it; and I have no doubt but that if we were more used to deformity than beauty, deformity would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take that of beauty: as if the whole world should agree, that _yes_ and _no_ should change their meaning; _yes_ would then deny, and _no_ would affirm. Whoever undertakes to proceed further in this argument, and endeavours to fix a general criterion of beauty respecting different species, or to show why one species is more beautiful than another, it will be required from him first to prove that one species is really more beautiful than another. That we prefer one to the other, and with very good reason, will be readily granted; but it does not follow from thence that we think it a more beautiful form; for we have no criterion of form by which to determine our judgment. He who says a swan is more beautiful than a dove, means little more than that he has more pleasure in seeing a swan than a dove, either from the stateliness of its motions, or its being a more rare bird; and he who gives the preference to the dove, does it from some association of ideas of innocence which he always annexes to the dove; but if he pretends to defend the preference he gives to one or the other by endeavouring to prove that this more beautiful form proceeds from a particular gradation of magnitude, undulation of a curve, or direction of a line, or whatever other conceit of his imagination he shall fix on, as a criterion of form, he will be continually contradicting himself, and find at last that the great Mother of Nature will not be subjected to such narrow rules. Among the various reasons why we prefer one part of her works to another, the most general, I believe, is habit and custom; custom makes, in a certain sense, white black, and black white; it is custom alone determines our preference of the colour of the Europeans to the Ethiopians, and they, for the same reason, prefer their own colour to ours. I suppose nobody will doubt, if one of their Painters were to paint the Goddess of Beauty, but that he would represent her black, with thick lips, flat nose, and woolly hair; and, it seems to me, he would act very unnaturally if he did not, for by what criterion will anyone dispute the propriety of his idea? We indeed say that the form and colour of the European is preferable to that of the Ethiopian; but I know of no other reason we have for it, but that we are more accustomed to it. It is absurd to say that beauty is possessed of attractive powers, which irresistibly seize the corresponding mind with love and admiration, since that argument is equally conclusive in favour of the white and the black philosophers. The black and white nations must, in respect of beauty, be considered as of different kinds, at least a different species of the same kind; from one of which to the other, as I observed, no inference can be drawn. Novelty is said to be one of the causes of beauty. That novelty is a very sufficient reason why we should admire is not denied; but because it is uncommon, is it therefore beautiful? The beauty that is produced by colour, as when we prefer one bird to another, though of the same form, on account of its colour, has nothing to do with the argument, which reaches only to form. I have here considered the word Beauty as being properly applied to form alone. There is a necessity of fixing this confined sense; for there can be no argument, if the sense of the word is extended to everything that is approved. A rose may as well be said to be beautiful because it has a fine smell, as a bird because of its colour. When we apply the word Beauty, we do not mean always by it a more beautiful form, but something valuable on account of its rarity, usefulness, colour, or any other property. A horse is said to be a beautiful animal; but had a horse as few good qualities as a tortoise, I do not imagine that he would then be deemed beautiful. A fitness to the end proposed is said to be another cause of beauty; but supposing we were proper judges of what form is the most proper in an animal to constitute strength or swiftness, we always determine concerning its beauty, before we exert our understanding to judge of its fitness. From what has been said, it may be inferred, that the works of Nature, if we compare one species with another, are all equally beautiful, and that preference is given from custom or some association of ideas; and that, in creatures of the same species, beauty is the medium or centre of all its various forms. To conclude, then, by way of corollary: if it has been proved that the Painter, by attending to the invariable and general ideas of Nature, produce beauty, he must, by regarding minute particularities, and accidental discriminations, deviate from the universal rule, and pollute his canvas with deformity. _Printed by_ WALTER SCOTT, _Felling, Newcastle-upon-Tyne_. The Canterbury Poets. _In_ SHILLING _Monthly Volumes, Square 8vo._ _Well printed on fine toned paper, with Red-line Border, and strongly bound in Cloth. Each Volume contains from 300 to 350 pages._ _With Introductory Notices by_ WILLIAM SHARP, MATHILDE BLIND, WALTER LEWIN, JOHN HOGBEN, A. J. SYMINGTON, JOSEPH SKIPSEY, EVA HOPE, JOHN RICHMOND, ERNEST RHYS, PERCY E. PINKERTON, MRS. GARDEN, DEAN CARRINGTON, DR. J. BRADSHAW, FREDERICK COOPER, HON. RODEN NOEL, J. ADDINGTON SYMONDS, G. WILLIS COOKE, ERIC MACKAY, ERIC S. ROBERTSON, WILLIAM TIREBUCK, STUART J. REID, MRS. FREILIGRATH KROEKER, J. LOGIE ROBERTSON, M.A., SAMUEL WADDINGTON, _etc._, _etc._ _Cloth_, _Red Edges_ 1s. _Cloth_, _Uncut Edges_ 1s. _Red Roan_, _Gilt Edges_ 2s. 6d. _Silk Plush_, _Gilt Edges_ 4s. 6d. Morocco, round corners, 5s. _THE FOLLOWING VOLUMES ARE NOW READY._ =CHRISTIAN YEAR.= By Rev. John Keble. =COLERIDGE.= Edited by Joseph Skipsey. =LONGFELLOW.= Edited by Eva Hope. =CAMPBELL.= Edited by J. Hogben. =SHELLEY.= Edited by J. Skipsey. =WORDSWORTH.= Edited by A. J. Symington. =BLAKE.= Edited by Joseph Skipsey. =WHITTIER.= Edited by Eva Hope. =POE.= Edited by Joseph Skipsey. =CHATTERTON.= Edited by John Richmond. =BURNS.= Poems. =BURNS.= Songs. Edited by Joseph Skipsey. =MARLOWE.= Edited by P. E. Pinkerton. =KEATS.= Edited by John Hogben. =HERBERT.= Edited by Ernest Rhys. =VICTOR HUGO.= Translated by Dean Carrington. =COWPER.= Edited by Eva Hope. =SHAKESPEARE: Songs, Poems, and Sonnets.= Edited by William Sharp. =EMERSON.= Edited by W. Lewin. =SONNETS of this CENTURY.= Edited by William Sharp. =WHITMAN.= Edited by E. Rhys. =SCOTT.= Marmion, etc. =SCOTT.= Lady of the Lake, etc. Edited by William Sharp. =PRAED.= Edited by Fred. Cooper. =HOGG.= By his Daughter, Mrs. Garden. =GOLDSMITH.= Edited by William Tirebuck. =LOVE LETTERS OF A VIOLINIST.= By Eric Mackay. =SPENSER.= Edited by Hon. R. Noel. =CHILDREN OF THE POETS.= Edited by Erie S. Robertson. =BEN JONSON.= Edited by J. A. Symonds. =BYRON (2 Vols.)= Edited by Mathilde Blind. =THE SONNETS OF EUROPE.= Edited by S. Waddington. =ALLAN RAMSAY.= Edited by J. Logie Robertson. =SYDNEY DOBELL.= Edited by Mrs. Dobell. =POPE.= Edited by John Hogben. =HEINE.= Edited by Mrs. Kroeker. =BEAUMONT & FLETCHER.= Edited by J. S. Fletcher. =BOWLES, LAMB, AND HARTLEY COLERIDGE.= Edited by William Tirebuck. =EARLY ENGLISH POETRY.= Edited by H. Macaulay Fitzgibbon. =SEA MUSIC.= Edited by Mrs. Sharp. =HERRICK.= Edited by Ernest Rhys. =BALLADES AND RONDEAUS.= Edited by J. Gleeson White. =IRISH MINSTRELSY.= Edited by H. Halliday Sparling. _MONTHLY SHILLING VOLUMES._ _Cloth, cut or uncut edges._ THE CAMELOT SERIES. _ALREADY ISSUED_-- =ROMANCE OF KING ARTHUR.= Edited by E. Rhys. =THOREAU'S WALDEN.= Edited by W. H. Dircks. =CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER.= Edited by William Sharp. =LANDOR'S CONVERSATIONS.= Edited by H. Ellis. =PLUTARCH'S LIVES.= Edited by B. J. Snell, M.A. =SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S RELIGIO MEDICI, etc.= Edited by J. Addington Symonds. =SHELLEY'S ESSAYS AND LETTERS.= Edited by Ernest Rhys. =PROSE WRITINGS OF SWIFT.= Edited by W. Lewin. =MY STUDY WINDOWS.= Edited by R. Garnett, LL.D. =GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS.= Edited by W. Sharp. =LORD BYRON'S LETTERS.= Edited by M. Blind. =ESSAYS BY LEIGH HUNT.= Edited by A. Symons. =LONGFELLOW'S PROSE.= Edited by W. Tirebuck. =GREAT MUSICAL COMPOSERS.= Edited, with Introduction, by Mrs. Sharp. =MARCUS AURELIUS.= Edited by Alice Zimmern. =SPECIMEN DAYS IN AMERICA.= By Walt Whitman. =WHITE'S NATURAL HISTORY of SELBORNE.= Edited, with Introduction, by Richard Jefferies. =DEFOE'S CAPTAIN SINGLETON.= Edited, with Introduction, by H. Halliday Sparling. =ESSAYS: Literary and Political.= By Joseph Mazzini. With Introduction by William Clarke. =THE PROSE WRITINGS OF HEINRICH HEINE.= With Introduction by Havelock Ellis. =SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS' DISCOURSES.= With Introduction by Helen Zimmern. _MONTHLY SHILLING VOLUMES._ _Cloth, cut or uncut edges._ GREAT WRITERS. A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES. Edited by Professor E. S. ROBERTSON. _ALREADY ISSUED_-- =LIFE OF LONGFELLOW.= BY PROFESSOR ERIC S. ROBERTSON. "The story of the poet's life is well told. . . . The remarks on Longfellow as a translator are excellent."--_Saturday Review._ "No better life of Longfellow has been published."--_Glasgow Herald._ =LIFE OF COLERIDGE.= BY HALL CAINE. The _Scotsman_ says--"It is a capital book. . . . Written throughout with spirit and great literary skill. The bibliography is unusually full, and adds to the value of the work." =LIFE OF DICKENS.= BY FRANK T. MARZIALS. "An interesting and well-written biography."--_Scotsman._ =LIFE OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.= BY JOSEPH KNIGHT. =LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON.= BY COL. F. GRANT. =LIFE OF DARWIN.= BY G. T. BETTANY. =CHARLOTTE BRONT�.= BY AUGUSTINE BIRRELL. =LIFE OF THOMAS CARLYLE.= BY RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D. =LIFE OF ADAM SMITH.= BY R. B. HALDANE, M.P. =LIFE OF KEATS.= BY W. M. ROSSETTI. _Ready October 25th._ =LIFE OF SHELLEY.= BY WILLIAM SHARP. _To be followed on November 25th by_ =LIFE OF SMOLLETT.= BY DAVID HANNAY. Volumes in preparation by AUSTIN DOBSON, CANON VENABLES, JAMES SIME, EDMUND GOSSE, PROFESSOR KNIGHT, PROFESSOR YONGE, JOHN STUART BLACKIE, etc. =LIBRARY EDITION OF "GREAT WRITERS."= An Issue of all the Volumes in this Series will be published, printed on large paper of extra quality, in handsome binding, Demy 8vo, price 2s. 6d. per volume. _Now Ready, Part II, Price 6d.; by Post, 7d._ THE NATURALISTS' MONTHLY: A Journal for Nature-Lovers and Nature-Thinkers. EDITED BY DR. J. W. WILLIAMS, M.A. CONTENTS. The Fernley Lecture.--Rev. W. H. Dallinger, LL.D., F.R.S. Binary Suns.--Herbert Sadler, F.R.A.S. Nature and Human Nature in a Norwegian Dale.--J. Logie Robertson, M.A. Shell-Collecting in Guernsey and Hern.--J. R. Brockton Tomlin, B.A. Charles Robert Darwin.--B. Middleton Batchelor. The Opening Address, Geological Section, British Association.--Henry Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.G.S. A Chapter on the Centipedes and Millipedes.--T. D. Gibson-Carmichael, M.A., F.L.S. Studies with the Microscope.--D. Houstin, F.L.S., F.R.M.S. The Roe Deer.--James Munro. Reviews. General Notes and Gleanings. Reports of the Learned Societies. "A sound journal, the monthly advent of which will be awaited with feelings of satisfaction and pleasure."--_Bath Chronicle._ "To the student of nature who has had few opportunities of study, just such a magazine as this supplies a felt want. We trust that an appreciative public will ensure the success of this new magazine."--_Midlothian Journal._ "This neatly got-up magazine seems to supply a vacant place in the ranks of serial literature, and to supply it well."--_Nottingham Guardian._ Part III. Ready October 25th. Annual Subscription--Seven Shillings. Post free. London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. * * * * * * Transcriber's note: Obvious punctuation and spelling errors repaired. 
6306	----	LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF THE GREAT, VOLUME 6 Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists ELBERT HUBBARD MEMORIAL EDITION CONTENTS RAPHAEL LEONARDO BOTTICELLI THORWALDSEN GAINSBOROUGH VELASQUEZ COROT CORREGGIO BELLINI CELLINI ABBEY WHISTLER RAPHAEL And with all this vast creative activity, he recognized only one self-imposed limitation--beauty. Hence, though his span of life was short, his work is imperishable. He steadily progressed: but he was ever true, beautiful and pure, and freer than any other master from superficiality and mannerism. He produced a vast number of pictures, elevating to men of every race and of every age, and before whose immortal beauty artists of every school unite in common homage. --_Wilhelm Lubke_ [Illustration: Raphael] The term "Preraphaelite" traces a royal lineage to William Morris. Just what the word really meant, William Morris was not sure, yet he once expressed the hope that he would some day know, as a thousand industrious writers were laboring to make the matter plain. Seven men helped William Morris to launch the phrase, by forming themselves into an organization which they were pleased to call the "Preraphaelite Brotherhood." The word "brotherhood" has a lure and a promise for every lonely and tired son of earth. And Burne-Jones pleaded for the prefix because it was like holy writ: it gave everybody an opportunity to read anything into it that he desired. Of this I am very sure, in the Preraphaelite Brotherhood there was no lack of appreciation for Raphael. In fact, there is proof positive that Burne-Jones and Madox Brown studied him with profit, and loved him so wisely and well that they laid impression-paper on his poses. This would have been good and sufficient reason for hating the man; and possibly this accounts for their luminous flashes of silence concerning him. The Preraphaelite Brotherhood, like all other liberal organizations, was quite inclined to be illiberal. And the prejudice of this clanship, avowedly founded without prejudice, lay in the assumption that life and art suffered a degeneration from the rise of Raphael. In art, as in literature, there is overmuch tilting with names--so the Preraphaelites enlisted under the banner of Botticelli. Raphael marks an epoch. He did what no man before him had ever done, and by the sublimity of his genius placed the world forever under obligations to him. In fact, the art of the Preraphaelites was built on Raphael, with an attempt to revive the atmosphere and environment that belonged to another. Raphael mirrored the soul of things--he used the human form and the whole natural world as symbols of spirit. And this is exactly what Burne-Jones did, and the rest of the Brotherhood tried to do. The thought of Raphael and of Burne- Jones often seems identical; in temperament, disposition and aspiration they were one. That poetic and fervid statement of Mrs. Jameson, that Burne-Jones is the avatar of Raphael, contains the germ of truth. The dream-women of Burne-Jones have the same haunting and subtle spiritual wistfulness that is to be seen in the Madonnas of Raphael. Each of these men loved a woman--and each pictured her again and again. Whether this woman had an existence outside the figment of the brain matters not: both painted her as they saw her-- tender, gentle and trustful. When jealous and o'erzealous competitors made the charge against Raphael that he was lax in his religious duties, Pope Leo the Tenth waived the matter by saying, "Well, well, well!--he is an artistic Christian!" As much as to say, he works his religion up into art, and therefore we grant him absolution for failure to attend mass: he paints and you pray--it is really all the same thing. Good work and religion are one. The busy and captious critics went away, but came back next day with the startling information that Raphael's pictures were more Pagan than Christian. Pope Leo heard the charge, and then with Lincoln- like wit said that Raphael was doing this on his order, as the desire of the Mother Church was to annex the Pagan art-world, in order to Christianize it. The charges of Paganism and Infidelity are classic accusations. The gentle Burne-Jones was stoutly denounced by his enemies as a Pagan Greek. I think he rather gloried in the contumely, but fifty years earlier he might have been visited by a "lettre de cachet," instead of a knighthood; for we can not forget how, in Eighteen Hundred Fifteen, Parliament refused to pay for the Elgin Marbles because, as Lord Falmouth put it, "These relics will tend to prostitute England to the depth of unbelief that engulfed Pagan Greece." The attitude of Parliament on the question of Paganism finds voice occasionally even yet by Protestant England making darkness dense with the asseveration that Catholics idolatrously worship the pictures and statues in their churches. The Romans tumbled the Athenian marbles from their pedestals, on the assumption that the statues represented gods that were idolatrously worshiped by the Greeks. And they continued their work of destruction until a certain Roman general (who surely was from County Cork) stopped the vandalism by issuing an order, coupled with the dire threat that any soldier who stole or destroyed a statue should replace it with another equally good. Lord Elgin bankrupted himself in order to supply the British Museum its crowning glory, and for this he achieved the honor of getting himself poetically damned by Lord Byron. Monarchies, like republics, are ungrateful. Lord Elgin defended himself vigorously against the charge of Paganism, just as Raphael had done three hundred years before. But Burne-Jones was silent in the presence of his accusers, for the world of buyers besieged his doors with bank-notes in hand, demanding pictures. And now today we find Alma-Tadema openly and avowedly Pagan, and with a grace and loveliness that compel the glad acclaim of every lover of beautiful things. We are making head. We have ceased to believe that Paganism is "bad." All the men and women who have ever lived and loved and hoped and died, were God's children, and we are no more. With the nations dead and turned to dust, we reach out through the darkness of forgotten days and touch friendly hands. Some of these people that existed two, three or four thousand years ago did things so marvelously grand and great that in presence of the broken fragments of their work we stand silent, o'erawed and abashed. We realize, too, that long before the nations lived that have left a meager and scattered history hewn in stone, lived still other men, possibly greater far than we; and no sign or signal comes to us from those whose history, like ours, is writ in water. Yet we are one with them all. The same Power that brought them upon this stage of Time brought us. As we were called into existence without our consent, so are we being sent out of it, day by day, against our will. The destiny of all who live or have lived, is one; and no taunt of "paganism," "heathenism" or "infidelity" escapes our lips. With love and sympathy, we salute the eternity that lies behind, realizing that we ourselves are the oldest people that have tasted existence--the newest nation lingers away behind Assyria and Egypt, back of the Mayas, lost in continents sunken in shoreless seas that hold their secrets inviolate. Yes, we are brothers to all that have trod the earth; brothers and heirs to dust and shade-- mayhap to immortality! In the story of "John Ball," William Morris pictured what to him was the Ideal Life. And Morris was certainly right in this: The Ideal Life is only the normal or natural life as we shall some day know it. The scene of Morris' story was essentially a Preraphaelite one. It was the great virtue (or limitation) of William Morris that the Dark Ages were to him a time of special light and illumination. Life then was simple. Men worked for the love of it, and if they wanted things they made them. "Every trade exclusively followed means a deformity," says Ruskin. Division of labor had not yet come, and men were skilled in many ways. There was neither poverty nor riches, and the idea of brotherhood was firmly fixed in the minds of men. The feverish desire for place, pelf and power was not upon them. The rise of the barons and an entailed aristocracy were yet to come. Governments grant men immunity from danger on payment of a tax. Thus men cease protecting themselves, and so in the course of time lose the ability to protect themselves, because the faculty of courage has atrophied through disuse. Brooding apprehension and crouching fear are the properties of civilized men--men who are protected by the State. The joy of reveling in life is not possible in cities. Bolts and bars, locks and keys, soldiers and police, and a hundred other symbols of distrust, suspicion and hate, are on every hand, reminding us that man is the enemy of man, and must be protected from his brothers. Protection and slavery are near of kin. Before Raphael, art was not a profession--the man did things to the glory of God. When he painted a picture of the Holy Family, his wife served as his model, and he grouped his children in their proper order, and made the picture to hang on a certain spot on the walls of his village church. No payment was expected nor fee demanded--it was a love-offering. It was not until ecclesiastics grew ambitious and asked for more pictures that bargains were struck. Did ever a painter of that far-off day marry a maid, and in time were they blessed with a babe, then straightway the painter worked his joy up into art by painting the Mother and Child, and presenting the picture as a thank-offering to God. The immaculate conception of love and the miracle of birth are recurring themes in the symphony of life. Love, religion and art have ever walked and ever will walk hand in hand. Art is the expression of man's joy in his work; and art is the beautiful way of doing things. Pope Julius was right-- work is religion when you put your soul into your task. Giotto painted the "Mother and Child," and the mother was his wife, and the child theirs. Another child came to them, and Giotto painted another picture, calling the older boy Saint John, and the wee baby Jesus. The years went by and we find still another picture of the Holy Family by this same artist, in which five children are shown, while back in the shadow is the artist himself, posed as Joseph. And with a beautiful contempt for anachronism, the elder children are called Isaiah, Ezekiel and Elijah. This fusing of work, love and religion gives us a glimpse into the only paradise mortals know. It is the Ideal--and the Natural. The swift-passing years have lightly touched the little city of Urbino, in Umbria. The place is sleepy and quiet, and you seek the shade of friendly awnings to shield you from the fierce glare of the sun. Standing there you hear the bells chime the hours, as they have done for four hundred years; and you watch the flocks of wheeling pigeons, the same pigeons that Vasari saw when he came here in Fifteen Hundred Forty-one, for the birds never grow old. Vasari tells of the pigeons, the old cathedral--old even then--the flower- girls and fruit-sellers, the passing black-robed priests, the occasional soldier, and the cobbler who sits on the curbstone and offers to mend your shoes while you wait. The world is debtor to Vasari. He was not much of a painter and he failed at architecture, but he made up for lack of skill by telling all about what others were doing; and if his facts ever faltered, his imagination bridged the break. He is as interesting as Plutarch, as gossipy as Pepys, and as luring as Boswell. A slim slip of a girl, selling thyme and mignonette out of a reed basket, offered to show Vasari the birthplace of Raphael; and a brown-cheeked, barefoot boy, selling roses on which the dew yet lingered, volunteered a like service for me, three hundred years later. The house is one of a long row of low stone structures, with the red-tile roof everywhere to be seen. Above the door is a bronze tablet which informs the traveler that Raphael Sanzio was born here, April Sixth, Fourteen Hundred Eighty-three. Herman Grimm takes three chapters to prove that Raphael was not born in this house, and that nothing is so unreliable as a bronze tablet, except figures. Grimm is a painstaking biographer, but he fails to distinguish between fact and truth. Of this we are sure, Giovanni di Sanzio, the father of Raphael, lived in this house. There are church records to show that here other children of Giovanni were born, and this very naturally led to the assumption that Raphael was born here, also. Just one thing of touching interest is to be seen in this house, and that is a picture of a Mother and Child painted on the wall. For many years this picture was said to be the work of Raphael; but there is now very good reason to believe it was the work of Raphael's father, and that the figures represent the baby Raphael and his mother. The picture is faded and dim, like the history of this sainted woman who gave to earth one of the gentlest, greatest and best men that ever lived. Mystery enshrouds the early days of Raphael. There is no record of his birth. His father we know was a man of decided power, and might yet rank as a great artist, had he not been so unfortunate as to have had a son that outclassed him. But now Giovanni Sanzio's only claim to fame rests on his being the father of his son. Of the boy's mother we have only obstructed glances and glimpses through half-flung lattices in the gloaming. Raphael was her only child. She was scarce twenty when she bore him. In a sonnet written to her, on the back of a painting, Raphael's father speaks of her wondrous eyes, slender neck, and the form too frail for earth's rough buffets. Mention is also made of "this child born in purest love, and sent by God to comfort and caress." The mother grew aweary and passed away when her boy was scarce eight years old, but his memories of her were deeply etched. She told him of Cimabue, Giotto, Ghirlandajo, Leonardo and Perugino, and especially of the last two, who were living and working only a few miles away. It was this spiritual and loving mother who infused into his soul the desire to do and to become. That hunger for harmony which marked his life was the heritage of mother to child. When an artist paints a portrait, he paints two--himself and the sitter. Raphael gave himself; and as his father more than once said the boy was the image of his mother, we have her picture, too. Father and son painted the same woman. Their hearts went out to her with a sort of idolatrous love. The sonnets indited to her by her husband were written after her death, and after his second marriage. Do then men love dead women better than they do the living? Perhaps. And then a certain writer has said: "To have known a great and exalted love, and have had it flee from your grasp--flee as a shadow before it is sullied by selfishness or misunderstanding--is the highest good. The memory of such a love can not die from out the heart. It affords a ballast 'gainst all the sordid impulses of life, and though it gives an unutterable sadness, it imparts an unspeakable peace." Raphael's father followed the boy's mother when the lad was eleven years old. We know the tender, poetic love this father had for the child, and we realize somewhat of the mystical mingling in the man's heart of the love for the woman dead and her child alive. Reverencing the mother's wish that the boy should be an artist, Giovanni Sanzio, proud of his delicate and spiritual beauty, took the lad to visit all the other artists in the vicinity. They also visited the ducal palace, built by Federigo the Second, and lingered there for hours, viewing the paintings, statuary, carvings, tapestries and panelings. The palace still stands, and is yet one of the most noble in Italy, vying in picturesqueness with those marble piles that line the Grand Canal at Venice. We know that Giovanni Sanzio contributed by his advice and skill to the wealth of beauty in the palace, and we know that he was always a welcome visitor there. From his boyhood Raphael was familiar with these artistic splendors, and how much this early environment contributed to his correct taste and habit of subdued elegance, no man can say. When Giovanni Sanzio realized that death was at his door, he gave Raphael into the keeping of the priest Bartolomeo and the boy's stepmother. The typical stepmother lives, moves and has her being in neurotic novels written by very young ladies. Instances can be cited of great men who were loved and nurtured and ministered to by their stepmothers. I think well of womankind. The woman who abuses a waif that Fate has sent into her care would mistreat her own children, and is a living libel on her sex. Let Lincoln and Raphael stand as types of men who were loved with infinite tenderness by stepmothers. And then we must not forget Leonardo da Vinci, who never knew a mother, and had no business to have a father, but who held averages good with four successive stepmothers, all of whom loved him with a tender, jealous and proud devotion. Bartolomeo, following the wish of the father, continued to give the boy lessons in drawing and sketching. This Bartolomeo must not be confused with the Bartolomeo, friend of Savonarola, who was largely to influence Raphael later on. It was Bartolomeo, the priest, that took Raphael to Perugino, who lived in Perugia. Perugino, although he was a comparatively young man, was bigger than the town in which he lived. His own name got blown away by a high wind, and he was plain Perugino--as if there was only one man in Perugia, and he were that one. "Here is a boy I have brought you as a pupil," said the priest to Perugino. And Perugino glancing up from his easel answered, "I thought it was a girl!" The priest continued, "Here is a boy I have brought you for a pupil, and your chief claim to fame may yet be that he worked here with you in your studio." Perugino parried the thrust with a smile. He looked at the boy and was impressed with his beauty. Perugino afterwards acknowledged that the only reason he took him was because he thought he would work in well as a model. Perugino was the greatest master of technique of his time. He had life, and life in abundance. He reveled in his work, and his enthusiasm ran over, inundating all those who were near. Courage is a matter of the red corpuscle. It is oxygen that makes every attack; without oxygen in his blood to back him, a man attacks nothing--not even a pie, much less a blank canvas. Perugino was a success; he had orders ahead; he matched his talent against titles; power flowed his way. Raphael's serious, sober manner and spiritual beauty appealed to him. They became as father and son. The methodical business plan, which is a prime aid to inspiration; the habit of laying out work and completing it; the high estimate of self; the supreme animation and belief in the divinity within--all these Raphael caught from Perugino. Both men were egotists, as are all men who do things. They had heard the voice--they had had a "call." The talent is the call, and if a man fails to do his work in a masterly way, make sure he has mistaken a lazy wish for a divine passion. There is a difference between loving the muse and lusting after her. Perugino had been called, and before Raphael had worked with him a year, he was sure he had been called, too. The days in Perugia for Raphael were full of quiet joy and growing power. He was in the actual living world of men, and things, and useful work. Afternoons, when the sun's shadows began to lengthen towards the east, Perugino would often call to his helpers, especially Raphael, and Pinturicchio, another fine spirit, and off they would go for a tramp, each with a stout staff and the inevitable portfolio. Out along the narrow streets of the town, across the Roman arched bridge, by the market-place to the terraced hillside that overlooked the Umbrian plain, they went; Perugino stout, strong, smooth-faced, with dark, swarthy features; Pinturicchio with downy beard, merry eyes and tall, able form; and lingering behind, came Raphael. His small black cap fitted closely on his long bronze-gold hair; his slight, slender and graceful figure barely suggested its silken strength held in fine reserve--and all the time the great brown eyes, which looked as if they had seen celestial things, scanned the sky, saw the tall cedars of Lebanon, the flocks on the slopes across the valley, the scattered stone cottages, the fleecy clouds that faintly flecked the deep blue of the sky, the distant spire of a church. All these treasures of the Umbrian landscape were his. Well might he have anticipated, four hundred years before he was born, that greatest of American writers, and said, "I own the landscape!" In frescos signed by Perugino in the year Fourteen Hundred Ninety- two--a date we can not forget--we see a certain style. In the same design duplicated in Fourteen Hundred Ninety-eight, we behold a new and subtle touch--it is the stroke and line of Raphael. The "Resurrection" by Perugino, in the Vatican, and the "Diotalevi Madonna" signed by the same artist, in the Berlin Museum, show the touch of Raphael, unmistakably. The youth was barely seventeen, but he was putting himself into Perugino's work--and Perugino was glad. Raphael's first independent work was probably done when he was nineteen, and was for the Citta di Castello. These frescos are signed, "Raphael Urbinas, 1502." Other lesser pictures and panels thus signed are found dated Fifteen Hundred Four. They are all the designs of Perugino, but worked out with the painstaking care always shown by very young artists; yet there is a subtle, spiritual style that marks, unmistakably, Raphael's Perugino period. The "Sposalizio," done in Fifteen Hundred Four, now in the Brera at Milan, is the first really important work of Raphael. Next to this is the "Connestabile Madonna," which was painted at Perugia and remained there until Eighteen Hundred Seventy-one, when it was sold by a degenerate descendant of the original owner to the Emperor of Russia for sixty-five thousand dollars. Since then a law has been passed forbidding any one on serious penalty to remove a "Raphael" from Italy. But for this law, that threat of a Chicago syndicate to buy the Pitti Gallery and move its contents to the "lake front" might have been carried out. The Second Period of Raphael's life opens with his visit to Florence in Fifteen Hundred Four. He was now twenty-one years of age, handsome, proud, reserved. Stories of his power had preceded him, and the fact that for six years he had worked with Perugino and been his confidant and friend made his welcome sure. Leonardo and Michelangelo were at the height of their fame, and no doubt they stimulated the ambition of Raphael more than he ever admitted. He considered Leonardo the more finished artist of the two. Michelangelo's heroic strength and sweep of power failed to win him. The frescos of Masaccio in the Church of Santa Carmine in Florence he considered better than any performance of Michelangelo: and as a Roland to this Oliver, we have a legend to the effect that Raphael once called upon Michelangelo and the master sent down word from the scaffold, where he was at work, that he was too busy to see visitors, and anyway, he had all the apprentices that he could look after! How much this little incident biased Raphael's opinion concerning Michelangelo's art we can not say: possibly Raphael could not have told, either. But such things count, I am told, for even Doctor Johnson thought better of Reynolds' work after they had dined together. It seems that Fra Bartolomeo was one of the first and best friends Raphael had at Florence. The monk's gentle spirit and his modest views of men and things won the young Umbrian; and between these two there sprang up a friendship so firm and true that death alone could sever it. The deep religious devotion of Bartolomeo set the key for the first work done by Raphael at Florence. Most of the time the young man and the monk lived and worked in the same studio. It was a wonderfully prolific period for Raphael; from Fifteen Hundred Four to Fifteen Hundred Eight he pushed forward with a zest and an earnestness he never again quite equaled. Most of his beautiful Madonnas belong to this period, and in them all are a dignity, grace and grandeur that lift them out of ecclesiastic art, and place them in the category of living portraits. Before this, Raphael belonged to the Umbrian School, but now his work must be classed, if classed at all, as Florentine. The handling is freer, the nude more in evidence, and the anatomy shows that the artist is working from life. Bartolomeo used to speak of Raphael affectionately as "my son," and called the attention of Bramante, the architect, to his work. The beauty of his Madonnas was being discussed in every studio, and when the "Ansidei" was exhibited in the Church of Santa Croce, such a crowd flocked to see the picture that services had to be dismissed. The rush continued until a thrifty priest bethought him to stand at the main entrance with a contribution-box and a stout stick, and allow no one to enter who did not contribute good silver for "the worthy poor." Bartolomeo acknowledged that his "pupil" was beyond him. He was invited to add a finishing touch to the Masaccio frescos; Leonardo, the courtly, had smiled a gracious recognition, and Michelangelo had sneezed at mention of his name. Bramante, back at Rome, told Pope Julius the Second, "There is a young Umbrian at Florence we must send for." Great things were happening at Rome about this time: all roads led thitherward. Pope Julius had just laid the cornerstone of Saint Peter's, and full of ambition was carrying out the dictum of Pope Nicholas the Fifth, that "the Church should array herself in all the beauteous spoils of the world, in order to win the minds of men." The Renaissance was fairly begun, fostered and sustained by the Church alone. The Quattrocento--that time of homely peace and the simple quiet of John Ball and his fellows--lay behind. Raphael had begun his Roman Period, which was to round out his working life of barely eighteen years, ere the rest of the Pantheon was to be his. Before this his time had been his own, but now the Church was his mistress. But it was a great honor that had come to him, greater far than had ever before been bestowed on any living artist. Barely twenty-five years of age, the Pope treated him as an equal, and worked him like a packhorse. "He has the face of an angel," cried Julius, "and the soul of a god!"--when some one suggested his youth. Pope Leo the Tenth, of the Medici family, succeeded Julius. He sent Michelangelo to Florence to employ his talents upon the Medicean church of San Lorenzo. He dismissed Perugino, Pinturicchio and Piero Delia Francesca, although Raphael in tears pleaded for them all. Their frescos were destroyed, and Raphael was told to go ahead and make the Vatican what it should be. His first large work was to decorate the Hall of the Signatures (Stanza della Segnatura), where we today see the "Dispute." Near at hand is the famous "School of Athens." In this picture his own famous portrait is to be seen with that of Perugino. The first place is given to Perugino, and the faces affectionately side by side are posed in a way that has given a cue to ten thousand photographers. The attitude is especially valuable, as a bit of history showing Raphael's sterling attachment to his old teacher. The Vatican is filled with the work of Raphael, and aside from the galleries to which the general public is admitted, studies and frescos are to be seen in many rooms that are closed unless, say, Archbishop Ireland be with you, when all doors fly open at your touch. The seven Raphael tapestries are shown at the Vatican an hour each day; the rest of the time the room is closed to protect them from the light. However, the original cartoons at South Kensington reveal the sweep and scope of Raphael's genius better than the tapestries themselves. Work, unceasing work, filled his days. The ingenuity and industry of the man were marvelous. Upwards of eighty portraits were painted during the Roman Period, besides designs innumerable for engravings, and even for silver and iron ornaments required by the Church. Pupils helped him much, of course, and among these must be mentioned Giulio Romano and Gianfrancesco Penni. These young men lived with Raphael in his splendid house that stood halfway between Saint Peter's and the Castle Angelo. Fire swept the space a hundred years later, and the magnificence it once knew has never been replaced. Today, hovels built from stone quarried from the ruins mark the spot. But as one follows this white, dusty road, it is well to remember that the feet of Raphael, passing and repassing, have, more than any other one street of Rome, made it sacred soil. We have seen that Bramante brought Raphael to Rome, and Pope Leo the Tenth remembered this when the first architect of Saint Peter's passed away. Raphael was appointed his successor. The honor was merited, but the place should have gone to one not already overworked. In Fifteen Hundred Fifteen Raphael was made Director of Excavations, another office for which his esthetic and delicate nature was not fitted. In sympathy, of course, his heart went out to the antique workers of the ancient world, on whose ruins the Eternal City is built; but the drudgery of overseeing and superintendence belonged to another type of man. The stress of the times had told on Raphael; he was thirty-five, rich beyond all Umbrian dreams of avarice, on an equality with the greatest and noblest men of his time, honored above all other living artists. But life began to pall; he had won all--and thereby had learned the worthlessness of what the world has to offer. Dreams of rest, of love and a quiet country home, came to him. He was betrothed to Maria di Bibbiena, a niece of Cardinal Bibbiena. The day of the wedding had been set, and the Pope was to perform the ceremony. But the Pope regarded Raphael as a servant of the Church: he had work for him to do, and moreover he had fixed ideas concerning the glamour of sentimentalism, so he requested that the wedding be postponed for a space. A request from the Pope was an order, and so the country house was packed away with other dreams that were to come true all in God's good time. But the realization of love's dream did not come true, for Raphael had a rival. Death claimed his bride. She was buried in the Pantheon, where within a year Raphael's wornout body was placed beside hers; and there the dust of both mingle. The history of this love-tragedy has never been written; it lies buried there with the lovers. But a contemporary said that the fear of an enforced separation broke the young woman's heart; and this we know, that after her death, Raphael's hand forgot its cunning, and his frame was ripe for the fever that was so soon to burn out the strands of his life. Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Perugino and Fra Bartolomeo had all made names for themselves before Raphael appeared upon the scene. Yet they one and all profited by his example, and were the richer in that he had lived. Michelangelo was born nine years before Raphael and survived him forty-three years. Titian was six years old when Raphael was born, and he continued to live and work for fifty-six years after Raphael had passed away. It was a cause of grief to Michelangelo, even to the day of his death, that he and Raphael had not been close, personal and loving friends, as indeed they should have been. The art-world was big enough for both. Yet Rome was divided into two hostile camps: those who favored Raphael; and those who had but one prophet, Michelangelo. Busybodies rushed back and forth, carrying foolish and inconsequential messages; and these strong yet gentle men, both hungering for sympathy and love, were thrust apart. When Raphael realized the end was nigh, he sent for Perugino, and directed that he should complete certain work. His career had begun by working with Perugino, and now this friend of a lifetime must finish the broken task and make good the whole. He bade his beloved pupils, one by one, farewell; signed his will, which gave most of his valuable property to his fellow-workers; and commended his soul to the God who gave it. He died on his birthday, Good Friday, April Sixth, Fifteen Hundred Twenty, aged thirty-seven years. Michelangelo wore mourning upon his sleeve for a year after Raphael's death. And once Michelangelo said, "Raphael was a child, a beautiful child, and if he had only lived a little longer, he and I would have grasped hands as men and worked together as brothers." LEONARDO The world, perhaps, contains no other example of a genius so universal as Leonardo's, so creative, so incapable of self- contentment, so athirst for the infinite, so naturally refined, so far in advance of his own and subsequent ages. His pictures express incredible sensibility and mental power; they overflow with unexpressed ideas and emotions. Alongside of his portraits Michelangelo's personages are simply heroic athletes; Raphael's virgins are only placid children whose souls are still asleep. His beings feel and think through every line and trait of their physiognomy. Time is necessary to enter into communion with them; not that their sentiment is too slightly marked, for, on the contrary, it emerges from the whole investiture; but it is too subtle, too complicated, too far above and beyond the ordinary, too dreamlike and inexplicable. --_Taine in "A Journey Through Italy"_ [Illustration: Leonardo] There is a little book by George B. Rose, entitled, "Renaissance Masters," which is quite worth your while to read. I carried a copy, for company, in the side-pocket of my coat for a week, and just peeped into it at odd times. I remember that I thought so little of the volume that I read it with a lead-pencil and marked it all up and down and over, and filled the fly-leaves with random thoughts, and disfigured the margins with a few foolish sketches. Then one fine day White Pigeon came out to the Roycroft Shop from Buffalo, as she was passing through. She came on the two-o'clock train and went away on the four-o'clock, and her visit was like a window flung open to the azure. White Pigeon remained at East Aurora only two hours--"not long enough" she said, "to knock the gold and emerald off the butterfly's beautiful wings." White Pigeon saw the little book I have mentioned, on my table in the tower-room. She picked it up and turned the leaves aimlessly; then she opened her Boston bag and slipped the book inside, saying as she did so: "You do not mind?" And I said, "Certainly not!" Then she added, "I like to follow in the pathway you have blazed." That closed the matter so far as the little book was concerned. Save, perhaps, that after I had walked to the station with White Pigeon and she had boarded the car, she stepped out upon the rear platform, and as I stood there at the station watching the train disappear around the curve, White Pigeon reached into the Boston bag, took out the little book and held it up. That was the last time I saw White Pigeon. She was looking well and strong, and her step, I noticed, was firm and sure, and she carried the crown of her head high and her chin in. It made me carry my chin in, too, just by force of example, I suppose--so easily are we influenced. When you walk with some folks you slouch along, but others there be who make you feel an upward lift and skyey gravitation--it is very curious! Yet I do really believe White Pigeon is forty, or awfully close to it. There are silver streaks among her brown braids, and surely the peachblow has long gone from her cheek. Then she was awfully tanned --and that little mole on her forehead, and its mate on her chin, stand out more than ever, like the freckles on the face of Alcibiades Roycroft when he has taken on his August russet. I think White Pigeon must be near forty! That is the second book she has stolen from me; the other was Max Muller's "Memories"--it was at the Louvre in Paris, August the Fourteenth, Eighteen Hundred Ninety- five, as we sat on a bench, silent before the "Mona Lisa" of Leonardo. This book, "Renaissance Masters," I didn't care much for, anyway. I got no information from it, yet it gave me a sort o' glow--that is all--like that lecture which I heard in my boyhood by Wendell Phillips. There is only one thing in the book I remember, but that stands out as clearly as the little mole on White Pigeon's forehead. The author said that Leonardo da Vinci invented more useful appliances than any other man who ever lived, except our own Edison. I know Edison: he is a most lovable man (because he is himself), very deaf--and glad of it, he says, because it saves him from hearing a lot of things he doesn't wish to hear. "It is like this," he once said to me: "deafness gives you a needed isolation; reduces your sensitiveness so things do not disturb or distract; allows you to concentrate and focus on a thought until you run it down--see?" Edison is a great Philistine--reads everything I write--has a complete file of the little brownie magazine; and some of the "Little Journeys" I saw he had interlined and marked. I think Edison is one of the greatest men I ever met--he appreciates Good Things. I told Edison how this writer, Rose, had compared him with Leonardo. He smiled and said, "Who is Rose?" Then after a little pause he continued, "The Great Man is one who has been a long time dead--the woods are full of wizards, but not many of them know that"; and the Wizard laughed softly at his own joke. What kind of a man was Leonardo? Why, he was the same kind of a man as Edison--only Leonardo was thin and tall, while Edison is stout. But you and I would be at home with either. Both are classics and therefore essentially modern. Leonardo studied Nature at first hand --he took nothing for granted--Nature was his one book. Stuffy, fussy, indoor professors--men of awful dignity--frighten folks, cause children to scream, and ladies to gaze in awe; but Leonardo was simple and unpretentious. He was at home in any society, high or low, rich or poor, learned or unlearned--and was quite content to be himself. It's a fine thing to be yourself! Thackeray once said, "If I had met Shakespeare on the stairs, I know I should have fainted dead away!" I do not believe Shakespeare's presence ever made anybody faint. He was so big that he could well afford to put folks at their ease. If Leonardo should come to East Aurora, Bertie, Oliver, Lyle and I would tramp with him across the fields, and he would carry that leather bag strung across his shoulder, just as he ever did when in the country. He was a geologist and a botanist, and was always collecting things (and forgetting where they were). We would tramp with him, I say, and if the season were right we would go through orchards, sit under the trees and eat apples. And Leonardo would talk, as he liked to do, and tell why the side of fruit that was towards the sun took on a beautiful color first; and when an apple fell from the tree he would, so to speak, anticipate Sir Isaac Newton and explain why it fell down and not up. That leather bag of his, I fear, would get rather heavy before we got back, and probably Oliver and Lyle would dispute the honor of carrying it for him. Leonardo was once engaged by Cesare Borgia to fortify the kingdom of Romagna. It was a brand-new kingdom, presented to the young man by Pope Alexander the Sixth. It was really the Pope who ordered Leonardo to survey the tract and make plans for the fortifications and canals and all that--so Leonardo didn't like to refuse. Cesare Borgia had the felicity of being the son of the Pope, but the Pope used to refer to him as his nephew--it was a habit that Popes once had. Pope Alexander also had a daughter--by name, Lucrezia Borgia-- sister to Cesare and very much like him, for they took their diversion in the same way. Leonardo started in to do the work and make plans for fortifications that should be impregnable. He looked the ground over thoroughly, traveling on horseback, and his two servants followed him up in a cart drawn by a bull, which Leonardo calmly explains was a "side- wheeler." Leonardo carried a big sketchbook, and as he made plans for redoubts, he made notes to the effect that crows fly in flocks without a leader, and wild ducks have a system and fly V shape, with a leader that changes off from time to time with the privates. Also, a waterfall runs the musical gamut, and the water might be separated so as to play a tune. Also, the leaves turn to gold through oxidation, and robins pair for life. Leonardo also wrote at this time on the movements of the clouds, the broken strata of rocks, the fertilization of flowers, the habits of bees, and a hundred other themes which fill the library of notebooks that he left. Meanwhile, Cesare Borgia was getting a trifle impatient about the building of his forts. Two years had passed when Cesare and his father met with an accident not uncommon in those times. The precious pair had indulged in their Borgian specialty for the benefit of a certain cardinal, whom they did not warmly admire, though the plot seems to have been chiefly the work of Cesare. By mistake they drank the poisoned wine prepared for the cardinal, and the Pope was cut off amidst a life of usefulness, his son surviving for a worse fate. Pope Julius the Second coming upon the scene, speedily dispossessed the Borgias, and the idea of the new kingdom was abandoned. Leonardo evidently did not go into mourning for the Pope. He had a bullock-cart loaded with specimens, sketches and notebooks, and he set to work to sort them out. He was very happy in this employment-- being essentially a man of peace--and while he made forts and planned siege-guns he was a deal more interested in certain swallows that made nests and glued the work into a most curious and beautiful structure, and when the birds were old enough to fly, tore up the nest, pushing the wee birds out to "swim in the air" or perish. I made some notes about Leonardo's bird observations in the back of that "Renaissance" book that White Pigeon appropriated. I can not recall just what they were--I think I'll hunt White Pigeon up the next time I am in Paris, and get the book back. When that painstaking biographer, Arsene Houssaye, was endeavoring to fix the date of Leonardo da Vinci's birth, he interviewed a certain bishop, who waived the matter thus: "Surely what difference does it make, since he had no business to be born at all?"--a very Milesian-like reply. Houssaye is too sensible a man to waste words with the spiritually obese, and so merely answered in the language of Terence, "I am a man and nothing that is human is alien to me!" The gentle Erasmus when a boy was once taunted by a schoolfellow with having "no name." And Erasmus replied, "Then, I'll make one for myself." And he did. No record of Leonardo's birth exists, but the year is fixed upon in a very curious way. Caterina, his mother, was married one year after his birth. The date of this marriage is proven, and the fact that the son of Piero da Vinci was then a year old is also shown. As the marriage occurred in Fourteen Hundred Fifty-three, we simply go back one year and say that Leonardo da Vinci was born in Fourteen Hundred Fifty-two. Most accounts say that Caterina was a servant in the Da Vinci family, but a later and seemingly more authentic writer informs us that she was a governess and a teacher of needlework. That her kinsmen hastened her marriage with the peasant, Vacca Accattabriga, seems quite certain: they sought to establish her in a respectable position. And so she acquiesced, and avoided society's displeasure, very much as Lord Bacon escaped disgrace by leaving "Hamlet" upon Shakespeare's doorstep. This child of Caterina's found a warm welcome in the noble family of his father. From his babyhood he seems to have had the power of winning hearts--he came fresh from God and brought love with him. We even hear a little rustle of dissent from grandmother and aunts when his father, Piero da Vinci, married, and started housekeeping as did Benjamin Franklin "with a wife and a bouncing boy." The charm of the child is again revealed in the fact that his stepmother treated him as her own babe, and lavished her love upon him even from her very wedding morn. Perhaps the compliment should go to her, as well as to the child, for the woman whose heart goes out to another woman's babe is surely good quality. And this was the only taste of motherhood that this brave woman knew, for she passed out in a few months. Fate decreed that Leonardo should have successively four stepmothers, and should live with all of them in happiness and harmony, for he always made his father's house his own. Leonardo was the idol of his father and all these stepmothers. He had ten half-brothers, who alternately boasted of his kinship and flouted him. Yet nothing could seriously disturb the serenity of his mind. When his father died, without a will, the brothers sought to dispossess Leonardo of his rights, and we hear of a lawsuit, which was finally compromised. Yet note the magnanimity of Leonardo--in his will he leaves bequests to these brothers who had sought to undo him! Of the life of the mother after her marriage we know nothing. There is a vague reference in Vasari's book to her "large family and growing cares," but whether she knew of her son's career, we can not say. Leonardo never mentions her, yet one writer has attempted to show that the rare beauty of that mysterious face shown in so many of Leonardo's pictures was modeled from the face of his mother. No love-story comes to us in Leonardo's own life--he never married. Ventura suggests that "on account of his birth, he was indifferent to the divine institution of marriage." But this is pure conjecture. We know that his great contemporaries, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian and Giorgione, never married; and we know further that there was a sentiment in the air at that time, that an artist belonged to the Church, and his life, like that of the priest, was sacred to her service. Like Sir William Davenant, Leonardo was always proud of the mystery that surrounded his birth--it differentiated him from the mass, and placed him as one set apart. Well might he have used the language put into the mouth of Edmund in "King Lear." In one of Leonardo's manuscripts is found an interjected prayer of thankfulness for "the divinity of my birth, and the angels that have guarded my life and guided my feet" This idea of "divinity" is strong in the mind of every great man. He recognizes his sonship, and claims his divine parentage. The man of masterly mind is perforce an Egotist. When he speaks he says, "Thus saith the Lord." If he did not believe in himself, how could he make others believe in him? Small men are apologetic and give excuses for being on earth, and reasons for staying here so long, and run and peek about to find themselves dishonorable graves. Not so the Great Souls--the fact that they are here is proof that God sent them. Their actions are regal, their language oracular, their manner affirmative. Leonardo's mental attitude was sublimely gracious--he had no grievance or quarrel with his Maker--he accepted life, and ever found it good. "We are all sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be." Philip Gilbert Hamerton, who wrote "The Intellectual Life," names Leonardo da Vinci as having lived the richest, fullest and best- rounded life of which we know. Yet while Leonardo lived, there also lived Shakespeare, Loyola, Cervantes, Columbus, Martin Luther, Savonarola, Erasmus, Michelangelo, Titian and Raphael. Titans all-- giants in intellect and performance, doing and daring, and working such wonders as men never worked before: writing plays, without thought of posterity, that are today the mine from which men work their poetry; producing comedies that are classic; sailing trackless seas and discovering continents; tacking proclamations of defiance on church-doors; hunted and exiled for the right of honest speech; welcoming fierce flames of fagots; falling upon blocks of marble and liberating angels; painting pictures that have inspired millions! But not one touched life at so many points, or reveled so in existence, or was so captain of his soul as was Leonardo da Vinci. Vasari calls him the "divinely endowed," "showered with the richest gifts as by celestial munificence" and speaks of his countenance thus: "The radiance of his face was so splendidly beautiful that it brought cheerfulness to the hearts of the most melancholy, and his presence was such that his lightest word would move the most obstinate to say 'Yes' or 'No.'" Bandello, the story-teller who was made a Bishop on account of his peculiar talent, had the effrontery to put one of his worst stories, that about the adventures of Fra Lippo Lippi, into the mouth of Leonardo. This rough-cast tale, somewhat softened down and hand- polished, served for one of Browning's best-known poems. Had Bandello allowed Botticelli to tell the tale, it would have been much more in keeping. Leonardo's days were too full of work to permit of his indulging in the society of roysterers--his life was singularly dignified and upright. When about twenty years old Leonardo was a fellow-student with Perugino in the bottega of good old Andrea del Verrocchio. It seems the master painted a group and gave Leonardo the task of drawing in one figure. Leonardo painted in an angel--an angel whose grace and subtle beauty stand out, even today, like a ray of light. The story runs that good old Verrocchio wept on first seeing it--wept unselfish tears of joy, touched with a very human pathos--his pupil had far surpassed him, and never again did Verrocchio attempt to paint. In physical strength Leonardo surpassed all his comrades. "He could twist horseshoes between his fingers, bend bars of iron across his knees, disarm every adversary, and in wrestling, running, vaulting and swimming he had no equals. He was especially fond of horses, and in the joust often rode animals that had never before been ridden, winning prizes from the most daring." Brawn is usually purchased at the expense of brain, but not so in this case. Leonardo was the courtier and diplomat, and all the finer graces were in his keeping, even from boyhood. And a recent biographer has made the discovery that he was called from Florence to the Court of Milan "because he was such an adept harpist, playing and singing his own compositions." Yet we have the letter written by Leonardo to the Duke of Milan, wherein he commends himself, and in humility tells of a few things he can do. This most precious document is now in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. After naming nine items in the way of constructing bridges, tunnels, canals, fortifications, the making of cannon, use of combustibles and explosives--known to him alone--he gets down to things of peace and says: "I believe I am equaled by no one in architecture in constructing public and private buildings, and in conducting water from one place to another. I can execute sculpture, whether in marble, bronze or terra cotta, and in drawing and painting I believe I can do as much as any other man, be he who he may. Further, I could engage to execute the bronze statue in memory of your honored father. And again, if any of the above-mentioned things should appear impossible or overstated, I am ready to make such performance in any place or at any time to prove to you my power. In humility I thus commend myself to your illustrious house, and am your servant, Leonardo da Vinci." And the strange part of all this is that Leonardo could do all he claimed--or he might, if there were a hundred hours in a day and man did not grow old. The things he predicted and planned have mostly been done. He knew the earth was round, and understood the orbits of the planets-- Columbus knew no more. His scheme of building a canal from Pisa to Florence and diverting the waters of the Arno, was carried out exactly as he had planned, two hundred years after his death. He knew the expansive quality of steam, the right systems of dredging, the action of the tides, the proper use of levers, screws and cranes, and how immense weights could be raised and lowered. He placed a new foundation under a church that was sinking in the sand and elevated the whole stone structure several feet. But when Vasari seriously says he had a plan for moving mountains (aside from faith), I think we had better step aside and talk of other things. And all this time that he was working at physics and mathematics, he was painting and modeling in clay, just for recreation. Then behold the Duke of Milan, the ascetic and profligate, libertine and dreamer, hearing of him and sending straightway for Leonardo because he is "the most accomplished harpist in Italy"! So Leonardo came and led the dance and the tourney, improvised songs and planned the fetes and festivals where strange animals turned into birds and gigantic flowers opened, disclosing beautiful girls. Yet Leonardo found time to plan the equestrian statue of Francisco Sporza, the Duke's father, and finding the subject so interesting he took up the systematic study of the horse, and dived to the depths of horse anatomy in a way that no living man had done before. He dissected the horse, articulated the skeletons of different breeds for comparison, and then wrote a book upon the subject which is a textbook yet; and meanwhile he let the statue wait. He discovered that in the horse there are rudimentary muscles, and unused organs-- the "water-stomach" for instance--thus showing that the horse evolved from a lower form of life--anticipating Darwin by three hundred years. The Duke was interested in statues and pictures--what he called "results"--he didn't care for speculations or theories, and only a live horse that could run fast interested him. So to keep the peace, the gracious Leonardo painted portraits of the Duke's mistress, posing her as the Blessed Virgin, thus winning the royal favor and getting carte-blanche orders on the Keeper of the Exchequer. As a result of this Milan period we have the superb portrait, now in the Louvre, of Lucrezia Crivelli, who was supposed to be the favorite of the Duke. But the Duke was a married man, and the good wife must be placated. She had turned to religion when her lover's love grew cold, just as women always do; and for her Leonardo painted the "Last Supper" in the dining-room of the monastery which was under her especial protection, and where she often dined. The devout lady found much satisfaction in directing the work, which was to be rather general and simply decorative. But the heart of Leonardo warmed to the task and as he worked he planned the most famous painting in the world. All this time Leonardo had many pupils in painting and sculpture. Soon he founded the Milan Academy of Art. At odd times he made designs for the Duke's workers in silver and gold, drew patterns for the nuns to embroider from, and gave them and the assembled ladies, invited on the order of the Duke's wife, lessons in literature and the gentle art of writing poetry. The Prior of the monastery watched the work of the "Last Supper" with impatient eyes. He had given up the room to the lumbering scaffolds, hoping to have all cleaned up and tidy in a month, come Michaelmas. But the month had passed and only blotches of color and black, curious outlines marred the walls. Once the Prior threatened to remove the lumber by force and wipe the walls clean, but Leonardo looked at him and he retreated. Now he complained to the Duke about the slowness of the task. Leonardo worked alone, allowing no pupil or helper to touch the picture. Five good, lively men could do the job in a week--"I could do it myself, if allowed," the good Prior said. Often Leonardo would stand with folded arms and survey the work for an hour at a time and not lift a brush; the Prior had seen it all through the keyhole! The Duke listened patiently and then summoned Leonardo. The painter's gracious speech soon convinced the Duke that men of genius do not work like hired laborers. This painting was to be a masterpiece, fit monument to a wise and virtuous ruler. So consummate a performance must not be hastened; besides there was no one to pose for either the head of Christ or of Judas. The Christ must be ideal and the face could only be conjured forth from the painter's own soul, in moments of inspiration. As for Judas, "Why, if nothing better can be found--and I doubt it much--I believe I will take as model for Judas our friend the Prior!" And Leonardo turned to the Prior, who fled and never again showed his face in the room until the picture was finished. The Prior's complaint, that Leonardo had too many irons in the fire, was the universal cry the groundlings raised against him. "He begins things, but never completes them," they said. The man of genius conceives things; the man of talent carries them forward to completion. This the critics did not know. It is too much to expect the equal balance of genius and talent in one individual. Leonardo had great talent, but his genius outstripped it, for he planned what twenty lifetimes could not complete. He was indeed the endless experimenter--his was in very truth the Experimental Life. His incentive was self-development--to conceive was enough--common men could complete. To try many things means Power: to finish a few is Immortality. God's masterpiece is the human face. A woman's smile may have in it more sublimity than a sunset; more pathos than a battle-scarred landscape; more warmth than the sun's bright ray; more love than words can say. The human face is the masterpiece of God. The eyes reveal the soul, the mouth the flesh, the chin stands for purpose, the nose means will. But over and behind all is that fleeting Something we call "expression." This Something is not set or fixed, it is fluid as the ether, changeful as the clouds that move in mysterious majesty across the surface of a summer sky, subtle as the sob of rustling leaves--too faint at times for human ears--elusive as the ripples that play hide-and-seek over the bosom of a placid lake. And yet men have caught expression and held it captive. On the walls of the Louvre hangs the "Mona Lisa" of Leonardo da Vinci. This picture has been for four hundred years an exasperation and an inspiration to every portrait-painter who has put brush to palette. Well does Walter Pater call it, "The Despair of Painters." The artist was over fifty years of age when he began the work, and he was four years in completing the task. Completing, did I say? Leonardo's dying regret was that he had not completed this picture. And yet we might say of it, as Ruskin said of Turner's work, "By no conceivable stretch of imagination can we say where this picture could be bettered or improved upon." Leonardo did not paint this portrait for the woman who sat for it, nor for the woman's husband, who we know was not interested in the matter. The painter made the picture for himself, but succumbing to temptation, sold it to the King of France for a sum equal to something over eighty thousand dollars--an enormous amount at that time to be paid for a single canvas. The picture was not for sale, which accounts for the tremendous price that it brought. Unlike so many other works attributed to Leonardo, no doubt exists as to the authenticity of "La Gioconda." The correspondence relative to its sale yet exists, and even the voucher proving its payment may still be seen. Fate and fortune have guarded the "Mona Lisa"; and neither thief nor vandal, nor impious infidel nor unappreciative stupidity, nor time itself has done it harm. France bought the picture; France has always owned and housed it; it still belongs to France. We call the "Mona Lisa" a portrait, and we have been told how La Gioconda sat for the picture, and how the artist invented ways of amusing her, by stories, recitations, the luring strain of hidden lutes, and strange flowers and rare pictures brought in as surprises to animate and cheer. That Leonardo loved this woman we are sure, and that their friendship was close and intimate the world has guessed; but the picture is not her portrait--it is himself whom the artist reveals. Away back in his youth, when Leonardo was a student with Verrocchio, he gave us glimpses of this same face. He showed this woman's mysterious smile in the Madonna, in Saint Anne, Mary Magdalen, and the outlines of the features are suggested in the Christ and the Saint John of the "Last Supper." But not until La Gioconda had posed for him did the consummate beauty and mysterious intellect of this ideal countenance find expression. There is in the face all you can read into it, and nothing more. It gives you what you bring, and nothing else. It is as silent as the lips of Memnon, as voiceless as the Sphinx. It suggests to you every joy that you have ever felt, every sorrow you have ever known, every triumph you have ever experienced. This woman is beautiful, just as all life is beautiful when we are in health. She has no quarrel with the world--she loves and she is loved again. No vain longing fills her heart, no feverish unrest disturbs her dreams, for her no crouching fear haunts the passing hours--that ineffable smile which plays around her mouth says plainly that life is good. And yet the circles about the eyes and the drooping lids hint of world-weariness, and speak the message of Koheleth and say, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." La Gioconda is infinitely wise, for she has lived. That supreme poise is only possible to one who knows. All the experiences and emotions of manifold existence have etched and molded that form and face until the body has become the perfect instrument of the soul. Like every piece of intense personality, this picture has power both to repel and to attract. To this woman nothing is either necessarily good or bad. She has known strange woodland loves in far-off eons when the world was young. She is familiar with the nights and days of Cleopatra, for they were hers--the lavish luxury, the animalism of a soul on fire, the smoke of curious incense that brought poppy- like repose, the satiety that sickens--all these were her portion; the sting of the asp yet lingers in her memory, and the faint scar from its fangs is upon her white breast, known and wondered at by Leonardo who loved her. Back of her stretches her life, a mysterious, purple shadow. Do you not see the palaces turned to dust, the broken columns, the sunken treasures, the creeping mosses and the rank ooze of fretted waters that have undermined cities and turned kingdoms into desert seas? The galleys of Pagan Greece have swung wide for her on the unforgetting tide, for her soul dwelt in the body of Helen of Troy, and Pallas Athene has followed her ways and whispered to her the secrets even of the gods. Aye! not only was she Helen, but she was Leda, the mother of Helen. Then she was Saint Anne, mother of Mary; and next she was Mary, visited by an Angel in a dream, and followed by the Wise Men who had seen the Star in the East. The centuries, that are but thoughts, found her a Vestal Virgin in Pagan Rome when brutes were kings, and lust stalked rampant through the streets. She was the bride of Christ, and her fair, frail body was flung to the wild beasts, and torn limb from limb while the multitude feasted on the sight. True to the central impulse of her soul the Dark Ages rightly called her Cecilia, and then Saint Cecilia, mother of sacred music, and later she ministered to men as Melania, the Nun of Tagaste; next as that daughter of William the Conqueror, the Sister of Charity who went throughout Italy, Spain and France and taught the women of the nunneries how to sew, to weave, to embroider, to illuminate books, and make beauty, truth and harmony manifest to human eyes. And so this Lady of the Beautiful Hands stood to Leonardo as the embodiment of a perpetual life; moving in a constantly ascending scale, gathering wisdom, graciousness, love, even as he himself in this life met every experience halfway and counted it joy, knowing that experience is the germ of power. Life writes its history upon the face, so that all those who have had a like experience read and understand. The human face is the masterpiece of God. BOTTICELLI In Leonardo's "Treatise on Painting," only one contemporary is named--Sandro Botticelli.... The Pagan and Christian world mingle in the work of Botticelli; but the man himself belonged to an age that is past and gone--an age that flourished long before men recorded history. His best efforts seem to spring out of a heart that forgot all precedent, and arose, Venus-like, perfect and complete, from the unfathomable Sea of Existence. --_Walter Pater_ [Illustration: Botticelli] One Professor Max Lautner has recently placed a small petard under the European world of Art, and given it a hoist to starboard, by asserting that Rembrandt did not paint Rembrandt's best pictures. The Professor makes his point luminous by a cryptogram he has invented and for which he has filed a caveat. It is a very useful cryptogram; no well-regulated family should be without it--for by it you can prove any proposition you may make, even to establishing that Hopkinson Smith is America's only stylist. My opinion is that this cryptogram is an infringement on that of our lamented countryman, Ignatius Donnelly. But letting that pass, the statement that Rembrandt could not have painted the pictures that are ascribed to him, "because the man was low, vulgar and untaught," commands respect on account of the extreme crudity of the thought involved. Lautner is so dull that he is entertaining. "I have the capacity in me for every crime," wrote that gentlest of gentle men, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Of course he hadn't, and in making this assertion Emerson pulled toward him a little more credit than was his due. That is, he overstated a great classic truth. "If Rembrandt painted the 'Christ at Emmaus' and the 'Sortie of the Civic Guard,' then Rembrandt had two souls," exclaims Professor Lautner. And the simple answer of Emerson would have been, "He had." That is just the difference between Rembrandt and Professor Lautner. Lautner has one flat, dead-level, unprofitable soul that neither soars high nor dives deep; and his mind reasons unobjectionable things out syllogistically, in a manner perfectly inconsequential. He is icily regular, splendidly null. Every man measures others by himself--he has only one standard. When a man ridicules certain traits in other men, he ridicules himself. How would he know that other men were contemptible, did he not look into his own heart and there see the hateful things? Thackeray wrote his book on Snobs, because he was a Snob--which is not to say that he was a Snob all the time. When you recognize a thing, good or bad, in the outside world, it is because it was yours already. "I carry the world in my heart," said the Prophet of old. All the universe you have is the universe you have within. Old Walt Whitman, when he saw the wounded soldier, exclaimed, "I am that man!" And two thousand years before this, Terence said, "I am a man, and nothing that is human is alien to me." I know just why Professor Lautner believes that Rembrandt never could have painted a picture with a deep, tender, subtle and spiritual significance. Professor Lautner averages fairly well, he labors hard to be consistent, but his thought gamut runs just from Bottom the weaver to Dogberry the judge. He is a cauliflower--that is to say, a cabbage with a college education. Yes, I understand him, because for most of the time I myself am supremely dull, childishly dogmatic, beautifully self-complacent. I am Lautner. Lautner says that Rembrandt was "untaught," and Donnelly said the same of Shakespeare, and each critic gives this as a reason why the man could not have done a sublime performance. Yet since "Hamlet" was never equaled, who could have taught its author how? And since Rembrandt at his best was never surpassed, who could have instructed him? Rembrandt sold his wife's wedding-garments, and spent the money for strong drink. The woman was dead. And then there came to him days of anguish, and nights of grim, grinding pain. He paced the echoing halls, as did Robert Browning after the death of Elizabeth Barrett when he cried aloud, "I want her! I want her!". The cold gray light of morning came creeping into the sky. Rembrandt was fevered, restless, sleepless. He sat by the window and watched the day unfold. And as he sat there looking out to the east, the light of love gradually drove the darkness from his heart. He grew strangely calm--he listened, he thought he heard the rustle of a woman's garments; he caught the smell of her hair--he imagined Saskia was at his elbow. He took up the palette and brushes that for weeks had lain idle, and he outlined the "Christ at Emmaus"--the gentle, loving, sympathetic Christ--the worn, emaciated, thorn-crowned, bleeding Christ, whom the Pharisees misunderstood, and the soldiers spat upon. Don't you know how Rembrandt painted the "Christ at Emmaus"? I do. I am that man. Shortly after Sandro Botticelli had painted that distinctly pagan picture, "The Birth of Venus," he equalized matters, eased conscience and silenced the critics, by producing a beautiful Madonna, surrounded by a circle of singing angels. Yet George Eliot writes that there were wiseacres who shook their heads and said: "This Madonna is the work of some good monk--only a man who is deeply religious could put that look of exquisite tenderness and sympathy in a woman's face. Some one is trying to save Sandro's reputation, and win him back from his wayward ways." In the lives of Botticelli and Rembrandt there is a close similarity. In temperament as well as in experience they seem to parallel each other. In boyhood Botticelli and Rembrandt were dull, perverse, wilful. Both were given up by teachers and parents as hopelessly handicapped by stupidity. Botticelli's father, seeing that the boy made no progress at school, apprenticed him to a metalworker. The lad showed the esteem in which he held his parent by dropping the family name of Filipepi and assuming the name of Botticelli, the name of his employer. Rembrandt's father thought his boy might make a fair miller, but beyond this his ambition never soared. Botticelli and Rembrandt were splendid animals. The many pictures of Rembrandt, painted by himself, show great physical vigor and vital power. The picture of Botticelli, by himself, in the "Adoration of the Magi," reveals a powerful physique and a striking personality. The man is as fine as an Aztec, as strong and self-reliant as a cliff- dweller. Character and habit are revealed in the jaw--the teeth of the Aztecs were made to grind corn in the kernel, and as long as they continued grinding dried corn in the kernel, they had good teeth. Dentists were not required until men began to feed on mush. Botticelli had broad, strong, square jaws, wide nostrils, full lips, large eyes set wide apart, forehead rather low and sloping, and a columnar neck that rose right out of his spine. A man with such a neck can "stand punishment"--and give it. Such a neck is only seen once in a thousand times. Men with such necks have been mothered by women who bore burdens balanced on their heads, boycotted the corsetier, and eschewed all deadly French heels. Do you know the face of Oliver Goldsmith, the droop of the head, the receding chin and the bulging forehead? Well, Botticelli's face was the antithesis of this. Most of the truly great artists have been men of this Stone Age-- quality men who dared. Michelangelo was the pure type: Titian who lived a century (lacking one year) was another. Leonardo was the same fine savage (who in some miraculous way also possessed the grace of a courtier). Franz Hals, Van Dyck, Rembrandt and Botticelli were all men of fierce appetites and heroic physiques. They had animality plus that would have carried them across the century-mark, had they not drawn checks on futurity, in a belief that their bank- balance was unlimited. Botticelli and Rembrandt kept step in their history, both receiving instant recognition in early life and becoming rich. Then fashion and society turned against them--the tide of popularity began to ebb. One reinforced his genius with strong drink, and the other became intoxicated with religious enthusiasm. Finally, both begged alms in the public streets; and the bones of each filled a pauper's grave. Ruskin unearthed Botticelli (Just as he discovered Turner), and gave him to the Preraphaelites, who fell down and worshiped him. Whether we would have had Burne-Jones without Botticelli is a grave question, and anyway it would have been another Burne-Jones. There would have been no processions of tall, lissome, melancholy beauties wending their way to nowhere, were it not for the "Spring." Ruskin held up the picture, and the Preraphaelites got them to their easels. At once all original "Botticellis" were gotten out, "restored" and reframed. The prices doubled, trebled, quadrupled, as the brokers scoured Europe. By the year Eighteen Hundred Eighty-six every "Botticelli" had found a home in some public institution or gallery, and no lure of gold could bring one forth. At Yale University there is a modest collection of good pictures. Among them is a "Botticelli": not a great picture like the "Crowned Madonna" of the Uffizi, or "The Nativity" of the National Gallery, but still a picture painted by Sandro Botticelli, beyond a doubt. Recently, J. Pierpont Morgan, alumnus of Harvard, conceived the idea that the "Botticelli" at Yale would look quite as well and be safer if it were hung on the walls of the new granite fireproof Art- Gallery at Cambridge. Accordingly, he dispatched an agent to New Haven to buy the "Botticelli." The agent offered fifty thousand dollars, seventy-five, one hundred--no. Then he proposed to build Yale a new art-gallery and stock it with Pan-American pictures, all complete, in exchange for that little, insignificant and faded "Botticelli.". But no trade was consummated, and on the walls of Yale the picture still hangs. Each night a cot is carried in and placed beneath the picture. And there a watchman sleeps and dreams of that portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire by Gainsborough, stolen from its frame, lost for a quarter of a century, and then rescued by one Colonel Patrick Sheedy (philanthropist and friend of art), for a consideration, and sold to J. Pierpont Morgan, alumnus of Harvard (and a very alert, alive and active man). A short time ago, there shot across the artistic firmament a comet of daring and dazzling brightness. Every comet is hurling onward to its death: destruction is its only end: and upon each line and tracery of the work of Aubrey Beardsley is the taint of decay. To deny the genius of the man were vain--he had elements in his character that made him akin to Keats, Shelley, Burns, Byron, Chopin and Stephen Crane. With these his name will in brotherhood be forever linked. He was one made to suffer, sin and die--a few short summers, and autumn came with yellow leaves and he was gone. And the principal legacy he left us is the thought of wonder as to what he might have been had he only lived! Aubrey Beardsley's art was the art of the ugly. His countenances are so repulsive that they attract. The psychology of the looks, and leers, and grins, and hot, hectic desires on the faces of his women is a puzzle that we can not lay aside--we want to solve the riddle of this paradox of existence--the woman whose soul is mire and whose heart is hell. Many men have tried to fathom it at close range, but we devise a safer plan and follow the trail in books, art and imagination. Art shows you the thing you might have done or been. Burke says the ugly attracts us, because we congratulate ourselves that we are not it. The Madonna pictures, multiplied without end, stand for peace, faith, hope, trustfulness and love. All that is fairest, holiest, purest, noblest, best, men have tried to portray in the face of the Madonna. All the good that is in the hearts of all the good women they know, all the good that is in their own hearts, they have made to shine forth from the "Mother of God." Woman has been the symbol of righteousness and faith. On the other hand, it was a woman--Louise de la Ramee--who said, "Woman is the instrument of lust." Saint Chrysostom wrote, "She is the snare the Devil uses to lure men to their doom." I am not quite ready to accept the dictum of that old, old story that it was the woman who collaborated with the serpent and first introduced sin and sorrow into the world. Or, should I believe this, I wish to give woman due credit for giving to man the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge--the best gift that ever came his way. But the first thought holds true in a poetic way: it has always been, is yet, and always will be true, that the very depths of degradation are sounded only by woman. As poets, painters and sculptors have ever chosen a woman to stand for what is best in humanity, so she has posed as their model when they wanted to reveal the worst. This desire to depict villainy on a human face seems to have found its highest modern exponent in Aubrey Beardsley. With him man is an animal, and woman a beast. Aye, she is worse than a beast--she is a vampire. Kipling's summing up of woman as "a rag and a bone and a hank of hair" gives no clue to the possibilities in way of subtle, reckless reaches of deviltry compared with a single, simple, outline drawing by Beardsley. Beardsley's heroines are the kind of women who can kill a man with a million pin-pricks, so diabolically, subtly and slyly administered that no one but the victim would be aware of the martyrdom--and he could not explain it. As you enter the main gallery of statuary at the Luxembourg, you will see, on a slightly raised platform, at the opposite end of the room, the nude figure of a man. The mold is heroic, and the strong pose at once attracts your attention. As you approach closer you will see, standing behind the man, the figure of a woman. Her form is elevated so she is leaning over him and her face is turned so her lips are about to be pressed upon his. You approach still closer, and a feeling of horror flashes through you--you see that the beautiful arms of the woman end in hairy claws. The claws embrace the man in deadly grasp, and are digging deep into his vitals. On his face is a look of fearful pain, and every splendid muscle is tense with awful agony. Now, if you do as I did, you will suddenly turn and go out into the fresh air--the fearful realism of the marble will for the moment unnerve you. This is the piece of statuary that gave Philip Burne-Jones the cue for his painting, "The Vampire," which picture suggested the poem, by the same name, to Rudyard Kipling. Aubrey Beardsley gloated on the Vampire--she was the sole goddess of his idolatry. No wonder it was that the story of Salome attracted him! Salome was a woman so wantonly depraved that Beardsley, with a touch of pious hypocrisy, said he dared not use her for dramatic purposes, save for the fact that she was a Bible character. You remember the story: John the Baptist, the strong, fine youth, came up out of the wilderness crying in the streets of Jerusalem, "Repent ye! Repent ye!" Salome heard the call and looked upon the semi-naked young fanatic from her window, with half-closed, catlike eyes. She smiled, did this idle creature of luxury, as she lay there amid the cushions on her couch, arid gazed through the casement upon the preacher in the street. Suddenly a thought came to her! She arose on her elbow--she called her slaves. They clothed her in a gaudy gown, dressed her hair, and led her forth. Salome followed the wild, weird, religious enthusiast. She pushed through the crowd and placed herself near the man, so the smell of her body would reach his nostrils, and his eyes would range the swelling lines of her body. Their eyes met. She half-smiled and gave him that look which had snared the soul of many another. But he only gazed at her with passionless, judging intensity, and repeated his cry, "Repent ye, Repent ye, for the day is at hand!" Her reply, uttered soft and low, was this: "I would kiss thy lips!" He turned away and she reached to seize his garment, repeating, "I would kiss thy lips--I would kiss thy lips!" He turned aside and forgot her, as he continued his warning cry, and went his way. The next day she waylaid the youth again; as he came near she suddenly and softly stepped forth and said in that same low voice, "I would kiss thy lips!" He repulsed her with scorn. She threw her arms about him and sought to draw his head down near hers. He pushed her from him with sinewy hands, sprang as from a pestilence, and was lost in the pressing throng. That night she danced before Herod Antipas, and when the promise was recalled that she should have anything she wished, she named the head of the only man who had ever turned away from her--"The head of John the Baptist on a charger!" In an hour the wish is gratified. Two eunuchs stand before Salome with a silver tray bearing its fearsome burden. The woman smiles--a smile of triumph--as she steps forth with tinkling feet. A look of pride comes over the painted face. Her jeweled fingers reach into the blood-matted hair. She lifts the head aloft, and the bracelets on her brown, bare arms fall to her shoulders, making strange music. Her face presses the face of the dead. In exultation she exclaims, "I have kissed thy lips!" The most famous picture by Botticelli is the "Spring," now in the Academy at Florence. The picture has given rise to endless inquiry, and the explanation was made in the artist's day, and is still made, that it was painted to illustrate a certain passage in Lucretius. This innocent little subterfuge of giving a classic turn to things in art and literature has allowed many a man to shield his reputation and gloss his good name. When Art relied upon the protecting wing of the Church, the poet-painters called their risky little things, "Susannah and the Elders," "The Wife of Uriah," or "Pharaoh's Daughter." Lucas van Leyden once pictured a Dutch wench with such startling and realistic fidelity that he scandalized a whole community, until he labeled the picture, "Potiphar's Wife." When the taste for the classics began to be cultivated, we had "Leda and the Swan," "Psyche," "Phryne Before the Judges," "Aphrodite Rising From the Sea," and, later, England experienced quite an artistic eruption of Lady Godivas. Literature is filled with many such naive little disguises as "Sonnets From the Portuguese," and Robert Browning himself caught the idea and put many a maxim into the mouth of another, for which he preferred not to stand sponsor. Botticelli painted the "Spring" for Lorenzo the Magnificent, to be placed in the Medici villa at Castello. The picture, it will be remembered, represents seven female figures, a flying cupid, and a youth. The youth is a young man of splendid proportions; he stands in calm indifference with his back to the sparsely clad beauties, and reaches into the branches of a tree for the plenteous fruit. This youth is a composite portrait of Botticelli and his benefactor, Lorenzo. The women were painted from life, and represent various favorites and beauties of the court. The drawing is faulty, the center of gravity being lost in several of the figures, and the anatomy is of a quality that must have given a severe shock to the artist's friend, Leonardo. Yet the grace, the movement and the joyous quality of Spring are in it all. It is a most fascinating picture, and we can well imagine the flutter it produced when first exhibited four hundred years ago. Two figures in the picture challenge attention. One of these represents approaching maternity--a most daring thing to attempt. This feature seems to belong to the School of Hogarth alone--a school which, let us pray, is hopelessly dead. Cimabue and several of his pupils painted realistic pictures representing Mary visiting Elizabeth, but the intense religious zeal back of them was a salt that saved from offending. Occasionally, the staid and sober Dutch successfully attempted the same theme, and their stolidity stood for them as religious zeal had done for the early Italians--we pardon them simply because they knew no better than to choose a subject that is beyond the realm of art. The restorers and engravers have softened down Botticelli's intent, which was originally well defined, but we can easily see that the effect was delicate and spiritual. The woman's downcast gaze is full of tenderness and truth. That figure when it was painted was history, and must have had a very tender interest for two persons at least. Had the painter dared to suggest motherhood in that other figure--the one with the flowered raiment--he would have offended against decency, and the art-sense of the world would have stricken his name from the roster of fame forever, and made him anathema. More has been written and said, and more copies made of that woman in the flowered dress in the "Spring" than of any other portrait I can remember, save possibly the "Mona Lisa." The face is not without a certain attractiveness; the high cheek- bones, the narrow forehead, and the lines above her brow show that this is no ideal sketch--it is the portrait of a woman who once lived. But the peculiar mark of depravity is the eye: this woman looks at you with a cold, calm, calculating, brazen leer. Hidden in the folds of her dress or in the coil of her hair is a stiletto--she can find it in an instant--and as she looks at you out of those impudent eyes, she is mentally searching out your most vulnerable spot. In this woman's face there is an entire absence of wonder, curiosity, modesty or passion. All that we call the eternally feminine is obliterated. "Mona Lisa" is infinitely wise, while this woman is only cunning. All the lure she possesses is the lure of warm, pulsing youth--grown old she will be a repulsive hag. Speculation has made her one of the Borgias, for in the days of Botticelli a Borgia was Pope, and Cesare Borgia and his court were well known to Botticelli--from such a group he could have picked his model, if anywhere. Ruskin has linked this unknown wicked beauty with Machiavelli. But Machiavelli had a head that outmatched hers, and he would certainly have left her to the fool moths that fluttered around her candle. Machiavelli used women, and this woman has only one ambition, and that is to use men. She represents concrete selfishness--the mother-instinct swallowed up in pride, and conscience smothered by hate. Certainly sex is not dead in her, but it is perverted below the brute. Her passion would be so intense and fierce that even as she caressed her lover, with arm about his neck, she would feel softly for his jugular, mindful the while of the stiletto hidden in her hair. And this is the picture that fired the brain of Aubrey Beardsley, and caused him to fix his ambition on becoming the Apostle of the Ugly. To liken Beardsley to Botticelli, however, seems indeed a sin. The master was an artist, but Beardsley only gave chalk talks. His work is often crude, rude and raw. He is only a promise, turned to dust. Yet let the simple fact stand for what it is worth, that Beardsley had but one god, and that was Botticelli. Most of the things Beardsley did were ugly; many of the things Botticelli did were supremely beautiful. Yet in all of Botticelli's work there is a tinge of melancholy--a shade of disappointment. The "Spring" is a sad picture. On the faces of all his tall, fine, graceful girls there is a hectic flush. Their cheeks are hollow, and you feel that their beauty is already beginning to fade. Like fruit too much loved by the sun, they are ready to fall. Botticelli had the true love nature. By instinct he was a lover, proof of which lies in the fact that he was deeply religious. The woman he loved he has pictured over and over again. The touch of sorrow is ever in her wan face, but she possessed a silken strength, a heroic nature, a love that knew no turning. She had faith in Botticelli, and surely he had faith in her. For forty years she was in his heart; at times he tried to dislodge her and replace her image with another; but he never succeeded, and the last Madonna he drew is the same wistful, loving, patient face--sad yet proud, strong yet infinitely tender. In that piece of lapidary work, "How Sandro Botticelli Saw Simonetta in the Spring," is a bit of heart psychology which, I believe, has never been surpassed in English. Simonetta, of the noble house of Vespucci, was betrothed to Giuliano, brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Simonetta was tall, stately--beautiful as Venus, wise as Minerva and proud as Juno. She knew her worth, realized her beauty, and feeling her power made others feel it, too. On a visit to the villa of the Medici at Fiesole she first saw Sandro Botticelli at an evening assembly in the gardens. She had heard of the man and knew his genius. When they suddenly met face to face under the boughs, she noted how her beauty startled him. His gaze ranged the exquisite lines of her tall form, then sought the burnished gold of her hair. Their eyes met. First of all this man was an artist: the art-instinct in him was supreme: after that he was a lover. Simonetta saw he had looked upon her merely as a "subject." She was both pleased and angry. She, too, loved art, but she loved love more. She was a woman. They separated, and Simonetta inwardly compared the sallow, slavish scion of a proud name, to whom she was betrothed, with this God's Nobleman whom she had just met. Giuliano's words were full of soft flattery; this man uttered an oath of surprise under his breath, on first seeing her, and treated her almost with rudeness. She fought the battle out there, alone, leaning against a tree, listening to the monotonous voice of a poet who was reading from Plato. She felt the disinterested greatness of Sandro, she knew the grandeur of his intellect--she was filled with a desire to be of service to him. Certainly she did not love him--a social abyss separated them--but could not her beauty and power in some way be allied with his, so that the world should be made better? "Shame is of the brute dullard who thinks shame," came the resonant voice of the reader. The words rang in her ears. Sandro was greater than the mere flesh--she would be, too. She would pose for him, and thus give her beautiful body to the world--beauty is eternal! Her action would bless and benefit the centuries yet to come. She was the most beautiful of women--he the greatest of artists. It was an opportunity sent from the gods! Instantly she half-ran, seeking the painter. She found him standing apart, alone. She spoke eagerly and hotly, fearing her courage would falter before she could make known her wish: "Ecco, Messer Sandro," she whispered, casting a furtive look about--"who is there in Florence like me?" "There is no one," calmly answered Sandro. "I will be your Lady Venus," she went on breathlessly, stepping closer--"You shall paint me rising from the sea!" Very early the next morning, before the household was astir, Sandro entered the apartments of the lady Simonetta. She was awaiting him, leaning with feigned carelessness against the balustrade, arrayed from head to toe in a rose-colored mantle. One bare foot peeped forth from under the folds of the robe. Neither spoke a word. Sandro arranged his easel, spread his crayons on the table, and looked about the room making calculations as to light. He motioned her to a certain spot. She took the position, and as he picked up a crayon and examined it carelessly she raised her arms and the robe fell at her feet. Sandro faced her, and saw the tall, delicate form, palpitating before him. The rays of the morning sun swept in between the lattices and kissed her shoulder, face and hair. For an instant the artist was in abeyance. Then from under his breath he exclaimed: "Holy Virgin! what a line! Stay as you are, I implore you--swerve not a hair's breadth, and soon you shall be mine forever!" The pencil broke under his impetuous stroke. He seized another and worked at headlong speed. The woman watched him with eyes dilated. She was agitated, and the pink of her fair skin came and went. Her face grew pale, and she swayed like a reed. All the time she watched the artist, fearfully. She was at his mercy! Ah God! he was only an artist with the biggest mouth in all Florence! She noted how he tossed the hair from his eyes every moment. She saw the heavy jaw, the great, broad-spreading feet, the powerful chest. His smothered exclamations as he worked filled her with scorn. What had she done? Who was she, anyway, that she should thus bare her beauty before such a creature? He had not even spoken to her! Was she only a thing? She grew deadly pale and reeled as she stood there. Two big tears chased each other down her cheeks. The painter looking up saw other tears glistening on her lashes. He noted her distress. He dropped his crayon and made a motion as if to advance to her relief. A few moments before and he might have folded her mantle about her and assisted her to a seat--then they would have talked, reassured each other, and been mutually understood. To be understood--to be appreciated--that is it! It was too late, now--she hated him. As he advanced she recovered herself. She pointed her finger to the door, and bade him begone. Hastily he huddled his belongings into a parcel, and without looking up, passed out of the door. She heard his steps echoing down the stairway, and soon from out the lattice she saw him walk across the court and disappear. He did not look up! She threw herself upon her couch, buried her face in the pillows and burst into tears. In one short week word came to Sandro that Simonetta was dead--a mysterious quick fever of some kind--she had refused all food--the doctors could not understand it--the fever had just burned her life out! Let Maurice Hewlett tell the rest: "They carried dead Simonetta through the streets of Florence, with her pale face uncovered and a crown of myrtle in her hair. People thronging there held their breath, or wept to see such still loveliness; and her poor parted lips wore a patient little smile, and her eyelids were pale violet and lay heavy on her cheek. White, like a bride, with a nosegay of orange-blossoms, and syringa at her throat, she lay there on her bed, with lightly folded hands and the strange aloofness and preoccupation all the dead have. Only her hair burned about her like molten copper. "The great procession swept forward; black brothers of Misericordia, shrouded and awful, bore the bed or stalked before it with torches that guttered and flared sootily in the dancing light of day. "Santa Croce, the great church, stretched forward beyond her into the distances of gray mist and cold spaces of light. Its bare vastness was damp like a vault. And she lay in the midst listless, heavy-lidded, apart, with the half-smile, as it seemed, of some secret mirth. Round her the great candles smoked and flickered, and mass was sung at the High Altar for her soul's repose. Sandro stood alone, facing the shining altar, but looking fixedly at Simonetta on her couch. He was white and dry--parched lips and eyes that ached and smarted. Was this the end? Was it possible, my God! that the transparent, unearthly thing lying there so prone and pale was dead? Had such loveliness aught to do with life or death? Ah! sweet lady, dear heart, how tired she was, how deadly tired! From where he stood he could see with intolerable anguish the somber rings around her eyes and the violet shadows on the lids, her folded hands and the straight, meek line to the feet. And her poor wan face with its wistful, pitiful little smile was turned half-aside on the delicate throat, as if in a last appeal: Leave me now, O Florentines, to my rest. Poor child! Poor child! Sandro was on his knees with his face pressed against the pulpit and tears running through his fingers as he prayed. "As he had seen her, so he painted. As at the beginning of life in a cold world, passively meeting the long trouble of it, he painted her a rapt Presence floating evenly to our earth. A gray, translucent sea laps silently upon a little creek, and in the hush of a still dawn the myrtles and sedges on the water's brim are quiet. It is a dream in halftones that he gives us, gray and green and steely blue; and just that, and some homely magic of his own, hint the commerce of another world with man's discarded domain. Men and women are asleep, and as in an early walk you may startle the hares at their play, or see the creatures of the darkness--owls and night-hawks and heavy moths--flit with fantastic purpose over the familiar scene, so here it comes upon you suddenly that you have surprised Nature's self at her mysteries; you are let into the secret; you have caught the spirit of the April woodland as she glides over the pasture to the copse. And that, indeed, was Sandro's fortune. He caught her in just such a propitious hour. He saw the sweet wild thing, pure and undefiled by touch of earth; caught her in that pregnant pause of time ere she had lighted. Another moment and a buxom nymph of the grove would fold her in a rosy mantle, colored as the earliest wood- anemones are. She would vanish, we know, into the daffodils or a bank of violets. And you might tell her presence there, or in the rustle of the myrtles, or coo of doves mating in the pines; you might feel her genius in the scent of the earth or the kiss of the west wind; but you could only see her in mid-April, and you should look for her over the sea. She always comes with the first warmth of the year. But daily, before he painted, Sandro knelt in a dark chapel in Santa Croce, while a priest said mass for the repose of Simonetta's soul." George Eliot gives many a side-glimpse of the art life of Florence in the days of the luxury-loving Medici. She saturated herself in Italian literature and history; and the days of Fra Angelico, Fra Lippo Lippi and Fra Girolamo Savonarola are bodied forth from lines deeply etched upon her heart. When you go to Florence carry "Romola" in your side-pocket, just as you take the "Marble Faun" to Rome. "Romola" will certainly make history live again and pass before your gaze. The story is unmistakably high art, for from the opening lines of the proem you hear the slow, measured wing of death; and after you have read the volume, forever, for you, will the smoke of martyr-fires hover about the Piazza Signoria, and from the gates of San Marco you will see emerge that little man in black robe and cowl--that homely, repulsive man with the curved nose, the protruding lower lip, the dark, leathery skin--that man who lured and fascinated by his poise and power, whose words were whips of scorpions that stung his enemies until they had to silence him with a rope; and as a warning to those whom he had hypnotized, they burned his swart, shrunken body in the public square, just as he had burned their books and pictures. Sandro Botticelli, the painter, who made sensuality beautiful, ugliness seductive, and the sin-stained soul attractive, renounced all and followed the Monk of San Marco--sensuality and asceticism at the last are one. When the procession headed for the Piazza Signoria, where the fagots were piled high, Sandro stood afar off and his heart was wrung in anguish, as he saw the glare of the flames gild the eastern sky. And this anguish was not for the friends who had perished--no, no, it was for himself; the thought that he was unworthy of martyrdom filled his mind--he had fallen at the critical moment. Basely and cravenly he had saved himself. By saving all he lost all. To lose one's self-respect is the only calamity. Sandro Botticelli had failed to win the approval of his Other Self--and this is defeat, and there is none other. He might have sent his soul to God on the wings of victory, in glorious company, but now it was too late--too late! From this time forth he ceased to live--he merely existed. Into his soul there occasionally shot gleams of sunshine, but his nerveless hands refused to do the bidding of his brain. He stood on crutches, hat in hand, at church-doors, and asked for alms. Sometimes he would make bold to tell people of wonderful pictures within, over the altar or upon the walls; and he would say that they were his, and then his hearers would laugh aloud, and ask him to repeat his words, that others, too, might laugh. Thus dwindled the passing days; and for him who had painted the "Spring" there came the chilling neglect of Winter, until Death in mercy laid an icy hand upon him, and he was still. THORSWALDSEN See the hovering ships on the wharves! The Dannebrog waves, the workmen sit in circle under the shade at their frugal breakfasts; but foremost stands the principal figure in this picture; it is a boy who cuts with a bold hand the lifelike features in the wooden image for the beakhead of the vessel. It is the ship's guardian spirit, and, as the first image from the hand of Albert Thorwaldsen, it shall wander out into the wide world. The swelling sea shall baptize it with its waters, and hang its wreaths of wet plants around it; nor night, nor storm, nor icebergs, nor sunken rocks shall lure it to its death, for the Good Angel that guards the boy shall, too, guard the ship upon which with mallet and chisel he has set his mark. --_Hans Christian Andersen_ [Illustration: Thorwaldsen] The real businesslike biographer begins by telling when his subject "first saw the light"--by which he means when the man was born. In this instance we will go a bit further back and make note of the interesting fact that Thorwaldsen was descended from an ancestor who had the rare fortune to be born in Rhode Island, in the year Ten Hundred Seven. Wiggling, jiggling, piggling individuals with quibbling proclivities, and an incapacity for distinguishing between fact and truth, may maintain that there was no Rhode Island in the year Ten Hundred Seven. Emerson has written, "Nothing is of less importance on account of its being small." And so I maintain that, in the year Ten Hundred Seven, Rhode Island was just where it is now, and the Cosmos quite as important. Let Pawtucket protest and Providence bite the thumb--no retraction will be made! About the year Eighteen Hundred Fifteen the Secretary of the Rhode Island Historical Society wrote Thorwaldsen, informing him that he had been elected an honorary member of the Society, on account of his being the only known living descendant of the first European born in America. Thorwaldsen replied, expressing his great delight in the honor conferred, and touched feelingly on the fact that while he had been elected to membership in various societies in consideration of what he had done, this was the first honor that had come his way on account of his ancestry. To a friend he said, "How would we ever know who we are, or where we come from, were it not for the genealogical savants!" In a book called "American Antiquities," now in the Library at Harvard College, and I suppose accessible in various other libraries, there is a genealogical table tracing the ancestry of Thorwaldsen. It seems that, in the year Ten Hundred Six, one Thorfinne, an Icelandic whaler, commanded a ship which traversed the broad Atlantic, and skirted the coast of New England. Thorfinne wintered his craft in one of the little bays of Rhode Island, and spent the Winter at Mount Hope, where the marks of his habitat endure even unto this day. The statement to the effect that when the Indians saw the ships of Columbus, they cried out, "Alas, we are discovered!" goes back to a much earlier period, like many another of Mark Twain's gladsome scintillations. So little did Thorfinne and his hardy comrades think of crossing the Atlantic in search of adventure, that they used to take their families along, as though it were a picnic. And so Fate ordered that Gudrid, the good wife of Thorfinne, should give birth to a son, there at Mount Hope, Rhode Island, in the year Ten Hundred Seven. And they called the baby boy Snome. And to Snome, the American, the pedigree of Thorwaldsen traces. In a lecture on the Icelandic Sagas, I once heard William Morris say that all really respectable Icelanders traced their genealogy to a king, and many of them to a god. Thorwaldsen did both--first to Harold Hildestand, King of Denmark, and then, with the help of several kind old gran'mamas, to the god Thor. His love for mythology was an atavism. In childhood the good old aunties used to tell him how the god Thor once trod the earth and shattered the mountains with his hammer. From Thor and the World his first ancestor was born, so the family name was Thor-vald. The appendix "sen," or son, means that the man was the son of Thor-vald; and in some way the name got ossified, like the name Robinson, Parkinson, Peterson or Albertson, and then it was Thorwaldsen. Men who are strong in their own natures are very apt to smile at the good folk who chase the genealogical aniseed trail--it is a harmless diversion with no game at the end of the route. And on the other hand, all men, like Thorwaldsen, who teach cosmic consciousness, recognize their Divine Sonship. Such men feel that their footsteps are mortised and tenoned in granite; and the Power that holds the worlds in space and guides the wheeling planets, also prompts their thoughts and directs their devious way. They know that they are a necessary part of the Whole. Small men are provincial, mediocre men are cosmopolitan, but the great souls are Universal. Two islands, one city and the open sea claim the honor of being the birthplace of Bertel Thorwaldsen. The date of his birth ranges, according to the authorities, from Seventeen Hundred Seventy to Seventeen Hundred Seventy-three--take your choice. His father was an Icelander who had worked his passage down to Copenhagen and had found his stint as a wood-carver in a shipyard where it was his duty to carve out wonderful figureheads, after designs made by others. Gottschalk Thorwaldsen never thought to improve on a model, or change it in any way, or to model a figurehead himself. The cold of the North had chilled any ambition that was in his veins. Goodsooth! Such work as designing figureheads was only for those who had been to college, and who could read and write! So he worked away, day after day, and with the help of the goodwife's foresight and economy, managed to keep out of debt, pay his tithes at church and lead a decent life. Little Bertel used to remember when, like the Peggottys, they lived in an abandoned canal-boat that had been tossed up on the beach. Bertel carried chips and shavings from the shipyard for fuel, and piled them against the "house." One night the tide came up in a very unexpected manner and carried the chips away, for the sea is so very hungry that it is always sending the tide in to shore after things. It was quite a loss for the poor wood-carver and his wife to have all their winter fuel carried away; so they cuffed little Bertel soundly (for his own good) for not piling the chips up on the deck of the boat, instead of leaving them on the shifting sand. This was the first great cross that came to Bertel. He had a few others afterwards, but he never forgot the night of anguish and the feeling of guilt that followed the losing of the shavings and chips. Some weeks after, another high tide came sweeping in, and lapped and sniffed and sighed around the canal-boat as if it were trying to tug it loose and carry the old craft and all the family out to sea. Little Bertel hoped the tide would fetch it, for it would be kind o' nice to get clear out away from everybody and everything--where there were no chips to pick up. His mother could supply a quilt for a mainsail and he would use his shirt for a jib, and they would steer straight for America--or somewhere. But lest the dream should come true, Gottschalk and his wife talked the matter over and concluded to abandon the boat, before it got sunk into the sand quite out of sight. So the family moved into a little house on an alley, half a mile away from the shipyard--it was an awful long way to carry chips. The second calamity that came into the life of little Bertel was when he was eight years old. He and several companions were playing about the King's Market, where there was an equestrian statue of Charles the Twelfth. The boys climbed up on to the pedestal, cut various capers there, and finally they challenged Bertel to mount the horse behind the noble rider. By dint of much boosting from several boys older than himself, he was at last perched on the horse. Then his companions made hot haste to run away and leave him in his perilous position. Just then, as unkind Fate would have it, a pair of gendarmes came along on the lookout for anything that might savor of sedition, contumacy or contravention. They found it in little Bertel clutching tearfully to the royal person of Charles the Twelfth, twelve feet above the ground. Quickly they rushed the lad off to the police- station, between them, each with a firm grip upon his collar. Victor Hugo once said, "The minions of the law go stolidly after vice, and not finding it, they stolidly take virtue instead." Besides an awful warning "never to do this thing again," from a judge in a ferocious wig, the boy got a flogging at home (for his own good), although his father first explained that it was a very painful duty to himself to be obliged to punish his son. The son volunteered to excuse his father, and this brought the youngster ten extra lashes for being so smart. Long years after, at Rome, Thorwaldsen told the story to Hans Christian Andersen about being caught astride the great bronze horse at Copenhagen, and of the awful reprimand of the judge bewigged. "And honestly now: I'll never tell," said Andersen with a sly twinkle in his blue eyes--"did you ever repeat the offense?" "Since you promise not to divulge it, I'll confess that forty-three years after my crime of mounting that horse, I had occasion to cross King's Market Square at midnight. I had been out to a little social gathering, and was on my way home alone. I saw the great horse and rider gleaming in the pale moonlight. I recalled vividly how I had occupied that elevated perch and been hauled down by the scandalized and indignant officers. I remembered the warning of the judge as to what would happen if I ever did it again. Hastily I removed my coat and hat and clambered up on the pedestal. I seized a leg of the royal person, and swung up behind. For five minutes I sat there mentally defying the State, and saying unspeakable things about all gendarmes and Copenhagen gendarmes in particular." I have a profound respect for boys. Grimy, ragged, tousled boys in the street often attract me strangely. A boy is a man in the cocoon --you do not know what it is going to become--his life is big with possibilities. He may make or unmake kings, change boundary-lines between States, write books that will mold characters, or invent machines that will revolutionize the commerce of the world. Every man was a boy--I trust I shall not be contradicted--it is really so. Wouldn't you like to turn Time backward, and see Abraham Lincoln at twelve, when he had never worn a pair of boots?--the lank, lean, yellow, hungry boy--hungry for love, for learning, tramping off through the woods for twenty miles to borrow a book, and spelling it out crouching before the glare of the burning logs. Then there was that Corsican boy, one of a goodly brood, who weighed only fifty pounds when ten years old; who was thin and pale and perverse, and had tantrums, and had to be sent supperless to bed, or locked in a dark closet because he wouldn't "mind"! Who would have thought that he would have mastered every phase of warfare at twenty-six, and when told that the Exchequer of France was in dire confusion, would say: "The finances? I will arrange them!" Distinctly and vividly I remember a squat, freckled boy who was born in the "Patch" and used to pick up coal along the railroad-tracks in Buffalo. A few months ago I had a motion to make before the Court of Appeals. That boy from the "Patch" was the judge who wrote the opinion, granting my petition. Yesterday I rode horseback past a field where a boy was plowing. The lad's hair stuck out through the top of his hat; one suspender held his trousers in place; his form was bony and awkward; his bare legs and arms were brown and sunburned and briar-scratched. He swung his horses around just as I passed by, and from under the flapping brim of his hat he cast a quick glance out of dark, half-bashful eyes, and modestly returned my salute. When his back was turned I took off my hat and sent a God-bless-you down the furrow after him. Who knows?--I may go to that boy to borrow money or to hear him preach, or to beg him to defend me in a lawsuit; or he may stand with pulse unhastened, bare of arm, in white apron, ready to do his duty, while the cone is placed over my face, and Night and Death come creeping into my veins. Be patient with the boys--you are dealing with soul-stuff--Destiny awaits just around the corner. Be patient with the boys! Bertel Thorwaldsen was fourteen years old. He was pale and slender, and had a sharp chin and a straight nose and hair the color of sunburned tow. His eyes were large, set wide apart and bright blue; and he looked out upon the world silently, with a sort o' wistful melancholy. He helped his father carve out the wonderful figureheads that were to pilot the ships across strange seas and bring good luck to the owners. "A boy like that should be sent to the Academy and taught designing," said one of the shipowners one day as he watched the lad at his work. Gottschalk shook his head dubiously. "How could a poor man, with a family to support, and provisions so high, spare his boy from work! Aye, wasn't he teaching the lad a trade himself, as it was?" But the shipowner fumbled his fob, and insisted, and to test the boy he had him work with his designers. And he compromised with the father by having Bertel sent to the Academy half a day at a time. At the school one of the instructors remembered Bertel, on account of his long yellow hair that hung down in his eyes when he leaned over the desk; also his dulness in every line except drawing and clay-modeling. The newspapers one day announced that a certain young Master Thorwaldsen had been awarded a prize for clay-modeling. "Is that your brother?" asked the teacher next day. "It is myself, Herr Chaplain," replied the boy, blushing to the roots of his yellow hair. The Chaplain coughed to conceal his surprise. He had always thought this boy incapable of anything. "Herr Thorwaldsen," he said, severely, "you will please pass to the first grade!" And to be addressed as "Herr" meant that you really were somebody. "He called me 'Herr'!" said Bertel to his mother that night--"He called me 'Herr'!" About this time we find the painter Abildgaard taking a special interest in young Bertel, giving him lessons in drawing and painting, and encouraging him in his modeling. In fact, Thorwaldsen has himself explained that all of his "original" designs about this time were supplied by Abildgaard. The interest of Abildgaard in the boy was slightly resented by the young man's parents, who were afraid that their son was getting above his station. Abildgaard has left a record to the effect that at this time Thorwaldsen was very self-contained, reticent, and seemingly without ambition. He used to postpone every task, and would often shirk his duties until sharp reminders came. Yet when he did begin, he would fall on the task like one possessed, and finish it in an hour. This proved to Abildgaard that the stuff was there, and down in his heart he believed that this sleepy lad would some day awake from slumber. Anyway, Abildgaard used to say, long years after, "What did I tell you?" Gottschalk was paid by the piece for his carving; he was getting better pay now, because he did better work, his employer thought. Bertel was helping him. The family was getting quite prosperous. When Bertel had secured, between sleepy spells, about all the prizes for clay-modeling and sketching that artistic Copenhagen had to offer, he started for Rome, armed with a three-year traveling scholarship. This prize proved to be a pivotal point. The young man had done good work, and seemingly without effort; but he was sadly lacking in general education--and worse, he apparently had no desire to learn. He was twenty-six years of age when he sailed for Rome on the good ship "Thetis." The scholarship he had won four years before, but through disinclination to press his claims, and the procrastination of officialism, the matter was pigeonholed. It might have gone by default had not Abildgaard said "Go!" and loudly. Thorwaldsen was a sort of charity passenger on the ship--taken on request of the owner--and it was assumed that he would make himself useful. But the captain of the craft left him a recommendation to the effect that "The young fellow Thorwaldsen is the laziest man I ever saw." The ship was on a trading tour, and lingered along various coasts and put into many harbors; so nine months went by before Bertel Thorwaldsen found himself in the Eternal City. "I was born March Eighth, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-seven," Thorwaldsen used to say. That was the day he reached Rome. Antonio Canova, the sculptor, was then at the height of his popularity. Thorwaldsen's first success was the model for a statue of Jason, which was highly praised by Canova, and Bertel received the commission to execute it in marble from Thomas Hope, a wealthy English art patron. From this time forth, Thorwaldsen's success was assured. His scholarship provided only for three years' residence; but twenty-three years were to elapse before he should again see his childhood's home--as for his parents, he had looked into their eyes for the last time. The soul grows by leaps and bounds, by throes and throbs. A flash! and a glory stands revealed for which you have been groping blindly through the years. Well did Thorwaldsen call the day of his arrival in Rome the day of his birth! For the first time the world seemed to unfold before him. On the voyage thither, the captain of the "Thetis" had offered to prepare him for his stay in Rome by teaching him the Italian language; but the young sculptor was indifferent. During the months he was on shipboard, he might have mastered the language; this came back to him as he stood in the presence of Saint Peter's, and realized that he was treading the streets once trod by Michelangelo. He spoke only "Sailor's Latin," a composite of Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic. The waste of time of which he had been guilty, and the extent of all that lay beyond, pressed home upon him. Of course we know that the fallow years are as good as the years of plenty; the silent Winter prepares the soil for Spring; and we know, too, that the sense of unworthiness and the discontent that Thorwaldsen felt during his first few weeks at Rome were big with promise. The antique world was a new world to him; he knew nothing of mythology, nothing of history, little of books. He began to thirst for knowledge, and this being true, he drank it in. Little men spell things out with sweat and lamp-smoke, but others there be who absorb in the mass, read by the page, and grow great by simply letting down their buckets. This fair-haired descendant of a Viking bold had the usual preliminary struggle, for the Established Order is always resentful toward pressing youth. He worked incessantly: sketched, read, studied, modeled, and to help out his finances copied pictures for prosperous dealers who made it their business thus to employ 'prentice talent. But a few years and we see Thorwaldsen occupying the studio of Flaxman, and more than filling that strong man's place. For specimens of Flaxman's work examine your "Wedgwood"; and then to see Thorwaldsen's product, multiply Flaxman by one hundred. One worked in the delicate and exquisite; the other had a taste for the heroic: both found inspiration in the Greek. It will not do to claim for Thorwaldsen that he was a great and original genius. He lacked that hirsute, independent quality of Michelangelo, and surely he lacked the Attic invention. He was receptive as a woman, and he builded on what had been done. He moved in the line of least resistance--made friends of Protestant and Catholic alike; won the warm recognition of the Pope, who averred, "Thorwaldsen is a good Catholic, only he does not know it." He kept clear of all factions, and with a modicum more of will, might have been a very prince of diplomats. But as it was, he evolved into a prince of artists. Soon after his advent in Rome, Thorwaldsen met, at the country-house of his friend, critic and benefactor Zoega, a young woman who was destined to have a profound influence upon his life. Anna Maria Magnani was lady's maid and governess in the Zoega household. She was a beautiful animal: dark, luminous, flashing eyes, hair black as the raven's wing, and a form that palpitated with passion--a true daughter of the warm, sun-kissed South. The young sculptor of the yellow locks danced with the signorina at the rustic fetes upon the lawn. She spoke no Danish, and his Italian was exceedingly limited, but hand pressed hand and they contrived to make themselves understood. She volunteered to give him lessons in Italian; this went well, and then she posed for him as a model. What should have been at best or worst a mere incident in the artist's life ripened into something more. Intellectually and spiritually they lived in different worlds, and in sober moments both realized it. An arrangement was entered into of the same quality and kind as Goethe and Christine Vulpius assumed. Only this woman had moments of rebellion when she thirsted for social honors. As his wife, Thorwaldsen knew that she would be a veritable dead- weight, and he sought to loosen her grasp upon him. An offer of marriage came to her from a man of means and social station. Thorwaldsen favored the mating, and did what he could to hasten the nuptials. But when the other man had actually married the girl and carried her away, he had a sick spell to pay for it--he wasn't quite so calloused in heart as he had believed. Like many other men, Thorwaldsen found that such a tie is not easily broken. Anna Maria thought she loved the man she had married, and at least she believed she could learn to do so. Alas! after six months of married life she packed up and came back to Rome, declaring that, though her husband was kind and always treated her well, she would rather be the slave and servant of Thorwaldsen than the wife of any man on earth. The sculptor hadn't the heart to turn her away. More properly, her will was stronger than his conscience. Perhaps he was glad, too, that she had come back! The injured husband followed, and Anna Maria warned the man to be gone, and emphasized the suggestion with the gleam of a pearl-handled stiletto; and by the same token kept all gushing females away from the Thorwaldsen preserve. Thorwaldsen never married, and there is no doubt that his engagement to Miss Mackenzie, a most excellent English lady, was vetoed by Anna Maria and her pearl-handled stiletto. One child was born to Anna Maria and Thorwaldsen--a girl, who was legally acknowledged by Thorwaldsen as his daughter. When prosperity came his way some years later, he deposited in the Bank of Copenhagen a sum equal to twenty thousand dollars, with orders that the interest should be paid to her as long as she lived. Unlike Byron's daughter Allegra, born the same year only a few miles away, who died young and for whose grave at Harrow the poet had carved the touching line, "I shall go to her, but she will not return to me," the daughter of Thorwaldsen grew up, was happily married and bore a son who achieved considerable distinction as an artist. Thus the sculptor's good fortune attended him, even in circumstances that work havoc in most men's lives--he disarmed the Furies with a smile! Many visitors daily thronged the studio of Thorwaldsen. He had one general reception-room containing casts of his work, and many curious things in the line of art. His servant greeted the callers and made them at home, expressing much regret at the absence of his master, who was "out of the city," etc. Meanwhile, Thorwaldsen was hard at it in a back room, to which only the elect were admitted. The King of Bavaria, a genuine artist himself in spirit, who spent much time in Rome, conceived a great admiration for Thorwaldsen. He walked into the atelier where the sculptor was at work one day and hung around his neck by a gold chain the "Cross of the Commander," a decoration never before given to any but great military commanders. King Louis had a very unkinglike way of doing things, and used to go by the studio and whistle for Thorwaldsen and call to him to come out and walk, or drive, ride or dine. "I wish that King would go off and reign--I have work to do," cried the sculptor rather impatiently. Envious critics used to maintain that there were ten men in Rome who could model as well as Thorwaldsen, "but they haven't yellow hair that falls to their shoulders, and heaven-blue eyes with which to snare the ladies." The fact must be admitted that the vogue of Thorwaldsen owed much to the remarkable social qualities of the man. His handsome face and fine form were supplemented by a manner most gentle and winning; and whether his half-diffident ways and habit of reticence were natural or the triumph of art was a vexing problem that never found solution. He was the social rage in every salon. And his ability to do the right thing at the right time, seemingly without premeditation, made him a general favorite. For instance, if he attended a fete given by the King of Bavaria, he wore just one decoration--the decoration of Bavaria. If he attended a ball given by the French Ambassador, in the lapel of his modest black velvet coat he wore the red ribbon that tokens the Legion of Honor. When he visited the Villa of the Grand Duchess Helena of Russia, he wore no jewel save the diamond- studded star presented to him by the Czar. At the reception given by the "English Colony" to Sir Walter Scott, the great sculptor wore a modest thistle-blossom in his lapel, which caused Lord Elgin to offer odds that if O'Connell should appear in Rome, Thorwaldsen would wear a sprig of shamrock in his hat and say nothing. The thistle caught Sir Walter, and the next day when he came to call on the sculptor he saw a tam-o-shanter hanging on the top of an easel and a bit of plaid scarf thrown carelessly across the corner of the picture below. The poet and the sculptor embraced, patting each other on the back, called each other "Brother" and smiled good-will. But as Thorwaldsen could not speak English and Sir Walter spoke nothing else, they merely beamed and ran the scale of adjectives, thus: Sublimissio! Hero! Precious! Plaisir! La Grande! Delighted! Splendide! Honorable! Then they embraced again and backed away, waving each other good-by. Thorwaldsen had more medals, degrees and knighthoods than Sir Walter ever saw, but he would allow no prefix to his name. Denmark, Russia, Germany, Italy, France and the Pope had outdone themselves in doing him honor. All these "trifles" in the way of decorations he kept in a specially prepared case, which was opened occasionally for the benefit of lady visitors. "The girls like such things," said Thorwaldsen, and smiled in apology. Shelley found his way to Thorwaldsen's studio, and made mention that the Master was a bit of a poseur. Byron came, and as we know, sat for that statue which is now at Cambridge. The artist sought to beguile the melancholy sitter with pleasant conversation, but the author of "Don Juan" would have none of it, and when the work was completed and unveiled before him, he exclaimed in disappointment, "I look far more unhappy than that!" Thorwaldsen was a musician of no mean quality, and there was always a piano in his studio, to which he often turned for rest. When Felix Mendelssohn was in Rome he made the sculptor's workshop his headquarters, and sometimes the two would play "four hands," or else Thorwaldsen would accompany the "Song Without Words" upon his violin. Gradually the number of the "elect" seemed to grow. It was regarded as a great sight to see the Master at his work. And by degrees Thorwaldsen reached a point where he could keep right along at his task and receive his friends at the same time. The man at his work! There is nothing finer. I have seen men homely, uncouth and awkward when "dressed up," who were superb when at their work. Once I saw Augustus Saint Gaudens in blouse and overalls, well plastered with mud, standing on a ladder hard at it on an equestrian statue, lost to everything but the task in hand--intoxicated with a thought, working like mad to materialize an idea. The sight gave me a thrill!--one of those very few unforgetable thrills that Time fixes ever the more firmly in one's memory. To gain admittance to the workroom of Thorwaldsen was a thing to boast of: proud ladies schemed and some sought to bribe the trusty valet; but to these the door was politely barred. Yet the servant, servantlike, was awed by titles and nobility. "The Duchess of Parma!" whispered the valet one day in agitation-- "the Duchess of Parma--she has followed me in and is now standing behind you!" Thorwaldsen could not just place the lady: he turned, bowed, and gazed upon a stout personage who was slightly overdressed. The lady quite abruptly stated that she had called to make arrangements to have a statue, or a bust at least, made of herself. That Thorwaldsen would be proud to model her features seemed quite fixed in her mind. The artist cast her a swift glance and noted that Nature had put small trace of the classic in the lady's modeling. He mentally declined the commission, and muttered something about being "so delighted and honored, but unluckily I am so very busy," etc. "My husband desires it," continued the lady, "and so does my son, the King of Rome--a title, I hope, that is not strange to you!" It swept over Thorwaldsen, like a winter's wave, that this big, brusk, bizarre woman before him was Maria Louisa, the second wife of Napoleon. He knew her history: wedded at nineteen to Napoleon--the mother of L'Aiglon at twenty--married again in unbecoming haste to Count Niepperg Nobody, with whom she had been on very intimate terms, as soon as word arrived of Napoleon's death at Saint Helena, and now raising a goodly brood of Nobodies! The artist grew faint before this daughter of kings who had made a mesalliance with Genius--he excused himself and left the room. Thorwaldsen was a hero-worshiper by nature, and Napoleon's memory loomed large to him on the horizon of the ideal. Needless to say, he never modeled the features of Maria Louisa Hapsburg, but her visit fired him with a desire to make a bust of Napoleon, and the desire materialized is ours in heroic mold. Some time after this, Thorwaldsen designed a monument to the Duke of Leuchtenberg, Eugene de Beauharnais, son of the Empress Josephine. The days went in their fashion, and the Count Niepperg passed away, as even Counts do, for Death recognizes no title; and Maria Louisa was again experiencing the pangs of widowhood. She sent word for Thorwaldsen to come and design the late lamented a proper tomb, something not unlike that which he had done for the son of Josephine--money was no object in the Hapsburg family! Very few commissions were declined by Thorwaldsen. He was a good businessman and often had a dozen men quietly working out his orders, but he wrote to Maria Louisa begging to be excused--and as a relief to his feelings, straightway modeled another bust of Napoleon. This bust was sold to Alexander Murray, Byron's publisher, and is now to be seen in Edinburgh. Strange, is it not, that the home of "The Scotch Greys," tumbled by Fate and Napoleon into an open grave, should do the Little Man honor! And Thorwaldsen, the man of peace, was bound to the man of war by the silken thread of sentiment. Thorwaldsen was the true successor of Canova--his career was inaugurated when Canova gave him his blessing. The triumphs of the lover of Pauline Bonaparte were transferred to him. He accepted the situation with all of its precedents. Thorwaldsen spent forty-two years of his life at Rome, but Denmark never lost her hold upon him during this time. The King showered him with honors and gave him every privilege at his command. The Danish Ambassador always had special instructions "not to neglect the interests and welfare of our brother, Chevalier Thorwaldsen, Artist and Sculptor to the King." For years, in the Academy at Copenhagen, rooms were set apart for him, and he was solicited to return and occupy them, and by his gracious presence honor the institution that had sent him forth. Only once, however, did he return, and then his stay was brief. But from time to time he presented specimens of his work to his native city, and various casts and copies of his pieces found their way to the "Thorwaldsen Room" at the Academy; so there gradually grew up there a "Thorwaldsen Museum." Now the shadows were lengthening toward the east. The Master had turned his seventieth milestone, and he began to look backward to his boyhood's home as a place of rest, as old men do. A Commissioner was sent by the King of Denmark with orders to use his best offices to the end that Thorwaldsen should return; and plans were made to evolve the Thorwaldsen Room into a complete museum. The result of these negotiations brought about the Thorwaldsen Museum--that plainly simple, but solidly built structure at Copenhagen, erected by the city, from plans made by the Master. Here are shown over two hundred large statues and bas-reliefs, copies and originals of the best things done in that long and busy life. Thorwaldsen left his medals, decorations, pictures, books and thousands of drawings and sketches to this Museum--the sole property of the municipality. The building is arranged in the form of a square, with a court, and here the dust of the Master rests. No artist has ever had a more fitting tomb, designed by himself, surrounded by the creations of his hand and brain. These chant his elegy and there he sleeps. Good looks, courtesy and social accomplishments are factors in our artistic career that should not be lightly waived. Thorwaldsen won every recognition that is possible for men to win from other men-- fame, honor, wealth. In way of success he tasted all the world can offer. He built on Winckelmann, Mengs and Canova, inspired by a classic environment, and examples of work done by men turned to dust centuries before. In many instances Thorwaldsen followed the letter and failed to catch the spirit of Greece; this is not to his discredit--who has completely succeeded in revitalizing the breath of ancient art? Thorwaldsen won everything but immortality. It sounds harsh, but let us admit it; he was at best a great imitator, however noble the objects of his imitation. A recent writer has tried to put him in the class with "John Rogers, the Pride of America," but this is manifestly unfair. As an artist he ranks rather with Powers, Story and Palmer. Never for a moment can he be compared with Saint Gaudens, or our own French; Bartlett and Ward surpass him in general skill and fertility of resources. All is comparative--Thorwaldsen's fame floats upon the wave, far astern. We are making head. We have that superb "Night," so full of tenderness and spirit, done in tears (as all the best things are). The "Night" is not to be spoken of without its beautiful companion-piece, the "Morning." Each was done at a sitting, in a passion of creative energy. Yet when the roll of all Thorwaldsen's pieces is called, we see that his fame centers and is chiefly embodied in "The Lion of Lucerne." I suppose it need not longer be concealed that in Switzerland you can purchase copies and models of Thorwaldsen's "Lion of Lucerne." Some are in marble, some in granite, some in bronze, a great many are in wood--carved while you wait--and at my hotel in Lucerne we used to have the noble beast on the table every morning at breakfast, done in butter. The reproductions are of all sizes, from heroic mold to watch-charms and bangles. Sculptors have carved this lion, painters have painted it, artists have sketched it, but did you ever see a reproduction of "The Lion of Lucerne"? No, dearie, you never did, and never will. No copy has a trace of that indefinable look of mingled pain and patience, which even the broken spear in his side can not disturb-- that soulful, human quality which the original has. No; every copy is a caricature. It is a risky thing to try to put love in a lion's face! An intelligent young woman called my attention to the fact that the psychological conditions under which we view "The Lion" are the most subtle and complete that man can devise; and these are the things that add the last touch to art and cause us to stand speechless, and which make the unbidden tears start. The little lake at the foot of the cliff prevents a too near approach; the overhanging vines and melancholy boughs form a dim, subduing shade; the falling water seems like the playing of an organ in a vast cathedral; and last, the position of the lion itself, against the solid cliff, partakes of the miraculous. It is not set up there for people to look at: it is a part of the mountain, and the great seams of the strata running through the figure lend the spirit of miracle to it all. It seems as though God Himself had done the work, and the surprise and joy of discovery are ours as we stand uncovered before it. One must concede the masterly framing and hanging of the picture, but beyond all this is the technical skill, giving the look of woe that does not tell of weakness, as woe usually does, but strength and loyalty and death without flinching in a righteous cause: symbolic of the Swiss Guard that died at their post, not one of the three hundred wavering, there at the King's palace at Paris--all dead and turned to dust a century past, and this lion, mortally wounded, mutely pleading for our tears! We pay the tribute. And the reason we are moved is because we partake of the emotions of the artist when he did the work; and the reason we are not moved by any models or copies or imitations is because there is small feeling in the heart of an imitator. Great art is born of feeling! In order to do, you must feel. If Thorwaldsen had done nothing else, "The Lion" would be monument enough. We remember William Cullen Bryant, like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, for one poem; Poe for three. Thoreau wrote only one essay the world will cherish; and "keeping Ruskin's 'Sesame and Lilies' and 'The Golden River,' we can let the rest go," says Augustine Birrell. Thorwaldsen paid the penalty of success. He should have tasted exile, poverty and heartbreak--not to have known these was his misfortune. And perhaps his best work lay in keeping alive the classic tradition; in educating whole nations to a taste for sculpture; in turning the attention of society from strife to art, from war to harmony. His were the serene successes of beauty, the triumphs of peace. GAINSBOROUGH If ever this nation should produce a genius sufficient to acquire to us the honorable distinction of an English School, the name of Gainsborough will be transmitted to posterity, in this history of art, among the very first of that rising name. --_Sir Joshua Reynolds_ [Illustration: Gainsborough] Most biographies are written with intent either to make the man a demigod or else to damn him as a rogue who has hoodwinked the world. Of the first-mentioned class, Weems' "Life of Washington" must ever stand as the true type. The author is so fearful that he will not think well of his subject that he conceals every attribute of our common humanity, and gives us a being almost devoid of eyes, ears, organs, dimensions, passions. Next to Weems, in point of literary atrocity, comes John S. C. Abbott, whose life of Napoleon is a splendid concealment of the man. Of those who have written biographies for the sake of belittling their subject, John Gait's "Life of Byron" occupies a conspicuous position. But for books written for the double purpose of downing the subject and elevating the author, Philip Thicknesse's "Life of Gainsborough" must stand first. The book is so bad that it is interesting, and so stupid that it will never die. Thicknesse had a quarrel with Gainsborough, and three-fourths of the volume is given up to a minute recital of "says he" and "says I." It is really only an extended pamphlet written by an arch-bore with intent to get even with his man. The writer regards his petty affairs as of prime importance to the world, and he shows with great care, and not a single flash of wit, how all of Thomas Gainsborough's success in life was brought about by Thicknesse. And then, behold! after Thicknesse had made the man by hand, all he received for pay was ingratitude and insolence! Thicknesse was always good, kind, unselfish and disinterested; while Gainsborough was ungrateful, procrastinating, absurd and malicious-- this according to Thicknesse, who was on the spot and knew. Well, I guess so! Brock-Arnold describes Thicknesse as "a fussy, ostentatious, irrepressible busybody, without the faintest conception of delicacy or modesty, who seems to think he has a heaven-born right to patronize Gainsborough, and to take charge of his affairs." The aristocratic and pompous Thicknesse presented the painter to his friends, and also gave much advice about how he should conduct himself. He also loaned him a fiddle and presented him a viola da gamba, and often invited him to dinner. For these favors Gainsborough promised to paint a portrait of Thicknesse, but never got beyond washing in the background. During ten years he made thirty-seven excuses for not doing the work, and as for Mrs. Gainsborough, she once had the temerity to hand the redoubtable Thicknesse his cocked hat and cane and show him the door. From this, Thicknesse is emboldened to make certain remarks about Mrs. Gainsborough's pedigree, and to suggest that if Thomas Gainsborough had married a different woman he might have been a different painter. Thicknesse, throughout the book, thrusts himself into the breach and poses as the Injured One. On reading "the work" it is hard to believe it was written in sober, serious earnest--it contains such an intolerable deal of Thicknesse and so little of Gainsborough. The Mother Gamp flavor is upon every page. Andrew Lang might have written it to show the literary style of a disgruntled dead author. And the curious part is that, up to Eighteen Hundred Twenty-nine, Thicknesse held the stage, and many people took his portrait of Gainsborough as authentic. In that year Allan Cunningham put the great painter in his proper light, and thanks to the minute researches of Fulcher and others, we know the man as though he had lived yesterday. The father of Gainsborough was a tradesman of acute instincts. He resided at Sudbury, in Suffolk, seventy miles from London. It was a time when every thrifty merchant lived over his place of business, so as to be on hand when buyers came; to ward off robbers; and to sweep the sidewalk, making all tidy before breakfast. Gainsborough pere was fairly prosperous, but not prosperous enough to support any of his nine children in idleness. They all worked, took a Saturday night "tub," and went to the Independent Church in decent attire on Sunday. Thomas Gainsborough was the youngest of the brood, the pet of his parents, and the pride of his big sisters, who had nursed him and brought him up in the way he should go. In babyhood he wasn't so very strong; but love and freedom gradually did their perfect work, and he evolved into a tall, handsome youth of gracious manner and pleasing countenance. All the family were sure that Tom was going to be "somebody." The eldest boy, John, known to the town as "Scheming Jack," had invented a cuckoo-clock, and this led to a self-rocking cradle that wound up with a strong spring; next he made a flying-machine; and so clever was he that he painted signs that swung on hinges, and in several instances essayed to put a picture of the prosperous owner on the sign. The second son, Humphrey, was a brilliant fellow, too. He made the model of a steam-engine and showed it to a man by the name of Watt, who was greatly interested in it; and when Watt afterward took out a patent on it, Humphrey's heart was nearly broken, and it might have been quite, but he said he had in hand half a dozen things worth more than the steam-engine. As tangible proof of his power, he won a prize of fifty pounds from the London Society for the Encouragement of Art, for a mill that was to be turned by the tides of the sea. The steam-engine would require fuel, but this tide-engine would be turned by Nature at her own expense. In the British Museum is a sundial made by Humphrey Gainsborough, and it must stand to his credit that he made the original fireproof safe. From a fireproof safe to liberal theology is but a step, and Humphrey Gainsborough became a Dissenting Clergyman, passing rich on forty pounds a year. The hopes of the family finally centered on Thomas. He had assisted his brother John at the sign-painting, and had done several creditable little things in drawing 'scutcheons on coach-doors for the gentry. Besides all this, once, while sketching in his father's orchard, a face cautiously appeared above the stone wall and for a single moment studied the situation. The boy caught the features on his palette, and transferred them to his picture. The likeness was so perfect that it led to the execution of the thief who had been robbing the orchard, and also the execution of that famous picture, finished many years after, known as "Tom Peartree." The orchard episode pleased the Gainsboroughs greatly. A family council was held, and it was voted that Thomas must be sent to London to study art. The girls gave up a dress apiece, the mother retrimmed her summer bonnet for the Winter, the boys contributed, and there came a day when Tom was duly ticketed and placed on top of the great coach bound for London. Good-bys were waved until only a cloud of dust was seen in the distance. Gainsborough went to "Saint Martin's Drawing Academy" at London, and the boys educated him. The art at the "Academy" seems to have been very much akin to the art of the Writing Academies of America, where learned bucolic professors used to teach us the mysteries of the Spencerian System for a modest stipend. The humiliation of never knowing "how to hold your pen" did much to send many budding geniuses off on a tangent after grasshopper chirography, but those who endured unto the end acquired the "wrist movement." They all wrote alike. That is to say, they all wrote like the professor, who wrote just like all Spencerian professors. So write the girls in Melvil Dewey's Academy for Librarians, at Albany--God bless them all!--they all write like Dewey. Thomas Gainsborough at London seems to have haunted the theaters and coffeehouses, and whenever there were pictures displayed, there was Thomas to be found. To help out the expense-account, he worked at engraving and made designs for a silversmith. The strong, receptive nature of the boy showed itself, for he succeeded in getting a goodly hold on the art of engraving, in a very short time. He absorbed in the mass. But he tired of the town--he wanted freedom, fresh air, the woods and fields. Hogarth and Wilson were there in London, but the Academy students never heard of them. And if Gainsborough ever listened to Richardson's famous prophecy which inspired Hogarth and Reynolds, to the effect that England would soon produce a great school of art, we do not know it. The young man grew homesick; he was doing nothing in London--no career was open to him--he returned to Sudbury after an absence of nearly two years. He thought it was defeat, but his family welcomed him as a conquering hero. He was eighteen and looked twenty--tall, strong, fair-haired, gentle in manner, gracious in speech. Two of his sisters had married clergymen, and were happily situated in neighboring towns; his brother Humphrey was "occupying the pulpit," and causing certain local High Churchmen to have dreams of things tumbling about their ears. The sisters and mother wanted Tom to be a preacher, too--he was so straight and handsome and fine, and his eyes were so tender and blue! But he preferred to paint. He painted in the woods and fields, by streams and old mills, and got on good terms with all the flocks of sheep and cattle in the neighborhood. The art of landscape-painting developed from an accident. The early Italian painters used landscape only as a background for figures. All they pictured were men, women and children, and to bring these out rightly they introduced scenery. Imagine a theater with scenes set and no person on the stage, and you get the idea of landscape up to the time of Gainsborough. Landscape! it was nothing--a blank. Wilson first painted landscapes as backgrounds for other men to draw portraits upon. A marine scene was made merely that a Commodore might stand in cocked hat, a spyglass under his arm, in the foreground, while the sun peeps over the horizon begging permission to come up. Gradually these incomplete pictures were seen hanging in shop-windows, but for them there was no market. They were merely curios. Gainsborough drew pictures of the landscape because he loved it. He seems to be the first English artist who loved the country for its own sake. Old bridges, winding roadways, gnarled oaks, cattle grazing, and all the manifold beauties of quiet country life fascinated him. He educated the collector, and educated the people into a closer observation and study of Nature. Gainsborough stood at the crossways of progress and pointed the way. With Hogarth's idea that a picture should teach a lesson and have a moral, he had no sympathy. And with Reynolds, who thought there was nothing worth picturing but the human face, he took issue. Beauty to him was its own excuse for being. However, in all of Gainsborough's landscapes you find the human interest somewhere--man has not been entirely left out. But from being the one important thing, he sinks simply into a part of the view that lies before you. Turner's maxim, "You can not leave man out," he annexed from Gainsborough. And Corot's landscapes, where the dim, shadowy lovers sit on the bankside under the great oaks--the most lovely pictures ever painted by the hand of man--reveal the extreme evolution from a time when the lovers occupied the center of the stage, and the landscape was only an accessory. And it is further interesting to note that the originator of English landscape-painting was also a great portrait-painter, and yet he dared paint portraits with absolutely no scenery back of them--a thing which up to that time was done only by a man who hadn't the ability to paint landscape. Thus do we prove Rabelais' proposition, "The man who has a well-filled strongbox can surely afford to go ragged." Thomas Gainsborough, aged nineteen, was one day intently sketching in a wood near Sudbury, when the branches suddenly parted and out into a little open space stepped Margaret Burr. This young woman had taken up her abode in Sudbury during the time the young man was in London, and he had never met her, although he had probably heard her praises sounded. Everybody around there had heard of her. She was the handsomest woman in all Suffolk--and knew it. She lived with her "uncle," and the gossips, who looked after these little things, divided as to whether she was the daughter of one of the exiled Stuarts, or the natural child of the Duke of Bedford. Anyway, she was a true princess, in face, form and bearing, and had an income of her own of two hundred pounds a year. Her pride was a thing so potent that the rustic swains were chilled at the sight of her, and the numerous suitors sighed and shot their lovesick glances from a safe distance. Let that pass: the branches parted and Margaret stepped out into the open. She thought she was alone, when all at once her eyes looked full into the eyes of the young artist--not a hundred feet away. She was startled; she blushed, stammered and tried to apologize for the intrusion. Her splendid self-possession had failed her for once--she was going to flee by the way she had come. "Hold that position, please--stand just as you are!" called the artist in a tone of authority. Even the proudest of women are willing to accept orders when the time is ripe; and I am fully convinced that to be domineered over by the right man is a thing all good women warmly desire. Margaret Burr, the proud beauty, stood stock-still, and Thomas Gainsborough admitted her into his landscape and his heart. This is not a love-story, or we might begin here and extend our booklet into a volume. Suffice it to say that within a few short months after their first meeting the young woman, being of royal blood, exercised her divine right and "proposed." She proposed just as Queen Victoria did later. And then they were married--both under twenty--and lived happily ever after. It is a great mistake to assume that pride and a high degree of commonsense can not go together. Margaret knew how to manage. After a short stay in Sudbury the couple rented a cottage at Ipswich for six pounds a year--a dovecot with three rooms. The proud beauty would not let the place be profaned by a servant: she did all the work herself; and if she wanted help, she called on her husband. Base is the man who will not fetch and carry for the woman he loves. They were accounted the handsomest and most distinguished couple in all Sudbury; and when they attended church, there was so much craning of necks and so many muffled exclamations of admiration, that the clergyman made it a point not to begin the service until they were safely seated. They were very happy: they loved each other, and so loved life and everything and everybody, and God's great green out-o'-doors was their playhouse. Margaret's income was quite sufficient for their needs, and mad ambition passed them by. Gainsborough drew pictures and painted and sketched, and then gave his pictures away. Music was his passion, and whenever at the concerts held round about there the player did exceptionally well, Gainsborough would proffer a picture in exchange for the instrument used. In this way the odd corners of their house got filled with violins, lutes, hautboys, kettledrums and curious stringed things that have died the death and are now extinct. At this time, if any one had asked Gainsborough his profession, he would have said, "I am a musician." Fifteen years had slipped into the eternity that lies behind--"years not lost, for we can turn the hourglass and live them all over in sweet memory," once said Gainsborough to his wife. The constant sketching had developed much skill in the artist's hand. Thicknesse had come puffing alongside, and insisted out of pure friendliness on taking the artist and wife in tow. They laughed at him behind his back, and carried on conversation over his head, and dropped jokes at his feet by looks and pantomime, and communicated in cipher--for true lovers always evolve a code. Thicknesse was sincere and serious, and surely was not wholly bad-- even Mephisto is not bad all of the time. Mrs. Gainsborough once said she would prefer Mephisto to Thicknesse, because Mephisto had a sense of humor. Very often they naturally referred to Thicknesse as "Thickhead"--the joke was too obvious to let pass entirely, until each "took the pledge," witnessed by Gainsborough's favorite terrier, "Fox." Thicknesse had a Summer House at Bath, and thither he insisted his friends should go. He would vouch for them and introduce them into the best society. He would even introduce them to Beau Nash, "the King of Bath," and arrange to have Gainsborough do himself the honor of painting the "King's" picture. Two daughters nearing womanhood reminded Mr. and Mrs. Gainsborough that an increase in income would be well; and Thicknesse promised many commissions from his friends, the gentry. The cheapest house they could find in Bath was fifty pounds a year. "Do you want to go to jail?" asked Mrs. Gainsborough of her husband when he proposed signing the lease. The worldly Thicknesse proposed that they should take this house at fifty pounds a year, or else take another at one hundred fifty at his expense. They decided to risk it at the rate of fifty pounds a year for a few months, and were duly settled. Thicknesse was very proud of his art connections. He had but one theme--Gainsborough! People of note began to find their way to the studio of the painter-man in the Circus. Gainsborough was gracious, handsome and healthy--fresh from the country. He met all nobility on a frank equality--God had made him a gentleman. His beautiful wife, now in her early thirties, was much sought in local society circles. Everybody of note who came to Bath visited Gainsborough's studio. Garrick sat to him and played such pranks with his countenance that each time the artist looked up from his easel he saw a new man. "You have everybody's face but your own," said Gainsborough to Garrick, and dismissing the man he completed the picture from memory. This portrait and also pictures of General Honeywood, the Comedian Quin, Lady Grosvenor, the Duke of Argyle, besides several landscapes, were sent up to the Academy Exhibition at London. George the Third saw them and sent word down that he wished Gainsborough lived in London, so he could sit to him. The carrier, Wiltshire, who packed the pictures and took them up to London, had a passion for art that filled his heart, and he refused to accept gold, that base and common drudge 'twixt man and man, for his services in an art way. And so Gainsborough presented him with a picture. In fact, during the term of years that Gainsborough lived at Bath, he gave Wiltshire, the modest driver of an express-cart, a dozen or more pictures and sketches. He gave him the finest picture he ever painted: that portrait of the old Parish Clerk. Gainsborough was not so good a judge of his own work as Wiltshire was. Wiltshire kept all the "Gainsboroughs" he could get, reveled in them during his long life, basked and bathed his soul in their beauty, and dying, bequeathed them to his children. Had Wiltshire been moved by nothing but keen, cold, worldly wisdom-- which he wasn't--he could not have done better. Even friendship, love and beauty have their Rialto--the appraiser footed up the Wiltshire estate at more than fifty thousand pounds. Gainsborough found himself with more work than he could very well care for, so he raised his prices for a "half-length" from five pounds to forty; and for a "full-length" from ten pounds to one hundred, in order to limit the number of his patrons. It doubled them. His promised picture of Thicknesse was relegated behind the door, and a check was sent the great man for five hundred pounds for his borrowed viola da gamba and other favors. But Thicknesse was not to be bought off. He took charge of the studio, looked after the visitors, explaining this and that, telling how he had discovered the artist and rescued him from obscurity, giving scraps of his history, and presenting little impromptu lectures on art as he had found it. The fussy Thicknesse used to be funny to Mr. and Mrs. Gainsborough, but now he had developed into a nuisance. To escape him, they resolved to turn the pretty compliment of King George into a genuine request. They packed up and moved to London. The fifty pounds a year at Bath had seemed a great responsibility, but when Gainsborough took Schomberg House in Pall Mall at three hundred pounds, he boasts of his bargain. About this time "Scheming Jack" turns up asking for a small loan to perfect a promising scheme. The gracious brother replies that although his own expenses are more than a thousand pounds a year, he is glad to accommodate him, and hopes the scheme will prosper--which of course he knew it would not, for success is a matter of red corpuscle. Almost immediately on reaching London the Royal Academy recognized Gainsborough's presence by electing him a member of its Council. However, he never attended a single meeting. He did not need the Academy. Royalty stood in line at his studio-doors, and he took his pick of sitters. He painted five different portraits of the King, various pictures of his children, did the rascally heir-apparent ideally, and made a picture of Queen Charlotte that Goldsmith said "looked like a sensible woman." He painted portraits of his lovely wife, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Burke, Walpole, the dictator of Strawberry Hill, and immortalized the hats worn by the smashing, dashing Duchess of Devonshire. One of these pictures of Her Grace comes very close to us Americans, as it was cut from the frame one dark, foggy night in London, sealed up in the false bottom of a trunk and brought to New York. Here it lay for more than twenty years, when Colonel Patricius Sheedy, connoisseur and critic, arranged for its delivery to the heirs of the original owners on payment of some such trifle as twenty-five thousand dollars. This superb picture, with its romantic past, was not destined to traverse the Atlantic again; for thanks to the generosity of J. Pierpont Morgan, it has now found a permanent home at Harvard College. It is only a little way back from civilization to savagery. We live in a wonderful time: the last twenty-five years have seen changes that mark epochs in the onward and upward march. To mention but two, we might name the almost complete evolution of our definition as to what constitutes "Christianity"; and in material things, the use of electricity, which has worked such a revolution as even Jules Verne never conjured forth. Americans are somewhat given to calling our country "The Land of the Free"--as if there were no other. But the individual in England today has greater freedom of speech and action than the individual has in America. In every large city of America there is an extent of petty officialism and dictation that the English people would not for a day endure. Our policemen, following their Donnybrook proclivities, are all armed with clubs, and allowing prenatal influences to lead, they unlimber the motto, "Wherever you see a head, hit it," on slight excuse. In Central Park, New York, for instance, the citizen who "talks back" would speedily be clubbed into silence--but try that thing in Hyde Park, London, if you please, and see what would follow! But, thank heaven, we are working out our salvation all the time--things are getting better, and it is the "dissatisfied" who are making them go. Were we satisfied, there would be no progress. During the sixty-one years of Gainsborough's life, wondrous changes were made in the world of thought and feeling. And the good natured but sturdy quality of such as he was the one strong factor that worked for freedom. Gainsborough was never a tuft-hunter: he toadied to no man, and his swinging independence refused to see any special difference between himself and the sleek, titled nobility. He asked no favors of the Academy, no quarter from his rivals, no grants from royalty. This dissenting attitude probably cost him the mate of the knighthood which went to Sir Joshua, but behold the paradox! he was usually closer to the throne than those who lay in wait for honors. Gainsborough sought for nothing--he did his work, preserved the right mental attitude, and all good things came to him. It is a curious thing to note that while England was undergoing a renaissance of art, and realizing a burst of freedom, Italy, that land so long prolific in greatness, produced not a single artist who rose above the dull and commonplace. Has Nature only just so much genius at her disposal? The reign of the Georges worked a blessed, bloodless revolution for the people of England. They reigned better than they knew. Gainsborough saw the power of the monarch transferred to the people, and the King become the wooden figurehead of the ship, instead of its Captain. So, thanks to the weakness of George the Third and the short-sighted policy of Lord North, America achieved her independence about the same time that England did hers. Theological freedom and political freedom go hand in hand, for our conception of Deity is always a pale reflection of our chief ruler. Did not Thackeray say that the people of England regarded Jehovah as an infinite George the Fourth? Gainsborough saw Whitefield and Wesley entreating that we should go to God direct; Howard was letting the sunshine into dark cells; Clarkson, Sharp and Wilberforce had begun their crusade against slavery, and their arms and arguments were to be transferred a hundred years later to William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Henry Ward Beecher, who bought "Beecher Bibles" for Old John Brown, Osawatomie Brown, whose body, no longer needed, was hanged on a sour-apple tree while his soul goes marching on. In the realm of letters, Gainsborough saw changes occur no less important than in the political field. Samuel Johnson bowled into view, scolding and challenging the Ensconced Smug; Goldsmith scaled the Richardson ghetto and wrote his touching and deathless verse; Fielding's saffron comedies were produced at Drury Lane; Cowper, nearly the same age as the artist, did his work and lapsed into imbecility, surviving him sixteen years; Richardson became the happy father of the English Novel; Sterne took his Sentimental Journey; Chatterton, the meteor, flashed across the literary sky; Gray mused in the churchyard and laid his head upon the lap of earth; Burns was promoted from the Excise to be the idol of all Scotland. The year that Gainsborough died, Napoleon, a slim slip of a youth seventeen years old, was serving as a sub-lieutenant of artillery; while Wellington had just received his first commission and was marching zigzag, by the right oblique, to meet him eighteen miles from Brussels on the night of a ball sung into immortality by Byron; Watt had invented the steam-engine, thanks to Humphrey Gainsborough; Arkwright had made his first spinning-frame; Humphrey Davy was working at problems (with partial success) to be solved later by Edison of Menlo Park; Lord Hastings was tried, and it was while listening to the speech of Sheridan--the one speech of his life, the best words of which, according to his butler, were, "My Lords, I am done"--that Gainsborough caught his death o' cold. Gainsborough never went abroad to study; he painted things at home, and painted as he saw them. He never imagined he was a great artist, so took no thought as to the future of his work. He set so little store on his pictures that he did not think even to sign them. The masterpiece that satisfied him was never done. His was a happy life of work and love, with no cloud to obscure the sun, save possibly now and then a bumptious reproof from Sir Thicknesse or the occasional high-handed haughtiness of a Hanging Committee. Thus passed his life in work, music, laughter and love; but to music he ever turned for rest. He made more money than all of his seven brothers and sisters combined, five times over, and divided with them without stint. He educated several of his nieces and nephews, and one nephew, Gainsborough Dupont, he adopted and helped make an acceptable artist. Of that peculiarly-to-be-dreaded malady, artistic jealousy, Gainsborough had not a trace. His failure to court Sir Joshua's smile led foolish folks to say he was jealous--not so! he was simply able to get along without Sir Joshua, and he did. Yet he admired Reynolds' works and admired the man, but was too wise to force any close personal relationship. He divided with West, the American, the favor of the Court, and with Romney and Reynolds the favor of the town. He got his share, and more, of all those things which the world counts worth while. The gratitude of his heart was expressed by his life--generous, kind, joyous--never cast down except when he thought he had spoken harshly or acted unwisely-loyal to his friends, forgetting his enemies. He did a deathless work, for it is a work upon which other men have built. He prepared the way for those who were to come after. It is a great privilege to live, to work, to feel, to endure, to know: to realize that one is the instrument of Deity--being used by the Maker to work out His inscrutable purposes; to see vast changes occur in the social fabric and to know that men stop, pause and consider: to comprehend that this world is a different place because you have lived. Yes, it is a great privilege to live! Gainsborough lived--he reveled in life, and filled his days to their brim, ever and always grateful to the Unknown that had guided his hand and led him forth upon his way. It is a great privilege to live! VELASQUEZ Among the notable prophets of the new and true--Rubens, Rembrandt, Claude Lorraine--Velasquez was the newest and certainly the truest from our point of view. He showed us the mystery of light as God made it. --_Stevenson_ [Illustration: Velasquez] There be, among writing men, those who please the populace, and also that Elect Few who inspire writers. When Horace Greeley gave his daily message to the world, every editor of any power in America paid good money for the privilege of being a subscriber to the "Tribune." The "Tribune" had no exchange-list--if you wanted the "Tribune" you had to buy it, and the writers bought it because it wound up their clocks--set them agoing--and they either carefully abstained from mentioning Greeley or else went in right valiantly and exposed his vagaries. Greeley may have been often right, and we now know he was often wrong, but he infused the breath of life into his words--his sentences were a challenge--he made men think. And the reason he made men think was because he himself was a thinker. Among modern literary men, the two English writers who have most inspired writers are Carlyle and Emerson. They were writers' writers. In the course of their work, they touched upon every phase of man's experience and endeavor. You can not open their books anywhere and read a page without casting about for your pencil and pad. Strong men infuse into their work a deal of their own spirit, and their words are charged with a suggestion and meaning beyond the mere sound. There is a reverberation that thrills one. All art that lives is thus vitalized with a spiritual essence: an essence that ever escapes the analyst, but which is felt and known by all who have hearts that throb and souls that feel. Strong men make room for strong men. Emerson and Carlyle inspired other men, and they inspired each other--but whether there be warrant for that overworked reference to their "friendship" is a question. Some other word surely ought to apply here, for their relationship was largely a matter of the head, with a weather-eye on Barabbas, and three thousand miles of very salt brine between them. Carlyle never came to America: Emerson made three trips to England; and often a year or more passed without a single letter on either side. Tammas Carlyle, son of a stone-mason, with his crusty ways and clay pipe, with personality plus, at close range would have been a combination not entirely congenial to the culminating flower of seven generations of New England clergymen--probably not more so than was the shirt-sleeved and cravatless Walt, when they met that memorable day by appointment at the Astor House. Our first and last demand of Art is that it shall give us the artist's best. Art is the mintage of the soul. All the whim, foible, and rank personality are blown away on the winds of time--the good remains. Of artists who have inspired artists, and who being dead yet live, Velasquez stands first. "Velasquez was a painters' painter--the rest of us are only painters." And when the man who painted "Symphonies in White" further explained that a picture is finished when all traces of the means used to bring about the end have disappeared--for work alone will efface the footsteps of work--he had Velasquez in mind. The subject of this sketch was born in the year Fifteen Hundred Ninety-nine, and died in Sixteen Hundred Sixty. And while he lived there also lived these: Shakespeare, Murillo, Cervantes, Rembrandt and Rubens. As an artist and a man Velasquez was the equal, in his way, of any of the men just named. Ruskin has said, "Everything that Velasquez does may be regarded as absolutely right." And Sir Joshua Reynolds placed himself on record by saying, "The portrait of Pope Innocent the Tenth by Velasquez, in the Doria Gallery, is the finest portrait in all Rome." Yet until the year Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six, a date Americans can easily remember, the work of Velasquez was scarcely known outside of Spain. In that year Raphael Mengs wrote: "How this painter, greater than Raphael or Titian, truer far than Rubens or Van Dyck, should have been lost to view is more than I can comprehend. I can not find words to describe the splendor of his art!" But enthusiasts who ebulliate at low temperature are plentiful. The world wagged on in its sleepy way, and it was not until Eighteen Hundred Twenty-eight that an Englishman, Sir David Wilkie, following up the clue of Mengs, began quietly to buy up all the stray pictures by Velasquez he could find in Spain. He sent them to England, and the world one day awoke to the fact that Velasquez was one of the greatest artists of all time. Curtis compiled a list of two hundred seventy-four pictures by Velasquez, which he pronounces authentic. Of these, one hundred twenty-one were owned in England, thirteen in France, twelve in Austria and eight in Italy. At least fifteen of the English 'oldings have since been transferred to America; so, outside of England and Spain, America possesses more of the works of this master than any other country. But of this be sure: no "Velasquez" will ever leave Spain unless spirited out of the country between two days--and if one is carried away, it will not be in the false bottom of a trunk. Within a year one "Velasquez" was so found secreted at Cadiz, and the owner escaped prison only by presenting the picture, with his compliments, to the Prado Museum at Madrid. The release of the prisoner, and the acceptance of the picture, were both a bit irregular as a matter of jurisprudence; but I am told that lawyers can usually arrange these little matters--Dame Justice being blind in one eye. There seems to have been some little discussion in the De Silva family of Seville as to whether Diego should be a lawyer, and follow in his father's footsteps, or become an artist and possibly a vagrom. The father had hoped the boy would be his helper and successor, and here the youngster was wasting his time drawing pictures of water-jugs, baskets of flowers, old women and foolish folk about the market! Should it be the law-school or the studio of Herrera the painter? To almost every fond father the idea of discipline is to have the child act just as he does. But in this case the mother had her way, or, more properly, she let the boy have his--as mothers do--and the sequel shows that a woman's heart is sometimes nearer right than a man's head. The fact that "Velasquez" was the maiden name of his mother, and was adopted by the young man, is a straw that tells which way the vane of his affections turned. Diego was sixteen and troublesome. He wasn't "bad"--only he had a rollicksome, flamboyant energy that inundated everything, and made his absence often a blessing devoutly to be wished. Herrera had fixed thoughts about art and deportment. Diego failed to grasp the beauty and force of these ideas, and in the course of a year he seems to have learned just one thing of Herrera--to use brushes with very long handles and long bristles. This peculiarity he clung to through life, and the way he floated the color upon the canvas with those long, ungainly brushes, no one understood; he really didn't know himself, and the world has long since given up the riddle. But the scheme was Herrera's, improved upon by Velasquez; yet not all men who paint with a brush that has a handle eight feet long can paint like Velasquez. In Herrera's studio there were often heated arguments as to merits and demerits, flat contradictions as to facts, and wordy warfare that occasionally resulted in broken furniture. On such occasions, Herrera never hesitated to take a hand and soundly cuff a pupil's ears, if the master thought the pupil needed it. Velasquez has left on record the statement that Herrera was the most dogmatic, pedantic, overbearing and quarrelsome man he ever knew. Just what Herrera thought of the young man Velasquez, we unfortunately do not know. But the belief is that Velasquez left Herrera's studio on request of Herrera. He next entered the studio of the rich and fashionable painter, Pacheco. This man, like Macaulay, had so much learning that it ran over and he stood in the slop. He wrote a book on painting, and might also have carried on a Correspondence School wherein the art of portraiture would be taught in ten easy lessons. In Madrid and Seville are various specimens of work done by both Herrera and Pacheco. Herrera had a certain style, and the early work of Velasquez showed Herrera's earmarks plainly; but we look in vain for a trace of influence that can be attributed to Pacheco. Velasquez at eighteen could outstrip his master, and both knew it. So Pacheco showed his good sense by letting the young man go his own pace. He admired the dashing, handsome youth, and although Velasquez broke every rule laid down in Pacheco's mighty tome, "Art As I Have Found It," yet the master uttered no word of protest. The boy was bigger than the book. More than this, Pacheco invited the young man to come and make his home with him, so as the better to avail himself of the master's instruction. Now, Pacheco (like Brabantio in the play) had a beautiful daughter--Juana by name. She was about the age of Velasquez, gentle, refined and amiable. Love is largely a matter of propinquity: and the world now regards Pacheco as a master matchmaker as well as a master painter. Diego and Juana were married, aged nineteen, and Pacheco breathed easier. He had attached to himself the most daring and brilliant young man he had ever known, and he had saved himself the annoyance of having his studio thronged with a gang of suitors such as crowded the courts of Ulysses. Pacheco was pleased. And why should Pacheco not have been pleased? He had linked his name for all time with the History of Art. Had he not been the teacher and father-in-law of Velasquez, his name would have been writ in water, for in his own art there was not enough Attic salt to save it; and his learning was a thing of dusty, musty books. Pacheco's virtue consisted in recognizing the genius of Velasquez, and hanging on to him closely, rubbing off all the glory that he could make stick to himself. To the day of his death Pacheco laid the flattering unction to his soul that he had made Velasquez; but leaving this out of the discussion, no one doubts that Velasquez plucked from oblivion the name and fame of Pacheco. "Those splendid blonde women of Rubens are the solaces of the eternal fighting-man," writes Vance Thompson. The wife of Velasquez was of the Rubens type: she looked upon her husband as the ideal. She believed in him, ministered to him, and had no other gods before him. She had but one ambition, and that was to serve her lord and master. Her faith in the man--in his power, in his integrity and in his art --corroborated his faith in himself. We want One to believe in us, and this being so, all else matters little. Velasquez seems a type of the "eternal fighting-man"--not the quarrelsome, quibbling man, who draws on slight excuse, but the man with a message, who goes straight to his destination with a will that breaks through every barrier, and pushes aside every obstacle. With the savage type there is no progression: the noble red man is content to be a noble red man all his days, and the result is that in standing still he is retreating off the face of the earth. Not so your "eternal fighting-man"--he is scourged by a restlessness that allows him no rest nor respite save in his work. Beware when a thinker and worker is let loose on the planet! In the days of Velasquez, Spain had but two patrons for art: Royalty and the Church. Although nominally a Catholic, Velasquez had little sympathy with the superstitions of the multitude. His religion was essentially a Natural Religion: to love his friends, to bathe in the sunshine of life, to preserve a right mental attitude--the receptive attitude, the attitude of gratitude--and to do his work: these things were for him the sum of life. His passion was art--to portray his feelings on canvas and make manifest to others the things he himself saw. The Church, he thought, did not afford sufficient outlet for his power. Cherubs that could live only in the tropics, and wings without muscles to manipulate them, did not mean much to him. The men and women on earth appealed to him more than the angels in Heaven, and he could not imagine a better paradise than this. So he painted what he saw: old men, market-women, beggars, handsome boys and toddling babies. These things did not appeal to prelates--they wanted pictures of things a long way off. So from the Church Velasquez turned his gaze toward the Court of Madrid. Velasquez had been in the studio of Pacheco at Seville for five years. During that time he filled the days with work--joyous, eager work. He produced a good many valuable pictures and a great many sketches, which were mostly given away. Yet today, Seville, with her splendid art-gallery and her hundreds of palaces, contains not a single specimen of the work of her greatest son. It was a rather daring thing for a young man of twenty-four to knock boldly at the gates of Royalty. But the application was made in Velasquez's own way. All of his studies, which the critics tauntingly called "tavern pieces," were a preparation for the life and work before him. He had mastered the subtlety of the human face, and had seen how the spirit shines through and reveals the soul. To know how to write correctly is nothing--you must know something worth recording. To paint is nothing--you must know what you are portraying. Velasquez had become acquainted with humanity, and gotten on intimate terms with life. He had haunted the waysides and markets to good purpose; he had laid the foundation of those qualities which characterize his best work: mastery of expression, penetration into character, the ability to look upon a face and read the thoughts that lurk behind, the crouching passions, and all the aspirations too great for speech. To picture great men you must be a great man. Velasquez was twenty-four--dark, daring, silent, with a face and form that proclaimed him a strong and valiant soul. Strong men can well afford to be gentle--those who know can well cultivate silence. The young man did not storm the doors of the Alcazar. No; at Madrid he went quietly to work copying Titians in the gallery, and incidentally painting portraits--Royalty must come to him. He had faith in his power: he could wait. His wife knew the Court would call him--he knew it, too--the Court of Spain needed Velasquez. It is a fine thing to make yourself needed. Nearly a year had passed, and Velasquez gave it out quietly that he was about to return to his home in Seville. Artistic Madrid rubbed its eyes. The Minister of State, the great Olivarez, came to him with a commission from the King and a goodly payment in advance, begging that, as soon as he had made a short visit to Seville, he should return to Madrid. Apartments had already been set aside for him in the Alcazar Palace. Would he not kindly comply? Such a request from the King was really equal to an order. Velasquez surely had no intention of declining the compliment, since he had angled for it most ingeniously; but he took a little time to consider it. Of course he talked it over with his wife and her father, and we can imagine they had a quiet little supper by themselves in honor of the event. And so in the month of May, Sixteen Hundred Twenty-three, Diego de Silva Velasquez duly became a member of the Royal Household, and very soon was the companion, friend, adviser and attendant of the King--that post which he was to hold for thirty-six years, ere Death should call him hence. "The farmer thinks that place and power are fine things, but let him know that the President has paid dear for his White House," said the sage of Concord. The most miserable man I ever knew was one who married a rich woman, managed her broad acres, looked after her bonds and made report of her stocks. If the stocks failed to pay dividends, or the acres were fallow, my friend had to explain why to the tearful wife and sundry sarcastic next of kin. The man was a Jeffersonian Democrat and preached the Life of Simplicity, because we always preach about things that are not ours. He rode behind horses that had docked tails, and apologized for being on earth, to an awful butler in solemn black. The man had married for a home--he got it. When he wanted funds for himself, he was given dole, or else was put to the necessity of juggling the Expense-Account. If he wished to invite friends to his home, he had to prove them standard-bred, morally sound in wind and limb, and free from fault or blemish. The good man might have lived a thoroughly happy life, with everything supplied that he needed, but he acquired the Sanitarium Habit, for which there is no cure but poverty. And this man could not be poor even if he wanted to, for there were no grounds for divorce. His wife loved him dearly, and her income of five thousand dollars a month came along with startling regularity, willy-nilly. Finally, at Hot Springs, Death gave him treatment and he was freed from pain. From this o'ertrue incident it must not be imagined that wealth and position are bad things. Health is potential power. Wealth is an engine that can be used for good if you are an engineer; but to be tied to the flywheel of an engine is rather unfortunate. Had my friend been big enough to rise supreme over horses with docked tails, to subjugate a butler, to defy the next of kin and manage the wife (without letting her know it), all would have been well. But it is a Herculean task to cope with the handicap of wealth. Mediocre men can endure failure; for, as Robert Louis the beloved has pointed out, failure is natural, but worldly success is an abnormal condition. In order to stand success you must be of very stern fiber, with all the gods on your side. The Alcazar Palace looked strong, solid and self-sufficient on the outside. But inside, like every Court, it was a den of quibble, quarrel, envy, and the hatred which, tinctured with fear, knocks an anvil-chorus from day-dawn to dark. A thousand people made up the household of Philip the Fourth. Any one of these could be dismissed in an hour--the power of Olivarez, the Minister, was absolute. Very naturally there were plottings and counterplottings. A Court is a prison to most of its inmates; no freedom is there-- thought is strangled and inspiration still-born. Yet life is always breaking through. When locked in a cell in a Paris prison, Horace Greeley wrote, "Thank God, at last I am free from intrusion." "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage," laughed Lovelace. Have not some of the great books of the world been written in prison? Things work by antithesis; and if your discipline is too severe, you get no discipline at all. Puritanical pretense, hypocrisy and a life of repression, with "thou shalt not" set on a hair-trigger, have made more than one man bold, genuine and honest. Draw the bow far enough this way, and your arrow will go a long way that. Forbid a man to think for himself or to act for himself, and you may add the joy of piracy and the zest of smuggling to his life. In the Spanish Court, Velasquez found life a lie, public manners an exaggeration, etiquette a pretense, and all the emotions put up in sealed cans. Fashionable Society is usually nothing but Canned Life. Look out for explosions! Velasquez held the balance true by an artistic courage and an audacity of private thought that might not have been his in a freer atmosphere. He did not wear his art upon his sleeve: he outwardly conformed, but inwardly his soul towered over every petty annoyance, and all the vain power of the fearing and quibbling little princes touched him not. Spain, under the rule of Philip the Second, grew great. Her ships sailed every sea--the world contributed to her wealth. Art comes after a surplus has accumulated and the mere necessaries of life have been provided. Philip built great palaces, founded schools, gave encouragement to the handicrafts, and sent his embassies scouring the world for the treasures of Art. The King was a practical man, blunt, farseeing, direct. He knew the cost of things, studied out the best ways, ascertained right methods. He had the red corpuscle, the deep convolution, and so was King. His ministers did his bidding. The grim sarcasm of entailed power is a thing so obvious that one marvels it has escaped the recognition of mankind until yesterday. But stay! Men have always seen its monstrous absurdity--hence the rack. The Spanish Inquisition, in which Church and State combined against God, seems an awful extreme to show the depths of iniquity to which Pride married to Hypocrisy can sink. Yet martyrdom has its compensation. The spirit flies home upon the wings of victory, and in the very moment of so-called defeat, the man has the blessed consolation that he is still master of his fate--captain of his soul. The lesson of the Inquisition was worth the price--the martyrs bought freedom for us. The fanged dogs of war, once turned loose upon the man who dared to think, have left as sole successor only a fat and harmless poodle, known as Social Ostracism. This poodle is old, toothless and given over to introspection; it has to be fed on pap; its only exercise is to exploit the horse-blocks, doze in milady's lap, and dream of a long-lost canine paradise. The dog- catcher awaits around the corner. Philip the Third was an etiolated and perfumed dandy. In him culture had begun to turn yellow. Men who pride themselves upon their culture haven't any of which to speak. All the beauties of art, this man thought, were exclusively for him and his precious company of lisping exquisites and giggling, mincing queans. The thought that those who create beauty are also they who possess it, never dawned upon this crack-pated son of tired sheets. He lived to enjoy--and so he never enjoyed anything. Surfeit and satiety overtook him in the royal hog-wallow; digestion and zest took flight. Philip the Third speedily became a wooden Indian on wheels, moved by his Minister of State, the Duke of Lerma. Huge animals sustain huge parasites, and so the Court of Philip the Third, with its fools, dwarfs, idiots and all of its dancing, jiggling, juggling, wasteful folly, did not succeed in wrecking the land. When Philip the Third traveled, he sent hundreds of men ahead to beat the swamps, day and night, in the vicinity of his royal presence, so as to silence the frogs. He thought their croaking was a personal matter meant for him. I think he was right. How the Lords of Death must chuckle in defiant glee when they send malaria and night into the palaces of the great through cracks and crevices! Philip's bloated, unkingly body became full of disease and pain; lingering unrest racked him; the unseen demons he could not exorcise, danced on his bed, wrenched his members and played mad havoc with each quivering nerve. And so he died. Then comes Philip the Fourth, immortal through his forty portraits painted by Velasquez. Philip was only fourteen when his father died. He was a rareripe, and showed strength and decision far beyond his years. His grandfather, Philip the Second, was his ideal, and he let it be known right speedily that his reign was to be one of moderation and simplicity, modeled along the lines of Philip the Great. The Duke of Lerma, Minister of State, who had so long been the actual ruler of Spain, was deposed, and into his place slipped the suave and handsome Olivarez, Gentleman-in-Waiting to the young King. Olivarez was from Seville, and had known the family of Velasquez. It was through his influence that Diego so soon got the nod of Royalty. The King was eighteen, Velasquez was twenty-four, and Olivarez not much older--all boys together. And the fact that Velasquez secured the appointment of Court Painter with such ease was probably owing to his dashing horsemanship, as much as to his being a skilful painter. At Harvard once I saw a determined effort made to place a famous "right tackle" in the chair of Assistant Professor of Rhetoric. The plan was only given over with great reluctance, when it was discovered that the "right tackle" was beautifully ignorant of the subject he would have to tackle. Even then it was argued he could "cram"--keeping one lesson in advance of his class. But Olivarez knew Velasquez could paint, and the artist's handsome face, stalwart frame and fearless riding did the rest. The young King was considered the best horseman in Madrid: Velasquez and Olivarez took pains never to outdo him in the joust. The biography of Olivarez as a study of life is a better subject far than either the life of Velasquez or the King. Their lives were too successful to be interesting. Olivarez is a fine example of a man growing great through exercise. Read history and behold how commonplace men have often had greatness thrust upon them and met the issue. I have seen an absurd Class B lawyer elevated into a judgeship, and rise to the level of events, keeping silence, looking wise, hugging his dignity hard, until there came a time when the dignity really was a fair fit. Trotters often need toe-weights to give them ballast and balance--so do men need responsibility. We have had at least three commonplace men for President of the United States, who live in history as adequately great--and they were. Various and sundry good folk will here arise and say the germ of greatness was in these men all the time, awaiting the opportunity to unfold. And the answer is correct, right and proper; but a codicil should then be added to the effect that the germ of greatness is in every man, but we fall victims of arrested development, and success or society, like a worm i' the bud, feeds on our damask cheek. Philip was nipped in the bud by falling into the protecting shadow of Olivarez. The Prime Minister provided boar-hunts and tourneys and masquerades and fetes. Philip's life of simplicity faded off into dressing in black--all else went on as before. Philip glided into the line of least resistance and signed every paper that he was told to sign by his gracious, winning, inflexible Minister--the true type of the iron hand in the velvet glove. From his twentieth year, after that first little flurry of pretended power, the novelty of ruling wore away; and for more than forty years he never either vetoed an act or initiated one. His ministers arranged his recreations, his gallantries, his hours of sleep. He was ruled and never knew it, and here the Richelieu-like Olivarez showed his power. It was anything to keep the King from thinking, and Spain, the Mother of Magnificence, went drifting to her death. There were already three Court Painters when Velasquez received his appointment. They were Italians appointed by Philip the Third. Their heads were full of tradition and precedent, and they painted like their masters, who had been pupils of men who had worked with Titian--beautiful attenuations three times reduced. We only know their names now because they raised a pretty chorus of protest when Velasquez appeared at the palace. They worked all the wires they knew to bring about his downfall, and then dwindled away into chronic Artistic Jealousy, which finally struck in; and they were buried. That the plots, challenges and constant knockings of these underling court painters ever affected Velasquez, we can not see. He swung right along at prodigious strides, living his own life--a life outside and beyond all the pretense and vanity of place and power. The King came by a secret passage daily to the studio to watch Velasquez work. There was always a chair for him, and the King even had an easel and sets of brushes and palette with which he played at painting. Pacheco, who had come up to Madrid and buzzed around encroaching on the Samuel Pepys copyright, has said that the King was a skilled painter. But this statement was for publication during the King's lifetime. When Velasquez could not keep the King quiet in any other way, it seems he made him sit for his picture. The studio was never without an unfinished portrait of the King. From eighteen to fifty-four he sat to Velasquez--and it is always that same tall, spindle-legged, impassive form and the dull, unspeaking face. There is no thought there, no aspiration, no hope too great for earth, no unrequited love, no dream unrealized. The King was incapable of love as he was of hate. And Velasquez did not use his art to flatter: he had the artistic conscience. Truth was his guiding star. And the greatness of Velasquez is shown in that all subjects were equally alike to him. He did not select the classic or peculiar. Little painters are always choosing their subjects and explaining that this or that may be pretty or interesting, but they will tell you it is "unpaintable" --which means that they can not paint it. "I can write well on any topic--all are alike to me!" said Dean Swift to Stella. "Then write me an essay on a broomstick," answered Stella. And Swift wrote the essay--full of abstruse reasons, playful wit and charming insight. The long, oval, dull face of Philip lured Velasquez. He analyzed every possible shade of emotion of which this man was capable, and stripped his soul bare. The sallow skin, thin curling locks, nerveless hands, and unmeaning eyes are upon the walls of every gallery of Christendom--matchless specimens of the power to sink self, and reveal the subject. That is why Whistler is right when he says that Velasquez is the painters' painter. "The Blacksmith" by Whistler shows you the blacksmith, not Whistler; Rembrandt's pictures of his mother show the woman; Franz Hals gives you the Burgomaster, not himself. Shakespeare of all writers is the most impersonal--he does not give himself away. When Rubens painted a portrait of Philip the Fourth he put a dash of daring, exuberant health in the face that was never there. The health and joy of life was in Rubens, and he could not keep it off his palette. There is a sameness in every Rubens, because the imagination of the man ran over, and falsified his colors; he always gives you a deal of Rubens. But stay! that expression, "sinking self," is only a figure of speech. At the last, the true artist never sinks self: he is always supreme, and towers above every subject, every object, that he portrays. The riotous health and good-cheer of Rubens marked the man's limitations. He was not great enough to comprehend the small, the delicate, the insignificant and the absurd. Only a very great man can paint dwarfs, idiots, topers and kings. And so the many- sidedness of the great man continually deceives the world into thinking that he is the thing with which he associates; or, on the other hand, we say he "sinks self" for the time, whereas the truth is that in his own nature he comprehends the Whole. Shakespeare being the Universal Man, we lose him in the labyrinth of his winding and wondrous imagination. The greater comprehends the less. The beginner paints what he sees; or, more properly, he paints what he thinks he sees. If he grows he will next paint what he imagines, as Rubens did. Then there is another stage which completes the spiral and comes back to the place of beginning, and the painter will again paint what he sees. This Velasquez did, and this is what sets him apart. The difference between the last stage and the first is that the artist has learned to see. To write is nothing--to know what to write is much. To paint is nothing--to see and know the object you are attempting to portray is everything. "Shall I paint the thing just as I see it?" asked the ingenue of the great artist. "Why, yes," was the answer, "provided you do not see the thing as you paint it." The King and the Painter grew old together. They met on a common ground of horses, dogs and art; and while the King used these things to kill time and cause him to forget self, the Painter found horses and dogs good for rest and recreation. But art was for Velasquez a religion, a sacred passion. Nominally the Court Painter ranked with the Court Barber, and his allowance was the same. But Velasquez ruled the King, and the King knew it not. Like all wasteful, dissolute men, Philip the Fourth had spasms of repentance when he sought by absurd economy to atone for folly. We are all familiar with individuals who will blow to the four winds good money, and much of it, on needless meat and drink for those who are neither hungry nor athirst, and take folks for a carriage-ride who should be abed, and then the next day buy a sandwich for dinner and walk a mile to save a five-cent carfare. Some of us have done these things; and so occasionally Philip would dole out money to buy canvas and complain of the size of it, and ask in injured tone how many pictures Velasquez had painted from that last bolt of cloth! But Velasquez was a diplomat and humored his liege; yet when the artist died, the administrator of his estate had to sue the State for a settlement, and it was ten years before the final amount due the artist was paid. After twenty years of devotion, Olivarez-- outmatched by Richelieu in the game of statecraft--fell into disrepute and was dismissed from office. Monarchies, like republics, are ungrateful. Velasquez sided with his old friend Olivarez in the quarrel, and thus risked incurring the sore displeasure of the King. The King could replace his Minister of State, but there was no one to take the place of the artist; so Philip bottled his wrath, gave Velasquez the right of his private opinion, and refused to accept his resignation. There seems little doubt that it was a calamity for Velasquez that Philip did not send him flying into disgrace with Olivarez. Had Velasquez been lifted out on the toe of the King's displeasure, Italy would have claimed him, and the Vatican would have opened wide its doors. There, relieved of financial badgering, in the company of his equals, encouraged and uplifted, he might have performed such miracles in form and color that even the wonderful ceiling of the Sistine Chapel would have faded into the mediocre. And again he might not--what more idle and fascinating than such speculation? That the King endured the calm rebuke of Velasquez, when Olivarez was deposed, and still retained the Painter in favor, was probably because Rubens had assured the King that Velasquez as an artist was the master of any man in all Europe. Velasquez made two trips to Italy, being sent on royal embassies to purchase statuary for the Prado Gallery, and incidentally to copy pictures. So there is many a Veronese, Tintoretto and Titian now in the Prado that was copied by Velasquez. Think of the value of a Titian copied by Velasquez! And so faithfully was the copying done, even to inserting the signature, initials and date, that much doubt exists as to what pictures are genuine and what copies. When Rubens appeared at the Court of Madrid, sent by the Duke of Mantua, with presents of Old Masters (done by himself), I can not but imagine the quiet confession, with smiles and popping of corks, that occurred when the wise and princely Rubens and the equally wise and princely Velasquez got together in some private corner. The advent of Rubens at Madrid sent a thrill through the entire Court, and a lesser man than Velasquez would have quaked with apprehension when he found the King sitting to Rubens for a portrait in his own studio. Not so Velasquez--he had done the King on canvas a score of times; no one else had ever been allowed to paint the King's portrait--and he was curious to see how the picture would come out. Rubens, twenty-two years the senior of Velasquez, shrank a bit, it seems, from the contest, and connoisseurs have said that there is a little lack of the exuberant, joyous Rubensesque quality in the various pictures done by the gracious Fleming in Spain. The taunt that many of the pictures attributed to Rubens were done by his pupils loses its point when we behold the prodigious amount of work that the master accomplished at Madrid in nine months--a dozen portraits, several groups, a score of pictures copied. And besides this, there was time for horseback rides when the King, Rubens and Velasquez galloped away together, when they climbed mountains, and when there were fetes and receptions to attend. Rubens was then over fifty, but the fire of his youth and that joyous animation of the morning, the years had not subdued. Velasquez had many pupils, but in Murillo his skill as a teacher is best revealed. Several of his pupils painted exactly like him, save that they neglected to breathe into the nostrils of their work the breath of life. But Velasquez seems to have encouraged Murillo to follow the bent of his moody and melancholy genius--so Murillo was himself, not a diluted Velasquez. The strong, administrative ability of Velasquez was prized by the King as much as his ability as a painter, and he was, therefore, advanced to the position of Master of Ceremonies. In this work, with its constant demand of close attention to petty details, his latter days were consumed. He died, aged sixty-one, a victim to tasks that were not worth the doing, but which the foolish King considered as important as painting deathless pictures. So closely was the life of his wife blended with his own that in eight days after his passing she followed him across the Border, although the physicians declared that she had no disease. Husband and wife were buried in one grave in a church that a hundred years later was burned and never rebuilt. No stone marks their resting- place; and none is needed, for Velasquez lives in his work. The truth, splendor and beauty that he produced are on a hundred walls-- the inspiration of men who do and dare--the priceless heritage of us who live today and of those who shall come after. COROT The sun sinks more and more behind the horizon. Bam! he throws his last ray, a streak of gold and purple which fringes the flying clouds. There, now it has entirely disappeared. Bien! bien! twilight commences. Heavens, how charming it is! There is now in the sky only the soft vaporous color of pale citron--the last reflection of the sun which plunges into the dark blue of the night, going from green tones to a pale turquoise of an unheard-of fineness and a fluid delicacy quite indescribable.... The fields lose their color, the trees form but gray or brown masses.... the dark waters reflect the bland tones of the sky. We are losing sight of things--but one still feels that everything is there--everything is vague, confused, and Nature grows drowsy. The fresh evening air sighs among the leaves-- the birds, these voices of the flowers, are saying their evening prayer. --_Corot's Letter to Graham_ [Illustration: Corot] Most young artists begin by working for microscopic effects, trying to portray every detail, to see every leaf, stem and branch and reveal them in the picture. The ability to draw carefully and finish painstakingly is very necessary, but the great artist must forget how to draw before he paints a great picture; just as every strong writer must put the grammar upon the shelf before he writes well. I once heard William Dean Howells say that any good, bright High-School girl of sixteen could pass a far better examination in rhetoric than he could--and the admission did Mr. Howells no discredit. "Would you advise me to take a course in elocution?" once asked a young man with oratorical ambitions of Henry Ward Beecher. "Yes, by all means. Study elocution very carefully, but you will have to forget it all before you ever become an orator," was the answer. Corot began as a child by drawing very rude, crude, uncertain pictures, just such pictures as any schoolboy can draw. Next he began to "complete" his sketches, and work with infinite pains. If he sketched a house he showed whether the roof was shingled or made of straw or tile; his trees revealed the texture of the bark and showed the shape of the leaf, and every flower contained its pistil and stamens, and told the man knew his botany. Two of his pictures done in Rome in his twenty-ninth year, "The Colosseum" and "The Forum," now in the Louvre, are good pictures--complete in detail, painstaking, accurate, hard and tight in technique. They are bomb- proof--beyond criticism--absolutely safe. Have a care, Corot! Keep where you are and you will become an irreproachable painter. That is to say, you will paint just like a hundred other French painters. There will be a market for your wares, the critics will approve, and at the Salon your work will never be either enskyed nor consigned to the catacombs. Society will court you, fair ladies will smile and encourage. You will be a success; your name will be safely pigeonholed among the unobjectionable ones, and before your wind- combed shock of hair has turned to silver, you will be supplanted by a new crop of fashion's favorites. It is a fact worth noting that the two greatest landscape-painters of all time were city-born and city-bred. Turner was born in London, the son of a barber, and Fate held him so in leash that he never got beyond the sound of Bow Bells until he was a man grown. Corot was born in Paris, and his first outdoor sketch, made at twenty-two, was done amidst the din and jostle of the quays of the Seine. Five strong men made up the Barbizon School, and of these, three were reared in Paris--Paris the frivolous, Paris the pleasure- loving. Corot, Rousseau and Daubigny were children of the Metropolis. I state these facts in the interests of truth, and also to ease conscience, for I am aware that I have glorified the country boy in pages gone before, as if God were kind to him alone. Turner made over a million dollars by the work of his hands (reinforced by head and heart); and left a discard of nineteen thousand sketches to the British Nation. Was ever such an example of concentration, energy and industry known in the history of art? Corot, six feet one, weight two hundred, ruddy, simple, guileless, singing softly to himself as he walked, in peasant blouse, and sabot-shod, used to come up to Paris, his birthplace, two or three times a year, and the gamins would follow him on the streets, making remarks irrelevant and comments uncomplimentary, just as they might follow old Joshua Whitcomb on Broadway in New York. British grandees often dress like farmers, for pride may manifest itself in simplicity, but the disinterested pose of Camille Corot, if pose it was, fitted him as the feathers fit a wild duck. If pose is natural it surely is not pose: and Corot, the simplest man in the world, was regarded by the many as a man of mannerisms. His work was so quiet and modest that the art world refused to regard it seriously. Corot was as unpretentious as Walt Whitman and just as free from vanity. During the War of the Rebellion, Whitman bankrupted himself in purse and body by caring for the stricken soldiers. At the siege of Paris, Corot could have kept outside the barriers, but safety for himself he would not accept. He remained in the city, refused every comfort that he could not divide with others, spent all the money he had in caring for the wounded, nursed the sick by night and day, listened to the confessions of the dying, and closed the eyes of the dead. To everybody, especially the simple folk, the plain, the unpretentious, the unknown, he was "Papa Corot," and everywhere did the stalwart old man of seventy-five carry hope, good-cheer and a courage that never faltered. Corot, like Whitman, had the happiness to have no history. Corot used paint just as if no one had ever painted before, and Whitman wrote as if he were the first man who had ever expressed himself in verse--precedent stood for naught. Each had all the time there was; they were never in a hurry; they loafed and invited their souls; they loved all women so well that they never could make choice of one; both were ridiculed and hooted and misunderstood; recognition came to neither until they were about to depart; and yet in spite of the continual rejection of their work, and the stupidity that would not see, and the ribaldry of those who could not comprehend, they continued serenely on their way, unruffled, kind-- making no apologies nor explanations--unresentful, with malice toward none, and charity for all. The world is still divided as to whether Walt Whitman was simply a coarse and careless writer, without either skill, style or insight; or one with such a subtle, spiritual vision, such a penetration into the heart of things, that few comparatively can follow him. During forty years of Corot's career the critics said, when they deigned to mention Corot at all, "There are two worlds, God's World and Corot's World." He was regarded as a harmless lunatic, who saw things differently from others, and so they indulged him, and at the Salon hung his pictures in the "Catacombs" with many a sly joke at his expense. The expression, "Corot Nature," is with us yet. But now the idea has gradually gained ground that Camille Corot looked for beauty and found it--that he painted what he saw, and that he saw things that the average man, through incapacity, never sees at all. Science has taught us that there are sounds so subtle that our coarse senses can not recognize them, and there are thousands of tints, combinations and variations in color that the unaided or uneducated eye can not detect. If Corot saw more than we, why denounce Corot? And so Corot has gradually and very slowly come into recognition as one who had power plus--it was we who were weak, we who were faulty, not he. The stones that were cast at him have been gathered up and cemented into a monument to his memory. The father of Camille Corot was a peasant who drifted over to Paris to make his fortune. He was active, acute, intelligent and economical--and when a Frenchman is economical his economy is of a kind that makes the Connecticut brand look like extravagance. This young man became a clerk in a drygoods-store that had a millinery attachment, as most French drygoods-stores have. He was precise, accurate, had a fair education, and always wore a white cravat. In the millinery department of this store was employed, among many others, a Swiss girl who had come up to Paris on her own account to get a knowledge of millinery and dressmaking. When this was gained she intended to go back to Switzerland, the land of liberty and Swiss cheese, and there live out her life in her native village making finery for the villagers for a consideration. She did not go back to Switzerland, because she very shortly married the precise young drygoods-clerk who wore the white cravat. The Swiss are the most competent people on this globe of ours, which is round like an orange and slightly flattened at the poles. There is less illiteracy, less pauperism, less drunkenness, more general intelligence, more freedom in Switzerland than in any other country on earth. This has been so for two hundred years: and the reason, some say, is that she has no standing army and no navy. She is surrounded by big nations that are so jealous of her that they will not allow each other to molest her. She is not big enough to fight them. Being too little to declare war, she makes a virtue of necessity and so just minds her own business. That is the only way an individual can succeed--mind your own business--and it is also the best policy with a nation. The way the Swiss think things out with their heads and materialize them with their hands is very wonderful. In all the Swiss schools the pupils draw, sew, carve wood and make things. Pestalozzi was Swiss, and Froebel was more Swiss than German. Manual Training and the Kindergarten are Swiss ideas. All of our progress in the line of pedagogy that the years have brought has consisted in carrying Kindergarten Ideas into the Little Red Schoolhouse, and elsewhere. The world is debtor to the Swiss--the carmine of their ideas has tinted the whole thought-fabric of civilization. The Swiss know how. Skilled workmen from Switzerland are in demand everywhere. That Swiss girl in the Paris shop was a skilled needlewoman, and the good taste and talent she showed in her work was a joy to her employers. There are hints that they tried to discourage her marriage with the clerk in the white cravat. What a loss to the art world if they had succeeded! But love is stronger than business ambition, and so the milliner married the young clerk, and they had a very modest little nest to which they flew when the day's work was done. In a year a domestic emergency made it advisable for the young woman to stay at home, but she kept right along with her sewing. Some of the customers hunted her up and wanted her to do work for them. When the stress of the little exigency was safely passed, the young mother found she could make more by working at home for special customers. A girl was hired to help her, then two--three. The rooms downstairs were secured, and a show-window put in. This was at the corner of the Rue du Bac and the Pont Royal, within sight of the Louvre. It is an easy place to find, and you had better take a look at the site the next time you are in Paris--it is sacred soil. Corot has told us much about his mother--a Frenchman is apt to regard his father simply as a necessary though often inconvenient appendage, possibly absorbing the idea from the maternal side of the house--but his mother is his solace, comforter and friend. The mother of Corot was intelligent, industrious, tactful; sturdy in body and strong in mind. In due course of time she built up a paying business, bought the house in which they lived, and laid by a goodly dot for her son and two daughters. And all the time Corot pere wore the white cravat, a precise smile for customers and an austere look for his family. He held his old position as floorwalker and gave respectability to his good-wife's Millinery and Dressmaking Establishment. The father's ambition for Camille was that he should become a model floorwalker, treading in the father's footsteps; and so, while yet a child, the boy was put to work in a drygoods-store, with the idea of discipline strong in mind. And for this discipline, in after-years Corot was grateful. It gave him the habit of putting things away, keeping accurate accounts, systematizing his work; and throughout his forty years or more of artistic life, it was his proud boast that he reached his studio every morning at three minutes before eight. Young Corot's mother had quite a little skill as a draftsman. In her business she drew designs for patterns, and if the prospective customer lacked imagination, she could draw a sketch of the garment as it would look when completed. Savage tribes make pictures long before they acquire an alphabet; so do all children make pictures before they learn to read. The evolution of the child mirrors the evolution of the race. Camille made pictures just as all boys do, and his mother encouraged him in this, and supplied him copies. When he was set to work in the drygoods-store he made sketches under the counter and often ornamented bundles with needless hieroglyphics. But these things did not necessarily mean that he was to be a great artist--thousands of drygoods-clerks have sketched and been drygoods- clerks to the end of their days. But good drygoods-clerks should not sketch too much or too well, else they will not rise in their career and some day have charge of a Department. Camille Corot did not get along at haberdashery--his heart was not in it. He was not quite so bad as a certain budding, artistic genius I once knew, who clerked in a grocery-store, and when a woman came in and ordered a dozen eggs and a half-bushel of potatoes, the genius counted out a dozen potatoes, and sent the customer a half- bushel of eggs. Then there was that absent-minded young drug-clerk who, when a stranger entered and inquired for the proprietor, answered, "He's out just at present, but we have something that is just as good." Corot hadn't the ability to make folks think they needed something they did not want--they only got what they wanted, after much careful diplomacy and insistence. These things were a great cross to Corot pere, and the dulness of the boy made the good father grow old before his time--so the father alleged. Were the woes of parents written in books, the world would not be big enough to contain the books. Camille Corot was a failure--he was big, fat, lazy, and tantalizingly good-natured. He haunted the Louvre, and stood open- mouthed before the pictures of Claude Lorraine until the attendants requested him to move on. His mother knew something of art, and they used to discuss all the new pictures together. The father protested: he declared that the mother was encouraging the boy in his vacillation and dreaminess. Camille lost his position. His father got him another place, and after a month they laid him off for two weeks, and then sent him a note not to come back. He hung around home, played the violin, and sang for his mother's sewing-girls while they worked. The girls all loved him--if the mother went out and left him in charge of the shop, he gave all hands a play-spell until it was time for Madame to return. His good nature was invincible. He laughed at the bonnets in the windows, slyly sketched the customers who came to try on the frivolities, and even made irrelevant remarks to his mother about the petite fortune she was deriving from catering to dead-serious nabobs who discussed flounces, bows, stays, and beribboned gewgaws as though they were Eternal Verities. "Mamma is a sculptor who improves upon Nature," one day Camille said to the girls." If a woman hasn't a good form Madame Corot can supply her such amorous proportions that lovers will straightway fall at her feet." But such jocular remarks were never made to the father-- in his presence Camille was subdued and suspiciously respectful. The father had "disciplined" him--but had done nothing else. Camille had a companion in Achille Michallon, son of the sculptor, Claude Michallon. Young Michallon modeled in clay and painted fairly well, and it was he who, no doubt, fired the mind of young Corot to follow an artistic career, to which Corot the elder was very much opposed. So matters drifted and Camille Corot, aged twenty-six, was a flat failure, just as he had been for ten years. He hadn't self-reliance enough to push out for himself, nor enough will to swing his parents into his way of thinking. He was as submissive as a child; and would not and could not do anything until he had gotten permission--thus much for discipline. Finally, in desperation, his father said: "Camille, you are of an age when you should be at the head of a business; but since you refuse to avail yourself of your opportunities and become a merchant, why, then, I'll settle upon you the sum of three hundred dollars a year for life and you can follow your own inclinations. But depend upon it, you shall have no more than I have named. I am done--now go and do what you want." The words are authentic, being taken down from Corot's own lips; and they sound singularly like that remark made to Alfred Tennyson by his grandfather, "Here is a guinea for your poem, and depend upon it, this is the first and last money you will ever receive for poetry." Camille was so delighted to hear his father's decision that he burst into tears and embraced the austere and stern-faced parent in the white cravat. Straightway he would begin his artistic career, and having so announced his intention to the sewing-girls in an impromptu operatic aria, he took easel and paints and went down on the towpath to paint his first outdoor picture. Soon the girls came trooping after, in order to see Monsieur Camille at his work. One girl, Mademoiselle Rose, stayed longer than the rest. Corot told of the incident in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-eight--a lapse of thirty years--and added: "I have not married--Mademoiselle Rose has not married--she is alive yet, and only last week was here to see me. Ah! what changes have taken place--I have that first picture I painted yet--it is the same picture and still shows the hour and the season, but Mademoiselle Rose and I, where are we?" Turner and Corot trace back to the same artistic ancestor. It was Claude who first fired the heart of the barber's boy, and it was Claude who diluted the zeal of Camille Corot for ribbons and haberdashery. Turner stipulated in his will that a certain picture of his should hang on the walls of the National Gallery by the side of a "Claude Lorraine"; and today in the Louvre you can see, side by side, a "Corot" and a "Claude." These men are strangely akin; yet, so far as I know, Corot never heard of Turner. However, he was powerfully influenced by Constable, the English painter, who was of the same age as Turner, and for a time, his one bitter rival. Claude had been dead a hundred years before Constable, Turner or Corot was born. But time is an illusion; all souls are of one age, and in spirit these men were contemporaries and brothers. Claude, Corot and Turner never married--they were wedded to art. Constable ripened fast; he got his reward of golden guineas, and society caught him in its silken mesh. Success came faster than he was able to endure it, and he fell a victim to fatty degeneration of the cerebrum, and died of an acute attack of self-complacency. It was about the year Eighteen Hundred Thirty-two that Constable gave an exhibition of his work in Paris--a somewhat daring thing for an Englishman to do. Paris had then, and has yet, about the same estimate of English art that the English have now of ours--although it is quite in order to explain in parentheses that three Americans, Whistler, Sargent and Abbey, have recently called a halt on English ribaldry as applied to American artists. But John Constable's exhibit in Paris met with favor--the work was singularly like the work of Claude Lorraine, the critics said. And it was, for Constable had copied Claude conscientiously. Corot saw the Englishman's pictures, realized that they were just such pictures as he would like to paint, and so fell down and worshiped them. For a year he dropped Claude and painted just like Constable. There was a time when Turner and Constable painted just alike, for they had the same master; but there came a day when Turner shoved out from shore, and no man since has been able to follow him. And no one can copy Corot. The work that he did after he attained freedom and swung away from Claude and Constable has an illusive, intangible, subtle and spiritual quality that no imitator can ever catch on his canvas. Corot could not even copy his own pictures--his work is born of the spirit. His effects are something beyond skill of hand, something beyond mere knowledge of technique. You can copy a Claude and you can copy a Constable, for the pictures have well- defined outline and the forms are tangible. Claude was the first painter who showed the shimmering sunlight on the leaves, the upturned foliage of the silver poplar, the yellow willows bending beneath the breeze, the sweep of the clouds across the sky, the play of the waves across the seashore, the glistening dewdrops on the grass, the soft stealing mists of twilight. Constable did all this, too, and he did it as well as Claude, but no better. He never got beyond the stage of microscopic portrayal; if he painted a dewdrop he painted it, and his blades of grass, swaying lily-stems, and spider-webs are the genuine articles. Corot painted in this minute way for many years, but gradually he evolved a daring quality and gave us the effect of dewdrops, the spider-threads, the foliage, the tall lilies, without painting them at all--he gives you the feeling, that is all, stirs the imagination until the beholder, if his heart be in tune, sees things that only the spiritual eye beholds. The pale, silvery tones of Corot, the shadowy boundaries that separate the visible from the invisible, can never be imitated without the Master's penetration into the heart of Nature. He knew things he could never explain, and he held secrets he could not impart. Before his pictures we can only stand silent--he disarms criticism and strikes the quibbler dumb. Before a Corot you had better give way, and let its beauty caress your soul. His colors are thin and very simple--there is no challenge in his work, as there is in the work of Turner. Greens and grays predominate, and the plain drab tones are blithe, airy, gracious, graceful and piquant as a beautiful young Quaker woman clothed in the garb of simplicity and humility--but a woman still. Corot coquettes with color--with pale lilac, silver gray, and diaphanous green. He poetizes everything he touches--quiet ponds, clumps of bushes, whitewashed cottages, simple swards, yellow cows, blowsy peasants, woodland openings, stretching meadows and winding streams--they are all full of divine suggestion and joyous expectancy. Something is just going to happen--somebody is coming, some one we love--you can almost detect a faint perfume, long remembered, never to be forgotten. A Corot is a tryst with all that you most admire and love best--it speaks of youth, joyous, hopeful, expectant youth. The flavor is Grecian, and if the Greeks had left us any paintings they would all have been just like Corot's. The bubbling, boyish good-cheer that Corot possessed is well shown in a letter he once wrote to Stevens Graham. This letter was written, without doubt, in that fine intoxication which comes after work well done; and no greater joy ever comes to a mortal in life than this. George Moore tells somewhere of catching Corot in one of these moods of rapture: the Master was standing alone on a log in the woods, like a dancing faun, leading an imaginary orchestra with silent but tremendous gusto. At other times, when Corot captured certain effects in a picture, he would rush across the fields to where there was a peasant plowing, and seizing the astonished man, would lead him over and stand him before the canvas crying: "Look at that! Ah, now, look at that! What did I tell you! You thought I never could catch it--Oho, aha, ohe, tralala, la, la, la, loo!" This willingness to let the unrestrained spirit romp was strong in Corot--and it is to be recommended. How much finer it is to go out into the woods and lift up your voice in song, and be a child, than to fight inclination and waste good God-given energy endeavoring to be proper--whatever that may be! Corot never wrote anything finer than that letter to his friend Graham, and, like all really good things, it was written with no weather-eye on futurity. The thought that it might be published never came to him, for if it had, he would probably have produced something not worth publishing. It was scribbled off with a pencil, hot from the heart, out of doors, immediately after having done a particularly choice bit of work. Every one who writes of Corot quotes this letter, and there are various translations of it. It can not be translated literally, because the language in which it was written is effervescent, flashing, in motion like a cascade. It defies all grammar, forgets rhetoric, and simply makes you feel. I have just as good a right to translate this letter as anybody, and while I will add nothing that the spirit of the text does not justify, I will omit a few things, and follow my own taste in the matter of paragraphing. So here is the letter: A landscapist's day is divine. You are jealous of the moments, and so are up at three o'clock--long before the sun sets you the example. You go out into the silence and sit under a tree, and watch and watch and wait and wait. It is very dark--the nightingales have gone to bed, all the mysterious noises of night's forenoon have ceased--the crickets are asleep, the tree-toad has found a nest--even the stars have slunk away. You wait. There is scarcely anything to be seen at first--only dark, spectral shapes that stand out against the blue-black of the sky. Nature is behind a veil, upon which some masses of form are vaguely sketched. The damp, sweet smell of the incense of Spring is in the air--you breathe deeply--a sense of religious emotion sweeps over you--you close your eyes an instant in a prayer of thankfulness that you are alive. You do not keep your eyes closed long, though--something is about to happen--you grow expectant, you wait, you listen, you hold your breath--everything trembles with a delight that is half-pain, under the invigorating caress of the coming day. You breathe fast, and then you hold your breath and listen. You wait. You peer. You listen. Bing! A ray of pale yellow light shoots from horizon to zenith. The dawn does not come all at once: it steals upon you by leaps and subtle strides like deploying pickets. Bing! Another ray, and the first one is suffusing itself across an arc of the purple sky. Bing, Bing! The east is all aglow. The little flowers at your feet are waking in joyful mood. The chirrup of birds is heard. How they do sing! When did they begin? You forgot them in watching the rays of light. The flowers are each one drinking its drop of quivering dew. The leaves feel the cool breath of the morning, and are moving to and fro in the invigorating air. The flowers are saying their morning prayers, accompanied by the matin-song of the birds. Amoretti, with gauzy wings, are perching on the tall blades of grass that spring from the meadows, and the tall stems of the poppies and field-lilies are swaying, swaying, swaying a minuet motion fanned by the kiss of the gentle breeze. Oh, how beautiful it all is! How good God is to send it! How beautiful! how beautiful! But merciful easel! I am forgetting to paint--this exhibition is for me, and I'm failing to improve it. My palette--the brushes--there! there! We can see nothing--but you feel the landscape is there--quick now, a cottage away over yonder is pushing out of the white mist. To thine easel--go! Oh! it's all there behind the translucent gauze--I know it--I know it--I know it! Now the white mist lifts like a curtain--it rises and rises and rises. Bam! the sun is risen. I see the river, like a stretch of silver ribbon; it weaves in and out and stretches away, away, away. The masses of the trees, of the meads, the meadows--the poplars, the leaning willows, are all revealed by the mist that is reeling and rolling up the hillside. I paint and I paint and I paint, and I sing and I sing and I paint! We can see now all we guessed before. Bam, Bam! The sun is just above the horizon--a great golden ball held in place by spider-threads. I can see the lace made by the spiders--it sparkles with the drops of dew. I paint and I paint and I sing and I paint. Oh, would I were Joshua--I would command the sun to stand still. And if it should, I would be sorry, for nothing ever did stand still, except a bad picture. A good picture is full of motion. Clouds that stand still are not clouds--motion, activity, life, yes, life is what we want--life! Bam! A peasant comes out of the cottage and is coming to the meadow. Ding, ding, ding! There comes a flock of sheep led by a bellwether. Wait there a minute, please, sheepy-sheepy, and a great man will paint you. All right then, don't wait. I didn't want to paint you anyway Bam! All things break into glistening--ten thousand diamonds strew the grasses, the lilies and the tall stalks of swaying poppies. Diamonds on the cobwebs--diamonds everywhere. Glistening, dancing, glittering light--floods of light--pale, wistful, loving light: caressing, blushing, touching, beseeching, grateful light. Oh, adorable light! The light of morning that comes to show you things-- and I paint and I paint and I paint. Oh, the beautiful red cow that plunges into the wet grass up to her dewlaps! I will paint her. There she is--there! Here is Simon, my peasant friend, looking over my shoulder. "Oho, Simon, what do you think of that?" "Very fine," says Simon, "very fine!" "You see what it is meant for, Simon?" "Me? Yes, I should say I do--it is a big red rock." "No, no, Simon, that is a cow." "Well, how should I know unless you tell me," answers Simon. I paint and I paint and I paint. Boom! Boom! The sun is getting clear above the treetops. It is growing hot. The flowers droop. The birds are silent. We can see too much now--there is nothing in it. Art is a matter of soul. Things you see and know all about are not worth painting--only the intangible is splendid. Let's go home. We will dine, and sleep, and dream. That's it--I'll dream of the morning that would not tarry--I'll dream my picture out, and then I'll get up and smoke, and complete it, possibly--who knows! Let's go home. * * * * * Bam! Bam! It is evening now--the sun is setting. I didn't know the close of the day could be so beautiful--I thought the morning was the time. But it is not just right--the sun is setting in an explosion of yellow, of orange, of rouge-feu, of cherry, of purple. Ah! it is pretentious, vulgar. Nature wants me to admire her--I will not. I'll wait--the sylphs of the evening will soon come and sprinkle the thirsty flowers with their vapors of dew. I like sylphs--I'll wait. Boom! The sun sinks out of sight, and leaves behind a tinge of purple, of modest gray touched with topaz--ah! that is better. I paint and I paint and I paint. Oh, Good Lord, how beautiful it is--how beautiful! The sun has disappeared and left behind a soft, luminous, gauzy tint of lemon-- lemons half-ripe. The light melts and blends into the blue of the night. How beautiful! I must catch that--even now it fades--but I have it: tones of deepening green, pallid turquoise, infinitely fine, delicate, fluid and ethereal. Night draws on. The dark waters reflect the mysteries of the sky-- the landscape fades, vanishes, disappears--we can not see it now, we only feel it is there. But that is enough for one day--Nature is going to sleep, and so will we, soon. Let us just sit silent a space and enjoy the stillness. The rising breezes are sighing through the foliage, and the birds, choristers of the flowers, are singing their vesper-songs--calling, some of them, plaintively for their lost mates. Bing! A star pricks its portrait in the pond. All around now is darkness and gloom--the crickets have taken up the song where the birds left off. The little lake is sparkling, a regular ant-heap of twinkling stars. Reflected things are best--the waters are only to reflect the sky-- Nature's looking-glass. The sun has gone to rest; the day is done. But the Sun of Art has arisen, and my picture is complete. Let us go home. The Barbizon School--which, by the way, was never a school, and if it exists now is not at Barbizon--was made up of five men: Corot, Millet, Rousseau, Diaz and Daubigny. Corot saw it first--this straggling little village of Barbizon, nestling there at the foot of the Forest of Fontainebleau, thirty- five miles southeast of Paris. This was about the year Eighteen Hundred Thirty. There was no market then for Corot's wares, and the artist would have doubted the sanity of any one who might have wanted to buy. His income was one dollar a day--and this was enough. If he wanted to go anywhere, he walked; and so he walked into Barbizon one day, his pack on his back, and found there a little inn, so quaint and simple that he stayed two days. The landlord quite liked the big, jolly stranger. Hanging upon his painting outfit was a mandolin, a harmonica, a guitar and two or three other small musical instruments of nondescript pedigree. The painter made music for the village, and on invitation painted a sketch on the tavern-wall to pay for his board. And this sketch is there even to this day, and is as plain to be seen as the splash of ink on the wall at Eisenach where Martin Luther threw the ink-bottle at the devil. When Corot went back to Paris he showed sketches of Barbizon and told of the little snuggery, where life was so simple and cheap. Soon Rousseau and Diaz went down to Barbizon for a week's stay-- later came Daubigny. In the course of a few years Barbizon grew to be a kind of excursion point for artistic and ragged Bohemians, most of whom have done their work, and their little life is now rounded with a sleep. Rousseau, Diaz and Daubigny, all younger men than Corot, made comfortable fortunes long before Corot got the speaker's eye; and when at last recognition came to him, not the least of their claim to greatness was that they had worked with him. It was not until Eighteen Hundred Forty-nine that Jean Francois Millet with his goodly brood was let down from the stage at Barbizon, to work there for twenty-six years, and give himself and the place immortality. For when we talk of the Barbizon School, we have the low tones of "The Fagot-Gatherer" in mind--the browns, the russets and the deep, dark yellows fading off into the gloom of dying day. And only a few miles away, clinging to the hillside, is By, where lived Rosa Bonheur--too busy to care for Barbizon, or if she thought of the "Barbizon School" it was with a fine contempt, which the "School" returned with usurious interest. At the Barbizon Inn the Bohemians used to sing songs about the Bonheur breeches, and "the Lady who keeps a Zoo." The offense of Rosa Bonheur was that she minded her own business, and sold the "Horse Fair" for more money than the entire Barbizon School had ever earned in its lifetime. Only two names loom large out of Barbizon. Daubigny, Diaz and Rousseau are great painters, and they each have disciples and imitators who paint as well as they; but Corot and Millet stand out separate and alone, incomprehensible and unrivaled. And yet were ever two artists more unlike! Just compare "The Dancing Sylphs" and "The Gleaners." The theme of all Millet's work is, "Man goeth forth to his labors unto the evening." Toil, hardship, heroic endurance, plodding monotony, burdens grievous to be borne--these things cover the canvases of Millet. All of his deep sincerity, his abiding melancholy, his rugged nobility are there; for every man who works in freedom simply reproduces himself. That is what true work is--self-expression, self-revelation. The style of Millet is so strongly marked, so deeply etched, that no man dare imitate it. It is covered by a perpetual copyright, signed and sealed with the life's blood of the artist. Then comes Corot the joyous, Corot the careless, Corot who had no troubles, no sorrows, no grievances, and not an enemy that he recognized as such. He even loved Rosa Bonheur, or would, he once said, "If she would only chain up her dog, and wear woman's clothes!" Corot, singing at his work, unless he was smoking, and if he was smoking, removing his pipe only to lift up his voice in song: Corot, painting and singing--"Ah ha--tra la la. Now I 'll paint a little boy--oho, oho, tra lala la loo--lal loo-- oho--what a nice little boy--and here comes a cow; hold that, bossy --in you go for art's dear sake--tra la la la, la loo!" Look at a Corot closely and listen, and you can always hear the echo of the pipes o' Pan. Lovers sit on the grassy banks, children roll among the leaves, sylphs dance in every open, and out from between the branches lightly steps Orpheus, harp in hand, to greet the morn. Never is there a shadow of care in a Corot--all is mellow with love, ripe with the rich gift of life, full of prayer and praise just for the rapture of drinking in the day--grateful for calm, sweet rest and eventide. Corot, eighteen years the senior of Millet, was the first to welcome the whipped-out artist to Barbizon. With him Corot divided his scanty store; he sang and played his guitar at the Millet hearthstone when he had nothing but himself to give; and when, in Eighteen Hundred Seventy-five, Millet felt the chill night of death settling down upon him, and the fear that want would come to his loved ones haunted his dreams, Corot assured him by settling upon the family the sum of one thousand francs a year, until the youngest child should become of age, and during Madame Millet's life. So died Jean Francois Millet. In Eighteen Hundred Eighty-nine "The Angelus" was bought by an American Syndicate for five hundred eighty thousand francs. In Eighteen Hundred Ninety it was bought back by agents of the French Government for seven hundred fifty thousand francs, and now has found a final resting-place in the Louvre. Within a few months after the death of Millet, Corot, too, passed away. Corot is a remarkable example of a soul ripening slowly. His skill was not at its highest until he was seventy-one years of age. He then had eight years of life and work left, and he continued even to the end. In his art there was no decline. It can not be said that he received due recognition until he was approaching his seventy-fifth year, for it was then, for the first time, that the world of buyers besieged his door. The few who had bought before were usually friends who had purchased with the amiable idea of helping a worthy man. During the last few years of Corot's life, his income was over fifty thousand francs a year--"more than I received for pictures during my whole career," he once said. And then he shed tears at parting with the treasures that had been for so long his close companions. "You see, I am a collector," he used to say, "but being poor, I have to paint all my pictures myself--they are not for sale." And probably he would have kept his collection unbroken were it not that he wanted the money so much to give away. Of the painters classed in the Barbizon School, it is probable that Corot will live longest, and will continue to occupy the highest position. His art is more individual than Rousseau's, more poetic than that of Daubigny, and in every sense more beautiful than that of Millet. When Camille Corot passed out, on the Twenty-second of February, Eighteen Hundred Seventy-five, he was the best-loved man in Paris. Five thousand art-students wore crape on their arms for a year in memory of "Papa Corot," a man who did his work joyously, lived long, and to the end carried in his heart the perfume of the morning, and the beneficent beauty of the sunrise. CORREGGIO What genius disclosed all these wonders to thee? All the fair images in the world seem to have sprung forward to meet thee, and to throw themselves lovingly into thy arms. How joyous was the gathering when smiling angels held thy palette, and sublime spirits stood before thy inward vision in all their splendor as models! Let no one think he has seen Italy, let no one think he has learnt the lofty secrets of art, until he has seen thee and thy Cathedral at Parma, O Correggio! --_Ludwig Tieck_ [Illustration: Correggio] There is no moment that comes to mortals so charged with peace and precious joy as the moment of reconciliation. If the angels ever attend us, they are surely present then. The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstacy that well might arouse the envy of the gods. How well the theologians have understood this! Very often, no doubt, their psychology has been more experimental than scientific--but it is effective. They plunge the candidate into a gloom of horror, guilt and despair; and then when he is thoroughly prostrated--submerged--they lift him out and up into the light, and the thought of reconciliation possesses him. He has made peace with his Maker! That is to say, he has made peace with himself--peace with his fellowmen. He is intent on reparation; he wishes to forgive every one. He sings, he dances, he leaps into the air, clasps his hands in joy, embraces those nearest him, and calls aloud, "Glory to God! Glory to God!" It is the moment of reconciliation. Yet there is a finer temperament than that of the "new convert," and his moment of joy is one of silence--sacred silence. In the Parma Gallery is the painting entitled, "The Day," the masterpiece of Correggio. The picture shows the Madonna, Saint Jerome, Saint John and the Christ-child. A second woman is shown in the picture. This woman is usually referred to as Magdalene, and to me she is the most important figure in it. She may lack a little of the ethereal beauty of the Madonna, but the humanness of the pose, the tenderness and subtle joy of it, shows you that she is a woman indeed, a woman the artist loved--he wanted to paint her picture, and Saint Jerome, the Madonna and the Christ-child are only excuses. John Ruskin, good and great, but with prejudices that matched his genius, declared this picture "immoral in its suggestiveness." It is so splendidly, superbly human that he could not appreciate it. Yet this figure of which he complains is draped from neck to ankle--the bare feet are shown--but the attitude is sweetly, tenderly modest. The woman, half-reclining, leans her face over and allows her cheek, very gently, to press against that of the Christ-child. Absolute relaxation is shown, perfect trust--no tension, no anxiety, no passion--only a stillness and rest, a gratitude and subdued peace that are beyond speech. The woman is so happy that she can not speak, so full of joy that she dare not express it, and a barely perceptible tear-stain upon her cheek suggests that this peace has not always been. She has found her Savior--she is His and He is hers. It is the moment of reconciliation. The Renaissance came as a great burst of divine light, after a thousand years of lurid night. The iron heel of Imperial Rome had ground individuality into the mire. Unceasing war, endless bloodshed, slavery without limit, and rampant bestiality had stalked back and forth across Europe. Insanity, uncertainty, drudgery and crouching want were the portion of the many. In such a soil neither art, literature nor religion can prosper. But now the Church had turned her face against disorder, and was offering her rewards for excellence and beauty. Gradually there came a feeling of safety--something approaching security. Throughout Italy, beautiful, stately churches were being built; in all the little principalities, palaces were erected; architecture became a science. The churches and palaces were decorated with pictures, statues filled the niches, memorials to great ones gone were erected in the public squares. It was a time of reconciliation--peace was more popular than war--and where men did go to war, they always apologized for it by explaining that they fought simply to obtain peace. Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo and Botticelli were doing their splendid work--work palpitating with the joy of life, and yet upon it was the tinge of sorrow, the scars of battles fought, the tear- stains that told of troubles gone. Yet the general atmosphere was one of blitheness, joyous life and gratitude for existence. Men seemed to have gotten rid of a great burden; they stood erect, they breathed deeply, and looking around them, were surprised to perceive that life was really beautiful, and God was good. In such an attitude of mind they reached out friendly hands toward each other. Poets sang; musicians played; painters painted, and sculptors carved. Universities sprang into being--schools were everywhere. The gloom was dispelled even from the monasteries. The monks ate three meals a day--sometimes four or five. They went a- visiting. Wine flowed, and music was heard where music was never heard before. Instead of the solemn processional, there were Barnabee steps seen on stone floors--steps that looked like ecclesiastical fandango. The rope girdles were let out a trifle, flagellations ceased, vigils relaxed, and in many instances the coarse horsehair garments were replaced with soft, flowing robes, tied with red, blue or yellow sashes of silk and satin. The earth was beautiful, men were kind, women were gracious, God was good, and His children should be happy--these were the things preached from many pulpits. Paganism had got grafted on to Christianity, and the only branches that were bearing fruit were the pagan branches. The old spirit of Greece had come back, romping, laughing in the glorious Italian sunshine. Everything had an Attic flavor. The sky was never so blue, the yellow moonlight never before cast such soft, mysterious shadows, the air was full of perfume, and you had but to stop and listen any time and anywhere to hear the pipes o' Pan. When Time turned the corner into the Sixteenth Century, the tide of the Renaissance was at its full. The mortification of the monasteries, as we have seen, had given place to a spirit of feasting--good things were for use. The thought was contagious, and although the Paulian idea of women keeping silence in all due subjection has ever been a favorite one with masculine man, yet the fact is that in the matter of manners and morals men and women are never far apart--there is a constant transference of thought, feeling and action. I do not know why this is. I merely know that it is so. Some have counted sex a mistake on the part of God; but the safer view is for us to conclude that whatever is, is good; some things are better than others, but all are good. That is what they thought during the Renaissance. So convent life lost its austerity, and as the Council of Trent had not yet issued its stern orders commanding asceticism, prayers were occasionally offered accompanied by syncopated music. The blooming daughters of great houses were consigned to convents on slight excuse. "To a nunnery go, and quickly, too," was an order often given and followed with alacrity. Married women, worn with many cares, often went into "retreat"; girls tired of society's whirl; those wrung with hopeless passion; unmanageable wives; all who had fed on the husks of satiety; those who had incurred the displeasure of parents or kinsmen, or were deserted, forlorn and undone, all these found rest in the convents--provided they had the money to pay. Those without money or influential friends simply labored as servants and scullions. Rich women contracted the "Convent Habit"; this was about the same thing as our present dalliance known as the "Sanitarium Bacillus"--which only those with a goodly bank-balance can afford to indulge. The poor, then as now, had a sufficient panacea for trouble: they kept their nerves beneath their clothes by work; they had to grin and bear it--at least they had to bear it. In almost every town that lined the great Emilian Highway, that splendid road laid out by the Consul Marcus Emilius, 83 B. C., from Rimini and Piacenza, there were convents of high and low degree-- some fashionable, some plain, and some veritable palaces, rich in art and full of all that makes for luxury. These convents were at once a prison, a hospital, a sanitarium, a workshop, a school and a religious retreat. The day was divided up into periods for devotion, work and recreation, and the discipline was on a sliding scale matching the mood of the Abbess in charge, all modified by the prevailing spirit of the inmates. But the thought that life was good was rife, and this thought got over every convent-wall, stole through the garden-walks, crept softly in at every grated window, and filled each suppliant's cell with its sweet, amorous presence. Yes, life is good, God is good! He wants His children to be happy! The white clouds chase each other across the blue dome of heaven, the birds in the azaleas and in the orange-trees twitter, build nests and play hide-and-seek the livelong day. The balmy air is flavored with health, healing and good-cheer. Life in a convent had many advantages and benefits. Women were taught to sew and work miracles with the needle; they made lace, illumined missals, wove tapestries, tended the flowers, read from books, listened to lectures, and spent certain hours in silence and meditation. To a great degree the convents were founded on science and a just knowledge of human needs. There were "orders" and degrees that fitted every temperament and condition. But the humble garb of a nun never yet changed the woman's heart that beats beneath--she is a woman still. Every night could be heard the tinkle of guitars beneath bedroom- windows, notes were passed up on forked sticks, and missives freshly kissed by warm lips were dropped down through lattices; secret messengers came with letters, and now and again rope ladders were in demand; while not far away, there were always priests who did a thriving business in the specialty of Gretna Green. Every sanitarium, every great hotel, every public institution--every family, I was going to say--has two lives: the placid moving life that the public knows, and the throbbing, pulsing life of plot and counterplot--the life that goes on beneath the surface. It is the same with the human body--how bright and calm the eye, how smooth and soft the skin, how warm and beautiful this rose-mesh of flesh! But beneath there is a seething struggle between the forces of life and the disintegration--and eventually nothing succeeds but failure. Every convent was a hotbed of gossip, jealousy, hate and seething strife; and now and again there came a miniature explosion that the outside world heard and translated with emendations to suit. Rivalry was rife, competition lined the corridors, and discontent sat glum or rustled uneasily in each stone cell. Some of the inmates brought pictures, busts and ornaments to embellish their rooms. Friends from the outside world sent presents; the cavalier who played the guitar beneath the window varied his entertainment by gifts; flowers filled the beautiful vases, and these blossoms were replaced ere they withered, so as to show that true love never dies. Monks from neighboring monasteries preached sermons or gave lectures; skilled musicians came, and sang or played the organ; noblemen visited the place to examine the works of art, or to see fair maids on business, or consult the Abbess on matters spiritual. Often these visitors were pressed to remain, and then receptions were held and modest fetes given and banquets tendered. At intervals there were fairs, when the products made by the marriage of the hand and brain of the fair workers were exhibited and sold. So life, though in a convent, was life, and even death and disintegration are forms of life--and all life is good. The Donna Giovanni Piacenza was appointed Abbess of San Paola Convent, Parma, in Fifteen Hundred Seven. The Abbess was the daughter of the nobleman Marco. Donna Giovanni was a woman of marked mental ability; she had a genius for management; a wise sense of diplomacy; and withal was an artist by nature and instinct. The Convent of San Paola was one of the richest and most popular in the Emilia. The man to whose influence the Abbess owed most in securing her the appointment was the Cavaliere Scipione, a lawyer and man of affairs, married to the sister of the Abbess. As a token of esteem and by way of sisterly reciprocity, the Abbess soon after her appointment called the Cavaliere Scipione to the position of Legal Adviser and Custodian of the Convent Funds. Before this the business of the institution had been looked after by the Garimberti family; and the Garimberti now refusing to relinquish their office, Scipione took affairs into his own hands and ran the chief offender through with his sword. Scipione found refuge in the Convent, and the officers of the law hammered on the gates for admission, and hammered in vain. Parma was split into two factions--those who favored the Abbess Giovanni and those who opposed her. Once at midnight the gates were broken down and the place searched, for hiding cavaliers, by the Governor of the city and his cohorts, to the great consternation of the nuns. But time is the great healer, and hate left alone is shortlived, and dies a natural death. The Abbess was wise in her management, and with the advice and assistance of Scipione, the place prospered. Visitors came, delegations passed that way, great prelates gave their blessing, and the citizens of Parma became proud of the Convent of San Paola. Some of the nuns were rich in their own right, and some of these had their rooms frescoed by local artists to suit their fancies. Strictly religious pictures were not much in vogue with the inmates --they got their religion at the chapel. Mythology and the things that symbolized life and love were the fashion. On one door was a flaming heart pierced by an arrow, and beneath in Italian was the motto, "Love while you may." Other mottoes about the place were, "Eat, drink and be merry"; "Laugh and be glad." These mottoes revealed the prevailing spirit. Some of the staid citizens of Parma sent petitions to Pope Julius demanding that the decree of strict cloistration be enforced against the nuns. But Julius sort of reveled in life himself, and the art spirit shown by the Abbess was quite to his liking. Later, Leo the Tenth was importuned to curb the festive spirit of the place, but he shelved the matter by sending along a fatherly letter of advice and counsel. About this time we find the Abbess and her Legal Adviser planning a scheme of decoration that should win the admiration or envy--or both--of every art-lover in the Emilia. The young man, Antonio Allegri, from Correggio should do the work. They had met him at the house of Veronica Gambara, and they knew that any one Veronica recommended must be worthy of confidence. Veronica said the youth had sublime talent--it must be so. His name, Allegri, meant joy, and his work was charged with all his name implied. He was sent for, and he came--walking the forty miles from Correggio to Parma with his painter's kit on his back. He was short of stature, smooth-faced and looked like a good-natured country bumpkin in his peasant garb, all decorated with dust. He was modest, half-shy, and the nuns who peered at him from behind the arras as he walked down the hallway of the Convent caused his countenance to run the chromatic scale. He was sorry he came, and if he could have gotten away without disgrace he surely would have started straight back for Correggio. He had never been so far away from home before, and although he did not know it he was never to get farther away in his life. Venice and Titian were to the east a hundred miles; Milan and Leonardo were to the north about the same distance; Florence and Michelangelo were south ninety miles; Rome and Raphael were one hundred sixty miles beyond; and he was never to see any of these. But the boy shed no tears over that; it is quite possible that he never heard of any of these names just mentioned, save that of Leonardo. None loomed large as they do now--there were painters everywhere, just as Boston Common is full of poets. Veronica Gambara had told him of Leonardo-- we know that--and described in glowing words and with an enthusiasm that was contagious how the chief marks of Leonardo's wonderful style lay in the way he painted hands, hair and eyes. The Leonardo hands were delicate, long of finger, expressive and full of life; the hair was wavy, fluffy, sun-glossed, and it seemed as if you could stroke it, and it would give off magnetic sparks; but Leonardo's best feature was the eye--the large, full-orbed eye that looked down so that you really never saw the eye, only the lid, and the long lashes upon which a tear might glisten. Antonio listened to Veronica with open mouth, drinking it all in, and then he sighed and said, "I am a painter, too." He set to work, fired with the thought of doing what Leonardo had done--hands, hair and eyes--beautiful hands, beautiful hair, beautiful eyes! Then these things he worked upon, only he never placed the glistening tear upon the long lash, because there were no tears upon his own lashes. He had never known sorrow, trouble, disappointment or defeat. The specialty of Allegri was "putti"--tumbling, tumultuous, tricksy putti. These cherubs symboled the joy of life, and when Allegri wished to sign his name, he drew a cherub. He had come up out of a family that had little and expected nothing. Then he needed so little--his wants were few. If he went away from home on little journeys, he stopped with peasants along the way and made merry with the children and outlined a chubby cherub on the cottage-wall, to the delight of everybody; and in the morning was sent on his way with blessings, Godspeeds, and urgent invitations to come again. Smiles and good-cheer, a little music and the ability to do things, when accompanied by a becoming modesty, are current coin the round world over. Tired earth is quite willing to pay for being amused. The Abbess Giovanni showed Antonio about the Convent, and he saw what had already been done. He was appreciative, but talked little. The Abbess liked the youth. He suggested possibilities--he might really become the great painter that the enthusiastic Veronica prophesied he would some day be. The Abbess gave up one of her own rooms for his accommodation, brought him water for a bath, and at supper sat him at the table at her own right hand. "And about the frescos?" asked the Abbess. "Yes, the frescos--your room shall be done first. I will begin the work in the morning," replied Antonio. The confidence of the youth made the Abbess smile. Many of our finest flowers are merely transplanted weeds. Transplantation often works wonders in men. When Fate lifted Antonio Allegri out of the little village of Correggio and set him down in the city of Parma, a great change came over him. The wealth, beauty and freer atmosphere of the place caused the tendrils of his imagination to reach out into a richer soil, and the result was such blossoms of beauty, so gorgeous in form and color, that men have not yet ceased to marvel. The Convent of San Paola is a sacred shrine for art-lovers--they come from the round world over, just to see the ceiling in that one room--the room of the Abbess Giovanni, where Antonio Allegri, the young man from Correggio, first placed his scaffolds in Parma. The village of Correggio is quite off the beaten track of travel. You will have to look five times on the map before you can find it. It is now only a village, and in the year Fourteen Hundred Ninety- four, when Antonio Allegri was born and Cristoforo Colombo, the Genoese, was discovering continents, it was little better than a hamlet. It had a church, a convent, a palace where dwelt the Corregghesi--the Lords of Correggio--and stretching around the square, where stood the church, were long, low, stone cottages, whitewashed, with trellises of climbing flowers. Back of these cottages were little gardens where the peas, lentils, leeks and parsley laughed a harvest. There were flowers, flowers everywhere-- none was too poor to have flowers. Flowers are a strictly sex product and symbol the joy of life; and where there are no flowers, there is little love. Lovers give flowers--and they are enough--and if you do not love flowers, they will refuse to blossom for you. "If I had but two loaves of bread, I'd sell one of them and buy white hyacinths to feed my soul"--that was said by a man who loved this world, no less than the next. Do not defame this world--she is the mother that feeds you, and she supplies you not only bread, but white hyacinths to feed your soul. On market-day in every Italian town four hundred years ago, just as now, the country women brought big baskets of vegetables and also baskets of flowers. And you will see in those markets, if you observe, that the people who buy vegetables usually buy sprays of mignonette, bunches of violets, roses upon which the dew yet sparkles, or white hyacinths. Loaves alone are not quite enough--we want also the bread of life, and the bread of life is love, and didn't I say that flowers symbol love? And I have noted this, in those old markets: often the pile of flowers that repose by the basket of fruit or vegetables is to give away to the customers as tokens of good-will. I remember visiting the market at Parma one day and buying some cherries, and the old woman who took my money picked up a little spray of hyacinth and pinned it to my coat, quite as a matter of course. The next day I went back and bought figs, and got a big moss-rose as a premium. The peculiar brand of Italian that I spoke was unintelligible to the old woman, and I am very sure that I could not understand her, yet the white hyacinths and the moss-rose made all plain. That was five years ago, but if I should go back to Parma tomorrow, I would go straight to the Market-Place, and I know that my old friend would reach out a brown calloused hand to give me welcome, and the choicest rose in her basket would be mine--the heart understands. That spirit of mutual giving was the true spirit of the Renaissance, and in the forepart of the Sixteenth Century it was at its fullest flower. Men gave the beauty that was in them, and Vasari tells of how at Correggio the peasants, who had nothing else to give, each Sunday brought flowers and piled them high at the feet of the Virgin. There were painters and sculptors at the village of Correggio then; great men in their day, no doubt, but lost now to us in the maze of years. And there was, too, a little court of beauty and learning, presided over by Veronica Gambara. Veronica was a lover of art and literature, and a poet of no mean quality. Antonio Allegri, the son of the village baker, was a welcome visitor at her house. The boy used to help the decorators at the church, and had picked up a little knowledge of art. That is all you want--an entrance into the Kingdom of Art, and all these things shall be added unto you. Veronica appreciated the boy because he appreciated art, and great lady that she was, she appreciated him because he appreciated her. Nothing so warms the cockles of a teacher's heart as appreciation in a pupil. The intellect of the village swung around Veronica Gambara. Visitors of note used to come from Bologna and Ferrara just to hear Veronica read her poems, and to talk over together the things they all loved. At these conferences Antonio was often present. He was eighteen, perhaps, when his sketches were first shown at Veronica's little court of art and letters. He had taken lessons from the local painters, and visiting artists gave him the benefit of advice and criticism. Then Veronica had many engravings and various copies of good pictures. The boy was immersed in beauty, and all he did he did for Veronica Gambara. She was no longer young--she surely was old enough to have been the boy's mother, and this was well. Such a love as this is spiritualized under the right conditions, and works itself up into art, where otherwise it might go dancing down the wanton winds and spend itself in folly. Antonio painted for Veronica. All good things are done for some one else, and then after a while a standard of excellence is formed, and the artist works to please himself. But paradoxically, he still works for others--the singer sings for those who hear, the writer writes for those who understand, and the painter paints for those who would paint just such pictures as he, if they could. Antonio painted just such pictures as Veronica liked--she fixed the standard and he worked up to it. And who then could possibly have foretold that the work of the baker's boy would rescue the place from oblivion, so that anywhere where the word is mentioned, "Correggio" should mean the boy Antonio Allegri, and not the village nor the wide domain of the Corregghesi! The distinguishing feature of Correggio's work is his "putti." He delighted in these well-fed, unspanked and needlessly healthy cherubs. These rollicksome, frolicsome, dimpled boy babies--and that they are boys is a fact which I trust will not be denied--he has them everywhere! Paul Veronese brings in his omnipresent dog--in every "Veronese," there he is, waiting quietly for his master. Even at the "Assumption" he sits in one corner, about to bark at the angels. The dog obtrudes until you reach a point where you do not recognize a "Veronese" without the dog--then you are grateful for the dog, and surely would scorn a "Veronese" minus the canine attachment. We demand at least one dog, as our legal and inborn right, with every "Veronese." So, too, we claim the cherubs of Correggio as our own. They are so oblivious of clothes, so beautifully indifferent to the proprieties, so delightfully self-sufficient! They have no parents; they are mostly of one size, and are all of one gender. They hide behind the folds of every apostle's cloak, peer into the Magdalen's jar of precious ointment, cling to the leg of Saint Joseph, make faces at Saint Bernard, attend in a body at the "Annunciation"--as if it were any of their business--hover everywhere at the "Betrothal," and look on wonderingly from the rafters, or make fun of the Wise Men in the Stable. They invade the inner Courts of Heaven, and are so in the way that Saint Peter falls over them, much to their amusement. They seat themselves astride of clouds, some fall off, to the great delight of their mates, and still others give their friends a boost over shadows that are in the way. I said they had no parents--they surely have a father, and he is Correggio; but they are all in sore need of a mother's care. I believe it was Schiller who once intimated that it took two to love anything into being. But Correggio seems to have performed the task of conjuring forth these putti all alone; yet it is quite possible that Veronica Gambara helped him. That he loved them is very sure--only love could have made them manifest. This man was a lover of children, otherwise he could not have loved putti, for he sympathized with all their baby pranks, and sorrows as well. One cherub bumps his head against a cloud and straightway lifts a howl that must have echoed all through Paradise. His mouth is open to its utmost limit; tears start from between his closed eyes, which he gouges with chubby fists, and his whole face is distorted in intense pigmy wrath. One might really feel awfully sorry for him were it not for the fact that he sticks out one foot trying to kick a playfellow who evidently hadn't a thing to do with the accident. He's a bad, naughty cherub--that is what he is, and he deserves to have his obtrusive anatomy stung, just a little, with the back of a hairbrush, for his own good. This same cherub appears in other places, once blowing a horn in another's ear; and again he is tickling a sleeping brother's foot with a straw. These putti play all the tricks that real babies do, and besides have a goodly list of "stunts" of their own. One thing is sure, to Correggio heaven would not be heaven without putti; and the chief difference that I see between putti and sure-enough babies is, that putti require no care and babies do. Then putti are practical and useful--they hold up scrolls, tie back draperies, carry pictures, point out great folks, feed birds, and in one instance Correggio has ten of them leading a dog out to execution. They carry the train of the Virgin, assist the Apostles, act as ushers, occasionally pass the poorbox, make wreaths and crowns--but, I am sorry to say, sometimes get into unseemly scuffles for first place. They have no wings, yet they soar and fly like English sparrows. They are not troubled with nerv. pros. or introspection. What they feed upon is uncertain, but sure it is that they are well nourished. A putti needs nothing, not even approbation. In the dome of the Cathedral at Parma, there is a regular flight of them to help on the Ascension. They mix in everywhere, riding on clouds, clinging to robes, perching on the shoulders of Apostles-- everywhere thick in the flight and helping on that glorious anabasis. Away, away they go--movement--movement everywhere--right up into the blue dome of Heaven! As you look up at that most magnificent picture, a tinge of sorrow comes over you--the putti are all going away, and what if they should never come back! A little girl I know once went with her Mamma to visit the Cathedral at Parma. Mother and daughter stood in silent awe for a space, looking up at that cloud of vanishing forms. At last the little girl turned to her mother and said, "Mamma, did you ever see so many bare legs in all the born days of your life?" Some years ago in a lecture John La Farge said that the world had produced only seven painters that deserved to rank in the first class, and one of these is Correggio. The speaker did not name the other six; and although requested to do so, smilingly declined, saying that he preferred to allow each auditor to complete the list for himself. One person present made out this list of seven Immortals, and passed the list to Edmund Russell, seated near, for comments. This is the list: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Titian, Rembrandt, Correggio, Velasquez, Corot. Mr. Russell approved the selection, but added a note claiming the privilege to change and substitute names from time to time as his mood might prompt. This seems to me like a very sensible verdict. "Who is your favorite author?" is a question that is often asked. Just as if any one author ever got first place in the mind of a strong man and stuck there! Authors jostle each other for first place in our hearts. We may have Emerson periods and Browning periods, when they alone minister to us; and so also pictures, like music, make their appeals to mood. This peaceful, beautiful May day, as I write this at my cabin in the woods, Correggio seems to me truly one of the world's marvelous men. He is near, very dear, and yet before him I would stand silent and uncovered. He did his work and held his peace. He was simple, modest, unobtrusive and unpretentious. He was so big that he never knew the greatness of his work, any more than the author of Hamlet knew the immensity of his. Correggio was never more than a day's journey from home--he toiled in obscurity and did work so grand that it made its final appeal only to the future. He never painted his own portrait, and no one else seemed to consider him worth while; his income was barely sufficient for his wants. He was so big that following fast upon his life came a lamentable decline in art: his personality being so great that his son and a goodly flock of disciples tried to paint just like him. All originality faded out of the fabric of their lives, and they were only cheap, tawdry and dispirited imitators. That is one of the penalties which Nature exacts when she vouchsafes a great man to earth--all others are condemned to insipidity. They are whipped, dispirited and undone, and spontaneity dies a-borning. No man should try to do another man's work. Note the anatomical inanities of Bernini in his attempts to out-Angelo Michelangelo. In this "rushing-in" business, keep out, or you may count as one more fool. Correggio struck thirteen because he was himself, and was to a great degree even ignorant and indifferent to what the world was doing. He was filled with the joy of life; and with no furtive eye on the future, and no distracting fears concerning the present, he did his work and did it the best he could. He worked to please himself, cultivated the artistic conscience--scorning to create a single figure that did not spring into life because it must. All of his pictures are born of this spirit. Good old Guido of Parma, afar from home, once asked, with tear- filled eyes, of a recent visitor there--"And tell me, you saw the Cathedral and the Convent of San Paola--and are not the cherubs of Master Correggio grown to be men yet?" It is only life and love that give love and life. Correggio gave us both out of the fulness of a full heart. And growing weary when scarce forty years of age, he passed out into the Silence, but his work is ours. BELLINI And if in our day Raphael must give way to Botticelli, with how much greater reason should Titian in the heights of his art, with all his earthly splendor and voluptuous glow, give place to the lovely imagination of dear old Gian Bellini, the father of Venetian Art? --_Mrs. Oliphant, in "The Makers of Venice"_ [Illustration: Bellini] It is a great thing to teach. I am never more complimented than when some one addresses me as "teacher." To give yourself in a way that will inspire others to think, to do, to become--what nobler ambition! To be a good teacher demands a high degree of altruism, for one must be willing to sink self, to die--as it were--that others may live. There is something in it very much akin to motherhood--a brooding quality. Every true mother realizes at times that her children are only loaned to her--sent from God--and the attributes of her body and mind are being used by some Power for a Purpose. The thought tends to refine the heart of its dross, obliterate pride and make her feel the sacredness of her office. All good men everywhere recognize the holiness of motherhood--this miracle by which the race survives. There is a touch of pathos in the thought that while lovers live to make themselves necessary to each other, the mother is working to make herself unnecessary to her children. The true mother is training her children to do without her. And the entire object of teaching is to enable the scholar to do without his teacher. Graduation should take place at the vanishing-point of the teacher. Yes, the efficient teacher has in him much of this mother-quality. Thoreau, you remember, said that genius is essentially feminine; if he had teachers in mind his remark was certainly true. The men of much motive power are not the best teachers--the arbitrary and imperative type that would bend all minds to match its own may build bridges, tunnel mountains, discover continents and capture cities, but it can not teach. In the presence of such a towering personality freedom dies, spontaneity droops, and thought slinks away into a corner. The brooding quality, the patience that endures, and the yearning of motherhood, are all absent. The man is a commander, not a teacher; and there yet remains a grave doubt whether the warrior and ruler have not used their influence more to make this world a place of the skull than the abode of happiness and prosperity. The orders to kill all the firstborn, and those over ten years of age, were not given by teachers. The teacher is one who makes two ideas grow where there was only one before. Just here, before we pass on to other themes, seems a good place to say that we live in a very stupid old world, round like an orange and slightly flattened at the poles. The proof of this seemingly pessimistic remark, made by a hopeful and cheerful man, lies in the fact that we place small premium in either honor or money on the business of teaching. As, in the olden times, barbers and scullions ranked with musicians, and the Master of the Hounds wore a bigger medal than the Poet Laureate, so do we pay our teachers the same as coachmen and coal-heavers, giving them a plentiful lack of everything but overwork. I will never be quite willing to admit that this country is enlightened until we cease the inane and parsimonious policy of trying to drive all the really strong men and women out of the teaching profession by putting them on the payroll at one-half the rate, or less, than what the same brains and energy can command elsewhere. In this year of our Lord, Nineteen Hundred Two, in a time of peace, we have appropriated four hundred million dollars for war and war-appliances, and this sum is just double the cost of the entire public-school system in America. It is not the necessity of economy that dictates our actions in this matter of education--we simply are not enlightened. But this thing can not always last--I look for the time when we shall set apart the best and noblest men and women of earth for teachers, and their compensation will be so adequate that they will be free to give themselves for the benefit of the race, without apprehension of a yawning almshouse. A liberal policy will be for our own good, just as a matter of cold expediency; it will be Enlightened Self-interest. With the rise of the Bellinis, Venetian art ceased to be provincial, blossoming out into national. Jacopo Bellini was a teacher--mild, gentle, sympathetic, animated. His work reveals personality, but is somewhat stiff and statuesque: sharp in outline like an antique stained-glass window. This is because his art was descended from the glassworkers; and he himself continued to make designs for the glassworkers of Murano all his life. Considering the time in which he lived he was a great painter, for he improved upon what had gone before and prepared the way for those greater than he who were yet to come. He called himself an experimenter, and around him clustered a goodly group of young men who were treated by him more as comrades than as students. They were all boys together--learners, with the added dignity which an older head of the right sort can lend. "Old Jacopo" they used to call him, and there was a touch of affection in the term to which several of them have testified. All of the pupils loved the old man, who wasn't so very old in years, and certainly was not in heart. Among his pupils were his two sons, Gentile and Gian, and they called him Old Jacopo, too. I rather like this--it proves for one thing that the boys were not afraid of their father. They surely did not run and hide when they heard him coming, neither did they find it necessary to tell lies in order to defend themselves. A severe parent is sure to have untruthful children, and perhaps the best recipe for having noble children is to be a noble parent. It is well to be a companion to your children, and just where the idea came in which developed into the English boarding-school delusion, that children should be sent away among hirelings-- separated from their parents--in order to be educated, I do not know. It surely was not complimentary to the parents. Old Jacopo didn't try very hard to discipline his boys--he loved them, which is better if you are forced to make choice. They worked together and grew together. Before Gian and Gentile were eighteen they could paint as well as their father. When they were twenty they excelled him, and no one was more elated over it than Old Jacopo. They were doing things he could never do: overcoming obstacles he could not overcome--he clapped his hands in gladness, did this old teacher, and shed tears of joy--his pupils were surpassing him! Gian and Gentile would not admit this, but still they kept right on, each vieing with the other. Vasari says that Gian was the better artist, but Aldus refers to Gentile as "the undisputed master of painting in all Venetia." Ruskin compromises by explaining that Gentile had the broader and deeper nature, but that Gian was more feminine, more poetic, nearer lyric, possessing a delicacy and insight that his brother never acquired. These qualities better fitted him for a teacher; and when Old Jacopo passed away, Gian drifted into his place, for every man is gravitating straight to where he belongs. The little workshop of one room now was enlarged: the bottega became an atelier. There were groups of workrooms and studios, and a small gallery that became the meeting-place for various literary and artistic visitors at Venice. Ludovico Ariosto, greatest of Italian poets, came here and wrote a sonnet to "Gian Bellini, sublime artist, performer of great things, but best of all the loving Teacher of Men." Gian Bellini had two pupils whose name and fame are deathless: Giorgione and Titian. There is a fine flavor of romance surrounds Giorgione, the gentle, the refined, the beloved. His was a spirit like unto that of Chopin or Shelley, and his death-dirge should have been written by the one and set to music by the other--brothers doloroso, sent into this rough world unprepared for its buffets, passing away in manhood's morning. Yet all heard the song of the skylark. Giorgione died broken-hearted, through his ladylove's inconstancy. He was exactly the same age as Titian, and while he lived surpassed that giant far, as the giant himself admitted. He died aged thirty-three, the age at which a full dozen of the greatest men of the world have died, and the age at which several other very great men have been born again--which possibly is the same thing. Titian lived to be a hundred, lacking six months, and when past seventy used to give alms to a beggar-woman at a church- door--the woman who had broken the heart of Giorgione. He also painted her portrait--this in sad and subdued remembrance of the days agone. The Venetian School of Art has been divided by Ruskin into three parts: the first begins with Jacopo Bellini, and this part might be referred to as the budding period. The second is the flowering period, and the palm is carried by Gian Bellini. The period of ripe fruit--o'erripe fruit, touched by the tint of death--is represented by four men: Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto and Paul Veronese. Beyond these four, Venetian Art has never gone, and although four hundred years have elapsed since they laughed and sang, enjoyed and worked, all we can do is wonder and admire. We can imitate, but we can not improve. Gian Bellini lived to be ninety-two, working to the last, always a learner, always a teacher. His best work was done after his eightieth year. The cast-off shell of this great spirit was placed in the tomb with that of his brother Gentile, who had passed out but a few years before. Death did not divide them. Giovanni Bellini was his name. Yet when people who loved beautiful pictures spoke of "Gian," every one knew who was meant, but to those who worked at art he was "The Master." He was two inches under six feet in height, strong and muscular. In spite of his seventy summers his carriage was erect and there was a jaunty suppleness about his gait that made him seem much younger. In fact, no one would have believed that he had lived over his threescore and ten, were it not for the iron-gray hair that fluffed out all around under the close- fitting black cap, and the bronzed complexion--sun-kissed by wind and weather--which formed a trinity of opposites that made people turn and stare. Queer stories used to be told about him. He was a skilful gondolier, and it was the daily row back and forth from the Lido that gave him that face of bronze. Folks said he ate no meat and drank no wine, and that his food was simply ripe figs in the season, with coarse rye bread and nuts. Then there was that funny old hunchback, a hundred years old at least, and stone-deaf, who took care of the gondola, spending the whole day, waiting for his master, washing the trim, graceful, blue-black boat, arranging the awning with the white cords and tassels, and polishing the little brass lions at the sides. People tried to question the old hunchback, but he gave no secrets away. The master always stood up behind and rowed, while down on the cushions rode the hunchback, the guest of honor. There stood the master erect, plying the oar, his long black robe tucked up under the dark blue sash that exactly matched the color of the gondola. The man's motto might have been, "Ich Dien," or that passage of Scripture, "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." Suspended around his neck by a slender chain was a bronze medal, presented by vote of the Signoria when the great picture of "The Transfiguration" was unveiled. If this medal had been a crucifix, and you had met the wearer in San Marco, one glance at the finely chiseled features, the black cap and the flowing robe and you would have said at once the man was a priest, Vicar-General of some important diocese. But seeing him standing erect on the stern of a gondola, the wind caressing the dark gray hair, you would have been perplexed until your gondolier explained in serious undertone that you had just passed "The greatest Painter in all Venice, Gian, the Master." Then if you showed curiosity and wanted to know further, your gondolier would have told you more about this strange man. The canals of Venice are the highways, and the gondoliers are like 'bus-drivers in Piccadilly--they know everybody and are in close touch with all the secrets of State. When you get to the Giudecca and tie up for lunch, over a bottle of Chianti, your gondolier will tell you this: The hunchback there in the gondola, rowed by the Master, is the Devil, who has taken that form just to be with and guard the greatest artist the world has ever seen. Yes, Signor, that clean-faced man with his frank, wide-open, brown eyes is in league with the Evil One. He is the man who took young Tiziano from Cadore into his shop, right out of a glass-factory, and made him a great artist, getting him commissions and introducing him everywhere! And how about the divine Giorgione who called him father? Oho! And who is Giorgione? The son of some unknown peasant woman. And if Bellini wanted to adopt him, treat him as his son indeed, kissing him on the cheek when he came back just from a day's visit to Mestre, whose business was it? Oho! Besides that, his name isn't Giorgione--it is Giorgio Barbarelli. And didn't this Giorgio Barbarelli, and Tiziano from Cadore, and Espero Carbonne, and that Gustavo from Nuremberg, and the others paint most of Gian's pictures? Surely they did. The old man simply washes in the backgrounds and the boys do the work. About all old Gian does is to sign the picture, sell it and pocket the proceeds. Carpaccio helps him, too--Carpaccio, who painted the loveliest little angel sitting crosslegged playing the biggest mandolin you ever saw in your life. That is genius, you know--the ability to get some one else to do the work, and then capture the ducats and the honors for yourself. Of course Gian knows how to lure the boys on--something has to be done in order to hold them. Gian buys a picture from them now and then; his studio is full of their work--better than he can do. Oh, he knows a good thing when he sees it. These pictures will be valuable some day, and he gets them at his own price. It was Antonello of Messina who introduced oil-painting into Venice. Before that they mixed their paints with water, milk or wine. But when Antonello came along with his dark, lustrous pictures, he set all artistic Venice astir. Gian Bellini discovered the secret, they say, by feigning to be a gentleman and going to the newcomer and sitting for his picture. He it was who discovered that Antonello mixed his colors with oil. Oho! Of course not all of the pictures in his studio are painted by the boys--some are painted by that old Dutchman what's-his-name--oh, yes, Durer, Alberto Durer of Nuremberg. Two Nuremberg painters were in that very gondola last week just where you sit--they are here in Venice now, taking lessons from Gian, they said. Gian was up there at Nuremberg and lived a month with Durer--they worked together, drank beer together, I suppose, and caroused. Gian is very strict about what he does in Venice, but you can never tell what a man will do when he is away from home. The Germans are a roystering lot--but they do say they can paint. Me? I have never been there--and do not want to go, either--there are no canals there. To be sure, they print books in Nuremberg. It was up there somewhere that they invented type, a lazy scheme to do away with writing. They are a thrifty lot--those Germans--they give me my fare and a penny more, just a single penny, and no matter how much I have talked and pointed out the wonderful sights, and imparted useful information, known to me alone--only one penny extra--think of it! Yes, printing was first done at Mayence by a German, Gutenberg, about sixty years ago. One of Gutenberg's workmen went up to Nuremberg and taught others how to design and cast type. This man Alberto Durer helped them, designing the initials and making title- pages by cutting the design on a wooden block, then covering this block with ink, laying a sheet of paper upon it, and placing it in a press; then when the paper is lifted off it looks exactly like the original drawing. In fact, most people couldn't tell the difference, and here you can print thousands of them from the one block! Gian Bellini makes drawings for title-pages and initials for Aldus and Nicholas Jenson. Venice is the greatest printing-place in the world, and yet the business began here only thirty years ago. The first book printed here was in Fourteen Hundred Sixty-nine, by John of Speyer. There are nearly two hundred licensed printing-presses here, and it takes usually four men to a press--two to set the type and get things ready, and two to run the press. This does not count, of course, the men who write the books, and those who make the type and cut the blocks from which they print the pictures for illustrations. At first, you know, the books they printed in Venice had no title-pages, initials or illustrations. My father was a printer and he remembers when the first large initials were printed --before that, the spaces were left blank and the books were sent out to the monasteries to be completed by hand. Gian and Gentile had a good deal to do about cutting the first blocks for initials--they got the idea, I think, from Nuremberg. And now there are Dutchmen down here from Amsterdam learning how to print books and paint pictures. Several of them are in Gian's studio, I hear--every once in a while I get them for a trip to the Lido or to Murano. Gentile Bellini is his brother and looks very much like him. The Grand Turk at Constantinople came here once and saw Gian Bellini at work in the Great Hall. He had never seen a good picture before and was amazed. He wanted the Senate to sell Gian to him, thinking he was a slave. They humored the Pagan by hiring Gentile Bellini to go instead, loaning him out for two years, so to speak. Gentile went, and the Sultan, who never allowed any one to stand before him, all having to grovel in the dirt, treated Gentile as an equal. Gentile even taught the old rogue to draw a little, and they say the painter had a key to every room in the palace, and was treated like a prince. Well, they got along all right, until one day Gentile drew the picture of the head of John the Baptist on a charger. "A man's head doesn't look like that when it is cut off," said the Turk contemptuously. Gentile had forgotten that the Turk was on familiar ground. "Perhaps the Light of the Sun knows more about painting than I do!" said Gentile, as he kept right on at his work. "I may not know much about painting, but I'm no fool in some other things I might name," was the reply. The Sultan clapped his hands three times: two slaves appeared from opposite doors. One was a little ahead of the other, and as this one approached, the Sultan with a single swing of the snickersnee snipped off his head. This teaches us that obedience to our superiors is its own reward. But the lesson was wholly lost on Gentile Bellini, for he did not remain even to examine the severed head for art's sake. The thought that it might be his turn next was supreme, and he leaped through a window, taking the sash with him. Making his way to the docks he found a sailing-vessel loading with fruit, bound for Venice. A small purse of gold made the matter easy--the captain of the boat secreted him, and in four days he was safely back in Saint Mark's giving thanks to God for his deliverance. No, I didn't say Gian was a rogue--I only told you what others say. I am only a poor gondolier--why should I trouble myself about what great folks do? I simply tell you what I hear--it may be so, and it may not; God knows! There is that Pascale Salvini. He has a rival studio, and when that Genoese, Cristoforo Colombo, was here and made his stopping-place at Bellini's studio, Pascale told every one that Colombo was a lunatic and Bellini another, for encouraging him to show his foolish maps and charts. Now, they do say that Colombo has discovered a new world, and Italians are feeling troubled in conscience because they did not fit him out with ships instead of forcing him to go to Spain. No, I didn't say Bellini was a hypocrite--Pascale's pupils say so, and once they followed him over to Murano--three barca-loads and my gondola besides. You see it was like this: Twice a week, just after sundown, we used to see Gian Bellini untie his boat from the landing there behind the Doge's palace, turn the prow, and beat out for Murano, with no companion but that deaf old caretaker. Twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays--always at just the same hour, regardless of weather--we would see the old hunchback light the lamps, and in a few moments the Master would appear, tuck up his black robe, step into the boat, take the oar, and away they would go. It was always to Murano, and always to the same landing--one of our gondoliers had followed several times, just out of curiosity. Finally it came to the ears of Pascale that Gian took this regular trip to Murano. "It is a rendezvous," said Pascale; "worse than that, an orgy among those lacemakers and the rogues of the glassworks. Oh, to think that Gian should stoop to such things at his age--his pretended asceticism is but a mask--and at his age!" The Pascale students took it up, and once came in collision with that Tiziano of Cadore, who they say broke a boat-hook over the head of one of them who had spoken ill of the Master. But this did not silence the talk, and one dark night, when the air was full of flying mist, one of Pascale's students came to me and told me that he wanted me to take a party over to Murano. The weather was so bad that I refused to go--the wind blew in gusts, sheet-lightning filled the eastern sky, and all honest men, but poor belated gondoliers, had hied them home. I refused to go. Had I not seen Gian the painter go not half an hour before? Well, if he could go, others could, too. I refused to go--except for double fare. He accepted and placed the double fare in silver in my palm. Then he gave a whistle and from behind the corners came trooping enough swashbuckler students to swamp my gondola. I let in just enough to fill the seats and pushed off, leaving several standing on the stone steps cursing me and everything and everybody. As my good boat slid away into the fog and headed on our course, I glanced back and saw the three barca-loads following in my wake. There was much muffled talk, and orders from some one in charge to keep silence. But there was passing of strong drink, and then talk, and from it I gathered that these were all students from Pascale's, out on one of those student carousals, intent on heaven knows what! It was none of my business. We shipped considerable water, and several of the students were down on their knees praying and bailing, bailing and praying. At last we reached the Murano landing. All got out, the barcas tied up, and I tied up, too, determined to see what was doing. The strong drink was passed, and a low heavy-set fellow who seemed to be captain charged all not to speak, but to follow him and do as he did. We took a side-street where there was little travel and followed through the dark and dripping way, fully a half-mile, down there in that end of the island called the sailors' bagnio, where they say no man's life is safe if he has a silver coin or two. There was much music in the wine-shops and shouts of mirth and dancing feet on stone floors, but the rain had driven every one from the streets. We came to a long, low stone building that used to be a theater, but was now a dance-hall upstairs and a warehouse below. There were lights upstairs and sounds of music. The stairway was dark, but we felt our way up, and on tiptoe advanced to the big double door, from under which the light streamed. We had received our orders, and when we got to the landing we stood there just an instant. "Now we have him--Gian the hypocrite!" whispered the stout man in a hoarse breath. We burst in the doors with a whoop and a bang. The change from the dark to the light sort of blinded us at first. We all supposed that there was a dance in progress of course, and the screams from women were just what we expected, but when we saw several overturned easels and an old man, half-nude, and too scared to move, seated on a model throne, we did not advance into the hall as we intended. That one yell we gave was all the noise we made. We stood there in a bunch, just inside the door, sort of dazed and uncertain. We did not know whether to retreat or to charge on through the hall as we had intended. We just stood there like a lot of driveling fools. "Keep right at your work, my good people! Keep right at your work!" called a pleasant voice. "I see we have some visitors." And Gian Bellini came forward. His robe was still tucked up under the blue sash, but he had laid aside his black cap, and his tumbled gray hair looked like the aureole of a saint. "Keep right at your work," he said again, and then came forward and bade us welcome and begged us to have seats. I dared not run away, so I sat down on one of the long seats that were ranged around the wall. My companions did the same. There must have been fifty easels, all ranged in a semicircle around the old man who posed as a model. Several of the easels had been upset, and there was much confusion when we entered. "Just help us to arrange things--that is right, thank you," said Gian to the stout man who was captain of our party. To my astonishment the stout man was doing just as he was bid, and was pacifying the women students and straightening up their easels and stools. I was interested in watching Gian walking around, helping this one with a stroke of his crayon, saying a word to that, smiling and nodding to another. I just sat there and stared. These students were not regular art-students, I could see that plainly. Some were children, ragged and barelegged; others were old men who worked in the glass-factories, and surely with hands too old and stiff to ever paint well. Still others were young girls and women of the town. I rubbed my eyes and tried to make it out! The music we heard I could still hear--it came from the wine-shop across the way. I looked around--and what do you believe? My companions had all gone. They had sneaked out one by one and left me alone. I watched my chance, and when the Master's back was turned I tiptoed out, too. When I got down on the street I found I had left my cap, but I dare not go back after it. I made my way down to the landing, half running, and when I got there not a boat was to be seen--the three barcas and my gondola were gone. I thought I could see them, out through the mist, a quarter of a mile away. I called aloud, but no answer came back but the hissing wind. I was in despair--they were stealing my boat, and if they did not steal it, it would surely be wrecked--my all, my precious boat! I cried and wrung my hands. I prayed! And the howling winds only ran shrieking and laughing around the corners of the buildings. I saw a glimmering light down the beach at a little landing. I ran to it, hoping some gondolier might be found who would row me over to the city. There was one boat at the landing and in it a hunchback, sound asleep, covered with a canvas. It was Gian Bellini's boat. I shook the hunchback into wakefulness and begged him to row me across to the city. I yelled into his deaf ears, but he pretended not to understand me. Then I showed him the silver coin, the double fare, and tried to place it in his hand. But no, he only shook his head. I ran up the beach, still looking for a boat. An hour had passed. I got back to the landing just as Gian came down to his boat. I approached him and explained that I was a poor worker in the glass- factory, who had to work all day and half the night, and as I lived over in the city and my wife was dying, I must get home. Would he allow me to ride with His Highness? "Certainly--with pleasure, with pleasure!" he answered, and then pulling something from under his sash he said, "Is this your cap, signor?" I took my cap, but my tongue was paralyzed for the moment so I could not thank him. We stepped into the boat, and as my offer to row was declined, I just threw myself down by the hunchback, and the prow swung around and headed toward the city. The wind had died down, the rain had ceased, and from between the blue-black clouds the moon shone out. Gian rowed with a strong, fine stroke, singing a "Te Deum Laudamus" softly to himself the while. I lay there and wept, thinking of my boat, my all, my precious boat! We reached the landing--and there was my boat, safely tied up, not a cushion or a cord missing. Gian Bellini? He may be a rogue as Pascale says--God knows! How can I tell--I am only a poor gondolier. CELLINI It is a duty incumbent upon upright and credible men of all ranks, who have performed anything noble or praiseworthy, to truthfully record, in their own writing, the principal events of their lives. --_Benvenuto Cellini_ [Illustration: Cellini] "The man who is thoroughly interested in himself is interesting to other people," Wendell Phillips once said. Good healthy egotism in literature is the red corpuscle that makes the thing live. Cupid naked and unashamed is always beautiful; we turn away only when some very proper person perceives he is naked and attempts to better the situation by supplying him a coat of mud. The Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff, wherein are many morbid musings and information as to the development of her mind and anatomy, is intensely interesting; Amiel's Journal holds us with a tireless grasp; the Confessions of Saint Augustine can never die; Jean Jacques Rousseau's book was the favorite of such a trinity of opposites as Emerson, George Eliot and Walt Whitman; Pepys' Diary is so dull it is entertaining; and the Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini have made a mediocre man immortal. Cellini had an intense personality; he was skilful as a workman; he told the truth as he saw it, and if he ever prevaricated it was simply by failing to mention certain things that he considered were no credit to anybody. But his friendships were shallow; those he respected most, say Michelangelo and Raphael, treated him as Prince Henry finally did Falstaff, never allowing him to come within half a mile of their person on penalty. He was intimate with so many women that he apologized for not remembering them; he had no interest in his children, and most of his plans and purposes were of a pattypan order. Yet he wrote two valuable treatises: one on the art of the goldsmith and the other on the casting of bronze; there is also an essay on architecture that contains some good ideas; and courtier that he was, of course wrote some poetry, which is not so bad as it might be. But the book upon which his reputation rests is the "Memoirs," and a great book it is. All these things seem to show that a man can be a great author and yet have a small soul. Haven't we overrated this precious gift of authorship just a trifle? Taine said that educated Englishmen all write alike--they are all equally stupid. And John Addington Symonds, an educated Englishman, and the best translator of Cellini, wrote, "Happily Cellini was unspoiled by literary training." Goethe translated Cellini's book into German and paid the doughty Italian the compliment of saying that he did the task out of pure enjoyment, and incidentally to improve his literary style. Cellini is not exactly like us, and when we read his book we all give thanks that we are not like him, but every trait that he had large, we have in little. Cellini was sincere; he never doubted his own infallibility, but he points out untiringly the fallibilities in various popes and everybody else. When Cellini goes out and kills a man before breakfast, he absolves himself by showing that the man richly deserved his fate. The braggart and bully are really cowards at the last. A man who is wholly brave would not think to brag of it. He would be as brave in his calm moments as in moments of frenzy--take old John Brown, for instance. But when Cellini had a job on hand he first worked himself into a torrent of righteous wrath. He poses as the injured one, the victim of double, deep-dyed conspiracies, and so he goes through life afraid of every one, and is one of whom all men are afraid. Every artist has occasional attacks of Artistic Jealousy, and happy is the man who contents himself with the varioloid variety. Cellini had three kinds: acute, virulent and chronic. Berloiz has worked the man up into a strong and sinewy drama, several others have done the same, but it will require the combined skill of Rostand, Mansfield and Samuel Eberly Gross to ever do the character justice. John Morley says, "There is nothing worse than mettle in a blind horse." So one might say there is nothing worse than sincerity in a superstitious person. Benvenuto Cellini is the true type of a literary and artistic Bad Man. Had he lived in Colorado in Eighteen Hundred Seventy, the Vigilance Committee would have used him to start a graveyard. But he is so open, so simple, so candid, that we laugh at his lapses, admire his high resolves, sigh at his follies, sympathize with his spasms of repentance, and smile a misty smile at one who is humorous without meaning to be, who was deeply religious but never pious, who was highly conscientious, undoubtedly artistic, and who blundered through life, always in a turmoil, hopelessly entangled in the web of Fate, committing every crime, justifying himself in everything, and finally passing out peacefully, sincerely believing that he had lived a Christian life. Benvenuto Cellini was born in Florence, in the year Fifteen Hundred, the day after the feast-day of All Souls, at four-thirty precisely in the afternoon. The name Benvenuto means welcome: the world welcomed Benvenuto from the first. When five years of age he seized upon a live scorpion that he found in the yard and carried it into the house. His father seeing the deadly creature in his hand sought to get him to throw it away, but he only clung the tighter to the plaything. The parent then grabbed a pair of shears and cut off the tail, mouth and claws of the scorpion, much to the wrath of the child. Shortly after this he was seated by his father's side looking into a brazier of coals. All at once they saw a salamander in the fire, wiggling about in playful mood, literally making its bed in hell. Many men go through life without seeing a single salamander; neither Darwin, Spencer, Huxley nor Wallace ever saw one; they are so rare that occasionally there be men who deny their existence, for we are very apt to deny the existence of anything we have not seen. In truth, Benvenuto never saw but this one salamander, but this one was enough: coupled with the incident of the scorpion it was an augury that the boy would have a great career, be in many a hot position, and march through life triumphant and unscathed--God takes care of His own. The father of Benvenuto was a designer, a goldsmith and an engineer, and he might have succeeded in a masterly way in these sublime arts had he not early in life acquired the habit of the flute. He played the flute all day long, and often played the flute in the morning and the fife at night. As it was the flute that had won him his gracious wife, he thanked God for the gift and continued to play as long as he had breath. Now, it was his ambition that his son should play the flute, too, as all fond fathers regard themselves as a worthy pattern on which their children should model their manners and morals. But Benvenuto despised the damnable invention of a flute--it was only blowing one's breath through a horn and making a noise--yet to please his father he mastered the instrument, and actuated by filial piety he occasionally played in a way that caused his father and mother to weep with joy. But the boy's bent was for drawing and modeling in wax. All of his spare time was spent in this work, and so great was his skill that when he was sixteen he was known throughout all Florence. About this time his brother, two years younger than himself, had the misfortune one day to be set upon by a gang of miscreants, and was nigh being killed when Benvenuto ran to his rescue and seizing his sword laid around him lustily. The miscreants were just making off when a party of gendarmes appeared and arrested all concerned. The rogues were duly tried and sentenced to banishment from the city. Benvenuto and his brother were also banished. Shortly after this Benvenuto found himself at Pisa on the road to Rome. He was footsore, penniless, and as he stood gazing into the window of a goldsmith the proprietor came out and asked him his business. He replied, "Sir, I am a designer and goldsmith of no mean ability." Straightway the man, seeing the lad was likely and honest, set him to work. The motto of the boy at this time was supplied by his father. It ran thus: In whatsoever house you be, steal not and live honestlee. Seeing this motto, the proprietor straightway trusted him with all the precious jewels in the store. He remained a year at Pisa, and was very happy and contented in his work, for never once did he have to play the flute, nor did he hear one played. Nearly every week came loving letters from his father begging him to come home, and admonishing him not to omit practise on the flute. At the end of a year he got a touch of fever and concluded to go home, as Florence was much more healthful than Pisa. Arriving home his father embraced him with tears of unfeigned joy. His changed and manly appearance pleased his family greatly. And straightway when their tears were dried and welcomes said, his father placed a flute in his hands and begged him to play in order that he might see if his playing had kept pace with his growth and skill in other ways. The young man set the instrument to his lips and played an original selection in a way that made his father shout with joy, "Genius is indispensable, but practise alone makes perfect!" Michelangelo was born twenty-five years before Cellini; their homes were not far apart. In the Gardens of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Michelangelo had received that strong impetus toward the beautiful that was to last him throughout his long and arduous life. When Cellini was eighteen the Master was at Rome, doing the work of the Pope, the pride of all artistic Florence, and toward the Eternal City Cellini looked longingly. He haunted the galleries and gardens where broken fragments of antique and modern marbles were to be seen, and stood long before the "Pieta" of Michelangelo in the Church of Santa Croce, wondering if he could ever do as well. About this time he tells us that he copied that famous cartoon of Michelangelo's, "Soldiers Bathing in the Arno," made in competition with Leonardo for the decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio, which he declares marks the highest pitch of power attained by the Master. While at this work there appeared in Florence one Pietro Torrigiano, who had been an exile in England for over twenty years. The visitor held Cellini's drawing in his hand, studied it carefully and remarked: "I know this man Michelangelo Buonarrotti--we used to draw and work together under the tutorship of Masaccio. One day Buonarrotti annoyed me and I dealt him such a blow on the nose that I felt the flesh, cartilage and bone go down under my knuckles like a biscuit. It was a mark he will carry to his grave." These words were truth, save that Michelangelo was struck with a mallet and not the man's hand. And it was for the blow that Torrigiano had to flee, and seemingly, with the years, he had gotten it into his head that he left Florence of his own accord, and his crime was a thing of which to boast. Voltaire once said that beyond doubt the soldier who thrust the spear into the side of the Savior went away and boasted of the deed. Torrigiano's name is forever linked with that of Michelangelo. Thus much for the pride of little men who make a virtue of a vice. But the boast of Torrigiano caused Cellini to grow faint and sick, then to burn with hate. He snatched the drawing from the other's hand, and might have deprived Torrigiano of all the nose he possessed, had not better counsel prevailed. Ever after Cellini avoided the man--for the man's own good. That art was a passion to this stripling is plain. It was his meat and drink--with fighting for dessert. One of his near companions was Francisco, grandson of Fra Lippo Lippi, and another chum was Tasso, at this time a youth of nineteen--his own age. Tasso became a great artist. Vasari tells of him at length, and sketches his career while in the employ of Cosimo de Medici. One day Benvenuto and Tasso were walking after their work was done, and discussing as usual the wonderful genius of Michelangelo. They agreed that some day they must go to him at Rome. They were near the gate of the city that led out on the direct road to the Eternal City. They passed out of the gate still talking earnestly. "Why, we are on the way now," said Tasso. "And to turn back is an ill omen--we will go on!" answered Benvenuto. So they kept on, each one saying, "And what will our folks say tonight?" By night they had traveled twenty miles. They stopped at an inn, and in the morning Tasso was so lame he declared he could not proceed. Benvenuto insisted, and even threatened. They trudged forward, and in a week the spire of Saint Peter's (the wondrous dome was yet to be) lifted itself out of the fog, and they stood speechless and uncovered, each devoutly crossing himself. Benvenuto had a trade, and as skilled men are always needed he got work at once. Tasso filled in the time carving wood. They did not see Michelangelo--that worthy was too busy to receive callers, or indulge the society of adventurous youths. Cellini does not say much about this, but skips two years in a page, takes part in a riot and flees back to Florence. He enters into earnest details of how 'leven rogues in buckram suits reviled him as he passed a certain shop. One of them upset a handcart of brick upon him. He dealt the miscreant a blow on the ear. The police here appeared and as usual arrested the innocent Happy Hooligan of the affair. Being taken before the Magistrates he was accused of striking a free citizen. Cellini insisted he had only boxed the man's ears, but many witnesses in chorus averred that he had struck the citizen in the face with his clenched fist. "I only boxed his ears," exclaimed Cellini above the din. The Magistrates all burst out laughing, and adjourned for dinner, warning Cellini to remain where he was until they came back --hoping he would run away. He sat there thinking over his sad lot, when a sudden impulse seizing him he darted out of the palace, and ran swiftly for the house of his enemies. He drew his knife, and rushing in among them where they were at dinner, upset the table and yelled, "Send for a confessor, for none of you will ever need a doctor when I get through with you!" Several women fainted, the men sprang through windows, and the chief rogue got a slash that went straight for his heart. He fell down, and Cellini thinking the man was dead started for the street. At the door he was greeted by all those who had jumped through the windows, reinforced by others. They were armed with shovels, tongs, skillets, clubs, sticks and knives. He laid about him right and left, but the missiles descended in such showers that he lost his knife and cap, first sending to the earth a full dozen of the rogues. Running to the house of a priest Cellini begged to confess the murder, and told of how he had acted only in self-defense. Being shrived, for a consideration, he awaited the coming of the constabulary. But they did not come, for the man who thought he had been stabbed got only a slash through his jacket, and no one was seriously hurt, except one of the men who jumped through a window and sprained his ankle. But so unjust were the Magistrates that Cellini had to flee from the city or he would have been sentenced to the army and sent God knows where, to fight the Moors. Max Nordau has a certain amount of basis for his proposition that genius and madness are near allied, but it will hardly do, however, to assume that they are the same thing. Cellini at times showed a fine flaring up of talent that might be called genius--he could do exquisite work--yet there were other times when he certainly was "queer." These queer periods might account for his occasional fusing of memory and imagination, and the lapses of recollection entirely concerning things he did not wish to remember. The Memoirs were begun when he was fifty-eight and finished when he was sixty-three: thus many years had elapsed between the doing and the recording. The Constable Bourbon was killed at the siege of Rome: Cellini was present at the siege and killed several men: therefore what more probable than that Cellini killed the Constable? Cellini calmly records that it was he who did the deed. He also tells that he killed William, Prince of Orange; in fact, he killed at least one man a day for many weeks. At this distance of time we should be quite willing to take his word for it, just as we would, most certainly, if he had told us these things face to face. In one incidental paragraph he records that he christened a son, and adds: "So far as I can remember this was my first child." He drops the record there, never once alluding to the child's mother, nor what became of the child, which if it lived was a man grown at the time Cellini was writing. His intense hatred toward all who were in direct competition with him, his references to them as cheese-mites, beasts, buzzards and brigands, his fears of poison, and suspicions that they had "curdled his bronze"; his visitations by spirits and angels, mark him as a man who trod the borderland of sanity. If he did not like a woman or she did not like him--the same thing--she was a troll, wench, scullion, punk, trollop or hussy. He had such a beautiful vocabulary of names for folks he did not admire, that the translator is constantly put to straits to produce a product that will not be excluded from the mails. If you want to know how things were done when knighthood was in flower, you can find out here. Or should you be possessed of literary longing and have a desire to produce some such cheerful message for humanity as "A Gentleman of France," "Monsieur Beaucaire," or "Under the Red Robe," you can sink your shaft in Cellini's book and mine enough incidents in an hour to make a volume, with a by-product of slag for several Penny Shockers. Yet Cellini has corroborated history on many points, and backed up the gossipy Vasari in a valuable way. It is very doubtful whether either of these gentlemen had ever the felicity of reading the other's book, unless there be books in Elysium--as Charles Lamb thought there were--but sure it is that they render sidelights on the times that are much to our profit. Vasari and Cellini had been close friends in youth, working and studying together. Vasari was a poor artist and a commonplace architect, but he seemed to have social qualities that bridged the gulf where his talent broke off short. In the Palazzo Vecchio are several large specimens of his work that must have been once esteemed for their own sake. Now their chief value lies in the fact that they are a Hop-Smith production, having been painted by a pleasing writer and a charming gentleman, and so we point them out with forefinger and bated breath. Cellini's hate of Vasari proves, also, that the Gossipy One stood well with the reigning powers, otherwise Benvenuto would not have thought to condemn his work and allude to the man as a dough-face, trickster, lickspittle, slanderer, vulture, vagrom, villain, vilifier and gnat's hind-foot. Cellini threatened to kill the man several times: he denounced him in public and used to call after him on the street, referring to him cheerfully as a deep-dyed rogue. Had either of these men killed the other, it would have been a loss to letters; but certain it is that Vasari was much more of a gentleman than Cellini. That Vasari was judicial in his estimates of men is shown by his references to Cellini, whom he speaks of as "A skilled artist, of active, alert and industrious habits, who produced many valuable works of art, but who unfortunately was possessed of a most unpleasant temper." Men are so fallible in their estimates of contemporaries that one man's statement that another is a rogue does not in the slightest change our views of that man. What we are, that we see: the epithets a man applies to another usually fit himself better, and this is the thought in mind when we read what Cellini says of Vasari and Bandinelli. These men were commonplace artists, but pretty good men; Cellini was a better artist than either, but not a desirable tenant for the upper flat in your house if you chanced to reside below. Cellini was landed behind grated bars many times, but usually managed to speedily escape. However, in his thirty-eighth year, he found himself in a dungeon of Sant' Angelo, that grim fortress that he had fought so vigorously to defend. More than one homicide the Recording Angel had marked up against him, but men took small note of these things, and even Pope Paul had personally blessed him and granted him absolution for all the murders he had committed or might commit--this in consideration of his distinguished services in defense of the Vatican. The charge against him now was the very humdrum one of stealing treasure that he was supposed to guard. That he was innocent there is no doubt: whatever the man was, he was no thief. The charge against him was a trumped-up one to get him out of the way. He was painfully in evidence--he talked like a windmill, and in his swaggering he had become inconvenient, if not dangerous, to some who were close to political greatness. No one caring for the job of killing him, they locked him up, for the good of himself and society. It probably was the intention to keep him under key for only a few weeks, until his choler would subside; but he was so saucy, and sent out such a stream of threats to all concerned, that things reached a point where it was unsafe to liberate him. So he was kept in the Castle for over two years, during which time he once escaped, broke his leg in the effort, was recaptured and brought back. A prison is not wholly bad--men in prison often have time to study and think, where before such things were impossible. At least they are free from intrusion. Cellini became deeply religious--he read his Bible and the lives of the saints. Ministering angels came to him, and spirits appeared and whispered words of comfort. The man became softened and subdued. He wrote poetry, and recorded his thoughts on many things. In the meantime, his accuser having died, he was given his liberty. He was a better and a wiser man when he came out than when he went in, although one fails to find that he was exactly grateful to his captors. In prison he planned various statues of a religious order. It was in prison, too, that he thought out the Perseus and Medusa. In prison, works like the Pieta were his ambition, but when freedom came the Perseus was uppermost in his mind. Every great work of art is an evolution--the man sees it first as a mere germ--it grows, enlarges, evolves. The Perseus of Cellini was a thought that took years to germinate. The bloody nature of the man and his love of form united, and the world has this wonderful work of art that stands today exactly where its creator placed it, in the Loggia de' Lanzia--that beautiful out-of-door hall on the Piazza Signora at Florence. The naked man, wearing his proud helmet, one foot on the writhing body of the wretched woman, sword in right hand and in the left the dripping head, is a terrible picture. Yet so exquisite is the workmanship that our horror soon evaporates into admiration, and we gaze in wonder. Probably the history of no great work of art has ever been more painstakingly presented than the story of the making of this statue by Cellini. Again and again he was on the point of smashing the clay to chaos, but each time his hand was stayed. Months passed, years went by, and innumerable difficulties were in the way of its completion. Finally he figured out a method to cast it in bronze. And of its final casting no better taste of the man's quality can be given than to let him tell the story himself. Says Cellini: I felt convinced that when my Perseus was accomplished, all my trials would be turned to high felicity and glorious well-being. Accordingly I strengthened my heart, and with all the forces of my body and my purse, employing what little money still remained to me, I set to work. First I provided myself with several loads of pine- wood from the forests of Serristori. While these were on their way, I clothed my Perseus with the clay which I had prepared many months beforehand, in order that it might be duly seasoned. After making its clay tunic (for that is the term used in this art) and properly arming and fencing it with iron girders, I began to draw the wax out by means of slow fire. This melted and issued through numerous air- vents I had made; for the more there are of these, the better will the mold fill. When I had finished drawing off the wax, I constructed a funnel-shaped furnace all round the model of my Perseus. It was built of bricks, so interlaced, the one above the other, that numerous apertures were left for the fire to exhale at. Then I began to lay on wood by degrees, and kept it burning two whole days and nights. At length, when all the wax was gone and the mold was well baked, I set to work at digging the pit in which to sink it. This I performed with scrupulous regard to all the rules of art. When I had finished that part of my work, I raised the mold by windlasses and stout ropes to a perpendicular position, and suspending it with greatest care one cubit above the level of the furnace, so that it hung exactly above the middle of the pit, I next lowered it gently down into the very bottom of the furnace, and had it firmly placed with every possible precaution for its safety. When this delicate operation was accomplished, I began to bank it up with the earth I had excavated; and ever as the earth grew higher, I introduced its proper air-vents, which were little tubes of earthenware, such as folks use for drains and such-like purposes. At length, I felt sure that it was admirably fixed, and that the filling-in of the pit and the placing of the air-vents had been properly performed. I also could see that my work-people understood my method, which differed very considerably from that of all other masters in the trade. Feeling confident, then, that I could rely upon them, I next turned to my furnace, which I had filled with numerous pigs of copper and other bronze stuff. The pieces were piled according to the laws of art, that is to say, so resting one upon another that the flames could play freely through them, in order that the metal might heat and liquefy the sooner. At last I called out heartily to set the furnace going. The logs of pine were heaped in, and, what with the unctuous resin of the wood and the good draft I had given, my furnace worked so well that I was obliged to rush from side to side to keep it from going too fast. The labor was more than I could stand; yet I forced myself to strain every nerve and muscle. To increase my anxieties, the workshop took fire, and we were afraid lest the roof should fall upon our heads; while from the garden such a storm of wind and rain kept blowing in, that it perceptibly cooled the furnace. Battling thus with all these untoward circumstances for several hours, and exerting myself beyond even the measure of my powerful constitution, I could at last bear up no longer, and a sudden fever, of the utmost possible intensity, attacked me. I felt absolutely obliged to go and fling myself upon my bed. Sorely against my will having to drag myself away from the spot, I turned to my assistants, about ten or more in all, what with master-founders, hand-workers, country fellows, and my own special journeymen, among whom was Bernardino Mannellini, my apprentice through several years. To him in particular I spoke: "Look, my dear Bernardino, that you observe the rules which I have taught you; do your best with all dispatch, for the metal will soon be fused. You can not go wrong; these honest men will get the channels ready; you will easily be able to drive back the two plugs with this pair of iron crooks; and I am sure that mold will fill miraculously. I feel more ill that I ever did in all my life, and verily believe that it will kill me before a few hours are over." Thus with despair at heart, I left them, and betook myself to bed. No sooner had I got to bed, than I ordered my serving-maids to carry food and wine for all the men into the workshop; at the same time I cried, "I shall not be alive tomorrow!" They tried to encourage me, arguing that my illness would pass over, since it came from excessive fatigue. In this way I spent two hours battling with the fever, which steadily increased, and calling out continually, "I feel that I am dying." My housekeeper, who was named Mona Fiore da Castel del Rio, a very notable manager and no less warmhearted, kept chiding me for my discouragement; but, on the other hand, she paid me every kind attention which was possible. However, the sight of my physical pain and moral dejection so affected her, that, in spite of that brave heart of hers, she could not refrain from shedding tears; and yet, so far as she was able, she took good care I should not see them. While I was thus terribly afflicted, I beheld the figure of a man enter my chamber, twisted in his body into the form of a capital S. He raised a lamentable, doleful voice, like one who announces his last hour to men condemned to die upon the scaffold, and spoke these words: "O Benvenuto! your statue is spoiled, and there is no hope whatever of saving it!" No sooner had I heard the shriek of that wretch than I gave a howl which might have been heard in hell. Jumping from my bed, I seized my clothes and began to dress. The maids, and my lad, and every one who came around to help me, got kicks or blows of the fist, while I kept crying out in lamentation: "Ah! traitors! enviers! This is an act of treason, done by malice prepense! But I swear by God that I will sift it to the bottom, and before I die will leave such witness to the world of what I can do as shall make a score of mortals marvel." When I got my clothes on, I strode with soul bent on mischief toward the workshop; there I beheld the men, whom I had left erewhile in such high spirits, standing stupefied and downcast. I began at once and spoke: "Up with you! Attend to me! Since you have not been able or willing to obey the directions I gave you, obey me now that I am with you to conduct my work in person. Let no one contradict me, for in cases like this we need the aid of hand and hearing, not of advice." When I had uttered these words, a certain Maestro Alessandro broke silence and said, "Look you, Benvenuto, you are going to attempt an enterprise which the laws of art do not sanction, and which can not succeed." I turned upon him with such fury that he and all the rest of them exclaimed with one voice: "Oh then! Give orders! We will obey your least commands, so long as life is left to us." I believe they spoke thus feelingly because they thought I must fall shortly dead upon the ground. I went immediately to inspect the furnace, and found that the metal was all curdled; an accident which we expressed by being "caked." I told two of the hands to cross the road, and fetch from the house of the butcher Capretta a load of young oak- wood, which had lain dry for above a year. So soon as the first armfuls arrived, I began to fill the grate beneath the furnace. Now oak-wood of that kind heats more powerfully than any other sort of tree; and for this reason, where a slow fire is wanted, as in the case of gun-foundry, alder or pine is preferred. Accordingly, when the logs took fire, oh! how the cake began to stir beneath that awful heat, to glow and sparkle in a blaze! At the same time I kept stirring up the channels, and sent men upon the roof to stop the conflagration, which had gathered force from the increased combustion in the furnace; also I caused boards, carpets, and other hangings to be set up against the garden, in order to protect us from the violence of the rain. When I had thus provided against these several disasters, I roared out first to one man and then to another: "Bring this thing here! Take that thing there!" At this crisis, when the whole gang saw the cake was on the point of melting, they did my bidding, each fellow working with the strength of three. I then ordered half a pig of pewter to be brought, which weighed about sixty pounds, and flung it into the middle of the cake inside the furnace. By this means, and by piling on wood and stirring now with pokers and now with iron rods, the curdling mass rapidly began to liquefy. Then, knowing I had brought the dead to life again, against the firm opinion of those ignoramuses, I felt such vigor fill my veins that all those pains of fever, all those fears of death, were quite forgotten. All of a sudden an explosion took place, attended by a tremendous flash of flame, as though a thunderbolt had formed and been discharged amongst us. Unwonted and appalling terror astonished every one, and me more even than the rest. When the din was over and the dazzling light extinguished, we began to look each other in the face. Then I discovered that the cap of the furnace had blown up, and the bronze was bubbling over from its source beneath. So I had the mouths of my mold immediately opened, and at the same time drove in the two plugs which kept back the molten metal. But I noticed that it did not flow as rapidly as usual, the reason being probably that the fierce heat of the fire we kindled had consumed its base alloy. Accordingly I sent for all my pewter platters, porringers and dishes, to the number of some two hundred pieces, and had a portion of them cast, one by one, into the channels, the rest into the furnace. This expedient succeeded, and every one could now perceive that my bronze was in most perfect liquefaction, and my mold was filling; whereupon they all with heartiness and happy cheer assisted and obeyed my bidding, while I, now here, now there, gave orders, helped with my own hands, and cried aloud: "O God! Thou that by Thy immeasurable power didst rise from the dead, and in Thy glory didst ascend to heaven!" ... even thus in a moment my mold was filled; and seeing my work finished, I fell upon my knees, and with all my heart gave thanks to God. After all was over, I turned to a plate of salad on a bench there, and ate with hearty appetite, and drank together with the whole crew. Afterwards I retired to bed, healthy and happy, for it was now two hours before morning, and slept as sweetly as though I had never felt the touch of illness. My good housekeeper, without my giving any orders, had prepared a fat capon for my repast. So that, when I rose, about the hour for breaking fast, she presented herself with a smiling countenance, and said: "Oh! is that the man who felt that he was dying? Upon my word, I think the blows and kicks you dealt us last night, when you were so enraged, and had that demon in your body as it seemed, must have frightened away your mortal fever!" All my poor household, relieved in like measure from anxiety and overwhelming labor, went at once to buy earthen vessels in order to replace the pewter I had cast away. Then we dined together joyfully; nay, I can not remember a day in my whole life when I dined with greater gladness or a better appetite. Though forms may change, nothing dies. Everything is in circulation. Men, as well as planets, have their orbits. Some have a wider swing than others, but just wait and they will come back. Not only do chickens come home to roost, but so does everything else. The place of Cellini's birth was also the place of his death. The limit of his stay in one place, at one time, it seems, was about two years. The man was a sort of human anachronism--he had in his heart all the beauty and passion of the Renaissance, and carried, too, the savagery and density of the Dark Ages. That his skill as a designer and artificer in the fine metals saved him from death again and again, there is no doubt. Princes, cardinals, popes, dukes and priests protected him simply because he could serve them. He designed altars, caskets, bracelets, vases, girdles, clasps, medals, rings, coins, buttons, seals--a tiara for the Pope, a diadem for an Emperor. With minute and exquisite things he was at his best. The final proof that he was human and his name frailty lies in the fact that he was a busybody. As he worked he always knew what others about him were doing. If they were poor workmen, he encouraged them in a friendly way; if they were beyond him and out of his class, like Michelangelo, he was subservient; but if they were on his plane he hated them with a hatred that was passing speech. There was usually art and a woman hopelessly mixed in his melees. In his migrations he swung between Florence, Pisa, Mantua and Rome, and clear to France when necessary. When he arrived in a town he would soon become a favorite with other skilled workers. Naturally he would be introduced to their lady friends. These ladies were usually "complaisant," to use his own phrase. Soon he would be on very good terms with one or more of them; then would come jealousies; he would tire of the lady, or she of him more probably; then, if she took up with a goldsmith, Benvenuto would hate the pair with a beautiful hatred. He would be sure that they were plotting to undo him: he would listen to their remarks, lie in wait for them, watch their actions, quietly question their friends. Then suddenly some dark night he would spring upon them from behind a corner and cry, "You are all dead folk!" And sometimes they were. Then Cellini would fly without leaving orders where to forward his mail. Getting into another principality, he was comparatively safe-- the place he left was glad to get rid of him, and the new princeling who had taken him up was pleased to secure his skill. Under the new environment, with all troubles behind, he would begin a clean balance-sheet, full of zest and animation. The human heart does not change. Every employing printer, lithographer and newspaper-publisher knows this erratic, brilliant, artistic and troublesome man. He does good service for just so long, then the environment begins to pall upon him: he grows restless, suspicious, uncertain. He is looking for a chance to bolt. Strong drink comes in to hasten the ruction. There is a strike, a fight, an explosion, and our artistic tramp finds himself on the sidewalk. He goes away damning everybody. In two years, or less, he comes back, penitent. Old scores are forgotten, several of the enemy are dead, others have passed on into circulation, and the artistic roustabout is given a desk or a case. Cellini's book is immensely interesting for various reasons, not the least of which is that he pictures, indirectly, that restlessness and nostalgia which only the grave can cure. And at the last our condemnation is swallowed up in pity, and we can only think kindly of one who was his own worst enemy, who succeeded in a few things, and like the rest of us, failed in many. ABBEY As an illustrator, Abbey combined daintiness with a fair measure of dramatic feeling for the pose. A modicum of old Benjamin West's tendency to the grandiose would have done Abbey no harm; but if his imagination balked at the higher flights often attained by Gustave Dore, and sometimes by Elihu Vedder, yet there is a charm in his sobriety, there is something which compels our respect in the workmanlike method, in the evidences of thoroughness which appeared in all he wrought. Some of his Shakespeare figures linger in the memory like that of Iago as played by Edwin Booth, or that of Rosalind as played by Modjeska. --_Charles de Kay_ [Illustration: Abbey] Edwin A. Abbey was born in Philadelphia (not of his own choosing) in the year Eighteen Hundred Fifty-two. His parents were blessed in that they had neither poverty nor riches. Their ambition for Edwin was that he should enter one of the so-called Learned Professions; but this was not to the boy's taste. I fear me he was a heretic through prenatal influences, for they do say that he was a child of his mother. This mother's mind was tinted with her Quaker associations until she doubted the five points of Calvinism and had small faith in the Thirty-nine Articles. She was able to think for herself and act for herself; and as she perceived that the preachers were making a guess, so she discovered that doctors with bushy eyebrows, who wore dogskin gloves in Summer and who coughed when you asked them a question--gaining time to formulate a reply--didn't know much more about measles, mumps, chicken-pox and whooping-cough than she did herself. Philadelphia has always had a plethora of Medical Journals and dogmatic doctors. Living in Philadelphia and having had a little experience with doctors, Mrs. Abbey let them severely alone and prescribed the pediluvium, hop-tea, sulphur and molasses and a roll-up in warm blankets for everything--and with great success. Beyond this she filled the day with work and kept everybody else at work. The moral of Old Deacon Buffum, "Blessed is the man who has found some one to do his work," had no place in her creed. To her, every one had his work that no other could do, and every day had its work which could not be done any other day, and success and health and happiness lay in doing well whatever you attempted. Having eliminated two of the Learned Professions from her ambitions for her boy, the Law was left as the only choice. To be a Philadelphia lawyer is a proud and vaulting ambition. Philadelphia lawyers are exceedingly astute, and are able to confuse the simplest propositions, thus hopelessly befogging judge and jury. On the banks of the Schuylkill all jurors are provided with dice so as to decide the cases with perfect justice--small dice for little cases and large dice for big ones. Philadelphia lawyers carry green bags full of briefs, remarkable for everything but brevity; also statutes, recognizances, tenures, double-vouchers, fines, recoveries, indentures, not to mention quiddities, quillets, quirks and quips. Philadelphia lawyers have high foreheads and many clients. Lawyers are educated men, looked up to and respected by all--this was the Abbey idea. Of course, it will be observed that it was an idea that could be held by people only who had viewed lawyers from a safe distance. Fortunately for the Abbeys, they had really no more use for the lawyers than they had for the two other Learned Professions. Their idea of a lawyer was gained from seeing one pass their house every morning at nine forty-five, for ten years. He wore a high hat, and carried a gold-headed cane in one hand and a green bag in the other. He lived on Walnut Street, below Ninth in a three-story house with white marble steps and white shutters, tied with black strips of bombazine in token of the death of a brother who passed out in infancy. Edwin should be a lawyer, and be an honor to the family name. But alas! Edwin was small and had a low forehead and squint eyes. He didn't care for books--all he would do was draw pictures. Now, all children make pictures--before they can read, they draw. And before they can draw they get the family shears and cut the pictures out of "Harper's Weekly." This boy cut pictures out of "Harper's Weekly" when he wore dresses, and when George William Curtis first filled the Easy Chair. Edwin cut out the pictures, not because they were especially bad, but because he, like all other children, was an artist in the germ; and the artist instinct is to detach the thing, lift it out, set it apart, and then give it away. All children draw pictures, I said, and this is true, but most children can be cured of the habit by patience and an occasional box on the ear, judiciously administered. All children are sculptors, too; that is to say, they want to make things out of mud or dough or wax or putty; but no mother who sets her heart on clean guimpes and pinafores can afford for a moment to indulge in such inclinations. To give children dough, putty and the shears would keep your house in a pretty litter--lawksadaisy! Mrs. Abbey hid the shears, put the "Harper's" on a high shelf and took the boy's pencils away, and threw the putty out into Fourth Street, below Vine. Then the boy had tantrums, and as a compromise got all his playthings back. Yes, this squat, beetle-browed, and bow-legged boy had his way. Beetle-browed, bow-legged folks usually do. Caesar and Cromwell had bow-legs, so had Napoleon, and so have Pierpont Morgan and James J. Hill. Charles the First was knock-kneed. Knock-knees are a deformity; bow-legs an accident. Bulldogs have bow-legs; hounds are knock-kneed. Bow-legs mean will plus--a determination to do--the child insists on walking before the cartilage has turned to bone. Spirit is stronger than matter--hence the Greek curve. Little Edwin Abbey ran the Abbey household and drew because he wanted to--on sidewalks, white steps, kitchen-wall, or the fly- leaves in books. Rumor has it that Edwin Abbey did not get along very well at school --instead of getting his lessons he drew pictures, and thirty years ago such conduct was proof of total depravity. Like the amateur blacksmith who started to make a horseshoe and finally contented himself with a fizzle, the Abbeys gave up theology and law, and decided that if Edwin became a good printer it would be enough. And then, how often printers became writers--then editors and finally proprietors! Edwin might yet own the "Ledger" and have a collection of four hundred seventy-two clocks. Through a mutual friend, Mr. Childs was interviewed and Edwin was set to work in the Typesetting Department of the "Ledger." Evenings and an hour three times a week he sketched in the free class at the Academy of Art. How long he remained in the newspaper work, I do not know, but there came a day when Mr. Childs and his minions, having no use for Edwin, gave him a letter of recommendation to the Art Department of "Harper's Weekly." That George W. Childs had a really firm friendship for young Abbey, there is no doubt. He followed his career with fatherly interest, and was the first man, so far as I know, who had the prophetic vision to see that he would become a great artist. George W. Childs was a many-sided man. He had a clear head for business, was a judge of human nature, a patron of the arts, a collector of rare and curious things, and wrote with clearness, force and elegance. Men of such strong personality have decided likings, and they also have decided aversions. The pet aversion of Childs was tobacco. All through the "Ledger" office were startling signs, "No smoking!" It was never, "Please do not smoke," or "Smoking interferes with Insurance!" Not these--the order was imperative. And the mutability of human affairs, as well as life's little ironies, is now shown in the fact that the name and fame of George W. Childs is deathless through a wonderful five-cent cigar. Whether the use of tobacco had anything to do with young Abbey's breaking with his "Ledger" friends, is a question. Tradition has it that Childs extracted from the youth a promise, on his going away, that he would never use the weed. The Union Square records fail us at times, but it is believed that Abbey kept his promise for fully three weeks. "Edwin Abbey learned to swim by jumping into deep water," says Henry James. A young man in the Art Department of an absurdly punctual periodical, before the Era of the Halftone, just had to draw, and that was all there was about it. Things were happening uptown, downtown, over in Boston, and out as far as Buffalo--and the young men in the Art Department were sent to make pictures. The experience of a reporter develops facility--you have to do the assignment. To write well and rapidly on any subject, the position of reporter on an old-time daily approached the ideal. Even the drone became animated, when the copy must be in inside of two hours. The way to learn to write is to write. But young men will not write of their own free will; the literary first-mate in way of a Managing Editor with a loaded club of expletives is necessary. Or, stay! there is another way to stimulate the ganglionic cells and become dexterous in the cosmic potentiality--the Daily Theme sent to a woman who thinks and feels. That is the way that Goethe acquired his style. There were love-letters that crossed each other daily, and after years of this practise--the sparks a-flying--Goethe found himself the greatest stylist of his day. Love taught him. To write for a daily paper is a great drill, only you must not keep at it too long or you will find yourself bound to the wheel, a part of the roaring machinery. Combine the daily paper with the daily love-letter and you have the ideal condition for forming a literary style; and should you drop out one, why, cleave to the second, would be the advice of a theorist. To draw pictures is simply one way of telling a story. Abbey told the story, and there was soon evidence in better work that he was telling it for Some One. Get a complete file of "Harper's Weekly," say from Eighteen Hundred Seventy-two to Eighteen Hundred Ninety, and you can trace the Evolution of the Art of Edwin Abbey. If any of the Abbey pictures have been removed, the books are chiefly valuable as junk; but if the set can be advertised, as I saw one yesterday, "with all of Abbey's drawings, warranted intact," the set of books commands a price. People are now wisely collecting "Harper's" simply because Abbey was once a part of the Art Department. And the value of the books will increase with the years, for they trace the gradual but sure evolution of a great and lofty soul. Edwin Abbey was nineteen years old when he accepted a position--more properly, secured a job--in the Art Department of Harper's. The records of the office show his salary was seven dollars a week--but it did not stay at that figure always. The young man did not get along well at school, and he was not a success as a printer; but he could focus his force at the end of a pencil, and he did. Transplantation often turns a weed into a flower. It seems a hard saying and a grievous one, but the salvation of many a soul turns on getting away from one's own family. They are wise parents that do not prove a handicap to their children. The good old-fashioned idea was that parents were wholly responsible for their children's coming into the world, and that, therefore, they owned them body and soul until they reached their majority--and even then the restraint was little removed. "Well, and what are you going to make of William?" and "To whom are you going to marry Fanny?" were once common questions. And all the while the fact remains that the child is not God's gift to parents. Children are only God-given tenants. Use them well if you would have them remain with you as the joy of love and life and light. Give the child love and then more love and then love and freedom to live his God-given life. Then all the precepts you would give him for his own good, he will absorb from you and you need not say a word. Trying to teach a child by telling him is worthless and puts you in a bad light. A child has not lost his heavenly vision and sees you as you are, not minding what you say. At Harper's Abbey came into competition with strong men. In the office was a young fellow by the name of Reinhart and another by the name of Alexander--they used to call him Alexander the Great, and he has nearly proved his title. A little later came Howard Pyle, Joseph Fennel and Alfred Parsons. Young Abbey did his work with much good-cheer, and sought to place himself with the best. For a time he drew just like Alexander, then like Reinhart; next, Parsons was his mentor. Finally he drifted out on a sea of his own, and this seems to have been in the year of the Centennial Exhibition. Harper's sent the young man over to Philadelphia, or perhaps he went of his own accord; anyway, he haunted the art-rooms at the Exhibition, and got a lesson there that spurred his genius as it had never been spurred before. He was then twenty-four years old. His salary had been increased to ten dollars a week, fifteen, twenty-five: if he wanted money for "expenses" he applied to the cashier. There is more good honest velvet in an Expense-Account than in the Stock Exchange, which true saying has nothing to do with Abbey. At the "Centennial" Abbey discovered the Arthurian Legend--fell over it, just as William Morris fell over the Icelandic Sagas when past fifty. Abbey had been called the "Stage-Coachman" at Harper's, because he had developed a faculty for picturing old taverns at that exciting moment when horses were being changed and the driver, in a bell-crowned white hat and wonderful waistcoat, tosses his lines to a fellow in tight hair-cut and still tighter breeches, and a woman in big hoops gets out of the stage with many bandboxes and a birdcage. The way Abbey breathed into the scene the breath of life was wonderful--just a touch of comedy, without caricature! "If it is in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six, give it to Abbey," said the Managing Editor, with a growl--for Managing Editors, being beasts, always growl. Abbey and Parsons had walked to Philadelphia and back, taking two weeks for the trip, sketching on the way stagecoaches, taverns, tall houses and old wooden bridges, all pinned together--just these and nothing else, save Independence Hall. Later, they went to Boston and did Faneuil Hall, inside and out, King's Chapel and the State House, and a house or two out Quincyway, including the Adams cottage, where lived two Presidents, and where now resides one William Spear, the only honorary male member of the Daughters of the Revolution. Mr. Spear dominates the artistic bailiwick and performs antique antics for Art's sake: it was Mr. Spear who posed as Tony Lumpkin for Mr. Abbey. Abbey had done Washington Irving's Knickerbocker tales and the various "Washington's Headquarters." He worked exclusively in black and white--crayon, pencil or pen and ink. His hand had taken on a style--powdered wigs, spit-curls, hoops, flaring sunbonnets, cocked hats and the tallyho! These were his properties. He worked from model plus imagination. He had exhausted the antique in America--he thirsted to refresh his imagination in England. The Centennial Exhibition had done its deadly work--Abbey and Parsons were dissatisfied--they wanted to see more. Back of the stagecoach times lay the days of the castle. Back of the musket was the blunderbuss, and back of these were the portcullis, the moat, the spear and coats of mail. A deluxe edition of "Herrick" was proposed by the Publishing Department: some say the Art Department made the suggestion. Anyway, there was a consultation in the manager's office, and young Abbey was to go to England to look up the scene and with his pencil bring the past up to the present. Abbey was going to England, that is just all there was about it, and Harper and Brothers did not propose to lose their hold upon him. Salary was waived, but expenses were advanced, and the understanding was that Abbey was Harper's man. This was in Eighteen Hundred Seventy-eight, with Abbey's twenty-sixth birthday yet to come. Abbey had gone around and bidden everybody good-by, including his old-time chum, Alfred Parsons. Parsons was going to the dock to see him off. "I wish you were going, too," said Edwin, huskily. "I believe I will," said Alfred, swallowing hard. And he did. The Managing Editor growled furiously, but to no avail, for the Cunarder that bore the boys was then well out toward the Banks. It was an American that discovered Stratford; and it is the Peter's pence of American tourists that now largely support the town. At Stratford, Washington Irving jostles the Master for the first place, and when we drink at the George W. Childs fountain we piously pour a libation to all three. Like all bookish and artistic Americans, when Abbey and Parsons thought of England they thought of Shakespeare's England--the England that Washington Irving had made plain. Washington Irving seemed very close to our young men--London held them only a few days and then they started for Stratford. They went afoot, as became men who carried crayons that scorned the steam- horse. They took the road for Oxford and stopped at the tavern where the gossips aver that the author of "Love's Labor's Lost" made love to the landlord's wife--a thing I never would believe, e'en though I knew 't were true. From Oxford the young men made their way to storied Warwick, where the portcullis is raised--or lowered, I do not remember which--every evening at sundown to tap of drum. It is the same old Warwick Castle that Shakespeare knew; the same cedars of Lebanon that he saw; the same screaming peacocks; the same circling rooks and daws, and down across the lazy Avon over the meadows the same skylark vibrates the happy air. Young Abbey saw these things, just as Washington Irving saw them, and he saw them just as the boy William Shakespeare saw them. Nine miles from Warwick lies Stratford. But at Stratford the tourist is loosed; the picnicker is abroad; the voice of the pedant is heard in the land, and the Baconian is upon us. Abbey and Parsons stopped at the Red Horse Inn and slept in the room that Washington Irving occupied, and they do say now that Irving occupied every room in the house. Stratford was not to the liking of our friends. They wanted to be in the Shakespeare country for six months, that was what the Managing Editor said--six months, mind you. But they did not want to study the tourist. They wanted to be just a little off the beaten track of travel, away from the screech of the locomotive, where they could listen and hear the echoes of a tallyho horn, the crack of the driver's whip, and the clatter of the coming stagecoach. The village of Broadway is twelve miles from Stratford, and five miles from the nearest railway-station. The worst thing about the place for a New-Yorker is the incongruity of the name. In Broadway not a new house has been built for a century, and several of the buildings date back four hundred years. Abbey and Parsons found a house they were told was built in Fifteen Hundred Sixty-three. The place was furnished complete, done by those who had been dust a hundred years. The rafters overhead were studded with handmade nails, where used to hang the flitches of bacon and bunches of dried herbs; the cooking would have to be performed in the fireplace or in the Dutch oven; funny little cupboards were in the corners; and out behind the cottage stretched a God's half-acre of the prettiest flower-garden ever seen, save the one at Bordentown where lived Abbey's ladylove. The rent was ten pounds a year. They jumped at it--and would have taken it just the same had it been twice as much. An old woman who lived across the street was hired as housekeeper, and straightway our artists threw down their kits and said, like Lincoln, "We have moved." The beauty and serene peace of middle England is passing words. No wonder the young artists could not paint for several weeks--they just drank it in. Finally they settled down to work--Seventeenth-Century models were all around, and a look up the single street would do for a picture. Parsons painted what he saw; Abbey painted what he saw plus what he imagined. Six months went by, and the growls of the Managing Editor back in New York were quieted with a few sketches. Parsons had tried water- color with good results; and Abbey followed with an Arthurian sketch--a local swain as model. Several pictures had been sent down to London--which is up--and London approved. Abbey was elected a member of "The Aquarellists," just as a little later the Royal Academy was to open its doors, unsolicited, for him. Two years had gone, and new arrangements must be made with Harper's. Abbey returned to America with a trunkful of sketches--enough good stuff to illustrate several "Herricks." He remained in New York eight months, long enough to see the book safely launched, and to close up his business affairs in Philadelphia. And the Shakespeare country has been his home ever since. An artist's work is his life--where he can work best is his home. Patriotism isn't quite so bad as old Ursa Major said, but the word is not to be found in the bright lexicon of Art. The artist knows no country. His home is the world, and those who love the beautiful are his brethren. Abbey has remained in England, not that he loves America less, nor England more, but because the Shakespeare country has a flavor of antiquity about it that fits his artistic mood--it is a good place to work. An artist's work is his life. At "Morgan Hall," Fairford, only a few miles from where Abbey first made his home in England, he now lives and works. Near by lives Mary Anderson, excellent and gentle woman, wife and mother, who used to storm the one-night stands most successfully. The place is old, vine-clad, built in sections running over a space of three hundred years. So lost is it amid the great spreading beeches that you have to look twice before you see the house from the road. Happily married to a most worthy woman whose only thought is to minister to her household, the days pass. That Mrs. Abbey never doubts her liege is not only the greatest artist, but the greatest man in all England, is a most pleasing fact. She believes in him, and she gives him peace. The Kansas Contingent may question whether a woman's career is complete who thus lives within her home, and for her household, but to me the old-fashioned virtues seem very hard to improve upon. Industry, truth, trust and abiding loyalty--what a bulwark of defense for a man who has a message for the world! There is a goodly brood of little Abbeys--I dare not say how many. I believe it was nine a year ago, with an addition since. They run wild and free along the hedgerows and under the beeches, and if it rains there are the stables, kennels and the finest attic that ever was. Back of the house and attached to it Mr. Abbey has built a studio forty feet wide by seventy-five long, and twenty feet high. It is more than a studio--it is a royal workshop such as Michelangelo might have used for equestrian statues, or cartoons to decorate a palace for the Pope. Dozens of pictures, large and small, are upon the easels. Arms, armor, furniture, are all about, while on the shelves are vases and old china enough to fill the heart of a collector to surfeit. In chests and wardrobes are velvets, brocades and antique stuffs and costumes, all labeled, numbered and catalogued, so as to be had when wanted. This studio was built especially to accommodate the paintings for the Boston Public Library. The commission was given in Eighteen Hundred Ninety, and the last of the decorations has just been put in place, in this year of grace, Nineteen Hundred One. Abbey's paintings in the Boston Public Library cover in all something over a thousand square feet of space, and form quite the noblest specimen of mural decoration in America. Orders were given to John S. Sargent and Puvis de Chavannes at the same time that contracts were closed with Abbey. Chavannes was the first man to get his staging up and the first to get it down. He died two years ago, so it is hardly meet to draw a moral about the excellence of doing things with neatness and dispatch. Sargent's "Prophets" cover scarcely one-tenth of the space assigned him, and the rest is bare white walls, patiently awaiting his brush. Recently he was asked when he would complete the task, and he replied, "Never, unless I learn to paint better than I do now--Abbey has discouraged me!" I need not attempt to describe Abbey's work in the Boston Library--a full account of it can be found in the first magazine you pick up. But it is a significant fact that Abbey himself is not wholly pleased with it. "Give me a little time," he says, "and I'll do something worth while." These words were spoken half in jest, but there is no doubt that the artist, now in the fulness of his powers, in perfect health, in love with life, sees before him work to do of such vast worth that all that lies behind seems but a preparation for that which is yet to come. The question is sometimes asked, "What becomes of all the Valedictorians and Class-Day Poets?" I can give information as to two parties for whom inquiry is made: the Valedictorian of my Class is now a worthy Floorwalker in Siegel, Cooper and Company's; and I was the Class-Day Poet. Both of us had our eyes on the Goal. We stood on the threshold and looked out upon the World preparatory to going forth, seizing it by the tail and snapping its head off for our own delectation. We had our eyes fixed on the Goal--it might better have been the Gaol. It was a very absurd thing for us to fix our eyes on the Goal. It strained our vision and took our attention from our work. To think of the Goal is to travel the distance over and over in your mind and dwell on how awfully far off it is. We have so little mind --doing business on such a small capital of intellect--that to wear it threadbare looking for a far-off thing is to get hopelessly stranded in Siegel, Cooper and Company's. Siegel, Cooper and Company's is all right, too, but the point is this--it wasn't the Goal! A goodly dash of indifference is a requisite in the formula for doing a great work. Nobody knows what the Goal is--we are sailing under sealed orders. Do your work today, doing it the best you can, and live one day at a time. The man that does this is conserving his God-given energy, and not spinning it out into tenuous spider-threads that Fate will probably brush away. To do your work well today is the surest preparation for something better tomorrow--the past is gone, the future we can not reach, the present only is ours. Each day's work is a preparation for the next. Live in the present--the Day is here, the time is Now. Edwin A. Abbey seems to be the perfect type of man, who by doing all his work well, with no vaulting ambitions, has placed himself right in the line of evolution. He is evolving into something better, stronger and nobler all the time. That is the only thing worth praying for--to be in the line of evolution. WHISTLER Art happens--no hovel is safe from it, no Prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence can not bring it about, and puny efforts to make it universal end in quaint comedy, and coarse farce. --_The "Ten-o'Clock" Lecture_ [Illustration: Whistler] The Eternal Paradox of Things is revealed in the fact that the men who have toiled most for peace, beauty and harmony have usually lived out their days in discord, and in several instances died a malefactor's death. Just how much discord is required in God's formula for a successful life, no one knows, but it must have a use, for it is always there. Seen from a distance, out of the range of the wordy shrapnel, the literary scrimmage is amusing. "Gulliver's Travels" made many a heart ache, but it only gladdens ours. Pope's "Dunciad" sent shivers of fear down the spine of all artistic England, but we read it for the rhyme, and insomnia. Byron's "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" gave back to the critics what they had given out--to their great surprise and indignation, and our amusement. Keats died from the stab of a pen, they say, and whether 't was true or not we know that now a suit of Cheviot is sufficient shield. "We love him for the enemies he has made"--to have friends is a great gain, but to achieve an enemy is distinction. Ruskin's "Modern Painters" is a reply to the contumely that sought to smother Turner under an avalanche of abuse; but since the enemy inspired it, and it made the name and fame of both Ruskin and Turner, why should they not hunt out the rogues in Elysium and purchase ambrosia? Whistler's "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies" is a bit of sharpshooter sniping at the man who was brave enough to come to the rescue of Turner, and who afterward proved his humanity by adopting the tactics of the enemy, working the literary stinkpot to repel impressionistic boarders. No friend could have done for Whistler what Ruskin did. Before Ruskin threw an ink-bottle at him, as Martin Luther did at the Devil, he was one of several; after the bout he was as one set apart. When we think of Whistler, if we listen closely we can hear the echo of shrill calls of recrimination, muffled reveilles of alarm-- pamphlet answering unto pamphlet across seas of misunderstanding-- vituperations manifold, and recurring themes of rabid ribaldry--all forming a lurid Symphony in Red. John Davidson has dedicated a book to his enemy, thus: "Unwilling Friend, let not thy spite abate: help me with scorn, and strengthen me with hate." The general tendency to berate the man of superior talent would seem to indicate, as before suggested, that disparagement has some sort of compensation in it. Possibly it is the governor that keeps things from going too fast--the opposition of forces that holds the balance true. But almost everything can be overdone; and the fact remains that without encouragement and faith from without, the stoutest heart will in time grow faint and doubt itself. It hears the yelping of the pack, and there creeps in the question, "What if they are right?" Then come the longing and the necessity for the word of praise, the clasp of a kindly hand, and the look that reassures. Occasionally the undiscerning make remarks, slightly tinged with muriatic acid, concerning the ancient and honorable cult known as the Mutual Admiration Society. My firm belief is, that no man ever did or can do a great work alone--he must be backed up by the Mutual Admiration Society. It may be a very small Society--in truth, I have known Chapters where there were only two members, but there was such trust, such faith, such a mutual uplift, that an atmosphere was formed wherein great work was done. In Galilee even the Son of God could do no great work, on account of the unbelief of the people. "Fellowship is heaven and lack of fellowship is hell," said William Morris. And he had known both. Some One must believe in you. And through touching finger-tips with this Some One, we may get in the circuit, and thus reach out to all. Self-Reliance is very excellent, but as for independence, there is no such thing. We are a part of the great Universal Life; and as one must win approval from himself, so he must receive corroboration from others: having this approval from the Elect Few, the opinions of the many matter little. How little we know of the aspirations that wither unexpressed, and of the hopes that perish for want of the right word spoken at the right time! Out in the orchard, as I write, I see thousands and thousands of beautiful blossoms that will never become fruit for lack of vitalization--they die because they are alone. Thoughts materialize into deeds only when Some One vitalizes by approval. Every good thing is loved into life. Great men have ever come in groups, and the Mutual Admiration Society always figures largely. To enumerate instances would be to inflict good folks with triteness and truism. I do not wish to rob my reader of his rights--think it out for yourself, beginning with Concord and Cambridge, working backward adown the centuries. There are two Whistlers. One tender as a woman, sensitive as a child--thirsting for love, friendship and appreciation--a dreamer of dreams, seeing visions and mounting to the heavens on the wings of his soaring fancy. This is the real Whistler. And there has always been a small Mutual Admiration Society that has appreciated, applauded and loved this Whistler; to them he has always been "Jimmy." The other Whistler is the jaunty little man in the funny, straight- brimmed high hat--cousin to the hat John D. Long wore for twenty years. This man in the long black coat, carrying a bamboo wand, who adjusts his monocle and throws off an epigram, who confounds the critics, befogs the lawyers, affronts millionaires from Colorado, and plays pitch and toss with words, is the Whistler known to newspaperdom. And Grub Street calls him "Jimmy," too, but the voice of Grub Street is guttural and in it is no tender cadence--it is tone that tells, not the mere word: I have been addressed with an endearing phrase when the words stabbed. Grub Street sees only the one man and goes straightway after him with a snickersnee. To use the language of Judge Gaynor, "This artistic Jacques of the second part protects the great and tender soul of the party of the first part." That is it--his name is Jacques: Whistler is a fool. The fools were the wisest men at court. Shakespeare, who dearly loved a fool, belonging to the breed himself, placed his wisest sayings into the mouths of men who wore the motley. When he adorned a man with cap and bells, it was as though he had given bonds for both that man's humanity and intelligence. Neither Shakespeare nor any other writer of good books ever dared depart so violently from truth as to picture a fool whose heart was filled with pretense and perfidy. The fool is not malicious. Stupid people may think he is, because his language is charged with the lightning's flash; but these be the people who do not know the difference between an incubator and an eggplant. Touchstone, with unfailing loyalty, follows his master with quip and quirk into exile. When all, even his daughters, had forsaken King Lear, the fool bares himself to the storm and covers the shaking old man with his own cloak; and when in our day we meet the avatars of Trinculo, Costard, Mercutio and Jacques, we find they are men of tender susceptibilities, generous hearts and lavish souls. Whistler shakes his cap, flourishes his bauble, tosses that fine head, and with tongue in cheek, asks questions and propounds conundrums that pedantry can never answer. Hence the ink-bottle, with its mark on the walls at Eisenach, and at Coniston. Every man of worth is two men--sometimes many. In fact, Doctor George Vincent, the psychologist, says, "We never treat two persons in exactly the same manner." If this is so, and I suspect it is, the person we are with dictates our mental process and thus controls our manners--he calls out the man he wishes to see. Certain sides of our nature are revealed only to certain persons. And I can understand, too, how there can be a Holy of Holies, closed and barred forever against all except the One. And in the absence of this One, I can also understand how the person can go through life, and father, mother, brothers, sisters, friends and companions never guess the latent excellence that lies concealed. We defend and protect this Holy of Holies from the vulgar gaze. There are two ways to guard and keep alive the sacred fires; one is to flee to convent, monastery or mountain and there live alone with God; the other is to mix and mingle with men and wear a coat of mail in way of manner. Women whose hearts are well-nigh bursting with grief will often be the gayest of the gay; men whose souls are corroding with care-- weighted down with sorrow too great for speech--are often those who set the table in a roar. The assumed manner, continued, evolves into a pose. Pose means position, and the pose is usually a position of defense. All great people are poseurs. Men pose so as to keep the mob back while they can do their work. Without the pose, the garden of a poet's fancy would look like McKinley's front yard at Canton in the fall of Ninety-six. That is to say, without the pose the poet would have no garden, no fancy, no nothing--and there would be no poet. Yet I am quite willing to admit that a man might assume a pose and yet have nothing to protect; but I stoutly maintain that pose in such a one is transparent to every one as the poles that support a scarecrow, simply because the pose never becomes habitual. With the great man pose becomes a habit--and then it is not a pose. When a man lies and admits he lies, he tells the truth. Whistler has been called the greatest poseur of his day; and yet he is the most sincere and truthful of men--the very antithesis of hypocrisy and sham. No man ever hated pretense more. Whistler is an artist, and the soul of the man is revealed in his work--not in his hat, nor yet his bamboo cane, nor his long black coat, much less the language which he uses, Talleyrand-like, to conceal his thought. Art has been his wife, his children and his religion. Art has said to him, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," and he has obeyed the mandate. That picture of his mother in the Luxembourg is the most serious thing in the whole collection--so gentle, so modest, so appealing, so charged with tenderness. It is classed by the most competent critics of today along with the greatest works of the old masters. We find upon the official roster of the fine arts of France this tribute opposite the name of Whistler, "Portrait of the mother of the author, a masterpiece destined for the eternal admiration of future generations, combining in its tone-power and magnificence the qualities of a Rembrandt, a Titian, a Velasquez." The picture does not challenge you--you have to hunt it out, and you have to bring something to it, else 't will not reveal itself. There is no decrepitude in the woman's face and form, but someway you read into the picture the story of a great and tender love and a long life of useful effort. And now as the evening shadows gather, about to fade off into gloom, the old mother sits there alone, poised, serene: husband gone, children gone--her work is done. Twilight comes. She thinks of the past in gratitude, and gazes wistfully out into the future, unafraid. It is the tribute that every well-born son would like to pay to the mother who loved him into being, whose body nourished him, whose loving arms sustained him, whose unfaltering faith and appreciation encouraged him to do and to become. She was his wisest critic, his best friend--his mother! The father of Whistler the artist, Major George Washington Whistler, was a graduate of West Point, and a member of the United States Corps of Engineers. He was an active, practical and useful man--a skilful draftsman and mathematician, and a man of affairs who could undertake a difficult task and carry it through to completion. Such men are always needed, in the army and out of it. Responsibility gravitates to the man who can shoulder it. Such men as Major Whistler are not tied to a post--they go where they are needed. When George Washington Whistler was a cadet at West Point, there came to visit the place Doctor Swift and his beautiful young daughter, Mary. She took the Military School by storm; at least, she held captive the hearts of all the young men there--so they said. And in very truth the heart of one young man was prisoner, for Major Whistler married Miss Swift soon after. To them were born Deborah, the Major's only daughter, who married Doctor Seymour Hayden of London, a famous surgeon and still more famous etcher; George, who became an engineer and railway manager; and two years later, Joseph. And when Joe was two years old, this beautiful wife, aged twenty- three, passed away, and young Major Whistler and his three babies were left alone. At West Point Whistler had a friend named McNeill, son of Doctor C. D. McNeill, of Wilmington, North Carolina--a classmate--with whom he had been closely associated since graduation. McNeill had a sister, Anna Matilda, a great soul, serious and strong. At length Whistler took his motherless brood--including himself--to her and she accepted them all. I bow my head to the stepmother who loves into manhood and womanhood children whom another has loved into life. She must have a great heart already expanded by love to do this. Naturally the mother-love grows with the child--that is what children are for, to enlarge the souls of the parents. But at the beginning of womanhood, Anna Matilda McNeill was great enough to enfold in her heart and arms the children of the man she loved and make them hers. In the year Eighteen Hundred Thirty-four, Major Whistler and his wife were living in Lowell, Massachusetts, where the Major was superintending the construction of the first of those wonderful waterways that tirelessly turn ten thousand spindles. And Fate would have it so, that here at Lowell, in a little house on Worthing Street, was born the first of the five sons of Major Whistler and his wife, Anna Matilda. And they called the name of the child James Abbott McNeill Whistler--an awful big name for a very small baby. About the time this peevish little pigmy was put into short dresses, his father resigned his position in the United States Army to accept a like position with the Czar of Russia. The first railroad constructed in Russia, from Moscow to Saint Petersburg, was built under the superintendence of Major Whistler, who also designed various bridges, viaducts, tunnels and other engineering feats for Adam Zad, who walks like a man, and who paid him princely sums for his services. Americans not only fill the teeth of royalty, but we furnish the Old World machinery, ideas and men. For every twenty-five thousand men they supply us, we send them back one, and the one we send them is worth more than the twenty-five thousand they send us. Schenectady is today furnishing the engines and supplying engineers to teach engineers for the transcontinental Siberian railway. When you take "The Flying Scotchman" from London to Edinburgh you ride in a Pullman car, with all the appurtenances, even to a Gould coupler, a Westinghouse air-brake, and a dusky George from North Carolina, who will hit you three times with the butt of a brush-broom and expect a bob as recompense. You feel quite at home. Then when you see that the Metropolitan Railway of London is managed by a man from Chicago, and that all trains of "the underground" are being equipped with the Edison incandescent light; and you note further that a New York man has morganized the transatlantic steamship-lines, you agree with William T. Stead that, "America may be raw and crude, but she is producing a race of men--men of power, who can think and act." Coupled with the Englishman's remarkable book, "The Americanization of the World," there is an art criticism by Bernard Shaw, who comes from a race that will not pay rent, strangely enough living in London, content, with no political aspirations, who says, "The three greatest painters of the time are of American parentage--Abbey, Sargent and Whistler; and of these, Whistler has had greater influence on the artists of today than any other man of his time." But let us swing back and take a look at the Whistlers in Russia. Little Jimmy never had a childhood: the nearest he came to it was when his parents camped one Summer with the "construction gang." That Summer with the workers and toilers, among the horses, living out of doors--eating at the campfire and sleeping under the sky--was the boy's one glimpse of paradise. "My ambition then was to be the foreman of a construction gang--and it is yet," said the artist in describing that brief, happy time to a friend. The child of well-to-do parents, but homeless, living in hotels and boarding-houses, is awfully handicapped. Children are only little animals, and travel is their bane and scourge. They belong on the ground, among the leaves and flowers and tall grass--in the trees or digging in sand piles. Hotel hallways, table-d'hote dinners and the clash of travel, are all terrible perversions of Nature's intent. Yet the boy survived--eager, nervous, energetic. He acquired the Russian language, of course, and then he learned to speak French, as all good Russians must. "He speaks French like a Russ," is the highest compliment a Parisian can pay you. The boy's mother was his tutor, companion, playmate. They read together, drew pictures together, and played the piano, four hands. Honors came to the hard-working engineer--decorations, ribbons, medals, money--and more work. The poor man was worked to death. The Czar paid every honor to the living and dead that royalty can give. When the family left Saint Petersburg with the body of their loved one, His Imperial Majesty ordered his private carriage to be placed at their disposal. And honors awaited the dead here. A monument in the cemetery at Stonington, Connecticut, erected by the Society of American Engineers, marks the spot where he sleeps. The stricken mother was back in America, and James was duly entered at West Point. The mother's ideal was her husband--in his life she had lived and moved--and that James should do what he had done, become the manly man that he had become, was her highest wish. The boy was already an acceptable draftsman, and under the tutelage of Professor Robert Weir he made progress. West Point does not teach such a soft and feminine thing as picture-painting--it draws plans of redoubts and fortifications, makes maps, and figures on the desirability of tunnels, pontoons and hidden mines. Robert Weir taught all these things, and on Saturdays painted pictures for his own amusement. In the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington is a taste of his quality--the large panel entitled, "The Departure of the Pilgrims." Tradition has it that young Whistler assisted his teacher on this work. Weir succeeded in getting his pupil heartily sick of the idea of grim-visaged war as a business. He hated the thought of doing things on order, especially killing men when told. "The soldier's profession is only one remove from the business of Jack Ketch, who hangs men and then salves his conscience with the plea that some one told him to do it," said Whistler. If he remained at West Point he would become an army officer and Uncle Sam or the Czar would own him and order him to do things. Weir declared he was absurd, but the Post Surgeon said he was nervous and needed a change. In truth, West Point disliked Jimmy as much as he disliked West Point, and he was recommended for discharge. Mother and son sailed away for London, intending to come back in time for the next term. The young man took one souvenir from West Point that was to stand by him. In a sham battle, during a charge, his horse went down, and the cavalcade behind went right over horse and rider. When picked up and carried out of the scrimmage, Cadet Whistler was unconscious, and the doctors said his skull was fractured. However, his whipcord vitality showed itself in a quick recovery; but a white lock of hair soon appeared to mark the injured spot, to be a badge of distinction and a delight to the caricaturist forever. In London the mother and son found lodgings out towards Chelsea. No doubt the literary traditions attracted them. Only a few squares away lived Rossetti, with a wonderful collection of blue china, giving lessons in painting. There were weekly receptions at his house, where came Burne-Jones, William Morris, Madox Brown and many other excellent people. Down a narrow street near by, lived a grumpy Scotchman, by the name of Carlyle, whose portrait Whistler was later to paint, and although Carlyle had no use for Rossetti, yet Mrs. Whistler and her boy liked them both. It came time to return to America if the young man was to graduate at West Point. But they decided to go over to Paris so James could study art for a few months. They never came back to America. Whistler, the coxcomb, had Ruskin haled before the tribunal and demanded a thousand pounds as salve for his injured feelings because the author of "Stones of Venice" was colorblind, lacking in imagination, and possessed of a small magazine wherein he briskly told of men, women and things he did not especially admire. The case was tried, and the jury decided for Whistler, giving him one farthing damages. But this was success--it threw the costs on Ruskin, and called the attention of the world to the absurdity of condemning things that are, at the last, a mere matter of individual taste. Whistler was once asked by a fellow artist to criticize a wondrous chromatic combination that the man had thrown off in an idle hour. Jimmy adjusted his monocle and gazed long. "And what do you think of it?" asked the painter standing by. "Oh, just a little more green, a little more green [pause and slight cough] but that is your affair." Whistler painted the "Nocturne," and that was his affair. If Ruskin did not think it beautiful, that was his affair; but when Ruskin went one step further and accused the painter of trying to hoodwink the world for a matter of guineas, attacking the man's motives, he exceeded the legitimate limits of criticism, and his public rebuke was deserved. In matter of strictest justice, however, it may be as well to say that Whistler was quite as blind to the beauty of Ruskin's efforts for the betterment of humanity as Ruskin was to the excellence of Whistler's pictures. And if Ruskin had been in the humor for litigation he might have sued Whistler and got a shilling damages because Whistler once averred: "The Society of Saint George is a scheme for badgering the unfortunate, and should be put down by the police. God knows the poor suffer enough without being patronized!" Mr. Whistler was once summoned as a witness in a certain suit where the purchaser of a picture had refused to pay for it. The cross- examination ran something like this: "You are a painter of pictures?" "Yes." "And know the value of pictures?" "Oh, no!" "At least you have your own ideas about values?" "Certainly!" "And you recommended the defendant to buy this picture for two hundred pounds?" "I did." "Mr. Whistler, it is reported that you received a goodly sum for this recommendation--is there anything in that?" "Oh, nothing, I assure you [yawning]--nothing but the indelicacy of the suggestion." The critics found much joy, several years ago, in tracing out the fact that Whistler spent a year at Madrid copying Velasquez. That he, like Sargent, has been benefited and inspired by the sublime art of the Spaniard there is no doubt, but there is nothing in the charge that he is an imitator of Velasquez, save the indelicacy of the suggestion. It was a comparison of Velasquez and Whistler, and a warm assurance that his name would live with that of the great Spaniard, that led Whistler to launch that little question, now a classic, "Why drag in Velasquez?" The great lesson that Whistler has taught the world is to observe; and this he got from the Japanese. Lafcadio Hearn has said that the average citizen of Japan detects tints and shades that are absolutely unseen by Western eyes. Livingston found tribes in Africa that had never seen pictures of any kind, and he had great difficulty in making them perceive that the figure of a man, drawn on a piece of paper a foot square, really was designed for a man. "Man big--paper little--no good!" was the criticism of a chief. The chief wanted to hear the voice of the man before he would believe it was meant for a man. This savage chief was a great person, no doubt, in his own bailiwick, but he lacked imagination to bridge the gap between a real man and the repeated strokes of a pencil on a bit of paper. The Japanese--any Japanese--would have been delighted by Whistler's "Nocturne." Ruskin wasn't. He had never seen the night, and therefore he declared that Whistler had "flung a pot of paint in the face of the public." That men should dogmatize concerning things where the senses alone supply the evidence, is only another proof of man's limitations. We live in a peewee world which our senses create and declare that outside of what we see, smell, taste and hear there is nothing. It is twenty-five thousand miles around the earth--stellar space is not computable; and man can walk in a day about thirty miles. Above the ground he can jump about four feet. In a city his unaided ear can hear his friend call about two hundred feet. As for smell, he really has almost lost the sense; and taste, through the use of stimulants and condiments, has likewise nearly gone. Man can see and recognize another man a quarter of a mile away, but at the same distance is practically color-blind. Yet we were all quite willing to set ourselves up as standards until science came with spectroscope, telephone, microscope and Roentgen ray to force upon us the fact that we are tiny, undeveloped and insignificant creatures, with sense quite unreliable and totally unfit for final decisions. Whistler sees more than other men. He has taught us to observe, and he has taught the art world to select. Oratory does not consist in telling it all--you select the truth you wish to drive home; in literature, in order to make your point, you must leave things out; and in painting you must omit. Selection is the vital thing. The Japanese see one single lily-stalk swaying in the breeze and the hazy, luminous gray of the atmosphere in which it is bathed--just these two things. They give us these, and we are amazed and delighted. Whistler has given us the night--not the black, inky, meaningless void which has always stood for evil; not the darkness, the mere absence of light, the prophet had in mind when he said, "And there shall be no night there"--not that. The prophet thought the night was objectionable, but we know that the continual glare of the sun would quickly destroy all animal or vegetable life. In fact, without the night there would be no animal or vegetable life, and no prophet would have existed to suggest the abolition of night as a betterment. In the night there are flowers that shed their finest perfume, lifting up their hearts in gladness, and all nature is renewed for the work of the coming day. We need the night for rest, for dreams, for forgetfulness. Whistler saw the night--this great, transparent, dark-blue fold that tucks us in for one-half our time. The jaded, the weary and the heavy-laden at last find peace--the day is done, the grateful night is here. Turner said you could not paint a picture and leave man out. Whistler very seldom leaves man out, although I believe there is one "Nocturne" wherein only the stars and the faint rim of the silver moon keep guard. But usually we see the dim suggestion of the bridge's arch, the ghostly steeples, lights lost in the enfolding fog, vague purple barges on the river, and ships rocking solemnly in the offing--all strangely mellow with peace, and subtle thoughts of stillness, rest, dreams and sleep. The critics have all shied their missiles at Whistler, and he has gathered up the most curious and placed them on exhibition in a catalog entitled, "Etching and Dry Points." This document gives a list of fifty-one of his best-known productions, and beneath each item is a testimonial or two from certain worthies who thought the thing rubbish and said so. If you want to see a copy of the catalog you can examine it in the "treasure-room" of most any of the big public libraries; or should you wish to own one, a chance collector in need of funds might be willing to disengage himself from a copy for some such trifle as twenty-five dollars or so. Whistler's book, "The Gentle Art," contains just one good thing, although the touch of genius is revealed in the title, which is as follows: "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, as pleasingly exemplified in many instances wherein the serious ones of this earth, carefully exasperated, have been prettily spurred on to unseemliness and indiscretion, while overcome by an undue sense of right." The dedication runs thus: "To the rare Few who early in life have rid themselves of the Friendship of the Many, these pathetic papers are inscribed." The one excellent thing in the book is the "Ten o'Clock" lecture. It is a classic, revealing such a distinct literary style that one is quite sure its author could have evolved symphonies in words, as well as color, had he chosen. However, this lecture is a sequence, leaping hot from the heart, and would not have been written had the author not been "carefully exasperated and prettily spurred on, while overcome by an undue sense of right." Let us all give thanks to the enemy who exasperated him. There is a great temptation to produce the lecture entire, but this would be to invite a lawsuit, so we will have to be content with a few scrapings from the palette: Listen! There never was an artistic period. There never was an Art-Loving Nation. In the beginning, men went forth each day--some to do battle, some to the chase; others, again, to dig and to delve in the field--all that they might gain and live, or lose and die. Until there was found among them one, differing from the rest, whose pursuits attracted him not, and so he stayed by the tents with the women, and traced strange devices with a burnt stick upon a gourd. This man, who took no joy in the way of his brethren--who cared not for conquest, and fretted in the field--this designer of quaint patterns--this deviser of the beautiful--who perceived in Nature about him curious curvings, as faces are seen in the fire--this dreamer apart was the first artist. And when, from the field and afar, there came back the people, they took the gourd--and drank from out of it. And presently there came to this man another--and, in time, others-- of like nature, chosen by the gods--and so they worked together; and soon they fashioned, from the moistened earth, forms resembling the gourd. And with the power of creation, the heirloom of the artist, presently they went beyond the slovenly suggestion of Nature, and the first vase was born, in beautiful proportion. * * * * * And the Amateur was unknown--and the Dilettante undreamed of. And history wrote on, and conquest accompanied civilization, and Art spread, or rather its products were carried by the victors among the vanquished from one country to another. And the customs of cultivation covered the face of the earth, so that all peoples continued to use what the artist alone produced. And centuries passed in this using, and the world was flooded with all that was beautiful, until there arose a new class, who discovered the cheap, and foresaw a fortune in the facture of the sham. Then sprang into existence the tawdry, the common, the gewgaw. The taste of the tradesman supplanted the science of the artist, and what was born of the million went back to them, and charmed them, for it was after their own heart; and the great and the small, the statesman and the slave, took to themselves the abomination that was tendered, and preferred it--and have lived with it ever since. And the artist's occupation was gone, and the manufacturer and the huckster took his place. And now the heroes filled from the jugs and drank from the bowls-- with understanding--noting the glare of their new bravery, and taking pride in its worth. And the people--this time--had much to say in the matter--and all were satisfied. And Birmingham and Manchester arose in their might, and Art was relegated to the curiosity-shop. * * * * * Nature contains the elements, in color and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music. * * * * * The artist is born to pick, and choose, and group with science these elements, that the result may be beautiful--as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he bring forth from chaos glorious harmony. To say to the painter, that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player, that he may sit on the piano. That Nature is always right, is an assertion, artistically, as untrue, as it is one whose truth is universally taken for granted. Nature is very rarely right, to such an extent even, that it might almost be said that Nature is usually wrong: that is to say, the condition of things that shall bring about the perfection of harmony worthy a picture is rare, and not common at all. * * * * * The sun blares, the wind blows from the east, the sky is bereft of cloud, and without, all is of iron. The windows of the Crystal Palace are seen from all points of London. The holiday-maker rejoices in the glorious day, and the painter turns aside to shut his eyes. How little this is understood, and how dutifully the casual in Nature is accepted as sublime, may be gathered from the unlimited admiration daily produced by a very foolish sunset. The dignity of the snow-capped mountain is lost in distinctness, but the joy of the tourist is to recognize the traveler on the top. The desire to see, for the sake of seeing, is, with the mass alone, the one to be gratified, hence the delight in detail. But when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall chimneys become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night, and the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairyland is before us--then the wayfarer hastens home; the workingman and the cultured one, the wise man and the one of pleasure, cease to understand, as they have ceased to see, and Nature, who for once has sung in tune, sings her exquisite song to the artist alone--her son and her master--her son in that he loves her, her master in that he knows her. To him her secrets are unfolded, to him her lessons have become gradually clear. He looks at the flower, not with the enlarging lens, that he may gather facts for the botanist, but with the light of the one who sees in her choice selection of brilliant tones and delicate tints, suggestions of infinite harmonies. He does not confine himself to purposeless copying, without thought, each blade of grass, as commended by the inconsequent, but in the long curve of the narrow leaf, corrected by the straight, tall stem, he learns how grace is wedded to dignity, how strength enhances sweetness, that elegance shall be the result. In the citron wing of the pale butterfly, with its dainty spots of orange, he sees before him the stately halls of fair gold, with their slender saffron pillars, and is taught how the delicate drawing high upon the walls shall be traced in tender tones of orpiment, and repeated by the base in notes of graver hue. In all that is dainty and lovable he finds hints for his own combinations, and thus is Nature ever his resource and always at his service, and to him is naught refused. Through his brain, as through the last alembic, is distilled the refined essence of that thought which began with the Gods, and which they left him to carry out. Set apart by them to complete their works, he produces that wondrous thing called the masterpiece, which surpasses in perfection all that they have contrived in what is called Nature; and the Gods stand by and marvel, and perceive how far away more beautiful is the Venus of Melos than was their own Eve. * * * * * And now from their midst the Dilettante stalks abroad. The Amateur is loosed. The voice of the Aesthete is heard in the land, and catastrophe is upon us. * * * * * Where the Artist is, there Art appears, and remains with him--loving and fruitful--turning never aside in moments of hope deferred--of insult--and of ribald misunderstanding; and when he dies she sadly takes her flight: though loitering yet in the land, from fond association, but refusing to be consoled. With the man, then, and not with the multitude, are her intimacies; and in the book of her life the names inscribed are few--scant, indeed, the list of those who have helped to write her story of love and beauty. From the sunny morning, when, with her glorious Greek relenting, she yielded up the secret of repeated line, as with his hand in hers together they marked in marble, the measured rhyme of lovely limb and draperies flowing in unison, to the day when she dipped the Spaniard's brush in light and air, and made his people live within their frames, that all nobility, and sweetness, and tenderness, and magnificence should be theirs by right, ages had gone by, and few had been her choice. * * * * * Therefore have we cause to be merry!--and to cast away all care-- resolved that all is well--as it ever was--and that it is not meet that we should be cried at, and urged to take measures. Enough have we endured of dulness! Surely are we weary of weeping, and our tears have been cozened from us falsely, for they have called us woe! when there was no grief--and where all is fair! We have then but to wait--until, with the mark of the Gods upon him --there come among us again the chosen--who shall continue what has gone before. Satisfied that, even were he never to appear, the story of the beautiful is already complete--hewn in the marbles of the Parthenon, and broidered, with the birds, upon the fan of Hokusai, at the foot of Fujiyama. 
27183	----	[Note: for this online edition I have moved the Table of Contents to the beginning of the text. Also I have made one spelling change: irrevelant circumstance to irrelevant circumstance.] THE GATE OF APPRECIATION Studies in the Relation of Art to Life BY CARLETON NOYES BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1907 COPYRIGHT 1907 BY CARLETON NOYES ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published April 1907_ TO MY FATHER AND THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER "Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves, As souls only understand souls." CONTENTS Preface i I. The Impulse to Expression i II. The Attitude of Response 23 III. Technique and the Layman 44 IV. The Value of the Medium 87 V. The Background of Art 105 VI. The Service of Criticism 137 VII. Beauty and Common Life 165 VIII. The Arts of Form 201 IX. Representation 221 X. The Personal Estimate 254 PREFACE IN the daily life of the ordinary man, a life crowded with diverse interests and increasingly complex demands, some few moments of a busy week or month or year are accorded to an interest in art. Whatever may be his vocation, the man feels instinctively that in his total scheme of life books, pictures, music have somewhere a place. In his own business or profession he is an expert, a man of special training; and intelligently he does not aspire to a complete understanding of a subject which lies beyond his province. In the same spirit in which he is a master of his own craft, he is content to leave expert knowledge of art to the expert, to the artist and to the connoisseur. For his part as a layman he remains frankly and happily on the outside. But he feels none the less that art has an interest and a meaning even for him. Though he does not practice any art himself, he knows that he enjoys fine things, a beautiful room, noble buildings, books and plays, statues, pictures, music; and he believes that in his own fashion he is able to appreciate art, I venture to think that he is right. There is a case for the outsider in reference to art. And I have tried here to state it. This book is an attempt to suggest the possible meaning of art to the ordinary man, to indicate methods of approach to art, and to trace the way of appreciation. It is essentially a personal record, an account of my own adventures with the problem. The book does not pretend to finality; the results are true for me as far as I have gone. They may or may not be true for another. If they become true for another man, he is the one for whom the book was written. I do not apologize because the shelter here put together, in which I have found a certain comfort, is not a palace. Rude as the structure may be, any man is welcomed to it who may find solace there in an hour of need. C. N. CAMBRIDGE, _November second, 1906._ I THE IMPULSE TO EXPRESSION TOWARD evening a traveler through a wild country finds himself still in the open, with no hope of reaching a village that night. The wind is growing chill; clouds are gathering in the west, threatening rain. There rises in him a feeling of the need of shelter; and he looks about him to see what material is ready to his hand. Scattered stones will serve for supports and low walls; there are fallen branches for the roof; twigs and leaves can be woven into a thatch. Already the general design has shaped itself in his mind. He sets to work, modifying the details of his plan to suit the resources of his material. At last, after hours of hard thought and eager toil, spurred on by his sense of his great need, the hut is ready; and fee takes refuge in it as the storm breaks. The entire significance of the man's work is _shelter._ The beginning of it lay in his need of shelter. The impulse to action rose out of his consciousness of his need. His imagination conceived the plan whereby the need might be met, and the plan gave shape to his material. The actual result of his labor was a hut, but the hut itself was not the end for which he strove. The hut was but the means. The all-inclusive import of his work--the stimulus which impelled him to act, the purpose for which he toiled, and the end which he accomplished--is shelter. A man of special sensitiveness to the appeal of color and form finds himself also in the open. He is weary with the way, which shows but broken glimpses of the road. His spirit, heavy with the "burden of the mystery," is torn by conflict and confusion. As he looks across the stony places to the gnarled and weather-tortured trees beyond, and up to the clouds piling black above him, there is revealed to him a sudden harmony among the discords; an inner principle, apprehended by his imagination, compels the fragments of the seeming chaos into a regnant order. These natural forms become for him the expression external to himself of the struggle of his own spirit and its final resolution. The desire rises in him to express by his own act the order he has newly perceived, the harmony of his spirit with the spirit of nature. As life comes to him dominantly in terms of color and form, it is with color and form that he works to expression so as to satisfy his need. The design is already projected in his imagination, and to realize concretely his ideal he draws upon the material of nature about him. The picture which he paints is not the purpose of his effort. The picture is but the means. His end is to express the great new harmony in which his spirit finds shelter. Both men, the traveler and the painter, are wayfarers. Both are seeking shelter from stress and storm, and both construct their means. In one case the product is more obviously and immediately practical, and the informing purpose tends to become obscured in the actual serviceableness of the result. The hut answers a need that is primarily physical; the need in the other case is spiritual. But it is a matter of degree. In essence and import the achievement of the two men is the same. The originating impulse, a sense of need; the processes involved, the combination of material elements to a definite end; the result attained, shelter which answers the need,--they are identical. Both men are artists. Both hut and picture are works of art. So art is not remote from common life after all. In its highest manifestations art is life at its best; painting, sculpture, poetry, music are the distillment and refinement of experience. Architecture and the subsidiary arts of decoration adorn necessity and add delight to use. But whatever the flower and final fruit, art strikes its roots deep down into human need, and draws its impulse and its sustenance from the very sources of life itself. In the wide range from the hut in the wilderness to a Gothic cathedral, from the rude scratches recorded on the cave walls of prehistoric man to the sublimities of the Sistine Chapel, there is no break in the continuity of effort and aspiration. Potentially every man is an artist. Between the artist, so-called, and the ordinary man there is no gulf fixed which cannot be passed. Such are the terms of our mechanical civilization to-day that art has become specialized and the practice of it is limited to a few; in consequence artists have become a kind of class. But essentially the possibilities of art lie within the scope of any man, given the right conditions. So too the separation of the "useful arts" from the "fine arts" is unjust to art and perversive of right appreciation. Whatever the form in which it may manifest itself, from the lowest to the highest, the art spirit is one, and it may quicken in any man who sets mind and heart to the work of his hand. That man is an artist who fashions a new thing that he may express himself in response to his need. Art is creation. It is the combination of already existing material elements into new forms which become thus the realization of a preconceived idea. Both hut and picture rose in the imagination of their makers before they took shape as things. The material of each was given already in nature; but the form, as the maker fashioned it, was new. Commonly we think of art as the expression and communication of emotion. A picture, a statue, a symphony we recognize as the symbol of what the artist has felt in some passage of his experience and the means by which he conveys his feeling to us. Art _is_ the expression of emotion, but all art springs out of need. The sense of need which impels expression through the medium of creation is itself an emotion. The hut which the traveler built for himself in the wilderness--shaping it according to the design which his imagination suggested, having reference to his need and to the character of his materials--was a work of creation; the need which prompted it presented itself to him as emotion. The picture which the other wayfarer painted of the storm-swept landscape, a harmony which his imagination compelled out of discords, was a work of creation; the emotion which inspired the work was attended by need, the need of expression. The material and practical utility of the hut obscures the emotional character of its origin; the emotional import of the picture outweighs consideration of its utility to the painter as the means by which his need of expression is satisfied. The satisfaction of physical needs which results in the creation of utilities and the satisfaction of spiritual needs which results in the forms of expression we commonly call works of art differ one from the other in their effect on the total man only in degree. All works of use whose conception and making have required an act of creation are art; all art--even in its supreme manifestations--embraces elements of use. The measure in which a work is art is established by the intensity and scope of its maker's emotion and by his power to body forth his feeling in harmonious forms which in turn recreate the emotion in the spirit of those whom his work reaches. In its essence and widest compass art is the making of a new thing in response to a sense of need. The very need itself creates, working through man as its agent. This truth is illustrated vividly by the miracles of modern invention. The hand of man unaided was not able to cope with his expanding opportunities; the giant steam and the magician electricity came at his call to work their wonders. The plow and scythe of the New England colonist on his little farm were metamorphosed into the colossal steam-driven shapes, in which machinery seems transmuted into intelligence, as he moved to the conquest of the acres of the West which summoned him to dominion. First the need was felt; the contrivance was created in response. A man of business sees before him in imagination the end to be reached, and applying his ideal to practical conditions, he makes every detail converge to the result desired. All rebellious circumstances, all forces that pull the other way, he bends to his compelling will, and by the shaping power of his genius he accomplishes his aim. His business is his medium of self-expression; his success is the realization of his ideal. A painter does no more than this, though he works with a different material. The landscape which is realized ultimately upon his canvas is the landscape seen in his imagination. He draws his colors and forms from nature around; but he selects his details, adapting them to his end. All accidents and incidents are purged away. Out of the apparent confusion of life rises the evident order of art. And in the completed work the artist's _idea_ stands forth salient and victorious. That consciousness of need which compels creation is the origin of art. The owner of a dwelling who first felt the need of securing his door so that he alone might possess the secret and trick of access devised a lock and key, rude enough, as we can fancy. As the maker of the first lock and key he was an artist. All those who followed where he had led, repeating his device without modification, were but artisans. In the measure that any man changed the design, however, adapting it more closely to his peculiar needs and so making it anew, to that extent he was an artist also. The man who does a thing for the first time it is done is an artist; a man who does a thing better is an artist. The painter who copies his object imitatively, finding nothing, creating nothing, is an artisan, however skillful he may be. He is an artist in the degree in which he brings to his subject something of his own, and fashioning it, however crudely, to express the idea he has conceived of the object, so creates. The difference between work which is art and work which is not art is just this element of the originating impulse and creative act. The difference, though often seemingly slight and not always immediately perceived, is all-important. It distinguishes the artist from the artisan; a free spirit from a slave; a thinking, feeling man from a soulless machine. It makes the difference between life rich and significant, and mere existence; between the mastery of fate and the passive acceptance of things as they are. If a mind and heart are behind it to control and guide it to expression, even the machine may be an instrument in the making of a work of art. It is not the work itself, but the motive which prompted the making of it, that determines its character as art. Art is not the way a thing is done, but the reason why it is done. A chair, though turned on a lathe, may be a work of art, if the maker has truly expressed himself in his work. A picture, though "hand-painted," may be wholly mechanical in spirit. To set about "making a picture" is to begin at the wrong end. The impulse to art flows from within outwards. Art is bound up with life itself; like nature, it is organic and must grow. The form cannot be laid on from the outside; it is born and must develop in response to vital need. In so far as our acts are consciously the expression of ourselves they are prompted by the art spirit. All our acts are reducible to one of two kinds: either they are acts of creation, effecting a new result, or they are acts of repetition. Acts of repetition tend rapidly to become habits; and they may be performed without attention or positive volition. Thus, as I am dressing in the morning I may be planning the work for the day; while my mind is given over to thought, I lose the sense of my material surroundings, my muscles work automatically, the motor-currents flowing through the well-worn grooves, and by force of habit the acts execute themselves. Obviously, acts of repetition, or habits, make up the larger part of our daily lives. Acts of creation, on the other hand, are performed by an effort of the will in response to the consciousness of a need. To meet the new need we are obliged to make new combinations. I assume that the traveler constructed his hut for the first time, shaping it to the special new conditions; that the harmony which the painter discerned in the tumult around him he experienced for the first time, and the picture which he paints, shaped with reference to his need and fulfilling it, is a new thing. In the work produced by this act of creation, the feeling which has prompted it finds expression. In the making of the hut, in the painting of the picture, the impelling need is satisfied. Although acts of repetition constitute the bulk of life, creation is of its very essence and determines its quality. The significance and joy of life are less in being than in _becoming._ Growth is expression, and in turn expression is made possible by growth. In our conscious experience the sense of becoming is one of our supreme satisfactions. Growth is the purpose and the recompense of our being here, the end for which we strive and the reward of all the effort and the struggle. In the exercise of brain or hand, to feel the work take form, develop, and become something,--that is happiness. And the joy is in the creating rather than in the thing created; the completed work is behind us, and we move forward to new creation. A painter's best picture is the blank canvas before him; an author's greatest book is the one he is just setting himself to write. The desire for change for the sake of change which we all feel at times, a vague restlessness of mind and body, is only the impulse to growth which has not found its direction. Outside of us we love to see the manifestation of growth. We tend and cherish the little plant in the window; we watch with delight the unfolding of each new leaf and the upward reach into blossom. The spring, bursting triumphant from the silent, winter-stricken earth, is nature's parable of expression, her symbol perennially renewed of the joy of growth. The impulse to expression is cosmic and eternal. But even in the homeliness and familiarity of our life from day to day the need of expression is there, whether we are entirely aware of it or not; and we are seeking the realization and fulfillment of ourselves through the utterance of what we are. A few find their expression in forms which with distinct limitation of the term we call works of art. Most men find it in their daily occupations, their profession or their business. The president of one of the great Western railroads remarked once in conversation that he would rather build a thousand miles of railroad than live in the most sumptuous palace on Fifth Avenue. Railroad building was his medium of expression; it was his art. Some express themselves in shaping their material environment, in the decoration and ordering of their houses. A young woman said, "My ambition is to keep my house well." Again, for her, housekeeping is her art. Some find the realization of themselves in the friends they draw around them. Love is but the utterance of what we essentially are; and the response to it in the loved one makes the utterance articulate and complete. Expression rises out of our deepest need, and the need impels expression. The assertion that art is thus involved with need seems for the moment to run counter to the usual conception, which regards art as a product of leisure, a luxury, and the result not of labor but of play. Art in its higher forms becomes more and more purely the expression of emotion, the un-trammeled record of the artist's spiritual experience. It is only when physical necessities have been met or ignored that the spirit of man has free range. But the maker who adds decoration to his bowl after he has moulded it is just as truly fulfilling a need--the need of self-expression--as he fulfilled a need when he fashioned the bowl in the first instance in order that he might slake his thirst. Art is not superadded to life,--something different in kind. All through its ascent from its rudimentary forms to its highest, from hut to cathedral, art is coordinate with the development of life, continuous and without breach or sudden end; it is the expression step by step of ever fuller and ever deeper experience. Creation, therefore, follows upon the consciousness of need, whether the need be physical, as with the traveler, or spiritual, as with the painter; from physical to spiritual we pass by a series of gradations. At their extremes they are easy to distinguish, one from the other; but along the way there is no break in the continuity. The current formula for art, that art is the utterance of man's joy in his work, is not quite accurate. In the act of creation the maker finds the expression of himself. The man who decorates a bowl in response to his own creative impulse is expressing himself. The painter who thrills to the wonder and significance of nature is impelled to expression; and his delight is not fully realized and complete until he has uttered it. Such art is love expressed, and the artist's work is his "hymn of the praise of things." But the joy for both the potter and the painter, the joy which is so bound up with art as to partake of its very essence, is the joy which attends self-expression and the satisfaction of the need. A work of art is a work of creation brought into being as the expression of emotion. The traveler creates not the wood and stone but shelter, by means of the hut; the painter creates not the landscape but the beauty of it; the musician creates not the musical tones, but by means of a harmony of tones he creates an emotional experience. The impulse to art rises out of the earliest springs of consciousness and vibrates through all life. Art does not disdain to manifest itself in the little acts of expression of simple daily living; with all its splendid past and vital present it is ever seeking new and greater forms whose end is not yet. I spoke of the work of the traveler through the wilderness as art; the term was applied also to railroad-building and to housekeeping. The truth to be illustrated by these examples is that the primary impulse to artistic expression does not differ in essence from the impulse to creation of any kind. The nature of the thing created, as art, depends upon the emotional value of the result, the degree in which it expresses immediately the emotion of its creator, and the power it possesses to rouse the emotion in others. To show that all art is creation and that all creation tends toward art is not to obscure useful distinctions, but rather to restore art to its rightful place in the life of man. In the big sense, then, art is bounded only by life itself. It is not a cult; it is not an activity practiced by the few and a mystery to be understood only by those who are initiated into its secrets. One difficulty in the way of the popular understanding of art is due to the fact that the term art is currently limited to its highest manifestations; we withhold the title of artist from a good carpenter or cabinet-maker who takes a pride in his work and expresses his creative desire by shaping his work to his own idea, and we bestow the name upon any juggler in paint: with the result that many people who are not painters or musicians feel themselves on that account excluded from all appreciation. If we go behind the various manifestations of art to discover just what art is in itself and to determine wherein it is able to link itself with common experience, we find that art is the response to a need. And that need may waken in any man. Every man may be an artist in his degree; and every man in his degree can appreciate art. A work of art is the expression of its maker's experience, the expression in such terms that the experience can be communicated to another. The processes of execution involved in fashioning a work, its technique, may be as incomprehensible and perplexed and difficult as its executants choose to make them. Technique is not the same as art. The only mystery of art is the mystery of all life itself. Accept life with its fundamental mysteries, with its wonders and glories, and we have the clue to art. But we miss the central fact of the whole matter if we do not perceive that art is only a means. It is by expression that we grow and so fulfill ourselves. The work itself which art calls into being is not the end. It fails of its purpose, remaining void and vain, if it does not perform its function. The hut which does not furnish shelter is labor lost. The significance of the painter's effort does not stop with the canvas and pigment which he manipulates into form and meaning. The artist sees beyond the actual material thing which he is fashioning; his purpose in creation is expression. By means of his picture he expresses himself and so finds the satisfaction of his deepest need. The beginning and the end of art is life. But the artist's work of expression is not ultimately complete until the message is received, and expression becomes communication as his utterance calls out a response in the spirit of a fellow-man. Art exists not only for the artist's sake but for the appreciator too. As art has its origin in emotion and is the expression of it, so for the appreciator the individual work has a meaning and is art in so far as it becomes for him the expression of what he has himself felt but could not phrase; and it is art too in the measure in which it is the revelation of larger possibilities of feeling and creates in him a new emotional experience. The impulse to expression is common to all; the difference is one of degree. And the message of art is for all, according as they are attuned to the response. Art is creation. For the artist it is creation by expression; for the appreciator it is creation by evocation. These two principles complete the cycle; abstractly and very briefly they are the whole story of art. To be responsive to the needs of life and its emotional appeal is the first condition of artistic creation. By new combinations of material elements to bring emotion to expression in concrete harmonious forms, themselves charged with emotion and communicating it, is to fashion a work of art. To feel in material, whether in the forms of nature or in works of art, a meaning for the spirit is the condition of appreciation. II THE ATTITUDE OF RESPONSE IT is a gray afternoon in late November. The day is gone; evening is not yet come. Though too dark to read or write longer, it is not dark enough for drawn shades and the lamp. As I sit in the gathering dusk, my will hovering between work done and work to do, I surrender to the mood of the moment. The day is accomplished, but it is not yet a remembrance, for it is still too near for me to define the details that made up its hours. Consciousness, not sharp enough for thought, floats away into diffused and obscure emotion. The sense is upon me and around me that I am vaguely, unreasoningly, yet pleasantly, unhappy. Out of the dimness a trick of memory recalls to me the lines,-- "Tears! tears! tears! In the night, in solitude, tears, On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand, Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate, Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head; O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears? What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch'd there on the sand? Streaming tears, sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries; O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps along the beach! O wild and dismal night storm, with wind--O belching and desperate! O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and regulated pace, But away at night as you fly, none looking--O then the unloosened ocean Of tears! tears! tears!" Now I know. My mood was the mood of tears. The poet, too, has felt what I was feeling. And as a poet he has been able to bring his emotion to expression. By the magic of phrase and the mystery of image he has, out of the moving of his spirit, fashioned a concrete reality. By means of his expression, because of it, his emotion becomes realized, and so reaches its fulfillment. And for me, what before was vague has been made definite. The poet's lines have wakened in me a response; I have felt what he has phrased; and now they become my expression too. As my mood takes form, I become conscious of its meaning. I can distill its significance for the spirit, and in the emotion made definite and realizable as consciousness I feel and know that I am living. Doubly, completely, the poem is a work of art. And my response to it, the absorption of it into my own experience, is appreciation. I appreciate the poem as I make the experience which the poet has here phrased my own, and at the instant of reading I live out in myself what he has lived and here expressed. I read the words, and intellectually I take in their signification, but the poem is not realized in me until it wakens in me the feeling which the words are framed to convey. The images which an artist employs have the power to rouse emotion in us, so that they come to stand for the emotion itself. We care for nature and it is beautiful to us as its forms become objectively the intimate expression for us of what we feel. "O to realize space! The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds, To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and moon and flying clouds, as one with them." In his contact with the external world the artist identifies himself with his object. If he is painting a tree he in a measure becomes the tree; he values it at all because it expresses for him concretely what he feels in its presence. The object and his spirit fuse; and through the fusion they together grow into a new and larger unity. What his work expresses is not the object for its own sake but this larger unity of his identity with it. To appreciate the artist's work, therefore, we must in our turn merge ourselves in his emotion, and becoming one with it, so extend our personality into larger life. To make the artist's emotion our own, to identify ourselves with the object which he presents to us, we must pass beyond the material form in which the work is embodied, letting the spirit and meaning of it speak to our spirit. In itself an individual picture or statue or symphony is an objective, material thing, received into consciousness along the channel of the senses; but its origin and its end alike are in emotion. The material form, whether in nature or in works of art, is only the means by which the emotion is communicated. A landscape in nature is composed of meadow and hills, blue sky and tumbling clouds; these are the facts of the landscape. But they are not fixed and inert. The imagination of the beholder combines these elements into a harmony of color and mass; his spirit flows into consonance with the harmony his imagination has compelled out of nature, becoming one with it. To regard the world not as facts and things, but as everywhere the stimulus of feeling, feeling which becomes our own experience, is the condition of appreciation. To the awakening mind of a child, life is full of wonder, and each unfolding day reveals new marvels of excitement and surprise. As yet untrammeled by any sense of the limitations of material, his quick imagination peoples his world with creatures of his fancy, which to him are more real than the things he is able actually to see and touch. For him the external world is fluid and plastic, to be moulded into forms at will in obedience to his creative desire. In the tiny bundle of rags which mother-love clasps tight to her heart, a little girl sees only the loveliest of babies; and a small boy with his stick of lath and newspaper cap and plume is a mightier than Napoleon. The cruder the toy, the greater is the pleasure in the game; for the imagination delights in the exercise of itself. A wax doll, sent from Paris, with flaxen hair and eyes that open and shut, is laid away, when the mere novelty of it is exhausted, in theatric chest, and the little girl is fondling again her first baby of rag and string. A real steel sword and tin helmet are soon cast aside, and the boy is back again among the toys of his own making. That impulse to creation which all men feel, the impulse which makes the artist, is especially active in a child; his games are his art. With a child material is not an end but a means. Things are for him but the skeleton of life, to be clothed upon by the flesh and blood reality of his own fashioning. His feeling is in excess of his knowledge. He has a faculty of perception other than the intellectual. It is imagination. The child is the first artist. Out of the material around him he creates a world of his own. The prototypes of the forms which he devises exist in life, but it is the thing which he himself makes that interests him, not its original in nature. His play is his expression. He creates; and he is able to merge himself in the thing created. In his play he loses all consciousness of self. He and the toy become one, caught up in the larger unity of the game. According as he identifies himself with the thing outside of him, the child is the first appreciator. Then comes a change. "Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day." Imagination surrenders to the intellect; emotion gives place to knowledge. Gradually the material world shuts in about us until it becomes for us a hard, inert thing, and no longer a living, changing presence, instinct with infinite possibilities of experience and feeling. Now custom lies upon us "with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!" It happens, unfortunately for our enjoyment of life, that we get used to things. Little by little we come to accept them, to take them for granted, and they cease to mean anything to us. Habit, which is our most helpful ally in lending our daily life its practical efficiency, is the foe of emotion and appreciation. Habit allows us to perform without conscious effort the innumerable little acts of each day's necessity which we could not possibly accomplish if every single act required a fresh exercise of will. But just because its action is unconscious and unregarded, habit blunts the edge of our sensibilities. "Thus let but a Rising of the Sun," says Carlyle, "let but a creation of the World happen _twice,_ and it ceases to be marvelous, to be noteworthy, or noticeable." "Except ye become as little children!" Unless the world is new-created every day, unless we can thrill to the beauty of nature with its fair surfaces and harmonies of vibrant sounds, or quicken to the throb of human life with its occupations and its play of energies, its burdens and its joys, unless we find an answer to our needs, and gladness, in sunlight or storms, in the sunset and evening and solitude under the stars, in fields and hills or in thronging city streets, in conflict and struggle or in the face of a friend, unless each new day is a gift and new opportunity, then we cannot interpret the meaning of life nor read the riddle of art. For we cannot truly appreciate art except as we learn to appreciate life. Until then art has no message for us; it is a sealed book, and we shall not open the book nor loose the seals thereof. The meaning of life is for the spirit, and art is its minister. To share in the communion we must become as children. As a child uses the common things of life to his own ends, transfiguring them by force of his creative desire, and fashioning thus a wonderful world of his own by the exercise of his shaping imagination, a world of limitless incident and high adventure, so we must penetrate the visible and tangible actuality around us, the envelope of seemingly inert matter cast in forms of rigid definition, and we must open ourselves to the influence of nature. That influence--nature's power to inspire, quicken, and dilate--flowing through the channel of the senses, plays upon our spirit. The indwelling significance of things is apprehended by the imagination, and is won for us in the measure that we feel. As we respond to the emotional appeal of the great universe external to ourselves we come to realize that the material world which we see and touch is not final. In the experience of us all there are moments of exaltation and quickened response, moments of illumination when-- "with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things." The "life of things" is their significance for the spirit. By spirit I mean the sum of our conscious being, that complete entity within us which we recognize as the self. The material world, external, visible, tangible, may be regarded as the actual world. The real world is the world of spiritual forces and relations, apprehended by the imagination and received with feeling. Life, in the sense of our conscious experience of the world, is the moving of the spirit in emotion. The measure of life for the individual, therefore, is the degree of intensity with which he feels. Experience is not meted out by weeks and months; it is to be sounded by the depth and poignancy of instant emotion. Variety and multitude of incident may crowd through insentient years and leave no record of their progress along the waste places of their march. Or a day may be a lifetime. In such moments of intensest experience time and space fall away and are not. The outermost bounds of things recede; they vanish altogether: and we are made free of the universe. At such moments we are truly living; then we really _are._ As the meaning of art is not the material thing which it calls into form, but what the work expresses of life, so in order to appreciate art it is necessary to appreciate life, which is the inspiration of art and its fulfillment. To appreciate life is to send out our being into experience and to _feel_,--to realize in terms of emotion our identity with the great universe outside of us, this world of color and form and sound and movement, this web of illimitable activities and energies, shot through with currents of endlessly varied and modulated feeling. "My son," says the father in Hindu lore, pointing to an animal, a tree, a rock, "my son, thou art that!" The universe is one. Of it we are each an essential part, distinct as individuals, yet fusing with it in our sense of our vital kinship with all other parts and with the whole. I am sauntering through the Public Garden on a fragrant hushed evening in June; touched by the lingering afterglow, the twilight has not yet deepened into night. Grouped about a bench, children are moving softly in the last flicker of play, while the mother nods above them. On the next bench a wanderer is stretched at full length, his face hidden in his crooked-up arm. I note a couple seated, silent, with shoulder touching shoulder. I meet a young man and woman walking hand in hand; they do not see me as I pass. Beyond, other figures are soundless shadows, gathering out of the enveloping dusk. It is all so intimate and friendly. The air, the flowers, the bit of water through the trees reflecting the lights of the little bridge, are a caress. And it is all for me! I am a child at his tired play, I am the sleeping tramp, I am the young fellow with his girl. It is not the sentiment of the thing, received intellectually, that makes it mine. My being goes out into these other lives and becomes one with them. I feel them in myself. It is not thought that constitutes appreciation; it is emotion. Another glimpse, caught this time through a car window. Now it is a winter twilight. The flurry of snow has passed. The earth is penetrated with blue light, suffused by it, merged in it, ever blue. Vague forms, still and shadowy, of hills and trees, soppy with light, are blue within the blue. The brief expanse of bay is deeply luminous and within the pervasive tempering light resolves itself into the cool and solemn reaches of the sky which bends down and touches it. Once more my spirit meets and mingles with the spirit of the landscape. By the harmony of nature's forms and twilight tones I am brought into a larger harmony within myself and with the world around. All experience offers to us at any moment just such possibilities of living. The infinite and ever-changing expressiveness of nature at every instant of day and night is ours to read if we will but look upon it with the inner vision. The works of men in cities and cultivated fields, if we will see beyond the actual material, may quicken our emotions until we enact in ourselves their story of struggle, of hopes and ambitions partly realized, of defeat or final triumph. The faces seen in a passing crowd bear each the record of life lived, of lives like ours of joys or disappointments, lives of great aims or no aims at all, of unwritten heroisms, of hidden tragedies bravely borne, lives sordid and mean or generous and bright. The panorama of the world unrolls itself _for us._ It is ours to experience and live out in our own being according as we are able to feel. Just as the impulse to expression is common to all men, and all are artists potentially, differing in the depth of their insight into life and in the degree of emotion they have to express, so appreciation lies within the scope of all, and the measure of it to us as individuals is determined by our individual capability of response. Life means to each one of us what we are able to receive of it in "wise passiveness," and then are able by the constructive force of our individuality to shape into coherence and completeness. As the landscape which an artist paints is the landscape visioned in imagination, though composed of forms given in nature, so life furnishes us the elements of experience, and out of these elements we construct a meaning, each for himself. To one man an object or incident is commonplace and blank; to another it may be charged with significance and big with possibilities of fuller living. "In every object." says Carlyle, "there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what it brings means of seeing." To _see_ is not merely to receive an image upon the retina. The stimulation of the visual organ becomes sight properly only as the record is conveyed to the consciousness. When I am reading a description of a sunset, there is an image upon my retina of a white page and black marks of different forms grouped in various combinations. But what I see is the sunset. Momentarily to rest the eye upon a landscape is not really to see it, for our mind may be quite otherwhere. We see the landscape only as it becomes part of our conscious experience. The beauty of it is in us. A novelist conceives certain characters and assembles them in action and reaction, but it is we who in effect create the story as we read. We take up a novel, perhaps, which we read five years ago; we find in it now new significances and appeals. The book is the same; it is we who have changed. We bring to it the added power of feeling of those five years of living. Art works not by information but by evocation. Appreciation is not reception but response. The artist must compel us to feel what he has felt,--not something else. But the scope of his message, with its overtones and subtler implications, is limited by the rate of vibration to which we are attuned. "All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it, (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of the arches and cornices?) All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments." And again Whitman says, "A great poem is no finish to a man or woman, but rather a beginning." The final significance of both life and art is not won by the exercise of the intellect, but unfolds itself to us in the measure that we feel. To illustrate the nature of appreciation and the power from which appreciation derives, the power to project ourselves into the world external to us, I spoke of the joy of living peculiar to the child and to the childlike in heart. But that is not quite the whole of the story. A child by force of his imagination and capacity of feeling is able to pass beyond the limits of material, and he lives in a world of exhaustless play and happiness; for him objects are but means and not an end. To transcend thus the bounds of matter imposed by the senses and to live by the power of emotion is the first condition of appreciation. The second condition of appreciation is to feel and know it, to become conscious of ourselves in our relation to the object. To _live_ is the purpose of life; to be aware that we are living is its fulfillment and the reward of appreciation. Experience has a double value. There is the instant of experience itself, and then the reaction on it. A child is unconscious in his play; he is able to forget himself in it completely. At that moment he is most happy. The instant of supreme joy is the instant of ecstasy, when we lose all consciousness of ourselves as separate and distinct individualities. We are one with the whole. But experience does not yield us its fullest and permanent significance until, having abandoned ourselves to the moment, we then react upon it and become aware of what the moment means. A group of children are at play. Without thought of themselves they are projected into their sport; with their whole being merged in it, they are intensely living. A passer on the street stands and watches them. For the moment, in spirit he becomes a child with them. In himself he feels the absorption and vivid reality to them of what they are doing. But he feels also what they do not feel, and that is, what it means to be a child. Where they are unconscious he is conscious; and therefore he is able, as they are not, to distill the significance of their play. This recognition makes possible the extension of his own life; for the man adds to himself the child. The reproach is sometimes brought against Walt Whitman that the very people he writes about do not read him. The explanation is simple and illustrates the difference between the unconscious and the conscious reception of life. The "average man" who is the hero of Whitman's chants is not aware of himself as such. He goes about his business, content to do his work; and that makes up his experience. It is not the average man himself, but the poet standing outside and looking on with imaginative sympathy, who feels what it means to be an average man. It is the poet who must "teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade." It is not enough to be happy as children are happy,--unconsciously. We must be happy and know it too. The attitude of appreciation is the attitude of response,--the projection of ourselves into new and fuller ranges of feeling, with the resultant extension of our personality and a larger grasp on life. We do not need to go far afield for experience; it is here and now. To-day is the only day, and every day is the best day. "The readiness is all." But mere contact with the surface of life is not enough. Living does not consist in barely meeting the necessities of our material existence; to live is to feel vibrantly throughout our being the inner significance of things, their appeal and welcome to the spirit. This fair world of color and form and texture is but a show world, after all,--this world which looms so near that we can see it, touch it, which comes to us out of the abysms of time and recedes into infinitudes of space whither the imagination cannot follow it. The true and vital meaning of it resides within and discovers itself to us finally as emotion. Some of this meaning art reveals to us, and in that measure it helps us to find ourselves. But art is only the means. The starting-point of the appreciation of art, and its goal, is the appreciation of life. The reward of living is the added ability to live. And life yields its fullest opportunities, its deepest tragedies, its highest joys, all its infinite scope of feeling, to those who enter by the gate of appreciation. III TECHNIQUE AND THE LAYMAN A PEASANT is striding across a field in the twilight shadow of a hill. Beyond, where the fold of the hill dips down into the field, another peasant is driving a team of oxen at a plow. The distant figures are aglow with golden mellow light, the last light of day, which deepens the gloom of the shadowing hillside. The sower's cap is pulled tight about his head, hiding under its shade the unseeing eyes. The mouth is brutal and grim. The heavy jaw flows down into the thick, resistive neck. The right arm swings powerfully out, scattering the grain. The left is pressed to his body; the big, stubborn hand clutches close the pouch of seed. Action heroic, elemental; the dumb bearing of the universal burden. In the flex of the shoulder, the crook of the outstretched arm, the conquering onward stride, is expressed all the force of that word of the Lord to the first toiler, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." Three men are standing before Millet's canvas. One recognizes the subject of the picture. With the pleasure of recognition he notes what the artist has here represented, and he is interested in the situation. This is a peasant, and he is sowing his grain. So the onlooker stands and watches the peasant in his movement, and he _thinks_ about the sower, recalling any sower he may have read of or seen or known, his own sower rather than the one that Millet has seen and would show to him. This man's pleasure in the picture has its place. The second of the three men is attracted by the qualities of execution which the work displays, and he is delighted by what he calls the "actual beauty" of the painting. With eyes close to the canvas he notes the way Millet has handled his materials, his drawing, his color, his surfaces and edges, all the knack of the brush-work, recognizing in his examination of the workmanship of the picture that though Millet was a very great artist, he was not a great painter, that the reach of his ideas was not equaled by his technical skill. Then as the beholder stands back from the canvas to take in the ensemble, his eye is pleased by the color-harmony, it rests lovingly upon the balance of the composition, and follows with satisfaction the rhythmic flow of line. His enjoyment is both intellectual and sensuous. And that too has its place. The third spectator, with no thought of the facts around which the picture is built, not observing the technical execution as such, unconscious at the moment also of its merely sensuous charm, feels within himself, "_I_ am that peasant!" In his own spirit is enacted the agelong world-drama of toil. He sees beyond the bare subject of the picture; the medium with all its power of sensuous appeal and satisfaction becomes transparent. The beholder enters into the very being of the laborer; and as he identifies himself with this other life outside of him, becoming one with it in spirit and feeling, he adds just so much to his own experience. In his reception of the meaning of Millet's painting of the "Sower" he lives more deeply and abundantly. It is the last of these three men who stands in the attitude of full and true appreciation. The first of the three uses the picture simply as a point of departure; his thought travels away from the canvas, and he builds up the entire experience out of his own knowledge and store of associations. The second man comes a little nearer to appreciation, but even he falls short of full realization, for he stops at the actual material work itself. His interest in the technical execution and his pleasure in the sensuous qualities of the medium do not carry him through the canvas and into the emotion which it was the artist's purpose to convey. Only he truly appreciates the painting of the "Sower" who feels something of what Millet felt, partaking of the artist's experience as expressed by means of the picture, and making it vitally his own. But before the appreciator can have brought himself to the point of perception where he is able to respond directly to the significance of art and to make the artist's emotion a part of his own emotional experience, he must needs have traveled a long and rather devious way. Appreciation is not limited to the exercise of the intellect, as in the recognition of the subject of a work of art and in the interest which the technically minded spectator takes in the artist's skill. It does not end with the gratification of the senses, as with the delight in harmonious color and rhythmic line and ordered mass. Yet the intellect and the senses, though they are finally but the channel through which the artist's meaning flows to reach and rouse the feelings, nevertheless play their part in appreciation. Between the spirit of the artist and the spirit of the appreciator stands the individual work of art as the means of expression and communication. In the work itself emotion is embodied in material form. The material which art employs for expression constitutes its language. Certain principles govern the composition of the work, certain processes are involved in the making of it, and the result possesses certain qualities and powers. The processes which enter into the actual fashioning of the work are both intellectual and physical, requiring the exercise of the artist's mind in the planning of the work and in the directing of his hand; so far as the appreciator concerns himself with them, they address themselves to his intellect. The finished work in its material aspect possesses qualities which are perceived by the senses and which have a power of sensuous delight. Upon these processes and these qualities depends in part the total character of a work of art, and they must be reckoned with in appreciation. In his approach to any work of art, therefore, the layman is confronted first of all with the problem of the language which the work employs. Architecture uses as its language the structural capabilities of its material, as wood or stone, bringing all together into coherent and serviceable form. Poetry is phrased in words. Painting employs as its medium color and line and mass. At the outset, in the case of any art, we have some knowledge of the signification of its terms. Here is a painting of a sower. Out of previous experience of the world we easily recognize the subject of the picture. But whence comes the majesty of this rude peasant, the dignity august of this rough and toil-burdened laborer, his power to move us? In addition to the common signification of its terms, then, language seems to have a further expressiveness, a new meaning imparted to it by the way in which the artist uses it. In a poem we know the meaning of the words, but the _poetry_ of it, which we feel rather than know, is the creation of the poet, wrought out of the familiar words by his cunning manipulation of them. "The grey sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i' the slushy sand. "Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each!" A drama in twelve lines. These are words of common daily usage, every one,--for the most part aggressively so. But the romance which they effuse, the glamour which envelops the commonplace incident as with an aura, is due to the poet's strategic selection of his terms, the one right word out of many words that offered, and his subtle combination of his terms into melody and rhythm. The wonder of the poet's craft is like the musician's,-- "That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star." A building rises before us; we recognize it as a building, and again easily we infer the purpose which it serves, that it is a temple or a dwelling. And then the beauty of it, a power to affect us beyond the mere feet that it is a building, lays hold upon us, an influence emanating from it which we do not altogether explain to ourselves. Simply in its presence we feel that we are pleased. The fact, the material which the artist uses, exists out there in nature. But the beauty of the building, the majesty and power of the picture, the charm of the poem,--this is the _art_ of the artist; and he wins his effects by the way in which he handles his materials, by his _technique._ Some knowledge of technique, therefore,--not the artist's knowledge of it, but the ability to read the language of art as the artist intends it to be read,--is necessary to appreciation. The hut which the traveler through a wild country put together to provide himself shelter against storm and the night was in essence a work of art. The purpose of his effort was not the hut itself but shelter, to accomplish which he used the hut as his means. The emotion of which the work was the expression, in this case the traveler's consciousness of his need, embodied itself in a concrete form and made use of material. The hut which he conceived in response to his need became for him the subject or motive of his work. For the actual expression of his design he took advantage of the qualities of his material, its capabilities to combine thus and so; these inherent qualities were his medium. The material wood and stone which he employed were the vehicle of his design. The way in which he handled his vehicle toward the construction of the hut, availing himself of the qualities and capabilities of his material, might be called his technique. The sight of some landscape wakens in the beholder a vivid and definite emotion; he is moved by it to some form of expression. If he is a painter he will express his emotion by means of a picture, which involves in the making of it certain elements and certain processes. The picture will present selected facts in the landscape; the landscape, then, as constructed according to the design the painter has conceived of it, becomes the motive or subject of his picture. The particular aspects of the landscape which the picture records are its color and its form. These qualities of color and form are the painter's medium. An etching of the scene would use not color but line to express the artist's emotion in its presence; so line is the medium of etching. But "qualities" of objects are an abstraction unless they are embodied in material. In order, therefore, to give his medium actual embodiment the painter uses pigment, as oil-color or water-color or tempera, laid upon a surface, as canvas, wood, paper, plaster; this material pigment is his vehicle. The etcher employs inked scratches upon his plate of zinc or copper, bitten by acid or scratched directly by the needle; these marks of ink are the vehicle of etching. To the way in which the artist uses his medium for practical expression and to his methods in the actual handling of his vehicle is applied the term technique. The general conception of his picture, its total design, the choice of motive, the selection of details, the main scheme of composition,--these belong to the great strategy of his art. The application of these principles in practice and their material working out upon his canvas are an affair of tactics and fall within the province of technique. The ultimate significance of a work of art is its content of emotion, the essential controlling idea, which inspires the work and gives it concrete form. In its actual embodiment, the expressive power of the work resides in the medium. The medium of any art, then, as color and mass in painting, line in drawing and etching, form in sculpture, sound in music, is its means of expression and constitutes its language. Now the signification of language derives from convention. Line, for example, which may be so sensitive and so expressive, is only an abstraction and does not exist in nature. What the draughtsman renders as line is objectively in fact the boundary of forms. A head, with all its subtleties of color and light and shade, may be represented by a pencil or charcoal drawing, black upon a white surface. It is not the head which is black and white, but the drawing. Our acceptance of the drawing as an adequate representation of the head rests upon convention. Writing is an elementary kind of drawing; the letters of the alphabet were originally pictures or symbols. So to-day written or printed letters are arbitrary symbols of sounds, and grouped together in arbitrary combinations they form words, which are symbols of ideas. The word _sum_ stood to the old Romans for the idea "I am;" to English-speaking people the word signifies a "total" and also a problem in arithmetic. A painting of a landscape does not attempt to imitate the scene; it uses colors and forms as symbols which serve for expression. The meaning attaching to these symbols derives from common acceptance and usage, Japanese painting, rendering the abstract spirit of movement of a wave, for example, rather than the concrete details of its surface appearance, differs fundamentally from the painting of the western world; it is none the less pregnant with meaning for those who know the convention. To understand language, therefore, we must understand the convention and accept its terms. The value of language as a means of expression and communication depends upon the knowledge, common to the user and to the person addressed, of the signification of its terms. Its effectiveness is determined by the way in which it is employed, involving the choice of terms, as the true line for the false or meaningless one, the right value or note of color out of many that would almost do, the exact and specific word rather than the vague and feeble; involving also the combination of terms into articulate forms. These ways and methods in the use of language are the concern of technique. Technique, therefore, plays an important part in the creation and the ultimate fortunes of the artist's work. Just here arises a problem for the layman in his approach to art. The man who says, "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like," is a familiar figure in our midst; of such, for the most part, the "public" of art is constituted. What he really means is, "I don't know anything about technique, but art interests me. I read books, I go to concerts and the theatre, I look at pictures; and in a way they have something for me." If we make this distinction between art and technique, the matter becomes simplified. The layman does not himself paint pictures or write books or compose music; his contact with art is with the purpose of appreciation. Life holds some meaning for him, as he is engaged in living, and there his chief interest lies. So art too has a message addressed to him, for art starts with life and in the end comes back to it. If art is not the expression of vital feeling, in its turn communicating the feeling to the appreciator so that he makes it a real part of his experience of life, then the thing called art is only an exercise in dexterity for the maker and a pastime for the receiver; it is not art. But art is not quite the same as life at first hand; it is rather the distillment of it. In order to render the significance of life as he has perceived and felt it, the artist selects and modifies his facts; and his work depends for its expressiveness upon the material form in which the emotion is embodied. The handling of material to the end of making it expressive is an affair of technique. The layman may ask himself, then, To what extent is a knowledge of technique necessary for appreciation? And how may he win that knowledge? On his road to appreciation the layman is beset with difficulties. Most of the talk about art which he hears is either the translation of picture or sonata into terms of literary sentiment or it is a discussion of the way the thing is done. He knows at least that painting is not the same as literature and that music has its own province; he recognizes that the meaning of pictures is not literary but pictorial, the meaning of music is musical. But the emphasis laid upon the manner of execution confuses and disturbs him. At the outset he frankly admits that he has no knowledge of technical processes as such. Yet each art must be read in its own language, and each has its special technical problems. He realizes that to master the technique of any single art is a career. And yet there are many arts, all of which may have some message for him in their own kind. If he must be able to paint in order to enjoy pictures rightly, if he cannot listen intelligently at a concert without being able himself to compose or at least to perform, his case for the appreciation of art seems hopeless. If the layman turns to his artist friends for enlightenment and a little sympathy, it is possible he may encounter a rebuff. Artists sometimes speak contemptuously of the public. "A painter," they say, "paints for painters, not for the people; outsiders know nothing about painting." True, outsiders know nothing about painting, but perhaps they know a little about life. If art is more than intellectual subtlety and manual skill, if art is the expression of something the artist has felt and lived, then the outsider has after all some standard for his estimate of art and a basis for his enjoyment. He is able to determine the value of the work to himself according as it expresses what he already knows about life or reveals to him fuller possibilities of experience which he can make his own. He does not pretend to judge painting; but he feels that he has some right to appreciate art. In reducing all art to a matter of technique artists themselves are not quite consistent. My friends Jones, a painter, and Smith, a composer, do not withhold their opinion of this or that novel and poem and play, and they discourse easily on the performances of Mr. James and Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Shaw; but I have no right to talk about the meaning to me of Jones's picture or Smith's sonata, for my business is with words, and therefore I cannot have any concern with painting or with music. To be sure, literature uses as its vehicle the means of communication of daily life, namely, words. But the _art_ in literature, the interpretation of life which it gives us, as distinct from mere entertainment, is no more generally appreciated than the art in painting. A man's technical accomplishment may be best understood and valued by his fellow-workmen in the same craft; and often the estimate set by artists on their own work is referred to the qualities of its technical execution. As a classic instance, Raphael sent some of his drawings to Albert Dürer to "show him his hand." So a painter paints for the painters. But the artist gives back a new fullness and meaning to life and addresses all who live. That man is fortunate who does not allow his progress toward appreciation to be impeded by this confusion of technique with art. The emphasis which workers in any art place upon their powers of execution is for themselves a false valuation of technique, and it tends to obscure the layman's vision of essentials. Technique is not, as it would seem, the whole of art, but only a necessary part. A work of art in its creation involves two elements,--the idea and the execution. The idea is the emotional content of the work; the execution is the practical expressing of the idea by means of the medium and the vehicle. The idea of Millet's "Sower" is the emotion attending his conception of the laborer rendered in visual terms; the execution of the picture is exhibited in the composition, the color, the drawing, and the actual brush-work. So, too, the artist himself is constituted by two qualifications, which must exist together: first, the power of the subject over the artist; and second, the artist's power over his subject. The first of these without the second results simply in emotion which does not come to expression as art. The second without the first produces sham art; the semblance of art may be fashioned by technical skill, but the life which inspires art is wanting. The artist, then, may be regarded in a dual aspect. He is first a temperament and a mind, capable of feeling intensely and able to integrate his emotions into unified coherent form; in this aspect he is essentially the _artist_. Secondly, for the expression of his idea he brings to bear on the execution of his work his command of the medium, his intellectual adroitness and his manual skill; in this aspect he is the _technician_. Every artist has a special kind of means with which he works, requiring knowledge and dexterity; but it may be assumed that in addition to his ability to express himself he has something to say. We may test a man's merit as a painter by his ability to paint. As an artist his greatness is to be judged with reference to the greatness of his ideas; and in his capacity as artist his technical skill derives its value from the measure in which it is adequate to their expression. In the case of an accomplished pianist or violinist we take his proficiency of technique for granted, and we ask, What, with all this power of expression at his command, has he to say? In his rendering of the composer's work what has he of his own to contribute by way of interpretation? Conceding at once to Mr. Sargent his supreme competence as a painter, his consummate mastery of all his means, we ask, What has he seen in this man or this woman before him worthy of the exercise of such skill? In terms of the personality he is interpreting, what has he to tell us of the beauty and scope of life and to communicate to us of larger emotional experience? The worth of technique is determined, not by its excellence as such, but by its efficiency for expression. It is difficult for an outsider to understand why painters, writers, sculptors, and the rest, who are called artists in distinction from the ordinary workman, should make so much of their skill. Any man who works freely and with joy takes pride in his performance. And instinctively we have a great respect for a good workman. Skill is not confined to those who are engaged in what is conventionally regarded as art. Indeed, the distinction implied in favor of "art" is unjust to the wide range of activities of familiar daily life into which the true art spirit may enter. A bootblack who polishes his shoes as well as he can, not merely because he is to be paid for it, though too he has a right to his pay, but because that is his work, his means of expression, even he works in the spirit of an artist. Extraordinary skill is often developed by those who are quite outside the pale of art. In a circus or music-hall entertainment we may see a man throw himself from a trapeze swinging high in air, and after executing a double somersault varied by complex lateral gyrations, catch the extended arms of his partner, who is hanging by his knees on another flying bar. Or a man leaning backwards over a chair shoots at a distance of fifty paces a lump of sugar from between the foreheads of two devoted assistants. Such skill presupposes intelligence. Of the years of training and practice, of the sacrifice and the power of will, that have gone to the accomplishment of this result, the looker-on can form but little conception. These men are not considered artists. Yet a painter who uses his picture to exhibit a skill no more wonderful than theirs would be grieved to be accounted an acrobat or a juggler. Only such skill as is employed in the service of expression is to be reckoned with as an element in art; and in art it is of value not for its own sake but as it serves its purpose. The true artist subordinates his technique to expression, justly making it a means and not the end. He cares for the significance of his idea more than for his sleight of hand; he effaces his skill for his art. A recognition of the skill exhibited in the fashioning of a work of art, however, if seen in its right relation to the total scope of the work, is a legitimate source of pleasure. Knowledge of any subject brings its satisfactions. To understand with discerning insight the workings of any process, whether it be the operation of natural laws, as in astronomy or chemistry, whether it be the construction of a locomotive, the playing of a game of foot-ball, or the painting of a picture, to see the "wheels go round" and know the how and the wherefore,--undeniably this is a source of pleasure. In the understanding of technical processes, too, there is a further occasion of enjoyment, differing somewhat from the satisfaction which follows in the train of knowledge. "There is a pleasure in poetic pains Which only poets know," says the poet Cowper. There is a pleasure in the sense of difficulties overcome known only to those who have tried to overcome them. But such enjoyment--the pleasure which comes with enlightened recognition and the pleasure of mastery and triumph--derives from an intellectual exercise and is not to be confounded with the full appreciation of art. Art, finally, is not the "how" but the "what" in terms of its emotional significance. Our pleasure in the result, in the design itself, is not the same as our pleasure in the skill that produced the work. The design, with the message that it carries, not the making of it, is the end of art. Too great preoccupation with technique conflicts with full appreciation. To fix the attention upon the manner of expression is to lose the meaning. A style which attracts notice to itself is in so far forth bad style, because it defeats its own end, which is expression; but beyond this, our interest in technical execution is purely intellectual, whereas art reaches the emotions. At the theatre a critic sits unmoved; dispassionately he looks upon the personages of the drama, as they advance, retreat, and countermarch, little by little yielding up their secret, disclosing all the subtle interplay of human motives. From the heights of his knowledge the critic surveys the spectacle; with an insight born of his learning, he penetrates the mysteries of the playwright's craft. He knows what thought and skill have gone into this result; he knows the weary hours of toil, the difficulties of invention and selection, the heroic rejections, the intricacies of construction, the final triumph. He sees it all from the point of view of the master-workman, and sympathetically he applauds his success; his recognition of what has been accomplished is his pleasure. But all the while he has remained on the outside. Not for a moment has he become a party to the play. He brings to it nothing of his own feeling and power of response. There has been no union of his spirit with the artist's spirit,--that union in which a work of art achieves its consummation. The man at his side, with no knowledge or thought of how the effect has been won, surrenders himself to the illusion. These people on the stage are more intensely and vividly real to him than in life itself; the artist has distilled the significance of the situation and communicates it to him as emotion. The man's reaction is not limited to the exercise of his intellect,--he gives himself. In the experience which the dramatist conveys to him beautifully, shaping discords into harmony and disclosing their meaning for the spirit, he lives. A true artist employs his medium as an instrument of expression; and he values his own technical skill in the handling of it according to the measure that he is enabled thereby to express himself more effectively. On the layman's part so much knowledge of technique is necessary as makes it possible for him to understand the artist's language and the added expressiveness wrought out of language by the artist's cunning use of it. And such knowledge is not beyond his reach. In order to understand the meaning of any language we must first understand the signification of its terms, and then we must know something of the ways in which they may be combined into articulate forms of expression. The terms of speech are words; in order to speak coherently and articulately we must group words into sentences according to the laws of the tongue to which they belong. Similarly, every art has its terms, or "parts of speech," and its grammar, or the ways in which the terms are combined. The terms of painting are color and form, the terms of music are tones. Colors and forms are brought together into harmony and balance that by their juxtaposition they may be made expressive and beautiful. Tones are woven into a pattern according to principles of harmony, melody, and rhythm, and they become music. When technique is turned to such uses, not for the vainglory of a virtuoso, but for the service of the artist in his earnest work of expression, then it identifies itself with art. A knowledge of the signification of the terms of art the layman may win for himself by a recognition of the expressive power of all material and by sensitiveness to it. The beholder will not respond to the appeal of a painting of a landscape unless he has himself felt something of the charm or glory of landscape in nature; he will not quicken and expand to the dignity or force caught in rigid marble triumphantly made fluent in statue or relief until he has realized for himself the significance of form and movement which exhales from every natural object. Gesture is a universal language. The mighty burden of meaning in Millet's picture of the "Sower" is carried by the gesture of the laborer as he swings across the background of field and hill, whose forms also are expressive; here, too, the elemental dignity of form and movement is reinforced by the solemnity of the color. Gesture is but one of nature's characters wherewith she inscribes upon the vivid, shifting surface of the world her message to the spirit of man. A clue to the understanding of the terms of art, therefore, is found in the layman's own appreciation of the emotional value of all objects of sense and their multitudinous power of utterance,--the sensitive decision of line, the might or delicacy of form, the splendor and subtlety of color, the magic of sound, the satisfying virtue of harmony in whatever embodiment, all the beauty of nature, all the significance of human life. And this appreciation is to be won largely by the very experience of it. The more we feel, the greater becomes our power for deeper feeling. Every emotion to which we thrill is the entrance into larger capacity of emotion. We may allow for growth and trust to the inevitable working of its laws. In the appreciation of both life and art the individual may be his own teacher by experience. The qualities of objects with their inherent emotional values constitute the raw material of art, to be woven by the artist into a fabric of expressive form and texture. Equipped with a knowledge of the terms of any art, the layman has yet to understand something of the ways in which the terms may be combined. Every artist has his idiom or characteristic style. Rembrandt on the flat surface of his canvas secures the illusion of form in the round by a system of light and shade; modeling is indicated by painting the parts in greater relief in light and the parts in less relief in shadow. Manet renders the relief of form by a system of "values," or planes of more and less light. The local color of objects is affected by the amount of light they receive and the distance an object or part of an object is from the eye of the spectator. Manet paints with degrees of light, and he wins his effects, not by contrasts of color, but by subtle modulations within a given hue. Landscape painters before the middle of the nineteenth century, working with color in masses, secured a total harmony by bringing all their colors, mixed upon the palette, into the same key. The "Luminarists," like Claude Monet, work with little spots or points of color laid separately upon the canvas; the fusion of these separate points into the dominant tone is made by the eye of the beholder. The characteristic effect of a work of art is determined by the way in which the means are employed. Some knowledge, therefore, of the artist's aims as indicated in his method of working is necessary to a full understanding of what he wants to say. In his effort to understand for his own purposes of appreciation what the artist has accomplished by his technique, the layman may first of all distinguish between processes and results. A landscape in nature is beautiful to the beholder because he perceives in it some harmony of color and form which through the eye appeals to the emotions. His vision does not transmit every fact in the landscape; instinctively his eye in its sweep over meadow and trees and hill selects those details that compose. By this act of _integration_ he is for himself in so far forth an artist. If he were a painter he would know what elements in the landscape to put upon his canvas. But he has no skill in the actual practice of drawing and of handling the brush, no knowledge of mixing colors and matching tones; he understands nothing of perspective and "values" and the relations of light and shade. He knows only what he sees, that the landscape as he sees it is beautiful; and equally he recognizes as beautiful the presentment of it upon canvas. He is ignorant of the technical problems with which the painter in practice has had to contend in order to reach this result; it is the result only that is of concern to him in so far as it is or is not what he desires. The painter's color is significant to him, not because he knows how to mix the color for himself, but because that color in nature has spoken to him unutterable things and he has responded to it. The layman cannot make a sunset and he cannot paint a picture; but he can enjoy both. So he cares, then, rather for what the painter has done than for how he has done it, because the processes do not enter into his own experience. The picture has a meaning for him in the measure that it expresses what he perceives and feels, and that is the beauty of the landscape. Any knowledge of technical processes which the layman may happen to possess may be a source of intellectual pleasure. But for appreciation, only so much understanding of technique is necessary as enables him to receive the message of a given work in the degree of expressiveness which the artist by his use of his medium has attained. A clue to this understanding may come to him by intuition, by virtue of his own native insight and intelligence. He may gain it by reading or by instruction. He may go out and win it by intrepid questioning of those who know; and it is to be hoped that such will be very patient with him, for after all even a layman has the right to live. Once started on the path, then, in the mysteries of art as in the whole complex infinite business of living, he becomes his own tutor by observation and experience; and he may develop into a fuller knowledge in obedience to the law of growth. Each partial clue to understanding brings him a step farther on his road; each new glimmer of insight beckons him to ultimate illumination. Though baffled at the outset, yet patient under disappointment, undauntedly he pushes on in spite of obstacles, until he wins his way at last to true appreciation. If the layman seeks a standard by which to test the value of any technical method, he finds it in the success of the work itself. Every method is to be judged in and for itself on its own merits, and not as better or worse than some other method. Individually we may prefer Velasquez to Frans Hals; Whistler may minister to our personal satisfaction in larger measure than Mr. Sargent; we may enjoy Mr. James better than Stevenson; Richard Strauss may stir us more deeply than Brahms. We do not affirm thereby that impressionism is inherently better than realism, or that subtlety is more to be desired than strength; the psychological novel is not necessarily greater than romance; because of our preference "programme music" is not therefore more significant than "absolute music." The greatness of an artist is established by the greatness of his ideas, adequately expressed. And the value of any technical method is determined by its own effectiveness for expression. There is, then, no invariable standard external to the work itself by which to judge technique. For no art is final. A single work is the manifestation of beauty as the individual artist has conceived or felt it. The perception of what is beautiful varies from age to age and with each person. So, too, standards of beauty in art change with each generation; commonly they are deduced from the practice of preceding artists. Classicism formulates rules from works that have come to be recognized as beautiful, and it requires of the artist conformity to these rules. By this standard, which it regards as absolute, it tries a new work, and it pretends to adjudge the work good or bad according as it meets the requirements. Then a Titan emerges who defies the canons, wrecks the old order, and in his own way, to the despair or scorn of his contemporaries, creates a work which the generation that follows comes to see is beautiful. "Every author," says Wordsworth, "as far as he is great and at the same time _original,_ has had the task of creating the taste by which he is to be enjoyed." Wordsworth in his own generation was ridiculed; Millet, when he ceased painting nudes for art-dealers' windows and ventured to express himself, faced starvation. Every artist is in some measure an innovator; for his own age he is a romanticist. But the romanticist of one age becomes a classic for the next; and his performance in its turn gives laws to his successors. Richard Strauss, deriving in some sense from Wagner, makes the older man seem a classic and conservative. Then a new mind again is raised up, a new temperament, with new needs; and these shape their own adequate new expression. "The cleanest expression," says Whitman, "is that which finds no sphere worthy of itself and makes one." As all life is growth, as there are no bounds to the possibilities of human experience, so the workings of the art-impulse cannot be compressed within the terms of a hard and narrow definition, and any abstract formula for beauty is in the very nature of things foredoomed to failure. No limit can be set to the forms in which beauty may be made manifest. "The true poets are not followers of beauty, but the august masters of beauty." And Whitman's own verse is a notable example of a new technique forged in response to a new need of expression. Dealing as he did with the big basic impulses of common experience accessible to all men, Whitman needed a largeness and freedom of expression which he did not find in the accepted and current poetic forms. To match the limitlessly diversified character of the people, occupations, and aspirations of "these States," as yet undeveloped but vital and inclosing the seed of unguessed-at possibilities, to tally the fluid, indeterminate, outward-reaching spirit of democracy and a new world, the poet required a medium of corresponding scope and flexibility, all-inclusive and capable of endless modulation and variety. Finding none ready to his hand, he created it. Not that Whitman did not draw for his resources on the great treasury of world-literature; and he profited by the efforts and achievement of predecessors. But the form in his hands and as he uses it is new. Whatever we may think of the success of his total accomplishment, there are very many passages to which we cannot deny the name of poetry. Nor did Whitman work without conscious skill and deliberate regard for technical processes. His note-books and papers reveal the extreme calculation and pains with which he wrote, beginning with the collection of synonyms applying to his idea and mood, and so building them up gradually, with many erasures, corrections, and substitutions, into the finished poem. Much of the vigor of his style is due to his escape from conventional literary phrase-making and his return to the racy idiom of common life. His verse, apparently inchoate and so different from classical poetic forms, is shaped with a cunning incredible skill. And more than that, it is art, in that it is not a bare statement of fact, but communicates to us the poet's emotion, so that we realize the emotion in ourselves. When his purpose is considered, it is seen that no other technique was possible. His achievement proves that a new need creates its own means of expression. What is true of Whitman in respect to his technique is true in greater or less degree of every artist, working in any form. It is true of Pheidias, of Giotto and Michelangelo and Rembrandt, of Dante and Shakespeare, of Beethoven and Wagner, of Monet, of Rodin, in fine, from the beginnings of art to the day that now is. All have created out of existing forms of expression their own idiom and way of working. Every artist owes something to his predecessors, but language is re-created in the hands of each master and becomes a new instrument. There can be then no single formula for technical method nor any fixed and final standard of judgment. An artist himself is justified from his own point of view in his concern with technique, for upon his technique depends his effectiveness of expression. His practice serves to keep alive the language and to develop its resources. Art in its concrete manifestations is an evolution. From Velasquez through Goya to Manet and Whistler is a line of inheritance. But a true artist recognizes that technique is only a means. As an artist he is seeking to body forth in external form the vision within, and he tries to make his medium "faithful to the coloring of his own spirit." Every artist works out his characteristic manner; but the progress must be from within outwards. Toward the shaping of his own style he is helped by the practice of others, but he is helped and not hindered only in so far as the manner of others can be made genuinely the expression of his own feeling. Direct borrowing of a trick of execution and servile imitation of a style have no place in true art. A painter who would learn of Velasquez should study the master's technique, not that in the end he may paint like Velasquez, but that he may discover just what it was that the master, by means of his individual style, was endeavoring to express, and so bring to bear on his own environment here in America to-day the same ability to see and the same power of sympathetic and imaginative penetration that Velasquez brought to his environment at the court of seventeenth-century Spain. The way to paint like Velasquez is to be Velasquez. No man is a genius by imitation. Every man may seek to be a master in his own right. Technique does not lead; it follows. Style is the man. From within outwards. Art is the expression of sincere and vital feeling; the material thing, picture, statue, poem, which the artist conjures into being is only a means. The moment art is worshiped for its own sake, that moment decadence begins. "No one," says Leonardo, "will ever be a great painter who takes as his guide the paintings of other men." In general the history of art exhibits this course. In the beginning arises a man of deep and genuine feeling, the language at whose command, however, has not been developed to the point where it is able to carry the full burden of his meaning. Such a man is Giotto; and we have the "burning messages of prophecy delivered by the stammering lips of infants." In the generations which supervene, artists with less fervor of spirit but with growing skill of hand, increased with each inheritance, turn their efforts to the development of their means. The names of this period of experiment and research are Masaccio, Uccello, Pollaiuolo, Verrocchio. At length, when the fullness of time is come, emerges the master-mind, of original insight and creative power. Heir to the technical achievements of his predecessors, he is able to give his transcendent idea its supremely adequate expression. Content is perfectly matched by form. On this summit stand Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo. Then follow the Carracci, Domenichino, Guercino, Guido Reni, Carlo Dolci, men who mistake the master's manner for his meaning. The idea, the vital principle, has spent itself. The form only is left, and that is elaborated into the exuberance of decay. Painters find their impulse no longer in nature and life but in paint. Technique is made an end in itself. And art is dead, to be reborn in another shape and guise. The relation of technique to appreciation in the experience of the layman begins now to define itself. Technique serves the artist for efficient expression; an understanding of it is of value to the layman in so far as the knowledge helps him to read the artist's language and thus to receive his message. Both for artist and for layman technique is only a means. Out of his own intelligent and patient experience the layman can win his way to an understanding of methods; and his standard of judgment, good enough for his own purposes, is the degree of expressiveness which the work of art, by virtue of its qualities of execution, is able to achieve. Skill may be enjoyed intellectually for its own sake as skill; in itself it is not art. Technique is most successful when it is least perceived. _Ars celare artem:_ art reveals life and conceals technique. We must understand something of technique and then forget it in appreciation. When we thrill to the splendor and glory of a sunset we are not thinking of the laws of refraction. Appreciation is not knowledge, but emotion. IV THE VALUE OF THE MEDIUM AS I swing through the wide country in the freshness and fullness of a blossoming, sun-steeped morning in May, breathing the breath of the fields and the taller by inches for the sweep of the hills and the reaches of sky above my head, every nerve in my body is alive with sensation and delight. My joy is in the fragrance of earth, the ingratiating warmth of the fresh morning, the spacious, inclosing air. My pleasure in this direct contact with the landscape is a physical reaction, to be enjoyed only by the actual experience of it; it cannot be reproduced by any other means; it can be recalled by memory but faintly and as the echo of sensation. There is, however, something else in the landscape which can be reproduced; and this recall may seem more glorious than the original in nature. There are elements in the scene which a painter can render for me more intensely and vividly than I perceived them for myself. These elements embody the value that the landscape has for my emotions. The scene appeals to something within me which lies beyond my actual physical contact with it and the mere sense of touch. The harmony that the eye perceives in these open fields, the gracious line of trees along the stream's edge, the tossing hills beyond, and the arch of the blue sky above impregnating the earth with light, is communicated to my spirit, and I feel that this reach of radiant country is an extension of my own personality. A painter, by the manipulation of his color and line and mass, concentrates and intensifies the harmony of it and so heightens its emotional value. The meaning of the scene for the spirit is conveyed in terms of color and mass. Color and mass are the painter's medium, his language. The final import of art is the _idea,_ the emotional content of the work. On his way to the expression of his idea the artist avails himself of material to give his feeling concrete actuality and visible or audible realization. He paints a picture, glorious in color and compelling in the concentration of its massing; he carves a statue, noble in form or subtly rhythmic; he weaves a pattern of harmonious sounds. He values objects not for their own sake but for the energies they possess,--their power to rouse his whole being into heightened activity. And they have this power by virtue of their material qualities, as color and form or sound. A landscape is gay in springtime or sad in autumn. The difference in its effect upon us is not due to our knowledge that it is spring or autumn and our consciousness of the associations appropriate to each season. The emotional quality of the scene is largely a matter of its color. Let the spring landscape be shrouded in gray mist sifting down out of gray skies, and we are sad. Let the autumn fields and woodland sparkle and dance in the crisp golden sunlight, and our blood dances with them and we want to shout from full lungs. In music the major key wakens a different emotion from the minor. The note of a violin is virgin in quality; the voice of the 'cello is the voice of experience. The distinctive emotional value of each instrument inheres in the character of its sound. These qualities of objects art uses as its language. Though all art is one in essence, yet each art employs a medium of its own. In order to understand a work in its scope and true significance we must recognize that an artist thinks and feels in terms of his special medium. His impulse to create comes with his vision, actual or imaginative, of color or form, and his thought is transmitted to his hand, which shapes the work, without the intervention of words. The nature of his vehicle and the conditions in which he works determine in large measure the details of the form which his idea ultimately assumes. Thus a potter designs his vessel first with reference to its use and then with regard to his material, its character and possibilities. As he models his plastic clay upon a wheel, he naturally makes his bowl or jug round rather than sharply angular. A pattern for a carpet, to be woven by a system of little squares into the fabric, will have regard for the conditions in which it is to be rendered, and it will differ in the character of its lines and masses from a pattern for a wall-paper, which may be printed from blocks. The designer in stained glass will try less to make a picture in the spirit of graphic representation than to produce an harmonious color-pattern whose outlines will be guided and controlled by the possibilities of the "leading" of the window. The true artist uses the conditions and very limitations of his material as his opportunity. The restraint imposed by the sonnet form is welcomed by the poet as compelling a collectedness of thought and an intensity of expression which his idea might not achieve if allowed to flow in freer channels. The worker in iron has his triumphs; the goldsmith has his. The limitations of each craft open to it effects which are denied to the other. There is an art of confectionery and an art of sculpture. The designer of frostings who has a right feeling for his art will not emulate the sculptor and strive to model in the grand style; the sculptor who tries to reproduce imitatively the textures of lace or other fabrics and who exuberates in filigrees and fussinesses so far departs from his art as to rival the confectioner. In the degree that a painter tries to wrench his medium from its right use and function and attempts to make his picture tell a story, which can better be told in words, to that extent he is unfaithful to his art. Painting, working as it does with color and form, should confine itself to the expression of emotion and idea that can be rendered visible. On the part of the appreciator, likewise, the emotion expressed in one kind of medium is not to be translated into any other terms without a difference. Every kind of material has its special value for expression. The meaning of pictures, accordingly, is limited precisely to the expressive power of color and form. The impression which a picture makes upon the beholder maybe phrased by him in words, which are his own means of expression; but he suggests the import of the picture only incompletely. If I describe in words Millet's painting of the "Sower" according to my understanding of it, I am telling in my own terms what the picture means to me. What it meant to Millet, the full and true significance of the situation as the painter felt it, is there expressed upon his canvas in terms of visible aspect; and correspondingly, Millet's meaning is fully and truly received in the measure that we feel in ourselves the emotion roused by the sight of his color and form. The essential content of a work of art, therefore, is modified in its effect upon us by the kind of medium in which it is presented. If an idea phrased originally in one medium is translated into the terms of another, we have _illustration._ Turning the pages of an "illustrated" novel, we come upon a plate showing a man and a woman against the background of a divan, a chair, and a tea-table. The man, in a frock coat, holding a top hat in his left hand, extends his right hand to the woman, who has just risen from the table. The legend under the picture reads, "Taking his hat, he said good-by." Here the illustrator has simply supplied a visible image of what was suggested in the text; the drawing has no interest beyond helping the reader to that image. It is a statement of the bare fact in other terms. In the hands of an artist, however, the translation may take on a value of its own, changing the original idea, adding to it, and becoming in itself an independent work of art. This value derives from the form into which the idea is translated. The frescoes of the Sistine Chapel are only sublime illustration; but how little of their power attaches to the subject they illustrate, and how much of their sublimity lies in the painter's rendering! Conversely, an example of the literary interpretation of a picture is Walter Pater's description of Leonardo's Mona Lisa. The presence that thus rose so strangely beside the waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world are come," and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed! All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that which they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the reverie of the middle age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands. The fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping together ten thousand experiences, is an old one; and modern thought has conceived the idea of humanity as wrought upon by, and summing up in itself, all modes of thought and life. Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea. It is Leonardo's conception, yet with a difference. Here the critic has woven about the subject an exquisite tissue of associations, a whole wide background of knowledge and thought and feeling which it lay beyond the painter's range to evoke; but the critic is denied the vividness, the immediateness and intimate warmth of vital contact, which the painter was able to achieve. The Lisa whom Leonardo shows us and the Lisa whom Pater interprets for us are the same in essence yet different in their power to affect us. The difference resulting from the kind of medium employed is well exemplified by Rossetti's "Blessed Damozel." The fundamental concept of both poem and picture is identical, but picture and poem have each its distinctive range and limitations and its own peculiar appeal. If we cancel the common element in the two, the difference remaining makes it possible for us to realize how much of the effect of a work of art inheres in the medium itself. Painting may be an aid to literature in that it helps us to more vivid images; the literary interpretation of pictures or music gives to the works with which it deals an intellectual definiteness. But the functions peculiar to each art are not to be confounded nor the distinctions obscured. Pictures are not a substitute for literature, and their true meaning is finally not to be translated into words. Their beauty is a visible beauty; the emotions they rouse are such as can be conveyed through the sense of sight. In the end they carry their message sufficingly as color and mass. Midway, however, our enjoyment may be complicated by other elements which have their place in our total appreciation. Thus a painting of a landscape may appeal to us over and above its inherent beauty because we are already, out of actual experience, familiar with the scene it represents, and the sight of it wakens in our memory a train of pleasant allied associations. A ruined tower, in itself an exquisite composition in color and line and mass, may gather about it suggestions of romance, elemental passions and wild life, and may epitomize for the beholder the whole Middle Age. Associated interest, therefore, may be sentimental or intellectual. It may be sensuous also, appealing to other senses than those of sight. The sense of touch plays a large part in our enjoyment of the world. We like the "feel" of objects, the catch of raw silk, the chill smoothness of burnished brass, the thick softness of mists, the "amorous wet" of green depths of sea. The senses of taste and smell may be excited imaginatively and contribute to our pleasure. Winslow Homer's breakers bring back to us the salt fragrance of the ocean, and in the presence of these white mad surges we feel the stinging spray in our faces and we taste the cosmic exhilaration of the sea-wind. But the final meaning of a picture resides in the total harmony of color and form, a harmony into which we can project our whole personality and which itself constitutes the emotional experience. All language in its material aspect has a sensuous value, as the wealth of color of Venetian painting, the sumptuousness of Renaissance architecture, the melody of Mr. Swinburne's verse, the gem-like brilliance of Stevenson's prose, the all-inclusive sensuousness, touched with sensuality, of Wagner's music-dramas. Because of the charm of beautiful language there are many art-lovers who regard the sensuous qualities of the work itself as making up the entire experience. Apart from any consideration of intention or expressiveness, the material _thing_ which the artist's touch summons into form is held to be "its own excuse for being." This order of enjoyment, valid as far as it goes, falls short of complete appreciation. It does not pass the delight one has in the radiance of gems or the glowing tincture of some fabric. The element of meaning does not enter in. There is a beauty for the eye and a beauty for the mind. The qualities of material may give pleasure to the senses; the object embodying these qualities becomes beautiful only as it is endowed with a significance wakened in the human spirit. A landscape, says Walter Crane, "owes a great part of its beauty to the harmonious relation of its leading lines, or to certain pleasant contrasts, or a certain impressiveness of form and mass, and at the same time we shall perceive that this linear expression is inseparable from the sentiment or emotion suggested by that particular scene." In the appreciation of art, to stop with the sensuous appeal of the medium is to mistake means for an end. "Rhyme," says the author of "Intentions," "in the hands of a real artist becomes not merely a material element of metrical beauty, but a spiritual element of thought and passion also." An artist's color, glorious or tender, is only a symbol and manifestation to sense of his emotion. At first glance Titian's portrait of the "Man with the Glove" is an ineffable color-harmony. But truly seen it is infinitely more. By means of color and formal design Titian has embodied here his vision of superb young manhood; by the expressive power of his material symbols he has rendered visible his sense of dignity, of fineness, of strength in reserve. The color is beautiful because his idea was beautiful. Through the character of this young man as revealed and interpreted by the artist, the beholder is brought into contact with a vital personality, whose influence is communicated to him; in the appreciation of Titian's message he sees and feels and lives. The value of the medium resided not in the material itself but in its power for expression. When language is elaborated at the expense of the meaning, we have in so far forth sham art. It should be easy to distinguish in art between what is vital and what is mechanical. The mechanical is the product of mere execution and calls attention to the manner. The vital is born out of inspiration, and the living idea transmutes its material into emotion. Too great an effort at realization defeats the intended illusion, for we think only of the skill exercised to effect the result, and the operation of the intellect inhibits feeling. In the greatest art the medium is least perceived, and the beholder stands immediately in the presence of the artist's idea. The material is necessarily fixed and finite; the idea struggles to free itself from its medium and untrammeled to reach the spirit. It is mind speaking to mind. However complete the material expression may seem, it is only a part of what the artist would say; imagination transcends the actual. In the art which goes deepest into life, the medium is necessarily inadequate. The artist fashions his work in a sublime despair as he feels how little of the mighty meaning within him he is able to convey. In the greatest works rightly seen the medium becomes transparent. Within the Sistine Chapel the visitor, when once he has yielded to the illusion, is not conscious of plaster surface and pigment; indeed, he hardly sees color and design as such at all; through them he looks into the immensity of heaven, peopled with gods and godlike men. Consummate acting is that which makes the spectator forget that it is acting. The part and the player become one. The actor, in himself and in the words he utters, is the unregarded vehicle of the dramatist's idea. In a play like Ibsen's "Ghosts," the stage, the actors, the dialogue merge and fall away, and the overwhelming meaning stands revealed in its complete intensity. As the play opens, it cuts out a segment from the chaos of human life; step by step it excludes all that is unessential, stroke by stroke with an inevitableness that is crushing, it converges to the great one-thing that the dramatist wanted to say, until at the end the spectator, conscious no longer of the medium but only of the idea and all-resolving emotion, bows down before its overmastering force with the cry, "What a _mind_ is there!" In the art which most completely achieves expression the medium is not perceived as distinct from the emotion of which the medium is the embodiment. In order to render expressive the material employed in its service, art seeks constantly to identify means and end, to make the form one with the content. The wayfarer out of his need of shelter built a hut, using the material which chance gave into his hand and shaping his design according to his resources; the purpose of his work was not the hut itself but shelter. So the artist in any form is impelled to creation by his need of expression; the thing which he creates is not the purpose and end of his effort, but only the means. Each art has its special medium, and each medium has its peculiar sensuous charm and its own kind of expressiveness. This power of sensuous delight is incidental to the real beauty of the work; and that beauty is the message the work is framed to convey to the spirit. In the individual work, the inspiring and shaping idea seeks so to fuse its material that we feel the idea could not have been phrased in any other way as we surrender to its ultimate appeal,--the sum of the emotional content which gave it birth and in which it reaches its fulfillment. V THE BACKGROUND OF ART SCENE: The main hall of the Accademia in Venice. Time: Noon of a July day. Dramatis personae: A guide; two drab-colored and tired men; a group of women, of various ages, equipped with red-covered little volumes, and severally expressive of great earnestness, wide-eyed rapture, and giggles. _The guide, in strident, accentless tones:_ Last work of Titian. Ninety-nine years old. He died of smallpox. _A woman:_ Is that it? _A high voice on the outskirts:_ I'm going to get one for forty dollars. _Another voice:_ Well, I'm not going to pay more than fifty for mine. _A straggler:_ Eliza, look at those people. Oh, you missed it! _(Stopping suddenly?)_ My, isn't that lovely! _Chorus:_ Yes, that's Paris Bordone. Which one is that? He has magnificent color. _The guide:_ The thing you want to look at is the five figures in front. _A voice:_ Oh, that's beautiful. I love that. _A man:_ Foreshortened; well, I should say so! But I say, you can't remember all these pictures. _The other man:_ Let's get out of this! _The guide, indicating a picture of the Grand Canal:_ This one has been restored. _A girl's voice:_ Why, that's the house where we are staying! _The guide:_ The next picture . . . The squad shuffles out of range. This little comedy, enacted in fact and here faithfully reported, is not without its pathos. These people are "studying art." They really want to understand, and if possible, to enjoy. They have visited galleries and seen many pictures, and they will visit other galleries and see many more pictures before their return home. They have read guide-books, noting the stars and double stars; they have dipped into histories of art and volumes of criticism. They have been told to observe the dramatic force of Giotto, the line of Botticelli, the perfect composition of Raphael, the color of Titian; all this they have done punctiliously. They know in a vague way that Giotto was much earlier than Raphael, that Botticelli was rather pagan than Christian, that Titian belonged to the Venetian school. They have come to the fountain head of art, the very works themselves as gathered in the galleries; they have tried to remember what they have read and to do what they have been told; and now they are left still perplexed and unsatisfied. The difficulty is that these earnest seekers after knowledge of art have laid hold on partial truths, but they have failed to see these partial truths in their right relation to the whole. The period in which an artist lived means something. His way of thinking and feeling means something. The quality of his color means something. But what does his _picture_ mean? These people have not quite found the key by which to piece the fragments of the puzzle into the complete design. They miss the central fact with regard to art; and as a consequence, the ways of approach to the full enjoyment of art, instead of bringing them nearer the centre, become for them a network of by-paths in which they enmesh themselves, and they are left to wander helplessly up and down and about in the blind-alleys of the labyrinth. The central fact with regard to art is this, that a work of art is the expression of some part of the artist's experience of life, his vision of some aspect of the world. For the appreciator, the work takes on a meaning as it becomes for him in his turn the expression of his own actual or possible experience and thus relates itself by the subtle links of feeling to his own life. This is the central fact; but there are side issues. Any single work of art is in itself necessarily finite. Because of limitations in both the artist and the appreciator the work cannot express immediately and completely of itself all that the author wished to convey; it can present but a single facet of his many-sided radiating personality. What is actually said may be reinforced by some understanding on the beholder's part of what was intended. In order to win its fullest message, therefore, the appreciator must set the work against the large background out of which it has proceeded. A visitor in the _Salon Carré_ of the Louvre notes that there are arrayed before him pictures by Jan van Eyck and Memling, Raphael and Leonardo, Giorgione and Titian, Rembrandt and Metsu, Rubens and Van Dyck, Fouquet and Poussin, Velasquez and Murillo. Each one bears the distinctive impress of its creator. How different some of them, one from another,--the Virgin of Van Eyck from the Virgin of Raphael, Rembrandt's "Pilgrimsat Emmaus" from the "Entombment" by Titian. Yet between others there are common elements of likeness. Raphael and Titian are distinguished by an opulence of form and a luxuriance of color which reveal supreme technical accomplishment in a fertile land under light-impregnated skies. The rigidity and restraint of Van Eyck and Memling suggest the tentative early efforts of the art of a sober northern race. To a thoughtful student of these pictures sooner or later the question comes, Whence are these likenesses and these differences? Hitherto I have referred to the creative mind and executive hand as generically _the artist._ I have thought of him as a type, representative of all the great class of those who feel and express, and who by means of their expression communicate their feeling. Similarly I have spoken of _the work of art,_ as though it were complete in itself and isolated, sprung full-formed and panoplied from the brain of its creator, able to win its way and consummate its destiny alone. The type is conceived intellectually; in actual life the type resolves itself into individuals. So there are individual artists, each with his own distinctive gifts and ideals, each with his own separate experience of life, with his personal and special vision of the world, and his characteristic manner of expression. Similarly, a single work of art is not an isolated phenomenon; it is only a part of the artist's total performance, and to these other works it must be referred. The kind of work an artist sets himself to do is determined to some extent by the period into which he was born and the country in which he lived. The artist himself, heir to the achievements of his predecessors, is a development, and his work is the product of an evolution. A work of art, therefore, to be judged aright and truly appreciated, must be seen in its relation to its background, from which it detaches itself at the moment of consideration,--the background of the artist's personality and accomplishment and of the national life and ideals of his time. If the layman's interest in art is more than the casual touch-and-go of a picture here, a concert there, and an entertaining book of an evening, he is confronted with the important matter of the study of art as it manifests itself through the ages and in diverse lands. It is not a question of practicing an art himself, for technical skill lies outside his province. The study of art in the sense proposed has to do with the consideration of an individual work in its relation to all the factors that have entered into its production. The work of an artist is profoundly influenced by the national ideals and way of life of his race and of his age. The art of Catholic Italy is ecclesiastical; the art of the Protestant North is domestic and individual. The actual form an artist's work assumes is modified by the resources at his disposal,--resources both of material and of technical methods. Raphael may have no more to say than Giotto had, but he is able to express himself in a fuller and more finished way, because in his time the language of painting had become richer and more varied and the rhetoric of it had been carried to a farther point of development. Finally, as all art is in essence the expression of personality, a single work is to be understood in its widest intention and scope by reference to the total personality of the individual artist as manifested in his work collectively, and to be interpreted by the appreciator through his knowledge of the artist's experience of life. In order to wrest its fullest expressiveness from a work of art it is necessary as far as possible to regard the work from the artist's own point of view. We must try to see with his eyes and to feel with him what he was working for. To this end we must reconstruct imaginatively on a basis of the facts the conditions in which he lived and wrought. The difference between Giotto and Raphael is a difference not of individuality only. Each gives expression to the ideals and ways of thought of his age. Each is a creative mind, but each bases his performance upon what has gone before, and the form of their work is conditioned by the resources each had at his disposal. To discover the artist's purpose more completely than he was able to realize it for himself in the single work,--that is the aim and function of the historical study of art. A brief review of the achievement of Giotto and of Raphael may serve to illustrate concretely the application of the principle and to fix its value to appreciation. In the period of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire art passed from Rome to Byzantium. The arts of sculpture and painting were employed in the service of the Church, imposing by its magnificence and all-powerful in its domination over the lives and minds of men. The function of art was to teach; its character was symbolic and decorative. Art had no separate and independent existence. It had no direct reference to nature; the pictorial representation of individual traits was quite outside its scope; a few signs fixed by convention sufficed. A fish--derived from the acrostic _ichtbus--_symbolized the Saviour; a cross was the visible token of redeeming grace. And so through several hundred years. The twelfth century saw the beginnings of a change in the direction of spiritual and intellectual emancipation. The teachings and example of Francis of Assisi brought men to the consciousness of themselves and to a realization of the worth and significance of the individual life. The work of Giotto is the expression in art of the new spirit. Of necessity Giotto founded his work upon the accepted forms of the Byzantine tradition. But Giotto was a man of genius and a creative mind. In the expression of his fresh impulse and vital feeling, the assertion of new-found individuality, he tried to _realize_ as convincingly and vividly as possible the situation with which he was dealing; and with this purpose he looked not back upon art but out upon nature. Where the Byzantine convention had presented but a sign and remote indication of form by means of flat color, Giotto endows his figures with life and movement and actuality by giving them a body in three dimensions; his forms exist in the round. Until his day, light and shade had not been employed; and such perspective as he was able to achieve he had to discover for himself. For the first time in Christian painting a figure has bodily existence. Giotto gives the first evidence, too, of a sense of the beauty of color, and of the value of movement as a means of added expressiveness. His power of composition shows an immense advance on his predecessors. In dealing with traditional subjects, as the Madonna and child, he follows in general the traditional arrangement. But in those subjects where his own inventiveness is given free play, as in the series of frescoes illustrating the life of St. Francis, he reveals an extraordinary faculty of design and a dramatic sense which is matched by a directness and clarity of expression. Not only in the technique of his craft was Giotto an innovator, but also in the direction of naturalness and reality of feeling. He was the first to introduce portraits into his work. His Madonnas and saints are no longer mere types; they are human and individual, vividly felt and characterized by immediate and present actuality. Giotto was the first realist, but he was a poet too. His insight into life is tempered by a deep sincerity and piety; his work is genuinely and powerfully felt. As a man Giotto was reverent and earnest, joyous and beautifully sane. As a painter, by force of the freshness of his impulse and the clarity of his vision, he created a new manner of expression. As an artist he reveals a true power of imaginative interpretation. The casual spectator of to-day finds him naive and quaint. In the eyes of his contemporaries he was anything but that; they regarded him as a marvel of reality, surpassing nature itself. When judged with reference to the conditions of life in which he worked and to the technical resources at his command, Giotto is seen to be of a very high order of creative mind. The year 1300 divides the life of Giotto into two nearly equal parts; the year 1500 similarly divides the life of Raphael. In the two centuries that intervene, the great age of Italian painting, initiated by Giotto, reaches its flower and perfection in Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael. The years which followed the passing of these greatnesses were the years of decadence and eclipse. If we are to understand and justly appreciate the work of each man in its own kind, the painting of Giotto must be tried by other standards than those we apply to the judgment of Raphael. Giotto was a pioneer; Raphael is a consummation. The two centuries between were a period of development and change, a development in all that regards technique, a change in national ideals and in the artist's attitude toward life and toward his art. A quick survey of the period, if so hasty a generalization permits correctness of statement, will help us in the understanding of the craft and art of Raphael. Giotto was succeeded by a host of lesser men, regarded as his followers, men who sought to apply the principles and methods of painting worked out by the master, but who lacked his inspiration and his power. Thus it was for nearly a hundred years. The turn of the fourteenth century into the fifteenth saw the emergence of new forces in the science and the mechanics of painting. The laws of perspective and foreshortening were made the object of special research and practice by men like Uccello (1397-1475), Piero dei Franceschi (1416-1492), and Mantegna (1431-1506). "Oh, what a beautiful thing this perspective is!" Uccello exclaimed, as he stood at his desk between midnight and dawn while his wife begged him to take some rest. In the first thirty years of the fifteenth century, Masaccio contributed to the knowledge of anatomy by his painting of the nude form; and the study of the nude was continued by Pollaiuolo and Luca Signorelli, in the second half of the century. Masaccio, also, was the first to place his figures in _air,_ enveloping them in atmosphere. Verrocchio, a generation later than Masaccio, was one of the first of the Florentines to understand landscape and the part played in it by air and light. The realistic spirit, which suffices itself with subjects drawn from every-day actual experience, finds expression in the first half of the fifteenth century in the work of Andrea del Castagno. And so down through that century of spring and summer. Each painter in his own way carries some detail of his craft to a further point of development and prepares the path for the supreme triumphs of Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael. The growing mastery of the principles and technique of painting accompanied a change in the painter's attitude toward his art. Originally, painting, applied in subjection to architecture and employed in the service of the Church, was decorative in scope; its purpose was illustration, its function was to teach. As painters, from generation to generation, went deeper into the secrets of their craft, they became less interested in the didactic import of their work, and they concerned themselves more and more with its purely artistic significance. Religious subjects were no longer used merely as symbols for the expression of piety and as incitements to devotion; they became inherently artistic motives, valued as they furnished the artist an opportunity for the exercise of his knowledge and skill and for the exhibition of lovely color and significant form. A change in the mechanical methods of painting, also, had its influence on a change in the conception of the function of art. With a very few exceptions, the works of Giotto were executed in fresco as wall decorations. The principles of mural painting require that the composition shall be subordinated to the architectural conditions of the space it is to fill and that the color shall be kept flat. The fresco method meets these requirements admirably, but because of its flatness it has its limitations. The introduction of an oil vehicle for the pigment material, in the fifteenth century, made possible a much greater range in gradated color, and reinforcing the increased knowledge of light and shade, aided in the evolution of decoration into the "easel picture," complete in itself. Released from its subjection to architecture, increasing its technical resources, and widening its interests in the matter of subject so as to include all life, painting becomes an independent and self-sufficing art. Coincident with the development of painting as a craft, a mighty change was working itself out in the national ideals and in men's ways of thought and feeling. Already in Giotto's time the spirit of individualism had begun to assert itself in reaction from the dominance of an all-powerful restrictive ecclesiasticism, but the age was still essentially pietistic and according to its lights, religious. The fifteenth century witnessed the emancipation from tradition. The new humanism, which took its rise with the rediscovery of Greek culture, extended the intellectual horizon and intensified the enthusiasm for beauty. Men's interest in life was no longer narrowly religious, but human; their art became the expression of the new spirit. Early Christianity had been ascetic, enjoining negation of life and the mortification of the flesh. The men of the Renaissance, with something of the feeling of the elder Greeks, glorified the body and delighted in the pride of life. Pagan myths and Greek legends take their place alongside of Bible episodes and stories of saints and martyrs, as subjects of representation; all served equally as motives for the expression of the artist's sense of the beauty of this world. To this new culture and to these two centuries of growth and accomplishment in the practice of painting Raphael was heir. With a knowledge of the background out of which he emerges, we are prepared now to understand and appreciate his individual achievement. In approaching the study of his work we may ask, What is in general his ideal, his dominant motive, and in what manner and by what means has he realized his ideal? How much was already prepared for him, what does he owe to the age and the conditions in which he worked, and what to the common store has he added that is peculiarly his own? Whereas Giotto, the shepherd boy, was a pioneer, almost solitary, by sheer force of mind and by his sincerity and intensity of feeling breaking new paths to expression, for Raphael, on the contrary, the son of a painter and poet, the fellow-worker and well-beloved friend of many of the most powerful artistic personalities of his own or any age, the way was already prepared along which he moved in triumphant progress. The life of Raphael as an artist extends through three well-defined periods, the Umbrian, the Florentine, and the Roman, each one of which contributed a distinctive influence upon his development and witnessed a special and characteristic achievement. To his father, who died when the boy was eleven years old, Raphael owed his poetic nature, scholarly tastes, and love of beauty, though he probably received from him no training as a painter. His first master was Timoteo Viti of Urbino, a pupil of Francia; from him he learned drawing and acquired a "certain predilection for round and opulent forms which is in itself the negation of the ascetic ideal." At the age of seventeen he went from Urbino to Perugia; there he entered the workshop of Perugino as an assistant. The ideal of the Umbrian school was tenderness and sweetness, the outward and visible rapture of pietistic feeling; something of these qualities Raphael expressed in his Madonnas throughout his career. Under the teaching of Perugino he laid hold on the principles of "space composition" which he was afterwards to carry to supreme perfection. From Perugia the young Raphael made his way to Florence, and here he underwent many influences. At that moment Florence was the capital city of Italian culture. It was here that the new humanism had come to finest flower. Scholarship was the fashion; art was the chief interest of this beauty-loving people. It was the Florentines who had carried the scientific principles of painting to their highest point of development, particularly in their application to the rendering of the human figure. In Florence were collected the art treasures of the splendid century; here Michelangelo and Leonardo were at work; here were gathered companies of lesser men. By the study of Masaccio Raphael was led out to a fresh contact with nature. Fra Bartolomeo revealed to him further possibilities of composition and taught him some of the secrets of color. In Florence, too, he acknowledged the spell of Michelangelo and Leonardo. But though he learned from many teachers, Raphael was never merely an imitator. His scholarship and his skill he turned to his own uses; and when we have traced the sources of his motives and the influences in the moulding of his manner, there emerges out of the fusion a creative new force, which is his genius. What remains after our analysis is the essential Raphael. Raphael's residence in Florence is the period of his Madonnas. From Florence Raphael, twenty-five years old and now a master in his own right, was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II; and here he placed his talents and his mastership at the disposal of the Church. He found time to paint Madonnas and a series of powerful and lovely portraits; but these years in Rome, which brought his brief life to a close, are preeminently the period of the great frescoes, which are his supreme achievement. But even in these mature years, and though he was himself the founder of a school, he did not cease to learn. Michelangelo was already in Rome, and now Raphael came more immediately under his influence, although not to submit to it but to use it for his own ends. In Rome were revealed to him the culture of an older and riper civilization and the glories and perfectness of an elder art. Raphael laid antiquity under contribution to the consummation of his art and the fulfillment and complete realization of his genius. This analysis of the elements and influences of Raphael's career as an artist--inadequate as it necessarily is--may help us to define his distinctive accomplishment. A comparison of his work with that of his predecessors and contemporaries serves to disengage his essential significance. By nature he was generous and tender; the bent of his mind was scholarly; and he was impelled by a passion for restrained and formal beauty. Chiefly characteristic of his mental make-up was his power of assimilation, which allowed him to respond to many and diverse influences and in the end to dominate and use them. He gathered up in himself the achievements of two centuries of experiment and progress, and fusing the various elements, he created by force of his genius a new result and stamped it with the seal perfection. Giotto, to whom religion was a reality, was deeply in earnest about his message, and he phrased it as best he could with the means at his command; his end was expression. Raphael, under the patronage of wealthy dilettanti and in the service of a worldly and splendor-loving Church, delighted in his knowledge and his skill; he worshiped art, and his end was beauty. The genius of Giotto is a first shoot, vigorous and alive, breaking ground hardily, and tentatively pushing into freer air. The genius of Raphael is the full-blown flower and final fruit, complete, mature. The step beyond is decay. By reference to Giotto and to Raphael I have tried to illustrate the practical application of certain principles of art study. A work of art is not absolute; both its content and its form are determined by the conditions out of which it proceeds. All judgment, therefore, must be comparative, and a work of art must be considered in its relation to its background and its conventions. Art is an interpretation of some aspect of life as the artist has felt it; and the artist is a child of his time. It is not an accident that Raphael portrayed Madonnas, serene and glorified, and Millet pictured rude peasants bent with toil. Raphael's painting is the culmination of two centuries of eager striving after the adequate expression of religious sentiment; in Millet's work the realism of his age is transfigured. As showing further how national ideals and interests may influence individual production, we may note that the characteristic art of the Italian Renaissance is painting; and Italian sculpture of the period is pictorial rather than plastic in motive and handling. Ghiberti's doors of the Florence Baptistery, in the grouping of figures and the three and four planes in perspective of the backgrounds, are essentially pictures in bronze. Conversely, in the North the characteristic art of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is carving and sculpture; and "the early painters represented in their pictures what they were familiar with in wood and stone; so that not only are the figures dry and hard, but in the groups they are packed one behind another, heads above heads, without really occupying space, in imitation of the method adopted in the carved relief." Some knowledge of the origin and development of a given form of technique, a knowledge to be reached through historical study, enables us to measure the degree of expressiveness of a given work. The ideas of a child may be very well worth listening to, though his range of words is limited and his sentences are crude and halting, A grown man, having acquired the trick of language, may talk fluently and say nothing. In our endeavor to understand a work of art, a poem by Chaucer or by Tennyson, a picture by Greco or by Manet, a prelude by Bach or a symphony by Brahms, we may ask, Of that which the artist wanted to say, how much could he say with the means at his disposal? With a sense of the artist's larger motive, whether religious sentiment, or a love of sheer beauty of color and form, or insight into human character, we are aided by a study of the history of technique to determine how far the artist with the language at his command was able to realize his intention. But not only is art inspired and directed by the time-spirit of its age. A single work is the expression for the artist who creates it of his ideal. An artist's ideal, what he sets himself to accomplish, is the projection of his personality, and that is determined by many influences. He is first of all a child of his race and time; inheritance and training shape him to these larger conditions. Then his ideal is modified by his special individuality. A study of the artist's character as revealed in his biography leads to a fuller understanding of the intention and scope of his work. The events of his life become significant as they are seen to be the causes or the results of his total personality, that which he was in mind and temperament. What were the circumstances that moulded his character and decided his course? What events did he shape to his own purpose by the active force of his genius? What was the special angle of vision from which he looked upon the world? The answers to these questions are the clue to the full drift of his work. As style is the expression of the man, so conversely a knowledge of the man is an entrance into the wider and subtler implications of his style. We explore the personality of the man in order more amply to interpret his art, and we turn to his art as the revelation of his personality. In studying an artist we must look for his _tendency_ and seek the unifying principle which binds his separate works into a whole. An artist has his successive periods or "manners." There is the period of apprenticeship, when the young man is influenced by his predecessors and his masters. Then he comes into his own, and he registers nature and life as he sees it freshly for himself. Finally, as he has mastered his art and won some of the secrets of nature, and as his own character develops, he tends more and more to impose his subjective vision upon the world, and he subordinates nature to the expression of his distinctive individuality. A single work, therefore, is to be considered in relation to its place in the artist's development; it is but a part, and it is to be interpreted by reference to the whole. In the study of biography, however, the man must not be mistaken for the artist; his acts are not to be confounded with his message. "A man is the spirit he worked in; not what he did, but what he became." We must summon forth the spirit of the man from within the wrappages of material and accident. In our preoccupation with the external details of a man's familiar and daily life it is easy to lose sight of his spiritual experience, which only is of significance. Whistler, vain, aggressive, quarrelsome, and yet so exquisite and so subtle in extreme refinement, is a notable example of a great spirit and a little man. Wagner wrote to Liszt: "As I have never felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful of my dreams, in which from beginning to end that love shall be thoroughly satiated." Not the Wagner of fact, but the Wagner of dreams. Life lived in the spirit and imagination may be different from the life of daily act. So we should transcend the material, trying through that to penetrate to the spiritual. It is not a visit to the artist's birthplace that signifies, it is not to do reverence before his likeness or cherish a bit of his handwriting. All this may have a value to the disciple as a matter of loyalty and fine piety. But in the end we must go beyond these externals that we may enter intelligently and sympathetically into the temper of his mind and mood and there find disclosed what he thought and felt and was able only in part to express. It is not the man his neighbors knew that is important. His work is the essential thing, what that work has to tell us about life in terms of emotional experience. Studies in the history of art and in biography are avenues of approach to the understanding of a work of art; they do not in themselves constitute appreciation. Historical importance must not be mistaken for artistic significance. In reading about pictures we may forget to look at them. The historical study of art in its various divisions reduces itself to an exercise in analysis, resolving a given work into its elements. But art is a synthesis. In order to appreciate a work the elements must be gathered together and fused into a whole. A statue or a picture is meant not to be read about, but to be looked at; and its final message must be received through vision. Our knowledge will serve us little if we are not sensitive to the appeal of color and form. There is danger that preoccupation with the history of art may betray us if we are not careful to keep it in its place. The study of art should follow and not lead appreciation. We are apt to see what we are looking for. So we ought to come to each work freshly without prejudice or bias; it is only afterwards that we should bring to bear on it our knowledge about the facts of its production. Connoisseurship is a science and may hold within itself no element of aesthetic enjoyment. Appreciation is an art, and the quality of it depends upon the appreciator himself. The end of historical study is not a knowledge of facts for their own sake, but through those facts a deeper penetration and fuller true enjoyment. By the aid of such knowledge we are enabled to recognize in any work more certainly and abundantly the expression of an emotional experience which relates itself to our own life. The final meaning of art to the appreciator lies in just this sense of its relation to his own experience. The greatest works are those which express reality and life, not limited and temporary conditions, but life universal and for all time. Without commentary these carry their message, appealing to the wisest and the humblest. Gather into a single room a fragment of the Parthenon frieze, Michelangelo's "Day and Night," Botticelli's "Spring," the sprites and children of Donatello and Delia Robbia, Velasquez's "Pope Innocent," Rembrandt's "Cloth-weavers," Frans Hals' "Musician," Millet's "Sower," Whistler's "Carlyle." There is here no thought of period or of school. These living, present, eternal verities are all one company. VI THE SERVICE OF CRITICISM THE greatest art is universal. It transcends the merely local conditions in which it is produced. It sweeps beyond the individual personality of its creator, and links itself with the common experience of all men. The Parthenon, so far as it can be reconstructed in imagination, appeals to a man of any race or any period, whatever his habit of mind or degree of culture, as a perfect utterance. The narrow vault of the Sistine Chapel opens into immensity, and every one who looks upon it is lifted out of himself into new worlds. Shakespeare's plays were enjoyed by the apprentices in the pit and royalty in the boxes, and so all the way between. The man Shakespeare, of such and such birth and training, and of this or that experience in life, is entirely merged in his creations; he becomes the impersonal channel of expression of the profoundest, widest interpretation of life the world has known. Such art as this comes closest to the earth and extends farthest into infinity, "beyond the reaches of our souls." But there is another order of art, more immediately the product of local conditions, the personal expression of a distinctive individuality, phrased in a language of less scope and currency, and limited as to its content in the range of its appeal. These lesser works have their place; they can minister to us in some moment of need and at some point in our development. Because of their limitations, however, their effectiveness can be furthered by interpretation. A man more sensitive than we to the special kind of beauty which they embody and better versed in their language, can discover to us a significance and a charm in them to which we have not penetrated. To help us to the fullest enjoyment of the great things and to a more enlightened and juster appreciation of the lesser works is the service of criticism. We do not wholly possess an experience until, having merged ourselves in it, we then react upon it and become conscious of its significance. A novel, a play, a picture interests us, and we surrender to the enjoyment of the moment. Afterwards we think about our pleasure, defining the nature of the experience and analyzing the means by which it was produced, the subject of the work and the artist's method of treating it. It may be that we tell our pleasure to a friend, glad also perhaps to hear his opinion of the matter. The impulse is natural; the practice is helpful. And herein lies the origin of criticism. In so far as an appreciator does not rest in his immediate enjoyment of a work of art, but seeks to account for his pleasure, to trace the sources of it, to establish the reasons for it, and to define its quality, so far he becomes a critic. As every man who perceives beauty in nature and takes it up into his own life is potentially an artist, so every man is a critic in the measure that he reasons about his enjoyment. The critical processes, therefore, are an essential part of our total experience of art, and criticism may be an aid to appreciation. The function of criticism has been variously understood through the centuries of its practice. Early modern criticism, harking back to the method of Aristotle, concerned itself with the form of a work of art. From the usage of classic writers it deduced certain "rules" of composition; these formulas were applied to the work under examination, and that was adjudged good or bad in the degree that it conformed or failed to conform to the established rules. It was a criticism of law-giving and of judgment. In the eighteenth century criticism extended its scope by the admission of a new consideration, passing beyond the mere form of the work and reckoning with its power to give pleasure. Addison, in his critique of "Paradise Lost," still applies the formal tests of the Aristotelian canons, but he discovers further that a work of art exists not only for the sake of its form, but also for the expression of beautiful ideas. This power of "affecting the imagination" he declares is the "very life and highest perfection" of poetry. This is a long step in the right direction. With the nineteenth century, criticism conceives its aims and procedure in new and larger ways. A work of art is now seen to be an evolution; and criticism adapts to its own uses the principles of historical study and the methods of scientific investigation. Recognizing that art is organic, that an art-form, as religious painting or Gothic architecture or the novel, is born, develops, comes to maturity, lapses, and dies, that an individual work is the product of "race, environment, and the moment," that it is the expression also of the personality of the artist himself, criticism no longer regards the single work as an isolated phenomenon, but tries to see it in its relation to its total background. Present-day criticism avails itself of this larger outlook upon art. But the ends to be reached are understood differently by different critics. With M. Brunetière, to cite now a few representative names, criticism is authoritative and dogmatic: he looks at the work objectively, refusing to be the dupe of his pleasure, if he has any; and approaching the work in the spirit of dispassionate impersonal inquiry as an object of historical importance and scientific interest, he decrees that it is good or bad. Matthew Arnold considers literature a "criticism of life," and he values a work with reference to the moral significance of its ideas. Ruskin's criticism is didactic; he wishes to educate his public, and by force of his torrential eloquence he succeeds in persuading his disciples into acceptance of his teaching, though he may not always convince. Impressionistic criticism, as with M. Anatole France or M. Jules Lemaître, does not even try to see the work "as in itself it really is," but is an account of the critic's own subjective reaction on it, a narrative of what he thought and felt in this chance corner of experience. With Walter Pater criticism becomes _appreciation._ A given work of art produces a distinctive impression and communicates a special and unique pleasure; this active power constitutes its beauty. So the function of the critic as Pater conceives it is "to distinguish, analyze, and separate from its adjuncts, the virtue by which a picture, a landscape, a fair personality in life or in a book, produces this special impression of beauty or pleasure, to indicate what the source of that impression is, and under what conditions it is experienced." The interpretative critic--represented in the practice of Pater--stands between a work of art and the appreciator as mediator and revealer. Each kind of criticism performs a certain office, and is of use within its own chosen sphere. To the layman, for his purposes of appreciation, that order of criticism will be most helpful which responds most closely and amply to his peculiar needs. A work of art may be regarded under several aspects, its quality of technical execution, its power of sensuous appeal, its historical importance; and to each one of these aspects some kind of criticism applies. The layman's reception of art includes all these considerations, but subordinates them to the total experience. His concern, therefore, is to define the service of criticism to appreciation. The analysis of a work of art resolves it into these elements. There is first of all the emotion which gives birth to the work and which the work is designed to express. The emotion, to become definite, gathers about an idea, conceived in the terms of its own medium, as form, or color and mass, or musical relations; and this artistic idea presents itself as the subject or motive of the work. The emotion and artistic idea, in order that they may be expressed and become communicable, embody themselves in material, as the marble of a statue, the pigment of a picture, the audible tones of a musical composition. This material form has the power to satisfy the mind and delight the senses. Through the channel of the senses and the mind the work reaches the feelings; and the aesthetic experience is complete. As art springs out of emotion, so it is to be received as emotion; and a work to be appreciated in its true spirit must be enjoyed. But to be completely enjoyed it must be understood. We must know what the artist was trying to express, and we must be able to read his language; then we are prepared to take delight in the form and to respond to the emotion. To help us to understand a work of art in all the components that entered into the making of it is the function of historical study. Such study enables us to see the work from the artist's own point of view. A knowledge of its background, the conditions in which the artist wrought and his own attitude toward life, is the clue to his ideal; and by an understanding of the language it was possible for him to employ, we can measure the degree of expressiveness he was able to achieve. This study of the artist's purpose and of his methods is an exercise in explanation. The interpretation of art, for which we look to criticism, deals with the picture, the statue, the book, specifically in its relation to the appreciator. What is the special nature of the experience which the work communicates to us in terms of feeling? In so far as the medium itself is a source of pleasure, by what qualities of form has the work realized the conditions of beauty proper to it, delighting thus the senses and satisfying the mind? These are the questions which the critic, interpreting the work through the medium of his own temperament, seeks to answer. Theoretically, the best critic of art would be the artist himself. He above all other men should understand the subtle play of emotion and thought in which a work of art is conceived; and the artist rather than another should trace the intricacies and know the cunning of the magician processes by which the immaterial idea builds itself into visible actuality. In practice, however, the theory is not borne out by the fact. The artist as such is very little conscious of the workings of his spirit. He is creative rather than reflective, synthetic and not analytic. From his contact with nature and from his experience of life, out of which rises his generative emotion, he moves directly to the fashioning of expressive forms, without pausing on the way to scan too closely the "meaning" of his work. Mr. Bernard Shaw remarks that Ibsen, giving the rein to the creative impulse of his poetic nature, produced in "Brand" and "Peer Gynt" a "great puzzle for his intellect." Wagner, he says, "has expressly described how the intellectual activity which he brought to the analysis of his music dramas was in abeyance during their creation. Just so do we find Ibsen, after composing his two great dramatic poems, entering on a struggle to become intellectually conscious of what he had done." Moreover, the artist is in the very nature of things committed to one way of seeing. His view of life is limited by the trend of his own dominant and creative personality; what he gains in intensity and penetration of insight he loses in breadth. He is less quick to see beauty in another guise than that which his own imagination weaves for him; he is less receptive of other ways of envisaging the world. The ideal critic, on the contrary, is above everything else catholic and tolerant. It is his task to discover beauty in whatever form and to affirm it. By nature he is more sensitive than the ordinary man, by training he has directed the exercise of his powers toward their fullest scope, and by experience of art in its diverse manifestations he has certified his judgment and deepened his capacity to enjoy. The qualifications of an authentic critic are both temperament and scholarship. Mere temperament uncorrected by knowledge may vibrate exquisitely when swept by the touch of a thing of beauty, but its music may be in a quite different key from the original motive. Criticism must relate itself to the objective fact; it should interpret and not transpose. Mere scholarship without temperament misses art at its centre, that art is the expression and communication of emotional experience; and the scholar in criticism may wander his leaden way down the by-paths of a sterile learning. To mediate between the artist and the appreciator, the critic must understand the artist and he must feel with the appreciator. He is at once the artist translated into simpler terms and the appreciator raised to a higher power of perception and response. The service of criticism to the layman is to furnish him a clue to the meaning of the work in hand, and by the critic's own response to its beauty to reveal its potency and charm. With technique as such the critic is not concerned. Technique is the business of the artist; only those who themselves practice an art are qualified to judge in matters of practice. The form is significant to the appreciator only so far as regards its expressiveness and beauty. It is not the function of the critic to tell the artist what his work _should be;_ it is the critic's mission to reveal to the appreciator what the work _is_. That revelation will be accomplished in terms of the critic's own experience of the beauty of the work, an experience imaged forth in such phrases that the pleasure the work communicates is conveyed to his readers in its true quality and foil intensity. It is not enough to dogmatize as Ruskin dogmatizes, to bully the reader into a terrified acceptance. It is not enough to determine absolute values as Matthew Arnold seeks to do, to fix certain canons of intellectual judgment, and by the application of a formula as a touchstone, to decide that this work is excellent and that another is less good. Really serviceable criticism is that which notes the special and distinguishing quality of beauty in any work and helps the reader to live out that beauty in his own experience. These generalizations may be made more immediate and practical by examples. In illustration of the didactic manner in criticism I may cite a typical paragraph of Ruskin, chosen from his "Mornings in Florence." First, look at the two sepulchral slabs by which you are standing. That farther of the two from the west end is one of the most beautiful pieces of fourteenth-century sculpture in this world. . . . And now, here is a simple but most useful test of your capacity for understanding Florentine sculpture or painting. If you can see that the lines of that cap are both right, and lovely; that the choice of the folds is exquisite in its ornamental relations of line; and that the softness and ease of them is complete,--though only sketched with a few dark touches,--then you can understand Giotto's drawing, and Botticelli's;--Donatello's carving, and Luca's. But if you see nothing in _this_ sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, _of_ theirs. Where they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any vulgar modern trick with marble--(and they often do)--whatever, in a word, is French, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; but what is Florentine, and for ever great--unless you can see also the beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap,--you will see never. The earnest and docile though bewildered layman is intimidated into thinking that he sees it, whether he really does or not. But it is a question if the contemplation of the "beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap," however eager and serious the contemplation may be, adds much to his experience; it may be doubted whether as a result of his effort toward the understanding of the rightness and loveliness of the lines of the cap and the exquisiteness of the choice of folds, which the critic has pointed out to him with threatening finger, he feels that life is a fuller and finer thing to live. An example of the intellectual estimate, the valuation by formulas, and the assignment of abstract rank, is this paragraph from Matthew Arnold's essay on Wordsworth. Wherever we meet with the successful balance, in Wordsworth, of profound truth of subject with profound truth of execution, he is unique. His best poems are those which most perfectly exhibit this balance. I have a warm admiration for "Laodameia" and for the great "Ode;" but if I am to tell the very truth, I find "Laodameia" not wholly free from something artificial, and the great "Ode" not wholly free from something declamatory. If I had to pick out poems of a kind most perfectly to show Wordsworth's unique power, I should rather choose poems such as "Michael," "The Fountain," "The Highland Reaper." And poems with the peculiar and unique beauty which distinguishes these, Wordsworth produced in considerable number; besides very many other poems of which the worth, although not so rare as the worth of these, is still exceedingly high. Thus does the judicial critic mete out his estimate by scale and measuring-rod. We are told dogmatically what is good and what is less good; but of distinctive quality and energizing life-giving virtues, not a word. The critic does not succeed in communicating to us anything of Wordsworth's special charm and power. We are informed, but we are left cold and unresponding. The didactic critic imposes his standard upon the layman. The judicial critic measures and awards. The appreciative critic does not attempt to teach or to judge; he makes possible to his reader an appreciation of the work of art simply by recreating in his own terms the complex of his emotions in its presence. Instead of declaring the work to be beautiful or excellent, he makes it beautiful in the very telling of what it means to him. As the artist interprets life, disclosing its depths and harmonies, so the appreciative critic in his turn interprets art, reconstituting the beauty of it in his own terms. Through his interpretation, the layman is enabled to enter more fully into the true spirit of the work and to share its beauty in his own experience. In contrast to the passage from Arnold is this paragraph from an essay on Wordsworth by Walter Pater. And so he has much for those who value highly the concentrated presentment of passion, who appraise men and women by their susceptibility to it, and art and poetry as they afford the spectacle of it. Breaking from time to time into the pensive spectacle of their daily toil, their occupations near to nature, come those great elementary feelings, lifting and solemnizing their language and giving it a natural music. The great, distinguishing passion came to Michael by the sheepfold, to Ruth by the wayside, adding these humble children of the furrow to the true aristocracy of passionate souls. In this respect, Wordsworth's work resembles most that of George Sand, in those of her novels which depict country life. With a penetrative pathos, which puts him in the same rank with the masters of the sentiment of pity in literature, with Meinhold and Victor Hugo, he collects all the traces of vivid excitement which were to be found in that pastoral world--the girl who rung her father's knell; the unborn infant feeling about its mother's heart; the instinctive touches of children; the sorrows of the wild creatures, even--their home-sickness, their strange yearnings; the tales of passionate regret that hang by a ruined farm-building, a heap of stones, a deserted sheepfold; that gay, false, adventurous, outer world, which breaks in from time to time to bewilder and deflower these quiet homes; not "passionate sorrow" only, for the overthrow of the soul's beauty, but the loss of, or carelessness for personal beauty even, in those whom men have wronged--their pathetic wanness; the sailor "who, in his heart, was half a shepherd on the stormy seas;" the wild woman teaching her child to pray for her betrayer; incidents like the making of the shepherd's staff, or that of the young boy laying the first stone of the sheepfold;--all the pathetic episodes of their humble existence, their longing, their wonder at fortune, their poor pathetic pleasures, like the pleasures of children, won so hardly in the struggle for bare existence; their yearning towards each other, in their darkened houses, or at their early toil. A sort of biblical depth and solemnity hangs over this strange, new, passionate, pastoral world, of which he first raised the image, and the reflection of which some of our best modern fiction has caught from him. Here is the clue to Wordsworth's meaning; and the special quality and power of his work, gathering amplitude and intensity as it plays across the critic's temperament, is reconstituted in other and illuminating images which communicate the emotion to us. The critic has felt more intimately than we the appeal of this poetry, and he kindles in us something of his own enthusiasm. So we return to Wordsworth for ourselves, more alert to divine his message, more susceptible to his spell, that he may work in us the magic of evocation. Criticism is of value to us as appreciators in so far as it serves to recreate in us the experience which the work was designed to convey. But criticism is not a short cut to enjoyment. We cannot take our pleasure at second hand. We must first come to the work freshly and realize our own impression of it; then afterwards we may turn to the critic for a further revelation. Criticism should not shape our opinion, but should stimulate appreciation, carrying us farther than we could go ourselves, but always in the same direction with our original impression. There is a kind of literary exercise, calling itself criticism, which takes a picture or a book as its point of departure and proceeds to create a work of art in its own right, attaching itself only in name to the work which it purports to criticise. "Who cares," exclaims a clever maker of epigrams, "whether Mr. Ruskin's views on Turner are sound or not? What does it matter? That mighty and majestic prose of his, so fervid and so fiery-coloured in its noble eloquence, so rich in its elaborate symphonic music, so sure and certain, at its best, in subtle choice of word and epithet, is at least as great a work of art as any of those wonderful sunsets that bleach or rot on their corrupted canvases in England's Gallery." A very good appreciation of Ruskin, this. But the answer is that such writing as is here attributed to Ruskin is magnificent: it may be art; but it is not true criticism. A work of art is not "impressive" merely, but "expressive" too. Criticism in its relation to the work itself has an objective base, and it must be steadied and authenticated by constant reference to the original feet. Criticism is not the source of our enjoyment but a medium of interpretation. Before we turn to criticism, therefore, we must first, as Pater suggests, know our own impression as it really is, discriminate it, and realize it distinctly. Only so shall we escape becoming the dupe of some more aggressive personality. In our mental life suggestion plays an important and perhaps unrecognized part. In a certain frame of mind we can be persuaded into believing anything and into liking anything. When, under the influence of authority or fashion, we think we care for that which has no vital and consciously realized relation to our own experience, we are the victims of a kind of hypnotism, and there is little hope of our ultimate adjustment over against art. It is far better honestly to like an inferior work and know why we like it than to pretend to like a good one. In the latter case no real progress or development is possible, for we have no standards that can be regarded as final; we are swayed by the authority or influence which happens at that moment to be most powerful. In the former case we are at least started in the right direction. Year by year, according to the law of natural growth, we come to the end of the inferior work which up to that time has been able to minister to us, and we pass on to new and greater works that satisfy the demands of our deepening experience. It is sometimes asked if we ought not to try to like the best things in art. I should answer, the very greatest things we do not have to _try_ to like; the accent of greatness is unmistakable, and greatness has a message for every one. As regards the lesser works, we ought to be willing to grow up. There was a time when I enjoyed "Robinson Crusoe" in words of one syllable. If I had _tried_ then to like Mr. George Meredith, I should not really have enjoyed him, and I should have missed the fun of "Robinson Crusoe." Everything in its time and place. The lesser works have their use: they may be a starting-point for our entrance into life; and they furnish a basis of comparison by which we are enabled to realize the greatness of the truly great. We must value everything in its own kind, affirming what it is, and not regretting what it is not. But the prerequisite of all appreciation, without which our contact with art is a pastime or a pretense, is that we be honest with ourselves. In playing solitaire at least we ought not to cheat. So the layman must face the situation squarely and accept the responsibility of deciding finally for himself. On the way we may look to criticism to guide us to those works which are meant for us. In art as in the complex details of living, there is need of selection; and criticism helps toward that. In literature alone, to name but a single art, there is so much to be left unread which the length of our life would not otherwise permit us to escape, that we are grateful to the critic who aids us to omit gracefully and with success. But the most serviceable criticism is positive and not destructive. The lesser works may have a message for us, and it is that message in its distinctive quality which the critic should affirm. In the end, however, the use we make of criticism should not reduce itself to an unquestioning acceptance of authority. In the ceremonial of the Roman service, at the moment preceding the elevation of the Host, two acolytes enter the chancel, bearing candles, and kneel between the congregation and the ministrants at the altar; the tapers, suffusing the altar in their golden radiance, throw the dim figures of the priests into a greater gloom and mystery. So it happens that art often is enshrouded by the off-giving of those who would seem to illuminate it; and "dark with excess of light," the obscurity is intensified. The layman is told of the virginal poetry of early Italian painting; he is bidden to sit at the homely, substantial feast of the frank actuality of Dutch art; he listens in puzzled wonder to the glorification of Velasquez and Goya; he reads in eloquent, glowing language of the splendor of Turner. He is more than half persuaded; but he does not quite understand. From this tangle of contending interests there seems for the moment to be no way out. It is assumed that the layman has no standard of his own; and he yields himself to the appeal which comes to him immediately at the instant. The next day, perhaps, brings a new interest or another judgment which runs counter to the old. Back and forth and back again, without purpose and without reason; it is only an endless recurrence of the conflict instead of development and progress. Taking all his estimates at second hand, so for his opinion even of a concert or a play he is at the mercy of a critic who may have dined badly. Some boy, caught young at the university and broken to miscellaneous tasks on a big newspaper, is sent to "do" a picture-exhibition, a concert, and the theatre in the same day. He is expected to "criticise" in an hour the work of a lifetime of struggle and effort and knowledge and thought and feeling. This is the guide of opinion and the foundation of artistic creed. I have stated the reduction to absurdity of the case for authority in criticism. If the layman who leans too heavily upon criticism comes to realize the hopelessness of his position and thinks the situation through to its necessary conclusion, he sees that the authority of criticism is not absolute, but varies with the powers and range of the individual critic, and that at the last he must find his standard within himself. There are, of course, certain standards of excellence recognized universally and certain principles of taste of universal validity; and to these standards and these principles must be referred our individual estimates for comparison and correction. Given a native sensibility to the worth of life and to the appeal of beauty, the justice of our estimate will be in proportion to the extent of our knowledge of life and of our contact with art. Our individual judgment, therefore, must be controlled by experience,--our momentary judgments by the sum of our own experience, and our total judgment by universal experience. In all sound criticism and right appreciation there must be a basis of disciplined taste. We must guard ourselves against whims and caprice, even our own. So the individual may not cut loose altogether from external standards. But these must be brought into relation to his personal needs and applied with reference to his own standard. Finally, for his own uses, the individual has the right to determine the meaning and value to him of any work of art in the measure that it links itself with his own actual or possible experience and becomes for him a revelation of fuller life. For beauty is the power possessed by objects to quicken us with a sense of larger personality; and art, whether the arts of form or of representation, is the material bodying forth of beauty as the artist has perceived it and the means by which his emotion in its presence is communicated. Upon this conception of beauty and this interpretation of the scope and function of art rests the justice of the personal estimate. VII BEAUTY AND COMMON LIFE TO become sensitive to the meaning of color and form and sound as the artist employs them for expression, to feel a work of art in its relation to its background, to find in criticism enlightenment and guidance but not a substitute for one's own experience,--these are methods of approach to art. But the appreciator has yet to penetrate art's inmost secret. At the centre, as the motive of all his efforts to understand the language of art and the processes of technique, as the goal of historical study and the purpose of his recourse to criticism, stands the work itself with its power to attract and charm. Here is Millet's painting of the "Sower." In the actual presence of the picture the appreciator's experience is complex. Analysis resolves it into considerations of the material form of the work, involving its sensuous qualities and the processes of execution, considerations also of the subject of the picture, which gathers about itself many associations out of the beholder's own previous knowledge of life. But the clue to the final meaning of the work, its meaning both to the artist and to the appreciator, is contained in the answer to the question, Why did Millet paint this picture? And just what is it designed to express? Art is born out of emotion. Though the symbols it may employ to expression, the forms in which it may manifest itself, are infinitely various in range and character, essentially all art is one. A work of art is the material bodying forth of the artist's sense of a meaning in life which unfolds itself to him as harmony and to which his spirit responds accordantly. It may be a pattern he has conceived; or he adapts material to a new use in response to a new need: the artist is here a craftsman. He is stirred by the tone and incident of a landscape or by the force or charm of some personality: and he puts brush to canvas. He apprehends the complex rhythms of form: and the mobile clay takes shape under his fingers. He feels the significance of persons acting and reacting in their contact with one another: and he pens a novel or a drama. He is thrilled by the emotion attending the influx of a great idea; philosophy is touched with feeling: and the thinker becomes a poet. The discords of experience resolve themselves within him into harmonies: and he gives them out in triumphant harmonies of sound. The particular medium the artist chooses in which to express himself is incidental to the feeling to be conveyed. The stimulus to emotion which impels the artist to create and the essential content of his work is _beauty._ As beauty, then, is the very stuff and fibre of art, inextricably bound up with it, so in our effort to relate art to our experience we may seek to know something of the nature of beauty and its place in common life. During a visit in Philadelphia I was conducted by a member of the firm through the great Locomotive Works in that city. From the vast office, with its atmosphere of busy, concentrated quiet, punctuated by the clicking of many typewriters, I was led through doors and passages, and at length came upon the shrieking inferno of the shops. The uproar and din were maddening. Overhead, huge cranes were swinging great bulks of steel from one end of the cavernous shed to the other; vague figures were moving obscurely in the murk; the floor was piled and littered with heaps of iron-work of unimaginable shapes. After a time we made our way into another area where there was more quiet but no less confusion. I yelled to my guide, "Such a rumpus and row I never saw; it is chaos come again!" And he replied, "Why, to me it is all a perfect order. Everything is in its place. Every man has his special job and does it. I know the meaning and purpose of all those parts that seem to you to be thrown around in such a mess. If you could follow the course of making from the draughting-rooms to the finishing-shop, if you could see the process at once as a whole, you would understand that it is all a complete harmony, every part working with every other part to a definite end." It was not I but my friend who had the truth of the matter. Where for me there was only chaos, for him was order. And the difference was that he had the clue which I had not. His sense of the meaning of the parts brought the scattering details into a final unity; and therein he found harmony and satisfaction. I went away much impressed by what I had seen. When I had collected my wits a little in the comparative calm of the streets, it occurred to me that the immense workshops were a symbol of man's life in the world. In the instant of experience all seems chaos. At close range, in direct contact with the facts and demands of every day, we feel how confusing and distracting it all is. Life is beating in upon us at every point; all our senses are assailed at once. Each new day brings its conflicting interests and obligations. Now, whether we are aware of it or not, our constant effort is, out of the great variety of experience pressing in upon us, to select such details as make to a definite purpose and end. Instinctively we grope toward and attract to us that which is special and proper to our individual development. Our progress is toward harmony. By the adjustment of new material to the shaping principle of our experience, the circle of our individual lives widens its circumference. We are able to bring more and more details into order, and correspondingly fuller and richer our life becomes. The mental perception of order in the parts gives the whole its significance. This quick grasp of the whole is like the click of the kaleidoscope which throws the tumbling, distorted bits into a design. The conduct of practical life on the mental plane is the process also of art on the plane of the emotions. Not only does experience offer itself to us as the subject of thought; our contact with the world is also the stimulus of feeling. In my account of the visit to the Locomotive Works I have set down but a part and not the sum of my reaction. After I had come away, I fell to thinking about what I had seen, and intellectually I deduced certain abstract principles with regard to unity and significance. But at the moment of experience itself I simply felt. I was overwhelmed by the sense of unloosened power. The very confusion of it all constituted the unity of impression. The emotion roused in me by the roar and riotous movement and the vast gloom torn by fitful yellow gleams from opened furnaces and shapes of glowing metal was the emotion appropriate to the experience of chaos. That I can find a single word by which to characterize it, is evidence that the moment had its harmony for me and consequent meaning. All the infinite universe external to us is everywhere and at every instant potentially the stimulus to emotion. But unless feeling is discriminated, it passes unregarded. When the emotion gathers itself into design, when the moment reveals within itself order and significance, then and not till then the emotion becomes substance for expression in forms of art. If I were able to phrase what I saw and what I felt in the Locomotive Works, so that by means of presenting what I saw I might communicate to another what I felt and so rouse in him the same emotion, I should be an artist. Whistler or Monet might picture for us the murk and mystery of this pregnant gloom. Wagner might sound for us the tumultuous, weird emotions of this Niebelungen workshop of the twentieth century. Dante or Milton might phrase this inferno and pandemonium of modern industry and leave us stirred by the sense of power in the play of gigantic forces. Whether the medium be the painter's color, the musician's tones, or the poet's words, the purpose of the representation is fulfilled in so far as the work expresses the emotion which the artist has felt in the presence of this spectacle. He, the artist, more than I or another, has thrilled to its mystery, its tumult, its power. It is this effect, received as a unity of impression, that he wants to communicate. This power of the object over him, and consequently the content of his work, is beauty. In the experience of us all there are objects and situations which can stir us,--the twilight hour, a group of children at play, the spectacle of the great human crowd, it may be, or solitude under the stars, the works of man as vast cities or cunningly contrived machines, or perhaps it is the mighty, shifting panorama which nature unrolls for us at every instant of day and night, her endless pageant of color and light and shade and form. Out of them at the moment of our contact is unfolded a new significance; because of them life becomes for us larger, deeper. This power possessed by objects to rouse in us an emotion which comes with the realization of inner significance expressed in harmony is beauty. A brief analysis of the nature and action of beauty may help us in the understanding and appreciation of art, though the value to us of any explanation is to quicken us to a more vivid sensitiveness to the effect of beauty in the domain of actual experience of it. Because the world external to us, which manifests beauty, is received into consciousness by the senses, it is natural to seek our explanation in the processes involved in the functioning of our organism. Our existence as individual human beings is conditioned by our embodiment in matter. Without senses, without nerves and a brain, we should not _be._ Our feelings, which determine for us finally the value of experience, are the product of the excitement of our physical organism responding to stimulation. The rudimentary and most general feelings are pleasure and pain. All the complex and infinitely varied emotions that go to make up our conscious life are modifications of these two elementary reactions. The feeling of pleasure results when our organism "functions harmoniously with itself;" pain is the consequence of discord. In the words of a recent admirable statement of the psychologists' position: "When rhythm and melody and forms and colors give me pleasure, it is because the imitating impulses and movements that have arisen in me are such as suit, help, heighten my physical organization in general and in particular. . . . The basis, in short, of any aesthetic experience--poetry, music, painting and the rest--is beautiful through its harmony with the conditions offered by our senses, primarily of sight and hearing, and through the harmony of the suggestions and impulses it arouses with the whole organism." Beauty, then, according to the psychologists, is the quality inherent in things, the possession of which enables them to stimulate our organism to harmonious functioning. And the perception of beauty is a purely physiological reaction. This explanation, valid within its limits, seems to me to fall short of the whole truth. For it fails to reckon with that faculty and that entity within us whose existence we know but cannot explain,--the faculty we call mind, which operates as imagination, and the entity we recognize as spirit or soul. I mean the faculty which gives us the idea of God and the consciousness of self, the faculty which apprehends relations and significance in material transcending their material embodiment. I mean the entity within us which expresses itself in love and aspiration and worship, the entity which is able to fuse with the harmony external to it in a larger unity. When I glance out upon a winter twilight drenching earth and sky with luminous blue, a sudden delight floods in upon me, gathering up all my senses in a surging billow of emotion, and my being pulses and vibrates in a beat of joy. Something within me goes out to meet the landscape; so far as I am at all conscious of the moment, I feel, There, that is what I am! This deep harmony of tone and mass is the expression of a fuller self toward which I yearn. My being thrills and dilates with the sensation of larger life. Then, after the joy has throbbed itself out and my reaction takes shape as consciousness, I set myself to consider the sources and the processes of my experience. I note that my eye has perceived color and form. My intellect, as I summon it into action, tells me that I am looking upon a scene in nature composed of material elements, as land and trees and water and atmosphere. My senses, operating through channels of matter, receive, and my brain registers, impressions of material objects. But this analysis, though defining the processes, does not quite explain _my joy._ I know that beyond all this, transcending my material sense-perception and transcending the actual material of the landscape, there is something in me and there is something in nature which meet and mingle and become one. Above all embodiment in matter, there is a plane on which I feel my community with the world external to me, recognizing that world to be an extension of my own personality, a plane on which I can identify myself with the thing outside of me in so far as it is the expression of what I am or may become. Between me and the external world there is a common term. The effect which nature has upon us is determined, not by the object itself alone and not by our individual mind and temperament alone, but by the meeting of the two, the community between the object and the spirit of man. When we find nature significant and expressive, it is because we make nature in some way a part of our own experience. The material of an object is perceived by the senses. We see that it is blue or green or brown; we may touch it and note that it is rough or smooth, hard or soft, warm or cold. But the expressiveness of the object, its value for the emotions, does not stop with its merely material qualities, but comes with our grasp of the "relations" which it embodies; and these relations, transmitted through material by the senses, are apprehended by the mind. There are, of course, elementary data of sense-perception, such as color and sound. It may be that I prefer red to yellow because my eye is so constituted as to function harmoniously with a rate of vibration represented by 450 billions per second, and discordantly with a rate of vibration represented by 526 billions per second. So also with tones of a given pitch. But though simple color and simple sound have each the power to please the senses, yet in actual experience neither color nor sound is perceived abstractly, apart from its embodiment in form. Color is felt as the property of some concrete object, as the crimson of a rose, the dye of some fabric or garment, the blue of the sky, which, though we know it to be the infinite extension of atmosphere and ether, we nevertheless conceive as a dome, with curvature and the definite boundary of the horizon. Sound in and of itself has pitch and _timbre_, qualities of pure sensation; but even with the perception of sound the element of form enters in, for we hear it with a consciousness of its duration--long or short--or of its relation to other sounds, heard or imagined. Our perceptions, therefore, give us forms. Now form implies _relation,_ the reference of one part to the other parts in the composition of the whole. And relation carries with it the possibilities of harmony or discord, of unity or disorder. Before an object can be regarded as beautiful it must give out a unity of impression. This unity does not reside in the object itself, but is effected by the mind which perceives it. In looking at a checkerboard I may see it as an aggregation of white squares set off by black, or as black squares relieved by white. I may read it as a series of horizontals, or of verticals, or of diagonals, according as I _attend_ to it. The design of the checker-board is not an absolute and fixed quantity inherent in the object itself, but is capable of a various interpretation according to the relative emphasis given to the parts by the perceiving mind. So with all objects in nature. The twilight landscape which stirred me may have been quite without interest or meaning to the man at my side; or, if he responded to it at all, his feelings may have been of a different order and quality than mine. Where I felt a deep and intimate solemnity in the landscape, he might have received the twilight as chill and forbidding. Beauty, then, which consists in harmonious relation, does not lie in nature objectively, but is constituted by the perception in man's constructive imagination of a harmony and consequent significance drawn out of natural forms. It is, in Emerson's phrase, "the integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects." And Emerson says further, "The charming landscape which I saw this morning is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet." The mere pleasurable excitement of the senses is hardly to be called beauty. An object to be beautiful must express a harmony of relations and hence a meaning,--a meaning which goes beyond sense-perception and does not stop with the intellect, but reaches the spirit. Psychologists tell us that "a curved line is pleasing because the eye is so hung as best to move in it." Pleasing, yes; but not beautiful. And precisely herein is illustrated the distinction. A life wearied with an undulating uniformity of days will find beauty less in the curve than in the zigzag, because the sight of the broken line brings to the spirit suggestions of change and adventure. A supine temper finds shock, excitement, and a meaning in the vertical. Yet the significance of forms is not determined necessarily by contrasts. A quiet spirit sees its own expression, a harmony of self with external form, in the even lines and flat spaces of some Dutch etching. Or a vigorous, hardy mind takes fresh stimulus and courage from the swirling clouds of Turner or the wind-torn landscapes of Constable. An object is beautiful, not because of the physical ease with which the eye follows its outlines, but in so far as it has the power to communicate to us the feeling of larger life, to express and complete for us a harmony within our emotional experience. Our senses report to us the material world; we see, we hear, we touch and taste and smell. But we recognize also that nature has a value for the emotions; it can delight and thrill and uplift, taking us out of ourselves and carrying us beyond the confines of the little circle of our daily use and wont. As I look from my window I see against the sky a pear tree, radiant with blossom, an explosion of light and sensation. Its green and white, steeped in sunshine and quivering out of rain-washed depths of blue, are good to behold. But for me, as my spirit goes out to meet it, the tree is spring! In this I do not mean to characterize a process of intellectual deduction,--that as blossoms come in the spring, so the flowering of the tree is evidence that spring is here. I mean that by its color and form, all its outward loveliness, the tree communicates to me the spirit of the new birth of the year. In myself I feel and live the spring. My joy in the tree, therefore, does not end with the sight of its gray trunk and interwoven branches and its gleaming play of leaves: there my joy only begins, and it comes to its fulfillment as I feel the life of the tree to be an expression and extension of the life that is in me. My physical organism responds harmoniously in rhythm with the form of the tree, and so far the tree is pleasing. But, finally, a form is beautiful because it is expressive. "Beauty," said Millet, "does not consist merely in the shape or coloring of a face. It lies in the general effect of the form, in suitable and appropriate action. . . . When I paint a mother, I shall try and make her beautiful simply by the look she bends upon her child. Beauty is expression." Beauty works its effect through significance, a significance which is not always to be phrased in words, but is felt; conveyed by the senses, it at last reaches the emotions. Where the spirit of man comes into harmony with a harmony external to it, there is beauty. The elements of beauty are design, wholeness, and significance. Significance proceeds out of wholeness or unity of impression; and unity is made possible by design. Whatever the flower into which it may ultimately expand, beauty has its roots in fitness and utility; design in this case is constituted by the adaptation of the means to the end. The owner of a saw-mill wanted a support made for a shafting. Indicating a general idea of what he desired, he applied to one of his workmen, a man of intelligence and skill in his craft, but without a conventional education. The man constructed the support, a triangular framework contrived to receive the shafting at the apex; where there was no stress within the triangle, he cut away the timber, thus eliminating all surplusage of material. When the owner saw the finished product he said to his workman, "Well, John, that is a really beautiful thing you have made there." And the man replied, "I don't know anything about the beauty of it, but I know it's strong!" The end to be reached was a support which should be strong. The strong support was felt to be beautiful, for its lines and masses were apprehended as _right._ Had the man, with the "little learning" that is dangerous, attempted embellishment or applied ornament, he would have spoiled the effect; for ornateness would have been out of place. The perfect fitness of means to end, without defect and without excess, constituted its beauty; and its beauty was perceived aesthetically, as a quality inherent in the form, a quality which apart from the practical serviceableness of the contrivance was capable of communicating pleasure. So in general, when the inherent needs of the work give shape to the structure or contrivance, the resulting form is in so far forth beautiful. The early "horseless carriages," in which a form intended for one use was grafted upon a different purpose, were very ugly. Today the motor-car, evolved out of structural needs, a thing complete in and for itself, has in its lines and coherence of composition certain elements of beauty. In his "Song of Speed," Henley has demonstrated that the motorcar, mechanical, modern, useful, may even be material for poetry. That the useful is not always perceived as beautiful is due to the fact that the design which has shaped the work must be regarded apart from the material serviceableness of the object itself. Beauty consists not in the actual material, but in the unity of relations which the object embodies. We appreciate the art involved in the making of the first lock and key only as we look beyond the merely practical usefulness of the device and so apprehend the harmony of relations effected through its construction. As the lock and key serve to fasten the door, they are useful; they are beautiful as they manifest design and we feel their harmony. Beauty is removed from practical life, not because it is unrelated to life,--just the reverse of that is true,--but because the enjoyment of beauty is disinterested. The detachment involved in appreciation is a detachment from material. The appreciator may seem to be a looker-on at life, in that he does not act but simply feels. But his spirit is correspondingly alert. In the measure that he is released from servitude to material he gives free play to his emotion. Although beauty is founded upon design, design is not the whole of beauty. Not all objects which exhibit equal integrity of design are equally beautiful. The beauty of a work of art is determined by the degree of emotion which impelled its creation and by the degree in which the work itself is able to communicate the emotion immediately. The feeling which entered into the making of the first lock and key was simply the inventor's desire for such a device, his desire being the feeling which accompanied his consciousness of his need. At the other extreme is the emotion such as attended Michelangelo's vision of his "David" and urged his hand as he set his chisel to the unshaped waiting block. And so all the way between. Many pictures are executed in a wholly mechanical spirit, as so much manufacture; and they exhibit correspondingly little beauty. Many useful things, as a candle-stick, a pair of andirons, a chair, are wrought in the spirit of art; into them goes something of the maker's joy in his work; they become the expression of his emotion: and they are so far beautiful. It is asserted that Millet's "Angelus" is a greater picture than the painting entitled "War" by Franz Stuck, because "the idea of peasants telling their beads is more beautiful than the idea of a ruthless destroyer only in so far as it is morally higher." The moral value as such has very little to do with it. It is a question of emotion. If Stuck were to put on canvas his idea of peasants at prayer and if Millet had phrased in pictorial terms his feeling about war, there is little doubt that Millet's painting would be the more telling and beautiful. The degree of beauty is fixed by the depth of the man's insight into life and the corresponding intensity of his emotion. Beauty is not limited to one class of object or experience and excluded from another. A chair may be beautiful, although turned to common use; a picture is not beautiful necessarily because it is a picture. "Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is bad," says Whitman, Whistler speaks of art as "seeking and finding the beautiful in all conditions and in all times, as did her high priest, Rembrandt, when he saw picturesque grandeur and noble dignity in the Jews' quarter of Amsterdam, and lamented not that its inhabitants were not Greeks." The beautiful must exhibit an integrity of relations within itself, and it must be in integral relation with its surroundings. The standard of beauty varies with every age, with every nation, indeed with every individual. As beauty is not in the object itself, but is in the mind which integrates the relations which the object manifests, so our appreciation of beauty is determined by our individuality. And individuality is the resultant of many forces. The self, inexplicable in essence, is the product of inheritance, and is modified by environment and training. More than we realize, our judgment is qualified by tradition and habit and even fashion. Because men have been familiar for so many centuries with the idea that sculpture should find its vehicle in white marble, the knowledge that Greek marbles originally were painted comes with something of a shock; and for the moment they have difficulty in persuading themselves that a Parthenon frieze _colored_ could possibly be beautiful. Until within comparatively recent years the French have regarded Shakespeare as a barbarian. The heroic couplet, which was the last word in poetical expression in the age of Queen Anne, we consider to-day as little more than a mechanical jingle. Last year's fashions in dress, which seemed at the time to have their merits, are this year amusingly grotesque. In our judgment of beauty, therefore, allowance must be made for standards which merely are imposed upon us from without. It is necessary to distinguish between a formula and the reality. As far as possible we should seek to come into "original relation" with the universe, freshly for ourselves. So we must return upon our individual consciousness, and thus determine what is vitally significant to us. For the man who would appreciate beauty, it is not a question between this or that "school" in art, whether the truth lies with the classicists or the romanticists; it is not a question of this or that subject or method to the exclusion of all others. Beauty may be anywhere or everywhere. It is our task and joy to find it, wherever it may be. And we shall find it, if we are able to recognize it and we hold ourselves responsive to its multitudinous appeal. The conception of beauty which limits its manifestation to one kind of experience is so far false and leads to mischievous acceptances and narrowing rejections. We mistake the pretty for the beautiful and so fail of the true value of beauty; we are blind to the significance which all nature and all life, in the lowest and commonest as in the highest and rarest, hold within them. "If beauty," says Hamerton, "were the only province of art, neither painters nor etchers would find anything to occupy them in the foul stream that washes the London wharfs." By beauty here is meant the merely agreeable. Pleasing the river may not be, to the ordinary man; but for the poet and the painter, those to whom it is given to see with the inner eye, the "foul stream" and its wharfs may be lighted with mysterious and tender beauty. "Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This city now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning. . . . . . Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!" And Whistler, by the witchery of his brush and his needle, has transmuted the confusion and sordidness and filth of this Thames-side into exquisite emotion. The essence of beauty is harmony, but that harmony is not to be reduced to rule and measure. In the very chaos of the Locomotive Works we may feel beauty; in the thrill which they communicate we receive access of power and we _are,_ more largely, more universally. The harmony which is beauty is that unity or integrity of impression by force of which we are able to feel significance and the relation of the object to our own experience. It is an error to suppose that beauty must be racked on a procrustean bed of formula. Such false conceptions result in sham art. To create a work which shall be beautiful it is not necessary to "smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit." Beauty is not imposed upon material from without, according to a recipe; it is drawn out from within by the integrating power of imagination. Art is not artificiality. Art is the expression of vital emotion and essential significance. The beauty of architecture, for example, consists not in applied ornament but in structural fitness and adaptability, and grows out of the inherent needs of the work. The cathedral-builders of old time did not set themselves to create a "work of art." They wanted a church; and it was a church they built. It is we who, perceiving the rightness of their achievement, pronounce it to be beautiful. Beauty is not manufactured, but grows; it cannot be laid on as ornament. Beauty is born out of the contact of the spirit of man with natural forms, that contact which gives to objects their significance. The recognition of the true nature of beauty may change for us the face of the world. Some things are universally regarded as beautiful because their appeal is universal. There are passions, joys, aspirations, common to all the race; and the forms which objectify these emotions are beautiful universally. We can all enter into the feelings that gather about a group of children dancing round a Maypole in the Park; but in the murk and din and demoniacal activity of the Locomotive Works the appeal is not so obvious. The stupendous workshops become beautiful to me as my being merges into harmony with them and dilates with the emotion of intenser and fuller life. The Sistine Madonna is generally regarded as beautiful. But what is the beauty in the unspeakable witch on the canvas of Frans Hals? Harmony of color and of composition is employed by Raphael in the rendering of a figure and in the expression of an emotion both of which relate themselves to the veneration of mankind. Maternity, Christian or pagan, divine or human, evokes its universal tribute of feeling. On Raphael's canvas complete harmony is made visible; and the beauty of the picture for us is measured by its power to stir us. In the painting by Frans Hals the subject represented is in itself not pleasing. The technical execution of the picture is masterly. But our delight goes beyond any enjoyment of the skill here exhibited, goes beyond even the satisfaction of the senses in its color and composition. What the picture expresses is not merely the visible aspect of this woman, but the painter's own sympathy and appreciation. He saw a beauty in ugliness, a beauty to which we were blind, for he felt the significance of her life, the eternal rightness to herself of what she was. His joy in this inner harmony has transfigured the object and made it beautiful. Beauty penetrates deeper than grace and comeliness; it is not confined to the pretty and agreeable. Indeed, beauty is not always immediately pleasant, but is received often with pain. The emotion of pleasure, which is regarded as the necessary concomitant of beauty, ensues as we are able to merge ourselves in the experience and so come to feel its ultimate harmony. What is commonly accepted as ugly, as shocking or sordid, becomes beautiful for us so soon as we apprehend its inner significance. Judged by the canons of formal beauty, the sky-line of New York city, seen from the North River, is ugly and distressing. But the responsive spirit, reaching ever outward into new forms of feeling, can thrill at sight of those Titanic structures out-topping the Palisades themselves, thrusting their squareness adventurously into the smoke-grayed air, and telling the triumph of man's mind over the forces of nature in this fulfillment of the needs of irrepressible activity, this expression of tremendous actuality and life. Not that the reaction is so definitely formulated in the moment of experience; but this is something of what is felt. The discovery of such a harmony is the entrance into fuller living. So it is that the boundaries of beauty enlarge with the expansion of the individual spirit. To extend the boundaries of beauty by the revelation of new harmonies is the function of art. With the ordinary man, the plane of feeling, which is the basis of appreciation, is below the plane of his attention as he moves through life from day to day. As a clock may be ticking in the room quite unheeded, and then suddenly we hear it because our attention is called to it; so only that emotion really counts to us as experience which comes to our cognizance. When once the ordinary man is made aware of the underlying plane of feeling, the whole realm of appreciation is opened to him by his recognition of the possibilities of beauty which life may hold. Consciously to recognize that forces are operating which lie behind the surface aspect of things is to open ourselves to the play of these forces. With persons in whom intellect is dominant and the controlling power, the primary need is to understand; and for such, first to know is to be helped finally to feel. To comprehend that there is a soul in every fact and that within material objects reside meanings for the spirit, or beauty, is to be made more sensitive to their influence. With the artist, however, the case is different. At the moment of creation he is little conscious of the purport of the work to which he sets his hand. He is not concerned, as we have been, with the "why" of beauty; from the concrete directly to the concrete is his progress. Life comes to him not as thought but as emotion. He is moved by actual immediate contact with the world about him,--by the sight of a landscape, by the mood of an hour or place, by the power of some personality; it may be, too, a welter of recollected sensations and impressions that plays upon his spirit. The resultant emotion, not reasoned about but nevertheless directed to a definite end, takes shape in external concrete forms which are works of art. Just because he is so quick to feel the emotional value of life he is an artist; and much of his power as an artist derives from the concreteness of his emotion. The artist is the creative mind, creative in this sense, that in the outward shows of things he feels their inward and true relations, and by new combinations of material elements he reëmbodies his feeling in forms whose message is addressed to the spirit. The reason why Millet painted the "Sower" was that he felt the beauty of this peasant figure interpreted as significance and life. And it is this significance and life, in which we are made to share, that his picture is designed to express. Experience comes to us in fragments; the surface of the world throws back to us but broken glimpses. In the perspective of a lifetime the fragments flow together into order, and we dimly see the purpose of our being here; in moments of illumination and deeper insight a glimpse may disclose a sudden harmony, and the brief segment of nature's circle becomes beautiful. For then is revealed the shaping principle. Within the fact, behind the surface, are apprehended the relations of which the fact and the surface are the expression. The rhythm thus discovered wakens an accordant rhythm in the spirit of man. The moment gives out its meaning as man and nature merge together in the inclusive harmony. If the human spirit were infinite in comprehension, we should receive all things as beautiful, for we should apprehend their rightness and their harmony. To our finite perception, however, design is not always evident, for it is overlaid and confounded with other elements which are not at the moment fused. Just here is the office of art. For art presents a harmony liberated from all admixture of conflicting details and purged of all accidents, thus rendering the single meaning salient. To compel disorder into order and so reveal new beauty is the achievement of the artist. The world is commonplace or fraught with divinest meanings, according as we see it so. To art we turn for revelation, knowing that ideals of beauty may be many and that beauty may manifest itself in many forms. VIII THE ARTS OF FORM THE maker of the first bowl moulds the plastic clay into the shape best adapted to its purpose, a vessel to hold water, from which he can drink easily; the half-globe rather than the cube affords the greatest holding capacity with the least expenditure of material. He finds now that the form itself--over and above the practical serviceableness of the bowl--gives him pleasure. With a pointed stick or bit of flint he traces in the yielding surface a flowing line or an ordered series of dots or crosses, allowing free play to his fancy and invention. The design does not resemble anything else, nor does it relate itself to any object external to the maker; it has no meaning apart from the pleasure which it gave him as he conceived and traced it, and the pleasure it now gives him to look at it. To another man who sees the bowl, its form and its decoration afford likewise a double pleasure: there is first the satisfaction of senses and mind in the contemplation of harmonious form and rhythmic pattern; and second, there is communicated to him a feeling of the maker's delight in his handiwork, and sympathetically and imaginatively the beholder realizes that delight in his own experience. I am walking with a friend along a road which climbs a wooded hillside. A few steps bring us to the top and the edge of a clearing. There, suddenly a sweep of country is rolled out before us. A quick intake of the breath, and then the cry, "Ah!" Consciousness surges back over me, and turning to my friend, I exclaim, "See the line of those hills over there across the tender sky and those clouds tumbling above them; see how the hills dip down into the meadows; look at the lovely group of willows along the bank of the river, how graciously they come in, and then that wash of purple light over everything!" My simple cry, "Ah!" was the expression of emotion, the unconscious, involuntary expression; it was not art. It did not formulate my emotion definitely, and although it was an expression of emotion, it had no power to communicate the special quality of it. So soon, however, as I composed the elements in the landscape, which stimulated my emotion, into a distinct and coherent whole and by means of that I tried to convey to my friend something of what I was feeling, my expression tended to become art. My medium of expression happened to be words. If I had been alone and wanted to take home with me a record of my impression of the landscape, a pencil-sketch of the little composition might have served to indicate the sources of my feeling and to suggest its quality. Whether in words or in line and mass, my work would be in a rudimentary form a work of representative art. The objective fact of the landscape which I point out to my friend engages his interest; his pleasure derives from those aspects of it which my emotion emphasizes and which constitute its beauty; and something of the same emotion that I felt he realizes in his own experience. The impulse to expression which fulfills itself in a work of art is directed in general by one of two motives,--the motive of representation and the motive of pure form. These two motives are coexistent with human activity itself. The earliest vestiges of prehistoric races and the remains of the remotest civilizations are witnesses of man's desire to imitate and record, and also of his pleasure in harmony of form. Certain caves in France, inhabited by man some thousands of years before history begins, have yielded up reindeer horns and bones, carved with reliefs and engraved with drawings of mammoths, reindeer, and fish. On the walls and roofs of these caves are paintings in bright colors of animals, rendered with correctness and animation. Flint axes of a still remoter epoch "are carved with great dexterity by means of small chips flaked off the stone, and show a regularity of outline which testifies to the delight of primitive man in symmetry."[*] Burial mounds, of unknown antiquity, and the rude stone monuments such as Stonehenge and the dolmens of Brittany and Wales, emerging out of prehistoric dawns, are evidence of man's striving after architectural unity in design and harmony of proportion. [*] S. Reinach, _The Story of Art throughout the Ages,_ chapter i. The existence of these two separate motives which impel creation, man's desire to imitate and his delight in harmony, gives rise to a division of the arts into two general classes, namely, the representative arts and the arts of pure form. The representative arts comprise painting and sculpture, and literature in its manifestations of the drama, fiction, and dramatic and descriptive poetry. These arts draw their subjects from nature and human life, from the world external to the artist. The arts of form comprise architecture and music, and that limitless range of human activities in design and pattern-making for embellishment--including also the whole category of "useful arts"--which may be subsumed under the comprehensive term _decoration._ In these arts the "subject" is self-constituted and does not derive its significance from its likeness to any object external to it; the form itself is the subject. Lyric poetry stands midway between the two classes. It is the expression of "inner states" but it externalizes itself in terms of the outer world. It has a core of thought, and it employs images from nature which can be visualized, and it recalls sounds whose echo can be wakened in imaginative memory. "Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes; With everything that pretty bin, My lady sweet, arise! Arise, arise!" The intellectual and sensuous elements which lyric poetry embodies are finally submerged under the waves of emotional stimulus which flow from the form as form. Such poetry does not depend upon the fact of representation for its meaning; the very form itself, as in music, is its medium of communicating the emotion. Art, therefore, to phrase the same matter in slightly different terms, has a subjective and an objective aspect. In the one case, the artist projects his feeling into the forms which he himself creates; in the other case, the forms external to him, as nature and human life, inspire the emotion, and these external forms the artist reproduces, with of course the necessary modifications, as the symbol and means of expression of his emotion. The distinction between the representative arts and the arts of form is not ultimate, nor does it exclude one class wholly from the other; it defines a general tendency and serves to mark certain differences in original motive and in the way in which the two kinds of work may be received and appreciated. In actual works of art themselves, though they differ as to origin and function, the line of division cannot be sharply drawn. The dance may be an art of form or a representative art according as it embodies the rhythms of pure movement or as it numerically figures forth dramatic ideas. Painting, as in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel and the wall paintings of Tintoretto and Veronese in the Ducal Palace of Venice, may be employed in the service of decoration. Decoration, as in architectural sculpture and in patterns for carpets and wall-coverings, often draws its motives from nature, such as leaves, flowers, fruits, and animals; but when the function of the work is decorative and not representative, the naturalistic and graphic character of the subject is subordinated to the purposes of abstract and formal design. A picture, on the other hand, which is frankly representative in purpose, must submit its composition and color-harmony to the requirements of unity in design; in a sense it must make a pattern. And a statue, as the "Victory of Samothrace," bases its ultimate appeal, not upon the fact of representation, but upon complete, rhythmic, beautiful form. To the appreciator the arts of form carry a twofold significance. There is first the pleasure which derives from the contemplation and reception of a harmony of pure form, including harmony of color, of line, and of flat design as well as form in the round, a pleasure of the senses and the mind. Second, works of art in this category, as they are the expression for the artist of his emotion, become therefore the manifestation to the appreciator and means of communication of that emotion. Man's delight in order, in unity, in harmony, rhythm, and balance, is inborn. The possession of these qualities by an object constitutes its form. Form, in the sense of unity and totality of relations, is not to be confounded with mere regularity. It may assume all degrees of divergence from geometric precision, all degrees of variety, ranging from the visual perfectness of the Parthenon to the sublime and triumphant inconsequence of the sky-line of New York city. It may manifest all degrees of complexity from a cup to a cathedral or from "Home, Sweet Home" to Tschaikowski's "Pathetic Symphony." Whatever the elements and the incidents, our sense of order in the parts and of singleness of impression endows the object with its form. The form as we apprehend it of an object constitutes its beauty, its capability to arouse and to delight. Because of the essential make-up of man's mind and spirit, powers that are innate and determined by forces still beyond the scope of analysis, the perception of a harmony of relations, which is beauty, is attended with pleasure, a pleasure that is felt and cannot be explained. This inborn, inexplicable delight is at once the origin of the arts of form and the basis of our appreciation. Each art, as the fashioning of objects of use, as decoration, architecture, and music, is governed by its own intrinsic, inherent laws and rests its appeal upon man's pleasure in form. There is no standard external to the laws of the art itself by which to judge the rightness and the beauty of the individual work. In the arts of use and in decoration and architecture, the beauty of a work, as the beauty of a chair, as in the ordering and appointments of a room, as the beauty of a temple, a theatre, a dwelling, derives primarily from the fitness of the object to its function, and finally from the rhythm of its lines and the harmony of its masses and proportions,--its total form. A chair which cannot be sat in may be interesting and agreeable to look at, but it is not truly beautiful; for then it is not a chair but a curiosity, a bijou, and a superfluity; to be beautiful it must be first of all frankly and practically a chair. A living-room which cannot be lived in with comfort and restfulness and peace of mind is not a living-room, but a museum or a concentrated department store; at best it is only an inclosed space. A beautiful building declares its function and use, satisfies us with the logic and coherence of its parts, and delights us with its reticence or its boldness, its simplicity or its inventiveness, in fine, its personality, as expressed in its parts and their confluence into an ordered, self-contained, and self-sufficing whole. Music, using sound for its material, is a pattern-weaving in tones. The power of music to satisfy and delight resides in the sensuous value of its material and in the character of its pattern as form, the balance and contrast of tonal relations, the folding and unfolding of themes, their development and progress to the final compelling unity-in-variety which constitutes its form and which in its own inherent and self-sufficing way is made the expression of the composer's emotion and musical idea. Lyric poetry is the fitting of rhythmic, melodious, colored words to the emotion within, to the point where the very form itself becomes the meaning, and the essence and mystery of the song are in the singing. Beauty is harmony materialized; it is emotion ordered and made visible, audible, tangible. If in the arts of form we seek further a standard of truth, their truth is not found in their relation to any external verity, but is determined by their correspondence with inner experience. In the category of the arts of form the single work is to be received in its entirety and integrity as form. The whole, however, may be resolved into its parts, and the individual details may be interesting in themselves. Thus into decorative patterns are introduced elements of meaning which attach themselves to the world and experience external to the artist. Many ornamental motives, like the zigzag and the egg-and-dart, for example, had originally a symbolic value. Sometimes they are drawn from primitive structures and fabrics, as the checker-board pattern, with its likeness to the plaitings of rush mattings, and the volute and spiral ornaments, which recall the curves and involutions of wattle and wicker work. Again, decoration may employ in its service details that in themselves are genuinely representative art. The frieze of the Parthenon shows in relief a procession of men and women and horses and chariots and animals. The sculptures of Gothic churches represent men and women, and the carvings of mouldings, capitals, and traceries are based on naturalistic motives, taking their designs from leaves and flowers. The essential function of ornament is to emphasize form and not to obscure it, though nowadays in machine-made things a kind of pseudo-embellishment is laid on to distract attention from the badness and meaninglessness of the form; in true decoration the representative elements are subordinated to the formal character of the whole. The representative interest may be enjoyed separately and in detail; but finally the graphic purpose yields to the decorative, and the details take their place as parts of the total design. Thus a Gothic cathedral conveys its complete and true impression first and last as form. Midway we may set ourselves to a reading of the details. The figure of this saint on the jamb or the archivolt of the portal is expressive of such simple piety and enthusiasm! In this group on the tympanum what animation and spirit! This moulding of leaves and blossoms is cut with such loving fidelity and exquisite feeling for natural truth! But at the last the separate members fulfill their appointed office as they reveal the supreme function of the living total form. Music, too, in some of its manifestations, as in song, the opera, and programme music, has a representative and illustrative character. In Chopin's "Funeral March" we hear the tolling of church bells, and it is easy to visualize the slow, straggling file of mourners following the bier; the composition here has a definite objective base drawn from external fact, and the "idea" is not exclusively musical, but admits an infusion of pictorial and literary elements. In listening to the love duet of the second act of "Tristan," although the lovers are before us in actual presence on the stage, I find myself involuntarily closing my eyes, for the music is so personal and so spiritualized, it is in and of itself so intensely the realization of the emotion, that the objective presentment of it by the actors becomes unnecessary and is almost an intrusion. The representative, figurative element in music may be an added interest, but its appeal is intellectual; if as we hear the "Funeral March," we say to ourselves, This is so and so, and, Here they do this or that, we are thinking rather than feeling. Music is the immediate expression of emotion communicated immediately; and the composition will not perfectly satisfy unless it is _music,_ compelling all relations of melody, harmony, and rhythm into a supreme and triumphant order. Whereas the representative arts are based upon objective fact, drawing their "subjects" from nature and life external to the artist; in decoration, in architecture, and in music the artist creates his own forms as the projection of his emotion and the means of its expression. Richard Wagner, referring to the composition of his "Tristan," writes: "Here, in perfect trustfulness, I plunged into the inner depth of soul events, and from out this inmost centre of the world I fearlessly built up its outer form. . . . Life and death, the whole import and existence of the outer world, here hang on nothing but the inner movements of the soul. The whole affecting Action comes about for the reason only that the inmost soul demands it, and steps to light with the very shape foretokened in the inner shrine." The form, thus self-constituted, has the power to delight us, and the work is at the same time the expression of emotion. The arts of form please us with the pleasure that attends the perception of formal beauty; but this pleasure docs not exhaust their capability to minister to us. What differentiates art from manufacture is the element of personal expression. Born out of need, whether the need be physical or spiritual, fulfilling the urge to expression, a work of art embodies its maker's delight in creating. Correspondingly, beyond our immediate enjoyment of the work as form, we feel something of what the man felt who was impelled to create it. His handiwork, his pattern, his composition, becomes the means of communicating to us his emotional experience. Obviously the significance of any work is determined primarily by the intensity and scope of emotion which has prompted it. The creation of works of art involves all degrees of intention, from the hut in the wilderness rudely thrown together, whose purpose was shelter, to a Gothic cathedral, in its multitudinousness eloquent of man's worship and aspiration. The man who moulded the first bowl, adapting its form as closely as possible to its use and shaping its proportions for his own pleasure to satisfy his sense of harmony and rhythm, differs from the builders of the Parthenon only in the degree of intensity of his inspiring emotion and in the measure of his controlling thought. The beauty of accomplished form of cathedral and of temple is compelling; and we may forget that they rose out of need. Both hut and bowl are immediately useful, and their beauty is not so evident,--that little touch of feeling which wakens a response in us. But in their adaptation to their function they become significant; the satisfaction which accompanies expression is communicated to us as we apprehend in the work the creator's intention and we realize in ourselves what the creation of it meant to him as the fulfillment of his need and the utterance of his emotion. So the expressive power of an individual work is conditioned originally by the amount of feeling that enters into the making of it. Every phrase of a Beethoven symphony is saturated with emotion, and the work leads us into depths and up to heights of universal experience, disclosing to us tortuous ways and infinite vistas of the possibilities of human feeling. A simple earthen jug may bear the impress of loving fingers, and the crudely turned form may be eloquent of the caress of its maker. So we come to value even in the humblest objects of use this autographic character, which is the gate of entrance into the experience of the men who fashioned them. Every maker strives toward perfection, the completest realization of his ideal within his power of execution. But the very shortcomings of his work are significant as expressive of what he felt and was groping after; they are so significant that by a curious perversion, machinery, which in our civilized day has supplanted the craftsman, tries by mechanical means to reproduce the roughness and supposed imperfections of hand work. Music is the consummate art, in which the form and the content are one and inextricable; its medium is the purest, least alloyed means of expression of instant emotion. Architecture, in its harmonies and rhythms, the gathering up of details into the balanced and perfect whole, partakes of the nature of music. But the arts of use and decoration also have their message for the spirit. There is no object fashioned by the hand of man so humble that it may not embody a true thought and a sincere delight. There is no pattern or design so simple and so crude that it may not be the overflow of some human spirit, a mind and heart touched to expression. IX REPRESENTATION BEFORE me is a little bowl of old Satsuma. As I look at it there wakens in me a responsive rhythm, and involuntarily my fingers move as if to caress its suave and lovely lines. The rich gold and mingled mellow browns of its surface pattern intricately woven are a gracious harmony and a delight. Gradually, as I continue to look on it, a feeling is communicated to me of the maker's own joy in his work; and the bowl, its harmonies and rhythms, and all that it expresses, become part of me. There it is, complete in itself, gathering up and containing within itself the entire experience. My thoughts, sensations, feelings do not go beyond the bowl. Another time I am standing in the hall of the Academy in Florence. At the end of the corridor towers a superb form. I see that it is the figure of a youth. His left hand holds a sling drawn across his shoulder; his right arm hangs by his side, his hand grasping a pebble close to his thigh; calm and confident, his head erect, his strength held in leash waiting to be loosed, he fronts the oncoming of the foe. The statue is the presentation of noble form, and it wakens in me an accordant rhythm; I feel in myself something of what youthful courage, life, and conscious power mean. But my experience does not stop there. The statue is not only presentation but representation. It figures forth a youth, David, the Hebrew shepherd-boy, and he stands awaiting the Philistine. I have read his story, I have my own mental image of him, and about his personality cluster many thoughts. To what Michelangelo shows me I add what I already know. Recognition, memory, knowledge, facts and ideas, a whole store of associations allied with my previous experience, mingle with my instant emotion in its presence. The sculptor, unlike the potter, has not created his own form; the subject of his work exists outside of him in nature. He uses the subject for his own ends, but in his treatment of it he is bound by certain responsibilities to external truth. His work as it stands is not completely self-contained, but is linked with the outer world; and my appreciation of it is affected by this reference to extrinsic fact. An artist is interested in some scene in nature or a personality or situation in human life; it moves him. As the object external to him is the stimulus of his emotion and is associated with it, so he uses the object as the symbol of his experience and means of expression of his emotion. Here, then, the feeling, to express which the work is created, gathers about a subject, which can be recognized intellectually, and the fact of the subject is received as in a measure separate from the feeling which flows from it. In a painting of a landscape, we recognize as the basis of the total experience the fact that it is a landscape, so much water and field and sky; and then we yield ourselves to the _beauty_ of the landscape, the emotion with which the artist suffuses the material objects and so transfigures them. Into representative art, therefore, there enters an element not shared by the arts of pure form, the element of _the subject,_ carrying with it considerations of objective truth and of likeness to external fact. Toward the understanding of the total scope of a picture or a statue, and by inference and application of the principles, toward the understanding of literature as well, it may help us if we determine the relation of beauty to truth and the function and value of the subject in representative art. The final significance of a work of art is beauty, received as emotional experience. Nature becomes beautiful to us at the point where it manifests a harmony to which we feel ourselves attuned. At the moment of enjoyment we unconsciously project our personality into this harmony outside of us, identifying ourselves with it and finding it at that instant the expression of something toward which we reach and aspire. When we come consciously to reason about our experience, we see that the harmony external to us which we feel as the extension of ourselves does not stop with the actual material itself of nature, but emanates from it as the expression of nature's spirit. The harmony is a harmony of relations, made visible through material, and significant to us and beautiful in the measure that we respond to it. It is the beauty of the object, its significance for the spirit, that primarily moves the artist to expression. Why one landscape and not another impels him to render it upon his canvas is not to be explained. This impulse to immediate and concrete utterance is inspiration. And inspiration would seem to be a confluence of forces outside of the individual consciousness or will, focused at the instant into desire, which becomes the urge to creation. "The mind in creation," says Shelley, "is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power rises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure." The artist does not say, "Lo, I will paint a landscape; let me find my subject!" The subject presents itself. There it is, by chance almost,--a sudden harmony before him, long low meadows stretching away to the dark hills, the late sun striking on the water, gold and green melting into a suffusing flush of purple light, a harmony of color and line and mass which his spirit leaps out to meet and with which it fuses in a larger unity. In the moment of contact all consciousness of self as a separate individuality is lost. Out of the union of the two principles, the spirit of man and the beauty of the object, is born the _idea,_ which is to come to expression as a work of art. But the artist is a mind as well as a temperament. Experience is a swing of the pendulum between the momentary ecstasy of immediate contact and the subsequent reaction upon the moment, which is consciousness of it. In order to make his vision actual, the artist rises out of the domain of feeling into that of thought. The landscape has compelled him; it is now he who must compel the landscape. To the shaping of his work he must bring to bear all his conscious power of selection and organization and all his knowledge of the capabilities and resources of his means. Art springs out of emotion; painting is a science. The artist's command of his subject as the symbol of his idea derives from the stern and vigorous exercise of mind. The rightness of his composition is determined by a logic more flexible, perhaps, but no less exacting than the laws of geometry. By the flow of his line and the disposition of his masses, the artist must carry the eye of the beholder along the way he wants it to travel until it rests upon the point where he wants it to rest. There must be no leaks and no false directions; there must be the cosmos within the frame and nothing outside of it. The principles of perspective have been worked out with a precision that entitles them to rank as a science. Color has its laws, which, again, science is able to formulate. These processes and formulas and laws are not the whole of art, but they have their place. The power to feel, the imaginative vision, and creative insight are not to be explained. But knowledge too, acquired learning and skill, plays its part, and to recognize its function and service is to be helped to a fuller understanding of the achievement of the artist. Gifted with a vibrant, sensitive temperament, endowed with discriminating and organizing power of mind, equipped with a knowledge of the science and the mechanics of his craft, and trained to skill in manual execution, the artist responds to the impulse of his inspiration. His subject is before him. But what is his subject? A scene in nature furnishes him the objective base of his picture, but properly his work is the expression of what he feels. A storm may convey to different men entirely different impressions. In its presence one man may feel himself overwhelmed with terror. These wild, black skies piling in upon him, the hilltops that seem to race through the clouds, the swaying, snapping trees, the earth caught up in the mad grasp of the tempest, may smite his soul with the pitilessness of nature and her inexorable blind power. Another thrills with joy in this cosmic struggle, the joy of conflict which he has known in his own life, the meeting of equal forces in fair fight, where the issue is still doubtful and victory will fall at last upon the strong, though it is not the final triumph but the present struggle that makes the joy. In rendering the "subject" upon his canvas, by the manipulation of composition and line and mass and color, he makes the storm ominous and terrible, or glorious, according as he feels. The import of his picture is not the natural fact of the storm itself, but its significance for the emotions. A work of representative art is the rendering of a unity of impression and harmony of relations which the artist has perceived and to which he has thrilled in the world external to him. He presents not the facts themselves but their spirit, that something which endows the facts with their significance and their power to stir him. As the meaning of nature to the beholder is determined by the effect it produces on his mind and temperament, so the artist, in the expression of this meaning, aims less at a statement of objective accuracy of exterior appearance than at producing a certain effect, the effect which is the equivalent of the meaning of nature to him. Thus the painter who sees beyond the merely intellectual and sensuous appeal of his subject and enters into its spirit, tries to render on his canvas, not the actual color of nature, but the sensation of color and its value for the emotions. With the material splendor of nature,--her inexhaustible lavish wealth of color, the glory of life which throbs through creation, the mystery of actual movement,--art cannot compete. For the hues and tones of nature, infinite in number and subtlety, the painter has only the few notes within the poor gamut of his palette. How can he quicken his dull paint with the life-beat of palpitating flesh, or the sculptor animate the rigid marble with the vibrations of vivid motion? But where nature is infinite in her range she is also scattering in her effects. By the concentration of divergent forces, art gains in intensity and directness of impression what it sacrifices in the scope of its material. Michelangelo uses as his subject David, the shepherd-boy; but the person, the mere name, does not signify. What his work embodies is triumphant youth, made visible and communicable. When Millet shows us the peasant, it is not what the peasant is feeling that the artist represents, but what Millet felt about him. The same landscape will be rendered differently by different men. Each selects his details according to the interest of his eye and mind and feeling, and he brings them into a dominant harmony which stands to him for the meaning of the landscape. None of the pictures is an accurate statement of the facts as they are, off there in nature; all are true to the integrating inner vision. The superficial observer sees only the accidents, and he does not distinguish relative importance. The artist, with quicker sensibilities and a trained mind, analyzes, discovers the underlying principle, and then makes a synthesis which embodies only the essential; he seizes the distinctive aspect of the object and makes it salient. There may be, of course, purely descriptive representation, which is a faithful record of the facts of appearance as the painter sees them, without any feeling toward them; here he works as a scientist, not as an artist. Merely imitative painting falls short of artistic significance, for it embodies no meaning beyond the external fact. It is the expressiveness of the object that the true artist cares to represent; it is its expressiveness, its value for the emotions, that constitutes its beauty. To achieve beauty the representative artist bases his work upon the truth of nature. It is nature that supplies him with his motive,--some glimpse, some fragment, which reveals within itself a harmony. It may be a form, as a tree, a man, a mountain range, the race of clouds across the sky; it may be a color-harmony or "arrangement," in which color rather than form is the dominant interest, as with a landscape or an interior; it may be the effects of light, as the sunshine playing over golden haystacks, or the glint of light on metal, or the sheen of lovely fabrics. Out of the complex of interests and appeals which an object offers, what is the _truth_ of the object? The truth of nature resides not in the accidents of surface but in the essential relations, of which the surface is the manifestation. A birch tree and an apple tree are growing side by side. Their roots strike down into the same soil, their branches are warmed by the same sun, wet by the same rains, and swept by the same winds. The birch tree is always lithe and gracious and feminine; the apple tree is always bent and sternly gnarled like the hand of an old man. The life-force which impels the tree to growth is distinctive to each kind. Within all natural objects, then, a crystal, a tree, a man, there is a shaping principle which determines their essential form. But no two individual apple trees are precisely alike; from the essential form of the tree there are divergences in the single manifestations. Though subject to accident and variation, however, every tree exhibits a characteristic, inviolate _tendency,_ and remains true to the inner life-principle of its being. The "truth" of the apple tree is this distinctive, essential form, by virtue of which it is an apple tree and not some other kind, the form which underlies and allows for all individual variations. What the painter renders on his canvas is not the superficial accidents of some single tree, but by means of that, he seeks to image forth in color and form the tendency of all trees. The truth of an object presents itself to the imagination as design, for this organic, shaping principle of things, expressed in colored myriad forms throughout the endless pageantry of nature, is apprehended by the spirit of man as a harmony; and in the experience of the artist truth identifies itself with beauty. The distinction between the accidental surface of things and the significance that may be drawn out of them is exemplified by the difference between accuracy and truth in representation. Accurate drawing is the faithful record of the facts of appearance as offered to the eye. Truth of drawing is the rendering in visible terms of the meaning and spirit of the object, the form which the object takes not simply for the eye but for the mind. A pencil sketch by Millet shows a man carrying in each hand a pail of water. The arms are drawn inaccurately, in that they are made too long. What Millet wanted to express, however, was not the physical shape of the arms, but the feeling of the burden under which the man was bending; and by lengthening the arms he has succeeded in conveying, as mere accuracy could not express it, the sensation of weight and muscular strain. In Hals' picture of the "Jester" the left hand is sketched in with a few swift strokes of the brush. But so, it "keeps its place" in relation to the whole; and it is more nearly right than if it had been made the centre of attention and had been drawn with the most meticulous precision. The hand is not accurate, but it is true. Similarly, size is an affair not of physical extent but of proportion. A figure six inches high may convey the same value as a figure six feet high, if the same proportions are observed. A statue is the presentation, not of the human body, but of the human form, and more than that, of what the form expresses. When I am talking with my friend I am aware of his physical presence detaching itself from the background of the room in which we are. But I feel in him something more. And that something more goes behind the details of his physical aspect. His eyes might be blue instead of brown, his nose crooked rather than straight; he might be maimed and disfigured by some mishap. These accidents would not change for me what is the reality. My friend is not his body, though it is by his body that he exists; the reality of my friend is what he essentially is, what he is of the spirit. A photograph of a man registers certain facts of his appearance at that moment. The eye and the mind of the artist discern the truth which underlies the surface; the artist feels his sitter not as a face and a figure, a mere body, but as a personality; and the portrait expresses a man. As grasped by our finite minds, there are partial truths and degrees of truth. There are, for example, the facts of outer appearance, modified in our reception of them by what we know as distinct from what we really see. Thus a tree against the background of hill or sky seems to have a greater projection and relief than is actually presented to the eye, because we _know_ the tree is round. Manet's "Girl with a Parrot," which appears to the ordinary man to be too flat, is more true to reality than any portrait that "seems to come out of its frame." Habitually in our observation of objects about us, we note only so much as serves our practical ends; and this is the most superficial, least essential aspect. Projection is a partial truth, and to it many painters sacrifice other and higher truths. Manet, recovering the "innocence of the eye" and faithful to it, has penetrated the secrets and won the truth of light. Botticelli saw the world as sonorous undulations of exquisite line; and his subtly implicated, evanescent patterns of line movement, "incorrect" as they may be superficially in drawing, caress the eye as music finds and satisfies the soul. When such is his power over us, it is difficult to say that Botticelli had not some measure of the truth. The world of the Venetians sang full-sounding harmonies of glorious color. Velasquez saw everything laved around with a flood of silver quiet atmosphere. All in their own way have found and shown to us a truth. To render what he has seen and felt in the essence and meaning of it, the artist seeks to disengage the shaping principle of the particular aspect of truth, which has impressed him, from all accidents in its manifestation. To make this dominant character salient beyond irrelevant circumstance, art works by selection. Art is necessarily a compromise. It isolates some elements and sacrifices others; but it is none the less true on that account. The mere material of the object is more or less fixed, but the relations which the object embodies are capable of many combinations and adjustments, according to the mind and temperament of the individual artist who is moved by it. All art is in a certain sense abstraction; all art in a measure idealizes. It is abstraction in the sense that it presents the intrinsic and distinctive qualities of things, purged of accident. Art does not compete with nature; it is a statement of the spirit and intention of nature in the artist's own terms. The test of the work is not apparent and superficial likeness, but truth. Art idealizes in the measure that it disengages the truth. In this aspect of it the work is ideal as distinct from merely actual. There is a practice in art which draws its standard of beauty, its ideal, not from nature but from other art, and which seeks to "improve nature" by the combination of arbitrarily chosen elements and by the modification of natural truth to fit a preconceived formula. The Eclectics of Bologna, in the seventeenth century, sought to combine Raphael's perfection of drawing and composition, Michelangelo's sublimity and his mastery of the figure, and Correggio's sweet sentiment and his supremacy in the rendering of light and shade, fondly supposing thus that the sum of excellent parts is equivalent to an excellence of the whole. This is false idealism. The Greeks carried their research for certain truths of the human form to the point of perfection and complete realization. The truth of the Greeks was mistaken by the pseudo-classicists and misapplied. Thus Delacroix exclaimed ironically, "In order to present an ideal head of a negro, our teachers make him resemble as far as possible the profile of Antinöus, and then say, 'We have done our utmost; if, nevertheless, we fail to make the negro beautiful, then we ought not to introduce into our pictures such a freak of nature, the squat nose and thick lips, which are so unendurable to the eyes.'" True idealism treats everything after its own kind, making it more intensely itself than it is in the play of nature; the athlete is more heroically an athlete, the negro more vividly a negro. True idealism seeks to express the tendency by virtue of which an object is what it is. The abstraction which art effects is not an unreality but a higher reality. It is not the mere type, that art presents, for the type as such does not exist in nature. The individual is not lost but affirmed by this reference to the inner principle of its being. A good portrait has in it an element of caricature; the difference between portraiture and caricature is the difference between emphasis and exaggeration. Art is not the falsification of nature, but the fuller realization of it. It is the interpretation of nature's truth, the translation of it, divined by the artist, into simpler terms to be read and understood by those of less original insight. The deeper the penetration into the life-force and shaping principle of nature, the greater is the measure of truth. In representative art the truth of nature is the work's objective base. What the artist finally expresses is the relation of the object to his own experience. A work of art is the statement of the artist's insight into nature, moulded and suffused by the emotion attending his perception. Of the object, he uses that aspect and that degree of truth which serve him for the expression of his feeling toward it. What is called "realism" is one order of truth, one way of seeing. "Impressionism" is another order of truth. "Idealism" is still another. But all three elements blend in varying proportion in any work. Even the realist, who "paints what he sees," has his ideal, which is the effect he sets himself to produce by his picture, and he paints according to his impression. He renders not the object itself but his mental image of it; and that image is the result of his way of seeing and feeling, his habit of mind, his interest, and his store of memories. The idealist must base his work upon some kind of reality, or it is a monstrosity; he is obliged to refer to the external world for his symbols. The impressionist, who concerns himself with the play of light over surfaces in nature, is seeking for truth, and he cares to paint at all because that play of light, seemingly so momentary and so merely sensuous, has a value for his spirit of which he may or may not be wholly conscious; and these shifting effects are the realization of his ideal. Unwitting at the moment of contact itself of the significance that afterwards is to flow articulately from his work, the artist, in the presence of his object, knows only that he is impelled to render it. As faithfully as possible he tries to record what he sees, conscious simply that what he sees gives him delight. His vision wakens his feeling, and then by reaction his feeling determines his vision, controlling and directing his selection of the details of aspect. When Velasquez, engaged on a portrait of the king, saw the maids of honor graciously attending on the little princess, he did not set about producing a _picture,_ as an end in itself. In the relation of these figures to one another and to the background of the deep and high-vaulted chamber in which they were standing, each object and plane of distance receiving its just amount of light and fusing in the unity of total impression, were revealed to him the wonder and the mystery of nature's magic of light. This is what he tried to render. His revelation of natural truth, wrung from nature's inmost latencies and shown to us triumphantly, becomes a thing of beauty. So the differences among the various "schools" in art are after all largely differences of emphasis. The choice of subject or motive, the angle from which it is viewed, and the method of handling, all are determined by the artist's kind of interest; and that interest results from what the man is essentially by inheritance and individual character, and what he is moulded into by environment, training, and experience. It may happen that the external object imposes itself in its integrity upon the artist's mind and temperament, and he tries to express it, colored inevitably by his feeling toward it, in all faithfulness to the feet as he sees it. Millet said, "I should never paint anything that was not the result of an impression received from the aspect of nature, whether in landscape or figures." Millet painted what he saw, but he painted it as only he saw it. Or again it happens that an artist imposes his feeling upon nature. Thus Burne-Jones said, "I mean by a picture a beautiful romantic dream of something that never was, never will be--in a light better than any that ever shone--in a land no one can define or remember, only desire." Whether true to nature or true to the creative inner vision, the work of both men embodies truth. Sometimes an artist effaces entirely his own individuality, as in Greek sculpture and Gothic architecture, and the mere name of the creator does not signify. George Frederick Watts is reported to have said, "If I were asked to choose whether I would like to do something good, as the world judges popular art, and receive personally great credit for it, or, as an alternative, to produce something which should rank with the very best, taking a place with the art of Pheidias or Titian, with the highest poetry and the most elevating music, and remain unknown as the perpetrator of the work, I should choose the latter." Sidney Lanier wrote, "It is of little consequence whether _I_ fail; the _I_ in the matter is small business. . . . Let my name perish,--the poetry is good poetry and the music is good music, and beauty dieth not, and the heart that needs it will find it." Or on the contrary, a work may bear dominantly, even aggressively, the impress of the distinctive individuality of its creator, as with Carlyle's prose and Browning's poetry. Whistler seems at times to delight less in the beauty of his subject than in the _exercise_ of his own power of refinement. Where another man's art is personal, as with Velasquez or Frans Hals, Whistler's art becomes egotistical. He does not say, "Lo, how mysterious is this dusk river-side, how tenderly serene this mother, how wistful and mighty is this prophet-seer!" He exclaims rather, "Note how subtly I, Whistler, have seen. Rejoice with me in my powers of vision and of execution." There is no single method of seeing, no one formula of expression and handling. The truth both of nature and of art is great and infinitely various. For art, like nature, is organic, allowing for endless modifications, while remaining true to the inner principle of its being. The judgment of truth is a delicate business. To test the truth of a work of art by reference to the truth of nature is to presuppose that our power of perception is equal to the artist's power, and that our knowledge of the object represented is equal to his knowledge of it. The ordinary man's habitual contact with the world is practical, and his knowledge of natural fact, based upon the most superficial aspect of it and used for practical purposes, tends to falsify his vision. The artist's contact with the world, in his capacity as artist, is one of feeling; he values life, not for its material rewards and satisfactions, but for what it brings to him of emotional experience. The ordinary man uses nature for his own workaday ends. The artist loves nature, and through his love he understands her. His knowledge of natural fact, instead of falsifying his vision, reinforces it. He studies the workings of nature's laws as manifested in concrete phenomena around him,--the movement of storms, the growth of trees, the effects of light,--penetrating their inmost secrets, that he may make them more efficient instruments of expression. He uses his understanding of anatomy, of earth-structure, of the laws of color, as the means to a fuller and juster interpretation. As he receives the truth of nature with reverence and joy, so he transmutes truth into beauty. An artist's interest in the truth of nature is not the scientist's interest, an intellectual concern with knowledge for the sake of knowledge. The artist receives nature's revelation of herself with emotion. The deeper he penetrates into her hidden ways, the greater becomes her power to stir him. The artist values his "subject," therefore, as the stimulus of emotion and as the symbol by means of which he expresses his emotion and communicates it. The value of the subject to the appreciator, however, is not immediately clear. It is not easy for us to receive the subject purely as the artist shows it to us and independently of our own knowledge of it. About it already gather innumerable associations, physical, practical, intellectual, sentimental, and emotional, all of them or any of them, which result from our previous contact with it in actual life. Here is a portrait of Carlyle. I cannot help regarding the picture first of all from the point of view of its likeness to the original. This is a person with whom I am acquainted, an individual, by name Carlyle. And my reaction on the picture is determined, not by what the artist has to say about a great personality interpreted through the medium of color and form, but by what I already know about Carlyle. Or here a painting shows me a landscape with which I am familiar. Then instead of trying to discover in the picture what the artist has seen in the landscape and felt in its presence, letting it speak to me in its own language, I allow my thoughts to wander from the canvas, and I enjoy the landscape in terms of my own knowledge and remembrance of it. The artist's work becomes simply a point of departure, whereas it should be not only the beginning but also the end and fulfillment of the complete experience. What is, then, we may ask, the relation of the fact of the subject to the beauty and final message of the work? The pleasure which attends the recognition of the subject is a legitimate element in our enjoyment of art. But the work should yield a delight beyond our original delight in the subject as it exists in nature. The significance of a work of representative art depends not upon the subject in and of itself, but upon what the artist has to say about it. A rose may be made to reveal the cosmos; a mountain range or cloud-swept spaces of the upper air may be niggled into meanness. The ugly in practical life may be transfigured by the artist's touch into supreme beauty. _"Il faut pouvoir faire servir le trivial à l'expression du sublime, c'est la vraie force,"_ said one who was able to invest a humble figure with august dignity. Millet's peasants reveal more of godlike majesty than all the array of personages in the pantheon of post-Raphaelite Italy and the classic school of France. Upon his subject the artist bases that harmony of relations which constitutes the beauty and significance of his work. Brought thus into a harmony, the object represented is made more vivid, more intensely itself, than it is in nature, with the result that we receive from the representation a heightened sense of reality and of extended personality. The importance of the subject, therefore, is measured by the opportunity it affords the artist, and with him his appreciators, to share in the beauty of nature and life. A picture should not "standout" from its frame, but should go back into it, reaching even into infinity. Our own associations attaching to the subject lose themselves as they blend with the artist's revelation of the fuller beauty of his object; and finally all becomes merged in the emotional experience. Eliminating the transient and accidental, a work of art presents the essential and eternal. Art appeals not to the intellect and the reason, but to the imagination and the emotions. The single work, therefore, is concrete and immediate. But universal in its scope, it transcends the particularities of limited place and individual name. We must distinguish between the abstractly typical and the universal. The representative artist does not conceive an abstraction and then seek to find a symbol for it. That is the method of allegory, where spring, for example, is figured as a young woman scattering flowers. Allegory is decorative rather than representative in intention. The artist receives his inspiration and stimulus from some actual concrete bit of nature, a woodland wrapt in tender mists of green, a meadow gold and softly white with blossoms, a shimmering gauze of sun touched air, moist and vibrating, enfolding it. That is what he paints. But he paints it so that it is spring, and instinct with the spirit of all springs. Michelangelo does not intellectually conceive youth and then carve a statue. Some boy has revealed to him the beauty of his young strength, and the sculptor moves to immediate expression. He calls his statue David, but the white form radiates the rhythm and glory of all youth. And as we realize youth in ourselves, more poignantly, more abundantly, the mere name of the boy does not matter. The fact that the portrait shows us Carlyle is an incident. Carlyle is the "subject" of the picture, but its meaning is the twilight of a mighty, indomitable mind, made visible and communicable. His work is done; the hour of quiet is given, and he finds rest. Into this moment, eternal in its significance, into this mood, universal in its appeal, we enter, to realize it in ourselves. The subject of picture or statue is but the means; the end is life. Objective fact is transmuted into living truth. Art is the manifestation of a higher reality than we alone have been able to know. It begins with the particular and then transcends it, admitting us to share in the beauty of the world, the cosmic harmony of universal experience. X THE PERSONAL ESTIMATE ART starts from life and in the end comes back to it. Art is born out of the stirring of the artist's spirit in response to his need of expression, and it reaches its fulfillment in the spirit of the appreciator as it answers his need of wider and deeper experience. Midway on its course from spirit to spirit it traverses devious paths. The emotion out of which art springs and of which it is the expression is controlled and directed by the shaping force of mind, and it embodies itself in material form. This material form, by virtue of its qualities, has the power to delight our senses; the skill which went into the fashioning of it, so far as we can recognize the processes of execution, gives us pleasure; the harmony which the work of art must manifest satisfies the mind and makes it possible for us to link the emotion with our own experience. These paths which a work of art traverses in its course from its origin to its fulfillment I have tried to follow in their ramifications, and I have tried to trace them to their issue in appreciation. Some lovers of art may linger on the way and rest content with the distance they have come, without pressing forward to the end. A work of art is complex in its appeal; and it is possible to stop with one or another of its elements. Thus we may receive the work intellectually, recognizing its subject, and turning the artist's emotion into our thought and translating it from his medium of color and form or sound into our own medium of words. Here is a portrait of Carlyle; and Carlyle we _know_ as an author and as a man. This landscape is from the Palisades, where we have roamed in leisure hours. Before us is a statue of Zeus, whom our classical reading has made a reality to us. This symphony gathers about a day in the country, suggesting an incident in our own experience of which we have pleasant remembrances. Intellectually, also, we enjoy the evidence of the artist's skill which the work exhibits. Or we may pass beyond the simple exercise of the intellect, and with a refinement of perception we may take a sensuous delight in the qualities of the material in which the work is embodied. This portrait is a subtle harmony of color and exquisite adjustment of line and mass. The luminous night which enwraps the Palisades is a solemn mighty chord. The white rhythm of this statue caresses the eye that follows it. This symphony is an intricate and wonderful wave-pattern upon a sea of billowing sound in which the listener immerses himself voluptuously. The essential significance of a work of art is not to be received apart from its form, but the form is more than merely sensuous in its appeal. Finally, therefore, the color and the composition of the portrait are but the point of meeting where we touch in energizing contact a powerful personality. Our spirit goes out into the night of these Palisades and dilates into immensity. This statue is Olympian majesty made visible, and in its presence we feel that we too are august. The symphony is a resolution of the struggle of our own tangled lives, a purification, and the experience of joy. Art is the expression of experience, whether the experience enacts itself within the spirit of the artist or derives from his contact with the external world. So by the same token, art is finally to be received as experience. The ultimate meaning of a work of art to the appreciator is what it wakens in him of emotion. It is the artist's business, by the manipulation of his materials and his elements, by the choice of motive and the rendering, by the note and pitch of his color, the ordering of his line, the disposition of his masses, to compel the direction of the emotion; he must not allow the solemnity and awe with which his night invests the Palisades to be mistaken by the beholder for terror or for mere obscurity. But the quality and the intensity of the emotion depend upon the temper of the appreciator's sensibilities and the depth and range of his experience of life. Art is not fixed and invariable in its effect. "Vanity Fair" is a great novel. One man may read it for the sake of the story, and in his amusement and interest in following the succession of incident, he may for a while forget himself. A possible use to put one's reading to; yet for that man the book is not art. Another may be entertained by the spectacle of the persons as they exhibit themselves in Thackeray's pages, much as he might stop a moment on the curbstone and watch a group of children at play in the street. Here he is a looker-on, holding himself aloof; and for him, again, the book is not art. Still a third may find in "Vanity Fair" a record of the customs and manners of English people at the beginning of the nineteenth century; and he adds this much to his stock of information. Still for him the book is not art. Not one of the three has touched in vital contact the essential meaning of "Vanity Fair." But the man who sees in the incidents of the book a situation possible in his own life, who identifies himself with the personages and acts out with them their adventures, who feels that he actually knows Rawdon Crawley and Becky Sharp, Jo Sedley, Dobbin, and Amelia, and understands their character and personality better here than in the actual world about him by force of Thackeray's greater insight and power of portraiture, who sees in English manners here represented the interpretation of his own surroundings, so that as a result of it all, his own experience becomes richer for his having lived out the life of the fictitious persons, his own acquaintances have revealed themselves more fully, his own life becomes more intelligible,--for him at last the book is a work of art. So any work may be a mirror which simply reflects the world as we know it; it may be a point of departure, from which tangentially we construct an experience of our own: it is truly art only in the degree that it is revelation. A work of art, therefore, is to be received by the individual appreciator as an added emotional experience. It appeals to him at all because in some way it relates itself to his own life; and its value to him is determined by the measure in which it carries him out into wider ranges of feeling. There are works whose absolute greatness he recognizes but yet which do not happen at the moment to find him. Constable comes to him as immensely satisfying; Turner, though an object of great intellectual interest, leaves him cold. He knows Velasquez to be supreme among painters, but he turns away to stand before Frans Hals, whose quick, sure strokes call such very human beings into actuality and rouse his spirit to the fullest response. Why is it that of two works of equal depth of insight into life, of equal scope of feeling, of the same excellence of technical accomplishment, one has an appeal and a message for him and not the other? What is the bridge of transition between the work and the spirit of the appreciator by which the subtle connection is established? It comes back to a matter of harmony. Experience presents itself to us in fragments; and in so far as the parts are scattering and unrelated, it is not easy for us to guess the purpose of our being here. But so soon as details, which by virtue of some selecting principle are related to one another, gather themselves into a whole, chaos is resolved into order, and this whole becomes significant, intelligible, and beautiful. Instinctively we are seeking, each in his own way, to bring the fragments of experience into order; and that order stands to each of us for what we are, for our individual personality, the self. We define thus our selecting principle, by which we receive some incidents of experience as related to our development and we reject others as not related to it. Thus the individual life achieves its integrity, its unity and significance. This, too, is the process of art. A landscape in nature is capable of a various, interpretation. By bringing its details into order and unity, the artist creates its beauty. His perception of the harmony which his imagination compels out of the landscape is attended with emotion, and the emotion flows outward to expression in a form which is itself harmonious. This form is a work of art. Art, therefore, is the harmonizing of experience. Appreciation is an act of fusion and identification. In spirit we _become_ the thing presented by the work of art and we merge with it in a larger unity. The individual harmony which a work of art manifests becomes significant to us as we can make it an harmonious part of our own experience and as it carries us in the direction of our development. But how to determine, each man for himself, what is the direction of our development? A life becomes significant to itself so soon as it is conscious of its purpose, and it becomes harmonious as it makes all the details of experience subserve that purpose. The purpose of the individual life, so far as we can guess it, seems to be that the life shall be as complete as possible, that it shall fulfill itself and provide through its offspring for its continuance. It is true that no life is isolated; as every atom throughout the universe is bound to every other atom by subtlest filaments of influence, so each human life stands related to all other lives. But the man best pays his debt of service to others who makes the most of that which is given him to work with; and that is his own personality. We must begin at the centre and work outwards. My concern is with my own justice. If I worry because my friend or another is not just, I not only do not make him more just, but I also fail of the highest justice I can achieve, which is my own. We must be true to ourselves. We help one another not by precept but by _being;_ and what we are communicates itself. As physical life propagates and thus continues itself, so personality is transmitted in unconscious innumerable ways. The step and carriage of the body, the glance of the eye, the work of our hands, our silences no less than our speech, all express what we are. As everything follows upon what we are, so our responsibility is to _be,_ to be ourselves completely, perfectly. A tender shoot pushes its way out of the soil into light and air, and with the years it grows into a tree. The tree bears fruit, which contains the seed of new manifestations of itself. The fruit falls to the ground and rots, providing thus the aliment for the seed out of which other trees are to spring. From seed to seed the life of the tree is a cycle, without beginning and without end. At no one point in the cycle can we say, Here is the purpose of the tree. Incidentally the tree may minister to the needs and comfort and pleasure of man. The tree delights him to look upon it; its branches shade him from the noonday sun; its trunk and limbs can be hewn down and turned to heat and shelter; its fruit is good to eat. The primary purpose of the fruit, however, is not to furnish food to man, but to provide the envelope for the transmission of its seed and the continuance of its own life. Seen in its cosmic bearing and scope, the purpose of the tree is to be a tree, as fit, as strong, as beautiful, as complete, as tree-like, as it can be. The leaf precedes the flower and may be thought on that account to be inferior to it in the scale of development. If a leaf pines and withers in regret that it is not a flower, it not only does not become a flower, but it fails of being a good leaf. Everything in its place and after its own kind. In so far as it is perfectly itself, a leaf, a blossom, a tree, a man, does it contribute to the well-being of others. Man has subdued all things under his feet and turned them to his own uses. By force of mind he is the strongest creature, but it is not to be inferred that he is therefore the aim and end of all creation. Like everything else, he has his place; like everything else he has the right to live his own life, triumphing over the weaker and in his turn going down before a mightier when the mightier shall come; like everything else he is but a part in the universal whole. Only a part; but as we recognize our relation to other parts and through them our connection with the whole, our sense of the value of the individual life becomes infinitely extended. We must get into the rhythm, keeping step with the beat of the universal life and finding there our place, our destiny, the meaning of our being here, and joy. The goods which men set before themselves as an end are but by-products after all. If we pursue happiness we overtake it not. If we do what our hands find to do, devotedly and with our might, then, some day, if we happen to stop and make question of it, we discover that happiness is already there, in us, with us, and around us. The aim of a man's life in the world, as it would seem, is to be perfectly a man, and his end is to fulfill himself; as part of this fulfillment of himself, he provides for the continuance of his life in other lives, and transmitting his character and influence, he enriches other lives because of what he is. The purpose of seeing is that we may see more, and the eye is ever striving to increase its power; the health of the eye is growth. The purpose of life is more life, individual in the measure that it lies within a man's power to develop it, but cosmic in its sources and its influence. As the harmony which a work of art presents finds a place in that harmony of experience and outward-reaching desire which constitutes our personality, art becomes for us an entrance into more life. In the large, art is a means of development. But as any work embraces diverse elements and is capable of a various appeal, it may be asked in what sense the appreciation of art is related to education and culture. Before we can answer the question intelligently, we must know what we mean by our terms. By many people education is regarded as they regard any material possession, to be classed with fashionable clothes, a fine house, a carriage and pair, or touring-car, or steam yacht, as the credential and card of entrée to what is called good society. Culture is a kind of ornamental furniture, maintained to impress visitors. Of course we ourselves do not think so, but we know people who do. Nor do we believe--as some believe--that education is simply a means of gaining a more considerable livelihood. It is pathetic to see young men in college struggling in desperate, uncomplaining sacrifice to obtain an education, and all the while mistaking the end of their effort. Not all the deeds of daring in a university course are enacted on the athletic field; the men I am thinking of do not have their pictures published in the newspapers,--the unrecorded heroisms of college life are very moving to those who know. But the tragedy I have in mind is this--for tragedy consists not in sacrifice itself but in needless and futile sacrifice--that some of these young men suppose _there_ is a magic virtue in education for its own sake, that it is the open-sesame to all the wealth and beauty of life. With insufficient ability to start with, they are preparing to be unfit professional men, when they might be excellent artisans. The knowledge of books is in no sense the whole story nor the only means of education. In devotion to some craft or in the intelligent conduct of some business they might find the true education, which is the conscious discipline of one's powers. The man who can do things, whether with his hands or with his brain, provided intelligence govern the exercise of hand and brain, and who finds happiness in his work because it is the expression of himself, is an educated man. The end of education is the building of personality, the making of human power, and its fruit is wisdom. Wisdom, however, does not consist in the most extensive knowledge of facts. Oftentimes information overweights a man and snuffs out what personal force there might otherwise have been. On the futility of mere learning there is abundant testimony. Walt Whitman, as we might expect from his passion for the vital and the human, has said: "You must not know too much and be too precise and scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft. A certain free margin, perhaps ignorance, credulity, helps your enjoyment of these things and of the sentiment of feather'd, wooded, river or marine nature generally. I repeat it--don't want to know too exactly or the reasons why." Even Ruskin, whose learning was extensive and various, bears witness to the same effect. He notes "the diminution which my knowledge of the Alps had made in my impression of them, and the way in which investigation of strata and structure reduces all mountain sublimity to mere debris and wall-building." In the same spirit he planned an essay on the Uses of Ignorance. From the midst of his labors in Venice he wrote: "I am sure that people who work out subjects thoroughly are disagreeable wretches. One only feels as one should when one doesn't know much about the matter." In other words, we are not to let our knowledge come between us and our power to feel. In thus seeming to assail education I am not seeking to subvert or destroy; I want simply to adjust the emphasis. The really wise man is he who knows how to make life yield him its utmost of true satisfaction and furnish him the largest scope for the use of his powers and the expression of himself. In this sense a newsboy in the streets may be wiser than a university professor, in that one may be the master of his life and the other may be the servant of his information. Education should have for its end the training of capacities and powers, the discipline and control of the intelligence, the quickening of the sympathies, the development of the ability to live. No man is superior to his fellows because of the fact of his education. His education profits him only in so far as it makes him more of a man, more responsive because his own emotions have been more deeply stirred, more tolerant because his wider range has revealed more that is good, more generous to give of his own life and service because he has more generously received. It is not what we know nor what we have that marks our worth, but what we are. No man, however fortunate and well-circumstanced he may be, can afford to thank God that he is not as other men are. In so far as his education tends to withdraw him from life and from contact with his fellows of whatever station, in so far as it fosters in him the consciousness of class, so far it is an evil. Education should lead us not to judge lives different from our own, but to try to understand and, to appreciate. The educated man, above all others, should thank God that there are diversity of gifts and so many kinds of good. Art is a means of culture, but art rightly understood and received. Art does not aim to teach. It may teach incidentally, tangentially to its circle, but instruction, either intellectual or ethical, is not its purpose. It fulfills itself in the spirit of the appreciator as it enables him in its presence to become something that otherwise he had not been. It is not enough to be told things; we must make trial of them and live them out in our own experience before they become true for us. As appreciation is not knowledge but feeling, so we must live our art. It is well to have near us some work that we want to be _like._ We get its fullest message only as we identify ourselves with it. If we are willing to be thought ignorant and to live our lives as seems good to us, I believe it is better to go the whole way with a few things that can minister to us abundantly and so come to the end of them, than to touch in superficial contact a great many lesser works. The lesser works have their place; and so far as they can carry us beyond the point where we are, they can serve us. In a hurried touch-and-go, however, there is danger of scattering; whereas true appreciation takes time, for it is less an act than a whole attitude of mind. This is an age of handbooks and short cuts. But there is no substitute for life. If for one reason or another the opportunity to realize art in terms of life is not accorded us, it is better to accept the situation quite frankly and happily, and not try to cheat ourselves with the semblance. But if it is indeed the reality, then we maybe content with the minutes of experience, though we are denied the hours or the years. "The messages of great poems," says Whitman, "to each man and woman are, Come to us on equal terms; only then can you understand us." The power of response must be in us, and that power is the fruit of experience. The only mystery of art is the mystery of all life itself. In nature the artist finds the manifestation of a larger self toward which he aspires, and this is what his work expresses. Alone with his spirit, he cries to us for that intimate mystic companionship which is appreciation, and our response gives back the echo of his cry. He reaches out across the distance to touch other and kindred spirits and draw them to himself. Says the poet,-- "Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I, Therefore for thee the following chants." We appreciate the artist's work as in it we live again and doubly. Thus art links itself with life. The message of art to the individual defines itself according to his individual needs. Life rises with each man, to him a new opportunity and a new destiny. We create our own world; and life means to us what we are in ourselves. In art we are seeking to find ourselves expressed more fully. The works that we care for, if we consider it a moment, are the works we understand; and we understand them because they phrase for us our own experience. Life and the truth of life are relative. Truth is not in the object but in our relation to it. What is true for me may or may not be true for another. This much is true for me, namely, whatever tallies with my experience and reveals to me more of the underlying purpose of the universe. We are all, each in his own way, seeking the meaning of life; and that meaning is special and personal to the individual, each man deciding for himself. By selection here, by rejection there, we are trying to work toward harmony. The details of life become increasingly complex with the years, but living grows simpler because we gradually fix a selecting and unifying principle. When we have truly found ourselves, we come to feel that the external incidents do not signify; which chance happens, whether this or that, is indifferent. It is the spirit in which the life is lived that determines its quality and value. The perception of purpose in the parts brings them into order and gives them meaning. A man's life is an expanding circle, the circumference of which is drawn around an order or interplay and adjustment of part with part. Whatever lies without the circle does not pertain to the individual--as yet. So soon as any experience reveals its meaning to us and we feel that it takes its place in our life, then it belongs to us. Whatever serves to bring details, before scattering and unrelated, into order, is for that moment true. Art has a message for us as it tallies with what we already know about life; and, quickening our perceptions, disclosing depths of feeling, it carries us into new ranges of experience. In this attitude toward life lies the justice of the personal estimate. The individual is finally his own authority. To find truth we return upon our own consciousness, and we seek thus to define our "original relation" to the universal order. So as one stands before the works of the Italian painters and sculptors, for example, in the endeavor rightly to appreciate what they have achieved, one may ask: How much of life has this artist to express to me, of life as I know it or can know it? Has the painter through these forms, however crude or however accomplished, uttered what he genuinely and for himself thought and felt? The measure of these pictures for me is the degree of reality, of vital feeling, which they transmit. Whether it be spring or divine maternity or the beauty of a pagan idea, which Botticelli renders, the same power is there, the same sense of gracious life. Whether it be Credi's naïve womanhood, or Titian's abounding, glorious women and calm and forceful men, or Delia Robbia's joyous children and Donatello's sprites, the same great meaning is expressed, the same appreciation of the goodness and beauty of all life. This beauty is for me, here, to-day. In the experience of a man who thinks and feels, there is a time when his imagination turns toward the past. At the moment, as the world closes in about him, his spirit, dulled by the attrition of daily use and wont, is unable to discern the beauty and significance of the present life around him. For a time his imagination finds abundant nourishment in the mighty past. Many spirits are content there to remain. But life is of the present. To live greatly is to live now, inspired by the past, corrected and encouraged by it, impelled by "forward-looking thoughts'" and providing for the future, but living in to-day. Life is neither remembrance nor anticipation, neither regret nor deferment, but present realization. Often one feels in a gallery that the people are more significant than the pictures. Two lovers furtively holding hands and stopping before a canvas to press closer together, shoulder to shoulder; a young girl erect and firm, conscious of her young womanhood and rejoicing in it, radiating youth and life; an old man, whose years are behind him yet whose interest reveals his eager welcome of new experience, unconsciously rebuking the jaded and indifferent: here is reality. Before it the pictures seem to recede and become dimmed. Our appreciation of these things makes the significance of it all. Only in so far as art can communicate this sensation, this same impression of the beauty and present reality of life, has it a meaning for us. The painter must have registered his appreciation of immediate reality and must impart that to us until it becomes, heightened and intensified, our own. The secret of successful living lies in compelling the details of our surroundings to our own ends. Michelangelo lived his life; Leonardo lived his; neither could be the other. A man must paint the life that he knows, the experience into which he enters. So we must live our lives immediately and newly. We have penetrated the ultimate mystery of art when we realize the inseparable oneness of art with life. Art is a call to fuller living. Its real service is to increase our capacity for experience. The pictures, the music, the books, which profit us are those which, when we have done with them, make us feel that we have lived by just so much. Often we purchase experience with enthusiasm; we become wise at the expense of our power to enjoy. What we need in relation to art is not more knowledge but greater capability of feeling, not the acquisition of more facts but the increased power to interpret facts and to apply them to life. In appreciation it is not what we know about a work of art, it is not even what we actually see before us, that constitutes its significance, but what in its presence we are able to feel. The paradox that nature imitates art has in it this much of truth, that art is the revelation of the possibilities of life, and we try to make these possibilities actual in our own experience. Art is not an escape from life and a refuge; it is a challenge and reënforcement. Its action is not to make us less conscious but more; in it we are not to lose ourselves but to find ourselves more truly and more fully. Its effect is to help us to a larger and juster appreciation of the beauty and worth of nature and of life. Art is within the range of every man who holds himself open to its appeal. But art is not the final thing. It is a means to an end; its end is personality. There are exalted moments in the experience of us all which we feel to be finer than any art. Then we do not need to turn to painting, music, literature, for our satisfaction. We are living. Art is aid and inspiration, but its fulfillment and end is life. "We live," says Wordsworth, "by admiration, hope, and love." Admiration is wonder and worship, a sense of the mystery and the beauty of life as we know it now, and thankfulness for it, and joy. Hope is the vision of things to be. And love is the supreme enfolding unity that makes all one. Art is life at its best, but life is the greatest of the arts,--life harmonious, deep in feeling, big in sympathy, the life that is appreciation, responsiveness, and love. 
28072	----	A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALDÆA & ASSYRIA FROM THE FRENCH OF GEORGES PERROT, PROFESSOR IN THE FACULTY OF LETTERS, PARIS; MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE, AND CHARLES CHIPIEZ. ILLUSTRATED WITH FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY-TWO ENGRAVINGS IN THE TEXT AND FIFTEEN STEEL AND COLOURED PLATES. _IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. I._ TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY WALTER ARMSTRONG, B.A., Oxon., AUTHOR OF "ALFRED STEVENS," ETC. [Illustration] London: CHAPMAN AND HALL, Limited. New York: A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON. 1884. London: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, BREAD STREET HILL. PREFACE. In face of the cordial reception given to the first two volumes of MM. Perrot and Chipiez's History of Ancient Art, any words of introduction from me to this second instalment would be presumptuous. On my own part, however, I may be allowed to express my gratitude for the approval vouchsafed to my humble share in the introduction of the History of Art in Ancient Egypt to a new public, and to hope that nothing may be found in the following pages to change that approval into blame. W. A. _October 10, 1883._ CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CHALDÆO-ASSYRIAN CIVILIZATION. PAGE § 1. Situation and Boundaries of Chaldæa and Assyria 1-8 § 2. Nature in the Basin of the Euphrates and Tigris 8-13 § 3. The Primitive Elements of the Population 13-21 § 4. The Wedges 21-33 § 5. The History of Chaldæa and Assyria 33-55 § 6. The Chaldæan Religion 55-89 § 7. The People and Government 89-113 CHAPTER II. THE PRINCIPLES AND GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CHALDÆO-ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE. § 1. Materials 114-126 § 2. The General Principles of Form 126-146 § 3. Construction 146-200 § 4. The Column 200-221 § 5. The Arch 221-236 § 6. Secondary Forms 236-260 § 7. Decoration 260-311 § 8. On the Orientation of Buildings and Foundation Ceremonies 311-322 § 9. Mechanical Resources 322-326 § 10. On the Graphic Processes Employed in the Representations of Buildings 327-334 CHAPTER III. FUNERARY ARCHITECTURE. § 1. Chaldæan and Assyrian Notions as to a Future Life 335-355 § 2. The Chaldæan Tomb 355-363 CHAPTER IV. RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE. § 1. Attempts to Restore the Principal Types 364-382 § 2. Ruins of Staged Towers 382-391 § 3. Subordinate Types of the Temple 391-398 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PLATES. I. Babil _To face page_ 154 II. Rectangular Chaldæan temple 370 III. Square double-ramped Chaldæan temple 378 IV. Square Assyrian temple 380 FIG. PAGE 1. Brick from Erech 24 2. Fragment of an inscription engraved upon the back of a statue from Tello 25 3. Seal of Ourkam 38 4. Genius in the attitude of adoration 42 5. Assurbanipal at the chase 45 6. Demons 61 7. Demons 62 8. Eagle-headed divinity 63 9. Anou or Dagon 64 10. Stone of Merodach-Baladan I 73 11. Assyrian cylinder 74 12. Assyrian cylinder 74 13. Gods carried in procession 75 14. Gods carried in procession 76 15. Statue of Nebo 81 16. Terra-cotta statuette 83 17. A Chaldæan cylinder 84 18. The winged globe 87 19. The winged globe with human figure 87 20. Chaldæan cylinder 95 21. Chaldæan cylinder 95 22. The King Sargon and his Grand Vizier 97 23. The suite of Sargon 99 24. The suite of Sargon 101 25. Fragment of a bas-relief in alabaster 105 26. Bas-relief of Tiglath Pileser II 106 27. Feast of Assurbanipal 107 28. Feast of Assurbanipal 108 29. Offerings to a god 109 30. Convoy of prisoners 111 31. Convoy of prisoners 112 32. Babylonian brick 118 33. Brick from Khorsabad 119 34. Temple 128 35. Tell-Ede, in Lower Chaldæa 129 36. Haman, in Lower Chaldæa 131 37. Babil, at Babylon 135 38. A fortress 138 39. View of a town and its palaces 140 40. House in Kurdistan 141 41. Temple on the bank of a river, Khorsabad 142 42. Temple in a royal park, Kouyundjik 143 43. View of a group of buildings, Kouyundjik 145 44. Plan of angle, Khorsabad 147 45. Section of wall through AB in Fig. 44 147 46. Elevation of wall, Khorsabad 148 47. Section in perspective through the south-western part of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad 149 48. Temple at Mugheir 154 49. Upper part of the drainage arrangements of a mound 159 50. Present state of one of the city gates, Khorsabad 161 51. Fortress; from the Balawat gates, in the British Museum 164 52. The palace at Firouz-Abad 170 53. The palace at Sarbistan 170 54. Section through the palace at Sarbistan 171 55. Restoration of a hall in the harem at Khorsabad 174 56. Royal tent, Kouyundjik 175 57. Tent, Kouyundjik 175 58. Interior of a Yezidi house 178 59. Fortress 180 60. Crude brick construction 181 61. Armenian "lantern" 183 62-65. Terra-cotta cylinders in elevation, section and plan 184 66. Outside staircases in the ruins of Abou-Sharein 191 67. Interior of the royal tent 193 68. Tabernacle; from the Balawat gates 194 69. The seal of Sennacherib 196 70. Type of open architecture in Assyria 197 71. Homage to _Samas_ or _Shamas_ 203 72. Sheath of a cedar-wood mast, bronze 205 73. Interior of a house supported by wooden pillars; from the gates of Balawat 206 74. Assyrian capital, in perspective 207 75. Capital; from a small temple 209 76. View of a palace 210 77. Capital; from a small temple 212 78. Capital 212 79. Chaldæan tabernacle 212 80. Ivory plaque found at Nimroud 212 81. The _Tree of Life_ 213 82. Ornamental base, in limestone 214 83. Model of a base, side view 215 84. The same, seen from in front 215 85. Winged Sphinx carrying the base of a column 216 86. Façade of an Assyrian building 216 87, 88. Bases of columns 217 89. Tomb-chamber at Mugheir 222 90. Interior of a chamber in the harem of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad 225 91. Return round the angle of an archivolt in one of the gates of Dour-Saryoukin 227 92. Drain at Khorsabad, with pointed arch 229 93. Sewer at Khorsabad, with semicircular vault 232 94. Sewer at Khorsabad, with elliptical vault 233 95. Decorated lintel 238 96. Sill of a door, from Khorsabad 240 97. Bronze foot, from the Balawat gates, and its socket 243 98, 99. Assyrian mouldings. Section and elevation 245 100. Façade of a ruined building at Warka 246 101. Decoration of one of the harem gates, at Khorsabad 247 102. View of an angle of the _Observatory_ at Khorsabad 249 103. Lateral façade of the palace at Firouz-Abad 251 104. Battlements from an Assyrian palace 251 105. Battlements from the Khorsabad _Observatory_ 252 106. Battlements of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad 255 107. Altar 255 108. Altar in the Louvre 256 109. Altar in the British Museum 257 110. Stele from Khorsabad 258 111. The obelisk of Shalmaneser II. in the British Museum 258 112. Rock-cut stele from Kouyundjik 259 113. Fragment from Babylon 263 114. Human-headed lion 267 115. Bas-relief with several registers 269 116. Ornament painted upon plaster 275 117. Ornament painted upon plaster 275 118. Ornament painted upon plaster 276 119. Plan and elevation of part of a façade at Warka 278 120. Cone with coloured base 279 121, 122. Rosettes in glazed pottery 290 123. Detail of enamelled archivolt 291 124. Detail of enamelled archivolt 292 125. Enamelled brick in the British Museum 293 126. Ornament upon enamelled brick 294 127. Fragment of a glazed brick 295 128. Fragment of a glazed brick 297 129. Ivory tablet in the British Museum 301 130. Fragment of an ivory tablet 301 131. Threshold from Kouyundjik 303 132. Rosette 304 133. Bouquet of flowers and buds 305 134. Painted border 306 135. Fragment of a threshold 306 136. Door ornament 307 137. Palmette 308 138. Goats and palmette 308 139. Winged bulls and palmette 309 140. Stag upon a palmette 310 141. Winged bull upon a rosette 311 142. Stag, palmette, and rosette 311 143. Plan of a temple at Mugheir 312 144. Plan of the town and palace of Sargon at Khorsabad 313 145. General plan of the remains at Nimroud 314 146. Bronze statuette 316 147. Bronze statuette 317 148. Bronze statuette 318 149. Terra-cotta cone 319 150. Terra-cotta cylinder 320 151. The transport of a bull 324 152. Putting a bull in place 326 153. Chaldæan plan 327 154. Assyrian plan; from the Balawat gates in the British Museum 329 155. Plan and section of a fortress 329 156. Plan, section, and elevation of a fortified city 330 157. Plan and elevation of a fortified city 331 158. Fortress with its defenders 333 159, 160. Vases 342 161. Plaque of chiselled bronze. Obverse 350 162. Plaque of chiselled bronze. Reverse 351 163. Tomb at Mugheir 357 164. Tomb at Mugheir 358 165. Tomb at Mugheir 358 166. Tomb, or coffin, at Mugheir 359 167. Map of the ruins of Mugheir 362 168. View of the Birs-Nimroud 367 169-171. Longitudinal section, plan, and horizontal section of the rectangular type of Chaldæan temple 370 172. Map of Warka, with its ruins 371 173. Type of square, single-ramped Chaldæan temple 375 174-176. Transverse section, plan, and horizontal section of a square, single-ramped, Chaldæan temple 377 177-179. Transverse section, plan, and horizontal section of a square, double-ramped Chaldæan temple 378 180-182. Square Assyrian temple. Longitudinal section, horizontal section, and plan 380 183. Map of the ruins of Babylon 383 184. Actual condition of the so-called _Observatory_, at Khorsabad 387 185. The _Observatory_, restored. Elevation 388 186. The _Observatory_, restored. Plan 389 187. The _Observatory_. Transverse section through A B 390 188. Plan of a small temple at Nimroud 393 189. Plan of a small temple at Nimroud 393 190. Temple with triangular pediment 394 TAIL-PIECES, &c. Lion's head, gold (French National Library) _Title-page_ Lion's head, glazed earthenware (Louvre) 113 Two rabbits' heads, ivory (Louvre) 334 Cow's head, ivory (British Museum) 363 Eagle, from a bas-relief (British Museum) 398 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALDÆA AND ASSYRIA CHAPTER I. THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CHALDÆO-ASSYRIAN CIVILIZATION. § 1.--_Situation and Boundaries of Chaldæa and Assyria._ The primitive civilization of Chaldæa, like that of Egypt, was cradled in the lower districts of a great alluvial basin, in which the soil was stolen from the sea by long continued deposits of river mud. In the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, as in that of the Nile, it was in the great plains near the ocean that the inhabitants first emerged from barbarism and organized a civil life. As the ages passed away, this culture slowly mounted the streams, and, as Memphis was older by many centuries than Thebes, in dignity if not in actual existence, so Ur and Larsam were older than Babylon, and Babylon than Nineveh. The manners and beliefs, the arts and the written characters of Egypt were carried into the farthest recesses of Ethiopia, partly by commerce but still more by military invasion; so too Chaldaic civilization made itself felt at vast distances from its birthplace, even in the cold valleys and snowy plateaux of Armenia, in districts which are separated by ten degrees of latitude from the burning shores where the fish god Oannes showed himself to the rude fathers of the race, and taught them "such things as contribute to the softening of life."[1] In Egypt progressive development took place from north to south, while in Chaldæa its direction was reversed. The apparent contrast is, however, but a resemblance the more. The orientation, if such a term may be used, of the two basins, is in opposite directions, but in each the spread of religion with its rites and symbols, of written characters with their adaptation to different languages, and of all those arts and processes which, when taken together, make up what we call civilization, advanced from the seaboard to the river springs. In these two countries the conscience of man seems to have been first awakened to his innate power of bettering his own condition by well directed observation, by the elaboration of laws, and by forethought for the future. Between Egypt on the one hand, and Chaldæa with that Assyria which was no more than its offshoot and prolongation, on the other, there are strong analogies, as will be clearly seen in the course of our study, but there are also differences that are not less appreciable. Professor Rawlinson shows this very clearly in a page of descriptive geography which he will allow us to quote as it stands. It will not be the last of our borrowings from his excellent work, _The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World_, a book that has done so much to popularize the discoveries of modern scholars.[2] "The broad belt of desert which traverses the eastern hemisphere, in a general direction from west to east (or, speaking more exactly, of W.S.W. to N.E.E.) reaching from the Atlantic on the one hand nearly to the Yellow Sea on the other, is interrupted about its centre by a strip of rich vegetation, which at once breaks the continuity of the arid region, and serves also to mark the point where the desert changes its character from that of a plain at a low level to that of an elevated plateau or table-land. West of the favoured district, the Arabian and African wastes are seas of land seldom raised much above, often sinking below the level of the ocean; while east of the same, in Persia, Kerman, Seistan, Chinese Tartary, and Mongolia, the desert consists of a series of plateaux, having from 3,000 to nearly 10,000 feet of elevation. The green and fertile region which is thus interposed between the 'highland' and 'lowland' deserts,[3] participates, curiously enough, in both characters. Where the belt of sand is intersected by the valley of the Nile, no marked change of elevation occurs; and the continuous low desert is merely interrupted by a few miles of green and cultivable surface, the whole of which is just as smooth and as flat as the waste on either side of it. But it is otherwise at the more eastern interruption. Then the verdant and productive country divides itself into two tracts, running parallel to each other, of which the western presents features, not unlike those that characterize the Nile valley, but on a far larger scale; while the eastern is a lofty mountain region, consisting for the most part of five or six parallel ranges, and mounting in many places far above the level of perpetual snow. "It is with the western or plain tract that we are here concerned. Between the outer limits of the Syro-Arabian desert and the foot of the great mountain range of Kurdistan and Luristan intervenes a territory long famous in the world's history, and the chief site of three out of the five empires of whose history, geography, and antiquities, it is proposed to treat in the present volumes. Known to the Jews as Aram-Naharaim, or 'Syria of the two rivers'; to the Greeks and Romans as Mesopotamia, or 'the between-river country'; to the Arabs as Al-Jezireh, or 'the island,' this district has always taken its name from the streams which constitute its most striking feature, and to which, in fact, it owes its existence. If it were not for the two great rivers--the Tigris and Euphrates--with their tributaries, the more northern part of the Mesopotamian lowland would in no respect differ from the Syro-Arabian desert on which it adjoins, and which, in latitude, elevation, and general geological character, it exactly resembles. Towards the south the importance of the rivers is still greater; for of Lower Mesopotamia it may be said, with more truth than of Egypt,[4] that it is 'an acquired land,' the actual 'gift' of the two streams which wash it on either side; being as it is, entirely a recent formation--a deposit which the streams have made in the shallow waters of a gulf into which they have flowed for many ages.[5] "The division, which has here forced itself upon our notice, between the Upper and the Lower Mesopotamian country, is one very necessary to engage our attention in connection with ancient Chaldæa. There is no reason to think that the term Chaldæa had at any time the extensive signification of Mesopotamia, much less that it applied to the entire flat country between the desert and the mountains. Chaldæa was not the whole, but a part, of the great Mesopotamian plain; which was ample enough to contain within it three or four considerable monarchies. According to the combined testimony of geographers and historians,[6] Chaldæa lay towards the south, for it bordered upon the Persian Gulf, and towards the west, for it adjoined Arabia. If we are called upon to fix more accurately its boundaries, which, like those of most countries without strong natural frontiers, suffered many fluctuations, we are perhaps entitled to say that the Persian Gulf on the south, the Tigris on the east, the Arabian desert on the west, and the limit between Upper and Lower Mesopotamia on the north, formed the natural bounds, which were never greatly exceeded, and never much infringed upon. These boundaries are for the most part tolerably clear, though the northern only is invariable. Natural causes, hereafter to be mentioned more particularly, are perpetually varying the course of the Tigris, the shore of the Persian Gulf and the line of demarcation between the sands of Arabia and the verdure of the Euphrates valley. But nature has set a permanent mark, half way down the Mesopotamian lowland, by a difference of a geological structure, which is very conspicuous. Near Hit on the Euphrates, and a little below Samarah on the Tigris,[7] the traveller who descends the streams, bids adieu to a somewhat waving and slightly elevated plain of secondary formation, and enters on the dead flat and low level of the new alluvium. The line thus formed is marked and invariable; it constitutes the only natural division between the upper and lower portions of the valley; and both probability and history point to it as the actual boundary between Chaldæa and her northern neighbour."[8] Whether the two States had independent and separate life, or whether, as in after years, one of the two had, by its political and military superiority reduced the other to the condition of a vassal, the line of demarcation was constant, a line traced in the first instance by nature and rendered more rigid and ineffaceable by historical developments. Even when Chaldæa became nominally a mere province of Assyria, the two nationalities remained distinct. Chaldæa was older than Assyria. The centres of her civil life were the cities built upon the alluvial lands between the thirty-first and thirty-third degree of latitude. The most famous of these cities was Babylon. Those whom we call Assyrians, a people who rose to power and glory at a much more recent date, drew the seeds of their civilization from their more precocious neighbour. These expressions, Assyria and Chaldæa, are now employed in a sense far more precise than they ever had in antiquity. For Herodotus Babylonia was a mere district of Assyria;[9] in his time both States were comprised in the Persian Empire, and had no distinct existence of their own. Pliny calls the whole of Mesopotamia Assyria.[10] Strabo carries the western frontier of Assyria as far as Syria.[11] To us these variations are of small importance. The geographical and historical nomenclature of the ancients was never clearly defined. It was always more or less of a floating quantity, especially for those countries which to Herodotus or Diodorus, to Pliny or to Tacitus, were dimly perceptible on the extreme limits of their horizon. It would, however, be easy to show that in assigning a more definite value to the terms in question--a proceeding in which we have the countenance of nearly every modern historian--we do not detach them from their original acceptation; at most we give them more constancy and precision than the colloquial language of the Greeks and Romans demanded.[12] The expressions _Khasdim_ and _Chaldæi_ were used in the Bible and by classic authors mainly to denote the inhabitants of Babylon and its neighbourhood; and we find Strabo attaching with precision the name _Aturia_, which is nothing but a variant upon Assyria, to that district watered and bounded by the Tigris in which Nineveh was situated.[13] Our only aim is to adopt, once for all, such terms as may be easily understood by our readers, and may render all confusion impossible between the two kingdoms, between the people of the north and those of the south. In order to define Assyria exactly we should have to determine its frontiers, and that we can only do approximately. As the nation grew its territory extended in certain directions. To the east, however, where the formidable rampart of the Zagros forbade all progress, no such extension took place. Those lofty and precipitous chains which we now call the mountains of Kurdistan, were only to be crossed in two or three places, and by passes which during their few months of freedom from snow and floods gave access to the high-lying plains of Media. These narrow defiles might well be traversed by an army in a summer campaign, but neither dwellings nor cultivated lands could invade such a district with success; at most they could take possession of the few spots of fertile soil which lay at the mouth of the lateral valleys; such, for example, was the plain of Arbeles which was watered by the great Zab before its junction with the Tigris. Towards the south there was no natural barrier, but in that direction all development was hindered by the density of the Chaldee population which was thickly spread over the country above Babylon and about the numerous towns and villages which looked towards that city as their capital. To the north, on the other hand, the wide terraces which mounted like steps from the plains of Mesopotamia to the mountains of Armenia offered an ample field for expansion. To the west there was still more room. Little by little rural and urban life overflowed the valley of the Tigris into that of the Chaboras or Khabour, the principal affluent of the Euphrates, until at last it reached the banks of the great western river itself. In all Northern Mesopotamia, between the hills of the Sinjar and the last slopes of Mount Masius, the Assyrians encountered only nomad tribes whom they could drive when they chose into the Syrian desert. Over all that region the remains of artificial mounds have been found which must at one time have been the sites of palaces and cities. In some cases the gullies cut in their flanks by the rain discover broken walls and fragments of sculpture whose style is that of the Ninevitish monuments.[14] In the course of their victorious career the Assyrians annexed several other states, such as Syria and Chaldæa, Cappadocia and Armenia, but those countries were never more than external dependencies, than conquered provinces. Taking Assyria proper at its greatest development, we may say that it comprised Northern Mesopotamia and the territories which faced it from the other bank of the Tigris and lay between the stream and the lower slopes of the mountains. The heart of the country was the district lying along both sides of the river between the thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh degree of latitude, and the forty-first and forty-second degree of longitude, east. The three or four cities which rose successively to be capitals of Assyria were all in that region, and are now represented by the ruins of Khorsabad, of Kouyundjik with Nebbi-Younas, of Nimroud, and of Kaleh-Shergat. One of these places corresponds to _Ninos_, as the Greeks call it, or Nineveh, the famous city which classic writers as well as Jewish prophets looked upon as the centre of Assyrian history. To give some idea of the relative dimensions of these two states Rawlinson compares the surface of Assyria to that of Great Britain, while that of Chaldæa must, he says, have been equal in extent to the kingdom of Denmark.[15] This latter comparison seems below the mark, when, compass in hand, we attempt to verify it upon a modern map. The discrepancy is caused by the continual encroachments upon the sea made by the alluvial deposits from the two great rivers. Careful observations and calculations have shown that the coast line must have been from forty to forty-five leagues farther north than it is at present when the ancestors of the Chaldees first appeared upon the scene.[16] Instead of flowing together as they do now to form what is called the _Shat-el-Arab_, the Tigris and Euphrates then fell into the sea at points some twenty leagues apart in a gulf which extended eastwards as far as the last spurs thrown out by the mountains of Iran, and westwards to the foot of the sandy heights which terminate the plateau of Arabia. "The whole lower part of the valley has thus been made, since the commencement of the present geological period, by deposits from the Tigris, the Euphrates, and such minor streams as the Adhem, the Gyndes, the Choaspes, streams which, after having long enjoyed an independent existence and having contributed to drive back the waters into which they fell, have ended by becoming mere feeders of the Tigris."[17] We see, therefore, that when Chaldæa received its first inhabitants it was sensibly smaller than it is to-day, as the district of which Bassorah is now the capital and the whole delta of the Shat-el-Arab were not yet in existence. NOTES: [1] BEROSUS, fragment No. 1, in the _Essai de Commentaire sur les Fragments cosmogoniques de Bérose d'après les Textes cunéiformes et les Monuments de l'Art Asiatique_ of FRANÇOIS LENORMANT (Maisonneuve, 1871, 8vo.). [2] _The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World; or, The History, Geography, and Antiquities of Chaldæa, Assyria, Babylon, Media, and Persia. Collected and Illustrated from Ancient and Modern Sources_, by GEORGE RAWLINSON. Fourth edition, 3 vols., 8vo., with Maps and Illustrations (Murray, 1879). [3] HUMBOLDT, _Aspects of Nature_, vol. i. pp. 77, 78.--R. [4] HERODOTUS, ii. 5. [5] LOFTUS'S _Chaldæa and Susiana_, p. 282.--R. [6] See STRABO, xvi. 1, § 6; PLINY, H.N. vi. 28; PTOLEMY, v. 20; BEROSUS, pp. 28, 29.--R. [7] Ross came to the end of the alluvium and the commencement of the secondary formation in lat. 34°, long. 44° (_Journal of Geographical Society_, vol. ix. p. 446). Similarly, Captain Lynch found the bed of the Tigris change from pebbles to mere alluvium near Khan Iholigch, a little above its confluence with the Aahun (_Ib._ p. 472). For the point where the Euphrates enters on the alluvium, see Fraser's _Assyria and Mesopotamia_, p. 27.--R. [8] RAWLINSON. _The Five Great Monarchies_, &c., vol. i., pp. 1-4. As to the name and boundaries of Chaldæa, see also GUIGNAUT, _La Chaldée et les Chaldéens_, in the _Encyclopédie Moderne_, vol. viii. [9] HERODOTUS, i. 106, 192; iii. 92. [10] PLINY, _Nat. Hist._ vi. 26. [11] STRABO, xvi. i. § 1. [12] _Genesis_ xi. 28 and 31; _Isaiah_ xlvii. 1; xiii. 19, &c.; DIODORUS ii. 17; PLINY, _Nat. Hist._ vi. 26; the Greek translators of the Bible rendered the Hebrew term Khasdim by Chaldaioi; both forms seem to be derived from the same primitive word. [13] STRABO, xvi. i. 1, 2, 3. [14] LAYARD, _Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. i. pp. 312, 315; _Discoveries_, p. 245. [15] RAWLINSON, _Five Great Monarchies_, vol. i. pp. 4, 5. [16] LOFTUS, in the _Journal of the Geographical Society_, vol. xxvi. p. 142; _Ib._, Sir HENRY RAWLINSON, vol. xxvii. p. 186. [17] MASPERO, _Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient_, p. 137. § 2.--_Nature in the Basin of the Euphrates and Tigris._ The inundation of the Nile gives renewed life every year to those plains of Egypt which it has slowly formed, and so it is with the Tigris and Euphrates. Lower Mesopotamia is entirely their creation, and if the time were to come when their vivifying streams were no longer to irrigate its surface, it would very soon be changed into a monotonous and melancholy desert. It hardly ever rains in Chaldæa.[18] There are a few showers at the changes of the season, and, in winter, a few days of heavy rain. During the summer, for long months together, the sky remains inexorably blue while the temperature is hot and parching. In winter, clouds are almost as rare; but winds often play violently over the great tracts of unbroken country. When these blow from the south they soon lose their warmth and humidity at the contact of a soil which, but a short while ago, was at the bottom of the sea, and is, therefore, in many places still strongly impregnated with salt which acts as a refrigerant.[19] Again, when the north wind comes down from the snowy summits of Armenia or Kurdistan, it is already cold enough, so that, during the months of December and January, it often happens that the mercury falls below freezing point, even in Babylonia. At daybreak the waters of the marshes are sometimes covered with a thin layer of ice, and the wind increases the effect of the low temperature. Loftus tells us that he has seen the Arabs of his escort fall benumbed from their saddles in the early morning.[20] It is, then, upon the streams, and upon them alone, that the soil has to depend for its fertility; all those lands to which they never reach are doomed to barrenness and death. It is fortunate for the prosperity of the country through which they flow, that the Tigris and Euphrates swell and rise annually from their beds, not indeed like the Nile, almost on a stated day, but ever in the same season, about the commencement of spring. Without these periodical floods many parts of the plain of Mesopotamia would be beyond the reach of irrigation, but their regular occurrence allows water to be stored in sufficient quantities for use during the months of drought. To obtain the full advantage of this precious capital, the inhabitants must, however, take more care and expend more labour than is necessary in Egypt. The rise of the Euphrates and of the Tigris is neither so slow nor so regular as that of the Nile. The waters do not spread so gently over the soil, neither do they stay upon it so long;[21] since they have been abandoned to themselves as they are at present, a great part of them are lost, and, far from rendering a service to agriculture, they turn vast regions into dangerous hot-beds of infection. It was to the west of the double basin that the untoward effects of the territorial conformation were chiefly felt. The valley of the Euphrates is not like that of the Nile, a canal hollowed out between two clearly marked banks. From the northern boundary of the alluvial plain to the southern, the slope is very slight, while from east to west, from the plains of Mesopotamia to the foot of the Arabian plateau, there is also an inclination. When the river is in flood the right bank no longer exists. Where it is not raised and defended by dykes, the waters flow over it at more than one point. They spread through large breaches into a sort of hollow where they form wide marshes, such as those which stretch in these days from the country west of the ruins of Babylon almost to the Persian Gulf. In the parching heat of the summer months the mud blackens, cracks, and exhales miasmic vapours, so that a long acclimatization, like that of the Arabs, is necessary before one can live in the region. Some of these Arabs live in forests of reeds like those represented in the Assyrian bas-reliefs.[22] Their huts of mud and rushes rise upon a low island in the marshes; and all communication with neighbouring tribes and with the town in which they sell the product of their rice-fields, is carried on by boats. The brakes are more impenetrable than the thickest underwood, but the natives have cut alleys through them, along which they impel their large flat-bottomed _teradas_ with poles.[23] Sometimes a sudden rise of the river will raise the level of these generally stagnant waters by a yard or two, and during the night the huts and their inhabitants, men and animals together, will be sent adrift. Two or three villages have been destroyed in this fashion amid the complete indifference of the authorities. The tithe-farmer may be trusted to see that the survivors pay the taxes due from their less fortunate neighbours. The masters of the country could, if they chose, do much to render the country more healthy, more fertile, more capable of supporting a numerous population. They might direct the course of the annual floods, and save their excess. When the land was managed by a proprietory possessing intelligence, energy, and foresight, it had, especially in minor details, a grace and picturesque beauty of its own. When every foot of land was carefully cultivated, when the two great streams were thoroughly kept in hand, their banks and those of the numerous canals intersecting the plains were overhung with palms. The eye fell with pleasure upon the tall trunks with their waving plumes, upon the bouquets of broad leaves with their centre of yellow dates; upon the cereals and other useful and ornamental plants growing under their gentle shade, and forming a carpet for the rich and sumptuous vegetation above. Around the villages perched upon their mounds the orchards spread far and wide, carrying the scent of their orange trees into the surrounding country, and presenting, with their masses of sombre foliage studded with golden fruit, a picture of which the eye could never grow weary. No long series of military disasters was required to destroy all this charm; fifty years, or, at most, a century, of bad administration was enough.[24] Set a score of Turkish pachas to work, one after the other, men such as those whom contemporary travellers have encountered at Mossoul and Bagdad; with the help of their underlings they will soon have done more harm than the marches and conflicts of armies. There is no force more surely and completely destructive than a government which is at once idle, ignorant, and corrupt. With the exception of the narrow districts around a few towns and villages, where small groups of population have retained something of their former energy and diligence, Mesopotamia is now, during the greater part of the year, given over to sterility and desolation. As it is almost entirely covered with a deep layer of vegetable earth, the spring clothes even its most abandoned solitudes with a luxuriant growth of herbs and flowers. Horses and cattle sink to their bellies in the perfumed leafage,[25] but after the month of May the herbage withers and becomes discoloured; the dried stems split and crack under foot, and all verdure disappears except from the river-banks and marshes. Upon these wave the feathery fronds of the tamarisk, and in the stagnant or slowly moving water which fills all the depressions of the soil, aquatic plants, water-lilies, rushes, papyrus, and gigantic reeds spring up in dense masses, and make the low-lying country look like a vast prairie, whose native freshness even the sun at its zenith has no power to destroy. Everywhere else nature is as dreary in its monotony as the vast sandy deserts which border the country on the west. In one place the yellow soil is covered with a dried, almost calcined, stubble; in another, with a grey dust which rises in clouds before the slightest breeze; in the neighbourhood of the ancient townships it has received a reddish hue from the quantity of broken and pulverized brick with which it is mixed. These colours vary in different places, but from Mount Masius to the shores of the Persian Gulf, from the Euphrates to the Tigris, the traveller is met almost constantly by the one melancholy sight--of a country spreading out before him to the horizon, in which neglect has gone on until the region which the biblical tradition represents as the cradle of the human race has been rendered incapable of supporting human life.[26] The physiognomy of Mesopotamia has then been profoundly modified since the fall of the ancient civilization. By the indolence of man it has lost its adornments, or rather its vesture, in the ample drapery of waving palms and standing corn that excited the admiration of Herodotus.[27] But the general characteristics and leading contours of the landscape remain what they were. Restore in thought one of those Babylonian structures whose lofty ruins now serve as observatories for the explorer or passing traveller. Suppose yourself, in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, seated upon the summit of the temple of Bel, some hundred or hundred and twenty yards above the level of the plain. At such a height the smiling and picturesque details which were formerly so plentiful and are now so rare, would not be appreciated. The domed surfaces of the woods would seem flat, the varied cultivation, the changing colours of the fields and pastures would hardly be distinguished. You would be struck then, as you are struck to-day, by the extent and uniformity of the vast plain which stretches away to all the points of the compass. In Assyria, except towards the south where the two rivers begin to draw in towards each other, the plains are varied by gentle undulations. As the traveller approaches the northern and eastern frontiers, chains of hills, and even snowy peaks, loom before him. In Chaldæa there is nothing of the kind. The only accidents of the ground are those due to human industry; the dead level stretches away as far as the eye can follow it, and, like the sea, melts into the sky at the horizon. NOTES: [18] HERODOTUS, i. 193: Hê de gê tôn Assuriôn huetai men oligôi. [19] LOFTUS, _Susiana and Chaldæa_, i. vol. 8vo. 1857, London, p. 73. [20] LOFTUS, _Susiana and Chaldæa_, p. 73; LAYARD, _Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon_, p. 146 (i. vol. 8vo. 1853). [21] HERODOTUS, exaggerates this difference, but it is a real one. "The plant," he says, "is nourished and the ears formed by means of irrigation from the river. For this river does not, as in Egypt, overflow the cornlands of its own accord, but is spread over them by the hand or by the help of engines," i. 193. [Our quotations are from Prof. Rawlinson's _Herodotus_ (4 vols. 8vo. 1875; Murray); Ed.] The inundations of the Tigris and Euphrates do not play so important a _rôle_ in the lives of the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, as that of the Nile in those of the Egyptians. [22] LAYARD, _A Second Series of the Monuments of Nineveh_, plate 27 (London, oblong folio, 1853). [23] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, pp. 551-556; LOFTUS, _Chaldæa and Susiana_, chap. x. [24] LAYARD (_Discoveries_, pp. 467, 468 and 475) tells us what the Turks "have made of two of the finest rivers in the world, one of which is navigable for 850 miles from its mouth, and the other for 600 miles." [25] LAYARD, _Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. i. p. 78 (1849). "Flowers of every hue enamelled the meadows; not thinly scattered over the grass as in northern climes, but in such thick and gathering clusters that the whole plain seemed a patch-work of many colours. The dogs as they returned from hunting, issued from the long grass dyed red, yellow, or blue, according to the flowers through which they had last forced their way." [26] LAYARD, _Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. ii. pp. 68-75. [27] HERODOTUS, i. 193. "Of all the countries that we know, there is none which is so fruitful in grain. It makes no pretension indeed, of growing the fig, the olive, the vine, or any other trees of the kind; but in grain it is so fruitful as to yield commonly two hundredfold, and when the production is greatest, even three hundredfold. The blade of the wheat plant and barley is often four fingers in breadth. As for millet and the sesame, I shall not say to what height they grow, though within my own knowledge; for I am not ignorant that what I have already written concerning the fruitfulness of Babylonia, must seem incredible to those who have never visited the country.... Palm trees grow in great numbers over the whole of the flat country, mostly of the kind that bears fruit, and this fruit supplies them with bread, wine, and honey." § 3.--_The Primitive Elements of the Population._ The two great factors of all life and of all vegetable production are water and warmth, so that of the two great divisions of the country we have just described, the more southern must have been the first inhabited, or at least, the first to invite and aid its inhabitants to make trial of civilization. In the north the two great rivers are far apart. The vast spaces which separate them include many districts which have always been, and must ever be, very difficult of irrigation, and consequently of cultivation. In the south, on the other hand, below the thirty-fourth degree of latitude, the Tigris and Euphrates approach each other until a day's march will carry the traveller from one to the other; and for a distance of some eighty leagues, ending but little short of the point of junction, their beds are almost parallel. In spite of the heat, which is, of course, greater than in northern Mesopotamia, nothing is easier than to carry the blessings of irrigation over the whole of such a region. When the water in the rivers and canals is low, it can be raised by the aid of simple machines, similar in principle to those we described in speaking of Egypt.[28] It is here, therefore, that we must look for the scene of the first attempts in Asia to pass from the anxious and uncertain life of the fisherman, the hunter, or the nomad shepherd, to that of the sedentary husbandman, rooted to the soil by the pains he has taken to improve its capabilities, and by the homestead he has reared at the border of his fields. In the tenth and eleventh chapters of Genesis we have an echo of the earliest traditions preserved by the Semitic race of their distant origin. "And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there."[29] The _land_ of SHINAR is the Hebrew name of what we call Chaldæa. There is no room for mistake. When the sacred writer wishes to tell us the origin of human society, he transports us into Lower Mesopotamia. It is there that he causes the posterity of Noah to build the first great city, Babel, the prototype of the Babylon of history; it is there that he tells us the confusion of tongues was accomplished, and that the common centre existed from which men spread themselves over the whole surface of the earth, to become different nations. The oldest cities known to the collector of these traditions were those of Chaldæa, of the region bordering on the Persian Gulf. "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. "He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, '_Even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord_.' "And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. "Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, "And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city."[30] These statements have been confirmed by the architectural and other remains found in Mesopotamia. Inscriptions from which fresh secrets are wrested day by day; ruins of buildings whose dates are to be approximately divined from their plans, their structure, and their decorations; statues, statuettes, bas-reliefs, and all the various _débris_ of a great civilization, when studied with the industrious ardour which distinguishes modern science, enable the critic to realize the vast antiquity of those Chaldæan cities, in which legend and history are so curiously mingled. Even before they could decipher their meaning Assyriologists had compared, from the palæographic point of view, the different varieties of the written character known as _cuneiform_--a character which lent itself for some two thousand years, to the notation of the five or six successive languages, at least, in which the inhabitants of Western Asia expressed their thoughts. These wedge-shaped characters are found in their most primitive and undeveloped forms in the mounds dotted over the southern districts of Mesopotamia, in company with the earliest signs of those types which are especially characteristic of the architecture, ornamentation, and plastic figuration of Assyria. There is another particular in which the monumental records and the biblical tradition are in accord. During those obscure centuries that saw the work sketched out from which the civilization of the Tigris and Euphrates basin was, in time, to be developed, the Chaldæan population was not homogeneous; the country was inhabited by tribes who had neither a common origin nor a common language. This we are told in Genesis. The earliest chiefs to build cities in Shinar are there personified in the person of Nimrod, who is the son of Cush, and the grandson of Ham. He and his people must be placed, therefore, in the same family as the Ethiopians, the Egyptians, and the Libyans, the Canaanites and the Phoenicians.[31] A little lower down in the same genealogical table we find attached to the posterity of Shem that Asshur who, as we are told in the verses quoted above, left the plains of Shinar in order to found Nineveh in the upper country.[32] So, too, it was from Ur of the Chaldees that Terah, another descendant of Shem, and, through Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people, came up into Canaan.[33] The world has, unhappily, lost the work of Berosus, the Babylonish priest, who, under the Seleucidæ, did for Chaldæa what Manetho was doing almost at the same moment for Egypt.[34] Berosus compiled the history of Chaldæa from the national chronicles and traditions. The loss of his work is still more to be lamented than that of Manetho. The wedges may never, perhaps, be read with as much certainty as the hieroglyphs; the remains of Chaldæo-Assyrian antiquity are much less copious and well preserved than those of the Egyptian civilization, while the gap in the existing documents are more frequent and of a different character. And yet much precious information, especially in these latter days, has been drawn from those fragments of his work which have come down to us. In one of these we find the following evidence as to the mixture of races: "At first there were at Babylon a great number of men belonging to the different nationalities that colonized Chaldæa."[35] How far did that diversity go? The terms used by Berosus are vague enough, while the Hebraic tradition seems to have preserved the memory of only two races who lived one after the other in Chaldæa, namely, the Kushites and the Shemites. And may not these groups, though distinct, have been more closely connected than the Jews were willing to admit? We know how bitterly the Jews hated those Canaanitish races against whom they waged their long and destructive wars; and it is possible that, in order to mark the separation between themselves and their abhorred enemies, they may have shut their eyes to the exaggeration of the distance between the two peoples. More than one historian is inclined to believe that the Kushites and Shemites were less distantly related than the Hebrew writers pretend. Almost every day criticism discovers new points of resemblance between the Jews before the captivity and certain of their neighbours, such as the Phoenicians. Almost the same language was spoken by each; each had the same arts and the same symbols, while many rites and customs were common to both. Baal and Moloch were adored in Judah and Israel as well as in Tyre and Sidon. This is not the proper place to discuss such a question, but, whatever view we may take of it, it seems that the researches of Assyriologists have led to the following conclusion: That primitive Chaldæa received and retained various ethnic elements upon its fertile soil; that those elements in time became fused together, and that, even in the beginning, the diversities that distinguished them one from another were less marked than a literal acceptance of the tenth chapter of Genesis might lead us to believe. We cannot here undertake to explain all the conjectures to which this point has given rise. We are without some, at least, of the qualifications necessary for the due appreciation of the proofs, or rather of the probabilities, which are relied on by the exponents of this or that hypothesis. We must refer curious readers to the works of contemporary Assyriologists; or they may, if they will, find all the chief facts brought together in the writings of MM. Maspero and François Lenormant, whom we shall often have occasion to quote.[36] We shall be content with giving, in as few words as possible, the theory which appears at present to be generally admitted. There is no doubt as to the presence in Chaldæa of the Kushite tribes. It is the Kushites, as represented by Nimrod, who are mentioned in Genesis before any of the others; a piece of evidence which is indirectly confirmed by the nomenclature of the Greek writers. They often employed the terms Kissaioi and Kissioi to denote the peoples who belonged to this very part of Asia,[37] terms under which it is easy to recognize imperfect transliterations of a name that began its last syllable in the Semitic tongues with the sound we render by _sh_. As the Greeks had no letters corresponding to our _h_ and _j_, they had to do the best they could with breathings. Their descendants had to make the same shifts when they became subject to the Turks, and had to express every word of their conqueror's language without possessing any signs for those sounds of _sh_ and _j_ in which it abounded. The same vocable is preserved to our day in the name borne by one of the provinces of Persia, Khouzistan. The objection that the Kissaioi or Kissioi of the classic writers and poets were placed in Susiana rather than in Chaldæa will no longer be made. Susiana borders upon Chaldæa and belongs, like it, to the basin of the Tigris. There is no natural frontier between the two countries, which were closely connected both in peace and war. On the other hand, the name of Ethiopians, often applied by the same authors to the dwellers upon the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, recalls the relationship which attached the Kushites of Asia to those of Africa in the Hebrew genealogies. We have still stronger reasons of the same kind for affirming that the Shemites or Semites occupied an important place in Chaldæa from the very beginning. Linguistic knowledge here comes to the aid of the biblical narrative and confirms its ethnographical data. The language in which most of our cuneiform inscriptions are written, the language, that is, that we call Assyrian, is closely allied to the Hebrew. Towards the period of the second Chaldee Empire, another dialect of the same family, the Aramaic, seems to have been in common use from one end of Mesopotamia to the other. A comparative study of the rites and religious beliefs of the Semitic races would lead us to the same result. Finally, there is something very significant in the facility with which classic writers confuse such terms as Chaldæans, Assyrians, and Syrians; it would seem that they recognized but one people between the Isthmus of Suez on the south and the Taurus on the north, between the seaboard of Phoenicia on the west and the table lands of Iran in the east. In our day the dominant language over the whole of the vast extent of territory which is inclosed by those boundaries is Arabic, as it was Syriac during the early centuries of our era, and Aramaic under the Persians and the successors of Alexander. From the commencement of historic times the Semitic element has never ceased to play the chief _rôle_ from one end of that region to the other. For Syria proper, its pre-eminence is attested by a number of facts which leave no room for doubt. Travellers and historians classed the inhabitants of Mesopotamia with those of Phoenicia and Palestine, because, to their unaccustomed ears, the differences between their languages were hardly perceptible, while their personal characteristics were practically identical. Such affinities and resemblances are only to be explained by a common origin, though the point of junction may have been distant. It has also been asserted that an Aryan element helped to compose the population of primitive Chaldæa, that sister tribes to those of India and Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor furnished their contingents to the mixed population of Shinar. Some have even declared that a time came when those tribes obtained the chief power. It may have been so, but the evidence upon which the hypothesis rests is very slight. Granting that the Aryans did settle in Chaldæa, they were certainly far less numerous than the other colonists, and were so rapidly absorbed into the ranks of the majority that neither history nor language has preserved any sensible trace of their existence. We may therefore leave them out of the argument until fresh evidence is forthcoming. But the students of the inscriptions had another, and, if we accept the theories of MM. Oppert and François Lenormant, a better-founded, surprise in store for us. It seemed improbable that science would ever succeed in mounting beyond those remote tribes, the immediate descendants of Kush and Shem, who occupied Chaldæa at the dawn of history; they formed, to all appearance, the most distant background, the deepest stratum, to which the historian could hope to penetrate; and yet, when the most ancient epigraphic texts began to yield up their secrets, the interpreters were confronted, as they assure us, with this startling fact: the earliest language spoken, or, at least, written, in that country, belonged neither to the Aryan nor to the Semitic family, nor even to those African languages among which the ancient idiom of Egypt has sometimes been placed; it was, in an extreme degree, what we now call an _agglutinative language_. By its grammatical system and by some elements of its vocabulary it suggests a comparison with Finnish, Turkish, and kindred tongues. Other indications, such as the social and religious conditions revealed by the texts, have combined with these characteristics to convince our Assyriologists that the first dwellers in Chaldæa--the first, that is, who made any attempt at civilization--were Turanians, were part of that great family of peoples who still inhabit the north of Europe and Asia, from the marshes of the Baltic to the banks of the Amoor and the shores of the Pacific Ocean.[38] The languages of all those peoples, though various enough, had certain features in common. No one of them reached the delicate and complex mechanism of internal and terminal inflexion; they were guiltless of the subtle processes by which Aryans and Semites expressed the finest shades of thought, and, by declining the substantive and conjugating the verb, subordinated the secondary to the principal idea; they did not understand how to unite, in an intimate and organic fashion, the root to its qualifications and determinatives, to the adjectives and phrases which give colour to a word, and indicate the precise _rôle_ it has to play in the sentence in which it is used. These languages resemble each other chiefly in their lacunæ. Compare them in the dictionaries and they seem very different, especially if we take two, such as Finnish and Chinese, that are separated by the whole width of a continent. It is the same with their physical types. Certain tribes whom we place in the Turanian group have all the distinctive characteristics of the white races. Others are hardly to be distinguished from the yellow nations. Between these two extremes there are numerous varieties which carry us, without any abrupt transition, from the most perfect European to the most complete Chinese type.[39] In the Aryan family the ties of blood are perceptible even between the most divergent branches. By a comparative study of their languages, traditions, and religious conceptions, it has been proved that the Hindoos upon the Ganges, the Germans on the Rhine, and the Celts upon the Loire, are all offshoots of a single stem. Among the Turanians the connections between one race and another are only perceptible in the case of tribes living in close neighbourhood to one another, who have had mutual relations over a long course of years. In such a case the natural affinities are easily seen, and a family of peoples can be established with certainty. The classification is less definitely marked and clearly divided than that of the Aryan and Semitic families; but, nevertheless, it has a real value for the historian.[40] According to the doctrine which now seems most widely accepted, it was from the crowded ranks of the immense army which peopled the north that the tribes who first attempted a civilized life in the plains of Shinar and the fertile slopes between the mountains and the left bank of the Tigris, were thrown off. It is thought that these tribes already possessed a national constitution, a religion, and a system of legislation, the art of writing and the most essential industries, when they first took possession of the lands in question.[41] A tradition still current among the eastern Turks puts the cradle of the race in the valleys of the Altaï, north of the plateau of Pamir.[42] Whether the emigrants into Chaldæa brought the rudiments of their civilization with them, or whether their inventive faculties were only stirred to action after their settlement in that fertile land, is of slight importance. In any case we may say that they were the first to put the soil into cultivation, and to found industrious and stationary communities along the banks of its two great rivers. Once settled in Chaldæa, they called themselves, according to M. Oppert, the people of SUMER, a title which is continually associated with that of "the people of ACCAD" in the inscriptions.[43] NOTES: [28] _History of Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. p. 15 (London, 1883, Chapman and Hall). Upon the Chaldæan _chadoufs_ see LAYARD, _Discoveries_, pp. 109, 110. [29] _Genesis_ xi. 2. [30] _Genesis_ x. 8-12. [31] _Genesis_ x. 6-20. [32] _Genesis_ x. 22: "The children of Shem." [33] _Genesis_ xi. 27-32. [34] In his paper upon the _Date des Écrits qui portent les Noms de Bérose et de Manéthou_ (Hachette, 8vo. 1873), M. ERNEST HAVET has attempted to show that neither of those writers, at least as they are presented in the fragments which have come down to us, deserve the credence which is generally accorded to them. The paper is the production of a vigorous and independent intellect, and there are many observations which should be carefully weighed, but we do not believe that, as a whole, its hypercritical conclusions have any chance of being adopted. All recent progress in Egyptology and Assyriology goes to prove that the fragments in question contain much authentic and precious information, in spite of the carelessness with which they were transcribed, often at second and third hand, by abbreviators of the _basse époque_. [35] See § 2 of Fragment 1. of BEROSUS, in the _Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum_ of CH. MÜLLER (_Bibliothèque Grecque-Latine_ of Didot), vol. ii. p. 496; En de tê Babulôni polu plêthos anthrôpôn genesthai alloethnôn katoikêsantôn tên Chaldaian. [36] Gaston MASPERO, _Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient_, liv. ii. ch. iv. _La Chaldée_. François LENORMANT, _Manuel d'Histoire ancienne de l'Orient_, liv. iv. ch. i. (3rd edition). [37] The principal texts in which these terms are to be met with are brought together in the _Wörterbuch der griechischen Eigennamen_ of PAPE (3rd edition), under the words Kissia, Kissioi, Kossaioi. [38] A single voice, that of M. Halévy, is now raised to combat this opinion. He denies that there is need to search for any language but a Semitic one in the oldest of the Chaldæan inscriptions. According to him, the writing under which a Turanian idiom is said to lurk, is no more than a variation upon the Assyrian fashion of noting words, than an early form of writing which owed its preservation to the quasi-sacred character imparted by its extreme antiquity. We have no intention of discussing his thesis in these pages; we must refer those who are interested in the problem to M. HALÉVY'S dissertation in the _Journal Asiatique_ for June 1874: _Observations critiques sur les prétendus Touraniens de la Babylonie_. M. Stanislas Guyard shares the ideas of M. Halévy, to whom his accurate knowledge and fine critical powers afford no little support. [39] MASPERO, _Histoire ancienne_, p. 134. Upon the etymology of _Turanians_ see MAX MÜLLER'S _Science of Language_, 2nd edition, p. 300, _et seq._ Upon the constituent characteristics of the Turanian group of races and languages other pages of the same work may be consulted.... The distinction between Turan and Iran is to be found in the literature of ancient Persia, but its importance became greater in the Middle Ages, as may be seen by reference to the great epic of Firdusi, the _Shah-Nameh_. The kings of Iran and Turan are there represented as implacable enemies. It was from the Persian tradition that Professor Müller borrowed the term which is now generally used to denote those northern races of Asia that are neither Aryans nor Semites. [40] This family is sometimes called _Ural-Altaïc_, a term formed in similar fashion to that of _Indo-Germanic_, which has now been deposed by the term Aryan. It is made up of the names of two mountain chains which seem to mark out the space over which its tribes were spread. Like the word _Indo-Germanic_, it made pretensions to exactitude which were only partially justified. [41] This is the opinion of M. OPPERT. He was led to the conclusion that their writing was invented in a more northern climate than that of Chaldæa, by a close study of its characters. There is one sign representing a bear, an animal which does not exist in Chaldæa, while the lions which were to be found there in such numbers had to be denoted by paraphrase, they were called _great dogs_. The palm tree had no sign of its own. See in the _Journal Asiatique_ for 1875, p. 466, a note to an answer to M. Halévy entitled _Summérien ou rien_. [42] MASPERO, _Histoire ancienne_, p. 135. [43] These much disputed terms, Sumer and Accad, are, according to MM. Halévy and Guyard, nothing but the geographical titles of two districts of Lower Chaldæa. § 4.--_The Wedges._ The writing of Chaldæa, like that of Egypt, was, in the beginning, no more than the abridged and conventionalized representation of familiar objects. The principle was identical with that of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and of the oldest Chinese characters. There are no texts extant in which images are exclusively used,[44] but we can point to a few where the ideograms have preserved their primitive forms sufficiently to enable us to recognize their origin with certainty. Among those Assyrian syllabaries which have been so helpful in the decipherment of the wedges, there is one tablet where the primitive form of each symbol is placed opposite the group of strokes which had the same value in after ages.[45] This tablet is, however, quite exceptional, and, as a rule, the cuneiform characters cannot thus be traced to their primitive form. But well-ascertained and independent facts allow us to come to certain conclusions which even this scanty evidence is enough to confirm. In inventing the process of writing and bringing it to perfection, the human intellect worked on the same lines among the Turanians of Chaldæa as it did everywhere else. The point of departure and the early stages have been the same for all peoples, although some have stopped half-way and others when three-fourths of the journey were complete. The supreme discovery which should crown the effort is the attribution of a special sign to each of the elementary articulations of the human voice. This final object, an object towards which the most gifted nations of antiquity were working for so many centuries, was just missed by the Egyptians. They were, we may say, wrecked in port, and the glory of creating the alphabet that men will use as long as they think and write was reserved for the Phoenicians. Even when their civilization was at its height the Babylonians never came so near to alphabetism as the Egyptians. This is not the place for an inquiry into the reasons of their failure, nor even for an explanation how signs with a phonetic value forced themselves in among the ideograms, and became gradually more and more important. Our interest in the two kinds of writing is of a different nature; we have to learn and explain their influence upon the plastic arts in the countries where they were used. In our attempt to define the style of Egyptian sculpture and to give reasons for its peculiar characteristics, we felt obliged to attribute great importance to the habits of eye and hand suggested and confirmed by the cutting and painting of the hieroglyphs. In their monumental inscriptions, if nowhere else, the symbols of the Egyptian system retained their concrete imagery to the end; and the images, though abridged and simplified, never lost their resemblance;[46] and if it is necessary to know something more than the particular animal or thing which they represent before we can get at their meaning, that is only because in most cases they had a metaphorical or even a purely phonetic signification as well as their ideographic one. For the most part, however, it is easy to recognize their origin, and in this they differ greatly from the symbols of the first Chaldæan alphabet. In the very oldest documents there are certain ideograms that, when we are warned, remind us of the natural objects from which their forms have been taken, but the connection is slight and difficult of apprehension. Even in the case of those characters whose forms most clearly suggest their true figurative origin, it would have been impossible to assign its prototype to each without the help of later texts, where, with more or less modification, they formed parts of sentences whose general significance was known. Finally, the Assyrian syllabaries have preserved the meaning of signs, that, so far as we can judge, would otherwise have been stumbling-blocks even to the wise men of Nineveh when they were confronted with such ancient inscriptions as those whose fragments are still found among the ruins of Lower Chaldæa. Even in the remote days that saw the most venerable of these inscriptions cut, the images upon which their forms were based had been rendered almost unrecognizable by a curious habit, or caprice, which is unique in history. Writing had not yet become entirely _cuneiform_, it had not yet adopted those triangular strokes which are called sometimes nails, sometimes arrow-heads, and sometimes wedges, as the exclusive constituents of its character. If we examine the tablets recovered by Mr. Loftus from the ruins of Warka, the ancient Erech (Fig. 1), or the inscriptions upon the diorite statues found at Tello by M. de Sarzec (Fig. 2), we shall find that in the distant period from which those writings date, most of the characters had what we may call an unbroken trace.[47] This trace, like that of the hieroglyphs, would have been well fitted for the succinct imitation of natural objects but for a rigid exclusion of those curves of which nature is so fond. This exclusion is complete, all the lines are straight, and cut one another at various angles. The horror of a curve is pushed so far that even the sun, which is represented by a circle in Egyptian and other ideographic systems, is here a lozenge. [Illustration: FIG. 1.--Brick from Erech.] It is very unlikely that even the oldest of these texts show us Chaldæan writing in its earliest stage. Analogy would lead us to think that these figures must at one time have been more directly imitative. However that may have been, the image must have been very imperfect from the day that the rectilinear trace came into general use. Figures must then have rapidly degenerated into conventional signs. Those who used them could no longer pretend to actually represent the objects they wished to denote. They must have been content to suggest their ideas by means of a character whose value had been determined by usage. This transformation would be accelerated by certain habits which forced themselves upon the people as soon as they were finally established in the land of Shinar. [Illustration: FIG. 2.--Fragment of an inscription engraved upon the back of a statue from Tello. Louvre. (Length 10-1/4 inches.)] We are told that there are certain expressions in the Assyrian language which lead to the belief that the earliest writing was on the bark of trees, that it offered the first surface to the scribe in those distant northern regions from which the early inhabitants of Chaldæa were emigrants. It is certain that the dwellers in that vast alluvial plain were compelled by the very nature of the soil to use clay for many purposes to which no other civilization has put it. In Mesopotamia, as in the valley of the Nile, the inhabitants had but to stoop to pick up an excellent modelling clay, fine in texture and close grained--a clay which had been detached from the mountain sides by the two great rivers, and deposited in inexhaustible quantities over the whole width of the double valley. We shall see hereafter what an important part bricks, crude, fired, and enamelled, played in the construction and decoration of Chaldæan buildings. It was the same material that received most of their writing. Clay offered a combination of facility with durability which no other material could equal. While soft and wet it readily took the shape of any figure impressed upon it. The deftly-handled tool could engrave characters upon its yielding surface almost as fast as the reed could trace them upon papyrus, and much more rapidly than the chisel could cut them in wood. Again, in its final condition as solid terra-cotta, it offered a chance of duration far beyond that of either wood or papyrus. Once safely through the kiln it had nothing to fear short of deliberate destruction. The message intrusted to a terra-cotta slab or cylinder could only be finally lost by the reduction of the latter to powder. At _Hillah_, the town which now occupies a corner of the vast space once covered by the streets of Babylon, bricks are found built into the walls to this day, upon which the Assyrian scholar may read as he runs the royal style and titles of Nebuchadnezzar.[48] As civilization progressed, the dwellers upon the Persian Gulf felt an ever-increasing attraction towards the art of writing. It afforded a medium of communication with distant points, and a bond of connection between one generation and another; by its means the son could profit by the accumulated experience of the father. The slab of terra-cotta was the most obvious material for its reception. It cost almost nothing, while such an elaborate substance as the papyrus of Egypt can never have been very cheap. It lent itself kindly to the service demanded of it, and the writer who had confided his thoughts to its surface had only to fire it for an hour or two to secure them a kind of eternity. This latter precaution did not require any very lengthy journey; brick kilns must have blazed day and night from one end of Chaldæa to another. If we consider for a moment the properties of the material, and examine the remains which have come down to us, we shall understand at once what writing was certain to become under the triple impulse of a desire to write much, to write fast, and to use clay as we moderns use paper. Suppose oneself compelled to trace upon clay figures whose lines necessitated continual changes of direction; at each angle or curve it would be necessary to turn the hand, and with it the tool, because the clay surface, however tender it might be, would still afford a certain amount of resistance. Such resistance would hardly be an obstacle, but it would in some degree diminish the speed with which the tool could be driven. Now, as soon as writing comes into common use, most of those who employ it in the ordinary matters of life have no time to waste. It is important that all hindrances to rapid work should be avoided. The designs of the old writing with their strokes sometimes broken, sometimes continuous, sometimes thick, and sometimes thin, wearied the writer and took much time, and at last it came about that the clay was attacked in a number of short, clear-cut triangular strokes each similar in form to its fellow. As these little depressions had all the same depth and the same shape, and as the hand had neither to change its pressure nor to shift its position, it arrived with practice at an extreme rapidity of execution. Some have asserted that the instrument with which these marks were made has been found among the Mesopotamian ruins. It is, we are told, a small style in bone or ivory with a bevelled triangular point.[49] And yet when we look with attention at these terra-cotta inscriptions, we fall to doubting whether the hollow marks of which they are composed could have been made by such a point. There is no sign of those scratches which we should expect to find left by a sharp instrument in its process of cutting out and removing part of the clay. The general appearance of the surface leads us rather to think that the strokes were made by thrusting some instrument with a sharp ridge like the corner of a flat rule, into the clay, and that nothing was taken away as in the case of wood or marble, but an impression made by driving back the earth into itself.[50] However this may be, the first element of the cuneiform writing was a hollow incision made by a single movement of the hand, and of a form which may be compared to a greatly elongated triangle. These triangles were sometimes horizontal, sometimes vertical, sometimes oblique, and when arranged in more or less complex groups, could easily furnish all the necessary symbols. In early ages, the elements of some of these ideographic or phonetic signs--signs which afterwards became mere complex groups of wedges--were so arranged as to suggest the primitive forms--that is, the more or less roughly blocked out images--from which they had originally sprung. The _fish_ may easily be recognized in the following group [Illustration]: while the character that stands for the _sun_, [Illustration], reminds us of the lozenge which was the primitive sign for that luminary. In the two symbols [Illustration] and [Illustration], we may, with a little good will, recognize a _shovel_ with its handle, and an _ear_. But even in the oldest texts the instances in which the primitive types are still recognizable are very few; the wedge has in nearly every case completely transfigured, and, so to speak, decomposed, their original features. This is the case even in what is called the Sumerian system itself, and when its signs and processes were borrowed by other nations, the tendency to abandon figuration was of course still more marked. It has now been clearly proved that the wedges have served the turn of at least four languages beside that of the people who devised them, and that in passing from one people to another their groups never lost the phonetic value assigned to them by their first inventors.[51] In the absence of this extended employment all attempts to decipher the wedges would have been condemned to almost certain failure from the first, but as soon as its existence had been placed beyond doubt, there was every reason to count upon success. It allowed the words of a text to be transliterated into phonetic characters, and that being done, to discover their meaning was but an affair of time, patience, and method. * * * * * We see then, that the system of signs invented by the first inhabitants of Chaldæa had a vogue similar to that which attended the alphabet of the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean basin. For all the peoples of Western Asia it was a powerful agent of progress and civilization. We can understand, therefore, how it was that the wedge, the essential element of all those groups which make up cuneiform writing, became for the Assyrian one of the holy symbols of the divine intelligence. Upon the stone called the _Caillou Michaud_, from the name of its discoverer, it is shown standing upon an altar and receiving the prayers and homage of a priest.[52] It deserved all the respect it received; thanks to it the Babylonian genius was able to rough out and hand down to posterity the science from which Greece was to profit so largely. And yet, in spite of all the services it had rendered, this form of writing fell into disuse towards the commencement of our era; it was supplanted even in the country of its origin by alphabets derived from that of the Phoenicians.[53] It had one grave defect: its phonetic signs always represented syllables. No one of the wedge-using communities made that decisive step in advance of which the honour belongs to the Phoenicians alone. No one of them carried the analysis of language so far as to reduce the syllable to its elements, and to distinguish the consonant, mute by itself, from the vowel upon which it depends, if we may say so, for an active life. All those races who have not borrowed their alphabet _en bloc_ from their neighbours or predecessors but have invented it for themselves, began with the imitation of objects. At first we have a mere outline, made to gratify some special want.[54] The more these figures were repeated, the more they tended towards a single stereotyped form, and that an epitomized and conventional one. They were only signs, so that it was not in the least necessary to painfully reproduce every feature of the original model, as if the latter were copied for its plastic beauty. As time passed on, writing and drawing won separate existences; but at first they were not to be distinguished one from the other, the latter was but a use of the former, and, in a sense, we may even say that writing was the first and simplest of the plastic arts. In Egypt this art remained more faithful to its origin than elsewhere. Even when it had attained the highest development it ever reached in that country, and was on the point of crowning its achievements by the invention of a true alphabet, it continued to reproduce the general shapes and contours of objects. The hieroglyphs were truly a system of writing by which all the sounds of the language could be noted and almost reduced to their final elements; but they were also, up to their last day, a system of design in which the characteristic features of genera and species, if not of individuals, were carefully distinguished. Was it the same in Chaldæa? Had the methods, and what we may call the style of the national writing, any appreciable influence upon the plastic arts, upon the fashion in which living nature was understood and reproduced? We do not think it had, and the reason of the difference is not far to seek. The very oldest of the ideographic signs of Chaldæa are much farther removed from the objects upon which they were based than the Egyptian hieroglyphs; and when the wedge became the primary element of all the characters, the scribe ceased to give even the most distant hint of the real forms of the things signified. Throughout the period which saw those powerful empires flourishing in Mesopotamia whose creations were admired and copied by all the peoples of Western Asia, the more or less complex groups and arrangements of the cuneiform writing, to whatever language applied, had no aim but to represent sometimes whole words, sometimes the syllables of which those words were composed. Under such conditions it seems unlikely that the forms of the written characters can have contributed much to form the style of artists who dealt with the figures of men and animals. We may say that the sculptors and painters of Chaldæa were not, like those of Egypt, the scholars of the scribes. And yet there is a certain analogy between the handling of the inscriptions and that of the bas-reliefs. It is doubtless in the nature of the materials employed that we must look for the final explanation of this similarity, but it is none the less true that writing was a much earlier and a much more general art than sculpture. The Chaldæan artist must have carried out his modelling with a play of hand and tool learnt in cutting texts upon clay, and still more, upon stone. The same chisel-stroke is found in both; very sure, very deep, and a little harsh. However this may be, we cannot embark upon the history of Art in Chaldæa without saying a word upon her graphic system. If there be one proof more important than another of the great part played by the Chaldæans in the ancient world, it is the success of their writing, and its diffusion as far as the shores of the Euxine and the eastern islands of the Mediterranean. Some cuneiform texts have lately been discovered in Cappadocia, the language of which is that of the country,[55] and the most recent discoveries point to the conclusion that the Cypriots borrowed from Babylonia the symbols by which the words of the Greek dialect spoken in their island were noted.[56] We have yet to visit more than one famous country. In our voyage across the plains where antique civilization was sketched out and started on its long journey to maturity, we shall, whenever we cross the frontiers of a new people, begin by turning our attention for a space to their inscriptions; and wherever we are met by those characters which are found in their oldest shapes in the texts from Lower Chaldæa, there we shall surely find plastic forms and motives whose primitive types are to be traced in the remains of Chaldæan art. A man's writing will often tell us where his early days were passed and under what masters his youthful intellect received the bent that only death can take away. NOTES: [44] We are told that there is an inscription at Susa of this character. It has been examined but not as yet reproduced. We can, therefore, make no use of it. See François LENORMANT, _Manuel d'Histoire ancienne_, vol. ii. p. 156. [45] M. LENORMANT reproduces this tablet in his _Histoire ancienne de l'Orient_ (9th edition, vol. i. p. 420). The whole of the last chapter in this volume should be carefully studied. It is well illustrated, and written with admirable clearness. The same theories and discoveries are explained at greater length in the introduction to M. LENORMANT'S great work entitled _Essai sur la Propagation de l'Alphabet phenicien_, of which but one volume has as yet appeared (Maisonneuve, 8vo., 1872). At the very commencement of his investigations M. OPPERT had called attention to the curious forms presented by certain characters in the oldest inscriptions. See _Expédition scientifique de Mésopotamie_, vol. ii. pp. 62, 3, notably the paragraph entitled _Origine Hiéroglyphique de l'Écriture anarienne_. The texts upon which the remarks of MM. Oppert and Lenormant were mainly founded were published under the title of _Early Inscriptions from Chaldæa_ in the invaluable work of Sir Henry RAWLINSON (_A Selection from the Historical Inscriptions of Chaldæa, Assyria, and Babylonia_, prepared for publication by Major-General Sir Henry Rawlinson, assisted by Edwin Norris, British Museum, folio, 1861). [46] See the _History of Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. pp. 350-3 (?). [47] This peculiarity is still more conspicuous in the engraved limestone pavement which was discovered in the same place, but the fragments are so mutilated as to be unfit for reproduction here. [48] LAYARD, _Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon_, p. 506. [49] OPPERT, _Expédition scientifique de Mésopotamie_, vol. ii. pp. 62, 3. [50] LAYARD, _Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. ii. p. 180. [51] A list of these languages, and a condensed but lucid explanation of the researches which have led to the more or less complete decipherment of the different groups of texts will be found in the _Manuel de l'Histoire ancienne de l'Orient_ of LENORMANT, 3rd edition, vol. ii. pp. 153, &c.--"Several languages--we know of five up to the present moment--have given the same phonetic value to these symbols. It is clear, however, that a single nation must have invented the system," OPPERT, _Journal Asiatique_, 1875, p. 474. M. Oppert has given an interesting account of the mode of decipherment in the _Introduction_ and in _Chapter 1._ of the first volume of his _Expédition scientifique de Mésopotamie_. [52] A reproduction of this stone will be found farther on. The detail in question is engraved in LAYARD'S _Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. ii. p. 181. [53] The latest cuneiform inscription we possess dates from the time of Domitian. It has been published by M. OPPERT, _Mélanges d'Archéologie égyptienne et assyrienne_, vol. i. p. 23 (Vieweg, 1873, 4to.). Some very long ones, from the time of the Seleucidæ and the early Arsacidæ, have been discovered. [54] Hence the name _pictography_ which some scholars apply to this primitive form of writing. The term is clear enough, but unluckily it is ill composed: it is a hybrid of Greek and Latin, which is sufficient to prevent its acceptance by us. [55] See the _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, twelfth session, 1881-2. [56] See MICHEL BRÉAL, _Le Déchiffrement des Inscriptions cypriotes_ (_Journal des Savants_, August and September, 1877). In the last page of his article, M. Bréal, while fully admitting the objections, asserts that it is "difficult to avoid recognizing the general resemblance (difficile de méconnaître la ressemblance générale)." He refers us to the paper of Herr DEECKE, entitled _Der Ursprung der Kyprischen Sylbenschrift, eine palæographische Untersuchung_, Strasbourg, 1877. Another hypothesis has been lately started, and an attempt made to affiliate the Cypriot syllabary to the as yet little understood hieroglyphic system of the Hittites. See a paper by Professor A. H. SAYCE, _A Forgotten Empire in Asia Minor_, in No. 608 of _Fraser's Magazine_. § 5.--_The History of Chaldæa and Assyria._ We cannot here attempt even to epitomize the history of those great empires that succeeded one another in Mesopotamia down to the period of the Persian conquest. Until quite lately their history was hardly more than a tissue of tales and legends behind which it was difficult to catch a glimpse of the few seriously attested facts, of the few people who were more than shadows, and of the dynasties whose sequence could be established. The foreground was taken up by fabulous creatures like Ninus and Semiramis, compounded by the lively imagination of the Greeks of features taken from several of the building and conquering sovereigns of Babylon and Nineveh. So, in the case of Egypt, was forged the image of that great Sesostris who looms so large in the pages of the Greek historians and combines many Pharaohs of the chief Theban dynasties in his own person. The romantic tales of Ctesias were united by Rollin and his emulators with other statements of perhaps still more doubtful value. The book of Daniel was freely drawn upon, and yet it is certain that it was not written until the year which saw the death of Antiochus Epiphanes. The book of Daniel is polemical, not historical; the Babylon in which its scene is laid is a Babylon of the imagination; the writer chose it as the best framework for his lessons to the Israelites, and for the menaces he wished to pour out upon their enemies.[57] Better materials are to be found in other parts of the Bible, in _Kings_, in the _Chronicles_, and in the older prophets. But it would be an ungrateful task for the critic to attempt to work out an harmonious result from evidence so various both in origin and value. The most skilful would fail in the endeavour. With such materials it would be impossible to arrive at any coherent result that would be, we do not say true, but probable. The discovery of Nineveh, the exploration of the ruins in Chaldæa, and the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions, have changed all this, although much of the detail has yet to be filled in, especially so far as the earlier periods are concerned. We are now able to trace the leading lines, to mark the principal divisions, in a word, to put together the skeleton of a future history. We are no longer ignorant of the origin of Babylonish civilization nor of the directions in which it spread; we can grasp both the strong differences and the close bonds of connection between Assyria and Chaldæa, and understand the swing of the pendulum that in the course of two thousand years shifted the political centre of the country backwards and forwards from Babylon to Nineveh, while from the mountains of Armenia to the Persian Gulf, beliefs, manners, arts, spoken dialects, and written characters, preserved so many striking resemblances as to put their common origin beyond a doubt. Not a year passes but the discovery of fresh documents and the process of translation allows us to retouch and complete the story. MM. Maspero and Lenormant have placed it before us as shaped by their most recent studies, and we shall take them for our guide in a rapid indication of the ruling character and approximate duration of each of those periods into which the twenty centuries of development may be divided. We shall then have some fixed points by which to guide our steps in the vast region whose monuments we are about to explore. So that if we say that a certain fragment belongs to the _first_ or _second Chaldæan Empire_, our readers will know, not perhaps its exact date, but at least its relative age, and all risk of confusing the time of Ourkam or Hammourabi with that of Nebuchadnezzar will be avoided. * * * * * When we attempt to mount the stream of history and to pierce the mists which become ever thicker as we near its source, what is it that we see? We see the lower part of the basin through which the twin rivers make their way, entirely occupied by tribes of various origin and blood whose ethnic characteristics we have endeavoured to point out. These mixed populations are divided by the Tigris into two distinct groups. These groups often came into violent collision, and in spite of mutual relations kept up through a long series of years, the line of demarcation between them ever remained distinct. Towards the east, in the plain which borders the river, and upon the terraces which rise one above the other up to the plateau of Iran, we have the country called by the Greeks Susiana, and by the Hebrews the kingdom of Elam. West of the Tigris, in Mesopotamia, the first Chaldæan Empire is slowly taking shape. The eastern state, that of which Susa was the capital, was, at intermittent periods, a great military power, and more than once poured its hosts, not only over Babylonia, but over the Syrian provinces to the west of the Euphrates. But in these momentary successes, nevertheless, the part played by this state was, on the whole, a subordinate one. It spent itself in bloody conflicts with the Mesopotamian empires, to which it became subject in the end, while at no time does it appear to have done anything to advance civilization either by isolated inventions or by general perseverance in the ways of progress. We know very little of its internal history, and nothing to speak of about its religion and government, its manners and laws; but the few monuments which have been discovered suffice to prove that its art had no independent existence, that it was never anything better than a secondary form of Chaldæan art, a branch broken off from the parent stem. We are better, or, rather, less ill, informed, in the case of the first Chaldee Empire. The fragments of Berosus give us some knowledge of its beginnings, so far, at least, as the story was preserved in the national traditions, and the remains by which tradition can be tested and corrected are more numerous than in the case of Susiana. The chronicles on which Berosus based his work began with a divine dynasty, which was succeeded by a human dynasty of fabulous duration. These legendary sovereigns, like the patriarchs of the Bible, each lived for many centuries, and to them, as well as to the gods who preceded them, certain myths were attached of which we find traces in the surviving monuments. Such myths were the fish god, Oannes, and the Chaldaic deluge with its Noah, Xisouthros.[58] This double period, with its immoderate duration, corresponds to those dark and confused ages during which the intellect of man was absorbed in the constant and painful struggle against nature, during which he had no leisure either to take note of time or to count the generations as they passed. After this long succession of gods and heroes, Berosus gives what he calls a _Medic_ dynasty, in which, it has been thought, the memory of some period of Aryan supremacy has survived. In any case, we have serious reasons for thinking that the third of the dynasties of Berosus, with its eleven kings, was of Susian origin. Without speaking of other indications which have been ingeniously grouped by modern criticism, a direct confirmation of this hypothesis is to be found in the evidence of the Bible. In the latter we find Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, master of the whole basin of the Tigris and Euphrates in the time of Abraham. Among his vassals were Amraphel, king of Shinar, and Arioch, king of Ellasar, the two principal cities of Assyria.[59] All doubts upon this point have been banished since the texts in which Assurbanipal, the last of the Ninevite conquerors, vaunts his exploits, have been deciphered. In two of these inscriptions he tells us how he took Susa 1,635 years after Chedornakhounta, king of Elam, had conquered Babylon; he found, he says, in that city sacred statues which had been carried off from Erech by the king of Elam. He brought them back again to Chaldæa and re-established them in the sanctuary from which they had been violently removed.[60] Assurbanipal took Susa in 660. All antiquity declares that the Babylonians and the Syrians had a taste for chronology at a very early period. This is proved by the eponymous system of the Assyrians, a system much to be preferred to the Egyptian habit of dating their monuments with the year of the current reign only.[61] Moreover, have not the ancients perpetuated the fame of the astronomical tables drawn up by the Chaldæans and founded upon observations dating back to a very remote epoch? Such tables could not have been made without a strict count of time. We have, then, no reason to doubt the figure named by Assurbanipal, and his chronicle may be taken to give the oldest date in the history of Chaldæa, B.C. 2,295, as the year of the Susian conquest. The Elamite dynasty was succeeded, according to Berosus, by a native Chaldæan dynasty. Berosus--and his dates are held in great respect--places the appearance of this new royal family in 2,047, giving it forty-nine sovereigns and 458 years of duration. We are thus brought down to the conquest of Mesopotamia by the Egyptian Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty. The names of the Chaldæan princes have been transcribed by those Byzantine chroniclers to whom we owe the few and short fragments of Berosus that are still extant. On the other hand, inscriptions dug up upon the sites of the Chaldæan cities have furnished us with fifty royal names which may, it is thought, be ascribed to the period whose chief divisions we have just laid down. Assyriologists have classed them as well as they could--from the more or less archaic characters of their language and writing, from the elements of which the proper names are composed, and from the relationships which some of the texts show to have existed between one prince and another--but they are still far from establishing a continuous series such as those that have been arranged for the Pharaohs even of the Ancient Empire. Interruptions are frequent, and their extent is beyond our power even to guess. Primitive Chaldæa has unluckily left behind it no document like the list of Manetho to help us in the arrangement of the royal names with which the monuments are studded. We do not even know how the earliest royal name upon the inscriptions should be read; it is more to avoid speaking of him by a paraphrase than for any other reason that the name Ourkam has been assigned to the prince whose traces are to be found sprinkled over the ruins of most of the southern cities. The characters of the texts stamped upon bricks recovered from buildings erected by him, have, as all Assyriologists know, a peculiar physiognomy of their own. Ourkam is the Menes of Chaldæa, and his date is put long before that Susian conquest of which we have spoken above. The seals of Ourkam (see Fig. 3) and of his son Ilgi[62] have been found. The name of the latter occurs almost as often as that of his father among the ruins of Southern Chaldæa. [Illustration: FIG. 3.--Seal of Ourkam.] The oldest cities of Lower Chaldæa date from this remote epoch, namely, Ur, now _Mugheir_ or the _bituminous_, Urukh now _Warka_, Larsam (_Senkerch_), Nipour (_Niffer_), Sippara, Borsippa, Babylon, &c. Ur, on the right bank of the Euphrates and near its ancient mouth, seems to have been the first capital of the country and its chief commercial centre in those early times. The premiership of Babylon as a holy city and seat of royalty cannot have been established until much later. The whole country between Hillah and Bassorah is now little removed from a desert. Here and there rise a few tents or reed huts belonging to the Montefik Arabs, a tribe of savage nomads and the terror of travellers. Europeans have succeeded in exploring that inhospitable country only under exceptional circumstances.[63] And yet it was there, between two or three thousand years before our era, that the intermingling of ideas and races took place which gave birth to the civilization of Chaldæa. In order to find a king to whom we can give a probable date we have to come down as far as Ismi-Dagan, who should figure in the fourth dynasty of Berosus. Tiglath-Pileser the First, who reigned in Assyria at the end of the twelfth century, has left us an official document in which he recounts how he had restored in Ellasar (now _Kaleh-Shergat_), a temple of Oannes founded by Ismi-Dagan seven hundred years before. We are led therefore to place the latter king about 1800.[64] We learn at the same time that Assyria was inhabited, in the days of Ismi-Dagan, by a people who borrowed their gods from Chaldæa, and were dependents of the sovereign of the latter country. It was in fact upon the shores of the Persian Gulf, far enough from Assyria, that Oannes made his first revelation, and it is at Ur in the same region that the names of Ismi-Dagan and of his sons Goun-goun and Samsibin are to be found stamped upon the bricks. We may, therefore, look upon their epoch as that in which the first Chaldee Empire reached its apogee. It then embraced all Mesopotamia, from the slopes of Mount Zagros to the out-fall of the two great rivers. The sovereigns of Chaldæa, like the Pharaohs of Egypt, toiled with intelligence and unremitting perseverance to develop the resources of the vast domain of which they found themselves masters. They set on foot great public works whose memory survives here and there, to this day. From the moment when the first colonists, of whatever race, appeared in the country, they must have set about regulating the water courses; they must have taken measures to profit by the floods to form reserves, and to utilize the natural fall of the land, slight though it was, for the distribution of the fertilizing liquid. The first groups of agriculturists were established in the immediate neighbourhood of the Tigris and Euphrates, where nothing more was required for the irrigation of the fields than a few channels cut through the banks of the stream, but when the time arrived for the settlement of the regions at some distance from both rivers, more elaborate measures had to be taken; a systematic plan had to be devised and carried out by concerted action. That the kings of Chaldæa were quite equal to the task thus laid upon them is proved by the inscriptions of HAMMOURABI, one of the successors of Ismi-Dagan, which have been translated and commented upon by M. Joachim Ménant.[65] The canal to which this king boasts of having given his name, the _Nahar-Hammourabi_, was called in later days the royal canal, _Nahar-Malcha_. Herodotus saw and admired it, its good condition was an object of care to the king himself, and we know that it was considerably repaired by Nebuchadnezzar. It may be compared to a main artery; smaller vessels flowed from it right and left, throwing off in their turn still smaller branches, and ending in those capillaries which carried refreshment to the roots of each thirsty palm. Even in our day the traveller in the province of Bagdad may follow one of these ancient beds for an hour or two without turning to the right or the left, and their banks, though greatly broken in many places, still rise above the surrounding soil and afford a welcome causeway for the voyager across the marshy plains.[66] All these apparent accidents of the ground are vestiges left by the great hydraulic works of that Chaldee Empire which began to loom through the shadows of the past some twenty years ago, and has gradually been taking form ever since. When civilization makes up its mind to re-enter upon that country, nothing more will be needed for the re-awakening in it of life and reproductive energy, than the restoration of the great works undertaken by the contemporaries of Abraham and Jacob. * * * * * According to all appearance it was the Egyptian conquest about sixteen centuries B.C., that led to the partition of Mesopotamia. Vassals of Thothmes and Rameses, called by Berosus the "Arab kings," sat upon the throne of Babylon. The tribes of Upper Mesopotamia were farther from Egypt, and their chiefs found it easier to preserve their independence. At first each city had its own prince, but in time one of these petty kingdoms absorbed the rest, and Nineveh became the capital of an united Assyria. As the years passed away the frontiers of the nation thus constituted were pushed gradually southwards until all Mesopotamia was brought under one sceptre. This consummation appears to have been complete by the end of the fourteenth century, at which period Egypt, enfeebled and rolled back upon herself, ceased to make her influence felt upon the Euphrates. Even then Babylon kept her own kings, but they had sunk to be little more than hereditary satraps receiving investiture from Nineveh. Over and over again Babylon attempted to shake off the yoke of her neighbour; but down to the seventh century her revolts were always suppressed, and the Assyrian supremacy re-established after more or less desperate conflicts. During nearly half a century, from about 1060 to 1020 B.C., Babylon seems to have recovered the upper hand. The victories of her princes put an end to what is called the FIRST ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. But after one or two generations a new family mounted the northern throne, and, toiling energetically for a century or so to establish the grandeur of the monarchy, founded the SECOND ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. The upper country regained its ascendency by the help of military institutions whose details now escape us, although their results may be traced throughout the later history of Assyria. From the tenth century onwards the effects of these institutions become visible in expeditions made by the armies of Assyria, now to the shores of the Persian Gulf or the Caspian, and now through the mountains of Armenia into the plains of Cappadocia, or across the Syrian desert to the Lebanon and the coast cities of Phoenicia. The first princes whose figured monuments--in contradistinction to mere inscriptions--have come down to us, belonged to those days. The oldest of all was ASSURNAZIRPAL, whose residence was at CALACH (_Nimroud_). The bas-reliefs with which his palace was decorated are now in the Louvre and the British Museum, most of them in the latter.[67] They may be recognized at once by the band of inscription which passes across the figures and reproduces one text again and again (Fig. 4). To Assurnazirpal's son SHALMANESER III. belongs the obelisk of basalt which also stands in the British Museum. Its four faces are adorned with reliefs and with a running commentary engraved with extreme care.[68] [Illustration: FIG. 4.--Genius in the attitude of adoration. From the North-west Palace at Nimroud. Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] Shalmaneser was an intrepid man of war. The inscriptions on his obelisk recall the events of thirty-one campaigns waged against the neighbouring peoples under the leadership of the king himself. He was always victorious, but the nations whom he crushed never accepted defeat. As soon as his back was well turned they flew to arms, and again drew him from his repose in the great palace which he had built at Calach, close to that of his father.[69] Under the immediate successors of Shalmaneser the Assyrian _prestige_ was maintained at a high level by dint of the same lavish bloodshed and truculent energy; but towards the eighth century it began to decline. There was then a period of languor and decadence, some echo of which, and of its accompanying disasters, seems to have been embodied by the Greeks in the romantic tale of Sardanapalus. No shadow of confirmation for the story of a first destruction of Nineveh is to be found in the inscriptions, and, in the middle of the same century, we again find the Assyrian arms triumphant under the leadership of TIGLATH PILESER II., a king modelled after the great warriors of the earlier days. This prince seems to have carried his victorious arms as far east as the Indus, and west as the frontiers of Egypt. And yet it was only under his second successor, SARYOUKIN, or, to give him his popular name, SARGON, the founder of a new dynasty, that Syria, with the exception of Tyre, was brought into complete submission after a great victory over the Egyptians (721-704).[70] In the intervals of his campaigns Sargon built the town and palace which have been discovered at Khorsabad, _Dour-Saryoukin_, or the "town of Sargon." His son SENNACHERIB equalled him both as a soldier and as a builder. He began by crushing the rebels of Elam and Chaldæa with unflinching severity; in his anger he almost exterminated the inhabitants of Babylon, the perennial seat of revolt; but, on the other hand, he repaired and restored Nineveh. Most of his predecessors had been absentees from the capital, and had neglected its buildings. They had preferred to place their own habitations where they could escape from the crowd and the dangers it implied. But Sennacherib was of another mind. He chose a site well within the city for the magnificent palace which Mr. Layard has been the means of restoring to the world. This building is now known as _Kouyundjik_, from the name of the village perched upon the mound within which the buildings of Sennacherib were hidden.[71] Sennacherib rebuilt the walls, the towers, and the quays of Nineveh at the same time, so that the capital, which had never ceased to be the strongest and most populous city of the empire, again became the residence of the king--a distinction which it was to preserve until the fast approaching date of its final destruction. The son of Sennacherib, ESARHADDON, and his grandson, ASSURBANIPAL, pushed the adventures and conquests of the Assyrian arms still farther. They subdued the whole north of Arabia, and invaded Egypt more than once. They took and retook Memphis and Thebes, and divided the whole valley of the Nile, from the Ethiopian frontier to the sea, into a number of vassal principalities, whose submission was insured by the weakness and mutual jealousies of their lords. Ever prompt in revolt, Babylon again exposed itself to sack, and Susiana, which had helped the insurrection, was pillaged, ravaged, and so utterly crushed that it was on the point of disappearing for ever from the scene as an independent state. There was a moment when the great Semitic Empire founded by the Sargonides touched even the Ægæan, for Gyges, king of Lydia, finding himself menaced by the Cimmerians, did homage to Assurbanipal, and sued for help against those foes to all civilization.[72] [Illustration: FIG. 5.--Assurbanipal at the chase. Kouyundjik. British Museum. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] Like their ancestors, these great soldiers were also great builders. In one of his inscriptions Esarhaddon boasts of having built ten palaces and thirty-six temples in Assyria and Chaldæa.[73] Some traces of one of these palaces have been found within the _enceinte_ of Nineveh, at Nebbi-Younas; but it was chiefly upon Nimroud that Esarhaddon left marks of his magnificence. The palace called the South-western Palace, in consequence of its position in the mound, was commenced by him. It was never finished, but in plan it was more grandiose than any other of the royal dwellings. Had it been complete it would have included the largest hall ever provided by an Assyrian architect for the pomps of the Ninevitish court. Assurbanipal was cruel in victory and indefatigable in the chase. Judging from his bas-reliefs he was as proud of the lions he killed by hundreds in his hunts, as of the men massacred by thousands in his wars and military promenades, or of the captives driven before him, like herds of helpless cattle, from one end of Asia to the other. He appears also to have been a patron of literature and the arts. It was under his auspices that the collection of inscribed terra-cotta tablettes was made in the palace at Kouyundjik,[74] of which so many fragments have now been recovered. He ordered the transcription of several ancient texts which had been first cut, many centuries before, at Ur of the Chaldees. In fact, he collected that royal library whose remains, damaged by time though they be, are yet among the most valued treasures of the British Museum. Documents of many kinds are to be found among them: comparative vocabularies, lists of divinities with their distinguishing epithets, chronological lists of kings and eponymous heroes, grammars, histories, tables of astronomical observations, scientific works of various descriptions, &c., &c. These tablets were classified according to subject and arranged in several rooms of the upper story, so that they suffered much in the fall of the floors and roofs. Very few are quite uninjured but in many cases the pieces have been successfully put together. When first discovered these broken remains covered the floors of the buried palace to the depth of about two feet.[75] The building was no less remarkable for the richness and beauty of its bas-reliefs. We shall have occasion to reproduce more than one of the hunting scenes which are there represented, and of which we give a first illustration on the opposite page. Some remains of another palace built by the same prince have been discovered in the mound of Nebbi-Younas. Never had the empire seemed more strong and flourishing than now, and yet it was close to its fall. The Sargonids understood fighting and pillage, but they made no continuous effort to unite the various peoples whom they successfully conquered and trampled underfoot. The Assyrians have been compared to the Romans, and in some respects the parallel is good. They showed a Roman energy in the conduct of their incessant struggles, and the soldiers who brought victory so often to the standards of the Sennacheribs and Shalmanesers must have been in their time, as the legions of the consuls and dictators were in later years, the best troops in Asia: they were better armed, better disciplined, and better led than those of neighbouring states, more used to fatigue, to long marches and rapid evolutions. The brilliance of their success and its long duration are thus explained, for the chiefs of the empire never seem to have had the faintest suspicion of the adroit policy which was afterwards to bind so many conquered peoples to the Roman sceptre. The first necessity for civilized man is security: the hope, or rather the certainty, of enjoying the fruits of his own industry in peace. When this certainty is assured to him he quickly pardons and forgets the injuries he has suffered. This fact has been continually ignored by Oriental conquerors and by Assyrian conquerors more than any others. The Egyptians and Persians appear now and then to have succeeded in reconciling their subject races, and in softening their mutual hatreds by paying some attention to their political wants. But the Assyrians reckoned entirely upon terror. And yet one generation was often enough to obliterate the memory of the most cruel disasters. Sons did not learn from the experience of their fathers, and, although dispersed and decimated times without number, the enemies of Assyria never acquiesced in defeat. In the subjection imposed upon them they panted for revenge, and while paying their tributes they counted the hours and followed with watchful eye every movement of their master. Let him be carried into any distant province, or engaged in lengthened hostilities, and they at once flew to their arms. If the prince were fighting in Armenia, or on the borders of the Caspian, Chaldæa and Susiana would rise against him: if disputing the Nile Valley with the Ethiopians, Syria would revolt in his rear and the insurrection would spread across the plains of Asia with the rapidity of a prairie fire. Thus no question received a final settlement. On the morrow of the hardest won victory the fight had to begin anew. The strongest and bravest exhausted themselves at such a game. Each campaign left gaps in the ranks of the governing and fighting classes, and in time, their apparent privilege became the most crushing of burdens. The same burden has for a century past been slowly destroying the dominant race in modern Turkey. Its members occupy nearly all the official posts, but they have to supply the army as well. Since the custom of recruiting the latter with the children of Christians, separated from their families in infancy and converted to Islamism has been abandoned, the military population has decreased year by year. One or two more wars like the last and the Ottoman race will be extinct. Losses in battle were then a chief cause of decadence in a state which failed to discipline its subject peoples and to incorporate them in its armies. A further explanation is to be found in the lassitude and exhaustion which must in time overtake the most warlike princes, the bravest generals, and the most highly tempered of conquering races. A few years of relaxed watchfulness, an indolent and soft-hearted sovereign, are enough to let loose all the pent up forces of insubordination and to unite them into one formidable effort. We thus see that, in many respects, nothing could be more precarious than the prosperity of that Assyria whose insolent triumphs had so often astonished the world since the accession of Sargon. The first shock came from the north. About the year 632 all western Asia was suddenly overrun by the barbarians whom the Greeks called the Cimmerian Scythians. With an _élan_ that nothing could resist, they spread themselves over the country lying between the shores of the Caspian and the Persian Gulf; they even menaced the frontiers of Egypt. The open towns were pillaged and destroyed, the fields and agricultural villages ruthlessly laid waste. Thanks to the height and thickness of their defending walls Nineveh, Babylon, and a few other cities escaped a sack, but Mesopotamia as a whole suffered cruelly. The dwellers in its vast plains had no inaccessible summits or hidden valleys to which they could retreat until the wave of destruction had passed on. At the end of a few years the loot-laden Scythians withdrew into those steppes of central Asia whence their descendants were again, some six centuries later, to menace the existence of civilization; and they left Assyria and Chaldæa half stripped of their inhabitants behind them. The work begun by the Scythians was finished by the Medes. These were Aryan tribes, long subject to the Assyrians, who had begun to constitute themselves a nation in the first half of the seventh century, and, under the leadership of CYAXARES, the real founder of their power, had already attacked Nineveh after the death of Assurbanipal. This invasion brought on a kind of forced truce, but when the Medes had compelled the Scythians to retreat to their deserts by the bold stroke which Herodotus admires so much, they quickly resumed the offensive[76]. We cannot follow all the fluctuations of the conflict; the information left by the early historians is vague and contradictory, and we have no cuneiform inscriptions to help us out. After the fall of Nineveh cylinders of clay and alabaster slabs were no longer covered with wedges by the Assyrian scribes. They had recounted their victories and conquests at length, but not one among them, so far as we know, cared to retrace the dismal history of final defeat. All that we can guess is that the last sovereign of Nineveh fell before a coalition in which Media and Chaldæa played the chief parts[77]. NABOPOLASSAR, the general to whom he confided the defence of Babylon, entered into an alliance with Cyaxares. ASSUREDILANI shut himself up in his capital, where he resisted as long as he could, and finally set fire to his palace and allowed himself to be burned alive rather than fall living into the hands of his enemies (625 B.C.). Nineveh, "the dwelling of the lions," "the bloody city," saw its last day; "Nineveh is laid waste," says the prophet Nahum, "who will bemoan her?"[78] The modern historian will feel more pity for Assyria than the Jewish poet, the sincere interpreter of a national hatred which was fostered by frequent and cruel wounds to the national pride. We can forgive Nineveh much, because she wrote so much and built so much, because she covered so much clay with her arrow-heads, and so many walls with her carved reliefs. We forgive her because to the ruins of her palaces and the broken fragments of her sculpture we owe most of our present knowledge of the great civilization which once filled the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates. The kings of Assyria went on building palaces up to the last moment. Each reign added to the series of royal dwellings in which every chamber was filled with inscriptions and living figures. Some of these structures were raised in Nineveh itself, some in the neighbouring cities. At the south-east angle of the mound at Nimroud, the remains of a palace begun by Assuredilani have been excavated. Its construction had been interrupted by the Medes and Scythians, for it was left unfinished. Its proposed area was very small. The rooms were narrow and ill arranged, and their walls were decorated at foot with slabs of bare limestone instead of sculptured alabaster. Above the plinth thus formed they were covered with roughly executed paintings upon plaster, instead of with enamelled bricks. Both plan and decoration show evidence of haste and disquiet. The act of sovereignty had to be done, but all certainty of the morrow had vanished. From the moment in which Assyrian sculpture touched its highest point in the reign of Assurbanipal, the material resources of the kingdom and the supply of skilled workmen had slowly but constantly diminished.[79] Nineveh destroyed, the empire of which it was the capital vanished with it. The new Babylonian empire, the Empires of the Medes and of the Persians followed each other with such rapidity that the Assyrian heroes and their prowess might well have been forgotten. The feeble recollections they left in men's minds became tinged with the colours of romance. The Greeks took pleasure in the fable of Sardanapalus: they developed it into a moral tale with elaborate conceits and telling contrasts, but they did not invent it from the foundation. The first hint of it must have been given by legends of the fall and destruction of Nineveh current in the cities of Ecbatana, Susa, and Babylon when Ctesias was within their walls. * * * * * After the obliteration of Nineveh the Medes and Chaldæans divided western Asia between them. A family alliance was concluded between Nabopolassar and Cyaxares at the moment of concerting the attack which was to have such a brilliant success, and either in consequence of that alliance or for some unknown motive, the two nations remained good friends after their common victory. The Medes kept Assyria, and extended themselves to the north, over the whole country between the Caspian and the Black Sea. They would have carried their frontiers to the Ægæan but for the existence of the Lydian monarchy, which arrested them on the left bank of the Halys. To the south of these regions the SECOND CHALDÆAN EMPIRE took shape (625-536 B.C.). It made no effort to expand eastwards over that plateau of Iran where the Aryan element, as represented by the Medes and soon afterwards by the Persians, had acquired an ever-increasing preponderance, but it pretended to the sovereignty of Egypt and Syria. In the former country, however, the Saite princes had rekindled the national spirit, and the frontiers were held successfully against the invaders. It was otherwise with the Jewish people. Sargon had taken Samaria and put an end to the Israelitish kingdom; that of Judah was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Thanks to its insular position, Tyre escaped the lot of Jerusalem, but the rest of Phoenicia and all northern Syria were subdued by Babylon. In all this region the Semitic element had long been encroaching upon those other elements which had preceded and been associated with it at the commencement. In all Mesopotamia only one tongue was spoken and written, the tongue we now know as _Assyrian_, but should call _Assyro-Chaldæan_. The differences of dialect between north and south were of little importance, and the language in question is that of the inscriptions in both countries. Another change requires to be mentioned. Our readers will remember the names of Ur, Erech, and many other cities which played a great part in the early history of the country, and were all capitals in turn. Babylon, however, in time acquired an unquestioned supremacy over them all. The residence of the Assyrian viceroys during the supremacy of the northern kingdom, it became the metropolis of the new empire after the fall of Nineveh. Without having lost either their population or their prosperity, the other cities sunk to the condition of provincial towns. For some hundred years Babylon had been cruelly ill-treated by the Assyrians, and never-ending revolts had been the consequence. Nabopolassar began the work of restoration, and his son NEBUCHADNEZZAR, the real hero of the Second Chaldee Empire, carried it on with ardour during the whole of his long reign. "He restored the canals which united the Tigris to the Euphrates above Babylon; he rebuilt the bridge which gave a means of communication between the two halves of the city; he repaired the great reservoirs in which the early kings had caught and stored the superfluous waters of the Euphrates during the annual inundation. Upon these works his prisoners of war, Syrians and Egyptians, Jews and Arabs, were employed in vast numbers. The great wall of Babylon was set up anew; so was the temple of Nebo at Borsippa; the reservoir at Sippara, the royal canal, and a part at least of Lake Pallacopas, were excavated; Kouti, Sippara, Borsippa, Babel, rose upon their own ruins. Nebuchadnezzar was to Chaldæa what Rameses II. was to Egypt, and there is not a place in Babylon or about it where his name and the signs of his marvellous activity cannot be found."[80] Nebuchadnezzar reigned forty-three years (604-561), and left Babylon the largest and finest city of Asia. After his death the decadence was rapid. A few years saw several kings succeed one another upon the throne, while a revolution was being accomplished upon the plateau of Iran which was destined to be fatal to Chaldæa. The supremacy in that region passed from the feeble and exhausted Medes into the hands of the Persians, another people of the same stock. The latter were a tribe of mountaineers teeming with native energy, and their strength had been systematically organized by a young and valiant chief, in whom they had full confidence because he had given them confidence in themselves. CYRUS began by leading them to the conquest of Media, Assyria, and Asia Minor, and by forcing the nations who dwelt between the southern confines of Persia and the mountains of Upper India to acknowledge his supremacy. Finally, he collected his forces for an attack upon Chaldæa, and, in 536, Babylon fell before his arms. * * * * * And yet Babylon did not disappear from history in a day; she was not destroyed, like Nineveh, by a single blow. Cyrus does not appear to have injured her. She remained, under the Persian kings, one of the chief cities of the empire. But she did not give up her habit of revolting whenever she had a chance, and DARIUS, the son of Hystaspes, tired of besieging her, ended by dismantling her fortifications, while XERXES went farther, and pillaged her temples. But the chief buildings remained standing. Towards the middle of the fifth century they excited the admiration of Herodotus, and, fifty years later, that of Ctesias. Strabo, on the other hand, found the place almost a desert.[81] Babylon had been ruined by the foundation of Seleucia, on the Tigris, at a distance of rather more than thirty miles from the ancient capital. Struck by the beauty of its monuments and the advantages of its site, ALEXANDER projected the restoration of Babylon, and proposed to make it his habitual residence; but he died before his intention could be carried out, and SELEUCUS NICATOR preferred to build a town which should be called after himself, and should at least perpetuate his name. The new city had as many as six hundred thousand inhabitants. Under the Parthians Ctesiphon succeeded to Seleucia, to be replaced in its turn by Bagdad, the Arab metropolis of the caliphs. This latest comer upon the scene would have equalled its predecessors in magnificence had the routes of commerce not changed so greatly since the commencement of the modern era, and, above all, had the Turks not been masters of the country. There can be no doubt that the next generation will see the civilization of the West repossess itself of the fertile plains in which it was born and nursed, and a railway carried from the shores of the Mediterranean to those of the Persian Gulf. Such a road would be the most direct route from Europe to India, and its construction would awake Chaldæa to the feverish activity of our modern life. Peopled, irrigated, and tilled into her remotest corners, she would again become as prolific as of old. Her station upon the wayside would soon change her towns into cities as populous as those of Nebuchadnezzar, and we may even guess that her importance in the future would reduce her past to insignificance, and would make her capital such a Babylon as the world has not yet seen. NOTES: [57] TH. NOELDEKE, _Histoire littéraire de l'ancien Testament_, French version. See chapter vii. [58] This account of the fabulous origin of civilization in Chaldæa and Assyria will be found in the second book of BEROSUS. See _Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum_ of Ch. MÜLLER, vol. i. fr. 4, 13. Book i. is consecrated to the cosmogony, Book iii. to the Second Chaldee Empire. [59] _Genesis_ xiv. [60] F. LENORMANT, _Manuel de l'Histoire ancienne_, vol. ii. p. 24. SMITH (_Assyrian Discoveries_, p. 224) puts the capture of Susa in 645, and thus arrives at the date 2280 B.C. [61] LENORMANT, _Manuel de l'Histoire ancienne_, vol. ii. p. 65, gives an account of the system under which special magistrates gave their name to each year, and of the lists which have been preserved. [62] This was lately found at Bagdad after long being supposed to be lost. It is now in the British Museum. [63] It was visited under the best conditions, and has been best described by W. KENNETH LOFTUS who was in it from 1849 to 1852. Attached as geologist to the English mission, commanded by Colonel, afterwards General Sir Fenwick Williams of Kars, which was charged with the delimitation of the Turco-Persian frontier, he was accompanied by sufficient escorts and could stay wherever he pleased. He was an ardent traveller and excellent observer, and science experienced a real loss in his death. The only work which he has left behind him may still be read with pleasure and profit, namely, _Travels and Researches in Chaldæa and Susiana, with an Account of Excavations at Warka, the "Ereich" of Nimrod, and Shúsh, "Shushan the palace" of Esther_, 8vo, London: 1857. The articles contributed by J. E. TAYLOR, English vice-consul at Bassorah, to vol. xv. of the _Journal of the Asiatic Society_ (1855), may also be read with advantage. He passed over the same ground, and also made excavations at certain points in Lower Chaldæa which were passed over by Mr. Loftus. Finally, M. de Sarzec, the French consul at Bassorah, to whom we owe the curious series of Chaldæan objects which have lately increased the riches of the Louvre, was enabled to explore the same region through the friendship of a powerful Arab chief. It is much to be desired that he should give us a complete account of his sojourn and of the searches he carried on. [64] LENORMANT, _Manuel de l'Histoire ancienne_, vol. ii. p. 30. [65] J. MÉNANT, _Inscriptions de Hammourabi, Roi de Babylone_; 1863, Paris. These inscriptions are the oldest documents in phonetic character that have come down to us. See OPPERT, _Expédition scientifique_, vol. i. p. 267. [66] KER PORTER, _Travels in Georgia, Persia_, etc., 4to., vol. ii. p. 390. LAYARD, _Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon_, p. 535. "Alexander, after he had transferred the seat of his empire to the east, so fully understood the importance of these great works that he ordered them to be cleansed and repaired and superintended the work in person, steering his boat with his own hands through the channels." [67] This palace was the one called the _North-western Palace_. [68] LAYARD, _The Monuments of Nineveh, from Drawings made on the spot, Illustrated in one Hundred Plates_ (large folio, London: 1849), plates 53-56. [69] It is now called the _Central Palace at Nimroud_. [70] The chief work upon this period, the most brilliant and the best known in Assyrian history, is the _Faites de Sargon_ of MM. OPPERT and MÉNANT (Paris: 1865). [71] The palace occupied the whole of the south-western angle of the mound. [72] MASPERO (_Histoire ancienne_, p. 431) refers us to the authors by whom the inscription, in which these relations between the kings of Lydia and Assyria are recounted, was translated and explained. The chief of these is George SMITH, who, in his _History of Assurbanipal_, has brought together and commented upon the different texts from which we learn the facts of this brilliant reign. The early death of this young scholar can never be too much regretted. In spite of his comparative youth he added much to our knowledge of Assyria, and, moreover, to him belongs the credit of having recognized the true character of the Cypriot alphabet. [73] RAWLINSON, _The Five Great Monarchies_, vol. ii. p. 196. [74] The _Northern Palace_. [75] This library has always attracted the attention of Assyriologists, and the best preserved of its texts have been published at various times under the supervision of Sir Henry RAWLINSON and George SMITH. These texts have been translated into English, French, and German, and much discussed by the scholars of all three nations. The reader may also consult the small volume contributed by M. J. MÉNANT to the _Bibliothèque oriental elzévirienne_ under the title: _La Bibliothèque du Palais de Ninive_. 1 vol. 18mo., 1880 Ernest Leroux. [76] HERODOTUS, i. 106. [77] HERODOTUS (i. 106) alludes to this capital event only in a word or two, in which he promises to give a more complete account of the whole matter in another work--en heteroisi logoisi--doubtless in that _History of Assyria_ ("Assurioi logoi" i. 184) which was either never written or soon lost. Diodorus, who gives circumstantial details both of the coalition and the siege, dates it a century too early, changes all the names, and mixes up many fables with his recital (ii. 23-28). In forming a just idea of the catastrophe and of its date we have to depend chiefly upon the lost historians, such as Abydenus and Alexander Polyhistor, fragments of whose works have been preserved for us by Eusebius and Georgius Syncellus. See RAWLINSON, _The Five Great Monarchies_, etc., vol. ii. pp. 221-232. [78] _Nahum_ ii. 11; iii. 1, 7. [79] LAYARD, _Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. ii. pp. 38-39. _Discoveries_, p. 655. [80] MASPERO, _Histoire ancienne_, p. 506. [81] STRABO, xvi. i. 5. § 6.--_The Chaldæan Religion._ We know much less about the religion of Chaldæa than about that of Egypt. The religious monuments of Mesopotamia are much fewer than those of the Nile valley, and their significance is less clear. Their series are neither so varied nor so complete as those of the earlier civilization. Certain orders of subjects are repeated to satiety, while others, which would be more interesting, are completely absent. It is in funerary inscriptions that the heart of man, touched by the mystery of the tomb, lays bare its aspirations with the greatest frankness and simplicity. Moved by the desire to escape annihilation on the one hand and posthumous sufferings on the other, it is there that he addresses his most ardent appeals to the supreme power, and allows us to arrive at a clear understanding of his ideas as to the action, the character, and the power of the divinity. At Memphis, Abydos, and Thebes, documents of this kind have been found in thousands, the figures accompanying them serving as commentaries upon their text, and helping us to clear up all doubts as to their nature. We thus have voices speaking from the depths of every Egyptian tomb; but the Chaldæan sepulchre is mute. It has neither inscriptions, nor bas-reliefs, nor paintings. No Assyrian burial-place has yet been found. Dedications, phrases of homage to this or that divinity, the names and distinguishing epithets of the gods, all these have been met with in Mesopotamia; sometimes _in situ_, as artistic decorations, sometimes in engraved fragments of unknown origin. We may say the same of the different divine types. Sometimes we find them in monumental sculpture, more often on those seals which we call _cylinders_. But how obscure, incomplete, and poor such documents are in comparison with the long pages of hieroglyphs in which the Pharaohs address their gods or make them speak for themselves! How infinitely inferior in expression and significance to the vast pictures which cover the walls of the Theban temples and bring all the persons of the Egyptian pantheon before us in their turn! What hope is there that excavations in Chaldæa and Assyria will ever provide us with such remains as those groups of statues which fill our museums, in which the effigy of a single god is repeated hundreds of times with every variation of type, pose, and attribute given to it by the Egyptian theosophy? On the one hand, what abundance, we may say what super-abundance; on the other, what poverty, what gaping breaches in the chain of material history! Among the gods and genii, whose names have come down to us, how few there are whose images we can surely point to; and, again, what a small number of figures we have upon which we can put a name without fear of error! To write the history of these beliefs is a difficult task, not only because the _idols_, as they would once have been called, are few, and the Chaldæo-Assyrian inscriptions historical and narrative rather than religious and dogmatic, but also because the interpretation of the texts, especially of the most ancient, is much less advanced than that of the hieroglyphs. When documents in the old language, or at least written in the primitive ideographic characters, are attacked, the process is one of divination rather than of translation in the strict sense of the word. Another difficulty has to be noticed; classic literature does little or nothing to help us in filling up these voids and dissipating the obscurities they cause. The Greeks were guilty of many errors when they attempted to understand and describe foreign religions, but their relations with the Egyptians and Phoenicians were so prolonged, and, towards the end, so intimate, that at last they did succeed in grasping some of the doctrine taught in the sanctuaries of Heliopolis and Thebes, of Byblos and Hierapolis. With their lively intellects they could hardly frequent the temples, examine the sacred images, and question the priests as to the national rites and ceremonies without discovering at least a part of the truth. It was not so with Chaldæa. Babylon was too far off. Until the time of Alexander's conquests the boldest travellers did no more than glance into its streets and monumental buildings, and by that time Nineveh had long ceased to exist. It was only under the first of the Seleucidæ, when a Macedonian kingdom was established in the centre of Mesopotamia, that the curiosity of the Greeks led them to make inquiries similar to those they had pursued for some three centuries in the valley of the Nile. We cannot doubt that this desire for information arose among the followers of those princes themselves; many of them were very intelligent men; and when Berosus determined to write his history in Greek, he may have wished to answer the questions asked in his hearing by the Greek writers and philosophers; by those Alexandrians who were not all at Alexandria. Unfortunately, nearly the whole of his work has been lost. At the end of a century and a half Babylon shook off Hellenism, and Mesopotamia fell into the hands of the Parthians. These people affected, in some degree, the poetry and arts of Greece, but at bottom they were nothing more than Oriental barbarians. Their capital, Ctesiphon, seems never to have attracted learned men, nor ever to have been a seat of those inquiries into the past of the older races in which the cultured cities of the Greek world took so great a pleasure. When Rome became the heir of Greece and the perpetuator of her traditions, we may believe that, under Trajan, she set about establishing herself in the country; but she soon found it necessary to withdraw within the Euphrates, and it was her loss when the Parthians fell from power to be succeeded in the lordship of Mesopotamia by the Sassanids.[82] We see, then, that, with the exception of one short period, Chaldæa was what the Greeks called a barbarous country after the fall of its native royalty, and that it will help us little in our endeavour to grasp the nature and extent of its religious beliefs. The last of the Athenian philosophers, Damascius, has certainly left us some information as to the Babylonish deities which seems to have been taken from authentic sources.[83] This, together with a few fragments from the work of Berosus, is all that Hellenic tradition has handed down to us. There is nothing here which can be even remotely compared to the treatises upon Isis and Osiris and the Goddess of Syria preserved under the names of PLUTARCH and LUCIAN. But we cannot enter upon the discussion of Chaldæan art without making an effort to describe the gist of the national religion and its principal personages. In every country the highest function of art is to translate the religious conceptions of its people into visible forms. The architect, the sculptor, the painter, each in his own fashion, carries out this idea; the first by the dimensions he gives to his temples, by their plan, and by the decoration of their walls; the second and third by their choice of feature, expression and attribute for the images in which the gods become visible to the people. The clearness and precision with which this embodiment of an idea is carried out will depend upon the natural aptitudes of the race and the assistance it receives from the capabilities of the materials at hand. Plastic creations, from their very nature, must always be inferior to the thought they are meant to express; by no means can they go beyond it. This truth is nowhere more striking than in the art of Greece. Fortunately we are there able to see how a single theme is treated, in the first place, in poetry,--the interpreter of the popular beliefs,--and afterwards in art; we can discover how Phidias and Praxiteles, to speak only of sculptors, treated the types created by Homer and Hesiod. In the case of Chaldæa we have no such opportunity. She has left us neither monuments of sacerdotal theology like those we have inherited in such countless numbers from Egypt, nor the brilliant imagery in which the odes and epics of the Greeks sketched the personalities of the gods. But even in Chaldæa art was closely united with religion, and, in spite of the difficulty of the task, the historian of art must endeavour to pierce the shadows that obscure the question, and discover the bond of union between the two. Thanks to the more recently deciphered texts, we do know something of the religious rites and beliefs of the oldest nation that inhabited Mesopotamia and left its trace in history. Whether we call them Accads or Sumirs, or by both names at once, we know that to them the whole universe was peopled by a vast crowd of spirits, some dwelling in the depths of the earth, some in the sea, while others floated on the wind and lighted in the sky the fires of the day and night.[84] As, among men, some are good and some bad, so among these spirits some were beneficent and others the reverse, while a third class was helpful or mischievous according as it was propitiated by offerings or irritated by neglect. The great thing was to know how to command the services of the spirits when they were required. The employment of certain gestures, sounds, and articulate words had a mysterious but irresistible effect upon these invisible beings. How the effect was produced no one asked, but that it was produced no one doubted. The highest of the sciences was magic, for it held the threads by which the denizens of the invisible world were controlled; the master of the earth was the sorcerer who could compel them to obey him by a nod, a form of words, or an incantation. We can form some idea of the practical results of such a system from what we know of the manners and social condition of those Turanian races in Asiatic Russia who profess what is called _chamanism_, and from the condition of most of the negro tribes and Polynesian islanders. Among all these people, who still remain in a mental condition from which the rest of the species has long escaped, we find the highest places occupied by priest-magicians. Now and then popular fury makes them pay cruelly for the ill-success of their conjurations, but as a rule their persons and the illimitable power ascribed to them inspire nothing but abject fear. Fear is, indeed, the ruling sentiment in all religions in which a belief in spirits finds a place. A man can never be sure that, in spite of all his precautions, he has not incurred the displeasure of such exacting and capricious masters. Some condition of the bargain which is being perpetually driven with protectors who give nothing for nothing, may have been unwittingly omitted. "The spirits and their worshippers are equally selfish. As a general rule, the mischievous spirits receive more homage than the good ones; those who are believed to live close at hand are more dreaded than those at a distance; those to whom some special _rôle_ is assigned are considered more important than spirits with a wider but less definite authority."[85] There were, of course, moments when men turned with gratitude towards the hidden benefactor to whom they believed themselves indebted for some unhoped-for cure or unexpected success, when joy and confidence moved their hearts at the thought of the efficacious protection they had secured against future ills; but such moments were few and short. The habitual feeling was one of disquietude, we might almost say of terror, so that when the imagination endeavoured to give concrete forms to the beings in question, it figured them rather as objects of fear than love. The day arrived for art to attempt the material realization of the dreams which until then had been dimly seen in sleep or in the still more confused visions of the waking hours, and for this hideous and threatening features were naturally chosen. It is thus that the numerous figures of demons found in Chaldæa and Assyria, sometimes in the bas-reliefs, sometimes in the shape of small bronzes and terra-cottas, are accounted for. A human body is crowned with the head of an angry lion, with dog's ears and a horse's mane; the hands brandish long poignards, the feet are replaced by those of a bird of prey, the extended claws seeming to grasp the soil (Fig. 6). The gestures vary; the right arm is sometimes stretched downwards at full length, sometimes bent at the elbow, but the combination of forms, the character of the figure and its intention is always the same. We shall encounter this type again when we come to speak of Cappadocia. [Illustration: FIG. 6.--Demons; from the palace of Assurbanipal at Kouyundjik. British Museum. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] This belief in spirits is the second phase that the primitive religion, which we studied in Egypt under the name of _fetishism_ or _animism_, has to pass through.[86] In the beginning mere existence is confounded with life. All things are credited with a soul like that felt by man within himself. Such lifeless objects as stones and mountains, trees and rivers, are worshipped; so too are both useful and noxious animals.[87] Childish as it seems to us the worship of spirits is at least an advance upon this. It presupposes a certain power of reflection and abstraction by which men were led to conclude that intelligence and will are not necessarily bound up with a body that can be seen and touched. Life has been mobilized, if we may use such a phrase, and thus we arrive at _polydemonism_; by which we mean the theory that partitions the government of the world among a crowd of genii, who, though often at war among themselves, are always more powerful than man, and may do him much harm unless he succeeds in winning their help and good will. [Illustration: FIG. 7.--Demons. Louvre.] The worship of stars is but one form of this religious conception. The great luminaries of night and day were of course invested with life and power by men who felt themselves in such complete dependence upon them. [Illustration: FIG. 8.--Eagle-headed divinity, from Nimroud. Louvre. Alabaster. Height forty inches. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] So far as we can judge, the primitive form of fetishism left but feeble traces in the religion of civilized Chaldæa and Assyria. The signs are few of that worship of sacred stones which played such an important part among the Semites of the west, and even among the Greeks,[88] neither can we find that either fear or gratitude ever led to the worship of animals, the docile helpers or the redoubtable enemies of man, in the same degree as it did in Egypt. And yet Chaldæa and Assyria followed the example of Egypt in mixing up the forms of men with those of animals in their sacred statues. This we know both from the texts and the figured monuments. But it was not only in the budding art of a primitive population that such combinations were employed, and it was not only the inferior genii that were represented in such singular fashion. When, by the development of religion, the capricious and unruly multitude of spirits had been placed under the supremacy of a small number of superior beings, these, whom we may call the sovereign gods, were often figured with the heads of lions or eagles (see Fig. 8). Before any of these images had been found we already knew from Berosus what the deity was like by whom the first germs of art and letters had been sown upon the earth. "He had the whole body of a fish, but beneath his fish's head he had another head [that of a man], while human feet appeared below his fish's tail. He had also the voice of a man, and his images are yet to be found."[89] More than one sculptural type has been found answering to this description (see Fig. 9). [Illustration: FIG. 9.--Anou or Dagon. Nimroud. Layard, _Discoveries_, p. 350.] Why did art, in creating divine types, give such prominence to features borrowed from the lower animals? Was it impelled by mere inability to distinguish, by varieties of feature, form and attitude, between the different gods created by the imagination? Or must we look upon the attribution to this or that deity, of forms borrowed from the bull, the lion, or the eagle, as a deliberate act of symbolism, meant to suggest that the gods in question had the qualities of the animals of which their persons were partly made up? In order to arrive at a just conclusion we must, of course, take account both of the resistance of the material and of the facilities which a transparent system of allegory would give to the artist in the working out of his thought; we must also admit perhaps that the national intelligence had been prepared to look for and admire such combinations. It may have been predisposed towards them by the habits of admiration for the patient strength of the draught-ox and the destructive vigour of the eagle and the lion contracted during a long series of years. Both historical analogy and the examination of sculptured types lead us to think that the tribes of Mesopotamia passed through the same religious phases as those of the Nile valley, but it would appear that the most primitive beliefs were less long-lived in Chaldæa than in Egypt, and that they were engraved less deeply upon the heart of the nation. The belief in sorcery never died out in Chaldæa; up to the very last days of antiquity it never lost its empire at least over the lower orders of the people. As time passed on the priests joined the practice of astrology to that of magic. How the transition took place may readily be understood. The magician began by seeking for incantations sufficiently powerful to compel not only the vulgar crowd of genii to obedience, but also those who, in the shape of stars great and small, inhabited the celestial spaces and revealed themselves to man by the brilliance of their fires. Supposing him to be well skilled in his art his success would be beyond doubt so far as his clients were concerned. Many centuries after the birth of this singular delusion even the Greeks and Romans did not refuse to believe that magic formulæ had sometimes the powers claimed for them. "Incantation," cries an abandoned lover in Virgil, "may bring down the very moon from the sky:" "_Carmina vel cælo possunt deducere lunam._"[90] Although simple minds allowed themselves to believe that such prodigies were not quite impossible, skilled men could not have failed to see that in spite of the appeals addressed to them by priests and magicians, neither sun nor moon had ever quitted their place in the firmament or interrupted their daily course. As the hope of influencing the action of the stars died away, the wish to study their motions grew stronger. In the glorious nights of Chaldæa the splendour of the sky stirred the curiosity as well as the admiration of mankind, and the purity of the air made observation easy. Here and there, in the more thickly inhabited and best irrigated parts of the plain, gentle mists floated over the earth at certain periods, but they were no real hindrance to observation. To escape them but a slight elevation above the plain was required. Let the observer raise himself a few feet above the tallest palm trees, and no cloud interposed to prevent his eyes from travelling from the fires that blazed in the zenith to the paler stars that lay clustered upon the horizon. There were no accidents of the ground by which the astronomer could lift himself above the smoke of cities or the mists hanging over the lakes and canals, and to make up for their absence the massive and many-storied towers which men began to construct as soon as they understood how to make bricks and set them, must soon have come into use. These towers were built upon artificial mounds which were in themselves higher than the highest house or palm. The platforms on their summits gave therefore the most favourable conditions possible for the interrogation of the heavens before the invention of the telescope.[91] Thanks to the climate and to these great observatories which rose very early in Chaldæan history all over the plain, the skies could be read like an open book; and the Chaldæans were fond of such reading, because it afforded them, as they thought, a sure means of predicting the future. They had no great belief in the power of their most formidable conjurations to affect the majestic regularity of the heavenly movements--a regularity which must have impressed each generation more strongly than the last, as it compared its own experience with the registered observations of those that had gone before it. But they could not persuade themselves that the powerful genii who guided those great bodies on their unending voyage could be indifferent to the destinies of man, and that there was no bond of union, no mysterious connection, between him and them. They pretended to discover this hidden bond. When a child uttered its first cry, an intimate relation, they declared, was established between the new life and some one of the countless bodies that people space. The impassive star, they said, governed the life and fortune of the mortal who, perhaps, ignorantly looked upon himself as his own master and the master of some of those about him. The future of each man was decided by the character of the star that presided at his birth, and according to the position occupied by it in the sky at the time of any important action of his life, that action would be fortunate in its issue or the reverse.[92] These statements contain the germ of all the future developments of astrology. Among all civilized peoples this imaginary science has at last fallen from its former repute. From the remotest antiquity down to the end of the sixteenth century, and, in some places, to a much later date, it enjoyed a rare power and prestige. Traces of these are yet to be found in more than one familiar expression recalling the beliefs and ideas that took shape in the plains of Mesopotamia long before the palaces of Babylon and Nineveh were raised upon the banks of its two great rivers. Astrology could not fail to smooth the way for astronomy, its successor. In order to profit by the indications of the stars, it was necessary to foresee the positions they would occupy in the sky on a given day or hour. There are many undertakings which succeed only when they are carefully matured. If some great risk is to be run, it is not of much use to receive the advice and warnings of the stars at the last moment, when the decisive step has, perhaps, been made, and no retreat is possible. It would then be too late to think about the chances of success, and a sudden withdrawal from an action already begun or an equally sudden acceptance of a task for which no sufficient preparation had been made, would be the too frequent result. There was only one mode of escaping such a danger or embarrassment as this, and that was, first, to arrive by repeated observation at an exact knowledge of the route followed by the stars across the sky, and of the rapidity of their march; secondly, to distinguish them one from another, to know each by its own name, to recognize its physiognomy, character, and habits. The first duty of the astrologer was to prepare such an inventory, and to discover the principle of these movements; then, and then only, would he be in a position to give a satisfactory answer to one asking where any particular star would be at the end of any specified number of days, weeks, or months. Thanks to such information, his client could fix upon some happy conjunction of the heavenly bodies, or at least avoid a moment when their influence would be on the side of disaster. In every undertaking of any importance the most favourable hour could be selected long before by the person chiefly concerned, the hour in which his star would be in the best quarter of the sky and in the most propitious relations with its neighbours. The phenomena produced in Chaldæa by these studies have been repeated more than once in the history of civilization; they embody one of those surprises to which humanity owes much of its progress. The final object of all this patient research was never reached, because the relations upon which a belief in its feasibility was based were absolutely chimerical, but as a compensation, the accessory and preliminary knowledge, the mere means to a futile end, have been of incalculable value. Thus, in order to give an imposing and apparently solid basis to their astrological doctrines, the Chaldæans invented such a numeration as would permit really intricate computations to be made. By the aid of this system they sketched out all the great theories of astronomy at a very early age. In the course of a few centuries, they carried that science to a point never reached by the Egyptians.[93] The chief difficulty in the way of a complete explanation of the Chaldæan system of arithmetic lies in the interpretation of the symbols which served it for ciphers, which is all the greater as it would seem that they had several different ways of writing a single number. In some cases the notation varied according to the purpose of the calculation. A mathematician used one system for his own studies, and another for documents which had to be read by the public. The doubts attending the question are gradually being resolved, however, by the combined efforts of Assyriologists and mathematicians. At the beginning of their civilization the Chaldæans did as other peoples have done when they have become dissatisfied with that mere rough opposition of unity to plurality which is enough for savage races, and have attempted to establish the series of numbers and to define their properties. "They also began by counting on their fingers, by _fives_ and _tens_, or in other words by units of _five_; later on they adopted a notation by _sixes_ and _twelves_ as an improvement upon the primitive system, in which the chief element, the _ten_, could be divided neither into three nor four equal parts."[94] Two regular series were thus formed, one in units of six, the other in units of five. Their commonest terms were, of course, those that occur in both series. We know from the Greek writers that the Chaldæans counted time by _sosses_ of sixty, by _ners_ of 600, and by _sars_ of 3,600, years, and these terms were not reserved for time, they were employed for all kinds of quantities. The _sosse_ could be looked at either as _five twelves_ or _six tens_. So, too, with the _ner_ (600) which represents _six hundreds_, or a _sosse_ of _tens_, or _ten sosses_ or _fifty twelves_. The _sar_ may be analysed in a similar fashion. A system of numeration was thus established which may be looked at from a double point of view; in the first place from its _sexagesimal_ base, which certainly adapts itself to various requirements with greater ease than any other;[95] in the second from the extreme facility with which not only addition, but all kinds of complex calculations may be made by its use.[96] With but two symbols, one for the units, the other for the tens, every number could be expressed by attending to a rule of position like that governing our written numeration; at each step to the left, a single sign, the vertical _wedge_, increased sixty-fold in value; the tens were placed beside it, and a blank in this or that column answered to our zero. Founded upon a sexagesimal numeration, the metrical system of Babylon and Nineveh was "the most scientific of all those known and practised by the ancients: until the elaboration of the French metrical system, it was the only one whose every part was scientifically co-ordinated, and of which the fundamental conception was the natural development of all measures of superficies, of capacity, or of weight, from one single unit of length, a conception which was adopted as a starting point by the French commission of weights and measures." The cubit of 525 millimetres was the base of the whole system.[97] We shall not here attempt to explain how the other measures--itinerary, agrarian, of capacity, of weight--were derived from the cubit; to call attention to the traces left in our nomenclature by the duodecimal or sexagesimal system of the Babylonians, even after the complete triumph of the decimal system, is sufficient for our purposes. It is used for instance in the division of the circle into degrees, minutes, and seconds, in the division of the year into months, and of the day into hours and their fractions. This convenient, exact, and highly developed system of arithmetic and metrology enabled the Chaldæans to make good use of their observations, and to extract from them a connected astronomical doctrine. They began by registering the phenomena. They laid out a map of the heavens and recognized the difference between fixed stars and those movable bodies the Greeks called planets--among the latter they naturally included the sun and the moon, the most conspicuous of them all both in size and motion, whose courses were the first to be studied and described. The apparent march of the sun through the crowded ranks of the celestial army was defined, and its successive stages marked by those twelve constellations which are still called the _Signs of the Zodiac_. In time even these observations were excelled, and it now appears certain that the Chaldæans recognized the annual displacement of the equinoctial point upon the ecliptic, a discovery that is generally attributed to the Greek astronomers. But, like Hipparchus, they made faults of calculation in consequence of the defects of their instruments.[98] It was the same with the moon. They succeeded in determining its mean daily movements, and when they had established a period of two hundred and twenty-three lunations, they contrived to foretell its eclipses. Eclipses of the sun presented greater difficulties, and the Chaldæans were content with noting their occurrence. They were acquainted with the solar year of three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter; they used it in their astronomical calculations; but their religious and civil year was one composed of twelve lunar months, alternately full and short, that is, of twenty-nine and thirty days respectively. The lunar and solar years were brought into agreement by an intercalary cycle of eight years.[99] The assertion of the philosopher Simplicius has been called in question for very plausible reasons. Simplicius declares, upon the faith of Porphyrius, that Callisthenes sent from Babylon to his uncle Aristotle, a copy of Chaldæan observations dating back as far as 1903 years before the entry of Alexander into Mesopotamia, that is, to more than twenty-two centuries before our era.[100] However this may be, all ancient writers are agreed in admitting that the Chaldæans had begun to observe and record astronomical phenomena long before the Egyptians;[101] moreover the remains of those clay tablets have been found in various parts of Chaldæa and Assyria upon which, as Pliny tells us upon the authority of the Greek astronomer Epigenes, the Chaldæans had inscribed and preserved the astronomical observations of seven hundred and eighty thousand years.[102] We need not dwell upon the enormity of this figure; it matters little whether it is due to the mistakes of a copyist or to the vanity of the Chaldæans, and the too ready credulity of the Greeks; the important point is the existence of the astronomical tablets, and those Epigenes himself saw. The library of Assurbanipal at Nineveh included catalogues of stellary and planetary observations, among others the times of Venus, Jupiter and Mars, and the phases of the moon, for every day in the month.[103] Tablets have also been recently discovered giving the arrangement of the stars in the sky for each season and explaining the rule to be followed in the insertion of the intercalary months. Finally, a fragment of an Assyrian planisphere has been found in the palace of Sennacherib.[104] Even if classic authors had been silent on the subject, and all the original documents had disappeared, we might have divined from the appearance of the figured monuments alone, how greatly the Chaldæans honoured the stars and how much study and research they devoted to them; we might have guessed that they lived with their eyes fixed upon the firmament and upon the sources of light. Look at the steles that bear royal effigies, at the representations upon contracts and other documents of that kind (see Fig. 10), at the cylindrical or conical seals which have gravitated in thousands into our museums (Figs. 11 and 12); you will see a personage adoring a star, still oftener you will find the sun's disk and the crescent moon figured upon the field, with, perhaps, one or several stars. These images are only omitted upon reliefs that are purely narrative and historical, like most of those in the Assyrian palaces. Everywhere else, upon every object and in every scene having a religious and sacred character, a place is reserved for the symbols in question, if we may call them so. Their presence is evidence of the homage rendered by the Chaldæans to the stars, and of the faith they placed in their supposed revelations. Further evidence to the same effect is given by the ancient writing, in which the ideogram for _king_ was a star. "The imaginations of the Egyptians were mainly impressed by the daily and annual circlings of the sun. In that body they saw the most imposing manifestation of the Deity and the clearest exemplification of the laws that govern the world; to it, therefore they turned for their personifications of the divine power."[105] The attention of the Chaldæans, on the other hand, was not so absorbed, and, so to speak, lost, in the contemplation of a single star, superior though it was to all others in its power for good or ill, and in its incomparable splendour. They watched the sky with a curiosity too lively and too intelligent to permit of a willing sacrifice of all the stars to one. _Samas_, the sun, and _Sin_, the moon-god, played an important _rôle_ in their religion and theology, but it does not appear that the gods of the other five planets were inferior to them in rank. If we accept the parallels established by the Greeks and Romans, these were _Adar_ (Saturn), _Merodach_ (Jupiter), _Nergal_ (Mars), _Istar_ (Venus), and _Nebo_ (Mercury). [Illustration: FIG. 10.--Stone of Merodach-Baladan I. (Smith's _Assyrian Discoveries_).] The chief atmospheric phenomena were also personified; of this we may give one example. All travellers in Chaldæa agree in their descriptions of those sudden storms which burst on the country from a clear sky, especially towards the commencement of summer. Without a single premonitory symptom, a huge, black water-spout advances from some point on the horizon, its flanks shooting lightnings and thunder. In a few minutes it reaches the traveller and wraps him in its black vapours; the sand-laden wind blinds him, the rain pours upon him in solid sheets; but he has hardly realized his position before the storm is past and the sun is again shining in the blue depths above. But for torn and overthrown tents and trees uprooted or struck by the electric fluid, a stranger to the country might almost believe himself to have been the sport of a dream.[106] [Illustration: FIG. 11.--Assyrian Cylinder, in the National Library, Paris. Jasper.] [Illustration: FIG. 12.--Assyrian Cylinder, in the National Library, Paris. Serpentine.] The force and suddenness of these visitations could hardly fail to impress the imagination of a people exposed to them, and it is not surprising that Mesopotamia had its god of storms and thunder. He, Raman, it is, perhaps, who is figured in the bas-relief from Nimroud reproduced below (Figs. 13 and 14),[107] in which a god appears bearing an axe in his right hand, and, in his left, a kind of faggot, whose significance might have escaped us but for the light thrown upon it by classic sculpture. The latter no doubt borrowed a well-known form from the east, and the object in question is nothing less than the thunderbolt given by Greek artists to their Zeus. [Illustration: FIG. 13.--Gods carried in procession; from Layard's _Monuments of Nineveh_, first series, pl. 65.] It was this adoration of the stars and planets that led by degrees to what we call polytheism. Man partitioned those terrible powers of nature of which he felt himself the sport, between a vast number of agents, between crowds of genii upon whose mercies he thought himself dependent, and whom he did his best to propitiate by gifts and to compel by magic. Little by little, intelligence perfected that work of abstraction and simplification by which all races but those who have stuck fast in the conceptions of their infancy have arrived at a single conclusion. Without ceasing to believe in the existence of genii, they invented the gods, a race of beings far more powerful, not only than short-lived man, but even than the confused army of demons, of those beings who enjoyed the control of not a few of the mysterious agencies whose apparent conflict and final accord are the causes of the life, movement, and equilibrium of the world. [Illustration: FIG. 14.--Gods carried in procession; from Layard's _Monuments of Nineveh_, first series, pl. 65.] When the intellect had arrived at this doctrine, calmness and serenity fell upon it. Each deity became a person with certain well-defined powers and attributes, a person who could not escape the apprehension and the appeals of mankind with the facility of the changing and fantastic crowd of demons. His dwelling-place could be pointed out to the faithful, whether it were in his own peculiar star, among the eternal snows upon the summits of the distant mountains, or near at hand, in the temple built for him by his worshippers. Such a deity could be approached like a sovereign whose honour and interest are bound up with his word. So long as by prayer, and still more by sacrifices, the conditions were observed on the suppliant's side, the god, invisible though he was, would do his duty and protect those with whom he had entered into an unwritten contract. But in order to establish this mutual relationship between gods and men, it was necessary that the former should be brought within reach of the latter. With the development of the religious sentiment and of definite and clear ideas as to the gods, the plastic faculty was called upon for greater efforts than it had before made. Something beside grimacing and monstrous images of genii was asked from it. Figures were demanded which should embody something of the nobility and majesty attributed to the eternal masters of the world. The divine effigy was the incarnation of the deity, was one of the forms in which he manifested himself, it was, as the Egyptians would say, one of his _doubles_. Such an effigy was required to afford a worthy frame for the supreme dignity of the god, and the house built by man's hands in which he condescended to dwell had to be such that its superior magnificence should distinguish it at a glance from the comparatively humble dwellings in which mortals passed their short and fugitive lives. It was thus that the temples and statues of the gods took form when the various deities began to be clearly distinguished from one another, and, by a process of mental condensation, to acquire a certain amount of consistence and solidity. The Chaldæan temples, unlike those of Egypt and Greece, have succumbed to time, and the ancient texts in which they are described are short and obscure. Their ruins are little more than shapeless heaps of _débris_. In endeavouring to arrive at a clear understanding of the Chaldæan notions as to the gods, we are unable to study, as we did elsewhere, the forms of their religious edifices, with their plans, dimensions, and the instructive variety of decorative symbols and figures with which the sanctuary and its dependencies were overspread. On the other hand a sufficient number of figures of the gods have come down to us. They abound upon small objects, such as cylinders, engraved stones, cones, scarabæi, the bezels of rings, terra-cotta tablets and statuettes. They are also found, though less frequently, among the _débris_ of monumental sculpture, in the bas-reliefs of the Ninevite palaces, and even among certain figures in the round which have been recovered from the ruins of these latter buildings. We can therefore easily find out the particular attributes given by the artist as the interpreter of the national beliefs to those gods whose visible bodies it was his office to create; we can see what choice and combination of forms he thought best fitted to solve the problem presented to him. But as yet we are not in a position to put a name to each even of the figures that recur most frequently. In the case of Egypt there is no such difficulty: when we encounter the image of one of her gods upon the walls of a temple or in the cases of a museum, we can say without hesitation, "This is Osiris or Ptah," as the case may be, "Amen or Horus, Isis, Sekhet, or Hathor." It is not so with Chaldæa. Figures are there often found uninscribed, and even when an inscription is present it not seldom offers difficulties of interpretation which have not yet been cleared up; for the divine names are usually ideograms. Only a few have been identified beyond all doubt, those namely of which we have Hebrew or Greek transcriptions, preserving for us the real Chaldæan original; Ilou, Bel, Nisroch, Beltis, Istar, are examples of this. Hence it results that Assyriologists often feel no little embarrassment when they are asked to point out upon the monuments the figures even of those gods of whose names they are the least doubtful. The Assyrians and Chaldæans, like other nations of antiquity, had what we should now call their _figured mythology_, but we are still imperfectly acquainted with it. Even for those whom we may call the most exalted personages of the Chaldæan Olympus, scholars have hardly succeeded in illustrating the texts by the monuments and explaining the monuments by the texts; and we are yet far from being able to institute a perpetual and standard comparison as we have done in the case of Egypt and still more in that of Greece, between the divine types as they appear in religious formulæ and in the national poetry, and the same types when embodied by the imagination of the artist. A long time may elapse before a mythological gallery for Chaldæa, in which all the important members of the Mesopotamian pantheon shall take their places and be known by the names they bore in their own day, can be formed, but even now the principles upon which they were represented by art may be stated. The images of the various gods were built up in great part by the aid of combinations similar to those made use of in realizing the minor demons. A natural bent towards such a method of interpretation was perhaps inherited from the days in which the _naïve_ adoration of all those animals which help or hurt mankind formed a part of the national worship; again, certain animals were, by their shapes and constitution, better fitted than others to personify this or that quality which, in its fulness, was considered divine. It was natural, therefore, that the artist should, in those early days, have indicated the powers of a deity by forms borrowed from the strongest, the most beautiful, or the most formidable of animals. Nothing could suggest the instantaneous swiftness of a god better than the spreading wings of an eagle or vulture, or his destructive and irresistible power better than their beaks and talons, the horns and dewlap of the bull, or the mane and claws of the lion. The sculptor had, therefore, a good reason for employing these forms and many others offered to him by the fauna of the regions he inhabited. He introduced them into his work with skill and decision, and obtained composite types by their aid which we may compare to those of Egypt. But there were some differences which deserve to be remembered. The human face received more consideration from the Mesopotamian sculptors than from those of Egypt. Except in the sphinxes and in two or three less important types the Egyptians, as our readers will remember, crowned a human body with the head of a snake, a lion, or a crocodile, an ibis or a hawk, and sometimes of a clumsy beast like the hippopotamus,[108] and their figures are dominated and characterized by the heads thus given to them. At Babylon and Nineveh the case is reversed. Animals' heads are only found, as a rule, upon the shoulders of those figures which are looked upon by common consent as genii rather than gods. In the latter a contrary arrangement prevails. They may have, like Dagon, a fish's tail hanging down their backs, or, like the colossal guardians of the king's palace, the body and limbs of a lion or bull with the wings of an eagle, but the head is that of a man and the sculptor has given it all the beauty he could compass. To this, we believe, there is but one exception--the eagle-headed god to whom Assyriologists have assigned the name of Nisroch. He seems to have occupied a high place among the Mesopotamian divinities (Fig. 8). But the difference between the two systems does not end here. There are a few deities, such as Ptah, Osiris, and Amen, to whom the Egyptians gave a human form in its simple entirety; but even in such cases it was not reproduced in its native elegance and nobility. The extremities of Ptah and Osiris were enveloped in a kind of sheath, which made their figures look more like mummies than beings with the power of life and motion. It was not so in Chaldæa, as we shall see if we examine the procedure of the Mesopotamian artist when he had to figure the greater gods, those in whom the highest efforts of mental abstraction found concrete expression. Take, for instance, Nebo, the god of intelligence and prophecy, and Istar, the personification of the earth's fertility, of its power of creation and destruction and its inexhaustible energy. Nebo stands upright, his head covered with a horned tiara: his ample beard is gathered into three rows of close curls: he wears a long robe falling straight to the ground (Fig. 16). As for Istar, she is a young woman, nude, large-hipped, and pressing her breasts with her hands (Fig. 15). The awkwardness and rudeness which to some extent characterizes these figures is due to the inexperience of the artist; his intentions were good, but his skill was hardly equal to giving them full effect. His Nebo was meant to be as majestic as a king or high priest; his Istar is the spouse, the mother, the nurse; she is the goddess "who," as the inscriptions say,[109] "rejoices mankind," who, when fertilized by love, assures the duration and perpetuity of the species. It was this method of interpretation that was in later years to lead to those great creations of Greek art whose beauty is still the wonder of mankind. Between these Chaldæan figures and those of the Greek sculptors the difference was one of degree. The anthropomorphism of the Chaldees was franker than that of the Egyptians, and so far the art of Chaldæa was an advance upon that of Egypt, although it was excelled by the latter in executive qualities. The method to which it had committed itself, the diligent and passionate study of the human figure, was the royal road to all excellence in the plastic arts. [Illustration: FIG. 15.--Statue of Nebo; from Nimroud. British Museum. Calcareous stone. Height 6 feet 5 inches.] But our present business is to discover this people's real conceptions of its gods and to get a clear idea of their characteristic qualities. We shall not attempt, therefore, to show how most of them belonged to one of those divine triads which are to be found, it is believed, in Chaldæa as well as in Egypt: we shall not ask how these triads were subordinated, first, one to another, and secondly, to a single supreme being, who, in Mesopotamia as elsewhere, was in time perceived more or less clearly and placed at the head of the divine hierarchy. These triads are nearly always found in polytheistic religions, and that for sufficiently obvious reasons. [Illustration: FIG. 16.--Terra-cotta Statuette; from Heuzey's _Figurines antiques du Musée du Louvre_.] The most simple relationship offered by the organic world to the mind of man is the relationship of the sexes, their contrast, and the necessity for their union. Wherever religious conceptions spring up gods and goddesses are created together. All the forces divined by human intelligence are doubled into two persons, closely united, the one the complement of the other. The one has the active, the other the passive _rôle_. Egypt, Chaldæa, Greece, all had these divine couples; Apsou, or, as Damascius calls him, Apason and Tauthé; Anou and Antou, the Anaïtis of the Greek writers; Bel and Belit, or Beltu, perhaps the Greek Mylitta; Samas, the sun, and Allat, the queen of the dead; Merodach (or Marduk) and Zarpanit, a goddess mother who protected unborn infants and presided at births; Nabou and Nana; Assur and Istar; Dumouzi and Istar. Precise details as to the status of these divinities are still wanting. Several among them seem to have been at one time endowed with a distinct individuality, and at other periods to have been almost indistinguishable from some other deity. They were without the distinct features and attributes of the inhabitants of Olympus, but we are left in no doubt as to the binary divisions of which we have been speaking. The attraction of desire and the union of the sexes leads to the birth of the child; with the appearance of the latter the family is complete, and, with it, the type upon which the triple classification of the gods was founded. But even when we attempt to trace the composition of a single group and to assign his proper place to each of its members, the embarrassment is great. We find a single god sometimes filling, to all appearance, the _rôle_ of husband and father, and sometimes that of the son; or a single goddess acting at different times as the wife and daughter of one and the same god. Some of these apparent contradictions must be referred to the want of certainty in our interpretation of the inscriptions, some to the floating quality of the conceptions to which they relate. It may never, perhaps, be possible to make out a complete list, or one which shall not be obnoxious to criticism on other grounds; moreover, the historian of art has no need to enter into any such discussion, or to give the details of a nomenclature as to which Assyriologists themselves have many doubts. It suffices that he should point out the multiplicity of couples and triads, the extreme diversity of deities, and thus indicate a reason for the very peculiar aspect of the cylinders and engraved stones of Chaldæa, for the complex forms of the gods, and for the multitude of varied symbols which encumber the fields of her sculptured reliefs. Some of the figures that crowd these narrow surfaces are so fantastic that they astonish the eye as much as they pique the curiosity (see Fig. 17). [Illustration: FIG. 17.--A Chaldæan Cylinder: from Ménant's _La Bible et les Cylindres Chaldéens_.] The number of divine types and the consequent difficulties of classification are increased, as in Egypt, by the fact that every important town had its local deities, deities who were its own peculiar gods. In the course of so many centuries and so many successive displacements of the political centre of gravity, the order of precedence of the Mesopotamian gods was often changed. The dominant city promoted its own gods over the heads of their fellows and modified for a time which might be long or short, the comparative importance of the Chaldæan divinities. Sin, the moon god, headed the list during the supremacy of Ur, Samas during that of Larsam. With the rise of Assyria its national god, Assur, doubtless a supreme god of the heavens, acquired an uncontested pre-eminence. It was in his name that the Assyrians subdued all Asia and shed such torrents of blood. Their wars were the wars of Assur; they were undertaken to extend his empire and to glorify his name. Hence the extreme rigour, the hideous cruelty, of the punishments inflicted by the king on his rebellious subjects; he was punishing heretics and apostates.[110] In the religious effusions of Mesopotamia, we sometimes find an accent of exalted piety recalling the tone of the Hebrew scriptures; but it does not appear that the monotheistic idea towards which they were ever tending, but without actually reaching it and becoming penetrated by its truth, had ever acquired sufficient consistence to stimulate the Chaldæan artist to the creation of a type superior in beauty and nobility to those of gods in the second rank. The fact that the idea did exist is to be inferred from the use of certain terms rather than from any mention of it in theological forms or embodiment in the plastic arts. At Nineveh, Assur was certainly looked upon as the greatest of the gods, if not as the only god. Idols captured from conquered nations were sometimes restored to their worshippers, but not before they had been engraved with the words, "_To the glory of Assur_." Assur was always placed at the head of the divine lists. He is thought to be descended from Anou or Sin: but he was raised to such a height by his adoption as the national deity, that it became impossible to trace in him the distinguishing characteristics of his primary condition as a god of nature; he became, like the Jehovah of the Israelites, a god superior to nature. His attributes were of a very general kind, and were all more or less derived from his dignity as chief leader and father, as master of legions and as president in the assemblies of the gods. He was regarded as the supreme arbiter, as the granter of victory and of the spoils of victory, as the god of justice, as the terror of evil doers and the protector of the just. The great god of the Assyrians was, of course, the god of battles, the director of armies, and in that capacity, the spouse of Istar, who was no less warlike than himself. His name was often used, in the plural, to signify the gods in general, as that of Istar was used for the goddesses. No myth has come down to us in which he plays the principal part, a fact which is to be accounted for by his comparatively late arrival at a position of abstract supremacy.[111] In the Babylon of the second Chaldee empire there was, it would seem, a double embodiment of the divine superiority, in Merodach, the warrior god, the god of royalty, and Nebo the god of science and inspiration. In Chaldæa the power of the priests and learned men did not yield before that of the monarch. And yet a certain latent and instinctive monotheism may be traced in its complex religion. There were, indeed, many gods, but one was raised above all the others, and, whether they turned to Merodach or Nebo, the kings loved to style themselves the worshippers of the "Lord of Lords," _Bel Beli_.[112] Like Assur at Nineveh, this supreme deity was sometimes called, by abbreviation, _Ilou_, or god, a term which was employed, with slight variants, by every nation speaking a Semitic tongue.[113] But in spite of their aspirations and the august _rôle_ assigned to their Merodach, their Nebo, and their Assur, Chaldæa and Assyria succeeded no better than Egypt in giving a fit embodiment to the sovereign moderator of the universe, to the king and common parent of gods and men. Their art was without the skill and power required for the creation of an image which should be worthy of the mental idea. Neither the temples of Nineveh nor those of Babylon had an Olympian Jove. Assur came nearer to the acquisition of a supreme and unique godhead than any of his rivals, but we do not know with any certainty what features were his in plastic representations. Some have recognized him in a group which often occurs on the historic bas-reliefs and cylinders, here floating over a field of battle, there introduced into some scene of adoration. You are at once struck by the similarity of the group in question to one of the commonest of Egyptian symbols--the winged globe on the cornice of almost every temple in the Nile valley. Long before they had penetrated as conquerors to Thebes and Memphis, the Assyrians may have found this motive repeated a thousand times upon the ivories, the jewels, the various objects of luxury which Phoenician merchants carried from the ports of the Delta to distribute over every neighbouring country.[114] [Illustration: FIG. 18.--The winged globe; from Layard.] The Assyrians appropriated the emblem in question, sometimes with hardly a modification upon its Egyptian form (Fig. 18), but more often with an alteration of some significance. In the centre of the symbol and between the outspread wings, appears a ring, and, within it, the figure of a man draped in flowing robes and covered with a tiara. He is upright, in some cases his right hand is raised as if in prayer, while his left grasps a strong bow (Fig. 19); in others he is stretching his bow and about to launch a triple-headed arrow, which can be nothing but a thunderbolt. [Illustration: FIG. 19.--The winged globe with human figure; from Layard.] The meaning attached to this plastic group by the Assyrians is made clear to us by the important place it held in the religious imagery of the Aryans of Media and Persia. These people, the last born of the ancient Asiatic world, borrowed nearly the whole of their artistic motives from their predecessors; they only modified their significance when the difference between their religious notions and those of the inventors required it. Now, we find this symbol upon the rocks of Behistan and Persepolis, where, according to texts the meaning of which is beyond a doubt, it represents Ahura-Mazda. The name has changed, but we may fairly conclude that the idea and intention remained the same. Both in Mesopotamia and in Iran this group was meant to embody the notion of a supreme being, the master of the universe, the clement and faithful protector of the chosen race by whom his images were multiplied to infinity. * * * * * In this rapid analysis of the beliefs held by the dwellers on the Tigris and Euphrates, we have made no attempt to discriminate between Chaldæa and Assyria. To one who looks rather to similarities than to differences, the two peoples, brothers in blood and language, had, in fact, but one religion between them. We possess several lists of the Assyrian gods and goddesses, and when we compare them we find that they differ one from the other both in the names and numbers of the deities inscribed upon them; but, with the exception of Assur, they contain no name which does not also belong to Chaldæa. Nothing could be more natural. Chaldæa was the mother-country of the Assyrians, and the intimate relations between the two never ceased for a day. Even when their enmity was most embittered they could not dispense the one with the other. Babylon was always a kind of holy city for the kings of Assyria; those among them who chastised the rebellious Chaldæans with the greatest severity, made it a point of honour to sacrifice to their gods and to keep their temples in repair. It was in Babylon, at Borsippa, and in the old cities near the coast, that the priests chiefly dwelt by whom the early myths had been preserved and the doctrines elaborated to which the inhabitants of Mesopotamia owed the superiority of their civilization. The Assyrians invented nothing. Assur himself seems only to have been a secondary form of some Chaldæan divinity, a parvenu carried to the highest place by the energy and good fortune of the warlike people whose patron he was, and maintained there until the final destruction of their capital city. When Nineveh fell, Assur fell with her, while those gods who were worshipped in common by the people of the north and those of the south long preserved their names, their fame, and the sanctity of their altars. The religion of Nineveh differed from that of Babylon, however, in minor particulars, to which attention has already been called.[115] A single system of theology is differently understood by men whose manner and intellectual bent are distinct. Rites seem to have been more voluptuous and sensual at Babylon than at Nineveh; it was at the former city that Herodotus saw those religious prostitutions that astonished him by their immorality.[116] The Assyrian tendency to monotheism provoked a kind of fanaticism of which no trace is to be found in Chaldæa. The Ninevite conquerors set themselves to extend the worship of their great national god; they sacrificed by hecatombs the presumptuous enemies who blasphemed the name of Assur. The sacrifice of chastity was in favour at Babylon, that of life seemed to the Assyrians a more effectual offering. A soldier people, they were hardened by the strife of centuries, by the perpetual hardships of the battlefield, by the never-ending conflicts in which they took delight. Their religious conceptions were, therefore, narrower and more stern, their rites more cruel than those of their southern neighbours. The civilization of Babylon was more refined, men gave themselves more leisure for thought and enjoyment; their manners were less rude, their ideas less rigid and conservative; they were more inclined towards intellectual analysis and speculation. So that when we find traces of the beliefs and useful arts of Mesopotamia on the coasts, and even among the isles, of the Ægæan, the honour of them must be given to Babylon rather than to Nineveh. NOTES: [82] The _History of the Assyrians and Medes_, which EUSEBIUS (_Préparation évangélique_, 1, 12, and 41) attributes to the writer whom he calls ABYDENUS, dates perhaps from the period when the Roman Empire turned its attention to the basin of the Euphrates and attempted to regain possession of it. The few extant fragments of this author have been collected in Ch. MÜLLER'S _Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum_, vol. iv. p. 279. We know nothing as to when he lived, but he wrote in the Ionian dialect, as did ARRIAN in his book on India, and it would seem difficult to put him later than the second century. It is probable that his undertaking belonged to that movement towards research which began in the reign of Augustus and was prolonged to the last years of the Antonines. [83] Damaskiou diadochou aporiai kai luseis peri tôn prôtôn archôn (edition published by Kopp, Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1826, 8vo), ch. 125. Ch. Émile RUELLE, _Le Philosophe Damascius; Étude sur sa Vie et ses Ouvrages, suivie de neuf Morceaux inédits, Extraits du Traité des premiers Principes et traduits en Latin_ (in the _Revue archéologique_, 1861), fragments i. and ix. [84] On this subject the reader should consult M. Fr. LENORMANT'S _La Magie chez les Chaldéens et les Origines Accadiennes_, Paris: 1874, 8vo. The English translation, dated 1877, or, still better, the German version published at Jena in 1878 (_Die Magie und Wahrsagekunst der Chaldæer_, 8vo), will be found more useful than the French original. Both are, in fact, new editions, with fresh information. [85] TIELE, _Manuel de l'Histoire des Religions_ (Leroux, 1880, 8vo). In our explanation of the Chaldæo-Assyrian religions we shall follow this excellent guide, supplementing it by information taken from another work by the same author, _Histoire comparée des anciennes Religions de l'Égypte et des Peuples Sémitiques_--both from the Dutch. [86] _A History of Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. pp. 47-57. [87] At Erzeroum Mr. LAYARD heard of some Kurdish tribes to the south-west of that place who, he was told, "are still idolatrous, worshipping venerable oaks, great trees, huge solitary rocks, and other grand features of nature." _Discoveries_, p. 9. [88] François LENORMANT, _Les Bétyles_ (extracted from the _Revue de l'Histoire des Religions_, p. 12):--"The cuneiform inscriptions mention the seven black stones worshipped in the principal temple of Urukh in Chaldæa, which personify the seven planets." In the same paper a vast number of facts are brought together which show how widely spread this worship was in Syria and Arabia, and with what persistence it maintained itself, at least until the preaching of Islamism. It would be easy to show that it still subsists in the popular superstitions. As to this worship among the Greeks, see also the paper by M. HEUZEY, entitled, _La Pierre sacrée d'Antibes_ (_Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France_, 1874, p. 99). [89] BEROSUS, fragment 1. § 3. in the _Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum_ of CH. MÜLLER, vol. ii. p. 496. [90] VIRGIL, _Bucolics_, viii. 69. See in the edition of Benoist (Hatchette, 8vo, 1876) passages cited from Horace and Ovid, which prove that the superstition in question was then sufficiently widespread to enable poets to make use of it without too great a violation of probability. [91] This was very clearly seen by the ancients. It could not be put better than by Cicero: "Principio Assyrii, propter planitiem magnitudinemque regionum quas incolebant, cum cælum ex omni parte patens et apertum intuerentur, trajectiones motusque stellarum observaverunt."--_De Divinatione_, i. 1, 2. [92] "Chaldæi ... diuturnâ observatione siderum scientiam putantur effecisse, ut prædeci posset quid cuique eventurum et quo quisque fato natus esset."--CICERO, _De Divinatione_, i. 1, 2. [93] This has been clearly shown by LAPLACE in the _Précis de l'Histoire de l'Astronomie_, which forms the fifth book of his _Exposition du Système du Monde_ (fifth edition). He gives a _résumé_ of what he believes to have been the chief results obtained by the Chaldæan astronomers (pp. 12-14 in the separate issue of the _Précis_ 1821, 8vo). It would now, perhaps, be possible, thanks to recent discoveries, to give more precise and circumstantial details than those of Laplace. [94] AURÈS, _Essai sur le Système métrique assyrien_, p. 10 (in the _Recueil de Travaux relatifs à la Philologie et à l'Archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes_, vol. iii. Vieweg, 4to, 1881). We refer those who are interested in these questions to this excellent paper, of which but the first part has as yet been published (1882). All previous works upon the subject are there quoted and discussed. [95] "Sixty may be divided by any divisor of ten or twelve. Of all numbers that could be chosen as an invariable denominator for fractions, it has most divisors."--FR. LENORMANT, _Manuel d'Histoire ancienne_, vol. ii. p. 177, third edition. [96] AURÈS, _Sur le Système métrique assyrien_, p. 16. A terra-cotta tablet, discovered in Lower Chaldæa among the ruins of Larsam, and believed with good reason to be very ancient, bears a list of the squares of the fractionary numbers between 1/60 2 and 60/60 2, or 1/60, calculated with perfect accuracy (LENORMANT, _Manuel_, &c. vol. ii. p. 37). See also SAYCE, _Babylonian Augury by means of Geometrical Figures_, in the _Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, vol. iv. p. 302. [97] LENORMANT, _Manuel_, &c. vol. ii. p. 177, third edition. [98] _Ibid._ p. 37. [99] LENORMANT, _Manuel_, vol. ii. pp. 175, 178, 180. G. SMITH, _Assyrian Discoveries_ (London, 1876, 8vo), pp. 451, 452. RAWLINSON, _Ancient Monarchies_, vol. i. pp. 100, 101, fourth edition. We know that the _Astronomical Canon_ of Ptolemy begins with the accession of a king of Babylon named Nabonassar, in 747 B.C. M. Fr. LENORMANT thinks that the date in question was chosen by the Alexandrian philosopher because it coincided with the substitution, by that prince, of the solar for the lunar year. Astronomical observations would thus have become much easier to use, while those registered under the ancient system could only be employed after long and difficult calculations. A reason is thus given for Ptolemy's contentment with so comparatively modern a date. (_Essai sur les Fragments cosmogoniques de Bérose_, pp. 192-197.) [100] See the paper by M. T. H. MARTIN, of Rennes, _Sur les Observations astronomiques envoyées, dit on, de Babylone en Grèce par Callisthène_, Paris, 1863. [101] The texts to this effect will be found collected in the essay of M. Martin. We shall be content here with quoting a phrase from Cicero which expresses the general opinion: "Chaldæi cognitione siderum sollertiaque ingeniorum antecellunt." _De Divinatione_, i. 91. [102] PLINY, _Natural History_, vii. 57, 3. The manuscripts give 720, but the whole context proves that figure to be far too low, neither does it accord with the writer's thought, or with the other statements which he brings together with the aim of showing that the invention of letters may be traced to a very remote epoch. The copyists have certainly omitted an M after the DCCXX. Sillig, following Perizonius has introduced this correction into his text. [103] LENORMANT, _Manuel_, &c. vol. ii. p. 175. [104] G. SMITH, _Assyrian Discoveries_, p. 407. [105] LENORMANT, _Manuel_, &c. vol. ii. p. 181. [106] LAYARD, _Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. i. p. 124. These storms hardly last an hour. [107] Some Assyriologists believe this to represent Merodach. [108] _History of Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. pp. 56, 57, and figs. 39-45. [109] RAWLINSON, _The Five Great Monarchies_, &c. vol. i. p. 139. [110] TIELE, _Histoire comparée des anciennes Religions de l'Égypte et des Peuples Sémitiques_, translated by Collins, p. 222. The first volume of an English translation, by James Ballingal, has been published in Trübner's Oriental Series.--ED. [111] _Ibid._ p. 224. [112] TIELE, _Histoire_, &c. p. 237. [113] Hence the name Babylon, which has been handed down to us, slightly modified, by classic tradition. The true Chaldæan form is _Bab-Ilou_, literally "The Gate of God." [114] _History of Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. pp. 399-400 and figs. 311-313. [115] TIELE, _Manuel_, &c. pp. 77, 78. [116] HERODOTUS, i. 99. § 7.--_The People and Government._ We have already explained how it is that the religions of Chaldæa and Assyria are less well known to us than that of Egypt; the insufficiency of our knowledge of the political and social organization of the two kingdoms is to be explained by the same reasons. The inscriptions, prolix enough on some subjects, hardly touch on others that would be much more interesting, and, moreover, their interpretation is full of difficulty. The Greek travellers knew nothing of Nineveh, while their visits to Babylon were paid in its years of decadence. They seem to have been chiefly struck with the sort of sacerdotal caste to which they gave the name of Chaldaioi. The origin of this priestly corps has been much discussed. Some see in it the descendants and heirs of the primitive population, of those whom they believe to have been Turanians; others believe them to have been Semitic immigrants, coming from the north and bringing with them arts and doctrines of which they constituted themselves the guardians and expounders in the new country. We are hardly qualified to take part in the controversy. It is certain, on the one hand, that the influence of these quasi-clergy began to make itself felt at a remote period in the national history, and, on the other, that they had become, like the population that bowed before them, Semitic both in race and language at a very early date. The idiom employed by the Chaldæans belongs to the same family of languages as Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramæan; their gods are to be found, with slight modifications of name and attributes, from Yemen in the south to the north of Syria and as far west as the table-land of Cappadocia. It is, no doubt, upon the authority of Ctesias, his favourite guide in matters of oriental history, that Diodorus talks of the _Chaldæans_. Ctesias may have seen them at Babylon, in the exercise of their functions, in the time of Artaxerxes Mnemon. "The Chaldæans," writes the historian, "are the most ancient Babylonians ... (and) hold the same station and dignity in the commonwealth as the Egyptian priests do in Egypt; for, being deputed to divine offices, they spend all their time in the study of philosophy, and are especially famous for the art of astrology. They are mightily given to divination, and foretell future events, and employ themselves either by purifications, sacrifices, or other enchantments to avert evils, or procure good fortune and success. They are skilful, likewise, in the art of divination by the flying of birds, and interpreting of dreams and prodigies; and are reputed as the oracles (in declaring what will come to pass) by their exact and diligent viewing of the entrails of the sacrifices. But they attain not to this knowledge in the same manner as the Greeks; for the Chaldæans learn it by tradition from their ancestors, the son from the father, who are all in the meantime free from all other public offices and attendances; and because their parents are their tutors, they both learn everything without envy, and rely with more confidence upon the truth of what is taught them; and being trained up in this learning from their very childhood, they become most famous philosophers, being at the age most capable of learning."[117] Centuries were required for the growth of such a corporation and for the firm establishment of its power upon a well-knit system of rites and doctrines. The institutions described by Ctesias would hardly show any sensible change from those in force in the same country before the Persian conquests. In their double character of priests and astrologers the Chaldæans would enjoy an almost boundless influence over both kings and private individuals; the general belief in their powers of divination made them in a sense the masters and arbiters of every destiny. Under the national kings "members of their caste led the national armies and occupied all the chief posts in the kingdom." The royal houses that succeeded one another at Babylon sprang from their ranks both in the days of vassalage to Assyria and in those of full independence. Their hierarchy was headed by an archimagus; we do not know his title in the national language, but we do know that, after the king, he was the chief person in the empire. He accompanied the sovereign wherever he went, even to the wars, in order to regulate his actions according to the rules of his art and the indications of the heavens. When the king died and his successor was not on the spot to assume the reins of government, the archimagus was regent during the interregnum, as, for instance, between the death of Nabopolassar and the accession of Nebuchadnezzar.[118] The almost theocratic character of this régime had both its advantages and its inconveniences. These priests were the savants of their time. The honours that were paid to them must have had their effect in stimulating intellectual culture and material well being, but, on the other hand, the constant intervention of a sacerdotal body in public affairs could not but do something to enfeeble the military spirit and the energy and responsibility of the commanders. Not that the priests were less penetrated by the national sentiment than their fellow countrymen. Proud of their ancient traditions and of the superiority of their science, they added contempt to the detestation they felt for a foreign master, whether he came from Babylon or Susa. The priests were the ringleaders in those risings against Assyria, and, in later years, against Persia, which cost Babylon so dearly. Once only was the success they promised achieved, and that was in the time of Nabopolassar, when Nineveh was exhausted by its long succession of wars and victories. On every other occasion the upper hand remained with races less instructed, indeed, and less refined, but among whom the power concentrated in the hands of the sovereign had been utilized to drive all the vital forces of the kingdom into the practice of war and preparation for it. On the other hand, Babylon enjoyed certain elements of prosperity and guarantees of a long national existence which were wanting to those rivals under whose yoke she had more than once to pass. The ruling classes in Chaldæa were quicker in intellect and far better educated than elsewhere. Their country lent itself to a wide and well-organised system of cultivation better than the hilly districts of Assyria or the narrow valleys and sterile plains of Iran. Communication was more prompt and easy than among the terraces which rise one above another from the left bank of the Euphrates up to the high lands of Persia and Media: in order to pass from one of these terraces to another, the bare rock has to be climbed in a fashion that brings no little danger to the traveller and his patient beasts of burden.[119] In Chaldæa, on the other hand, the proximity of the two rivers to each other, and the perfect horizontality of the soil, make the work of irrigation very easy. The agriculturists were not exposed to the danger of a complete failure of crops, a misfortune which overtook the upper regions of Mesopotamia often enough. There the Euphrates and Tigris are wide apart, and the land between them is far from being a dead level. Many districts had to depend almost entirely upon the rainfall for irrigation. Again, when it was a question of journeying from one city to another or transporting the produce of the fields, the Chaldæan could choose between the land routes that lay along the banks of the canals, or the waterways that intersected each other over the whole surface of the country. In these days the journey between Bagdad and Bassorah, a distance of some three hundred miles, involves a long detour to the east along the foot of the mountains, in order to avoid impassable marshes and bands of wandering Arabs devoted to murder and pillage. The flat country is infested with mounted brigands who strip unprotected travellers, but in ancient times it swarmed with traffic, every road was encumbered with the movements of merchandise and the march of caravans, the fields were crossed in every direction by canals, and the tall sails of the boats that moved between their banks rose over the waving crops as they do to-day in the deltas of the Meuse and the Rhine, for Chaldæa was a southern Holland. The incomparable situation of Babylon was sure to lead to great industrial and commercial activity in spite of any shortcomings in her rulers. She stood in the centre of a marvellously fertile region, between upper and western Asia. Two great rivers were at her doors, bringing her, without cost or effort, the products of their upper basins, while, on the other hand, they placed her in easy communication with the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. The merchants of Babylon had communication with the people of the Levant by easy and well-worn roads crossing the fords of the middle Euphrates. Less direct roads farther to the north were used nearly as much. Some of these traversed the Cilician passes, crossed the Amanus and Taurus into the plateau of Asia Minor, and ended at the coasts of the Ægæan and the Euxine; others passed through Assyria into Media, and through the Caspian passes up to the central plateau of Asia and into distant Bactria, whence easy passes led down into the upper valley of the Indus. Babylon was thus an _entrepôt_ for caravans both from the east and west, and for navigators coming from the ports of Africa, Arabia, and India. There are, if we may use the expression, natural capitals and capitals that are artificial. The sites of the first are determined by the configuration of the earth. When they perish it is but a temporary death, to be followed by a life often more full and brilliant than the first. The second owe their prosperity to the caprice of a sovereign, or to political combinations that pass away and leave no trace. Thebes and Nineveh were artificial cities; both have disappeared and left behind them nothing but their ruins; they have been replaced only by villages and unimportant towns. On the other hand, Memphis lives again in Cairo, and, when the depopulation of Babylon was complete, Seleucia and Ctesiphon, Kouffa and Bagdad sprang up to carry on her work. The centre of a refined civilization and of wide-stretching commercial relations, Babylon could not have been without an original art, and one marked with the peculiar characteristics of the national genius. Unhappily, the materials at her command were far inferior to those of which the Egyptians and Greeks could dispose. From this it has resulted that, on the one hand, her productions never passed a certain level of excellence, and, on the other, that they have been ill preserved. The Babylonians were not among those happy peoples whose artists could exercise their tools upon the one material that gives birth to great sculptors and great architects--a stone soft enough to yield kindly to the chisel, but hard enough to preserve to eternity the suggestive forms impressed upon it by the hand of man. Our knowledge, therefore, of Chaldæan art will bear no comparison with what we have discovered as to the art of Egypt and Greece, of Etruria and Rome. So far as we can form a judgment from the remains that have come down to us, it was an art much less varied and comprehensive than that of Egypt. The tombs of Memphis and Thebes, with their pictured walls, reflect, as in a faithful mirror, the most interesting and most amusing of all spectacles, the daily life of the oldest of all civilized societies. In Chaldæa there is nothing of the kind. The Chaldæan tomb gives us, by its arrangement and furnishing, glimpses of a faith similar at bottom to that of Egypt, but we find nothing parallel to the representations of daily work and pleasure which fill the mastabas and the Theban sepulchres; there is nothing that can be compared to those animated forms and images that play over again on the tomb walls the long drama of a hundred acts whose first performance occupied so many centuries and filled a stage stretching from the swamps of the Delta to the cataracts of Syene. We are more especially grateful to these funerary scenes for handing down to us, in a safe niche in the temple of the arts, those poor and humble folk who count for so little in this world where they bear the heaviest burdens, who depend for remembrance after death upon the services they render to the great. We shall search in vain among the scanty remnants of Babylonian sculpture for the attitude, gestures, and features of the laborious workmen upon whom the prosperity of the country was built. We shall find neither the tradesmen and artisans of the towns, nor the agriculturists who cultivated the fields and gave them the water for which they never ceased to thirst. No hint is given of those fishermen of the Persian Gulf who lived entirely, according to Herodotus, upon dried fish ground to powder and made into a kind of cake.[120] The naive, picturesque, and anecdotic illustrations of common life, which are so plentiful in Egypt, are almost completely wanting to the art of Chaldæa. On the other hand, we find, as we might have expected from what we know of Chaldæan society, continual traces of the sacerdotal spirit, and of the great part played by the king with the help and under the tutelage of the priesthood. Upon the walls of palaces, temples, and towns, on the statuettes of bronze and terra-cotta which were buried under the thresholds of buildings and placed as votive offerings in the temples, upon cylinders and engraved stones, we find only complex and varied emblems, fantastic and symbolic forms, attitudes suggestive of worship and sacrifice (Figs. 20 and 21), images of gods, goddesses, and secondary genii, princes surrounded with royal pomp and offering their homage to the deity. Hence a certain poverty and monotony and the want of recuperative power inseparable from an absorbed contemplation of sacred types and of a transcendental world. [Illustration: FIG. 20.--Chaldæan Cylinder.] [Illustration: FIG. 21.--Chaldæan Cylinder; from the British Museum.[121]] Assyrian society was different in many respects from that of Chaldæa. The same gods, no doubt, were adored in both countries, and their worship involved a highly-placed priesthood; but at Nineveh the royal power rested on the army, and the initiative and independence of the sovereign were much greater than in the case of Babylon. Assyria was a military monarchy in the fullest sense of the word. Almost as often as the spring came round the king led his invincible legions to the conquest of new subjects for Assur. He traversed deserts, crossed trackless mountain chains, and plunged into forests full of hidden dangers. He destroyed the walls and towers of hostile cities, in spite of the rain of arrows, stones, and boiling pitch that poured upon himself and his hosts; he was at once the skilful captain and the valiant soldier, he planned the attack and never spared himself in the _mêlée_. First in danger, he was the first in honour. In person he implored the good will of the god for whom he braved so many dangers, in person he thanked him for success and presented to him the spoils of the conquered enemy. If he was not deified, like the Pharaohs, either alive or after his death, he was the vicar of Assur upon earth, the interpreter of his decrees and their executor, his lieutenant and pontif, and the recipient of his confidences.[122] There was no room by the side of this armed high priest for a sacerdotal caste at all equal to him in prestige. The power and glory of the king grew with every successive victory, and in the vast empire of the Sargonids, the highest places were filled by men whom the monarch associated with himself in the never-ending work of conquest and repression. First of all came a kind of grand vizier, the _Tartan_, or commander-in-chief of the royal armies. This is the personage we so often find in the bas-reliefs facing the king and standing in an attitude at once dignified and respectful (see Fig. 22). Next came the great officers of the palace, the _ministers_ as we should call them in modern parlance, and the governors of conquered provinces. Eunuchs were charged with the supervision of the harem and, as in the modern East, occupied high places at court. They may be recognized in the bas-reliefs, where they are grouped about the king, by their round, beardless faces (see Figs. 23 and 24). The _Kislar-Aga_ is, in the Constantinople of to-day what more than one of these personages must have been in Nineveh. Read the account given by Plutarch, on the authority of Ctesias, of the murderous and perfidious intrigues that stained the palace of Susa in the time of Artaxerxes-Mnemon. You will then have some idea of the part, at once obscure and preponderant, that the more intelligent among these miserable creatures were able to play in the households of the great conquerors and unwearied hunters by whom the palaces at Khorsabad, Kouyundjik, and Nimroud, were successively occupied. [Illustration: FIG. 22.--The King Sargon and his Grand Vizier. Bas-relief from Khorsabad; in the Louvre. Alabaster. Height 116 inches. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] [Illustration: FIG. 23.--The suite of Sargon, _continued_. Bas-relief from Khorsabad; in the Louvre. Alabaster. Height 90 inches. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] [Illustration: FIG. 24.--The suite of Sargon, _continued_. Bas-relief from Khorsabad. Alabaster. Height 97 inches. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] All these military officers and administrators, these priests of the different gods, and the domestics who were often the most powerful of all, looked to the hand of the king himself and depended upon no other master. Courage and military talent must have been the surest roads to advancement, but sometimes, as under the Arab caliphs and the Ottoman sultans, the caprice of the sovereign would lead him to raise a man from the lowest ranks to the highest dignities of the state. The _régime_ of Assyria may be described in the words applied to that of Russia, it was despotism tempered with assassination. "And it came to pass, as he (Sennacherib) was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead."[123] Sennacherib's father, Sargon, perished in the same fashion. These murders were, perhaps, the revenge for some outrage or punishment imprudently inflicted in a moment of anger; but however that may have been, neither in the one case nor the other did they hinder the legitimate heir from succeeding his father. Sennacherib replaced Sargon, and Esarhaddon Sennacherib. The Assyrian supremacy was only supported by the constant presence, at the head of the army, of a king ready for every eventuality; a few weeks of anarchy or interregnum would have thrown the whole empire into confusion; the royal power was the keystone of the arch, the element upon which depended the stability of a colossal edifice subjected to various strains. In such a society, art could hardly have had a mission other than the glorification of a power without limit and without control--a power to which alone the Assyrians had to look for a continuance of their dearly-won supremacy. The architect, the sculptor, and the painter, exhausted the resources of their arts, the one in building a palace for the prince on a high mound raised to dominate the surrounding plain, the others in decorating it when built and multiplying the images of its almost divine inhabitant. The exploits of the sovereign, his great and never-ending achievements as a conqueror and destroyer of monsters, as pontif of Assur and the founder of palaces and cities--such are the themes to which Assyrian sculpture devoted itself for many centuries, taking them up and varying them in countless ways, and that, apparently, without any fear that he for whom the whole work was intended would ever grow weary of the repetition. Such themes presuppose the actual occurrence of the events represented and the artists' realization either from personal observation or from descriptions. This gives rise to a very sensible difference between Chaldæan sculpture and that of Assyria, so far at least as the latter is to be studied in the decorations of a palace. In those characteristics and qualities of execution which permit of a definition, the style is no doubt the same as in Chaldæa. The artists of Babylon and those of Nineveh were pupils in one school--they saw nature with the same eyes; the same features interested and attracted the attention of both; they had the same prejudices and the same conventions. The symbols and combinations of forms we have noticed as proper to Chaldæan art are here also; scenes of invocation to gods and genii; ornamental groups and motives. An instance of the latter is to be found in the rich embroidery with which the robes of the Assyrian kings are covered.[124] Finally, we must remember that all Assyrian art was not included in the adornment of the palace. Before a complete and definite judgment can be formed upon it the monuments of religious and industrial art should be passed under review, but, unhappily, no temple interior, and a very small number of objects of domestic luxury and daily use, have come down to us. These gaps are to be regretted, but we must not forget that the bas-reliefs were ordered by the king, that the thousands of figures they contain were introduced for the sake of giving _éclat_ to the power, the valour, and the genius of the sovereign, and that the best artists of which Assyria could boast were doubtless entrusted with their execution. Under the reserves thus laid down we may, then, devote ourselves to the study of the Ninevite sculptures that fill the museums of London and Paris; we may consider them the strongest and most original creations of Assyrian art. [Illustration: FIG. 25.--Fragment of a bas-relief in alabaster. Louvre. Height 23 inches. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] Now the sculpture upon the alabaster slabs with which the palace walls of Shalmaneser and Sargon, of Sennacherib and Assurbanipal, were covered, confines itself mainly to marches, combats, and sieves, it is more _realistic_ than the sculpture of Chaldæa, a country that had done less, especially upon fields of battle, but had invented more and done more thinking than its bellicose rival. We owe no small debt of gratitude to the swordsmen of Assyria, in spite of the blood they shed and the horrible cruelties they committed and delighted in seeing commemorated in the figured histories of their reigns. The works entrusted to their artists have left us precious documents and the elements for a restoration of a vanished world. Philologists may take their time over the decipherment of the texts inscribed on the reliefs, but the great people of prey who, for at least four centuries, pillaged all Asia without themselves becoming softened by the possession of so much accumulated wealth, live, henceforward, in the long series of pictures recovered for the world by Layard and Botta. The stern conquerors reappear, armed, helmeted, and cuirassed, as they passed before the trembling nations thirty centuries ago. They are short of stature, but vigorous and sturdy, with an exceptional muscular development. They were, no doubt, prepared for their military duties from infancy by some system of gymnastic exercises, such as have been practised by other nations of soldiers. Their noses are high and hooked, their eyes large, their features as a whole strongly Semitic (see Fig. 25). [Illustration: FIG. 26.--Bas-relief of Tiglath Pileser II.; from Nimroud. British Museum. Height 44 inches. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] [Illustration: FIG. 27.--Feast of Assurbanipal; from Kouyundjik. British Museum. Height 20-3/4 inches. No. 1, The servants of the feast.] [Illustration: FIG. 28.--Feast of Assurbanipal, _continued_. No. 2, The king and queen at table. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] The moral character of the people is shown with no less clearness. The ferocity they preserved amid all the luxurious appliances of their civilization is commemorated. Atrocities of every kind find a place in the reliefs. Among the prisoners of war the most fortunate are those led by a cord passed through their lips. Others are mutilated, crucified, flayed alive. Tiglath Pileser II. is shown to us besieging a city, before whose walls he has impaled three prisoners taken from the defenders (see Fig. 26). Elsewhere we find scribes counting over heaps of heads before paying the price for them.[125] When these had come from the shoulders of important enemies they were carried in procession and treasured as honourable trophies. In one relief we find Assurbanipal, after his return to Nineveh from the subjugation of the southern rebels, lying upon a luxurious couch in the garden of his harem and sharing a sumptuous meal with a favoured wife. Birds are singing in the trees, an attendant touches the harp, flowers and palms fill the background, while a head, the head of the Elamite king, whom Assurbanipal conquered and captured in his last campaign, hangs from a tree near the right[126] of the scene (see Figs. 27 and 28). The princes who took pleasure in these horrors were scrupulous in their piety. We find numberless representations of them in attitudes of profound respect before their gods, and sometimes they bring victims and libations in their hands (see Fig. 29). Thus, without any help from the inscriptions, we may divine from the sculptures alone what strange contrasts were presented by the Assyrian character--a character at once sanguinary and voluptuous, brutal and refined, mystical and truculent. [Illustration: FIG. 29.--Offerings to a god; Alabaster relief. Louvre. Height 10 feet. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] It is not only by what it says, it is by what it leaves untold, by what it forgets to tell, that art has left us such a sincere account of this singular nation. The king and his lieutenants, his ministers and household officers, the veterans who formed the strength of his legions and the young men from whom their numbers were recruited, did not constitute the whole of the Assyrian nation. There were also the tillers of the soil, the followers of those countless trades implied by a civilized society--the peasants, artisans, and merchants of every kind, who fed, clothed, and equipped the armies; the men who carried on the useful but modest work without which the fighting machine must soon have come to a standstill. And yet they are entirely absent from the sculptures in which the artist seems to have included everything that to him seemed worthy of interest. We meet them here and there, but only by accident. They may be descried now and then in the background of some scene of war, acting as labourers or in some other humble capacity. Otherwise the sculptor ignored their existence. They were not soldiers, which was much as to say they were nothing. Can any other instance be cited of an art so well endowed entirely suppressing what we should call the civil element of life? Neither do we find women in the bas-reliefs: that in which the queen of Assurbanipal occurs is quite unique in its way. Except in scenes representing the capture of a town and the carrying off of its inhabitants as prisoners of war, females are almost entirely wanting. On those occasions we sometimes find them carried on mules or in chariots (see Figs. 30 and 31). In certain bas-reliefs of Assurbanipal, treating of his campaign against Susa, women are playing the tambourine and singing the king's praises. But all these are exceptions. Woman, whose grace and beauty were so keenly felt by the Egyptians, is almost completely absent from the sculpture of Assyria. [Illustration: FIG. 30.--Convoy of prisoners. Kouyundjik. From Layard.] By thus limiting its scope, sculpture condemned itself to much repetition and to a uniformity not far removed from sameness; but its very silences are eloquent upon the inhuman originality of a system to which Assyria owed both the splendour of her military successes and the finality of her fall. The great entrenched camp, of which Nineveh was the centre, once forced; the veteran ranks, in which constant war, and war without quarter, had made such wide gaps, once broken, nothing remained of the true Assyria but the ignorant masses of a second-class state to whom a change of masters had little meaning, and a few vast buildings doomed soon to disappear under their own ruins. [Illustration: FIG. 31.--Convoy of prisoners. Kouyundjik. From Layard.] When we have completed our examination of Assyrian sculpture, so rich in some respects, so poor in others, we shall understand the rapidity with which silence and oblivion overtook so much glory and power; we shall understand how some two centuries after the victory of Nabopolassar and the final triumph of Babylon and her allies, Xenophon and his Greeks could mount the Tigris and gaze upon the still formidable walls of the deserted cities of Mespila and Larissa without even hearing the name of Nineveh pronounced. Eager for knowledge as they were, they passed over the ground without suspecting that the dust thrown up by their feet had once been a city famous and feared over all Asia, and that the capital of an empire hardly less great than that of the Artaxerxes whom they had faced at Cunaxa, had once covered the ground where they stood. NOTES: [117] DIODORUS, ii. 29. [118] Fr. LENORMANT, _Manuel de l'Histoire ancienne de l'Orient_, vol. ii. p. 252. [119] LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches in Chaldæa and Susiana_, p. 309. The Greeks gave the appropriate name of klimakes to those stepped roads that lead from the valley and the sea coast to the high plains of Persia. [120] HERODOTUS, i. 200. A similar article of food is in extensive use at the present day in the western islands of Scotland, and upon other distant coasts where the soil is poor.--ED. [121] Upon the subject of this cylinder, in which George Smith wished to recognize a representation of Adam and Eve tempted by the serpent, see M. JOACHIM MÉNANT'S paper entitled, _La Bible et les Cylindres Chaldéens_ (Paris, 1880, Maisonneuve, 8vo). M. Ménant makes short work of this forced interpretation and of several similar delusions which were beginning to win some acceptance. [122] Upon the sacred functions of the king, see LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 474. [123] 2 Kings xix. 37. [124] LAYARD, _The Monuments of Nineveh_ (folio, 1849), plates 43-50. [125] LAYARD, _A Second Series of the Monuments of Nineveh_ (folio, 1853), plates 26 and 27. The scribes in question seem to be writing upon rolls of leather. [126] Throughout this work the words "right" and "left" refer to the right and left of the cuts, _not_ of the reader. By this system alone can confusion be avoided in describing statues and compositions with figures.--ED. [Illustration] CHAPTER II. THE PRINCIPLES AND GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ASSYRO-CHALDÆAN ARCHITECTURE. § 1.--_Materials._ Chaldæa was the cradle of the civilization, and consequently of the art, whose characteristics we have to define. Now the soil of Chaldæa to a great depth beneath the surface is a fine loose earth, similar to that of the Nile Delta. At a few points only on the plain, and that near the Persian Gulf, are there some rocky eminences, the remains of ancient islands which the gradual encroachment of the two great rivers has joined to the mainland of Asia. Their importance is so slight that we may fairly ignore their existence and assert generally that Chaldæa has no stone. Like all great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates in the upper and middle parts of their courses carry down pieces of rock from their native mountains, but after they enter upon the alluvial ground near the boundary between Assyria and Chaldæa their streams become sluggish, and these heavy bodies sink to the bottom and become embedded in the soil; the water no longer carries on with it anything but the minute particles which with the passage of centuries form immense banks of clay. In the whole distance between Bagdad and the sea you may take a spade, and, turn up the soil wherever you please, you will not find a stone as big as a nut. In this absence of a natural stone something had to be found to take its place, and the artificial material we call brick was invented. The human intellect refuses to give up the contest with nature before the first obstacles that seem to bar its progress; if it cannot brush them aside it turns their flank. The least accident is often enough to suggest the desired expedient. The origin of almost all the great discoveries that are studded over the history of civilization may be traced to some lucky chance. The first inhabitants of Chaldæa fashioned rude kitchens for the cooking of their simple food out of moist and plastic clay, the fires of reed and broken wood lighted on these simple hearths reddened and hardened the clay till it became like rock. Some bystander more observant than the rest noted the change and became the father of ceramics. We use the word in its widest, in its etymological sense. _Ceramics_ is the art of fashioning clay and burning it in the fire so as to obtain constructive materials, domestic utensils, or objects of luxury and ornament.[127] Even before the first brick or pottery kiln was erected it must have been recognized that in a climate like that of Chaldæa the soil when dried in the sun was well fitted for certain uses. Among the _débris_ left by the earliest pioneers of civilization we find the remains of vases which seem to have been dried only in the sun. But porous and friable pottery like this could only be used for a few purposes, and it was finally renounced as soon as the art of firing the earth, first in the hot ashes of the domestic hearth, and afterwards in the searching flames of the close oven, was discovered. It was otherwise with brick. The desiccation produced by the almost vertical sun of Mesopotamia allowed it to be used with safety and advantage in certain parts of a building. In that condition it is called crude brick, to distinguish it from the harder material due to the direct heat of wood fires. In any case the clay destined for use as a building material was subject to a first preparation that never varied. It was freed from such foreign bodies as might have found their way into it, and, as in Egypt, it was afterwards mixed with chopped or rather pulverized straw, a proceeding which was thought to give it greater body and resistance. It was then mixed with water in the proportions that experience dictated, and kneaded by foot in wide and shallow basins.[128] The brickmakers of Mossoul go through the same process to this day. As soon as the clay was sufficiently kneaded, it was shaped in almost square moulds. In size these moulds surpassed even those of Egypt: their surfaces were from 15-1/4 to 15-1/2 inches square, and their thickness was from 2 to 4 inches.[129] It would seem that these artificial blocks were given this extravagant size to make up for the absence of stone properly speaking; the only limit of size seems to have been that imposed by difficulties of manufacture and handling. Crude brick never becomes hard enough to resist the action of water. In Greek history we read how Agesipolis, King of Sparta, when besieging Mantinea, directed the stream of the Ophis along the foot of its walls of unburnt brick, and so caused them to crumble away. Cimon, son of Miltiades, attacked the defences of Eion, on the Strymon, in the same fashion. When desiccation was carried far enough, such materials could be used, in interiors at least, so as to fulfil the same functions as stone or burnt brick. Vitruvius tells us that the magistrates who had charge of building operations at Utica would not allow brick to be used until it was five years old.[130] It would seem that neither in Chaldæa nor still less in Assyria was any such lengthy restriction imposed. It is only by exception that crude bricks of which the desiccation has been carried to the farthest possible point have been found in the palaces of Nineveh; almost the only instance we can give is afforded by the bricks composing the arches of the palace doorways at Khorsabad. They are rectangular, and into the wedge-shaped intervals between their faces a softer clay has been poured to fill up the joints.[131] As a rule things were done in a much less patient fashion. At the end of a few days, or perhaps weeks, as soon, in fact, as the bricks were dry and firm enough to be easily handled, they were carried on to the ground and laid while still soft. This we know from the evidence of M. Place, who cut many exploring shafts through the massive Assyrian buildings, and could judge of the condition in which the bricks had been put in place by the appearance of his excavations. From top to bottom their sides showed a plain and uniform surface; not the slightest sign of joints was to be found. Some might think that the bricks, instead of being actually soft, were first dried in the sun and then, when they came to be used, that each was dipped in water so as to give it a momentary wetness before being laid in its place. M. Place repels any such hypothesis. He points out that, had the Assyrian bricklayers proceeded in that fashion, each joint would be distinguishable by a rather darker tint than the rest of the wall. There is nothing of the kind in fact. The only things that prove his excavations to have been made through brick and not through a mass of earth beaten solid with the rammer are, in the first place, that the substance cut is very homogeneous and much more dense than it would have been had it not been kneaded and pressed in the moulds; and, secondly, that the horizontal courses are here and there to be distinguished from each other by their differences of tint.[132] The art of burning brick dates, in the case of Chaldæa, from a very remote epoch. No tradition subsisted of a period when it was not practised. After the deluge, when men wished to build a city and a tower which should reach to heaven, "they said to one another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly; and they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar."[133] The Babylonian bricks were, as a rule, one Chaldæan foot (rather more than an English foot) square. Their colour varies in different buildings from a dark red to a light yellow,[134] but they are always well burnt and of excellent quality. Nearly all of them bear an inscription to the following effect: "Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, restorer of the pyramid and the tower, eldest son of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, I." In laying the brick the face bearing this inscription was turned downwards. The characters were impressed on the soft clay with a stamp. More than forty varieties have already been discovered, implying the existence of as many stamps (see Fig. 32). In Assyria these inscriptions were sometimes stamped, sometimes engraved with the hand (Fig. 33). Most of the bricks are regular in shape, with parallel and rectangular faces, but a few wedge-shaped ones have been found, both in Chaldæa and Assyria. These must have been made for building arches or vaults. Their obliquity varies according to their destined places in the curve.[135] The body of the enamelled bricks differs from that of the ordinary kind. It is softer and more friable, appearing to be scarcely burnt.[136] This difference, at which M. Place was so much surprised, had its reason. The makers understood that their enamel colours when vitrified would penetrate deeper into and be more closely incorporated with the material upon which they were placed were the latter not so completely hardened. [Illustration: FIG. 32.--Babylonian brick; from the Louvre. 16 inches square on face, and 4 inches thick.] Crude brick, burnt brick, and brick enamelled, those were the only materials at the command of the architect, in the cities, at least, of Chaldæa. A few fragments of basalt and diorite have certainly been found in their ruins, especially at Tello, recently excavated by M. de Sarzec; but we can easily tell from the appearance of these blocks that they played a very subordinate part in the buildings into which they were introduced. Some of them seem to have been employed as a kind of decoration in relief upon the brick walls; others, and those the most numerous, appear to have been used in the principal entrances to buildings. Upon one face a semicircular hollow or socket may be noticed, in which the foot of the bronze pivots, or rather the pivot shod and faced with bronze, upon which the heavy timber doors and their casings of metal were hung, had to turn. The marks of the consequent friction are still clearly visible.[137] The dimensions of these stones are never great, and it is easy to see that their employment for building purposes was always of the most restricted nature. They had indeed to be brought from a great distance. The towns upon the Persian Gulf might get them from Arabia.[138] Babylon and Nineveh must have drawn them from the upper valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates.[139] But quarrying and transport involved an expenditure that prevented any thought of bringing these volcanic rocks into common use. [Illustration: FIG. 33.--Brick from Khorsabad; Louvre. 12-2/3 inches square, and 4-4/5 inches thick.] Compared with the towns of the lower Euphrates, Babylon was not far from mountains whence, by means of canals and rivers, she might have easily obtained a limestone of good quality. Even in these days, when commerce and industry have fallen so low in those regions, the gypseous alabaster from the neighbourhood of Mossoul is transported in no unimportant quantities as far as Bagdad. It is used for lining baths and those _serdabs_ to which the people retreat in summer.[140] The remains of the great capital show no trace of dressed stone. And yet it was used during the second empire in some of the great public works undertaken by Nabopolassar and more especially by Nebuchadnezzar. Herodotus, who saw Babylon, declares this in the most formal manner in his description of the bridge which then united, for the first time, the two banks of the Euphrates. While the river was bordered by quays of burnt brick, the bridge, says the historian, "was built of very large stones, bound together with iron clamps embedded in lead."[141] That, however, was but one exception, and it was necessitated by the very nature of the work to be carried out. No cement was to be had which could resist the action of water for an indefinite period and maintain the coherence of brickwork subjected to its unsleeping attacks. In order to obtain piers capable of withstanding the current during the great floods, it was better too to use blocks of considerable weight, which could be held together by metal tenons or clasps. It was but at rare intervals that buildings had to be erected in which the habits of ages had to be thus abandoned. Why is it that such works have perished and left no sign? The question may be easily answered. When the ruins of Babylon began to be used as an open quarry, the stone buildings must have been the first to disappear. This material, precious by its rarity and in greater request than any other, was used again and again until no trace of its original destination or of the buildings in which it was found remained. In Assyria long chains of hills traversed the plain and stretched here and there as far as the borders of the two rivers, besides which the last buttresses of the mountains of Kurdistan came very near the left bank of the Tigris. These hills all contained limestone. Two sorts were found: one fine, hard, close grained, and a little shelly, the other softer and more friable. For the decoration of his monumental doorways and the lining of his richest apartments, the architect chose and committed to the sculptor those fine slabs of gypseous alabaster of which so many examples are to be seen in the Louvre and British Museum. In the plains gypsum serves as a base or foundation for the wide banks of clay that spread over the country, and are much less thick than in the south of Chaldæa. Alabaster is there to be met with in great quantities, often but little below the surface of the soil.[142] It is a sulphate of chalk, gray in colour, soft and yet susceptible of polish. But it has many defects; it breaks easily and deteriorates rapidly on exposure to the air. The Assyrians, however, did not fear to use it in great masses, as witness the bulls in the Louvre and British Museum. Before removal these carved man-headed animals weighed some thirty-five tons, and some of those remaining at Khorsabad and Kouyundjik are still larger. In Assyria as in Chaldæa the dark and hard volcanic rocks have only been found in a few isolated fragments. They were used by the statuary and ornamentist rather than by the architect, and we cannot say for certain where they got them. We know, however, that basalt and other rocks of that kind were found in the upper valleys of the streams that flowed into the two great rivers.[143] The Assyrian architect had therefore only to stretch out his hand to win stone of a sufficiently varied nature from the soil of his own country or the flanks of its mountains. It was, of course, mediocre in quality but it had powers of resistance that fitted it for use in certain positions. At the first glance it is difficult to understand why so little use was made of it. But in truth stone was for the Assyrian no more than an accessory and complementary material; the bodies of his structures were never composed of it; it was mainly confined to plinths, pavements, and the internal linings of walls. In spite of its apparent singularity this determined exclusion is to be easily explained. The Assyrian invented nothing. His language and his writing, his religion and his science, came from Chaldæa, and so did his art. When the kings of Resen, of Calech, and Nineveh, took it into their heads to build palaces, they imported architects, painters, and sculptors, from the southern kingdom. Why, it may be asked, did those artists remain so faithful to the traditions in which they had grown up when they found themselves planted among such different surroundings? The answer is, that nothing is more tenacious of life than those professional habits that are transmitted from one generation to another by the practical teaching of more or less close corporations, besides which we must remember that the Chaldæan methods were excellently well fitted for the satisfaction of those impatient princes at whose orders the works were undertaken. For the quarrying, dressing, and fixing of stone, a special and rather tedious education was required. The manufacture and laying of bricks was comparatively easy. A few weeks were sufficient to learn all that was to be learnt about the kneading and moulding of the earth, its desiccation in the sun or burning in the kiln. Provided that experienced men were forthcoming to superintend the latter operation, millions of good bricks could be made in the year.[144] All this required no lengthy apprenticeship. Their arrangement in horizontal courses or grouping at stated intervals, into those lines of battlements with which every wall was crowned, was done by the men of the _corvée_. Certain parts of the building, such as arches and vaults, required more care and skill, and were left, no doubt, to experienced masons and bricklayers, but, with these exceptions, the whole work could be confided to the first-comers, to those armies of captives whom we see in the bas-reliefs labouring in chained gangs like convicts. Working in this fashion, even the most formidable works could be completed with singular rapidity. In Assyria, as in Chaldæa, a prince was no sooner seated firmly upon the throne than his architects set about erecting a palace which should be entirely his own. He had no wish that any name but his should be read upon its walls, or that they should display any deeds of valour but those due to his own prowess. In the life of constant war and adventure led by these conquering sovereigns, speed was everything, for they could never be sure of the morrow. That considerations like these counted for much in the determination of the Assyrian architects to follow a system that the abundance of durable materials invited them to cast aside can hardly be doubted. They did not dare to rouse the displeasure of masters who disliked to wait; they preferred rather to sacrifice the honour and glory to be won by the erection of solid and picturesque buildings than to use the slowly worked materials in which alone they could be carried out. Assyria was in all respects better provided than Chaldæa. Nature itself seemed to invite her to throw off her too docile spirit of imitation and to create an art of her own. Her possession of stone was not her only advantage over her southern neighbour, she had timber also; at least the Ninevite architect had to go a much shorter distance than his Babylonian rival in order to find it. From the summits of the lofty mounds, at whose feet he established his workshops, he could catch a distant view of mountain chains, whose valleys were clothed with forests of oak and beech, pine and cypress. There was nothing of the kind within reach of Lower Mesopotamia. The nearest mountains, those which ran parallel to the left bank of the Tigris but at a considerable distance, were more naked, even in ancient times, than those of Kurdistan and Armenia. From one side of the plain to the other there were no trees but the palm and the poplar from which timbers of any length could be cut. The soft and fibrous date-palm furnishes one of the worst kinds of wood in the world; the poplar, though more useful, is not much less brittle and light. From materials like these no system of carpentry could be developed that should allow great spaces to be covered and great heights to be reached. When Nineveh and, after her, Babylon, had conquered all Western Asia, she drew, like Egypt before her, upon the forests of Lebanon. There she obtained the beams and planks for the ceilings and doors of her sumptuous palaces.[145] The employment, however, of these excellent woods must always have been rare and exceptional. Moreover, other habits had become confirmed. When these new resources were put at the disposition of architecture, the art was too old and too closely wedded to its traditional methods to accept their aid. In the use of wood, as in that of brick, Assyria neglected to make the best of the advantages assured to her by her situation and her natural products. If Chaldæa was ill-provided with stone and timber, she had every facility for procuring the useful and precious metals. They were not, of course, to be found in her alluvial plains, but metals are easy of transport, especially to a country whose commerce has the command of navigable highways. The industrial centres in which they are manufactured are often separated by great distances from the regions where they are won from the earth. But to procure the more indispensable among them the dwellers upon the Tigris and Euphrates had no great distance to cover. The southern slopes of Zagros, three or four days' journey from Nineveh, furnished iron, copper, lead, and silver in abundance. Mines are still worked in Kurdistan, or, at least, have been worked in very recent times, which supply these metals in abundance. The traces of abandoned workings may be recognized even by the hasty and unlearned traveller, and a skilful engineer would, no doubt, make further discoveries.[146] Mr. Layard was unable to learn that any gold had been won in our days; but from objects found in the excavations, from inscriptions in which the Assyrians boast of their wealth and prodigality, from Egyptian texts in which the details of tributes paid by the Roten-nou, that is by the people of Syria and Mesopotamia, are given, it is clear that in the great days of Nineveh and Babylon those capitals possessed a vast quantity of gold, and employed it in a host of different ways. In the course of several centuries of war, victory, and pillage, princes, officers, and soldiers had amassed enormous wealth by the simple process of stripping the nations of Western Asia of every object of value they possessed. These accumulations were continually added to, in the case of Babylon, by the active commerce she carried on with the mineral-producing countries, such as the Caucasus, Bactriana, India, and Egypt. There are some architectures--that of the Greeks for example--that preserve a rare nobility even when deprived of their metal ornaments and polychromatic decoration. The architects of Babylon and Nineveh were differently situated. Deprived of metals some of their finest effects would have been impossible. The latter could be used at will in flexible threads or long, narrow bands, which could be nailed or riveted on to wood or brick. They may be beaten with the hammer, shaped by the chisel, or engraved by the burin; their surfaces may be either dead or polished; the variety of shades of which they are capable, and the brilliance of their reflections, are among the most valuable resources of the decorator, and the colouring principles they contain provide the painter and enameller with some of his richest and most solid tones. In Chaldæa the architect was condemned by the _force majeure_ of circumstances to employ little more than crude or burnt brick and bad timber; in Assyria he voluntarily condemned himself to the limitations they imposed. By the skilful and intelligent use of metals, he managed to overcome the resulting disadvantages in some degree, and to mask under a sumptuous decoration of gold, silver, and bronze, the deficiencies inherent in the material of which his buildings were mainly composed. NOTES: [127] G. CURTIUS is of opinion that the word keramos, and consequently its derivatives (kerameus, kerameia, kerameikê, &c.,) springs rather from a root CRA, expressive of the idea to _cook_, than from the word kerannumi, to mix, knead (_Grundzüge der Griechischen Etymologie_, p. 147, 5th edition). [128] See _Nahum_ iii. 14. [129] Even these dimensions were sometimes passed. The Louvre possesses an Assyrian brick rather more than 17-1/2 inches square. See DE LONGPERIER, _Notice des Antiquités Assyriennes_ (3rd edition, 1854, 12mo), No. 44. [130] VITRUVIUS, 1. ii. ch. 3. [131] PLACE, _Ninive et l'Assyrie_, vol. i. p. 225. The vault of the gallery discovered by LAYARD in the centre of the tower that occupied a part of the mound of Nimroud was constructed in the same fashion. _Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon_, p. 126. [132] PLACE, _Ninive et l'Assyrie_, vol. i. pp. 211-224. [133] _Genesis_ xi. 3. [134] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, pp. 506 and 531. [135] See, for Chaldæa, LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, p. 133; and for Assyria, PLACE, _Ninive et l'Assyrie_, vol. i. p. 250, and vol. ii. plates 38 and 39. As an example of the varieties of section presented by these bricks, we may cite those found by M. de Sarzec in the ruins of Tello, which belonged to a circular pillar. This pillar was composed of circular bricks, placed in horizontal courses round a centre of the same material. Elsewhere triangular bricks, which must have formed the angles of buildings have been found. TAYLOR, _Notes on the Ruins of Mugheir_ (_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xv. p. 266). At Abou-Sharein, this same traveller found convex-sided bricks (_Journal_, &c., vol. xv. p. 409). [136] PLACE, _Ninive_, &c., vol. i. p. 233. [137] Some of these fragments are in the Louvre. They are placed on the ground in the Assyrian Gallery. Their forms are too irregular to be fitted for reproduction here. But for the hollow in question, one might suppose them to be mere shapeless boulders. LAYARD noticed similar remains among the ruins of Babylon, _Discoveries_, &c., p. 528. [138] M. OPPERT is even inclined to think that some of them came from the peninsula of Sinai and the eastern shores of Egypt (_Revue Archéologique_, vol. xlii. p. 272). The formation of the Arabian hills is not yet very well known, and we are not in a position to say for certain whence these rocks may have come. It seems probable however, that they might have been obtained from certain districts of Arabia, from which they could be carried without too great an effort to within reach of the canals fed by the Euphrates, or of some port trading with the Persian Gulf. [139] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, &c., p. 528. [140] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 116. [141] HERODOTUS, i. 186. DIODORUS (ii. viii. 2), quoting Ctesias, speaks in almost the same terms of this stone bridge, which he attributes to Semiramis. [142] BOTTA, _Monuments de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 3. [143] In the valley of the Khabour, the chief affluent of the Euphrates, LAYARD found volcanoes whose activity seemed only to have been extinguished at a very recent epoch. Long streams of lava projected from their sides into the plain. _Discoveries_, p. 307. [144] As for the simple and rapid nature of the process by which crude bricks are manufactured to the present day in Persia, see TEXIER, _L'Arménie et la Perse_, vol. ii. p. 64. [145] As to the employment in Assyria of cedar from the Lebanon, see FRANÇOIS LENORMANT, _Histoire Ancienne_, vol. ii. p. 191, and an inscription of Sennacherib, translated by OPPERT, _Les Sargonides_, pp. 52, 53. Its use in Babylon is proved by several passages of the great text known as the _Inscription of London_, in which Nebuchadnezzar recounts the great works he had caused to be carried out in his capital (LENORMANT, _Histoire_, vol. ii. pp. 228 and 233). We find this phrase among others, "I used in the chamber of oracles the largest of the trees transported from the summits of Lebanon." LAYARD (_Discoveries_, pp. 356-7) tells us that one evening during the Nimroud excavations, his labourers lighted a fire to dry themselves after a storm, which they fed with timbers taken from the ruins. The smell of burning cedar, a perfume which so many Greek and Latin poets have praised (_urit odoratam nocturna in lumina cedrum_, VIRGIL, _Æneid_, vii. 13), apprised him of what was going on. In the British Museum (Nimroud Gallery, Case A), fragments of recovered joists may be seen. They are in such good preservation that they might be shaped and polished anew, so as to again bring out the markings and the fine dark-yellow tone which contributed not a little to make the wood so precious. It was sought both for its agreeable appearance and its known solidity; and experience has proved that the popular opinion which declared it incorruptible had some foundation. [146] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. i. p. 223, and vol. ii. pp. 415-418. § 2.--_The General Principles of Form._ If in our fancy we strip the buildings of Chaldæa and Assyria of all their accessories, if we take from them their surface ornament and the salience of their roofs, the bare edifice that remains is what geometricians call a _rectangular parallelopiped_. Of all the types created by this architecture, the only one of which we still possess a few fairly well preserved examples is that of the palace. It is therefore the best known of them all, and the first to excite attention and study. Now, upon the artificial mound, the wide terrace, over which its imposing mass is spread, the palace may be likened to a huge box whose faces are all either horizontal or vertical (Plate V.). Even in the many-storied temples, whose general aspect is modified of course to a great extent by their height, the same element may be traced. We have endeavoured to restore some of these by collating the descriptions of the ancient writers with the remains that still exist in many parts of Mesopotamia (Plates II., III., and IV.). Their general form may be described as the box to which we have compared the palace repeated several times in vertical succession, each box being rather smaller than the one below it. By these means their builders proposed to give them an elevation approaching the marvellous. The system was in some respects similar to that of the pyramid, but the re-entering angles at each story gave them a very different appearance, at least to one regarding them from a short distance. Only now and then do we find any inclination like that of the sides of a pyramid, and in those cases it applies to bases alone (Plate IV.). As a rule the walls or external surfaces are perpendicular to their foundations. We may, perhaps, explain the complete absence from Chaldæa of a system of construction that was so universal in Egypt by the differences of climate and of the materials used. Doubtless it rains less in Mesopotamia than even in Italy or Greece. But rain is not, as in Upper Egypt, an almost unknown phenomenon. The changes of the seasons are ushered in by storms of rain that amount to little less than deluges.[147] Upon sloping walls of dressed stone these torrents could beat without causing any great damage, but where brick was used the inconveniences of such a slope would soon be felt. Water does not fall so fast upon a slope as upon a perpendicular wall, and a surface made up of comparatively thin bricks has many more joints than one in which stones of any considerable size are employed. As a rule the external faces of all important buildings were revetted with very hard and well burnt bricks. But the rain, driven by the wind, might easily penetrate through the joints and spread at will through the core of mere sun-dried bricks within. The verticality of Assyrian and Chaldæan walls was necessary, therefore, for their preservation. Without it the thin covering of burnt brick would have been unable to do its proper work of protecting the softer material within, and the sudden storms by which the plains were now and again half drowned, would have been far more hurtful than they were. The Chaldæan palace, like the Egyptian temple, sought mainly for lateral development. Its extent far surpassed its elevation, and horizontal lines predominated in its general physiognomy. There was here a latent harmony between the architecture of nature and that of man, between the great plains of Mesopotamia, with their distant horizons, and the long walls, broken only by their crenellated summits, of the temples and palaces. There must, however, have been a certain want of relief, of visibility, in edifices conceived on such lines and built in such a country. This latter defect was obvious to the Mesopotamians themselves, who raised the dwellings of their gods and kings upon an artificial mound with a carefully paved summit.[148] Upon this summit the structure properly speaking rested, so that, in Chaldæa, the foundations of a great building instead of being, as elsewhere, sunk beneath the soil, stand so high above it that the ground line of the palace or temple to which they belong rises above the plain to a height that leaves the roofs of ordinary houses and even the summits of the tallest palms far below. This arrangement gave a clearer salience and a more imposing mass to structures which would otherwise, on account of their monotony of line and the vast excess of their horizontal over their vertical development, have had but little effect. [Illustration: FIG. 34.--Temple; from a Kouyundjik bas-relief. Rawlinson, vol. i. p. 314.] Such an arrangement would appear superfluous in the case of those towers in the shape of stepped pyramids, whose summits could be carried above the plain to any fanciful height by the simple process of adding story to story. But the Mesopotamian constructor went upon the same system as in the case of his palaces. It was well in any case to interpose a dense, firm, and dry mass between the wet and often shifting soil and the building, and to afford a base which by its size and solidity should protect the great accumulation of material that was to be placed upon it from injury through any settling in the foundations. Moreover, the paved esplanade had its place in the general economy. It formed a spacious court about the temple, a sacred _temenos_ as the Greeks would have called it, a _haram_ as a modern Oriental would say. It could be peopled with statues and decorated with mystic emblems; religious processions could be marshalled within its bounds. [Illustration: FIG. 35.--Tell-Ede, in Lower Chaldæa. From Rawlinson's _Five Great Monarchies_.] The general, we may almost say the invariable, rule in Mesopotamia was that every structure of a certain importance should be thus borne on an artificial hill. An examination of the ruins themselves and of the monuments figured upon the bas-reliefs shows us that these substructures did not always have the same form. Their faces were sometimes vertical, sometimes inclined; sometimes again they presented a gentle outward curve (see Fig. 34); but these purely external differences did not affect the principle. In all the river basins of Mesopotamia, whether of the Euphrates, the Tigris, or the smallest affluents of the Persian Gulf, whenever you see one of these _tells_, or isolated mounds, standing above the general surface of the plain, you may be sure that if you drive a trench into it you will come upon those courses of crude brick that proclaim its artificial origin. Rounded by natural disintegration and scarred by the rain torrents, such a hillock is apt to deceive the thoughtless or ignorant traveller, but an instructed explorer knows at a glance that many centuries ago it bore on its summit a temple, a fortress, or some royal or lordly habitation (Fig. 35). The distinguishing feature of the staged towers is their striving after the greatest possible elevation. It is true that neither from Herodotus nor Diodorus do we get any definite statements as to the height of the most famous of these monuments, the temple of Belus at Babylon;[149] Strabo alone talks of a stade (616 feet), and it may be asked on what authority he gives that measurement, which has been freely treated as an exaggeration. In any case we may test it to a certain extent by examining the largest and best preserved of the artificial hills of which we have spoken,[150] and we must remember that all the writers of antiquity are unanimous in asserting its prodigious height.[151] We run small risk of exaggeration, therefore, in saying that some of these Chaldæan temples were much taller than the highest of the Gizeh Pyramids. Their general physiognomy was the reverse of that of the Mesopotamian palaces, but it was no less the result of the natural configuration of the country. Their architect sought to find his effect in contrast; he endeavoured to impress the spectator by the strong, not to say violent, opposition between their soaring lines and the infinite horizon of the plain. Such towers erected in a hilly country like Greece would have looked much smaller. There, they would have had for close neighbours sometimes high mountains and always boldly contoured hills and rocks; however far up into the skies their summits might be carried, they would still be dominated on one side or the other. Involuntarily the eye demands from nature the same scale of proportions as are suggested by the works of man. Where these are chiefly remarkable for their height, much of their effect will be destroyed by the proximity of such hills as Acrocorinthus or Lycabettus, to say nothing of Taygetus or Parnassus. It is quite otherwise when the surface of the country stretches away on every side with the continuity and flatness of a lake. In these days none of the great buildings to which we have been alluding have preserved more than a half of their original height;[152] all that remains is a formless mass encumbered with heaps of _débris_ at its foot, and yet, as every traveller in the country has remarked, these ruined monuments have an extraordinary effect upon the general appearance of the country. They give an impression of far greater height than they really possess (Fig. 36). At certain hours of the day, we are told, this illusion is very strong: in the early morning when the base of the mound is lost in circling vapours and its summit alone stands up into the clear sky above and receives the first rays of the sun; and in the evening, when the whole mass rises in solid shadow against the red and gold of the western sky. At these times it is easy to comprehend the ideas by which the Chaldæan architect was animated when he created the type of these many-storied towers and scattered them with such profusion over the whole face of the country. The chief want of his land was the picturesque variety given by accidents of the ground to its nearest neighbours, a want he endeavoured to conceal by substituting these pyramidal temples, these lofty pagodas, as we are tempted to call them, for the gentle slopes and craggy peaks that are so plentiful beyond the borders of Chaldæa. By their conspicuous elevation, and the enormous expenditure of labour they implied, they were meant to break the uniformity of the great plains that lay about them; at the same time, they would astonish contemporary travellers and even that remote posterity for whom no more than a shapeless heap of ruins would be left. They would do more than all the writings of all the historians to celebrate the power and genius of the race that dared thus to correct and complete the work of nature. [Illustration: FIG. 36.--Haman, in Lower Chaldæa. From Loftus.] When the king and his architect had finished one of these structures, they might calculate upon an infinite duration for it without any great presumption, and that partly because Chaldæan art, even when most ambitious and enterprising, never made use of any but the simplest means. The arch was in more frequent use than in Egypt, but it hardly seems to have been employed in buildings to which any great height was to be given. Scarcely a trace of it is to be discovered either in the parts preserved of these structures or in their sculptured representations. None of those light and graceful methods of construction that charm and excite the eye, but must be paid for by a certain loss of stability, are to be found here. Straight lines are the inflexible rule. The few arches that may be discovered in the interior exercise no thrust, surrounded as they are on every side by weighty masses. In theory the equilibrium is perfect; and if, as the event has proved, the conditions of stability, or at least of duration, were less favourable than in the pyramids at Memphis or in the temples at Thebes, the fault lies with the inherent vices of the material used and with the comparatively unfavourable climate. * * * * * In the absence of stone the Chaldæan builder was shut off from many of the most convenient methods of covering, and therefore of multiplying, voids. Speaking generally, we may say that he employed neither _piers_, nor _columns_, nor those beams of limestone, sandstone, or granite, which we know as _architraves_; he was, therefore, ignorant of the _portico_, and never found himself driven by artistic necessities to those ingenious, delicate, and learned efforts of invention by which the Egyptians and Greeks arrived at what we call _orders_. This term is well understood. By it we mean supports of which the principal parts, base, shaft, and capital, have certain constant and closely defined mutual relations. Like a zoological species, each order has a distinctive character and personal physiognomy of its own. An art that is deprived of such a resource is condemned to a real inferiority. It may cover every surface with the luxury of a sumptuous decoration, but, in spite of all its efforts, a secret poverty, a want of genius and invention, will be visible in its creations. The varied arrangements of the portico suggested the _hypostyle hall_, with all the picturesque developments it has undergone at the hands of the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the people of modern Europe. In their ignorance of the pier and column, the Chaldæans were unable to give their buildings those spacious galleries and chambers which delight the eye while they diminish the actual mass of a building. Their towers were artificial mountains, almost as solid and massive from base to summit as the natural hills from which their lines were taken.[153] A few small apartments were contrived within them, near their outer edges, that might fairly be compared to caves hollowed in the face of a cliff. The weight upon the lower stories and the substructure was therefore enormous, even to the point of threatening destruction by sheer pulverisation. The whole interior was composed of crude brick, and if, as is generally supposed, those bricks were put in place before the process of desiccation was complete, the shrinkage resulting from its continuance must have had a bad effect upon the structure as a whole, especially as the position of the courses and the more or less favourable aspects of the different external faces must have caused a certain inequality in the rate at which that operation went on. The resistance would not be the same at all points, and settlements would occur by which the equilibrium of the upper stages might be compromised and the destruction of the whole building prepared. Another danger lay in the violence of the sudden storms and the diluvial character of the winter rains. Doubtless the outsides of the walls were faced with well burnt bricks, carefully set, and often coated with an impenetrable enamel; but an inclined plane of a more or less gentle gradient wound from base to summit to give access to the latter. When a storm burst upon one of these towers, this plane became in a moment the bed of a torrent, for its outer edge would, of course, be protected by a low wall. The water would pour like a river over the sloping pavement and strike violently against each angle. Whether it were allowed to flow over the edges of the inclined plane or, as seems more probable, directed in its course so as to sweep it from top to bottom, it must in either case have caused damage requiring continual watchfulness and frequent repairs. If this watchfulness were remitted for an instant, some of the external burnt and enamelled bricks might become detached and leave a gap through which the water could penetrate to the soft core within, and set up a process of disintegration which would become more actively mischievous with every year that passed. The present appearance of these ruins is thus, to a great extent, to be explained. Travellers in the country agree in describing them as irregular mounds, deeply seamed by the rains; and the sides against which the storms and waterspouts that devastate Mesopotamia would chiefly spend their force are those on which the damage is most conspicuous (see Fig. 37). Even in antique times these buildings had suffered greatly. In Egypt, when the supreme power had passed, after one of those periods of decay that were by no means infrequent in her long career, into the hands of an energetic race of princes like those of the eighteenth or twenty-sixth dynasties, all traces of damage done to the public monuments by neglect or violence were rapidly effaced. The pyramids could take care of themselves. They had seen the plains at their feet covered again and again with hordes of barbarians, and yet had lost not an inch of their height or a stone of their polished cuirass. Even in the temples the setting up of a few fallen columns, the reworking of a few bas-reliefs, the restoration of a painting here and there, was all that was necessary to bring back their former splendour. [Illustration: FIG. 37.--Babil, at Babylon. From Oppert.] In Chaldæa the work undertaken by Nabopolassar and his dynasty was far more arduous. He had to rebuild nearly all the civil and religious buildings from their foundations, to undertake, as we know from more than one text, a general reconstruction.[154] A new Babylon was reared from the ground. Little of her former monuments remained but their foundations and materials. Temples richer than the first rose upon the lofty mounds, and, for the sake of speed, were often built of the old bricks, upon which appeared the names of forgotten kings. Nothing was neglected, no expense was spared by which the solidity of the new buildings could be increased, and yet, five or six centuries afterwards, nothing was left but ruins. Herodotus seems to have seen the great temple of Bel while it was still practically intact, but Diodorus speaks of it as an edifice "which time had caused to fall,"[155] and he adds that "writers are not in accord in what they say about this temple, so that it is impossible for us to make sure what its real dimensions were." It would seem, therefore, that the upper stories had fallen long before the age of Augustus. Even Ctesias, perhaps, who is Diodorus's constant guide in all that he writes on the subject of Chaldæa and Assyria, never saw the monument in its integrity. In any case, the building was a complete ruin in the time of Strabo. "The tomb of Belus," says that accurate and well-informed geographer, "is now destroyed."[156] Strabo, like Diodorus, attributes the destruction of these buildings partly to time, partly to the avenging violence of the Persians, who, irritated by the never-ending revolts of Babylon, ruined the proudest and most famous of her temples as a punishment. That the sanctuary was pillaged by the Persians under Xerxes, as Strabo affirms, is probable enough, but we have some difficulty in believing that they troubled themselves to destroy the building itself.[157] The effort would have been too great, and, in view of the slow but sure action of the elements upon its substance, it would have been labour thrown away. The destruction of an Egyptian monument required a desperate and long continued attack, it had to be deliberately murdered, if we may use such a phrase, but the buildings of Mesopotamia, with their thin cuirasses of burnt brick and their soft bodies, required the care of an architect to keep them standing, we might say of a doctor to keep them alive, to watch over them day by day, and to stop every wound through which the weather could reach their vulnerable parts. Abandoned to themselves they would soon have died, and died natural deaths. Materials and a system of construction such as those we have described could only result, in a close style of architecture, in a style in which the voids bore but a very small proportion to the solids. And such a style was well suited to the climate. In the long and burning summers of Mesopotamia the inhabitants freely exchanged light for coolness. With few and narrow openings and thick walls the temperature of their dwellings could be kept far lower than that of the torrid atmosphere without.[158] Thus we find in the Ninevite palaces outer walls of from fifteen to five-and-twenty feet in thickness. It would have been very difficult to contrive windows through such masses as that, and they would when made have given but a feeble light. The difficulty was frankly met by discarding the use of any openings but the doors and skylights cut in the roofs. The window proper was almost unknown. We can hardly point to an instance of its use, either among Assyrian or Chaldæan remains, or in the representations of them in the bas-reliefs. Here and there we find openings in the upper stories of towers, but they are loop-holes rather than windows (Fig. 38).[159] [Illustration: FIG. 38.--A Fortress. From Layard.] At first we are inclined to pity kings shut up within such blind walls as these. But we must not be betrayed into believing that they took no measures to enjoy the evening breeze, or to cast their eyes over the broad plains at their feet, over the cities that lay under the shadows of the lofty mounds upon which their palaces were built. At certain times of the year and day they would retire within the shelter of their thickest walls and roofs; just as at the present moment the inhabitants of Mossoul, Bassorah, and Bagdad, take refuge within their _serdabs_ as soon as the sun is a little high in the heavens, and stay there until the approach of evening.[160] When the heat was less suffocating the courtyards would be pleasant, with their encircling porticoes sustaining a light covering inclined towards the centre, an arrangement required by the climate, and one which is to be found both at Pompeii and in the Arab houses of Damascus, and is sure to have been adopted by the inhabitants of ancient Chaldæa. Additional space was given by the wide esplanades in front of the doors, and by the flat roofs, upon which sleep was often more successfully wooed than in the rooms below. And sometimes the pleasures given by refreshing breezes, cool shadows, and a distant prospect could be all enjoyed together, for in a certain bas-relief that seems to represent one of those great buildings of which we possess the ruins, we see an open arcade--a _loggia_ as it would be called in Italy--rise above the roof for the whole length of the façade (Fig. 39).[161] There are houses in the neighbourhood of Mossoul in which a similar arrangement is to be met with, as we may see from Mr. Layard's sketch of a house in a village of Kurdistan inhabited by Nestorians (Fig. 40). It includes a modified kind of portico, the pillars of which are suggested or rather demanded by the necessity for supporting the ceiling. [Illustration: FIG. 39.--View of a Town and its Palaces. Kouyundjik. From Layard.] Supposing such an arrangement to have obtained in Mesopotamia, of what material were the piers or columns composed? Had they been of stone their remains would surely have been found among the ruins; but no such things have ever come to light, so we may conclude that they were of timber or brick; the roof, at least, must have been wood. The joints may have been covered with protecting plates of metal by which their duration was assured. We have a curious example of the use of these bronze sheaths in the remains of gilded palm-trees found by M. Place in front of the _harem_ at Khorsabad. He there encountered a cedar trunk lying upon the ground and incased in a brass coat on which all the roughnesses of cedar bark were imitated. The leaves of doors were also protected by metallic bands, which were often decorated with bas-reliefs. [Illustration: FIG. 40.--House in Kurdistan; from Layard.] Must we conclude that stone columns were unknown in Chaldæa and Assyria? As for Chaldæa, we have no positive information in the matter, but we know that she had no building stone of her own. The Chaldæan sculptor might indeed import a few blocks of diorite or basalt, either from Arabia, Egypt, or the valleys of Mount Zagros, for use in statues which would justify such expense; but the architect must have been restricted to the use of material close at hand. In Assyria limestone was always within reach, and yet the Assyrians never succeeded in freeing themselves from traditional methods sufficiently to make the column play a part similar to that assigned to it by the peoples of Egypt and Greece. Their habits, and especially the habit of respect for the practices and traditions of Chaldæa, were too strong for them. Their use of the column, though often tasteful and happy, is never without a certain timidity. One is inclined to think they had an inkling of the possibilities latent in it, but that they lacked the courage necessary to give it full play in the interiors and upon the façades of their large palaces and towers. In the bas-reliefs we find columns used in the kiosques built upon the river banks (Fig. 41), and in the pavilions or chapels studded over the royal gardens (Fig. 42). The excavations, moreover, have yielded pedestals and capitals which, rare as they are, have a double claim to our regard. The situations in which they have been discovered seem to show that columns were sometimes used in front of doorways, to support porches or covered ways extending to the full limits of the esplanade; secondly, their forms themselves are interesting. Close study will convince us that, when copied by neighbouring peoples who made frequent and general use of stone supports, they might well have exercised an influence that was felt as far as the Ægæan, and had something to do with one of the fairest creations of Greek art. We thus catch side glimpses of the column, as it were, in small buildings, in the porches before the principal doors of palaces, and in the open galleries with which some of the latter buildings were crowned (Fig. 39). In all these cases it is nothing but a more or less elegant accessory; we might if we pleased give a sufficiently full description of Mesopotamian architecture without hinting at its existence. [Illustration: FIG. 41.--Temple on the bank of a river, Khorsabad; from Botta.] We cannot say the same of the arch, which played a much more important _rôle_ than it did in Egypt. There it was banished, as we have seen, to the secondary parts of an edifice. It hardly entered into the composition of the nobler class of buildings; it was used mainly in store-rooms built near the temples, in the gateways through the outer walls of tombs, and in underground cellars and passages.[162] In Mesopotamia, on the other hand, the arch is one of the real constituent elements of the national architecture. [Illustration: FIG. 42.--Temple in a Royal Park, Kouyundjik; from the British Museum.] That the Chaldæan architects were early led to the invention of the arch is easily understood. They were unable to support the upper parts of their walls, their ceilings or their roofs, upon beams of stone or timber, and they had to devise some other means of arriving at the desired result. This means was not matured all at once. With most peoples the first stage consisted probably in those corbels or off-sets by which the width of the space to be covered was reduced course by course, till a junction was effected at the top; and sometimes this early stage may have been dispensed with. In some cases, the workman who had to cover a narrow void with small units of construction may, in trying them in various positions and combinations, have hit upon the real principle of the arch. This principle must everywhere have been discovered more or less accidentally; in one place the accident may have come sooner than in another, and here it may have been turned to more profit than there. We shall have to describe and explain these differences at each stage of our journey through the art history of antiquity, but we may at once state the general law that our studies and comparisons will bring to light. The arch was soonest discovered and most invariably employed by those builders who found themselves condemned, by the geological formation of their country, to the employment of the smallest units. The Chaldæans were among those builders, and they made frequent use of the arch. They built no long arcades with piers or columns for supports, like those of the Romans, and that simply because such structures would have been contrary to the general principles of their architecture. They made no use, as we have already explained, of those isolated supports whose employment resulted in the hypostyle halls of Egypt and Persia, in the naves of Greek temples and Latin basilicas. The want of stone put any such arrangement out of the question. We have, then, no reason to believe that their arches ever rested upon piers or upon the solid parts of walls freely pierced for the admission of light. The type from which the modern east has evolved so many fine mosques and churches was unknown in Chaldæa. In every building of which we possess either the remains or the figured representation the archivolts rest upon thick and solid walls. Under these conditions the vault was supreme in certain parts of the building. Its use was there so constant as to have almost the character of an unvarying law. Every palace was pierced in its substructure by drains that carried the rain water and the general waste from the large population by which it was inhabited down into the neighbouring river, and nearly all these drains were vaulted. And it must not be supposed that the architect deliberately hid his vaults and arches, or that he only used them in those parts of his buildings where they were concealed and lost in their surroundings; they occur, also, upon the most careful and elaborate façades. The gates of cities, of palaces and temples, of most buildings, in fact, that have any monumental character, are crowned by an arch, the curve of which is accentuated by a brilliantly coloured soffit. This arch is continued as a barrel vault for the whole length of the passage leading into the interior, and these passages are sometimes very long. Vaults would also, in all probability, have been found over those narrow chambers that are so numerous in Assyrian palaces were it not for the universal ruin that has overtaken their superstructures. Finally, certain square rooms have been discovered which must have been covered with vaults in the shape of more or less flattened domes. [Illustration: FIG. 43.--View of a group of buildings; Kouyundjik; from Layard.] We must here call attention to the importance of a bas-relief belonging to the curious series of carved pictures in which Sennacherib caused the erection of his palace at Nineveh to be commemorated. Look well at this group of buildings, which seems to rise upon a platform at the foot of a hill shaded with cypresses and fruit-laden vines (see Fig. 43). The buildings on the right have flat roofs, those on the left, and they seem the most important, have, some hemispherical cupolas, and some tall domes approaching cones in shape. These same forms are still in use over all that country, not only for public buildings like baths and mosques, but even here and there for the humblest domestic structures. Travellers have been often surprised at encountering, in many of the villages of Upper Syria and Mesopotamia, peasants' houses with sugar-loaf roofs like these.[163] We need not here go further into details upon this point. In these general and introductory remarks we have endeavoured to point out as concisely as possible how the salient characteristics of Assyrian architecture are to be explained by the configuration of the country, by the nature of the materials at hand, and by the climate with which the architect had to reckon. It was to these conditions that the originality of the system was due; that the solids were so greatly in excess over the voids, and the lateral over the vertical measurements of a building. In this latter respect the buildings of Mesopotamia leave those of all other countries, even of Egypt, far behind. They were carried, too, to an extraordinary height without any effort to give the upper part greater lightness than the substructure; both were equally solid and massive. Finally, the nature of the elements of which Mesopotamian architects could dispose was such that the desire for elegance and beauty had to be satisfied by a superficial system of decoration, by paint and carved slabs laid on to the surface of the walls. Beauty unadorned was beyond their reach, and their works may be compared to women whose attractions lie in the richness of their dress and the multitude of their jewels. NOTES: [147] OPPERT (_Expédition scientifique_, vol. i. p. 86) gives a description of one of these storms that he encountered in the neighbourhood of Bagdad on the 26th of May. [148] LAYARD, _Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. ii. p. 119. When one of these mounds is attacked from the top, the excavators must work downwards until they come to this paved platform. As soon as it is reached no greater depth need be attempted; all attention is then given to driving lateral trenches in every direction. In Assyria the mass of crude bricks sometimes rests upon a core of rock which has been utilized to save time and labour (LAYARD, _Discoveries_, &c., p. 219). [149] See HERODOTUS, i. 181-184; and DIODORUS, ii. 9. [150] By such means M. OPPERT arrives at a height of 250 Babylonian feet, or about 262 feet English for the monument now represented by the mound in the neighbourhood of Babylon known as Birs-Nimroud. _Expédition scientifique de Mésopotamie_, vol. i. pp. 205-209, and plate 8. [151] Homologeitai d' hupsêlon gegenêsthai kath' huperbolên.--DIODORUS, ii. 9, 4. [152] The mound called Babil on the site of Babylon (Plate I. and Fig. 37) is now about 135 feet high, but the Birs-Nimroud, the highest of these ruins, has still an elevation of not less than 220 feet (LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 495). [153] See LAYARD'S account of his excavation in the interior of the pyramidal ruin occupying a part of the platform which now surmounts the mound of Nimroud. From two sides trenches were cut to the centre; neither of them encountered a void of any kind (_Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. ii. p. 107). At a later period further trenches were cut and the rest of the building explored (_Discoveries_, pp. 123-129). The only void of which any trace could be found was a narrow, vaulted gallery, about 100 feet long, 6 wide, and 12 high. It was closed at both ends, and appeared never to have had any means of access from without. [154] See LENORMANT, _Histoire Ancienne_, vol. ii. pp. 228 and 233. Translations of several texts in which these restorations are spoken of are here given. [155] tou kataskeuasmatos dia tou chronou diapeptôkotos (ii. 9, 4). [156] STRABO, xvi. 5. [157] DIODORUS, after describing the treasures of the temple, confines himself to saying generally, "all this was afterwards spoiled by the king of Persia" (ii. 9, 19). [158] According to the personal experience of M. Place, the ancient arrangements were more suited to the climate of this country than the modern ones that have taken their place. The overpowering heat from which the inhabitants of modern Mossoul suffer so greatly is largely owing to the unintelligent employment of stone and plaster in the construction of dwellings. During his stay in that town the thermometer sometimes rose, in his apartments, to 51° Centigrade (90° Fahrenheit). The mean temperature of a summer's day was from 40° to 42° Centigrade (from 72° to about 76° Fahrenheit). [159] See LAYARD, _Monuments of Nineveh_, 2nd series, plates 21 and 40. [160] The _serdab_ is a kind of cellar, the walls and floor of which are drenched periodically with water, which, by its evaporation, lowers the temperature by several degrees. [161] The town represented on the sculptured slab here reproduced is not Assyrian but Phoenician; it affords data, however, which may be legitimately used in the restoration of the upper part of an Assyrian palace. We can hardly believe that the Mesopotamian artists, in illustrating the wars of the Assyrian kings, copied servilely the real features of the conquered towns. They had no sketches by "special artists" to guide their chisels. They were told that a successful campaign had been fought in the marshes of the lower Euphrates, or in some country covered with forests of date trees, and these they had no difficulty in representing because they had examples before their eyes; so too, when buildings were in question, we may fairly conclude that they borrowed their motives from the architecture with which they were familiar. [162] See the _History of Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. pp. 77-84. [163] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 112; GEO. SMITH, _Assyrian Discoveries_, p. 341. § 3.--_Construction._ As might have been expected nothing that can be called a structure of dressed stone has been discovered in Chaldæa;[164] in Assyria alone have some examples been found. Of these the most interesting, and the most carefully studied and described are the walls of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad. Even there stone was only employed to case the walls in which the mound was inclosed--a cuirass of large blocks carefully dressed and fixed seemed to give solidity to the mass, and at the same time we know by the arrangement of the blocks that the outward appearance of the wall was by no means lost sight of. All those of a single course were of one height but of different depths and widths, and the arrangement followed a regular order like that shown in Fig. 46. Their external face was carefully dressed.[165] [Illustration: FIG. 44.--Plan of angle, Khorsabad; from Place.] [Illustration: FIG. 45.--Section of wall through AB in Fig. 44; from Place.] The courses consist, on plan, of "stretchers" and "headers." We borrow from Place the plan of an angle (Fig. 44), a section (Fig. 45), and an elevation (Fig. 46). Courses are always horizontal and joints properly bound. The freestone blocks at the foot of the wall are very large. The stretchers are six feet eight inches thick, the same wide, and nine feet long. They weigh about twenty-three tons. It is astonishing to find the Assyrians, who were very rapid builders, choosing such heavy and unmanageable materials. The supporting wall became gradually thinner towards the top, each course being slightly set back from the one below it on the inner face (see Fig. 45). This arrangement is general with these retaining-walls. The average diminution is from seven to ten feet at the base, to from three to six at the top. The constructor showed no less skill in the use he made of his stretchers and headers. They not only gave him an opportunity of safely diminishing the weight of his structure and economising his materials, they afforded a ready means of adapting his wall exactly to the work it had to do. The headers penetrated farther into the crude mass within than the stretchers, and gave to the junction of the two surfaces a solidity similar to that derived by a wall from its through stones or perpenders. [Illustration: FIG. 46.--Elevation of wall, Khorsabad; from Place.] In describing this wall, M. Place also calls attention to the care with which the angles are built. "The first course," he says, "is composed of three 'headers' with their shortest side outwards and their length engaged in the mass behind. Two of these stones lie parallel to each other, the third crosses their inner extremities."[166] Thanks to this ingenious arrangement, the weakest and most exposed part of the wall is capable of resisting any attack. The surface in contact with the core of crude brick was only roughly dressed, by which means additional cohesion was given to the junction of the two materials; but the other sides were carefully worked and squared and fixed in place by simple juxtaposition. The architect calculated upon sufficient solidity being given by the mere weight of the stones and the perfection of their surfaces.[167] [Illustration: FIG. 47.--Section in perspective through the south-western part of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad; compiled from Place.] The total height of this Khorsabad wall was sixty feet--nine feet for the foundations, forty-six for the retaining-wall, and five for the parapet, for the wall did not stop at the level of the roofs. A row of battlements was thought necessary both as a slight fortification and as an ornament.[168] These were finished at the top with open crenellations in brick, along the base of which ran apparently a frieze of painted rosettes. A reference to our Fig. 47 will explain all these arrangements better than words. It is a bird's-eye view in perspective of the south-western part of the palace. The vertical sections on the right of the engraving show how the stones were bonded to the crude brick. The crenellations are omitted here, but they may be seen in place on the left. The great size of the stones and the regularity of the masonry, the height of the wall and the long line of battlements with which it was crowned, the contrast between the brilliant whiteness of its main surface and the bright colours of the painted frieze that, we have supposed, defined its summit--all this made up a composition simple enough, but by no means devoid of beauty and grandeur. In the _enceinte_ surrounding the town, stone was also employed, but in a rather different fashion. It was used to give strength to the foot of the wall, which consisted of a limestone plinth nearly four feet high, surmounted by a mass of crude brick, rising to a total height of about forty-four feet. Its thickness was eighty feet. The bed of stone upon which the brick rested was made up of two retaining walls with a core of rubble. In the former, large blocks, carefully dressed and fixed, were used; in the latter, pieces of broken stone thrown together pell-mell, except towards the top, where they were so placed as to present a smooth surface, upon which the first courses of brick could safely rest.[169] When Xenophon crossed Assyria with the "ten thousand," he noticed this method of constructing city walls, but in all the _enceintes_ that attracted his attention, the height of the plinth was much greater than that of Khorsabad. At Larissa it was twenty, and at Mespila fifty feet, or respectively a fifth and a third of the total height of the walls.[170] These figures can only be looked upon as approximate. The Greeks did not amuse themselves, we may be sure, with measuring the monuments they encountered on their march, even if Tissaphernes gave them time. But we may fairly conclude from this evidence that in some of the Assyrian town-walls the proportion between the plinth and the superstructure was very different from what it is in the only example that has come down to us. At Khorsabad, then, stone played a much more important part in the palace wall than in that of the town, but even in the latter position it is used with skill and in no inconsiderable quantity; on the other hand, it is only employed in the interior of the palace for paving, for lining walls, for the bases, shafts and capitals of columns, and such minor purposes. In the only palace that has been completely excavated, that of Sargon at Khorsabad, everything is built of brick. Layard alone speaks of a stone-built chamber in the palace of Sennacherib at Kouyundjik, but he gives no details. It would seem as if the Assyrians were content with showing themselves passed-masters in the art of dressing and fixing stone, and, that proof given, had never cared to make use of the material in the main structures of their buildings. Like the Chaldæans, they preferred brick, into the management of which, however, they introduced certain modifications of their own. The crude brick of Nineveh and its neighbourhood was used while damp, and, when put in place, did not greatly differ from pisé.[171] Spread out in wide horizontal courses, the slabs of soft clay adhered one to another by their plasticity, through the effect of the water with which they were impregnated and that of the pressure exercised by the courses above.[172] The building was thus, in effect, nothing but a single huge block. Take it as a whole, put aside certain parts, such as the doorways and drains, that were constructed on rather different principles, shut your eyes to the merely decorative additions, and you will have a huge mass of kneaded earth which might have been shaped by giants in a colossal mould. The masons of Babylon and of other southern cities made a much more extensive use of burnt brick than those of the north. In Assyria the masses of pisé have as a rule no other covering than the slabs of alabaster and limestone, and above, a thin layer of stucco. In Chaldæa the crude walls of the houses and towers were cuirassed with those excellent burnt bricks which the inhabitants of Bagdad and Hillah carry off to this day for use in their modern habitations.[173] The crude bricks used behind this protecting epidermis have not lost their individuality, as at Nineveh they seem to have been used only after complete dessication. They are of course much more friable than those burnt in the kiln; when they are deprived of their cuirass and exposed to the weather they return slowly to the condition of dust, and their remains are seen in the sloping mounds that hide the foot of every ancient ruin (see Fig. 48), and yet if you penetrate into the interior of a mass built of these bricks, you will easily distinguish the courses, and in some instances the bricks have sufficient solidity to allow of their being moved and detached one from another. They are, in fact, bricks, and not pisé. But in Chaldæa, as in Assyria, the mounds upon which the great buildings were raised are not always of crude brick. They are sometimes made by inclosing a large space by four brick walls, and filling it with earth and the various _débris_ left by previous buildings.[174] Our remarks upon construction must be understood as applying to the buildings themselves, and not to the artificial hills upon which they stood. [Illustration: FIG. 48.--Temple at Mugheir; from Loftus.] The Assyrians seem never to have used anything analogous to our mortar or cement in fixing their materials. On the comparatively rare occasions when they employed stone they were content with dressing their blocks with great care and putting them in absolute juxtaposition with one another. When they used crude brick, sufficient adherence was insured by the moisture left in the clay, and by its natural properties. Even when they used burnt or well dried bricks they took no great care to give them a cohesion that would last, ordinary clay mixed with water and a little straw, was their only cement.[175] Even in our own day the masons and bricklayers of Mossoul and Bagdad are content with the same simple materials, and their structures have no great solidity in consequence. In Chaldæa, at least in certain times and at certain places, construction was more careful. In the ruin known as _Babil_, a ruin that represents one of the principal monuments of ancient Babylon, there is nothing between the bricks but earth that must have been placed there in the condition of mud.[176] These bricks may be detached almost without effort. It is quite otherwise with the two other ruins in the same neighbourhood, called respectively _Kasr_ and _Birs-Nimroud_. Their bricks are held together by an excellent mortar of lime, and cannot be separated without breaking.[177] Elsewhere, at Mugheir for instance, the mortar is composed of lime and ashes.[178] [Illustration: PLATE I. BABYLON FROM AN UNPUBLISHED DRAWING BY FELIX THOMAS.] Finally, the soil of Mesopotamia furnished, and still furnishes, a kind of natural mortar in the bituminous fountains that spring through the soil at more than one point between Mossoul and Bagdad.[179] It is hardly ever used in these days except in boatbuilding, for coating the planks and caulking. In ancient times its employment was very general in the more carefully constructed buildings, and, as it was found neither in Greece nor Syria, it made a great impression upon travellers from those countries. They noted it as one of the characteristics of Chaldæan civilization. In the Biblical account of the Tower of Babel we are told: "They had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar."[180] Herodotus lays stress upon the same detail in his description of the way in which the walls of Babylon were built: "As they dug the ditches they converted the excavated earth into bricks, and when they had enough, they burnt them in the kiln. Finally, for mortar they used hot bitumen, and at every thirty courses of bricks they put a layer of reeds interlaced."[181] Those walls have long ago disappeared. For many centuries their ruins afforded building materials for the inhabitants of the cities that have succeeded each other upon and around the site of ancient Babylon, and now their lines are only to be faintly traced in slight undulations of the ground, which are here and there hardly distinguishable from the banks that bordered the canals. But in those deserts of Lower Chaldæa, where the nomad tent is now almost the only dwelling, structures have been found but little damaged, in which layers of reeds placed at certain intervals among the bricks may be easily distinguished. As a rule three or four layers are strewn one upon the other, the rushes in one being at right angles to those above and below it. Here and there the stalks may still be seen standing out from the wall.[182] Fragments of bitumen are everywhere to be picked up among the _débris_ about these buildings, upon which it must have been used for mortar. It never seems to have been employed, however, over the whole of a building, but only in those parts where more than the ordinary cohesive power was required. Thus, at Warka, in the ruin called _Bouvariia_, the buttresses that stand out from the main building are of large burnt bricks set in thick beds of bitumen, the whole forming such a solid body that a pickaxe has great difficulty in making any impression upon it.[183] Travellers have also found traces of the same use of bitumen in the ruins of Babylon. It seems to have been in less frequent employment in Assyria. It has there been found only under the two layers of bricks that constitute the ordinary pavement of roofs, courts, and chambers. The architect no doubt introduced this coat of asphalte for two purposes--partly to give solidity to the pavement, partly to keep down the wet and to force the water in the soil to flow off through its appointed channels. A layer of the same kind was also spread under the drains.[184] In spite of all their precautions time and experience compelled the inhabitants of Mesopotamia to recognize the danger of crude brick as a building material; they endeavoured, therefore, to supplement its strength with huge buttresses. Wherever the ruins have still preserved some of their shape, we can trace, almost without exception, the presence of these supports, and, as a rule, they are better and more carefully built than the structures whose walls they sustain. Their existence has been affirmed by every traveller who has explored the ruins of Chaldæa,[185] and in Assyria they are also to be found, especially in front of the fine retaining wall that helps to support the platform on which the palace of Sargon was built.[186] The architect counted upon the weight of his building, and upon these ponderous buttresses, to give it a firm foundation and to maintain the equilibrium of its materials. As a rule there were no foundations, as we understand the word. At _Abou-Sharein_, in Chaldæa, the monument described by Taylor and the brick pavement that surrounds it are both placed upon the sand.[187] Botta noticed something of the same kind in connection with the palace walls at Khorsabad: "They rest," he says, "upon the very bricks of the mound without the intervention of any plinth or other kind of solid foundation, so that here and there they have sunk below the original level of the platform upon which they are placed."[188] This was not due to negligence, for in other respects these structures betray a painstaking desire to insure the stability of the work, and no little skill in the selection of means. Thus the Chaldæan architect pierced his crude brick masses with numerous narrow tunnels, or ventilating pipes, through which the warm and desiccating air of a Mesopotamian summer could be brought into contact with every part, and the slight remains of moisture still left in the bricks when fixed could be gradually carried off. These shafts have been found in the ruins of Babylon and of other Chaldæan cities.[189] Nothing of the kind has been discovered in Assyria, and for a very simple reason. It would have been impossible to preserve them in the soft paste, the kind of pisé, we have described. Another thing that had to be carefully provided for was the discharge of the rain water which, unless it had proper channels of escape, would filter through the cracks and crevices of the brick and set up a rapid process of disintegration. In the Assyrian palaces we find, therefore, that the pavements of the flat roofs of the courtyards and open halls had a decided slope, and that the rain water was thus conducted to scuppers, through which it fell into runnels communicating with a main drain, from which it was finally discharged into the nearest river. It rained less in Chaldæa than in Assyria. But we may fairly conclude that the Chaldæan architects were as careful as their northern rivals to provide such safeguards as those we have described; but their buildings are now in such a condition that no definite traces of them are to be distinguished. On the other hand, the ruins in Lower Chaldæa prove that even in the most ancient times the constructor had then the same object in view; but the means of which he made use were much more simple, although contrived with no little ingenuity. We shall here epitomize what we have learnt from one of those few observers to whom we owe all our knowledge of the earliest Chaldæan civilization. Mr. J. E. Taylor, British vice-consul at Bassorah, explored not a few of the mounds in the immediate neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf which mark the sites of the burying places belonging to the most ancient cities of Chaldæa. The summits of these mounds are paved with burnt brick; their mass consists of heaped up coffins separated from one another by divisions of the same material. To insure the preservation of the bodies and of the objects buried with them liquids of every kind had to be provided with a ready means of escape. The structures were pierced, therefore, with a vast number of vertical drains. Long conduits of terra-cotta (see Fig. 49) stretched from the paved summit, upon which they opened with very narrow mouths, to the base. They were composed of tubes, each about two feet long and eighteen inches in diameter. In some cases there are as many as forty of these one upon another. They are held together by thin coats of bitumen, and in order to give them greater strength their sides are slightly concave. Their interiors are filled in with fragments of broken pottery, which gave considerable support while they in no way hindered the passage of the water. These potsherds are even placed around the outsides of the tubes, so that the latter are nowhere in contact with the brick; they have a certain amount of play, and with the tubes which they encase they form a series of shafts, like chimneys, measuring about four feet square. Every precaution was taken to carry off the water left by the storms. They were not contented with the small opening at the head of each tube. The whole of its dome-shaped top was pierced with small holes, that made it a kind of cullender. Either through this or through the interstices of the potsherd packing, all the moisture that escaped the central opening would find a safe passage to the level of the ground, whence, no doubt, it would be carried off to the streams in conduits now hidden by the mass of _débris_ round the foot of every mound. [Illustration: FIG. 49.--Upper part of the drainage arrangements of a mound.] That these arrangements were well adapted to their purpose has been proved by the result. Thanks to the drains we have described, these sepulchral mounds have remained perfectly dry to the present day. Not only the coffins, with the objects in metal or terra-cotta they contained, but even the skeletons themselves have been preserved intact. A touch will reduce the latter to powder, but on the first opening of their coffins they look as if time had had no effect upon their substance.[190] By these details we may see how far the art of the constructor was pushed in the early centuries of the Chaldæan monarchy. They excite a strong desire in us to discover the internal arrangements of his buildings, the method by which access was given or forbidden to those chambers of the Babylonian temples and houses whose magnificence has been celebrated by every writer that saw them before their ruin. Unhappily nothing has come down to us of the monuments of Chaldæa, and especially of those of Babylon, but their basements and the central masses of the staged towers. The Assyrian palaces are indeed in a better state of preservation, but even in their case we ask many questions to which no certain answer is forthcoming. The great difficulty in all our researches and attempts at restoration, is caused by the complete absence of any satisfactory evidence as to the nature of the roofs that covered rooms, either small or large. In most cases the walls are only standing to a height of from ten to fifteen feet;[191] in no instance has a wall with its summit still in place been discovered. The cut on the opposite page (Fig. 50) gives a fair idea of what a Ninevite building looks like after the excavators have finished their work. It is a view in perspective of one of the gates of Sargon's city: the walls are eighty-eight feet thick, to which the buttresses add another ten feet; their average height is from about twenty-five to thirty feet, high enough to allow the archway by which the city was entered to remain intact. This is quite an exception. In no part of the palace is there anything to correspond to this happy find of M. Place--any evidence by which we can decide the forms of Assyrian doorways. The walls are always from about twelve to twenty-eight feet in thickness (see Fig. 46.) Rooms are rectangular, sometimes square, but more often so long as to be galleries rather than rooms in the ordinary sense of the word. The way in which these rooms were covered in has been much discussed. Sir Henry Layard believes only in flat roofs, similar to those of modern houses in Mossoul and the neighbouring villages. He tells us that he never came upon the slightest trace of a vault, while in almost every room that he excavated he found wood ashes and carbonized timber.[192] He is convinced that the destruction of several of these buildings was due in the first instance to fire. Several pieces of sculpture, those from the palace of Sennacherib, for instance, may be quoted, which when found were black with soot. They look like castings in relief that have been long fixed at the back of a fire-place. Long and narrow rooms may have been roofed with beams of palm or poplar resting upon the summits of the walls. As for the large halls, in the centre they would be open to the sky, while around the opening would run a portico, similar to that of a Roman atrium, whose sloping roof would protect the reliefs with which the walls were ornamented.[193] [Illustration: FIG. 50.--Present state of one of the city gates, Khorsabad. Perspective compiled from Place's plans and elevations.] As to this, however, doubt had already been expressed by an attentive and judicial observer like Loftus; who thought that the arch had played a very important part in the architecture of Mesopotamia.[194] As he very justly remarked, the conditions were rather different from those that obtained in the maritime and mountainous provinces of Persia; there was no breeze from the gulf or from the summits of snowy mountains, to which every facility for blowing through their houses and cooling their heated chambers had to be given; the problem to be solved was how best to oppose an impenetrable shield against a daily and long continued heat that would otherwise have been unbearable. Now it is clear that a vault with its great powers of resistance would have been far better fitted to support a roof whose thickness should be in some reasonable proportion to the massive walls, than a ceiling of bad timber. In our day the mosques, the baths, and many of the private houses of Mossoul and Bagdad have dome-shaped roofs. Without going as far as Mesopotamia, the traveller in Syria may see how intelligently, even in the least important towns, the native builder has employed a small dome built upon a square, to obtain a strong and solid dwelling entirely suited to the climate, a dwelling that should be warm in winter and cool in summer. We must also point out that the state in which the interiors of rooms are found by explorers, is more consistent with the hypothesis of a domed roof than with any other. They are covered to a depth of from fifteen to twenty feet with heaps of _débris_, reaching up to the top of the walls, so far as the latter remain standing.[195] This rubbish consists of brick-earth mixed with broken bricks, and pieces of stucco. Granting wooden roofs, how is such an accumulation to be accounted for? Roofs supported by beams laid across from one wall to the other, could never have safely upheld any great weight. They must have been thin and comparatively useless as a defence against the sun of Mesopotamia. On the other hand if we assume that vaults of pisé were the chosen coverings, all the rest follows easily. They could support the flat roof with ease, and the whole upper structure could be made of sufficient thickness to exclude both the heat and the rain, while the present appearance of the ruins is naturally accounted for. Those who have lived in the East, those, even, who have extended a visit to Athens as far as Eleusis or Megara, must have stretched themselves, more than once, under the stars, and, on the flat roofs of their temporary resting-places, sought that rest that was not to be found in the hot and narrow chambers within. They must then have noticed, as I have more than once, a large stone cylinder in one corner. In Greece and Asia Minor, it will be in most cases a "drum" from some antique column, or a funerary _cippus_, abstracted by the peasantry from some neighbouring ruin. This morsel of Paros or Pentelic has to perform the office of a roller. When some heavy fall of rain by wetting and softening the upper surface of the terrace, gives an opportunity for repairing the ravages of a long drought, the stone is taken backwards and forwards over the yielding pisé. It closes the cracks, kills the weeds that if left to themselves would soon transform the roof into a field, and makes the surface as firm as a threshing-floor. The roofs of Assyrian buildings must have required the same kind of treatment, and we know that in the present day it is actually practised. M. Place mentions rollers of limestone, weighing from two to three hundredweight, pierced at each end with a square hole into which wooden spindles were inserted to facilitate their management.[196] A certain number of these rollers were found within the chambers, into which they must have fallen with the roofs. As soon as the terraces ceased to receive the care necessary for keeping down the weeds and shrubs and keeping out the water, the process of disintegration must have been rapid. The rains would soon convert cracks into gaping breaches, and at the end of a few years, every storm would bring down a part of the roof. A century would be enough to destroy the vaults, and with them the upper parts of the walls to which they were closely allied by the skill of the constructor. The disappearance of the archivolts and the great heaps of _débris_ are thus accounted for. The roof materials were too soft, however, to damage in their fall the figures in high relief or in the round that decorated the chambers beneath, or the carved slabs with which their walls were lined. In spreading itself about these sculptures and burying them out of sight and memory, the soft clay served posterity more efficiently than the most careful of packers. Among the first observers to suspect the truth as to the use of the vault in Mesopotamia, were Eugène Flandin, who helped Botta to excavate the palace of Sargon,[197] and Felix Thomas,[198] the colleague of M. Place. The reasons by which M. Thomas was led to the conclusion that the rooms in the Ninevite palaces were vaulted, are thus given by M. Place, who may be considered his mouthpiece.[199] He does not deny that some of the Khorsabad reliefs bear the marks of fire, but he affirms, and that after the experience of four digging campaigns, that the conflagration was much less general than might be supposed from the statements of some travellers. He failed to discover the slightest trace of fire in the hundred and eighty-four rooms and twenty-eight courts that he excavated. The marvellous preservation of the reliefs in many of the halls is inconsistent, in his opinion, with the supposition that the palace was destroyed by fire; and if we renounce that supposition the mere action of time is insufficient to account for the disappearance of such an extent of timber roofing, for here and there, especially near the doorways, pieces of broken beams and door panels have been found. "The wood is not all in such condition as the incorruptible cedar of the gilded palm-trees, but wherever it certainly existed, traces of it may be pointed out. In advanced decomposition it is no more consistent than powder, it may be picked up and thrown aside, leaving a faithful cast of the beam or post to which it belonged in the more tenacious clay." [Illustration: FIG. 51.--Fortress; from the Balawat gates, in the British Museum.] All this, however, was but negative evidence. The real solution of the problem was first positively suggested by the discovery of vaults in place, in the drains and water channels, and in the city gates. The bas-reliefs in which towns or fortresses are represented also support the belief that great use was made of arched openings in Assyria, and the countries in its neighbourhood (see Fig. 51). As soon as it is proved that the Assyrians understood the principle of the arch, why should it any longer be denied that they made use of it to cover their chambers? It is obvious that a vault would afford a much better support for the weight above than any timber roof. In the course of the explorations, a probable conjecture was changed into complete certainty. The very vaults for which inductive reasoning had shown the necessity were found, if not in place, at least in a fragmentary condition, and in the very rooms to which they had afforded a cover--and here we must quote the words of the explorers themselves. In the most deeply buried quarters of the building, the excavations were carried on by means of horizontal tunnels or shafts. "I was often obliged," says M. Place, "to drive trenches from one side of the rooms to another in order to get a clear idea of their shape and arrangement. On these occasions we often met with certain hard facts, for which, at the time, we could give no explanation. These facts were blocks of clay whose under sides were hollowed segmentally and covered with a coat of stucco. These fragments were found sometimes a few feet from the walls, sometimes near the middle of the rooms. At first I was thoroughly perplexed to account for them. Our trenches followed scrupulously the inner surfaces of the walls, which were easily recognizable by their stucco when they had no lining of carved slabs. What then were we to make of these arched blocks, also coated with stucco, but found in the centre of the rooms and far away from the walls? Such signs were not to be disregarded in an exploration where everything was new and might lead to unforeseen results. Wherever a trace of stucco appeared I followed it up carefully. Little by little the earth under and about the stuccoed blocks was cleared away, and then we found ourselves confronted by what looked like the entrance to an arched cellar. Here and there these portions of vaulting were many feet in length, from four to six in span, and three or four from the crown of the arch to the level upon which it rested. At the first glance the appearance of a vault was complete, and I thought I was about to penetrate into a cellar where some interesting find might await me. But on farther examination this pleasant delusion was dispelled. The pretended cellar came to an abrupt end, and declared itself to be no more than a section of vaulting that had quitted its proper place.... The evidence thus obtained was rendered still more conclusive by the discovery on the under side of several fragments of paintings which had evidently been intended for the decoration of a ceiling."[200] It is clear that these curvilinear and frescoed blocks were fragments of a tunnel vault that had fallen in; and their existence explains the great thickness given by the Assyrian constructor not only to his outer walls, but to those that divided room from room. The thinnest of the latter are hardly less than ten feet, while here and there they are as much as fifteen or sixteen. As for the outer walls they sometimes reach a thickness of from five and twenty to thirty feet.[201] The climate is insufficient to account for the existence of such walls as these. In the case of the outer walls such a reason might be thought, by stretching a point, to justify their extravagant measurements, but with the simple partitions of the interior, it is quite another thing. This apparent anomaly disappears, however, if we admit the existence of vaults and the necessity for meeting the enormous thrust they set up. With such a material as clay, the requisite solidity, could only be given by increasing the mass until its thickness was sometimes greater than the diameter of the chambers it inclosed. M. Place lays great stress upon the disproportion between the length and width of many of the apartments. There are few of which the greater diameter is not at least double the lesser, and in many cases it is four, five, and even seven times as great. He comes to the conclusion that these curious proportions were forced on the Assyrians by the nature of the materials at their disposal. Such an arrangement must have been destructive to architectural effect as well as inconvenient, but a clay vault could not have any great span, and its abutments must perforce have been kept within a reasonable distance of each other. Taken by itself, this argument has, perhaps, hardly as much force as M. Place is inclined to give it. Doubtless the predilection for an exaggerated parallelogram agrees very well with the theory that the vault was in constant use by Mesopotamian architects, but it might be quoted with equal reason by the supporters of the opposite hypothesis, that of the timber roof. Our best reason for accepting all these pieces of evidence as corroborative of the view taken by MM. Flandin, Loftus, Place, and Thomas is, in the first place, the incontestable fact that the entrances to the town of Khorsabad were passages roofed with barrel vaults; secondly, the presence amid the debris of the fragmentary arches above described; thirdly, the depth of the mass of broken earth within the walls of each chamber; finally, the singular thickness of the walls, which is only to be satisfactorily explained by the supposition that the architect had to provide solid abutments for arches that had no little weight to carry. It is difficult to say how the Assyrians set about building these arches of crude brick, but long practice enabled their architects to use that unsatisfactory material with a skill of which we had no suspicion before the exhumation of Nineveh. Thanks to its natural qualities and to the experienced knowledge with which it was prepared, their clay was tough and plastic to a degree that astonished the modern explorers on more than one occasion. The arched galleries cut during the excavations--sometimes segmental, sometimes pointed, and often of a considerable height and width--could never have stood in any other kind of earth without strong and numerous supports. And yet M. Place tells us that these very galleries, exactly in the condition in which the mattock left them, "provided lodging for the labourers engaged and their families, and ever since they have served as a refuge for the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages. Workmen and peasants have taken shelter under vaults similar to those of the ancient Assyrians. Sometimes we cut through the accidental accumulations of centuries, where the clay, far from having been carefully put in place, had rather lost many of its original qualities. Even there, however, the roof of our galleries remained suspended without any signs of instability, as if to bear witness that the Assyrian architect knew what he was about when he trusted so much to the virtues of a fictile material."[202] We may refer those who are specially interested in constructive methods to M. Place's account of the curious fashion in which the workmen of Mossoul will build a pointed vault without the help of any of those wooden centerings in use in Europe. In our day, certainly, the masons of Mossoul use stone and mortar, but their example none the less proves that similar results may once have been obtained in different materials.[203] A vault launched into mid-air without any centering, and bearing the workmen who were building it on its unfinished flanks, was a phenomenon calculated to astonish an architect. Taking everything into consideration the clay vaults of Khorsabad are no more surprising than these domes of modern Mossoul.[204] We cannot say for certain that the Assyrian builders made use of domes in addition to the barrel vaults, but all the probabilities are in favour of such an hypothesis. A dome is a peculiar kind of vault used for the covering of square, circular, or polygonal spaces. As for circular and polygonal rooms, none have been found in Assyria, but a few square ones have been disinterred. On the principal façade of Sargon's palace there are two of a fair size, some forty-eight feet each way. Thomas did not believe that a barrel vault was used in these apartments; the span would have been too great. He sought therefore for some method that would be at once well adapted to the special conditions and in harmony with the general system. This he found in the hemispherical dome. All doubts on the subject were taken away, however, by the discovery of the bas-relief (Fig. 43) reproduced on page 145, in which we find a group of buildings roofed, some with spherical vaults, some with elliptical domes approaching a cone in outline. This proves that the Mesopotamian architects were acquainted with different kinds of domes, just as they were with varieties of the barrel vault. It has been guessed that this bas-relief, which is unique in its way, merely represents the brick-kilns used in the construction of the palace of Sennacherib. To this objection there is more than one answer. The Assyrian sculptures we possess represent but a small part of the whole, and each fresh discovery introduces us to forms previously unknown. Moreover, had the sculptor wished to represent the kilns in which the bricks for the palace were burnt, he would have shown the flames coming out at the top. In reliefs of burning towns he never leaves out the flames, and in this case, where they would have served to mark the activity with which the building operations were pushed on, he would certainly not have omitted them. Again, is not the building on the left of the picture obviously a flat-roofed house? If that be so we must believe, before we accept the kiln theory, that the sculptor made a strange departure from the real proportions of the respective buildings. The doorways, too, in the relief are exactly like those of an ordinary house, while they bear no resemblance to the low and narrow openings which have been used at all times for kilns. Why then should we refuse to admit that there were vaults in Nineveh, when Strabo tells us expressly that "all the houses of Babylon were vaulted."[205] Thomas invokes the immemorial custom of the East to support the evidence of this curious relief:--the great church of St. Sophia, the Byzantine churches and the Turkish mosques, all of which had no other roof but a cupola. In all of these he sees nothing but late examples of a characteristic method of construction which had been invented and perfected many centuries before at Babylon and Nineveh. From the monuments with which those two great cities were adorned nothing but the foundations and parts of the walls have come down to our day; but the buildings of a later epoch, of the periods when Seleucia and Ctesiphon enjoyed the heritage of Babylon, have been more fortunate. In the ruins which are acknowledged to be those of the palaces built by the Parthian and Sassanid monarchs, the upper structures are still in existence, and in a more or less well preserved condition. In these the dome arrangement is universal. Sometimes, as at Firouz-Abad (Fig. 52), we find the segment of a sphere; elsewhere, as at Sarbistan (Fig. 53), the cupola is ovoid. Our section of the latter building will give an idea of the internal arrangements of these structures, and will show how the architect contrived to suspend a circular dome over a square apartment.[206] These monuments of an epoch between remote antiquity and the Græco-Roman period were built of brick, like the palaces of Nineveh.[207] The exigencies of the climate remained the same, the habits and requirements of the various royal families that succeeded each other in the country were not sensibly modified, while the Sargonids, the Arsacids and the Sassanids all ruled over one and the same population. [Illustration: FIG. 52.--The Palace at Firouz-Abad; from Flandin and Coste.] [Illustration: FIG. 53.--The palace at Sarbistan; from Flandin and Coste.] The corporations of architects and workmen must have preserved the traditions of their craft from century to century, traditions which had their first rise in the natural capabilities of their materials and in the data of the problem they had to solve. The historian cannot, then, be accused of going beyond the limit of fair induction in arguing from these modern buildings to their remote predecessors. After the conquest of Alexander, the ornamental details, and, still more, the style of the sculptures, must have been affected to a certain extent, first by Greek art and afterwards by that of Rome; but the plans, the internal structure, and the general arrangement of the buildings must have remained the same. [Illustration: FIG. 54.--Section through the palace at Sarbistan; from Flandin and Coste.] There is nothing hazardous or misleading in these arguments from analogy; from the palace of Chosroes to that of Sargon is a legitimate step. Some day, perhaps, we may attempt to pursue the same path in the opposite direction; we may endeavour to show that the survival of these examples and traditions may very well have helped to direct architecture into a new path in the last years of the Roman Empire. We shall then have to speak of a school in Asia Minor whose works have not yet been studied with the attention they deserve. The buildings in question are distinguished chiefly by the important part played in their construction by the vault and the dome resting upon pendentives; certain constructive processes, too, are to be found in them which had never, so far as we can tell, been known or practised in the East. We can hardly believe that the chiefs of the school invented from the foundation a system of construction whose principles were so different from those of the Greeks, or even of the later Romans. They may, indeed, have perfected the system by grafting the column upon it, but it is at least probable that they took it in the first place from those who had practised it from time immemorial, from men who taught them the traditional methods of shortening and facilitating the labour of execution. The boundaries of Asia Minor "march" with those of Mesopotamia, and in the latter every important town had buildings of brick covered with domes. The Romans frequented the Euphrates valley, to which they were taken both by war and commerce; their victories sometimes carried them even as far as Ctesiphon on the Tigris, so that there was no lack of opportunity for the study of Oriental architecture on the very spot where it was born. They could judge of and admire the beauty it certainly possessed when the great buildings of Mesopotamia were still clothed in all the richness of their decoration. The genius of the Greeks had come nigh to exhausting the forms and combinations of the classic style; it was tired of continuous labour in a narrow circle and sighed for fresh worlds to conquer. We can easily understand then, how it would welcome a system which seemed to afford the novelty it sought, which seemed to promise the elements of a new departure that might be developed in many, as yet unknown, directions. If we put ourselves at this point of view we shall see that Isidore and Anthemius, the architects of St. Sophia, were the disciples and perpetuators of the forgotten masters who raised so many millions of bricks into the air at the bidding of Sargon and Nebuchadnezzar.[208] Whatever may be thought of this hypothesis, there seems to be little doubt that the Assyrians knew how to pass from the barrel vault to the hemispherical, and even to the elliptical, cupola. As soon as they had discovered the principle of the vault and found out easy and expeditious methods of setting it up, all the rest followed as a matter of course. Their materials lent themselves as kindly to the construction of a dome as to that of a segmental vault, and promised equal stability in either case. As to their method of passing from the square substructure to the dome we know nothing for certain, but we may guess that the system employed by the Sassanids (see Fig. 54) was a survival from it. It is unlikely that timber centerings were used to sustain the vaults during construction. Timber was rare and bad in Chaldæa and men would have to learn to do without it. M. Choisy has shown--as we have already mentioned--that the Byzantine architects built cupolas of wide span without scaffolding of any kind, each circular course being maintained in place until it was complete by the mere adherence of the mortar.[209] M. Place, too, gives an account of how he saw a few Kurd women build an oven in the shape of a Saracenic dome, with soft clay and without any internal support. Their structure, at the raising of which his lively curiosity led him to assist, was composed of a number of rings, decreasing in diameter as they neared the summit.[210] The domes of crude brick which surmounted many of the Kurd houses were put together in the same fashion, and they were often of considerable size. When asked by M. Place as to how they had learnt to manage brick so skilfully, the oven-builders replied that it was "the custom of the country," and there is no apparent reason why that custom should not date back to a remote antiquity. The Assyrians had recourse to similar means when they built the domes of their great palaces. They too, perhaps, left a day for drying to each circular course, and re-wetted its upper surface when the moment arrived for placing the next.[211] [Illustration: FIG. 55.--Restoration of a hall in the harem at Khorsabad, compiled from Place.] From the existence of domes--which he considers to be almost beyond question--M. Place deduces that of semi-domes, one of which he assigns to the principal chamber of the harem in the palace at Khorsabad (Fig. 55). Feeling, perhaps, that this requires some justification, he finds it in a modern custom, which he thus describes:--"In the towns of this part of the East, the inner court of the harem is, as a rule, terminated at one of its extremities by a vault entirely open at one side, in the form of a huge niche. It is, in fact, the half of a dome sliced in two from top to bottom; the floor, which is elevated a few steps above the pavement of the court, is strewn with carpets and cushions so as to form an open and airy saloon, in which the women are to be found by their visitors at certain hours. This divan is protected from rain by the semi-dome, and from the sun by curtains or mats hung across the arched opening. This arrangement may very well be dictated by ancient tradition. It is well suited to the climate, a consideration which never fails to exercise a decisive influence over architecture."[212] [Illustration: FIG. 56.--Royal Tent, Kouyundjik. British Museum.] [Illustration: FIG. 57.--Tent, Kouyundjik. British Museum.] And yet there would, perhaps, have been room for hesitation had no support to this induction been afforded by the figured monuments; for the inhabitants of the province of Mossoul have deserted the traditions of their ancestors in more than one particular. They have given up the use of crude brick, for instance, so far, at least as the walls of their houses are concerned. They have supplied its place with stone and plaster, hence their dwellings are less fresh and cool than those of their fathers. In such a question the present throws a light upon the past, but the two have distinctive features of their own, even when the physical characteristics of the country have remained the same. The best evidence in favour of the employment of such an arrangement in Assyria is that of the bas-relief. We there not infrequently encounter an object like those figured on this page. Sometimes it is in the midst of what appears to be an entrenched camp, sometimes in a fortified city. Its general aspect, certain minor details, and sometimes an accompanying inscription, permit us to recognize in it the marquee or pavilion of the king.[213] Now the roofs of these structures evidently consist of two semi-domes, unequal in size and separated by an uncovered space. If such an arrangement was found convenient for a portable and temporary dwelling like a tent, why should it not have been applied to the permanent homes both of the king and his people? Arches still standing in the city gates, fragments of vaults found within the chambers of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad, the evidence of the bas-reliefs and the existing methods of building in Mesopotamia--all concur in persuading us that the vault played an important part in the constructions of Assyria, and consequently in those of Chaldæa; but we should not go so far as to say that all the rooms in the palace at Khorsabad and elsewhere were covered with barrel vaults, domes, or semi-domes. Our chosen guides, have, we think, allowed themselves to be a little too absolute in this particular; it is quite possible that by the side of the vaulted chambers there were others with wooden roofs. This conclusion is suggested partly by Sir H. Layard's discovery of considerable quantities of wood ashes in the palaces he excavated, partly by the evidence of ancient texts that wood was often used throughout this region to support the roofs at least of private houses. We may quote, in the first place, some remarks in Strabo's account of Susiana, which the Greek geographer borrowed from one of his original authorities: "In order to prevent the houses from becoming too hot, their roofs are covered with two cubits of earth, the weight of which compels them to make their dwellings long and narrow, because although they had only short beams, they had to have large rooms, so as to avoid being suffocated." This same writer, in speaking of these roofs, describes a singular property of the palm-tree beams. The densest and most solid of them, he says, instead of yielding with age and sinking under the weight they have to support, take a gentle upward curve so as to become better fitted than at first for the support of the heavy roof.[214] The necessity for the presence of a thick roof between the sun and the inside of the rooms is here very clearly affirmed. It will also be noticed that the general form of apartments in Susiana and Assyria did not escape the observer in question. As he saw very clearly, the great disproportion between their length and their width was to be explained as easily by the requirements of a wooden roof as by those of a clay vault. In his attempt to describe Babylon, Strabo says[215]: "In the absence of timber, properly speaking, beams and columns of palm-wood were used in the buildings of Babylonia. These pillars were covered with twisted ropes of rushes, over which several coats of paint were laid. The doors were coated with asphalte. Both doors and houses were very high. We may add that the houses were vaulted, in consequence of the absence of wood.... There were, of course, no tile roofs in countries where it never rains,[216] such as Babylonia, Susiana and Sittacenia." Strabo himself never visited Mesopotamia. This we know from the passage in his introduction, in which he tells us exactly how far his voyages extended, from north to south, and from east to west.[217] When he had to describe Asia from the Taurus to India, he could only do so with the help of passages borrowed from various authors, and in the course of his work it has sometimes happened that he has brought into juxtaposition pieces of information that contradict each other.[218] Something of the kind has happened in the lines we have quoted, in which he first speaks of pillars and timber roofs, and ends by declaring that all the Chaldæan houses were vaulted, although vaults and timber could not exist together. The truth is, in all probability, that one system of covering prevailed here and another there, and that the seeming contradiction in the text is due to hasty editing. We may conclude from it that travellers had reported the existence of both systems, and that each was to be explained by local conditions and the varying supply of materials. The two systems still exist side by side over all Western Asia. From Syria to Kurdistan and the Persian Gulf the hemispherical cupola upon a square substructure continually occurs. The timber roof is hardly less frequent; when the apartment in which it is used is of any considerable size it is carried upon two or three rows of wooden columns. These columns rest upon cubes of stone, and a tablet of the same material is often interposed between them and the beams they support. A sort of rustic order is thus constituted of which the shaft alone is of wood. We reproduce a sketch by Sir H. Layard in which this arrangement is shown. It is taken from a house inhabited by Yezidis,[219] in the district of Upper Mesopotamia called _Sinjar_ (Fig. 58). [Illustration: FIG. 58.--Interior of a Yezidi house; from Layard.] We are inclined to think that both systems were occasionally found in a single building. The tunnel vault and the joisted ceiling were equally well suited to the long galleries of Assyrian palaces. In one room, or suite of rooms, nothing but brick may have been used, while in others wood may have had the preference. Still more probably, one architect may have had a predilection for timber, while another may have preferred clay vaults. In either case the general arrangement, what we may call the spirit of the plan, would remain the same. When wooden roofs were used were they upheld by wooden uprights or by columns of any other material? Botta was at first inclined to say yes to this question, but he did not attempt to conceal that excavation had discovered little to support such an hypothesis.[220] Such pillars, were they of stone, would leave traces among the ruins in the shape of broken columns; were they of burnt bricks (and there could be no question of the crude material), those bricks would be found on the spot they occupied and would easily be recognized by their shape, which, as we have already shown, would have been specially adapted to the work they had to do.[221] The points of junction with the pavement would also be visible. If we contend that they were of wood, like those of the house figured above, we must admit that, at least in the more carefully built houses, such precautions as even the peasants of the Yezidis do not neglect must have been taken, and the timber columns raised upon stone bases which would protect them from the sometimes damp floors. Neither these bases nor any marks of their existence have been found in any of the ruins; and we are therefore led to the conclusion that to search for hypostyle halls in the Assyrian palaces, would be to follow the imagination rather than the reason. If we admit that architects made no use of columns to afford intermediate support to the heavy roofs, we may at first be inclined to believe that wooden ceilings were only used in very narrow apartments, for we can hardly give a length of more than from twenty-four to twenty-seven feet to beams that were called upon to support a thick covering of beaten earth as well as their own weight.[222] Perhaps, however, the skill of their carpenters was equal to increasing the span and rigidity of the beams used by a few simple contrivances. One of these is shown in our Fig. 60, a diagram composed by M. Chipiez to give an idea of the different methods of construction used by, or, at least, at the command of, the Assyrian builder. All the rooms were surmounted by flat roofs, and our horizontal sections show how these roofs were accommodated to the domes or the timber ceilings by which they were supported. On the left of the engraving semicircular vaults are shown, on the right a timbered roof. The arrangement of the latter is taken from an Etruscan tomb at Corneto, where, however, it is carried out in stone.[223] A frame like this could be put together on the spot and offered the means of covering a wider space with the same materials than could be roofed in by a horizontal arrangement. Further back rises one of those domes over square substructures whose existence seems to us so probable. Behind this again opens one of the courts by which so much of the area of the palace was occupied. The composition is completed by a wall with parapet and flanking towers. [Illustration: FIG. 59.--Fortress; from Layard's _Monuments_, 1st Series.] After considering the method employed for roofing the palace apartments, we come naturally to investigate their system of illumination. In view of the extravagant thickness of their walls it is difficult to believe that they made use of such openings as we should call windows. The small loop-holes that appear in some of the bas-reliefs near the summits of towers and fortified walls were mere embrasures, for the purpose of admitting a little air and light to the narrow chambers within which the defenders could find shelter from the missiles of an enemy and could store their own arms and engines of war (see Fig. 59). The walls of Khorsabad even now are everywhere at least ten feet high, and in some parts they are as much as fifteen, twenty, and five-and-twenty feet, an elevation far in excess of a man's stature, and they show no trace of a window. Hence we may at least affirm that windows were not pierced under the same conditions as in modern architecture.[224] [Illustration: FIG. 60.--Crude brick construction; compiled by Charles Chipiez.] And yet the long saloons of the palace with their rich decoration had need of light, which they could only obtain through the doorways and the openings left in the roof. When this was of wood the matter was simple enough, as our diagram (Fig. 60) shows. Botta noticed, during his journey to his post, another arrangement, of which, he thinks, the Assyrians may very well have made use. [Illustration: FIG. 61.--Armenian "Lantern;" from Botta.] "The houses of the Armenian peasantry," he says, "are sunk into the ground, so that their walls stand up but little above the level of the soil. They are lighted by an opening that serves at once for window and chimney, and is placed, as a rule, in the centre of the roof. The timber frame of this opening is often ingeniously arranged (Fig. 61). Four thick beams, but very roughly squared, intersect each other in the middle of the house. Across their angles slighter joists are placed, and this operation is repeated till a small dome, open at the top, for the entrance of light and the escape of smoke, has been erected."[225] [Illustration: FIGS. 62-65.--Terra-cotta cylinders in elevation, section and plan; from Place.] In the case of vaults how are we to suppose that the rooms were lighted? We can hardly imagine that rectangular openings were left in the crown of the arch, such a contrivance would have admitted very little light, while it would have seriously compromised the safety of the structure. According to M. Place the desired result was obtained in more skilful fashion. In several rooms he found terra-cotta cylinders similar to those figured below. These objects, of which he gives a careful description, were about thirteen and a half inches in diameter and ten inches in height. We may refer our readers to the pages of M. Place for a detailed account of the observations by which he was led to conclude that these cylinders were not stored, as if in a warehouse, in the rooms where they were afterwards found, but that they formed an integral part of the roof and shared its ruin. We may say that the evidence he brings forward seems to fairly justify his hypothesis. Penetrating the roof at various points these cylinders would afford a passage for the outer air to the heated chamber within, while a certain quantity of light would be admitted at the same time. The danger arising from the rains could be avoided to a great extent by giving them a slightly oblique direction. To this very day the Turkish bath-houses over the whole of the Levant from Belgrade to Teheran, are almost universally lighted by these small circular openings, which are pierced in great numbers through the low domes, and closed with immovable glasses. Besides which we can point to similar arrangements in houses placed both by their date and character, far nearer to those of Assyria. The Sassanide monuments bear witness that many centuries after the destruction of Nineveh the custom of placing cylinders of terra-cotta in vaults was still practised. In spite of its small scale these circles may be distinguished in the woodcut of the Sarbistan palace which we have borrowed from Coste and Flandin (Fig. 54).[226] These same writers have ascertained that the architects of Chosroes and Noushirwan employed still another method of lighting the rooms over which they built their domes. They gave the latter what is called an "eye," about three feet in diameter, through which the daylight could fall vertically into the room beneath. This is the principle upon which the Pantheon of Agrippa is lighted; the only difference being one of proportion. In Persia, the diameter of the eye was always very small compared to that of the dome. If we are justified in our belief that the constructors of the Parthian and Sassanide palaces were no more than the perpetuators of systems invented by the architects of Nineveh and Babylon, the Assyrian domes also may very well have been opened at the summit in this fashion. In the bas-relief reproduced in our Fig. 42, the two small cupolas are surmounted with caps around a circular opening which must have admitted the light. Moreover, the elaborate system of drainage with which the substructure of an Assyrian palace was honeycombed would allow any rain water to run off as fast as such a hole would admit it.[227] Whatever may be thought of these conjectures, it is certain that the architects of Nineveh--while they did not neglect accessory sources of illumination--counted chiefly upon the doors to give their buildings a sufficient supply of light and air. As M. Place says, when we examine the plans of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad we are as much astonished at the size of the doorways as at the thickness of the walls.[228] "There is not a single doorway, even of the smallest chambers, even of the simple ante-rooms for the use of servants and guards, that is not at least six feet or more wide; most of them are ten feet, and those decorated with sculptures even wider still." In their present ruinous state, it is more difficult to say for certain what their height may have been. Judging, however, from the ruins and from the usual proportions of height and width in the voids of Assyrian buildings, the doors at Khorsabad must have risen to a height of between fifteen and twenty-two feet. "Such measurements are those of exceptionally vast openings, especially when we remember that most of them gave access, not to state apartments, but to rooms used for the most ordinary purposes, store-rooms, ante-rooms, kitchens, serving-rooms of all kinds, and bedrooms. When we find architects who were so reluctant as those of Assyria to cut openings of any kind in their outer walls, using doorways of these extravagant dimensions, we may surely conclude that they were meant to light and ventilate the rooms as well as to facilitate the circulation of their inhabitants."[229] Even in halls, which were lighted at once by a number of circular eyes like those described and by a wide doorway, there would be no excess of illumination, and the rooms of Assyria must, on the whole, have been darker than ours. When we remember the difference in the climates this fact ceases to surprise us. With our often-clouded skies we seldom have too much light, and we give it as wide and as frequent passages as are consistent with the stability of our buildings. The farther north we go the more strongly marked does this tendency become. In Holland, the proportion of voids to solids is much greater than it is on the façade of a Parisian house, and the same tendency may be traced from one end of Europe to the other. But even in Central Europe, as soon as the temperature rises above a certain point, curtains are drawn and jalousies closed, that is, the window is suppressed as far as possible. And is not that enough to suggest a probable reason for the want of windows characteristic of an Oriental dwelling? An explanation has been sometimes sought in the life of the harem and in the desire of eastern sovereigns to withdraw themselves from the eyes of their subjects. The idleness, almost amounting to lethargy, of the present masters of the East has also been much insisted on. What, it is asked, do these men want with light? They neither read nor work, they care nothing for those games of skill or chance which form so large a part of western activity; absolute repose, the repose of sleep or stupefaction, is their ideal of existence.[230] These observations have hardly the force that has been ascribed to them. The harem is not the whole palace, and even in the modern East the _selamlik_, or public part of the house, is very differently arranged from the rooms set apart for the women. The hunting and conquering kings of Assyria lived much in public. They appeared too often at the head of their armies or among the hounds for us to represent them--as the Greek tradition represented Sardanapalus--shut up within blind walls in distant and almost inaccessible chambers. We must guard ourselves against the mistake of seeking analogies too close between the East of to-day and that of the centuries before the Greek civilization. The people who now inhabit those countries are in a state of languor and decay. Life has retired from them; their days are numbered, and the few they have yet to live are passed in a death-like trance. But it was not always thus. The East of antiquity, the East in which man's intellect awoke while it slumbered elsewhere, the East in which that civilization was born and developed whose rich and varied creations we are engaged in studying, was another place. Its inhabitants were strangely industrious and inventive, their intellects were busied with every form of thought, and their activity was expended upon every art of peace and war. We must not delude ourselves into thinking that the Chaldæans, who invented the first methods of science, that the Assyrians, who carried their conquests as far as the shores of the Mediterranean, that those Phoenicians who have been happily called "the English of antiquity," had any great resemblance to the Turks who now reign at Bagdad, Mossoul, and Beyrout. But the climate has not changed, and from it we must demand the key to the characteristic arrangements of Mesopotamian palaces. Even now most of the buildings of Mossoul are only lighted from the door, which is hardly ever shut. Some rooms have no direct means either of lighting or ventilation, and these are the favourite retreats in summer. "I was enabled," says M. Place, "to convince myself personally of this. In the consul's house there were, on one side of the court, three rooms one within the other, of which the first alone was lighted from without, and even this had a covered gallery in front of it, by which the glare was tempered. In the dog-days, when the mid-day sun rendered all work a punishment, the innermost of these three rooms was the only habitable part of the house. The serdabs, or subterranean chambers, are used under the same conditions. They are inconvenient in some ways, but the narrowness of the openings, through which light, and with it heat, can reach their depths, gives them advantages not to be despised."[231] The crude brick walls of ancient Assyria were far thicker than the rubble and plaster ones of modern Mossoul, so that more light could be admitted to the rooms without compromising their freshness. It seems to be proved that in at least the majority of rooms at Khorsabad the architect provided other means of lighting and ventilation besides the doorways, wide and high though the latter were. He pierced the roof with numerous oblique and vertical openings, he left square wells in the timber ceilings, and circular eyes in the domes and vaults. If these were to fulfil their purpose of admitting light and air into the principal rooms, the latter must have had no upper stories to carry. At Mossoul, walls are much thinner than at Nineveh, and interiors are simpler in arrangement and decoration. The twenty or five-and-twenty feet of clay of the Assyrian walls would make it impossible to give sufficient light through the doors alone to the sculptures and paintings with which the rooms were adorned. We cannot doubt that a top light was also required. The rooms of the palaces must, therefore, have succeeded one another in one horizontal plan. Slight differences of level between them were connected by short flights, usually of five carefully-adjusted steps.[232] In spite of all its magnificence the royal dwelling was no more than a huge ground floor. With such methods of construction as those we have described, it would have been very difficult to multiply stories. Neither vaults nor timber ceilings could have carried the enormous masses of earth of which even their partition-walls for the most part consisted, so that the architect would have had no choice but to make his upper chambers identical in size with those of his ground floors. This difficulty he was not, however, called upon to face, because the necessity for providing his halls and corridors with a top light, put an upper floor out of the question. No trace of such a staircase as would have been required to give access to an upper story has been discovered in any of the Assyrian ruins,[233] and yet some means of ascent to the terraced roofs must have been provided, if not for the inhabitants of the chambers below--who are likely, however, to have passed the nights upon them in the hot season--at least for the workmen whose duty it was to keep them in repair. Some parts of the palace, on the other hand, may have been raised much above the level of the rest. Sir Henry Layard found the remains of such chambers in the palace of Assurnazirpal at Nimroud.[234] In the bas-relief from Kouyundjik, reproduced in our Fig. 39, an open gallery may be noticed at a great height above the soil. But neither this gallery nor the chambers discovered at Nimroud form what we should call a "first-floor." Layard did not conduct his excavations like an architect, and he fails to give us such information as we have in the case of Khorsabad, but he tells us that the chambers in question formed the upper part of a sort of tower projecting from one angle of the façade. In the building represented on the Kouyundjik relief, the gallery is also upheld by the main wall, and stands upon its summit. From these observations we may conclude that when the Assyrian architect wished to erect chambers that should have a command over the buildings about them and over the surrounding country, he placed them, not over his ground-floor, but upon solid and independent masses of bricks. The staircase, then, could not have had the internal importance by which it is distinguished in architectural systems that make use of several stories. On the other hand, it must have played a very conspicuous part externally, in front of the outer doors and the façades through which they were pierced. Fortresses, palaces, temples, all the great buildings of Chaldæa and Assyria, were built upon artificial mounds, upon a wide platform that required an easy communication with the plain below. This could only be obtained by long flights of steps or by gently inclined planes. Steps would do for pedestrians, but horses, chariots, and beasts of burden generally would require the last-named contrivance. All who have attempted restorations have copied the arrangement of these stairs and sloping roads from the ruins of Persepolis, where the steps, being cut in the rock itself, are still to be traced. The brick slopes of Mesopotamia must have commenced to disappear on the very day that their custodians first began to neglect their repair. Some confirmation, however, is to be found, even in the buildings themselves, of the hypothesis suggested by their situations. At Abou-Sharein, for instance, in Lower Chaldæa, the staircase figured on the next page (Fig. 66) may be seen at the foot of the building excavated by Mr. Taylor; it gave access to the upper terrace of what seems to have been a temple.[235] Here the steps are no more than about twenty-six inches wide, but this width must often have been greatly surpassed elsewhere. Indeed, in the same building the first story was reached by a staircase about seventy feet long and sixteen wide. The stone steps were twenty-two inches long, thirteen broad, and one foot deep. They were fixed with great care by means of bronze clasps. Unfortunately the explorer gives us neither plan nor elevation of this monumental staircase. [Illustration: FIG. 66.--Outside staircases in the ruins of Abou-Sharein.] Layard believed that, in passing the Mesopotamian mounds, he could often distinguish upon them traces of the flights of steps by which their summits were reached.[236] On the eastern face of the palace of Sennacherib, he says, the remains of the wide slopes by which the palace communicated with the plain were quite visible to him.[237] One of these staircases is figured in a bas-relief from Nimroud; it seems to rise to a line of battlements that form, no doubt, the parapet to a flat terrace behind.[238] Finally, in another relief, the sculptor shows two flights of steps bending round one part of a mound and each coming to an end at a door into the temple on its summit. The curve described by this ramp involved the use of steps, which are given in M. Chipiez's _Restoration_ (Plate IV.). An interesting series of reliefs, brought to England from Kouyundjik, proves that in the palace interiors there were inclined galleries for the use of the servants. The lower edges of the alabaster slabs are cut to the same slope as that of the corridor upon whose walls they were fixed, and their sculptures represent the daily traffic that passed and repassed within those walls.[239] On the one hand, fourteen grooms are leading fourteen horses down to the Tigris to be watered; on the other, servants are mounting with provisions for the royal table in baskets on their heads.[240] The steps of basalt and gypsum, that afford communication between rooms of different levels at Khorsabad, are planned and adjusted with great skill and knowledge.[241] The workmen who built those steps took, we may be sure, all the necessary precautions to prevent men and beasts from slipping on the paved floors of the inclined galleries. These were constructed upon the same plan as the ramps of M. Place's observatory, on which the pavement consists of steps forty inches long, thirty-two inches wide, and less than an inch high. Such steps as these give an inclination of about one in thirty-four, and the ramp on which they were used may be more justly compared to an inclined plane, like that of the Seville Giralda or the Mole of Hadrian, than to a staircase. One might ascend or descend it on horseback without any difficulty.[242] By this example we may see that although the Assyrian builder had no materials at his command equal to those employed by the Greek or Egyptian, he knew how to make ingenious and skilful use of those he had. We should be in a better position to appreciate these qualities of invention and taste had time not entirely deprived us of that part of the work of the Mesopotamian architects in which they were best served by their materials. Assyria, like Egypt, practised construction "by assemblage" as well as the two methods we have already noticed. She had a light form of architecture in which wood and metal played the principal part. As might have been expected, however, all that she achieved in that direction has perished, and the only evidence upon which we can attempt a restoration is that of the sculptured monuments, and they, unhappily, are much less communicative in this respect than those of Egypt. In the paintings of the Theban tombs the kiosks and pavilions of wood and metal are figured in all the variety and vivacity derived from the brilliant colours with which they were adorned. Nothing of the kind is to be found in Mesopotamia. Our only documents are the uncoloured reliefs which, even in the matter of form, are more reticent than we could have wished. But in spite of their simplification these representations allow us to perceive clearly enough the mingled elegance and richness that characterized the structures in question. [Illustration: FIG. 67.--Interior of the Royal Tent; from Layard.] Thus in a bas-relief at Nimroud representing the interior of a fortress, a central place is occupied by a small pavilion generally supposed to represent the royal tent (Fig. 67).[243] The artist could not give a complete representation of it, with all its divisions and the people it contained. He shows only the apartment in which the high-bred horses that drew the royal chariot were groomed and fed. Before the door of the pavilion an eunuch receives a company of prisoners, their hands bound behind them, and a soldier at their elbow. Higher up on the relief the sculptor has figured the god with fish's scales whom we have already encountered (see Fig. 9). To him, perhaps, the king attributed the capture of the fortress that has just fallen into his hands. It is not, however, with an explanation of the scene that we are at present concerned; our business is with the structure of the pavilion itself, with the slender columns and the rich capitals at their summits, with the domed roof, made, no doubt, of several skins sewn together and kept in place by metal weights. The capitals and the two wild goats perched upon the shafts must have been of metal. As for the tall and slender columns themselves, they were doubtless of wood. The chevrons and vertical fillets with which they are decorated may either have been carved in the wood or inlaid in metal. [Illustration: FIG. 68.--Tabernacle; from the Balawat Gates.] The pavilion we have just described was a civil edifice, the temporary resting place of the sovereign. The same materials were employed in the same spirit and with a similar arrangement in the erection of religious tabernacles (see Fig. 68). The illustration on this page is taken from those plates of beaten bronze which are known as the _Gates of Balawat_ and form one of the most precious treasures in the Assyrian Galleries of the British Museum.[244] They represent the victories and military expeditions of Shalmaneser II. In the pavilion that we have abstracted from this long series of reliefs may be recognized the field-chapel of the king. When that cruel but pious conqueror wished to thank Assur for some great success, he could cause a tabernacle like this to be raised in a few minutes even upon the field of battle itself. It is composed of four light columns supporting a canopy of leather which is kept in form by a fringe of heavy weights. Rather above the middle of these columns two rings give an opportunity for a knotted ornament that could also be very quickly arranged, and the brilliant colours of the knots would add notably to the gay appearance of the tabernacle. Under the canopy the king himself is shown standing in an attitude of worship and pouring a libation on the portable altar. The latter is a tripod, probably of bronze, and upon it appears a dish with something in it which is too roughly drawn to be identified. On the right stands a second and smaller tripod with a vessel containing the liquid necessary for the rite. The graphic processes of the Assyrian sculptor were so imperfect that at first we have some difficulty in picturing to ourselves the originals of these representations; in spite of the care devoted to many of their details, the real constitution of these little buildings is not easily grasped. In order to make it quite clear M. Chipiez has restored one of them, using no materials in the restoration but those for which authority is to be found in the bas-reliefs (Fig. 70). M. Chipiez has placed his pavilion upon a salient bastion forming part of a wide esplanade. Two staircases lead up to it, and the wall by which the whole terrace is supported and inclosed is ornamented with those vertical grooves which are such a common motive in Chaldæan architecture. In front of the pavilion, on the balustrade of the staircase, and in the background near a third flight of steps, four isolated columns may be seen, the two former crowned with oval medallions, the two latter with cones. The meaning of these standards--which are copied from the Balawat Gates[245]--is uncertain. In the bas-reliefs in question they are placed before a stele with a rounded top, which is shown at the top of our engraving. This stele bears a figure of the monarch; another one like it is cut upon a cylinder of green feldspar found by Layard close to the principal entrance to Sennacherib's palace (see Fig. 69).[246] Though practically absent from the great brick palaces, the column here played an important and conspicuous part. It furnished elegant and richly decorated supports for canopies of wool that softly rose and fell with the passing breeze. Fair carpets were spread upon the ground beneath, others were suspended to cross beams painted with lively colours, and swept the earth with the long and feathered fringes sewn upon their borders. [Illustration: FIG. 69.--The Seal of Sennacherib. Cylinder of green feldspar in the British Museum.] The difference was great between the massive buildings by which the Mesopotamian plains were dominated, and these light, airy structures which must have risen in great numbers in Chaldæa and Assyria, here on the banks of canals and rivers or in the glades of shady parks, there on the broad esplanades of a temple or in the courts of a royal palace. Between the mountains of clay on the one hand and these graceful tabernacles with their slender supports and gay coverings on the other, the contrast must have been both charming and piquant. Nowhere else do we find the distinction between the house and the tent so strongly marked. The latter must have held, too, a much more important place in the national life than it did either in Egypt or Greece. The monarch spent most of his time either in hunting or fighting, and his court must have followed him to the field. Moreover, when spring covers every meadow with deep herbage and brilliant flowers, an irresistible desire comes over the inhabitants of such countries as Mesopotamia to fly from cities and set up their dwellings amid the scents and verdure of the fields. Again, when the summer heats have dried up the plains and made the streets of a town unbearable, an exodus takes place to the nearest mountains, and life is only to be prized when it can be passed among the breezes from their valleys and the shadows of their forest trees. [Illustration: FIG. 70.--Type of open architecture in Assyria; composed by Charles Chipiez.] Even in our own day the inhabitants of these regions pass from the house to the tent with an ease which seems strange to us. At certain seasons some of the nomad tribes betake themselves within the walls of Bagdad and Mossoul and there set up their long black tents of goats' hair.[247] Judging from the bas-reliefs they did the same even in ancient Assyria; in some of these a few tents may be seen sprinkled over a space inclosed by a line of walls and towers.[248] Abraham and Lot slept in their tents even when they dwelt within the walls of a city.[249] Lot had both his tent and a house at Sodom.[250] Every year the inhabitants of Mossoul and the neighbouring villages turn out in large numbers into the neighbouring country, and, during April and May, re-taste for a time that pastoral life to which a roof is unknown. The centuries have been unable to affect such habits as these, because they were suggested, enforced, and perpetuated by nature herself, by the climate of Mesopotamia; and they have done much to create and develop that light and elegant form of building which we may almost call the architecture of the tent. In these days and in a country into whose remotest corners the decadence has penetrated, the tent is hardly more than a mere shelter; here and there, in the case of a few chiefs less completely ruined than the rest, it still preserves a certain size and elegance, but as a rule all that is demanded of it is to be sufficiently strong and thick to resist the wind, the rain, and the sun. It was otherwise in the rich and civilized society with which we are now concerned. Its arrangement and decoration then called forth inventive powers and a refined taste of which we catch a few glimpses in the bas-reliefs. It gave an opportunity for the employment of forms and motives which could not be used at all, or used in a very restricted fashion, in more solid structures, such as palaces and temples. Of all these that which most closely results from the necessities of wooden or metal construction is the column, and we therefore find that it is in this tent-architecture that it takes on the characteristics that distinguish it from the Egyptian column and give it an originality of its own. NOTES: [164] The remains of stone walls are at least so rare in Lower Mesopotamia that we may disregard their existence. In my researches I have only found mention of a single example. At Abou-Sharein TAYLOR found a building in which an upper story was supported by a mass of crude brick faced with blocks of dressed sandstone. The stones of the lower courses were held together by mortar, those of the upper ones by bitumen. We have no information as to the "bond" or the size of stones used (_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xv. p. 408). The materials for this revetment must have been quarried in one of those rocky hills--islands, perhaps, formerly--with which Lower Chaldæa is sparsely studded. TAYLOR mentions one seven miles west of Mugheir, in the desert that stretches away towards Arabia from the right bank of the Euphrates (_Journal_, &c. vol. xv. p. 460). [165] We shall here give a _résumé_ of M. Place's observations (_Ninive et l'Assyrie_, vol. i. pp. 31-34). [166] PLACE, _Ninive_, &c. vol. i. p. [167] _Ibid._ p. 33. [168] In every country in which buildings have been surmounted by flat roofs, this precaution has been taken--"When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence." (_Deuteronomy_ xxii. 8). See also _Les Monuments en Chaldée, en Assyrie et à Babylon, d'après les récentes découvertes archéologique, avec neuf planches lithographiés_, 8vo, by H. CAVANIOL, published in 1870 by Durand et Pedone-Lauriel. It contains a very good _résumé_, especially in the matter of architecture, of those labours of French and English explorers to which we owe our knowledge of Chaldæa and Assyria. [169] PLACE, _Ninive et l'Assyrie_, vol i. p. 64. [170] XENOPHON, _Anabasis_, iii. 4, 7-11. The identity of Larissa and Mespila has been much discussed. Oppert thinks they were Resen and Dour-Saryoukin; others that they were Calech and Nineveh. The question is without importance to our inquiry. In any case the circumference of six parasangs (about 20-1/2 miles) ascribed by the Greek writer to his Mespila can by no means be made to fit Khorsabad. [171] See the _History of Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. p. 113. [172] BOTTA tells us how the courses of crude brick were distinguished one from another at Khorsabad (_Monuments de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 57). [173] Speaking of Hillah, GEORGE SMITH tells us (_Assyrian Discoveries_, p. 62):--"A little to the south rose the town of Hillah, built with the bricks found in the old capital. The natives have established a regular trade in these bricks for building purposes. A number of men are always engaged in digging out the bricks from the ruins, while others convey them to the banks of the Euphrates. There they are packed in rude boats, which float them down to Hillah, and on being landed they are loaded on donkeys and taken to any place where building is in progress. Every day when at Hillah I used to see this work going on as it had gone on for centuries, Babylon thus slowly disappearing without an effort being made to ascertain the dimensions and buildings of the city, or to recover what remains of its monuments. The northern portion of the wall, outside the Babil mound, is the place where the work of destruction is now (1874) most actively going on, and this in some places has totally disappeared." [174] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, &c. p. 110. [175] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 279. "The bricks had no mortar but the mud from which they had been made," says BOTTA (_Monuments de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 30). [176] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, &c. p. 503. [177] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, pp. 499 and 506. [178] TAYLOR, _Notes on the Ruins of Mugheir_ (_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xv. p. 261). This mortar is still employed in the country; it is called _kharour_. [179] The most plentiful springs occur at Hit, on the middle Euphrates. They are also found, however, farther north, as at Kaleh-Shergat, near the Tigris. Over a wide stretch of country in that district the bitumen wells up through every crack in the soil (LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 46). As for the bituminous springs of Hammam-Ali, near Mossoul, see PLACE, _Ninive et l'Assyrie_, vol. i. p. 236. [180] _Genesis_ xi. 3. [181] HERODOTUS, i. 179. [182] _Warka, its Ruins and Remains_, by W. KENNETH LOFTUS, p. 9. (In the _Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature_, second series, Part I.) According to SIR HENRY RAWLINSON this introduction of layers of reeds or rushes between the courses of brick continued in all this region at least down to the Parthian epoch. Traces of it are to be found in the walls of Seleucia and Ctesiphon (RAWLINSON'S _Herodotus_, vol. i. p. 300 note 1). [183] LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, i. p. 169. The abundance of bitumen in the ruins of Mugheir is such that the modern name of the town has sprung from it; the word means the _bituminous_ (TAYLOR, _Notes on the Ruins of Mugheir_). [184] PLACE, _Ninive et l'Assyrie_, vol. i. p. 236; LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 261. [185] LOFTUS, _Warka, its Ruins_, &c. p. 10. [186] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 29 and 248. [187] TAYLOR, _Notes on Abou-Sharein and Tell-el-Lahm_ (_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xv. p. 408). [188] BOTTA, _Monument de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 58. [189] NIEBUHR (_Voyage en Arabie_, vol. ii. p. 235) noticed this, and his observations have since been confirmed by many other visitors to the ruins of Babylon. KER PORTER (vol. ii. p. 391) noticed them in the ruins of Al-Heimar. See also TAYLOR on "_Mugheir_," &c. (_Journal_, &c. vol. xv. p. 261). At Birs-Nimroud these conduits are about nine inches high and between five and six wide. They are well shown in the drawing given by FLANDIN and COSTE of this ruin (_Perse ancienne et moderne_, pl. 221. cf. text 1, p. 181). [190] TAYLOR, _Notes on the Ruins of Mugheir_ (_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_), vol. xv. pp. 268-269. [191] At Khorsabad the average height of the alabaster lining is about ten feet; above that about three feet of brick wall remains. [192] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. i. pp. 127 and 350; vol. ii. pp. 40 and 350. As to the traces of fire at Khorsabad, see BOTTA, _Monument de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 54. [193] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. pp. 256-264. [194] LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, pp. 181-183. [195] This accumulation has sometimes reached a height of about 24 feet. PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 294. [196] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 293-294. [197] E. FLANDIN, _Voyage archéologique à Ninive. 1. L'Architecture assyrienne. 2. La Sculpture assyrienne_ (_Revue des Deux-Mondes_, June 15 and July 1, 1845). [198] For all that concerns this artist, one of the most skilful draughtsmen of our time, see the biographical notice of M. de Girardot:--_Felix Thomas, grand Prix de Rome Architecte, Peintre, Graveur, Sculpteur_ (Nantes, 1875, 8vo.). [199] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 249-269. [200] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 254-255. [201] _Ibid._ p. 246. [202] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 264. [203] _Ibid._ p. 265. RICH made similar observations at Bagdad. He noticed that the masons could mount on the vault a few minutes after each course was completed (_Narrative of a Journey to the Site of Babylon_). [204] M. A. CHOISY, well known by his Essays on _L'Art de bâtir chez les Romains_, shows that the same method was constantly used by the Byzantine architects. See his _Note sur la Construction des Voûtes sans cintrage pendant la Période byzantine_ (_Annales des Ponts et Chausées_, 1876, second period, vol. xii.). See also Mr. FERGUSSON'S account of the erection of a huge stone dome without centering of any kind, by an illiterate Maltese builder, at Mousta, near Valetta (_Handbook of Architecture_, Second Edition, vol. iv. p. 34).--ED. [205] STRABO, xvi. i. 5, Hoi oikoi kamarôtoi pantes dia tên axulian. [206] For a description of these buildings see FLANDIN and COSTE, _Voyage en Perse, Perse ancienne, Text_, pp. 24-27, and 41-43 (6 vols. folio, no date. The voyage in question took place in 1841 and 1842). [207] Brick played, at least, by far the most important part in their construction. The domes and arcades were of well-burnt brick; the straight walls were often built of broken stone, when it was to be had in the neighbourhood. At Ctesiphon, on the other hand, the great building known as the _Takht-i-Khosrou_ is entirely of brick. [208] See M. AUGUSTE CHOISY'S _Note sur la Construction des Voûtes_, &c. p. 14. This exact and penetrating critic shares our belief in these relations between the Chaldæan east and Roman Asia. [209] _Note sur la Construction des Voûtes sans cintrage_, p. 12. [210] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 266-267. [211] As M. CHOISY remarks (_L'Art de bâtir chez les Romains_, p. 80), each horizontal course, being in the form of a ring, would have no tendency to collapse inwards, and a dome circular on plan would demand some means for keeping its shape true rather than a resisting skeleton. [212] _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 131. [213] In both the examples here reproduced the sculptor has indicated the cords by which the canvas walls were kept in place. We find almost the same profile in a bas-relief at Khorsabad (BOTTA, _Monument de Ninive_, pl. 146), but there it is cut with less decision and there are no cords. Between the two semi-domes the figure of a man rises above the wall to his middle, suggesting the existence of a barbette within. Here the artist may have been figuring a house rather than a tent. [214] STRABO, xv. 3, 10. [215] STRABO, xvi. 1, 5. [216] Keramôi d' ou chrôntai, says Strabo. These words, as Letronne remarked _à propos_ of this passage, combine the ideas of a tiled roof and of one with a ridge. The one notion must be taken with the other; hence we may infer that the Babylonian houses were flat-roofed. [217] STRABO, ii. 5, 11. [218] See M. AMÉDÉE TARDIEU'S reflections upon Strabo's method of work, in his _Géographie de Strabon_ (Hachette, 3 vols, 12mo.), vol. iii. p. 286, note 2. [219] As to this singular people and their religious beliefs, the information contained in the two works of Sir H. LAYARD (_Nineveh_, vol. 1. pp. 270-305, and _Discoveries_, pp. 40-92) will be read with interest. Thanks to special circumstances Sir H. Layard was able to become more intimately acquainted than any other traveller with this much-abused and cruelly persecuted sect. He collected much valuable information upon doctrines which, even after his relation, are not a little obscure and confused. The Yezidis have a peculiar veneration for the evil principle, or Satan; they also seem to worship the sun. Their religion is in fact a conglomeration of various survivals from the different systems that have successively obtained in that part of Asia. They themselves have no clear idea of it as a whole. It would repay study by an archæologist of religions. [220] BOTTA, _Monument de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 70. [221] See above, page 118, note 1. [222] Some rooms are as much as thirty feet wide. They would require joists at least thirty-three feet long, a length that can hardly be admitted in view of the very mediocre quality of the wood in common use. [223] _Gailhabaud, Monuments anciens et modernes_, vol. i.; plate entitled _Tombeaux superposés à Corneto_. [224] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 309. In this passage M. Place affirms that Mr. Layard discovered in a room of one of the Ninevite palaces, several openings cut at less than four feet above the floor level. It is, moreover, certain that these openings were included in the original plan of the building, because the reliefs are interrupted so as to leave room for the window without injury to the scenes sculptured upon them; but, adds M. Place, this example is unique, one of those exceptions that help to confirm a rule. We have in vain searched through the two works of Sir Henry Layard for the statement alluded to by M. Place. The English explorer only once mentions windows, and then he says: "Even in the rooms bounded by the outer walls there is not the slightest trace of windows" (_Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 260). [225] BOTTA, _Monument de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 73. [226] FLANDIN et COSTE, _Voyage en Perse; Perse ancienne_, plates 28 and 29; and, in the text, page 25. These openings occur in the great Sassanide palace at Ctesiphon, the _Takht-i-Khosrou_ (_ibid._ pl. 216, and text, p. 175). Here the terra-cotta pipes are about eight inches in diameter. According to these writers similar contrivances are still in use in Persia. [227] In the cupola of the palace at Sarbistan (Fig. 54), a window may be perceived in the upper part of the vertical wall, between the pendentives of the dome. Such openings may well have been pierced under Assyrian domes. From many of the illustrations we have given, it will be seen that the Ninevite architects had no objection to windows, provided they could be placed in the upper part of the wall. It is of windows like ours, pierced at a foot or two above the ground, that no examples have been found. [228] PLACE. _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 312-314. [229] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 313. [230] _Ibid._ p. 310 [231] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 311. [232] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 307. [233] See BOTTA, _Monument de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 53; _Place_, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 306, 307. [234] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 15. [235] TAYLOR, _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xv. p. 409. [236] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 260. [237] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, pp. 645-6. [238] LAYARD, _Monuments_, &c., first series, plate 19. This relief is reproduced in PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plate 40, fig. 6. [239] British Museum; Kouyundjik Gallery, Nos. 34-43. See also LAYARD'S _Monuments_, plates 8 and 9.--ED. [240] A second inclined gallery of the same kind was found by LAYARD in another of the Kouyundjik palaces (_Discoveries_, p. 650). [241] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 306, 307. [242] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 140. [243] As to the great size sometimes reached by the tents of the Arab chiefs, and the means employed to divide them into several apartments, see LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 313, and the sketch on page 321. [244] There is a photographic reproduction of these interesting reliefs in the fine publication undertaken by the Society of Biblical Archæology. This work, which is not yet (1883) complete, is entitled _The Bronze Ornaments of the Gates of Balawat_, _Shalmaneser_ II. 859-825, edited, with an introduction, by Samuel BIRCH, with descriptions and translations by Theophilus G. PINCHES, folio, London. The three first parts are before us. The motive reproduced above belongs to the plate marked F, 5. [245] They are to be found on the sheet provisionally numbered B, 1, in the publication above referred to. [246] This cylinder, which is now in the British Museum, was perhaps the actual signet of the king. [247] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 272. [248] LAYARD, _Monuments of Nineveh_, first series, plate 77; second series, plates 24 and 36. [249] _Genesis_, xiii. 12. [250] _Genesis_, xix. § 4.--_The Column._ As Chaldæa, speaking broadly, made no use of stone in its buildings, the stone column or shaft was unknown to its architects; at least not a single fragment of such a thing has been found among the ruins. Here and there cylindrical piers built up of small units seem to have been employed. These are sometimes of specially moulded bricks,[251] sometimes of sandstone fragments supported by a coat of masonry. Time has separated the stones of the latter, and it is now only represented by fragments whose shape betrays their original destination. Taylor, indeed, found one of these piers still in place during his excavations at Abou-Sharein, but his sketch and description are so confused that it is quite useless to reproduce them.[252] On the other hand, Chaldæa preceded Assyria in the art of raising airy structures mainly composed of wood and metal, and by them she was led to the use of slender supports and a decoration in which grace and elegance were the most conspicuous features. We have a proof of this in a curious monument recently acquired by the British Museum. It comes from Abou-Abba, about sixteen miles south-west of Bagdad, and is in a marvellous state of preservation. Abou-Abba has been recognized as the site of the ancient Sippara, one of the oldest of Chaldæan towns. Its sanctuaries, in which the sun-god, Samas, was chiefly adored, always maintained a great importance. The monument in question is a tablet of very close-grained grey stone 11-1/3 inches long 6 inches high and, in the centre, about 3 inches thick. Its thickness increases from top to bottom. The edge is grooved. High up on the obverse there is a bas-relief, beneath this commences a long inscription which is finished on the reverse.[253] Shorter inscriptions are engraved on the field of the relief itself. The whole work--figures, inscriptions, and outer mouldings--is executed with the utmost care. The laborious solicitude with which the smallest details are carried out is to be explained by the destination of this little plaque, namely, the temple in the centre of Sippara in which a triad consisting of Sin, Samas, and Istar was the object of worship.[254] The relief itself--which we reproduce from a cast kindly presented to us by Dr. Birch--occupies rather less than half of the obverse (Fig. 71). It represents a king called Nabou-Abla-Idin, who reigned about 900, doing homage to the sun-god.[255] We shall return to this scene and its composition when the time arrives for treating Chaldæan sculpture. At present we only wish to speak of the pavilion under which the deity is enthroned upon a chair supported by two beings half man and half bull. This kind of tabernacle is bounded, above and at the back of the god, by a wall of which there is nothing to show the exact nature. Its graceful, sinuous line, however, seems to exclude the idea, sufficiently improbable in itself, of a brick vault. It may possibly have been of wood, though it would not be easy to obtain this elegant curve even in that material. But such forms as this are given with the greatest ease in metal, and we are ready to believe that what the artist here meant to represent was a metal frame, which could at need be hidden under a canopy of leather or wool, like those we have already encountered in the Assyrian bas-reliefs (Figs. 67 and 68). The artist has in fact made use of a graphic process common enough with the Egyptians.[256] He has given us a lateral elevation of the tabernacle with the god in profile within it, because his skill was unequal to the task of showing him full front and seated between the two columns of the façade. The single column thus left visible has been represented with great skill and care; the sculptor seems to have taken pleasure in dwelling upon its smallest details. Slender as it is, it must have been of wood. The markings upon it suggest the trunk of a palm, but we may be permitted to doubt whether it was allowed to remain in its natural uncovered state. Even in the climate of Chaldæa a dead tree trunk exposed to the air would have no great durability. Sooner or later the sun, the rain, the changes of temperature, would give a good account of it, and besides, a piece of rough wood could hardly be made to harmonize with the luxury that must assuredly have been lavished by the people of Sippara upon the sanctuary of their greatest divinity. It is probable, therefore, that the wood was overlaid with plates of gilded bronze, fastened on with nails. This hypothesis is confirmed by one of M. Place's discoveries at Khorsabad.[257] There, in front of the Harem, he found several large fragments of a round cedar-wood beam almost as thick as a man's body. It was cased in a bronze sheath, very much oxydized and resembling the scales of a fish in arrangement (Fig. 72). The metal was attached to the wood by a large number of bronze nails. Comparing these remains with certain bas-reliefs in which different kinds of trees appear (Fig. 27) we can easily see that the Ninevite sculptors meant to represent the peculiar roughnesses of palm bark. Their usual methods are modified a little by the requirements of the material and the size of the beam upon which it was used. Each scale was about 4-1/2 inches high, and according to the calculations of M. Place, the whole mast must have been from five-and-thirty to forty feet high. Working for spectators on a lower level and at some distance, the smith thought well to make his details as regular and strongly marked as he could; to each scale or leaf he gave a raised edge to mark its contour and distinguish it from the rest. The general effect was thus obtained by deliberate exaggeration of the relief and by a conventionality that was justified by the conditions of the problem to be solved. [Illustration: FIG. 71.--Homage to _Samas_ or _Shamas_. Tablet from Sippara. Actual size. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] At a little distance from this broken beam M. Place found a leaf of gold which is now in the Louvre; it presents the same ovoid forms as the bronze sheathing, and, moreover, the numerous nail holes show that it was meant to fulfil the same purpose as the bronze plates. The place in which it was found, its dimensions and form, all combine to prove that it was laid upon the bronze as we should lay gold leaf. It bears an inscription in cuneiform characters. [Illustration: FIG. 72.--Sheath of a cedar-wood mast, bronze.] We are inclined to take these plates for models in restoring the columns of the Sippara tabernacle. There is nothing in the richness of this double covering of bronze and gold to cause surprise, as the inscription which covers part of the face and the whole of the back of the tablet is nothing but a long enumeration of the gifts made to the shrine of Samas by the reigning king and his predecessors. This column has both capital and base. The former cannot have been of stone; a heavy block of basalt or even of limestone would be quite out of place in such a situation. As for the base it is hardly more than a repetition of the capital, and must have been of the same material; and that material was metal, the only substance that, when bent by the hand or beaten by the hammer, takes almost of its own motion those graceful curves that we call _volutes_. We believe then in a bronze capital gilded. Under the volutes three rings, or _astragali_, may be seen. By their means the capital was allied to the shaft. The former consisted of two volutes between which appeared a vertical point resembling one of the angles of a triangle. The base is the same except that it has no point, and that the rings are in contact with the ground instead of with the shaft. These volutes may also be perceived on the table in front of the tabernacle, where they support the large disk by which the sun-god is symbolized. [Illustration: FIG. 73.--Interior of a house supported by wooden pillars; from the gates of Balawat. British Museum.] Before quitting this tablet we may point to another difference between the column of Sippara and the shafts of the same material and proportions that we have encountered in the Assyrian bas-reliefs (Figs. 67, 68, and 69). In the latter the column rises above the canopy, which is attached to its shaft by brackets or nails. At Sippara the canopy rests upon the capital itself. The same arrangement may be found in Assyrian representations of these light structures; it will suffice to give one example taken from the gates of Balawat (Fig. 73). Here, too, the proportions of the columns prove them to have been of wood. They do not rise above the entablature. The architrave rests upon them, and, as in Greece and Egypt, its immediate weight is borne by abaci. At present our aim is to prove that Assyria derived from Chaldæa the first idea of those tall and slender columns, the shafts of which were of wood sheathed in metal, and the capitals of the latter material. The graceful and original forms of Chaldæan art would have prepared the way for a columnar architecture in stone, had that material been forthcoming. Babylon, however, saw no such architecture. Her plastic genius never came under the influence that would have led her to import stone from abroad; and the grace and variety of the orders remained unknown to her builders. Like Egypt, Chaldæa gave lessons but received none. The forms of her art are to be explained by the inborn characteristics of her people and the natural conditions among which they found themselves placed. In Assyria these conditions were rather different. The stone column was used there, but used in a timid and hesitating fashion. It never reached the freedom and independence that would have characterized it had it arisen naturally from the demands of construction.[258] [Illustration: FIG. 74.--Assyrian capital, in perspective; compiled from Place.] We only possess one column, or rather one fragment of a column, from Assyria, and that was found by M. Place at Khorsabad (Fig. 74). It is a block of carefully worked and carved limestone about forty inches high, and including both the capital and the upper part of the shaft in its single piece. Such a combination could not long exist in architectonic systems in which the stone column played its true part. It is a survival from the use of wood. Another characteristic feature is the complete absence both from this fragment and from the columns in the sculptured reliefs of vertical lines or divisions of any kind, no trace of a fluted or polygonal shaft has been found.[259] In writing the history of the Egyptian column we explained how the natural desire for as much light as possible led the architects of Beni-Hassan to transform the square pier, first into an octagonal prism, secondly into one with sixteen sides.[260] And to this progressive elaboration of the polyhedric shaft the flutes seemed to us to owe their origin. On the other hand, with tall and slender supports such as those afforded by palm trunks no necessity for reduction and for the shaving of angles would arise, and those flutes whose peculiar section is owing to the desire for a happy play of light and shadow, would never have been thought of. If we imitate a natural timber shaft in stone we have a smooth cylindrical column like that seen in Fig. 74. Again, the shafts of the columns in the bas-reliefs, appear slender in comparison with those of Egypt, or with the doric shafts of the oldest Greek temples (see Fig. 41 and 42). In the fragmentary column from Khorsabad (Fig. 74) we have only a small part of the shaft but if we may judge from the feeble salience of the capital, its proportions must have been slender rather than heavy and massive. Wherever the stone column has been used in buildings of mediocre size, the architect seems to have been driven by some optical necessity to make his angle columns more thickset than the other supports. Thus it was in Assyria, in the little temple at Kouyundjik (Fig. 42), where the outer columns are sensibly thicker than those between them; at Khorsabad (Fig. 41) the same result was obtained by rather different means. The edifice represented in this bas-relief bears no little similarity to certain Egyptian temples and to the Greek temple _in antis_.[261] The strength of these angular piers contrasts happily with the elegance of the columns between them. The latter are widely spaced, and, as in some Egyptian buildings, the architrave is but a horizontal continuation of the corner piers. If we analyse the column and examine its three parts separately we shall be led to similar conclusions. The stone column no doubt bore the architrave upon its capital wherever it was used, and both in Chaldæa and Assyria we find the same arrangement in those light structures which we have classed as belonging to the architecture of the tent (Figs. 70 and 72). The origin of the forms employed in stone buildings is most clearly shewn by the frequent occurrence of the volute, a curvilinear element suggested by the use and peculiar properties of metal. [Illustration: FIG. 75.--Capital; from a small temple.] We find these volutes everywhere, upon shafts of stone and wood indifferently. We are tempted to think, when we examine the details of our Fig. 67, that the first idea of them was taken from the horns of the ibex or the wild goat. The column on the right of this cut bears a fir cone between its volutes, those on the left have small tablets on which are perched the very animals whose heads are armed with these horns. However this may be, the form in question, like all others borrowed from nature by man, was soon modified and developed by art. The curve was prolonged and turned in upon itself. In one of the capitals of the little temple represented at Kouyundjik (Fig. 42), two pairs of these horns may be recognized one above the other (Fig. 75), but nowhere else do we find such an arrangement. Whether the column be of wood, as in the Sippara tablet (Fig. 71), or of stone, as in those buildings in which the weight and solidity of the entablature points decisively to that material (Figs. 41 and 42), we find a volute in universal use that differs but slightly in its general physiognomy from the familiar ornament of the Ionic capital. [Illustration: FIG. 76.--View of a palace; from Layard.] Let us revert for a moment to the country house or palace of which we gave a general view in Fig. 39. We shall there find on the highest part of the building an open loggia supported by small columns many times repeated. We reproduce this part of the relief on a larger scale (Fig. 76), so that its details may be more clearly seen. A very slight familiarity with the graphic processes of the Assyrians is sufficient to inform the reader that the kind of trellis work with which the bed of the relief is covered is significant of a mountainous country. The palace rises on the banks of a river, which is indicated by the sinuous lines in the right lower corner. The buildings themselves--which are dominated here and there by the round tops of trees, planted, we may suppose, in the inner courts--stand upon mounds at various heights above the plain. The lowest of these look like isolated structures, such as the advanced works of a fortress. Next comes a line of towers, and then the artificial hill crowned by the palace properly speaking. The façade of the latter is flanked by tall and salient towers, across whose summits runs the open gallery to which we have referred.[262] This is supported by numerous columns which must by their general arrangement and spacing, have been of wood. The gallery consisted, in all probability, of a platform upheld by trunks of trees, either squared or left in the rough and surmounted by capitals sheathed in beaten bronze. The volute is here quite simple in shape; elsewhere we find it doubled, as it were, so that four volutes occur between the astragali and the abacus (Figs. 42 and 77).[263] In other examples, again, it is elongated upwards until it takes a shape differing but little from the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian capital (Fig. 78).[264] This volute is found all over Assyria and Chaldæa. It decorates the angles of the small temple represented on the stone known as Lord Aberdeen's Black Stone (Fig. 79). It occurs also on many of the ivories, but these, perhaps, are for the most part Phoenician. But in any case the Assyrians made constant use of it in the decoration of their furniture. In an ivory plaque, of which the British Museum possesses several examples, we find a man standing and grasping a lotus stem in his left hand (Fig. 80). This stem rests upon a support which bears a strong resemblance to the Sippara capital (Fig. 71); it has two volutes separated by a sharp point. The fondness of the Assyrians for these particular curves is also betrayed in that religious and symbolic device which has been sometimes called the _Tree of Life_. Some day, perhaps, the exact significance of this emblem may be explained, we are content to point out the variety and happy arrangement of the sinuous lines which surround and enframe the richly decorated pilaster that acts as its stem. We gave one specimen of this tree in Fig. 8; we now give another (Fig. 81). The astragali, the ibex horns and the volutes, may all be easily recognized here. [Illustration: FIG. 77.--Capital; from a small temple.] [Illustration: FIG. 78.--Capital.] [Illustration: FIG. 79.--Chaldæan tabernacle.] [Illustration: FIG. 80.--Ivory plaque found at Nimroud. Actual size. British Museum.] The only stone capital that has come down to us has, indeed, no volutes (Fig. 74) but it is characterized by the same taste for flowing lines and rounded forms. Its general section is that of a cyma reversa surmounted by a flattened torus, and its appearance that of a vase decorated with curvilinear and geometrical tracery. There is both originality and beauty in the contours of the profile and the arrangement of the tracery; the section as a whole is not unlike that of the inverted bell-shaped capitals at Karnak.[265] [Illustration: FIG. 81.--_The Tree of Life_; from Layard.] This type must have been in frequent use, as we find it repeated in four bases found still in place in front of the palace of Sennacherib by Sir Henry Layard. They were of limestone and rested upon plinths and a pavement of the same material (Fig. 82).[266] In these the design of the ornament is a little more complicated than the festoon on the Khorsabad capital, but the principle is the same and both objects belong to one narrow class. We again encounter this same base with its opposing curves in a curious monument discovered at Kouyundjik by Mr. George Smith.[267] This is a small and carefully executed model, in yellowstone, of a winged human-headed bull, supporting on his back a vase or base similar in design to that figured above. This little object must have served as a model for the carvers engaged upon the palace walls. We shall not here stop to examine the attributes and ornaments of the bull, they are well shown in our Figs. 83 and 84, and their types are known by many other examples. Our aim is to show that we have rightly described the uses to which it was put. These might have remained obscure but for the discovery, in the south-western palace at Nimroud, of a pair of winged sphinxes, calcined by fire but still in their places between two huge lions at one of the doors. Before their contours disappeared--and they rapidly crumbled away upon contact with the air--Layard had time to make a drawing of the one that had suffered least (Fig. 85). In his description he says that between the two wings was a sort of plateau, "intended to carry the base of a column."[268] [Illustration: FIG. 82.--Ornamented base, in limestone.] Surprised at not finding any trace of the column itself, he gives out another conjecture: that these sphinxes were altars upon which offerings to the gods, or presents to the king were placed. This hypothesis encounters many objections. We may easily account for the disappearance of the column by supposing it to have been of wood. If it was stone, it may have been carried off for use as a roller by the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, before that part of the building to which it belonged was so completely engulfed and hidden by the ruins as it afterwards became.[269] Moreover we can point to a certain number of Assyrian altars, and their shapes are very different from this. [Illustration: FIG. 83.--Model of a base, side view. Actual size.] [Illustration: FIG. 84.--The same, seen from in front.] Finally, all our doubts are removed by a bas-relief from the palace of Assurbanipal, which is now in the British Museum (Fig. 86). The upper part of this carved picture is destroyed, but enough remains to show that it reproduced the façade of some richly decorated building. Four columns supported on the backs of so many lions, and two flat pilasters upheld in the same fashion by winged griffins, may readily be distinguished. That these griffins are not repeated on the left of the relief, is due perhaps to the haste or laziness of the sculptor. He may have thought he had done enough when he had shown once for all how these pedestals were composed. However this may have been, the lions in this relief play exactly the same _rôle_ as that attributed by us to the little model found by George Smith, and to the winged sphinx discovered by Sir Henry Layard before one of the doors at Nimroud. A base in the form of a vase or cushion is inserted between the back of the animal and the bottom of the shaft. In the pilaster--if we may believe that the artist took no liberties with fact--the junction is direct without the interposition of any ornamental motive. [Illustration: FIG. 85.--Winged Sphinx carrying the base of a column; from Layard.] [Illustration: FIG. 86.--Façade of an Assyrian building; from a bas-relief in the British Museum. Height 10 inches.] In what M. Place calls the state doorways (_portes ornées_) of Khorsabad, the arches spring from the backs of the great mitred bulls that guard the entrance.[270] But, whether the columns rose from the backs of animals real or fantastic, they always seem to have had a base. Almost the only instance of its absence is in the open gallery in Fig. 76, and there, perhaps, they are hidden by a balustrade. Everywhere else we find a more or less ornamental member interposed between the shaft and the ground. At Khorsabad (Fig. 41) it is a simple torus (Fig. 87), at Kouyundjik (Fig. 42) it is a kind of cushion (Fig. 88), which we find represented in not a few of the bas-reliefs. The curves bear a distant resemblance to the volutes of a capital; above this base appears a ring or astragal, the origin of which may be easily guessed. The original timber column, the newly felled tree that was set up to support the roof of a tent or a house, must have been placed upon a block of stone or wood, to which it was joined, in some degree, by hollowing out the latter and setting the foot of the timber beam in the hollow, and then hiding the junction by those reed bands that, as travellers tell us, were still used for the same purpose in the last years of Babylon.[271] In time a ring of metal would take the place of the reeds, and when stone columns came to be used, a feature which was at first a necessity, or, at least, a useful expedient and a guarantee of duration and solidity, came at last to be simply an ornament. [Illustration: FIGS. 87, 88.--Bases of columns; from the bas-reliefs.] * * * * * We have now studied the Assyrian column as a whole and in detail. Most of its features seem to us to be survivals from the methods and processes of what we have called the architecture of the tent. The stone column had no place in those structures of crude brick of which the real national architecture of Mesopotamia consisted; it was not at home there; the surrounding conditions were unfavourable to its development. And yet, in time, it did, as we have seen, put in a rare appearance, at least in the case of that one of the two sister nations by which a sufficient supply of stone could be obtained, but even then it filled an ornamental and auxiliary rather than a vital function. Its remains are only to be found by patient search, and even in the bas-reliefs its representations are few and far between. By making diligent use of these two channels of information archæology has succeeded in demonstrating the existence of the Assyrian column and describing its forms, but at the same time it has been compelled to recognize how narrow was its use, especially in the great structures on which Mesopotamian builders lavished all the resources of their art. In those it was employed mainly for the decoration of outbuildings, and it will be well to inquire how it acquitted itself of such a task. * * * * * The column seems to have been introduced in those gateways to which the Assyrian architect attached so much importance.[272] Read carefully Sir Henry Layard's description of his discovery of two sphinxes upon one of the façades of the south-western palace at Kouyundjik (Fig. 83); he gives no plan of the passage where he found them, but his narrative[273] suggests the existence of some kind of porch in front of the large opening. It must have been upheld by a pair of columns on the backs of the two sphinxes, and may have consisted of one of those wooden canopies which are so common in the modern architecture of the East.[274] We are inclined to recognize a pent house of this kind, but of more complicated construction in the Kouyundjik bas-relief figured above (Fig. 83). No door is shown, but that, perhaps, is due to the sculptor's inability to suggest a void, or the two central perpendicular lines may have been joined by a horizontal one on the upper part of the relief, which is lost, and thus a doorway indicated; it would then have a couple of pilasters and a couple of columns on each flank. In classic architecture we find nothing that can be compared with this curious notion of placing columns and pilasters on the backs of real or imaginary animals, on a lion, a winged bull, or a sphinx. In the modern East, however, it is still done. The throne of the Shah, at Teheran, is supported by columns which, in their turn, stand on the backs of lions. Singularly enough the same idea found favour with European architects in the middle ages, who often made use of it in the porches of their Christian cathedrals.[275] Hence, the old formula often found in judicial documents, _sedente inter leones_,--sitting between the lions--which, was used of episcopal judgments delivered in the church porch. In Italy, in buildings of the Lombardic style, these lions are to be found in great numbers and in this same situation. At Modena there is one in the south porch of the cathedral that strongly reminded me by its style and handling of the figures now existing in Cappadocia, of the lion at Euiuk, for example; in both instances it is extended on the ground with its fore paws laid upon some beast it has caught.[276] We could hardly name a motive more dear to Oriental art than this. Between the predilections of the modern East and those of Assyria and Chaldæa there are many such analogies. We shall not try to explain them; we shall be content with pointing them out as they present themselves. Various facts observed by Sir Henry Layard and the late George Smith, show that the column was often employed to form covered alleys stretching from a door to the edge of the platform, doubtless to the landings on which the stepped or inclined approaches to the palace came to an end. Sir Henry Layard[277] found four bases of limestone (Fig. 82) on the north side of Sennacherib's palace. They were in couples, one couple close to the palace wall, the other in a line with it but some eight-and-twenty yards farther from the building. In each pair the distance from centre to centre was 9 feet 3 inches. With such a width the covered way may very well have been roofed with wood, a hypothesis which is supported by the discovery, at the same point, of the remains of crude brick walls. The columns would mark in all likelihood the two extremities of the passage. As for the other conjecture thrown out by the explorer, it seems to us to be much less probable. He asks whether these bases may not have been the pedestals of statues. Many Assyrian statues have been found together with their pedestals, and these are always simple in the extreme and without any kind of ornament. Moreover, the statues themselves were made rather to be set up against a wall than to pass an independent existence in an open courtyard. Moreover, George Smith saw two of these bases in place at one of the entrances to the palace of Assurbanipal. Unfortunately he gives no drawing and his description is wanting in clearness, but he seems to have noticed the traces left by a cylindrical shaft on the upper surface of one base; his expression, "a flat circle to receive the column," evidently means that the latter was sunk into the substance of the base.[278] Here, no doubt was the end of a gallery, like that in front of Sennacherib's palace. There must in all probability have been other remains of these columns besides those noticed by the English explorer, but at Khorsabad alone were the excavations superintended by a professional architect, there alone were they watched by the trained eye of a man capable of giving its true meaning and value to every detail of a ruinous building. At Nimroud, at Kouyundjik, at Nebbi-Younas, many interesting traces of ancient arrangements may have been obliterated in the course of the excavations without those who stood by having the least suspicion of their significance. We might perhaps, if it were worth while, come upon further representations of columns on engraved stones, on ivories, and bronzes,[279] but upon such small objects forms are indicated in a very summary fashion, and, besides, they would be nothing more than curtailed repetitions of motives shown in more detail and upon a larger scale elsewhere. Our readers may fairly judge, from the examples we have placed before them, of the appearance of those columns of wood and metal, which the Chaldæans used in the light and graceful tabernacles figured for us on the relief from Sippara, and of the more durable stone supports of the Assyrians. Long habit and an excessive respect for tradition, hindered the latter from turning the column to its fullest use. They stopped half way. They employed the feature with such timidity that we can point to nothing that can be called an Assyrian order. They produced nothing to compare with the rich and varied colonnades that we admired in the hypostyle halls of Egypt. And yet we cannot say that they showed any lack of originality or invention in their choice of decorations for the bases and capitals of their columns. Their favourite motive seems to have been the volute, to which, however, they gave an endless variety. They used it, no doubt, in many ways that now escape us, and by applying it now to this purpose and now to that, and sometimes with the happiest results, they accumulated an amount of experience as to the value of those graceful curves which was of great value to their successors. Who those successors were and how they carried to perfection a form which had its origin on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, will be shown in the course of our history. NOTES: [251] See above, p. 118, note 1. [252] TAYLOR, _Notes on Abou-Sharein, and Tell-el-Lahm_, (_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xv. p. 404).--ED. [253] This inscription is published in full in the _Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia_, vol. v. part ii. [254] The names of these three deities are furnished by the inscription which runs beneath the canopy of the pavilion (see Fig. 71). [255] The disk upon the table is enough by itself to betray the identity of the god, but as if to render assurance doubly sure, the artist has taken the trouble to cut on the bed of the relief under the three small figures, an inscription which has been thus translated by MM. OPPERT and MÉNANT: "Image of the Sun, the Great Lord, who dwells in the temple of Bit-para, in the city of Sippara." [256] See our _History of Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. chap. 1, § 1. [257] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 120-122, and vol. iii. plate 73. [258] In this connection Sir H. LAYARD makes an observation to which the attention of the artist should be drawn. Whenever pictures of _Belshazzar's Feast_ and the _Last Night of Babylon_ are painted massive Egyptian pillars are introduced: nothing could be more contrary to the facts (_Discoveries_, p. 581). [259] M. PLACE, indeed, encountered an octagonal column on the mound of Karamles, but the general character of the objects found in that excavation led him to conclude positively that the column in question was a relic from the Parthian or Sassanide epoch (_Ninive_, vol. ii. pp. 169, 170). [260] _History of Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 95. [261] _Ibid._ vol. i. p. 397, fig. 230; and vol. ii. p. 105, fig. 84. [262] The profiles of the capitals in this gallery led Sir H. LAYARD to speak of "small pillars with capitals in the form of the Ionic volute" (_Discoveries_, p. 119) (?). [263] A similar arrangement of volutes may be found on the rough columns engraved upon one of the ivory plaques found at Nimroud (LAYARD, _Monuments_, &c., first series, plate 88, fig. 3). [264] We reproduce this capital from RAWLINSON'S _Five Great Monarchies_ (vol. i. p. 333); but we should have liked to be able to refer either to the relief in which it occurs, or to the original design which must have been made in the case of those slabs which had to be left at Nineveh. We have succeeded in finding neither the relief nor the drawing, so that we cannot guarantee the fidelity of the image. [265] See _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 120, fig. 95. [266] LAYARD forgets to give the height of this base: he is content to tell us that its greatest diameter is 2 feet 7 inches, and its smallest 11-1/2 inches. This latter measurement must have been taken at the junction with the shaft (_Discoveries_, p. 590). [267] George SMITH, _Assyrian Discoveries_, sixth edition, 8vo. 1876, p. 431. [268] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. i. p. 349, at a little distance the explorer found the bodies of two lions placed back to back, which seemed to have formed a pedestal of the same kind. Their heads were wanting, and the whole group had suffered so much from fire, that it was impossible either to carry it off or to make a satisfactory drawing from it (_ibid._ p. 351). [269] This suggestion seems inconsistent with the state of the ruin at the spot where the discovery was made. Sir Henry Layard describes these sphinxes as buried in charcoal, and so calcined by the fire that they fell into minute fragments soon after exposure to the air. Anything carried on their backs must have fallen at the time of the conflagration, and, if a stone column, it would have been found under the charcoal.--ED. [270] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plate 11. [271] STRABO, xvi. 1, 5. [272] Thomas has placed one of these porches in his restoration of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad. It is supported by two columns, and serves to mark one of the entrances to the harem. (PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plate 37 _bis_.) [273] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. i. pp. 349, 350. [274] Numerous examples are figured in COSTE and FLANDIN'S _Perse Moderne_, plates 3, 7, 9, 26, 27, 54, &c. They cast a wide shadow in front of the doorways, and sometimes run along the whole length of the façade. Some little support to M. Perrot's theory is afforded by a circumstance on which Layard dwells strongly in the passage referred to above, namely, that the sphinxes were found buried over their heads in charcoal, which may very well have been the remains of such a porch; its quantity seems too great for those of a ceiling.--ED. [275] This coincidence struck Professor Rawlinson, who compares one of these Assyrian columns to a column in the porch of the Cathedral of Trent. He reproduces them both in his _Five Great Monarchies_, vol. i. p. 313. [276] See PERROT and GUILLAUME, _Exploration archéologique de la Galatie_, vol. ii. pl. 57. [277] _Discoveries_, p. 590. [278] GEORGE SMITH, _Assyrian Discoveries_, p. 431. [279] One curious example of this is figured in the work of M. CHIPIEZ, _Histoire critique de l'Origine et de la Formation des Ordres grecs_, p. 20. See also LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 444, where a bas-relief from the palace of Sennacherib is figured, upon which appears a coffer supported by a foot in the shape of a column, which ends in a regular volute. § 5.--_The Arch._ In the preceding pages we have determined the _rôle_ played by the column in Assyria, and have explained that in spite of the care and taste lavished upon some of its details, it never rose above the rank of a secondary and subordinate member. There is nothing, then, to surprise us in the fact that the Assyrian architect never placed his arches or vaults upon columns or piers; he seems never to have had a glimpse of the great possibilities such a procedure involved, a procedure from which upon the very soil of the East, his remote descendants were to evolve the architecture of the Byzantine church and the Arab mosque. His archivolts and the pendentives of his vaults always rest upon thick walls, and yet almost every variety of the simple arch or tunnel-vault are to be found among the ruins of his buildings. * * * * * [Illustration: FIG. 89.--Tomb-chamber at Mugheir; from Taylor.] Like all the other forms of Assyrian architecture the arch was invented in Chaldæa. The use of small sized materials must have led to its early discovery in that country. But the only arches now standing occur in the better preserved monuments of Assyria. On the other hand the tombs of Lower Chaldæa furnish more than one example of that false, corbelled or off-set vault, that we have already encountered in Egypt.[280] The chamber figured below is taken from the necropolis of Mugheir, formerly "Ur of the Chaldees." It is built of crude brick bound with mud. The vault is supported by walls sloping upwards and outwards like those of a modern tunnel (Fig. 89).[281] Such a method of construction is only adapted to buildings of small dimensions; it could not be used for chambers with wide roofs, or where any great weight was to be upheld. The arches upon which, according to both Strabo and Diodorus,[282] the hanging gardens of Babylon were supported, must have been real centred arches. As to whether they were of pisé, like those of Khorsabad, the Greek writers tell us nothing. From what we know of the habits of the Chaldæan builder we may conclude that they were true arches with voussoirs either of bricks burnt in the kiln, or so well dried that they were almost as hard and durable as those that had passed through the fire. This conjecture is confirmed by the fact that the structures in question lasted till the Macedonian conquest. Strabo and Diodorus speak of the great temple of Bel as so ruinous that its original height could not be guessed, even approximatively. It was otherwise with the hanging gardens. Of these they give the measurements, on plan, of the platforms and piers, together with their heights, and the heights of the arches. We should find it difficult to explain the preciseness of these measurements and their agreement one with another, unless we supposed that both writers had some exact authority, such as one of the companions or historians of Alexander, to refer to. The kings of Persia lived at Babylon for a part of the year. These princes may well have been indifferent to the preservation of the national fanes, they may even have hastened their destruction, as Xerxes is said to have done, in order to punish and humiliate the rebellious Babylonians. But in their own interest they would see that proper care was taken of those hanging gardens by which their stay in the city would be rendered more pleasant than it would otherwise have been, from whose lofty platforms their watchful eyes could roam over the city and the adjoining plain, and follow the course of the great river until it disappeared on the south amid groves of waving palm. After the rise of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, however, the gardens would rapidly hasten to decay, but they must have been solidly built in the first instance to last as long as they did. The pisé vaults of the Ninevite palaces could never have stood so well. In spite of the layers of lead and bitumen which, as Diodorus tells us, were spread upon their terraces, the summer rains must in time have found their way into their walls and set up a process of disintegration which could have but one end. Real brick with good mortar could alone resist such influences, and those, no doubt, were the materials used in the Babylonian gardens. If their substructures should ever be found and laid open, we have little doubt that arches as carefully built as those of the Assyrian ruins will be brought to light. The gateways of the town built by Sargon at the foot of his palace mound were roofed with semicircular vaults.[283] In order to study their construction more closely, M. Place demolished one of these arches piece by piece, the one numbered three on his plan.[284] It was already condemned to destruction by the necessity for carrying off its sculptures. The total height from pavement to keystone, was twenty-four feet six inches, from the centre of the keystone to the springing of the arch itself was eight feet, the total width of the opening, measured at the feet of the caryatides, was fourteen feet four inches. The bricks had not been burnt in a kiln but they had been subjected to a prolonged desiccation. The system of construction was as simple as possible. The perpendicular side walls passed into the vault without any preparation, and the arch when complete had no inward projection and no structural ornament but the inner faces of the carefully placed voussoirs; as all the bricks were of the same size and shape something more than their slightly trapezoidal form was required to keep them in place, and a softer clay was used to bind them together. With the addition of this rude cement each brick became a long and narrow wedge and determined the curve of the vault in which it was placed. Some idea of the appearance of this triple arch may be formed from the illustration we have compiled from M. Thomas's elevation of an alcove in one of the harem apartments at Khorsabad (Fig. 90). This vault is not in existence, but its component parts were found among the ruins of Sargon's palace.[285] [Illustration: FIG. 90.--Interior of a chamber in the harem of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad; compiled from Place.] There is one detail in the decoration of these doorways that should be carefully noted. Wherever the architect makes use of a round-headed opening he reinforces its outlines with a kind of semicircular frieze, to which brilliant colours or bold reliefs would give no little decorative value. In what M. Place calls _portes ornées_, this ornamental archivolt is of enamelled bricks, in the subordinate entrances it is distinguished from the rest of the wall merely by its salience. In neither case, however, does it end in any kind of impost, it returns horizontally without the arch and forms an ornament along a line corresponding to the spring of the vault within. We give an example of this peculiarly Assyrian arrangement from one of the gateways at Dour-Saryoukin (Fig. 91). Nothing like it is to be found, so far as we know, among the buildings of any other ancient people. [Illustration: FIG. 91.--Return round the angle of an archivolt in one of the gates of Dour-Saryoukin; compiled from Place.] From the point of view of the special study on which we are now busy, the inhabited and visible part of an Assyrian building is less interesting than those channels hidden in the substructures which acted as drains. These channels existed in all the palaces. Layard encountered them at Nimroud and Kouyundjik,[286] but it was at Khorsabad that they were found in the best condition and most carefully studied.[287] We shall make use chiefly of the observations of MM. Place and Thomas in our explanation of a curious system of sewers that does, perhaps, more honour to the Ninevite builder than any other part of his work. Every detail of their construction is full of interest,--the general arrangement, the choice of materials and the various methods of vaulting brought into play. In nearly all the rooms there is an opening in the middle of the pavement towards which the rest of the floor has a gentle slope. It is a round hole cut through the centre of a square stone set among the bricks and leading to a circular brick conduit. In the first specimen described by M. Place, this descending pipe is five feet four inches deep, and rather more than eleven inches in diameter. It leads into an almost horizontal conduit with a similar section and of the same materials. This latter channel is gently inclined through the whole of its length; it terminates in the main drain of which the cut on the next page gives a section in perspective (Fig. 92).[288] The floor of this sewer was formed of large limestone slabs overpassing the inside width of the channel by several inches. By this means the internal joints were reduced to a minimum, and a further precaution was taken by placing the slabs in a bath of asphalte, which was also used to coat the oblique channels and the foot of the vertical pipe. The low perpendicular walls upon which the vault was to be placed were built upon the outer edge of these wide slabs. They were of four-inch bricks, carefully laid. The most remarkable thing about this drain is the construction of the vault. The bricks composing it are trapezoidal in shape, two of their edges being slightly rounded, the one concave, the other convex. The radius of this curve varies with each brick, being governed by its destined place in the vault. These bricks go therefore in pairs, and as there are four courses of bricks on each side of the vault, four separate and different moulds would be required, besides a fifth, for a brick of which we shall presently have to speak. The four narrow sides of these bricks differ sensibly one from another. The two curved faces being at different distances from the centre, are of unequal lengths, while, as the lower oblique edge is some inches below the upper in the curve, these two edges have different directions. In their disinclination to use stone voussoirs, the Assyrian builders here found themselves compelled to mould bricks of very complicated form, and the way in which they accomplished their task speaks volumes for their skill. [Illustration: FIG. 92.--Drain at Khorsabad, with pointed arch. Section in perspective.] If we cast a glance at our Fig. 92 the first thing that strikes us is the absence of a keystone to the vault. The two rows of voussoirs that are in full view thrust against each other only by a single sharp edge; there is no keystone between them. In the row immediately behind, however, there is a stone (imperfectly seen in our illustration) that seems to play the part of a key. Thus we find that only at each alternate vertical course was the arch of burnt and moulded brick complete. The openings left at the summits of the other courses must have been filled in in some way, and, in fact, the line of voids which ran along the top of the extrados was filled in with brick earth, beaten tight and forming the best of keys. So that the vault was completed and consolidated by the same material as that used to make its channel impervious to water.[289] This vault has another strange singularity which at first is very surprising. The whole structure has a sensible inclination in the direction of its length, suggesting that some accident had happened to it in course of erection. Such an explanation must be rejected, however, because at the moment of discovery the whole arrangement was uninjured, and, moreover, the filling of clay must have rendered any movement of the kind impossible. M. Place's explanation seems the best. He thinks the slope was given merely to facilitate the work of the bricklayers. The first course of voussoirs would be sloped in this fashion, and would rest upon some mass of crude brick in the centre of the building. The bricks of the second course would lean against it, and their weight would be brought in to add cohesion and solidity to the whole structure instead of being entirely occupied in adding to the perpendicular thrust, while the ease with which they could be placed without an internal support would be much increased. Assisted by this simple expedient, two bricklayers with their labourers could build the vault at a very rapid rate. We may believe that the notion of building in this way would never have occurred to the Assyrian architects but for their habit of dispensing with timber centres. This slope had an effect upon the arrangement of the bricks which should be noticed. In all other vaults, such as those of the city gates, the units are laid upon their longest sides, and a vertical section shows their shortest diameters. Here, on the other hand, the bricks stand on their edges, and their largest surfaces are in contact, on each side, with the next vertical course. If the full benefit of the natural cohesion between one brick and another was to be obtained, this method of laying them was absolutely necessary. Internally, the drain we have been studying was four feet eight inches high from the floor to the crown of the vault. Its width was three feet nine inches, and its general slope very slight. It may be followed for a total length of about 220 feet, after which falls of earth have carried away the arch and the whole northern part of the esplanade, so that no trace of the mouth by which it opened on the plain can be traced. The other sewer described by M. Place may be more summarily dismissed. In spite of their drawings and minute descriptions, explorers have not yet succeeded in explaining the eccentricities of construction it presents. It has two channels, one above the other, which are similar neither in slope nor section. Moreover this double sewer is abruptly interrupted in the middle of the artificial mound through which it runs. Must we believe that it was never finished or used? We shall not attempt to answer this question, but shall content ourselves with pointing to the similarities between this tunnel and the last described. The same large stone slabs upon a layer of bitumen, the same inclination of the body of the vault, the same bricks formed in different moulds according to their place in the vault, are found in each. Our Fig. 93 shows the two channels and their position one above the other. The pavement of the terrace, which consists of a double bed of large bricks, rests upon the extrados of the upper channel. This vault is semicircular; it has three voussoirs on each side, which, with the key, make seven in each vertical course. But in consequence either of an error in measurement or of a mistake in calculating the shrinking of the bricks, there was a gap between the third voussoir on the right and the key. This gap was filled in by the insertion of a stone cut into the shape of a wedge. But for this fault--which, however, had no appreciable effect upon its solidity--the vault would be perfect.[290] The narrow triangular opening of the lower channel may be seen below it. The semicircular vault gradually and insensibly changes into an elliptical one. The side walls become lower, at each yard their height is diminished by the thickness of a brick, and finally they disappear about the middle of the total length. At the point shown in our Fig. 94 the arch has lost its supports and rests directly upon the pavement of the channel. Its ellipse is composed of eight voussoirs, four on each side, and a key with a small wedge-shaped stone voussoir on each side of it. Between the two points shown in our Figs. 93 and 94 the upper and lower sewers have become one, the vaulted roof of the first and the paved floor of the second being continued in a single tunnel. At the point where this tunnel comes to a sudden end it is closed by a wall, through which two small openings are pierced to serve as outlets for the sewer within (Fig. 94). [Illustration: FIG. 93.--Sewer at Khorsabad, with semicircular vault; compiled from Place.] At different points on the Khorsabad mound, M. Place found other sewers, some with depressed, some with basket-handle vaults, while, at Nimroud, channels were discovered which were square in section and covered with large slabs of limestone.[291] The Assyrian architects seem, however, to have had a decided preference for the vault in such a situation. They expected it to give greater solidity, and in that they were not mistaken. The vaults of burnt brick, though set without cement, have remained unshaken and close in their joints, and the sewers they inclose are the only voids that have remained clear in the ruins of the buildings to which they belong. [Illustration: FIG. 94.--Sewer at Khorsabad, with elliptical vault; compiled from Place.] We may, perhaps, be accused of dwelling too minutely upon these Assyrian vaults. We have done so because there is no question more interesting or more novel in the whole history of architecture than the true origin of the keyed vault and the different uses to which it has been put. Ottfried Müller looked upon the Etruscans as the inventors of the vault; he believed that the Greek builders learnt the secret from the early inhabitants of Italy,[292] and that the arches of the Roman _Cloaca Maxima_ built by the Tuscan architects of the Tarquins, were the oldest that had come down to us from antiquity. The archæological discoveries of the last fifty years have singularly falsified his opinion and given an age to the vault never before suspected. Even in the days of the Ancient Empire the Egyptians seem to have understood its principle; in any case the architects of Amenophis, of Thothmes, of Rameses, made frequent and skilful use of it long before the Ninevite palaces in which we have found it were erected.[293] But the possession of stones of enormous size enabled the Egyptians to dispense to a great extent with the arch, and we need not be surprised, therefore, that they failed to give it anything like its full development. They kept it in the background, and while using it when necessary in their tombs, in the outbuildings of their temples, in their private dwellings and warehouses, they never made it a conspicuous element of their architectural system. They may well be admired for the majesty of their colonnades and the magnificence of their hypostyle halls, but not for the construction of their vaults, for the imitation of which, moreover, they gave little opportunity. In Chaldæa and Assyria the conditions were different. Supposing the architecture of those two countries to be yet entire, should we find in it vaults rivalling in age the arch in a tomb at Abydos which Mariette attributes to the sixth dynasty?[294] Probably not. So far as we can judge, Chaldæan civilization does not date from so remote a past as that of Egypt, but it appears certain that the principles of the vault were discovered and put in practice by the Chaldees long before the comparatively modern times in which the segmental and pointed arches of Nineveh were erected. The latter alone are preserved because they have been hidden during all these centuries under the heaped-up ruins of the buildings to which they belonged, while those of Chaldæa have been carried away piece by piece, and their materials used again and again by the modern population of Mesopotamia. In spite, however, of the absence of such direct evidence, we may affirm without fear that the Chaldæan architects soon discovered the principle of the arch, and used it at least in its simplest and least complex forms. We are led to these conclusions not only by their restriction to small units of construction--a restriction which is sure, sooner or later, to lead to the discovery in question--but also by induction from the monuments we have just been studying. The arches under the hanging gardens of Babylon, the vaults of the sewers and gateways, the domes that covered the great square chambers in the Ninevite palaces--all these were derived, we may be sure, from the ancient civilization. We cannot believe that such consummate skill in the management of a difficult matter was arrived at in a day. The purely empiric knowledge of statics it implies could only have been accumulated by a long series of more or less happy experiments. Thus only can we explain the ease with which the Assyrian builder surmounted difficulties some of which would have puzzled a modern architect, such as the pisé vaults erected over spacious galleries without any kind of centering, and the domes over square chambers, for which some system of pendentives--that is, of arches or other intermediate forces--by which the base of the cupola could be allied to the top of the supporting wall, must have been contrived. The accurate calculation of forces between the thrust of the vaults and the strength of the retaining walls, the dexterity with which the curves employed are varied and carried insensibly one into the other, the skill with which the artificial materials are prepared for their appointed office, are also surprising. By careful moulding and manipulation the Assyrian builder made his brick voussoirs as well fitted for their work as the cut stone of our day. Each brick had its own shape and size, so that it was assigned in advance a particular place in the vault and its own part in assuring the final stability of the building. In all this we cannot avoid seeing the results of a patient and long-continued process of experiment and education carried on through many centuries in all the workshops of Mesopotamia. The art of building vaults with small units of construction was, then, carried farther in Mesopotamia than in Egypt; it was there more frankly developed; it was there forced with greater success to supply the place of stone and timber. It was in fact more of an indigenous art in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates than anywhere else, more inspired by the permanent and unchanging conditions of the country--in a word, more national. In these days the historian sets himself with devotion to follow in all its involutions the long chain of thought and effort by which man has been led from his primitive barbarism to the well-being of modern civilization, and to his domination--every day more complete and more intelligent--over the minor forces of nature. It is the duty of criticism, as its methods gradually perfect themselves, to add daily to its perspicacity and powers of observation, and to lessen as much as possible the occasions, still so numerous, when the thread of evidence breaks in its hands and the true relations of facts to each other become obscured. Even yet we cannot say for certain to which nation of the ancient world the invention of the arch belongs. In those remote ages the principle may have been discovered more than once or twice in different and distant countries whose inhabitants were busied over the same task. We have no reason to believe that Chaldæa learnt the secret from Egypt, or Etruria from the East. It is none the less true, however, that the unknown architects of Babylon and Nineveh made full use of it at an earlier date and in more intelligent fashion than any of their rivals. To them must be given the credit of being the masters and art-ancestors of the men who built the Pantheon and the Church of Saint Sophia, Santa Maria del Fiore, and Saint Peter's in Rome, and more especially of those great modern engineers to whom the principle of the arch has been a chief element in their success. NOTES: [280] _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 82. [281] This chamber is 7 feet long, 3 feet 7 inches wide, and 5 feet high. TAYLOR, _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xv. p. 272. [282] STRABO, xvi. 1, 5. DIODORUS, ii. 10. [283] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 170-182 and 256-259, vol. iii. plates 9-18. [284] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plate 2. [285] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 128. [286] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. i. p. 134; vol. ii. pp. 79 and 261. _Discoveries_, pp. 162-165. [287] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 269-280 and plates 38 and 39. [288] We have endeavoured to combine M. Thomas's longitudinal elevation, vertical section, and transverse section (PLACE, _Ninive_, plate 38), in our single cut. [289] The same process was employed at Nimroud in a drain or water channel, of which LAYARD gives a sketch (_Discoveries_, p. 164). In connection with these vaults we must remember that a pointed arch has no key properly speaking; the top stone is merely a joint. It looks as if the Assyrian architect had a kind of instinctive appreciation of the fact. [290] The slope, the height, and the width of this channel are not the same throughout. In some places it is wide enough to allow two men to walk abreast in it. [291] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. i. p. 79. [292] OTTFRIED MÜLLER, _Handbuch der Archäologie der Kunst_, § 107 and 168 (3rd edition). [293] _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. p. 112, and vol. ii. chap. ii. § 4. [294] _Ibid._ vol. ii. fig. 44. § 6.--_Secondary Forms._ (_Doors, windows, steles, altars, obelisks, mouldings._) We have been obliged to dwell at length on the arch and the column because those two elements of construction are of the greatest importance to all who wish to gain a true idea of Mesopotamian art and of its influence upon neighbouring peoples and over subsequent developments of architecture. On the other hand we shall have very little to say upon what, in speaking of Egyptian art, we called _secondary forms_.[295] We have already had occasion to speak of some of these, such as windows and doors. We have explained how the nature of his materials and the heat of the climate led the architect to practically suppress the former, while, on the other hand, he gave extravagant dimensions to the latter. It was to the door that the rooms had mainly to look for the light and air, with which they could not entirely dispense. We have now to give a few details as to the fashion in which these large openings were set in the walls that enframed them. As for salient decorative members--or mouldings, to give them their right name--their list is very short. We shall, however, find them in some variety in a series of little monuments that deserve, perhaps, more attention than they have yet received--we mean altars, steles, and those objects to which the name of _obelisks_ has, with some inaccuracy, been given. Some of these objects have no little grace of their own, and serve to prove that what the Chaldæans and Assyrians lacked was neither taste nor invention, but the encouragement that the possession of a kindly material would have given to their genius. Doorways seem to have been generally crowned with a brick archivolt; round-headed doors occur oftener than any others on the bas-reliefs, but rectangular examples are not wanting (see Fig. 43). In the latter case the lintel must have been of wood, metal, or stone. Naturally the bronze and timber lintels have disappeared, while in but a single instance have the explorers found one of stone, namely that discovered by George Smith at the entrance to a hall in the palace of Sennacherib (Fig. 95). It consists of a block of richly carved limestone. Its sculptures are now much worn, but their motives and firm execution may still be admired. Two winged dragons, with long necks folded like that of a swan, face each other, the narrow space between them being occupied by a large two-handled vase. Above these there is a band of carved foliage, the details of which are lost in the shadow cast by a projecting cornice along the top of the lintel.[296] The necklace round the throat of the right-hand dragon should be noticed. It is surprising that stone lintels are so rare, especially as the corresponding piece, if we may call it so, namely, the sill or threshold, was generally of limestone or alabaster, at least in the more important and more richly-decorated rooms. [Illustration: FIG. 95.--Decorated lintel, 6 feel long and 10 inches high. British Museum.] The exploration of the Assyrian palaces has brought three systems of flooring to light--beaten earth, brick pavements, and pavements of limestone slabs.[297] In the palace of Sargon nearly every chamber, except those of the harem, had a floor of beaten earth, like that in a modern fellah's house. Even the halls in which the painted and sculptured decoration was most sumptuous were no exceptions to this rule. There is nothing in this, however, to surprise those who have lived in the East; like the Turks, Arabs, and Persians of our own time, the Chaldæans and Assyrians were shod, except when fighting or hunting, with those _babooshes_ or sandals that are so often figured in the bas-reliefs. These must have been taken off, as they are to-day, before entering a temple, a palace, or a harem. Moses was required to take off his shoes before approaching the burning bush, because the place on which he stood was holy ground. In the houses of their gods, in those of their kings and rich men, the floor would be covered with those rich carpets and mats that from one end of the East to the other conceal from sight the floors of white wood or beaten earth. In summer the mats are fresh and grateful to the bare feet, in the winter the carpets are soft and warm. The floors themselves are hardly ever seen, so that we need feel no surprise at their being left without ornament. So, too, was it in all probability in the palaces of Sargon and of other kings, and in the sacred buildings. Elsewhere, however, we find a pavement constructed with the most scrupulous care, and consisting of three distinct parts,--two layers of large bricks with a thick bed of sand interposed between them. The lower course of bricks is set in a bed of bitumen which separates it from the earth and prevents any dampness passing either up or down. This system of paving was used in most of the harem chambers at Khorsabad as well as in the open courts and upon the terraces. Lastly, in certain rooms of the seraglio and harem, in a few of the courts, in the vestibules, before the gates of the city, and in paths across wide open spaces, a limestone pavement has been found. Wherever this pavement exists, the stones are of the same kind and placed in the same manner. The limestone is exactly similar to that in the retaining walls described on page 147. The stones are often more than three feet square, and from two feet six inches to two feet ten inches thick. Their shape is not that of a regular solid; it is more like a reversed cone, the base forming the pavement and the narrow end being buried in the ground. These stones are simply placed side by side without the use of mortar or cement of any kind, but their weight and peculiar shape gave a singular durability to the pavement for which they were used. Most of the sills belong to this class. And in Assyria where doorways were several yards deep and two or three wide, these sills were in reality the pavements of passages or even chambers.[298] The materials for these pavements were always different from those of the floors on each side of them. In the entrances to the brick-paved courts large stones were used; in the passages between rooms floored with beaten earth bricks were introduced. The stone thresholds were mostly alabaster like the sculptured slabs upon the chamber walls. As a rule they were of a single piece, the great extent of surface, sometimes as much as ten or eleven square yards, notwithstanding. In the entries flanked by the winged bulls the sills were carved with inscriptions, which were comparatively rare elsewhere. Sometimes we find a rich and elaborate ornamentation in place of the wedges; it is made up of geometrical forms and conventional foliage and flowers; the figures of men and animals are never introduced. Such an arrangement was in better taste than the mosaic thresholds of the Romans where men were shown in pictures destined to be trodden under foot. The Assyrian carver doubtless took his designs from the carpets in the adjoining chambers. [Illustration: FIG. 96.--Sill of a door, from Khorsabad. Louvre. Length 40 inches. Drawn by Bourgoin.[299]] A good idea of these designs may be formed from the slab figured below. The centre is occupied by a number of interlacing circles, betraying no little skill on the part of the ornamentist. The "knop and flower" border of alternately closed and shut lotus flowers is separated from the centre by a band of rosettes. The whole is distinguished by thought and a severe taste. The indented corners, where the pivots of the doors were placed, and the slot for the lower bolt of the door near the centre, should be noticed. These details prove that in this instance the door was a double one. In other cases the absence of the slot and the presence of only one pivot hole show that single doors were also used.[300] The doors always opened inwards, being folded back either against the sides of the entry itself or against the walls of the chamber. Many of these sills or thresholds show no sign of a pivot at either corner, whence we may conclude that many of the openings were left without doors, and could only have been closed by those suspended carpets or mats of which such ready use is made in hot countries. In very magnificent buildings metal thresholds sometimes replaced those of stone or brick. In the British Museum there is a huge bronze sill that was found in a ruined temple at Borsippa, by Mr. Rassam. Its extreme length is sixty inches, its width twenty, and its thickness about three and a half inches. It bears an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar the arrangement of which proves that the sill when complete had double its present length, or about ten feet. Its upper surface is decorated with large rosettes within square borders. We need hardly say that it is a solid casting, and that its weight is, therefore, by no means trifling. The workmen who put in place and those who cast it must both have thoroughly understood what they were about. Even now, we are told, the latter operation would be attended by some difficulty.[301] The founders who produced this casting could have no difficulty over the other parts of the door-case, and we have no reason to doubt the statement of Herodotus, who thus ends his account of how the walls of Babylon were built: "The walls had a hundred gates, all of bronze; their jambs and lintels were of the same material."[302] These lintels and jambs must have been, like the Borsippa threshold, of massive bronze, or they would soon have been crushed by the weight they had to support. On the other hand, had doors themselves been entirely of that metal it would have been very difficult if not impossible to swing them upon their hinges, especially in the case of city gates like those just referred to. It is probable, then, that they were of timber, covered and concealed by plates of bronze. Herodotus indeed narrates what he saw, like a truthful and intelligent witness, but he was not an archæologist, and it did not occur to him when he entered the famous city which formed the goal of his travels, to feel the shining metal and find out how much of it was solid and how much a mere armour for a softer substance behind. From fragments found at Khorsabad, M. Place had already divined that the Assyrians covered the planks of their doors with bronze plates, but all doubts on the point have been removed by a recent discovery, which has proved once for all that art profited in the end by what at first was nothing more than a protection against weather and other causes of deterioration. In 1878 Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, the fellow traveller of Sir Henry Layard, found in the course of his excavations in Assyria for the British Museum, some metallic bands covered with _repoussé_ reliefs and bearing the name of Shalmaneser III. (895-825). The site of this discovery was Balawat, an artificial mound about fifteen miles to the east of Mossoul.[303] As soon as these bands had been examined in London by competent archæologists, they were recognized as having belonged to the leaves of a wooden door, which must have been nearly twenty-seven feet high and about three inches thick. This latter dimension has been deduced from the length of the nails used to keep the bands in place. At one end these bands were bent with the hammer round the pivot to which each half of the door was attached. These pivots, judging from the bronze feet into which they were "stepped," were about twelve inches in diameter. It is easy to see from their shape how these feet were fixed and how they did their work (Fig. 97). The point of the cone was let into a hollow socket prepared for it in a block cut from the hardest stone that could be found. Such a material would resist friction better and take a higher polish than brick, so that it was at once more durable and less holding. Sockets of flint, basalt, trachyte, and other volcanic rocks have been found in great numbers both in Assyria and Chaldæa.[304] Instances of the use of brick in this situation are not wanting,[305] however, and now and then the greenish marks left by the prolonged contact of metal have been discovered in the hollows of these sockets.[306] [Illustration: FIG. 97.--Bronze foot from the Balawat gates and its socket.[307] British Museum.] More than one method was in use for fixing the pivots of the doors and enabling them to turn easily. Sir Henry Layard brought from Nimroud four heavy bronze rings which must have been used to supplement these hollow sockets.[308] In one way or another bronze occupied a very important place in the door architecture of the Assyrians. In those cases where it neither supplied the door-case nor ornamented its leaves, it was at least used to fix the latter and to enable them to turn. In Assyrian façades doors had much greater importance than in those architectural styles in which walls are broken up by numerous openings. Their great size, their rich and varied ornamentation, the important figures in high relief with which the walls about them were adorned, the solemn tints of bronze lighted up here and there by the glory of gold, the lively colours of the enamelled bricks that formed their archivolts, and finally the contrast between the bare and gleaming walls on either side and their depths of shadow--all these combined to give accent to the doorways and to afford that relief to the monotony of the walls of which they stood in so great a need. For Assyrian mouldings are even poorer than those of Egypt. The softness of crude brick, the brittle hardness of burnt brick, are neither of them well disposed towards those delicate curves by which a skilful architect contrives to break the sameness of a façade, and to give the play of light and shadow which make up the beauty of a Greek or Florentine cornice. The only mouldings encountered in Assyria have been found on a few buildings or parts of buildings in which stone was employed. We may quote as an instance the retaining wall of the small, isolated structure excavated by Botta towards the western angle of the Khorsabad mound, and by him believed to be a temple.[309] The wall in question is built of a hardish grey limestone, the blocks being laid alternately as stretchers and headers. The wall is complete with plinth, die and cornice (Figs. 98 and 99). The latter is a true cornice, composed of a small torus or bead, a scotia, and a fillet. The elements are the same as those of the Egyptian cornice, except in the profile of the hollow member, which is here a _scotia_ and in Egypt a _cavetto_, to speak the language of modern architects. The Egyptian moulding is at once bolder and more simple, while the vertical grooves cut upon its surface give it a rich and furnished aspect that its Assyrian rival is without.[310] We have another example of Assyrian mouldings on the winged sphinx found by Layard at Nimroud (Fig. 85)--the sphinx, that is, that bore a column on its back. In section this moulding may be compared to a large _scotia_ divided into two _cavettos_ by a _torus_. Its effect is not happy. The Assyrians had too little experience in stone-cutting to enable them to choose the most satisfactory proportions and profiles for mouldings. We may also point to the entablatures upon the small pavilions reproduced in our Figs. 41 and 42. They are greatly wanting in elegance; in one especially--that shown in Fig. 42--the superstructure is very heavy in proportion to the little temple itself and its columns. [Illustration: FIGS. 98, 99.--Assyrian mouldings. Section and elevation; from Botta.] The only moulding, if we may call it so, borrowed by Assyria from Chaldæa, and employed commonly in both countries, is a brick one. Loftus was the first to point it out. He discovered it in the ruined building, doubtless an ancient temple, in the neighbourhood of Warka, and called by the natives _Wuswas_. This is his description:--"Upon the lower portion of the building are groups of seven half-columns repeated seven times--the rudest perhaps which were ever reared, but built of moulded semicircular bricks, and securely bonded to the wall. The entire absence of cornice, capital, base or diminution of shafts, so characteristic of other columnar architecture, and the peculiar and original disposition of each group in rows like palm logs, suggest the type from which they sprang."[311] With his usual penetration, Loftus divines and explains the origin of these forms. The idea must have been suggested, he thinks, by the palm trunks that were used set closely together in timber constructions, or at regular intervals in mud walls. In either case half of their thickness would be visible externally, and would naturally provoke imitation from architects in search of ornament for the bald faces of their clay structures.[312] [Illustration: FIG. 100.--Façade of a ruined building at Warka; from Loftus.] As to the effect thus obtained, the rough sketch given by Loftus hardly enables us to decide (see Fig. 100). From Assyria, however, come better materials for a judgment. We there often find these perpendicular ribs, generally in groups of seven, in buildings that have been carefully studied and illustrated upon a sufficient scale. We give an example from one of the harem gates at Khorsabad (Fig. 101), by which we may see at once that an ornamental motive of no little value was afforded by these huge vertical reeds with their play of alternate light and shadow, and the happy contrast they set up between themselves and the brilliant hues of the painted walls and enamelled bricks. The whole had a certain elegant richness that can hardly be appreciated without the restoration, in every line and hue, of the original composition. Both at Warka and in the Khorsabad harem, these vertical ribs are accompanied by another ornament which may, perhaps, have been in even more frequent use. We mean those long perpendicular grooves, rectangular in section, with which Assyrian and Chaldæan walls were seamed. In the harem wall these grooves flank the group of vertical reeds right and left, dividing each of the angle piers into two quasi-pilasters. At Warka they appear in the higher part of the façade, above the groups of semi-columns. They serve to mark out a series of panels, of which only the lower parts have been preserved. The missing parts of the decoration may easily be supplied by a little study of the Assyrian remains. The four sides of the building at Khorsabad, called by M. Place the _Observatory_, are decorated uniformly in this fashion. The general effect may be gathered from our restoration of one angle. The architect was not content with decorating his wall with these grooves alone; he divided it into alternate compartments, the one salient, the next set back, and upon these compartments he ploughed the long lines of his decoration. These changes of surface helped greatly to produce the varied play of light and shadow upon which the architect depended for relief to the bare masses of his walls. The most ordinary workmen could be trusted to carry out a decoration that consisted merely in repeating, at certain measured intervals, as simple a form as can be imagined, and, in the language of art as in that of rhetoric, there is no figure more effective in its proper place than repetition. [Illustration: FIG. 101.--Decoration of one of the harem gates, at Khorsabad; compiled from Place.] The necessity for something to break the monotony of the brick architecture was generally and permanently felt, and in those Parthian and Sassanide periods in which, as we have said, the traditions of the old Chaldæan school were continued, we find the panel replaced by wall arcades in which the arches are divided from each other by tall pilasters. In general principle and intention the two methods of decoration are identical. The Egyptian architect had recourse to the same motive, first, in the tombs of the Ancient Empire for the decoration of the chamber walls in the mastabas; secondly, for the relief of great brick surfaces. The resemblance to the Mesopotamian work is sometimes very great.[313] We have explained this form by one of the transpositions so frequent in the history of architecture, namely, a conveyance of motives from carpentry to brickwork and masonry.[314] In the former the openings left in the skeleton are gradually filled in, and these additions, by the very nature of their materials, most frequently take the form of panels. The grooves that define the panels in brick or stone buildings represent the intervals left by the carpenter between his planks and beams. They could also be obtained very easily upon the smooth face of beams brought into close contact, either by means of the gouge or some other instrument capable of cutting into the wood. We may safely assert that in Chaldæa and Assyria, as in Egypt, it was with carpentry that the motive in question originated. On the other hand, if there be a form that results directly from the system of construction on which it is used, that form is the crenellation with which, apparently, every building in Mesopotamia was crowned.[315] [Illustration: FIG. 102.--View of an angle of the observatory at Khorsabad; compiled from Place.] The Assyrian brickwork in which so many vast undertakings were carried out consists of units all of one dimension, and bonded by the simple alternation of their joints. Supposing a lower course to consist of two entire bricks, the one above it would be one whole brick flanked on either side by a half brick. An Assyrian wall or building consists of the infinite repetition of this single figure. Each whole brick lies upon the joint between two others, and every perpendicular wall, including parapet or battlement, is raised upon this system. [Illustration: FIG. 103.--Lateral façade of the palace at Firouz-Abad; from Flandin and Coste.] [Illustration: FIG. 104.--Battlements from an Assyrian palace.] Far from being modified by the crenellations, this bond regulates their form, dimensions, and distribution. The crenellations of the palace walls consist of two rectangular masses, of unequal size, placed one upon the other. The lower is two bricks'-length, or about thirty-two inches, wide, and the thickness of three bricks, or about fourteen inches, high. The upper mass equals the lower in height, while its width is the length of a single brick, or sixteen inches. The total height of the battlement, between twenty-eight and twenty-nine inches, is thus divided into two masses, one of which is twice the size of the other (see Fig. 104). The battlements are all the same, and between each pair is a void which is nothing but the space a battlement upside down would occupy. Fill this space with the necessary bricks, and a section of wall would be restored identical in bond with that below the battlements, with the one exception that the highest block of the battlement, being only one brick wide, is formed by laying three whole bricks one upon the other.[316] The crenellations we have been describing are those upon the retaining walls of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad. Those of the _Observatory_ are slightly different in that they are three stories high instead of two (Fig. 105). The lowest is three bricks wide, the second three, the topmost two. They are each three bricks high. Why were these battlements given a height beyond those of the royal palace? That question may be easily answered. The crenellations of the observatory were destined for a much more lofty situation than those of the palace. The base of the former monument rose about 144 feet above the summit of the artificial hill upon which it was placed; the total elevation was about 190 feet, a height at which ordinary battlements, especially when for the most part they had nothing but the face of the higher stories to be relieved against, would be practically invisible. [Illustration: FIG. 105.--Battlements from the Khorsabad _Observatory_.] Whether composed of two or three stages this battlement was always inscribed within an isosceles triangle; in fact, when a third story was added, the height and the width at the base increased in the same proportions. M. Place lays great stress upon this triangle. He makes it cut the upper angles of each of the superimposed rectangles, as we have done in our Figs. 104 and 105, and he points out how such a process gives an outline similar to that of a palisade cut into points at its summit, a precaution that is often taken to render the escalade of such an obstacle more difficult, and M. Place is inclined to think that the idea of these crenellations was suggested by those of a wooden palisade, a succession of rectangles being substituted for a triangle in order to meet the special conditions of the new material. To us, however, it hardly appears necessary to go back to the details of wooden construction to account for these forms. We find no sign of M. Place's spiked palisades in the bas-reliefs. The inclosures of the Mesopotamian fields must have consisted of palm trunks and strong reeds; planks were hardly to be cut from the trees of the country. Moreover, the mason and bricklayer saw the forms of these battlements repeated by their hand every instant. Whenever they began a fresh course the first brick they placed upon the joint between two units of the course below was the first step towards a battlement. The decoration obtained by the use of these battlements was not a survival from a previous form, it was a natural consequence from the fundamental principle of Assyrian construction. It has been thought that some of the buildings represented on the bas-reliefs have triangular denticulation in place of the battlements figured on the last page;[317] and there are, in fact, instances in the reliefs of walls denticulated like a palisade (see Fig. 38), but these must not, we think, be taken literally. In most cases the chisel has been at the trouble to show the real shapes of the battlements (Fig. 42), but in some instances, as in this, it has been content to suggest them by a series of zig-zags. Here and there we may point out a picture in stone which forms a transition between the two shapes, in Fig. 41 for example. Such an abbreviation explains itself. It is, in fact, nothing more than an imitation of the real appearance of the rectangular battlements when seen from a distance.[318] The architect was not content with the mere play of light and shade afforded by these battlements. He gave them a slight salience over the façade and a polychromatic decoration. About three feet below the base of the crenellations the face of the wall was brought forward an inch or two, so that the battlements themselves, and some eight or ten courses of bricks below them, overhung the façade by that distance, forming a kind of rudimentary cornice (see Fig. 106). In very elaborate buildings enamelled bricks were inserted between the battlements and this cornice. These were decorated with white rosettes of different sizes upon a blue ground. The explorers of Khorsabad encountered numberless fragments of these bricks and some whole ones in the heaps of rubbish at the foot of the external walls. Their situation proved that they had come from the top of the walls, and on the whole we may accept the restoration of M. Thomas, which we borrow from the work of M. Place, as sufficiently justified (Fig. 106).[319] This method of crowning a wall may seem poor when compared to the Greek cornice, or even to that of Egypt, but in view of the materials with which he had to work, it does honour to the architect. The long band of shadow near the summit of the façade, the bands of brilliantly coloured ornament above it, and the rich play of light and shade among the battlements, the whole relieved against the brilliant blue of an Eastern sky, must have had a fine effect. The uniformity from which it suffered was a defect common to Mesopotamian architecture as a whole, and one inseparable from the absence or comparative disuse of stone. But in the details we have been studying we find yet another illustration of the skill with which these people corrected, if we may so phrase it, the vices of matter, and by a frank use of their materials and insistence upon those horizontal and perpendicular lines which they were best fitted to give, evolved from it an architecture that proved them to have possessed a real genius for art. [Illustration: FIG. 106.--Battlements of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad; compiled from Place.] The Assyrians seem to have been so pleased with these crenellations that they placed them upon such small things as steles and altars. In one of the Kouyundjik reliefs (Fig. 42) there is a small object--a pavilion or altar, its exact character is not very clearly shown--which is thus crowned. Another example is to be found in a bas-relief from Khorsabad (Fig. 107). [Illustration: FIG. 107.--Altar; from Rawlinson.] We are thus brought to the subject of altars. These are sufficiently varied in form. In the Kouyundjik bas-relief (Fig. 42) we find those shapes at the four angles which were copied by the peoples of the Mediterranean, and led to the expression, "the horns of the altar." In the Khorsabad relief (Fig. 107) the salience of these horns is less marked. On the other hand, the die or dado below them is fluted. Another altar brought from Khorsabad to the Louvre is quite different in shape (Fig. 108). It is triangular on plan. Above a plinth with a gentle salience rises the altar itself, supported at each angle by the paw of a lion. The table is circular, and decorated round the edge with cuneiform characters. [Illustration: FIG. 108.--Altar in the Louvre. Height 32 inches.[320]] A third type is to be found in an altar from Nimroud, now in the British Museum (Fig. 109); it dates from the reign of Rammanu-nirari, who appears to have lived in the first half of the eighth century before our era.[321] The rolls at each end of this altar are very curious and seem to be the prototype of a form with which the Græco-Roman sarcophagi have made us familiar. [Illustration: FIG. 109.--Altar in the British Museum. Height 22 inches, length at base 22 inches.] The various kinds of steles are also very interesting. The most remarkable of all is one discovered at Khorsabad by M. Place (Fig. 100). The shaft is composed of a series of perpendicular bands alternately flat and concave, exactly similar to the flutes of the Ionic order. The summit is crowned by a plume of palm leaves rising from a double scroll, like two consoles placed horizontally and head to head. The grace and slenderness of this stele are in strong contrast to the usually short and heavy forms affected by the Assyrian architects, especially when they worked in stone. It is difficult to say what its destination may have been. It was discovered lying in the centre of an outer court surrounded by offices and other subordinate buildings; it has neither figure nor inscription.[322] The base was quite rough and shapeless, and must have been sunk into the soil of the court, so that the flutes began at the level of the pavement. M. Place suggests that it may have been a _milliarium_, from which all the roads of the empire were measured. We do not know that there is a single fact to support such an unnecessary guess. The stele of which we have been speaking is unique, but of another peculiarly Assyrian type there is no lack of examples, namely, of that to which the name _obelisk_ has, with some want of discrimination, been applied. The Assyrian monoliths so styled are much shorter in their proportions than the lofty "needles" of Egypt, while their summits, instead of ending in a sharp pyramidion, are "stepped" and crowned with a narrow plateau. (Fig. 111.) These monoliths were never very imposing in size, the tallest is hardly more than ten feet high. [Illustration: FIG. 110.--Stele from Khorsabad. Plan and elevation; from Place.] [Illustration: FIG. 111.--The obelisk of Shalmaneser II. in the British Museum.[323] Height 78 inches. Drawn by Bourgoin.] Whatever name we choose to give to these objects, there can be no doubt as to their purpose. They are commemorative monuments, upon which both writer and sculptor have been employed to celebrate the glory of the sovereign. A long inscription covers the base of the shaft, while the upper part of each face is divided into five pictures, the narrow bands between them bearing short legends descriptive of the scenes represented. It was, of course, important that such figured panegyrics should be afforded the best possible chance of immortality; and we find that most of these obelisks are composed of the hardest rocks. Of the four examples in the British Museum, three are of basalt and one only of limestone. [Illustration: FIG. 112.--Rock-cut Stele from Kouyundjik. British Museum.] Another type of stele in frequent employment was that with an arched top and inclosing an image of the king. It is often represented on the bas-reliefs[324] (Fig. 42), and not a few examples of it are in our museums. When we come to speak of Assyrian sculpture we shall have to reproduce some of them. We find a motive of the same kind, but more ornate and complicated, in the bas-relief from Kouyundjik figured above (Fig. 112). A hunting scene is carved on a wall of rock at the top of a hill. A lion attacks the king's chariot from behind; the king is about to pierce his head with an arrow while the charioteer leans over the horses and seems to moderate the determination with which they fly.[325] The sculpture is surrounded by a frame arched at the top and inclosed by an architrave with battlemented cornice. The whole forms a happily conceived little monument; it is probable that it was originally accompanied by an explanatory inscription. This analysis of what we have called secondary forms has shown how great was the loss of the Chaldæan architect and of his too docile Assyrian pupil, in being deprived--by circumstances on the one hand and want of inclination on the other--of such a material as stone. Without it they could make use of none of those variations of plan and other contrivances of the same kind by which the skilful architect suggests the internal arrangement of his structures on their façades. For such purposes he had to turn to those constituents of his art to which we shall devote our next section. NOTES: [295] _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. ch. ii. [296] GEORGE SMITH, _Assyrian Discoveries_, pp. 146, 308, 429. This lintel has been fixed over the south doorway into the Kouyundjik Gallery of the British Museum. When examined in place, the running ornament in the hollow of the cornice will be easily recognized--in spite of the mutilation of its upper edge--as made up of a modified form of the palmette motive, which had its origin in the fan-shaped head of the date palm. The eight plumes of which the ornament consists are each formed of three large leaves or loops and two small pendant ones, the latter affording a means of connecting each plume with those next to it.--ED. [297] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 295-302. [298] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 302, 303. [299] Two much better examples of this same work may be seen in the Assyrian basement-room of the British Museum.--ED. [300] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 314. [301] We here quote the opinion of Mr. Ready, the well-known director of the museum workshops. In April, 1882, he had examined this curious monument, which is now placed in the public galleries close to the Balawat gates. [302] HERODOTUS, ii. 179: Pylai de enestasi perix tou teicheos hekaton, chalkeai pasa kai stathmoi te kai huperthuma hôsautôs. [303] An account of the discovery and a short description of the remains, will be found in an article by Mr. Theo. G. PINCHES, published in the _Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, and entitled: _The Bronze Gates discovered by Mr. Rassam at Balawat_ (vol. vii. part i. pp. 83-118). The sculptured bronze from these gates is not all, however, in the British Museum. Mr. Rassam's workmen succeeded in appropriating a certain number in the course of the excavations, and thus M. Gustave Schlumberger has become possessed of a few pieces, while others of much greater importance have come into the hands of M. de Clercq. M. F. LENORMANT has published in the _Gazette Archéologique_ (1878) a description of the pieces belonging to M. Schlumberger, with two plates in heliogravure. We have already referred to the great work which is now in course of publication by the _Society of Biblical Archæology_; it will put an exact reproduction of this interesting monument in the hands of Assyriologists and those interested in the history of art. We shall return to these gates when we come to treat of sculpture. [304] A number of sockets found by M. de Sarzec in the ruins of Tello are now deposited in the Louvre. M. PLACE found some at Khorsabad (_Ninive_, vol. i. p. 314), and Sir Henry LAYARD on the sites of the towns in Upper Mesopotamia (_Discoveries_, p. 242). The British Museum has a considerable number found in various places. [305] In the same case as the Balawat gates there is a brick, which has obviously been used for this purpose. [306] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 314. [307] In the British Museum there are some smaller bronze objects of the same kind from the palace of Sennacherib. Others were found by M. PLACE in the palace of Sargon (_Ninive_, plate 70, fig. 6), so that they must have been in frequent use. [308] LAYARD (_Discoveries_, p. 163) gives a sketch of one of these objects. Its internal diameter is about five inches, and its weight 6 lbs. 3-3/4 oz. These rings are now in the British Museum. [309] BOTTA, _Monument de Ninive_, vol. v. pp. 53-55. [310] BOTTA, _Monument de Ninive_, plates 149 and 150. See also LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 131, and FERGUSSON, _History of Architecture_, vol. i. p. 185 (2nd edition). [311] LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, p. 175. [312] M. Place offers a similar explanation of the engaged columns that were found in many parts of the palace at Khorsabad (_Ninive_, vol. ii. p. 50). He has brought together in a single plate all the examples of pilasters and half columns that he encountered in that edifice. Similar attempts to imitate the characteristic features of a log house are found in many of the most ancient Egyptian tombs. See _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 62 and fig. 37. [313] See, for instance, in _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. figs. 123, 124, 201, and in vol. ii. pp. 55-64, and figs. 35-37 and 139. [314] _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. p. 117. [315] We here give a résumé of M. PLACE'S observations on this point. He made a careful study of these crenellations. _Ninive_, vol. ii. pp. 53-57. [316] See M. PLACE'S diagrams, _Ninive_, vol. ii. p. 54. [317] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. ii. p. 53. [318] M. Perrot dismisses the evidence of those who believe in a palisade origin of the Assyrian battlements in what is, perhaps, rather too summary a fashion. The fact is that the great majority of the crenellated buildings in the reliefs have triangular battlements, while the theory that they are merely a hasty way of representing the stepped crenellations is to some extent discredited by their frequent occurrence side by side with the latter on the same relief. The Balawat gates, for instance, contain some nine or ten examples of the triangular, and four or five of the stepped, shape. In the series of sculptured slabs representing the siege of a city by Assurnazirpal (10 to 15 in the Kouyundjik gallery at the British Museum), there are examples of both forms, and in more than one instance the triangular battlements are decorated with lines and rosettes--similar in principle to those shown above in fig. 106--that can hardly be reconciled with the notion that their form is the result of haste on the part of the artist. In the Assyrian Basement Room in the British Museum there is an interesting bas-relief representing Assyrian soldiers busy with the demolition of a fortified wall, probably of some city just taken. The air is thick with the materials thrown down from its summit, among them a great number of planks or beams, which seem to suggest that timber was freely employed in the upper works of an Assyrian wall. If this was so, the pointed battlements in the reliefs may very well represent those in which timber was used, and the stepped ones their brick imitations. Both forms were used as decorations in places where no real battlements could have existed, as, for instance, on the tent of Sennacherib, in the well-known bas-relief of the siege of Lachish (see fig. 56).--ED. [319] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. ii. p. 85. [320] There is an altar almost exactly similar to this in the British Museum. It was found in front of the temple of the War God, Nimroud.--ED. [321] Upon some other monuments brought from the same place by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, and also exhibited in the Nimroud central saloon, we may read by the side of Rammanu-nirari's name that of his spouse Sammuramat, who seems to have been associated with him in the government, and to have been the recipient of particular honours. The name of this princess has caused some to recognize in her the fabulous Semiramis of the Greek writers. In consequence of facts that have escaped us she may well have furnished the first idea for the romantic legends whose echo has come down to our times. [322] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 96; vol. ii. pp. 71-73. [323] Besides the obelisk of Shalmaneser II., which is in a marvellous state of preservation, the British Museum possesses three other objects of the same kind. Two of these were made for Assurnazirpal; the third, the most ancient of all, dates from the time of Tiglath Pileser I.; unhappily only fragments of it remain. [324] See also BOTTA, _Monument de Ninive_, vol. i. plate 64. We here find an instance of one of these arched steles erected before a fortress. [325] ?--ED. § 7.--_Decoration._ Mesopotamia was no exception to the general rule that decoration is governed by construction. To take only one example, and that from an art we have already studied, the Egyptian temple was entirely of stone, and its decoration formed a part of the very substance of what we may call the flesh and blood of the edifice. The elements of that rich and brilliant decoration are furnished by those mouldings which make up in vigour what they lack in variety, by the slight relief or the hardly perceptible intaglio of the shadowless figures cut by the sculptor in stone, and covered by the painter with the liveliest colours. This sumptuous decoration, covering every external and internal surface, may no more be detached from it than the skin of an animal may be detached from its muscles. The union is even more intimate in this case, the adherence more complete. So long as the Egyptian walls remain standing, the blocks of limestone, sandstone, or granite of which they are composed, can never be entirely freed from the images, that is, from the expression of the thoughts, cut upon them by the men of forty centuries ago. In Assyria the case was different. There buildings were of brick, each unit being in the vast majority of cases a repetition of its neighbour. In very few instances were the bricks of special shapes, and the buildings in which they were used could only be decorated by attached ornament, similar in principle to the mats and hangings we spread over the floors and walls that we wish to hide. This result they obtained in one of two ways; they either cased their walls in stone, an expensive and laborious process, or they covered them with a decoration of many colours. As soon as stone came into use, it must have offered an irresistible temptation to the chisel of the sculptor and the ornamentist; and so we nearly always find it decorated with carvings. Sometimes, as in the lintel and thresholds described above (Figs. 95 and 96), the motives are purely ornamental. Elsewhere, in the gates of the Assyrian palaces, and in the plinths of the walls that surround their courts and halls, we find both figures in the round and in low relief. In a future chapter we shall attempt to define the style of these works and to determine their merit. For the present we must be content with pointing out the part played by sculpture in the general system of decoration. In Chaldæa sculpture must have played a very feeble part in the _ensemble_ of a building, stone was too costly in consequence of the distance it had to be carried. From the ruins of Chaldæa no colossi, like those which flanked the entrances of the Ninevite palaces, none of those long inscriptions upon alabaster slabs which have been of such value for the student of Assyrian history, have been brought. This latter material and all the facilities it offered to the sculptor was apparently entirely neglected by the Chaldæans. In Lower Mesopotamia the hard volcanic rocks were chiefly used. They were preferred, no doubt, for their durability, but they were little fitted for the execution of figures of any size, and especially was it impossible to think of using them for such historic bas-reliefs as those upon which the Assyrians marshalled hundreds, or rather thousands, of busy figures. Chaldæan doorways may, however, have been sometimes flanked with lions and bulls,[326] we are indeed tempted to assign to such a position one monument which has been described by travellers, namely, the lion both Rich and Layard saw half buried in the huge ruin at Babylon called the _Kasr_.[327] It is larger than life. It stands upon a plinth, with its paws upon the figure of a struggling man. There is a circular hole in its jaw bigger than a man's fist. The workmanship is rough; so too, perhaps, is that of the basalt lion seen by Loftus at Abou-Sharein. This latter is about fifty-four inches high and its original place may very well have been before one of the doorways of the building.[328] Of all animal forms, that of the lion was the first to afford materials for decorative composition of any value, and even after all the centuries that have passed, the lion has not lost his vogue in the East. We might, if we chose, multiply examples of this persistence, but we shall be content with quoting one. In the centre of Asia Minor, at the village of Angora, in which I passed three months of the year 1861, I encountered these lions at every turn. A short distance off, in the village of Kalaba, there was a fountain of Turkish construction in which a lion, quite similar in style to those of Assyria, had been inserted.[329] In the court of a mosque there was a lion in the round, a remarkable work by some Græco-Roman sculptor.[330] There and in other towns of Asia Minor, lions from the Seljukian period are by no means rare, and even now they are made in considerable numbers. After the labours of the day we sometimes passed the evenings in the villas of the rich Greek merchants, which were nearly all on the east of the town. Most of these houses were of recent construction, and were filled with mirrors, fine carpets, and engravings. In front of the house, and in the centre of a large paved and trellised court, there were fountains, sometimes ornamented with considerable taste, in which, on great occasions, a slender jet of water would give coolness to the air. The angles of nearly every one of these fountains were marked with small white marble lions, heavy and awkward in shape, but nevertheless considered at Angora to be the last word of art. They are imported from Constantinople together with the basins of the fountains. In spite of all this, however, some doubts may be felt as to the destination of the lions found among the Chaldæan ruins. The only monument there discovered which seems to have certainly belonged to an architectural decoration is one found by Sir Henry Layard in his too soon interrupted explorations in the Kasr. It is a fragment of a limestone slab from the casing of a façade (Fig. 113). The upper parts of two male figures support a broken entablature beneath which the name of some divinity is cut.[331] The chief interest of this fragment lies in the further evidence it affords of a close connection between the arts of Chaldæa and those of Babylon. There is nothing either in the costume or features of these individuals that may not be found in Assyria. The tiara with its plumes and rosettes, the crimped hair and beard, the baton with its large hilt, are all common to both countries, while the latter object is to be found on the rocks of Bavian and as far north as the sculptures of Cappadocia. [Illustration: FIG. 113.--Fragment from Babylon. British Museum. Height 11 inches, width 9 inches.] A study of those reliefs in which nothing but purely ornamental motives are treated, leads us to exactly the same conclusion. Take for instance the great bronze threshold from Borsippa, of which we have already spoken; the rosettes placed at intervals along its tread are identical with those encountered in such numbers in Assyria. In the extreme rarity of stone in his part of the world the Chaldæan architect seems to have practically reserved it for isolated statues, for votive bas-reliefs, for objects of an iconic or religious character, but nevertheless, we have sufficient evidence to prove that such decorative sculpture as found a place in the Chaldæan buildings, did not sensibly differ from that to which Assyria has accustomed us. From all that we have said as to the distribution of stone, it will be understood that we must turn to Assyria to obtain a clear idea of the measures by which buildings of crude brick were rendered more sightly by ornament in the harder material. We can hardly imagine an Assyrian palace without those series of bas-reliefs which now line the walls of our museums much in the same fashion as they covered those of Sargon's and Sennacherib's palaces, and yet it is unlikely that in the beginning the Assyrian palaces had these carved walls. The casing of stone and alabaster must have been originally employed for more utilitarian purposes--to hide the grey and friable material within, to protect it from damage, and to offer a surface to the eye which should at least be inoffensive. The upper parts of the walls would be covered with a coat of stucco, which could be renewed whenever necessary, but for the lower part, for all that was within reach of the crowds that frequented the public halls of the seraglio, who passed through its gates or those of the city itself, some more efficient protection would be required. The constructor was thus led to encase the lower parts of his walls in a cuirass of stone imposed upon their brick cores. The slabs of which he made use for this purpose varied between three and ten feet in height, and between six and fifteen in width. Their average thickness was about eight inches. The way in which these slabs were fixed is hardly worthy of such clever builders, and, in fact, the Assyrians seem to have never succeeded in mastering the difficulties inherent in the association of two heterogeneous materials. The slabs were of gypsum or limestone, the wall of pisé, materials which are not to be easily combined. The Assyrians contented themselves with simply placing the one against the other. No trace of any tie is to be found. A "tooth" has been given to the inner faces of the slabs by seaming them in every direction with the chisel, and, perhaps, some plastic substance may at the last moment have been introduced between them and the soft clay, but no trace of any other contrivance for keeping the two materials together has been found. After the general mass of the building--its clay walls and vaults--were complete, a different class of workmen was brought in to line its chambers and complete their decoration. The crude brick would by that time have become dry, and no longer in a condition to adapt itself to the roughnesses of the alabaster slabs. The liquid clay, like that of an earthenware "body," wets and softens the surface of the brick while it enters into every hollow of the stone and so allies the one with the other. We recommend this conjecture to those who may undertake any future excavation in Assyria. It lies with them to confirm or refute it. However this may have been, the constructor made use of more than one method of giving greater solidity to his walls as a whole. His slabs were not only let into each other at the angles, in some chambers there were squared angle pieces of a diameter great enough to allow them to sink more deeply into the crude brick behind, and thus to offer steady points of support in each corner. Finally the separate slabs were held together at the top by leaden dovetails like the metal clamps used to attach coping stones to each other. Such precautions were rendered comparatively useless by the fact that the whole work was faulty at the base. Halls and chambers had no solid foundation or pavement, so that the heavy slabs of their decoration rested upon a shifting soil, quite incapable of carrying them without flinching. In many places they sank some inches into the ground, the soft earth behind pushing them forward, and in their fall the row to which they belonged was inevitably involved. The excavators have again and again found whole lines of bas-reliefs that appeared to have fallen together. Such an accident is a thing for posterity to rejoice over. Prone upon a soft and yielding soil the works of the sculptor are better protected than when standing erect, their upper parts clear, perhaps, of the ruin that covers their feet, and exposed to the weather at least, and, too often, to the brutality of an ignorant population. Such defects are sufficient to prove that these slabs were never meant to carry any great weight; far from affording a support to the wall behind, they required one to help them in maintaining their own equilibrium. On the other hand they protected it, as we have said above, from too rapid deterioration. At Khorsabad this stone casing is in very bad condition at many points, in the halls and passages of the outbuildings and in the courtyards adjoining the city gates for instance.[332] There the stones are only smoothed down, and their obvious purpose is merely to protect the crude brick within. The purely architectural origin of this system of casing is thus clearly shown. But the presence of these slabs set upright against the wall offered a temptation to the ambitious architect that he was not likely to resist. The limestone and alabaster of which they were composed afforded both a kindly surface for the chisel, and a certain guarantee of duration for the forms it struck out. In every Assyrian palace we may see that the king, its builder, had a double object in view, the glorification of the gods, and the transmission to posterity of his own image and the memory of his reign. To these ends the architect called in the sculptor, under whose hands the rudely dressed slabs took the historic forms with which we are familiar. Of all parts of the palace the doorways were most exposed to injury from the shocks of traffic, and we find their more solid plinths surmounted by higher and thicker slabs than are to be found elsewhere. These slabs are carved with the images of protecting divinities. Huge winged and man-headed bulls (Plate X)[333] or lions (Fig. 114), the speaking symbols of force and thought, met the approaching visitor. Sometimes a lion, reproducing with singular energy the features of the real beast, was substituted for the human-headed variety (Plate VIII).[334] These guardians of the gate always had the front part of their bodies salient in some degree from the general line of the wall. The head and breast, at least, were outside the arch. Right and left of the passage were very thick slabs, also carved into the form of winged bulls in profile, and accompanied by protecting genii. These latter divinities are sometimes grave and noble in mien, obviously benevolent (Figs. 8 and 29), sometimes hideous in face, and violent in gesture. In the latter case they are meant to frighten the profane or the hostile away from the dwelling they guard (Figs. 6 and 7). All these figures are in much higher relief than the sculptures in the inner chambers. [Illustration: FIG. 114.--Human-headed lion. Nimroud; from Layard.] All this shows that the sculptor thoroughly understood how to make the best of his opportunities when he was once called in to ornament those massive door-frames and slabs which at first were no more than additional supports for the building to which they were applied. He varied the shapes of these blocks according to their destined sites, and increased their size so as to give gigantic proportions to his man-headed bulls and lions. Some of the winged bulls are from sixteen to seventeen feet high.[335] In spite of the labour expended upon the carving and putting in place of these huge figures, they are extremely numerous, hardly less so, indeed, than the Osiride piers of Egypt.[336] In the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad, twenty-six pairs have been counted; in that of Sennacherib at Kouyundjik, there were ten upon a single façade.[337] In those passages, halls, and courtyards, whose destination justified such a luxury, the sculptor utilized the stone lining of the walls with equal skill, but in a slightly different spirit. The figures on the façade had to be seen from a great distance, and were exposed to the full light of the Mesopotamian sun, so that their colossal proportions and the varied boldness of their relief had an obvious justification. The sculptures in the interior were smaller in scale and were strictly _bas-reliefs_. With the shortening of the distance from which they could be examined, their scale was made to conform more closely to the real stature of human beings. In some very spacious halls a few of the figures are larger than life, while in the narrowest galleries they become very small, the alabaster slabs being divided into two stories or more (see Fig. 115).[338] There is another singularity to be noticed _apropos_ of these sculptures. The themes treated outside are very different from those inside the palaces. The figures in the former position are religious and supernatural, those in the interior historical and anecdotic. There is much variety in the details of these narrative sculptures, but their main theme is always the glorification, and, in a sense, the biography of the sovereign. [Illustration: FIG. 115.--Bas-relief with several registers. Width 38 inches. Louvre. Drawn by Bourgoin.] In the Egyptian temple the figures which form its _illumination_ are spread indifferently over the whole surface of the walls. In a Greek temple, on the other hand, sculpture was confined with rare exceptions to the upper part of the building, to the pediments chiefly, and the frieze. The Assyrian method was neither that of the Egyptians nor that of the Greeks. At Nineveh, the sculptor did not, as in Egypt, sow his figures broadcast over the whole length and breadth of the building, neither did he raise them, as in Greece, above the heads of the crowd; he marshalled them upon the lowest part of a wall, upon its plinth. Their feet touched the soil, their eyes were on a level with those that looked at them; we might say that they formed an endless procession round every hall and chamber. The reasons for such an arrangement are to be sought for, not in any æsthetic tendency of the Assyrian artist, but in the simple fact that only in the stone cuirass, within which the lower parts of the brick walls were shut up, could he find the kindly material for his chisel. Nowhere else in the whole building could the stone, without which his art was powerless, be introduced. But as the lateral development of Assyrian buildings was great, so too was the field offered to the Assyrian sculptor. It has been calculated that the sculptured slabs found in the palace of Sargon would, if placed in a row, cover a distance of nearly a mile and a half. Their superficies is equal to about an acre and a half. By this it will be seen that sculpture played an important part in the decoration of an Assyrian palace, but as it was confined to the lower part of the walls, some other method had to be invented for ornamenting those surfaces on which the chisel could not be used. In Chaldæa, where there was so little stone, it was practically the whole building that had to be thus contrived for. In both countries the problem was solved in the same fashion--by the extensive use of enamelled brick and painted stucco, and the elaboration of a rich, elegant, and withal original system of polychromy. Explorers are unanimous in the opinion that neither burnt nor sun-dried brick was ever left without something to cover its nakedness. It was always hidden and protected by a coat of stucco.[339] At Nineveh, according to M. Place, this stucco was formed by an intimate mixture of burnt chalk with plaster, by which a sort of white gum was made that adhered very tightly to the clay wall.[340] Its peculiar consistence did not permit of its being spread with a brush; a trowel or board must have been used. The thickness of this cement was never more than one or two millimetres.[341] Its cohesive force was so great that in spite of its thinness it acted as an efficient protector. It has often been found in excellent condition, both upon flat and curved surfaces, upon the walls of courtyards and chambers, on the under sides of vaults, wherever in fact a stone casing did not supply its place. It would seem that some buildings had no outward ornament beyond the brilliant whiteness of this stucco, the effect of which may be seen at the present day in the whitewashed houses of the East. The glare of such a wall was happily contrasted with the soft verdure that sometimes grew about it, and the dark blue of the sky against which its summit was relieved. Such a contrast gives importance and accent to the smallest building, as painters who treat the landscapes of the South thoroughly understand. We have reason to believe, however, that as a rule the white stucco served as a background and support to other colours. No Chaldæan interiors have come down to us, while the exteriors are in such bad preservation that we can hardly form any true judgment of the colours and designs with which they were once adorned. But in the case of Assyria we know pretty well how the decorator understood his business, and it is probable that, like his colleagues, the architect and the sculptor, he was content to perpetuate the traditions of his Chaldæan masters. In certain cases the decorator makes use of wide unbroken tints. This is the simplest way of using colour. In the palace of Sargon, for instance, wherever the sculptured slabs are absent we find a plinth painted black in distemper. These plinths are from two to nearly four feet high, according to the extent of the courts or chambers in which they occur. The object of such a dado is clear; it was to protect the lower part of the wall, if not against deliberate violence, at least against dirt. A white stucco in such a position would soon have been disfigured by spots and various marks which would be invisible on a black background. Moreover, the contrast between the plinth and the white wall above it must have had a certain decorative effect.[342] This coloured dado is to be found even in places to which it seems quite unsuited. At Khorsabad, for instance, it runs across the foot of those semicircular pilasters we noticed in one of the harem chambers (Fig. 101). These pilasters stand upon a plinth between three and four feet high, so that any contact with the dirt of the floor need not have been feared. The existence of the dado in such a position is to be accounted for by supposing that the decorator considered it as the regular ornament for the bottom of a wall. It is more difficult to understand why the alcoves believed by MM. Place and Thomas to have been bedrooms were in each case painted with this same band of black.[343] The most curious example of the employment of unbroken tints to which we can point, is in the case of M. Place's observatory. The stages of that building were each about twenty feet high, and each was painted a colour of its own; the first was white, the second black, the third red, the fourth white. When the excavations were made, these tints were still easily visible. The building seems originally to have had seven stages, and the three upper ones must certainly have been coloured on the same principle as those below them. In his restoration, Thomas makes the fifth vermilion, the sixth a silver grey, while he gilds the seventh and last.[344] In this choice and arrangement of tints there is nothing arbitrary. It is founded on the description given by Herodotus of Ecbatana, the capital of the Medes. "The Medes ... built the city now called Agbatana, the walls of which are of great size and strength, rising in circles one within the other. The plan of the place is, that each of the walls should out-top the one beyond it by the battlements. The nature of the ground, which is a gentle hill, favours this arrangement in some degree, but it was mainly effected by art. The number of the circles is seven, the royal palace and the treasuries standing within the last. The circuit of the outer wall is very nearly the same with that of Athens. Of this wall the battlements are white, of the next black, of the third scarlet, of the fourth blue, of the fifth orange; all these are coloured with paint. The two last have their battlements coated respectively with silver and gold."[345] Between the series of colours found upon the ruin in question and the list here given by Herodotus there is, so far as they go, an identity which cannot be due to chance. The Medes and Persians invented nothing; their whole art was no more than an eastern offshoot from that of Mesopotamia. It was in Chaldæa that the number seven first received an exceptional and quasi sacred character. Our week of seven days is a result from the early worship of the five great planets and of the sun and moon. There were also the seven colours of the rainbow. From such indications as these the early architects of Assyria must have determined the number of stages to be given to a religious building; they also regulated the order of the colours, each one of which was consecrated by tradition to one of those great heavenly bodies. We can easily understand how the silver white of the penultimate stage was chosen to symbolize the moon, while the glory of the gold upon the upper story recalled that of the noonday sun. Thus must we figure the tower with seven stages which Nebuchadnezzar boasted of having restored in more than its early magnificence. These arrangements of coloured bands had a double value. Each tint had a symbolic and traditional signification of its own, and the series formed by the seven was, so to speak, a phrase in the national theology, an appeal to the imagination, and a confession of piety. At the same time the chief divisions of the monument were strongly marked, and the eye was attracted to their number and significance, while the building as a whole was more imposing and majestic than if its colour had been a uniform white from base to summit. The colours must have been frequently renewed. In the interior, where the temperature was not subject to violent changes, where there was neither rain nor scorching sun, the architect made use of painting in distemper to reinforce the decoration in his more luxurious chambers. Unfortunately these frescoes are now represented by nothing but a few fragments. In the course of the excavations numerous instances of their use were encountered, but in almost every case exposure to the air was rapidly destructive of their tints, and even of their substance. They occurred chiefly in the rooms whose walls were lined in their lower parts with sculptured slabs. By dint of infinite painstaking M. Place succeeded in copying a few fragments of these paintings.[346] According to the examples thus preserved for us, human figures were mingled with purely ornamental motives such as plumes, fillets, and rosettes. The colours here used were black, green, red, and yellow, to which may be added a fifth in the white of the plaster ground upon which they were laid. Flesh tints were expressed by leaving this white uncoloured. [Illustration: FIG. 116.--Ornament painted upon plaster; from Layard.] [Illustration: FIG. 117.--Ornament painted upon plaster; from Layard.] Several fragments of these painted decorations have also been preserved by Sir Henry Layard. The simplest of them all is a broad yellow band edged on each side by a line of alternately red and blue chevrons separated from each other by white lines. Down the centre of the yellow band there is a row of blue and white rosettes (Fig. 116). Another example in which the same colours are employed is at once more complex and more elegant (see Fig. 117). Finally, in a third fragment, a slightly simplified version of this latter motive serves as a lower border to a frieze upon which two bulls face each other, their white bodies being divided from the yellow ground by a thick black line. The battlements at the top are dark blue (Fig. 118). An idea of the tints used in this decoration may be obtained from Fig. 2 of our plate xiv. [Illustration: FIG. 118.--Ornament painted upon plaster; from Layard.] It was upon the upper parts of walls where they were beyond the reach of accidental injury that these painted decorations were placed. M. Place had reason to think that they were also used on the under-sides of vaults. In rooms in which a richer and more permanent kind of ornament was unnecessary, paint alone was used for decoration. In several chambers cleared by George Smith at Nimroud, that explorer found horizontal bands of colour, alternately red, green, and yellow, and where the stone casing of the lower walls was not sculptured, these stripes were continued over its surface.[347] The artist to whom the execution of this work was intrusted must have arranged so that his tints were in harmony with those placed by another brush on many details of the sculptured slabs. We shall discuss the question of polychromy in Assyrian sculpture at a future opportunity; at present we are content with observing that the effect of the reliefs was strengthened here and there by the use of colour. The beard, the hair, and the eyebrows were tinted black; such things as the fringes of robes, baldricks, flowers held in the hand, were coloured blue and red. The gaiety thus given brought a room into harmony, and prevented the cool grey of the alabaster slabs from presenting a disagreeable contrast with the brilliant tones spread over the roofs and upper walls. We might thus restore the interior of an Assyrian apartment and arrive at a whole, some elements of which would be certainly authentic and others at least very probable. The efforts hitherto made in this direction leave much to be desired, and give many an opportunity to the fault-finding critic; and that because their makers have failed to completely master the spirit of Mesopotamian architecture as shown in its remaining fragments.[348] It would be much less easy, it would in fact be foolhardy, to attempt the restoration of a hall from a Babylonian palace. Our information is quite insufficient for such a task. We may affirm, however, that where the architect had no stone to speak of, the decorations must have had a somewhat different character from those in which that invaluable material was freely used. The general tendencies of both countries must have been the same, but between Nineveh and Babylon, still more between the capital of Assyria and the towns of Lower Chaldæa, there were differences of which now and then we may succeed in catching a glance. Compelled to trust almost entirely to clay, the artist of Chaldæa must have turned his attention to colour as a decoration much more exclusively than his Assyrian rival. His preoccupation with this one idea is betrayed very curiously in the façade of one of those ruined buildings at Warka which Loftus has studied and described.[349] We borrow his plan and elevation of the detail to which we refer (Fig. 119). [Illustration: FIG. 119.--Plan and elevation of part of a façade at Warka; from Loftus.] In the first place the reader will recognize those semicircular pilasters or gigantic reeds to which we have already alluded as strongly characteristic of Chaldæan architecture, and one of the most certain signs of its origin. The chevrons, the spiral lines and lozenges of the coloured decoration with which the semi-columns, and the salient buttress by which they are divided into two groups, are covered, should be curiously noticed. The ornament varies with each structural division. Loftus, however, was chiefly struck by the process used to build up the design. The whole face of the wall is composed of terra-cotta cones (Fig. 120) engaged in a mortar composed of mud mixed with chopped straw. The bases of these cones are turned outwards and form the surface of the wall. Some preserve the natural colour of the terra-cotta, a dark yellow, others have been dipped--before fixing no doubt--in baths of red and black colouring matter. By the aid of these three tints an effect has been obtained that, according to Loftus, is far from being disagreeable. The process may be compared to that of mosaic, cones of terra-cotta being substituted for little cubes of coloured stone or glass.[350] [Illustration: FIG. 120.--Cone with coloured base; from Loftus.] Upon the same site M. Loftus found traces of a still more singular decoration. A mass of crude brick had its horizontal courses divided from each other by earthenware vases laid so that their open mouths were flush with the face of the wall. Three courses of these vases were placed one upon another, and the curious ornament thus made was repeated three times in the piece of wall left standing. The vases were from ten to fifteen inches long externally, but inside they were never more than ten inches deep, so that their conical bases were solid.[351] The dark shadows of their open mouths afforded a strong contrast with the white plaster which covered the brickwork about them. The consequent play of light and shadow unrelieved by colour was pleasing enough. In spite, however, of their thick walls, these vases could hardly resist successfully the weight of the bricks above and the various disintegrating influences set up by their contraction in drying. Most of the vases were broken when Loftus saw them, though still in place. Cone mosaics and the insertion of vases among the bricks afforded after all but a poor opportunity to the decorative architect. Had the builders of Chaldæa possessed no more efficient means than these of obtaining beauty, their structures would hardly have imposed themselves as models upon their rich and powerful neighbours of Assyria so completely as they did. Some process was required which should not restrict the decorator to the curves and straight lines of the simpler geometrical figures, which should allow him to make use of motives furnished by the animal and vegetable kingdom, by man and those fanciful creations of man's intellect that resulted from his attempts to figure the gods. We can hardly doubt that the Chaldæans, like their northern neighbours, made frequent use of paint in the decoration of the wide plaster walls that offered such a tempting surface to the brush. No fragment of such work has come down to us, but we have every reason to believe that the arrangement of motives and the choice of lines were the same as in Assyria. We may look upon the mural paintings in the Ninevite palaces as copies preserving for us the leading characteristics of their Chaldæan originals. Even in Chaldæa, which had a drier climate than Assyria, paintings in distemper could not have had any very long life on external walls. They had not to do with the sky of Upper Egypt where years pass away without the fall of a single shower. Some means of fixing colour so that it should not be washed away by the first rain was sought, and it was found in the invention of enamel, in the coating of the bricks with a coloured material that when passed with them through the fire would be vitrified and would sink to some extent into their substance. A brick thus coated could never lose its colour; the latter became insoluble, and so intimately combined with the block to which it was attached that one could hardly be destroyed without the other. Sir H. Layard tells us that many fragments of brick found in the Kasr were covered with a thick glaze, the colours of which had in no way suffered with time. Fragments of ornaments and figures could be distinguished on some of them. The colours most often found were a very brilliant blue, red, dark yellow, white, and black.[352] We have again to look to the Assyrian ruins for information as to the way in which these enamelled bricks were composed into pictures. No explorer has found anything in the remains of a Chaldæan city that can be compared to the archivolt of enamelled bricks discovered by M. Place over one of the gateways of the city founded by Sargon.[353] We can hardly doubt however that the art of the enameller was discovered in Chaldæa and thence transported into Assyria. Everything combines to give us that assurance, an examination of the ruins in Mesopotamia and of the objects brought from them as well as the explicit statements of the ancients. Every traveller tells that there is not a ruin at Babylon in which hundreds of these enamelled bricks may not be picked up, and they are to be found elsewhere in Chaldæa.[354] A certain number of fragments are now in the British Museum and the Louvre with indications upon them leaving no doubt as to whence they came.[355] As for the blocks of the same kind coming from Nineveh and its neighbourhood they are very numerous in our collections. It is easy therefore to compare the products of Chaldæan workshops with those of Assyrian origin. The comparison is not to the advantage of the latter. The enamel on the Babylonian bricks is very thick and solid; it adheres strongly to the clay, and even when brought to our comparatively humid climates it preserves its brilliancy. It is not so with bricks from Khorsabad and Nimroud, which rapidly tarnish and become dull when withdrawn from the earth that protected them for so many centuries. Their firing does not seem to have been sufficiently prolonged.[356] Necessity is the mother of invention, the proverb says. If there be any country in which clay has been compelled to do all that lay in its power it must surely be that in which there was no other material for the construction and decoration of buildings. The results obtained by the enameller were pretty much the same in Assyria and Chaldæa, and we are inclined to look upon the older of the two nations as the inventor of the process, especially as it could hardly have done without it so well as its younger rival, and in this opinion we are confirmed by the superior quality of the Babylonian enamel. It is possible that there may be some truth in the assertion that most of the glazed bricks that have come down to us belonged to the restorations of Nebuchadnezzar; but even supposing that to be so, they show a technical skill so consummate and sure of itself that it must then have been very far removed from its infancy. The fatherland of the enameller is Southern Mesopotamia and especially Babylonia, where enamelled bricks seem to have been used in extraordinary quantities. The wall of Dour-Saryoukin, the town built by Sargon, has been found intact for a considerable part of its height. As in the retaining wall of the palace, coloured brick has there been used with extreme discretion. It is found only over the arches of the principal doors and, perhaps, in the form of rosettes at the springing of the battlements. The remainder of the great breadths of crude brick was coated with white plaster.[357] It was otherwise at Babylon. Ctesias, who lived there for a time, thus describes the palace on the right bank of the Euphrates: "In the interior of the first line of circumvallation Semiramis constructed another on a circular plan, upon which there are all kinds of animals stamped on the bricks while still unburnt; nature is imitated in these figures by the employment of colours[358].... The third wall, that in the middle, was twenty stades round ... on its towers and their curtain-walls every sort of animal might be seen imitated according to all the rules of art, both as to their form and colour. The whole represented the chase of various animals, the latter being more than four cubits (high)--in the middle Semiramis on horseback letting fly an arrow against a panther and, on one side, her husband Ninus at close quarters with a lion, which he strikes with his lance."[359] Diodorus attributes all these buildings to his fabulous Semiramis. He was mistaken. It was the palace built by Nebuchadnezzar that he had before him; his eyes rested upon the works of those sovereigns of the second Chaldee empire who presided at a real art renaissance--at the re-awakening of a civilization that was never more brilliant than in the years immediately preceding its fall. The historian's mistake is of little importance here. We are mainly interested in the fact that he actually saw the walls of which he speaks and saw them covered with pictures, the material for which was furnished by enamelled brick. These bricks must have been manufactured in no small quantity to permit of decorations in which there were figures nearly six feet high.[360] We may form some idea of this frieze of animals from one in the palace of Sargon at the foot of the wall on each side of the harem doorway (plate xv.).[361] As for the hunting incidents, we may imagine what they were like from the Assyrian sculptures (Fig. 5). At Babylon as at Nineveh the palette of the enameller was very restricted. Figures were as a rule yellow and white relieved against a blue ground. Touches of black were used to give accent to certain details, such as the hair and beard, or to define a contour. The surface of the brick was not always left smooth; in some cases it shows hollow lines in which certain colours were placed when required to mark distinctive or complementary features. As a rule motives were modelled in relief upon the ground, so that they were distinguished by a gentle salience as well as by colour, a contrivance that increased their solidity and effect.[362] This may be observed on the Babylonian bricks brought to Europe by M. Delaporte, consul-general for France at Bagdad. They are now in the Louvre. On one we see the three white petals belonging to one of those Marguerite-shaped flowers that artists have used in such profusion in painted and sculptured decoration (Figs. 22, 25, 96, 116, 117). Another is the fragment of a wing, and must have entered into the composition of one of those winged genii that are hardly less numerous in Assyrian decoration (Figs. 4, 8, and 29). Upon a third you may recognize the trunk of a palm-tree and on a fourth the sinuous lines that edge a drapery.[363] M. de Longperier calculated from the dimensions of this latter fragment that the figure to which it belonged must have been four cubits high, exactly the height assigned by Ctesias to the figures in the groups seen by him when he visited the palace of the ancient kings.[364] M. Oppert also mentions fragments which had formed part of similar important compositions. Yellow scales separated from one another by black lines, reminded him of the conventional figure under which the Assyrians represented hills or mountains; on others he found fragments of trees, on others blue undulations, significant, no doubt, of water; on others, again, parts of animals--the foot of a horse, the mane and tail of a lion. A thick, black line upon a blue ground may have stood for the lance of a hunter. Upon one fragment a human eye, looking full to the front, might be recognized.[365] We might be tempted to think that in these remains M. Oppert saw all that was left of the pictures which excited the admiration of Ctesias. Inscriptions in big letters obtained by the same process accompanied and explained the pictures. The characters were white on a blue ground. M. Oppert brought together some fifteen of these monumental texts, but he did not find a single fragment upon which there was more than one letter. The inscriptions were meant to be legible at a considerable distance, for the letters were from two to three inches high. In later days Arab architects followed the example thus set and pressed the elegant forms of the cufic alphabet into their service with the happiest skill.[366] For the composition of one of these figures of men or animals a large number of units was required, and in order that it might preserve its fidelity it was necessary not only that the separate pieces should exactly coincide but that they should be fixed and fitted with extreme nicety. At Babylon they were attached to the wall with bitumen. On the posterior surface of several enamelled bricks in the Louvre a thick coat of this substance may be seen; it has preserved an impression of all the roughnesses on the surface of the crude mass to which it was applied. It is impossible to decide whether this natural mortar was allowed to fill the joints between one enamelled square and another or not. None of these bricks have been found in place, and none, so far as we know, unbroken. The coat at the back may have rendered the adherence so complete that no further precaution was necessary. In Assyria, so far at least as Khorsabad is concerned, they were content with less trouble. The bricks forming the enamelled archivolt of which we have spoken are attached to the wall with a mortar in which there is but little adhesive power.[367] It offered no resistance when M. Place stripped the archway in order that he might enrich his own country with the spoils of Sargon. But for an accident that sent his boats to the bottom of the Tigris not far from Bassorah this beautiful gateway would have been rebuilt in Paris.[368] To fit all these squares into their proper places was a delicate operation, but it was rendered easy by long practice. Signs, or rather numbers, for the guidance of the workmen, have been noticed upon the uncovered faces of the crude brick walls.[369] Still more skill was required for the proper distribution of a figure over the bricks by whose apposition it was to be created. No retouches were possible, because the bricks were painted before firing. The least negligence would be punished by the interruption of the contours, or by their malformation through a failure of junction between a line upon one brick and its continuation on the next. There was but one way to prevent such mistakes, and that was by preparing in advance what we should call a cartoon. On this the proposed design would be traced over a network of squares representing the junctions of the bricks. The bricks were then shaped, modelled, and numbered; each was painted according to the cartoon with its due proportion of ground or figure as the case might be, and marked with the same number as that on the corresponding square in the drawing.[370] The colour was laid separately on each brick; this is proved by the existence on their edges of pigment that has overflowed from the face and been fired at the same time as the rest. Thus were manufactured those enamelled bricks upon which the modern visitor to the ruins of Babylon walks at every step. Broken, ground almost to powder as they are, they suffice to show how far the art of enamelling was pushed in those remote days, and how great an industry it must have been. We can have no doubt that colours fixed in the fire must have formed the chief element in the decoration of the buildings of Nebuchadnezzar, of that Babylon whose insolent prosperity so impressed the imagination and provoked the anger of the Jewish prophets. It was to paintings of this kind that Ezekiel alluded when he reproved Jerusalem under the name of Aholiba for its infidelity and its adoption of foreign superstitions: "For when she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldæans portrayed with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldæa, the land of their nativity."[371] The "paintings in the temple of Belos," described by Berosus, were in all probability carried out in the same way. They decorated the walls of the great temple of Bel Merodach at Babylon, where "all kinds of marvellous monsters with the greatest variety in their forms" were to be seen.[372] We see therefore, that both by sacred and profane writers is the important part played by these paintings in the palaces and temples of the capital affirmed. And Ctesias, who is not content with allusions, but enters into minute details, tells us how the work was executed, and how its durability was guaranteed. The modern buildings of Persia give us some idea as to the appearance of those of Babylon. No doubt the plan of a mosque differs entirely from that of a temple of Marduk or Nebo, but the principle of the decoration was the same. If the wand of an enchanter could restore the principal buildings of Babylon we should, perhaps, find more than one to which the following description of the great mosque of Ispahan might be applied with the change of a word here and there: "Every part of the building without exception is covered with enamelled bricks. Their ground is blue, upon which elegant flowers and sentences taken from the Koran are traced in white. The cupola is blue, decorated with shields and arabesques. One can hardly imagine the effect produced by such a building on an European accustomed to the dull uniformity of our colourless buildings; he is filled with an admiring surprise that no words can express."[373] If we should set about making such a comparison, the principal difference to be noticed would be that arising out of the prohibitions of the Koran. The Persian potter had to content himself with the resources of pure ornament, resources upon which he drew with an exquisite skill that forbids us to regret the absence of men and animals from his work. The coloured surfaces of the Babylonian buildings must have had more variety than those of the great mosque at Ispahan or the green mosque at Broussa. But the same groups and the same personages were constantly repeated in the same attitudes and tints, so that their general character must have been purely decorative. Even when they were combined into something approaching a scene, care was taken to guard, by conventionality of treatment and the frequent repetition of familiar types and groups, against its attracting to itself the attention that properly belonged to the composition of which it formed a part. The artist was chiefly occupied with the general effect. His aim was to give a certain rhythm to a succession of traditional forms whose order and arrangement never greatly varied, to fill the wide surfaces of his architecture with contrasts and harmonies of colour that should delight the eye and prevent its fatigue. Were the colours as soft and harmonious as we now see them in those buildings of Persia and Asia Minor that will themselves soon be little more than ruins? It is difficult to answer this question from the very small fragments we possess of the coloured decorations of the Babylonian temples and palaces, but the conditions have remained the same; the wants to be satisfied and the processes employed a century ago were identical with those of Babylon and Nineveh; architect and painter were confronted by the same dazzling sun, and, so far as we can tell, taste has not sensibly changed over the whole of the vast extent of country that stretches from the frontiers of Syria to the eastern boundaries of the plateau of Iran. New peoples, new religions, and new territorial divisions have been introduced, but industrial habits have remained; in spite of political revolutions the workman has transmitted the secrets of his trade to his sons and grandsons. Oriental art is now threatened with death at the hands of Western competition. Thanks to its machines Europe floods the most distant markets with productions cheaper than those turned out by the native workman, and the native workman, discouraged and doubtful of himself, turns to the clumsy imitation of the West, and loses his hold of the art he understood so well. Traditions have become greatly weakened during the last half century, but in the few places where they still preserve their old vitality they may surely be taken as representative of the arts and industries of many centuries ago, and as the lineal descendants of those early products of civilization on which we are attempting to cast new light. If, as everything leads us to believe, the colours and patterns worked by the women of Khorassan and Kurdistan on their rugs and carpets are identical with those on the hangings in the palaces of Sargon, of Nebuchadnezzar, and of Darius, why should we not allow that the tints that now delight us on the mosques of Teheran and Ispahan, of Nicæa and Broussa, are identical with those employed by the Chaldæan potter? There is no doubt that both had a strong predilection for blue--for the marvellous colour that dyed the most beautiful flower of their fields, that glowed on their distant mountains, in their lakes, in the sea, and in the profound azure of an almost cloudless sky. Nature seems to have chosen blue for the background of her changing pictures, and like the artists of modern Persia those of antique Mesopotamia understood the value of the hint thus given. In the fragments of Babylonian tiles brought home by travellers blue is the dominant colour; and blue furnishes the background for those two compositions in enamelled brick that have been found _in situ_. The blue of Babylon seems however to have had more body and to have been darker in shade than that of the Khorsabad tiles. We have already referred to this inferiority in the Assyrian enamel. It may be explained by the fact that the Assyrian architect looked to sculpture for his most sumptuous effects; he used polychromatic decoration only for subordinate parts of his work, and he would therefore be contented with less careful execution than that required by his Babylonian rival. The glazed tiles of Assyria were not, as in Chaldæa, quasi bas-reliefs. Their tints were put on flat; the only exception to this being in the case of those rosettes that were made in such extraordinary numbers for use on the upper parts of walls and round doorways; in these the small central boss is modelled in low relief (see Figs. 121 and 122). [Illustration: FIGS. 121, 122.--Rosettes in glazed pottery. Louvre.] These glazed bricks were chiefly used by the Assyrian architect upon doorways and in their immediate neighbourhood.[374] M. Place found the decoration of one of the city gates at Khorsabad almost intact.[375] The enamel is laid upon one edge of the bricks, which are on the average three inches and a half thick. Figures are relieved in yellow, and rosettes in white against the blue ground. A band of green marks the lower edge of the tiara.[376] The same motives and the same figures were repeated for the whole length of the band. The figures are winged genii in different postures of worship and sacrifice. They bear in their hands those metal seals and pine cones that we so often encounter in the bas-reliefs. Distributed about the entrance these genii seem to be the protectors of the city, they are beneficent images, their gesture is a prayer, a promise, a benediction. On each side of the arch, at its springing, there is one of greater stature than his companions (Fig. 123). His face is turned towards the vaulted passage. Upon the curve of the archivolt smaller figures face one another in couples; each couple is divided from its neighbours by rosettes (Fig. 124). [Illustration: FIG. 123.--Detail of enamelled archivolt. Khorsabad. From Place.] The other composition is to be found on a plinth in the doorway of the harem at Khorsabad. This plinth was about twenty-three feet long, and rather more than three feet high. Its ornament was repeated on both sides of the doorway.[377] It consisted of a lion, an eagle, a bull, and a plough (Plate XV). Upon the returning angles the king appears, standing, on the one side with his head bare, on the other covered with a tiara. The background is blue, as in the city gates; green was only used for the leaves of the tree, in which some have recognized a fig-tree. [Illustration: FIG. 124.--Detail from enamelled archivolt. Khorsabad. From Place.] In these two examples the decoration is of an extreme simplicity; the figures are not engaged in any common action; there is, in fact, no picture. The artist sometimes appears to have been more ambitious. Thus Layard found at Nimroud the remains of a decoration in which the painter had apparently attempted to rival the sculptor: he had represented a battle scene analogous to those we find in such plenty in the bas-reliefs.[378] A similar motive may be found in a better preserved fragment belonging to the same structure (Plate XIV, Fig. 1).[379] A single brick bears four personages, a god, whose arms only are left, the king, his patera in hand, offering a libation, an eunuch with bow and quiver, and finally an officer with a lance. George Smith also found a fragment of the same kind at Nimroud (see Fig. 125). It shows the figure of a soldier, from the knees upwards, armed with bow and lance, and standing by the wheel of a chariot. Above his head are the remains of an inscription which must have been continued on the next brick. The word _warriors_ may still be deciphered.[380] This figure may have formed part of some attempt on the part of the decorator to narrate in colour some of the exploits of the king for whom the palace was built. [Illustration: FIG. 125.--Enamelled brick in the British Museum.] There is a difference between such fragments as this and the glazed tiles of the Khorsabad gates. In the latter the enamelled edges of several bricks were required to make a single figure. In the bricks from Nimroud on the other hand, whole figures are painted on their surface, and in fact a single brick had several figures upon it which were, therefore, on a much smaller scale. A decoration in which figures were some two and three feet high, was well suited for use in lofty situations where those restricted to the surface of a single brick would have been hardly visible. The latter must, then, have been fixed on the lower parts of the wall, but as none of them have yet been found in place we cannot say positively that it was so. Such representations were, moreover, quite exceptional. Most of the pieces of glazed brick that have been found in the ruins show nothing but the remains of figures and motives ornamental rather than historical in their general character.[381] Besides the rosettes of which we have had occasion to speak so often we encounter at every step a spiral ornament the design of which remains without much modification, while a certain variety is given to its general effect by changing the arrangement of its colours. In the example reproduced in Fig. 126 large black disks, like eyes, are embraced by a double spiral in which blue and yellow alternate.[382] [Illustration: FIG. 126.--Ornament upon enamelled brick. British Museum.] There is one curious class of glazed tiles in which this motive continually reappears. These tiles are thinner than the ordinary brick. Their shape is sometimes square but with their sides slightly concave (Fig. 127), sometimes circular, in the form of a quoit (Fig. 128). In each case similar designs are employed, flowers, palmettes, &c. These are carried out in black upon a white ground and arranged symmetrically about a round hole in the middle of the tile. These things must have been manufactured for some special purpose, and the name of Assurnazirpal, that may be read upon our first fragment (Fig. 127), shows that they belonged to some great work of decoration whose main object was to glorify the name of that sovereign. It has been guessed that they formed centres for a coffered ceiling, and there is nothing to negative the conjecture. The opening in the centre may have been filled with a boss of bronze or silver gilt. As we have already shown, appliqué work of this kind played a great part in Assyrian decoration; doors were covered with it and there are many signs that both in Chaldæa and Assyria many other surfaces were protected in the same fashion. [Illustration: FIG. 127.--Fragment of a glazed brick. Width 14 inches. British Museum.] [Illustration: FIG. 128.--Fragment of a glazed brick. Diameter 17 inches. British Museum.] After the careful examination of its ruins Taylor came to the conclusion that the upper story of a staged tower at Abou-Sharein had gilt walls. He found a great number of small and very thin gold plates upon the plateau that formed the summit of the building, and with them the gilded nails with which they had been fixed.[383] In his life of _Apollonius of Tyana_, Philostratus gives a description of Babylon that appears taken from authentic sources, and he notices this employment of metal. "The palaces of the King of Babylon are covered with bronze which makes them glitter at a distance; the chambers of the women, the chambers of the men and the porticoes are decorated with silver, with beaten and even with massive gold instead of pictures."[384] Herodotus speaks of the silvered and gilded battlements of Ecbatana[385] and at Khorsabad cedar masts incased in gilded bronze were found,[386] while traces of gold have been found on some crude bricks at Nimroud.[387] Seeing that metal was thus used to cover wide surfaces, and that, as we shall have occasion to show, the forms of sculpture, of furniture, and of the arts allied to them in Mesopotamia, prove that the inhabitants of that region were singularly skilled in the manipulation of metal, whether with the chisel or the hammer, the above conjecture may very well be true; the sheen of the polished surface would be in excellent harmony with the enamelled faïence about it. It has been suggested that some of the carved ivories may have been used to ornament the coffers. This suggestion in itself seems specious enough, but I failed to discover a single ivory in the rich collection of the British Museum whose shape would have fitted the openings in the tiles.[388] It is certain, however, that ivory was used in the ornamentation of buildings. "I incrusted," says Nebuchadnezzar, "the door-posts, the lintel, and threshold of the place of repose with ivory." The small rectangular plaques with which several cases and many drawers are filled in the British Museum may very well have been used for the decoration of doors, and the panels of ceilings and wainscots. They were so numerous, especially in the palace of Assurnazirpal at Nimroud, that we cannot believe them all to have come off small and movable pieces of furniture. We are confirmed in this idea by the fact that none of these ivories are unique or isolated works of art. In spite of the care and taste expended on their execution they were in no sense gems treasured for their rarity and value; they were the products of an active manufactory delivering its types in series, we might almost say in dozens. The more elegant and finished among them are represented three, four, and five times over in the select case in the British Museum. We may safely say that the examples preserved of any one model are by no means all that were made; in fact, in the drawers in which the smaller fragments are preserved, we noticed the remains of more than one piece which had once been similar to the more perfect specimens exhibited to the public. Thus there are in the Museum four replicas of the little work shown in our Fig. 129.[389] The head of a woman, full face, and with an Egyptian head-dress, is enframed in a narrow window and looks over a balcony formed of columns with the curious capitals already noticed on page 211. Beside these four more or less complete examples, the Museum possesses several detached heads (Fig. 130) which once, no doubt, belonged to similar compositions. [Illustration: FIG. 129.--Ivory tablet in the British Museum. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] The beauty of the ivory surface was often enhanced by the insertion of coloured enamels and lapis-lazuli in the hollows of the tablet. Traces of this inlay may be seen on many of the Museum ivories, especially on those recently brought from Van, in Armenia. The tablets also show traces of gilding. [Illustration: FIG. 130.--Fragment of an ivory tablet.] All this proves that the Mesopotamian decorator had no contemptible resources for the ornamentation of his panelled walls and coffered ceilings. These chiselled, enamelled, and gilded ivories must have been set in frames of cedar or cypress. The Assyrian texts bear witness in more than one place to the use of those fine materials, and the Hebrew writers make frequent allusion to the luxurious carpentry imitated by their own princes in the temple at Jerusalem.[390] In one of his invectives against Nineveh Zephaniah cries: "Desolation shall be in the thresholds: for he shall uncover the cedar work."[391] The more we enter into detail the richer and more varied does the decoration of these buildings appear. In our day the great ruins are sad and monotonous enough. The rain of many centuries has washed away their paint; their ornaments of metal and faïence, of ivory and cedar, have fallen from the walls; the hand of man has combined with the slow action of time to reduce them to their elements, and nothing of their original beauty remains but here and there a fragment or a hint of colour. And yet when we bring these scanty vestiges together we find that enough is left to give the taste and invention of the Assyrian ornamentist a very high place in our respect. That artist was richly endowed with the power of inventing happy combinations of lines, and of varying his motives without losing sight for an instant of his original theme. We may show this very clearly by a more careful study of two motives already encountered, the rosette, and the running ornament which is known in its countless modifications as the "knop and flower pattern." These two motives are united in those great thresholds which have been found now and then in such marvellous preservation. They also occur in certain bas-reliefs representing architectural decorations, so that we are in possession of all the documents required for the formation of a true idea of their varied beauties. In the Assyrian Basement Room of the British Museum there is a fine slab of gypsum of which we reproduce one corner in our Fig. 131.[392] Besides the daisy shaped rosette which is so conspicuous, there is one of more elaborate design which we reproduce on a larger scale and from another example in our Fig. 132. It is inclosed in a square frame adorned with chevrons. This frame with the rosette it incloses may be taken as giving some idea of the ceiling panels or coffers. [Illustration: FIG. 131.--Threshold from Kouyundjik. From Layard.] In this rosette it should be noticed that beyond the double festoon about the central star appears the same alternation of bud and flower as in the straight border. That flower has been recognized as the Egyptian lotus, but Layard believes its type to have been furnished, perhaps, by a scarlet tulip which is very common towards the beginning of spring in Mesopotamia.[393] We ourselves believe rather in the imitation of a motive from the stuffs, the jewels, the furniture, and the pottery that Mesopotamia drew from Egypt at a very early date through the intermediary of the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians themselves appropriated the same motive and introduced it with their own manufactures not only into Mesopotamia but into every country washed by the Mediterranean. Our conjecture is to some extent confirmed by an observation of Sir H. Layard's. This lotus flower is only to be found, he says, in the most recent of Assyrian monuments, in those, namely, that date from the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., centuries during which the Assyrian kings more than once invaded Phoenicia and occupied Egypt.[394] In the more ancient bas-reliefs flowers with a very different aspect--copied in all probability directly from nature--are alone to be found. Of these some idea may be formed from the adjoining cut. It reproduces a bouquet held in the hand of a winged genius in the palace of Assurnazirpal (Fig. 133). [Illustration: FIG. 132.--Rosette.] The lotus flower is to be found moreover in monuments much older than those of the Sargonids, but that does not in any way disprove the hypothesis of a direct plagiarism. The commercial relations between the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates date from a much more remote epoch, and about the commencement of the eighteenth dynasty the Egyptians seem to have occupied in force the basin of the Khabour, the principal affluent of the Euphrates. Layard found many traces of their passage over and sojourn in that district, among them a series of scarabs, many of which bore the superscription of Thothmes III.[395] So that the points of contact were numerous enough, and the mutual intercourse sufficiently intimate and prolonged, to account for the assimilation by Mesopotamian artists of a motive taken from the flora of Egypt and to be seen on almost every object imported from the Nile valley. This imitation appears all the more probable as in the paintings of Theban tombs dating from a much more remote period than the oldest Ninevite remains, the pattern with its alternate bud and flower is complete. Many examples may be found in the plates of Prisse d'Avennes' great work;[396] one is reproduced in our Fig. 134. [Illustration: FIG. 133.--Bouquet of flowers and buds; from Layard.] [Illustration: FIG. 134.--Painted border; from Thebes, after Prisse.] The Assyrians borrowed their motive from Egypt, but they gave it more than Egyptian perfection. They gave it the definitive shapes that even Greece did not disdain to copy. In the Egyptian frieze the cones and flowers are disjointed; their isolation is unsatisfactory both to the eye and the reason. In the Assyrian pattern they are attached to a continuous undulating stem whose sinuous lines add greatly to the elegance of the composition. The distinctive characters of the bud and flower are also very well marked by the Assyrian artists. The closed petals of the one the open ones of the other and the divisions of the calix are indicated in a fashion that happily combines truth with convention. In our Fig. 135 we reproduce, on a larger scale, a part of the slab already illustrated at page 240, so that the merits of its workmanship may be better appreciated. [Illustration: FIG. 135.--Fragment of a threshold; from Khorsabad. Louvre. Drawn by Bourgoin.] [Illustration: FIG. 136.--Door ornament; from Kouyundjik. After Rawlinson.] The painter also made use of this motive. In a bas-relief from the palace of Assurbanipal we find the round-headed doorway illustrated in Fig. 136. Its rich decoration must have been carried out in glazed bricks, similar to those discovered by M. Place on one of the gates of Khorsabad. Here, however, the figures of supernatural beings are replaced by rosettes and by two lines of the knop and flower ornament. [Illustration: FIG. 137.--Palmette; from Layard.] [Illustration: FIG. 138.--Goats and palmette; from Layard.] Vegetable forms brought luck to the Assyrian decorator. Even after taking a motive from a foreign style of ornament he understood, so to speak, how to naturalize a plant and to make its forms expressive of his own individuality. Our only difficulty is to make a choice among the numerous illustrations of his inventive fertility; we shall confine ourselves to reproducing the designs embroidered upon the royal robes of Assurnazirpal. We need hardly say that these robes do not now exist, but the Ninevite sculptor copied them in soft alabaster with an infinite patience that does him honour. He has preserved for us every detail with the exception of colour. The lotus is not to be found in this embroidery; its place is taken by the palmette or tuft of leaves (Fig. 137), through which appear stems bending with the weight of the buds they bear. Animals, real and imaginary, are skilfully mingled with the fan-shaped palmettes; in one place we find two goats (Fig. 138), in another two winged bulls (Fig. 139). Bulls and goats are both alike on their knees before the palmette, which seems to suggest that the latter is an abridged representation of that sacred tree which we have already encountered and will encounter again in the bas-reliefs, where it is surrounded by scenes of adoration and sacrifice. This motive has the double advantage of awakening religious feeling in the spectators, and of provoking a momentary elegance of line and movement in the two pairs of animals. On the other hand we can hardly explain the motive represented in our Figs. 140 and 141--a motive already met with in the figured architecture of the bas-reliefs and in the glazed tiles--by anything but an artistic caprice. In some cases the rosette and the palmette are introduced in a single picture (142). [Illustration: FIG. 139.--Winged bulls and palmette; from Layard.] We have ventured to supplement the scanty remains of architectural decoration by these illustrations from another art, because all Babylonian ornament, whether for carpets, hangings, or draperies, for works in beaten metal, in paint or enamelled faïence, is governed by the same spirit and marked by the same taste. In every form impressed upon matter by the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia the same symbols, the same types, and the same motives are repeated to infinity. The examples we have brought together suffice to show the principal characteristics of that decoration. It had doubtless one great defect, it was too easily separated from the building to which it belonged; it was fragile, apt to fall, and therefore unlikely to have any very long duration. But the architect was not to blame for that. The defect in question was consequent on the poverty of the material with which he had to work. Given the conditions under which he laboured, and we cannot deny that he showed great skill in making the best of them. He understood how to contrast wide unbroken surfaces with certain important parts of his _ensemble_, such as cornices, plinths, and especially doorways. Upon these he concentrated the efforts of the painter and sculptor; upon these he lavished all the hues of the Assyrian palette, and embellished them with the carved figures of men and gods, of kings and genii, of all the countless multitudes who had fought and died for Assyria and its divine protector, the unconquered and unconquerable Assur. [Illustration: FIG. 140.--Stag upon a palmette; from Layard.] [Illustration: FIG. 141.--Winged bull upon a rosette; from Layard.] If, not content with this general view of Assyrian decoration, we enter into it in detail, we shall find its economy most judiciously arranged and understood. When the sculptor set himself to carve the slabs that enframe a door or those that protect the lower parts of a wall, he sought to render what he saw or imagined as precisely and definitely as possible. He went to nature for inspiration even when he carved imaginary beings, and copied her, in fragments perhaps, but with a loyal and vigorous sincerity. Everywhere, except in certain pictures with a strictly limited function, he obeyed an imagination over which a sure judgment kept unsleeping watch. His polychromatic decorations fulfilled their purpose of amusing and delighting the eye without ever attempting to deceive it. Such is and must always be the true principle of ornament, and the decorators of the great buildings of Babylon and Nineveh seem to have thoroughly understood that it was so; their rich and fertile fancy is governed, in every instance to which we can point, with unfailing tact, and to them must be given the credit of having invented not a few of the motives that may yet be traced in the art of the Medes and Persians, in that of the Syrians, the Phoenicians, the peoples of Asia Minor, and above all in that of the Greeks--those unrivalled masters who gave immortality to every artistic combination that they chose to adopt. [Illustration: FIG. 142.--Stag, palmette, and rosette; from Layard.] NOTES: [326] The cuneiform texts mention the "two bulls at the door of the temple E-schakil," the famous staged tower of Babylon. Fr. LENORMANT, _Les Origines de l'Histoire_, vol. i. p. 114 (2nd edition, 1880). [327] RICH, _Narrative of a Journey to the Site of Babylon in 1811, and a Memoir on the Ruins_, p. 64. LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 507. According to Rich, this lion was of grey granite; according to Layard, of black basalt. [328] LOFTUS says nothing of this lion in those _Travels and Researches_ which we have so often quoted. It was, perhaps, on a later occasion that he found it. We came upon it in a collection of original sketches and manuscript notes (_Drawings in Babylonia by W. K. Loftus and H. Churchill_) in the custody of the keeper of Oriental antiquities at the British Museum. We have to express our acknowledgments to Dr. Birch for permission to make use of this valuable collection. [329] PERROT, GUILLAUME ET DELBET, _Exploration archéologique de la Galatie_, vol. ii. pl. 32. [330] _Exploration archéologique_, vol. ii. pl. 11. [331] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 508. [332] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. ii. pp. 68-70. [333] This character of a tutelary divinity that we attribute to the winged bull is indicated in the clearest manner in the cuneiform texts: "In this palace," says Esarhaddon, "the _sedi_ and _lamassi_ (the Assyrian names for these colossi) are propitious, are the guardians of my royal promenade and the rejoicers of my heart, may they ever watch over the palace and never quit its walls." And again: "I caused doors to be made in cypress, which has a good smell, and I had them adorned with gold and silver and fixed in the doorways. Right and left of those doorways I caused _sedi_ and _lamassi_ of stone to be set up, they are placed there to repulse the wicked." (ST. GUYARD, _Bulletin de la Religion assyrienne_, in the _Revue de l'Histoire des Religions_, vol. i. p. 43, note.) [334] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii, plate 21. [335] Those in the Louvre are fourteen feet high; the tallest pair in the British Museum are about the same. [336] _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 92, fig. 70. [337] On the subject of these winged bulls see Fr. LENORMANT, _Les Origines de l'Histoire_, vol. i. chap. 3. [338] The bas-relief here reproduced comes from the palace of Assurbanipal at Kouyundjik. In the fragment now in the Louvre there are three stories, but the upper story, being an exact repetition of that immediately below it, has been omitted in our engraving. [339] LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, p. 176. LAYARD, _Discoveries_, pp. 529, 651. BOTTA, _Monument de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 44. In the book of Daniel the hand that traces the warning words upon the walls of Belshazzar's palace traces them "_upon the plaster of the wall_" (DANIEL v. 5). [340] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 77. [341] At Warka, however, LOFTUS found in the building he calls _Wuswas_ a layer of plaster which was from two to four inches thick. (_Travels_, p. 176.) [342] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. ii. pp. 77, 78. [343] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plate 25. [344] _Ibid._ vol. i. pp. 141-146; vol. ii. pp. 79, 80; vol. iii. plates 36 and 37. [345] HERODOTUS (Rawlinson's translation), i. 98. [346] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plate 32. [347] G. SMITH, _Assyrian Discoveries_, pp. 77, 78. LAYARD (_Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 130) also says that some rooms had no other decoration. [348] In writing thus we allude chiefly to the restorations given by Mr. James Fergusson in _The Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis Restored_ (1 vol. 8vo. Murray), a work that was launched upon the world at far too early a date, namely, in 1851. Sir H., then Mr., LAYARD, had not yet published his second narrative (_Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon_) nor the second series of _Monuments of Nineveh_, neither had the great work of MM. Place and Thomas on the palace of Sargon (a work to which we owe so much new and authentic information) appeared. In Mr. Fergusson's restorations the column is freely used and the vault excluded, so that in many respects his work seems to us to be purely fanciful, and yet it is implicitly accepted by English writers to this day. Professor RAWLINSON, while criticising Mr. Fergusson in his text (_The Five Great Monarchies_, vol. i. p. 303, note 6), reproduces his restoration of the great court at Khorsabad, in which a colonnade is introduced upon the principle of the hypostyle halls of Persepolis. Professor Rawlinson would, perhaps, have been better advised had he refrained from thus popularizing a vision which, as he himself very justly declares, is quite alien to the genius of Assyrian architecture. [349] LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, pp. 187-189. [350] LOFTUS thinks that the process was very common, at least in Lower Chaldæa. He found cones imbedded in mortar at several other points in the Warka ruins, but the example we have reproduced is the only one in which well-marked designs could still be clearly traced. TAYLOR saw cones of the same kind at Abou-Sharein. They had no inscriptions, and their bases were black (_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xv. p. 411). They formed in all probability parts of a decoration similar to that described by Loftus. In Egypt we find cones of terra-cotta crowning the façades of certain Theban tombs (RHIND, _Thebes, its Tombs and their Tenants_, p. 136). Decoratively they seem allied to the cones of Warka, but the religious formulæ they bear connects them rather with the cones found by M. de Sarzec at Tello, which bear commemorative inscriptions. To these we shall return at a later page. [351] LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, pp. 190, 191 [352] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 607. Rich also bears witness to the abundance of these remains in his _Journey to the Ruins of Babylon_. See also OPPERT, _Expédition scientifique_, vol. i. p. 143. [353] A French traveller of the last century, DE BEAUCHAMP (he was consul at Bagdad), heard an Arab workman and contractor describe a room he had found in the Kasr, the walls of which were lined with enamelled bricks. Upon one wall, he said, there was a cow with the sun and moon above it. His story must, at least, have been founded on truth. No motive occurs oftener in the Chaldæan monuments than a bull and the twin stars of the day and night. (See RENNELL, _History of Herodotus_, p. 367.) [354] LOFTUS collected some fragments of these enamelled bricks at Warka, "similar to those found," he says, "at Babylon in the ruins of the Kasr" (_Travels and Researches_, p. 185). TAYLOR also tells us that he found numerous fragments of brick enamelled blue at Mugheir (_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xv. p. 262). [355] The most interesting of these fragments, those that allow the subject of which they formed a part to be still divined, have been published by M. DE LONGPERIER, _Musée Napoléon III._ plate iv. [356] I examined at the British Museum the originals of the glazed bricks reproduced by Layard in his first series of _Monuments_, some of which we have copied in our plates xiii. and xiv. The outlines of the ornament are now hardly more than distinguishable, while the colour is no more than a pale reflection. [357] LOFTUS believes that the external faces of Assyrian walls were not, as a rule, cased in enamelled bricks. He disengaged three sides of the northern palace at Kouyundjik without finding any traces of polychromatic decoration. (_Travels and Researches_, p. 397. note.) [358] Kath' hon en ômais eti tais plinthois dietetupôto thêria, pantodapa tê tôn chrômatôn philotechnia tên alêtheian apomimoumena (DIODORUS, ii. 8, 4.) Diodorus expressly declares that he borrows this description from Ctesias (hôs Ktêsias phêsin), _ibid._ 5. [359] Enêsan de en tois purgois kai teichesi zôa pantodapa philotechnôs tois te chrômasi kai tois tôn tupôn apomimasi kataskeuasmena. (DIODORUS, ii. 8, 6.) [360] Pantoiôn thêriôn ... hôn êsan ta megethê pleion ê pêchôn tettarôn. Four cubits was equal to about five feet eight inches. At Khorsabad the tallest of the genii on the coloured tiles at the door are only 32 inches high; others are not more than two feet. [361] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plates 24 and 31. [362] "The painting," says M. OPPERT, "was applied to a kind of roughly blocked-out relief." (_Expédition scientifique_, vol. i. p. 144.) [363] De Longperier, _Musée Napoléon III._, plate iv. [364] This palace was then inhabited for a part of the year by the Achemenid princes, of whom Ctesias was both the guest and physician. [365] OPPERT, _Expédition scientifique_, vol. i. pp. 143, 144. [366] Two of these enamelled letters are in the Louvre. See also upon this subject, PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. ii. p. 86. I have also seen some in the collection of M. Piot. [367] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 236. [368] Only two rafts arrived at Bassorah; eight left Mossoul, so that only about a fourth of the antiquities collected reached their destination in safety. The cases with the objects despatched by the Babylonian mission, that is by MM. Fresnel, Oppert, and Thomas, were included in the same disaster. But for this the Assyrian collections of the Louvre would be less inferior than they are to those of the British Museum. [369] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 253. [370] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. ii. p. 253. These marks were recognized upon many fragments found at Babylon by MM. Oppert and Thomas (OPPERT, _Expédition scientifique_, vol. i. pp. 143, 144). LOFTUS has transcribed and published a certain number of marks of the same kind which he found upon glazed bricks from the palace at Suza. These are sometimes cut in the brick with a point, sometimes painted with enamel like that on the face. (_Travels and Researches_, p. 398.) [371] EZEKIEL xxiii. 14, 15. [372] BEROSUS, fragment i. § 4, in vol. ii. of the _Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum_ of Ch. MÜLLER. [373] TEXIER, _Armenie et Perse_, vol. ii. p. 134. In the same work the details of the magnificent decoration upon the mosque of the Sunnites at Tauris (which afforded a model for that at Ispahan) will be found reproduced in their original colours. It is strange that this art of enamelled faïence, after being preserved so long, should so recently have become extinct in the East. "At the commencement of the last century," says M. TEXIER (vol. ii. p. 138), "the art of enamelling bricks was no less prosperous in Persia than in the time of Shah-Abbas, the builder of the great mosque at Ispahan (1587-1629); but now the art is completely extinct, and in spite of my desire to visit a factory where I might see the work in progress, there was not one to be found from one end of Ispahan to the other." According to the information I gathered in Asia Minor, it was also towards the beginning of the present century that the workshops of Nicæa and Nicomedia, in which the fine enamelled tiles on the mosques at Broussa were made, were finally closed. In these _fabriques_ the plaques which have been found in such abundance for some twenty years past in Rhodes and other islands of the Archipelago were also manufactured. [The manufacture of these glazed tiles is by no means extinct in India, however. At many centres in Sindh and the Punjab, glazed tiles almost exactly similar to those on the mosque at Ispahan, so far as colours and ornamental motives are concerned, are made in great numbers and used for the same purposes as in Persia and ancient Mesopotamia. There is a tradition in India that the art was brought from China, through Persia, by the soldiers of Gingiz-Khan, but a study of the tiles themselves is enough to show that they are a survival from the art manufactures of Babylon and Nineveh. For detailed information on the history and processes used in the manufacture of these tiles, see Sir George BIRDWOOD'S _Industrial Arts of India_, part ii. pp. 304-310, 321, and 330; also Mr. DRURY FORTNUM'S report on the Sindh pottery in the International Exhibition of 1871.--ED.] [374] Sir H. LAYARD noticed this at the very beginning of his explorations: "Between the bulls and the lions forming the entrances in different parts of the palace were invariably found a large collection of baked bricks, elaborately painted with figures of animals and flowers, and with cuneiform characters" (_Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 13). [375] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 234; vol. iii. plates 9 and 17. [376] _Ibid._ vol. iii. plate 14. We should have reproduced this composition in colour had the size of our page allowed us to do so on a proper scale. M. Place was unable to give it all even in a double-page plate of his huge folio. [377] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plates 23-31. [378] Layard, _Monuments_, 2nd series, plates 53, 54. Elsewhere (_Discoveries_, pp. 166-168) Layard has given a catalogue and summary description of all these fragments, of which only a part were reproduced in the plates of his great collection. [379] _Ibid._ plate 55. [380] GEO. SMITH, _Assyrian Discoveries_, p. 79. [381] Botta gives examples of some of these bricks (_Monument de Ninive_, plates 155, 156). Among the motives there reproduced there is one that we have already seen in the bas-reliefs (fig. 67). It is a goat standing in the collected attitude he would take on a point of rock. The head of the ibex is also a not uncommon motive (LAYARD, _Monuments_, first series, plate 87, fig. 2; see also BOTTA). [382] Fig. 1 of our Plate XIV. reproduces the same design, but with a more simple colouration. [383] J. E. TAYLOR, _Notes on Abou-Sharein_, p. 407 (in the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xv.). [384] PHILOSTRATUS, _Life of Apollonius_, i. 25. Cf. DIONYSIUS PERIEGETES, who says of Semiramis (v. 1007, 1008): autar ep' akropolêi megan domon eisato Bêlôi chrusôi t' êd' elephanti kai agurôi askêsasa. [385] HERODOTUS, i. 98. [386] See above, p. 202. [387] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 264, note 1. Frequent allusions to this use of metal are to be found in the wedges. In M. LENORMANT'S translation of the London inscription (_Histoire ancienne_, vol. ii. p. 233, 3rd edition) in which Nebuchadnezzar enumerates the great works he had done at Borsippa, I find the following words: "I have covered the roof of Nebo's place of repose with gold. The beams of the door before the oracles have been overlaid with silver ... the pivot of the door into the woman's chamber I have covered with silver." [388] Among the fragments of tiles brought from Nimroud by Mr. George Smith, and now in the British Museum, there are two like those reproduced above, to which bosses or knobs of the same material--glazed earthenware--are attached. The necks of these bosses are pierced with holes apparently to receive the chain of a hanging lamp, and are surrounded at their base with inscriptions of Assurnazirpal stating that they formed part of the decoration of a temple at Calah.--ED. [389] The size of our engraving is slightly above that of the object itself. [390] 1 _Kings_ vi. 15; vii. 3. [391] ZEPHANIAH ii. 14. [392] The design consists entirely in the symmetrical repetition of the details here given. [In this engraving the actual design of the pavement has been somewhat simplified. Between the knop and flower that forms the outer border and the rosettes there is a band of ornament consisting of the symmetrical repetition of the palmette motive with rudimentary volutes, much as it occurs round the outside of the tree of life figured on page 213. In another detail our cut differs slightly from the original. In the latter there is no corner piece; the border runs entirely across the end, and the side borders are stopped against it.--ED.] [393] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 184, note. [394] LAYARD, _Nineveh_. vol. ii. p. 212, note. [395] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 281. [396] PRISSE D'AVENNES, _Histoire de l'Art égyptien d'après les Monuments_ (2 vols folio): see the plates entitled _Couronnements et Frises fleuronnés_. § 8.--_On the Orientation of Buildings and Foundation Ceremonies._ The inhabitants of Mesopotamia were so much impressed by celestial phenomena, and believed so firmly in the influence of the stars over human destiny, that they were sure to establish some connection between those heavenly bodies and the arrangement of their edifices. All the buildings of Chaldæa and Assyria are orientated; the principle is everywhere observed, but it is not always understood in the same fashion. [Illustration: FIG. 143.--Plan of a temple at Mugheir; from Loftus.] Mesopotamian buildings were always rectangular and often square on plan, and it is sometimes the angles and sometimes the centres of each face that are directed to the four cardinal points. It will easily be understood that the former system was generally preferred. The façades were of such extent that their direction to a certain point of the horizon was not evident, while salient angles, on the other hand, had all the precision of an astronomical calculation; and this the earliest architects of the Chaldees thoroughly understood. Some of the buildings examined by Loftus and Taylor on the lower Euphrates may have been restored, more or less, by Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, but it is generally acknowledged that the lower and less easily injured parts of most of these buildings date from the very beginnings of that civilization, and were constructed by the princes of the early empire. Now both at Warka and at Mugheir one corner of a building is always turned towards the true north.[397] An instance of this may be given in the little building at Mugheir in which the lower parts of a temple have been recognized (Fig. 143). The same arrangement is to be found in the palace excavated by M. de Sarzec at Tello.[398] [Illustration: FIG. 144.--Plan of the town and palace of Sargon at Khorsabad; from Place.] Most of the Assyrian architects did likewise. See for example the plan of Sargon's city, Dour-Saryoukin (Fig. 144). Its circumvallation incloses an almost exact square, the diagonals of which point to the north, south, east and west respectively.[399] In the large scale plans that we shall give farther on of the palace and of some of its parts it will be seen that the parallelograms of which that building was composed also had their angles turned to the four cardinal points. It was the same with the structures sprinkled over the summit of the vast mound of Kouyundjik, in the centre of what once was Nineveh. [Illustration: FIG. 145.--General plan of the remains at Nimroud; from Layard. 1, 2, 3 Trenches, 4 Central palace, 5 Tombs, 6 South-eastern edifice, 7 South-western palace, 8 North-western palace, 9 High pyramidal mound.] On the other hand in those ruins at Nimroud that have been identified with the ancient Calah, it is the sides of the mound and of the buildings upon it that face the four cardinal points (Fig. 145). The plan given by Layard of the square staged tower disengaged in his last digging campaign at the north-western angle of the mound shows this more clearly.[400] Nearly half the northern side is occupied by the salient circular mass that is such a conspicuous object to one looking at the mound from the plain. We do not know what caused this deviation from the traditional custom; a reason should perhaps be sought in the configuration of the ground, and in the course here followed by the river which then bathed the foot of the artificial hill upon which stood the royal dwellings of the Tiglath-Pilesers and Assurnazirpals. The first of these two methods of orientation had the advantage of establishing a more exact and well defined relation between the disposition of the building and those celestial points to which a peculiar importance was attached. It must also be remembered that such an arrangement gave a more agreeable dwelling than the other. No façade being turned directly to the north there was none entirely deprived of sunlight, while at the same time there was none that faced due south. The sun as it ran its daily course would light for a time each face in turn. The religious ideas that led to orientation are revealed in other details, in the time chosen for commencing the foundations of temples or palaces, and in certain rites that were accomplished afterwards--doubtless with the help of the priesthood--in order to place the building under the protection of the gods and to interest them in its duration. There were ceremonies analogous to those now practised when we lay foundation stones. In the Chaldee system the first stone, the seed from which the rest of the edifice was to spring, was an angle stone, under or in which were deposited inscribed plaques. These contained the name of the founder, together with prayers to the gods and imprecations on all who should menace the stability of the building. This custom dated from the very beginning of Chaldæan civilization, as is proved by a curious text translated by M. Oppert.[401] It was discovered at Sippara and dates from the time of Nabounid, one of the last kings of Babylon. Many centuries before the reign of that prince a temple raised to the sun by Sagaraktyas, of the first dynasty, had been destroyed, and its foundations were traditionally said to inclose the sacred tablets of Xisouthros, who has been identified with the Noah of the Bible. Nabounid recounts the unsuccessful efforts that had been made before his time to recover possession of the precious deposit. Two kings of Babylon, Kourigalzou and Nebuchadnezzar, and one king of Assyria, Esarhaddon, had made the attempt and failed. One of the three had commemorated his failure in an inscription to the following effect: "I have searched for the angle stone of the temple of Ulbar but I have not found it." Finally Nabounid took up the quest. After one check caused by an inundation he renewed the search with ardour; he employed his army upon it, and at last, after digging to a great depth, he came to the angle-stone: "Thus," he says, "have I recovered the name and date of Sagaraktyas." [Illustration: FIG. 146.--Bronze statuette. 8-1/4 inches high. Louvre.] In the ruins of the ancient royal city recovered by M. de Sarzec at Tello the traces of similar precautions have everywhere been found. In the middle of the great mass of ruins whose plan we are still awaiting, "I found," says M. de Sarzec, "at a depth of hardly 30 centimetres (one foot English) below the original level of the soil four cubical masses consisting of large bricks cemented with bitumen, and measuring about 80 centimetres across each face. In the centre of each cube there was a cavity 27 centimetres long by 12 wide and 35 deep. In each case this hollow contained a small bronze statuette packed, as it were, in an impalpable dust. In one cavity the statuette was that of a kneeling man (Fig. 146), in another of a standing woman (Fig. 147), in another of a bull (Fig. 148). At the feet of each statue there were two stone tablets, set in most cases in the bitumen with which the cavity was lined. One of these tablets was black, the other white. It was upon the black as a rule that a cuneiform inscription similar, or nearly so, to the inscriptions on the statuettes was found."[402] Abridgments of the same commemorative and devotional form of words are found upon those cones of terra-cotta that were discovered in such numbers among the foundations and in the interstices of the structure (Fig. 149).[403] [Illustration: FIG. 147.--Bronze statuette. 8-1/4 inches high. Louvre.] The Mesopotamian builder was not satisfied with relying upon talismans built into the lower part of a building or strewn under the pavements. Taylor ascertained at Mugheir and Loftus at Sinkara that engraved cylinders were built into the four angles of the upper stories. A brick had been omitted, leaving a small niche in which they were set up on end.[404] Profiting by the hint thus given Sir Henry Rawlinson excavated the angles of one of the terraces of the Birs-Nimroud at Babylon, and to the astonishment of his workmen he found the terra-cotta cylinders upon which the reconstruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar is narrated exactly at the point where he told them to dig.[405] These little tubs are called cylinders--a not very happy title. As some of them are about three feet high (Fig. 150) they can take commemorative inscriptions of vastly greater length than those cut upon small hard-stone cylinders. Some of these inscriptions have as many as a hundred lines very finely engraved. Many precious specimens dating from the times of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors have been found in the ruins of Babylon.[406] [Illustration: FIG. 148.--Bronze statuette. 10 inches high. Louvre.] Thus from the beginning to the end of Chaldæan civilization the custom was preserved of consecrating a building by hiding in its substance objects to which a divine type and an engraved text gave both a talismanic and a commemorative value. As might be supposed the same usage was followed in Assyria. In the palace of Assurnazirpal at Nimroud, Sir Henry Layard found some alabaster tablets with inscriptions on both their faces hidden behind the colossal lions at one of the doorways.[407] The British Museum also possesses a series of small figures found at Nimroud but in a comparatively modern building, the palace of Esarhaddon. They have each two pairs of wings, one pair raised, the other depressed. They had been strewn in the sand under the threshold of one of the doors. [Illustration: FIG. 149.--Terra-cotta cone. Height 6 inches. Louvre.] It was at Khorsabad, however, that the observations were made which have most clearly shown the importance attached to this ceremony of consecration. M. Oppert tells us that during the summer of 1854, "M. Place disinterred from the foundations of Khorsabad a stone case in which were five inscriptions on five different materials, gold, silver, antimony, copper and lead. Of these five tablets he brought away four. The leaden one was too heavy to be carried off at once, and it was despatched to Bassorah on the rafts with the bulk of the collection, whose fate it shared." The other four tablets are in the Louvre. Their text is almost identical. M. Oppert gives a translation of it.[408] According to his rendering, the inscription--in which the king speaks throughout in the first person--ends with this imprecation: "May the great lord Assur destroy from the face of this country the name and race of him who shall injure the works of my hand, or who shall carry off my treasure!" A little higher up, where Sargon recounts the founding of the palace, occurs a phrase which M. Oppert translates: "The people threw their amulets." What Sargon meant by this the excavations of M. Place have shown. In the foundations of the town walls, and especially in the beds of sand between the bases of the sculptured bulls that guard the doorways, he found hundreds of small objects, such as cylinders, cones, and terra-cotta statuettes. The most curious of these are now deposited in the Louvre. The numbers and the character of these things prove that a great number of the people must have assisted at the ceremony of consecration. [Illustration: FIG. 150.--Terra-cotta cylinder. One-third of actual size; from Place.] Several of these amulets were not without value either for their material or their workmanship, but the great majority were of the roughest kind, some being merely shells or stones with a hole through them, which must have belonged to the poorest class of the community. In many cases their proper use could be easily divined; the holes with which they were pierced and other marks of wear showed them to be personal amulets.[409] Those present at the ceremony of consecrating the foundations must have detached them from the cords by which they were suspended, and thrown them, upon the utterance of some propitiatory formula by the priests, into the sand about to be covered with the first large slabs of alabaster. The terra-cotta cylinders were in no less frequent use in Assyria than in Chaldæa. M. Place found no less than fourteen still in place in niches of the harem walls at Khorsabad. The long inscription they bore contained circumstantial details of the construction of both town and palace. Like that on the metal tablets, it ended with a malediction on all who should dare to raise their hands against the work of Sargon.[410] As for the cylinders hidden in each angle of a building, none, we believe, have as yet been found in Assyria; perhaps because no search or an inefficient search has been made for them. We have dwelt at some length upon the orientation of buildings, upon the importance attached to their angle stones, and upon the precautions taken to place an edifice under the protection of the gods, and to preserve the name of its founder from oblivion. We can point to no stronger evidence than that furnished by these proceedings as a whole, of the high civilization to which the people of Chaldæa and Assyria had attained at a very early date. The temple and palace did not spread themselves out upon the soil at the word of a capricious and individual fancy; a constant will governed the arrangement of its plan, solemn rites inaugurated its construction and recommended its welfare to the gods. The texts tell us nothing about the architects, who raised so many noble monuments; we know neither their names, nor their social condition, but we can divine from their works that they had strongly established traditions, and that they could look back upon a solid and careful education for their profession. As to whether they formed one of those close corporations in which the secrets of a trade are handed down from generation to generation of their members, or whether they belonged to the sacerdotal caste, we do not know. We are inclined to the latter supposition in some degree by the profoundly religious character of the ceremonies that accompanied the inception of a building, and by the accounts left by the ancients of those priests whom they called _the Chaldæans_. It was to these Chaldæans that Mesopotamian society owed all it knew of scientific methods and modes of thought, and it is, perhaps, fair to suppose that they turned to the practice of the arts those intellects which they had cultivated above their fellows. Architecture especially requires something more than manual skill, practice, and natural genius. When it is carried so far as it was in Chaldæa it demands a certain amount of science, and the priests who by right of their intellectual superiority held such an important place in the state, may well have contrived to gain a monopoly as architects to the king. In their persons alone would the scientific knowledge required for such work be combined with the power to accomplish those sacred rites which gave to the commencement of a new building the character of a contract between man and his deity. NOTES: [397] LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, p. 171. [398] _Les Fouilles de Chaldée, communication d'une Lettre de M. de Sarzec par M. Léon Heuzey_, § 2 (_Revue archéologique_, November, 1881). [399] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 17, 18. BOTTA had previously made the same observation (_Monument de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 25). [400] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, plan 2, p. 123. [401] OPPERT, _Expédition scientifique de Mésopotamie_, vol. i. p. 273. [402] _Les Fouilles de Chaldée, communication d'une Lettre de M. de Sarzec_, by M. Léon HEUZEY (_Revue archéologique_, November, 1881). [403] As to the notions attached to these cones, whether sprinkled about the foundations of a building, set up in certain sanctuaries, or carried upon the person, an article published by M. LEDRAIN, _à propos_ of an agate cone recently added to the collections of the Louvre, may be read with advantage. Its full title is _Une Page de Mythologie sémitique_ (_la Philosophie positive, Revue_, 14th year, 1882, pp. 209-213). [404] Taylor, _Notes on the Ruins of Mugheir_ (_Journal_, &c. vol. xv., pp. 263, 264). LOFTUS, _Travels_, &c. p. 247. [405] See the _Athenæum_ for January 20, 1855 (No. 1421), p. 84. "After two months' excavation Colonel Rawlinson was summoned to the work by the information that ... a wall had been found and laid bare to a distance of 190 feet, and that it turned off at right angles at each end, to be apparently carried all round the mound, forming a square of about twenty-seven feet in height, surmounted by a platform. He immediately rode to the excavation, examined the spot, where he found the workmen quite discouraged and hopeless, having laboured long and found nothing. He was now, however, well aware of these facts, and at once pointed out the spot, near the corner, where the bricks should be removed. In half an hour a small hollow was found, from which he immediately directed the head workman to 'bring out the commemorative cylinder'--a command which, to the wonder and bewilderment of the people, was immediately obeyed; and a cylinder covered with inscriptions was drawn out from its hiding-place of twenty-four centuries, as fresh as when deposited there by the hands, probably, of Nebuchadnezzar himself! The Colonel added in a note that the fame of his magical power had flown to Bagdad, and that he was besieged with applications for the loan of his wonderful instrument to be used in the discovery of hidden treasures!" [406] Among these we may mention the Philips cylinder, from which, in speaking of the great works carried out by Nebuchadnezzar, LENORMANT gives long extracts in his _Manuel d'Histoire ancienne_, vol. ii. pp. 233 and 235. [407] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. i. p. 115, and vol. ii. p. 91. [408] OPPERT, _Expédition en Mésopotamie_, vol. ii. pp. 343-351. [409] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 188. [410] OPPERT, _Expédition scientifique_, vol. i. pp. 354 _et seq._ § 9.--_Mechanical Resources._ The Chaldæans and Assyrians were never called upon to transport such enormous masses as some of the Egyptian monoliths, such as the obelisks and the two great colossi at Thebes. But the stone bulls that decorated the palaces of Nineveh were no light weight, and it was not without difficulty that the modern explorers succeeded in conveying them to the borders of the Tigris and loading them on the rafts upon which they began their long journeys to Paris and London. In moving such objects from place to place the Assyrians, like the Egyptians, had no secret beyond that of patience, and the unflinching use of human arms and shoulders in unstinted number.[411] We know this from monuments in which the details of the operation are figured even more clearly and with more pictorial power than in the bas-relief at El-Bercheh, which has served to make us acquainted with the methods employed in taking an Egyptian colossus from the quarry to its site. In Mesopotamia, as in Egypt, there were waterways that could be used at any season for the transport of heavy masses. Quarries were made as near the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris as possible, and when a stone monster had to be carried to a town situated at some distance from both those rivers the canals by which the country was intersected in every direction supplied their place. Going down stream, and especially in flood time, no means of propulsion were required; the course of the boats or rafts was directed by means of heavy oars like those still used by the boatmen who navigate the Tigris in _keleks_, or rafts, supported on inflated hides; in ascending the streams towing was called into play, as we know from one of the Kouyundjik bas-reliefs.[412] In this the stone in course of transport is oblong in shape and is placed upon a wide flat boat, beyond which it extends both at the stern and the bows. It is securely fastened with pieces of wood held together by strong pins. There are three tow ropes, two fastened to the stone itself and the third to the bow of the boat. The towers pull upon these cables by means of smaller cords passed round the shoulders of each and spliced to the main ropes; by such means they could bring far more weight to bear than if they had been content to hold the cable in their hands, as in Egypt. The bas-relief in question is mutilated, but we may guess that a hundred men were attached to each cable, which would make three hundred in all obeying the single will of the superintending engineer who is perched upon the stone and directing their movements. On each flank of the gang march overseers armed with swords and rattans that would be quick to descend on the back and loins of any shirker. More than one instance of such punishment may be seen on the bas-relief reproduced in part in our Fig. 151. In its lower division two or three of these slave-drivers may be seen with their hands raised against the workmen; in one case the latter sinks to the ground beneath the blows rained upon him. The way in which the whole series of operations is represented in this Kouyundjik relief is most curious. High up in the field we often find the king himself, standing in his chariot and urging on the work. The whole occupies several of Layard's large plates. We can only reproduce the central group, which is the most interesting to the student of engineering in ancient Mesopotamia. [Illustration: FIG. 151.--The transport of a bull. Height of the slab, 7 feet 3 inches; British Museum.] The block of alabaster that we saw a moment ago on a boat towed by hundreds of human arms has been delivered to the sculptors and has put on, under their hands, the rough form of a mitred, human-headed bull. It will be completed after being put in place; the last touches of the chisel and the brush will then be given to it; but the heaviest part of the work is already done and the block has lost much of its original size and weight. Firmly packed with timber, the bull lies upon its side upon a sledge which is curved in front like a boat, or a modern sleigh. Two cables are fastened to its prow and two to its stern. The engineer is again seated upon the stone and claps his hands to give the time, but now he is accompanied by three soldiers who appear to support his authority by voice and gesture. In order to prevent friction and to facilitate the movement of the sledge, rollers are thrust beneath its runners as they progress. Before the huge mass will start, however, the straining cords and muscles have to be helped by a thrust from behind. This is given by means of a huge lever, upon which a number of men pull with all their weight, while its curved foot is engaged under the sledge. A workman is occupied with the reinforcement of the fulcrum by thrusting a wedge in between its upper surface and the lower edge of the lever. When everything is ready a signal will be given, the men behind will throw their weight upon the lever, the sledge will rise a little, the ropes will strain and tighten, and the heavy mass will glide forward upon the greased rollers until arms and legs give out and an interval for rest is called, to be followed presently by a repetition of the same process. Every precaution is taken to minimize the effect of any accident that may take place in the course of the operation. Behind the sledge spare ropes and levers are carried, some upon men's backs, others on small handcarts. There are also a number of workmen carrying rollers. We shall only refer to one more of these reliefs and that the one with which the series appears to close (Fig. 152). This carved picture has been thought, not without reason, to represent the erection of the bull[413] in its destined place. After its slow but uninterrupted march the huge monster has arrived upon the plateau where it has been awaited. By one great final effort it has been dragged up an inclined plane to the summit of the mound and has been set upon its feet. Nothing remains to be done but to pull and thrust it into its place against the doorway it has to guard and ornament. The same sledge, the same rollers, the same lever, the same precautions against accident are to be recognized here as in the last picture. The only difference is in the position of the statue itself. Standing upright like this it is much more liable to injury than when prone on its flank. New safeguards have therefore been introduced. It is packed under its belly with squares of wood and inclosed in scaffolding to prevent dangerous vibration. Additional precautions against this latter danger are provided by gangs of men who walk at each side and hold, some ropes fastened to the uprights of the scaffolding, others long forked poles engaged under its horizontal pieces. By these means equilibrium could be restored after any extra oscillation on the part of the sledge and its burden. All these manoeuvres are remarkable for the skill and prodigality with which human strength was employed; of all the scientific tools invented to economise effort and to shorten the duration of a task, the only one they seem ever to have used was the most simple of all, the lever, an instrument that must have been invented over and over again wherever men tried to lift masses of stone or wood from the ground. Its discovery must, in fact, have taken place long before the commencement of what we call civilization, although its theory was first expounded by the Greek mathematicians. [Illustration: FIG. 152.--Putting a bull in place; from Layard.] In a relief in the palace of Assurnazirpal at Nimroud, there is a pulley exactly similar to those often seen over a modern well.[414] A cord runs over it and supports a bucket. There is no evidence that the Assyrians employed such a contrivance for any purpose but the raising of water. We cannot say that they used it to lift heavy weights, but the fact that they understood its principle puts them slightly above the Egyptians as engineers. NOTES: [411] As to the simplicity of Egyptian engineering, see the _History of Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 72, and fig. 43. [412] See LAYARD, _Monuments_, 2nd series, plate ii. The same author gives a detailed description of this picture in his _Discoveries_, pp. 104-106. [413] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 112. [414] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 32. § 10.--_On the Graphic Processes Employed in the Representations of Buildings._ The Chaldæans and Assyrians knew as little of perspective as they did of mechanics. When they had to figure a building and its contents, or a landscape background, they could not resist the temptation of combining many things which could not be seen from a single standpoint. Like the painters and sculptors of Thebes they mixed up in the most naive fashion those graphic processes that we keep carefully apart. All that they cared about was to be understood. We need not here reproduce the observations we made on this subject in the corresponding chapter of Egyptian Art;[415] it will suffice to give a few examples of the simultaneous employment by Ninevite sculptors of contradictory systems. [Illustration: FIG. 153.--Chaldæan plan. Louvre.] It is not difficult to cite examples of things that may, with some little ingenuity, be brought within the definition of a plan. The most curious and strongly marked of these is furnished by one of the most ancient monuments that have come down to us; we mean a statue found at Tello in Lower Chaldæa by M. de Sarzec. It represents a personage seated and holding on his knees an engraved tablet on which two or three different things are represented (Fig. 153). On the right there is one of those styles with which letters or images were cut in the soft clay, at the bottom of the tablet there is a scale which we know from another monument of the same kind to have been originally 10.8 inches in length, _i.e._ the Babylonian half-cubit or span. By far the larger part of the field, however, is occupied by an irregular figure in which the trace of a fortified wall may be easily recognized. When these monuments were first brought to France this statue was supposed to be that of an architect. When the inscriptions were interpreted, however, this opinion had to be modified in some degree. They were found to contain the same royal title as the other figure of similar style and material discovered by M. de Sarzec on the same spot, the title, namely, of the individual whom archæologists have at present agreed to call Gudea.[416] It therefore seems to represent that prince in the character of an architect, as the constructor of the building in which his statues were placed as a sacred deposit. Must we take it to be the plan of his royal city as a whole, or only of his palace? It is difficult to answer this question, especially while no precise information has been obtained from the inscriptions, whose interpretation presents many difficulties. There can, however, be no doubt that the engraver has given us a plan according to his lights of a wall strengthened by flanking towers, of which those with the boldest salience guard the six passages into the interior. We find a still more simple plan upon an Assyrian monument of much later date, namely, upon the armour of beaten bronze that formerly protected the gates of Balawat. In this example (Fig. 154) the doorways, the angles, and the centres of the two longer curtains are strengthened by towers. [Illustration: FIG. 154.--Assyrian plan; from the Balawat gates in the British Museum.] [Illustration: FIG. 155.--Plan and section of a fortress; from Layard.] The way in which the sculptor has endeavoured to suggest the crenellations shows that these plans are not drawn on the same principal as ours; there is no section taken at the junction with the soil or at a determined height; the draughtsman in all probability wished to give an idea of the height of the flanking towers. His representation is an ideal _projection_ similar to those of which we find so many examples in Egypt, only that here we have the towers laid flat outside the fortification to which they belong in such a fashion that their summits are as far as possible from the centre of the structure. We shall see this better in another plan of the same kind in which the details are more carefully made out (Fig. 155). It comes from a bas-relief, on which a circular fortress, divided into four equal parts by walls radiating from its centre, is portrayed. In this relief we find another favourite process of the Egyptians employed, namely, that in which a vertical section is combined with a projection, so that the interior of the building and its arrangements may be laid open to the spectator. In this instance we can see what is passing in the four principal chambers of the castle. In each chamber one or two persons are occupied over what appear to be religious rites. [Illustration: FIG. 156.--Plan, section, and elevation of a fortified city; from Layard.] In another Nimroud bas-relief we find a still greater variety of processes used upon a single work (Fig. 156). The picture shows the king enthroned in the centre of a fortified city which he has just captured. Prisoners are being brought before him; his victorious troops have erected their tents in the city itself. Beside these tents three houses of unequal size represent the dwellings of the conquered. The _enceinte_ with its towers is projected on the soil in the fashion above noticed; a longitudinal section lays bare the interiors of the tents and shows us the soldiers at their various occupations. As for the houses, they are represented by their principal façades, which are drawn in elevation. [Illustration: FIG. 157.--Plan and elevation of a fortified city; from Layard.] When he had to deal with more complicated images, as in the reliefs at Kouyundjik representing the conquests and expeditions of Assurbanipal, the artist modified his processes at will so as to combine in the narrow space at his disposal all the information that he thought fit to give. See for instance the relief in which the Assyrians celebrate their capture of Madaktu, an important city of Susiana, by a sort of triumph (Fig. 157). The town itself, with its towered walls and its suburbs in which every house is sheltered by a date tree, is figured in the centre. At the top and sides the walls are projected outwards from the city; at the bottom they are thrown inwards in order, no doubt, to leave room for the tops of the date trees. Moreover, the sculptor had to find room for a large building on the right of his fortification. This is, apparently, the palace of the king. Guarded by a barbican and surrounded by trees it rises upon its artificial mound some little distance in front of the city. The artist also wished to show that palace and city were protected by a winding river teeming with fish, into which fell a narrower stream in the neighbourhood of the palace. If he had projected the walls of the palace and its barbican in the same way as those of the other buildings he would either have had to encroach upon his streams and to hide their junction or to divert their course. In order to avoid this he made use of several points of view, and laid his two chief structures on the ground in such a fashion that they form an oblique angle with the rest of the buildings. The result thus obtained looks strange to us, but it fulfilled his purpose; it gave a clear idea of how the various buildings were situated with respect to each other and it reproduced with fidelity the topographical features of the conquered country. The chief desire of the sculptor was to be understood. That governing thought can nowhere be more clearly traced than in one of the reliefs dealing with the exploits of Sennacherib.[417] Here he had to explain that in order to penetrate into a mountainous country like Armenia, the king had been compelled to follow the bed of a torrent between high wooded banks. In the middle of the picture we see the king in his chariot, followed by horsemen and foot soldiers marching in the water. Towards the summit of the relief, the heights that overhang the stream are represented by the usual network. But how to represent the wooded mountains on this side of the water? The artist has readily solved the question, according to his lights, by showing the near mountains and their trees upside down, a solution which is quite on all fours, in principle, with the plans above described. The hills are projected on each side of the line made by the torrent, so that it runs along their bases, as it does in fact; but in this case the topsy-turviness of the trees and hills has a very startling effect. The intentions of the artist, however, are perfectly obvious; his process is childish, but it is quite clear. None of these plans or pictures have, any more than those of Egypt, a scale by which the proportions of the objects introduced can be judged. The men, who were more important in the eye of the artist than the buildings, are always taller than the houses and towers. This will be seen still more clearly in the figure we reproduce from the Balawat gates (Fig. 158). It represents a fortress besieged by Shalmaneser II., three people stand upon the roof of the building; if we restore their lower limbs we shall see that their height is equal to that of the castle itself.[418] [Illustration: FIG. 158.--Fortress with its defenders; from the Balawat gates.] This short examination of the spirit and principles of Assyrian figuration was necessary in order to prevent embarrassment and doubt in speaking of the architectural designs and other things of the same kind that we may find reproduced in the bas-reliefs. Unless we had thoroughly understood the system of which the sculptors made use, we should have been unable to base our restorations upon their works in any important degree; and, besides, if there be one touchstone more sure than another by which we may determine the plastic genius of a people, it is the ingenuity, or the want of it, shown in the contrivance of means to make lines represent the thickness of bodies and the distances of various planes. In this matter Chaldæa and Assyria remained, like Egypt, in the infancy of art. They were even excelled by the Egyptians, who showed more taste and continuity in the management of their processes than their Eastern rivals. Nothing so absurd is to be found in the sculptures of the Nile valley as these hills and trees turned upside down, and we shall presently see that a like superiority is shown in the way figures are brought together in the bas-reliefs. In our second volume on Egyptian art we drew attention to some Theban sculptures in which a vague suspicion of the true laws of perspective seemed to be struggling to light. The attempt to apply them to the composition of certain groups was real, though timid. Nothing of the kind is to be found in Assyrian sculpture. The Mesopotamian artist never seems for a moment to have doubted the virtues of his own method, a method which consisted in placing the numerous figures, whose position in a space of more or less depth he wished to suggest, one above another on the field of his relief. He trusted, in fact, to the intelligence of the spectator, and took but little pains to help the latter in making sense of the images put before him. NOTES: [415] _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii. chapter i. § 1. [416] M. J. HALÉVY disputes this reading of the word. As we are unable to discuss the question, we must refer our readers to his observations (_Les Monuments Chaldéens et la Question de Sumir et d'Accad_) in the _Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions_, 1882, p. 107. M. Halévy believes it should be read as the name of the prince Nabou or Nebo. The question is only of secondary importance, but M. Halévy enlarges its scope by reopening the whole matter of debate between himself and M. Oppert as to the true character of what Assyriologists call the Sumerian language and written character. The _Comptes rendus_ only gives a summary of the paper. The same volume contains a _résumé_ of M. Oppert's reply (1882, p. 123: _Inscriptions de Gudéa_, et seq). [417] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 341. [418] The same disproportion between men and buildings is to be found in many other reliefs (see figs. 39, 43, and 60). [Illustration] CHAPTER III. FUNERARY ARCHITECTURE. § 1.--_Chaldæan and Assyrian Notions as to a Future Life._ Of the remains that have come down to us from ancient Egypt the oldest, the most important in some respects, and beyond dispute the most numerous, are the sepulchres. Of the two lives of the Egyptian, that of which we know the most is his posthumous life--the life he led in the shadows of that carefully-hidden subterranean dwelling that he called his "good abode." While in every other country bodies after a few years are nothing but a few handfuls of dust, in Egypt they creep out in thousands to the light of day, from grottoes in the flanks of the mountains, from pits sunk through the desert sand and from hollows in the sand itself. They rise accompanied by long inscriptions that speak for them, and make us sharers in their joys and sorrows, in their religious beliefs and in the promises in which they placed their hopes when their eyes were about to close for ever. A peculiarity of which Egypt offers the only instance is thus explained. The house of the Memphite citizen and the palace of the king himself, can only now be restored by hints culled from the reliefs and inscriptions--hints which sometimes lend themselves to more than one interpretation, while the tombs of Egypt are known to us in every detail of structure and arrangement. In more than one instance they have come down to us with their equipment of epitaphs and inscribed prayers, of pictures carved and painted on the walls and all the luxury of their sepulchral furniture, exactly in fact as they were left when their doors were shut upon their silent tenants so many centuries ago.[419] We are far indeed from being able to say this of Assyria and Chaldæa. In those countries it is the palace, the habitation of the sovereign, that has survived in the best condition, and from it we may imagine what the houses of private people were like; but we know hardly anything of their tombs. Chaldæan tombs have been discovered in these latter years, but they are anonymous and mute. We do not possess a single funerary inscription dating from the days when the two nations who divided Mesopotamia between them were still their own masters. The arrangements of the nameless tombs in lower Chaldæa are extremely simple and their furnishing very poor, if we compare them with the sepulchres in the Egyptian cemeteries. As for Assyrian burying-places, none have yet been discovered. Tombs have certainly been found at Nimroud, at Kouyundjik, at Khorsabad, and in all the mounds in the neighbourhood of Mossoul, but never among or below the Assyrian remains. They are always in the mass of earth and various _débris_ that has accumulated over the ruins of the Assyrian palaces, which is enough to show that they date from a time posterior to the fall of the Mesopotamian Empires. Any doubts that may have lingered on this point have been removed by the character of the objects found, which are never older than the Seleucidæ or the Parthians, and sometimes date even from the Roman epoch.[420] What then did the Assyrians do with their dead? No one has attacked this question more vigorously than Sir Henry Layard. In his attempt to answer it he explored the whole district of Mossoul, but without result; he pointed out the interest of the inquiry to all his collaborators, he talked about it to the more intelligent among his workmen, and promised a reward to whoever should first show him an Assyrian grave. He found nothing, however, and neither Loftus, Place, nor Rassam have been more successful. Neither texts nor monuments help us to fill up the gap. The excavations of M. de Sarzec have indeed brought to light the fragments of an Assyrian stele in which a funerary scene is represented, but unfortunately its meaning is by no means clear.[421] I cannot point to an Assyrian relief in which the same theme is treated. Among so many battle pictures we do not find a single scene analogous to those so often repeated in the pictures and sculptures of Greece. The death and burial of an Assyrian warrior gave a theme to no Assyrian sculptor. It would appear that the national pride revolted from any confession that Assyrians could be killed like other men. All the corpses in the countless battlefields are those of enemies, who are sometimes mutilated and beheaded.[422] These despised bodies were left to rot where they fell, and to feed the crows and vultures;[423] but it is impossible to believe that the Assyrians paid no honours to the bodies of their princes, their nobles, and their relations, and some texts recently discovered make distinct allusions to funerary rites.[424] We can hardly agree to the suggestions of M. Place, who asks whether it is not possible that the Assyrians committed their corpses to the river, like the modern Hindoos, or to birds of prey, like the Guebres.[425] Usages so entirely out of harmony with the customs of other ancient nations would certainly have been noticed by contemporary writers, either Greek or Hebrew. In any case some allusion to them would survive in Assyrian literature, but no hint of the kind is to be found. But after we have rejected those hypotheses the question is no nearer to solution than before; we are still confronted by the remarkable fact that the Assyrians so managed to hide their dead that no trace of them has ever been discovered. A conjecture offered by Loftus is the most inviting.[426] He reminds us that although cemeteries are entirely absent from Assyria, Chaldæa is full of them. Between Niffer and Mugheir each mound is a necropolis. The Assyrians knew that Chaldæa was the birthplace of their race and they looked upon it as a sacred territory. We find the Ninevite kings, even when they were hardest upon their rebellious subjects in the south, holding it as a point of honour to preserve and restore the temples of Babylon and to worship there in royal pomp. Perhaps the Assyrians, or rather those among them who could afford the expenses of the journey, had their dead transferred to the graveyards of Lower Chaldæa. The latter country, or, at least, a certain portion of it, would thus be a kind of holy-land where those Semites whose earliest traditions were connected with its soil would think themselves assured of a more tranquil repose and of protection from more benignant deities. The soil of Assyria itself would receive none but the corpses of those slaves and paupers who, counting for nothing in their lives, would be buried when dead in the first convenient corner, without epitaph or sepulchral furnishing. This hypothesis would explain two things that need explanation--the absence from Assyria of such tombs as are found in every other country of the Ancient World, and the great size of the Chaldæan cemeteries. Both Loftus and Taylor received the same impression, that the assemblages of coffins, still huge in spite of the numbers that have been destroyed during the last twenty centuries, can never have been due entirely to the second and third rate cities in whose neighbourhood they occur. Piled one upon another they form mounds covering wide spaces of ground, and so high that they may be seen for many miles across the plain.[427] This district must have been the common cemetery of Chaldæa and perhaps of Assyria; the dead of Babylon must have been conveyed there. Is it too much to suppose that by means of rivers and canals those of Nineveh may have been taken there too? Was it not in exactly that fashion that mummies were carried by thousands from one end of the Nile valley to the other, to the places where they had to rejoin there ancestors?[428] But we need not go back to Ancient Egypt to find examples of corpses making long journeys in order to reach some great national burying-place. Loftus received the first hint of his suggestion from what he himself saw at Nedjef and at Kerbela, where he met funeral processions more than once on the roads of Irak-Arabi. From every town in Persia the bodies of Shiite Mussulmans, who desire to repose near the mortal remains of Ali and his son, are transported after death into Mesopotamia.[429] According to Loftus the cemetery of Nedjef alone, that by which the mosque known as _Meched-Ali_ is surrounded, receives the bodies of from five to eight thousand Persians every year. Now the journey between Nineveh and Calah and the plains of Lower Chaldæa was far easier than it is now--considering especially the state of the roads--between Tauris, Ispahan, and Teheran, on the one hand and Nedjef on the other. The transit from Assyria to Chaldæa could be made, like that of the Egyptian mummy, entirely by water, that is to say, very cheaply, very easily, and very rapidly. We are brought up, however, by one objection. Although as a rule subject to the Assyrians, the Chaldæans were from the eleventh to the seventh century before our era in a constant state of revolt against their northern neighbours; they struggled hard for their independence and waged long and bloody wars with the masters of Nineveh. Can the Assyrian kings have dared to confide their mortal remains to sepulchres in the midst of a people who had shown themselves so hostile to their domination? Must they not have trembled for the security of tombs surrounded by a rebellious and angry populace? And the furious conflicts that we find narrated in the Assyrian inscriptions, must they not often have interrupted the transport of bodies and compelled them to wait without sepulture for months and even years? Further explorations and the decipherment of the texts will one day solve the problem. Meanwhile we must attempt to determine the nature of Chaldæo-Assyrian beliefs as to a future life. We shall get no help from Herodotus. Intending to describe the manners and customs of the Chaldæans in a special work that he either never wrote or that has been lost,[430] he treated Mesopotamia in much less ample fashion than Egypt, in his history. All that he leaves us on the subject we are now studying is this passing remark, "The Babylonians put their dead in honey, and their funerary lamentations are very like those of the Egyptians."[431] Happily we have the Chaldæan cemeteries and the sculptured monuments of Assyria to which we can turn for information. The funerary writings of the Egyptians allow us to read their hearts as an open book. We know that the men who lived in the days of the ancient empire looked upon the posthumous life as a simple continuation of life in the sun. They believed it to be governed by the same wants, but capable of infinite prolongation so long as those wants were supplied. And so they placed their dead in tombs where they were surrounded by such things as they required when alive, especially by meat and drink. Finally, they endeavoured to ensure them the enjoyment of these things to the utmost limit of time by preserving their bodies against dissolution. If these were to fall into dust the day after they entered upon their new abode, the provisions and furniture with which it was stocked would be of no use. The Chaldæans kept a similar object before them. They neglected nothing to secure the body against the action of damp, in the first place by making the sides of their vaults and the coffins themselves water-tight, secondly, by providing for the rapid escape of rain water from the cemetery,[432] and, finally, if they did not push the art of embalming so far as the Egyptians, they entered upon the same path. The bodies we find in the oldest tombs are imperfect mummies compared with those of Egypt, but the skeleton, at least, is nearly always in an excellent state of preservation; it is only when handled that it tumbles into dust. In the more spacious tombs the body lies upon a mat, with its head upon a cushion. In most cases the remains of bandages and linen cloths were found about it. Mats, cushions, and bandages had all been treated with bitumen. A small terra-cotta model in the British Museum shows a dead man thus stowed in his coffin; his hands are folded on his breast, and round the whole lower part of the body the bands that gave him the appearance of a mummy may be traced. The funerary furniture is far from being as rich and varied as it is in the tombs of Egypt and Etruria, but the same idea has governed the choice of objects in both cases. When the corpse is that of a man we find at his side the cylinder which served him as seal, his arms, arrow heads of flint or bronze, and the remains of the staff he carried in his hand.[433] In a woman's tomb the body has jewels on its neck, its wrists and ankles; jewels are strewn about the tomb and placed on the lid of the coffin. Among other toilet matters have been found small glass bottles, fragments of a bouquet, and cakes of the black pigment which the women of the East still employ to lengthen their eyebrows and enhance their blackness.[434] [Illustration: FIGS. 159, 160.--Vases; from Warka. British Museum.] The vases which are always present in well-preserved tombs, show the ideas of the Mesopotamians on death more clearly than anything else. Upon the palm of one hand or behind the head is placed a cup, sometimes of bronze, oftener of terra-cotta. From it the dead man can help himself to the water or fermented liquors with which the great clay jars that are spread over the floor of his grave are filled (Figs. 159 and 160). Near these also we find shallow bowls or saucers, used no doubt as plates for holding food. Date-stones, chicken and fish bones are also present in great numbers. In one tomb the snout of a swordfish has been found, in another a wild boar's skull. It would seem too that the idea of adding imitation viands to real ones occurred to the Chaldæans as well as to the Egyptians.[435] From one grave opened by Taylor four ducks carved in stone were taken. The sepulchres in which the objects we have been mentioning were found, are the most ancient in Chaldæa--on this all the explorers are agreed. Their situation in the lowest part of the funerary mounds, the aspect of the characters engraved upon the cylinders and the style of the things they contained, all go to prove their age. In similar tombs discovered by M. de Sarzec at Sirtella, in the same region, a tablet of stone and a bronze statuette, differing in no important particular from those deposited in foundation stones, were found. The texts engraved upon them leave no doubt as to their great antiquity.[436] It is then to the early Chaldæan monarchy that we must assign these tombs, which so clearly betray ideas and beliefs practically identical with those that find their freest expression in the mastabas of the ancient Egyptian Empire. In Mesopotamia, as in Egypt, the human intellect arrived with the lapse of time at something beyond this childish and primitive belief. Men did not, however, repel it altogether as false and ridiculous; they continued to cherish it at the bottom of their hearts, and to allow it to impose certain lines of action upon them which otherwise could hardly be explained or justified. As in Egypt, and in later years in Greece, a new and more abstract conception was imposed upon the first. Logically, the second theory was the negation of its predecessor, but where imagination and sentiment play the principal _rôle_, such contradictions are lost sight of. We have elsewhere[437] traced the process by which the imagination was led to sketch out a new explanation of the mystery of death. As man's experience increased, and his faculty for observation became more powerful, he had to make a greater mental effort before he could believe in the immortality of the body, and in a life prolonged to infinity in the darkness of the tomb. In order to satisfy the craving for perpetuity, a something was imagined, we can hardly say what, a shade, an _imago_, that detached itself from the body at the moment of death, and took itself off with the lightness of a bird. A great space, with no definite size, shape, or situation, in which these shades of the departed could meet each other and enjoy greater freedom than in the tomb, was added to the first conception. This less material belief was better adapted than the first to the moral instincts of humanity. A material and organic existence passed in the grave dealt out the same fate to good and bad alike. On the other hand, nothing was more easy than to divide the kingdom of the shades into two compartments, into two distinct domains, and to place in one those whose conduct had been deserving of reward; in the other, those whose crimes and vices had been insufficiently punished upon earth. It is not to the Chaldæan sepulchres that we owe our knowledge that the Semites of Mesopotamia followed in the footsteps of the Egyptians, when they found themselves in face of the problem of life and death; it is to the literature of the Assyrians. Among those tablets of terra-cotta from the library of Assurbanipal that are now preserved in the British Museum, George Smith discovered, in 1873, a mythological document in which the descent of Istar to the infernal regions in search of her lover Tammouz is recounted. Of this he gives a first translation, which is already out of date. Since his discovery was announced, the most learned Assyriologists have made a study of the document, and now even those among them who most seldom think alike, are in agreement as to its meaning except in a few unimportant particulars.[438] No doubt remains as to the general significance of the piece; we may even compare it with other documents from the same library in which there is much to confirm and complete its contents. Even if there were no evidence to the contrary, we might safely affirm that the first conception was not effaced from the minds of the Assyrians by the second. M. Halévy has translated an Assyrian text, whose meaning he thus epitomizes: "What becomes of the individual deposited in a tomb? A curious passage in one of the 'books' from the library of Assurbanipal answers this question, indirectly, indeed, but without any ambiguity. After death the vital and indestructible principle, the incorporeal spirit, is disengaged from the body; it is called in Assyrian _ékimmou_ or _égimmou_.... The _ékimmou_ inhabits the tomb and reposes upon the bed (_zalalu_) of the corpse. If well treated by the children of the defunct, he becomes their protector; if not, their evil genius and scourge. The greatest misfortune that can befall a man is to be deprived of burial. In such a case his spirit, deprived of a resting-place and of the funerary libations, leads a wandering and miserable existence; he is exposed to all kinds of ill-treatment at the hands of his fellow spirits, who show him no mercy." Here we find certain elements of that primitive belief that would escape us in a mere examination of the Chaldæan tombs. We see how they understood the connection between the living and the dead, and why they so passionately desired to receive due sepulture. These ideas and sentiments are identical with those which M. Fustel de Coulanges has analysed so deeply in his _Cité antique_. They subsisted in all their strength in Assyria, and must have had all the consequences, all the social effects that they had elsewhere, and yet we find mentioned a home for the dead, a joyless country in which they could assemble in their countless numbers; as Egypt had its _Ament_ and Greece her _Hades_, so Chaldæa and Assyria had their hell, their place of departed ghosts. We know from the narrative of Istar that they looked upon it as an immense building, situated in the centre of the earth and bounded on every side by the great river whose waters bathe the foundations of the world. This country of the dead is called the "land where one sees nothing" (_mat la namari_), or the "land whence one does not return" (_mat la tayarti_). The government of the country is in the hands of Nergal, the god of war, and his spouse Allat, the sister of Astarte. The house is surrounded by seven strong walls. In each wall there is a single door, which is fastened by a bolt as soon as a new comer has entered. Each door is kept by an incorruptible guardian. We cannot quote the whole of the story; we give, however, a few lines in which the chief features of the Assyrian conception is most clearly shown. Istar speaks:-- Let me return [toward the house], * * * * * [Toward] the house in which Irkalla lives, In which the evening has no morning, [Towards the country] whence there is no return, [Whose inhabitants,] deprived of light, [Have dust for food] and mud to nourish them, A tunic and wings for vesture, [Who see no day,] who sit in the shadows, [In the house] into which I must enter, [They live there,] (once) the wearers of crowns, [The wearers] of crowns who governed the world in ancient days, Of whom Bel and Anou have perpetuated the names and memory. There too stand the foundations of the earth, the meeting of the mighty waters, In the palace of dust into which I must come, Live the prince and the noble, Live the king and the strong man, Live the guardians of the depths of the great gods, Live Ner and Etana. A long dialogue follows between Istar and the guardian of the gate, by which we find that there was a rigorous law compelling all who came to strip themselves of their clothes before they could enter. In spite of her resistance, Istar herself was obliged to submit to this law. From other texts we learn that the entrance to these infernal regions was situated at the foot of the "northern mountain," a sort of Assyrian Olympus. According to the fragment above quoted the condition of the dead was truly piteous; they had no food but dust and mud; their dwelling is sometimes called _bit-edi_, the "house of solitude," because in the life of misery and privation they lead no one takes any thought for others, his only care is to relieve his own troubles. Consequently there are no families nor any social or common life. The conscience protested against the injustice of confounding with the crowd those mortals who had distinguished themselves when alive by their exploits or virtues. Thus we find in a recently copied passage from the great epic of Izdubar, the Assyrian Hercules, that valiant soldiers--those no doubt who had fallen in the "Wars of Assur"--were rewarded for their prowess. As soon as they entered the shadow kingdom they were stretched upon a soft couch and surrounded by their relations. Their father and mother supported the head the enemy's sword had wounded, their wives stood beside them and waited on them with zeal and tenderness. They were refreshed and had their strength restored by the pure water of life. The idea of a final reward is expressed in still more unmistakable accents in a religious song of which two fragments have come down to us. The poet celebrates the felicity of the just taking his food with the gods and become a god himself:-- Wash thy hands, purify thy hands, The gods, thine elders, will wash and purify their hands; Eat the pure nourishment in the pure disks, Drink the pure water from the pure vases; Prepare to enjoy the peace of the just! * * * * * They have brought their pure water, Anat, the great spouse of Anou, Has held thee in her sacred arms; Iaou has transferred thee into a holy place; He has transferred thee from his sacred hands; He has transferred thee into the midst of honey and fat, He has poured magic water into thy mouth, And the virtue of the water has opened thy mouth. * * * * * As to where this paradise was placed we have no certain information. It could hardly have been a mere separate district of that abode of shades that is painted in such sombre colours. We must suppose that it was open to the sunlight; it was perhaps on one of the slopes of the _Northern Mountain_, in the neighbourhood of the luminous summit on which the gods and goddesses had their home. The idea of a reward for the just carries as its corollary that of a punishment for the unjust, but in spite of the logical connection between the two notions, we cannot affirm that the Elysium of these Semites had a Tartarus by its side. No allusion to such a place has been found in any of the texts already translated. On the other hand, we find some evidence that the Assyrians believed in the resurrection of the dead. Marduk and his spouse Zarpanitu often bear the title of "those who make the dead live again" (_muballith_ or _muballithat miti_ or _mituti_). The same epithet is sometimes given to other deities, especially to Istar. As yet we do not know when and under what conditions renewed life was to be granted. We need hardly add that the ideas that find expression in the Assyrian texts were by no means peculiar to the northern people. All Assyriologists agree that in everything connected with the intellect, the Assyrians invented nothing; they did nothing but adapt and imitate, translate and copy from the more prolific Chaldæans, who furnished as it were the bread upon which their minds were nourished. It is the Chaldee intellect that we study when we question the texts from the library of Assurbanipal. Other passages in these terra-cotta books help to complete and illustrate those from which we have, as it were, gained a first glimpse of the Assyrian Under-world; but we shall never, in all probability, know it as we already know that of the Egyptians. This is partly, perhaps, because it was less complex, and partly because the fascination it exercised over the mind of man was not so great. History contains no mention of a people more preoccupied with the affairs of the grave than the Egyptians. Doubtless the Chaldæans had to give a certain amount of their attention to the same problem, and we know that it was resolved in the same sense and by the same sequence of beliefs both on the banks of the Euphrates and on those of the Nile; but other questions were more attractive to the peoples of Mesopotamia. Their curiosity was roused chiefly by the phenomena of the skies, by the complicated phantasmagoria offered nightly in the depths above. These they set themselves to observe with patience and exactitude, and it is to the habits thus formed that they, in part at least, owed their scientific superiority and the honour they derive from the incontestable fact that they have furnished to modern civilization elements more useful and more readily assimilated than any other great people of the remote past. And yet the Semites of Chaldæa were not without myths relating to the abode of departed souls of which some features may be grasped. In order to get a better comprehension of them, we must not only look to the discovery and translation of new texts, but to the intelligent study of figured representations. At least this seems to be the lesson of a curious monument recently discovered.[439] People may differ as to the significance of this or that detail, but no one will deny that the plaque is religious and funerary in its general character, and that, whatever may have been its purpose, it is as a whole connected with the memory and worship of the dead, and therefore that this is the place for such remarks as we have to make upon it. The object in question is a bronze plaque, sculptured on both faces, which Péretié acquired at Hama in Northern Syria. The dealer from whom he bought it declared that it came into his hands from a peasant of Palmyra. As to where the latter found it we know nothing. In any case the oasis of Tadmor was a dependency of Mesopotamia as long as the power of the Chaldæan and Assyrian monarchies lasted, and the characteristic features of the work in question are entirely Assyrian. In that respect neither Péretié nor Clermont-Ganneau made any mistake. This plaque is a tall rectangle in shape. At its two upper angles there are salient rings or staples, apparently meant to receive a cord or chain. At the bottom it has a slight ledge, suggesting that it stood upon its base and was suspended at the same time. However this may have been, it should be carefully noticed that both of its faces were meant to be seen. The face we call the obverse is entirely occupied by the body of a fantastic quadruped, partly chiselled in slight relief, partly engraved. This monster is upright on his hind feet; his back is turned to the spectator, while the lower part of his body is seen almost in profile. He clings with his two fore feet to the upper edge of the plaque, and looks over it as over a wall. His fore paws and his head are modelled in the round. He has four wings; two large ones with imbricated feathers grow from his shoulders, while a smaller pair are visible beneath them. This arrangement we have already encountered in undoubted Assyrian monuments (see Figs. 8, 29, and 123). If we turn the plaque, we find ourselves face to face with the beast. His skull is depressed, his features hideous, his grinning jaws wrinkled like those of a lion or panther. His feline character is enforced by his formidable claws. The body, lithe and lean as that of a leopard, is covered with a reticulated marking. His upturned tail nearly touches his loins, while another detail of his person exactly reproduces the contours of a snake.[440] The hind feet are those of a bird-of-prey. [Illustration: FIG. 161.--Plaque of chiselled bronze. Obverse. From the _Revue archéologique_.] We must now describe the reverse of this singular monument (Fig. 162). In the first place its upper edge is surmounted by the claws and face of the beast just described, which thus dominates, as it were, the scenes depicted below. These scenes are divided by horizontal bands into four divisions, and those divisions are by no means arbitrary; they show us what the sculptor thought as to the four regions into which the Assyrian universe was divided. Those regions are the _heavens_, the _atmosphere_, the _earth_, and _hell_ or _hades_. The highest division is the narrowest of all. It only contains the stars and a few other symbols grouped almost exactly as we find them on not a few monuments of Mesopotamia.[441] The non-sidereal emblems in this division are, no doubt, the attributes of gods who live beside the stars in the depths of the firmament. [Illustration: FIG. 162.--Plaque of chiselled bronze. Reverse.] In the second division we find seven animal-headed personages passing from right to left. We need not stop to describe their appearance or gesture; we have already encountered them at Nineveh mounting guard at the palace gates (Figs. 6 and 7); they belong to the class of demons who, according to circumstances, are alternately the plagues and protectors of mankind. The place they occupy represents a middle region between heaven and earth, namely, the atmosphere, which was believed to be entirely peopled by these genii. The third division contains a funerary scene by which we are at once transported to earth. On the right there is a standard or candelabrum, and on the left a group of three figures. One of these appears to be a man, the other two have lions' heads and resemble the genii of the division above. The most important group, however, is the one in the middle. A man swathed in a kind of shroud is stretched on a bed, at the head and foot of which appear two of those personages, half man and half fish, in which the Oannes of Berosus has been recognized (Figs. 9 and 67).[442] The figure on the bed must be that of a corpse wrapped in those linen bandages of which so many fragments have been found in the tombs of Lower Chaldæa. The two fish-like gods brandish something over the corpse which appears, so far as it can be made out, to be a flower or bunch of grass. Their gesture appears to be one of benediction, like that of a modern priest with the holy-water-sprinkler. The lowest division is by far the most roomy of the four. It evidently represents the regions under the earth, and both its size and the complication of its arrangements show us that it was, in the opinion of the artist, more important than either of the three above it. The whole of its lower part is occupied by five fishes all swimming in one direction, a conventional symbol always employed by Assyrian artists to represent a river. The left bank is indicated by a raised line running from one side of the plaque to the other. On this bank towards the left of the relief there are two shrubs or reeds above which appears a group of objects whose character is not easily made out. Are they ideographic signs or funeral offerings? The latter more likely. At any rate we may distinguish vases, bottles, a small box or comb and especially the foot of a horse drawn with great precision. At the other end of this division a hideous monster advances on the river bank. Its semi-bestial, semi-human head is flat and scarred, with a broad upturned nose and a mouth reaching to the ears. The upper part of its body is that of a man, although its skin is seamed all over with short vertical lines meant to indicate hairs. One arm is raised and the other lowered, like those of the genii in the second division. His tail is upturned, his feet are those of a bird, and his wings show over his left shoulder. On the whole, the resemblance between this figure and the nondescript beast on the obverse of the plaque is so great that we are tempted to think that they both represent the same being. Upon the river and in the centre of this division a scene is going forward that takes up more than a third of the whole field. It is no doubt the main subject. A small boat glides down the stream, its poop adorned with the head of a quadruped, its prow with that of a bird. In this boat there is a horse, seen in profile and with its right fore leg bent at the knee. The attitude of this animal, which seems born down by a crushing weight, is to be explained by the rest of the composition. The poor quadruped bears on his back, in fact, the body of a gigantic and formidable divinity, who makes use of him not in the orthodox fashion but merely as a kind of pedestal; his or rather her right knee rests upon the horse's back while her left foot--which is that of a bird-of-prey--grasps the animal's head. The legs of this strange monster are human, and so is her body, but here, as in the personage walking by the river side, we find the short scratches that denote hair; her head is that of a lioness. For although her sex may appear doubtful to some it is difficult to explain the action of the two lion-cubs that spring towards her breasts otherwise than by M. Clermont-Ganneau's supposition that they are eager for nourishment. The bosom attacked by the two cubs is seen from in front, but the head above it is in profile, and so high that it rises above the line that divides this lower division from the one immediately above it. The jaws are open, that is to say they grin in harmony with those of the monster looking over the top of the plaque, with the genii of the third division and that of the river bank. All this, however, was insufficient to satisfy the artist's desire for a terror-striking effect, and in each hand of the goddess he has placed a long serpent which hangs vertically downwards, and shows by its curves that it is struggling in her grip. Between the limbs of the goddess and the horse's mane there is something that bears a vague resemblance to a scorpion. We cannot pretend to notice every detail of this curious monument as their explanation would lead us too far, and, with all the care we could give them, we should still have to leave some unexplained. We shall be satisfied with pointing out those features of the composition whose meaning seems to be clear. In the first place the division of the field into four zones should be noticed; it coincides with what we know of the Assyrian mode of dividing the universe among the powers of heaven, the demons, mankind, and the dead. The chief incident of the third zone shows us that, like the Egyptians, the Assyrians wished to assure themselves of the protection of some benevolent deity after death. In the Nile valley that protector was Osiris, in Mesopotamia Anou, Oannes, or Dagon, the fish god to whom man owed the advantages of civilization in this world and his safety in the next. The kingdom of shadows, into which he had to descend after death, was peopled with monstrous shapes, to give some idea of which sculptors had gone far afield among the wild beasts of the earth, and had brought together attributes and weapons that nature never combines in a single animal, such as the claws of the scorpion, the wings and talons of the eagle, the coils of the serpent, the mane and muzzle of the great carnivora. The conception which governs all this is similar to that of which we see the expression in those Theban tombs where the dead man prosecutes his voyage along the streams of Ament, and runs the gauntlet of the grimacing demons who would seize and destroy him but for the shielding presence of Osiris. And the resemblance is continued in the details. The boat is shaped like the Egyptian boats;[443] the river may be compared to the subterranean Nile of the Theban tombs, while it reminds us of the Styx and Acheron of the Grecian Hades. We remember too the line of the chant we have quoted: "There too stand the foundations of the earth, the meeting of the mighty waters." Certain obscure points that still exist in connection with the Chaldæo-Assyrian _inferno_ and with the personages by whom it is peopled, will, no doubt, be removed as the study of the remains progresses. We have been satisfied for the moment to explain, with the help of previous explorers, the notions of the Semites of Mesopotamia upon death and a second life, and to show that they did not differ sensibly from those of the Egyptians or of any other ancient people whose ideas are sufficiently known to us. NOTES: [419] See _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. chapter 3. [420] Upon the tombs found at Nimroud see LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. i. pp. 17-19 and p. 352; vol. ii. pp. 37, 38. Some funerary urns discovered at Khorsabad are figured in BOTTA, _Monument_, &c. plate 165. There is one necropolis in Assyria that, in the employment of terra-cotta coffins, resembles the graveyards of Chaldæa; it is that of Kaleh-Shergat, which has long been under process of rifling by the Arabs, who find cylinders, engraved stones, and jewels among its graves. PLACE judges from the appearance of the coffins and other objects found that this necropolis dates from the Parthian times (_Ninive_, vol. ii. pp. 183-185). LAYARD is of the same opinion (_Nineveh_, vol. ii. pp. 58, 154, 155). Mr. Rassam found tombs at Kouyundjik, but much too late to be Assyrian (LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, p. 198, note). Loftus found some bones in a roughly-built vault some seventeen feet below the level of the south-eastern palace at Nimroud, but he acknowledges he saw nothing to lead him to assign these remains to the Assyrian epoch more than to any other (_Travels and Researches_, p. 198). Layard was disposed to see in the long and narrow gallery cleared by him at Nimroud (in the middle of the staged tower that rises at the north-western corner of the mound) a sepulchral vault in which the body of a king must once have been deposited (_Discoveries_, pp. 126, 128), but he confesses that he found nothing in it, neither human remains nor any trace of sepulchral furniture. His conjecture is therefore entirely in the air, and he himself only puts it forth under all reserve. The difficulty of this inquiry is increased by the fact that the people of different religions by whom the Assyrians were succeeded always chose by preference to bury their dead at high levels. Even in our own day it is, as a rule, upon the heights studded over the plains that Christians, Mussulmans, and Yezidis establish their cemeteries; and these have become grave obstacles to the explorer in consequence of the natural disinclination on the part of the peasantry to disturb what may be the ashes of their ancestors. BENNDORF (_Gesichtshelme_, plate xiv. figs. 1 and 2) reproduces two golden masks similar to those found at Mycenæ, which were found, the one at Kouyundjik, the other at some unknown point in the same district; he mentions (pp. 66, 67) a third discovery of the same kind. But the character of the objects found with these masks seems clearly to show that the tombs from which they were taken were at least as late as the Seleucidæ, if not as the Roman emperors (Cf. HOFFMANN, in the _Archäologische Zeitung_ for 1878, pp. 25-27). [421] When we come to speak of Chaldæan sculpture, we shall give a reproduction of this relief. We cannot make much use of it in the present inquiry, because its meaning is so obscure. The stone is broken, and the imperfections of the design are such that we can hardly tell what the artist meant to represent. The two figures with baskets on their heads for instance--are they bringing funeral offerings, or covering with earth the heaped-up corpses on which they mount? [422] LAYARD, _Monuments_, 1st series, plates 14, 21, 26, 57, 64, &c. [423] In more than one battle scene do we find these birds floating over the heads of the combatants (LAYARD, _Monuments_, 1st series, plates 18, 22, 26, &c). We may also refer to the curious monument from Tell-lôh, in which vultures carrying off human heads and limbs in the clouds are represented. For an engraving of it see our chapter on Chaldæan sculpture. [424] See an article published by M. J. HALÉVY in the _Revue archéologique_, vol. xliv. p. 44, under the title: _L'Immortalité de l'Âme chez les Peuples sémitiques_. [425] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. ii. p. 184. [426] LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, pp. 198, 199. [427] LOFTUS especially speaks strongly upon this point (_Travels_, &c. p. 199). "By far the most important of these sepulchral cities is Warka, where the enormous accumulation of human remains proves that it was a peculiarly sacred spot, and that it was so esteemed for many centuries. It is difficult to convey anything like a correct notion of the piles upon piles of human relics which there utterly astound the beholder. Excepting only the triangular space between the three principal ruins, the whole remainder of the platform, the whole space between the walls, and an unknown extent of desert beyond them, are everywhere filled with the bones and sepulchres of the dead. There is probably no other site in the world which can compare with Warka in this respect; even the tombs of Ancient Thebes do not contain such an aggregate amount of mortality. From its foundation by Urukh until finally abandoned by the Parthians--a period of probably 2,500 years--Warka appears to have been a sacred burial-place!" [428] See the curious paper of M. E. LE BLANT entitled: _Tables égyptiennes à Inscriptions grecques_ (_Revue archéologique_, 1874). [429] In his sixth and seventh chapters LOFTUS gives a very interesting account of his visits to the sanctuaries of Nedjef and Kerbela. [430] The work he alludes to as his Assurioi logoi (i. 184). [431] HERODOTUS, i. 198. [432] See above, pp. 158-9 and fig. 49. The details that here follow are borrowed from the narrations of those who have explored the sepulchral mounds of lower Chaldæa. Perhaps the most important of these relations is that of Mr. J. E. TAYLOR, to which we have already referred so often (_Notes on the Ruins of Mugheir_, to which may be added his _Notes on Abou-Sharein and Tell-el-Lahm_, p. 413, in the same volume of the _Journal_). Cf. LOFTUS's eighteenth chapter (_Travels_, &c. p. 198) and the pages in LAYARD's _Discoveries_, from 556 to 561. [433] "Each of the Babylonians," says HERODOTUS (i. 195), "carries a seal and a walking-stick carved at the top into the form of an apple, a rose, a lily, an eagle, or something similar, for it is not their habit to use a stick without an ornament." [434] LOFTUS, _Travels_, p. 212. [435] See _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. p. 145, note 3. [436] _Les Fouilles de Chaldée, communication d'une Lettre de M. de Sarzec_, par LÉON HEUZEY, § 1 (in the _Revue archéologique_ for November, 1881). [437] _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. pp. 127 _et seq._ [438] M. OPPERT has translated this text in full in a work entitled: _L'Immortalité de l'Âme chez les Chaldéens_ (_Annales de philosophie chrétienne_, vol. viii. 1884), and he has reproduced his version with a few modifications of detail in _Fragments Mythologiques_ (Quantin, 1881, 18mo). M. HALÉVY has given long extracts from the same document in an article in the _Revue des Études Juives_ (October-December, 1881), entitled: _Les Inscriptions peintes de Citium_, § 2; he has returned to the same subject in an article in the _Revue archéologique_ (July, 1882), _L'Immortalité de l'Âme chez les Peuples sémitiques_. We reproduce his translation as the most recent. Herr SCHRADER has devoted a whole book to the translation and explanation of this same myth (_Die Hoellenfahrt der Istar_, Giessen, 1874). [439] See M. CLERMONT-GANNEAU'S _L'Enfer assyrien_, first part (_Revue archéologique_ vol. xxxviii. and plate xxv.). The second article, which should have contained the explanation of this little monument, has never appeared, to the great regret of all who appreciate the knowledge and penetration of that learned writer at their proper value. The first article is nothing but a detailed description, which we abridge. Certain doubts were expressed at the time of its publication as to the authenticity of this object; nothing, however, has happened to confirm them. Both in composition and execution it is excellent. M. Péretié, moreover, was not one to be easily deceived. M. Clermont-Ganneau described and illustrated this bronze plate from photographs, but since his paper appeared he has again visited the East and seen and handled the original. [440] M. CLERMONT-GANNEAU reminds us that this peculiarity is repeated in a monster on one of the Nimroud reliefs (see LAYARD, _Monuments_, series ii. plate 3). [441] See above, p. 72, and Figs. 3, 10, 11, 12. See also the notes to M. Clermont-Ganneau's article. He has no difficulty in showing how general was the use of these emblems. [442] See page 65. [443] Compare Figs. 23, 31, and especially 159 and 209 of _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. § 2.--_The Chaldæan Tomb._ The principle of the Chaldæan sepulchre was similar to that of the Egyptian mastaba or hypogeum; it had to supply the same wants and to render the same services; the task imposed upon the architect was in each case governed by the same general idea. Why then have we found nothing in Mesopotamia that may be compared, even at the most respectful distance, with the splendid tomb-houses of the Theban necropolis, nor even with those of Phoenicia, Asia Minor, or Etruria? The reason for the difference is easily told; it is to be found in the nature and configuration of the country itself. There were no mountains in whose sides tomb-chambers could be cut, and in the loose permeable soil of the plain it would have been practically impossible to establish pits that should be at once spacious and durable. We shall find, no doubt, in almost every country, sepulchres constructed above the soil like palaces and temples. In Egypt we have already encountered the pyramid, but even there the tomb-chamber is in most cases cut in the rock itself, and the huge mass of stone above it is nothing more than a sort of colossal lid. Funerary architecture is not content, like that of civil or religious buildings, to borrow its materials from the rock; it cuts and chisels the living rock itself. In every country the first idea that seems to occur to man, when he has the mortal remains of his own people to make away with, is to confide them to the earth. In mountainous countries rock is everywhere near the soil and rises through it here and there, especially on the slopes of the hills. It is as a rule both soft enough to be easily cut with a proper tool, and hard enough, or at least sufficiently capable of hardening when exposed to the air, faithfully to preserve any form that may be given to it. As soon as man emerged from barbarism and conceived the desire to carry with him into the next world the goods he had enjoyed in this, the hastily cut hole of the savage became first an ample chamber and then a collection of chambers. It became a richly furnished habitation, a real palace. But even then the features that distinguish a house of the living from one of the dead were carefully preserved. The largest of the tombs in the Biban-el-Molouk is no more than the development of the primitive grave. As for those tombs in which the sepulchral chamber is above the ground, as in the famous Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, they are merely brilliant exceptions, embodiments of princely caprice or architectural ambition. Funerary architecture is, in virtue of its destination, a subterranean architecture, an architecture of the rock. The countries in which it has been managed with the greatest power and originality are those whose soil lent itself most kindly to the work of excavation. The limestone and sandstone chains of the Nile valley, the abrupt flanks of Persian ravines, of Cappadocian and Lycian hillsides, and the rocky slopes of Greece and Etruria, were excellently fitted for the work of the funerary architect. If the civilization of the Mesopotamian Semites had originated in the country above Nineveh, at the foot of those hills in which the Tigris has its springs, the fathers of the people would perhaps have cut tomb chambers like those of Egypt in the soft gypsum, and, in later years, their descendants, instead of breaking entirely with the traditions of the past would have raised _tumuli_ in the plains and constructed within them brick chambers to take the place of vaults cut in the living rock. Chaldæa would then have been dotted over with sepulchral mounds like those with which the steppes of central Russia are covered. Nothing of the kind has as yet been discovered; none of the _tells_ or mounds of sun-dried bricks have yet been identified as tombs, and that is because, as we have seen, the course of civilization was from south to north; the first impulse came from the shores of the Persian Gulf, from the people inhabiting alluvial plains consisting merely of sand and broken stone. From the very first hour these people had to compel clay, kneaded and dried in the sun or the brick kiln, to render the services which are demanded from stone elsewhere. They were content therefore with entombing their dead either in small brick vaults, under large terra-cotta covers, or in coffins of the latter material. The tomb chamber illustrated in our Fig. 89 may be taken as a type. It is five feet high by seven feet long, and three feet seven inches wide. The vault is closed at the top by a single row of bricks and at each end by a double wall of the same material. There are no doors. The tombs once shut must have been inaccessible. The structure was put together with such care that neither dust nor water could get within it. Some of these graves, and among them this particular one, inclosed only one skeleton. Taylor found fourteen clay vases in it, not to mention other objects such as a walking stick, rings, cylinders, and bronze cups. Besides these there was a gold waist-band about an inch wide, showing it to be the grave of a rich man. In other tombs as many as three, four, and even eleven skeletons were found. In these the brick under the head and the bronze cup in the hand were sometimes missing, but the water jars were always there. [Illustration: FIG. 163.--Tomb at Mugheir; from Taylor.] In other parts of the same cemetery the dead instead of being placed in a vault were laid upon an area paved with large well burnt bricks and covered with a huge terra-cotta lid. These lids were in several pieces, joined together with reeds soaked in bitumen. We give a section (Fig. 163) and elevation (Fig. 164) of one of these peculiar sepulchres. The whole was about seven feet long, three high, and three wide. The body of the lid is formed of several rings decreasing in thickness with their distance from the ground. The top is an oval plateau divided into eight symmetrical compartments by flat bands. The skeleton always lies on its side, generally the left, the limbs being drawn up as shown in the engraving (163). Taylor gives a complete list of the objects found in this tomb together with notes as to their exact position. [Illustration: FIG. 164.--Tomb at Mugheir; from Taylor.] [Illustration: FIG. 165.--Tomb at Mugheir; from Taylor.] Sometimes the covering is more simple in construction and has a domed top (Fig. 165). Elsewhere in the same necropolis numerous examples of a still more elementary form of burial were discovered. The skeletons of children were found between two hollow plates, and full grown bodies in a kind of double vase into which they could only have been thrust with some difficulty and that after being doubled up. Still more often coffins were of the form shown in our Fig. 166. The diameter of these cylindrical jars was about two feet. The joint between them was sealed with bitumen. At one end there was a hole to allow the gases generated by decomposition to escape. None of these coffins contained more than one skeleton, but narrow as they were room had been found for the vases and dishes. These were mostly of earthenware, but a few of bronze were also encountered. Each coffin held an arrow-head of the latter material, while the feet and hands of the skeleton were adorned with iron rings. In several cases the remains of gold ornaments, of sculptured ivories and engraved shells, were discovered. [Illustration: FIG. 166.--Tomb, or coffin, at Mugheir; from Taylor.] Finally the fashion seems to have changed, and a more elegant form of coffin to have come into use. It was still of terra-cotta, but its surface was covered with a rich glaze originally blue but now mostly of a dark green. Here and there, on the parts shielded best from the atmosphere, the blue has preserved its colour. The general shape of these coffins is that of a shoe or slipper; the oval opening through which the body was introduced has a grooved edge for the adjustment of the lid. The small hole for the escape of gas is at the narrow end. This type seems to date from the last centuries of antiquity rather than from the time of the Chaldæan Empire; its examples are found close to the surface of the cemeteries, whence we may fairly conclude that they were the last accessions. It is still more significant that the images stamped upon the panels with which the lids are decorated have little to remind us of the bas-reliefs of Assyria and Chaldæa, and it is not until we turn to the medals of the Parthians and Sassanids that we find anything to which they can be readily compared.[444] In the cemeteries of Lower Chaldæa the various receptacles for human dust that we have described are heaped vertically one upon another, so that with the passage of time they have formed huge mounds covering vast spaces and rising conspicuously above the plain (see Fig. 167, letter c). Loftus tells us that at Warka he dug trenches between thirty and forty feet deep without reaching the lowest stratum of sepulchres. There was no apparent order in their arrangement. Sometimes brick divisions were found for a certain length, as if used to separate the tombs of one family from those of another. A layer of fine dust, spread evenly by the winds from the desert, separated the coffins. Terra-cotta cones inscribed with prayers had been thrown into the interstices. Sometimes, as at Mugheir, the mound thus formed is surmounted by a paved platform upon which open the drains that traverse the mass.[445] In most cases these mounds have been turned over in all their upper parts by the Arabs. It is probable that in ancient days each of these huge cemeteries had priests and superintendents told off to watch over them, to assign his place to each new comer, and to levy fees like those paid in our day to the mollahs attached to the Mosques of Nedjef and Kerbela. They guarded the integrity of the mound, and when it had reached the regulation height, caused it to be paved and finally closed. In none of these cemeteries has any tomb been discovered that by its size, richness, or isolation, proclaimed itself the burial place of royalty, and yet the sovereigns of Mesopotamia must have had something analogous to the vast and magnificent sepulchres of the Egyptian kings. Their tombs must at least have been larger and more splendid than those of private individuals. In the case of Susiana we know that it was so through an inscription of Assurbanipal. The Assyrian king gives a narrative of his campaign. He tells us how his soldiers penetrated into the sacred forests and set fire to them, and then to show more clearly with how stern a vengeance he had visited the revolted Elamites, he added: "The tombs both of their ancient and their modern kings, of those kings who did not fear Assur and Istar, my lords, and had troubled the kings, my fathers, I threw them down, I demolished them, I let in the light of the sun upon them, then I carried away their corpses into Assyria. I left their shades without sepulture and deprived them of the offerings of those who owed them libations."[446] If the Elamite dynasty had its royal necropolis near Susa, in which funerary rites were celebrated down to the moment of the Assyrian conquest, it could hardly have been otherwise with the powerful and pious monarchies of Chaldæa. History has in fact preserved a few traditions of the royal sepulchres of that country. Herodotus mentions the tomb of that Queen Nitocris to whom he attributes so many great works;[447] it is supposed that she was an Egyptian princess and the wife of Nabopolassar. According to the historian she caused a sepulchral chamber to be constructed for herself in the walls of Babylon, above one of the principal gates. So far as the terms of the inscription are concerned he may have been hoaxed by the native dragomans, but there is nothing to rouse our scepticism in the fact of a tomb having been contrived in the thickness of the wall. At Sinkara Loftus discovered two corbel-vaulted tombs imbedded in a mass of masonry which had apparently served as basement to a temple rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar.[448] Some of the Babylonian princes, however, were buried in that part of the Chaldæan territory that was inclosed by the Euphrates and Tigris and contained most of the cemeteries of which we have been speaking. According to Arrian, Alexander, on his way back from Lake Pallacopas, passed close to the tomb of one of the ancient kings, "They say," adds the historian, "that most of the former kings of Assyria were buried among the lakes and swamps."[449] [Illustration: FIG. 167.--Map of the ruins of Mugheir; from Taylor. H, H, H, H, circumference of 2,946 yards; _a_, platform of house; _b_, pavement at edge of platform; _c_, tomb mound; _d, e, g, h, k, l, m_, points at which excavations were made; _f, f, f, f_, comparatively open space with very low mounds; _n, n_, graves; _o_, the great two-storied ruin.] Loftus suggests that these royal tombs should be sought at Warka, but he found no ruin to which any such character could be certainly assigned. The only mention of a royal Assyrian tomb in history is of a kind that tells us nothing. "Semiramis," says Diodorus, "buried Ninus within the boundary walls of the palace, she raised a mound of extraordinary size over his tomb; Ctesias says it was nine stades high and ten wide. The town stretching to the middle of the plain, near the Euphrates,[450] the funerary mound was conspicuous at many stades' distance like an acropolis; they tell me that it still exists although Nineveh was overthrown by the Medes when they destroyed the Assyrian empire." The exaggerations in which Ctesias indulged may here be recognized. It is impossible to take seriously statements which make the tomb of Ninus some 5,500 feet high and 6,100 in diameter. The history of Ninus and Semiramis as Ctesias tells it, is no more than a romantic tale like those of the _Shah-Nameh_. All that we may surely gather from the passage in question is that, at the time of Ctesias, and perhaps a little later, the remains of a great staged-tower were to be seen among the ruins of Nineveh. The popular imagination had dubbed this the tomb of Ninus, just as one of the great heaps of debris that now mark the site is called the tomb of Jonah. All that has hitherto been recovered in the way of Mesopotamian tomb architecture is of little importance so far as beauty is concerned, and we may perhaps be blamed for dwelling upon these remains at such length in a history of art. But we had our reasons for endeavouring to reunite and interpret the scanty facts by which some light is thrown on the subject. Of all the creations of man, his tomb is that, perhaps, which enables us to penetrate farthest into his inner self; there is no work of his hands into which he puts more of his true soul, in which he speaks more naively and with a more complete acknowledgment of his real beliefs and the bases of his hopes. To pass over the Chaldæan tomb in silence because it is a mediocre work of art would be to turn a blind eye to the whole of one side of the life of a great people, a people whose _rôle_ in the development of the ancient civilization was such as to demand that we should leave no stone unturned to make ourselves masters of their every thought. NOTES: [444] LOFTUS, _Travels_, &c., pp. 203-4. The British Museum possesses several fine specimens of these glazed-ware coffins. The details given by LOFTUS (chapter xx.), upon the necropolis of Sinkara may be read with interest. [445] See above, p. 158, and fig. 49. [446] M. Stanislas GUYARD published a translation of this passage in the _Journal asiatique_, for May-June, 1880, p. 514; some terms which had remained doubtful, were explained by M. AMIAUD, in the same journal for August-September, 1881, p. 237. [447] HERODOTUS, i. 187. [448] LOFTUS, _Travels_, &c., pp. 248-9. [449] ARRIAN, _Anabasis_, vii. 22. [450] DIODORUS, ii. 7, 1-2. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE. § 1.--_Attempts to restore the Principal Types._ In spite of all our researches we have not succeeded in finding in the whole of Mesopotamia a real sepulchre, a tomb on which the talent of the architect has been lavished as well as the structural skill of the builder. The Chaldæans and Assyrians made greater efforts when they had to honour a god than when they were called upon to provide a lodging for their dead. Of all the structures they raised, their temples seem to have been the most ambitious in height and in grandeur of proportion though not in extent of ground covered. This the classic writers tell us, and their assertions are confirmed in more than one particular by documents written in the Assyrian language. We can also check their statements to some extent by the study of the monuments themselves or rather of their somewhat scanty remains. We shall seek in vain for ruins that may be compared to those of the Egyptian sanctuaries. The nature of the materials employed in the valley of the Euphrates made the degradation of a building and the obliteration of its lines far more rapid than elsewhere. And yet in many cases the almost formless aspect of structures once so greatly admired, does not prevent those who know how to crossexamine them from restoring many of their former arrangements; and both in the bas-reliefs and in some very small monuments we find certain sculptured sketches that have been recognized as representing temples. These sketches are very imperfect and very much abridged: the ruins themselves are confused; of the Greek and Assyrian texts some are short and vague, others excite our scepticism. Without wishing to deny the value of the methods employed or the importance of the results obtained, we can hardly believe that the certainty with which technical terms are translated is well founded. There are some of these terms which if they occurred in a Greek inscription would cause no little embarrassment by their purely special character, and that even to one who might unite in his single person the qualifications of a Greek scholar with those of an architect or sculptor. We hope, though we hardly expect to see our hope realized, that some day a Mesopotamian temple may be found in good preservation. Until then we cannot give to our restorations of such buildings anything approaching the accuracy or completeness so easily attained when the great religious edifices of Greece or Egypt are in question. We find none of those well defined elements, those clear and precise pieces of information which elsewhere allow us to obliterate the injuries worked by time and human enemies. The foot of every wall is heaped about with such formless masses of brick and brick dust, that it is almost impossible to make full explorations or to take exact measurements. One must be content with an approximation to the truth. With the one exception of the staged tower at Khorsabad, we shall not attempt to give a single restoration in the proper sense of the word. Not that we mean to say that the different temple models given in our Plates II., III., and IV., and in our Fig. 173, are creations of our fancy. No one of the four pretends to reconstruct one famous building more than another. They are abstract types, each representing, in its general features, one of the varieties into which Assyro-Chaldæan temples may be divided. The arrangements in which the originality of each type consists were only fixed by M. Chipiez after long researches. In each case he has taken for his point of departure either a Greek or Assyrian text, a sculptured relief, or facts gleaned by the examination of original sites; in most cases he has been able to supplement and correct the information gained from one of these sources by that from another. He has thus entered into the spirit of Mesopotamian architecture, and restored the chief forms it put on in its religious buildings according to time and district. He cannot say that all the details figured were found united, as they may be here, on a single building; but they are not inventions, no one of them is without authority, and the use to which they are put has been decided by the examination of actual remains. We may say the same of proportions. These are the result of study and of the collation of one ruin and one piece of evidence with another; they have not been taken from any single building. Finally there were certain details, such as the trace and elevation of the ramps, that were full of difficulty. M. Chipiez arrived at the solution finally adopted by an inductive process, by carefully weighing the obvious conditions of the problem and choosing those arrangements by which its requirements seemed most simply and conveniently met. In virtue of their general character M. Chipiez's restorations reach a high degree of probability. They may be compared, if we may use the expression, to those triumphs of historical synthesis in which no attempt is made to narrate events as they occurred and in all their details, but in which a whole people lives, and the character of a whole century is summed up, in a picture whose every line and colour is borrowed from reality.[451] In spite of their apparent variety, all the buildings we shall describe in the present chapter may be referred to a single fundamental type. They are each formed of several cubic masses superimposed one upon another and diminishing in volume in proportion to their height in the monument. We have already explained how such a system came to be adopted.[452] It was determined by the limitations of the only material at the architect's disposal, and it had at least this advantage, that it enabled him to relieve the monotony of the Chaldæan plains with artificial mountains whose vast size and boldness of line were calculated to impress the minds of the people, and to give them a great idea of their master's power and of the majesty of the deities in whose honour they were raised. [Illustration: FIG. 168.--View of the Birs Nimroud; after Felix Thomas.] Mesopotamia was covered, then, by buildings resembling a stepped pyramid in their general outlines. We find them in the reliefs (Fig. 10), and in the oldest cities we can frequently recognize the confused ruins of their two or three lower stories. Our only doubt is connected with the possible use of these buildings, the _zigguratts_ of the Assyrian texts. We shall not here stop to recapitulate the evidence in favour of their religious character; it will suffice to quote the description given by Herodotus of the temple of Bel or Belus at Babylon. As to whether the ruins of that building are to be identified with _Babil_ (Fig. 37) or the _Birs-Nimroud_ (Fig. 168) we shall inquire presently. This is the description of Herodotus:-- "In the other (fortress) was the sacred precinct of Jupiter Belus, a square inclosure two furlongs each way with gates of solid brass; which was also remaining in my time. In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of solid masonry, a furlong in length and breadth, upon which was raised a second tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers. When one is about half way up one finds a resting-place and seats, where persons are wont to sit some time on their way to the summit. On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple, and inside the temple stands a couch of unusual size, richly adorned with a golden table by its side. There is no statue of any kind set up in the place nor is the chamber occupied of nights by any one but a single native woman.... Below in the same precinct there is a second temple, in which is a sitting figure of Jupiter all of gold ... outside the temple are two altars."[453] This description is, of course, very short; it omits many details that we should have wished to find in it; but like nearly all the descriptions of Herodotus it is very clear. The old historian saw well, and his mind retained what he saw. From his recital it is plain that this was the finest of the Babylonian temples, and that even when partly ruinous, under the successors of Alexander, its colossal dimensions were yet able to astonish foreign visitors. We may, then, take it as the type of the Chaldæan temple, as the finest religious building in the first city of Mesopotamia. Nebuchadnezzar reconstructed it and made it higher and richer in its ornamentation than before, but he kept to the ancient foundations and made no change in the general character of the plan. In this single edifice were gathered up all the threads of a long tradition; it was, as it were, the supreme effort, the last word of the national art: and Herodotus declares plainly that it was a staged tower. Such an assertion puts the matter beyond a doubt, and enables us to point to the staged tower as the form chosen by these people and made use of throughout their civilization for the buildings raised in honour of their gods. And having dismissed this fundamental question we have now to give a rapid description of the principal varieties of the type as they have been established by M. Chipiez. And as we go on we shall point out the authorities for each restoration; whether the ruins themselves, the inscribed texts, or the sculptured reliefs. [Illustration: FIGS. 169-171.--Longitudinal section, plan and horizontal section of the rectangular type of Chaldæan temple.] In the first line we must place the RECTANGULAR CHALDÆAN TEMPLE (Plate II. and Figs. 169, 170, and 171). We have put it first because the remains from which it has been reconstructed have all been found in Lower Chaldæa, that is, amongst the oldest of the Chaldæan cities. As we learn from the texts, these temples were repaired under the last kings of Babylon, and it was their antiquity that made them dear both to the people and their kings. We may believe, therefore, that in restoring them care was taken to preserve their ancient features. It would be the upper part of their retaining walls that required renewal, and these would be rebuilt on their ancient foundations. Here and there the latter exist even at the present day, and the names of the earliest Chaldæan princes may be read upon their bricks.[454] [Illustration: PLATE II. RECTANGULAR CHALDÆAN TEMPLE Restored by Ch. Chipiez.] The remains studied by Messrs. Taylor and Loftus at Warka (Fig. 172), Abou-Sharein, and Mugheir have furnished the chief elements for our restoration, which bears a strong resemblance to the ruin at Warka called Bouvariia (A on the map), and one still stronger to that temple at Mugheir whose present state is shown in our Figs. 48 and 143. This first type is characterized by the form of its lower, and the situation of its upper, stages. The latter are not placed in the centre of the platform on which they stand; they are thrown back much nearer to one of the two shorter sides than to the other, so that the building has a front and a back. The front is almost entirely taken up with wide staircases.[455] The staircase leading from the first story to the second must alone have been concealed in the interior of the building, an arrangement which avoided the necessity for breaking up the ample solidity of that imposing stage (see Plate II.). [Illustration: FIG. 172.--Map of Warka with its ruins; from Loftus. A, Bouvariia; B, Wuswas; C, ruin from the Parthian epoch; D, building decorated with coloured cones (see page 279).] The surroundings of the temple in our plate--the background of slightly undulating plain, the houses similar to those found by Taylor and Loftus, in which they discovered vaulted passages traversing the thickness of the walls[456]--are, of course, purely imaginary. The temple itself, like the palace at Khorsabad, was raised on a vast platform upon which the city walls abutted. This platform was reached by wide flights of steps.[457] Lateral ramps led to a second platform, inclosed on every side, with which the sacred part of the building, the Haram, began. We have already spoken of the panelled ornament with which the great, flat surfaces of its walls were relieved.[458] The lowest stage of the temple was provided with buttresses like those that still exist in the temple of Mugheir (Fig. 43). A high, rectangular plinth--decorated in our restoration with glazed faïence[459]--was interposed between the first and second stage.[460] A rectangular chapel decorated, in all probability, with metal plaques and glazed polychromatic bricks, crowned the whole. Traces of this chapel have been found at Mugheir, and the wealth of its decoration is attested by many pieces of evidence.[461] At Abou-Sharein also there are vestiges of a small and richly ornamented sanctuary crowning the second stage of a ruin whose aspect now bears a distinct resemblance to that of the temple at Mugheir. The triple row of crenellations we have given to this sanctuary or chapel was suggested by the altars and obelisks (Fig. 107 and 111). Here, as at Nineveh, these battlements must have been the one universal finish to the walls. The use to which we have put them is quite in harmony with the spirit of Mesopotamian architecture, but there is no direct evidence of their presence in these buildings. In this particular our restoration is conjectural. A glance at our longitudinal section (Fig. 169) will show that we have left the main body of this great mass of sun-dried brick absolutely solid. It was in vain that, at Mugheir, trenches and shafts were cut through the flanks of the ruin, not a sign of any apartment or void of the most elementary kind was found.[462] This Mugheir temple rises hardly more than fifty feet above the level of the plain. The restoration by M. Chipiez, for which it furnished the elements, shows a height of 135 feet; judging from the proportions of its remains the building can hardly have been higher than that. But it is certain that many temples reached a far greater height, otherwise their size could not have made any great impression upon travellers who had seen the Egyptian pyramids. Even now the Birs-Nimroud, which has been undergoing for so many centuries a continual process of diminution, rises no less than 235 feet above the surrounding country,[463] and Strabo, the only Greek author who says anything precise as to the height of the greatest of the Babylonian monuments, writes thus: "This monument, which was, they say, overthrown by Xerxes, was a square pyramid of burnt brick, one stade (606-3/4 feet) high, and one stade in diameter."[464] The arrangement by which such a height could be most easily reached would be the superposition of square masses one upon another, each mass being centrally placed on the upper surface of the one below it. The weight would be more equally divided and the risks of settlement more slight than in any other system. Of this type M. Chipiez has restored two varieties. We shall first describe the simpler of the two, which we may call the SQUARE SINGLE-RAMPED CHALDÆAN TEMPLE (Figs. 173, 174, 175, 176). The principal elements for this restoration have been taken from the staged tower at Khorsabad known as the _Observatory_, but M. Chipiez has expanded its dimensions until they almost reach those ascribed to the temple of Bel by Strabo. Moreover, he had to decide a delicate question which the discovery of the Khorsabad _Observatory_, where only the four lower stages remained, had done nothing to solve, namely the plan and inclination of the ramp. In M. Thomas's restoration of the Khorsabad tower, the last section of the ramp at the top, is parallel to that at the bottom, and the crowning platform is not exactly upon the central axis of the building.[465] In M. Chipiez's restoration the top platform is in the centre, like those below it, and the upper end of his ramp is vertically over the spot where it leaves the ground. This result has been obtained by a peculiar arrangement of the inclined plane which must have been known to the Mesopotamian architects, seeing how great was their practice and how desirable, in their eyes, was the symmetrical aspect which it alone could give. We have suggested the varied colours of the different stages by changes of tone in our engraving. In spite of the words of Herodotus M. Chipiez has only given his tower seven stages, because that number seems to have been sacred and traditional, and Herodotus may very well have counted the plinth or the terminal chapel in the eight mentioned in his description. Bearing in mind a passage in Diodorus--"At the summit Semiramis placed three statues of beaten gold, Zeus, Hera, and Rhea"[466]--we have crowned its apex with such a group. The phrase of Herodotus, "Below ... there is a second temple," has led us to introduce chapels contrived in the interior of the mass and opening on the ramp at the fifth and sixth stories. There is nothing to forbid the idea that such chambers were much more numerous than this, and opened, sometimes on one, sometimes on another, of the four faces. [Illustration: FIG. 173.--Type of square, single-ramped Chaldæan temple. Compiled by Ch. Chipiez.] The buildings at the lower part of our engraving are imaginary, but they are by no means improbable. Among them may be distinguished the wide flights of steps and inclined planes by which the platform on which the temple stood was reached.[467] At the foot of the temple on the right of the engraving there is a palace, on the left two obelisk-shaped steles and a small temple of a type to be presently described. Behind the tower stretch away the waters of a lake. Nebuchadnezzar, in one of his inscriptions, speaks of surrounding the temple he had built with a lake. [Illustration: FIGS. 174-176.--Transverse section, plan, and horizontal section of a square, single-ramped, Chaldæan Temple.] [Illustration: FIGS. 177-179.--Transverse section, plan, and horizontal section of a square, double-ramped Chaldæan Temple.] In seeking to vary the effect produced by these external ramps, the idea of a more complicated arrangement than the one last noticed may have occurred to the Chaldees. This M. Chipiez has embodied in his restoration of a SQUARE DOUBLE-RAMPED CHALDÆAN TEMPLE (Plate III. and Figs. 177, 178, and 179). As in the last model, there are seven stages, each stage being square on plan, but the difference consists in the use of two ramps leading from base to summit. Each of these keeps to its own side of the building, only approaching the other on the front and back façades at the fourth, fifth, and sixth stages (see Plate III). In order that the building as a whole should have a symmetrical and monumental appearance, it was necessary that all its seven stages--with the exception of the first, to which a rather different _rôle_ was assigned--should be of equal height. But their length and width differed in proportion to their height in the building. The continual shortening of the distance within which the incline had to be packed, would, if we suppose each ramp confined to one side of the tower, have required the slope to become steeper with each story. Such a want of parallelism would have been very ugly, and there was but one means of avoiding it, and that was to continue the ramps nearly to the centre of the front at the fourth and sixth stages, and to the centre of the posterior façade at the fifth. The advantages of such an arrangement are obvious. Banished mostly to the flanks the double ramp left four stages clear both at front and back, providing an ample promenade. On the other three it showed itself just sufficiently to "furnish" the building and diversify its aspect without in any way encumbering it. The whole structure terminated in a chapel placed on the central axis of the tower, and surmounted by a cupola. The inscriptions mention the dome covered with leaves of chiselled gold which crowned at Babylon that temple "to the foundations of the earth" which was restored by Nebuchadnezzar.[468] [Illustration: PLATE III. CHALDÆAN TEMPLE SQUARE ON PLAN AND WITH DOUBLE RAMP Restored by Ch. Chipiez.] In these texts another sanctuary included in the same building and placed half way between the base and summit is mentioned. This was the sepulchral chamber of Bel-Merodach in which his oracle was consulted; in M. Chipiez's restoration the entrance to this sanctuary is placed in the middle of the fifth story. The vast esplanade about the base of the temple was suggested by the description of Herodotus. It is borne by two colossal plinths flanked and retained by buttresses. In our plate the lower of these two plinths is only hinted at in the two bottom corners. In the distance behind the temple itself may be seen one of those embattled walls which divided Babylon into so many fortresses, and, still farther away, another group of large buildings surrounded by a wall and the ordinary houses of the city. This double-ramped type is at once the most beautiful and the most workmanlike of those offered by these staged towers. With a single ramp we get a tower whose four faces are repetitions of each other, but here we have a true façade, on which a happy contrast is established between the unbroken stages and those upon which the ramps appear--between oblique lines and lines parallel with the soil. The building gains in repose and solidity, and its true scale becomes more evident than when the eye is led insensibly from base to summit by a monotonous spiral. [Illustration: FIGS. 180-182.--Square Assyrian temple. Longitudinal section, horizontal section and plan.] We cannot positively affirm that the architects of Mesopotamia understood and made use of the system just described; there is no positive evidence on the point.[469] It contains, however, nothing but a logical development from the premises, nothing but what is in perfect keeping with Mesopotamian habits, nothing that involves difficulties of execution or construction beyond those over which we know them to have triumphed. Besides, we have proofs that they were not content to go on servilely reproducing one and the same type for twenty centuries; their temples were not all shaped in the same mould. The type of the Mugheir temple differed sensibly from that of the Khorsabad _Observatory_. One of the Kouyundjik sculptures reveals a curious variant of the traditional theme, so far as Assyria was concerned, in an arrangement of the staged tower that we should never have suspected but for the survival of this relief (Fig. 34). The picture in question is no doubt very much abridged and far from true to the proportions of the original, but yet it has furnished M. Chipiez with the elements of a restoration in which conjecture has had very little to say. This we have called the SQUARE ASSYRIAN TEMPLE (see Plate IV. and Figs. 180-182). [Illustration: PLATE IV. SQUARE ASSYRIAN TEMPLE Restored by Ch. Chipiez.] According to the relief the tower itself rises upon a dome-shaped mound in front of which there are a large doorway and two curved ramps. From all that we know of Assyrian buildings of this kind we may be sure that the original of the picture was so placed. The form of the mound may be described as reproducing the extrados of a depressed arch. This is the only form on which flights of steps with a curve similar to that here shown could be constructed. The design of the steps in our plate corresponds exactly to that indicated more roughly by the sculptor; no other means of affording convenient access to the base of the tower--at least outside the mound--could have been contrived. Two doors were pierced at the head of the steps through the large panels with which the lower stage of the tower itself was decorated, and from that point, so far as we can tell from the relief, the ascent was continued by means of internal staircases. The sculptor has only shown three stages, but--unless the absence of anything above has been caused by the mutilation of the slab--we may suppose that he has voluntarily suppressed a fourth.[470] In any case the third story is too large to have formed the apex of the tower. The general proportions suggest at least one more stage for the support of the usual chapel. The latter we have restored as a timber structure covered with metal plates, skins, or coloured planks. The three stages immediately below the chapel we have decorated with painted imitations of panels, carried out either in fresco or glazed brick. As for the internal arrangements we know very little. The great doorway with which the mound itself is prefaced in the relief must have led to some apartment worthy of its size and importance; we have therefore pierced the mass in our section with a suite of several chambers. At the second story another doorway occurs; it is much smaller and more simple, and the chamber to which it led must have been comparatively unimportant. In our Fig. 180 it is restored as the approach to the internal staircase. In order to vary the framework of our restorations and to show Assyrian architecture in as many aspects as possible, we have placed this temple within a fortified wall, like that of Khorsabad. Within a kind of bastion towards the left of the plate we have introduced one of those small temples of which remains have been found at Khorsabad and Nimroud. The walls of the town form a continuation of those about the temple. In front of the principal entrance to the sacred inclosure we have set up a commemorative stele. * * * * * Aided by these restorations we hope to have given a clearer and more vivid idea of Chaldæan art than if we had confined ourselves to describing the scanty remains of their religious buildings. We have now to give a rapid review of those existing ruins whose former purposes and arrangements may still to a certain extent be traced. NOTES: [451] These restorations of the principal types of Chaldæan temples were exhibited by M. CHIPIEZ in the Salon of 1879, under the title _Tours à Étages de la Chaldée et de l'Assyrie_. [452] Chapter II. § 2. [453] HERODOTUS, i, 181-3, Rawlinson's version. By Jupiter, or rather Zeus, we must understand Bel-Merodach. Diodorus calls the god of the temple Zeus Belus. [454] LOFTUS, _Travels_, &c., p. 131. See also TAYLOR's papers in vol. xv. of the _Royal Asiatic Society's Journal_. [455] LOFTUS, (p. 129). "It rather struck me, however, from the gradual inclination from top to base, that a grand staircase of the same width as the upper story, occupied this side of the structure." [456] LOFTUS, _Travels_, &c., p. 133. [457] At Warka, around the ruin called _Wuswas_ by the Arabs, LOFTUS traced the plan of these great courtyards and platforms (_Travels_, p. 171). [458] See above, p. 246, figs. 100 and 102. [459] Numerous pieces of glazed tile were found in these ruins. [460] The idea of this plinth was suggested to M. Chipiez by a remark made on page 129 of LOFTUS's _Travels_: "Between the stories is a gradual stepped incline about seven feet in perpendicular height, which may however, be accidental, and arise from the destruction of the upper part of the lower story." [461] See TAYLOR, _Journal_, &c., pp. 264-5. [462] LOFTUS, _Travels_, p. 130. It was the same with the _Observatory_ at Khorsabad. [463] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 495. [464] The authorities made use of by Strabo for his description of Babylon, all lived in the time of Alexander and his successors; no one of them could have seen the temple intact and measured its height. Founded upon tradition or upon the inspection of the remains, the figure given by the geographer can only be approximate. I should think it is probably an exaggeration. [465] See PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii, plate 37. [466] DIODORUS, ii, 9, 5. [467] These courts must have been at certain times of the day the meeting place of large numbers of the population, like the courtyards of a modern mosque. Shops in which religious emblems and other _objèts-de-piété_ were sold would stand about them, just as in the present day the traveller finds a regular fair in the courtyard of the mosque _Meshed-Ali_. Among the commodities that change hands in such places, white doves are very common (LOFTUS, _Travels_, p. 53). In this perhaps, we may recognize the survival of a pagan rite, the sacrifice of a dove to the Babylonian Istar, the Phoenician Astarte, and the Grecian Aphrodite. It was in the courtyards of one of these temples that those sacred prostitutions of which HERODOTUS speaks, took place (i. 199). The great extent of the inclosures is readily explained by the crowds they were then required to accommodate. [468] "I undertook in Bit-Saggatu," says the king, "the restoration of the chamber of Merodach; I gave to its cupola the form of a lily, and I covered it with chiselled gold, so that it shone like the day," London inscription, translated by M. Fr. LENORMANT, in his _Histoire ancienne_, vol. ii. pp. 228-229. See also a text of Philostratus in his life of _Apollonius of Tyana_, (i. 25). The sophist who seems to have founded his description of Babylon on good information, speaks of a "great brick edifice plated with bronze, which had a dome representing the firmament and shining with gold and sapphires." [469] The idea has also occurred to M. OPPERT of restricting the ramp to two sides of the tower, to the exclusion of the others (_Expédition scientifique_, vol. i. p. 209); but so far as we understand his system--which he has not illustrated with any figure--he does not double his incline, he merely alternates its side at each stage, so that part of it would be on the north-west, part on the south-west face of his tower. [470] The original of this relief has not been brought to Europe. We are therefore unable to decide whether Layard's draughtsman has accurately represented its condition or not. § 2.--_Ruins of Staged Towers._ In describing the first of our four types we had occasion to point to the buildings at Warka and Mugheir, which enabled us to restore what may be called the Lower Chaldæan form of temple. The mounds formed by the remains of those buildings had not been touched for thousands of years, they had entirely escaped such disturbance as the ruins of Babylon have undergone for so many centuries at the hand of the builders of Bagdad and Hillah; and it is probable that explorations carried on methodically and with intelligent patience would give most interesting results. If, for instance, the foundations of all walls were systematically cleared, we should be enabled to restore with absolute certainty the plans of the buildings to which they belonged. To the monuments discovered by the English explorers we must now add a find made by M. de Sarzec at Tello, of which, however, full details have yet to be furnished.[471] We take the following from the too short letter that was read to the Academy of Inscriptions on the 2nd of December 1881. "Finally, it was in that part of the building marked H that opens upon the court B that I found the curious structure of which I spoke to you. This solid mass of burnt brick and bitumen, with diminishing terraces rising one above the other, reminds us of those Chaldæo-Babylonian structures whose probable object was to afford a refuge to the inhabitants from the swarms of insects and burning winds that devastate these regions for nine months of the year." Here, we believe, M. de Sarzec is in error; the only refuges against the inflamed breath of the desert were the _serdabs_, the subterranean chambers with their scanty light and moistened walls, and the dark apartments of Assyrian palaces with their walls of prodigious thickness. The great terraces erected at such a vast expenditure of labour were not undertaken merely to escape the mosquitoes; we may take M. de Sarzec's words, however, as a proof that at Sirtella as in all the towns of Lower Chaldæa, the remains of a building with several stories or stages are to be recognized. [Illustration: FIG. 183.--Map of the ruins of Babylon; from Oppert.] The ruins on the site of Babylon may be divided into four principal groups, each forming small hills that are visible for many miles round; they are designated on the annexed map by the names under which they are commonly known. These are, in their order from north to south, _Babil_, _El-Kasr_ (or _Mudjelibeh_) and _Tell-Amran_, on the left bank; on the right bank the most conspicuous of them all, the _Birs-Nimroud_.[472] Most of those who have studied the topography of Babylon are disposed to see in the Kasr and in Tell-Amran the remains of a vast palace, or rather of several palaces, built by different kings, and those of the famous hanging gardens; while in Babil (Plate I. and Fig. 37) and the Birs Nimroud (Fig. 168) they agree to recognize all that is left of the two chief religious buildings of Babylon. Babil would be the oldest of them all--the _Bit-Saggatu_ or "temple of the foundations of the earth" which stood in the very centre of the royal city and was admired and described by Herodotus. The Birs-Nimroud would correspond to the no less celebrated temple of Borsippa, the _Bit-Zida_, the "temple of the planets and of the seven spheres." At Babil no explorations have thrown the least light upon the disposition of the building. In the whole of its huge mass, which rises to a height of some 130 feet above the plain, no trace of the separate cubes or of their dimensions is to be found. All the restorations that have been made are purely imaginary. At Birs-Nimroud the excavations of Sir Henry Rawlinson in 1854 were by no means fruitless but, unhappily, we are without any detailed account of their results. So far as we have been told, it would appear that the existence of at least six of the seven stages had been ascertained and the monument, which, according to Sir Henry Rawlinson's measurements, is now 153 feet high; can have lost but little of its original height. We can hardly believe however, that the violence of man and the storms of so many centuries have done so little damage.[473] It seems to be more clearly proved that, in shape, the temple belonged to the class we have described under the head of THE RECTANGULAR CHALDÆAN TEMPLE.[474] The axis of the temple, the vertical line upon which the centre of the terminal chapel must have been placed, was not at an equal distance from the north-western and south-eastern sides, so that the building had its gentlest slope--taking it as a whole--towards the south-east.[475] On that side the cubical blocks of which it was composed were so placed as to leave much wider steps than on the north-west. The temple therefore had a true façade, in front of which propylæa, like the one introduced in our restoration from the ruins at Mugheir, were placed. The difference consists in the fact that here the stages are square on plan. The lowest stage was 273 feet each way; it rested upon a platform of sun-dried brick which rose but a few feet above the level of the plain. Supposing these measurements to be exact they suggest a building which was nothing extraordinary either in height or mass. The dimensions furnished by Rich and Ker-Porter are much greater. Both of these speak of a base a stade, or about 606 feet, square, which would give a circumference of no less than 2,424 feet--not much less than half a mile. In any case the temple now represented by Babil must have been the larger of the two. M. Oppert mentions 180 metres, or about 600 feet, as one diameter of the present rather irregular mass. That would still be inferior to the Pyramid of Cheops, which is 764 feet square at the base, and yet the diameter of 600 feet for Babil is, no doubt, in excess of its original dimensions. The accumulation of rubbish must have enlarged its base in every direction. It seems clear, therefore, that the great structures of Chaldæa were inferior to the largest of the royal tombs of Egypt, both in height and lateral extent. We do not know how far the subsidiary buildings by which the staged towers are surrounded and supplemented in our plates may have extended, but it is difficult to believe that their number or importance could have made the ensemble to which they belonged a rival to Karnak, or even to Luxor. If we may judge from the texts and the existing ruins, the religious buildings of Assyria were smaller than those of Chaldæa. When the Ten Thousand traversed the valley of the Tigris in their famous retreat, they passed close to a large abandoned city, which Xenophon calls Larissa. As to whether his Larissa was Calah (Nimroud), or Nineveh (Kouyundjik), we need not now inquire, but his short description of a staged tower is of great interest: "Near this town," he says, "there was a stone pyramid two plethra (about 203 feet) high; each side of its base was one plethron in length."[476] The tower cleared by Layard at Nimroud is perhaps the very one seen by Xenophon.[477] The Greek soldier speaks of a stone pyramid while the Nimroud tower is of brick, but the whole of its substructure is cased with the finer material to a height of nearly twenty-four feet, which is quite enough to account for Xenophon's statement. As for his dimensions, they should not be taken too literally. In their rapid and anxious march the Greek commanders had no time to wield the plumb-line or the measuring-chain; they must have trusted mainly to their eyes in arriving at a notion of the true size of the buildings by which their attention was attracted. The tower at Nimroud must have been about 150 feet square, measured along its plinth; the present height of the mound is 141 feet, and nothing above the first stage now exists. As Layard remarks, one or two stories more must be taken into the account, and they would easily make up an original elevation of from 200 to 240 feet, or about that of the Larissa tower. Xenophon made use of the word pyramid because his language furnished him with no term more accurate. Like the true pyramid, the staged tower diminished gradually from base to summit, and there can be no doubt as to the real character of the building seen by the Greeks, as may be gathered from their leader's statement, that the "barbarians from the neighbouring villages took refuge upon it in great numbers." Such buildings as the pyramids of Egypt and Ethiopia could have afforded no refuge of the kind. A few could stand upon their summits, supposing them to have lost their capstones, but it would require the wide ramps and terraces of the staged tower to afford a foothold for the population of several villages.[478] Nothing but the first two stages, or rather the plinth and the first stage, now remain at Nimroud of what must have been the chief temple of Calah. There is no trace either of the ramp or of the colours with which the different stories were ornamented. The Khorsabad tower discovered by Place is more interesting and much more instructive as to the arrangement and constitution of these buildings.[479] [Illustration: FIG. 184.--Actual condition of the so-called _Observatory_, at Khorsabad; from Place.] This tower was previously hidden under a mass of _débris_, which gave it a conical form like that at Nimroud. Botta had already noticed its existence, but he failed to guess its real character, which, indeed, was only divined by Place when his explorations were far advanced. As soon as all doubt was removed as to the real character of the monument, M. Place took every care to preserve all that might yet exist of it, and our Fig. 184 shows the state of the building after the excavations were complete. Three whole stages and part of a fourth (to say nothing of the plinth) were still in existence. The face of each stage was ornamented with vertical grooves, repeating horizontally the elevation of the Assyrian stepped battlements (Fig. 102); the coloured stucco, varying in hue from one stage to another, was still in place, and confirmed the assertions of Herodotus as to the traditional sequence of tints.[480] The external ramp, with its pavement of burnt brick and its crenellated parapet, was also found.[481] At its base the first stage described upon the soil a square of about 143 feet each way. Each of the three complete stages was twenty feet three inches high. Upon such data M. Thomas had no difficulty in restoring the whole building. Evidently the fourth story could not have been the original apex, as it would have been strange indeed, if, when all the rest of the Khorsabad palace had lost its upper works, the sun-dried bricks of the _Observatory_ alone had resisted the agents of destruction. Moreover the materials of the higher stories still exist in the 40,000 cubic yards of rubbish which cover the surrounding platform to an average depth of about ten feet. [Illustration: FIG. 185.--The _Observatory_ restored. Elevation.] How many stages were there? Struck by the importance of the number seven in Assyrian architecture, M. Thomas fixed upon that number. Even at Khorsabad itself the figure continually crops up. The city walls had seven gates. One of the commonest of the ornamental motives found upon the external and internal walls of the Harem is the band of seven half columns illustrated on page 247. Herodotus tells us of the seven different colours used on the concentric walls of Ecbatana. Finally, in assigning seven stories to the building we get a total elevation of 140 feet, which corresponds so closely to the 143 feet of the base that we may take the two as identical, and account for the slight difference between them, amounting only to about three inches for each story, by the difficulty in taking correct measurements on a ruined structure of sun-dried brick. And we should remember that Strabo tells us in a passage already quoted that the height of the great temple at Babylon was equal to its shorter diameter, an arrangement that may to some extent have been prescribed by custom. [Illustration: FIG. 186.--The _Observatory_ restored. Plan.] So far then as its main features are concerned, we may look upon the restoration we borrow from M. Place's work as perfectly authentic (Figs. 185 and 186). Our section (Fig. 187) is meant to show that no trace of any internal chamber or void of the smallest kind was discovered by the French explorers. It is, however, quite possible that such chambers were contrived in the upper stories, but we have no evidence of their existence. We may say the same of the resting-places mentioned by Herodotus in his description of the temple of Belus. But supposing that edifice to have had seven stages, its ramp must have been about a thousand yards long, and it is likely enough that halting places were provided on such a long ascent. [Illustration: FIG. 187.--The _Observatory_. Transverse section through AB.] It is not until we come to discuss the object of such a building that we feel compelled to part company with MM. Place and Thomas. They are inclined to believe that it was an observatory rather than a temple, and under that title they have described it. Although we have made use of the name thus given we do not think it has been justified. There is nothing, says M. Place, among the ruins at Khorsabad to show that the tower ever bore any chapel or tabernacle upon its apex. But according to their own hypothesis it has lost its three highest stories, so why should they expect to find any vestige of such a chapel, seeing that it must have been the first thing to disappear? There is absolutely nothing to negative the idea that it may have been of wood, in which case its total disappearance would not be surprising, even after the platform had been thoroughly explored; and that is far from being the case at present. Moreover there is some little evidence that the purpose of the pyramid was religious. Two stone altars were found in its neighbourhood. Whether they came from its summit or from the esplanade, they justify us in believing the _Observatory_ to have been a temple. We are confirmed in this belief by the similarity--which M. Place himself points out--between it and the chief monuments of Babylon, as described by Herodotus. It seems to be incontestable that Chaldæa adopted this form for the largest and most sumptuous of her temples, and why should we suppose the Assyrians to have broken with that tradition and to have devoted to a different use buildings planned and constructed on the same principle? It is true that tablets have been found in the royal archives at Kouyundjik upon which reports as to the condition of the heavens are recorded for the guidance of the king,[482] but there is nothing in these so far as they have been deciphered to show that the observations were taken from the summit of a _zigguratt_. It is, however, very probable that the astronomers availed themselves of such a height above the plain in order to escape from floating vapours and to gain a wider horizon. The platform of the Khorsabad tower must have had a superficial extent of about 180 square yards. There may have been a chapel or tabernacle in the centre, and yet plenty of space for the astrologers to do their work at their ease. We do not wish to deny, therefore, that this tower and other monuments of the same kind may have been used as observatories, but we believe that in Assyria, as in Chaldæa, their primary object was a religious one--that they were raised so far above the dwellings of man, even of the king himself, in order to do honour to the gods whose sanctuaries were to crown their summits.[483] NOTES: [471] See _Les Fouilles de Chaldée_ in the _Revue archéologique_ for November, 1881. M. de Sarzec refers us in his paper to a plan which has not yet been laid before the Academy. We regret very much that its publication should have been so long delayed, as we have been prevented from making as much use as we should have wished of M. de Sarzec's architectural discoveries. [472] The clearest and most precise information upon the topography of Babylon is to be found in Professor RAWLINSON's essay on that subject in the second volume of his translation of HERODOTUS (p. 570, in the third edition). [473] In making his calculations, Professor RAWLINSON has certainly forgotten to take into account the pier or section of wall that still stands upright upon the surface of the mound (OPPERT, _Expédition scientifique_, vol. i. pp. 260, _et seq._). It is clearly shown in our figure--Sir Henry LAYARD leaves us in no doubt on this score: "The Birs-Nimroud rises to a height of 198 feet, and has on its summit a compact mass of brickwork thirty-seven feet high by twenty-eight broad, the whole being thus 235 feet in perpendicular height," _Discoveries_, p. 495. LAYARD says, however, that the dimensions here given were taken from RICH, as he had no time to take measurements during his hurried visit. ED. [474] _Discoveries_, p. 495. [475] We take these details from Professor RAWLINSON's essay on the topography of Babylon. [476] XENOPHON, _Anabasis_, iii, 4, 9. [477] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, pp. 126-128, and map 2. [478] At Kaleh Shergat, where the site of an important, but as yet unidentified Assyrian city has been recognized, there is a conical mound, recalling in its general aspect the Nimroud tower, which must contain all that is left of a _zigguratt_; but no deep excavations have yet been made in it (LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. ii. p. 61). [479] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 147-148, and plates 36-37. [480] See above, pp. 272-274. [481] We have already mentioned the size of its steps; see page 192. The gradient for the first stage was about one in twenty. In the upper stages it must have been far steeper, as the circumference of the stages was much less, while their height remained the same. It never became very abrupt however, as supposing that the original number of stories was seven, the gradient would not be more than about one in fourteen close to the summit. [482] LENORMANT, _Histoire ancienne_, vol. ii. p. 200 (3rd edition). [483] The position occupied by this staged tower in the plan of the royal palace at Khorsabad suggests that perhaps neither of the two explanations of its purpose here alluded to is the true one. It is placed immediately outside the Harem wall--and as to the identity of the Harem there can be no doubt--in such a way that any one ascending it must have had an uninterrupted view into the numerous courts of the women's apartments. Such a possibility seems inconsistent with the numerous precautions taken to secure the privacy of that part of the palace (see Vol. II. Chapter I. § 2). Perhaps the real solution of the difficulty is to be found in a suggestion made, but only to be cast aside, by Mr. FERGUSSON, that this Khorsabad _zigguratt_ was, in fact, a private oratory for the exclusive use of Sargon himself (_History of Architecture_, vol. i. p. 173).--ED. § 3.--_Subordinate Types of the Temple._ Side by side with these pyramidal temples the Assyrians seem to have placed others of a less ambitious kind, dedicated, no doubt, to deities of the second rank. The great staged towers, whose height and mass implied an effort that could not be often repeated, were devoted to the worship of the great national gods. Botta believed that he had discovered a temple of this smaller kind in the building from which we borrowed the example of an Assyrian moulding reproduced in our Figs. 98 and 99. This edifice is remarkable, not only for its cornice, but also because it is built of limestone and decorated with sculptures carved from slabs of basalt, the only things of the kind that have been discovered in the Khorsabad ruins. The general arrangements are unlike those of any other part of the palace. Unfortunately the building is in a very bad condition. Even its plan can only be restored in part. Thomas is inclined to see in it rather a throne room, or divan, as it would be called in the modern East, than a temple. The few bas-reliefs which may be certainly recognized as having belonged to it are not religious in their character; they represent hunting scenes, battles and prisoners bringing tribute. Although Thomas's restoration is, as he himself confesses, entirely conjectural, we have no serious motive for pronouncing the building to have been a temple.[484] [Illustration: FIG. 188.--Plan of a small temple at Nimroud; from Layard.] [Illustration: FIG. 189.--Plan of a small temple at Nimroud; from Layard.] On the other hand, Layard seems to have had good reasons for recognizing small temples in the structures he cleared near the great staged tower at Nimroud.[485] The more important of the two was actually touching that tower (Fig. 188). The character of the building is at once betrayed by the nature of its sculptures, which are religious rather than historical--figures of gods and genii, scenes of adoration and mystic theology. And it was not without a purpose that it was put into close juxtaposition with a _zigguratt_, an arrangement that proves it to have formed a part of a collection of buildings consecrated, by the prince whose dwelling covered the rest of the platform, to the gods in whose protection he placed his trust. The second and smaller temple stands about thirty yards to the east on the very edge of the artificial mound (Fig. 189). An altar with three feet carved in the shape of lion's paws was found in front of the entrance.[486] There were no bas-reliefs: the decorations were carried out in paint. The number of rooms was less, but their general arrangement was similar to that of the larger building. The chief feature of both was a large hall (_e_ in the first plan, _c_ in the second) with a square niche at one of its extremities (_f_ in the first plan, _d_ in the second). This niche was paved with a single slab of alabaster, of considerable size and covered upon both faces with a long inscription describing in detail the reign of the prince by whom the temple was consecrated. In the larger of the two buildings the slab in question was twenty-three feet four inches long and seventeen feet eight inches wide; its thickness was twelve inches. Upon it stood, in all probability, the statue of the god. The niche must, in fact, have been the _secos_, or sanctuary properly speaking. The large oblong hall was the _naos_ or _cella_. In the larger temple its length was forty-six feet seven inches. It was preceded by a _pronaos_ or vestibule (Fig. 188, _c_). We have no evidence as to the purpose of the chamber marked _g_ in our plan. It has a direct entrance of its own from the outside (_h_). The small temple is rather less complicated. Two doorways (_b_ and _f_) lead immediately into the principal hall or naos. A small chamber (_e_) behind the sanctuary was, perhaps, a kind of storeroom or sacristy. It should be noticed that in the little temple the doors into the naos were so placed that the image in the sanctuary could not be seen from without.[487] In both buildings the doors were flanked by winged lions or bulls, like those of the royal palaces. The walls of the larger temple were decorated with glazed bricks. [Illustration: FIG. 190.--Temple with triangular pediment; from Botta.] These temples of the second class lent themselves to a great variety of forms. Some of them had their façades crowned by a triangular pediment, like those of the Greek temples (Fig. 190). It is true that the Khorsabad relief whence we copy this peculiar arrangement deals with the capture of an Armenian city, Mousasir, called in the narrative of Sargon's conquests "the dwelling of the god Haldia,"[488] whose temple must be here figured by the sculptor. Must we believe that the artist has given his temple a form unfamiliar to himself in deference to the accounts of those who had taken part in the campaign? Is it not more probable that he copied some model which would be recognized by every spectator as that of a temple, from its frequent occurrence in the neighbourhood of the very palace on whose decoration he was at work? We are inclined to say yes to the latter question. But even if we look upon this relief as a faithful sketch from an Armenian temple we shall still believe that it reproduces a type not unknown to Assyrian art. Everything combines to prove that the inhabitants of the mountainous countries situated to the east and north of Assyria had no original and well-marked civilization of their own during any part of the period with which we are now concerned. Just as Ethiopia borrowed everything from Egypt, so the Medes and Armenians drew both their arts and their written character from Chaldæa, by way of Assyria. All the objects found in the neighbourhood of Lake Van are purely Assyrian in character, and no question is raised as to the fitness of their place in our museums side by side with objects from Nimroud and Khorsabad. It is, however, of little importance whether the temple shown in our woodcut was or was not copied from nature; if there were such buildings in Armenia it was because similar ones had previously existed in Assyria, from which the architects of the semi-barbarous people, who were in turn the enemies, the vassals and the subjects of the Ninevite monarchs, had borrowed their leading features. Moreover, we find one of the most characteristic features of Assyrian architecture occurring in this Armenian monument. The entrance is flanked by lions similar to those which guard the temples at Nimroud.[489] The other features of the composition are quite new to us. In front of the temple two large vases are supported on tripods, of bronze no doubt. They contained the water required for purifications; we shall encounter them again in Syria. They remind us of the "molten sea" of Solomon's temple. The temple stands upon a high plinth, to which access must have been given by steps omitted by the sculptor. At each side of the door stands a lance-headed pole, indicating, perhaps, that the temple was dedicated to a god of war. In front of these lances stand two people in attitudes of adoration; statues, perhaps, or figures in relief. The façade is formed of pilasters divided horizontally by narrow bands; upon these pilasters, and on the wall between them, hang shields or targets, that accord well with the lances flanking the entrance. From two of the pilasters on the left of the doorway lions' heads and shoulders seem to issue; these, too, may be taken as symbolical of the bellicose disposition of the god to whom the building was dedicated. The pediment with which the façade is crowned is rather low in its proportions. Its tympanum is filled with a kind of reticulated ornament made up of small lozenges or meshes. There is nothing to throw light upon the internal arrangements, but by the aid of this carved sketch the façade may be easily restored, save, of course, in the matter of size, at which we can only guess. The type is chiefly interesting on account of its analogy with the Greek temple. We have already drawn attention to similar points of likeness in the small buildings in which the column plays such an important part (Figs. 41 and 42). We have seen that some of those little structures resemble the Egyptian temples, others the Greek temple _in antis_.[490] For the sake of completeness we may also mention the pavilion we find so often in the Chaldæan monuments (Fig. 79). It is crowned with the horned mitre we are accustomed to see upon the heads of the winged bulls. Our interest has been awakened in these little chapels chiefly on account of the decorative forms of which they afford such early examples. It is not to them that we must look for the distinctive features of Mesopotamian temple architecture. These we must find in the _staged tower_ or _zigguratt_. Why is it that the whole of those monuments, with the single exception of the so-called _Observatory_ of Khorsabad, are now mere heaps of formless dust, fulfilling to the letter the biblical prophecies as to the fate of Nineveh and Babylon? One traveller tells us how when he approached the Birs-Nimroud he saw wolves stretched upon its slopes and basking in the sun. Before they would lazily rise and make up their minds to decamp, the Arabs of his escort had to ride forward shouting and shaking their lances. NOTES: [484] See PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 149-151, and vol. ii. pp. 6-7, and 36-42. This building is at the western angle of the area occupied by the Khorsabad ruins (vol. iii. plate 3). The restoration will be found in the plate numbered 37 _bis_. [485] _Discoveries_, &c., pp. 348-357, 359-362; and _Monuments_, &c., second series, plate 5. [486] This is now in the British Museum.--ED. [487] The doors are so arranged that in neither temple can the naos be seen by one standing outside the building.--ED. [488] This expedition took place in the eighth year of Sargon's reign. The passage in which the chief events are recounted, will be found in the long and important inscription translated by M. OPPERT, under the title: _Annales de Sargon_ (PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. ii. p. 313). [489] The sculptor has only introduced one; the other he has left for the imagination of the spectator to fill in. [490] Page 142. § 4.--_Comparison between the Chaldæan Temple and that of Egypt._ Although the ancients called them both by the same name, there are more points of difference than of resemblance between the Egyptian pyramids and the staged towers of Chaldæa. On the borders of the Nile we have the true pyramid, the solid which bears that name in geometry. In Mesopotamia we have a series of rectangular prisms placed one upon the other. At a distance the gradual diminution of their size may give a pyramidal appearance to the mass of which they form a part, but their walls are vertical. Finally the contrast between the purposes of the two buildings is still greater. The Egyptian pyramid is a tomb; its enormous mass is no more than a monstrous development of the stone envelope to which the sarcophagus was committed. No means were provided for reaching the summit, and its height had, so to speak, no _raison d'être_ or practical utility. In spite of all the art lavished upon it a pyramid was hardly a building in the proper sense of the word--it was a mere heap of building materials. It was quite otherwise with the _zigguratt_, whose terminal platform supported a richly-decorated sanctuary. Astronomers could make use of it for observing the heavens under better conditions than were possible below; chapels were also cut in the flanks of its lower stages, so that a convenient means of approach to every story from top to bottom was absolutely required. This necessity brought in its train the varied arrangements of ramp and terrace of which we have endeavoured to give an idea in our restorations. If we give rein to our imagination and allow it for a moment to restore their crenellated parapets to the ramps and terraces; if we set up the resting-places, rebuild the chapels and pavilions and replace the statues; if we cover the sanctuary with its vesture of bronze and gold, and the whole edifice with the surface decoration to which the sun of Mesopotamia gave its fullest value, we shall then understand how far superior, as an architectonic conception, the Chaldæan _zigguratt_ was to the Egyptian pyramid. With its smooth and naked face the latter was in some degree an inorganic mass, as lifeless as the corpse it crushed with its preposterous weight. The division of the former into stages had a latent rhythm that was strongly attractive; the eye followed with no little pleasure the winding slope which, by its easy gradient, seemed to invite the traveller to mount to the lofty summit, where, in the extent and beauty of the view he would find so rich a reward for the gentle fatigues of the ascent. But we must not forget that the _zigguratt_ was a temple, and that it is to the temples of Thebes that we must compare it. In such a comparison Egypt regains all its superiority. How cold and poor a show the towers of Chaldæa and Assyria make beside the colonnades of the Ramesseum, of Luxor, of Karnak! In the one case the only possible varieties are those caused by changes in the position and proportions of the stages, in the slope and arrangement of the ramps. In the other, what infinite combinations of courts, pylons, and porticoes, what an ever changing play of light, shadow, and form among the groves of pictured columns! What a contrast between the Assyrian sanctuaries lighted only from the door and by the yellow glare of torches, and the mysterious twilight of the Egyptian halls, where the deep shadows were broken here and there by some wandering ray of sunshine shooting downwards from holes contrived in the solid roof, and making some brilliant picture of Ptah or Amen stand out against the surrounding gloom. But the Chaldæans might, perhaps would, have equalled the Egyptians had their country been as rich in stone as the Nile valley; their taste and instinct for grandeur was no less, and the religious sentiment was as lively and exalted with the worshippers of Assur and Marduk as with those of Osiris and Amen-Ra. The inferiority of their religious architecture was due to the natural formation of their country, which restricted them almost entirely to the use of a fictile material. [Illustration] END OF VOL. I. LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, BREAD STREET HILL, E.C. 
36427	----	by ERNEST GOVETT With Thirty-one Illustrations G. P. Putnam's Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1919 Copyright, 1919 by Ernest Govett The Knickerbocker Press, New York PREFACE This book is put forward with much diffidence, for I am well aware of its insufficiencies. My original idea was to produce a work covering all the principles of painting, but after many years spent in considering the various recorded theories relating to æsthetic problems, and in gathering materials to indicate how the accepted principles have been applied, I came to the conclusion that a single life is scarcely long enough for the preparation of an exhaustive treatise on the subject. Nevertheless, I planned a work of much wider scope than the one now presented, but various circumstances, and principally the hindrance to research caused by the war, impelled me to curtail my ambition. Time was fading, and my purpose seemed to be growing very old. I felt that if one has something to say, it is better to say it incompletely than to run the risk of compulsory silence. The book will be found little more than a skeleton, and some of its sections, notably those dealing with illusions in the art, contain only a few suggestions and instances, but perhaps enough is said to induce a measure of further inquiry into the subject. That part of the work dealing with the fine arts generally is the result of long consideration of the apparent contradictions involved in the numerous suggested standards of art. In a little book on _The Position of Landscape in Art_ (published under a nom de plume a few years ago), I threw out, as a _ballon d'essai_, an idea of the proposition now elaborated as the Law of General Assent, and I have been encouraged to affirm this proposition more strongly by the fact that its validity was not questioned in any of the published criticism of the former work; nor do I find reason to vary it after years of additional deliberation. I have not before dealt with the other propositions now put forward. The notes being voluminous I have relegated them to the end of the book, leaving the feet of the text pages for references only. Where foreign works quoted have been translated into English, the English titles are recorded, and foreign quotations are given in English, save in one or two minor instances where the sense could not be precisely rendered in translation. E. G. NEW YORK, January, 1919. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 Definitions of "Art" and "Beauty"--Æsthetic systems--The earliest Art--Art periods--The Grecian and Italian developments--National and individual "Inspiration"-- Powers of imagination and execution--Nature of "Genius"-- The Impressionist Movement--Sprezzatura--The broad manner-- Position in art of Rembrandt and Velasquez--Position of Landscape in art. _BOOK I_ CHAPTER I.--CLASSIFICATION OF THE FINE ARTS 52 The Arts imitative of Nature--Classified according to the character of their signs--Relative value of form in Poetry--Scope of the Arts in the production of beauty. II.--LAW OF RECOGNITION IN THE ASSOCIATED ARTS 59 Explanation of the Law--Its application to Poetry--To Sculpture--To Painting--To Fiction. III.--LAW OF GENERAL ASSENT 72 General opinion the test of beauty in the Associated Arts. IV.--LIMITATIONS OF THE ASSOCIATED ARTS 78 Production of beauty in the respective Arts--Their limitations. V.--DEGREES OF BEAUTY IN THE PAINTER'S ART 83 VI.--EXPRESSION. PART 1.--THE IDEAL 86 VII.--EXPRESSION. PART 2.--CHRISTIAN IDEALS 91 The Deity--Christ--The Madonna--Madonna and Child. VIII.--EXPRESSION. PART 3.--CLASSICAL IDEALS 106 Ideals of the Greeks--Use of the ancient divinities by the Painter. IX.--EXPRESSION. PART 4.--GENERAL IDEALS 135 X.--EXPRESSION. PART 5.--PORTRAITURE 141 Limitations of the Portrait Painter--Emphasis and addition of qualities in portrait painting--Practice of the ancient Greeks--Dignity--Importance of Simplicity--Some of the great masters--Portraiture of women--The English masters--The quality of Grace--The necessity for Repose. XI.--EXPRESSION. PART 6.--MISCELLANEOUS 167 Grief--The Smile--The Open Mouth--Contrasts-- Representation of Death. XII.--LANDSCAPE 192 Limitations of the Landscape Painter--Illusion of opening distance--Illusion of motion in Landscape-- Moonlight scenes--Transient conditions. XIII.--STILL-LIFE 214 XIV.--SECONDARY ART 219 Paintings of record--Scenes from the Novel--From the written drama--From the acted drama--Humorous subjects--Allegorical paintings. XV.--COLOUR 228 _BOOK II_ INTRODUCTORY.--ILLUSION IN THE PAINTER'S ART 236 CHAPTER I.--ILLUSION OF RELIEF 239 II.--ILLUSION OF MOTION WITH MEN AND ANIMALS 249 III.--ILLUSION OF SUSPENSION AND MOTION IN THE AIR 259 NOTES 273 INDEX OF ARTISTS AND WORKS OF ART MENTIONED IN THIS BOOK 357 GENERAL INDEX 369 LIST OF PLATES PAGE FRONTISPIECE.--DETAIL FROM FRAGONARD'S THE PURSUIT (FRICK COLLECTION, NEW YORK). This work, which is one of the celebrated Grasse series of panels, offers a very fine example of the use of an ideal head in a romantic subject. (See Page 139.) PLATE 1.--THE EARLIEST GREAT SCULPTURES 6 (a). Head from a statue of Chefren, a king of the 4th Egyptian Dynasty, about 3000 B.C. (Cairo Museum.) (b). Head from a fragmentary statuette of Babylonia, dating about 2600 B.C. (Louvre: from Spearing's "Childhood of Art.") The first head is generally regarded as the finest example of Egyptian art extant, and certainly there was nothing executed in Egypt to equal it during the thirty centuries following the 5th Dynasty. The Babylonian head is the best work of Chaldean art known to us, though there are some fine fragments remaining from the period of about a thousand years later. It will be observed that the tendency of the art in both examples is towards the aims achieved by the Greeks. (See Page 7.) PLATE 2.--"LE BON DIEU D'AMIENS", IN THE NORTH PORCH, AMIENS CATHEDRAL 18 This figure by a French sculptor of the thirteenth century, was considered by Ruskin to be the finest ideal of Christ in existence. It is another example of the universality of ideals, for the head from the front view might well have been modelled from a Grecian work of the late fourth or early third century B.C. (See Page 319.) PLATE 3.--AFTER AN ANCIENT COPY OF THE CNIDIAN VENUS OF PRAXITELES. (VATICAN) 30 It is commonly agreed that this is the finest model in existence after the great work of Praxiteles, which itself has long disappeared. The figure as it now stands at the Vatican, has the right arm restored, and the hand is made to hold up some metallic drapery with which the legs are covered, the beauty of the form being thus seriously weakened. (See Pages 111 _et seq._) PLATE 4.--VENUS ANADYOMENE 42 (a). Ancient Greek sculpture from the design of Venus in the celebrated picture of Apelles. (Formerly Chessa Collection, now in New York.) The immense superiority of the sculpture over the painting (Plate 5), from the point of view of pure art, is visible at a glance. It is an indication of the far-reaching scope of the sculptor when executing ideals. (See Page 113.) PLATE 5.--VENUS ANADYOMENE, FROM THE PAINTING BY TITIAN. (BRIDGEWATER COLLECTION.) Compare with the Sculpture on Plate 4. (See Page 115) 42 PLATE 6.--VENUS REPOSING, BY GIORGIONE. (DRESDEN GALLERY) 54 This is the finest reposing Venus in existence in painting. It was the model for the representation of the goddess in repose used by Titian, and many other artists who came after him. (See Page 116.) PLATE 7.--DEMETER 66 (a). Head from the Cnidos marble figure of the fourth century B.C., attributed to Scopas. (British Museum.) (b). Small head in bronze of the third century B.C. (Private Collection.) In each of these heads the artist has been successful in maintaining the ideal, while indicating a suggestion of the sorrowful resignation with which Grecian legend has enveloped the mind picture of Demeter. Nevertheless, even this slight departure from the established rule tends to lessen the art, though in a very small degree. (See Page 122.) PLATE 8.--RAPHAEL'S SISTINE MADONNA (DRESDEN GALLERY), WITH THE FACE OF THE CENTRAL FIGURE IN FRAGONARD'S THE PURSUIT SUBSTITUTED FOR THAT OF THE VIRGIN 80 This and the two following plates show very clearly that in striving for an ideal, artists must necessarily arrive at the same general type. (See Pages 138 _et seq._) PLATE 9.--RAPHAEL'S VIRGIN OF THE ROSE (MADRID), WITH THE FACE OF THE FIGURE REPRESENTING PROFANE LOVE IN TITIAN'S PICTURE SUBSTITUTED FOR THAT OF THE VIRGIN 92 PLATE 10.--RAPHAEL'S HOLY FAMILY (MADRID), WITH THE FACE OF LUINI'S SALOME SUBSTITUTED FOR THAT OF THE VIRGIN 102 PLATE 11.--THE PURSUIT, BY FRAGONARD. (FRICK COLLECTION, N. Y.) 114 A detail from this picture forms the Frontispiece. It will be observed that in the complete painting the central figure apparently wears a startled expression, but that this is entirely due to the surroundings and action, is shown by the substitution of the face of the central figure for that of the Virgin in the Sistine Madonna, Plate 8. (See Page 139.) PLATE 12.--PORTRAIT HEADS OF THE GREEK TYPE, FOURTH CENTURY, B.C. (See Page 145) 130 (a). Head of Plato. (Copenhagen Museum.) (b). Term of Euripides. (Naples Museum.) PLATE 13.--PORTRAIT HEADS OF THE TIME OF IMPERIAL ROME. (SEE PAGE 145) 146 (a). Vespasian. (Naples Museum.) (b). Hadrian. (Athens Museum.) PLATE 14.--SACRIFICE OF IPHIGENIA, FROM A POMPEIAN FRESCO. (ROUX AINÉ'S HERCULANUM ET POMPEI, VOL. III) 160 This work is presumed to be a copy of the celebrated picture of Timanthes, in which the head of Agamemnon was hidden because the artist could see no other way of expressing extreme grief without distorting the features. (See Pages 168 and 339.) PLATE 15.--ALL'S WELL, BY WINSLOW HOMER. (BOSTON MUSEUM, U. S. A.) 176 An instance where the permanent beauty of a picture is killed by an open mouth. After a few moments' inspection, it will be observed that the mouth appears to be kept open by a wedge. (See Page 176.) PLATE 16.--HERCULES CONTEMPLATING DEATH, BY A. POLLAIUOLO. (FRICK COLLECTION, NEW YORK.) 190 The only known design of this nature which appears to exist in any of the arts. (See Pages 190 and 343.) PLATE 17.--ARCADIAN LANDSCAPE, BY CLAUDE LORRAINE. (NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON) 198 A fine illusion of opening distance created by the precise rendering of the aerial perspective. The illusion is of course unobservable in the reproduction owing to its small size and the want of colour. (See Page 198). PLATE 18.--LANDSCAPE, BY HOBBEMA. (MET. MUSEUM, NEW YORK) 210 A fine example of Hobbema's work. A strong light is thrown in from the back to enable the artist to multiply his signs for the purpose of deepening the apparent distance. (See Page 202.) PLATE 19.--LANDSCAPE, BY JACOB RUYSDAEL, (NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON) 220 Example of an illusion of movement in flowing water. (See Page 204.) PLATE 20.--THE STORM, BY JACOB RUYSDAEL. (BERLIN GALLERY) 232 Exhibiting an excellent illusion of motion, due to the faithful representation of a series of consecutive movements of water as the vessel passes through it. The illusion is practically lost in the reproduction, but the details of design may be observed. (See Page 206.) PLATE 21.--THE LITTA MADONNA, BY LIONARDO DA VINCI. (HERMITAGE) 240 This is perhaps the best example known of an illusion of relief secured by shading alone. (See Page 240.) PLATE 22.--CHRIST ON THE CROSS, BY VAN DYCK. (ANTWERP MUSEUM) 252 A superb example of relief obtained by the exclusion of accessories. Van Dyck took the idea from Rubens, who borrowed it from Titian, this artist improving on Antonella da Messina. The relief of course is not well observed in the reproduction because of its miniature form. The work is usually regarded as the finest of its kind in existence. (See Page 244.) PLATE 23.--PATRICIA, BY LYDIA EMMET. (PRIVATE POSSESSION, N. Y.) 264 A very excellent example of the plan of securing relief described in Book II, Chap. I. Here also the relief is not observed in the reproduction, but the original is of life size and provides an illusion as nearly perfect as possible. (See Page 247.) PLATE 24.--THE CREATION OF ADAM, BY MICHELANGELO. (VATICAN) 276 Instance of the use of an oval form of drapery to assist in presenting an illusion of suspension in the air. (See Page 260.) PLATE 25.--THE PLEIADS, BY M. SCHWIND. (DENNER COLLECTION.) 288 One of the finest examples of illusion of motion in the air. (See Page 269.) PLATE 26.--ST. MARGARET, BY RAPHAEL. (LOUVRE) 302 Perhaps the best example in existence of a painted human figure in action. It will be seen that every part of the body and every fold of the drapery are used to assist in the expression of movement. (See Page 250.) PLATE 27.--DIANA AND NYMPHS PURSUED BY SATYRS, BY RUBENS. (PRADO) 318 A good example of an illusion of motion created by showing a number of persons in different stages of a series of consecutive actions. (See Page 254.) PLATE 28.--AUTOMEDON WITH THE HORSES OF ACHILLES, BY H. REGNAULT. (BOSTON MUSEUM, U. S. A.) 334 The extraordinary spirit and action of these horses are above the experience of life, but they do not appear to be beyond the bounds of possibility. In any case the action is perfectly appropriate here, as the animals are presumed to be immortal. (See Page 256.) PLATE 29.--MARBLE FIGURE OF ARIADNE. (VATICAN) 348 This work, of the Hellenistic period, illustrates the possibility of largely varying the regular proportions of the human figure without injury to the art, by the skilful use of drapery. (See Page 329.) Art Principles INTRODUCTION In view of the many varied definitions of "Art" which have been put forward in recent times, and the equally diverse hypotheses advanced for the solution of æsthetic problems relating to beauty, it is necessary for one who discusses principles of art, to state what he understands by the terms "Art" and "Beauty." Though having a widely extended general meaning, the term "Art" in common parlance applies to the fine arts only, but the term "Arts" has reference as well to certain industries which have utility for their primary object. This work considers only the fine arts, and when the writer uses the term "Art" or "Arts" he refers to one or more of these arts, unless a particular qualification is added. The definition of "Art" as applied to the fine arts, upon which he relies, is "The production of beauty for the purpose of giving pleasure," or as it is more precisely put, "The beautiful representation of nature for the purpose of giving disinterested pleasure." This is, broadly, the definition generally accepted, and is certainly the understanding of art which has guided the hands of all the creators of those great works in the various arts before which men have bowed as triumphs of human skill. There has been no satisfactory definition of "Beauty," nor can the term be shortly interpreted until there is a general agreement as to what it covers. Much of the confusion arising from the contradictory theories of æstheticists in respect of the perception of beauty is apparently due to the want of separate consideration of emotional beauty and beauty of mind, that is to say, the beauty of sensorial effects and beauty of expression respectively.[1] There are kinds of sensorial beauty which depend for their perception upon immediately preceding sensory experience, or particular coexistent surroundings which are not necessarily permanent, while in other cases a certain beauty may be recognized and subsequently appear to vanish altogether. From this it is obvious that any æsthetic system based upon the existence of an objectivity of beauty must fall to the ground. On the other hand, without an objectivity there can be no system, because in its absence a line of reasoning explaining cause and effect in the perception of beauty, which is open to demonstration, is naturally impossible. Nor may we properly speak of a philosophy of art.[2] We may reasonably consider æsthetics a branch of psychology, but the emotions arising from the recognition of beauty vary only in degree and not in kind, whether the beauty be seen in nature or art. Consequently there can be no separate psychological enquiry into the perception of beauty created by art as distinguished from that observable in nature. It must be a natural attraction for the insoluble mysteries of life that has induced so many philosophers during the last two centuries to put forward æsthetic systems. That no two of these systems agree on important points, and that each and every one has crumbled to dust from a touch of the wand of experience administered by a hundred hands, are well-known facts, yet still the systems continue to be calmly presented as if they were valuable contributions to knowledge. Each new critic in the domain of philosophy carefully and gravely sets them up, and then carefully and gravely knocks them down.[3] An excuse for the systems has been here and there offered, that the explanations thereof sometimes include valuable philosophical comments or suggestions. This may be, but students cannot reasonably be expected to sift out a few oats from a bushel of husks, even if the supply be from the bin of a Hegel or a Schopenhauer. Is it too much to suggest that these phantom systems be finally consigned to the grave of oblivion which has yawned for them so long and so conspicuously? Bubbles have certain measurements and may brilliantly glow, but they are still bubbles. It is as impossible to build up a system of philosophy upon the perception of beauty, which depends entirely upon physical and physiological laws, as to erect a system of ethics on the law of gravitation, for a feasible connection between superstructure and foundation cannot be presented to the mind. We may further note that a proper apprehension of standards of judgment in art cannot be obtained unless the separate and relative æsthetic values of the two forms of beauty are considered, because the beauty of a work may appear greater at one time than at another, according as it is more or less permanent or fleeting, that is to say, according as the balance of the sensorial and intellectual elements therein is more or less uneven; or if the beauty present be almost entirely emotional, according as the observer may be affected by independent sensorial conditions of time or place. Consequent upon these considerations, an endeavour has been made in this work to distinguish between the two forms of beauty in the various arts, and the separate grades thereof. It will be noticed that the writer has adopted the somewhat unusual course of including fiction among the fine arts. Why this practice is not commonly followed is hard to determine, but no definition of a fine art has been or can be given which does not cover fiction. In the definition here accepted, the art is clearly included, for the primary object of fiction is the beautiful representation of nature for the purpose of giving disinterested pleasure. * * * * * Art is independent of conditions of peoples or countries. Its germ is unconnected with civilization, politics, religion, laws, manners, or morals. It may appear like a brilliant flower where the mind of man is an intellectual desert, or refuse to bloom in the busiest hive of human energy. Its mother is the imagination, and wherever this has room to expand, there art will grow, though the ground may be nearly sterile, and the bud wither away from want of nourishment. Every child is born a potential artist, for he comes into the world with sensorial nerves, and a brain which directs the imagination. The primitive peoples made beautiful things long before they could read or write, and the recognition of harmony of form appears to have been one of the first understandings in life after the primal instincts of self-preservation and the continuation of the species. Some of the sketches made by the cave men of France are equal to anything of the kind produced in a thousand years of certain ancient civilizations, commencing countless centuries after the very existence of the cave men had been forgotten; and even if executed now, would be recognized as indicating the possession of considerable talent by the artists. The greatest poem ever written was given birth in a country near which barbaric hordes had recently devastated populous cities, and wrecked a national fabric with which were interwoven centuries of art and culture. That the author of this poem had seen great works of art is certain, or he could not have conceived the shield of Achilles, but the laboured sculpture that had fired his imagination, and the legends which had perhaps been the seed of his masterpieces were doubtless buried with his own records beneath the tramp of numberless mercenaries. Fortunately here and there the human voice could draw from memory's store, and so the magic of Homer was whispered by the dying to the living; but even his time and place are now only vaguely known, and he remains like the waratah on the bleached pasture of some desert fringe--a solitary blaze of scarlet where all else is drear and desolate. Strong is the root of art, though frail the flower. Stifled in sun-burnt ground ere it can welcome the smile of light; fading with the first blast of air upon its delicate shoots; shrivelling back to dust when the buds are ready to break; or falling in the struggle to spread its branches after its beautiful blossoms have scattered their fragrance around: whatever condition has brought it low, it ever fights again--ever seeks to assure mankind that while it may droop or disappear, its seed, its heart, its life, are imperishable, and surely it will bloom again in all its majesty. Sometimes with decades it has run a fitful course; sometimes with centuries; sometimes with millenniums. It has heralded every civilization, but its breath is freedom, and it flourishes and sickens only with liberty. Trace its course in the life of every nation, and the track will be found parallel with the line of freedom of thought. A solitary plant may bloom unimpeded far from tyranny's thrall, but the art and soul of a nation live, and throb, and die, together. [Illustration: PLATE 1 (See page 7) Head of Cephren, 4th Egyptian Dynasty (_Cairo Museum_) Chaldean Head: About 2600 B.C. (_Louvre_)] Egypt, Babylon, Crete, Greece, Rome, tell their stories through deathless monuments, and all are alike in that they demonstrate the dependence of art expansion upon freedom of action and opinion. An art rises, develops another and another, and they proceed together on their way. Sooner or later comes catastrophe in the shape of crushing tyranny which curbs the mind with slavery, or steel-bound sacerdotal rules which say to the artist "Thou shalt go no further," or annihilation of nation and life. What imagination can picture the expansion of art throughout the world had its flight been free since the dawn of history? Greece reached the sublime because its mind was unfettered, but twenty or thirty centuries before Phidias, Egyptian art had arrived at a loftier plane than that on which the highest plastic art of Greece was standing but a few decades before the Olympian Zeus uplifted the souls of men, while whole civilizations with their arts had lived and died, and were practically forgotten. It is to be observed that while in its various isolated developments, art has proceeded from the immature to the mature, there has been no general evolution, as in natural life, but on the other hand there seems to be a limit to its progress. So far as our imagination can divine, no higher reaches in art are attainable than those already achieved. The mind can conceive of nothing higher than the spiritual, and this cannot be represented in art except by means of form; while within the range of human intelligence, no suggestion of spiritual form can rise above the ideals of Phidias. Of the purely human form, nothing greater than the work of Praxiteles and Raphael can be pictured on our brains. There may be poets who will rival Homer and Shakespeare, but it is exceedingly doubtful. In any case we must discard the law of evolution as applicable to the arts, with the one exception of music, which, on account of the special functioning of its signs, must be put into a division by itself.[a] [a] See Chap. III. But although there has been no general progression in art parallel with the growth of the sciences and civilization, there have been, as already indicated, many separate epochs of art cultivation in various countries, sometimes accompanied by the production of immortal works, which epochs in themselves seem to provide examples of restricted evolution.[4] It is desirable to refer to these art periods, as they are commonly called, for the purpose of removing, if possible, a not uncommon apprehension that they are the result of special conditions operating an æsthetic stimulus, and that similar or related conditions must be present in any country if the flame of art there is to burn high and brightly.[5] The well-defined periods vary largely both in character and duration, the most important of them--the Grecian development and the Italian Renaissance--covering two or three centuries each, and the others, as the French thirteenth century sculpture expansion, the English literary revival in the sixteenth century,[6] and the Dutch development in painting in the seventeenth, lasting only a few decades. These latter periods can be dispensed with at once because they were each concerned with one art only, and therefore can scarcely have resulted from a general æsthetic stimulus. But the Grecian and Italian movements applied to all the arts. They represented natural developments from the crude to the advanced, of which all nations produce examples, and were only exceptional in that they reached higher levels in art than were attained by other movements. But there is no evidence to show that they were brought about by special circumstances outside of the arts themselves. While there were national crises preceding the one development, there was no trouble of consequence to herald the other, nor was there any parallel between the conditions of the two peoples during the progress of the movements. A short reference to each development will show that its rise and decline were the outcome of simple matter-of-fact conditions of a more or less accidental nature, uninfluenced by an æsthetic impulse in the sense of inspiration. The most common suggestion advanced to account for the rise in Grecian art, is that it was due to the exaltation of the Greek mind through the victories of Marathon, Platæa, and Salamis. That a people should be so trampled upon as were the Greeks; that their cities should be razed, their country desolated, and their commerce destroyed; that notwithstanding all this they should refuse to give way before enemies outnumbering them twenty, fifty, or even a hundred to one; and that after all they should crush these enemies, was no doubt a great and heroic triumph, likely to exalt the nation and feed the imagination of the people for a long time to come; but that these victories were responsible for the lofty eminence reached by the Greek artists, cannot be maintained. From what we know of Calamis, Myron, and others, it is clear that Grecian art was already on its way to the summit reached by Phidias when Marathon and Salamis were fought, though the victories of the Greek arms hastened the development for the plain reason that they led to an increased demand for works of art. And the decline in Grecian art resulted purely and simply from a lessened demand. Though this was the reason for the general decay, there was a special cause for the apparent weakening with the commencement of the fourth century B.C. In the fifth century Phidias climbed as high in the accomplishment of ideals as the imagination could soar. He reached the summit of human endeavour. Necessarily then, unless another Phidias arose, whatever in art came after him would appear to mark a decline. But it is scarcely proper to put the case of Phidias forward for comparative purposes. He carried the art of sculpture higher than it is possible for the painter to ascend, and so we should rather use the giants of the fourth century--Scopas, Praxiteles, Lysippus, Apelles--as the standards to be compared with the foremost spirits of the Italian Renaissance--Raphael and Michelangelo--for each of these groups achieved the human ideal, though failing with the spiritual ideal established by Phidias. It must be remembered that all good art means slow work--long thinking, much experiment, tedious attention to detail in plan, and careful execution. Meanwhile men have to live, even immortal artists, and rarely indeed does one undertake a work of importance on his own account. It is true that in the greater days of Greece the best artists were almost entirely employed by a State, or at least to execute works for public exhibition, and doubtless the payment they received was quite a secondary matter with them, but nevertheless few could practise their art without remuneration. During the fifth and fourth centuries great events were constantly happening in Greece, and in consequence there were numberless temples to build and adorn, groves to decorate, men to honour, and monumental tombs to erect. Innumerable statues of gods and goddesses were wanted, and we must not forget the wholesale destruction of Athenian and other temples and sculptures during the Persian invasion. In fact for a century and a half after Platæa, there was practically an unlimited demand for works of art, and it was only when the empire of Alexander began to crumble away that conditions changed. While Greece was weakening Rome was growing and her lengthening shadows were approaching the walls of Athens. Greece could build no more temples when her people were becoming slaves of Rome; she could order no more monuments when defeat was the certain end of struggle. And so the decline was brought about, not by want of artists, but through the dearth of orders and the consequent neglect of competition. In the case of the Italian Renaissance the decadence was not due to the same cause. The art of Greece declined gradually in respect of quantity as well as quality, while in Italy after the decay in quality set in, art was as nourishing as ever from the point of view of demand. The change in the character of the art was due entirely to Raphael's achievements. As with the early Greek, nearly the whole of the early Italian art was concerned with religion, though in this case there were very few ideals. The numerous ancient gods of Greece and Rome were long gone, to become only classical heroes with the Italians, and their places were taken by twenty or thirty personages from the New Testament. Incidents from the Old Testament were sometimes painted, but nearly all the greater work dealt with the life of Christ and the Saints. The painters of the first century of the Renaissance distributed their attention fairly equally among these personages, but as time went on and the art became of a superior order, artists aimed at the highest development of beauty that their imaginations could conceive, and hence the severe beauty that might be shown in a picture of Christ or a prominent Saint, had commonly to give way to a more earthly perfection of feature and form, which, suggesting an ideal, could only be given to the figure of the Virgin. And so the test of the power of an artist came to be instinctively decided by his representation of the Madonna. No doubt there were many persons living in the fifteenth century who watched the gradually increasing beauty of the Madonna as depicted by the succession of great painters then working, and wondered when and where the summit would be reached--when an artist would appear beyond whose work the imagination could not pass, for there is a limit to human powers. The genius arose in Raphael, and when he produced in the last ten or twelve years of his life, Madonna after Madonna, so far in advance of anything that had hitherto been done, so great in beauty as to leave his fellow artists lost in wonder, so lofty in conception that the term "divine" was applied to him in his lifetime, it was inevitable that a decadence should set in, for so far as the intelligence could see, whatever came after him must be inferior. He did not ascend to the height of Phidias, for a pure ideal of spiritual form is beyond the power of the painter,[b] but as with Praxiteles he reached a perfect human ideal, and so gained the supreme pinnacle of his art. But while there was an inevitable decadence after him, as after Praxiteles, it was, as already indicated, only in the character of the art, for in Italy artists generally were as busy for a hundred years after Raphael, as during his time. Michelangelo, Titian, and the other giants who were working when Raphael died, kept up the renown of the period for half a century or so, but it seemed impossible for artists who came on the scene after Raphael's death, to enter upon an entirely original course. The whole of the new generation seemed to cling to the models put forward by the great Urbino painter, save some of the Venetians who had a model of their own in Titian. [b] See Chap. IX. Thus it is clear that the rise and decline of the Grecian and Italian movements were due to well ascertained causes which had nothing to do with a national æsthetic impulse; nor is there evidence of such an impulse connected with other art developments. The suggestion that a nation may be assisted in its art by emotional or psychological influences arising from patriotic exaltation, is only an extension of an opinion commonly held, that the individual artist is subject to similar influences, though due to personal exaltation connected with his art. It is as well to point out that there is only one way to produce a work of art, and that is to combine the exercise of the imagination with skill in execution. The artist conceives an idea and puts it into form. He does nothing more. He can rely upon no extraneous influence. It is suggested that to bring about a supreme accomplishment in art, the imagination must be associated with something outside of our power of control--some impulse which acts upon the brain but is independent of it. This unmeasured force or lever is usually known by the term "Inspiration." It is supposed that this force comes to certain persons when they have particular moods upon them, and gives them a great idea which they may use in a painting, a poem, or a musical composition. The suggestion is attractive, but in the long range of historical record there is no evidence that accident, in the shape of inspiration or other psychological lever, has been responsible in the slightest degree for the production of a work of art. The writer of a sublime poem, or the painter of a perfect Madonna, uses the same kind of mental and material labour as the man who chisels a lion's head on a chair, or adds a filigree ornament to a bangle. The difference is one of degree only. The poet or painter is gifted with a vivid imagination which he has cultivated by study; and by diligence has acquired superlative facility in execution, which he uses to the best advantage. The work of the furniture carver or jeweller does not require such high powers, and he climbs only a few steps of the ladder whose uppermost rungs have been scaled by the greater artists. If in the course of the five and twenty centuries during which works of high art have been produced, some of them had been executed with the assistance of a psychological impulse directed independently of the will, there would certainly have been references to the phenomenon by the artists concerned, or the very numerous art historians, but without a known exception, all the great artists who have left any record of the cause of their success, or whose views on the subject are to be gained by indirect references, have attributed this success to hard study, or manual industry, or both together. We know little of the opinion of the ancient Greeks on the matter, but the few anecdotes we have, indicate that their artists were very practical men indeed, and hardly likely to expect mysterious psychological influences to help them in their work. So with the Romans, and it is noticeable that the key to the production of beauty in poetry, in the opinion of Virgil and Horace, is careful preparation and unlimited revision. This appears to be the view of some modern poets, and if Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton, had experienced visionary inspiration, we should surely have heard of it. Fortunately some of the most eminent painters of modern times have expressed themselves definitely upon the point. Lionardo observed that the painter arrives at perfection by manual operation; and Michelangelo asserted that Raphael acquired his excellence by study and application. Rubens praised his brushes, by which he meant his acquired facility, as the instruments of his fortune; and Nicholas Poussin attributed his success to the fact that he neglected nothing, referring of course to his studies. According to his biographers, the triumphs of Claude were due to his untiring industry, while Reynolds held that nothing is denied to well directed labour. And so with many others down to Turner, whose secret according to Ruskin, was sincerity and toil. It would seem to be possible for an artist to work himself into a condition of emotional excitement,[7] either involuntarily when a great thought comes to him, or voluntarily when he seeks ideas wherewith to execute a brilliant conception; and it is comprehensible that when in this condition, which is practically an extreme concentration of his mental energy upon the purpose in hand, images or other æsthetic suggestions suitable for his work may present themselves to his mind. These he might regard as the result of inspiration, but in reality they would be the product of a trained imagination operating under advantageous conditions. Nor can any rule be laid down that the character or temperament of an artist influences his work, for if instances can be given in support of such an assertion, at least an equal number may be adduced which directly oppose it. If we might approximately gauge the true characters of Fra Angelico and Michelangelo from a study of their work, it is certain that no imagination could conjure up the actual personalities of Perugino and Cellini, from an examination of the paintings of the one and the sculptures of the other. What can be said on the subject when assassins of the nature of Corenzio and Caravaggio painted so many beautiful things, and evil-minded men like Ribera and Battistello adorned great churches with sacred compositions? If the work of Claude appears to harmonize with his character, that of Turner does not. "Friendless in youth: loveless in manhood; hopeless in death." Such was Turner according to Ruskin, but is there any sign of this in his works? Not a trace. If any conclusion as to his character and temperament can be drawn from Turner's paintings, it is that he was a gay, light-hearted thinker, with all the optimism and high spirits that come from a delight in beautiful things. The element of mood is unquestionably of importance in the work of an artist, but it is not uncommon to find the character of his designs contrary to his mood. Poets, as in the case of Hood, or painters as with Tassaert, may execute the most lively pieces while in moods verging on despair. With some men adversity quickens the imagination with fancies; with others it benumbs their faculties. The tendency of popular criticism to search for psychological phenomena in paintings, apparently arises largely from the difficulty in comprehending how it is that certain artists of high repute vary their styles of painting after many years of good work, and produce pictures without the striking beauty characterizing their former efforts. Sometimes when age is beginning to tell upon them, they broaden their manner considerably, as with Rembrandt and others of the seventeenth century, and many recent artists of lesser fame. The critic, very naturally perhaps, is chary of condemning work from the hand of one who has given evidence of consummate skill, and so seeks for hidden beauties in lieu of those to which he has been accustomed. A simple enquiry into the matter will show that the change of style in these cases has a commonplace natural cause. [Illustration: PLATE 2 (See page 319) "Le Bon Dieu d'Amiens" (_Amiens Cathedral_)] To be in the front rank an artist must have acquired a vast knowledge of the technique of his art, and have a powerful imagination which has been highly cultivated. But the qualifications must be balanced. Commonly when this balance is not present the deficiency is in the imagination, but there are instances where, though the power of execution is supreme, the imagination has so far exceeded all bounds as to render this power of comparatively small practical value. The most conspicuous example of this want of balance is Lionardo, who accomplished little though he was scarcely surpassed in execution by Raphael or Michelangelo. His imagination invariably ran beyond his execution; his ideas were always above the works he completed or partly finished: he saw in fact far beyond anything he could accomplish, and so was never satisfied with the result of his labour. At the same time he was filled with ideas in the sciences, and investigated every branch of knowledge without bringing his conclusions to fruition. During the latter part of his life, Michelangelo showed a similar defect in a lesser degree, for his unfinished works of the period exceed in number those he completed. Naturally such intellectual giants, whose imaginations cannot be levelled with the highest ability in execution, are few, but the lesser luminaries who fail, or who constantly fail, in carrying out their conceptions, are legion, though they may have absorbed the limit of knowledge which they are capable of acquiring in respect of execution. It is common for a painter to turn out a few masterpieces and nothing else of permanent value. This was the case with numerous Italian artists of the seventeenth century, and it is indeed a question whether there is one of them, except perhaps Domenichino, whose works have not a considerable range in æsthetic value. There have been still more artists whose powers of execution were far beyond the flights of their imaginations. They include the whole of the seventeenth century Dutch school with Rembrandt at their head, and the whole of the Spanish school of the same period, except El Greco, Zurbaran, and Murillo. When an artist is in the first rank in respect of execution, but is distinctly inferior in imaginative scope, his work in all grades of his art, except the highest, where ideals are possible, seems to have a greater value than it really possesses because we are insensibly cognizant that the accomplishment rises above the idea upon which it is founded. On the other hand his work in the highest plane appears to possess a lower value, because we are surprised that ideals have not been attempted, and that the types of the spiritual and classical personages represented are of the same class of men and women as those exhibited in works dealing with ordinary human occupations or actions. This is why the sacred and classical pictures of Rembrandt, Vermeer of Delft, and the other leading Dutch artists, appear to be below their portrait and genre work in power. The course of variation in the work of a great painter follows the relative power of his imagination and his execution. Where there is a fair balance between the two, the work of the artist increases in æsthetic value with his age and experience; but when his facility in execution rises above the force of his imagination, then his middle period is invariably the best, his later work showing a gradual depreciation in quality. The reason is obvious. The surety of the hand and eye diminishes more rapidly than the power of the mind, which in fact is commonly enhanced with experience till old age comes on. Great artists who rely mostly upon their powers of execution, and exhibit limited fertility in invention, such as Rembrandt, have often a manner which is so interwoven with the effects they seek, that they are seldom or never able to avail themselves of the assistance of others in the lesser important parts of their work. A man with the fertile mind of a Rubens may gather around him a troupe of artists nearly as good as himself in execution, who will carry out his designs completely save for certain details. Thus he is not occupied with laborious toil, and the decreasing accuracy of his handiwork troubles him but little. On the other hand a Rembrandt, whose merits lie chiefly in the delicate manipulation of light effects and intricate shades in expression, remains tied to his canvas. He feels intensely the decreasing facility in the use of his brush which necessarily accompanies his advancing years, and his only recourse from a stoppage of work is an alteration in manner involving a reduction of labour and a lessened strain upon the eyesight. With few exceptions the great masterpieces of Rembrandt were produced in his middle period. During the last ten or fifteen years of his life he gradually increased his breadth of manner. He was still magnificent in general expression, but the intimate details which produced such glorious effects in the great Amsterdam picture, and fifty or more of his single portraits, could not be obtained with hog's hair.[8] Disconnecting then the work of the artist with inspiration or other psychological force, we may now enquire what is mean by "Genius," "Natural gift," or other term used to explain the power of an artist to produce a great work? It would appear that the answer is closely concerned with the condition of the sensorial nerves at birth, and the precocity or otherwise of the infantile imagination. From the fact that we can cultivate the eye and ear so as to recognize forms of harmony which we could not before perceive, and seeing that the effect of this cultivation is permanent, it follows that exercise must bring about direct changes in the nerves associated with these organs, attuning them so to speak, and enabling them to respond to newer harmonies arising from increased complexity of the signs used.[9] It is matter of common knowledge that the structure of the sensorial nerves varies largely in different persons at birth, and when a boy at a very early age shows precocious ability in music or drawing, we may properly infer that the condition of his optic or aural nerves is comparatively advanced, that is to say, it is much less rudimentary than that of the average person at the same age; in other words accident has given him a nerve regularity which can only be gained by the average boy after long exercise. The precocious youth has not a nerve structure superior in kind, but it is abnormally developed, and so he is ahead of his confreres in the matter of time, for under equal conditions of study he is sooner able to arrive at a given degree of skill. But early appreciation of complex harmony, and skill in execution, are not enough to produce a great artist, for there must be associated with these things a powerful imagination. While the particular nerves or vessels of the brain with which the imagination is concerned have not been identified, we know by analogy and experience that the exercise of the imagination like that of any other function, is necessary for its development, and according as we allow it to remain in abeyance so we reduce its active value. Clearly also, the seat of the imagination at birth is less rudimentary in some persons than in others. From these facts it would appear that when both the sensory nerve structure and the seat of the imagination are advanced at birth, then we have the basis upon which the precocious genius is built up. With such conditions, patient toil and deep study are alone necessary to produce a sublime artist. Evidently it is extremely rare for the imagination and nerve structure to be together so advanced naturally, but commonly one is more than rudimentary, and the deficiency in the other is compensated for by study.[10] Of course these observations are general, for there arises the question, to what extent can the senses and imagination be trained? We may well conceive that there is a limit to the development of the sense organs. There must come a period when the optic or aural nerves can be attuned no further; and is the limit equal in all persons? The probability is that it is not. The physical character of the nerves almost certainly varies in different persons, some being able to appreciate more complex harmonies than others, granted the limit of development. This is a point which has to be considered, particularly in the case of music wherein as a rule, the higher the beauty the more complex the combinations of signs. There is a parallel problem to solve in respect of the imagination. We can well believe that there was something abnormal in the imagination of Shakespeare, beyond the probability that in his case the physiological system controlling the seat of the imagination was unusually advanced at birth. It is quite certain that with such a man a given training would result in a far greater advance in the functioning capacity of the imagination, than in the vast majority of persons who might commence the training on apparently equal terms; and he would be able to go further--to surpass the point which might be the limit of development with most persons. These questions are of the highest importance, but they cannot be determined. We are acquainted with certain facts relating to the general development of the sense organs, and of the imagination; and in regard to the former we know that there is a limit within comprehensible bounds, but we see only very dimly anything finite in the scope of the imagination. With what other term than "limitless" can we describe the imagination of a Shakespeare? But in all cases, whatever the natural conditions at birth, it is clear that hard work is the key to success in art, and though some must work harder than others to arrive at an equal result, it is satisfactory to know that generally Carlyle was right when he described "genius" as the transcendent capacity for taking trouble, and we are not surprised that Cicero should have come to the conclusion that diligence is a virtue that seems to include all the others. Seeing that the conclusions above defined (and some to be later drawn), are not entirely in accord with a large part of modern criticism based upon what are commonly described as new and improved forms of the painter's art, it is necessary to refer to these forms, which are generally comprehended under what is known as Impressionism.[c] Alas, to the frailty of man must we ascribe the spread of this movement, which has destroyed so many bright young intellects, and is at this moment leading thousands of gentle spirits along the level path which ends in despair. For the real road of art is steep, and difficult, and long. Year upon year of patient thought, patient observation, and patient toil, lie ahead of every man who covets a crown of success as a painter. He must seek to accumulate vast stores of knowledge of the human form and its anatomy, of nature in her prolific variety, of linear and aerial perspective, of animals which move on land or through the air, of the laws of colours and their combinations. He must sound the depths of poetry, and sculpture, and architecture; absorb the cream of sacred and profane history; and with all these things and many more, he must saturate his mind with the practical details of his art. Every artist whose work the world has learned to admire has done his best to gain this knowledge, and certainly no great design was ever produced by one whose youth and early manhood were not worn with ardent study. For knowledge and experience are the only foundations upon which the imagination can build. Every new conception is a rearrangement of known signs, and the imagination is powerless to arrange them appropriately without a thorough comprehension of their character and significance. [c] The varied interpretations of Impressionism are referred to elsewhere (see page ). When using the term in this book without qualification, the writer means thereby the subordination of design to colour, which definition covers all the forms of the "new art" without going beyond any of them. This then is the programme of work which must be adopted by any serious aspirant to fame in the art of the painter, and it is perhaps not surprising that the number of artists who survive the ordeal is strictly limited. In any walk of life where years of struggle are necessary for success, how small the proportion of men who persevere to the end; who present a steel wall to misfortune and despair, and with an indomitable will, overcome care, and worry, and fatigue, for year after year, till at last the clouds disappear, and they are able to front the world with an all-powerful shield of radiant knowledge! But unfortunately in the painter's art it is difficult to convince students of the necessity for long and hard study, because there is no definite standard for measuring success or failure which they can grasp without long experience. In industries where knowledge is applied to improvement in appliances, or methods with definite ends, or to the realization of projects having a fixed scope, failure is determined by material results measured commonly by mathematical processes of one kind or another. A man produces a new alloy which he claims will fulfil a certain purpose. It is tested by recognized means: all concerned admit the validity of the test, and there the matter ends. But in the arts, while the relative value of the respective grades is equally capable of demonstration, the test is of a different kind. Instead of weights and measures which every man can apply, general experience must be brought in. The individual may be right in his judgment, and commonly is, but he is unable to measure the evidence of his senses by material demonstration, and as he has no means of judging whether his senses are normal, except by comparison, he is liable to doubt his own experience if it clash with that of others. Thus, he may find but little beauty in a given picture, and then may read or hear that the work has a high æsthetic value, and without calling to mind the fact that no evidence in the matter is conclusive unless it be based on general experience, he is liable to believe that his own perception is in some way deficient. Thus in the arts, and particularly in painting, there is ample scope for the spread of false principles. Poetry has an advantage in that the intellect must first be exercised before the simplest pictures are thrown on the brain, so feeble or eccentric verse appeals to very few persons, and seldom has a clientèle, if one may use the word, outside of small coteries of weak thinkers. It is difficult also in sculpture to put forward poor works as of a high order, because this art deals almost entirely with simple human and animal forms in respect of which the knowledge is universal, and so as signs they cannot be varied except in the production of what would be immediately recognized as monstrosities. But in painting an immense variety in kind of beauty may be produced, from a simple colour harmony to the representation of ideal forms involving the highest sensorial and intellectual reaches, and there is ample scope for the misrepresentation of æsthetic effects--for the suggestion that a work yielding a momentary appeal to the senses is superior to a high form of permanent beauty. It is to the ease with which simple forms of ephemeral beauty may be produced in painting that is due the large number of artists who should never have entered upon the profession. Nearly every person of average intelligence is capable with a few lessons of producing excellent imitations of natural things in colour, as for instance, flowers, bits of landscape, and so on, and great numbers of young men and women, surprised at the facility with which this work can be done, erroneously suppose that nature has endowed them with special gifts, and so take up the art of painting as a career. Hence for every sculptor there are twenty painters. Now these youthful aspirants usually start with determination and hope, but although they know the value of studious toil, they rarely comprehend that this toil, long continued, is the only key to success. Most of them seem under the impression that inspiration will come to their assistance, and that their genius will enable them to dispense with much of the labour which others, less fortunate, must undertake. They do not understand that all painters, even a Raphael, must go through long years of hard application. We need not be surprised that there should be occasional eruptions in art circles tending to the exaltation of the immature at the expense of the superior, or even the sublime, for we have always with us the undiligent man of talent, and the "unrecognized genius." But hitherto, movements of the kind have not been serious, for with one exception they are lost in oblivion, and the exception is little more than a vague memory. That the present movement should have lasted so long is not difficult to understand when we remember the modern advantages for the spread of new sensations--the exhibitions, the unlimited advertising scope, and above all the new criticism, with its extended vocabulary, its original philosophy, and its boundless discoveries as to the psychological and musical qualities of paint. That history is silent as to previous eruptions of the kind before the seventeenth century is a matter of regret. It is unlikely that the greatest of all art epochs experienced an impressionist fever, for one cannot imagine the spread of spurious principles within measurable distance of a State (Thebes) which went so far as to prohibit the representation of unbeautiful things. In respect of poetry we know that the Greeks stood no nonsense, for did not Zoilus suffer an ignominious death for venturing upon childish criticism of Homer? In Rome eccentric painters certainly found some means to thrive, for where "Bohemian" poets gathered, who neglected the barber and the bath, and pretended an æsthetic exclusiveness, there surely would painters of "isms" be found in variety. Naturally in the early stages of the Renaissance, when patronage of the arts was almost confined to the Church, and so went hand in hand with learning, inferior art stood small chance of recognition; and a little later when Lorenzo gathered around him the intellectual cream of Italy; when the pupils of Donatello were spreading the light of his genius; when the patrician beauties of Florence were posing for Ghirlandaio and his brilliant confrères, and when the minds of Lionardo and Michelangelo were blooming; who would have dared to talk of the psychological qualities of paint, or suggest the composition of a fresco "symphony"? [Illustration: PLATE 3 (See page 111) Ancient Copy of the Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles (_Vatican_)] But another century and more passed away. The blaze of the Renaissance had gone down, but the embers were kept alive, for Italy still seemed to vibrate with a desire to paint. Simultaneously in Flanders, in Holland, in France, and in England, private citizens appeared to develop a sudden demand for pictures, and quite naturally artists multiplied and fed the flame. Outside of Italy the hustle and bustle in the art world were novelties to the general public, though pleasant ones withal, and for half a century or more they delighted in the majestic designs of Rubens and Van Dyck, the intimate scenes of the Dutch artists, and the delicate landscapes of Claude and Poussin and their followers, which were continually finding their way from Rome. The simplicity of the people protected the arts. They knew the hard labour involved in the production of a picture; the worries, the struggles, the joys of the painters; and daily saw beautiful imitations of every-day life in the shops and markets. They must have been proud of them--insensibly proud of the value of human endeavour. For them the sham and immature had no place: there is not a single example of spurious art of the first three quarters of the seventeenth century that has come down to us from Holland or Flanders. But while the Dutch school was at the height of its fame, a change was marking Italian art conditions. The half score of academies scattered through the country were still in a state of activity, carrying on, as far as they could, the traditions of the Renaissance: from all parts of Europe students were still pouring in, endeavouring to glean the secrets of the immortals; and there was no apparent decrease in the demand for pictures from the religious foundations and private buyers. But the character of the art produced was rapidly declining: the writing on the wall was being done by the hand that wielded the brush. As a necessary consequence the trader was called in and art began to be commercialized. Worse still, fashions appeared, guided by successive masters in the various centres, often with an influence quite out of proportion with their merits. By the middle of the century a general fall in activity and enthusiasm was noticeable. The disciples of the Roman school, largely through the pernicious influence of Bernini, had nearly forgotten the great lessons taught by the followers of Raphael, and later by the three Carracci, and were fast descending below mediocrity; the Florentine school included half a dozen good painters, mostly students of Berritini: Venice was falling into a stagnation in which she remained till the appearance of Longhi and Tiepolo and their brethren; Bologna was living on the reputation of the Carracci, and had yet to recover with the aid of Cignani: Milan and Genoa as separate schools had practically faded away; and the Neapolitan school was relying on Salvator Rosa, though Luca Giordano was growing into an inexhaustible hive of invention. This was the condition of Italian art, while political and other troubles were further complicating the position of artists. For most of them the time was gloomy and the future dark. A few turned to landscape; others extended the practice of copying the early masters for the benefit of foreign capitals, while some sought for novelty in still-life, or in the then newly practised pastel work. But there was a considerable number who would have none of these things; some of them with talent but lacking industry, and others with industry but void of imagination. What were these to do at a time when at the best the outlook was poor? An answer came to this question. A new taste must be cultivated, and for an art that required less study and trouble to produce than the sublime forms with which the Renaissance culminated. So whispers went round that Raphael was not really so great a master as was supposed, and that with Michelangelo he was out of date and did not comprehend the real meaning of art--very similar conclusions with which the modern impressionist movement was heralded.[11] The discovery was made in Rome, but the news expanded to Florence and Naples, and Venice, and behold the result--Sprezzatura, or to use the modern word, Impressionism, that is to say, the substitution of sketches for finished pictures, though this is not the definition usually given to it. But fortunately for the art of the time the innovation was chiefly confined to coteries. All that could be said or done failed to convince the principal patrons of the period that a half finished work is so beautiful as a completed one, and so the novelties rarely found entrance into great collections, nor were they used to adorn the interiors of public buildings. But a good many of them were executed though they have long ceased to interest anybody. Now and again one comes across an example in a sleepy Italian village, or in the smaller shops of Rome or Florence, but it is quickly put aside as a melancholy memento of a disordered period of art when talented painters had to struggle for fame, and the untalented for bread. The cult of Sprezzatura faded to a glimmer before the end of the seventeenth century. Bernini was dead, and Carlo Maratta with a few others led the way in re-establishing the health if not the brilliancy and renown of Italian art. Nor did a recurrence of the movement occur in the next century. During this period there was comparatively little call for art in Italy, and at the end of it, when political disturbances made havoc with academies and artists, the principal occupation of Italian painters with talent was precisely that of their skilled brethren in Holland and Flanders--the manufacture of "old" masterpieces. It was reserved for the second half of the nineteenth century for Sprezzatura to make its reappearance, and this time Italy followed the lead of France. There are many methods and mannerisms which go under the name of Impressionism, but they are mostly suggestions in design or experiments in tones which were formerly produced solely as studies to assist artists in executing their complete works, or else eccentricities which are obviously mere camouflage for lack of skill.[12] Sometimes the sketches are slightly amplified with more or less finished signs, and now and then novelties are present in the shape of startling colour effects; but in all cases the impartial observer sees in the pictures only sensorial beauty of a kind which is inevitably short lived, while his understanding is oppressed with the thought, firstly that the picture is probably the result of a want of diligence on the part of the artist, and secondly that its exhibition as a serious work is somewhat of a reflection upon the intelligence of the public. Obviously the fundamental basis of Impressionism is weak and illogical, for in our conception of nature it invites us to eliminate the understanding. What the impressionist practically says is: "We do not see solid form; we see only flat surface in which objects are distinguished by colours. The artist should reproduce these colours irrespective of the nature of the objects." But the objects are distinguished by our knowledge and experience, and if we are to eliminate these in one art, why not in another? Why trouble about carving in the round when we only actually see in the human figure a flat surface defined by colour? There is no scene in nature such as the impressionist paints, nor can such a scene be thrown upon the mind of the painter as a natural scene. Except in absolute deserts there are no scenes without many signs which are clearly defined to the eye, and which the artist can paint. He cannot of course produce all the signs in a view, but he can indicate sufficient of them to make a beautiful picture apart from the tones, and there can be no valid æsthetic reason for substituting for these signs vague suggestions of colour infinitely less definite than the signs as they appear in nature. Nor is there any such atmosphere in nature as the impressionist usually paints. We do not see blotched outlines of human figures, but the outlines in nature, except at a considerable distance, appear to us clear and decisive though delicately shaded, and not as seen through a veil of steam. Nor has any valid reason been advanced for juxtaposing pure colours instead of blending them before use.[13] Why should the eye have to seek a particular distance from a painting in order that the colours might naturally blend, when the artist can himself blend them and present a harmony which is observable at any reasonable distance? We do not carve a statue with blurred and broken edges, and then tell the observer that the outlines will appear correct if he travel a certain distance away before examining them. In giving nearly his whole attention to colour the impressionist limits his art to the feeblest form, and produces a quickly tiring, ephemeral thing, as if unconscious of natural beauty. Sylvan glades and fairy dales, where the brooks ripple pleasantly as they moisten the roots of the violet, and gently lave the feet of the lark and the robin; where shady trees bow welcome to the wanderer; where the grassy carpet is sprinkled with flowers, and every bush can tell of lovers' sighs! Does the impressionist see these things? Offer him the sweetest beauties of nature, and he shows you in return a shake of a kaleidoscope. Mountain peaks towering one above the other till their snowy crests sparkle the azure sky; mighty rivers dividing the hills, crumbling the granite cliffs, or thundering their course over impeding rocks; cascades of flowing crystal falling into seething seas of foam and mist; the angry ocean convulsively defying human power with its heaving walls and fearsome caverns! Nature in her grandest form: sublime forces which kindle the spirit of man: exhibit them to the impressionist, and he presents to you a flat experiment in the juxtaposition of pure colours! And the majesty of the human form, with its glorious attributes; the noble woman and courageous man; incidents of self-sacrifice; the realms of spiritual beauty, and the great ideals which expand the mind to the bounds of space and lift the soul to Heaven! What of these? Ask the impressionist, and he knows nothing of them. For his pencil they are but relics of the past, like the bones of the men who immortalized them in art. This is perhaps an overstatement of impressionism as applied to the works of a large number of artists, who although commonly sacrificing form to colour, infuse more or less interest in the human poses and actions which are nominally the subjects of their pictures. But one can only deal generally with such a matter. The evil of Impressionism does not lie in the presentation of colour harmonies as beautiful things, for they are unquestionably pleasing, though the beauty is purely sensorial and of an ephemeral character. The mischief arises from the declaration, overt or implied, that these harmonies represent the higher reaches of the painter's art, and that form or design therein is of secondary importance. Let something false in thought or activity be propagated in any domain where the trader can make use of it, then surely will the evil grow, each new weed being more rank than its predecessor. Impressionism is not a spurious form of art, but seeing that its spurious claims were widely accepted, with substantial results, there soon appeared innumerable other forms inferior to it. There is no necessity to deal here with these forms, with the crude experiments of Cézanne, the vagaries of Van Gogh,[14] the puerilities of Matisse, or the awful sequence of "isms," commencing with "Post-Impressionism," and ending in the lowest depths of art degradation; but it is proper to point out that so long as Impressionism puts forward its extravagant pretensions, these corrupt forms will continue to taint the realm of art to the detriment of both artists and public. The significance of Impressionism is alleged by its advocates to be of such considerable import that in the public interest they should have brought forward the most cogent arguments for its support. But we have no such arguments, nor has any logical reason been advanced to offset the obvious practical defects of the innovation, namely, that in the general opinion the art is incomplete and decidedly inferior, and that the leading critics of every country have ignored or directly condemned it as an immature form of art. Nevertheless, although there has been no determined attempt to upset the basis of art criticism as this basis has been understood for more than twenty centuries; although the whole of the arguments in support of the various forms of Impressionism have failed to indicate any comprehensible basis at all, but have dealt entirely with vague sensorial theories, and psychological suggestions which have no general meaning; although it has never been remotely advanced that the beauty produced by means of Impressionism is connected with intellectual activity, as any high form of art must necessarily be: notwithstanding all this, there has been gradually growing up in the public mind, a vague and uncertain signification of the comparative forms of art, which tends to the general confusion of thought amongst the public, and a chaos of ideas in the minds of young artists. The root of these spreading branches of mysticism is to be found in the insistent affirmation that the broad manner of painting is necessary for the production of great work, and that only those old masters who used this manner are worthy of study. It is, as if the advocates of the new departure declare, "If we cannot demonstrate the superiority of our work, we can at least affirm that our methods are the best." Where a small minority is persistent in advocating certain views, and the great majority do not trouble about replying thereto, false principles are likely to find considerable area for permeation among the rising generation, who are easily impressed with the appearance of undisputed authority. In the matter we are discussing, the limited authority is particularly likely to be recognized by the inexperienced of those mostly concerned, that is to say, young artists, because it sanctions a method of work which reduces to a minimum the labour involved in arriving at excellence by the regular channels. Now the artist is at liberty to use any method of painting in producing his picture providing he presents something beautiful. There is no special virtue in a broad manner, a fine manner, or any other manner, and the public, for whom the artist toils, is not concerned with the point. It is as indifferent to the kind of brushwork used by the painter, as to the variety of chisel handled by the sculptor. The observer of the picture judges it for its beauty, and if it be well painted, then the character of the brushwork is unconsidered. If, however, the brushwork is so broad that the manner of painting protrudes itself upon the observer at first sight, then the work cannot be of a high class. All the paintings which we recognize as great works of art are pictured upon the brain as complete things immediately they are brought within the compass of the eye, and to this rule there is no exception. If, when encompassed by the sight we find that a picture is so broadly painted that we must move backwards to an unknown point before the character of the work can be thoroughly comprehended as a complete whole, then it is distinctly inferior as a work of art, because, being incomprehensible on first inspection, it is necessarily unbeautiful, and the act of converting it into a thing of beauty, by means of a mechanical operation, complicates the picture on the brain and so weakens its æsthetic value.[15] This is axiomatic. There are proportions and propriety in all the arts, and the good artist is quite aware of the lines to be drawn in respect of the manner he adopts. Jan Van Eyck's picture of Arnolfini and his Wife, and Holbein's Ambassadors, both painted in the fine manner, are equally great works of art with Titian's portraits; and Raphael's portrait of Julius II. (the Pitti Palace example),[16] which is in a manner midway between that of Holbein and Titian, is superior to the work of all other portrait artists. But the most remarkable outcome of the spread of Impressionism is not the extravagant use of the broad manner, for vagaries of this sort will always find support among immature minds and undiligent hands, but the establishment of a species of cult connected with certain old masters who are not in the very first rank, and the attempted relegation to the background of public opinion, of the few sublime painters whose colossal genius and superiority are recognized by well balanced minds wherever the breath of man can open the door of his soul. It is unnecessary to enter upon a long enquiry as to the validity of these proceedings, but the new position in which two great masters have been placed can scarcely be ignored. These masters are Rembrandt and Velasquez, who appear to have been set upon the loftiest of pedestals in order that some of their glory may be shed upon the new varieties of Sprezzatura. It has been frequently said that these masters were the first of impressionists, but the connection between their work and Impressionism is hard to find.[17] Not only is Rembrandt entirely distinct in his manner from Velasquez; not only were they both portrait painters primarily, while the great bulk of impressionist work is landscape; but their aims, their ideas, and the whole of their works are as far removed from the new school as the poles are asunder. The work of the two great painters deals almost entirely with expression, that of the impressionists with colour harmonies. In the one case intellectual beauty is sought to accompany the sensorial, in the other the production of beauty which is not purely or almost entirely sensorial, is not even pretended. While these differences are obvious, and while no man of ordinary intelligence is likely to be confused in his mind in respect of them, the fact remains that the movement, which was born with Impressionism some forty years ago, to raise Rembrandt and Velasquez to an elevation in art to which they are not entitled, has met with much success amongst that considerable section of the community which is interested in art and appreciates its value, but suffers from the delusion that special knowledge, which it has not acquired, is necessary for the recognition of high æsthetic merit. No definite propositions have been laid down in support of the movement: there has been no line of reasoning for the critic to handle, nor have the old standards been upset in the slightest degree: the position has been brought about chiefly by a continuous reiteration of vague assertions and mystic declarations, and by the glamour arising from the enormous prices paid by collectors for the works of the masters named, consequent upon the skilful commercial exploitation of this exaggerated approbation. [Illustration: PLATE 4 (See Page 113) Venus Anadyomene (_Sculpture after the painting of Apelles_)] [Illustration: PLATE 5 (See page 115) Venus Anadyomene (_The painting of Titian_)] Portraiture is necessarily on a lower scale of art than historical painting (using this term in its higher application), firstly because ideals are not possible therein, and secondly in that the imagination of the artist is very restricted. The greatest portrait ever painted is immeasurably below a picture where a beautiful ideal form, with ideal expression is depicted; as far below in fact as the best ancient sculptured busts were inferior to the gods of Praxiteles. Neither Rembrandt nor Velasquez was capable of idealization of form, and so neither left behind him a single painted figure to take its place as a type. Rembrandt was a master of human expression, and in the representation of character he was perhaps unsurpassed by any painter, but if we analyze the feeling that is at the bottom of the appreciation of his portraits, we find that it largely consists of something apart from admiration of them as things of beauty. There enters into consideration recognition of the extraordinary genius of the artist in presenting character in such a way that the want of corporeal beauty seems to be unfelt. Instead of observing that the expression in a countenance harmonizes with the features, we involuntarily notice that the features harmonize perfectly with the expression, which seems in itself to be the picture. Of course inasmuch as the expression invariably appeals to the good side of our nature, it means intellectual beauty, but as the depth of any impression of this kind of beauty depends upon the development of the mind, the admiration must, except where the artist presents corporeal beauty, be confined generally to the cultivated section of the community. From the point of view of pure art, his fame as a great painter can only rest upon those of his pictures which are also appreciated for the corporeal beauty exhibited. The extraordinary power of Velasquez lay in the sure freedom of his execution, and in this he was equal to Titian. He was besides a master of balance, and so every portrait he painted is one complete whole, and has exactly the effect that a portrait should have--to direct the mind of the observer to the subject, and away altogether from the painter. But these high qualities as portrait painters do not place Rembrandt and Velasquez on a level with Raphael, and Michelangelo, and Correggio. Whatever the individual opinion, it is impossible to move aside from the long path of experience and the laws dependent upon natural functions, and so long as the world lasts, a work of ideal beauty, whether it be a Madonna by Raphael, a Prophet by Michelangelo, or a symbolical figure by Fragonard, will live in general estimation, which is the only test of high beauty, far above portraits from life and scenes of every day labour, however they may be painted. The beauty of the one is eternal and exalting; and of the other, sympathetic and more or less passive. The appreciation of Raphael and Michelangelo is universal, spontaneous, emphatic; of Rembrandt and Velasquez, sometimes imperative, but usually deliberative and cultivated. In fact it is only amongst a section of cultivated people, that is to say, a small percentage of the community, that Rembrandt and Velasquez are given a status which is not, and cannot be, accorded them if we adhere to the natural and time-honoured standards of judgment accepted by the first artists and philosophers known to the world since art emerged from the prehistoric shade. To place these artists above, or on a level with, the Italian artists named, is to cast from their pedestals Homer, Phidias, Praxiteles, Apelles, Shakespeare, Dante, and every other admittedly sublime genius in art of whom we have record. Another baneful result of Impressionism is the attempt to raise landscape to a higher level in art than that to which it is properly entitled. This is perhaps a natural consequence of the elevation of colour at the expense of form, for the movement is based upon new methods of colouring, and the significance of colour is vastly greater in landscape than in any other branch of art. Elsewhere the disabilities of the landscape painter are pointed out, and it will be seen that fixed and unalterable restrictions compel an extreme limitation to his work. It is because of these restrictions that the very greatest artists have refrained from paying close attention to this branch of art as a separate department. From indirect records we may presume that landscape painting was well understood in the days of ancient Greece, but there is no evidence that it then formed a separate branch of art. In Roman times according to Pliny, landscape was used for mural decoration. Of its character we can only judge from the examples exposed during the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, which indicate that the pictures had but a topographical interest, or formed settings for the representation of industrial pursuits or classical adventures. Certainly there is no instance in Greek or Roman art recorded or exhibited, of any landscape as we understand it, that is, a work built up as a beautiful representation of nature, to be instantly recognized by the observer as a complete whole, as one sign in fact. The artists of the Italian Renaissance did not paint landscapes as separate pictures unless by way of study or experiment. They evidently considered landscape signs purely as accessories, and composed their natural views with special reference to figure designs. Some of them, particularly the leaders of the Venetian School, occasionally painted pictures in which landscape appears to play an important part, but in these cases the landscape is really subsidiary, though essential to the design; and the works cannot be compared in any way with those of Claude and others who often added figures to their landscapes in order to comply with the wishes of their patrons. The fifteenth century Flemish artists also dealt with landscape purely as background, and so with Martin Schongauer, Dürer, and other early German painters. But all the great painters down to the decline of the Renaissance, closely studied landscape, as is evidenced by the numerous sketches still existing, and the finished pictures remaining clearly indicate that by the middle of the sixteenth century artists had little or nothing to learn in landscape art, save the management of complex aerial perspective. Since landscape painting was introduced as a separate art towards the end of the sixteenth century, it has only commanded general attention when the higher art of the painter has appeared to decline. In Flanders the spurt in landscape due to Paul Bril was terminated with the last of the Breughels by the overpowering splendour of Rubens in historical work, and the attempts of even Rubens himself to create a greater interest in landscape signally failed. There were some good landscape painters in Holland during the flourishing period of the Dutch school, but it was only when Rembrandt, Dow, Terburg, and the rest of the bright constellation of figure painters had passed their zenith, or were resting in quiet graves, that landscape painting became in any way general. Then it was that Hobbema, Jacob Ruysdael, and their numerous followers, with coast painters like Van der Cappelle, and sea painters as William van de Velde, turned out the many fine works which are now so highly prized. The Italians of the seventeenth century were too close to Raphael, and Michelangelo, and Titian, to permit of a landscape being generally received as a great work of art, but there appeared at this time in Rome numerous foreigners from France, and Flanders, and Holland, who were devoted to landscape, and amongst them the greatest genius known in the art--Claude Lorraine. He was the first to put the sun in the sky on canvas for the purpose of pure landscape; the first to master thoroughly the intricate difficulties of aerial perspective; the first to adorn the earth with fairy castles and dreamy visions of nature, such as we might suppose to have been common in the days of the Golden Age, ere yet men fought for power, or toiled from morn to eve for daily bread. With his magic wand he skimmed the cream of natural beauty and spread it over the Roman Campagna, transforming this historic ground into a region of palaces, terraces, cascades, and glorious foliage. At the same time Nicholas Poussin was also using the Campagna for the landscape settings of his classical compositions--such perfect settings that it is impossible to imagine the figures separated from their surroundings. These two artists with their disciples, and many Flemish and Dutch painters headed by Berghem and the two Boths, formed a landscape colony of considerable importance, but no Italian landscape school was founded from it. In the next century there was little pure landscape in Italy. Some fine works of topographical, and a few of general interest were produced by Canaletto and his followers, and a kind of landscape school was maintained in Venice for half a century or more, but elsewhere in Italy the cultivation of landscape was spasmodic and feeble. In England and France, landscape as a separate art has only made considerable headway quite recently, though there have been local schools, as the Norwich and Barbizon, which followed particular methods in design. Meanwhile England produced some isolated giants in landscape, as Wilson, Gainsborough, Turner, and Constable, Turner standing out as the greatest painter of strong sun effects on record. It will be seen that until the last generation or so, in no country has landscape been admitted to high rank as a separate art, universal opinion very properly recognizing that the highest beauty in the handiwork of man is to be found in the representation of the human figure. Profound efforts of the imagination are not required in landscape, for it consists of a particular arrangement of inanimate signs which have no direct influence upon the mind, and cannot appeal to the higher faculties. There is no scope therein for lofty conceptions, and consequently the sensorial beauty exhibited must be very high to have more than a quickly passing effect upon the observer. This high beauty is most difficult to obtain, and can only be reached by those who have a supreme knowledge of the technique of their art; who have made a long and close study of natural signs and effects; and who are possessed of uncommon patience and industry. We need not be surprised that scarcely one out of every hundred landscape painters executes a work which lasts a generation, and not one out of a thousand secures a permanent place on the roll of art. The man who does not give his life from his youth up, to his work, concentrating his whole energy upon it, to the exclusion of everything else, will paint only inferior landscapes. The four greatest landscape painters known to us are Claude and Turner in distance work, and Hobbema and Jacob Ruysdael in near-ground. Claude was labouring for twenty-five years before he succeeded in accomplishing a single example of those lovely fairy abodes so forcibly described by Goethe as "absolute truth without a sign of reality." Turner took more than twenty years to master the secrets of Claude; Jacob Ruysdael spent a quarter of a century in working out to perfection the representation of flowing water, and Hobbema passed through more than half of his long life before arriving at his superlative scheme of increasing his available distance by throwing in a powerful sunlight from the back of his trees. And a long list of landscape painters of lesser lustre might be given, who went through from fifteen to thirty years of painstaking labour before executing a single first-class picture. Great landscapes of the pure variety are of two kinds, and two kinds only. The highest are those where an illusion of opening distance or other movement is provided, and the second class are where natural scenes of common experience, under common conditions of atmosphere, are faithfully reproduced. The lighter landscapes representing phases, as the sketches of the Barbizon school,[18] with the moonlight scenes, and the thousand and one sentimental colour harmonies unconcerned with human motives, which are turned out with such painful regularity every month, serve their purpose as wall decorations of the moment, but then die and fade from memory like so many of the unfortunate artists who drag their weary way to the grave in the vain struggle for fame by means of them. No landscape of the phase class can be anything more than a simple harmony of tone and design, more ephemeral than the natural phase itself. The quiet harmony is restful for the fatigued eye, and every eye is fatigued every day; and because the eye feels relieved in glancing at the picture, the conclusion arises to the unthinking that it must be a great work of art. Glowing eulogies were pronounced upon Whistler's Nocturne, in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, when it was first placed there, but is there anything less like a work of beauty than the dark meaningless patch as it is now seen? And the same thing has happened with a thousand other landscapes of the kind--first presented to the tired eyes of business and professional men, and then placed in collections to be surrounded by permanently beautiful works. All these phase pictures must quickly lose their beauty in accordance with natural laws which cannot be varied. Let it not be supposed that the writer means to suggest that these simple works should not be executed. They are surely better than no decoration at all in the many homes for which really fine pictures are unavailable, but it is entirely wrong to endeavour to pervert the public judgment by putting them forward as works of high art. And what of the struggling artists? Look around in every city and see the numbers of bright young men and women wearing away the bloom of their youth in vain endeavours to climb the heights of art by the easy track of glowing colours! It is the call of Fame they think, that leads them along, for they know not the voice of the siren, and see not the gaping precipice which is to shatter their dreams. There is but one sure path to the top of the mountain, but it is drab-coloured, and many are the slippery crags. Few of the strongest spirits can climb it, but all may try, and at least they may direct their minds upwards, and keep ever in front of them a vision of the great idealists wandering over the summit through the eternal glow of the fires they lit ere death consecrated their glory. BOOK I CHAPTER I Classification of the fine arts The arts imitative of nature--The arts classified according to the character of their signs--Poetry not a compound art, primarily--The extent to which the arts may improve upon nature. Since art uses natural signs for the purpose of representing nature, it is necessarily mimetic in character.[19] Poetry represents all that the other arts imitate, and in addition, presumed divine actions. Specially it imitates human and presumed spiritual actions, with form and expression; expression directly, form indirectly. Sculpture imitates human and presumed spiritual form and expression; form directly, expression indirectly. It also represents animal forms, and modifications of natural forms in ornament. Painting imitates natural forms and products, and specially human form and expression; form directly, expression indirectly. Fiction imitates human actions, and form and expression; expression directly, form indirectly. Music imitates natural sounds and combines them and specially represents human emotional effects. Architecture is the least imitative of the arts, its freedom in the representation of nature being restricted by the necessity of serving the end of utility. It combines geometrical forms, and in the positions and proportions of these, is compelled to represent what we understand from experience of nature as natural balance. The poet may give to a character sublime attributes far above experience, or expand form as Homer raises the stature of Strife to the heavens, but he cannot provide attributes beyond experience in kind, or any part of a form outside of nature. He may combine or rearrange, and enlarge or diminish as he will, and so may the painter, the sculptor, or musician, but he is powerless to create signs unknown to nature. It follows then, that he who imitates nature in the most beautiful way, that is to say, he who combines the signs of nature to form the most beautiful whole, produces the greatest work of art. It would appear that upon the character of their principal signs is dependent the relative position of the arts in respect of the recognition of beauty therein. Of the six fine arts, namely, Poetry, Sculpture, Painting, Fiction, Music, and Architecture, the first four, which hereafter in this work will be known as the Associated Arts, have for their principal sign the human figure, to which everything else is subordinate; while in music the signs consist of tones, and in architecture, of lines. All the other arts whose object is to give pleasure, as the drama, dancing, etching, are either modifications of one of the fine arts, or combinations of two or more of them. In recent times it has been held that poetry is a combined art, owing to the almost invariable use of a simple form of music in its construction, but it would appear that primarily poetry is independent of metrical assistance. This was clearly laid down by Aristotle, but modern definitions of the art have usually included some reference to metre.[20] Now in our common experience two things are observable in respect of poetry. The first is, that when by way of admiration or criticism, we discuss the works of those poets whom all the world recognizes as the greatest known to us, we deal only with the substance of what is said, and the manner of saying it, without reference to the metrical form. In the second place we observe that the higher the poetry, the more simple is the metrical form with which it is associated. The great epics, which necessarily take first rank in poetry, have only metre, the higher musical measures in which lyrics are set being avoided. But as we descend in the scale of the art, metrical form becomes of more importance, and when simple subjects are dealt with, and a grand style is inappropriate, the production would not be called poetry unless in the form of verse. [Illustration: PLATE 6 (See page 116) The Reposing Venus of Giorgione (_Dresden Gallery_)] In epic and dramatic poetry, we call one poet greater than another because of his superior invention and beauty of expression, let the measure be what it will. But the invention comes first, for only high invention can be clothed with lofty expression. The actions of deathless gods or god-like men; qualities of goodness, nobility, courage, grandeur, so high as to be above human reach: only these can form the subject of language and sentiment soaring into regions of the sublime, and indifferent to metrical artifice. In the sacred books of all great religions we may find the loftiest poetry without regular form, and any prose translation of the Greek poets will provide many examples,[21] though often there is a cadence--a rise and fall in the flow of words which is more or less regular, and has the effect of emphasizing the sentiment, and of throwing the images upon the mind with directness and force. We must conclude then that in poetry, while metrical form is generally essential, it is not vital to the highest flights of the poet, and so strictly, poetry is primarily a pure and not a compound art. Seeing that art uses the signs of nature of which man is at once a product and a tool, it must in its progress follow the general course of nature. In her development of life, nature is chiefly concerned in the improvements of types for her own purposes, and only uses the individual in so far as he can assist in this end, while the natural instinct of the individual is to conserve and improve his type. The art which represents life is compelled to deal chiefly with types, for it is only by the use of a type that the artist can apply his imagination to the production of high beauty, to whatever extent he may use the individual to help him in this purpose, and it is instinctive in the human being to maintain and improve the æsthetic attraction of the species. The highest art, as the highest work of nature, consists of the presentation of a perfected type. The artist therefore must consider the species before the individual; the essential before the accidental; the general before the particular. The living signs of nature with which art deals are of two classes. In the one sign the position of parts is the same throughout the species, and is fixed and invariable, as in fully developed animals; in the other the position is irregular, and variable within limits, as in plants. In the latter case the position of parts may be commonly varied indefinitely without a sense of incongruity arising, as in a tree, and hence there can be no conceivable general form or type upon which art may build up perfected parts and proportions. In respect of such a sign therefore, art cannot improve, or appear to improve, upon nature, by combining perfected parts into a more beautiful whole than nature provides. In the case of a fully developed animal, where the position of parts is fixed, a type may be conceived which is superior in symmetry and harmony to any individual of the species produced by nature, for the imagination is restricted to an unchangeable form, and has but to put together perfected parts and proportions. But this conception can only be applied in art to human beings, because in respect of other animals, while no two are alike, the members of each species, or each section of a species, seem to be alike, or so closely alike in form and expression, that no perfected type can be conceived which will appear to be superior in general beauty to the normal individual of the species, or section thereof, coming within actual experience. Thus, the most perfect conceivable racehorse painted on canvas, might in reality be more perfect in form than any actual racehorse, but to the observer of the picture it would not appear to be of greater perfection or higher beauty than racehorses that come, or may come, within experience. The poet may describe the actions and appearance of a courser in such a way as to suggest that the animal has qualities far above experience, but the form of the animal when thrown on the mind of the reader, would still appear to be within the bounds of experience. With the human being, in addition to the general form there enters into consideration the countenance, which is the all-important seat of beauty, is the principal key to expression, and which, to the common knowledge, differs in every person in character and proportions. Nature never produces a perfect form with a perfect countenance, and she actually refuses to provide a countenance which is free from elements connected with purely human instincts and passions. But it is within the power of art to correct the work of nature in these respects--to put together perfect parts, and to provide a general expression approaching our highest conceptions of human majesty. Homer, Phidias, and Raphael have enabled us to throw upon our minds images far above any of actual experience. Apart from these ideal forms, nature cannot be surpassed by art in the production of beauty, either in respect of animate or inanimate signs, separately or collectively, the latter because within the limitations of art, there is no grouping or arrangement of signs possible which would not appear to correspond with what may be observed in nature, unless something abnormal and less beautiful than any natural combination be presented. Poetry, painting, and sculpture may be concerned with ideals. In fiction an ideal is impossible because the writer must treat of life as it is, or as it appears to be, within the bounds of experience. In neither music nor architecture is there a basic sign or combination of signs upon which the imagination may build up an ideal. CHAPTER II LAW OF RECOGNITION IN THE ASSOCIATED ARTS Explanation of the law--Its application to poetry--To sculpture--To painting--To fiction. While we are unable to explain, logically and completely, our appreciation of what we understand as beauty, experience has taught us that there are certain phenomena connected with æsthetic perception which are so regular and undeviating in their application as to have all the force of law. The first and most important of these phenomena relates to the interval of time elapsing between the sense perception of a thing of art, and the recognition by the mind of the beauty therein. We know from common experience of the Associated Arts that if one fails to appreciate a work almost immediately after comprehending its nature and purport, he arrives at the conclusion that there is no beauty therein, or at least that the beauty is so obscure as to be scarcely worth consideration. But sometimes on further acquaintance with the work the view of the observer may be changed, and he may become aware of a certain beauty which he did not before appreciate. We notice also that when the beauty is comparatively high, it is more rapidly recognized than when it is comparatively low. Continuing the examination we arrive at what is evidently an unalterable law, namely, that the higher the æsthetic value in a particular sphere of art, the more rapidly is the beauty therein recognized; that is to say, given any two works, other things being equal, that is the higher art the beauty in which is the more quickly conveyed to the mind of the observer after contact with it, and precisely to the extent to which the reasoning powers are required to be exercised in comprehending the work, so the beauty therein is diminished. The law may be called for convenience the Law of Recognition. But there are different kinds of beauty as well as degrees. One kind may be more quickly recognized, and yet make a weaker impression on the mind, a condition which is due to the varying relations between the sensorial and intellectual elements in the works. We note that in all the Associated Arts, as the works therein descend in æsthetic value, the emotional element becomes more evident, and consequently the impression received, less permanent. But sensorial beauty is the first essential in a work of art: hence while the direct appeal to the mind must be made as strong as possible, this must not be done at the expense of the emotional elements. We unconsciously measure the emotional with the intellectual effect, and if the former does not at least equal the latter, we reject the work as inferior art. A painted Madonna wanting in beauty of features is instantly and properly condemned even if her figure be enshrined within surroundings of saintly glories which in themselves make a powerful appeal to the mind. In fact the highest reaches in art were probably originally suggested by the necessity of balancing the one with the other form of beauty. The highest intellectual considerations seem to rise far above any emotional experiences connected with ordinary life, and hence to enable these considerations to enter the domain of art, the divine must be introduced so that the artist may extend his imaginative scope for the provision of emotional effects commensurate, as far as possible, with the importance of his appeal to the mind. Hence in all arts which combine an intellectual with an emotional appeal, the highest forms must ever be connected with the spiritual. In other grades of these arts also, the artist has to use special means to maintain a due balance between the two kinds of beauty. Shakespeare could not give men and women of every-day experience the wisdom, the judgment, and the foresight necessary for the presentation of the powerful pictures which some of his characters throw upon the mind, so he raises them above the level of life by according them greater virtues and nobler passions than are to be found in people of actual experience. The supreme emotional effects he produces seem perfectly appropriate therefore to the intellectual appeals. In the next lower form of art, where the representation does not go beyond life experience, the emotional appeal is of still greater relative importance because the appeal to the mind is rarely striking. The emotional effect here may indeed be so overpowering that the purely mental considerations are lost sight of, and we observe that in all the greater works of art in the division, whether of poetry, painting, sculpture, or fiction, the intellectual appeal is vastly exceeded by the emotional. When we reach the grade which deals with subjects inferior to the average level of human life, as the representation of animals, landscape, humour, still-life, the sensorial effect must be exceedingly strong relatively, otherwise the art would scarcely be recognizable, the appeal to the mind being necessarily weak. It is clearly compulsory then that the Associated Arts, all of which may appeal to the mind as well as to the senses, should be separated into divisions for the purpose of applying the Law of Recognition, and these divisions are obvious, for they are marked by the strongest natural boundary lines. They are: 1. The art which deals with divinities. 2. That which exhibits beauty above life experience, but does not reach the divine. 3. That which represents life. 4. That which produces representations inferior to life. This separation corresponds with that applied by Aristotle to poetry and painting, except that he joined the two first sections into one, which he described as better than life. But the division of the great philosopher, while being sufficient for his purpose, is hardly close enough for the full consideration of the kinds of beauty, since it puts in the same class, representations of the divinity and the superman--joins Homer and Phidias with Praxiteles and Raphael. In dealing with the divine the artist need place no limit to his imagination in the presentation of his picture, whereas with the superman he must circumscribe his fancy within the limits of what may appear to the senses to be possibly natural. It is true that the poet may use the supernatural as distinguished from the divine, to enable him to extend his imaginative scope, and so give us beautiful pictures which would be otherwise unpresentable. Shakespeare makes us imagine Puck encircling the earth in forty minutes, and Shelley shows us iron-winged beings climbing the wind, but we immediately recognize these pictures as figures of fancy, or as in the nature of allegory, and they do not impress us so deeply as the miraculous flight of a goddess of Homer, or an assemblage of the satellites of Satan in the Hell of Milton, for we involuntarily regard these events as compatible with the religious faith of great nations, and so as having a nearer apparent semblance of truth. Sacred art therefore, being capable of providing beauty of a much higher kind than any other form, should be placed in a separate section for the purpose of considering the law under discussion. Only poetry among the arts is capable of appropriately representing divine actions, and only sculpture of producing a form so perfect as to bring a divinity to mind. Hence these arts are alone concerned with the Law of Recognition as applied to the first section of the Associated Arts. The law applies to all the Associated Arts, and to all sections of them, except the lowest form of painting--that represented by harmony of colour without appeal to the mind of any kind--but this form is so weak and exceptional that it need hardly be considered in the general proposition. Indeed we might reasonably argue that it does not come within the fine arts, as it is produced by a mechanical arrangement of things with fixed and unalterable physical properties. The law cannot apply to music and architecture, for the effects of these are purely emotional, and so directly vary with conditions of time and place respectively. A work of architecture may seem more beautiful in one place than in another; and a work of music more or less beautiful according as it more or less synchronizes with emotional conditions of human activity surrounding the hearer at the time of the performance. While this law is unvarying in the Associated Arts, there are artificial restrictions which must be considered in order that apparent deviations from it may be understood. Special restrictions in relation to the higher poetry and sculpture are mentioned later on, but there is also an important general restriction. The sense nerves and the imagination, like all other functions, must be exercised in order that normal healthy conditions may be retained; but a large section of the people, by force of circumstances or want of will, have neglected this exercise, and so through disuse or misuse these functions are often in a condition which is little more than rudimentary. Hence such persons are practically debarred from appreciation of many forms of art, and particularly those wherein intellectual beauty is a marked feature. In discussing the operation of this law amongst people in general therefore, the writer must be understood to refer only to that section of the community whose sense nerves and imaginations may be supposed to be in a healthy, active condition. Experience with all the Associated Arts has clearly demonstrated the validity of this law. The strength of the devices used by the poet lies in simplifying the presentation of his pictures. Metaphor is necessary to the poet, for without it he would be powerless to present pictures made up of a number of parts, but he also uses it for the purpose of throwing simple images upon the mind more rapidly, and consequently more forcibly, than would be possible if direct means were employed; and the beauty of the metaphor appears the greater according as it more completely fills in the picture which the poet is desirous of presenting. When other artifices than metaphor or simile are applied, the result only appears very beautiful when the condensation of the language used is extreme, and when there is no break in the delineation of the action. A few supreme examples of beauty derived from the principal devices of the poet for presenting his pictures may be instanced, and it will be found that in each case the power of the image is directly due to the brevity of expression, the simplicity of description and metaphor, or the unimpeded representation of action. More than three thousand years have passed since the period assigned to Helen of Troy, and yet each generation of men and women as they learn of her, have deeply sealed upon their minds the impression that she was of surpassing beauty, almost beyond the reach of human conception. We have practically no details of her appearance from Homer or Hesiod, except that she was neat-ankled, white-armed, rich-haired, and had the sparkling eyes of the Graces, but already in the time of Hesiod her renown "spread over the earth." What was it then that established the eternal fame of her beauty? Simply a few words of Homer indicating the startling effect of her appearance before the elders of Troy. We are allowed to infer that these dry, shrunken-formed sages, shrill-voiced with age, became passionately disturbed by a mere glance at her figure, and nervously agreed with each other that little blame attached to the Greeks and Trojans for suffering such long and severe hardships on account of her, for only with the goddesses could she be compared. How wondrous must be the beauty when a glimpse of it suffices to hasten the blood through shrivelled veins, and provoke tempestuous currents to awake atrophied nerves! Without the record of this incident, the vague notices of Helen's appearance would be very far from sufficient to account for the universal recognition of her marvellous beauty.[22] [Illustration: PLATE 7 (See page 122) Greek Sculpture, 4th Century B.C. Attributed to Scopas Greek Bronze, 3d Century B.C. Heads of Demeter] One of the finest lines of Shakespeare is, "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank." The beauty of the line rests entirely upon the use of the word "sleeps" to express something which could not be otherwise said without the use of many words. The moonbeam is apparently perfectly still, the atmosphere calm, and there is nothing in the surroundings to disturb the natural tranquillity, these conditions inducing a feeling of softness and rest in the observer. If it had been necessary to say all this, Shakespeare would certainly have omitted reference to the moonlight, but his powerful imagination brings to mind the word "sleeps" to express the conditions, and we are overwhelmed with a beautiful picture suddenly thrown on the brain as if by a brilliant flash of light. Among the many illustrations of the point which may be found in the Bible, is the great passage, "And God said, 'Let there be Light,' and there was Light." This is described by Longinus as nobly expressed, but he does not suggest any cause for its æsthetic effect. It is true that nothing could be finer, but the nobility of the expression is derived from its brevity--from the extreme rapidity with which so vast and potent an event as an act of creation is pictured on the brain.[23] A description of an act of creation, although involving psychological considerations of sublimity, is not necessarily so beautiful in expression as to be a work of art. In the case of lyric poetry, brevity of expression, though still of high importance, is not of so much moment as in epic or dramatic verse, because the substance is subordinated to beauty of expression and musical form. Devices are used chiefly for strengthening the sensorial element, the appeal to the mind being in most cases secondary. Nevertheless the lyric poet wastes no words. Take for example Sappho's _Ode to Anactoria_. The substance of these amazing lines is comparatively insignificant, being merely the expression of emotion on the part of an individual consequent upon disappointment, yet the transcendent beauty of the poem has held enthralled fourscore generations of men and women, and still the world gasps with astonishment at its perfection. Obviously the beauty of the ode rests mainly on qualities of form which cannot be reproduced in translation, but the substance may be, and it will be observed that the description of the action is unsurpassable. The picture, the whole picture, and nothing but the picture, is thrown on the mind rapidly and directly; so rapidly that the movement of the brush is scarcely discernible, and so simply that not a thought is required for its elucidation. With the chain of symptoms broken or less closely connected, the passion indicated would be comparatively feeble, whatever the force of the artifices in rhythm and expression which Sappho knew so well how to employ.[24] As with poetry, so with the arts of sculpture and painting: the greatest works result from simple designs. All the sculptures which we recognize as sublime or highly beautiful, consist of single figures, or in very rare cases, groups of two or three, and indeed it is difficult to hold in our minds a carved group of several figures. The images of the Zeus and Athena of Phidias, though we know little of them except from literary records and inferior copies, are far more brilliantly mirrored upon our minds than the Parthenon reliefs. The importance of simplicity is perhaps more readily seen in sculpture than in any other art, for the slightest fault in design has an immediate effect upon the mind of the observer. It is noticeable that the decadence of a great art period is usually first marked by complications in sculptured figures.[25] In painting, the pictures which we regard as great are characterized by their simplicity, and the immediate recognition of their purport. They are either ideal figures, or groups where at least the central figure is idealized and commonly known. The work must be grasped at one glance for the beauty to be of a high order. Hence in the case of frescoes great artists have not attempted to make the beauty of any part dependent upon the comprehension of the whole. It is impossible for the eye to take in at a single glance the whole of a large fresco painting, and this explains why a fresco celebrated for its beauty is often disappointing to one who sees it for the first time, and endeavours to impress it on his mind as a single picture by rapidly piecing together the different parts.[26] Polygnotus could well paint forty scenes from Homer as mural decoration in one hall, for they could only be examined and understood as separate pictures; and the ceiling of Michelangelo at the Vatican is so arranged that there is no necessity for combining the parts in the mind. So with the Parma frescoes of Correggio. Raphael had a different task in his Vatican frescoes, but he accomplished it by arranging his figures so that each separate group is a beautiful picture; and Lionardo in his great work at Milan divided the Apostles into groups of three in order to minimize the consideration necessary for the appreciation of so large a work. Fiction is divided into two sections, the novel and the short story, and they are so distinct in character that they must necessarily be considered separately in the application of the law under discussion. Form is of high importance in both classes of the art, but weighs more in the short story because here the appeal to the mind is unavoidably restricted. The novelist is capable of producing a higher beauty than is within the range of the short-story writer. The latter is limited in his delineation of character to the circumstances surrounding a single experience, while the novelist, in describing various experiences, may add shade upon shade in expression and thus elevate the characters and actions above the level possible of attainment by means of a single incident. But within his limit the short-story writer may provide his beauty more easily than the novelist, because a picture can be more readily freed from complications when away from surroundings, than when it forms one of a series of pictures which must have connecting links. A good short story consists of a single incident or experience in a life history. It is clearly cut, without introduction, and void of a conclusion which is not directly part of the incident. The subject is of general interest; the language simple, of common use, and free from mannerisms; while there are no accessories beyond those essential for the comprehension of the scheme. These conditions, which imply the most extreme simplicity, are present in all the greatest short stories known to us--the best works of the author of the _Contes Nouvelles_, of Sacchetti, Boccaccio, Margaret of Navarre, Hoffman, Poe, and De Maupassant. The novel differs from the short story in that it is a large section of a life with many experiences, but the principles under which the two varieties of fiction are built up, are precisely the same. Obviously the limit in length of a novel is that point beyond which the writer cannot enhance the beauty of character and action, while maintaining the unity of design. This means the concentration of effort in the direction of simplicity, facilitating the rapid reception of the pictures presented by the writer upon the mind of the reader. It is thus evident that the higher the beauty in the Associated Arts, the simpler are the signs or sign combinations which produce it; and hence the Law of Recognition rests on a secure foundation, for the simple must necessarily be recognized before the complex. CHAPTER III LAW OF GENERAL ASSENT General opinion the test of beauty in the Associated Arts. The first aim of art is sensorial beauty, because sensorial experience must precede the impression of beauty upon the mind. The extent to which something appears to be sensorially harmonious depends upon the condition or character of the nerves conveying the impression of it to the brain. We know from experience that exercise of these nerves results in the removal or partial removal of natural irregularities therein, and enables a complex form of beauty to be recognized which was not before perceived. The vast majority of the people have not cultivated their sense nerves except involuntarily, and consequently can only recognize more or less simple beauty: thus, as the sign combinations become more complicated, so is diminished the number of persons capable of appreciating the beauty thereof. The highest form of beauty conceivable to the imagination is that of the human being, because here corporeal and intellectual beauty may be combined. This is universally admitted and has been so since the first records of mental activity. The human figure must be regarded as a single sign since the relation of its parts to each other is fixed and invariable; and further it is the simplest, because of all signs none is so quickly recognized by the rudimentary understanding. In the Associated Arts therefore, the highest beauty is to be found in the simplest sign, and this is the one supremely important sign in these arts, for without it only the lowest forms may be produced. From all this we determine that the higher the beauty in a work of the Associated Arts, the larger is the number of persons capable of recognizing it; so that if we say that something in these arts is beautiful because it pleases, we imply that it is still more beautiful if we say that it generally pleases, and the highest of all standards of beauty is involved in the interpretation of Longinus: "That is sublime and beautiful which always pleases, and takes equally with all sorts of men." Thus, in the Associated Arts, the general opinion as to the æsthetic value of a work of high art is both demonstration and law.[27] In music the significance of the signs is inverted compared with the progression in the Associated Arts, for while in the latter the highest form of beauty is produced by the simplest of single signs, in music the higher forms are the result of complex combinations of signs. The greatest musical compositions consist of an immense variety of signs arranged in a hitherto unknown order. Thus, while the immature or uncultivated mind recognizes the higher forms of beauty before the lower in the Associated Arts, it first recognizes the lower forms in music. In the Associated Arts therefore, cultivation results in the further appreciation of the forms of art as they descend, and in music as they ascend. In painting, the most uncultivated persons, even those who have never exercised their organs of sight except involuntarily, will always admire the higher forms before the lower.[28] They will more highly appreciate a picture of a Madonna or other beautiful woman than an interior where the scene is comparatively complicated by the presence of several persons, and they will prefer the interior to a landscape, and a landscape to a still-life picture. So in sculpture. Other things being equal, a figure of a man or woman will be preferred to a group, and the group to an animal or decorative ornament. An exception must however be made in respect of the sublime reaches of Grecian sculpture in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., owing to an artificial restriction. There is very little of this sculpture to be actually seen, nearly all the more important works being known only from records or variable copies. Considerable observation, comparison, and study, are necessary before one can gain a fair conception of the Grecian ideals, and so they are practically lost to the bulk of the people. In fiction it is common knowledge that the greatest works from the point of view of art are always the most popular, as they are invariably the most simple in construction and diction. In considering poetry we must exclude the great epics, as those of Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Milton, because where the actions of supernatural persons are described, the sentiments and language employed are so elevated in character, and the images and literary references so numerous, that a certain superior education is required before the sense of the poems can be comprehended. Subject to this artificial restriction, the rule holds entirely good. Shakespeare is at once the greatest and most popular of our poets: Shelley, Byron, and Burns, are as far ahead of Tennyson and Browning in popularity as they are in general beauty and simplicity. In music on the other hand the lower forms are the simplest and consequently the most popular. Songs, dance measures, and ditties of various kinds, are enjoyed by the mass of the people in preference to Beethoven and Wagner, a certain cultivation of the aural nerves being necessary for the appreciation of the greater artists. The architect is under the necessity of meeting the ends of utility, but subject to this restriction it is obvious that simplicity must be the keynote to his design, for the highest quality of beauty in his power to produce is grandeur, and this diminishes with an increase in the complexity of his sign combinations. The combination of simplicity with grandeur is the first form of beauty that would be recognized by the immature eye, and consequently in respect of the general test of art excellence, architecture falls into line with the Associated Arts, and not with music. From what has been said it will be understood how it is that in the Associated Arts opinion as to the æsthetic value of particular works begins to differ as soon as we leave the recognized masterpieces of the first rank, and why the divergence widens with every step downwards. As the character of the art is lowered so is diminished the number of persons capable of appreciating it. In painting and sculpture this diminution is direct with the increased complexity of the signs used, and indirect according as the character of the signs weakens. In poetry the same rule applies generally, but in the lower forms alliance with the art of music may bring about a variation. Only the very lowest forms of music may be used with the higher forms of poetry because the poet must have the minimum of restriction when dealing with the character and actions of the personages who constitute the principal signs in his work, but as the art descends the musical form becomes of more importance, and the substance more simple. Hence the sensorial beauty of a lyric may be appreciated more quickly than that of a poem which is, in substance, of a much higher order, though the kind of beauty recognized will differ in the two cases. But even in the greatest lyric the musical form is comparatively very simple, its beauty being recognized without special cultivation of the aural nerves: thus, subject to the division of poetry into its natural grades--the two sections where substance and form respectively predominate--the measure of its beauty is the extent to which it is generally appreciated. None of the other Associated Arts may be allied with a second art without crippling it as a fine art, because of the extraordinary limitations forced upon the artist by the alliance; and hence in respect of sculpture, painting, and fiction, there is no exception to the rule that the beauty capable of being produced diminishes strictly with an increase in the complexity of the signs used. These facts appear sufficiently to establish what may be called the Law of General Assent in the Associated Arts; that is to say, in the arts of poetry, sculpture, painting, and fiction, the supreme test of the æsthetic value of a work, is general opinion; and a corollary of this is that the smaller the number of persons to whom a work of one of these arts appeals, the weaker is the art therein. CHAPTER IV LIMITATIONS OF THE ASSOCIATED ARTS The production of beauty in the respective arts--How they differ in scope. The Associated Arts have all the same method of producing beauty: they throw pictures on the brain.[29] Sensorial or intellectual beauty, or both together, may be exhibited, but in the arts of the painter and sculptor the picture is transferred to the brain through the optic nerves, and is necessarily presented before the intellect can be brought to bear upon the impression. The arts of the poet and the story writer involve the presentation of a picture representing the complete composition, and in addition when the work is lengthy, of a series of pictures each of which strengthens the relief of the general design. The painter and sculptor each presents a complete picture, the meaning of which is immediately determined through the sense of sight, and the extent of the beauty is bounded by what can be recognized by this sense. All the signs necessary to perfect the composition are simultaneously indicated, the artist exhibiting at one blow a full description of what makes up his thing of beauty. But the poet cannot so produce a picture because he presents the parts successively and not simultaneously, and in the most important of all the forms which he represents--that of the human countenance--both beauty and expression have to be defined, and the separate elements are indescribable. Consequently, however, we may combine the features of a countenance as described by the poet, we cannot throw a picture of the whole upon our minds. A particular form of beauty must be presented to the eye before it can be mentally pictured. The poet therefore does not attempt to dovetail his picture of the human form with descriptive details, but relies upon imagery, suggestion, or other artifice, to indicate his meaning in the most rapid way possible.[30] The novelist is in the same position as the poet in this respect, except that some of the devices of the latter are denied him. But although the poet or novelist cannot put together the parts in his description, he may in certain cases present natural beauty to the mind, his scope depending upon the nature of the parts and the extent to which they depend upon each other for the completion of the picture. Where the beauty of the whole rests upon a combination of perfected parts of form only, as in the case of a horse, then the poet is able to present beauty of form notwithstanding that the separate parts are in themselves not beautiful, though the beauty would be that of the type and not of the individual. The beauty of a horse depends upon its possession of a collection of features which have each a particular significance. If we are able to recognize from a description that a horse has qualities of form and action indicating speed, high spirits, proud bearing, and so on, and at the same time has a harmonious symmetry in its general outline, a beautiful animal is thrown on the mind without difficulty. We readily picture the courser described by Shakespeare in his _Venus and Adonis_ as a beautiful horse, but we should not be able to differentiate it from the courser of Mazeppa. Where the parts of the thing described are in themselves beautiful, then the poet may successfully throw on the mind a series of pictures of æsthetic interest. Thus, he may call to the imagination parts of a landscape which are in themselves beautiful scenes, as for instance a deep gorge opening on to a lake, or a flowery valley, though the parts could not be put together on the mind so that the beauty of the whole may be presented.[31] Summing up the limits of the Associated Arts in the presentation of the two kinds of beauty, the poet and the novelist can present general or particular beauty of mind, and general sensorial beauty, but are powerless with particular sensorial beauty; the sculptor and painter may present general or particular sensorial beauty, and general, but not particular, beauty of mind. Particular sensorial beauty may be suggested by the poet or novelist, by indicating its emotional effect, or by symbols in the form of metaphor; and particular intellectual beauty may be suggested by the sculptor or painter by representing the effect in expression of a particular action, or by symbols in the form of human figures of beauty. [Illustration: PLATE 8 (See page 139) Raphael's Sistine Madonna, with the Face of the Central Figure in Fragonard's "The Pursuit" Substituted for that of the Virgin] But while the poet cannot throw upon the brain a particular form of human beauty, he may suggest a greater beauty than that which the painter or sculptor can depict, and further produce emotional effects relating to spiritual and human actions and passions which are beyond the plastic arts: hence his art is capable of the highest reaches. Next to him come the sculptor and painter, for they may represent ideal forms which must be excluded from fiction. Theoretically, painting and sculpture are equal in respect of the production of human beauty, for there is no form designed by the one which may not be presented by the other; but practically the painter cannot attain to the height of the sculptor in the representation of ideal beauty.[a] [a] See Chapter IX. The sculptor and painter are at a disadvantage compared with the poet and novelist, for the limitation of their arts compels them to confine their imaginations to structural work. Each of the Associated Arts consists nominally of three parts: (_a_) the scheme, or idea, or fable; (_b_) the design or invention[32]; (_c_) the execution. In a representation of action, the painter or sculptor can only depict a particular moment of it, neither the beginning nor the end being visible. He must therefore choose an action of which the beginning and end are known, for while either may be suggested in a simple design, both cannot be implied so that the whole story is obvious. He has consequently to take his moment of action from a fact or fable in one of the literary arts, or from actual life experience.[33] Where no particular action is indicated, as in many pastoral and interior scenes in painting, or ornamental figures in sculpture, the conception and invention are one. Thus, the painter or sculptor is confined to only two parts of his art, the design and execution. While therefore the scope of the poet and novelist is as unlimited as the sea of human motives and passions, that of the painter and sculptor is held within strictly marked bounds. All the Associated Arts are alike in that they cannot be specially used for moral or social purposes without suffering a marked deterioration. This is because of the limitations imposed upon the artist. His wings are clipped: his imagination is confined within a narrow groove: he is converted from a master to a slave. Hence no great work of one of these arts has been produced where the conception of the artist was bound by the necessity of pointing a moral, or of conforming to some idea of utility.[34] CHAPTER V DEGREES OF BEAUTY IN THE PAINTER'S ART The degrees of beauty which the art of the painter can exhibit appear to be, in order of their value, as follows: 1. That which appeals to the senses with form, and to the mind with expression, above the possibility of life experience. This double beauty can only be found in ideals, and the real cannot be associated with it except as accessory. The highest art of the painter is therefore confined to sacred, mythological, and symbolical subjects. 2. That which appeals to the senses through representation of the human form, without, or with only partial idealization, and to the mind through the indication in expression of high abstract qualities. This section comprises subjects of profane history, and high class portraiture. It varies from the succeeding section in that the artist may represent the human being as he ought to be, or would be with the higher physical and abstract qualities emphasized, or in certain cases, with these qualities added. 3. That which appeals to the senses through the harmony of tone and design, and to the mind through the representation of human action within the compass of life experience. This section comprises interiors and exteriors relating to daily life and labour, and portraiture which is merely accurate imitation of features. It differs from the previous section in that it represents the human being as he is, and not as he ought to be. 4. That which appeals to the senses through harmony of colour and design, in respect of the imitation and the things imitated, in addition to pleasing because it excites admiration of the skill in imitation. This section comprises landscape, flowers, fine plumaged birds, and certain symmetrical animal forms. 5. That which appeals to the senses through harmony of tone and design, and indirectly to the mind through association of ideas connected with the other arts; in addition to pleasing because of the excellent imitation, and possibly because of the beauty of the things imitated. This section comprises paintings of things connected with the other arts, and which are neither beautiful nor displeasing, such as books and musical instruments; or which are imitations of products of another art, as plate, marble reliefs, or architectural forms. 6. That which appeals to the senses through harmony of tone and design, in addition to pleasing because of the excellent imitation. This class of beauty comprises paintings of objects which in themselves are not beautiful, as vegetables, kitchen utensils, and certain animals; or which are even repellent, as dead animals. 7. That which appeals to the senses through harmony of colour, the design having no beauty in itself. This form of art, which is the lowest in the scale of the painter, is only adapted for the simplest formal decoration. The first three sections may produce both sensorial and intellectual beauty; the others only sensorial. Limited abstract qualities are associated with certain animals in nature, but cannot be indicated in the uncombined art of the painter. Beyond these sections, there are classes of pictures which do not belong to the pure art of the painter, namely, those executed for use and not for beauty[35]; those painted to illustrate sports, or to record passing events; certain allegorical paintings; and those works which, while they cannot represent the ideal, require the assistance of another art for their interpretation; as for instance, incidents to illustrate particular morals or stories; scenes from the drama other than tragedy; portraits of persons in character; humorous subjects, and so on. Such works, on account of the restrictions imposed on the artist, can exhibit but limited and fleeting beauty. Elsewhere they are noticed under the heading of "Secondary Art." CHAPTER VI EXPRESSION. PART I.--THE IDEAL The human being is the only sign in the arts capable of idealization, because, while its parts are fixed and invariable, it is the only sign as to which there is a universal agreement in respect of the value of abstract qualities connected with it. There can be no ideal of the human form separately, because this implies expression which results from abstract qualities. Nor can there be an ideal combination of these qualities, except a general expression covering all the virtues and eliminating all the passions, which expression cannot be disassociated from form. The ideal human being is therefore a perfect generalization of the highest conceivable qualities of form and expression. Necessarily in matters of art, when we use the term "Ideal," we mean a general ideal, that is to say, an ideal that would be accepted as such by the general body of men and women. From the fact that the sensorial nerves in all persons are alike in form and character, and that they act in the same way under like conditions, it follows that there must be a general agreement as to degrees of beauty, and thus a common conception of the ideal human being. Experience has demonstrated this at all times, both in respect of the general ideal we are now discussing, and of particular ideals involving special types and characters; and so invariable is this experience that the progression towards similar ideals has all the force of law.[36] This general agreement is subject to certain restrictions. The first is in regard to form in which the imagination cannot proceed beyond experience. The component parts of an ideal form cannot include any which are higher in quality than those which have come within the experience of the person compounding the ideal. Secondly, in regard to abstract qualities, the estimation of these depends upon intelligence and education, and the accumulated experience of these things, which we measure in terms of degrees of civilization. Consequently, different interpretations would be placed upon the phrase "the highest conceivable qualities of form and expression," by the various races of mankind. According as the experience was greater, so would the ideal form be higher in type; and as the civilization was more advanced, so would the abstract qualities exhibited be more perfect in character. But among civilized peoples what is, within our understanding, the ultimate form of the ideal, would not change in respect of abstract qualities, and as to form would only vary in comparatively insignificant details with the width of experience. It is obvious that there can be only one general ideal covering perfection of form and mind, and this being beyond human experience, can only be associated with a spiritual personage, and necessarily with the highest conceivable spiritual personage--the Supreme Being. In its absolute perfection it may be significant of the Supreme Being of any religion of civilized peoples, but not of other spiritual personages to whom such perfection may also be attributed, because absolute power can only be implied in one such personage. This power cannot be indicated in an ideal expression, and hence there is no alternative but to leave the one general ideal to the Supreme Being. There are only two religions in which an ideal human form has been used in art to typify the Supreme Being, and these are the ancient Grecian and the Christian; but the one general ideal referred to has only been used by the Greeks. The Christian conception of the Deity is far nobler than that which the Greeks had of Zeus, but in art nothing greater than the Grecian ideal has been executed. As a type of an Almighty Power the best Christian representation is distinctly inferior, and it must necessarily be so because convention requires that a particular feature of expression must be indicated therein which is not compulsory in the Grecian ideal. Forgiveness of sins is a cardinal principle in the Christian doctrine, and consequently whatever the character of expression given to the Deity, a certain gentleness has to be exhibited which materially limits the comprehensive nature of the expression. The Grecian ideal, as sculptured, strictly denied any particular characteristic, while covering every good quality, and hence for the Christian it is not so suitable as the accepted modification. Among the Greeks, ideal types of the gods and goddesses other than Zeus varied considerably. Those representations that have come down to us are usually deviations from the Zeus type with certain special characteristics, though often they can only be distinguished from each other by symbols. They are above human life and so cannot be appropriately associated with human surroundings. Ideals appertaining to Christianity are practically fixed by convention, or are interchangeable with ideals in allegorical and symbolical art. Art is not concerned with what are termed ideal physical qualities because beauty is its first consideration. A form with powerful limbs and muscles may be generally accepted as an ideal form of strength, but these very limbs and muscles would detract from the beauty of the figure, and so separately such a form would be inferior art. An ideal can only be applied to excellence. In art, moral or physical deformity cannot be exaggerated for the purpose of emphasis or contrast without lessening the deformity or injuring the art. In the work of the greater artists the former result follows; in that of less skilful artists, the latter. Homer could not deal with evil characters without exciting a certain sympathy with them, thus diminishing the deformity in the minds of his readers. There is a measure of nobility about Shakespeare's bad men, and Milton distinctly ennobled Satan in portraying his evil powers and influence. In painting and sculpture there is no place for hideous forms of any description, for they either revolt the imagination and so neutralize the appreciation of the beautiful figures present in the composition, or they verge upon the ridiculous and disturb the mind with counteracting influences. With rare exceptions the greater artists have not failed to recognize this truth,[37] and in respect of the very greatest men, no really hideous figure is to be found in any of their works, if we except certain instances where the artist had to comply with fixed rules and conditions, as for example in Michelangelo's Last Judgment where evil beings had perforce to be presented, and could only be shown as deformities. Attempts to emphasize ugliness by artists of inferior rank result in the fantastic or the ludicrous, as in the representation of evil spirits on the old Etruscan tombs, and the whimsical imps of the Breughels and the younger Teniers. CHAPTER VII EXPRESSION. PART II.--CHRISTIAN IDEALS The Deity--Christ--The Madonna--The Madonna and Child. In considering the scope for the exhibition of ideals in art, it should be remembered that ideal types of some of the principal personages in religious and mythological history have been already fixed by great artists, and it is impossible to depart from them without producing what would appear to be abnormal representations. Homer led the way with occasional hints of the presumed physical appearance of some of the leading deities of Greece, and except in the case of Aphrodite the later Grecian sculptors closely followed him. The Zeus of Homer as improved by Phidias has been the model of this deity in respect of form for nearly every succeeding sculptor to this day, while it was also the model which suggested the Christian Father as represented by the first artists of the Renaissance, though, as already indicated, the majestic dignity of the Phidian Zeus was partly sacrificed by the Christian artists. Phidias in fact created a type which, so far as human foresight can judge, must ever guide the artistic mind, whether portraying the mighty son of Kronos, or the God of the Christians. Only very rarely nowadays is the Christian Deity pictured in art, and as time goes on His introduction in human shape in a painting will become still more rare in conformity with changing religious ideas and practices; but now and hereafter any artist who contemplates the representation, must, voluntarily or involuntarily, turn to the frescoes of Raphael and Michelangelo for his guide. There is no tradition upon which to base an actual portrait of Christ. For the first four centuries A.D., when He was represented in art, it was usually by means of symbols, or as a young man without beard, but there are some Roman relics of the fifth century remaining in which He is depicted much in the later generally accepted type, with short beard and flowing hair. During the long centuries of the Dark Age, when religious art was practically confined to the Byzantine Greeks, Christ was almost invariably portrayed with a long face and emaciated features and limbs, as the epitome of sadness and sorrow. This expression was modified as the arts travelled to the north and west of Europe, and gradually His face began to assume more regularity and beauty. Then came Cimabue to sow the seed of the Renaissance, and with him the ideal of Christ was changed to a perfect man of flesh and blood. A century or more was occupied in establishing this ideal, but it was so established, and has maintained its position to this day.[38] [Illustration: PLATE 9 (See page 138) Raphael's Virgin of the Rose with the Face of "Profane Love" in Titian's Picture Substituted for that of the Virgin] This ideal represents the Saviour as a man of about thirty-three years--His age at the Crucifixion. He wears flowing hair with a short beard and usually a moustache. His face is rather long, often oval; the features have a perfect regularity, and the expression is commonly one of patient resignation. Naturally His body must appear well nourished, otherwise corporeal beauty cannot be expressed. This is the type which has been used since the height of the Renaissance, though there have been a few exceptional representations. Thus, the face of Christ in Lionardo's Last Supper at Milan is that of a beardless young man of some twenty-five years[a] and Raphael in an early picture shows Him beardless, but gives Him an age of about thirty.[b] Some early Flemish artists also rendered Him beardless at times, notably the Maitre de Flémalle, Van der Weyden, and Quentin Matsys. Michelangelo in his Last Judgment represents the Saviour sitting in judgment as a robust, stern, commanding figure, beardless, and with an expression and bearing apparently serving the idea of Justice.[c] Strange to say the artist gives a very similar face to St. Stephen in the same series of frescoes. A still more unusual representation is that of Francisco di Giorgio, who gives Christ the appearance of an Apollo,[d] while Bramantino depicts His face worn with heavy lines.[e] In one picture Marco Basaiti shows Him as a young man with long hair but without beard, and in another with a thick beard without moustache.[f] There was considerable variation in the type among the Venetians of the sixteenth century, but not in important features, and since then very few artists indeed have ventured to depart from the ideal above described. The only notable exception in recent times is in a work by Burne-Jones who represents Christ as a beardless youth, though indicating the wound to St. Thomas.[g] It is supposed that the artist presumed that the Person of Christ underwent a complete change after the Resurrection. [a] And in the drawing for the picture at the Brera. [b] Christ Blessing at the Brescia Gallery. [c] In the Sistine Chapel frescoes. [d] Christ bereft of His clothes before the Crucifixion, Sienna Academy. [e] Christ, Mayno Collection. [f] The Dead Christ, and Calling of the Children of Zebedee, Academy, Venice. [g] Dies Domini. It is evident that the ideal Christ as established by the Italians can scarcely be improved upon in art within the prescribed limitations. Christ having lived as an actual man, His representation must be within the bounds of possible experience; and since He died at the age of thirty-three, intellectual power cannot be suggested in His countenance, for this in life means an expression implying large experience warranted only by mature age. The representation is therefore confined to that of a man who, while exhibiting a healthy regularity of form and feature, has lost all sense of earthly pleasure. The beauty achieved by this type is negative, the only marked quality being a suggestion of sadness which, in painting, is necessarily present in all expression where an unconcern with human instincts and passions is depicted. The Italians in their representation of Christ were thus unable to reach the height of the Greek divine portrayals. They were confined to earth, while the Greek figures were symbols of spiritual forms which were pure products of the imagination. Giotto and his successors sought a physically perfect man with all purely human features in expression eliminated. The Greeks, even when representing divinities below Zeus, generalized all human attributes, excluding nothing but the exceptional. They embodied in their forms, truths acknowledged by the whole world; summed up human life to the contentment of all men: there was nothing in their divinities which would prevent their acceptance as spiritual symbols in all religions of civilized peoples. To them human instincts were sacred: all human passions could be ennobled: everything in the natural progression of life came within the purview, and under the protection, of the gods. So the course of their art was definite: there was never a difference as to the goal, for it was universal. From the point of view of the development of art the ideal Christ has been of little importance compared with the ideal Madonna, though here also the Italians aimed for a particular instead of a general type. They wanted a living woman with the form and features of a pulsating mother; a woman of ordinary life in fact, but infinitely superior in physical beauty, and endowed with the highest grace that their imaginations could conceive and their hands execute. This ideal seemed to germinate with Cimabue, but an immense advance upon him was made by Giotto who was unsurpassed in the representation of the Holy Mother for more than a century. But the ideal was yet purely formal and continued so till past the middle of the fifteenth century, both in Italy and Flanders. Giotto was then excelled by many artists, but the Madonnas they produced, though often very beautiful, are not humanly attractive. They are on the side of the Angels; have never been women evidently, and are far, far away from the human type with tingling veins and heaving breath. Filippo Lippi marked the border line between this type of Madonna, and the advanced pattern produced by the series of great artists of the latter part of the fifteenth century. But with Lionardo, Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, and the rest, the Madonna was scarcely an ideal woman. Living persons were commonly taken as models, and although the portraits were no doubt "improved," they have little connection with the ideal which the artists evidently had in mind. The very life which the artist transfers to canvas in a portrait is destructive of the ideal, for it is a particular life with evidence of particular emotions and passions from which the Madonna should be free. A mighty barrier must be passed before a woman is translated on canvas into the type of Madonna sought by the first Renaissance artists. She must be a woman of the earth; a woman who has grown up amidst human surroundings from infancy to girlhood, and from girlhood to womanhood; with human aspirations and sympathies, and experience of joys and trials: she must have all these, and as well have become a mother; and yet with human beauty, her countenance must be such that by no stretch of the imagination can the possibility of desire be suggested. This was the problem, and certainly only a genius of the highest order could arrive at a solution, for the task appears on the face of it to be almost superhuman. But Raphael succeeded in accomplishing it, and his achievement will stand for all time as one of the greatest epoch-making events in history. Even Michelangelo, who created so many superb forms, never succeeded with an ideal suitable for a Madonna.[39] It is clear that in reaching for his ideal, Raphael did not strive for an expression relating to the spiritual. His purpose was to eliminate from the features anything which might possibly be construed as indicating earthly desires, and yet retain the highest conceivable human beauty. With this double object contentment is a quality in expression which is indispensable, and this Raphael was careful to give, sometimes emphasizing it with a suggestion of happiness. It is not possible to go further with an expression which is to generalize the highest human physical and abstract qualities, while keeping the figure within the range of apparent feasible realization in life. The result was ideal but not exclusive. It is a universal type, and is suited to the Madonna because there is nothing humanly higher within our comprehension; but it has a further general import which is dealt with elsewhere. Although the aim achieved by Raphael must necessarily be the goal of all artists in the representation of the Madonna, it is of course not essential that he should be accepted as the only guide to her form. Her features may vary indefinitely so long as the ideal is maintained, and Raphael himself painted no two Madonnas with the same features. But certain traditions must be observed, however much one may depart from the actual circumstances of her life. The first is in respect of her presumed age. In pictures dealing with her life soon after marriage, as for instance, the Nativity and the Flight into Egypt, the Madonna is invariably represented as many years older than she appears in Annunciation subjects, though only a year or so actually passed between the respective events. The reason for this is obvious. She must be shown with the bloom of a matured woman. The highest form of nobility cannot be disassociated from wisdom and experience, which could not be indicated in the countenance of a girl in her teens. Innocence and purity may be present, and a certain majesty even, but our conception of the Madonna as a woman involves the triumph over known evils, the full knowledge of right and wrong, and the consciousness of a supreme position above the possibility of sin. Hence in all representations of the Madonna at the Nativity and afterwards, she must be shown at an age suggesting the fullest knowledge of good and evil. While, between the Annunciation and incidents occurring during the infancy of Christ, many years must be presumed to have passed, from this latter period on, the Madonna must be supposed to have aged very little, if at all, right up to the Crucifixion. It is not often that we find her included in a design illustrating the life of Christ between His infancy and the Death Scene, a fact probably due to the age difficulty. In the exceptions her face is often partly or wholly hidden. But in scenes of the Crucifixion, where the Virgin is almost invariably introduced, artists of all periods, with few exceptions, have been careful to avoid suggesting the full presumed age. Commonly the age indicated is between twenty-five and thirty years, but as the face is always pale, and often somewhat drawn, her comparatively youthful appearance is not conspicuous. Obviously under no circumstances should lines be present in the features, for this would suggest a physical decay not in conformity with Christian ideas.[40] Even in pictures relating to her death, which is presumed to have occurred at an age between fifty and sixty years, her face is shown with perfectly regular and smooth features, though an extreme pallor may be painted. But from the point of view of art, the Virgin must be regarded as an accessory in works relating to the Crucifixion, for to throw her into prominence would result in dividing the attention of the observer of the picture on first inspection, and so lessening the art. In any case she must be painted with an expression of grief, and hence an unalloyed ideal of transcendent beauty is out of the question. The custom of representing the Madonna in costume and surroundings indicating a higher social level than that in which she actually moved, is now firmly established, and cannot be departed from without lowering the ideal. A woman in a lowly position of life, who is compelled to bear all the responsibilities of a home, with the care of a husband and child, is seldom seen except in the performance of household duties. We cannot see her without associating her in our minds with toil and possible privation, and we naturally expect that the effect of these will be indicated in her expression and general bearing. If away from her home her costume would usually declare her position, while habits of mind connected with her daily occupation commonly engender mannerisms in air and gait which support the inference drawn from the character of her attire. It would appear anomalous to paint a woman so situated with such beauty of form and expression that she appears to have never experienced earthly cares of any kind, much less the long repeated daily worries consequent upon the charge of a poor household. Perfect beauty of form being essential in the representation of the Madonna, she must be painted amidst surroundings conformable with the supposition that she is free from earthly responsibilities, and that her mind is entirely occupied with the boundless joy and happiness arising from the contemplation of the divine Mission of her Son.[41] [Illustration: PLATE 10 (See Page 139) Raphael's Holy Family (Madrid), with the Face of Luini's Salome Substituted for that of the Virgin] The difficulty in painting the Madonna is complicated when the Infant Christ is introduced, because of the liability of the Child to interfere with a fine presentation of her figure. A similar problem was met with by the early Greeks, and doubtless they dealt with it in their paintings as in their sculptures, a few of which, showing an adult holding a child, have come down to us. These represent the child reduced in size as far as possible, and carried at the side of the adult figure.[a] A like system was followed by most of the Byzantine workers, and it is very noticeable in some of the fine French sculpture of the thirteenth century.[b] In the same period Giovanni Pisano in sculpture,[c] and Cimabue in painting,[d] maintained the tradition in Italy, and in the century following, Giotto,[e] Duccio,[f] Lorenzetto,[g] and others, often adopted the plan. Towards the middle of the fifteenth century, the relative importance attached to the Child in the group generally increased, and by the end of it, the old practice had been almost entirely abandoned. Meanwhile the artists had some hard problems to meet. The first was as to the size of the Child. It appeared to be generally agreed that an older Child should be represented than had been the custom, though a few artists held back, notably Fra Angelico, while in sculpture, Donatello maintained his habit of moulding the Child as only a few weeks old. With an increased age of the Child, the difficulty of securing repose for the group was enhanced, for it seemed to be proper with a child past its infancy, that it should be pictured as engaged in one of the charming simple actions common to childhood. These questions were settled in different ways according to the genius and temperament of the artists. A few of them, as Mantegna,[h] Lorenzo Costa,[i] and Montagna,[j] gave the Child an age of two years or more, and in some of their designs the figures seem to be of equal significance, Mantegna and Montagna in several examples actually standing the Child in the Virgin's lap with the heads touching each other. [a] See the Olympian Hermes of Praxiteles, and Irene and Pluto after Cephisodostus at Munich. [b] Groups in the Southern and Western porches of Amiens Cathedral. [c] Madonna and Child, Arena Chapel, Padua. [d] Groups at the Florence Academy and the Louvre. [e] Florence Academy. [f] National Gallery, London. [g] San Francisco, Assisi. [h] Madonna and Angels, at Milan, and other works. [i] Coronation of the Virgin, Bologna. [j] Enthronement of the Virgin, Brera, Milan. The plans usually adopted by the greatest masters, were, to present the maximum repose with the Child sitting in the lap of the Virgin; or to place Him apart from her, and engaged in some slight action; or to show Him in the arms of the Virgin, either held at the side, or in front, with the Virgin more or less in profile. In all of these schemes the serene contemplation of the Holy Mother is practically undisturbed. In his many groups of the Virgin and Child, and of the Holy Family, Raphael only varied twice from these plans,[a] and in both the exceptions the Child reclines across the lap of the Virgin, so that very little of her figure is hidden. Titian has the Child standing by her side,[b] or held away from her, and in one example the Virgin is placing Him in the hands of St. Joseph.[c] Correggio, when away from the influence of Mantegna, usually showed the Child held apart from the Mother, or placed on the floor, or on a bench. It is a common device to show the Child on the lap of the Virgin, but leaning over to take a flower or other object offered Him,[d] and numerous artists allow Him to play around separately.[e] In Holbein's fine group at Augsburg, the Child stands between the Virgin and St. Anne, and another German painter shows Him held up by the same personages, but clear from both of them.[f] Murillo commonly stands the Child at the side of the Virgin, but in one picture adopts the novel method of placing Him in the arms of St. Joseph.[g] [a] Madonna and Child, Bridgewater Coll., England; and same group with St. John, Berlin. [b] Madonna of the Cherries, Imperial Gallery, Vienna. [c] Meeting of Joachim and Anna, Bridgwater Coll., England. [d] Filipino Lippi's Madonna and Angels, Corsini Palace, Florence. [e] Luca Signorelli's group at Munich, and Bonfiglio's at Perugia. [f] Hans Fries, National Museum, Nuremburg. [g] Holy Family, Petrograd. When the Child is shown distinctly apart from the Virgin, or leaning away from her lap, great care is necessary in avoiding strength in the action, otherwise it will draw attention away from the Virgin. A notable example of this defect is in a picture by Parmigiano, where the Child leans over and has his head brought close to that of a kneeling Saint who is caressing Him, the effect being most disturbing.[a] Bramantino shows the Child in an extraordinary attitude, for He holds His head above His arms without any apparent reason, the action confusing the design.[b] Many artists represent Him in the act of reaching out his hand for flowers, without choosing for the moment of portrayal, an instant of transition from one part of the action to another,[c] a point rarely overlooked by the first masters.[d] Occasionally variety is given in the introduction of nursery duties, as for instance, washing the Child,[e] but these are inappropriate for reasons already indicated, apart from the over strong action necessarily exhibited in such designs. Nor should the Child have an unusual expression, as this will immediately catch the eye of the observer. In one work Del Sarto actually makes Him laugh,[f] and a modern artist gives Him an expression of fear.[g] It is questionable whether Masaccio[h] and others (including A. della Robbia and Rossellino in sculpture) did not go too far in portraying the Child with a finger in its mouth, for although such an incident is common with children, in this case it seems opposed to propriety. Generally the first artists have striven to free the figure of the Virgin as far as possible, and this is in conformity with first principles, for it simplifies the view of the chief figure in the composition. In all cases repose should be the keynote of the design. [a] Madonna and Child with Saints, Bologna Academy. [b] Virgin with a Turban, Brera, Milan. [c] As in B. da Bagnacavallo's Holy Family, Bologna; and Boltraffio's Holy Family, Milan. [d] See Titian's Madonna with SS. Anthony and John, Uffizi Gallery. [e] Giulio Romano's Holy Family, Dresden. [f] Holy Family, Hermitage, Petrograd. [g] Uhde's The Three Magi, Magdeburg Museum. [h] Madonna enthroned, Sutton Coll., England. There are no general ideals in Christian art other than those mentioned. The presumed occupants of the Celestial regions beyond these Personages, are painted as the fancy of the artist may dictate, subject only to the limitations of the accepted Christian doctrines. There are certain conventions in respect of Angels and Saints, but they are by no means strict; and for the Old Testament prophets, Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel is commonly taken as a guide. It is scarcely likely that his examples will ever be exceeded in majestic beauty. CHAPTER VIII EXPRESSION. PART III.--CLASSICAL IDEALS Ideals of the Greeks--Aphrodite--Hera--Demeter--Athena--Apollo-- Diana--Neptune--Mars--Mercury--Bacchus--Vulcan--General classical compositions. What human being can appropriately describe the great ideals in art of ancient Greece? Above us all they stand, seemingly as upon the pinnacle of the universal mind, reflecting the collective human soul, and exhibiting the concentrated essence of human nature. The best of men and women of all ages is combined in these ideal heads, which look from an endless past to an eternal future; which embody every passion and every virtue; every religion and every philosophy; all wisdom and all knowledge. They are ideal gods and goddesses, but are independent of legends and history. They represent no mythological deities except in name, and least of all do they assort with the deities of Homer and Hesiod. In all other religions the ideals expressed in art fail entirely to reach the height of the general conceptions, and are far below the spiritual beings as depicted in the sacred books; but the Grecian ideals as recorded in stone are so far beyond the legendary gods of the ancient poets, that we are unable to pass from the stone to the literature without an overwhelming feeling of astonishment at the contrast. It is unfortunate that we are powerless to re-establish these ideals definitely, for the originals have been mostly lost; nevertheless the ancient copies, a few contemporary complete sculptures, and many glorious fragments; as well as intimate descriptions and repeated eulogies, often reaching to hyperbole, of eminent men, expressed over a succession of centuries when the great works were still exposed to view--all this assembled evidence indelibly stamps upon our minds the nature of the ideals; gives us a clear impression of the most profound conceptions that have emanated from the human brain. The people who accomplished these great monuments seem to have thought only in terms of the universe. They did not seek for the embodiment of goodness, nobility, and charity, perfection in which qualities we regard as divine, but they aimed at a majesty which included all these things; which comprehended nothing but the supreme in form and mind; and with an all-reaching knowledge of the human race, stood outside of it, but covered it with reflected glory, as the sun stands ever away from the planets but illumines them all. The wonder is not that these ideals were created in the minds of the Greeks, for there is no boundary to the imagination, but that minds could be found to set them down in design, and hands to mould and shape them in clay and stone; and that many minds and hands could do these things in the same epoch. That these sculptured forms have never been equalled is not wonderful; that they never will be surpassed is as certain as that death is the penalty of life. So firmly have they become grafted into the minds of men as things unapproachable in beauty, that they have themselves been converted into general ideals towards which all must climb who attempt to scale the heights of art. The greatest artists known to us since the light of Greek intelligence flickered away, have been content to study these marble remains, and to cull from them a suggestion here, and an idea there, with which to adorn their own creations. Indeed it is clear that from the time of Niccolo Pisano, who leaped at one bound to celebrity after studying the antique sculptures at Pisa, through Giotto to the fifteenth and sixteenth century giants, there was hardly a great artist who was not more or less dependent upon Grecian art for his skill, and the most enduring of them all--Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Correggio--were the most deeply versed in the art.[42] Bellori affirmed that the Roman school, of which Raphael and Michelangelo were the greatest masters, derived its principles from the study of the statues and other works of the ancients.[a] This is not strictly exact, but it is near the truth, and certain it is that Michelangelo, the first sculptor known to the world since the Dark Age, willingly bowed his head before the ancient triumphs of art presented to his view. And yet he did not see the Parthenon sculptures and other numerous works of the time of Phidias, with the many beautiful examples of the next century which have been made available since his day. What he would have said in the presence of the glories of the Parthenon, with the Hermes of Praxiteles and the rest of the collection from Olympia, is hard to conjecture, though it may well be suggested that they would have prompted him to still higher work than any he accomplished. With these stupendous ideals in front of us, it seems almost unnecessary to talk of the principles of art. Their very perfection indicates that they were built up on eternal principles, so that in fact and in theory they form the surest guide for the sculptor and painter. [a] _Le Vite de' Pittori, Scultori, e Architteti moderni._ But how is the painter to use these ancient gods and goddesses, for the time has gone by to gather them together on the heights of Olympus, or to associate them with human frailties? Surely he may leave aside the fables of the poets, and try to portray the deities as the Grecian populace saw them in their hearts--noble forms of adoration, or images of terror, objects of curses veneered with prayer and of offerings wrapped in fear. The artist has not now to be troubled with pangs of dread, nor will his imagination be limited by sacerdotal scruples. The rivalry of Praxiteles need not concern him, for there are wondrous ideals yet to be wrought, which will be comprehended and loved even in these days of hastening endeavour. But the painter must leave alone the Zeus and the variation of this god in the pictured Christian Deity, for the type is so firmly established in the minds of men that it would be useless to depart from it. The other important Grecian deities with which art is concerned may be shortly considered from the point of view of the painter, though they are naturally of far more importance to the sculptor because it is beyond the power of the painter to suggest an illusion of divine form, since he must associate his figures with human accessories.[43] APHRODITE Astarte, Aphrodite, Venus, Spirit of Love, or by whatever name we call her; the one eternal divinity recognized by all ages, all races; the universal essence whose fragrance intoxicates every soul: the one queen before whom all must bow: the one imperial autocrat sure of everlasting rule--sure of the devoted allegiance of every living thing to the end of time! Such is Aphrodite, for that is the name under which we seem to love her best--the Aphrodite of the Greeks, without the vague terrifying aspect of Astarte, or the more earthly qualities of the Roman Venus. Who loves not the Aphrodite sprung from the foam of the sea; shading the sun on the Cytheran isle with the light of her glory; casting an eternal hallow over the groves of Cyprus; flooding the god-like mind of Greece with her sparkling radiance? What conception of her beauty can rise high enough when the grass in astonishment grows beneath her feet on desert rocks; when lions and tigers gently purr as she passes, and the rose and the myrtle throw out their scented blossoms to sweeten the air? Hera and Athena leave the heavens to help man fight and kill: Aphrodite descends to soothe despairing hearts, and kindle kindly flame in the breast of the loveless. The spear and the shield with the crested helmet she knows not, nor the fiery coursers accustomed to the din of strife. Serenely she traverses space at the call of a lover's prayer, her car a bower of celestial blooms. From the ends of the earth fly the sparrows to draw it, till their myriads hide the sun, and mortals learn that the time has come when their thoughts may turn to the spirit of love. This was the Aphrodite of Grecian legend and poetry, if we except Homer and Hesiod. It is the type of the goddess whom Sappho implored, and must be accepted as the general ideal of the Grecian worshippers who desired divine mediation when troubled with pangs of the heart. But it was not the type of Phidias and his school, for Phidias passed over Hesiod and purified Homer, representing Aphrodite with the stately mien and lofty bearing of a queen of heaven, daughter of the all-powerful Dione: goddess of beauty and love certainly, but so far above the human understanding of these terms that all efforts to associate her with mundane ideas and aspirations must signally fail.[44] So far as we know it was Praxiteles who first attempted to realize in stone the popular ideal of the goddess, and certainly the Cnidian Aphrodite was better understood by the people of Greece as a type of this ideal than any work that preceded it. We can attach to it in our minds but very few of the Homeric and other legends surrounding the history of the goddess, but we can well imagine that a deity who was the subject of so much attention and so much prayer, could rest in the hearts of the people only as one with every supreme earthly charm, combined with a divine bearing and dignity. These qualities the Aphrodite of Praxiteles appears to have possessed, though it lacked the majesty and exclusiveness of the Parthenon gods.[45] Thus there was formed a type of beauty acceptable to the average human mind as an unsurpassable representation of an ideal woman: to the worshipper at the ancient shrines, a comprehensible goddess; to all other men the personification of sublime beauty. The fifth century goddess was left aside as beyond mortal reach, and from the time it left the sculptor's hands to this day, the Cnidian Venus has been regarded as a model for all that is true and beautiful in women. To the sculptor it is an everlasting beacon; to all men a crowning glory of human handiwork. And this notwithstanding that so far as we know, the original figure has long been lost, and we have preserved little more than records of its renown, a fair copy of it, and a single authentic example of the other work of the sculptor. But if we had the actual Aphrodite before us, it could not occupy a higher place in our minds than the goddess which our imagination builds upon this framework. As in all cases where a supreme artist rises above his fellows and creates works of which emulation appears hopeless, the period succeeding the time of Praxiteles seems to mark a decline in the art of sculpture, and though the decline was more apparent than real for about half a century, there was naturally a depreciation in the representation of the deities of whom the great man had fashioned masterpieces. This was so in the case of Aphrodite. Whoever the sculptor it seemed impossible to approach the Cnidian ideal, and the result was a series of variations stamped with artificial devices as if to emphasize the departure. But meanwhile the painter's art had developed upon much the same lines as sculpture, and Apelles produced an Aphrodite, which, considering the limitation of the painter, appears to have been almost, if not quite, as marvellous as the stone model of Praxiteles. Nearly two thousand years have passed since the painting was last known to exist, but its fame was so great that the reverberations from the thunder of praise accorded it have scarcely yet died away. No close description of the painting remains, but from certain references to it by ancient authors we know that it represented the sea-born goddess walking towards the shore to make her first appearance on earth, holding in each hand a tress of hair as if in the act of wringing out the water therein.[46] These are practically all the written details we have of the famous Venus Anadyomene, but we really know much more of it from the existence of certain pre-Roman sculptures. All but one are broken, with parts missing, but the exception, which dates from about the beginning of the third century B.C., enables us to gain a good idea of the picture. The figure represents the goddess with her lower limbs cut off close to the hips; that is to say, it produces the whole of that part of the figure in the picture of Apelles which is visible above the water.[a] Clearly a subject in which Venus is shown to be walking in the sea, so foreign to the art of the sculptor, could not have suggested itself independently to a Grecian artist, nor would we expect to find one attempting a work which necessitated amputation of the lower limbs, unless a very special occasion warranted the design. The special occasion in this case was the picture of Apelles, which was at the time renowned through the whole of Greece as an extraordinary masterpiece, and with this work in their minds the sculptured head and torso would appear quite appropriate to those Greeks interested in the arts, that is to say, the entire citizen population. [a] See Plate 4. These two works then, the Cnidian Venus and the Venus Anadyomene of Apelles, constitute the models upon which the world relies for its conceptions of the goddess of beauty. Both models depend more or less upon the imagination for completion, but they are sufficiently definite for the artist, who, of course, desires general rather than particular ideas for his purpose. [Illustration: PLATE 11 (See page 139) The Pursuit, by Fragonard (_Frick Collection_)] It must be confessed that the attempts to rival Apelles in the creation of a Venus Anadyomene have not been very successful. Raphael painted a small picture of the subject, introducing the figure of Time putting an end to the power of the Titans.[a] Venus stands in the water with one foot on a shell, while holding a tress of hair with her left hand. As may be expected the execution is perfect, but the design is less attractive than that of Apelles. The only important work of the Renaissance directly based upon the Greek design, is from the hand of Titian.[b] He represents the goddess walking out of the water, the surface of which only reaches half way up the thighs, with the result that considerably more action is indicated than is necessary. But the great artist was evidently at a loss to know how to give the figure the size of life or thereabouts, while indicating from the depth of water that she had an appreciable distance to go before touching dry land. He solved the problem by placing the line of the front leg to which the water rises, at the bottom of the canvas, so that the picture suggests an accident which has necessitated the cutting away of the lower portion of the work. The master also varies the scheme of Apelles by crossing the left hand over the breast. This inferior device was imitated by Rubens, who, however, exhibits the goddess rising from the water amongst a group of nymphs and tritons.[c] Modern artists in designs of the birth of Venus, usually represent her as having reached the shore,[d] the best work of this scheme being perhaps that of Cabanel who shows the goddess lying at the water's edge and just awaking, suggesting a state of unconsciousness while she floated on the waves.[e] Another exception is by Thoma, who exhibits the goddess walking in only a few inches of water, reminding one of the old Roman bronze workers who imitated the form as painted by Apelles, but modelled the whole figure. [a] In the bathroom of Cardinal Bibiena, Vatican. There is a drawing for the figure of the goddess at the Munich Gallery. [b] Bridgewater Coll., England. See Plate 5. [c] Birth of Venus, at Potsdam. [d] Notable examples are those of Ingres and Bouguereau. [e] At the Luxembourg, Paris. There are several replicas of this picture. Repose being the first compulsory quality in the representation of Aphrodite, it is not surprising to find that the greatest picture of the goddess extant--the masterpiece of Giorgione--shows her asleep.[a] She rests on a verdure couch in a landscape of which the signs indicate a soft and tranquil atmosphere, with no suggestion to disturb the repose or remove the illusion of life so strongly marked by the skilful drawing. Only the calm sleeping beauty is there without appearance of fatigue or recovery from it: no expression save of perfect dreamless unconsciousness. The work is the nearest approach to a classical ideal that exists in Venetian painting. Titian in his various pictures of Venus reposing never reached the excellence of his master. In all, he painted the goddess in a resting position, sometimes radiant and brilliant, and invariably with a contented expression which precludes sensual suggestions: still there is ever a distinctly earthy tone about the figures. His Venuses in fact are pure portraits. He did not seek to represent profound repose. His most important example is at the Uffizi Gallery,[b] the design of which was taken from Giorgione's work. The goddess is a figure of glowing beauty, but the pose indicates consciousness of this fact and calls the model to mind. Perhaps the surroundings tend to accentuate the drawback, for in this, as in most of his other pictures of Venus, the artist has introduced Venetian accessories of the period. Palma Vecchio also took Giorgione's work as a guide for his reposing Venus, but he represents her fully awake with Cupid present.[c] An exceptional work of the subject was designed by Michelangelo, and painted by Pontormo[d] and others. It represents the goddess reclining with Cupid at her head; but the form is entirely opposed to all our conceptions of Venus, for she is seen as a broad massive woman with a short neck, and a strongly formed head--a fit companion for some of the figures in the Sistine Chapel. Proud dignity and a certain majesty are suggested in the expression, but the figure is without the grace and charm usually associated with the goddess. The only other early Italian reposing Venus of interest is Botticelli's, where he shows her in deep thought with two cupids by her side.[e] [a] Dresden Gallery. See Plate 6. Titian added a Cupid to this picture, but the little god was subsequently painted out by a restorer. (L. Venturi, _Giorgione e il Giorgionismo_, 1913.) [b] The sitter is supposed to have been the model also for La Bella in the Uffizi, and the Woman in Fur at the Vienna Gallery. [c] Dresden Gallery. [d] Hampton Court Palace, England. [e] National Gallery, London. In the seventeenth century Venus was rarely represented reposing. Nicholas Poussin has a fine picture on the subject, but unfortunately for the repose a couple of cupids are in action beside the sleeping goddess, while the heads of two satyrs are dimly seen.[a] In the Sleeping Venus of Le Sueur, which was much praised in former times, Cupid is present with a finger to his mouth to indicate silence, but Vulcan is seen in an adjoining room wielding a heavy hammer, the suggestion of repose being thus destroyed. No reposing Venus of importance has since been produced, though a few French artists have treated the subject in a light vein, notably Boucher in his Sleeping Venus, and Fragonard in a delicate composition of Venus awakened by Aurora. [a] Dresden Gallery. Venus cannot be represented as conscious of her beauty, or the design would immediately suggest vanity. Consequently when shown looking into a mirror, she should be engaged at her toilet, or at least the reflection should be accidental. Titian painted the first great picture of the goddess at her toilet, but this is just completed and her hands are at rest.[a] The attitude would be extravagant were it not that any suggestion of satisfaction is overcome by the artist making Cupid hold the mirror, and giving Venus an expression of unconcern as she glances at her reflection. The work suggested to Rubens a similar design, but he shows the goddess dressing her hair, this being apparently the only definite action which may be properly introduced into such a composition.[b] Albani has a delightful picture in which Cupid compels Venus to hold a mirror,[c] and some later artists have represented her adorning her tresses with the aid of a water reflection. The only notable _faux pas_ in a painting of this subject is in the Venus and Cupid assigned to Velasquez, in which Venus lies on her side and looks into a mirror held by Cupid at her feet.[d] There is no suggestion of toilet or accident, and hence the attitude is quite inapplicable to a goddess. [a] The Hermitage, Petrograd. [b] Hofmuseum, Vienna. [c] The Louvre. [d] National Gallery, London. It should be remembered that the province of Aphrodite is to infuse the gentle warmth of love into the human race, and not to attract love to herself. The rays are presumed to proceed from her only, for a mortal having no divine powers would be incapable of reflecting them. Zeus was required to bring about the adventure with Anchises. Hence a voluptuous form should never be given to the goddess, and if an artist err at all in the matter, it should be on the side of restraint lest the art be affected by a suggestion of the sensuous. The surest means of preventing this is to represent the goddess in an attitude of repose, with perfect contentment as a feature in expression. If any action be indicated, it must be light and purely accidental in its nature. To introduce an action involving an apprehension of human failings tends to bring the goddess down to the human level, and thus to destroy the ideal. The Venus de' Medici is a superb sculpture of a woman, but an inferior representation of Venus, for modesty is a human attribute arising from purely artificial circumstances of life, its meaning varying with race conditions and customs. To depict a goddess in an action suggestive of modesty or other antidote to the coarser effects of natural instincts, is therefore an anomaly. HERA There is no fixed type in art of the ox-eyed sister and spouse of Zeus, the Queen of Olympus, whose breast heaves ever high, and flaming, with the rushing fire of jealousy; the Virgilian incarnation of bitter rage; yet withal the symbol of eternal Earth, yearly renewing her fruitful youth with the burning kiss of the sun. The sculptors of Greece saw in her only the supreme Matron-Spouse, serenely pondering the march of time beneath the awful sway of her lord. A mantle she wore, and a high-throated tunic, as she looked into space from a square-wrought throne; or she stood in her temple with flowing robe and diadem, inscrutable, before the offerings of an adoring multitude. But nevertheless she was not insensible to the radiance of Aphrodite. Polyclitus did well to place a cuckoo on her sceptre, and who can forget how the lotus and the hyacinth cushioned the ground on the heights of Ida beneath a golden cloud, which held suspended around the glittering couch a screen of sparkling dew? It is unfortunate that the painter is at a loss to deal with the majestic scenes in great Juno's story. How is he to depict her flying in the celestial chariot between heaven and earth, each leap of the fiery coursers measuring the range of the eye from a lofty peak across the sea to the endless haze? How can he paint her anointed with ambrosial oil which is ever struggling for freedom to bathe the rolling earth in fragrance? He may add a hundred tassels to her girdle; perhaps give her the triple grace-showering eardrops, and even the dazzling sun-bright veil; but the girdle of Aphrodite, which peeps from her bosom, will fail to turn the brains of men, or pierce their hearts with rays of soft desire. And the more dreadful side of Hera's history would equally trouble the despairing artist, for dire anger and jealousy ill-become the countenance of a goddess. The smouldering fire must never leap into flame. Eyes may not flash, not the lips quiver, and the noble brow must be free from fitful thought. So with Hera there is no middle course for the painter. He must represent her alone, calm and passionless, unfathomable, with a sublime disregard of earth; or else join with his predecessors and drag her down to a mundane level in scenes of trivial fable. But there is room for untold Heras of the higher type. DEMETER Matron-Guardian of the yielding soil; heart-stricken wanderer over the earth; mysterious silent Food-Mother whom all men love and the gods revere; eternal life-preserver; fruitful, but passionless save where the vision of Pluto looms, Iasus and Poseidon notwithstanding! Such was the Demeter of the ancient Greeks till the hordes of Alexander mingled her fame with the lustre from Isis and De. So the mourning _haute dame_ of Olympus came nearer the seat of her care, nearer the dread home of her daughter: passed from Homer to Theocritus; from the adoration of the higher priesthood of Greece, to become merged in the Ceres of Rome, the goddess beloved of the lowly, who received the first fruits of the field amidst joyful measures of dance and song. But it is the _haute dame_ that strikes our imagination--the staid and mystic Demeter of Eleusis, and not the Ceres of the Roman lyric. The light-hearted Ceres, as a beautiful woman in the prime of life, may be adorned with poppies and wheat-ears, may stand serene and smiling as a symbol of harvest or the goddess of a Latin temple; but paint her as one will, she will do little more than serve to show how fallen are the idols--how immeasurable is the descent from the stately Earth-Mother whose image would be stamped on the brain of a Phidias. But where is the Phidian Demeter? Surely such a goddess, "deeply musing in her hallowed shrine," was a theme for the carver of the immortal Zeus and Athena! Perhaps those inscrutable headless "Fates" from the Parthenon, so wonderful in noble grace that the conception of befitting heads is beyond the reach of our minds, include the Earth-Mother and her daughter! How easy it is to imagine the reclining figure as Persephone leaning upon the mother who loved her so well! But we must be content with what we have of Demeter in art, which is little more than a few fifth century frieze reliefs, the figure from Cnidos attributed to Scopas,[a] and some Damophon memories of Phidias. [a] See Plate 7. So the artist is free and untrammelled in respect of the representation of the far-famed goddess. There is no definite type of her which has fixed itself on the minds of men, though the legend and story weaved about her name are beautiful and wonderful in a high degree. ATHENA Though swathed in legend and surrounded with a hallow of Grecian reverence, Athena is always cold. She may dim the sun with the radiance of her armour; ride in a flaming car, and have Strength and Invisibility for her allies; but she fights only on the side of the strong, and uses the tactics of spies against her enemies. With the Gorgon's head on her shield, and a helmet which will cover the soldiers of a hundred towns, she yet whispers advice to Grecian heroes, and deflects a Trojan arrow in its flight. Truly as Goddess of War she is somewhat difficult to generalize. But she is also the divinity of the arts and sciences; invents the pipe and the shuttle, and becomes the depository of all industrial knowledge. Hence she embodies the triumphs of peace and war--combines the extremes of human exertion. How Phidias overcame the task of representing the goddess is well known. He generalized war and wisdom, and from his great work of the Parthenon there can be little departure in respect of bearing and attitude, so long as the province of war is symbolized in the design. The actual work of the Greek master has disappeared, but from various records and copies, it would appear that the Parthenon Athena was the loftiest conception ever worked out in sculpture, if we except the Olympian Zeus. Majestic grace and the unconscious power derived from supreme knowledge, seem to have been the first qualities exhibited in the statue. In the fourth century there was no great departure from the Phidian ideal, and it is difficult to see how there could be much modification in the direction of bringing the conception closer to earth, for the goddess had no special presumed form which could be adapted by the artist to popular ideas. A nude figure would be impossible because in this the force and power implied in a hero of war could not be combined with feminine attributes. The Greeks drew the line at observable muscular developments, invariably clothing nearly the whole of the figure, but they did not, and could not, free her general bearing from certain masculine qualities. It is true that the costume of the goddess might be modified, and Phidias himself represented her in one or two statues without a helmet, an example followed by several artists of the Renaissance,[a] but so long as the symbols of war are included in her habit, she can be only of formal use to the painter. [a] See Piero di Cosimo's Marsyas and the Pipes of Athena,[47] and Botticelli's Athena and the Centaur. APOLLO Although in mythology Apollo is connected with everything on earth which is useful or pleasing to mankind, in art custom has so confined his representation in respect of both appearance and symbols, that a type has been established from which it would be difficult to depart without a suggestion of incongruity arising. This type is of a more purely formal character than that of any other god, except perhaps Mercury, a circumstance probably arising from the fact that the reputed hard nature of Apollo fails to lend itself to sympathetic idealization. He does not appear to have been a favourite subject with the greatest sculptors of ancient times, for nearly all the innumerable statues of him which have come down to us, are reproductions of two or three types which in themselves vary but little. It is difficult to see how a really noble ideal of such a god can be suggested. Stern and inflexible, with many human vices but no weaknesses or gentle traits, and withal a model of physical beauty without strength or apparent power--in fact an emphasized feminine form: such is the Apollo of tradition and art. We cannot wonder that the type was quickly fixed, the limitations to avoid the abnormal being so well defined. The painter then has small scope with the figure of this god. He may only slightly vary the accepted form, which admits of but a negative expression. The best representation of Apollo in modern art is the one by Raphael in the Parnassus fresco at the Vatican, though the beautiful figure in the Marsyas work at the Louvre is very nearly as perfect.[48] Raphael does not give to the god the rounded swellings of a female form, but overcomes the difficulty by showing him as a young man of perfect figure who has just reached maturity. The expression is entirely general, but does not suggest a god-like power. DIANA It would scarcely be natural to be sympathetic with Artemis. She seems to be the feminine type of a cold flint-like nature, as Apollo is the masculine, and one can well understand that mythology makes of them brother and sister. Mistress of wild beasts and goddess of sudden death, she was always worshipped from fear: her wrath had ever to be appeased; she inspired neither affection nor respect. True, she wore the mantle of Ililythia, but only to be dreaded, and even the attempt to throw a warm halo over her by the theft of the Endymion story for her benefit, failed to lift her reputation for the tireless satisfaction of a supernatural spleen. Nevertheless for the painter Diana has always had a certain attraction, because the legends connected with her offer opportunities for the exercise of skill in the representation of the nude. But there is an end of all things, and the bathing and hunting scenes have been fairly exhausted. For the sculptor only is Artemis likely to live. Bright colours are not the vehicle to represent the symbol of an idea which is beyond, but not above, nature--a useless abstraction which neither warms the heart nor elevates the soul. Callisto draws our sympathy, and Niobe our tears: the goddess freezes our veins. NEPTUNE Brother of Jupiter and Pluto; sire of Theseus, of Polyphemus, and of the titanic lads who threatened to pile mountain on mountain in order to destroy the home of the deities; the god whose footsteps tremble the earth; who disputes with the sun; who uses floods and earthquakes for weapons; who owns vast palaces in the caverns of the deep; for whom the angry waves sink down beneath the shining sea, and ocean monsters play around his lightning track across the waters: this is the divinity whom the painter is accustomed to portray as a rough bearded man with dishevelled hair and rugged features, holding a three-pronged fork, and associating with dolphins, mermaids, and shells. But Neptune is not a popular god. He does not appeal to the mind as a good-natured god like Jupiter or Mercury, with many of the virtues and some of the failings of mankind. His acts are mostly violent; he punishes but does not reward; grows angry but is never kind. There is consequently no sympathetic attitude towards him on the part of the artist, who would sooner paint good than bad actions. Beyond his violent acts, the circumstances which make up the history of the god, provide subjects more suitable for the poet than the painter, who is practically confined to unimportant and casual incidents which, with changes of accessories, would answer a thousand scenes in mythological history. Neptune then may well disappear from the purview of the painter, with the tritons and the seaweed entourage. MARS From the point of view of the painter, there is little to say about the Grecian Ares. He has not a single good trait in legend or story, and we know nothing of his presumed personal form beyond the military externals. It is difficult to understand how such a god came to be included among the deities of a civilized race. Of what service could be prayer when it is addressed to a blatant, bloodstained, genius of the brutal side of war, without feeling or pity, and apparently so wanting in intelligence that he has to leave the direction of battles to a goddess? One would think that Homer intended him as the god of bullies, or he would not have made him roar like ten thousand men when struck with a stone, nor would he have allowed him to be imprisoned by two young demigods, and contemptuously wounded by a third. But who is responsible for the association of such a wretched example of divinity with the radiant Aphrodite, for surely it is only the cloak of Homer that covers the story! Was it a painter who had sought in vain from the poets a suggestion for a composition in which the god would at least appear normal, or a cynical critic who wished to incite ridicule as well as contempt for the divinity? In any case the painter must sigh in vain for an inspiriting design with Ares as the leading figure: he cannot harmonize love and terror. The Roman Mars has a slight advantage over Ares, for the name of Silvia is sweetly-sounding, but she should be represented alone, as the star of the wild Campagna, while yet it was forest-clad: the gleaming light whose rays are to illumine the earth. Mars may disappear with the wolf, but who can hide the glory of Rome? MERCURY It is difficult to connect the Hermes of the poet with the tedious expressionless figure commonly seen in painting, whose only costume is a helmet, and whose invariable province is apparently to look on and do nothing. For the sculptor he is a god; for the painter a symbol of subordination. A Rubens may give him the pulse of life, but only the sculptor can suggest the divinity. With the painter the winged helmet is a bizarre ornament; the immortal sandals are shrunken to leather; the caduceus is a thing of inertia which is ever in the way. But with the sculptor all these things may be endowed with the quickening spirit of a soaring mind, for does not Giovanni di Bologna show the lithesome god speeding through space ahead of the wind, the feathery foot-wings humming with delirium, the trembling air dividing hastily before the wand? True, the painter may represent the divine herald on his way through space, as when he conducts Psyche to Olympus, or leads the shades of the suitors to Hades; but the accessories present must surround him with an earthy framework, unless the design be confined to a ceiling, and shut away from things mundane with architectural forms, as in the plan of Raphael at the Farnese Villa, or to a fresco executed in the manner of a Flaxman drawing. Beyond these artifices the artist cannot go with propriety. Few and worn are the scenes in the history of the god in which he takes a leading part. The head of Argus seems to be cut off, or awaiting separation, in nearly every collection, sometimes with Juno on a cloud deeply frowning with revengeful ire, occasionally with the peacock expectant of its glorious fan, but always with the weak-looking helmeted piper, passive and unconcerned as if fulfilling a daily task. A Correggio may weave his golden fancy around a scene where Cupid learns to strengthen his arrows with the rules of science and the wiles of art; but let the painter beware of the infant Bacchus in the arms of the messenger-god, lest a vision of the Olympian group arise and enfold his work in a robe of charity. The schemes whereby the cradled thief deceived the Pythian god are beyond the scope of the painter, though there is a certain available range in the charming actions surrounding the invention of the lyre. And if the designs relating to the unfortunate Lara be properly consigned to oblivion, surely the connection of Hermes with Pandora offers a field for the sprightly imagination. But save where the god is a symbol of commerce or speed, the helmet should be dispensed with, for it is hackneyed beyond endurance. The modern painter is not bound by custom unless the provision of beauty conflict with the lucidity of the design or the reverence for universal sentiment. Let the winged heels suffice, for the shadow of Persius will scarcely rise in protest. [Illustration: PLATE 12 (See page 145) Greek Portraiture Head of Plato Head of Euripides] BACCHUS Centuries of bacchanalian festivities and revelries have nearly killed Bacchus for the painter. Who can further interest himself in meaningless processions, where the most prominent figure is a fat, drunken, staggering man, supported by goat-hoofed monstrosities, and attended by all the insignia of vinous royalty? Silenus is no more the loving nurse of the infant god; the satyrs are no more the followers of a reed-playing woodland deity; the nymphs have long forgotten the flowery dales, the faithful trees that lived and died with them, the fairy bowers where first Semele's offspring clapped his hands to the measure of dance and pipe. Why should the dance be turned into a drunken revel? Why should the artist remember the orgies of Rome, and forget the Grecian pastoral fancies? What has become of Dionysus, inheritor of Vishnu traditions, the many-named father of song, the leader of the Muses, and the fire-born enemy of pirates? Nothing remains of him worth remembering, save Ariadne the golden-haired, and she must in future be left on the desert isle lest the pathos of her figure be disturbed by the motley followers of her rescuer. It is passing strange that the artists of the Renaissance did not attempt to lift Bacchus out of the ditch of ignominy into which he had fallen. They seem to have taken their ideas from the recorded accounts of the Roman rites and vine festivals, overlooking the Grecian suggestions relating to Dionysus, and even the later restrained reliefs picturing incidents in his history. In their art, however, as is evidenced by Pompeian frescoes, the Romans often treated Bacchus in a serious manner, associating him with higher interests than those connected with festival orgies. It may be that the figure of the god carved by Michelangelo[a] had something to do with the later coarse representations of him, for it would have been impossible for artists succeeding so great a sculptor, to ignore the types he created. But it will be an eternal mystery how he came to design such a Bacchus. A voluptuous semi-realistic god, opposed to everything else that was conceived by the sculptor, and antagonistic to all that was known in Greece, it can never be anything more than a sublime example of a purely earthly figure. One stands amazed before the perfect modelling, but aghast at the conception. It represents the most extraordinary transition from the god-like man of the Greeks, to a man-like god, ever seen in art. [a] In the Bargello, Florence. The painter then has little left to use of the conventional Bacchus and his history, except the never-dying Ariadne, but there is nothing to prevent him from reverting to the pastoral Dionysus, to the delightful abodes of the nymphs his foster-mothers, where Pan played and the Muses sang, while the never-tiring son of Maia breathed tales of love into willing ears. VULCAN The poet may continue to hold our fancy with volcanic fires and cyclopean hammers, but on canvas Etna becomes a blacksmith's forge, and the figure of a begrimed human toiler is given to the divinity responsible for the golden handmaids, and the brazen bull whose breath was scorching flame. There is rarely a painting of Vulcan without a forge and leather bellows, with a smith who is stripped to the waist, which earthly things necessarily kill all suggestions of celestial interest, notwithstanding the presence of Venus, or the never-fading bride of palsied Peleus. Occasionally we have the incident with Mars, and strangely look for the invisible net, but not finding it we are immediately called back to earth to ponder over the wiles of the ancient legend gatherers. The art is lost behind the unreality. But why does not the painter revert to the childhood of Vulcan, when he was hiding in the glistening cavern beneath the roll of ocean, fashioning resplendent eardrops for silver-footed Thetis? Here is scope for the imagination--to indicate the fancies of the budding genius who was to carve the wondrous shield, and adorn the heaven-domed halls of Olympus. Let Hephæstus mature as he will for the poet: he should only bloom for the painter. GENERAL CLASSICAL COMPOSITIONS Scenes of adventure from the ancient poets in which the gods and goddesses are concerned, appear to be rapidly becoming things of the past for the painter. This is partly due to the circumstance that these scenes have been so multiplied since the early days of the Renaissance, that they are now positively fatiguing to both artists and the public; but there is a deeper reason. If we try to number the paintings of classical subjects by first-class artists which are enshrined in our minds, we can count very few, and nearly all of these are single figures, as a Venus, a Leda, a Psyche, or a Pandora. We do not call up a Judgment of Paris, or a Diana and Actæon, or any other design where divinities are mixed with mortals in earthly actions. The cause of this seems to be that our minds naturally revolt against a glaring incongruity. The imagination is unable to harmonize the qualities of a god with the possession of human instincts and frailties, or strike a balance between divine actions and human motives. We see these pictures and admire the design and execution, but they leave us cold: we are unable to kindle enthusiasm over patent unreality. The general conclusion is that painters would be wise to avoid such compositions, and confine their attention in classical work to single figures of goddesses or heroines, leaving to the poet suggestion of miraculous powers. CHAPTER IX EXPRESSION. PART IV.--GENERAL IDEALS Limitation of the painter with general ideals--Ideal heads interchangeable in sacred and symbolical art--Ideal male human countenances impossible for the painter. In the arts of sculpture and painting, where it is necessary that the beauty should be immediately recognized by the eye, it is obvious that a general expression is superior to the particular. This is so because the general covers universal experience and the particular does not. But in the art of the painter there is a limit to the expression of general beauty. Theoretically there is no beauty possible to the sculptor which the painter cannot produce, but practically there is. A sculptor may carve what we understand as a god-like figure--a glorious image embodying all the highest qualities that may be conceived by man, with a general expression covering supreme wisdom and every noble attribute--such a figure as the greatest Grecian artist chiselled. This figure would stand in front of us, isolated, serene in its glory, and we should look and wonder, and a second or two would suffice to fill our entire mind with the image. For it would be above the earth, above all our surroundings. We could connect nothing on earth with it--neither human beings, nor green fields, nor the seas, and certainly not human habitations, and ways, and manners, and actions. A Phidian god can have no setting. Everything on earth is too small, too insignificant to bear it company. The reflection from the majesty of the design throws into shadow our loftiest earthly conceptions. Let us suppose that a painter could be found who could execute such a figure: how could he isolate it to the mind? He may not use accessories, for these could not be separated by the eye, and the association with earth which they would imply would destroy the illusion. But the figure must have relief, and hence tones. A monochrome would not do, for the frame or sides of the wall containing the picture would flatten it, and suggest a painted imitation of a sculpture. We may imagine a colossal figure painted on an immense wall whose bounds are hidden by the concentration of all the available light on the figure. Even then the colouring of the wall must be unseen. The figure must stand out as if against infinite space, surrounded by ambient air, in majestic solitude, pondering over the everlasting roll of life towards perfection. In this way only could the painter match the sculptor, but the practical difficulties are so enormous as to render the scheme to all intents and purposes impossible. For the painter then there is a limit to expression. He cannot proceed with his ideal higher than Praxiteles. His limit is the most supreme form and expression conceivable by his imagination, which does not exceed the apparent possibility of human experience. Apparent, because an ideal must necessarily be actually above the possibility of experience, but it may not appear to be so. For instance a Raphael Madonna does not seem to represent a supernatural woman. There is no single feature painted which cannot be matched in life, and hence it would not occur to the observer that the expression is contrary to the possibility of experience. But the expression cannot be met with in life, for besides being entirely general, it excludes all phases due to the emotions or passions. One cannot imagine a woman with the expression of a Raphael Madonna having concern with any special human interest, and least of all with feelings and failings arising from natural instincts. Yet the expression covers every form of noble endeavour; every phase of innocent pleasure; every degree of mental activity within the province of woman. And herein lies the art--the exclusion of the bad in our nature, with the exaltation of the good. Now it is obvious that if the expression be so general that no particular quality can be identified therein, the countenance will serve for the head of any personage painted in whose expression it is desirable to indicate the possession of high attributes, without suggesting a particular condition of mind. Thus, the head of a Raphael Madonna would equally serve for the head of a Saint Cecilia or a Judith; or, providing the age were suitable, for a heroine of the stamp of Joan of Arc, so long as the character of her actual features were unknown. Further it would be well adapted for a symbolical figure, as Prudence or Truth. But a far wider significance than is thus indicated, is conveyed by the necessity for generalizing expression in order to reach the painter's ideal. It has already been noted that inasmuch as all men have the same general idea of beauty--that they generally agree as to what is, or is not, beautiful, it follows that there must be a common opinion as to degrees of beauty, and so a universality of ideal; that is of course, among people with similar experience of life, as for instance the white races of the world.[49] Hence the ideals of all painters must be similar. They must necessarily aim for the same generalization--exclude or emphasize like. Manner or style, or national type may vary; purely sensorial effects may differ as the minds of the painters have been variously trained, but the combination of features and effects which regulate the expression will be practically identical in every realized ideal. Consequently, subject to changes in attitude or age, ideal heads of all artists are interchangeable without incongruity resulting, irrespective of the motive of the design, for the ideal countenance indicated adapts itself to any character where no emotional or passionate expression is required. The head of the figure representing "Profane Love" in Titian's great picture, would serve to express spiritual nobility in a Madonna,[a] and when a head in a Madonna by Raphael is exchanged with that of the central figure in Fragonard's The Pursuit,[b] there is no resulting suggestion of impropriety in either picture.[c] Ideal countenances have sometimes been given to evil characters, as in Luini's Salome,[d] and the head in this picture would equally well serve for a Madonna.[e] [a] See Plate 9. [b] Frick Collection, New York.[50] [c] See Plate 8. [d] Uffizi Gallery, Florence. [e] See Plate 10. An ideal head then will suggest any expression that the design in which it is included seems to require, subject to the restrictions before noted. In The Pursuit the face of the woman presumed to be fleeing from her lover indicates some concern, and even a little fear,[a] but that this is due to the surroundings in the work, is shown when the head is substituted for another in a different picture, for the concern has disappeared, and the expression becomes one which may properly represent the highest attributes connected with the Madonna. [a] See Frontispiece and Plate 11. The limits within which the form and countenance of a woman may be idealized, are prescribed by Raphael in his works. The presumed age must be that when she reaches the full bloom of womanhood. Youth will not do because it involves an expression denying experience, while physically a girl cannot be supposed to have reached an age where her form has ceased to progress towards perfection. Beauty of feature and form is the first consideration of the artist, and hence his difficulty in fixing an expression which shall be entirely free from the possibility of suggesting desire. For this reason no model, or series of models, will suffice the painter: he has always to bring his imagination to bear, as Raphael admitted he had to do.[a] [a] "E di belle donne, io mi servo di certa idea che mi viene nella mente." Letter to Castiglione. It is impossible to find a head of a woman, painted before the time of Raphael, which fulfils the requirements of art as an ideal. The figures are either too formal, or too distinctive in type, or are evidently portraits, while in many of the greatest pictures of the fifteenth century the artists had not yet learned how to put warm blood into their Madonnas. Raphael, however, after taking up his sojourn at Florence, became an object lesson for nearly every school, and ideal countenances were produced by other masters, though no painter other than Raphael succeeded with more than one or two. Nowadays the ever increasing hustle in the struggle for existence, does not lend itself to deep study and long contemplation on the part of painters, but hope springs eternal, and surely the list of immortals is not yet closed. An ideal man of flesh and blood is not possible in the art of the painter, for there is no general conception of male beauty below the level of the god-like. Perfection of form can be given, but a supreme expression in the face of a man implies deep wisdom, and this must necessarily be associated with maturity when high sensorial beauty of feature can scarcely be expected. CHAPTER X EXPRESSION. PART V.--PORTRAITURE Limitations of the portrait painter--Generalizations--Emphasis and addition of qualities--Practice of the ancient Greeks-- Dignity--Importance of simplicity--Some of the great masters-- Portraiture of women--The English masters--The quality of grace--The necessity of repose. While in the scale of the painter's art, portraiture ranks next to the higher branches of historical work, yet it is some distance behind them, for apart from the commonplace of scenic arrangement, the imagination of the portrait painter cannot be carried further than the consideration of added or eliminated details of form and expression in relation to a set subject. But these details are very difficult, and so it comes about that a good portrait involves a far greater proportion of mental labour than the result appears on the surface to warrant. It is indirectly consequent upon the complexity of his task that the work of the artist who devotes practically his whole time to portraiture, often varies so largely in quality. He paints some portraits which are generally appreciated, but as time goes on he is overwhelmed with orders which he cannot possibly fulfil without reducing the value of his work. He thus acquires a habit of throwing his whole power into his work only when the personage he represents is of public importance, or has a countenance particularly amenable to his manner or style. It is necessary that this fact should be borne in mind, otherwise erroneous standards are likely to be set up when artists like Van Dyck, Reynolds, or Romney, are referred to as examples. In a general sense nearly all painting where the human figure is introduced, is portraiture, and it has been so since soon after the middle of the fifteenth century, when artists commenced to use living men and women for secondary or accessory figures in sacred pictures. The increasing importance attached to the anatomy of the figure resulted in the extensive use of models, and so in a measure portraiture rose to be a leading feature in the work of the artist. The figures in the larger compositions of every kind by the greater painters of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, consist almost entirely of portraits of friends and acquaintances of the artists, the exceptions being the countenances of the Deity and Christ, which had to be modelled from accepted types, and those of the later Saints the character of whose features had been handed down by tradition. A few painters, as Raphael and Correggio, idealized the Virgin away from suggestion of portraiture, but others, as Del Sarto and Pontormo, even in this case took a wife or other relative as a model. The practice was continued by many artists in respect of central figures, till the end of the seventeenth century, after which time the identity of the figures was, as a rule, purposely lost. Nevertheless the figures, other than ideals, used in all good compositions, must necessarily be portraits or adaptations thereof, for only from life can superior representation of life be obtained. The first duty of the portraitist is to generalize the expression of his subject. A face seen once will be thrown upon the mind only with the particular expression observable at the moment of view. If seen a second time we involuntarily combine the effects of the dual experience, and the more often we see the countenance, the more closely will our mental picture of it correspond with the general or average expression worn. It is this average appearance that the portraitist tries to represent, emphasizing of course whatever good qualities may be indicated. The second most important task of the artist is to balance every part of the picture, so that neither setting, nor colour, nor handling, is strikingly noticeable. The portrait should appear at first glance as one complete whole, in order that the mind of the observer be immediately directed to the subject, and away from the artist or the manner of execution. The painter is limited to the actual character and physiognomy of the figure. He must make each feature harmonize with the others, and add or subtract, hide or reveal, without changing the general individuality, but he cannot do more. His scope is, therefore, strictly limited. Very naturally some of the greatest portraitists have rebelled at this limit. They appear to have painted with an eye to posterity, rather than to satisfy their patrons and the people of the time with an effective generalization of character and bearing. If we compare the portraits executed by Titian with those representing certain accessory figures in some important compositions of the great masters, as for instance, the School of Athens of Raphael,[a] and the Death of St. Francis of Ghirlandaio,[b] we find a marked difference. The latter are obviously true portraits of living men, with little accentuated or eliminated, just such portraits as Carlyle wanted from which to obtain real instruction for his biographies. Titian painted no portraits of this kind. He gives a lofty bearing to every person he portrays. His figures seem to belong to a special race of men, endowed with rare qualities of nobility and dignity, with little interest in the doings of ordinary people. Yet we know that some of his characters lived in an atmosphere of evil. We cannot really believe that the Aretino of Titian[c] was Aretino the man, and we find it hard to imagine that Philip II.,[d] or the Duke of Alba,[e] as Titian painted him, could grow into the monster he proved to be. Nevertheless Titian was justified. It is not the business of the artist to consider the historian: his art is all that concerns him. Titian produced beautiful pictures which are commonly recognized as great portrayals of character; whose character matters not, though when we have data upon which to rest a judgment, we find the lineaments in his works are fully sufficient for purposes of identification. [a] At the Vatican. [b] Fresco at Santa Trinita, Florence. [c] Frick Collection, N. Y. [d] The Padro, Madrid, and elsewhere. [e] Huescar Coll., Madrid. While Titian went further than any other Renaissance painter in ennobling his subjects, he did not approach the ancient Greeks in this respect. Their sculptured busts and terms represent the highest portraiture known to us. Many examples remain, mostly copies it is true, but quite fifty of them are clearly faithful reproductions, made apparently in the early days of Imperial Rome, and accord closely with the few existing originals. The Grecian portraits differ from the Roman, and all later painted or carved portraits in a most important feature.[a] The latter aimed at what is still understood as the highest level in portraiture. They endeavoured to give a general individualism of mind and bearing, avoiding particular expression; in fact to represent character. Since the Christian era commenced neither sculptor nor painter has gone further than this, with very few exceptions in Roman days when Grecian sculptors of the time imitated the practice of the fourth and early third centuries. The earlier Greeks on the other hand not only generalized portraits in an extreme degree, but, except in the case of athletes, they altered the contour of the head and varied the actual features of the subject, so that the possession of the higher human attributes should be indicated as clearly as possible. They invariably showed a large facial angle, placed the ears well close to the head, sunk the eyes deep in their sockets, and ennobled the brows to suggest majesty or profound thought. In fact the Grecian portrait heads only differ from their sculptured gods in that particular countenances are depicted, and consequently the expression in them does not appear to be above the possibility of human experience. Apparently in Grecian times, only men who had become celebrated in some way were represented in stone, and hence the artist had features to depict which could be semi-idealized without impropriety. Even Socrates, whose ugliness was proverbial, was given a noble and dignified expression.[b] [a] See Plates 12 and 13. [b] See heads in the National Museums of Rome and Naples. That the painter is at liberty to follow the example of the Greeks, there can be no question from the point of view of art, for his first object is to produce a beautiful picture; but in portraiture, practical and conventional considerations have to be met, with which other branches of painting are not concerned. With rare exceptions the portraits executed are of living persons, and extreme accentuation of high qualities would be likely to result in a representation of the sitter that would appear false to contemporary observers, though we might well imagine that a work exhibiting this accentuation would seem to be of high excellence in the judgment of future generations. There must therefore be a line drawn in respect of added or accentuated qualities, and the position of this line would naturally vary with the celebrity of the subject and the power of the artist. Something definite may, however, be said in regard to the emphasis of certain qualities of form, and particularly of dignity, a feature that has occupied the attention of some of the greatest masters. [Illustration: PLATE 13 (See page 145) Roman Portraiture Head of Vespasian Head of Hadrian] The question arises, how far may the artist go in imitating the manner of the stage with his portraits? On the theatrical stage formalities are required with certain characters in order to emphasize their position--to assist in the recognition of their standing or relative significance in the drama, for it is of the first importance that the audience should comprehend the meaning of the actions presented as rapidly as possible. The actor must often exaggerate life habits of pose and manner in order to heighten the contrast between two characters, or to give special significance to the words. And the elevation of the diction sometimes compels this exaggeration. In high drama where the language used is above experience of ordinary life in measure and force, there must be appropriate pose and action to accompany it, and hence a height of dignity or even majesty may appear perfectly proper on the stage, which would be ridiculous in surroundings away from it. From the practice of certain painters it would seem that they have looked upon portraiture as the transference of their subjects to the public stage as it were, so that they might appear to occupy a higher position in the drama of life than that to which they are habituated. No harm can arise from this provided the portraitist does not pass beyond the custom of the theatrical stage, where, whatever the exaggeration, the representation appears, or should appear, appropriate to the action; that is to say, where the exaggeration is not recognized as such. Accentuation of high qualities of expression, or even variations in certain physical features, such as the Greeks brought about, would not appear exaggerations in a portrait, but where dignity of form is added to such an extent that the observer immediately recognizes it as untrue to experience, then the artist goes too far. While this is so, we do not condemn Titian, Van Dyck, and the few other portrait painters who emphasized the quality of dignity of form in past times. The reason for this appears to be that the usual methods of teaching history lead us to suppose that nobles and leaders of society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who were usually the portrait subjects of the greater artists, commonly assumed a demeanour and bearing far above our own experience. At the present day, when it is a matter of universal knowledge that a formal dignified pose is very rarely assumed by any one, such a bearing in a portrait would be regarded as untrue. The portraitist may improve the expression of his subject, adding any good quality within his power, and he may remove from the features or figure any marked physical defect, because the portrait would still appear to be correct; but if he add a strong dignified pose, then the result would be something that is possibly, but improbably accurate, and therefore inferior art. The quality of dignity should be expressed rather in the countenance than in the pose, the bearing of the form being produced as in life, for this lends assistance to the true representation of character. A dignified expression may well be appropriate to an awkward form whose personality would be undistinguished by dignity of pose. Titian was the first great artist to give a pronounced dignity of form to his subjects, and he never varied from the practice unless the subject were exhibited in action,[a] or too old to be represented as an upright figure.[b] Nor did he once exaggerate the pose so that arrogance might be suggested. Though he squared the shoulders, he rarely threw back the head to emphasize the bearing,[c] and only in one portrait is the body slightly arched as the result of the pose.[d] In fact so careful was the artist in avoiding over-emphasis, that there is a tendency in two or three of his figures for the upper part of the body to lean a little forward.[e] Obviously Titian gave this dignified attitude to his portrait subjects of set purpose, as in his general compositions there is no suggestion of it.[51] [a] Portrait of his daughter, Berlin Gallery, and of Jacopo di Strada at Vienna. [b] Paul III. at Naples, and his own portrait at the Uffizi Gallery. [c] An exception is Charles V. at Mühlberg, Prado, Madrid. [d] Portrait of his daughter as a bride, at Dresden. [e] Notably in the portrait of the Duke of Ferrara, Pitti Palace. Velasquez no doubt acquired his habit of lending dignity to his important subjects from the examples of Titian's portraits which came under his view in Spain. Except in one notable instance where the bearing is much over-emphasized,[a] he was equally successful with the Italian master in the practice, though many of his characters are far from lending him any natural assistance. In the case of a Court Dwarf, however, the high dignity given to him by the painter seems to require explanation.[b] [a] Count-Duke Olivares, Holford, Coll., London. [b] Don Antonio el Ingles, Prado. Before he went to Italy, Van Dyck followed the natural system of Rubens in posing his portrait subjects, but at Genoa he painted under the spell of Titian's memory, and thereafter during his whole life, he gave a dignified bearing to his figures whenever this was not opposed to individual traits. During his English period, when he undertook more work than he could properly accomplish, he sometimes over-emphasized the dignity of a figure by arching the body,[a] but as a rule he produced a just balance of pose and setting, completing altogether a magnificent series of portraits which remain the astonishment of the world. [a] Earl of Newport, Northbrook Coll., England; Earl of Bedford Spencer Coll.; and Queen Henrietta (three-quarter length), Windsor Castle. It is obviously the duty of the portraitist so to design his work that the attention of the observer is concentrated upon the countenance of the subject immediately he has grasped the whole composition, and it is in the successful accomplishment of this object that the power of Rembrandt lies. He rarely used accessories, and in only a few cases a background of any kind. He avoided portraits where an elaborate setting was required, as for instance full length standing figures, of which he only painted two[a]; and in his many three-quarter length portraits, there is seldom more than a table or chair to be seen apart from the figure. With this simplicity of design, and with nearly all the available light directed full upon the head of the subject, the eye of the observer of the picture is necessarily centred instantaneously upon the features. These are invariably cast into bold relief by perfect management of the chiaroscuro, and the correspondence with life seems as complete as it well can be. Rembrandt thus accomplishes the aim of every great artist: he executes a faithful picture, and throws it on the mind of the observer with the maximum of rapidity. Only artists of a high order can successfully ignore a more or less elaborate setting for a portrait, particularly if it be larger than bust size. Great care has to be taken with such a setting lest the eye of the observer be attracted by the pose of the figure and the general harmony of the work before being directed to the countenance. If we take the general opinion of known portraits, so far as it can be gauged, we find that the most highly esteemed of them are: the Julius II. of Raphael, the Mona Lisa of Lionardo, the Man with the Gloves by Titian, the Old Man with a Boy by Ghirlandaio, and Innocent X. by Velasquez.[b] All of these except Mona Lisa are remarkable for the simplicity of the setting, and in the exception the formal landscape is altogether subordinated to the figure. Raphael was the first artist who saw the value of avoiding accessories in portraiture. His half-length portraits painted after his arrival in Florence, are all free from them, and his Julius II. has only the chair on which the Pope is seated. [a] Martin Day and Machteld van Doorn, both in Gustave Rothschild Coll., Paris. [b] The first at the Pitti Palace, the last at the Doria Gallery, and the others at the Louvre. Rembrandt further aided the concentration of attention on the countenance of a sitter by the use of warm inconspicuous tones in the clothing, which harmonize with all kinds of surroundings in which the picture may be seen. The colours never specially attract the eye, and the attire consequently forms so completely a part of the figure, that after an inspection of the work one can rarely describe the costume. This subordination of colour is of the highest importance in portraiture, though it is not sufficiently practised nowadays. Velasquez used quiet tones whenever possible, that is, when he was not painting great personages, and Titian, Rubens, and Van Dyck, followed the same course in half-length portraits. None of these, however, seemed so careful as Rembrandt in adapting the tones to the general character of the figure, so that the impression left on the mind of the observer should relate entirely to the personality. Rembrandt, in fact, aimed at a representation of the man, and the man only; and he gave us a natural human being of a commonly known type, with his virtues somewhat emphasized, and his faults a little veiled. The extraordinary power of Velasquez as a portraitist was due to the same general cause operating in the case of Rembrandt, namely, extreme simplicity in design. Apart from those instances where royal or official personages had to be represented in decorative attire, every portrait of Velasquez is merely the impress of a personality. There are no accessories; the clothing is subordinated to the last degree, and there is nothing for the eye to grasp but a perfectly drawn set of features thrown into strong relief by a method of chiaroscuro unsurpassed in depth and accuracy. Thus, as in the case of Rembrandt, the portrait fulfils the first law of art--the picture is thrown on the brain in the least possible fraction of time. Velasquez was remarkable in a greater degree than any other artist, if we except Hals, for his facility in execution. In his brush-work he appeared to do the right thing at all times without hesitation, achieving the most perfect balance as if by instinct. So far as we can judge from those instances where his subjects were painted also by other artists, his portraits are good likenesses, but he followed the best practice in generalizing the countenance to the fullest extent. It is unfortunate that his work was confined to so poor a variety of sitters. Of his known portraits more than half represent Philip IV. or his relatives; eight others are nobles of the time, and another half dozen are dwarfs and buffoons, leaving only seventeen examples of the artist's work amongst ordinary people. There never was a weaker royal family than that of Philip IV., and it is really astonishing how Velasquez was able to produce such excellent works of art by means of their portraits. With his abnormal lips and weak face, the king himself must have been a most difficult person to ennoble, yet the painter managed in three portraits to give him a highly distinguished countenance and bearing, without in any way suggesting exaggeration.[a] Of another weak man--Innocent X.--Velasquez painted what Reynolds described as the greatest portrait he saw in Rome; and it is truly one of the most amazing life representations ever executed.[b] A reddish face peers out through a blaze of warm surroundings and background; a face in full relief as if cut out of apoplectic flesh--almost appalling in its verity. It is like nothing else that Velasquez painted: it overpowers with its combined strength and realism. But it is a picture to see occasionally, and admire as a great imitation. If one lived with it, the colour would hurt the eye, the unpleasant face would tire the mind. Such a face should not be painted: it should be carved in stone, where truth may be given to form without the protrusion of mortal decay. Bernini sculptured the countenance, and gave the Pope a certain majesty which no painting could present. As a life portrait the work of Velasquez is unrivalled, but as a pure work of art, it is behind the three portraits of Philip IV. already mentioned. A distinctly unhealthy face cannot be produced in portraiture without injuring the art, for it is a variety of distortion. [a] The full example at the Prado; the Parma full length, in the Frick Coll., N. Y.; and the three-quarter length portrait at the Imperial Gallery, Vienna. [b] In the Doria Gallery, Rome. Velasquez was so naturally a portraitist that apart from his actual portrait work, every figure composition he painted seems to consist merely of the portraits of a group of persons. He took little pains to connect the figures in a life action, often painting them with a look of unconcern with the proceedings around them, as if specially posing for the artist. In several of his works there are faces looking right out of the picture, and it is evident that in these the artist had little thought in his mind away from portrait presentation.[a] The Surrender of Breda and Las Meninas,[b] regarded generally as his best compositions, are admittedly portrait groupings, but the setting in each case is one of action, and hence the faces looking out of the picture are a great drawback, as they disrobe the illusion of a natural scene. That a man so accurate in his drawing, so perfect in his chiaroscuro, and so skilful in his brushwork, should yet be so conspicuously limited in imagination, is a problem which art historians have yet to solve. [a] See The Breakfast, Hermitage; Christ in the House of Martha, National Gallery, London; and The Drinkers, Prado. [b] Both at the Prado. Franz Hals was on a level with Velasquez in respect of facility in execution, and like him seems to have been a born portraitist. His brushwork was so rapid and decisive that in scarcely any of his designs is there evidence of deliberation. He seems to have been able to take in the essential features of a subject at a glance, and to transfer them to canvas without preliminaries, producing an amazing countenance with the least possible detail. Though some of his large groups are a little stiff, this is rather through his want of capacity in invention than a set purpose of exaggeration with a view to heightening the dignity of pose, for it is obvious that Hals had little imagination, and knew nothing of the boundless possibilities of his art in general composition. He appears to have passed through life without concern for his work beyond material results, being well convinced that the magic of his execution would leave nothing further for the public to desire. In the last forty years of his life he made no advance in his art except in one respect, but the change was great, for it doubled the art value of his portraits. He learned how to subordinate his colours; how to modify his chiaroscuro in order to force the immediate attention of the observer on the countenance of his subject.[52] Such an advance with such an artist placed him in the rank of the immortals among the portraitists. It will be seen that in the judgment of the greatest painters, decoration in a portrait should be altogether subordinated to the truthful representation of character, this practice being only varied when the personage portrayed is of public importance, and the portrait is required more or less as a monument. The rule is natural and reasonable, being based upon the universal agreement that the all-important part of a man comprehended by the vision is his countenance. But the rule only strictly applies to a single figure portrait, for when the painter goes beyond this, and executes a double portrait or a multiple group, he restricts the scope of his art. Other things being equal a double portrait is necessarily inferior art to a single figure picture, since the dual objective complicates the impression of the work on the brain, and the only remedy, or partial remedy, for this drawback possessed by the painter is to introduce accessories and arrange his group in a subject design. This plan results in detracting from the force of the actual portraits, as it divides the attention of the observer, but there is no help for it unless one is content with the representation of the figures in a stiff and formal way which extinguishes the pictorial effect of the work. The greatest artists have avoided dual or triple portrait works where possible except in cases of gatherings of members of the same family, as one of these groups may be regarded as a unity by the observer. Nevertheless in his picture of Leo X., and the two younger Medici,[a] Raphael was careful to subordinate the cardinals so that they should appear little more than accessories in a painting of the Pope; an example which was followed not quite so successfully by Titian in his triple portrait of Paul III. with the two brothers Farnese.[b] A group of two persons who are in some way associated with each other, though unconnected in action, rarely looks out of place, as in the pictures of father and son, or of two brothers, painted by Van Dyck, or in The Ambassadors of Holbein,[c] but no painter has yet succeeded in producing a first-class work of art out of a multiple portrait group when the personages represented are unconnected with each other, either directly in action, or indirectly through association derived from the title. The picture of Rubens representing Lipsius and three others, would appear much more stiff and formal than it is, without one of the two titles given to it, notwithstanding the general excellence of the composition.[d] When the figures introduced are very numerous, as in the many groups of civic organizations painted by Hals, Ravesteyn, and others, the compulsory formality seriously detracts from the æsthetic value of the works, however superior they may be in execution, or whatever the connection of the personages represented; and when we come to such crowded paintings as Terburg's Signing the Peace of Münster,[e] we obtain but little more than a record, though it be of absorbing historical interest. [a] Pitti Palace, Florence. [b] Naples Museum. [c] National Gallery, London. [d] The Four Philosophers, or Lipsius and his Disciples, Pitti Palace. [e] National Gallery, London. It is observable that as a rule portraitists have been more successful with delineations of men than of women. This is to be accounted for by the necessity for subordinating the representation of character to the art in the case of women unless they have passed the prime of life; while with men the art is usually subordinated to the portrait, character being sought independently of sensorial beauty. Strictly it is the duty of the artist to make his portrait, whether of a man or a woman, sensorially attractive, but here again in portraiture custom and convention have to be considered with the rules of art. It is agreed that with a woman sensorial beauty must be produced if that be possible, even with the sacrifice of certain elements of character; but with a man the portrait must be recognized by the acquaintances of the subject as corresponding in most details with his life appearance. The future of the portrait is out of the question for the time being. Nevertheless the painter has certain advantages in dealing with the features of a man, for the presence of lines in the brow, or other evidence of experience, does not interfere with the nobility or dignity which may be added to his general bearing; but what would be lines in the countenance of a man would be wrinkles in that of a woman, because here they can scarcely be neutralized by attitude and expression which imply strength of character, without destroying what is best described as womanly charm, which is a compulsory feature in every woman's portrait. With a man therefore the portraitist considers character first and emphasizes qualities of form within his power; while with a woman, during the period of her bloom, beauty of form and feature must be the first care of the artist, unconflicting qualities of character being emphasized or added. All this was of course recognized by the great portraitists of the Renaissance and the seventeenth century, but while most of them endeavoured to enhance the sensorial beauty of their men subjects, little attempt was made to add intellectual grace to the portrayals of women. Antonio Moro[a] and Van Dyck, in their full length portraits of women, sometimes succeeded in converting dignity of form into what we understand as grandeur, which implies dignity of expression as well as grace and dignity of form, but they were largely handicapped by the dress fashions of their times. They had to deal with heavy formal drapery which hung over the figures like elongated bells, and bid defiance to freedom of pose. When fashions and customs had so changed as to allow of definition being given to the figures, Van Dyck had been dead for many years. Meanwhile Hals, Rembrandt, Velasquez, and hundreds of lesser lights, were casting around their flowers of form and mind, but all on the old plan, for it is difficult to find a portrait of a woman painted during the century succeeding Van Dyck, where beauty of feature is allied to nobility in expression. [a] Catilina of Portugal, and Maria of Austria, both at the Prado. [Illustration: PLATE 14 (See page 168) Sacrifice of Iphigenia (Pompeian Fresco) Supposed copy of a painting by Timanthes] The production of this combination awaited the maturity of Reynolds, who with Gainsborough, broke into a new field in the portraiture of women. Gainsborough took the grandeur of Van Dyck for his pattern, but improved upon it by substituting simplicity for dignity and elaboration, which he was able to manage without great difficulty, as he had a clear advantage over the Flemish master in that the costumes in use in his time were lighter in character, and permitted of the contour of form being properly exhibited. This simple grace of form allied to grandeur in bearing, naturally brings about an apparent modification in expression in conformity with it, so long as there are no conflicting elements in expression present, which Gainsborough was careful to avoid. Reynolds went further than Gainsborough, for after the middle of his career he directly added an expression of nobility to his portraits of women whenever the features would admit of it, and so brought about the highest type of feminine portraiture known in art. He was more nearly allied to Titian than Van Dyck, and though in sheer force of sensorial beauty he did not reach the level of the Venetian master, yet in pure feminine portraiture, where high beauty of expression is combined with a perfect generalization of the features, Reynolds is unsurpassed in the history of painting, so far as we can judge from examples remaining to us. For we must estimate an artist from his best work. Reynolds painted forty or fifty portraits of women of the character indicated, and a few of them, notably Mrs. Siddons as Tragedy,[a] and Mrs. Billington as St. Cecilia,[b] are amongst the most luminous examples of feminine portraiture in existence. There are many artists who equalled Reynolds in the representation of men, but there are very few indeed who even attempted to strike a just balance between sensorial and intellectual effects in the countenance of a woman. [a] Westminster Coll., London. [b] New York Public Library. With such great leaders as Reynolds and Gainsborough, it might have been hoped that the school they founded in portraiture would have taken a long lease of life, but it rapidly died away, leaving very few indeed of footsteps sunk deep in the sands of glory, save those of Raeburn, Hoppner, Lawrence, and Romney. But between Reynolds and Romney there is a wide gulf, for while the former sought for his beauty among the higher gifts of nature, Romney, with rare exceptions, was content with a formal expression allied to grace of pose. We may shortly consider this graceful attitude for it seems to be often regarded as an all-sufficing feature in the representation of women.[53] The charm of grace lies chiefly in movement, and a graceful attitude in repose implies rest from graceful movement, but this attitude is ephemeral in nature, for if prolonged it quickly becomes an artificial pose. In art therefore, a graceful pose, whether exhibited in action or at rest, must soon tire unless attractive expression be present to deepen the impress of the work upon the mind of the observer. The general æsthetic value of graceful form in a painted figure varies with the scale to which the figure is drawn. With a heroic figure, grace is of the smallest importance; in one of life size, as a portrait for instance, the quality is of considerable assisting value; and as the scale is diminished, so does the relative value of grace increase. This is because details of expression can be less truthfully rendered in small figures than in those of life size, while in miniature figures certain high qualities of expression, as nobility, or a combined expression of mind and form, as grandeur, can be scarcely indicated at all, so that purely sensorial beauty, as that arising from grace of pose, becomes of comparatively vast importance. This was well understood in ancient times. The Grecian sculptured life-size figures are nearly always graceful, but the grace arises naturally from perfection of form and expression, and not from a specially added quality, a particular grace of pose being always subordinated, if present at all. On the other hand, in the smaller Grecian figures, such as those found at Tanagra and in Asia Minor, anything in expression beyond regularity of features is not attempted, but grace is always present, and it is entirely upon this that the beauty of the figurines depends. We may presume from the frescoes opened out at Pompeii, that the ancients were well aware of the value and limitations of grace in art. In all these decorations where the figures are of a general type, as fauns, bacchantes, nereids, dancers, and so on, they are represented in motion, flying drapery being skilfully used to provide illusion. Grace is the highest quality evident in these forms, while the expression is invariably negative. For pure wall decorations, which are observed in a casual way, a high quality of grace such as these frescoes provide is all-sufficient, but as with the Greeks, the Romans did not make grace a leading feature in serious art. With the great painters of the Renaissance, nobility, grandeur, and general perfection of form and expression, though necessarily implying a certain grace in demeanour, altogether dwarfed the feature of grace of pose. In the seventeenth century, grace was subordinated to dignity of form in the case of Van Dyck and Velasquez, and to actual life experience with Rubens and Rembrandt. When either of these last two added a quality of form to their figures, it was always dignity and not grace. Murillo was the first Spanish painter to pay particular attention to the grace of his figures, but he never gave it predominance. The French masters of the period, Le Brun, Le Sueur, Poussin, Mignard, and Rigaud, leaned too closely to classical traditions to permit of grace playing a leading part in their designs, though some of slightly lesser fame as Noel and Antoine Coypel, appeared to attribute considerable value to the quality. It was during this century in Italy that grace first appeared as a prominent feature in figure painting. In his pastoral and classical scenes, Albani seems to have largely relied upon it for his beauty, and Cignani, Andrea Sacchi, Sassoferrato, and others followed in his footsteps in this respect, though up to the end of the century no attempt was made in portraiture to sacrifice other features to grace of pose. Rosalba then made her appearance as a portraitist, and she was the first to rest the entire beauty of her work on sensorial charm of feature and grace of pose. She developed a weakened school in France which culminated with Nattier; and in England, Angelica Kauffmann, and some miniature painters, notably Cosway and Humphrey, took up her system for their life-size portraits, while many artists "in small" as Cipriani and Bartolozzi, assisted in forming a cult of the style. But of the greater British painters, only Romney gave high importance to grace of pose in portraits of women. It is safer for an artist to eschew grace of pose altogether than to sacrifice higher qualities to it. A little added dignity is always preferable to a graceful attitude in a portrait, because in nature it is not so evanescent a feature. Grace is a good assisting quality, but an inferior substitute. The greatest repose possible is necessary in a portrait, as a suggestion of action tends to draw the attention of the observer to it, thus impeding the impression of the whole upon his mind. The leading portraitists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries never erred in this matter, unless we except a single work by Titian--the portrait group of Paul III. and the Cardinals Farnese, where the last named has just arrived and is apparently in the act of bowing before completing his final step; but even here it may be fairly argued that a moment of rest between two parts of the final action is to be presumed. It was not an uncommon practice of Van Dyck to pose a subject arrested in the act of walking, or with one foot on the lowest step of a stairway as if about to ascend; but in each of these instances the head is turned, and it is obvious that the motion is temporarily stayed.[a] A similar pose was sometimes adopted by British artists of the eighteenth century with conspicuous success. If a portrait figure be painted in the act of walking on level ground, the feet must be together even if the moment represented be that between two steps in the action, because it is contrary to all experience for a man to rest while so walking, with one foot in front of the other. In a general composition the representation of a man walking with the feet separated is permissible, because it is part of a general action, and accessory in its nature, but in a portrait the beginning and end of the action depicted are usually unknown, and hence any action must be meaningless and disturbing to the observer.[b] [a] See Earl of Pembroke, Wilton Coll., Countess of Devonshire, Chatsworth, and Philip le Roy, Wallace Coll., all in England. [b] See Chase's Master Roland, private Coll., N. Y.; and Manet's Boy with a Sword, Met. Museum, N. Y. The French and English artists of the eighteenth century followed the practice of their predecessors in avoiding the exhibition of movement in their portraits, but occasionally they departed from the rule. In his fine portrait of Mrs. Thomas Raikes, Romney shows the lady playing a harpsichord, with the fingers apparently in motion; and in his group of the Ladies Spencer, one of them is fingering a harp. The result in each case is a stiff attitude which detracts from the beauty of the work. Van Dyck managed such a design in a much better way, for in his portrait of his wife with a cello, she holds the bow distinctly at rest.[a] Titian also, when representing a man at an organ, shows his hands stayed, while turning his head.[b] Reynolds moved aside once from the custom in respect of action,[c] and Raeburn seems also to have erred only on a single occasion.[d] [a] Munich Gallery. [b] Venus and the Organ Player, Prado. [c] Viscountess Crosbie, Tennant Coll., London. [d] Dr. Nathaniel Spens, Royal Co. of Archers, Edinburgh. CHAPTER XI EXPRESSION. PART VI--MISCELLANEOUS Grief--The smile--The open mouth--Contrasts--Representation of death. The painter has ever to be on his guard against over-emphasis of facial expression. His first object is to present an immediately intelligible composition, and this being accomplished, much has already been done towards providing appropriate expressions for his characters. It has been seen that attitude alone may appear to lend to a countenance suitable expression which is not observed when the head of the figure is considered separately; and while such a condition is not frequent, its possibility indicates that the painter is warranted in relying more or less upon the details of his action for conveying the state of mind of the personages concerned therein. It is not the purpose here to deal with the various forms of expression that may be of use to the painter, nor indeed is it necessary. The work of Raphael alone leaves little to be learned in respect of the expression of emotion so far as it may be exhibited in a painting[54]; but there are a few matters in relation to the subject which appear to require attention, judging from experience of modern painting, and short notes upon them are here given. GRIEF Intense grief is the most difficult expression to depict in the whole art of painting, because in nature it usually results in distortion of the features, which the artist must avoid at all cost. Of the thousands of paintings of scenes relating to the Crucifixion, where the Virgin is presumed to be in great agony at the foot of the Cross, very rarely has an artist attempted to portray this agony in realistic manner.[a] He generally substitutes for grief an expression of sorrow which is produced without contraction of the features. This expression, which is invariably accompanied with extreme pallor, does not prevent the addition of a certain nobility to the countenance, and hence no suggestion of insufficiency arises in the mind of the observer. But the sublime expression which may be given to the Virgin would be out of place in her attendants who are not infrequently made hideous through attempts to represent them as overcome with grief. [a] A notable exception is Poussin's Descent from the Cross, Hermitage. A method of avoiding the difficulty is to conceal the face of the personage presumed to be suffering from grief. Timanthes is recorded by Pliny as having painted a picture of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia in which the head of Agamemnon was completely covered by his robe; and a picture of the same subject in a Pompeian fresco represents the Grecian monarch hiding his face with his right hand, while the left gathers up his robe.[a] This invention was the subject of considerable discussion in Europe in the eighteenth century, in which Reynolds, Falconet, Lessing, and others took part. Reynolds said of the device that an artist might use it once, but if he did so a second time, he would be justly suspected of improperly evading difficulties. Falconet compared the action of Timanthes to that of a poet who avoided expressing certain sentiments on the ground that the action of his hero was above anything that could be said[b]; while Lessing held that the grief which overcame Agamemnon could only find expression in distortion, and hence the artist was right in covering the face.[c] Unquestionably Lessing was justified, for nothing more is demanded of the painter than to impress the imagination of the observer with the intensity of the grief depicted, and in this he succeeds. Obviously the poet is in a different position from the painter because he can express deep grief easily enough without suggesting distortion of the features. [a] See Plate 14[55]. [b] "Traduction des 34me, 35me, et 36me livres de Pline." [c] Laocoon. The artifice of Timanthes was practically unused during the Renaissance, though Botticelli once conceals the face of a woman lamenting over the body of Christ,[a] and Richardson quotes a drawing by Polidoro where the Virgin hides her face in drapery in a lamentation scene. In Flanders at a little earlier period, Roger van der Weyden used the device,[b] and the Maître de Flémalle shows St. John turning his head away and holding his hand to his face in a Crucifixion scene.[c] In the succeeding centuries little was known of the practice, but quite lately it has come into use again. Boecklin painted a Pietà in which the Virgin has thrown herself over the dead body of Christ in an agony of grief, her whole form being covered by a cloak. Feuerbach has a somewhat similar arrangement, and in a picture of the Departure of Jason, he hides the face of an attendant of Medea, a plan adopted in two or three frescoes of the subject at Pompeii. Prud'hon, in a Crucifixion scene, hides the face of the Magdalene in her hands, and Kaulbach in his Marguerite so bends her head that her face is completely concealed from the observer. Where the face cannot altogether be hidden owing to the character of the design, it is sometimes thrown into so deep a shade that the features are indistinguishable, this being an excellent device for symbolical figures typifying great anguish.[d] [a] The Brera, Milan. [b] In a scene of The Eucharist, Antwerp. [c] Christ on the Cross, Berlin. [d] As in Hacker's Cry of Egypt. It is not a good plan in a tragic design merely to turn the head away to indicate grief or sorrow, because in such a case the artist is unable to differentiate between a person experiencing intense grief, and one who turns his head from horror of the tragedy.[a] The scheme of half veiling the face is not often successful, since the depth of emotion that would be presumed from such an action may be more than counterbalanced by the very limited feeling which can be indicated by the part of the face remaining exposed. On account of a neutralizing effect of this kind, Loefftz's fine picture of the Dead Christ at Munich is much weakened, for there is no stronger expression on the part of the Virgin than patient resignation. Sorrow may well be displayed by semi-concealment of the features, because here the necessary expression may be produced by the eyes alone.[b] In ancient art, to half conceal the face indicated discretion, as in the case of a Pompeian fresco where a nurse of the young Neptune, handing him over to a shepherd for education, has her mouth and chin covered, the meaning of this being that she is acquainted with the high birth of the boy, but must not reveal it. [a] See Gros's Timoleon of Corinth. [b] Leighton's Captive Andromache. THE SMILE A pronounced smile in nature is always transitory, and hence should be avoided when possible in a painting. The only smile that does not tire is that which is so faint as to appear to be permanent in the expression, and it has been the aim of many painters to produce this smile. An examination of numerous pictures where a smile is expressed in the countenance has convinced the writer that when either the eyes alone, or the eyes and mouth together, are used to indicate a smile, it is invariably over-pronounced as a suggestive permanent feature, and that in every case of such permanence, success arises from work on the mouth alone. The permanent smile was not studied in Europe till the Milanese school was founded, and in this nearly every artist gave his attention to it, following the example of Lionardo. This great master, who was well acquainted with the principles of art, is not likely to have had in his mind an evanescent expression when he experimented with the smile, and one can hardly understand therefore why this feature is almost invariably over-emphasized in his works. In his portrayal of women he used both eyes and mouth to bring about the smile,[a] and more commonly than not paid most attention to the eyes. Perhaps he had in view the production of a permanent smile solely by means of the eyes, which play so great a part in general expression. In nature it is physically impossible for a smile to be produced without a faint variation in the mouth line, while the lower eyelids may remain perfectly free from any change in light and shade, even with a smile more pronounced than is necessary for apparent permanence. In the Mona Lisa at Boston,[56] the smile is very faintly indicated by the eyes, and most pronounced at the mouth, while in the famous Paris picture, the eyes are chiefly responsible for the smile, the mouth only slightly assisting.[57] Many smiling faces were produced by others of the Milanese school, and as a rule the mouth only was used, often with complete success, notably by B. Luini,[b] Pedrini,[c] and Ferrari.[d] Raphael never used the eyes to assist in producing a smile, except with the Child Christ,[e] and in all cases where he exhibits a smile in a Madonna[f] or portrait,[g] it appears definitely permanent. As a rule the great artists of the Renaissance other than the disciples of Lionardo, rarely produced a smile with the intention of suggesting a permanently happy expression, and in the seventeenth century little attention was given to it. [a] An exception where the mouth only is used is a drawing for the Madonna and Child with St. Anne, Burlington House, London. [b] Salome, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. [c] Madonna and Child, Arezzo. [d] Madonna and Child, Brera, Milan. [e] Cowper Madonna, Panshanger, England. [f] See Casa Tempi Madonna, Munich; and Virgin with a Goldfinch, Uffizi. [g] Portrait of a Young Man, Budapest; and the Fornarina, Barberini Gallery, Florence. The great French portraitists of the eighteenth century frequently made the smile a feature in expression, and a few of them, notably La Tour, seldom produced a countenance without one. In most cases the smile is a little too pronounced for permanence, but there are many examples of a faint and delicate smile which may well suggest an habitual condition. Rigaud's Louis XV. as a Boy is an instance,[a] though here the illusion quickly passes when we bring to mind the other portraits of the monarch. Nattier,[b] Boucher,[c] Dumont le Romain,[d] Perronneau,[e] Chardin, Roslin, and others, sometimes succeeded, but the French master of the smile was La Tour who executed quite a dozen examples which Lionardo might have envied.[f] Of British artists Romney was the most adept in producing a permanent smile,[g] but strange to say there is no instance of one in his many portraits of Lady Hamilton, beyond her representation as a bacchante.[h] Here the smile is far too pronounced for a plain portrait, but a bacchante may reasonably be supposed to be ever engaged in scenes of pleasure, and hence the feature does not seem to be out of place. Reynolds commonly used both eyes and mouth in creating his smiles,[i] but Raeburn was nearly equal to Romney in the number of his felicitous smiles, while he seldom exceeded the minimum expression required for permanence.[j] Gainsborough produced a few portraits of women with a vague furtive smile, sweet and expressive beyond degree.[k] They are invariably brought about by a faint curvature of the mouth line. [a] At Versailles. [b] Madame Louise, at Versailles. [c] Portrait of a Young Woman, the Louvre. [d] Two examples in the group Madame Mercier and Family, Louvre. [e] Madame Olivier, Groult (formerly), Coll., Paris. [f] See Madame de la Popelinière and Mdlle. Carmago, both at Saint Quentin Museum; and Madame Pompadour, Louvre. [g] See Mrs. Yates, Llangattock Coll.; William Booth, Lathom Coll.; and Mrs. Tickle, A. de Rothschild (formerly) Coll., all England. [h] T. Chamberlayne Coll., England. [i] For exceptions see Hon. Lavinia Bingham, Spencer Coll., and Mrs. Abington, Fife Coll., both England. [j] See Farmer's Wife, Mitchell Coll.; Mrs. Lauzun, National Gallery, London; and Mrs. Balfour, Beith Coll., Scotland. [k] Lady Sheffield, Alice Rothschild Coll.; and Mrs. Leybourne, Popham Coll. THE OPEN MOUTH If there be one transient feature more than another which should be avoided in a painting, and particularly in the principal figure, it is a wide-open mouth. Necessarily, after a short acquaintance with a picture containing such a feature, either the mouth appears to be kept open by a wedge, or, as in the case of a laugh, the face is likely to wear an abnormal expression approaching to idiocy, for it is altogether contrary to experience of normal persons in real life, for a mouth to be kept open longer than for an instant or two. Hence the first artists have studiously refrained from exhibiting a wide-open mouth, or indeed one that is open at all except to such an extent that the parted lips appear a permanent condition. But a few great men have erred in the matter. Thus, Mantegna shows the child Christ with the mouth widely open in a half-vacant and half-startled expression, which is immediately repelling.[a] Dosso Dossi has several pictures much injured by the feature,[b] and in Ercole di Roberti's Concert, no less than three mouths are wide open.[c] One of the figures in Velasquez's Three Musicians opens his mouth far too widely,[d] while Hals has half a dozen pictures with the defect.[e] A rare mistake was made by Carlo Dolci when showing Christ with His mouth open wide in the act of utterance,[f] and Mengs erred similarly in St. John Baptist Preaching.[g] In more modern times the fault is seldom noticeable among artists of repute, though occasionally a bad example occurs, as in Winslow Homer's All's Well.[h] Even when an open mouth seems unavoidable, the effect is by no means neutralized.[i] [a] Virgin and Child at Bergamo. [b] Notably A Muse Instructing a Court Poet, and Nymph and Satyr, Pitti Palace. [c] National Gallery, London. [d] Berlin Gallery. [e] See Merry Company at Table, Met. Mus., N. Y., and similar pictures. [f] Christ Blessing, a single figure picture. [g] Hermitage, Petrograd. [h] Boston Museum, U. S. A. See Plate 15. [i] As in Dow's The Dentist, Schwerin Mus., and a similar work at the Louvre. When the blemish is in an accessory figure, it is of lesser importance as there it becomes an incidental circumstance on the mind of the observer. Thus, in Reynolds's Infant Hercules, where Alcmena, on seeing the child holding the snakes, opens her mouth with surprise and alarm, the action of the central figure is so strong that the importance of the others present is comparatively insignificant.[a] Nevertheless in a Pompeian fresco of the same subject, care has been taken to close the mouth of Alcmena. Where the design represents several persons singing, it is well possible to indicate the action without showing the mouths open, as in Raphael's St. Cecilia.[b] In a picture of a like subject, with the Saint in the centre of a group of five singers, Domenichino shows only the two outside figures with open mouths, and one of these is in profile. There are several works where David is seen singing to the accompaniment of a harp, but though his mouth is open, the figure is in profile, and the lips are hidden by moustache and beard.[c] [a] Hermitage, Petrograd. [b] Bologna Museum. [c] For example, Rubens's David's Last Song, Frankfort Museum. It may be observed, however, that in certain cases artificial conditions may render an open mouth in a picture of comparatively little significance. A painted laugh for instance may only become objectionable to the observer when the work is constantly before him; but when it is in a picture gallery and he sees it but rarely, the lasting character of the feature is not presented to his mind. The Laughing Cavalier of Franz Hals, though violating the principle, does not appear in bad taste to the average visitor to the Wallace Collection. In the case of Rembrandt's portrait of himself with Saskia on his knee, where the artist has his lips parted in the act of laughing, there is an additional reason why the transient expression should not tire. Because of the number of self-portraits he painted, the countenance of Rembrandt is quite familiar to most picture gallery visitors, and to these the laugh in the Dresden picture could not possibly pass as an habitual expression. [Illustration: PLATE 15 (See page 176) Winslow Homer's All's Well (_Boston Museum_)] CONTRASTS Designs specially built up for the purpose of contrasting two or more attributes or conditions are almost invariably uninteresting unless the motive be hidden behind a definite action which appears to control the scheme. This is because of the difficulty of otherwise connecting the personages contrasted in a particular action of common understanding. A design of Hercules and Omphale affords a superior contrast of strength and beauty to a composition of Strength and Wisdom. In each case a herculean figure and a lovely woman represent the respective qualities, but in the first the figures are connected by expression and action, and in the second no connection can be established. So in contrasting beauty of mind with that of form, this is much better represented by such a subject as Hippocrates and the Bride of Perdiccas than in the Venetian manner of figures unconnected in the design. And in respect of conditions, Frith's picture of Poverty and Wealth, where a carriage full of fashionable women drives through a poor section of London, has little more than a topographical interest, but in a subject such as The First Visit of Croesus to Æsop, the contrast between poverty and wealth would deeply strike the imagination. In contrasts of good and evil, vice and virtue, and similar subjects, it is inferior art to represent the evil character by an ugly figure. As elsewhere pointed out, deformity of any kind injures the æsthetic value of a picture because it tends to neutralize the pleasurable feeling derived from the beauty present. The poet may join physical deformity with beauty because he can minimize the defect with words, but the painter has no such recourse.[58] A deformed personage in a composition is therefore to be deprecated unless as a necessary accessory in a historical work, in which case he must be subordinated to the fullest extent possible. The figure of Satan, of an exaggerated satyr type, has often been introduced into subjects such as the Temptation of Christ, though not by artists of the first rank.[a] Such pictures do not live as high class works of art however they be painted. Correggio makes a contrast of Vice and Virtue in two paintings,[b] representing Vice by a man bound, but usually in the mature time of the Renaissance, Vice was shown as a woman, either beautiful in features, or with her face partly hidden, various accessories indicating her character. A notable exception is Salviati's Justice where a hideous old woman takes the rôle of Vice.[c] Even in cases where a witch has to be introduced, as in representations of Samuel's Curse, it is not necessary to follow the example of Salvator Rosa, and render her with deformed features, for there are several excellent works where this defect is avoided.[d] [a] See examples by Ary Scheffer, Luxembourg; and H. Thoma, Burnitz Coll. [b] Both at the Louvre. [c] The Bargello, Florence. [d] As in K. Meyer's picture. An effective design with the purpose of contrasting the ages of man is not possible, firstly, because the number of ages represented must be very limited, and, secondly, for the reason that the figures cannot be connected together in a free and easy manner. Hence all such pictures have been failures, though a few great artists have attempted the subject. Titian tried it with two children, a young couple, and an old man, assorting the personages casually in a landscape without attempting to connect them together in action.[a] At about the same time Lotto produced a contrast, also with three ages represented, namely, a boy, a young man, and an elderly man.[b] These personages sit together as if they had been photographed for the purpose, without a ray of intelligence passing between them. But this is far better than Grien's Three Ages,[c] for here the artist has strangely confused life and death, exhibiting a grown maiden, a middle-aged woman, and a skin-coated skeleton holding an hour-glass. The best design of the subject is Van Dyck's Four Ages.[d] He shows a child asleep near a young woman who is selling flowers to a soldier, and an old man is in the background. There is thus a presumed connection between three of the personages, but naturally the composition is somewhat stiff. The only other design worth mentioning is by Boecklin, who also represents four ages.[e] Two children play in the background of a landscape; a little farther back is a young woman; then a cavalier on horseback; and finally on the top of an arch an old man whom Death in the form of a skeleton is about to strike. But here again there is no connection between the figures, the consequent formality half destroying the æsthetic value of the work. From these examples than which there is none better, it may be gauged that it is hopeless to expect a good design from a subject where the ages of man are contrasted. If represented at all, the ages should be contrasted in separate pictures, as Lancret painted them. [a] Bridgewater Coll., England. [b] Pitti Palace, Florence. [c] The Prado, Madrid. [d] Vincenza Museum. [e] Vita somnium breve. The practice of presenting nude with clothed figures where the subject does not absolutely compel it, is commonly supposed to be for the purpose of contrast. This may have been the object in some cases, but in very few is the interest in the contrast not outweighed by the bizarre appearance of the work. As a rule in these pictures there is nothing in the expressions or actions of the personages depicted to suggest a reason for the absence of clothes from some of them, and so to the average observer they form a "problem" class of painting. The first important work of the kind executed was Sebastiano del Piombo's Concert, in which the group consists of two nude women, one with a reed pipe, and two men attired in Venetian costume, of whom one handles a guitar.[a] The figures are very beautiful and the landscape is superb, but as one cannot account for the nude figures in an open-air musical party, the æsthetic value of the work is largely diminished. This painting has suggested several designs to modern artists, the most notable being Manet's Déjeuner sur l'Herbe, where a couple of nude women with two men dressed in modern clothes are shown in a picnic on the grass. Not only is the scheme inexplicable, but the invention is so extravagant as to provoke the lowest of suggestions. In a composition of this kind only a great artist can build up a harmonious design. [a] At the Louvre. Formerly attributed to Giorgione. Titian's picture known as Sacred and Profane Love,[a] where the figure of a nude woman is opposed to one clothed, may really signify any of a dozen ideas, but the artist probably had no other scheme in his mind than to represent different types of beautiful women. Crowe and Cavalcaselli's suggested title of L'Amour ingénu et l'Amour satisfait, was certainly never conceived by Titian, nor is Burckhardt's proposal, Love and Prudery, possible in view of the flowers in the hand of the draped figure. In any case this picture is the greatest of its kind, for the composition is so delicate and harmonious, and the art so perfect, as to render its precise meaning a matter of little consideration. Another picture of Sacred and Profane Love was painted by Grien.[b] He shows a nude woman from whom Cupid has just drawn the drapery, and another woman concealing her figure with loose drapery. The effect is weak. The nude figures in the well-known Drinkers of Velasquez[c] are undisturbing because they are not very prominent in the picture, but their significance is not apparent. [a] Borghese Gallery, Rome. [b] Frankfort Museum. [c] The Prado, Madrid. No one has yet properly explained the meaning of the nude male figures standing at ease in the background of Michelangelo's celebrated Holy Family.[a] They are apparently pagan gods, and it is suggested that the artist intended to signify the overthrow of the Grecian deities by the coming of Christ. Such an explanation might be possible with another painter, but it does not accord with our conception of the mind of Michelangelo. A still greater puzzle is offered by Luca Signorelli who, in the landscape background of the bust portrait of a man, shows two nude men to the right of the portrait, and two attired women at the left.[b] It is impossible to suggest any meaning of this extraordinary invention. [a] Uffizi Gallery, Florence. [b] Berlin Gallery. THE REPRESENTATION OF DEATH Death is a subject inappropriate to the art of painting except where it is dealt with symbolically or as an historical incident. Naturally in either of these cases any realistic representation of death, or of distortion connected therewith, should be studiously avoided. For while many aspects of death may not be unpleasant to the senses, its actual presence--the cold immobility; the pulseless soulless, decaying thing; the appalling mirror of our own fate--these things are most unpleasant, and hence should have no place in painting. In sculpture, represented in a certain way, death is admissible, for in marble or bronze a body may be carved indicating only the eternal composure of a beautiful form. This is how the Greeks showed death, whether in the case of a warrior fallen on the battlefield, or as the twin brother of Sleep. But the painter is less fortunate: for him death is decay. The presence of so many scenes of death in the paintings of the past was the result of accident. For a long while after the dawn of the Renaissance, those controlling churches and other religious institutions of the Christians were the chief and almost the only patrons of art, and they required paintings as well for didactic purposes as for decoration. For some time pictures often took the place of writing, where comparatively few could read, in the inculcation of Christian doctrines and history, and they were largely used as images before which people could kneel in prayer. The most important facts bearing upon Christian faith are concerned with death, and so there have been accumulated thousands of paintings of scenes of the Crucifixion, the death-beds of saints, instances of martyrdom, and so on. While these paintings have been highly useful as tending to invite reverence for a sublime creed, it would be injurious to suggest that generally they take a high place in art. Some of them do, but the very large number of them which indicate dying agony, or recent death with all its mortal changes, must not be approved from a strict art point of view, for any beauty which may be present apart from the subject is instantly neutralized by the pain and horror arising from the invention. But it is evidently unnecessary to produce such pictures, even in the case of the Crucifixion, for there are ample works in existence to show that the face and body of Christ can be so presented as to be free from indications of physical suffering or decay. But if we are to protest against designs exhibiting forbidding aspects of death in sacred works, what can we say of the pictures of executions, massacres, plagues, and so on, which ever and again have been produced since the middle of the nineteenth century? Deeds of heroism or self-sacrifice on the battlefield where bodies of the fallen may be outlined are well, but simple wholesale murders as presented by Benjamin-Constant, Heim, and fifty others, where the motive does not pretend to be anything else than massacre or other ghastly event, can only live as examples of degraded art. There may be something said for Verestchagin, who painted heaps of heads and skulls, and scattered corpses, in order to show the evils of war, but if the arts are to be used at all for such a purpose, the poet or orator would be much more impressive because he could veil the hideous side of the subject with pathos and imagery, and further differentiate between just and unjust wars. The painter is powerless to do these things. He can only represent the horrors of war by depicting horrible things which is entirely beyond the province of his art. The purpose of art is to give pleasure, and if the design descend below the line where displeasure begins, then the art is no more. How easy it is for the æsthetic value of a picture to be lowered by the representation of a corpse, is shown in three celebrated paintings--the anatomical works of Rembrandt[a] and De Keyser.[b] Probably these works were ordered to honour the surgeons or schools concerned, but the object would have been better served by a composition such as Eakin's Dr. Cross's Surgical Clinic.[c] Here the leading figure is also giving a lesson to students, and practical demonstration is proceeding, but there is no skeleton or corpse to damage the picture. Fromentin said that the Tulp work left him very cold,[d] and although he endeavoured to find technical ground for this, it is more than likely that the principal reason lay in the involuntary mental disturbance brought about by the corpse. Another fine design largely injured by corporeal evidence of death is Ingres's Oedipus and the Sphinx,[e] where a foot rises out of a hole in the rock near the Sphinx, the presumption of course being that the body of a man who had failed with the riddle had lately been thrown there. The invention is most deplorable in such a picture. [a] Lesson in Anatomy of Professor Tulp, and the fragment of a similar work, both at The Hague. [b] Rijks Museum, Amsterdam. [c] Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. [d] Masters of Other Days. [e] At the Louvre. The use of a skeleton as a symbol of death in painting seems to have been unusual during the Renaissance till towards the end of the fifteenth century. The earliest artist of note in this period to adopt it, was Jean Prevost who represented a man taking a letter from a skeleton without seeing the messenger.[a] Then came Grien who painted three works of the kind. In the first Death holds an hour-glass at the back of a woman, and points to the position of the sand[b]; in the second the bony figure has clutched a girl by the hair[c]; and the third represents a skeleton apparently kissing a girl.[d] They are all hideous works, and might well have acted as a warning to succeeding artists. After Grien the use of a skeleton in design was practically confined to the smaller German masters till the middle of the second half of the sixteenth century, when it disappeared from serious work. From this time on, for the next three centuries artists of repute rarely introduced a skeleton into a painting, though it is to be found occasionally in engravings. One might have supposed that the unsightly form had been abandoned with the imps, evil spirits, and other crudities of past days, but it was not to be. The search for novelties in recent times has only resulted in the resuscitation of bygone eccentricities, and we must not be surprised that the skeleton is amongst them. [a] Old Man and Death, Bruges. [b] Imperial Gallery, Vienna. [c] Girl and Death, Basle Museum. [d] Basle Museum. Modern artists have displayed considerable ingenuity in the use of the skeleton, but the results have necessarily only succeeded in degrading the art. Rethel figures a skeleton in the costume of a monk who is ringing a bell at a dance.[a] Several of the dancers have fallen dead, apparently from plague, and the whole scene is ghastly. Henneberg has a Fortune allegory in which Death is about to seize a horseman who is chasing a nude woman,[b] this design being a slight modification of a variety of prints executed in the sixteenth century. Thoma uses a skeleton in a most bizarre manner. He substitutes it for the serpent in a picture of Adam and Eve,[c] and in another work associates it with Cupid.[d] Two lovers are talking, and Death stands behind the woman whose hat Cupid is lifting. A terrible picture with a political bearing was painted by Uhde.[e] It represents a crowd of revolutionists rushing towards a bridge, while a skeleton in modern costume waves a sword and cheers them on. These instances suffice to indicate the difficulty in the production of a fine work of art with so hideous a form as a skeleton thrown into prominence. [a] Death at a Masked Ball. [b] Race for Fortune. [c] Sin and Death. [d] Cupid and Death. [e] Revenge. How simply one may avoid the introduction of a skeleton in a design concerned with death, is shown by an example where three artists deal with the same motive--Death, the Friend. The first composition shows an old man sitting dead in a chair while a skeleton costumed as a monk, tolls a bell[a]: in the second there is also an old man in a chair, but an Angel with a scythe is substituted for the skeleton[b]: in the third an Angel with huge folded wings forming an oval framework for her figure, leans over the body of a child which has its face hidden.[c] The second design is a vast improvement over the first, but the third is incomparably the best of the three. It may be remarked that a scythe is too trivial an emblem for the Angel of Death, for whom indeed an emblem of any kind is only admissible when Death is represented as the result of eternal justice, in which case a flaming sword is appropriate. [a] Woodcut by A. Rethel. [b] Lithograph by O. Redon. [c] Painting by G. F. Watts. Very rarely indeed can a good picture be made out of a funeral scene. Such a scene attending the death of a great man may be fitly produced, so long as the imagination can be used in the composition; that is to say, if there are few or no records of the actual funeral[a]; but paintings relating to the modern burial of unnamed persons are of little value as works of art, for the imagination of the artist cannot extend beyond unpleasant prosaic incidents of common acquaintance. The purpose of the funeral scenes of Courbet[b] and Anne Ancher[c] has never been explained; and the various interiors, each with a coffin and distracted relatives of the dead, by Wiertz,[d] Dalsgaard,[e] and other modern artists, are capable of bringing only misery instead of pleasure to the observer. [a] As in Rubens's Funeral of Decius, Vienna. [b] The Burial at Ornans. [c] The Funeral. [d] The Orphans. [e] The Child's Coffin. But while funerals are unsuitable for the painter, interior scenes where death has occurred and friends are watching the body, offer special inducements to artists, because the perfect stillness of the living persons represented may be properly assumed, and so the illusion of life is little likely to be disturbed through the non-completion of an indicated action. On this account these works appear very impressive when well executed, and they may take high rank even when the artist is limited in his scope by the conditions of an actual scene. Very little is required however to destroy the illusion of continuity. In Kampf's picture of the lying-in-state of William I.,[a] where many watchers are shown who are presumed to be motionless, a boy in the middle distance in the act of walking, is a most disturbing element. An example where an illusion of continuity is perfectly maintained is Orchardson's Borgia, where Cæsar Borgia stands in contemplation over the body of his poisoned victim. The silence indicated appears practically as permanent as the painted design, for any reasonable time spent by the observer in examining the picture, is not likely to be longer than that during which Cæsar may be presumed to have remained still at the actual occurrence. Scenes of approaching death may be arranged to produce a similar illusion, as for instance where those present are praying, or a single figure is waiting for the life to pass from the sick person. [a] The Night of March 31, 1888, at Berlin. [Illustration: PLATE 16 (See page 190) Hercules Contemplating Death, in Bronze, by Pollaiuolo (_Frick Collection_)] Little attention has been paid in art to the expression of dying persons. There are many pictures representing celebrated men and women in their dying moments, but very few of them exhibit an expression of noble resignation and fearlessness, qualities which are naturally associated with a great man as his end draws near. No doubt the artist is often limited in his invention by the actual circumstances of the death scene, as in Copley's Death of Chatham,[a] for the statesman was unconscious at the moment of representation. Other than this the best known works of the kind relate to the death of Seneca,[b] Queen Elizabeth,[c] and General Wolfe.[d] In the last instance only is there a fine expression. How it was that Rubens missed his opportunity with Seneca is hard to understand. The presence of a clerk taking down the utterances of a philosopher as he bleeds to death, gives the design a theatrical appearance, and removes any suggestion of unconcerned resignation which might have arisen. One of the most powerful designs in existence relating to approaching death, is a sculptured figure in bronze of Hercules contemplating death.[e] The demi-god is represented standing on an altar. His left foot is raised upon the skull of an ox; his head is slightly bent, and the whole attitude suggests a few moments of rest while he contemplates his coming fate. The conception is as fine as the subject is rare. [a] National Gallery, London. [b] By Rubens, at Munich. [c] By Delaroche, at the Louvre. [d] By Benjamin West, Westminster Coll., London. [e] By A. Pollaiuolo, Frick Coll., New York. See Plate 16[59]. The artist should glorify death if possible, but he can only do this when the subject has a general application. Many painters have introduced the Angel of Death into scenes where death has occurred, and have thus converted them into work of pathos and beauty. Notable examples of this are Watts's Death, the Friend, already referred to, and H. Levy's Young Girl and Death, where the Angel gently clasps the body of a girl whose face is hidden. One of the finest designs of the kind is Lard's Glory Forgets not Obscure Heroes. On a battlefield, where all else has gone, lies the body of a soldier over whom stoops a lovely winged figure who raises the head of the hero, and seems to throw a halo of glory over him.[a] In historical paintings the appearance of sleep is often given to a dead body, as in Cogniet's Tintoretto Painting his Dead Daughter, a pathetic picture, bringing to mind the story of Luca Signorelli painting his dead son.[b] [a] The design for this picture was probably suggested by Longepied's fine sculptured group of Immortality at the Louvre, the idea of which was no doubt drawn from Canova's L'Amour et Psyche. There are Tangara groups and fragments of larger works in existence showing that the Greeks executed many designs of a similar character. [b] See also Girodet's Burial of Atala, and Le Brun's Death of Cato. CHAPTER XII LANDSCAPE Limitations of the landscape painter--Illusion of opening distance--Illusion of motion in landscape--Moonlight scenes--Transient conditions. Considered as a separate branch of the painter's art, landscape is on a comparatively low plane, because the principal signs with which it deals, and the arrangement of them to form a view, may be varied indefinitely without a sense of incongruity arising. Thus there can be no ideal in the art; that is to say, no ideal can be conceived which is general in its character. The artist can aspire to no definite goal: his imagination is limited to the arrangement of things which are inanimate and expressionless. He may produce sensorial, but not intellectual, beauty. The nobler human attributes and passions, as wisdom, courage, spiritual exaltation, patriotism, cannot be connected with landscape, and so it is unable to produce in the mind the elevation of thought and grandeur of sentiment which are the sweetest blossoms of the tree of art.[60] Another drawback in landscape is the necessity for painting it on an extraordinarily reduced scale. Because of this the highest qualities of beauty in nature--grandeur and sublimity--can only with difficulty be suggested on canvas, for actual magnitude is requisite for the production of either of these qualities in any considerable degree. A volcano in eruption has no force at all in a painting, a result which is due, not so much to the inability of the painter to represent moving smoke and fire, as to the impossibility of depicting their enormous masses. The disability of the painter in respect of the representation of magnitude is readily seen in the case of a cathedral interior. This may or may not have the quality of grandeur, but a picture cannot differentiate between one that has, and one that has not, because no feeling of grandeur can arise in looking at a painted interior, the element of actual space being absent. Seeing that an ideal in landscape is impossible, the landscape painter cannot improve upon nature. In the case of the human figure the painter may improve upon experience by collecting excellencies from different models and putting them into one form, thus creating what would be universally regarded as ideal physical beauty; and he may give to this form an expression of spiritual nobility which is also beyond experience because it would imply the absence of inferior qualities inseparable from man in nature. Thus to the physical, he adds intellectual beauty. Such a perfect form may be said to be an improvement upon nature, for it is not only beyond experience, but is nature purified. But the landscape painter cannot improve upon the signs which nature provides. He may vary the parts of a tree as he will, but it would never be recognized as beyond possible experience unless it were a monstrosity.[61] And even if he could improve upon experience with his signs, this would help him but little, for the beauty of a landscape depends upon the relation of the signs to each other, and not upon the beauty of the separate signs which vary in every work with the character of the design. In colour also the painter cannot apply to his landscape an appropriate harmony which the sun is incapable of giving. From all this it follows that the æsthetic value of a landscape depends entirely upon its correspondence with nature. A good landscape must necessarily be invented, because it is impossible to reproduce the particular beauty of a natural scene.[62] This beauty is due to a relation of parts of the view, infinite in number, to each other, but what this relation is cannot be determined by the observer. Further, whatever be the relation, the continuous changing light and atmospheric effects bring about a constant variation in the character of the beauty. It is possible for an actual view to suggest to the artist a scheme for a beautiful landscape, but in this the precise relation of the parts would have to be invented by the painter and fixed by experiment. The principal features from a natural view may be taken out, but not those which together bring about the beauty. There is no great landscape in existence which was painted for the purpose of representing a particular view. There have of course been scenes painted to order, even by notable artists, but these only serve the purpose of record, or as mementoes. The great view of The Hague, painted by Van Goyen under instructions from the syndics of the town, is the feeblest of his works, and the many pictures of the kind executed by British and German artists of the eighteenth century have now only a topographical interest. Constable painted numerous scenes to order, and there are something like forty views of Salisbury Cathedral attributed to him, but only those in which he could apply his own invention are of considerable æsthetic value. A good artist rarely introduces into a painting even a small sketch of a scene made from nature. Titian is known to have drawn numerous sketches in particular localities, but not one has been identified in his pictures. In nearly every painting of Nicholas Poussin the Roman Campagna may be recognized, and here he must have made thousands of sketches during the forty years he spent in the district, yet the most patient examination has failed to identify a single spot in his many beautiful views. So with Gaspar Poussin, who, unlike his famous brother-in-law, occasionally set up his easel in the open air; and with Claude who never left off sketching in his long life. The greatest landscapes are those which are true to nature generally, but are untrue in respect of any particular natural scene. Seeing that in landscape the production of sensorial beauty only is within the power of the painter, and that the beauty is enhanced as nature is the more closely imitated, it is obvious that for the work to have a permanent interest, the scene depicted and the incidents therein should be of common experience, otherwise the full recognition of the beauty is likely to be retarded by the reasoning powers being involuntarily set to work in the consideration of the exceptional conditions. Naturally the term "common experience" has a varied application. What is of common experience in scenery among people in a temperate climate, is rare or unknown to those living under the burning sun of Africa. The artist is fully aware of this, and in designing his work he takes into account the experience of the people who are likely to see his paintings. A view of a scene in the East, say in Palestine or Siam, may be a beautiful work and be recognized as true because the conditions depicted are commonly known to exist; it would further have an informative value which would result in added pleasure; but among people habituated to a temperate climate it would tire more quickly than a scene of a kind to which they are daily accustomed. In the one case an effort, however slight, is required to accommodate the view to experience, and in the other the whole meaning of the scene is instantaneously identified with its beauty. In nature there is always movement and sound. Even on those rare days when the wind has ceased and the air seems still and dead, there is motion with noise of some kind. A brook trickles by, insects buzz their zigzag way, and shadows vary as the sun mounts or descends. But most commonly there is a breeze to rustle the trees and shrubs, to ripple the surface of the water, and to throw over the scene evidence of life in its ever charming variety. The painter cannot reproduce these movements and sounds. All he represents is silent and still as if nature had suddenly suspended her work--stayed the tree as it bent to the breeze, stopped the bird in the act of flight, fixed the water, and fastened the shadows to the ground. What is there then to compensate the artist for this limitation? Why, surely he can represent nature as she is at a particular moment, over the hills and valleys, or across great plains, with sunlight and atmosphere to mark the breadth and distance and so produce an illusion of movement to delight the eyes of the observer with bewitching surprise. For the eye as it involuntarily travels from the foreground of the picture to the background, proceeds from sign to sign, each decreasing in definition in conformity with the changes in nature, till vague suggestions of form announce that far distance has been reached. The effect is precisely that of the cinematograph, except that the eye moves instead of the picture. The apparent movement corresponds closely with the opening of distance in nature when one proceeds in a fast moving vehicle along a road from which a considerable stretch of country may be observed. Very rarely is the illusion so marked that the apparent movement is identified to the senses. When it is so marked the distance seems to come forward, but is instantaneously stayed before consideration can be brought to bear upon it. Clearly if one specially seek the illusion, it becomes impossible because search implies reason and an examination slow out of all proportion with the rapidity of the sensorial effect. Accident alone will bring about the illusion, for it can only arise when the eye travels at a certain rate over the picture, the minimum of which rate is indeterminable. It is evident that any landscape of fair size in which considerable depth is indicated must necessarily produce an illusion of opening distance if the varying signs are sufficiently numerous and properly painted in accordance with the aerial perspective; and this illusion is undoubtedly the key to the extraordinary beauty observed in the works of the great masters of landscape since Claude unveiled the secrets of distance painting. That the apparent movement is rarely actually defined is immaterial, for it must be there and must act upon the eye, producing an involuntary sensation which we interpret as pleasure arising from admiration of the skill of the artist in giving us so good a representation of distance in his imitation. [Illustration: PLATE 17 (See page xii) Arcadian Landscape, by Claude Lorraine (_National Gallery, London_)] As will presently be seen there are other kinds of illusion of motion which may be produced in landscape, but this illusion of opening distance is the most important, and it should be produced wherever distance is represented. In nature the effect of the unfolding of distance is caused by a sequence of signs apparently diminishing in size and clearness as the eye travels back, and a sequence of this kind should be produced by the artist in his picture. It is not sufficient that patches of colour of the tone and shape of sections of vegetation, trees, varied soils, and so on, be given, for while these may indicate distance as any perspective must do, yet an illusion cannot be produced by such signs because they are not sufficiently numerous for the eye to experience a cinematographic effect when passing over them. It is not distance that gives the beauty, but an illusion of opening distance, without which, and presuming the absence of any other illusion, only simple harmonies of tone and inanimate forms are possible. Moreover the patches of colour do not properly represent nature either as she appears to the eye, or as she is understood from experience. If one were to take a momentary glance at a view specially to receive the general colour impression, he might conceivably retain on his mind a collection of colour masses such as is often put forward as a landscape, but natural scenes are not observed in this way, and the artist has no right to imply that a view should be painted as it is observed at an instantaneous glance. One cannot be supposed to keep his eyes closed, except for a moment, when in front of nature, and he cannot be in front of nature for more than a moment without involuntarily recognizing thousands of signs. There must necessarily be a certain clearness of the atmosphere for distance to be represented, and in the minimum clearness, trees, bushes, rivulets, and buildings of every kind, are well defined at least to the middle distance. These can and should be painted, and there can be no object whatever in omitting them, except the ignominious end of saving trouble. And it is necessary that the signs, whether shadow or substance, should be completely painted as they appear to the eye in nature when observed with average care by one inspecting a view for the purpose of drinking in all its beauties, for this is how a painted landscape is usually examined. There is no place in the painter's art for a suggestive sign in the sense that it may suggest a required complete sign. A sign must be painted as completely as possible in conformity with its appearance as seen from the presumed point from which the artist sketched his view, for the reason that its value as a sign depends upon the readiness with which it is understood.[63] This is incontrovertible, otherwise the art of painting would be an art of hieroglyphics. In poetry suggestion is of great importance, and it may be so glowing as to present to the imagination a higher form of beauty than can be painted; but the signs of the painter cannot suggest beauty in this way, because the exercise of the imagination in respect of them is limited by their form. A sign painted less distinctly than as it is seen in nature is obviously removed from its proper relative position, or else is untrue, and in either case it must have a weakening effect upon the picture. The successful representation of aerial perspective depends upon the careful and close gradation of tones in conformity with the varying atmospheric density. This is difficult work because of the disabilities arising from the reduction of the scene into miniature form, which necessitates the omission of many tones and effects found in nature, just as a portrait in miniature involves the exclusion of various elements of expression in the human countenance. But fortunately in landscape the variableness of nature greatly assists the artist. Only rarely is the atmosphere of equal density over a considerable depth of ground, and this fact enables the painter to simplify his work in production of the illusion without appearing to depart from nature. Thus he may deepen or contract his foreground within wide limits. The changes in the appearance of the atmosphere in nature have to be greatly concentrated in a painting, and as this concentration becomes more difficult as distance is reached, it follows that the artist has a better chance of success by making the foreground of his picture begin some way in front of him, rather than near the spot where he is presumed to stand when he executes his work. He may of course maintain some very near ground while materially shortening his middle distance, but this method must obviously lower the beauty of the painting as a distance landscape, and make the execution vastly more difficult. Claude adopted this plan sometimes, but it is seen in very few of his important works. In his best time Turner was careful to set back his foreground, and to refrain from restricting his middle ground. If a scene be taken from the middle distance only, as in many Barbizon works, the labour is much simplified because neither the close delineation of foliage, nor any considerable gradation of atmosphere is required, but then the beauty resulting from either of these two exercises is missing. It is equally impossible for such a scene to indicate growth and life, or the charm of a changing view. Some modern artists have a habit of blotting out the middle and far distance by the introduction of a thick atmosphere but this is an abuse of the art, because however true the aspect may be in the sense that a natural view is sometimes obscured by the atmosphere, the beauty of the scene as a whole is hidden, and the picture consists largely of an imitation of the mist, where an illusion of movement is impossible. The painter should imitate the more beautiful, and not the less beautiful aspects of nature. Jupiter has been sometimes painted as an incident in a picture, nearly wholly concealed by a cloud, but to exhibit a separate work of the god so concealed, would only be regarded as an excuse for avoiding exertion, however well the cloud may be painted; yet this would not be more reprehensible than to hide the greater part of a view by a dense atmosphere. With a clear atmosphere an illusion of opening distance may be secured with the far distance and the greater part of the middle distance unobservable, but in such a case a successful design is difficult to accomplish owing to the limited number of signs available. Many signs, as trees and houses, either darken or hide the view, while sunlight effects on unobstructed ground, sufficiently definite to be used as signs, could not be very numerous without appearing abnormal. The only really first-class method of producing a satisfactory near-ground illusion was invented by Hobbema in the later years of his life. This is to use skilfully placed trees and other signs through which paths wind, or appear to wind, and to throw in a strong sunlight from the back.[a] The light enables far more signs to be used in depth than would otherwise be possible, and so the eye has a comparatively long track to follow. That the remarkable beauty of the pictures of Hobbema composed in this way is almost entirely due to the illusion thus created, is readily seen when they are compared with some of his other works, very similar in all respects except that the light is thrown in from the front or the side. Before placing his light at the back, the artist tried the side plan in many pictures, and while this was a decided improvement upon his earlier efforts to secure depth of near-ground signs, it was naturally inferior to the latest scheme. Jacob Ruysdael adopted the plan of Hobbema in two or three works with great effect.[b] [a] See Plate 18. [b] For example, The Marsh, Hermitage. When the middle distance is hidden by a rising foreground, an illusion may be created by the far distance alone if this be of considerable depth. Since the fifteenth century it has been a frequent practice to conceal the middle distance, though mostly in pictures of figure subjects.[64] The Dutch artists of the seventeenth century who painted open-air scenes of human and animal life, as Paul Potter, Wouverman, and Albert Cuyp, avoided the middle distance whenever possible, but often managed to secure a fair illusion. In pure landscape the system is less often practised, and never by great artists. The only means available to the painter of land views for creating an illusion of motion, apart from that of opening distance, is by the representation of flowing water so that a series of successive events in the flow, each connected with, but varying in character from, the preceding one, can be exhibited. Thus, a volume of water from a fall proceeds rapidly over a flat surface to a ledge, and thence perhaps to another ledge of a different depth, from which it passes over or round irregular rocks and boulders, and thence over smaller stones or into a stream, creating in its passage every kind of eddy and current.[a] Here is a series of progressive natural actions in which the progression is regular and continuous, while the separate actions cover such time and space that they may be readily separated by the eye. If, therefore, the whole series be properly represented, an illusion of motion will result.[65] Obviously the canvas must be of considerable size, and the breaks in the flow of water as varied in character and as numerous as possible. Everdingen and Jacob Ruysdael seem to have been the first artists to recognize the significance of this progression, but Ruysdael far surpassed his master in the exhibition of it. He examined the problem in all its variations, solved it in a hundred ways, and at his death left little for succeeding painters to learn regarding it. Very rarely, one meets with a landscape where the double illusion of motion of water and opening distance is provided, and needless to say the effect is superb.[b] [a] See Plate 19. [b] For examples see S. Bough's Borrowdale, and Thoma's View of Laufenburg. Sea views occupy a position by themselves inasmuch as there is a fixed horizontal distance for the artist. He cannot shorten this depth without making his work look abnormal, and an effort to increase it by presuming that the picture is painted from a considerable height above the sea level, is seldom successful because the observer of the work finds a difficulty in fitting in the novelty with his experience. Except when depicting stormy weather, or showing a thick atmosphere, the painter of a sea view has no trouble in obtaining absolute accuracy in his linear perspective, but this is not sufficient, for if a variety of trees, herbage, brooks, and so on, requires an illusion of movement, then certainly does a sea view which has monotony for its keynote. The motion of the waves in fine weather cannot be suggested on canvas because it is continuous and equal. One wave displaces another and so far as the eye can reach there is only a succession of similar waves. Thus the motion appears unbroken, and from the canvas point of view the waves must be motionless as the sand hillocks of a desert. Of course in the actual view, the expanse, the "immeasurable stretch of ocean," is impressive and to some extent weird, but nothing of this feeling is induced by a painted miniature. With a bright sky and clear atmosphere the painter of a sea view cannot well obtain an illusion of opening distance by means of a multiplication of signs as on land, for the introduction of many vessels would give the work a formal appearance, but the problem can be satisfactorily solved by putting the sun in the sky towards the setting, and using cloud shadows as signs. Aivasovsky, one of the greatest marine painters of modern times, was very successful with this class of work. His long shadows thrown at right angles to the line of sight, carry back the distance till the horizon seems to be further off than experience warrants, the illusion being perfect. An illusion of opening distance may, however, be easily obtained in a sea view when there is a haze covering, but not hiding, the horizon, by introducing as signs, two or three vessels, the first in the middle distance. Another method of giving a suggestion of motion, which may be used by the sea painter, is in truthfully representing the appearance of the water round a vessel passing through it. What is probably the finest example of this work in existence is Jacob Ruysdael's The Rising Storm.[a] The sea is shown close to a port, and half a dozen smacks and small boats are being tossed about by choppy, breaking waves. In the centre of the picture is a large smack over the weather bow of which a huge foaming wave has broken, and part is spending its force on the lee bow, from which the water gradually becomes quieter till at the stern of the boat little more than a black concavity is seen. The progression of wave movement is completely represented, and the effect is very impressive. [a] Berlin Gallery. See Plate 20. The coast painter can produce an excellent illusion of motion from waves breaking on a beach, for in nature this action is made up of a series of different consecutive acts each of which is easily distinguishable to the eye. The wave rises, bends over its top which becomes crested, and splashes forward on the beach, to be converted into foam which races onwards, breaking up as it goes till it reaches the watermark, then rapidly falling back to be met by another wave. Here is a series of consecutive incidents which can all be painted so as to deceive for a moment with the idea of motion. The attempt to represent the action of waves breaking against steep rocks is invariably a failure, because of the great reduction of the apparent number of incidents forming the consecutive series. In nature the eye is not quick enough to follow the separate events, and so they cannot be distinguished in a painting. Thomson's fine picture of Fast Castle is distinctly marred by a wide irregular column of water shown splashing up against a rock. There is no possibility here of representing a series of actions, and so an instant suffices to fix the water on the rock. In another work by the same artist there are waves breaking against precipitous rocks, but in this case the water first passes over an expanse of low lying rocks, and a sequence of actions is shown right up to the cliff, an excellent illusion of movement being brought about.[a] [a] Dunluce Castle, which with Fast Castle, is in the Kingsborough Collection, Scotland. Apart from those exhibiting an illusion of motion of some kind, the only landscapes which have a permanent value, are near-ground scenes in which conditions of atmosphere of common experience, as rain or storm are faithfully rendered. In these works the signs must be numerous and varied in character, for it is only in the multiplication of small changes of form and tone that the natural effects of a particular weather condition can be imitated. Jacob Ruysdael and Constable were the greatest masters of this form of landscape, Crome and Boecklin closely approaching them, but it is uncommon for a serious worker in landscape to attempt a picture where distance is not recorded. The best paintings of Constable present an illusion of opening distance, and when Jacob Ruysdael painted near-ground only, it was nearly always a hilly slope with water breaking over low rocks. Moonlight and twilight scenes are not good subjects for the painter of landscape, because, shown as they must be in daylight, or with artificial light, they become distinctly uninteresting after the first impression of tonal harmony has passed away, owing to the unconscious revolt of the mind against something with an unreal appearance.[66] This is the chief reason why no scene has lived which depended for its beauty entirely upon moonlight effects. It is about two hundred and fifty years since Van der Neer died, and he still remains practically the only moonlight painter known to us whose works seem of permanent interest. But he did not rely altogether upon moonlight effects for his beauty, for the representation of distance is the principal feature in all his works. Further he commonly makes us acquainted with the human life and habitations of his time, and in this way enhances our appreciation of his pictures. Before Van der Neer, moonlight scenes were very rarely executed, and only two or three of these have remained which are worthy of serious consideration. The best of them is a view by Rubens, where the light is comparatively strong, and practically the whole of the beauty rests in the opening distance, which can hardly be surpassed in a work of this kind.[a] [a] Landscape by Moonlight, Mond Collection, London. It is not necessary to deal with varieties of pure landscape other than those mentioned. They are painted in their myriads, and form pleasant tonal harmonies, or have local interest, but they do not live. As the foliage in springtime they are fresh and welcome to the eye when they first appear, but all too soon they fade and disappear from memory like the leaves of the autumn. In landscape as in all other branches of painting, whatever is ephemeral in nature, or of uncommon experience, should be avoided. Rare sun effects and exceptional phases of atmosphere should not find their way into pictures, while strokes of lightning and rainbows should only be present when they are necessitated by the design, and then must be subordinated as far as possible. Of all these things the most strongly to be deprecated are strange sunlight effects, for they have the double drawback for the painter, of rarity and evanescence in nature. A stroke of lightning is not out of place where the conditions may be presumed to be more or less permanent, as in the celebrated picture of Apelles, where Alexander was represented in the character of Jupiter casting a thunderbolt, and forks of lightning proceed from his hand; or where the occurrence is essential in the composition, as in Gilbert's Slaying of Job's Sheep.[a] So in Danby's The Sixth Seal Opened, the lightning is quite appropriate, for all nature is disturbed. In Martin's Plague of Hail, and The Destruction of Pharaoh, the first a night scene, and the second a view darkened by dense black clouds, lightning is well used for lighting purposes; and in Cot's The Storm,[b] where the background is dark and no sky is visible, lightning is the only means possessed by the artist of explaining that the fear expressed by the lovers in the foreground, arises from the approaching storm. Great masters like Giorgione,[c] Rubens,[d] Poussin,[e] used a stroke of lightning on rare occasions, but took every care that it should not be conspicuous, or interfere in any way with the first view of the picture. The lightning is invariably placed in the far background, and no light is apparently reflected from it. [a] The fire of God is fallen from Heaven, and hath burned up the sheep and the servants. Job 1, 16. [b] Metropolitan Museum, N. Y. [c] Adrastus and Hypsipyle, Venice. [d] Landscape with Baucis and Philemon, Munich. [e] Jonah cast into the sea. [Illustration: PLATE 18 (See page 202) Landscape, by Hobbema (_Metropolitan Museum, N. Y._)] A rainbow in nature has a life of appreciable duration, and so may be appropriately used in landscape, but obviously it should be regarded as a minor accessory except where it forms a necessary feature in the design.[a] The great drawback in a prominent rainbow is that it forces itself upon the attention of the observer to the detriment of the picture as a whole, and if it be very conspicuous and crosses the middle of the painted view, as in Turner's Arundel Castle, the picture appears divided in two parts, and the possibility of an illusion of opening distance is destroyed.[b] Almost as bad is the effect when a rainbow cuts off a corner of a picture, for this suggests at first sight an accidental interference with the work.[c] Of all artists Rubens seemed to know best how to use a rainbow. He adopts three methods. The first and best is to put the bow entirely in the sky[d]; the second to throw it right into the background where part of it is dissolved in the view[e]; and the third to indicate the bow in one part of the picture, and overshadow it with a strong sunlight thrown in from another part.[f] Any of these forms seems to answer well, but they practically exhaust the possibilities in general design. A section of a rainbow may be shown with one end of it on the ground, because this is observable in nature[g]; but to cut off the top of the arch as if there were no room for it on the canvas is obviously bad, for the two segments left appear quite unnatural.[h] [a] As in Martin's I have Set My Bow in the Clouds. [b] In the Rivers of England series. [c] The Rainbow of Millet, and a similar work of Thoma. [d] Harvest Landscape, Munich Gallery. [e] Harvest Landscape, Wallace Collection, London. [f] Landscape with a Rainbow, Hermitage, Petrograd. [g] Rubens's Shipwreck of Æneas, Berlin Gallery. [h] A. P. Van de Venne's Soul Fishery, Amsterdam. The small rainbows sometimes seen at waterfalls are occasionally introduced into paintings, but rarely with success because they tend to interfere with the general view of the scene. Such views are necessarily near ground, and so a bow must seriously injure the picture unless it be placed at the side, as in Innes's fine work of Niagara Falls (the example of 1884). The use of a rainbow as a track in classical pictures is sometimes effective, though the landscape is largely sacrificed owing to the compulsory great width and bright appearance of the bow, which must indeed practically absorb the attention of the observer. The best known picture of this kind is Schwind's Rainbow, which shows the beautiful form of Iris wrapped in the sheen of the bow, and descending with great speed, the idea being apparently taken from Virgil.[a] To use the top of the rainbow for a walking track is bad, as the mind instinctively repels the invention as opposed to reason.[b] [a] Æneid V., where Juno sends Iris to the Trojan fleet. [b] Thoma's Progress of the gods to Walhalla. But if fleeting natural phenomena become disturbing to the observer of a picture, how much more objectionable are the quickly disappearing effects of artificial devices, as the lights from explosions. In a battle scene covering a wide area of ground, a small cloud of smoke here and there is not out of place, because under natural conditions such a cloud lasts for an appreciable time; but no good artist will indicate in his work a flash from a gun, for this would immediately become stagy and unreal to the observer. Nor can fireworks of the ordinary kind be properly represented in a picture. The beauty of these fireworks lies in the appearance out of nothing, as it were, of brilliant showers of coloured lights, and their rapid disappearance, to be replaced by others of different form and character, the movement and changes constituting important elements in their appreciation. But the painter can only indicate them by fixed points of light which necessarily appear abnormal. Stationary points of light can have no resemblance whatever to fireworks, and if the title of the picture forces the imagination to see in them expiring sparks from a rocket, the impression can only last a moment, and will be succeeded by a revolt in the mind against so glaring an impossibility as a number of permanent sparks. The only painted firework display that does not appear abnormal is a fountain of fire and sparks which may be presumed to last for some time, and therefore would not quickly tire the mind.[a] [a] See examples by La Touche, notably La Fête de Nuit, Salon, 1914. CHAPTER XIII STILL-LIFE Its comparative difficulty--Its varieties--Its limitations. Right through the degrees of the art of the painter till we reach still-life, the difficulty in producing the art is in proportion to the general beauty therein, but in the case of still-life the object is much less readily gained than in simple landscape which is on a higher level in painting. The causes of this apparent anomaly appear to be as follows:--Firstly in miniature painting one does not expect such close resemblance to nature as in still-life which usually represents things in their natural size: secondly, in still-life the relative position of the parts can never be such as to appear novel, whereas in landscape their position is always more or less unexpected: thirdly, in still-life the colours are practically fixed, for the painter cannot depart from the limited variety of tints commonly connected with the objects indicated, while in landscape the colouring may vary almost indefinitely from sun effects without appearing to depart from nature. The beauty in still-life paintings may arise from several causes, namely, the pleasure experienced from the excellence of the imitation; the harmony of tones; the beauty of the things imitated; the association of ideas; and the pleasure derived from the acquisition of knowledge. Aristotle seemed to think this last one of the principal reasons for our appreciation of the painter's work, though he agreed that the better the imitation, the greater the pleasure to the observer. The argument appears to apply particularly to the lower forms of life because in nature they are not often closely examined. A cauliflower for instance may be seen a thousand times by one who would not carefully note its structure, but if he see an imitation of it painted by a good artist, his astonishment at the excellence of the imitation might cause him to observe the representation closely, and learn much about the vegetable which he did not know before. In this way the information gained would add to his pleasure. As in landscape, from the absence of abstract qualities from the things represented, and since the position of the signs may be indefinitely varied without a sense of incongruity resulting, there can be no ideal in still-life, and so the painter cannot pass beyond experience without achieving the abnormal. The painter of still-life has the choice of four kinds of imitation, namely, the representation of products of nature which are in themselves beautiful, as roses and fine plumaged birds; the imitation of products of human industry which are in themselves beautiful, as sculptured plate or fine porcelain; the representation of natural and manual products which in themselves are neither beautiful nor displeasing, but interest from association of ideas, as certain fruits, books, and musical instruments; and the imitation of things which in themselves are not pleasing to the sight, as dead game, kitchen utensils, and so on. Obviously the artist may assort any two or more of these varieties in the same picture. He may also associate them with life, but here he is met with a grave difficulty which goes to the very root of art. If two forms, not being merely accessories, are associated together in a design, the lower form must necessarily be subordinated, otherwise the mind of the observer will be disturbed by the apparent double objective. A live dog or other animal in a still-life composition will immediately attract the eye of the observer, drawing off his attention from the inanimate objects represented, which will consequently thereafter lose much of their interest. The presence of a man is still worse. Not only is it natural and inevitable that a human being should take precedence of whatever is inanimate in a work of art, but in the case of still-life, where he is painted of natural size, he must necessarily overshadow everything else in the picture. Further, his own representation is much injured because the surroundings exercise a disconcerting influence. Even with the human figures of such a work executed by a painter of the first rank, they are quite uninteresting.[a] [a] See still-life pictures at the Hague and Vienna Museums by Van Dyck and Snyders. Beautiful products of nature such as brilliant flowers and butterflies, cannot be imitated so well that the representations appear as beautiful as the things themselves, and so are unsuited as entire subjects for paintings, for we are usually well acquainted with these things, and consciously or unconsciously recognize the inferiority of the imitation. The greatest flower painters have therefore wisely refrained from introducing into their works more than a few fine roses or similar blooms. The presence of many less beautiful flowers in which the imitation is, or appears to be, more pleasing than the natural forms, neutralizes or overcomes the effect of the inferior imitation of the more beautiful. In fact the extent to which natural products which are necessarily more beautiful than the imitations, may be used in painting, except as incidentals, is very limited. They cannot appropriately be used at all on walls and curtains where they continually cross the vision, for they would there quickly tire owing to the involuntary dissatisfaction with the representation. The Japanese, whose whole art of painting was for centuries concentrated upon light internal decoration, rightly discard from this form of art all natural products which are necessarily superior to the imitations, and confine their attention to those signs which, while being actually more beautiful, when closely seen, than the imitations, do not appear to be so in nature where they are usually observed at some distance from the eye. Thus, waterfowl of various kinds, small birds of the hedges, storks, herons, branches of fruit blossoms, light trees and vegetation, are infinitely preferable to the more beautiful products for purely decorative purposes. A common pigeon with an added bright feather, is better on a wall or screen than the most brilliant pheasant, for in the one case the representation appears above ordinary experience, and in the other case, below it. The decorative artist then is at liberty to enhance the beauty of his signs, but not to take for them things which are commonly observed in nature, and whose beauty he cannot equal. But there should be no wide divergence between the natural beauty and the art, and nothing which in itself is unpleasing is suitable for decoration. It may be introduced in a hanging picture, because here a sense of beauty may be derived from the excellence of the imitation, as in the case of a dead hare or a basket of vegetables; but in pure decoration the effect is general and not particular, and so the imitation yields no beauty apart from that of the thing imitated. CHAPTER XIV SECONDARY ART Paintings of record--Scenes from the novel and written drama--From the acted drama--Humorous subjects--Allegorical works. When the invention of the painter is circumscribed by the requirements of another art, whether a fine art or not, then his art ceases to be a pure art and becomes an art of record, subordinate to the art by which his work is circumscribed. This may be termed the Secondary Art of painting. The art may be of importance outside the purposes of the fine arts, and in certain cases may be productive of good pictures, but only by way of accident: hence a work of secondary art never engages the attention of a great artist unless he be specially called upon to execute it. Hard and fast lines dividing the pure from the secondary art cannot be laid down, as one often verges on the other, but there is a general distinction between them which is easily comprehensible in the separate branches of painting. [Illustration: PLATE 19 (See page 204) Landscape, by Jacob Ruysdael (_National Gallery, London_)] Secondary art is not produced from incidents or characters taken from sacred or mythological history, because here the general invention of the painter is never circumscribed, for he is able to produce form and expression above experience. In profane history the art is secondary when the painter confines his invention to recorded details. Thus in a picture of the Coronation of Charlemagne, the composition is entirely invented by the artist, and so the work becomes one of pure art; but the representation of the Coronation of Queen Victoria, where the artist reproduces the scene as it actually occurred, is secondary art, for he is precluded from the exercise of his imagination in the design, the end of art being subordinated to that of record or history. Such a picture is necessarily stiff and formal. Where the scene represents a number of actions, as in a battle design, the artist is unable to record the actual occurrence, though he may represent particular actions; consequently he has large scope for his imagination, and may limit his representation to those actions which together make a fine example of pure art. But a battle scene where a particular event, as a meeting of generals, has to be painted, immediately becomes secondary art, for then the surrounding battle events would be accessory in their nature. It is possible for simple historical works painted to order centuries ago to appear now as of high art value, because we commonly connect a strict formality with old pictures of the kind, whether executed from records or invention. Thus Holbein's Henry VIII. presenting a Charter to the Barber-Surgeons no doubt closely depicts the actual event, yet the stiffness of the design does not seem out of place.[a] Nevertheless it is a refreshing change from this picture to Richard III. offered the Crown by London Merchants, which is a magnificent modern work of pure invention.[b] [a] Barbers' Hall, London. [b] Royal Exchange, London. A scene from a story of actual life is necessarily secondary art, because here the painter imitates what is already an imitation, and cannot ascend above experience. He is confined to the invention of the novelist, and is therefore subordinate to him. The written drama is available for the painter as a source for designs only in cases of high tragedy, or mixed plays containing strong dramatic events of tragic import. Seeing that the drama is itself an imitative art, only such actions or characters can be used by the painter which are above life experience, and it is only in tragedy that the dramatist can exalt human attributes, and ennoble the passions above this experience. Tragedy deals directly with the two great contrasting human mysteries--life and death. From one to the other is the most awful and sublime action within human knowledge, and consequently the motives and sentiments relating to it may be carried to the loftiest reach of the understanding. An exaggeration of ordinary life, where the combination of perfected parts in form and expression is not possible, means only the abnormal; while comedy, which imitates conditions inferior to ordinary life, cannot be exaggerated except into distortion. High tragedy therefore is the only section of the written drama that concerns the painter. If he draw from any other work of the dramatist he only produces secondary art, as when he draws from the novelist. The picture may be interesting, but both interest and beauty will be fleeting. While the painter may use the written drama in certain cases, he can by no means be concerned with the acted drama. It is useless to attempt to produce a good picture by imitating an imitation accomplished by a combined art, as the opera or drama. A painted scene from a play as it is acted, is merely the execution of another man's design which in itself is entirely circumscribed by conditions of action and speech wholly foreign to the art of the painter. A picture of a particular moment of action in a written play, as it is thrown upon the brain in the course of reading, is interesting, firstly because our imagination has wide limits of invention, and we naturally and instinctively adopt a harmonious rendering of the scene so far as the writing will allow; and secondly for the reason that we pass rapidly from impression to impression, and so the whole significance of each picture, separately and relatively, is conveyed to us. But a painting of an acted scene is meaningless, for it can represent only one in a series of a thousand moments of action which are all connected, and of which the comprehension of any one is dependent upon our knowledge of the whole. The painter has no scope. He simply copies a number of figures in a fixed setting, and the result is necessarily inferior art to a copy of the poorest original picture, since in this case the artist at least copies the direct product of the imagination, while in the other he has only before him a series of dummies who are imitating the product. The sense of unreality arising from such a picture must instantly overpower any harmony of colour or form that may be present. Where the portrait of an actor is painted in a stage rôle, the same principle is involved, though the result is not so disastrous. We still have the unreal, but it is painted and put forward as a living person. The artist moreover has a little imaginative scope. He can choose a moment of action best suited to his art, and may even vary the character of the action, which is not possible where an acted scene is depicted. But notwithstanding all the relative advantages, a Raphael could not make a fine picture out of a man in character. He may largely overcome the disabilities arising from the limitation to his invention; he may introduce great effects of light and shade; may ennoble expression and give grandeur to form; but he will never hide the sham--never conceal the fact that he is representing an imitation of life. The actor on the stage is one of a number of signs used by the dramatist. His identity apart from the sign is lost, or presumed to be lost for the time being, and so he is not a sham; but outside of the stage his use or meaning as a sign does not exist. Hence the representation of this sign as a subject of a painting is only a degree less incongruous than would be the introduction of a painted figure as one of the characters of a stage scene. It is an indication of the sure public instinct in matters of art principles, that general opinion has always tacitly condemned paintings of stage scenes and characters. They have not infrequently been produced, and sometimes artists of high rank, as Reynolds and Lawrence, have painted portraits of actors in stage rôles, but never has one met with public appreciation as a work of art. Probably in most cases these works were executed as mementoes rather than as works of art, for it is scarcely possible to conceive a painter of the stamp of Reynolds, who was so well acquainted with first principles, putting forward even a portrait of Garrick in a stage rôle, as a serious work, notwithstanding that he might well know that it was a masterpiece in respect of execution. Humour is not a subject for the painter to deal with, for a humorous picture cannot be comprehended without the assistance of another art. Further, comedy is founded upon a sense of the ridiculous, which means distortion of form or idea. Distortion of form would tend to destroy the art if reproduced, and distortion of idea implies events in time which are beyond the scope of the painter. If any humour were exhibited in the representation of a single moment of action in a story, it would quickly disappear, for a permanent joke is beyond the range of human understanding. In poetry and fiction, humour may be appropriately introduced, because here it is of a fugitive character, and may serve as a possible relief of the mind, as a discordant note in music; but in a painting, the moment of humour is fixed, and a fixed laugh suggests mental disorder. Nor is there place in the art of the painter for works intending to convey satire or irony, for such pictures also mean distortion. Moreover they are merely substitutes for, or adjuncts to, the art of writing. The object of caricature is to present an idea in a more direct and rapid way than it can be expressed in writing, and not specially to exhibit beauty, which is the purpose of the painter. Hogarth's many caricatures are composed of superlative signs of writing, and not of any fine art. Cartoons (as the word is commonly understood) are of the nature of allegory, and may afford scope for the painter, but as they necessarily refer to more or less fleeting conditions of a political or social character, they cannot retain permanent interest. Allegorical paintings are secondary art when they endeavour to cover more than a moment of time in a single design, or when the allegory is merely a metaphor applying to action. The first variety is rarely seen in modern works, but it was not very uncommon from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, though it was never produced by first-class artists, and seldom indeed by those of the second rank. Quite a number of works of this period, formerly supposed to have an allegorical signification, are now properly identified as rarely represented mythological legends, or historical incidents which have only lately been unearthed,[a] and we may rest assured from internal evidence that many others of the same kind will yet be newly interpreted. A good design cannot be produced from an event in time because the figures in a presumed action must be shown in repose,[b] or else the action appears incongruous and opposed to experience, as when a goddess is overpowered by a personage with the appearance of a human being.[c] In both cases the figures must seem to be falsities. Designs of the first kind can only be properly represented in a sequence of pictures, each indicating a particular action, as in the Marie de' Medici series of Rubens; and those of the second by commonly accepted figures of sacred or mythological history or legend, as where St. Michael and the Dragon typify Good overcoming Evil. [a] Examples are Lorenzo Costa's Cupid Crowning Isabella d'Este, Giorgione's Adrastus and Hypsipyle, and Piero di Cosimo's Marsyas picture. [b] Religion Succoured by Spain, the Prado, Madrid. [c] Lotto's Triumph of Chastity, Rospigliosi Gallery, Rome. It is scarcely necessary to do more than barely refer to the use of metaphor by the painter when the representation of action is involved, as for instance if he should produce a picture of a heaving ship in a storm, to meet the metaphor "As a ship is tossed on a rough sea, so has been the course of my life," though this kind of picture has been occasionally executed, the artist forgetting that it is not the object depicted that is compared, but the action--in the example quoted, the tossing of the ship--which cannot be represented on canvas. Another form of metaphor sometimes used by the painter is that where a comparison of ideas is represented by physical proportions, as in Wiertz's Things of the Present as seen by the Future, in which the things of the present are indicated by liliputian figures on the hand of a woman of life size who represents the future. Needless to say that such designs, of which there are about a dozen in existence, can only suggest distortion, for the smaller figures must appear too small, and the larger ones too great; or if our experience with miniature imitations of the human figure warrants us in regarding the smaller figures as reasonable, then the larger ones must appear as giants of the Brobdingnagian order. The only form of metaphor which may be used by the painter is that wherein a beautiful symbol typifies a high abstract quality. Metaphor belongs properly to the arts of the poet and novelist who can indicate the symbol and things symbolized in immediate succession, so that the whole meaning is apparent. The painter can only represent the symbol, and unless this is beautiful and its purport readily comprehended, his sign is merely a hieroglyph--a sign of writing. Secondary art includes symbolic painting when the symbol may represent either the symbol itself or the thing symbolized, for such a condition involves a confusion of ideas which tends to destroy the æsthetic effect of the work. The most notable painting of this kind is Holman Hunt's The Scapegoat, where the design shows only a goat in desert country. The scapegoat has ceased to be an actuality for centuries, and the only meaning of the term as it is now used applies to a man: hence, with the title the goat appears to be a symbol of both a man and an animal, while without the title it is merely the image of a goat without symbolism. But the conception of an animal of any kind as a symbol is foreign to the art of the painter whose symbol should always be beautiful, whatever the nature of the representation. CHAPTER XV COLOUR In itself colour has no virtues which are not governed by immutable laws. These are apart from the exercise of human faculties, the recognition of colour harmony being involuntary and entirely dependent upon the condition of the optic nerves. Thus there can be no meaning in colour apart from its application to form, and the extent to which it may be properly used in the representation of form is necessarily bound by our experience of nature. Other things being equal, the most perfect painting is that wherein there is a just balance between the colour and the form, that is to say, where the colour is not so vivid as to act upon the sense nerves before the general beauty of the work is appreciated, or so feeble or discordant that its want of natural truth is immediately presented to the mind, thus disturbing the impression of the design. As with metrical form in poetry, the importance of colour in painting varies inversely with the character of the art. In the highest art, where ideals are dealt with, colour is of the least importance. A composition with ideal figures may be produced by drawing only, that is to say, by the use of a single tone in outline and shading. The addition of colour heightens the beauty of a composition of this kind, not so much because of the new sensorial harmony acquired, as for the reason that a painting in colours, corresponding better than a colourless drawing with our experience of nature, assists in defining the work and so reduces the fractional time necessary for the recognition of the general beauty of the design, which is a matter of importance. The comparatively small value of colour in the highest art is demonstrated by experience. If we were to choose from paintings known to us, those which general opinion regards as the very greatest works, we should unquestionably name the frescoes of Raphael and Michelangelo at the Vatican, and those of Correggio at Parma. These, with a few easel pictures of Raphael, and perhaps a dozen other pictures by various masters, are the only works of the painter's art to which the term "sublime" may be properly applied. As with the great epic poems, they are concerned entirely with ideals--with personages far above the level of life, rising to the spiritual domain--or with human beings as they would be if the highest conceptions of our imagination were possible of realization. When we recall these splendid legacies of genius to our minds, and ponder over the apparently limitless range of human vision which they evidence, it is the designs that absorb us, and not the colour--the forms and expression, and not the tints by which their definition is assisted. We do not usually analyse the impression we receive from these frescoes and pictures, but were we to do so, it would be borne in upon our minds that while a Raphael, a Michelangelo, or a Correggio, would be required to conceive and execute such stupendous designs, many thousands of unknown patient workers could be found to colour them efficiently. On the other hand if we remove the colour from the greatest landscape known to us, we find that most of the beauty of the work has disappeared, and that we have only a kind of skeleton left, for the beauty of such a picture rests very largely upon the aerial perspective, which is unobtainable without colour. That the appreciation of colour is relative to the character of the design may be observed from common experience. We may see the Sistine Madonna half a dozen times and then be unable to recall the colours when bringing the picture to mind, so small an effect have they had upon us as compared with that of the majesty and general beauty of the central figure. So with many of Raphael's other pictures. It is a common thing for one to call attention to the superb colouring of an easel picture by Correggio, but how rarely does an observer notice the colouring of his frescoes at Parma, which are his masterpieces? With some of the Venetian artists, the colouring is often so brilliant, not to say startling, that it seems to overpower the observer for a moment, and necessity compels him to accustom himself to the tones before considering the design. The colouring of Titian is not so strong, but it is always forcible; nevertheless one seldom hears a comment upon the colours in his works, the superior design and general beauty of the compositions far outweighing the purely sensorial elements therein. Titian in fact secured an approximately just balance between form and colour, while with his great followers the colour usually exceeded in strength the requirements of the design. In the time of Tintoretto and Veronese the prestige and prosperity of Venice were rapidly declining, but we have been so accustomed to associate with this city during the Renaissance, a luxurious life with something of the character of an Eastern court, that gorgeous colour of any kind does not seem out of place as one of its products. But this special appropriateness has not the effect of elevating the gay coloured voluptuous forms of the artists named, observable in their classical and allegorical works, to a high level in art. We cannot accommodate the forms to the ideas of the poets who invented or described them, or to the attributes with which they were commonly associated; and the colouring tends to bring them closer to earth. While we feel bound to admire the colouring, we are equally compelled to regret the particular application.[67] Speaking generally, when the design is good we remember the composition irrespective of the colours, but when the beauty of the work depends upon the colour harmony it fades from our memory as soon as our eyes experience new colour combinations. The imagination may call up the harmony again upon the mind, but the pleasure experienced from this reflection must be very feeble indeed because the senses are not directly affected thereby. It can have no more effect than a written description of the harmony. [Illustration: PLATE 20 (See page 206) The Storm, by Jacob Ruysdael (_Berlin Museum_)] The painter is at liberty to make what use he will of colour so long as he provides a thing of beauty, but he must remember that the appreciation of colour harmony is dependent not only upon the condition of the optic nerves of the observer, but also upon his experience at the time of observation. As to the first consideration little heed need be taken, because rudimentarily the nerve structure is equal or nearly so, in all persons, and while accident at birth may provide in some an advanced condition which in others is only obtained by exercise, yet in respect of colours, experience in complex harmony is gained involuntarily in contact with every-day nature. Hence for the purpose of the painter, all men may be considered alike in regard to the recognition of colour harmony. But individual experience at the time of observation of a painting varies largely,[68] a circumstance which is not of importance in dealing with works of the higher art, but becomes of great significance when considering the lower forms. No organ of the body is so susceptible to fatigue as the eye, and a painting of the kind known as a colour scheme may or may not be pleasing according as the tone is a relief or otherwise to the sight. Sometimes a few seconds are sufficient to fatigue the eye, as for instance when it is directed towards a vivid maroon hanging, but let a landscape with a grey tone be placed on the hanging and considerable pleasure will be involuntarily experienced through the relief to the optic nerves. Remove the picture to a grey wall, and it will instantly lose its charm, except such as it may possess apart from the colour. As with particular tones, so with colours generally. People habituated to conditions of nature where extremes of sun effects are uncommon, as in the northern latitudes, may be temporarily pleased with schemes of glowing colours on their walls, because these relieve the monotony of daily experience, but they must necessarily quickly tire, as with all exceptional conditions of life which are concerned with the senses only. How soon one is fatigued with bright colours generally is obvious to any visitor to a public gallery which is crowded with pictures. In an hour or less the fatigue of his eyes becomes so extreme that his whole nervous system is affected, and he loses energy of both mind and body. But brilliant colors used sparingly with good designs may be a perpetual source of pleasure. Place a fine work by Rubens or Paolo Veronese in a living-room and it will attract attention every time one enters, for the colouring will always be a change from the normal eye experience. One turns to the picture involuntarily, and then the design is observed, and so one passes from sensual to intellectual pleasure. This process is repeated day by day, and the work never tires. Of course it is a condition that the design is able to hold the attention, otherwise the bright colours would serve little better purpose than if they defined a geometrical pattern. Nowadays quite a number of paintings are produced in which unusual tones are given to signs or shadows, but these are not to be taken seriously by the earnest student. In the sunlight, amidst certain surroundings, the arm of a woman may appear for some moments to have a bluish tone, but the artist would be entirely wrong to paint a bluish arm. The picture is to be seen under all lights, and if the tones be contrary to general experience under any of these lights, then the work appears to be a falsity, for the artist does not, and cannot, reproduce the conditions which together bring about the exceptional colours. To the normal eye under ordinary circumstances, the arm of a woman is of flesh colour, and the artist is not at liberty to vary this tone. He has to represent what appears to be true in general opinion, whether it be really true or not under certain conditions. The dictum of Aristotle in regard to poetry--that what appears probable, though in reality is impossible, is better than what seems improbable but is really possible--is equally true in painting. In fact it is of more importance that this maxim should be remembered in painting than in poetry, because the signs of the painter are permanent. A poet or novelist may refer to a passing exceptional sun effect, for the impression on the mind of the reader would probably be as transient as, or more transient than, the effect itself, but with the painter the transient effect becomes fixed. The blue arm is always blue, and in a very short time becomes a disagreeable unreality. It may be claimed that the objectionable sun effects are not really exceptional, though they are seldom noticed; but for the purpose of art, what appears to be exceptional must be definitely regarded as so, and for this reason discarded by the artist who desires to paint a good picture. Generally then, the value of colour lies firstly in its correspondence with nature, for upon this depends its harmony and the assistance it lends to the recognition of the beauty in the whole composition. Beyond this it may or may not have an ephemeral value according to local conditions. In any case colour must ever be subordinated to design in a picture, and this is what Poussin meant when he said that particular attention to colour is an obstacle to the art student. BOOK II ILLUSIONS IN THE PAINTER'S ART INTRODUCTORY The painter is occupied in a perpetual struggle to produce an illusion. He does not directly aim for this, but except in the very highest art where ideals are realized, the better the picture he paints, the greater the illusion. The natural test of the value of his work is its correspondence with nature, and the nearer it so corresponds, the more complete the illusion. But the whole picture is never an illusion (we leave out of consideration those instances where artificial devices are used to conceal the surroundings of the actual painted surface), for the frame and other material evidence inform us of the art. The illusion, when it exists, is forced upon our minds from moment to moment as our eyes travel over the work. It occurs to us perhaps that a face "lives," that the drapery is true to life, that the tones are real, and so on, and obviously these circumstances cannot impress us in this way unless we are momentarily deceived. And it is a sign of good quality in the work when we are so struck. This does not mean that the closer the imitation, the better the picture: on the contrary it is rare to find a good work of art produced by an exact imitator. The duty of the artist is to generalize everything that can be generalized without departing from the character of the thing represented. True there are degrees of generalization which depend on the nature of the design, the size of the work, the accessories, and other matters, but if a just balance of generalization be secured throughout, then the imitation is better than a closely detailed reproduction, because a work is always involuntarily judged from general, and not from particular, experience. A portrait for instance is a much better work of art if we can say of it "This is a good portrait of a man," than if we are compelled to confine ourselves to "This is a good portrait of Mr. Jones," even if the lineaments of the particular countenance are better defined in the latter example than in the former. The illusion would be stronger, for we are more intimately acquainted with "a man" than with "Mr. Jones." And so with accessories. An exceptionally fine rose or cabbage is never so good in a painting as one of these articles which is of an average type, because with this the illusion is more certain, for it is not likely to be disturbed with a mental inquiry into the unusual article. The painter may produce his illusions then without sacrificing anything in his art, and with the surety that good paintings necessarily result in momentary illusions except when form or expression above life experience are dealt with. The first and most important illusion in the art is that of relief, for without this no other illusion can be produced. It is a general condition applying to all work on a flat surface. The other illusions that may be provided are: (a) of opening distance in landscape; (b) of motion in natural actions, as in flowing water; (c) of human and animal actions; (d) of suspension and motion in the air. The two first are dealt with under "Landscape"; the others are now considered. CHAPTER I ILLUSION OF RELIEF The greatest value in the illusion of relief lies in its assistance to recognition, for with the forms rounded by shading and separated with the appearance of relief which they have in nature, details of the work are less likely to complicate the design to the eye, than if the flat surface of the canvas be emphasized by the avoidance of relief. For the eye has to be considered before the mind, and it is of immense importance that the brain should have the least possible work to do in assisting the eye to interpret a thing of art. It would appear then that the minimum extent to which relief should be given in a painting is that point below which the things painted do not seem to have their three dimensions indicated. Beyond this the painter is at liberty to proceed as he pleases. Some great artists, notably Lionardo, were inclined to think that it is impossible to give too much relief to a figure, and this may be so theoretically, but practically there is a line to be drawn because life is limited, and after a certain point is reached, the work of shading for relief is so tedious an operation, that half a lifetime would be required to execute a picture of three or four figures if the artist wished to produce the strongest illusion in his power to give. A Russian artist of high merit who essayed the task, spent an average time of five years in ceaseless toil on each figure he completed, and even then frequently remarked that he had not given to his figures the full relief he desired to exhibit. It is well known that Lionardo gave long and close attention to this matter in his pictures, and he produced some extraordinary examples of relief, of which the finest is, perhaps, the Litta Madonna,[a] but one cannot help regretting that he did not rest satisfied with a lower point of excellence in respect of the illusion, so that he could spend more time in general design. [a] At the Hermitage. See Plate 21. Apart from the relief given by shading in painting, there is an important mechanical method of improving the illusion, though this can only be occasionally adopted. The figures in any well painted picture will appear to stand out in high relief if we lose sight of the frame and other surroundings which distinctly inform us that the work is a flat surface. This is why a painting invariably seems to improve if seen through a tube of such diameter that the frame is excluded from the vision. Advantage of this fact has been many times taken in the exhibition of single pictures, when, by the exclusion of the frame, the concealment of the edges of the work by curtain arrangements, and the concentration of all the available light upon the canvas, such perfect relief has been obtained that observers have been sometimes unable to distinguish the art from the life. It was the effect of the surroundings of a picture upon the sight, that led to a practice in design resulting in the exclusion of these surroundings to some extent when the eye is directed towards the centre of the work where the principal figure is commonly stationed. This practice is to avoid accessories as far as possible near the figure, and to provide considerable open space above it, and also at the sides when the composition allows, so that the observing eye has not of necessity to range close to the frame of the picture. In a good design of this kind the central figure or figures come out in strong relief, the attraction of the work being consequently much enhanced. Obviously the painted figures should be of life size, or nearly so, for the illusion of relief to be strikingly marked, and the conditions necessarily prevent the adoption of the scheme in a design of many figures. It is most successful with a single figure, and has been carried out with two figures, but never with more than two except in a few pictures of great size. [Illustration: PLATE 21 (See page 240) The Litta Madonna, by Lionardo da Vinci (_Hermitage_)] The number of artists who have taken advantage of this mechanical device is not large, but it includes some of the first masters. The plan may be used in both exterior and interior scenes. In the former the figures must be thrown against the sky, and it is a distinct advantage if there be no trees or other objects on either side of the figures, which also stand out above the horizon, though this is immaterial if the figure be set in a confined space, as an arch, or between the columns of a loggia, and the foliage is not seen through this space. The most famous pictures where the scheme is used in exterior work are amongst the finest portraits known to us, namely, Lionardo's Mona Lisa, and Raphael's Maddalena Doni and Angelo Doni.[a] In 1504 or thereabouts, Lionardo painted a portrait of Mona Lisa sitting in a loggia, the wall of which reached to a third of the height of the canvas.[b] On the wall at each side of the design is a column divided down the centre by the edge of the canvas. There is a landscape setting, in which the middle distance is hidden by rising ground, and only part of the head appears above the horizon. In 1505 Raphael made a study from this picture in which he retained the columns, but raised the wall, and threw the whole head of the figure against the sky. He used this study for the portrait of Maddalena Doni, but in this he still further improved the design by removing the columns, and extending to the shoulders that part of the figure above the horizon, the line of which divides the picture in equal halves, instead of being drawn at two thirds of the height as in the first Mona Lisa. When Lionardo executed the Louvre portrait of this lady, he removed the columns, but slightly reduced the portion of the head seen against the sky. Raphael's plan, which was also used in the portrait of Angelo Doni, is obviously far superior to that in the Mona Lisa design, for the relief is necessarily better marked. The scheme was not new to Raphael at the time, except in portraiture, for it is exhibited in three of his very early sacred works.[c] [a] The first at the Louvre, and the others at the Pitti Palace, Florence. [b] This painting, or one corresponding to it, is in the Boston Museum, U. S. A. See Note 56. [c] Saint Sebastian, at Bergamo; The Redeemer at Brescia; and The Prophets and Sybils at Perugia. One of the best examples in existence of this method of securing relief is Tintoretto's Presentation of the Virgin.[a] On the right of the picture is a wide flight of stairs, curving round as they ascend. The Virgin is moving up these steps in advance of some attendants, and the curved stairway enables all the figures to stand out in fine relief against the sky. If well managed some considerable space above the figures is sufficient for the illusion even if the sides are partly closed, as in Albertinelli's beautiful Salutation.[b] Where only a small portion of the figure can be shown above the horizon, the use of a faint far distance helps in the scheme of relief. Thus, in Marco Basaiti's Christ on the Mount of Olives,[c] where Christ stands on the top of a rock which hides the middle distance, His head only is above the horizon, but the rest of the figure is thrown against a faint far distance, the relief being excellent. A modification of this plan is observable in Lionardo's Virgin and Child with St. Anne.[d] [a] Madonna del Orto, Venice. [b] Uffizi Gallery, Florence. [c] Venice Academy. [d] The Louvre. So far as the writer has been able to ascertain, the first known painting where a crucifix is thrown against the sky is by Antonella da Messina.[a] The Cross is fixed in the foreground and extends to the top of the picture, being cut half-way up and just below the feet of Christ by the line of the horizon. The relief is very fine. This scheme was imitated with more or less success but never quite so perfectly, till Titian produced his magnificent Cross. Here the Crucifix is cast against a sombre evening sky, with the Virgin and two imploring Saints at the foot.[b] Rubens improved upon this design with several variations. In one he hid the foot of the Cross, though the tops of buildings are seen in the middle distance[c]; and in another, which is still finer, the time of the scene is late evening, and dark vague outlines suggest a landscape. But all these examples are cast into the shade by Van Dyck's Antwerp picture, than which there is certainly no more impressive painted Crucifixion in existence. In this the foot of the Cross is not shown, nor is there any ground to be seen, and the figure stands out against a dark forbidding sky, awful, but sublimely real, as if set in boundless space for all eternity.[d] [a] National Gallery, London. [b] Ancona Gallery. [c] Antwerp Museum. [d] This work was repeated several times with variations. See Plate 22. There are many variations of the above designs, particularly among the Works of Venetian artists, but those quoted may be regarded as typical. How easy it is to hinder the illusion is seen in Sodoma's Sacrifice of Abraham,[a] where both figures are set against the sky, but trees behind them and at the side destroy the relief, though the foliage is by no means thick. In Girolami da Libri's Madonna and Child with St. Anne, a pomegranate tree interposes[b]; and a curtain falls at the back of a group by Bernadino da Conti,[c] the illusion in both cases being consequently robbed of its effect. [a] Pisa Cathedral. [b] National Gallery, London. [c] Poldo Pezzoli Museum, Milan. Some of the Dutch artists of the seventeenth century used a clear sky for the purpose of enhancing the relief of their figures, but as these are usually of a comparatively small size, the result is only partially effective. Albert Cuyp and Philip Wouverman painted many pictures with men and animals silhouetted above the horizon, and Paul Potter executed a few of the kind, but of all Dutch painters, Jan Steen secured the best relief with his Terrace Scene.[a] In more recent times the scheme has seldom been adopted for the purpose of relief, but a few Scottish painters practised it in the early nineteenth century. Simson followed Cuyp's plan,[b] and Dyce in a sacred piece equalled the best of the old masters in his manner of producing the illusion.[c] Grant also painted a fine example.[d] Some portrait painters of the English school of the eighteenth century used the scheme in a partial way, but they commonly placed clouds behind the figures thrown against the sky, thus disturbing the illusion. [a] National Gallery, London. [b] National Gallery, Edinburgh. [c] St. John Leading the Virgin from the Tomb, National Gallery of British Art, London. [d] The Countess of Chesterfield and Mrs. Anson, Gilmour Collection, Scotland. There is only one method of using this device for assisting in the production of relief in interiors. This is to throw the figure against a high wall which is undecorated or nearly so. The figure must be some little distance in front of the wall, and it is observable that the best effect is obtained when the light throughout the room is equal, but in any case the wall should not have less light than the figure. Inasmuch as the figure has to be of life size or nearly so, to produce the desired result, a very large picture would be necessary for the representation of a standing adult; hence the plan is not attempted with a life-size figure, except with a sitting adult or a standing child. Before this scheme was used for the human figure, that master of relief, M. A. Caravaggio, adopted it for a simple still-life work.[a] A basket of fruit on a plain table, with a high bare wall at the back--the canvas now sombre and darkened, like the soul of the artist, but still remarkable for the relief: this was the first application to interiors of a plan which had been used in exteriors by some of the greatest masters for more than a century. [a] Ambrogia Museum, Milan. So far as can be gathered from existing works, thirty or forty years elapsed after the picture of Caravaggio was painted before the scheme was brought into use for the human figure in interiors. In 1630, or thereabouts, Velasquez produced his Christ at the Column.[a] Here the wall is not actually high, but Christ is shown seated on the floor, and hence there is ample wall space over which the eye may rove. It is possible that the adoption of the plan in this instance was the result of accident, but the very unusual pose of Christ hardly warrants the suggestion. Velasquez painted no more pictures of the kind till a quarter of a century later, when he produced Las Meninas. In this the relief is excellent, but it would have been still better without the picture on the wall, and the open door in the background, though the figure seen on the steps through the doorway lends assistance to the illusion. [a] The Prado, Madrid. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century, some followers of the Neapolitan school used the plan occasionally, but the best existing Italian works of the time where it is seen are from the hand of Evaristo Baschenis, a Bergamese monk. He was an excellent painter of still-life, and produced several pictures, each with a boy or a woman seated in the middle of a room near a plain table on which rests a dish of fruit or a gathering of various articles, while at the back there is a high bare wall. In all of these works a fine relief is exhibited, though they are now considerably marred by darkened shadows. A few years later the plan was adopted by some Dutch artists, and later still in France and Germany. Chardin, who in more ways than one seems to have been a French Baschenis, used it in several pictures. In recent times since the study of Velasquez has become a vogue, many artists have successfully followed the plan, and one of the finest examples of it in existence--Lydia Emmet's Patricia[a]--dates as late as 1915. [a] Exhibition of the National (American) Association of Portrait Painters, N. Y., 1915. See Plate 23. There are several minor mechanical ways of enhancing relief, most of them providing a setting which acts as a kind of inner frame to the design, the object being to reduce the effect of the actual frame in disturbing the illusion. Portrait painters of the Dutch, Flemish, and English schools, have often placed half length figures in painted ovals on canvas rectangles, and in the case of Hals he sometimes further improved the illusion by extending a hand of the subject over the oval. Hanneman used this oval in a most exceptional way. On a large canvas he painted the bust portraits of Constantine Huygens and his six children, each in a separate oval, the father being in the centre.[a] The scheme is strangely effective, for the attention of the observer is involuntarily confined to one portrait at a time. In genre pictures a doorway may act as the inner frame, but this is only of material value if the picture be of considerable size. The Dutch painters, notably Gerard Dow, loved to paint figures leaning over window-sills, this method usually enhancing the relief, because the eye is apt to be confined for a time to the window-frame. Perhaps the best use of a window for the purpose of relief is Rembrandt's Samson Menacing His Father-in-law, where the old man's head and hands, of life size, are seen protruding from a small window.[b] [a] Hague Gallery. [b] Berlin Gallery. CHAPTER II ILLUSION OF MOTION With human figures--With animals. From the earliest times great sculptors, in producing a single figure in action, have chosen for the representation a moment of rest between two steps in the action, so that the character of these steps is instantly recognized by the observer, whose imagination unconsciously carries through the action. If every part of the figure is built up conformably with the action, with due regard to the position from which the statue is to be seen, an illusion of motion will follow, though this is necessarily so rapid that the effect upon the observer is indirect: he translates the impression into appreciation of the lifelike attitude of the figure. Nearly all the ancient Greek sculptured figures known to us, commencing with those of Myron, are characterized by this excellence in design, and so with the best work of the Italian Renaissance. Modern sculptors of repute have also endeavoured to provide the illusion, Rodin in particular holding that it should be the aim of every sculptor.[69] The painter is in a different position from the sculptor because the latter may design his figure with special reference to the position it is to occupy, and so he can in a measure compel the observer to see it in a particular way. Thus, the base of the statue may be some height above the ground, in which case the observer must necessarily run his eyes up the figure from the feet; or it may be seen first in a three-quarter view so that the position of the limbs will apparently change as the observer moves to the front. Such accidental circumstances may be considered by the sculptor in his plan. The painter has no such advantage, for his figure is the same from whichever point it is to be seen, within reasonable limits; but he has compensation in the use of tones and accessories of which the sculptor is deprived. That the painter may provide an excellent illusion with a single figure in action is evidenced by Raphael's superb St. Margaret, where the Saint is seen stepping over the dragon.[a] Every part of her body, and every fold of drapery is used in the expression of movement, the effect being so perfect that we cannot disassociate the figure from the action.[70] [a] At the Louvre. See Plate 27. The painters of the first century of the Renaissance never properly represented a figure in the act of walking, and there are few pictures even of the fifteenth century where a serious attempt is made to choose the best moment in which to exhibit such a figure. The first successful essay in the task seems to have been in The Tribute Money of Masaccio,[a] who indeed was fifty years ahead of his fellows in the faithful representation of action. There was a jump of two decades or so after Masaccio to the next good figure, which was that of an attendant in Filipo Lippi's complex tondo at Florence.[b] This figure must have caused considerable surprise at the time, for it was copied into several works by subsequent artists, notably Domenico Ghirlandaio,[c] and probably suggested the fine figure carrying a jar of water on her head in Raphael's Fire at the Borgo.[d] But Raphael, who mastered every problem in composition, solved this one so completely that he left nothing for his successors to learn respecting it. Not only are the limbs of his moving figures so perfectly arranged that we see only action, but folds of the drapery used on the figures are sufficient to indicate preceding movements,[e] and this is so even when the figures are stationary, but the head, arms, or upper part of the body have moved.[f] This extraordinary feature of Raphael's work will ever form a subject of astonishment and admiration. [a] Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence. [b] Madonna and Child with other scenes from her life, Uffizi, Florence. [c] Birth of St. John Baptist, Santa Maria Novello, Florence. [d] Fresco at the Vatican. [e] See Deliverance of St. Peter, Flight of Lot and his Family, Moses Striking the Rock, and others at the Vatican. [f] The Transfiguration, Vatican. [Illustration: PLATE 22 (See page 244) Christ on the Cross, by Van Dyck (_Antwerp Museum_)] The painter has a comparatively easy task in presenting an illusion with several figures presumed to be moving, for he has only to comply with two simple conditions. The first is that the particular step represented in the act of progression of any individual should vary from the steps of the persons immediately behind or in front of him; and secondly that the actions of the different persons be connected with each other so far as possible. With these conditions reasonably fulfilled, illusion of motion necessarily follows. Naturally in such a mechanical matter, the character of the invention depends upon the scale of the design. When the moving figures are presumed to be comparatively near at hand, the position of the limbs must be entirely presented, or the progression will appear broken. The effective illusion presented in Burne-Jones's Golden Staircase is due to his ingenuity in so arranging the numerous figures descending the winding stairs, that all their feet are visible. In the case of a crowd of figures of whom some are supposed to be moving and others standing still, the visibility of the limbs is of less importance than the connection of the various actions. In Menzel's Market in Verona,[a] the illusion, which is remarkable, is entirely produced by the skill in which innumerable instances of action are made dependent upon others. An illusion is created in the same way though in a lesser degree by Gustave Doré in several works.[b] When the motion arises from the actions of the arms of a number of persons, it suffices if the arms are in various positions, as in Menzel's Iron Mill, and Cavalori's Woolworkers[c] where many men are using long tools; but if the limbs are working together, an illusion is impossible. The beauty of Guardi's great picture, Regatta on the Grand Canal, is much diminished by the attitude of the gondoliers, who all hold their poles in the same position. [a] Dresden Gallery. [b] See Samson Slaying the Philistines. [c] Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Where many persons are moving together in the same direction, great care has to be exercised in presenting the actions conformably with the rate at which the movement is proceeding, for upon this of course depends the angles of the bended knees, and the extent to which some of the feet may be carried from the ground. In slow natural movements, as where a number of men are dragging a heavy burden, it is rare to find an artist wrong in his representation[a]; but in the case of numerous figures walking irregularly, a true nearground design is uncommon, the painter usually giving insufficient action, with the result that his figures present a stagy appearance.[b] But a defect of this kind is not so serious as where several men, not being in marching order, are moving in the same direction with their feet in similar positions, and each with a foot off the ground,[c] for this is only an aggravation of a case where the picture shows but a single figure walking with one foot in the air. [a] For good examples see Benoit's Morning of July 14, 1789, Poynter's Building the Treasure City, and Colton's Royal Artillery Memorial (sculptured relief). [b] Dehodencq's Bohemians Returning from a Fête, Chaumont Museum. [c] As in Breton's Cry of Alarm. An illusion of motion may be given to a line of figures in the middle distance of a landscape by simply winding the road along which they pass[a]; but the angles of the turns must be large, for when they are small, or when there is a distinct zigzag, the illusion is destroyed through the lengthy operation of the eye in comprehending the whole scene. [a] Diaz's Descent of the Bohemians. When many figures are moving close together, even if they be marching to the same step, an illusion of movement may be given by the representation of a flying figure proceeding in the same direction. This scheme has been adopted in sculpture with high success, as in the Shaw Memorial at Boston,[a] and the Marseillaise of Rude.[b] In painting, several horizontal figures may be used, but they must be placed irregularly to avoid the appearance of formality. Some modern French artists are responsible for effective designs indicating the arrival of spring by an overhead figure flying above young people moving through flowery fields.[c] [a] By A. Saint-Gaudens. [b] Arc de Triomphe, Paris. [c] See Aman-Jean's decorative panels at the Sorbonne. A suggestion of motion may be obtained by exhibiting a number of persons engaged in similar actions, but shown in a consecutive series of stages thereof. This plan is admirably worked out by Watteau in his Embarkation for Cythera.[a] A line of couples commences at the right of the picture, proceeds towards the left, and then descends a slope to the place of embarkation. The first couple are sitting and conversing, the next are in the act of rising, and the third have just risen and are about to follow the other couples already walking, the whole device being most effective. A similar kind of illusion is caused by Rubens in his Diana and Nymphs pursued by Satyrs.[b] On the extreme right of the picture some of the figures are stationary; then come a few who are struggling, and finally some running nymphs and satyrs, a perfect progression of events being suggested. [a] In the Louvre, and repeated with variations at Berlin. [b] The Prado, Madrid. See Plate 27. Illusion of motion is more easily obtained with animals than with human figures, providing they are fairly large, because of the greater number of their feet and the consequent wider variation between the apparent and the real movements. It is exceedingly difficult to produce a suggestion of motion with a single animal represented in a natural attitude, but the painter is only concerned with what appears to be natural or probable, and not with what is actually so. We have only a general idea of the action of a horse in nature from what we see, and consequently in design this action must be generalized irrespective of natural possibilities. Some artists combine parts of different actions as exhibited in a series of photographs in order to represent a moment of action as it is generalized to the eye, but this is only serviceable where the presumed action of the animal is one of a series of similar events, as in walking or trotting. It would not answer in the case of an isolated action, as jumping or rearing, because such actions vary with the circumstances surrounding them, as the height of the jump or the cause of the rearing. In these events therefore the artist may exaggerate to a great extent without appearing to present impossible movements. In fact nearly all good pictures of one or two horses in action are strong exaggerations of nature, but this hardly affects their æsthetic worth because the action is not recognized as abnormal or impossible. The finest painting of horses in action known to us, is Regnault's Automedon with the Horses of Achilles,[a] where the animals exhibit spirit and movement far above experience, but even if we did not know that they are presumed to be immortal, we should only regard the action as exceptional, for it does not appear to be impossible. [a] Boston Museum, U. S. A. See Plate 28. There is ample scope for the presentation of an illusion with a number of moving animals. All that is necessary is that they should be kept fairly well together with their legs in various moving attitudes. This illusion is perfectly managed by many of the French painters of battle scenes in the nineteenth century, notably Horace Vernet,[a] Gros,[b] Chartier,[c] Morot,[d] and Meissonier.[e] The action in the cavalry charges of Morot and Chartier is amazingly true to life. Even three or four animals will suffice for an illusion,[f] but this cannot be provided with the smaller animals, as sheep or goats, because although a series of progressive actions may be given to those outside animals in a flock whose legs are visible to the spectator of the picture, the scale to which they are painted is necessarily so small that the eye has an entirely insufficient range for operating the illusion. Where several horses are represented as moving at considerable speed, it is necessary that some of their feet should touch the ground, otherwise the illusion is destroyed, or else the animal may appear to be racing through the air.[g] The effect is not so disturbing when all the feet of the moving animals are on the ground,[h] or where they are hidden by herbage,[i] or where all the animals are on their hind legs,[j] though in these instances an illusion is almost impossible. [a] La Smalah at Versailles. [b] The Combat of Nazareth. [c] Jena, 1806, and Hanau, 1813. [d] Reichsoffen. [e] 1814. [f] Rosa Bonheur's Ploughing in Nivernois. [g] Fromentin's Couriers des Ooled Nayls, Luxembourg; Schreyer's The Attack, N. Y. Public Library; and Gericault's Epsom, Louvre. [h] A. Brown's The Drove. [i] Uhde's Cavalry Soldiers Going into Action, Muffel Collection. [j] Snyder's Hunt, Munich Gallery. In cases where horses and men are crowded together, and are struggling in confusion, it is only necessary in order to provide an illusion, that no action should be entirely separated from the others. There was a fine example of this work in a lost drawing or painting of Titian, of Pharaoh's Host Overwhelmed in the Red Sea[a]; and many artists of the Renaissance produced like illusions in pictures of the rape of the Sabines. Where the movement is spread over a large area, and the scale to which the animals are drawn is comparatively small, the various groups engaged must obviously be connected together in a series. Franz Adam arranges a scheme of this kind in a battle scene, using running soldiers or hauled guns as links in the chain.[b] [a] An engraving on wood by A. Andreani is in existence. [b] A Bavarian Regiment before Orleans, Munich. An illusion of motion is sometimes assisted by the title of the picture. A remarkable example of this is Robert's The Israelites Depart. Although individual action cannot be distinguished owing to the scale of the design, yet when one is acquainted with the title, the imagination is instinctively set to work, and the enormous crowds packing the wide streets seem to be streaming in one direction. Obviously for the title to have this effect, the number of signs must be overwhelming, and there must be no possibility of interpreting the picture in two ways; that is to say, accessory signs must be used to indicate the direction in which the crowd is moving.[71] CHAPTER III ILLUSION OF SUSPENSION AND MOTION IN THE AIR With the assistance of drapery--Of clouds--Of winged figures--Miscellaneous devices. The representation of figures suspended in the air, or moving through it, has never offered much trouble to painters, though necessarily involving an apparent miracle. The very slightest pretended physical assistance suffices for the illusion, and this help is usually rendered in the shape of flying drapery, winged figures, clouds, or artificial devices based upon the contact of two or more figures. The only difficulty met with is in respect of an upward vertical movement. Here, wings or clouds can scarcely be made to differentiate between a rising and a falling movement, and flying drapery is of little service inasmuch as a rush through the air would, if the feat were actually performed, cause the drapery to cling to the figure. The surest remedy for the disabilty is to support the figure directly by winged figures placed at a considerable angle from the vertical, but this plan is only rarely adopted by great masters because of the consequent complications in the design of the group. Since flying drapery is commonly added to the figure presumed to be ascending, and seeing that artists almost invariably insist upon giving their ascending figures upright attitudes, it is seldom that the movement is correctly expressed. Usually the figure appears to be held immovably in suspension, but occasionally, owing to the drapery arrangement, a descending movement is indicated.[a] Without the assistance of winged figures, the illusion of ascension can only be given when the figure is shown directed upwards at an angle of at least fifteen or twenty degrees from the vertical. As a rule the larger the angle, the more easy is the production of an illusion. With a fairly large angle, and an appropriate arrangement of limbs and drapery, heavy figures can be made to appear naturally ascending, as in Rubens's Boreas and Orithyia, both voluptuous forms.[b] [a] As in Murillo's Ascension of Christ, Madrid Academy. [b] Venice Academy. Only a very few of the first artists have been able to give an illusion of movement in the air by use of drapery alone, the device adopted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel frescoes being perhaps the most effective. He throws behind the moving figure of the Deity a large fold of drapery, which assumes an oval or nearly round shape, the whole acting as a concave framework for the Deity and attending Angels.[a] The success of the plan arises of course from the apparent resistance to the air offered by a large and compact surface. This form with more or less marked modifications in the concavity was probably used by the ancient Greeks in their paintings, as a nearly similar arrangement is found in a sculptured figure which has come down to us, though in this case a running movement is indicated.[b] It is also seen in some Pompeian frescoes, where it is applied to figures moving through the air and on the ground.[c] Raphael adopted the device occasionally,[d] but generally varied it with excellent effect by flowing out from the waist a large scarf-like fold to take a circular form above the head and shoulders of the figure,[e] or by causing heavy drapery to flow out from the lower part of the body.[f] No doubt in the case of Raphael, the extraordinary grace of figure, and the perfect pose of the limbs, assist the illusion. Tintoretto and other artists of the Renaissance used an oval drapery in a similar way; while sometimes the figure is half hidden within it,[g] and Le Sueur wrapped part of the figure in folds before forming the oval.[h] There seems to be a simple virtue in any oval form connected with figures presumed to be suspended in the air. It was quite common in the early days of the Renaissance for the Deity or Virgin and Child to be placed in a regular oval framework, sometimes supported by Angels or cherubs, and the illusion was usually successful.[i] Rubens by way of experiment went a little further in one picture, for he placed the Virgin and Child in an oval picture frame supported by cherubs.[j] This however does not seem so novel as some of Perugino's ovals which are bordered with the heads of cherubs.[k] [a] See Plate 24. [b] The Son of Niobe, Uffizi Gallery, Florence.[72] [c] Herculanum et Pompei, vol. iv., by Roux Ainé. [d] Ceiling of the Hall of Heliodorus, Vatican. [e] Vatican frescoes God Separating Water and Earth, and God Appearing to Isaac. [f] The Creation of the Sun and Moon. [g] Poussin's St. Francis Zavier, Louvre. [h] The Virgin appearing to St. Martin. [i] See the Assumption of Orcagna, and of Luca di Tome; Giunto Pisano's Christ and the Virgin; and Mainardi's Madonna giving her Girdle to St. Thomas. [j] Virgin and Child, Chiesa Nuovo, Rome. [k] Ascension of Christ, Perugia; Assumption, Florence Academy, and others. Wings are seldom sufficient to suggest lightness in the air, because they can scarcely be designed of the size and strength which we judge to be proportionate to the presumed weight of the body, without making the form appear abnormal, though there are instances in which partial success has been achieved by using comparatively small figures and giving them unusually large wings.[a] The use of more than a single pair of wings is hardly permissible because of the apparent anomaly. Actually one pair is not less incomprehensible from an anatomical point of view than several pairs, but custom has driven from our minds any suggestion of incongruity in respect of the representation of the common type of Angel. Naturally when skilfully arranged, the more wings, the stronger the illusion of flight, and if a habit of giving four wings to an Angel were engendered, we should perhaps see nothing strange in them. Even six wings have been given to Angels without making them appear ungraceful.[b] [a] J. H. Witt's Bless the Lord. [b] Picart's The Burning Coal. When there is no assistance, as clouds or flowing drapery, lent to Angels to promote the illusion of suspension, it is necessary to give them an attitude which is nearly horizontal. Properly managed, a pair of comparatively small wings may in this way appear to support a heavy form.[a] Luini actually adds the weight of the body of St. Catherine to three Angels, flying horizontally, who carry her to the tomb[b]; an invention, strangely enough, followed by Kulmbach in Germany at about the same time.[c] In both cases the illusion is excellent. Some of the early Flemish and German masters, including Van Eyck[d] and Holbein,[e] employed Angels in scenes with the Virgin to hold suspended behind her seat, large falls of brocaded material, and it is curious to note that the Angels themselves seem to be supported by the drapery. In order to assist the suggestion of lightness, Perugino sometimes arched the lower limbs of the Angels, adding a narrow tape scroll[f]; an addition improved upon by Raphael who substituted for the scroll a loosened girdle flying out from the waist.[g] [a] Rembrandt's The Angel quitting Tobias, Louvre. [b] The Brera, Milan. [c] St. Mary's, Krakan. [d] Virgin and Child at the Fountain, Antwerp. [e] Virgin and Child, Augsburg. [f] The Ascension, Borgo San Sepolcro, Perugia. [g] Creation of Woman, Castello Gallery; Prophets and Sybils, Perugia, and others. The most frequently used form of support for figures in suspension are irregular masses of clouds, upon which the figures sit or stand, and occasionally are partly enfolded therein. Sometimes the cloud bank is more or less shaped for the purpose of relief, or for variety in design. Thus, Raphael makes part of the cloud a perfect footrest for the Virgin,[a] and Palma Giovane does a similar thing for a figure of Christ,[b] but in this case the illusion is hazarded as the seat is not directly indicated. Ingres produces an excellent illusion by making the footrest a small separate cloud,[c] which is a variation from the practice of many painters of the Renaissance, who used a separate cloud for each personage in the composition, or even with each foot as with Carlo Crivelli.[d] In a fresco of the Evangelists at Florence, each of them sits with his insignia on a foliated bank of clouds.[e] Perugino in using a similar plan sometimes places the clouds at the bottom of the picture, no part of the earth being seen, so that the illusion is considerably enhanced.[f] At other times he shows Angels apparently running through the air, with each front foot resting on a tiny cloud, giving the impression that it is fastened there.[g] Durer extended this plan by directly attaching a small cloud to each foot, the effect being somewhat whimsical.[h] Titian was unsuccessful in the use of an isolated cloud.[i] In a Resurrection scene Christ stands on a small thin cloud, and holds a flag-pole, the lower end of which rests upon the cloud. Obviously with such a design no suggestion of ascent can enter the mind. [a] Foligna Madonna, Vatican. [b] Christ in Judgment, Venice. [c] The Oath of Louis XIII. [d] Coronation of the Virgin, Milan. [e] Santa Maria. By an unknown artist of the Ghirlandaio school. [f] Christ's Rule. [g] Madonna and Child with Penitents, and others. [h] The Virgin with a Canary, Berlin. [i] Urbino Gallery. [Illustration: PLATE 23 (See page 247) Patricia, by Lydia Emmet (_Private owner, N. Y._)] Some artists, as Luca Signorelli,[a] hide the lower part of the figure behind clouds, but this method, while indicating suspension, cannot provide an illusion of movement without an assisting device. Thus Schonherr shows an Angel so concealed in a nearly horizontal position with wings fully expanded, the effect being good.[b] When a figure is suspended on clouds, very rarely indeed is repose emphasized by placing it in a horizontal position, but Poussin once adopts the plan,[c] and Guercino goes so far as to represent a reclining Angel resting her head on her hand as if suffering from fatigue.[d] Perfect repose of the Deity in an upright position on clouds is produced by Gustave Doré, who reduces the size of the earth, above which He stands, to an insignificant proportion, so that the imagination sends it moving round below Him.[e] [a] Madonna and Child in Glory, Arezzo. [b] The Agony in the Garden. [c] Adam and Eve. [d] Martyrdom of St. Peter, Modena. [e] Creation of the Earth. Quite a number of artists represent the suspended figures standing on the backs of cherubs or cupids, which in their turn are supported by clouds, as for instance, R. Ghirlandaio,[a] Liberale di Verona,[b] and Francesco da Cotignola.[c] Fra Bartolommeo places a single foot of the Deity on a cherub who holds a banderole, the illusion being excellent.[d] Domenichino adopts a most ingenious device in St. Paul's Vision. He shows the Apostle being carried to Heaven by winged cherubs, who appear to find the weight considerable, and to struggle under it. There is little else to induce the illusion, which is complete.[e] A similar scheme is successfully managed in Prud'hon's Abduction of Psyche. Tassaert uses a like device, but in addition has a cherub supporting each arm of the Virgin. Palma Vecchio makes the Virgin stand on the outstretched wings of a cherub, but her robe blows upwards, giving her the appearance of descending instead of ascending.[f] Rubens has three alternatives in the use of cherubs. The figure sits on clouds with feet resting on small globes sustained by cherubs[g]; or the cherubs hold the dress and mantle of the Virgin; or they help to control the clouds upon which she sits.[h] In some of his pictures of the Immaculate Conception, Murillo also uses globes, but places the cherubs on them instead of under. Francia has a picture in which cherubs hold up clouds bearing the Virgin,[i] a device once used by Rembrandt.[j] Genga shows the Deity kneeling upon the heads of cherubs, a scheme not satisfactory.[k] Cherubs were used by Titian to hold up the Virgin and clouds,[l] while Velasquez rested the robes on clouds, but used cherubs to sustain the Holy Mother.[m] [a] The Madonna giving her Girdle to St. Thomas, Prato. [b] The Magdalene and Saints. [c] Adoration of the Shepherds, Ravenna Academy. [d] The Deity with SS. Catherine and Magdalene. [e] Assumption of the Virgin. [f] Assumption of the Virgin, Venice. [g] The Deity and Christ, Weimar. [h] Assumption of the Virgin at Dusseldorf, Augsburg, Brussels, and Vienna. [i] Madonna and Child in Glory, Berlin. [j] The Ascension, Munich. [k] The Magdalene and Saints, Milan. [l] Assumption of the Virgin, Venice. [m] Coronation of the Virgin, Madrid. The illusion is usually more complete when Angels are used instead of cherubs for support, apparently because they may be presumed to have greater strength, and the plan was adopted by some of the earlier masters of the Renaissance. The simple design of Rubens in resting the foot of Christ on the arm of a flying Angel is quite successful.[a] Fontana places the Deity on clouds supported by Angels,[b] a method adopted by Granacci, who however assists the illusion by adding two Angels who are directly supporting the figure.[c] Peter Cornelius has the Deity with His foot on a small globe which is held in position by Angels.[d] A fine example of their use is shown by Gutherz. Two Angels with large outstretched wings are bearing the body of a woman to Heaven. She lies recumbent upon a lengthy hammock formed by the robes of the Angels, the ends of the drapery being gathered up by the flying cherubs.[e] The illusion is perfect. Rembrandt also has a beautiful design in a Resurrection scene, for he shows the figure of Christ as a shade whose hands are held by a flying Angel lifting Him to Heaven.[f] A few artists, as Poussin[g] and Bouguereau,[h] use Angels to carry the figure with no other assisting device, but if the body is recumbent it is necessary that the Angels should be in a nearly upright position, otherwise they will appear to be moving horizontally.[i] Rubens in an Ascension uses the strange method of placing an Angel beneath Christ, but without touching Him.[j] The drapery flies out at the back, so that without some assistance he would appear to be descending; but the Angel below, with her hands held up, seems to correct the position. Guido Reni carries the Virgin up with Angels who support her beneath, and she seems in fact to be standing on their shoulders.[k] In one instance Correggio substitutes a smiling boy for an Angel, and he holds up a cloud on which the Virgin sits.[l] There are many works where winged figures hold a body in suspension, most of them providing excellent illusions. Among the best is Lux's Sarpedon, where the body of the Trojan is held up for Jupiter to kiss.[m] [a] Ascension of Christ, Vienna. [b] Vision of the Resurrection. [c] The Virgin giving her Girdle to St. Thomas, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. [d] Let there be Light. [e] "They shall bear thee up." [f] Munich Gallery. [g] Assumption of the Virgin, and Vision of St. Paul. [h] Assumption of the Virgin. [i] Bouguereau's Une Ame au Ciel. [j] The Academy, Venice. [k] Assumption of the Virgin, Munich. [l] Madonna and Child with Saints, Parma. [m] The Luxembourg. Even a simple banderole or scarf suffices to indicate movement in the air if well arranged. Usually a flying cherub holds an end of the banderole, and Ferri shows a wingless putto even, flying with no other assistance.[a] Boucher creates an illusion by the bold device of connecting two cupids with a narrow scarf blown out into a semicircle[b]; and in another instance very narrow tape streamers suffice.[c] [a] David plans a Temple. [b] Birth of Venus. [c] Altdorfer's Nativity at Berlin. The use of thick smoke for suspension purposes is nearly always successful, because volumes of smoke in nature necessarily tend to move upwards; but obviously this scheme can only be arranged when an altar is possible. The plan is not uncommon in pictures relating to Cain and Abel, and the Translation of Enoch. In one of the latter subject, Hoet makes part of the smoke from an altar envelop the surrounding ground so as to widen the volume, while Schnorr achieves the same end by curling round the smoke as it ascends into the form of a large saucer upon which the Deity sits,[a] a method slightly varied by Amiconi.[b] [a] God's Promise to Abraham. [b] God Appearing to Moses. Where a number of figures are connected together in a circular form in the air, the double illusion of suspension and motion follows naturally, provided their attitudes indicate a circular movement. An excellent example of this is shown in a picture by Botticelli, where Angels dance in the air over the hut of the Nativity.[a] The finest work of the kind in existence is probably Schwind's Pleiads, in which the stars are represented by a circle of beautiful nude women.[b] Extraordinary activity is suggested by the perfect arrangement of the limbs and light flowing drapery used. Bouguereau has a work of a similar kind, The Lost Pleiad, but here the dancers are upright, and the circle is only accessory to the title figure.[c] Watteau is fairly successful in giving an illusion of suspension to cupids even with a half circle, though the invention is somewhat formal.[d] [a] National Gallery, London. [b] Denner Collection. See Plate 25. [c] Brooklyn Museum, New York. [d] The Berlin example of the Embarkation for Cythera. Some of the devices used to bring about an illusion are most ingenious. Thus in his Bacchus and Ariadne,[a] Tintoretto actually applies a disability of his art for the purpose. Venus is shown in a horizontal position in the air, placing a crown of stars upon the head of Ariadne. Bacchus is standing by, and the form of the goddess floats just at the back of him, the lower side of her hip being on a level with the top of his head. Seeing that the head is covered with a profusion of vine leaves, it is impossible for the artist to indicate, or the observer to recognize, that the goddess does not actually touch the head of Bacchus, and she apparently balances herself upon his head while crowning Ariadne, the artist having been careful to place the centre of gravity of her figure over the apparent point of contact. A similar kind of illusion is provided by Burne-Jones, whose Angel of the Annunciation is upright in midair near the ground, but her feet seem to find support on the branches of a shrub.[b] Rossetti, in the same subject, shows the Angel with his feet wrapped in flames, the weight being thus apparently removed. The design seems bizarre, perhaps because of the absence of an expression of surprise which one would expect to see on the countenance of the Virgin at so extraordinary a phenomenon.[73] Schwind also uses a disability of his art for an illusion in his Phantom of the Forest.[c] She moves near the ground away from the spectator with such rapidity that her robe, a simple rectangular piece of drapery, has opened out wide from the front, and hides her figure from the shoulders down, so that from the point of view of the observer she may, or may not, be touching the ground as she moves. [a] Ducal Palace, Venice. [b] Tate Gallery, London. [c] Schack Gallery, Munich. How slight the apparent support need be, is indicated in Bouguereau's Aurora and Twilight. Each figure is represented by a nude woman holding a light scarf, the first rapidly, and the second slowly, skimming the surface of a stream of water with soft touches of the feet, and yet there is no anomaly that strikes the mind. A still more daring device is used by Battistello, though quite successfully. He places two wingless putti in the air, but one holds up the other, and this action seems to sustain them both.[a] Another amazing design is from the hand of A. P. Roll, who shows a nude-man in the air clutching another, and apparently struggling to pull him down, yet the action seems perfectly natural.[b] [a] Adoration of the Shepherds, San Martino, Naples. [b] Design for the Petit Palais, Paris. * * * * * NOTES NOTE 1. PAGE 2 It is usual and proper to distinguish three kinds of beauty in painting, namely, of colour, of form, and of expression. But form must be defined by tones, and colour without form is meaningless: hence in the general consideration of the painter's art, it is convenient to place form and colour together as representing the sensorial element of beauty. Nevertheless colour and form are not on the same plane in regard to sense perception. Harmony of colour is distinguished involuntarily by nerve sensations, but in the case of harmony of form there must be a certain consideration before its æsthetic determination. The recognition of this harmony commonly appears to be instantaneous, but still it is delayed, the delay varying with the complexity of the signs, that is to say, with the quality of the beauty. NOTE 2. PAGE 2 Benedetto Croce, the inventor of the latest serious æsthetic system, talks of the "science of art," but he says[a]: Science--true science, is a science of the spirit--Philosophy. Natural sciences spoken of apart from philosophy, are complexes of knowledge, arbitrarily abstracted and fixed. It is perhaps needless to say that Croce's æsthetic system, like all the others, collapses on a breath of inquiry. On the purely philosophical side of it, further criticism is unnecessary, and its practical outcome from the point of view of art is not far removed from the amazing conclusions of Hegel. From the latter philosopher we learn that an idol in the form of a stone pillar, or an animal set up by the primitive races, is higher art than a drama by Shakespeare, or a portrait by Titian, because it represents the Idea (Hegel's unintelligible abstraction--see Note 5), while Croce tells us that "the art of savages is not inferior, as art, to that of civilized peoples, provided it be correlated to the impressions of the savages." Clearly if this be so, we are not surprised to learn from Croce that Aristotle "failed to discern the true nature of the æsthetic." Nevertheless, whatever be the outcome of Croce's arguments, his system is at least more plausible than that of either Hegel or Schopenhauer, for while these two invent highly improbable abstractions upon which to base their systems, Croce only gives new functions to an old and reasonable abstraction. [a] _Æsthetic_, Douglas Ainslie Translation, 1909. NOTE 3. PAGE 3 The writer does not mean to suggest that these systems are set up for the purpose of being knocked down: he desires only to indicate surprise that in new works dealing with the perception of beauty, it is considered necessary to restate the old æsthetic theories and to point out their drawbacks, albeit the fatal objections to them are so numerous that there is always fresh ground available for destructive criticism. The best of the recent works on the subject that have come under the notice of the writer, is E. F. Carritt's review of the present position in respect of æsthetic systems. Though profound, he is so comprehensive that he leaves little or nothing of importance for succeeding critics to say till the next system is put forward. Yet here is his conclusion[a]: If any point can be thought to have emerged from the foregoing considerations, it is this: that in the history of æsthetics we may discover a growing pressure of emphasis upon the doctrine that all beauty is the expression of what may be generally called emotion, and that all such expression is beautiful. This is all that an acute investigator can draw from the sum of the æsthetic systems advanced. Now what does this mean? Let us turn to the last page of Carritt's book and find the object of the search after a satisfactory æsthetic system. It is, he says, "the desire to understand goodness and beauty and their relations with each other or with knowledge, as well as to practise or enjoy them." If we accept beauty as the expression of emotion, how far have we progressed towards the indicated goal? Not a step, for we have only agreed upon a new way of stating an obvious condition which applies to the animal world as well as to human beings. Beyond this there is nothing--not a glimpse of sunshine from all the æsthetic systems laid down since the time of Baumgarten. More than twenty years ago Leo Tolstoy pointed out the unintelligible character of these systems, but no further light has been thrown upon them. Nevertheless Tolstoy's own interpretation of the significance of beauty cannot possibly meet with general approval. He disputes that art is directly associated with beauty or pleasure, and finds in fact that what we call the beautiful representation of nature is not necessarily art, but that[b] Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are affected by these feelings, and also experience them. This definition may mean almost anything, and particularly it may imply pure imitation which Tolstoy condemns as outside of art. But it certainly does not include many forms of what we call art, the author specially condemning for instance, _Romeo and Juliet_, and declaring that while _Faust_ is beautiful, "it cannot produce a really artistic impression." The definition then seems to represent little more than a quibble over terms. Tolstoy says that the beautiful representation of nature is not art, but something else is. Very well then, all we have to do is to find a new term for this representation of nature, and the position remains as before except that the meaning of the term "art" has been changed. [a] _The Theory of Beauty_, 1914. [b] _What is Art?_ Aylmer Maude Translation. NOTE 4. PAGE 8 The evolutionary principle has been applied to art by Herbert Spencer and J. A. Symonds, but not in the sense in which it is used in connection with the development of living organisms. Spencer traces a progression from the simple to the complex in the application of the arts, but not in the arts themselves[a]; and Symonds endeavours to prove that each separate marked period of art shows a progression which is common to all; that is, from immature variations to a high type, then downwards through a lower form represented by romanticism or elegance, to realism, and from this to hybrid forms.[b] Spencer's argument is suggestive, but his conclusions have been mostly upset by archaeological discoveries made since his great book was published. The illustrations given by Symonds are highly illuminating, but they are very far from postulating a general law of evolution operating in the production of art. [a] _First Principles_. [b] Essay on _Evolutionary Principles_. [Illustration: PLATE 24 (See page 260) The Creation of Adam, by Michelangelo (_Vatican_)] NOTE 5. PAGE 8 It seems necessary to mention Hegel's art periods, though one can only do so with a feeling of regret that a man who achieved a high reputation as a philosopher should have entered the province of art only to misconstrue its purpose with fantastic propositions which have no historical or other apparent foundation. He divides art history into Symbolic, Classic, and Romantic periods respectively. To accomplish this he invents or discovers a new abstraction which he calls the Idea, this representing man's conception, not of God, but of His perfection--His supreme qualities, so that in one sense the Idea may be called the Absolute, in another the Spirit, and in another, Truth. These terms are in fact interchangeable, and each may be a manifestation of another, or of God. This Idea, he says, being perfect beauty, is the basic concept of art. In archaic times man was unable to give expression to this concept, so he represented it by symbols: hence the earliest art was Symbolic art. In the time of the Greeks man had so advanced that he was able to give higher expression to the Idea, and he embodied it in a perfect human form. This is the Classic period, which Hegel indicates continued till Christianity spread abroad, when Classic form, though perfect as art, was found insufficient for the now desired still higher expression of the Idea. This expression could not be put into stone, so other arts than sculpture were used for it, namely, poetry, painting, and music, which are placed together as Romantic art. This is as nearly as possible a statement of the periods of Hegel in short compass. It is impossible to interpret logically his arguments, nor is it necessary, for his conclusions when tested in the light of experience, develop into inexplicable paradoxes and contradictions which border on the ridiculous. Needless to say, the acceptance of this division means the annihilation of our ideas of the meaning of art, and the condemnation to the limbo of forgetfulness of nearly all the artists whose memory is honoured. The general interpretation of the terms "Classic Art" and "Romantic Art" widely differs from that of Hegel, and varies with the arts. In the literary arts the distinction is obvious, but the terms are used to define both periods and classes; in architecture the Gothic period is usually called the Romantic epoch; and in painting the terms have reference to manner, the more formal manner being called Classic, and the soft manner, Romantic; though it is commonly understood that Romantic art is especially concerned with subjects associated with the gentler side of life. But there is no general agreement. Some writers assert that Giorgione was the first of the romanticists, others give the palm to Watteau, a third section to Delacroix, and a fourth to the Barbizon School. We must await a clear definition of "Romantic Art." NOTE 6. PAGE 8 It may be reasonably argued that the want of development of the plastic arts in England during the literary revival, was largely due to artificial restrictions. Fine paintings were ordered out of the churches by Elizabeth, and many were destroyed; while, following the lead of the court, there was little or no encouragement offered by the public to artists except perhaps in portraiture. Flaxman truly said of the destruction of works of art in this period, that the check to the national art in England occurred at a time which offered the most essential and extraordinary assistance to its progress. NOTE 7. PAGE 16 During the last half century or so, various writers of repute, including Ruskin and Dean Farrar, have professed to find in the poorer works of the Italian painters of the fourteenth century, and even in paintings of Margaritone and others of the previous century, evidence of strong religious emotion on the part of the artists. It is claimed that their purpose in giving simple solemn faces to their Madonnas and Saints, was "to tell the sacred story in all its beauty and simplicity"; that they possessed a "powerful sincerity of emotion"; that they "delivered the burning messages of prophecy with the stammering lips of infancy," and so on. It is proper to say that there is nothing to support this view of the early painters. We find no trace of any suggestions of the kind till the last of these artists had been dead for about four hundred years, while their lives, so far as we have any record, lend no warranty to the statements. The painters of the fourteenth century took their art seriously, but purely as a craft, and it was not uncommon with them to combine two or three other crafts with that of painting. They designed mostly sacred subjects for the simple reason that the art patrons of the day seldom ordered anything else. In their private lives they associated together, were generally agreeable companions, and not averse to an occasional escapade. Moreover the time in which they lived was notable for what we should call loose habits, and indeed from the thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth, religious observances and practices were of a more hollow and formal character than they have ever been since. The position occupied by these painters in the progression of art from the crude Byzantine period upwards, corresponds with that of the Roman painters of the third and fourth centuries in the progression downwards to the Byzantine epoch, and there is no more reason for supposing that the Italians were actuated by special emotions in their work, than that the Romans were so moved. In both cases the character of the work, as Reynolds put it in referring to the Italians, was the result of want of knowledge. The countenances usually presented by both Roman and Italian artists have a half sad, half resigned expression, because this was the only kind of expression that could be given by an immature painter whose ideal was restricted by the necessity of eliminating elements which might indicate happiness. Giotto, Taddeo Gaddi, Duccio, and a few more, were exceptions in that their art was infinitely superior to the average of the century, but all from Giotto downwards, laboured as craftsmen only. No doubt they often worked with enthusiasm, and in this way their emotions may have been brought into play, but there is no possible means of identifying in a picture the emotions which an artist may have experienced while he was painting it. As to the sad expression referred to in these Italian works, it may be observed that Edgar A. Poe held that the tone of the highest manifestation of beauty is one of sadness. "Beauty of whatever kind," he says, "in its supreme development invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears."[a] But Poe is clearly mistaken here. It is not the beauty of the work that affects the emotions to tears, when they are so affected, but the subject of the design exhibiting the beauty. A picture or poem representing a sad subject may be very beautiful, but the sadness itself would not assist the beauty, though it might increase the emotional effect. The higher forms of beauty rarely draw our tears, but elicit our admiration without direct thought of anything but the beauty. Who would weep when in front of the greatest marvels of Greek sculpture? [a] _The Philosophy of Composition._ NOTE 8. PAGE 21 It is commonly, but wrongfully, supposed that Rembrandt used his broadest manner in painting commissioned portraits. The number of his portraits known to exist is about 450, of which fifty-five are representations of himself, and fifty-four of members of his household, or relatives. There are, further, more than seventy studies of old men and women, and thirty of younger men. The balance are commissioned portraits or groups. This last section includes none at all of his palette knife pictures, and not more than two or three which are executed with his heaviest brushes. Generally his work broadened in his later period, but up to the end of his life his more important works were often painted in a comparatively fine manner, though the handling was less careful and close.[a] The broadest style of the artist is rarely exhibited except in his studies and family portraits. Further it is extremely unlikely that a palette-knife picture would have been accepted in Holland during Rembrandt's time as a serious work in portraiture. [a] See among works dating after 1660, The Syndics of the Drapers, Portrait of a Young Man, Wachtmeister Collection; Lady with a Dog, Colmar Museum; and Portrait of a Young Man, late Beit Collection. NOTE 9. PAGE 22 Darwin pointed out the permanent character of the changes in the nerves, though he submitted another demonstration[a]: That some physical change is produced in the nerve cells or nerves which are habitually used can hardly be doubted, for otherwise it is impossible to understand how the tendency to certain acquired movements is inherited. [a] _The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals._ NOTE 10. PAGE 23 Reynolds evidently had little faith in original genius. Addressing Royal Academy students, he said[a]: You must have no dependence on your own genius. If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply the deficiency. Nothing is denied to well-directed labour; nothing is to be obtained without it.... I will venture to assert that assiduity unabated by difficulty, and a disposition eagerly directed to the object of its pursuit, will produce effects similar to those which some call the result of natural powers. On another occasion Reynolds observed of Michelangelo[b]: He appears not to have had the least conception that his art was to be acquired by any other means than great labour; and yet he of all men that ever lived, might make the greatest pretensions to the efficacy of native genius and inspiration. Gibbon said that Reynolds agreed with Dr. Johnson in denying all original genius, any natural propensity of the mind to one art or science rather than another.[c] Hogarth also agreed with Reynolds, for he describes genius as "nothing but labour and diligence." Croce says that genius has a quantitative and not a qualitative signification, but he offers no demonstration.[d] Evidently he is mistaken, for the signification is both quantitative and qualitative. It is true that what a Phidias, or a Raphael, or a Beethoven puts together is a sum of small beauties, any one of which may be equalled by another man, but he does more than represent a number of beauties, for he combines these into a beautiful whole which is superior in quality and cannot be estimated quantitatively. We may possibly call Darwin a genius because of the large number of facts he ascertained, and the correct inferences he drew from them, but we particularly apply the term to him by reason of the general result of all these facts and inferences, this result being qualitative and not quantitative. Croce probably took his dictum from Schopenhauer, who, however, represented degrees of quality as quantitative,[e] which is of course confusing the issue. [a] Reynolds's Second Discourse. [b] His Fifth Discourse. [c] Gibbon's _Memoirs of my Life and Writings_. [d] _Æsthetic._ [e] Essay on "Genius." NOTE 11. PAGE 32 It is often observed by advocates of "new" forms of art that the work of many great artists has been variously valued at different periods--that leaders of marked departures in art now honoured, were frequently more or less ignored in their own time, while other artists who acquired a great reputation when living, have been properly put into the background by succeeding generations. For the first statement no solid ground can be shown. In painting, the artists since the Dark Age who can be said to have led departures of any importance, are Cimabue, Giotto, the Van Eycks, Masaccio, Lionardo, Dürer, Giorgione, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Holbein, Claude, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Watteau, Reynolds, and Fragonard. All of these had their high talents recognized and thoroughly appreciated in their lifetime. In sculpture the experience is the same, for there is no sculptor now honoured whose work was not highly valued by his contemporaries. So with poetry, but before the invention of printing and in the earlier days of this industry, poetry of any kind was very slow in finding its way among the people. What might seem nowadays to have been inappreciation of certain poets was really want of knowledge of them. There is more truth in the assertion that many artists who had a high reputation in their lifetime are now more or less disregarded, though it does not follow from this that there has been a reversal of opinion on the part of the public, or a variation in the acuteness of æsthetic perception. Generally we find that these artists very properly held the position they occupied in their time and country, and if they do not now stand on exalted pedestals it is only because we compare them with men of other periods and places, which their contemporary countrymen did not do, at least for the purpose of establishing their permanent position in art. Carlo Maratta for instance was celebrated in Italy as the best painter of his country in his time, and even now we must so regard him, but his contemporaries as with ourselves did not place him on so high a level as his great predecessors of the sixteenth century, and some of the seventeenth. A special reason why many of the seventeenth century artists of Italy have fallen in public esteem may be found in the fact that they excelled mostly in the production of sensorial beauty, paying little attention to intellectual grace, and the ripening of general intelligence as time goes on makes us more and more sensitive to beauty of mind. NOTE 12. PAGE 34 There have been many definitions of "Impressionism" given, but they vary considerably. Professor Clausen describes it as the work of a number of artists whose interest is in recording effects of light, seeking to express nature only and disregarding old conventions.[a] Mr. D. S. MacColl says that an impressionist is[b] a painter who, out of the completed contacts of vision constructs an image moulded upon his own interest in the thing seen, and not on that of any imaginary schoolmaster. This definition is insufficient by itself, but the writer makes his meaning clearer in the same article when he says: Impressionism is the art that surveys the field, and determines which of the shapes and tones are of chief importance to the interested eye, and expresses these and sacrifices the rest. According to C. Mauclair, an acknowledged authority on impressionism, the impressionist holds: Light becomes the one subject of a picture. The interest of the objects on which it shines is secondary. Painting thus understood becomes an art of pure optics, a seeking for harmonies, a species of natural poem, entirely distinct from expression, style, drawing, which have formed the main endeavour of preceding painting. It is almost necessary to invent a new word for this special art, which, while remaining throughout pictural, approaches music in the same degree as it departs from literature or psychology.[c] What can be said of so amazing a declaration? The arts of painting and music do not, and cannot, have any connection with each other. They are concerned with different senses and different signs, and by no stretch of the imagination can they be combined. Seeing that musical terms when used in respect of painting by modern critics are almost invariably made to apply to colour harmonies, we may infer that a confusion of thought arises in the minds of the writers from the similar physical means by which colour and sound are conveyed to the senses concerned. But this similarity has nothing to do with the appreciation of art. The æsthetic value of a work is determined when it is conveyed to the mind, irrespective of the means by which it is so conveyed. According to La Touche it was Fantin Latour who invented modern impressionism. Braquemond relates that La Touche told him the following story.[d] He (La Touche) was one day at the Louvre with Manet, when they saw Latour copying Paolo Veronese's Marriage at Cana in a novel manner, for instead of blending his colours in the usual way, he laid them on in small touches of separate tones. The result was an unexpected brilliancy ("papillotage imprevu") which amazed but charmed the visitors. Nevertheless when Manet left the Louvre with La Touche, he appeared anything but satisfied with what he had seen, and pronounced it humbug. But Latour's method evidently sunk into his mind, for a few days later he commenced to use it himself. Thus, added La Touche, was modern impressionism unchained. The date of this visit was not given by La Touche, but 1874 was subsequently suggested. This account does not fit in with the statement of MacColl that when Monet and Pissarro were in London during the siege of Paris, the study of Turner's pictures gave them the suggestion of these broken patches of colour.[e] If this be true Monet must have antedated Manet in the application of isolated tones. D. S. Eaton asserts that in the Salon of 1867, there was exhibited a picture by Monet which was entitled Impressions,[f] and from this arose the word "Impressionist"; but Phythian says that the word resulted from Monet's "Impression, soleil levant," exhibited in 1874 at the Nadar Gallery in Paris with other works from Le Société Anonyme des Artistes, Peintres, Sculpteurs, et Graveurs. Phythian adds[g]: Thus, unwittingly led by one of the exhibitors, visitors to the exhibition came to use the word "impressioniste," and within a few days a contemptuously unfavourable notice of the exhibition appeared in _Le Charivari_ under the heading "Exposition des Impressionistes." It was not until the lapse of several years that the name came into general use. The painters to whom it was applied disowned it because it was used in a depreciatory sense. Eventually however, unable to find a better one, they adopted it. Another origin of Impressionism is given by Muther. He says[h]: The name "Impressionists" dates from an exhibition in Paris which was given at Nadar's in 1871. The catalogue contained a great deal about impressions--for instance, "Impression de mon pot au feu," "Impression d'un chat qui se promene." In his criticism Claretie summed up the impressions, and spoke of the Salon des Impressionistes. But the real origin of impressionism must be sought earlier than 1871, for in 1865 Manet exhibited his Olympia in the Salon des Refusés. This picture did not represent what was understood as impressionism ten years later, but it led the way towards the establishment of the innovation, in that it pretended that healthy ideas and noble designs were secondary considerations in art. Certainly Manet could not descend lower than this wretched picture, and in this sense his subsequent work was a distinct advance. [a] Royal Academy Lectures. [b] Article on "Impressionism," _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 11th Edition. [c] _L'Impressionism, son histoire, son esthétique, ses maîtres._ [d] _Le Journal des Arts_, 1909. [e] Article on "Impressionism," _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 11th edition. [f] _Handbook of Modern French Painting._ [g] _Fifty Years of Modern Painting._ [h] _History of Modern Painting_, vol. iii. NOTE 13. PAGE 35 The reason given by impressionists for the juxtaposition of pure colours is that the natural blend produced is more brilliant than the tone from the mixed colours applied, but it is pointed out by Moreau-Vauthier that the contrary is the case. He says[a]: We find in practice that the parent colours do not, with material colours, produce the theoretical binaries. We get dark, dull greens, oranges, and violets, that clash with the parent colours. To make them harmonize we should be obliged to dim these material colours, to transform them, and consequently to lose them partly. [a] _The Technique of Painting_, 1912. NOTE 14. PAGE 37 Cézanne and Van Gogh are not usually put forward as representative impressionists, but it is impossible to differentiate logically between the various "isms" of which impressionism is the mother, and to attempt a serious argument upon them would be apt to reflect upon the common sense of the reader. The sincere impressionist certainly produces a thing of beauty, however ephemeral and lacking in high character the beauty may be, but most of the productions of the other "isms" only serve the purpose of degrading the artist and the art. NOTE 15. PAGE 40 This form of picture is by no means new, though except among the inventors of sprezzatura, and the modern impressionists, it has always been executed as a rough sketch for the purpose of settling harmonies for serious work. Lomazzo relates that Aurelio, son of Bernadino Luini, while visiting Titian, asked him how he managed to make his landscape tones harmonize so well. For reply the great master showed Aurelio a large sketch, the character of which could not be distinguished when it was closely inspected, but on the observer stepping back, a landscape appeared "as if it had suddenly been lit up by a ray of the sun."[a] From Luini's surprise, and inasmuch as we have no record of similar work before his time, it is reasonable to suppose that Titian was the first great artist to use this form of sketch for experimental purposes. [a] _Trattato dell' Arte de la Pittura._ [Illustration: PLATE 25 (See page 269) The Pleiads, by M. Schwind] NOTE 16. PAGE 40 The example of this picture at the Pitti Palace is specially noted because it seems impossible that the duplicate in the Uffizi Gallery can be by Raphael, for it has obvious defects, some of which have many times been pointed out. The expression is vastly inferior to that in the Pitti portrait, for instead of a calm, noble, benign countenance, we have a half-worried senile face which is anything but pleasant. Raphael was the last man to execute a portrait of a Pope without generalizing high character in the features. It will be observed also that in the Uffizi portrait, the left hand is stiff and cramped, and the drapery ungracefully flowing, while both uprights of the chair are actually out of drawing. There are other examples of the same picture in different museums, but the Pitti work is far above these in every respect, and seems the only one which can be properly attributed to the master. Passavant affirms that some of the repetitions of the work were certainly made in the studio of Raphael under his orders, and thinks that the duplicates passed for originals even in his time.[a] [a] _Raphael d'Urbin_, vol. ii. NOTE 17. PAGE 41 To the knowledge of the writer, the only logical connection between the work of Rembrandt and impressionism that has been suggested, is from the pen of Professor Baldwin Brown, who remarks[a]: Rembrandt in his later work attended to the pictorial effect alone, and practically annulled the objects by reducing them to pure tone and colour. Things are not there at all, but only the semblance, or effect, or impression of things. Breadth is in this way combined with the most delicate variety, and a new form of painting, now called "impressionism" has come into being. The professor is mistaken here. During the last fifteen years of his life, apart from portraits, a few studies of heads, and some colour experiments with carcases of meat, Rembrandt executed, so far as is known, about three dozen pictures, and in all of these he effectually prevents us from forming a general impression of the designs before considering the more important details, by concentrating nearly all the available light upon the countenances of the principal personages represented; while in the management of the features, the whole purpose of the chiaroscuro is for the purpose of obtaining relief. Moreover the pictures are nearly all groups of personages in set subjects, and there would be no meaning in the designs if the objects were "practically annulled," for particular action and expression are necessary for their comprehension. As to Velasquez there is no evidence tending to support the statement that he was an impressionist. The first authority on the artist has definitely pointed out that he never took up his brushes except for an important and definite work: "he neither painted impressions nor daubs."[b] [a] Article on "Painting," _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 11th edition. [b] _Velasquez_, by De Beruete, 1902. NOTE 18. PAGE 49 It will always be a matter of surprise that so much popularity was secured by the light sketches of the Barbizon School, considering their general insignificance from the point of view of art, and the conspicuously artificial means adopted for their exploitation. Some of the artists of this school, having accomplished many studio works of merit, acquired the habit of painting in the open air. By this method it is impossible to execute a comprehensive natural scene, and the painters did not attempt the task, but they produced numberless sketchy works of local scenes under particular atmospheric conditions. They laboured honestly and conscientiously, and their sketches were put out for what they were and nothing more. The paintings would probably have retained their place as simple studies had not some commercial genius conceived the idea of putting them into heavy, gorgeous, gilt frames. With this embellishment they were successfully scattered round the world, mostly in the newer portions, much to the general astonishment. The _raison d'être_ of the frames puzzled many persons, though it was frequently observed that the pictures do not look well unless surrounded by ample gold leaf. Thus, C. J. Holmes, Director of the London National Gallery, and an authority on impressionism, notes[a]: Barbizon pictures are almost invariably set in frames with an undeniably vulgar look. Yet in such a rectangle of gilded contortion a Corot or a Daubigny shows to perfection: place it in a frame of more reticent design, and it becomes in a moment flat, empty, and tame. The purpose of this frame is obvious. The eye is caught by the dazzling glitter, and feels immediate relief when it rests upon the quiet grey tone of the painting, the pleasurable sensation resulting therefrom being mistaken for involuntary appreciation of the beauty of the work. As finished paintings these Barbizon sketches are novel, but as studies they are not, for similar work has been executed for two or three centuries, and particularly by the Dutch artists of the seventeenth century. In every considerable collection of drawings such sketches may be found, and there is scarcely a Barbizon painter whose work was not anticipated by a Dutch master. One has only to examine the drawings in the public art institutions of Europe by De Molyn, Blyhooft, Jan de Bischop, Lambert Doomer, Berghem, Avercamp, and others, to find examples which, if executed now, might easily be taken for works by the Barbizon masters. [a] _Notes on the Science of Picture-Making._ NOTE 19. PAGE 52 In recent times attempts have been made to upset the dictum of Aristotle as to the imitative character of the arts generally, exception being taken in respect of music and architecture. The first objection as to music arose with Schopenhauer, though he does not appear to have been quite certain of his position. He stated that while the other arts represent ideas, music does not, but being an art it must represent something, and he suggested that this something is the "Will," the term being used in the Schopenhauer philosophical sense, that is to say, implying the active principle of the universe, not being God. This means nothing at all from the point of view of art, and cannot even be seriously considered. The most notable essay on the subject since Schopenhauer is from the pen of Sidney Colvin who places music and architecture in a non-imitative group by themselves, the former on the principal ground that "it is like nothing else; it is no representation or similitude of anything whatever"; while architecture, he says, "appeals to our faculties for taking pleasure in non-imitative combinations of stationary masses."[a] But what Aristotle meant is that the arts are imitative in character, and not that they necessarily attempt to produce works of similitude with nature, this being evident from the fact that he pointed out that the higher works of art surpass nature, and he divided poetry and painting into three sections, of which the first is better than life, and the third inferior to it. The musician in producing his art proceeds in precisely the same way as the poet or painter. He takes natural signs and rearranges them in a new order, producing a combination which is not to be found complete in nature, but every sign therein is natural and must necessarily be so. The higher the flight of the poet, or musician, or painter, or sculptor, the farther is the result from nature, but nevertheless the whole aim of the musician, as of the poet, is to represent emotional effects or natural phenomena beyond experience in life, as the great sculptor represents form and expression, and the great poet besides these things, every abstract quality, passion, and emotional effect, above this experience; but he cannot do more; he cannot represent something outside of nature, and so must imitate, that is, in the sense of representation. Darwin notes that even a perfect musical scale can be found in nature. He says[b]: It is a remarkable fact that an ape, a species of the gibbon family, produces an exact octave of musical sounds, ascending and descending the scale by half tones. From this fact, and from the analogy of other animals, I have been led to infer that the progenitors of man probably uttered musical tones, and that consequently, when the voice is used under any strong emotion, it tends to assume, through the principle of association, a musical character. It has been further demonstrated that the strength of the sensory impressions from certain sounds is due to the structure of the ear, and that generally a particular kind of sound produces a similar kind of emotional effect in animals as in man. Obviously the musician is powerless to do more than widen or deepen this effect. Colvin admits that the musician sometimes directly imitates, as when he produces the notes of birds or the sounds of natural forces, or when he represents particular emotions; but he regards the former instances as hazardous and exceptional, and indicates that a particular emotional harmony may affect the hearers differently. True, but the hazard of the first condition is the result of the limitations of the artist, and the second condition is the consequence of the limitations of the art. The effect of music being purely sensorial must vary with the emotional conditions surrounding the hearer. The musician does what he can, but he is unable to go so far as the poet and produce an emotional effect which will with certainty be recognized by every person affected, at all times, as having the same particular bearing. Taine separates music ("properly so called" as distinguished from dramatic music) and architecture from the imitative arts, as they "combine mathematical relationships so as to create works that do not correspond with real objects."[c] Obviously the whole purpose of dramatic music is to imitate the effects of the passions, but its necessary inclusion amongst the imitative arts upsets the dictum of Taine, for the emotional effects of one kind of music only differ from those of another kind when they differ at all, in the character of the natural emotional effects represented. In the case of the architect, seeing that his art is subordinated to utility, his scheme, his measurements, and the character of his materials, are largely or almost entirely governed by conditions outside of his art, and consequently it is only possible for him to represent nature to a limited extent. Rarely can he vaguely suggest a natural aisle beneath the celestial dome, a rock-walled cave whose roof soars into obscurity, or a fairy grotto backed by a beetling cliff. Sometimes he may cause us to experience similar effects in kind to those we feel when we recognize grandeur in nature, but usually he is compelled to confine his beauty to harmonies produced by symmetrical designs of straight lines and curves. But in his simplest as in his most complex designs, he must follow nature as closely as possible. Purely ornamental forms always appear more beautiful when the parts have a direct mathematical relationship with each other than when they have not; that is to say, when the parts appear to be naturally related. Thus, that a cross appears to be less agreeable to the sight when the horizontal bar is below the centre of the perpendicular than when it is above this point, is due to what appears to be a want of balance because the form is unobservable in nature. In trees the horizontal parts are usually above the middle of the height of the observable trunk, and in the exceptions nature gives the whole tree a conical or other shape, the relative position of the horizontal parts being obscured in the general form. As with parts of forms, so with the forms as wholes. Other things being equal, that design is the best where the forms are directly proportioned one with the other and with the whole, and this is because we are accustomed to the order of design in nature where everything is balanced by means of direct proportions and corresponding relations. The architect therefore, like the musician or poet, must represent nature so far as he can within the limits of his art, though his representation is comparatively weak owing to the artificial restrictions imposed upon him. [a] Article on "Fine Arts," _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 11th Edition. [b] _The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals._ [c] _On the Ideal in Art._ NOTE 20. PAGE 54 The dictum of Aristotle in reference to metre in poetry related only to epic and dramatic verse, for what we understand as lyric poetry was separated by the Greeks as song in which of course metre is compulsory. It is doubtful whether a single definition can cover both epic poetry, whose beauty lies almost wholly in the substance, and lyric verse where the beauty rests chiefly in qualities of expression and musical form, and in which indeed the substance may be altogether negligible. A cursory examination of Watts-Dunton's definition of "Poetry," which is admittedly the best put forward in recent times, shows its entire inadequacy. "Absolute poetry," he says, "is the concrete and artistic expression of the human mind in emotional and rhythmical language."[a] This would exclude from the art some of the finest sacred verse, which, though in the form of prose, has been recognized as poetry from time immemorial. Metre is only one of the devices of the poet for accomplishing his end---the presentation of beautiful pictures upon the mind, but in high poetry there is a still more compulsory artifice which is not included in Watts-Dunton's definition, and that is metaphor. In the form of words the details of a picture can only be dealt with successively, and not simultaneously, and without metaphor the poet would sometimes be in the position of the painter who should present a dozen different pictures each containing only one part of a composition, and call upon the observer to put the pieces together in his mind. Further the term "absolute" in the definition quoted has no comprehensible meaning if it does not exclude a good deal of verse which is commonly recognized as poetry, while, as is admitted by Watts-Dunton, there is much accepted lyric verse without concrete expression. In high poetry as in high painting, the beauty appeals both to the senses and the mind, and in each art the quality descends as the sensorial overbalances the intellectual appeal, and the effect becomes more ephemeral. In the very highest of the plastic arts, colour has little value except in assisting definition; and in the very highest poetry musical form has only an emphasizing value, for the sensorial beauty arising from form in the one case, and form and action in the other, entirely overpowers the harmonies of colour and tone respectively. But colour without design is meaningless, so that it cannot be applied in the fine arts apart from design: hence in painting, colour presents no complication in respect of definition. On the other hand music, with or without association with poetry, is equally an art since in either case it imitates the effects of human emotions in a beautiful way. Thus, where metre is present poetry is a combined art, and seeing that metre may not be present, a definition of "Poetry" must cover what may be in one case a pure, and in another, a compound art. [a] Article on "Poetry," _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 11th edition. NOTE 21. PAGE 55 There seems to be a tendency to overestimate the disparity between translations of high poetry and the originals. The value of a translation depends primarily upon the character of the thing translated, since it is the form that is unreproducible in another tongue, and not the substance. In epic and dramatic poetry where the form is of secondary importance, a good literal translation may come much nearer to the original than a translation of a lyric where the form is usually of at least equal importance with the substance. We lose less of Homer or Sophocles than of Sappho or Theocritus in translation. In the case of epic poetry the higher its character, the closer to the original appears the translation, because the form is of less relative importance. More of Dante is lost than of Homer in literal translation, but the difference narrows when the new versions are in metrical form, for the use of metre in translation is necessarily more detrimental as the substance of the original increases in power, and this relative weakening is emphasized as the beauty of form in the translation is raised. Pope is farther from Homer than Chapman, and Chapman than the prose translations of Buckley and Lang. As we descend in the scale of the art, so it becomes more difficult to reproduce the poet in translation, and in most lyric poetry the beauty seems almost entirely lost in another tongue from the original, though when the substance is of weight, and the translator is himself a good poet, he sometimes gives us a paraphrase with a high beauty of its own. Some modern poets seem to eschew substance altogether. Much of the verse of esteemed French and Belgian poets is quite meaningless in literal translation, the authors relying for the effects entirely upon musical form and beauty of expression. NOTE 22. PAGE 66 Lessing points out this remarkable picture of Homer as emphasizing the beauty of Helen, observing: What could produce a more vivid idea of beauty than making old age confess that it is well worth while the war which cost so much blood, and so much treasure? Nevertheless the remark of the old men does not seem to mean so much as the description of the sages and their reference to the goddesses. It is difficult to imagine several wise men agreeing that the sanguinary war of nine years was really excusable in view of Helen's beauty, and the statement therefore is naturally received as a permissible overcolour. Consequently the effect of the remark would be discounted, and unlikely to be sufficient for the purpose of the poet. True, the Greeks seem to have been childlike sometimes in their simplicity, but there is no evidence that they were so wanting in a sense of proportion as to accept literally this opinion of the elders. But when we observe the senility of the elders, and the physical feebleness which has apparently rendered them incapable of sensual pleasures, then indeed we must marvel at a beauty which excites their emotions so powerfully as to bring the goddesses to their minds.[a] In discussing the suitableness of this incident as a subject for a painting, Lessing remarks that the passion felt by the old men was "a momentary spark which their wisdom at once extinguished," but later on, referring to the possibility that the veil worn by Helen when she passed through the streets of Troy had not been removed when she was seen by the elders, he points out[b]: When the elders displayed their admiration for her, it must not be forgotten that they were not seeing her for the first time. Their confession therefore did not necessarily arise from the present momentary view of her, for they had doubtless often experienced before the feelings which they now for the first time acknowledged. This is very true, but it only serves to deepen the impression of Helen's beauty, for the element of surprise is removed from the minds of the elders, the mere sight of her, veiled or unveiled, being sufficient to recall the passionate thrills previously experienced. [a] See on this subject Quintilian, viii., 4. [b] _Laocoon_, Rönnfeldt translation. NOTE 23. PAGE 67 In nearly all the instances of sublimity quoted by Longinus there is this particular merit of brevity---the picture is thrown upon the brain immediately, without pause or anything whatever to complicate the beauty. But the learned critic directs attention only to the magnificent thoughts and the appropriate use of them, without pointing out the extraordinary condensation of the language employed. Apart from the instance from Genesis given, there is another of his examples in which practically the whole beauty of the picture is produced by the rapidity of its presentation. This is the exclamation of Hyperides when accused of passing an illegal decree for the liberation of slaves--"It was not an orator that made this decree, but the battle of Chæronea." Longinus observes[a]: At the same time that he exhibits proof of his legal proceedings, he intermixes an image of the battle, and by that stroke of art quite passes the bounds of mere persuasion. But it was rather the manner in which the battle was introduced than the fact of its introduction, that gave force to the argument. If instead of confining himself to a short brilliant observation, Hyperides had carefully traced cause and effect in the matter, he would still have intermixed an image of the battle, but he would not then have produced a work of art. Still finer instances of the use of brevity in expresssion by the orator are to be found in the speeches of Demosthenes. For example in his oration On the Crown he says: "Man is not born to his parents only, but to his country." A whole volume on the meaning and virtue of patriotism could not say more: hence the sublime art. The simple statement lights a torch by which we examine every convulsion in history; presents a moving picture in which we see the motives and aspirations guiding the patriots of a hundred generations; sets an eternal seal of nobility upon the love of man for his native country. And a few words suffice. The same thought might be elaborated into a large volume, but the art would fly with the brevity. [a] _On the Sublime_, XV., William Smith translation. NOTE 24. PAGE 68 There are many translations of the Ode to Anactoria, but the best of them reflects only slightly the depth of passion in the original. The version which most nearly represents the substance, while maintaining the unhalting flow of language, is perhaps that of Ambrose Philips (1675-1749), which runs thus:-- Blest as th' immortal gods is he, The youth who fondly sits by thee, And hears, and sees thee all the while Softly speak, and sweetly smile. 'Twas this deprived my soul of rest, And raised such tumults in my breast; For while I gazed, in transport tost, My breath was gone, my voice was lost. My bosom glowed; the subtle flame Ran quick through all my vital frame; O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung; My ears with hollow murmurs rung. In dewy damps my limbs were chilled; My blood with gentle horrors thrilled; My feeble pulse forgot to play; I fainted, sunk, and died away. The English reproductions of this ode in the Sapphic measure are not very successful, the difficulty of course being due to the practical impossibility of fulfilling the quantitative conditions of the strophe without stilting the flow of language, or unduly varying the substance. But it has been shown by Dr. Marion Miller in his translation of Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite, which is much higher in substance and somewhat less condensed in expression than the Ode to Anactoria, that with certain liberties in respect of quantities, a very beautiful semblance of the Sapphic measure may be produced in English. His translation of this hymn is unquestionably the best in our language, though this is perhaps partly due to the fact that he is almost the only translator who has adhered to the text in regard to the sex of the loved person. To make the object of affection a man seems inappropriate to the language employed in the verse. (It is proper to mention that a license taken by Dr. Miller in his translation---where he renders the passage relating to the sparrows, as "clouding with their pinions, Earth's wide dominions"--suggested to the present writer the somewhat similar picture to be found on Page 111.) [Illustration: PLATE 26 (See page 250) St. Margaret, by Raphael (_Louvre_)] NOTE 25. PAGE 68 The gradual decadence of the great period of Grecian sculpture is well marked by the successive variations of the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles. The copy of this at the Vatican is no doubt a close representation of the original, but later there was commenced a long series of variations, all of them more or less complicating the design. First a pillar was substituted for the vase, reaching nearly to the armpits, and the left forearm rested upon it, while drapery fell down the front, so that some exertion was required to separate the figure to the eye. Then a dolphin was substituted for the pillar, the head of the animal resting on the ground, and the body rising up straight with the bent tail forming the support. Then for this was placed a dolphin with its body corkscrew shaped, which was particularly weak as it tended to deprive the figure of repose. After this, while the dolphin was maintained, a cestus was sometimes added, and heavy drapery applied in various folds. Finally the attitude of the figure was changed, that of the Venus de' Medici being adopted, while the pillar or dolphin was retained. Each alteration necessarily diminished the beauty of the figure. NOTE 26. PAGE 69 Reynolds seems to have been disappointed with the frescoes of Raphael when he first saw them, and this fact has been called in evidence by some modern critics to support their contention that the art of the great masters is really inferior to that wherein design is subordinated to colour. But Reynolds very definitely admitted that his first impression was wrong, for after studying the frescoes, he notes[a]: In a short time a new taste and a new perception began to dawn upon me, and I was convinced that I had originally formed a false opinion of the perfection of art, and that this great painter was well entitled to the high rank which he holds in the admiration of the world. Reynolds was quite a young man when he went to Rome, and his appreciation of Raphael increased as his experience matured. More than twenty years after the visit, he remarked that Raphael had "a greater combination of the high qualities of the art than any other man,"[b] and ten years later he affirmed that the Urbino artist stood foremost among the first painters.[c] Reynolds supposed that his lack of appreciation of the frescoes when he first saw them arose from want of immediate comprehension of them: he was unaccustomed to works of such great power, but it is to be observed that his inspection was a very short one, and we may reasonably draw the conclusion that changing light conditions had much to do with the effect the paintings left upon him at the time. When one enters a room where the light differs materially in intensity or quality from that experienced just previously, it is advisable to rest quietly for a little while before examining works defined by colour, in order that the eyes may become accustomed to the new light. [a] Reynolds's _Italian Note Book_. [b] His Fifth Discourse at the Royal Academy. [c] His Twelfth Discourse. NOTE 27. PAGE 73 That the judgment of the public upon a work of art is final seems to have been recognized by all the ancient writers who dealt with the matter, and that the Greeks generally held this view is evident from many incidents, notably the reference to public judgment in the great competition between Phidias and Alcamenes. During the Renaissance also the opinion held good, and it is worth noting that the suggestion sometimes made that Michelangelo did not conform to this view is unsupported by evidence. Vasari relates the following anecdote[a]: He [Michelangelo] went to see a work of sculpture which was about to be sent out because it was finished, and the sculptor was taking much trouble to arrange the lights from the windows to the end that it might show up well; whereupon Michelangelo said to him: "Do not trouble yourself, the important thing will be the light of the piazza"; meaning to infer that when works are in public places, the people must judge whether they are good or bad. Lionardo went so far as to advise artists to hear any man's opinion on his work, "for," he said, "we know very well that though a man may not be a painter, he has a true conception of the form of another man."[b] It is a common misconception with the general public, though not among serious artists, that by reason of their profession artists are better judges of works of art than other men. Obviously the recognition of beauty in art is apart altogether from the means by which it is created, and subject to the exceptions noted elsewhere, all men are alike able to appreciate high beauty. Winckelmann even advised his readers against the judgment of artists on the ground that they generally preferred what is difficult to what is beautiful,[c] but experience with the great art bodies in Europe who hold exhibitions does not support this view. It is only the weaker artists who are liable to be prejudiced in such matters, and when the judges are of high attainments in art, they almost invariably make the same choice in competitions that would be made if general opinion were solicited. But although artists cannot be better judges of high-class works of art (as beautiful things) than other men of equal intelligence, their training usually enables them to distinguish obscure forms of beauty which would be unrecognized by the general public, and in matters of colour to differentiate between ephemeral and more or less permanent harmonies. Hence while the public interests would not suffer from the introduction of the lay element in judging high class sculpture and painting, it is obvious that the consideration of works where the lower forms of beauty only are produced, as in formal decoration, should be confined to the profession. In music alone of the arts, for reasons already given, special cultivation is necessary for the judgment of the higher forms of beauty. [a] _Life of Michelangelo Buonarotti_, De Vere translation. [b] McCurdy's _Lionardo da Vinci's Note Books_. [c] _History of Ancient Art_, Part V., 6. NOTE 28. PAGE 74 It is commonly supposed that the vast multitude of men and women--the toilers in the fields and factories, and their families, do not appreciate great works of art; that rarely they take an interest in any kind of art, and then only in simple representations of everyday incidents. This is so apparently, but it is not strictly true. The great bulk of working people grow up amidst surroundings where they do not have an opportunity of seeing good works of art. They toil from morn to eve during their whole life: their imaginations are almost entirely confined to their means of livelihood, their daily routine of labour, and their household duties. A "mute inglorious Milton" remains mute because he wants the knowledge and experience around which his fancy may roam, and a potential Raphael dies in obscurity from the enforced rigidity of his imagination. But even so, notwithstanding that the nervous activities and the imaginations of the poorer workers remain undeveloped, they are still subservient to the irrevocable laws of nature. Their faculties may be little changed from childhood in respect of matters appertaining to the higher senses, but they still exist. So it comes about that in all times since art has been practised, the paintings and sculptures of the greater masters have been well appreciated by the multitude when they could come into contact with them. In modern times great works of art are seldom available to the masses except in public galleries where their sense perception and minds are quickly confused and fatigued--in fact rendered incapable of legitimate use, but the trend of popular opinion is very decidedly settled by the experience of those business houses which undertake the reproduction of important works. There are many times the demand for prints and cards of pictures belonging to the higher forms of art, as for instance, sacred and historical subjects, and portraits, than for interiors and landscapes, and so incessant is this demand for the better works, that a painter desiring to copy one of the great Raphael or Correggio Madonnas at Florence for reproduction, will usually have to wait three or four years after entering his name, before his turn comes to set up his easel. It is rather the want of intelligent contact with them, than indifference to them, that is due the apparent lack of interest in great works of art on the part of the labouring classes. There is a deal of truth in the incisive remarks of Leo Tolstoy when dealing with this question. He says [a]: Art cannot be incomprehensible to the great masses only because it is very good, as artists of our day are fond of telling us. Rather we are bound to conclude that this art is unintelligible because it is very bad art, or even is not art at all. So that the favourite argument (naïvely accepted by the cultured crowd), that in order to feel art one has first to understand it (which really means to habituate oneself to it), is the truest indication that what we are asked to understand by such a method, is either very bad art, exclusive art, or is not art at all. One may observe however that, as a rule, it is only inferior artists who complain of the want of public appreciation of great works of art. [a] _What is Art?_ Aylmer Maude translation, 1904. NOTE 29. PAGE 78 According to Lessing and Watts-Dunton, what the former calls the dazzling antithesis of Simonides--"Poetry is speaking painting, and painting dumb poetry"--has had a wide and deleterious effect upon art criticism. Lessing, who wrote _Laocoon_ about 1761, said in his preface in reference to this saying: It was one of those ideas held by Simonides, the truth of which is so obvious that one feels compelled to overlook the indistinctness and falsehood which accompany it.... But of late many critics, just as though no difference existed, have drawn the crudest conclusions one can imagine from this harmony of painting and poetry. Watts-Dunton, writing a few years ago, added to this[a]: It [the saying of Simonides] appears to have had upon modern criticism as much influence since the publication of Lessing's _Laocoon_ as it had before. Lessing points out that the Greeks confined the saying to the effect produced by the two arts, and (evidently referring to Aristotle) did not forget to inculcate that these arts differed from each other in the things imitated and the manner of imitation. Since the business of both poetry and painting is to throw pictures on the mind, the declaration of Simonides must be accepted, but it has no particular meaning as applied either to criticism or the practice of the arts. It is merely a fact of common knowledge put into the form of a misleading _jeu d'esprit_, though one has a natural reluctance in so describing a time-honoured saying. There is room for doubt whether it really had the effect upon criticism that is alleged. Annibale Carracci varied it slightly into a better form with "Poets paint with words, and painters speak with the pencil," and it was certainly as well known in his time as in the eighteenth century, yet we find no particular evidence of weak art criticism either in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Moreover allegorical painting was not less common in these centuries than in the century following; and while there was unquestionably a spurt of descriptive poetry in the eighteenth, it is difficult to trace a connection between this phenomenon and general criticism based upon the dictum of Simonides. In regard to later times, the statement of Watts-Dunton wants demonstration. [a] Article on "Poetry," _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 11th edition. NOTE 30. PAGE 79 A few distinguished poets have attempted to portray beauty of form by description of features, but they have all been signally unsuccessful. The best known essay of the kind is Ariosto's portrait of Araminta, where he closely describes all details of her features and form, using forty lines for the purpose; but put together the pieces as one will, it is quite impossible to gain from them an idea of the beauty of her countenance.[a] This is pointed out by Lessing. The very length of the catalogue is apt to kill the beauty as one endeavours to dovetail the separate elements. Perhaps the lines of Cornelius Gallus to Lydia form the most perfect poetical delineation of a beautiful face known to us, but as will be seen from the translation below, they are quite insufficient to enable us to picture the beauty of the combined features on our minds.[b] Lydia! girl of prettiest mien, And fairest skin, that e'er were seen: Lilies, cream, thy cheeks disclose; The ruddy and the milky rose; Smooth thy limbs as ivory shine, Burnished from the Indic mine. Oh, sweet girl! those ringlets spread Long and loose, from all thy head; Glistening like gold in yellow light O'er thy falling shoulders white. Show, sweet girl! thy starry eyes, And black brows that arching rise: Show, sweet girl! thy rose-bloom cheeks, Which Tyre's vermillion scarlet streaks: Drop those pouting lips to mine, Those ripe, those coral lips of thine. [a] _Orlando Furioso_, C. VII. [b] C. A. Elton translation. NOTE 31. PAGE 80 If there be one example of descriptive poetry relating to landscape which throws upon the mind a complete natural scene during the process of reading, it is the beautiful chant of the Chorus in _Oedipus Coloneus_. The perfection of form and majestic diction of this poetry are remarkable, but the successful presentation of the picture on the mind is largely due to the simple and direct language used, and the astonishing brevity with which the many features of the scene are described. Green dells, fields, plains, groves, rocks, flowers, fruit, and rushing waters, are all brought in, and the few lines used do not prevent the introduction of the Muses, the jovial Bacchus with the nursing nymphs, and radiant Aphrodite. All modern poetry descriptive of landscape entirely fails in presenting a comprehensive view. It is too discursive--over descriptive, to permit of the mind collecting the details together as one whole. Here is the best prose version of the lines of Sophocles[a]: Thou hast come, O stranger, to the seats of this land, renowned for the steed; to seats the fairest on earth, the chalky Colonus; where the vocal nightingale, chief abounding, trills her plaintive note in the green dells, tenanting the dark-hued ivy, and the leafy grove of the god, untrodden, teeming with fruits, impervious to the sun, and unshaken by the winds of every storm; where Bacchus the reveller ever roams attending his divine nurses. And ever day by day the narcissus, with its beauteous clusters, bursts into bloom by heaven's dew, the ancient coronet of the mighty goddesses, and the saffron with golden ray; nor do the sleepless founts of Cephisus that wander through the fields fail, but every day it rushes o'er the plains with its limpid wave, fertilizing the bosom of the earth; nor have the choirs of the Muses loathed this clime; nor Aphrodite too, of the golden reign. [a] Oxford translation. NOTE 32. PAGE 81 It is perhaps necessary to remind some readers that the term "invention" is used in two senses in art, referring to the original idea or scheme, or to the preparation of the design embodying the idea. In poetry and fiction the term has the former significance; in painting and sculpture the latter. The restriction in the use of the term in the last named arts is compulsory. (See Chap. III., and Note 33.) NOTE 33. PAGE 81 Apparently Lessing did not observe that inasmuch as the painter cannot present the beginning and end of an incident, he must necessarily take his moment of action from the literary arts or from nature. The critic notices that the painter does not invent the action he depicts, but states that this is due to his indifference towards invention, developed by the natural readiness of the public to dispense with the merit of invention in his case. That is to say, the public expects the painter to take his idea from the poet or from nature, and looks to him only for correct design and execution: hence the painter is under no necessity to invent his own scheme. It is curious that a reason of this kind for the practice of the painter should be put forward by so keen a critic as Lessing, but it is not altogether surprising when we remember the discussion as to whether Virgil drew his representation of the Laocoon incident from the celebrated sculptured group, or the sculptors adopted the device of the poet. Lessing definitely settled the point in favour of the poet as the author of the design, and since his time this decision has been confirmed over and over again by practical evidence. But the conclusion of Lessing seems obvious in the absence of any such evidence. As we must exclude the possibility of both poet and sculptors taking the design from the same original source, it is clear that the poet could only have imitated the sculptors on the supposition that they had so widely varied the legend as to necessitate a new beginning and end of the story, these being provided by the poet. Consideration of such a series of events is not permissible, as it would reflect upon the common sense of the sculptors, and actually degrade the poet. Consequent upon the inability of the painter to originate a scheme for a picture, the famous proposition of Lessing as to the relative importance of invention and execution with the poet and painter, must fall to the ground. The critic states that our admiration of Homer would be less if we knew that he took certain of his work from pictures, and asks[a]: How does it happen that we withdraw none of our esteem from the painter when he does no more than express the words of the poem in forms and colours? He suggests as an answer to this: With the painter, execution appears to be more difficult than invention: with the poet on the other hand the case seems to be reversed, and his execution seems to be an easier achievement than the invention. The word "invention" is to be taken here in the sense of plot or fable, and not as the details of design invented by the painter for the purpose of representing the action described by the poet. The premisses of Lessing's argument therefore will not stand, for the painter cannot originate a fable by means of a picture. And sequential to this of course, the painter can be of no service to the poet. Homer could not draw an original scheme from a painting. Nor may the poet take a detail from the painter, for this has already been borrowed. A poet may vary a detail in a legend because he can make the successive parts of his relation fit in with the variation, but the painter can only deal with a single moment of action, and if this does not correspond with an accepted legend, then his design appears to be untrue. It may be said in regard to painting, that the relative difficulty of the invention (the work of gathering and arranging the signs) and the execution, varies with the character of the art. In the higher forms, as sacred and historical work, the invention is the more difficult; in ordinary scenes of life and labour the trouble involved in invention would about equal that in execution; while in the lower forms, as landscape and still-life, the execution is obviously the more difficult. In the case of the poet, the idea or fable is the hardest part of his work, but the relative difficulty of the arrangement of the parts, and the execution, would naturally depend upon the general character of the composition, and the form of the poem. [a] _Laocoon_, Phillimore translation. NOTE 34. PAGE 82 The works here referred to are those designed for the purpose of achieving a political or social aim, or conveying instruction or moral lessons. There are many examples of good art where advocacy of a social or administrative reform is presented by way of incident or accessory, though the art itself is never, and cannot be, assisted thereby. "Didactic Art," if such a term may be appropriately used, is practically a thing of the past, but judging from certain conventions the opinion seems to be rather widely held that art should point a moral when possible, and an opinion of Aristotle is not infrequently called in to support this view. But when Aristotle connected morals with art, he evidently did not mean to suggest that art should have a moral purpose, but that it should have a moral tendency in not being morally harmful, for art which is not morally harmful must necessarily be morally beneficial. The general connection of the good with the beautiful in ancient Greece seems to have merely implied that what is good is beautiful, and what is beautiful is good, or should be good, and not that goodness is a manifestation of beauty, or beauty of goodness. It was admitted that the two things may not coincide. NOTE 35. PAGE 85 That landscape painting may be of considerable value in assisting scientific exploration is instanced by an anecdote related to the writer by a geological friend. Professor Jack, formerly Government Geologist of Queensland, while travelling in that colony, having put up one night at the house of a small squatter, noticed on the walls of the interior, a number of colour drawings which had been painted by a son of the settler from views in the neighbouring hills. One of these drawings showed a reddish-brown tint running down the slope of a grey and nearly barren hill. This caught the eye of the professor who asked the artist if the colours roughly represented the natural conditions, and receiving an affirmative reply, recommended the squatter to prospect the ground for minerals. This was done with the result that profitable copper deposits were found. It seems that in Australia many of the best mineral veins are capped with iron, and run through schistose rocks traversed by dioritic dykes. Professor Jack was well aware that the hills in the district were formed of these rocks and dykes, and as the reddish-brown streak indicated iron oxide, it occurred to him that the iron might be the cap of a lode holding valuable minerals.[a] [a] This note is from _The Position of Landscape in Art_, by the present author. NOTE 36. PAGE 87 Remarkable evidence of the universality of ideals, is afforded by the galaxy of French sculptors who appeared in the thirteenth century. They could have had no teachers beyond those responsible for the stiff and formal works characterizing the merging of Norman with Gothic art; they could have seen few of the fragments of ancient sculpture; and yet they left behind them monuments which rival in noble beauty much of the work produced in the greatest art period. How their art grew, and how it withered; how such a brilliant bloom in the life of a nation should so quickly fade, needs too detailed an argument to be ventured upon here, if indeed a properly reasoned explanation can be given at all; but the flower remains, as great a pride to mankind as it is a glory to France: remains, though sadly drooping, for the petals of Rheims are gone. Now these Frenchmen were in much the same position as the early Greeks. They were confronted with the task of making images of their objects of worship for great temples. They had no more real knowledge of the Personality of Christ, the Virgin, and most of the Saints than had the Greeks of the Homeric gods and legendary heroes, and like the Grecian sculptors they fully believed in the spiritual personages and religious events with which they dealt. The Grecian and French artists therefore started from the same line with similar general ideals, for the ancient workers took no heed of Homer and Hesiod in respect of the failings of their gods; and they both had only pure formalities in sculpture behind them. And what was the result? The ideal divine head of the Christian Frenchman is much the same as that of the Greeks in regard to form, and only varies in expression with the character of the respective religious conceptions. The French sculptors did not reach the sublime height of the Phidian school, nor did they attempt the more human beauty typified by the giants of the fourth century B.C.; but apart from these, and leaving aside considerations of the nude with which they were little concerned, they climbed to the highest level of the latter end of the fourth century and the beginning of the third--the level attained by those Grecian sculptors who more or less idealized portrait heads by adding Phidian traits. And it would appear that in reaching towards their goal they followed the same line of thought as the Greeks, and arrived at similar conclusions in respect to every detail of the head and pose of the figure. As a rule they gave to the faces of Christ and the Saints a large facial angle, set the eyes in deeply and the ears close to the head, and generally worked on parallel lines with the principal sculptors of Peloponesia living sixteen hundred years before their time. It is perhaps natural that they should make similar variations in the proportions of the figures to provide for the different levels from which they were to be seen, but it is curious that they should adopt the practice followed by the Greeks in the representation of children in arms, by minimizing to the last degree the figure of the Infant Christ in the arms of the Madonna. They could not have more closely imitated the Greeks in this respect had they had Grecian models in front of them. No doubt they fixed the position of the Child at the side of the Virgin in order that the line of her majestic form might not be broken, and that her face might be revealed to observers below the level of the statues, but that they should have made the Child so extremely small and insignificant considering His relative importance compared with that of the Grecian infant in arms, is remarkable. NOTE 37. PAGE 90 It is too early yet to fix definitely the position of Rodin in art. There is much sifting of his works to be done, for of all artists with a wide reputation, he was perhaps the most variable. Still he may be called one of the greater artists, and so is amongst the rare exceptions mentioned, for he executed one or two hideous figures, the most notable being La Vieille Heaulmière.[a] This cannot properly be described as a work of art because it is revolting to the senses: it is merely a species of writing--a hieroglyph, and Rodin's own apology for it is a direct condemnation, since a work of sculpture cannot be good if general opinion does not approve of it. He says[b]: What matters solely to me is the opinion of people of taste, and I have been delighted to gain their approbation for my La Vieille Heaulmière. I am like the Roman singer who replied to the jeers of the populace, _Equitibus Cano_. I sing only for the nobles; that is to say for the connoisseurs. The vulgar readily imagine that what they consider ugly is not a fit subject for the artist. They would like to forbid us to represent what displeases and offends them in nature. It is a great error on their part. What is commonly called "ugliness" in nature can in art become full of great beauty. In the domain of art we call ugly what is deformed, whatever is unhealthy.... Ugly also is the soul of the vicious or criminal man.... But let a great artist or writer make use of one or other of these uglinesses, instantly it becomes transfigured: with a touch of his fairy wand he has turned it into beauty: it is alchemy: it is enchantment. Rodin then goes on to refer to the description of ugly objects by the poets, in support of his argument that they may be represented by the painter! It was his error in confusing the objects of the literary with those of the plastic arts, that led him to carve La Vieille Heaulmière, for he admitted that he wished to put into sculpture what Villon had put into a poem. Professor Waldstein properly pointed out that, this being so, the observer of the sculpture should be provided with a copy of the poem when in front of the statue, adding[c]: and even then the work remains only the presentation of a female figure deformed in every detail by the wear and tear of time, and of a life ending in disease and nothing more. It is the worst form of literary sculpture, of which we have had so much by artists who represent the very opposite pole of the modern realists. Elsewhere the respective positions of the poet and painter (or sculptor) in the representation of ugliness are dealt with, but it may be added that in the case of La Vieille Heaulmière, Rodin does not render in sculpture the poem of Villion, but only a part of it, for of course he could not show the progression in the life of the courtesan, indicated by the poet, which progression puts an entirely different complexion upon the ugly figure of the poet compared with that of the sculptor. Clearly Rodin was misled when he said that people of taste have given their approbation to his appalling figure, for it has been condemned among all classes, while its few defenders have failed to support their opinions by reason or experience. We may note that at another time Rodin reflected upon the character of the ancient Greek sculpture for the very reason upon which he bases his claim for public approval of La Vieille Heaulmière. He says[d]: That was the fault of the Hellenic ideal. The beauty conceived by the Greeks was the order dreamed of by intelligence, but it only appealed to the cultivated mind, disdaining the humble. Here also is a confusion of ideas, for the intelligence cannot dream of a special kind of beauty which would not be recognized by the humble, unless it were so feeble as to be altogether below Greek conceptions. The aim of the Greek sculptors was to appeal to all classes, and in this they were eminently successful. [a] At the Luxembourg. [b] Gsell's _Art, by Auguste Rodin_. [c] _Greek Sculpture and Modern Art_, 1914. [d] Gsell's _Art, by Auguste Rodin_. [Illustration: PLATE 27 (See page 254) Diana and Nymphs, by Rubens (_Prado, Madrid_)] NOTE 38. PAGE 92 Ruskin considered the figure of Christ, known as Le Bon Dieu d'Amiens, at Amiens Cathedral, the noblest ideal of Christ in existence,[a] and Dean Farrar wrote of it: "Christ is represented as standing at the central point of all history, and of all Revelation."[b] It is true that the sculpture is a noble representation of Christ, but this is not because it is a Christian ideal. In type it is purely Greek of the late fourth or early third century B.C. The expression is general, exhibiting the calm repose that the Greeks gave to a great philosopher. [a] _The Bible of Amiens._ See Plate 2. [b] _The Life of Christ as Represented in Art._ NOTE 39. PAGE 97 In the case of the Madonna, Michelangelo does not appear to produce an ideal woman: he only gives an improved woman. His nearest approach to the ideal is in his early Pieta at St. Peter's, but even here the Virgin is only a less earthly prototype of his later figures. The Madonna in the Holy Family at the Uffizi is much inferior, being merely a slightly ennobled Italian peasant. The other Madonnas are far higher in character and seem to suggest the antique, except that the more material qualities of woman are always present. The Madonnas at the Bargello and San Lorenzo are of the same general type as the figure in the Last Judgment, the Night in the Medici Chapel, the Leda in the Bargello, and the Venus in the sketch made for Pontormo. This being so, it may be imagined when the Leda is called to mind, that it is hard to associate the two Madonnas with Christian ideals. The figures are magnificent works, but they are behind the Madonnas of Raphael from the point of view of Christian conceptions. The expression is general, and all the countenances except one, indicate unconcern with surroundings; not the sublime unconcern of a Phidian god, which implies an apparent disregard of particulars because they are necessarily understood with an all-powerful comprehension of principles, but an unconcern which suggests a want of deep interest in life. The exception is the San Lorenzo Madonna, in which a certain calm resignation is the principal feature in expression. Michelangelo was more successful with his men than with his women. His painted prophets in the Sistine Chapel are as sublime as his scenes from the Creation; and his Moses in St. Peter's is rightly regarded as the first sculpture of the Renaissance. NOTE 40. PAGE 99 When the Pieta of Michelangelo (in St. Peter's, Rome) was first exposed, some comment was made upon the comparatively youthful appearance of the Virgin, and Condivi relates that he spoke to the sculptor on the subject. In reply Michelangelo said[a]: Don't you know that chaste women preserve their beauty and youthful character much longer than those who are not chaste? How youthful then must appear the immaculate Virgin who cannot be supposed ever to have had a vitiated thought. And this is only according to the natural order of things: but why may not we suppose in this particular case, that nature might be assisted by Divine interposition, to demonstrate to the world the virginity and perpetual purity of the Mother? This was not necessary in the Son, nay, rather on the contrary, since Divine omnipotence was willing to show that the Son of God would take upon Him, as he did, the body of man, with all his earthly infirmities except that of sin. Therefore it was not necessary for me to make the human subordinate to the Divine character, but to consider it in the ordinary course of nature under the actual existing circumstances. Hence you ought not to wonder that from such a consideration, I should make the most holy Virgin-Mother of God, in comparison with the Son, much younger than would otherwise be required, and that I should have represented the Son at His proper age. [a] Lanzi's _History of Painting in Italy_, Roscoe translation, vol. i. NOTE 41. PAGE 100 A few modern painters have produced works in which the Holy Family are pictured in lowly surroundings, but generally they appear to shock the public sense of propriety. Many persons will remember the sensation caused by Millais's The Carpenter's Shop, where Christ is shown as a boy of about ten years of age in the workshop of St. Joseph, and Holman Hunt's Shadow of the Cross. Later artists have been still more realistic, notably Uhde, whose sacred scenes almost stagger one with their modern suggestions, and Demont-Breton, whose Divine Apprentice represents the Boy Christ sharpening a tool at a grindstone which is turned by the Virgin. NOTE 42. PAGE 108 Unquestionably the rapid advance in Italian art in the fifteenth century was largely due to the influence of the ancient Greek and Roman remains. Indeed there are very few sculptors of the period who fail to show evidence of studies in Greek forms and ornaments, while in painting there are hundreds of figures which could scarcely have been designed in the absence of antique models. True in some cases the artists do not appear to have gone beyond the ancient literature, as with Masaccio who must have had Homer in his mind when he painted his figures of Eve in the Florence frescoes, and Piero di Cosimo, whose fanciful compositions savour of the old legends wrapped up in fairy stories; but many painters were steeped both in the art and literature of Greece and Rome, and made good use of them. But the most direct evidence of the influence of Greek art upon Italian artists of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, is to be found in the splendid series of bronze statuettes of the period. In their monumental figures the sculptors were more or less confined in their designs by considerations of portraiture, conventional drapery and symbols, and local requirements, and while they were greatly assisted by Greek experience, yet only rarely were they strictly at liberty except with ornaments and accessories. But in the small bronze figures their fancy could roam at will, and they made good use of this freedom in displaying their ready acceptance of the first principle in the design of the human figure recognized by the Greeks--that the sculptor must arrive at perfection of form if that be possible; that this perfection is not to be found in any single form in life, and consequently the artist must combine perfected parts into a harmonious whole, independently of particular models. The agreement with this principle was general, with scarcely an exception amongst the bronze figure designers, and the result was that in the period say, from 1450 to 1525, there was executed a series of bronzes fully representative of the highest level which plastic art has reached since the greater days of Greece. Right up to the time of the maturity of Michelangelo, nearly every bronze figurine cast is purely Grecian in type, and every ornament, and even every accessory which is not from its nature of contemporary style, can be traced to Greece, either directly or through Rome. Michelangelo brought about a change in accentuating the muscular development of the body, and before the middle of the sixteenth century most sculptors had come under his influence. This was unfortunate for he alone seemed to be capable of harmoniously combining Greek lines with muscular power. A few of his contemporaries, as Sansovino, Leone, Cellini, learned how to join, with due restraint, his innovations with modifications of the Greek torso, but generally the imitation of the great Florentine initiated a decadence, as it was bound to do, for it was accompanied with life modelling, and so meant a radical departure from the Greek forms. Giovanni di Bologna alone among the later sixteenth century sculptors, was strong enough to move in an independent direction. He restrained the accentuation of the muscles, and lightened the Greek type of torso, combining with these conditions an elegance in design which has never since been surpassed. This then is the principal cause of the high æsthetic value of the Renaissance bronzes: the human form exhibited by them is altogether more beautiful than the form coming within the compass of life experience. Then the details of work on the bronzes are immensely superior to those of the general modern handiwork. For instance the chiselling of such men as Riccio and Cellini, has never been equalled since their time, save perhaps by Gouthière. And how poor, comparatively, are the present-day castings! How carefully the old masters worked; how particular they were with their clay; how skilfully they prepared their wax, and how slowly and deliberately the mould! How many artists now would have the patience to make such a mould? For the beautiful patinas on many of the Renaissance bronzes, age is mostly responsible, though lacquers were often used for the provision of artificial patinas, particularly after the middle of the sixteenth century, the finest being found on some of the works of Giovanni di Bologna. The tone of natural patina depends largely upon the kind of oxidation to which the bronze has been subjected, and it is no doubt often affected by the alloy used. Few modern artists have given close attention to the alloys, while the method of casting is now usually regarded as a detail of minor importance. Seeing that the production of figurines accompanied every civilization from the dawn of history to the collapse of the Roman Empire, it is curious that the renaissance of sculpture after the Dark Age should have progressed a long way before general attention was again turned to these bronzes. There are a few figures of animals which seem to be Italian work of the late trecento, but beyond these the small cast bronzes made in Italy before the maturity of Ghiberti, were practically confined to Madonnas and Saints, mostly gilt, made to fill Gothic niches, or adorn the altars of churches and private chapels. Slender Saints they were as a rule, but always elegant, with serene countenances and delicate features; beautifully modelled as became the inheritors of the traditions of the Pisanos. It was somewhere about the middle of the fifteenth century that Italy commenced to make ungilt statuettes suitable for household ornaments, and fully ten or fifteen years more passed away before they were produced with any regularity. The earliest of them of any importance appear to be a couple of Flagellators from the design of Ghiberti. They are fine pieces of work, evidently from clay models made for the scourging scene in one of the gates of the Florence Baptistry--gates described by Michelangelo as worthy to fill the portals of Paradise. These figures date about 1440. There is a Child Christ of a few years later by Luca della Robbia; and two or three figures from models of Donatello may be assigned to the neighbourhood of 1450. In the next ten years were turned out some figures from remaining models of Donatello which had been used for his work at Prato and Padua. So far the small bronzes made were from studies for larger works of sculpture, but about this time intense interest began to be taken in the remains of Greek and Roman art, and no doubt it was the increased importance attached to the antique bronze figures, mostly household gods of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, that first led the principal Renaissance artists to turn their attention to similar work. From this time on, for a century and a half, these bronze figures were regularly made. The existing figurines may be broadly classified in four divisions, namely, the Paduan and Florentine figures executed prior to 1525; those of the school of Michelangelo; those of the Venetian school headed by Sansovino; and those of Giovanni di Bologna and his school. Leaving out of consideration the small ornaments for inkstands, vases, etc., the little animals, and the purely commercial imitations, chiefly Venetian, made at the end of the sixteenth century, the total number of Renaissance bronzes now known is roughly six thousand. Of these under a hundred are from models for larger works by Ghiberti, Donatello, Verrocchio, Lionardo, Michelangelo, and a few lesser lights; about two thousand represent original designs specially prepared for bronze production; some three thousand five hundred are duplicates of, or slight variations from, these originals, executed by pupils or near contemporaries of the masters; and the balance of four hundred or so, are direct reproductions of, or variations from, antique sculptures. Naturally all collectors aim for the first two sections, but the third section contains many fine bronzes, often close to the originals, with equally good patinas. They vary greatly, though they are all ascribed in commerce to the artists responsible for the originals. The character of these variations is best seen in the case of Riccio, the most prolific of the bronze workers of the Renaissance. He designed and executed under forty small bronze figures and groups, besides some large bronze works of high importance. Of his small pieces there are in existence about a hundred duplicates made by his pupils and immediate contemporaries, who also adapted into household ornaments, various details from his larger works, bringing up the number of Riccios made from his models during his lifetime, other than by himself, to about a hundred and fifty. These are all bronzes of a high order. Then about an equal number of both kinds of models were reproduced during the twenty years following his death, all fairly good, but often slightly varied from the originals; and finally there are Riccios copied by Venetian craftsmen in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, sometimes considerably varied, and occasionally with purely Venetian ornaments added. These last mark the first distinct decadence in the small bronze art of the period. Next to Riccio among the earlier sculptors, in the number of bronzes designed, was his great contemporary, Antico, who accomplished some thirty or so. He differed from Riccio in that while the latter adhered to the Grecian practice in the design of details and ornaments, but varied the modelling somewhat to bring it more in conformity with the contemporary ideas of elegance, Antico kept strictly to the Grecian modelling, but commonly varied the ancient designs. There are few duplicates of Antico's work, made either during his lifetime or after. As with Riccio, his imitators overcame the difficulty of the chiselling by leaving it out, relying upon the wax to give close enough resemblance to the originals. Of the other small bronze sculptors prior to the maturity of Michelangelo, few executed more than half a score of figures. The best known are the immediate successors of Donatello in the Paduan school, as Bertoldo and Bellano, and the giants of the Florentine school, as Filarete and A. Pollaiuolo. Bronzes by these artists are very rare, and so are the duplicates of them made by pupils, though Bertoldo, who reminds one strangely of Lysippus, had occasional imitators for the next two centuries. These bronzes include many models which have not been equalled by the greatest of later sculptors, and they will never be matched until there arises a new school of sculptors resolved to imbibe the truths which the Renaissance artists gleaned from the ancient Greeks. NOTE 43. PAGE 110 The writer has used Greek and Roman names for these gods to some extent indiscriminately, in accordance with the universal custom in art. Nevertheless the practice is to be regretted as it tends to complicate the general ideas of the Greek and Roman religions. Notwithstanding the occasional direct association of some of their deities with human personages by their poets, the Romans regarded their gods as purely spiritual beings, having no special earthly habitation, or sex relations with the human race, while their powers widely differed from those of the respective Greek deities with whom they are commonly identified. Authorities differ as to whether the gods were supposed to have spiritual marital relations with each other.[a] In any case the whole nature of their religion precluded the development amongst the Romans of a separate sacred art. Their sculptured gods, which were taken from Grecian models, were symbols rather than presumed types. [a] See J. G. Frazer's _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, 1914, vol. ii.; and W. W. Fowler's _Religious Experience of the Roman People_, 1911. NOTE 44. PAGE 111 If we may judge from the headless figures of the goddesses, commonly known as the Three Fates, from the east pediment of the Parthenon, there seems to be little difference between the general lines of the feminine torso represented by the Phidian ideal, and those of the Praxitelean model. The Parthenon torsos are more massive proportionately, but the object of both Phidias and Praxiteles was evidently to straighten the outer lines of the torso as nearly as possible, making due allowance for the varied natural swellings of their respective forms. It is obvious that the use of attire gave Phidias (presuming the Parthenon figures referred to were designed by him, as they probably were) a latitude in varying the proportions of the torsos which he could not have exercised in the case of nude forms. Unclothed, the figures would appear unwieldy, and the graceful flowing lines resulting from the partly clinging drapery could not be so completely presented with nude reclining or semi-reclining figures. There are other features also which prevent the nude representation of such massive forms. Thus, the breasts would necessarily be out of proportion in size, and widely separated. These conditions are common in fifth century and archaic figures, and do not appear to be defects in forms of life size or less, but they would be strikingly noticeable in super figures of the broad massive type with Phidian lines. The addition of light drapery, however, converts the apparent faults into virtues, for the artist is enabled therewith to give new sweeping curves to the forms which conspicuously enhance the general beauty of the figure. A still more amazing instance where the use of drapery allows the artist to vary the recognized proportions of the feminine form to an extent which would be impossible with nude figures, is the celebrated Ariadne at the Vatican.[a] This beautiful work, which is of the Hellenistic period, shows the daughter of Minos attired in a light flowing single garment, and reclining on a couch, asleep. The upper part of her body leans against the head of the couch, but the remainder is extended nearly at full length. The extraordinary feature of the work is that the length of the figure is altogether out of proportion with the head and with the breadth of the torso, being much too great, and yet so skilfully is the drapery arranged that this very defect becomes an advantage, for it enables a lofty grace, almost approaching grandeur, to be given to the figure, which would be impossible without the exaggeration. By the excellent device of a closely arranged cross fold of drapery passing round the middle of the figure, the artist apparently shortens it, so that the eye of the observer is not held by its great length. Only one other example of the supreme use of drapery in this way seems to be known--a bronze sitting figure of Calliope,[b] which is of the late Hellenistic period, and is obviously of the same school as the Ariadne marble. [a] See Plate 29. [b] Dreicer Collection, New York. NOTE 45. PAGE 112 Praxiteles is known to have executed at least four other statues of Aphrodite besides the Cnidian example, but this last is the only one as to which we have fairly complete records, and of which copies have been closely identified. It is also the most celebrated. We may therefore accept the work as typical for comparative purposes. NOTE 46. PAGE 113 There has been much discussion as to whether Apelles showed the same extent of figure as is represented in the sculpture, a common suggestion being that he brought the surface of the water to the waist line; but it is evident that the painting corresponded with the sculpture in this particular. The artist had to represent the goddess walking towards the shore. If he brought the water to the waist line he could not definitely suggest movement, as a deflection of the shoulder line might mean that the goddess was in an attitude of rest, corresponding to the pose of nearly all the sculptured figures of the Praxitelean school. On the other hand if he carried the water line down towards the knees, the advance of the right leg would be most marked, and the effect disturbing because of the loss of repose, a quality at all times valuable in a painting of a single figure, and really necessary in the representation of Venus. The artist very properly reduced the portion of the thighs visible to the smallest fraction possible compatible with an expression of movement, in order to give the figure the greatest repose attainable. Under any circumstances there was nothing to gain by showing the water reaching to the waist. Certain details of the picture by Apelles are to be obtained from Grecian epigrams. Thus, one by Antipater of Sidon contains these lines[a]: Venus, emerging from her parent sea, Apelles' graphic skill does here portray: She wrings her hair, while round the bright drops flee, And presses from her locks the foamy spray. From this it would appear that the position of the goddess when painted was presumed to be comparatively near the artist, otherwise the separate drops of falling water would not have been observed. The last line in the following epigram by Leonides of Tarentum indicates the ideal character of the countenance, though evidence of this is scarcely necessary[b]: As Venus from her mother's bosom rose (Her beauty with the murmuring sea-foam glows), Apelles caught and fixed each heavenly charm; No picture, but the life, sincere and warm. See how those finger tips those tresses wring! See how those eyes a calm-like radiance fling! [a] Translated by Lord Neaves. [b] Translated by Lord Neaves. NOTE 47. PAGE 124 So far as the writer knows, Piero was the only artist of the Renaissance who used this mythological story for a composition (his picture has hitherto been called an allegory), a circumstance which is rather singular considering the suitableness of the subject for the provision of effective designs. The Greek sculptors in dealing with the legend confined themselves to the moment when Athena threw down the pipes, apparently for the reason that this instant gave an opportunity of rendering Marsyas in a strong dramatic action. The famous statue of the faun after Myron in Rome, is supposed to have formed part of a group representing Athena and Marsyas immediately after the pipes were dropped, and the design appears on still existing coins and vases of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Piero takes a later moment, showing Marsyas comfortably squatting in the foreground of a delightful fanciful landscape, expressing boyish satisfaction with the prizes he is about to try. He is properly shown as a satyr instead of in the faun form of the sculptor. There appears to be no legitimate place in painting for a faun, while a satyr may at times be appropriately introduced into a pastoral composition. NOTE 48. PAGE 125 Controversy has raged around this picture for something like seventy years. The work came to light before 1850 at a public auction sale when it was attributed to Mantegna, with whom of course it had nothing to do. Then it was pronounced a Raphael, but this was disputed by Passavant who held that on account of the thin lower limbs of the figures, and the minute way in which the landscape was painted, it could not be by Raphael, but was of the school of Francia, or by Timoteo della Viti. Morelli brought back the attribution to Raphael, and the work then came into the possession of the Louvre. Subsequently Pinturicchio and Perugino were alternately suggested as the painter, and to the latter the picture was assigned by the Louvre authorities. All are agreed that the date of the work is about 1502. It does not seem possible that Perugino could have painted the picture, for the subject and invention are entirely foreign to him, while the lithe active form of Apollo does not consort with the least formal of his known figures. The landscape is much in his manner, but so it is also in the style of Raphael's early period, while the small buildings therein are closely finished as in some of Raphael's other works of the time.[a] Perugino used similar towers and buildings, but being a more experienced painter he did not so finely elaborate the details. The suggestion relating to the school of Francia was afterwards very properly withdrawn, and Pinturicchio must be ruled out on account of the landscape, apart from the supple figure of Apollo of which he was incapable. There remain then only Timoteo della Viti and Raphael as the possible painters of the work. But it cannot reasonably be suggested that Timoteo could have accomplished so perfect a figure as the Apollo, and moreover so original a figure. It certainly required an exceptionally bold mind to overcome the difficulty in rendering the traditionally semi-feminine form of Apollo by representing him as a young man just past his teens. Besides, the general delicacy of the work is not in the style of Timoteo. Passavant's objection to the limbs is overruled by the presence of similar limbs in the Mond Crucifixion. It would seem then that Morelli was right in assigning the beautiful little picture to the youthful period of the greatest of all painters. [a] See Portrait of a young Man at Budapest, and the Terranuova Virgin and Child at Berlin. NOTE 49. PAGE 138 The white races are here referred to merely by way of example, and there is no intention to suggest that the more or less uncivilized peoples have no perception of beauty. It is well known that both semi-civilized and savage races differ from the whites in the matter of beauty, and the fact has been partly responsible for several theories for explaining æsthetic perception, notably that of association, laid down by Alison and Jeffrey, but long since discarded. Seeing that there is no difference in kind between the sense nerves of the whites and the blacks, they must necessarily act in the same way. That the blacks appreciate as beautiful forms which the whites disregard, seems to arise partly from want of experience, partly from training, and partly from neglect in the exercise of the sense nerves. Take for example an inhabitant of Morocco where corpulency is commonly regarded as an element of beauty in women. If none but Moroccan women are seen or pictured, it is impossible for a higher form of beauty than is to be found amongst them to be conceived, for the imagination cannot act beyond experience. In cases where the Moroccan has had experience of both white and black, it is certain that, other things being equal, the white woman would be the more admired, for this is the general experience among the black races, and is strikingly noticeable in America with the descendants of African tribes. The appreciation of very fat women can easily be understood on the ground of custom or training. A youthful Moroccan may be firmly of opinion that corpulency is not an element of beauty, but seeing that his older acquaintances hold a contrary view, he may well form the conclusion that his judgment is wrong, and so accept the decision of his more mature countrymen. It is quite common among the whites for people to doubt their own æsthetic perceptions when an inferior work of art is put forward as a thing of beauty. The general want of appreciation of certain musical harmonies on the part of uncivilized peoples is undoubtedly due to the neglect of the sense nerves concerned, for these are not cultivated except to a small extent involuntarily. The most ignorant and poor of the whites unavoidably come into frequent contact with the simpler forms of art, but the savage races see only the result of their own handiwork. The uncivilized races can scarcely be expected to admire the higher reaches of art wherein intellectual considerations enter, except for their sensorial excellence. [Illustration: PLATE 28 (See page 256) Automedon and the Horse of Achilles, by Regnault (_Boston Museum_)] NOTE 50. PAGE 139 There seems to be some uncertainty as to whether Fragonard intended his splendid series of the Frick collection to represent the subjects usually assigned to them, namely, The Pursuit (or The Flight of Design, a title given to the original sketch for the picture); The Rendezvous (or The Surprise, or The Escalade); Souvenirs (or Confidences, or The Reader); The Lover Crowned (or Before the Painter); and The Abandonment (or The Reverie). It is suggested that the works have an allegorical signification connected with art, and certainly three of them--the first, second, and fourth--could be so interpreted. But magnificent paintings of this kind are usually fitted for many allegorical suggestions. Each picture represents an incident of common experience, elaborated with beautiful figures in a perfect setting. This approaches the summit of the painter's art, for no conception can be greater apart from spiritual ideals. It is symbolism in its highest form--of universal experience in which all are interested. The works are not to be taken as a necessary sequence (the last of the series was painted twenty years after the others), but the scheme of one or more of them has come within the experience of every man and woman since the world began. NOTE 51. PAGE 149 Seeing that this precise dignified pose, coming so near the line of exaggeration, but never crossing it, is present in all the authenticated portraits of Titian, save those of very aged persons, we may reasonably consider the pose an important factor in determining the validity of certain portraits as to which a doubt has arisen. Thus in the case of the Physician of Parma[a] (this title is admittedly wrong), which has been variously given to Titian and Giorgione, the verdict must be in favour of Titian, for the pose is certainly his, while it is unknown in any work of Giorgione. On the other hand, the portrait of Catherine Cornara,[b] commonly ascribed to Titian, but also attributed to Giorgione,[c] cannot be by the former master; nor is the Portrait of a Man (with his hand on a bust),[d] which seems to pair with the Cornara portrait. The portrait known as An Old Man Asleep,[e] sometimes given to Titian, clearly does not belong to him. It should be noted that the general confusion observable for many years in the estimation of Giorgione's work arose from the attribution to him of paintings executed in the comparatively broad manner of Titian, but which this artist did not adopt till Giorgione had been dead for a decade or more. The recent exhaustive critique of Lionelli Venturi[f] of the earlier master has cleared the air, and we now know the range of his work very positively. Giorgione was less fine in some of his paintings than in others, for he paid more attention to chiaroscuro as he matured, but there is no instance where he painted in the broader manner occasionally exhibited by Titian. All the works in the style of The Concert and The Three Ages are now known to be by other hands than those of Giorgione, and it must be unfortunately admitted that not a single painting by him exists either in England or America. [a] Vienna Gallery. [b] Cook Collection, London. [c] By Herbert Cook in _Giorgione_. [d] Uffizi Gallery, Florence. [e] The Brera, Milan. [f] _Giorgione e il Giorgionismo_, 1913. Note 52. Page 156 Hals is another artist as to whom many misconceptions have arisen in regard to his use of a very broad manner in his portraits. There is a total of about 350 works attributed to him, of which some two thirds are single portraits, and twenty are portrait groups. The balance includes over thirty genre pictures, mostly with single figures, and fifty heads of boys and girls generally shown in the act of laughing. It is in his genre work that the broad manner is mostly observable, and only very occasionally is it to be found in his portraits. In the more important works of the artist, even during his later period, his manner is by no means broad,[a] though it is not so fine as in his best years, say from 1635 to 1650. This estimate can however only be general, as his dated paintings of different periods after 1630 often correspond so closely that it is difficult to assign dates to the other pictures with certainty. Perhaps the frequent attribution to Hals of works by his pupils and imitators, has had something to do with the public estimation of the breadth of his manner. This was often greatly exaggerated by his followers, and many portraits are given to him which he could not possibly have painted. In his important work on the artist, Dr. von Bode points out that some of the duplicates of his pictures were apparently executed by his pupils, but these are not separated in the book.[b] It is a simple matter to divide the works painted by Hals from the studio copies and the portraits of imitators. His brushwork and impasto were quite exceptional. He had a firm direct stroke, never niggled or scumbled, and his loading was restrained though very effective. Quite naturally his pupils, however industrious and skilled, could not closely imitate his remarkable freedom in handling. They were incapable of firm decisive strokes throughout a portrait, and endeavoured to overcome the loading difficulty by using brushes of a coarseness foreign to the master when rendering light tones. Moreover Hals was nearly perfect in drawing, and in this there are usually marked defects in the studio copies. [a] See Stephanus Gereardts, Antwerp Museum; Isabella Coymans, E. Rothschild Collection, Paris; Lady with a Fan, National Gallery, London; and William van Heythuysen, Liechtenstein Collection, Vienna. [b] _Frans Hals: his Life and Work_, 1914. NOTE 53. PAGE 161 The term "grace" as applied in art has so many significations that it is difficult to deal with one of them without confusion. What is here specially referred to is the grace of pose designed by the artist. The object of the portrait painter is to pose his sitter so that the grace indicated shall appear natural and habitual, a feature as important now in the appearance of women as it was twenty-five centuries ago when Sappho asked[a]: What country maiden charms thee, However fair her face, Who knows not how to gather Her dress with artless grace? But the grace of pose never appears to be artless, after the first inspection, unless there is something in the expression to hold the mind. Without this appeal to the mind the portrait must soon tire, and the pose become artificial and stiff, that is to say, in representations of life size, for in miniature portraiture the countenance seldom or never crosses the vision involuntarily. In the ancient Greek forms, Winckelmann distinguishes four kinds of grace--lofty, pleasing, humble, and comic--but the grace exhibited by sculptured forms necessarily depends upon the harmony of expression, character of form, and pose. This should be the case with painted portraits also, but drapery restrictions and accessories commonly compel a limitation in the design of the artist. In three quarter and full length portraits it is impossible to depart from the dress customary at the period of execution, unless the sitter assume a classical character, and this is only possible in comparatively few instances. In any case the pose should always be subordinated to the expression. [a] Free translation (quoted by Wharton), the term "artless grace" being implied but not expressed by Sappho. NOTE 54. PAGE 167 The remarkable range of Raphael in expression has been commented upon by many critics, and practically all agree with Lanzi in his eloquent summary[a]: There is not a movement of the soul, there is not a character of passion known to the ancients and capable of being expressed in art, that he (Raphael) has not caught, expressed, and varied in a thousand different ways, and always within the bounds of propriety.... His figures are passions personified; and love, hope, fear, desire, anger, placability, humility, and pride, assume their places by turns as the subject changes; and while the spectator regards the countenances, the air, and the gestures of the figures, he forgets that they are the work of art, and is surprised to find his own feelings excited, and himself an actor in the scene before him. [a] _History of Painting in Italy_, vol. i., Roscoe translation. NOTE 55. PAGE 169 This Pompeian fresco is supposed to be a copy of the picture of Timanthes, but there is an ancient marble relief of the same subject at Florence, the design of which is also said to have been taken from the Grecian painter, though it differs considerably from the fresco. Quintilian observes as to the work of Timanthes, that having rendered Calchas sad, Ulysses still more sad, and Menelaus with the deepest expression of grief possible in art, the painter could not properly portray the countenance of Agamemnon, who as father of Iphigenia was presumed to be the most deeply affected of all present, and so covered his head, leaving the intensity of his suffering to be understood.[a] [a] _School of Oratory_, ii. NOTE 56. PAGE 172 The authenticity of the Boston example of Mona Lisa is still in dispute. So far no serious objection to it has been brought forward, and there are certain points in its favour, as the presence of the columns which are reproduced in Raphael's sketch, and the bold brushwork of the drapery where this can be distinguished. But there is another example of the work in existence, and this fact, with the natural hesitation in pronouncing definitely on so important a matter, will probably leave the authenticity of the picture undecided for a long time. Meanwhile the literature upon Mona Lisa is ever increasing, and some important facts have been recently brought out. Amongst these is an announcement by A. C. Coppier that the lady was not a Florentine, but a Neapolitan of the Gheradini family, and that she was married in 1495, when eighteen years of age.[a] She would therefore be twenty-seven years old in 1504 when the picture which Raphael sketched is supposed to have been painted. But the Mona Lisa in the Louvre was completed between 1515 and 1519; hence there is much to ascertain as to the history of the work. [a] _Les Arts_, No. 145, 1914. NOTE 57. PAGE 172 The various suggestions that have been made as to the meaning of Mona Lisa's smile, seem to have no other foundation than the fancies of mystic minds. The smile has been called dangerous, sinister, ambiguous, provocative, purposely enigmatic, significant of a loose woman, expressive of sublime motherhood, reminiscent of Eastern intrigue, and so on, the mildest criticism of this kind affirming that the smile will ever remain an enigma. It is of course impossible for any meaning to be put into a smile by the painter, other than that of pleasure. Psychological suggestions are possible with the poet or novelist, but not with the painter. If there be any enigma or mystery in a picture, then the art is bad, for the work is incomprehensible, but there is no problem to be solved in Mona Lisa's smile. It is not different from any other smile except in degree, and of course in the quality appertaining to the particular countenance. Lionardo, with his scientific turn of mind, was not likely to attempt the impossible by trying to mix psychology with paint. NOTE 58. PAGE 178 It is necessary to dissent from the conclusion of Lessing as to the representation of ugliness by the poet. He says in referring to Homer's portrayal of Thersites[a]: Why in the case of ugliness did he adopt a method from which he so judiciously refrained in that of beauty? Does not a successive enumeration of its compound parts diminish the effect of ugliness, just as a similar enumeration of its parts destroys that of beauty? Undoubtedly it does, but in this very fact lies Homer's justification. For the very reason that ugliness in the poet's description is reduced to a less repulsive appearance of bodily imperfection, and in point of its effect ceases as it were to be ugliness, the poet is enabled to make use of it. It is true that as he cannot present a particular form of beauty by description, so the poet cannot describe an ugly countenance in such a way that it may be pictured on the mind as a whole; but on the other hand, as he can, by reference to its effect, or by imagery, present a greater beauty than the painter can portray, so he may by similar means suggest a more hideous form of ugliness. And apart from this, while a detail in the description of a beautiful countenance is immaterial until it is combined with other details, a detail of ugliness may in itself be sufficient to render the countenance wholly repulsive to the reader. Thus, if one said of a maid that her cheeks were a compound of the lily and the rose, this would not necessarily imply that she was generally beautiful; but if it were said of a man that he had a large bulbous nose, we should consider him ugly whatever the character of his other features. It was only necessary for Milton to refer to one or two details of the figure of Sin, to throw upon our minds a form of appalling ugliness.[b] A successive enumeration of its component parts, does not therefore diminish the effect of ugliness, as Lessing claims, but increases it. On the other hand a successive enumeration of the parts of beauty does not destroy the beauty, but simply fails to represent it. The poet may use ugliness where the painter cannot, because his ugly form does not dominate the scene, save for an instant or two, being quickly subordinated by surrounding conditions of speech and action; whereas the ugly figure of the painter is fixed for ever. Further, the poet may surround his description of the ugly thing with beautiful imagery and lofty sentiment, practically hiding the ugliness with a cloak of beauty; but the painter can only depict the ugly thing as it is, naked to the sight, without gloss or apology. [a] _Laocoon_, Ronnfeldt translation. [b] _Paradise Lost_, ii. NOTE 59. PAGE 190 It has been suggested that the foot of Hercules in this fine bronze was placed upon the skull of an ox to indicate a successful hunt,[a] but Hercules was a demigod, and so could not be connected in art with any but a superhuman task or exploit. Moreover the only instance recorded in mythological history where Hercules fought with an ox (unless the feat of strength against the white bull of Augeas be called a fight), is that of the Cretan bull, which was captured and not killed. There is no other sculptured figure now known where a foot is placed on the skull of an ox, but Pausanias records that he saw one in a temple of Apollo at Patræ, the figure being that of the god himself.[b] Pausanias attributes the motive of the design to Apollo's love of cattle. There is no doubt about the significance of the Frick bronze. The skull of an ox, and rams' heads are frequently found on ancient tombs, and acanthus leaves were commonly used both in Greece and Rome as funereal signs, while the base of the statuette, which is cast with the figure, is clearly intended to represent an altar. It is noticeable that the form of acanthus leaf used is Roman, suggesting that Pollaiuolo had access to the reproductions of tomb inscriptions made to the order of Lorenzo de' Medici. There is apparently no other existing design of a hero contemplating death, but Lysippus carved several figures, now lost, of Hercules in a sad or depressed mood. In the most celebrated of these, the demigod was seated in a thoughtful attitude on a lion's skin, and it is possible that this design was connected with the contemplation of death, because it was produced in relief soon after the time of Lysippus, and later in a Pompeian fresco, in both cases in the presence of Lichas, the bearer of the poisoned garment. [a] Bode's Preface to the _Catalogue of the Morgan Bronzes_. [b] Pausanias, vii. NOTE 60. PAGE 192 The attempt of Ruskin to raise landscape to a high level in the art of the painter[a] need scarcely be referred to here, so completely have his arguments been refuted elsewhere. The authority of Alexander Humboldt has been sometimes quoted in support of the assertion that landscape can appeal to the higher attributes, the passage relied upon affirming that descriptive poetry and landscape painting "are alike capable in a greater or lesser degree of combining the visible and invisible in our contemplation of nature." But it is clear from the whole references of the writer to these arts, that he means nothing more by his statement than that a painting or descriptive poem may, like an actual landscape, induce a feeling of wonder at the powers of the original Cause of nature. The opinion of Humboldt upon the position of landscape painting may be gathered from his definite observation that it has "a more material origin and a more earthly limitation than the art which deals with the human form."[b] [a] _Modern Painters_, vols i. and ii., and the preface to the second edition of the work. [b] _Cosmos_, vol. ii. NOTE 61. PAGE 194 It is doubtful whether an artist can invent a form of tree which does not exist in nature, without producing something of the character of a monstrosity. From the point of view of dimensions, the two extreme forms of trees used in painting, are represented in Raphael's Madonna with the Goldfinch[a] as to the slender forms, and as to the giant trunks, in two or three of Claude's pictures. The very beautiful trees of Raphael have been often regarded as pure inventions, and Ruskin was actually surprised that the artist did not delineate the "true form of the trees and the true thickness of the boughs";[b] but as a matter of fact precisely similar trees (a variety of ash) are to be found in the valleys of the Apennines to this day. All the change that Raphael made was to transport the trees from a sheltered spot to an open position. Very similar trees are introduced in the same master's Apollo and Marsyas.[c] Perugino was the first painter to use them, and in some of his earlier works he made them of great height,[d] but he gradually modified the form till he approached the perfect symmetry and delicacy of Raphael's examples.[e] Marco Basaiti introduced them into at least three of his pictures, and they are also to be found in works by Timoteo della Viti and Francia.[f] Higher and equally slender trees have been appropriately used by Antonio della Ceraiuolo,[g] and even by so late a painter as Nicholas Poussin.[h] [a] Uffizi Gallery, Florence. [b] _Modern Painters_, vol. iv. [c] The Louvre. [d] Baptism of Christ, Perugia; and The Crucifixion, Florence. [e] The Deposition, Pitti Palace. [f] Madonna and Child in a Rose Garden, Munich. [g] The Crucifixion, Florence Academy. [h] Diana sleeps in the Forest, Prado, Madrid. NOTE 62. PAGE 194 In noting the fact that the great landscape artist invents his designs, Byron observes that nature does not furnish him with the scenes that he requires, and adds[a]: Nature is not lavish of her beauties; they are widely scattered, and occasionally displayed, to be selected with care, and gathered with difficulty. Had Byron been a painter, he would have known that the trouble of the artist is due to the over, and not the under, supply of beauty by nature. The artist sees the beauty, but cannot identify it with particular signs, and so has to invent a scene himself, using nature only for sketches or ideas. [a] _Art and Nature._ NOTE 63. PAGE 200 "The force of natural signs," says Lessing, "consists in their resemblance to the things they represent."[a] In a criticism upon the second part of _Faust_, G. H. Lewes writes[b]: The forms which are his (the artist's) materials, the symbols which are his language, must in themselves have beauty and an interest readily appreciable by those who do not understand the occult meaning. Unless they have this they cease to be art: they become hieroglyphs. Art is picture painting, not picture writing. While this is generally true, beauty in the lesser signs of the poet is of greater importance than in those of the painter, because a painting is looked upon direct as a whole, while a poem has to be comprehended in its parts before it can be properly considered as a whole. [a] Laocoon. [b] _Life of Goethe_, 2d edition. NOTE 64. PAGE 203 Although those of the fifteenth-century artists who treated landscape seriously did not thoroughly understand perspective, yet they were seldom at a loss in representing distance, that is, in the clear atmosphere which they invariably used. They were diffident in attempting distance with unbroken level country, and till quite the end of the century there is no instance where middle and far distance are shown together, even with the assistance of hilly ground. The almost invariable practice of the leading painters who made landscape a feature in their works, was to introduce water leading back from the foreground, so that breaks therein could be used to indicate distance. More or less numerous jutting forks of low lying land were thrown into the stream from either side, this plan being successfully adopted in Italy,[a] Flanders,[b] and Germany.[c] Early in the sixteenth century much improvement was made in the use of water for providing distance, and a few of the Venetian painters gave some consideration to aerial perspective, but the most perfect example of this perspective in the period is contained in an early work of Raphael.[d] In the background is a lake extending into a gradually deepening haze, and in this a boat is so skilfully placed as to increase considerably the apparent distance to the horizon. This picture is a distinct advance upon the Venetian distance work of the time.[e] Later on in the century an artist rarely introduced water into a view specially to assist in producing distance by means of boats, more advanced methods being adopted. Titian used sunlight effects with varying shadows,[f] or alternating clear and wooded ground.[g] These plans, and the use of water with the addition of trees and low hills,[h] constitute the chief devices to be found in the late sixteenth-century Italian pictures. Some of the sun effects rendered for distance purposes even before Titian's best time are quite effective, though formal.[i] [a] See Piero di Cosimo's Death of Procris, National Gallery, London, and Mars and Cupid, Berlin. [b] Van Eyck's Chancellor Rollin before the Virgin, and Bout's Adoration of the Magi. [c] Lucas Moser's Voyage of the Saints (1431), Tiefenbroun, Germany. [d] Central panel in a triptych of the Crucifixion, Hermitage, Petrograd. This picture has been sometimes attributed to Perugino, but it is unquestionably from the hand of Raphael. [e] See Titian's Jacopo Pesaro presented to St. Peter, Antwerp. [f] Charles V. at Mühlberg, Madrid. [g] Meeting of Joachim and Anna, Padua; and others. [h] Bronzino's Venus and Cupid, Uffizi, Florence. [i] Schiavone's Jupiter and Io, Hermitage. NOTE 65. PAGE 204 Lessing apparently overlooked the possibilities of landscape painting in his dictum as to progressive actions. He writes[a]: If painting on account of the signs and means of imitation which it employs, and which can only be combined in space, must entirely renounce time, then progressive actions cannot, in so far as they are progressive, be included in the number of its subjects, but it must content itself with coexistent actions, or with mere bodies, which on account of their position cause an action to be suspected. It is true that a series of progressive human actions cannot be included in one painting, but progressive natural actions can be so included when the progression is regular and repeated and the actions are clearly separated to the eye. Although the painter can only depict a moment of time, he can show the whole progression, which is not the case in a series of human actions, as in the example quoted by Lessing, of Pandarus arranging his bow, opening his quiver, choosing an arrow, and so on. Strange to say, De Quincey, in an explanatory note to Lessing's observations, also overlooks the movement of water broken by rocks, though he refers specially to landscape painting. He says[b]: In the succession of parts which make up appearance in nature, either the parts simply repeat each other (as in the case of a man walking, a river flowing, etc.), or they unfold themselves through a cycle, in which each step effaces the preceding, as in the case of a gun exploding, where the flash is swallowed up by the smoke effaced by its own dispersion. But for the purpose of the painter, the action of water breaking over ledges and boulders does not correspond with the case of a man walking or a river flowing, because the series of events forming the progression in the case of the water breaking, cover such time and space that the events can be distinctly separated by the eye. Clearly also this action should not be included in De Quincey's second category, because the repetition is both regular and (to all intents and purposes) perpetual. There should therefore be a third category to comprise those repeated progressive acts in which the events can be so separated by the eye as to be portrayed on canvas in the order of their progression, and in such a way that the whole progression, and the meaning of it, are at once apparent. [a] _Laocoon_, Phillimore translation. [b] Essay on "Lessing." [Illustration: PLATE 29 (See page 329) Greek Sculpture of Ariadne (_Vatican_)] NOTE 66. PAGE 208 Professor Clausen relates that Whistler told him that his object in painting nocturnes was to try and exhibit the "mystery and beauty of the night." It is obvious that Whistler was here confusing psychological with visual impressions. The depth of gloom, the apparently limitless dark void which the eye cannot penetrate, mean mystery in a sense, because we can never accustom ourselves to the suggestion of infinity involved in something which is boundless to the senses. A sensation of the sublime may consequently arise, and this means beauty in a psychological sense. But we are considering art and not psychology. Where nothing is distinguished, nothing can be painted, and if there be sufficient light for objects to be determined, there can be no mystery for the painter. If he be desirous of representing Night, he must follow the example of Michelangelo and symbolize it. It is curious that since the death of Whistler, a picture entitled Mysteries of the Night has been painted by another American artist--J. H. Johnston. A figure of a beautiful nude woman is standing on a rocky shore in a contemplative attitude, with the moonlight thrown upon her. The design is excellent, but the realistic modelling of the figure effectually kills any suggestion of mystery. NOTE 67. PAGE 231 Vasari mentions that Michelangelo, though admiring the colour and manner of Titian regretted that the Venetian painters did not pay more attention to drawing in their studies.[a] In quoting this, Reynolds observed[b]: But if general censure was given to that school from the sight of a picture by Titian, how much more heavily and more justly would the censure fall on Paolo Veronese, and more especially on Tintoretto. Reynolds himself rightly excluded Titian when he condemned the later Venetian painters of the Renaissance for their exaggeration of colour, and no doubt Titian was also exempted by J. A. Symonds in his trenchant criticism of the work of this school. When dealing with the decline of Lesbian poetry after the brilliant period of Sappho, he wrote[c]: In this the Lesbian poets were not unlike the Provençal troubadours, who made a literature of love, or the Venetian painters, who based their art on the beauty of colour, the voluptuous charms of the flesh. In each case the motive of enthusiastic passion sufficed to produce a dazzling result. But as soon as its freshness was exhausted there was nothing left for art to live on, and mere decadence to sensuality ensued. [a] _Life of Titian_. [b] Reynolds's Fourth Discourse. [c] _Studies of the Greek Poets_, vol. i. NOTE 68. PAGE 232 Sir George Beaumont relates of Reynolds[a]: On his return from his second tour over Flanders and Holland, he observed to me that the pictures of Rubens appeared much less brilliant than they had done on his former inspection. He could not for some time account for this little circumstance; but when he recollected that when he first saw them he had his notebook in his hand for the purpose of writing down short remarks, he perceived what had occasioned their now making a less impression than they had done formerly. By the eye passing immediately from the white paper to the picture, the colours derived uncommon richness and warmth; but for want of this foil they afterwards appeared comparatively cold. [a] Cunningham's _Lives of the British Painters_. NOTE 69. PAGE 249 Rodin[a] observes that in giving movement to his personages, the artist represents the transition from one pose to another--he indicates how insensibly the first glides into the second. In his work we still see a part of what was, and we discover a part of what is to be. Rodin points to Rude's fine statue of Marshal Ney, and practically says that here the illusion is created by a series of progressive actions indicated in the attitude: the legs remaining as they were when the sword was about to be drawn, and the hand still holding the scabbard away from the body, while the chest is being thrown out and the sword held aloft. Thus the sculptor compels, so to speak, the spectator to follow the development of an act in an individual. The eyes are forced to travel upwards from the lower limbs to the raised arm, and as in so doing they find the different parts of the figure represented at successive instants, they have the illusion of beholding the movement performed. Rodin himself has followed a similar course with much success. The ancient Greek sculptors, when representing a figure in action, invariably chose a moment of rest between two progressive steps in the action. The Discobolus and Marsyas of Myron, and particularly the Atalanta in the Louvre, are fine examples. [a] _Art, by Auguste Rodin_, compiled by Paul Gsell, 1916. NOTE 70. PAGE 250 Mengs, in referring to the arrangement of the drapery in Raphael's figures, says[a]: With him every fold has its proper cause; either in its own weight or in the motion of the limbs. Sometimes the folds enable us to tell what has preceded; herein too Raphael has endeavoured to find significance. It can be seen by the position of the folds, whether an arm or a leg has been moved forwards or backwards into the attitude which it actually occupies; whether a limb has been, or is being, moved from a contracted position into a straightened one, or whether it was extended at first and is being contracted. [a] _The Works of Anton Raphael Mengs_, vol. ii., D'Azara translation. NOTE 71. PAGE 258 Besides assisting in providing an illusion, the title of a picture may lend great additional interest to it. Thus in Millet's The Angelus the associations called up by the title act most powerfully on the mind, and one almost listens for the sound of the bell.[a] A work of a similar character is Bonvin's Ave Maria, where the nuns of a convent are answering the call[b]; and Horace Walker has a picture with the same title, in which a boy who is driving cattle, stops in front of a Crucifix by the wayside[c]. An excellent example of this added interest is the title of Turner's great picture of the _Temeraire_,[d] as to which R. Phillimore writes[e]: It is not difficult to imagine the picture of an old man-of-war towed by a steam tug up a river. The execution of such a subject may deserve great praise and give great satisfaction to the beholder. But add to the representation the statement that it is "The fighting Temeraire towed to her last berth, " and a series of the most stirring events of our national history fills our imagination. [a] The Louvre. [b] The Luxembourg. [c] Corcoran Gallery, Washington. [d] National Gallery, London. [e] Preface to translation of Lessing's _Laocoon_. NOTE 72. PAGE 261 There is an antique sculptured group in the Vatican in which a precisely similar figure of the son of Niobe has his left hand on the shoulder of his sister who has fallen to her knees from the effect of a wound, and it is very reasonably suggested that the Florence figure originally formed part of a like group. But the explanation of the act given by Perry[a] and others, that the drapery was raised by the brother to shield the girl, will scarcely hold good, as the folds are spread out at the back, forming a concavity, whereas they would fall loosely if the youth were resting. Apart from this, his legs are widely separated, and in a running position. It may therefore be surmised that in the Vatican group the artist intended to represent the precise moment when the fleeing youth reached his sister. [a] _Greek and Roman Sculpture._ NOTE 73. PAGE 270 It is curious that among the countless pictures of the Annunciation, in very few indeed has surprise been expressed in the countenance and attitude of the Virgin, though it is impossible to imagine an incident more properly calling for profound astonishment on the part of the principal personage in a composition, even in the absence of startling miraculous accessories such as that introduced by Rossetti. Probably the reason for this is connected with the difficulty of expressing great surprise unaccompanied with some other feeling, as pleasure, or sorrow, or fear, but there does not seem to be any cause why an exalted joyful excitement should not be exhibited. Mrs. Jameson thinks that the Virgin should not appear startled, as She was "accustomed to the perpetual ministry of Angels who daily and hourly attended on Her,"[a] but it is questionable whether this can be properly assumed by the artist, and in any case from the point of view of art, the action should correspond with the nature of the event as it is generally understood. Of the few masters who have indicated surprise in an Annunciation picture, Tintoretto has gone the farthest. He shows the Virgin with Her lips parted, and both hands held up, evidently with astonishment,[b] an example followed by Paris Bordone.[c] Raphael in an early picture represents Her holding up one hand, but the attitude might signify the reception of an announcement of importance.[d] Perugino shows Her with both hands raised, but otherwise She appears unconcerned.[e] A few other artists, including Venusti and Foppa, and among modern men, Girodet, adopt Raphael's method of composition. Rubens goes a step farther, and represents the Virgin apparently standing back with surprise, though this is only faintly suggested by the facial expression.[f] [a] _Legends of the Madonna._ [b] Scuolo di San Rocoo, Venice. [c] Sienna Gallery. [d] The Vatican. [e] Santa Maria Nouvo, Perugia. [f] Vienna Gallery. INDEX OF SCULPTORS, PAINTERS, AND WORKS OF ART NOTE.--The Schools to which the earlier Italian painters belonged are given in brackets. A Adam, Franz, 1815-1886, German --Bavarian Regiment before Orleans, 257 Aivasovsky, I. K., 1817-1900, Russian, 205 Albani, Francesco, 1578-1660, Italian, 163 --Toilet of Venus, 118 Albertinelli, Mariotto, 1467-1512, Italian [Florentine] --The Salutation, 243 Alcamenes, fifth century B.C., Greek, 304 Altdorfer, A., 1480 (_c._)-1538, German --The Nativity, 268 Aman, Jean, 1860-, French --Sorbonne panels, 254 Ancher, Anna K., 1859-, Danish --The Funeral, 189 Andreani, A., 1540-1623, Italian, 257 Angelico, Fra (Giovanni da Fiesole), 1387-1455, Italian [Florentine], 17, 101 Antico (Pier Giacomo Ilario), worked late 15th and early 16th century, Italian, 326 Antonella da Messina, 1421 (_c._)-1493, Italian [Venetian] --Crucifixion, 243 Antonio del Ceraiolo, worked first half sixteenth century, Italian [Florentine], 345 Apelles, fourth century B.C., Greek, 10, 44 --Venus Anadyomene, 113, 330, Plate 4; Alexander in the character of Jupiter, 209 Avercamp, Hendrick van, 1585-1663, Dutch, 292 B Bartolommeo da Bagnacavallo (Bart. Ramenghi), 1484-1542, Italian [Bolognese] --Holy Family, 103 Bartolommeo, Fra (Baccio della Porta, or Bart. di Pagholo), 1475-1517, Italian [Florentine] --Adoration of the Shepherds, 265 Bartolozzi, Francesco, 1725-1815, Italian, 164 Basaiti, Marco, died after 1521, Italian [Venetian] --The Dead Christ, 93; Calling of the Children of Zebedee, 93; Christ on the Mount of Olives, 243 Baschenis, Evaristo, 1617-1677, Italian, 247 Battistello (Giovanni Battista Caracciolo), 1580-1641, Italian, 17 --Adoration of the Shepherds, 271 Bellano, Bartolommeo, 1430-1498, 327 Benjamin-Constant, J. J., 1845-1902, French, 184 Benoit-Levy, Jules, 1866-, French --Morning of July 4, 1789, 253 Berghem, Nicholas (or Berchem), 1620-1683, Dutch, 47, 292 Bernadino da Conti, died 1525, Italian [Venetian] --Virgin and Child, 245 Bernini, G. L., 1598-1669, Italian, 31, 33 Berritini, Pietro, 1596-1669, Italian, 31 Bertoldo di Giovanni, 1420 (_c._)-1491, Italian, 327 Bischop, C, 1630-1674, Dutch, 292 Blyhooft, Z., 1622 (_c._)-1698, Dutch, 292 Boecklin, A., 1827-1901, German, 208 --Vita Somnium breve, 180; Pietà, 170 Boltraffio, G. A., 1467-1516, Italian [Milanese] --Virgin and Child, 103 Bonfiglio, Benedetto, 1420-1496 (_c._) Italian [Perugian] --Virgin and Child, 103 Bonheur, Rosa, 1822-1899, French --Ploughing in Nivernois, 256 Bordone, Paris, 1500-1570, Italian [Venetian] --Annunciation, 354 Both, Andries, 1609-1644, Flemish, 47 Both, Jan, 1610 (_c._)-1652, Flemish, 47 Botticelli, Sandro (Alessandro di Mariano dei Filippi), 1444-1510, Italian [Florentine] 96 --Pietà, 169; Nativity, 269; Reposing Venus, 117; Athena and the Centaur, 124 Boucher, François, 1704-1770, French --Louvre Portrait, 173; Sleeping Venus, 118; Birth of Venus, 268 Bough, S., 1822-1878, British --Borrowdale, 204 Bouguereau, A. W., 1825-1905, French --Assumption of the Virgin, 267; Une âme au Ciel, 267; Birth of Venus, 115; Aurora, 271; Twilight, 271; The Lost Pleiad, 269 Bouts, Dirk, 1400-1475, Flemish --Adoration of the Magi, 347 Braquemond, J. F., 1833-, French, 285 Bramantino (Bartolommeo Suardi), 1468-(_c._) 1530, Italian [Milanese] --Christ, 93; Virgin and Child, 103 Breton, Jules, 1827-1906, French --Cry of Alarm, 253 Breughel, Jan, 1569-1642, Flemish, 46 Breughel, Pieter, 1528-1569, Flemish, 90 Bril, Paul, 1554-1626, Flemish, 46 Bronzino (Angelo Allori), 1502-1572, Italian [Florentine] --Venus and Cupid, 348 Brown, Arnesby, 1866-, British --The Drove, 257 Burne-Jones, E. B., 1833-1898, British --Annunciation, 270; Golden Stairs, 252; Dies Domini, 93 C Cabanel, Aexandre, 1823-1889, French --Venus Anadyomene, 115 Calamis, fifth century B.C., Greek, 9 Canaletto (Antonio Canale), 1697-1768, Italian, 47 Canova, Antonio, 1757-1822, Italian --L'Amour et Psyche, 191 Cappelle, Jan van de, 1624(_c._)-1679, Dutch, 46 Carracci, Agostino, 1558-1601, Italian, 31 Carracci, Annibale, 1560-1609, Italian, 31 Carracci, Ludovico, 1555-1619, Italian, 31 Caravaggio, M. (Michelangelo Amerighi), 1569-1609, Italian, 17, 246 Cavalori, Mirabello, middle sixteenth century, Italian [Florentine] --The Carpet Weavers, 252 Cellini, Benvenuto, 1500-1571, Italian, 17, 323 Cephisodostos, early fourth century B.C., Greek --Irene and Pluto, 101 Cézanne, Paul, 1839-1906, French, 37, 288 Chardin, J. S., 1699-1779, French, 173, 247 Chartier, H., 1870 (_c._)-, French --Jena, 256; Hanan, 256 Chase, W. M., 1849-1916, American --Master Roland, 165 Cignani, Carlo, 1628-1719, Italian, 32, 164 Cimabue, Giovanni, 1240 (_c._)-1302, Italian [Florentine] 92, 95, 283 --Virgin and Child, 101 Cipriani, G. B., 1727-1785, Italian, 164 Claude Lorraine (Claude Gelée), 1600-1682, French, 17, 30, 47, 195, 198, 201, 283 --Arcadian Landscape, Plate 17 Clausen, George, 1852-, British, 284, 349 Cogniet, L., 1794-1880, French. --Tintoretto Painting his Dead Daughter, 191 Colton, W. R., 1867-, British --Royal Artillery Memorial, 253 Constable, John, 1776-1837, British, 48, 195, 208 Copley, J. S., 1737-1815, American --Death of Chatham, 190 Corenzio, Bellisario, 1588 (_c._)-1643, Greek, 17 Cornelius, Peter, 1783-1867, German --Let there be Light, 267 Correggio (Antonio Allegri), 1494-1534, Italian [Parma], 43, 69, 102, 108, 142 --Vice, 179; Virtue, 179; Mercury instructing Cupid, 130; Madonna and Child with Saints (Parma), 268; Parma frescoes, 229 Costa, Lorenzo, 1460-1535, Italian [Ferrarese] --Coronation of the Virgin, 102; Cupid crowning Isabella d'Este, 225 Cosway, Richard, 1742-1821, British, 164 Cot, P. A., 1837-1883, French --The Storm, 210 Courbet, G., 1819-1877, French --Funeral at Ornans, 189 Coypel, Antoine, 1661-1742, French, 163 Coypel, Noel, 1628-1707, French, 163 Crivelli, Carlo, 1440 (_c._)-1496, Italian (Venetian) --Coronation of the Virgin, 264 Crome, John, 1769-1821, British, 208 Cuyp, Albert, 1605-1691, Dutch, 203, 245 D Dalsgaard, Christen, 1824-, Danish --The Child's Coffin, 189 Damophon, second century B.C., Greek, 122 Danby, F., 1793-1861, British, 209 Dehodencq, E. A., 1822-1882, French --Bohemians returning from a Fête, 253 Delacroix, E. V. E., 1798-1863, French, 278 Delaroche, Paul (Hippolyte Delaroche), 1797-1856, French --Death of Queen Elizabeth, 190 Demont-Breton, V., 1859-, French --The Divine Apprentice, 321 Diaz, N., 1807-1876, French --Descent of the Bohemians, 253 Dolci, Carlo, 1616-1686, Italian --Christ Blessing, 175 Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri), 1581-1641, Italian, 19 --St. Cecilia, 176; St. Paul's Vision, 265 Donatello (Donate di Betto Bardi), 1385 (_c._)-1466, Italian, 30, 101, 108, 325 Doomer, Lambert, 1647 (_c._)-1694, Dutch, 292 Doré, Gustave, 1832-1883, French --Creation of the Earth, 265; Samson Slaying the Philistines, 252 Dossi, Dosso, 1479-1552, Italian [Ferrarese] --Muse instructing a Court Poet, 175; Nymph and Satyr, 175 Dow, Gerard, 1613-1675, Dutch, 46, 248 --The Dentist, 176 Duccio, Boninsegna di, 1260 (_c._)-1340, Italian [Siennese], 280 --Madonna and Child, 101 Dumont, Jacques (Le Romain), 1701-1781, French --Madame Mercier and Family, 173 Dürer, Albrecht, 1474-1528, German, 45 --The Virgin with a Canary, 264 Dyce, William, 1806-1864, British --St. John leading the Virgin from the Tomb, 245 E Eakins, Thomas, 1844-1916, American --Dr. Cross's Surgical Clinic, 185 Emmet, Lydia, 1866-, American --Patricia, 247, Plate 23 Ercole di Roberti (E. di R. Grandi), 1470 (_c._)-1531, Italian [Ferrarese] --The Concert, 175 Everdingen, E. van, 1612-1675, Dutch, 204 F Falconet, P. E., 1741-1791, French, 169 Ferrari, Gaudenzio, 1484-1549, Italian [Milanese] --Madonna and Child, 173 Ferri C., 1634-1689, Italian --David plans a Temple, 268 Feuerbach, A., 1828-1880, German --Medea, 170 Filarete (Antonio Averlino), (_c._) 1399-1470, Italian, 327 Flaxman, John, 1755-1826, British, 130 Fontana, B. (G. B. Farinati), 1532-1592, Italian --Vision of Resurrection, 267 Foppa, Vincenzo, 1427 (?)-1515, Italian [Milanese] --Annunciation, 354 Fragonard, J. H., 1732-1806, French, 43, 283 --The Pursuit, 139; The Rendezvous, 335; Souvenirs, 335; The Lover Crowned, 335; The Abandonment, 335; Venus Awakened by Aurora, 118 Francesco da Cotignola (F. dei Zaganelli), worked early sixteenth century, Italian [Parma] --Adoration of the Shepherds, 265 Francia (Francesco Raibolini), 1450-1517, Italian [Bolognese], 332 --Madonna and Child in Glory, 266; Madonna and Child in a Rose Garden, 345 Fries, Hans, (_c._) 1450-1520, German --Virgin and Child with St. Anne, 103 Frith, W. P., 1819-1909, British --Poverty and Wealth, 178 Fromentin, E., 1820-1886, French, 185 --Couriers des Ooled Nayls, 257 G Gaddi, Taddeo, 1300-1366, Italian [Florentine], 280 Gainsborough, T., 1727-1788, British, 160 --Mrs. Leybourne, 174; Lady Sheffield, 174 Genga, Girolamo, 1476-1551, Italian. Magdalene with Saints, 266 Géricault, Jean Louis, 1791-1824, French --Epsom, 257 Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 1381-1455, Italian, 324 Ghirlandaio, Domenico, 1449-1494, Italian [Florentine], 30, 96 --Old Man and Boy, 151; Birth of St. John Baptist, 251; Death of St. Francis, 144 Ghirlandaio, Ridolfo, 1483-1560, Italian [Florentine] --Madonna giving her girdle to St. Thomas, 265 Gilbert, John, 1817-1897, British --Slaying of Job's Sheep, 209 Giordano, Luca, 1632-1705, Italian, 32 Giorgio, Francesco di, 1439-1502, Italian [Siennese] --Christ bereft of His clothes before the Crucifixion, 93 Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli), 1477-1510, Italian [Venetian], 278, 283, 336 --Adrastus and Hysipyle, 210, 225; The Sleeping Venus, 116 Giotto (Giotto di Bondone), 1267 (_c._)-1337, Italian [Florentine], 95, 108, 280, 283 --Madonna and Child, 101 Giovanni di Bologna (Jean de Douai), 1524-1608, French or Flemish, 323 --Mercury, 129 Girodet de Roncy, A. L., 1767-1842, French --Burial of Atala, 191; Annunciation, 355 Girolamo da Libri, 1472-1555, Italian [Venetian] --Virgin and Child, 244 Gouthière, Pierre, 1740-1806, French, 323 Goyen, Jan van, 1596-1656, Dutch --View of The Hague, 195 Granacci, Francesco, 1477-1544, Italian [Florentine] --The Virgin giving her girdle to St. Thomas, 267 Grant, Francis, 1803-1878, British --Countess of Chesterfield and Mrs. Anson, 245 Greco, El (Dominico Theotocopuli), 1547 (_c._)-1614, Greek, 19 Grien, Hans Baldung, 1480-1545, German --The Three Ages, 180; Sacred and Profane Love, 182; Pictures representing Death, 186 Gros, A. J., 1771-1835, French --The Combat of Nazareth, 256; Timoleon of Corinth, 170 Guardi, Francesco, 1712-1793, Italian --Regatta on the Grand Canal, 252 Guercino (G. F. da Cento), 1590-1666, Italian --Martyrdom of St. Peter, 265 Gutherz, C, 1844-1907, Swiss --"They shall bear thee up," 267 H Hacker, A., 1858-, British --The Cry of Egypt, 170 Hals, Franz, 1580-1666, Dutch, 155, 248, 336 --The Laughing Cavalier, 177; Stephanus Gereardts, 337; Isabella Coymans, 337; Lady with a Fan, 337; Willem van Heythuysen, 337; Merry Company at Table, 175 Hanneman, Adrian, 1611-1680, Dutch --Constantine Huygens and Children, 248 Heim, F. J., 1787-1865, French, 184 Henneberg, R. F., 1825-1876, German --Race for Fortune, 187 Hobbema, M., 1638-1709, Dutch, 46, 49, 202 --Landscape, Plate 18 Hoet, G., 1648-1733, Dutch --Translation of Enoch, 269 Hogarth, W., 1697-1764, British, 225, 282 Holbein, Hans, 1497-1543, German, 283 --The Barber Surgeons, 220; Holy Family, 103; The Ambassadors, 40, 157; Virgin and Child, 263 Homer, Winslow, 1836-1910, American --All's Well, 176, Plate 15 Hoppner, John, 1758-1810, British, 161 Humphrey, Ozias, 1742-1810, British, 164 Hunt, W. H., 1827-1910, British --Shadow of the Cross, 321; The Scapegoat, 227 I Ingres, J. A. D., 1780-1867, French --Oath of Louis XIII., 264; [OE]dipus and the Sphinx, 186; Birth of Venus, 115 Innes, George, 1825-1894, American --Niagara Falls, 211 J Johnstone, J. H., 1857-, American --Mysteries of the Night, 350 K Kampf, Arthur, 1864-, German --Night of March 31, 1888, 189 Kauffmann, Maria Angelica, 1741-1807, German, 164 Kaulbach, W. von, 1805-1874, German --Marguerite, 170 Keyser, Thomas de, 1596 (_c._)-1679, Dutch --Lesson in Anatomy, 185 Kulmbach, Hans (Hans Suess), 1476 (_c._)-1522, German --Entombment of St. Catherine, 263 L Lancret, Nicolas, 1660-1743, French, 180 Lard, F. M., late nineteenth century, French --Glory Forgets not Obscure Heroes, 191 La Touche, G., 1854-1913, French, 285 --Firework pictures, 213 La Tour, Maurice Q., 1704-1788, French --Madame de la Popelinière, 174; Mdlle. Camargo, 174; Madame de Pompadour, 174 Latour, I. H. Fantin, 1836-1904, French, 285 Lawrence, Thomas, 1769-1830, British, 161, 224 Le Brun, Charles, 1619-1690, French, 163 --Death of Cato, 191 Leighton, F., 1830-1896, British --Captive Andromache, 171 Leoni, Leone, died 1590, Italian, 323 Le Sueur, E., 1616-1655, French, 163 --Venus reposing, 118; The Virgin appearing to St. Martin, 261 Levy, H. L., 1840-1904, French --Young Girl and Death, 191 Liberale di Verona, 1452-1519, Italian [Veronese] --Magdalene with Saints, 265 Lionardo da Vinci, 1452-1519, Italian [Milanese], 16, 18, 30, 96, 172, 283, 325 --The Last Supper, 69, 93; Mona Lisa (Paris), 151, 242, 341 --(formerly Boston), 242, 340; Litta Madonna, 240, Plate 21; Virgin and Child with St. Anne, 172, 243 Lippi, Filippo, 1406-1469, Italian [Florentine], 96 --Virgin and Child, 103, 251 Loefftz, L., 1845-, German --The Dead Christ, 171 Longepied, L., 1849-1888, French --Immortality, 191 Longhi, Pietro, 1702-1762, Italian, 31 Lorenzetto, P., first half fourteenth century, Italian [Siennese] --Madonna and Child, 101 Lotto, Lorenzo, 1480-1556, Italian [Venetian] --Three Ages of Man, 179; Triumph of Chastity, 226 Luca di Tome, first half fourteenth century, Italian [Siennese], 261 Luini, Aurelio (A. del Lupino), 1530-1593, Italian [Milanese], 288 Luini, Bernadino (B. del Lupino), 1475 (_c._)-1536, Italian [Milanese] --Entombment of St. Catherine, 263; Salome, 173 Lux, H. L., late nineteenth century, French --Sarpedon, 268 Lysippus, fourth century B.C., Greek, 10 --Hercules in depressed mood, 344 M Mainardi, S., died about 1515, Italian [Florentine] --Madonna giving her girdle to St. Thomas, 261 Maître de Flemelle (Robert Campin), 1375 (_c._)-1444, French or Flemish, 93, 170 Manet, Edouard, 1832-1883, French, 286 --Boy with a Sword, 165; Déjeuner sur l'Herbe, 181; Olympia, 287 Mantegna, Andrea, 1431-1506, Italian [Paduan] --The Infant Christ, 102; Virgin and Child, 175 Margaritone of Arezzo, 1216-1293, Italian [Tuscan], 279 Maratta, Carlo, 1625-1713, Italian, 33, 284 Martin, John, 1789-1854, British --Plague of Hail, 210; Destruction of Pharaoh, 210; "I have Set My Bow in the Cloud," 210 Masaccio (Tommaso Guidi), 1402-1429, Italian [Florentine], 283, 322 --The Madonna enthroned, 104; Tribute Money, 250 Matisse, Henry, 1876-, French, 37 Matsys, Quentin, 1463 (_c._)-1530, Flemish, 93 Meissonier, J. L. E., 1815-1891, French --1814, 256 Mengs, Anton R., 1728-1779, German, 352 --St. John Baptist Preaching, 175 Menzel, A., 1815-1905, German --Market Place in Verona, 252; Iron Mill, 252 Meyer, K., 1618-1689, Swiss, 179 Michelangelo Buonarotti, 1475-1564, Italian [Florentine, Roman], 10, 13, 16, 18, 19, 30, 43, 69, 92, 229, 260, 233, 350 --Holy Family (Florence), 182; Last Judgment, 90, 93; Reposing Venus, 117; Leda, 320; Night, 320; San Lorenzo Madonna, 320; Bargello Madonna, 320; Pietà, 320; Moses, 320; Bacchus, 132; St. Stephen, 93; Creation of Adam, Plate 24 Mignard, Pierre, 1610-1695, French, 163 Millais, J. E., 1829-1896, British --The Carpenter's Shop, 321 Millet, J. F., 1814-1875, French --The Angelus, 352 Molyn, P., 1592(_c._)-1661, Dutch, 292 Monet, C. J., 1840-, French, 286 Montagna, B., 1450(_c._)-1523, Italian [Venetian] --The Virgin Enthroned, 102 Moro, Antonio, 1512-1575, Flemish --Catilina of Portugal, 159; Maria of Austria, 159 Morot, A. N., 1850-, French --Reichsoffen, 256 Moser, Lucas, first half fifteenth century, German --Voyage of the Saints, 347 Murillo, B. E., 1618-1682, Spanish, 19, 163 --Holy Family, 103; Ascension of Christ, 260; Immaculate Conception pictures, 266 Myron, fifth century B.C., Greek, 9, 249 --Discobolus, 352; Marsyas, 331, 352 N Nattier, J. M., 1685-1766, French, 164 --Madame Louise, 173 O Orcagna (Andrea di Cione), 1308(_c._)-1370, Italian [Florentine] --Assumption of the Virgin, 261 Orchardson, W. Q., 1835-1907, British --The Borgia, 189 P Palma Giovane (Jacopo Palma), 1544-1628, Italian [Venetian] --Christ in Judgment, 264 Palma Vecchio (Jacopo Palma), 1480(_c._)-1528, Italian [Venetian] --Reposing Venus, 117; Assumption, 266 Parmigiano (Francesco Mazzuoli), 1504-1540, Italian [Parma] --Madonna and Child with Saints, 103 Pedrini, Giovanni (Giampietrino), late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Italian [Milanese] --Madonna, 173 Perronneau, J. B., 1715-1783, French --Madame Olivier, 173 Perugino, Pietro (Pietro Vanucci), 1446-1524, Italian [Umbrian], 17, 332 --Christ's Rule, 264; Deposition, 345; Assumption of the Virgin, 262; Ascension, 262, 263; Baptism of Christ, 345; Madonna with Child and Penitents, 264; Annunciation, 354; Crucifixion (Florence), 345 Phidias, fifth century B.C., Greek, 7, 10, 44, 57, 91, 108, 122, 328 --Olympian Zeus, 68; Parthenon Athena, 68, 123 Picart, B., 1673-1733, French --The Burning Coal, 262 Piero di Cosimo (Piero Rosselli or Piero di Lorenzo), 1462-1521, Italian [Florentine], 322 --Marsyas and the Pipes of Athena, 124, 225, 331; Death of Procris, 347; Mars and Cupid, 347 Pinturicchio, B., 1454-1513, Italian [Umbrian], 332 Pisano, Giovanni, fourteenth century, Italian --Madonna and Child, 101 Pisano, Giunto, first half thirteenth century, Italian --Christ and the Virgin, 261 Pisano, Niccolo, 1206 (_c._)-1278, Italian --Infant Christ, 108 Pissarro, C., 1830-1903, French, 286 Polidoro da Caravaggio (Polidoro Caldara), died 1543, Italian [Neapolitan], 169 Pollaiuolo, Antonio (A. di Jacopo Benci), 1429-1498, Italian [Florentine], 327 --Hercules contemplating death, 190, Plate 16, 343 Polyclitus, fifth century B.C., Greek --Hera, 120 Polygnotus, fifth century B.C., Greek --Frescoes from Homer, 69 Pontormo (Jacopo Carrucci), 1493-1558, Italian [Florentine], 142 --Venus Reposing, 117 Potter, Paul, 1625-1654, Dutch, 203, 245 Poussin, Gaspar (Gaspar Dughet), 1613-1675, French, 195 Poussin, Nicholas, 1594-1665, French, 16, 30, 47, 163, 195 --Jonah cast into the sea, 210; Assumption of the Virgin, 267; St. Francis Xavier, 261; Vision of St. Paul, 267; Venus Reposing, 117; Adam and Eve, 265; Diana Sleeps in the Forest, 345; Descent from the Cross, 168 Poynter, E. J., 1836-, British --Building the Treasure City, 253 Praxiteles, fourth century B.C., Greek, 7, 10, 13, 44, 136, 328 --The Cnidian Aphrodite, 112, 329; Hermes and the Infant Bacchus, 101, 109, 129 Prevost, Jean, died 1529, French --Old Man and Death, 186 Prudhon, P. P. 1758-1823, French --Crucifixion, 170; Abduction of Psyche, 266 R Raeburn, Henry, 1756-1823, British, 161 --The Farmer's Wife, 174; Mrs. Lauzun, 174; Mrs. Balfour, 174; Dr. N. Spens, 166 Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), 1473-1520, Italian [Umbrian, Florentine, Roman], 7, 10, 13, 16, 18, 28, 43, 57, 69, 92, 108, 125, 137, 142, 167, 229, 283 --God Appearing to Isaac, 261; God Separating Water from Earth, 261; Creation of the Sun and Moon, 261; Transfiguration, 251; Julius II., 40, 151, 289; School of Athens, 144; Parnassus, 125; Prophets and Sybils, 243, 263; Foligna Madonna, 263; Creation of Woman, 263; Maddalena Doni, 242; Angelo Doni, 242; Study from Mona Lisa, 242; The Redeemer, 243; Madonna and Child (Bridgewater), 102; Madonna and Child with St. John (Berlin), 102; Holy Family (Madrid), Deliverance of St. Peter, 251; Fire at the Borgo, 251; Flight of Lot and his Family, 251; Crucifixion, 347; Moses Striking the Rock, 251; Saint Cecilia, 176; Saint Sebastian, 243; Venus Anadyomene, 113; Christ Blessing, 93; Casa Tempi Madonna, 173; Cowper Madonna, 173; Leo N. and the Cardinals Medici, 157; Fornarina, 173; Portrait of a Young Man, 173; Mercury and Psyche, 129; St. Margaret, 250, Plate 26; Annunciation, 354; Apollo and Marsyas, 125, 332, 345; Virgin with a Goldfinch, 173, 345; Sistine Madonna, 230 Ravestyn, Jan van, 1572-1657, Dutch, 158 Redon, O., died 1917, French --Death, the Friend, 188 Regnault, H., 1843-1871, French --Automedon and the Horses of Achilles, 256, Plate 28 Rembrandt van Ryn, H., 1606-1669, Dutch, 20, 21, 152, 160, 283, 289 --Rembrandt and Saskia, 177; Angel quitting Tobias, 263; Lesson in Anatomy, 185; Lady with a Dog, 281; Ascension of Christ, 266, 267; Night Watch, 21; Syndics of the Drapers, 281; Portrait Young Man (Beit Coll.), 281; do. (Wachtmeister Coll.), 281; Martin Day, 150; Machteld von Doorn, 150; Samson menacing his father-in-law, 248 Reni, Guido, 1575-1642, Italian --Assumption of the Virgin, 268 Rethel, A., 1816-1859, German --Death at a Masked Ball, 187; Death the Friend, 188 Reynolds, Joshua, 1723-1792, British, 142, 154, 160, 224, 282, 350 --The Infant Hercules, 176; Mrs. Siddons as Tragedy, 161; Mrs. Billington as Cecilia, 161; Hon. Lavinia Bingham, 174; Mrs. Abington, 174; Viscountess Crosbie, 166 Riccio (Andrea Briosco), 1470-1532, Italian, 323, 326 Ribera, Giuseppe, 1593-1656, Italian, 17 Rigaud, H., 1659-1743, French, 163 --Louis XV. as a boy, 173 Robbia, Luca della, 1400-1482, Italian, 325 Robbia, Andrea della 1435-1525, Italian, 104 Roberts, David, 1796-1864, British --The Israelites depart, 257 Rodin, A., 1840-1917, French, 249, 351 --La Vieille Heaulmière, 317 Roll, A. P., 1847-, French, 271 Romano, Giulio (G. Pippi), 1492-1546, Italian [Roman] --Holy Family, 104 Romney, George, 1734-1802, British, 142, 161, 164 --Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante, 174; William Booth, 174; Mrs. Thomas Raikes, 165; The Ladies Spencer, 166; Mrs. Yates, 174; Mrs. Tickle, 174 Rosa, Salvator, 1615-1673, Italian, 32 --Samuel's Curse, 179 Rosalba (Rosalba Carriera), 1675-1757, Italian, 164 Roslin, A., 1718-1793, French, 173. Rossellino, Antonio, 1429-1479, Italian, 104 Rossetti, D. G., 1828-1882, British --Annunciation, 270 Rubens, P. P., 1577-1640, Flemish, 16, 20, 30, 46, 152, 226, 283 --Assumption of the Virgin (Dusseldorf), 266; do. (Vienna), 266; do. (Augsburg), 266; do. (Brussels), 266; Ascension (Vienna), 267; do (Venice), 268; Deity and Christ, 266; Diana and Nymphs, 254, Plate 27; Harvest Landscape (Munich), 211; do. (Wallace Coll.), 211; Virgin and Child (Rome), 262; Birth of Venus, 115; Landscape with a Rainbow, 211; Shipwreck of Æneas, 211; Annunciation (Vienna), 355; Landscape with Baucis and Philemon, 210; Funeral of Decius, 188; Boreas and Oreithyia, 260; Landscape by Moonlight, 209; Toilet of Venus, 118; Christ on the Cross, 244; Death of Seneca, 190; The Four Philosophers, 157; David's Last Song, 176; Marie de' Medici series, 226 Rude, François, 1794-1855, French --Marshal Ney, 351; Marseillaise, 254 Ruysdael, Jacob, 1628 (_c._)-1682, Dutch, 49, 203, 208 --The Rising Storm, 206, Plate 20; Landscape with flowing water, 204, Plate 19; The Marsh, 203 S Sacchi, Andrea, 1600-1661, Italian, 164 Saint-Bonvin, F., 1817-1887, French --Ave Maria, 353 Saint-Gaudens, A., 1848-1907, American --Shaw Memorial Relief, 254 Salviati, F. (Francesco de Rossi), 1510-1563, Italian [Florentine] --Justice, 179 Sansovino (Jacopo Tatti), 1486-1570, Italian, 323 Sarto, Andrea del (Andrea Agnolo), 1488-1530, Italian [Florentine], 142 --Holy Family (Hermitage), 104 Sassoferrato (Giovanni Battisto Salvi), 1605-1685, Italian, 164 Scheffer, Ary, 1795-1858, Dutch --Temptation of Christ, 178 Schiavone, Andrea, 1462-1522, Italian [Venetian] --Jupiter and Io, 348 Schnorr, J. von K., 1794-1872, German --God's Promise to Abraham, 269 Schongauer, Martin, (_c._) 1445-1491, German, 45 Schonherr, C., nineteenth century, German --Agony in the Garden, 265 Schreyer, Adolf, 1828-1899, German --The Attack, 257 Schwind, M., 1804-1871, Austrian --The Pleiads, 269, Plate 25; Rainbow, 212; Phantom in the Forest, 270 Scopas, fourth century B.C., Greek, 10 --Demeter, 122, Plate 7 Sebastiano del Piombo (Sebastiano Luciani), 1485-1547, Italian [Venetian] --Concert, 181 Signorelli, Luca, 1440 (_c._)-1521, Italian [Umbrian], 191 --Portrait of a Man, 182; Madonna and Child, 103, 264 Simson, William, 1800-1847, British, 245 Snyders, Frans, 1579-1677, Flemish, 216, 257 Sodoma, Il, (Giovanni A. Bazzi), 1477-1549, Italian [Siamese] --Sacrifice of Abraham, 244 Steen, Jan, 1629-1679, Dutch --Terrace Scene, 245 T Tassaert, O., 1800-1874, French, 17 --Assumption of the Virgin, 266 Teniers, David, 1610-1690, Dutch, 90 Terburg (or Terborch), Gerard, 1617-1681, Dutch, 46 --Peace of Munster, 158 Thoma, Hans, 1839-, German --Temptation of Christ, 187; Cupid and Death, 178; Sin and Death, 187; Progress of the gods to Walhalla, 212; Rainbow, 211; View of Laufenburg, 204 Thomson, John, 1778-1840, British --Fast Castle, 207; Dunluce Castle, 207 Tiepolo, G. B., 1692-1769, Italian, 31 Timanthes, fourth century B.C., Greek --Sacrifice of Iphigenia, 168, Plate 14, 339 Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), 1518-1594, Italian [Venetian], 261 --Bacchus and Ariadne, 270; Annunciation, 354; Presentation of the Virgin, 243 Titian (Titiano Vecelli), 1477-1576, Italian [Venetian], 13, 40, 108, 148, 152, 283, 336, 350 --Assumption of the Virgin, 266; Sacred and Profane Love, 138, 181; Resurrection, 264; Madonna of the Cherries, 102; Meeting of Joachim and Anna, 102; Three Ages of Man, 179; Madonna with SS. Anthony and John, 104, 348; Jacopo Pesaro presented to St. Peter, 347; Paul III. with the two Brothers Farnese, 157, 164; Reposing Venus (Uffizi), 116; Venus Anadyomene, 115; Aretino, 144; Man with the Gloves, 151; Duke of Alba, 144; portraits of Philip II., 144; Charles V. at Mühlberg, 149, 347; portraits of his Daughter, 149; Duke of Ferrara, 149; Physician of Parma, 336; Toilet of Venus, 118; Christ on the Cross, 244; Pharaoh's Host overwhelmed, 257; self-portrait, 149; Venus and the Organ Player, 166 Turner, J. M. W., 1775-1851, British, 16, 17, 201 --Arundel Castle, 210; The _Temeraire_ towed to her last berth, 353 U Uhde, Fritz von, 1848-, German, 321 --Cavalry going into action, 257; Revenge, 187; The Three Magi, 104 V Van der Neer, A., 1619-1683, Dutch, 208 Van de Velde, W., 1633-1707, Dutch, 46 Van der Venne, A. P., 1589-1661, Dutch --The Soul Fishery, 211 Van der Weyden, Roger, 1400 (_c._)-1464, Flemish, 93, 170 Van Dyck, Anthony, 1599-1641, Flemish, 142, 148, 157, 216 --Four Ages, 180; Christ on the Cross, 244, Plate 22; Earl of Pembroke, 165; Earl of Bedford, 150; Philip le Roy, 165; Henrietta Maria (Windsor), 150; portrait of his Wife, 166; Earl of Newport, 150; Countess of Devonshire, 165 Van Eyck, Jan, 1385 (_c._)-1441, Flemish, 283 --Virgin and Child at the Fountain, 263; Arnolfini and his Wife, 40; Chancellor Rollin before the Virgin, 347 Van Gogh, V., 1853-1890, Dutch, 37, 288 Velasquez, D. R. de Silva, 1599-1660, Spanish, 152 _et seq._, 283 --Christ at the Column, 246; Las Meninas, 155, 247; Coronation of the Virgin, 266; The Drinkers, 182; The Three Musicians, 175; The Breakfast, 155; portraits of Philip IV., 153; Olivares, 149; Innocent X., 151; Don Antonio el Ingles, 149; Rokeby Venus, 119; Surrender of Breda, 155; Christ in the house of Martha, 155 Venusti, Marcello, died after 1579, Italian [Florentine] --Annunciation, 354 Verestchagin, V., 1842-1904, Russian, 184 Vermeer, Jan (of Delft), 1632-1675, Dutch, 20 Vernet, E. J. Horace, 1789-1863, French --La Smalah, 256 Veronese, Paolo (Paolo Caliari), 1528-1588, Italian [Venetian], 231, 286, 350 Verrocchio, Andrea del, 1435-1488, Italian, 325 Viti, Timoteo della, 1470-1523, Italian [Umbrian], 332, 345 W Walker, Horatio, 1858-, American --Ave Maria, 353 Watteau, Antoine, 1684-1721, French, 278, 283 --Embarkation for Cythera (Paris), 254; do. (Berlin), 269 Watts, George F., 1817-1904, British --Death, the Friend, 188, 191 West, Benjamin, 1738-1820, American --Death of General Wolfe, 190 Whistler, J. A. McN., 1834-1903, American, 50, 349 Wiertz, A., 1806-1865, Belgian --The Orphans, 189; Things of the Past, 226 Wilson, Richard, 1714-1782, British, 48 Witt, J. H., 1840-1901, American --Bless the Lord, 262 Wouverman, Philip, 1614-1670, Dutch, 203, 245 Z Zurbaran, Francisco, 1598-1662, Spanish, 19 GENERAL INDEX A Actors in stage rôles, portraits of, 223 Aerial perspective, Claude the first master of, 47; its importance, 198; method of producing, 200 Æsthetic systems, all of them untenable, 3, 274; Carritt on, 274; of Hegel, 277; of Croce, 273 Ages of man, pictures contrasting the, 179 Allegorical painting, when secondary art, 225 Angel of Death in art, instances of, 191; symbol of, 188 Angels, representation of, in aerial suspension and flight, 262, 266 Animal painting, in action, 255; ideals in, not possible, 56 Annunciation, The, indication of surprise in expression, 270, 354 Apelles, his Venus Anadyomene, 113, 330; epigrams on, 331 Aphrodite (_see_ Venus) Apollo, his representation in art, 124 Architecture, its position in the Fine Arts, 53; imitative character of, 53, 294; unconcerned with ideals, 58; produces sensorial beauty only, 64; simplicity its keynote, 75; standard of judgment in, 75; S. Colvin on, 292 Ares (_see_ Mars) Aristotle, on imitation in art, 215, 292; on metrical form in poetry, 54, 296; his division of the painter's art, 62; his connection of morals with art, 314 Art, definition of, 1; its mimetic character, 52; sensorial beauty, first aim of, 72; must deal chiefly with types, 55; independent of social and political conditions, 4; of psychological impulses, 8, 14; great periods of, 8; suggested evolution in, 7; "Classic" and "Romantic," 278; relation of, to nature, 55; popular appreciation of, 74; Grecian, cause of its decline, 10; Italian Renaissance of, cause of its decline, 11; limitation of sculpture and painting in, 81; Tolstoy's definition of, 275; ideals in (_see_ The Ideal in Art) Artemis (_see_ Diana) Artists, training necessary for, 25; cause of variation in work of, 20; reputations of great, 283; as judges of works of art, 305 Arts (_see_ Fine Arts) Assent, Law of General, 72 _et seq._ Associated Arts, the arts associated, 53; first law of the, 60; highest art in, recognized by general opinion, 77; ideals in, 58; cannot properly be used for moral or social purposes, 82; their method of producing beauty, 78 _et seq._; limitations of, 80 Athena, her representation in art, 123 Atmospheric effects, limitations in producing, 202; exceptional phases, 202 B Bacchus, his representation in art, 131 Barbizon School, anticipated by Dutch masters, 291; sketches of the, of little importance, 290; use of heavy gilt frames for works of the, 291 Beauty, definitions of, unsatisfactory, 2, 59; alleged objectivity of, 2; highest form of, 72; unconnected with philosophy, 2; first law of, in the Associated Arts, 60; ideal, 86; kinds of, in the arts, 4, 60, 273; degrees of, in the arts generally, 60, in painting, 83; sensorial (or emotional), 60, 72; intellectual (or beauty of expression), 2, 273; of form, 273; of color, 228 _et seq._; methods of producing, 78; as the "expression of emotion," 275; Longinus on the highest, 73; standard of judgment of, in poetry, 77, in sculpture, 77, in painting, 77, in architecture, 75, in fiction, 77, in landscape, 194, in still-life, 214, in secondary art, 219 _et seq._; general agreement in respect of, 86 Bon Dieu d'Amiens, Ruskin on, 319; Farrar on, 319; corresponds with certain Greek art, 319, Plate 2 Brevity in expression, highest beauty in poetry, marked by, 65 Broad style of painting, cause of, with great artists, 21; its limitations, 39; advocacy of, by impressionists, 38; as used by Rembrandt, 281; by Hals, 336 Bronze statuettes of the Renaissance, 321 _et seq._ Byron on nature and art in respect of landscape, 345 C Caricature, its place in art, 225 Carritt, E. F., on the result of æsthetic systems, 275 Cave men, their art, 5 Ceres (_see_ Demeter) Chaldean Art, Illustration of, Plate 1 Character of Artists, influence of, in their work, 16 Cherubs, use of, in assisting illusion of suspension in the air, 265 Christ, representation in art, 92; the established ideal, 92; Ruskin on the best ideal of, 319 Christian conception of the Deity, its effect in art, 88 "Classic Art," Hegel's definition, 277; varied meanings of the term, 278 Claude Lorraine, the first great landscape painter, 47; the cause of his success, 16; Goethe on, 49; the model for Turner, 49 Clausen, G., his definition of Impressionism, 284; on Whistler's nocturnes, 349 Clouds, use of, in relation to air-suspended figures, 263 Coast views, illusion of motion in, 206 Color, beauty of, 228 _et seq._; its relative importance, 228; in landscape, 194; juxtaposition of pure colors, 35, 287; by Venetian artists, 231, 350; exceptional color effects, 234; its use by impressionists, 34 _et seq._ Colvin, S., claims music and architecture as non-imitative arts, 292 Comedy, its place in the painter's art, 224 Contentment, quality of expression in the Madonna, 97; in Venus, 119 Contrast, its use in composition, 177; of forms, 177; of ages, 179; of beauty and strength, 177; of Good and Evil, 178; of Poverty and Wealth, 178; of Vice and Virtue, 178; of nude and clothed figures, 180 Correggio, and the sublime, 229 Criticism, the new, 29 Croce, B., his æsthetic system, 273; on genius, 282 D Darwin, C., on the result of nerve exercise, 281; on natural music, 293 Death, representation of, 183 _et seq._; in the Crucifixion, 184; typified by a skeleton, 186; in massacres and executions, 184; in interior scenes, 190; funeral scenes, 188; scenes of approaching, 190; Angel of, 188 Decorative art, imitation in, 218 Deformity in art, 89 Deity, the, representation of, 92; ideals of, 91 Demeter, representation of, 121, Plate 7 Demosthenes, example of his art, 300 De Quincey, T., on the representation of progressive actions, 348 Descriptive poetry, its limits, 79; in the seventeenth century, 308; example from Sophocles, 310, from Cornelius Gallus, 309 Diana, representation of, 126 Dignity, in portraiture, 146; practice of Titian, 148; of Van Dyck, 148; of Velasquez, 149 Dionysus (_see_ Bacchus) Drama, The, pictures from the written, 221; from the acted, 222; importance of tragedy in painting, 221 Drapery, with use of in sculpture, proportions possible which are not feasible in nude figures, 328; use of, in painting by Raphael, 251, 352; for assisting illusions, 260 Dutch painters of the seventeenth century, their limited imaginations, 19 E Eaton, D. C., on the origin of impressionism, 286 Egyptian art, its early high development, 7, Plate 1 Emotional element in beauty (_see_ Beauty) Emotions, The, influence of, in the work of artists, 16; expression of, in relation to beauty, 275 Evolution, not applicable to art generally, 7; Spencer on, 276; Symonds on, 276 Execution in painting, must be balanced with imagination, 18; of Hals, 155; of Lionardo, 18; of Rembrandt, 19; of Velasquez, 153 Expression, in ideals generally, 86; in Christian ideals, 91 _et seq._; in classical ideals, 106 _et seq._; in portraiture, 141 _et seq._; in the representation of grief, 168; with the smile, 171; the open mouth, 174; in the exhibition of deformity, 89; in scenes of death, 183; of Raphael, 339; of Rembrandt, 42; of the fourteenth century Italian painters, 279; of the thirteenth century French sculptors, 315; in the literary arts, 65 _et seq._ F Falconet, E., on the representation of grief, 169 Farrar, Dean, on the ideal of Christ, 319; on the early Italian painters, 279 Fiction, as a fine art, 4, 52; one of the Associated Arts, 53; imitation in, 52; forms of, 69; basic and structural in character, 81; standard of judgment in, 73; in relation to sensorial beauty, 79; unconcerned with ideals, 58 (_see also_ Novel) Fine Arts, imitative in character, 52; classified according to their signs, 53; their methods of producing beauty, 78; standards of judgment in the, 77 Fireworks, unsuitable for the painter, 212 Flight, representation of (_see_ Illusion of suspension and motion in the air) Flowers, their representation in still-life, 216; in decorative art, 217 Foreground in landscape, illusion of opening distance in, 202 Form, beauty of, 273; ideal, 86 Frames of pictures, their use in Barbizon works, 291; exclusion of, in artificial means to secure relief, 240 French sculptors of the thirteenth century, their forms in the Greek manner, 315; their representation of the Virgin and Child, 101, 315 Frescoes, necessarily divided into sections, 69; Reynolds on Raphael's, 303 Funeral scenes in art, 188 G General opinion, standard of judgment in all arts except music, 73, 77 Genius, how produced, 21 _et seq._; Reynolds on, 282; Johnson on, 282; Hogarth on, 282 Geology, study of, may be assisted by landscape painting, 315 Gods, Mythological (_see_ Grecian, under their separate headings); Roman, 328 Grace, inferior as a special quality in portraiture, 164; as applied in Greece and Rome, 162; in sixteenth century art, 163; in seventeenth century art, 163; in England in the eighteenth century, 164; in France, 163; kinds of, 338 Grandeur, highest quality of beauty in architecture, 75; practically impossible in landscape, 193; in portraiture, 160; in Van Dyck's works, 160; in Gainsborough's works, 160 Grecian art, cause of its decline, 10; development of, compared with that of the Renaissance, 10 _et seq._ Grecian sculpture, its high place in art, 106; ideals in, 88, 95; representation of adults with children in, 100; studied by the great masters of the Renaissance, 108; in portraiture, 145 H Hals, Franz, his facility, 155; his limited imagination, 155; his broad manner, 336; the works of pupils attributed to him, 337 Hegel, G. W., his "periods" in art, 277 Hephæstus (_see_ Vulcan) Hera (_see_ Juno) Hercules, his representation as contemplating death, 190 Hermes (_see_ Mercury) Historical painting, its place in art, 83 Hogarth, W., on genius, 282 Holmes, C. J., on the framing of Barbizon pictures, 291 Homer, example of his art, 65 Hood, T., his moods and his work, 17 Horses, representation in action, 255 Human figure, principal sign in the Associated Arts, 53, 73; produces highest form of beauty, 72; general ideal of, 86; Greek ideals, 106 Humboldt, A., on the position of landscape in art, 344 Humorous subjects, their place in the painter's art, 224 Hyperides, example of his art, 300 I Ideal in art, The, only possible in respect of the human form, 57, 87; inapplicable to form without expression, 86; definition of, 86; must be general, 86; general agreement in respect of, 87; can only be applied to excellence, 89; limitation of, 56; ideals of the Greeks, 89, 91, of the early Italians, 94, of the thirteenth century French sculptors, 315, of the Deity, 88, 91, of Christ, 92, 94, of the Madonna, 95, of Zeus, 88, of the other Grecian deities, 89, of Phidias, 10, of Raphael, 97, 137, of Praxiteles, 10, in, of Michelangelo, 320; general ideals, 135; universality of, 138, 315; ideal qualities, 89 Illusion of continuity, in death scenes, 189 Illusion of movement, in landscape, 197; in sea views, 205; in coast views, 206; in sculpture, 249, 351; in figure painting, 250 _et seq._; in animal painting, 255 _et seq._; may be suggested by title of work, 257 Illusion of opening distance, in distance landscape, 197; in nearground work, 203; in sea views, 205 Illusion of relief, its value in painting, 236; mechanical methods of producing, 240 Illusion of suspension and motion in the air, with the assistance of flowing drapery, 260; of clouds, 263; of cherubs, 265; of Angels, 266; of smoke, 268 Imagination, The, influence of precocious, in the production of genius, 23; must be balanced with skill in execution, 18; of Lionardo, 18; of the Dutch painters, 19; of the Spanish painters, 19; of Shakespeare, 23, 24 Imitation, the province of art, 52; should be generalized, 237; in landscape, 194, in still-life, 214, in decorative art, 218, in architecture, 294, in music, 293; of other arts by the painter, 221 _et seq._; Aristotle on, 215; S. Colvin on, in respect of the fine arts, 292 Impressionism, definitions of, 25, 284 _et seq._; its origin, 285 _et seq._; its influence, 38; its limitations, 35; its defects, 34 _et seq._; its effects, 51; its correspondence with Sprezzatura, 32 Industry, the key to success in art, 24, 282 Inspiration in art, not recognized by great artists, 16; actual instances of, unknown, 15; suggested national, 9 _et seq._; individual, 14 Interiors, pictures of, their place in art, 84 Invention in art, its relative importance, 54; in poetry, 54; in painting, 312; Lessing on, in poetry and painting, 312; in landscape, 193; the term used in two senses, 311 Irony, works conveying, unsuitable for the painter, 224 Italy, Art of, decline of the Renaissance, 11 _et seq._; in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 30 _et seq._; Renaissance ideals, 12 J Japanese, their practice in decoration, 217 Johnson, Dr., on genius, 282 Juno, representation of, by the painter, 120 Jupiter, Greek representation of, 88, 89; ideal of, 89, 91; by the painter, 109 L Landscape painting, its place in art, 48, 84; produces only sensorial beauty, 192; Humboldt on, 344; signs in, 199; disadvantages of, 44; limitations in, 192 _et seq._, 348; varieties of, 49; relative difficulty of execution in, 48; compositions must be invented, 194; illusion of motion in, 197 _et seq._; precise imitation necessary in, 194; as a useful art, 314; early development of, 46, in ancient Rome, 45, in Italy, 47, in Holland, 46, in England and France, 48 Lanzi, A. L., on the range of Raphael in expression, 339 La Touche, G., on the origin of impressionism, 286 Latour, Fantin, and the origin of impressionism, 285 Laugh, a, when unobjectionable in painting, 177 Lessing, G., on progressive actions, 348; on the relative importance of invention and execution, 312; on the representation of grief, 169; on descriptive poetry, 309; on signs in art, 346; on Homer and the beauty of Helen, 298; on the Laocoon design, 311; on the dictum of Simonides, 307; on ugliness in poetry and painting, 341 Lewes, G. H., on the execution of signs in art, 346 Lightning, its use in landscape, 209; must be subordinated, 209; where used in painting by great masters, 210 Lionardo da Vinci, his imagination compared with his execution, 18; his relief, 239; on success in painting, 16; his representation of Christ, 93 Literary arts, the painter must take his action from them or from nature direct, 81 (_see_ Poetry and The Novel). Literary movement in England in the sixteenth century, 278 Longinus, on the test of the sublime and beautiful, 73; on certain examples of beauty in the literary arts, 300 Luini, A., On an "impressionist" landscape by Titian, 288 M MacColl, D. S., on the origin of impressionism, 284 Madonna, The, her representation, the test of art during the Renaissance, 12, by Cimabue and Giotto, 95, in Crucifixion scenes, 99; her surroundings in art, 99, her representation at different ages, 98, Michelangelo on her presumed age, 320; her presumed social condition, 100; the ideal of the early Italian, 12, 95, of Raphael, 97, Michelangelo's portrayals of, 320; limitations in the ideal of, 98 Madonna and Child, representation of, by thirteenth century French sculptors, 101, 315; in Italy, 101; changes in grouping of, in the fifteenth century, 101; practice of later artists, 102 _et seq._ Manner in painting, its limitations, 39; the public indifferent to, 39; of Rembrandt, 21; of Hals, 336 Manet, E., his connection with the rise of impressionism, 287 Marine painting (_see_ Sea views) Mars, representation of, in painting, 128 Mauclair, C., on impressionism, 285 Mengs, A. R., on Raphael's treatment of drapery, 352 Mercury, his representation in painting, 129 Metaphor, with the poet, 65, 227, 296; with the painter, 226 Michelangelo, and the sublime, 229; his studies in Greek art, 108; Reynolds on, 282; his ideals of the Madonna, 320; on her presumed age at the Crucifixion, 320; on the cause of Raphael's success, 16; on the public judgment of works of art, 304; on the Venetian painters, 350 Miller, Marion M., his translation of Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite, 302 Minerva (_see_ Athena) Modesty, quality in expression unsuitable to a goddess, 119 Mona Lisa, the Louvre example, 151, 172; the Boston example, 172; her reputed age in the picture, 240; her smile, 341 Mood, influence of, in the work of artists, 17 Moonlight scenes, their place in art, 208 Morals, pictures illustrating, their place in art, 85 Moreau-Vautier, C., on the juxtaposition of pure colors, 287 Music, highest beauty in, produced by complex combinations of signs, 73; greatest works in, the least popular, 75; ideals not possible in, 58; cannot present intellectual beauty, 64; standard of judgment in, 305; cannot be connected with painting, 285; its connection with poetry, 54, 76; imitative character of, 53, 293; claimed by Colvin as non-imitative, 292; Darwin on natural, 293 Muther, R., on the origin of Impressionism, 287 Mystery in painting, indicates inferior art, 341 Mythological subjects, their place in painting, 83, 133 N Nature, relation of, to art, 57; and landscape, Byron on, 345 Near-ground painting in landscape, 202 Neptune, his representation in painting, 127 Nerves of the senses, their advanced condition at birth cause of precocity in art, 21; alike in all people, 86; connection of genius with development of, 22; physiological changes in, 22, 72; Darwin on the, 281 Night, should be symbolized in painting, 350; Whistler attempts to represent beauty of, 349 Nocturnes, origin of Whistler's, 349 Norwich school of painting, 48 Novel, the, compared with the short story, 70; limit of, 71; of little service to the painter, 221 (_see_ Fiction) Nude with clothed figures, contrasts of, 180 O Objectivity of beauty, 2 Open Mouth, The, 174; when not objectionable, 177 P Painter, the, his requirements, 25 Painting, imitative character of, 52; degrees of beauty in, 83; compared with sculpture, 135; its relation to poetry, 307; general ideals in, 86 _et seq._; classical ideals in, 106 _et seq._; Christian ideals in, 91 _et seq._; action cannot be originated in, 81; great, marked by simplicity, 69; standard of judgment in, 73; general expression in, 167; relation of invention to execution in, 312; broad manner of, 39; of divinities, 109; of classical scenes, 133; of humorous subjects, 224; of contrasts, 177 _et seq._; of scenes from fiction, 221, from the written drama, 221, from the acted drama, 222; of portraits in character, 222; of ugliness, 341; deformity in, 178; representation of death in, 183; portrait, 141 _et seq._; landscape, 192 _et seq._; of moonlight scenes, 208; of still-life, 214; secondary art of, 85, 219; metaphor in, 226; color in, 228 _et seq._; impressionist, 25; of events in time, 219; symbolical, 227; Barbizon school of, 290; quality of grace in, 161, of contentment, 97, of modesty in respect of goddesses, 119; illusion of relief in, 239 _et seq._; illusion of movement in, 249, in animal action, 255, of opening distance, 197, of suspension in the air, 259, in representation of progressive actions, 204, of continuity, 189, assisted by title, 257; portraiture, 141 _et seq._ Pastoral occupations, pictures representing, 84 Periods of art, not attributable to national æsthetic stimulus, 8; Hegel's, 277 Phidias, his exalted position in art, 10; his ideals, 91 Philips, A., his translation of Sappho's Ode to Anactoria, 301 Philosophy, art not specially related to, 2 Pythian, F., on the origin of impressionism, 286 Poe, Edgar A., on sadness and beauty, 280 Poetry, the highest art, 81; its imitative scope, 52; not primarily a combined art, 55; value of metrical form in, 54; its association with music, 76; its relation to painting, 307; cannot depict sensorial beauty by description, 79; descriptive, 309; in relation to human beauty, 79, to natural beauty, 79; basic and structural in character, 81; its range unlimited, 81; ugliness in, 341; standard of judgment in, 73, 76; Watts-Dunton's definition of, 296; translations of, 297 Pompeian Frescoes, 45, 162, 169, 170, 171, 261, 344 Popular appreciation of art, 73 _et seq._, 306; Tolstoy on, 307 Portraiture, its position in art, 141; variation in work of portraitists, 141; generalization, 143; added qualities in, 148; quality of dignity in, 146; quality of nobility in, 161; action in, 164; use of the smile in, 171; of stage characters, 223; in ancient Greece, 145, 162; in ancient Rome, 145; of women, 158; of Raphael, 151; of Titian, 148; of Moro, 159; of Van Dyck, 150; of Rembrandt, 150; of Velasquez, 149, 152; of Hals, 155; of Reynolds, 160; of Gainsborough, 160; of Romney, 161; effects of fashion in, 159; quality of grace in, 161; limitations in, 141, 143; decoration in, should be subordinated, 156; multiple portraits, 156 Poseidon (_see_ Neptune) Praxiteles, his development of new ideals, 111; his Cnidian Aphrodite, 111 Precocity in art, cause of, 22 Progressive actions, in figure subjects, 254; in sea views, 204; in coast scenes, 206; in landscape, 203; Lessing on, 348; De Quincey on, 349 Psychological influence in art conceptions, alleged, 14 Q Quintilian: on the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, by Timanthes, 340 R Rainbow, its use in landscape, 210 _et seq._ Raphael, and the sublime, 229; his superiority the cause of the decline of the Renaissance, 11; his achievement in the ideal Madonna, 12 _et seq._, 140; the composition of his ideal, 97; his range in expression, 167; Lanzi on, 339; his representation of movement, 250; his portraiture, 151; his drapery arrangements, 250; his representation of suspension in the air, 261; his study of ancient art, 108; his fresco work, 69; Michelangelo on, 16; his trees, 345 Recognition, Law of, explanation of, 57; examples of, 65 _et seq._; music and architecture excluded from the, 64; division of the arts in applying, 62 Relief (_see_ "Illusion of Relief") Rembrandt, his imagination compared with his execution, 20; cause of variation in his work, 21; his simplicity, 150; his broad work, 289; his use of color, 152; his position in art, 44; his representation of character, 42; suggested as impressionist, 41, 290; compared with the idealists, 43; his palette-knife pictures, 281; classification of his portraits, 281 Renaissance (_see_ Italy, Art of) Repose, in portraiture, 164; in the representation of Venus, 116 Reynolds, Joshua, his high position in portraiture, 160; on color, 350; on the representation of grief, 169; on the cause of excellence in painting, 282; on genius in art, 282; nobility in his portraits, 160; as a painter of women, 161; on the work of Raphael, 303; on Michelangelo, 282; on the early Italian painters, 280; on the Venetian painters, 350; his portraits of actors in character, 224; his use of the smile, 174 Rodin, A., on the suggestion of movement in sculpture, 249, 351; on ugliness in art, 317; his La Vieille Heaulmière, 317; on Greek ideals, 319 Romans, The ancient, had no separate sacred art, 328 "Romantic Art," its various meanings, 278; Hegel's period of, 277 Romney, G., the quality of grace in his portraits, 161 Ruskin, J., on the trees of Raphael, 345; on the ideal of Christ, 319; on the position of landscape in art, 344; on the Italian painters of the fourteenth century, 279 Ruysdael, Jacob, his painting of breaking water, 204, 206; his near-ground work, 203 S Sacred Art, offers highest scope for the artist, 63; in Greece, 91; in Italy, 12 Sadness, as a quality of beauty, 280 Saints, representation of, 104 Sappho, her Ode to Anactoria, and the cause of its beauty, 67; translation of the Ode, 301; her Hymn to Aphrodite, 302 Satan, representation of, 178 Satire, works conveying, unsuited to the painter, 224 Schopenhauer, on music as a non-imitative art, 292 Sculpture, its imitative scope, 52; ideals in, 135; compared with painting, 135; importance of simplicity in, 68; standard of judgment in, 73; illusion of motion in, 249; Rodin on the illusion, 351; in ancient Greece, 106; in Greek and Roman portraiture, 145; thirteenth century French, 315 Sea views, illusion of opening distance in, 204; progressive actions in, 206 Secondary Art, its nature, 85; in historical work, 220; in actions drawn from the novelist, 221; from the written drama, 221; from the acted drama, 222; humorous pictures, 224; in allegorical and symbolical painting, 225 _et seq._ Shakespeare, his imagination, 23; example of his art, 66; represents characters above experience, 61 Short story, the, its essentials, 70; compared with the novel, 69 (_see also_ Fiction) Signs, of the fine arts, 56; separation of the arts according to character of, 53; the two classes of, in art, 56; must be completely painted, 199; Lewes on, 346; Lessing on, 346; suggestive, belong to the poet and not to the painter, 200 Simonides, on the relation of poetry to painting, 307 Simplicity, necessary in the higher forms of the Associated Arts, 71 Skeleton, as a symbol in art, 186 _et seq._ Smile, the, transitory, should be avoided in art, 171; in Raphael's work, 173; in Lionardo's, 172, 341; of the Milanese artists generally, 172; in portraiture, 173; in French portraits, 174; in British, 174 Smoke, use of, in illusions of air suspension, 268 Sophocles, example of descriptive poetry from, 310 Spencer, Herbert, on evolution in art, 276 Sporting pictures, their place in art, 85 Sprezzatura, origin of, in the seventeenth century, 30 _et seq._; correspondence with impressionism, 32 Stage scenes, pictures of, 222 Still-life, its place in art, 85, 214; beauty in, 214; its varieties, 215; in decoration, 218; custom of the Japanese in, 217 Stories, pictures illustrating, their place in art, 85, 221; painter of, subordinate to the writer, 221 Sublime, The, Longinus on, 73; painters who have achieved, 229 Supreme Being, final ideal of human form can only apply to, 88 "Symbolic" period of painting, Hegel's, 277 Symbolical painting, when secondary art, 227 Symonds, J. A., on evolution in art, 271; on the Venetian artists, 350 T Taine, H., on music as a non-imitative art, 294 Tanagra figures, quality of grace in, 162 Temperament, influence of, on the work of artists, 16 Titian, as a portrait painter, 144; the dignified pose in his figures, 148; the pose a test of his portraiture, 335; his impressionist landscape, 288; his coloring, 231; some doubtful attributions to, 336 Titles of pictures, may assist in providing illusion of motion, 257; may add interest to a work, 352 Tolstoy, Leo, on the meaning of "art," 275; on popular appreciation of art, 307 Tragedy, only section of drama which the painter may properly use, 221 Translations of poetry, varying values of, 297 Trees in art, the slender trees of Raphael, 345; of other artists, 345 Turner, J. M. W., secret of his success, 16 Twilight scenes, their place in art, 208 Types, importance of, in nature and art, 55 U Ugliness in art, may be used in poetry, but not in painting, 342; Rodin on, 317; Lessing on, 341; Waldstein on, 318 Uncivilized races, their understanding of beauty, 333 V Van Dyck, A., 30; his portraiture, 150 Velasquez, his place in art, 44; his simplicity in design, 152; his limited imagination, 155; his execution, 153; compared with the idealists, 43; his perfect balance, 43; claimed as an impressionist, 41, 290 Venus, her representation in art, 110; Anadyomene, 114 _et seq._; reposing, 116; at her toilet, 118; of Phidias, 111; of Praxiteles, 111 _et seq._; of Apelles, 113; of Raphael, 114; of Michelangelo, 117; de' Medici, 119; of Titian, 115; of other artists, 115 _et seq._ Verestchagin, V., his war pictures, 184 Vinci, Lionardo da (_see_ Lionardo) Virgin, The (_see_ Madonna, The) Virtue and Vice, pictures representing, 178 Vulcan, representation in painting, 132 W Waldstein, C., on ugliness in sculpture, 318 Watts-Dunton, T., his definition of poetry, 296 Whistler, J. McN., his nocturnes, 349 Wings, use of, in suspended figures, 262 Women in portraiture, during the Renaissance, 159; by Moro, 159; by Van Dyck, 159; by the eighteenth century British artists, 161; Reynolds preeminent in painting of, 160 Z Zeus (_see_ Jupiter) 
8536	----	PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON _AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY_ 1834-1858 _AND A MEMOIR BY HIS WIFE_ 1858-1894 "Intellectual living is not so much an accomplishment as a state or condition of the mind in which it seeks earnestly for the highest and purest truth.... If we often blunder and fail for want of perfect wisdom and clear light, have we not the inward assurance that our aspiration has not been all in vain, that it has brought us a little nearer to the Supreme Intellect whose effulgence draws us while it dazzles?"--_The Intellectual Life_. PREFACE. About twelve years ago my husband told me that he had begun to write an Autobiography intended for publication, but not during his lifetime. He worked upon it at intervals, as his literary engagements permitted, but I found after his sudden death that he had only been able to carry it as far as his twenty-fourth year. Such a fragment seemed too brief for separate publication, and I earnestly desired to supplement it by a Memoir, and thus to give to those who knew and loved his books a more complete understanding of his character and career. But though I longed for this satisfaction and solace, the task seemed beyond my power, especially as it involved the difficulty of writing in a foreign language. Considering, however, that the Autobiography was carried, as it happened, up to the date of our marriage, and that I could therefore relate all the subsequent life from intimate knowledge, as no one else could, I was encouraged by many of Mr. Hamerton's admirers to make the attempt, and with the great and untiring help of his best friend, Mr. Seeley, I have been enabled to complete the Memoir--such as it is. I offer my sincere thanks to Mr. Sidney Colvin and to his co-executor for having allowed the insertion of Mr. R. L. Stevenson's letters; to Mr. Barrett Browning for those of his father; to Sir George and Lady Reid, Mr. Watts, Mr. Peter Graham, and Mr. Burlingame for their own. I also beg Mr. A. H. Palmer to accept the expression of my gratitude for his kind permission to use as a frontispiece to this book the fine photograph taken by him. E. HAMERTON. _September_, 1896. CONTENTS. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER I. My reasons for writing an Autobiography.--That a man knows the history of his own life better than a biographer can know it.--Frankness and reserve.--The contemplation of death. CHAPTER II. 1834. My birthplace.--My father and mother.--Circumstances of their marriage.--Their short married life.--Birth of their child.--Death of my mother.--Her character and habits.--My father as a widower.--Dulness of his life.--Its degradation. CHAPTER III 1835-1841. My childhood is passed at Barnley with my aunts.--My grandfather and grandmother.--Estrangement between Gilbert Hamerton and his brother of Hellifield Peel.--Death of Gilbert Hamerton.--His taste for the French language.--His travels in Portugal, and the conduct of a steward during his absence.--His three sons.--Aristocratic tendencies of his daughters.--Beginning of my education.--Visits to my father. CHAPTER IV. 1842. A tour in Wales in 1842.--Extracts from my Journal of this tour.--My inborn love for beautiful materials.--Stay at Rhyl.--Anglesea and Caernarvon.--Reasons for specially remembering this tour. CHAPTER V. 1843-1844. A painful chapter to write.--My father calls me home.--What kind of a house it was.--Paternal education and discipline.--My life at that time one of dulness varied by dread. CHAPTER VI. 1844. My extreme loneliness.--Thoughts of flight.--My father's last illness and death.--Circumstances of my last interview with him.--His funeral. CHAPTER VII. 1845. Dislike to Shaw in consequence of the dreadful life I lead there with my father.--My guardian.--Her plan for my education.--Doncaster School.--Mr. Cape and his usher.--The usher's intolerance of Dissenters.--My feeling for architecture and music.--The drawing-master.--My guardian insists on my learning French.--Our French master, Sig. Testa.--A painful incident.--I begin to learn the violin.--Dancing.--My aversion to cricket.--Early readings.--Love of Scott.--My first library.--Classical studies. CHAPTER VIII. 1845. Early attempts in English verse.--Advantages of life at Doncaster.--A school incident.--Fagging.--Story of a dog.--Robbery.--My school-fellow Henry Alexander.--His remarkable influence.--Other school-fellows. --Story of a boat.--A swimming adventure.--Our walks and battles. CHAPTER IX. 1846. Early interest in theology.--Reports of sermons.--Quiet influence of Mr. Cape.--Failure of Mr. Cape's health.--His death. CHAPTER X. 1847-1849. My education becomes less satisfactory.--My guardian's state of health.--I pursue my studies at Burnley.--Dr. Butler.--He encourages me to write English.--Extract from a prize poem.--Public discussions in Burnley School.--A debate on Queen Elizabeth. CHAPTER XI. 1850. My elder uncle.--We go to live at Hollins.--Description of the place. --My strong attachment to it.--My first experiment in art-criticism. --The stream at Hollins.--My first catamaran.--Similarity of my life at Hollins to my life in France thirty-six years later. CHAPTER XII. 1850. Interest in the Middle Ages.--Indifference to the Greeks and Romans. --Love for Sir Walter Scott's writings.--Interest in heraldry and illuminations.--Passion for hawking.--Old books in the school library at Burnley.--Mr. Edward Alexander of Halifax.--Attempts in literary composition.--Contributions to the "Historic Times."--"Rome in 1849."--"Observations on Heraldry." CHAPTER XIII. 1850. Political and religious opinions of my relations.--The Rev. James Bardsley.--Protestant controversy with Rome.--German neology.--The inspiration of the Scriptures.--Inquiry into foundation for the doctrine.--I cease to be a Protestant.--An alternative presents itself.--A provisional condition of prolonged inquiry.--Our medical adviser.--His remarkable character.--His opinions. CHAPTER XIV. 1851. First visit to London in 1851.--My first impression of the place.-- Nostalgia of the country.--Westminster.--The Royal Academy.--Resolution never to go to London again.--Reason why this resolution was afterwards broken. CHAPTER XV. 1851-1852. The lore of reading a hindrance to classical studies.--Dr. Butler becomes anxious about my success at Oxford.--An insuperable obstacle.--My indifference to degrees.--Irksome hypocrisy.--I am nearly sent to a tutor at Brighton.--I go to a tutor in Yorkshire.--His disagreeable disposition.--Incident about riding.--Disastrous effect of my tutor's intellectual influence upon me.--My private reading.--My tutor's ignorance of modern authors.--His ignorance of the fine arts.--His religious intolerance.--I declare my inability to sign the Thirty-nine Articles. CHAPTER XVI. 1852. Choice of a profession.--Love of literature and art.--Decision to make trial of both.--An equestrian tour.--Windermere.--Derwentwater.--I take lessons from Mr. J. P. Pettitt.--Ulleswater.--My horse turf.--Greenock, a discovery.--My unsettled cousin.--Glasgow.--Loch Lomond.--Inverary.--Loch Awe.--Inishail.--Inmstrynich.--Oban.--A sailing excursion.--Mull and Ulva.--Solitary reading. CHAPTER XVII. 1853. A journal.--Self-training.--Attempts in periodical literature.--The time given to versification well spent.--Practical studies in art.-- Beginning of Mr. Ruskin's influence.--Difficulty in finding a master in landscape-painting.--Establishment of the militia.--I accept a commission.--Our first training.--Our colonel and our adjutant.--The Grand Llama.--Paying off the men. CHAPTER XVIII. 1853. A project for studying in Paris.--Reading.--A healthy life.-- Quinsy.--My most intimate friend. CHAPTER XIX. 1853. London again.--Accurate habits in employment of time.--Studies with Mr. Pettitt.--Some account of my new master.--His method of technical teaching.--Simplicity of his philosophy of art.--Incidents of his life.--Rapid progress under Pettitt's direction. CHAPTER XX. 1653-1854. Acquaintance with R. W. Mackay.--His learning and accomplishments.--His principal pursuit.--His qualities as a writer.--Value of the artistic element in literature.--C. R. Leslie, R. A.--Robinson, the line-engraver.--The Constable family.--Mistaken admiration for minute detail.--Projected journey to Egypt.--Mr. Ruskin.--Bonomi.--Samuel Sharpe.--Tennyson. CHAPTER XXI. 1854. A Visit to Rogers.--His Home.--Geniality in poets.--Talfourd.--Sir Walter Scott.--Leslie's picture, "The Rape of the Lock."--George Leslie.--Robert Leslie.--His nautical instincts.--Watkiss Lloyd.--Landseer.--Harding.--Richard Doyle. CHAPTER XXII. 1854. Miss Marian Evans.--John Chapman, the publisher.--My friend William Shaw.--His brother Richard.--Mead, the tragedian.--Mrs. Rowan and her daughter.--A vexatious incident.--I suffer from nostalgia for the country. CHAPTER XXIII. 1854. Some of my relations emigrate to New Zealand.--Difficulties of a poor gentleman.--My uncle's reasons for emigration.--His departure.--Family separations.--Our love for Hollins. CHAPTER XXIV. 1854. Resignation of commission in the militia.--Work from nature.--Spenser, the poet.--Hurstwood.--Loch Awe revisited.--A customer.--I determine to learn French well.--A tour in Wales.--Swimming.--Coolness on account of my religious beliefs.--My guardian.--Evil effects of religions bigotry.--Refuge in work.--My drawing-master.--Our excursion in Craven. CHAPTER XXV. 1855. Publication of "The Isles of Loch Awe and other Poems."--Their sale.--Advice to poetic aspirants.--Mistake in illustrating my book of verse.--Its subsequent history.--Want of art in the book.--Too much reality.--Abandonment of verse. A critic in "Fraser."--Visit to Paris in 1855.--Captain Turnbull.--Ball at the Hôtel de Ville.--Louis Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel. CHAPTER XXVI. 1855. Thackeray's family in Paris.--Madame Mohl.--Her husband's encouraging theory about learning languages.--Mr. Scholey.--His friend, William Wyld.--An Indian in Europe.--An Italian adventuress.--Important meeting with an American.--Its consequences.--I go to a French hotel.--People at the _table d'hote_.--M. Victor Ouvrard.--His claim on the Emperor.--M. Gindriez.--His family.--His eldest daughter. CHAPTER XXVII. 1856. Specialities in painting.--Wyld's practice.--Projected voyage on the Loire.--Birth of the Prince Imperial.--Scepticism about his inheritance of the crown.--The Imperial family.--I return home.--Value of the French language to me. CHAPTER XXVIII. 1856. My first encampment in Lancashire.--Value of encamping as a part of educational discipline.--Happy days in camp.--The natural and the artificial in landscape.--Sir James Kay Shuttleworth's Exhibition project.--I decline to take an active part in it.--His energetic and laborious disposition.--Charlotte Brontë.--General Scarlett. CHAPTER XXIX. I visit the homes of my forefathers at Hamerton, Wigglesworth, and Hellifield Peel.--Attainder and execution of Sir Stephen Hamerton. --Return of Hellifield Peel to the family.--Sir Richard.--The Hamertons distinguished only for marrying heiresses.--Another visit to the Peel, when I see my father's cousin.--Nearness of Hellifield Peel and Hollins. CHAPTER XXX. 1857. Expedition to the Highlands in 1857.--Kindness of the Marquis of Breadalbane and others.--Camp life, its strong and peculiar attraction.--My servant.--Young Helliwell.--Scant supplies in the camp.--Nature of the camp.--Necessity for wooden floors in a bad climate.--Double-hulled boats.--Practice of landscape- painting.--Changes of effect.--Influences that governed my way of study in those days.--Attractive character of the Scottish Highlands.--Their scenery not well adapted for beginners.--My intense love of it. CHAPTER XXXI. 1857-1858. Small immediate results of the expedition to the Highlands.--Unsuitable system of work.--Loss of time.--I rent the house and island of Innistrynich.--My dread of marriage and the reasons for it.--Notwithstanding this I make an offer and am refused.--Two young ladies of my acquaintance.--Idea of a foreign marriage.--Its inconveniences.--Decision to ask for the hand of Mdlle. Gindriez.--I go to Paris and am accepted.--Elective affinities. CHAPTER XXXII. 1858. Reception at home after engagement.--Preparations at Innistrynich.--I arrive alone in Paris.--My marriage.--The religious ceremony.--An uncomfortable wedding.--The sea from Dieppe.--London.--The Academy Exhibition of 1858.--Impressions of a Frenchwoman.--The Turner collection.--The town.--Loch Awe.--The element wanting to happiness. MEMOIR. CHAPTER I 1858. My first sight of Loch Awe.--Arrival at Innistrynich.--Our domestic life.--Difficulties about provisions.--A kitchen-garden. CHAPTER II. 1858. Money matters.--Difficulties about servants.--Expensiveness of our mode of life. CHAPTER III. 1858. Painting from nature.--Project of an exhibition.--Photography.--Plan of "A Painter's Camp."--Topographic art.--Charm of our life in the Highlands. CHAPTER IV. 1858. English and French manners.--My husband's relatives.--First journey to France after our marriage.--Friends in London.--Miss Susan Hamerton. CHAPTER V. 1859. Visits from friends and relatives.--A Frenchman in the Highlands.-- Project of buying the island of Innistrynich. CHAPTER VI. 1859-1860. Financial complications.--Summer visitors.--Boats and boating.--Visit to Paris.--W. Wyld.--Project of a farm in France.--Partnership with M. Gindriez. CHAPTER VII. 1861-1863. Effects of the Highland climate.--Farewell to Loch Awe.--Journey to the south of France.--Death of Miss Mary Hamerton.--Settlement at Sens.--Death of M. Gindriez.--Publication of "A Painter's Camp." --Removal to Pré-Charmoy. CHAPTER VIII. 1863-1868. Canoeing on the Unknown River.--Visit of relatives.--Tour in Switzerland.--Experiments in etching.--The "Saturday Review."--Journeys to London.--Plan of "Etching and Etchers."--New friends in London.--Etching exhibited at the Royal Academy.--Serious illness in London.--George Eliot.--Professor Seeley. CHAPTER IX. 1868. Studies of animals.--A strange visitor.--Illness at Amiens.--Resignation of post on the "Saturday Review."--Nervous seizure in railway train.--Mrs. Craik.--Publication of "Etching and Etchers." --Tennyson.--Growing reputation in America. CHAPTER X. 1869-1870. "Wenderholme."--The Mont Beuvray.--Botanical studies.--La Tuilerie.--Commencement of "The Portfolio."--The Franco-Prussian War. CHAPTER XI. 1870-1872. Landscape-painting.--Letters of Mr. Peter Graham, R.A.--Incidents of the war-time.--"The Intellectual Life."--"The Etcher's Handbook." CHAPTER XII. 1873-1875. Popularity of "The Intellectual Life."--Love of animals.--English visitors.--Technical notes.--Sir S. Seymour Haden.--Attempts to resume railway travelling. CHAPTER XIII. 1876-1877. "Round my House."--Journey to England after seven years' absence.--Visit to Mr. Samuel Palmer.--Articles for the "Encyclopedia Britannica." --Death of my sister.--Mr. Appleton. CHAPTER XIV. 1878-1880. "Marmorne."--Paris International Exhibition.--"Modern Frenchmen." --Candidature for the Watson Gordon Chair of Fine Arts.--The Bishop of Autun.--The "Life of Turner." CHAPTER XV. 1880-1882. Third edition of "Etching and Etchers."--Kew.--The "Graphic Arts."--"Human Intercourse." CHAPTER XVI. 1882-1884. "Paris."--Miss Susan Hamerton's death.--Burnley revisited.--Hellifield Peel.--"Landscape" planned.--Voyage to Marseilles. CHAPTER XVII. 1884-1888. "Landscape."--The Autobiography begun.--"Imagination in Landscape Painting."--"The Saône."--"Portfolio Papers." CHAPTER XVIII. 1888-1890. "Man in Art" begun.--Family events.--Mr. G. F. Watts.--Mr. Bodley.--"French and English." CHAPTER XIX. 1890-1891. Decision to live near Paris.--Practice in painting and etching.--Search for a house.--Clématis. CHAPTER XX. 1891-1894. Removal to Paris.--Interest in the Bois de Boulogne.--M. Vierge.--"Man in Art."--Contributions to "Scribner's Magazine."--New form of "The Portfolio."--Honorary degree.--Last Journey to London.--Society of Illustrators.--Illness and death. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON 1834--1858 CHAPTER I. My reasons for writing an autobiography.--That a man knows the history of his own life better than a biographer can know it.--Frankness and reserve.--The contemplation of death. My principal reasons for writing an autobiography are because I am the only person in the world who knows enough about my history to give a truthful account of it, and because I dread the possibility of falling into the hands of some writer who might attempt a biography with inadequate materials. I have already been selected as a subject by two or three biographers with very friendly intentions, but their friendliness did not always ensure accuracy. When the materials are not supplied in abundance, a writer will eke them out with conjectural expressions which he only intends as an amplification, yet which may contain germs of error to be in their turn amplified by some other writer, and made more extensively erroneous. It has frequently been said that an autobiography must of necessity be an untrue representation of its subject, as no man can judge himself correctly. If it is intended to imply that somebody else, having a much slighter acquaintance with the man whose life is to be narrated, would produce a more truthful book, one may be permitted to doubt the validity of the inference. Thousands of facts are known to a man himself with reference to his career, and a multitude of determinant motives, which are not known even to his most intimate friends, still less to the stranger who so often undertakes the biography. The reader of an autobiography has this additional advantage, that the writer must be unconsciously revealing himself all along, merely by his way of telling things. With regard to the great question of frankness and reserve, I hold that the reader has a fair claim to hear the truth, as a biography is not avowedly a romance, but at the same time that it is right to maintain a certain reserve. My rule shall be to say nothing that can hurt the living, and the memory of the dead shall be dealt with as tenderly as may be compatible with a truthful account of the influences that have impelled me in one direction or another. I have all the more kindly feelings towards the dead, that when these pages appear I shall be one of themselves, and therefore unable to defend my own memory as they are unable to defend theirs. The notion of being a dead man is not entirely displeasing to me. If the dead are defenceless, they have this compensating advantage, that nobody can inflict upon them any sensible injury; and in beginning a book which is not to see the light until I am lying comfortably in my grave, with six feet of earth above me to deaden the noises of the upper world, I feel quite a new kind of security, and write with a more complete freedom from anxiety about the quality of the work than has been usual at the beginning of other manuscripts. Nevertheless, the clear and steady contemplation of death (I have been looking the grim king in the face for the last hour) may produce a paralyzing effect upon a man by making his life's work seem very small to him. For, whatever we believe about a future state, it is evident that the catastrophe of death must throw each of us instantaneously into the past, from the point of view of the living, and they will see what we have done in a very foreshortened aspect, so that except in a few very rare cases it must look small to them, and ever smaller as time rolls on, and they will probably not think much of it, or remember us long on account of it. And in thinking of ourselves as dead we instinctively adopt the survivor's point of view. Besides which, it is reasonable to suppose that whatever fate may be in store for us, a greater or less degree of posthumous reputation in two or three nations on this planet can have little effect on our future satisfaction; for if we go to heaven, the beatitude of the life there will be so incomparably superior to the pleasures of earthly fame that we shall never think of such vanity again; and if we go to the place of eternal tortures they will leave us no time to console ourselves with pleasant memories of any kind; and if death is simply the ending of all sensation, all thought, memory, and consciousness, it will matter nothing to a handful of dust what estimate of the name it once bore may happen to be current amongst the living-- "Les grands Dieux savent seuls si l'âme est immortelle, Mais le juste travaille à leur oeuvre éternelle." CHAPTER II. 1834. My birthplace.--My father and mother.--Circumstances of their marriage.--Their short married life.--Birth of their child.--Death of my mother.--Her character and habits.--My father as a widower.--Dulness of his life.--Its degradation. I was born at Laneside near Shaw, which is now a manufacturing town of some importance about two miles from Oldham in Lancashire, and about four miles from Rochdale in the same county. Laneside is a small estate with some houses and a little cotton-mill upon it, which belonged to my maternal grandfather. The house is of stone, with a roof of stone slate such as is usual in those parts, and it faces the road, from which it is separated by a little enclosure, that may be called a garden if you will. When I was a child, there were two or three poplar trees in that enclosure before the house; but trees do not prosper there, and now there is probably not one on the whole estate. One end of the house (which is rather long for its height and depth) abuts against the hill, and close behind it is the cotton-mill which my grandfather worked, with no great profit to himself or advantage to his descendants. I have mentioned a road that passes the house; it is steep, narrow, and inconvenient. It leads up to an elevated tract of the most dreary country that can be imagined, but there are one or two fields on the Laneside estate, above the stone-quarry, from which there is a good view in the direction of Rochdale. I never knew my grandfather Cocker, but have heard that he was a lively and vigorous man, who enjoyed life very heartily in his way. He married a Miss Crompton, who had a little property and was descended from the De Cromptons of Crompton Hall. I am not aware that she had any family pride, but, like most people in that neighborhood, she had a great appreciation of the value of money, and when she was left alone with her daughter, in consequence of Philip Cocker's premature death, she was more inclined to favor wealthy than impecunious suitors. My father had come to Shaw as a young attorney some time before he asked for Anne Cocker in marriage. He had very little to recommend him except a fine person, great physical strength, and fifteen quarterings. He had a reputation for rather dissolute habits, was a good horseman, an excellent shot, looked very well in a ball-room, and these, I believe, were all his advantages, save an unhappy faculty for shining in such masculine company as he could find in a Lancashire village in the days of George IV. Money he had none, except what he earned in his profession, at one time rather a good income. Miss Anne Cocker was a young lady with a will of her own, associated, I have been told (the two characteristics are by no means incompatible), with a very sweet and amiable disposition. At a time when my grandmother still vigorously opposed the match with my father, there happened to be a public charity ball in Shaw, and Miss Cocker showed her intentions in a very decided manner, by declining to dance with several gentlemen until the young lawyer presented himself, when she rose immediately with a very gracious smile, which was observed by all near enough to witness it. This was rather unkind perhaps to the other aspirants, and is, in fact, scarcely defensible, but it was Miss Cocker's way of declaring her intentions publicly. When my father made his offer, he was refused by my grandmother's orders, but received encouragement from her daughter (a tone of voice, or a look, yet more a tear, would be enough for a lover's hope), and counted upon the effects of perseverance. At length, when he and Miss Cocker thought they had waited long enough, they determined to marry without Mrs. Cocker's consent, and the determination was notified to my grandmother in the following very decided terms:-- "DR. Madam,--You are no doubt well aware of the warm attachment which has long existed betwixt your dear daughter and myself. Upwards of twelve months ago our affections were immovably fixed upon each other, and I now consider it my duty to inform you that we are fully engaged, and have finally concluded to be married within a fortnight of the present time. "I sincerely trust that all your hostile feelings towards me are entirely worn out, and that you will receive me as the affectionate husband of your beloved daughter, and I with great confidence hope we shall be a happy family and live together with peace and harmony. "At my request your daughter will have all her property settled upon herself, so that I can have no control over it--thus leaving it impossible that I should waste it. And I trust that by an active attention to my profession I may be enabled not inconsiderably to augment it. "Be assured, Dear Madam, that your daughter and myself feel no little solicitude for your comfort and happiness, and that we shall at all times be most happy to promote them. "It is our mutual and most anxious wish that you should not attempt to throw any obstacle in the way of our marriage, as the only tendency it could have under present circumstances would be to lessen the happiness and comfort of our union. "We trust therefore that your regard for your daughter's happiness will induce you at once to give your full assent to the fulfilment of our engagement, as you would thereby divest our marriage of all that could possibly lessen the happiness we anticipate from it. "I know that your principal objection to me has been on account of my unsteadiness, and I deeply regret ever having given you cause to raise such an objection; but I trust my conduct for some time back having been of a very different character, will convince you that I have seen my error. The gayety into which I have fallen may partly be ascribed to the peculiarity of my situation; having no relations near me, no family ties, no domestic comforts, &c., I may be the more excusable for having kept the company of young men, but I can assure you I have lost all inclination for the practice of such follies as I have once fallen into, and I look to a steady, sober married life as alone calculated to afford me happiness. "I will wait upon you on Monday with most anxious hopes for your favorable answer. "I am, Dear Madam, "Yours most respectfully, "JOHN HAMMERTON. "Shaw, June 1st, 1833." The reader may be surprised by the double _m_ in the signature. It was my father's custom to write our name so, for a reason that will be explained in another chapter. The letter itself is rather formal, according to the fashion of the time, but I think it is a good letter in its way, and believe it to have been perfectly sincere. No doubt my father fully intended to reform his way of life, but it is easier to make a good resolution than to adhere to it. I do not know enough of the degree of excess to which his love of pleasure led him, to be able to describe his life as a young man accurately, but as my mother had been well brought up and was a refined person for her rank in society, I conclude that she would not have encouraged a notorious evil-liver. Those who knew my father in his early manhood have told me that he was very popular, and yet at the same time that he bore himself with considerable dignity, one old lady going so far as to say that when he walked through the main street at Shaw, it seemed as if all the town belonged to him. It is difficult for us to understand quite accurately the social code of the Georgian era, when a man might indulge in pleasures which seem to us coarse and degrading, and yet retain all the pride and all the bearing of a gentleman. The marriage took place according to the fixed resolution of the contracting parties, and their life together was immensely happy during the short time that it lasted. Most unfortunately it came to an end after little more than one year by my mother's lamentably premature death. I happen to possess a letter from my father's sister to her sister Anne in which she gives an account of this event, and print it because it conveys the reality more vividly than a narrative at second hand. The reader will pardon the reference to myself. It matters nothing to a dead man--as I shall be when this page is printed--whether at the age of fourteen days he was considered a fine-looking child or a weakling. "_Friday Morning._ "MY DEAR ANNE,--You will not calculate upon so speedy an answer as this to your long and welcome epistle, nor will you calculate upon the melancholy intelligence I have to communicate. Poor John's wife, certainly the most amiable of all woman-kind, departed this life at twenty minutes past eleven last night. Her recovery from her confinement was very wonderful, we thought, but alas! it was a false one. The Drs. Whitaker of Shaw, Wood of Rochdale, and Bardsley of Manchester all agree in opinion that she has died of mere weakness without any absolute disease. She has been very delicate for a long time. Poor dear John--if I were quite indifferent to him I should grieve to see his agonies--he says at sixty it might have happened in the common course of things and he would have borne it better, but at twenty-nine, just when he is beginning life, his sad bereavement does indeed seem untimely. It is a sore affliction to him, sent for some good, and may he understand and apply it with wisdom! They had, to be sure, hardly been married long enough to quarrel, but I never saw a couple so intent on making each other happy; they had not a thought of each other but what tended to please. The poor little boy is a very fine one, and I hope he will be reared, though it often happens that when the mother is consumptive the baby dies. I do hope when John is able to look after his office a little that the occupation of his mind will give him calm. He walks from room to room, and if I meet him and he is able to articulate at all, he says, 'Ah! where must I be? what must I do?' He says nobody had such a wife, and I do think nobody ever had. He wanted me not to write till arrangements were made about the funeral. I thought you would be sorry to be informed late upon a subject so near John's heart, and that it was too late for Mr. Hinde [Footnote: The Rev. Thomas Hinde, Vicar of Featherstone, brother-in-law of the writer of the letter.] to come to the funeral. I have really nothing to say except that our poor sister was so tolerable on Wednesday morning that I went with the Milnes of Park House to Henton Park races, which I liked very well, but as things have turned out I heartily repent going. Ann was, we hoped, positively recovering on Monday and Tuesday, but it seems to have been a lightening before death. She was a very long time in the agonies of death, but seemed to suffer very little. Our afflicted brother joins me in best love to you and your dear children. Kind compliments to Mr. Hinde. "I remain, "Your affectionate Sister, "M. HAMMERTON." The letter is without date, but it bears the Manchester postmark of September 27, 1834, and the day of my birth was the tenth of the same month. The reader may have observed a discrepancy with reference to my mother's health. First it is said that the doctors all agreed in the opinion that she died of mere weakness, without any absolute disease, but afterwards consumption is alluded to. I am not sure, even yet, whether my mother was really consumptive or only suffered from debility. Down to the time when I write this (fifty-one years after my mother's death) there have never been any symptoms of consumption in me. No portrait of my mother was ever taken, so that I have never been able to picture her to myself otherwise than vaguely, but I remember that on one occasion in my youth when I played the part of a young lady in a charade, several persons present who had known her, said that the likeness was so striking that it almost seemed as if she had appeared to them in a vision, and they told me that if I wanted to know what my mother was like, I had only to consult a looking-glass. She had blue eyes, a very fair complexion, and hair of a rich, strongly-colored auburn, a color more appreciated by painters than by other people. In the year 1876 I was examining a large boxful of business papers that had belonged to my father, and burning most of them in a garden in Yorkshire, when a little packet fell out of a legal document that I was just going to throw upon the fire. It was a lock of hair carefully folded in a piece of the bluish paper my father used for his law correspondence, and fastened with an old wire-headed pin. I at once took it to a lady who had known my mother, and she said without a moment's hesitation that the hair was certainly hers, so that I now possess this relic, and it is all I have of my poor mother whose face I never saw, and whose voice I never heard. Few people who have lived in the world have left such slight traces. There are no letters of hers except one or two formal compositions written at school under the eye of the mistress, which of course express nothing of her own mind or feelings. Those who knew her have told me that she was a very lively and amiable person, physically active, and a good horsewoman. She and my father were fond of riding out together, and indeed were separated as little as might be during their brief happiness. She even, on one occasion, went out shooting with him and killed something, after which she melted into tears of pity over her victim. [Footnote: A lady related to my mother shot well, and killed various kinds of game, of which I remember seeing stuffed specimens as trophies of her skill.] The reader will pardon me for dwelling thus on these few details of a life so sadly and prematurely ended. The knowledge that my mother had died early cast a certain melancholy over my childhood; I found that people looked at me with some tenderness and pity for her sake, so I felt vaguely that there had been a great loss, though unable to estimate the extent of it. Later, when I understood better what pains and perils Nature inflicts on women in order that children may come into the world, it seemed that the days I lived had been bought for me by the sacrifice of days that my mother ought to have lived. She was but twenty-four when she passed away, so that now I have lived more than twice her span. The effect of the loss upon my father was utterly disastrous. His new and good projects were all shattered, and a cloud fell over his existence that was never lifted. He did not marry again, and he lost his interest in his profession. My mother left him all her property absolutely, so he felt no spur of necessity and became indolent or indifferent; yet those who were capable of judging had a good opinion of his abilities as a lawyer. Just before his wife's death, my father had rather distinguished himself in an important case, and received a testimonial from his client with the following inscription:-- _Presented to Mr. Hammerton, Solr, by his obliged client Mr. Waring, as a token of Esteem for his active services in the cause tried against Stopherd at Lancaster, in the arrangement of the argument arising thereon at Westminster, and his successful defence to the Equity Suit instituted by the Deft_. 1834. My father's practice at that time was beginning to be lucrative, and would no doubt have become much more so in a few years; but the blow to his happiness that occurred in the September of 1834 produced such discouragement that he sought relief from his depression in the society of lively companions. Most unfortunately for him, there was no lively masculine society in the place where he lived that was not at the same time a constant incitement to drinking. There were a few places in the Lancashire of those days where convivial habits were carried to such a degree that they destroyed what ought to have been the flower of the male population. The strong and hearty men who believed that they could be imprudent with impunity, the lively, intelligent, and sociable men who wanted the wittiest and brightest talk that was to be had in the neighborhood, the bachelor whose hearth was lonely, and the widower whose house had been made desolate, all these were tempted to join meetings of merry companions who set no limits to the strength or the quantity of their potations. My poor father was a man of great physical endowments, and he came at last to have a mistaken pride in being able to drink deeply without betraying any evil effects; but a few years of such an existence undermined one of the finest constitutions ever given to mortal man. A quarryman once told me that my father had appeared at the quarry at six o'clock in the morning looking quite fresh and hearty, when, taking up the heaviest sledge-hammer he could find, he gayly challenged the men to try who could throw it farthest. None of them came near him, on which he turned and said with a laugh of satisfaction, --"Not bad that, for a man who drank thirty glasses of brandy the day before!" Whether he had ever approached such a formidable number I will not venture to say, but the incident exactly paints my father in his northern pride of strength, the fatal pride that believes itself able to resist poison because it has the muscles of an athlete. It was always said by those who knew the family that my father was the cleverest member of it, but his ability must have expended itself in witty conversation and in his professional work, as I do not remember the smallest evidence of what are called intellectual tastes. My mother had a few books that had belonged to her family, and to these my father added scarcely anything. I can remember his books quite clearly, even at this distance of time. One was a biography of William IV., another a set of sketches of Reform Ministers, a third was Baines's "History of Lancashire," a fourth a Geographical Dictionary. These were, I believe, almost all the books (not concerned with the legal profession) that my father ever purchased. His bookcase did not contain a single volume by the most popular English poets of his own time, nor even so much as a novel by Sir Walter Scott. I have no recollection of ever having seen him read a book, but he took in the "Times" newspaper, and I clearly remember that he read the leading articles, which it was the fashion at that time to look upon as models of style. This absence of interest in literature was accompanied by that complete and absolute indifference to the fine arts which was so common in the middle classes and the country aristocracy of those days. I mention these deficiencies to explain the extreme dulness of my poor father's existence during his widowhood, a dulness that a lover of books must have a difficulty in imagining. A man living alone with servants (for his son's childhood was spent elsewhere), who took hardly any interest in a profession that had become little more than nominal for him, who had not even the stimulus of a desire to accumulate wealth (almost the only recognized object in the place where he lived), a man who had no intellectual pursuits whatever, and whose youth was too far behind him for any joyous physical activity, was condemned to seek such amusements as the customs of the place afforded, and these all led to drinking. He and his friends drank when they were together to make society merrier, and when they happened to be alone they drank to make solitude endurable. Had they drunk light wines like French peasants, or beer like Germans, they might have lasted longer, but their favorite drink was brandy in hot strong grogs, accompanied by unlimited tobacco. They dined in the middle of the day, and had the spirit decanters and the tobacco-box on the table instead of dessert, frequently drinking through the whole afternoon and a long evening afterwards. In the morning they slaked alcoholic thirst with copious draughts of ale. My father went on steadily with this kind of existence without anything whatever to rescue him from its gradual and fatal degradation. He separated himself entirely from the class he belonged to by birth, lived with men of little culture, though they may have had natural wit, and sacrificed his whole future to mere village conviviality. Thousands of others have followed the same road, but few have sacrificed so much. My father had a constitution such as is not given to one man in ten thousand, and his mind was strong and clear, though he had not literary tastes. He was completely independent, free to travel or to make a fortune in his profession if he preferred a sedentary existence, but the binding force of habit overcame his weakened will, and he fell into a kind of life that placed intellectual and moral recovery alike beyond his reach. CHAPTER III. 1835-1841. My childhood is passed at Burnley with my aunts.--My grandfather and grandmother.--Estrangement between Gilbert Hamerton and his brother of Hellifield Peel.--Death of Gilbert Hamerton.--His taste for the French language.--His travels in Portugal, and the conduct of a steward during his absence.--His three sons.--Aristocratic tendencies of his daughters.--Beginning of my education.--Visits to my father. I was not brought up during childhood under my father's roof, but was sent to live with his two unmarried sisters. These ladies were then living in Burnley with their mother. Burnley is now a large manufacturing town of seventy thousand inhabitants, but in those days it was just rising in importance, and a few years earlier it had been a small country town in an uncommonly aristocratic neighborhood. The gate of Towneley Park opens now almost upon the town itself, and in former times there were many other seats of the greater or lesser squires within a radius of a very few miles. It is a common mistake in the south of England to suppose that Lancashire is a purely commercial county. There are, or were in my youth, some very aristocratic neighborhoods in Lancashire, and that immediately about Burnley was one of them. The creation of new wealth, and the extinction or departure of a few families, may have altered its character since then, but in the days of my grandfather nobody thought of disputing the supremacy of the old houses. There was something almost sublime in the misty antiquity of the Towneley family, one of the oldest in all England, and still one of the wealthiest, keeping house in its venerable castellated mansion in a great park with magnificent avenues. Other houses of less wealth and more modern date had their pedigrees in the history of Lancashire. My grandfather, Gilbert Hamerton, possessed an old gabled mansion with a small but picturesque estate, divided from Towneley Park by a public road, and he had other property in the town and elsewhere enough to make him independent, but not enough to make him one of the great squires. However, as he was the second son of an ancient Yorkshire family, and as pedigrees and quarterings counted for something in those comparatively romantic times, the somewhat exclusive aristocracy about Burnley had received him with much cordiality from the first, and he continued all his life to belong to it. His comparative poverty was excused by a well-known history of confiscation in his family, and perhaps made him rather more interesting, especially as it did not go far enough to become--what poverty becomes so easily--ridiculous. He lived in a large old house, and plentifully enough, but without state and style. His marriage had been extremely imprudent from the worldly point of view. An aunt of my grandfather's, on his mother's side, had invited him to stay with her, and had not foreseen the attractions of a farmer's daughter who was living in the house as a companion. My good, unworldly grandfather fell in love with this girl, and married her. He never had any serious reason to regret this very imprudent step, for Jane Smith became an excellent wife and mother, and she did not even injure his position in society, where she knew how to make herself respected, and was much beloved by her most intimate friends. I remember her, though I never knew my grandfather. My recollection of her is a sort of picture of an old lady always dressed in black, and seated near a window, or walking slowly with a stick. The dawn of reason and feeling is associated in my memory with an intense affection for this old lady and with the kind things she said to me, not yet forgotten. I remember, too, the awful stillness of her dead body (hers was the first dead human body I looked upon), and the strange emptiness of the house when it had been taken away. Though my grandmother was only a farmer's daughter, her parents were well-to-do in their own line of life, and at various times helped my grandfather with sums of money; but the fact remained that he had married quite out of his class, and it has always seemed to me probable that the marriage may have had some connection with the complete and permanent estrangement that existed between Gilbert Hamerton and his brother, the squire of Hellifield Peel. As soon as I was old enough to understand a little about relationships, I reflected that the houses of my own uncles were open to me, that my cousins were all like brothers and sisters to me, and yet that my father and my aunts had never been to their uncle's house at Hellifield, and that our relations there never came to see us at Burnley. The explanation of this estrangement given by my grandfather, was that there had been a disagreement about land; but perhaps he may have felt some delicacy about telling his children that his unambitious marriage had contributed to render the separation permanent. However this may have been, my grandmother never once saw the inside of her brother-in-law's house, and when she died there was, I believe, not even the formal expression of condolence that is usual among acquaintances. Gilbert Hamerton had lived at Hollins, a house and estate inherited from his mother; and James Hamerton, the elder brother, lived in a castellated peel or border tower at Hellifield, which had been built by Lawrence Hamerton in 1440. The two places are not much more than twenty miles apart; but the brothers never met after their quarrel, and my grandfather's sons and daughters never saw their uncle's house. One result of the estrangement was that we hardly seemed to belong to our own family; and I remember a lady, who had some very vague and shadowy claims to a distant connection with the family at Hellifield, asking one of my aunts in a rather patronizing manner if she also did not "claim to be connected" with the Hamertons of Hellifield Peel. Even to this day it is difficult for me to realize the simple fact that she was niece to an uncle whom she had never seen, and first cousin to his successor. My grandfather had lived in apparently excellent health till the age of seventy-seven, when one afternoon as he was seated in his dining-room at Hollins, nobody being present except his eldest daughter Mary, he asked her to open the window, and then added, "Say a prayer." She immediately began to repeat a short prayer, and before she had reached the end of it he was dead. There is a strange incident connected with his death, which may be worth something to those who take an interest in what is now called "Psychical Research." At the same hour his married daughter was sitting in a room forty miles away with her little boy, a child just old enough to talk, and the child stared with intense interest at an empty chair. His mother asked what attracted his attention, and the child said, "Don't you see, mamma, the old gentleman who is sitting in that chair?" I am careful not to add details, as my own imagination might unconsciously amplify them, but my impression is that the child was asked to describe the vision more minutely, and that his description exactly accorded with his grandfather's usual appearance. The old gentleman preserved the costume and manners of the eighteenth century, wearing his pig-tail, breeches, and shoe-buckles. He took life too easily for any intellectual achievements, but he had a great liking for the French language, and wrote a very original French grammar, which he had curiously printed in synoptic sheets, at his private expense, though it was never completed or published. I have sometimes thought it possible that my own aptitude and affinity for that language may have been inherited from him, and that his labors may in a manner have overcome many difficulties for me by the wonderful process of transmission. He never lived in France, and I believe he never visited the country, his French conversations being chiefly held with a good-natured Roman Catholic chaplain at Towneley Hall. My grandfather's most extensive travels were in Portugal, lasting six months, and with regard to that journey I remember two painful incidents. His travelling companion, a younger brother, died abroad, in consequence of having slept in a damp bed. The other incident is vexatious rather than tragical, and yet Wordsworth would have seen tragedy in it also. During his absence from home, my grandfather had confided the care of his estate to an agent, who cut down the old avenue of oaks that led to the house, on the pretext that some of the trees were showing signs of decay, and that he had an acceptable offer for the whole. The road retained the name of "The Avenue" for many years, but the trees were never replaced. Perhaps the reader will think this incident hardly worth mentioning, but to a lover of trees, avenues, and old houses, such as I confess myself to be, it seems the very perfection of a vexatious incident. I cannot imagine anything whatever, not entailing any serious consequences, that would have tried my own temper more. On my grandfather's death, the whole of his property went to his eldest son. He had brought up all his three sons to be solicitors, not because he had any peculiar enthusiasm for the legal profession, but simply as the readiest means of earning a living. The sons themselves had no natural affinity for the law; my eldest uncle heartily disliked it, the other regarded it with cool indifference, and my father expressed his desire that I should never be a lawyer, on the ground that a man had enough to plague him in his own concerns without troubling his mind about those of other people. One curious distinction may be noted here, as the result probably of that intermingling with the every-day world, which happens naturally in the career of provincial attorneys. Whilst my aunts remained all their lives aristocratic in their feelings, and rather liked to enjoy the hospitality of the great houses in the neighborhood, my uncles, and my father also, abandoned all aristocratic memories and aspirations, and entered frankly into the middle class. Each of them did what was natural under the circumstances. Women are generally more aristocratic than men, and cling more decidedly to their class, and I think my aunts showed better taste in liking refined society than my father did in lowering himself to associate with men of an inferior stamp in rank, in manners, and in habits. I distinctly remember how one of my aunts told me that somebody had made a remark on her liking for great people, and the only comment she made was, that she preferred gentlefolks because their manners were more agreeable. She was not a worshipper of rank, but she liked the quiet, pleasant manners of the aristocracy, which indeed were simply her own manners. My childhood could not have been better cared for, even by my own mother, than by these two excellent ladies. They gave me a beginning of education, and they have told me since that I learned to read English with the greatest facility, so that when I was sent to the Grammar School at Burnley, at the early age of five and a half, the master considered me so well forward that I was set at once to Latin. In those days it was a part of the wisdom of our educators to make us learn Latin out of a grammar written in that language, and I retain some recollection of the perfectly useless mental fatigue and puzzlement that I was made to undergo in learning abstract statements about grammatical science that were written in a tongue which I could not possibly understand. The idea of taking a child five and a half years old, and making it learn a dead language by abstract rules, is of itself a great error. The proper way to teach a child Latin is simply to give it a vocabulary, including only the things that it can see or imagine, and a few verbs to make little phrases. I had learned to read English so easily that good hopes were entertained for the rest of my education, but my progress in Latin was very slow, and the only result of my early training was to give me a horror of everything printed in Latin, that I did not overcome for many years. There was another child-pupil rather older than I, and the head-master of those days (Dr. Butler's predecessor), who had a rude disposition, sometimes amused himself by putting me on one of his knees, and the other little boy on the other knee, after which, by an adroit simultaneous movement of the two legs, he suddenly brought our heads into collision. I quite remember the sensation of being stunned on these occasions, but am not aware that my Latin was any the better for it. My recollection of those early years is extremely vague, and there is little in them that could interest the reader. I was taken once or twice a year to my father, and always disliked and dreaded those visits, as I feared him greatly, and with good reason. On one of these visits, when quite a child, I persuaded my father's groom to let me mount his saddle-horse, which I remember as a gray animal of what seemed a prodigious altitude. The man put me on the horse's back, and being entirely destitute of common-sense or prudence, actually gave me a whip and left the bridle to me. I applied the whip vigorously, and was very soon thrown off and carried back to the house covered with blood, happily without more serious consequences. Another little incident has more of the comic element. My father employed a tailor for himself, and told the man to make me a suit without entering into any particulars. The tailor being thus left to his own wisdom, made a costume that was the exact copy of a full-grown squire's dress on a small scale. It was composed of a green cut-away coat, a yellow waistcoat, and green trousers, the whole adorned with gilt buttons. The tailor dressed me, and then, proud of his work, presented me to my father and the ladies. If the tailor was proud, my pride and satisfaction were at least equal to his, and we neither of us could in the least understand the roars of laughter that my appearance provoked, whilst our feelings were deeply wounded by my father's tyrannical decree that I was never to wear those beautiful clothes at all. Even to this day I am capable of regretting that suit, and certainly I often see children now whose costumes are at least equally absurd. CHAPTER IV. 1842. A tour in Wales in 1842.--Extracts from my journal of this tour.--My inborn love for beautiful materials.--Stay at Rhyl.--Anglesea and Caernarvon.--Reasons for specially remembering this tour. The pleasantest recollections I have of my father are connected with a tour in Wales that he undertook with me and his eldest sister in the summer of 1842. My aunt made me keep a journal of that tour, which I still possess, and by its help those days come hack to me with a vividness that is very astonishing to myself. Being accustomed to live with grown-up people, and having no companions of my own age in the same house (though I had cousins at Hollins and friends at school), I had acquired a way of talking about things as older people talk, so that the journal in question contains many observations that do not seem natural for a child. The fact, no doubt, is that I listened to my father and aunt, and then put down many of their remarks in my little history of our tour; but I was very observant on my own account, and received very strong impressions, especially from buildings, such as old castles and cathedrals, and great houses, and I had a topographic habit of mind even in childhood, which made every fresh locality interesting to me and engraved it on my memory. Perhaps the reader may like to see a page of the diary. It seems rather formal and elderly to be written by a child eight years old, but it must be remembered that it was an exercise written by my father's desire and to please him. Letters to my cousins at the same date would have been more juvenile. Nevertheless, it was perfectly natural for me then to use words employed by older people, and the reader will remember that I had been learning Latin for more than two years. "On the road from Rhydland to Abergele we saw Hemmel Park, the seat of Lord Dinorbin, lately burnt down. Near Rhydland is Penwarn, the seat of Lord Mostyn; the house is small and unpretending, the grounds are beautiful. There is a very handsome dog-kennel, in which are kept forty-four couple of fine fox-hounds ready for work, besides old ones in one kennel, and young ones in another: the dogs all in such good order and kennels so perfectly clean. In one field were sixteen hunters without shoes. Lord Mostyn does not live much at Penwarn, generally in London. He is an old man, and at present an invalid. We had several pleasant days' fishing in the Clwyd and Elway; a Mr. Graham at Rhyl has permission to fish in Lord Mostyn's preserve, and he may take a friend, which character Papa and I personated for the time. "About eight miles from Rhyl is Trelacre, the seat of Sir Pyers Mostyn, a very excellent modern building; the grounds are laid out with most luxuriant taste, nothing is wanting to give effect to it as a whole. In the woods opposite the house is a rich but rather formal distribution of flower-beds; everything appeared to be in blossom. On an elevation is placed the most ingeniously contrived Grotto; at every turn there is a device of another character to the last, here a lion couchant, there the head of Momus, a wild boar's head, a heron, a skeleton, &c., &c. In one place were two old friars seated, each leaning on his stick, apparently in earnest conversation; all these are roughly, but with great accuracy, formed upon the numerous pillars which support a room or two above. The last object you arrive at is a hermit as large as life seated in his cell, with one book beside him and another on his knee, upon which his left hand is placed; his right is laid across his breast. The pillars are so contrived that the little cavern is light in every part; at the entrance is an immense sea-dragon with large glaring eyes and a long red tongue hanging half-way out. The monster had an effect somewhat startling. Next above the grotto is a small room hewn out of the rock, with sofas and pillows on each side the fireplace hewn out of the same rock. In the centre is a stone table, upon which were some beautiful antique bowls, cups, &c. The door to this apartment is a great curiosity, being made to appear as if of rock; we did not think at first that it was a real door. Over this room is another, the residence of a lame woman, who showed us upon the leads above her dwelling a very extensive prospect; amongst the objects was the mouth of the river Dee. She afterwards [took us] to a moss house, and several other nice points in the garden. The walks are covered with the material left in washing the lead ore, through which no weed can even peep. It is many-colored, and the glittering of here and there a bit of ore, lead, or silver, has a very pretty effect indeed." The reader will have had enough of the journal by this time. Its only merit is the accurate noting down of details that I had seen; but many of the details are such as children of that age do not commonly pay attention to, as, for instance, in this bit about an old church:-- "The church at Dyserth has an east window which is considered the greatest antiquity in Wales; many figures of the saints are represented in colored glass, the lead betwixt the panes is the breadth of two fingers. The yard has several old trees--two very fine yews, and certainly the largest birch for miles round." I notice a great interest in all beautiful materials throughout the pages of this journal; the kind of wood used for the suites of furniture is invariably mentioned, as, for example, the chairs of solid ebony in the dining-room at Penrhyn Castle, the old oak in the dining-room at Trelacre, and the light oak in the drawing-room, the carved oak ceilings and pillars at Penrhyn, and the use of stone from St. Helen's there, as well as the bedstead that is made of slate, and the enormous table of the same material in the servants' hall. The interest in materials is a special instinct, a kind of sympathy with Nature showing itself by appreciation of the different qualities of her products. This instinct has always been very strong in me, and I have often noticed it in others, especially in artists. Some poets are very fond of describing beautiful materials; but the instinct is not confined to poetical or artistic natures, being often found amongst workmen in the handicrafts, and it may be associated with a sense of the usefulness of materials, as well as with admiration of their beauty. With me the interest in them is both artistic and utilitarian; all metals, woods, marble, etc., are delightful to me in some way. In 1842 Rhyl was a little quiet place known to the Liverpool people as a good bathing-place, but not spoiled by formal rows of houses and big hotels. There was at that time in Rhyl a gentleman who possessed a sort of genteel cottage in a relatively large garden, and though the house was small, it might have done for a widower like my father, and it was for sale. I remember urging my father to buy it, as Rhyl pleased me on account of the possibilities of boating and riding on the sands, besides which we had enjoyed some excellent fishing, which delighted me as a child, though I gave up the amusement afterwards. I mention the house here for a particular reason. It has remained very distinctly in my memory ever since, as my father's last chance of escape from his habits and associates. Whilst we were in Wales together he conducted himself as a man ought to do who is travelling with a lady and a child. He was not harsh with me, and notwithstanding my habitual fear of him, some of my Welsh days with him are pleasant to live over again in memory. Now, if he had bought that house, the sort of life we were then leading might have become habitual, and he might possibly have been saved from the sad fate that awaited him. However, though tempted for a moment, he refused because it did not seem a good investment, being a flimsy little building, not very well contrived. Though my father would not buy the house to please me, he bought me a little bay mare at Rhyl that was a pretty and swift creature, and we took her on the steamer to Menai, where, for want of a convenient arrangement for landing horses, she was pitched into the sea and made to swim ashore. She had been in a hot place on the steamer, near the engines, and the sudden change to the cold sea-water was probably (so we thought afterwards) the reason why she became broken-winded, which was a great grief to me. I hardly know why I record these trifles, but they have an importance in the feelings of a boy, and I am weak enough to have very tender feelings about animals down to the present day. We visited Anglesea and Caernarvon, and other places too well known for the reader to tolerate a description of them here. In those days the tubular bridge had not yet been thought of; but the beautiful suspension bridge at Menai was already in existence, and was the most remarkable bridge then existing in the world. I was more struck by the beauty of the structure than by its costliness or size; the journal says, "It is indeed wonderfully beautiful." On one of our excursions we saw what in rainy weather is a good waterfall, and I find a reference to this that I quote for the curious bit of Welsh-English that is included in it,--"We came to a little village, which has in a wet season a very fine waterfall; the driver said it would not be seen to advantage because there was 'few water.' There certainly was 'few water,' but the fine high rocks gave a powerful idea of what it would have been had the rushing of waters taken the place of the death-like stillness which then prevailed." The reader will perhaps pardon me for having dwelt longer on this Welsh tour than the interest of it may seem to warrant; but I look back to it with lingering regret as the last agreeable association connected with the memory of my father. It was a most happy little tour. I had an intensely strong affection for my father's eldest sister Mary, who accompanied us, and whose dear handwriting I recognize in a few corrections in the journal. Besides, that year 1842 is absolutely the last year of my life in which I could live in happy ignorance of evil and retain all the buoyancy of early boyhood. A terrible experience was in reserve for me that soon aged me rapidly, and made a really merry boyish life impossible for me after having passed through it. CHAPTER V. 1843-1844. A painful chapter to write.--My father calls me home.--What kind of a house it was.--Paternal education and discipline.--My life at that time one of dulness varied by dread. The writing of this chapter is so painful to me that the necessity for it has made me put off the composition of this autobiography year after year. Then why not omit the chapter altogether? The omission is impossible, because the events of the year 1843-1844 were quite the most important of my early boyhood, and have had a most powerful and in some respects a disastrous influence over my whole life. Notwithstanding my father's kindness to me during our Welsh tour, my feelings towards him were not, and could not be, those of trust and confidence. He was extremely severe at times, often much more so than the occasion warranted, this being partly natural in a strong authoritative man, and partly the result of irritability brought on by his habit of drinking. When inflamed with brandy he became positively dangerous, and I had a well-founded dread of his presence. At all times he was very uncertain--he might greet me with a kind word or he might be harsh or silent, just as it happened. During my visits to him at Shaw, one of my two aunts invariably accompanied me and stayed as long as I stayed, which was a great protection for me. The idea of being left alone with my father, even for a day, was enough to fill me with apprehension; however, it did not seem likely that I should have to live with him, as I should probably be sent to some distant school, and only come home for the holidays. This was the view of my future that was taken by my aunts and myself, when one day in the year 1843, I believe in the month of June, there came a letter from my father peremptorily declaring, in terms which admitted of no discussion, that although a child might live with ladies it was not good for a boy, and that he had determined to have me for the future under his own roof. The news came upon me like a thunderclap in a clear sky. I had grateful and affectionate feelings towards both my aunts, but to the elder my feelings were those of a son, and a very loving son, towards his mother. She had, in fact, taken the place of my mother so completely that I remained unconscious of my loss. I reserve for a pleasanter chapter than this the delightful duty of painting her portrait; at present it is enough to say that a separation from her in childhood was the most bitter grief that could be experienced by me, and my father's ukase made this separation seem destined to be eternal, except perhaps a short visit in the holidays. In a word, my filial life with her seemed at an end. I was taken to my father's and left alone with him. Some years before, he had bought a house in Shaw called Ivy Cottage,--a house with a front of painted stucco, looking on a garden,--and though the gable end of the house looked on a street, the other end had a view over some fields, not then built over. My father rented one or two of these fields for his horses and cows, and some farm buildings just big enough for his small establishment. He did not keep a carriage, and had even given up his dogcart, but he always had a saddle-horse for himself and a pony for me; at one time I had two ponies. His horses were his only luxury, but he was as exacting about them as if he had been a rich nobleman. He would not tolerate careless grooming for an instant; bits and stirrups were always kept in a state of exemplary brightness, and when he rode through Shaw he was quite fit to be seen in Hyde Park. At that time he had a jet-black mare of a vicious temper, which only gratified his pride as a horseman, and it so happened (I am not inventing this for a contrast) that my pony was of the purest white with full mane and tail of the same, and shaped exactly like the sturdy war-horses in old pictures. As he was still a fine-looking, handsome man and I was a healthy boy, no doubt we looked well enough, and it is probable that many a poor factory lad envied me my good luck in being able to ride about in that way, instead of working in a mill; but I rode in constant dread of my father's heavy hunting-whip. It had a steel hammer at the end of the long handle, and if at any time its owner fancied that I was turning my toes out, he did not say anything, but with a dexterity acquired by practice he delivered a sharp blow with that hammer on my foot which made me writhe with pain. Nothing vexed him more than any appearance of gentleness or tenderness. I loved my pony, Lily, and did not like to beat her when she was doing her best, and she had hard work to keep up with my father's ill-tempered mare, so he would say, "D--n it, can't you whip her? Can't you whip better than that? The strokes of that whip of yours are so feeble that they wouldn't kill a fly!" Nobody could say that of _his_ hitting. I had a little young dog that was very dear to me, and when it pleased my father one day to walk into the kitchen, it unluckily so happened that the dog was, or seemed to be, in his way, so he gave it a kick that sent it into the middle of the room, and there it lay quivering. He took no notice of it, said what he had to say, in his usual peremptory tone, and then left the room. I knelt down by the poor little dog, which was in its death-agony, and shortly breathed its last. During our rides my dreaded companion would stop at many inns and private houses, where he slaked his perpetual thirst in stirrup-cups, or sometimes he would go in and sit for a long time whilst the horses were cared for by some groom. The effects of these refreshments could not fail to be evident as we returned home; and it was more by good luck than anything else, except his habitually excellent horsemanship, that he was able to ride at all in that condition. I clearly remember one particular occasion when he seemed to be keeping his seat with more than usual uncertainty, and at last fairly rolled out of it. We were riding along a paved street, so that the fall would have been very serious; but two or three men who were watching him foresaw the accident just in time, and rushed forward to catch him as he fell. On another occasion when I was not present (indeed this happened before my settled residence with my father) he fell in a most dangerous way, with his foot caught in the stirrup, and was dragged violently down a steep hill till the horse was brought to a stand. Fortunately my father wore a top-coat at the time, which was soon torn off his back by the friction, and so were his other clothes, and the back itself was almost flayed; but the doctor said that if he had been lightly dressed the accident would have been far more serious. My father would sometimes send me on errands to a considerable distance with the pony, and as he hated all dawdling and loitering in others, though he had become a perfectly undisciplined man himself, he would limit me strictly to the time necessary for my journey, a time that I never ventured to exceed. In some respects the education that he was giving me, though of Spartan severity, was not ill calculated for the formation of a manly character. He quite understood the importance of applying the mind completely to the thing which occupied it for the moment. If he saw me taking several books together that had no connection with each other, he would say, "Take one of those books and read it steadily, don't potter and play with half-a-dozen." Desultory effort irritated him, and he was quick to detect busy idleness under its various disguises. He swore very freely himself, and as I heard so many oaths I was beginning to acquire the same accomplishment, when he overheard me accidentally and gave me such a stern lecture on the subject that I knew ever after I was not to follow the paternal example. What his soul hated most, however, was a lie or the shadow of a lie. He could not tolerate the little fibs that are common with women and children, and are often their only protection against despotism. "Tell the truth and shame the devil" was one of his favorite precepts, though why the devil should feel ashamed because I spoke the truth was never perfectly clear to my childish intellect. However, the precept sank deep into my nature, and got mixed up with a feeling of self-respect, so that it became really difficult for me to tell fibs. I remember on one occasion being a martyr for truth in peculiarly trying circumstances. It was before I lived permanently under the paternal roof, and on one of those visits we paid to my father. An aunt was with me (not the one who accompanied us to Wales), and she was often rather hard and severe. My father had made a law that I was to practise with dumb-bells a quarter of an hour every morning, and this exercise was taken in the garden, but before beginning I always looked at the clock which was in the sitting-room. On coming back into the house one morning, I met my father, who said, "Have you done your fifteen minutes?" "Yes, papa." "That is not true," said my aunt from the next room, "he has only practised for ten minutes; look at the clock!" My terrible master looked at the clock; the finger stood at ten minutes after eleven, and this was taken as conclusive evidence against me. I simply answered (what was true) that I had begun five minutes before the hour. This "additional lie" put my father into a fury, and he ordered me to do punishment drill with those dumb-bells for two hours without stopping. Of those hundred and twenty minutes he did not remit one. Long before their expiration I was ready to drop, but he came frequently to show that he had his eye upon me, and the horrible machine-like motion must continue. On other occasions I got punished for lying, when my only fault was the common childish inability to explain. "Why did you tear that piece of paper?" "Please, papa, I did not tear it; _I pulled it, and it tore_." Here is a child attempting to explain that he had not torn a piece of paper voluntarily, that he had stretched it only, and had himself been surprised by the tearing. In my father's code that was a "confounded lie," and I was to be severely punished for it. His system of education included riding as an essential part, and that he taught me well, so far as a child of that age could learn it. But though there were harriers within a few miles he could not take me to hunt, as children are sometimes taken in easier countries, the fields in Lancashire being so frequently divided by stone walls. The nature of our neighborhood equally prevented him from teaching me to swim, which he would otherwise have done, as there were no streams deep enough, or left in their natural purity. To accustom me to water, however, he made me take cold shower-baths, certainly the best substitute for a plunge that can be had in an ordinary room. In mental education he attached great importance to common things, to arithmetic, for example, and to good reading aloud, and intelligible writing. His own education had been very limited; he knew no modern language but his own, and I believe he knew no Greek whatever, and only just enough Latin for a solicitor, which in those days was not very much; but if he was a Philistine in neglecting his own culture, he had not the real Philistine's contempt for culture in others and desired to have me well taught; yet there was nobody near at hand to continue my higher education properly, and I was likely, had we lived long together at Shaw, to become like the regular middle-class Englishmen of those days, who from sheer want of preliminary training were impervious to the best influences of literature and art. I might have written a clear business letter, and calculated interest accurately. To accustom me to money matters, child as I was, my father placed gold and silver in my keeping, and whatever I spent was to be accounted for. In this way money was not to be an imaginary thing for me, but a real thing, and I was not to lose the control of myself because I had my pocket full of sovereigns. This was a very original scheme in its application to so young a child, but it perfectly succeeded, and I never either lost or misapplied one halfpenny of the sums my father entrusted to my keeping. He was evidently pleased with his success in this. There was a village school near his house kept by a respectable man for children of both sexes, and there I was sent to practise calligraphy and arithmetic. During school-hours there was at least complete relief from the paternal supervision, and besides this I managed to fall in love with a girl about a year older than myself, who was a very nice girl indeed, though she squinted to an unfortunate degree. That is the great advantage of having the young of both sexes in the same schoolroom,--the manners of the brutal sex may be made tender by the presence of the refined one. Boys and girls both went to the Grammar School at Burnley, in the now forgotten days when Mr. Raws was head-master there; but that was long before my time. My existence at Ivy Cottage was one of extreme dulness varied by dread. Every meal was a _tête-à-tête_ with my father, unrelieved by the presence of any lady or young person, and he became more and more gloomy as his nervous system gradually gave way, so that after having been simply stern and unbending, he was now like a black cloud always hanging over me and ready, as it seemed, to be my destruction in some way or other not yet clearly defined. It was an immense relief to me when a guest came to dinner, and I remember being once very much interested in a gentleman who sat opposite me at table, for the simple reason that I believed him to be the Duke of Wellington. There was rather more fuss than usual in the way of preparation, and my father treated his guest with marked deference, besides which the stranger had the Wellingtonian nose, so my youthful mind was soon made up on the subject, and I listened eagerly in the hope that the hero of Waterloo would fight some of his battles over again. He remained, however, silent on that subject, and I afterwards had the disappointment of learning that our guest was not the Duke, but only the holder of a high office in the county. CHAPTER VI. 1844. My extreme loneliness.--Thoughts of flight.--My father's last illness and death.--Circumstances of my last interview with him.--His funeral. It was one of the effects of the constant anxiety and excitement, and the dreadful wretchedness of that time, that my brain received the images of all surrounding creatures and things with an unnatural clearness and intensity, and that they were impressed upon it for life. Even now everything about Ivy Cottage is as clear as if the forty years were only as many days, and the writing of these chapters brings everything before me most vividly, not only the faces of the people and the habits and motions of the animals, but even the furniture, of which I remember every detail, down to the coloring of the services in the bedrooms, and the paint on my father's rocking-chair. An anecdote has been told in these pages about exercise with dumb-bells and an appeal to the clock. In writing that, I saw the real clock with the moon on its face (for it showed the phases of the moon), and my aunt standing near the window with her work in her hand and glancing up from the work to the clock, just as she did in reality. Amongst other particular occasions I remember one night when the moon shone very brightly in the garden, and I was sitting near my bedroom window looking over it, meditating flight. My father's cruelty had then reached its highest point. I was always spoken to harshly when he condescended to take any notice of me at all, and was very frequently beaten. Our meals together had become perfectly intolerable. He would sit and trifle with his cutlet, and cover it with pepper, for his appetite was completely gone, and there was no conversation except perhaps an occasional expression of displeasure. The continual tension caused by anxiety made my sleep broken and uncertain, and that night I sat up alone in the bedroom longer than usual and looking down upon the moonlit garden. There was an octagonal summer-house of trellis-work on the formal oblong lawn, and on the top of it was a large hollow ball of sheet-copper painted green that had cost my grandmother three pounds. It is oddly associated with my anxieties on that night, because I looked first at it and then at the moon alternately whilst thinking. The situation had become absolutely intolerable, the servants were my only protectors, and though devoted they never dared to interfere when their master was actually beating me. I therefore seriously weighed, in my own childish manner, the possibilities of a secret flight. The moonlight was tempting--it would be easy to go alone to the stable and saddle the pony. On a fine night I could be many miles away before morning. There was no difficulty whatever about money; I had plenty of sovereigns in a drawer to be accounted for afterwards to my father, and meanwhile could employ them in escaping from him. Still, I knew that such an employment of _his_ money would be looked upon by him as a breach of trust, and would, in fact, _be_ a breach of trust. This consideration was not easily set aside, though I now see that it was needlessly scrupulous, and have no doubt whatever that if a child is left by the ignorance or the carelessness of superior authority in the hands of a madman, it has a clear right to provide for its own safety by any means in its power. But where was I to go? My uncles were two very cool lawyers, always on the side of authority, and they would not be likely to believe my story entirely. A vague but sure instinct warned me that they would set me down for a rebellious boy who wanted to escape from justly severe paternal authority, and that they would at once send me back to Ivy Cottage. One of my two maiden aunts would be very likely to take the same view, but if the other received me with kindness, she could not have strength to resist my father, who would send or go to her at once and claim me. After thinking over all these things, I came to the conclusion that real safety was only to be found amongst strangers, and it seemed so hazardous to ask protection from unknown people that I decided to remain; but a very little would have settled it the other way. If those sovereigns had been really my own, I should probably have crept out of the house, saddled the pony, and ridden many miles; but so young a boy travelling alone would have been sure to attract attention, and the attempt to win deliverance would have been a failure. In after years, one of my elder relatives said that the attempt would almost certainly have caused my father to disinherit me by a new will, as my mother's property had been left to him absolutely. This danger was quite of a serious kind (more serious than the reader will think probable from what I choose to say in this place), as my father had another heir in view whom I never saw, but who was held _in terrorem_ over me. I awoke one bleak winter's morning about five o'clock, and heard the strangest cries proceeding from his room. His manservant had been awakened before me and had gone to the room already, where he was engaged in a sort of wrestling match with my father, who, in the belief that the house was full of enemies, was endeavoring to throw himself out of the window. Other men had been called for, who speedily arrived, and they overpowered him, though even the remnant of his mighty strength was such that it took six men to hold him on his bed. The attack lasted a whole week, and the house would have been a perfect hell, had not a certain event turned it for me into a Paradise. I had not been able somehow to get to sleep late at night for a short time, when a light in the room awoke me. The horrible life I had been leading for many a day and night had produced a great impressionability, and I was particularly afraid of my father in the night-time, so I started up in bed with the idea that he was come to beat me, when lo! instead of his terrible face, I saw what for me was the sweetest and dearest face in the whole world! It was his sister Mary, she who had taken my mother's place, and whom I loved with a mingled sentiment of filial tenderness and gratitude that remained undiminished in force, though it may have altered in character, during all the after years. For the suddenness of revulsion from horror to happiness, there has never been a minute in my existence comparable to the minute when I realized the idea that she had come. At first it seemed only a deceptive dream. Such happiness was incredible, and I did not even know she had been sent for; but the sweet reality entered into my heart like sunshine, and throwing my arms about her neck I burst into a passion of tears. She, in her quiet way, for she hardly ever yielded to a strong emotion, though her feelings were deep and tender, looked at me sadly and kindly and told me to sleep in peace, as she was going to remain in the house some time. Then she left the room, and I lay in the darkness, but with a new light brighter than sunshine in the hope that the miserable life with my father had at length come to an end. It had only been six months in all, but it had seemed longer than any half-dozen years gone through before or after. If this book were a novel, a very effective chapter might be written to describe my father's sufferings during his week of delirium, and all the dreadful fancies by which his disordered brain was oppressed and tortured; but I prefer to skip that week altogether, and come to a morning when his recovery was thought to be assured. He was no longer delirious, but apparently quite calm, though his manner was hard and imperious. He ordered me to be sent up to him, and I went almost trembling with the old dread of him, and with a wretched feeling that after my single week of respite the tyranny was to begin again. Such may have been the feelings of an escaped slave when he has been caught and brought back in irons, and stands once more in his master's presence. I tried to congratulate my master on his recovery in a clumsy childish way, but he peremptorily ordered me to fetch the "Times" and read to him. I began, as usual, one of the leading articles on the politics of the day, and before I had read many sentences my hearer declared that I was reading badly and made the article nonsense. Why had I put in such and such words of my own? he asked. His own precept that I was always to tell the truth under any circumstances had habituated me to be truthful even to him, so I answered boldly that I had not inserted the words attributed to me. Then I read a little farther, and he accused me of inserting something else that was not and could not be in the text; I said it was he who was mistaken, and he flew into an uncontrollable fury, one of those rages in which it had been his custom to punish me without mercy. What he might have done to me I cannot tell; he raised himself in bed and glared at me with an expression never to be forgotten. My aunt, however, had been listening at the door, thinking it probable that I should be in danger, and she now opened it and told me to come away. I have a confused recollection of reaching the door under a parting volley of imprecations. It was a mistake to let my father see me, as, in the perverted state of his mind, the mere sight of me was enough to make him furious. Whether he hated me or not, nobody knows; but he treated me as if I was the most odious little object that could be brought before his eyes. Very soon after the scene about the article in the "Times," and probably in consequence of the excitement brought on by it, my father had a fit of apoplexy, and lingered till the next morning about nine o'clock. I was not in the room when he died, but my aunt took me to see him immediately after, and then I received an impression which has lasted to the present day. The corpse was lying on its side amidst disordered bedclothes, and to this day I can never go into a bedroom where the bed has not been made without feeling as if there were a corpse in it. That dreadful childish sensation received when I saw my father's body just as it lay at the close of the death-agony, can even now be revived by the sight of a disordered bed; such is the force of early impressions, especially when they are received by a nervous system that has been overwrought by the extreme of mental wretchedness. The reader will hardly believe that the death of so hard a father could have been felt otherwise than as an inexpressible relief, and yet I was deeply affected by his loss. The kindest of fathers could hardly have been wept for more. My aunt's tears were more explicable; she was old enough to understand the frightful waste of the best gifts involved in that premature ending; as for my grief, perhaps the true explanation of it may be that I mourned rather the father who had been kind to me in Wales, than the cruel master at Ivy Cottage. I sometimes try to imagine what he might have been under more favorable circumstances. There were times after his wife's death when he meditated a complete change of residence, which might have saved him. He would always have been severe and authoritative, but without alcohol he would probably not have been cruel. I remember the day of the funeral quite distinctly. My father's two brothers came, though he had had scarcely any intercourse with them for years. They were most respectable men, quite free from my father's errors; but they had not half his life and energy. Such was the strength of his constitution that so recently as the time of our journey in Wales his health was not visibly impaired, and at the time of his death he had that rare possession for a man of thirty-nine, a complete set of perfectly sound teeth. His coffin was carried on the shoulders of six men from Ivy Cottage to the graveyard near the chapel. Shaw at that time had only a chapel, a hideous building on a bleak piece of rising ground, surrounded by many graves. It never looked more dreary than on that wretched January day in 1844, when we stood round as the sexton threw earth on my father's coffin. He was laid in the same tomb with the poor young wife who had loved him truly, and to whom he had been a tender and devoted husband whilst their short union lasted. I am the only survivor of that day's ceremony. The little procession has all followed my father into the darkness, descending one by one into graves separated by great spaces of land and sea. And when this is printed I, too, shall be asleep in mine. CHAPTER VII. 1845. Dislike to Shaw in consequence of the dreadful life I led there with my father.--My guardian.--Her plan for my education.--Doncaster School.--Mr. Cape and his usher.--The usher's intolerance of Dissenters. --My feeling for architecture and music.--The drawing-master.--My guardian insists on my learning French.--Our French master, Sig. Testa.--A painful incident.--I begin to learn the violin.--Dancing.--My aversion to cricket.--Early readings.--Love of Scott.--My first library.--Classical studies. One consequence of the horrible life I had led at Ivy Cottage was a permanent dislike to the place and the neighborhood, the evil effects of which will be seen in the sequel. For the present it is enough to say that I never went there again quite willingly. After my father's death my grandmother lived in the village, and I was taken to see her every year until her death; but though she was a very kind old lady, it was a trial to me to visit her. I used to lie awake in her house at nights, realizing those horrible nights I had passed at Ivy Cottage, with such extreme intensity that it seemed as if my father might enter the room at any time. This was not a superstitious dread of apparitions; but the association of ideas brought back the past with a clearness that was extremely painful. Even now, at a distance of more than forty years, I avoid whatever reminds me of that time, and am not sorry that this narrative now leads to something else. My father had no great affection for his brothers, who on their part could not have much esteem for him, so there was a mutual coolness which prevented him from appointing either of them to be my guardian. Probably they felt this as a slight, for, although always kind to me, they held completely aloof from anything like paternal interference with my education. My father had named his eldest sister, Mary, as my sole guardian, with, two lawyers as co-executors with her. The reader will probably think it was a mistake to appoint an old maid to be guardian to a boy; but my aunt was a woman of excellent sense, and certainly not disposed to bring me up effeminately; indeed, her willingness to encourage me in everything manly was such that she would always inflict upon herself considerable anxiety about my safety rather than prevent me from taking my full share of the more or less perilous exercises of youth. As to my education and profession her scheme was very simple and clear, and would have been perfectly rational if I had been all that she wished me to be. According to her plan I was to go to good schools first, and then be prepared for Oxford by tutors, and become a clergyman. There was some thought at one time of sending me to one of the great public schools; but this was abandoned, and I was first sent to Burnley School again, and then, after the summer holidays of 1845, to Doncaster, where I was a boarder in the house of the head-master. A word from me in favor of one of the public schools would probably have decided my guardian to send me there; but there was a _vis inertiae_ in my total want of social and scholastic ambition. I never in my life felt the faintest desire to rise in the world either by making the acquaintance of people of rank (which is the main reason why boys of middling station are sent to aristocratic schools), or by getting letters put after my name as a reward for learning what had no intrinsic charm for me. In the worldly sense I never had any ambition whatever. It seemed rather hard, after living at Burnley with my kind guardian, to be sent to Doncaster School and separated from her for five months at a time, but she thought the separation necessary, as there was nothing in the world she dreaded more than that her great affection might spoil me. Always gentle in her ways, always kind and considerate, that admirable woman had still a remarkable firmness of character, and would act, on due occasion, in direct opposition both to her own feelings and to mine, if she believed that duty required it. In those days there was no railway station at Doncaster, and my guardian took me from Featherstone (where her brother-in-law, Mr. Hinde, was vicar) to Doncaster in a hired carriage. I remember that it was an open carriage and we had nobody with us except the driver, and it was a fine hot day in August. I remember the long road, the arrival at an inn at Doncaster not far from the new church, and my first presentation to Mr. Cape, the head-master, who seemed a very kind and gentle sort of clergyman to a boy not yet acquainted with his cane. Then I was left alone in the strange school, not in the best of spirits, and if it had been difficult to restrain tears when my guardian left me, it became impossible in the little iron bed in the dormitory at night. There were not many boarders, perhaps a dozen, and three or four private pupils who were preparing for Cambridge. All these were lodged in the head-master's house, which was in a pleasant, open part of the town, on the road leading to the race-course, just beyond the well-known Salutation Hotel. Besides these, there were rather a large number of day scholars,--I forget how many, perhaps fifty or sixty,--and in those days the schoolhouse was a ground floor under the old theatre. We marched down thither in the morning under the control of an usher, who was always with us in our walks. This usher, whose name I well remember, but do not choose to print, was a vulgar, overbearing man whom it was difficult to like, yet at the same time we all felt that he was a very valuable master. Boys feel the difference between a master who is a gentleman and one who falls short of that ideal. We were clearly aware that the head-master, Mr. Cape, was a gentleman, and that the usher was not. Nevertheless, in spite of his occasional coarseness and even brutality, the usher was a painstaking, honest fellow, who did his duty very energetically. His best quality, which I appreciate far more now than I did then, was an extreme readiness to help a willing boy in his work, by clearly explaining those difficulties that are likely to stop him in his progress. Mr. Cape was more an examiner than a teacher, at least for us; with the private pupils he may have been more didactic. The usher evidently liked to be asked; he was extremely helpful to me, and thanks to him chiefly I made very rapid progress at Doncaster. Unfortunately an occasional injustice made it difficult to be so grateful to him as we ought to have been. Here is an example. One evening in the playground he told me to get on the back of another boy, and then thrashed me with a switch from an apple-tree. I begged to be told for what fault this punishment was inflicted, and the only answer he condescended to give me was that a master owed no explanation to a schoolboy. Down to the present time I have never been able to make out what the punishment was for, and strongly suspect that it was simply to exercise the usher's arm, which was a powerful one. He was a fair cricketer, though rather too fat for that exercise, and a capital swimmer, for which his fat was an advantage. He was an immoderate snuff-taker. Sometimes he would lay a train of snuff on the back of his hand and snuff it up greedily and voluptuously. In hot weather he sometimes sat in his shirt-sleeves, and would occasionally amuse himself by laying the snuff on his thick fat arm and then pass it all under his nose, which drew it up as the pneumatic discharging machines drew grain from the hold of a vessel. The odor of snuff was inseparable from his person. On Sunday mornings we were made to read chapters in the Bible before going to church, and the usher, who was preparing himself to enter Holy Orders, would sometimes talk to us a little about theology. Once he said that the establishment of religious toleration in England had been a deplorable mistake, and that Dissent ought not to be permitted by the Sovereign. This frank expression of perfect intolerance rather surprised me even then, and I did not quite know whether it would be just to extirpate Dissent or not. My principal feeling about the matter was the prejudice inherited by young English gentlemen of old Tory families, that Dissent was something indescribably low, and quite beneath the attention of a gentleman. Still, to go farther and compel Dissenters by force to attend the services of the Church of England did seem to me rather hard, and on thinking over the matter seriously in my own mind, I came to the conclusion that our usher must be wrong, unless Dissenters were guilty of some crime I was not aware of; but this, after all, seemed quite possible. We were taken to the services in Doncaster old church, which was destroyed by fire many years afterwards. Though not yet in my teens, I had an intense delight in architecture, and deeply enjoyed the noble old building, one of the finest of its class in England. Our pew was in the west gallery, not far from the organ, and from it we had a good view of the interior. The effect of the music was very strong upon me, as the instrument was a fine one, and I was fully alive to the influence of music and architecture in combination. The two arts go together far better than architecture and painting; for music seems to make architecture alive, as it rolls along the aisles and under the lofty vaults. I well remember feeling, when some noble anthem was being performed, as if the sculptured heads between the arches added a noble animation to their serenity. Even now, the impression received in those early days still remains in my memory with considerable clearness and fidelity, and I believe that the habit of attending service in such a beautiful church was a powerful stimulus to an inborn passion for architecture. I had already taken lessons in drawing, of the kind which in those days was thought suitable for boys who were not expected to be professional artists, so the drawing-master at Doncaster had me amongst his pupils. He was an elderly man, rather stout, and very respectable. His house was extremely neat and tidy, with proper mahogany furniture, and no artistic eccentricities of any kind whatever. He himself was always irreproachably dressed, and he wore a large ruby ring on the little finger of his left hand. To us boys he appeared to be a personage of great dignity, but we were not afraid of him in spite of the dignity of his manners, as he could not apply the cane. He was not unkind, yet in all my life I never met with anybody concerned with the fine arts who had so little sympathy, so little enthusiasm. On the whole, he was distinctly gentle with me, but I made him angry twice. He had done me the honor to promote me to water-color, and as I wanted a rag to wipe my slab and brushes, I ventured to ask for one, on which he turned upon me a glance of haughty surprise, and said, "Do you suppose, sir, that I can undertake to supply you with rags?" This will give an idea of the curiously unsympathetic nature of the man. On another occasion I was drawing a house, or beginning to draw one, when the master came to look over my shoulder and found great fault with me for beginning with the upper part of the edifice. "What stonemason or bricklayer," said he, "would think of building his chimney before he had laid the first row of stones on the foundation?" A young pupil must not correct the bad reasoning of his elders, but it seemed to me that the cases of a bricklayer building a real house and an artist representing one on paper were not precisely the same. Later in life I found that the best artists brought their works forward as much as possible simultaneously, sketching all the parts lightly at first, and keeping them all in the same degree of finish till the end. [Footnote: The most rational way to paint is first to paint all the large masses together, then the smaller or secondary masses, and finally the details, bringing the picture forward all together, as nearly as possible.] Nevertheless, the drawing-lessons were always a delightful break in our week's occupation, and I remember with pleasure the walk in the morning down to the drawing-master's house, two days in the week, and the happy hour of messing with water-color that followed it. In those days of blissful ignorance I had, of course, no conception of the difficulties of art, and was making that delusively rapid apparent progress which is so very encouraging to all incipient amateurs. Not a single study of those times remains in my portfolios to-day, and I know not what may have become of them. This is the more to be regretted, that in the fine weather our master took us into the fields round Doncaster and taught us to sketch from nature, which we accomplished in a rudimentary way. My dear, wise, and excellent guardian was always anxious that I should receive as good an education as my opportunities would permit, so she insisted on my learning French, and had herself taught me the elements of that language, which she was able to read, though she did not pretend to speak it. On going to Doncaster I found Latin and Greek so serious a business that I wanted to lighten my burdens, and begged to be excused from going on with French; but my guardian (who, with all her exquisite gentleness, had a very strong will) would not hear of any such abandonment, and wrote very determinedly on the subject both to me and to Mr. Cape. It is extremely probable that this exercise of my guardian's will may have had a great influence on my future life, as without some early knowledge of French I might not have felt tempted to pursue the study later, and if I had never spoken French my whole existence would have been quite different. Our French master at Doncaster was an Italian of good family named Testa, one of the most perfect gentlemen I ever met, and an excellent teacher. My deepest regret about him now is that I did not learn Italian with him also, then or afterwards. [Footnote: It is astonishing how many chances of improvement young men foolishly allow to slip by them. It would have been quite worth while after I became a free agent to go and spend six months or more at Doncaster, simply to read Italian with so good a master as Testa.] I learned Italian later in life, and with a far inferior master. Signor Testa was a tall, thin man, of rather cold and stately manners, with a fine-looking, noble head covered with curly brown hair. He was always exquisitely clean and orderly, both about his person and the books and things that belonged to him in his rooms, where there was an atmosphere of almost feminine refinement, though their occupant was by no means effeminate in his thoughts or bearing. We understood that he had left Italy in consequence of some political difficulty, and we knew that he had still relations there. One day, as we were engaged with our lesson at his lodgings, he took some leaves and a faded flower or two that had just arrived in a letter from Italy, and said, with tears in his eyes, "These have come from my father's place." Now it so happened that the eldest boy in our class was liable to fits of perfectly uncontrollable laughter (what the French call _le fou rire_), and, as the reader is sure to know, if he has ever been troubled with that disease himself, the fit very often comes on just at the moment when the patient feels that he is called upon to look particularly grave. This is what happened in the present case. Our unlucky fellow-pupil was tickled with something in Testa's accent or manner, or perhaps as he was an English boy the foreigner's tenderness of feeling may have seemed to him absurd; but whatever may have been the reason, his face became convulsed with suppressed laughter, which burst forth at last uncontrollably. This made the rest of us laugh too--not at poor Testa, but at our unworthy comrade. I shall never forget the Italian gentleman's look on that occasion. His eyes were still brimming with tears, but he laid down the flattened leaves and flowers and looked at us all round with an expression that cut me, at least, to the quick. "_Young gentlemen_," he said, "_I did not expect you to be so unkind_." I longed to explain, but did not find words at the moment, and we went on with our lesson. The fact was that Testa had not the least sense of humor in his composition, and so he could not understand what had happened. A humorous man, acquainted with the nature of boys, would have understood the attack of _fou rire_, and forgiven it; but then a humorous man would have thought twice before appealing to a set of English boys for sympathy with the feelings of an exile. The incident certainly increased my feelings of respect for Signor Testa, and made me try to please him. The French lessons were very agreeable to me, and besides duly preparing them, I read some French on my own account, and acquired a liking for the language that has remained with me ever since. If the reader has the sound old-fashioned notions about education by which all subjects were strictly divided into the two classes of serious and frivolous pursuits, he will already have suspicions about the soundness of a training that included the two idle accomplishments of Drawing and French, and what will he say, I wonder, when music is added to the list? My initiation into music took place in the following manner. We had a dancing-master who came regularly to Mr. Cape's house to prepare us to shine in society, and his instrument was the convenient dancing-master's pocket fiddle or kit. Although this instrument gives forth but a feeble kind of music, I was far more enchanted with it than by the dancing, and wrote a most persuasive letter to my good guardian imploring her to let me study the violin. Those were the happy times when one had energy for everything! I had already three languages on hand, and the art of painting in water-colors, besides which I was in a mathematical school where boys were prepared for Cambridge, [Footnote: Doncaster School at that time was a sort of little nursery for Cambridge. Mr. Cape was a Cambridge man, and so was his brother, the able master of Peterborough School.] but there seemed to be no reason why the art of violin-playing should not be added to these pursuits. My guardian, before consenting, prudently wrote to Mr. Cape to ask if this new accomplishment would not interfere too much with other matters, and his answer was in these words: "The lad is getting on well enough with his studies, so if he wants to amuse himself a little by scraping catgut, even let him scrape away!" It will be seen that Mr. Cape did not assign to music the high rank in education which has been attributed to it by some famous thinkers in ancient and modern times. Few musical sensations experienced during my whole life have equalled in intensity the sensation of hearing our dancing-master play upon a full-sized violin, after the weak and thin tones that our ears had been accustomed to by his kit. I was so little in the way of hearing music at Doncaster that the richer note of the violin seemed musical as the lyre of Apollo. A contrast so striking made me more passionately eager to learn, but I was informed by one of the private pupils who exercised considerable authority over the younger boys, that although I might study the violin with the dancing-master, I was never to practise it by myself. This restriction was pardonable in one who might reasonably dread the torturing attempts of a beginner, but it was certainly not favorable to my progress. However, in course of time it came to be relaxed; that is, as soon as I could play tunes. It is very odd that any one who dislikes dancing as heartily as I have always disliked it in manhood, should have been rather a brilliant performer when a boy. Our dancing-master was extremely pleased with me, and encouraged me by many compliments; nay, he even went so far as to teach me a sailor's hornpipe, which I danced in public as a _pas seul_ when the school gave a theatrical entertainment on the approach of the Christmas holidays. All this is simply inconceivable now, for there is nothing which bores me so thoroughly as a ball, and I would at any time travel fifty miles to avoid one. At school the principal amusement was cricket, for which I soon acquired an intense aversion. All games bore me except chess and billiards, and it was especially hard to be compelled to field out to please the elder boys, and so waste the precious holiday afternoons. Our cricket ground was on the racecourse, and when I could get away I did so most joyfully, and betook myself to a quiet place amongst the furze nearer to the Red House than the Grand Stand. There my great delight was to read Scott's poems, which I possessed in pocket volumes. The same volumes are in my study now, and simply to handle them is enough to bring back many sensations of long-past boyhood. Of all the influences that had sway over me in those days and for long afterwards, the influence of Scott was by far the strongest. A boy cannot make a better choice. Scott has the immense advantage over dull authors of being almost always interesting, and the equally great advantage over many exciting authors that he never leaves an unhealthy feeling in the mind. I began with "The Lady of the Lake," then read "Marmion," and "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" and the Ballads, and finally "Rokeby." These were in separate small volumes, which gave me a desire to possess other authors in the same convenient form, so I added Goldsmith, Crabbe, Kirke White, and Moore's "Irish Melodies." A prize for history gave me "Paradise Lost" in two volumes of my favorite size, and two school-fellows, who saw that I had a taste for such volumes, kindly gave me others. During the holidays my guardian authorized the purchase of a Shakespeare in seven pocket volumes, and the "Spectator" in eight, so I had quite a little library, which became inexpressibly dear to me. It is very remarkable that for a long time I knew Scott thoroughly as a poet without having read a single novel by him. Having been invited by one of my school-fellows to a country house not very far from Doncaster, I was asked by the lady of the house what authors I had read, and on mentioning Scott's poems was told that he was greater as a novelist than as a poet, and that the Waverley novels were certainly his finest works. This seemed incredible to me then, the poems being so delightful that they could not possibly be surpassed. On another occasion I happened to be standing with Mr. Cape in the little chapel at Conisborough Castle, and having heard from an older school-fellow that Athelstane had died there, I asked Mr. Cape if it was true. "Yes," he answered, "if you believe Sir Walter Scott." Not having read "Ivanhoe," I was under the impression that the Athelstane in question was an historical personage. Nothing in the retrospect of life strikes me as more astonishing than the rapid mental growth that must have taken place between the date of my father's death and its second or third anniversary. When my father died I was simply a child, though rather a precocious one, as the journal in Wales testifies; but between two and three years after that event the child had become a boy, with a keen taste for literature, which, if it had been taken advantage of by his teachers, ought to have made his education a more complete success than it ever became. The misfortune was that the classics were not taught as literature at all, but as exercises in grammar and prosody. They were dissected by teachers who were simply lecturers on the science of language, and who had not large views even about that. Our whole attention being directed to the technicalities of the pedagogue, we did not perceive that the classic authors had produced poems which, as literature, were not inferior to those of our best English poets. So it happened that those of us who had literary tastes were content to satisfy them in reading English authors, and left them, as it were, at the door of the classroom. I worked courageously enough at the Latin books which were set before me, but never found the slightest enjoyment in them; indeed, it was only much later, and through the medium of French and Italian, that I gained some partial access to the literary beauty of Latin. As for Greek, I began it vigorously at Doncaster, but I did not get beyond the rudiments during my stay there. CHAPTER VIII. 1845. Early attempts in English verse.--Advantages of life at Doncaster.--A school incident.--Fagging.--Story of a dog.--Robbery.--My schoolfellow, Henry Alexander.--His remarkable influence.--Other schoolfellows. --Story of a boat.--A swimming adventure.--Our walks and battles. The love of literature was naturally followed by some early attempts at versification in English, which is generally looked upon as a silly waste of time in a boy, though if he writes Latin verses, which we were taught to do, he is thought to be seriously occupied. Prom the age of eleven to that of twenty-one I wrote English verses very frequently, and am now very glad I did so, being quite convinced that it was a most profitable exercise in the language. My early verses were invariably echoes of my dearly beloved Sir Walter Scott, a master whom it is not very difficult to imitate so far as mere versification is concerned. One little incident about this early verse-making is worth mentioning in this place. I was staying for a few days with a school-fellow at a house near Doncaster, when I dreamed a new ballad about a shipwreck, and on awaking wrote it down at once. The thing would not be worth quoting, if it were possible to remember it; but it was correct enough in rhymes and metre. My life at Doncaster was not on the whole unhappy, and the steady discipline of the school was doing me much good. Mr. Cape was a very severe master, and he used the cane very freely; but to a boy who had lived under the tyranny of my father Mr. Cape's severity seemed a light affliction. He kept up his dignity by seldom appearing in the schoolroom; he sat in his library or in the dining-room in a large morocco-covered arm-chair, holding a book in one hand whilst the other was always ready to clasp the cane that he kept close by. Any failure of memory would cause him to dart a severe look at the delinquent, a false quantity made him scowl, and when he suspected real carelessness the cane was resorted to at once. Unfortunately he could not apply it and keep his temper at the same time. The exercise roused him to fury, and a punishment which in his first intention was to have been mild became cruel through the effect of his own rapidly increasing irritation. Mr. Cape's health was not good, and no doubt this added to the natural irritability of his temper. There was one unfortunate youngster whose hands were covered with chilblains, and who was constantly displeasing Mr. Cape by inattention or inaccuracy, so he incurred such perpetual canings that his hands were pitiable to see, and must have been extremely painful. Our head-master was no doubt laudably, or selfishly, anxious that we should get on with our work so as to do him credit at Cambridge, where most of us were expected to go; but he seemed almost incapable of pity. I remember having the intense pleasure of playing him a little trick just after he had been caning a lad who was a very good friend of mine. It happened in this way--but first I must describe the topography of the place. Mr. Cape's house was a tall brick building that looked upon the street on one side, and on our playground (which had formerly been a garden) on the other. At the other end of the garden was a wash-house with the schoolroom over it, and in the wash-house there was a large copper for boiling linen. In the house the dining-room looked over the play-ground, and it somehow happened (perhaps it was in the Easter holidays) that there were no pupils left in the place but my friend Brokenribs and I. [Footnote: We always called him Brokenribs, which recalled his real name by a sort of imitation; besides which, though his ribs had not actually been broken, he had suffered from a good many bruises.] Mr. Cape called him up into the dining-room after dark, and began to thrash him. Brokenribs, after some time, began to think that a sufficient number of strokes had been administered, and put the dining-table between himself and his adversary, who could not get at him any longer. I was in the playground, and understood all that was passing by the shadows on the window-blinds. It was most amusing to me, as a spectator, to see the shadow of Brokenribs flit rapidly past, and still better perhaps to see it followed by that of Mr. Cape, with bald head and uplifted cane. When this entertainment had lasted some time I heard a great banging of doors, and Brokenribs issued from the house, rushing like a hunted deer the whole length of the playground. "Cape's after me!" he said. "Where shall I hide?" "In the copper!" I answered with a sudden inspiration, and ran into the wash-house with him, where I lifted the lid and stowed him away in safety. The lid had but just been replaced when Mr. Cape appeared in the playground and asked if I had seen Brokenribs. "Yes, sir, certainly; he was running this way, sir." I accompanied Mr. Cape into the wash-house, which had an outer door giving access to a lane, and observed with pleasure that he was forced to the irresistible conclusion that Brokenribs had taken flight. The lad's parents lived at an accessible distance (perhaps twenty miles), so Mr. Cape was tormented with the unpleasant idea that the lad had gone home to tell his own story. He therefore ordered a gig and drove off so as to catch Brokenribs during his flight. As my friend had been sitting in cold water, I got him out when the coast was clear, and made him go to bed, where the housekeeper sent him a treacle posset. After driving many a mile in vain, Mr. Cape returned very late, and never said a word on the subject to either of us. Poor Brokenribs was not only very often caned, but he was fag to a tyrannical private pupil, who made him suffer severely. The private pupils upheld the sacred institution of fagging, which gave them a pleasant sense of authority, and as they sat like gods above us, they were not in danger of retaliation. Brokenribs was fag to a young man who determined that he should learn two things,--first, to endure pain without flinching, and secondly, to smoke tobacco. To achieve the first of these great purposes, he used to twist the lad's arms and administer a certain number of hard blows upon them. This he did every day so long as the whim lasted. As for the smoking, poor Brokenribs had to smoke a certain number of pipes every day. A single pipe made him look ghastly, and the whole series made him dreadfully ill. I remember his white face at such times; but he attained his reward in becoming an accomplished and precocious smoker. I was fag myself at one time to a private pupil; but he was not very tyrannical with me, and only ordered me to light fires, which was a valuable element in my education. It gives one a fine independence of servants to be able to light a fire quickly and well. This accomplishment enables a man to get up as early as he chooses, even in winter, and I have never forgotten it; indeed, I lighted a fire an hour before writing this page. In my opinion, it would be wise to teach every boy the art of doing without servants on occasion. The private pupils exercised authority in other ways than by converting us into fags. It so happened that I became possessor of an unfortunate tawny dog. How one boy should be owner of a dog at school when the others had nothing to do with him may be difficult to understand; and indeed my ownership did not last for very long, but it was pleasant to me whilst it lasted. The poor beast, if I remember rightly, belonged to somebody who did not want him, and was going to have him slain. I had always an intense affection for dogs, and begged Mr. Cape to let me keep this one, promising that it should not be a nuisance. I was rather a favorite with the head-master, so he granted this very extraordinary request, and it was understood that the dog was to lodge in a box in the wash-house. I bought some fresh straw for him, and took the greatest care of him, so that he soon became strongly attached to me. Had there been no private pupils the creature would have been safe enough, as I would have fought any lad of my own age in his behalf, and Brokenribs, who was older, would have fought the bigger boys; but we none of us dared to resist the privates, who were grown men. One of the privates thought that a small boy ought not to possess a dog, and began to affirm that the animal was a nuisance. He then said it would be an improvement to cut off its tail, which he did accordingly, in spite of all my remonstrances. I pitied the poor beast when it lay suffering with its bleeding stump, and did all that affection could suggest for its consolation; but shortly afterwards the same private pupil, who had a taste for pistol-shooting, thought it would be good fun to shoot at a living target, so he took my dog away into a field and shot him there. I knew what he was going to do, but had no power to prevent it, as he had begun by persuading Mr. Cape that the poor beast was a nuisance, which he certainly was not. He was a very quiet, timid dog, of an anxious, apprehensive temperament, having probably never had reason to place much trust in the human species. There was one lad at the school who was a coarse bully, and I remember his playing a trick on me which was nothing less than pure brigandage. He ordered me to give him my keys, and rummaged in my private box. He found a small telescope in it which was to his liking, and took it. I never got any redress about that telescope, as the bully coolly said it had always belonged to him, and he was powerful enough to act on the great principle that _la force prime le droit_. It is most astonishing how some boys gain a great ascendency over others when there seems to be no substantial reason for it. One of my school-fellows, who was cousin to some of my cousins, and bore my surname as one of his Christian names, had quite a remarkable ascendency over boys, and yet he had not the physical size and strength which usually impose upon them. He was slight and small, though he had a handsome face; but he had an aristocratic temperament, which inspired a sort of respect, and a governing disposition, which made other boys yield to him. Nothing was more curious than to see how completely the bully effaced himself before that young gentleman's superiority. The bully was also a snob, and probably believed that Henry Alexander belonged to the highest aristocracy. He was well descended and well connected (there was an abeyant peerage in his family), but in point of fact, his social position was not better than that of some other boys in the school. I remember well the intense astonishment of the bully when he found out one day that Alexander bore my name as a Christian name, and learned the reason. Alexander was a perfect little dandy, being at all times exceptionally well dressed for a schoolboy, and on Sundays he came out with remarkable splendor. In spring and summer he wore a jacket and trousers of the most fashionable cut and of the very finest blue cloth, with a gloss upon it, and a white waistcoat adorned with a bunch of valuable trinkets to his watch-chain. His hat, his gloves, his wonderfully small boots, were all the pink of perfection. He smoked very good cigars, and talked about life with an air of the most consummate experience, that gained him profound respect. Most boys hesitate about the choice of a profession, but Alexander had no such indecision. He had made up his mind to be an officer, with his father's consent, and guided by a sure instinct, as he had exactly the qualities to make himself respected in a regiment. It does a young officer no harm to be rather a dandy and to shine in society, whilst the extreme decision and promptitude of Alexander's peremptory will, and the natural ease with which he assumed authority, would be most useful in command. A few years later he joined the 64th Regiment and went to India, where in spite of his rather delicate frame he became an active sportsman. One day, however, the surgeon of the regiment saw him by accident in his bath, and declared that he was too thin to be well, so he examined him, and found that consumption had begun. Alexander returned to England, where he lingered a few months, and then died. He came to see me not very long before his death, not looking nearly so ill as I had expected, but the doctor knew best. With better health he might have had a brilliant career, and was certain, at least, to be an efficient and popular officer, with the right degree of love for his profession. Another of my fellow-pupils who died early was the eldest son and heir of a country squire, and one of the handsomest and most able young men I ever met. He was a private pupil, yet not at all disliked by the younger boys, as he was always kind and friendly towards us. There was a project for his going out to India, and he talked over the matter with his father one evening at his own home. A dispute arose between father and son as they sat talking late, and when they separated for the night they were not on good terms. The next morning the young gentleman was found dead in bed under circumstances which led to a very strong suspicion of suicide. We were all deeply grieved by his death, as he seemed to have the best gifts of Nature, and life was opening so brightly before him; but he had a very high spirit, and if he really did commit suicide, which is not improbable, it is very likely that his pride had been wounded. Whenever I read in the poets or elsewhere of gifted young men who have ended sadly and prematurely, his image rises before me, though it is now forty years since we met. Poor Brokenribs is gone too, though he lived long enough to be a clergyman for some years. He was a thoroughly good fellow, bearing all his hardships with admirable equanimity. Before quitting the history of my school-days, I ought, perhaps, to tell the story of a great swimming exploit whereof I was the hero. The reader, after this expression, will count upon some display of prowess and of vanity at the same time, but there is neither in this case. After I had been at Doncaster about a year, one of the private pupils came to me one day with a pencil and a piece of paper in his hand, and said, "We are going to buy a boat at Cambridge; will you subscribe?" Now it so happened that I was born a boating creature, just as decidedly as I was _not_ born to be a cricketing creature, and such a question addressed to me was much as if one said to a young duck, "Would you like to go on the pond, or would you prefer being shut up in a cage?" Of course I said "yes" at once, and wrote an artful letter to my dear guardian begging for the four guineas which were to constitute me a shareholder in the expected vessel. The future captain of the boat took my money very readily when it came, and nobody could have felt more certain of a boating career than I did; but just before the arrival of the vessel itself, it occurred to Mr. Cape (rather late in the day) that he would take a prudent precaution, so he issued a ukase to the effect that none but good swimmers were to make any use of the boat. Now I had often heard, and read too in books, that man was naturally a swimming animal, and that any one who was thrown into water would swim if only he was not afraid, so I said inwardly, "It is true that I never _did_ swim, but that is probably because I have only bathed in shallow water; I have courage enough, and if they pitch me into the river Don, most probably I shall swim, as man is naturally a swimming animal and fear is the only impediment." One day at dinner Mr. Cape asked all the subscribers, one after another, if they could swim. There was a boy of about fourteen who was a splendid swimmer, and well known for such both to the masters and his school-fellows, but Mr. Cape did not omit him, and I envied the simple ease of his "Yes, sir." When it came to me, I too said "Yes, sir," affecting the same ease, and Mr. Cape looked at me, and the assistant-master looked at me, and every one of the fellows looked at me, and then a slight smile was visible on all their countenances. After dinner the fine swimmer expressed his regret that he had not known sooner about my possession of this accomplishment, as we might have enjoyed it together in the Don. The next Saturday afternoon was fine, so the swimmers went to the river with the assistant-master, and I was very politely invited to accompany them. On this an older boy, who had always been kind to me, said privately, "You can't swim, I know you can't, and you'd better confess it, for if you don't, you run a good chance of being drowned this afternoon; the water is thirty feet deep." I answered, with cold thanks, that my friend's apprehensions were groundless; and we set off. On our way to the river the unpleasant reflection occurred to my mind, that possibly the books and the people might be wrong, and that mere courage might _not_ enable me to dispense with acquired skill. [Footnote: The doctrine that courage is enough is most mischievous and perilous nonsense. I have become a good swimmer since those days, and have taught my sons: but we had to learn it as an art, just as one learns to skate.] But I put away this idea as too disagreeable to be dwelt upon. Unfortunately the disagreeable idea that we set aside is often the true and the wise one. As we went through the town to the water the boy who had expressed his scepticism disappeared for a moment in a rope-maker's shop, and soon emerged with a long and strong cord over his shoulder. I guessed what that was for, and felt humiliated, but said nothing. The swimmers stripped and plunged, but just at the moment when I was going to plunge too I felt the strong hand of the assistant-master on my shoulder, and he said, "Wait one moment," The moment was employed by my school-fellow in fastening the cord round my waist, "Now, plunge as much as you like!" I was soon in the depths and struggling to get to the surface, but, somehow, did _not_ swim. My preserver on the bank thought it would be as well to convince me of my inability by a prolonged immersion, so he let me feel the unpleasant beginning of drowning. They say that the sensation is delightful at a later stage, and that the patient dreams he is walking in flowery meadows on the land. The first stage is undoubtedly disagreeable,--the oppression, the desire to breathe, are horrible,--but I did not get so far as to fill the lungs with water. Just in proper time there came a great tug at the cord, and I was fished up. I dressed, and felt very small, looking with envy on the real swimmers, and especially at the fat usher, who was rolling about like a porpoise in the middle of the river. The boat came, and I was allowed only to see her from the bank. How lovely she looked with her outside varnish and her internal coat of Cambridge blue! How beautiful were the light and elegant oars that I was forbidden to touch! Some time after that one of my school-fellows said: "You know, Hamerton, you're just as well out of that boat as in her, for whenever we want to go out on Wednesday or Saturday afternoons we always find that the privates have got the start of us. The fact is, the boat is as if she belonged to them." In a word, the private pupils looked on the aspirations of the others with marked disapproval. There ought, of course, to have been a plurality of boats; but Mr. Cape was not himself a boating man, and did not encourage the amusement. He dreaded the responsibility for accidents. One result of my adventure was a firm resolution that I would learn to swim, and not only that, but become really a good swimmer. I never attempted anything that seemed so hopelessly difficult for me, or in which my progress was so slow; but in course of time I did swim, and many years afterwards, from daily practice in the longer and warmer summers of France, I became an expert, able to read a book aloud in deep water whilst holding it up with both hands, or to swim with all my clothes on and a pair of heavy boots, using one hand only and carrying a paddle in the other, whilst I drew a small boat after me. The perseverance that led to this ultimate result is entirely due to that early misadventure at Doncaster. I have learned one or two other things in consequence of being stung with shame in a like manner, and am convinced that there is nothing better for a boy than to be roused to perseverance in that way. I never felt the least shame, however, in not being able to play cricket in a manner to please connoisseurs. I hated the game from the very beginning, and it was pure slavery to me, and I never had the faintest desire to excel in it or even to learn it. This dislike was a misfortune, as not to love cricket is a cause of isolation for an English boy. A kind of exercise that I was fond of was ordinary walking. We often took long walks on half-holidays that were delightful, and I have escaped very early on the summer mornings and taken a walk round the race-course, being back in time for the usual hour of rising. This, however, was found out in course of time and put an end to; but I had occasional headaches, so the doctor (who was a very kind friend of mine and invited me to his house) told Mr. Cape that he must send me out for a walk when I had a headache. "But how am I to know that his head really aches?" inquired the head-master. I heard the reply and took note of it. The doctor said it would usually be accompanied with flushing; so whenever I thought I was sufficiently red in the face I applied for leave to go to the race-course. The doctor had a son who was a good-natured, pleasant boy about my own age. There never was the slightest ill-feeling between us, but quite the contrary; and yet we fought many a hard battle simply because the elder boys backed us and set us on. They enjoyed the sport as they would have enjoyed cock-fighting, though perhaps not quite so much, as it was not quite so bloody and barbarous. This fighting was of no practical use; but if I had been able to thrash the bully who took my telescope _that_ would have been of some use. Unfortunately he was my senior, and considerably my superior in strength, so prudence forbade the combat. CHAPTER IX. 1846. Early interest in theology.--Reports of sermons.--Quiet influence of Mr. Cape.--Failure of Mr. Cape's health.--His death. During the time of my life at Doncaster I was extremely religious, having a firm belief in providential interferences on my behalf, even in trifling matters, such as being asked to stay from Saturday to Monday in the country. My prayers had especial reference to a country house that belonged to an old lady who was grandmother to a friend of mine, and extended a sort of grandmotherly kindness to myself also. [Footnote: She was a very remarkable and peculiar old lady. The house was very large; but she would only use a few small rooms. She never would travel by railway, but made long journeys, as well as short ones, in an old carriage drawn by a pair of farm-horses. She had a much handsomer carriage in the coach-house, a state affair, that was never used.] At Doncaster we were always obliged to take notes of the sermons, and write them out afterwards in an abridged form. As I had a theological turn, I sometimes inserted passages of my own in these reports which made the masters declare that they did not remember hearing the preacher say that; and on one occasion, being full of ideas of my own about the text which had effectually supplanted those of the preacher, I produced a complete original sermon, which cost me a reprimand, but evidently excited the interest of the master. Dr. Sharpe was Vicar of Doncaster in those days, but after forty years I may be excused if I do not remember much about what he preached. The pulpit was arranged in the old-fashioned three stages, for preacher, reader, and clerk, and on one occasion the highest of these was occupied by the famous Dr. Wolff, the missionary to Bokhara. He was a most energetic preacher, who thumped and pushed his cushion in a restless way, so that at last he fairly pushed it off its desk. He was quick enough to catch it by the tassel, but he did not catch his Bible, which fell on Dr. Sharpe's head or shoulder, and thence to the floor of the church. It was impossible to keep quite grave under the circumstances. Even the clergy smiled, the clerk sought refuge in fetching the fallen volume, and a thrill of humorous feeling ran through the congregation. Mr. Cape did not say much to us about religion. He read prayers every morning and evening, and once or twice I heard him preach when he took duty in a village church not far from the famous castle of Conisborough. There is an advantage to an active-minded boy in being with a quiet routine-clergyman like Mr. Cape, who proposes no exciting questions. I came under a very different influence afterwards, which plunged me into the stormy ocean of theological controversies at a time of life when it would have been better for me not to concern myself about such matters. The religion of a boy should be quiet and practical, and his theology should be as simple as possible, and quite uncontroversial in its temper. That was my case at Doncaster; I was a very firm believer, but simply a Christian not belonging to any party in the Church of England, and hardly, indeed, in any but an accidental way to the Church of England herself. Nothing could have been better. A boy is not answerable for the doctrines which are imposed upon him by his elders, and if they have a beneficial effect upon his conduct he need not, whilst he remains a boy, trouble himself to inquire further. Mr. Cape's health was gradually failing during the time of my stay at Doncaster School, and on the beginning of my fourth half-year after a holiday I found the house managed by his sister, and Mr. Cape himself confined to his room with hopeless disease. Very shortly afterwards the few boys who had come were sent home again, and Mr. Cape died. His sister was a kind old maid, who at once conceived a sort of aunt-like affection for me, and I remember that when I left she gave me a kiss on the forehead. I was grieved to part with her, and showed some real sympathy with her sorrow about her dying brother. I felt some grief on my own account for Mr. Cape, though he had thrashed me many a time with his ever-ready cane. Altogether the three half-years at Doncaster had been well spent, and I had got well on with my work. Mr. Cape's brother kept a good school at Peterborough, and wanted to have me for a pupil, but as he was especially strong in mathematics, and prepared young men for Cambridge, it was thought that, as I was to go to Oxford, it would be better that I should study under an Oxford man. I never had the slightest natural bent for mathematics, though I did the tasks that were imposed upon me in a perfunctory manner, and with sufficient accuracy just to satisfy my masters. CHAPTER X. 1847-1849. My education becomes less satisfactory.--My guardian's state of health. --I pursue my studies at Burnley.--Dr. Butler.--He encourages me to write English.--Extract from a prize poem.--Public discussions in Burnley School.--A debate on Queen Elizabeth. The story of my education becomes less satisfactory for me to write as I proceed with it. At thirteen I was a well-educated boy for my age, at fifteen or sixteen I had fallen behind, and if I have now any claim to be considered a fairly well-educated man, it is due to efforts made since youth was past. The main cause of this retardation may be told before proceeding further. I have already said what a strong affection I had for my guardian. It was a well-placed affection, as she was one of the noblest and best women who ever lived, and all my gratitude to her, though it filled my heart like a religion, was not half what she deserved or what my maturer judgment now feels towards her memory; but like all strong affections, it carried its own penalty along with it. About the time of Mr. Cape's death, I happened to be staying with some near relations, and one of them made a casual allusion to my guardian's heart-disease. I had never heard of this, and was inexpressibly affected by the news. My informant said that the disease was absolutely incurable, and might at any time cause sudden death. This was unhappily the exact truth, and from that moment I looked upon my dear guardian with other eyes. The doctors could not say how long she might live; there was no especial immediate danger, and with care, by incurring no risks, her life might be prolonged for years. After the first shock produced by this terrible news, I quickly resolved that as Death would probably soon separate us, and might separate us at any moment, I would keep as much as possible near my guardian during her life. She may have been tempted to keep me near her by the same consideration, but she was not a woman to allow her feelings to get the better of her sense of duty, and if I had not persistently done all in my power to remain at Burnley, she would have sent me elsewhere. Some reviewer will say that these are trifling matters, but in writing a biography it is necessary to take note of trifles when they affect the whole future existence of the subject. The simple fact of my remaining at Burnley for some years made me turn out an indifferent classical scholar, but at the time left my mind more at liberty to grow in its own way. It is time to give some account of Dr. Butler, the headmaster of Burnley Grammar School, who now became my master, and some time afterwards my private tutor. He was a most liberal-minded, kind-hearted clergyman, and a good scholar, but his too great tenderness of heart made him not exactly the kind of master who would have pushed me on most rapidly. I had a great affection for him, which he could not help perceiving, and this completely disarmed him, so that he never could find in his heart to say anything disagreeable to me, and on the contrary would often caress me, as it were, with little compliments that I did not always deserve. One tendency of his exactly fell in with my own tastes. He did not think that education should be confined to the two dead languages, but incited the boys to learn French and German, and even chemistry. I worked at French regularly; German I learned just enough to read one thin volume, and went no further. [Footnote: I resumed German many years afterwards, and had a Bavarian for my master; but he was unfortunately obliged to go back to his own country, and I stopped again, having many other things to do. All my literary friends who know German say it is of great use to them; but I never felt the natural taste for it that I have for French and Italian.] As for the chemistry, I acquired some elementary knowledge which afterwards had some influence in directing my attention to etching; indeed, I etched my first plate when a boy at Burnley School. It was a portrait of a Jew with a turban, and was frightfully over-bitten. Mr. Butler (he had not received his D.C.L. degree in those days) was a very handsome man, with most gentlemanly manners, and all the boys respected him. He governed the school far more by his own dignity than by any severity of tone. He always wore his gown in school, and had a desk made for himself which rather resembled a pulpit and was ornamented with two carved crockets, that of the assistant-master (who also wore his gown) being destitute of these ornaments. My progress in classics and mathematics was now not nearly so rapid as it had been under the severer _régime_ at Doncaster, but Mr. Butler thought he discovered in me some sort of literary gift, and encouraged me to write English essays, which he corrected carefully to show me my faults of style. This was really good, as Mr. Butler wrote English well himself, and was a man of cultivated taste. He even encouraged me to write verses,--a practice that I followed almost without intermission between the ages of twelve and twenty-one. I am aware that there are many very wise people in the world who think it quite rational, and laudable even, to write verses in the Latin language to improve their knowledge of that tongue, and who think it is a ridiculous waste of time to do the same thing in English. In my opinion, what holds good for one language holds good equally for another, and I no more regret the time spent on English versification than a Latin scholar would regret his imitations of Virgil. Perhaps the reader may like to see a specimen of my boyish attempts, so I will print an extract from one,--a poem that won a prize at Burnley School in the year 1847. The subject given us was "Prince Charles Edward after the Battle of Culloden." The poem begins with a wild galloping flight of the Prince from the battlefield of Culloden under the pale moonlight, and then of course we come to the boat voyage with Flora Macdonald. Here my love of boating comes in. The lovely lamp of Heaven shines brightly o'er The wave cerulean and the yellow shore; As, o'er those waves, a boat like light'ning flies, Slender, and frail in form, and small in size. --Frail though it be, 'tis manned by hearts as brave As e'er have tracked the pathless ocean's wave,-- High o'er their heads celestial diamonds grace The jewelled robe of night, and Luna's face Divinely fair! O goddess of the night! Guide thou their bark, do thou their pathway light! --Like sea-bird rising on the ocean's foam, Or like the petrel on its stormy home, Yon gallant bark speeds joyously along; The wild waves roar, and drown the boatmen's song. The sails full-flowing kiss the welcome wind, And leave the screaming sea-gulls far behind! Onward they fly. 'Tis midnight's moonlit hour! When Fairies hold their court and Sprites have power. And now 'tis morn! A fair Isle's distant strand Tempts the tired fugitives again to land. Fiercely repulsed, they dare once more the wave Fired with undying zeal their Prince to save; And when night flings her sable mantle o'er The giant crags where sea-hawks idly soar, They unmolested gain the wished-for land, And soon with rapid steps bestride the strand. To Kingsburgh's noble halls the path they gain And leave afar the ever-murmuring main. [Footnote: In the printed copies of the poem, the age of the writer was given as thirteen, but I was only in my thirteenth year.] Very likely this extract will be as much as the reader will have patience for. I think the verses are tolerably good for a boy not yet thirteen years old. The versification is, perhaps, as correct as that of most prize poems, and there is some go in the poetry. It cannot, however, lay claim to much originality. Even in the short extract just given I see the influence of three poets, Virgil, Scott, and Byron. The best that can be expected from the poetry of a boy is that he should give evidence of a liking for the great masters, and in my case the liking was sincere. In later years Mr. Butler made me translate many of the Odes of Horace into English verse. I did that work with pleasure, but have not preserved one of the translations. I have said that he also encouraged me to write essays. He always gave the subject, and criticized my performance very closely. I wrote so many of these essays that I am afraid to give the number that remains in my memory, for fear of unconscious exaggeration. Besides these exercises we had public discussions in the school on historical subjects, and of these I remember a great one on the character of Queen Elizabeth. I was chosen for the defence, and the attack on Elizabeth's fame was to be made by the Captain of the school, a lad of remarkable ability named Edward Moore, who was greatly my superior in acquirements. It happened, I remember, that my guardian was staying at a country house (the Holme), which had formerly belonged to Dr. Whitaker, the celebrated historian of Craven, Whalley, and Richmondshire, and this learned man had left a good library, so I went to stay a few days to read up the subject. Those days were very pleasant to me; the house is very beautiful, with carved oak, tapestry, mullioned windows, old portraits, and stained glass, and just the old-world surroundings that I have always loved, and it nestled quietly in an open space in the bottom of a beautiful valley, between steep hills, with miles of walks in the woods. If ever I have been in danger of coveting my neighbor's house, it has been there. When we came to the debate, it turned out that my materials were so abundant that I spoke for an hour and a half; Moore spoke about forty minutes, and made a most telling personal hit when attacking Elizabeth for her vanity. "She was vain of her complexion, vain even of her hair" ... (here the orator paused and looked at me, then he added, slowly and significantly), "_which was red_." The point here was, that my hair was red in those days, though it has darkened since. I need not add that the allusion was understood at once by the whole school, and was immensely successful. After we had spoken, a youth rose to give his opinion, and as his speech was sufficiently laconic, I will repeat it _in extenso_. The effect would be quite spoiled if I did not add that he was suffering from a very bad cold, which played sad havoc with his consonants. This was his speech, without the slightest curtailment:-- "Id by opidiod Queed Elizabeth was to be blabed, because she was a proud wobad." My opponent in the debate on Elizabeth was, I believe, all things taken into consideration, the most gifted youth I ever knew during my boyhood. He kept at the head of the school without effort, as if the post belonged to him, and he was remarkable for bodily activity, being the best swimmer in the school, and, I think, the best cricketer also. He afterwards died prematurely, and his brother died in early manhood from exhausting fatigue during an excursion in the Alps. The school was in those days attended by lads belonging to all classes of society, except the highest aristocracy of the neighborhood, and it did a good deal towards keeping up a friendly feeling between different classes. That is the great use of a good local school. Many of the boys were the sons of rich men, who could easily have sent them to public schools at a distance, and perhaps in the present generation they would do so. CHAPTER XI. 1850. My elder uncle.--We go to live at Hollins.--Description of the place.-- My strong attachment to it.--My first experiment in art-criticism.--The stream at Hollins.--My first catamaran.--Similarity of my life at Hollins to my life in France thirty-six years later. My elder uncle, the owner of my grandfather's house and estate at Hollins, had been educated to the law, as the income of our branch of the family was insufficient, and he had begun to practise as a solicitor in Burnley, where at that time there was an excellent opening; but he had not the kind of tact which enables lawyers to get on in the world, so his professional income diminished, and he went to live in Halifax, and let the house at Hollins. His family was large, and for some years he did all in his power to live according to his rank in society, for he had married a lady of good family (they had thirty-six quarterings between them), and, like most men in a similar position, he was unwilling to adopt the only safe plan, which is to take boldly a lower place on the ladder. At Halifax he lived in a large house (Hopwood Hall), which belonged to his father-in-law, and there his wife and he received the Halifax society of those days, at what, I believe, were very pleasant entertainments, for they had the natural gift of hospitality, and lacked nothing but a large fortune to be perfect in the eyes of the world. My uncle's father-in-law was living in retirement at Scarborough when Hollins happened to fall vacant, so he became the tenant; but as the house was too large for him, my uncle divided it into two, and proposed to let the other half to my guardian and her sister. They accepted, and the consequence was that we went to live in the country,--a most important change for me, as I soon acquired that passion for a country life which afterwards became a second nature, and which, though it may have been beneficial to my health, and perhaps in some degree to the quality of my work, has been in many ways an all but fatal hindrance to my success. There are, or were, a great many old halls in Lancashire that belonged to the old families, which have now for the most part disappeared. They were of all sizes, some large enough to accommodate a wealthy modern country gentleman (though not arranged according to modern ideas), and others of quite small dimensions, though generally interesting for their architecture,--much more interesting, indeed, than the houses which have succeeded them. Hollins was between the two extremes, and when in its perfection, must have been rather a good specimen, with its mullioned windows, its numerous gables, and its formal front garden, with a straight avenue beyond. Unfortunately, my grandfather found it necessary to rebuild the front, and in doing so altered the character by introducing modern sash windows in the upper story; and though he retained mullioned windows on the ground floor, they were not strictly of the old type. My uncle also carried out other alterations, external and internal, which ended by depriving the house of much of its old character, and still more recent changes have gone farther in the same direction. However, such as it was in my youth, the place inspired in me one of those intensely strong local attachments which take root in some natures, and in none, I really believe, more powerfully than in mine. Like all strong passions, these local attachments are extremely inconvenient, and it would be better for a man to be without them; but all reasoning on such subjects is superfluous. Hollins is situated in the middle of a small but very pretty estate, almost entirely bounded by a rocky and picturesque trout-stream, and so pleasantly varied by hill and dale, wood, meadow, and pasture, that it appears much larger than it really is. In my boyhood it seemed an immensity. My cousins and I used to roam about it and play at Robin Hood and his merry men with great satisfaction to ourselves. We fished and bathed in one of the pools, where our ships delivered real broadsides of lead from their little cannons. These boyish recollections, and an early passion for landscape beauty, made Hollins seem a kind of earthly Paradise to me, and the idea of going to live there, instead of in a row of houses in a manufacturing town, filled me with the most delightful anticipations. My uncle put workmen in the house to prepare it, and on every opportunity I walked there to see what they were doing. Even at that age I knew much more about architecture than my elders, being perfectly familiar with the details of the old halls, and so I was constantly losing temper at what seemed to me the evident stupidity of the masons. There was an old master-mason, who did not like me and my criticisms, and he swore at me freely enough, in an explicit Lancashire manner. One day, simply by the eye, I perceived that he was four inches out in a measurement, and told him of it, when he swore frightfully. He then took his two-foot rule, and finding himself in the wrong, swore more frightfully than ever. This was my first experience in the thankless business of art-criticism, and it was the beginning of a false position, in which I often found myself in youth, from knowing more about some subjects than is usual with boys. The small estate on which Hollins is situated is divided from Towneley Park by a road and a wall, and on the opposite side its boundary, for most of the distance, is the rocky stream that has been already mentioned. The stream had a great influence on my whole life, by giving me a taste for the beauty of wild streams in Scotland and elsewhere. It is called the Brun, and gives its name to Burnley. The rocks are a sandstone sufficiently warm in color to give a very pleasant contrast to the green foliage, and the forms of them are so broken that in sunshine there are plenty of fine accidental lights and shadows. It was one of my greatest pleasures to follow the course of this stream, with a leaping-pole, up to the moors, where it flowed through a wide and desolate valley or hollow in the hills. As the aspect of a stream is continually changing with the seasons and the quantity of water, it is always new. The only regret I have about my residence near the Brun is that I did not learn at the right time to make the most of it in the way of artistic study; but I did as much, perhaps, as was to be expected from a boy who was receiving a literary and not an artistic education. The defect of the Brun was the absence of pools big enough for swimming and boating, but it gave a tantalizing desire for these pleasures, and I was as aquatic as my opportunities would allow. In June, 1850, my first catamaran was launched on a fish-pond. I built it myself, with an outlay of one pound for the materials. It was composed of two floats or tubes, consisting of a light framework of deal covered with waterproofed canvas. These were kept apart in the water, but joined above by a light open framework that served as a deck, and on which the passengers sat. The thing would carry five people, and was propelled by short oars. Being extremely light, it was easily drawn on a road, and was provided with small wheels for that purpose. This boyish attempt would not have been mentioned had it not been the first of a long series of practical experiments in the construction of catamarans which have continued down to the date of the present writing, and of which the reader will hear more in the sequel. I promise to endeavor not to weary him with the subject. It is astonishing how very far-reaching in their effects are the tastes and habits that we acquire in early life! The sort of existence that I am leading here at Pré Charmoy, near Autun, in this year 1886, bears a wonderfully close resemblance to my existence at Hollins in 1850. I am living, as I was then, on a pretty estate with woods, meadows, pastures, and a beautiful stream, with hills visible from it in all directions. There is a fish-pond too, about a mile from the house, and I am even now trying catamaran experiments on this pond, as I did on the other in Lancashire. My occupations are exactly the same, and to complete the resemblance it so happens that just now I am reading Latin. The chief difference is that writing has become lucrative and professional, whereas in those earlier days it was a study only. It is very difficult for me to believe that thirty-six years separate me from a time so like the present in many ways--like and yet unlike,--for I was then in Lancashire and am now in France; but this is a fact that I only realize when I think about it. The real exile for me would be to live in a large town. CHAPTER XII. 1850. Interest in the Middle Ages.--Indifference to the Greeks and Romans.-- Love for Sir Walter Scott's writings.--Interest in heraldry and illuminations.--Passion for hawking.--Old books in the school library at Burnley.--Mr. Edward Alexander of Halifax.--Attempts in literary composition.--Contributions to the "Historic Times."--"Rome in 1849."--"Observations on Heraldry." The last chapter ended by saying that my occupations in early life were the same as they are at present, but I now remember one or two points of difference. In those days I lived, mentally, a great deal in the Middle Ages. This was owing to the influence of Sir Walter Scott, certainly of all authors the one who has most influenced me, and it was also due in some measure to a romantic interest in the history of my own family, and of the other families in the north of England with which mine had been connected in the past. For the Greeks and Romans I cared very little; they seemed too remote from my own country and race, and the English present, in which my lot was cast, seemed too dull and un-picturesque, too prosaic and commonplace. My imagination being saturated with Scott, I had naturally the same taste as my master. I soon learned all about heraldry, and in my leisure time drew and colored all the coats of arms that had been borne by the Hamertons in their numerous alliances, as well as the arms of other families from which our own was descended. I wrote black-letter characters on parchment and made pedigrees, and became so much of a mediaevalist that there was considerable risk of my stopping short in the amateur practice of such arts as wood-carving, illumination, and painting on glass. The same taste for the Middle Ages led me to imitate our forefathers in more active pursuits; amongst others I had such a passion for hawking that at one time I became incapable of opening my lips about anything else. My guardian said it was "hawk, hawk, hawking from morning till night." Not that I ever possessed a living falcon of any species whatever. My uncle resigned to me a corner of the outbuildings, on the ground-floor of which was a loose-box for my horse, and above it a room that I set apart for the falcons when they should arrive; but in spite of many promises from gamekeepers and naturalists and others, no birds ever came! The hoods and jesses were ready, very prettily adorned with red morocco leather and gold thread; the mews were ready too, with partitions in trellis-work of my own making,--everything was ready except the peregrines! I knew the coats-of-arms of all the families in the neighborhood, and of course that of the Towneleys, who had a chapel in Burnley Church for the interment of their dead, adorned with many hatchments. Those hatchments had a double interest for me, as heraldry in the first place, and also because the Towneleys had a peregrine falcon for their crest! I envied them that crest, and would willingly have exchanged for it our own "greyhound couchant, sable." Burnley School possesses a library which is rich in old tomes that few people ever read. In my youth these volumes were kept in a room entirely surrounded with dark oak wainscot, that opened on the shelves where these old books reposed. I read some of them, more or less, but have totally forgotten them all except a black-letter Chaucer. That volume delighted me, and I have read in it many an hour. It is much to be regretted that I had not the same affectionate curiosity about the Greek and Latin classics, but it was something to have a taste for the literature of one's own country. My uncle's brother-in-law, Mr. Edward Alexander, of Halifax, was a lawyer of literary and antiquarian tastes, and a great lover of books,--not to read only, but to have around him in a well-ordered library. He was extremely kind to me, and now, when I know better how very rare such kindness is in the world, I feel perhaps even more grateful for it than I did then. Mr. Alexander was the father of the young Alexander who was my school-fellow at Doncaster, and I am hardly exaggerating his affection for me when I say that he had a paternal feeling towards myself. He put his library entirely at my disposal, and gave me a room in his house at Heath Field, near Halifax, whenever I felt inclined to avail myself of it, and had liberty to go there. His library had cost him several thousand pounds, and was rich in archaeological books. Mrs. Alexander was a charming lady, always exquisitely gentle in her way, and gifted with a quiet firmness which enabled her to match very effectually the somewhat irascible disposition of my friend, who had the irritability as well as the kindness of heart which, I have since observed, are often found together in Frenchmen. With all his goodness he was by no means an indulgent judge; he could not endure the slightest failure or forgetfulness in good manners, and most of his young relations were afraid of him. I only offended him once, and that but slightly. He was walking in his own garden with my uncle, when I had to do something that required the use of both hands, and I was encumbered with a book. I dared not lay the book on the ground, as I should have done if it had been my own, so I asked my uncle to hold it. I could see an expression on Mr. Alexander's face which said clearly enough that I had taken a liberty in requesting this little service from a senior, and it only occurred to me as an afterthought that I might have put my hat on the ground and laid the book on the hat. This little incident shows one side of my dear friend's nature, but it was not at all a bad thing for me to be occasionally under the influence of one who was at the same time kind and severe. In early life he had been a dandy, and a local poet had called him,-- "Elegant Extracts, the Halifax fop." [Footnote: "Elegant Extracts" was the title of a book of miscellaneous reading which had an extensive sale in those days. The couplet related to a public ball,-- "Elegant Extracts, the Halifax fop, With note-book in hand, took coach for the hop." Mr. Alexander sometimes alluded in a pleasant way to his early foppishness, and told some amusing anecdotes, one of which I remember. He and a young friend having adopted some startling new fashion before anybody else in Halifax, were going to church very proud of themselves, when they heard a girl laughing at them, on which her companion rebuked her, saying, "You shouldn't laugh; you might be struck so!" She thought the dandies were two misshapen idiots.] In his maturity all that remained of early dandyism was an intolerance of every kind of slovenliness. He rigorously exacted order in his library; I might use any of his books, but must put them all back in their places. Perhaps my present strong love of order may be due in a great measure to Mr. Alexander's teaching and example. Amongst the friends of my youth there are very few whom I look back to with such grateful affection. Like most boys who have become authors, I made attempts in literary composition independently of those which were directly encouraged by my master. In this way I wrote a number of articles that were accepted by the "Historic Times," a London illustrated journal of those days which was started under the patronage of the Church of England, but had not a great success. My first articles were on the Universities, of which I knew nothing except by hearsay, and on "Civilization, Ancient and Modern," which was rather a vast subject for a boy whose reading had been so limited. However, the editor of the "Historic Times" had not the least suspicion of my age, so I favored him with a long series of articles on Rome in 1849, forming altogether as complete a history of the city for that year as could have been written by one who had never seen it, who did not know Italian, and who had not access to any other sources of information than those which are accessible to everybody in the newspapers. Under these circumstances, it may seem absurd to have undertaken such a task, but the reader may be reminded that learned historians undertake to tell us what happened long ago from much less ample material. I got no money for these articles (there were twelve of them), and no publisher would reprint them because there was no personal observation in them which publishers always expect in a narrative of contemporary events. The work had, however, been a good exercise for me in the digesting and setting in literary order of a mass of confused material. My passion for heraldry and hawking led to the production of a little book on heraldry which was an imitation of Sir John Sebright's "Observations on Hawking," a treatise that seemed to me simple, and clearly arranged. My little book had no literary value, and the publisher said that only thirty-nine copies were sold; however, on being asked to produce the remainder of the edition, he said he was unable to do so, as the copies had been "mislaid." The printing and binding having been done at my expense, I compelled the publisher to reprint the book, but this brought me no pecuniary benefit, as the demand, such as it was, had been satisfied by the first edition. To this day I do not feel certain in my own mind whether the publisher was dishonest or not. It would be quite natural that a book on heraldry should have a very small sale, but on the other hand it is inconceivable that more than four hundred copies of a book should have been simply lost. [Footnote: There is a third possibility: the sale may have been exactly what the publisher stated; but he may have had no belief in the success of the work, and have printed only one hundred copies whilst charging me for five hundred.] It was a very good thing for me that the printing of this treatise on heraldry was a cause of loss and disappointment, for if it had been successful I might easily have wasted my life in archaeology, and corrected pedigrees--those long lists of dead people of whom nobody knows anything but their names, and the estates they were lucky enough to possess. The reader will see that up to this point my tastes had been conservative and aristocratic. Then there came a revolution which was the most important intellectual crisis of my life, and which deserves a chapter to itself. CHAPTER XIII. 1850. Political and religious opinions of my relations.--The Rev. James Bardsley.--Protestant controversy with Rome.--German neology.--The inspiration of the Scriptures.--Inquiry into foundation for the doctrine.--I cease to be a Protestant.--An alternative presents itself.--A provisional condition of prolonged inquiry.--Our medical adviser.--His remarkable character.--His opinions. All my relations were Tories of the most strongly Conservative type, and earnestly believing members of the Church of England, more inclined to the Evangelical than to the High Church party. In my early youth I naturally took the religion and political color of the people about me. There was at Burnley in those days a curate who has since become a well-known clergyman in Manchester, Mr. James Bardsley. He was a man of very strong convictions of an extreme Evangelical kind, and nature had endowed him with all the gifts of eloquence necessary to propagate his opinions from the pulpit. [Footnote: Since then he has become Canon and Archdeacon.] He was really eloquent, and he possessed in a singular degree the wonderful power of enchaining the attention of his audience. We always listened with interest to what Mr. Bardsley was saying at the moment, and with the feeling of awakened anticipation, as he invariably conveyed the impression that something still more interesting was to follow. His power as a preacher was so great that his longest sermons were not felt to be an infliction; one might feel tired after they were over, but not during their delivery. His power was best displayed in attack, and he was very aggressive, especially against the doctrines of the Church of Rome,--which he declared to be "one huge Lie." Of course a boy of my age believed his own religion to be absolutely true, and others to be false in exact proportion to their divergence from it, as this is the way with young people when they really believe. It was my habit to take an intensely strong interest in anything that interested me at all, and as religion had a supreme interest for me I read all about the Protestant controversy with Rome under Mr. Bardsley's guidance, in books of controversial theology recommended by him. My guardian, with her usual good sense, did not quite approve of this controversial spirit; she was content to be a good Christian in her own way and let the poor Roman Catholics alone, but I was too ardent in what seemed to me the cause of truth to see with indifference the menacing revival of Romanism. A large new Roman Catholic church was erected in Burnley, and opened with an imposing ceremony. There was at that time a belief that the power of the Pope might one day be re-established in our country, and the great results of the Reformation either wholly sacrificed or placed in the greatest jeopardy. Protestants were called upon to defend these conquests, and in order to qualify themselves for this great duty it was necessary that they should make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the great controversy between the pure Church to which it was their own happiness to belong, and that corrupt association which called itself Catholicism. I had rather a bold and combative disposition, and was by no means unwilling to take a share in the battle. All went well for a time. The spirit of inquiry is not considered an evil spirit so long as it only leads to agreement with established doctrines, and as an advanced form of Protestantism was preached in Burnley Church, I was at liberty to think boldly enough, provided I did not go beyond that particular stage of thought. Not having as yet any disposition to go beyond, I did not at all realize what a very small degree of intellectual liberty my teachers were really disposed to allow me. One occasion I remember distinctly. Mr. Bardsley was at Hollins, where he spent the evening with us, and in the course of conversation, as he was leaning on the chimney-piece, he spoke about German Neology, which I had never heard of before, so I asked what it was, and he described it as a dreadful doctrine which attributed no more inspiration to sacred than to profane writers. The ladies were shocked and scandalized by the bare mention of such a doctrine, but the effect on me was very different. The next day, in my private meditations, I began to wonder what were the evidences by which it was determined that some writers were inspired and infallible, and what critics had settled the question. The orthodox reader will say that in a perplexity of this kind I had nothing to do but carry my difficulty to a clergyman. This is exactly what I did, and the clergyman was Mr. Bardsley himself. He was full of kindness to me, and took the trouble to write a long paper on the subject, which must have cost him fully two days' work,--a paper in which he gave a full account of the Canon of Scripture from the Evangelical point of view. The effect on me was most discouraging, for the result amounted merely to this, that certain Councils of the Church had recognized the Divine inspiration of certain books, just as certain authoritative critics might recognize the profane inspiration of poets. After reading the paper with the utmost care I felt so embarrassed about it that (with the awkwardness of youth) I did not even write to thank the amiable author who had taken so much trouble to help me, and I only thanked him briefly on meeting him at a friend's house, where it was impossible to avoid the interchange of a few words. This autobiography is not intended to be a book of controversy, so I shall carefully avoid the details of religious changes and give only results. I do not think that anything in my life was ever more decisive than the receipt of that long communication from Mr. Bardsley. The day before receiving it I was in doubt, but the day after I felt perfectly satisfied that the Divine inspiration of the books known to Englishmen as the "Scriptures" rested simply on the opinion, of different bodies of theologians who had held meetings which were called Councils. The only difference between these Councils and those of the Church of Rome was, that these were represented as having taken place earlier, before the Church was so much divided; but it did not seem at all evident that the members of the earlier Councils were men of a higher stamp, intellectually, than those who composed the distinctly Roman Catholic Councils, nor was there any evidence that the Holy Spirit had been with those earlier Councils, though it afterwards withdrew itself from the later. The Protestant reader will perhaps kindly bear with me whilst I give the reasons why I ceased to be a Protestant, after having been so earnest and zealous in that form of the Christian faith. It appeared to me--I do not say it _is_, but it appeared to me, and appears to me still--that Protestantism is an uncritical belief in the decisions of the Church down to a date which I do not pretend to fix exactly, and an equally uncritical scepticism, a scepticism of the most unreceptive kind, with regard to all opinions professed and all events said to have taken place in the more recent centuries of ecclesiastical history. The Church of Rome, on the other hand, seemed nearer in temper to the temper of the past, and was more decidedly a continuation, though evidently at the same time an amplification, of the early Christian habits of thinking and believing. With this altered view of the subject the alternative that presented itself to me was that which presented itself to the brothers Newman, and if I had found it necessary to my happiness to belong to a visible Church of some kind, and if devotional feelings had been stronger than the desire for mental independence, I should have joined the Church of Rome. There were, indeed, two or three strong temptations to that course. My family had been a Catholic family in the past, and had sacrificed much for the Church of Rome when she was laboring under oppression; for a Hamerton to return to her would therefore have been quite in accordance with those romantic sentiments about distant ancestors which were at that time very strong in me. Besides this, I had all the feeling for the august ceremonial of the Catholic Church which is found in the writer who most influenced me, Sir Walter Scott; and there was already a certain consciousness of artistic necessities and congruities which made me dimly aware that if you admit the glories of ecclesiastical architecture, it is only the asceticism of Puritan rebellion against art that can deny magnificence to ritual. I had occasionally, though rarely, been present at High Mass, and had felt a certain elevating influence, and if I had said to myself, "Religion is only a poem by which the soul is raised to the contemplation of the Eternal Mysteries," then I could have dreamed vaguely in this contemplation better, perhaps, in the Roman Catholic Church than in any other. But my English and Protestant education was against a religion of dreaming. An English Protestant may have his poetical side, may be capable of feeling poetry that is frankly avowed to be such--may read Tennyson's "Eve of St. Agnes" or Scott's "Hymn to the Virgin" with almost complete imaginative sympathy; but he expects to believe his religion as firmly as he believes in the existence of the British Islands. Such, at least, was the matter-of-fact temper that belonged to Protestantism in those days. In more recent times a more hazy religion has become fashionable. My decision, therefore, for some time was to remain in a provisional condition of prolonged inquiry. I read a great deal on both sides, and constantly prayed for light, following regularly the external services of the Church of England. Here the subject may be left for the present. The reader is to imagine me as a youth who no longer believed in the special inspiration of the Scriptures, or in their infallibility, but who was still a Christian as thousands of "liberal" Church people in the present day are Christians. Before resuming my religious history, I ought to mention an influence which was supposed by my friends to have been powerful over me, but which in reality had slightly affected the current of my thinking. Our medical adviser was a surgeon rather advanced in years, and whose private fortune made him independent of professional success. As time went on, he allowed himself to be more and more replaced by his assistant, Mr. Uttley, one of the most remarkable characters I ever met with. In those days, in a northern provincial town, it required immense courage to avow religious heterodoxy of any advanced kind, yet Mr. Uttley said with the utmost simplicity that he was an atheist, and the religious world called him "Uttley the Atheist," a title which he accepted as naturally as if it implied no contempt or antagonism whatever. He was by no means devoid of physical courage also, for I remember that at one time he rode an ugly brute that had a most dangerous habit of bolting, and he would not permit me to mount her. He was excessively temperate in his habits, never drinking anything stronger than water, except, perhaps, a cup of tea (I am not sure about the tea), and never eating more than he believed to be necessary to health. He maintained the doctrine that hunger remains for a time after the stomach has had enough, and that if you go on eating to satiety you are intemperate. He disliked, and I believe despised, the habit of stuffing on festive occasions, which used to be common in the wealthier middle classes. I confess that Mr. Uttley's fearless honesty and steady abstemiousness impressed me with the admiration that one cannot but feel for the great virtues, by whomsoever practised; but Mr. Uttley had a third virtue, which is so rare in England as to be almost unintelligible to the majority,--he looked with the most serene indifference on social struggles, on the arts by which people rise in the world. Perfectly contented with his own station in life, and a man of remarkably few wants, he lived on from year to year without ambition, finding his chief interest in the pursuit of his profession, and his greatest pleasure in his books. He so little attempted to make a proselyte of me that, when at a later period I told him of a certain change of views, concerning which more will be said in the sequel, he was unaffectedly surprised by it, and said that he had never supposed me to be other than what I appeared to the world in general, an ordinary member of the Church of England. My intimate knowledge of Mr. Uttley's remarkable character must have had, nevertheless, a certain influence in this way, that it enabled me to estimate the vulgar attacks on infidels at their true worth; and though my own theistic beliefs were very strong, I knew from this example that an atheist was not necessarily a monster. The only occasions that I remember in youth when Mr. Uttley might have influenced me were these two. Being curious to know about opinions from those who really held them, and being already convinced that we cannot really know them from the misrepresentations of their enemies, I once asked Mr. Uttley what atheism really was, and why it recommended itself to him. He replied that atheism was, in his view, the acceptance of the smaller of two difficulties, both of which were still very great. The smaller difficulty for him was to believe in the self-existence of the universe; the greater was to believe in a single Being, without a beginning, who could create millions of solar systems; and as one or the other must be self-existent the difficulty about self-existence was common to both cases. The well-known argument from design did not convince him, as he believed in a continual process of natural adjustment of creatures to their environment,--a theory resembling that of Darwin, but not yet so complete. I listened to Mr. Uttley's account of his views with much interest; but they had no influence on my own, as it seemed to me much easier to refer everything to an intelligent Creator than to believe in the self-existence of all the intricate organizations that we see. Still, I was not indignant, as the reader may think I ought to have been. It seemed to me quite natural that thoughtful men should hold different opinions on a subject of such infinite difficulty. The other occasion was, when in the vigor of youthful Protestantism I happened to say something against the Church of Rome. Mr. Uttley very quietly and kindly told me that I was unjust towards that Church, and I asked him where the injustice lay. "It lies in this," he replied, "that you despise the dogmas of the Church of Rome as resting only on the authority of priests, whereas the case of that Church is not exceptional or peculiar, as _all_ dogmas rest ultimately on the authority of priests." To this I naturally answered that Scriptural authority was higher; but Mr. Uttley answered,--"The Roman Catholics themselves appeal to Scriptural authority as the Protestants do; but it is still the priests who have decided which books are sacred, and how they are to be interpreted." His conversation was not longer than my report of it, and it occurred when I met Mr. Uttley accidentally in the street; but though short, it was of some importance, as I happened at that time to be exercised in my mind about what Mr. Bardsley had told us concerning "German Neology." Subsequent observation has led me to believe that Mr. Uttley attributed more originating authority to priests than really belongs to them. It seems to me now that they take up and consecrate popular beliefs that may be of use, and that they drop and discard, either tacitly or openly, those beliefs which are no longer popular. Both processes have been going on, for some years very visibly in the Church of Rome, and the second of the two is plainly in operation in the Church of England. CHAPTER XIV. 1851. First visit to London in 1851.--My first impression of the place.-- Nostalgia of the country.--Westminster.--The Royal Academy.--Resolution never to go to London again.--Reason why this resolution was afterwards broken. In the year 1851 I went to London for the first time, to see the Great Exhibition. Our little party consisted only of my guardian, my aunt, and myself. My first impression of London was exactly what it has ever since remained. It seemed to me the most disagreeable place I had ever seen, and I wondered how anybody could live there who was not absolutely compelled to do so. At that time I did not understand the only valid reason for living in London, which is the satisfaction of meeting with intelligent people who know something about what interests you, and do not consider you eccentric because you take an interest in something that is not precisely and exclusively money-making. My aunts knew nobody in London except one or two ladies of rank superior to their own, on whom we made formal calls, which was a sort of human intercourse that I heartily detested, as I detest it to this day. Our lodgings were in Baker Street, which, after our pure air, open scenery, and complete liberty at Hollins, seemed to me like a prison. The lodgings were not particularly clean--the carpets, especially, seemed as if they had never been taken up. The air was heavy, the water was bad (our water at Hollins was clearer than glass, and if you poured a goblet of it beady bubbles clung to the sides), there was no view except up street and down street, and the noise was perpetual. A Londoner would take these inconveniences as a matter of course and be insensible to them, but to me they were so unpleasant that I suffered from nostalgia of the country all the time. The reader may advantageously be spared my boyish impressions of the Great Exhibition and the other sights of London. Of course we fatigued our brains, as country people always do, by seeing too many things in a limited time; and as we had no special purpose in view, we got, I fear, very little instruction from our wanderings amidst the bewildering products of human industry. I remember being profoundly impressed by Westminster Abbey, though I would gladly have seen all the modern monuments calcined in a lime-kiln; and Westminster Hall affected me even more, possibly because one of our ancestors, Sir Stephen Hamerton, had been condemned to death there for high treason in the time of Henry VIII. I was also deeply impressed by the grim, old Tower of London, and only regretted that I did not know which cell the unlucky Sir Stephen had occupied during his hopeless imprisonment there. The rooms of the Royal Academy left a more durable recollection than the contents of the great building in Hyde Park. Those are quite old times for us now in the history of English art. Sir Frederick Leighton was a young student who had not yet begun to exhibit; I think he was working in Frankfort then. Millais was already known as the painter of strange and vivid pictures of small size, which attracted attention, and put the public into a state of much embarrassment. There were three of these strange pictures that year,--an illustration of Tennyson, "She only said, 'My life is dreary,'" the "Return of the Dove to the Ark," and the "Woodman's Daughter." I distinctly remember the exact sensation with which my young eyes saw these works; so distinctly that I now positively feel those early sensations over again in thinking about them. All was so fresh, so new! This modern art was such a novelty to one who had not seen many modern pictures, and my own powers of enjoying art were so entirely unspoiled by the effect of habit that I was like a young bird in its first spring-time in the woods. I much preferred the beautiful bright pictures in the Academy, with their greens and blues like Nature, to the snuffy old canvases (as they seemed to me) in the National Gallery. The oddest result for a boy's first visit to London was a quiet mental resolution of which I said nothing to anybody. What I thought and resolved inwardly may be accurately expressed in these words: "Every Englishman who can afford it ought to see London _once_, as a patriotic duty, and I am not sorry to have been there to have got the duty performed; but no power on earth shall ever induce me to go to that supremely disagreeable place again!" Of course the intelligent reader considers this boyish resolution impossible and absurd, as it is entirely contrary to prevalent ideas; but a man may lead a very complete life in Lancashire, and even in counties less rich in various interest, without ever going to London at all. A man's own fields may afford him as good exercise as Hyde Park, and his well-chosen little library as good reading as the British Museum. It was the Fine Arts that brought me to London afterwards; the worst of the Fine Arts being that they concentrate themselves so much in great capitals. CHAPTER XV. 1851-1852. The love of reading a hindrance to classical studies.--Dr. Butler becomes anxious about my success at Oxford.--An insuperable obstacle.--My indifference to degrees.--Irksome hypocrisy.--I am nearly sent to a tutor at Brighton.--I go to a tutor in Yorkshire.--His disagreeable disposition.--Incident about riding.--Disastrous effect of my tutor's intellectual influence upon me.--My private reading.--My tutor's ignorance of modern authors.--His ignorance of the fine arts.--His religious intolerance.--I declare my inability to sign the Thirty-nine Articles. The various mental activities hinted at in the preceding chapters had naturally a retarding effect upon my classical studies, which I had never greatly taken to. It seemed then, and it seems to me still, that for one who does not intend to make a living by teaching them, the dead languages, like all other pursuits, are only worth a limited amount of labor. It may appear paradoxical at first, but it is true, that one reason why I did not like Latin and Greek was because I was extremely fond of reading. The case is this: If you are fond of reading and have an evening at your disposal, you will wish to read, will you not? But _construing_ is not reading; it is quite a different mental operation. When you _read_ you think of the scenes and events the author narrates, or you follow his reasoning; but when you _construe_ you think of cases and tenses, and remember grammatical rules. I could read English and French, but Latin and Greek were only to be construed _à coups de dictionnaire_. The case may be illustrated by reference to an amusement. A man who is indifferent to rowing cares very little what sort of boat he is in, and toils contentedly as peasants do in their heavy boots, but a lover of rowing wants a craft that he can move. This desire is quite independent of the merits of the craft itself, considered without reference to the man. A sailing yacht may he a beautiful vessel, but an Oxford oarsman would not desire to pull one of her cumbersome sweeps. I was at that time a private pupil of Dr. Butler's, and was getting on at such a very moderate pace that he began to be anxious about his responsibility. My guardian and he had decided together that I was to be sent to Oxford, and it was even settled to which college, Balliol; and my dear guardian expected me to come out in honors, and be a Fellow of my college and a clergyman. That was her plan; and a very good scheme of life it was, but it had one defect, that of being entirely inapplicable to the human being for whom it was intended. I looked forward to Oxford with anything but pleasure, and, indeed, considered that there was an insuperable obstacle to my going there. In those days most of the good things in life were kept as much as possible for members of the Church of England, and it was necessary to sign the Thirty-nine Articles on entering the University. This I could not do conscientiously, and would not do against the grain of my conviction. I looked upon this obstacle as insuperable; but if I had been as indifferent on such questions as young men generally are, there would still have remained a difficulty in my own nature, which is a rooted dislike to everything which is done for social advancement. I might possibly have desired to be a scholar, but cannot imagine myself desiring a degree. However, I might have taken the trouble to get a degree, simply to please my guardian, if there had not been that obstacle about the Thirty-nine Articles. From this time, during a year or two, there was a sort of game of cross-purposes between me and my guardian, as I had not yet ventured to declare openly my severance from the Church of England, and my consequent inability to go to one of her universities. The enormous weight of social and family pressure that is brought to bear on a youth with reference to these matters must be my excuse for a year or two of hypocrisy that was extremely irksome to me; but besides this I have a still better excuse in a sincere unwillingness to give pain to my dear guardian, and in the dread lest the declaration of heresy might even be dangerous to one whom I knew to be suffering from heart disease. I therefore lived on as a young member of the Church of England who was studying for Oxford, when in fact I considered myself no longer a member of that Church, and had inwardly renounced all intention of going to either of the Universities, which she still kept closed against the Dissenters. The inward determination not to go to Oxford or Cambridge had a bad effect on my classical studies, as I had no other object in view whilst pursuing them than the intellectual benefit to be derived from the studies themselves, and I had not any very great faith in that benefit. The most intelligent men I knew did not happen to be classical scholars, and some men of my acquaintance who _were_ classical scholars seemed to me quite impervious to ideas concerning science and the fine arts. Even now, after a much larger experience, I do not perceive that classical scholarship opens men's minds to scientific and artistic ideas, or even that scholarship gives much appreciation of literary art and excellence. Still, it is better to have it than to be without it. There is such a thing as a scholarly temper,--a patient, careful, exact, and studious temper,--which is valuable in all the pursuits of life. Mr. Butler had been for some time my private tutor--which means that I prepared my work at Hollins in the morning, and went to read with Mr. Butler in the afternoon. The plan was pleasant enough for me, but it was not advantageous, because what I most wanted was guidance during my hours of study,--such guidance as I had at Doncaster. However, I read and wrote Latin and Greek every day, and learned French at the same time, as Mr. Butler had a taste for modern languages. This went on until he became rather alarmed about my success at Oxford (which for reasons known to the reader troubled me very little), and told my guardian that she ought to send me to some tutor who could bestow upon me more continuous attention. I was as near as possible to being sent to a tutor at Brighton,--a reverend gentleman with aristocratic connections,--but he missed having me by the very bait which he held out to attract my guardian. He boasted in a letter of the young lords he had educated, and said he had one or two still in the house with him. We had a near neighbor and old friend who was herself very nearly connected with two of the greatest families in the peerage, and as she happened to call upon us when my guardian received the letter, it was handed to her, and she said: "That bit about the young lords is not a recommendation; the chances are that P. G. would find them proud and disagreeable." As for me, the whole project presented nothing that was pleasant. I disliked the south of England, and had not the slightest desire to make the acquaintance of the young noblemen. It was therefore rather a relief that the Brighton project was abandoned. It happened then that my dear guardian did the only one foolish and wrong thing she ever did in her whole life. She sent me to a clergyman in Yorkshire, who had been a tutor at Oxford, and was considered to be a good "coach,"--so far he may seem to have been the right man,--but he was unfortunately exactly the man to inspire me with a complete disgust for my studies. He had no consideration whatever for the feelings of other people, least of all for those of a pupil. He treated me with open contempt, and was always trying to humiliate me, till at last I let him understand that I would endure it no longer. One day he ordered me to clean his harness, with a peremptoriness that he would scarcely have used to a groom, so I answered, "No, sir, I shall not clean your harness; that is not my work." He then asked whether I considered myself a gentleman. I said "yes," and he retorted that it would be a good thing to thrash the gentility out of me; on which I told him that if he ventured to attempt any such thing I should certainly defend myself. I was a well-grown youth, and could have beaten my tutor easily. One day he attempted to scrape my face with a piece of shark's skin, so I seized both his wrists and held them for some time, telling him that the jest, if it was a jest, was not acceptable. As my tutor was very handsomely paid for the small amount of trouble he took with me, my guardian had inserted in the agreement a clause by which he was either to keep my horse in his stable, or else let me have the use of one of his own. He preferred, for economy's sake, to mount me; so in accordance with our agreement I innocently rode out a little in the early mornings, long before the hour fixed for our Greek reading together. As my tutor rose late, he was not aware of this for some time; but at length, by accident, he found it out, and then an incident occurred which exactly paints the charming amenity of the man. His stable-boy had brought the horse to the gate, and I was just mounting when my tutor opened his bedroom window, and called out, "Take that horse back to the stable immediately!" I said to the servant, who hesitated, that it was his duty to obey his master's orders, and dismounted; then I went to my lodgings in the village, and wrote a note to the tutor, in which I said that I expected him to keep his agreement, and in accordance with it I should ride out that day. I then left the note at the house, saddled the animal myself, and rode a long distance. From that time our relations were those of constrained formality, which on the whole I much preferred. My tutor assumed an air of injured innocence, and treated me with a clumsy imitation of politeness which was intended to wound me, but which I found extremely convenient, as the greater the distance between us the less intercourse there would be. However, after that demonstration of my rights, I kept a horse of my own--a much finer animal--at a farmer's. The intellectual influence of my present tutor was disastrous, by the reaction it produced. He was a fanatical admirer of the ancient authors who wrote in Latin and Greek, and was constantly expressing his contempt for modern literature, of which he was extremely ignorant. I was fond of reading, and had English books in my lodgings which were my refuge and solace after the pedantic lectures I had to undergo. My love for Scott was still very lively (as indeed it is to this day), but I had now extended my horizon and added Byron, Shelley, Tennyson, and other modern authors to my list. My tutor had all the hatred for Byron which distinguished the clergy in the poet's life-time, and he was constantly saying the most unjust things against him; as, for example, that the "Bride of Abydos" was not original, but was copied from the Greek of Moschus. This clerical hatred for Byron quite prevented my tutor from acquiring any knowledge of the poet; but he had seen a copy of his works at my lodgings, and this served as a text for the most violent diatribes. As for Shelley, he knew no more about him than that he had been accused of atheism. He had heard of Moore, whom he called "Tommy." I believe he had never heard of Keats or Tennyson; certainly he was quite unacquainted with their poems. He had a feeble, incipient knowledge of French, and occasionally read a page of Molière, with an unimaginable pronunciation; but he knew nothing really of any modern literature. On the other hand, his knowledge of the Greek and Latin classics was more intimate than that possessed by any other teacher I had ever known. He was a thorough, old-fashioned scholar, with all the pride of exact erudition, and a corresponding contempt for everybody who did not possess it. I do not at this moment remember that he ever referred to a dictionary. I only remember that he examined my Liddell and Scott to see whether those modern lexicographers had done their work in a way to merit his approval, and that he thought their book might be useful to me. He had some knowledge of astronomy, and was building a reflecting telescope which he never completed; but I remember that he was often occupied in polishing the reflectors whilst I was reading, and that his hand went on rubbing with a bit of soft leather, and a red powder, when he would deliver the clearest disquisitions on the employment of words by Greek authors, most of which I was not sufficiently advanced to profit by. His manner with me was impatient, and often rude and contemptuous. What irritated him especially in me was the strange inequality of my learning, for I was rather strong on some points, and equally weak on others; whilst he himself had an irresistible regularity of knowledge, at least in Latin and Greek. We did absolutely nothing else but Latin and Greek during my stay with this tutor, and I suppose I must have made some progress, but there was no _feeling_ of progress. In comparison with the completeness of my master's terrible erudition it seemed that my small acquirements were nothing, and never could be more than nothing. On the other hand, the extreme narrowness of his literary tastes led me to place a higher value on my own increasing knowledge of modern literature, and conclusively proved to me, once for all, that a classical education does not necessarily give a just or accurate judgment. "If a man," I said to myself, "can be a thorough classical scholar as my tutor is, and at the same time so narrow and ignorant, it is clear that a classical training does not possess the virtue of opening the mind which is ascribed to it." Besides his narrowness with regard to modern literature of all kinds, my tutor had the usual characteristic of the classical scholars of his generation, a complete ignorance and misunderstanding of the fine arts. All that he knew on that subject was that a certain picture by Titian was shameful because there was a naked woman in it; and I believe he had heard that Claude was a famous landscape-painter, but he had no conception whatever of the aims and purposes of art. One of his accusations against me was that, from vanity, I had painted a portrait of myself. As a matter of fact, the little picture was a portrait of Lord Byron, done from an engraving; but any artist may, without vanity, make use of his own face as a model. In religion my tutor was most intolerant. He could not endure either Roman Catholics or Dissenters of any kind, and considered no terms harsh enough for infidels. He told with approbation the story of some bigot like himself, who, when an unbeliever came into his house, had loudly ordered the servant to lock up the silver spoons. He possessed and read with approbation one of those intolerant books of the eighteenth century entitled, "A Short Method with Deists," in which the poor Deists were crushed beneath the pitiless heel of the dominant State Church. It happened one day, by a strange chance, that an antiquary brought a Unitarian minister, who also took an interest in archaeology, to visit the church where my tutor officiated, in which, there were some old things, and as they stayed in the church till our early dinner-time, my tutor could hardly do otherwise than offer them a little hospitality. When the guests had gone (I hope they enjoyed the conversation, which seemed to me artificial and constrained) my tutor said to me: "That man, that Unitarian, will go to hell! All who do not believe in the Atonement will go to hell!" I said nothing, but thought that the mild antiquary who sat with us at table might deserve a less terrible fate. My tutor troubled me less, perhaps, about theology than might have been expected. He intended to inflict much more theology upon me than I really had to undergo, thanks to his indolence, and the craft and subtlety with which I managed to substitute other work for it. Still, it was a trial to me to have to look acquiescent, or at least submissive and respectful, whilst he said the most unjust and intolerant things about those who differed from him, and with whom I often secretly agreed. And of course I had to listen to his sermons every Sunday, and to go through the outward seemings of conformity that my master had power enough to exact from me. Beyond the weekly services in the church he fulfilled scarcely any of the duties of a parish clergyman. He rose about eleven in the morning, and spent his time either in mechanical pursuits or in desultory reading, often of the Greek and Latin classics. In fact, my tutor's mind was so imbued with the dead languages that he was unable to write his own, but had constant recourse to Greek and Latin to make his meaning clear. A year spent with this clergyman, with whom I had not two ideas in common, produced an effect upon me exactly opposite to that which had been intended. My feelings towards the ancient classics had grown into positive repugnance when I saw the moderns so unjustly sacrificed to them, and my love for the moderns had increased to the point of partisanship. My tutor's injustice towards Dissenters and unbelievers had also, by a natural reaction, aroused in me a profound sympathy for these maligned and despised people, and I would willingly have joined some dissenting body myself if I could have found one that had exactly my own opinions; but it seemed useless to leave the Church of England for another community if I were no more in accordance with the new than with the old. The fact that my master had been a tutor at Oxford and was always boasting about his university career--he openly expressed his contempt for men who "had never seen the smoke of a university"--made me sick of the very name of the place, and to this day I have never visited it. In a word, my tutor made me dislike the very things that it was his business to make me like, and if I had ever felt the least desire for a degree he would have cured me of it, as it was impossible to desire honors that were accessible to so narrow a mind as his, a mind fit for nothing but pedagogy, and really unable to appreciate either literature or art. At the end of a year, therefore, I said plainly to my guardian that I was doing no good, and that it was useless to prepare me any further for Oxford, as I could not conscientiously put my name to the Thirty-nine Articles. If, in those days, any human being in our class of society in England had been able to conceive of such a thing as education not in clerical hands, I might have gone on with my classical studies under the direction of a layman; but education and the clergy were looked upon as inseparable; even by myself. My education, therefore, came momentarily to a stand-still, though it happened a little later that a sense of its imperfection made me take it up again with fresh energy on my own account, and I am still working at it, in various directions, at the mature age of fifty-two. CHAPTER XVI. 1852. Choice of a profession.--Love of literature and art.--Decision to make trial of both.--An equestrian tour.--Windermere.--Derwentwater.--I take lessons from Mr. J. P. Pettitt.--Ulleswater.--My horse Turf.--Greenock, a discovery.--My unsettled cousin.--Glasgow.--Loch Lomond. --Inverary.--Loch Awe.--Inishail.--Innistrynich.--Oban.--A sailing excursion.--Mull and Ulva.--Solitary reading. The question of a profession now required an immediate decision. My guardian's choice for me had formerly been the Church, but that was not exactly suited to my ways of thinking. The most natural profession for a young man in my position would have been the law, but my father had expressly desired that I should not adopt it, as he was sick of it for himself, and wished to spare me its anxieties. The cotton trade required a larger disposable capital than I possessed, to start with any chance of success. My own desires were equally balanced between two pursuits for which I had a great liking, and hoped that there might be some natural aptitude. One of these was literature, and the other painting. A very moderate success in either of these pursuits would, it seemed to me, be more conducive to happiness than a greater success in some less congenial occupation. My fortune was enough for a bachelor, and I did not intend to marry, at least for a long time. There was no thought of ambition in connection with the desire to follow one of these two pursuits, beyond that of the workman who desires to do well. I mean, I had no social ambition in connection with them. It seemed to me that the liberty of thought which I valued above everything was incompatible, in England, with any desire to rise in the world, as unbelievers lay under a ban, and had no chance of social advancement without renouncing their opinions. This was an additional reason why I should seek happiness in my studies, as a worldly success was denied to me. The reader may perhaps think that I had not much, in the way of social advancement, to renounce, but in fact I had a position remarkably full of possibilities, that a man of the world could have used to great advantage. I had independent means, enough to enable me, as a bachelor, to live like a gentleman; I belonged to one of the oldest and best-descended families in the English untitled aristocracy, had a retentive memory, a strong voice, and could speak in public without embarrassment. A man of the world, in my position, would have found his upward course straight before him. He would simply have made use of the Church as an instrument (it is one of the most valuable instruments for the worldly), have given himself the advantages of Oxford, married for money, offered his services to the Conservative party, and gone into Parliament. [Footnote: The reader may wonder why the _Conservative_ party is specially mentioned. It is mentioned simply because all my relations and nearly all my influential friends (who could have pushed me) belonged to it. The Conservative party is also the one that gives the best social promotion to those who serve it. There have been many little Beaconsfields.] It would have been much easier to do all that than to make a reputation either in literature or painting,--easier, I mean, for a man starting in life with so many good cards in his hand as I had. I have been sometimes represented as an unsuccessful painter who took to writing because he had failed as an artist. It is, of course, easy to state the matter so, but the exact truth is that a very moderate success in either literature or art would have been equally acceptable to me, so that there has been no other failure in my life than the usual one of not being able to catch two hares at the same time. Very few dogs have ever been able to do that. I decided to try to be a painter and to try to be an author, and see what came of both attempts. My guardian always thought I should end by being an author, and though she had no prejudice against painting, she looked upon it as a pursuit likely to be very tedious, at times, to those who practise it, in which she was quite right. It is generally a hard struggle, requiring infinite patience, even in the clever and successful. One of the first things I did was to go on horseback to the English Lake district in the summer of 1852, with the intention of continuing the journey, still on horseback, into the mountainous regions of Scotland. Unfortunately this project could not be executed with the horse I then possessed, the most dangerous, sulky, resolute, and cunning brute I ever mounted. I rode him as far as Keswick, where a horse-breaker tried him and said his temper was incurable, recommending me to have him shot. The advice was excellent, but I could not find it in my heart to destroy such a fine-looking animal, so I left him in grass at Penrith, and went on to Scotland by the usual means of travelling,--a change that I regret to this day. I had materials with me for painting studies in oil, and painted at Windermere and Derwentwater. It was an inexpressible pleasure to see these lakes, and a mental torment not to be able to paint them better. My first sight of Windermere (or of any natural lake, for I had hitherto seen nothing but fish-ponds and reservoirs) was enjoyed under peculiarly impressive circumstances. I had been riding alone or walking by the side of my horse during the night, and arrived at the lake shore by the guidance of a star. I wrote down my first impression next day, and have kept the words. "I could not find the way to the little harbor of Bowness, and so went on for a considerable distance till I came to a gate which, as I knew, from the position of the north star, would lead directly to the lake across the fields. There was a small and scarcely traceable footpath, and a board to warn trespassers. However, I fastened the horse to the gate and proceeded. I soon arrived at the shore, and was overawed by a scene of overpowering magnificence. The day was just dawning. The water mirrored the isles, except where the mist floated on its surface and wreathed round their bases. The trees were massed by it into domes and towers that seemed to float on the cloudy lake as if by enchantment. The stars were growing pale in the yellowing east; the distant hills were coldly blue, till far away lake and hill and sky melted into cloud. "Opposite, I saw the dark form of an island rising between me and the other shores, strongly relieved against the mist which crept along the base of the opposite mountain and almost clambered to its dark summit. The reflection of the dark upper part of the mountain (which rose clear of the mist) fell on the lake in such a manner as to enclose that of the island. In another direction an island was gradually throwing off its white robe of mist, and the light showed through the interstices of the foliage that I had taken for a crag. "I had a pistol with me, and tried the echo, though it seemed wrong to disturb a silence so sublime. I fired, and had time to regret that there was no echo before a peal of musketry came from the nearer hills and then a fainter peal from the distance, followed by an audible rejoinder." This is the kind of travel for the enjoyment of natural beauty. One should be either quite alone, or have a single companion of the same tastes, and one should be above all commonplace considerations about hours. Samuel Palmer often walked the whole night alone, for the pleasure of observing the beautiful changes between sunset and sunrise. In the evening there was a fine red sunset followed by moonlight, so I took a boat and rowed out in the moonlight alone. This first experience of lake scenery was an enchantment, and it had a great influence on my future life by giving me a passion for lakes, or by increasing the passion that (in some inexplicable way) I had felt for them from childhood. One of the earliest poems I had attempted to compose began with the stanza,-- "A cold and chilly mist Broodeth o'er Winandermere, And the heaven-descended cloud hath kissed The still lake drear." I had already tried to paint lake scenery, in copying a picture, and my favorite illustrations in the Abbotsford edition of Scott's works were the lochs that I was now to see for the first time. After a night at Ambleside I saw Rydal Water in sunshine and calm, with faint breezes playing on its surface, and rode on to Keswick through the Vale of St. John. The only way in which it was possible to ride the brute I possessed was in putting him behind a carriage, which he followed as if he had been tied to it. In this manner I reached Keswick, after apologizing to a family party for dogging their carriage so closely. As soon as the vehicle came to a stop opposite the hotel, my horse, Turf, threw out his heels vigorously in the crowd. Luckily he hurt nobody, but the bystanders told me that one of his shoes had been within six inches of a young lady's face. A vicious horse is a perpetual anxiety. Turf kicked in the stable as well as out of it, and hit a groom on the forehead a few days later. The man would probably have been killed without the leather of his cap. Finding an artist at Keswick, Mr. J. P. Pettitt, I asked his advice and became his pupil for a few days. I climbed Skiddaw during the night with one of Mr. Pettitt's sons, who was a geologist and a landscape-painter also. When we got to the top of the mountain we were enveloped in a thick mist, which remained till we descended; but I lay down in my waterproof on the lee side of the cairn, and slept in happy oblivion of discomfort. Mr. Pettitt's lessons were of some use to me, but as all my serious education hitherto had been classical, I was not sufficiently advanced in practical art to prepare me for color, and I ought to have been making studies of light and shade in sepia. There was nothing more difficult in those days than for a young gentleman to become an artist, because no human being would believe that he could be serious in such an intention. As I had a fine-looking horse in the stable at the hotel, Pettitt of course took me for an amateur, and only attempted to communicate the superficial dexterity that amateurs usually desire. It was my misfortune to be constantly attempting what was far too difficult for me in art, and not to find any one ready and willing to put me on the right path. I was very well able, already, to make studies in sepia that would have been valuable material for future reference, whereas my oil studies were perfectly worthless, and much more inconvenient and embarrassing. I was enchanted with the Lake District, seeing Windermere, Derwentwater, and Ulleswater, besides several minor lakes; but although I delighted in all inland waters and the Lake District was so near to my own home, I never revisited it. The reason was that, after seeing the grander Highlands of Scotland, I became spoiled for the English Lakes. There was another reason,--the absence of human interest on the English lakes except of a quite modern kind, there being no old castles on shore or island. Lyulph's Tower, on Ulleswater, though immortalized by Wordsworth, is nothing but a modern hunting-box. Nevertheless, I have often regretted that I did not become more familiar with Wordsworth's country in my youth. The mention of Lyulph's Tower reminds me that when I landed there after a hard pull of seven miles against a strong wind, I was kindly invited to take part in a merry picnic that was just being held there by some farmers of the neighborhood. A very pretty girl asked me to dance, and I afterwards played the fiddle. The scene with the dancers in the foreground on the green sward, and the lake and mountains in the distance, was one of the most poetical I ever beheld. Turf had been ridden from Keswick to Penrith by the horse-breaker already mentioned, and with infinite difficulty. I would have left him in the breaker's hands, but he refused to mount again, saying that he had done enough for his credit, and so had I for mine. By his advice I took the same resolution, and as nobody in Penrith would ride the brute, he was left to grow still wilder in a green field whilst I went on to Scotland by the train. I had a cousin at Greenock who was learning to be a marine constructing engineer. He was a young man of remarkable ability, who afterwards distinguished himself in his profession, and might no doubt have made a large fortune if his habits had not been imprudent and unsettled. At that time he was tied to Greenock by an engagement with one of the great firms where he was articled. He had rooms in a quiet street, and offered me hospitality. One day I came in unexpectedly and found a baby in my bed, when the door opened suddenly, and a very pretty girl with dark eyes came and took the baby away with an apology. I immediately said to myself: "My cousin has been privately married, that pair of dark eyes has cost him his liberty, and that child is an infantine relation of mine!" This discovery remained a long time a secret in my own breast, and I affected a complete absence of suspicion during the rest of my stay at Greenock, but it was afterwards fully confirmed. My cousin had, in fact, married at the early age of nineteen, when he was still an articled pupil with Messrs. Caird, and living on an allowance from his father, whom he dared not ask for an increase. He was therefore obliged to eke out his means by teaching mechanical drawing in the evenings; but though his marriage had been an imprudence, it was not a folly. He had, in fact, shown excellent judgment in the choice of a wife. The dark eyes were not all. Behind them there was a soul full of the most cheerful courage, the sweetest affection, the most faithful devotion. For thirty-seven years my cousin's wife followed him everywhere, and bore his roving propensity with wonderful good humor. What that propensity was, the reader may partly realize when I tell him that in those _thirty_-seven years my cousin went through _eighty_-seven removals, some of them across the greatest distances that are to be found upon the planet. The only reason why he did not remove to all the different planets one after another was the absence of a road to them. This tendency of my cousin Orme had been predicted by a French phrenologist at Manchester when he was a boy. The phrenologist had said, after examining his "bumps," that Orme would settle in a place for a short time and appear satisfied at first, as if it were for good, but that very soon afterwards he would go elsewhere and repeat the process. I never met with any other human being who had such an unsettled disposition. The consequence was that he often quitted places where he was extremely prosperous, and people who not only appreciated his extraordinary talents, but were ready to reward them handsomely, in order to go he knew not whither, and undertake he knew not what. I left Greenock by an early steamer for Glasgow, and remember this one detail of the voyage. The morning air was brisk and keen, so I was not sorry to breakfast when the meal was announced, and did ample justice to it with a young and vigorous appetite. Having eaten my third poached egg, and feeling still ready for the more substantial dishes that awaited me, I suddenly recollected that I had already disposed of an ample Scotch breakfast at my cousin's. Can anything more conclusively prove the wonderful virtue of early hours and the healthy northern air? After visiting Glasgow and the Falls of Clyde in drenching rain, I saw Loch Lomond, which was my first experience of a Highland lake, and therefore memorable for me. The gradual approach, on the steamer, towards the mountains at the upper end of the lake was a revelation of Highland scenery. The day happened to be one of rapidly changing effects. A rugged hill with its bosses and crags was one minute in brilliant light, to be in shade the next, as the massive clouds flew over it, and the colors varied from pale blue to dark purple and brown and green, with that wonderful freshness of tint and vigor of opposition that belong to the wilder landscapes of the north. From that day my affections were conquered; as the steamer approached nearer and nearer to the colossal gates of the mountains, and the deep waters of the lake narrowed in the contracting glen, I felt in my heart a sort of exultation like the delight of a young horse in the first sense of freedom in the boundless pasture. The next sunrise I saw from the top of Ben Lomond, but will spare the reader the description. It was a delight beyond words for an enthusiastic young reader of Scott to look upon Loch Katrine at last. Thousands of tourists have been drawn to the same scenes by their interest in the same poet, yet few of them, I fancy, had in the same degree with myself the three passions for literature, for nature, and for art. If little has come of these passions, it was certainly not from any want of intensity in _them_, but in consequence of certain critical influences that will be explained later. I will only say in this place, that if the passion for art had been strongest of the three the productive result would have been greater. From Tarbet on Loch Lomond I went to Inverary, and the first thing I did there was to hire a sailing-boat and go beating to windward on Loch Fyne. I made a sketch of the ruined castle of Dundera, which stands between the road and the loch on a pretty rocky promontory. For some time I had a strong fancy for this castle, and wanted to rent it on lease and restore three or four rooms in it for my own use. The choice would have been in some respects wiser than that I afterwards made, as Dundera has such easy access to Inverary by a perfectly level and good road on the water's edge, and by the water itself; but the scenery of Loch Fyne is not as attractive as that of Loch Awe, and there is always a certain inevitable dreariness about a salt-water loch which, to my feeling, would make it depressing for long residence. I had travelled from Tarbet with a rather elderly couple who were very kind to me, and afterwards invited me to their house in Yorkshire. The lady was connected with Sir James Ross, the Arctic discoverer, and her husband had been a friend of Theodore Hook, of whom he told me many amusing anecdotes. They were both most amiable, cheerful people, and we formed a merry party of three when first I saw Loch Awe, as the carriage descended the road from Inverary to Cladich on the way to Dalmally. As I kept a journal of this tour, I find easily the account of my first boating on Loch Awe. It was in the month of August when we had come to a halt at Cladich:-- "In the afternoon I made a sketch of the bridge taken from the ravine. It occupied me four hours, as the scene was of the most elaborate character. We dined at four o'clock, and then strolled to the lake, which was at some distance. Two boats were lying in a small stream which emptied itself into the lake, so I pressed one of them into my service, and was soon out upon the water. The boat was old, badly built, and rickety. The starboard oar was cracked, and the port oar had been broken in two and mended with bands of iron. The bottom was several inches deep in water, the thwarts were not securely fastened, nor were they at right angles to the keel. Out in the loch the waves were high, and the crazy craft rolled and pitched like a beer-barrel, the water in her washing from side to side. However, I reached the island called 'Inishail.' It was a striking scene. Around me were the tombs of many generations. In the far distance the dark ruin of Kilchurn was reduced almost to insignificance by its background of rugged hills towering into the clouds. "Night was coming on quickly as I rowed back to the mouth of the little river. On reaching the inn I found that the people were getting anxious about me." This first row on Loch Awe has a pathetic interest for me to this day. It was like one's first meeting with a friend who was destined to become very dear and to exercise a powerful influence on the whole current of one's life. As my first impression of London had been, "This is a place an Englishman ought to see once, but I will never come to it again," so my first impression about Loch Awe was a profound sort of melancholy happiness in the place and a longing to revisit it. I never afterwards quitted Loch Awe without the same longing to return, and I have never seen any place in the world that inspired in me that nostalgia in anything like an equal degree. There is an affinity between persons and places, but the Loch Awe that won my affection exists no longer. What delighted me was the complete unity of character that prevailed there, the lonely magnificent mountains, the vast expanse of water only crossed occasionally by some poor open boat, the melancholy ruins on island or peninsula, the wilderness, the sadness, the pervading sense of solitude, a solitude peopled only with traditions of a romantic past. It was almost as lonely as some distant lake in the wilds of Canada that the Indian crosses in his canoe, yet its ruined castles gave a poetry that no American waters can ever possess. Such was Loch Awe that I loved with the melancholy affection of youth before the experience of life had taught me a more active and practical philosophy than the indulgence in the sweet sadness of these reveries. But Loch Awe of to-day and of the future is as modern and practical as the sea-lochs that open upon the Clyde. On my first visit in 1852 there was neither steamer nor sailing-boat; now there are fourteen steamers on the lake, four of them public, and the railway trains pass round the skirts of Cruachan and rush through the Brandir Pass. There is a big hotel, they tell me, just opposite Kilchurn, from which place, by express train, you can get to Edinburgh in four hours. The day after our arrival at Loch Awe turned out to be most beautiful (a fine day in the Highlands seems, by contrast, far more beautiful than elsewhere), and I shall never forget the enchantment of the head of Loch Awe as our carriage slowly descended the hilly road from Cladich towards Dalmally, stopping frequently for me to look and sketch. When we got near the island, or peninsula, of Innistrynich, with its dark green oaks and pasture-laud of a brighter green in the sunshine, and gray rocks coming down into the calm, dark water, it seemed to my northern taste the realization of an earthly paradise. I have lived upon it since, and unwillingly left it, and to this day I have the most passionate affection for it, and often dream about it painfully or pleasurably, the most painful dream of all being that it has been spoiled by the present owner, which happily is quite the contrary of the truth. I went to Oban on the top of the coach in the most brilliant weather that ever is or can be, alternate sunshine and rain, with white clouds of a dazzling brightness. Under this enchantment, the barren land of Lorne seemed beautiful, and one forgot its poverty. For the first time, I saw the waters of Loch Etive, then a pale blue, stretching far inland, and the distant hills of Morven were, or seemed to be, of the purest azure. When my new friends had left me at Oban, I hired a sailing-boat and two men for a voyage amongst the Western Isles; but as she was an open boat, the men did not like the idea of risking our lives in her on the exposed waters of the Atlantic, so the voyage was confined to the Sound of Mull, and I crossed the island to its western shore on foot. That voyage left permanent recollections of grand effects and wild scenery of the kind afterwards described by William Black in his "Macleod of Dare." As we sailed across the Sound in the evening from Oban to Auchincraig, the sky was full of torn rain-clouds flying swiftly and catching the lurid hues from the sunset, whilst the distant mountains and cliffs of Mull were of that dark purple which seems melancholy and funereal in landscape, though it is one of the richest colors in the world. It was dangerous weather for sailing, being very squally, and in the year 1852 I knew nothing about the management of sailing-boats; but the men were not imprudent, and after coasting under the cliffs of Mull we landed at Auchincraig, where at that time there was a miserable inn. The next day we had a glorious sail up the sound to the Bay of Aros, stopping only to see Duart Castle. In walking across the island to Loch na Keal, we passed through a most picturesque camp, that would have delighted Landseer. There were hundreds of horses and innumerable dogs of the picturesque northern breeds. It was the half-yearly market of Mull. I shall never forget my first sight of Ulva, as we sat on the shore of Mull waiting for the ferry-boat. Ulva lay, a great dark mass, under the crimson west, reflected in a glassy sea. We had already seen Staffa and Iona, pale in the distant Atlantic. Then the boat fetched us, and we floated as in a poet's dream, till the worst of inns brought one back to a sense of reality. The boatman who accompanied me, whose name was Andrew, amused himself by telling lies to the credulous inhabitants of Ulva, and one of his inventions was that I was going to purchase the island. The other boatman, Donald, slept in the boat at Salan, wrapped up in a sail. The return voyage to Oban is thus described in my journal:-- "A fine young man asked me for a seat in the boat, which I granted on condition that he would perform his share of the work. A favorable wind carried us well over fifteen miles, half our distance, and the rest had to be rowed. The sun set in crimson, and the crescent moon arose behind the blue hills of Mull, over the dark tower of Duart. The scene was shortly a festival of lights with stars in the sky and the water brilliantly phosphorescent, so that the oar seemed to drip with fire. Lastly, when we entered the smooth bright bay of Oban, a crescent of lights shone around it, reflected in columns of flame upon the surface." These were my chief experiences of the West Highlands during that first tour, and they left what I believe to be an indelible impression, for to this day I remember quite distinctly under what kind of effect each of these scenes presented itself. The artistic results of the tour consisted of sketches in oil and pencil, quite without value except to remind me of the scenes passed through, and of the most decidedly amateur character. I also wrote a journal, interesting to me now for the minute details it contains, which bring the past back to me very vividly, but utterly without literary merit. The wonder is how a youth with so little manifest talent as may be found in these sketches and journal could indulge in any artistic or literary ambition. My impression is that the dull year of heavy work that I had gone through with the Yorkshire tutor had done positive harm to me. Besides this, I was living, intellectually, in great solitude. My guardian was very kind, and she was a woman of sterling good sense, but she knew nothing about the fine arts, nor could she afford me much guidance in my reading, her own reading being limited to the Bible, and to some English and French classics. My uncles were both extremely reserved men who did not encourage my questions, so I was left for a while to get on without other intellectual assistance than that afforded by books. My eldest uncle, the owner of Hollins, said one day to my guardian, "Buy him the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' it will prevent him from asking so many questions;" so she made the purchase, which gave me a large pasture, at least for facts, and as for good literature, my little library was beginning to be well stocked. I made no attempt at that time to keep up my Latin and Greek, nor did I work seriously at painting, but read, drew, and wrote very much as it happened, not subjecting myself to any rigorous discipline, yet never remaining unoccupied. CHAPTER XVII. 1853. A journal.--Self-training.--Attempts in periodical literature.--The time given to versification well spent.--Practical studies in art.--Beginning of Mr. Ruskin's influence.--Difficulty in finding a master in landscape-painting.--Establishment of the militia.--I accept a commission.--Our first training.--Our colonel and our adjutant.--The Grand Llama.--Paying off the men. On January 1, 1853, I began to keep a journal, and continued it, with some intermissions, till June, 1855. The journal is long and minute in detail, and affords me a very clear retrospect of my life in those years; but it will be needless to trouble the reader with quotations from it. The title page of the diary is a clear indication of my pursuits. It is called an "Account of time spent in Literature, Art, Music, and Gymnastics." The reader may observe that Literature comes before Art, so that if I am now an author rather than an artist, the reason may be found in early studies and inclination. Music and gymnastics were, in my view, only a part of general culture, yet of considerable importance in their way. As a scheme of self-training, this seems sufficiently comprehensive, and to this day I feel the good effects of it. My reading was not badly chosen, the drawing gave some initiation into art, and exercise developed physical activity, not yet altogether lost in mature age. Still, the experienced reader will see at a glance that this was not the training of a young painter who, in a craft of such great technical difficulty and in an age of such intense competition, must give himself up more completely to his own special pursuit. On the first page of this diary I find an entry about an article for the "Westminster Review." I offered two or three papers to the "Westminster," which were declined, and then I wrote to the editor asking him if he would be so good as to explain, for my own benefit and guidance, what were the reasons for their rejection. His answer came, and was both kind and judicious. "An article," he told me, "ought to be an organic whole, with a pre-arranged order and proportion amongst its parts. There ought to be a beginning, a middle, and an end." This was a very good and much-needed lesson, for at that time I had no notion of a synthetic _ordonnance_ of parts. There was, no doubt, another reason, which the editor omitted out of consideration for the feelings of a literary aspirant, who was too young and too insufficiently informed to write anything that could interest readers of the "Westminster." I worked rather hard at writing English verse, and do not at the present time regret a single hour of that labor. My general habit was to write a poem, sometimes of considerable length, and then destroy it; but I kept some of these compositions, which were afterwards published in a volume. Verse-writing was good for me at that time for a particular reason. I did not understand the art of prose composition, which is much less obvious than that of poetry; but being already aware that verse-writing was an art, approached it in the right spirit, which is that of ungrudging labor and incessant care. The value or non-value of the result has nothing to do with the matter; the essential point is that verse was to me a discipline, coming just at a time of life when I had much need of a discipline. Besides, the mind of a young man is not ripe enough in reflection or rich enough in knowledge to supply substantial and well-nourished prose; but the freshness and keenness of his feelings may often give life enough to a few stanzas, if not to a longer poem. It may be objected to this advocacy of verse, that as the poet's gift is excessively rare, the probability is that a youth who writes verse attacks an art that he can never master. No doubt the highest degree of the poetic gift is most rare, and so, according to Christine Nilsson, are the gifts needed to make a _prima donna_, yet many a girl practises singing without hoping to be a Nilsson; and there are many poets in the world whose verses have melody and charm though their brows may never be "cooled with laurel." The objection to verse as a trifling occupation comes really from that general disinclination to read verse which excuses itself by the rarity of genius. Rossetti, who had genius in his own person, was always ready to appreciate good poetical work that had no fame to recommend it. [Footnote: Since the above was written I have met with an address delivered by Mr. Walter Besant, the novelist, in which he recommends the continuous practice of versification as a discipline in the use of language most valuable to writers of prose.] In the way of art at this time I painted three portraits and some landscapes that were merely studies. It is needless to enumerate these attempts, all of no value, and generally destroyed afterwards. An important event occurred on March 22,1853. Being in Manchester, I bought the first volume of Ruskin's "Modern Painters." In this way I came under the influence of Mr. Ruskin, and remained under it, more or less, for several years. It was a good influence in two ways, first in literature, as anything that Mr. Ruskin has to say is sure to be well expressed, and after that it was a good influence in directing my attention to certain qualities and beauties in nature; but in art this influence was not merely evil, it was disastrous. I was, however, at that time, just the young man predestined to fall under it, being very fond of reading, and having a strong passion for natural beauty. In the course of the year 1853 I corresponded with Mr. Ruskin about my studies, and I have no doubt of the perfect sincerity of his advice and the kindness of intention with which it was given; but it tended directly to encourage the idea that art could be learned from nature, and that is an immense mistake. Nature does not teach art, or anything resembling it; she only provides materials. Art is a product of the human mind, the slow growth of centuries. If you reject this and go to nature, you have to begin all over again, the objection being that one human life is not long enough for that. As it is possible that some critic may say that Mr. Ruskin's influence was not so much opposed to the tradition of art as I am representing it to be, and considering that I shall be dead when this is published, I quote the following passage from a memorandum found amongst the papers of Mr. Leitch, the water-color painter, and printed in his biography:-- "I knew a young man of talent, ardent and energetic, and anxious to be a landscape-painter, who went to Mr. Ruskin and asked his advice as to what he should do, what school he should follow, how he should practise, and what master he should put himself under. I was told that the answer he got was to this effect: 'Have nothing to do with schools; put yourself under no master. Both the one and the other are useless. As soon as you can draw a tree, or a tower, or a rock, in an ordinary drawing-master way, that is sufficient. Take your materials then out to nature, and paint in _her_ school. It is the only school I know of where you can't go wrong.'" I had asked Mr. Ruskin to recommend me some landscape-painter in London with whom I could study for six months. His answer was: "There is no artist in London capable of teaching you and at the same time willing to give lessons. All those who teach, teach mere tricks with the brush, not true art, far less true nature." He then recommended me to "go to William Turner, of Oxford, not for six months, but for six weeks." I was prevented from following this advice by a technical difficulty. Turner of Oxford was a water-color painter. I had learned water-color with two masters, but had never liked it or felt the slightest impulse to continue it. One man is naturally constituted for one process, another for another. There is something in my idiosyncrasy repugnant to the practice of water-color and favorable to oil, and this in spite of the greater convenience of water-color, and the facility with which it may be left off and instantaneously resumed. In after-life I learned water-color a third time with a very able artist, and now I am able to paint studies in that medium from nature which are truthful enough, and people seem to like them; but hitherto I have had no enjoyment whatever in the work. The reader will please understand that this implies no want of appreciation of the art when it is skilfully practised by others. There are certain instruments of music that one may listen to with pleasure without having the slightest desire to perform upon them. [Footnote: My estimate of the rank of water-color amongst the fine arts has steadily risen as the true technical relations of the graphic arts have become clearer to me. Water-color is quite as great an art as fresco, whilst it is incomparably more convenient.] This being so, the reader will understand how I felt about going to William Turner of Oxford. Hour for hour, I would as willingly have read Greek as practise water-color washes. Not to trouble Mr. Ruskin, however, any further with my affairs, I tried to induce several well-known oil-painters to accept me as a pupil, but always met with the same answer, that they "did not teach." It was rather a matter of pride in those days for a successful painter to decline to give lessons; it proved him to be above the grade of a drawing-master. On March 29, 1853, a little event occurred which was one of the numerous causes that turned me aside from the steady practice of art. One of our friends called about the impending establishment of the militia, and offered to use his influence with Colonel Towneley to get a commission for me in the 5th Royal Lancashire, the regiment that was to have its headquarters at Burnley. My guardian much wished me to accept, and I did so to please her, as I had not been able to please her by going to Oxford. There was nothing in a military life, even for a short time every year, that had the slightest attraction for me. The notion of rendering a patriotic service did not occur to me, for nobody in those days looked upon the militia seriously. We were only laughed at for our pains, and we had a great deal of trouble and hard work in getting the regiment, including ourselves, into something distantly resembling military order. Before we were called up for training I got some initiation with a line regiment. Our colonel was the representative of a very old Catholic family, the Towneleys of Towneley. This family had been, skilful enough to avoid shipwreck during the contests that attended the establishment of Protestantism in England. It had survived in increasing wealth and prosperity, and had now reached the calm haven of a civilized age, with tolerant and liberal institutions. Everything promised a long continuance. The head of the family had no male heir, but his brother John, who was a major in our regiment, had one son, a cousin of Roger Tichborne, and on this son the hopes of continuance rested. Those hopes have not been realized. The young man died in his youth; his father and his uncle also died; the property is divided amongst three heiresses, and now for the first time, since surnames were invented, there is no longer a Towneley of Towneley. The colonel was a man of the kindest disposition and the most gentle manners, without much confidence in himself. For all regimental matters he trusted the adjutant, Captain Fenton, an officer who had seen much active service in India. Fenton had by nature the gifts of a ruler of men. When not on duty he was as gentle as a lady, a pleasant and amiable talker, but on the parade-ground he ruled us all like a Napoleon. He had lost one eye; people always believed in battle, but in fact, the loss had occurred in a tennis-court since his return from India. The other eye seemed to have gained, in consequence, a supernatural degree of penetration. It looked you through! One day, on the parade-ground, that eye glared at me in such a manner that I was quite intimidated, and said what I had to say in rather a low tone of voice. "Speak up, sir! can't you?" thundered the adjutant. "Mister Hamerton, I tell you to speak up!" Fenton had an extremely pretty little bay horse, that had been in a circus, so when he rode past the companies on parade, and the band struck up, the horse used to begin dancing, keeping time beautifully, and indeed danced all the way from company to company. This used to put Fenton out of temper, and as soon as ever military usages permitted it, he would stop the band with a gesture, even in the middle of a tune; in fact, no matter at what moment. To such of us as had a musical disposition, this was perhaps as difficult to hear as the dancing of Fenton's horse could be to him. [Footnote: We had a major who did not much like the band, and when he could stop it, he would say, "Tell that band to hold its tongue."] During our first training there were not billets enough in Burnley to lodge all our men, so one company had to be sent to Padiham, and mine was selected. I was a lieutenant, and had neither captain nor ensign, being quite alone as a commissioned officer, but we possessed an excellent old sergeant, who had seen active service, and, of, course, he taught me what to do. My "mess" consisted of a solitary dinner in the inn at Padiham, sufficient, but not luxurious. My guardian had wished me to go into the militia to live rather more with young gentlemen, and my only society was that of the old sergeant, who punctiliously observed the difference of rank. On account of the distance from Padiham to Burnley (rather more than three miles), we were excused the early parade, but went through the two others. The consequence was, that at the end of the training, although we had marched more than the other companies, we had had only two-thirds of their drill, and when the grand inspection by a general took place, it was thought advisable to hide my company and another, that was also weak in drill, though for a different reason. Luckily, there was a sort of dell in the parade-ground, and we were ordered to march down into it. There we stood patiently in line during the whole time of the review, and the inspecting general never looked at us, which was what the colonel desired. Being destitute of military ambition, I was quite contented to remain down in the hollow. The most modest and obscure positions are sometimes the most agreeable. We had a major who had been a colonel in the Guards. It was whispered that he did not know very much about drill, having probably forgotten his acquirements. One day, however, he commanded the regiment, and I ventured to ask him a question. He answered with a good-humored smile, that the commanding officer was like the Grand Llama of Thibet,--he could not be approached directly, but only through the adjutant. My belief was, and is, that my question puzzled him, for he was far too good-natured not to have answered it at once if he had been able. I told the story to my brother officers, who were amused by the comparison with the Grand Llama, and we sometimes called the major by that high-sounding title afterwards. As a perfectly inexperienced young officer, without anybody but an old, over-worked and used-up sergeant to help him, and a number of drunken Irishmen in the company to vex and trouble him by day and by night, I had as much to do during the first training as could be expected of a youth in my situation. The last day of the training I committed the blunder of advancing small sums of money to a number of men, who, of course, immediately got drunk. My ignorance of popular manners and customs had made me unable to realize the lamentable fact that if you pay five shillings to a man in the improvident class he will at once invest it in five shillings' worth of intoxication. I was still in Padiham at two in the afternoon, finishing accounts, and I had to be in Burnley with my men in time to get them off by the evening trains. When we started many of them were so drunk that they could not walk, and I requisitioned a number of empty carts, and so got the drunken portion of the company to headquarters. Then there came the final settlement of more than eighty separate accounts. Without the adjutant, Fenton, I should never have got through it. He was a methodical man, who understood the business. He got a quantity of small change, piled it in separate heaps upon a table, had each man brought up before him, and said authoritatively, "So much is owing to you--there it is!" In this way we got through the payments, and the drunken men were lodged in prison for the night. I was glad to get back to my quiet literary and artistic occupations, and my country home. We had been so busy during our first training, and I had been so much separated from the other officers by my duty at Padiham, that so far as society was concerned, I might almost as well have been on the top of Pendle Hill. Besides that, Englishmen are slow to associate--they are shy, and they look at each other a long time before getting really acquainted. CHAPTER XVIII. 1853. A project for studying in Paris.--Reading.--A healthy life.--Quinsy. --My most intimate friend. If there is any good in an autobiography it ought to be as an example or a warning to others; so at the risk of seeming to moralize, which, however, is far from my intention, I will say something in this place about my manner of life in those days. First with regard to art, it was not my fault if all the painters I had applied to said that they did not take pupils. There was a young gentleman in our neighborhood who, though a rich man's son, worked seriously at painting, and put himself every year under the direction of a French artist in Paris, where he studied in an atelier. I had an idea of joining him, but my guardian (who with all her sweetness of disposition could be authoritative when she liked) put a stop to the project by saying that she refused her consent to any plan involving absence from England before the expiration of my minority. She had the usual English idea that Paris is a more immoral place than London. Perhaps it may be, but great capitals such as Paris, London, and Vienna have this in common, that you may be moral in them, or immoral, as you like; and if we are to avoid a town because immorality is practised there, we must avoid all the great and most of the smaller centres of intelligence. For the present I worked from nature, but not with sufficient energy or regularity. I had not found my path, and was always dissatisfied with my studies. In literature my reading was abundant, and included the best English poets and essayists. I had entirely given up reading Latin and Greek at that time, and was not just then studying any modern language in their place. Young men both over-estimate and under-estimate their own gifts,--they do not know themselves, as indeed how should they? I had an impression that Nature had not endowed me with a gift for languages. This impression was not only erroneous, but the exact contrary of the truth, for I am a born linguist. My life in general was healthy and active. It included a great deal of walking exercise, sometimes five hours in a day. This, with bathing, kept me in fair health, though I never had what is called robust health, that which allows its possessor to commit great imprudences with impunity. I was once near losing life altogether by an odd result from a small accident. My horse, which was a heavy and large animal, put his foot accidentally on mine. The accident did not prevent me from riding out on the moors, but when I got there the pain became so violent that I held my foot in a cold rivulet. During the night the pain returned, and then I foolishly plunged the foot into a cold bath. The result was that the inflammation flew to the throat, and I had a quinsy which nearly carried me off. I remember asking for everything by writing on a slate, and the intense longing I had for lemonade. My most intimate friend in those days was a young solicitor in Burnley, a man of remarkable ability and naturally polished manners. His professional duties did not leave him very much time for reading, but he had a mind far above the common Philistinism that cannot appreciate literature. I must have wearied him sadly sometimes by reading my own verses,--always a most foolish thing to do, and at this day quite remote from my notions of an author's dignity. Handsley was wisely indifferent to literary fame, and never wrote anything himself except his letters, which were those of a clear-headed man of business. He took upon himself great labors and great responsibilities, which ripened his faculties at a very early age, and he bore them with uncommon firmness and prudence. I never met with his superior in the practical sense that seizes upon opportunities, and in the energy which arrives in time. "Opportunity is kind," said George Eliot, "but only to the industrious." Handsley was always one of those to whom Opportunity is kind. If his career had been in Parliament I am convinced that he would have risen high. His merits were exactly those that are most valued in an English Cabinet Minister. At the present time he has under his management some of the largest collieries in Lancashire, and has been for many years one of the most influential men in the neighborhood. CHAPTER XIX. 1853. London again.--Accurate habits in employment of time.--Studies with Mr. Pettitt.--Some account of my new master.--His method of technical teaching.--Simplicity of his philosophy of art.--Incidents of his life.--Rapid progress under Pettitt's direction. On August 8, 1853, the writer of this book, who had promised and vowed never to visit London again, went there to see the Royal Academy Exhibition, and of course found it closed. If any one could have seen me before the closed doors, knowing that I had come all the way from Lancashire in the expectation of finding them open, he might have derived some innocent mirth from my disappointment. The Royal Academy being no longer accessible, I turned into the National Gallery, and at once began to take notes in a pocket-book. This seems to have been my habit at that time. I took notes about everything--about painting, architecture, and even the Royal Mews. The notes are copious and wordy. Though destitute of literary merit, they certainly serve their purpose, for they recall things vividly enough, even in detail. Nothing of any importance is omitted. Although notes of that kind are unreadable, they are very useful afterwards for reference, and my time could scarcely have been better spent. I find I gave five hundred words to the description of Turner's "Building of Carthage," and other pictures are treated with equal liberality. I carried the same laborious system of note-making even into exhibitions. In later life one learns the art of doing such work more briefly. Having purchased a few prints for study, I returned to Lancashire and resumed my strict division of time. Four hours a day were given to practical drawing, but not invariably the entry is sometimes three or two only. When art lost an hour, literature gained it, either in study or practical writing. I was curiously accurate in my accounts of time, and knew to half-an-hour what was spent on this pursuit or that. Here is an extract in evidence of this tendency:-- "Thursday, August 13, 1853. Determined to-day to study the copper Albert Dürer 80 hours, having given 83 to the wood-cuts. I have already given the copper 101/2 hours, so that I have 691/2 to devote to it yet. I shall also give 40 hours to Kreutzer's violin studies, and have already practised them 24, which leaves 16. I shall now commence a course of poetical reading, beginning with 50 hours of Chaucer, and as I gave him 11/2 last night it leaves me exactly 481/2." This is carrying exactness to excess, and it is not given as an example to be followed, but it had the advantage of letting me know how my time expenditure was running. In this way it became clear that if I intended to be an artist the time given to practical work was insufficient. As no painter of eminence would take a pupil I bethought me of Mr. Pettitt, who had given me lessons at Keswick. He consented to take me, but said that he had left the north of England for London. In the Lake District he had been earning a small income; in London he earned twice as much, but his expenses increased in proportion. The change, however, was a disappointment to me, as it would have been more profitable to study from nature under my master's direction, than to copy pictures in a London studio. My new London life began at the end of December, 1853. It has always been, in my case, an effort little short of heroic to go and stay in a town at all. My dislike to towns increases in exact mathematical proportion to their size. The notion of going to London to study landscape-painting seemed against nature. The negotiations with Mr. Pettitt had been begun with the hope of a return to Derwentwater. However, one dark and drizzly evening in December I found myself seeking the number my new master had given me, in Percy Street. He was not there, that was his studio only; the house was in the suburbs. We met on the following morning in the studio, where stood an enormous picture of Nebuchadnezzar and the Golden Image. This was conceived on the principles of John Martin, with prodigious perspectives of impossible architecture, and the price was a thousand pounds. The labor involved was endless, but the whole enterprise was vain and futile from beginning to end. Pettitt could work honestly and laboriously from nature,--indeed, he never stinted labor in anything,--but such a large undertaking as this piece of mingled archaeology and art was alike beyond his knowledge and outside the range of his imagination. He was not to blame, except for an error of judgment. The demand for his work was feeble and uncertain, so he thought it necessary to attract attention by a sensation picture. To finish the history of this work without recurring to it, I have only to add that it proved in all ways, financially and otherwise, a failure. Mr. Pettitt was a most devoted student of nature, and his best pictures had the character of faithful studies. He would sit down in some rocky dell by the side of a stream in Wales, and paint rocks and trees month after month with indefatigable perseverance; but he had no education, either literary or artistic, and very little imaginative power. His only safety was in that work from nature, and he would have stuck to it most resolutely had there been any regularity in the encouragement he received; but his income, like that of all painters who are not celebrated, was very uncertain, and he could not quietly settle down to the tranquil studies that he loved. Anxiety had made him imprudent; it had driven him to try for notoriety. The Nebuchadnezzar picture, and other mistakes of a like magnitude, were the struggles of a disquieted mind. Pettitt had a very large family to maintain, and did nothing but paint, paint from morning till night, except for half-an-hour after his light lunch, when he read the "Times." As the great picture did not advance very rapidly, he worked by gaslight after the short London winter day, and often pursued his terrible task till the early hours of the morning, when exhausted nature could resist no longer, and be fell asleep on a little iron bed in the studio. There were days when he told me he had worked twenty hours out of the twenty-four. All this was a perfectly gratuitous expenditure of time and health that could not possibly lead to any advantage whatever. Pettitt was a very kind and attentive teacher, and his method was this: He would begin a picture in my presence, give me two white canvases exactly the same size, and then tell me to copy his hour's work twice over. Whilst he painted I watched; whilst I painted he did not look over me, but went on with his own work. He was always ready to answer any question and to help me over any difficulty. In this way he soon initiated me into the processes of oil-painting so far as I required any initiation, for most of them were familiar to me already. Unfortunately, Pettitt had no conception of art. This needs a short explanation, as the reader may allowably ask how a man without any conception of art could be even a moderately successful artist. The answer is that men like Mr. Pettitt regard painting simply as a representation of nature, and their pictures are really nothing but large and laborious studies. Pettitt was a most sincere lover of nature, but that was all; he knew little or nothing of those necessities and conditions that make art a different thing from nature. The tendency of his teaching was, therefore, to lead me to nature instead of leading me to art, and this was a great misfortune for me, as my instincts were only too much in the same direction already. I could get nature in the country, and that in endless abundance; what I needed at that time was some guidance into the realm of art. Pettitt taught me to draw in a hard, clear, scientific manner. He himself knew a little geology, and one of his sons was a well-informed geologist. I copied studies of cliffs that were entirely conceived and executed in the scientific spirit. The ideas of artistic synthesis, of seeing a subject as a whole, of subordination of parts, of concentration of vision, of obtaining results by opposition in form, light and shade, and color, all those ideas were foreign to my master's simple philosophy of art. In his view the artist had nothing to do but sit down to a natural subject and copy with the utmost diligence what was before him, first one part and then another, till the whole was done. My master, therefore, only confirmed me in my own tendencies, which were to turn my back on art and go to nature as the sole authority. Mr. Ruskin's influence had impelled me in the same direction. Every one is the product of his time and of his teachers. It is not my fault if the essentially artistic elements in art were hidden from me in my youth. Had I perceived them at that time they would only have seemed a kind of dishonesty. If Mr. Pettitt had written an autobiography it would have been extremely interesting. He was the twenty-fifth child of his father, and five were born after him. He began by being apprenticed to a cabinet-maker, but did not take to the work, and was put into a printing-office. Then he served an apprenticeship to a japanner, and married very early on incredibly small earnings, which, however, he increased by his rapidity in work and his incessant industry. Before the expiration of his apprenticeship he had a shop of his own, and sold japanned tea-trays and bellows. When he was able to rent a house, he made all the furniture with his own hands, and took a pride in having it very good, either solid mahogany or veneered. He saved money in the japanning business, and then on these savings undertook to teach himself painting. His earliest works were sold for anything they would fetch. Whilst I was in London he recognized one of them, a small picture that he immediately bought back for sixpence. There had been a fall in its market value, alas! for the original price was ninepence. Pettitt had a fancy for collecting his early daubs, as they confirmed his sense of progress. Having acquired some knowledge of painting, he engaged himself on weekly wages as a decorator of steamboat panels. His employers wanted quantity rather than finish, but Pettitt liked to finish as well as he could, and recommended his fellow-workmen to study from nature. This led to his dismissal. During the time of his poverty, Pettitt made an excursion into France, and being at Paris with a companion as penniless as himself, he had to devise means for reaching England without money. The pair had nothing of any value but a flute, and the flute had silver keys, so it was a precious article. With the proceeds in their pockets the friends tramped to Boulogne on foot, and there they arrived in the last stage of poverty. They cleaned themselves as well as they could before showing their faces at the hotel they had patronized when richer, and there they stayed for some days in the hope of a remittance from an uncle. That relative was of opinion that a little hardship would surely bring the travellers back to England, and so he sent them nothing. What was to be done? They avowed the whole case to the hotel-keeper, who not only made no attempt to detain them, but filled their empty purses. The story concludes prettily, for the obdurate uncle relented on their arrival, and at once repaid the Frenchman. Pettitt long preceded Mr. Louis Stevenson in the idea of travelling in France with a donkey. He, too, explored some mountainous districts in the centre or south of France with a donkey to carry his luggage, and the two companions slept out at nights, as Mr. Stevenson did afterwards. At last Pettitt met with an old woman whose lot seemed to him particularly hard. She had to walk from a hill-village down to the valley every day, nearly twenty miles going and returning; so Pettitt made her a present of his donkey, and she prayed for him most fervently. Another of my master's pedestrian rambles extended for fifteen hundred miles along the coast of Great Britain. During this excursion he accumulated a vast quantity of sketches, truthful memoranda, almost as accurate as the photographs which have now superseded studies of that kind. Pettitt had made astonishing progress considering the humble position he started from; but unfortunately for me he was not a man of culture, even in art. One of his friends, a journalist, who often called at the studio, and who saw a little deeper than most people, said to me one day that the art of painting, as practised by many fairly successful men (and he referred tacitly to my master), might be most accurately described as "a high-class industry." For my part I worked very steadily when in London, and made rapid progress. It was not quite in the right direction, unfortunately. No reader of these pages will be able to imagine what a sacrifice that stay in London was for me. The studio was never cleaned, and very badly ventilated. My master did not perceive this amidst the clouds of his own tobacco smoke, but for me, who had come from perfect cleanliness and the pure air of our northern hills, it was almost unbearable. CHAPTER XX. 1853-1854. Acquaintance with R. W. Mackay.--His learning and accomplishments.--His principal pursuit.--His qualities as a writer.--Value of the artistic element in literature.--C. R. Leslie, R. A.--Robinson the line-engraver.--The Constable family.--Mistaken admiration for minute detail.--Projected journey to Egypt.--Mr. Ruskin.--Bonomi.--Samuel Sharpe.--Tennyson. My lodgings were at Maida Hill, and I soon became personally acquainted with a writer whom I knew already by correspondence, Mr. R. W. Mackay, author of "The Progress of the Intellect." Mr. Mackay was for many years a kind friend of mine. An incident occurred long afterwards which put an end to this friendship. I made some reference to him in a review that was not intended to be unkind or depreciatory in any way, as I always felt a deep respect for Mr. Mackay, but unhappily he saw it in another light, and so it ended our intercourse. In 1853, and for long afterwards, there was nothing to foreshadow a rupture of this kind, and I am still able to write of my old friend as if he had always remained so. Mr. Mackay was primarily a scholar and secondarily an artist. He had been educated at Cambridge, and being gifted with an extraordinary memory, he accumulated learning in very abundant stores. As to his memory, it is said that he once accepted a challenge to recite a thousand lines of Virgil, and did it without error. He had a good practical knowledge of French and German. He possessed a large collection of water-color sketches made during his travels in Italy and elsewhere, work of a kind that an amateur might judiciously practise, as there was no false finish about them. They recalled scenes that had interested him either by their natural beauty, which he appreciated, or by association with classical literature. I hardly like to use the word "gentleman," because it is employed in so many different senses, but I never knew anybody who realized my conception of that ideal more perfectly than Mr. Mackay. In him, as Prince Leopold said of another, all culture and all refinement met. He was extremely simple in all his ways, and averse to every kind of vanity and ostentation. He had a sufficient fortune for a refined life, and did not care for any kind of wasteful extravagance. All belonging to him was simple and in good taste. He did not see very much society; that which he did see included several men and women of distinguished ability. Mr. Mackay's chief pursuit was one to which I would never have devoted laborious years--theology on the negative side. His idea was that the liberation of thought could only be accomplished by going painfully over the whole theological ground and _explaining_ every belief and phase of belief historically and rationally. My opinion was, and is, that all this trouble is superfluous. The true liberation must come from the enlargement of the mind by wider and more accurate views of the natural universe. As this takes place, the mediaeval beliefs must drop away of themselves, and we now see that this process is actually in operation. So far from devoting a life to the refutation of theological error, I would not bestow upon such an unnecessary and thankless toil the labor of a week or a day. The habit of study and reflection had done Mr. Mackay some harm in one respect; it had withdrawn him too much from commonplace reality. He always seemed to be moving in a dream, and to recall himself to the actual world by an effort. This is a result of excessive culture that I have observed in other cases. My conclusion is that all the culture in the world, all the learning, all the literary skill and taste put together, are not so well worth having as the keen and clear sense of present reality that common folks have by nature. Mr. Mackay was a laborious and careful writer, and he had a good style of its kind, though it was more remarkable for strength and soundness than for vivacity and ease. It was too much of one texture to be attractive, and so he never became a popular author. Of course the heterodoxy of Mr. Mackay's opinions was one great cause of his failure to catch the public ear in England, but even that difficulty can be got over by a great literary artist. He tried to do his best, as to literary form, but he never condescended to write for the market in any way, and used to maintain that if a book was to be profitable it _must_ be written for the market. I do not quite agree with this opinion. I should say, rather, that literature resembles painting in being one of the fine arts, and that when a book, like a picture, is a fine work of art, it has a great chance of being a commercial success. Renan's books have been very successful literary speculations, because Renan is a first-rate artist. Mackay would have been a better artist in literature if he had not been so much overpowered by the immense masses of his materials. Amongst the new friends I gained at Mr. Mackay's house was C. R. Leslie, the painter. I was charmed with him from the first, and retain to this day the liveliest recollection of his exquisitely urbane manners, and even of the tones of his voice. Leslie was a man of unquestionable genius, but entirely free from the tendency to despise other people, which so often accompanies genius. On first meeting with him I took him for a clergyman, and told him of it later. He felt rather flattered than otherwise by the mistake, and I have no doubt that his modest nature would at once refer to points on which the average clergyman would probably be his superior. Some artists are lost in admiration of their own works, so that the way to please them is to praise what they have done themselves; but the way to please Leslie was to praise what Constable had done. His admiration for Constable was quite as strong a passion as Mr. Ruskin's admiration of Turner, though it did not express itself in such perfervid language. I might at that time have become Constable's pupil, indirectly. Leslie would have educated me in the art of that master. I had nothing to do but work by myself, copying studies and pictures by Constable in a studio of my own within a short distance of Leslie's house, and he would have come to me often to advise. Robinson, the eminent line-engraver, strongly urged me to put myself under Leslie's direction, and this, I believe, was the Academician's kind, indirect way of offering it. On the other hand, I did not wish to hurt Pettitt by leaving him, and Constable's choice of quiet rural subjects was to me, at that time, uninteresting. I disliked tame scenery, not having as yet the artistic perceptions which are needed for the appreciation of it. Leslie introduced me to Constable's family, who were very kind, and they showed me all the sketches of his that remained in their possession. My love for precise and definite drawing made me unable to see the real merits of those studies, though I was not much mistaken in thinking that drawing of the quality I then cared for was not to be found in them. Constable was essentially what the French understand by the word _paysagiste_; that is, an artist who studies the every-day aspects of common nature broadly. He would have done me much good at that time, if I had felt interested in him, but the lover of the Western Highlands could not bring himself to care for the fields and hedgerows about Flatford. Pettitt, at any rate, loved our Lake District and Wales. Again, though I had a hearty and just admiration for Leslie's unrivalled power of painting expression in the faces of ladies and gentlemen in drawing-rooms, I had never seen any landscape by him except tame backgrounds, which seemed to me quite secondary, as they were. I had at that time a mistaken belief (derived originally from Mr. Ruskin and confirmed by Mr. Pettitt) that there was something essentially meritorious in bestowing great labor on a work of art. It is well for an artist to be habitually industrious, because that increases his skill, but it is a matter of indifference whether this or that picture has cost much or little labor, provided that the artist has clearly expressed what he desired. Mr. Robinson, the line-engraver, gave me a good lesson on this subject. We were looking at a drawing by Millais in Indian ink which was penned all over in minute hatchings. I was full of admiration for the industry of the artist, but Robinson thought it labor thrown away. I met Mr. Ruskin personally one evening, and we examined a water-color by John Lewis which was on a table-desk. The drawing was fortunately glazed, for as Mr. Ruskin was holding the candle over it the composite dropped on the glass. He pointed out the minute beauties of a camel's eye, which was painted so carefully that even the hairs of the eyelash were given, and the reflections on the mirror of the eye. This praise of minute detail was at that time only too much in accordance with my own taste. I had an intense admiration for such feats of skilled industry as the wonderful lattices that Lewis used to paint with the eastern sunshine streaming through them on a variety of different surfaces. I met John Lewis himself. He was a fine-looking man, with a beard which at that time was of the purest silvery white. I afterwards had the advantage of a little correspondence with Lewis. He wrote well, and expressed his opinions about art-work very clearly in his letters. They amounted chiefly to this: Work always as much from nature as possible, and give all the care you can. At that time I had a settled scheme for going to travel and work in Egypt, and it would have been better for me than Scotland on account of the greater sameness of the effects. I mentioned this project to Mr. Ruskin, who said that he avoided travelling in countries where he could not be sure of ordinary comforts, such as a white table-cloth and a clean knife and fork; still, he would put up with a great deal of inconvenience to be near a mountain. Talking of Turner's paintings in comparison with his water-colors, he said he would rather have half the drawings than all the oil pictures. He compared a drawing of Nemi with an oil picture that we could see at the same time, two works almost of the same date, and gave reasons for preferring the water-color. My Egyptian scheme brought me into relations with Bonomi, who at that time was a famous traveller. Bartlett, the artist-traveller, whose works had been very widely spread abroad by engraving, told me that when he was ill of a fever at Baalbec he was nursed by a sheik who wore a beard and rode an Arab horse. This sheik spoke English, and was, in fact, Bonomi, who had adopted the manners of the wandering Arabs, and would have remained amongst them if his English friends had not persuaded him to return. Bonomi was one of the liveliest little men I ever met. I feel almost guilty of a fraud with regard to him, for his amiability towards me was due in great part to his belief of my statement that I was going to Egypt; yet I never went there, and shall certainly not go now. My only excuse is that I sincerely believed the same statement myself. He said that the effects of color and light in Egypt at morning and evening were perfectly inconceivable. He recommended me to travel, not on the Nile itself, but on the bank with camels, as that gave a greatly superior view, both of the country and the river. Mr. Samuel Sharpe was a charming, straightforward old gentleman, who said what he thought, without any feeble concession to other people's opinions. He did not share the prevalent enthusiasm for Turner, which was of course in great part factitious, as many of the people who praised Turner so warmly then had laughed at his pictures a few years before. Mr. Sharpe thought that Turner was an unsafe guide for a young landscape-painter to imitate. It is remarkable, as a matter of fact, how little practical influence Turner has had upon the progress of landscape art. Another and a stronger proof of the independence of Mr. Sharpe's judgment was his opinion about England and Russia. He did not think it necessary to oppose Russia's progress towards Constantinople by force, but thought there was room enough for the two empires without collision. If Mr. Sharpe's opinion had prevailed, there would have been no Crimean War, but he and those who thought with him were very much isolated at that time. I met at his house a cousin of Miss Martineau, who told us some good stories, especially about Tennyson. On this a brother of our host said that he was once travelling when he met with a party of tourists, among whom he recognized the Laureate. "Who _is_ that gentleman?" said they. "He has been the life and soul of our party, and we cannot get a clue to his name, for he has baffled us in every way, tearing it off his luggage and out of the book he was reading." Mr. Sharpe betrayed the secret, not much to the Laureate's satisfaction. When travelling in Scotland some time afterwards I myself met with Tennyson, so a tourist kindly explained who he was in these words: "That's Alfred Tennyson, _the American poet_." Such is fame! CHAPTER XXI. 1854. A visit to Rogers.--His home.--Geniality in poets.--Talfourd.--Sir Walter Scott.--Leslie's picture, "The Rape of the Lock."--George Leslie.--Robert Leslie.--His nautical instincts.--Watkiss Lloyd.-- Landseer.--Harding.--Richard Doyle. Mr. Leslie took me one afternoon to see old Mr. Rogers, the poet. When we arrived he was out for a drive, so we quietly examined the works of art in the house until his return. The interest of that house was quite peculiar to itself. Even the arrangement of the furniture had been unaltered for years, and as the rooms, just as we saw them, had been visited by most people of note during nearly two generations, they had an interest from association with famous names that could not be rivalled, at that time, by any other rooms in London. The dining-room, for example, was exactly in the same state as when Byron dined there, and would eat nothing but a biscuit. Leslie said: "I have seen Mrs. Siddons sitting on the corner of that sofa near the fire, and Walter Scott walk up to her and shake hands." Leslie mentioned many other celebrities, but none of them were so interesting to me as the authors of "Waverley" and "Childe Harold." Many of the material objects about us had a history of their own. A stand that carried an antique vase had been carved by Chantrey when a young unknown furniture-carver, and so had the sideboard, as Chantrey reminded Mr. Rogers long afterwards, when he was received as a guest in the same room. The fender, chimney-piece, and ceiling had been designed by Flaxman, the panels of a cabinet had been painted by Stothard. We went upstairs to see some pictures in Rogers' bedroom, in itself a very simple, homely place, with the old man's flannels warming before the fire. The picture in that room which pleased me most was a subject borrowed from Raphael, by Leslie,--a lady teaching her boy to read,--but it was treated freely by Leslie from other models. The boy was his son George (the future Academician) when young; he had already begun to be good-looking. As we were examining this picture, Mr. Rogers returned from his drive and received us in the dining-room. He said, "Mr. Hamerton, I think I've seen you before," but I said he was mistaken, so he held out his hand and went on: "Well then, I'm very glad to see you now, especially so well introduced. Have you been all over the house? You have the honor of knowing a very distinguished artist. Look at that picture on the sideboard, of the poor babes in the Tower! Don't you like it? I think it is beautiful, beautiful. Nobody ought to be able to look at such a picture without shedding tears. See the light on the heads--oh! it is beautiful!" Then he began to ramble a little, but soon came back to realities, and invited Leslie to dine the next day and meet two distinguished friends. "I'd rather have you by yourself," he added; "you and I could do very well without the others." This was the Rogers of 1854,--senile, as was natural at the age of ninety-one years and eight months, yet still retaining much of the old Rogers, hospitable, sometimes caustic, sometimes pathetic, and always a true lover and appreciator of the fine arts. Leslie declared him to be the only amateur who had knowledge enough to form a good collection without assistance. I dined with Leslie the same day, and the talk turned upon the poets. Leslie said that the virtue of geniality was of great value to a poet, and that if Byron had possessed the geniality of Goldsmith, he would have been as great a poet as Shakespeare, but that his misanthropy spoiled all his views of life. In saying this, Leslie probably underestimated the literary value of ill-nature. Much of Byron's intensity and force is due to the energy of malevolence. The success of Ruskin's earlier writings was due in part to the same cause. In periodical literature, it was pure _méchanceté_ that first made the "Saturday Review" successful. Talking of Talfourd (who had lately died on the bench) Leslie said that he was a high liver, and that led him to give an account of Sir Walter Scott's way of life. At dinner he would eat heartily of many dishes and drink a variety of wines. At dessert he drank port; and last of all a servant brought him a small wooden bowl full of neat whiskey, which he drank off. He then either wrote or talked till midnight, and refreshed himself with a few glasses of porter before going to bed. Leslie did not mean to imply that Scott was intemperate for a man of a robust constitution who took a great deal of exercise, but only that, like Talfourd, he was a high liver. It is remarkable, in connection with the subject of Scott's own habits, that eating and drinking are so often and so minutely described in his novels. His heroes and heroines always have hearty appetites, except when they are laid up with illness. A few days after our visit to Rogers, I went to see Leslie's picture of "The Rape of the Lock," and met Robinson, the engraver, on my way. He told me to expect the finest modern picture I had ever seen. It was certainly one of the most perfect works of its class. The action and expression of the sixteen figures were as lively as in a Hogarth, with more refinement. Leslie was completely in sympathy with Queen Anne's time, and reproduced it with unfailing zest and knowledge. He had been very careful about details. The interior at Hampton Court had been painted on the spot, and all the still life in the picture, even to a fan, had been studied with equal accuracy. Mrs. Leslie's mother sat looking at the picture, and making the liveliest comments on the subject and the actors. She would get up without hesitation to see something more nearly, and turn round with perfect balance of body to make her remarks to the company. She appeared to me then to be about sixty, but the age of her daughter made that impossible. _Her real age was ninety-three!_ It seemed incredible that she was older than Mr. Rogers. Her grandchildren were playfully sarcastic at times, to draw her out in argument. "We know, grandmamma, that you are a dandy yourself, so no wonder that you admire the dresses in the picture." "Yes, yes, I _do_ like people to be dressed as well as possible,--as well, I mean, as they can really afford. I like them to wear the very best materials as tastefully as they can." Whilst she was looking at the picture, Mr. Leslie sat down by her side and read the passage from "The Rape of the Lock" that his painting illustrated. It was a very interesting scene--the master with his children about him, and his wife and her old mother all looking at his last and greatest work, whilst he was reading Pope's perfect verses so beautifully. I have scarcely mentioned Leslie's sons yet. George, the future Academician, was an intimate friend of mine in those days. He was a clever talker, and he had the advantage--often precious to a taciturn companion like me--of never allowing the conversation to flag for a single instant. I think I never knew any one of the male sex, with the exception of Francis Palgrave, who could keep up such an abundant stream of talk as George Leslie. This led some of his friends to think that he would never have any practical success in art, but he afterwards proved them to be in the wrong. He had a frank, straightforward, boyish nature, with a fund of humor, and a healthy disposition to be easily pleased. His philosophy of life, under an appearance of careless gayety, was, perhaps, in reality deeper than that of my learned friend Mr. Mackay; for whilst the elderly scholar was laboring painfully and thanklessly to elucidate the past, the young artist was enjoying the present in his own way, and looking forward hopefully to the future. The buoyancy of spirits that George Leslie had in those days is an excellent gift for a young artist, because it carries him merrily over the difficulties of his craft. His brother Robert was older and graver. He painted landscape and marine subjects; but though his pictures have been regularly accepted at the Academy he has had no popular success. This may be attributed in great part to his habit of living away from London. Robert Leslie has all his life had very strong nautical instincts, and very likely knows more about shipping than any other artist. My belief is that one reason why he has not been a very successful painter is that he knows too much about nature, and lives too much in the presence of nature, which is always overwhelming and discouraging. After I knew him in London, Robert Leslie indulged his nautical instincts in sailing and yacht-building, as well as in painting marine pictures. Aided only by a single workman, he constructed a vessel of thirty-six tons. With this and other yachts he has made himself familiar with the southern coasts of England, and has frequently crossed the Atlantic both on steamers and sailing-vessels. Now that we are both getting elderly men I heartily regret not to have seen more of Robert Leslie; but so it is in life,--so it has been particularly in _my_ life,--we are separated by distance from those who might have been our most intimate and most valued friends. [Footnote: Robert Leslie had a literary gift, and wrote some clever papers, which have been collected and published under the title of "A Sea Painter's Log."] Another friend, gained during my first stay in London, was Mr. Watkiss Lloyd, who has given up many of the best years of his life to intellectual pursuits. He has been much devoted to ancient Greek literature and history, and has studied Greek art with unflagging interest at the same time, so that he possesses an advantage over most scholars in knowing both sides of the Hellenic intellect. He has a manly, frank, and generous nature, with cheerful, open manners. Watkiss Lloyd is one of several superior men amongst my acquaintances who have not achieved popularity as authors. The reason in his case may be that as he has never been obliged to write for money, he has never cared to study the conditions of success. I told him once, when we were talking on this subject, that in my opinion it was most necessary to have a clear and definite idea of the kind of public one is addressing, and that we ought to write to an especial public, as St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians. Failure may be caused by having confused ideas about our public, or by writing only for ourselves, as if our works were destined to remain in manuscript like a private journal. A man may write what is clear for himself, when it will require to be read twice or three times by another. Besides this reason, I am inclined to believe that the constant study of ancient Greek is not a good preparation for popular English authorship. The scholar and the successful writer are two distinct persons. They may be occasionally combined in one by accident, but if the reader will run over in his mind the names of popular modern authors, he will find very few distinguished scholars amongst them. However this may be, Watkiss Lloyd is something better than a popular author; he is an intellectual man, truly a lover of knowledge and of wisdom. Without shutting his eyes to the evils that are in the world, he does not forget the good. On one occasion, after a terrible malady that had occurred to one dear to him, I said that undeserved diseases seemed to me clear evidence of imperfection in the universe. He answered, that as we receive many benefits from the existing order of things that we have not merited in any way, so we may accept those evils that we have not merited either. This struck me as a better reason for resignation than the common assertion that we are wicked enough to deserve the most frightful inflictions. We do not really believe that our wickedness deserves cancer or leprosy. I never wished to push myself into the society of celebrated persons for the purpose of getting acquainted with them, but I plead guilty to that degree of curiosity which likes to see them in the flesh. I knew Landseer by sight, and probably rather astonished him once in a London street by taking my hat off as if he had been Prince Albert. He used to pass an evening from time to time at Leslie's house, and I met him there. He then seemed a very jovial, merry English humorist, with a natural talent for satire and mimicry; but there was another side to his nature. If he enjoyed himself heartily when in company, he often suffered from deep depression when alone. I remember seeing him by himself when he looked the image of profound melancholy. At that time I had warmer admiration for his art than I have now, and the general public looked upon him as the greatest artist in England. No doubt he was very observant, and had a wonderful memory for animals and their ways, as well as some invention; he had also unsurpassable technical skill, of a superficial kind, in painting. Harding was another very clever artist whom I met at Leslie's. I had correspondence with him a little as a teacher, and had studied his works. He had taught many amateurs, including Mr. Ruskin and a clever friend of mine in the North. I admired his skill, but disliked his extreme artificiality of style, and the more I went to nature the more objectionable did it appear to me. The kind of success which is attained by forcing nature into drawing-masters' set forms never tempted me in the least. Harding was at one time probably the most successful drawing-master in England. The word "clever" characterizes him exactly. He was clever in the art of substituting himself for nature, clever in the wonderful facility with which he used several graphic arts technically very different from each other, and clever especially in that supreme tact of the successful drawing-master by which he makes the amateur seem to get forward rapidly. He had immense confidence in himself, and in his own theories and principles. Another well-known artist whom I met at Leslie's was Richard Doyle. He had great gifts of wit and invention, with a curiously small fund of science,--genius without the knowledge that might have given strength to genius. It is impossible, however, to feel any regret on this account, for if Doyle's drawings had been thoroughly learned they would have lost their _naïveté_. He was intelligent enough to make even his lack of science an element of success, for he turned it into a pretended simplicity. His own face was mobile and expressive, and it was evident that he passed quickly from one idea to another without uttering more than a small percentage of his thoughts. I remember dancing "Sir Roger de Coverley" when Landseer and Richard Doyle were of the set. They were both extremely amusing, but with this difference: that whereas Landseer evidently laid himself out to be funny in gesture and action, the fun in Doyle's case lay entirely in the play of his physiognomy. Leslie, too, had a most expressive face--not handsome (I mean, of course, the elder Leslie; his son George is handsome), but most interesting, and full of meaning. CHAPTER XXII. 1854. Miss Marian Evans.--John Chapman, the publisher.--My friend William Shaw.--His brother Richard.--Mead, the tragedian.--Mrs. Rowan and her daughter.--A vexatious incident.--I suffer from nostalgia for the country. Mr. Mackay took me to one of the evening receptions that were given at that time by Mr. John Chapman, the publisher. On our way he spoke of Miss Marian Evans, then only known to a few as a translator from the German, and to still fewer as a contributor of articles to the "Westminster Review,"--a periodical that she partly directed. Neither the translations nor the articles revealed anything beyond good ordinary literary abilities. Mr. Mackay told me, however, that this Miss Evans was a very accomplished lady, and played remarkably well on the piano. She was at Mr. Chapman's little conversazione, and performed for us. I remember being well pleased with the music, and thinking that she was one of the best amateurs I had heard, but I cannot remember what she played, nor anything about her talk, which would probably be a series of little private conversations with people that she already knew. Mr. John Chapman was young at that time, and a very fine-looking man. He had entered upon the most unprofitable line of business that he could have chosen in the England of those days, the trade in philosophic free-thinking literature of the highest class. The number of buyers was, of course, exceedingly limited, both by the thoughtful character of the works published, and by the unpopularity of the opinions expressed in them. The marvel is that such a speciality in publishing could be made to support itself at all. As a matter of fact, some of the wealthier free-thinkers published their works, or those of others, at their own expense, and some helped to maintain the "Westminster Review." Things have altered wonderfully since then. At the present day the literature of free inquiry is presented to the world by the richest and most eminent publishing firms, and free-thinkers have access to the most influential and the most widely disseminated periodicals. Some readers of this autobiography may still look upon John Chapman's speciality with horror; but such a feeling would be unjust. The books he published were generally high in tone, and they certainly never condescended to the use of unbecoming language in dealing with matters held sacred by the majority of the English people. The only object of that modest propaganda was to win for Englishmen the right to think for themselves, and also to express their thoughts. That battle has been won, and, for my part, I feel nothing but respect for those who had courage to confront the stern intolerance of the past. My society in London was not entirely confined to the pursuers of literature and art. I had a few other friends, especially one old school-fellow, William Shaw, afterwards an able London solicitor. His mind was an odd compound of manly sense in everything connected with his profession, and boyishness in other ways. He always retained that boyishness, which was probably an excellent thing for him as a relaxation from serious cares. He took little interest in the fine arts, but at a later period he had the wonderful goodness to give house-room to some of my unpopular and unsalable pictures, and went so far, in the way of friendship, that he actually hung them in his dining-room! He was very fond of recalling reminiscences of our childhood, especially what he characterized as "the great Fulledge railway swindle." When we were little boys we undertook the construction of a miniature railway on his father's land, and issued shares to pay for the rolling plant and the rails. We got together rather a handsome sum in this way from various good-natured friends, and after the expiration of some weeks could show them a rather long embankment. Then we got tired of spade work, and the enterprise languished. Finally the works came to a standstill, and I believe we spent the shareholders' money on something else, for assuredly they never saw it again. After beginning so hopefully in the art of getting up bubble companies, it is perhaps to be regretted that we did not continue, as we might have been eminent financiers by this time. My friend was very active in his youth. I have seen him run by the side of a galloping horse in a field, holding by the mane, and vault on the animal's back, after which it went on faster than ever and leapt a little brook or a hedge. An odd incident occurs to my recollection just now. My friend had a susceptible heart, and a ravishing beauty was staying at a certain, country house, so we drove over to call there that he might see her. I went with him, and we had a dog-cart with a very lively horse. The drive was in the form of a great circle before the front door, so he tried to turn to the left; but the horse had decided for the right, and between them they effected a compromise by taking a straight cut over the lawn and flower-beds, which presented a deplorable appearance afterwards. Any one else would have felt a little confused after such an accident, but Shaw relied upon the good-nature of the ladies, who always forgave him everything in consideration for his winning ways and his handsome face. William Shaw's brother, Richard, was the first member of Parliament who represented Burnley. I met him in London in 1854, and remember a description he gave of an old gentleman who was then living permanently at the Tavistock Hotel. That old gentleman was a perfect mystery; no one knew where he came from: he never either wrote or received a letter, he had no settled occupation, but read all the papers, and used to swear aloud quite dreadfully when he found any fact or opinion that displeased him. He compensated for this bad language by shouting "Bravo! bravo! Go it, my boy!" when he found an article to his mind. He once rambled twice round Covent Garden market without being able to find his way out, and on discovering that he had got back to the Tavistock, attributed all his difficulties to the waiter, and scolded him most furiously. The mystery about him, and his odd manners, would have been an attraction for Dickens. Amongst other acquaintances that I made in London was Mead, the tragedian of Drury Lane Theatre. I recollect admiring his "Iago" very much. His countenance, which was agreeable and bland in private life, could be made to express all the evil passions with astonishing power. He was rather a skilful painter, having occasionally been able to sell a picture for twenty pounds. When he had a little time to spare, Mead would come and work on Pettitt's great picture of the Golden Image. He once drew my portrait, and I drew his. My guardian was not quite pleased that I should know an actor, but Mead attracted me by the superior tone of his conversation. It was the first time in my life that I had met with an accomplished talker; I had known plenty of talkers who were only fluent, but Mead had always something interesting to say, and he invariably said it with easy finish and good taste. In a word, he was a master of spoken English, and did not fear to make use of his power, not having the usual English false shame which prevents our countrymen from saying things quite perfectly. Mead had tender feelings. Once after reading in a newspaper the account of some battle of no great importance, as we consider such events from a distance, he suddenly realized, in imagination, the effect of the news on the relatives of the killed and wounded, and burst into tears. Mead was good enough to accept on one or two occasions the simple kind of hospitality that I could offer him at my lodgings, and I find notes in the diary recording the happy swiftness of the hours I spent with him. I never made the slightest attempt to enter what is specially called "London Society," though I had some friends or acquaintances who belonged to it. My time was entirely taken up with work and visits to a few houses. I am astonished on looking back to those days by the extreme kindness of people who were much older than myself, and for whom my society could have no other attraction than the opportunity it offered for the exercise of their own goodness. I had one merit, that of being an excellent listener, which has been a great advantage to me through life. A distinguished Frenchman once said to me, "You are the best listener I ever met;" but he had been accustomed to his own countrymen who are not generally patient or attentive for more than a few seconds at a time, and who have the habit of interruption. It is possible, too, that my manners may have been good, for my dear guardian, so kind and mild about most things, could not tolerate anything like boorishness, and never hesitated to correct me. Another effect of her influence upon me was that I liked the society of well-bred ladies, and felt quite at ease in it. There was a most intelligent Danish family of ladies, Mrs. Rowan and her daughters, who received me very kindly. They spoke English wonderfully, with something like a slight Cumberland accent, and I believe their German was as good as their English. Mrs. Rowan had been a friend of Thorwaldsen the sculptor, and possessed three hundred and fifty of his original drawings, which I did not see, as she had lent them to Prince Albert. A singular and most vexatious incident is associated in my memory with those drawings, and I am sure Mrs. Rowan could never think of them without remembering it. She had (too kindly) lent them to an artist, who returned them, indeed, but not without having exercised his own talents in improving them, as drawing-masters do to the work of their youthful pupils. The reader may imagine the depth of Mrs. Rowan's gratitude. Her daughter, Frederica, whose name afterwards became generally known, was one of the most cultivated and agreeable women I ever met. Her nature had been a little saddened by family misfortunes (the Rowans had been a very wealthy family in Denmark), but her quiet gravity was of a noble kind, and if she took life seriously she had sufficient reasons for doing so. My studies under Mr. Pettitt went on very regularly all this time, and I made great _apparent_ progress, although, as will be seen later, it was not progress in the right direction. One little incident may be mentioned in proof that I could at least imitate closely. The reader is already aware that my master's system of teaching consisted in bringing a picture slowly forward in my presence, whilst I was to copy what had been done. One day, when the picture had got well forward, Mr. Pettitt took up my copy by mistake and put it on his own easel. After he had worked upon it for a quarter of an hour I thanked him for the improvement. He said he had been quite unconscious of the difference, and told me to work on his own canvas to repay him for his labor on mine. Critics will please understand that I know how little this proves as well as they do. It proves nothing beyond a talent for imitation and the possession of some manual skill. I have sometimes thought in later life that if instead of going so much to nature I had mimicked some particular painter I might have obtained recognition as an artist. Notwithstanding so much that was agreeable in my London life, it was still a hard trial of resolution for me to work in a close, ill-ventilated, and gloomy studio without any view from its window, and in the beginning of April I returned to the country. From that day to this I have never lived in London, which has probably been a misfortune to me, both as artist and writer. I have been there frequently on business, but have never stayed a day or an hour longer than the time necessary to get through what was most pressing. It is curious, but perfectly true, that I have never in my life felt the slightest desire to purchase or rent any house whatever in London, and there is not a house in all "the wilderness of brick" that I would accept as a free gift if it were coupled with the condition that I should live in it. CHAPTER XXIII. 1854 Some of my relations emigrate to New Zealand,--Difficulties of a poor gentleman.--My uncle's reasons for emigration.--His departure.--Family separations.--Our love for Hollins. In the month of April, 1854, an event occurred which was of great importance in our family. My eldest uncle, Holden Hamerton, emigrated to New Zealand with all his children, and a son and daughter of my uncle Hinde accompanied them. This suddenly reduced our circle by eleven persons, without counting a young family belonging to my cousin Orme. My uncle, who was at that time a solicitor in Halifax, had reached a very critical period in the life of a _père de famille_. His children were grown up and expensive, and he had tried various ways of economizing without any definite result. Amongst others, he had given up Hopwood Hall, his mansion in Halifax, and had converted the stabling at Hollins into a residence for his wife and the children who remained with her. The stables were large enough to make a spacious dwelling. I remember the regret I felt on seeing the workmen pull down the handsome oak stalls, and remove the beautiful pavement, which was in blocks of smooth stone carefully bevelled at the angles. My unfortunate uncle lived like a bachelor in a small house in Halifax to be near his office, and only came to Hollins for the Sunday. It is, of course, very easy to criticize a comparatively poor gentleman with a large family who is trying not to be ruined. It is easy to say that he ought to live strictly within his income, whatever it may be; but to do that strictly would require an iron resolution. He must cut short all indulgences, annihilate all elegancies, set his face against all the customs of his class. His attitude towards his wife and children must be one of stern refusal steadily and implacably maintained. If he relaxes--and all the influences around him tend to make him relax--the old habits of customary expense will re-establish themselves in a few weeks. He must cut his family off from all society, and with regard to himself he must do what is far more difficult--cut himself off from all domestic affection, behave like a heartless miser, and, at the very time when he most needs a little solace and peace in his own home, constitute himself the executor of the pitiless laws that govern the human universe. My uncle was not equal to all this. He could make hard sacrifices for himself, and, in fact, did reduce his own comforts to those of a poor bachelor, but he could not find in his heart to refuse everything to his family; so that although they made no pretension now to anything like an aristocratic position, my uncle still found himself to be living rather beyond his means, and the expense of establishing his sons and daughters in England being now imminent, and avoidable only in one way, he spent days, and I fear also nights, of anxiety in arriving at a determination. A journey to Scotland settled the matter. My uncle visited his eldest son Orme, who was then at Greenock, and he discovered, as I had done, that my cousin was married. Of course I had kept his secret, having found it out by accident when a guest under his roof. The young man offered to accompany his father to New Zealand, and my uncle, who loved his eldest son, thought that this would be some compensation for leaving England. He did not know that Orme's irresistible instinct for changing his residence would make the New Zealand expedition no more than a temporary excursion for him. Another reason for emigrating to New Zealand was this: My uncle's second son, Lewis, had abandoned the profession of the law and gone to Australia by himself, where he was now a shepherd in the bush. He would rejoin his father, and they would be a re-united family. All of them would be together in New Zealand except one, my cousin Edward, who lay in the family vault in Burnley Church. I had feelings of the strongest fraternal affection for Edward, and if the reader cares to see his likeness, he has only to look at the engraved portraits of Shelley, especially the one in Moxon's double-column edition of 1847. The likeness there is so striking that, for me, it supplies the place of any other. Edward died at the age of seventeen. He had a gentle and sweet nature; but although he resembled Shelley so closely in outward appearance, he was without any poetical tendency. His gifts were arithmetical and mathematical, and whenever he had a quarter of an hour to spare he was sure to take a piece of paper and cover it all over with figures. His early death certainly spared him much trouble that he was hardly qualified to meet. He had that dislike to physical exercise which often accompanies delicate health, though there was no appearance of weakness till the beginning of his fatal illness. I well remember my uncle's last visit to his sisters. He did not say that it was his last, but left some clean linen in the house, saying he would want it when he came again. In this way there was a little make-belief of hope; but I doubt if my aunts were really deceived, and I did not quite know what to think. My uncle seemed flushed and excited, and contradicted me rather sharply because I happened to be in error about something of no importance. It was a hard moment for him, as he loved his sisters, and had the deepest attachment to Hollins, where he was born, and where he had passed the happiest days of his life. His last visit has remained so distinct in my memory that I can even now see clearly his great stalwart figure in the chair on the right-hand side of the fireplace. Then he left us and passed the window, and since that day he never was seen again at his old place. I can imagine what it must have been to him to turn round at the avenue gate, and look back on the gables of Hollins, knowing it to be for the last time. His wife and the rest of his family went away without inflicting upon themselves and us the pain of a farewell. I was present, however, at Featherstone when my cousin Hinde left for New Zealand. One of his sisters accompanied him out of pure sisterly devotion. She thought he would be lonely out in the colony, so she would go and stay with him till he married. He did not marry, and she never returned. The colonial strength of England is founded upon these family separations, but they are terrible when they occur, especially when the parents are left behind in the old country. To us who remained this wholesale emigration in our family produced the effect of a great and sudden mortality. For my part I have received exactly one letter from the New Zealand Hamertons since they left. It was a very interesting letter, interesting enough to make me regret "there was but one." My uncle's property sold well, and on leaving England he had still a balance of ten thousand pounds in his pocket, which was more than most emigrants set out with; but he built a good house on the estate he purchased, and it was ruined in the war. His wife was a woman of great courage and wonderful constitutional cheerfulness, both severely tested by three months of incessant sea-sickness on the outward voyage. They met with one terrible storm, during which the captain did not hope to save the vessel, and my uncle and aunt sat together in their cabin clasping each other's hands, and calmly awaiting death. After their departure my guardian and her sister remained at Hollins as tenants of the new proprietor. We still clung to the old place, but it did not seem the same to us. On the night of the sale by auction my aunt said to me, sadly, as we took our candlesticks to go to bed: "It is strange to think that we positively do not know under whose roof we are going to sleep to-night." The change was felt most painfully by her. My guardian had a more resigned way of accepting the evils of life; she had a kind of Christian pessimism that looked upon terrestrial existence as not "worth living" in itself, and a little less or more of trouble and sorrow in this world seemed to her scarcely worth considering, being only a part of the general unsatisfactoriness of things. Her sister had intense local attachments, and the most intense of them all was for this place, her birthplace, where she had passed her youth. This attachment was increased in her case by a strong, deep, and poetic sentiment that I hardly like to call aristocratic, because that word will have other associations (of pride in expensive living) for most readers. My aunt had the true sentiment of ancestry, and it was painful to her to see a place go out of a family. I have the same sentiment, though with less intensity, and there were other reasons that made me love Hollins very much. At that time the natural beauty that surrounded it was quite unspoilt. We were near to the streams and the moors that I delighted in, and the idea of being obliged to leave, as we might be at any time by the new proprietor, was painful to a degree that only lovers of nature will understand. Even now, in my fifty-fourth year, I very often dream about Hollins, about the old garden there, and the fields and woods, and the rocky stream. Sometimes the place is sadly and stupidly altered in my dream, and I am irritated; at other times it is improved and enriched, and the very landscape is idealized into a nobler and more perfect beauty. I need only add to this account of my uncle's emigration, that when he landed on the shores of New Zealand in much perplexity as to where he should go to find a temporary lodging, a colonist met him, and said that he had been told by the Masonic authorities to receive him fraternally. This he did by taking the whole family under his roof and entertaining them as if they had been old friends, thereby giving my uncle ample time to make his own arrangements. In a later chapter of this autobiography I intend to give a short account of what happened to the emigrants afterwards. CHAPTER XXIV. 1854. Resignation of commission in the militia.--Work from nature.--Spenser, the poet.--Hurstwood.--Loch Awe revisited.--A customer.--I determine to learn French well.--A tour in Wales.--Swimming.--Coolness on account of my religious beliefs.--My guardian.--Evil effects of religious bigotry.--Refuge in work.--My drawing-master.--Our excursion in Craven. After returning to the country I went through another militia training, and soon afterwards resigned my commission. According to my present views of things I should probably not have done so, as it would be a satisfaction to me now to feel myself of some definite use to my country, even in the humble capacity of a militia officer; but in those days the militia was not taken seriously by the nation, so the officers did not take it seriously either, and, after a brief trial, a great many of them resigned. The recognized motive for going into the militia was a social motive, and as I never had any social ambition it mattered nothing to me that there were a few men of rank in the regiment. I had not any real companions in it, for I was much younger than most of my brother officers, and it is likely enough that the society of an inexperienced youth could offer no attraction to them. My love of my chosen studies was accompanied by a complete indifference to amusements, so that the cards and billiards after mess were not an attraction for me, and my ignorance of field sports has always made me feel rather a "muff" and a "duffer" in the society of country gentlemen. The Colonel was always kind to me, and as I looked older than my age, he quite forgot how young I was and procured for me a captain's commission. As a matter of fact, I believe that a minor cannot hold a militia captaincy, because it requires a property qualification. Somehow, the Colonel was afterwards reminded of my age, and then thought he had made a mistake; however, my resignation rectified it. In fairness to myself it may be added that my military work was always done in a manner that gained the approval of our real master, the adjutant. One cause that certainly influenced me in leaving the regiment was the necessity for appearing to be either a member of the Church of England or a member of the Church of Rome. As I belonged to neither, I felt it a hardship to be compelled to march to church every Sunday, and go through the forms of the service. It will, of course, seem absurd to any man of the world that such a trifle should have any weight whatever. Nobody endowed with what men of the world call "common-sense" ever hesitates about going through forms and ceremonies, when he can maintain or increase his worldly position by doing so. As for me, I make no claim to superior virtue, but cannot help feeling an invincible repugnance to these shams. My own line had been chosen when I refused to go to Oxford and sign the Thirty-nine Articles; the forced conformity in the militia was a deflection of the compass, but it has pointed straight ever since, and may it point straight to the end! When free again, I set to work from nature, applying what Pettitt had taught me. I drew and painted studies of rocks with great fidelity, and as rocks are hard things, and my work was as hard as possible, there can be no doubt that so far it was like nature. Pettitt had strengthened the positive and scientific tendency that there is in me, so that I was quite ardent in the pursuit of the rigid and measurable truths, neither knowing nor caring anything about those more subtle and less manifest truths that the cultivated artist loves. However, I painted away diligently enough from nature, giving two long sittings each day, and writing only in the evenings. My readings at this time were chiefly in Shakespeare and Spenser. I may have been attracted to Spenser partly by the belief, greatly encouraged by the local antiquaries, that the famous Elizabethan poet lived for some time with relations of his at Hurstwood,--a hamlet by the side of the same stream that passes by Hollins and a mile or two above it. The old houses at Hurstwood remained as they were in Spenser's time, and the particular one is known where his reputed family lived. [Footnote: The presumptive evidence in favor of the theory that Spenser stayed at Hurstwood is very strong, and of various kinds. The reader who takes any interest in the subject is referred to the "Transactions of the Burnley Literary and Scientific Club," vol. iv., 1886, where he will find a wood-cut of the house that once belonged to the Spensers of Hurstwood.] As you ascend the stream beyond Hurstwood, you approach the open moors, which were always a delight to me. The love of the stream and the hills beyond frequently led me to pass the little hamlet where Spenser is said to have lived, and in this way he seemed to belong to our own landscape, since he must have wandered by the same river, and looked upon the same hills. So as a boy whose daily wanderings were by the Avon might naturally think of Shakespeare more frequently than another, my thoughts turned often to the author of the "Faerie Queene." I never read that poem steadily and fairly through, but I strayed about in it, which is the right way of reading it. My own pursuit of poetry at that time led me to think of a poem founded on the legends of Loch Awe. To penetrate my mind more completely with the genius of the place, I went there in the summer of 1854, and worked at the poem, besides drawing some illustrations, of which a few were afterwards engraved. Notwithstanding a great liking for Loch Awe, my stay there was not particularly agreeable. I lived, of course, at the inns, which were not very good, and having no companion, not even a servant, I felt rather dull and lonely, especially on the wet days. A well-known London banker was staying at the inn of Cladich at the same time with me, so we became acquainted, and he wished to purchase one of my studies; but as I intended to keep them all, I declined. This was very foolish, as it would have been easy to do another of the same subject for myself, and the mere fact of selling would have been a practical encouragement, especially as that purchase would probably have been followed by others. The very smallest beginnings are of importance. It is much for a young artist to get a few pounds fairly offered by a customer who knows nothing about him except his work, and is actuated by no motives of friendship. Another visitor at the same inn exercised upon me an influence of a very different kind. He had a young daughter with him, and to keep the girl in practice he constantly spoke French to her. I had studied the language more than most English boys do, and yet I found myself totally unable to follow those French conversations. This plagued me with an irritating sense of ignorance, so I looked back on my education generally, and found it unsatisfactory. Being conscious that my classical attainments were not very valuable, I determined to acquire some substantial knowledge of modern languages, and to begin by learning French over again, so as to write and speak it easily. This resolution remained in my mind as irrevocably settled, and was afterwards completely carried out. As I shall have a good deal to say about Loch Awe in future pages of this book, I omit all description of it here. Many of the days spent there in 1854 were rainy, and I sat alone writing my poem in a little bedroom on the ground-floor of the inn at Cladich. Of all literary work versification is the most absorbing, and if it is good for nothing else, it has at least the merit of getting one well through a rainy day. On my return from Scotland, I accompanied my guardian and her sister on a tour in Wales. We revisited Rhyl and some other places that I had seen with my father, including Caernarvon. This tour was of no importance in itself; but as from Scotland I had brought the resolution that made me seriously study French, so from Caernarvon I brought a resolution to master the art of swimming. Being in the water one morning, I suddenly found that I could swim after a fashion, and this led to more serious efforts. Our stream at home was delightful for mere bathing; but the rocks were an impediment to active exercise. I afterwards became an accomplished swimmer, and could do various tricks in the water, such as reading aloud from a book held in both hands, or swimming in clothes and heavy boots, with one hand out of the water carrying a paddle and drawing a canoe after me. I have often carried one of my little boys on my shoulders; but they are now better swimmers than myself, and the eldest has saved several men from drowning. It is an immense comfort, if nothing else, to be perfectly at home in the water, and it has increased my pleasure in boating a hundred-fold. There is nothing further of importance to be noted for the year 1854, except that I began to perceive a certain coolness, or what the French call _èloignement_, in our friends, which I attributed to my religious opinions. I never obtruded my opinions on any one, but did not conceal them beneath the usual conventional observances, so that our neighbors became aware that I did not think in a strictly orthodox manner, though they were in fact completely ignorant of the true nature of my beliefs. I remember one interesting test of my changed position in society. There was a certain great country house where I had been on the most intimate terms from childhood, where the boys called me by my Christian name, as I called them by theirs, and where my guardian and I were from time to time invited to dine, and sometimes to spend a day or two. When our militia regiment was in training, the owner of this house invited the officers to a grand dinner, and I, an old intimate friend, was omitted. It was impossible that this omission could have been accidental, and it was impossible not to perceive it. I afterwards learned that my religious views were regarded with disapproval in that house, and there, of course, the matter rested. At the same time, or soon afterwards, I noticed that invitations from certain other houses also came to an end, a matter of little consequence to me personally; but I thought that it might indirectly be injurious to my guardian and her sister, and began to feel that I had become a sort of social disgrace and impediment for them. It was probably about this time that my guardian bought for me some religious books, in which heterodox opinions were represented as being invariably the result of wickedness. I said it was a pity that religious writers could not learn to be more just, as heterodoxy might be due to simple intellectual differences. My guardian answered that she could perceive no injustice whatever in the statement that I complained of. This was infinitely painful to me, as coming from the person I most loved and esteemed in all the world. Another incident embittered my existence for some time. I had an intimate friend in Burnley, and my guardian said that she regretted this intimacy, not for any harm that my friend was likely to do me, but because with my "lamentable opinions" I might corrupt his mind. My answer to attacks of this kind has always been simple silence; when they came from other people I treated them with unfeigned indifference; but when they came from that one dear person, whose affection I valued more than all honors and all fame, they cut me to the quick, and then I knew by cruel experience what a dreadful evil religious bigotry is. For what had I ever said or done to deserve censure? I had as good a right to my opinions as other people had to theirs, yet I kept them within my own breast, and avoided even the shadow of offence. My only crime was the negative one of nonconformity. Even in my latter years, the same old spirit of intolerance pursues me. The nearest relation I have left in England said to my wife that she hoped my books had not an extensive sale, so that their evil influence might be as narrowly restricted as possible. As for her, she would not even look into them. [Footnote: In writing this autobiography I often suddenly remember some forgotten incident of past times. Here is one that has just occurred to me. When walking out in 1853, I met a boy who shouted after me, "You're the fellow that thinks we are all like rats!" He had probably heard my opinions discussed in his family circle--how justly and how intelligently his exclamation shows.] My refuge in those days was that best of all refuges--occupation. I was constantly at work on my different pursuits, and led a very healthy life at Hollins. The greatest objection to it was an evil that I have had to put up with in several different places, and that is intellectual isolation, especially on the side of art. I had nobody to speak to on that subject, except my old drawing-master, Mr. Henry Palmer. He had inevitably fallen into the usual routine of futile teaching, which is the fault of an uneducated public opinion, and of which the drawing-masters themselves are the first victims, so I did not take lessons from him; but he felt a warm and earnest interest in the fine arts, and we talked about old masters and modern masters for hours together in my study at Hollins, and in our walks. We once made a delightful sketching excursion together into the district of Craven, and I remember that at Bolton Abbey we met with a wonderful German who could sit in the presence of nature and coolly make trees according to a mechanical recipe. He might just as well have drawn the scenery of the Wharfe in the heart of Berlin. CHAPTER XXV. 1855. Publication of "The Isles of Loch Awe and other Poems."--Their sale. --Advice to poetic aspirants.--Mistake in illustrating my book of verse.--Its subsequent history.--Want of art in the book.--Too much reality.--Abandonment of verse.--A critic in "Fraser."--Visit to Paris in 1855.--Captain Turnbull.--Ball at the Hôtel de Ville.--Louis Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel. My volume, "The Isles of Loch Awe and other Poems," appeared the day I came of age, September 10, 1855. It was published at my own expense, in an edition of two thousand copies, of which exactly eleven were sold in the real literary market. The town of Burnley took thirty-six copies, from a friendly interest in the author, and deserves my deepest gratitude--not that the thirty-six copies quite paid the expenses of publication! Perhaps some poetic aspirant may read these pages, and if he does, he may accept a word of advice. The difficulty in publishing poems is to get them fully and fairly read and considered by some publisher of real eminence in the trade. It is difficult to appreciate poetry in manuscript, and there is such a natural tendency to refuse anything in the form of metre, that it is well to smooth the way for it as much as possible. I would, therefore, if I had to begin again, get my poems put into type, and a private edition of one hundred copies should be printed. A few of these being sent to the leading publishers, I should very soon ascertain whether any one of them was inclined to bring out the work. If they all declined, my loss would be the smallest possible, and I should possess a few copies of a rare book. If one publisher accepted, I should get an appeal to the public, which is all that a young author wants. [Footnote: A single copy clearly printed by the type-writing machine would now be almost as good for the purpose as a small privately printed edition.] I committed a great error in illustrating my book of verse. The illustrations only set up a conflict of interest with the poetry, and did no good whatever to the sale, whilst they vastly increased the cost of publication. Poetry is an independent art, and if it cannot stand on its own merits, the reason must be that it is destitute of vitality. The subsequent history of this volume of poems is worth telling to those who take an interest in books. It was published at six shillings, and as the sale had been extremely small, I reduced the price to half-a-crown. The reduction brought on a sale of about three hundred copies, and there it stopped. I then disposed of the entire remainder to a wholesale buyer of "remainders" for the modest sum of sixpence per copy. Since I have become known as a writer of prose, many people have sought out this book of verse, with the wonderful and unforeseen result that it has resumed its original price. I myself have purchased copies for five shillings each that I had sold for sixpence (not a profitable species of commerce), and I have been told that the book is now worth six shillings, exactly my original estimate of its possible value to an enlightened and discriminating public. Emerson wrote that the English had many poetical writers, but no poet, and this at a time when Tennyson was already famous. The same spirit of exclusion, in a minor degree, will deny the existence of all poets except three, or perhaps four, in a generation. It would be presumptuous to hope to be one of the three; but I do not think it was presumptuous in me to hope for some readers for my verse. As this autobiography approached that early publication, I read the volume over again, with a fresh eye, after an interval of many years, exactly as if it had been written by somebody else. There is poetry in the verse, and there is prose also, my fault having been, at that time, that I was unable to discriminate between the two. I had not the craft and art to make the most of such poetical ideas as were really my own. These defects are natural enough in a very young writer who could not possibly have much literary skill. Amongst other marks of its absence, or deficiency, must be reckoned the facility with which I allowed the mere matter-of-fact to get into my verse, not being clearly aware that the matter-of-fact is death to poetic art, and that nothing whatever is admissible into poetry without being first idealized. Another cause of inferiority was that my emotions were too real. The consequence of reality in emotion is very curious, being exactly the contrary of what one would naturally expect. Real emotion expresses itself simply and briefly, and often quite feebly and inadequately. [Footnote: Amongst the uneducated genuine emotion is often voluble; but poets usually belong to the educated classes.] The result, of course, is that the reader's feelings are not played upon sufficiently to excite them. Feigned, or artistic emotion, on the contrary, leaves the poetic artist in the fullest possession of all his means of influence, and he works upon the reader's feelings by slow or by sudden effects at his own choice. [Footnote: Two diametrically opposite opinions on this subject are held by actors, some of whom think that in their profession emotion ought to be real, others that it ought to be feigned. I know nothing about acting; but have always found in literature and art, and even in the intercourse of life, that my own real emotions expressed themselves very inadequately.] The failure of "The Isles of Loch Awe" occasioned me rather a heavy loss, which had the effect of making me economical for two or three years, during which I did not even keep a horse. I also came to the conclusion that nobody wanted my verses, and (not having either the inspiration of Shelley and Keats, or the dogged determination of Wordsworth) I gave up writing verse altogether, and that with a suddenness and completeness that astonishes me now. Young men are extreme in their hopes and in their discouragements. I had expected to sell two thousand copies of a book of poetry by a totally unknown writer, and because I did not immediately succeed in the hopeless attempt I must needs break with literature altogether! It did not occur to me to pursue the art of prose composition, which is quite as interesting as that of verse, and ten times more rewarding in every sense. My book had been, on the whole, very kindly received by the reviews, and a very odd incident occurred in connection with a well-known periodical. At that time "Fraser's Magazine" was one of the great authorities, and a contributor to it was so pleased with my poems that he determined to write an important article upon them. One of his friends knew of this intention, and told me. He revealed to the contributor, accidentally, that he had given me this piece of information, on which the contributor at once replied that since the author of the volume had been made aware that it was to be reviewed, it was evident that his knowledge of the fact had made it impossible to write the article. Does the reader perceive the impossibility? I confess that it is invisible for me. However, by this trifling incident my book missed a most important review, which, at that time, might have classed it amongst the noticeable publications of the period. My commercial non-success in poetry threw me back more decidedly upon painting, and this in combination with the resolution to learn French well, of which something has been already said, made me go to Paris in the autumn of 1855. I was at that time so utterly ignorant of modern languages, as they are spoken, that in the train between Calais and Paris I could not be certain, until I was told by an Englishman who was more of a linguist than myself, which of my fellow-travellers were speaking French and which Italian. I made such good use of my time in Paris that when returning to England on the same railway, after the short interval of three months, I spoke French fluently (though not correctly) for the greater part of the way, and did not miss a syllable that was said to me. I had no knowledge of Paris and its hotels, so let myself be guided by a fellow-traveller. We went to the Hôtel du Louvre, then so new that it smelt of plaster and paint. In those days, big, splendid hotels were almost unknown in Europe. The vast dining-hall, with its palatial decoration, impressed my inexperience very strongly. During my stay in the Hôtel du Louvre, I made the acquaintance of some English officers. One was a splendid-looking man of about twenty-eight, physically the finest Englishman I was ever personally acquainted with, and another was a much older and more experienced officer on leave of absence from India, where he ruled over a considerable territory. His name was Turnbull, and I have been told since by another Indian officer, that Captain Turnbull was the original of Colonel Newcome. Certainly, he was one of the kindest, most amiable, and most unpretending gentlemen I ever met. These two officers were invited to the ball at the Hôtel de Ville that was given by the Parisian municipality to the Emperor and King Victor Emmanuel, and it happened that the young military Adonis had not his uniform with him, whilst the idea of going to the ball without it, and appearing only like a commonplace civilian, was so vexatious as to be inadmissible. He therefore refused to go, and transferred his card to me; so I went with Captain Turnbull, who had a cocked hat like a general, and was taken for one. Some French people, by a stretch of imagination, even took him for Prince Albert! The Hôtel de Ville was very splendid on a night of that kind, and when, long afterwards, I saw it as a blackened ruin, the details of that past splendor all came back to me. The most interesting moment was when the crowd of guests formed in two lines in the great ball-room, and the Emperor and King took their places for a short time on two thrones, after which they slowly walked down the open space. I happened to be standing near a French general, who kindly spoke a few words to me, and just after that the Emperor came and shook hands with him, asking a friendly question. In this way I saw Louis Napoleon very plainly; but the more interesting of the two souvenirs for me is certainly that of the immortal leader of men who was afterwards the first King of Italy. As for Louis Napoleon, the sight of him in his glory called to mind an anecdote told of him by Major Towneley in our regiment. When an exile in London, he spoke to the major of some project that he would put into execution _quand je serai Empereur_. "Do you really still cherish hopes of that kind?" asked the sceptical Englishman. "They are not merely hopes," answered Louis Napoleon, "but a certainty." He believed firmly in the re-establishment of the Empire, but had no faith whatever in its permanence. This uneasy apprehension of a fall was publicly betrayed afterwards by the unnecessary plebiscitum. In a conversation with a French supporter of the Empire, Louis Napoleon said, "So long as I am necessary my power will remain unshakable, but when my hour comes I shall be broken like glass!" He believed himself to be simply an instrument in the hands of Providence that would be thrown away when no longer of any use. We who saw the sovereigns of France and Sardinia walking down that ball-room together, little imagined what would be the ultimate consequences of their alliance--the establishment of the Italian kingdom, then of the German Empire, with the siege of Paris, the Commune, and the total destruction of the building that dazzled us by its splendor, and of the palace where the sovereigns slept that night. Now they sleep far apart,--one in the Pantheon of ancient Rome, in the midst of the Italian people, who hold his name in everlasting honor; the other in an exile's grave in England, with a name upon it that is execrated from Boulogne to Strasburg, and from Calais to Marseilles. CHAPTER XXVI. 1855. Thackeray's family in Paris.--Madame Mohl.--Her husband's encouraging theory about learning languages.--Mr. Scholey.--His friend, William Wyld.--An Indian in Europe.--An Italian adventuress.--Important meeting with an American.--Its consequences.--I go to a French hotel.--People at the _table d'hôte_.--M. Victor Ouvrard.--His claim on the Emperor.--M. Gindriez.--His family.--His eldest daughter. Captain Turnbull knew some English people in the colony at Paris, so he introduced me to two or three houses, and if my object had been to speak English instead of French, I might have gone into the Anglo-Parisian society of that day. One house was interesting to me, that of Thackeray's mother, Mrs. Carmichael Smith. Her second husband, the major, was still living, and she was a vigorous and majestic elderly lady. She talked to me about her son, and his pursuit of art, but I do not remember that she told me anything that the public has not since learned from other sources. I soon discovered that she had very decided views on the subject of religion, and that she looked even upon Unitarians with reprobation, especially as they might be infidels in disguise. My own subsequent experience of the world has led me to perceive that, when infidels wear a cloak, they generally put on a more useful and fashionable one than that of Unitarianism--they assume the religion that can best help them to get on in the world. However, I was not going to argue such a point with a lady who was considerably my senior, and I was constantly in expectation of being examined about my own religious views, knowing that it would be impossible for me to give satisfactory answers. I therefore decided that it would be better to keep out of Mrs. Carmichael Smith's way, and learned afterwards that she had a reputation for asserting the faith that was in her, and for expressing her disapproval of everybody who believed less. For my part, I confess to a cowardly dread of elderly religious Englishwomen. They have examined me many a time, and I have never come out of the ordeal with satisfaction, either to them or to myself. Thackeray's three daughters were in Paris at that time. I remember Miss Thackeray quite distinctly. She struck me as a young lady of uncommon sense and penetration, and it was not at all a surprise to me when she afterwards became distinguished in literature. Thackeray himself was in London, so I did not meet him. I went occasionally in the evening to see that remarkable woman, Madame Mohl. She was the oddest-looking little figure, with her original notions about toilette, to which she was by no means indifferent. In the year 1855 she still considered herself a very young woman, and indeed was so, relatively to the great age she was destined to attain. After I had been about six weeks in Paris, her husband gave me the first bit of really valuable encouragement about speaking French that I had received from any one. "Can you follow what is said by others?" "Yes, easily." "Very well; then you may be free from all anxiety about speaking--you will certainly speak in due time." An eccentric but thoroughly manly and honest Englishman, named Scholey, was staying at the Hôtel du Louvre at the same time with Captain Turnbull. He was an old bachelor, and looked upon marriage as a snare; but I learned afterwards that he had been in love at an earlier period of his existence, and that the engagement had been broken off by the friends of the young lady, because Scholey combined the two great defects of honesty and thinking for himself in religious matters. So long as people prefer sneaks and hypocrites to straightforward characters like Scholey, such men are likely to be kept out of polite society. A dishonest man will profess any opinion that you please, or that is likely to please you, so long as it will advance his interest. If, therefore, a lover runs the risk of breaking off a marriage rather than turn hypocrite, it is clear that his sense of honor has borne a crucial test. "I had not loved thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more!" Scholey spoke French fluently, and, as he lived on the edge of England, he often crossed over into France. I deeply regret not to have seen much more of him. One of his acts of kindness, in 1855, was to take me to see his old friend William Wyld, the painter, with whom I soon became acquainted, and who is still one of my best and most attached friends. Wyld lived and worked at that time in the same studio, in the Rue Blanche, where he is still living and working in this present year (1887), an octogenarian with the health and faculties of a man of fifty. There was, in those days, an Indian staying at the Hôtel du Louvre, who spoke English very well, but not French, so he was working at French diligently with a master. This Indian was always called "the Prince" in the hotel, though he was not a prince at all, and never pretended to be one, but disclaimed the title whenever he had a chance. He lived rather expensively, but without the least ostentation, and had very quiet manners. He progressed well with his French studies, but did not stay long enough to master the language. I was very much interested in him, as a young man is in all that is strange and a little romantic. He talked about India with great apparent frankness, saying, that naturally the Indians desired national independence, but were too much divided amongst themselves to be likely to attain it in our time. The Mutiny broke out rather more than a year afterwards, and then I remembered these conversations. "The Prince" had some precious and curious things with him, which he showed me; but his extreme dislike to attracting attention made him dress quite plainly at all times, especially when he went out, which was usually in a small brougham. Now and then an English official, from India, or some military officer, would call upon him, and sometimes they spoke Arabic or Hindostanee. There was a lady at the hotel who has always remained in my memory as one of the most extraordinary human beings I ever met. She was an Italian, good-looking, yet neither pretty nor handsome, and, above all, intelligent-looking. She dressed with studiously quiet taste, and used to dine at the _table d'hôte_ with the rest of us. Besides her native Italian, she spoke French and English with surprising perfection, and her manners were so modest, so unexceptionable in every way, that no one not in the secret would or could have suspected her real business, which was to secure a succession of temporary husbands in the most respectable manner, and without leaving the hotel. Her linguistic accomplishments gave her a wide field of choice, and representatives of various nations succeeded each other at irregular but never very long intervals. As I shall be dead when this is published, perhaps it may be as well to say that I was not one of the series. The reader may believe this when he remembers that I was very economical for the time being, in consequence of the loss on my book of poems. After a while my French teacher informed me that "the Prince" had been caught by the fair Italian, who established herself quietly somewhere in his suite of rooms. People did not think this very wrong in a Mahometan, but after his departure from Paris I happened to be studying some old Italian religious pictures in the Louvre, and suddenly became aware that the same lady was looking at a Perugino near me. This time she was with the Prince's successor,--a most respectable English gentleman, and so far as absolute correctness of outward appearance went, there was not a more presentable couple in the galleries. It is my opinion that she succeeded more by her good manners and quiet way of dressing than by anything else. She must have been a real lady, who had fallen into that way of life in consequence of a reverse of fortune. After a while I came to the conclusion that I was too much with English people at the Hôtel du Louvre, and an incident occurred which altered the whole course of my future life, and is the reason why I am now writing this book in France. I had been up late one night at the Opera, and the next morning rose an hour later than usual. An American came into the breakfast-room of the hotel and found me taking my chocolate. Had I risen only half-an-hour earlier, I should have got through that cup of chocolate and been already out in the streets before the American came down. To have missed him would have been never to know my wife, never even to see her face, as the reader will perceive in the sequel, and the consequences of not marrying her would have been incalculable. One of them is certain in my own mind. The modest degree of literary reputation that makes this autobiography acceptable from a publisher's point of view has been won slowly and arduously. It has been the result of long and steadfast labor, and there is no merely personal motive that would have ever made me persevere. Consequently, the existence of this volume, and any meaning that now belongs to the name on its title page, are due to my getting up late that morning in the Hôtel du Louvre. The American and I being alone in the breakfast-room, and shamefully late, were drawn together by the sympathy created by an identical situation, and began to talk. He gave some reasons for being in Paris, and I gave mine, which was to learn French. We then agreed that to get accustomed to the use of a foreign language the first thing was to surround ourselves with it entirely, and that this could not be done in a cosmopolitan place like the Hôtel du Louvre. "I have a French friend," the American said, "who could give you the address of some purely French hotel where you would not hear a syllable of English." After breakfast he kindly took me to see this friend, who was a merchant sitting in a pretty and tidy counting-house all in green and new oak. The merchant spoke English (he had lived in America) and said, "I know exactly what you want,--a quiet little French hotel in the Champs Élysées where you can have clean rooms and a well-kept _table d'hôte_." He wrote me the address on a card, and I went to look at the place. The hotel, which exists no longer, was in the Avenue Montaigne. It suited my tastes precisely, being extremely quiet, as it looked upon a retired garden, and the rooms were perfectly clean. There was only one story above the ground-floor, and here I took a bedroom and sitting-room looking upon the garden. The house was kept by a widow who had very good manners, and was, in her own person, a pleasant example of the cleanliness that characterized the house. I learned afterwards (not from herself) that she had been a lady reduced to poor circumstances by the loss of her husband, and that her relations being determined that she should do something for her living, had advanced some money on condition that she set up an establishment. Having no experience in hotel-keeping, she soon dissipated the little capital and lived afterwards on a pittance in the strictest retirement. When I took my rooms the small hotel seemed modestly prosperous. There were about a dozen people at the _table d'hôte_, but they did not all stay in the house. We had an officer in the army who had brought his young provincial wife to Paris, a beautiful but remarkably unintelligent person, and there were other people who might be taken as fair specimens of the better French _bourgeoisie_. The most interesting person in the hotel was an old white-headed gentleman whose name I may give, Victor Ouvrard, a nephew of the famous Ouvrard who had been a great contractor for military clothes and accoutrements under Napoleon I. Victor Ouvrard was living on a pension given by a wealthy relation, and doing what he could to push a hopeless claim on Napoleon III. for several millions of francs due by the first Emperor to his uncle. I know nothing about the great contractor except the curious fact that he remained in prison for a long time rather than give up a large sum of money to the Government, saying that by the mere sacrifice of his liberty he was earning a handsome income. The nephew was what we call a gentleman, a model of good manners and delicate sentiments. He would have made an excellent character for a novelist, with his constantly expressed regret that he had not a speciality. "Si j'avais une spécialité!" he would say, as he tapped his snuff-box and looked up wistfully to the ceiling--"si j'avais seulement une spécialité!" He felt himself humiliated by the necessity for accepting his little pension, and still entertained a chimerical hope that if the Emperor did not restore the millions that were due, he might at least bestow upon him enough for independence in his last years. There had been some slight indications of a favorable turn in the Emperor's mind, but they came to nothing. Meanwhile M. Victor Ouvrard lived on with strict economy, brushing his old coats till they were threadbare, and never allowing himself a vehicle in the streets of Paris. He was an excellent walker, and we explored a great part of the town together on foot. He kindly took patience with my imperfect French, and often gently corrected me. The long conversations I had with M. Ouvrard on all sorts of subjects, in addition to my daily lessons from masters, got me forward with surprising rapidity. I observed a strict rule of abstinence from English, never calling on any English people, with the single exception of Mr. Wyld, the painter, nor reading any English books. When M. Ouvrard was not with me in the streets of Paris, I got up conversations with anybody who would talk to me, merely to get practice, and in my own room I wrote French every day. Besides this, for physical exercise, I became a pupil in a gymnasium, and worked there regularly. One thing seemed strange in the way they treated us. When we were as hot as possible with exercise, at the moment of leaving off and changing our dress, men came to the dressing-rooms to sponge us with ice-cold water. They said it did nothing but good, and certainly I never felt any bad effects from the practice. The ice-cold water reminds me of a ridiculous incident that occurred in the garden of the Tuileries. M. Ouvrard and I were walking together in the direction of the palace, when we saw a Frenchman going towards it with his eyes fixed on the edifice. He was so entirely absorbed by his architectural studies that he did not notice the basin just in front of him. The stone lip of the basin projects a little on the land side, so that if you catch your foot in it no recovery is possible. This he did, and was thrown violently full length upon the thin ice, which offered little resistance to his weight. The basin is not more than a yard deep, so he got out and made his way along the Rue de Rivoli, his clothes streaming on the causeway. Some spectators laughed, and others smiled, but M. Ouvrard remained perfectly grave, saying that he could not understand how people could be so unfeeling as to laugh at a misfortune, for the man would probably take cold. Perhaps the reader thinks he had no sense of humor. Yes, he had; he was very facetious and a hearty laugher, but his delicacy of feeling was so refined that he could not laugh at an accident that seemed to call rather for his sympathy. A French gentleman who was staying at the hotel had a friend who came occasionally to see him, and this friend was an amiable and interesting talker. He had at the same time much natural politeness, and seeing that I wanted to practise conversation he indulged me by patiently listening to my bad French, and giving me his own remarkably pure and masterly French in return. His name, I learned, was Gindriez, and he was living in Paris by the tolerance of the Emperor. He had been Prefect of the Doubs under the second Republic, and had resigned his prefecture as soon as the orders emanating from the executive Government betrayed the intention of establishing the Empire. As a member of the National Assembly he had voted against the Bonapartists, and was one of the few representatives who were concerting measures against Napoleon when he forestalled them by striking first. After the _coup d'état_ M. Gindriez fled to Belgium, but returned to Paris for family reasons, and was permitted to remain on condition that he did not actively set himself in opposition to the Empire. M. Gindriez looked upon his own political career as ended, though he could have made it prosperous enough, and even brilliant, by serving the power of the day. A more flexible instrument had been put into his prefecture, a new legislative body had been elected to give a false appearance of parliamentary government, and an autocratic system had been established which M. Gindriez believed destined to a prolonged duration, though he felt sure that it could not last forever. Subsequent events have proved the correctness of his judgment. The Empire outlasted the lifetime of M. Gindriez, but it did not establish itself permanently. It was a peculiarity of mine in early life (which I never thought about at the time, but which has become evident in the course of this autobiography) to prefer the society of elderly men. In London I had liked to be with Mackay, Robinson the engraver, and Leslie, all gray-headed men, and in Paris I soon acquired a strong liking for M. Ouvrard, M. Gindriez, and Mr. Wyld. They were kind and open, and had experience, therefore they were interesting; my uncles in Lancashire had, no doubt, been kind in their own way, that is, in welcoming me to their houses, but they were both excessively reserved. Being at that time deeply interested in France, I was delighted to find a man like M. Gindriez who could give me endless information. His chief interest in life lay in French politics; art and literature being for him subjects of secondary concern, but by no means of indifference, and the plain truth is that he had a better and clearer conception of art than I myself had in those days, or for long afterwards. There was also for me a personal magnetism in M. Gindriez, which it was not easy to account for then, but which is now quite intelligible to me. He had in the utmost strength and purity the genuine heroic nature. I came to understand this in after years, and believe that it impressed me from the first. It is unnecessary to say more about this remarkable character in this place, because the reader will hear much of him afterwards. It is enough to say that I was attracted by his powers of conversation and his evident tenderness of heart. When we had become better acquainted, M. Gindriez invited me to spend an evening at his house after dinner, and I went. He was living at that time on a boulevard outside the first wall, which has since been demolished. His _appartement_ was simply furnished, and not strikingly different in any way from the usual dwellings of the Parisian middle class. I had now been absent for some weeks from anything like a home, and after living in hotels it was pleasant to find myself at a domestic fireside. M. Gindriez had several children. The eldest was a girl of sixteen, extremely modest and retiring, as a well-bred _jeune fille_ generally is in France, and there was another daughter, very pretty and engaging, but scarcely more than a child; there were also two boys, the eldest a very taciturn, studious lad, who was at that time at the well-known college of Sainte Barbe. Their mother had been a woman of remarkable beauty, and still retained enough of it to attract the eye of a painter. She had also at times a certain unconscious grace and dignity of pose that the great old Italian masters valued more than it is valued now. M. Gindriez himself had a refined face, but my interest in him was due almost entirely to the charm and ease of his conversation. In writing an autobiography one ought to give impressions as they were received at the time, and not as they may have been modified afterwards. I am still quite able to recall the impression made upon me by the eldest daughter in the beginning of 1856. I did not think her so pretty as her sister, though she had a healthy complexion, with bright eyes and remarkably beautiful teeth, whilst her slight figure was graceful and well formed; but I well remember being pleased and interested by the little glimpses I could get of her mind and character. It was a new sort of character to me, and even in the tones of her voice there was something that indicated a rare union of strength and tenderness. The tenderness, of course, was not for me, a foreign temporary guest in those days, but I found it out by the girl's way of speaking to her father. I perceived, too, under an exterior of cheerfulness, rising at times to gayety, a nature that was really serious, as if saddened by a too early experience of trouble. The truth was, that in consequence of her father's checkered career, this girl of sixteen had passed through a much greater variety of experience than most women have known at thirty. Her mother, too, had for some time suffered almost continuously from ill-health, so that the eldest daughter had been really the active mistress of the house. Her courage and resolution had been put to the test in various ways that I knew nothing about then, but the effects of an uncommon experience were that deepening of the young nature which made it especially interesting to me. Afterwards I discovered that Eugénie Gindriez had read more and thought more than other girls of her age. This might have been almost an evil in a quiet life, but hers had not been a quiet life. We soon became friends in spite of the French conventional idea that a girl should not open her lips, but it did not occur to me that we were likely ever to be anything more than friends. Had the idea occurred, the obstacle of a difference in nationality would have seemed to me absolutely insuperable. I thought of marriage at that time as a possibility, but not of an international marriage. In fact, the difficulties attending upon an international marriage are so considerable, and the subsequent practical inconvenience so troublesome, that only an ardently passionate and imprudent nature could overlook them. I, for my part, left Paris without being aware that Mademoiselle Gindriez had anything to do with my future destiny; but she, with a woman's perspicacity, knew better. She thought it at least probable, if not certain, that I should return after long years; she waited patiently, and when at last I did return there was no need to tell on what errand. An incident occurred that might have been a partial revelation to me and a clear one to her. Before my departure from Paris, M. Ouvrard said to me that he had been told I was engaged to "une Française." "What is her name?"--he mentioned another young lady. Now to this day I remember that when he spoke of a French marriage as a possibility for me I at once saw, mentally, a portrait of Eugénie Gindriez. However, as a French marriage was _not_ a possibility, I thought no more of the matter. CHAPTER XXVII 1856. Specialities in painting.--Wyld's practice.--Projected voyage on the Loire.--Birth of the Prince Imperial.--Scepticism about his inheritance of the crown.--The Imperial family.--I return home.--Value of the French language to me. Being entirely absorbed in the study of French during my first visit to Paris, I did little in the practice of art. My Lancashire neighbor, who was studying in Paris, worked in Colin's atelier, and I have since regretted that I did not at that time get myself entered there, the more so that it was a decent and quiet place kept under the eye of the master himself, who had long been accustomed to teaching. My friend had certainly made good progress there. I was unfortunately influenced by two erroneous ideas, one of them being that the studies of a figure-painter could be of no use in landscape, [Footnote: This idea had been strongly confirmed by Mr. Pettitt.] and the other that it was wiser to be a specialist, and devote myself to landscape exclusively. It is surprising that the notion of a limited speciality in painting should have taken possession of me then, as in other matters I have never been a narrow specialist, or had any tendency to become one. The choice of a narrow speciality may be good in the industrial arts, but it is not good in painting, for the reason that a painter may at any time desire to include something in his picture which a specialist could not deal with. To feel as if the world belonged to him a painter ought to be able to paint everything he sees. There is another sense in which speciality may be good: it may be good to keep to one of the graphic arts in order to effect that intimate union between the man and his instrument which is hardly possible on any other terms. Wyld would have taught me landscape-painting if I had asked him, and I did at a later period study water-color with him; but his practice in oil did not suit me, for this reason: it was entirely tentative, he was constantly demolishing his work, so that it was hard to see how a pupil could possibly follow him. The advantage in working under his eye would have been in receiving a great variety of sound artistic ideas; for few painters know more about _art_ as distinguished from nature. However, by mere conversation, Wyld has communicated to me a great deal of this knowledge; and with regard to the practical advantages of painting like him they would probably not have ensured me any better commercial success, as his style of painting has now for a long time been completely out of fashion. My scheme in 1856 was to make a great slow boat voyage on the Loire, with the purpose of collecting a quantity of sketches and studies in illustration of that river; and my ardor in learning to speak French had for an immediate motive the desire to make that voyage without an interpreter. I have often regretted that this scheme was never carried out. I have since done something of the same kind for the Saône, but my situation is now entirely different. I am now obliged to make all my undertakings _pay_, which limits them terribly, and almost entirely prevents me from doing anything on a great scale. For example, these pages are written within a few miles of Loire side; the river that flows near my home is a tributary of the Loire; I have all the material outfit necessary for a great boating expedition, and still keep the strength and the will; but no publisher could prudently undertake the illustration of a river so long as the Loire and so rich in material, on the scale that I contemplated in 1856. It is unnecessary to trouble the reader with my crude impressions of European painting in the Universal Exhibition of that year. I no more understood French art at that time than a Frenchman newly transplanted to London can understand English art. The two schools require, in fact, different mental adjustments. Our National Gallery had sufficiently prepared me for the Louvre, which I visited very frequently; and there I laid the foundations of a sort of knowledge which became of great use many years afterwards, though for a long time there was nothing to show for it. No historical event of importance occurred during my stay in Paris, except the birth of the Prince Imperial. I was awakened by the cannon at the Invalides, and having been told that if there were more than twenty-one guns the child would be a boy, I counted till the twenty-second, and then fell asleep again. There existed, even then, the most complete scepticism as to the transmission of the crown. Neither M. Gindriez, nor any other intelligent Frenchman that I met, believed that the newly born infant had the faintest chance of ever occupying the throne of France. Before the child's birth I had seen his father and mother and all his relations at the closing ceremony of the Universal Exhibition, and thought them, with the exception of the Empress, a common-looking set of people. They walked round the oblong arena in the Palais de l'Industrie exactly as circus people do round the track at the Hippodrome. The most interesting figure was old Jerome--interesting, not for himself, as he was a nonentity, but as the brother of the most famous conqueror since Caesar. Being called back to England on a matter of business, I cut short my stay in Paris, and arrived at Hollins without having advanced much as an artist, but with an important linguistic acquirement. The value of French to me from a professional point of view is quite incalculable. The best French criticism on the fine arts is the most discriminating and the most accurate in the world, at least when it is not turned aside from truth by the national jealousy of England and the consequent antipathy to English art. At the same time, there are qualities of delicacy and precision in French prose which it was good for me to appreciate, even imperfectly. CHAPTER XXVIII. 1856. My first encampment in Lancashire.--Value of encamping as a part of educational discipline.--Happy days in camp.--The natural and the artificial in landscape.--Sir James Kay Shuttleworth's Exhibition project.--I decline to take an active part in it.--His energetic and laborious disposition.--Charlotte Brontë.--General Scarlett. The Loire expedition having been abandoned for the year 1856, and the Nile voyage put off indefinitely, I remained working in the north of England, discouraged, as to literature, by the failure of the book of verse, and without much encouragement for painting either; so the summer of 1856 was not very fruitful in work of any kind. Towards autumn, however, I took courage again, and determined to paint from nature on the moors. This led to the first attempt at encamping. It is wonderful what an influence the things we do in early life may have on our future occupations. In 1886, exactly thirty years later, I made the Saône expedition, for which two _absolutely essential_ qualifications were an intimate knowledge of the French language and a practical acquaintance with encamping. The Roman who said that fifteen years made a long space in human life would have appreciated the importance of thirty, yet across all that space of time what I did in 1856 told just as effectually as if it had been done the year before. _Moral_ (for any young man who may read this book): it is impossible to say how important the deeds of twenty-one may turn out to have been when we look back upon them in complete maturity. All we know about them is that they are likely to be recognized in the future as far more important than they seemed when they were in the present. Encamping is now quite familiar to young Englishmen in connection with boating excursions, and it has even been adopted in American pine forests for the sake of health; but in 1856 only military men and a few travellers knew anything about encampments. I was led into this art, or amusement (for it is both), by a very natural transition. Here are the three stages of it. 1. You want to paint from nature in uncertain weather, and you build a hut for shelter. 2. The hut is at some distance from a house, and you do not like to leave it, so you sleep in it. 3. The accommodation is found to be narrow, and it is unpleasant to have one little room for everything, so you add a tent or two outside and keep a man. Hence a complete little encampment. Everybody considered me extremely eccentric in 1856 because I was led into encamping; but it was an excellent thing for me in various ways. A young man given up to such pursuits as literature and art needs a closer contact with common realities than aesthetic studies can give. The physical work attendant upon encamping, and the constant attention that _must_ be given to such pressing necessities as shelter and food, give exactly that contact with reality that educates us in readiness of resource, and they have the incalculable advantage of making one learn the difference between the necessary and the superfluous. I look back upon early camping experiments with satisfaction as an experience of the greatest educational value. Even now, in my sixth decade, I can sleep under canvas and arrange all the details of a camp with indescribable enjoyment, and (what is perhaps better still) I can put up cheerfully with the very humblest accommodation in country inns, provided only that they are tolerably clean. The arrangements of my hut on the moor near Burnley have been described in detail in "The Painter's Camp," so it is unnecessary to give a minute account of them in this place. I was entirely alone, except the company of a dog, and had no defence but a revolver. That month of solitude on the wild hills was a singularly happy time, so happy that it is not easy, without some reflection, to account for such a degree of felicity. I was young, and the brisk mountain air exhilarated me. I walked out every day on the heather, which I loved as if my father and mother had been a brace of grouse. Then there was the steady occupation of painting a big foreground study from nature, and the necessary camp work that would have kept morbid ideas at a distance if any such had been likely to trouble me. As for the solitude, and the silence broken only by wind and rain, their effect was not depressing in the least. Towns are depressing to me--even Paris has that effect--but how is it possible to feel otherwise than cheerful when you have leagues of fragrant heather all around you, and blue Yorkshire hills on the high and far horizon? A noteworthy effect of this month on the moors was that on returning to Hollins, which was situated amongst trim green pastures and plantations, everything seemed so astonishingly artificial. It came with the force of a discovery. From that day to this the natural and the artificial in landscape have been, for me, as clearly distinguished as a wild boar from a domestic pig. My strong preference was, and still is, for wild nature. The unfortunate effects of this preference, as regards success in landscape-painting, will claim our attention later. The grand scheme for an Exhibition of Art Treasures at Manchester, in 1857, suggested to Sir James Kay Shuttleworth the idea of having an Exhibition at Burnley in the same year to illustrate the history of Lancashire. He thought that a certain proportion of the visitors to the Manchester Art Treasures would probably be induced to visit our little-known but prosperous and rising town. His scheme was of a very comprehensive character, and included a pictorial illustration of Lancashire. There would have been pictures of Lancashire scenery as well as portraits of men who have distinguished themselves in the history of the county, and whose fame has, in many instances, gone far beyond its borders. All the mechanical inventions that have enriched Lancashire would also have been represented. Having thought this over in his own mind, Sir James wanted an active lieutenant to aid him in carrying his idea into execution, and as he knew me he asked me to be the practical manager of the Exhibition. I was to travel all over the county, see all the people of importance, and borrow, whenever possible, such of their pictures and other relics as might be considered illustrative of Lancashire history. Sir James had many influential friends, I myself had a few, and it seemed to him that by devoting my time to the scheme heartily I might make it a success. My reward was to be simply a very interesting experience, as I should see almost all the interesting things and people in my native county. Sir James did his best to entice me, and as he was a very able man with much knowledge of the world, he might possibly have succeeded had I not been more than usually wary. Luckily, I felt the whole weight of my inexperience, and said to myself: "Whatever we do it is _certain_ that mistakes will be committed, and very probable that some things will be damaged. All mistakes will be laid to my door. Then the Exhibition itself may be a failure, and it is disagreeable to be conspicuously connected with a failure." I next consulted one or two experienced friends, who said, "Sir James will have the credit of any success there may be, and you, as a young useful person, comparatively unknown, will get very little, whilst at the same time you will be burdened with heavy anxieties and responsibilities." I therefore firmly declined, and as Sir James could not find any other suitable assistant, his project was never reaped. It seems odd that the existence of this Lancashire Exhibition should have depended on the "yes" or "no" of a lad of twenty-three; yet so it did, for if I had consented the scheme would certainly have been carried into execution, whether successfully or not it is impossible to say. The enterprise would have greatly interested and occupied me, for I have a natural turn for organizing things, being fond of order and details, and I should have learned a great deal and seen many people and many houses; still, the negative decision was the wiser. Sir James Kay Shuttleworth was certainly one of the remarkable people I have known. At that time he was unpopular in Burnley on account of his separation from his wife, who had been the richest heiress in the neighborhood, the owner of a fine estate and a grand old hall at Gawthorpe. People thought she had been ill-used. Of this I really know (of my own knowledge) absolutely nothing, and shall print no hearsays. Sir James himself was an ambitious and very hard-working man, who passed through life with no desire for repose. Public education, in the days before Board Schools, was his especial subject, and he owed his baronetcy to his efforts in that cause. The Tory aristocracy of the neighborhood disliked him for his liberal principles in politics, and for his brilliant marriage, which came about because the heiress of Gawthorpe took an interest in his own subjects. Perhaps, too, they were not quite pleased with his too active and restless intellect. He made one or two attempts to win a position as a novelist, but in connection with literature future generations will know him chiefly as the kind host of Charlotte Brontë, who visited him at Gawthorpe. I regret now that I never met Charlotte Brontë, as she was quite a near neighbor of ours; in fact, I could have ridden or walked over to Haworth at any time. That village is just on the northeast border of the great Boulsworth moors, where my hut was pitched. At the time of my encampment there Charlotte Brontë had been dead about eighteen months. She was hardly a contemporary of mine, as she was born seventeen years before me, and died so prematurely; still, when I think that "Jane Eyre" was written within a very few miles of Hollins, [Footnote: I have not access to an ordnance map, but believe that the distance was hardly more than eight miles across the moors. Haworth is only twelve miles from Burnley by road.] and that for several years, during which I rode or walked every day, Charlotte Brontë was living just on the other side of the moors visible from my home, I am vexed with myself for not having had assurance enough to go to see her. Since those days a hundred ephemeral reputations have risen only to be quenched forever in the great ocean of the world's oblivion, but the fame of "Jane Eyre" is as brilliant as it was when the book astonished all reading England forty years ago. [Footnote: I am writing in 1888.] Amongst the distinguished people belonging to the neighborhood of Burnley was General Scarlett, who led the charge of the Heavy Cavalry at Balaclava,--brilliant feat of arms much more satisfactory to military men than the fruitless sacrifice of the Light Brigade, which, however, is incomparably better known. I recollect General Scarlett chiefly because he set me thinking about a very important question in political economy. I happened to be sitting next him at dinner when the talk turned upon wine, and the General said, "The Radicals find fault with the economy of the Queen's household because they say that the wine drunk there costs sixteen thousand a year. I don't know what it costs, but that is of no consequence." I then timidly inquired if he did not think it was a waste of money, on which, in a kind way, he explained to me that "if the money were paid and put into circulation it did not signify what it had been spent upon." I knew there was something fallacious in this, but my own ideas were not clear upon the subject, and it did not become me to set up an argument with a distinguished old officer like the General. Of course the right answer is that there is always a responsibility for spending money so as to be of use not only to the tradesman who pockets it, _but to the consumers also_. If the wine gave health and wisdom it would hardly be possible to spend too much upon it. CHAPTER XXIX. I visit the homes of my forefathers at Hamerton, Wigglesworth, and Hellifield Peel.--Attainder and execution of Sir Stephen Hamerton.-- Return of Hellifield Peel to the family.--Sir Richard.--The Hamertons distinguished only for marrying heiresses.--Another visit to the Peel, when I see my father's cousin.--Nearness of Hellifield Peel and Hollins. In one of these years (the exact date is of no consequence) I visited the old houses in Yorkshire which had belonged to our family in former times. The place we take our name from, Hamerton, belonged to Richard de Hamerton in 1170. I found the old hall still in existence, or a part of it, and though the present building evidently does not date from the twelfth century, it dates from the occupation of my forefathers. At the time of my visit there was some very massive oak wainscot still remaining. The situation is, to my taste, one of the pleasantest in England. The house is On a hill, from which it looks down on the valley of Slaidburn. Steep green pastures slope to the flat meadows in the lower ground, which are watered by a stream. There are many places of that character in Yorkshire, and they have never lost their old charm for me. I cannot do without a hill, and a stream, and a green field. [Footnote: Since this was written I have been compelled to do without them by the necessity for living close to an art-centre, a necessity against which I rebelled as long as I could. Even to-day, however, I would joyously give all Paris for such a place as Hollins or Hamerton (as I knew them), with their streams and pastures, and near or distant hills.] My forefathers lived at Hamerton, more or less, from a time of which there is no record down to the reign of Henry VIII., but their principal seat in the time of their greatest prosperity was Wigglesworth Hall. I arrived there in time to see masons demolishing the building. One or two Gothic arched door-ways still remained, but were probably destroyed the next week. Just enough, of the house was preserved to shelter the occupant of the farm. For me this unnecessary destruction is always distressing, even in foreign countries. It is excusable in towns, where land is dear; but in the country the site of an old hall is of such trifling value that it might surely be permitted to fall peaceably to ruin. The family of De Arches, to which Wigglesworth originally belonged, bore for arms _gules, three arches argent_. The coincidence struck me forcibly when I saw the Gothic arches still standing amongst the ruins. The place came into the possession of our family by the marriage of Adam de Hamerton, in the fourteenth century, with Katharine, heiress of Elias de Knoll of Knolsmere. His father, Reginald de Knoll, had married Beatrix de Arches, heiress of the manor of Wigglesworth. These estates, with others too numerous to mention, remained in our family till they were lost by the attainder of Sir Stephen Hamerton, who joined the insurrection known as "The Pilgrimage of Grace" in the reign of Henry VIII. During these excursions to old houses I visited Hellifield Peel, still belonging to the chief of our little clan. The Peel is an old border tower, embattled, and with walls of great thickness. It is large enough to make a tolerably spacious, but not very convenient, modern house, and my great uncle spoiled its external appearance by inserting London sash windows in the gray old fortress wall. On this occasion I did not see the interior, not desiring to claim a relationship that had fallen into abeyance for half-a-century; yet I felt the most intense curiosity about it, and for more than twenty years afterwards I dreamed from time to time I got inside the Peel, and saw quite a museum of knightly armor [Footnote: The first Sir Stephen Hamerton was made a knight banneret in Scotland by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in the reign of Edward IV. He married Isabel, daughter of Sir William Plumpton, of Plumpton, and a letter of his is still extant in the Plumpton correspondence.] and other memorials which, I regret to say, have not been preserved in reality. Hellifield Peel was built by Laurence Hamerton in 1440. When the second Sir Stephen was executed for high treason and his possessions confiscated, the manor of Hellifield was preserved by a settlement for his mother during her life. After that it was granted by the king to one George Browne, of whom we know nothing positively except that he lived at Calais, and after changing hands several times it came back into the Hamerton family by a fine levied in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The owners then passed the manor to John Hamerton, a nephew of Sir Stephen. The attainted knight left an only son, Henry, who is said to have been interred in York Minster on the day when his father was beheaded in London. Whitaker thought it "not improbable that he died of a broken heart in consequence of the ruin of his family." Henry left no male issue. The career of Sir Stephen seems to have been doomed to misfortune, for there were influences that might have saved him. He had been in the train of the Earl of Cumberland, the same who afterwards held Skipton Castle against the rebels. Whitaker says "he forsook his patron in the hour of trial." This seems rather a harsh way of judging a Catholic, who believed himself to be fighting for God and His spoliated Church against a tyrannical king. I notice that in our own day the French Republican Government cannot take the smallest measure against the religious houses, cannot even require them to obey the ordinary law of the country, but there is immediately an outcry in all the English newspapers; yet the measures of the Third Republic have been to those of Henry VIII. what that same Third Republic is to the First. All that can be fairly urged against Sir Stephen Hamerton is that "after having availed himself of the King's pardon, he revolted a second time." There is nothing else, that I remember, in the history of our family that is likely to have any interest for readers who do not belong to it. Sir Richard Hamerton, of Hamerton, married in 1461 a sister of the bloody Lord Clifford who was slain at Towton Field, and that is the nearest connection that we have ever had with any well-known historical character. Through marriages we are descended, in female lines, from many historical personages, [Footnote: Some in the extinct Peerage, and others belonging to royal families of England and France which have since lost their thrones by revolution.]--a matter of no interest to the reader, though I acknowledge enough of the ancestral sentiment to have my own interest in them quickened by my descent from them. Another consequence of belonging to a well-connected old family was that I sometimes, in my youth, met with people who were related to me, and who were aware of it, although the relationship was very distant. I recollect, for instance, that one of the officers in our militia regiment remembered his descent from our family, and though I had never seen him before it was a sort of _lien_ between us. The Hamertons do not seem to have distinguished themselves in anything except marrying heiresses, and in that they were remarkably successful. At first a moderately wealthy family, they became immensely wealthy by the accumulation of heiresses' estates, and after being ruined by confiscation they began the same process over again; but being at the same time either imprudent or careless, or too much burdened with children (my great-grandfather had a dozen brothers and sisters), they have not kept their lands. One of my uncles said to me that the Hamertons won property in no other way than by marriage, and that they were almost incapable of retaining it; he himself had the one talent of his race, but was an exception to their incapacity. In justice to our family I may add that we are said to make indulgent husbands and fathers,--two characters incompatible with avarice, and sometimes even with prudence when the circumstances are not easy. On a later occasion I made a little tour in Craven with a friend who had a tandem, and we stopped at Hellifield, where I sketched the Peel. Whilst I sat at work the then representative of the family, my father's first cousin, came out upon the lawn; but I did not speak to him, nor did he take any notice of me. He was a fine, hale man of about eighty. The _nearness_ of Hellifield to Hollins was brought home to me very strongly on that occasion. It was late afternoon when I finished my sketch, and yet, as we had very good horses, we reached home easily the same evening. So near and yet so far! As I have said already in the third chapter, my grandfather's wife and children never even saw his brother's house, and during my own youth the place had seemed as distant and unreal as one of the old towers that I had read about in northern poetry and romance. CHAPTER XXX. 1857. Expedition to the Highlands in 1857.--Kindness of the Marquis of Breadalbane and others.--Camp life, its strong and peculiar attraction.--My servant.--Young Helliwell.--Scant supplies in the camp.--Nature of the camp.--Necessity for wooden floors in a bad climate.--Double-hulled boats.--Practice of landscape-painting.--Changes of effect.--Influences that governed my way of study in those days.--Attractive character of the Scottish Highlands.--Their scenery not well adapted for beginners.--My intense love of it. In the year 1857 I made the expedition to the Highlands which afterwards became well known in consequence of my book about it. The Marquis of Breadalbane (the first Marquis) granted me in the kindest way permission to pitch my camp wherever I liked on his extensive estate, and at the same time gave me an invitation to Taymouth Castle. The Duke of Argyll gave me leave to encamp on an island in Loch Awe that belonged to him, and Mr. Campbell of Monzie granted leave to encamp on his property on the Cladich side of the lake. I ought to have gone to Taymouth to thank Lord Breadalbane and accept the hospitality he had offered, but it happened that he had not fixed a date, so I avoided Taymouth. This was wrong, but young men are generally either forward or backward. The Marquis afterwards expressed himself, to a third person, as rather hurt that I had not been to see him. My advice to any young man who reads this book is always to _show_ that he appreciates kindness when it is offered. There is not very much of it in the world, but there is some, and it is not enough merely to feel grateful; we ought to accept kindness with visible satisfaction. One of my regrets now is to have sometimes failed in this, usually out of mere shyness, particularly where great people were concerned. Here is another instance. When going to Inverary on the steamer, I made the acquaintance of a very pleasant Scotchman, who turned out to be the Laird of Lamont, on Loch Fyne side. He took an interest in my artistic projects, and very kindly invited me to go and see him. Nothing would have been easier,--I was as free as a fish, and might have sailed down Loch Fyne any day on my own boat,--yet I never went. The book called "A Painter's Camp" gave a sufficient account of my first summer in the Highlands, which was not distinguished by much variety, as I remained almost exclusively at Loch Awe; but the novelty of camp life _by choice_ seems to have interested many readers, though they must have been already perfectly familiar with camp life _by necessity_ in the practice of armies and the experience of African travellers. The true explanation of my proceedings is the intense and peculiar charm that there is about encamping in a wild and picturesque country. I had tasted this on the Lancashire moors, and I wanted to taste it again. Just now, whilst writing, I have on my table a letter from an English official in Africa, who tells me of his camp life. He says: "The wagon was generally my sleeping quarter. I had two tents and a riding horse, and very seldom slept in a house or put the horse in a stable. _Such a life was ever, and is now, to me the acme of bliss. No man can be said to have really lived who has not camped out in some such way, and I know well that you especially will say Amen! to this sentiment._ Since 1848, I have lived altogether for about six years in the open, and have never caught a cold. Only, through imprudent uncovering of the head, once in 1855, whilst drawing the topography of a mountain, I was struck down by sunstroke." The reasons for this intense attraction in camp life are probably complex. One certainly is that it brings us nearer to nature, but a still deeper reason may be that _it revives obscure associations that belong to the memory of the race, and not to that of the individual_. Camping is in the same category with yachting, fishing, and the chase,--a thing practised by civilized man for his amusement, because it permits him to resume the habits of less civilized generations. The delight of encamping, for a young man in vigorous health, is the enforced activity in the open air that is inseparably connected with it. I had only one servant, a young man from the moorland country on the borders of Lancashire and Yorkshire, perfectly well adapted to life in the Highlands. He had excellent health, and was physically a good specimen of our north-English race. It was a pleasure to see his tall straight figure going over the roughest ground with no appearance of hurry, but in fact with such unostentatious swiftness that few sportsmen could follow him. I was myself active enough then, and accustomed to wild places, but he always restrained himself when we did any mountain work together. He afterwards became well known as the "Thursday" of the "Painter's Camp," but I may give his real name here, which was Young Helliwell. Temperate, hardy, and extremely prudent, not to be caught by any allurements of vulgar pleasure, he lived wisely in youth, and will probably have fewer regrets than most people in his old age. Young had studied the art of simple cookery at Hollins, so he was able to keep me tolerably well when we happened to have anything to eat, which was not always. There were no provision shops on Lochaweside; Inverary was at some distance in one direction and Oban in the other, and as I had never given a thought to feeding before, I was an utterly incompetent provider. The consequence was that we fasted like monks, except that our abstinence was not on any regular principle; in fact, sometimes we had so little to eat for days together that we began to feel quite weak. This gave us no anxiety, and we only laughed at it, undereating being always more conducive to good spirits than its opposite, provided that it is not carried too far. The camp consisted of three structures,--my hut, which was made of wooden panels with plate-glass windows; a tent for Young, with a wooden floor, and wooden sides to the height of three feet; lastly, a military bell-tent that served for storing things. My hut was both painting-room and habitation, but it would have been better to have had a separate painting-room on rather a larger scale. Mr. Herkomer afterwards imitated the hut for painting from nature in Wales, and he introduced a clever improvement by erecting his hut on a circular platform with a ring-rail, so that it could be turned at will to any point of the compass. Young's tent was, in fact, also a kind of hut with a square tent for a roof. In a climate like that of the West Highlands, wooden floors at least are almost indispensable; but a camp so arranged ceases to be a travelling camp unless you have men and horses in your daily service like a Shah of Persia. It may be moved two or three times in a summer. I have always had a fancy for double-hulled boats (now generally called catamarans), and had two of them on Loch Awe. This eccentricity was perhaps fortunate, as my boats were extremely safe, each hull being decked from stem to stern and divided internally into water-tight compartments. They could therefore ship a sea with perfect impunity, and although often exposed to sudden and violent squalls, we were never in any real danger. One of my catamarans would beat to windward tolerably well, but she did not tack quickly, and occasionally missed stays. However, these defects were of slight importance in a boat not intended for racing, and small enough to be always quite manageable with oars. Since those days I have much improved the construction of catamarans, so that their evolutions are now quicker and more certain. They are absolutely the only sailing-boats that combine lightness with safety and speed. As to the practice of landscape-painting, I very soon found that the West Highlands were not favorable to painting from nature on account of the rapid changes of effect. Those changes are so revolutionary that they often metamorphose all the oppositions in a natural picture in the course of a single minute. I began by planting my hut on the island called Inishail, in the middle of Loch Awe, with the intention of painting Ben Cruachan from nature, but soon discovered that there were fifty Cruachans a day, each effacing its predecessor, so my picture got on badly. If I painted what was before me, the result was like playing successfully a bar or two from each of several different musical compositions in the vain hope of harmonizing them into one. If I tried to paint my first impression, it became increasingly difficult to do that when the mountain itself presented novel and striking aspects. Every artist who reads this will now consider the above remarks no better than a commonplace, but in the year 1857 English landscape-painting was going through a peculiar phase. There was, in some of the younger artists, a feeling of dissatisfaction with the slight and superficial work too often produced from hasty water-color sketches, and there was an honest desire for more substantial truth coupled with the hope of attaining it by working directly from nature. My critical master, Mr. Ruskin, saw in working from nature the only hope for the regeneration of art, and my practical master, Mr. Pettitt, considered it the height of artistic virtue to sit down before nature and work on the details of a large picture for eight or ten weeks together. I was eagerly anxious to do what was considered most right, and quite willing to undergo any degree of inconvenience. The truth is, perhaps, that (like other devotees) I rather enjoyed the sacrifice of convenience for what seemed to me, at that time, the sacred cause of veracity in art. The Highlands of Scotland were intensely attractive to me, as being a kind of sublimation of the wild northern landscape that I had already loved in my native Lancashire; but the Highlands were not well chosen as a field for self-improvement in the art of painting. A student ought not to choose the most changeful of landscapes, but the least changeful; not the Highlands or the English Lake District, but the dullest landscape he can find in the south or the east of England. Norfolk would have been a better country for me, as a student, than Argyllshire. If, however, any prudent adviser had told me to go to dull scenery in those days, it would have been like telling a passionate lover of great capitals to go and live in a narrow little provincial town. I hated dull, unromantic scenery, and at the same time had the passion for mountains, lakes, wild moorland, and everything that was rough and uncultivated,--a passion so predominant that it resembled rather the natural instinct of an animal for its own habitat than the choice of a reasonable being. I loved everything in the Highlands, even the bad weather; I delighted in clouds and storms, and have never experienced any natural influences more in harmony with the inmost feelings of my own nature than those of a great lake's dark waters when they dashed in spray on the rocks of some lonely islet and my boat flew past in the gray and dreary gloaming. "Le paysage," says a French critic, "est un état d'âme." He meant that _what we seek_ in nature is that which answers to the state of our own souls. What is called dreary, wild, and melancholy scenery afforded me, at that time, a kind of satisfaction more profound than that which is given by any of the human arts. I loved painting, but all the collections in Europe attracted me less than the barren northern end of our own island, in which there are no pictures; I loved architecture, and chose a country that is utterly destitute of it; I delighted in music, and pitched my tent where there was no music but that of the winds and the waves. The Loch Awe of those days was not the Loch Awe of the present. There was no railway; there was not a steamer on the lake, either public or private; there was no hotel by the waterside, only one or two small inns, imperceptible in the vastness of the almost uninhabited landscape. The lake was therefore almost a solitude, and this, added to the wildness of the climate and the peculiarly simple and temporary character of my habitation, made nature much more profoundly impressive than it ever is amidst the powerful rivalry of the works of man. The effect on my mind was, on the whole, saddening, but not in the least depressing. It was a kind of poetic sadness that had nothing to do with low spirits. I have never been either merry or melancholy, but have kept an equable cheerfulness that maintains itself serenely enough even in solitude and amidst the desolate aspects of stony and barren lands. As life advances, it is wise, however, to seek the more cheering influences of the external world, and those are rather to be found in the brightest and sunniest landscape, with abundant evidence of happy human habitation; some southern land of the vine where the chestnut grows high on the hills, and the peach and the pear ripen richly in innumerable gardens. CHAPTER XXXI. 1857-1858. Small immediate results of the expedition to the Highlands.--Unsuitable system of work.--Loss of time.--I rent the house and island of Innistrynich.--My dread of marriage and the reasons for it.--Notwithstanding this I make an offer and am refused.--Two young ladies of my acquaintance.--Idea of a foreign marriage.--Its inconveniences.--Decision to ask for the hand of Mdlle. Gindriez.--I go to Paris and am accepted.--Elective affinities. The immediate artistic results of the expedition to the Highlands were very small. I had gone there to paint detailed work from nature, when I ought to have gone to sketch, and so adapt my work to the peculiar character of the climate. The tendency then was to detail, and the merit and value of good sketching were not properly understood. There has been a complete revolution, both in public and in artistic opinion, since those days. The revival of etching, which in its liveliest and most spontaneous form is only sketching on copper, the study of sketches by the great masters, the publication of sketches by modern artists of eminence in the artistic magazines, have all led to a far better appreciation of vitality in art, and consequently have tended to raise good sketching both in popular and in professional estimation. At the Paris Exhibition of 1889 the Grand Prizes for engraving were given to an English sketching etcher, Haden, and to two French etchers, Boilvin and Chauvel. In 1857, I and many others looked upon sketching as defective work, excusable only on the plea of want of time to do better. The omissions in a sketch, which when intelligent are merits, seemed to me, on the contrary, so many faults. In a word, I knew nothing about sketching. My way was to draw very carefully and accurately, and then fill in the color and detail in the most painstaking fashion from nature. I went by line and detail, nobody having ever taught me anything about mass and tonic values, still less about the difference between art and nature, and the necessity for transposing nature into the keys of art. The consequence was a great waste of time, and of only too earnest efforts with hardly anything to show for them. Here I leave this subject of art for the present, as it will be necessary to recur to it later. My guardian, like all women, had an objection to what was not customary, and as my camp was considered a piece of eccentricity, she wanted me to take a house on Lochaweside. The island called Innistrynich, which is near the shore, where the road from Inverary to Dalmally comes nearest to the lake, had a house upon it that happened to be untenanted. There were twelve small rooms, and the camping experience had made me very easy to please. It was possible to have the whole island (about thirty acres) as a home farm, so I took it on a lease. This turned out a misfortune afterwards, as I got tied to the place, not only by the lease, but by a binding affection which was extremely inconvenient, and led to very unfortunate consequences. My dear guardian had another idea. Though she had prudently avoided marriage on her own account, she thought it very desirable for me, and sometimes recurred to the subject. Her heart complaint made her own life extremely precarious, and she wished me to have the stay and anchorage of a second affection that might make the world less dreary for me after she had left it. At the same time it may be suspected that she looked to marriage as the best chance of converting me to her own religious opinions, or at least of obtaining outward conformity. To confess the plain truth, I had a great dread of marriage, and not at all from any aversion to feminine society, or from any insensibility to love. My two reasons were these, and all subsequent observation and experience have confirmed them. For a person given up to intellectual and artistic pursuits there is a special value in mental and pecuniary independence. So far as I could observe married men in England, they enjoyed very little mental independence, being obliged, on the most important questions, to succumb to the opinions of their wives, because what is called "the opinion of Society" is essentially feminine opinion. In our class the ladies were all strong Churchwomen and Tories, and the men I most admired for the combination of splendid talents with high principle, were to them (so far as they knew anything about such men) objects of reprobation and abhorrence. No mother was ever loved by a son more devotedly than my guardian was by me, and yet her intolerance would have been hard to bear in a wife. Kind as she always was in manner, the theological injustice which had been instilled into her mind from infancy made her look upon me as bad company for my friends, as a heretic likely to contaminate their orthodoxy. I could bear that, or anything, from her, but I determined that if I married at all it should not be to live under perpetual theological disapprobation. The other grave objection to marriage was the dread of losing pecuniary independence. I cared nothing for luxury and display, having an unaffected preference for plain living, and being easily bored by the elaborate observances of fine society, so that comparative poverty had no terrors for me on that account; but there was another side to the matter. A student clings to his studies, and dreads the interference that may take him away from them. An independent bachelor can afford to follow unremunerative study; a married man, unless he is rich, must lay out his time to the best pecuniary advantage. His hours are at the disposal of the highest bidder. There was a young lady in Burnley for whom I had had a boyish attachment long before, and whom I saw very frequently at her father's house in the years preceding 1858. He was a banker in very good circumstances, and a kind friend of mine, as intimate, perhaps, as was possible considering the difference of years. He had been a Wrangler at Cambridge, and now employed his forcible and fully matured intellect freely on all subjects that came in his way, without deference to the popular opinions of the hour. These qualities, rare enough in the upper middle class of those days, made him very interesting to me, and I liked my place in an easy-chair opposite to his, when he was in the humor for talking. He had three handsome daughters, and his eldest son had been my school-fellow, and was still, occasionally at least, one of my companions. Their mother was a remarkably handsome and amiable lady, so that the house was as pleasant as any house could be. We had music and played quintets, and the eldest daughter sometimes played a duet with me. She was a good amateur musician, well educated in other ways, and with a great charm of voice and manner. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that the old boyish attachment revived on my side, though there was nothing answering to it on hers. My good friend, her father, sometimes talked to me about marriage, and expressed the regret that in a state of civilization like ours, and in our class, a family of children should be a cause of weakness instead of strength. In a primitive agricultural community, sons are of great value, they are an increase of the family force; in a highly-civilized condition, they only weaken the father by draining away his income. "Daughters," said my friend, "are of use in primitive societies and in the English middle class, because they do the work of the house, and spare servants; but our young ladies do nothing of the least use, and require to be first expensively educated, and afterwards expensively amused." My friend then went into details about the cost of his own family, which was heavy without extravagance or ostentation. All this was intended to warn me, but I asked if he had any objection to me personally as a son-in-law. He answered, with all the kindness I expected, that there was no objection to make (he was too intelligent to see anything criminal in my philosophical opinions), and that in what he had said about the costliness of marriage he had spoken merely as a friend, thinking of the weight of the burden I might be taking upon myself, and the inconvenience to my own life in the future. One afternoon his daughter and I were alone together, playing a duet, when I asked her if she would have me, and she laughingly declined. I remember being so little hurt by the refusal that I said: "That is not the proper way to refuse an, offer; you ought to express a little regret--you might say, at least, that you are sorry." Then the young lady laughed again, and said: "Very well, I will say that I am sorry, if you wish it." And so we parted, without any further expression of sentiment on either side. I never could understand why men make themselves wretched after a refusal. It only proves that the young lady does not care very much for one, and it is infinitely better that she should let him know that before marriage than after. It was soon quite clear to me that, in this case, the young lady's decision had been the wise one. We were not really suited for each other, and we should never have been happy, both of us, in the same kind of existence. Perhaps she was rather difficult to please, or indifferent to marriage, for she never accepted anybody, and is living still (1889) in happy independence as an old maid, within a short distance of Hellifield Peel. I had a little indirect evidence, thirty years afterwards, that she had not forgotten me. Most likely she will survive me and read this. If she does, let the page convey a complete acknowledgment of her good sense. This was the only offer of marriage I ever made in England. There was a certain very wealthy heiress whose uncle was extremely kind to me, and he pushed his kindness so far as to wish me to marry her. She was well-bred, her manners were quite equal to her fortune, and she had a good appearance, but the idea of marriage did not occur to either of us. Some time afterwards, her uncle said to a friend of mine: "I cannot understand Hamerton; I wanted him to marry my niece, and he has gone and married a French woman." "Oh!" said the other, "that was only to improve his French!" There was another case that I would have passed in silence, had not people in Lancashire persistently circulated a story of an offer and a refusal. A young lady, also a rich heiress, though not quite so rich as the other, had a property a few miles distant from mine. She was a very attractive girl, very pretty, and extremely intelligent, and we were very good friends. To say, in this case, that the idea of marriage never occurred would he untrue; but when I first knew her she was hardly more than a child, and afterwards it became apparent to me that to live happily in her house I should have to stifle all my opinions on important subjects, so I never made the offer that our friends and perhaps she herself expected. Whether she would have accepted me or not is quite another question. Had I made any proposal I should have accompanied it by a very plain statement of my obnoxious opinions on religion and politics, and these would almost certainly have produced a rupture. After my marriage, and before hers, we met again in the old friendly way. I was paying a call with my wife, in a country house in Lancashire, when a carriage came up the drive--_her_ carriage--and the lady of the house, extremely fluttered, asked me if I had no objection to meet Miss ----. "On the contrary," I said, "I like to meet old friends." The young lady visibly enjoyed the humor of the situation, and the embarrassment of our hostess. We talked easily in the old way, and afterwards my wife and I left on foot, and _her_ carriage passed us, rather stately, with servants in livery. "There goes your most dangerous rival," I said to my wife, and told her what story there was to tell. "She is much prettier than I am," was the modest answer, "and evidently a good deal richer; and she is a charming person." In due time Miss ---- married very suitably. Her husband is a good Churchman and Conservative, who takes a proper interest in the pursuits belonging to his station. My guardian was of opinion that with my philosophical convictions, which were at that time not only unpopular, but odious and execrated in our own class in England, I should have to remain an old bachelor. She herself would certainly never have married an unbeliever, and although her great personal affection for me made her glad to have me in the house, she must have felt that it was like sheltering a pariah. Her sister once heard some rumor or suggestion, connecting my name with that of a pious young lady, and looked upon it as a sort of sacrilege. Under these circumstances I came at last to the conclusion that, being under a ban, I would at least enjoy my liberty, either by living my own life as a bachelor, or else by marrying purely and simply according to inclination, without any reference to the opinion of other people. It was at this time that the idea of a foreign marriage first occurred to me as a possibility. I had never thought of it before, and if such an idea had entered my head, the clear foresight of the enormous inconveniences would have immediately expelled it. A foreign marriage is, in fact, quite an accumulation of inconveniences. One of the two parties must always be living in a foreign country, and in all their intercourse together one of the two must always be speaking a foreign language. The families of the two parties will never know each other or understand each other properly; there will be either estrangement or misunderstanding. And unless there is great largeness of mind in the parties themselves, the difference of national customs is sure to produce quarrels. All this was plain enough, and yet one morning, when I was writing on my desk (a tall oak desk that I used to stand up to), the idea suddenly came, as if somebody had uttered these words in my ear: "Why should you remain lonely all your days? Eugénie Gindriez would be an affectionate and faithful wife to you. She is not rich, but you would work and fight your way." I pushed aside the sheet of manuscript and took a sheet of note-paper instead. I then wrote, in French, a letter to a lady in Paris who knew the Gindriez family, and asked her if Mademoiselle Eugénie was engaged to be married. The answer came that she was well, and that there had been no engagement. Soon afterwards I was in Paris. I called on M. Gindriez, but his daughter was not at home. I asked permission to call in the evening, and she was out again. This was repeated two or three times, and my wife told me afterwards that the absences had not been accidental. At last we met, and there was nothing in her manner but a certain gravity, as if serious resolutions were impending. Her sister showed no such reserve, but greeted me gayly and frankly. After a few days, I was accepted on the condition of an annual visit to France. From a worldly point of view, this engagement was what is called in French _une folie_, on my part, and hardly less so on the part of the young lady. We had, however, a kind of inward assurance that in spite of the difference of nationality and other differences, we were, in truth, nearer to each other than most people who contract matrimonial engagements. The "elective affinities" act in spite of all appearances and of many realities. We have often talked over that time since, and have confessed that we really knew hardly anything of each other, that our union was but an instinctive choice. However, in 1858 I had neither doubt nor anxiety, and in 1889 I have neither anxiety nor doubt. CHAPTER XXXII. 1858. Reception at home after engagement.--Preparations at Innistrynich.--I arrive alone in Paris.--My marriage.--The religious ceremony.--An uncomfortable wedding.--The sea from Dieppe.--London.--The Academy Exhibition of 1858.--Impressions of a French woman.--The Turner collection.--The town.--Loch Awe.--The element wanting to happiness. On returning home after my engagement I was greeted very affectionately at the front door by my dear guardian, who expressed many wishes for my future happiness; but her sister sat motionless and rigid in an arm-chair in the dining-room, and did not seem disposed to take any notice of me. From that time until long after my marriage she treated me with the most distant coldness, varied occasionally by a bitter innuendo. I said nothing and bore all patiently, looking forward to a speedy deliverance. There was much in the circumstances to excuse my aunt, who was intensely aristocratic and intensely national. She was the proudest person I ever knew, and would have considered any marriage a misalliance for me if my wife's family had not had as long a pedigree as ours, and as many quarterings as the fifteen that adorned our shield. Being a stanch Protestant, she was not disposed to look favorably on a Roman Catholic, unless she belonged to one of the old English Catholic families. Her ideas of the French nation were those prevalent in England during the wars against Napoleon. She had probably counted upon me to do something to lift up a falling house, and instead of that I was going to marry she knew not whom. It is impossible to argue against national and class prejudices; the fact was simply that my wife's family belonged to the educated French middle class. Her uncle was a well-to-do attorney in Dijon, [Footnote: Very nearly in the same social position as my own father. His daughter afterwards married the grandson and representative of the celebrated Count Français de Nantes, who filled various high offices in the State, and was grand officer of the Legion of Honor and Peer of France. A fine portrait of him by David is amongst their family pictures.] and her father had gone through a perfectly honorable political career, both as deputy and prefect. My wife herself had been better educated than most girls at that time, and both spoke and wrote her own language not only correctly, but with more than ordinary elegance,--a taste she inherited from her father. As to her person, she dressed simply, but always with irreproachable neatness, and a scrupulous cleanliness that richer women might sometimes imitate with advantage. These were the plain facts; what my aunt imagined is beyond guessing. Before my marriage I went to Loch Awe, to prepare the house on Innistrynich and furnish it. Of all strange places in the world for a young Parisienne to be brought to, surely Innistrynich was the least suitable! My way in those days was the usual human way of thinking, that what is good for one's self is good for everybody else. Did I not know by experience that the solitude of Loch Awe was delightful? Must not my Paradise be a Paradise for any daughter of Eve? It was a charming bachelor's paradise the morning I left for Paris, a bright May morning, the loch lying calm in its great basin, the islands freshly green with the spring. At Cladich the people, who knew I was going to fetch a bride, threw old shoes after the carriage for luck. It did not rain rice at Loch Awe in those days. I was an excellent traveller then, and did not get into a bed before arriving in Paris. There was a day in London between two nights of railway, a day spent in looking at pictures and making a few purchases. At Paris I went to a quiet hotel in the Cité Bergère. I was utterly alone; no relation or friend came with me to my marriage. Somebody told me a best man was necessary, so I asked a French acquaintance to be best man, and he consented. The morning of my wedding there was a _garçon_ brushing the waxed oak floor on the landing near my door. I had a flowered white silk waistcoat, and the man said: "Monsieur est bien beau ce matin; on dirait qu'il va à une noce." I answered: "Vous avez bien deviné; en effet, je vais à une noce." It was unnecessary to give him further information. The marriage was a curious little ceremony. My wife's father had friends and acquaintances in the most various classes, who all came to the wedding. Some men were there who were famous in the Paris of those days, and others whom I had never heard of, but all were alike doomed to disappointment. They expected a grand ceremony in the church, and instead of that we got nothing but a brief benediction in the vestry, by reason of my heresy and schism. The benediction was over in five minutes, and we left in the pouring rain, whilst a crowd of people were waiting for the ceremony to begin. My wife, like all French girls, would have liked an imposing and important marriage, and lo! there was nothing at all, not even an altar, or a censer, or a bell! However, we had been legally married at the _mairie_ with the civil ceremonial, and as we were certainly blessed in the vestry, nobody can say that our union was unhallowed. I shall always remember that benediction, for, brief as it was, it cost me a hundred francs. [Footnote: Including what I had to pay for being called a schismatic by the Archbishop of Paris, or his officials.] A magnificent mass on my daughter's marriage cost me only sixty, which was a very reasonable charge. Words cannot express how odious to me are the fuss and expense about a wedding. There was my father-in-law, a poor man, who thought it necessary (indeed, he was compelled by custom) to order a grand feast from a famous restaurant and give a brilliant ball, as if he had been extremely happy to lose his daughter, the delight of his eyes and the brightness of his home. Everything about our wedding was peculiarly awkward and uncomfortable. I knew none of the guests, I spoke their language imperfectly, and was not at ease, then, in French society; we had to make talk and try to eat. The family was sad about our departure, the sky was gray, the streets muddy and wet. In an interval of tolerable weather we went for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne to get through the interminable afternoon. It was pleasanter when, a day or two later, my wife and I were looking out upon the sea from Dieppe. She had never seen salt water before, and as it happened to be a fine day the vast expanse of the Channel was all a wonderful play of pale greens and blues, like turquoise and pale emerald. There were white clouds floating in the blue sky, and here and there a white sail upon the sea. My wife was enchanted with this, to her fresh young eyes, revelation of a novel and unimaginable beauty. It was a new world for her, and that hour was absolutely the only hour in her life during which she thoroughly enjoyed the sea; for she is the worst of sailors, and now cannot even endure the smell of salt water at a distance. The first thing we did in London was to go and see the Exhibition of the Royal Academy. My wife, like her father, took a keen interest in art, and had been rather well acquainted with French painting for a girl of her age. When she got into an English Exhibition she looked round in bewildered amazement. It was, for her, like being transported into another planet. In 1858 the difference between French and English painting was far more striking than it is to-day. French color, without being generally good, was subdued; in fact, most of it was not color at all, but only gray and brown, with a little red or blue here and there to make people believe that there was color. The English, on the other hand, were trying hard for real color, but the younger men were in that crude stage which is the natural "ugly duckling" condition of the genuine colorist. The consequence was an astounding contrast between the painting of the two nations, and to eyes educated in France English art looked outrageous to a degree that we realize with the greatest difficulty now. At a later period my wife became initiated into the principles and tendencies of English painting, and then she began to enjoy it. I took her to see the Turner collection in 1858, and that seemed to her like the ravings of a madman put on canvas; but a few years later she became a perfectly sincere admirer of the noblest works of Turner. I may add that in 1858 my wife was already, in spite of her difficulty in understanding what to her were novelties, far more in sympathy with art generally than I was myself. She had lived in a great artistic centre, whilst I had lived with nature in the north, and cared, at that time, comparatively little about the art of the past, my hopes being concentrated on a kind of landscape-painting that was to come in the future, and to unite the effects I saw in nature with a minute accuracy in the drawing of natural forms. The kind of painting I was looking forward to was, in fact, afterwards realized by Mr. John Brett. My wife's first impressions of London generally were scarcely more favorable than her impressions of English painting, but they were of a very different order. If the painting had appeared too bright, the town appeared too dingy. London is extremely dismal for all French people, whose affection for their own country leads them to the very mistaken belief that the skies, in France, are bright all the year round. My wife now prefers London to any place in the world except Paris; in fact, she has a strong affection for London, the consequence of the kindness she has received there, and also of the enlightened interest she takes in everything that is really worth attention. We went straight from London to Glasgow, and thence to Loch Awe, which happened at that time to be enveloped in a dense fog that lasted two days, so that when I told my wife that there was a high mountain on the opposite side of the lake she could hardly believe it. In fact, nothing was visible but a still, gray, shoreless sea. I was now, as it seemed, in a condition of great felicity, being in the place I loved best on earth with the person most dear to me. Unfortunately, the union of many different circumstances and conditions is necessary to perfect happiness, if happiness exists in the world. The element lacking in my case was success in work, or at least the inward assurance of progress. There was our beautiful island home, in itself as much a poem as a canto of "The Lady of the Lake," with its ancient oaks, its rocky shore, its green, undulating, park-like pasture; there was the lake for sailing and the mountain for climbing, and all around us a country of unlimited wealth of material for the sketcher. Amidst all this, with a too earnest and painful application, I set myself to do what had never been done,--to unite the color and effect of nature to the material accuracy of the photograph. MEMOIR OF PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON 1858-1894 CHAPTER I. 1858. My first sight of Loch Awe.--Arrival at Innistrynich.--Our domestic life.--Difficulties about provisions.--A kitchen garden. When Philip Gilbert Hamerton asked me to marry him, he conscientiously attempted to explain how different my life would be in the Highlands of Scotland from that to which I had been accustomed in Paris. He said how solitary it was, especially in the winter-time; how entirely devoid of what are called the pleasures of a metropolis--to which a Parisian lady has the reputation of being such a slave (he knew, however, that it was not my case); and already his devotion to study was such that he requested me to promise not to interfere with his work of any kind that he deemed necessary,--were it camping out, or sailing in stormy weather to observe nature under all her changing aspects, either of day or night. Still, the picture he drew of our future existence was by no means all in dark colors, for with the enthusiasm of an artist he described the glories of the Highlands, the ever-varying skies, the effects of light and shadow on the mountains, the beauties of the lovely isles, and the charm of sailing on the moonlit and mysterious lake. He also made me acquainted with the numerous legends of Loch Awe (he had told them in verse, but I was ignorant of English), which would lend a romantic atmosphere to our island-home. He was so sensitive to the different moods of nature that his descriptions gave to a town-bred girl like me an intense desire to witness them with my own eyes; and when I did see them there was no _désillusion_, and the effect was so overpowering that it seemed like the revelation of a new sense in me. The first glimpse I had of Loch Awe, from the top of the coach, was like the realization of a fantastic and splendid dream; I could not believe it to be a reality, and thought of some mirage; but my husband was delighted by this first impression. We reached Innistrynich shortly before nightfall, and I was taken to the keeper's cottage to warm myself, whilst the luggage was being conveyed across the bay to the house. Though it was the end of May, the weather had been so cold all the way that I felt almost benumbed after the drive; for, being accustomed to the climate of France, I had taken but scanty precautions in the way of wraps, believing them to be superfluous at that time of the year. My husband, having begged the keeper's wife to take care of me, she carried her assiduities to a point that quite confused me, for I could not remonstrate in words, and she was so evidently prompted by kindness that I was fearful of hurting her by opposing her well-meant but exaggerated attentions. She swathed me in a Scotch plaid, and placed the bundle I had become in a cushioned and canopied arm-chair by the peat-fire, the smoke and unaccustomed odor of which stifled me; then she insisted upon removing my boots and stockings, and chafed my feet in her hands, to bring back a little warmth. Lastly, she hospitably brought me what she thought the best thing she had to offer, a hot whiskey toddy. To please her, and also to relieve my numbness, I tried my best to drink what seemed to me a horrid mixture, but I could not manage it, and could not explain why, and the poor woman remained lost in sorrowful bewilderment at my rejection of the steaming tumbler. Just then my husband came back, and after thanking the keeper's wife, rowed me over to Innistrynich. It was then quite dark, and impossible to see the island, even the outside of the cottage; but when the door was open, it showed the prettiest picture imaginable: the entrance was brilliantly illuminated, and our two servants--a maid and a young lad ("Thursday" of the "Painter's Camp"), both healthy and cheerful-looking, were standing ready to relieve us of our wraps. The drawing-room had an inviting glow of comfort, with the generous fire, the lights of the elegant candelabra playing amongst the carvings of the oak furniture, and the tones of the dark ruddy curtains harmonizing with the lighter ones of the claret-colored carpet; an artistic silver set of tea-things, which my husband had secretly brought from Paris with the candelabra, had been spread on the table ready for us, and my appreciation of the taste and thoughtfulness displayed on my behalf gladdened and touched the donor. I had never before partaken of tea as a meal, but it was certainly a most delightful repast to both of us. After a short rest, my husband showed me the arrangements of the house, rich in surprises to my foreign notions, but none the less interesting and pleasant. Our drawing-room was to serve as dining-room also, for the orthodox dining-room had been transformed into a studio and sitting-room; they stood opposite to each other. A little further along the corridor came the two best bedrooms, which, at first sight, gave to a Parisian girl a sensation of bareness and emptiness, corrected later by habit. Everything necessary was to be found there,--large brass bedsteads with snowy coverings, all the modern contrivances for the toilet, chests of drawers, each surmounted by a bright looking-glass; even a number of tiny and curious gimcracks ornamented the narrow mantelpiece; but to a French eye the absence of curtains to the bed, and the unconcealed display of washing utensils, suggested a _cabinet de toilette_ rather than a bedroom. This simplicity has now become quite fashionable among wealthy French people, on account of its healthiness: the fresh air playing more freely and remaining purer than in rooms crowded with stuffed seats, and darkened by elaborate upholstery. On the upper story were four other rooms, used as laboratory, store-room, and servants' rooms; whilst on the ground-floor we had a scullery, a large kitchen, a laundry,--that I used afterwards as a private kitchen, when my husband provided it with a set of French brass pans and a charcoal range,--a spare room, which was turned into a nursery by and by, and lastly, a repository for my husband's not inconsiderable paraphernalia. The first days after our arrival were devoted to sailing or rowing on the lake, to acquaint me with its topography; soon, however, we made rules to lose no time, for we had both plenty of work before us. My husband, at that time, knew French pretty well; he could express everything he wished to say, and understood even the _nuances_ of the language, but his accent betrayed him at once as an Englishman, and there lingered in his speech a certain hesitation about the choice of words most appropriate to his meaning. As for me, my English had remained that of a school-girl, and my husband offered me his congratulations on my extremely limited knowledge, for this reason--that I should have little to unlearn. We agreed, to begin with, that one of us ought to know the other's language thoroughly, so as to establish a perfect understanding, and as he was so much more advanced in French than I in English, it was decided that for a time he should become my pupil, and that our conversations should be in my mother-tongue. On my part I devoted two hours a day to the study of English grammar, and to the writing of exercises, themes, and versions. This task was fulfilled during my husband's absence, or whilst he was engaged with his correspondence; and in the afternoon I used to read English aloud to him, while he drew or painted either at home or out of doors. It was his own scheme of tuition, and proved most satisfactory, but required in the teacher--particularly at the beginning--an ever-ready attention to correct the pronunciation of almost every word, and to give the translation of it, together with a great store of patience to bear with the constantly recurring errors; for not to mar my interest in the works he gave me to read, I was exempted from the slow process of the dictionary. He was himself the best of dictionaries--explaining the differences of meaning, giving the life and spirit of each term, and always impressing this truth, that rarely does the same expression convey exactly the same idea in two languages. He frequently failed to give word for word, because he would not give an approximate translation; but he was always ready with a detailed explanation, and so taught me to enter into the peculiar genius of the language; so that if I did not become a good translator, I learned early to think and to feel in sympathy with the authors I was studying. If the weather allowed it, Gilbert generally took me out on the lake, and according to the prevailing wind, chose some particular spot for a study. These excursions lasted about half the day or more, and then some sort of nourishment was required; but as my ignorance of the language prevented me from giving the necessary orders, the responsibility of the commissariat entirely devolved upon him; and I may candidly avow that the results were a continual source of surprise to me. Being unacquainted with English ways, I presumed that it was customary to live in the frugal and uniform fashion prevalent at Innistrynich; namely, at breakfast: ham or bacon; sometimes eggs, with or without butter, according to circumstances; toast--or scones, if bread were wanting--and coffee. At lunch: dry biscuits and milk. At tea-time, which varied considerably _as to time_, ranging from five if we were in the house, to eight or nine if my husband was out sketching: ham and eggs again, or a little mutton--chop or steak, if the meat were fresh, cold boiled shoulder or leg if it was salted; and a primitive sort of crisp, hard cake, which Thursday always served with evident pleasure and pride, being first pastry-cook and then partaker of the luxury. I often wondered how Englishmen could grow so tall and so strong on such food; for I was aware within myself of certain feelings of weakness and sickness never experienced before, but which I was ashamed to confess so long as men whose physical organizations required more sustenance remained free from them. One day, however, the reason of this difference became clear to me. My husband had proposed to show me Kilchurn Castle, which he was going to sketch, and we started early after the first light breakfast, with Thursday to manage the sails. On turning round Innistrynich we met a contrary wind, and had to beat against it: it was slow work, and at last I timidly suggested that it might perhaps be better to turn back to get something to eat; but Gilbert triumphantly said he was prepared for the emergency, and had provided ... a box of figs!!!... yes, and he opened it deliberately and offered me the first pick. I could not refrain from looking at Thursday, whose face betrayed such a queer expression of mingled amusement and disappointed expectation that I burst out laughing heartily, at which my husband, who had been meditatively eating fig after fig, looked up wondering what was the matter. I then asked if that was all our meal, and he gravely took out of the box two bottles of beer and a flask of sherry, the look of which seemed to revive Thursday's spirits wonderfully. As for me, who drank at that time neither beer nor wine, and whose taste for dry figs was very limited, I hinted that something more--bread, for instance--would not have been superfluous. The opportunity for ridding himself of cares so little in harmony with his tastes and artistic pursuits was not lost by my husband, and I was then and there invested with the powers and functions of housekeeper. This was the plan adopted for the discharge of my new duties. In the morning I studiously wrote, as an exercise, the orders I wished to give, and, after correction, I learned to repeat them by word of mouth till I could be understood by the servants. It succeeded tolerably when my husband was accessible, if an explanation was rendered necessary on account of my foreign accent; but there was no way out of the difficulty if he happened to be absent. Ever since I knew him I had noticed his anxiety to lose no time, and to turn every minute to the best account for his improvement. Throughout his life he made rules to bind his dreamy fancy to active study and production; they were frequently altered, according to the state of his health and the nature of his work at the time; but he felt the necessity of self-imposed laws to govern and regulate his strong inclination towards reflection and reading. He used to say that when people allowed themselves unmeasured time for what they called "thinking," it was generally an excuse for idle dreaming; because the brain, after a certain time given to active exertion, felt exhausted, and could no longer be prompted to work with intellectual profit; that, in consequence, the effort grew weaker and weaker, till vague musings and indistinct shadows gradually replaced the powerful grasp and clear vision of healthy mental labor. On the other side, it must be said that he was too much of a poet to undervalue the state of apparent indolence which is so favorable to inspiration, and that he often quoted in self-defence the words of Claude Tillier,--"Le temps le mieux employé est celui que l'on perd." Aware of his strong propensity to that particular mental state, he attempted all his life to restrict it within limits which would leave sufficient time for active pursuits. His love of sailing must have been closely connected with the inclination to a restful, peaceful, dreamy state, for although fond of all kinds of boating, he greatly preferred a sailing-boat to any other, and never wished to possess a steamer, or cared much to make use of one. Still, he took great pleasure in some forms of physical exercise: he could use an oar beautifully; he was a capital horseman, having been used to ride from the age of six, and retained a firm seat to the last; he readily undertook pedestrian excursions and the ascent of mountains. He often rode from Innistrynich to Inverary or Dalmally (when our island became a peninsula in dry weather, or in winter when the bay was frozen over); but he found little satisfaction in riding the mare we had then, which was mainly used as a cart-horse to fetch provisions, for the necessaries of life were not very accessible about us. We had to get bread, meat, and common grocery from Inverary, and the rest from Glasgow, so that we soon discovered that the whole time of a male servant would be required for errands of different kinds. Not unfrequently was the half of a day lost in the attempt to get a dozen eggs from the little scattered farms, or a skinny fowl, or such a rare delicacy as a cabbage. Sometimes Thursday came back from the town peevish and angry at his lost labor, having found the bread too hard or too musty, and mutton unprocurable; as to the beef which came occasionally from Glasgow, it was usually tainted, except in winter-time, and veal was not to be had for love or money, except in a condition to make one fearful of a catastrophe. There was also the additional trouble of unloading the goods on the side of the road, of putting them into the boat, to be rowed across the bay; then they must be carried to the house either by man or horse. Merely to get the indispensable quantity of fuel in such a damp climate, when fires have to be kept up for eight or oftener nine months in the year, was a serious matter, and my husband complained that he was constantly deprived of Thursday's services. He then decided to take as a gardener, out-of-door workman, and occasional boatman, a Highlander of the name of Dugald, whom he had employed sometimes in the latter capacity, for he knew something of boats, having been formerly a fisherman. There were some outbuildings on the island; one of them contained two rooms, which Dugald and his wife found sufficient for them (they had no children), and this became the gardener's cottage. Another was used as a stable, and the smallest as a fowl-house and carpenter's shop, for now we had come to the conclusion that we could not possibly live all the year round on the island without a small farm, to provide us, at least, with milk, cream, butter, and eggs; so we bought two cows, and also a small flock of sheep, that we might always be sure of mutton--either fresh or salted. This did not afford a great variety of _menus_, but it was better than starvation. Vegetables, other than potatoes and an occasional cabbage, being unseen--and I believe unknown--at Loch Awe, and my husband's health having suffered in consequence of the privation, we had the ambition of growing our own vegetables, and a great variety of them too. Dugald was set to dig and manure a large plot of ground, though he kept mumbling that it was utterly useless, as nothing could or would grow where oats did not ripen once in three years, and that Highlanders, who knew so much better than foreigners, "would not be fashed" to attempt it. However, as he was paid to do the work, he had to do it; and it was simple enough, for he had no pretensions to being a gardener; the choice of seeds and the sowing of them were left to Gilbert, who had never given a thought to it before, and to me, who knew absolutely nothing of the subject. In this emergency we got books to guide us, bought and sowed an enormous quantity of seeds, and to our immense gratification some actually sprouted. Our pride was great when the doctor came to lunch with us for the first time, and we could offer him radishes and lettuce, which he duly wondered at and appreciated. Of course we had to put up with many failures, but still it was worth while to persevere, as, in addition to carrots, onions, turnips,--which grew to perfection,--potatoes and cabbages, we had salads of different kinds, small pumpkins, and fine cauliflowers. I soon discovered that peat was extremely favorable to them, so we had a trench made in peaty soil, where they grew splendidly. Although very well satisfied on the whole with our attempt, we thought it absorbed too much of my husband's time, and he soon requested me to go on with it by myself, and frankly avowed that he could not take any interest in gardening, even in ornamental gardening. This lack of interest seemed strange to me, because he liked to study nature in all her phenomena, but it lasted to the end of his life; he did not care in the least for a well-kept garden, but he liked flowers for their colors and perfumes,--not individually,--and trees for their forms, either noble or graceful, and especially for their shade. He could not bear to see them pruned, and when it became imperative to cut some of their branches, he used to complain quite sadly to his daughter--who shared his feelings about trees--and he would say: "Now, Mary, you see they are at it again, spoiling our poor trees." And if I replied, "But it is for their health; the branches were trailing on the ground, and now the trees will grow taller," he slowly shook his head, unconvinced. When we took the small house at Pré-Charmoy, he was delighted by the wildness of the tiny park sloping gently down to the cool, narrow, shaded river, over which the bending trees met and arched, and he begged me not to interfere with the trailing blackberry branches which crept about the roots and stems of the superb wild-rose trees, making sweet but impenetrable thickets interwoven with honeysuckle, even in the midst of the alleys and lawns. And now to return to the domestic arrangements arrived at by mutual consent. Upon me devolved the housekeeping, provisioning, and care of the garden, with the help of a maid, occasionally that of Dugald's wife as charwoman, and pretty regularly that of Dugald himself for a certain portion of the day; that is, when he was not required by my husband to man the boat or to help in a camping-out expedition. It was agreed that Thursday should be considered as his master's private servant. CHAPTER II. 1858. Money matters.--Difficulties about servants.--Expensiveness of our mode of life. My husband had a little fortune, sufficient for his wants as a bachelor, which were modest; it would have been larger had his father nursed it instead of diminishing it as he did by his reckless ways, and especially by entrusting its management during his son's minority to a very kind but incapable guardian in business matters, and to another competent but dishonest trustee, who squandered, unchecked, many important sums of money, and made agreements and leases profitable to himself, but almost ruinous to his ward. As to the other trustee, he never troubled himself so far as to read a deed or a document before signing it. Still, what remained when my husband came of age was amply sufficient for the kind of life he soon chose, that of an artist; and he hoped, moreover, to increase it by the sale of his works. He was, however, aware of the future risks of the situation when he asked in marriage a girl without fortune, and he told me without reserve what we had to expect. An important portion of his income was to cease after fourteen years--the end of the lease of a coal-mine; but he felt certain that he would be able by that time to replace it by his own earnings, and meanwhile we were to live so economically and so simply that, as we thought, there was no need for anxiety; so we convinced my parents--with the persuasion that love lent us--that after all we should not be badly off. Soon after the completion of our household organization, however, I began to fear that a very simple way of living might, under peculiar conditions, become expensive. A breakfast consisting of ham and eggs is not extravagantly luxurious, but if the ham comes to thrice the original price when carriage and spoilage are allowed for, and if to the sixpence paid for half-a-dozen eggs you add the wages of a man for as many hours, you find to your dismay that though your repast was simple, it was not particularly cheap. Whichever way we turned we met with unavoidable and unlooked-for expenses. Perhaps an English lady, accustomed to the possibilities of such a place, and to the habits of the servants and the customs of the country, might have managed better--though even to-day I don't see clearly what she could have done; as for me, though I had been brought up in the belief that Paris was one of the most expensive places to live in, and though I was perfectly aware of its prices,--having kept my father's house for some years, on account of my mother's weak state of health,--I was entirely taken by surprise, and rather afraid of the reckoning at the end of the year. No one who has not attempted that kind of primitive existence has any idea of its complications. A mere change of servant was expensive--and such changes were rather frequent, on account of their disgust at the breach of orthodox habits, and the lack of followers; or their dismissal was rendered inevitable by their incapacity or unwillingness, or their contempt for everything out of their own country. We had a capital instance of this characteristic in a nurse who came from Greenock, and who thoroughly despised everything in the Highlands. One night, my husband and myself were out of doors admiring a splendid full moon, by the light of which it was quite easy to read. The nurse Katharine was standing by us, holding baby in her arms, and she heard me express my admiration: unable to put up with praises of a Highland moon, she exclaimed deliberately, "Sure, ma'am, then, you should see the Greenock moon; this is nothing to it." This change of servants was of serious moment to us, both in the way of time and money, for we had to go to Glasgow or Greenock to fetch new ones, besides paying for their journeys to and fro, and a month's wages if they did not give satisfaction, which was but too often the case. Once it happened that a steamer, bringing over a small cargo of much-needed provisions, foundered, and we were in consequence nearly reduced to a state of starvation. Also, after paying princely prices for laying hens, we only found empty shells in the hen-coop, the rats having sucked the eggs before us. Gilbert, to save our eggs, bought a vivacious little terrier, who killed more fowls than rats; and as to the few little chickens that were hatched--despite the cold and damp--they gradually disappeared, devoured by the birds of prey, falcons and eagles, which carried them off under my eyes, even whilst I was feeding them. Another very important item of expense lay in the different materials required for my husband's work of various kinds, and of which he ordered such quantities that their remnants are still to be found in his laboratory as I write. Papers of all sorts of quality and size--for pen-and-ink, crayons, pastel, water-color, etching, tracing; colors dry and moist, brushes, canvases, frames, boards, panels; also the requisites for photography. It was one of my husband's lasting peculiarities that, in his desire to do a great quantity of work, and in the fear of running short of something, he always gave orders far exceeding what he could possibly use. He also invariably allowed himself, for the completion of any given work, an insufficiency of time, because he did not, beforehand, take into account the numerous corrections that he was sure to make; for he was constantly trying to do better. Our journeys also contributed to swell considerably the total of our expenditure. Before we were married he promised my parents that he would bring me over once a year, for about a month; for it was a great sacrifice on their part to let their eldest child go so far away, and, even as it was, to remain separated for so long at a time. My husband's relations had also to be considered, and he decided that every time we went to France we would stay a week at least with his maiden aunts, who had brought him up, and a few days with the family of his kind uncle, Thomas Hamerton of Todmorden; then a short time in London to see the Exhibitions and his friends. The same itinerary was to be followed on our return. My parents living then in Paris, where even at that time rents were high and space restricted, my husband's dislike to confinement did not allow him to remain satisfied with the single room they could put at our disposal; moreover, in order to work effectively, peace and perfect quiet were absolutely indispensable to him; so he took lodgings close to my parents', and whilst I spent as much of my time with them as I could spare, he wrote or read in the noiseless rooms we had taken _entre cour et jardin_. Of course the rent of the lodgings was an additional expense. Altogether, when we summed up the accounts after the first year, we were dismayed to see what was the cost of such an unpretentious existence; but with youthful hope we counted upon the income that art could not fail to bring shortly. CHAPTER III. 1858. Painting from nature.--Project of an exhibition.--Photography.--Plan of the "Painter's Camp."--Topographic Art.--Charm of our life in the Highlands. Mr. Hamerton has himself explained in his autobiography what were his artistic tendencies and aims: he meant to be topographically true in his rendering of nature, and was unluckily greatly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, who were, at the time of our marriage, attracting great attention. I was totally unprepared for that kind of art, and the most famous specimens of it which my husband took me to see in London only awoke an apprehension as to what I might think of his own pictures when they were shown to me. The old masters in the Louvre, even the yearly Salons, where, under my father's guidance, I had learned to admire Troyon, Corot, and Millet, had given me an education which fell short of enabling me to recognize the merits of the new school. It was in vain that my husband pointed out the veracity of the minutest detail, in vain that he attempted to interest me in the subjects or praised the scheme of color; I did not understand it as art, and I received an impression, perfectly remembered to this day, and which I hardly hope to convey to others in words: it was for my eyes what unripe fruit is for the teeth. It was a long time before my husband completed a picture at Innistrynich, because he had resolved, at first, to paint only from nature, and was constantly interrupted by changes of effect. After many attempts, he came to the conclusion that he would only paint local color out-of-doors, and in order to study effects rapidly, he made hasty sketches with copious notes written in pencil. Still, he was not satisfied, the sketch, however quickly traced, retarding the taking of notes, so that the effect had vanished before they were completed. After giving mature consideration to another scheme of study, he decided to make careful pen-and-ink topographical drawings of the most striking features of the scenery, such as Ben Cruachan, Glen Etive, Ben Vorlich, Glencoe, etc., and to have them reproduced in large quantities, so that, when upon the scene represented by any of them, he would only have to note the most impressive effects, the sketch having become unnecessary. I wished him to take these memoranda in water-colors or pastels, for it seemed to me very difficult, when the effect was out of the memory, to revive it in its entirety by hundreds of minute observations covering the whole sheet of paper. I had another reason for wishing to see him work more in colors--it was his want of dexterity with them, which I thought practice only could give; but he said it was too slow for out-of-door study, and should be reserved for winter-time and bad weather. Another point upon which we could not agree was the amount of truth to which an artist ought to bind himself; he said "nothing less than topographic truth," and he took infinite pains in the measurement of mountain peaks, breadth of heather-patches, and length of running streams. To his grievous disappointment, when the conscientious and labored study was shown to me, I could not but repeat that if it were true it did not look so to me, since it produced none of the sensations of the natural scene. "You would like me to exaggerate, then?" he asked. "Yes," I answered, "if that is the way to make it _look_ true." But he persevered in his system. He used to camp out a week, sometimes a fortnight, wherever he made choice of a subject, and returned to the same spot several times afterwards, with his printed studies of outlines to take notes of effects. He was fond of elaborating schemes, and I told him sometimes that I wished he would allow things to go on more simply, that he would paint his pictures straightforwardly, and try for their reception in the Academy; but he answered that most certainly they would be rejected if painted with so little care, and that he thought the best plan was to go on patiently during the summer as he had begun, then to paint in winter from his studies, and produce, not an odd picture now and then, but a series of pictures illustrating the most remarkable characteristics of Highland scenery, which he would put before the public in a private exhibition of his own, under the title of "Pictures from the Highlands, by P. G. Hamerton." And before one of the pictures was begun, he had made the model of a die bearing this inscription, to be stamped on the frames of the pictures, as well as on the studies. Mr. Hamerton had taken lessons from a photographer in Paris, at the time of his first visit there, thinking it might be a help in the prosecution of his scheme, and now he was always trying to get some photographs of the scenes among which he camped. They were generally very poor and feeble, the weather being so often unpropitious, and the process (paper process) so imperfect and tedious. Still, it was the means of giving pleasure to our relations and friends by acquainting them with our surroundings. Here is a passage from one of my father's letters in acknowledgment of the photograph of our house: "J'ai reçu avec infiniment de plaisir votre lettre et la photographie qui l'accompagnait. Cette petite image nous met en communication plus directe, en nous identifiant pour ainsi dire, à votre vie intérieure. Merci donc, et de bon coeur." Although my husband firmly believed that nature had meant him to be an artist, and helped nature as much as he could by his own exertions, the literary talent which was in him would not be stifled altogether, and under pretext of preparing a way for his artistic reputation, made him undertake the "Painter's Camp." It may be easily realized that with his elaborate system of study, which required journeys and camping out, the taking of photographs, painting indoors in wet weather, together with a course of reading for culture and pleasure, and in addition literary composition, Gilbert's time was fully occupied; still he was dissatisfied by the meagre result, and fretted about it. He had, at the cost of much thought and money, organized a perfect establishment, with wagons, tents, and boats, to go and stay wherever he pleased; but wherever he went or stopped he almost invariably met with rain and mist, and though he could draw or paint inside the tent, he still required to see his subject, and how could he possibly when the heavy rain-clouds enveloped the mountains as if in a shroud, or when the mist threw a veil over all the landscape? I remember going with him to camp out in Glencoe in delightful weather, which lasted (for a wonder) throughout the journey and the day following it, after which we were shut inside the tents by pouring or drizzling rain for six consecutive days, when the only possible occupation was reading, so that at last we were beaten back home with a few bad photographs and incomplete sketches as the fruits of a week's expedition. At first we did not attach much importance to the weather, even if it wasted time. My husband had taken the island on a lease of four years, and it seemed to us that almost anything might be achieved in the course of four years; we were so young, both of us--he twenty-four, and I nineteen--that we had not yet realized how rapidly time flows--and it flowed so delightfully with us as to make everything promising in our eyes. The rain might be troublesome and interfere with work, but were not the splendid colors of the landscape due to it? The lake might be stormy, and the white foam of its waves dash even upon the panes of our windows, but the clouds, driven wildly over the crests of the hills, and rent by peaks and crags, cast ever-hanging shadows along their swift course, and the shafts of the sun darting between them clothed the spaces between in dazzling splendor. Our enjoyment of natural beauty was not marred by considerations about the elements which produced it: whether the rich color of the shrivelled ferns on the hillside had been given by the fierce heat of a sun which, at the same time, had dried up the streams and parched the meadows, we did not inquire; and if the grandeur of the stormy lake on a dark night, with the moaning of the breakers on the rocky shore, and the piercing shrieks of the blast, involved the fall and ruin of many a poor man's cottage and the destruction of hundreds of uprooted trees, we were so entranced in admiration as to give no thought to the consequences. We derived pleasure from everything, study or contemplation, fair weather or foul; a twilight ramble on the island by the magnificent northern lights, or a quiet sail on the solitary lake perfumed with the fragrance of the honeysuckle or of the blue hyacinths growing so profusely on Inishail and the Black Isles. Well, we were happy; we did not stop to consider if we were _perfectly_ happy; but it was, without a doubt, the happiest time of our lives, for we have always turned back to it with deep regret, and, as my husband has expressed it in the "Painter's Camp"--"It is so full of associations and memories which are so infinitely dear and sweet and sacred, that the very word 'Highlands' will lay a sudden charm on my heart forever." Although we made no dissection of our happiness to know what it was made of, there was a powerful element in it which I discern clearly now: we were satisfied with ourselves, thinking we were fulfilling our duty to the best of our understanding; if we erred, it was unconsciously. Since then we have not been so positive, and sometimes have questioned the wisdom of those days. But who can tell?... If my husband had not lived those four years of Highland life he would not have been the man he became, and his literary gift, though perhaps developed in some other way, would never have acquired the charm which influenced afterwards so many minds and hearts. CHAPTER IV. 1858. English and French manners.--My husband's relatives.--First journey to France after our marriage.--Friends in London.--Miss Susan Hamerton. The summer of 1858 had been unusually warm and pleasant in the Highlands, and my husband had put many a study in his portfolios, in spite of the interruptions to his work caused by a series of boils, which, though of no importance, were exceedingly painful and irritating, being accompanied by fever and sleeplessness: they were the result of a regimen of salted meat and an insufficiency of fresh vegetables; for of course those we succeeded in growing the first year were only fit for the table towards the end of summer. We had not been so solitary as I had expected, for with the warm weather a few families had come back to their residences on the shores of the lake, and had called upon us. I had felt rather timid and awkward, as I could not speak English; but the ladies being kindly disposed, and generally knowing a little French, we managed to get on friendly terms, particularly when left to ourselves, for I was very much afraid of Gilbert's strictures--I will explain for what reasons in particular. He was, as I have said before, a very good and competent teacher, but very exacting, and he had repeatedly said that he could put up better with my faults were they the usual recognized mistakes of a foreigner, but that unluckily mine were vulgarisms. This was very humiliating, as I must confess I took a little pride in my French, which had been often praised as elegant and pure, and this had fostered in me a taste for conversation such as was still to be enjoyed in intelligent French society at that time, and of which I had never been deprived at home, my father being an excellent conversationalist, and receiving political friends of great talent as orators and debaters, such as Michel de Bourges, Baudin, Madier-de-Montjau, Boysset, and many others, as well as literary people. On the other hand, it must be explained that I was unknown to my husband's relations, and aware of some prejudices against me among them, particularly on the part of his Aunt Susan,--the younger of the two sisters who had brought him up. She only knew that I was French, a Roman Catholic, and without fortune; all these defects were the very opposite of what she had dreamt of for her nephew, and her disappointment had been so bitter when she had heard of his engagement that, to excuse it in her own eyes, she had convinced herself that a French girl could only be flippant, extravagantly fond of amusement, and neglectful of homely duties; a Roman Catholic must of necessity be narrow-minded and bigoted, and the want of fortune betrayed low birth and lack of education. These views had been expressed at length to my betrothed, together with severe reproaches and admonitions, and it was in vain that he had attempted to justify his choice; his aunt persisted in attributing it solely to a passion he had been too weak to master. At last our marriage drawing near, Gilbert wrote to his aunt that if her next letter contained anything disrespectful to me he would return it, and do the same for the following ones, without opening them; and the correspondence had ceased. It was quite different with his aunt Mary, who must also have been disappointed by his marriage, for with her aristocratic tastes and notions she had desired for her nephew a bride of rank, and an heiress to put him again in the station befitting the family name, to which his education and talents seemed to entitle him. But she had confidence in his judgment, and loved him with so generous a love that she congratulated him warmly when he was accepted, and wrote me an affectionate letter of thanks, and a welcome as a new member of the family. Of course my husband had often talked to me about his aunts; not much was said of Miss Susan, but a great deal of his dear guardian, who had been like a mother to him, and who now wrote encouragingly to me from time to time about my English, and my new life. He praised both his aunts for their good management of a small income, for the position they had been able to retain in society, and particularly for their lady-like manners and good breeding; explaining sometimes that I should probably find it different in some respects from French _comme-il-faut_, and mentioning in what particulars. I felt that he would be very sensitive about the opinions his aunts would form of me, and I dreaded that of Miss Susan Hamerton. He had put me on my guard on some points; for instance, about the French custom of always addressing people as Monsieur or Madame, which was hard for me to relinquish, as it seemed rude; and I was also told not to be always thanking servants for their services (as we do in France), if I wished to be considered well-bred. But besides what was pointed out to me, I noticed many other things which ought to be toned down in my nature and habits, if I meant to acquire what I heard called lady-like manners. I was at that time very vivacious, merry, and impulsive, and so long as I had lived in France this natural disposition had been looked upon as a happy one, and rather pleasant than otherwise; but I did not notice anything resembling it in our visitors, who were said to be real ladies, or lady-like. They looked to my French eyes somewhat indifferent and unconcerned: it is true that they were all my seniors by at least half-a-score of years, but the fact did not put me more at ease. However, as they showed great kindness, and frequently renewed their visits and invitations, I was led to think that their judgment had not gone against me, and this gave me some courage for the day of my meeting with my Aunt Susan. And that day was drawing near, my husband having promised his relations that we should visit them after six months, which was the delay granted to me to learn a little English; and although I could not and dared not speak it at the end of the allotted time, no respite was allowed. It was arranged that after our stay in Lancashire we should go on to Paris. This news was received with great joy and thankfulness in my family, where we had not been expected so soon, and where the sorrow for my absence was still so keen that my father wrote to my husband: "Chaque fois que je rentre je m'attends à la voir accourir au devant de moi et chaque désillusion est suivie de tristesse. Il n'est pas jusqu'au piano dont le mutisme me fait mal. J'ai beau me dire que ces impatiences, ces chagrins sont de la faiblesse: je le sais, je le sens, et je n'en suis pas plus fort." The love of improvements, which was one of Gilbert's characteristics, had led him to plan a road on the island, which should go from the house to the lowest part of the shore, where the lake dried up in summer, so as to facilitate the conveyance of goods, which could then be carted without unloading from Inverary to the barn or kitchen-door. He gave very minute directions to Thursday and Dugald, and set them to their work just before we left for France, telling them that he expected to find the road finished on our return. We started in November, and arrived at Todmorden on a wet day; and just before leaving the railway carriage we were much amused by a gentleman who answered the query "Is this Todmorden?" by letting down the window and thrusting his hand out, after which he gravely said: "It is raining; it must be Todmorden." My husband's uncle, Thomas Hamerton, with his two daughters, was awaiting us at the station to welcome us and take us to his house, where we found Mrs. Hamerton, who received us very kindly, but called me Mrs. Philip Gilbert, because she despaired of ever pronouncing my Christian name rightly. I begged her to call me "niece," and her husband gave the example by calling me "my niece Eugeneï." Our cousins Anne and Jane spoke French very creditably, although they had never been in France, and we were soon on friendly terms. When my husband was away, they translated my answers to their mother's numerous questions about our life in the Highlands, my occupations, tastes, French habits, and what not. Although my powers of expression in English were very limited, I understood the greater part of what was said, and Mrs. Hamerton and my cousins being so encouraging, I did not feel so timid, and if I had stayed longer I should most certainly have made rapid progress. On that score my husband--P. G., as they called him in the family circle--was taken to task and scolded for having been too severe with "his poor little foreign wife." His cousins, with whom he was on brotherly terms, were much pleased with the soft French pronunciation of the name Gilbert, and dropped the P. G. decisively, to the great wonder of their mamma. The following day was fixed by my husband as the day of our trial,--that is, for our visit to his aunts, who lived on a steep eminence above Todmorden, in a pleasant house, "The Jumps." Aunt Mary, in order to spare me, had offered to come down to meet us at her brother's; but as she suffered from some kind of heart complaint (the knowledge of which kept her loving nephew in constant alarm) we were afraid of the effect that fatigue and emotion might have, and preferred to encounter Miss Susan Hamerton. The reception was typical of the different dispositions towards us. Aunt Mary was standing at the door, straining her eyes to see us sooner, and came forward to embrace me and to receive the kisses of her beloved nephew; then she whispered that "she had hoped Susan would have gone away on a visit to her friends; but she had remained obdurate to all hints and entreaties." So there was nothing for it but to meet her, since she would have it so; and with a beating heart I was led to the drawing-room by my husband. That the reader may not be misled into believing that a life-long estrangement resulted from the following scene, I will quote a passage from the preface to "Human Intercourse," which gives the unforeseen result of my acquaintance with Miss Susan Hamerton. "A certain English lady, influenced by the received ideas about human intercourse which define the conditions of it in a hard and sharp manner, was strongly convinced that it would be impossible for her to have friendly relations with another lady whom she had never seen, but was likely to see frequently. All her reasons would be considered excellent reasons by those who believe in maxims and rules. It was plain that there could be nothing in common. The other lady was neither of the same country, nor of the same religious and political parties, nor of the same generation. These facts were known, and the inference deduced from them was that intercourse would be impossible. After some time the English lady began to perceive that the case did not bear out the supposed rules; she discovered that the younger lady might be an acceptable friend. "At last the full, strange truth became apparent--that she was singularly well adapted, better adapted than any other human being, to take a filial relation to the elder, especially in times of sickness, when her presence was a wonderful support. Then the warmest affection sprang up between the two, lasting till separation by death, and still cherished by the survivor." But the first meeting held out no such promise. There, on the couch, was an elderly lady, sitting stiff and straight, with a book in her hands, from which her eyes were never raised, even when she acknowledged our entrance by a studiously slow, chilling, and almost imperceptible bend of the head. I saw my husband's face flush with anger as we bowed to my new relation; but I pressed his hand entreatingly, and we sat down, attempting to ignore the hostile presence, and to talk as if we found ourselves in ordinary circumstances. Poor Aunt Mary, thinking it must be unendurable to me, soon proposed that we should go to the dining-room for refreshments, and her proposition was accepted with alacrity. We left the dining-room with the same ceremonial which had followed our entrance, and were rewarded by the same frigid and distant movement of the silent figure on the sofa. We remained some time with Aunt Mary, and took an affectionate leave of her, my husband giving a promise that on our return journey we would stay a few days at "The Jumps," whether her sister chose to be at home or away. I have related this episode at some length, although it seems to concern me more than my husband, because the influence it had on his life was so important. It is almost certain that if Miss Susan Hamerton had behaved towards us like her sister, my husband would never have thought of going to live in France. At the end of our lease at Innistrynich, he would have chosen a residence in some picturesque part of England, and would have easily induced his aunts to settle as near as possible to us. Their example and advice in household matters would have been invaluable to me, whilst the affectionate intercourse would have grown closer and dearer as we came to know each other better. However, this was not to be. We soon left Todmorden after our visit to "The Jumps," and when we reached Paris there were great rejoicings in my family, where my husband was fully appreciated. He liked to talk of politics, literature, and art with my father, whose experience was extensive, and whose taste was refined and discriminating; he awoke in his son-in-law an interest in sculpture which hitherto had not been developed, but which grew with years. As to my mother, brothers, and sister, they loved him for his kindness, and also because he had made a life of happiness for me. In Paris we went to see everything of artistic interest, but especially of architectural interest. I knew nothing of architecture myself, but was naturally attracted by beauty, and my husband guided my opinions with his knowledge. I noticed with surprise his indifference to most of the pictures in the Museum of the Louvre, and he explained, later, that he could not appreciate them at that period in the development of his artistic taste, which was at that time retarded by the Pre-Raphaelite influence. There was certainly a great evolution of mind between this state of quasi-indifference and the fervid enthusiasm which made him say to me when we came to live in Paris: "At any rate there is for me, as a compensation for the beauty of natural scenery, an inexhaustible source of interest and study in the Louvre." The Museum of the Luxembourg containing several pictures by modern artists, whose merits he recognized, was frequently visited by us--and he admired heartily among others, Rosa Bonheur, Daubigny, Charles Jacque, and especially Troyon, whose works went far to shake his faith in topographic painting, and sowed the first seeds of the French school's influence on his mind. At the expiration of the month we returned to London, and stayed with friends; my husband introduced me to Mr. and Mrs. Mackay, to Mrs. Leslie and her family, to the sons and daughters of Constable, of whom he speaks in his autobiography, and they all received me very kindly, and told me what hopeful views they entertained of his future career. We also called upon Millais, for whose talent my husband had a great admiration. He received us quite informally, and we had a long talk in French, which he pronounced remarkably well; he explained it to me by saying that he belonged to a Jersey family. It was also during this London visit that Mr. Hamerton made the acquaintance of Mr. Calderon, who also spoke French admirably,--an acquaintance which was to ripen into friendship, and last to the end of my husband's life. He also went to all the winter exhibitions, public or private, where he stood rooted before all the works which could teach him something of his difficult art; and when we left he was certain of having acquired new knowledge. Miss Susan Hamerton having said to Aunt Mary that she had no objection to our being her sister's guests, we went straight to "The Jumps" after leaving London. This time she received us with polite coldness,--like perfect strangers,--but she was not insulting, only at times somewhat ungenerously sarcastic with me, who was not armed to parry her thrusts. I felt quite miserable, for I did not wish to widen the gap between her and her nephew, and on the other hand I did not see how our intercourse could be made more pleasant by any endeavors of mine, for I was ignorant of the art of ingratiating myself with persons whom I felt adverse to me, and I must avow that I had also a certain degree of pride which prevented me from making advances when unfairly treated. I had always lived in an atmosphere of confidence, love, and goodwill,--perhaps I had been a little spoilt by the kindness of my friends, and now it seemed hard to be a butt for ill-natured sarcasms. These shafts, however, were seldom, if ever, let loose in the presence of my husband, who would not have tolerated it; the want of welcome being as much as he could bear. Still, there was no doubt that matters had slightly mended since our first visit, and an undeniable token of this was the fact of Miss Susan Hamerton extending her hand to each of us at parting. Had I been told then that this reluctant hand would become a firm support for me; that these cold eyes would he filled with warm tears of love, and that I should be tenderly pressed to this apparently unsympathizing bosom, I could not have believed it. Yet the day came when Aunt Susan proved my dearest friend, and when Mr. Thomas Hamerton said to his nephew, "Susan loves you much, no doubt, but Eugénie is A1 for her." CHAPTER V. 1859. Visits from friends and relatives.--A Frenchman in the Highlands.-- Project of buying the island of Innistrynich. When we arrived at Innistrynich from the Continent, all our neighbors had left Loch Awe, and we had only as occasional visitors the doctor and our landlord--the rare and far-between calls of the minister ceasing with the fine days; but we were not afraid of our solitude _à deux_, and we had the pleasant prospect of entertaining Aunt Mary and Anne Hamerton early in the summer, as well as the husband of my godmother, M. Souverain, a well-known Parisian publisher, whose acquaintance Mr. Hamerton had made through my father, and who had promised to come to see us. Meanwhile, we resumed our usual rules of work, and my husband began several oil pictures at once, so as to lose no time in having to wait for the drying of the colors. As he had made great progress in his French, he proposed that we should change our parts, and that nothing but English should be spoken, read, or written by me, except my letters to French correspondents. I delayed my submission a while, for it seemed that if I could not speak--even to him--confidentially and with perfect ease, that indeed would be solitude. At last I yielded to his entreaties, strengthened by my father's remonstrances, and some months of constantly renewed endeavors not always successful, and sometimes accompanied by weariness, discouragement, and tears--began for me, my teacher never swerving from his rule, not even when, despairing of making myself understood, I used a French word or expression. On such occasions he invariably shook his head and said: "I do not understand French; speak English," at the same time helping me out of my difficulty as much as he could. Aunt Mary and Anne Hamerton had promised to come to see us during the summer, and we had repeated our invitation in the beginning of the spring of 1859, but Aunt Mary wrote to her nephew: "I am looking forward with great pleasure to my visit to you and Eugénie, but I think I had _better_ NOT come till the little cherub has come, because anybody would know better what to do than I should." She wrote again on June 6, 1859: "I am very glad indeed that Eugénie and the dear little boy are doing well; give my very best love to Eugénie, and tell her that now Anne and I are looking forward with great pleasure to visiting you as soon as we can." They came in July, and Aunt Mary was delighted with the beauty of the scenery, with the strong and healthy appearance of her little grand-nephew, whom she held in her arms as much and as long as her strength allowed, but especially by the recovered affectionate intimacy with my husband, and also by the certainty of our domestic happiness. Anne Hamerton greatly enjoyed the excursions on land and water, and so the days passed pleasantly. When my husband was painting, either in his studio or out-of-doors, we sat near him and read aloud by turns. Aunt Mary was very fond of Moore's poetry, and read it well and feelingly, though her voice was rather tremulous and weak. To Anne were given passages of "Modern Painters" as examples of style, and Lamartine's "Jocelyn" for French pronunciation. I fear that Aunt Mary's appreciation of it was more imaginary than real. "The Newcomes" fell to my lot, being easier than poetry, and gave rise to many a debate about its superiority or inferiority to Thackeray's other works. As an author he was not justly appreciated by Aunt Mary, who, on account of her aristocratic loyalty, did not forgive him for "The Four Georges." We had also a good deal of music; my husband, having been accustomed to play duets with his cousin, soon resumed the practice, and though I had not encouraged him as a solo-player, I liked well enough to listen to his violin with a piano accompaniment. Anne's playing was only mediocre, but as she did not attempt anything above her skill, it was pleasant enough; she accompanied all the French songs I had brought with me, and they were numerous, for at that time there was no _soirée_ in Paris--homely or fashionable--without _romances_; the public taste was not so fastidious as it has since become, and did not expect from a school-girl the performance of an operatic prima donna. When out in the boat on a peaceful and serene night, my husband rowing us slowly on the glassy water, it seemed that the melodies which rose and spread in the hazy atmosphere were the natural complement to these enchanted hours. Anne often sang "Beautiful Star" or "Long Time Ago," and I was always asked for "Le Lac" or "La Chanson de Fortunio." The arrival of Monsieur Souverain added a new element of cheerfulness to our little party: he was so thoroughly French--that is, so ignorant of other habits than French ones, so naïvely persuaded of their superiority to all others, so keenly alive to any point of difference, and so openly astonished when he discovered any, always wondering at the reason for this want of similarity--that he was a perpetual source of interest to our lady visitors. He could not speak English, but he always addressed Aunt Mary in his voluble and rapid Parisian French, and she was all smiles, and appeared to enjoy extremely his run of anecdotes about French celebrities she had never heard of. Now and then she let fall a word or sometimes a phrase totally irrelevant to what he had been saying, but which in his turn he politely pretended to appreciate, although he had not understood a single syllable of it. It was most amusing to see them walking side by side, evidently enjoying each other's society and animated conversation; only we remarked that they were careful to remain well out of profane hearing by keeping a good deal in front of us, or else loitering behind. We had been awaiting M. Souverain for some days, no date having been fixed, when one morning our attention was aroused by loud and prolonged shouts coming from that part of the road which affords a view of Innistrynich, before descending to the bay. With the help of his telescope, my husband soon discovered a small, spare human form, now waving a pocket-handkerchief, and now making a speaking-trumpet of both hands to carry its appeal as far as the island. "It must be M. Souverain," Gilbert said, as he sent a shout of welcome, and ran to the pier to loosen the boat and row it across the bay. He had scarcely landed our visitor when enthusiastic ejaculations met our ears: "Mais c'est le Paradis terrestre ici!" "Quel pays de rêve!" "Quel séjour enchanteur!" Then, with a change of tone habitual to him, and a little sarcastic: "Yes, but as difficult to find as dream-land; I thought I should have to turn back to France without meeting with you, for no one seemed to be aware of the existence of the 'lac Ave' any more than of 'Ineestreeneeche,' and I was beginning to suspect your descriptions to have been purely imaginary, when _un trait de lumière_ illuminated my brain. I bought a map of Scotland, and without troubling myself any longer with the impossible pronunciation of impossible names, I stuck a pin on the spot of the map that I wanted to reach and showed it either to a railway _employé_ or to a _matelot_, and I was sure to hear 'All right,'--I have learnt that at least. But upon my life, to this day I can't explain why no one seemed to understand me, even at Inverary, at the hotel. I asked: 'Quel chemin doit on prendre pour aller chez Monsieur Amertone, dans l'île d'Ineestreeneeche sur le lac Ave?' That was quite plain, was not it?... Well, they only shook their heads till I gave them the address you had written for me, then of course they came out with 'All right,' and a good deal besides which was of no consequence to me, and at last I am here 'all right.' But why on earth do they spell Londres, London; Glascow, Glasgow; and Cantorbéry, Canterbury? It is exceedingly puzzling to strangers." My husband was greatly tickled, and rather encouraged this flow of impressions; he thought it extremely interesting in a cultivated and intelligent man who was far from untravelled, for he had been in Spain, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Algeria, and who still evinced a childlike wonder at every unfamiliar object. For instance, he would say: "Now, Mr. Hamerton, I am sure you can't justify this queer custom in English hotels, of putting on the table a roast of eight pounds' weight, _at least_, or a whole cheese. I can't eat all that, then why serve it me?... And why also those immense washing-basins? They are so cumbersome and heavy that it is almost as much as I can achieve to empty them: I don't take a bath in them, I take it in a _baignoire_, and I have not to empty it." The conversation, however, often ran on serious subjects, and M. Souverain heard with deep interest from my husband an account of his plans, both literary and artistic, and said once: "If you intend to devote your life to painting Highland scenery, and since your wife loves this admirable island as much as you do, why should not you buy it and secure the benefit of the improvements you are carrying on? It is somewhat solitary at times, no doubt, but as you will be obliged to go to London and Paris every year at least, you might arrange to do so in winter and enjoy society there, and a change at the same time. You tell me that your property yields at present but a very poor income,--why not sell it, or part of it, since it has no attraction for you, and live here, on your own property, free of rent?" Gilbert himself had entertained the idea, and had developed it to me with flattering possibilities and speculations, but I was already beginning to fear that our present existence was too exquisite to last. We had received bad news from Uncle Thomas about the rents; the mill was not let, and would require a heavy outlay before it could find a tenant; the machinery was old, out-of-date, and would have to be replaced by new with the modern improvements, and the cottages surrounding the mill were likely to remain tenantless so long as the mill did not work, or the rents be but irregularly forthcoming. In fact, our income was already insufficient, and my husband was seriously considering whether he ought to borrow in order to set up the mill again, or whether it would be more profitable to sell the property and draw upon the capital as we required it, till he could sell his pictures. At last he decided to consult his uncle, who was a prudent man of business, and had a long experience as landed proprietor. After due consideration Mr. T. Hamerton advised him to go to the necessary expense for repairs to the mill. Meanwhile M. Souverain was growing more enchanted with Loch Awe day by day, and could not bear the idea that we might be turned out of Innistrynich some day by a new owner (for the present one was getting old, and had said that at the end of our lease he would put it up for sale), so he tempted my husband by the almost irresistible offer of a third of the purchase money, in consideration of having two rooms reserved for himself and his wife--my godmother--during two of the summer months. But Aunt Mary's secret desire--and perhaps hope--of seeing us established at a future time nearer to herself, suggested some very weighty considerations against the project. "When your child or maybe children grow up and have to attend school, will you resign yourselves to send them so far as will be inevitable if you are still here?" she said; "and will your healths be able to stand the severity of the climate when you are no longer so young? The distance from a doctor is another serious affair in case of sickness, and I myself, as well as Eugénie's parents, am on the downward course, and may soon be deprived of the possibility of undertaking so fatiguing a journey." All this had been foreseen by her nephew, of course, but his attachment to the place was such that he found ready answers to all objections. "Our children would be educated at home--the climate, though damp, was not more severe or unhealthy than the average--doctors were of no good, generally speaking--and we might visit our relations more frequently in case they were unable to come to us." So the question remained open. Gilbert, thinking it desirable to give his guests a more extensive acquaintance with the surrounding country than his boats could afford, proposed to take a carriage, which would be ferried from Port Sonachan to the other side of the lake, after which we might drive as much as possible along the shores till we reached Ardhonnel Castle. If we arrived early we would visit the ruins and the island; if too late, it would be reserved for the following morning, as we intended to spend the night at the inn, and to resume our drive in time to be back at Innistrynich for dinner. We started merrily,--Aunt Mary, Anne Hamerton, M. Souverain, my husband, myself, and baby; for our guests kindly insisted upon my being one of the party, in spite of my small encumbrance, which I could not leave behind. I did my best to be excused, but they were unanimous in declaring that they would not go if I stayed. "You need not walk unless you like," they said, "for there will always be the carriage, the boat, or the inn for you." It was a splendid day of bright sunshine in a tenderly blue sky, with a pure, soft breeze hardly rippling the lake. We all took our seats inside the roomy, open carriage, my husband leaving the management of the horses to the driver that he might be free to enjoy the scenery. M. Souverain remarked that if the Highlanders were a strong race, their horses hardly deserved the same epithet; and indeed the pair harnessed to our carriage appeared very lean and somewhat shaky, but the driver affirmed that they were capital for hill-work, though he would not swear to their swiftness, and as we did not want to go fast, it was again "all right" from M. Souverain when the explanation had been translated to him. Fast we certainly did not go, and, moreover, we often stopped to admire the changing views, but the poor starved beasts did not pick up any more spirit during their frequent rests; they painfully resumed their dull jog-trot for a short time, which soon dwindled to slow, weary paces that even the whip in no way hastened. However, with plenty of time before us, we only turned it into a joke, pretending to be terrified by the ardor of our steeds. My husband had to tell M. Souverain all the legends of the places we were passing, and as he himself "courtisait la Muse," he listened with rapt attention, so as to be able to treat the subjects in French verse. "This country is a mine for a poet!" he frequently exclaimed. Luckily we had packed some provisions in the carriage, for the sun was already declining,--like the pace of the horses,--and we were not yet at the end of the drive by a good distance. The fresh air had sharpened our appetites, and Gilbert proposed that we should have something to eat whilst the horses were taken out of harness and given a feed to refresh them and give them a little more vigor for the rest of the journey. By the time we had finished our collation the air had freshened, and it was twilight; we agreed that now it was desirable to get within shelter as soon as possible, although the charm of the hour was indescribable; but the thin white mist was beginning to float over the lake, and the last remnants of the afterglow had entirely died out. What was our dismay when we found that all my husband's efforts, joined to those of the driver, to make the horses get up were ineffectual; there they lay on the grass, and neither expostulations, pulls, cracks of the whip, or even kicks, I am sorry to say, seemed to produce the slightest effect upon their determination to remain stretched at full length on the ground. What were we to do? The driver vociferated in Gaelic, but the poor brutes did not mind, and they would have been cruelly maltreated if we had not interfered to protect them. Gilbert said to the man: "You see well enough that they have no strength to work, therefore allow them to rest till they are able to go back. I leave you here, and as I have ladies with me I must try to find some sort of shelter for the night." The man was almost frantic when he saw us go, but we all agreed with my husband, and in the hope of finding a cottage set forth resolutely on foot. It was now almost dark, but our spirits were not damped yet, and, as M. Souverain remarked, it was "une véritable aventure." Still, I was beginning to find my baby somewhat heavy after walking for three-quarters of an hour, when the gentlemen in front of us cheerily encouraged our exertions by calling out, "A cottage, a cottage!" and when we came up to them they were loudly knocking at the door, unable to obtain a sign of life from within; however, the smell of burning peat clearly indicated that the cottage was inhabited, and my husband shouted our story, begging that the door might be opened and the ladies allowed to rest. Then on the other side of the door, which remained closed, a voice answered in Gaelic we knew not what, except that the tone of it was unmistakably angry, and unbroken silence ensued. There was nothing left to us but to resume our walk, enlivened by M. Souverain singing the celebrated song, "Chez les montagnards Écossais l'hospitalité se donne," etc. Every one in turn offered to hold the baby; but Aunt Mary, I knew, had enough to do for herself, Anne was not strong, and my confidence in the fitness of the gentlemen for the function of nurse was very limited. My husband kept up our courage by affirming that we were not far from Ardhonnel, and consequently within a short distance of the inn; indeed, he called us to the side of the road, from which we could see the noble ruin with our own eyes, now that the new moon had risen and was peeping between the clouds occasionally. It was a welcome sight, for by this time we were really weary; but alas! the inn was on the other side of the lake, and we had no boat; still, Gilbert felt sure there must be one not very far off, to take the people across, and after surveying the shore for a while he discovered a little pier, with a rowing-boat chained to it, and a very small cottage almost close to where we stood; so he went to knock at the door, and again Gaelic was given in answer. But this time the door was opened by a woman who had only taken time to put on a short petticoat, and to throw a small shawl over her head; her feet, legs, and arms were bare, and she looked strong and placid; her English was scanty, but she understood pretty well what we wanted, and declared herself willing to row our party to the other side if any one could steer, for her "man" was asleep in bed and too tired for work; so my husband took a pair of oars, the woman another, and I steered from indications frequently given. At last we stood in front of the inn, and it was past midnight. Not a light was visible, not a sound was heard, and there was no sign of life except a faint blue wreath of peat-smoke; but it was enough to revive our energies and hopes. In response to our united appeals a dishevelled head of red hair cautiously looked down from a half-opened window, and our story had to be told again. Well, this time we were let in and allowed to sit down, whilst the ostler's wife was being roused as well as the servant, for we were told that the tourists' season, being already over, the inn was no longer in trim for customers. This was bad news, for the good effects of the luncheon had passed off, and as soon as we could rest and forget our fatigue we became sensible of ravenous hunger. The good innkeeper and his wife were so obliging and good-hearted that they kept deprecating the absence of all the comforts they would have liked to give us. However, my husband had brought a large basket of dry peat, and M. Souverain heaped it up dexterously, and blew upon what remained of red ashes under his pile, whilst a kettle was placed upon the glowing embers. "I am afraid I can't offer you the same cheer that you would give me at the _maison Dorée_," Gilbert said to his friend. "_Ça serait gâter la couleur locale_; oh! some bread-and-cheese, with a bottle of beer, will do very well for me." But there was neither bread nor cheese nor beer; and no kind of abode, however miserable, had M. Souverain ever known to be without bread. "What do they live upon then?" he asked. "Porridge, and they occasionally make scones," was the reply. Luckily for us there happened to be an ample supply of them, freshly made, and with these, boiled eggs, and fried bacon, we had one of the best appreciated meals we ever tasted. It was followed by hot whiskey-toddy and cigars for the gentlemen, by tea and clotted cream for the ladies, and for a while we quite revived; but sleep would have its way, and there being only two beds, occupied by the owners of the inn, they charitably yielded them to us; and when the sheets had been changed, Aunt Mary and Anne shared one, whilst I thankfully retired to the other with baby. The gentlemen remained near the fire in the dining-room, one of them stretched on the sofa, and the other using its cushions as a mattress. On the following morning I learned the meaning of the word "smart" for the first time, it being so frequently repeated by our good hostess, who had made room for me by the kitchen fire to dress my child. "How smart is the sweet baby!" she constantly exclaimed with honest admiration, as she made him laugh by tickling his little feet or chucking his chin. Our breakfast was a repetition of the supper in every detail, and our enjoyment of it more limited. My husband soon went out to hire a boat and a couple of men to row us back again. They took us first to Ardhonnel, of which he has given a description in "The Isles of Loch Awe,"-- "A gray, tall fortress, on a wooded isle, Not buried, but adorned by foliage." The day was fine again, and the return home ideal; Gilbert steered and relieved each rower in turn, while they sang their Scotch melodies with voices strong and clear, and we all joined in the chorus. When we reached Port Sonachan we heard that our driver had only arrived towards mid-day, and that his horses not being strong enough to stop the carriage on the slope to the ferry, had fallen into the lake, from which they were rescued with great difficulty. We saw the carriage still dripping wet, which had been left out to dry, and for the repairs of which Gilbert later on received a bill that he indignantly refused to pay. This "romantic excursion," as M. Souverain called it, had so much developed his fancy for Loch Awe that, before taking leave of us, he offered to go halves with my husband in the purchase of Innistrynich; but there was plenty of time for reflection, as the lease had four years to run, so no decision was taken then. A fortnight after the departure of our Parisian guest, Aunt Mary and Anne left us regretfully,--the former especially, who was going back reluctantly to the jealous remarks of her sister, and did not feel disposed to listen patiently to criticisms on her nephew's character and conduct or on mine. From her letters afterwards she had not a pleasant time of it, but relieved the painfulness of it as much as possible by accepting at intervals several invitations from her friends in the neighborhood. This state of affairs made my husband very miserable, for he would have done anything to secure his Aunt Mary's happiness and tranquillity of mind; and to help him in his endeavors, I proposed that she should come to live with us. This is part of her answer:-- "I hope to return with you in May next. Give my very best love to dear Eugénie, and tell her that I thank her very much for proposing to gratify your affection to me by proposing that I should live with her and you; but Susan and I have taken each other for better and worse, unless some deserving person of the other sex should propose, and the one he proposes to _should_ say, Yes, if you please. But I think we shall never separate." It is with regret that I have to recall Miss Susan Hamerton's unamiable temper at that time; one thing comes in mitigation, but I only knew of it years afterwards: she was suffering much from unavowed nervousness. Her nephew told me that when living in the same house with her he had sometimes noticed that she ate hardly anything and looked unwell; but to his affectionate inquiries she used to answer: "My health is good enough, thank you; and I know what you imply when you pretend to be anxious about it--you mean that I am cross and ill-tempered." She made it a point never to plead guilty to any physical ailment, as if it were a weakness unworthy of her, and also to discourage all attempts at sympathy. Another thing I learned too late was her jealous disposition, which explained her attitude towards her nephew at the time of his marriage; it was love turned sour, and although we tried to discover the cause of her bitterness in her worldly disappointment, we became convinced that she would have felt as bitter had the bride been wealthy and of noble lineage, because her jealousy would have tortured her as much, if not more. She became jealous of her sister when we invited her; and long afterwards, when her brother became a widower, and she went to live with him, he confided to his nephew that he had had to bear frequent outbursts of jealousy. It was merely the exaggeration of a tender sentiment which could not brook a rival. CHAPTER VI. 1859-1860. Financial complications.--Summer visitors.--Boats and boating.--Visit to Paris.--W. Wyld.--Project of a farm in France.--Partnership with M. Gindriez. While the "Painter's Camp" was progressing, which was to be the foundation of my husband's success, three pictures had been sent to the Academy and rejected; but after the first feeling of disappointment he was cheered up again by a favorable opinion from Millais about those pictures--one of them in particular, a sailing-boat on Loch Awe in the twilight, which was pronounced true in effect and color. Aunt Mary wrote to him soon after: "I am so very glad of the account you give of your pictures, and of Millais' opinion of them; it is very encouraging. I do hope truly that they will attract gain, good-will, and success for you." As it would have been very expensive to have the pictures sent to and fro, with the deterioration of the frames, packing, etc., Mr. Hamerton begged a friend who lived in London to keep them in one of his empty rooms (he had a whole floor unfurnished) till there were a sufficient number of them for a private exhibition, in which he intended to give lectures on artistic subjects. The mill, after thorough and expensive repairs, had been let, but there was bad news from the tenant of the coal-mine, who refused to pay the rent any longer, under pretext that the mine was exhausted. This looked very serious, as, after referring the matter to his uncle, who was a solicitor, my husband learned that the lease made during his minority did not specify the quantity of coal that the tenant was allowed to extract from the mine, and, of course, as much as possible had been taken out of it. Still, as there was an agreement to pay the rent during twelve more years, the tenant's right to withdraw from the signed agreement might be contested, and the affair had to be put into the hands of a lawyer. This was a cause of great anxiety, and it was not the only one. The health of my father had become very unsatisfactory of late, and his situation was no longer secure. He had been on most excellent terms with the English gentlemen who were at the head of the firm in which he was cashier, but they were retiring from business, and my father did not know what was coming next. He wrote on October 9, 1859:-- "Enfin je commence à respirer; depuis bientôt six semaines je ne savais pas vraiment où donner de la tête. Nous avons eu transformation de société, inventaire, assemblée d'actionnaires, tout cela m'a donné un effrayant surcroit de besogne et de fatigue, et je n'avais pas le courage de reprendre la plume lorsque je rentrais au logis, harassé et souffrant. Aujourd'hui nos affaires commencent à reprendre leur cours normal." On the 28th of the same month I find this phrase in one of his letters: "Ma position est plus tendue que jamais et les changements survenus dans notre administration me donnent des craintes sérieuses pour l'avenir." Then we learned that a project for lighting Bucharest with gas was on foot, and that my father was to go there to ascertain the chances of success. Some outlay was necessary, and my husband, who had heard of it through a friend, generously offered to defray the preliminary expenses; his offer, however, was declined for the time, there being as yet no certainty of profit. Early in 1860 Gilbert had to leave Innistrynich to visit his property and receive the rents. He always felt reluctant to go there, because of the painful reminiscences of his early youth, and of the dreariness of the scenery. There was also another reason, still more powerful,--he was not made to be a landlord, being too tender-hearted. How often did it happen that, instead of insisting on getting his rent from a poor operative, he left some of his own money in the hand of wife or child?--frequently enough in hard times, I know. He was staying at "The Jumps," and went from there to Shaw, Burnley, and Manchester; he never missed writing to me every day, either a short note or a long letter, according to his spare time. In one of them he says:-- "Ma tante Marie est bien bonne, mais nous ne parlons jamais de choses sérieuses--toujours des riens. Comme la vie est étrange! à quoi bon aller loin pour voir ses amis quand ils vous disent simplement qu'il fait froid!... ma tante Susan est assez gracieuse, mais j'ai vu des _nuages_. Je suis allé hier à Manchester où j'avais à faire; j'y ai vu quelques tableaux et je suis de plus en plus convaincu que la meilleure chose pour moi est de peindre plutôt dans le genre des _vrais_ peintres Français que dans celui de nos Pré-Raphaelites, ces réalistes impitoyables qui ne nous épargnent pas un brin de gazon." This letter contains a strong proof of his mind's artistic evolution. In the course of the summer we had several unexpected visitors, among them Mr. and Mrs. Mackay, Mr. Pettie the artist, and the gentleman described in the "Painter's Camp" as Gordon, who frequently called,--sometimes with his son, sometimes alone, and on such occasions generally remained for the night. Being an early riser, and indisposed to remain idle till breakfast time, he was found in the morning knitting an immense woollen stocking, which he afterwards took into use, and found most comfortable wear for grouse-shooting, as he took care to inform me. We had once another visitor, who had come to paint from nature, and was staying at the Dalmally inn; his name I will not mention on account of a little adventure which made him so miserable that he left our house breakfastless, rather than face me after it. He had been offered a bedroom, and had slept soundly till about five in the morning, when his attention was attracted by a small phrenological bust on the chimney-piece, which he took into his bed, with the intention of studying it at leisure. As he lay back on the pillow, however, holding up the bust and turning it sideways to read the indications, he became aware of a black dribble rapidly staining the sheets and counterpane. Horrified at such a sight, he sprang out of bed, and discovered--too late--that he had totally emptied the inkstand. About the same time we had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Captain Clifton and his wife, Lady Bertha Clifton, who had rented a large house on the other side of the lake, and proved very friendly neighbors. Lady Bertha was extremely handsome; her voice was splendid, and she sang readily when she was asked. Our neighbors had speculated a good deal about her probable appearance, ways, and disposition, and the news that a _lady in her own right_ was coming had created quite a commotion. I asked to be enlightened on so important a subject, and soon heard all the details from very willing lips. She was very simple in dress, and often came to call upon us in a fresh cotton-print gown and straw hat, with only the feather of a heron or a woodcock in it. Her husband, Captain Clifton, retired from the army, spoke French fairly well, and although he had little in common with Gilbert--being an enthusiastic sportsman--soon became his most constant visitor. Both of them liked the country and were fond of boating, and they both took an interest in politics. A very pleasant feature had been added to the lake by the appearance of a small steamer belonging to a proprietor beyond Port Sonachan, who came with his wife to Loch Awe every summer. They invited us from time to time to join a fishing party, and we had either lunch or supper on board. There was a cabin for shelter, and the ladies, being thus protected against the almost unavoidable showers, readily joined the salmon-fishers. In this summer of 1860 Aunt Mary came with our cousin Jane, whose sweet disposition and charm of manner greatly disturbed the peace of mind of a bachelor visitor, a distant relation of my husband, who was looking about for a shooting. Everything in his behavior seemed pointing to a not distant offer; but Gilbert, who was already a good judge of character, strongly doubted the final step. He said to me: "If Henry is too sorely tempted, he will run away rather than expose his wealth to the perils of matrimony; he does not spend his money, he is constantly earning more and accumulating, but he has told me that no amount of conjugal happiness could be a compensation to him if, at the end of the year, he found out that he had spent a thousand pounds more than what he was accustomed to spend regularly." And it happened that he left abruptly, just as my husband had foretold, but not without promising a future commission for two pictures when his billiard-room should be finished. The love of boating was very strong in Gilbert, but the love of planning new boats _with improvements_ was still stronger; in fact, he always had in a portfolio plans more or less advanced for some kind of boat, and he very often made models with his own hands. I was in constant fear of the realization of these plans, of which I heard a great deal more than I could understand. He was well aware of it, and sometimes stopped short to say with a smile: "Now, don't go away; I won't bother you any longer with boats." Unable to resist the temptation of devising improvements, even when he resisted that of testing them for his own use, he gave the benefit of his thoughts to his friends when they seemed likely to prove useful. In the course of the spring, however, he had been at work planning a much larger boat than those he already possessed; one which might, when needful, carry a cart-load of goods across the bay, or the whole camp to any part of the lake. I offered some timid remonstrances about the probable cost, but he met them by affirming that it would be an economy _in the end_, by saving labor. So two carpenters were fetched from Greenock, and began to work under his direction. The building of the boat, which of course took more time than had been expected, delayed our departure for France, but at last we set off to introduce our baby-boy to his relations. Once in Paris, Mr. Hamerton saw a great deal of his kind friend, William Wyld, whose advice he was better able to appreciate now that his ideas about art were no longer topographic. He began at this stage of artistic culture to enjoy composition and harmony of color; and though he still thought that his friend's compositions were rather too obviously artificial, he did not remain blind to their merit. He also saw more of Alexandre Bixio, brother of the celebrated Garibaldian general, at whose house he met renowned artists, men of letters, and politicians. Alexandre Bixio had been one of the founders of the "Revue des Deux Mondes," with Bulwer Lytton. He had acted as Vice-President of the Assemblée Nationale, and had been sent to the Court of Victor Emmanuel as Minister Plenipotentiary, and was an intimate friend of Cavour. One evening, after dinner at his house, he took Mr. Hamerton aside, and pointing to a young man engaged in an animated conversation with several other guests, he said: "I am very much mistaken if that is not a future Minister of State." "He looks very young," answered my husband, very much astonished. "He is young, he was born in 1827; but remember his name, and in a few years you will see if I am right: it is Signor Sella." Four years later Signor Sella was Minister of Finance. As my husband has told in his autobiography, I had a sister younger than myself by seven years, very pretty and winning, about whose future we were very anxious, on account of the recurring interruptions in her studies, owing to my mother's distressing state of health. When periods of illness came on, the whole duty of attendance upon her devolved on my sister, disastrous as such breaks in her education might prove as the girl grew up. During the intervals of sickness my mother yielded to our entreaties, and Caroline was sent to school; but as a day-scholar she often missed classes for one reason or another, being so often wanted, and after becoming a boarder she never remained in the same institution for more than a few months at a time. My mother kept hoping that the trouble would not return, and tried to persuade us that now Caroline's studies would be regular, and that being very intelligent, she would soon be on a par with girls of her own age; but this state of things had lasted ever since I was married, and I could not foresee the end of it. We often talked about it, my husband and myself, and he soon guessed that I wished to have her with us, but that knowing how much he liked having our home to ourselves I would not ask him to bring another into it, even though it were my sister. He was, however, with his usual generosity, the first to offer it. Aware of how much it cost him I accepted nevertheless, for we were both of one mind, and considered it as a duty to be done. I looked upon my sister as my child, for my mother's illness had begun when Caroline was so young that almost all motherly cares had devolved upon me, who was the eldest. We kept our project secret to the last, not to disturb the family peace, and being sure of my father's acquiescence and of Caroline's delight. When the day came, my husband's persuasion prevailed, and my sister was entrusted to our care. This time, while staying at "The Jumps," we noticed a great change in Aunt Susan's behavior towards us; it was decidedly friendly, with now and then an almost affectionate touch, and I was told privately that she had thrown out hints about the pleasure that an invitation to Innistrynich would give her, so the invitation was given before we left. My husband applied to Caroline's teaching the system which had proved effective with me, and made her read English aloud to him whilst he was painting; I undertook the French and musical part of her education, and her progress was rapid. For my sake Gilbert was very glad that I had Caroline with me, because in the course of that year he camped out a great deal, and it had become impossible for me to accompany him, another little boy having been born in the beginning of February, and his delicate health requiring constant care. Our pecuniary troubles were increasing. The American war having broken out, the mill, which had been repaired at great cost, was stopped in consequence, and of course we got no rent either from it or from the cottages, whilst the expenses of the little farm were heavy--hay being at an extravagant price, because of the persistent rains, which in the previous summer had rotted all the cut grass, and made it necessary to bring hay from England. Although we kept two cows, our supply of milk and cream was insufficient, and my husband made the calculation that each cow consumed daily seven shillings' worth of hay in this spring, though put on short rations. In fact, the state of our affairs greatly alarmed us, for we did not see any prospect of speedy earnings, and we began to think of a total change in our way of living which would materially reduce our expenses. My husband would have been inclined to remove to the English Lake District, but remembered in time that it was nearly as wet as the Highlands, and what he wanted as a compensation, if we left Scotland, was a dry climate which would allow much more time for out-of-door work. It so happened that my father, who was now Directeur de l'Usine à Gaz at Beaucaire, had suffered in health, catching frequent colds through having to get out of bed to look after the puddlers, to stand before the fires whilst they were replenished, and to cross a cold, draughty courtyard in coming back. He had never complained, but my mother thought it extremely dangerous, and wished that he had a more healthy occupation. On the other hand, I had diligently applied myself to our small farm and garden, with the help of a most valuable and simple guide, "La Maison Rustique des Dames," by Madame Millet-Robinet, which had been sent to me as a present by M. Bixio, and I had often thought that if my efforts were not always thwarted by the inclemency of the weather, I might count upon a fair return. All this led me to fancy that if we were to buy a farm in France it might prove a profitable investment, and I talked the project over with Gilbert. This is the conclusion he arrived at. He would sell his property, rent a farm in France, which I should manage with my father, himself remaining entirely faithful to his artistic and literary studies. If my mother were strong enough, and my sister willing, they would have a share in the direction, and even my brothers, later on, if it were to their taste. There were now many gentlemen-farmers who did not neglect either their work on the land or their own culture--M. and Madame Millet-Robinet might be cited as examples. When the project was communicated to my father, he was very happy at the idea of living near us, and grateful for the delicate thoughtfulness which had devised this means of coming to his help under pretext of asking help from him. Here is part of his answer:-- "MON CHER FUTUR ASSOCIÉ,--Ah ça! pensez-vous donc que j'aie tout à fait la berlue pour n'avoir pas découvert de prime abord tout l'insidieux de votre proposition? Il vous faudrait, dites-vous naïvement, pour associé, un homme actif, exercé, connaissant bien les affaires, la culture, pour exploiter votre ferme et, plus heureux que Diogène, vous braquez votre lanterne sur un homme qui dans trois ans sera un quasi vieillard, dejà valétudinaire aujourd'hui et sachant à peine distinguer le seigle du froment! Oh! l'admirable cultivateur modèle que vous aurez là! Soyez franc, mon cher Gendre, vous avez ruminé ce prétexte avec ma fille pour m'assurer des invalides et donner à ma vieillesse un repos et un abri que mon labeur n'a pas voulu conquérir au prix de mon honnêteté. [Footnote: My father had been offered a very important post in the government of Napoleon III., on condition of accepting his policy, after the Coup d'État.] Je vous vois venir et j'ai beau être un âne en agriculture, tout ce qui reussira me sera attribué; mon incapacité sera couverte d'un manteau de profonde habileté et vous me persuaderez que, livrés à vos propres lumières, vous ne feriez rien de bon, tandis qu'en me confiant le soc, c'est à moi que le sillon devra sa richesse." My mother and my brothers also wrote warmly and gratefully, whilst all the details of the project were discussed at length in every successive letter. My father inclined for the purchase of a farm, but Gilbert was afraid of a possible confiscation of property in case of a war between England and France. Meanwhile, Aunt Susan had entered into a regular and friendly correspondence with me and her nephew, and she wrote on June 27, 1861;-- "MY DEAR NIECE,--My sister and myself are quite annoyed to seem so dilatory in fixing our time for visiting you; however, we hope (D. V.) to be with you on Saturday, the sixth of July. I hope your little olive branches are both quite well, and also your sister; we shall be glad to renew and make fresh acquaintance amongst the young ones. I suppose Philip Gilbert will ere this be returned from his long camping expedition, and I hope he has had a most satisfactory outing. Will you all accept our united love, and believe me "Your affectionate aunt, "SUSAN HAMERTON." My husband was at home to receive his aunts, and pleased to notice how amicably we got on together, but he was not prepared for what took place shortly before their departure. One morning I was gathering strawberries in the garden, and it was slow work because they were very small, being the wild species, which had been transplanted for their delicious flavor. Aunt Susan came up, and offered to help me. Never shall I forget the scene when we both rose from the strawberry-beds, with our fragrant little baskets well filled. We turned towards the lake, whose soft, hazy glamour matched that of the tender sky; the air was still, and there reigned a serene silence, as if a single sound might have desecrated the almost religious peace of earth and heaven; yet a smothered sob was heard as I felt myself caught in a close embrace, my head laid upon a heaving bosom, my hair moist with warm tears, a broken voice murmuring: "My child, how I have wronged you!... and I love you so--" "Oh! Aunt Susan," I said, "don't cry; I will love you too; my husband will be so happy." We kissed each other, and said no more, and from that time Aunt Susan became my most faithful friend. The farm project having been seriously considered by my father, he at last declared it too hazardous for him to undertake the direction of it. From the first he had felt unequal to it, for want of the proper knowledge and preparation; and so much would depend upon its success--the future of two families. But having had formerly a long experience in the wine trade, and being a particularly reliable authority on the qualities and values of Burgundy wines (he was able to name the _cru_--that is, the place where the grapes were cultivated--of any wine he tasted, as well as the _cuvée_, namely the year in which it had been made); and having been in his youth the representative of an important wine firm in Burgundy, he was more inclined to undertake the management of a wine business than anything else. He said so to my husband, adding that the relatives and acquaintances we had in England might form the beginning of a good connection, and that his own name as head of the firm would secure a good many customers both in France and Belgium. His son-in-law was soon convinced of the wisdom of these reasons, and it was decided that towards the end of the year we would go to France to choose a new residence, suited to the requirements of the wine business, and situated in a part sufficiently picturesque to lend itself to artistic representation. It was stipulated that the name of Hamerton should not be used; the title of the firm was to be "Gindriez et Cie.," my husband being sleeping partner only. CHAPTER VII. 1861-1863. Effects of the Highland climate.--Farewell to Loch Awe.--Journey to the South of France.--Death of Miss Mary Hamerton.--Settlement at Sens.--Death of M. Gindriez.--Publication of the "Painter's Camp."--Removal to Pré-Charmoy. Very few people can stand the climate of the Highlands without suffering from it; it is so damp and so depressing in winter-time, when the wind howls so piteously in the twisted branches of the Scotch firs, and when the rain imprisons one for weeks within liquid walls of unrelieved grayness. Mr. Hamerton, since he came to Innistrynich, had repeatedly suffered from what he believed to be toothache, although his teeth were all perfectly sound, and the pain being always attended by insomnia, was a cause of weakness and fatigue detrimental to his general health. The doctor said it was congestion of the gums, due to the excess of moisture in the climate, which had not been favorable to either of us; for I had also discovered that my hearing was becoming impaired, and these were weighty additional reasons for removing elsewhere. I had been somewhat anxious at times, when I saw him fall suddenly into a state of listlessness and prostration, but as he always recovered his energy and resumed his usual avocations after a short sleep, I thought it must be the result of temporary exhaustion, for which nature kindly sent the best remedy--restoring sleep; and as he had told me he had always experienced the greatest difficulty in getting to sleep before midnight or at regular hours, and especially in getting a sufficiency of sleep in the course of the night, it seemed a natural compensation for the system, that an occasional nap should now and then become irrepressible,--the more so on account of his customary nocturnal rides, sails, or walks. To the end of his life the hours of the night seemed to him quite as fit for any sort of occupation as those of the day, and it made little difference to him whether it was dark or light; indeed at one time, years later, when at Pré-Charmoy, he began, to the stupefaction of his country neighbors, to call upon them at nine or ten in the summer evenings, and then to propose a row on the pond or a walk by moonlight; but it happened not unfrequently that he could get no admittance, rural habits having sent the inhabitants to their early beds; or else if they were still found in a state of wakefulness, they did not evince the slightest desire to be out with a _noctambule_, and even hinted that it might look objectionable and vagabondish in case they were seen. He was greatly astonished at this new point of view; for it was merely to spare the working hours of the day that he took his relaxation in the night. A good many more pictures had been painted in the course of the year, and had suggested many "Thoughts about Art," which had been duly consigned to the manuscript of the "Painter's Camp." Aunt Mary, who was kept _au courant_, wrote: "How can you, dear Philip Gilbert, find time to paint so much, and to write so much?" It was now necessary to be more industrious than ever, in order to have a sufficient number of works to cover the walls of the exhibition room, the project being near its realization and matured in all its details. My husband was to take me, our children, and Caroline to my parents at Beaucaire, and leave us there while he went in search of a house, then back again to the Highlands for the removal, and before joining me again he was to organize the exhibition in London with the help of Thursday, and leave him in charge of it. About the middle of October, 1861, we started for our long journey southwards, with mingled feelings of deep regret for what we left behind,--the country we still loved so much, the associations with the births of our children and the laborious and hopeful beginnings of an artistic and literary career, as well as the tender memories of the growth of our union, which solitude had tested and strengthened and made so perfect and complete; then if we looked forward, it was with joyful feelings for the lasting reunion of the family, for the peace and happiness we were going to give to my father's old age, and also for future success and easier circumstances. We stopped at Todmorden to say farewell to our relations, and also paid farewell visits to some friends, amongst them Mrs. Butler and her husband--Mr. Hamerton's Burnley schoolmaster; to Mr. Handsley, for whom he had as much esteem as affection, and to his half-cousins Abram and Henry Milne, who had agreed to purchase his property, and had given him a commission for the two pictures already spoken of at Loch Awe, and destined for the billiard-room, which had been built in the meantime, and was now used daily. On arriving at Beaucaire, we found my mother in much better health than formerly, but my father looked aged, we thought; however, he was much cheered by our prospects, and entered heartily into every detail concerning them. My husband had not much time to spare, and he made the most of it; together we saw Arles, Nîmes, the Pont du Gard, and Montmajour, and called upon Roumieu, the Provençal poet, to whom we were introduced by friends. We used to roam along the shores of the Rhône in the twilight, the noble river affording us a perpetual source of admiration, and one evening, when we were bending over one of its bridges looking at the swollen and tumultuous waves after a storm, we became spellbound by the tones of a superb voice, coming as it seemed from the sky, and singing with happy ease and unconcern, one after the other, some of the most difficult parts in the opera of "William Tell." We dared not speak for fear of losing a few notes, for the rich, full voice hardly paused between two songs, never betraying the slightest effort or fatigue; half-an-hour later it ceased altogether, and we went to my father's full of our discovery. "Oh! it's Villaret of the brewery; yes, a splendid tenor, but he has long been discovered; only he has no musical education, and his relatives won't hear of his going on the stage. Alexandre Dumas, after listening to him, offered to pay all necessary expenses to enable him to attend the Conservatoire, but it was of no use: they are very religious in the family, and have an insurmountable horror of theatres. He is, himself, a very simple, good-natured fellow, and does not require much pressing to sing whenever he is asked. I know some of his friends, and the lady organist of the church particularly; and if you wish to hear him at her house, I dare say she would give a _soirée_ to that end." Two days later we were invited by the lady to meet him, and with evident pleasure, but without vanity, he sang several pieces, with very great power and feeling. At last, when the company were leaving, the lady of the house took Gilbert aside to beg him to remain a little longer with Villaret, and when everybody else had left, she said: "Now, Monsieur Villaret, I count upon the pleasure of listening to my favorite piece in 'La Muette de Portici.' I am going to play the accompaniment." "I would if I could, to oblige you," he answered; "but you are aware of my weakness. I never can do justice to it, because I can't master my emotion." "Never mind; you must fancy we are alone together. Mr. Hamerton and his wife will remain at the other end of the salon, behind your back; and what then if you break down?... no one will be any the worse for it." She sat down and began the accompaniment of that most exquisitely tender song,-- "De ton coeur bannis les alarmes, Qu'un songe heureux sèche les larmes Qui coulent encore de tes yeux." The words were hardly audible; but we were so moved by the marvellous purity of the pathetic voice that tears stood in our eyes. As for the singer, tears rolled down his face. It was one of those rare and perfect pleasures that are never forgotten. A few years later Villaret made his _début_ as first tenor at the Opéra in Paris with great success. He was very generous with tickets to his early friends and fellow-citizens; some of his most intolerant relatives had died, and he had yielded at last to the general wish. Now came for my husband and myself the longest separation in our married life. It lasted two months, and seemed at least two years, so sad and wearied did we grow. He wrote every night succinctly what had been done in the course of the day, and sent me his letters three times a week. When beds had been packed up or sold, our kind neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Whitney, offered him hospitality, which he gratefully accepted, till everything was cleared out of Innistrynich and on its way to Sens, in the department of the Yonne, where our new residence was to be. On his way to Sens, Gilbert stayed a few days with his aunts, but left them for a short time, and concluded the sale of his property to Henry Milne. It was but a poor bargain, the times being bad for the cotton district on account of the American war; but he had no alternative, having engaged to find capital for the wine business, and even needing money for daily expenses, for as yet he earned nothing. What he had been in dread of for so many years, on account of his Aunt Mary's state of health, happened just as he was returning to "The Jumps," and when he saw his uncle Thomas awaiting him at the station he had a foreboding of the truth. "Aunt Mary is dead?" ... "Not dead yet, but unconscious, and there is no hope. This morning when Susan was in the breakfast-room, waiting for her sister, she heard a stamping overhead, followed by a dull, heavy thud, and on rushing upstairs found Mary stretched on the floor and moaning, but unconscious. She has been put to bed and attended by doctors; but there is nothing to be done, and they say that she does not suffer." Mournfully my husband ascended alone, in the dark night, the steep hill up which he had so often walked gayly to see his beloved guardian; tenderly he watched at her bedside for forty-eight hours, till she breathed no more, and at last reverently accompanied her remains to the chosen place, which he never omitted to visit afterwards, every time he came to Todmorden. He wrote to say what a satisfaction it was to think that his aunt had seen him only a few hours before the attack, and when it came she must have felt him so near to her. I remember an incident which took place on the day we took leave of Aunt Mary to go to Innistrynich; she had invited two of her nieces to lunch with us at "The Jumps." When we left the house, some time in the afternoon, I went first with my cousins, leaving nephew and aunt together for more intimate communing, and when my husband reached us, his eyes were still moist and his voice tremulous. The girls thoughtlessly teased him about it, and twitted him with his weakness; but he did not allow them to amuse themselves long, he cowed them with a violence of contempt which terrified me, whilst I could not help admiring it. "Yes," he said, "I have shed tears--not unmanly tears--and if you are not capable of entering into the feelings of grateful love and regret which wring these tears out of my heart, I despise you for your heartlessness." His voice had recovered its firmness and rang loud, his eyes shot flames, he looked more than human. These startling outbursts of generous or honest passion were one of his most marked characteristics; they occurred but rarely, but when they did occur nothing could abate their terrific violence; a single word in mitigation would have acted like oil on the flames. It must be explained that they were always justified by the cause, and it was impossible not to admire such genuine and high-minded resentment against meanness or dishonesty, or in some cases against what he considered insulting to his sense of honor. For instance, on one occasion a very important sale of works of art was to take place abroad, and he was asked to contribute some notes to the catalogue. It was hinted--clearly enough--that any words of praise would be handsomely acknowledged. He resented the offer like a blow on the face, blushed crimson with ardent indignation, and almost staggered to the writing-table; there he seized a postcard, and in large, clear, print-like letters threw back the insult with cutting contempt. The sense of having cleared his honor somewhat relieved him, and after waiting for a propitious moment I tried to persuade him, before the card was posted, that the offence was not so heinous as it looked, the writer not knowing him personally, and merely imagining himself to be acting in conformity with a prevalent custom, which some critics were far from resenting. All I could obtain, however, was an envelope for the terrible postcard. Now to resume the narrative. I left Beaucaire to join my husband at Havre on his return, and after visiting the town together we hastened to our new house at Sens, which I longed to see, for it had been chosen in my absence, and though I had received minute descriptions of it, I was not able to realize its appearance or surroundings. It was one of the large, roomy _maisons bourgeoises_, so numerous in French provincial towns at that time, built for the convenience of the owner, and not in order to be let as an investment. It was perfectly suitable for the double purpose Gilbert had in view--with a spacious carriage entrance, courtyard, cellars, barns, and stable for the wine trade, and large, commodious, well-lighted rooms for residence. But to my regret there was no garden,--a great privation for me; however, my husband told me that our landlord had promised to make one if I cared so much for it. I did care very much, as the only view from the house was that of other houses and walls on the other side of the street; but when asked to fulfil his promise, the landlord said it was a misunderstanding, he had merely given leave for _us_ to make a garden in the courtyard if we liked, or else he would let us have one for a moderate rent, outside of the town, a common habit at Sens. However, as I did not appreciate the pleasure of an hour's walk every time I wished to smell a flower in my garden, we declined the offer, and my husband kindly planned a narrow flower-bed all along the base of the walls in the courtyard, which looked gay enough when the plants were in full bloom, and the walls were hidden by convolvulus, nasturtiums, and Virginia creepers. Even before the house was furnished and in order, Gilbert was eager to begin his commission pictures; but he soon found that even our large rooms were too small for a studio, and the light was not good for painting; but at the same time, I believe he was not _really_ sorry, because it gave him a plausible excuse for turning one of the barns into a capital studio. This outbuilding offered great and tempting advantages; it was isolated from the house, therefore silent and private; it might be lighted from the north, and was sufficiently spacious to allow a part to be divided off for a laboratory. Being greatly interested in architecture and building, my husband derived great pleasure from the execution of his own plans, even in such a small matter. I vainly attempted to reconcile him to the idea of using one of the large rooms, standing in fear of the expense; but I could not help admitting that with his propensity for large canvases, which I deprecated all my life, a studio was indispensable; and, after all, as it seemed almost certain that we should stay there a great many years, it was not of much importance, especially after having lived in terror of seeing him undertake the building of a tower, or the restoration of an old castle like Kilchurn,--a dream that he often indulged, as numerous designs bore testimony. The first thing considered by Gilbert when he settled at Sens was the choice of subjects for his commission pictures, which he intended to paint directly from nature; and he soon selected panoramic landscape views from the top of a small vine-clad hill, called St. Bon, which commands an extensive prospect of the river Yonne, and of the plains about it. On the summit of this eminence there is a kiosk belonging to the archbishop, who readily granted the use of it to the artist for sheltering his pictures, brushes, colors, etc. But the artist was not one who could bear confinement, and the kiosk was but a tiny affair, and not movable, so two of the tents were set up at its foot, and formed a painter's camp, which attracted so many curious visitors that it was thought unsafe to leave it at their mercy; and when Gilbert went back home for the night a watchman, well armed with pistols and a gun, took his place. Every day, when the great summer heat had abated, I used to set off with the children to go and meet my husband at the foot of the hill, and we returned together to the house, attempting on the way to make the boys speak English, but without success, for the eldest, who spoke _nothing_ but English when I had left him two months before at Beaucaire, now chose to gabble in Provençal, which he had picked up from his nurse, regardless of his Aunt Caroline's efforts to make him talk in his native tongue. Subsequently, when he perceived that no one understood him, he quickly dropped his Provençal and replaced it by French, but would not trouble himself to speak two different languages together. By the care and thoughtfulness of Gilbert, a pretty little house and garden had been prepared for his father-in-law and family, at a short distance from our own dwelling, where the office of the business was now ready on the ground-floor, completely fitted up, and separated from the private dwelling. My mother had come first with my brothers and sister, whilst my father remained a little longer to put his successor _au courant_. But it seemed to me that the delay was longer than we had foreseen, and I began to grow anxious on account of my letters remaining unanswered; then I was told that my father was very busy, not very well, and that he could not write. About a month later he wrote that he was now well enough to undertake the journey, and with great rejoicings we prepared to receive him; but when I noticed how altered he was, how thin, how weak, all my joy forsook me, and it was almost beyond my power not to let him read it in my face. Courageous as ever, he tried to be and to _look_ happy, and talked of setting to work immediately. I learned now that he had been dangerously ill, but that his malady had been kept secret to spare me. A few trying months followed, during which we passed alternately from hope to fear, the most distressing feature of this sorrowful time being my poor father's desperate struggle for life. "I must and I will live to work; it is my duty to get well; I have a heavy debt and responsibility now that you are involved in this business," he used to say to his son-in-law. He had the greatest confidence in his friend, Alphonse Guérin, the celebrated discoverer of the antiseptic method of dressing wounds, and thought that if any one could cure him it was A. Guérin, who had prescribed for him throughout his life in Paris. Accordingly to Paris he went, and died there shortly after, notwithstanding the devoted care of his doctor. Everything seemed to turn against my husband's wisest plans, but nothing daunted by this last fearful blow, he at once offered his mother-in-law a pension sufficient to enable her children to carry on their education; this pension would gradually be diminished as the children became able to earn money for themselves and to take their share in the maintenance of their mother. The fact was, that from that time he had two families to keep. Besides the studies at St. Bon, he had begun two pictures of large dimensions in his studio, and worked at them steadily. As he could not sit down, this excess of fatigue brought on a very serious illness, which kept him in bed for nearly a fortnight, and it was the only instance of his submission to such an order from a physician during the whole course of our married life, but it was rendered imperative by the nature of the disorder. He hated remaining in bed when awake, at all times, and he could not stand it at all in the hours of day; later on he had the measles, and still later he suffered from gout, but he would not stay in bed in either case, and during the first attack of gout, which was as severe as unexpected, he remained for twenty-one nights without going to bed. This illness prevented him from attending the marriage of his eldest cousin Anne Hamerton, about which her sister wrote on July 22, 1862, that it was to take place on August 6, and after giving a good many details she observed: "You may be above such vanities, but I think Eugénie may be a little interested; poor Eugénie, how anxious she must have been, having you in your room so long! How are your pictures progressing? It must decidedly be a punishment to you to be limited to time at your easel, particularly now, when you must feel so wishful to get on with your commissions." After his recovery, my husband arranged his work in a manner which divided the hours into sitting ones and standing ones, to avoid a return of the late inflammatory symptoms; and there never was a recurrence of them. The pictures were in a fairly advanced stage when Mr. William Wyld came on a visit of a few days and gave him valuable advice about them. His Aunt Susan said in a subsequent letter: "I am very glad Mr. Wyld has been to see your pictures, and though you may be a little dissatisfied that your present works will be 'dirt cheap,' still the cheering opinion of them will give you great courage, I hope. I shall certainly go to see them as soon as they get to Agnew's." So much for the art department. For the literary one the "Painter's Camp" had been accepted by Mr. Macmillan, and we were in a fever of excitement awaiting its publication. As to the wine business, after remaining irresolute for some time, Gilbert had accepted the proposition of a friend to assume what should have been my father's part,--with this alteration, however, that he would pay interest on the funds confided to him, and share the clear profits with the sleeping partner. This episode in my husband's life was so bitter, and involved him in such difficulties, that I will cut it short. Suffice it to say, that though the partnership was continued for a few years, during which the interest of the money came but irregularly, the capital was entirely and irremediably lost in the end. When autumn came, the commission pictures were sent to Manchester for exhibition, and shortly after Mr. Milne declined to accept them, on the plea that he did not care for the subjects: the real reason being that his sensitive heart had been again impressed--this time by a young governess, of whom he had bought two copies after Greuze, which were now occupying the place formerly destined for his cousin's works. However, another friend soon became their purchaser, but for the artist the disappointment remained. Sadness for the loss of his aunt, Mrs. Thomas Hamerton, which happened just at that time, and sympathy with his uncle in these trying moments, spoilt the pleasure Gilbert had anticipated from the visit to his relations which we made that year. We were to go back to France with return tickets; and the time allowed being nearly over, we went to take leave of our friends at West Lodge, when we learned that Mrs. T. Hamerton, who had lately been suffering from an attack of gout, had succumbed to its weakening effects. Regardless of the pecuniary loss, my husband immediately expressed his determination to stay as long as he could be of any help to his uncle. We therefore sacrificed our tickets, and went back to "The Jumps," whence he came down every day to spare his uncle all the painful formalities of a funeral. We only left when the run of ordinary habits had been re-established at West Lodge, but even then we felt that a new misfortune was lurking in the silent house, for the health of Jane Hamerton, who had never been very strong, now began to disquiet her friends, particularly my husband, whose affection for her was very true and tender. Aunt Susan, who was her devoted but clear-sighted nurse, wrote to us in the course of the summer that her case was very serious, notwithstanding the short periods of improvement occurring at intervals. The poor girl had grown very weak and lost her appetite; almost constantly feverish, she longed for fruit to refresh her parched mouth and quench her thirst. As soon as he became aware of this longing, Gilbert began to plan how he might gratify it, and it appeared easy enough, as we were in a land of plenty; but the time required for the transport of such delicacies as grapes and peaches threatened ominously their safe arrival. However, we would run the risk to give a little relief to our dear invalid, and we would take the greatest precautions in the packing. So we went to a fruit-grower, taking with us a large box filled with dry bran and divided into compartments: one was filled with melons, another with grapes, the last with peaches, every one taken from the tree, vine, or plant with our own hands, then wrapped in tissue-paper and protected all round with bran. The result will be seen in the following letter from Jane:-- "MY DEAR EUGENIE AND P. G.--A thousand thanks for the enormous box of fruit, which arrived here to-day about noon: it is quite a honey-fall to the inhabitants of West Lodge, more especially to me. I am very happy to tell you that the grapes have arrived in perfect condition, and that the melons seem to have suffered only outwardly, as the one cut into is quite luscious and good. The sausage (_saucisson de Lyon_) also appears to have borne the journey well, but has not yet been tasted, so the next letter from Todmorden must give the opinion upon it, but it certainly looks to me a most comical affair; and to tell last the only disagreeable thing, it is about the peaches, which were all in a dreadful mess, and quite mixed up with the bran and scarcely fit to touch, though Aunt Susan did take out one or two to see the extent of the decay. How very provoking for you both when you heard of the detention at Havre, particularly when P. G. had taken such precautions with regard to the outside directions." If I have given such apparently trivial details at length, it was to show how generous of his time and thought was my husband in everything concerning affection or pity; his sympathy was always ready and active, and he never begrudged his exertions to give relief or comfort to those in need of either. It had been most fortunate for the young author of the "Painter's Camp in the Highlands" that the MS. of the book happened to come under the eyes of Mr. Macmillan himself, who, being in want of rest, and attracted by the title, had taken it with him in the country and had read it with great delight. Being a Scotchman, he was in immediate sympathy with so fervent an admirer of the Highlands as my husband, and had at once agreed to publish the book. From the first it was a success: the freshness of the narrative, the novelty of the subject, the truthfulness and charm of the descriptions were duly appreciated, together with the earnest (if still immature) expressions of the "Thoughts about Art." The book soon found its way to America, where it attracted the notice of Roberts Brothers' publishing house. They were charmed with it, and published an edition in America. The "Painter's Camp" was well received by the Press of both nations, and the reviews were numerous. It was compared to "Robinson Crusoe" and called "unique." The author was very much amused to hear that "Punch" had given an illustrated notice of it under the title of "A Painter Scamp in the Highlands." This success--almost unexpected--led my husband to accept proposals for other literary productions, the most important at that time being contributed to the "Fine Arts Quarterly Review," and beginning with an elaborate criticism of the Salon of 1863. He also began to write for the "Cornhill" and "Macmillan's Magazine," much against his wish, merely because painting was a source of expense without a return. Although, my husband had himself chosen Sens for his residence, his choice had been dictated by necessity, to a great extent, rather than by preference. It was a combination of conveniences for different purposes, but the kind of scenery was so far from giving entire satisfaction to his artistic tastes that he began to suffer seriously from mountain nostalgia. He admired the river, and had upon it a lovely rowing-boat, bought of the best boat-builder at Asnières, and he used it often, but without finding river landscape a compensation for mountain scenery. In fear of a serious illness, we thought it better to gratify the longing, and devised a plan for a journey to Switzerland which would greatly reduce the expense without spoiling the pleasure. It was this: The new line of railway from Neufchâtel to Pontarlier had just been opened, and passed through the most beautiful scenery. Gilbert offered the company an article in an English paper in return for two travelling tickets, for himself and his wife, and the offer was accepted. It was a charming holiday. We stayed a few days at Neufchâtel with friends, and visited at our leisure Geneva, Lausanne, Lucerne, Bâle, and Berne, and after feasting his eyes on Mont Pilatus, the Jungfrau, and Mont Blanc, my husband came back cured. He had sometimes spoken of the possibility of a removal to Geneva (before we had been there), on account of the lake and Mont Blanc; but I objected that we did not know the place. To this objection he had a very characteristic answer: "_You_ don't know the place, but I know it as well as if I had dwelt there, after reading so many descriptions of it, and being aware of its geographical situation." When I remarked that it was quite different from what I had anticipated, he said: "It is exactly what I had imagined." He often used to tell us that he had no need of going to Rome, or Vienna, or to any other celebrated town, to know its general aspect, for he had studied their monuments in detail, the prevailing character of their architecture, that of the inhabitants with their costumes and manners, and he was even acquainted with the names and directions of the principal streets. At the end of the year, our sweet cousin Jane died with great resignation, thankful to be delivered from her long, wearying, consumptive pains. Aunt Susan had volunteered to be her bed-fellow from the month of June, in order to move her gently, and to support the poor wasted frame upon her own, to relieve the bed-sores by a change of posture; her devotion had been indefatigable and unrelieved, for her invalid niece would accept attendance from no one else. This loss was keenly felt by my husband, whose little playfellow she had been; the threatening symptoms of the disease had prevented her coming to us, together with her father and aunt, as it was proposed they should do in the summer, and now grief did not allow her bereaved relatives to entertain the idea of a change. It is likely enough that the series of sorrows and disappointments we had experienced since we came to Sens prevented our growing attached to the place; it may be also that our roomy but thoroughly commonplace house, being one of a row in a street devoid of interest, never answered in the least to our need of poetry or even of privacy, particularly with our minds and hearts still full of dear Innistrynich; but certain it is that we did not feel the slightest regret at the idea of leaving it forever; nay, we even longed to be away from it. This feeling was common to both of us, yet we both refrained from mentioning it to each other for some time, thinking it unreasonable, till we came to discuss it together, and to agree that it would not be unreasonable to exchange a house too large for our wants for a smaller one at a lower rent, and a town life that neither of us enjoyed for a simpler mode of living in some picturesque country-place more suitable for my husband's artistic taste. It must be explained that our partner had decided to take a house in the very heart of Burgundy to carry on the business, on the plea that the name of the renowned vineyards surrounding it, being on the address, were likely to inspire confidence in the customers. He added that the situation would also be more favorable for his purchases, sales, and business journeys, and of course, being the only working partner, he acted as he liked. Then what was the use now of those empty cellars, dreary paved courtyard, and formal office? We had no pleasant associations there, having made no friends on account of our mourning--why should we remain against our inclination? We decided to remove as soon as we had discovered something for which we might form a real liking, and the result of our experience has been given at length by Mr. Hamerton in "Round my House," to which I refer the reader for details which could not find place in the following brief account of our search. It was begun on the shores of the Rhône, whose noble landscape my husband so much admired. But although the scenery was very tempting to an artist, _that_ was not the only condition to be considered, and we were soon discouraged by the prevailing dirtiness and slovenliness of the people, and by what we heard of the disastrous inundations. We were also afraid of our children catching the horrid accent of the country. So we thought of the Saône district, Gilbert being unable to bear the idea of being at a remote distance from an expanse of water of some kind. Here again the landscape was appreciated, though for charms different from those of the Rhône. Unluckily we could not find a suitable house in a good situation, and we also learned that intermittent fevers were very prevalent, on account of the periodical overflows of the Saône. We tried after that the vine-land of Burgundy, where Gilbert told me what he has repeated in "Round my House": "There is no water, with its pleasant life and changefulness, here." I also agreed with him in thinking the renowned vineyards of the Côte d'Or most monotonous, except during a very short time indeed, when they are clothed in the splendor of gold and purple, just before a cruel night of frost strips them bare, and only leaves the blackened _paisceaux_ visible, for more than six months at a time. Then we turned to the beautiful valley of the Doubs, and discovered the very dwelling of our dreams, in which were found all the conditions that we thought desirable. However, we were doomed to a new disappointment, for the owner, when we offered to take it, changed her mind and coolly declined to let. Fortunately, some time later, a friend directed us to quite another region, that of the Autunois, to see a very similar house, offering about the same advantages. There were a few points of difference; for instance, the little river encircling the garden was only a trout-stream, instead of the broad and placid Doubs; the building was also of more modest appearance. As compensations, however, there were picturesque and extensive views from every window; the situation was more private, and the solitude of the small wild park with its beautiful trees at once enchanted Gilbert. So we decided to take Pré-Charmoy. CHAPTER VIII. 1863-1868. Canoeing on the Ternin.--Visit of relatives.--Tour in Switzerland.-- Experiments in etching.--The "Saturday Review."--Journeys to London.--Plan of "Etching and Etchers."--New friends in London. --Etchings exhibited at the Royal Academy.--Serious illness in London.--George Eliot.--Professor Seeley. NOT to waste his time in the work of removal and fitting up, Mr. Hamerton remained behind at Sens, to finish the copying of a window by Jean Cousin in the cathedral and some other drawings, begun to illustrate an article on this artist. We had all gone forward to Pré-Charmoy, and when he arrived there, everything being already in order, he continued his work without interruption. He was delighted with the unpretentious little house, and with its views from every window; with the silent, shady, wild garden, and its group of tall poplars by the clear, cool, winding river which divided it from the pastures on the other side, and he often repeated to us with a smile, "Pré-Charmoy charme moi." Although the house was small, there were a good many rooms in it, and the master had for himself alone a studio (an ordinary-sized room), a study, and a carpenter's shop--for he was fond of carpentry in his leisure hours, and far from unskilful. He liked to make experimental boats with his own hands, and moreover he found out that some kind of physical exercise was necessary to him as a relief from brain-work, for if the weather was bad and he took no exercise he began to feel liable to a sort of uncomfortable giddiness. I wished him to consult a doctor about it, but he believed that it would go away after a while, for it had come on quite lately while painting on an open scaffolding inside the cathedral at Sens, when he could see through the planks and all round far below him, and this had produced, at times, a kind of vertigo. The pretty little boat bought at Asnières was all very well for the Arroux which flows by Autun, but for the narrow, shallow, winding Ternin and the Vesure, some other kind of craft had to be devised, and paper boats were built upon basket-work skeletons, and tried with more or less success. My eldest brother Charles, who had finished his classical studies and was now preparing to become an architect, used to come from Mâcon for the holidays, sometimes bringing a friend with him, and together with Gilbert they went exploring the "Unknown Rivers." They generally came home dripping wet, having abandoned their canoes in the entanglement of roots and weeds after a sudden upset, and having to go and fetch them back with a cart, unless the shipwreck was caused by an unsuspected branch under water, or by the swift rush of a current catching the frail concern and carrying it away altogether, whilst the venturesome navigator was gathering his wits on the pebbles of the river-bed. Towards the end of August, Mr. Thomas Hamerton and his sister Susan came to visit us. They liked the Autunois--at least what they saw of it-- exceedingly, but they suffered much from the heat, particularly our uncle, who had remained true to his youthful style of dress: high shirt- collar sawing the ears and stiffened by a white, starched choker, rolled several times about the neck; black cloth trousers, long black waistcoat, and ample riding-coat of the same color and material. He was also careful never to put aside either flannel undergarments or woollen socks. Our kind uncle was a pattern of propriety in everything, but the fierce heat of a French August on a plain surrounded by a circle of hills was too much even for Mr. T. Hamerton's propriety, and he had to beg leave to remove his coat and to sit in his shirt-sleeves. There was a stone table under a group of fine horse-chestnuts in the garden, not far from the little river, to which we used to resort after dinner with our work and books in search of coolness, and there even my husband did his writing. One afternoon, when we were sitting as usual in this shady arbor, all silent, uncle dozing behind the newspaper, and his nephew intent on literary composition, what was our astonishment at the sight of sedate Aunt Susan suddenly jumping upon the table and remaining like a marble statue upon its stone pedestal, and quite as white. We all looked up, and uncle pushed his spectacles high on his forehead to have a better sight of so strange an attitude for his sister to take. At last Aunt Susan pointed to something gliding away in the grass, and gasped: "A serpent! oh, dear, oh, dear, a serpent!" Vainly did my husband try to calm her fright by explaining that it was only an adder going to seek the moisture of the river-bank and never intending to attack any one, that they were plentiful and frequently to be met with, when their first care was to pass unnoticed; our poor aunt would not be persuaded to descend from her pedestal for some time, and not before she was provided with a long and stout stick to beat the grass about her as she went back to the house. Mr. T. Hamerton's intention, as well as his sister's, was to go to Chamouni and the Mer de Glace, and to ask their nephew to act as guide. He was glad enough to avail himself of the opportunity for studying mountain scenery, but felt somewhat disappointed that I declined being one of the party, from economical motives. The letters I received during their tour bore witness to a fervent appreciation of the landscape, of which a memento was desired, and Gilbert undertook to paint for his relatives a small picture of Mont Blanc after reaching home; meanwhile, he took several sketches to help him. As he was relating to me afterwards the incidents of the journey, he remembered a rather amusing one. At Bourg, where they had stopped to see the church of Brou, he came down to the dining-room of the hotel and found his uncle and aunt seated at their frugal English breakfast of tea and eggs, which he did not share because tea did not agree with him, but took up a newspaper and waited for the _table d'hote_. "My word!" exclaimed his uncle, when _déjeuner_ was over, "but you do not stint yourself. I counted the dishes: omelette, beef-steak and potatoes, cray-fish and trout, roasted pigeons and salad, cheese, grapes, and biscuits, without mentioning a full bottle of wine. Excuse my curiosity, but I should like to know how much you will have to pay for such a repast?" "Exactly two francs and fifty centimes," answered his nephew; "and I dare say your tea, toast, butter, and eggs will come to pretty near the same amount, for here tea is an out-of-the-way luxury, and also you had a separate table to yourselves, whilst the _table d'hôte_ is a democratic institution." "Then let us be democrats as long as we remain in France, if the thing does not imply being deprived of tea." From London, on her way back, Aunt Susan wrote:-- "We went to the Bedford Hotel, Covent Garden, and bespoke beds, got something to eat, and then set out. Our first visit was to 196 Piccadilly, where Thursday was glad to see us, and where we stayed a long time, well pleased to look at your pictures. I like them all exceedingly, and could not decide on a choice; they each had in them something I liked particularly. When we had been gone away some time, we remembered we had not paid our admission, so we went back; this afforded us another looking at the pictures and also a pleasing return of a small etching; our choice was 'Le four et la terrasse de Pré-Charmoy!' We were well contented with what we got, but I did think the proofs beautiful." Mr. Hamerton's strong love of etching had now led him to the practice of it, and for several hours every day he struggled against its technical difficulties. Full of hope and trust in a final success, he turned from a spoilt plate to a fresh one without discouragement, always eager and relentless. His main fault, as I thought, was attempting too much finish and effect, and I used to tell him so. He acknowledged that I was right, and when taking up a new plate he used to say playfully: "Now _this_ is going to be a good etching; you don't believe it because you are a little sceptic, but you'll see--I mean not to carry it far." Then before biting he showed it me with "Look at it before it is spoilt." It was rarely spoilt in the biting, but by subsequent work. Many charming proofs I greatly admired. "Oh! this is only a sketch; you will see the improvement when I have darkened this mass." Then I begged hard that it should be left as it was, and I was met by arguments that I could not discuss,--"the effect was not true so," "the lights were too strong," or "the darks too heavy;" "but _very little_ retouching was necessary," and it ended in the pretty sketch being destroyed after having been re-varnished and re-bitten two or three times. When it was no longer shown to me, I was aware of its fate. The amount of labor bestowed upon etching by my husband was stupendous, as he had to seek his way without help or advice. A plate once begun, he could not bring himself to leave it--not even in the night, and at that time he always had one in hand. Heedless of his self-imposed rules about the division of hours for literary work and artistic work, he devoted himself almost entirely to the pursuit of etching. This made me very uneasy, for it had become imperative that he should make his work pay. The tenant of the coal-mine had reiterated his decision not to pay rent any longer, and when threatened with a law-suit answered that he would put it in Chancery. I had been told that a suit in Chancery might last over twenty years, and we had no means to carry it on. We were therefore obliged to abandon all idea of redress, and were left _entirely_ dependent upon the earnings of my husband, which were derived from his contributions to the "Fine Arts Quarterly Review," and to a few periodicals of less importance. From that period of overwork and anxiety dates the nervousness from which he suffered so much throughout his life; though at that time he believed it to be only temporary. He sought relief in outdoor exercise, especially in canoeing, and this suggested the "Unknown River," published later, but based on the excursions undertaken at that time, and on sketches and etchings done on the way. The picture painted in remembrance of the journey in Switzerland had been finished and dispatched, and this is what Aunt Susan wrote about it:-- "We are now in possession of our picture, which we received from Agnew yesterday morning, and we are very much pleased with it; my impression is that it is a very good, well-finished painting: we have not yet concluded where to hang it for a proper and good light. We are very glad to hear that _Mamzelle_ Mary Susan Marguerite (as Uncle Thomas called her) is thriving and good; be sure and give her a kiss for each of us." _Mamzelle_ Mary Susan Marguerite had been born early in the spring, and to the general wonder of the household, seemed to have reconciled her father to the inevitable cries and noises of babyhood. Brought up by two maiden aunts in a large, solitary house in the country, and addicted from early youth to study, my husband had a perfect horror of noises of all kinds, and could not understand that they were unavoidable in some circumstances; he used to call out from the top of the stairs to the servants below "to stop their noise," or "to hold their tongues," whenever he overheard them singing to the babies or laughing to amuse them, and if the children's crying became audible in the upper regions, he declared that the house was not fit to live in, still less to work in. One morning when the youngest boy was loudly expressing his distaste for the ceremonies of the toilet, his father--no less loudly--was giving vent to his irritation at the disturbance, and calling out to shut _all_ the doors; but he could not help being very much amused by the resolute interference of the eldest brother--three years old--who, crossing his little fat arms, and standing his ground firmly, delivered this oracle: "Papa, babies _must_ cry." I suppose he had heard this wise sentence from the nurse, but he gave it as solemnly as if it were the result of his own reflections. Whether a few years' experience had rendered his father more patient generally, or whether he had become alive to the charm of babyhood--to which he had hitherto remained insensible--it was a fact first noticed by the nurse that "Monsieur, quand la petite criait, voulait savoir ce qu'elle avait, et la prenait même dans ses bras pour la consoler." A very important event now occurred: Mr. Hamerton was appointed art critic to the "Saturday Review," where he succeeded Mr. Palgrave at his recommendation. He did not accept the post with much pleasure, but it afforded him the opportunity of studying works of art free of expense, and that was a weighty consideration, besides being an opening to intellectual and artistic intercourse of which he was greatly deprived at Pré-Charmoy. The visits to the London exhibitions necessitated two or three journeys every year, and we both suffered from the separations; but I could bear them better in my own home--surrounded by my children, visited by my mother, sister, and brothers--than my husband, who was alone amongst strangers, and who had to live in hotels, a thing he had a great dislike for. In order to make these separations as short as possible, he travelled at night by the most rapid trains; saw the exhibitions in the day, and went to his rooms to write his articles by gas-light. For some time he only felt fatigued; afterwards he became nervous; but he found compensation in the society of his newly made friends, and in the increasing marks of recognition he was now meeting everywhere. He soon gave up hotel life, and took lodgings in St. John's Wood, where he had many acquaintances, and from there he wrote to me:-- "I have seen Palgrave, Macmillan, Rossetti, Woolner, and Mr. Pearce to-day. Palgrave says the 'Saturday Review' 'is most proud to have me.' Woolner says it is not possible to succeed as an art critic more than I have done; that Tennyson has been very much interested in my articles, and has in consequence urged his publishers to employ Doré to illustrate the "Idylls of the King." They have offered the job to Doré, who has accepted. "The best news is to come. "The 'Painter's Camp' is a success after all. It has fully cleared its expenses, and Macmillan is willing to venture on a second edition, revised, and I think he will let me illustrate it; he only hesitates. "_Macmillan has positively given me a commission for a work on Etching_. "I am to be paid whether it succeeds or not. I cannot tell you the exact sum, but you shall know it soon. "It is to be made up of articles in different reviews. It is to be a guinea work of 400 pages, beautifully got up, with 50 illustrative etchings by different masters, and is to be called 'Etching and Etchers.' "Macmillan said that as to my capacity as a writer there existed no doubt on the subject. He fully expects this work on Etching to be a success. It is to be out for Christmas next. "Macmillan is most favorably disposed to undertake other works, on condition that each shall have a special character like that. One on 'Painting in France' and another on 'Painting in England' looms in the future. He prefers this plan to the Year-book I mentioned to you. "The great news in this letter is that I have written a book which has paid its expenses. Is not that jolly? The idea of a second edition quite elates me. So you see, darling, things are rather cheering. I must say, everybody receives me pleasantly. Woodward is going to give me a whole day at Windsor. Beresford-Hope is out of town, but called to-day at Cook's and said 'he was most anxious to see me.'" My husband wrote to me sometimes in French and sometimes in English; when my mother came to keep me company during his absence, he generally wrote in French, to enable me to read aloud some passages of his letters that she might find interesting. The following letter was written on his first journey to London for the "Saturday Review ":-- "CHÈRE PETITE FEMME,--Me voici installé dans un fort joli appartement tout près de chez Mr. Mackay, à une guinée par semaine; j'y suis tout-à-fait bien. "Samedi dernier je suis allé d'abord chez Mr. Stephen Pearce que j'ai trouvé chez lui; c'est un homme parfaitement comme il faut; il m'a reçu bien cordialement et il m'a invité à dîner demain. J'ai dîné chez Mrs. Leslie hier et j'ai passé tout le tantôt d'aujourd'hui chez Lewes qui habite une fort belle maison à cinq minutes d'ici. J'ai beaucoup causé avec l'auteur de 'Romola;' c'est une femme de 45 ans, pas belle du tout, mais très distinguée, elle m'a fort bien reçu. Lewes lui-même est laid, mais très cordial. Voilà quelque chose comme sa physionomie. [Sketch of Lewes]. Je vais te donner George Eliot sur l'autre page. Il est très gentil avec elle. [Sketch of George Eliot.] Ce portrait n'est pas très ressemblant, mais il donne une bonne idée de l'expression--elle en a énormément et parle fort bien. Son salon est un modèle de gôut et d'élégance, et toute sa maison est aussi bien tenue que celle de Millais, par exemple. Nous avons causé de beaucoup de choses, entre autres précisément de cette curieuse question de prière selon Comte. Elle soutient que c'est raisonnable dans le sens d'expression de vif désir, de concentration de l'esprit vers son but. Son argument était bien fortement soutenu par sa manière énergique de raisonner, mais je lui ai tenu tête avec beaucoup d'obstination, et nous avons eu une véritable lutte. Elle a une singulière puissance, quelque chose qui ne se trouve jamais que chez les personnes d'un génie extraordinaire. Quand elle a voulu me convaincre, elle y mettait tant de persuasion et de volonté qu'il me fallait un certain effort pour garder la clarté de mes propres idées. Je te dirai cela plus en détail quand nous nous reverrons. "Lewes m'a dit qu'il serait content d'avoir d'autres articles de moi pour la 'Fortnightly Review.'" Two days later he wrote:-- "I dined with the Mackays yesterday; Mr. Watkiss Lloyd was there, and other friends came in the evening. I spent the day at home, writing, but I have an engagement for every night this week--I am becoming a sort of professional diner-out. "I have been talking over the illustrations of the 'Painter's Camp' with George Leslie. He has promised to do twenty etchings of figure-subjects to illustrate it, and I shall do twenty landscapes. I have learned a great deal from Haden here, and I feel sure now of grappling successfully with the difficulties which plagued me before. Besides, I am anxious to have a book with etchings in it out in time to appear with the work on Etching. I am sure this new edition of the 'Painter's Camp' will be something jolly. It's nice to think I shall have two beautiful books out at Christmas. It will give my reputation a fillip. It appears that Charles Dickens, Alfred Tennyson, and George Eliot are amongst my most assiduous readers. Isn't it pleasant to have readers of that class?..." I will give here a few more extracts from his letters at that time; it is the best way of becoming acquainted with his method of work, as well as with the state of his mind. "Yesterday I went to see some exhibitions and Mrs. Cameron's photographs; they are really very fine, quite different from anything one ever saw before. You will be very much struck with them, I am sure. "Mr. Palgrave and I spent a delightful evening together yesterday; we talked till midnight. I found him a pleasant companion. We had some music; Mrs. Palgrave plays well. He has a nice collection of Greek vases, which would delight Mariller. [A figure-painter who lived at Autun, and who drew the figures for the 'Unknown River.'] "The more I reflect on matters, the more I rejoice to live far away from here. Known as I am now, I am sure that if I lived in or near London I should be exposed to frequent interruptions, and gradually our dear little private life would be taken away from us both. Besides, this continued excitement would kill me, I could never stand it; I really need quiet, and I get it at Pré-Charmoy. Just now I bear up pretty well, but I know I could not stand this for three months--out _every_ evening, working or seeing people, or going in omnibuses. And then I need the great refreshment of being able to talk to thee, and to hear thee talk, and play with the children a little; all that is good for me,--in fact, I live upon it. I want to be back again. My breakfast in the morning is a difficulty; as you know, I never can eat an English one, and if I don't I am not fit for much fatigue. The distances, too, are terrible. Still, on the whole, I keep better than I expected to do. I hope the dear little boys are both quite well, and my little daughter, who is the apple of my eye." About the difficulty of eating an English breakfast, it must be explained that since Gilbert had begun to suffer from nervousness he had given up coffee and tea; besides, he only liked a very light breakfast, and we had tried different kinds of food for the morning meal: chocolate he could not digest, although it was to his taste; cocoa he did not care for; beer and dry biscuits succeeded for a time, but at last we discovered that soup was the best breakfast for him, vegetable soup (_soupe maigre_) especially, because it must not be too rich. At home I always made his soup myself, for, being always the same--by his own choice--he was particular about the flavor; it was merely onion-soup with either cream and parsley, or onion-soup with Liebig and chervil. In the great summer heat he took instead of it cold milk and brown bread. It may be easily surmised that such a frugal meal could not last him far into the day, particularly as he was a very early riser, and often had his bowl of soup at six in the morning; then, when he felt hungry again--at ten generally--he drank a glass of beer and ate a slice of home-made _brioche_, which allowed him to await the twelve o'clock _déjeuner à la fourchette_. The following passage is extracted from a letter written a few days after those already given:-- "J'ai dîné chez Woolner hier. Quel brave garçon! Ses manières avec moi sont tout-à-fait affectueuses, et je me sens avec lui sur le pied de la plus parfaite intimité. Il n'y a pas un homme a Londres qui possède un cercle d'amis comme le sien: tout ce qu'il y a de plus distingué _en tout_. Palgrave dit que Woolner fait un choix sérieux dans ses amitiés. Sa femme est jolie, délicate, gracieuse, intelligente; elle me fait l'effet d'un lys. "J'ai reçu la visite de Haden hier, il m'a plus enseigné relativement à l'eau-forte en une demi-heure de conversation que dix ans de pratique ne l'auraient fait. Voici mes engagements:-- "Samedi, dîner chez Leslie. Dimanche, tantôt chez Lewes. Lundi, dîner chez Pearce. Mardi, " " Mackay. Mercredi, " " Shaw. Jeudi, " " Woolner. Vendredi, toute la journée avec Woodward. Samedi, soirée chez Marks. Lundi, dîner chez Haden. Mardi, " " Constable fils: "et il n'y a pas de raison pour que cela s'arrête, excepté mon depart pour West Lodge qui sera, je crois, pour mercredi." However, he had to postpone his departure on account of a distressing and alarming disturbance of his nervous system. Mr. Haden recommended him to give up all kind of work immediately, which he did, and for a few days he only wrote short notes. "NORTHUMBERLAND STREET. _Wednesday Morning_. "Je suis toujours faible, mais je crois que je puis supporter le voyage aujourd'hui. Si j'étais une fois à West Lodge je m'y reposerais bien. Si je me sentais fatigué je m'arrêterais n'importe où. La surexcitation cérébrale est _complètement passée_, mais je n'espère pas être remis avant un mois." From West Lodge he wrote, in answer to one of my letters:-- "Our present business is to look simply to the question, what will be most economical? I have no objection to any arrangement which will save my keeping a man, but I have a decided objection to that. [It was about the garden, one half of which I proposed to cede on condition of having the other half cultivated free of charge.] Any arrangement you make _that does not involve my keeping a man_ has my approbation beforehand. "I saw Macmillan again before leaving, and now he is for bringing out the new edition of the 'Painter's Camp' in May. It will be a pretty little book, but I can't get Macmillan to go to the expense about illustrations. Colnaghi will publish etchings for me, and after all the hints and instructions received from Haden, I feel quite sure that I shall succeed in etching. "I expect to be at Pré-Charmoy in a few days, when I shall be delighted to see you all, my treasures." Having returned to London, he writes:-- "I spent last evening with Beavington Atkinson, who was to have come to see us in France; you remember Woodward wrote about him. He and his wife are most agreeable people, and I like him really; there is something so intelligent and pleasing in his manner. "Yesterday I went through Buckingham Palace to see the pictures. There is a fine Dutch collection. Then I went to the British Museum to see the Rembrandt etchings, and was accompanied by a collector, Mr. Fisher. This evening I am to spend with Haden again; he has a magnificent collection of etchings, and will help me very much with my book. So now I am sure of the right quantity of assistance in my work. "I was with the editor of the 'Saturday' this afternoon; nothing could exceed his kind, trustful way. "Still, I wish I were back with you; but I shall hurry now and come back fast." Two days later:-- "Je me sens de nouveau fatigué. J'ai causé aujourd'hui avec l'aubergiste de Walton-on-Thames, et il m'a dit qu'il nous nourrirait et nous logerait tous les deux pour £2 par semaine. On y est très bien, il y a un jardin, et des études à faire en quantité. Mr. Haden pense que la peinture ne fatiguerait pas autant le cerveau que la littérature. "Si je t'avais avec moi, et si je restais plus longtemps, je n'aurais pas besoin l'année prochaine de revenir au mois de juillet. Voilà le rêve que j'ai fait. Je viendrais à Londres une ou deux fois par semaine seulement, et je t'aurais là-bas. Je ne pense pas vivre sans toi, je meurs d'ennui." The kind of life we led at Pré-Charmoy suited perfectly my husband's tastes, and he was soon restored to health. He would have been entirely happy but for pressing cares; still, thanks to his philosophical disposition, he contrived to enjoy what was enjoyable in his life. He was extremely fond of excursions in the country, and we often used to set off with nurse and children in the farmer's cart, to spend the day in some picturesque place, where he could sketch or paint. We had our provisions with us, and both lunched and dined on the grass under the fine chestnuts or oaks, so numerous in the Morvan, by the side of a clear stream or rivulet; for running water had a sort of magic influence upon Gilbert, and instinctively, when unwell from nervous exhaustion, he sought its soothing influence. We generally rambled about the country after each meal, and whilst he drew I read to him, leaving the children to their play, under the charge of the nurse. So far we had taken upon ourselves the teaching of the boys, but for some time past I had perceived that it was becoming inadequate to their present requirements, and I told their father that I thought they should be sent to college,--any rate the eldest, who was nearly eight years old; but he demurred, not seeing the necessity for it. He had a notion that they could be much better educated at home, according to a plan of his own: Latin and Greek would be reserved for their teens, because it was a clear loss of time before, and they would be taught modern languages early, together with science and literature. To this I objected, that, if successful, it might be a very good education for boys who were certain of an independence, but that it did not seem a good way towards the degrees necessary for almost every one of the liberal professions. Besides, who was to teach the boys when he was away? and would he always find spare time to do it, and regular hours also? I was certain he would never be punctual as to time; only he did not like to be told so, because, being aware of this shortcoming, he made earnest efforts to correct it, and constantly failed. It was difficult to him to bear any kind of interruption, or any compulsory change of work--involving loss of time--and on that score very trying to one who wanted always to finish what he had in hand. He hardly ever came down at meal-times without the bell being rung twice, and often when he did come down, he used to say: "That bell was getting angry," and he was met with this stereotyped phrase from us: "And it made you abandon the refractory sentence at last!" Well, he acknowledged there was some weight in my objections to home instruction, but "he could give tasks to be done in his absence, and correct them afterwards." I asked, who could help the young students when they were in a fix? and would they be always inclined to apply themselves steadily to their tasks without supervision? That was expecting too much, but it seemed natural to him to expect it, as study and work had ever been both a necessity and a pleasure to him. However, he yielded, but so strong was his disapproval of public school teaching as it was carried on, that at first he would have nothing to do with it. I had to go to the principal of the college, and make terms and arrangements; the only condition he made was that the boys should come home every Saturday night, and remain till Monday morning, and the same from Wednesday to Friday regularly, for their English lessons and for their health. I desired nothing better, and the principal agreed to it. Whenever the boys complained of anything about their college life afterwards, their father used to say good-humoredly: "I have no responsibility in the matter; _I_ did not want you to go to college, you know--it was your mother." Pré-Charmoy being four kilomètres distant from the town of Autun, and five from the college, where the boys had to be in time for the eight o'clock class, summer and winter, it became necessary to have some means of conveying them to and fro, for they were still very young,--Stephen a little over eight, and Richard hardly seven. The eldest boy went alone at first, but his brother soon insisted on going too. We decided to do like most of our country neighbors, that is, to have a little donkey-cart, because it would have been both inconvenient and expensive to hire the farmer's so frequently. Accordingly we bought a small, second-hand carriage with its donkey, and I was taught to drive; my husband would have preferred a pony, but I was nervous at the idea of driving one, although I had been told that it was much easier to manage than a donkey, and discovered afterwards that it was the truth. The little cart proved a great convenience for my husband's studies, as he could start with it at any time, and there was no trouble about the care of the donkey, the servant-girls being accustomed to it from infancy--almost every household in the vicinity being in possession of this useful and inexpensive animal. There is a Morvandau song, known to all the little shepherdesses, in illustration of the custom:-- "Mes parents s'y mariant tou Mé j'garde l'âne (_bis_). Mes parents s'y mariant tou Mé j'garde l'âne taut mon saoûl! "Mais quand mon tour viendra Gardera l'âne (_bis_). Mais quand mon tour viendra Gardera l'âne qui voudra." At first we had a swift little animal, which could not be stopped at all when he was behind another carriage, till that carriage stopped first. It was an advantage in some cases,--for instance, when preceded by a good horse; but if the horse went further than our destination, one of us had to jump out and hold back the fiery and stubborn little brute by sheer force, till his sense of jealous emulation was appeased. The load upon the cart, when we were all together, was found excessive for the animal, and my husband, who was always deeply concerned about the welfare of dumb creatures, decided to have a bigger and stronger donkey. He bought a very fine one, strong enough to pull us all, but he did it in such a leisurely fashion that he received the expressive name of "Dort-debout." This led my husband to write to me sometimes from London, after a hard day's work: "Here is a very short note, but I am like our donkey, je dors debout." The editor of the "Saturday Review" asked Mr. Hamerton to be present at the opening of the Paris Exhibition of 1867, and to write a series of articles on the works of art exhibited; then to proceed to London for a review of the Academy. He wished me very much to go with him, and I being nothing loth, we started together, and received in Paris the following letter from Aunt Susan:-- "WEST LODGE. _April_ 20, 1867. "MY DEAR NEPHEW,--I am very glad indeed to hear from you, as I now know where to direct my long-intended epistle to you; your uncle thought you would not like to come to the exhibition in its very unfinished state, and I thought you would like to be at the opening of it, and so the matter was resting quite unacted upon. I grieve very much to tell you of the sad tidings we have of poor Anne Gould; there has been a consultation with her medical men, and they pronounce her case very serious,--in fact, incurable. She grows thinner and weaker almost every week, and one lung is said to be affected. A confinement is expected in July, and I cannot but still hope that she may possibly come round again; but it has been sorrowful news. We shall be very glad to see you _both_ at West Lodge when you can make it convenient, and I do hope and trust we shall be able to enjoy the anticipated pleasure of your company. You will have left home with comparative comfort, the boys being both at college, and, I expect, grandmamma with the little sister. I was very glad when you wrote 'before _we_ can be in England,' as it assured me the little wife was not to be sent homeward from Paris, instead of accompanying you to West Lodge, where we shall be very glad to see her." Nevertheless, I had to go homewards, for about three weeks after our arrival in Paris I heard that my little daughter Mary was ill with bronchitis, and I hastened to her whilst my husband was leaving for London. I was doubly sorry, because he was very reluctant to go alone; but although he felt a sort of instinctive dread of the journey he did not attempt to detain me. He had borne the sight-seeing very well, and the crowds, which he disliked; but it was mainly because he had been spared hotel life, for we had lodged with a former servant of ours, who was married at Pré-Charmoy, and now lived at La Glacière, in Paris. It was by no means a fashionable quarter, and our lodgings left much to be desired in the way of comfort, but it will be seen how much he regretted it all when alone at Kew, where he had taken lodgings after much suffering from fatigue, over-work, and depression. Still, the first news from London was very gratifying:-- "Un mot seulement pour te dire que _toutes les huit eaux-fortes_ sont reçues à l'Académie et bien placées. Ces Académiciens commencent à devenir gentils. "Ce matin je suis allé de bonne heure à l'Académie, comme d'habitude; j'ai maintenant ma carte d'exposant dont je suis très fier." But after a fortnight he wrote:-- "PETITE CHÉRIE,--Aujourd'hui je vais me donner le plaisir de m'entretenir longuement avec toi. Combien je préférerais te parler de vive voix. Je suppose que je suis très bien ici; c'est-à-dire j'ai tout ce que j'aime matériellement: le bon air, la belle nature, un petit appartement d'une propriété vraiment exquise, une belle rivière tout à côté, et des canots à ma disposition. Et cependant, malgré cela je suis d'une tristesse mortelle, et j'ai beau me raisonner là-contre. Nous avons été si heureux ensemble à Paris, malgré notre sale petite rue que je vois bien la vérité de ce que tu m'as dit qu'il vaudrait mieux vivre dans n'importe quel tandis, ensemble, que dans des palais, et sépares. Si je croyais à l'immortalité de l'âme, je regarderais avec effroi la possibilité d'être au ciel pendant que tu resterais sur la terre. Je crois que ma maladie est due principalement à la tristesse et je tâche de lutter là-contre. Je vais faire quelques eaux-fortes et aquarelles dans mes moments de loisir pour m'empêcher, autant que possible, de penser à ma solitude. "J'ai eu un peu de fièvre dans la nuit, et ce matin je suis calme, mais fatigué. Il ne faut pas t'en alarmer cependant; le voyage et l'exposition réclamaient une réaction, et elle arrive naturellement au premier moment où j'ai la possibilité du repos. Quant au repos, je m'en donne aujourd'hui pleinement; je ne fais rien; mais je me reposerais mieux si tu étais ici pour me dire que tu m'aimes et pour mettre tes douces mains sur mon front. Je deviens par trop dépendant de toi, je voudrais être plus fort--et pourtant je crois qu'on est plus heureux étant triste à cause d'une séparation d'avec la femme aimée que si l'on était insensible à cette séparation. Allons! je ne voudrais pas vendre ma tristesse pour beaucoup! elle s'en ira le jour où je te verrai; en attendant je la garde volontiers." Then follows a minute description of his lodgings, of Kew itself--the gardens, the river, the different boats upon it--and he concludes:-- "Tiens, voilà que je redeviens un peu gai, ce qui est bon signe; peut- être, quand j'aurai reçu une lettre de toi cela ira mieux. Ainsi, ta-ta, good-bye; embrasse bien les chers enfants pour moi et dis à ma petite Marie que je lui rapporterai une pépem [for _poupée_, which she could not yet pronounce clearly] ou autre chose de beau." A few days later:-- "Je suis allé aujourd'hui au musée Britannique continuer mes études. Le système que j'ai adopté parait bon, et ça va bien. Je limite rigoureusement mes travaux en choisissant seulement la crême de la crême des planches. "Je me suis promené ce soir au jardin de Kew; ces promenades me rendent toujours triste, parce qu'à chaque bel arbre ou jolie fleur, je me figure combien tu en jouirais si tu étais avec moi. Quand on s'est si bien habitué à vivre à deux il est difficile de redevenir garçon. Dans ces moments de tristesse je pense toujours à la séparation éternelle, et au sort de celui de nous qui restera. Enfin j'apprends ici une chose qui me servira toujours, c'est que pour moi maintenant tout est vanité sans toi. J'ai un jardin Royal à ma disposition, des collections d'oeuvres d'art superbes, les plus jolis canots, une belle rivière, de bons livres à lire, du succès avec les éditeurs et une réputation en bonne voie, et pourtant cette existence ne vaut pas la peine de vivre. Il est bon de savoir ces choses là et de se connaître. À Paris où notre existence matérielle était pleine d'ennuis, j'étais pourtant heureux. Il ne faut pas de ton côté être triste parce que je le suis, du moins si tu peux l'éviter. C'est une affaire de deux ou trois semaines, voilà tout. De mon côté je suis si occupé que je n'ai pas le temps de penser à moi- même, et je travaille avec la régularité d'un homme de bureau. C'est lorsque je rentre chez moi que je souffre de ne point t'avoir. "Quant à ma santé, elle va mieux. Je connais l'état de mon système nerveux et l'effet que le chemin-de-fer lui produit. Aujourd'hui je n'en ai rien ressenti du tout. Quand je suis malade, la vibration et le mouvement des objets me font souffrir un peu." On the following Sunday:-- "DEAR LITTLE WIFE,--Last night I passed the evening with a set of artists, friends of George Leslie, at the house of one of them, Mr. Hodgson. They acted charades, and as their costumes (from their own ateliers) were numerous and rich, it was very good. Among them were Calderon and Frederick Walker. This morning we all set out for a walk on Hampstead Heath; I have no doubt the walk will do me good, but I am very well now, and feel better every day. "I called on Rossetti the painter; he lives in a magnificent house, furnished with very great taste, but in the most extraordinary manner. His drawing-room is very large indeed and most curious; the general effect is very good. He was very kind in receiving me, and I saw his pictures, which are splendid in color, and very quaint and strange in sentiment. His own manners are singularly soft and pleasant. I called on Mr. Barlow the engraver, and spent some time with him about the etchings. He will lend me some; Marks will lend me some also. The worst of the way I go on in London now is that society absorbs too much time. I must restrict it in future very much." After the walk to Hampstead he wrote:-- "Yesterday, Sunday, I went on a long walk to Hampstead with several artists who live close together, and I never met seven more agreeable and more gentlemanly men; I enjoyed our conversation extremely. George Leslie and I got some lunch at the inn and walked back together. "Calderon's studio that I saw a few days ago is richly tapestried and very lofty; it is quite as fine as that of Millais. It seems Leighton has built himself a studio forty feet long. Mr. Barlow, the engraver, has a fine studio attached to the one you saw him in, and far larger. All these artists complain of nothing but the too great prosperity of the profession in these days; they tell me an artist's life is a princely one now. They live and dress like gentlemen, and their daughters might be 'clothed in scarlet.' "The reason for my staying in London longer than I intended is the time I have spent in society--a thing I certainly shall never do again-- because I go to bed so late, _always_ after twelve, whereas if I were not in society I should go to bed at nine or ten, and keep my strength up easily. Another thing I am sure of is that, _on the whole_, the advantages of being isolated, as I am at Pré-Charmoy, counterbalance and more than counterbalance the disadvantages. I certainly would not, if I could, have a house in London; the loss of time is awful. The only good in it for a painter is that the dealers are always after him for pictures as soon as he succeeds. "Mind you have a man from the farm to sleep in the house every night. It would be well for him to have the gun loaded, only take care the children don't get at it. My health is still tolerably good, sufficiently so for me to get easily through what I have to do." But the next news was far from being so satisfactory. "J'ai des nouvelles de West Lodge qui sont vraiment tristes. Anne est accouchée prématurément, et l'enfant--une fille--est morte après avoir vécu deux nuits et un jour. On l'a baptisée Annie Jane Hamerton Gould. Anne est dans un état de faiblesse tel qu'on n'espère pas la conserver au-delà de quelques semaines, et mon pauvre oncle est dans l'île de Wight avec elle, où tout cela se passe. La tante Susan, de son côté, est malade d'une fièvre gastrique--maladie bien dangereuse, comme tu sais; elle a pu m'écrire quelques mots au crayon; elle se trouve un peu mieux, ce qui me fait espérer que probablement sa bonne constitution triomphera du mal. Je voudrais aller la voir de suite, mais je suis tellement retenu par mon travail; et puis le bon arrangement de ce travail et son heureux succès m'avaient fait regagner un peu ma sérénité d'esprit, et maintenant je souffre de nouveau pour mon oncle et ma tante. Vraiment c'est pénible d'être là avec son dernier enfant qui s'en va si vite. Si encore la pauvre petite avait vécu, mon oncle aurait eu une fille peur remplacer les siennes, car il faut bien parler d'Anne comme d'une personne morte. "Je me félicite des résultats de mon nouveau système: je me lève de fort bonne heure, j'ai fini dans l'Académie à 10 h. 1/2; alors je fais une course, et immédiatement après je me rends au Musée où je déjeune. On y déjeune très bien et pas cher; tu comprends que c'est pour les gens de lettres qui travaillent à la bibliothèque. Je rentre ici à six heures, et le soir je me promène un peu au jardin, ou sur l'eau; après quoi j'écris à la petite femme chérie et je me couche. Aujourd'hui, comme hier, j'ai étudié et décrit dix tableaux et dix planches. Je crois que mes notes sur les aquafortistes iront plus vite que je ne l'avais espéré. J'ai déjà terminé Claude, Salvator, Wilkie, Geddes, Ruysdaël, Paul Potter. J'arriverai à ma vingtaine si ma santé se maintient pendant tout mon séjour. Je réserve le samedi et le dimanche à Kew pour écrire ou dessiner. "Je m'étonne _du mauvais_ de certains aqua-fortistes célèbres. Dans toute l'oeuvre de Ruysdaël je ne trouve que deux bonnes planches, et encore si elles étaient publiées dans l'ouvrage de la Société Française, je les trouverais peut-être mauvaises. Dans Salvator il y en a également deux ou trois bonnes. L'oeuvre de Claude est belle en somme, avec plusieurs mauvaises choses toutefois. "Adieu, petite chérie, le temps de mon exil diminue, et alors je te reverrai, toi et les enfants." But he was suddenly and violently seized by a mysterious illness, which threatened not only his life but his reason, as he told me afterwards. He longed to have me near him, yet he was so courageous that, to spare me, he only wrote that he was suffering from fatigue:-- "CROWN INN, WALTON-ON-THAMES. "Ça va toujours tout doucement. Je me promène tranquillement. Je reste encore ici deux nuits pour gagner un peu de force. Je suis toujours très faible, mais le cerveau va mieux, je n'ai point de surexcitation cérébrale. Je ne dois pas beaucoup écrire. Ainsi tata, ma bien aimée. "_Lundi soir._ "Puisque je sais que tu dois être inquiète je t'écris une deuxième fois aujourd'hui pour te dire que je vais _beaucoup mieux_. La force commence à me revenir. Je me suis bien promené, lentement, toute la journée. Je n'ai pas osé te dire combien j'ai désiré ta chère présence ces jours-ci. Si je l'avais dit tu aurais été capable de te mettre en route. C'est toujours triste d'être malade, mais c'est terrible quand on est seul dans une auberge. [He had gone to Walton-on-Thames for quiet and rest.] "Enfin j'espère que c'est à peu près passé pour cette fois, et je me promets bien de ne plus jamais travailler au-dessus de mes forces. Mr. Haden dit que je n'ai point de maladie, mais que je suis incapable de supporter tout travail excessif. Il va falloir régler tout cela." "J'ai dû renoncer à mon travail pendant deux jours parce que j'ai besoin de repos, et il me semble plus sage de le prendre à temps que de me rendre malade. Lorsque je suis malade je ne puis pas me reposer, tandis que maintenant, je suis simplement fatigué. Je dors bien, mais comme je suis seul dans mon logement, je deviens tout triste. Je n'ose pas penser du tout à Pré-Charmoy parce que cela me donne une telle envie de te voir que j'en serais malade. Ah! si la force physique voulait seulement répondre à la force morale! Moralement, je n'ai jamais été plus fort, plus disposé à la lutte; et puis ces jours de fatigue arrivent et m'accablent, et je souffre dix fois plus qu'un paresseux s'y résignerait. "Beaucoup de baisers aux enfants, et beaucoup pour toi, petite femme trop chérie. Je n'ose penser combien ce serait gentil si tu étais ici auprès de moi." In answer I immediately proposed to go to him, as our little daughter was convalescent, and her grandmother would take care of her during my absence, but he declined. "PETITE CHÉRIE DE MON COEUR,--Je viens de recevoir ta bonne lettre, il n'est pas nécessaire que tu viennes; je gagne graduellement. J'ai passé la soirée avec Mr. Pearce qui sait que je suis malade. J'ai échappé sans doute à un grave danger, j'ai même eu peur de perdre la raison; mais tout cela est passé; je suis calme et quoique faible encore--plus fort. C'est surtout mentalement que je vais mieux, ce qui est le plus essentiel: le corps suivra. Je n'ai pas osé entreprendre le voyage de Todmorden aujourd'hui, mais j'ai l'espoir de pouvoir partir demain. Quoique en état de convalescence, je suis obligé d'être prudent et d'éviter les grandes fatigues. Le médecin dit qu'il faudra un changement dans ma manière de vivre. Le fait est que je me tue en travaillant et je sens que je n'irais pas trois ans comme cela. Enfin je me dis que puisque ma mort ne te ferait pas de bien, je dois tâcher de me conserver; si ma mort pouvait t'être utile je mourrais bien volontiers. Ta chère lettre, toute pleine d'affection, m'a fait du bien. Dis à mon bon petit Stephen que je le remercie de toute sa tendresse pour moi et que je vais mieux. J'ai beaucoup pensé à mes chers enfants, ne sachant pas si je les reverrais. "Je t'ai tout dit; ça a été seulement un état d'abattement complet accompagné d'excitation des centres nerveux." "KEW. _Thursday_. "Le temps est si mauvais que je n'ai pas pu faire une seule esquisse. Ma tante Susan t'a écrit pour te dire que la pauvre Anne a cessé de souffrir. J'ai reçu une lettre de son mari qui me dit que les derniers jours ont été bien pénibles. Je ne vais toujours pas bien à cause de la tristesse et de l'inquiétude que tout cela m'a causé, mais il ne faut pas être inquiète pour moi; ça se passera dans un jour ou deux, tu sais que je suis très impressionnable. "Il me prend de temps en temps d'angoissantes envies de te voir. Dans ces moments-là il me semble que je réalise chaque mètre, chaque centimètre de l'effroyable distance qui nous sépare. Je suis obligé de lutter fortement contre ces idées qui finiraient par me rendre malade. "Je dois maintenant aller au train; à demain donc." "WEST LODGE. _Vendredi_. "Je suis bien arrivé chez ma tante que j'ai trouvée en bonne santé, mais je suis toujours horriblement triste ici, et je me le reproche, car ma tante est toujours si bonne. Elle nous avait destiné la belle chambre-à-coucher, et j'ai la chambre tout seul, ce qui ne contribue pas à diminuer ma tristesse. Une chose au moins me console: j'ai le matériel pour mon livre sur l'eau-forte, c'est beaucoup. Je crois la publication de ce livre si essentielle à mon avenir, comme soutien de ma réputation, que j'aurais été vraiment désolé de ne pas pouvoir le faire maintenant. Ayant tout le matériel dans ma tête, je ferai l'ouvrage très vite, et je suis convaincu qu'il sera bon et tout-à-fait nouveau. J'ai bien besoin maintenant d'un peu de bruit pour augmenter ma réputation, car ces articles anonymes ne l'aident point. "Dans ta tristesse, ma chérie, il faut toujours avoir la plus grande confiance en la durée de mon amour pour toi. Je crois que mon amour et ma loyauté sont au moins aussi forts que le sentiment de l'héroïsme militaire. Il me semble que si les soldats peuvent supporter toutes les privations pour leur roi ou pour leur patrie, je dois pouvoir en faire autant pour ma femme. Compte sur ma tendresse, même dans les circonstances les plus difficiles, tu l'auras toujours. Grâce à ton influence, je suis beaucoup plus capable qu'autrefois de supporter les difficultés de la vie, et si nous avions à vivre dans une pauvre chaumière, je t'aiderais gaiement à faire les travaux du petit ménage en y consacrant deux ou trois heures par jour, et quand tu coudrais je te ferais un peu la lecture, et toujours je t'aimerais. Ainsi crois que, loin de souffrir des devoirs que je me suis imposés, j'y trouve la plus profonde satisfaction, et que je me trouve plus respectable que si je ne faisais rien." "WEST LODGE. Vendredi. "J'avais l'intention de partir aujourd'hui mais la tante Susan paraît tellement triste quand je parle de m'en aller que j'ai dû reculer mon départ jusqu'à lundi. Du reste j'ai fait trois planches que je crois bonnes; j'y ai bien travaillé; j'ai aussi écrit trois articles, mais mon travail pour la Revue ne gagne pas grand'chose, et du moment où la peinture rapportera, je quitterai la revue; je n'aime pas ce genre de travail, quoiqu'on dise que je le fais bien. J'aimerais autant être cocher de fiacre. Ce que j'ai toujours désiré faire c'est de la peinture; mes efforts dans cette direction n'ont pas abouti jusqu'à présent, mais si j'avais un peu de temps libre, je saurais mieux faire à cause de mon expérience de critique; je vois maintenant dans quel sens il faut travailler. "Je vis à Londres aussi simplement que possible et pourtant mes séjours y sont très coûteux. Quant à la réputation, en comparaison du bonheur de vivre tranquillement avec toi, elle m'est absolument indifférente. Il me semble que lorsque le mari et la femme sont si parfaitement d'accord sur le but de la vie, il doit être facile d'y parvenir. Notre plus grand désir à tous les deux c'est d'être ensemble; eh! bien, du moment où les choses nous seront propices, nous réaliserons notre désir, et même par la volonté nous forcerons les circonstances, c'est-à-dire que nous supporterons des inconvénients pour y arriver. Déjà Wallis et Colnaghi consentent à exposer mes ouvrages; mes eaux-fortes sont appréciées. Peut-être dans un temps comparativement rapproché serai-je en position de donner ma démission--non seulement à la Saturday, mais à la littérature, et à me dévouer exclusivement à l'Art. Du moment où cela arrivera il sera infiniment plus facile d'être ensemble, car je tâcherai de faire un genre d'Art qui me permettra d'étudier chez nous, ou dans un petit rayon. Enfin regardons la situation actuelle comme pénible, mais pas du tout permanente. Tu peux compter que du moment où je le pourrai je quitterai la Revue; j'y suis bien décidé." After this letter, my husband, feeling much better, came back to London to resume his work, and wrote about what he thought most important or most interesting to me. I shall quote from his letters in their order according to dates. WATERLOO PLACE, KEW. _Lundi soir_. "Mr. Macmillan m'a reçu parfaitement, presque affectueusement; il m'a invité à dîner. Je suis allé voir Mr. Seeley, mon nouvel éditeur, que j'ai trouvé intelligent, comme il faut, jeune encore, et parfaitement cordial. Je crois que mes relations avec lui seront tout-à-fait faciles. [Footnote: Mr. Seeley had asked him to write some notes on Contemporary French Painters, to be illustrated with photographs.] "L'exposition, en somme, est belle. Il y a plusieurs tableaux remarquables, entre autres une Vénus de Leighton que je trouve superbe. La contribution de Landseer est importante, c'est un portrait de la Reine, à cheval, en deuil; cheval _noir_, _trois chiens noirs_, groom _noir_, _ciel noir_. "C'est agréable de rentrer le soir en pleine campagne; ça me fait du bien. Je n'ose pas penser combien ce serait gentil si ma chérie était avec moi, parceque cela me rend triste tout de suite; mais je t'écrirai _presque_ tous les jours, quelquefois brièvement quand je serai trop pressé. Sois gentille toi, et écris souvent; les bonnes nouvelles que tu m'envoies de ta santé et de celle des enfants m'ont rendu mon courage et--ce que je puis avoir de gaieté." "_Samedi_. "Il paraît que j'avais encore besoin de repos, car aujourd'hui je suis très fatigué. J'espère que lundi j'irai mieux; un ou deux jours de repos me sont nécessaires: voilà tout. _Je n'ai point de surexcitation cérébrale_; je dors bien et je me repose pleinement, ce qui ne doit pas tarder à rétablir mes forces. Je souffre d'être seul. Mr. Gould va venir passer huit jours ici; je trouve amiable de sa part de bien vouloir venir s'établir à Kew pour être près de moi; mon oncle viendra peut-être aussi. "Je vais me plaindre un peu, tout doucement, de la petite chérie de Pré-Charmoy; elle n'écrit pas assez souvent à son mari qui reçoit toujours ses lettres avec tant de plaisir. Il y a pourtant une de ces lettres qui a donné tant de bonheur qu'elle peut compter pour une douzaine. Pauvre chérie! comme je voudrais toujours réussir à rendre ta vie douce et agréable! Depuis que je ne vis plus pour moi, mais pour toi et les enfants, j'ai goûté moi-même un nouveau genre de bonheur mêlé de nouvelles tristesses. Ces tristesses sont dues à la pensée que je fais si peu, et que, avec plus de forces je ferais tant et si bien! Avec la force je serais sûr maintenant de réussir pleinement. Je tiens la réputation par un petit bout, mais je la tiens, et elle augmentera. Tout me prouve que notre avenir serait assuré si j'avais autant de force que de volonté." "_Dimanche_. "Je suis allé voir George Eliot et Lewes qui a été charmant; il est venu s'asseoir à côté de moi où il est resté tout le temps de ma visite, et lorsque je suis parti, il s'est beaucoup plaint de ne pas me voir davantage. Il me traite d'une façon très affectueuse, et en même temps avec un respect qui, venant de lui, me flatte beaucoup. Quant à George Eliot elle est très aimable, mais elle a le défaut de rester toujours assise an même endroit, et quand il y a du monde, la seule personne qui puisse causer avec elle, est son voisin. Quand j'y retournerai, je m'installerai auprès d'elle, parce que je tiens à la connaître un peu mieux. J'y ai rencontré Mr. Ralston qui s'était assis modestement un peu en dehors du cercle où j'étais et pendant tout le temps de sa visite, il n'a presque rien dit et c'est à peine si on lui a parlé. J'ai trouvé ces arrangements mauvais. Les gens qui reçoivent doivent souvent changer de place, de façon à causer avec tous leurs visiteurs. "Lundi dernier j'ai dîné chez Mr. Craik--le mari de l'auteur de 'John Halifax.' Il habite un charmant cottage à Beckenham, un endroit à quatre lieues de Londres où il vient tous les jours en chemin-de-fer. Tu sais qu'il est l'associé de Macmillan. Nous avons passé une soirée fort agréable; c'est un homme très cultivé, qui autrefois était auteur, et qui a occupé une chaire de littérature à Edimbourg. Sa femme, quoique célèbre, est simple et très aimable; elle m'a dit que quand tu viendrais, elle désirait te connaître. "Mardi j'ai dîné chez le Professeur Seeley, le frère de mon éditeur; il a occupé la chaire de Latin à l'Université de Londres. C'est l'auteur d'_Ecce Homo_. Macmillan m'ayant donné ce livre, je l'ai trouvé très fort comme style et d'une hardiesse étonnante. L'auteur est des plus sympathiques; il a des manières charmantes--si modestes et si intelligentes, car les manières peuvent montrer de l'intelligence. J'aime beaucoup les deux frères, et dans le peu de temps que je les ai vus j'en ai fait des amis. "Mercredi j'ai dîné chez moi, ayant un article à écrire. Jeudi chez Stephen Pearce. Vendredi chez Mr. Wallis, le marchand de tableaux. C'est un homme très délicat et très fin. Il avait invité Mr. Burgess, un artiste intelligent et agréable que j'avais déjà rencontré au Salon de l'année dernière. J'ai rencontré Tom Taylor à l'exposition. Wallis et nous avons causé quelque temps ensemble. J'ai rencontré Clifton et dîné avec lui à son Club." _"Lundi matin_. "Je suis allé hier passer le tantôt chez Lewes, on a été enchanté de mes eaux-fortes. George Eliot s'est plainte de ne pas avoir assez causé avec moi à ma dernière visite, et m'a invitè à prendre place à côté d'elle. Nous avons parlé d'art, de littérature et d'elle même. Elle m'a dit que personne n'avait eu plus d'inquiétudes et de souffrances dans le travail qu'elle, et que le peu qu'elle fait lui coûte énormément. "J'ai discuté avec Lewes l'idée de faire la réimpression de mes articles, et il m'a conseillé de ne pas le faire si je puis fonder un livre sur ces articles. J'avoue que je serais assez tenté de faire un ouvrage sérieux sur la peinture, pour lequel mes articles serviraient de matériel." "_Samedi soir._ "J'ai dîné hier soir chez Mr. Macmillan, nous étions seuls d'hommes. Il y avait sa femme, ses enfants, et une grand'mère. Il a une famille nombreuse, de beaux enfants. Sa femme est bonne, et si simple que j'ai rarement vu un comme-il-faut plus achevé sans être de la distinction. La maison est très spacieuse et entourée d'arbres magnifiques. Ce qu'il y a de particulier dans cette maison, c'est un caractère intime et d'aisance ancienne. Macmillan a su éviter avec un tact parfait, tout ce qui pouvait rappeler le nouveau riche. On se croirait dans une grande maison de campagne, à cinquante lieues de Londres, et dans une ancienne famille établie là depuis plusieurs générations. "Nous avons passé toute la soirée ensemble. Il laisse entièrement à mon jugement tout ce qui regarde l'illustration de mon livre. Ce que j'ai aimé dans cette maison, comme dans toutes les personnes que j'y ai trouvées, a été l'absence complète de toute affectation. Tout est homogène et je n'ai encore jamais vu une maison de campagne ayant cet aspect-là. Mon respect pour Macmillan s'est considérablement augmentée de ce qu'on ne rencontre chez lui aucune splendeur vulgaire: rien ne parle d'argent chez lui. "La conversation a été très générale. Quand je suis parti, il m'a reconduit à travers un champ pour abréger mon chemin à la station. Il a chanté quelques vieilles chansons avec beaucoup de caractère; j'ai chanté un peu aussi--et pourtant je ne suis guère disposé à chanter. Anne avait montré tant de contentement quand je suis allé la voir à Sheffield--et penser que je ne la reverrai plus. Je souffre aussi pour mon oncle, je me mets à sa place en pensant à ma petite Mary; si je la perdais plus tard!... et puis--et puis, tu sais comment viennent les idées noires, et combien un malheur vous en fait craindre d'autres." "_Dimanche_. "Je me sens de nouveau fatigué et cette fatigue semble persister. Il est bien possible que l'ennui et la nostalgie y soient pour quelque chose. "Figure-toi qu'il y a une jeune _peintresse_ qui m'a été recommandée, et dont la situation est bien précaire; j'ai eu la faiblesse de lui écrire une petite lettre gentille et encourageante et me voilà en butte à des éclats de désespoir ou de reconnaissance; de reproches et de remerciements. Le plaisir de faire du bien à ceux qui souffrent est tel, que l'on voudrait s'en donner, et le critique est souvent tenté de manger de ce sucre-là. "Je ne regrette pas de m'être établi à Kew; il n'y a qu'une chose contre Kew, c'est que je n'y connais personne, tandis qu'à St. John's Wood j'ai plusieurs amis. Mais la solitude a aussi ses avantages et quand on voit du monde tous les jours, on peut bien passer la soirée chez soi. Si la petite femme était seulement ici, ce serait parfait." "_Mardi_. "Petite femme chérie qui a été gentille puisqu'elle a écrit deux lettres. "Celle-ci est simplement pour te dire que mon repos a enfin produit son effet et que je suis rentré dans mon état ordinaire. Aujourd'hui je me rends au Musée, et j'ai pu écrire. "Mon oncle est arrivé hier soir, il partage mon salon, mais je lui ai loué une chambre-à-coucher dans la maison voisine. Il ne paraît pas trop abattu; nous causons beaucoup et je tâche de l'égayer autant que sa position le permet. Il est moins réservé qu'autrefois et me laisse voir davantage le cours de ses pensées qui vont souvent à ses filles et à sa femme. Je l'emmène aujourd'hui à l'Académie. Il y a une chose qui doit te rassurer quant à l'état de ma santé, c'est que je n'ai jamais ces sensations au cerveau dont j'ai souffert. Le cerveau n'est pas fatigué et en me reposant à temps, je répare rapidement mes forces. Ce qui est vraiment insupportable ce sont les séparations, et j'ai bien de la peine à m'y résigner, et je ne m'y résignerais pas du tout si la peinture rapportait. Mais en mettant les choses au pis pour les affaires d'argent, j'espère que tu me verras toujours courageux et affectueux dans l'adversité; je me figure que depuis quelque temps j'ai appris à la supporter sans qu'elle puisse m'aigrir. Si je dois vivre de pommes-de-terre, ou même mourir de faim, tu me verras toujours dévoué jusqu'à la mort. Celles-ci ne sont pas de vaines paroles; je suis prêt à les soutenir dans une pauvre cabane ou sur le lit d'un hôpital." "_Lundi_. "T'ai-je dit que j'avais trouvé ici-même un locataire étudiant la botanique à 'l'herbarium' tous les jours, et qu'en nous promenant ensemble au jardin, les soirs, il m'apprend les noms des arbres qui ne sont pas indiqués. J'ai aussi des fleurs sur ma fenêtre: je t'en donne une. Je ne connais pas le langage des fleurs, mais si celle-ci ne te dit pas que je t'aime beaucoup--beaucoup--elle interprète bien mal mes sentiments. "J'ai lu un peu du livre de Max Müller sur l'étude _comparative_ des langues. C'est excessivement curieux. Tu n'as aucune idée de combien l'étymologie est intéressante quand elle est basée sur la connaissance de tant d'idiômes; on peut tracer la parenté les mots d'une manière étonnante; les changements dans la façon de les écrire ont pour résultat de les dénaturer tellement que nous avons beaucoup de peine à les reconnaître sans _retracer_ toute leur histoire dans la littérature. Mr. Max Müller retrace ainsi, d'une manière ingénieuse, mais bien convainçante, l'usage des mots pour arriver à leurs racines primitives, et puis il forme des théories d'après ces comparaisons--qui sont au moins toujours intéressantes. Ce qu'il y a de remarquable c'est qu'on retrouve les mêmes mots dans les endroits les plus éloignés, des mots Anglais et Français qui ont leur origine dans le Sanskrit; et de même pour d'autres idiomes. Max Müller diffère des philologues anciens en ceci que tandis qu'ils étudiaient seulement les langues classiques, lui trouve la lumière et le matériel partout, même dans le Patois: ainsi le Provençal lui a été indispensable et bien d'autres langues encore que les amateurs des classiques négligent généralement." This interest in languages grew with years. When at Sens, we studied Italian together, but my increasing deafness made me abandon it on account of the pronunciation, whilst my husband, on the contrary, made it a point to read some pages of it every day, and even to write his diary in that language. Later still, he used to send to Florence some literary compositions to be corrected. After the marriage of his daughter, he used occasionally to ask his son-in-law, M. Raillard, for lessons in German, and had even undertaken to write, with his collaboration, a work on philology which was to have been entitled, "Words on their Travels, and Stay-at-Home Words," which his unexpected death cut short. In the afternoon of the day on which he died, as he was coming back home from the Louvre in a tram-car, he took out of his pocket a volume of Virgil, and read it the whole way. "I furbish up my Latin and Greek when on a steamer or in omnibuses," he said to me; "it prevents my being annoyed by the loss of time." "_Jeudi soir_. "Je suis retourné chez Seeley où on m'a traité d'une façon tout-à-fait délicate; le Professeur est un des hommes les plus sympathiques que j'aie rencontrés. Je t'en parlerai plus longuement de vive voix, et quant à son frère Richmond je n'ai jamais connu quelqu'un avec qui je m'entende aussi facilement. Il y a une chose bien charmante en lui, c'est que, bien qu'il soit à la tête d'une grande maison, il n'a jamais l'air pressé et vous écoute avec une patience parfaite. "Ce que tu me dis de 'mon courage au travail et à la lutte' me paye pour bien des heures de besogne. Tout ce qui me décourage parfois, c'est ma faible santé qui m'oblige souvent à paraître paresseux sous peine d'être malade. "Il me tarde tant de te revoir que je suis comme un pauvre prisonnier en pays étranger, loin de la Dame de ses pensées. Alors, tu sais, il faut m'écrire et embrasser les enfants pour moi." "_Vendredi_. "J'ai été désolé de ne pas pouvoir t'écrire aujourd'hui; il est maintenant 1 h. du matin. Je vais _bien_, mais je suis accablé de travaux et pourtant je veux partir bientôt; je finirai à la maison. Aujourd'hui j'ai terminé mon article juste à temps pour l'impression. Comme notre âne 'Je dors debout'; aujourd'hui je tombais presque de sommeil dans les rues de Londres. "Les travaux sur l'eau-forte sont terminés cette fois. À bientôt!" "22 RUE DE L'OUEST PARIS. _Lundi_. "Je suis arrivé hier à 5 h. du soir. _Je ne suis pas du tout fatigué_, ce qui semble indiquer une augmentation de force, car tu sais que les longs voyages me fatiguent généralement beaucoup. Je suis allé ce matin dès 8 h. chez Delâtre oû j'ai fait tirer mes planches. On fait le tirage de suite et les livraisons paraîtront cette semaine. "Quant à mes pauvres enfants, je suis désolé de les savoir malades, mais ta lettre m'encourage à espérer qu'ils sont en bonne voie de convalescence. Tu as dû avoir un temps difficile à passer ainsi tout seule: chère petite femme, je crois que si j'y avais été c'eût été plus facile pour toi: les enfants de mon ami Pearce sont également malades de la scarlatine. "Hier soir j'ai dîné chez Froment [the artist who paints such beautiful decorative works for Sèvres]; ce matin j'ai déjeuné chez Froment, ce soir j'y dîne, et ainsi de suite." M. Froment had been most hospitable to both of us during our stay in Paris; he had given us a day at Sèvres, and had shown us the _Manufacture_ in all its details. He was a widower, and inconsolable for the loss of his wife, whose memory was as sacred to him as religion. His two daughters were at home; the eldest watching maternally over the younger sister, who, however, died a few years later. M. Froment's feelings, perceptions, and tastes were exquisitely refined, and my husband derived both benefit and pleasure from the friendly intercourse. In after years Gilbert met M. Froment occasionally, and found him always full of kindness and regard. After nursing the children through scarlatina I caught it myself, and when my husband knew of it, he wrote:-- "I write just to say how sorry I am not to be able to set off _at once_, and be at your bedside. I shall certainly not be later than Saturday. I am of course very busy, and have no time for letter-writing. I have seen Docteur Dereims to-day, and told him of your illness. He insists on the necessity of the greatest care during your convalescence. You must especially avoid _cold drinks_, as highly dangerous. "Things are going on as I wish for my book on Etching. I am getting hold of plates which alone would make it valuable. Pray take care of yourself. I wish I were with you." On the following day:-- "I am very sorry to hear you had such a bad night; but from all I can hear from Dr. Dereims you are only going through the usual course of the illness. I will be with you on Saturday without fail. You may count upon me as upon an attentive, though not, I fear, a very skilful nurse. But I will try, like some other folks, to make up in talk what I lack in professional skill. I am tolerably well, but rather upset by this news from Pré-Charmoy. I could not sleep much last night. "I am going to the exhibition to-day, and will be thinking of little wife all the time. I have met with a quantity of very fine paper for etching, of French manufacture, and have obtained Macmillan's authority to purchase it for the _text also_. It will be a splendid publication. I feel greater and greater hopes about that book. "Only forty-eight hours of separation from the time I write." The day after:-- "Enfin il y a bien peu de chose à faire à mes planches, et j'espère que dans un jour ce sera terminé. "J'ai beaucoup de choses à te dire mais ce sera pour nos bonnes causeries intimes. Je voyagerai toute la nuit de vendredi afin d'arriver samedi dans la matinée. Quand je pense à toi et aux enfants, à la petite maison, à la petite rivière et à tous les détails de cette délicieuse existence que nous passons ensemble, il me faut beaucoup de courage pour rester ici seul à terminer mon travail." When my husband reached home, I was still in bed, and unwilling to let him come to me for fear of infection; but he would not hear of keeping away. "I never catch anything," he said gayly, "don't be anxious on my account;" and he insisted upon sleeping on a little iron bedstead in the dressing-room close to our bedroom, to nurse me in the night. He soon recovered his usual health, with occasional troubles of the nervous system; but he had grown careful about the premonitory symptoms, and used to grant himself a holiday whenever they occurred. Having been told whilst in London that novel-writing paid better than any other literary production, he now turned his thoughts towards the possibility of using his past experience for the composition of a story. It would be a pleasant change from criticism, he said, and would exercise different mental faculties. Very soon the plan of "Wenderholme" was formed, and we entertained good hopes of its success. In the month of September, 1866, the wedding of my sister Caroline took place quietly at our house, Mr. Hamerton being looked upon as the head of the family since the death of my father. Although he prized his privacy above everything else, he was ready to sacrifice it as a token of his affection for his sister-in-law, and went through all the necessary trouble and expense for her sake. She married a young man who had formed an attachment for her ever since she was fifteen years old,--M. Pelletier,--and they went to live at Algiers, where he was then Commis d'Économat at the Lycée. It was agreed that they should spend the long vacation with us every year. There are a good many days of frost in a Morvandau winter, and the snow often remains deep on the ground for several weeks together; there was even more than usual in 1867, so my husband devised a new amusement for the boys by showing them how to make a giant. Every time they came home, they rolled up huge balls of snow which were left out to be frozen hard, then sawn into large bricks to build up the monster. The delight of the boys may be imagined. Every new limb was greeted with enthusiastic shouts, they thought of nothing else; and, perched on ladders, their little hands protected by woollen gloves, they worked like slaves, and could hardly be got to eat their meals. But how should I describe the final scene, when in the dark evening two night-lights shone out of the giant's eyes, and flames came out of its monstrous mouth?... It was nothing less than wild ecstasy. Their father also taught them skating; there was very little danger except from falls, for they began in the meadows about the house, where they skated over shallow pools left in the hollows by rain-water or melted snow; but when they became proficient, we used to go to the great pond at Varolles. As my husband has said in one of his letters, all that was very good for him. In January, 1868, he left again for London, and felt but little inconvenience on the way and during his stay. Knowing that I should be anxious, he formed the habit of sending me frequent short pencil notes, to say how he was. I give here a few of them:-- "LONDRES. _Vendredi soir_. "J'ai été très occupé aujourd'hui au musée Britannique. Demain j'irai voir des expositions. Je compte partir dimanche pour Paris." "_Samedi matin._ "J'écris dans une boutique. Je vais bien. Je dîne au Palais de Cristal avec un Club." "_Samedi soir._ "Je vais bien. Pauvre petit Richard! embrasse-le bien pour moi; tu as dû être bien inquiète." This was about a serious accident which had happened to our youngest boy. Whilst at play with his brother on the terrace, and in my presence, he ran his head against a low wall, and was felled senseless to the ground by the force of the blow; the temple was cut open, and his blood ran over my arm and dress when I lifted him up, apparently lifeless. The farmer's cart drove us rapidly to Autun, where we found our doctor in bed--it was ten at night. The wound was dressed and sewn up, and the pain brought back some signs of life. I asked if I ought to take a room at the hotel to secure the doctor's attendance at short intervals, but I was told that blows of that kind were either fatal or of little importance; the only thing to be done was to keep ice on the head and renew it constantly. The poor child seemed to have relapsed into an insensible state, and remained so all night. In the early morning, however, he awoke without fever, and was quite well in about three weeks. I had asked my husband to take the opinion of an aurist about my increasing deafness, and he tenderly answered:-- "Sérieusement je ne crois pas que ta surdité augmente. Avant de te rendre compte combien tu étais sourde, tu ne savais pas quels bruits restaient pour toi inaperçus. Maintenant tu fais de tristes découvertes; moi qui suis mieux placé pour t'observer, puisque j'entends ce que tu n'entends pas, je sais que tu es très sourde, mais je ne vois pas d'augmentation depuis très longtemps et je crois que tu resteras à peu près comme tu es. J'en ai parlé aujourd'hui avec Macmillan dont une amie été comme toi pendant longtemps et qui éprouve maintenant une amélioration graduelle, mais très sensible. Tâche surtout de ne pas trop t'attrister, parce qu'il paraît que le chagrin a une tendance à augmenter la surdité. Quant à parler d'aimer mieux mourir, tu oublies que mon affection pour toi est bien au-dessus de toute infirmité corporelle, et que nous aurons toujours beaucoup de bonheur à être ensemble; du moins je parle pour moi. Et même si ta surdité augmentait beaucoup, nous aurions toujours le moyen de communiquer ensemble en parlant très haut: en France nous parlerions anglais, et en Angleterre, français." He sympathized so much with my trouble that, unlike many other husbands, who would have been annoyed at having to take a deaf wife into society, he urged me to go with him everywhere, kindly repeated what I had not heard, and explained what I misunderstood. He always tried his best to keep away from me the feeling of solitude, so common to those who are deprived of hearing. Just as I was rejoicing over the thought that my husband had prosperously accomplished this last journey, I had a letter from him, dated "Hôtel du Nord, Amiens," in which he said he was obliged to stop there till he felt better, for he could eat absolutely nothing, and was very weak. The worst was that I dared not leave my poor little Richard yet, to go to his father: the wound on the temple was not healed, and the doctor had forbidden all excitement, for fear of brain-fever after the shock. I was terribly perplexed when the following letter reached me:-- "HÔTEL DE L'AIGLE NOIR, FONTAINEBLEAU. _Mercredi_. "Tu apprendras avec plaisir que j'ai regagné un peu d'appétit hier soir. J'ai mangé un dîner qui m'a fait tant de bien que ce ne serait pas cher à une centaine de francs. Cet hôtel est très propre et la cuisine y est faite convenablement sans mélange de sauces. Toute la journée de lundi à Amiens, j'ai vécu d'un petit morceau de pain d'épices. Le soir à 10 h. 1/2 j'ai mangé une tranche de jambon. Je suis parti à minuit pour Paris où je suis arrivé à 4 h. du matin. Pour ne pas me rendre plus malade, je n'ai pas voulu rester dans la grande ville que j'ai traversée d'une gare à l'autre immédiatement. J'ai pris une tasse de chocolat et écrit quelques lettres en attendant le train pour Fontainebleau qui est parti de la gare à 8 h. C'était un train demi-express, mais je l'ai bien supporté. En arrivant à Fontainebleau je n'ai pas pu déjeuner et je n'ai rien mangé jusqu'au soir quand j'ai bien dîné. C'est très économique de ne pas pouvoir manger. J'ai sauté plusieurs repas, qui par conséquent ne figurent nullement dans les notes. "Hier soir je me suis promené un peu dans les jardins du palais qui est lui-même vaste, mais c'est un amas de constructions lourdes et de mauvais goût, du moins en général. Cela me fait l'effet d'une caserne ajoutée à une petite ville. Les jardins, les arbres sont magnifiques. Je me trouve bien ce matin, mais un peu faible par suite du peu de nourriture que j'ai pu prendre depuis quelques jours. Enfin, je suis en train de me refaire. Je désire vivement être chez moi, et j'y arriverai aussitôt que possible sans me rendre malade. Embrasse pour moi les enfants et ta mère; à toi de tout coeur." He reached home safely, but the fatigue and weakness seemed to last longer than previously, and insomnia frequently recurred. He did his best to insure refreshing sleep by taking more exercise in the open air, but it became clear that he must abandon work at night, because when his brain had been working on some particular subject, he could not quiet it at once by going to bed, and it went on--in spite of himself--to a state of great cerebral excitement, during which production was rapid and felicitous--therefore tempting; but it was paid for too dearly by the nervous exhaustion surely following it. It was a great sacrifice on his part, because he liked nothing better than to wait till every one had retired and the house was all quiet and silent, to sit down to his desk under the lamp, and write undisturbed--and without fear of disturbance--till dawn put out the stars. He now changed his rules, and devoted the evenings to reading. CHAPTER IX. 1868. Studies of Animals.--A Strange Visitor.--Illness at Amiens.-- Resignation of post on the "Saturday Review."--Nervous seizure in railway train.--Mrs. Craik.--Publication of "Etching and Etchers."-- Tennyson.--Growing reputation in America. In the course of the years 1865-67 Mr. Hamerton had made the acquaintance of several leading French artists,--Doré, Corot, Daubigny, Courbet, Landelle, Lalanne, Rajon, Brunet-Debaines, Flameng, Jacquemart, etc. The etchers he frequently met at Cadart's, where they came to see proofs of their etchings; the painters he went to see for the preparation of his "Contemporary French Painters" and "Painting in France." Together with these works he had begun his first novel, "Wenderholme," and had been contemplating for some time the possibility of lecturing on aesthetics. I was adverse to this last plan on account of his nervous state, which did not seem to allow so great an excitement as that of appearing in public at stated times; I persuaded him at least to delay the realization of the project till he had quite recovered his health, despite the invitations he had received both from England and America. He continued to paint from nature, with the intention of resigning his post on the "Saturday Review" in case of success, but now devoted more of his time to the study of animals, principally oxen, as he liked to have models at hand without leaving home. Desiring to be thoroughly acquainted with the anatomy of the ox, he bought one which had died at the farm, and had it boiled in parts till the flesh was separated from the bones, which were then exposed to dry in the sunshine. When thoroughly dried they were kept in the garret, and successively taken to the studio to serve for a series of drawings, of which I still possess several. As we had a goat, and sometimes kids, he also made numerous sketches from them, as well as from ducks, sheep and lambs, hens and chickens. There was also a Waterloo veteran who came weekly as a model, and who was painted in a monk's dress, which my husband used afterwards, and for a long time, as a dressing-gown. This habit of sketching animals whenever he had a chance gave rise to some amusing incidents before our peasant neighbors knew that he "painted portraits of dumb beasts, as well as of Christians." Some farmers' wives, alarmed at the sight of odd pennies in the pockets of their offspring, accused them of pilfering, but on being told that the "gros sous" had been given them by "le père anglais," came to our house to ascertain how and why; for, unlike the people of the South, they would not have tolerated begging. They were quieted by the assurance that the money had been honestly earned by the children for holding their goat or donkey whilst its portrait was taken; nay, they even felt a little proud that an animal of theirs should have been thought worthy of such an honor. Etching in all its forms was pursued at the same time with lithography and photography; even a new kind of transparent etching ground was invented by Mr. Hamerton, which made it possible for etchers to see the work already done upon a plate after having it grounded again for correction or additional work. A strange incident occurred during this winter. My husband's rising reputation had, it appears, given to many people a desire for his personal acquaintance, or for intercourse by correspondence. The first desire brought him many unexpected visitors, the second quite an appreciable increase of work, as he hardly ever left a letter unanswered. To give the reader an instance of the extraordinary notions entertained by some people, I shall relate the true history of one visitor amongst others. Some letters at short intervals, from England, signed--let us say--Beamish, mentioned a mysterious project which could not possibly be explained otherwise than by word of mouth, and which might be both profitable and agreeable to Mr. Hamerton, if realized. He was asked to call upon the correspondent for an explanation if he should happen to go to London soon; if not, Mr. Beamish begged leave to come over and see him. Of course the leave was given, and the gentleman having written that on such a day he would be at such an hotel in Autun, Gilbert went to fetch him in the pony-carriage--for Dort-debout had tired out our patience, and had been replaced by a beautiful and energetic little pony called Cocote. When we met Mr. Beamish, we found him a most prepossessing young man, of elegant manners and refined speech; in short, a gentleman. He begged me to allow his portmanteau to be placed in the carriage; and as I observed that he was not expected to dress for our family dinner, he answered that it only contained papers that he should want. Two other friends, understanding English, joined us at dinner. The conversation was animated, but Mr. Beamish never hinted at the mysterious project. In the evening, engravings and etchings were shown to our guest, but failed to excite his interest, for he soon fell asleep on the sofa, and let our friends go without awaking. Unwilling to disturb him, we remained till nearly one o'clock, when I decided to retire, whatever happened afterwards; and I was so tired that after going to bed I never awoke till morning, when I asked my husband at what time Mr. Beamish had gone. "Gone," he answered; "why, I don't know that he has gone at all, for I left him after three, just where he was." I hardly dared peep into the drawing-room; however, it was empty; but when the breakfast-bell was rung, Mr. Beamish came in unconcernedly to have his share of the simple meal, during which he talked pleasantly and intelligently of his experiences in India, where he had spent the greater part of eighteen years. Nothing was said of the project, and after vainly waiting for some mention of it, my husband returned to his study, after letting Mr. Beamish know that he was not to be disturbed till eleven o'clock, for it was the time of his morning work. "Very well," answered our guest; "meanwhile I shall put my books and papers in order." At the same time he requested me to send rather a large table into the room where he had slept (it was the room in which his portmanteau had been put), and to tell the servants to be careful not to interfere in any way with what he would leave upon it, not even to dust, _so long as he remained with us_. I then believed that Gilbert had invited him to stay some time, but I was undeceived in the course of the day, and told that the mysterious project had been unfolded at last, and was a proposition that he should undertake a journey to Palestine in the company of Mr. Beamish, to join Holman Hunt, who was painting studies in the Holy Land. "But what made you think I was ready to undertake such a pilgrimage?" Mr. Hamerton had asked in great astonishment. "Because I read that you liked camping out," was the reply; "and thought also that, being an artist, you would be glad to meet with Holman Hunt, who, like you in the Highlands, works directly from nature. I thought, moreover, that, as I intend to go myself, you would be agreeable and profitable society." Although my husband had declined to give the slightest consideration to this plan, Mr. Beamish still remained, and vaguely hinted that a still more mysterious project detained him at Autun. He went on foot, alone, to the college, on three successive afternoons, begged to see our boys, and tipped them so generously that the principal thought it his duty to ask their father whether he had authorized these visits--clearly implying that he doubted the soundness of the visitor's mind. We had learned in the course of conversation that our guest was of a benevolent and charitable disposition, and that he had spent much money in India in founding hospital-beds for poor women, whose sufferings he warmly compassionated. He was also full of sympathy for the Indian people, and spoke of their wrongs not without a certain degree of excitement, but still in a manner to arouse our interest. Altogether, although he was a self-imposed guest, we had already learned to like him, and were unwilling to remind him, with ever so little rudeness, that he was in the way. My husband said that his conduct might be explained by the fact that he had lived so long in India, where the dwellings of Europeans are often at great distances from each other, and where a visitor is always made at home and welcome; that Mr. Beamish was only acting as he had been accustomed to do for the greater part of his life, for he was still a young man of about thirty-six. After about a week's stay, he began to talk of leaving us within a short time, but did not say when--that would depend on _certain_ circumstances. However, on a bitterly cold evening, with the snow deep on the ground, he requested to be driven to Autun, and took a friendly leave of us all without explanation. But the principal of the college related the following strange story to Mr. Hamerton:-- "Your friend, Mr. Beamish, whom I had met at your house, came here under pretext of seeing your sons, but called upon me, and asked point-blank if I would give him my help in a charitable deed of some importance. 'What is the nature of the deed?' was my first question. 'The salvation of a soul.' 'In what form?' I did not get a direct answer, but I was told that the idea had sprung from religious motives, and that knowing my strong attachment to religion--though it was the Roman Catholic religion--he hoped I should have sufficient moral courage to help him in his deed of mercy--in fact he had resolved to reclaim a fallen woman. Vainly did I attempt to turn him from his generous but impracticable resolution. He threatened to act alone if I refused him the sanction of my presence, but he hoped that the Aumônier would see his action in its true light, and putting himself above popular suspicion, would accompany him 'to the very den of sin to offer salvation to a lost but _repentant sheep_.' It was useless to try to make him understand that it was impossible for the Aumônier to risk his character, even with the hope of doing good, and at last Mr. Beamish expressed a desire to meet him in my presence on the morrow. Our worthy Aumônier was horrified at the idea of the kind of sinners he would have to meet, and declined to have anything to do with the wildly charitable scheme." The next news was brought to Autun four days later by the woman whom poor Mr. Beamish thought he had rescued at the cost of four hundred francs for her liberation from debt, and about two hundred more for decent clothing. He had taken her as far as Dijon, where he had left her in some kind of reformatory; but after enjoying the change, and with her purse replenished to carry her through the first difficulties of an honest life, she hastened back to the old haunt to gibe and jeer at her benefactor. Another queer visitor was an English gentleman, past middle age, who could never find his way back to our house, but invariably appeared at meal-times in the dining-room of some neighbor, who had to escort him to Pré-Charmoy. The opening of the Academy exhibition had come round again, and Mr. Hamerton had to go and criticise it as usual; but after reaching Amiens, he felt so poorly that he resolved to send his resignation to the "Saturday Review," and to return home as quickly as he could. Here is his letter to me:-- "HÔTEL DU NORD, AMIENS. _Dimanche_. "Bonne chérie.--Je suis arrivé à Amiens samedi matin de bonne heure, ayant l'intention de me reposer un peu à l'hôtel et puis de continuer mon voyage le tantôt, mais en me levant j'ai senti que j'avais besoin d'un repos un peu plus prolongé après les fatigues de Paris. Le plus ennuyeux c'est que je peux à peine manger quelque chose. Comme ce manque d'appétit m'affaiblera inévitablement s'il continue longtemps et que l'affaiblissement amènerait probablement un mauvais état du système nerveux, je crois que le plus sage serait de renoncer pour cette fois au voyage en Angleterre et de revenir au Pré-Charmoy comme un faux billet indigne de circuler. Mon intention est donc de retourner, et pour changer je prendrai probablement la ligne de Dijon, en m'arrêtant un jour à Sens pour voir Challard. [An artist who had copied some drawings of Jean Cousin for the "Fine Arts Quarterly Review."] "Comme je te l'ai promis, je fais ce qui me semble être le plus sage. Je reviendrai le plus vite que je pourrai sans hasarder ma santé. "J'ai loué un petit bateau hier avec lequel j'ai exploré la rivière d'Amiens--la Somme--en haut de la ville. Il est impossible d'imaginer rien de plus pittoresque. Il y a une grande quantité de petites maisons et baraques au bord de l'eau et je vais prendre là le matériel d'une eau-forte. J'espère que cette retraite n'est pas trop ridicule. Un bon général, dit-on, se distingue tout autant dans la retraite que dans l'avance; et comme par le fait il y a manque de vivres--puisque je ne peux pas manger--il me semble que la prudence conseille ce que les Américains appelaient 'un mouvement stratégique' quand ils avaient été battus." "AMIENS. _Lundi matin_. "Comme je n'avais pas encore regagné d'appétit hier j'ai pensé qu'il serait plus sage de rester ici encore un peu et je suis allé canoter sur la rivière. "Mr. Cook avec une grande et charmante bonté m'a fait des remontrances: il me dit que le ton de ma lettre l'a blessé et que mes 'menaces' lui ont fait de la peine; qu'il n'a jamais manqué de largesse envers ses écrivains et que l'excédent de mes dépenses en livres, voyages, etc., sera toujours défrayé par la Revue. J'ai été réellement touché de la manière affectueuse dont il m'a fait ses observations auxquelles il a su joindre des compliments, en me disant que j'avais découvert la meilleure façon de faire la revue des expositions et que mes articles sont précisément ce qu'il lui faut. J'ai répondu que quant à la peine que cela avait pu lui faire, je le regrettais sincèrement, mais que les 'menaces' étaient tout simplement l'expression d'une résolution très décidément prise, et dans un moment où j'étais à la fois trop malade et trop pressé pour procéder avec plus de formes. "Comme ma promenade sur l'eau m'a fait du bien hier je vais la renouveler. "Ton mari, qui te reverra bientôt." I decided at once to go to him; my mother, who had come to stay with me during his absence, approved my resolution, and undertook the management of the house and the care of the children: so without asking for his leave, I wrote that I was on my way to Amiens. His joy was great when he saw me, and his progress towards recovery was so rapid that he abandoned the idea of retracing his steps, and encouraged by my presence, thought he could accomplish the journey to London without danger. It was of great importance that he should keep his post on the "Saturday Review," because it was his only _regular_ income, everything else being uncertain; and we knew that if he could undertake the work again it would be readily entrusted to him. We only stayed two days at Amiens, and as my husband was never seasick or nervous on the sea, everything went on satisfactorily so far; but as soon as we had left Dover for London, I perceived signs of uneasiness in his behavior. He closed his eyes not to see the moving objects we passed; he uncovered his head, which seemed burning by the flushed face; he chafed his cold, bloodless hands, and shuffled his feet to bring back circulation. For a long time he attempted to hide these alarming symptoms from me, but I had detected them from the beginning; his eyes had a far-reaching look and unusual steely brilliancy; the expression of his countenance was hard-set, rigid, almost defiant, as if ready to overthrow any obstacle in his way; and indeed it was the case, for unable to control himself any longer, he got up and told me hoarsely that he was going to jump out of the train. I took hold of his hands, and said I would follow; only I entreated him to wait a short time, as we were so near a station. I placed myself quite close to the door of the railway carriage, and stood between it and him. Happily we _were_ near a station, else I don't know what might have happened; he rushed out of carriage and station into the fields, whilst I followed like one dazed and almost heart-broken. After half-an-hour he lessened his pace, and turned to me to say, "I think it is going." I could not speak for fear of bursting into tears, but I pressed his hand in mine and held it as we continued our miserable way across the fields. We walked perhaps two hours, at the end of which Gilbert said tenderly, in his usual voice: "You must be terribly tired, my poor darling; I think I could bear to rest now; we may try to sit down." We sat down upon a fallen tree, and after some minutes he told me that if I could get him a glass of beer somewhere it would bring him round. I went in search of an inn and discovered a closed one, for it was Sunday and the time of afternoon service. Nevertheless I knocked so perseveringly that a woman came forth, incensed by my pertinacity, and peremptorily refused with indignation any kind of drink: to obtain a bottle of beer I had to take an oath that it was for a patient. The glass of ale at once calmed and revived my husband, and when the bottle had been emptied--in the course of an hour or so--he was himself again and felt hungry. We did not know the place,--it was Adisham; we had no luggage, and as to resuming our journey it was out of the question, for some time at least. So I went again to the inn, and asked the woman if she could give us a room. "No, there was not one ready; and then it was so suspicious, people coming like that through the fields and without luggage." I offered to pay in advance. "But we might be runaways." My husband had his passport, and I explained that he had been taken ill suddenly, and that our luggage could be sent to us from London. "If the gentleman were to die here it would be a great trouble." I had to assure her that it was not dangerous, and that rest only was required. At last she consented to show me into a very clean, freshly-papered room, deprecating volubly the absence of curtains and bedstead in such an emergency, but promising to put them up shortly if we remained some time. The bedding was laid upon the carpet; the mattresses had just undergone a thorough cleaning, and the sheets and counterpane smelt sweet. When night came we were thankful to rest our tired limbs even on the floor, and to hope that sleep would bury in oblivion the anguish of the day, at least for a while. Oh, the weary, weary time spent there, without work, without books, and with but little hope of better days. How should we get out of it, and when?... It was now clear that these terrible attacks were due to railway travelling. Then how should we ever get home again?... Our luggage had been telegraphed for and returned, and the appearance of the trunks had evidently inspired some confidence in our landlady. Materially we were comfortable enough: a clean bedroom, a quiet, rather large sitting-room (it was the usual public dining-room, but it being early in the season, there were no boarders besides ourselves); and the cookery, though simple and unvaried, was good of its kind,--alternately ham and eggs, beef-steak and chops with boiled potatoes, rice pudding, or gooseberry tart. Morning after morning my husband wondered if he would feel equal to resuming the journey; but the necessary self-reliance was found wanting still. We walked out slowly and aimlessly, and we chose for our long walks the most solitary lanes. Gilbert felt that the air, impregnated by sea-salt, was gradually invigorating him, and after three weeks of this melancholy existence made up his mind to order a carriage to take us as far as Canterbury. The long drive and change did him good, and he was well enough to take me to the Cathedral, and show me the town, where we lingered two days, and then took another carriage for Croydon. At that stage my husband told me that we were not far from Beckenham, and proposed that we should call upon Mr. and Mrs. Craik on the following day. I shall never forget the kindness of the reception nor the sympathy of our hostess. I was surprised to see my husband enjoying conversation and society so much, because when he was unwell he shrank from meeting with any one, and required complete solitude; he only wished to feel that I was near him, without fretting and in silence. But the charming simplicity of the welcome in the garden, the peacefulness, not only of the dwelling, but still more the calm and sweet aspect of the celebrated authoress, together with her husband's friendly manner, acted soothingly upon the nerves of their visitor. He told without reticence what had happened, and soon changed the subject to fall into an animated and interesting conversation. After lunch Mrs. Craik made me walk in the garden with her, and inquired more closely into the particulars of this strange illness; she encouraged and comforted me greatly. She was tall, and though white-haired, very beautiful still, I thought. As we walked she bent her head (covered with the Highland blue bonnet) over mine, and as she clasped my shoulders within her arm, I could see her hand laid upon my breast, as if to soothe it; it was the loveliest hand I ever saw; the shape so perfect, the skin so white and soft. We spoke French together; she was interested about France, and liked talking of its people and customs. Before we left she asked me to write to her, and offered to render me any service I might require. The journey to Todmorden was not to be thought of this time, and Gilbert had begged his uncle and aunt to meet us at Kew, if they could manage it. They answered in the affirmative, and he found lodgings for them, not far from ours, nearly opposite to the church. Knowing that his book must now be ready, he longed to see a copy of it, and feeling well enough one morning, he started with me for London; but as soon as we were in the heart of the town, its bustle, crowd, and noise drove my husband to the comparative peace of the nearest park. There, as usual in such cases, we had to walk till his nerves were calmed, and then to sit down for a long time. He did not think he would be equal to the busy streets that day, and asked me to take a cab and see if I could bring him back a copy of his book. Reluctantly I left him, though he assured me the attack was over; only he was afraid of bringing it on again if he went into the street. So I was driven to Mr. Macmillan's house of business, and immediately received by him. He was evidently truly sorry to hear that my husband was unwell, and "Etching and Etchers" being upon his table, he took up a copy, and with many warm praises insisted upon placing it himself in my cab. The book was everything that its author had desired, and taken so much pains to ensure; he was gratified by the result, and gratefully acknowledged the liberality of the publishers. One of the first visits paid by Mr. Hamerton when he felt well again was to Mr. Cook, of the "Saturday Review," who was himself out of health through overwork. He feelingly expressed his regret that my husband could not continue to act as regular art critic, but trusted that he would still contribute to the "Saturday" as much as possible, and on subjects he might himself select. Next we saw Mr. Seymour Haden, and I begged him to try and discover what was the nature of my husband's ailment. It was no easy matter, as the patient refused to submit to examination and to prescriptions of any kind. Mrs. Haden, who was full of sympathy and kindness, apprised her husband of this peculiarity and he undertook to _passer-outre_. So the next time we called by invitation, he looked steadily at his guest for some time, and said to him deliberately: "You are _very_ ill; it's no use denying it to me; you must give up all work,--not in a month, or a week, or to-morrow, but to-day, instantly." My husband flushed, so that I trembled in fear of another seizure, and answered angrily: "I cannot give up work; I _must_ work for my family; I shall try to work less." ... "I say you are to give up all mental labor immediately; I shall see, later, what amount of intellectual work you are able to bear, according to the state you will be in. You may break stones on the road, but I forbid you to hold a pen for literary composition; and once back home, you must renounce railway travelling as long as it produces uncomfortable sensations." All this was said imperatively, and although it drove my husband almost to desperation, I thanked Mr. Haden in my heart for his courageous and timely interference, and Gilbert did the same after recovering from the shock. This time he did not feel either so sad or so despondent as formerly, when he had suffered alone; he knew now for certain that the causes of his trouble were overwork and railway travelling, and he took the resolution of avoiding both dangers as much as possible. Whenever he felt nervous we remained quietly at Kew, reading or sketching or walking in solitary places with his uncle and aunt, and when he thought himself well enough we went to London by boat or omnibus, to the British Museum, the National Gallery, or South Kensington Museum, and to the public or private art exhibitions. We also paid calls, and on one of these occasions I was introduced to George Eliot and to Mr. Lewes; the latter sat by us on a sofa outside of the inner circle (the room was full), and talked with wonderful vivacity and great discrimination of the state of French literature. He judged of it like a Frenchman; his conversation was extremely interesting and suggestive, and he appeared to derive great pleasure from a rapid exchange of thoughts. Undeniably he was very plain, when you had time to think of it, but it was with him as with the celebrated advocate, M. Crémieux,--so much caricatured,--neither of them seemed at all plain to me as soon as they spoke; both had expressive eyes and countenance, and the interest awakened by the varying expression of the features did not allow one to think of their want of symmetry and shape. The person who sat next to George Eliot seemed determined to monopolize her attention; but as a new-comer was announced she came forward to meet him, and kindly taking me by the hand, made me sit in the chair she had herself occupied, and motioned to my husband to come also. He remained standing inside the circle, whilst the Monopolizer had, at once, to yield his seat to the mistress of the house, as well as a share of her conversation to others than himself. I immediately recognized the description given of her by my husband; her face expressed at the same time great mental power and a sort of melancholy human sympathy; her voice was full-toned, though low, and wonderfully modulated. We were frequently interrupted by people just coming in, and with each and all she exchanged a few phrases appropriate to the position, pursuit, or character of her interlocutor, immediately to revert to the subject of our conversation with the utmost apparent ease and pleasure. Mr. Lewes offered tea himself, because the worshippers surrounded the Idol so closely that they kept her a prisoner within a double circle, and they were so eager for a few words from her lips that as soon as she moved a step or two they crowded about her in a way to make me think that, in a small way and in her own drawing-room, she was mobbed like a queen at some public ceremony. The next time we called upon George Eliot she had heard of our meeting with Mr. Tennyson, and said,-- "So you have seen the great man--and did he talk?" "Talk?" answered my husband; "he talked the whole time, and was in high spirits." "Then you were most fortunate." We understood what was implied, for Mr. Tennyson had the reputation of not being always gracious. However, we had learned from himself that nothing short of rudeness could keep his intrusive admirers at a distance, so as to allow him some privacy. He told us of a man who so dogged his steps that he was afraid of going out of his own garden gates, for even in front of those locked gates the man would stand and pry for hours together, till the poet's son was sent to him with a request that he would go elsewhere. In the case of his meeting with Mr. Hamerton it was totally different, for he had himself expressed a wish for it to Mr. Woolner. Of course my husband was greatly flattered when he heard of it, and readily accepted an invitation to lunch with Mr. Woolner's family, and to meet the poet whom he so much admired. I sat by Mr. Tennyson, and endeavored to suppress any outward sign of the interest and admiration so distasteful to him. Nevertheless, I was greatly impressed by the dignity of his simple manners and by the inscrutable expression of the eyes, so keen and yet so calm, so profound yet so serene. His was a fine and noble face, even in merriment, and he was very merry on that day, for the string of humorous anecdotes he told kept us all laughing, himself included. I am sorry now not to remember them, the more so as they generally concerned himself. Several were connected with his title of "Lord of the Manor," but the only one I can remember in its entirety is the following, because he was addressing himself to me--a Frenchwoman--the scene of the story being the Hôtel du Louvre, in Paris. Mr. Tennyson began by remarking that there were a good many stories current about him; some of them were true, but most of them apocryphal. "And is the one you are going to relate true?" I asked. He smiled, and answered:-- "I think it is capital; you will have to guess. I had occasion to go to Paris with a friend who was supposed to speak French creditably, and who fancied himself a master of it. On the morning following our arrival in the French capital, being somewhat knocked up by the journey, we had a late breakfast at a small side-table of the dining-room, of which we were soon the only occupants, under the watchful and, as I thought, suspicious eyes of a waiter, whose attention had probably been attracted by the conspicuous difference between our stature and garb from that of his little dandified countrymen. Having caught a slight cold on the passage, I felt more inclined to stay by the fire with a newspaper than to go out, and did so, whilst my friend, who had some business in the town, left me for some time. As I drew my chair up to the hearth I heard the waiter answering with alacrity to some recommendation of my friend's, 'Oh, monsieur peut être tranquille, j'y veillerai.' I thought it was some order about our dinner, and resumed my political studies. Was it my cold which made me dull and inattentive? It is quite possible, for my eyes kept wandering from my paper, and, strange to say, always met those of the French waiter riveted upon me. At first I felt annoyed: what could be so strange about my person? Then I was irritated, for though that queer little man was making some pretence at dusting or replacing chairs, still his eyes never left me for a moment, and at last, being somewhat drowsy, I had the sensation that one experiences in a nightmare, and thought I had better resort to my room and make up for a shortened night. No sooner, however, had I got up from my chair than the waiter was entreating me to remain, offering to heap coals on the fire, to bring me another paper or a pillow if I was tired, and 'Did I wish to write a letter? he would fetch instantly what was required; or should I like something hot for my cold?' His voice had the strange coaxing tone that we use to pacify children, and made me stare; but I answered angrily that I only wanted a nap, and to be let alone, and I made for the door in spite of his objurgations. Then he ran in front of me, and barring the door with arms outstretched, besought me to await my friend. This unaccountable behavior had rendered me furious, and now I was determined to force my way out, despite the mad resistance and loud gibberish of the waiter, and I began to use my fists. It was in the midst of this tremendous row that my astonished friend re-appeared in the dining-room, and was greeted with this exclamation from my adversary: 'Ah, monsieur, vous voyez, j'ai tenu ma parole: je ne l'ai pas laissé sortir _le fou;_ mais ça n'a pas été sans peine, il était temps que vous arriviez.' "It turned out that my friend, anxious for my comfort, and noticing that the fire was getting low, had said in his easy French before leaving, 'Garçon, surtout ne laissez pas sortir le fou' (_feu_)--meaning 'Don't let the fire go out,' and the intelligent foreigner had immediately guessed from my appearance that I was _le fou_." Amidst general laughter I said,-- "It is cleverly invented." "I see you do not believe it," Mr. Tennyson answered; "yet it has passed current in society and in the newspapers." Sitting close to Mr. Tennyson, as I did, I noticed the large size, and somehow plebeian shape, of his hands. They did not seem to belong to the same body as the head, indicating merely physical strength and fitness for physical labor. His dress also struck me as peculiar: he was wearing a shirt of coarse linen, starchless, with a large and loose turned-down collar, very like a farmer's of former days, and shirt and hands looked suited to each other. After remarking this I happened to look up into Mr. Tennyson's face, which then wore its habitual expression of serious and grand simplicity; and I thought that the rough and dull linen, with the natural, unstiffened fall about the neck, formed a most artistic sculpturesque setting for the handsome head well poised above it. After lunch Mr. Woolner took the gentlemen to his studio for a smoke, and my husband told me afterwards that Mr. Tennyson had continued as talkative there as he had been at lunch, and was only interrupted by the entrance of Sir Bartle Frere, who had a great deal to say on his own account. It was very gratifying to me to notice that whenever my husband met with celebrities he was treated by them on a footing of equality, and although still a young man, his opinions and views were always accepted or discussed with evident respect, even by his seniors. His presence invariably awoke interest and confidence, and in most cases sympathy. It was felt that he was one of the few to be looked up to, and I have heard people much older than himself tell me that they prized highly a private hour spent with him, because his influence made them feel more desirous of striving for noble aims and elevated thoughts which seemed so natural and easy to him. It is true, indeed, that whatever he thought, said, or did, bore the stamp of genuine uprightness, for his nature was so much above meanness of any kind that he had great difficulty in admitting it in others; whenever he met with it his first attitude was one of charitable hesitation, but when he recognized it unmistakably his indignation was as unbounded and unrestrained as in cases of cruelty. In spite of the impediment to social intercourse caused by his intermittent nervous state, Mr. Hamerton enjoyed rather a large share of cultivated and intelligent society at this time. His worst moments happened in the morning and in bright sunshine; the evening was in general entirely free from disagreeable sensations, and a rainy day or clouded sky most favorable. This peculiarity enabled him to accept invitations to dinners, at which he met the persons whose acquaintance he cared for. Mr. Thomas Hamerton and his sister had left us at Kew to go back home, and we wished it were as simple for us to do the same, but we could only think of the journey with the saddest forebodings; yet we longed to be through it, and safely restored to our peaceful rustic life and to a sight of our children. It was a very tedious, trying, and harassing journey; we travelled only at night, by the slowest trains, and went but short distances at a time. Sometimes my husband was unable to proceed for a few days; but, with admirable courage and resolution, he managed to reach the much-desired goal. And now what was to be done? Mr. Haden allowed literary work only on two consecutive days in the week, and when Gilbert was unwell on those days, there was no remunerative production, and his anxieties became almost intolerable. He resolved to try every day of the week if he were fit for work, and to go on whenever he felt suitably disposed till the two days' work had been done, and then to leave off till the next week. This succeeded for a while, but as he naturally became anxious to produce as much as possible during these two days, he felt driven, and suffered in consequence. He then attempted to devote only two hours to literary composition at a sitting, and to repeat the attempt twice a day when he did not feel his powers overtaxed. To this new rule he adhered till the end of his life--at least, generally speaking, for in some circumstances he had to write throughout the day, but he was careful to avoid this extremity as much as possible. We waited impatiently for news of the reception of "Etching and Etchers" by the public, and Mrs. Craik having been so kind as to offer any service she could render, I wrote to her on the subject, and she answered:-- "BECKENHAM. _July_ 19, 1868. "My dear Mrs. Hamerton,--I can quite understand how _you_ care about the book--perhaps more than your husband even, and I wish I could send you news of it. But there have been no reviews as yet, and this being the dull time of year, the sale is slow. Whatever reviews come out you shall have without fail from the firm. It is so valuable and charming a book that I do hope it may gradually make its way. I do believe it is only the dreadful cities which make your husband ill--and no wonder; in peaceful Autun he will flourish, I trust; and you too recover yourself, for I am sure you were very far from well when you were here. It was so kind of you to come to us that Sunday, and to believe that we are both people who really mean what we say--and say what we think: which all the world does not. If ever I can do anything for you, pray write. And some day in future ages I shall write to you to ask advice upon our little tour in unknown French towns and country, when we shall certainly drop upon Autun _en route_. Not this year, however. "With very kind remembrance to you both, believe me, dear Mrs. Hamerton, "Yours sincerely, "D. M. Craik." My sister, Caroline Pelletier, had now come to Pré-Charmoy with her baby-daughter, to escape from the drought prevailing at Algiers, and her presence was a great pleasure to my recluse. She often read to him to keep up her English, and accompanied him in his drives when I was prevented, aware that he did not much like to venture away alone since he had been ill. At his request she had brought an Algerian necklace and bracelets made of hardened paste of roses, which were intended for Aunt Susan, who had greatly liked the odor of mine, and who acknowledged the little present in a very cordial letter. My younger brother Frédéric was at that moment very ill with typhoid fever, and I had asked my husband to let me go to help my mother in nursing him; however, with greater wisdom and firmness he refused his leave, and made me understand my duty to our children. "If you brought back to them the germs of disease, and if they died of it, you never would forgive yourself," he said. But after the fatal ending he allowed me to attend the funeral, on condition that I should not enter the house, but come back directly after the painful duty was accomplished. At the same time, he kindly invited my mother to come to us, after taking all necessary precautions against the danger of bringing infection to her grandchildren. The society of M. Pelletier, who used to follow his wife to Pré-Charmoy as soon as he was free, proved quite a boon to Gilbert in his solitude, and a solid friendship was soon formed between the two brothers-in-law. M. Pelletier's mind was inquisitive and receptive; he had read much, and in the family circle we called him our "Encyclopedia." He made it his duty and pleasure to clear up any obscure point which might embarrass any of us, and often undertook long researches to spare my husband's time. They regularly sat up together long after the other inmates of the house had gone to their rest, talking and smoking, or walking out in the refreshing breeze of the summer night. My brother Charles also joined us at times, and, being a capital swimmer, taught his nephews all sorts of wonderful aquatic feats. We all went daily to the pond at Varolles, and though the men and boys were all proficient in swimming, Charles astonished them by taking a header, preceded by a double somersault, from the top of the wall, and kindling thereby a jealous desire to rival him, so that in a very short time my husband, who hitherto had remained but an indifferent performer, now trod the water, read aloud, or smoked in it, with the greatest ease. It was very good exercise for him. For some time past Mr. Hamerton's reputation had been growing in America, but he did not derive the slightest profit from the sale of his books there till Messrs. Roberts Brothers, of Boston, proposed to pay him a royalty upon the works that should be published by them in advance of pirated editions. This offer was accepted with pleasure and gratitude, and the pecuniary result, though not very important, proved a timely help. Moreover, Roberts Brothers admired Mr. Hamerton's talent, and in very flattering terms acknowledged it, besides doing much for the spread of his reputation in America. In the autumn, bad news of Aunt Susan's health reached Pré-Charmoy. The reports soon became alarming, and her nephew was made very miserable by the impossibility of going to her bedside. When we had taken leave of each other at Kew, she was very despondent on account of my husband's illness, and expressed a fear that she might die without our being near her. No one could say when the taboo on railway travelling could be withdrawn for him, but I gave our aunt a solemn promise that in such an emergency as she mentioned, I at any rate would go to her when she called me, and Gilbert had ratified the engagement. From her letters it was easy to see that she wished very much for my companionship and nursing, being very low in spirits and feeble in body, yet she was reluctant to ask, with the knowledge that her nephew also frequently required my care. At last we agreed that the proposal should come from us, my husband, as usual, sacrificing his own comfort to the claims of affection. The offer was gratefully accepted. As I had never travelled much alone, and am entirely destitute of the gift of topography, it was not without misgivings that my husband saw me off; but he had taken the trouble of writing down for my guidance the minutest directions, and though he told his uncle that he should not be astonished to hear that I had turned up in New York, I reached London safely. He was very lonely at Pré-Charmoy, with only his little girl and a maid, the boys being at college, but he frequently went to dine there with the principal, M. Schmitt, from whom he needed no invitation, and who always made him welcome. He was also cheered by my letters, which told him of his aunt's rapid improvement in health and strength. We went out together upon the hills as often as the weather allowed, and when threatened with an attack of nervous dizziness--which she dreaded unspeakably--she derived confidence from my apparent composure, and tided over it when I firmly grasped her round the waist, and made her take a few steps in the keener and purer air of the garden. When our aunt was restored to her usual state of health, rather more than a month after my arrival, I took leave of my kind relatives loaded with presents for every one of the children, and even for their parents. Of course I wished to spend Christmas at home, and I arrived just in time to realize my wish. Gilbert had come to meet me at the station, and as soon as we had exchanged greetings and news he began to tell of a plan for an artistic periodical which had mainly occupied his thoughts during my absence. As we were driving home he entered into all the details of the scheme as he conceived it, and said he believed he might undertake the management of such a periodical, even where he was situated, if Mr. Seeley gave his valuable help. He was full of the idea, and his thoughts were continually reverting to it. CHAPTER X 1869-1870. "Wenderholme."--The Mont Bouvray,--Botanical Studies--La Tuilerie. --Commencement of the "Portfolio."--The Franco-German War. The uncertainty of finding sufficient literary work after the resignation of his post on the "Saturday Review" had been a cause of great anxiety to Mr. Hamerton, though he had enough on hand at that time, but he wondered very much if it would last. He wrote for the "Globe" regularly; for the "Saturday Review," "Pall Mall Gazette," and "Atlantic Monthly" occasionally, though he had a great dislike for anonymous writing, as he bestowed as much care and labor upon it as if it could have added to his reputation. He worked with greater pleasure and some anticipation of success at his novel of "Wenderholme," the first volume of which had been sent to Mr. Blackwood, who agreed to give £200 for the copyright. Here are some passages from his letter, which of course was very welcome. After a few criticisms:-- "The narrative is natural and taking. Your description of the drunken habits of Shayton are _excellent_, and not a bit overdone. It reminds me of a joke of Aytoun's when there was a report of an earthquake at a village in Scotland notorious for its convivial habits. He remarked, 'Nonsense; the whole inhabitants are in a chronic state of D. T. that would have shaken down the walls of Jericho.' "The picture of poor Isaac's struggles and his final break-down at his own home is very well done, and so is that of his old mother, with her narrow fat forehead. "I particularly like Colonel Stanburne. He _is_ like a gentleman, and I hope he has a great deal to do in the remaining part of the story. Little Jacob is very nice, and promises to make a good hero. "The style is throughout pleasant and graceful. I shall look anxiously for vols. 2 and 3, but I feel confident that you will not write anything unkind or inconsistent with good taste." Encouraged by the favorable opinion of Mr. Blackwood, the author went on as diligently with the novel as his health allowed. From time to time I find in his diary, "too unwell to work," or "obliged to rest," or "not well enough to write." Still, he was remarkably free from bodily pain, as it is generally felt and understood; he never complained of aches or sickness, and to any ordinary observer he looked vigorous and unusually healthy; but from me, accustomed to scrutinize the most transient expression of his face and countenance, he could not hide the slightest symptoms of nervousness, were it merely the bending forward of the body, the steady gaze or unwonted cold brightness of the eyes. Whenever I detected any of these threatening signs at home, I begged him to leave work and to go out, and if we happened to be in an exhibition or any crowded place, we had to resort to some secluded spot in a public garden--to the parks if we were in London; and I believe it must be on account of the repeated anguish I suffered there that I never wished to visit them for my pleasure: those horribly painful hours have deprived them of all charm for me. What my husband had to bear was a terrible apprehension of something fearful,--he did not know what,--now increasing, as if a fatal end were inevitable; now decreasing, only to return--ah! how many times?--till sometimes only after hours of strife, and sometimes suddenly, it left him calm but always weakened. At the very time that he was most frequently subject to these attacks, the American papers were giving numerous notices of his works, and brief biographies in which he was invariably presented to the public as an athlete in possession of the most robust health. The doctors agreed in saying that this disorder was only nervous, and not the result of any known disease; that the only remedy lay in rest for the brain, and active exercise for the body in the open air. But it was indeed difficult to give rest to a mind incessantly thirsting for knowledge, and finding an inexhaustible mine of interest in the most trivial events, in the simplest natures and the monotonous existence of the rustics, as well as in the philosophy of Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill, or in the aesthetics of Ruskin and Charles Blanc. It was a mind which turned all that came in its way into the gold of knowledge, and which spent it generously afterwards, not only in his writings, but in familiar conversations; his friends used to say that they always gained something when with him, on account of the natural elevation of mind which made him treat all questions intellectually. He had no taste for sport or amusements or games, with the exception of boating and chess; but chess-playing can hardly be called mental rest, and boating is not always practicable, requiring several hours each time it is indulged in, particularly when one is not close to a lake or river. Riding Cocote was a pleasant relaxation to her master, as she was a spirited little creature, and the two often went together to the Mont Beuvray (the site of the ancient Bibracte of the Gauls), to find the learned and venerable President of the Société Eduenne busy with his researches among the ruins, but nevertheless always ready to receive them hospitably. The use of one of his huts was given to his young friend, and his four-footed companion was turned loose to browse on the fine, short grass which grew thickly under the shade of the noble oaks and chestnut trees of the mountain. On these occasions, a valise containing sketching material and books was strapped on behind the rider, on the horse's back; at other times, when I accompanied my husband, we went in a light cart, which was left with Cocote at a farmhouse about half-way up the hill. My husband liked me to read to him whilst he sketched, and I see by his diary of 1869 that some of the works he listened to in the course of that year were: "Les Couleuvres," by Louis Veuillot; Victor Jacquemond's "Voyage en Italie;" "l'Art en Hollande," and "La Littérature Anglaise," by Taine "Le Postscriptum;" George Eliot's "Silas Marner;" Sidney Colvin's "Academy Notes;" Tennyson's "In Memoriam;" Légouvé's "l'Art de la lecture;" "Chateaubriand et son groupe littéraire," "Béranger et de Sénancourt," by Sainte-Beuve, whose talent as a critic he greatly admired. The rambles and drives which he took in quest of picturesque subjects inclined him to botanical studies, and he began to form a herbarium; the search for plants gave a zest to the long walks recommended by the doctors, which might have become tedious had they been aimless. The prettiest or most remarkable of these plants were sketched or painted before being dried, to be used in the foregrounds of pictures. Gilbert's mind was also inventive; the reader may have remarked in the autobiography that he had made various models of double-boats, the principle of which he wished to see more generally adopted on account of their safety; but in 1869 it was not with boats that this faculty of invention was busy,--it was with a plan for a carriage which would meet our requirements. The little donkey-cart was so rickety now that it had become unsafe, and the carriage-builders could not show anything sufficiently convenient of a size and weight to suit Cocote. The elegant curves above the fore-wheels reduced the stowage room to a mere nothing, and we required plenty of space to carry, safely protected from rain and dust, many things--amongst them change of garments when we went to Autun for a wedding, a funeral, or a soirée, and plenty of wraps for the drive back in the cold or mist of midnight. A good deal of room was also wanted for the provisions regularly fetched from the town,--grocery, ironmongery, etc. My husband succeeded in contriving a carriage perfectly answering our wants: it was four-wheeled, and provided with a double seat covering a roomy well; there was also a considerable space behind to receive bundles and parcels, or at will a small removable seat. Six persons could thus ride comfortably in the carriage, and as we were expecting a visit from Mr. T. Hamerton and his sister, we wished very much to have it ready for their use. With the tender thoughtfulness which characterized my husband, he had contrived a low step and a door at the back part of the carriage to allow an aged person, like his aunt or my mother, to get inside with ease and safety, and to get out quite as easily in case of danger. They arrived in the middle of July, and spent a month with us. They were both in very good health, and Aunt Susan, in spite of her seventy years, rivalled her little grand-niece with the skipping-rope. She wrote afterwards from West Lodge on August 20:-- "MY DEAR NEPHEW AND NIECE,--We arrived at home all safe and well at five o'clock on Monday to tea, and to-day it is a week since we left your most kind and hospitable entertainment, and I can assure you a most true, heartfelt pleasure and gratification it has been to me to spend a month with you, for which you must accept our best thanks for your kindly studied attentions and exertions to make our visit pleasant. I am sure I am much better for my journey; I feel strong and more vigorous; the drives in the little carriage were no doubt the very thing that would conduce to my getting strong, as I had then fresh air and exercise without fatigue. [There follows a description of the journey, according to a careful itinerary prepared by her nephew.] How is little Lala, lal, a, lala? [her little niece, who was always singing]. We often talk of her interesting ways and doings, and I often wish I could give other English lessons to my nephews. I think we should have made some progress, as both sides seemed interested in their business." Shortly after the departure of his relatives, Mr. Hamerton was informed by his landlord that he would have to leave the little house and garden and stream he liked so well, because it was now the intention of the proprietor to come to it with his family to spend the vacations. He was offered, instead, another house on the same estate, called "La Tuilerie," larger and more convenient, but a thoroughly _banale maison bourgeoise_, devoid of charm and picturesqueness, close to the main road, and without a garden; moreover, in an inconceivable state of dirtiness and dilapidation. I felt horror-struck at the notion of removing to such a place; however, I was at last obliged to submit to fate. My husband, though very disinclined to a move, thought that since it could not be avoided, it was as well to make it as easy, cheap, and rapid as possible. He could not afford to lose time, and his health prohibited long travels in search of a new abode, since he could not make use of railways. We went as far in the neighborhood of Pré-Charmoy as Cocote could take us in a day in different directions, but found nothing suitable, probably because we did not wish to be at a distance from the college, which would prevent the boys from coming home as they had been accustomed to do. The greater space and conveniences offered at La Tuilerie were a temptation to my husband. We had, besides two entrances, a large dining-room, drawing-room, kitchen, six bedrooms, lots of closets, cupboards, dressing-rooms, and an immense garret all over the first floor, well lighted by two windows, and paved with bricks. In the extensive courtyard was a set of out-buildings, consisting of a gardener's cottage, cartshed, and stable for six horses; and as on the ground belonging to the house there had formerly existed a tile-kiln (_tuilerie_) with drying sheds, there was ample space for a garden after removing the rubbish which still covered it. The fact is that circumstances allowed of no choice, and we had to resign ourselves to the inevitable. Gilbert saw at once that with a certain outlay and a great deal of ingenuity he could make La Tuilerie not only tolerable, but even convenient and pleasant--though I doubted it--and he explained how the outbuilding might be used as laundry, laboratory, and carpenter's shop--there being three rooms of different sizes in it; and what a gain it would be so to have all the dirty work done outside the house. Another attraction was the good views from all the windows; that of the Beuvray, with the plain leading to it; the amphitheatre of Autun, with the intervening wood of noble trees, and beyond it the temple of Janus; the range of the Morvan hills, the fields of golden wheat and waving corn, and the pastures which looked like mysterious lakes in the moonlight when the white mist rose from the marshes and spread all over their surface--endlessly as it seemed. He promised me to plan out a garden, and there being several fine trees about the kiln and on the border of the road--oaks, elders, elms, and spindle trees--he said he would contrive to keep them all, so as to have shade from the beginning, and to give the new garden an appearance of respectable antiquity. The workmen were set at once to their task of repairing, painting, and papering, and though my husband deprecated both the time spent on supervision and the unavoidable expense (for the landlord, under pretext that the rent was low, refused to contribute to the repairs, which he called _améliorations_), was unmistakably elated by the prospect of having the use of a more spacious dwelling; for he very easily suffered from a feeling of confinement, and tried to get rid of it by having two small huts which could be moved about to different parts of the estate according to his convenience, and to which he resorted when so inclined. Even when they were not used, it was for him a satisfaction to know that he had in readiness a refuge away from the house whenever he chose to seek it. This dislike to confinement was betrayed unconsciously when he sat down to his meals by his first movement, which pushed aside whatever seemed _too near_ his plate--glass, wine-bottle, salt-cellars, etc. I remember that he would not use the public baths in France, because the cabins are small and generally locked on the outside. It was therefore a great pleasure to devise stands and cupboards and shelves in the large room which was to be his laboratory, and which he adorned with a cheap frieze of white paper with gilt edges, and "Lose no Time" in black-and-red letters, repeated upon each of the four walls, so as not to escape notice whichever way you turned. The carpenter's shop also had its due share of attention, and was well provided with labelled boxes of all dimensions for nails, screws, etc., whilst a roomy closet, opening into the studio, was fitted up with a piece of furniture specially designed to receive the different-sized portfolios containing engravings, etchings, and studies of all kinds, together with a lot of pigeon-holes to keep small things separate and in order. All this was done at home, under his direction, and he has let his readers into the secret of his taste when he wrote in "Wenderholme": "For the present we must leave him (Captain Eureton) in the tranquil happiness of devising desks and pigeon-holes with Mr. Bettison, an intelligent joiner at Sooty thorn, _than which few occupations can be more delightful._" About the pigeon-holes, a friend of my husband once made a discovery which he declared astounding. "I well knew that Mr. Hamerton was a model of order," he said to me; "but I only knew to what extent when, having to seek for string, I was directed to these pigeon-holes. I easily found the one labelled 'String,' but what it contained was too coarse for my purpose. 'Look above,' said Mr. Hamerton. I did, and sure enough I saw another label with 'String (thin).' I thought it wonderful." Yes, Gilbert _loved_ order, and strove to keep it; but as it generally happened that he had to do many things in a hurry (catching the post, for instance), he could not always find time to replace what he had used. When this had gone on so as to produce real disorder, he gave a day to restoring each item to its proper place--this happened generally after a long search for a mislaid paper, the finding of which evoked the oft-repeated confession, "I love Order better than she loves me, as Byron said of Wisdom." The correspondence relating to the foundation of the "Portfolio" was now very heavy; everything had to be decided between Mr. Seeley and Mr. Hamerton; suitable contributors had to be found, subjects discussed, illustrations chosen. The only English art magazine of that day confined its illustrations to line engravings and woodcuts, and its plates were almost always engraved from pictures or statues. It was intended that the "Portfolio" should make use of all new methods of illustration, and should publish drawings and studies as well as finished works. But it was the dearest wish of the editor that the revived art of Etching should receive due appreciation in England, and that, with this object, etched plates should be made a feature of the new magazine. The contents of the first volume will best show the plan, which was quite unlike that of any existing periodical. A series of articles on "English Artists of the Present Day" was contributed by Mr. Sidney Colvin, Mr. W. M. Rossetti, Mr. Tom Taylor, Mr. Beavington Atkinson, and the editor. These were illustrated by drawings most willingly lent by Mr. G. F. Watts, Mr. Poynter, Sir E. Burne-Jones, Mr. Calderon, Mr. H. S. Marks, Mr. G. D. Leslie, and other painters; and by paintings by Lord Leighton, Mr. Armitage, and Mr. A. P. Newton. The reproductions were made by the autotype (or carbon) process of photography, which was then coming into high estimation as a means of making permanent copies of works by the great masters. Every copy of these illustrations was printed by light, a process only possible in the infancy of a magazine which could count at first on the interest of but a small circle, and had to form its own public. The editor contributed a series of papers, entitled "The Unknown River," illustrated by small etchings by his own hand. These were printed on India paper, and mounted in the text, another process only possible in a magazine addressed to a few. The first volume also contained a very fine etching by M. Legros, and others by Cucinotta and Grenaud. Articles were contributed by Mr. F. T. Palgrave, Mr. Watkiss Lloyd, Mr. G. A. Simcox, and Mrs. Mark Pattison (Lady Dilke). A paper on "A New Palette" of nine colors was the forerunner of the elaborate "Technical Notes" of later years. The imposing size of the new magazine, its bold type, fine, thick paper, and wide margins were much admired, and prepared the way for the many editions _de luxe_ issued in England in the next quarter of the century. In the second year the slow autotype process had to be abandoned for the quicker Woodburytype, by which were reproduced drawings kindly contributed by Sir J. E. Millais, Sir John Gilbert, Mr. Holman Hunt, Mr. Woolner, Mr. G. Mason, Mr. Hook, and others. The editor commenced a series of "Chapters on Animals," illustrated with etchings by Veyrassat. Other etchings by M. Martial, Mr. Chattock, Mr. J. P. Heseltine, and Mr. Lumsden Propert appeared. Mr. Basil Champneys, Mr. W. B. Scott, and Mr. F. G. Stephens contributed articles. In the third year a series of "Examples of Modern Etching" was made the chief feature. It included plates by M. L. Flameng, Sir F. Seymour Haden, M. Legros, M. Bracquemond, M. Lalanne, M. Rajon, M. Veyrassat, and Mr. S. Palmer. The editor wrote a note upon each, and had now the pleasure of seeing one of his objects accomplished, and the public appreciation of his favorite art extending every day. In subsequent years the various methods of photo-engraving were employed instead of the carbon processes of photography, and the "Portfolio" was one of the first English periodicals to give reproductions of pen-drawings. Several of M. Amand-Durand's admirable facsimiles of etchings and engravings by the old masters adorned its pages. In 1873 appeared one of Mr. R. L. Stevenson's first contributions to literature,--if not his first,--a paper on "Roads," signed "L. S. Stoneven." This was followed by other articles in the years 1874, 1875, and 1878, bearing his own name. The fear of running short of work was not realized; on the contrary, my husband had always too much on his hands; for he dreaded hurry, and would have liked to bestow upon each of his works as much time as he thought necessary, not only for its completion, but also for its preparation, and that was often considerable, because he could not slight a thing. When he was writing for the "Globe" he polished his articles as much as a book destined to last; he always respected his work, and the care given to it bore no relation to the price it was to fetch. He often expressed a wish that he might labor like the monks in the Middle Ages, without being disturbed by mercenary considerations; that simple shelter, food, and raiment should be provided for himself and for those dependent upon him--he did not foresee any other wants--so that he might devote the whole of his mental energy to subjects worthy of it. But I used to answer that if he had such liberty he never would publish anything; for whenever he sent MS. to the printer it was inevitably with regret at not being able to keep it longer for improvement. Still, the second volume of "Wenderholme" had been sent to Mr. Blackwood, who wrote on Sept. 24, 1869:-- "There is no doubt that I liked vol. 2 very much. The story is told in a simple, matter-of-fact way, which is very effective, by giving an air of truth to the narrative. "The fire and the whole scene at the Hall is powerfully described. The love at first sight is well put, and the militia quarters and the landlord are true to the life." My husband read to me the MS. of the novel as fast as he wrote it, and I was afraid that some of the original characters might be recognized by their friends, being so graphically described; however, he believed it unlikely, people seeing and judging so differently from each other. In the summer, as usual, we had several visitors who afforded varying degrees of pleasure; a strange lady-artist amongst others, whose blandishments did not succeed in making my husband acquiesce in her desire of boarding with us, free of charge, in return for the English lessons she would give to our children. She resented the non-acceptance of her proposition, and having begged to look at the studies on the easel, feigned to hesitate about their right side upwards, by turning them up and down several times, and retiring a few steps each time as if in doubt. A more desirable visit was that of M. Lalanne, who besides his talent had much amiability and very refined manners. Ever after he remained, if not quite an intimate friend of my husband, at least more than an acquaintance, and whenever they had a chance of meeting they made the most of it. Gilbert, after one of these meetings,--a _déjeuner_ at M. Lalanne's,--told me the following anecdote. Some one asked him if he had not the "Legion d'honneur"? and being answered that it had not been offered, went on to say that it was not "offered," but "accordée" through the influence of some important personage, or by the pressure of public opinion; "and I think this should be your case," M. Lalanne's friend went on, "for you have rendered, and are still rendering, such great service to French art and to French artists, that it ought to be acknowledged. As you do not seem inclined to trouble yourself about it, a deputation might be chosen among your admirers to present a petition to that effect to the Ministre des Beaux-Arts." Mr. Hamerton having replied that he should prize the distinction only if it were spontaneously conferred, M. Lalanne remarked that decorations were of small importance, and asked without the slightest pride, "Do you know that I am one of the most _décorés_ of civilians?... No; well, then, I will show you my decorations." Then ringing the bell, he said to the maid who answered it, "Bring the box of decorations, please." It was a good-sized box, and when opened showed on a velvet tray a number of crosses, stars, rosettes, and ribbons of different sizes and hues, all vying in brilliancy and splendor. The first tray removed, just such another was displayed equally well filled, and M. Lalanne explained that, having given lessons to the sons of great foreign personages, they had generally sent him as a token of regard and gratitude some kind of decoration--maybe in lieu of payment. At the end of 1869 "Wenderholme" was published, and the first number of the "Portfolio" made its appearance on January 1, 1870, and from that date it became for the editor an undertaking of incessant interest, to the maintenance and improvement of which he was ever ready to devote himself, and for which he would have made important sacrifices. The dedication of "Wenderholme" was meant for Aunt Susan, and after receiving the book, she wrote:-- "Accept my most sincere and highly gratified thanks for the copy of your novel, and its dedication. We have heard that the "Times" and the "Yorkshire Post" had each favorable articles on the merits of your novel. We have detected nearly every character, even those that take other forms, but we do not even whisper any information in this neighborhood. Mr. and Mrs. W---- were immediately struck with the 'hoffens' and 'hirritation' of the doctor, but I pretend to think it not individual, but that it was the case among the people you were writing about." In May 1870, Mr. Hamerton removed to La Tuilerie, about five hundred yards from Pré-Charmoy. He continued to date his letters from Pré-Charmoy--the new house being on the estate so called; his motive was to avoid possible confusion in the delivery of his letters. He was greatly tickled to hear the peasants call his new abode "le château de l'Anglais," and to see them staring admiringly from the road at the windows, which were left open that paint and plaster might dry before we came to live in it. Though perfectly independent of luxury, my husband liked cleanliness and taste in the arrangement of the simplest materials, and he contrived by a good choice of patterns and colors in the papering of the rooms, with the help of fresh matting on the floors, and the judicious hanging of fine engravings and etchings in his possession, to impart quite a new and pleasant aspect to the _banale maison bourgeoise_. Gradually I became reconciled to it, on account of its greater convenience, and I even came to like it when the vines and wisteria and golden nasturtiums hid the ugly bare walls, and the fragrance of mignonette and roses and petunias was wafted into the rooms looking over the garden, and that of wild thyme and honeysuckle into those which looked over the fields; when the tall acacias began to shoot upwards straight and graceful from their velvety green carpet, and scattered upon it their perfumed moth-like flowers; while we listened to the humming of the happy bees in the sweet-smelling lime trees and to the wondrous song of the rival nightingales challenging each other from bower to bower in the calm, warm nights of summer-time. And such a great change did not take very long to realize: the ground had been well drained and plentifully manured, and it was almost virgin soil, unexhausted by previous vegetation, so that the elm-bower was soon thickly leaved and with difficulty prevented from closing up, the climbing vines became heavy with grapes, whilst the spreading branches of the acacias speedily formed a vast parasol, and afforded a pleasant shelter from the glare of the August sunshine. Hardy fruit trees of all kinds had been planted all along the garden hedge, and in the third year began to yield cherries--in moderation--but plums of different species we had in great quantities, also quinces, sometimes apples, apricots, and figs--the two last, however, were frequently destroyed by frost, the spring being generally very cold in the Morvan. As to pears, we had to wait somewhat longer for them, the pear trees requiring strict pruning to preserve the quality of the fruit; but we used to have a small cart-load of them when the year had been favorable. There was nothing my husband liked better than to pick gooseberries, currants, raspberries, cherries, or plums, and eat them fresh as we took a walk in the garden; he was very fond of fruit, and unlike most men, he would rather do without meat than without vegetables or dessert. His tastes in food, as in everything else, were very simple, but he was particular about _quality_. I never heard him complain of insufficiency, though, situated as we were, there was sometimes only just enough; and even that lacking which might have been considered as most necessary, namely, a dish of meat. For Gilbert, however, it was not a privation when occurring occasionally; nay, he even enjoyed the change, and as I generally went to Autun on Fridays and could get fish, we made it a _jour maigre_, though not from religious motives. It was understood that if eggs were served they must be newly laid; if potatoes, mealy and _à point_; if fish, fresh and palatable; he would not have tolerated the economy of one of our lady neighbors, who abstained from buying fish at Autun because it was too dear, she said; but who used to bring a full hamper when she came back yearly from Hyères, where it was cheap, enough to last for a week _after the journey_, and who considered the unsavory hamper an ample compensation for the absence of fish from her menus during the remainder of the year. The removal did not hinder or interrupt Mr. Hamerton seriously in his work, for the new house was quite ready to receive the furniture; and the place of every piece having been decided beforehand, the farmers merely handed them out of their carts to the workmen, who carried them inside the rooms, according to previous directions. The difficulty of getting proofs of the different states of his plates whilst etching them, incited my husband to invent a press for his own laboratory, that he might judge of his work in progress by taking proofs for himself whenever he liked. Considering the present state of our affairs I was not favorable to the idea, but I was overruled, as in all cases concerning expenses deemed necessary to artistic or literary pursuits. He had few material wants, and therefore thought himself justified in providing for his intellectual needs--for instance, by the gradual formation of a library. He often deprecated the necessity of apparent extravagance in such things; "but you see," he would say, "I cannot stand stationary in the acquirement of knowledge if I am to go on teaching others--I must keep ahead--without mentioning the satisfaction of my own tastes and cravings, to which I have a certain right." Indeed it was truly wonderful that he should have been able to achieve so much work, and work of such quality, in the intellectual solitude and retirement of these seven years passed out of great cities where libraries, museums, and human intercourse constantly offer help and stimulus to a writer. Luckily for him he bore solitude well. He has said in "The Intellectual Life": "Woe unto him that is never alone, and cannot bear to be alone!" And again: "Only in solitude do we learn our inmost nature and its needs." Further on: "There is, there is a strength that comes to us in solitude from that shadowy awful Presence that frivolous crowds repel." He often sought communion with that awful Presence in the thick forests of the Morvan and on the highest peak of the Mont Beuvray, and found it. For some time our minds had been disturbed by the unsettled aspect of French politics, and the possibility of a war with Prussia had been a cause of great personal anxiety to my husband on account of his nationality. He has related in "Round my House" how the news of the declaration of war reached us on a Sunday, as we were bringing the children home after spending the day peacefully in the fields and on the river-banks of a picturesque little village. It is probable that if my husband had been able to bear a long railway journey, we might have accepted the hospitality so kindly offered in the following letter:-- WEST LODGE. _August_ 12, 1870. "MY VERY DEAR NEPHEW AND NIECE,--I am most grievously and fearfully concerned to hear of your sad condition in consequence of the terrible and needless war that is now spreading misery, desolation, and perhaps famine all over the Empire, just to gratify the unbounded ambition of one man. We wish you and your three children could fly over to us and be in safety. Really, if you get at all alarmed, do not hesitate to come, all of you, with as much of your property as you can pack and bring; we can and shall be pleased to find you refuge from any pending evil you may be dreading. Dear P. G., you would find your articles about the state of your country had got copied into the 'Manchester Courier,' but we wish to caution you about what you put in them. Remember whose iron heart could punish you, and what would become of your wife and family if you were cast into prison. "The little grandson and his nurse are coming here on Tuesday next for a month; they will only occupy one bedroom, so there will still be the best bedroom and a very good attic, and half of my bed if little Mary Susan Marguerite dares trust herself with me" Although Mr. Hamerton had always taken great interest in politics, he never wished to play an active part in them; from time to time he wrote a political article about some cause he had at heart, or some wrong which he wished to see redressed, or again on some obscure point which his experience of two countries might help to clear up, but he never consented to supply regular political correspondence to any newspaper. Having had rather a lengthened connection with the "Globe," he was offered the post of war-correspondent, which he declined. He has passed over many interesting incidents of this wartime in "Round my House," although he has given a few. One of the most striking was certainly his guiding a Garibaldian column _en reconnaissance_ across the bed of the river Ternin, on a bitterly cold day, mounted on his spirited little Cocote, who showed quite a martial mettle, and may well have felt proud of leading a number of great cavalry horses. She took no harm from her cold bath, but her master, whose legs had been in the icy water (on account of her small height) up to the thighs, was not so fortunate: he caught a serious chill, accompanied with fever and pains, which confined him to the house over a week. He mentions in the book our anxiety when the spy mania was at its height, and the workmen had almost decided to attack us in a body, but he refrains from detailing how, day after day, when the "hands" congregated in the village inns after dinner in the twilight, we used to take our children by the hand and pass, with hearts in anguish for their safety, but with as confident a countenance as we could command, before their infuriated groups; never knowing whether some fatal blow would not be dealt from the next group or the one following. The men stood on the door-steps, or in the very middle of the road, awaiting us with lowering brows and sullen looks of suspicion, when with sinking hearts and placid faces we stopped to say a few words to one of our _present_ enemies to whom we had formerly rendered some help in illness or destitution. The truth is, they generally looked somewhat ashamed on such occasions, and always answered politely, but without the frank and pleased looks of other days, when they were proud of our notice and interest; they would rather have done without it now, especially in the company of their fellow-conspirators against our safety. I dare say the innocent unconcern of our children, who laughed and played freely in their happy ignorance of danger, proved our best safeguard, but still every night after reaching home we could not help thinking--"How will it be to-morrow?" Just at the beginning of the hostilities, my husband had deprecated the rashness of the French people, which was blinding them to the unprepared state of their army, and to its numerical inferiority when compared with the German force. But when he saw that, although the King of Prussia had said that the war was not directed against the French people, he was still carrying it on unmercifully after the fall of Napoleon III., his sympathies with the invaded nation grew warmer every day, and he did all that was in his power to spare from invasion that part of the country where we lived, and which we knew so well. He put himself in communication with General Bordone,--Garibaldi's aide-de-camp (Garibaldi himself being very ill at that time),--and explained how Autun might be surprised by roads which had been left totally unguarded. He made a careful map of the country about us for Garibaldi, and shortly after, outposts were placed according to his directions, so as to prevent the enemy from reaching Autun by these parts, without resistance. He used to go to Autun with Cocote almost every night for news, and met there with Garibaldian officers whom he often drove to inspect the outposts, and they gave him the password for the sentinels on his way home. One night, however, he had remained even later than usual, having taken an officer to a very distant outpost, and when he reached the road leading to La Tuilerie, the password had been changed, and he was detained in spite of all he could say to be allowed to proceed on his way. He would have submitted easily to the discomfort of a few hours in the guard-room had it not been that he realized how anxious I must be, and when he heard the order of march given to a patrol, he asked to be allowed to join it as it was going his way, observing that the soldiers would have the power of shooting him if he attempted to run away. The permission was granted, and he set off on foot, in the midst of the patrol, followed by his dog, Cocote having been left at the inn. It was freezing hard, and the snow lay deep on the ground; the march was a silent one--the men having been forbidden to talk--and it was a miracle that Gilbert's dog escaped with its life, for every time it barked or growled it was threatened with instant death. His master, however, artfully represented that in case enemies were hidden in the ditches or behind the hedges bordering the road, "Tom" would soon dislodge them and help in their capture. This seemed to pacify the men, together with the prospect (no less artfully held out) of a glass of rum each when they reached La Tuilerie. It was a weary march for Gilbert and an anxious watch for me, and as soon as I heard the joyful bark of our dog announcing his master's return, I hastened downstairs and made a great blaze for the half-frozen patrol and its prisoner, and served to them all some hot grog which was duly appreciated. I have no doubt it seemed hard to the poor soldiers to leave the seats by the leaping flames to resume their slippery march in the creaking snow, but they did it promptly enough, somewhat cheered by the renewed warmth they were carrying away with them. Mr. Hamerton has described in "Round my House" how he watched the battle which took place at Autun, from our garret window. With the naked eye we could only see the dark lines of soldiers without being able to follow their strategical movements; but to my husband, with the help of his telescope, every incident was instantly revealed, and he communicated them to us in succession as they occurred. It is needless to say what a relief we experienced when we heard that the enemy was falling back--ever so slightly. Then every one of us, women and children, wanted to look through the telescope, and for once I _did_ see in it, and hailed with heartfelt thanksgivings, the scarcely perceptible retreating movement of the Germans. At that moment the light of day was fading fast, and in the twilight I could just see my husband turning towards our awestruck children and saying to them: "I am certain that you will never forget this day, and what a horrible thing a war is." And they answered, "Oh! never!" Despite these painful preoccupations, Mr. Hamerton had prepared the "Etcher's Handbook" and its illustrations, and was writing a series of articles on the "Characters of Balzac" for the "Saturday Review." To save time I read to him "Le Père Goriot," "Eugénie Grandet," "Ursule Mirouet," "Les Parents Pauvres," "La Cousine Bette," etc. Mr. Harwood approved of the series, but although my husband admired Balzac's talent greatly, he disliked the choice of his subjects in general, and complained to me of the desponding state of mind they produced in him; he called it "withering" sometimes. In consequence he became convinced that it was not a good study--mentally--for him, and rightly abandoned the series, for it was of importance that he should be in the healthiest mental condition to write the "Intellectual Life," the form of which was giving him a great deal of trouble. He had already begun it twice over, and each time had read to me the preliminary chapters, without giving to my expectant interest entire satisfaction. He had had the plan of the book in contemplation for years, and the gathered materials were rich and ready, but the definite form had not yet been found. He was in no way discouraged by repeated failures, and told me he "was sure to grasp it sometime," only he grew excited in the struggle. The prudent rule which forbade work at night had been cast aside, and it was about two o'clock in the morning when I was awakened to listen to the first chapters of the "Intellectual Life," as they now remain. I was very happy to be able to praise them unreservedly: hitherto my part had been but a sorry one. I could only say, "I don't think this is the best possible form," without suggesting what the best form ought to be; but now I felt sure it answered exactly to my expectations, and my husband rejoiced that "he had hit it at last." CHAPTER XI. 1870-1872. Landscape-painting.--Letters of Mr. Peter Graham, R. A.--Incidents of the war time.--"The Intellectual Life."--"The Etcher's Handbook." An American clergyman, Mr. Powers, after reading Mr. Hamerton's works, had become one of his most fervent admirers, and there came to be a regular correspondence between them. Mr. Powers used to gather all the information he could about the progress of his friend's reputation in the United States--newspaper articles, criticisms, encomiums, notes, etc., and to send them to Pré-Charmoy. He was a great deal more sensitive to strictures on my husband than the victim himself; and I see in the letter-book of 1870 this entry: "April 28. Powers. To console his mind about the article on me." Now Mr. Powers longed to see some pictures from the hand of Mr. Hamerton, and had so often expressed this wish, that the artist, out of gratitude for the constant interest shown in his work, rashly promised to paint two landscapes as a present. It was very characteristic that he did not promise one only, but two, and at a time when he was so overwhelmed with work that he hardly knew how to get through the most pressing; and still more characteristic is this other entry in the letter-book: "February 7, 1871. Powers. Sending him measures of his pictures, so that he may get frames for them." It is true that one of the pictures was begun, but before it was brought to completion several years were to elapse, though the pictures were both--at intervals--on the easel; always undergoing some change either of effect or of composition, even of subject, for the painter could never be satisfied with them. He felt that he lacked the power of expressing himself, and said to me: "These are not my pictures, I _dream_ them differently;" whilst when he had seen Mr. Peter Graham's "Spate in the Highlands," he exclaimed: "This is one of my _dream_-pictures; I should like to have painted it." Entirely devoid of the false pride which prevents learning from others, he had written to Mr. Peter Graham about what he considered his failures, and had received the following reply:-- "With regard to what you say of yourself in your last letter, I have never had an opportunity of seeing a picture of yours; but I cannot imagine any one to fail in landscape who has the high qualifications for it which you obviously have--a sensitively impressionable nature, a strong, loving admiration for whatever in heaven or earth is beautiful or grand in form, color, or effect. Then you have the faculty of observation, without which a mind, however sensitive to the impressions of nature, will not be able to do anything, will be passive, not active. The mechanical difficulties of our art must be to some extent overcome before our thoughts and intentions can be realized and our impressions conveyed to others. After all, every artist feels that his work is a failure, the success of rendering what he wishes is so exceedingly limited in his mind. I am talking of what you know as well as I do; but my only reason is that you spoke of yourself as failing in landscape, 'probably from want of natural ability,' which I cannot believe. My method of getting memoranda, which you inquire about, is to study as closely as I can; to watch and observe and make notes and drawings, also studies in color, and patient groping after what I wish to learn, are my only methods. I feel unable to enter into details, so much would need be said on the subject. I believe I am much indebted to my long education as a figure-painter for any little ability I may have in rendering the material of nature. I was a figure-painter many years before I touched landscape. Continued study from the antique and painting from the nude in a life-class give, or ought to give, an acquaintance with light and shadow which to a landscape-painter is invaluable--nature affects our feelings so much in landscape by light and shadow. In Edinburgh we had a long gallery with windows from the roof at intervals, and the statues were arranged there; a splendid collection. I shall never forget the exquisite beauty of the middle tint, or overshadowing, which the statues had that were placed between the windows; those which were immediately underneath them were of course in a blaze of light, and we had all gradations of light, middle-tint, and shadow. When I came to study clouds and skies, I recognized the enchantment of effect to be caused by the same old laws of light I had tried to get acquainted with at the Academy. Of course color adds immensely to the difficulty of sky painting, and the amount of groping in the study of gray, blue, etc., is very disheartening. I need not longer weary you, however, on this subject, but shall just again say that I really see no reason why you should not succeed in landscape-painting if such be your wish, and therefore cannot think of you as having failed." Then, in a subsequent letter, I find this passage:-- "Since receiving your last letter I have read, and with great pleasure, your 'Painter's Camp in the Highlands.' I am stronger than ever in the belief that it is merely from your never having devoted the necessary amount of time to art in the right direction that unqualified success has not been attained by you as an artist. I think it unfortunate that you 'learned painting with a clever landscape-painter.' You probably far excelled him in sympathy with nature, power of observation, and all the gifts especially required for a landscape-painter. What you really needed, study under a figure-painter, or better still at an Academy, would have given you. Landscape nature is too complicated to be a good school to acquire the mastery over the mechanical difficulties in art. I don't agree with you that you ought to have filled your notebooks with memoranda from nature instead of painting pictures at Loch Awe. Your experience there was very valuable. A notebook memorandum from nature is of little or no use for a picture in oil without previous study of similar subjects or effects in the same vehicle. You ask my opinion of your present method of study. I think it excellent, and would make only two suggestions. You might safely discontinue the study of botany and dissection of plants; there is not the slightest fear of a want of truth in your pictures, and the time might be devoted to some more pressing work. Then I think you might paint the human figure with much profit, even to landscape-painting and writing on art." The reader may have remarked that Mr. Hamerton had frequently painted from a model at Pré-Charmoy, though not from the nude, for he was of opinion that this kind of study was no great help to him at this stage, though it might have been earlier. A more serious impediment than technical difficulties soon stopped all progress with Mr. Powers' pictures. It was a recurrence of the cerebral excitement, almost in a chronic form. My husband had made a plan for issuing--separately--proofs of the etchings appearing in the "Portfolio;" but he was so ill that he could not hold a pen; and to explain the details of this plan to Mr. Seeley I acted as amanuensis under his dictation. His aunt was very much grieved to hear of this illness, and wrote:-- "Suppose you tried a ten or twenty miles' journey by train, in some direction whence you could return by water or conveyance if necessary. I assure you I can do valiant things with impunity that the very thinking of them would have made me ill about thirteen months ago." He did not need courage to be preached to him, he had a sufficient store of it; indeed, his nervousness had nothing to do with fear: he used to drive or ride Cocote after she had been running away, upsetting the carriage and breaking the harness, till she was subdued again into docility. Once at Dieppe, in a storm, he had volunteered to steer a lifeboat which was making for a ship in distress, but his services had been refused when it was known that he had a family. He rode fearlessly one of the high, dangerous bicycles of that time, about which Aunt Susan humorously said in one of her letters that "they often prove rather restive, and are given to, or seized with, an inclination to butting the walls, and also of lazily lying down on the road over which they ought to be almost imperceptibly passing along." And during the war he kindly received, fed, and helped several _francs-tireurs_ and stray French soldiers, perfectly aware that he was risking his life in case the Prussians came near; he even conveyed one of them to the Garibaldian outposts in his carriage. Of his own accord he attempted time after time to get the better of this peculiar nervousness, but it had lately increased to such a point that, for a time, when we reached Autun in the carriage and came _in sight_ of the railway bridge, he had to give me the reins, jump down, and go back to wait for my return outside the town; for I could not go with him, having to take our boys to the college. I never knew how I might find him when we met again. Unlike the majority of patients, who make the most of their ailments to excite sympathy, he considerately let me know immediately of the slightest improvement, and kept repeating: "It will soon be over now; don't distress yourself." I believe that the great excitement and anxiety of the wartime had caused the recurrence of the ailment, and no wonder, for we knew several cases of mental derangement in the small circle of our acquaintances, even amongst peasants, who are far from imaginative or nervous. In Gilbert's case there were only too many reasons for anxiety, besides the uncertainty of his situation. His brother-in-law, M. Pelletier, then Économe of the Lycée at Vendôme, was in the thick of the strife, and his post was not unattended with danger--though the Lycée had become an International Ambulance. It was sometimes hard for him to restrain his indignation before the insolence and partiality of the victors: once, for instance, he appealed to the general in command to obtain for the French wounded an equal portion of the bread given to the Prussians; but he was pushed by the shoulder to an open window, from which the French army could be seen, and the general exclaimed--pointing to the soldiers in the distance: "Vous n'aurez rien, rien! tant que nous ne les aurons pas battus!... allez!..." Another time M. Pelletier had to go to Château Renaud to fetch several things sorely wanted at the ambulance. It was forbidden by the enemy, under penalty of death, to carry any letters out of the city, which they had declared in a state of siege; but M. Pelletier could not find in his heart to refuse a few from desolate mothers and wives, and these letters were carefully sewn up at night, by his wife, in the lining of his overcoat. Who betrayed him?... No one knows, but just as he was about to descend the stairs, some one rapidly brushed past, whispering hurriedly, "Leave that coat behind." He understood, went back to his apartment, threw the coat to his terrified wife, merely saying "Burn," and had only time to seize another great-coat hanging in the passage and rush to the omnibus waiting with the escort. He was, however, stopped by a Prussian officer, who said: "You sha'n't go--you are carrying letters, and you know that you have put yourself in the way of being shot." The coat was taken from him _and the lining cut open_. On finding nothing, the officer said, with a dry smile: "You have been warned; but let it be a lesson to you,--you might not escape so easily another time." My brother Charles, despite his being the only son of a widow and _soutien de famille_, had been enlisted, and his letters did not always reach their destination, though his regiment was at Chagny, not far from Autun, and for a while Mr. Hamerton had lost all traces of his mother-in-law. Madame Gindriez had gone to Vendôme to be near her younger daughter, Madame Pelletier, in the hope of keeping clear of the bloody conflict, but found herself in the very centre of it after the occupation of Vendôme by Prince Frederick Charles, and was thus shut off from all news of her son. After vainly attempting to get a safe-conduct during the hostilities, she at last succeeded after the armistice, and left the town to go to Tours, where she had friends willing to receive her, and where she expected to hear from her son. The omnibus in which she travelled was escorted by Bismarck's White Cuirassiers, pistol in hand, till it reached Château Renaud. In the night, Madame Gindriez was awakened by loud rappings at her bedroom door, and ordered to give up her room to some Prussian sergeants who had come back from an expedition. She dressed quickly and went to the kitchen--the only place in the hotel free from soldiers--to await the morning as she best could. Her breakfast was served upon a small table, apart from the long one in the centre of the room, which was reserved for the German officers. They were very much elated, it seemed, by the armistice, thinking that it might lead ultimately to a peace, for which they openly expressed their desire, ordering champagne, clinking their glasses together, and politely offering one to Madame Gindriez with the words: "You won't refuse to drink with us _à la paix_, Madame?" "À la paix, soit," she courageously answered; "mais sans cession de territoire." They did not insist. It may be easily surmised that such tidings, reaching my husband from time to time, kept him in an anxious state far from beneficial to his health. After the armistice, I find a great many entries in the letter-book of letters inquiring about friends, and how they had fared during this terrible war-time. Despite this chronic state of anxiety, Mr. Hamerton was writing "The Intellectual Life," and had offered it for publication in America to Messrs. Roberts Brothers. They answered:-- "We liked the title and the plan of your new work, as outlined by you, and presuming it will be larger than 'Thoughts about Art,' we will give you fifty pounds outright for the early copy, or we shall allow you a percentage on it, after the first thousand are sold, of ten per cent, on the retail price, provided we are not interfered with by competing editions." The author had the satisfaction of receiving another letter from Roberts Brothers, dated July 21, 1871, in which this passage occurs: "'Thoughts about Art' is quite popular; you have many very dear friends in this country, and the number is increasing." In September of the same year Mr. Haden wrote, in reference to the projected "Etcher's Handbook":-- "Your new processes interest me immensely, and I am glad you are going to give us a handbook on the whole subject. Let it be concise, and even dogmatic, for you have to speak _ex cathedrâ_ on the matter, and people prefer to be told what to do to being reasoned into it." Ever anxious to improve himself, my husband had asked Mr. Lewes to advise him about his reading preparatory to the new book he had begun to write on the Intellectual Life. Here is the answer:-- "THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, REGENT'S PARK. "_Nov_. 2, 1871. "MY DEAR HAMERTON,--We so often speak of you and your wife, and were so very anxious about you during the war, that we have asked right and left for news of you, and were delighted at last to get such good news of you both. "As to the books to be suggested for your work, partly the fact that no one can really suggest food for another, partly the fact that I don't clearly understand the nature of your work--these perhaps make a good excuse if the following list is worthless. It is all I have been able to gather together. "Littré, 'Vie d'Auguste Comte.' St. Hilaire, 'Vie et travaux de Geoffroy St. Hilaire.' Gassendi, 'Vita Tychonis Brahei, Copernici.' Bertrand, 'Fondateurs de l'Astronomie Moderne.' Morley, 'Life of Palissy' (passionate devotion to research). Morley, 'Life of Cardan.' Berti, 'Vita di Giordano Bruno.' Bartholmess, 'Vie de Jordano Bruno.' Muir's 'Life of Mahomet.' Stanley's 'Life of Arnold.' Mazzuchelli, 'Vita di Archimede.' Blot's 'Life of Newton.' Drinkwater's 'Kepler and Galileo.' "All these are first-rate, especially the two last, published by the Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge, together with some others, under the title of 'Lives of Eminent Persons.' "The 'Biographie Universelle' will give you, no doubt, references as to the best works under each head. "We did not go abroad this year, but buried ourselves in absolute solitude in Surrey--near Haslemere, if you know the lovely region; and there I worked like a man going in for the Senior Wranglership, and Mrs. Lewes, who was ailing most of the time, went on with her new work. This work, by the way, is a panorama of provincial life, to be published in eight parts, on alternative months, making four very thick vols. when complete. It is a new experiment in publishing. While she was at her art, I was at the higher mathematics, seduced into those regions by some considerations affecting my personal work. The solitude and the work together were perfectly blissful. Except Tennyson, who came twice to read his poems to us, we saw no one. "No sooner did we return home than Mrs. Lewes, who had been incubating an attack, _hatched_ it--and for five weeks she was laid up, getting horribly thin and weak. But now she is herself again (thinner self) and at work. "She begs me to remember her most kindly to you and to Mrs. Hamerton. "Ever yours truly, "G. H. LEWES." Almost in every letter that my husband received from Mr. Lewes, he had this confirmation of what George Eliot had told him about the heavy penalty in health attending or following her labors. Mr. Lewes had not mentioned his lives of Goethe and Aristotle, but they were ordered with the other books he had recommended, and I began to read them aloud to my husband whilst he was etching the plates for an illustrated edition of the "Painter's Camp," that he had always hoped to see accepted by Mr. Macmillan. M. Pelletier had been promoted from Vendôme to Lons-le-Saunier, and after spending a month of the vacation at our house with his wife and three children, now invited his host and family to go back with him for the remainder of the holidays. However, the boys only went, for their father was incapacitated for railway travelling, and the little girl May could not be persuaded to leave her parents, even to go with her cousins and her Aunt Caroline, whom she so much loved. The nervous state into which my husband had been thrown back had produced a morbid sensitiveness to noise and to the sight of movement which isolated him more and more, even from his nearest friends, and during these last vacations he had seldom been able to take _déjeuner_ with us. In consequence he had a little hut erected near the river, _au buisson Vincent_, whither he retired almost daily, and to which I took or sent him his lunch; there he read, wrote, or sketched, surrounded only by silent and motionless objects. This morbid sensitiveness decreased with the light of day, and when the sun had set we generally joined him to admire the beauty of the after-glow fading slowly into twilight in the summer evenings. He always dined with us all, and after dinner he either listened to music, of which he was very fond, or even played a little himself on the violin, or walked out in company. We made quite a little procession on the road now,--six children romping about, my sister and her husband, my mother and my brother Charles, the master of the house and myself; and since it had transpired that my husband was not so well, some of his friends at Autun or in the neighborhood came as often as they could to make him feel less out of the world. He has said himself: "The intellectual life is sometimes a fearfully solitary one. Unless he lives in a great capital the man devoted to that life is more than other men liable to suffer from isolation, to feel utterly alone beneath the deafness of space and the silence of the stars. Give him one friend who can understand him, who will not leave him, who will always be accessible by day and night,--one friend, one kindly listener, just one,--and the whole universe is changed." In his case the friendly and intelligent intercourse kept up with his wife's relatives alleviated in a great measure the sense of isolation. The life in the hut, together with the botanical studies and the formation of the herbarium, suggested the plan of the "Sylvan Year," and thereby lent additional interest to these pursuits, though at that time his main work was the prosecution of "The Intellectual Life," now that he had finished the correction of the handbook on etching. [Footnote: Contributed to the "Portfolio," and afterwards published separately.] This last work brought him many pleasant letters from brother artists, but I shall only quote what Mr. Samuel Palmer said about it, because it was his praise, and that of Mr. Seymour Haden, which gave the author the greatest satisfaction, coming from authorities on the subject. "REDHILL. _January_, 1872. "DEAR MR. HAMERTON,--Had I thanked you earlier for your 'handbook,' which came long ago, I could not have thanked you so much: for it is the test of good books, as of good pictures, that they improve with acquaintance. I had a little 'Milton' bound with brass corners, that I might carry it always in my waistcoat-pocket--after doing this for twenty years it was all the fresher for its portage. Your invention of the positive process is equally useful and elegant; useful because the reverse method lessens the pleasure of work, elegant because the materials are delicate and the process cleanly and expeditious." In this letter Mr. Palmer expressed his desire to publish a translation of Virgil's "Eclogues" in verse, and asked for his correspondent's advice about it. Another source of satisfaction to Gilbert was the increasing success of his works in America. In January, 1872, he had a letter from Roberts Brothers, in which they said:-- "We have mailed you a copy of 'The Unknown River.' It has proved a success, and has been generally admired. It is a charming book, and we should like to bring out a popular edition. 'Thoughts about Art' is selling better than we expected--it has given a start to the 'Painter's Camp,' which we are now printing a second edition of. "We think you are getting to be well known and appreciated in this country." Enclosed in the letter was a remittance for £49 8_s_., which proves that an author has need of a good many successes to pay his way; still, these remittances from America made a difference in Mr. Hamerton's circumstances, and were exclusively devoted to the education of his boys. Though unambitious, he was not indifferent to the increase in his reputation, for he had written in "The Intellectual Life," "Fame is dearer to the human heart than wealth itself." He certainly cared infinitely and incomparably more for his reputation--such as he wished it to be, pure, dignified, and honored--than for wealth; his only desire about money, often expressed, was "not to have to think about it." CHAPTER XII. 1873-1875. Popularity of "The Intellectual Life."--Love of animals.--English visitors.--Technical notes.--Sir F. Seymour Haden.--Attempts to resume railway-travelling. The dedication of "The Intellectual Life" was a perfect surprise to me when I first opened my presentation copy: the secret had been well kept. I felt grateful and honored to be thus publicly associated by my husband in his work, though my share had been but humble and infinitesimal--more sympathetic than active, more encouraging than laborious. Our common dream had been to be as little separated as possible, and he had attempted soon after our marriage to rouse in me some literary ambition, and to direct my beginnings. I first reviewed French books for "The Reader," and he was kind enough to correct everything I wrote; then he induced me to try my hand at a short novel, reminding me humorously that some of my father's friends used to call me "Little Bluestocking." He took a great deal of trouble to find a publisher for my second novel, and was quite disappointed to fail. He wrote to encourage me to persevere:-- "The reviews of your first novel have all been favorable enough, but the publishers told me they had _never_ published a one-volume novel that had succeeded, and that they had now made up their minds _never_ to publish another, no matter who wrote it. I rather think they would publish your new novel, but I earnestly recommend you to try ... _I am quite sure_ you have something in you, but you want wider culture, better reading, and more of it, and the difficulty about household matters is for the present in your way, though if I go on as I am doing now we will get you out of that." A copy of "The Intellectual Life" was sent to Aunt Susan, who received it just as she was going to visit her sister, Mrs. Hinde, whom she found in failing health, and who died shortly after. It was a new grief for my husband, to whom she had always been very kind. As soon as tranquillity was re-established in France, after the war and Commune, Mr. Hamerton had renewed a regular correspondence with his friends, and, being greatly interested in the technique of the fine arts, consulted those friends whose experience was most to be relied upon. Mr. Wyld's letters are full of explanation about his own practice, as well as that of Decamps, Horace Vernet, Delaroche, and Delacroix. In one of them I find this interesting passage:-- "I very much doubt if the talent of coloring can be _learnt_. I think it is a gift like an ear for music, which if not born with you can never be perfectly acquired (I, for instance, _I am sure_, could never have _perfectly_ tuned a violin). Doubtless if the faculty exists intuitively, it may be perfected, or at all events much improved by study and practice, but he that has it not from birth, _I_ think, can never acquire it." Mr. S. Palmer, in a long letter also devoted to the technical part of painting and etching, turns to literature to say:-- "My pleasure in hearing of the success of 'The Intellectual Life' is qualified only by the comparative apathy of the English. Of such a book one edition here to three in America is something to be ashamed of." The sale of the book was rapid, both in England and in America, but the American sale continued to be incomparably the larger. As early as February, 1874, Roberts Brothers wrote:-- "'The Intellectual Life' is a complete literary success in America; it has been the means of making you almost a household god in the most refined circles. We are now selling the fifth thousand. Our supply of the English 'Chapters on Animals' [Footnote: Contributed to the "Portfolio," and afterwards published separately.] is all sold, and we are now stereotyping the book. We hope to sell a good many." The motive which prompted my husband to write these "chapters" was purely his love and pity for all dumb creatures. He never could do without a dog--and the dog was always the favorite, being even preferred to the saddle-horse; and when out of compassion for its infirmities it had to be out of pain, his master never shirked the painful duty, but performed it himself as mercifully as he could. One of his dogs, which had long been treated for cancer, was at last chloroformed to death, his master helping the veterinary surgeon all the time. Another, who became suddenly rabid, and could not be prevented from entering the house, to the imminent peril of us all, he met and stunned at a blow with a log of wood, having no weapon ready. Poor Cocote was not sold when she became useless, but allowed to divide her old age peacefully between the freedom of the pasturage and the comfort and plenty of the stable, till her master asked the best shot of the place (a poacher) to assist him in firing a volley, which quickly put an end to her life, as she was unsuspectingly coming out of the field. And he only came to this decision when we left the country. Out of love or pity my husband was interested in all animals, and I believe that animals were instinctively aware of it. Dogs always sought his caresses; he used to remove _with his hands_ toads from the dangers of the road, and they did not seem afraid. He never was stung by bees, though he often placed his hand flat in front of the opening in the hive, so that they were obliged to alight upon it before entering. Of the rat only he had a nervous horror, but it remained unconquerable; he disliked the sight of one, and if he met one accidentally, he always experienced a disagreeable shock. When he tried to find out the reason, he was inclined to attribute it to the disquieting rapidity and restlessness of its movements. In 1874 Mr. Hamerton began to write for the "International Review," principally on the fine arts, and continued his contributions till 1880. Roberts Brothers expressed a wish that he would reserve the publications in book form to their firm, which had done so much for his reputation. At the beginning of April he heard from Boston that they were printing the sixth thousand of the "Intellectual Life," and had written to Messrs. Macmillan that they were willing to unite in bringing out a new edition of "Etching and Etchers." In October the seventh thousand of the "Intellectual Life" was being printed; the second edition of "Chapters on Animals" and the second of "Thoughts about Art" were about half gone, and "A Painter's Camp" was going off quite freely. About the last Roberts Brothers added: "This book ought to sell better. We have reason to congratulate ourselves that it so fascinated us that we ventured to republish it. We are Nature lovers, and delight to keep the company of one who loves her and is able to tell of it as you can." Of course we cheered Aunt Susan with the list of these successes, and she answered: "I wish, my dear P. G., that all your admirers would be as generous with their money as they are with their flattery, for flattery is not a commodity to supply a family with means of subsistence." In the same letter she told of Mr. Hinde's death and funeral, and of her hopes of seeing her nephew, Ben Hinde, succeed to his father's living. Early in 1874 Mr. Hamerton had the pleasure of becoming personally acquainted with one of the most distinguished of the contributors to the "Portfolio,"--Mr. Sidney Colvin, who now came to pay a visit to the editor, after nursing his friend R. L. Stevenson through one of his dangerous attacks of illness. My husband esteemed highly Mr. Colvin's knowledge and acquirements. During his short stay this esteem expanded into personal regard, and in after years, whenever a meeting with him was possible, it invariably afforded gratification. In the summer our house was turned into a sort of temporary hospital by an epidemic of measles brought to it by the boys from their college. Having had it in my youth, I luckily was spared to nurse in succession the three children and my husband, whose case was by far the most serious. However, he would not take to his bed, but remained in his study with a good fire at night, sleeping upon an ottoman or in an arm-chair, wrapped up in his monk's dress, and the head covered with an Algerian chechia. In due course he got through the distemper without accident, but for fear of chills he continued to wear the chechia and monk's dress in the house some time after his recovery, and he was so discovered by Mr. and Mrs. Mark Pattison when they paid us an unexpected visit. It happened thus. I had driven my sister and her youngest boy to Autun, where he had been invited to stay a few days at his godmother's, and as we alighted in the courtyard of the hotel I was told that an English gentleman and his wife had ordered an omnibus to call upon Mr. Hamerton, and were on the point of starting. On learning that I was at the hotel they came to propose that I should go back to La Tuilerie with them, which proposition I accepted with pleasure. I left the pony-carriage, told my sister that I would fetch her in the evening, and drove off with Mr. and Mrs. Pattison, the latter very much interested by what I could point out to her on the way,--the Temple of Janus, the Roman archways, the double walls of the town, and Mont Beuvray. The drive from Autun to La Tuilerie is a short one, and we soon arrived at the garden gate. As we stopped, the study window was quickly, almost violently, thrown open, my husband's anxious face appeared through it, and he shouted to the bewildered coachman, "What has happened?" At the sight of an omnibus he had been afraid of an accident (not at all unusual with Cocote's tendency to take fright, run away, and upset carriage and all), and had fancied me hurt, and brought back laid upon the cushioned seat. But as soon as he saw me safe and sound, and noticed my companions, he hastened down to receive his visitors. We spent the afternoon very pleasantly, but as it was getting cooler and a little damp after sunset, my husband, who was not fully recovered, had to excuse himself from accompanying Mr. and Mrs. Pattison back to Autun, and to let me go instead. I had the pleasure of a second meeting with them on the following morning at the hotel, when we took leave of each other. I have always remembered an incident in connection with this visit that Mr. and Mrs. Pattison never knew of. There had been in our entrance hall for the last four months at least, a manuscript notice written very legibly by Mr. Hamerton, and carefully pasted up with his own hands, in a very good light by the side of the drawing-room door, to this effect: "English visitors to this house are earnestly requested not to stay after seven o'clock p.m. if not invited to dine; and when invited to dine, not to consider themselves as entitled to the use of a bedroom, unless particularly requested to remain." This had been done in a moment of legitimate anger and vexation (of course without consulting me), and I had thought it the best policy to ignore it for some time--particularly during winter, when it was put up, for there was little probability of English visitors at that time. As to French visitors, it was unlikely that they could make out its meaning, and if they did, as it did not concern them, they would consider it as a humorous _boutade_. After a fortnight, however, I begged my husband to remove the "notice;" but his anger had not cooled a bit, and he said in a tone that I knew to admit of no opposition that the "notice" was meant to remain there _permanently_. And there it remained, at first partially, and by degrees almost entirely, covered up by the shawls or mantles that I artfully spread as far as possible over the obnoxious manuscript, till, emboldened by non-interference, and under pretext that the wall-paper about the door was soiled, I got leave to have a new piece hung, and took care to have it laid _over_ the notice. This took place on the very day that Mr. and Mrs. Pattison paid their friendly visit. I must now explain the cause of my husband's temporary ukase. As I have said before, M. Bulliot, President of the Société Eduenne, was a friend of his, and on one occasion, a Scotchman having applied to him for permission to see a precious book kept in the archives of the learned society, M. Bulliot, finding him well-bred and interesting, took the trouble of bringing him to La Tuilerie, in the hope that Mr. Hamerton and Mr. W---- would derive pleasure from the meeting. It was so, and Mr. W----'s researches at Autun requiring a few days only, he was invited to dinner for the morrow. He duly arrived and dined, but as he gave no sign of going away, I asked him a little before ten if he was a good walker, as the hotels at Autun closed at eleven. He merely answered, "No matter." Looking already like an old man, and weak besides, I felt certain that he could not possibly reach the town in time for a bed, and I quietly retired to mine. My husband told me in the morning that he had shown Mr. W---- to the spare room, unwilling to turn an old man out in the cold and mist of an early morning. I foresaw a repetition of what had happened at Pré-Charmoy. And so it proved, for Mr. W---- quartered himself upon us for two days, and it is impossible to say how much longer he would have stayed if my husband had not at last insisted peremptorily on driving him back to Autun. On reaching home Gilbert immediately went up to his study to write his "Notice to English visitors," and without saying a word securely pasted it up at the entrance. A few days later he heard from the proprietor of the Hótel de la Poste, that before leaving Mr. W---- had said, "Mr. Hamerton will settle the bill." It was a good thing for my husband that he gave so much consideration to the bringing up of his children, for indirectly he derived from it some benefit to his own health; for instance, not wishing them to be always confined to college, he used often to drive them to and from Autun; and in the summer, as he came back, he would just stop the pony for a few minutes at our gate to pick up the rest of the family and a hamper, then take us to a cool and shady dell divided from a little wood by the river Vesvre--the coldest water I ever bathed in; and as soon as Cocote was taken out of harness and left in the enjoyment of the fresh grass, we all tumbled into the icy water, and swam till our appetites were thoroughly sharpened for a hearty dinner in the lingering twilight. The children were also taken by their father to the hills, where they climbed about whilst he sketched; his little daughter Mary liked nothing better than to spend a day "au Pommoy" above the beautiful valley of the Canche, where the parents of our servant-girl lived. They were farmers in a very humble way, but they offered us heartily the little they possessed,--the new-laid eggs, the clotted cream, which the children delighted in, thickly spread upon black bread, and which the mother prepared in perfection; also frothy goat's milk, with walnuts and chestnuts in their season. Cocote, too, had free access to the dainty grass and crystal spring of their pasturage in the hollow behind the cottage. Whilst my husband painted and I read to him, we watched the children, who, bare-footed and bare-legged, turned up the stones in the river-bed seeking for trout and crayfish. In the course of these pleasant excursions Gilbert entered into conversation with every one he met--farmers, shepherdesses, cow-boys, and even beggars, learning what he could of their lives and thoughts, sympathizing with their labors and their wants, often conveying useful information to their minds, frequently on politics, sometimes on geography or science. He tried to explain to them the railways and telegraph, for many of the dwellers in these hilly regions had never seen a railroad, especially the old folk, who could no longer walk any great distance, and remembered Autun only as it was in the time of the diligences. He liked the polite, deferential manners of the French peasants and their quiet dignity; and they felt at ease with him because of his serious interest in what concerned them, and total absence of pride in the superiority of his station or learning. Wherever he went he liked to see the parish church, and generally found it worth his while, either artistically or historically. The cure was frequently to be met with, and not sorry to talk with a person better informed than most of his parishioners: it was for Gilbert another field to glean from, and on such occasions he generally managed to bring home a sheaf with him. It was most remarkable to see how well he got on with the Roman Catholic clergy, although his religious opinions were never hidden from them, and his attitude by no means conducive to hopes of conversion; but on the other hand, he was not aggressive, and did not turn into ridicule ceremonies or beliefs to which he remained a stranger. Perfectly firm in his own convictions, he respected those of other people, because his large sympathy understood the different wants of different natures, even when he had no share in them. He was always on visiting terms with _our_ curé (the one officiating at Tavernay--the nearest village to La Tuilerie), and on friendly terms with the Aumônier de l'Hôpital and the Aumônier de Collège (although the boys were not under his spiritual direction, their father considering it as a duty to let them choose their own religion when they were of age); later on l'Abbé Antoine, professor at the seminary, became a faithful and welcome visitor to La Tuilerie; even Monseigneur the Bishop of Autun gave a signal proof of his respect for Mr. Hamerton's character, which will be related in due course, and visited him afterwards so long as we remained in the Autunois. The technical difficulties of painting, which were giving my husband so much trouble to conquer, led him to speak not unfrequently of the advantages formerly afforded to students by the privilege of working in the same studios with their masters, and even of having some portions of the masters' pictures to execute under their personal and invaluable direction. He realized what a gain it would be, not only for beginners, but even for artists, to be acquainted with the best methods of the best artists, and at last, counting upon their well-known generosity, he resolved to make a general appeal to their experience. They were almost unanimously favorable to the idea, and furnished valuable notes, the substance of which was published in the "Portfolio." The letters are too technical, though very interesting, to be quoted here, but the eminent names of the writers will be a proof of the importance attached to the subject. I find those of Sir Frederick Leighton, Sir John Gilbert, Watts, Holman Hunt, Samuel Palmer, Calderon, Wyld, Dobson, Davis, Storey, etc., etc., in the notes still in my possession. My husband was himself in the habit of making experiments in painting and etching, though he deplored both the time and money so spent, and repeatedly resolved not to meddle any more with them; but he could not keep the resolution. His mind was so curious about all possible processes and technicalities, and his desire of perfection so great, that not only did he experiment in all the known processes, but invented new ones. Entries in the note-book like the following are of frequent occurrence:-- "Experiments with white zinc did not succeed." "This month tried sulphur with success. I discovered also that the three-cornered scraper is excellent for obtaining various breadths of line in the background." "I made a successful experiment in sandpaper mezzotint." "M. de Fontenay and I made _crême d'argent_ very cheaply indeed." "To-day I tried experiments on grains: the grains given by the sandpaper and rosin. That given by the fine glass-paper was the best." "Quite determined to put a stop to all experiments, in view of typographic drawings." Here is an important entry, August 19, 1875:-- "RESOLVED in future to confine myself exclusively to oil-painting and etching in all artistic work done for the public, except the designs for the bindings of my books, which may be done in water-colors. "RESOLVED also that there shall be as little as possible of copying and slavery in my artistic work, but that Etching shall be Etching, and Painting Painting." He had been working very hard, copying etchings for the new edition of "Etching and Etchers," and was thoroughly tired of it. I see in his diary:-- "Finished my plate after Rembrandt. N.B.--Will never undertake a set of copies again." "Felt it a great deliverance to be rid of plates for 'Etching and Etchers.'" A later note:-- "There is no technical difficulty for me in etching. I ought therefore to direct my energies against the artistic difficulties of composition, drawing, light and shade. Haden's 'Agamemnon' is the model for the kind of work I should like to be able to do in etching. Comprehensive sketching is the right thing." Meanwhile our boys were growing, and giving great satisfaction to their father by their application to and success in their studies; they always kept at the head of their class, and carried off a great number of prizes at the end of every scholastic year. The younger boy, Richard, evinced an early taste for the pictorial arts, and was gifted with a sure critical faculty and a natural talent for drawing. Although he had never taken regular drawing-lessons, he had often watched his father at work, had occasionally sketched and painted under his direction, and was receiving a sort of artistic education by what he saw at home of illustrated periodicals, engravings, and etchings sent for presentation or criticism. He was early tempted to try etching, and of course received encouragement and help; the first attempt was a success, as far as it went, and Mr. S. Palmer wrote about it:-- "Your son's etching has given pleasure to other than 'parental eyes.' 'What a sweet little etching,' said my wife, who saw it lying on the table; 'it is like an old master.' There is something touching in the sight of a beginner, full of curiosity and hope. My yearning is, 'O that he may escape the rocks on which I split--years wasted, any one of which would have given a first grounding in anatomy, indispensable anatomy, to have gone with the antique. The bones are the master-key; the marrowless bones are the talisman of all life and power in Art. Power seems to depend upon knowledge of structure; all surface upon substance; knowing this, and imbued with the central essence, we may venture to copy the appearance, perhaps even imitate it." Mr. Seeley also wrote, with sly humor: "Your boy's etching is capital. It would be interesting to know what processes this remarkable artist employs." Richard frequently expressed his intention of being a painter; but his father, though much pleased to notice in the boy a real tendency towards art, did not at all feel certain that there were in him the gifts indispensable to the making of an artist. I was often told that, despite the cleverness of his copies, and even of his caricatures, he seemed to lack invention and originality. However, it was understood that he would be allowed a fair trial,--but only after taking his degree of "Bachelier ès-lettres," for his father was of opinion that perhaps more for artists than for men in other professions, a liberal education was necessary to the development of the finest aptitudes. He also thought that the boys might now appreciate English poetry, and selected short passages from the best poets, which he read aloud in the evenings, whilst they followed with books in their hands; it accustomed them to the rhythm and to the music of the language, and the peculiar qualities of each piece were explained to them afterwards. Little Mary Susan also received encouragement in the practice of her music, for I see this entry on March 7, 1875: "My little daughter and I played piano and violin together to-day for the first time." Very slowly and gradually his health had improved, and he was in 1875 almost free from nervousness, but he had not yet dared to attempt railway travelling; he had occasion to write to Mr. Seymour Haden, and here is part of the reply:-- "First, I am delighted to hear that the improvement in your health maintains itself; next, that I shall be very happy to do you a plate for the 'Portfolio.' I was with Macmillan the other day, and heard from him that you were at work upon a new edition of 'Etching and Etchers.' He spoke so well of you and of your work, that I am _empressé_ to report him to you in this. It must be a great satisfaction to you, after the extraordinary life you have led, to find that it is producing such satisfactory results. May it and the good effect which attends it continue! And this brings me to speak of your railway malady. It does not differ from other cases of the kind in any one particular. It is an idiosyncracy. It is not to be got over by medicine (certainly not by chloral), but by time--or rather, by the difference induced in the constitution by age. A man may be subject to all you describe at forty, and actually free from such symptoms at fifty--and I should advise you to _test_ yourself, after so long an abstinence from this mode of travel, by a short journey now and then. No accumulative mischief could arrive--and you _may_ find, to your great satisfaction, that you have entirely lost your enemy. If you do, by all means come, pay us a visit, and see what we are doing in England. I have done an etching of Turner's 'Calais Pier,' 30 _inches square_, which is by many degrees the finest thing (if I may be permitted so superlative an expression) I have done or ever shall do. I mean to publish it about the close of the year. I have _built_ a press for printing it, and am having paper _made_ expressly, and real sepia (which is magnificent--both in color and price) got from the Adriatic for the ink! so that great things ought to _result_." And the result was certainly by far the finest of modern etchings, according to Mr. Hamerton's opinion; in some particulars he preferred the "Agamemnon," but the size of "Calais Pier" as an increase of difficulty was to be considered, and if the "Agamemnon" was an original conception, it cannot be said that "Calais Pier" was a copy--so much being due to interpretation. Later on, when my husband was in possession of this _chef-d'oeuvre_, it always occupied the place of honor in the house. Following Mr. Haden's advice, he now tried short railway journeys at intervals, by slow trains, so that he could get out frequently at the numerous stations,--not to allow the accumulating effect of the vibration,--and generally in the night. There are some short entries about it in the diary:-- "October 7, 1875. Went to Laisy in boat with M. de Fontenay; the day was most lovely. Came back in the train without feeling any inconvenience." "October 12, 1875. Went from Laisy to Etang by the river. Dined there; returned by train in the evening all right. We had no accidents, except on a little sunken rock after Chaseux, when M. de Fontenay's boat was upset." In this manner he used to go to Chalon (there was rather a long stoppage at Chagny for change of train) to stay two or three days with my mother and brother, who lived there. He was still anxious and uneasy, but he nerved himself to bear the discomfort, in the hope that he would get inured to it in time, and he used to close his eyes as soon as he was in the carriage, and to draw the curtains to avoid seeing the objects that we passed on the line. In the summer of 1875 he received from the new owner of Innistrynich an invitation to revisit the dear island. Nothing could have given him more pleasure. Mr. Muir gave him all the details of the improvements he had effected, but said:-- "I retained the old cottage, with its twelve small apartments, and added a new front, containing five rooms. "I saw Donald Macorquodale [whom my husband often had in the boat with him]; he was much pleased to hear that you had been inquiring about him. He is now getting frail, and not very able to work. He requested me to say that he was very glad to hear of you, and would be delighted to see you at Loch Awe. He sold the boats you were so kind as to give him, but he only received a small sum for them, having kept them too long." My husband never forgot his old servants, and showed his interest in them whenever he could; they had great affection and respect for him, mingled with awe, well knowing that, although he gave his orders kindly, he meant to be obeyed. There was a very trusty widow, who came to our house twice a week, and I remember finding her in tears, and asking what was the matter. "Ah! c'est Monsieur qui m'a grondée," she sobbed desperately. "But what has he said to put you in such a state?" "Oh! he did not say much; only, 'Lazarette, why will you scratch off the paint with the matches?' ... 'Mais quand Monsieur gronde,'" ... and there was a fresh explosion. It was well that my husband's health was better, for it enabled him to bear the saddening news of his uncle Thomas's approaching end; he had, for the last few months, grown weaker and weaker, till his sister wrote:-- "WEST LODGE. _September_ 1875. "The loss of my dear worthy brother is indeed a sad blow to me, and I was not able to attend the funeral.... I am better now, though the doctor is still in attendance upon me. I should indeed have liked you both to have been here, but I could not press you, or even expect you to run such a risk.... Still, I look forward to the pleasure of seeing you all at West Lodge before the winter sets in." It may be here briefly explained that Miss Susan Hamerton greatly needed her nephew's advice about money matters; they had been hitherto managed by her brother, and she had had no care about it; but now, after entrusting what she possessed to a person recommended by Mr. T. Hamerton, she had become aware that it was not safe, and was afraid of losing the savings she had been able to make, for she had no control over the capital. It was difficult to explain all this by letters, and she was anxious to give all the details by word of mouth, consequently she grew more and more pressing in the expression of the desire that her nephew should attempt the journey; he was not to be detained by the consideration of expense, for she intended to make him a present of some bank-shares which she no longer wanted, since her brother had left her an increase of income for her life. My husband resolved to undertake the long journey in the course of 1876, and to arrange his work in view of it. Besides his contributions to different periodicals, he had in the year 1875 entirely written "Round my House," prepared the new edition of "Etching and Etchers," got the notes necessary for the "Life of Turner," and given much consideration to a plan mentioned thus in the note-book: "December 28, 1875. Feel inclined to write a book on remarkable Frenchmen, such as the Ampères, Victor Jacquemont, the Curé d'Ars, and a few others who interest me." CHAPTER XIII. 1876-1877. "Round my House."--Journey to England after seven years' absence. --Friends in London.--Visit to Mr. Samuel Palmer.--Articles for the "Encyclopaedia Britannica."--Death of my sister.--Mr. Appleton. The note-book for 1876 opened with the following rules, written by my husband for his own guidance:-- "Rise at six in winter and five in summer. Go to bed at eleven in winter and ten in summer. There must be two literary sittings every day of two hours each. The first to be over as soon as possible, in order to leave me free for practical art work; the second to begin at five p.m., and end at seven p.m. "_Something_ really worth reading must be read every day, the quantity not fixed. "I must go out every day whatever the weather may be. "Time may be taken, no matter when, for putting things in order. The best way is to do it every morning before setting to work. It is better to try to keep things in order than to accumulate disorder. "Keep everything _quite_ in readiness for immediate work in literature and art. "When tired, rest completely, but never dawdle. Be either in harness or out of harness avowedly. Special importance is to be given to painting this year. Pictures are to be first painted in monochrome, in raw umber and white. Read one thing at a time in one language. All rules suspended during fatigue." At the beginning of the year Roberts Brothers had asked for a photograph of the now popular author of "The Intellectual Life." In April they acknowledged the receipt of two, and were sending some copies of the engraving from them. They also said:-- "Suppose we should wish to bring out an edition of 'Wenderholme' this autumn, would you abridge and rewrite it? Condensation would be likely to make it more powerful and more interesting. Or perhaps you would rather write an entirely new novel? We think such a novel as you could write would have a large sale. "The accompanying letters will interest you as proofs of your growing popularity. We mail you to-day, by request of Miss May Alcott, a copy of her father's clever little volume, 'Concord Days.' A fine old gentleman he is, the worthy father of the most popular of American authoresses." Here is Miss May Alcott's letter:-- "MY DEAR MR. HAMERTON,--I am pleased and proud that you should have considered my letter worthy an answer, and I am still more gratified to be allowed the satisfaction of selecting the best pictures of Concord's great man for you. Mr. Emerson has been for more than thirty years the most intimate friend of my father, as also Mrs. Emerson and mother; the daughters and myself growing up together. And as father is thought to know and understand the poet perhaps better than any other contemporary, I venture sending by post one of his books, which contains an essay on Mr. Emerson, which may interest you. It was thought so fine and true on its first appearance that it was published in illuminated form for private circulation only; but as there is not a copy of the small edition to be obtained, I send 'Concord Days' instead. This morning, on receipt of your very kind reply to my letter, I went to Mr. Emerson's study and read him the paragraph relating to himself, which pleased him exceedingly; and while his daughter Ellen stood smilingly beside him, he said, 'But I know Mr. Hamerton better than he thinks for, as I have read his earlier works, and though I did not meet him while in England, I value all he writes.' Then I showed him the two pictures which father and I thought the preferable likenesses, which I enclose by mail to you, though he produced a collection taken at Elliot and Fry's, Baker Street, London, from which we find none better on the whole than this head, which gives his exact expression, and the little one giving the _tout ensemble_ of the man we admire so much." Few things could have given greater pleasure to Mr. Hamerton than to learn that his works were appreciated by such a writer and thinker as Mr. Emerson, whose books he studied and enjoyed and quoted very frequently. But he was quite put out by the engraving of his portrait, which, indeed, could not be called a likeness. He wrote as much to Roberts Brothers, who replied: "We are not a bit disappointed to hear that you don't like the head, for we have come to consider the dislike of all authors to similar things as chronic." They offered, however, to have the plate corrected according to the victim's directions, and added: "But take heart upon the fact that nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand who look upon it believe it to be a facsimile of yourself, and where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." In another letter, they say again:-- "The head, which to you is an insurmountable defect, is favorably looked upon by everybody. If Mrs. Hamerton should hear the praise from fair lips she would certainly be jealous. However, the engraver will see how nearly he can conform to your wishes, and perhaps we may be able to please you yet." No praises from lips however fair would have induced me to put up with the portrait, and I said so frankly, without being at all influenced by jealousy, for in my opinion the original was far handsomer in expression and bearing than the likeness; but Roberts Brothers, who had never seen the original, still clung to the obnoxious engraving, and wrote again: "If _we_ are deluded, and happy in that delusion, why should _you_ care? Mrs. Hamerton, she must confess it, is jealous of our fair countrywomen." Nevertheless it was withdrawn in deference to our wishes. Mr. Powers was now and then discreetly reminding Mr. Hamerton of his promised pictures, and after hearing from the painter that they were _safe_ (whatever that may have brought to his mind) sent these verses:-- "MY PICTURES. "A famous artist over the sea Promised to paint two pictures for me. "He wrought, but his colors would not show His pure ideal and heart's warm glow. "And so the paintings are still unsent, Though years ago their spirit went. "Two pictures hang in my treasured thought-- My dream of those the artist wrought. "They are sweet and fadeless, and soothe my sight, When weary and sad, with a strange delight. "But the light which shows their marvellous art Is the generous glow of the painter's heart. "This is the way that there came to me The gift of pictures from over the sea." "ANSWER. "There's a parson out West in Chicago, To whom I did promise--long ago-- A couple of pictures, Not fearing strictures Of the critical folk of Chicago. "Time passed, and the works were not finished; Time passed, yet with hope undiminished, That parson he wrote, And my conscience he smote, And so was I greatly punished. "For a promise is not a pie-crust, And 'I will' is changed to 'I must' When you say to a friend-- 'Two pictures I'll send,' And he orders the _cadres_ in trust. "Then the parson he sighed in despair-- 'Where are my two pictures?--O where?' In regions ideal Far, far from the real, Like cloudscapes that melt into air. "And then I thought--'Now it grows serious, For deferred hope is most deleterious; Yet how can I toil In color and oil In a world where the publishers weary us?' "Ah me! for a month with the flowers, And the sweet April sunshine and showers. To paint with delight From morning till night, For my dear friend, Horatio N. Powers!" It may be said here that the pictures were completed and packed off in the beginning of October, 1876. In view of a series of large etchings Mr. Hamerton went to Decize, on the Loire, where he hoped to find material for several subjects. He made twenty sketches of the town, river, boats, etc., and then called upon M. Hanoteau, the painter, who had expressed a desire for his acquaintance. There is a short note relating the visit:-- "April 21, 1876. Arrived at ten a.m., and had a pleasant day watching him paint. I also saw the interior of his atelier, and the things in progress. He only paints in the immediate neighborhood. Always from nature. When we had finished _déjeuner_ we went together to a little _étang_ in the wood, near to which were some old cottages. He painted that bit on a small panel. After completing his sitting he showed me part of the road to Cercy-la-Tour, and a gentleman with him showed me the rest. "Had a deal of art talk with Hanoteau, also with a young sculptor called Gautherin." This young sculptor was poor, but energetic and courageous; he rapidly made his way to fame, but unfortunately died too soon to reap the benefit of his remarkable talent. The idea of an abridged "Wenderholme" had been accepted by the author, who had written to Messrs. Blackwood about it, and who received the satisfactory answer that, "though they had sustained a loss with the first publication, they thought that the reputation and popularity of the writer having considerably increased, 'Wenderholme' would sell well in their 'Library Series of Novels.'" In consequence the revision was begun at once, for Roberts Brothers had also written, "Whenever you feel inclined to take up 'Wenderholme,' we shall be glad to comply with your demand." And there followed a new proposition in the same letter:-- "Since writing you about a new novel, we have had an inspiration, and have already acted upon it--a series of novelettes, to be published anonymously, the secret of authorship, for a period, to rest entirely with the author and publisher. We shall call it the 'No Name Series,' and issue it in neat, square 18mo volumes of about 250 pages, to sell for one dollar. "Those to whom we have suggested the idea are mightily pleased, and we are even tickled with the great fun we expect to have--something like a new experience of the 'Great Unknown' days of Sir Walter Scott. We have several promises from well-known authors, and we all agree that you must write one of them. Take your own time to do so, and when you send us the 'copy' we will advance £50 towards the copyright. People say it will be impossible to keep the secret, for an author's style cannot be hidden; but though it may be easy enough to say, 'Oh! this is Hamerton; anybody can tell his style,' _if it is not admitted_, there will be uncertainty enough to make it exciting, and create a demand--we hope a large one." Although my husband had not been so well in the spring (it was the worst time of the year for him), he decided to start for England early in June to see the Paris Salon and the English Academy. He did not ask me to go with him, for our daughter had had quite recently a bad attack of bronchitis--at one time we had even feared inflammation of the lungs--and the greatest care against the possibility of colds had been recommended. However, he thought he would be equal to the journey, and gave me a promise to stop whenever he felt unwell. He reached Paris all right, did his work there, and had a kind letter from Mr. Seeley, who said:-- "I was greatly pleased to receive your card this morning, and learn that you had had a successful journey. Now you will certainly come and see me, won't you? Brunet-Debaines is here, and will remain till the end of next week. If you are with us then, we will get him to Kingston, and have a day on the Thames together, and all of us shall make sketches." It was very tempting. But the next news was not so good, and Mr. Seeley wrote again:-- "If you have lost your appetite in a big town the remedy is plain. Come to Kingston at once. You will not be much troubled with noise there, and you can paddle about on the river and get hungry, or go flying madly about on a bicycle, if you have kept up the practice. There is a big bedroom empty, and waiting for you." The journey was resumed as far as Amiens, but the enemy proved too strong to be overcome by courage and resolution, and after resting two days my husband came back home by easy stages, having only told me the truth after leaving Amiens, to prevent my going to him at any cost. He reached La Tuilerie on the first of July, and I see in the diary: "Rested at home. Very glad to be there." The attempt was not attended by any lasting bad effects; he immediately regained his appetite and usual health; but his Aunt Susan was sorely disappointed. He tried to soothe her by explaining what he believed to be the combined causes of his breakdown: first the intense heat, which had made his stay in Paris very trying; the fatigue he had undergone there; and lastly the weakness supervening after the loss of appetite, also due to the abnormal heat, which was causing several sunstrokes every day, even in England. He announced his intention of making another attempt with me in the autumn, when the chances would be more in his favor. Since the beginning of the year the study of painting had become predominant, and had necessitated rather a heavy outlay, because Gilbert's schemes were always so elaborate and complex--drawing-boards of different sizes, every one of them with a tin cover painted and varnished; some for water-colors, others for charcoals; canvases for oils and monochromes, wooden and porcelain palettes, pastilles, tubes, portable easels, sunshades, knapsacks, stools, brushes, block-books, papers for water-colors and chalk studies, tinted and white, numberless portfolios to class the studies, and--a gig, to carry the paraphernalia to greater distances and in less time than the four-wheeled carriage required. I was against the gig, but the boys were of course delighted, and declared with their father that it had become "absolutely necessary." I see in the diary: "July 30, 1876. In the evening went to Autun on Cocote; enjoyed the ride considerably. Brought back the gig. Wife sulky." The expenses of the year had been very heavy, owing to several causes; first some house repairs had become inevitable, and the landlord offering us only the option of doing them at our own cost or leaving the house, we had to order them. The roofs were in such a state that in stormy weather we had our ceilings and wall-papers drenched with rain-water, and indeed it had even begun to make its way _through_ the ceilings into the inhabited rooms. The diary for March 12, 1876, says: "A very stormy day, the wildest of the whole year. We arranged the tents (Stephen and I) in the attic, to prevent the rain from coming into our bedroom." Then there had been boats made for the boys (cheap boats, it is true, made by common joiners). They were well deserved, I acknowledge; the boys had had each an accessit at the "Concours Académique," and both were mentioned with praise by the Sous-Préfet at the public distribution of prizes. Besides, what was still more important, Stephen had successfully passed his examination for the "Baccalauréat." Lastly, there had been an expensive and unproductive journey, and there was the prospect of another. All this in the same year somewhat alarmed me. The gig was not an important concern, being made, like the four-wheeled carriage, from designs of my husband's, by ordinary wheelwrights and blacksmiths; but though admitting its usefulness, and even desirableness, I thought we might have done without it. In the beginning of August my husband told me the plan of "Marmorne" (for the "No Name Series"), and I had been afraid that it would be too melodramatic; however, I was charmed when he read me the beginning, and my fears were soon dispelled by the strength and simplicity of the narrative. On October 4 we started for England, leaving my mother in charge of the house and children; we stopped at Fontainebleau in the morning, and after _déjeuner_ visited the forest pretty thoroughly in a carriage. After dinner we went on to Paris, where we stayed only four days for fear of its effects, and proceeded to Calais by a night-train. Luckily for Gilbert, he could sleep very well in a railway carriage, and sea-sickness was unknown to him. We crossed in the "Castalia," in very rough weather indeed, the waves jumping over the deck, and covering everything there with foam; at one time there came a huge one dashing just against my husband's block as he was sketching, and drenched him from head to foot. However, he took a warm bath at Dover, changed his clothes, and felt only the better for the passage. Mr. Seeley's house was reached at midnight, and very happy was Mr. Hamerton to meet his friend again, and to be once more in England after an enforced absence of seven years. On the morrow our kind host and hostess took us to Hampton Court Palace, thence to Richmond Park by Twickenham, and altogether made us pass a most pleasant day. The following day was reserved for the National Gallery, and I find this note in the diary: "I was delighted to see the Turner collection again, and greatly struck by the luminous quality of the late works. This could not possibly have been got without the white grounds." On the Sunday we went to Balham to dine early with Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan, and met Mr. Ralston and Mr. Green, the historian. It was noted as a very interesting day by my husband. On the sixth day we took leave of Mr. and Mrs. Seeley, and took a night-train for Peterborough, where we visited the cathedral and town to await the dusk; then on to Doncaster and Knottingly. From Knottingly we did not see clearly how to reach Featherstone, and were greatly embarrassed, when a coachman, who had just driven his master to the station, foresaw the possibility of a handsome tip, and offered to take us--without luggage--in his trap. It was pitch dark, he had no lamps, the road was all ruts, and the horse flew along like mad. We only held to our seats--or rather kept resuming them, in a succession of bumps, now on one side, now on the other, and up in the air--by grasping the sides of the trap with all our might, till a sudden stop nearly threw us all out; at any rate it did throw us in a heap over each other at the bottom of the trap--unhurt. It was with a sense of immense relief that we plodded the rest of our way to the vicarage, where we arrived at eleven. The diary says: "October 17, 1876. Saw my Aunt Susan again for the first time since 1869, at which time I hardly hoped ever to see her again." It was a great comfort to Gilbert to witness the affectionate care taken of his aunt by her niece, Annie Hinde, and her brother Ben, with whom she lived. He had always entertained a great liking for these cousins, but it was increased during his stay at the vicarage by their hospitable and friendly ways, and by his gratitude for their having given to his dear relative as much of peaceful satisfaction as it was in their power to do. Miss Susan Hamerton was aged, no doubt, but she was still able to do everything for herself, and to occupy her time usefully in housekeeping, sewing, reading, writing, and going out. She still retained her strong will, and manifested it in a way which nearly destroyed all the pleasure of the meeting with her nephew--and would have done so, had he not yielded to it by consenting to a transfer of bank-shares (in his favor) which involved great liabilities. She would not listen to an explanation of the risk, and considered it ungracious to look the gift-horse in the mouth. "It had been a capital investment," she said, and she remained absolutely opposed to the sale of the shares. Her nephew had to accept the gift as it was--so that instead of relieving anxiety it created a new one. However, having come to give her a little of the sunshine of happiness, he decided not to let it be clouded over. We stayed a month in happy and cordial intercourse, my husband spending the intervals of work in long talks and walks with his aunt, and when the time for our departure arrived, the sadness of parting was soothed by the hope of meeting again, now that Gilbert seemed to have recovered the power of travelling. On our return to London we lunched with Mr. Seymour Haden, who took my husband to the room in which he kept his collections, where they had a long talk on art matters, and where he gave him a proof of the "Agamemnon," whilst I was having a chat over family interests, children, and music with Mrs. Haden. In the afternoon we called upon George Eliot and Mr. Lewes, who were very friendly indeed. I was greatly struck by George Eliot's memory, for she remembered everything I had told her--seven years ago--about our rustic life, and her first question was, "Are your children well, and do you still drive them to college in a donkey-chaise?" She was gravely sympathetic in alluding to the cause of our long absence from London, and when I said how great was my husband's satisfaction in being there again, she seized both of my hands softly in hers, and asked in the low modulations of her rich voice, "Is there no gap?" ... "Thank God!" I answered, "there is none." Then she let go my hands, and smiling as if relieved she said, "Let us talk over the past years since you came;" and then she told me of the growing interest manifested by the "thinking world" in the works of my husband. "We are all marvelling at the _maturity_ of talent in one so young still, and look forward hopefully for what he may achieve." The day after we saw Mr. Calderon in his studio, painting two beautiful decorative pictures; there was a garland of flowers in one of them--the freshness of their coloring was admirable. We missed Mr. Woolner, who was out, and thence went to Mr. Macmillan's place of business, and with him to Knapdale, where we dined and stayed all night. As soon as dessert had been put on the table, Mrs. Macmillan begged to be excused for a short time, as she wished to see that Mr. Freeman (who was on a visit, but not well enough to come down) had been made comfortable. On hearing of Mr. Freeman's presence at Knapdale, my husband expressed his regrets at not being able to see him, and these regrets were kindly conveyed to the invalid by Mrs. Macmillan, who brought back his request to Mr. Hamerton for a visit in his bedroom. I heard with satisfaction that Mr. Freeman had been very cordial, and had shown no trace of resentment at what had passed at a former meeting at Mr. Macmillan's house. The conversation had then turned on Ireland, and Mr. Macmillan was, like my husband, for granting autonomy. This set Mr. Freeman growling at the use of a Greek word, and he exclaimed, "Why can't you speak English and say Home Rule, instead of using Greek, which you don't know!" My husband flushed with anger, and recalled the irritable historian--not without severity--to a proper sense of the respect due to their host, at the same time paying a tribute to Mr. Macmillan's remarkable abilities. Later in the evening the word "gout" was mentioned. "There again," Mr. Freeman exclaimed, "why can't we call it toe-woe!" But this was said in a joke, and accompanied with a laugh. Wherever we went, we heard praises of the "Portfolio." Throughout his life Mr. Hamerton remained, not only on good terms, but on friendly terms with every one of his publishers; and whenever he went to London he looked forward with great pleasure to meeting them in succession. There were, of course, different degrees of intimacy, but the intercourse was never other than agreeable. For many years he had wished to know Mr. Samuel Palmer personally, and the wish was reciprocated. Now an opportunity presented itself, and one afternoon saw us climbing Redhill in pleasant anticipation; but when after admiring the view we rang the bell of the artist's secluded abode, we were told that Mr. Palmer had been very ill lately, was still keeping his bed, and could see no one. It was a great disappointment, and some words to this effect were written on a card and sent up to the invalid. Soon after Mrs. Palmer came down and feelingly expressed her husband's sincere regrets; she told us of his illness, which had left him very weak and liable to relapses, and of the pleasure he would have derived from a long talk with Mr. Hamerton on artistic topics. We had been shown into the dining-room, which evidently, for the present, was not used, though it was warmed by a good fire, but darkened by the blinds being down and the curtains drawn. The rays of a golden sunset diffused through the apertures a strange and mysterious glow, which suddenly seemed to surround and envelope an apparition, standing half visible on the threshold of the noiselessly opened door. A remarkably expressive head emerged from a bundle of shawls, which moved forward with feeble and tottering steps--it was Mr. Palmer. His wife could not trust her eyes, but as soon as she became convinced of the reality of his presence, she hastened to make him comfortable in an arm-chair by the fire, and to arrange the shawls over his head and knees with the most touching solicitude. "I could not resist it," he pleaded; "I have looked forward to this meeting with so much longing." His eyes sparkled, his countenance became animated, and regardless of his wraps, he accompanied his fluent talk with eloquent gestures--to the despair of his wife, who had enough to do in replacing cap and rugs. He put all his soul and energy (and now there was no lack of it) into his speech. The art-talk kindled all the fire of enthusiasm within him, and he told us anecdotes of Turner and Blake, and held us for a long time fascinated with the charm of his conversation. He could listen too, and with so vivid an interest and sympathy that his mere looks were an encouragement. My husband was afraid of detaining him, but he declared he felt quite well and strong--"the visiting angels had put to flight the lurking enemy;" he had even an appetite, which he would satisfy in our company. Nothing loath, we sat down to an excellent tea with delicious butter and new-laid eggs, with the impression of sharing the life of elves, and of being entertained by a genie at the head of the table and served by a kind fairy. This feeling originated no doubt in the small stature of Mr. and Mrs. Palmer; in the strange effect of light under which our host first appeared to us, and lastly in the noiseless promptitude with which the repast was spread on the table, whilst the darkness of the room gave way to brightness, just as happens in fairytales. It is curious that my husband and myself should have received exactly the same impression, and a lasting one. The journey to Paris was resumed by slow night-trains without disturbance to his health, and the day after his arrival he had a long talk about etching with M. Leopold Flameng, who encouraged my husband's attempts, and even offered to correct his defective plates rather than see them destroyed; but this was declined, though the valuable advice was gratefully accepted. M. Flameng looked very happy; he was in full success, very industrious, and fond of his art; married to a devoted wife of simple tastes, and already able to discern and foster in his son the artistic tendencies which have made him celebrated since. They were a very cheerful and united family. Two days after we had _déjeuner_ with M. Rajon. Of all the French etchers who, from time to time, went to London for the "Portfolio," I believe M. Rajon was the one best known in English society, where his liveliness and amiability, as well as his great talent, found appreciators. Like almost every other artist, he did not attach so much importance to what he could do well, as to what he could never master. His ambition was to become a celebrated painter, but his pictures gave little hope of it; they were heavy and dull in color, and entirely devoid of the charm he lent to his etchings. He showed himself very grateful for what Mr. Hamerton had done for his reputation. Accidentally, as he was admiring the design of some very simple earrings I wore, I said that I did not care so much for jewels as for lace, on which he answered he was extremely fond of both--on women--and invited me to go and see a collection of old laces he was forming. I was obliged to decline, for our time was running short; but he made us promise to pay a long visit to his studio during our next sojourn in Paris. We reached home safely, and found my mother and the children all well. There had been a great step made in the possibility of travelling this year, though it had been attended by many returns of anxiety and nervousness; still, it was a not inconsiderable gain to know that in case a journey became absolutely necessary it might be achieved, and our stay in London and Paris had been of importance in allowing my husband to study seriously in the public galleries. Mr. Powers had been delighted to receive his long-delayed pictures, and wrote his thanks in terms of enthusiasm; he said that many people had been admiring them, and that a well-known painter had exclaimed, "Now I swear by Hamerton." About the growing popularity he wrote: "As I said before, you win the hearts of men, and your name is now a household word in many quarters of this country." It was exactly, in almost identical words, what Roberts Brothers had already written. And this was true not only in America, for many English letters echoed it. "Round my House" was very well received. There was an important and favorable review in the "Times," and one in the "Débats" by Taine. In the beginning of the year Gilbert had undertaken the painting and decoration of the staircase and lobby, which occasioned a great amount of labor and fatigue, and interfered with his other work. He gave it up at my entreaty, and only directed the painter, being thus enabled to devote more time to the articles on "Drawing" in preparation for Messrs. Black's new edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," which were finished in February. Soon after he told me of a plan for a new book, the title of which he meant to be "Human Intercourse," and which would require a large number of memoranda. We all liked the idea in the family circle when it was explained, and he began immediately to gather materials. At the same time he continued his readings for the biographies of remarkable Frenchmen, and he contemplated the task with deep interest and earnestness. The year 1877, which had begun so auspiciously, had in store for my husband one of the lasting sorrows of his life. On the morning of March 11 he received a telegram announcing the death of his beloved sister-in-law, Caroline Pelletier, who had died at Algiers of meningitis, leaving three young children to the care of their desolate. father. It was a heavy blow, an irreparable loss. She had been like both a daughter and sister, and her affection had always been very sweet to him. The shock was so great that his health suffered in consequence, and the nervousness reappeared. It was of Caroline he was thinking when he wrote in "Human Intercourse" this passage about a wife's relatives: "They may even in course of time win such a place in one's affection that if they are taken away by Death they will leave a great void and an enduring sorrow. I write these lines from a sweet and sad experience. Only a poet can write of these sorrows. In prose one cannot sing,-- "'A dirge for her the doubly dead, in that she died so young.'" M. Pelletier still continued with his children to spend the vacations at La Tuilerie, but the joy fulness of these holidays was now replaced by sorrow and regrets; the evenings were particularly trying, for of late years they had been very merry. Our children having taken a great fancy to acting charades, we all took part in them by turns. Their Aunt Caroline and their father were the stars of the company, and to this day they recollect her irresistible sprightliness as a coquettish French kitchen-maid attempting the conquest of their father, in the character of the typical Englishman of French caricatures. She smiled, curtsied, and whirled about him, handling her brass pans so daintily, tossing them so dexterously, that the bewildered and dazzled islander could not resist the enchantress, and joined enthusiastically in the chorus of the song she had improvised,-- "La femme que l'on préfére C'est toujours la cuisiniére," while she played the accompaniment with a wooden spoon upon the lids of the pans. Her brother-in-law achieved unqualified success in the part of the Englishman. He had kept on purpose an immense chimney-pot hat and a tartan plaid which he used to perfection, and his "Oh's!" and "Ah's!" were of such ludicrous prolongation, and his gait so stiff, and his comical blunders delivered with so much of haughty assurance, that he "brought down the house." It was seldom that my husband consented to take an active part in games: he generally preferred being a spectator; but whether acting or listening, charades were one of the few pastimes for which he had a taste,--it seems the more strange since he did not care for the theatre, though he liked plays to be read to him. I suppose that the feeling of being penned in a crowded place was insupportable to him. After the death of my sister, some years had to elapse before we could bear to see charades again. On May 25 my husband had the pleasure of bringing home from the railway station Mr. Appleton, editor of the "Academy," for whom he had a great regard. His notes say:-- "We passed a very pleasant evening, and did not go to bed till after twelve. "26th. Walked with Mr. Appleton to Pré-Charmoy in the morning. In the afternoon took him to Autun and showed him the Roman arches, the Gothic walls, the cathedral, the Chemin des Tours, etc., etc. A very pleasant day. We got home in time for dinner, found the boys at home, and talked till one in the morning. "27th. Took Mr. Appleton to the railway in the morning, with regrets, and a certain sadness on account of his health." Mr. Appleton was on his way to Egypt by his doctor's advice. He was singularly amiable and sympathetic. He thought, and said simply, that very likely he had not long to live, and dared not marry on that account, though he often felt solitary. He suffered from asthma, and could only sleep with the windows of his bedroom wide open, and a bright wood fire burning in the chimney. He had promised to pay us another visit if he were spared, but alas! we never saw him again. As the biographies advanced, the author grew uncertain about the title he would give them. It could not be "Celebrated Frenchmen," because some of them would not exactly answer to the qualification. He had thought of "Earnest Frenchmen," but Mr. Seeley objected, and said, "The word 'earnest' has got spoilt. It was used over and over again till it got to sound like cant, and then people began to laugh at it. How would 'Modern Frenchmen' do?" It was deemed a perfectly suitable title, and given to the book. At the end of the summer Mr. Seeley and his wife paid us a flying visit on their way back from Switzerland. It was a great pleasure to see them again. Shortly after them M. Brunet-Debaines came, and I could not help directing my husband's attention to the simplicity of his arrangements for working from nature; a small stool, upon which was fixed a canvas or a drawing-board, and a color-box, were all he required; however, I was told that "wants varied with individuals." Hitherto Mr. Hamerton's plan about painting had been to begin several pictures at once, to allow them to dry; but now he was sick of remaining so long over the same pieces of work, and he decided to paint only two pictures at a time, and to use drying materials. He had succeeded in mastering the technicality of charcoal drawing, and had made an arrangement with the Autotype Company for the reproduction of some drawings in this medium. CHAPTER XIV. 1878-1880. "Marmorne."--Paris International Exhibition.--"Modern Frenchmen." --Candidature to the Watson Gordon Chair of Fine Arts.--The Bishop of Antun.--The "Life of Turner." The important literary works undertaken by Mr. Hamerton in the year 1878 were "Modern Frenchmen" and a "Life of Turner." The artistic work remained unsatisfactory to the severe self-criticism of the artist, who kept destroying picture after picture, notwithstanding his serious studies and experiments in various modes and methods of painting. He succeeded better with charcoals and monochromes, and sent several finished subjects to be reproduced by the Autotype Company. Mr. S. Palmer wrote about it: "If I had twenty years before me, I should like to spend them on monochromes and _etching_." In the same letter he went on:-- "Life being spared, your 'Marmorne,' the fame of which had already arrived, is the next reading treat on my list. You call it your 'little book,' a recommendation to me, for, with few exceptions, I have found small books and small pictures the most beautiful, and I doubt not that you know better than myself how much almost all three-volume novels (including Scott's) would be improved, _as works of art_, by condensation into one. "Both yourself and Mrs. Hamerton are often mentally present with us here: the evening of our first, and, alas! only meeting is among the vivid pleasures of memory, and a repetition is a cherished pleasure of _hope_. I will only add that I fear you are killing yourself with overwork, and that you should put yourself under a repressive domestic police." Some time before, my husband had received from G. H. Lewes a letter with this address: "Mr. Adolphus Segrave, care of P. G. Hamerton, Esq., Pré-Charmoy, Autun." George Eliot and Mr. Lewes had been reading "Marmorne," and had never entertained the slightest doubt about the authorship, though the book was published under the assumed name of Adolphus Segrave. The story had been greatly appreciated by both of them, and especially the style in which it was told. Such high praise was in accordance with what Mr. Palmer had previously said to Mr. Seeley; namely, that "he considered Mr. Hamerton as the first prose-writer of his time." It may be remembered that a cousin of my husband's, Mr. H. Milne, had called upon us at Innistrynich, and had since bought his little property. He heard of our last visit to Yorkshire, and, not aware of his relative's trouble in regard to railway travelling, had felt hurt at his apparent neglect. Luckily my husband heard of it through his Aunt Susan, and immediately wrote to explain matters. Mr. H. Milne, who had known all about the pecuniary situation, now answered:-- "I can assure you that it is very pleasing to me to know that your career has been so successful as to enable you to give your sons an education to fit them to grapple with the difficulties people have to meet with nowadays to make them comfortable, and to do so is all the more satisfactory when accomplished by their own exertions. My mother [the lady who served as model and suggestion for Mrs. Ogden in 'Marmorne'] still retains unimpaired all her faculties, and looks much the same as when you were here. We shall celebrate her eighty-sixth birthday on March 15. She really is wonderful, and a marvel to every one, and particularly so to her doctor, who on no occasion has ever prevailed on her to take one drop of medicine, notwithstanding he persists in coming to see her twice a week--for what reasons seems quite past my mother's comprehension." The pecuniary situation had certainly improved, which was a relief to my husband, for his children were growing up, and losses due to non- remunerative work and ill-health had to be gradually made good. There seemed to be a fate adverse to his making money, even by his most successful works. Here is "Marmorne" as an example, published in America, in England, in France, both in Hachette's "Bibliothèque des meilleurs Romans Étrangers," and as a feuilleton in the "Temps," also in the Tauchnitz collection, unanimously well received by the press; said to be "_le_ roman de l'année" by the "Revue des Deux Mondes," and still bringing considerably less than £200 to the author's purse. It was a great disappointment to the publishers also. Roberts Brothers wrote: "Of 'Marmorne' we have only sold 2,000 copies; there ought to have been 10,000 sold;" and Mr. Blackwood said: "The sales have been rather disappointing to us after the attention and favorable impression the work attracted; we had looked for a larger and more remunerative demand." The character of the scenery in the Autunois pleased Mr. Hamerton more and more, though it lacked the grandeur of real mountains. He was particularly sensitive to the beauty of its color, which reminded him sometimes of the Scotch Highlands, and was said to be very like that of the Roman Campagna in summer-time. Such notes as the following are frequent in his diary:-- "January 11, 1878. Went to Fontaine la Mère; beautiful drive the whole way. Was delighted with the Titian-like quality of the landscape. Much of the sylvan scenery reminded me of Ruysdaël. Took five sketches." Throughout this year my husband gave a great deal of his time to his aunt's affairs, which were in a deplorable state, owing to the dishonesty of her lawyers; accounts for several years past had to be gone over, cleared up, and settled, and at so great a distance the proceedings involved a heavy correspondence. However, the help given was efficacious, and Miss Hamerton's independence was secured in the end. In the summer Gilbert had to relinquish the river-baths that he enjoyed so much. In the two preceding years he had remarked that he was often unwell and agitated after a swim, but had kept hoping that the effect might be transitory; it was, however, now renewed with growing intensity every time he took a cold bath, so that, with much regret, he had to give them up. He used to say with a shade of melancholy, that we must resign ourselves to the gradual deprivation of all the little pleasures of existence,--even of the most innocent ones,--but that the hardest for him to renounce would be work. Having borne the journey to England in 1877 without bad results to his health, he now decided to attempt a visit to the Paris International Exhibition. He was very anxious to ascertain the present state of the fine arts all over the globe, and if possible to make the best of this opportunity. On the day appointed for starting, and whilst he was packing up, Mr. R. L. Stevenson just happened to call without previous notice. What a bright, winning youth he was! what a delightful talker! there was positively a sort of radiance about him, as if emanating from his genius. We had never seen him before; we only knew his works, but he seemed like a friend immediately. Listening to his fluent, felicitous talk, his clear and energetic elocution, his original ideas and veins of thought, was a rare treat, and his keen enjoyment of recovered health and active life was really infectious. He could not remain seated, but walked and smoked the whole of the afternoon he remained with us. Knowing that he had lately been dangerously ill, I ventured to express my fear that the smoking of endless cigarettes might prove injurious. "Oh, I don't know," he said; "and yet I dare say it is; but you see, Mrs. Hamerton, as there are only a very limited number of things enjoyable to an individual in this world, _these_ must be enjoyed to the utmost; and if I knew that smoking would kill me, still I would not give it up, for I shall surely die of _something_, very likely not so pleasant." Although the shutters were closed in all the rooms that were not to be used in our absence, they were opened again to let him see the etchings on the walls; for he had a fine taste, not only for the beauties of nature, but also for artistic achievements. We felt it most vexatious to be obliged to leave that very evening, but my husband managed to remain with Mr. Stevenson till the last available minute, by asking me to pack up his things for him. I remember that after reading the "Inland Voyage" I had told my husband how I had been charmed by it, and had begged to be given everything which came from the same pen; but at that time we were afraid that such a delicate and refined talent would not bring popularity to the author; happily we were mistaken,--perhaps only to a certain extent, however,--as his most successful works belong to a later and quite different genre. At the recommendation of M. Rajon, we went to a quaint little hotel in Paris, near La Muette, well known to artists and men of letters, and patronized, for its quietness, by some of the most famous, being usually let in apartments to persons who brought their own servants with them. Its situation, close to the Bois de Boulogne, made our returns from the exhibition easy and pleasant--so easy, indeed, that when we had to spend the evening in Paris, and could find no carriage to take us there, we merely went back to our headquarters, where we had the choice of railway, tramways, and omnibuses for every part of Paris. According to our promise we went to meet M. Rajon at his studio, and amongst other things saw a beautiful portrait of him, which, however, was so much flattered that for some time I hesitated about the likeness. He was represented on horseback, with a long flowing cloak, and a sombrero casting a strong shadow over one of his eyes, which was afflicted with a weakness of the eyelid, which kept dropping down so frequently that the pupil was seldom seen for any time; the horse was a thoroughbred; two magnificent greyhounds (the originals we could admire, at rest upon a raised platform of carved oak and red cushions) ran alongside of him, and this tall-looking, dignified, romantic rider was--little, spare, merry M. Rajon. Gossip whispered that he had been somewhat intoxicated by his sudden fame, and had been, for a while, desirous of showing off, so that he had brought back from England the thoroughbred and the greyhounds to be noticed in the "Allée des Cavaliers," but that not having been accustomed to sit a horse before, his thoroughbred had flung him against a tree so severely that the taste for equitation had gone out of him for ever. Be this as it may, M. Rajon was far from being vainglorious; he knew his value as an artist, frankly and openly enjoyed his success, but remained simple, urbane, and courteous. He told us that he could only give _two hours_ a day to original work, and that his mother (a simple woman for whom art remained an incomprehensible mystery) could not admit this limitation. At that time he was spending money rather lavishly--giving _fêtes_ in his studio to celebrated actors and actresses, musicians, singers, poets, and artists, and the expenses were sometimes a cause of momentary embarrassment; then his simple mother would say: "Why need you trouble yourself about it? You work very little--then work twice as much, which won't tire you, and you'll have twice as much money." She could not, he said, be made to understand that this prolonged labor would be worthless, because the inspiring flame would be burned out. Mr. Woolner arrived in Paris a few days after Mr. Hamerton, and they spent a whole day together in the sculpture galleries of the Louvre. Mr. Woolner remembered that old Madame Mohl, having read my husband's works, had expressed a wish to renew the acquaintance of former days, and would be glad to see us both at tea-time--any day that might suit us. A week later we called upon the wonderfully preserved old lady, who was delighted to receive a visit from a rising celebrity--though a host of celebrities had passed through her drawing-room. She complained of being _délaisée_ by the young generation. Still, she remained lively and gracious; her quick intelligence and ready memory were unimpaired by her great age, and it was with eagerness that she seized upon another opportunity for narrating her treasured-up stories of renowned people, particularly of the two Ampères, whom she had known intimately. She was still living in the same house that they had inhabited together, when Mr. Mohl kindly gave them the benefit of his more practical sense in household management. Madame Mohl was rather severe about Jean Jacques Ampère, whom she called a "young coxcomb," and "an egotist." She was not sentimental, and had no sympathy with or pity for the love so long faithful to Madame Récamier; nay, I thought I could detect in her strictures the unconscious feminine jealousy of a lady whose salon had been forsaken by one of its "lions" for a more attractive one, and who had resented it bitterly. But André Marie Ampère she praised unreservedly, with the warmth of most exalted admiration. It was very funny to see the little lady curled up on a couch, propped by cushions, running over her strings of memories with pleased alacrity, then jumping down in her stockings to pour out tea for her guests in utter disregard of her shoes, which lay idly by the sofa, even when we took leave of her; and as she accompanied us to the door, the white stockings conspicuously displayed themselves at every step, without the slightest attempt at concealment. (At that time black stockings would have been thought an abomination.) Almost every morning saw Mr. Hamerton in the exhibition before the crowd of visitors arrived, so that he was able to study in peace and profitably. He had had a card-case, and cards of a convenient size and thickness, made especially to take notes upon, and he devoted a separate card to every picture worth studying. It was a very convenient plan, with alphabetical classification for references; every time he went he took with him a fresh supply, and was not encumbered with those he had already filled up. Generally some etcher met him by appointment, and together they selected pictures to be reproduced for the "Portfolio." His evenings were mostly taken up by invitations; and it was well for his wife that she had been mercifully exempted by nature from jealous tendencies, for the ladies paid the author of "Marmorne" such a tribute of admiration that he was sometimes abashed by their fervor, yet never intoxicated. Friends had repeatedly told him that he could win the hearts of men, and if women dared not say as much of themselves, they let him see that he exercised a great and healthy influence over them too; he also enjoyed their society, and though he did not mean it to be a flattery, they accepted it as such. Amongst artists and men of letters he was acknowledged as a writer of genuine worth and extensive acquirements. There is a proof of it in a letter addressed to him by M. Véron, editor of "L'Art," on merely _guessing_ that Mr. Hamerton must be the writer of a criticism of his "Esthétique" in the "Saturday Review." "PARIS, 11 9_bre_, 1878. "CHER MONSIEUR,--On me communique une revue très remarquable de la 'Saturday Review' sur mon 'Esthétique.' Ce qui distingue cet article c'est une sérieuse connaissance du sujet et une puissance d'analyse des plus rares. Cela ne ressemble en rien à ces généralités vagues et flottantes dont se contentent la plupart des écrivains qui font de la critique dans la revue des journaux. Aussi ai-je éprouvé à être loué par un pareil homme une jouissance infiniment plus vive que celle qu'auraient pu me procurer des éloges beaucoup plus hyperboliques, mais moins compétents. "Cet homme, je suppose que c'est vous. Si je ne me trompe pas, permettez-moi de vous dire que je me sens singulièrement heureux de me rencontrer en fait d'esthétique avec un écrivain capable de raisonner sur ces questions comme l'a fait l'auteur de l'article de la 'Saturday Review.'" More acquaintances amongst artists were made during his stay in Paris, including Bracquemond, Protais, Feyen-Perrin, Waltner, Lhermitte, and Munkacsy. Having finished his work in the exhibition, my husband went home to write a notice of it for the "International Review." In the course of November his eldest son Stephen passed a successful examination for the second part of the Baccalauréat-ès-Lettres, and as the boy was now to study at home, his father frequently employed him to write letters under his dictation. It was very good practice for Stephen, and spared his father's time for painting and drawing. At the beginning of 1879, Mr. R. L. Stevenson had sent a manuscript to Mr. Hamerton, with a request that he would read it, and recommend it to a publisher if it were thought worth the trouble. It was appreciated, and a successful sale expected. In the interest of Mr. Stevenson, my husband advised him to sacrifice the idea of immediate payment, and to retain the copyright, hoping that it would prove more advantageous. However, the young author preferred the ready cash, which he may have been in need of; nevertheless acknowledging afterwards that it would have been preferable to have acted according to the sound advice given at the time. As our daughter was fast developing a talent for music, her father felt tempted to resume the practice of the violin regularly, and they often played duets and sonatas together; but the difficulty--nay, the impossibility--of finding time for the prosecution of all the studies he had undertaken was a source of oft-recurring discouragement, because unavoidably he had to replace one by another now and then, it being impracticable to carry them on _de front_. Sometimes he complained, good-humoredly, that I rather discouraged than encouraged him about music--which was certainly true, for well knowing that to become a violinist of any skill involves years and years of regular and steady practice, I was adverse to this additional strain, leading to no adequate reward. I well knew it could not be sustained, and would have to give way to pressure from other quarters--writing, painting, etching, or reading. The study of Italian had also been vigorously resumed, so that in the diary I see this note regularly: "Practised Spohr and Kreutzer, or Beethoven. Read Dante." I also find the following in April: "Spent the greater part of the day in planning my new novel with Charles (his brother-in-law). Worked on plan of my novel, and modified it by talking it over with my wife," I did not like the plan, which, in my opinion, went too much into the technicalities and details of a young nobleman's education; I feared they might prove tedious to the reader; in consequence there is a new entry a week later: "Improved plan of novel with wife. Now reserve mornings exclusively for it, or it will never be finished at all. Make this a fixed rule." At the end of April some monochromes had been sent for reproduction, but he was greatly disappointed with them, as may be seen by the diary:-- "May 31. Had a great deal of trouble this month about reproductions of drawings in autotype. Dissatisfied with the reproductions of the oil monochromes, which came coarse, with thousands of false specks of light. The surface of a drawing should be _mate_ for autotype reproduction. This led me to make various experiments of various kinds, and the latest conclusion I have arrived at is something like drawing on wood; that is, pencil or chalk, going into detail, and sustained by washes of Indian ink, and relieved by touches of Chinese white. The whole business hitherto has been, full of difficulties of various kinds." "June 11. The proofs of the autotypes on white paper with brown pigment arrived to-day. Determined to have second negatives taken of all of them, and to repaint them on the positives." To turn his thoughts away from his repeated disappointments in artistic attempts, and to a greater disappointment in his novel--which he had entirely destroyed after bestowing upon it two months of labor--Gilbert began to scheme a boat, a river yacht. It was the best of diversions for him, as he took as much pleasure in the planning of a boat as in the use of it. This new one was to be a marvel of safety and speed, but especially of convenience, for it would be made to carry several passengers for a month's cruise, with means of taking meals on board, and of sleeping under a tent. Of course Mr. Seeley had been informed of the scheme, and wrote in answer: "Don't fail to send me notice when your boat may be expected on the Thames, that I may rouse the population of Kingston to give you an appropriate reception." Another novel was begun, but it was still to be the story of a young French nobleman's life, spent alternately in France and in England, and in the manner of "Tom Jones." Meanwhile "Modern Frenchmen" was selling pretty steadily, but slowly, the public being mostly unacquainted with the names, though Mr. G. H. Lewes, Professor Seeley, Mr. Lockhart, and many others, had a very high opinion of the work. Mr. Lockhart wrote about the biography of Régnault:-- "I have by me at this moment your life of Henri Régnault. I trust you will not consider it an impertinence if I tell you how it has delighted me, both as a man and a painter. I have the most intense admiration for Régnault, and in reading his biography it has rejoiced me to find the author in such thorough sympathy with his subject. Biographies of artists, as a rule, are the most disappointing of books to artists. This is indeed an exception, and I most heartily congratulate you on your very subtle and delicate picture of a noble life. "I was in Granada with Fortuny when the news of Régnault's death came. I shall never forget the impression it made on us all. The fall of Paris, the surrender of Napoleon, all the misfortunes of France were as nothing compared to this. "When I first had the book I thought you a little unjust to Fortuny, and was prepared to indorse Régnault's estimate of him. Since then I have seen the thirty Fortunys at the International Exhibition, and they have moderated my enthusiasm, and brought me back to sober orthodoxy, to Velasquez and Rembrandt." Mr. G. H. Lewes also wrote:-- "We left London before your book arrived, but I sent for it, and Mrs. Lewes has been reading it aloud to me the last few evenings. It has charmed us both, and we regret that so good a scheme, so well carried out, should in the nature of the case be one doomed to meet with small public response. No reader worth having can read it without interest and profit, but _il s'agit de trouver des lecteurs_. "My son writes in great delight with it, and I have recommended it to the one person we have seen in our solitude; but I fear you will find the deaf adder of a public deafer than usual to your charming. A volume of biographies of well-known Frenchmen would have but a slender chance of success--and a volume on the unknown would need to be spiced with religion or politics--_et fortement épicé_--to attract more than a reader here and there. "We are here for five weeks in our Paradise _without_ the serpent (symbol of visitors!); but alas! without the health which would make the long peace one filled with work. As for me, I vegetate mostly. I get up at six to stroll out for an hour before breakfast, leaving Madonna in bed with Dante or Homer, and quite insensible to the attractions of before-breakfast walks. With my cigar I get a little reading done, and sometimes write a little; but the forenoon is usually sauntered and pottered away. When Madonna has satisfied her inexhaustible craving for knowledge till nearly lunch-time, we play lawn-tennis. Then drive out for two or three hours. Music and books till dinner. After cigar and nap she reads to me till ten, and I finish by some light work till eleven. But I hope in a week or two to get stronger and able to work again, the more so as 'the night in which no man can work' is fast approaching." Mr. R. Seeley agreed with Mr. Hamerton's opinion that "Modern Frenchmen" was one of his best works, "admirably written, full of information and interest." Professor Seeley had also said: "I wish English people would take an interest in such books, but I fear they won't. There ought to be many such books written." Mr. G. H. Lewes suggested that the other biographies in preparation should be published separately in some popular magazine; but the author, having been discouraged by the coolness of the reception, gave up the idea of a sequel to what had already appeared, and the material he had been gathering on Augustin Thierry, General Castellane, and Arago remained useless. The boat in progress had been devised in view of a voyage on the Rhône, for Mr. Hamerton, who greatly admired the noble character of the scenery in the Rhône Valley, had longed for the opportunity of making it known by an important illustrated work. He submitted the plan to Mr. Seeley, who answered:-- "I like your Rhône scheme; it is a grand subject, but a book on the Rhône should begin at the Rhône glacier and end at the Mediterranean. Have your ideas enlarged to that extent. One cannot well omit the upper part, which the English who travel in Switzerland know so well. The Rhône valley is very picturesque, and the exit of the Rhône from the Lake of Geneva is a thing never to be forgotten. But don't go there to get drowned; it is horribly dangerous." For various reasons--amongst others, the time required and the outlay--the idea of the book entertained by Mr. Hamerton differed considerably from that of Mr. Seeley; it was explained at length, and finally accepted in these words: "I think your plan of a voyage on the navigable Rhône, with prologue and epilogue, will do well." This plan, however, was never realized, owing to insurmountable obstacles; it was taken up again and again, studied, modified, and regretfully relinquished after several years for that of the Saône, much more practicable, but still not without its difficulties. And now what might have been a great event in the life of Mr. Hamerton--namely, the possibility of his election to the Watson-Gordon Chair of Fine Arts in Edinburgh, began to occupy his mind. He was strongly urged by his friends to come forward as a candidate, but he hesitated a good deal for several reasons, the most important being the necessity of two places of residence, for he would not have inflicted upon my mother and myself the pain of absolute separation. Still, there were, as it seemed to me, in case of success, some undeniable advantages--first of all a fixed income, and the possibility of seeing, in the course of the necessary journeys, what might be of interest in London and Paris, as well as the possibility of attending more efficaciously to the "Portfolio." Mr. Seeley, who had always endeavored to tempt his editor over to England, declared himself delighted at the prospect. He had formerly sent such hints as these: "I wish you had a neat flying machine and could pop over and do the business yourself." Or at Cowes: "I thought of you, and said to myself, how much more reasonable it would be for Hamerton to have a snug little house here, and a snug little sailing-boat, instead of living at that preposterous Autun. How he would enjoy dancing over these waves, which make me sick to look at them; and how pleasant it would be to tempt him to pay frequent visits to Kingston! There are delightful cottages and villages to sketch in the Isle of Wight, and charming woodland scenery in the New Forest." Again: "When our new house is dry enough then you will be obliged to come over. It will be better than seeing the Paris Exhibition. And when you are once in England you will take a cottage at Cowes, and buy a boat, and never go back to Autun." The idea of becoming a candidate was first suggested by T. Woolner after a journey to Edinburgh, where he had heard some names put forward for the Watson-Gordon chair, and amongst them that of Mr. Hamerton, which had seemed to him the most popular. On his part, he had done what he could to strengthen this favorable opinion by spreading what he knew of his friend, not only as an artist and cultured man of letters, but also as a sociable conversationalist, capable of enjoying intercourse with his fellow-men in moments of leisure, and he took care to let my husband know that this point was of importance--the new professor being expected to exercise hospitality, so as to create a sort of centre for the gathering of art-lovers. He said he had heard of a good income, of light duties, and of the almost certainty of success in case Mr. Hamerton should present himself. Professor Masson had also suggested to Mr. Macmillan that "many persons in Edinburgh would like to secure the best man in Mr. Hamerton," and Mr. Craik wrote about it: "You would be an ornament to the University, and might do useful and important work there. For many reasons the Scotch professorships are enviable, for this particularly--that the session is a short one, and would require short residence. It will be pleasant for all of us, your friends, if you go to Edinburgh, for it will compel you to come to England and be seen." Mr. Seeley was also of opinion that "no man ought to be wholly dependent upon literary labor. It tries the head too much." All the friends who were consulted by my husband answered that they considered him perfectly adapted for the situation--apart from friendly motives. Mr. Alfred Hunt wrote: "I would be very glad to do everything to forward your election. I am indebted to you for a large amount of gratification and profit which I have derived from your books; I am sure you will allow me to say that I am often very far from agreeing with you," etc. R. L. Stevenson wrote:-- "Monterey, Monterey Co., California. "My dear Mr. Hamerton,--Your letter to my father was forwarded to me by mistake, and by mistake I opened it. The letter to myself has not yet reached me. This must explain my own and my father's silence. I shall write by this or next post, to the only friends I have, who, I think, would have an influence, as they are both professors. I regret exceedingly that I am not in Edinburgh, as I could perhaps have done more, and I need not tell you that what I might do for you in the matter of the election is neither from friendship nor gratitude, but because you are the only man (I beg your pardon) worth a damn. I shall write to a third friend, now I think of it, whose father will have great influence. "I find here (of all places in the world) your 'Essays on Art,' which I have read with signal interest. I believe I shall dig an essay of my own out of one of them, for it set me thinking; if mine could only produce yet another in reply we could have the marrow cut between us. "I hope, my dear sir, you will not think badly of me for my long silence. My head has scarce been on my shoulders. I had scarce recovered from a prolonged fit of useless ill health than I was whirled over here double-quick time and by cheapest conveyance. "I have been since pretty ill, but pick up, though still somewhat of a massy ruin. If you would view my countenance aright, Come--view it by the pale moonlight. But that is on the mend. I believe I have now a distant claim to tan. "A letter will be more than welcome in this distant clime where I have a box at the post-office--generally, I regret to say, empty. Could your recommendation introduce me to an American publisher? My next book I should really try to get hold of here, as its interest is international, and the more I am in this country, the more I understand the weight of your influence. It is pleasant to be thus most at home abroad, above all when the prophet is still not without honor in his own land." Mr. W. Wyld had also written: "I need not say I heartily wish you success--and the more so that it would have the result of my seeing you at least twice a year, a pleasure I shall anxiously look forward to; for the older I grow the more I yearn for that sort of communion of thought which is scarcely ever to be met with in the ordinary way of existence ... I have no one I can discuss art with ... and as for philosophy--" Miss Susan Hamerton also pressed her nephew to offer himself for the chair, and indulged in bright hopes of frequent meetings. The result was that, after a long talk with me on March 21, 1880, my husband determined to offer himself as a candidate, and although he did it without much enthusiasm, he began immediately to prepare himself for the new duties that would be involved. First of all, he told me that his knowledge of the history of art was insufficient, and would require additional researches. His plan was to go to Greece first, then to Italy; another year he would go to Holland and Belgium, then to Spain--I began to be afraid of this programme, as I reflected that the income from the professorship would hardly cover our travelling expenses, and that very little time would be left for literary work if the lectures required so much preparation; however, I only begged him to wait for the result of the election before he undertook anything in view of it. He agreed, and turned his thoughts towards the "Graphic Arts," and a new edition of "Etching and Etchers." In the beginning of April, Mr. Hamerton attended with his family the wedding of Charles Gindriez, his brother-in-law, and was well pleased with the young lady, who thus became a new member in the gatherings at La Tuilerie. Three days later, his elder son Stephen started for Algiers, where he had an appointment at the Lycée. For some time past, the two great political parties at Autun had been at daggers drawn, and the proprietors of the Conservative paper, "L'Autunois," had brought from Paris a skilful and unscrupulous political writer to crush its opponents and to effect the ruin of the rival paper, "La République du Morvan," by fair means or foul. The first stabs dealt by the new pen were directed against notable residents, and being a good fencer and a good shot--in fact, a sort of bravo--M. Tremplier, the wielder of the pen, proclaimed loudly after every libel that he was ready to maintain what he advanced at the point of the sword, and to give a meeting to all adversaries. Unacquainted with the real social standing of Mr. Hamerton in Autun, but knowing that he was Président Honoraire du Cercle National, a Liberal institution patronized by the Sous-Préfet and Republican Deputies, M. Tremplier thought it would be a master-stroke to defame his character by accusing him of being the author of some anonymous articles against the clergy which had appeared in "La République du Morvan." Though greatly irritated by this unfair attack, my husband contrived to keep his temper, and simply denied the accusation. This denial was indorsed by the editor of the newspaper in which the articles had been published, and the disagreeable incident was expected to end there. But this would not have satisfied the truculent M. Tremplier, and in the next number of his paper he expressed in arrogant terms an utter disbelief in Mr. Hamerton's denial, and venomously attacked him for his nationality, literary pretensions, etc., winding up his diatribe, as usual, by a challenge. This was too much, and my husband resolved to start for Autun immediately, and to horsewhip the scoundrel as he deserved. Mr. Pickering, an English artist, and friend of ours, who happened to be at La Tuilerie, offered to assist my husband by keeping the ground clear while he administered the punishment--for M. Tremplier, notwithstanding his bravado, deemed it prudent to surround himself with a bevy of officers, and was seldom to be met alone. I was strongly opposed to this course, and at last I prevailed upon my husband to abandon it by representing that he was being drawn into a snare, for no doubt M. Tremplier was only waiting for the attempt at violence he had provoked to get his victim seized and imprisoned, so as to be able ever after to stigmatize him with the terrible phrase, "C'est un homme qui a fait de la prison." This would be undeniable, and as people never inquire _why_ "un homme a fait de la prison," it is as well to avoid it altogether. We agreed upon a different policy, and resolved to prosecute the "Autunois" for libel, and immediately set off to retain a well-known advocate, who belonged to the Conservative party, and was said to be one of the proprietors of the "Autunois." He knew my husband personally, and also knew that he was incapable of having written the anonymous articles, still less capable of telling a lie, and as we felt sure of his own honorable character, we boldly asked him to defend a political opponent. This was putting him in a very delicate situation, and he complained of it at once; but my husband insisted, and said that he could not fairly shun this duty. Vainly did this gentleman, supported by the Président du Tribunal and other notabilities of the same party, try to dissuade Mr. Hamerton from seeking redress, by saying that "no one attached the slightest importance to such libels," "that he was too much above M. Tremplier to resent anything that came from his mercenary pen," "that his character was unimpeachable," etc. He was even warned that he had not the remotest chance of a verdict in his favor, because he could not prove that he was not the author of the objectionable articles. "I should have thought that M. Tremplier would be called upon to prove that I had written them," he answered. "Anyhow, if I can't count upon justice here, I will appeal to the court at Dijon." Seeing that his resolution was not to be shaken, he was asked what would satisfy him, and he answered, "An apology from M. Tremplier in the 'Autunois.'" And M. Tremplier had to submit to the orders of the all-powerful keepers of the purse-strings: he did it with a bad grace--but he had to do it. One of the articles attributed to Mr. Hamerton had been directed against the Bishop of Autun, whom he highly esteemed, and there was much curiosity as to the opinion of the prelate himself. That opinion was soon publicly expressed by a visit from this dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church to the Protestant tenant of La Tuilerie. On receiving Monseigneur Perraud, I thanked him first for his good opinion, of which I had never doubted, knowing him to be a reader of my husband's works, and also because there was no fear that a man of his culture could believe the anonymous articles to be written by the author of the biography of l'Abbé Perreyve in "Modern Frenchmen." Monseigneur Perraud answered that my husband's character and literary talent were so much above question that he would never have given a thought to this affair had it not been that the "Autunois" was often called "Le Journal de l'Evêché," though in fact the Bishop had no more to do with it than with its editor, M. Tremplier, whom he had never consented to receive. But unwilling to allow the possibility of any doubt to remain in other people's minds, he had taken this opportunity of becoming personally acquainted with my husband, and of giving a proof of his high regard for him. Monseigneur Perraud had a reputation for freezing dignity which kept many people aloof; but he talked quite freely with my husband. Dignity he certainly possessed in an unusual degree, and the same might be said of Mr. Hamerton, but it was no bar to interesting intercourse nor to brotherly sympathy, as we found afterwards in sorrowful circumstances. This first visit certainly enhanced the high opinion which each had formed of the other, and subsequent meetings confirmed the interest they found in each other's views and sentiments. I mentioned Mr. Pickering in connection with the affair of the "Autunois," and it may now be explained that after reading "Round my House," he had fancied he should like to see the scenery described in the book, as it would probably afford him paintable subjects. Although the name of the neighboring town was not given, and though great changes had been made by the construction of a railway since the publication of the book, Mr. Pickering lighted upon Autun as the very place he was in search of. He soon made my husband's acquaintance, and a friendship between them was rapidly established. Mr. Woolner, who had kept up for some months a brisk correspondence in behalf of Mr. Hamerton's candidature, now heard that matters were not going so smoothly as he had expected. He was told that the income would not come up to the sum stated at first; that the formation of an art museum was contemplated, in which case the duties of forming and keeping it would devolve upon the professor. There was also a desire that the students should receive technical instruction; and, lastly, it was rumored that forty lectures a year would be required. In fact, Mr. Hamerton began to regret that he had offered himself for the post without knowing exactly what he would be expected to do. Whilst in this frame of mind he was advised to go to Edinburgh in order to call upon each of the electors. No one acquainted with his character could have imagined for an instant that he would comply. "The electors," he said to me, "must be acquainted with my works; I have sent nearly fifty testimonials given by eminent artists, men of letters, and publishers; I consider this as sufficient to enable the electors to judge of the capacities for which an art professor ought to be chosen. If these are judged insufficient, my presence could not give them more weight." I find this simple entry in the diary: "July 20, 1880. Got news that I was not elected;" and though he may have regretted the time wasted in this fruitless attempt, I am convinced that he experienced a sensation of delightful relief when no longer dreading encroachments upon his liberty to work as he thought fit. [Footnote: It was also Mr. R. Seeley's opinion when he wrote: "You have felt so much doubt as to the effect of such a change of life upon your health that the decision may come as a relief to you."] After all, there remained to him as a lasting compensation the tokens of flattering regard for his character and of appreciation of his talents given in the numerous testimonials by such eminent persons as Mr. R. Browning, Sir F. Leighton, Sir J. E. Millais, Sir John Gilbert, Mr. T. Woolner, Mr. G. F. Watts, Professor Seeley, Professor Sidney Colvin, Professor Oliver, Mr. Mark Pattison, Mr. S. Palmer, Mr. Orchardson, Mr. Marks, Mr. A. W. Hunt, Mr. Herkomer, Mr. Vicat Cole, Mr. Alma Tadema, Sir G. Reid, Mr. W. E. Lockhart, Mr. J. MacWhirter, Professor Legros, M. Paul Rajon, M. Leopold Flameng, etc. The testimonials are too numerous to be given here, but they all agreed in the expressed opinion that Mr. Hamerton would be "the right man in the right place," or "the very man." Although the "Life of Turner" had first appeared in the "Portfolio," it was again well received by the public in book form, and greatly praised by the press, particularly in America. The "Boston Courier" said:-- "We have found this volume thoroughly fascinating, and think that no open-minded reader of 'Modern Painters' should neglect to read this life. In it he will find Turner dethroned from the pinnacle of a demi-god on which Ruskin had set him (greatly to the artist's disadvantage); but he will also find him placed on another reasonably high pedestal, where one may admire him intelligently and lovingly, in spite of the defects in drawing, the occasional lapses in coloring, and the other peculiarities which are made clear to his observation by Mr. Hamerton's discussion." He had found it a difficult subject to treat because of the paucity of incidents in Turner's life; but the painter's genius had made so deep an impression upon him in his earlier years that he had eagerly studied his works and sought information about his personality from the friends who had, at some time or other, been acquainted with the marvellous artist. I believe that my husband hardly ever went to the National Gallery without visiting the Turner Room, and that is saying much, for during his sojourns in London he seldom missed going every day it was open, and sometimes he went twice,--once in the morning, and again in the afternoon. Great as was his admiration of Turner's oil pictures, I believe it was equalled by his delight in the same master's water-colors and drawings. When in the lower rooms, where they are exhibited, he could hardly be prevailed upon to go upstairs again, and I had to plead fatigue and hunger to recall him to the realities of life. Although his appreciation of Constable was high, it could not be compared to what he felt for Turner, because "Turner was so wide in range that he was the opposite of Constable, whose art was the expression of intense affection for one locality." CHAPTER XV. 1880-1882. Third edition of "Etching and Etchers."--Kew.--"The Graphic Arts."--"Human Intercourse." Once rid of the perturbation occasioned by the affair of the election, Mr. Hamerton was free to devote himself energetically to the preparation of a new and splendid edition of "Etching and Etchers," for which he spared neither thought nor pains,--being generously entrusted by Messrs. Macmillan with the necessary funds, and given _carte blanche_ for the arrangement. Mr. Craik had said, in a letter dated Jan. 10, 1880: "We are disposed to make it a very fine book, and not to grudge the outlay. We must leave all the details for you to arrange." In another, of May 29, he said again: "We are particularly anxious to make it a beautiful book; and I think the plan of making each edition completely different from the preceding, gives it an interest and value that will make the book always sought after. The first edition is a scarce and valuable book. The second will rise in value." Being allowed to do exactly as he liked, the author of "Etching and Etchers" set to his task with delightful anticipation of the result. At the same time he was also giving a good deal of time to the annotation of certain engravings and etchings presented by himself and some friends to the Manchester Museum, in which he took great interest. When the vacation brought the boys home in August, it was decided to have a trial trip on the Saône in the "Morvandelle;" but after behaving well enough on the water, she filled and sank at anchor whilst her captain was quietly enjoying dinner with his sons at the nearest inn. The boat being made of wood, and divided into a great many compartments to hold stores and luggage, let the water into those compartments as the wood dried and shrank. It became, therefore, necessary to exchange the wooden tubes for iron ones, for it was a double boat. So the crew had to come back home, and Mr. Hamerton sent to a periodical a relation of his impressions and adventures in this brief voyage and shipwreck. In the summer there was an exhibition at the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, and my husband was asked to send something if possible; but being almost overwhelmed with work, he was obliged to decline the invitation. Mr. R. Walker, the secretary of the Institute, wrote to say how sorry he was not to have his name in the catalogue, and added:-- "Our collection of etchings is very good, and during the short time we have been open the people of Glasgow have learned more about etching than ever they knew before. Your book has been a source of infinite delight to many here. A short time ago we all hoped to have you among us. The loss is ours. Sometimes I trust we may have the pleasure of seeing you in Glasgow. You would find us not altogether wanting in appreciation of what is right in art, and there is an increasing number of people here who believe that ledgers are not the only books worth studying." Although the "Portfolio" was now generally acknowledged to be at the head of artistic periodicals in England, it was the desire of both its editor and publisher to improve it still further. In one of his letters Mr. Craik had said: "What an important part the 'Portfolio' is playing! I believe you are affecting the public, and compelling them to recognize the best things in a way they never did before. I think your conduct of the monthly admirable." It was now proposed to add to its artistic value by giving more original etchings. Hitherto the peculiar uncertainty of the art of etching had hindered the realization of this desire, for there being no certainty about the quality of an etching from a picture, the risk is immensely increased when a commission is given for an original etching. The celebrity of an etcher and his previous achievements can only give hopes that he _may_ be successful once more, but these hopes are far from a certainty. Even such artists as Rajon and Jacquemart,--to mention only two of the most eminent,--who constantly delighted the lovers of art by masterpieces of skill and artistic feeling,--and were, moreover, painters themselves,--were not safe against failure, and repeated failure, even in copying. When a commission has been given to an artist, the stipulated price has to be paid whether the result is a success or a failure, unless the artist himself acknowledges the failure--a very rare occurrence; at best he admits that some retouching is desirable, and consents to undertake it; but too often with the result that the plate loses all freshness. Such considerations, and many more, made it necessary for the publisher and editor of the "Portfolio" to discuss the subject at length and without hurry. In addition to the affairs of the "Portfolio," there was the choice of illustrations for the book on the Graphic Arts, which was to be published by Mr. Seeley, and for which the presence of the author in London was almost a necessity. It was then decided that, both our boys having situations, we would take our daughter with us and seek for lodgings somewhere on the banks of the Thames, probably at Kew. Mr. and Mrs. Seeley, with their usual kindness, invited us to stay with them until we had found convenient accommodation. We started in October, and as soon as we reached Paris we heard from our younger son Richard that he was far from pleased with his present situation. Instead of having to devote only a few hours a day to teaching English, as he had been promised, the whole of his time was taken up by the usual drudgery which is the lot of an under-master, so that he could not study for himself. The first thing his father did was to set him free from that bondage, and to devise the best means to enable him to pursue the study of painting which the boy wished to follow as a profession. They went together to consult Jean Paul Laurens, who said that the most efficacious way would be--not to study under one master, but to go to one of Juan's ateliers, where students get the benefit of sound advice from several leading artists. In conformity with this counsel my husband saw M. Juan, and after learning from him the names of the artists visiting the particular atelier where Richard was to study, he got him recommended to Jules Lefebvre and to Gérôme by an intimate friend. Paul Rajon, as usual, did not fail to call upon us, and we were very sorry to notice a great change for the worse in his appearance. He said he had been very ill lately, and was still far from well; he seemed to have lost all his buoyancy of spirits, and to look careworn. He alluded to pecuniary difficulties resulting from the early death of his brother-in-law, which left his sister, and a child I believe, entirely dependent upon him. Without reckoning on adverse fortune or ill-health, he had built himself a house with a fine studio at Auvers-sur-Oise, to escape from the incessant interruptions to his work when in Paris. But of course the outlay had been heavier than he had intended it to be, and these cares made him rather anxious. Being very good friends, we had formerly received confidences from him about the dissatisfaction created by the loneliness of his home and the want of a strong affection--in spite of his success in society and the flattering smiles and speeches of renowned beauties. In answer to my suggestion that marriage would perhaps give him what he wanted, he had answered: "No doubt; but where shall I find the wife? The girl I introduce into society as _my_ wife must be very beautiful, else what would society think of my taste as an artist?... She must also be above the average in intelligence, to meet with the _élite_ and keep her proper place; and lastly, she must also be wealthy, for my earnings are not sufficient for the frame I desire to show her in." He was quite serious, but I laughed and said: "I beg to alter my opinion of your wants. The wife you describe would be the mere satisfaction of your vanity, and if you were fortunate enough to meet with the gifts of beauty, intelligence, and wealth in the same person it would be very exacting to expect that in addition to all these she should be domestic, to minister to your home comforts, and sufficiently devoted for your need of affection." "I told you I thought it very difficult," he sighed. "If you take other people's opinion about the choice of a wife," my husband said, "you are not ripe for matrimony; no man ought to get married unless he feels that he cannot help it,--that he could not live happily without the companionship of a particular woman." There had been an interval of a few years between this conversation and our present meeting; but M. Rajon had not forgotten it, for he said with a shade of sadness: "It is now, Mrs. Hamerton, that I feel the want of a domestic and devoted wife, such as you advised me to choose; but marriage is out of the question. I am an invalid." We tried to cheer him up, and my husband's serene philosophy seemed to do him good. He repeated to Paul Rajon his usual comparison of the events of life to a very good cup of coffee to which a pinch of salt is always added before we are allowed to taste it. "Your reputation and talent," he said, "make a capital cup of coffee; but your illness has seasoned it with rather a heavy pinch of salt." The journey to England was got through without any serious accident to my husband's health, but we had to be very careful in adhering to our rules of slow trains and night travelling and frequent stoppages. It was the first visit of our daughter to England, and her father watched her impressions with great interest. She spoke English timidly and reluctantly; but Mrs. Seeley was so kindly encouraging that she overcame her timidity. Mr. Seeley received us in his pretty, newly built house at Kingston, which, being quite in the country and very quiet, suited my husband's tastes admirably. The proximity of a beautiful park was very tempting for rambles, and when at leisure we much enjoyed going all together for a stroll under its noble trees. Mr. Seeley and his friend sometimes went off to London together in the morning, but it was more desirable for my husband to go to town only in the afternoon, because he felt less and less nervous as the day wore on, and was quite himself in the evening. We left Kingston to go and stay for a few days with Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan. The evenings after Mr. Macmillan's return from business were very animated with conversation and music. Sometimes Mr. Macmillan gave us some Scotch and Gaelic songs with remarkable pathos and power; and invariably, after every one else had retired, he remained talking intimately, often confidentially, with my husband far into the night. A pretty incident occurred before we left Knapdale. One afternoon we found Mrs. Macmillan very busy putting the finishing touches to an embroidered and be-ribboned baby's frock, intended as a present to her husband's first grandchild, on his first visit to Knapdale, which was to be on that very day. After dinner the little man made his appearance in the decorated frock, and took his place upon his grandfather's shoulders. Then we all formed a procession, headed by the still erect form of the grandsire supporting the infant hope of the family, and leading us--parents, relatives, and guests--to the cheerful domain of the cook. She proudly received the company, standing ladle in hand, by an enormous earthen vessel containing a tempting mixture, in which candied fruits, currants, and spices seemed to predominate. We were expected, every one, to bring this medley to greater perfection by turning over a portion of it with the ladle. It was duly offered first to the little stranger, whose grandsire seized and plunged it into the savory depths, whilst the tiny baby hand was tenderly laid upon his own. The second part of the ceremony--tasting--had likewise to be performed by proxy, for the young scion of the house peremptorily refused to trifle with any temptation in the form of mincemeat. We all in succession performed the ancient rite, and my husband said to me afterwards what a capital subject for a picture of family portraits the scene would afford. The contrast in the attire of the cook and her maids with the toilettes of the ladies, together with the picturesque background of the bright kitchen utensils, made a subject in the style of an old Dutch master, with a touch of modern sentiment. After seeing different places on the banks of the Thames we decided again for Kew, but this time we required larger lodgings--not only on account of Mary, but also for Miss Susan Hamerton and our cousins, Ben and Annie Hinde, whom we had invited to join us there. They had gladly accepted the invitation, and our meeting was happy and cheerful. We had been very fortunate in our lodgings, which were spacious, clean, and with a good view of the Green. Our landlady was a very respectable and obliging person, and she let us have, when we wished, the use of a chaise and a fast-trotting little pony, which greatly added to Aunt Susan's enjoyment of the country, for her nephew drove her to the prettiest places in the neighborhood, and through Richmond Park whenever the weather allowed it. The beautiful gardens received almost a daily visit from us, and were a most agreeable as well as a convenient resort for our aged aunt, as she could either walk in the open grounds when it was mild enough, or else visit the numerous hot-houses if she found the outside air too keen for her. We had been fortunate in this choice of Kew for our temporary residence; not only did we like the place in itself, but we met with so hospitable and flattering a reception from several resident families, that they contrived to make us feel unlike strangers among them, and ever after, our thoughts turned back to that time with mingled feelings of regret, pleasure, and gratitude; and whenever we came to contemplate the possibility of moving to England, Kew was always the place named as being preferred by both of us. Here we again met Professor Oliver, whom my husband had known since he came to Kew alone for the first time. Being greatly interested in painting, and possessing a collection of fine water-colors by Mr. Alfred Hunt, he took pleasure in showing them to Mr. Hamerton, as well as the Herbarium, of which he was Director. Professor Church and his wife showed themselves most friendly and untiringly hospitable. Very interesting and distinguished people were to be met at their house, where the master was ever willing to display before his guests some of his valuable collections of jewels, rare tissues, old laces, and Japanese bronzes. We often had the pleasure of meeting at this friendly house Mr. Thiselton Dyer, now Director of Kew Gardens, and his wife, the daughter of Sir John Hooker--a most charming person, who reminded both of us of the lovely women immortalized by Reynolds. [Illustration] The third edition of "Etching and Etchers," now on sale, had fulfilled all expectations, and was universally admired and praised. It was a great satisfaction to the author, who had never before enjoyed such a complete recognition. His reputation and popularity increased rapidly, and if he had liked he would have been a good deal lionized; but although far from insensible to this success, he remained true to his studious habits--going with Mr. Seeley to the National Gallery, British or Kensington Museums, to choose illustrations for the "Graphic Arts," or quietly writing at his lodgings, and only accepting invitations from his friends and publishers. In December Mr. Macmillan gave a dinner at the Garrick Club in honor of the author of "Etching and Etchers," who was warmly congratulated by the other guests invited to meet him. I have still in my possession the menu belonging to Mr. Alma Tadenia who said to my husband: "I dare say Mrs. Hamerton would like to have a _souvenir_ of this evening--present her with this in my name," and he handed his menu, on the back of which he had quickly and cleverly drawn a little likeness of himself in caricature, and the guests had signed their names on it. A facsimile is given on the opposite page. As he had given us an invitation to visit his curious house we did not fail to go, and Mary was especially attracted by the famous grand piano, inscribed inside with the signatures of the renowned musicians who had performed upon it. Knowing that our daughter was seriously studying music, Mrs. Alma Tadema generously expressed the hope of seeing sometime the signature of Miss Hamerton by the side of the other names. My husband also took Mary to Mrs. Woolner's, and she enjoyed greatly the society of the children, who spoke French very creditably, and who were interested in the details she could give them about French life and ways. They took her to their father's studios, and showed her his works. When dinner-time came, however, she was unprepared for being waited upon by her new friends, and in consequence felt somewhat ill at ease. It was a fancy of Mr. Woolner's to make his children wait upon his guests. They offered bread and wine, and directed the maids, their duty consisting chiefly in seeing that every guest received perfect attendance. It reminded one of the pages' service in mediaeval times, and was accepted by people of mature age as a gracious courtesy of their host, though it proved rather embarrassing to a girl of fifteen. I don't know how long the custom prevailed, but I did not notice it in succeeding years. Our cousin, Ben Hinde, had joined us only for a few days, his duties as a clergyman not allowing of a long absence, but our meeting had been very pleasant and cordial. He had left with us his sister Annie, to whom my husband endeavored to show what was most worthy of attention in the metropolis. And just as we were thus enjoying our fragrant "cup of coffee," the "pinch of salt" was thrown into it with a heavy hand--for we heard from Richard that he was lying so dangerously ill that he could not move in bed. He had only written a few words in pencil to let us know that the doctor thought our presence unnecessary, because the danger would be past, or the illness prove fatal, before we could arrive. Of course my first impulse was to rush to my poor boy's bedside; but what was to become of Mary--a girl of fifteen--unused to English ways, and speaking English still imperfectly? Perhaps our aunt, who was to leave us in a few days, would stay a little longer, though the approach of Christmas made it imperative for her companion to get back to the vicarage as soon as possible. But my husband?... Could I think of leaving him a prey to this terrible anxiety, and to all the dangers of a return of the old nervous attacks? I saw how he dreaded the mere possibility, though he never said a word to influence my decision, but the threatening insomnia and restlessness had already made their appearance, and warned me that I ought to stay near him. I wrote to my best friend in Paris, begging her to send her own doctor to our poor boy, and to let me know the whole truth immediately. The answer was reassuring--the crisis was past; there was nothing to fear now, only the patient would remain weak for some time, and would require great care. His friends--particularly one of them, a student of medicine--had nursed him intelligently and devotedly. As soon as he could take a little food my friend sent him delicacies and old wines, and when he could bear the railway he went to his grandmother's to await our return home. We breathed again, and Aunt Susan and Annie left us comparatively quiet in mind. My husband now went on with his work as fast as possible, for he longed to see his younger son again. When his notes for the "Graphic Arts" were completed, we made a round of visits to take leave of our friends, and after another short stay at Knapdale, where we had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Lockyer, and another very pleasant pilgrimage to Mr. and Mrs. Palmer's hermitage, we set off for Paris. Mr. Seeley wrote shortly after our arrival in the French capital about several matters connected with the "Portfolio," and added: "How will you be able to settle down again in that little Autun? You will feel (as Robert Montgomery said of himself in Glasgow) like an oak in a flower-pot." No, the oak liked to feel the pure air of the Morvan hills blowing about its head, and to spread its branches in unconfined space. It was in great crowded cities that it felt the pressure of the flower-pot. On arriving at home we found Richard well again, and gifted with an extraordinary appetite--which was the restorative he most needed, having grown very thin and weak through his illness. My husband had been very desirous to present me with a _souvenir_ of the success of "Etching and Etchers," and pressed me to choose a trinket, either a bracelet or a brooch; but I thought what I possessed already quite sufficient, and though very sensible of his kind thoughtfulness, I said that if he liked to make me a present, I would choose something useful,--a silk dress, for instance. "But that would not be a present," he said; "when you want a dress you buy it. I should like to offer you some pretty object which would last." I knew that he liked to see me--and ladies in general--wearing jewels; not in great quantity, but simply as a touch of finish to the toilette. When I was young, he would have liked me (had it been possible) to dress always in white, and the fashions not being then so elaborate as they have become, it was easy enough in summer-time and in the country to indulge his taste. So in warm days I often wore a white muslin dress, quite plain, relieved only by a colored sash. If the sash happened to be green, he liked it to be matched by a set of crystal beads of the same color, which he had brought me from Switzerland when he had gone there with his aunt and uncle. When the ribbon was red, I was to wear corals, and with a blue one lapis-lazuli. At last he remembered that I had admired some plain dead-gold bracelets of English make that we had been looking at together, not far from the National Gallery, and said he would be glad if I would choose one of them. I had, however, taken the same resolution about jewels as his own about pictures, and that was, to admire what was beautiful, but never to buy, because it was beyond our means. The resolution, once taken, left no way open to temptation. Still, I did not mean to deny myself the pleasure of accepting his proffered present, only I did not want it to be expensive, and since I had a sufficiency of jewels, "would he give me a pretty casket to put them in?" "Yes," he readily assented. And when I opened the casket of fair olive-wood, with the delicately wrought nickel clasps and lock, I found a folded paper laid on the dark-blue velvet tray, and having opened it read what follows--I need not say with what emotions. "Here in this empty casket, instead of a diamond or pearl, Instead of a gem I leave but a little rhyme. She remembers the brooch and the bracelet I gave her when she was a girl. Deep blue from beyond the sea, not paler from lapse of time. She will put them here in the casket, the ultramarine and the gold; And if such a thing might be, I would give them to her twice over; Once in my youthful hope, and now again when I'm old, But alike in youth or in age with the heart and the soul of a lover." This note is entered in the diary:-- "January 1, 1881. Faceva i miei doni alla sposa, alla figlia, al mio figlio Stefano. La sposa era felicissima di ricevere la sua cassetta." Roberts Brothers had heard that a new book was in preparation, and they wrote in January, 1881:-- "Your third edition of 'Etching and Etchers' is really a magnificent specimen of book-making, and we understand two hundred copies have been sold in America. At all events, whatever the number sold, it is not to be had. We should like to have the American edition of the 'Graphic Arts,' and should be glad to receive the novel when it is ready." But the novel had been put aside, the author being doubtful if it equalled "Marmorne" in quality. The whole of his time for writing was devoted to the "Graphic Arts," and the remainder to painting from nature, often with Mr. Pickering, and to the consideration of the necessary alterations to the boat in view of a summer cruise on the Saône. The reading of Italian was resumed pretty regularly, whilst the diary was kept in that language. Early in the spring Mr. Seeley wrote:-- "I am afraid it is indispensable that we should meet in Paris, as the selection of engravings for reproduction is very important, though, like you, I grudge the loss of time. But the book is an important one, and we must do our very best to make it a success." It was then decided that my husband should go to Paris with Richard, and they started on May 4, stopped a day at Sens to see the cathedral again, and to call upon Madame Challard (who had become a widow), and arrived in Paris at night. The entries in the note-book (kept in Italian) record his visits to the Salon, to the Louvre, and to various public buildings. Also to the Bibliothèque, to study the works of the École de Fontainebleau, and to an exhibition of paintings in imitation of tapestry, which much interested him. He also went with Richard to see Munkacsy's picture of "Christ before Pilate," and notes Richard's astonishment at it. He considered it himself as one of the finest of existing pictures. He also expresses the great pleasure he derived from Jacquemart's water-colors, their brilliancy and sureness of execution. The four following days having been very busy, received only this short note, "In Parigi con Seeley;" then the fifth has, "Seeley e partito sta mattina." The succeeding entries record further visits to the Salon, the Louvre, and Bibliothèque; but on the return journey, at Chagny on the 19th, he notes that he has received sad news of the death of M. de Saint Victor, in a duel with M. Asselin. It was only too true, and had happened on a day which was to have been a _fête_, for Madame de Saint Victor, whose daughter went to the same school as ours, had invited both myself and Mary, with a few others school-fellows and their mothers, to lunch at the Château de Monjeu, of which her husband was Régisseur. The unfortunate lady did not know what had passed between her husband and a gentleman of the locality who was trespassing on the grounds of the château. M. de Saint Victor considered himself insulted, and challenged M. Asselin; he, moreover, insisted upon choosing the sword as a weapon--the most dangerous of all in a serious duel--and on the morning which should have been festive and mirthful, he fell dead in the wood near his home, killed by a sword-thrust from his skilful adversary. As soon as he was back home, Mr. Hamerton set to work regularly at the "Graphic Arts." In the diary this phrase is repeated like a litany: "Worked with great pleasure at my book, the 'Graphic Arts.'" But at the same time there is a complaint that it prevents the mind from being happily disposed for artistic work. I have already said how difficult it was for him to turn from one kind of occupation to another. Here is a confirmation of this fact:-- "I lost the whole of the day in attempting to make a drawing for an etching. Was not in the mood. It is necessary to have a certain warmth and interest in a subject--which I have lost, but hope to recover. For a long time past all my thoughts have turned upon my literary work." It is easy for readers of the "Graphic Arts" to realize what an amount of knowledge and preparation such a book required; and to present so much information in a palatable form was no less than a feat. Still, the author took great delight in his work. As in the case of "Etching and Etchers," he was encouraged by the publisher, who wrote on June, "I mean to take a pride in the book." It was exactly the sort of work which suited him--sufficiently important to allow the subjects to be treated at length when necessary, and worthy of the infinite care and thought he liked to bestow upon his studies. In this case, wonderful as it seems, he had himself practised all the arts of which he speaks, with the exception of fresco. As to the other branches of art, namely, pen-and-ink, silver-point, lead-pencil, sanguine, chalk, charcoal, water monochrome, oil monochrome, pastel, painting in oil, painting in water-colors, wood-engraving, etching and dry-point, aquatint and mezzotint, lithography, he had--more or less--tried every one of them. And though he did not give sufficient practice to the burin to acquire real skill, still he did not remain satisfied till he could use it. The same feeling of conscientiousness led him to become acquainted with all the different processes of reproduction so much in vogue, and he was ever anxious to learn all their technical details. It was hoped that the "Graphic Arts" might be published at the end of the year, and in order to be ready, the author put aside all other work, excepting that of the "Portfolio;" but he longed for a short holiday, and meant to take it on the Saône. He went to Chalon to a boat-builder, and explained the changes to be made in the "Morvandelle," set the men to work, and returned to his book. He had begun to suffer from insomnia, and Mr. Seeley wrote:-- "Probably you are right in saying that yachting is a necessity for you; but for the enjoyment of it you are badly placed at Autun. You must look after that cottage at Cowes, which I suggested some time ago; and we must set up a yacht between us; only, unluckily, I am always seasick in a breeze." Certainly the situation of Autun was not favorable to yachting, the streams about it being only fit for canoeing; but the broad Saône was not far off, and as Chalon was my husband's headquarters when cruising, he was not disinclined to the short journey which afforded an opportunity for visiting my mother and my brother, who lived there. My husband had thought that a river voyage would be charming with R. L. Stevenson as a companion, and that they might, perhaps, produce a work in collaboration, so he had made the proposal, and here is part of the answer:-- "RINNAUD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY, PERTHSHIRE. "MY DEAR MR. HAMMERTON,--(There goes the second M: it is a certainty.) Thank you for your prompt and kind answer, little as I deserved it, though I hope to show you I was less undeserving than I seemed. But just might I delete two words in your testimonial? The two words 'and legal' were unfortunately winged by chance against my weakest spot, and would go far to damn me. "It was not my bliss that I was interested in when I was married; it was a sort of marriage _in extremis_; and if I am where I am, it is thanks to the care of that lady who married me when I was a mere complication of cough and bones, much fitter for an emblem of mortality than a bridegroom. "I had a fair experience of that kind of illness when all the women (God bless them I) turn round upon the streets and look after you with a look that is only too kind not to be cruel. I have had nearly two years of more or less prostration. I have done no work whatever since the February before last, until quite of late. To be precise, until the beginning of the last month, exactly two essays. All last winter I was at Davos; and indeed I am home here just now against the doctor's orders, and must soon be back again to that unkindly haunt 'upon the mountains visitant--there goes no angel there, but the angel of death.' The deaths of last winter are still sore spots to me.... So you see I am not very likely to go on a 'wild expedition,' cis-Stygian at least. The truth is, I am scarce justified in standing for the chair, though I hope you will not mention this; and yet my health is one of my reasons, for the class is in summer. "I hope this statement of my case will make my long neglect appear less unkind. It was certainly not because I ever forgot you or your unwonted kindness; and it was not because I was in any sense rioting in pleasures. "I am glad to hear the catamaran is on her legs again; you have my warmest wishes for a good cruise down the Saône: and yet there comes some envy to that wish; for when shall I go cruising? Here a sheer hulk, alas! lies R. L. S. But I will continue to hope for a better time, canoes that will sail better to the wind, and a river grander than the Saône. "I heard, by the way, in a letter of counsel from a well-wisher, one reason of my town's absurdity about the chair of Art: I fear it is characteristic of her manners. It was because you did not call upon the electors! "Will you remember me to Mrs. Hamerton and your son? and believe me," etc., etc. In September we had the pleasure of a visit from Miss Betham-Edwards, and the acquaintance ripened into friendship. Having brought the "Graphic Arts" satisfactorily forward, my husband thought that he might indulge in the longed-for holiday on the Saône. He expected to find everything ready at Chalon, and to have only to superintend the putting together of the sections of the boat. He was, however, sorely disappointed on finding that nothing had been done, and that he must spend several days in pushing the workmen on, instead of sailing pleasantly on the river. After a week of worry and irritation the boat was launched, and the two boys having joined their father on board, they went together as far as Tournus, after spending the first night at Port d'Ouroux, where they had found a nice little inn, with simple but good accommodation. In the afternoon Stephen went back to Autun to fetch his things, for he was obliged to be at his post on the first of October. Richard proceeded with his father down the Saône to Mâcon. The diary says:-- "Sept. 30. A beautiful voyage it was. The loveliest weather, favorable wind, strong, delightful play of light and color on water. I had not enjoyed such boating since I left Loch Awe." There are these notes in the diary:-- "Nov. 26. Corrected the last proof of the 'Graphic Arts,' and sent it off with a new finish, as the other seemed too abrupt. Spent a good deal of time over the finish, writing it twice." "Nov. 27. Worked all day as hard as possible at index to 'Graphic Arts,' and got it finished at midnight." He was in time, but Mr. Seeley wrote:-- "Now Goupil's delay [about the illustrations] threatens to become most serious. We have now orders for 1050 copies, large and small, so we have already surpassed the sale of 'Etching and Etchers,' third edition." Alas! there was a very distressing item of news in the letter dated December 1:-- "The enclosed letter from Goupil is a complete upset. It seems that the printing of the Louvre drawings [Footnote: Two drawings by Zucchero and Watteau. The latter was in black, red, and white chalk. The reproduction was printed from one plate, the different colored inks being rubbed in by the printer. Only about ten prints could be taken in a day.] will take five or six months. "We must decide at once what to do. This is one plan. If we can get all the other illustrations ready, then to publish as soon as we can, putting these three plates in the large paper copies only, and in the others a slip of paper explaining how tedious the printing is, and promising that these illustrations shall be delivered in the spring to any purchaser who produces the slip. "This is one plan. If you prefer it, please telegraph _Yes_. "The other plan is to postpone the publication, and bring out the complete book in the spring. If you prefer this, please telegraph _No_. "I leave the matter entirely in your hands. Pray decide as you judge best." This delay was most provoking after the hard work the author had given to the book to have it out in good time, and also because the orders were increasing; they had now reached 315 copies for the large edition, and 868 of the small one. Still, there was no help for it, and the publication must be postponed rather than give an imperfect book to the public. Both author and publisher agreed in that decision. On December 17, 1881, Mr. Hamerton received the following letter:-- "19 WARWICK CRESCENT. "DEAR MR. HAMERTON,--You will do me an honor indeed by the dedication you propose, and my own little worthiness to receive it becomes of secondary importance when taken with the exceeding importance of the truth you insist upon in connection with it--a truth always plain to me, however moderately I may have been able to illustrate its value. "Thank you very much: you will add to my obligation by the visit you so kindly promise. "I return you the best of Christmas wishes, and am ever, dear Mr. Hamerton, "Yours most truly, "ROBERT BROWNING." I transcribe the dedication to explain Mr. Browning's letter. "TO ROBERT BROWNING. "I wish to dedicate this book to you as the representative of a class which ought to be more numerous,--the class of large-minded persons who take a lively interest in arts which are not specially their own. No one who had not carefully observed the narrowing of men's minds by specialities could believe to what a degree it goes. Instead of being open, as yours has always been, to the influences of literature, in the largest sense, as well as to the influences of the graphic arts and music, the specialized mind shuts itself up in its own pursuit so exclusively that it does not even know what is nearest to its own closed doors. We meet with scholars who take no more account of the graphic arts than if they did not exist, and with painters who never read; but what is still more surprising, is the complete indifference with which an art can be regarded by men who know and practise another not widely removed from it. One may be a painter and yet know nothing whatever about any kind of engraving; one may be a skilled engraver, and yet work in lifelong misunderstanding of the rapid arts. If the specialists who devote themselves to a single study had more of your interest in the work of others, they might find, as you have done, that the quality which may be called open-mindedness is far from being an impediment to success, even in the highest and most arduous of artistic and intellectual pursuits." Mr. Hamerton was so adverse to puffing of any kind and to noise being made about his name, that he neglected the most honest means of having it brought forward to public notice; for instance, he had been asked in November, 1881, for notes on his life for a book to be entitled "The Victorian Era of English Literature," and had forgotten all about it. He had to be reminded in 1882 that he had promised to send the notes. I suppose that the following letter from R. L. Stevenson must have been received about this time. It is almost impossible to ascertain, as--like the others--it bears no date. "VILLA AM STEIN, DAVOS PLATZ, GRISONS, SWITZERLAND. "MY DEAR MR. HAMERTON,--My conscience has long been smiting me, till it became nearly chronic. My excuses, however, are many and not pleasant. Almost immediately after I last wrote to you, I had a hemorreage (I can't spell it), was badly treated by a doctor in the country, and have been a long while picking up--still, in fact, have much to desire on that side. Next, as soon as I got here, my wife took ill; she is, I fear, seriously so; and this combination of two invalids very much depresses both. "I have a volume of republished essays coming out with Chatto and Windus; I wish they would come, that my wife might have the reviews to divert her. Otherwise my news is nil. I am up here in a little chalet, on the borders of a pine-wood, overlooking a great part of the Davos Thai: a beautiful scene at night, with the moon upon the snowy mountains and the lights warmly shining in the village. J. A. Symonds is next door to me, just at the foot of my Hill Difficulty (this you will please regard as the House Beautiful), and his society is my great stand-by. "Did you see I had joined the band of the rejected? 'Hardly one of us,' said my _confrères_ at the bar. "I was blamed by a common friend for asking you to give me a testimonial: in the circumstances he thought it was indelicate. Lest, by some calamity, you should ever have felt the same way, I must say in two words how the matter appeared to me. That silly story of the election altered in no tittle the value of your testimony: so much for that. On the other hand, it led me to take a quite particular pleasure in asking you to give it; and so much for the other. I trust even if you cannot share it, you will understand my view. "I am in treaty with Bentley for a life of Hazlitt; I hope it will not fall through, as I love the subject, and appear to have found a publisher who loves it also. That, I think, makes things more pleasant. You know I am a fervent Hazlittite; I mean, regarding him as _the_ English writer who has had the scantiest justice. Besides which, I am anxious to write biography; really, if I understand myself in quest of profit, I think it must be good to live with another man from birth to death. You have tried it and know. "How has the cruising gone? Pray remember me to Mrs. Hamerton and your son, and believe me, "Yours very sincerely, "ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON." Throughout this year the diary was kept in Italian, and the reading of Italian books was pretty regularly kept up; among them were Olanda, Petrarch, and Ariosto. He soon abandoned Petrarch, whom he did not value much; here is the reason: "I prefer the clear movement of Ariosto to all the conceits of the sonnet-maker." "Human Intercourse" was begun, and to save time, two copies were written simultaneously--one for England and the other for America--by inserting a sheet of black copying paper between two sheets of thin "Field and Tuer" paper, and writing with a hard lead pencil and sufficient pressure to obtain a duplicate on the page placed underneath. Roberts Brothers were very desirous of seeing this new work, and had written: "We should like to make 'Human Intercourse' a companion volume to the 'Intellectual Life,' and the title is so suggestive of something good that we hope you will hasten the good time of its appearance." The publication of the "Graphic Arts" had been fixed for March 1, but a copy having been got ready at the end of January, it was sent as a compliment to Mr. Sagar of the Burnley Mechanics' Institution, and Mr. Seeley said: "The Burnley people are delighted at having had the first sight of the 'Graphic Arts.' Mr. Sagar writes that from what he saw of it, he has no hesitation in saying that it is the best book you have written, and does great credit to everybody concerned in its production." The book was highly appreciated by those competent to judge and understand the subjects. Mr. Haden wrote about it a letter of fourteen pages. Though he calls it himself "an unconscionably long letter," it is most interesting throughout, but I only quote a few passages from it. "I have been reading the 'Graphic Arts' with great interest. It is, or rather must have been, a formidable undertaking. I like your chapter on 'Useful and Aesthetic Drawing.' Your insistence on keeping the two things separate, and claiming for each its value, is a great lesson--read, too, just at the right time. "And in your 'Drawing for Artistic Pleasure,' the great lesson there is, that true artistic pleasure can only be excited in others by the artist that _knows_ what he is about, though he does not express it. Did you ever see a drawing or an etching by Victor Hugo? Hugo is a poet, and affects to be an artist. But his knowledge of what is or should be _organic_, in every picture, is so lamentably absent, that his poetry (sought to be imparted in that shape) goes for nothing. "In 'Right and Wrong in Drawing,' which is excellently written, the concluding paragraph is admirable. The chapter on 'Etching and Dry-Point' is charmingly written, easy and refined in diction, and set down _con amore_." Then came this letter from Mr. Browning:-- "19 WARWICK CRESCENT, W. _March_ 6, 1882. "DEAR MR. HAMERTON,--I thought your dedication a great honor to me, and should have counted it such had it simply prefaced a pamphlet. To connect it with this magnificent book is indeed engraving my name on a jewel, instead of stone or even marble. "Your sumptuous present reached me two days ago--and will be consigned to 'my library,' when the best jewel I boast of is disposed of on my dressing-table among articles proper to the place: no, indeed--it shall be encased as a jewel should, on a desk for all to see how the author has chosen to illustrate the [painting- and] drawing-room of the author's admirer and (dares he add?) friend, "ROBERT BROWNING." Mr. Alfred Hunt also wrote: "I can see that the plan of the book is admirable. I often want to know something about art processes which I don't practise myself, and which I might be stimulated into trying if I was only younger." The sale of the book was rapid, and before six weeks had elapsed so few copies remained that the prices were raised to fifteen guineas for the large edition, and to seven and a half guineas for the small one. But the author had overworked himself, and hurry had brought back the old enemy--insomnia. Mr. Seeley, who had lately suffered from lumbago, wrote:-- "Sleeplessness is a far worse thing than lumbago. You are right in taking it seriously. I have little doubt, however, that by avoiding overwork--and especially hurried work--and getting plenty of exercise, you will overcome the tendency. If you ever do another big book, we must take two or three years for it, and have no sort of hurry. I once thought of the 'Landscape Painters' as a good subject for a big book." In a subsequent letter Mr. Seeley gives a great deal of thoughtful consideration to what might suit his friend's requirements:-- "If 'Landscape Painting' is a subject that you would thoroughly like to take up, please tell me what travelling you would consider needful, and as far as expense goes I will try to meet you. Perhaps for one thing we might go to Italy together, if you are not afraid of being dragged about in a chain. "I thought of the Rhône book again, as likely to suit your present state of health." In the current year, however, it was impossible to undertake the voyage, because "Human Intercourse" was to be the important work. As usual with a new book, the author had had a struggle at the beginning. He attributed the difficulty to the want of subdivisions in the chapters, and when he had adopted a more elastic system than is usual in a treatise, the obstacle disappeared. He has himself explained this, more in detail, to his readers, in the preface of the book. There is no doubt that this long struggle had increased the tendency to sleeplessness, and a little cruise on the Saône was thought to be the best remedy. So he left for Mâcon at the beginning of April, and after putting the several parts of the boat together, and getting provisions on board, he started with Stephen on a voyage down the Saône. On their way they could see with a telescope all the details of Mont Blanc. At Port d'Arciat they picked up a friend, and after a "good little repast with a Good Friday _matelote_," a few sketches were made at Thoissey and Beauregard. The change and exercise in the open air did my husband a great deal of good, and he had regained sleep when he returned home. There being still a good deal of leakage in the "Morvandelle," though a thick kind of flannel had been pressed into the interstices, it was decided to use the wooden parts to make two small boats for the pond, one for Stephen and the other for Richard, the old ones being rotten. There was much pleasurable planning for my husband in the scheme, and also some manual work for rainy weather. He was exceedingly careful and handy in doing joiner's work, and every one in the house applied to him for delicate repairs, and--when he had time--they were done to perfection; only, he seldom had time, and it was a standing joke that he must have a private museum somewhere to which the objects confided to him found their way. In reality, he had to do a good deal of manual labor of different kinds, on account of our country life, which placed us at an inconvenient distance from workmen. For instance, he always framed his etchings and engravings himself; at one time he even undertook to re-gild all the frames which the flies so rapidly spoilt in the country. He had also to make numerous packing-cases and boxes for the sending of plates, pictures, and books; he invented lots of contrivances for the arrangement of his colors, brushes, portfolios, etc. He made different portable easels with folding stools corresponding to their size, for working from nature, desks for large books, such as dictionaries, to be placed by the side of his arm-chair when he was reading; others for etchings and engravings, so that they might be examined without fear of any object coming in contact with them. So sensitive was he to the way in which works of art were handled, that he allowed no one to touch his prints or illustrated books; he was always in dread about their margins being creased or crumpled, and to avoid this possibility he used to show them himself. A well-known aqua-fortist told me that my husband had said to him once, "I would not trust you to handle one of your own etchings." Mr. Seeley had suggested that some illustrated articles about Autun might interest the readers of the "Portfolio" on account of the Roman and mediaeval remains, the remarkable cathedral, and the picturesque character of the surrounding country. He thought that, as a title, "An Old Burgundian City" would do. In a former letter he had expressed a wish that his editor should come to England--if possible--every year in the spring, instead of the autumn, when it was too late to discuss arrangements for the "Portfolio" for the ensuing year. Mr. Hamerton admitted that it would be desirable, no doubt, but he could not afford it; the expenses of our last stay had been a warning, though we had lived as simply as possible. To these considerations Mr. Seeley had answered: "I am sorry you do not feel more happy about your future work. What seems to be wanting is some public post in which you would be paid for studying." But he had had more than enough of such schemes after his attempt at Edinburgh, and it was the only one he was ever induced to make. He began at once the pen-drawings which were to illustrate the articles on Autun, and he liked his work exceedingly. CHAPTER XVI. 1882-1884. "Paris."--Miss Susan Hamerton's Death.--Burnley revisited.--Hellifield Peel.--"Landscape" planned.--Voyage to Marseilles. In May, Richard went away to Paris to study from the antique in the Louvre, and Mary read English to her father for an hour every afternoon. In the summer Mr. Hamerton received the decoration and title of Officier d'Académie, but so little did he care for public marks of distinction that the fact is barely mentioned in the diary. In August he received the following interesting letter from Mr. Browning:-- "HOTEL VIRARD, ST. PIERRE DE CHARTREUSE ISÈRS. "_August_ 17, 1882. "DEAR MR. HAMERTON,--When I got, a month ago, your very pleasant letter, I felt that, full as it was of influences from Autun, the Saône between Chalon and Lyons, speeded by '330 square feet of canvas,' my little word of thanks in reply would never get well under weigh from the banks of our sluggish canal; so reserved launching it till I should reach this point of vantage: and now, forth with it, that, wherever it may find you, I may assure your kindness that it would indeed have gratified me to see you, had circumstances enabled you to come my way; and that the amends you promise for failing to do so will be duly counted upon; tho' whether that will happen at Warwick Crescent is unlikely rather than merely uncertain--since the Bill which is to abolish my house, among many more notable erections, has 'passed the Lords'' a fortnight ago, and I must look about for another lodging--much against my will. I dropped into it with all the indifference possible, some twenty-one years ago--meaning to slip out again soon as this happened, and that happened--and they all did happen, and yet found me with a sufficient reason for staying longer, till, only last year while abroad, the extraordinary thought occurred--'what need of removing at all?'--to which was no answer: so I took certain steps toward permanent comfort, which never before seemed worth taking--and, on my return, was saluted by a notice to the effect that a Railway Company wanted my 'House, forecourt, and garden,' and wished to know if I objected--I who, a month or two before, had painted the house and improved the garden. Go I must--but I shall endeavor to go somewhere near, and your visit, if you pay me one, will begin the good associations with the place. And _this_ place; you may be acquainted with it, not unlikely. It is a hamlet on a hilltop, surrounded by mountains covered with fir--being the ancient Cartusia whence our neighbors the monks took their name; the Great Chartreuse lies close by, an hour's walk perhaps: this hamlet is in their district, 'the Desert,' as they call it; their walks are confined to it, and you meet on a certain day a procession of white-clothed shavelings, absolved from their vow of silence, and chattering like magpies, while vigorously engaged in butterfly-hunting. We have not a single shop in the whole handful of houses--excepting the 'tabac et timbres' establishment--where jalap and lollipops are sold likewise--and one hovel, the owner of which calls himself, on its outside, 'Cordonnier': yet there is this 'Hôtel' and an auberge or two--serving to house travellers who are dismissed from the Convent at times inconvenient for reaching Grenoble; or so I suppose. "The beauty and quiet of the scenery, the purity of the air, the variety of the wild-flowers--these are incomparable in our eyes (those of my sister and myself), and make all roughnesses smooth: we spent five weeks here last season; will do the like now, and then are bound for Ischia, where a friend entertains us for a month in a seaside villa he inhabits: afterwards to London, with what appetite we may, though London has its abundant worth too. Utterly peaceful as this country appears--and you may walk in its main roads for hours without meeting any one but a herdsman or wood-cutter--I shall tell you a little experience I have had of its possibilities. On the last day of our sojourn last year, we took a final look at and leave of a valley, a few miles off; and as I stood thinking of the utter _innocency_ of the little spot and its surroundings, the odd fancy entered my head, 'Suppose you discovered a corpse in this solitude, would you think it your duty to go and apprise the authorities, incurring all the risks and certain hindrance to to- morrow's departure which such an act entails in France--or would you simply hold your tongue?' And I concluded, 'I ought to run those risks.' Well, that night a man was found murdered, just there where I had been looking down, and the owner of the field was at once arrested and shut up in the _Mairie_ of the village of St. Pierre d'Entremont, close by. The victim was an Italian mason, had received seven mortal wounds, and lay in a potato-patch with a sack containing potatoes: 'he had probably been caught stealing these by the owner, who had killed him,'--so, the owner was taken into custody. We heard this--and were inconvenienced enough by it next day, for our journey was delayed by the Judge (d'Instruction) from Grenoble possessing himself of the mule which was to carry our luggage, in order to report on the spot; but we got away at last. On returning, last week, I inquired about the result. 'The accused man, who was plainly innocent, being altogether _boulversé_ by the charge coming upon him just in his distress at losing a daughter a fortnight before, had taken advantage of the negligence of the gendarmes to throw himself from the window. He survived three hours, protesting his innocence to the last, which was confirmed by good evidence: the likelihood being that the murder had been committed by the Italian's companions at a little distance, and the body carried thro' the woods and laid there to divert suspicions.' Well might my genius warn me of the danger of being a victim's neighbor. But how I have victimized _you_, if you have borne with me! Forgive, and believe me ever, "Yours truly, "ROBERT BROWNING." Mr. Seeley had thought that a series of articles on Paris might be suitable for the "Portfolio," if they were written by the editor, who knew the beautiful city so well, and accordingly my husband had decided to go there for a month, in order to take notes and to choose subjects for the illustrations. He never could have been reconciled to the idea of remaining a month in Paris alone, and I bethought myself of a plan, which seemed both economical and pleasant, and which he readily adopted. It was to take Mary with us, and to rent a small apartment in our quiet Hôtel de la Muette; having our meals prepared in our private kitchen (for each apartment was complete), and the cleaning done with the help of a _femme de ménage_. It would be a sort of life-at-home on a very small scale. The apartments were like English lodgings without attendance. Moreover, no one belonging to the hotel, not even a servant, had a right to enter the apartments: they were entirely private. One might order the most costly repasts from the luxurious restaurants close at hand, or keep a _cordon bleu_, or live on bread-and-water like an anchorite, just as one pleased, without anybody noticing it. This liberty was exactly what my husband liked. We left home on October 9 with Richard, who was to continue his artistic studies in England now, and Mary, whom her father wanted to become acquainted with the different museums, beautiful buildings, and treasures of art, under his direction, for which there could have been no better opportunity. We all looked forward to this change as to a _partie de plaisir_, the young people especially, and on our arrival in Paris, M. Mas and his wife received us with great cordiality. They had nothing in common with the ordinary type of hotel-keepers, and welcomed their _habitués_ with a simple, hearty friendliness--such as servants, who had been all their lives in a family, might show to their masters--which pleased my husband much. They showed us, with visible satisfaction, our little apartment, saying that it had been reserved for us on account of "Mademoiselle," because her room would be just close to her mamma's, and the door leading from one to the other might be left open at night. We were told that the kitchen was particularly nice, because Monsieur Paul Baudry, "un artiste aussi," had fitted it up "à neuf" for the three months he had been spending in our present apartment. Early in the morning I went out to order provisions--groceries, fuel, wine, etc., for the month we were to remain at the hotel. We had afterwards an excellent and cheerful _déjeuner_ prepared in our own kitchen. My husband was amused by the contrivances of what he called "the doll's house," and said he did not mind spending a month in that way. In the afternoon we went with the children to see the Hôtel de Ville, Notre Dame, and La Cour de Cassation: in each of these buildings my husband gave us a short explanatory lesson in architecture. The second day he had already made rules for the division of his time, according to which the mornings would be reserved for writing and correspondence; déjeuner was to be ready at eleven, so as to leave the afternoon free for the work in Paris. As on the previous day, we were breakfasting together, talking of Richard's prospects in London, when there came a telegram, saying that our dear Aunt Susan thought herself to be sinking, and desired to see us. It was a sudden and a painful blow; my husband had not a moment of hesitation about what he would do. He told us to pack up immediately, whilst he went to look at the railway-guide, and find the first slow night-train for England: Richard and Mary were to go with us--it would be a last satisfaction for their aunt if we arrived in time. I was full of apprehension for my husband, but, of course, refrained from mentioning my fears. There was no slow train after four o'clock, so we had to start when it was still daylight, but he kept his eyes closed till darkness rendered invisible the objects we passed on our way. He bore the journey very well on the whole, and on reaching Calais we went on board the steamer immediately. It was midnight, the sea was splendidly phosphorescent, and Richard and Mary took great delight in throwing things into it, to see the sparkles flash about. I had no fear so long as we remained on the water, for Gilbert always enjoyed it, whatever the weather might be, and felt utterly free from nervousness. Arrived at Dover at four in the morning, we went to bed for a little rest, and after breakfast went out for a walk on the seashore under the cliffs. Richard had never seen the sea before, and he received a profound impression from it. The wind was high, and the big green, crested waves came dashing their foam on to the very rocks at our feet. The alternate effects of sunshine and masses of clouds, violently driven and torn by the squalls, were magnificent; and Richard, more than ever, was fired with the wish to become a painter. His sister, very sensitive to natural beauty, shared his enthusiasm. The train for London started at three, and on arriving at Charing Cross we found a more reassuring telegram, stating that our aunt was somewhat better. Thus cheered by the hope of seeing her again, Gilbert was able to eat his supper with us before going to bed. I was greatly alarmed by his decision to start early in the morning and to travel throughout the day; but having made such a sacrifice of money in abandoning our apartment and provisions, and in taking the children with us in the hope of giving a last satisfaction to his aunt, I understood that he would on no account run the risk of arriving too late. It proved a most painful day to us all. Very soon he gave signs of distress and nervousness in spite of all his efforts to hide them; but this time he would not leave the train, though I besought him to do so. We had some provisions in our bags, but, weak as he felt, he could not swallow a morsel of anything; he could not even drink. Still, at one time he thought that a little brandy might do him good; unfortunately we had not any with us, and it being Sunday all the refreshment-rooms were closed on the line. He strove desperately against the growing cerebral excitement, now by lying down at full length on the cushions with the curtains drawn, and his eyes closed (most mercifully we were alone in our compartment); now by stamping his feet in the narrow space and rubbing his hands vigorously to bring back circulation. In these alternate fits of excitement and prostration we reached Doncaster at five. Luckily there was a stoppage of about forty minutes before we could proceed to Featherstone, and we turned it to the best advantage by leaving the railway station and going in search of a quiet hotel, where we ordered something to eat. Darkness had now set in. We had had a little walk out of sight of the railway, in the open air, and there seemed to be not a soul, besides ourselves and the landlord, in the hotel; so that by the time our dinner made its appearance my husband had so far recovered that he was able to take both food and drink, which did him much good. We arrived at Featherstone station after ten, and as the time of our arrival had been uncertain, there was nobody to meet us. We left our luggage, and only taking our handbags, we set off for the vicarage on foot in the dark and in a deluge of rain. At eleven we were all standing by the bed of our dear aunt, who knew us perfectly in spite of her weak state, and whose satisfaction at the sight of Richard and Mary was as great as unhoped for. The diary says: "Oct. 15, 1882. Our poor aunt recognized us, but it is only too plain that she cannot live more than three or four days." The doctor, whom we saw on the following morning, said that Miss Hamerton was dying of no disease; it was merely the breaking up of the constitution. She was kept up artificially by medicine and stimulants, very frequently administered, for which she had neither taste nor desire. Now she said to the doctor: "I have been very submissive because I wanted to retain my flickering life until I should see my nephew and his family; this great happiness has been granted to me, and now I only desire to go to my final rest." After this the doctor's prescription was to give her only what she might ask for. We remained at her bedside throughout the day, with the exception of a visit to the old church, now restored with care and taste, to my husband's satisfaction. We watched our aunt part of the night, and she spoke very often, with her usual clearness of mind; towards three in the morning our cousins Emma and Annie came to relieve us. On the morrow there was a change for the worse with greater weakness, and we determined--my husband and myself--to watch all night. Aunt Susan concerned herself about our comfort to the last; she reminded her nephew to keep up a good fire that I might not get cold; she insisted upon my making some tea for myself, and upon my husband having a glass of beer. About two in the morning she asked for a little champagne; her mind was so clear that, after exchanging a few sentences with her nephew in the Lancashire dialect and drinking her small glass of champagne, she said with a smile, "It's good sleck," and lay still for a while. At three she wanted to be turned on her side, which my husband did with tender care, happy to be able to do something for her better than any one else could do it, as she said. I believe she liked to feel herself in his arms. Then she wished Ben to come up to read the last prayers. I went to call him, also Annie and Emma, Richard and Mary, and we all surrounded her bed whilst Ben was reading the prayers according to her desire, and my husband holding one of her hands all the time. She rested her eyes upon each of us in turn, closed them never to open them again, and breathed more and more feebly till she breathed no more. It was five o'clock in the morning. Her death had been a peaceful one, without a struggle, without pain,--the death we may desire for all that we love. Nevertheless, it proved a sore trial for my husband, who was losing the oldest affection of his life. It was even more severe than such losses are in most cases, however great may have been the affection, for it was like complete severance from the past to which both he and his aunt were so much attached. When they were together the reminiscences of the old days at Hollins, of the old friends and relations, of the quaint old customs still prevailing in the youthful days of the Misses Hamerton, and the great change since, were frequent topics of conversation. Aunt Susan was extremely intelligent, and her conversation was full of humor; she also wrote capital letters, and kept her nephew _au courant_ of all that happened to their common friends. She shared in his great love and admiration for the beauties of nature, and her enjoyment of them was intense. When walking out she noticed all the changes of effect, and her interest never palled. Great respect to her memory was manifested by the inhabitants of Featherstone, high and low, who filled the church on the day of the funeral and on the following Sunday, and who had put on mourning almost without exception. On the Sunday night my husband went alone to the cemetery by moonlight, and remained long at the grave. Our cousins, Ben and Annie Hinde, both showed great sympathy, and were also sorrowful on their own account; but Ben thought it bad for Mary and Richard to be shut up in unrelieved sadness, and was so kind as to take them to Leeds, Pontefract, Wakefield, and York in turn. Aunt Susan had left a little legacy to each of her nephews and nieces, and the rest of her savings to my husband (she had not the disposition of the capital, which had been left in trust). She had carefully prepared and addressed little parcels of _souvenirs_ to myself and to each of my children--jewels, seals, silver pencil-cases, as well as some ancient and curious objects which had been preserved as relics in the family, and which she knew we should value and respect. The day came when we had to leave our dear cousins and the old vicarage, so full of associations both pleasant and painful. We proceeded towards Burnley, where a telegram from Mr. Handsley was handed to my husband at the station. It said that Mr. Handsley was prevented from coming himself, but that his carriage was in readiness to take us to Reedley Lodge, where his wife was awaiting us. We were made very welcome, and Gilbert was happy to see his friends again after so long a separation. Thursday--our former servant in the Highlands--came to see us in the evening, and our children, who had heard a great deal about him, were glad of the meeting. Mrs. Handsley was a distant relation of my husband, and the relationship had always been acknowledged. She showed herself eager to divine how her guests would like to spend the short time at their disposal, and to fulfil their wishes. She was aware of my husband's faithful attachment to old associations, both with persons and with places, and she drove us to see his former friends who were still alive, and also the Hollins. The children, who had heard so much about it, were greatly interested, particularly in the room which had been their father's study. Note in the diary: "October 26, 1882. Went to see the Brun, that I had not seen since my marriage. Drank some of its water." Mrs. Handsley said she had it on good authority that Mr. John Hamerton of Hellifield Peel had expressed on several occasions his regret for the division existing between the two branches of the family, and his wish to become acquainted with my husband, whose works he knew and admired. Now it had been a lifelong desire of his to visit Hellifield Peel--the ancient tower with the romantic history, and the seat of the elder branch of the Hamertons. There could be no better opportunity, Mrs. Handsley suggested. At last he decided for the attempt, and on the following morning we set out with the children. It was Gilbert's intention merely to send his card, and beg leave to see the tower without putting forward a claim of any kind, but on receipt of the card we were immediately shown into the drawing-room and most cordially received by Mr. John Hamerton and his sister. I was at once struck--and so were Richard and Mary--by the likeness between the two men, though they belonged to different branches of the family. My husband might have been easily taken for a younger brother of Mr. John Hamerton. They were both tall and spare, the elder man especially; both were straight and of somewhat proud bearing; their eyes were blue, with a straightforward and fearless expression. The lightness of the beard and hair, together with the development of the forehead, completed the resemblance, though the whole aspect of Mr. John Hamerton was that of a country gentleman, whilst hard intellectual work had left its stamp on the younger man's countenance. They got on very amicably together, and we were invited to lunch. My husband eagerly desired to go over the house, but alas for his dreams! it had been transformed according to modern wants, and the absence of all relics from so many generations was very striking. We walked in the park, where we admired the noble trees, the pond, and, at some distance from the Peel, the beautiful Ribble valley, the subject of one of Turner's landscapes. It was now time to go to our train after our long and charming visit; and when Mr. John Hamerton had given some photographs of Hellifield Peel to my husband, and we had taken a friendly leave of his sister, he accompanied us to the station, and invited us to the Peel whenever we might come that way. So the long breach in the family now belonged to the past, and was replaced by mutual goodwill and friendliness. Gilbert wrote in his diary: "October 27, 1882. One of the most delightful days of my life." The day after, he went to Burnley with Mr. Handsley and saw the new school before going to the Council Chamber, where a public reception had been organized in his honor, and where he delivered an oration in acknowledgment of many flattering speeches. The formal part of the reception over, he shook hands with every one who came forward to speak to him--among whom he still remembered a few. The afternoon ended with a visit to the Mechanics' Institution, in which he had never ceased to take great interest. He had been much moved and gratified by the welcome offered him at Burnley, and never forgot it. The journey to London was very trying on account of the cold, fog, and snow. The train ploughed its way slowly and cautiously amidst the explosive signals, which did not add to our comfort. We felt very sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Seeley, who were sitting up for us so late into the night. On the days following our arrival, my husband introduced Richard to his friends, took him about London, and chose lodgings for him. He also saw Mr. F. G. Stephens, who wished him to become a candidate for the post of Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford; but he did not feel tempted. He called upon Mr. Browning, who was unfortunately out; but as he was on the point of closing the door, he felt a resistance, and saw a lady--"the sister of Robert Browning," she explained--to whom his card had been handed, and who, by mistake, had read the name as Hamilton. It was only after looking at it more attentively that she had rushed down the stairs to detain the visitor. He went up with her to the drawing-room, where he found Mrs. Orr, the sister of Sir Frederick Leighton, and they had a long and pleasant talk together. Some days later he had the pleasure of meeting with Mr. Browning. It was lucky that Gilbert had good health just then, and Richard to go about with him in London, for I was laid up with a bad cold--the result of having walked a whole day in the snow making calls, without an opportunity of drying my boots or of warming my feet. Mrs. Seeley was my kind and thoughtful nurse, and thanks to her care I gradually recovered. Richard came to say good-bye, and we left Nutfield House for France. This time we did not go through Paris, but visited everything of interest at Rouen, Dreux, Orléans, and Bourges. The diary says: "November 27. In the evening we reached home, very happy to be back again." On the 29th of the same month be received a letter from Mr. Sagar, from which I quote the following passage:-- "Sufficient time has not yet elapsed, I hope, for you to forget us in Burnley here, and the pleasure we had in seeing you in the Council Chamber on that, to us, memorable Saturday. "Next year will be the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Institute, and we are going to celebrate this and the general success we have had by a week's jubilee--the whole of New Year's week. The jubilee will take the form of a conversazione, a banquet, and a general exhibition, occupying every room of the place except two. South Kensington authorities are sending us six cases of examples of fabrics, pottery, etc., and about sixty frames of pictures, drawings, etc. Can you use your influence for us in obtaining a representative exhibition--say of etchings, or anything else of a suitable character that might suggest itself to you--together, if possible (and this would delight us all), with your presence, or in the absence of this, if you can't be here, a short letter for me to read, as on the opening of the Art-school?" The letter was sent in due time, and acknowledged with grateful thanks. Mr. Seeley was so kind as to send us news of Richard from time to time; he wrote in March: "Richard has shown me some of his drawings; I think he is making progress. One of his last drawings seemed to me excellent; very tender and subtle. He was down at Kinsgton with us the other day." This opinion of Mr. Seeley's gave great pleasure to my husband, who had always entertained doubts about the range of his son's artistic talent. In the same month he was asked to send a biographical note for "Men of the Time," a proof that his reputation was on the increase, and Mr. Haden, who had just come back from America, said that his works were held there in the highest esteem. The book on Paris necessitated another journey, and my husband made the time of it to coincide with the opening of the Salon. This time we stopped at Auxerre, and visited the four churches, the museum, and the room in which are exhibited the relics of Marshal Davoust. The diary says: "April 30. Began this morning another diary in English, to record the impressions which may serve for my literary work." On May 1 we had a carriage accident which might have been serious. Our horse took fright at sight of a steam tram, and ran away on the footpath at a furious rate, dashing the carriage against the trees and lamp-posts until he slipped and fell at full length on the asphalt. My husband had been able to jump out, but a sudden jerk had prevented me from following him at the moment, and then there was danger of being hurt between the side of the carriage and the banging door. Gilbert had been running, hatless, after the carriage to hold the door and enable me to jump out, and he just succeeded as the horse slipped down and upset the carriage. I was out in time to escape being hurt, but of course we were both a good deal shaken, and went back to rest at our hotel. We had hardly been a week in Paris when my husband began to suffer from nervousness. A tramway had been laid in front of the hotel, and the vibration prevented him from sleeping. Then spring was always trying to him; and above all, he wished himself in the country. Mr. Seeley wrote: "Nature evidently intended you for a savage; how in the world did you come to be a literary man? What must Frenchmen think of you, in Paris and miserable? Even Mrs. Hamerton must feel ashamed of you." He acknowledged that he was more happy in a primitive sort of existence than in one too perfectly civilized; still, he could not endure the privation of books, and he would have felt keenly the absence of works of art; but he was in deeper sympathy with the beauty of nature than with artistic beauty--to be denied the last would have been a great privation, but in the absence of the first he really could not live. We had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Mr. Howard-Tripp, who had recently married Mr. Wyld's daughter, and who, being a picture-dealer, invited us to go and see his gallery in the Rue St. Georges. There were a great many fine works that my husband greatly admired, particularly those by Corot, Daubigny, and Troyon, and the scheme for the book on "Landscape" having been settled with Mr. Seeley, he begged Mr. Howard-Tripp to allow reproductions of some of the pictures to appear in his future work. It was readily granted. This selection of pictures for the book on "Landscape" gave the author much additional labor; but it was better to do it now that he was in Paris than have to come again on purpose. Mr. Seeley had offered to run over and help with the arrangements, but was prevented by a slight accident. He then proposed that photographs of the pictures chosen should be sent to him, that he might have a vote. We were very near the end of our stay in Paris, and Gilbert wanted to go to the office of "L'Art," having some business there, and wishing to say farewell to the manager. He had also invited the sons of M. Schmitt (who were now in Paris) to meet us in the Square Richelieu and to dine afterwards at a restaurant. He thought that he could manage both things on the same day. However, we were hardly out of the omnibus when I perceived he was unwell; but I had not time to propose anything before he started off at such a rate that I was obliged to run to follow him: the worst symptoms were betrayed by his gait, by the congestion of face and neck, and by the hard stare of the eyes. It was too late to take a carriage; he could not stop, and could not be spoken to. I saw that a sure instinct was guiding him out of the crowded street to the by-ways and least frequented places, and I strove to remain by his side. In the course of about twenty minutes, I noticed a slackening in his pace, and as I had been looking about for some refuge, I remarked, through the open doors of a small café, an empty back-room, and motioned to him to follow me there. It was almost dark, and there was a divan running along three sides of the wall; I made him lie down upon it, and went to tell the _dame-de-comptoir_ (who happened to be the mistress of the house) that my husband had felt suddenly unwell and required a little rest. She made no fuss, did not press me to send for a doctor or to administer anything; she merely promised to prevent any one from going into that back room, and said we might remain there undisturbed as long as was needed. After half-an-hour my husband asked for a little brandy and water, and gradually became himself again. We remained about two hours in the little room, reading--or pretending to read--the newspapers, and such was Gilbert's courage and resolution, that he went to keep the appointment with the young men he had invited. I knew I was not to breathe a word of what had happened, and I was miserably anxious about the effect that a dinner in a restaurant _en vogue_ might have upon the nerves of my poor patient. Strange to say, he bore it very well, and played his part as entertainer quite merrily. But after dinner I longed to get him away, and proposed to take an open carriage for a drive in the Champs Élysées. This was accepted, and I believe he really enjoyed it. We agreed to leave Paris the following evening, and I went to town alone in the afternoon for a few things which had been postponed to the last moment. We reached Autun on May 26, at which date the diary says: "I am very happy to be in my home, which I prefer to all the finest palaces in Paris." In the spring he had suffered repeatedly from great pain in one of his legs, and had attributed it to rheumatism; now he began to feel the pain again in the left foot, and it soon became so acute that the doctor was sent for. He said it was an attack of gout, but gave hope of an ultimate cure, because the patient's constitution was not a gouty one. The cause of the attack was insufficient exercise in the open air. He prescribed a severe regimen, less sedentary work, and as much walking and riding as possible. For twenty-one nights my husband could not go to bed, but remained stretched on a couch or sitting in an arm-chair; when the pain was less severe he laid himself down upon the bed for a short time, but he hardly ever got to sleep. His fortitude and patience were incredible, and he bore the almost intolerable sufferings with admirable resignation. He tried to read, and even to write upon a desk placed on his knees, and talked much about his plan for the book on "Landscape." Mr. Seeley wrote:-- "I am heartily sorry to hear of your attack of gout. But I am relieved to hear that it is not erysipelas, which must have been alarming. Possibly the discomfort you suffered in Paris may have been a premonitory symptom of this attack, and you may look forward to the enjoyment of better health when it has passed away." Mr. Haden declared that he felt "delighted" by this attack, as indicative of a change for the better in the constitution; he hoped that the tendency to nervousness and insomnia would disappear, or at any rate greatly diminish. We were now daily expecting Richard, and Mr. Seeley had said on June 25: "Richard was with us on Saturday, his farewell visit. We like him more and more every time we see him." He was coming back--at my request--to pass an examination in English, the same that his brother had passed successfully two years ago for the _Certificat d'aptitude_, after which he got his post of professor at Mâcon. I had thought that if Richard failed as an artist he might be glad to fall back upon a professorship, and it turned out so. His father was pleased to notice how much better and more fluently he spoke English on his return from London; but at the same time, after seeing the drawings done in England, he was confirmed in the opinion that originality and invention were lacking to make a real artist of his younger son. What ought to be said was very perplexing: the drawings were good enough in their way, the progress undeniable--but they were only copies, even when done from the living model--the creative spark, the individual artistic stamp, were absent. My husband allowed himself some time for consideration before warning Richard that he thought him mistaken in his choice of a career. However, after having passed a successful examination it was Richard who, of his own accord, told his father that he felt very doubtful about the ultimate result of his artistic studies. He believed they were begun too late, and that his chances against students who had several years' start were very small--they had been drawing and painting since the age of thirteen or fourteen, whilst he was preparing himself for his degrees. The ease with which he had carried off the _Certificat d'aptitude_ made him sanguine about being ready for the _Agrégation_ in the course of a year, after which he would be entitled to a post in the University. He would not abandon art, he said, but would not follow it as a profession. It was a great relief that the resolution should have been his own; but it surprised Mr. Seeley considerably, and he wrote to my husband:-- "From what you tell me of his want of enjoyment in the practice of art, the determination seems wise. I suppose we take it for granted that a man must take pleasure in doing whatever he can do well; but there is no reason in the world why ability and inclination should always go together. A man with a good eye and that general ability and power of application which make a good student may easily be a draughtsman above the average, but it is quite intelligible that he should take more pleasure in other studies." At the end of August Gilbert went with Stephen and his eldest nephew, Maurice Pelletier, for a cruise of ten days on the Saône. They were on the new catamaran "L'Arar," and enjoyed their voyage thoroughly. On October 2, Richard left us to go to Paris to have the benefit of _les Cours de la Sorbonne_, as a preparation for _L'Agrégation d'Anglais_; and in December Stephen asked for a year's leave of absence from his post, in order to pursue his English studies in London. It is therefore conceivable that the father's health should have been impaired by anxiety and his brain overtaxed by the numerous works he had undertaken to meet his responsibilities. He was at the same time writing "Human Intercourse" for Messrs. Macmillan, "Paris" for the "Portfolio," and the book on "Landscape" was begun. In November he had written a very long letter to Miss Betham-Edwards, mainly in explanation of the word "sheer" used for boats, then about our doings, and he says:-- "We have had the house upset by workpeople, but we are settled again after a great bother, which I dreaded before, as Montaigne used to dread similar disturbances; but now it is over I feel myself much more comfortable and orderly, though the reform has cost me a considerable loss of time. The rooms look prettier and are less crammed. "I got the other day a letter of twenty pages from a cousin in New Zealand who had never written to me for thirty years. It was the most interesting biography of struggle, adventure, danger, hard work, and final success. It is a great pity that the men who go through such lives have not the literary talent to make autobiographies that can be published. I have another cousin whose history is _quite_ as good as 'Robinson Crusoe,' and I have engaged him to write it, but he never will. If I lived near him I could gradually get the material out of him; but at a distance I cannot get him even to write rough notes. On the other hand, we literary people are quite humdrum people in our ways of life, and our autobiographies would generally be of little interest. "I have been reading Ariosto lately in Italian, and am struck both by his qualities and deficiencies. He is all on the surface; but what a wealth of inventive power, and what a well-sustained, unflagging energy and cheerfulness! The descriptions are frequently superb, and there is a go in the style generally that is very stimulating. It is like watching the flow of a bright, rapid, brimming river. I don't think we have any English poet of the same kind. Spenser is rather like, but heavier, and just lacking that brightness in combination with movement. Spenser and Byron together contain many of the qualities of Ariosto." The first note in the diary for 1884 says: "I must try to economize time in all little things where economy is possible without injury to the quality of work. I cannot economize it very much in the work itself without risk of lowering quality." It was a pleasure for my husband to see that his articles on the architecture of Paris had been so favorably noticed as to bring requests for contributions from "The Builder" and "L'Architecte." Mr. Seeley wrote to him: "I think it is a feather in your cap that your architectural notes should have brought you invitations to write for professional journals." My brother-in-law, M. Pelletier, had left Algiers, and was now Économe at the Lycée at Marseilles. He had suggested that, it being possible to go from Chalon to Marseilles by water, we might pay him a visit and see the course of the Rhône at the same time. My husband felt greatly tempted to accept, for more than one reason: he would be able at the same time to take notes and to make observations on the way for the book on "Landscape," and to come to a conclusion about the possibility of the Rhône scheme. We might divide the places of interest into two series, and see one of them in going and the other in coming back, with a pleasant time of rest at our friend's in the interval. The itinerary was carefully prepared to miss nothing on the way, and on April 8 we left my mother in charge of the house, whilst my husband, myself, and Mary started from Chalon, where we went on board the steamer for Mâcon. My husband having often seen the town, was left to his writing whilst I took Mary to see the church of Brou. From Mâcon to Lyons we enjoyed the landscape from the deck of the steamer, particularly Trévoux, and L'Ile Barbe as we neared Lyons. Note in the diary: "We passed through some lovely scenery, but I came to the conclusion never to boat with the 'Arar' below Courzon." So long as he remained on the water or in little out-of-the-way places, Gilbert was well enough and enjoyed himself exceedingly, but as soon as we were obliged to stay in large towns he began to suffer; at Lyons, having attempted to go to the Museum when it was crowded, he had to hurry out, and it is a miracle how he managed to reach the hotel, where he went through one of the worst attacks of nervousness in his life. It did not last very long, and when he was well again I took Mary to Fourvières. By rail we proceeded to Vienne, then to Valence and Pierre-latte, where it was pitch dark as we got out, and raining heavily. To our dismay we saw no sign of either omnibus or carriage. However, a man was coming up to us in a leisurely way with a broken lantern, and he explained that the "'bus had not come because it was raining." He led us to a very queer--apparently deserted--hotel, where the getting of sheets for the narrow beds seemed to be an almost insurmountable difficulty; and as to cases for the pillows, in sheer despair of ever getting any, we had to use clean towels out of our bags in their stead. The double-bedded room was adorned with a gallery of pastel portraits so wan and faded that they looked by the faint gleam of moonlight through the shutters like a procession of ghosts; and there were so many chairs in Mary's room, and such an immensely long table, that it must surely have been used by the ghosts as a dining-hall. Nevertheless, we slept soundly, had a charming excursion in the morning, and a good, though late, _déjeuner_ afterwards, for it chanced to be the drawing of lots for the conscription, and the hotel was crowded by famished officials--Mayor, _adjoints_, gendarmes, officers, etc. Of course there was nothing for unofficial people like us but to wait and catch the dishes as they left the important table, and appropriate what might remain upon them. There was enough for us, and the wine was excellent,--so good indeed that we thought of having a cask sent to La Tuilerie. The great people having departed, we were able to talk at our leisure with the landlady, but all of a sudden we became aware that it was getting time to go, and asked for the bill. "Oh! there was no need for a bill, she could reckon in her head--but there was no hurry." We explained that there was some hurry, as the carriage we had ordered would be at the door presently. "Mais pourquoi? pourquoi vous en aller?" exclaimed the simple woman, with an air of consternation; "est-ce que vous n'êtes pas bien ici?" Bourg St. Andéol, where we stopped next, is a very interesting place. My husband was particularly pleased with the little town and the Hôtel Nicolai. Our arrival created quite a stir in the sleepy, regular routine of the little bourg, and the doors and windows it can boast of became alive with curious eyes as we passed along the deserted streets. In an open carriage we were driven to Pont St. Esprit, and noticed the long lines of mulberry trees on each side of the roads; the driver explained that they are planted to feed the silkworms, and that in two months they would be leafless. We took the steamer again at Pont St. Esprit, late in the following day, for Avignon. In the morning of Sunday we all went to hear High Mass in the Cathedral, then to the Palace of the Popes, and round the walls. In the afternoon we visited the tomb of John Stuart Mill, and my husband left his card at the house of Miss Taylor. We then heard music in the open air, and saw the old bridge. It was a very pleasant fortnight that we spent at Marseilles with our relations, the only drawback being Gilbert's uncertain health, which prevented him from going out much; though close to the expanse of the Mediterranean, I suppose he had the feeling expressed in the preface to "Landscape" in these words: "The lover of wilderness always feels confined among the evidences of a minutely careful civilization." Towards the end of the day, when the blinding glare of sunshine was softened, we generally went to the Vieux Port, where there was an uninterrupted succession of picturesque scenes among sailors of all nations and ships of every description; or to La Joliette, to watch the arrival or departure of the Chinese vessels and other curious craft. At other times we walked in the Pare Borelli or on the Corniche. A novel feature in our life was the frequent visits to the theatre with our friends. It was most remarkable that my husband should take such a sudden fancy to the Opera; he could not account for it himself, except by noticing that "he felt at home in it." We invariably took _fauteuils d'orchestre_, so that he only saw the musicians, actors, and scenery--hardly any of the occupants of the theatre, except those in the stage-boxes. It is a curious fact that in the space of a fortnight he heard more operas than in all the rest of his life. He wrote the greater part of the day in a very quiet room, which M. Pelletier, who was well acquainted with his tastes, had fitted up accordingly at the very beginning of our visit. On our return we stopped to see Tarascon and Beaucaire, where we had still some friends. In the last place the director of the gas-works obligingly showed us through the house which had been my father's. We also visited Nîmes, Orange, and Montélimart, giving a whole day to each place. It was already very hot in the south, and the perfume of the acacias in full bloom everywhere was almost more than we could bear, especially at Montélimart. At Orange, after seeing the noble Roman remains, we partly ascended the hill to see the Ventoux range of mountains; then went on to Valence for the night. We were on board the steamer at five in the morning, and had a delightful voyage to Lyons, during which Gilbert took copious notes in the map-book he had prepared on purpose. After resting a day, we went straight on to Chalon by boat, and had a pleasant day with the captain, who invited us to _déjeuner_ with him on board. On the whole, we were satisfied with our journey; but the information my husband had collected on the way convinced him that the Rhône project, as he had planned it, was utterly impracticable. We were soon in great anxiety about our relatives at Marseilles, for we learned that cholera had broken out there early in July. Gilbert, without the least hesitation, immediately wrote to M. Pelletier, inviting him and his children to La Tuilerie, where they would be safe from the terrible scourge. Our brother-in-law readily availed himself of the invitation for his children; but thought it his duty to remain at his post, and set an example to the panic-stricken population. The arrival of our nephews and niece from the very centre of contamination did not tend to augment our popularity in the neighborhood, and we were made to understand--very plainly--that the house was tabooed, along with ourselves. Our milk from the farm just opposite to our house was brought to us half-way, and deposited in the middle of the road, where our servant had to go and fetch it--no one amongst the inmates of the farm being sufficiently courageous either to bring it within our walls, or to deliver it to a servant who had approached "les Marseillais." Ever since Richard had come home he had been steadily preparing himself for his examination, with the help of his father. Every day they read English poetry together, and Gilbert gave him all the necessary information as to the meaning, rhythm, and structure. In moments of relaxation he joined the family circle, frequently enlivened by the presence of a young couple, M. and Mme. Pochon, who had recently come to live at the schist-works, where the husband was managing engineer. The lady had a charming voice, and used to sing in the church with Mary, who played the harmonium. This led to an intimacy, and with an additional singer and pianist in the person of my niece we often organized private concerts, in which my husband took great pleasure. There was nothing he enjoyed more than such private recreation, except perhaps the satisfaction of taking trouble to make things agreeable to others. Here is an instance among many. On a fearfully hot day in August he overheard a _cantinière_ who, talking to her husband from the top of a wagon which had just stopped near La Tuilerie, was lamenting her inability to find a shady place for the _déjeuner_ of the officers, who would shortly arrive. He saw at once that he might offer these hot and weary warriors the unexpected pleasure of a cool resting-place. So he went to the _cantinière_, and proposed to have the officers' table set upon the lawn, under the shady elder trees. The woman could hardly credit such a charitable offer, and warned him that the fresh-looking grass would certainly suffer from it; but he only smiled, saying that it could not be helped, but that he hoped to induce the grass to grow again with copious watering. The table was set, chairs were brought from the house, also live charcoal for the portable stove, and we witnessed a very entertaining scene from behind the shutters when the regiment halted. The Colonel began to swear and scold at sight of the white, dusty, sultry road where the _cantinière_ had stopped, and for a few moments refused to listen to her explanations; but when he saw Mr. Hamerton coming out of the garden gate to invite him inside with his brother officers, he dismounted to salute him, and stood fixed in a state of ecstacy before the inviting white table-cloth, looking so fresh and cool between the green grass of the lawn and the green leaves of the trees. The other officers shared this pleasant impression, and were profuse in their thanks. After a short talk with the master of the house--who was called away to his own _déjeuner_ by the bell--they drank his health, and sat down with unfeigned satisfaction to their meal. It was not only the lawn which was thus invaded; for there being in the courtyard a deep well of deliciously cold water, the soldiers were not slow to find their way to it, and after quenching their thirst and filling up their _bidons_, they stretched themselves at full length upon the ground wherever there was shade, either from tree or wall. This general enjoyment of an hour's delicious rest amply compensated my husband for the havoc done in the garden. We were rather a numerous household then, at meal-times, with the addition of my mother, M. Pelletier and his three children, my brother, his wife and two little girls, so that when the youngest officer entered the dining-room--as spokesman--to reiterate the thanks of his brother officers, he felt abashed by so many eyes fixed upon him; still, he managed to get through his duty--somewhat hurriedly--and soon after the regiment was marching off; the men, now rested and refreshed, singing lustily at the top of their voices, and waving their _képis_ towards La Tuilerie. Stephen arrived for the vacation towards the middle of August; but the suspense in which we were kept about Richard's examination was most unfavorable to the health of his father. At last there were great rejoicings when a telegram conveyed to us his brilliant success. He came out second on the list, the first being a lady--Miss Williams--of whom he had often spoken to us in high terms, having been with her as a student at the Sorbonne, and who has since become directress of that most useful institution, the Franco-English Guild. We were told that Richard was the youngest _agrégé_ in France, and of course we were proud of it. Mr. Seeley wrote: "I heartily congratulate you on Richard's great success. It is not often that a young man can so speedily justify his choice of a career." "Human Intercourse" was published in September, and sold well, in spite of its cold reception by the Press. Mr. Hamerton did not allow unfavorable criticism to disturb him much. There was only one kind of attack that he did not bear patiently, I believe, and that was being told that he had no _genius_. "I don't pretend to have genius; I never said I had; then why make it a reproach?" he used to say. There was a second edition as early as December, and I give here a fragment of one of the numerous letters the author received, which may prove that public opinion was more favorable to the book than the critics:-- "You have given me some pleasant hours as I read and pondered over remarks of yours in 'Human Intercourse.' It is not the first time that you have tinted the current of my life. I hereby certify to my gratitude, not that I am of any account in the world, but because it seems to me a sort of duty, and because, were our positions reversed, it would please ME to know that I was appreciated even by a stranger. What you say about priests and women interests me deeply as a clergyman...." The letter contained eleven pages of confidential talk, mostly about personal experiences in the discharge of professional duty; clearly showing that the subject had not been treated in vain in "Human Intercourse." There had been a serious strike at the schist-works of La Comaille (close to Pré-Charmoy), and the hands, now that the winter was coming upon them, were distressed and greatly disheartened. Mr. Hamerton tried his best to mollify the engineer and to reason with the men, and make them see that the strike could not bring them any advantage. At last the workmen asked to be allowed to return to their work; but the engineer refused to take back the promoters of the strike, among whom was the husband of one of our former servants. The poor woman came in tears to beseech her "bon Monsieur" to obtain M. Pochon's forgiveness, for if her husband were kept out of work much longer her three little children would have to starve. The landlord having already threatened to turn them out, my husband had paid the rent of their cottage for a year, and now he pleaded so warmly the cause of the deluded workmen to Madame Pochon,--asking for her influence in their favor,--that together they carried their point, and so gave comfort to several poor families. With the exception of the two ringleaders, who had used threats and violent language, all the hands were taken back again. Our former servant's gratitude still survives; one of her children never fails to send the united wishes of the family for the New Year, and the letters always begin with, "Nos chers bienfaiteurs." The great kindness and generosity of "L'Anglais" were so well known in our neighborhood that the people had no hesitation in applying at La Tuilerie for clothing, medicines, or help of any kind. Even the beggars who came regularly, lingered after pocketing their penny in the hope of seeing him personally as he crossed the courtyard or went out on the road, for then--as an old woman confided to one of the maids--"On est sûr d'une pièce blanche." He was entirely free from false pride, and looked down upon no one deserving respect. One girl whom we had had in our service for five years, and who only left us to be married, begged as a great favor that Mary should be godmother to her child. He gave his leave at once, being the first to recall how attached and devoted she had been to our daughter when a baby. And when she called with her husband, he always shook hands with them both, and offered them refreshments. He showed the same ready sympathy to the class of young authors and artists in want of help and advice, trying to get them employment, and helping them to improve their work. He often accepted for the "Portfolio" articles which greatly increased his labors; for he had to correct and to rewrite parts--if he perceived some promise of talent in their authors. He also took the trouble of criticizing minutely numbers of etchings and drawings, pointing out possible alterations which might make them acceptable to the public, and by so doing he helped to form and encouraged a great number of artists. Mr. Seeley was anxious that the book on "Landscape" might be out in good time for the Christmas sale, and explained the many reasons which made it desirable; but although the author had done his best to be ready, he began to doubt of the possibility. Having been anxious about it and hurried, he became subject to painful attacks of palpitation. As soon as Mr. Seeley heard of it he wrote:-- "Pray do not run any risk of ruining your health. Tell me exactly how you stand, how much remains to be written. Then we will face the position like sensible people, and consider what is best to be done. You must neither risk your health by overwork nor your reputation by hasty work. What a pity it is that you don't enjoy games! I find tennis such a relief from worries. I have also a double tricycle, on which I ride every morning with my garden boy. It is a capital exercise; the steering occupies one's thoughts almost as well as a game. One can't think much of business while going seven or eight miles an hour with the probability that any considerable swerve will lead to an upset." Gilbert sometimes went on a velocipede, and liked it, but did not possess one at that time. In November there was good news for the boys. Richard had been told by M. Pelletier that a post at Marseilles would soon be vacant, and that he might apply for it. He did so, and got it, whilst Stephen replaced him at Poitiers, so that now they were both provided with good situations. CHAPTER XVII. 1884-1888. "Landscape."--The Autobiography begun.--"Imagination in landscape painting."--"The Saône."--"Portfolio papers." In October, 1884, all the five hundred large-paper copies of "Landscape" had been ordered except fifty; but the last pages of MS. were not sent off until January 30, 1885. The author wrote to the publisher: "At last I have the pleasure of sending you a page of MS. with 'The End' written upon it;" and as if relieved from his task he went on to relate the following incidents:-- "There has been a curious attempt at assassination here yesterday. A doctor named Vala was stopped by what seemed to be a nun, who asked for a place in his gig. He stretched out his hand to take a parcel belonging to the nun, took it, and then offered her his hand. He touched it, thought 'That's the hand of a man,' whipped his horse, and drove off at full speed. When at a distance he examined the contents of the parcel, which turned out to be a loaded revolver and a dagger. He thinks the project was to assassinate him _en route_. "Other curious story. "Night before last a strange man got tipsy in our village and began to blab and talk. He asked for a bottle without a bottom, and for some woollen rags. He was suspected of having a dynamite project, and the mayor was fetched at one in the morning to look after him, so he arrested him and took him to Autun at two a.m. On the way the man coolly confessed that he was one of a dynamite gang of ten, and threatened the mayor and the village when he got out of prison. "So you see we have our dangers as well as you." "Human Intercourse" was more popular in America than in England. Roberts Brothers wrote: "We have been selling three thousand copies of 'Human Intercourse;' does not that speak well for your popularity here? As yet the pirates have left it alone, although the 'Intellectual Life' has been pirated." Still, the author continued to receive many letters testifying to the appreciation of the book by his countrymen. Mr. Wyld said: "I have read 'Human Intercourse' from end to end, and intend to do so more than once, taking and considering each essay separately." Mrs. Henry Ady (Julia Cartwright) wrote that she and her husband had been charmed with it. The book seemed to have influenced women powerfully, for their letters about it were very numerous. The news of Richard's health became disquieting early in the month of January; he suffered much from headaches, and could not work. He was well nursed at his uncle's, M. Pelletier's, by his grandmother, who happened to be on a visit to her son-in-law. The doctor said it was a kind of nondescript fever with cerebral and typhoid symptoms, to which young people not acclimatized to Marseilles were very liable on settling there. In Richard's case there had been a predisposition on account of the hard work he had gone through for the _Agrégation_. He had looked as if he bore it easily while it lasted; but the strain had been more severe than he was aware of; and two years after his recovery he told me that he had never felt the same since that illness at Marseilles. In February, Miss Betham-Edwards having sent a volume of her poems to my husband, he wrote in acknowledgment:-- "I have read your book in the evenings and with pleasure, especially some pieces that I have read many times. 'The Wife's Prayer,' for one, seems to me quite a perfect piece of work; and not less perfect in another way, and quite a different may, is 'Don. Jose's Mule, Jacintha.' The delicate humor of the latter, in combination with really deep pathos and most finished workmanship, please me immensely. Besides this, I have a fellow-feeling for Don José, because I have an old pony that I attend to myself always, etc., etc.... "I have been vexed for some time now by the tendency to jealous hostility between France and England. I had hoped some years ago that the future might establish a friendly understanding between the two nations, based upon their obvious interest in the first place, and perhaps a little on the interchange of ideas; but I fear it was illusory, and that at some future date, at present undeterminable, there will be another war between them, as in the days of our fathers. I have thought sometimes of trying to found an Anglo-French Society or League, the members of which should simply engage themselves to do their best on all occasions to soften the harsh feeling between the two nations. I dare say some literary people would join such a league. Swinburne very probably would, and so would you, I fancy, I could get adhesions in the French University and elsewhere. Some influential political Englishmen, such as Bright, might be counted upon. I would have begun the thing long since; but I dread the heavy correspondence it would bring upon me. I would have a very small subscription, as the league ought to include working men. Peace and war hang on such trifles sometimes that a society such as I am imagining might possibly on some occasion have influence enough to prevent a war. It should be understood also that by a sort of freemasonry a member of the society would endeavor to serve any member of it belonging to the other nation. "I don't know if you have observed how harshly Matthew Arnold writes of France now. He accuses the whole nation of being sunk in _immorality_, which is very unfair. There are many perfectly well-conducted people in France; and why does not Arnold write in the same strain against Italy, which is more immoral still? The French expose themselves very much by their incapacity for hypocrisy--all French faults are _seen_." The winter was very cold, and all the ponds were covered with ice, affording good opportunity for skating. My husband undertook to teach Mary to skate, and they often went on the ice together. "Landscape" was published on March 12, and on the 19th all the large-paper copies were gone, and the small ones dropping off daily. The author wrote to Mr. Seeley:-- "I am glad 'Landscape' is moving nicely. Nothing is more disagreeable to an author than to see an enterprising publisher paid for his trust and confidence by anxiety and loss, especially when the publisher is a friend. Failure with this book would have been especially painful to me, as I should have attributed it in great part to my slowness with the MS., and consequent want of punctuality." Mr. P. Q. Stephens said: "The book is a superb affair, and, as far as I have seen it, deserves all praise." R. L. Stevenson wrote:-- "BOURNEMOUTH. _March_ 16, 1885. "My Dear Hamerton,--Various things have been reminding me of my misconduct; first, Swan's application for your address; second, a sight of the sheets of your 'Landscape' book; and last, your note to Swan, which he was so kind as to forward. I trust you will never suppose me to be guilty of anything more serious than an idleness, partially excusable. My ill-health makes my rate of life heavier than I can well meet, and yet stops me from earning more. My conscience, sometimes perhaps too easily stifled, but still (for my time of life and the public manners of the age) fairly well alive, forces me to perpetual and almost endless transcriptions. On the back of all this, any correspondence hangs like a thundercloud, and just when I think I am getting through my troubles, crack, down goes my health, I have a long, costly sickness, and begin the world again. It is fortunate for me I have a father, or I should long ago have died; but the opportunity of the aid makes the necessity none the more welcome. My father has presented me with a beautiful house here--or so I believe, for I have not yet seen it, being a cage bird, but for nocturnal sorties in the garden. I hope we shall soon move into it, and I tell myself that some day perhaps we may have the pleasure of seeing you as our guest. I trust at least that you will take me as I am, a thoroughly bad correspondent, and a man, a hater, indeed, of rudeness in others, but too often rude in all unconsciousness himself; and that you will never cease to believe the sincere sympathy and admiration that I feel for you and for your work. "About the 'Landscape,' which I had a glimpse of while a friend of mine was preparing a review, I was greatly interested, and could write and wrangle for a year on every page: one passage particularly delighted me, the part about Ulysses--jolly. Then, you know, that is just what I fear I have come to think landscape ought to be in literature: so there we should be at odds. Or perhaps not so much as I suppose, as Montaigne says it is a pot with two handles, and I own I am wedded to the technical handle, which (I likewise own, and freely) you do well to keep for a mistress. I should much like to talk with you about some other points; it is only in talk that one gets to understand. Your delightful Wordsworth trap I have tried on two hardened Wordsworthians, not that I am not one myself. By covering up the context, and asking them to guess what the passage was, both (and both are very clever people, one a writer, one a painter) pronounced it a guide-book. 'Do you think it unusually good guide-book?' I asked. And both said, 'No, not at all!' Their grimace was a picture when I showed the original. "I trust your health and that of Mrs. Hamerton keep better; your last account was a poor one. I was unable to make out the visit I had hoped as (I do not know if you heard of it) I had a very violent and dangerous hemorrhage last spring. I am almost glad to have seen death so close with all my wits about me, and not in the customary lassitude and disenchantment of disease. Even thus clearly beheld, I find him not so terrible as we suppose. But, indeed, with the passing of years, the decay of strength, the loss of all my old active and pleasant habits, there grows more and more upon me that belief in the kindness of this scheme of things, and the goodness of our veiled God, which is an excellent and pacifying compensation. I trust, if your health continues to trouble you, you may find some of the same belief. But perhaps my fine discovery is a piece of art, and belongs to a character cowardly, intolerant of certain feelings, and apt to self-deception. I don't think so, however; and when I feel what a weak and fallible vessel I was thrust into this hurly-burly, and with what marvellous kindness the wind has been tempered to my frailties, I think I should be a strange kind of ass to feel anything but gratitude. "I do not know why I should inflict this talk upon you; but when I summon the rebellious pen, he must go his own way: I am no Michael Scott, to rule the fiend of correspondence. Most days he will none of me: and when he comes, it is to rape me where he will. "Yours very sincerely, "ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON." Mr. Seeley wrote:-- "My brother the Professor has been staying with us and reading the 'Graphic Arts' and 'Landscape' most assiduously. He was deeply interested, and said they seemed to him most important works, giving him views about art which had never entered his mind before. He seems to feel that you are doing in Art what he is doing in History." For the present, Mr. Hamerton had no great work in hand. There was the usual writing for the "Portfolio," and he had been asked for articles by the editors of "Longmans' Magazine" and the "Atlantic Monthly," but he had not yet made up his mind as to the subject of a new important book, and was discussing various schemes both with Mr. Seeley and Mr. Craik. In one of his letters to Mr. Seeley he said:-- "I have sometimes thoughts of writing a book (not too long) on the Elements or Principles of Art Criticism, in the same way as G. H. Lewes once wrote a series of papers for the 'Fortnightly' on the Principles of Success in Literature. I think I could make such papers interesting by giving examples both from critics and artists, and from various kinds of art. It would add to the interest of such papers if they had a few illustrations specially for themselves, and as I went on with the writing I could tell you beforehand what illustrations might be useful, though I cannot say beforehand what might be required. I should make it my business to show in what real criticism, that is worth writing and worth reading, differs from the hasty expression of mere personal sensations which is so often substituted for it; and I would show in some detail how there are different criteria, and how they may be justly or unjustly applied, giving examples. The articles might be reprinted afterwards in the shape of a moderate-sized book like my 'Life of Turner,' but about half as thick, and if we kept the illustrations small they might go into the book. Such a piece of work would have the advantage of giving me opportunities for showing how strongly tempted we all are to judge works of art by some special criterion instead of applying different criteria. For example, I remember hearing a man say before a picture that told a story that 'its color was good, and, after all, the color was the main thing in a picture.' Another would have criticised the drawing of the figures, a third the composition, a fourth the handling. Lastly, it might have occurred to some one to inquire how the story was told, and whether the artist had understood the story he had to tell. "I remember being in an exhibition with Robinson, the famous engraver, more than twenty, or perhaps thirty, years ago, and was very much struck by a criticism of his on a picture which seemed to me very good in many respects, though the effect was a very quiet one. He said, 'There's no light and shade;' and the want of good, strong oppositions of light and dark that could be effectively engraved seemed to him quite a fatal defect, though on looking at the work in color the absence of these oppositions did not strike me, as other qualities predominated. Here was the engraver's _professional_ point of view interfering with his judgment of a picture that was good, but could not be engraved effectually. "Then we have the interference of feelings quite outside of art, as when Roman Catholics tolerate hideous pictures because they represent some saint, although they have really been painted from, a hired model, and only represent a saint because the artist, with a view to sale, has given a saint's name to the portrait of the model. "Also there is the judgment by the literary criterion, which is often applied to pictures by thoughtful and learned people. They become deeply interested in one picture because it alludes (in a manner which seems to them intelligent) to something they know by books, and they pass with indifference better works that have no literary association. "Then you have the judgment of pictures which goes by the pleasure of the eyes, and tastes a picture with the eyes as wine and good cooking are tasted by the tongue. I believe this ocular appreciation is nearer to the essential nature of art than the literary or intellectual appreciation of it. _Vide_ Titian's pictures, which never have anything to say to the intellect, but are a feast to the eyes. "Then you have the _scientific_ criterion, which judges a landscape favorably because strata are correctly superposed, their dip accurately given, and 'faults' noticed. In the figure this criticism relies greatly on anatomy. "I have jotted down these paragraphs roughly merely to show something of the idea, but of course in the work itself there would be much more to be said--other criteria to examine, and a fuller inquiry to be gone into about these. I should rely for the interest of the papers, and for their _raison d'être_ in the 'Portfolio,' very much upon the examples alluded to, both in quotations from critics and in references to works of art. "With regard to the papers on Landscape Painters--if I wrote the introductory chapter it would be on landscape-_painting_ as an art, not so much on the painters. I should trace something of its history, but should especially show how it differs from figure-painting in certain conditions. For example, in figure-painting composition does not much interfere with truthful drawing, as a figure can always be made to conform to desired shapes by simply altering its attitude and putting it at a greater or less distance from the spectator, but in landscape composition always involves the re-shaping of the objects themselves. Again, color is of much more sentimental importance in landscape than in the figure. _Purple_ hills, a _yellow_ streak in the sky, and _gray_ water produce together quite a strong effect on the poetical imagination, whereas the same colors in a lady's dress are but so much millinery. If the landscape is engraved it loses nine-tenths of its poetical significance; if the portrait of the lady is engraved there is only a sacrifice of some colors. "_October_ 8, 1885." Meanwhile, it occurred to him that he might undertake his autobiography, and stipulate that it should only be published after his death. He told me that his health being so uncertain and his earnings so precarious, he had thought the autobiography might be a resource for me in case of his premature decease, as he saw clearly that notwithstanding the considerable sums which his recent successes had brought him, it was not likely that he should ever save enough to leave me independent. As he had himself introduced the subject, I led him to consider Mary's future prospects in life, and said that Stephen and Richard being now provided with situations, we ought to think of their sister. Her musical education had now reached such a point that no teaching afforded by Autun could be of any value to her, and it was my desire that she might have the advantage of instruction and direction in her studies from one of the best professors at the Conservatoire of Paris. I realized that it would be a great tax, and a no less great sacrifice for my husband to be left alone while I should be in Paris with Mary; but I also knew that he never shrank from what he considered a duty--and we both agreed that it was a duty to put our daughter in a position to earn her living, if circumstances made it necessary. Accordingly I inquired who was thought to be the best executant on the piano in Paris, and we had it on good authority that it was M. Delaborde, Professor at the Conservatoire, with whom we corresponded immediately. Although we had friendly recommendations, he would not pledge himself to anything before examining Mary, and we started for Paris in some uncertainty. I had engaged a little apartment at the Hôtel de la Muette, where we were known, and a pleasant room looking on the garden had been reserved for us, not to inconvenience other people by Mary's practice. I knew the result of the examination would give Gilbert great pleasure, so I gave him every detail about it. M. Delaborde, who has the reputation of being extremely severe and somewhat blunt, was most kind and encouraging. After making Mary play to him for an hour, he said: "That will do; there remains a good deal to be done and acquired, but you _may_ acquire it by hard work and good tuition in three years. I consent to take you as one of my pupils, but I must let you know at once that I am very exacting. Don't be afraid of me, for I see that you are industrious, and that you really _love_ music. And now I am going to pay you a compliment which has its value, coming from me--I find no defect to correct in your method." After that he gave us a long list of music to be bought for practice, and said we might come twice a week. He also inquired what direction I wished her studies to take, and whether she intended to give lessons. I answered that I wished her studies to be of the most serious character, exactly as if she were preparing herself to be a music-teacher, though it was not her parents' present intention, but because one never was certain of the future. He perfectly understood my wishes, and was also pleased to notice his new pupil's partiality for classical music. Strange to say--and I did not fail to convey the important fact to her father--Mary, who was so easily frightened, felt perfectly at ease with M. Delaborde, and besides her sentiment of unbounded admiration for his talent, she soon came to have a great liking for himself. Her father was very glad--for her sake especially--that she should have the satisfaction of seeing her efforts taken _au sérieux_, and appreciated by such an authority as M. Delaborde. He often said that one of the greatest satisfactions in life was to be able to do something _really well_, better than most people could do it, and he was happy in the thought that music would give that satisfaction to his daughter. About music he had written to Mr. Seeley:-- "I was always in music what so many are in painting--simply practical. In my youth I was a pupil of Seymour of Manchester for the violin, and thought to be a promising amateur, but I have played far more music than I ever talked about. I don't at all know how to talk or write about music. It seems to me that it expresses _itself_, and that nothing else can express it." After an absence of five weeks Gilbert was very glad to see us back, and to hear that M. Delaborde had been very encouraging to Mary. At the end of the last lesson he had said: "À l'année prochaine; je suis certain que vous reviendrez: vous avez le feu sacré." Several projects of books had occurred to Mr. Hamerton, which he submitted to his publishers for advice. He had thought of "Rouen," but Mr. Craik had answered: "Your name is a popular one, and anything coming from you is pretty sure of a sale. But we should consider whether even your name will persuade the public to buy this book on Rouen." It was abandoned for the consideration of a work on the "Western Islands," to which Messrs. Macmillan were favorable. Mr. Seeley was suggesting the "Sea" as a subject that he might treat with authority from an artistic point of view, but he feared he had not had sufficient opportunity of studying it, and received this answer: "Your letter of this morning has suggested to me another scheme--a series of articles on 'Imagination in Landscape Painting.'" The idea pleased my husband very much, and as he reflected about it he began a sort of skeleton scheme for its treatment. His own imagination about landscape was truly marvellous. Since he had been deprived of the power to travel, he was continually dreaming that he had undertaken long and distant voyages, in which he discovered wondrously beautiful countries and magnificent architecture. He often gave me, on awaking, vivid descriptions of these imaginary scenes, which he remembered in every detail of composition, effect, and color, and which he longed, though hopelessly, to reproduce in painting. He was now writing in French a life of Turner for the series of "Les Artistes Célèbres," published by the "Librairie de l'Art." It was not a translation from his English "Life of Turner," but a new, original, and much shorter work, about which he wrote to Mr. Seeley:-- "I am writing a book in French--a new life of Turner, not very long. I find the change of language most refreshing. Composition in French is a little slower for me, but not much, and as I am a great appreciator of good French prose, it is fun to try to imitate (at a distance) some of its qualities." Years after, writing about this same "Life of Turner," he said to Mr. Seeley:-- "The insularity of the English that you speak of is not worse than the insularity of the French. When I wrote my 'Life of Turner' for the 'Artistes Célèbres' series, I was asked to reduce the MS. by one third, for the reason that the thicker numbers were only given to great artists. The sale was very moderate, as so few French people care anything about English art." When the first chapters of "Imagination in Landscape Painting" reached Mr. Seeley, he said: "I like your opening chapters much, and I feel glad that I have set you on a good subject." As usual during the vacation, my husband went on the Saône with Stephen and Maurice for a fortnight. "L'Arar" had been greatly improved, but was still to undergo new improvements while laid up for the winter. On coming back home Gilbert wrote to Mr. Seeley:-- "Stephen, my nephew Maurice, and myself have just returned from an exhibition on the Saône in my boat, which turned out delightful. We had considerable variety of wind and weather, including a very grand thunderstorm with tremendous wind (of short duration). We were just near enough to a port where there was an inn to be able to take refuge in time. The boat would have ridden out the storm on the water, scudding under bare poles of course; but I have seen so many telegraph-poles and trees struck by lightning, that I apprehended the possibility of its striking one of our masts. At the inn we had dinner, and during the whole of dinner, between five and six p.m., we had a splendid view of Mont Blanc through our open window--first with all its snows rosy, and afterwards fading into gray. As there were no beds in the inn we went on by night, first in total darkness and afterwards in moonlight, beating against the wind, but the wind falling altogether and rain coming in its place, and the nearest inn being twelve kilomètres away, we slept on the boat under a tent, and were comfortable enough though it rained all night. Next morning we were under sail at seven, and had a delightful day. A curious thing about that night was a swarm of ephemerae so dense that it was like a blinding snowstorm. I could hardly see to steer for them; they hit my face like pelting rain. They fell on the deck, till it was covered an inch deep, and two inches deep in parts. Next morning Stephen, on cleaning the deck, rolled them up into large balls, which he threw into the river. The people call them _manna_. "We exercised ourselves in all ways, going out for manoeuvers against the wind when it was worst, rowing in dead calms, or towing the boat from the shore, as there is a towing-path all along one side, so we need never be quite stopped. The boat behaved capitally, and as the lads became better drilled they did the sailing business better together. My health kept wonderfully well in spite of (or perhaps in consequence of) a good deal of work and some hardship. I did a lot of sketches, and amused myself particularly with drawing the delicate distances. Yesterday, on our return, we met by appointment a picnic party at Nôrlay, and walked ten kilomètres under drenching rain to see a natural curiosity called the 'end of the world,' where limestone cliffs end in a sort of semi-circle. "It is believed to be a creek of an ancient lake or sea. The cliffs are evidently undermined by waves, and hang over. The ground in the middle is full of beautiful pastures and vineyards, with lovely groups of trees and a stream, and two very picturesque villages." The different methods which had been tried for producing manuscript in duplicate had all proved distasteful and unsatisfactory. My husband was particularly irritated by the delay caused by having to press down the hard lead-pencil or stiletto. He could not bear any slow process for expressing the swiftly running thoughts, and he tried another plan which enabled him to write very nearly as fast as the ideas came. Using glazed paper and a soft pencil he made a rough draft without attempt at polish in style, merely fixing the thoughts. This he corrected at leisure, and copied with a particular kind of ink which was said to yield half-a-dozen copies upon moist paper put under a screw-press. But the result was very imperfect, and took too much time, and finally he used to have his corrected MS. copied by a professional typewriter. This plan was by far the most satisfactory, as, by relieving him from the drudgery of copying, it allowed more time for painting, and a rather important picture of Kilchurn Castle was begun, to be hung on the staircase. In February "French and English" was begun. My husband was particularly qualified to give an impartial comparison of the habits, institutions, and characteristics of the two nations, on account of his sympathies with both, and his intimate knowledge of the French language and long residence in France, during which his inquisitive mind had been gathering endless information about the public institutions of the country. He had made himself perfectly acquainted with French politics, and followed with great interest all current events. The system of public instruction in France had become familiar to him through M. Pelletier (who had been a member of the University from his youth); and he had not neglected to learn from the several ecclesiastics with whom he was acquainted, what he wanted to know about the constitution of the Roman Catholic Church and clergy. In the same way his military friends told him what he cared to learn of the army. He had for a neighbor M. de Chatillon (cousin of the poet and painter, A. de Chatillon), a retired captain, who had been in the Crimea, and was wounded in the Franco-Prussian War; also a friend and visitor, another captain, M. Kornprobst, with whom he made the voyage on the Saône. The colonel of the regiment quartered at Autun, M. Mathieu, who had fought by the side of the English in the Crimea, came sometimes too, to talk about past days, and recalled among other things with gratitude and admiration the fare of which he had partaken on board an English man-of-war. Mr. Hamerton had only to put questions to one of these officers to obtain full information upon any point of French military organization. As regards national characteristics in individuals, he had a rich accumulation of notes and observations, both in his pocket-books and in his mind. Very observant from early youth, this tendency had been quickened by the contrasts that life in foreign parts constantly presented. It had been decided that the Rhone voyage should be abandoned for one on the Saône; and Mr. Hamerton was in active correspondence with Mr. Seeley about the choice of an artist to illustrate the book. Both of them were great admirers of Mr. Pennell's talent, and they agreed to make him a proposal. Mr. Pennell, having been overworked and feeling rather nervous and unwell, thought that the contemplated voyage would be the very thing to restore his health. He would have perfect tranquillity on the peaceful river, and he might sketch at his leisure, without hurry; so he gladly accepted the hospitality offered him on board the "Boussemroum." The plan of accommodation on this boat has been explained exhaustively by the author of "The Saône," but I think I may give a few brief indications of the arrangements for readers unacquainted with the book. Mr. Hamerton hired a large river-boat called the "Boussemroum," and two men to manage it and do the cooking. A donkey, "Zoulou," was kept on board to tow the boat when necessary, and in the course of the voyage a boy, "Franki," was engaged to drive "Zoulou." Three tents had been erected for the passengers, and an awning was placed over part of a raised platform to shelter the artists at work from the too generous heat of the June sunshine. Each tent was furnished as a simple bedroom, with an iron bedstead and a hammock, washing utensils, chest, table for drawing or writing, and mats on the floor. Besides Mr. Pennell's tent and Mr. Hamerton's, another had been reserved for Captain Kornprobst, who was to undertake the duties of the commissariat. There was nothing so difficult for my husband as to turn his mind from intellectual or artistic thoughts to domestic or business affairs; he was aware of it, and dreaded interruptions--and the fear of interruptions--as well as the responsibility of keeping his floating home so regularly provisioned as to save its inmates from becoming, occasionally, a prey to hunger or thirst. Humbly confessing his shortcomings, he begged his friend, Captain Kornprobst, to join the expedition as Purser and General Provider, feeling confident that if he consented everything would _marcher militairement_. It was an immense relief when the Captain declared himself ready and willing to assume these functions. Mr. Pennell, having been suddenly obliged to go to Antwerp for a series of drawings, could not be free at the time of starting. On the other hand, Captain Kornprobst had been summoned, the boat hired, and the men's wages were running, so the voyage was begun, on the understanding that Mr. Pennell would join the party as soon as he could leave Antwerp, probably at Corre on the Upper Saône. On arriving at Chalon-sur-Saône, on May 31, Mr. Hamerton was met by the Captain, and they proceeded at once to the "Boussemroum," which they put in order as it moved away. It was only at Gray, on June 6, that Mr. Pennell came on board. It has been said in some notices of Mr. Hamerton's life that he read but little; nothing could be more opposed to truth; the fact is, that he was constantly attempting to bind himself by rules to give only a certain proportion of his time to reading, and when he travelled he was sure to have among his luggage a large trunk of books. Here is a list, for instance, of the works he took with him on the Saône:-- Royau, "À travers les Mots." No Name Series, "Signor Monaldini's Niece." Poe, "Poems." "Italian Conversation Book." Arnold, "Light of Asia." Swinburne, "Atalanta." Auguez, "Histoire de France." Amiers, "Olanda." St. Simon, "Louis XIV. et sa Cour." Paradol, "La France Nouvelle." Caesar, "De Bello Gallico." Palgrave, "Golden Treasury." Milton, "Poems." Milton, do. (modern edition). Milton, "Areopagitica." Stevenson, "Inland Voyage." Stevenson, "Travels with a Donkey." Byron, "Poems" (4 vols.). Shakespeare, "Poems." Helps, "Social Pressure." Gerson, "De Imitatione." The adventures of the voyage having been narrated in "The Saône," I shall only mention the incident of the arrest, because it turned out to be a lucky thing that I just then happened to be in Paris. It must be explained that M. Pelletier, having been entrusted with the organization of one of the great new Lycées--the Lycée Lakanal at Sceaux--had been deprived of his usual vacation in 1885, and, as a little compensation, he came to spend the Easter of 1886 with us, and took away Mary, who was to stay with him for her yearly music-lessons. At the end of the month I took advantage of my husband's absence to go and see the Paris Salon, and to bring back our daughter. On June 25, while we were at lunch with M. Pelletier and his children, and making merry guesses as to the probable whereabouts of the voyagers on the Saône, there came a telegram for my brother-in-law, who said to me, after reading it: "What would you say if they were arrested as spies?" We all laughed at the idea, and I answered that it would be capital material for a chapter. "Well then, since you take it this way, I may as well tell you that it is a fact, though your husband wishes it to be kept from you till he is released." I began to fear that he might be imprisoned, and that his nervousness would return in confinement. From this point of view the consequences seemed alarming, and I wondered what would be the best plan to set him free as soon as possible. My brother-in-law was for applying to the English Ambassador, but I felt pretty sure that my husband would write to him, and that negotiations in that quarter would take some time. So I went straight to one of our friends who had a near relation holding an important military post at the Élysée, and who might be of great help on this occasion. I told my friend what had happened, and he promised to go and explain matters to his relative, and to obtain speedily an order of release for the unlucky travellers. The same evening I had a note to the effect that the Minister of War had sent the desired order by telegram. The author of "The Saône" has explained why the voyage was interrupted at Chalon. The second part was to be made on the "Arar," and the erections on the "Boussemroum" were to be demolished and the tents removed before the boat was returned to its owner; but as Mary and I had expressed a wish to see it before the demolition, we went to Chalon, where my husband took us on board and explained all the contrivances, which were very ingenious. The extraordinary appearance of the "Boussemroum" with its three large tents attracted quite a crowd on the quay where it was moored, and as we made our way towards it we were followed by many curious eyes. Mr. Pennell, having been discouraged and disheartened by the loss of time and the insecurity of his situation in France, especially since he had failed to get an official permission to sketch at Lyons, gave up all idea of illustrating the Lower Saône. What was to be done with the book? Could it be published in an incomplete state and called "The Upper Saône?" In that case the work would be of small importance, after all the preparations, time, and money spent upon it. "Would it not be better to ask another artist to undertake the remaining part?" asked Mr. Seeley. But he would have to encounter the same difficulties, and be exposed to the same vexations--and, after all, the book might be wanting in harmony. At last Mr. Pennell offered to make drawings from the author's sketches, and this was accepted. My husband had already in his possession a great number of studies taken at Chalon, Mâcon, and upon the river on previous cruises, and they might be utilized in this way, together with those he could still make during the vacation on the "Arar." In the interval between the two boat voyages, Mr. Hamerton devoted himself almost exclusively to writing "French and English" for the "Atlantic Monthly," and "The Saône." He also took some precautions in view of the next cruise, and when he started for it, with Stephen and Maurice, he was provided with a passport and a recommendation from the English Ambassador. The voyage was a pleasant one, and ended prosperously, but it soon became evident that the book could not be published before the next year, mainly because the stereotype plates could not have reached America before December, and the publishers then would still have to print and bind the book. Roberts Brothers said about it:-- "We are very glad you have decided to postpone the publication of the boat voyage till next year. You will see by our account that we allow you nothing on the cheap edition of the 'Intellectual Life.' Thank the pirates for it. "Mrs. Hamerton's 'Golden Mediocrity' has passed through a second edition; the first was 1,000 copies." This last book was a novelette that I had written at the instigation of Roberts Brothers, and which had been corrected by my husband. The illustrations needed for the completion of "The Saône" took a great deal of Mr. Hamerton's time in 1886. Early in January he went to Chalon to take several sketches, which he worked out afterwards in pen-and-ink. We took the opportunity of this journey to see a few houses which had been recommended to us as possible future residences, La Tuilerie requiring expensive repairs that we were not inclined to undertake, because every time we made any our rent was raised,--no doubt because it was thought that just after a fresh outlay we should not be disposed to leave. But we found the house-rents much higher about Chalon than in our neighborhood, and although Gilbert was fond of the Saône--particularly for boating--he was far from admiring the landscape as much as that of the Autunois, from a painter's point of view. After much consideration we decided to go through the unavoidable repairs, and to renew our lease. I suppose that the Saône voyage had directed my husband's thoughts towards boats more than ever, for his diary is full of notes about them. I shall only give a few to show the drift of his mind. "Made a sketch for a possible triple catamaran. "Made an elevation of hull for the 'Morvandelle,' using an elevation of a quickly turning steamer in 'Le Yacht,' and _improving_ upon it. "Made a new balancer for canoe. "Began to prepare pirogue with marine glue before putting the rudder-post. "Lengthened cross-pieces; completed beam for catamaran, adding details of ironwork. "Demolished old balancer log of canoe, and began to saw it to make a little bridge. "Found that boiling wood was the best plan for bending it; steaming is too troublesome. "Thought much about sails. "Wrote a letter to 'Yacht' about invention of paper-boats." In October he began to write for "Le Yacht" a history of catamarans, which was highly appreciated by the readers of that paper. In the course of that year he also wrote a long and careful review of "L'Art" for "Longmans' Magazine," "Conversations on Book Illustrations," and a review of Mr. Ernest George's etchings. He also worked at the autobiography. It was a real sorrow for my husband to hear that in consequence of the demise of Mr. John Hamerton, Hellifield Peel and the estate were for sale and likely to go out of the family. He had been considerately offered the first option of purchase, and he wrote in the diary, "How I wish I had the money!" In January, 1887, he wrote to Mr. Seeley:-- "We are rather troubled by the possibility of a war between France and Germany. The French papers take the thing coolly, but the English ones, especially the 'Daily News,' are extremely pessimist. If there is war I mean to come to England, having had enough anxiety and interrupted communications during the last war. My sons would probably both volunteer into the French army in defence of their mother's country, as it would be a duel of life and death between Germany and France this time. If you and Mrs. Seeley visit the Continent in the spring you may perhaps witness a battle. I have seen just one, and heard the cannonade of another--sensations never to be forgotten." In the spring he had had an attack of gout, in consequence of working at the boats instead of going out. He bore it with his usual philosophy--trying to read or write whenever the pain was supportable. It happened during the Easter vacation, and Stephen used to sit up late into the night to keep his father company. At the end of the vacation Richard, who had obtained a post in Paris, took his sister with him, and in June, Gilbert being now quite well, I went to fetch her back. M. Delaborde had recommended her the study of harmony, and we found an able professor in M. Laurent, the organist of the cathedral at Autun. It was with great satisfaction that her father noticed her application and success in this arduous study. He considered it, like algebra, an excellent discipline for the mind--too often wanting in a feminine education. Against all expectations "The Saône" did not sell well. It was unaccountable; the illustrations were numerous and varied, picturesque, and greatly admired by artists,--Rajon in particular was charmed with them,--but it appears that their sin consisted in not being etchings; so at least said the booksellers, as if the author's works were never to be illustrated in any other way. The subject was new, and presented in felicitous style; the reviews were hearty; but in spite of all that could be said in its favor, the book never became a popular one. Mr. Seeley had mentioned in a letter the uncertainty of the publishing business, and my husband answered:-- "What you say about the lottery of publishing is confirmed by the experience of others. Macmillan said to me one day, 'As one gets older and certainly more experienced one ought to get wiser, but it does not seem to be so in publishing, for I am just as liable to error now in my speculations as I was many years ago.' Evidently Roberts Brothers are the same." The subject of "French and English" seemed too important to Mr. Hamerton to be adequately treated in a few articles, and he decided to give it proper development in a book, for which all his accumulated observations would become useful. He proposed it to Messrs. Macmillan, warning them that, as he intended to be impartial, they might find that his opinions--conscientiously given--would often be at variance with those generally accepted. Mr. Craik answered: "As to 'French and English' I do not think that it matters in the least that you differ from the opinions of others." Then he went on to say: "I hope to hear from you about a large illustrated book for 1889, and we will gladly go into the matter with you when you have got an idea into your head." In the autumn we learned with deep regret the death of our dear cousin, Ben Hinde. My husband conveyed it to his friend M. Schmitt in the following letter:-- "J'ai reçu ces jours-ci la triste nouvelle que mon cousin--le prêtre anglican que j'aimais comme un frère, a succombé à une assez longue maladie. Ce qu'il y a de plus pénible c'est la position de sa soeur qui s'était entièrement dévouée à lui et à la paroisse. Elle a vécu toute sa vie au presbytère, et maintenant, son frère mort, il va falloir qu'elle s'en aille. Elle a une petite fortune qui suffira à ses besoins, et j'ai l'immense satisfaction de penser que c'est moi qui ai pu sauver cet argent des griffes d'exécuteurs testamentaires mal intentionnés. Je les ai forcés à payer quarante mille francs. Ma cousine supporte son sort avec un courage parfait. Je n'ai jamais rencontré une foi religieuse aussi parfaite que la sienne. Pour elle, la mort d'un Chrétien est un heureux événement qu'elle célébrerait volontiers par des réjouissances. Elle n'y voit absolument que la naissance au ciel. Ceci l'expose à être très méconnue. Quand elle perd un parent elle est très gaie et on peut s'imaginer qu'elle est sans coeur. Elle va se dévouer entièrement à ses pauvres; elle vit absolument de la vie d'une soeur-de-charité, sans le titre. "La mort de mon cousin, et peut-être l'éloignement de ma cousine, me laisseront, pour ainsi dire, sans parents. Je ne regrette pas de m'être donné une nouvelle famille en France, et je me félicite des bonnes relations, si franchement cordiales, que j'ai avec mes deux beaux-frères et avec ma belle-soeur." Some time later he wrote to the same friend:-- "Nous avons fait un charmant voyage sur la Saône, de Mâcon à Verdun avec retour à Chalon--une flânerie à voile avec toutes les variétés de temps: vents forts et vents faibles, calmes plats (c'est le moins agréable), bourrasques, beau temps, pluie, clair-de-lune, obscurité presque complète, splendeurs du soleil. Comme nous voyageons à toute heure du jour et de la nuit, nous voyons la nature sous tous les aspects imaginables. Cela renouvelle pour moi cette _intimité_ avec la nature qui était un des plus grands bonheurs de ma jeunesse. "C'est à peu près le seul genre de voyage que j'aime réellement, et c'est le seul qui me fasse du bien." Note in the diary:-- "January 13, 1888. Fought nearly all day against a difficulty about 'French and English,' and decided to divide the book into large sections and small chapters, divisions and subdivisions. Chapters to be confined strictly to their special subjects." It became the main work of the year, with the articles on catamarans for the "Yacht," and the numerous drawings to illustrate them. The autobiography was also carried forward. Our little pony, Cocote, was growing old and rheumatic, and could no longer render much service. My husband was unwilling to make her work at the cost of pain, and we found it impossible to do without a reliable horse at such a distance from Autun. As Cocote was not always unfit for work--only at intervals--her master decided to buy a horse that he might ride when the pony could manage the carriage work. He chose a young, nice-looking mare at a neighboring farm, and took great pleasure in riding her every day; this regular habit of exercise in the open air was of great benefit to his health. The death of Paul Rajon, which occurred in the summer, was deeply lamented by my husband, who, besides his great appreciation of the artist's exquisite talent, entertained for him sentiments of real friendship. When we came to live at Paris, he made a pilgrimage to his house, and to his, alas! neglected tomb at Auvers. In August, Mr. Seeley wished to republish in book form some of Mr. Hamerton's contributions to the "Portfolio," and to give his portrait as a frontispiece. He wrote about it: "My traveller says he is continually asked for your portrait. If Jeens were living I would ask him to engrave it, but as we have no one approaching him in skill, perhaps the safest plan would be a photogravure from a negative taken on purpose." My husband suggested that perhaps Mr. H. Manesse might etch the portrait satisfactorily. Mr. Seeley thought it an excellent idea, and said he was willing to give the commission. Mr. H. Manesse arrived on October 17, and set to work immediately. He was most assiduous, and progressed happily with his work. His model drove him out every day--the weather being fine,--and they derived pleasure from each other's society, being both interested in the beauty of nature and in artistic subjects. CHAPTER XVIII. 1888-1890. "Man in Art" begun.--Family events.--Mr. G. T Watts.--Mr. Bodley. --"French and English." After long reflections given to the choice of a subject for a new illustrated book, Mr. Hamerton thought that after "Landscape in Art," "Man in Art" would be interesting as a study. Mr. Craik wrote: "'Man in Art' is an excellent idea; you will find us ready to embark on it with sanguine expectation. You will later tell me your ideas of illustrating--it ought to be well done in this particular; but if there is a chance of your coming to England next winter we might settle this better in talk." In the spring Stephen and Richard came as usual for the Easter vacation, but our younger son's altered looks and ways greatly disquieted us. In the last year he had evinced a growing disinclination to society and pleasure; his former liveliness, gayety, and love of jokes had been replaced by an obvious preference for solitude, and, as it seemed to us, melancholy brooding. To our anxious inquiries he had answered that he was nervous, and suffering from mental unrest and insomnia. His tone of voice was now despondent, and if he spoke of the future it was with bitterness and lassitude. He had been so bright, so confident in his powers, so full of praiseworthy ambition, so ready to enjoy life, that this sudden change surprised all his friends and gave great anxiety to his parents. I begged his father to question him about his health, and to advise him to get a _congé_ which he could spend in the country with us, and during which he might rest thoroughly. But I was told that he had not borne the questioning patiently. He had answered that he was "only nervous ... very nervous, and wanted peace." How different was this answer from the one he had given three years before to another inquiry of his father when he was going to his first post. "Richard, I can give you no fortune to start you in life--education was all I could afford, so you will have to make your own way. You are now strong and well, but you have been a delicate child, and have often suffered physically. Now, considering all this--are you happy?" "Happy?" he had readily answered, "I am very happy; I enjoy life exceedingly. As to money matters, I can truly say that I would not exchange the education you have given me for three thousand pounds." My husband attempted to calm my sad forebodings by telling me that there is generally a crisis in the life of a boy before he becomes a man, and he concluded persuasively by saying: "C'est un homme qui va sortir de là." But I felt that his own mind was still full of care. When the time of my yearly departure for Paris came round, I recommended Gilbert to hire a tricycle, and try to get a change of exercise by alternately riding his horse and his velocipede, and he promised to do so. For some time I had been desirous to join Mary, on account of her confidences about the probability of her becoming engaged. Of these confidences I said nothing to her father, as I had made it a rule not to disturb him about any projects of marriage for his daughter till I felt satisfied that everything was suitable and likely to lead to a happy result. His love for Mary was so tender, his fears of any match which would not secure for her the greatest possible amount of happiness so great, his dread of the unavoidable separation so keen, that I avoided the subject as much as possible. When I arrived at Bourg-la-Reine, I was disappointed not to see Richard at the station, with his sister and cousins awaiting me, as he had done the year before, but I tried not to seem to notice it. He came, however, on the following day and breakfasted with us at his uncle's. He appeared cheerful enough when he talked, but as soon as he was silent his features resumed the downcast expression they had worn for some time, and he was ashy pale. Being obliged to take Mary to her last music-lesson, I asked Richard when I should see him again?... He gave me a kiss, and said "To-morrow." There was to be no morrow for him. * * * * * When, after vainly waiting for him, the cruel news of his tragic end was broken to us by M. Pelletier, when we learned that the poor boy had committed suicide, my sorrow was rendered almost unbearable by apprehension for my husband. I had long feared that there might be something wrong with his heart, and now I became a prey to the most torturing forebodings. My daughter and brother-in-law shared in them, and M. Pelletier approved my resolution to leave Paris immediately and endeavor to be with Gilbert before the delivery of the newspapers. Mary and I left by the first train we could take, and arrived at La Tuilerie shortly before eleven at night. My husband divined at once that there was some great calamity, but his fears were for M. Pelletier. When he knew the truth, he silently wrapped me in his arms, pressing me to his bosom, within which I felt the laboring heart beating with such violence that I thought it could but break.... * * * * * The courage of which my husband gave proofs in this bitter trial was mainly derived from his pitiful sympathy for those whose weakness he supported. He sought relief in work, but did not easily find it. There is the same plaintive entry in the diary for some weeks: "Tried to work; not fit for it." "Tried to do something; not very well." "Not fit for much; succeeded in reading a little" "Attempted to write a few letters. Rather unwell." Then he gave up the diary for some time. More than ever I felt reluctant to tell him of what had happened to Mary, and of the probability of her marriage; however, she had been so sorely tried by the loss of her brother, that it was imperative to turn her thoughts from it, as much as possible, to other prospects. This conviction decided me to tell her father everything, and it was a great relief to hear that he shared my views entirely. Although I had learned long since how little he considered his own comfort in comparison with that of those dear to him, how unselfish he was--in affection as in other matters--I must avow that I was unprepared for the readiness of his self-sacrifice in this case. We were both of opinion that if all went well, the marriage should take place as early as possible, so as to bring a thorough change in the clouded existence of our daughter. Note in the diary: "Monsieur Raillard this morning asked Mary to marry him, with my consent, and she accepted him. Day passed pleasantly. I drove Raillard and his mother to the station." It now became necessary to make preparations for the wedding, which was to take place in the beginning of September. For the choice of an apartment and its furniture my husband himself considerately suggested my going again to Paris with Mary, where we would meet M. Raillard and consult his tastes. Accordingly I left La Tuilerie very reluctantly after the great and recent shock my husband had experienced. I am convinced it was due to the manful effort he made not to increase my distress by the sight of his own that he conquered his nervousness from that time, and was even able to strengthen and support me on my too frequent breakdowns. He attributed Richard's desperate action partly to depression arising from the effects of an accident, confided only to his brother, but partly also to the influence of unhealthy and pessimist literature on a mind already diseased, and he had said so to Mr. Seeley, who answered:-- "I am sure that poor Richard came under the influence of pure and noble examples. It may be that there was actual brain disease, though of a nature that no surgeon at present has skill to detect. I suppose it is possible that disease in the organ of thought may be accelerated or retarded by the nature of the thoughts suggested in daily life or conversation; and I suppose every one believes that in such disorders there may come a time when the will, without blame, is overmastered. "As to the bad literature of the day, I believe our feelings are quite in unison. What an awful responsibility for the happiness of families rests upon successful authors--and upon publishers too!" The letters of condolence and sympathy were numerous and heartfelt; some came late, for the friends who had known Richard in his bright and merry days refused to believe that it was the same Richard who had come to so tragic an end; they thought it was a coincidence of name. I only give Mr. Beljame's letter to show how the poor boy had endeared himself to every one, and in what esteem he was generally held. All the other letters expressed the same sentiments in different words. "8 _juillet_ 1889. "Je suis bien sensible, Monsieur, à votre lettre, où vous m'associez, en des termes qui me touchent profondément, au souvenir de votre fils Richard, mon cher et excellent élève. "C'était pour moi, non seulement un disciple dont je me faisais honneur, mais aussi un véritable ami, et depuis son installation à Paris, j'avais eu grand plaisir à l'accueillir dans ma famille. Les détails que vous voulez bien me donner, m'expliquent pourquoi, dans ces derniers mois, ses visites étaient, à mon grand regret, devenues de plus en plus rares. "Sa fin si inattendue, alors que la vie semblait de tous côtés lui sourire, a été pour moi une douloureuse surprise; j'ai refusé d'abord d'y croire; c'est pourquoi je ne vous ai pas tout de suite écrit. "J'ai tenu à me joindre à ceux qui lui ont rendu les derniers devoirs; et j'ai chargé alors votre fils aîné et votre beau-frère d'être mes interprètes auprès de vous. "À des malheurs comme celui qui vient de vous frapper il n'y a pas de consolation possible. Si c'est au moins un adoucissement de savoir que celui qui n'est plus laisse derrière lui de souvenir d'un esprit d'élite, d'une nature aimante et aimable, soyez assuré que tels sont bien les sentiments que votre fils a inspirés à tous ceux qui l'ont connu, à ses camarades de la Sorbonne, qui l'avaient en affection particulière, à ses collègues--mais à nul plus qu'à son ancien maître qui vous envoie aujourd'hui, ainsi qu'à Madame Hamerton, l'expression de sa triste et respectueuse sympathie. "A. BELJAME." When Mr. Seeley was told of Mary's engagement, he wrote: "We are very glad to hear of Mary's engagement, and we wish her all possible happiness. But because you and I are so nearly of an age, I cannot help thinking most of you, and thinking what the loss to you and to Mrs. Hamerton will be." In preceding years Mary's brothers and cousins had often made projects in expectation of her marriage, but under the present painful circumstances it was understood that only relations would he invited. Still the disturbance in our habits could not be avoided, as we had to provide lodgings for twenty people. My husband gave up his laboratory and his studio and with the help of the boys transformed the hay-loft into working premises. He got carpenters to fit up the big laundry as a dining-room, under his directions, and when fresh-looking mats covered the tiles, and when the huge chimney-piece, the walls, and the doors were ornamented with tall ferns, shiny hollies, and blooming heather, of which Stephen and his cousins had gathered a cartful, the effect was very charming. My husband had to be reminded several times to order new clothes for the ceremony,--a visit to his tailor being one of the things he most disliked,--and being indisposed to give a thought to the fit, he used to decline all responsibility in the matter by making _me_ a judge of it. His fancy had been once tickled by hearing a market-woman say that, though she did not know my name, she identified me as "la petite Dame difficile," and he called me so when I found fault with his attire. A few days before the wedding he had gone to Autun, to fetch different things in the carriage, among them his dress-coat and frock-coat, and after putting on the last, came for my verdict. "It fits badly; it is far too large." ... Then I was interrupted by--"I was sure of it; now _what_ is wrong with it?" "Wrong? why everything is wrong; the cloth itself is not black--it looks faded and rusty--why, it can't be new!" "Not new!... and I bring it straight from the tailor's. Really, your inclination to criticism is beyond--" He was getting somewhat impatient, for the time given to trying on was, in his estimate, so much time lost. "It _is_ an old coat," I nevertheless said decisively. "Your tailor has made a mistake, that's all." "I am certain it is _my_ coat," he answered, quite angrily this time. "I feel at ease in it; the pockets are just in their right place;" and as he plunged his hands deliberately in the convenient pockets, he drew out of one an old "Daily News," and from the other a worn-out pair of gloves. His amazement was indescribable, but he soon joined in the general merriment at his expense--for Mary and Jeanne, the cousins, and even M. Pelletier, had been called as umpires to decide the case between us. The new coat had been left in the dressing-room, and it was the old one, given as a pattern to the tailor, which had been tried on. The best of it was that on the day of the ceremony Gilbert committed the same mistake; luckily I perceived it when he had still time to change. He attached so little importance to his toilet that he never knew when he was in want of anything, yet his appearance was never untidy, in spite of his omissions. I remember a little typical incident about this disinclination to give a thought to needful though prosaic details. Before leaving for England on one occasion, I had repeatedly called his attention to what he required--in particular a warm winter suit and an overcoat. He had promised several times to order them, but when the day of our departure arrived he had forgotten all about it. "It's no matter," he said; "I shall get them ready-made in London, and with the _chic anglais_ too." In England we found the temperature already severe, and I urged him to make his purchases. On the very same day, he announced complacently that he had made them, and they were to be sent on the morrow. He was quite proud of having got through the business, particularly because he had bought _two_ suits, though he needed only one. "The other would turn out useful some time," he said. And lo! when the box was opened, I discovered that instead of clothes fit for visits, he had been persuaded to accept a sort of shooting-jacket of coarse gray tweed, waistcoat and trousers to match, with a pair of boots only fit for mountaineering. When I told him my opinion, he acknowledged it to be right, but said the tailor had assured him that "they would be lasting." And he added: "I was in a hurry, having to go to the National Gallery, and I felt confident the man would know what I wanted, after telling him." Mary was married on September 3, and she was so much loved in the village that every cottage sent at least one of its members to the ceremony; the children whom she had taught, and in whom she had always taken so much interest, came in numbers, and the evident respectful affection of these simple people quite moved and impressed the parents of M. Raillard. Her father was also pleased with the presence of all our neighbors and friends, and he went through the trying day with entire self-command. But when the birds had flown away the nest seemed empty and silent indeed, and to fill up the time till their return, I thought a little cruise on wheels would be the best diversion. The weather was still fine and warm enough for working from nature, and preparations were made for a sketching tour, in which M. Pelletier would accompany his brother-in-law while the house was put to rights again. They started with Cadette, and went successively to Etang, Toulon-sur-Arroux, St. Nizier, Charbonnat, Luzy, La Roche-Millay, St. Léger, l'Etang-des-Poissons, and La Grande-Verrière,--a most picturesque excursion, from which my husband brought back several interesting studies. The day after the return, M. Pelletier and his family left us, my brother, his wife and daughters, who had been bridesmaids, having preceded them. At the end of a fortnight Raoul Raillard and his wife came back to spend with us the rest of the vacation. The day they went away the diary said, "We bore the separation pretty well." Yes, we bore it pretty well this time, because it was not to be very long. It had been decided that as soon as the young couple were settled in their apartments, we should become their guests,--my husband hoping, in this way, to see the great Exhibition at leisure and without fatigue. We arrived at M. Raillard's on October 13, and the very next day saw us in the English Fine Arts department of the Exhibition. Our daughter lived in the Rue de la Tour, at Passy, an easy walking distance to the Champ de Mars, and her father made it a rule to go there on foot with me every morning between the first breakfast and _déjeuner à la fourchette_. The plan answered very well. We were almost alone in the rooms, and could see the pictures at our leisure. My husband took his notes with ease and comfort, without nervousness. After a two hours' study, we went back to the family lunch, and such was Gilbert's improvement in health that he often took us again to the Exhibition in the afternoon merely for pleasure. He enjoyed the works of art immensely, and said that he felt like a ravenous man to whom a splendid banquet was offered. Being also greatly interested in the progress of the various sciences, he liked to become acquainted with all new inventions, and often resorted to the Galerie des Machines. Mr. Seeley had been told of our intended visit to England, in case my husband did not feel any bad effects from the stay in Paris, and he wrote: "It is fortunate that you are coming just now, when we want to start the 'Portfolio' on a new career; it will be delightful to consult over it with you. Do not exhaust your energy in Paris, and find you have none left to bring you over to England." Although he worked unremittingly, he felt no fatigue; his nervous system was quiet and allowed him to seek diligently for promises of new talent among the mass of painters and engravers, and to feast his artistic sense in the Exposition du Centenaire. He also gave more than his usual attention to sculpture, and was of opinion that France remained unrivalled in that branch of art. On our way to England we stopped at Chantilly, and slept at Calais in the Hôtel Maritime, on the new pier. I almost believe that we happened to be the first travellers asking for a bedroom, for the waiters offered excuses for the still incomplete furnishing, and for the service not being yet properly organized. After a good night's rest, we visited Calais Maritime and the important engineering works there, for which my husband expressed great admiration. On arriving in London we went straight to Mr. and Mrs. Seeley's, who had kindly invited us to stay with them till we found comfortable lodgings. It was not Gilbert's intention to stay long in England this time; he had come mainly to discuss with Mr. Seeley the improvements they both desired to introduce in the "Portfolio," and to choose the illustrations for "Man in Art." In order not to lose time, he decided to take lodgings in a central part, as near to the National Gallery as possible; but he wished the street not to be noisy. He found what he wanted in Craven Street. This time he had to pay calls alone, and to beg our friends to excuse me, for I had not yet been able to master my sorrow sufficiently to allow of my resuming social intercourse without fear of breaking down. With her tender sympathy, Mrs. Seeley bore with me, and strove to console me when my resignation failed; but I could but feel that I was a saddening guest. While we were still at Nutfield, Mr. A. H. Palmer, the son of Samuel Palmer, who had a warm admiration for Mr. Hamerton, had been invited to meet him, and he brought his camera with him, proposing to take our photographs. The portraits of the ladies were failures; Mr. Seeley's was fairly successful; but my husband's was the best portrait we had ever seen of him, very fine and characteristic. We had intended to spend only two or three days with M. and Madame Raillard on our return, but our son-in-law being obliged to leave suddenly on account of his grandmother's illness, and unwilling to expose his wife to contagion, we offered to remain with her till he should come back. We soon received the sad news of the deaths, at an interval of two days only, of the grandmother and an aunt; also of the dangerous illness of Madame Raillard senior, which happily did not prove fatal, the disease having apparently spent its virulence on the two first victims. During our enforced stay in Paris Gilbert wrote an article for the "Photographic Quarterly" on Photogravure and Héliogravure, and for the "Portfolio" a review of Mr. Pennell's book on Pen-and-Ink Drawing. We went by boat to Suresnes, to see the banks of the Seine, for Mary was trying to draw us to live nearer to her. With her husband she had already visited several pretty places in the neighborhood of Paris, and had given us some very tempting descriptions. As for me, I should have desired nothing better than to live near to my daughter, but I never expected my husband to reconcile himself to town life. There was a marked and decided improvement in his ability to travel, for he did not suffer at all on the way home; it is true that we strictly adhered to the rule of slow and night trains. The pleasant exercise of riding had to be reluctantly given up because Cadette, who had betrayed from the beginning a slight weakness in the knees, now stumbled often and badly, especially out of harness. The veterinary surgeon who had examined her before we bought her, had said that it was of no consequence, only the result of poor feeding, and would disappear after a course of prolonged river-baths. Instead of disappearing, the tendency had so much increased that it was deemed safer not to trust Cadette even in the two-wheeled carriage, at least for a while. This mishap was the beginning of my husband's real appreciation of velocipedes. He had liked them well enough from the first, and used to hire one now and then, but it was only after he had become possessed of a good tricycle that the taste for the kind of exercise it affords developed itself apace. M. Raillard had made him a present of one for which he had little use in Paris, and this present having been made just after Mary's betrothal, her father playfully said that "he had sold his daughter for a velocipede." As soon as he had adopted the machine as his ordinary steed, he began to consider how to make it carry his sketching apparatus. He invented various straps, boxes, holders, rings, etc., fitting in different places according to the bulk and nature of the things he wished to have with him: a sketching umbrella, a stool, and all that was needful for water-color, etching, or oil-painting. He also devised a zinc box, easily adapted to the tricycle, to take his letters, manuscripts, and parcels to the post, and found it very convenient. At the end of January he was seized with an attack of gout which lasted a week, and took him quite by surprise, for he had not neglected physical exercise; the doctor, however, said that an attack of gout might be brought on by a mere change of locality--and we had just returned from Paris. He strove to do some work in spite of pain and bad nights, and succeeded now and then, and as soon as he could manage--with help--to get into the carriage, he drove out for change of air. In March he received from Mr. Watts the permission he had asked, to have his portrait of Lord Lawrence engraved. I transcribe Mr. Watts's letters, with two others which had preceded it, to show in what esteem he held his correspondent's opinions. "MONKSHATCH, GUILDFORD, SURREY. _November_ 23, 1889. "MY DEAR SIR,--Our short talk was very interesting to me, and I should like to have an opportunity of explaining my views on art and the practice of it, which opportunity I hope you will give me at some future time. I have asked Mr. F. Hollyer of 9 Pembroke Square, Kensington, to let you have prints of Lord Lawrence and Mr. Peabody. On the other side of the sheet I send the permission you require." "MONKSHATCH, GUILDFORD, SURREY. _December_ 4, 1889. "MY DEAR SIR,--I have just seen the December number of the 'Magazine of Art,' in which I find an engraving of my portrait of Peabody. I did not know that it would be there, but I have given Mr. Spielman a sort of general permission to use certain of the photographs. I do not know whether the appearance of the head will vitiate the interest of your proposed publication, but I hope not, as the use of it will be of a very different nature. "I am much gratified by what you said of my works in your letter to me. However limited may be the result of my efforts, I have worked from the very beginning with sincerity of aim, certainly never regarding the _profession_ as a trade; and for some years not considering my avocation as a profession, declining to paint portraits professionally or to take commissions. "Such wares as I may have of an unimportant aim and character, I am not unwilling to sell, as Lord Derby is not unwilling to sell his coals; for I am not wealthy, and find many good ways of using money, but I do not regard my art as a source of income any longer. I hope some day to have the pleasure of discussing certain artistic questions with you." "MONKSHATCH, GUILDFORD, SURREY. _March_ 14, 1890. "MY DEAR SIR,--The picture of Lord Lawrence is in my possession, and the engraver may have it for two weeks in May or June. Of course he is trustworthy! The picture being one of those I have made over to the nation, I lend it with a certain hesitation, as I do not consider it belongs to me. I am flattered by the opinion of the young men, especially as I think I may hope it becomes more favorable with time. "The portrait of Tennyson is at South Kensington, and no doubt I can easily manage that Mr. Frank Short should have access to it. "I do not expect to be in town for good before the end of April, but here I am within an hour and a half of London." Although a great amount of labor had been bestowed upon "Man in Art," the author thought it advanced but slowly, and became anxious as the year wore on. In July he wrote a long explanatory letter to Mr. Craik, and received this answer:-- "I am much interested in your report of what has been done towards the new book. You have done a good bit of work, and I think you have made a thoroughly interesting selection of pictures. You have an almost endless field to choose from. "_It is quite impossible to publish this year_, but you ought to have plenty of time to prepare for next autumn. It is strange how long a book with illustrations takes to get ready; but the disappointment when many artists are at work is proverbial. "I look forward with sanguine interest to the publication next year." Note in the diary: "I feel much relieved by this letter, altogether a day of _détente_." Although he had taken an immense quantity of notes both in London and Paris, my husband was sometimes greatly perplexed by the want of references, and said almost desperately: "No one has any idea of the difficulty of doing my work in my situation,--far from picture galleries, museums, and libraries. It is so arduous that, at times, I feel as if I could not go on. It is too much for the brain to carry so many images, to remember so many things, without the possibility of refreshing my memory, of settling a doubt, of filling up a gap." He was not the only one to wonder at the extraordinary feats of literary production which he was compelled to accomplish under such unfavorable circumstances. AH those who knew of it said that his store of accumulated knowledge must be marvellous indeed. And yet, the only remedy was hardly to be hinted at; I felt so certain that he would be miserable in a great capital that I never mentioned the possibility of living in one of them; he was sufficiently aware of its desirability. Early in the summer, as I had suffered much from rheumatism, our doctor insisted upon my being sent to Bourbon-Lancy for a course of baths. I was most unwilling to leave my husband now that Mary was married and away, but he said the hope that the treatment would do me good was enough to make him bear his temporary loneliness cheerfully, and then my mother would come to stay with him. As I was very down-hearted myself, he promised to make a break in our separation by coming to see me. When the first half of my season at the baths was over, I saw him arrive in the little gig with M. Bulliot, who had come on an antiquarian quest. They went together, to see the curious, simple church of St. Nazaire (eleventh century), of which my husband made a drawing. He also sketched a view of the Loire, which may be seen from the height above Bourbon-Lancy, for a great length of its sleepy course. In the course of the vacation, my husband listened pretty regularly to M. Raillard's English readings out of Emerson or Tennyson, while he occasionally read a little German with his son-in-law. He was very desirous of resuming the study of that language, which, he said, would be of great service in his studies, but he was not able to find the time--Italian absorbing all he could spare. Two masters--or rather a master and a mistress--had been recommended to him, and when he could manage it, he wrote to them alternately long letters in Italian, which they returned corrected. Mr. Bodley, an English gentleman who was studying French institutions and politics most seriously, and who was acquainted with Mr. Hamerton's works, came in August to see him. This visit was the beginning of a lasting acquaintance, which was appreciated and valued by both parties. When we settled in the Parc des Princes, and when, after his marriage, Mr. Bodley resided in Paris, they met with new pleasure and fresh interest whenever an opportunity offered itself. Mr. Bodley was commencing his studies on Prance for the work he had just undertaken for Messrs. Macmillan, which should essay to do for France what Mr. Bryce had done for the United States in his "American Commonwealth." Recognizing Mr. Hamerton as the chief English authority on all French questions, he had, soon after his first arrival in Paris, been put into communication with him by the good offices of a common friend in the diplomatic service. A correspondence ensued, in the first letter of which my husband gave Mr. Bodley some advice on an article the latter had been requested to write for the "Quarterly Review," on "Provincial France," before he had had any opportunity of studying the French provinces. Here is part of the letter:-- "AUTUN, SAÛNE-ET-LOIRE. _June_ 11, 1890. "MY DEAR SIR,--It is a laudable, though an extraordinary desire on your part to know something about the subject you have to treat. I have never heard of such a case before. I have known France for thirty-five years, and find generally that English critics, who know nothing two miles from the British Embassy, are ready enough to set me down and teach me my proper place. I send by this post a colis postal, containing-- "1. 'Round my House,' by P. G. H. "2. 'La France Provinciale,' par René Millet. "3. 'French and English,' by P. G. H. "I have not a copy of the English edition of 'French and English,' but the Tauchnitz is better, as it had the benefit of correction. "You ought to notice, with reference to provincial France, the extreme difficulty of making any general statements that are true. For example, it is believed in England that all French land is cut up into small bits. A traveller who writes in the 'Temps' newspaper said lately, that although the greater number of proprietors in the Forest Lands of the Nièvre were small owners, the greater part of the land was in the possession of large owners; and he mentioned one who, he said, owned 12,000 hectares (more than 24,000 acres) of excellent forest. He did not give the name. There are several large landowners in this neighborhood. One had an income of £24,000 a year, but it was divided amongst his children. "France is a very various country, and therefore difficult to know. If you have Mr. H----'s book amongst those you notice, you should bear in mind that it is a strictly partisan publication, hostile to all republicans, against whom the author seems to have taken a brief," etc., etc. Then followed some other letters, from which. I give a few paragraphs:-- "AUTUN. _July_ 15, 1890. "You have done an imprudent thing in not publishing your 'Quarterly' article at once. There are two times for writing--first when you know nothing, secondly when you know a great deal; the intermediate time, that of acquisition, is not favorable to writing, because it destroys the author's confidence in himself. He possesses that confidence before learning, and renews it when he has learned. In the interval he suffers from diffidence. "I am glad to hear that M. Jusserand likes my books; he is just the kind of Frenchman whose opinion one really values. "I shall be very glad if you can come. I shall be away part of September. All August I shall be at home, but if you could have come about now, it would have been better still." "_July_, 28, 1890. "The shortest rout from Paris to Autun, as to mere distance, is by Laroche, Gravant, Avallon, etc. In the present case I strongly recommend the shorter and more rural route, as being by far the prettier and less fatiguing, and also because it enables you to see one of the most picturesque small towns in France--Avallon. You have five hours to see Avallon, and the picturesque valley that it overlooks.... The next morning you will of course be occupied in seeing Autun, but if you will make your way to the railway station, so as to be there at 11.15, you will see a vehicle with yellow wheels and a chestnut mare, with a white mark on her face. The said vehicle will bring you to Pré-Charmoy (if you will kindly allow it to do so), in time for déjeuner. Please let me know the day. It would be better not to make any hard-and-fast arrangement about your departure, as I may be able to persuade you to take some drives with me to see something in this neighborhood." "AUTUN. _November_ 2, 1890. "I received the 'Quarterly' this morning, and read your article. Towards the close, you say every Frenchman in the provinces works. That, I am sorry to say, is a mistake. Unfortunately there is still a strong survival of the old caste prejudice against work, as being beneath a gentleman. All the young men I know whose parents are very well off _are as idle as they can be, unless they go into the army or the Church_, and now they hardly ever go into the Church, or when they do it is in some order (Jesuits, Marists, etc.). I was talking about this with a rich old French gentleman about ten days ago, and he deeply deplored it; he said he felt more respect for common workmen than for the idle young men in his own class. "You appear to think that the Morvan language is a Celtic tongue. No; it is only a French patois, very interesting and peculiar in its grammatical forms. I understand it partly when spoken, and can read it with some little difficulty. My daughter understands it very well. Our servants speak it among themselves. Their French is very pure, though somewhat limited in its vocabulary. "It seems to me that you are happily endowed and situated for undertaking a work of the kind you intend to write. You have seen a great deal of the world, you have no prejudices, you desire nothing but to be just, and especially you have that very rare quality--a right curiosity. I was pleased, and a little amused by the contrast, when I compared you with the strangely uninterested English whom I have seen in and out of France. I recollect staying with a friend in England, a few years ago, and I noticed that _he did not ask me one single question about France_. He simply talked of his own locality, and did not appear to take the slightest interest in the continent of Europe. "You made me pass a very pleasant day, which encourages the hope that you will come again to this neighborhood. There is a great deal to be seen within a driving radius, especially if you consent to sleep one night away from home. "My wife and I are going to Paris in December, when I mean to look you up." To another visitor whose name I am not at liberty to mention, my husband had written the following interesting letter:-- "Whilst driving home in the dark, after saying good-bye to you, I thought over your remarks about the great revolution in habits of thought which must take place in consequence of the influence of scientific methods. The difficulty I foresee is this. Religions supply a want that science does not and cannot supply; they answer to the need of certain emotions--trust, hope, joy, 'peace in believing,' the happiness of thinking that we are each of us individually cared for by a supremely good and all-powerful Father. Women especially seem to need these emotions to make life happy for them, and when they cease to believe, as many now do, they feel a sense of desolation. The most successful religion (the Roman) has succeeded by supplying most abundantly that care and those consolations which women expect a religion to give, and which science does not _in the least degree supply_; in fact, women usually dislike science. Now, as the churches maintain themselves chiefly by the influence and support of women, may they not continue to maintain themselves indefinitely in this way? Is it not possible, to mention a special case, that the Roman Catholic Church may exist for an indefinite length of time simply as a provider of the kind of authority and the kind of emotion that women desire, and that they cannot obtain from science? Mr.----, a friend of mine, considers religion absolutely necessary to women, and to many men, not that he at all considers religion to be true in the matter-of-fact sense, but the scientific truth of a doctrine is quite distinct from its beneficial effect upon the mind. "For my part, I don't know what to think about the future. Long ago I used to hope for a true religion, but now I see that if it is to be free from mythology, it ceases to be a religion altogether, and becomes only science, which has none of the heating and energizing force that a real religion certainly possesses. Neither has science its power of uniting men in bonds of brotherhood, and in giving them an effective hostile action against others as religious intolerance does." On the subject of religious belief, my husband had written previously to Mr. Seeley:-- "I have been corresponding with a friend [the same Mr.---- mentioned in the letter to another visitor] about the religious views of Mark Pattison and Dean Stanley. He knew both of them, and quite confirms what I had heard before, that they were no more believers than Renan. Pattison he describes as a conservative agnostic or pantheist, meaning by 'conservative' a man who thought it better to preserve old forms. I recollect that Appleton told me when he was here that there was not the slightest obligation on a clergyman of the Church of England to believe in the divinity of Christ, and that many clergymen in the present day, including Pattison, had no such belief. My friend himself seems to be an agnostic, and a strong supporter of the Church of England at the same time, and quite lately he earnestly counselled some young English ladies (who were Unitarians, but obliged to live abroad) to join the Church of England for the sake of 'religious fellowship.' He tells me that there is in Dean Stanley's 'Christian Institutions' an exposition of the Apostles' Creed, containing hardly a syllable to which Renan could not subscribe. "From all this it would appear that some, at least, of the English clergy have adopted the Jesuit principle, practically so convenient, by which any one may have an esoteric religion for himself as the comfortable lining of the cloak, and an esoteric religion for other people as the outside of the cloak. Meanwhile these clergymen are deeply respected, whilst honest men whose opinions are not one whit more heretical are stigmatized as 'infidels,' and excluded from 'good society.' You seem to have got into a curious condition in England. Surely many laymen are right in distrusting parsons." As editor of the "Portfolio," he had been contributing articles from time to time, but Mr. Seeley was anxious to see him undertake an important series for the following year. He proposed different subjects likely to tempt the author's fancy, and suggested "Turner in Switzerland;" but one of the difficulties was the quantity of work done by Turner in Switzerland, and the time that would be required to follow in his steps. Another suggestion of Mr. Seeley's was to write about a group of French living artists who would be good representatives of the modern school, and whose works would furnish striking illustrations. He said with his usual kind thoughtfulness: "I must confess that my suggestion of a French subject arose partly from the pleasure you would find in paying a visit to your daughter at Paris; and partly also from the reflection that Paris is not far from London." Mr. Hamerton had proposed "The Louvre," but it was feared that the subject would not be a popular one; and after mature consideration, the idea of a connected series of articles on modern French painters was entertained by both publisher and editor. Mr. Seeley wrote: "I was rather in hopes that my vague suggestion of a subject might take root in your mind and develop into something definite; or, to change the metaphor, that it might be a spark to kindle your invention. I think such a series would be interesting here, and would furnish admirable subjects for twelve etchings." A journey to Paris was then decided upon for the winter. The Saône cruise proved particularly pleasant this time, on account of the welcome offered to the passengers of "L'Arar" by several friends at Neuville, who most hospitably entertained them on land and water. They were invited on board "L'Hirondelle" and "Petite Amie," and raced "L'Arar" against them. It was a comfort to my husband to feel himself among friends, for he suddenly suffered from an irregular action of the heart which lasted for thirty-six hours, but ceased as suddenly as it came. He had had another distress of the same kind in the summer, but only of a couple of hours' duration. I had entreated him to see a doctor at the time; but he said it was only nervousness. At Neuville likewise he refused to seek advice, feeling sure it would cease of itself; and now I have the painful certainty that he was already laboring under the symptoms of heart disease. Still, he speedily recovered, and resumed his studies in water-colors and in pen-and-ink the day after. I see by this note in the diary that he was well satisfied with his boat: "Sept. 15. My studies occupied me till lunch-time, and then, after _déjeuner_, we started in 'L'Arar' to try an experiment in sailing with a breeze so light as to be imperceptible, sheets not even stretched, yet we went up as far as Pont Vert and beyond. We might have gone further, but came back to call upon Madame Vibert." In October, Mr. Hamerton wrote an article for "Chambers' Encyclopaedia" on the "History of Art," and another for the "Portfolio" on "National Supremacy in Painting." Having been asked to contribute to the "Forum," he began in November an article on "Home Life in France." He was always anxious to clear up any international misunderstanding between France and England, and had written in May to the "Pall Mall Gazette" an explanatory letter on the so-called persecution of the Church by the Republic, as regarded the execution of the decrees concerning religious orders. He had also sent a letter to the "Academy" on "France and the Republic." Although very tolerant himself in matters of religion, it was his opinion that the State, whether under a Republic or a Monarchy, had a right to exact obedience to its laws as well from religious bodies as from private persons; and that a Republican government ought not to be accused of tyranny because it enforced the execution of these general laws. But people are very apt to take the view which M. de Cassagnac so frankly avowed when addressing the Republican party in the Chamber: "We claim unbounded liberty for ourselves--because you promise it in your programme; but we refuse it to you--because it is contrary to our principles." About the middle of November there was copied into the "Temps" an anonymous letter which had appeared in "Truth," professing to express the hostile feelings entertained by English naval officers against the officers of the French fleet, which had recently visited Malta. This roused Mr. Hamerton's indignation; the more so as he never for one moment believed the discourteous and outrageous letter to be genuine. I transcribe his explanation of the incident as given by himself to his son-in-law:-- "_Novembre_ 17, 1890. "MON CHER FILS,--Il m'est arrivé de pouvoir, je crois, être utile au maintien des bonnes relations entre les marines anglaises et françaises. Un journal anglais, 'Truth,' a publié il y a quinze jours une lettre sans signature, mais présentée comme la communication authentique d'un officier de notre flotte de la Méditerranée. Dans cette lettre l'écrivain représentait les officiers comme très mécontents d'être obligés de donner l'hospitalité à ceux de l'escadre française qui est venue à Malte; disant que c'était leur métier de recevoir les Français à coups de fusil et qu'ils ne désiraient pas les voir autrement. "Je connais assez les sentiments d'un 'English gentleman,' (et nos officiers de marine se piquent de soutenir ce caractère) pour savoir qu'ils comprendraient l'hospitalité mieux que cela, et j'ai envoyé le paragraphe en question à l'Amiral commandant la flotte Anglaise de la Méditerranée, en lui suggérant l'idée d'une protestation. Il m'a répondu par télégramme qu'au reçu de ma lettre l'indignation avait été générale parmi les officiers et qu'ils préparent une protestation qu'ils m'enverront pour que je la fasse circuler autant que possible dans la presse française. Le retard a été probablement occasionné par les mouvements de la flotte." A few days later the following letter was received by Mr. Hamerton:-- "H. M. S. BENBOW. _November_ 17,1890. "DEAR SIR,--I hope you will kindly assist us in getting the gross misstatements copied from 'Truth' as to our feelings towards the French Navy contradicted. "You will perceive that the paper I enclose is signed by an officer representing each ship, and that most ranks in the service are also represented thereon. "Any expense that may be incurred would you kindly let me know? "Yours faithfully, "H. RAWSON, "Capt. R. N." The protestation which accompanied the letter ran thus:-- "H. M. S. BENBOW, AT MALTA. _November_ 15, 1890. "DEAR SIR,--Your letter of the 1st of November, sent to the Commander-in-Chief of the British fleet in the Mediterranean, has been forwarded to us, and we have to thank you for having called our attention to the paragraph in the 'Temps,' copied from 'Truth' of the 31st of October. "Referring to the language in 'Truth,' the editor of the 'Temps' says that he hopes it will be protested against in England. The paragraph had been seen and commented on by our officers; but as in England no one ever takes the trouble to answer or contradict any statement made in that paper ('Truth'), and as in this case its object was so palpably political, viz. to cause the present Government trouble, and prevent the cordiality and friendship that has existed so long between the two nations, no notice was taken of it; but when a paper of such importance as the 'Temps' copies the paragraph, and it is thus brought before the French nation, it at once becomes important and demands a protest and a denial. "As you have already taken an interest in the matter, we are led to hope that you will assist us in procuring the insertion in any French papers that may have copied this paragraph, most especially the 'Temps,' the naval papers, and the local papers at Toulon, of a protest on the part of the officers of the English fleet in the Mediterranean against the language of the article, and to deny, on our part, any such feelings or ideas as are attributed to us in it. "We beg to assure you that it gave us real and unfeigned pleasure to see the French fleet in our midst at Malta, and that what little we were able to do to make their visit agreeable and pleasant was done from no feeling of duty, or even as a mere return for the kindly reception accorded to us at Toulon, but from a sincere appreciation of the high qualities of French naval officers, and a desire to cultivate their friendship. "We have the honor to be, "Sir "Your obedient servants." Three weeks later came a letter of thanks, closing the incident, which had caused no little trouble to Mr. Hamerton. "MALTA. _December_ 12, 1890. "DEAR MR. HAMERTON,--Thank you very much in the name of the English Navy for so kindly assisting us to repel the gross insinuations of 'Truth,' also for the extracts, and the trouble you have taken for us. I only regret that you should have drawn 'Truth' on you. "I have shown your letter to the Admiral and all the officers here, who are much pleased with all that has been done. "Again thanking you, believe me, "Yours truly, "H. RAWSON." Mr. Hamerton considered himself well rewarded for his exertions by the tokens of warm approval he received both from England and from France. "French and English" did not meet with the success it deserved, though it was published in England, America, and France, and in the Tauchnitz edition. The author had entertained few illusions about the fate of the work, for some reasons which he has himself explained in private letters, and in his prefaces to the book. He once wrote in answer to a letter from M. Raillard:-- "Vous lisez mes livres, un peu sans doute pour faire plaisir au vieux Papa, mais je crois réellement qu'ils vous seront utiles à cause de la simplicité du style et de la clarté que j'ai toujours cherchées. Ces qualités m'ont gagné de nombreux lecteurs, mais en même temps m'ont privé de toute réputation de profondeur. En Angleterre on classe tous les écrivains clairs, comme écrivains superficiels." But he said in the preface to the Tauchnitz edition:-- "The kind of success most gratifying to me after writing a book of this kind would be to convert some readers to my own method, or rule, in the formation of opinion, whether it concerns one side or the other. "My method is a good one, but not so good for eloquence as the hastier methods of journalism." And in the preface of the English edition:-- "I should like to write with complete impartiality if it were possible. I have at least written with the most sincere desire to be impartial, and that perhaps at the cost of some popularity in England, for certain English critics have told me that impartiality is not patriotic; and others have informed me of what I did not know before, namely, that I prefer the French to my own countrymen." Though "French and English" never became what may be called a popular book, it nevertheless attracted a good deal of attention, and the author received a great number of letters expressive of admiration and gratitude for the clear discernment and impartiality with which the differences existing between the two nations had been studied and expounded. Here is a pretty sample from a French lady:-- "MONSIEUR,--Je viens de lire avec le plus grand plaisir votre livre 'French and English.' Il est si rare qu'un écrivain anglais ose--ou veuille, aller contre les préjugés de ses lecteurs anglais, et nous fasse justice, que j'en ai éprouvé un vrai sentiment de reconnaissance. Bien des jugements portés sont ceux dont j'ai l'habitude de gratifier mes amis, et, comme il y a toujours, 'a great deal of human nature in mankind;' je n'apprécie que mieux votre livre à cause de cela. À quelques exceptions près, par exemple, la fin du chapitre 'on Truth,' je vois les choses comme vous, mais certains préjugés sont bien invétérés dans l'esprit de vos compatriotes. "Lorsque je protestais contre les idées fausses qu'on se faisait de nous, on m'a dit si souvent: 'Oh! mais, vous n'êtes pas français, vous!' Le mot est bien caractéristique. Un Français qui ne répond pas à l'idée qu'on se fait de sa nation, c'est une exception. "Je ne l'aurais peut-être pris que comme une manière de taquiner, une plaisanterie, si cela ne m'avait été répété encore tout dernièrement par un homme d'une vraie valeur intellectuelle, qui a toute une théorie sur les races. La conclusion à déduire était: tout ce qui pense sérieusement ne peut être français. Qui sait si votre livre ne vous a pas fait accuser de vous être perverti à notre contact puisque vous nous êtes assez favorable! "Je trotte tous ces temps-ci dans la neige, avec votre livre dans mon manchon, lisant à chacun de mes amis le morceau qui lui revient, mais je voudrais qu'ils lisent tout. "Sans me donner le temps de trop réfléchir j'ai écrit ma lettre; après je n'aurais plus osé. J'aurai eu ainsi l'occasion de dire à un homme de talent qu'il m'a fait goûter un vrai plaisir ... peut-être est-ce une satisfaction pour un auteur. "Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, mes compliments bien sincères pour votre 'fairness' à notre égard. "Yours truly." I also give a passage from one of Mr. Calderon's letters:-- "Last night--to my regret--I finished the last chapter of your 'French and English.' I am delighted with its truth. Remember (as an excuse for giving an opinion so freely) that I too am very fairly acquainted with both countries--their capitals and provinces." The book, as I have said, was translated into French, and, as usual, the author took the trouble of revising the translation. Far from taking any pride in the fact that the translation of his works was desired and sought after, he dreaded it, and would even have opposed it, had the thing been in his power. The inevitable loss of his style--upon which he always bestowed such conscientious care--was to him almost unbearable. Roberts Brothers did not appear dissatisfied with the American sale, for they said: "We have sold fifteen hundred copies, and are quite ready for another popular book." CHAPTER XIX. 1890-1891 Decision to live near Paris.--Practice in painting and etching.--Search for a house.--Clématis. We left home on December 21, 1890, and spent a day and two nights very agreeably at Dijon with the parents of our son-in-law. Then we went on to Paris by an early morning train, which necessitated our lunching in the carriage. We were to stay with our daughter and her husband, but Gilbert took a separate study for his work, in a quiet house in the same street. My husband had himself made a careful drawing for Richard's monument, and now, being in Paris, we went to see it, and wished to have it completed by an inscription. Hitherto we had not agreed about any, but as we were sadly recalling his last intimate talk, it seemed that the desire for "Peace" which he had expressed should be recorded as an acquittal of the deed which brought the fulfilment of his wish. And his father caused the word _eiraenae_, to be engraved at the head of the tombstone. M. Pelletier, having been promoted to the Économat of the old and famous Lycée Henri IV.,--where so many celebrated Frenchmen have been educated,--took pleasure in showing us the most ancient or curious parts of the building, such as La Tour Clovis, the vaulted kitchen, the painted cupola over the staircase, and the delicately carved panels of the old monks' library--now the Professors' billiard-room. My husband was much interested by this visit, and repeated it shortly after in the company of M. and Mme. Manesse, M. and Mme. L. Flameng, M. Pelletier acting as cicerone. It being the season of the Epiphany, our niece had the traditional cake served on the tea-table, and the royal honors fell to the lot of her uncle. He chose Madame Flameng for his queen, and they made us pass a merry hour under their joint rule. The serious part of the talk had concerned the possibility of engaging L. Flameng to engrave one of his son's pictures. He had consented, and my husband called upon François Flameng to make a choice. On his return he gave me a description of the studios and library, which are very curious, and offered to take me with him on his next visit, to renew my old acquaintance with the now celebrated artist. But my infirmity would have rendered awkward the introduction to his young wife, to whom the memories of previous friendship did not extend. Writing once to Mr. Seeley about my deafness, my husband had said: "She sits surrounded by a silent world, and sees people's lips move and their gestures. How difficult it is to imagine such a state of existence! As for me, I suffer from the opposite inconvenience of hearing too well. When I am unwell my hearing is preternaturally acute, so that my watch in my waistcoat ticks as if it were held almost close to my ear." Being desirous of forming a sound opinion about the present state of the fine arts in France, Mr. Hamerton went to visit the New Sorbonne, the Hôtel de Ville, the Lycée Janson, the new pictures in the Museum of the Luxembourg, those in the private exhibition of M. Durand-Ruel, as well as the exhibitions at Messrs. Goupil's and Petit's. He saw J. P. Laurens' "Voûte d'Acier," M. Rodin's studio, and the Musée du Mobilier National, with its beautiful tapestries. We left Paris at the end of January and returned home, my husband having got through a vast amount of work with ease and pleasure, and with a new hopeful confidence in his powers of acquisition and endurance, and also with a gratifying sense of his acknowledged standing--even in France-- among celebrated artists and men of letters. At the Easter family gathering our possible change of residence was exhaustively discussed. The state of the buildings at La Tuilerie was growing worse and worse every day, and my brother's opinion, as an architect, having been asked for, was that the time for very important repairs could no longer be postponed: new roofs would have to be built, one of the walls strengthened, the floor tiles taken up; and the woodwork of every window was so rotten that it could no longer hold the iron with which it had already been mended. Mary and her husband represented what a heavy outlay would be required if we undertook these repairs, and also said, with great truth, that after it we should feel bound to the house on account of the money spent on it. It was an opportunity for changing a mode of life no longer adapted to our wants nor to our years. Why such a big house for two solitary beings?... And now that their father was subject to attacks of gout and not so sure of immunity from colds, was he to continue to have the care of horses and to drive in an open carriage in all weathers? Could we be so easily reconciled to the idea of never seeing them longer than the short space of five weeks every year, when there was no plausible reason for being so far apart?... Their father disliked great cities, but he would not be obliged to live inside Paris; there were plenty of comfortable and quiet villas in the neighborhood or in the suburbs, from which Paris would be accessible by the Seine, thus rendering a great part of his work so much easier. He, on his part, objected that living would be more expensive; that he would not be so well situated for working from nature; and last of all that, if he decided for a change, he would expect to be so near to Mary and her husband as to be able to reach them on foot and in a short time, for he could not be reconciled to the loss of a whole day every time he went to see them. "The two requisites," he said--"life in the country and frequent meetings--cannot be reconciled together." M. Raillard and his wife praised Montmorency, Meudon, Marly, and St. Germain, which they had visited on purpose, but he answered that any of these places would be too far off. However, when Stephen, Mary, and her husband had left us, their father was not proof against melancholy thoughts, from which he did not always find refuge in work. The following note in the diary is a proof of it: "April 5. Did not feel disposed to work, on account of the children's departure." The solitude of our lives had also been considerably increased by the deaths of five Autunois friends, and by the departure of M. Schmitt with his family. My husband wrote to him:-- "Vous me demandez des nouvelles d'Autun, mais depuis votre départ nous y allons le moins possible. Je n'ai rien à y faire, presque plus personne à y voir. Je crains même qu'au bout d'un certain temps cet isolement ne produise un fâcheux état dans mon esprit. Je me plonge dans le travail, le refuge des gens isolés." Shortly after Easter there came an attack of gout, this time in one knee, and Gilbert was naturally disturbed by the conviction that the disease had become more threatening now that it was going up. He became more alive to the difficulties of our present conditions of existence in the country, and more willing to consider the desirability of a change. The business of the "Portfolio" would be so much more easily and promptly transacted if he were in Paris; correspondence with England so much more rapid, and the length of journeys to London diminished so appreciably that all these considerations were of great weight in the final decision, as well as others of a different nature. I could not hope to hide from Gilbert the void left in my life by the loss of one of my sons, and the absence of a daughter who had never left me before for any length of time; nor the sorrowful recollections incessantly awakened by the surrounding scenes and objects, and he began to think that to break the chain of such painful associations might be beneficial to me. This, I believe, dictated his letter of May 8 to Mary, in which he told her that she might make serious inquiries for a house, as he had definitely decided to go and live near Paris. Mr. Seeley was very glad to hear that the editor of the "Portfolio" would be nearer to England; he said: "I hope you will get comfortably settled in the suburbs of Paris. If I may judge by my own experience I do not think you will regret the change. I have never done so for a moment, although I was fond of Kingston." Since he had been last at Burnley, and had seen again the pictures painted at Sens for Mr. Handsley, my husband had been dissatisfied with them. The development of knowledge, skill, and the critical faculty made him intolerant of the shortcomings of that early period, and hopeful of doing better work now. So he wrote to Mr. Handsley, and proposed to paint him two new pictures to replace the old ones. In the reply he was begged to think of no such thing, as although the pictures might not be quite satisfactory to him, the owner valued them as among the earliest productions of the artist. But Gilbert insisted on being allowed to replace at least the view of Sens by another subject--already begun and about which he felt hopeful--and finally it was left to him to do as he liked. It is a curious thing that, feeling as he did the pressure of work, he should have been always ready to undertake some additional task. At that moment, when he had so little spare time, he had promised (for an indefinite date, it is true), a picture of Mont Beuvray for M. Bulliot, and others of Pré-Charmoy for Alice Gindriez, his sister-in-law; Mary also was to have her share. The pictures intended for Alice Gindriez had been painted several times over, and destroyed, and the one for Mr. Handsley had already passed through various changes of effect, but it looked very promising. The artist intended to send it to the Salon, and had even ordered the frame; but our removal having interrupted painting for a long time, it remained unfinished; though it was taken up again at intervals. It is my belief that artistic work, in spite of its disappointments, proved a relief and a distraction to my husband; but it is much to be regretted that his own standard should have been so high, for it prevented him from completing and keeping many etchings and pictures which, if not perfect, still possessed great charms. It is also a subject for regret that he should have been led to undertake large pictures of mountain scenery--so difficult to render adequately. If the time spent in fighting against these difficulties had been bestowed upon smaller canvases and less ambitious subjects, he would undoubtedly have succeeded in forming quite a collection. The greater part of his studies are graceful in composition, harmonious in color, tender and true in sentiment--why should not the pictures have possessed the same qualities? The main reason for his failing to express himself in art, is that he was too much attracted by the sublime in Nature, and that the power to convey the impression of sublimity has only been granted to the greatest among artists. In May there came a triumphant letter from Mary saying that she had discovered the _very_ house wanted by her father, uniting in incredible perfection every one of the conditions he had laid down. Once, being hard pressed to give his consent to a change of residence, he had playfully spread a plan of Paris on the table, and had stuck a pin in it, saying at the same time: "When you find me a suitable house _there_, in this situation and at that distance from you, I promise to take it." It was considered as a joke, but Mary now affirmed that the Villa Clématis was at the exact distance from the Rue de la Tour (where she lived) that her father had mentioned. Moreover, the roads in the avenues leading from Clématis to Passy were excellent for a velocipede, or he could reach her in a charming walk of less than an hour--through the Bois de Boulogne--and by rail three minutes only were required from the station of Boulogne to that of Passy. The rent was moderate, and although higher than our present one, would still be within our means, if it were taken into consideration that neither horse nor carriage would be necessary. The villa was in the Parc des Princes, which offered several advantages. No shops or factories of any kind being allowed within the park, its peacefulness was never disturbed by the noise of traffic. The houses, which varied in sizes from the simple ordinary villa to the hôtel or château, were each surrounded by a garden, small or large; and long avenues of fine trees so encircled the park that its existence was not much known outside. Quite close to it, however, was the town of Boulogne, with its well-provided market and shops, and at a distance of a few minutes the _chemin-de-fer de ceinture_, a line of tramways, one of omnibuses, and the steamboats not very far off. Clématis had a very _small_ garden--a recommendation to my husband--but was still sufficiently isolated from the neighboring villas by their own grounds on each side. There was a veranda looking over the little garden, and a large balcony over the veranda; the dining and drawing-rooms were divided by double folding doors, and both had access to the veranda by _porte-fenêtres_; the low and wide marble chimney-pieces were surmounted by plate-glass windows affording a sight of trees and flowers, and giving a most light and cheerful effect to the rooms. There were several well-aired bedrooms, and under the house vaulted cellars to keep it healthy and dry. Such was the description sent us, which we found perfectly accurate when we visited the house the very day of our arrival at Passy, on June 1, 1891. The diary says about it: "Went to Boulogne to see the Villa Clématis. On the whole pleased with it." As for me, I was charmed with it after all the inconveniences I had had to put up with, hitherto, in our rough country houses. We had been told that the rents were low at Billancourt, and we went there to ascertain, but we did not like the horrid state of the roads, nor the unfinished streets, the result of house-building all over the place. We also saw Vanves and the Château d'Issy, in which there were two pavilions to let. Gilbert's fancy was so much taken by one of them that I began to dread he might want to live in it. He wrote in the diary: "The place seemed curious and romantic. Three very fine lofty rooms, a number of small ones. Plenty of space. Not much convenience; wife not at all pleased with it." It would have been much worse than anything I had experienced before. The house was dark, being surrounded and over-topped by a small but dense park climbing up an eminence above it; all the rainwater coming down this slope remained in stagnant pools about the lower story, the stones of which were of a dull and dirty green, being covered with moss. There was a queer circuitous kitchen round the base of the stairs, and the dishes prepared in it would have had to be carried up the stairs through an outside passage before arriving on the dining-room table. Then I wondered how the "fine, lofty rooms" (damp with moisture and cold with tiled floors) could be warmed in winter, and also lighted; for they all looked upon the tree-clad hill rising up hardly a few feet from the windows. All that was nothing to Gilbert, who only saw in perspective so many spacious studios and workrooms. At last I noticed that a paved road wound round the outside of the pavilion, and just as I was pointing it out, there came several heavily laden carts thundering along, and shaking the whole building quite perceptibly. My husband had enough of it after that, and I rejoiced inwardly at the opportune appearance of those carts. The day after, the diary says: "Went in the afternoon to Sèvres. Found the place divided into two parts: the lower, which smells badly, and the upper, which is all but inaccessible, being up a steep hill. Renounced Sèvres." Besides looking about for a house, we went frequently to the Salons, there being two now, and my husband regularly continued his work. Mr. Seeley wrote: "The quickness with which your letters come gives me a pleasant feeling as regards the future." To my inexpressible delight "Clématis" was chosen for our future abode, after other fruitless researches; indeed, in my opinion it was impossible to find anything better suited to our wants--and what sounds almost incredible, the situation of the Parc des Princes was found to be exactly where Gilbert had pricked the pin in the plan of Paris. The little garden looked very pretty now in June, with the pillars of the veranda all blue with flowers of the climbing clematis, and the cornice loaded with the pink and white bouquets of roses. The wild clematis, Virginia creeper, and honeysuckle clothed the trunks of every tree, whilst their roots were hidden by flowers and ferns of various kinds. Another pleasant feature of the park was the quantity of singing birds; there were larks, blackcaps, white-throats, and blackbirds, no doubt attracted by the security and peace they enjoyed all the year round--no shooting being allowed either in the park or in the Bois de Boulogne. My husband wished to appropriate all the upper story of Clématis to his work, so as to have within easy reach everything he wanted for it, and at the same time to escape from all household noises. The large middle room with the balcony would be his study and atelier, only he required more light for painting, and a tall window was made for him. One of the small rooms was to be a laboratory, the other a sort of storeroom for papers, panels, frames, canvases, colors, etc., and one of the garrets a joiner's shop. Bookcases were to be placed against all the walls of the studio, which would serve as a library at the same time. CHAPTER XX. 1891-1894. Removal to Paris.--Interest in the Bois de Boulogne.--M. Vierge.--"Man in Art."--Contributions to "Scribner's Magazine."--New form of "The Portfolio."--Honorary degree.--Last Journey to London.--Society of Illustrators.--Illness and death. We were no sooner home again than the transformation of my husband's study and laboratory furniture began. He had carefully taken all the necessary measurements, and he now set two joiners to work under his direction. Of course we had some months of discomfort and fatigue, with the packing up and the sale which preceded our departure. At one time I was almost in despair of ever getting through, Gilbert being so very exacting about the packing that we had to wrap up each single book separately, and to fold up carefully every sheet or bit of paper without creases. It was one of his characteristics, this respectful care he took of books and papers; it went so far that he could hardly bring himself to destroy waste-paper; and when he had not quite filled a page with his writing, he would cut off the white piece and lay it aside in a drawer for further use; nay more, after making use of these fragments of paper for notes which had been copied out, he drew a line of red or blue pencil across the writing, and returned the paper to another drawer to be used _on the other side_. And it was not for the sake of economy, for he was frequently indulging in the purchase of note-books, pocket-books, memorandum-books, etc. No; it was a sort of instinctive respect. If any one held a book carelessly, or let it fall, he was absolutely miserable, and could not refrain from remonstrating. When we unpacked, he directed a man to fold up the papers which had been used as wrappers, and when I told him that the papers were not worth the man's wages and had better be thrown into the street, he looked surprised, and reluctantly allowed them to be stuffed into the empty boxes; but be could not bring himself to remain while it was being done. It was hard to break away from the associations of so many years, and the last meal we took _tête-à-tête_ in the dining-room, emptied of all its furniture except a small table and two chairs, was a melancholy one. I swallowed many a tear, and Gilbert's voice was somewhat tremulous when he attempted to talk. Roberts Brothers had inquired early in the year if Mr. Hamerton had decided about a new book, and had been answered in the affirmative. They now said: "We hasten to reply to your query. Yes, we think 'The Quest of Happiness' an admirable title for a book destined for the popular heart--so happy that it will of itself sell it. Don't meditate about doing it too long." Messrs. A. and C. Black had also proposed that Mr. Hamerton's articles for the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" should be revised and enlarged so as to make an interesting and valuable "Hand-book to Drawing and Engraving," and the author had agreed to undertake the work. They were so considerate as to send a copy of the "Encyclopaedia" to the writer, who had long desired to possess it, and who valued it as a treasure. He had a special bookcase made for it, with many divisions, to preserve the volumes from too much rubbing, and was pleased with their handsome appearance in his library. A letter received in the autumn may offer some interest to the reader. It tells of a rather curious occurrence. The writer had been occasionally in correspondence with the author of "Wenderholme," and, living in Lancashire, had greatly appreciated the accuracy of the descriptions and characters in that locality. Two years before he had discovered "Thursday," and under his guidance had visited the site of the first camp at Widdup, and noted the changes; now he wrote again, giving an account of his experiences during a little visit to the Brontë country, and explaining at some length that he was "driven by bad weather to the 'house' (you will remember the sense in which the word is used in the district) occupied by the wrangling drunkard. The talk turning upon a hut which had been erected by a _mon_ through Halifax for the grouse-shooting, evoked a reminiscence from the only (relatively) sober member of the party, of another mon--a hartist--who, aboon thirty year sin', built a hut at Widdup, and hed a gurt big dog, and young Helliwell, ower at Jerusalem, wor then a lad, and used to bring him (the mon) milk, and in the end gat ta'en on as sarvant, and went wi' him to Scotland and all ower--you may imagine my delight.... "I was sorry to hear that Thursday was not in very good health. He is, however, married, and the proud father of a little girl--Mary Alice. He seems very comfortable, and has promised me a photograph of himself by way of a frontispiece to my copy of the 'Painter's Camp.' "I trust I am not boring you; but I thought that you might like to know that you and your encampment are still remembered in the district." It always pleased Gilbert to have news of the people and places associated in his mind and affections with his youth, and his interest in them never grew cold with years. Our new installation at Clématis was much simplified by the fact that everything from La Tuilerie had been sent in advance. In order not to keep Gilbert too long from his work, the study was first arranged, and he was well pleased with it; indeed, he said he had never been so conveniently or comfortably established "for his work" before; but still I saw, with pain, that he looked depressed in spite of himself. New Year's Day saw us established in the new house, and regular habits of work resumed. Having two spare bedrooms, our children came to use them during the Christmas holidays, and we had some pleasant meetings with M. Pelletier and his family. It was by a sort of tacit understanding that almost every Sunday we lunched, in turn, at each other's houses,--once at Clématis, then at Madame Halliard's, and afterwards at M. Pelletier's. After lunch we had a long walk either in the Bois de Boulogne, Parc de St. Cloud, Jardin du Luxembourg, or Jardin des Plantes; but although Gilbert enjoyed these strolls, they did not make up for the loss of the country; neither did the Seine replace the Saône, and Mr. Seeley said: "I am sorry the Seine is not what it ought to be. You will miss your old amusement of sailing, for which steaming will be a poor substitute." We all tried to find something that might take his fancy, and we went to see the Marne. He said it afforded refreshing and pretty scenes; but he was not enthusiastic about its character. I plainly saw that what I had feared had come to pass--namely, that this new way of life did not suit him so well as the old, and that, despite the greater facilities, he did not seem to work to his own satisfaction, and felt dull. This lasted for some time. Mr. Seeley humorously teased him about it, and suggested that he should write for an American magazine an article on "The Dulness of Paris." He went on: "If you could only run over here to roam about our Kentish hills, you would soon be all right again. They are covered with millions of wood anemones, violets, primroses, cuckoo flowers, and blue-bells; and the low ground is gay with marsh-marigolds." Alas! the Bois offered all this in profusion, but for flowers Gilbert never really cared; he merely appreciated their _valeur_ in the harmony of a landscape. He thus explained his feelings, in answer to Mr. Seeley:-- "My complaints about the dulness of Paris refer to the peculiar state of mind the place always induces in myself, that is, _ennui_. Now, the _ennuyé_ state of mind is the worst possible for a writer, because his interest in things ought always to remain keen and lively; he ought to have the intelligence of a man with the interest of a child. I believe Paris to be, on the whole, the most endurable of great cities, that in which the disagreeables of such places are most successfully palliated. For instance, I can go from here to the Louvre in magnificent avenues all the way. But, for a writer, it is not enough to find life endurable; he ought to be keenly interested. My life at Autun was pleasant and refreshing; at Loch Awe it was an enchantment. However, I did not come here for my pleasure." And work was crowding upon him; besides "Man in Art," which had been put aside since the interruption necessitated by the removal, the editor of the "Forum," Mr. Walter H. Page, asked for an article on the "Effects on Popular Education of Great Art Collections." He said: "I am glad to be able to tell you that some of the best American newspapers have discussed your article on the 'Learning of Languages,' and that I have many evidences of the appreciation of a large number of our most cultivated people." The editor of the "Illustrated London News" also wished for a series of articles on "French Life," and was very sorry that Mr. Hamerton could not undertake them for want of time, and the publisher of the "Portfolio" would have been pleased to get reviews of the annual Salons from the editor's pen. Early in the spring, as soon as the weather permitted it, we began to go regularly with M. and Mme. Raillard to the prettiest places in the neighborhood of Paris to spend the Thursdays and Sundays. We were frequently joined by the Pelletier family, and had picnics together in sheltered nooks. We started early in the morning, carried our provisions with the exception of beer, wine, and bread, which could always be bought anywhere, and roamed about or rested till the end of the day. In this pleasant and independent manner we saw St. Germain,--the forest and château,--by which my husband was much impressed; the lakes and Bois de Vincennes; the park at Marly, L'Yvette; the mills of Meaux, St. Rémy: the Château de Chevreuse, Bougival, Ville d'Avray, La Celle St. Cloud, La Terrasse de Meudon, Le Vésinet, Nogent-sur-Marne; the ponds at Garches, L'Abbaye des Vaux-de-Cernay, Mareuil-Marly, Melun, and L'Etang de St. Cucufa, with its surroundings of luxuriant vegetation and noble trees. These walks in the country--much more of the real country than my husband had ever expected to find so near Paris--began to reconcile him to his new life; but what helped most towards this reconciliation was the Bois de Boulogne, with its hidden charms and beauties, which he had the pleasure of discovering for himself, never having heard of them. For the parts of the Bois best known and always offered to admiration are the most artificial, and the resorts of fashion, equipages, and crowds; the cascade, the lakes, the Allée des Acacias, the Pré-Catelan, and La Grande Pelouse, while there are enough solitary nooks and unfrequented alleys, thick underwoods, open vistas, and groups of graceful and handsome trees to interest a lover of landscape for miles and miles, without any other disturbance than a chance meeting with a timid rabbit or a curious deer. No sooner had Gilbert found out that there existed in the Bois real and extensive woodland scenery--almost untrodden and unexplored, than it became a pleasure to start on his tricycle, followed by his dog, for an early ride under the dewy branches, in the light and fragrant mist rising from the moist mosses and wild-flowers under the first rays of the sun. From these healthy rides he returned to his first _déjeuner_ much exhilarated, having breathed fresh air without the sensation of confinement so painful to him. Gradually he came across various scenes which he felt attracted to paint, and then his liking for the Bois was formed. There were among others, La Mare d'Auteuil, the incomparable group of grand old oaks, a single branch of which would have made a fine tree; the ponds of Boulogne; the varied views of the Seine, with the gay and sunny slopes from the walks running parallel to the river. Then the mill and its surrounding fields, quiet at times with browsing cows knee-deep in the rich grass, or at other times alive with merry mowers and hay-makers. Several views of Mont Valérien, looming in the haze of the after-glow, or in dark contrast with the splendor of the afternoon sunshine, also caught my husband's attention; as well as numberless other places without a name, which pleased him for one sort of beauty or another. After each new discovery, he wanted me to go with him to see, and whenever it was possible, and at a walking distance from the house, I took a book with me and read to him as he sketched. By a few notes in the diary it will be seen that his explorations extended to rather long distances from the house:-- "Went to L'Alma on the tricycle. Found capital place for studying boats not far from the Pont d'Iéna." "Went round by Bois to Rothschild's, till I came to bridge of St. Cloud and to the house--lovely play of lights on the water and upon the heights." "In afternoon rode as far as Argenteuil, and saw Texier's boat-building establishment there, and the fleet of pleasure-boats." "Went to Asnières on tricycle by the Rond-Point of Courbevoie. Some difficult passages on road. Return easier by riverside, right bank. Beautiful hazy distances." "Found out boat-house of the Bilancourt boat-club. Spacious and rather nice. Keeper boat-builder. Came back by riverside, Auteuil and Bois. Charming harmony of grays in the sky--silvery, bluish, rose-tinted, and lavender." "In afternoon rode to St. Cloud with a view to comparison with Turner. In coming back met a steam-carriage on the road, managed, I believe, by Caran d'Ache," etc., etc. When he had regained the elasticity of his mind, his thoughts were turned again to his important work. Note in the diary on March 3: "Tried to recover command of 'Man in Art,' putting the MS. in order. Read the chapters over again to recover materials and spirit of work." From that date "Man in Art" was steadily resumed till its completion. There was a good deal of trouble and disappointment with the illustrations, some of which were found unworthy of insertion; but having been ordered, they would have to be paid for. The author was ready to bear the cost rather than see them inserted, but Messrs. Macmillan very kindly and generously refused to allow this, and proposed that he should send a bill for any money that he should find it necessary to expend on unsatisfactory illustrations. My husband was now in far better spirits, and, apparently, in very good health. A friend, Mr. Oliver, who had named his son Hamerton out of admiration for the author, wrote in answer to one of his letters: "I was pleased to hear that you find the later period of life not unattended with deep satisfaction and pleasure." Among those pleasures were the friendly or interesting visits that the remoteness of Autun from great centres would have effectually prevented. In the spring we saw Mrs. Macmillan and her son; in the autumn we had the pleasure of becoming personally acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Adam Black, who were passing through Paris, and with whom we spent an afternoon visiting the gardens and ruins of St. Cloud. Roberts Brothers, to whom many applications for letters of introduction were addressed, and who managed to give only a few, sent some of their friends to Mr. Hamerton now and then. They said in one of their letters: "Since you will not come to America and see for yourself, we want to show you that our aborigines are as good specimens of the _genus homo_ as they make anywhere." In the Parc des Princes lives a great artist, Urrabieta Vierge, whose house and studio were only a few minutes distant from Clématis. Mr. Hamerton's admiration of this artist's talent was great, and his liking for him as a man became great also. He often expressed the opinion that, in his best pen-drawings, Urrabieta Vierge was--and would remain--without a rival. He used to spend hours over the original illustrations to Pablo de Segovie, and other drawings in the possession of the artist. Hardly ever did a day pass without seeing my husband in M. Vierge's studio once at least. He had opportunities of rendering him a service sometimes, as the artist had dealings with English and American publishers, but was ignorant of their language, and in token of gratitude M. Vierge painted his new friend's portrait, and also that of his mother-in-law, Madame Gindriez. The idea of a book on the study of words, to be written in collaboration with M. Raillard, had not been abandoned by my husband, who submitted the title for Mr. Seeley's approval. It was to be: "Words on their Travels, and some Stay-at-home Words." It was pronounced lively and interesting. His own share had been delayed; but his son-in-law was working at it, and they carefully planned together the composition and form of the book, the separate parts of which were to be linked together by essays from my husband's pen. Much time was devoted to the exhibitions in 1892. The Salons, of course, had many visits, but they did not give so much pleasure to Gilbert as "Les Cent Chefs-d'oeuvre," or the Pelouse Exhibition; he was also greatly interested by Raffet's works. Our children spent with us a month of the long vacation, as they used to do at Pré-Charmoy, and our excursions to the most picturesque places in the neighborhood of Paris became more frequent. We had formed a project for going to Pierre-fonds and Compiègne; but my husband, being now most anxious to finish "Man in Art" before Christmas, regretfully put off the excursions to the ensuing year. Now that he had regained the buoyancy of his spirits, he was fully alive to the peculiar charms of the country about Paris, and even intended to write a series of small books on the most noteworthy and remarkable places--something in the way of exhaustive guides. He thought of beginning with those that he knew thoroughly well already, and to acquaint himself gradually with the others. In September our son-in-law, with his wife, went to stay with his parents for the remainder of the vacation; but Mary left them a few days before her husband to see her relatives at Chalon, and in the way of consolation, her father sent the following to Raoul:-- "BEATUS ILLE. "Blest is the man whose wife is gone away! From cares exempt, he dwells in perfect peace. His heart is light as boy's on holiday. He walks abroad and joys in his release. The cat is gone, the frisky mouse doth play. The fox remote, walk forth the wandering geese. So he, delivered, thinks his troubles past, O halcyon days!--if they could only last. "P. G. H. to R. R. "_Sept_. 11, 1892." Ever since he had heard of Lord Tennyson's illness, my husband had been greatly concerned, and never missed going every evening to the Auteuil railway station for the latest news. After the death of the poet he wrote to Mr. Seeley:-- "One must die some time; but it is still rather saddening to know that Tennyson is no longer a living poet. I have always enjoyed his verse very much; the art is so perfect, so superior to that of Browning or Wordsworth, even to that of Byron. I know of no poet to equal Tennyson in finish except Shelley, Keats, and Horace, and those three only in gems." In a letter to Miss Betham-Edwards he had said once: "Have you observed how _very_ careful Tennyson has always been never to publish prose? That was capital policy in his case; he seems so much more the poet to the world outside." Mr. Seeley was anxious to confer with the editor of the "Portfolio" about plans for the following year; but he had considerately refrained from mentioning it, so long as the large book was not announced for publication. In the beginning of October, however, he wrote: "I see that Macmillans announce your big book; so I suppose that labor is off your hands." Then he went on to propose that the editor should write a series of articles on the "Humorous Art of the Present Day," and my husband took time to think about the subject. The last sheets of "Man in Art" were sent off on October 20, and after acknowledging their receipt, Mr. F. Macmillan said:-- "With regard to the drawings on glass, I write to say that we are perfectly willing that, as you suggest, you should make a present of them to the Art School of Burnley, in Lancashire. "The same applies to the original wood-block engraved by Pierre Gusman." Our November journey to London was unattended with troubles to my husband's health, and it was with unalloyed pleasure that we met Mr. and Mrs. Seeley again. Our stay was to be a short one, for it had been decided that, in the future, we would come over at least once every year, and more probably twice. Here is the first letter after our arrival:-- "LONDON. _November_ 26, 1892. "MY DEAR MARY,--I have some good news to tell you. My new book is not out yet, but soon will be. It is in two editions, one large paper, and dear, the other smaller paper and much lower in price. The first is exhausted before publication, and the second without being exhausted yet, is still going off well. I dined last night with Messrs. Macmillan, and they seemed quite satisfied. "Mr. Seeley has just offered to publish my next novel. "I was glad to get a post-card from Raoul. It will be a great pleasure to me to work with him. Perhaps, however, we shall quarrel over our book, and never speak to each other again. But his mother-in-law will love him still, whatever happens. "Your very affectionate old father, "P. G. HAMERTON." The work that my husband had to do was easily gone through, and his nervous system had so much improved that he went alone about London without any forebodings, without even thinking about it, except to remark to me sometimes that he had never expected such an improvement. Had it not been for a very slight and short attack of gout, he would have been perfectly well all the time. Mr. and Mrs. Seeley were then, living in Kensington, and it was very convenient for my husband, the situation being quiet and within easy reach of the museums. Although the season was not favorable for going to the country, our friends knew that their visitor would be pleased to escape from London--were it only for a day or two, and they were so kind as to take us to their pretty cottage at Shoreham, in Kent, and to show us the country surrounding it. Gilbert was out walking most of the time, and there being hills and water, wished he had time for sketching, though he told me he would not like to live there permanently, the country not being sufficiently open for his tastes. The new arrangements for the "Portfolio" having been decided upon, my husband wrote to tell Mary of our near arrival. In this letter he said:-- "In spite of the great kindness we meet with here, I don't feel any desire to live in or near London, it is so gloomy and dirty, besides being so expensive, at least according to present customs of living. We are better where we are, near you. "I am very glad that Raoul likes the idea of our book. I believe we can work out together something decidedly new and valuable." In the course of a visit to Mrs. A. Black, she gave us good and interesting news of her cousin, R. L. Stevenson, and showed us a photograph taken inside his house at Samoa, in which he was seen surrounded by his mother, his wife, his wife's children, and his native servants. It was very pleasant to see him looking happy, and so much stronger than he used to be. Mr. Macmillan, though very feeble, was so kind as to receive us. We were for leaving him soon, fearing that he would be fatigued; but he insisted upon our remaining, and brightened wonderfully as he talked with my husband. He ordered glasses and wine, and drank to our healths with such hearty good-will, and pressed our hands at parting so affectionately, that we were quite moved. He had been such a strong and active man, and there was still such an expression of power and will in his countenance, that to see him an invalid, unable to walk without help, was inexpressibly pitiful. He had said--not without sadness--that he had grown resigned to this trying bodily weakness, but at the same time that he had a great dread of the weakness reaching the seat of thought some day. It was the last time we saw him, though he lived some years longer, and we liked ever after to recall his last kind greeting, as warm as those of former days. M. Raillard and his wife received us joyfully on our arrival in Paris; we were all greatly cheered by the fact that my husband could now travel like everybody else, and this feeling of security gave a great stimulus to his energies. We were often planning journeys to places of interest that it might be useful for him to visit, either for his artistic studies or for literary work. The Countess Martinengo Cesaresco, with whom he had long been in correspondence, had invited us to go to see her on the Lake of Garda, and this was a great temptation to which he hoped to yield some day. Meanwhile, we planned for the autumn a visit to Lucerne, in which our son and daughter and her husband would join, and we often talked about it. I knew perfectly well that very few of our schemes could ever be carried out, but I encouraged the discussion of them--for even that gave pleasure to Gilbert, who had been kept sedentary so long. He told us what he would do, and what he would attempt in such and such a place; and his desire for beautiful natural scenes was so intense that he often dreamt he was _flying_ towards them, and afterwards described his sensations. The recurrence of this sensation of _flying_ over space caused him some slight alarm, for he explained that doctors considered it as a symptom of disturbed equilibrium in the system, which they called levitation. Still, he was now almost in perfect health, indeed he did not remember the time when he had been so well, so ready for work, or enjoying it more--he said he was almost afraid, it seemed so strange. In a letter from Roberts Brothers, dated March 10, 1893, I read: "We are indeed pleased to hear that 'The Quest of Happiness' is likely to be ready for this autumn, and the title is so promising that we should not wonder if it made your 'cheques' larger." This book, however, was laid aside for more pressing work. The Meissonier Exhibition was opened, and my husband, who delighted in the talent of the artist, had already gone there several times when he received a letter from Mr. Seeley asking him to notice it for the "Portfolio," and he assented. Then Mr. Burlingame, of the house of Scribner's Sons of New York, came over from London for the special purpose of becoming personally acquainted with Mr. Hamerton, and of proposing to him to write a series of twelve articles on modern representative painters for "Scribner's Magazine." The proposal was flattering in itself, but the pleasure it gave was singularly enhanced by the visitor's friendly courtesy and cultured appreciation. After two meetings only, Mr. Burlingame had to leave Paris, and my husband spoke regretfully of the shortness of a visit he had so much enjoyed, and expressed a wish that an opportunity for more prolonged intercourse might present itself before long. Judging from Mr. Burlingame's letter, the pleasure had been mutual. I quote a passage out of it:-- "I use my earliest opportunity to jot down a note for our better remembrance of the main points of the arrangement for 'Scribner's Magazine,' by assenting to which you gave me such pleasure in Paris. "I sail on Saturday, and assure you I shall carry home no pleasanter recollection than that of the two days which you made very enjoyable for me at Paris and Boulogne." The scheme did not require much literary labor, but it involved careful researches for the choice of subjects, delicate negotiations with the owners of the pictures chosen, to obtain the right of reproduction, and moreover a superintendence of these reproductions as to quality. After giving due consideration to the subject of "Humor in Painting" for the "Portfolio," the editor did not feel inclined to undertake it. But in his frequent walks about Paris his attention had been forcibly attracted by the invention and fancy shown in the designs of modern houses, and that was a study quite congenial to his tastes, and a subject on which he was thoroughly competent to write. It was proposed to Mr. Seeley, who accepted it, and from that moment we haunted the quarters in which new buildings were rising, as if by magic, in the purity of the white stone used in Paris, and in the richness or delicacy of their carvings and mosaics. Besides these various preparations for future work, Mr. Hamerton had been much occupied by annotating a collection of different things intended as a present to the Mechanics' Institution of Burnley. Shortly after sending it off, he received the warm thanks of the Council through its secretary. The search after suitable subjects for "Scribner's Magazine" had only yielded an insufficient number, and my husband decided to go to London in July to complete his list. He felt so well that the idea of undertaking the journey alone did not make him apprehensive in the least. Not so with me, and my anxiety was only calmed after receiving the assurance that he had felt perfectly comfortable the whole way. His daughter wrote to him:-- "MON CHER PAPA,--Nous avons été bien heureux d'apprendre que tu as été 'si grand garçon' comme dit Bonne-maman. Ta témérité nous a tous étonnés et nous a fait plaisir en même temps. Ce changement ne pourra que te faire du bien puisque tu l'as supporté d'une façon aussi parfaite." Here is a part of the answer:-- "ARUNDEL HOTEL, VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON, "_July_ 22, 1893. "I am extremely pleased with my hotel, which is just what I wanted, both as to convenience of situation, beauty, and charges. From the window where I am writing I can see the river and a garden with trees, and some fine architecture on the Embankment (Quai), yet I am close to the busiest part of London. "I was in the Academy yesterday, and enjoyed it very much. I feel perfectly well, and not in the least fatigued by my journey, from which I experienced no inconvenience whatever, except an increased appetite, which has remained with me ever since." Shortly after my husband's return from London, Mr. Jaccaci, an American artist and author, and a devoted friend of M. Vierge, came to see us, and Gilbert's interest in him was quickly awakened. I was told that he had travelled much, and, though still young, could speak eight languages. There was a first bond between them in their admiration of M. Vierge's talent, and in their sympathy for his individuality. They met several times at his studio. Unfortunately Mr. Jaccaci's stay was of short duration, and he was extremely busy, so much so indeed that he could not accept an invitation, but promised to do so next time he came to Paris. His departure did not put an end to the friendly intercourse, which was carried on by correspondence. At the first appearance of the "Portfolio" it had taken an entirely new line among English periodicals, but now there were two other art magazines similar in character and style of illustration, and both its editor and publisher were desirous of an alteration which would once more distinguish it from similar periodicals. They considered how it might be remodelled, so as to give it a new character of its own, and at last, taking into consideration the prejudice which had set in against big books, they decided to reduce its size and to increase the letterpress considerably. Each number was to be devoted to one subject, and written by the same author, so as to be complete in itself. The new second title, "Monographs on Artistic Subjects," was liked by many critics, and one of them said: "Monographs! I wonder whose idea that was. What an admirable plan! Strange that no one ever thought of it before!" The editor undertook to write the first number, on "The Etchings of Rembrandt;" but in spite of his enthusiasm for the subject, and his thorough knowledge of it, he felt painfully hurried, for the decision had been taken somewhat late in the year. He told me he would have liked to devote six months to its preparation. Still, the new plan gave him much pleasant anticipation of carefully prepared work, as he disliked devoting his time to subjects of minor importance. A number of the "Portfolio" now allowed of a worthy subject being worthily treated, and that was in accordance with my husband's preferred method of work. With the ordinary autumnal remittance Roberts Brothers wrote:-- "We have just bought a copy of 'The Isles of Loch Awe, and Other Poems,' by P. G. Hamerton, Esq. 1859. Second thousand. "We have had a good many years a copy of the first edition, 1855, which we once loaned to Mr. Longfellow, who made from it selections for his collection of 'Poems of Places,' and in it we have placed his letter of thanks for the loan." Some time in the spring my husband had made the acquaintance of M. Darmesteter, and had hoped that it might grow into closer intimacy, M. Darmesteter and his wife having promised to call; but we learned that they had been mistaken as to the situation of our house, and in November Mr. Hamerton received this reply to one of his letters:-- "_Novembre_ 18. "CHER MONSIEUR,--Excusez mon retard à vous remercier de votre aimable lettre du 16 courant. Nous rentrons à peine et vous savez ce que c'est qu'une rentrée en ville. "Hafiz malheureusement n'est pas traduit que je sache en français. Il en existe une traduction allemande en 3 vol.... "Nous avons bien regretté de ne pouvoir, avant de quitter Paris, faire un tour au Parc-des-Princes et présenter nos hommages à Madame Hamerton. Ce sera pour l'année qui vient j'espère. "Croyez moi, cher Monsieur, "Votre bien dévoué, "J. DARMESTETER." Death, alas! prevented another meeting, for M. Darmesteter, who was already in weak health, did not live very long after. Mr. Seeley thought the monograph on Rembrandt "lively, charmingly written, and betraying no sign of hurry." This opinion was shared by the public, for the sale of the "Portfolio" increased largely. Indeed, the new scheme was generally applauded, and many letters were sent both to the editor and to the publisher in token of appreciation. Sir F. Burton, to whom my husband had applied for a monograph on Velasquez, said in his reply: "I have seen the 'Portfolio' in its new form, and I think the alterations you have made in the plan and scope of the work most happily inspired." Sir George Reid also wrote:-- "I have seen the 'Portfolio' in its new form, and I think the change a wise one in many ways. It recalls the 'Revue des deux Mondes.' It will be a far handier shape for the book-shelves; but I feel a--well perhaps sentimental regret for the old 'Portfolio.' It seems like the disappearance of on old familiar friend--although we know he is still alive and well. "I wish it all prosperity in its new form, and its editor many years of happy and useful labor in the service of art." Mrs. Henry Ady was to write on Bastien Lepage for the "Portfolio," but she had not all the documents she wanted, and my husband undertook to procure them. A talented French marine-painter, M. Jobert, with whom Mr. Hamerton was acquainted, introduced him to M. Emile Bastien Lepage, brother of the artist. Note in the diary about it:-- "January 11, 1894. Was much pleased with my visit. Saw many things by the painter--many not published; portraits of father and mother, of grandfather, of brother Emile, etc., and sketches for girl's funeral which he saw; also etchings and a bust of his father. After that he showed us a fine structure in carved wood from the church of St. Mark at Venice." My brother, his wife, and their two little girls arrived in Paris to be present at the wedding of our niece, Jeanne Pelletier. Stephen also came, and on the appointed day we all went to the Lycée Henri IV., where the ceremony took place, on January 29. We were much interested, on account of the great affection we bore to the bride. My husband put this note in the diary: "Wedding passed off very well. Beautiful ceremony in chapel. I had a talk with L'Abbé Loyson (brother of Hyacinthe Loyson). Great numbers of people to congratulate." Gilbert had long talks on architecture with his brother-in-law, to whom he showed several of the new buildings he had been studying for his "Parisian Houses," particularly in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, Avenue Bugeaud, and Rue de Longchamp. When M. Gindriez left, Gilbert tried to resume the "Quest of Happiness," but told me he had determined to remodel the Prologue on positive and negative happiness, because he had thought out a scheme of alteration. I was very sorry to hear of it, because the work was already so far advanced, and the alterations would require so much trouble and time. But such considerations had no weight with him when he thought his work could be improved, so I kept my disappointment to myself. Some time in February my husband had received a letter from Sir G. Reid, from which I quote the following passage: "I have little doubt that before the month of March comes you will be P. G. Hamerton, LL.D. Your claims to such recognition have long been beyond all questioning." This was confirmed by the Secretary of the University of Aberdeen on March 3, 1894, in these terms:-- "DEAR SIR,--I have the pleasure of informing you that the Senatus of the University at its meeting to-day conferred upon you the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws (LL. D.). "I am, "Yours faithfully, "ALEXANDER STEWART, "Secretary of the Senatus." Three days later Lady Reid wrote:-- "DEAR DR. HAMERTON,--We are delighted to see in this morning's newspaper the announcement of your LL.D.-ship. Though we have never had the pleasure of meeting, I feel almost as if I had known you for many years, your writings having given me such real pleasure ever since I first made your acquaintance in 'A Painter's Camp in the Highlands' in 1863. "I hope you will kindly accept from me your Aberdeen LL.D.-hood, which is the outward visible sign of your new academic rank. "My husband says it is 'a chromatic discord of the 1st Order,' but over the arrangements of such things the present generation has no control, their form and colors having been settled long ago. "Sir George unites with me in kindest regards, and in the hope that you may long live to enjoy your most well-earned honors. "Believe me, "Yours very truly, "MIA REID." Shortly after Sir George Reid wrote: "You have done so much for the literature of art that the only wonder is your services have not been acknowledged by one or other of our Universities long ago. I am very glad that the honor has come to you from the University of Aberdeen." Although my husband cared little for honors, this recognition--freely and spontaneously conferred by the University of Aberdeen, without any solicitation on his part--gave him real pleasure. He had never expected anything in this way from Oxford or Cambridge, because he had never been a student of either, and he fancied that this would always be against him. It reminds me of what he wrote to Mr. Seeley soon after our arrival in Paris, when he suffered from dulness:-- "I never was at Oxford. I always had a boyish dread of being sent there, and put into one of the colleges. I think I was marked for Balliol. After my escape I felt towards the place much as a sound Protestant feels towards the Vatican. Here is a reflection that has sometimes occurred to me since my imprisonment here began: 'Dear me! why, if I can endure Paris, I might possibly have endured Oxford.'" After congratulating the editor of the "Portfolio" on his new title, Mr. Seeley said: "My brother at Cambridge has been made a Knight Commander of St. Michael and St. George. What an extraordinary title for a Professor! And you are now a Doctor of Laws. Will you kindly allow us to consult you in any legal difficulty?" The new Doctor [Footnote: Mr. Hamerton and Professor Seeley were born on the same day, and there was an interval of only a few weeks between their deaths.] answered:-- "I congratulate you on having a brother who is a Knight Commander of St. Michael and St. George too. They were both very valiant saints, dangerous to dragons and demons. The image that rose to my mind's eye when I read your letter was that of your brother in shining golden armor riding full tilt with spear in rest against a terrible dragon. I wish Lord Shaftesbury had lived to hear of it, for one reason, and your father for another. "Thank you for your congratulations about my LL.D.-ship. In answer to your question, I beg to say that whilst the degree is but a just tribute to my legal knowledge, it does not confer the right to practise, so that you would do better to consult some professional man, such as a barrister or an attorney, even though his legal attainments might be far inferior to mine." In the same year Mr. Hamerton was invited by the Society of Illustrators to accept a Vice-Presidency along with Sir J. E. Millais, Sir F. Seymour Haden, and Mr. Holman Hunt. Messrs. Scribner having planned a work on American wood-cuts, wrote to ascertain if my husband would undertake it. Mr. Burlingame's letter explains the scheme. "DEAR MR. HAMERTON,--In the course of the publication of the Magazine, we have printed from time to time what we believe to be some of the best American wood-engravings. We are going to make a selection of about forty of them, thoroughly representative of the best men and subjects (though we have not tried, of course, to have the representation _complete_), and issue it as soon as we can in the form of India proofs, in a portfolio in a very limited edition--probably of less than 100 copies, made with the utmost care and all possible accessories to render the collection a standard one. Meaning to make it represent the highest point of wood-engraving (which is now fast yielding to the mechanical processes, so that the moment is perhaps the best we shall have), we want to accompany the publication with a short essay on the subject, to go with the portfolio in a little book, and afterwards to be bound up with the popular edition should we make one." It was just one of those schemes that my husband could set his heart upon--requiring much knowledge and condensed writing. So he gladly accepted the task, and applied himself to it as soon as the engravings reached him. On receiving the manuscript Mr. Burlingame wrote: "The paper on the engravers so thoroughly fulfilled our expectations, that we were more than ever glad that we asked your help in this (to us) important matter." In the spring, before the opening of the Salons, there are always a good many minor exhibitions, and these we went to see, in order to judge of the prevailing artistic tendencies. I find this note in the diary:-- "March 17, 1894. Went with wife in the afternoon to see some pictures by the 'Eclectics' at Petit's. Most of them horribly bad, especially the Impressionists, but several by Boudot were excellent. These were landscapes, all in perfectly true tone and good color, with a great deal of sound, modest drawing. I wish I could paint like him. His work is evidently founded on painted studies from nature; indeed, much of it must have been painted directly from nature. "Made a new plan for work, doing two tasks on alternate days: one the current book, the other some minor task--an article, for example. In this way both would get on, and the interval would not be long enough to lose hold of either." He wrote about it to Mr. Seeley, and explained:-- "I don't know how it will answer yet, but have hopes. My great difficulty has always been (and it only increases with age) a certain want of readiness and flexibility in turning from one thing to another. When I have a book in hand (and I always have one), it is most disagreeable to me to turn from it and write an article; and when the article is finished I lose always at least a day, and often several days, before I get well into swing with the book again. My natural tendency is to take up one task, and peg away at it till it is done." At Roberts Brothers' request, Mr. Hamerton had agreed to write a translation of Renan's notice of his sister Henriette. However, he had to give it up, not being able to get answers to his letters from M. Ary Renan. As he greatly appreciated the spirit and usefulness of the Institution of the Franco-English Guild, founded by Miss Williams, he wrote for its "Review" an article on "Languages and Peace," and intended to write others. There are some notes in the diary at this time which prove that he could find some effects to enjoy in Paris:-- "March 13th. Went with Stephen to see Mr. Barker. We went on a walk to the terrace at Meudon, where we joined wife and daughter and Raoul. Thence to a pond in the wood. Came back in the evening. Beautiful effects on the river." "April 1st. Went to the Mont Valérien, and greatly enjoyed the views about it over Paris on one side, and the country on the other." The best proof that my husband's nervous system was now strong and healthy, is that _for the first time in his life_ he proposed that we should go together to the private view of the Champ de Mars to meet the President of the Republic. We had a card of invitation, and I was so happy to see him well, and to mark the respectful greetings which met him from all quarters, that I enjoyed the day thoroughly. He was perfectly calm the whole time, in contrast with the excitement surging around him, and at night he wrote in the diary:-- "We went, wife and I, to the Champ de Mars, and saw the President of the Republic arrive, and all the artistic notabilities who received him. After the lunch, saw the exhibition well, and selected two pictures for Scribner. Was much impressed by Tissot's 'Life of Christ.' "We were much amused by the extravagance of the toilettes, particularly the feminine." In April he called upon MM. Louis Deschamps and Checa for notes of a biographical kind. There was an instantaneous sympathy between him and M. Checa, who was very cordial and communicative, and who soon returned his visit. After the publication of the article concerning him, M. Checa wrote: "Je vous remercie très vivement de cet article, sûrement le plus exact que l'on ait fait sur moi." In the studio of M. Checa my husband had met an American artist, Mr. R. J. Wickenden, who lived at Auvers, and who, being well acquainted with his works, wished to paint a portrait of the author. During the sittings a friendship was formed between model and painter. The portrait was exhibited in America at Mr. Keppel's. Mr. Hamerton having been invited to preside at a meeting and dinner of the Society of Illustrators, and to deliver a lecture on the history of their art, fixed an earlier date than he had intended for his proposed visit to London, to comply with their wishes. He started alone on May 4, going by way of Dieppe, and wrote in the diary: "Capital passage. Enjoyed sea and color very much indeed." On the 6th he wrote to M. Raillard that he was well enough, but that on arriving at Charing Cross the trunk containing his clothes was missing. He ended by saying: "And I have to preside over a dinner to-morrow! At all events I cannot do it in a flannel shirt!... I am in a pretty mess!" He had almost decided to buy a ready-made suit in this emergency, when he recovered the lost trunk. After the dinner he wrote me a long account of it in French. The reception given him by the Illustrators had been most cordial. His speech had been delivered without nervousness or hesitation, and with the curious illusion that he was listening to somebody else. There had been an animated debate on the grievances of the Illustrators, who complained of the small space allotted to the exhibition of their works in the Academy. They seemed disposed to sign a protest, when he had offered to go and see Sir Frederick Leighton, and to talk the subject over with him, as president of the meeting. He ended his letter with a promise to have his photograph taken on the morrow by Messrs. Elliott and Fry. I was very glad of this decision about his portrait, for I had not a good likeness of him, except the fine photograph taken by Mr. Palmer; and of course since that time his features had altered. They retained their expression of intellectuality and dignity, softened, as it were, by the discipline and experience of years. Hitherto he had always resisted any attempt to publish his portrait among a series of celebrities; but this time he yielded to my entreaties; and he was afterwards satisfied to have done so, for the three photographs taken on the same day were all good likenesses. From the best of them was engraved--later--through the care and sympathy of Messrs. Scribner, the fine and striking portrait which appeared in their Magazine of February, 1895. It was, I believe, a sort of unconscious presentiment which prompted my husband to see _all_ his friends during this last visit to England. Knowing that he had so much pressing work on hand, I had been surprised by his decision to go to London so soon after his last journey, and still more to hear that he intended to go to Holmwood to make the acquaintance of Mr. C. Gould, the son of his cousin Anne; to Dorking, to see Mrs. Hamerton, of Hellifield Peel, and her married daughter; to Alresford, to stay a couple of days with Sir Seymour Haden and his wife; and then to Southampton, to call upon Mr. R. Leslie. All these arrangements surprised me exceedingly; but I came to the conclusion that my husband's health must be excellent, since he volunteered to undertake, with evident pleasure, what he would have dreaded to do some time ago. Indeed, his letters expressed nothing but enjoyment from all these visits, and the keen interest he took in the Academy exhibition. He was made very welcome by Sir Frederick Leighton, to whom he explained the grievances of the Illustrators, and who gave him a promise to do his best for them; and Mr. Hamerton was glad to think he might have been of use. A singular occurrence happened shortly after his return. Friends, more particularly those who came from abroad, were often debarred from accepting his invitations on account of the distance between Paris and the Parc des Princes, and the consequent lateness of the hour when they could reach their home or hotel after dining at Clématis. Gilbert, therefore, had adopted a plan--much in use in the French capital--which consists in inviting friends to a conveniently situated restaurant, where the goodness of the cookery and attendance may be relied upon. It occurred to my husband to try the Terminus Hotel at the Gare du Havre, from which many travellers start for England; and he invited M. Raillard to test the place with him. They were both pleased with it, and left at about ten p.m. It was most fortunate that they did not remain much longer, for at eleven an explosion, caused by a dynamite bomb, wrecked the room in which they had dined, and wounded several people. A long-deferred meeting with Mr. Frederick Harrison took place in June, and the day was spent in visiting the Louvre, Tuileries, Notre Dame, and the Hôtel de Ville. We had also been expecting with pleasant anticipations the visit of Mr. Niles, when we received the sad news of his death at Perugia, and learned that he had been in failing health for some years, and had decided to come to Europe for rest. My husband's regrets were very sincere. From time to time we had news of R. L. Stevenson; those received in a letter from Mr. R. A.M. Stevenson, in the course of the same mouth, were very pleasing. "I heard from R. L. Stevenson a few weeks ago. He said: 'If you saw me here you would no longer question my wisdom in staying; you would not wonder at my preferring this life to that of Bournemouth.' In England he passed half his time in bed, the whole winter in the house, and he could never walk half-a-mile. Now he is out by six in the morning, sometimes bathes, and occasionally spends the whole day in the saddle. He was always fond of the open air, and though never strong, was a good walker, and, as you know, able to do a little boating. He often spoke to me of his visit to you at Autun." The assassination of President Carnot, which occurred in June, grieved and horrified my husband as much as if he had been a Frenchman. He had the greatest respect for the scrupulous manner in which M. Carnot discharged all his duties, and admired the simple dignity with which he held the rank of First Citizen of a great nation. Being himself a Liberal--but a Moderate one--it had given him hopes for the stability of a Moderate-Liberal Republic, to see at the head of it the personification of unsuspected honesty and wise patriotism. On the whole, he was satisfied with the choice of his successor, and amused by this phrase about M. Casimir-Périer in one of Mr. Seeley's letters: "I saw a portrait of the new French President lately. He looks a man not to be trifled with." The remark has been curiously justified since. Having to go out so frequently now in the afternoons in order to see artists and pictures, my husband altered his rules of work, and devoted the whole of the mornings to literary composition, and the heat being very oppressive this summer, he worked better in the cooler time of day; yet I was rather afraid of the consequences when I saw him start for Paris with the thermometer standing at 88° or 90° almost every afternoon, but he maintained that it did him no harm. On July 14--the Fête Nationale--Mr. Jaccaci having called with M. Vierge, Gilbert went back to dine with him in Paris and to see the fireworks. They were both struck by the extraordinary quietness of the great town, generally so merry and noisy at that date, but now subdued by respectful sympathy for the death of its late President. Note in the diary: "Never saw streets of Paris so quiet before. Could cross easily anywhere. In Avenue de l'Opéra could count people." We had heard from M. Raillard that the reputation of his father-in-law was penetrating into Germany. He had seen some notices and reviews of his works, and in August a professor at the Zurich University sent this flattering letter:-- "Monsieur,--Je vais publier une petite bibliothèque française à l'usage des écoles allemandes, avec des notes en français. Le premier volume contiendra une forte partie du fameux livre de Tocqueville sur l'ancien régime et la révolution. Le second sera, si vous le permettez, composé d'extraits de votre excellent livre, 'Français et Anglais,' traduction de M. Labouchère. "Auriez-vous la bonté de me fournir quelques dates sur votre vie et sur vos autres ouvrages, que je pourrais utiliser pour l'introduction?" Just at the time, when my husband was making extensive plans of work, justified as it seemed by the great improvement in his health, he was suddenly attacked by a new malady, which he believed to be asthma. There were no premonitory symptoms; he was as well as usual in the daytime, and even after going to bed, where he always read before going to sleep; but directly he fell asleep, he was suddenly aroused again by suffocation. In describing his sensations to me, he said it seemed as if breathing required--while in a waking state--a slight effort, which he made unconsciously, and this being discontinued when sleep arrived, produced suffocation. I attributed this painful state to a change in the working of his nervous system, and pressed him to see a doctor; but he was convinced that he was becoming asthmatic, and that there was no help for it. Although he told me that if he had his choice in the matter, he would rather die than be condemned to a life of impotence, with perpetual cares and precautions, he bore his sufferings, or rather forebodings, with his accustomed courage and patience, and attempted to calm my apprehensions by affirming that, though his nights were disturbed, he could still get sleep out of bed, in an arm-chair, and now and then in the day-time when overpowered by fatigue. The various means of relief used by asthmatic people and recommended by different friends proving--without exception--utterly inefficacious for him, I attempted to console him by pointing out that asthma often manifested itself at very long intervals, and that, in general, the worst attacks were hardly more painful than those of gout. He answered that he could bear the pain of these attacks, but what he dreaded most was chronic asthma, which, by lowering his general health, would reduce him to an invalid state. However, the worst symptoms soon subsided, and about three weeks after the first disturbance he was writing to Mr. Seeley: "I am much better, though my nights are still frequently interrupted. I require a great deal of exercise, more than I can find time for; the more exercise I take the better I am." And yet when, shortly afterwards, a specialist had to be called in, he declared that his patient "was completely overworked mentally and physically," and he ordered him to give up the velocipede altogether, and to restrict his walks to short distances and a leisurely pace. I have never been able to understand how it was that physical exercise being so hurtful to Gilbert, he should invariably have felt benefited by it, so far as his sensations went. The vacation had come round again, and the impossibility of realizing the pleasant plans we had formed obliged our children to alter theirs. Stephen went to London, and M. Raillard took his wife through Switzerland to Germany. They had frequently written on their way, and now told of their impressions of Freiburg, where they decided to remain three weeks. I mentioned before that my husband's knowledge of places which he had never seen was surprising. In this instance he could induce Mary and her husband to believe that he had actually stayed where they were. The attempt amused him, and he read me the following letter before posting it:-- "19 _août_ 1894. "Ma Chère et bonne fille,--Je t'aurais écrit plus tôt pour te souhaiter ta fête, qui est aujourd'hui, mais je n'espérais pas que ma lettre pût te parvenir, comme tu étais en route. Je n'ai jamais pu savoir ce que souhaiter une fête voulait dire, mais si c'est quelque bien,--comme la santé, par exemple,--tu sais quels sont mes voeux; enfin je voudrais te savoir aussi heureuse que possible: "Je ne trouve pas que la couleur de la cathédrale de Freiburg soit désagréable. Il est vrai que je préfère un gris argenté, mais le ton chaud de Freiburg fait bien et il a gagné une certaine patine avec les années. On m'a dit quand j'y étais que celle de Strasbourg a la même couleur, mais je ne l'ai jamais vue. Quel bonheur pour Freiburg d'avoir tous ces petits ruisseaux qui nettoient les rues et qui viennent de la rivière Dreisam! Je n'admire pas plus que toi la tendance polychrome qu'on voit dans certains détails de la ville. "Avez-vous vu le château de Zahringen? Il est au nordest de Freiburg, à trois kilomètres environ; c'est une promenade très facile. "Je me suis demandé si à Baie vous vous étiez arrêtés à l'hôtel des Trois-Rois. Il y a là un long balcon d'où l'on voit le fort courant du Rhin qui passe sous l'ancien pont. Je me rappelle qu'à l'extrémité de ce pont, du côté opposé, il y avait une brasserie où, en buvant son verre de bière, on pouvait regarder l'eau qui coulait toujours, et si vite. "À Lucerne, j'ai vu également couler la Reuss sous l'ancien pont où l'on voit la Danse de la Mort. Mr. Macgregor a osé descendre cette rivière (qui est un torrent très dangereux plus bas) en périssoire. Ce n'est pas moi qui essaierai. "Je continue à mieux aller, je puis maintenant m'endormir assez facilement, et je reste généralement dans mon lit toute la nuit, mais pas toujours. Mon sommeil est souvent interrompu, mais vite repris. En somme grand progrès. "Bonne-maman va beaucoup mieux aussi, elle prend de la Kola qui lui fait, paraît-il, grand bien. "Stephen a regagné l'appétit et part vendredi pour Londres. "Mes meilleures amitiés à Raoul, et tous mes souhaits pour un bon séjour à Lucerne, cet endroit si ravissant! "Vieux Papa." To the infinite amusement of "Vieux Papa," his daughter answered immediately, "We never knew that you had been at Freiburg," etc., etc. In the course of August my husband had the pleasure of becoming personally acquainted with Mr. Scribner, who called upon him in the company of Mr. Jaccaci. The improvement in Gilbert's state did not last. We renewed our entreaties about having a doctor's advice, and he yielded. The great physician whom we called in declared it was weakness of the heart--due to overwork--that his patient was suffering from, and not asthma. He promised to set him up again in four months with his prescriptions. Strange to say, Gilbert was greatly relieved to hear that his case was hypertrophy of the heart rather than asthma--for me it was the dreaded confirmation of fears that had long haunted me; still, we both derived hope and encouragement from the doctor's assurance of an ultimate cure. I cannot say that we really believed in a total cure, but we thought it possible to recover the former state of health which had preceded the attacks of suffocation. "I have not felt old, hitherto," my husband said, "certainly not more than if I had been only fifty; but the fact is, I am now sixty, and therefore must be prepared to face the advent of old age. I will submit to any privation for the sake of health, though it seems hard to be deprived of exercise. It is singular that my mental state should be clearer and more vigorous than ever before, and that my work should be easier and more enjoyable than at any former time." Mr. Seeley had written:-- "What a good thing you called in this Parisian doctor! It might have been serious if you had gone on taking strong exercise in your present state of health. "I can quite understand your feeling of relief that at any rate it is not asthma. Perhaps when you take less exercise the gout may return, and the heart be relieved at once. That the doctor confidently promises a cure in a few months is a great satisfaction to us." The good results of the prescribed regimen were soon experienced, and I hailed--not unhopefully--the return of an attack of gout, predicted by Mr. Seeley, which I feared less for Gilbert than the heart troubles. The doctor had said, after hearing that the gout had almost entirely disappeared, "You have made a bad bargain in exchanging gout for hypertrophy." This is what my husband himself wrote to his friend:-- "The worst of me just now for making inquiries, is that on getting up this morning I found I had an attack of gout in my right knee. Hitherto it is only slight (I write at two p.m.), but I cannot bend it without considerable pain, so I must wait till to-morrow at any rate, before trying to go to Paris. It is quite possible that the attack may be very slight, but it is also possible that I may be laid up by it. However this may be, I will of course keep your letter, and do all in my power to help in the present emergency. "Many thanks for your very kind letter about my doctor's visit. I wish I had known him ten years sooner. He is most scrupulously observant of things as they really are, and does not set off, as doctors often do, from a preconceived notion of his own. The results of the regimen are already beneficial. My nights have been gradually improving since it began. Last night I slept perfectly till about two in the morning, and then awoke without any suffocation, and soon fell asleep again, remaining quiet with good breathing till half-past six. About a week since I could not sleep _at all_, being immediately awakened by suffocation every time I began to drop off. "Please thank Mrs. Seeley on my part and my wife's for her kind sympathy, which we know is most sincere. Tell her I regret to have called you her teetotal husband, as I am no better myself. Nay, it is you who have the advantage of me with your two glasses of claret, which I call downright intemperance." (He was allowed to drink nothing but milk.) Our children feeling uneasy still, and anxious about the state of their father, cut their journey rather short to be back again with him. M. Raillard wished to see Sens in coming back, and the house we had lived in there. So his father-in-law sent him some information about the place, and added:-- "Ne manquez pas surtout de voir l'intérieur de la Salle Synodale qui est peut-être la plus belle salle gothique du monde après celle de Westminster. Le trésor de la Cathédrale est intéressant. "Je continue à me porter beaucoup mieux. Les nuits sont bonnes. "À bientôt, puisque vous avez la bonne pensée de revenir. "Bien cordialement à vous." The rules of work had been, perforce, relaxed lately, and almost all the working time had been devoted to writing the "Quest of Happiness," and an article on "Formative Influences" for the "Forum," besides the concluding articles for "Scribner's Magazine." A decided and rapid improvement in health had taken place, and when, at the beginning of October, Miss Betham-Edwards came to see us, she found my husband much as usual--though looking older--as she told me afterwards. A few days after she had come to _déjeuner_ at Clématis we went to lunch with her at her hotel, and spent the whole day together, visiting the Musée Carnavalet, and having a long walk the whole way back to the Rue d'Alger. We crossed the Cour du Louvre, where my husband explained in detail the various transformations and changes in the architecture of the palace at different periods of time. Then, in the fading twilight, we had a look at the magnificent and poetical vista opened by the removal of the Tuileries, before saying goodbye; and when we reached Clématis for a late dinner, Gilbert told my mother that he had enjoyed the day and did not feel tired in the least. On the following Sunday we had a long walk in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne with some friends, and near the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile we happened to espy the doctor, when my husband remarked cheerfully, "Doctor B----, who was to see me again in two months, would be surprised to hear that I am cured already." On October 17, a fire was lighted for the first time this autumn in Gilbert's study, and before the flue became heated and a good draught produced, the smoke was considerable. I warned him not to remain in the room, the air being so bad; he answered that as soon as the work he had begun allowed of it, he would go out. I left the door open on purpose, and begged him not to close it; but when I went up again with the letters--two hours after--I found him still at work, in an atmosphere of dense yellow smoke, without possible escape, the door having been closed again. As usual, when writing, my husband became so wrapt in his work that he was not conscious of anything outside of it. I became alarmed for him, as I could hardly breathe, but he felt no inconvenience just then. In the afternoon he had a walk, but in the evening he went up again to the study, and remained there over an hour, giving a lesson in English pronunciation to one of his nephews. The smoke had, however, subsided, and the fire burned steadily. At half-past one I was awakened by a sensation of chill on the forehead--it came from my husband's lips--he was giving me, as he thought, a _last_ kiss, for he murmured faintly, "J'ai voulu te dire que je t'ai bien aimée, car je crois que je vais mourir." He was deadly pale, but quite collected. I helped him to dress, and we managed to reach the garden for purer air. He wrote afterwards in his diary that his sufferings had been horrible, and lasted in full two hours and a half. I tried to encourage him in the struggle for life, by saying that it was asthma, and that I had witnessed a dear relation of ours struggling successfully through several similar attacks. I felt certain now that it was asthma, and I said so to the doctor on the following day. He answered, "It is cardiac asthma, then." It was freezing hard outside, and as soon as he recovered breathing power, I led my husband to the drawing-room sofa, which I wheeled in front of the chimney, and the wood being piled up ready for a fire, I made a great blaze, and opened the windows wide at the same time. Once stretched on the couch and wrapped up in blankets, facing the leaping flames, he soon regained vital warmth, and his breathing became more regular. Altogether the crisis had lasted five hours, during which I had remained alone with him without even calling a maid, for fear of making him worse through annoyance. I affected entire freedom from anxiety as to the end, merely expressing sympathy with his momentary sufferings, and I was thankful to succeed in deceiving him. As soon as he felt well enough to be left for a short time, I hastened to the doctor's, but went first to tell Mary and her husband of the sad occurrence, that they might go to their father while I should be away. The doctor attributed the attack entirely to the effect of the smoke, and said it had nothing to do with my husband's malady--"he had been asphyxiated;" it would have no lasting effects, except as to retarding the cure; the ground gained since the beginning of the regimen had been lost, and it was all to begin over again. I did not attempt to disguise from him my anxious fears nor my feelings when I had witnessed my husband's tortures without any means or hopes of alleviating them; "for," I added, "I have been told there is no help in cases of acute asthma." "There _was_ not," he answered, "till a quite recent discovery; but now immediate relief may be given by injections of serum." Though he assured me that there would be no other attack of the same kind if we took care to have only wood fires and no smoke, I insisted upon being recommended to a reliable doctor, not far from our house, who would promise to come at any time of night if we needed him, and who would always have serum in his possession--the great specialist being himself at too great a distance from us to be fetched in an emergency. The very doctor I wanted happened to be this very day sharing, as he often did, the labors and studies of the specialist. He was called in, and, after listening to an explanation, gave me the promise I desired, and said he would follow me immediately to Clématis to see the patient; and if he should see the necessity for it, would ask his friend to join him at our house for a consultation. As he noticed the distress under which I was laboring, the physician kindly said before I left him: "I repeat, that I do not apprehend a recurrence of what happened last night--but, si par impossible une autre crise semblable survenait, rappelez-vous bien que, même suivie de syncope, elle ne serait _jamais mortelle_." I believed him, though my heart was still heavy at the thoughts of the sufferings that the future might bring to my husband. I felt greatly relieved in being able to give him the doctor's assurance that there was no danger for his life. I was happy on entering the drawing-room to see him quietly talking with Mary and Raoul, and eating grapes. He said that, with the exception of fatigue, he felt very well indeed. He had taken some broth, and partook of a light dinner with pleasure. The doctor delegated by the physician, after an examination, merely confirmed what had been said to me, and saw no necessity for a consultation with his friend. On the morrow we arranged a temporary study to avoid fresh troubles with the stove, and kept up good ventilation with a bright wood fire and frequent opening of windows looking out on the garden. Gilbert resumed his ordinary work with great moderation, taking care to interrupt whatever he was doing every hour by a short walk in the open air, according to medical advice. Four days later I find this entry in the note-book: "October 24. Walked in the Bois de Boulogne towards evening in an enchantment of color and light; beautiful autumnal color on trees." One of my husband's last satisfactions in life was a letter for Mr. Burlingame, about the work lately done for Messrs. Scribner. Here is a passage out of it:-- "I have long had in mind to say, _à propos_ of the conclusion of the series, how much of a success I think our last plan proved, and how cordially we all appreciate the very valuable and punctual fulfilment which you kindly gave to it. All our relations during its progress were a great pleasure to me; and I hope it will not be long before the Magazine may have the benefit of your help again. It will always gratify us very much to know of any suggestion or papers that occur to you which you might be inclined to send our way. "Mr. Scribner and Mr. Jaccaci are back again; and we all often speak of you with pleasant recollections of your kindness in Paris." Although Messrs. Scribner's pecuniary arrangements were very liberal, my husband's satisfaction in his dealings with them was mostly derived from their courtesy; for though he was obliged to take money into consideration, it was almost the least weighty of considerations with him. He often said he did not like money; he looked upon it as the indispensable means of providing necessaries, and thereby affording the mind sufficient peace to apply itself to study in freedom from anxious cares. He never desired riches or luxury, and hated to have to think about money matters or to talk about them, even to me; and aware that the subject was more than disagreeable,--painful,--I avoided it as much as possible. After the first terrible attack of suffocation, Mr. Seeley had been reluctant to ask for my husband's help; still, as he had recovered so soon, and had resumed his ordinary avocations, he was willing and able to do several urgent things for the "Portfolio," and Mr. Seeley wrote:-- "You have done, before receiving my last letter, exactly what it asked you to do. What a good thing when editor and publisher are in such perfect _rapport_. "I hope you have not had any more attacks." No, he had not; and his nights were quiet again, though he got up very early, at four or five in the morning, and had a nap in the afternoon. The only thing he complained of was a sensation of weakness unknown to him before. It was not sufficient to be called painful, but still he felt it to be there, and hoped to get rid of it when allowed a little beer or claret. He so much disliked drinking milk at meal-times that it quite spoilt his appetite, until the doctor said he might have water during his repasts, and milk in the intervals. On account of the diminution in strength, I was afraid of the effects that fatigue might produce, and did not like to see him go so often to Paris as he had lately done, especially to the exhibitions; but when it could not be avoided, I managed to go with him, under the pretext that I was interested in them myself. On November 4 he asked me if I should like to go with him to the Louvre, where he had to see the Salle des Primitifs. I said yes. He spent an hour there, enjoying heartily the best pictures, and extolling their merits as we were coming back. According to his habit, he was reading in the tram-car on his way home, and I noticed that it was a volume of "Virgil," and in looking up from the book to his face, I observed that he looked paler than usual. I inquired if he felt tired. He answered, "Not in the least." And when we reached home he went up straight to his study, and wrote till the bell called him to dinner. We had a pleasant talk about the pictures he had just studied, while he was eating with a good appetite. After dinner, as usual, he took up his newspaper and read for about ten minutes, when he suddenly threw it aside and told me the action of the heart was unsatisfactory. I proposed at once to go to the garden, but the suddenness and violence of the attack did not allow him to reach it. When in the open air, just above the few stone steps, he had to stop and grasp the railing till the last anguish deprived him of breath and of life, long before the arrival of the doctors, whom I had sent for as soon as he had felt oppressed. He had never feared death, whatever might await him after--conscious of a useful and blameless life. He died as he had desired to die, standing alone with me under the moonlit sky, unconfined, escaping from the decrepitude of old age, still in the full possession and maturity of his talents, and in the active use of them. Two hours before his death he had been writing these last words for the "Quest of Happiness":-- "If I indulge my imagination in dreaming about a country where justice and right would always surely prevail, where the weak would never be oppressed, nor an honest man incur any penalty for his honesty--a country where no animal would ever be ill-treated or killed, otherwise than in mercy--that is truly ideal dreaming, because, however far I travel, I shall not find such a country in the world, and there is not any record of such a country in the authentic history of mankind." Let us hope he may have found this ideal country in the unknown world.